Hearing The Heart Beat of God - Lord Teach Me How To Fast Part 2

Hey, good morning. We're alive.

Hey, we're so excited. You were here with us today.

Whether you're watching online or you're right here with us in

person. Stand to your feet.

We are so expected of what God has for us today.

Let's worship him today. Come on, put those hands

together. I call you Maker, you give life

an eternal spark. I call you Healer 'cause you can

mend any broken heart. I call you faithful Father

'cause you finish everything you start.

My soul was made to respond, or respond.

I know you might. 1000 days. You deserve every single one.

You've given me a million ways to be amazed at what you've done

and I am lost in wonder at all you do.

I know you buy 1000 legs and I'll sing them back to you

because you deserve the highest honor.

Your love is boundless beyond what I could dream.

Your grace is patient because you're never giving up on me.

And I call you Pondage Breaker because you're handing out the

prison keys. My soul was made to be free, be

free. I know you buy 1000 names and

you deserve every single one. You've given me a million ways

when ways do what you join and I am lost in wondered had all you

do. I know you buy 1000 names now.

Sing em back to you. Sing em all back.

Sing em all back. Sing em all back.

Sing em all back. Sing em all back.

Sing em all back. Sing em all back.

Sing em all back. You are like Allegiance, the

creed I am. You are king forever, the

beginning and the end. You are Lord and servant with

the Son of Man. You are dying of Jude.

I go the reason live the second. I don't need to lead us home.

You are always glory now you feel with flesh and bone.

You are ocean harder. You will make a way.

You are depth deep leader. You the reason from the Cray.

My full love of mercy. My rich in life what Jesus

Messiah go on true God go you by 1000 days to serve every single

world giving me a million ways to be amazed to what you died go

you by 1000 ways deserve every single word.

Giving me a million ways to be amazed when you join And I in

the lost in wander had all you do all you buy 1000 days.

No sing no back to you sing them all back sing them all back sing

them all back sing them all back sing them all back sing them all

back sing them all back sing them all back sing them all back

sing them all back sing them all back.

I know you by 1000 names and you deserve every single one.

You've given me a million ways to be amazed at what you've done

and I you're lost in wondered at all you do and know you by 1000

names. No single pack to you.

Amen. Give him some praise this

morning. Our God is good.

And I love that song because just thinking of so many ways

that God meets me there. He's so worthy of our praise.

So let's lift him up. There is a.

Sound I love to hear. It's the sound of the Savior's

robe as He walks into the room where people pray, where we hear

praise as He hears. There is a sound I love to hear.

It's the sound of the Saviour's roam as he walks into the room

where people pray, where we hear worship ears.

Lift him up awake of my soul and sing.

Sing his praise aloud. Sing his praise aloud.

Awake of my your soul and sing. Sing his praise aloud.

Sing his praise aloud. There is a sound that changes

things, the sound of these people on their knees, awake, of

you slumbering. It's time to worship him awake

of my soul, and see. See his race alone.

See his race alive. Go away to my soul and empty.

Sing his praise out. Sing his praise alive.

Mr. All now stands away. Merry Mom is is Amen.

Make no mistake, the bounds of hell begin to shave.

Hey, hey, hold up the king of Lorry.

Hey, hold down on your knees and work your way, hey?

Pray as I come hold it. Hit this up today with one voice

to chorus awake of my soul and sing.

Sing his praise aloud. Sing his praise aloud with one

voice awake of my play soul, and sing.

Sing is praise aloud. Sing is praise aloud.

Only my sorrow ended in my sin. Lost without hope.

No please to be You were the made away.

Let mercy come when death was arrested by lightning.

Ash was routine only beauty means my working hard this point

and grew quiet my feet rose to dance when death was risk my

life being. So free washes over me you are

made me new now life begins with.

The at least. From my chains I'm a prisoner no

more. My she was raised.

He cancelled my dead and he called me his friend.

Winter was arrested. My life begins.

Oh, you breathe, so breathe washes over me.

You have made me new now life begins with you.

It's your realness of love pouring down on us.

You have made us a new now. Life begins with you.

Oh, and I see who displayed on a criminal's Christ, and darkness

rejoiced as though heaven allies.

Come on, this is the best part. What then?

Jesus arose with our freedom. That's when Dick was arrested in

my IBA. That's when Dick was arrested in

my IBA. Come on.

So free washes over. You have made me new now.

Life begins with you maturing the lesson pouring down on us.

You have made us a new now. Life begins with the earth.

Oh we're marine free. Remember when we come join the

song of all the Virginias went free, free.

Remember Rain Man Winter was arrested in my life.

Being in Oh we're Marine free. Remember when free come join the

song. I'm all the genius.

When free, free they were Amen. When Ted was arrested in my life

begin. When Ted was arrested in my life

begin. That's when Ted was arrested.

My life begin Amen. Amen.

Let's give it up for God today. Man, if you experience the

freedom of God in your life, because if you have man, just

that message just resonates within you.

And maybe you walked in here today and this is foreign to

you. You don't know what that freedom

is. My prayer for you is, is that by

the end of the day that you recognize what God has done for

you. God is pursuing you, God loves

you and man, God wants you to be on mission, on purpose and just

be in the family God. So let's give it up for our God

one more time, can't we, man? Amen, Amen.

And I say this week in, week out, I just love your guys's

heart. I'd love to listen to you guys

worship. I know it's God honoring.

I want you guys to know we have a lot of new people with us

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man. Thank you guys so much for

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do with those cards in a bit. And the reason that we collect

those, whether you call real life home or new, is that is we

are a church on a mission, right?

And if you've been here at any time, you've heard this message.

But we, we, we punched this week in and week out because this is

the heartbeat of what God's called us to do.

And our mission is this is to see people far from God discover

the real life and purpose of Jesus.

That's the only reason we're here because we believe that God

has something big for people because you spend the whole

week, maybe your whole life just being beaten and broken by the

world. And we know that the only answer

isn't in something you can buy something that you can lay your

head on. It's only in the hope and the

gospel of Jesus Christ. And so in real life, we love to

connect people to that purpose and that's why we love for you

guys to stay connected here. So again, we would love for you

guys to be on mission with us and that least of us is we're

finishing up our series. It's called Lord teaching us to

to fast and to pray. And so we're encouraging you

guys as as real life followers and gatherers here to be on

mission, take this step of faith.

And as we talked about last week, fasting isn't just

something we give up. Fasting really is a spiritual

step just to get humble before the Lord, right?

And what we do is when we we have this attitude of humility,

we believe that God can use that just to extend his Kingdom

further. So I can't wait for you guys to

hear this next message in this series.

I want you guys to give a real life welcome to my son Logan

Hardy. And that was a good balancing

act that you guys will show. Well, thank you all for being

here today. I am just, I'm ecstatic to be up

here and have the opportunity to talk about fasting.

I'm ecstatic for a couple of reasons.

Maybe first and foremost, because of the season we're

getting ready to go into. If you're new here or if you

need a little bit of a reminder, we're going into an exciting

season here soon called Difference Maker.

We're gonna lead into the heart of God.

We're gonna be searching our hearts and try to open up our

ability to say yes to finding our first personal space.

And in order for this season to go well, it's gonna be a

critical season, right? And in order for it to be

successful and for us to do the things that we need to do, we

need to be looking at life with spiritual eyes.

And that's obviously where fasting comes into play.

And I'm also excited for fasting because it has been unique for

me. It has been uniquely profound in

my walk with God there. There was a lot of hinge points

that have brought me from where I was.

I grew up in the church. I was very lukewarm Christian

for most of my life. And there was a lot of things

that played a role in hopefully me being a lot further than that

now and not being so lukewarm anymore.

There's a lot of things that played a role.

I jumped back on the front of house team that forced me to be

here consistently and faithfully.

I wasn't allowed to come in halfway through the 2nd

gathering, so I make it look like I was here, but really I

was watching YouTube in the back parking lot for 20 minutes.

I wasn't able to do that anymore.

I jumped on the youth team that forced me to get my Bible and

actually learn about God so I could teach about God.

Forced me to be consistent in the scriptures.

And I went on a mission trim that was also huge for me in its

own way. But they all kind of pale in

comparison for what fasting is meant for me.

It has been. It has been the thing probably

that most significantly changed the trajectory of how I was

walking with God. And Simply put, I would not be

where I am in my life, in my ministry, in my walk with God if

I did not pick up the fasting, in the practice of fasting, if

God did not grab a hold of me during this time of prayer and

petition. That was a part of my story that

I'll get into a little bit more in a little bit.

It was interesting, right? Because I'm talking about how

God changed my trajectory and he did a work in me.

He did a work in my life during this time.

And there's some works, there are some things that can't be

done apart from fasting, as we come to find out.

When you get into the ward and you look at Mark 929, this is

coming off of Jesus dispelling a demon from a kid.

And the disciples are asking him why?

Why weren't we able to do that? What, what makes you different

than us? What did you do differently than

us? And Jesus said to them that

this, this kind of change, this kind of breakthrough, it can

come by nothing but by prayer and by fasting.

And I love this church. I think that we do a lot of

things well. I think, I think by and large we

are an on mission church. I think we're an amazing church.

I think, I think we excel in a community.

I think our life groups are on fire.

I think our life group leaders are on fire.

I think we I think Sean has planted in a, an evangelistic

intent. I think we're a Church of

evangelism. I think we we strive to see the

word furthered and to see people join our family.

I think we're a missions oriented church.

I think we're a friendly church. I don't know where Hannah and

Wesley are in here today, but there's people that come in here

hoping for one people to say hi to them and 12/12 do it instead.

Like we're, we're a friendly church.

We'd love to see new people come through our doors.

And I think by and large, more than anything, we're a real

church. We're OK with meeting you where

you are and we're OK with helping you get to where you

need to be. You don't come here, you don't

come here perfect. We, we help you where you are.

If I were to say that maybe 1 area we could improve is it's

probably fasting. Now that that might be that

might be a microcosm of our American culture, but I like to

I like to qualify this message. It's not a message of of

reprimand. It is not a message of head

knowledge of me teaching down at you.

It's not a message of holier than thou.

It's not a message of any of those things.

It's a message of encouragement. It's a it's a message of passion

that is bore from me seeing God move and I just me wanting the

same thing for you guys when you jump into fasting.

And this is a message for everybody in here.

But I wrote with a couple of people in mind.

I wrote this message it with the person in mind in here that that

feels far from God. I wrote it with the person in

here that may feels like they may be blind to seeing God's

works. I wrote it for the person in

here that feels unfamiliar with God's voice.

I wrote it in here for anybody that wants to feel the heartbeat

of God more tangibly and more and more explicitly, and they

just feel like they haven't felt the heartbeat of God in their

lives in such a long time. And to find any of these things

to bring yourself closer to God, it's going to require a couple

of things, right? It's going to require us to be

honest with ourselves and it's, we're going to require us to cut

all the clutter. It's got all the fluff and to

limit all the distractions in our lives.

And that's where fasting comes into play.

And can I give you guys the, the encouragement that I tried my

best, I tried to put as much elbow grease as I could into

eliminating the clutter from this message to killing any

distractions that might have fed into this.

I actually, I fasted for this message.

I, I, I wrote it Thursday night and I didn't eat from Wednesday

night until Friday morning. I work concrete and we, we

poured a floor Thursday. I haven't been at work that much

lately and I feel like I'm kind of getting out of shape.

And as I'm on my knees scrubbing these walls, some voice comes

over the wall. They say, Logan, what do you

want from Dairy Queen? I said, a tea.

A tea will hold me over. I'm feeling fine.

An unsweet tea will just be just fine for me.

I, I did my best to put elbow grease into this.

I really wanted you guys to hear from the Holy Spirit rather than

from Logan. And I guess after this message,

you can tell me how successful this was.

But I really wanted this to be a message cut away from all

distractions and all clutter. And I just wanted to get into

the heart of fasting. And and there's an elephant in

the room. A lot of you and a lot of us, me

included for a long time, probably rolled our eyes the

minute I said fasting. There's an apprehension to

fasting. We mentally checked out.

It's it's not a popular practice, I think.

I think if you take a look around America, if you take a

look around the Kansas City area, I think it's pretty

evident we don't miss a lot of meals.

I don't think we enjoy depriving ourselves from our food.

And it's so hard. It's so unpopular, I think

because ultimately fasting is a second level practice.

You know, like practice like level 1, you add things to your

life, you enrich your life. But level 2, it takes away and

fasting takes away from your life in a way that is enriching.

But it's hard. It's not easy to deprive

yourself of food. It's not easy to deprive

yourself of comfort. It's not easy to deprive

yourself of your cravings, of your natural desire.

It's it's not easy to deprive yourself of distractions.

We live in distractions. That that is what defines our

lives as we live distraction filled lives.

We we live for the dopamine rushes.

We live for everything that is of no substance.

And it's in fasting is, is the antithesis to this.

It's, it's not supposed to be easy.

It's not supposed to feel natural, supposed to take your

out of your comfort zone. And very rarely does the path of

least resistance offer anywhere worth going.

So I'm gonna encourage you guys to do here today is to say no to

the path of least resistance. I'm gonna ask some hard things

and I'm gonna encourage you guys to lean into the harder things

and embrace it and embrace the suck.

I'm gonna ask you guys to fast this week from sun up to

sundown, fast from food. It's the biblical way to fast.

You can fast from technology as well as you want, but at least

fast from food. Sun up to sundown this week and

then next week and the week after that.

And then make it habit and make it a rhythm, at least in this

season. But hopefully on and on and on.

Hopefully this is just something we that we can lean into and

there's an actual question that arises.

There's, there's a question that when I ask you to do this, when

I ask you to fast as we're leaning into this season of the

difference maker, why and what you know, why should I fast and

what should I fast for? There are many reasons to fast.

My first time fasting actually, and this is not what we're going

to lead into today, but my first time fasting was actually on

behalf of somebody else. It was on, it was for somebody

in my youth group. I was wanting to see God do a

breakthrough. And there's a lot of different

reasons to fast. That's one example.

But what we're going to lean into today is that for all the

many reasons there are to fast, we're going to lean into two.

We're going to lean into fasting for repentance and fasting for

closeness to God, fasting to abide in Christ, fasting.

It's interesting as we're pointing it out in the Bible,

regularity in the Bible that is almost easy to miss.

What? You know, when Sean kicked this

message to me and we were talking through and I talked

about like what I wanted to do and maybe where I wanted to take

it. He was like, you know, you could

talk about, you talk about the story of Jonah.

I was like, there's no fasting in Jonah.

What are you talking about? But you get into it.

You look closely when you're actually looking for fasting.

Yeah, it's right there. And so for those of you that

don't know the story, Jonah, I'm going to skip through a lot of

it. Jonah was a prophet, you know,

he was sent by God to preach to an evil city, and he was

reluctant to preach to Nineveh. And he actually fleed from the

will of God. And after some time spent in the

belly of a fish, he changed his mind and he reluctantly made his

way to Nineveh to preach on the behalf of God.

Much to Jonah surprise, the people of Nineveh actually heed

his words. It's an evil city.

And they actually listen to Jonah and they repent and they

turn from their wicked ways. And look at this passage.

See the role of fasting, see the role of prayer, and see the role

really of humility is what plays a strong role in Nineveh's

repentance, starting in a Jonah chapter 3, verse 6.

Jonah 3:6

So when Jonah's re warning reached the king of Nineveh, he

rose from his throne, he took off his royal robes, and he

covered himself with sackcloth, and he sat down in the dust.

This is the proclamation he issued to Nineveh by the decree

of the king and his nobles. Do not let people or animals,

herds or flocks taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink,

but let people and animals be covered with sackcloth.

Let everyone call urgently on God.

Let them give up their evil ways and violence.

And who knows, God may yet relent and with compassion turn

from His fierce anger so we will not perish.

When God saw what they did and how they turn from their evil

ways, He relented. And he did not bring on them the

destruction he had threatened. There's a lot that sticks out

there to me. And they never needed to repent,

right? So what kind of posture did they

take? They took a posture of humility.

The king took off his royal robes and he put on his

sackcloth. He made his dwelling in the

dust. They called out to God.

They prayed to God, they fasted. Like I said earlier, there's

some things that don't happen apart from fasting.

Like there's some works that you just don't see happen.

Nina, Nineveh, the most evil city on the face of the earth,

doesn't just repent and they don't just turn away from God.

That's a miracle that doesn't just happen.

That's not something you see happen very often.

Some things are only happening when you humble yourself and you

deprive yourself and you call out to God and you find

closeness to God. And what it went in hand, in

hand with the repentance of Nineveh was prayer and fasting.

There's powerful things that happen when you call out to God

and humility. And that's what we're gonna lean

into. Touched again, put my left hand

behind my back. So we as a church, right, we're

entering a season where we're going to be fasting, fasting

weekly. I'm going to talk about what it

looks like to pray through those fasts to get the most out of

your fast because prayer and it really unlocks a fast.

You're praying and you're calling out to God is stronger

than ever when you were in a fast.

And if you are in here and you've never fasted before, you

have no idea what to pray. You have no way to, you don't

know what to say. You don't know what to do.

Let me tell you what worked for me.

Let me tell you about a time that I is, this is a part of my

story. And I was telling you about how

fast he meant everything for my wallet.

Let me tell you about the time where fasting took where I was,

and I turned it the other way. And let me tell you about the

prayers that helped. I'm gonna give you some context.

Despite what Drew says, I'm not perfect, and I make and I make

quite a few mistakes. And despite what Jana says, I'm

getting better. I make, I make a lot of

mistakes. I'm human, I fall quite often.

Maybe the biggest mistake I've ever made happened a few years

ago. I'm not going to get into the

details and I think, I think keeping it vague might hope you

guys relate to it more than if I did get into the details.

But I made a huge mistake a few years ago.

It took a period of time that was far too long for me sitting

on this mistake and grappling with the guilt I felt for this

mistake. And I finally, after a couple of

years, really, I confronted myself to the point of

confession. I told a couple of men that I

trusted with my falling. I told them what I'd done and I

told them I wanted to change it. I told them I wanted to make it

right. I wanted to do what I ever I

needed to do. I was ready to, I was ready to

make it right. I was, I was tired feeling the

guilt. I was ready to move forward with

a free conscience. And so I told them, They told

the men they trusted what I had done.

And I told them that I sought to find action steps.

There's advice given to me by these two men that before I did

anything, before I talked to anybody, because there was

apologies I had to make, before I apologize to anybody, before I

made any calls, before I made any visits, I had to fast

regularly. Because what had to happen is in

this whole process is that I had to be led by the Holy Spirit.

Because if it was Logan's words carrying these apologies, and if

it was Logan's hand, and if it was Logan's might carrying these

actions, no good would have come about it.

I had to be spirit LED. So they told me fast regularly

before I do anything, before I make any decisions, before I

reach out to anybody, fast regularly.

And so that's what I did for a season.

Upon making this confession. I fasted each weekend regularly

and subconsciously during these fasts, I developed a rhythm of

prayer because I prayed all the time during these fasts and I

didn't realize it at the time. I didn't.

I did realize it, but I didn't give it a name at the time.

But there was a rhythm that guided my prayer through these

fasts and it was a rhythm that I can give a more adequate name to

and a more accurate description to after I discovered this song

by a smaller artist called the BI Frost Arts.

It's called Take Me, O Lord, and I'd encourage all of you to

listen to it's an amazing song. So I listened to the song and I

was just floored listening to it because when I was listening to

it, the lyrics took me back to where I was during these

fastings on the weekend. And they, they, they gave words

to the prayers that I never could have.

I never could have thought so subconsciously, I prayed these

prayers. They didn't.

I didn't have the words at this time, but this was my heart of

intent when I was praying these prayers.

And these are the prayers that carried me through the during

the fast, through the hardest time of my life.

If you're taking notes, three of them.

And I'd encourage all of you to pray these prayers as you take

on your fast and as you're getting ready to lean into the

season. Prayer #1 Lord, take me.

Prayer #2 Lord break me. And prayer #3 Lord, shave me,

shape me into something that more closely resembles Jesus

Christ and bless resembles who I am and where I'm at.

And if you're thinking about taking on this fasting and

you're thinking about praying these prayers, I'm going to give

you a warning. Hope you heed it.

Because these are dangerous prayers.

These aren't, these aren't just prayers to pray lightly.

Because if you pray out to God, you ask him these things, He

will take you and He will break you.

And in that process, He will shape you closer to where you're

supposed to be and further away from where you are right now.

How many of you remember Bill Hardy?

How many you know Bill Hardy? He was an amazing man, an

amazing storyteller. He had one illustration that

when I heard about it, I didn't hear it from him.

I heard it from Sean. But the first time I heard this

illustration, it hasn't left me. And traditionally, this was an

illustration that was told in the context of discipline, but

it definitely applies to fasting.

And this is the illustration that he used to give.

So ancient times, right? There are shepherds and other

fox of sheep, and in these flocks there was always one or

two sheep that would stay away from the flock.

They would run off, they would do their own thing, they would

disobey the shepherd, they would they couldn't stay together,

they couldn't follow the rules. So the shepherd's had a habit of

when these sheep were falling away from the flock and falling

away from the shepherd to get them back in line, the shepherd

would take the sheep, it would break the sheep's legs and he

would throw the sheep over his shoulder and he would carry the

sheep around wherever he went during the entire process of

healing. And there was something

significant that happened during this time.

The sheep with his broken leg hung over the shoulder of the

shepherd. He became familiar with one

sound and with one noise more than anything else around him as

he was constantly moving. There was one thing that never

left. And he became familiar with the

heartbeat of the shepherd that he was being carried by during

this time of healing and this time of being taken.

What happens when the sheep was carried by the shepherd is he

became more familiar with the heartbeat of the shepherd.

And the biggest reason that we fast, and the real reason that

we fast is to become more familiar with the heartbeat of

our Father, to become more familiar with our heart, the

heartbeat of our Shepherd. And these prayers, they line out

like this illustration for us to allow ourselves to be taken by

our Shepherd, to break our own legs so that he can take us.

And in this process of healing, to be shaped into something that

more closely resembles Jesus and something that does not resemble

where we are. Lord, take me, sling me over

your shoulder, let me abide in you.

Strip away all distractions. Take away some of the calluses

that have formed on my soul. Take away the hardings of my

flesh that need to be rooted out.

Break me down. Let me break my leg so that I

can be taken. Let me get rid of these

distractions so that you are able to actually pick me up.

Because like I said, we, we love, we love distractions,

right? We love our dopamine rushes.

We love everything that doesn't allow God to take us.

We love to walk on our own 2 feet.

But sometimes for healing to happen, you have to let God

carry you, and you have to let your legs heal.

And fasting, like I said, it gives you the.

Opportunity to break your leg and in this process, in this

whole time, this whole thing, this is where the shaping

happens. This healing.

When you allow yourself to be taken under God's wing and you

allow yourself to not be walking on your own legs and give

yourself time to heal, you're going to give God the

opportunity to shape you and to make your into something that

was more close to the image of Jesus.

And like I said these prayers, they they carried me through my

fasts. They enabled my fast they

allowed. My fast to be to be more

powerful and be more enriching and more rewarding than I would

have ever thought possible. Because when I took this on, I,

I thought fasting was just something I was going to do

because it was right. Like I was punishing myself.

Like Logan, you messed up, you better not eat.

But that's not what it was. The, the, the impact it had on

my walk. It is so it is.

It's still hard for me to wrap my head around.

I told you all that I have passion for this.

And and that's because fasting truly was a hinge point for my

walk with God. The weeks following that

confession I made to the men I trust, bar none, were probably

the hardest of my life. I I felt disgusted with myself.

I felt discouraged. I felt like I might have

disqualified myself from any potential ministry that I wanted

to take part in. I felt like I was having a hard

time seeing the light at the end of the tunnel during this

process, You know, during these weeks, the, the weekends that I

was fasting and in this process that I was undertaking, it was

hard for me to look ahead and be like, this is when it's going to

get better. This is when I'm not going to

feel guilty. This is when all the apologies

are going to go well and nobody's going to be mad at me

and I will have made things right and I can move forward

with a clean slate that felt further away than possible.

And there was one of these instances during one of these

weekend fasts. I, I still remember vividly that

I can still go back to and it's like I can watch it like on a

camcorder. I don't know.

I don't know what took over me. I was praying my prayers in my

room on my chair. I was praying, Lord, take me,

Lord, shake me, Lord break me and something just wasn't

cutting it. I was praying it, but it felt

like I was just going through the motions and there was, I

felt like there was nothing that was being done through the

prayer. So I, whatever came over me,

whatever compelled me to, I got out of my chair and I got down

on the floor and I prayed face down on the floor and I

continued praying my typical prayers.

I mixed in a little bit of Romans 7.

How could I allow my flesh to overtake me in the way that I

had? I lament what I did, and I

wondered how I allowed myself to submit to sin in the way that I

had. And in this specific instance,

when I was down on the ground, I felt further away from the light

of the end of the tunnel. I was talking about Romans 8.

Felt that condom, that freedom, that condemnation that we are

taken away from us, that is given to us by Jesus Christ.

It couldn't have felt more impossible for me.

I found myself in tears. I found myself wondering what to

do, how I could ever be used. I felt disqualified.

I felt I in that moment, my perspective was that of a

Wretch, nothing to offer and everything to condemn.

That was my perspective. That was that was the picture I

had painted for myself. That's where I found myself on

the floor and, and in the midst of the fast and in the midst of

those prayers, they, it silenced all the distractions.

It took away all the clutter. There's nothing there to to, to

take away. The only thing I could hear was

God's voice. So why?

Why I while I saw myself where I was broken and at the end of the

rope with no more human will, no more power to exert.

In that silence I could feel God saw something different.

And I could see that He was less concerned with where I was and

He was more concerned with where I was going and I was way down

with who I was. He saw how he was going to how

he's going to how He's going to use me.

And I say that in humility because I'm blessed to to serve

on the youth team and I'm blessed to be on the front of

house team. But if I had just moved on my

own power and by my own ability, I would have disqualified myself

from any of those roles so quickly if I did not allow God

to work through my life. And in the midst of my fasting

and in the process of my being taken, in my the process of

being broken and the process of being reshaping, I was slung

over my father's shoulder. And I felt the heartbeat and I

felt what he saw on me. And like I said, fasting, it

meant everything. It meant everything to my walk

with God at that moment was pivotal.

It changed the trajectory of my life.

I'm not, I'm not perfect. I'm really the furthest thing

from it. But I know what it's like to

hear the unadulterated heartbeat of my father.

The people of Nineveh knew that the best way to get in front of

the father was to humble themselves.

And I'd ask yourselves real quick, you know, relate to the

people of Nineveh. Do you have somebody to repent

from? And what are you doing about it?

Are you taking off your royal robes?

Are you putting on your sackcloth?

Are you, are you making your dwelling in the dust?

Allow yourself to get carried by the shepherd, Take on a fast,

pray those prayers. You know some of you in here,

like I said are relating to the Nineveh.

You're relating to me. It's it's time to turn away from

your flesh and it's time to turn away from what you've done and

it's time to towards turn towards God.

Maybe some of you in here that that isn't your story.

Maybe you don't feel you're in a spot of repentance being needed,

but maybe you're in the the midst of a big decision.

And that's how it's really all of us as we're leading into this

difference maker series. We all have a big decision ahead

of us. You have a decision that you're

seeking the clarity of the Holy Spirit and the will of God.

It's time to pick up a fast. Maybe you're in a time of

struggle. Maybe things just can't seem to

go right. Maybe things keep falling apart

and and you're in need of God to make a breakthrough.

You're in need of God to do a work that can only happen

through prayer and fasting. It's time to pick up a fast.

You know, maybe XY or Z. If any reason leads you to the

conclusion that you were craving the heartbeat of God, it's time

to pick up a fast. If you would all go ahead.

And bow your heads and close your eyes, you know?

I I'd wager in here that there's.

A couple groups of people. There's a group of people in

here that you. Know God, you know Jesus, but

you can't say honestly that you know the heartbeat of the

Father. You can't, you can't say that

it's been any you haven't felt the heartbeat of the Father in a

while, but you're desperate to hear it.

Someone in here is envious of the sheep being carried by the

Father to be forced into hearing the heartbeat of the shepherd.

And that's you, If you, if you, if you want to hear the

heartbeat of the Father and it feels like it's been too long,

would you raise your hand? I see your hand.

I see your hand. I.

See your hand. Appreciate your honesty.

Thank you. Thank you for being honest.

If that's you, it's time to give fasting a go.

It's time to fast. It's time to put yourself on the

shoulder of the shepherd. And it's time to get into the

presence of God. If you don't mind, if that was

you, I'd like to pray over you. God, you're good.

We crave your presence. We need to hear your heartbeat.

Lord, take us from our own and make us yours.

Lord, break us of our flesh. Shape us into your image.

We seek you, Father, we desire you more than we desire our

cravings. God, open our ears to your

heartbeat with every head, head still bowed and every eye is

still closed. There's, there's another group

of people in here. There's somebody in here that

doesn't know the heartbeat of God because they don't know God.

There's somebody in here that doesn't know Jesus.

They don't know that he died on the cross for their sins.

If that's you and if you're here, I hope you're just coming

to the conclusion that like I didn't cut it.

We ourselves, we just don't cut it.

Maybe you heard something in here today that just clicked.

Maybe you can relate to me in my stumblings.

You recognize that a change is needed.

Maybe you're ready for something new.

Maybe you're ready for something different.

Maybe you're ready for something better.

Maybe you're ready for relationship with God.

With every head bowed, every eye closed, nobody looking around.

If that's you, if you don't know God but you're ready to start a

relationship with Him, would you raise your hand?

Father, you know the hand, you know the.

You know the hearts, you know the positions.

We're not perfect. We have all fallen short of the

glory of God. There's nothing we can do to

earn salvation. It's a gift given to those who

believe that Jesus came to die for our sins.

And God gave us that gift out of love.

He yearns for all of his children to know him.

And if that's you in here, and that's if you're ready to start

relationship with God, pray this prayer after me.

It's not the prayer that saves you, but it's your heart towards

God that does. So God, I give you my life.

I know I'm a Sinner in need of a Savior and I know that you sent

your Son Jesus to die on the cross for my sins.

I surrender to your will, Father, my life is not my own.

Thank you for Jesus, thank you for your love for me, and I'm

ready to begin a new life being born again to the Father in

Jesus. Name a man.

Give it up for anyone. Anyone made that decision?

This is. I.

Appreciate you all so much. For giving me the opportunity to

come in here and speak on fasting.

I hope you took away something practical.

I hope you took away a strategy to pray through your fast.

And I hope maybe more than anything, I hope that you

actually fast this, this season of difference maker.

It means everything for our church, our church.

It's kind of a fork in a road. We can go One Direction or we

can go God's direction. And in order to take the right

direction, in order to go the direction God's called for us,

it's going to require us to be looking at life with spiritual

eyes. So I hope that you all take on

the Yoka fasting. And if you actually are going to

fast, like if you're going to, will you raise your hand?

Can I see, can I see that? OK, I'm holding you all

accountable. This.

I see all the hands, I see all the faces.

I, I you're going to have to do it now.

We made a we made a pact. So thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to appreciate it.

I hope you guys got something out of it.

And yeah, thank you. Come on, give it up for Logan.

He killed it this morning. What a good word, man.

Just just a reminder to yearn for the heartbeat of God to walk

step in step with Him. Thank you for the encouragement,

the accountability for us to fast this week and just to

recognize that Jesus truly is all we need.

And some of you recognize that today for the first time that

Jesus is all that you need and you committed your life to

Jesus. If that is you, we are so

excited for you. We would love just to walk

alongside you to resource you with a couple of things.

So you can do that. If you grab that connection card

that's on your seat and fill out the information there in that

top section, but check that box that says I committed my life to

Jesus. And you can drop that in the

giving buckets here in just a few minutes.

But by doing that allows us to get you a couple of things.

The first one is this, it's a free book, it's called begin,

it's a short read. It's a quick one, but it really

will be a blessing for you and encouragement for you as you're

taking these first steps with Jesus this week.

And if you are here in the house today and you prayed that prayer

and committed your life to Jesus, as you exit the worship

center, there is a table with some red bags on it.

Please feel free to grab one of those.

Inside is a Bible for you and a list of some other resources

that we know will just be a blessing to you this week.

Hey, if you are newer with us here at Real Life Church or if

this is your first time here, thank you so much for being

here. We're so glad that you are

spending your morning right here with us.

We love that you're here. We've been planning for you,

preparing for you, praying for you this week.

And so we're so glad that you came to hear from God this

morning. And we don't want anything from

you except for this. And that's just to introduce

yourself to us. You can do that by grabbing that

same connection card that's on your seat.

Fill out your information there, but make sure to check that box

that says first time here and you can take that out to the New

Year booth as you leave outside the worship center just to the

right. And they have a free gift to get

to you. Just our way of saying thank you

so much for being here. And we'd love to see you back

right here next week. And I want to take a minute and

just say thank you so much to those of you who give here at

Real Life Church. And thank you to those of you

who maybe gave last week for the first time or maybe just the

first time in a long time. We had 11 people commit their

lives to Jesus last month in September.

Huge. That's right, go God.

So awesome, that's. Thanks to.

Those of you who give here, I will you when you give, it truly

does make a difference here in life church.

And I know it's easy to say, man, I just don't have enough or

I don't don't have everything in line.

My budget. If you saw my budget, you tell

me, man, it's crazy there. I can't give.

There's no way I could give. But I want to share with you

what we believe about money here in life church, how we see money

here. And it's a simple principle, but

it's called the funnel. And it looks like this.

You give to God first, then invest 2nd, and then you live on

the rest at the bottom of the funnel.

And when you do that, when you give to God first, that honors

God. It just says, Hey God, I see

everything that you've given me as a blessing, and I'm going to

return just a small portion back to you.

I'm going to do that to you first, God.

And then when you invest second, that builds resourcefulness.

That really does put your money to work.

It takes what God's giving you and multiplies it.

And then when you live on the rest, it just builds contentment

and saying, God, I trust you and I'm going to live on the drip of

that funnel. And why do we talk about that?

Why is it so important? And that's because of this.

We are passionate about souls, about seeing people come to know

Jesus, about helping people find their freedom only found in him.

And we know here that as our generosity grows and our impact

grows and our five year vision as a church is to see 10s of

thousands of people across our city and across the world be

able to say, this is where I found Jesus.

This is where my life changed. This is where I was welcomed,

where I was loved, where I was accepted, and ultimately where

my life changed for eternity. And so if you call real life

church, I, if you call real life church home, I invite you, I

encourage you to take part in that.

And there's a lot of ways you can do that.

You can check out the screen, you can scan that QR code, you

can text to give. You can head to our website,

reallifechurchkc.com. You can drop cash your check in

the giving buckets as they pass. There's also a giving box in the

back as well, if that's more convenient for you.

And hey, as always, if you or your family are in any kind of

immediate need of food, of shelter, of clothing, whatever

that looks like for you as these buckets pass here in just a

couple of minutes, please reach in there and grab any loose cash

that you see. I really do want to bless you

and your family this week. Man, what an awesome day.

Man who felt like they heard from God today.

And can we give it up for God? It's such an honor.

Just to be able to gather as as, as a body with you guys today

and, and, and just worship God and prepare, prepare our hearts

for what's coming next. And so that's my announcement

for you guys today. As we get ready to get out of

here, I want you guys to start preparing.

Logan was talking about we talked about last week.

We're going to a season and, and we're going to launch probably

the most important series of our church coming up.

It's called difference maker and you guys have already heard

about it a little bit. But through this we are really

going to put the. Point of the Sword on.

On what we do right, our mission has always been the same to

reach into the city, reach to the community, find people far

from God and in in and in this next in this next series, what

we're going to do is we're going to we're going to lead to what

God has next for us. Pastor Sean is going to be back.

I don't know if you guys saw him with the one arm.

Can we give her Pastor Sean he healed, he survives, but pastor

Sean's going to be to be leading in giving us what God has put on

his heart for this vision of of making a difference in our

community and and it's if you guys don't know it's with the

purpose of moving into a permanent facility and the

dangers this or the fear is this is like the church only wants my

money. The only church wants, you know,

to great build, you know, monuments and this not our

heartbeat. That's not who we are.

This isn't about building a monument, It's about building a

movement. And what we believe is, is that

whatever, whatever God gives us in the future will be a tool to

reach people for God to meet you, reach people for the

gospel. And So what this this series

will do is it will it will grow your faith.

And these steps that we're talking about of prayer and the

fasting, that will be the encouragement that will be the

fuel that we'll have that God will allow us to be and, and

play a bigger part of his, his Kingdom.

And again, I know he's my son and his flaws that he was

talking about, probably more my faults than his.

And don't laugh, Holly, But what I see is this is I see a

community of real life that he was raised in and and that you

guys have poured into him and he's one who's the next?

I know they're already in here. And then who's the next after

that? And so that process of of, of

gathering men and women, sons and daughters, that is that.

Is the goal. That is that is what we get to

do. That is that opportunity.

So not only does it grow our faith, it will grow our

generosity because we live in a world that is take, take, take

mine, mine, mine. And I love the heart of you guys

is that you guys give and you guys give without thought.

And so we'll grow our generosity together and we're going to move

into a future that God will just take this difference that that

he will allow us to play a part of.

And I don't know what it is, but I know that it will be a

beautiful thing. And is if you read the words of

God, you read, you read through the Bible, you'll see a story

after story of where a people became humble and they followed

the voice of God and God showed up in a reckless way.

And that's what I'm believing in this next series of difference

maker. So mark your calendar for the

next six weeks. Make an effort to be here for

all six weeks. And we're just going to we're

going to hone in on this as as as as a family.

And we're just going to move forward to what God's got for

us. So I'm excited to mark your

calendars, invite your friends, don't miss out.

If you need prayer for any reason, we would love to pray

with you up here. Talk to you.

Talk with a pastor as individuals, as a family.

Can't wait to see you guys again next week at 9:00 or 10:45.

And as always, remember, whoever finds Jesus discovers real life

and purpose. See you next week.

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