How To: Fast

Amen.

Well, good morning.

How is everybody today?

Are we good?

All right.

All right.

Well, hey, if you're here for the very first time, uh, my name is Justin.

I want to start by by saying welcome to his hands.

We are a big family of people who love God very much, we love each other very much, and we exist for one reason to love people to Jesus.

We want to love people in such a way that they get a taste of the love that God has for them, and that's what we want you to experience today.

And so we're so glad you're here.

I've got a couple really quick announcements before we jump into the message because it's about to be fall, even though fall is still summer now, right?

Fall is now August, and technically that's summer.

We just we do things fast in America.

So uh all is kicking back off, and that always means a busy time here, and there's a lot of great things going on.

Number one, home groups are gonna start back on August 16th.

Uh, if you've ever been a part of a home group, you know it's the best way to make friends, it's the best way to get to know people here at the church.

So on August 16th, home groups start back off.

Uh, if you're in a home group, you don't have to re-sign up for one, just start going again.

And uh if you've never been a part of a home group, we'll have signups at the Connect Desk here in just a few weeks, and we'll give you more details there.

Uh but we have groups for married couples, for men, for women.

There's definitely a group that you will belong to.

You'll make amazing friends.

If you've never joined a volunteer team at the church, I want to encourage you to be part of one of our teams here.

We have incredible, incredible people every Sunday that are serving to make everything that happens here happen.

In fact, a few weeks ago, we kind of calculated how many volunteer hours it takes just to make one Sunday happen in terms of all the prep work each week and all that.

It's over 800 volunteer hours for each Sunday.

Isn't that awesome?

It really is.

And that you might be clapping out of confusion, like, why?

I don't.

But you know, you just walk over to the kids area alone.

In fact, I got a text from from Scott, who is one of our volunteer teachers in uh in our kids area in the Grove, which is K through third, and he just sent me a text uh in between services saying, hey, nine kids at the nine o'clock service prayed to accept Jesus into their life.

Nine kids just in K through third, right?

And so there were a ton of volunteers in there this morning, all over the place.

If his hands is your church and you've been here for a while, but you haven't jumped onto a team, I want to encourage you to do that.

You're not signing your life away.

You don't have to help out every Sunday, it's very manageable.

Uh the main thing is you're gonna have a blast.

You're gonna meet amazing people, and you're going to use the gifts that God has given you to bless other people because you were created to be used by God to do great things.

And so uh join a team.

You can do that at the Connect Desk in the main lobby, same place we sign up for home groups when all of that gets going again.

Next week we start a brand new series, and I'm I'm really excited about it.

It's something I've been praying about for a long time, something that I really believe is the perfect way to start our new school year together, uh, because we tend to think in terms of school years sometimes.

It's called Who Do You Think You Are?

We're gonna be looking at who God says we are.

What is our identity?

We have a culture right now that looks everywhere to find its identity.

We look at friends, we look at what the media says, we look at so many different things to tell us who we are, to define us.

And what we find is that if we accept an identity for ourselves that is from anyone but God, we are accepting and choosing a lesser identity.

But if we let God define who we are, he only lifts us up.

If you search scripture and you look at the times where God changes someone's identity, and that happens a lot, he'll change people's names.

He'll, you know, Peter was Simon and he became Peter, which meant the rock.

That's a good change, right?

You're now the rock.

That's, I mean, Dwayne Johnson was way behind.

This is like 2,000 years ago.

It's a good change.

I want to encourage you to invite people, to invite friends, to invite family members, neighbors, because I think this is a series that can really change lives.

Because there are so many people that have no idea how God really sees them.

There are so many people in this world, people we know and love, that really don't have a clue how amazing, how important, and how special they are in God's eyes, and for them to connect with God and how He really sees them can change everything.

So just be aware of that.

Look for opportunities to invite people here next week.

It's gonna be a blast as we kind of kick off this next school year.

Final thing I want to say is a big thank you to everyone who helps financially.

If you're here for the first time, we don't pass a plate or anything like that, but there are four columns at the back of the room where you can give.

I want to talk for a second about some things that happen when we give.

This is the kind of thing that happens when we give as a church.

If you've been here for a while, you know this, but uh, but we give 10% of everything that comes in back to the community every single week.

We give 10%.

And one of the ministries that we give to every single month is the Hope Center.

The Hope Center is right across the street.

It's an awesome ministry.

It's a ministry that exists to help uh to help people in crisis pregnancy situations.

Young moms, young dads as well, that don't think they can keep the baby, they don't think they have really an option, and so they're just trying to get out of it.

And the Hope Center comes along and says, Look, you can do this.

You can either do this and be ready to have the baby yourself, you can do this and be ready to give the baby up for adoption, but you can do this.

You can bring this child into this world, and they come alongside them, they give them resources, they give them all kinds of things to help them do that well.

They do an amazing job.

And as a church this year, just from January, we've been able to give the Hope Center over$17,000.

So thank you so much for all that you guys do.

I got this, uh I got this story from the Hope Center this last week, the story of a young woman named Jamie who came to them.

Here's what it says Jamie came into our center while trying to rebuild her life after years of bad decisions.

She was pregnant and she felt like she was unable to provide for a child or be a good mother.

She heard about the Hope Center through a local church and she made an appointment immediately.

She was very nervous at first, but her worries soon disappeared when she realized the advocates here were able to help and empower her to be the best mother she could be.

Jamie decided to be the parent for her child, and she enrolled in our Earn While You Learn program.

Through this program, she was able to get the essentials for her baby.

What they do is they have classes for moms and dads, and by taking the classes, you earn credits to use in their store, and you can buy diapers and clothes and toys.

It's a really cool idea.

Jamie shared that she has never had anyone love her and give her the amount of hope that the people at the Hope Center have given.

She said, I've never felt like anyone has ever cared about me or my future like the people here.

Jamie has had a very difficult childhood and young adult life.

She's not experienced a lot of encouragement or positivity.

But she shared that while she believed in God, she had never really prayed because she didn't think God would want to listen to her prayers because of her past.

We were able to share God's love and hope with her.

Jamie's baby Devin was born on June 8th, who is happy and healthy.

I love it.

That's just one of the ministries that we're able to support, and over the course of the next few weeks we'll share some of the others because I love it when we get to explore what happens when we give, and that's the kind of thing that happens.

So thank you for that.

Let's pray.

Let's jump into what we're going to talk about.

Jesus, thank you so much for being in this place, for being here, God.

I can just feel the life and the love in this room right now.

We want to know you, Jesus.

We want to connect with you, and we just ask in your name that you would speak to us and teach us, help us move forward.

We love you.

Amen.

Well, if you've been here this summer, we are wrapping up a series that we call how-to.

We've been looking at Matthew chapter 6, which is this one chapter in the Bible where Jesus gives us a how-to for life.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

He tells us how to grow.

I love the fact that we have a God who doesn't just tell us what to do.

He doesn't just say, hey, live like this.

He comes alongside us and he equips us and he works with us so that we can actually do what he's asking us to do.

I love that about God.

In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus gives us a how-to.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

He focuses on three behaviors.

It's not an exhaustive list by any means, but he tells us how we can give, how we can be generous.

He tells us how we can pray.

And finally, he tells us how we can fast.

Giving, we make, we understand, right?

Giving means using our resources, not just for ourselves, but to bless other people with a cause or a church or any person we see in need, right?

Giving, we we get, we can get behind giving even if it's not a behavior that we've started in our life yet.

Most of us, I think, would aspire to give.

If if you want a million dollars and someone asks for a hundred, I bet you'd give it to him, right?

I bet you'd give it to him.

Because generosity is something that we get excited about.

Prayer, we talked about prayer for over a month, six weeks on prayer.

And I had a blast looking at prayer, by the way, because I hope for all of us, like for me, that our prayer lives just get rejuvenated and uh and invigorated as much as possible because prayer is meant to be passionate and free.

Prayer is something that we value even if we don't believe in God.

Even if we're someone who isn't sure about the whole Jesus thing, if someone walks up to you and says, Hey, I prayed for you this morning, you're gonna say yes.

Thank you.

That's that's great.

You appreciate that.

Prayer we can get behind.

Fasting.

Fasting.

Okay, now if you're unfamiliar with the concept of a fast, it's all throughout the Bible.

Fasting is really simple.

Just don't eat today.

Don't eat anything today, and you have fasted.

That is the biblical understanding of fasting.

Now, you can fast from other things, you can fast from entertainment, you can fast from any activity in your life, and that has great value.

When the Bible talks about fasting, it's talking about food.

It's talking about food.

Like I might decide to fast from Netflix or Hulu or YouTube or something like that, but 15 years ago, those things didn't exist.

So everyone was fasting from Netflix and Hulu and YouTube.

Right?

But but you can fast from anything.

When the Bible talks about fasting, it's talking about food.

And I'll just be honest, when I was looking at Matthew 6, I just noticed Jesus says, when you give.

It wasn't if, it was when.

It's kind of assumptive.

He says, when you give.

He says, when you pray, and he says, when you fast.

I was excited about giving.

I was excited about prayer, and I figured that by the end of the summer I'd be excited about fasting too.

And I am not.

I have to just be honest with you guys.

I'm not.

Fasting, it's just fasting is un-American.

Can we just go ahead and say that and say it with agreement?

Fasting is the least American thing you could ask someone to do because we are good at food.

Let's be honest, we're good at food.

We're good at we're good at eating it, we're good at buying it, we're good at making it, we're good at we watch food on TV.

My wife and I have sat down, we've watched whole shows about food.

Anyone ever seen diners, drive-ins, and dives, that show?

Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh.

Mary at a Diner was on that show.

And my wife and I were watching it.

We didn't have kids yet, so we just got up and left and went to Mary at a Diner because that's what happens when you don't have children.

You can do things like that.

It's exciting.

Food's just an obsession in our world.

And so the concept of fasting, the concept of just not eating for some spiritual reason, it doesn't, it doesn't immediately gel with our with our world and with the way that we see the world, right?

Because if I asked all of us in this room for a show of hands, I'm not doing this, so don't worry.

If I asked you for a show of hands to say, hey, in the last week, how many of us purposefully went 24 hours without eating?

We decided no food for a whole day.

I'm guessing very few hands would be in the air, and that's okay.

That's totally fine.

I hope there were none that had to go a whole day without eating because you didn't have food, and if that's the case, we have food here, we'll give you.

We have uh food bags at the info desk, we have resources, you shouldn't live that way, we want to help you.

But but we're blessed to live in a time and in a place where most of us don't have to deal with that.

So I'm guessing that most of us chose to eat every single day, and for us it wasn't a matter of if we're gonna eat, it's what will we eat, right?

If I look at my own life, I've fasted before, I've fasted for a bunch of reasons.

Most of them were trying to prove to God that I was really passionate, I was trying to get his attention, which is needless, we'll talk about that in a minute.

But but I could count on two hands, maybe one of my feet, how many days I have fasted in my life.

But if I had to look at myself and count the number of days I have eaten to the point of discomfort, right?

I don't want to know that number.

Because I know it would be really high.

I mean, I've had whole days in my life that were just awful, awful days for one reason is that I ate just too much.

You know those days when you're you're feasting and you're having some food and you have that choice, you're like, well, I'm kind of full, but it's there on the plate.

Well, I'll eat it.

And then 10 minutes later you're like, why?

Why did I do that?

I mean, I've had whole days ruined by how much food I can consume.

When I was in college over 10 years ago, my wife and I, Megan, we got married while we were still in school.

So we we waited tables at night in order to have a job that fit with our school schedule, and we worked at this incredible restaurant called Abuelos.

It was in Kansas City, Missouri.

Now, let me just say this.

I know that it's 11:50, and uh and that's really close to lunchtime.

So when someone talks about food and you're getting close to a meal and you're naturally hungry, it makes you think about the fact that you're hungry, and that can become a big distraction, and hunger can turn into hanger, which is where anger and hunger come together.

And do not let that happen to you.

Don't don't give in to the hanger.

Just hold on, we're a few minutes out, food is right around the corner.

You're gonna be fine.

Okay, I just want to ask for your forgiveness ahead of time because I'm gonna talk about food for a second.

So, working in college at this restaurant, it was amazing.

It was this upscale Mexican place that we could not afford on our own because we were really broke, but we worked there, so we got an incredible discount, and we ate there all the time.

We worked double shifts every single Saturday.

We tried to work as much as we could on the weekends, and if you ever work a double shift in any job, especially like a restaurant job, you're up on your feet all the time.

You never stop moving.

In fact, they did a study, I looked at this this last week, that servers in restaurants walk more steps a day than any other occupation by average.

And I get that.

It's easy as a server to walk over 10 miles in a day if it's a busy day.

And we were working a double shift.

So in our double shift, about three o'clock, we got a lunch break, a three o'clock lunch break, and we had about 20 minutes to eat.

Megan is smart.

My wife is very smart.

If you know her, you know that's true.

So she would eat something light, something that was filling, but realizing she's gonna have to get back on her feet and go another seven or eight miles, you know, as she serves all these tables.

I'm not as smart as my wife.

And when it comes to food, I'm a man, so my goal is like, all right, how much food can I eat in 20 minutes?

What is the maximum amount of food I can put in my body in 20 minutes' time?

And if you worked at a buelos, you had some options.

Okay, so I'll show you a picture of the portion size at this restaurant.

I found this picture online.

Um, I don't know this guy, it's just a picture of a man and his food because that is America today.

We take pictures of that.

Um that is a portion at Abuelos, that is an entree.

It's like a turkey platter.

That's that's how it was.

Huge entrees.

And normally I'd have enchiladas or something like that, but this one day, I'll never forget this day because it was terrible, terrible day.

This one day I decided to go big.

You know that phrase, go big or go home?

Well, I wish it had been go big and go home, because that would have been a better day.

But I went big and then I wished I could go home.

That's what happened to me, because I went for the chicken fajita chimichanga.

That's what I ordered.

Now, let me explain this to you.

And again, I told you I was gonna talk about food.

Forgive me, but if if you're getting really like, if you're salivating right now, there is an Abuelos an hour and a half north in Tennessee, right off 75.

And if you've got an open Sunday, it's yours.

You can have this in just a few hours, it's yours.

So keep in mind that this thing is the size of that turkey platter.

It weighs about a pound.

It's uh it's grilled chicken and then cheese stuffed in a flour tortilla, deep fried, then covered in queso, because America, right?

The sides, I want to talk about this for a second.

You see two sides at the top.

There's some some rice, and then there's this yellow side.

I'm gonna zoom in on that and talk about it.

It's a side called papas conchile.

Now, show of hands, who likes mashed potatoes?

Can I just see?

Because, yeah.

Duh.

The rest of you are liars.

So, mashed potatoes, one of the greatest things in the world.

This is like some crazy version of Mexican mashed potatoes, papas conchile.

I know the description because I would say it all the time working there, because everyone said, What is this?

It's okay, papas conchile, it's a blend of new red potatoes that are whipped together with cream and with butter.

There's four different kinds of cheese.

There's queso, red and green peppers.

That is papas conchile.

And it's amazing.

It will change your life.

Okay, so go back to the chimichanga.

I decided to order this, except I was really hungry that day, so instead of rice and papas, I said sub my rice for another order of papas.

I want double papas and a chicken fajita chimichanga.

And I ate that in about 15 minutes, and I went on to have one of the worst days that I've ever had in my entire life.

Because picture going on a 14-mile walk, stopping halfway there, eating that, and then getting right back up and walking the rest of the way.

Things were happening inside of my body that are not natural.

There was like a revolution going on, and I had one of the most awkward moments I ever had that day with one of my tables because I had some awkward moments.

If you wait tables, you see some things.

Once I was waiting a table on a couple that was breaking up as I was waiting on them, and that was really awkward.

Because they're fighting, and every few minutes I'd stop by to check on their drinks and they'd stop fighting and turn and smile at me like nothing was going on.

It was weird.

It's weird.

The second most awkward moment happened after I ate that and then went back to work.

I was talking to a table, I came up, I said, Hi, my name's Justin, I'll be your server.

And then a noise erupted out of my stomach that was so loud that in this restaurant with music playing and other people talking, the couple just stared at my stomach.

Just stared right at my stomach and then looked up at me.

They probably didn't have much of an appetite after that, but I just acted like nothing happened.

It was awful.

Bad, bad day.

It's been 10 years since I've had that, and I might drive to Tennessee later today to go for it.

We'll take it off the screen because I can't take anymore.

Okay, so I would eat things like that.

I'll eat way beyond my my natural capacity to eat because I can.

And the concept in this culture, in this world of not eating when there are things in life like papas conchile and chimichongas, doesn't make any sense.

Why go a day without food when that is available?

Why?

What is the point?

What is the purpose of fasting?

I'm guessing that many of us in this room have heard about fasting, we've heard about this behavior, this principle that we can apply, and maybe we've never done it for that same reason.

We've just never seen the point.

And if that's the way you think, you think really well because you should never do something if there is no point.

Doing pointless things is frustrating.

And see, in Jesus' day, they fasted all the time.

The people of faith they fasted constantly.

It's interesting because in the Bible, God only commanded the people to fast one day a year.

And that wasn't even a full 24 hours, it was from sun up to sundown.

And they did that, but you know that there were people that had like a fork in hand watching the sun go down, right?

And the second that there's no more sun visible, they're just going at it.

I don't know if they used forks in those days or not, but you get the point.

So they only had to fast from sun up to sundown, it's like 12, 13 hours, one time a year.

That's all God commanded them to do, but they decided that God must be really impressed by fasting, that this must be this really great discipline to have in our lives.

So they started fasting all the time.

In fact, the really religious people of Jesus' day would fast sometimes two or three days a week.

It was just a sign of how spiritual they were.

They fasted religiously.

Now, here's the thing about doing anything religiously.

If you do something religiously, whether it's spiritual or not, you will see benefits, you will see results.

But you might also forget why you're doing it in the first place.

Because that's what religion does.

Anytime we do something religiously, we focus on the behavior at the expense of the point.

We get obsessed with what we're doing, but we forget why we're doing it in the first place.

And that's what was happening with fasting in Jesus' day.

So in Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is kind of resetting their understanding of fasting.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

He says, When you fast, don't make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting.

I tell you the truth.

That is the only reward they will ever get.

But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face.

Then no one will notice that you're fasting except your father, who knows what you do in private, and your father who sees everything, he will reward you.

So Jesus says, look, if fasting is about you and God, then just let it be about you and God.

People were fasting and they were they were purposefully looking all disheveled.

And I love how he says, wash your face.

I don't know why their face would be messier if they were fasting versus eating, but I guess they were purposefully making their faces look all rough, and then they're walking around, they're going, oh, and people are saying, What's wrong?

They're saying, Oh, I'm fasting.

You know, for God.

And people would be like, Wow, that's that's awesome.

I can't do that.

That's that's devotion right there.

Jesus says, No, no, no, don't do it to impress other people.

You're missing the point.

You're doing it to do it, but you're missing the point.

Jesus fasted.

We have a few of those moments in scripture where we see that, specifically right before he was tempted, and we'll we'll talk about that moment here in a little bit.

But Jesus fasted, he did not fast as often as the religious Pharisees and the religious leaders fasted, and that bothered them.

In Matthew chapter 9, we get a little taste of that.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

Matthew 9, it says, One day the disciples of John the Baptist came to Jesus and asked him, Why don't your disciples fast like we do and like the Pharisees do?

And they're implying Jesus with them.

Jesus replied, Do wedding guests mourn while celebrating the groom?

Of course not.

But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

So Jesus is saying, Hey, uh, why would we fast right now?

They're saying, Hey, we fast like a couple days a week.

Why don't you guys fast like we do?

If you're following God, why don't you do what we do?

And Jesus says, Well, you don't know why you do it.

Do.

You just do it.

We could fast like you do.

We could just say, hey, we're going to fast, so we can check that off the list this week and we can do our spiritual duty.

But there'd be no point.

There'd be no point.

Jesus is saying, hey, look, when there's a feast, when there's a celebration, that is not the time to fast.

Right now, things are good.

I'm doing miracles, great stuff's happening, but one day it's going to get hard.

I'm going to get arrested.

I'm going to go to the cross.

My disciples are going to feel alone.

That might be an okay time for them to fast.

But right now it would be pointless.

See, religion disconnects our behavior from the point.

Jesus fought so hard against religion because he was always fighting to help us realize the point, the purpose for our lives.

Just doing something to do it, to try to impress God, that didn't fly with Jesus.

He wanted us to know the purpose and the point.

And so if we're even going to consider the idea of fasting, and I'm sure that many of us here, as soon as I said this word today, we're like, yep, not doing it.

And that's okay.

If we're even going to consider this as being something that maybe we should try, maybe we should give this a try and see what happens in our lives.

We should only do it if we know the point.

If we know the purpose.

So, what is that?

What is the point of fasting?

There's benefits.

I mean, there's benefits galore.

In fact, there are studies that show there are great health benefits for just taking one day off eating every once in a while.

It kind of resets your body.

So there's a health benefit if you want that.

There are all kinds of life practical benefits.

We tend to feel like life is better the more we have.

All right, more money, more stuff, more to do, but it's amazing how often life is better when we simplify.

When we remove something.

So if you can take something out of your life for a day, it helps you focus on what's most important.

That's a good thing to do.

Self-discipline.

If you can tell your stomach no, you can tell anyone or anything no.

You go back to the first chapter of the Bible, the first few chapters where Adam and Eve ate that apple.

If man had an ability to say no to their stomach, we'd all be in a lot better shape, right?

Wouldn't good.

There's self-discipline that you can gain by fasting.

That's a great benefit.

There are spiritual benefits.

You'll be spiritually sharp.

Just taking the time away from something like food and spending that time praying, spending that time with God, whatever it is, you're gonna have a sharpness, and that's great as well.

There are so many benefits to fasting, but the benefits are not the purpose.

The benefits aren't the point.

Those are just auxiliary perks.

I want us to understand the point of fasting.

Why on earth would God even suggest that maybe we go a day without eating or we go a day without something in our lives that we tend to enjoy, that we tend to feel is necessary.

And I believe that the point of fasting is to be full.

The point of fasting is to be full.

Now that doesn't seem to make much sense.

Seems a little counterintuitive because fasting is like the opposite of being full.

Being full is chimichangas.

Fasting is the opposite of that.

So how could fasting be about being full?

How could fasting going without actually at its core, at its purpose, be about fullness?

I don't know if you've noticed, but we live in a time and in a culture where we as people generally, and we go through seasons of hardship, but where we as people have more resources, we have more activities, more stuff to do, we have more food to eat than anyone has ever had in the history of the world.

And yet there is emptiness everywhere.

It is possible as a human being to have a full wallet, to have a full schedule, and to have a full belly and still feel empty.

See, I think fasting, I think it's a behavior that God has given to us to use from time to time to remind ourselves that if we're not careful, we will fill our lives to capacity with things that don't actually fill us.

And if we will make room in our lives for God, if we will purposefully from time to time make some room, God will fill it.

There's a verse in Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 5, verse 18.

Ephesians 5:18

This verse gets debated a lot.

It says, Don't be drunk with wine because that will ruin your life.

Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Now, the first part of this verse gets talked about a lot is God saying alcohol is wrong.

Jesus did turn water into wine.

He did.

Wasn't grape juice, turned water into wine.

But you don't have to search the Bible very hard to find all kinds of verses about how careful we should be with something like alcohol, just like this verse here.

It'll ruin your life if you get drunk with it, if you become consumed with it.

Everyone likes to talk about the first part of that verse, but it's the second part that I'm interested in today because it's really the most interesting part.

The first part of that verse is setting up the second.

He says, Don't be drunk with wine, that will ruin your life.

And if we end it there, that's a great piece of wisdom.

But Paul goes on, he says, Instead be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Instead be full of God.

And the principle that we get from this verse is that we have the ability as people to fill ourselves, to fill our lives to capacity and leave no room for God.

And it's really easy to do.

I do it all the time.

Food is just a great analogy.

It's just a great visual aid.

It helps us because it's a really great illustration of that.

I'll give you a prime example when it comes to food, just this concept of filling ourselves to capacity and filling ourselves to such capacity that we don't leave room for something good, something that we desire, something we might even enjoy the most.

Does anyone here like cheesecake?

Okay.

Does anyone here not like cheesecake?

Okay.

It was all the young people.

It must not be cool anymore.

All you guys over there, like, yeah, cheesecake.

Not hipster, I don't know.

Um so just so you guys know, cheesecake has been around since 700 BC.

All right?

So it's staying around.

It has withstood the test of time.

It's a wonderful thing.

And if you don't like cheesecake, I love you.

I love you.

But we gotta talk.

All right, you just haven't had the right cheesecake.

I love cheesecake, if you can't tell.

And it's amazing how rarely I eat cheesecake.

Now I go to restaurants all the time that serve it, that have it, but I never eat it.

And it's not because I'm being frugal.

It's not because I don't want to spend the money on dessert.

Here's why.

Go to a sit-down restaurant.

This has happened to you, I'm sure.

It definitely happens to me, and maybe I just eat way too much, and so all of you are like, that never happens to me, and you need to make some changes in your life, Justin.

Okay.

But this is what I experience.

I go to a sit-down restaurant, they bring me the bread, they bring me the chips, and you have like three or four baskets of that because it's there.

Um, right?

They just keep bringing it back.

You're like, well, I don't want that guy to have worked for nothing, so I'll eat more.

Then you maybe order an appetizer, right?

You get some queso, you get a sampler, a gigantic fried onion, because America, and you know.

And then it comes time to order the entree.

So you get the entree, you get the sides, you eat all that, and then your server comes to you.

They always ask the same question, at least in my experience.

Rarely is that question, would you like dessert?

Because yes, I would.

That's an easy question.

Or do you like dessert?

You don't ask that question.

Would you like some cheesecake?

Yeah.

That's not the question, though.

What's the question?

It's always for me.

Have we made room?

Have we left room for dessert?

Do we have room for dessert?

And if you're married and you're like Megan and I, the same thing always happens.

I don't know why we do this, but we look at the server and they say, Did we leave room for dessert?

And then Megan and I look at each other as if to just, without words, confirm whether or not we have.

We do this every single time.

We just go, I don't know, did you?

I didn't.

No, no.

I literally, I literally could not eat another bite.

That's the the answer.

No, I didn't leave room for dessert.

I have zero capacity left.

In fact, my last five bites, I was already full.

And so if I eat cheesecake right now, I feel like I'm gonna die.

And the thing is, I love cheesecake.

I'm missing out.

I wanted if they would have asked earlier.

If they could let me order that first, I would have ordered it.

But I left no room.

We have an amazing ability as people to fill our lives to capacity.

And it's not just food.

Food is just the illustration that it's the easiest to think about.

I think that's why fasting works so well, because it's so simple.

But we do it with our money.

Come to the end of a month and we start looking at what we have left in the account, what we have left in the budget, and we find that often we we just don't have anything left.

And some of that's because of our bills, some of that's because of the mortgage, but a lot of that's on us.

I spent that, I spent this, I oh yeah, I went there and I bought that.

I don't know why I bought that.

I just kind of, it was there.

I bought into the marketing, I was standing there, there was a diet, Dr.

Pepper.

I said, sure, why not?

And you know, you do that five or six times each each week or day, you know, and you got not much, not much left at the end of the month.

There's so many things I would love to do with my wife, there's so many things I would love to do with my kids, but I just didn't, I didn't leave room.

Financially, I didn't leave room.

I filled to capacity.

So the answer is no, we can't do that thing that we would love to do.

We can't do that thing we would really enjoy.

We do that with time.

We are busy people.

We we are stupid busy.

In this whole world, it seems like it's just it's just after us for our time.

My son is going into kindergarten, and there's an orientation, and there's a meet the teacher, and there's gonna be a graduation ceremony.

In like three days I'm supposed to be there.

Now I want to be a good dad, but orientation for kindergarten.

I mean, what?

He needs a backpack.

He needs a backpack and he needs to be here.

But like, how complicated could it be?

And I get that he needs to come there, but why do why do we we both have to be there?

And it's two hours long.

What is going on?

Everything in this world that fights for our time, and I'll tell you the part of my life that I hate the most is when I look at my son, when he asks me if we can spend some time together, when he asks me if we can go do something, and I say no, daddy doesn't have time.

Because sometimes when I say that, I really have something very pressing and urgent to do.

But most of the time when I say that, the answer is no, daddy doesn't have time.

When I should say no, daddy didn't make time.

Daddy said yes to a lot of other things that were way less important than you, and so I'm behind.

And I gotta play catch up, and that's gonna eat into our time together.

Because I filled my schedule to capacity, and I did not leave room or make room for what's most important.

I do that all the time.

As people, we have an unbelievable ability to fill ourselves to capacity, and what God is saying is if you leave room for me, if you will make room for me, I will fill you.

And I'll fill you with what you really need.

Because here's the thing Ben was right when he was talking about this earlier.

There are things we need more than food.

I guarantee you that all of us today know of a pressing need in our life.

There's something we are desperate for, and it probably isn't food today.

Again, if it is, we will help you.

We might need peace.

We may be completely out of peace.

There is a situation in our life, and we don't know what to do, and we can't stop worrying about it.

We can't stop thinking about it, and it's all we can do just to keep it together and put a smile on our face.

But inside there is no peace, and we need peace.

God has a lot of that, by the way.

If we'll leave room for Him to give it to us.

We might need wisdom.

We're in uncharted waters, we don't know what to do, but but God does.

We might need hope today.

We might just need to believe that it's gonna work out, that things are gonna be okay.

We might need strength, we might need endurance, we need something that God has.

And God is saying that if you will make room for me, I will fill you with what you really need.

That is the core of fasting.

It is making room for God to fill you.

Jesus was fasting in the desert before he was tempted by Satan, right after he was baptized.

The story is in Matthew chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Satan tries to get him to break the fast, and in Matthew 4, 4, Jesus says this people do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

This is essentially Jesus saying, Satan, I refuse to be a person who has a full stomach and an empty spirit.

I refuse.

So I will allow God to fill me.

And we have to understand that God's desire is for us to be full.

God does not delight in his children being without.

There's this religious idea of God that we've got to break completely in our minds that God is somehow pleased when we're lacking.

That God likes it when we have less.

It's not like God is asking people to fast.

Remember, he only asks people to fast once a year.

It's not like God is asking us to fast and saying, Oh, I'm so happy that they're all so hungry.

That warms my heart.

They're all hungry.

Not at all.

No, God wants us to be full.

He wants us to be filled.

And he will fill us to capacity.

The only question is, how much capacity are we going to leave for him to fill us?

As we wrap up, there's a story in 2 Kings chapter 4.

2 Kings 4 · chapter mention

It's a story of Elisha, a prophet in the Old Testament, and this widow comes to him.

It starts in verse 1.

One day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried out, My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he feared the Lord.

But now a creditor has come, threatening to take my two sons as slaves.

Well, what can I do to help you?

Elisha asked.

Tell me, what do you have in the house?

Nothing at all except a flask of olive oil.

And Elisha said, Well, borrow as many empty jars as you can from your friends and from your neighbors, then go into your house with your sons, shut the door behind you.

Pour olive oil from your flask into the jars, setting each one aside when it is filled.

So she did as she was told.

Her sons kept bringing jars to her, and she filled one after another.

Soon every container was full to the brim.

Bring me another jar, she said to one of her sons.

There aren't any more, he told her, and the olive oil stopped flowing.

When she told the man of God what had happened, he said to her, Now sell the olive oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on what is left over.

It's a great story about God's desire to fill.

What I love about it is that the only factor, the only factor that determined how much was filled, was how much room there was to fill in the first place.

Had there been a hundred more empty jars, she would have had a hundred more jars of olive oil, no doubt.

He filled every single jar to the brim, and then he filled the next one and the next one and the next one.

If we are people who make room in our lives for God, he will fill us.

He will fill us.

We will be filled.

So I want to ask something crazy.

Okay?

Don't feel bad if the answer is no.

Just so you know, fasting is hard.

I tried to fast five times this last week.

I almost fasted five times.

Okay.

Because the thing is, if you're doing it to do it, it just doesn't work.

I was fasting, I was like, well, I'm gonna talk about fasting, I should probably do that.

So Tuesday, I'm like, I'm gonna fast, five o'clock rolled around, no.

You know, I went out with uh with Ken Kington, I went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel while fasting, and I didn't eat a thing until after Cracker Barrel, and then I was like, I I no, I gotta eat.

So fasting's hard.

It's hard.

But but here's the thing God wants to fill you.

Whatever emptiness you deal with, God wants to fill it this week.

I don't know what it is, but God does.

You know it.

It's just between you and him, but God wants to fill it.

So I want to ask something crazy.

I want to ask you this week to consider.

Just consider it, no revolting.

Lunches in two minutes.

Fast one day this week.

I'm gonna do Thursday.

You can hold me to that.

And I'll be honest with you, maybe this is the easy way out.

Don't judge.

I'm gonna do the old school like sun up to sundown.

When the sun goes down, I'll probably be at Waffle House, okay?

You can find me there.

Join me.

We'll have a great meal at Waffle House.

Ah, this is awesome.

Just we'll forget about the health benefits.

Dan, Dan Foley, I see you over there.

I'm sorry.

Dan goes to the gym that I'm at, and Dan's always looking at me like, what are you doing?

Um I'm sorry, Dan.

I just want to be like you one day, but I'm I'm weak.

Uh but no, take a day.

I'm gonna do Thursday.

And and I know exactly what I want God to fill me with.

I know exactly what is lacking in my life, I know what I'm feeling empty with, and I need God to fill me.

And so Thursday, I'm gonna fast.

I am gonna fast from food.

And I'm gonna pray that day.

I'm gonna replace that time I would be eating, I'm gonna replace that time that I would be hanging out, having a meal with prayer, and just being reminded that I need God to fill me with something more than I need to eat.

And every time my stomach goes, What are you doing?

Feed me, I'm gonna go, you know what, I'm gonna pray.

This thank you, stomach, for reminding me to pray.

You don't have to fast from food.

You can fast from anything.

I'm just asking this week to have a day to pick one day and decide that today I am making room for God to fill me.

Make room for God, see what happens.

I believe he will fill you.

I believe you will find that you are stronger than you think you are.

Because I hear people say all the time, oh, I couldn't fast.

I can't go a day without eating.

You are so much stronger than you think you are.

But pick a day this week and make room for God.

If we make room for him, he will fill us and he will fill us to capacity.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Lord God, for being a God who fills.

Thank you, God, for being a God who does not want us to be empty.

You want us to be people who have full lives, who have full spirits, who have full minds, who have full bodies.

You want us to be to be filled.

God, help us.

Strengthen us to be people who recognize when we are filled to capacity in our schedules.

Help us to be people who recognize when there's some part of our life that is out of balance where we are just overbooked and we need to make room in our lives for you.

We want you to fill us this week, God.

We need you to.

We love you.

We ask all this in your name.

Amen.

Amen.