Fasting pt1/To Starve the Flesh and Feed the Spirit/Various

[Music] Portland is known all over the world as a food city come on people literally travel here from all over North America on a vacation just to eat the first time that I ever heard the word foodie was when I moved into Portland in fact I remember when I first moved here what shocked me was not the naked bike ride or the guy with bagpipes breathing fire or even that like communism is still a thing that people are into that was not what rocked my faith which shocked me coming from like a background where you know you were responsible with your money is it's a weird you never it's a thing don't worry about it is how much money people spent eating out all the time that or just remember I was like Gerald you spend how much money like you eat out more than twice a year seriously like the Portland thing is you live in this tiny little kind of cool but kind of ghetto apartment with no furniture and and you drive like a 90s beat-up sedan preferably made by Subaru maybe Toyota if you like newer and or you ride a bicycle it's not because you don't have money you have money it's because you blow all of your money on eating out and it's coffee and a pastry for breakfast and a food cart for lunch and then drinks with colleagues after work and then you hit a new spot for dinner and then a little nightcap somewhere maybe back at home if you're into it with scotch or whatever you know welcome to Portland and you know we claim we have more restaurants per capita than any other city in the world I have no idea if that is true or not either way it would take you ear years just to eat your way through this city but even outside of Portland America is known all over the world that's a place where three meals a day is the norm Plus coffee before that red wine after and snacks all day long it's a place where we think that appetite and hunger are one and the same so it comes as no surprise that nearly 3/4 of Americans are obese or overweight nearly 30% of children now are obese or overweight plus you have issues of food waste a family of four in America on average spends 15 you dollars a year on food that goes right into the trash can you have issues of food injustice where foods that are unhealthy for the body and bad for the environment are subsidized by our government creating an economy where the poor do not have access to healthy food on and on so on one hand we live in a culture of food excess but then at the same time this is really weird we also live in a culture of the worship of the body and a particular of the worship of sexuality like just think about the mixed messages the emotional experience that is the grocery store the line to the grocery store right so imagine your whole foods or like your mortal like the rest of us and you shop at Trader Joe's or whatever you're like wait shop I just eat out all the time okay imagine hypothetical scenario you're in line at the grocery store there's a magazine rack on your left and your right and normally like on your left is Chris Hemsworth with his shirt off and like apparently nine pack abs are a thing now and he's like is that CGI or I think that is real and then normally on your right is like a decadent picture of strawberry cheesecake I just think about the mixed messages there for a minute last time I checked looking like Thor and eating cheesecake we're mutually exclusive I'd like a lat at least for my genetics and way of life so it comes as no surprise that on a serious now more and more people are suffering from eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia and so many people so many young people especially so many young women are living with issues of body image and self-worth and deeper than that shame and guilt and a father wound or a mother wound I mean how many of us and and the deep sense of comparison and competition in our society how many of us look like the Penelope of images you see every single day on a magazine rack or in an Instagram feed that woman or that man in that photo first off is point zero zero one percent of the population secondly is one cultural definition of beauty that viatra does not celebrate the full range of body types and metabolisms and ages and ethnicities and that is not actually what that man or woman even looks like in real life that has been through filter after filter after filter of makeup and professional photography and lighting and this thing called adobe photoshop you know about it and then visco on top of all of that right that's they don't even look like that in real life right and so we have we have this fascinating moment where we feel this tension in our body and past that into our soul and what both sides from food excess on one side and body idolatry and with it its twin body and security on the other what both sides have in common is more than just an unhealthy relationship to food it's that the body has become our master it has a power and authority over our emotional equilibrium and our spiritual status the reality is just if we're honest that food and our body and our desire for food has way more power over us than most of us want to admit and underneath that desire either for food and the pleasure that comes from that or for body image or whatever underneath that desire is an even deeper desire that psychologist called the pleasure principle which is the driving motivation of the immature who only want to do what feels good in the moment once reserved for children and middle schoolers this is becoming the new normal in our society hence the explosion of debt at a national level and an individual level hence divorce hence the rise of addictions of all kinds but as we all know many things that are pleasurable in the short term re damaged in the long term and on the flip side many things that are quite honestly not very fun in the short term yield dividends for years and decades to come as long as we run our life on the pleasure principle we will never mature into the man or the woman that has the capacity to enjoy life as God intended it in reality we are not running our lives at all we are being run by what the writers of the New Testament call our flesh and I will define that for you in just a bed and our city in particular and our nation as a whole is literally set up to indulge our flesh to feed it literally and metaphorically to entice it to tempt it to market to it to promote to it to proselytize to it to draw you in and make a little bit of money off of your lack of self control over your body much less over our desires welcome to 2018 in Portland Oregon you thought it was just a food cart no it was Satan actually so is there a practice from the way of Jesus to break free from this unhealthy relationship that so many of us have with our body and all of its desires and underneath it the pleasure principle that is running our life and locking so many of us in unhealthy patterns of immaturity yes there is there are a number I would argue the top of the list is the practice of fasting turn your Bibles to Genesis chapter 2 and give me a few minutes to lay out a biblical theology of fasting Genesis chapter 2 if you have a Bible or an app on your phone I really encourage you to take a Bible along as in like a codex not on app and your phone along with you to church to focus your mind on the moment let's read a story Genesis chapter 2 take a look at verse 4 this is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens now no shrub add yet appeared on the earth no planted yet sprung up for the Lord God and not sent rain on the earth there was no one to work the ground but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground then 7 the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being as a play on words in the original language that we miss in the English translation in Hebrew the phrase is Adam which here is translated a man it can also be translated human which where we get the proper name Adam but in Hebrew it's not a proper name it means human was made from the Adama in Hebrew Adam is made from the Adamo meaning human has a symbiotic relationship with the earth he in the story is literally made from the dust yet at the same time we read that God breathed into his breasts into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being breath right there is the word rule in Hebrew and it's the word for breath and also for spirit so human is dust but he's also spirit he's physicality but he's also spirituality he's both an unlike the animals who have a body but no spirit or the angels who have a spirit but no body human beings are kind of a hybrid an integrated being body and spirit material and immaterial now this has so much to say to our culture to our secular culture that says you are more than just your body your mind is more than just your neural synapses firing at random to our Christian culture this says your body is a part of who you are not as so many Christians believe just a shell to carry quote the real you around until you go to heaven when you die or whatever that is medieval heresy it is not biblical theology this right here is what the theologian Scott McKnight calls embodied spirituality I love that and you have to wrap your head around this idea that you on one hand don't have a body you are a body but at the same time you are more than just a body you are dust and spirit you have to wrap your head around this idea that you are an integrated pain or fasting and honestly a number of the other spiritual disciplines as well will never make sense to you fastenings what McKnight calls bodytalk it's a way of praying not with your mind or with your mouth but with your stomach and with your body and we do it because something has gone wrong in our body itself turn the page chapter 3 verse 1 now the snake was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made and he said to the woman did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden well the woman said to the snake we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden but yeah God did say you must not eat from the tree that's in the middle of the garden there's that one you must not even touch it or you will die you will not certainly die notice that's a full-on lie the snake said to the woman for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be open like God has an agenda you can't trust him and you will be like God you'll you'll be better off knowing good and evil when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom she took some and wet ate it she also gave some to her husband who is with her and he ate it and the story goes on the story of what we call the fall or original scent now I grew up in the church like a lot of you I have heard this story a thousand times I can't remember one time when anybody ever made a point of saying that original sin had to do with food with the inability to not eat something that was in front of you however you read Genesis whether you read the story more literally as history or more literally as theology or some kind of a go-between how I don't care however you read it that has got to mean something now the temptation was not to eat food the temptation was to redefine good and evil to trust your own instinct and the voice of the serpent in your ear rather than to trust God on his vision for human flourishing that has always been the temptation am I right to redefine good and evil based around your own opinion your own got your own instinct and the voice in your ear whatever wherever that voice comes from as ignatius so wisely said quote sin is unwillingness to trust that what God wants for me is only my deepest happiness so that's the temptation but notice what is the means of temptation food to eat or not to eat that has got to say something to the human condition also notice there is an inversion in this story if you're reading through Genesis you know that human beings male and female were made to rule over the creation and there are two categories in Genesis one there is the animal kingdom and all plant life and instead in the fall in original sin everything is inverted and human beings are ruled over by the creation by a serpent from the animal kingdom and by a fruit from the plant world do you see it now the animal kingdom at the plant world the creation now has power and authority over human beings something has now gone wrong in the body and in its desire not only for food but for pleasure we read that word right in the story pleasure as Paul later writes in the New Testament quote who will save us from this body of death it's a rhetorical question what's the answer yeah just take a guess it's Church nine times out of ten it's always Jesus and even if it's not nobody will get you we'll never get in trouble for that ever I promise right yeah Jesus turn over to Matthew chapter 4 into the New Testament now I know we're flying here stay with me Matthew chapter 4 this is one of the first stories that we read about Jesus of Nazareth or I mean you could argue it is the first story that we read about Jesus of Nazareth chapter fours right after his baptism we read this verse 1 then Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil oh wow does that sound familiar we just read a story about that after what fasting for 40 days and 40 nights he was hungry you would think and the tempter came to him and said if you are the son of God tell these stones to what become bread so it's another temptation that has to do with what food and it's not really about food nothing wrong with bread right Jesus is not like anti gluten or something all right but this is about something else but still does this sound familiar jesus answered it is written quote man this is a quote from Deuteronomy in Deuteronomy in the original Hebrew the word there is a Dom she'll not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God and the story goes on now there's a lot here I don't have time to get into short version if you're feeling deja vu right now that's good that means you're reading the Bible well you're supposed to that's what the writer Matthew has in mind this is the way that Matthew writes the story and the way that Jesus is living this out this is there's no doubt all theologians point this out this is Jesus replaying the Genesis one two and three the garden story all over again here's Jesus now the Adam the human being face to face with the tempter here's the temptation it's kind of about food but it's not really about food it's about a lot more than that but unlike Adam and Eve who failed here Jesus succeeded unlike you and me who failed here Jesus succeeded unlike the other billions of people around the planet all down through human history who failed Jesus succeeded where we were defeated Jesus was victorious and in doing so he opened up a kingdom in the language of Jesus a rule and a reign of freedom for anybody that wants in on it Paul later theologizing this story and he writes quote in Adam all died but in Christ all will be made alive beautiful now for our purposes tonight I just want you to notice one thing how did Jesus succeed were Adam and Eve dand so many others had failed before is their practice in there as actually two or three he's he signed some solitude you see prayer and you see what fasting after fasting for forty days then was Jesus weak no he was stronger than ever before after fasting he was hungry but he was at the height of his powers and then and only then did he have the power and authority and the control over his own body to take the tempter on toe-to-toe and come out the other side the how did Jesus start off his kingdom work in the world with fasting it comes as no surprise that fasting later became a regular part of Jesus life and we just read a a subtle hint nod there it's not even with a lot of fanfare there's a great story I don't have time to read where Jesus is out of well with a woman and everybody's hungry and he's tired and the disciples go out to get lunch and come back and Jesus has this cryptic line about how my food is to do the will of him who sent me and it sounds like Jesus is being clever and it's not like that's honestly he was feeding off drying energy off he was fasting life from God it became a regular part of his life and the life of his apprentices turn over to Matthew chapter 6 just a page or two to the right we read this a few months ago Bethany did a great teaching on this let me just reread it to you Matthew chapter 6 were in the Sermon on the Mount now verse 16 when you fast Jesus here when you fast don't look somber as the hypocrites do for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting truly I tell you they've received the reward in full all right that's what you want you got it but when you fast put oil on your head wash your face you know look like product in your hair for once so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting but only to your father who is unseen and your father who sees what is done in secret guess what he will reward you now again so much eret don't need to get into for our purposes tonight I just want you to notice two things about this teaching of Jesus on fasting one Jesus assumes that all of his apprentices will fast when you fast end quote not if you fast secondly Jesus assumes that we will mess it up that makes me feel a lot better am I alone in that he assumes that you'll do it for all sorts of wonky reasons and you'll do it to show off and it won't really work and it won't really get you the reward that you're after and like the fot like he just assumes all of this disciples will fast and most of his disciples will mess it up I for one feel a lot better out of but let's just take a minute let's just pause and we'll read more Jesus stuff next week let's just talk a little bit about this practice of fasting Jesus assumes that all of his disciples will fast on a semi-regular basis to begin let's just call out the elephant in the room most of us don't do that the data is in we take an annual survey Bridgetown church here the results hot-off-the-press the month or two ago we asked the question how frequently do you fast forty five percent of our church said never never done it before so that's just about upwards of half 30 percent rarely so just think about the math on that seventy five percent of the people in our church for them fasting is not a part of their kind of regular life you have 12 percent a few times a year five percent once a year we're down to two percent once we get to once a week now please don't miss read me here I'm not blasting anybody in the room much less ninety-eight percent of you all right whoever the two percent of you are we have like a you know you're lucky dinner or something for you on this week no like I'm not blasting anybody my point is if you're here you're like oh man I don't really fast at all or maybe like that one time like forever ago was seven or what was it called again it was more like two for me but whatever don't feel bad at all you are not alone ninety-eight percent of the people to your right and to your left but hasn't always been this way let me give you a brief history of fasting in two or three minutes in Jesus first century world most Jews and all Pharisees fasted twice a week every Monday and every Thursday fasting was one of the core practices of that day and age in fact the one time that Jesus teaches on the spiritual disciplines like straight up is right here in Matthew 6 and he calls out three by name you remember prayer fasting and giving to the poor because in his day and age and rabbinic teaching those were the three most important to all the practices of the spiritual disciplines and that a little weird if somebody asked you what are the three most important spiritual disciplines what would you say Bible reading church I don't know ty V Anderson the odds are you would not say prayer fasting and giving to the poor the odds are that fasting for most of us if we're honest would not make it into the top three most important of all and the early church continued this practice of bi-weekly fasting but they changed it from Monday and Thursday to Wednesday and Friday the decay which is the earliest writing we have from the early church outside of the New Testament as we as far as we can tell it's as old as a number of writings in the New Testament it goes back to the first century we read this quote but do not let your fasts coincide with those of the hypocrites or the Pharisees they fast on Mondays and Thursdays so you must faster on Wednesday and Friday grumpy Christians are nothing new apparently they've been around for a very long time so the early church for a very long time fasted every Wednesday and every Friday the only two days they refused to fast were Saturdays and Sundays Saturdays because it was the Sabbath and it was a day to look back to creation and Sunday because it was the Lord's Day a day to look forward to new creation and those were days not for fasting but for feasting to come together light up the band throw a party set the table be together but they took this like seriously no fasting on the weekend but every Wednesday and Friday here's a quote from our writing in 380 ad on church leadership quote if anyone of the clergy be found too fast on the Lord's Day or on the Sabbath day excepting one only let him be deprived sounds ominous I don't even know what that is but sounds scary but if he'd be one of the laity let him just be suspended you got a love this is like right out of church history now the one only day that he is referring to is the one exception to fasting on the Sabbath and that's holy Saturday if you know the church calendar at all that is the Sabbath after Lent and the night before Easter on that day in that day alone the entire church of that Sabbath alone the entire church would all fast together across the ancient world speaking of Lent if you know about that if you come from a Roman Catholic background or Eastern Orthodox or our church that was involved in the church calendar Lent is the forty days leading up to Easter it's about to start and it was a thing not right away but within a few hundred years of the church and originally a lot of people don't know this originally length was 40 days of fasting but you would eat after the Sun went down a very simple meal no meat and no alcohol for forty days it's very similar to the Muslim feast or not feast I'm sorry practice of Ramadan which as far as we can tell was based on the Christian ancient Christian practice of fasting for Lent now most church traditions west and east have changed Lent to giving up something for forty days you give up TV or social media or alcohol or whatever you feel like the Spirit is leading you to and that's great more on that in a minute but early on it was full-on fasting my point for you is that early in the history of the church they were both regular fasts every Wednesday and Friday and periodic fast Lent holy Saturday before baptism you had to fast before the Lord's Supper and get this this lasted for a very long time all the way up to at least around the time of John Wesley if you know your church history at all John Wesley was a Brit who came over at the pond to America in the 18th century it was one of the most influential church leaders in the Western world his impact on America is still being felt to this day and for the most part he was a amazing man and he had a lot to say about fasting but I started laughing when I read this quote this is from the middle of the 1700s I fear there are now thousands of Methodists so-called little passive-aggressive right there come on both in England and in Ireland who following the same bad example have entirely left off fasting who are so far from fasting twice a week they do not fast twice in the month you know who you are Christians so called he goes on the man who never fast is no more in the way to heaven than the man who never prays sisters you're off the hook right it's a patriarchal society it's a long time ago all right now please listen carefully I'm not saying that I agree with Wesley he was single and a bit grumpy at times all right all I'm saying he's also one of the greatest leaders in the history of the church all that I'm saying is that up until quite recently in church history fasting was thought of as a core practice for the way basically if you were at all serious about apprenticeship to Jesus then you fasted on a regular basis now today let's just be honest that sounds crazy it's unthinkable too weird Tyler posted something on our church you know Instagram feed about the upcoming practice a few days ago and I saw this comment at the bottom that full-on said is this a cult because this is cultish the answer is yes we are a cult we're really happy you're here just please pass forward your debit card and the kool aids at the back all right so it's that weird to people it sounds crazy because it is so far out of step with our culture now there are all sorts of reasons for this it has to do with the abuse of the practice in the Middle Ages if you know your church history or this is goofy like really unhealthy theology the body was evil and all pleasure from food to sex to whatever it was evil it has to do with the Protestant Catholic divide and the Reformation a few hundred years ago it's like kind of a divorce in the church and it's like the Protestants got some of the spiritual disciplines like we got Bible reading and sermons and stuff and the Catholics got you know like spiritual direction and fasting and contemplator prayer they've got some of the cool ones it's not fair so it has a little bit to do with that but honestly and I might be wrong here but if I'm reading the history right more than anything it has to do with the hedonism of our day and age and our do what feels good kind of instant gratification culture the idea of going without food sounds cultish if not crazy much less in vogue meaning what meaning basically this is a lost practice in the modern Western Church so two very simple questions before we call it a night what is fasting and why do we do it alright first off what is fasting exactly and I know this is not rocket science but just stick with me because there's a lot of misinformation out there first let's start with what it's not fasting is not abstaining I regularly hear regularly he'll hear people say I'm fasting from social media or I'm fasting from Xbox that's just called growing up but that's another thing or I'm fasting from you know red wine or I'm fasting from shopping or whatever that an honest that I mean to make line of it that's great there's a long-running practice in the church of abstaining from habits that do violence to your hearts love for Jesus and I am all for it but don't call it fasting call it I'm not playing xbox this week or I'm not buying new clothes for the next three months or whatever just call it that it's abstaining it's not the same thing as fasting secondly it's not a restricted diet so this is kind of fad I don't know where it came from but the last few years on this thing called the Daniel Fast have you heard about that it's based on Daniel one where you eat only meat and vegetables and drink only water for three weeks or whatever and that's great but that's not fasting go read Daniel chapter one Daniel does eat only meat and vegetables and drink only water for three weeks but never once is the word fasting used anywhere in that story that's a restricted diet and if you want to lose a little weight detoxify your system and not get sucked into Babylon it's great third it's not seriously it's a great thing just don't call it fasting it's a restricted diet third is not dieting it's not a trend it's not a fad so the latest health you know fad at least for men is intermittent fasting where you don't eat for 15 hours a day I've been doing it for a while I still have a tummy that is doesn't have six things on it but whatever it's that's fine but that's that's not the practice of fasting does that make sense we'll talk about why we fast in a minute but when I think about Jesus 40 days in the wilderness I don't think he was out there fasting because he's like you know I just need to get cut and I'm on stage all the time and I want to detoxify my sister clear up my skin a little bit clear my mind and just really look good when I show up to you know change the course of human history I I don't know but I doubt that was Jesus motivation right so what is fasting well it's pretty straightforward fasting is not eating food or drinking water at times although usually it's not that in order or the Metta reason we'll talk about more reasons in a minute but in order to feed on the holy spirit John Piper defines it as whole body hunger in for God yes I just quoted John Piper it's a new year miracles happen won't happen again I promise all right Scott McKnight you I'm much more than the same page with defines it as a person's whole body natural response to life's sacred moments Willard writes that fasting is feasting but not on food on our Lord and on doing his will are you starting to get that it's not eating but it's more than not eating now there's no biblical time limit for a fast there's no like biblical length most fasts in the Bible and in church history are one day long the twice a week fast was usually from sunup to sundown so about 12 hours long you'd wake up skip breakfast and lunch and then eat a late dinner after the Sun went down or in Portland an early dinner after the Sun went down you know whatever some examples are shorter where they in particular nursing something would eat at noon or 3:00 p.m. others are longer they would start the fast the night before and skip three males dinner breakfast and lunch for a full 24 hours but there are also three-day examples of fast and 7-day and even 40 day fast all through the Bible usually people would still drink water your body can only go for a little bit without water it can go for quite a while without food but there are stories where people would go without food or water fasting on that note can be done both individually and communally very important that you get your head around that again a lot of misinformation here Jesus here in Matthew 6 is not saying that fasting in public is wrong right if by that logic that's what Jesus is saying then right before that he said the same thing about prayer that means that prayer in public is wrong right nobody would argue that like clearly that's not right he's saying that fasting to show off is wrong the Bible is full of examples of people fasting and praying in community from ester calling the entire nation to prayer 3 days of prayer and fasting with no food or water in a national crisis to Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement were all Israel would fast together for 24 hours every single year to multiple stories in the book of Acts of the early church fasting and praying together on that note the Bible is just full of examples of fasting pretty much all the major characters in the Bible fast not all but pretty much all of them interesting the three 40-day fast or Moses Elijah and Jesus Moses who's the archetype of the law Elijah who's the archetype of the prophets and Jesus who's the archetype of the Gospels and the New Testament from cover to cover all the way through you read about this practice of fasting now question number two like okay it's there why why in the world would I do this well this is where we really need to drill down because according to Jesus fasting goes south really fast when we do it for the wrong reasons show off to manipulate God to lose weight to whatever it is and there's a danger here now it's not enough danger to throw the baby out with the bathwater and not practice it but it's enough danger to keep you and me on our toes so our teaching for the three weeks will focus on the why I don't know what you basically have the what it's like pretty simple you don't eat and you pray a lot but the why is where we'll put most of our time into why is this an idea whose time might just have come or really better said come again and why would you and I want to seriously consider working this practice into our apprenticeship to Jesus now on that note as I see it there are basically three reasons that we fast and these are kind of three overarching categories each one has subcategories and feel free to you know push back on this but basically myself and I'm not alone here a lot of others argue three basic reasons one is to starve the flesh and feed the spirit talk about that in a minute two is to pray and three is to stand and solidarity with the poor tonight we'll tackle reason number one and then over the next two weeks it's pretty short teaching series and pretty short practice will tackle the next two turn to Galatians five we'll end here for our night Galatians five just give me a few more minutes of your time Galatians chapter five in the New Testament this is one of my all-time favorite passages for sure in the New Testament if not in all of the Bible I think it's one of the most important passages if you are into scripture memorization this is a great passage to put to memory and notice how Paul writes about the flesh and the spirit Galatians chapter five let's just read it start off in verse 13 you my brothers and sisters were called to be free I loved that you were called to be freed of freedom but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh rather serve one another humbly and love for the entire loss of filled-in keeping this one command love your neighbor as yourself if you bite and devour each other watch out or you will be destroyed by each other so I say live by the spirit and you will not gratify give in to or feed the desires of the flesh for the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit what is contrary the flesh they are in conflict with each other so listen carefully you are not to do whatever you want but if you are led by the spirit well then you're not under the law the acts of the flesh are obvious sexual immorality impurity and debauchery idolatry and witchcraft hatred discord jealousy fits of Rage selfish ambition dissensions factions and envy drunkenness orgies and the like I warn you as I did before that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom but the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace forbearance kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control against such things there is no law at all those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires since we live by the spirit let us keep in step with the spirit now again a lot here don't have time for short version a running theme in Paul's writings not just here in Galatians in Romans and all through the New Testament is this idea of the flesh and the spirit at some point I want to do more in-depth teaching on it because I think it matters a ton in Greek this word the flesh is Sark's and it can be translated your body but what Paul means here is not your body all right it's not your body and your spirit what he means by the flesh is the best definition I can think of is your disordered desires so it has to do with our body but it's not our body it's our bodily desires that are out of whack our desires for food and drink and sleep and sax and self-preservation none of which is bad but that have run out of whack and have taken control of our mind and of our body and of our whole person and have bent it away from good as defined by Jesus and toward good as defined by the serpent or our own voice or whatever it is our primal animal-like desires for instant gratification I want what I want and I want it now and don't let anybody get in my way it is your inner Adam your inner Eve that part of you that is bent and rebellion against God against all authority whether it's the Bible or the church or a pastor or a teacher or a parent or a rule or regulation or a law or a verse in the Bible whatever it is that has bent you I don't tell me what to do my life is my own and I am or we think in control of it and it's not just infected the flesh has not just infected our body it's inflected our mind Paul in Romans 8 has a lot to say I don't have time for it now but about you the flesh and the mind he writes that the mind that is set on the flesh is death but the mind that is set on the Spirit is life and peace so your mind has been infected as well to where you believe lies in your mind's eye and so do I about what is true and what is not true about what is freedom and what is slavery about what is the way to be human and what not is not the way to be human and if you believe lies long enough and then you start to live those lies the terrifying thing is that those lives start to come true so this this is our flash it's not our body your body is not evil but your body is infected and there's a part of you that is your Sark's your flesh your disorder desires now that's just a part of you and by the way the good news is it's dying it's days are numbered it will not make it through the resurrection and out the other side there's another part of you and even deeper part of you that Paul calls the spirit this is as part of you that is in contact with the Spirit of God himself and this is in the language of church theology and it's called regeneration these are your deepest desires one man that's really helpful to think about is often your strongest desires are not your deepest desires so in the moment your strongest desire might be to lust or objectify or lie to save face or you know hit somebody when you're angry or gossip or what ever but that's not your deepest desire deeper than that underneath that you have a spirit that is in contact with the Spirit of God that has been terraformed and transformed by the saving work of Jesus death Braille and resurrection and the filling of the Holy Spirit in the depth of your being and your deepest desire now is to follow Jesus but the problem is this side of Resurrection this is temporary but for now we're this mixed bag of desires we have a flesh and it has its set of desires we have a spirit and it's set of desires and because we're this mixed bag of desires for Paul listen listen freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want quote you are not to do whatever you want end quote for Paul that's not freedom that is actually slavery Paul I think in Jesus who said a ton about freedom would take serious issue with our culture's definition of freedom get your lives off my body it's none of your business we define freedom as the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else so we think at our hyper individualistic society as if our life is not tied to the life of the people to our right into our left for Paul that's not freedom that's slavery but not to a Hitler or Mussolini or a Stalin or whatever it's slavery to your own flesh to your mind that's been infected in your body that is now off kilter freedom is the ability to live in the spirit to have your spirit transformed by the Spirit of Jesus and to want what the spirit wants and then to have the power and the authority over your own mind and your own body through self mastery through access to the power of the Holy Spirit to actually will what the spirit wants in and through your life and to know the right thing and want the right thing and do the right thing that is freedom that and nothing else so the call for a follower of Jesus in Jesus language is take up your cross and follow me in Paul's language plain with that it is to crucify not to gratify up to feed not to indulge but to crucify to put to death to starve to write-off you are flesh and instead to feed your spirit now the question of course is how do we do this right this the Galatians 5 as a passage about the what not about the how so the end goal is to starve your flesh not your body but your flesh and to feed your spirit the question is how well the answer short answer is through the spiritual disciplines in the spiritual disciplines or the practices of Jesus or how you crucify your flesh and how at the same time you feed you draw energy from you open up your mind your body your whole person that's why we don't like to call them spiritual disciplines most of them are things you do with your body fasting is a great example example it is a bodily discipline it is a practice where you open up your whole person to the power of the Holy Spirit to transform you from the inside out and fasting in particular as a practice that is designed to starve your flesh and feed your spirit and that is because the body and the flesh are tied up together when you fast you feed on the spirit instead of food you draw energy from God himself and with this new power you start to bring your body and with it your flesh back under your control failure to do this failure to discipline your body and with it your flesh will have a ripple effect across your whole person so followers of Jesus have long pointed out long before I was around that when you over eat all sorts of other temptations ramped up in particular sexual temptation Thomas a Kempis that towering intellectual of millennia ago one of the great figures of Western civilization said of fasting quote restrained from gluttony and thou shalt the more easily restrain from all the inclinations of the flesh agustin in the 4th century when he was asked why would you fast his answer was quote because it is sometimes necessary to check the delight of the flesh in respect to illness it pleasures I'm sorry to licit pleasures like food things that aren't bad in order to keep it from yielding to illicit joys now honestly this practice is a bit intimidating for me and I'm not like master-level every Wednesday and Friday I fast and I'm just like oh like me and Jesus all right but I have been practicing this for a number of years now on a regular basis and I still feel like a novice and I'm still learning as I go and honestly I'm just starting to enjoy it but here's what I have started to notice I have found the exact same thing to be true when I fast my desires change again I'm this mixed bag of desires some desires go down and others go up I find that my flesh desires for lust or greed or ego or whatever is go down it's like that muscle is weakened and my spirit desires to be holy to be like the Holy Spirit are strengthened and go up I find myself as the day or whatever time period goes on wanting to sin less and less and less kind of grossed out by it and turned off by it what I before was drawn to and I find myself wanting to pray wanting to be holy wanting to be like Jesus wanting to consecrate my entire person before God all through the practice of fasting I've come to believe that one of the best practices for breaking the power of sin over your life in particular sexual sexual sin or any kind of bodily appetite is that of fasting now it's not one-stop shopping you also need community and therapy and healing all of that but there is a practice now again is the power in the practice know the power is again in Jesus Jesus is always the answer right the practice is just an access it's just a way to access it's just a practice there are lots of non-christians that fast it's a huge Hindu thing Buddhist thing although Greek philosophers were into fasting like it's a thing right it's just a practice practice by which you access a power beyond yourself that of the Holy spare and transform your heart from the inside out now before we wrap up I just need to forewarn you and this goes without saying but just to clarify this is not an easy practice right does that make sense because you are essentially picking a fight with not with your body it's not your enemy it's your ally but with your flesh and lots of stuff will come to the surface of your heart Richard foster writes this fasting reveals the things that control us dang it if pride controls us it will be revealed almost immediately anger bitterness jealousy strife fear if they are within us they will surface during fasting and usually by about 11 a.m. you're there and I'm like this is not working I just feel kind of hangry you know and whatever and actually no that's it doing its job and all sorts of staff ugly stuff is coming to the surface Paul writes in Philippians about those who's quote God is their belly I read that and think it's about somebody else until I fast and then I realized I think that's about me actually I realize just how much power and authority my flesh still has over me and how far I still am from the freedom that Jesus died to give me Willard writes this can't do this without Willard we gotta this discipline teaches us a lot about ourselves very quickly it will certainly prove humiliating to us as it reveals to us how much our peace depends upon the pleasures of eating it may also bring to mind how we are using food pleasure to assuage the discomforts caused in our bodies by faithless and unwise living and attitudes holy cow what does that say over our city lack of self-worth meaningless were purposeless existence or a lack of rest or exercise if nothing else though it will certainly demonstrate how powerful and clever our body is in getting its own way against our strongest resolves that is why I'm please listen carefully fasting is about more than growing your willpower muscle it is that it is a way to grow in self mastery and that combination of self-control and self-discipline self-control is the ability to say no to something self-discipline as the ability to say yes to something self-control is the ability to not do something you want to do but is bad for you in the long term whereas self-discipline is the ability to do something you don't want to do but is good for you in the long term together they make for self mastery and fasting is an aid to kind of workout and exercise that willpower muscle that's great but it's just the tip of the iceberg and in the end your willpower always gets creamed by your flesh will power versus porn will not win willpower vs addiction will not win willpower vs. inner father wound will not win and that's why fasting is about more than just your willpower it's about feeding on the holy spirit and drawing your energy not from your willpower but from the Holy Spirit's power access to a power beyond you out of relational connection to God or what Jesus called abiding that's it so who's ready to fast you up for this yeah like you've never done it before but we're really happy that you're into it now really fast before we wrap up our practice for the week ahead is all on practicing the way org slash fasting the idea is very simple the idea is just to take one day a week for the next three or four weeks and fast weather a day is 24 hours or 12 hours or whatever you feel up for and the idea is that you start listen carefully that you start the night that you meet with your community which for most of us is Tuesday nights and then you fast through your sleep - and then you pick a time to end breakfast or lunch or if you want to go all the way to dinner at the following day 24 hours whatever you want and you make the call just start where you're at please don't bite off more than you can chew no pun intended also with that because most communities eat a meal on Tuesday nights we are doing morning worship and prayer on Wednesday mornings for the as Colin said for the next three Wednesday mornings at our bridge town office down the street so if so the idea is kind of to you're with your community hopefully you're in one if not let us help pastor you into one and you get together but instead of eating together you Circle up in the living room you talk about your experience and you pray and then you go to sleep and you wake up the next morning and if you want come out to the office worship praise start your day that way and then break your fast whenever you feel you're ready and listen one last note if you feel like you're not ready too fast yet due to issues of body image or an eating disorder or legalism or some you're in need of healing or whatever listen like no pressure this is such a safe place all we ask is that you don't you know do anything to rain on the parade of the people to your right and to your left who are ready for that and I think maybe for you just a kind suggestion maybe the practice for you over the next month is for you to get with a therapist or a pastor or a coach or somebody that you love and trust and start to ask the question and a safe place of why can't I do this and where do I need healing in my relationship with food or my own body or my relationship with spiritual disciplines or whatever it is where do I need healing in order to let my limbic system kind of calm down and let the Spirit of God take control of my mind and my body maybe that's the next step for you just the point is take the next step if it's small wherever you're at just take the next step now to end I just want to say this one last time fasting is about freedom so the exact opposite of legalism it's about freedom from your flesh and all of your disordered desires that enslave your mind in your body and here's great news for you this weekend fasting is never commanded anywhere in the New Testament you don't have to do this you're here you're not into it you think it's cultish that's fine that's up to you that's great you don't need to do this you don't have to do this Jesus is not mad at you you're not earning more love or whatever if you fast this coming week you duh it's never commanded anywhere in the New Testament this is all Invitational but you're invited to take on the life example of Jesus of Nazareth who thought that he needed to fast in order to live well this side of Resurrection you're invited if you want more freedom and less slavery more spirit less flesh more holiness less unholiness than you are invited to follow Jesus into this practice and to bring your whole person including your body into the life-giving healing freedom of the rule and the reign of God let's stand together and pray [Music]

Channel: Brian Bull

Views: 3,071

Rating: 4.9259257 out of 5

Keywords: Solid Rock, Solid Rock A Jesus Church, The Bridge, A Jesus Church, Bridgetown, Bridgetown Church, Gospel, John Mark Comer, Portland, Portland Oregon, Sermon, Church, Pastor, Calling, identity, jesus, transformation, sermon, Matthew, bible, kingdom of god, matthew, gospel of matthew, kingdom, flesh, fast, fasting

Id: heVo6Uk41D0

Length: 55min 43sec (3343 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 18 2018