FASTED LIFE - Week 1

Hello Go Church family, I'm Lara. I'm here with Pastor Matt Hataba. Hey everyone. And

Gilbert. Hey everyone. Welcome. We're so glad to be back after an amazing big Sunday. And

we're excited to get into our series called The Fasted Life. We're going to look at this

over the course of this month in January. And I'm sure that as we build our faith on

this subject, on the Word of God concerning this subject, we're going to be able to experience

fasting and use fasting to a greater degree in our lives in order to move forward. I'm

really excited about that. I mean, today is week one out of week three for our Jan series.

And we're going to focus on what is fasting. Or let me say it this way, just to make it

easier. We're going to focus on the meaning. And so let me ask this first question. What

does fasting mean? Well, that's a very good question. Lara, what do you think? It's not

just abstaining from food. That's very important. I think that this warrants the discussion

because the word fasting literally means to close the mouth. We see that fasting in the

scripture is deliberately tied to abstaining from food. And you can see that throughout

the Old Testament, particularly in the Old Testament, there's times where the Bible uses

this term to afflict oneself. And that sounds very Old Testament. And the words may be a

little complicated. Afflict just means to make hard, to make hard or to make heavy,

and then yourself. Sometimes people would do it in the Old Testament for morning or

during a time of sadness. But Nehemiah and also Daniel, we see that they fasted, they

abstained from food for a time because of the situation that was around them. And what

I like about that and what I want to bring into the New Testament is here's something

that they did in response to the situation they found themselves in, in order to see

change. And they understood that that change first had to start with them. And so what

is fasting? Fasting is not something dietary, but it is a spiritual act that happens in

the natural. I'm quoting Gilbert so you can correct me if I get this wrong. It's a spiritual

act that happens in the natural, but it affects us. Like I'm not going to impress God with

how much I fast, but I am going to change me in the process of doing it.

Yeah. So I like what you're saying there. And I think it also circles back to what Lara

mentioned, which is it's not only about food. And the fact is, we can, so like Pastor Matt

said, fasting is a spiritual exercise, which is acted upon in the natural. And if abstaining

from food is a spiritual exercise and you're treating it as such, then it is fasting. But

it's not only limited to that. And I think that in a sense it can include abstaining from,

or not participating, deliberately cutting out specific activities, specific hobbies,

specific habits that are maybe not even necessarily bad, right? In the absolute, I'll give them

just a random example, like watching Netflix. It's not like, okay, obviously depending on

what you're watching.

Definitely depending on what you're watching.

Let's say you're watching a nice documentary about, I don't know, mountains or something.

It's not really harmful, but it is something you're doing. And it's something you can deliberately

choose to not do and replace it with something else.

I would say it this way. This is kind of at the center or at the beginning of our discussion

to define what fasting is. Fasting literally means to close your mouth. We talk about that

from a food perspective, but what does food do? Food ministers to your flesh, right? If

you go without eating long enough, something will happen to your body, but not your spirit.

Your spirit doesn't actually get anything out of natural food. So we could say that

food is something that is ministering to your flesh. And there's a verse in Proverbs, Proverbs

Proverbs 27:20

chapter 27, verse 20, it says, hell and destruction are never full. So the eyes of men are never

satisfied. And what you find, you don't have to live very long to realize the only thing

better than having one cupcake is having two. The only thing better than having one of Julie's

cookies is having 18 of them. So as a kid, I used to measure cookies by how much milk

I had. So if I had a full glass of milk, then I needed certain number of cookies. I don't

remember what the ratio was, but no one eats one cookie. That's ridiculous. So if we take

that from Proverbs, the eyes of men are never satisfied. So let's look at what is it, like

you said, it's not necessarily bad, but what is it that is ministering to our flesh? But

isn't helping. It's not helping us grow spiritually. And let's say no to something specifically

on purpose as a spiritual exercise. What is fasting? Fasting is taking something that ministers

to my flesh like food, but it could be something else and say no. Now I said flesh and spirit,

but what about the soul? We know that we are a spirit. We have a soul and we live in a

body. Well, I'm going to mix soul and flesh here a little bit. You, I think last week,

Laura, mentioned about social media and studies have shown that scrolling on social media

actually affects the brain chemically. And what's interesting is the chemical reaction

is similar to that with addictive drugs. It's not exactly the same thing, but it's the same

kind of chemicals. And saying no to that, for example, saying no to watching silly cat

videos on TikTok or funny dog videos on Instagram means that you are telling yourself, I'm not

going to do this. And as long as then you do the other part of fasting, which is prayer,

then you are, you're making that spiritual exercise in the natural. Yeah, absolutely.

So I would, I would liken that to, you know, remodeling your room. First, you need to take

things out and because you're expecting to put other things in there. You know, you're

not, you're not expecting to just tear down your room and make it non-functional. Obviously

that's not what you're trying to do. You know, you're, you're definitely trying to remove

some old, make space for some new. And that is, that is also the essence of, of what we're

doing in fasting. I do want to, I do want to lay a little, little bit of foundation

and talk about this, which is grace versus works. I know that if you've ever been around

at a service and you've heard a call to action, you've heard the gospel, you've heard the

good news, which is God wants a relationship with you and God did everything necessary

to have that relationship with you. You don't need to do anything on your part, but receive

what he's done for you. That is the essence of grace, the grace of God. And they're saved

by grace. That's right. So actually Ephesians chapter two, verses eight and nine says, for

by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift

of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. So obviously you see here that there is a,

an opposite between grace and works. And as believers, we need to stay away from a works-based

mentality like it's the plague. I mean, not to say that the Lord doesn't want us to do

good things, do good works, but that our works do not define who he is to us, who we are

to him. Rather, it's the other way around because he has created us. This is verse 10

of chapter two. He's created us for good works in his grace. And so fasting is a good work

and it should mark our life, but it is not something that I'm doing to earn something

from God. It's me doing something to me. That's good. That's really good. And so I put this

note down and I think it's quite funny, but it's important that we, you know, if it's,

if it's clear, it's clear. I said that fasting is not a hunger strike. Right. I mean, we

don't, we don't fast to get God's attention. You know, in fact, it's not like any of our

actions are going to move God. I mean, these things are not what moved him. His love for

us before we knew him, when we were still sinners, already moved him to do everything

that he was ever going to do for us. And there is nothing more that he could possibly do

for us that is not already found in the gift that he freely gave us in Jesus Christ. But

basically, like Pastor Matt said, we do not get God to move based on our works, but we

are allowing ourselves to be molded into the image of God. And what, you know, we just

talked about last week about, you know, bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness profits

much, profits a lot more. And the fact is that we are using our fasting or our actions

in fasting to allow ourselves to be molded into that image. So Philippians chapter two

verses 12 and 13, I'm just pulling that up. It says this, therefore, my beloved, as you

have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work

out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will

and to do for his good pleasure. I see so much in verse 12. And what I really like here

is he says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. It's just literally means

allow the salvation that God put in you to work outwards, to allow it to work outside

of you. And you realize that you're supposed to take the action.

Yeah. So there's a work, but it's not to get something. It's as a result of what I have

received. Because I have received something, now I have a work to do.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'll go back to that line that we just said, fasting is a spiritual exercise,

which is acted upon in the natural. So any action that we take that we call fasting has

a spiritual root or has a spiritual motive. And ultimately the motive is to say no to

certain natural things, to allow the spiritual things to get into place.

Yeah. And I'm on purpose making fasting here pretty broad. We mentioned social media, we

talked about different things, we'll talk a little bit more, but here's an easy way

to know if you're fasting. Are you hungry? And so if you stopped watching Netflix documentaries,

I'm going to stop watching Netflix documentaries, but you actually never watch Netflix documentaries.

That's not your thing. You don't enjoy watching documentaries about mountains. And that's

not fasting, right? But if you say, I'm not going to have anything that has sugar in it

for the next week, the next day, your body will let you know you're definitely fasting.

This is it. Tell me about it. Yeah. When I just got out

of Bible school, or no, sorry, I had just gone out of the first year of Bible school,

I was in between my first and second year at Ramah. I felt like the Lord led me to fast.

I'm like, okay, Lord, I'm going to do this. And before I could say, I'm going to just

fast for this. I just had this on the inside. The Lord told me not to drink milk for a week.

I say, the Lord told me I didn't hear an audible voice, but I just had that on the inside of

me. He said, okay, I'm going to not drink milk for a week. I, you know, this was a long,

long time ago, but I used to drink milk all the time. And so, okay, I'm not going to drink

milk for a week. I have never in my life wanted milk so bad. It was crazy. I imagine this

is what it would feel like to be in the desert, just parched, you know, water never tasted

so poor to me. I just, like, I couldn't get satisfied. What is that? That's my flesh that

did not like being told no. So fasting is not a hunger strike, but it is also telling

yourself no, something that your flesh wants. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I like in Galatians

chapter five, verse 24, Paul says we should crucify the flesh. Yes. That's hard language.

That's not easy language. It's deliberately, he deliberately uses that word crucify. And

it is in the first century, that's the most horrific way to be executed. You know, this

is, that's top of the list because crucifixion does not result in immediate death. It's not

the same thing as like beheading. You know, a lot of people would say, well, I would die

for Christ. Right? Great. That's noble. But how about living for him? And crucifying means

being nailed to a cross and then not being able to breathe for hours and hours until

you die of exhaustion. That's how people died when they were crucified. And when Jesus was

crucified, no one believed that he could already be dead because he hadn't been on the cross

that long. Yeah. So the term crucify the flesh is deliberately brutal. We should be very,

very hard on ourselves. Not on each other, but your flesh will do just about anything

you let it. Yeah. Tell me more about those desserts. We haven't talked about ice cream

in this, this on this podcast yet. I'm sure we will by the way, before the end of this

month, Pastor Matt is going to say something about gelato. Yes. But this, this is so, so

real though, that, you know, we fast in order to quiet our flesh and quiet our soul. And

I can tell you for me personally, quieting my soul is a lot more challenging than quieting

my flesh. I'm not going to say that, you know, a one is unnecessary and one is important,

but I, I do realize that sometimes the most challenging things for me are telling my emotions

no so that I can focus on what my spirit is trying to get me to focus, stay focused on.

And I mean, obviously, you know, crucifying the flesh is super important, but also there

is, there's a point where, you know, we fast in order to refocus what our emotions have

been given, been giving so much attention to, or what our minds have been giving so

much attention to. And I remember like, you know, I told myself over one weekend, I would

cut out watching some TV shows and stuff like that. And when I took that decision, like

I can't begin to explain how difficult it felt to not want to just turn Netflix on if

I watch a TV show and I'm not even a TV show guy. Like this is not, I think that you just

watch TV all the time. Right? No, I don't. I mean, I'm the guy who probably can't watch

something for more than 20 minutes on end without just getting up and saying I'm a little,

a little bored now, a little fidgety. But the reality is that there was, you know, after

a while, like maybe a day and a half later when it's like, you know, my mind is over

saying, oh, you should just sit and do nothing and just watch this. I've filled it with deliberately

and vocally praising God. I know that sounds a little, you know, hyper spiritual. That

sounds like me, you know, saying, you know, this is awesome. Yeah. But the reality is

at some point it took my emotions from somewhere just very neutral and very passive to somewhere

where I was genuinely excited. Like I spent time with the Lord a day and a half later.

I'm just like, praise God, praise God. Then all of a sudden I'm like, praise God. I'm

like, wow. Like now I'm, now I'm excited all of a sudden. And you know, at some point the,

the emotions switched off from the habit that was just taking so much of my time and it

switched on towards the Lord. And it's just, it's amazing. It's amazing when you do that.

Well, I would take that a step further and say, if, if all you're doing is the, is the

negation, all you're doing is saying, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to eat

this. I'm not going to watch this. That's behavior modification. Yeah. The spiritual

aspect is when you, when you do the thing that you just said, you fill the gap with

prayer, with praise, with spending time with the Lord, pressing into him. Otherwise it's

really just dieting. Yep. Can we say replacing what we were doing with prayer? Absolutely.

Nothing on the word. I'm just so thankful. First of all, that I don't have to do anything

to make God to do something for me. Yeah. So my question is fasting puts me in what

position exactly? Like you're, I'm positioning myself when I fast to receive, to quiet down

the flash and receive more. Can we say that? Yeah. I would, I was thinking about this,

you know, recently Julie and I traveled and if, if you've ever spent time flying places,

sometime in airports, it means you spent time standing in line. And one time Julie and I

were flying, we were flying through Paris and our flight was delayed. So we had to go

stand in line and it's us and a bunch of other people who, their flights were also delayed.

And there was this, there was this young family and they had two small children, one probably

three years old. One was, you know, a year old, four, three or four years old. And they

were not having fun. I wasn't having fun. Actually, I felt like those little kids. They

let everyone know they were not having fun. They were yelling. They were, if they weren't

yelling, they were running around and their parents were, you know, please stop, be quiet.

And it occurred to me that while I understood the situation and like I said, I felt just

like those little kids did. It was a little too late to change the way those kids behaved

right then because some of what we were all seeing, we in that line were all seeing is

how those kids act all the time. And I would say fasting is a lot like that. In problem

situations, in pressure situations, your flesh will act the way you let it act most of the

time. And so it's good to take the opportunity now at the first of the year to start putting

our flesh under and get your get our bodies, get our flesh, get our souls used to being

told no, no, you're not going to act like that. No, you're not going to have that opinion.

No, you're not going to share that opinion. Because invariably, there will be pressure

situations. And before we arrive at those pressure situations, we can actually train

ourselves in times deliberately to make ourselves spirit dominant. Yeah. That's so good.

I find it so important to see that fasting is done with the expectation of an outcome.

The expectation of like my flesh or my soul being quiet, quieted so that something else

or more specifically someone else can have a bigger voice in my life. And I want to read

this the scripture and first John chapter two verses 15 through to 17. So John says

this, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the

love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh,

the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.

And the world is passing away and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides

forever. And up until yesterday, literally, I never saw this in connection to fasting.

But the truth is, the reality is that our flesh and to some degree our soul, for the

most part our soul is located on earth, in the earth. And the word of God commands us

not to love the world nor the things in the world. And fasting helps us disconnect from

the world and the things in the world or disconnect parts of our being because we are a spirit,

we have a soul, we live in a body. So disconnecting the body, disconnecting the soul from the

world and the things of the world creates more room for the things of God. Because there

is a direct, you know, we only have X amount of focus. And if most of the focus or all

of the focus is going towards the world or the things of the world, by default, we are

not able to focus on the Father. We're not able to focus on God and the things of God.

And so I would encourage or I would invite this perspective, which is when we fast, it's

because we recognize a need for a change or a need for a growth or a need for refocusing

in our lives. And that is actually the key scripture we talked about. The Church of Antioch,

the leaders in the Church of Antioch, they got together and ministered to the Lord and

they fasted and they prayed. And there was something that came out of it. The fact is

they went in there expecting to hear from the Lord, expecting to hear a next step or

what is going to happen or what needs to happen or what the Lord is trying to do in the Church

or what the Lord is trying to do through them as individuals. And they got an answer. And

that in, I mean, ultimately that answer changed the world. I mean, that answer allowed Paul

to come into the position that he came into and to keep walking with the Lord and to keep

focused on the Lord when surely there were tons of distractions in his life. I mean,

you would talk about relationships that he would have missed or he would have lost. You're

talking about things that he must have said no to. You're talking about people that he

may not have wanted to have relationships with that he would end up, these are God ordained

relationships, going to places that he may not have wanted to go to, leaving his house,

leaving his comfort, leaving the known things, going into places where there's hostility.

And the fact is step by step by step by step, he had to say no to his flesh, no to his emotions

and yes to the Lord. And so it wasn't just a one time prayer and fasting. But after that

one time prayer and fasting, there was a fasted life that he lived.

That's exactly right. That's very well said. And why are we doing this series, Fasted Life?

Why are we focusing on that? Everyone that accepts Jesus, everyone that enters into a

life of following Jesus can agree, yes, I need to pray. Yes, I need to put the Word

of God into practice. And then that word, but, comes to the surface. But I have trouble

practicing, but I have never been good at reading, but I just can't seem to find time

in my day because I'm so busy to actually pray. All of those very common excuses can

be easily answered with fasting. I like, I've been in positions where I've

seen Pastor Matt have conversations with people who have said things like that. And

he looks at them and he's like, easy, change. That's true though. But when I say it can

be easily addressed, whatever excuse we want to give to practicing God's Word, the answer

is very simple. Just change. And I can't change. Yeah, you can. And one way you can practice

changing is by attacking something that your flesh really likes for a couple of weeks in

January. We can do it all together as a family in the church and just say, no, I'm not going

to do that. Yeah. So I want to read, I want to refer to the Bible illustration that we're

going to talk about in week one. So this week of Girl Groups, remember today we're talking

about the meaning of fasting. And so we want to look at this passage of scripture. So actually

I'm referring to the, it's quite a famous passage of scripture in the gospels, the gospels

of Matthew, the gospel of Luke. And it's about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness

where the Holy Spirit led him out and he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and the devil just

tempted him. And so let me read verses one through to three. And you know that Jesus

wasn't fasting social media in this case, because it says he was hungry. Hungry for

scrolling. So Matthew chapter four, verse one, and you can also find this in Luke chapter

four, verse one, then Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted

by the devil. And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights afterward, he was hungry. Now

when the tempter came to him, he said, if you were the son of God, command that these

stones become bread. I'm going to keep reading in verse four, but he answered and said, it

is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth

of God. And I'm going to stop reading here, but there are two more exchanges between the

devil and Jesus. And there's a similar response that Jesus gives to the devil and those two

exchanges. But I want to go back and look at this in verses one and two. Jesus was led

up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted

40 days and 40 nights afterward, he was hungry. Now there's so much there and there's so much

we could talk about, but really we want to talk about this from, or in the context of

fasting. What does fasting mean? What does fasting look like in this case? It's pretty

obvious, but also why was Jesus led to fast? Was this fast spiritually motivated? And how

did Jesus respond to the temptation? And is the way that Jesus responded connected to

the fact that he was fasting? I mean, from my perspective, and I'm not going to say very

much because it's more fun to have a discussion in the girl groups, but I like to see that

Jesus was so focused on the spiritual that he was only hungry 40 days later. So it says

after he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, then he became hungry. Like you see that he

was so engrossed in the spiritual things that were happening. And at the end, the devil

was trying to tempt Jesus in the natural, like from the outside. So, you know, I bet

you're hungry, you know, hey, look at all this, you can have all this. Hey, you should

jump off here because you are somebody and God's going to do something for you because

you are amazing. And these are like outward temptations. But the fact is, Jesus was not

focused on the outward, on the natural. He was focused on the spiritual. And the fasting,

I truly believe, I truly see that the fasting or the period of fasting helped him cut out

the natural and be deliberate in that period, in that moment about cutting out the natural

to focus on the spiritual. So although fasting is hard on your flesh, or in this case, it

must have been hard because you know he was hungry, it made it so much easier to resist

the devil in that moment of temptation. I know that we're going to talk about this a

lot more. So I'm going to leave that right there. It's going to be a great discussion.

And a great discussion. And I want to, yeah, it's also important to point out here that

Jesus, the sinless lamb of God, the incarnate word of God, did not exempt himself from fasting.

Yeah. Now, later, the Pharisees who had a practice of fasting twice a week came and

accused Jesus and the disciples of not fasting regularly. And Jesus turned it around to relationship.

But this is an important point here. Jesus didn't exempt himself from fasting. There's

actually several instances throughout the Gospel accounts where we see Jesus fasting.

This is just the first one. If Jesus wasn't exempt from fasting, me and you aren't either.

Yeah, that's right. But then also, I believe they're still alive, but I knew this person

and they made a decision that they were going to fast for 40 days and 40 nights, and they

wound up in the hospital. So a key to this is Jesus was led to do this. Yeah. So don't

focus on the 40 days part. That's been built into a religious event. And that's the opposite

of what we want to talk about. We want to talk about this becoming a lifestyle. A lifestyle

that's related to our relationship. But I'll just close that off there. Jesus wasn't exempt

from fasting, so me neither. Yeah. So in closing today, I do want to read one more verse, which

is in Hebrews chapter 12, verse one. Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares

us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. So I'm focusing on

this word here. Let us lay aside every weight. Obviously, fasting is not let us lay aside

every sin, because like Pastor Matt said, you know, we don't fast off sins, we just

stop doing them. You don't want to be doing those things. You know, it's not like, oh,

in January, I'm not gonna lie, or, you know, whatever that looks like, I'm not going to

go further and give you guys ideas. But the fact is, you know, living a godly character

is one thing, but laying aside every weight, and weights don't necessarily mean they're

bad things, or these are things that, you know, are bad in the absolute, but they are

bad for me right now, because they are taking me away from my full ability to run this race

with endurance, they're weighing me down, they're holding me back, they're limiting

me and they're affecting my ability to move forward. So it is important that we see fasting

in that light, that we are laying aside every weight which is preventing us from going forward.

If you made it this far today, and no one has told you, we're not just praying for

you, but we're actually praying and fasting for you, because we love you, and we want

to see y'all's richest and best for you. We'll see you next time.

Thank you for listening to this message. We want everyone to experience the unconditional

love of God, grow in His love, and go with His love to the rest of their world. We invite

you to connect with us at one of our groups for our next gathering. And if no one told

you yet today, we love you and believe God's very best for you.