[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] how are you doing?
[00:00:18] Lovely to catch up with you guys. Hopefully over a brew afterwards as well. And be reassured, we really are united.
[00:00:26] It might not be in the same room every week, but even as elders, we get together regularly, even, what, fortnightly, just to pray for what God is doing. In River Church, we don't talk about vision and anything else. It's simply to pray on behalf of the church. So we truly are united. I'm excited that I get to be here for the next two weeks.
[00:00:48] And then 13th of September, you've got that in your diaries.
[00:00:53] Yeah. It's a chance for us to be together for the whole day. We are really excited about it. And we're actually going away as elders, what, next week, just for the day to pray into. What is God calling us to next? So we pray for you. What do you need to do? Pray for us as well. All right, great.
[00:01:15] Shall we get into it then?
[00:01:17] Okay.
[00:01:18] A few years ago, there was a film that came out in the cinemas, Dunkirk. Anyone see it?
[00:01:25] Yeah, might have caught it on Netflix or something.
[00:01:28] Well, a few weeks ago, I actually stood on this beach, it was over in France, just to try and breathe in what happened there kind of, what, 80 years ago.
[00:01:40] If you don't know the full story, Dunkirk is the most remarkable historic moment where about 300,000 allied troops were pinned down on the beach right on the edge of France, simply waiting to be wiped out.
[00:01:57] You see, the Nazi army had just overrun all of France and they were closing in really fast. So these guys were like sitting ducks, they couldn't go anywhere.
[00:02:10] But then something really strange happened.
[00:02:14] 24th of May, 1940, Hitler gives this baffling decision.
[00:02:20] He orders his generals to stop the Nazi advance.
[00:02:26] So German tanks, just 10 miles away, they SCREECH TO a halt.
[00:02:32] And if that wasn't odd enough, this mist, this fog descends on the beach so that the German bombers were really struggling to fly. And then, amazingly, the English Channel, which is known to be this wild place, goes as calm and as still as glass.
[00:02:56] So then all of these small boats could be called over from the south of England to come over the Channel to pick these guys up and carry them home safely.
[00:03:07] And that's kind of the story that the film tells, tells us.
[00:03:12] But there is one aspect that the film doesn't cover.
[00:03:16] It's the fact that on that very same day, we had a king called King George, and he called the whole nation to a day of prayer and fasting.
[00:03:29] Do you want to see a picture?
[00:03:31] There you go. That's Westminster Abbey, and that is people that day queuing up fasting and praying on behalf of the nation.
[00:03:43] See, this generation here, they didn't call it Dunkirk.
[00:03:48] They called it the miracle of Dunkirk.
[00:03:51] Right?
[00:03:52] So we have to ask ourselves a question here. Is it just coincidence?
[00:03:58] Was the miracle of Dunkirk just awful planning by the Nazis, or was God at work responding to a bunch of people who would humble themselves and cry out to God in hunger for his mercy?
[00:04:16] Well, what we know for sure is that Bible says that when prayer and fasting come together, stuff happens.
[00:04:26] Stuff happens.
[00:04:29] And, you know, in my own church experience, this is kind of how fasting's been thought about.
[00:04:34] You know, it's the sort of thing that we turn to in a moment of crisis. Have you heard that before?
[00:04:41] Yeah, maybe a little bit. Like a spiritual emergency cord that we just pull.
[00:04:48] Right? You know what it is like? Life is in meltdown. You're not having any breakthrough. You need God's help. So you just stop eating. You say, God, I'm not even eating toast right now. I'm not snacking or anything. I just need you to come through for me.
[00:05:07] And you know what? I think there is biblical evidence that suggests that God absolutely responds to these moments of prayer and crisis.
[00:05:17] You go through the book of Jonah, and who do we see? We see the Ninevites and kind of gods against them. They get their warning and their king. Bit like King George, he says he calls the whole nation fast.
[00:05:32] So they fast, and, well, the mercy of God falls on them.
[00:05:36] Likewise, in the book of Acts, the apostles, the disciples, they're praying, and then in the midst of their fasting, God then speaks through his Holy Spirit and sends Paul and Barnabas on mission.
[00:05:53] So we can see, when we look at fasting in the Bible, there is clear evidence to say that fasting amplifies our prayers.
[00:06:03] It means that we hear God and we are heard by God potentially more than we would otherwise.
[00:06:12] I also want to say if that is it, if we only see fasting as something that can produce a result on the outside, a breakthrough on the outside, we will miss the power of fasting and what it can do on the inside of us, because it's not just about breakthrough. It is about becoming like Jesus.
[00:06:39] That's really what I want to talk about today, the power of fasting to help us become more like Jesus.
[00:06:46] But before I do That I just want to make sure we're all on the same path page when it comes to what fasting is.
[00:06:53] So what is fasting now? Who thinks fasting is this?
[00:06:58] Yeah, I know what this guy is going through.
[00:07:02] You see, fasting is not abstaining from something.
[00:07:08] We regularly hear people say, I'm taking a break or I'm fasting from social media or I'm giving up chocolate. That seems more rare, you know, and it's good.
[00:07:20] But do you know what? Fasting is different.
[00:07:24] It's a body discipline.
[00:07:27] It's not just about giving up something. It's choosing not to eat food and in some really rare cases, not to have a drink. Because there is this spiritual purpose to fasting.
[00:07:40] And I'll be honest, for years, I didn't really get it. I thought, you know, it's kind of an optional extra as we follow Jesus, you know, it's kind of for the overzealous Christians, maybe let them get on with it.
[00:07:55] But the thing is, as I've looked at this and as I've started to live it out over the last couple of years, I've started to realize that fasting, possibly out of all of the forgotten pathways we're looking at, is arguably one of the most powerful to kind of supercharge our spiritual growth.
[00:08:19] I don't know whether you buy it yet. Don't know. Why don't we do a quick straw poll, right? Let's just see. There's no guilt here, right? There's no judgment or anything. It's a safe environment. We love each other. God knows. Anyway.
[00:08:32] So question. Who has ever fasted for however long for a spiritual reason? Pop your hand up. Yeah, great. Amen. That's awesome. Who's ever done like a. Oh, is that me?
[00:08:45] Hello. Is it my T shirt hitting it?
[00:08:48] I'll do that. There you go. Who's ever fasted for 24 hours?
[00:08:52] Some people. Great. And who currently fasts kind of weekly for spiritual reasons?
[00:09:00] Right. Okay, Great Hands. Started to reduce as we went through, but you know what?
[00:09:08] We're in good company because most Christians, particularly in the west, don't really fast.
[00:09:17] Globally, obviously, in places like Africa and Asia, fasting is this massive thing, right? The church have really understood the power of it. But over here, it's pretty rare.
[00:09:29] In fact, about half of Christians in the west have. Have never fasted.
[00:09:35] And only 2% fast on a weekly basis.
[00:09:40] It's quite a low number, isn't it?
[00:09:43] Now, let's benchmark it just for a minute. If I said to you that as a church, only 50% of us read the Bible ever, and actually only 2% of us read scripture on a weekly basis. Would you be worried about it?
[00:09:59] Yes, I would as well. That's the sort of thing we pray about, isn't it atelier that we would read scripture and it would shape us. So what about the role of fasting?
[00:10:10] Where's that gone?
[00:10:14] What has changed?
[00:10:17] Because in church history, you see, fasting is a thing. It has been embedded in the church for hundreds and hundreds of years. And then really only in the last hundred years, it seems to have sort of disappeared a bit.
[00:10:33] So I want to have a quick look at church history. I want to look at what biblical fasting kind of has been over the years and then we'll move on to some other bits.
[00:10:45] Right, the Bible.
[00:10:48] There's this moment in the Bible where things really change for Jesus. And it was his baptism.
[00:10:55] Jesus gets announced as the Son of God. He stops being just a builder because this voice comes from heaven. His Father, the Spirit descends and we've got the Son of God on our hands. It's a huge thing.
[00:11:15] What happens next?
[00:11:17] Jesus goes on this amazing tour. His ministry starts. The power of the Holy Spirit comes, people are healed and saved.
[00:11:27] That's what we would write into the story if we were producing that as a movie.
[00:11:32] Instead, Jesus disappears into the wilderness for 40 days with no food.
[00:11:42] Luke records the story.
[00:11:45] It says, after his baptism, Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit.
[00:11:50] He left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them he was very hungry.
[00:12:06] Right? No kidding.
[00:12:09] Don't you think that's a bit weird?
[00:12:12] Like we would have him straight to Cana, turning water into wine. Because if we're full of the Spirit, isn't that what we naturally think should happen? The Spirit should start to come out and start to bless the community around us.
[00:12:28] Full of the Spirit and led by the Spirit, he went into the wilderness with no food for 40 days. It's strange to us, but he wasn't the first one to do it.
[00:12:44] Two other people are recorded in scripture as doing a 40 day fast. One of them did it twice.
[00:12:50] It was Moses and Elijah.
[00:12:55] Now there's something quite interesting to notice about all of these 40 day fasts.
[00:13:03] It's the fact that nothing dramatic happened during the fast.
[00:13:08] Walls didn't fall down, choirs of angels didn't sing. The heavens didn't really open in the way that they at other times.
[00:13:17] So if this was all we had about fasting, we would be a bit confused, wouldn't we? We thought it was about the breakthrough, we thought it was about the crisis.
[00:13:27] But all of this tells us that fasting actually is more about what is happening not around us, but in here as we fast.
[00:13:40] And really that is is the reason why fasting became such a big thing and such a normal rhythm for the Jewish people and also the early church.
[00:13:53] It wasn't just this spiritual elite that did it either. It wasn't just your Moses and Elijah's. You read scripture, all the prophets, they fast. You know, Esther fasts, Daniel fasts, very famous fast.
[00:14:08] But what we see in church history is that it was all of God's people that fasted.
[00:14:13] And I think Scripture makes that really clear. I think Jesus makes that really clear.
[00:14:18] When Matthew records this, Jesus said, when you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they could disfigure their faces to show others that they are fasting. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
[00:14:35] But when you fast, put oil on your head, wash your face so that it would 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 will reward you.
[00:14:53] Notice two things here.
[00:14:57] The first one is Jesus says when you fast twice, not if you fast, meaning that there is an expectation from Jesus that his followers will fast. But the second one is that when you fast, your father will what, reward you, reward you. There is something like a gift on the other side of fasting that we receive as we fast more on that at the end.
[00:15:29] But having said all of this, at no point does Jesus ever command fasting.
[00:15:35] We don't have to fast to be a Christian.
[00:15:40] There's nothing to do with our salvation in here whatsoever.
[00:15:44] But nonetheless, Jesus who didn't have to fast, fasted. His followers who didn't have to fast, fasted.
[00:15:53] And honestly, thank God, they weren't all 40 day fasts either.
[00:15:57] You see all sorts in the bible. We see 1 and 3 day fasts, 7, 10, 21 and 40 day fasts. That is kind of like fasting across scripture.
[00:16:10] But if we zoom into what it was like in the day of Jesus, God's people had got into a rhythm by that point of fasting.
[00:16:20] They fasted twice a week on a Monday and on a Thursday.
[00:16:26] That's very specific information. Q. Why are you sharing that with us?
[00:16:30] Well, as Jesus followers and the early church begin to grow.
[00:16:37] They also took on this rhythm of God's people fasting twice a week, but they changed the days to Wednesday and Friday.
[00:16:50] Any idea why?
[00:16:53] Wednesday was the day that the plot to betray Jesus started.
[00:16:59] And Friday, of course, was the day that Jesus died.
[00:17:04] So what we've got here is a real emphasis on why the church fasts.
[00:17:12] It's not to get a result out here, but instead it's to remember, as we've just done through this meal, communion. But it's also to embody what Jesus did, his sacrifice. They wanted it to go into their very beings. Which sounds a lot like what Paul says in Romans 12, where he says, in view of God's mercy, which might as well say, in view of Jesus. Jesus. Sacrifice.
[00:17:44] Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship.
[00:17:55] Now, this doesn't actually say, offer your heart to the Lord. Don't we talk about hearts and minds a lot when we talk about Christianity? You know, renew your mind. We talk about.
[00:18:08] But what about the body?
[00:18:11] Offer your body. The word here is soma, which essentially means offer all of you. Your body isn't just this house for the Holy Spirit to live in.
[00:18:24] Your body is who you are. It is all of you intertwined together. And the point here is that when we fast, we are preaching to our whole being.
[00:18:35] We are literally awakening every scrap of us to the idea that we are to hunger, not just for food, but for Jesus.
[00:18:45] That we place ourselves in this position of vulnerability, not just to understand how Jesus felt, that's part of it.
[00:18:53] But we realize we are reliant on our maker, not just for food, but for everything.
[00:19:00] And that makes us crave something beyond what we can see.
[00:19:06] It makes us crave for something that will satisfy our souls.
[00:19:13] I think fasting is one of the most sacred things we can do. Church.
[00:19:19] So why don't we all do it?
[00:19:23] Well, it's an interesting point because Paul also talks about this as well in another letter. He says it's basically a battle that's going on now. I don't know if you've ever thought about what's happening inside you. I don't mean biologically. I mean more spiritually. And in Paul's theology of this body, he would say, well, there's really two parts. You have the spirit that is alive in you, that is producing fruit in you. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, you know, and the rest.
[00:19:55] And then there's this other side, the flesh.
[00:20:00] He would say, that doesn't mean your physical body. This Means like the very epicenter of your selfishness, where all your instant gratification desires live.
[00:20:12] Your desire for pleasure, your desire for self preservation, your desire for comfort, all come from the flesh. So Paul's looking at this battle that's going on between the spirit and the flesh and he says, well, there's only one answer here, guys. If you want the spirit, if you want to be shaped by the spirit to be like the Son, then you have to crucify the flesh.
[00:20:40] He says, put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature. Right?
[00:20:46] You read it and just go, that's easier said than done, Paul. You know who has ever woken up and just gone, Today's the day, people.
[00:20:55] I am not going to lust, I am not going to judge, I'm not going to eat 40 biscuits. I am going to be a saint. Yeah. Ever tried it?
[00:21:06] Let me know how you go.
[00:21:12] How do we make progress then? How do we let the spirit win?
[00:21:18] I'd say fasting helps massively.
[00:21:22] There was an old bishop of Rome. The ancients had it much better than we did.
[00:21:29] They spoke such wisdom and he said, look, fasting, this is the power of it.
[00:21:34] Fasting gives strength against sin.
[00:21:38] It represses evil desires, repels temptation. It humbles pride, calls anger, fosters all, all the inclinations of a good will.
[00:21:53] That is quite the endorsement, isn't it, for fasting?
[00:21:58] He's positioning it like it's medicine for the soul.
[00:22:05] I think he's right.
[00:22:06] And you know what, I think he's right because he's understood how the physical can impact the spiritual. Oh dear, am I back on?
[00:22:17] Yeah, the physical can impact the spiritual.
[00:22:21] I think what he's getting at is what psychologists call the pleasure principle.
[00:22:29] Right, the pleasure principle, right. If it feels good, do it, just do it. It's a soundtrack of our culture. And you know, it's not all bad. I'm not the poo pooer here.
[00:22:42] Does God want us to have fun in life?
[00:22:44] Yes. He has created lots of great things to give us great pleasure. Absolutely.
[00:22:50] But we know there is stuff in life that in the short term feels so good, but in the long run it can have a bad effect. Like eating four burgers in a patty and along with whatever heart sopping stuff that he has put in there, right, that tastes great, but that's going to be rubbish for you. The next day you have a blood test, isn't it?
[00:23:16] And your doctor is going to be very worried about you.
[00:23:20] But then there's a whole bunch of other stuff in life that's the very opposite. Which it feels rubbish, awful, consequential in the short term, but it is so good for us in the long run. And fasting is simply one of those things.
[00:23:37] It is one of those things.
[00:23:41] But here fasting is more than just helping us with our greed.
[00:23:49] Fasting trains us to say no in so many parts of life because it's doing something in here.
[00:23:56] It's like Leo the Great said, resistance to temptation was one of them.
[00:24:02] It starts to reshape our cravings for my way.
[00:24:08] And if we care less about my way, it makes me more likely to say I'm sorry.
[00:24:14] It makes me more compassionate towards you over myself. Right. And we start to see our inner desires changed as a result of caring about myself less. Not in a bad way, but just saying I'm not as important as some of the other stuff God's called me to do. It trains us to then say no to bigger things. Like shouting at someone in your car.
[00:24:38] Yes. Or getting annoyed for whatever reason. Or thinking you need the latest and the greatest stuff. You don't. But we think we do.
[00:24:49] It trains us in godliness.
[00:24:52] And is it hard?
[00:24:54] Absolutely.
[00:24:57] But does it strengthen you in a way that nothing else in your Life really can? 100%.
[00:25:06] I'm really convinced as I look at all these different pathways.
[00:25:10] Fasting is one of the most powerful, that if we can get a rhythm in our life, even a small one, we are creating another opportunity for God to shape us.
[00:25:24] I think.
[00:25:27] Well, really, I know from a tiny bit of experience that as we step into fasting, you will grow in a bit of self control.
[00:25:35] I don't know. Have you ever thought about your character? How do you change in here?
[00:25:41] I think it's one of the hardest things to directly change about yourself.
[00:25:46] You can have a pile of stuff. I think I just don't like this about myself. God changed me. God changed me. God changed me. Amen. And you crack on and you do the same stuff.
[00:25:55] When are we opening up ourselves? When are you opening up yourself to really the spirit doing his work? I think fasting is one of them.
[00:26:03] Growing in self control.
[00:26:06] Fasting helps us desire holiness over comfort and ease. Eventually it births generosity in us. And it slows us down.
[00:26:16] It slows us down.
[00:26:19] How often do you slow down enough to listen to God, not just speak to God?
[00:26:25] Where is your dedicated moment where you're going to do that, to set time aside?
[00:26:33] And I think that's simply what fasting is doing. It's creating opportunity.
[00:26:39] It's not a magical thing in and of itself, but it's a pathway that connects us to God through his spirit.
[00:26:49] So as we finish, an important question, who should fast right now? As a reminder, Jesus said, we don't have to fast.
[00:27:00] It's not a must have. Fasting is also not for everyone.
[00:27:04] And I want to say some of that or a lot of that is pastoral.
[00:27:09] So let me say this gently and lovingly.
[00:27:14] Please don't fast.
[00:27:16] If you have a complex relationship with food or your body or you're recovering from illness or you are pregnant or you are going through growth in life such as your teenage years, please don't fast.
[00:27:34] Take wise counsel. God cares about your well being and so do we.
[00:27:39] So I don't want to be putting any burdens or pressures on anyone to do this, but I feel as somebody who was in a position who didn't fast, as somebody who was relatively healthy, just a bit lazy perhaps, I was challenged by the question of, well, why don't I regularly fast? And I'd probably ask you the same thing.
[00:28:03] Have you ever thought about what could happen if you did?
[00:28:08] And I kind of went through my checklist. Am I scared? Yes. I like food. Right.
[00:28:14] Do I like being uncomfortable? No, I hate it.
[00:28:18] I'm going to admit this publicly. For years, the biggest secret of my life, I've said, please camp at Christian festivals. I've decided I hate camping. I'm sorry, everyone. So when we go to Catalyst, I've actually booked a hotel and I've finally given in to my wife.
[00:28:32] I know, I know, I know. I've ribbed myself. It's awful, it's awful. Maybe fasting will change me back to liking camping. You never know. But the thing is, we've got this wrestle in us, haven't we, about comfort and ease? Okay? And in certain areas we win and in certain areas we lose.
[00:28:51] But what would happen if we place ourselves in a position that to say, well, we are at least fully open to you, Lord, but I really want to be changed by you.
[00:29:03] I'm not just saying it, I'm going to embody it.
[00:29:09] Jesus said, come follow me to Peter.
[00:29:14] Peter didn't say, great idea.
[00:29:19] He had to physically drop his net and go.
[00:29:23] We have to do something.
[00:29:26] Which is why James talks about our faith must turn into works.
[00:29:33] Faith is displayed through our works.
[00:29:36] Maybe fasting is a part of it.
[00:29:39] Do you want to come up and just to finish in worship.
[00:29:44] Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves. Jesus said, and come and follow me.
[00:29:57] It's hard, but it's holy.
[00:30:02] But here's the promise from earlier that we put a pin in.
[00:30:06] Your father sees what you do in secret and he wants to reward you.
[00:30:13] Fasting, particularly when we don't tell people that we're doing it and post it all over Insta.
[00:30:20] Right.
[00:30:22] Fasting is doing something in the hidden place of our lives.
[00:30:28] How is your hidden life?
[00:30:35] I believe God wants to do a lot of work away from this gathering in our lives so that he can change the church and transform us into his likeness.
[00:30:47] I just want to keep. And we just want to keep, inviting us again and again to say, God, what changes do you want to bring into my life?
[00:30:57] Doesn't matter whether you've tried fasting and failed. It doesn't matter whether you've tried any of the other pathways and you struggle. I promise you. I just think the Christian life is going to be a wrestle until we're with him.
[00:31:08] It's never going to be easy. I just don't see a verse in scripture, but I see a lot of promise and I see a lot of blessing that comes from the wrestle.
[00:31:17] So I want to encourage us. Where could you start?
[00:31:21] You know, is it a meal a month?
[00:31:23] Is it like the early church from sunrise to sunset for a day? Maybe every week.
[00:31:30] But where? Can you seriously look at your habits and say, where is God at work in my hidden place?
[00:31:38] And is fasting a part of that?
[00:31:41] Why don't we stand.
