Fasting // Grace to Fast

Opening + key Scripture (Proverbs 4:18–22): The sermon begins with worship and a reading about two paths—the righteous path that gets brighter like dawn, and the wicked path that’s dark and causes stumbling. The speaker emphasizes God’s words bringing life and healing when they sink deep into the heart.

Series wrap-up on eating rhythms: This was the final week of a fasting series, framed around three “modes” of eating:

• Fasting (not eating for spiritual focus)
• Feasting (celebratory, joyful abundance)
• “Fueling” (the everyday in-between—simple, nourishing eating)

A key tension in modern life: They note that many people today “feast” constantly (big, rich, abundant meals), which:

• makes fasting feel like a huge leap and harder to practice
• makes feasts less meaningful because they aren’t set apart
• invites believers to consider simplicity so life isn’t centered on food

Practical family idea (memorable moment): They suggest a weekly “simple meal” (like rice and beans) as a way to:

• teach gratitude and awareness of how much of the world eats
• build a rhythm of simplicity (especially helpful for kids who shouldn’t do long fasts)
• connect the family to dependence on God in both scarcity and abundance
• (The congregation laughs as they announce this will be “live news” for their kids.)

Vivi’s testimony (significant emotional center):

• She shares her past with disordered eating/eating disorders and how fasting once felt dangerous or triggering, fearing she might do it for wrong reasons.
• Her healing and stability came largely through anchoring in God’s Word, especially the idea that God’s words bring healing to the whole body (from Proverbs 4).
• She encourages people: if fasting feels complicated right now, start with Scripture and let God redefine your thoughts and identity.

Is fasting “works-based”? They clarify: spiritual practices (fasting, prayer, Scripture, community) aren’t about earning righteousness—they are invitations into communion with God.

• We bring the “little” we can (like the loaves and fish), and God does the multiplying.
• Even our ability to participate comes from grace (2 Corinthians 12:9: “My grace is sufficient… power made perfect in weakness.”)

Hardship story: their son’s Type 1 diabetes diagnosis:

• Vivi describes being “broken and frozen,” wrestling with God’s goodness, while Jonathan describes being angry at the brokenness of the world.
• Vivi felt clearly invited to fast on Fridays, not as bargaining with God, but as a “guardrail” that helped her actively seek God’s power and presence.
• Jonathan felt he was not invited to fast at first; instead God led him to learn Jesus’ heart as “gentle and lowly,” which healed his anger over time.

Freedom and identity (Luke 13): Vivi shares how Jesus freeing the bent-over woman speaks to her—Jesus calls her a “daughter of Abraham” and insists she deserves to be untied from bondage, reinforcing that God’s goal is freedom and abundant life.

Closing theological picture (Adam & Eve):

• They reflect that Adam and Eve tried to cover shame with fig leaves—the very “tree” connected to their failure.
• God replaces that with a covering pointing to true forgiveness, leading to the sermon’s core takeaway: don’t cover yourself with shame or the reminder of sin—be clothed in Christ’s righteousness.

Psalm 23 encouragement: The speaker highlights that God’s goodness and mercy don’t just “follow”—they pursue like a chasing army.

• This is meant to disarm fear: even when believers misstep, God’s loyal love keeps bringing them back onto the path.

Call to action: Don’t let fear disqualify you from spiritual practices (fasting, Scripture, prayer, solitude, community). Your qualification is Jesus in you, not your performance.

Church moment + announcements: They receive a special offering to raise $5,000 to finish refreshing the kids’ ministry space, mention the last fasting class (Wednesday at 6), invite people to serve and join small groups, then close with prayer and dismissal.

How are you doing this morning? Oh man, this has been such a good time of worship. Oh my gosh. I’m so thankful for our worship team. Hey, do this for me. Go ahead and stand with me to your feet. We’re gonna read a key scripture for today. It’s found in Proverbs chapter four, verse 18. And it says this: the way of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, which shines even brighter until the full light of day. But the way of the wicked is like total darkness. They have no idea why they are stumbling over. My child, pay attention to what I say. Listen carefully to my words. Don’t lose sight of them. Let them penetrate deep into your heart, for they bring life to those who find them and healing to their whole body. Father God, you are welcome here in this place. Your spirit is honored here. Father, we as individuals and we as a church are here to exist, to make your name famous, to bring glory and honor to who you are. Lord, may the way that we live and speak about you be a way in which others can see the goodness of you here in this land of this living. So Father God, we give you the rest of this service. Light our path and illuminate our way. Send your holy name we pray. Amen. Amen. You may be seated, you may be seated. I’m also gonna be seated. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I brought my best friend with me up here today. (Congregation Applauding) Vivi’s here. Hi. Is your mic on? I think it’s working. Can you please hear me? Okay. So we’re super excited about today. We’ve been planning this for several weeks now. I don’t know how many weeks now. A few. A bunch. We are continuing our series. This is actually the last weekend on fasting. And I know for some of you, I just heard one person say, “Oh, thank you for that.” And I know the rest of you are like, “Good, I’m tired of leaving church hungry.” (Congregation Laughing) But here’s what we wanna do. We’re gonna kinda just have a little bit of a conversation around fasting and our journey in fasting and some of the things that really stood out to us in this time and in this season, and kind of put a little bow on this process. Yeah, do you have anything you wanna say before we kinda dive into it? No, no, no, that’s it. I think I’m just so thankful to God first, of course, for bringing us to this place, the spiritual practices in general. I think it’s been such a big blessing for our church family. Is that right? Have you guys been blessed by that? I have been tremendously. Last week, the concept of feasting, huge. The week before, Pastor Isaiah, wherever you are, thank you. That just amazing. It’s been a really good experience for sure. That’s awesome. Well, here’s kinda what we wanna start off by talking about. Throughout this series, we’ve kinda looked at three different types of eating that we see in Scripture, right? So we have looked at fasting and we’ve read a lot about fasting over the last couple months. But we’ve also looked and highlighted feasting and this opposite effect. If you’ve got fasting, obviously, that’s where you’re not eating anything. And then there’s feasting, which is where you’re doing it really big, which is great. But there’s also this middle ground. It’s mentioned in the Bible, but it’s not specifically told, which is basically every other meal, right? Every other meal, which we decided to keep with alliteration, fueling. That’s what we decided to eat. But there’s this idea of just simplistic eating within this concept of there’s seasons and times or moments, whether it’s rhythmically or in response, in which we don’t eat. And then there’s seasons, times, or moments that could potentially be a rhythm or maybe just a certain celebration in which we get to feast. But everything in between is just an opportunity that we get to fuel this good body that God gave us in this season. And I think you’ve done such a wonderful job, Jonathan. I’m so thankful because in talking about fasting, of course, that’s something that I think majority of us can probably low-key raise our hand and be like, yeah, I don’t know enough about that. Maybe I don’t practice that enough. Or maybe some of us are, you know, very much expressed on that. Feasting, I think majority of us would be like, yeah, I know how to do that well. And then fueling, I think that’s probably the part. And I just love this about the word of God, that in being brought to one end of the spectrum, there is so much for us to learn about his heart for all of it, right? So we’re learning about fasting; I find myself really learning about feasting as well. And then also very curious about the daily rhythms and routines. What’s fueling like? Yeah, and you know, the Bible doesn’t really give us a whole lot of specifics. Some of it we have to kind of think about it for ourselves because clearly the Bible was written in a context that’s very different. And, you know, the way that even food was procured, cooked, it was a lot more challenging process, right? We live in a time where food, procuring food is very simple, and the variety and the scale of things that we can choose from is pretty incredible. And I think that one of the things that finds that tension, and this is not anything specific, but other than just something that it’s like, hey, ponder on this, think about this if you’re in this. One of the things that makes for a lot of people fasting a real big challenge is because they actually feast so often. If we were to look in historical or even global ideas, most people would consider the majority of the meals that we eat a feast, like the way in which, the concept of what we do. And so that does two things. One, it makes feasts less celebratory. Or the scale has to be so large that it’s like, man, that’s a really big, big challenge. But the other thing is it makes fasting really hard because it’s very far away from the feast, right? And I think there’s this process, this invitation of what it looks like in our context—and each family and each person will be individual—of being able to find like, what is the middle ground of finding something that is a simplicity where my life is not ordered around food and what we’re gonna eat and how we’re gonna eat. Like where I just can look at food where it’s like, this is a thing that is used to fuel my body to do the work that God’s called me to do, but it’s not the thing in which my entire life is ordained around. At times, like we’ve talked about this, I’m the one who does the grocery shopping. I do a predominant amount of like the meal planning and execution. And so sometimes— I feel clean. Yes, which is great. Necessary. It’s my favorite part. But here’s the thing, sometimes I look around and I’m like, how much time would I get back if I didn’t have to do all this? Like how much time would I get to do it? And of course, I’m not telling you, just don’t eat. That’s not what we’re talking about. But what would happen if we were able to find a way in which we could do things that are more simple? And I’m speaking to myself because my problem is, like I’m a guy who like, I like meals to be kind of elaborate and awesome. I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m a little extra. You’ve heard my coffee routine and that’s a drink. Like, so food is the same thing. Like I can’t just like, I can’t just do that. Like it’s gotta have this and then it’s gotta have that. I’m always upgrading, right? Which is not a problem, but every time you upgrade, it creates extra, right? Extra work, extra process, extra cost, right? And it’s not that it’s not delicious, it is, but it just drives us a little bit more forward in that process. And so one of the things we get to think about is, how do we invite something that’s simplicity so that I can honor God with my time, and so that when I step into a season of fasting, it’s not as big of a departure as maybe my normal life is currently. And also what that does is it allows me to anticipate a moment in which a feast becomes something that I truly look forward to, in which I say I can’t wait for that moment. Yeah, it’s true. I think among the research and the things that you’ve been studying, which I feel so very privileged to be on the receiving end of, there is this concept of how different cultures and different people live and eat regularly around the world. And so because majority of us are not raising our own chickens, collecting our own eggs, looking after a cow that gives us the dairy that then we turn into butter or cheese, right? Like we’re just not living that way. So every time that we go for these meals that we didn’t necessarily labor or toil physically for, right, it’s very different. Nowadays we reach into the refrigerator. We were talking about how many things we have on the pantry, and so often the temptation is to be, “there’s nothing to eat.” We have nothing to eat at home. I don’t know, I’m not gonna ask for a show of hands, but I know you’ve experienced this. And I know my kids would raise their hands. They better, because I’ve heard the statement. One thing that I know, I found curious and actually quite funny, and I really do hope that we get to embrace a little bit of this maybe. We just probably need to break. Oh well, you can drop this bomb in our kids right now. Go for it. Do it. You do it. No, you do it. I’m the nice one. One of the questions I’ve heard people ask, and like I ask the same question, is like, okay, if you have kids, especially if you have younger kids, how do you incorporate fasting into your family, right? Because if you’ve got a six year old, it’s not a good idea to be like, hey buddy, you’re not eating for 24 hours. Sorry, the Lord said. That’s not what—that’s not gonna go well. So I think there’s two things you can really highlight. One, the feasting element. Like we as a family every Sabbath night, fresh was just Saturday night, we have a meal, sometimes it’s more of a feast than others, in which we get to sit down and celebrate and share and light a candle, right? And so it’s like highlight that moment and really emphasize that moment. But there’s a second thing that you can be invited to—and I haven’t, this is literally about to be live news for my three children right now that are here. Come onto your chairs, Mark. And they’re not gonna like it. (Audience Laughs) Some people are flirting their faces like, oh dear God. Which is there’s an opportunity to invite your family to one time a week—and it can be up to you and God—to have a meal, that’s a really simple meal. And what I mean by a simple meal is like a meal of like rice and beans. Rice and beans. And which you get to say, hey. Rice and beans. This is not just a simple meal. This is what a majority of the world still to this day eat on a daily basis. And this… They’re Colombian. They’re 50% Colombian. It should be in their wheelhouse, but it is not. It should be. It should be. It is not there. And so it’s like, hey, this is something that you get to participate in, and it helps you allow to realize and to connect, like, the fact that we have the choices that we have is a blessing beyond what you can imagine. And it’s not like, “And Jesus is a day, this is what they ate.” No. Like, literally in this moment, there are people that this is the primary meal that they have, and this is it. And we get to walk into simplicity to join ourselves with others in community, both past, present, and future, and say, “We can give this meal to live simply and realize that God can be my provision when I have nothing, and God can be my provision when I celebrate and surplus, and God can be my provision even in the most simplistic thing,” and allow the kids to see all of those things. So, if your kids are like mine, they’re sitting there like, “Please don’t remember this, Mom and Dad. Please don’t remember this. Please don’t remember.” But that’s something. The Lord will lead us. Yeah. So here’s the other thing we kind of wanted to talk about, because we both have stories about how God has shaped us through both our whole life, but also through fasting. And you guys have heard me share a good bit, but I also wanted to have a little bit of an opportunity for Vibh to share a little bit of her story and how some of these things were shaped and how God’s invited her into that journey and continues to invite her in that journey. And so that’s partly why she’s here. Yeah. I was so inspired by our panel who came on stage and gave their testimony, basically, that I thought, “Okay, I’ll be brave too. I’ll be bold and brave as well.” And so, goodness, the worship set was really so equipping for me for today. So, sometimes we think these things, these personal things are not necessarily the funnest things to share about or talk about, but to God be the glory, right? Like, He deserves the glory, and I am willing to share because He has been just that good to me. So, about me and my background, I dealt with during a season in my youth, I dealt with disordered eating and eating disorders. And so, it’s crazy because when we talk about fasting, right, but also feasting and also a baseline, I feel like I was soon early in my life, conditioned maybe to, or in a situation in which I didn’t have a good baseline of health when it came down to either, not fueling, not feasting, and definitely not fasting. And so, we had a conversation and I was sharing with you. I was diagnosed around age 13. There were just so many things in my life that were not easy. My family dynamics were just hard. And I think in that season of becoming, that was just a real challenge for me. The Lord came to my help, and He, even though it was like a medicated situation as well, it just, it had a lot to do with my mental health. And so, it’s crazy because I did. I experienced deliverance. I experienced healing from that. And yet, throughout the many different seasons of my life—marriage, I guess becoming a young adult, being married, being pregnant, having babies, being a nursing mother, the weight loss, and the, you know, all the things that followed, trying to be healthy, trying to exercise—Even though I had experienced healing that I consider this was healing, the Lord healed me from this, there was always this shadow, you know, that when it came down to the idea of fasting, it made me fearful that I would be doing it for the wrong reasons. That it would be, that fasting would be a triggering experience. How would I know if I’m doing it with the right heart or if I’m just back in a displaced of bondage? And so, it’s crazy because we talked about that, spiritual bondages and strongholds. And in, with the heart of sharing the goodness of God and how good He is, I think we thought it was important to also highlight our stories, where we come from, right? Some of us have, I guess, ordered eating, right? Maybe you do think of how you eat your meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner, in an ordered way for the sake of fueling your body. Maybe, you know, like me, you’ve experienced this ordered eating, where maybe you don’t look at things, at the food that you eat as nourishment for your body, and maybe you struggle with body image situations. So, we’re a church body, right? And we have bodies and the Lord invites Himself into our experiences. And I just, I thought it was a good reason for us to share. For me, a major, major part of healing and standing in God’s Word, I guess, or standing in agreement with what He says of me was standing in His Word. And so, in the verses that we read today, there is, in Proverbs 4, 21 and 22, just a very specific emphasis of being in the Word of God and making the word the thing that you anchor yourself to. And so, verse 21 says, “Don’t lose sight of them,” speaking of God’s words. It says, “Don’t lose sight of them. Let them penetrate deep into your heart, for they bring life to those who find them and healing to their whole body.” And so, you know, words or thoughts, right? Words, thoughts, we first foster them in our head and our mental health many times is just under siege because of the thoughts that we have. And so, being in the Word was genuinely a very big blessing for me. I think a consistent pattern of being in the Word, right? Maybe during a season of my life where I was still not completely sold that I could do a fast for the right reasons, the Lord invited me to be in His Word. And so, that’s exactly what I think how healing works. That’s how I interpret healing to be active in our lives, that the Lord is inviting us to something. So, if you’re in a season where maybe fasting is not necessarily the thing that you think, “This is God’s best for me,” I encourage you to be in His Word, to find an anchoring in God’s Word and to let them penetrate deep into your heart in a place where you can weigh in how you feel, what you think about things, how you define things, and then invite the Lord to define things for you. Like, that is powerful. And His Holy Spirit is with you when you read the Word and you have access to living words, right? And so, I think healing has come for me from that, from that reason. So, but I did, I wanted to ask you, Jonathan, so that you can share with us and for anyone who like me maybe has experienced questions about fasting because in my healing too, in my adulthood, I’ve also experienced grace, what I would consider radical grace. So, what God has done for me, what Jesus has done for me is more than enough, right? And that has been a deep anchoring for my heart, even being in the Word. So, my question for you is, how is a fast not works based in your own righteousness? That’s a good question. We talked about this before today. Yeah, that’s a great question. So, here’s the thing, and you know, I’ve shared my journey with fasting and some of the different pieces, but hear any of these practices that we’re talking about. And of course, this is fasting, but this can be prayer, this can be time in God’s Word, this can be time and community, it can be any of the practices. These are invitations that God’s Word invites us to with the final goal not being to do the practice, but to be in communion with God. That is the invitation. And what we’re doing in these practices, the invitation is this partnership with God in which you do the part that you can do, which is in the grand scheme of things, very little, to allow and invite God to do the part that only He can do, which is to transform and completely overtake your life. And so, in the concept of fasting, I do the thing that I am capable to do, which I am capable—although my flesh will be very reluctant to say they can—which is to not eat with the intention of saying, “God, can You search me? And can You find in me anything that’s not from You? And can You transform these things inside of me? And can You do this?” And it’s amazing that when we bring to Jesus the little that we can bring, He is the one who can do the miraculous. I think about the story that Isaiah shared a couple weeks ago, and there’s two different instances of this in the New Testament where Jesus fed the 4,000 and when Jesus fed the 5,000 plus. In each scenario, in both scenarios, the thing that they had in common was that Jesus didn’t make food appear from nothing. He asked, “Bring to me what you have.” And they’re like, “Jesus, what we have is basically nothing.” But no, bring it to me. Okay, it’s two fish and five loaves, and we’ve got thousands of people. And He’s like, “This is enough.” And He does the miraculous. He does the multiplying. He’s the one who gives thanks and He keeps breaking it and breaking it and breaking it and breaking it, and everyone’s fed and there’s left over. Like He is the one who does the thing that is very simple. The bringing those two fishes and five bread, that was like, “Oh, this is maybe…” In fact, it’s so insignificant, it probably felt silly. Like, what is this going to do? This won’t even feed Jesus and the disciples, let alone this crowd. I also think about the man who went to Jesus and said, “Can you, if you’re able, can you heal my son?” And He said, “What do you mean if?” I need belief. I need you to have something. And He gives the most realistic answer that is like, literally feels like sometimes the anthem of my life where He says, “I do believe, but can you help me with my unbelief?” And Jesus says, “Yeah, that’s it. I don’t need any more.” Because if you have faith like a mustard seed, I can grow it into a tree that is beyond your imagination. The miraculous is done by God, right? That we get to walk into these places, whether it’s by spending time in God’s word. Listen, I can read God’s word and literally I can just read it like it’s a book and it’s neat, but that’s all it is. But when I give it to God, He’s the one who can supernaturally inspire me and give me bread for my day that transforms my life and my understanding of who He is. And the really wild thing about it, full circle, is that even the part that we can do, so in the fasting example, which is fasting, or in the Bible example, reading the word, I actually need His grace even to do that part. That I am actually not even capable and in my own to do the little that’s asked of me. And He still says, “In your weakness, I am actually made strong.” Want me to read it? Yeah, read it. Read it for us. This is 2 Corinthians 12, 9. It says, “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” And I think for someone that I genuinely, looking back into the many different seasons of my life, I think, was the Lord asking me to bring my weakness to Him? Was that the thing? Is that the thing maybe that He can do supernatural things with? If I bring just my weakness, if I bring just this thing, this maybe poor relationship with food, maybe poor relationship with how I see the body that He calls good, how can He, what can He do? What is God willing and able to do with this, with just this? And so you and I came, just to keep the story going, if you and I came into a season of extreme hardship, I think, with our parenting. At least for us. It was hard for us when Felix was first diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. And so it was just a crazy season, just the unexpected and maybe contradicting of the goodness of God that sometimes just leaves a person like, “I don’t know what you’re doing, God. This doesn’t look like you’re good. This doesn’t look like you’re good.” But I know that you are good because this is not my first go-around in this life and in this world, and with suffering, and I know you to be good. I just don’t know how to interact with your goodness in the face of my hardship. And in that season, so I’m talking about maybe three years ago, and it’s crazy because the invitation for me was too fast. And I’ll explain a little bit about that. It was an invitation that felt so clear because I knew in the natural we were now doing around food, mind you, all the things that we could do in this world. And that had to be good enough to keep our son alive, right? Measuring his food, giving him insulin injections so that his body could process that food. And so all of it around food and all of it around. So Felix has two very different parents, right? That the Lord gave him on purpose. There was Jonathan who from day one, he was already reading the books, already with measuring things out, the math was mathing everything. And then there was me who was like broken and frozen. It was just, it’s really just the best way I can describe it, broken and frozen. Like, I don’t want this. I just don’t want this. And in my mind, it felt like, well, what we’re doing seems like we’re accepting this and there’s no end in sight. And there were things about this diagnosis that felt like offensive in the sense that they would tell you his body will start producing some insulin and you’ll see some things, but it looks like hope. Don’t hope. Please don’t hope. His pancreas is not coming back on. You should not hope. So like, this is my child. Like, don’t tell me that I can’t hope. And so from the very start, this person felt like, oh, I have got to dig deeper into the supernatural because in the natural, this is what we have. Like when you tally up the things that we have, this is not, this is, it’s good enough, but I know that this is not God’s plan. And so I felt like in coming very blinded, like I said, establishing not a good baseline of other things, but knowing that the Lord had healed me or has healed me, that there is healing in his hand, that there is part of his identity, that God is a healer. It was like fast. And I told you, Jonathan, I didn’t know as much as we know today, as much as I know today, I feel like the only baseline that I had for fasting was Isaiah 58. I’m going to read it to you. It says, verse six says, “It’s not this, the fast that I choose to lose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.” And so, yeah, I started fasting like Fridays and I started looking, not like face washed and like laying in bed or passively, but rather Friday became the day that I was actively looking for God’s power in my life. And I have crazy stories of that first year and those Fridays because every interaction with every person that I met was more than just face value. There was a spiritual element that I was now fully aware of and it became such a blessing and such a delight. But I think furthermore, it was the basis for something that I now know to be true, which is this routine became a guardrail. Not as my own works, not as like this is what I’m bringing to you God, also not as the thing that I’m using to pry God’s hand open. Like, Lord, give Felix his healing because I am doing this very sacrificial thing. It was not that. It was not that. And I know because I was checking, not checking my heart, but I know that I was sold on this thing that I was doing because I was experiencing the goodness of God and the power of God in ways that were unexpected, right? Beyond what is natural. And so, and it reminded me that this routine became something that some women in this room know because this language that we’ve used before, that safe places yield sacred spaces. And so what once was a concept that brought fear into my life, like, well, if I fast, will I be doing it for the wrong reason? Now, instead, I became very bold about this time of setting some things aside in the natural so that I could experience in the supernatural more of the power of God that is living and alive and well and chasing after me, looking for my attention, wanting to give me a sense of who he is, remind me in the face of the very routinely natural circumstances that we were faced with with Felix’s diagnosis. Yeah, that’s really good. That’s so good. And you know, it’s interesting because God—she talks about different personalities and God meeting you right where you’re at—you know, in that same season, she was invited to fast. And I was like, I am definitely not invited to fast because… You were measuring most of his food. Sure, I was doing all that. But the truth was, because she was dealing with questions of God’s goodness and healing and different things, and I was just extremely angry, extremely angry, not even and not at God, like that wasn’t where my anger was directed, but at everything in this fallen world. And it was so boiling under the surface that I was like, if I don’t eat, I may just literally it may spill out in ways that are not healthy. But I was so angry. And it’s wild because in that same time that she’s like, I’m called to fast. I’m not called to fast. I wasn’t inviting you. I know I wasn’t invited. It was very clear. But God invited me in that season. And some of you guys may remember this, where he invited me to study the idea where Jesus said, if you want to know who I am, my heart is gentle and lowly. And I’m with you in every season. And I feel everything you feel. And that concept wrecked me. And it was that concept over that season that probably took a year because I’m slow to realize like, I don’t have to be angry over the brokenness of this world, because Jesus already is. And I can give it to Him. And He can take care of it. And that’s okay. He’s more angry under this brokenness that my son’s having to live in than I am. And so I can let go of it and stop being so angry. And it brought healing into my heart. And it was after that that He then invited me to start studying fasting for a whole different set of things that He wanted to walk into. The truth is that a fast is a good opportunity as well to reframe our ability to trust and guide. You know, because scripture says that men will not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And there is again, you know, the word that when you embrace and it deeply penetrates your heart will bring healing to your body. It’s just there is this spiritual connection between all of these things. And so for me, it was miraculous that that was how the Lord dealt with my hurting heart, right? That it was an invitation to reframe my ability to trust in Him. Because I think what He knew, He knew. And I think I knew too that what was at stake was my ability to trust in the goodness of God. And so I’m so thankful for that season. I think throughout from there till now, okay, maybe I journeyed through maybe a little bit further accusation. I had to have a surgery to have a hernia removed. And then in the care that came after that it felt like it came up again, this shadow of like, oh, well, a person who’s dealt with disordered eating should, you know, really be mindful of that. And I, again, it was funny because it felt like an accusation that came from way back when like somebody completely different story. And yet still, it still felt like, what is this still me? Like it was a questioning of identity. Is this still me? Am I still a person? What I identify? Like I need to threat lightly because this in my past, this from my past. And so I think in that season, actually, actually, it was this past December, where in the book of Luke, again, it’s so crazy how the word comes to my rescue. And I’m just so thankful because Luke 13, there’s a story where Jesus heals a woman in the Sabbath. And I just really encourage you to look for it because so what he says to it is that there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for 18 years. And she was bent over and she couldn’t stand straight. And he touched her. And he said, you are free. You’re free from your disability. And she immediately was made straight. And she praised God. She glorified God for it. And so I think what I gathered from this is that this was me. Like I could relate to this. It was on Sabbath, right? It was not a season of contention. It was a different season. I relate to that season. And then what happened after that in the story is that in the synagogue people, of course, when the priest or Pharisees went after Jesus saying, how dare you? Like don’t come healing on Sabbath. And Jesus so graciously, I mean, call them hypocrites. I say so graciously, but he was kind of angry, I imagine. And he tells them on Sabbath, you take your animals and you untie them and you lead them to water. But this daughter of Abraham, which is, it was not a term used. Often women, daughters, was not, it was not a place of honor. Like the heart of the father is for us. And he says, doesn’t she deserve to be untied and to be freed from this bondage? It was the spirit of bondage. Another version that I read says it was the spirit of weakness. And she lived bent over for 18 years. It’s close to two decades of her life. And so just to tell you that I could see myself here and recognize it is for freedom that God has set us free. The things that he has healed you from has healed me from. They are intentional in his heart and in his mind because we are collectively on our way to experiencing life abundant more and more. That is his heart. That is his promise. It is who he is. That’s good. That’s good. You know, as we kind of wrap it up this morning, there’s one thought that I want to leave you with that kind of just frames fasting, but really it more frames the healing that God can bring through any spiritual practice, through any invitation to be with him in his presence. And I was thinking about the story, which is the famous story most of you guys have heard it about after Adam and Eve sinned. It says that they realized that they were naked and they were ashamed. And then it says that they went and they sowed clothes of fig leaves to cover themselves. And then when God saw them that they’d use fig leaves, he said, “That won’t do.” And it says that he killed an animal and then he gave them animal skins to cover themselves. And historically, how I’ve always interpreted that, and I think this is an accurate interpretation, was they tried to cover themselves with something that was plant-based and that doesn’t have the blood required to pay for the price of sin. And so God shed the first animal, killed the first animal as a sacrifice to cover for their skin. And I think that’s a great interpretation and reading of that scripture, and I believe that to be true. But I think there’s a secondary thing that God invites us to and that I see myself in, which is Adam and Eve sinned by eating from the tree. And then they realized they were naked and they were ashamed. And the way that they wanted to try to cover their shame was to turn themselves into and to cover themselves with the thing that actually brought their sin in the first place, which was the tree. And what God invited them to, he said, “I don’t want you to look like the thing that will remind you of your sin. I want you to cover yourself with a thing that will bring your actual forgiveness.” And so what we cover ourselves with is not our shortcomings and our failures. We cover ourselves with the blood of Jesus Christ. We cover ourselves with the robes of righteousness that are ours through the gift of Jesus on the cross. That’s the invitation that he has for us to see, so that when we look in the mirror, the thing that’s covering our shame is not the very thing that brought guilt in the first place. It is actually the true identity of who we are because of what Jesus has done for us. And this invitation of fasting, or as we move forward in these spiritual practices, or wherever you find yourself in your journey today, we are always confronted with the shortcomings of our life. And the enemy would love you to be sin conscious and to be focused on that shortcoming and to make you feel ashamed. But that’s why Jesus says there’s no longer guilt or condemnation for those who are covered by me. When you look in the mirror, or you can see who you truly are meant to be, and you may say, “Boy, but I still maybe don’t feel that way on the inside.” That’s okay. The journey of inviting his grace is to look in the mirror and realize that is who I am. That’s who I am. That’s who I will be. That’s who I’m growing into. And in this invitation of growing spiritually, which church, like we are a church, our identity within knowing Jesus and showing Jesus is a church whose community members are growing. You are growing. God is doing work in your heart. We are growing as a church. We’re about to have another new members dinner because we’ve had 23 plus, I don’t know what the number is up to now, people who’ve joined the church in the last couple of weeks. We had seven people join the church just this last weekend. That God is adding to our number daily, not just numerically, but in people’s lives being transformed and his goodness confronting sin in our lives and marriage is being restored and growing through things that we never thought we could grow out of and responding in ways that we never thought we would respond because we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ because the one who went before us is always moving forward. And I shared this with Vivian back. I can’t not share it, like even though I don’t have the time to do it. I was thinking about that song we sang today, which is from Psalm 23 where it says, “Surely your goodness and your mercy will follow after me, right? And fear will not find me because I’ll be dwelling in the house of God.” That’s the end of Psalms 23 where it says, “Surely your goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I’ll dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Right? So what’s amazing is goodness there is the word tove, which is good. Like the tree of good and evil is tove and raw. Like there’s good and evil. There’s good and bad. So God’s goodness, what he says is good will follow you. And then mercy is the word has said, which we’ve talked about that for the human ear. Like this idea of this like unearned, unending favor and grace and love and faithfulness. Like it’s a word that is so rich, like that is bound to you. But the word that really was drawn to my attention today was the word follow. It will follow after you. And when you look it up in the Hebrew, it doesn’t just mean that it will come after you, which I mean like that’s to follow. And it does, it will follow you. But it’s actually the same word that they used when two armies fight and one army loses and they turn around and they run away and the other army chases them and follows them and pursues them and dogs them and will not leave them alone until they catch them and take what’s theirs. The goodness of God, his faithful, loyal love for you will chase you and pursue you in a way that you cannot escape from. And fear is the thing that always stops us from moving forward because we’re afraid of making the wrong choice or falling into another sin. And faith is the thing that projects you to move forward and the thing that God’s calling you to, to the invitations of his practices, to the job that he’s inviting you to, to being the man or the one that he’s called you. Faith is the thing that allows you to go forward. And here’s what’s amazing, just because you have faith doesn’t mean you ever fail. In faith you will step out and I will tell you there’ll be a time where you’ll still blow it. But it does not say that you will be led by his goodness and has said, it says that wherever you go, it chases after you. So fear cannot find you because you’ll be in the very presence of God being fully formed into his image. And so you can boldly step out in faith and with all of our hearts and intentions say, “God, I want to live in the way that you’ve called me to and lead and guide my steps. But even when I make a misstep, I am dogged by the goodness of God who pursues me with his loyal love to redirect me back on the path.” What a promise we have from the one who says, “I’ll even prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies and my rod and my staff will bring comfort and guidance to your life.” What a shepherd we serve. So there’s an invitation that you have and fear will tell you, you can’t participate in fasting, you’re not good enough or you’ll mess it up or you can’t study God’s Word, you didn’t get enough education. You can’t live in community because if they get close to you, they will learn that you are broken and your past will disqualify you. You can’t be alone because your brain will never allow you to be still. You can’t pray because your past is disqualified your prayers and they won’t come to heaven and God will not answer you. Everything that God invites you to do to be in communion with him, the enemy will attempt to disqualify you from. But the good news is your qualification is not based on who you are, it’s based on who Jesus is in you and that mercy will go before you and it will fall after you, it will surround you, it will encompass you. That is the invitation to grow. That he loves you right where you are and he loves you enough to invite you to continue to see his goodness here in the land of the living. You are not destined to end your days the way you are right now because his mercy will guide you to a path that has better and more for you and those around you. What a beautiful God we serve. What a beautiful God we serve. Listen, I hate to make hard transitions. They must take place. That’s hard. I experience that every Sunday. Every Sunday we’re here and I’m like, my heart is full. I feel my notes are, I usually type in my phone and it is like that I stink at transitions. This is I think why I’m always late because I am so comfortable being present where I’m at and God’s presence really is here and what you are sharing really is life-giving and this is the probably most important moment of our collective week, to receive the truth that sets us free. I will help you with your transition because it’s very important. First, thank you for being here with me. Thank you. I really appreciate you being here. Thank you. It is the blood of the lamb and the power of the testimony and you would not believe how like hindered I felt that like, oh no, I’m gonna share about that. Like I, in fact, because in my mind, it’s like that’s not fully formed. That’s not, it’s not like there’s decades of this completely, but it is done. It is done because my Jesus calls it done and the blood covers it. And so no matter how much the enemy tries to come and bind and say, remember? It’s like, yes, I remember, but it is covered by the blood and it is as far as the East is from the West. There is no coming back around it and re-identifying me under the same light. That is not how Jesus sees me. And I think there’s anything that we know with Felix that is very true about many places in our lives is that you can live in a miracle while expecting a miracle church. That is part of our rebellious God-given identity, that you can hold on to the full truth of what God says about you and who you are while your situation might not look anything like that. We hold on to hope because it is not based on our works, but on what Jesus has already done. And there is no outdoing Jesus, right? His righteousness covers us fully and it is a solid, strong foundation under our feet. So thank you so much for allowing me to be here and share God’s goodness and his story. And thank you for the opportunity to feast well and to be reminded that in the fueling, just like the fasting, just like the feasting, he is with me and he has good things for me. So thank you. Yeah, so okay, here’s the last thing we got to do before we dismiss. And I had to do it because I already messed it up last week and I can’t mess it up two weeks in a row because of my pride. But here’s the thing, I mentioned last week for those of you who are here, we are going to collect an offering right now specifically to go towards kind of the final phase of trying to revamp our Destiny Kids space. We’ve done so much if you guys haven’t been over there. It’s completed. We completely transformed the floors. We completely repainted this stuff. We fixed a bunch of stuff. Now the last things is some of the aesthetic things. So some banners that are going to go on the wall, some stage remodels, basically some of the last steps to make it look and feel like a real kid’s space. And so we already have the designs, most of them finalized. We have a few little pieces that we got to figure out. But our goal is a church to get this last piece to really transform that space as we want to try to raise $5,000 to get that last piece, to be able to get the last kind of things that make it feel and look like, hey, this is a kid’s space, as well as continue to be functionally moving forward for the way that they have services and everything else. And so everything that comes in this offering and these buckets will go to that. If you want to give, you can give online. You can go to destinychris.com slash give, and you can give in given the building offering. Everything that’s designated for that will go to that as well. And so that’s how we’ll kind of track that that way. But that’s what we’re giving to. So I’m going to pray. I’m going to have the buckets pass and then we’ll be dismissed right after that. So Father, Lord, we thank you for what you’re doing here as this church. Lord, by faith, we just see your provision, Lord. So we bring what we have and you do the miraculous multiplication, Father. And we know that together we can do many mighty things because of your power and the unity of the body of Christ. And so we’re so thankful for that, Lord. We just bless our children’s ministry. We bless the facility that you’ve given us, Father. And we thank you, Lord, that you’re continuing to do incredible things in our midst. So in your holy name we pray, amen and amen. All right. Well, as the ushers are passing the buckets, a couple of things to remind you of. One, if you’re in the fasting class this Friday, or this Wednesday, excuse me, six o’clock is our last fasting class, it’s going to be really exciting. So that’s going on. Don’t forget that we have a couple of different serve team rushes and different things coming up here in the near future, which is great. If you are not actively serving somewhere and God’s stirring in your heart, man, learn about a department. There are so many talented people here in this room that the invitation is there to step out and service. And maybe in a way that you’re just like, “Oh, I don’t know.” But man, it’s really great and a great opportunity. Small groups are fully going. If you don’t find yourself in a small group, guess what? There’s always an opportunity to still get connected and plugged in to a small group because it’s always just a way to get connected to make this church community feel a little smaller. So do this for me. I know some of the buckets are still going, but go and stand with me to your feet. I’m going to try to stand out without making the noise that I usually make, which happened at some point past 40. I don’t know when. But that’s just how it goes. Did you stretch? You can’t stretch when you stand. That’s a sign of growth. Finally, God, we just thank you for today. Thank you for your word. Lord, I’m so thankful for this church and what you’re doing here. Lord, all we do, we do for the glory of your name to bring honor to who you are, to dwell in unity together under the banner of Christ. Lord, help us to accept the invitations and discern what your spirit’s leading us to do so that we can follow you all the days are alive, so that your goodness, your mercy will pursue us. We can be found to dwelling in the house of the Lord. It’s in your holy name we pray. Amen and amen. Church, we love you. You’re dismissed. Have a great rest of your Sunday.

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