[00:00:01] Welcome to the River Church podcast. We're all about bringing the life, hope and love of Jesus to everyone around us. For more information, check out our
[email protected] and now, I think the temptation with fasting, okay, the temptation is fasting is to think, hey, we do it because we want God to do something, right? We say, oh, we've got this plan, we've got this something, this challenge or whatever. And we think, hey, we, we've got this thing. It's really difficult. We need to pray about it. But we don't just need to pray about it, we need to also fast.
[00:00:35] Okay?
[00:00:36] You know, that's the temptation. And so, and we also see things in the Bible about that, right? So, for example, the book of Esther, if you remember the book of Esther, she's in a really challenging situation. She's going to go up to the king and you know, she doesn't. She's going to put this request before the king of the time. She doesn't know which. Whether she might be killed for doing it. And so she asked the Jewish community at the time, hey, have a three day fast for me so that God will protect me and that this will go well.
[00:01:09] Or maybe in the New Testament, Paul, who goes around planting churches, he's at a place called Lystra and he's setting up churches. And he says to them, or he says that they appointed elders in the churches, founded the churches, and it says that they committed these churches to God with prayer and fasting.
[00:01:29] They were going through persecution. They wanted God to do something very purposeful right in that moment.
[00:01:35] But the thing is that the fasting can seem like prayer plus, if you see what I mean. Yeah, I'm going to pray, but prayer is not enough. So I'm going to fast as well. I'm going to do something, you know, and maybe think about a situation that you really need breakthrough and you fast for it. Who's ever done that?
[00:01:55] Yeah, fast for something that you need.
[00:01:58] And in fact, there's a book that I really like, Paul Miller, who's written a couple of books on prayer and a chapter.
[00:02:05] I think it's unfortunate that he's a really good book, Right. I'm not getting away from that really good author, but unfortunately he titles a chapter on fasting called turbocharging Our Prayers. Okay. And it's inviting, right? And I get the meaning of it, but I think it's just that it can re. Emphasize that whole thing of, hey, if you've got something challenging, don't just Pray, but fast.
[00:02:30] And it's not wrong. It's not wrong to do that. But I think we limit how we think about fasting. If we do. If that's only the thing.
[00:02:38] So a couple of alternative ways. There's a book that was reading about the early church fathers, okay, so early church fathers from sort of 100 to 300, 400 adults. And they gave three reasons about when they would fast.
[00:02:54] The first was at Lent, before Easter.
[00:02:58] And fasting was a way of growing this relationship of union with Christ, of knowing Christ.
[00:03:05] Another way was fasting before baptism. They would fast said in order to prepare their hearts when they came to baptism.
[00:03:15] And another way was in promoting holiness and purity.
[00:03:20] A fasting was doing something in the middle of it. They wanted to get close and change their behavior, and so they would fast about it.
[00:03:28] And those three ways, I think, are really different to that whole thing of God. I need you to break through into a situation.
[00:03:37] Another example is the Book of Nehemiah. Do you know the Book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament? And it's when they started their exiles. They've been banished from Israel, from Judah, and they. And they're in Babylon, and they want to come back. And it's a story. It's a big story, a story often talked about in terms of leadership, in terms of breakthrough and all these things about God doing things and bringing the people of God supporting the people of God.
[00:04:06] But it starts really differently because the Book of Nehemiah starts with Nehemiah hearing news of Jerusalem.
[00:04:13] And he's heard the news that Jerusalem is abandoned. It's desolate, it's broken down, that the people of God don't live there anymore. And it says in there, it says, when I heard these things, I sat down and wept.
[00:04:26] And for some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before God of heaven.
[00:04:31] Not because he had a plan, not because Nehemiah knew what to do about the situation, because. But I think he's expressing this, God, I've got no idea what to do. God, tell me what should happen.
[00:04:49] I don't want this situation to carry on. But, God, I want to get close to you and know your heart about this.
[00:04:56] Because I think Nehemiah was just praying out of weakness of going, hey, what's next, God?
[00:05:06] What do we do?
[00:05:10] And so this week, coming to this week and coming to this week of fasting and praying, I think God is leading us to a time. I believe God is leading us to a time of really just in that kind of thing. Of just wanting to get close to God and knowing what God's about.
[00:05:31] He's laid a passage on my heart that I think is for this week in Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 1 and.
[00:05:41] Too quick. Go back, go back. Not yet.
[00:05:44] Ephesians 1. We're going to read it in a second. And if you.
[00:05:48] You might have read the letter Ephesians. I know it's something that many people love. Who loves the letter of Ephesians?
[00:05:56] It's fantastic, isn't it? And Paul starts there with a background. He starts and he gives this grand story of God's plan of redemption.
[00:06:07] He talks about God's love that he has lavished upon us. He hasn't just sprinkled it on, he has just poured it out in his plan of redemption. He's just absolutely blasted us with his care and compassion. That his.
[00:06:24] His story, his plan that he worked out before the creation of the world. He knew what he was going to do. He knew Jesus was going to come. And he writes this amazing thing and you can't but yet get caught up in it.
[00:06:38] And he says that the church, God's people, are the praise of his glory.
[00:06:44] They're the testimony. They're the witness to what Jesus has done. Did you know? You are a witness to what Jesus has done.
[00:06:52] You are the praise of his glory by how you live your life and worship and thank Him. And that's how it starts.
[00:07:01] And then Paul goes on. And I'm going to read from verse 15 to 21.
[00:07:08] Let me read it now. You can do it. Great.
[00:07:11] It says, for this reason, since ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord, Lord Jesus and your love for all God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better.
[00:07:37] And I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power. For us who believe that power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Jesus Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age, but but also in the one to come.
[00:08:17] And what I find amazing about this prayer.
[00:08:20] Did you notice I've Heard about your faith.
[00:08:23] I've heard about you.
[00:08:26] You're doing great.
[00:08:29] Paul's not starting out with like, Corinthians. They're in all kinds of trouble.
[00:08:34] You know, in Corinthians, it's like, hey, you're in disunity. You're fighting amongst yourselves. You're not looking after one another.
[00:08:43] And also you're on a bunch of immoral people. And hey, I need to tell you some things.
[00:08:48] Paul doesn't start out here. He says, you're doing great, you're doing okay.
[00:08:56] But he still prays for them.
[00:08:58] He still says, I know that you know that you need to know God more.
[00:09:06] I know that you need to understand who God is, understand who you are in him, understand what he's doing through you. I know that you need to know that.
[00:09:18] Why? Because I think that at times when things are okay, we get into a place of self sufficiency, don't we?
[00:09:27] I know that if I look back on my life, if I look on my walk with God, I got in so many times of self sufficiency. Do you know when life was okay?
[00:09:41] When I could say, hey, I've got a roof over my head.
[00:09:45] It's not my dream house, but whoever has their dream house, but it's not my dream house, but it's okay, I've got some money, I've got some money for some leisure life is okay. My work's okay.
[00:10:00] It's not my dream job. Who's got their dream job? Actually, I should say I've got my dream job now, shouldn't I?
[00:10:09] But, you know, there's many times where you think, you know, life is okay. It's not to say that, you know, life is easy.
[00:10:16] Do you know life has always got its troubles with its finance, whether it's relationship, whether it's work, whether it's parenting, where it's, you know, all kinds of things.
[00:10:26] And we ask God, when have we got a tough time?
[00:10:29] We say, God, help me, help me right here. But we can also, what I found, I can just get back into self sufficiency, thinking it's okay, thinking I'll reflect back and think, did I really need God?
[00:10:46] Like, the truth is I really needed God.
[00:10:50] But how I thought and behaved was I didn't really pray like I needed God, like I really wanted to push in.
[00:11:01] And so, you know, we end up putting our desires and our kind of comfort first.
[00:11:07] And, you know, we put.
[00:11:10] I don't know, I think that I, you know, can put the things that seem rational first to make Choices on behalf of what I think is good for my life, for my comfort.
[00:11:25] Why wouldn't you go for that career?
[00:11:28] Why wouldn't you take the next step in that job?
[00:11:32] Why wouldn't you invest some money in so and so? Why wouldn't you go on that holiday?
[00:11:39] It seems rational, doesn't it?
[00:11:43] But there's a different way to live life.
[00:11:46] I read about this person called Julian of Norwich.
[00:11:51] She's a woman who lived, I think, 12th, 13th century. And she's described as a mystic, right? Just a strange person, you know, some of those.
[00:12:01] Now I'm going to offend someone, but you know, some of those weird and wonderful people, right, caught up with spiritual things, I think. And this woman, she writes these letters, that's all we, we've got of her. But she writes the inwards should by grace draw the outwards.
[00:12:19] She means that what God has put in us should dictate the rest of our life.
[00:12:26] It should, you know what's in here. The spirit of God working in us should.
[00:12:31] Should change what we do, should direct what we do.
[00:12:36] That being united with him and what he's doing in his kingdom, in the heavenly realms. Our eyes should be up there, not down here, not on what seems maybe sensible.
[00:12:49] It's not that our work determines our prayer, it's that our prayer should determine our work.
[00:12:59] Let me say that again. It's not that our work, our life should determine our prayer.
[00:13:06] It's that our prayer should determine our work.
[00:13:12] So the question is, are you orientated that way?
[00:13:17] Maybe a bigger question for us as a church is are we oriented that way? Is that what we're doing?
[00:13:26] So what are we praying for? What does the next season hold?
[00:13:31] I'm just going to give you just three things that are kind of on our hearts as an eldership team where, you know, and these are three things that are like they're on the horizon, right? They're not like we've got a strategy for it, but just what things are we holding onto? What things are kind of shaping it?
[00:13:50] The harbor. Does anyone remember the harbor we did? The harbour. If you were with us, if you weren't with us, A brief thing before, we did the multi site in Gravesend. We wanted to be in Gravesend and part of that we got a shop front in Gravesend and it was great because it was about going to the people, not waiting for the people to come to us. So we had a shop front and we opened it on several days a week for people just to drop in and we'd have some activities in there for kids, for adults to get involved in, for just people to come in, sit down, give them a cup of tea, take the weight off their, the load off their shoulders, sit down and just try and interact with people and share God's love.
[00:14:34] And we did a hamper project as well that we've carried on. But over the last 18 months or so Kew has been fantastic and just keeping up contact with the council in Gravesend and we've had two, three opportunities, possibilities of opening, of seeing where we might reopen the harbor, of doing it again. It's a long term thing that we want to do again but at each stage it's kind of stalled and the opportunity, they've taken it away from us.
[00:15:11] We really want to start it again but we don't know what's going on and we don't know what God's doing.
[00:15:19] And we're waiting for God to show us, you know, it. We're pushing into asking God what is he doing now sort of maybe further away we went multi site and we planted second sight. But our vision is not to stop a second sight. God's given us a vision to spread out over this area of Darfurd and Gravesend and so we want to have third sight. Do you know, we want to have more than that in future. God's given us that vision.
[00:15:49] Now I'm involved in, you know, staffing and you know, it feels like we just maybe getting over planting, you know, graves insights and you know, anyone that works on staff and ministry and leaders here, you're going, no, please don't even mention it because it's so much work. But the thing is God is a God of any impossible and he doesn't give us visions that we could just sit back and think this is fine. He gives us visions of the impossible. Do you know, it's like, yeah, the workloads, I don't know. And you know, we're doing okay I think. You know, I'm just so grateful to God how he's blessed and raised people up since we've gone multisite that people are doing new things, that he's brought people into us as a church community.
[00:16:40] Right Amanda, I'm sitting there seeing Amanda who stepped up to lead Pathfinder. It's been fantastic that we've got that far and that we still, you know, we're growing on that Shamu and Julie who are, you know, helping with prayer and amends and things like that. New people who are doing things and God's put Things on their heart. It's been great, but it's things also where we're not doing so great and we need to keep pushing it into it. But we want to believe. But God of the impossible.
[00:17:09] And third thing, God of the impossible. Okay, I attended Catalyst. We are part of Catalyst. If you didn't know, okay, just to let it out there, a network of churches called Catalyst. I attended a Leaders Day this week, and there was a talk about a genuine feeling that God is doing something different, different in our nation.
[00:17:34] This today, the words, you know, revival gets talked about, that God is on the move. Have you heard about the quiet revival? Have you heard that phrase? You might have heard, it was kind of a report sent out by the Bible Society that said lots of young people in their sort of twenties are coming to church. Maybe there was something else about. The statistics weren't great, but let's ignore that.
[00:18:01] But people across our network and others as well say God is doing something different.
[00:18:08] God is on the move.
[00:18:10] Now, that's not something that we can strategize for, plan for when God moves. It's a work of his spirit.
[00:18:19] God's going to do something, and we're holding onto that.
[00:18:23] And so getting back to what are we praying about? What are we fasting about?
[00:18:30] Well, I think the best thing that we can do for any of this that we know, hey, God's doing something. We don't know what it is. What could we do?
[00:18:39] We can just press into him.
[00:18:42] He says that I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which you've been called, that you may know the riches of his glorious inheritance in you, in us, the church, us as a holy people.
[00:19:02] That we may know the incomparably great power that's been made available to us.
[00:19:11] Do you know this power?
[00:19:14] And so this week, this week, I think God is just calling us to know him better, to press into him, to think about our relationship with him, just to sit in his presence, say, God, what are you saying? I want to hear your voice.
[00:19:38] And so these, we said prayer nights.
[00:19:42] These are all worship nights for us this week. Tonight, Tuesday, Thursday, they're all worship nights. We're going to worship.
[00:19:50] We're going to push into God and seek his presence and just go, God, we want to hear your voice.
[00:19:59] We want to be strengthened and grow as your disciples, as your followers.
[00:20:05] To be the sheep. Do you know? Jesus says the sheep will know my voice.
[00:20:09] Do you know, Jesus, if you voice, do you Want to know his voice better?
[00:20:15] If you don't put your hand up to that. I want to come and pray for you specifically. All right, So I just want to just finish by just going back to a little bit of a group thing. Right.
[00:20:30] We've got these three meetings.
[00:20:33] Which one are you going to come to? Or the four, five meetings with Saturday morning and Tuesday.
[00:20:38] Which one? What are you going to come to?
[00:20:42] Do you know, what else might you do?
[00:20:47] What do you want God to do this week?
[00:20:51] How do you want your relationship with God to grow this week?
[00:20:57] And what are you going to do to help that?
[00:21:01] Are you going to fast? Is it something that you've never done before?
[00:21:06] Some of us do. I do a kind of. It's called a Daniel fast. It's giving up meat and luxuries and the rest of it just because of metabolism and things and migraines. So I do this Daniel fast. Maybe that's something, a first thing that you might do. Maybe you'll just fast a couple of meals or something like that.
[00:21:25] What do you want to commit to doing this week?
[00:21:28] Let me finish in prayer.
[00:21:31] Yeah, let's just ask God.
[00:21:37] God, we want to know you more, Lord. We know.
[00:21:44] See your Bible, the word that you've given us tells us that you are just a good father.
[00:21:54] You are better than any human being, Lord. You are a father that is always available, that is always an open ear, Lord, to hear our request. But, Lord, that you just. You love us so much when we don't love ourselves, Lord, when we're struggling with whatever we're going through, that you love us so much and so wonderful. Why wouldn't we run to you?
[00:22:26] And I know that, Lord, that as we come to you in prayer, we dedicate our hearts and our bodies to you by fasting, that you just want to do good things in us, Lord. Your heart is for those that are weary and burdened down, Lord, to come to you. You run to us.
[00:22:52] You want to do things in us and through us, you want to make us, Lord, people that are in this relationship knowing you, living out of that relationship with you, Lord.
[00:23:06] And so, Lord, I pray Holy Spirit, just help us like that prayer, Lord, that person who came to you, I can't remember his name, says, I believe, but help me in my unbelief, Lord, we come to you to say, Lord, we believe that you want to do good things.
[00:23:22] Help us to believe.
[00:23:24] Help us to make a difference this week, Lord.
[00:23:27] Help us to believe that as we come to you, Lord, you will do things in us.
[00:23:34] You will shape us and change us, Lord, that we will be filled with your spirit and the peace and the fruit and the knowledge of the glory of God, Lord, will be in us.
[00:23:47] So, Lord, we pray, will you bless us? Will you turn your face upon us? Will you shine your light upon us, Lord, as we come to you in worship?
[00:23:59] You are our trust and our hope, Lord, you are our saviour, our healer, our friend, our brother, our father.
[00:24:07] Lord, we ask this in the name of your son, Jesus Christ.
[00:24:11] Amen. Amen. Amen. So I'm really looking forward to our worship and prayer nights. Come with expectation about what God might do.
[00:24:23] Come with. Yeah. Come with open hearts and open minds. Come ready to pray. Amen. Amen. We're going to finish here. Two things. I've got two little updates.
[00:24:34] Prophetic practice out there in the foyer. Get involved.
[00:24:39] Yeah. It's one way to hear God's voice, isn't it? And a really boring one. There's some lost property out there, so. Yeah. If you've lost something recently, it might be out there. Go and have a look. But otherwise, yeah. Share what you've talked about this morning with whoever you talk to this morning out there in teas and coffees and otherwise, God bless you. I'll see you during this week, Sam.
