Lord Teach Me How To Fast

Good morning, real life Church. Great to see you in the house

today. I just want to invite you to

stand to your feet today as we kick things off with some

worship. So much, so many promises of

God. And so I just hope that you will

just sing this with all your heart today and don't be afraid

to clap along your word. Is.

To my feet your way is the only way for me that leads to life

beyond it. It's a narrow Rd. but the mercy.

Let's sing this out. I'll take you at your word if

you say leaving. I've seen how good if you

started at your word. Amen.

It's keeping you. Spoke in the chaos, fell in

life. I've seen it's a narrow Rd. that

leads and I want to yes the tide is high water take you at your

world. You said it, I believe it.

I've seen how good it completed. I'll take you

if you're starting. Please take you out your world.

You said your love will never is always heart would never forget

or forsake me. Saved you yours.

You hope you've never failed, so I know that you'll never fail

me. Come on, Church, declare this

today. Please, enough, you said.

Your heart me. You said he goes future and

you'll never fail. I'll take you out.

Your work in those hands. Come on.

If you stand in I If you stop. If you stand in I, I've seen how

good if you started. Your.

'Cause you get on your promise. You promise.

Come on Church, do you believe you can take Him at His word

today for you? So come on, give it all you've

got as we lift up a shot of prayer.

Come on, we can trust Him, but His words are true, faithful,

and even when we fall short, when He wants us, He's chasing

us. We're going to continue just to

worship in that. Truth this morning.

I spoke a word you were saying to me.

You have been so, so good to me, for I took a breath.

You were life in me. You have been so, so fine.

All the overwhelming, never always chases me without

fighting. When the father leaves the moon

and I couldn't hardly, I told the servant.

Still you give yourself. I was your fault still you love

far from me. You hate good to me.

I felt nowhere. You paid it all for me.

Thank you Jesus made to me. The.

There's no shadow. You won't light up mountain, you

won't climb up coming after. Me.

Snow you won't kick down. Lie You won't take down coming

after me. Snow Shadow, you won't light it.

Mountain, you won't climb. I am coming after me.

Snow you won't kick down. Lie you won't take down coming

after me. Snow Shadow.

Mountain coming after me. Some praise this morning, His

grace and his love. It's so good.

You know, there's going to be a moment, hopefully we get a taste

of it here on earth, but a moment in eternity when we're

all surrounding the throne, just singing out.

And in God's Word, it says that we're going to sing holy, holy,

holy is the Lord Almighty. And so in my mind, this song is

just a glimpse of that, that we can close our eyes and listen in

as we all sing praises to God together to lift up his holy

name. So let's continue to praise

him. Thousand generations falling

down in worship to sing the song of ages to the Lamb.

And all Thrones and dominions, all powers in positions, your

name stands above them. And the angels cry holy, all

creation cries holy, and you will lift it high holy.

You're holy forever if you've been forgiven, if

you've been redeemed. Sing the song forever to the

land. You're holy and you are lifted

high holy. You're holy for hear people sing

holy to the king. Holy.

Always be you're holy. Forever you're holy.

Sing your prayers. 'Cause your name is the highest

your name, it's the greatest. Your name, it stands above the

moon. Do you believe it?

That all Thrones in dominions, all powers in positions, Your

name. It stands above the moon.

Your name is the highest. Your name is the greatest.

Your name, It stands above them all.

And all Thrones and dominions, all powers and positions.

Your name stands above them all. It's your name.

Is the high is a great name that stands above them all.

Don't roll to me is your name is your name is the greatest.

Don't grow in Dominion power. Stay.

Holy or creation, Christ holy and you were lifted.

High Holy you were holy forever. Hear your people sing holy to

the King of Kings holy 'cause you will always be holy, you're

holy forever. Amen.

As I think through worship this morning, each of those songs was

a very distinct promise of God that we can take Him at His

Word. His Word reigns true, Amen.

And that'll never leave us or forsake us.

He'd leave the 99 just to find us, Amen.

And then finally, that He is holy forever.

And if that doesn't give you hope, man, I don't know you just

give it up for Jesus this morning that we can take him at

his word. He's, he never leaves us or

forsakes us. Man.

It has been such a blessing for us to worship with you today,

just to see you raise your hands and just give it.

What an. And can I just say, welcome to

Real Life Church. We're so glad you're here, each

and everyone of us in the building and online.

And I want to recognize some people.

I want to recognize I'm online. And anyone who's brand new with

us this morning, can we just give it up for those people

today? Amen.

That's so good. Hey, I want you to take 30

seconds and greet those around you.

Look for some new faces, say hello, learn a name.

About 30 seconds. See.

Amen. So good.

Hey, as you find your way back to your seats, this is just a

friendly reminder that hey, continue these conversations.

Invite someone to coffee this week.

Make sure you remember that name you just learned right?

It's all good. We all get it, We all, we all

get forgetful sometimes. But continue that conversation

in the Hub right after this gathering.

It's open for you. We'd love to see you just do

that. Grab a cup of coffee while

you're out. It's pretty good.

It's very good actually. Man, it is awesome to see you

this morning at Real Life Church.

I hope you've been blessed so far this morning.

I know we have and I just want to say that especially if you're

brand new, this whole gathering, this whole preparation for

Sunday morning throughout the week is really done with you and

mine. And so I would love for you to

just do a couple things this morning.

We're not going to ask a thing from you today, except we would

love to just for you to introduce yourself, love to get

to learn your name and share as much info as you want.

A great way to do that is that card that's on your chair.

Maybe it's on the ground. There's a card and a pen and I

said. Out.

Mark the box that says first time guest.

Hold on to that till the very end.

You can throw it in the bucket. And and we would just love to

reach out to you this week. Now, if you're getting a little

nervous about some of the info on there, like, you know, an

address or a phone number, I promise, OK, I'm going to raise

my right hand and say no one from real life will ever show up

at your door unannounced because that's weird.

And we don't do that. And we're not going to blow up

your phone with a bunch of texts and, and, and call you all hours

of the day. We're not going to do that at

all. But man, just want to open up

that door, really let you know how honored we are to have you

here, answer any questions you might have, and just really do

anything we can to make you feel welcome in real life because you

truly are welcome here. And why do why do we care so

much? Why do we stress that?

Why have I been talking about that for a while?

It's because we're at church on a mission.

Real life is all about seeing people far from God, discovering

their real life and purpose in Jesus.

So we believe that every single week God is just moving in

people. We see the evidence of that when

people raise their hand and just give their life to Jesus.

Like last week we celebrated baptisms, Amen.

Wasn't that amazing? Like that's just the fruit of

your labor, the fruit of your effort and inviting people and

just sharing the gospel. So just pray that you'll

continue to do that and just join us on mission at real Life

Church. That's because today we're going

to start a brand new message series called Lord Teach Me How

to Fast. And I don't know about you, but

I really need this message because I don't know about you,

but I'm pretty good at going on a slow.

That's where you just eat a lot and hang out and just, you know,

have a good time. So I need to get myself right.

And maybe you're like me, you're ready to turn that slow into a

fast. Sorry for the dad jokes.

I got to got to get him in. But for real, though, I really

want you to lean in on this idea this morning because Barry's

going to dive in so deep on this that it's not a focus on what

you're giving up. It's not about that at all.

It's easy to kind of go there, but it's really this focus on

growing closer to God. And so I really just want you to

keep that in your mind as you hear the word today.

I know Barry's got a huge word for us, so can you give a huge

real life welcome to Barry Hardy?

Come on. Can we give it up for Drew?

He's not slow. Do you see how fast he was, man?

Drew, you're my hero. You know that, man?

What's up real life, man? I'm still on a high from last

week. Did you guys have fun at the

birthday party last week, man? Eight years Hey, your birthday

party and what a way to celebrate you guys killed it.

There was I I know the hall is going to give some of the

metrics a little bit, but I think with seven people

baptized. Can you guys believe that man?

Can we get, for those that got baptized, man, we had six people

commit their lives to Christ, Man, can we give it up for those

people? That is why we exist.

That's our mission. That's we're here to get people

connected back to, to God. And just the number of new

people we saw come in. I, it's been a long time since

I've ever seen a line get divided up at the new hero

booth. But man, we have so many new

people. I know we have a lot of new

people again with us today. So, man, thank you guys so much

for being here. We're excited that you came

back. Yeah, we give it up for them.

So before we get started, I want you guys to to know the reason I

am up here is Pastor Sean had his shoulder surgery.

And I want you guys to know I told the group this morning to

set up one of my prayers that I've been praying and fasting

for all week was that Sean would come out of surgery alive

because you guys don't want me as a pastor and God's given us a

great 1. So if reach out, send him a

message this week, let him know that you care about him, that

you love him. And I think he's recovering

well. So hopefully we'll get to see

him again soon. So I know when you guys heard

the word fast, were you guys excited?

Oh, yeah, right. Can I tell you, this is the very

first time that I've ever preached on this topic because

as a recovering Baptist, as a Baptist, we love our food,

right? If you grew up Baptist yet

potlucks, you had afterglows, you had desserts, man.

This is what we did. This is what we focused all our

worship and our meetings around, right?

And I don't remember, I know that fasting had to get gotten

mentioned. I don't ever really remember

talking about it. So I want you guys to buckle in

today. My prayer for you guys is that

this is an encouragement today and a challenge as well.

And fasting is, is what I like to call a spiritual discipline.

So when you guys think of the word discipline, what do you

guys think of? There's probably a lot of things

that come into your mind. Think of something that you

you've dreamed about, something that you've prepared for, that

you've trained for, it required what to get there.

Discipline, right? Think of a sports team maybe

that you you practice and you practice and you practice.

I know, I think Jermaine might be in here.

He had a head basketball coach and there's some other coaches

in here. What you guys are doing is

instilling discipline in your team, right?

What about when you went to school?

I know we have some pH DS in here, but even getting out of

high school wasn't easy for all of us.

Was it right there? Took some discipline to study,

to buckle down and, and pass those courses.

I, I look at, I look, I'm, I'm a construction guy.

So I look at guys that do and work in the trades with a high

level of skill and I'm always impressed, even if it's not the

one thing that I do because I knew what it took to get there.

It didn't happen overnight took time, it took training, it took

encouragement, it took discipline.

One of my favorite things I love is just see people that just

they go through and they they conquer odds that I can't

imagine. Remember a story from a single

mom who was raising two kids, was working basically 1 1/2

jobs. And she decided that that God

had called her to do something different, but she was going to

have to go back to school to do it.

And her support structure was very, very minimal.

And as I heard her story and what her schedule look like to

to prepare and raise her children, to feed them, clothe

them, take care of them, love them the way that our mother

does, and then work those jobs. And then on top of that really

study all night and go to go to classes in between online.

And can you guys imagine the amount of discipline that it

took to do that? So anytime we have discipline on

our lives, it's always for a reason.

Anything that's worth accomplishing never comes easy

and it doesn't just happen. And it's the same thing with

fasting or any spiritual discipline.

So when I say the word spiritual discipline, it puts a little bit

different spin on it. And so this is your opportunity

to give me some feedback when I say the word spiritual

discipline. What are some spiritual

disciplines that you guys either do or have heard of?

Can you guys throw something out for me besides fasting, tithing?

All right, so you give money, generosity, right?

That's a type of a spiritual discipline.

What else? All right, I'm old.

So one at a time. Would you say to him studying,

All right, studying the Bible, you read, you're trying to

figure out what God's got for you in the Bible.

So you, my mom's going through a thing where she's like mapping,

go through the book of Romans and figuring out what this

means. So yeah, that's great.

What else? Prayer.

And what a good one, I think. I think we're in a.

So today we're kicking off fasting and we're going to talk

a little bit more about it next week.

And I think next we're going to add a little bit more of the

aspect of prayer with it. The man prayer, what a spiritual

discipline. And some of the best prayer

warriors that I've ever met. You'll never know their names

because they weren't on a stage. They were, they were the retired

little old ladies that were at the back of the church and

literally prayed for every person during the service,

during a gathering and at home all week.

They would get those prayer, the prayer requests and they would

write those down. I mean, they had journals of

them. So awesome prayer.

Anything else, man? Patience.

Something I'm working on. Don't ask my wife.

She's not in here, is she? Yeah.

I mean, patience. It's it's it's one of those

things. It's a spiritual discipline.

It does. It does happen.

Hospitality. There's a lot of these other

spiritual disciplines that we think of.

And some of them come easy to us and some of them don't.

Right. And one of the other, the ideas

that I think about discipline that that pops into my mind.

One of my favorite series ever. You guys know Band of Brothers.

So Band of Brothers early in the early in the series, I'm going

to say the I'm going to, I'm going to start the phrase to see

if you guys can finish it. And this is in the boot camp,

right? And at the beginning it says 3

miles up, 3 miles down. So if you haven't seen it, what

it was, it was a training on a mountain at Camp Toccoa and they

would run up a mountain called Curahi and they would run 3

miles to the top and three miles down.

And then an Easy Company, which was the series was about, was

about how their, their, their, their commanding officer, his

name was Sobel, just punished these guys and brutalized these

guys. And he viewed it as what

discipline was right? That's how he saw he was going

to make these guys better. In a lot of ways.

He actually did help these guys. But for, for, for these guys

that are going the midst of that, they appreciated it later,

but in the midst of it, the reasons why it was being used

was punishing. And they, in fact, some of these

guys were ready to kill the guy, like literally ready to figure

out how to murder him the first opportunity they got.

So for us, when we, when we're looking at a spiritual

discipline, what we need to do is figure out number one, and

this is to be the first set what fasting is not.

And then we're going to lead into what fasting is.

So what fasting is not. So if you guys know me at any

level, I tell a lot of stories. I watch a lot of movies, I

listen to a lot of podcasts. And one of the things that that

in the last several years that I've gotten into are all the

fads on the Internet for health, right?

Somebody's laughing over me. All right, You guys ever do

sauna? You guys ever do cold plunge?

Those aren't my favorite. And I found a third one that I

don't like, but it's called intermittent fasting.

So you guys ever heard of that? So fasting, this type of

fasting, something for health, this isn't a spiritual

discipline. And I'm not saying it's a bad

thing. It's something that, you know,

depending on your health or whatever your doctor tells you

need to do, maybe something that that is good for you.

But but a spiritual fast is not a diet, right?

It's not just something that we do to make ourselves look good,

just even get a little modicum of health.

It's not something that we do to, to, to be the latest and the

greatest. I, you know, when I started

getting intermittent fasting, they're like, well, how, how

long are you fasting? I'm like, I'm shooting for like

12. They're like, Ah, that's weak

sauce. You need to go for like 24 hour

fast. And so like there's like this

one upmanship right in that world at some level.

And so the first thing that it is not, it's not a diet.

And again, nothing wrong with it being if you do it for those

health reasons, but that's not what a spiritual fast is.

Because when, when you do an intermittent intermittent

fasting, what are you guys focusing on this right here,

right? And so that's not the point of

of a spiritual fast #2 it's not how we make God love us.

And so a lot of us when we do a spiritual discipline, we do it

for a reason, because we think that's going to give us brownie

points with God, right? We've all been there.

All right. Well, if I perform for God, or

if I say the magic words, God's going to show up and he's going

to do exactly what I want him to do.

We get to lead a group here. It's and we're not doing it this

semester, probably next. It's called freedom Group.

And how many people have been through freedom group?

Can you guys give a shout out? Raise your hands.

Yeah. Then when you go through freedom

group, what we do is we start off with this basis of

identifying what God really wants from you.

And for so many of us, depending on how you were raised and what

you were taught, we think that we have to, we have to have like

this, the gold stars adding up for us, right?

And that's how we get to heaven. That's how we please God.

That's how we make him love us. And so it's really easy to fall

into that trap, whether it's coming to your church, whether

it's reading your Bible or whether it's praying or whether

it's even fasting. Is is this really how we please

God? And the answer is no, because I

want you guys to know the truth right now.

God loves you exactly where you are now.

He may want something better for you than where you are at the

moment, whether you have brokenness in your life, whether

you have an addiction of your life, whether you're far from

God. Have you walked in here today

and you this been years since you've been at church?

Can I tell you that God isn't coming in here wanting you to

clean yourself up. He's here to reconnect you to

the purpose that he has for you. So the issue is this is that we

take something that's good, like a spiritual fast and something

that's a discipline and we turn it on its head and we try to use

it to make God love us. And there's nothing you can do

to make God love you anymore. And there's nothing you can do

to make God love you any less. In the freedom group, we we use

these metaphors and it comes from the book of Genesis, living

out of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and living out of

the tree of life. And God calls us to live out of

the tree of life because that's what God has for you.

So a fast isn't a way to make you know, isn't a way to make

God love you more. So the third thing that a fast

isn't, it's not a way to make ourselves look good for

everybody else, right? Again, I, I, I always joke about

my background and the, the church that I, that I was raised

in so many godly people. And actually I was at a funeral

yesterday for a minute and I got to see some of them.

And these men and women made such an impact on me.

And I, I, I would not be where I'm at today had they not

followed God to do what they, that God had called in their

lives. But having said that, there's a

lot of ways that we fell short in, in, in the churches that I

grew up in and a lot of the churches that I, that I was at

up till now, because a lot of emphasis was put on what

appearances, right, what we look like, how we performed, what we

did. And a lot of it was as like, all

right, who gave the most amount of money?

All right, who is at church the most?

You know, who was praying the best?

Because honestly, like, if you guys don't know me, like this is

not the spot that I enjoy being in.

Now may God's given me an opportunity to do it.

And, and, and I'm getting a little more used to it.

But some people crave this stage because it puts them on a

platform, but puts them in, in in a position of authority.

And that's what they're looking for.

And what I found was this is that a lot of people that were

using that to make themselves look good and they were in it

for the wrong reasons, right? It's the wrong motivation.

It's just the wrong intentions. And Jesus preached so many times

against that. And in his, one of his most

famous sermons, and it's the Sermon on the Mount, he really

lays into why do you do what you do?

And he talks about when you give money, don't let your left hand

know what your right hand is doing.

And, and, and he tells a lot of the stories about money where

even the widow's might, he takes the, the, the, the guys, the

disciples to the, to the temple. And you see all these guys just

throwing in huge amounts of cash, right?

And then he points out this little lady who throws in

basically the, the equivalent of a penny or two pennies.

And Jesus makes this statement and he still points out this

fact. He goes, he goes, see all these

people, they're thrown in these hundreds and thousands and

hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But this lady that put in one penny, she put in more than

everybody because that was all she had.

So the you know, everybody else looks on the outside what you

can see, but God, Jesus looks in on the heart and that's what

God's calling us to do today in in the sense of a spiritual

fast. So a fast isn't something that

we do to show off. Now I want you guys to read with

me in Matthew chapter 6 and this comes from the Sermon on the

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Mount. Jesus is giving us some

instruction right here says when you fast.

This is verse 16. When you fast, do not look

somber as the hypocrites do for they disfigure their faces to

show others they are fasting. Truly, I tell you, they have

received their reward in full. So when you fast, put oil on

your head, wash your face so that will not be obvious to

others that you are fasting, but only to your Father who is

unseen, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will

reward you. So Can you imagine somebody

that's fasting and they come in, their hair is all messed up and

they've been up all night and their bags underneath it and

they're like, what's up? What's going on?

Oh, and I've been fasting for God.

And what are they looking for? They're looking for some

recognition, right? They're looking for like, look

how good I am. They want you to give them a pat

on the back. Now, I haven't seen that in with

fasting very much. Again, recovering Baptist.

So nobody was bragging about skipping a meal, right?

But I've seen it with so other many different things, right?

You know, guilt trips like, well, where were you at?

At church last two weeks. I didn't see you here.

Is everything OK? Or in a prayer circle?

We need to pray for our sister Sally.

You know, she was on a hot date the other night and she was with

so and so, right? You guys would never have ever

heard that, right? And So what we do is we we take

these opportunities to to build ourselves up, to make ourselves

look good to others. So these are the things that a

fast is not about. Again, it's not about this body.

It's it's not about earning our way to heaven.

And it's not about making ourselves look good to everybody

else. So what is a fast?

And, and, and before we move on, I want you guys to see something

in, in Matthew, in, in Matthew 6.

And we don't have to go back there.

But what, what was the worst that Jesus said when you fast,

when you fast? I don't know that I ever saw

that. I don't know that I ever

recognize that. So what Jesus is kind of telling

us here, this isn't really an option.

This is something that you will be doing, but don't do it that

way. But I never heard that.

I never was raised that way. I never got that message.

Hey, when you fast, do it this way.

And for this reason. So what is a fast for?

What is a fast for #1A fast is taking the opportunity to deny

our bodies the things that we think that it wants, right?

From the freedom group. One of the chapters we talked

about, it's called spiritual order.

And I, I, I love this. And until I read this, I, I,

it's a biblical. It's a biblical truth, but I

never realized it. So what happens when you guys go

a long time without food? What happens?

Can you guys tell me? Do you get hungry?

What happened? What does your stomach do?

It growls. Does anybody get angry?

You love the Snickers commercials, right?

We get in a bad mood. We're not happy, right?

The body yearns for food. The body yearns for pleasure.

The body wants what it wants. What happens when you deny it?

It gets loud. It screams at you.

Say give me what I want. That's what the body does.

The corollary is this, that our true being, our soul, our

spirit, when we're, when we're feasting on God's Word, when

we're practicing these spiritual disciplines, whether it's prayer

or giving or serving, what happens when we stop doing those

things? And it's very interesting.

I don't know if you guys ever thought of it this way.

It doesn't act the same way that our body does.

Because when we don't do spiritual disciplines and we

don't live on mission for God, our spirit gets not loud, it

gets quiet and it kind of recedes and it kind of moves in

the back. And when I saw that in the

spiritual order, I'm like, man, that is so true.

So when we fast, what we're really doing is this is we're

taking authority over our flesh, instilling a discipline that

says, hey, I am taking responsibility.

I am the one making the decision here, right?

And so when we deny our body food and we fast for a certain

amount of time, what we're really doing is saying is that I

know that I can live without food for a certain amount of

time. And you see Jesus do this time

and time again. And I think we'll probably see a

little bit more of that next week, whether it's the 40 day

fast or whether you see the disciples going to get food and

you see Jesus talking to the woman at the well.

And he said, you know, they come back and like, I've I have food

that that you don't know about. And they're like, what are you

talking about? What?

Jesus wasn't talking about physical food.

He was talking about what God called him to do, right?

So when we deny ourselves, we, we, we take authority over the

flesh. That's something that it's not

natural. We never see that message in the

news. We never see that on TV, in the

movies, in advertisements. Everything you should ever seen

or given or exposed to is telling that you need this, that

you will be complete if you have that.

It's focusing on the, the pleasures that the body

automatically wants. So that's the first thing.

It's taking authority over the flesh #2 what fasting is this is

it's taking a position of humility before God.

Man, I love watching our worship team lead you guys in worship.

And then when I, I look around and I see hands raised or hands

held out or just in a position of prayer.

That is, that is a posture of humility because for so much of

the world, what we're told is to be the man, to be the woman, to

take your spot, get what you've earned, take what's yours.

We're in the act of humility. We're acknowledging that we

aren't on the throne and that that we serve somebody that has

given everything and his name is Jesus.

And if he's done that, the most logical thing that we can do is

be a humble person, a humble servant, a humble son or

daughter of God and fall on our knees and be humble before God.

So when you take these two things of, of, of, of holding

back the flesh and taking authority over it, and then

practicing humility before God, we get to the third thing that

fasting is really about. And it's a spiritual

breakthrough. And I want to tell you a story

in the Scripture and we're going to read one of the verses out of

it. But a spiritual breakthrough is,

is, is the result of taking authority over the flesh through

fasting and then having humility before God.

And as I tell this story, I can imagine and I know for a fact

there are many people in here that are looking for a

breakthrough. Maybe it's a physical

breakthrough, a prayer for health, maybe, maybe it's a

spiritual breakthrough and you're looking for a purpose.

You're looking for meaning maybe you've had a relationship with

this destroyed and you don't know where that leaves you in

this world, but you know that you're lost.

So I tell this is this story of a spiritual breakthrough that

happened in the Bible in Jesus's ministry.

Put yourself in this position. So in Mark Chapter 9 and we'll

Mark 9 · chapter mention

read this here in a minute is one of the best stories in in in

in Jesus's ministry in the Gospels.

And if you don't know this chapter, it starts off with

Jesus with, with Peter, James and John on the mount of

Transfiguration. And what that was, was Jesus

took these three disciples and he went up on the mountain,

right? And if you guys remember the

story, what happened was Jesus has this revelation to them and

God just reveals to these disciples who Jesus really is.

And in the midst of that happening, Moses and Elijah show

up, right? And in the, in, in this whole

thing going on, Peter, James and John, they don't know what to

do. I don't think I would know what

to do. And so they just start running

their mouths because they're just, they're like, what do we

do? What do we do?

And they, they like, Lord, let us make us 3 tabernacles, one

for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.

And in the midst of that, they hear a voice and says, you know,

this is my son. And what a mount top experience

literally spiritually. How awesome is that?

And in the midst of that, as they finish that up, that vision

that that experience, they come off the mountain and in Matthew

picks up some of the details. They run into a crowd and the

rest of the disciples are there. And the disciples are arguing

with Pharisees, Sadducees, men of the law.

And there's a whole crowd gathered around them.

And Jesus walks down. He goes, what is going on?

And in about that time, a guy steps forward and he said, Hey,

here's what's going on. My son is possessed by a demon

and I brought him to your disciples.

But they couldn't, they couldn't do anything about it.

They couldn't cast her out. And you got to know that before

this, like the disciples have been sent out two by two to the

heal the sick to, to cast out, to cast out demons and devils.

But in this situation, they couldn't do it.

And they're confused. And so they're arguing with the

the Pharisees and the Sadducees. I can't imagine what that

argument look like. And there's a crowd gathering

around in the midst of it. You have this guy that's broken

hearted. His son is, is, is captivated by

this, this spiritual force that he doesn't understand that he

can't control. And as you read the story, you

see the boy has a history of being convulsed and thrown down

and being violent and, and, and the demon has tried to kill him

with water and fire. And so Can you imagine being a

parent that situation? I mean, that's not something

I've ever experienced, really I've ever seen.

And Jesus makes this, this statement says, you unbelieving

generation, how long can I suffer with you?

And he steps up and he casts out the demon.

I mean, the boy convulses, falls down like he's dead.

And then Jesus raises him up, picks him up and the demons gone

and the disciples come up to him after and they're like, what is

going on? We've done this before.

How come we couldn't throw this demon out?

How come we couldn't do this, this exorcism, if you want to

use that word. And in, in, in in chapter 29 of,

of, of verse 29 of Chapter 9, Jesus says this.

He says, so he said to them, this kind can come out by

nothing but prayer and fasting. This kind can only come out by

prayer and fasting. I don't know what those details

are, but what it means is this is that there's a spiritual

breakthrough that you're facing that can only come out through

prayer and fasting. It can't, it can't come out just

by doing your daily routines of just like, hey, I'm just going

to show up on Sunday. I'm going to give a little here.

I'm going to do a little there and hopefully that's enough for

God. What what Jesus is saying is

this is that you need to have a relationship with your Father to

be on mission with him, to be connected so closely with the

Holy Spirit that this is something that you can do.

And again, I look across the room, I'm guessing there's

probably not a lot of demons for you guys to cast out.

But what I can tell you is this is that that spiritual

breakthrough that you're looking for, that you've looked for

deliverance for and through for days, weeks, and maybe some

situations for years. And you don't know why God

hasn't answered your prayer or you don't know why God hasn't

shown up in a certain way that you expect.

It could be that you're in the midst of a battle you don't

understand. It could be that you're in the

midst of a battle you're not prepared for, that you don't

have the discipline yet in your life to face head on.

And so when we look at these spiritual disciplines and we

look at fasting and we look at prayer, maybe these are the

things that we don't earn our way to God for and we don't

please everybody else around us for.

But maybe these are the things that God uses to help grow us.

Because really, what is a spiritual discipline?

It's a way for us to grow in our walk with God, to grow closer to

what God's called us to do what God has called us to be.

And again, I can't answer that question for anybody in here.

I can only answer that question for myself.

But I know that God has a purpose for each person here.

You are not here on accident. You are here for a reason.

And maybe as you walked in here, you don't even know what that

reason is. And that's fine.

But you are here for a purpose. And so when we, when we, when we

get into the idea of spiritual fasting, there, there, there are

so many things that that can that can hold us back.

But it's a spiritual breakthrough.

I can think of a lot of different reasons.

As individuals, we need something as a country.

I'm not going to rehash what Sean, if you guys want to go

back and look what's happened in the country for the last three

or four weeks. And Sean did such a great job of

calling the church here in in real life in this gathering to

unity, not uniformity, unity and not being divisive over

political issues and taking a stand for what God's called us

to take a stand on. But I've had a lot of

conversations in the last several weeks of like, I can't

believe this political group does this, or I can't believe

that political group on the opposite side would do this.

And we all see the same screen, but we're all seeing different

movies. And I can't help but think that

we're probably all missing the truth at some level, because I

don't think that we're looking at things through God's eyes.

And really, that's what God's called us to do here in real

life, and he does it and through so many churches.

But I also can't help but think that if we were on our knees in

prayer and we were taking moments of humility and fasting,

there would be a spot where we would come together in unity for

the things that God had really called us to stand on together.

And so when we look to solve problems across the world,

across our country, I don't have a lot of great reasons or a lot

of great solutions. There's no law I think we can

pass to change people's behavior.

I don't think there's a punishment that I can give you

that's going to make all these school shootings or the

shootings at ICE detentions or people that walk into into

politicians houses and kills them or had a place where a

guy's going to have a dialogue at a college campus.

I don't think I can give you a punishment or law that fixes

those things. But within the four walls where

people of God gather, whether it's a Kentucky trail or whether

it's in a life group at somebody's house, I know that a

people that are focused on God and having a spiritual

discipline to please God to to to take authority over this

flesh, to have humility before God.

Those are the things that bring a spiritual breakthrough.

And so as I finish up, my challenge for you guys is this

is this, this is, this is where the rubber's going to hit the

road. Why don't we do spiritual

disciplines? Why don't I pray the way that I

should? Why don't I read my Bible the

way that I need to? Or why do I do it for the wrong

reasons? And so then let's add fasting on

there. Why am I scared to fast?

Why don't I fast? And I think there's probably 3

simple reasons why we don't do it #1 is I'm scared.

What if it's one more thing that I fail at?

What if it's one more thing that I know that God wants me to try?

And if I screw this up, God's done with me.

I just want you guys to know that is not true.

God calls us to do something big sometimes, and he's there to

pick us up when we fail. And we all fail.

I don't care if you've been in church for two days or or 20

years. We all have spots in our life

where we fall down. God's always faithful to pick us

back up. So fear is not a great reason #2

this is probably the truth for a lot of us.

It's a pride issue. I don't need that in my life.

I'm good enough without it. You know, I do my, my set things

that I've already had developed in my life and these, and I'm

not saying those things are bad things, but I don't really need

to add 1 more thing. You know, I know that you said

when you fast, but that's for that's for somebody else that

needs it. That's pride and that's the

opposite of humility. If we want that spiritual

breakthrough, we can't have pride in our lives.

The third one is this, and this is I see this in a lot of people

outside of these these walls. The reason I love real life.

I mean, you guys are passionate, but in so many areas of of where

I work or where. I, I, I do.

Whatever. I see something called apathy.

And in some ways, apathy is just as dangerous as pride because

apathy is. This is like, I just don't care.

I just don't care. I'm busy, I'm tired, and it's

not really going to matter anyway.

And so these are all three lies that the enemy uses just to hold

us back. Fear, pride, apathy.

Don't fast. Don't listen to the guy on the

stage. Don't listen to the Holy Spirit,

you know, giving you an opportunity to say, Hey, maybe

this is something you can use to, to start finding those

spiritual breakthroughs, because that's really what the enemy

doesn't want you to have. He doesn't want you to have the

one simple thing that will put you on your knees before God and

say ABBA father. And I don't know what that looks

like for you guys in here. What that, what that what a fast

looks like. I would encourage you something

simple like this. If you've never ever fasted, if

you've never ever tried it, don't go crazy.

I see this all the time with, all right, I'm going to read my

Bible. I'm going to read it from cover

to cover and I'm going to give myself a month to do it right.

Has he ever made that promise to God?

It doesn't work. It just doesn't work.

And So what happens then is like, oh, I didn't do what I set

out to do. All right, I'm giving up.

I'm done. Don't do this with fasting.

So if you've never fasted, do something small.

Take a sun up to a sundown time frame, whatever that is, and in

that space, whatever that's a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

Thursday, Friday, it doesn't matter.

But I want you guys to think about this challenge, pray about

it. You've got an opportunity just

to do something in your life. And any time that you ever, ever

do that, you will never walk away disappointed.

You may walk away with something you didn't expect to happen.

Now, it may not be a miraculous answer to prayer in that moment.

It may be something as simple as a realization that you're not

the center of the universe. And that's the simple thing that

sometimes that that I need like, Hey, hey, bud, it's not all

about you. Maybe it's that homeless person

that you're running into at the at the, at the place that you're

getting some food and you and looks at you with those eyes and

says, do you see me? Do we take that opportunity to

help those around us? And I tell you what, if we don't

prayer and we don't pray, we don't fast, we don't have a

spiritual discipline, we don't see anybody else.

So maybe that's the simple part that somebody needs to hear

today is that taking the opportunity to do something

you've never done before, a simple fast for a short amount

of time is a way to allow God to open your eyes.

That's my prayer for you. That's my challenge for you.

Would you guys pray with me? Father, we come before you.

God, what an awesome opportunity, not only just to

celebrate what you've done in the last eight years and the

opportunity we had to celebrate that last week, but God as we as

we hone in on what you've got for us next as individuals, as a

church. God, I pray for several

different things. Got it.

First of all, I want to pray for your people here today that call

your that call you father. They have committed their lives

to you and God. My prayer for them today, people

that take on the name of Jesus and call themselves Christians

is this is that they start looking at a spiritual

discipline in a new way, a way that's biblical, a way that

connects them to your heart. So God, as your people are here

listening today, God help help them take this challenge to, to,

to find the time to fast start a spiritual discipline that maybe

they've never looked at before. They never thought that was

possible. Or maybe they believe the lies

of the enemy that had fear or they had some pride in their

life or some apathy. God give them this dedication at

this moment just to take some humility on and follow you in

this in this spiritual discipline.

I want to pray for one more group of people.

Maybe you walked in here today and again, you've never heard of

fasting. You've barely, barely heard the

name Jesus and you really don't know why you're here.

Or maybe you're here today because you're your ropes end.

Maybe you don't know where else to turn and you went to church

as a kid, as a child, and it's been a long time since you've

been in a church gathering, but you've never committed your life

to Christ. It's always just been something

maybe my parents did or my grandparents did, but it was

never real for you. And again, can I remind you that

you aren't here on accident. And God's given you an

opportunity to say yes to Him, to find life in the purpose that

you were created to have and that you've lost it and not had

your whole life because you've lived alive, that you've seen

everything stripped away, everything that you thought was

going to give you hope, everything you thought was going

to give you a purpose. And they all came up short.

And so if that's you today, I want you to know that God is

looking for you. God loves you.

And in this moment, I'm going to give you an opportunity to join

the family of God. And this isn't just some crazy

magic words. This is an opportunity to

connect to the Creator of the universe and put him on the

throne where he's always been. But you finally did it in your

life. And so if that's you today and

you want to take that next step and you're ready to make Jesus

number one in your life, I'm going to give you a prayer and

you can pray along something along the lines of what I'm

going to pray with you. And again, these words aren't

magic. They're not anything special.

But what they do is they reveal what you are feeling in your

heart and your being and what you're telling God.

And that's what God's looking for.

It's a prayer of humility. So if that's you, pray something

along these lines, Father. Man, I have screwed my whole

life up. God, I've tried to do the right

thing and it's turned out wrong. God, I've pursued wrong things

and it's destroyed me. And God, I don't know where else

to turn. And in this moment, I come

before you with a humble heart, a broken spirit.

And God, I am praying to claim you as my Lord, my Savior.

God, bring me into your Kingdom today.

Make me a part of the family of God.

And I pray this in Jesus name, Amen.

Can we give it up for everybody that prayed that prayer to

receive Christ today. Thank you guys so much for

allowing me to share my heart. We'll continue this next week,

but as we continue next week and we lean into a little bit more

of how God moves the people of God, take that challenge series

this week. Don't allow the enemy to jerk

this truth from your heart. Take that humility, that act of

service, that spiritual discipline and man follow God.

And take just one small act of faith this week.

Thank you. What just a powerful and

encouraging reminder that in the midst of our chaotic lives, of

our daily routine, that Jesus truly is all that we need.

And some of you recognize that today that Jesus is all that you

need in your life. And you committed your life to

Jesus this morning. We are so excited for you.

Welcome to the family. We love that you made that

decision. We would love to walk alongside

you and resource you this week if you would let us know your

decision. You can do that by just grabbing

that connection card that's on your seat, fill out your

information on there, but check the 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 few things.

And the first is this a free book will drop in the mail

tomorrow that we would love to get to you.

It's called begin. It really will help you as

you're taking this journey with Jesus as you're diving into

God's word and figuring that out.

Also, if you pray that prayer and you're right here at

Kentucky Trail as you exit the worship center, there is a table

with some red bags. Please feel free to grab one of

those inside is a Bible for you some other resources that we

know will just be a blessing to you as you start your journey

with Jesus this week. And hey, I want to share

something with you, something exciting in the life of our

church. And that's this.

On October 12th, we begin what we believe is the most important

series that we have ever done in the life of real life church and

that is called our difference maker series.

And this series is about so much more than just a building about

a monument in our city. It truly, it is about a movement

of God. It is about eternity.

And so together over those six weeks in the series, we're

really going to lean in to the vision that we believe God has

for our church and for our city. And that is what this looks

like. So it looks like your faith, and

that's trusting in God, believing in God for some big

things and maybe some bold new ways.

That also looks like our generosity.

It's coming together as a family, united in mission and

it's for their forever, which is to impact the lives of

generations to come. And so we invite you, if at all

possible, to be here for all six of those weeks.

And we truly believe that what God does in US and in our hearts

through this series truly will impact and shape of the next

chapter that God is writing for our church.

So mark that down in your calendars.

It's October 12th. It's a six week series, but

don't miss the opportunity to be here as we launched this most

important series that we will do here at Real Life Church.

And if you are new with this, thank you so much for being here

today. We love you chose to spend your

morning right here with us. I hope you heard from God today.

I know that you felt welcome this morning, but we would love

just for you to introduce yourself to us.

And you can do that by grabbing that card that's on your seats.

Just fill out your information there.

Check first time here. You can drop it in the giving

buckets, but also you could take it to the new here booth on your

way out this morning. They would have a free gift for

you. Just our way of saying thank you

so much for being here today. Hey, I want to just take a

minute and say go God and thank you to those of you who give

faithfully here at Real Life Church.

And we got to witness some first hand impact of you faithfully

giving here last week when we celebrated baptisms.

We had seven people get baptized last week, which is awesome.

We had six people commit their lives to Jesus in both

gatherings. And then we also had eight first

time guests here last week. It was so cool.

I don't know if you caught it, but the New Year booth, the line

for the New Year booth was so long, people couldn't get out

the front door. We kind of had to part the seas

to make way for that. But that is huge.

Can you give it up for all that God is doing here.

Thank you so much to those of you who give here.

You really do you really do pave the way for the gospel to go out

into our church, into our city. So thank you so much.

If you call real life church home, there's so many ways that

you can take part in generosity. You can check out the screen

there, scan that QR code you can text to give.

You can head to our website. The giving buckets will pass

here in just a few minutes. You can drop cash or check in

there or there's a giving box in the back as well if that is more

convenient for you. And as always, if you or your

family find yourself in any need this week, whether it be food or

clothing or shelter or whatever that looks like for you, would

you please return to those buckets and grab any loose cash

as they pass? Because we do want to be a

blessing to you and your family this week.

All. Right, man, you guys excited to

take the challenge this week, the fasting.

Yeah, it's going to be awesome, right.

So man, Barry, thanks for bringing that word.

Want to give you another challenge if if you haven't

already is to dive into a fall life group.

You know we are we are not only highly encouraged, we're

commanded basically to just not do life alone.

It's so it's so lonely in this world as it is.

And life groups are just such an amazing way to find community

with believers In the book of James in chapter 5, it, it talks

about, you know, when we, we confess our sins to each other,

when we pray for each other and encourage each other that that

basically we're, we're doing what we're called to do as the

righteous and so important for our growth.

And so if you've already joined a life group, man, that's

amazing. I know that's going to just be a

huge blessing, not only for your life, but you're blessing the

other people in your group, their lives as well.

And so to help give you a visual, if it's kind of hard to

kind of, you know, maybe see that or, or think about what

might be like. If you think about, you know,

you guys are sitting in rows right now.

If these rows just turn into some circles, right?

That's kind of the whole vibe right there.

You're chatting with each other, you're you're sharing life with

each other. So I just encourage you to take

a step today, maybe a little anxious about it.

Totally normal. All right, Maybe you're not

super outgoing. Again, totally normal.

But just look at that board out there, Look for the nights, look

for the topics, the people that just, you know, God just sort of

nudge you in that direction. Scan the QR code and the leaders

of those groups will be thrilled.

They'll probably do a cartwheel when that comes through on their

phone, like, oh, hey, they want to join my group.

And they'll text you and they'll give you all that information.

For real though, would love for you to join a life group.

It's never too late. So get on that today.

And hey, if you want some prayer, we'll have people down

in front that would love to pray for you.

Other than that, hang out in the Hub for a while, connect, and

we'll see you next week at 9:00 AM or 10:45.

And remember, whoever finds Jesus discovers real life and

purpose. Join a life group and have a

great week. See ya.

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