Sermon transcript:Thank you so much for just hanging with us in this series. And as I hope it's been joyful, hopeful, I know somewhat, maybe even painful at times. But we're kind of coming out of that I think it's important that we realize just that the language of fatherhood is all throughout the scriptures, specifically when it talks about our relationship with God, and the Gospel. And so this is week four, we'll finish up next week on week five. But when we start out, we kind of introduced this concept and made sure we sort of hit the the highlights of why this is such an important thing, you can always go back and listen to this. Second week, we looked at fatherhood issues. So we began to really kind of cut open our own hearts and expose some of our wounds. Last week, we really looked at that idea that when there are gaps in our relationship, because we just have some space, not only in our earthly relationships, but in our heavenly relationship with our Heavenly Father, that it creates problems. For us personally, professionally, all kinds of different ways you don't hear anything else out of this whole series is just that whole idea that we have gaps. We all have different ones. Even if we had a good dads, none of us had perfect Fathers earthly fathers that is. And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to say, okay, maybe whatever we had, as much as we can corporately, can we close that gap? Can we can we come to some conclusions in the scriptures that help us as we move along in this life, understanding that we're to relate to God as Father Are there ways in which we can move towards health and hopefully we'll experience some of that today. And again, next week, and maybe you've already experienced some of that. We're gonna look at one gospel today. From the Gospel of Matthew, as I've already said, if you just did a word search of the word, father, and how much Jesus has us, talking to our Father in heaven, I mean, the Gospels is just all over. And, you know, I don't check me on this, but I'm pretty sure that more than any other word in the gospels, it's just this whole idea of father. So we're going to begin in Matthew chapter six today, Matthew chapter six. This is in the middle of what's often referred to as the Sermon on the Mount, very famous passage, you're going to see the Lord's Prayer sort of brought out in this passage. But again, because we're in a fatherhood series, I want us to note how often Jesus calls us to address God as Father. So this is Matthew chapter six, beginning in verse one, watch out. Don't do your good deeds publicly to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven. When you give to someone in need. Don't do it as the hypocrites do. blowing trumpets in the synagogues and the streets to call attention to their acts of charity. I tell you the truth they have received, all the reward they will ever get. But when you give to someone in need, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Give your gifts in private and your Father who sees everything will reward you. When you pray. Don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners. And in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth and that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private then your Father who sees everything will reward you when you pray. Don't babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating the words again and again. Don't be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him pray like this. Our Father in heaven May your name be kept holy May Your kingdom come soon may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need and forgive us our sins. And we have forgiven those who sinned against us as we have forgiven those who sinned against us. And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, Your Father will not forgive your sins. And when you fast, don't make it obvious that the hypocrites do for they try to look miserable and disabled. 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 wash your face, then no one will notice that you are fasting except your father who knows what you do in private and your Father who sees everything well, what will reward you. I know a long passage, there's some familiarity, maybe some new concepts, new phrases you haven't ever heard before, or thought about before. But one of the things I want us to see right from the get go is when we think about certain things that are brought up in here, whether it's charitable giving or the idea of prayer and then really ending up on fasting. It may have brought up something that was repeated if you notice it In the text over and over again, and that is that we do these acts of faith for the reward. Have you ever thought about that before?Sometimes we say, well, I'll just do it, you know, because and you know if you know if God rewards me great, if not, that's not why I do it. And we have to understand that's not what Christianity and Christian faith is, in fact, we'll get later on to a book called Hebrews. And it is very clear that what it means even have Christian faith is the belief that God is and that He is a rewarder. That is the that is what necessitates faith, leaving. It's very honest in the scriptures that if all of this is fake, or not real, or God doesn't exist, and Jesus wasn't Lord, and he didn't really come and raising the dead, and forgive us for our sins, then we should be pity most of all, when you and I give of our time of our finances, of our love, in spite of people not maybe returning that we're doing that as an act of faith, knowing that our what our heavenly Father will reward us, as we brought up before this whole context of why we want to think about God in fatherhood terms, not only is it true that this is how He reveals Himself to us in the scriptures, oftentimes, but it's so that we can worship so that we can know the true God. And when we have gaps, right, we have space, in our relationship with our Heavenly Father, we have to ask ourselves, where's my heart? Where's my worship? If I don't feel like worshiping? Why is that that should be as believers as Christians, that should be red flags to our relationship with Him, and how do we bridge that gap? One of the ways is, of course, fasting. But before we get to that, I want us to see the first point that you may not have thought about until I started articulating it in this passage, and that is that daddy is going to reward us, dad, he's going to reward us. And we've thought about this in terms of our own earthly lives as well. I mean, how many of y'all, you know, sort of gritted through and you know, did those good grades or achieved that act in sports, or, you know, went on a job that you didn't feel like doing because your dad or your parents said, Hey, if you do this, I'll reward you, I'll give you you know, so many dollars for every day, or I'll make sure if you go out and work today, and do this, I will take you for ice cream afterwards. And you were quite honest, when you were a 6789 10, maybe 18 year old kid, I'm not doing this because I love it. I'm doing this because I know that my daddy or my parent will reward me. And in the same way, that's how we are to understand faith, it takes faith because you don't get it until you what to you walk through whatever it is your earthly parents had for you. And a lot of times, we don't see the fruit of the results that we have here on Earth, living a life of faith until what until we again partake with Christ at the Last Supper at the one that is to come. But I want to don't want to overlook this concept of fasting, it's going to be important to our discussion today. In terms of intimacy with our father and worship of our Father, what is fasting? Fasting is that whole idea of saying to God, man, I want you I'm going to do without something, I'm going to deny something of my flesh, because I want to know you, God, my Father in Heaven more. It's about a relationship. Now, again, it's not about why we often fast sometimes we fast because we're too busy. We're working through lunch. If you've had those kinds of fasts before, sometimes you fast because your nutritionist or your doctor says you need to go on some sort of cleanse, some sort of juice cleanse, like you got a lot of bad stuff in your system. So you need to go through a fast, those may only be legitimate fast at certain points in periods of your life. I'm talking about a spiritual fast. Again, people outside of Judaism and Christianity fast. You've heard of Gandhi, fasting, maybe for political reasons. But what we're talking about what Jesus is talking about is denial of the flesh for a spiritual purpose for a higher purpose. It's not political. It's not to get your way on Earth right now. Sometimes we'll try to make exchanges with God, God, look how much I sacrifice for you so that you'll give me this, I've done this Lord, I've I've denied myself this. Now God, you owe me this. We might not say it out loud that way. But that's how we functionally think about it and operate. That's not what fasting is. Fasting is a desperation to have our Father, to have guidance from our father. That's why he teaches us to pray this Lord's prayer here in a minute. It's the idea that we not only take food, it could be food, but we take anything that we are recognizing or God reveals to us individually, is a hindrance is something that's blocking that relationship between us and God or maybe not blocking it completely, but diluting it or not able to see clearly and again, this is how fasting was you If you even think about it in the best sense of the Old Testament saints, I think about this in terms of Esther, when she knew she had to go into the king and the king had the ability to kill her for the requests that she was going to make. And so what does she do? She calls her maid servants around, she says, I'm gonna fast you fast for three days, and then I'll go into the king, because why? Why is she fasting here, she needs God. Like she needs him. She needs his favor his to beat him the Spirit of God to be the wind in her sails as she moves forward, and whatever it is she has to do. And that's oftentimes how we need to think about fasting as well. This isn't the only time fasting is discussed in the scriptures, I want to show you another passage that is going to teach us about fasting and again, you might be called to fast from your phone, you might be called to fast from anything. Oftentimes, it's something though that is directly related to our flesh, and oftentimes it is food. One day the disciples of John the Baptists. So we know John, let me just set the scene here. We know John the Baptist is he is that precursor to Christ. He is the one that comes to prepare the way. John the Baptist came to Jesus, the disciples came to Jesus of John the Baptist, and asked him why don't your disciples house like we do in the Pharisees do so what they're claiming is, okay, these, these sort of disciples of John the Baptist fast and the Pharisees, they fast, why don't you? And why don't your disciples fast? Jesus replied, Do wedding guests mourn? While celebrating with the groom? Of course not. Right? So this is very obvious. None of us have ever been to a wedding, where we're told, okay, now we're just going to deny all of you food. All right, we don't do that none of us ever been to a party, where there's nothing that served, if you ever show up to a party, and they say, no food is available here, get up and walk out. That's not a party. I don't know what that is. That's a gathering of some people who are hoping for something I don't know what it is. But it's not a party. Because when there's a party, you got food in volved. And it says, Do wedding guests more and more sobering with the grim Of course they don't. But Sunday, there will be taken from them. Go back just one passage, I didn't get the whole phrase there. But someday that will be taken from them. And then they will fast. Doing good Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth for the new patch would shrink and whip away from rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before and no one puts new wine into old wineskins for the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins new wine as sort of new wineskinsso that both are preserved? What he's basically saying is that the old ways of doing things that are not going to work, this is entirely new, just like when Jesus came in, he established a new covenant. He uses every day earthly language, to help them understand that there is something different going on here. When Jesus is with us, okay, and he was with us for 33 years, really three years in terms of ministry with his followers at that time, and when he was raised from the dead, he was visually seen by hundreds and hundreds of witnesses. We know it's all true. We know he was with us, but it was just a short season a short time. And what he's saying is when he's with us, he represents a new kingdom, a different kingdom, a new mindset. And he's saying, why on earth while I'm here, would you fast and long for God? Because God in the flesh is right? In You mean right in your presence? You don't have to. But he doesn't do away with the fast what does he say? He says, Sunday, the bridegroom, ie himself, he's talking about himself will be taken. And then you'll fast but why would you fast is the same thing I introduced from the earlier passage in Matthew, it's that whole idea that this much Oh, God, I want you I want my relationship with my father in heaven, to be heightened, to go to another level. And so therefore, I will deny myself for a season nobody's calling anybody to fast forever, then you die, right? That is starvation. We're talking about denying yourself something that may even be good for a time for a season. So that you can want have a spiritual purpose, pursue your relationships with God. Now he uses his illustration about, you know, patches and clothing and patches and wineskin. What I love about Jesus is he's taking things that they would have seen and understood, and he's saying, think about the ridiculousness of this. Okay, so they would have understood that back then they would have put wine in some sort of animal leather, it would have been easy for that to do, but you wouldn't have reused that old leather for new wine because it would just busts open because leather dries and cracks and that kind of thing. It's just like I could use an illustration that may seem kind of silly, but we get the point. How many of y'all grew up in a household where when you had a bag that too Good chips, okay, and it got down to the crumbs. How many of y'all had a mother's only the mother was my mother. And she would take those crumbs. If you tried to open a new bag of chips, she would pour those crumbs on top of the new bags. Okay? Because she was trying to what she was trying to say, those are still good chips. And I want you to eat those hours, you know? And I would I, you would I would not eat him, I would I would shake it. And then that would the crumbs go to the bottom, and I would eat the good chips on top. And eventually, it would get just way down to nothing but crumbs, and I would toss them. And it was awful, because you would take good chips, and then you would have another chip and it would be stale. Okay. So that was just ridiculous. It's like putting stinky clothes with your folded clean ones who in this room takes their old sweaty stinky clothes that they got from the gym that are wadded up and combines them in even the same vicinity with your clean, fresh tide with little bubbles on top. No, none of us do. Why? Because we would see the ridiculousness of that. And that's what he's saying. He's saying, Don't Don't think about this in some sort of old way. Don't think about this in terms of, well, we're still we're still fasting for, oh, you know, maybe a Savior will come? He's like, No, I'm here. But when I go, when the bridegroom is no longer with you, then you better think about fasting, at least my second point, he says when Jesus is not around us in bodily form, His followers fast. And now some of y'all are thinking around there. Wait a second, whoa, I don't do this. I've never heard I maybe I have heard of this before. But this isn't like fun. This is an exciting. You've already read a passage that even if I'm called too fast that, you know, I can't really tell anybody, I can't make a show of it. It's supposed to be secret. It's supposed to be private. Why on earth? Would I do all this. And what it does is it helps us in our spiritual muscle. We've all already admitted that we have gaps in our relationship with our Father in heaven. If we want to close some of those gaps, what we have to do is we have to voluntarily shake loose some of those things that are still lingering in our hearts, about attachment to this world because we live for another world. That's what the faith based community does. We don't fast all the time. But we have to find out. Are there times individually and even corporately as a church that we're called to fast. And I when I look at the Scriptures, the answer is a resounding yes, of course there is times. And you know, there's all kinds of other things you can come up with to say, Wait, my doctor says I have to always have at least a little bit of crackers or juice, I get that. And that may be that may be you and that but I get that or I'm a diabetic. I understand all that. But are there ways that you and I can deny our flesh? In order to ask God God? What in the world do you have for me? Because you're really shaking my world, God. I mean, you're really exposing some things, not only and maybe what I'm communicating up here on stage, but your own private, quiet time or with friends or wavey out in the community, and what God is trying to say to us, maybe you ought to consider fasting because my followers, when Jesus is not here on the flesh, they fast from time to time, you're still not convinced I want to show you how just how much strength that we need in order to do maybe what God's called us to do. Jesus tells a story in Matthew 17, beginning of verse 14, he talks about this right here. He says, at the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and now before Jesus, and Jesus said, this is the quotations. He says the Lord, have mercy on my son, he has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn't heal him. Now this is bad, right? Some of y'all think I've often thought this Come on, I've often thought this man, I would be a stellar Christian, or I would really believe or it would be really great if I could hang out with Jesus, because then I can know I've always got Jesus with me. So therefore I know that wherever I go, and whatever I do, I wouldn't have the power to do it. Because I've always got the man with me in right here. So people are coming to Jesus and saying, I don't know what's going on Jesus, but your followers, they couldn't do it. And Jesus said, You faithless and corrupt people. Now wait a second. If you were with Jesus, you had to hear those words like whoa, I want to go back in time and I want to hang out with Jesus, but I don't want him talking to me like this. I don't want to be around when he says these kinds of things. I'd like to you know, avoid that. How long must I be with you or put up with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me. Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well so again, we understand what he's doing here, Jesus, he's performing what oftentimes we sometimes call an exorcism, which is just the whole idea that he is rebuking a demonic spirit so that would leave this poor boy, this poor child alone. afterward the disciples asked Jesus, why couldn't we cast out that demon? You don't have enough faith? Wait a second, I can I can hear them in the back of their head and like their mind be like, no, no, I got faith. I go to church. I know you, Jesus, we believe you're the Son of God like me and you, God, we're good Jesus. Yeah, no, your God, and we're good, right? What did I already say about what is faith essence of faith is that believing not only that God is but that he's a rewarder, that he can do what he said he's going to do. And Jesus told them, I tell you the truth, if you had faith, like I'm talking about Jesus saying, if you have faith, like I'm talking about, even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain move from here to there, and it would move for nothing would be impossible. older texts, older versions, go into verse 21. And it says, this kind does not come out. But by prayer and fasting. The reasons why it's not included today, up here in this text, is that they think that was a later addition that the scribes sort of wrote, that kind of thing. But that's not to lessen the impact of the Word of God. It's just to say that a lot of times in biblical study, they always go with the older translations, the older manuscripts. But this idea, I think, is in there, because we've already talked about that this idea of faith is how can I have more of you, God, I want more of you. And I'm telling you, the way we can have more of God individually and corporately is to deny ourselves some earthly pleasures now, because we say this much, oh, God, I want you. And that's what he's talking about here. So third point I want us to see here is we pray, and we fast, and we exercise our faith. So we're ready. This is so important, we think about our spiritual walk,because so many times, so many times when difficult situations come personally or in your family, or in your job or your workforce, or even within our church at large. We don't have the power. We don't have the power. It's like we're shooting a blank gun. It's like we're shooting a gun with no bullets in it. You ever thought about that? Sometimes, in your in your home life or in your spiritual battles, whatever it is, you're going through personally, you're thinking, Oh, my gosh, this is too difficult. I can't figure it out. Or it seems like whatever I'm doing is not working. And you say, Yeah, that's right. Whatever you're doing is not working. Because you and I are shooting blanks. We've got to go back and ask ourselves, why are we praying? Why are we fasting? Why are we exercising our faith so that we're ready, I know that about a third of y'all in the room, have government contracts, whether you're with police, or whether you're with military or border patrol are all these Homeland Security, all the things and I know how they train you, they train you over and over and over again, with your weapons with your bullets. So that one day when it happens, and I don't know how many hours that you end up training, as opposed to hours on the field, but it's a lot more training than when it's on the field. It's the same way in the Christian life. You and I are meant to exercise our faith. That's why he's saying, listen, people, listen, followers is what Jesus saying. Let's say if you just had a little faith, a little bit, and just a little bit like a mustard seed, you can say from this mountain, this mountain would move and they would move. That only happens for us if we want to see great things that God does in our life and the life of those around us. Church, we just have to be prepared. We have to in times that aren't crazy and chaotic. We have to get ourselves ready. Am I right, though? That's a question because that that verse that I sort of shared with you as a sideline, verse 21, that wasn't in the oldest manuscripts, am I right? To connect spiritual vitality to fasting? Because that's really the question here, because this is a series about fatherhood. And one of the things I'm proposing today on this series on this day on this sermon is that if we want to increase our spiritual vitality, our spiritual life, one of the ways that we can do that is through fasting, am I right to make that connection? Because you if you wisely saw what I've done today is I've shown you something on the book of Matthew, But fatherhood was really talked about a lot there. Then fasting was talked about, of course, when Jesus leaves now we're talking about the faith of the disciples or the lack thereof in order to be able to exercise this discipline. Is there still a connection between spiritual vitality and fasting? I think so. So we'll share one last story with you from the book of Matthew strayed from really the experience of Jesus. Matthew chapter four, beginning in verse one, all this is in Matthew, you can find it very easily. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. For 40 days and 40 nights he fasted and became very hungry. First thing a couple things I want you to see in this first sentence here. Who led Jesus to the spirit Who? The Jesus to the wilderness? I get my answer, sorry, Jesus through the wilderness, the very spirit of God. Like we often think, Wait a second, I didn't sign up for this junky job. I didn't sign up for this crappy marriage. I didn't sign up for whatever it is. I didn't sign up to be in El Paso, Texas in 2024. What in the world am I doing here? And what it's saying here is God leads his people. The very spirit of God leads us sometimes into a wilderness. Not always, but he does at certain times, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. And then he's like, wait a second, I don't want the devil messing with me. I don't want the devil messing with my family, making things heightened heated in my workplace. He's saying he was like, to the wilderness, and there he was tempted by the devil. And in that time, what was he doing? Was Jesus just playing ball? Was he just kind of, you know, kicking the can was? Was he doing these kinds of things? Now, what was he doing for 40 days and 40 Nights? He was fasting. Now that would be the opposite of what you and I would think, because you and I would think if we're in a difficult situation, if we're in some wilderness, or wandering time, wandering years, wandering months, I need to make sure that, you know, I'm taking care of I need to make sure I get my kittens while the getting's good, because I don't know what's around the corner. And what Jesus did was he made his flesh extremely, extremely weak. And it is possible, you can read medical journals on this, it is possible to fast for 30 days, and even up to 40, at about 30 to 40 days. It has some really detrimental effects on your health, but it can be done humanly speaking. And so that's what Jesus was doing is in his flesh. He was getting ready for this temptation. Let's see what happens. During that time the devil came and said to him, if you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread. But Jesus told him, No. The scriptures say, people do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, then the devil took him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the temple and said, If you are the Son of God, jump off. For the scripture say he will orders angels to protect you, and they will hold you up with their hands, she won't even hurt your foot on a stone. But Jesus responded, the scriptures also say, You must not test the Lord your God. Next, the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain, and showed him the kingdoms of the world. And their glory, I will give it all to you. He said, If you will kneel down and worship me, get out of here, Satan, Jesus told him, for the Scriptures say, you must worship the Lord your God and serve him only then the devil went away, and the angels came and took care of or ministered to Jesus a lot there. And a lot of things to think about in terms of our own life and spiritual vitality. But I just want to throw up here, just this concept, this is my last sort of slide I want you to see this morning. And that is that the way in which Jesus is tempted and the way in which Jesus would have struggled in his flesh and his humaneness, he's 100%, God and 100% man is the same that is broader to the human struggle, since the dawn of time. What is that? Number one, just that desires of the flesh? And all that that includes right? Not just not just food, but any sort of temptation that we might be faced with? That is just feeding the flesh? What's the second one out there? Is that lack of trust in God? That's what he does when he's saying that, hey, why don't you just go up there and throw yourself off of this roof that would prove there's really a God, right? You may have run across this when you have antagonistic conversations with your uncle or your aunt at the dinner table or at your next party and say, Oh, God really exists. Why did he do this? So and So listen, listen, listen. Whenever we say we need proof, we need some sort of fleece. We need something to let us know that God really is who He says He is beyond what he's already showed us. In his word, we're showing a lack of trust in God. We're showing that not only in a big sense of coming to Christ, but in anytime we're walking with God, and we're realizing I'm just really not trusting Him. Because I'm still just holding on to whatever that is. That's another temptation. There lack of trust, we need proof. The third and final one is just a temptation towards worldly power, and success. See how what what the devil tempts Jesus was and what the devil tempts you and I with it hasn't changed since the dawn of time. If you don't like those sort of categories, you'd like to think about them in terms of another category. You guys know the seven deadly sins. If you've been around our culture, around church at all, just a general idea of, of what would fall into desires of the flesh easily. Gluttony would possibly sloth, for sure loss would what falls into the lack of trusting God, for sure pride would for sure, maybe sloth would possibly envy what would fall into temptation towards worldly power and success in the would anger would probably Would you see him? Here's a simple message that's being shown to us over and over again. We said, what what? How do I grow stronger pasture? What? How do I get more tools in my tool belts, I'm able to withstand the wiles of the devil, I'm able to withstand his fiery darts. What are we to do? Well, we combat the kingdom of darkness with the kingdom of light, just like Jesus taught us. I go back to that first passage that is talking about the Lord's Prayer. And I know many of you all in the room came from liturgical settings where you memorize the Lord's Prayer, but have you ever really thought about that, in terms of really strength, faith filled strength, that gives us the ability to fight our own temptations in our heart as we move forward and what God has for us, our Father, that right there sermon on fatherhood, I didn't make it up Jesus did. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. It's that idea that God your holy, I know your holy, I'm not that kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's that whole idea of Wait a second, when I'm going about and doing the right thing in the midst of the world throwing out its junk. I am being a kingdom bear and a kingdom Bringer. It'sanother world. It's another thing that I'm bringing a taste of heaven, to my environment, whatever environment I find myself in, how am I going to do that? How am I gonna have the strength and power to do that? Potentially fasting, prayer, exercising faith, but keep going, where does it go after that? I father out and having helped me in a kingdom come Thy will be done on earth, as in Heaven, Give us this day, our daily bread that takes me and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And that whole idea there is that that idea that we understand that we have harbored unforgiveness in our heart, it's very hard for us to move forward and what God has for us, it's assuming that we as believers can forgive because God's first forgiven us and I got a whole series on that. I know it's difficult at times. And then what's the final thing? It says here? Where did it where does the Lord's Prayer end, which is where we're ending in this passage today? And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us, not just from evil, but if you look at the Greek there, it's the evil one, ie Satan himself. Of course, maybe you learn tonight in this the kingdom and the power and the glory forever? Because why? What is it we're doing? We're putting ourselves on a rock. We're staking ourselves. We're reading ourselves for battle, not just repeating the Lord's Prayer over and over again, although it's good to repeat and understand on a daily basis. It's that whole idea of I want God himself. I want that relationship himself. I want to know God, the way Jesus knew God and talked about him here on Earth, and I'm saying that's good. That's what that's what Christians are. We're little Christ followers. So what do we do? We're to believe he's a good good father, which is begin to start getting rid of some of that junk that was put in our lives, some of the gap, and how do we close that gap? It's believing what is true and it's letting goes of lies that have held us back or wait us down? believe he's a good good father and exercise our faith, strength and stretch our spiritual muscles. That's what it's going to take Life Church. If not, we'll continue to shoot blanks. We'll continue to live our life outside of victory, because we're not exercising the very thing that will bring us life. Oh, may not be said of us individually. May that not be said of us corporately? Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word. I think you how you don't leave us wondering are wondering what you're up to. I pray for those in the room right now that are considering fasting. Because they're coming to some conclusions that this much they want you to move in their life. I pray you give them the time and the grace and the means to do that. Not just withholding food, not just denying their flesh, but having opportunity to be with you. I pray you give back the years, the months the days that the locusts took and allow us to be men and women who can stand and sing the song freely. Knowing that you are a good, good Father. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.

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