Sermon On The Mount: Fasting and Prayer

Hello, my name is Eric Seegan, and I am one of the pastors at the Village Church.

The following podcast is a ministry of the Village Church.

We hope that it inspires you, that it draws you closer to Jesus, and it opens your eyes to the possibilities of living in the kingdom.

Enjoy and God bless.

Father in heaven, thank you for today.

Um, thank you for the last few weeks, celebrations.

Jesus, as we come before you, I ask that you would give us um insight into the things that you're inviting us into, that you would give us courage, that you would give us hope, that we would hold tightly to your cross and the resurrection.

Holy Spirit, we just ask for your comfort um and your connected connect us together, give us insight into one another, help us to listen to one another, help give us wisdom and wise words.

We ask all of this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

So we are, as you can see on the screen, in the Sermon on the Mount.

Sermon on the Mount is chapter five of Matthew to chapter seven.

It's a collection of Jesus' sermons.

Maybe he preached them all at once.

For sure, he preached them all the time.

I suspect they were things he said over and over and over again.

Um, today we are in chapter six.

We're gonna look at verses five through eighteen, and you're gonna see a word repeated a few times, and that is reward.

This is the reward.

They receive the reward in full.

When we're talking about reward, we're talking about wages for something, what you got for doing something.

Okay, so that's just to keep that in your mind as we think about things.

Now, just a very quick reminder.

We've started this series saying, hey, we want to look at the Sermon on the Mount, these three chapters, with kind of the lenses of Hebrews 12, verse 2, and verses 13.

Hebrews 12:2

And I'm not gonna speak a lot about that and explain it all.

You can go back and listen to the other sermons.

All I want you to hold on to as we read the sermon on the mount, we are thinking, how am I fixing my eyes on Jesus?

How is this inviting me to fix my eyes on Jesus?

And then what am I being invited to get out of the pathway?

What kinds of obstructions am I being invited to get out so that I'm not tripping on my way to following Jesus and keeping my eyes on Jesus and other people around me aren't falling and tripping over that?

So we just have this idea of our lenses are fix our eyes on Jesus, make level the paths for our feet.

That's kind of how we're understanding the Sermon on the Mount.

So, today, the question I want to kind of work through a little bit is what reward are we looking for?

What's the thing that you're looking for?

Um, last week Daniel spoke about giving to the needy, and his passage starts at chapter 6, verse 1, by saying, Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others, just be seen by them.

Jesus is not saying, don't practice righteousness in front of people.

He's saying, why are you practicing righteousness in front of people?

What are the motivations for practicing righteousness?

If it is to be seen by other people, then it is ineffective.

But the reality is, and I say this over and over again, I feel like a broken record, but it's true, is that you and I are motivated by the ideas that we really want to be seen and we really want to be heard.

We want to be known.

This was kind of driven home to me on Monday.

Uh, my brother uh went in for hernia surgery, and because unbeknownst to the people giving him the surgery, he has a very low resting heart rate.

And it dropped super low, and they freaked out when they put him, just started to put him on the um, you know, put him to sleep.

What's the word for that?

Uh sedate him, yes.

He uh they freaked out and he ended up in the emergency room.

And so I was in the emergency room on Monday for like three hours while they tried to figure out things.

Um most of you don't know my brother, but my brother doesn't have any filters, and so he will just harass the nurses, he'll ask questions, he just he's he won't stop.

But as I'm sitting there listening to him and dealing with my own issues of sitting with my brother while he asks nurses stupid questions and makes them uncomfortable and harasses the doctors, I could tell underneath all of that he just wanted to be seen and heard.

He just wanted to know what the heck was going on, right?

And they don't know what's going on, they're trying to figure it out.

But in that moment, while I sat there for three hours, I was like, you know what, this is how most of us are most of the time, right?

We want to be seen and heard, and it motivates us to do the things that we do.

We want to be loved, we want to be cared for.

Today we're gonna look at, as you heard read already, prayer and fasting and how we posture ourselves in doing that.

And Jesus is gonna use two extremes.

The first extreme is this hypocrite that he's going to begin to talk about.

Now, you have to remember, as you've heard from Daniel and Mark, that the Sermon on the Mount has a number of audiences.

One of the audiences is the Pharisees.

The Pharisees are the people who are attempting to do everything as right as they possibly can because they believe that if they can get it all right, then Jesus, the Messiah will come.

And they have a group of them who like to do it in front of people so people can say, Oh, yeah, you're really religious.

So Jesus starts out by saying, and when, and that when is important, it's not saying if you pray, there's an assumption here.

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites.

Hypocrite literally means actor.

They love to pray standing in the synagogue and on the street corners to be seen by others.

Truly, I tell you, they have received the reward in full.

What he is saying is, is if you go out and you act and pray, and you're praying so everyone else can see you, right?

Then you get whatever adulation, whatever reputation, that's your reward in full.

That's what you get.

They saw you, that's all you get in that.

Now, he continues, and he says, Go into your room, close the door, and pray to your father who is unseen.

Then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

So if I go and I take my wife on a date, and I would encourage you, husbands, go take your wives on a date on a regular basis.

But if I go on a date with my wife and we go to a restaurant and I begin to ask her questions and really be pay attention to her and be attentive, not for her sake, but for the sake of all the people around me.

So they're like, oh man, look at that husband.

He's attentive, he's focused.

Right?

I've received, in fact, in my relationship with my wife, my reward in full, right?

Because it's not actually about her, it's about everybody else.

It's about me needing to be seen.

So there's no actual intimacy that happens between her and I.

Or whatever intimacy she received, she receives it from an actor, not from her husband.

Right?

This is the same thing with prayer.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't, I personally, and maybe this is just me, I do not spend a lot of time trying to perform in prayer.

I don't even like praying out loud with people, and I'm a pastor, right?

And I have to do it a lot.

So I'm not praying for you, right?

I pray to God and I hope that you guys are blessed in it.

So this is not necessarily like the prayer part of it isn't an issue for me.

But you know what?

There are tons of things in my spiritual life that I do a lot of times.

The motivation is so that other people be, oh yeah, he's a good pastor.

Right?

I'm broken, I'm fallible.

Like I will make choices to care about you so that you think I'm a good pastor, not because I actually care about you.

I admitted it, yes.

You can dock my pay, right?

I mean, but you do the same thing because I want to be seen as okay.

Right?

I want us to be seen as valuable.

And what Jesus says is no, no, no, go into a private space, a place you cannot be seen, and pray there.

Now we know praying is talking and listening to God, right?

We hear that over and over again up here.

It's go have an intimate relationship with God, not out in front of people performing for them.

I guarantee you that the relationship that I have with my wife when I sit with her and talk in our bedroom versus the one I have out at the restaurant, even when I'm focused on both on her and both spaces, the private one has an intimacy that the public one does not.

Right.

And the reward that Jesus that the Father will give us is that we have intimacy now, into the future, and forevermore.

Right?

It's not in full because it's continuing.

There's an intimacy.

So that's the first extreme.

He says, Don't be the actor, don't be the performer.

Actually be intentional about an intimate relationship.

And then he takes the other extreme, the pagans.

He says, Don't be like the pagans when you pray.

Do not keep on babbling like pagans.

They think they will be heard because of their many words.

So he goes from the very religious people to the people who are worshiping multiple gods outside of the Jewish community, and they, in their faith and their religion, are talking and talking and talking because they think that maybe they can get what they need or what they want.

And Jesus says, no, no, no, you don't need to do that because the Father knows what you need before you ask him.

What he is not saying is don't be persistent.

He's not saying, hey, ask God once, and then that's it.

He knows.

What he is trying to set up here is two things.

One, you do not have to be to perform to be seen by God.

He sees you.

Two, you do not have to manipulate God to be heard.

You do not need to perform to be seen, and you do not need to manipulate to be heard.

It does not mean that you you want your wife or you want your child to be healed.

You're one time, God, I'm gonna pray this.

No, like God wants to know your heart, He wants you to pour it out, He wants you to be present.

But the language you use does not its intention is not to manipulate God to get Him to do what you want.

He's what He's saying is when you pray, you don't have to perform and you don't have to manipulate, because He already knows and He sees you.

So he's setting up prayer for us, and then he jumps into the Lord's Prayer.

He says, Our Father.

So this then is how you should pray.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

It's a couple things I want you to know in the beginning of the Lord's Prayer.

First, you're told to go into your closet and pray our, not my.

Our father says, Hey, one, you belong to a bigger group that petitions God, and God is your father.

I need to maybe try to adjust this father thing for you a little bit.

If you've grown up in the church, you've heard like, oh, this is really a foreign thing to say to God.

It's not for a Jewish person.

He says it a lot in chapter six, and what he's saying, when he uses the word father, he is saying the one who has power to give mercy.

The one who has power to give mercy, the one who is in charge of everything.

That is what they mean when they say father.

That is what we mean when we say our father, the one who can give mercy.

It also means that we are children.

If you have a father, you are a child.

So when we say our father in heaven, hallowed be thy name, and hallowed, very, very, very, very special, also just means my dad can beat your dad up.

Like my dad's the best, right?

You're the best dad.

All right.

So it means that you belong.

It means that you belong.

So when you say our father in heaven, hallowed be thy name, they're being I belong to you, and I belong to a community.

And it says, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

I don't know if this is a popular parenting phrase anymore, but when I was parenting little kids and when I was a little kid, the phrase, because I said so, is a very popular phrase, right?

Because it is not my will.

Like my kid's will not does not run my family.

If the kid's will runs your family, you're in trouble.

Right?

Children follow the will and value system of the Father.

So when we pray, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are saying we belong to you, and we're not going to participate in our way, we're going to participate in your way.

I want your will to happen.

I want what you need to happen to happen.

I want your agenda, your kingdom to happen.

I'm your kid.

So I belong and I participate are the first two things that we end up praying.

And then he says, invites us to say, give us today our daily bread.

Even when you're in your closet in an intimate, individual relationship with God, you are praying communally and you're saying, give us today our daily bread.

Today, I was up early in the morning praying, and what I realized is that I rarely pray for my daily bread.

I pray for tomorrow's bread and the bread after that day, and the bread for you know six months down the road, and the bread for five years from now.

Because I'm pretty sure he's going to give me the daily bread today.

If not, I can get it.

I'm just not so sure about tomorrow.

And yet the Lord's Prayer reorients me and says, Oh no, no, you are dependent today, right now, in the moment, all of us are dependent.

Our dad, his agenda, we depend on him.

Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Forgiveness is one of the main pieces, and we'll talk a little bit about this in the kingdom of God.

If you live in a family without forgiveness, you live in a toxic family.

If you are unwilling to forgive one another, you're in a toxic family.

And in a family where children know that they're going to be forgiven and that forgiveness is part of the value system, there's a ton of relief.

Right?

Because they don't have to hide things, they don't have to be secretive about things.

Because they know forgiveness exists within the family.

The reorientation of the Lord's Prayer is that there's a relief.

Oh, I'm forgiven and I forgive.

Like there's this value system that we're given when we pray this, it's reorienting us in that.

So we are a family of forgiveness.

And then it says, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

And temptation is more in the context of trials and hardships.

So and lead us not into trials and hardships, but deliver us from the evil one.

Again, growing up in a family, hopefully, you can trust mom and dad not to lead you into places.

And when things get hard to deliver you.

In the family of God, when we pray the Lord's Prayer, we're saying, I trust you, I'm dependent on you, I am walking in the way of forgiveness.

Your agenda is my agenda.

I belong to you.

This is this reorienting thing.

And so we're invited to trust.

Here's what I'm trying to get at praying the Lord's Prayer is an invitation to reorient to being God's kid.

When you and I pray the Lord's Prayer, it reminds us that we belong to a father, we're a kid, that we have a value system and a direction that we participate in.

We know who we depend on, we know there's relief in forgiveness, and we're invited to trust God.

We're invited to be a kid.

We're invited to be a kid.

And then after the Lord's prayer, he goes right back to forgiveness.

If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive others, their sins, your father will not forgive your sins.

Now we have to be careful when we read the Sermon on the Mount to know that Jesus is getting at some things and he's not always setting out doctrinal things.

We know that on the cross we are forgiven.

And yet here Jesus is saying if you don't forgive, you're not going to be forgiven.

I want to kind of parse this out for you because it's really important.

We are people, when someone hurts us, we want our pain acknowledged and we want justice.

Now there are different cultural modalities.

So what do I mean by that?

In Jesus' time, the major one was shame and honor.

In our culture, truth and consequence, truth and justice are the highest value, right?

No, you'd say, ah, no, that's not true.

My truth and your consequence is the value system with which we live in, right?

If you hurt me, you should pay.

There should be a consequence.

Justice needs to happen.

We have become a culture of outrage, right?

Our own personal outrage and corporate outrage.

It's not any different in Jesus' time.

So when Jesus says, if you don't forgive, you won't be forgiven.

He's trying to get at something.

Now, I have written and spoken on the Lord's Prayer a ton.

And I thought it would be easier to read to you what I think Jesus is doing from things I've said than try to explain it to you.

So if you would just enjoy for a moment me reading a little of what I have said.

In the first century, people understood the crushing weight of debt.

Owing someone could cost you your freedom and a from a for a lifetime.

When Jesus teaches us to pray, forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors, he is talking about releasing the burden of sin, both the burden we carry and the burden we place on others.

Forgiveness is the sinew, the connectedness of community.

It is me giving up the demand that you pay for what you did.

I lift the burden of your sin from you, releasing my expectation that you somehow have to make things right with me.

This doesn't mean allowing someone who has abused you to do it again.

You can forgive and still establish boundaries.

Forgiveness means recognizing that I am not the one who gets to declare you will pay for this.

Healthy communities are built on people who refuse to hold one another hostage to their failures.

We release the burden of punishment because we understand what it means to have our own debt forgiven.

When Jesus says that you will not be forgiven by your heavenly father if you do not forgive, what he is saying is you don't get it.

And if you do not get it, you will not experience forgiveness.

Paul tries to ferret this out a little bit.

In Ephesians chapter 4, verse 30, he says, And you do not and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Ephesians 4:30

Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander along with every form of malice.

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.

How do I get rid of bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, and slander, which is acts of unforgiveness?

They are all acts of unforgiveness.

How do I do it?

Well, I'm kind and compassionate, but the key to being kind and compassionate is forgiving each other as in Christ God forgave you.

The invitation that Jesus is beginning to move us to is that we have to be a community marked by forgiveness.

But the only way that I can be marked by forgiveness is to act out of the forgiveness I've received in Christ.

The invitation is for me to fully rest in my own forgiveness, understanding the debt that's been lifted, because then I can offer you kindness and compassion.

I can forgive you.

I and forgiving doesn't mean, oh, hurt me again.

Like I said, boundaries are important.

But forgiveness says, I don't get to punish you.

I don't get to man demand that you pay for this.

Right?

That's not in my hands, that's in God's.

And speaking of grace in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 15, the writer says, see to it that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

Hebrews 12:15

In a community where there is no forgiveness and we do not act on the forgiveness given to us through Christ, we become a bitter people who have huge narratives in our head of how to punish people and what should be done and why it should be done.

So let me ask you the simple question: what are you holding on to?

Forgiveness is releasing our demand for repayment.

Who in your life do you think, in the larger world or in your personal relationships, needs to pay for what they've done?

And you'd like to make them pay.

Maybe it's minor, maybe it's major.

And so you're withholding relationship in some form or another.

So why does Jesus say, here's prayer and then forgiveness, and then fasting?

Why did they put those together?

Why did Matthew put those together this way?

I think that fasting actually helps me learn to forgive.

Because I think fasting is simply releasing our dependence for immediate satisfaction.

I have not read John Mark Comer's new book on noise because it's just come out, but I did listen to an interview with him where he talked about the beginning of his book.

And in the opening of his book, he talks about a 21-day fast that he goes on.

Now, it's not a 21-day food fast.

He goes out to this place where he has a person who's going to serve him for these 21 days.

And he is not allowed to bring a book.

He's not allowed to bring a notebook, a pencil.

He cannot bring his phone.

He can't bring a computer, no electronics, limited amount of clothing.

He's not allowed to exercise.

Not allowed to bring his Bible if he thinks it will be an idol.

And he's stuck for 21 days with three hours of intensive counseling.

Now that's an intense fast.

A fast that I don't even know if I want to do.

But the point in talking about that was that every person who goes into major ministry in the Bible spends time in the desert, and the desert takes things from you.

As we all know, as the people who live in the desert, right?

It takes things from you.

And the only way that you can begin to care for other people, I would argue to you, is to be a person who is actually willing to fast, willing to let go of something that you think is essential so that you can go spend time with God.

Because part of forgiveness is letting go of your power.

Because if I forgive you, I can no longer have a narrative about you about how you need to pay or how you need to think differently or how you need to act differently or how you need to figure it out.

I don't get to have that narrative anymore.

I let go of my power.

Forgiveness is a form of fasting because it is a releasing of power.

We're invited to actually practice fasting because Jesus says, when, not if.

When you fast, and again he goes through this process.

Do not look somber as the hypocrites do, as the actors.

Don't act as a faster.

So everyone says, Oh, that's a faster.

Look normal.

He says, but when you fast, put oil on your head.

You don't have to do any of this.

Um wash your face, but I don't know about the oil.

That's how they kept their hair.

And wash your face so that it 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.

Again, I have learned in significant relationships that I have with people that when I give up something important to me to spend time with them, I enjoy them and they enjoy me immensely.

But when I have a demand that I get to do the things that I want to do all the time and don't make space for them, I don't have an intimate relationship with them.

If you want to be someone who lives a life of forgiveness, you have to be someone who's willing to fast.

It's that simple.

Here's the point.

The father knows you.

The practice of prayer and fasting teaches us to see him.

This is a much more profound point than maybe you think.

Most of the time, when I try to have conversations with you guys and I try to answer this question, what is your relationship with God like?

People look at me dumbfounded.

And I look at myself dumbfounded.

It's hard to talk about what our relationship with God is like if we do not actually spend time with Him.

Not trying to guilt you.

I'm just trying to say that in any relationship, if you want to have a good one, you have to have ritual and liturgy.

A good marriage is not spontaneous.

Sorry, if you think it is, it's not.

You are you are fooled.

A good relationship is not spontaneous.

It has ritual in it, which allows for spontaneity.

It has habits and practices which allow for spontaneity.

If you do not have the habits and practices, you will not have a good relationship.

If you have the habits and practices, you will begin to see where Jesus is in your life.

All right.

That's some applications.

And here's the thing.

I'm not asking you guys, I'm not trying to guilt you.

So if you're like, oh man, now I feel ashamed.

I'm not trying to shame you in any way.

I'm just saying, hey, here's the reality.

Let's kind of take a step forward in things.

So where are my eyes fixed?

Where are I sticks?

And what stones am I leaving in the past?

That's our lens.

So let me just walk through a couple things to kind of invite you in, and then we'll have a conversation.

First, as I talked already, how would I, you, describe your relationship with God?

I would challenge you today when you sit at one of the picnic tables out there.

I would invite you, challenge you to say, hey, what's your relationship with God like?

And help one another describe it, talk about it, give it language together.

That's an easy way to begin to fix your eyes on Jesus.

Is there someone you need to forgive that you haven't forgiven?

Are you willing to fast?

Try it for five minutes.

I don't know.

Try it for ten minutes.

Go an hour without your phone.

Try a fast.

Try just begin something.

Are you willing to read the Lord's Prayer every day this week?

And just think through what it means to be a kid in the kingdom of God.

What will you set aside this week to make space for God?

These are just some things I want you to think about.

Process.

All right.

I'm gonna be a good person.

We have 10 minutes only, maybe?

No, yeah, 17.

I put it at 17.

So I get 10 minutes.

So if you got questions, if not, we'll we'll end early and it'll be great.

So on the fasting part, I was thinking about I had done some fasting.

Is this turned on?

Yeah, it needs to be a little louder, but yeah, so there we go.

I had done some fasting and praying for some things, and those things have happened, and I was thinking, okay, my usual, like I kind of had a rhythm.

Would it be weird to like would it be weird to do like a celebration day where I eat good things all day, and every time I eat good things I say thank you, God for that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, yeah.

When we go into the room and close the door and then pray in the plural, does that then create um a prayer also on behalf of all of my brothers and sisters in Christ?

Yeah, no, I like that.

It's good.

Yes.

Um but uh all this is is seems more of the counterculture stuff that Jesus continuously threw at the people.

Um would you tend to classify the things that you talked about as as internal to believers, internal to the body of Christ, or is it something that we really ought to be exporting uh to our culture at large?

Well, I I would say that yes, first, it is something that we as community and a community should practice because it will make us very, as you said, counter-cultural to be people of forgiveness.

Um, and it will knit us together in some remarkable ways.

I I would hope that that is what we're exporting.

I'm hoping that that is what the gospel is, is that the gospel is um the invitation for people to both accept the forgiveness of Christ and be agents of forgiveness in the world, which means that we begin to be people who give up the demand for our execution of justice.

Which is hard.

I honestly confess that at my age and stage in life, I often I say in a joking manner, I know best.

But who's listening?

I mean, I know best.

What I'm taking away from this today for me is I I need to repent of that, even though I I make a joke of it.

I don't know best, and I need to start saying your will be done, Jesus.

So that really, really cut to my heart today.

Yeah, thank thank you, Eric, for walking us through the the correlation between fasting and forgiveness.

And it's it's just two forms of dependence and looking to God for for him to step in and be enough in those in the places where you really in the physical sense with fasting where you really don't need sustenance, uh that he would come and fill you with that.

And then in the form of the demand and desire for justice to really and with forgiveness to be able to look to him at some point to do that, but you may never experience that and this side of heaven, but that God is enough, and it's that idea that God is enough, he's your portion.

So I've never thought about that.

Thank you.

So I've said because I said so a few times.

Um like I think three times or something, like really just a few.

And those moments are interesting when I when it comes up.

And I just this can so essentially I started explaining because I see the full picture and I understand what needs to happen, and you don't get that.

Like you just and so I appreciate you bringing that up because it makes me think about how I am my kid in my relationship with God, and yeah, I don't see the full picture.

So just agreeing with what people are saying, and I think it helps frame the dependence required in a new way.

So yeah.

Thank you.

I'm really struck in listening to this today, uh, with the poetry of how the unseen God sees us in the moments when we make ourselves unseen.

It's really beautiful.

That's gorgeous.

Thanks.

I have a thought that's maybe kind of a counter and a balance to this, and I'm curious kind of how you think about it.

Like there's the whole social justice movement.

And um I think that in my experience, I think there's ways where maybe the church has failed in not exercising justice, God's justice in situations.

And I would maybe say that there's a place for the body of Christ to stand with God's heart on some things where people haven't been treated well or have been exploited or abused in different situations.

And the church comes alongside and says, we don't have this all figured out, we need to forgive the perpetrator, but also we want to stand with God's heart to come around the person who's been mistreated and stand with them, you know.

So I just I'm curious kind of how you think about that, um, not to contradict what you're saying, but maybe as kind of the the other side of it.

Yeah, and I think I think what happens when when we as a people actually do practice forgiveness on an individual, like as a communal in a community, in a Christian community, um, we then actually become a people, hopefully, who are constantly standing with people who are abused.

And but what while we're doing that, we're also saying, though what they're doing is wrong, they are they're three-dimensional God image-bearing people.

You know, Car Timbaum tells that a story about, you know, when she after the war was over and she's preaching at it or talking at a church, and after the service, a German soldier comes up to to talk to her, and he's become a Christian and basically asks her, he says, I know I'm forgiven.

Will you forgive me?

And she's, you know, she even says in the story, like the only person who actually shook his hand was Jesus, because I couldn't do it.

And so, yeah, I think we we are thrust into time in a time and space where we are called to be people who stand with the oppressed, um, and to call justice, ask ask for justice, plead for justice.

But I would say that it doesn't mean then that I take up sword and violence and begin to go kill people who kill people.

Like I have like whatever it, you know, like there is a way that the of Jesus people as we step into things, yeah.

But yeah, I I definitely agree with you in that.

I probably have time for one question.

Yes, Aaron, and then we'll close with you, Aaron.

I think I've seen that um that formula of prayer and fasting uh somewhere in one of the gospels, I think it was some man was possessed and uh they were they were trying to like I guess exercises out of him and I think when they were like, well, why why why couldn't we do this?

We did it in in Jesus' name, I think.

And then Jesus said oh well this one requires prayer and fasting.

I just I don't know.

I just thought it was interesting, like that formula being used or being brought up again.

Yeah, no, there is there's power in that.

Yeah, thank you, Aaron.

Let's pray, guys.

Father in heaven, thank you for this community, for their questions, for their thoughts.

Um, I just pray that as we um spend time singing and um taking communion and eating together, that you would continue to massage all of this into our hearts and minds and souls and challenge us um to follow you and to care for each other.

Um, and ask that in your holy name, Jesus.

Amen.