Summary
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Transcript
All right, hey, would you stand with me while we read today's scripture this morning, Genesis chapter two, verses eight through nine, it says this, "And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden "and the east, and there he put the man "whom he had formed. "And out of the ground, the Lord God made "to spring up every tree that is pleasant "to the sight and good for food. "The tree of life was in the midst of the garden "and the tree of knowledge of good and evil."
Let's pray. Father, we just thank you so much for your word today. Lord, we thank you that as we explore this idea of fasting and food and how we relate to these things, Lord, that your spirit would move and speak into our hearts and our minds.
Lord, because we don't wanna do best practices, we don't wanna to do what the world says, we don't wanna do what we read in a book, Father God, we want to do and listen and hear what you are leading us into.
Because your word says that you formed us and you created us. And while you were knitting us in our mother's womb, you knew us, Father. And so that same God, that same spirit that was there in the darkness who raised Christ back to life is the one who can bring health and healing and goodness into our bodies and who can lead us into your mercy and your grace.
So we thank you for that. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. You may be seated.
I wanna start this morning, I actually wanna read, and we don't do this a lot. This one has me so excited, maybe I should do it more. But I wanna read, actually it's like a testimony, a written testimony. We sent out an email a couple weeks ago talking about, hey, we're thinking about doing some different panels and some different things on the subject of fasting and wanna see if anyone was interested. I mentioned last week that the response was pretty overwhelming. And we have so many people that wrote in and shared their experience and wanna be part of different things. And so there's one that I wanted to read because I thought it was, it encouraged me. That's why I wanna read it. And so I wanted to read it to you because I think it'll encourage you. This is from one of our members, Justin Schrey, and I wanted to just read this because this was his thoughts about his fasting experience. He said, "I wanted to share a little bit of my experience "with fasting for you. "I gained an interest in fasting when I joined the church "in fasting during Good Friday last year. "It ended up bringing me a certain amount of peace "during that day. "I had been curious about fasting ever since. "I began a regular fasting practice "around the end of October last year. "To be perfectly honest, "I didn't have any idea what I was doing "or really even wanted to do other than fast once a week. "I used the guidelines from the Good Friday fast. "I fasted one day a week on Wednesdays, "after dinner on Tuesdays until dinner on Wednesday. "It has been a challenging and rewarding experience "that ended up leading me deeper into the prayer practice "that we just recently went through. "There are a few major takeaways "that I have from my experience. "First, I was in the process of reading "the ruthless elimination of Hurry with the book club. "And so I was in this mindset of working to slow down "and simplify many of the aspects of my life.
"I noticed that the days that I fasted "were much slower and simpler. "It was almost as if I was forced "into slowness and simplicity.
"Second, I began to use each time that I was hungry "as an opportunity to reorient myself towards God. "So I started saying these micro prayers "each time I experienced hunger. "This resulted in what I can only explain "as the closest I've ever been able to get "to praying without ceasing. "Since I was hungry a lot.
"I have ended up spending much of my day in prayer "in just about anything that I was doing. "Lastly, and probably most surprisingly to me, "it has helped me to begin the healing process "of my poor relationship with food. "I've always used food for emotional support "during hard times. "And the fasting practice has helped me invite God "into eating on the days that I am not fasting. "I am willing to share my experience "in any way that you need. "However, that being said, "I don't have a ton of experience with fasting "and just kind of jumped into it "without much direction or education on the topic. "I look forward to learning and experience more "about fasting in the coming weeks."
Justin, I don't know about you, but that's super encouraging to me. Super encouraging to me. And let me tell you what I, there's so many takeaways. Like we could probably spend the rest of the sermon just dissecting this little letter and like saying, but here's what I love. He jumped into something saying, "I have no idea what I'm doing, "but I know that I can just not eat."
Because we're gonna talk about fasting. We've talked about fasting several weeks. The pastors and I talked about this, in fact, this last week. And we're learning about it and there's spiritual significance. There's so many things, but at the end of the day, it's really just one thing, not eating and trusting God while you don't eat.
That's it.
Sometimes we're like, "I don't know if I know enough. "I don't know if I'm ready. "I don't know." And listen, there's plenty of things that there's a struggle with that. Sometimes we can hype ourselves, like if I knew a little bit more Greek and Hebrew, I could probably understand the Bible better. And there may be some truth to that to some degree.
Or if I had more time in my day, I could spend more time praying. Or if, or if, or if, but at the end of the day, what fasting is, is saying, "I'm just not going to eat."
Or if you happen to be one of the people where not going without food is not an option, that you find some kind of substitute that feels equal to where you're at in your life, which is totally okay. I'm going to set this thing aside. And what I see is in this step of just being obedient and actually just participating in something that we were doing as a church,
God met him there.
The Holy Spirit spoke to him.
And we read it and I literally, I actually did, I laughed out loud and it's like, "I don't really know what I'm doing or what's going on." And I'm like, "It sounds like it's going pretty good."
Like, "Oh, you're experiencing the presence of God all throughout your day. And oh, now you feel like you're praying without ceasing and oh, God's healing some past baggage. Sounds like it's going pretty good." Like, I don't know if my fasting experience has gone that well.
So I sit here and I be encouraged and I read it to you not to elevate someone else back, wow, look at this, but to tell you anyone can experience God's goodness in this practice.
Anyone can experience and see God, whether it's through this practice or something else, because God shows up and his spirit will begin to teach you and talk to you and you can know as much or a little about the subject when you allow the author and the finisher of your faith, the greatest advocate that you have, the instructor of instructors, the Holy Spirit, to lead and guide you, just like Jesus says, and he will bring to your remembrance everything that you need to know at the moment that you need to know it, even if you didn't know it in the first place.
Praise God for the work of his grace and his mercy and our Holy Spirit in our life. And so today we're gonna continue talking about fasting and we're gonna talk about a couple things within this idea and this theology of food and how we relate to food and how God designed us to relate to food and what that means. And I wanna give like a general disclaimer here at the beginning. I am not a nutritionist. I am not a doctor. I'm not a food scientist. I am not a health expert. I am not any of these things.
I am just a pastor who loves you
and who wants to share the word of God with you and who wants to walk through and to talk through certain things and not allow some discomforts
to allow us to invite God in certain areas of our life.
And so today, nothing that I'm saying and nothing that I'm sharing is about one particular person. It is also not prescriptive. It is descriptive in a way in which we as individuals can allow ourselves to open up to the very spirit of God to experience his grace, to experience his healing and to experience his mercy in our life.
Because here's what I wanna talk about today and we read it there in the very beginning. In the beginning when God created men and women and man and woman and he put them in the garden and he said, here is this beautiful place that I created eat in this garden. And it says that he made this food that was not only pleasing to the eye but was good for food, for eating.
That the way that God created was that they could put them in this place and he said that everything here except for this one tree is yours to partake in and to delight in.
And in this language, this garden language that we see, that we see played out through the rest of scripture, when we are able to see God's provision and delight in the provision, that is a biblical definition of worship,
that God is providing for you and you are delighting in the provision. And in that process, we are delighting in him. And the way that God created men and women to live and the way that this ideal was set before Adam and Eve in this garden was that he said, here is my provision. You don't need to look anywhere else. You don't need to work, you don't need to toil, you don't need to suffer. All you have to do is look around and see the abundance that is created and you are to take that and you are to eat it. And in that process, you will delight in the good things that I've given you and that is an idea of worship.
And the idea of worshiping God through what we eat is a huge part of the Bible. I don't have time to cover all of them right now, but you know, the Bible has like all these different feasts that the nation of Israel were commanded to do on an annual basis. One, you were supposed to have a Sabbath meal in which you feasted with your family once a week, like that was part of like a weekly rhythm, but there was all these different annual feasts that you did that went from one week to another week to another week. It took a huge part of the calendar in which you were supposed to get together with family and community and you were supposed to eat a celebratory meal in the very presence of God. One of the big ones, in fact, it's actually not even a feast or festival, but it's the commandment on how you were supposed to give what the Old Testament would be considered, the second tithe, which it said that when you're in this process of accumulating what God has blessed you with and you're in the process of trying to give %, this tithe to God, it gave this accountants because remember, they're not getting like a paycheck that's direct deposited into their BOK account.
Their tithe, like their growth, they're looking at like the number of lambs that were born and how many a harvest of like a grain and barley and what their fruit crop, well, like they have a lot of stuff. It's like physical stuff. And they were supposed to take the tithe to the temple to offer that sacrifice and to give that tithe, but the thought of trying to bring all these cattle and all the, like it's too, like it was like too much. So what God said was, you may be too far away and the blessing may be too big. So what I want you to do is to take the th that you have and to sell it all and take that money, the money equivalent, now you got coins and go to the place where I've chosen to have my presence dwell. So early it was the Tabernacle, it moved and later it was the temple in Jerusalem. So go to the place where my tab dwell and it says, and then take that coin, listen to this, this isn't good for church income, by the way, it says, take that coin and buy whatever you want, food and drink and the King's dainties, that's desserts, all those things, buy anything that you want and then get together with your family and friends and feast before the presence of the Lord. And that is worshiping God with your first fruits.
Wow, that's a heck of a meal.
A meal that represents % of your income,
that's wild, I've never done that, I've never come close to that.
That this is a wild idea that God set before you and not only does he say like, ah, it's a part, he says that it is worshiping him with how you eat in community and celebrating the life that God has for you. That it creates this celebration.
It's always wild because Jesus, you ever noticed like there's this verse, it's actually in a couple of different gospels where he was like, people were upset because Jesus was doing his thing, which was he kept on eating meals with like sinners and tax collectors and they're like, they got so mad at him and he finally like called some people out, he said, John the Baptist didn't eat bread or drink wine and fasted all the time and lived out in the desert like wearing camel hair and eating locusts and honey and you said that he had a demon
and now the Son of Man comes and he eats and he drinks and he feasts and you says that he's a glutton and a drunkard. There's no satisfying you. I don't know if you noticed this, there's no diet or things that you can eat that will satisfy everyone.
No matter what you eat, how you eat, whatever diet fad you take, how many times you go into the gym, it actually doesn't matter, there'll be someone who'll be like, you're doing it wrong.
You're doing it wrong. Too much fat, too much protein, too much carbs, too many times a day, too few times a day, too many, not enough rest, not enough sleep, too much sleep. You eat three meals, have you not heard of intermittent fasting?
Like you will not do it right for everyone
but what's wild is Jesus was constantly eating and drinking and feasting.
And Jesus also fasted.
And Jesus also just went away around living normally. So how do we relate to food? If food is an opportunity for us not just to sustain ourselves but that food is something that we can be participating in and can help our body and our mind, our spirit, our heart worship God, then how do we put it in the proper place and the proper context?
It should be no surprise then that if food was an act of worship and delighting in God, that is one of the very things that Satan came to pervert and to twist right at the beginning.
With lies and deception and giving man and women the ability to take for themselves
and no good and evil on their own terms.
And the fall comes not just through the fact that they believed that God would keep something from them but from the fact that they ate something
and invited death into their own life.
And so we have this idea that food is not just for sustaining us but food has something else for us.
Food and everything we have is part of God's creation and we are part of God's creation and oddly enough for us to stay in creation, we must eat part of God's creation or else we die.
If you stop eating from now on, at some point, your body will break down and you will not live lest you are sustained by the very presence and spirit of God himself.
That we participate in creation by consuming creation and thanking God there's this invitation of how we relate to food and how we eat and this dependence that we do.
But we took this idea, humanity took the food and made our own God.
And one of the things that has happened over time
and it didn't take very long,
instead of seeing God's provision and delighting in his provision and consuming that provision,
we see the provision of God, we take it for ourselves and try to produce for ourselves and as a result, we are no longer worshiping the creator but we begin to worship the creation
and we begin to make food our very idols
and food becomes the idol that we go to because the thing that you have to understand about idolatry or worship is idolatry or worship of in the biblical sense is not just making a little metal statue and you may think, I'm fine, I don't have little metal statues of ice cream all over the place, I'm good.
Worship is anything that you ask permission from or anything you seek comfort from other than God.
If you have to ask permission from your bank account before your obedience to what God does, then that means you're worshiping finances.
If you have to ask permission to your diet or to what you're gonna eat before you go and you do what God is calling you to do, then that means that you are worshiping food. We create idols all the time in our life and we turn to those things for comfort. We turn to those things to try to fill the gap that only God can do.
And the result is we put these things high in our life
and they begin to form us because what you worship shapes you.
When you are in relationship with God and you worship God, the creator of the heavenly universe and you say everything that I am is yours and I hunger and I thirst for you and your mind meditates on the goodness of God, guess what? In relationship with God, you are being formed by him.
But if you worship at the idol of food,
food will also form you.
And here's what I mean by that.
We all are really familiar with this whole idea of like dopamine, right? We all know what dopamine is. Like we've watched these videos and like we get like dopamine. This thing, this hit that you get, right? And it's this whole idea, you can consume this thing. It can be something you eat, it can be something you see that triggers this dopamine response and it creates this like pleasure center and your brain is like, "Oh, this is so great." But the problem with this dopamine high is the second that it is alleviated, all of a sudden your brain will start to say, "Ooh, I liked it better before." And so it will actually create a pain in your body, in your mind, so that you will try to go back to that pleasure system. This is part of how God made you to be. Like there's this whole thing, like you go and like you're trying to sustain and to live. And so these things that are good, you wanna return to, the things that are painful, you wanna avoid. And so there's this whole thing. But the problem that we've learned with dopamine is, is like the more you go to it, the higher and higher a dopamine hit it takes to get the same type of response. And a lower that you experience in the pain sector to drive you back to that dopamine hit. And dopamine is this powerful trigger that comes into it. And it's not the only thing at play when we eat. In fact, it's a very complex system when we eat. But we know that there are certain things that trigger dopamine responses in your body as strong as other addictive substances. In fact, a recent study showed that sugar triggers the same type of dopamine response as cigarettes and cocaine and sex.
Now I don't know about two of the three of those.
But one of them is really powerful in my life.
And it's not cigarettes or cocaine, praise God.
(Congregation Laughing) I wanted to clarify that based on church history.
That was too low. That was rude.
Forgive me God.
But also.
So here's the thing.
Sugar and what we eat, it triggers this system. And it triggers this choice of indulgence.
And by the way, we live in a world, and this is not like an accusation about, I'm not trying to tell you what to eat or not eat. Okay, that's between you and Jesus. But we live in a world where through the way that things are like companies, just like social media is vying for your attention and they're creating games and apps and things that purposely trap you and addict you. There's no question about it. Food producers are purposely trying to produce food that trap you and addict you and get you to come back for more.
So what they're, I'm not telling you they're evil. They're just trying to sell more product.
And we have to realize there is nothing in nature that creates and reaches that exact goodness
of like ice cream.
It doesn't exist, right? Like ice cream's got that mix of like sweet and creamy and it's got everything you need to make you just wanna come back for more and more.
And maybe ice cream's not your thing. Maybe your thing's Oreos.
Maybe that's the one you're like, I just kick it. Like you start with a little bit and then you indulge and then by the time the tray's gone, you have shame. When Kev on stage was here last January, he did this great bit where he talked about how much he loves Oreos. And he's like, and you know, Oreos aren't that bad for you. The serving of Oreos is only calories. And that's not that bad.
Until you realize how much a serving of Oreos is.
And a serving of Oreos is only three Oreos.
And what kind of psycho only eats three Oreos?
He said, that's the number of Oreos that you eat when you get the whole tray and you're on your way to the couch to eat Oreos.
That's what you eat between the kitchen and the couch. And then you at least gotta finish the whole row.
And then all of a sudden your calorie snack just ended up being your daily calories for the whole day, like just in some Oreos.
And then you look at yourself and you're like,
now I feel bad.
I just ate , calories of Oreos.
Because you see, when we worship food, we've made it an idol. And idols always promise something that they can never deliver.
Idols always, you'll feel better afterwards.
This is great.
You feel a little sad? I know it'll fix it. Six to Oreos will get you.
And you'll feel great afterwards. And you eat the first one and you do feel a little bit better. And you're like, yeah. But then it takes two and then it takes six and then it was in the tray is gone. And then you're like, I actually feel worse actually. Now I'm still sad and I have a tummy ache.
Idols always promise something that they can't deliver.
And they promise you something that it will never deliver in your life.
Some people say, if you just get your diet right, you'll feel better. Everything will come into play. You won't.
If the only way you try to address your body, your mind, your spirit, your heart, if the only way you try to address it is through what you eat, you will never find completion because you are not just what you eat.
Man does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. And so it lies to you and promises something that it will never be able to give. But when we look at food as worship, we say, God, I depend on you.
I depend on you for my substance.
And I wanna invite you into my diet. I wanna invite you to my health
and I can create delight and I can experience delight.
And when we say that what we worship shapes us, I don't mean what you eat creates the shape that your body is. That's not what I'm talking about. That is not what I'm talking about. You see, that is talking about body image. And I think body image is important, which is body image is what you think about your body and what you think other people think about your body, which the second one's even worse because you can think about what your body is and then you imagine what everyone else sees.
I know this is all that anyone ever looks at. When they see me as this thing right here.
And body image is an important thing that we lay before God and we bring to God, but it can't be the thing that we hold onto the most because if we do, then we'll only look at what we can do in our lives through exercise, through diet, to try to reshape what our body looks like. And that is not what God is actually interested in.
He's not interested in what your body looks like. He's interested in how you can use your body to worship Him.
And when you realize that your body image is not the main process, we're not fasting because we don't have a better body image. We are fasting and we're inviting God into our food, into our diet because we care about being the image bearer of God and we want to see how can what I eat or not eat help me know Jesus and show Jesus better in my life.
And there's an invitation on what we get to look at and how we get to see that and how we can experience that.
And the reason that I say that it's important is this, God has made us all in different ways. We're fearfully one and made different shapes, different sizes. It's a really beautiful thing. And everyone's not given the same thing. And I read this quote the other day that was really great. It says, "Metabolism can hide your sin as much as it hides your discipline."
Metabolism can hide your sin just as much as it hides your discipline.
Some of you are like, "Man, I'm trying, I'm dieting, I'm exercising, I'm doing this stuff and I don't see a lot of results."
And then there's this other person who's like, "Really, they look at them, they look great."
Only man looks on the outside.
God knows what's going on in the heart.
Not all of us are gonna look like we're on the cover of Men's Health or whatever magazine. That's not what the intention is. The world's idea of beauty and masculinity and perfection, that's all skewed and broken and a disaster.
That's not what you're called to. And when you become hyper fixated on your body, it's always, it's always gonna lead to shame. It's always gonna lead to lack. And it doesn't matter where you're at, you're gonna look at yourself and be like, "Oh, but I'm not like that person.
I wish it was more like that person. I wish I, and it doesn't matter what you do."
I'm a pretty confident guy.
I'm confident in myself. But sometimes I go to the gym, I'm working out in the gym, and I see these younger and stronger guys than me. And I hate it.
And I kinda hate them.
And I make up excuses.
Like, they're probably on drugs. That's my number one goto excuse. If anyone's bigger than me, you're stronger than me. That's an excuse number one. They're on drugs, I could tell.
No way they can do it naturally stronger than me because that's impossible.
Then number two is like, "Well, yeah, but look at them. They're not married and they have kids. They have no happiness in their life.
And if I didn't have kids or a marriage, I'd be so jacked right now."
And if they got married and kids, they wouldn't be near as jacked. They would not look as good as me.
Tell you that.
And then I started, it gets even worse. Then you start like, just like, if I could just have that guy's biceps with that guy's calves, a little of that traps,
and that guy's six pack, then I'd really be hitting it good. Now I'm not even getting one guy. I'm trying to combine like guys to make the perfect guy. And none of which are even my shape, my, like it's not even me.
And then it's like, all of a sudden you're like, what are you doing?
Who are you comparing yourself to?
Who told you you don't look okay?
The first thing God said to Adam and Eve, I would have said, who told you you were naked?
Was it the one who loves you the most, or is the one who hates your soul?
Who told you you're too short, too tall, too fat, too skinny, too much, you're not messing with my life? Who told you you were those things?
Who's bringing you into this place? Because God is interested in you and being healthy. He is. And God may talk to you about what you eat and not eat. He may. But the way that he does it, and the thing that he invites you to, so what Jesus says, he's come to me with your burden, I will give you rest in the light. The way that Jesus, the burden that God puts on us is never heavy or oppressive or shamefilled or guiltfilled. The way that he brings things to us is the thing that speaks to our soul and encourages us to live in the way in the empowerment of the world. And that's what he's saying to me. To live in the way, in the empowerment that he's calling us to.
And so you see, when we look at all these ideas,
and we begin to idolize our body shape, or idolize what we eat, or idolize what other people consider to be beautiful, or handsome, or strong, or fat, when we allow ourselves to do that,
we miss that it is shaping not only our physicality, but it's shaping the desires of our heart.
And we begin to desire things that are not what God longs for us to desire.
And so, when we fast,
we get to lay down food for some period of time.
And in that process, we get to say, "God, I don't want what I eat to shake me, I want you to shake me.
I want your love and your goodness and your mercy to shake me. And I want you to illuminate to me how I'm supposed to live."
And then guess what?
When we don't have time to totally unpack this today, but as important as fasting is, I believe feasting in the presence of God is equally as important and equally as formative to you.
When you come together with family and community, whether that's a special event like Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or whether it's just a weekly meal with your family, I believe coming together and feasting in the presence of your community, feasting in the presence of God is equally as important, which you can say, "Look at my soul and what this abundance is. I am not one who's destined to live and lack, but one who serves an abundant and good God."
And so there's this invitation.
So there's this invitation of how we get to walk through this process.
And here's something, and this isn't like, there's something that many people have done over the history. There's kind of like three different things that you can do in a regular rhythm that helps us keep food in our bellies from being idols and allows us to delight and see God at every turn.
So one, I think that a regular fast practice is a really beautiful thing that you can do. Again, I think you start small, you work your way up, maybe it's once a month, maybe it's once a week, maybe it's one meal or one hour, maybe it grows into this thing, but I can tell you that coming into a regular fast practice of some kind, I believe is this a beautiful way and that you can allow your soul and your body to reset,
to allow yourself to seek after God, to experience some of the things that Justin mentioned in his letter, that you can pray, like these beautiful things that you can experience in this time of fasting. And then I think that you should regularly on the same weekly basis, have a moment of time, one meal at least a week, where you and your family, or if you're single, finding other friends and community in which you can come together and you can feast together and celebrate the goodness of God, in which your diet or your calories or your macros and all those things are at the moment in which you can say, "God, I want to experience "your abundance and I wanna feast in your presence today "and worship you with all that I have "and all that I eat and all that I am "because it is not what I eat or don't eat that shakes me, "but you, you shake me, you form me."
And then there's life in between.
And this is in our modern day, the most tricky part, because in Jesus' day, do you know what they ate in between the fasting and the feasting?
Just normal old food.
And the reason was, it's way harder to eat when you've got to make everything from zero. If you want some fried chicken and it starts by catching the chicken out in the yard, it's a whole different process.
And you could probably eat as much fried chicken as you want actually, because you just burned , calories catching that chicken, plucking that chicken, gutting that chicken, butchering that chicken, and then, "Oh, I gotta go chop some firewood "so I can make a fire so that I can..." Like by the end of that, eat the whole chicken at that point, however you want.
However you want.
There were no Oreo traits.
There wasn't even, believe it or not, ChickfilA.
They ate normal, standard food that they prepared at home.
It wasn't opulent, it was normal.
And we struggle with that because we live in the most foodrich place in the history and the world, like we have so much food. It is out of, you can eat whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, as few or as many calories as clean or unclean. Like whatever you wanna do, you can go get right now. Right after this, you have infinite options for your Sunday lunch.
And I'm not telling you that any of them are evil or any of them you should abstain from. That is not what my place is, nor am I telling you not to do it. But what I'm telling you is you need to be careful what you eat in between your feasting and your fasting.
Because it may start to creep in your life and may try to change and shape you.
And when we keep our normal diet on the more simple side,
where we are able to eat as simply and as basic and when possible, the things that God created himself,
it allows us to keep food in the proper place where it's supposed to be.
Because I can tell you this,
I like a good apple every once in a while. I've never eaten a whole bag of apples.
I have eaten a whole bag of Nerds Gummy Clusters. (Congregation Laughing) And I mean the Sam size.
Okay, and that's Isaiah's fault.
He was a Nerds Gummy Cluster pusher.
I mean as evil as any drug.
Once you hit your lips, you just can't stop.
(Congregation Laughing) It's his fault.
Like there's things that you can eat. Like God created food for you. And then man in an attempt to help God has created food that they tell you is better for you. There's overly processed, overly can, and I'm not sitting here like hippy dippy wearing this thing. It's like, let me tell you what it's got. I'm just telling you that when you look at certain things, you're like, how are there so many calories in this? There's a reason.
There's a reason. I measured a bag of pretzels the other day for my lunch. Dot's pretzels, they're so good.
And I just put it in the thing. Out of just happenstance, I just measured how much it weighed and I was like, I wonder, I think this is probably like calories of pretzels. That's what I thought. I put it on the scale, I weighed it, and I took it and I put it in this little app that I actually use for Felix to track his sugars and stuff. And they said it was calories of pretzels.
And that's how many pretzels I usually ate standing at the counter, like when I was trying to decide what to eat for dinner.
And that's my curse, don't say, get behind me, Satan. I don't know about this. And I say that because there are certain things that God creates when we look at more natural things that God creates and I'm not, I don't have like a produce store, okay? I'm not a farmer's market guy. I'm not invested in whole foods. Like that's not how it works. I'm just telling you, we sometimes allow ourselves for the sake of convenience and actually what seems good in the moment, we turn to food that is actually detrimental to our health.
And it's detrimental to how we're living.
And it's not only detrimental, it literally creates problems right away.
Two times a month, some of the pastures I would go and we get lunch and we always joke because we usually pick what we're gonna eat based on how much work we have afterwards.
Because we know there's certain places we can go that we really love, but our productivity really goes down afterwards.
I'll tell you A number one that we wanna go to and we regret every time is Ron's hamburgers. Because I can't do anything other than order the jumbo Spanish cheese fried burger because it seems good.
And then it doesn't seem good right afterwards.
And I'm not productive the rest of the day.
And when I walk in God's things, that's not how it works.
And I tell you this, none of what I'm telling you should bring any kind of guilt, should bring any kind of condemnation, should make you question things, it shouldn't make you question how you feel about your body, it shouldn't question what it shouldn't do, what my heart is, what my hope is. And that encourages you to turn to God and say, God, I want to open myself up.
And just like David said, search me and if there's anything that's not from you, show me.
For a long time for me it was like, look at any of the things, but don't tell me what I can eat or not eat.
I got that.
I got that. Actually for me it was two things. Don't tell me what to do with my money and don't tell me what to eat, but everything else is yours, Lord.
And trust me, I had plenty of stuff to work on in those other areas as well and still do.
But he cares.
He cares.
And as opposed to the fad diet that someone would be like, I lost pounds and then you tried and you're like, I gained . God actually knows what you need.
You, personally, and through relationship, he can lead you and guide you and show you what brings your greatest health and longevity so you can live on this earth and be able to participate in his mission and know him better. Like that is his desire for you. That food becomes the thing that you delight in and thank him for his provision. That it becomes the thing that you can abstain from so you can say, I hunger and thirst for you and I love you more than I love food. And it's the thing that you can feast and then celebrate and say, God, look at your abundance and your goodness and what you're doing in my heart and my soul, my soul rejoices in the very presence of who you are. And for everything in between, you can say, this is the thing that allows me to partake in the mission of knowing Jesus better and showing him everywhere and allowing his grace and his mercy to transform me. And it's not gonna be an idol in my life. And that doesn't mean that we can't enjoy things. It doesn't mean that we can't take pleasure and food. That's the exact opposite. What it means is we can put it in its proper place, which is below the place of where God is in my life.
So I invite him into that place
through what I eat and through what I don't eat
because I wanna experience all that he has for me physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally in every area.
And so my encouragement for you this week is simple. It's simple.
To take some time and to open up your heart and your spirit and ask yourself, what does my relationship with food look like?
And invite the Holy Spirit into it and say, God, here's what I'm currently doing.
Do I need to make any changes?
And I know that may be scary.
Because I feel like that.
I don't want God to say something like, "Stop drinking coffee." Like, "I'm a what Satan? "No, I can't be God. "He would never ask me to take that love away.
"Then I sound like a feigning person."
Like, I'm in the process of thinking about some different fasting goals that I have coming up, and they keep coming back to, "Will you drink coffee while you're fasting?" And I'm like, "What a stupid question, God."
It's like, "Do you want me to stop loving my wife as well?"
I think not.
That may represent a disordered desire in my heart.
And I'm not telling you I'm gonna stop drinking coffee. I'm not promising that.
But I am inviting God into it.
And many other things.
Like, diet and exercise are a really cool trend in fat. You can go online and people give you all the advice you want. I'm not giving you any of that. I'm saying take it to your Savior and invite Him into that process.
And if He tells you to start eating something, eat it. If He tells you to stop eating something, stop. If He tells you to start moving in some way, move that way. If He tells you you're moving too much, because guess what? Working out is plenty of people's idols.
People's fitness is plenty of people's idols.
They can look like they've got it all together and it doesn't change anything.
They actually have a bigger dysfunction towards food than people who look the opposite.
The outward appearance means nothing.
You invite God to be the substance and the one who leads you and guides you. And if He invites you to fast, fast. And if He invites you to feast, feast.
That is the goodness of what God does. And I know some of you are sitting in this room right now and you're like, "John, that's all well and good. Will you just tell me what to do?"
I'm not going to tell you what to do.
It's not my job.
And if I told you what to do, for some of you it would work and for the vast majority of you it wouldn't, because all I could tell you is what God's telling me.
And what He tells me works perfectly for me. And that's the only one I can say it goes for it.
But what He tells you to do, He cares.
Relationship with God is not just about these big ordeals or this lifechanging decisions. It's about even the very step of what do I put in my mouth this morning for breakfast? He cares that much about you.
And will you make a mistake? Absolutely. Will you fall short? Yes. And where that falls short happens, His grace is there to pick you up. It is not like, "Oh, I made one dietary choice and now God's made..." No, no, no, no, no. None of that is true.
I was trying to lose weight and I gained weight. Now God's upset with me. Nope.
None of that's true. The guilt and the shame died at the foot of the cross. You get to embrace the love and the mercy that Jesus has for you. And His kindness leads you to repentance. That's not just from these sins that we all address. It's like, that's a sin. It's from the places where we've allowed things to take the place of God and His kindness will draw us back in.
And so maybe for you, food is not the thing.
It could be something else that you've put in place of God.
His kindness will draw you to repentance, to experience His goodness.
So if my invitation for you remains the same, invite God.
How should I live this week? What should I eat? What should I not eat? How can I worship you with choices I make in food so that I can experience your goodness
and to know you better
and to show you better in my life?
And whatever He invites you to, do it.
The most simple yet challenging thing which is to listen and obey.
Because what He has for you is only good things. Let's pray this morning. Father, we thank you so much for today.
Lord, I know this message is not maybe what we usually talk about in church.
And for some, it can bring some anxiety, some shame, some guilt.
I come against all of that in the name of Jesus.
We who are here, who are the image of God, who were fearfully and wonderfully made by you,
we are called to be your righteous delegation of king priests who live here on this earth.
And Lord, allow us to invite you to every area of our lives so that your spirit can be part of your spirit, so your mind can be our mind, and so that our body can worship you, not just in the way that we live in the outward expression, but even with what we eat, Father God, that it'll be worshipful and spiritled by you because you know exactly what sustains us, what brings health, what brings peace, Father God.
I come against all fear
because the enemy would love for us to be afraid of what we eat or afraid of what we look like or afraid of what our choices can or can't produce, and that is not your heart for us. Perfect love casts out all fear, and you love us perfectly.
So thank you that we can press into your goodness, experience your holiness, embrace the season that we're in,
and see your faithfulness at every turn.
It is in your holy name that we pray. Amen and amen. Church, listen, love you very much. If you need prayer for anything, come on down. It's gonna be a great opportunity for you to pray. You don't wanna miss next week. Pastor Isaiah's preaching next week. Okay, you do not wanna miss it. It's gonna be exciting. I'm looking forward to it. I'll be on the front row, so it's gonna be great. You are dismissed. Have a great rest of your Sunday.
