Latest / Wesley at FSU & TSC / "Awakened to Grace :: Fasting" | Sunday Service | February 8, 2026

Transcript

"Awakened to Grace :: Fasting" | Sunday Service | February 8, 2026 · Wesley at FSU & TSC

• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to continue this morning, though, in our work through Awakened to Grace.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: We've been talking about different spiritual practices that help us be awakened to the grace of God.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Not that the grace of God is coming through them, but we're just seeing them.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: The grace of God has always been there through them.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: And today we're going to talk about fasting.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Fasting.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: And like I said earlier, fasting is something that a lot of us don't practice.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: We don't participate in.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: But it can be a very helpful practice, spiritual practice, for you to be able to see the grace that God's giving you in your life.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: That you can see the work of God in your life through the act of fasting.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to start in Acts chapter 13.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: And like everything else this morning, this TV is not working.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we're just going to say goodbye to it for now.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and we're going to read it from like from the old school way, the iPad.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And this is that was a joke, because the old school will be the physical book.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to be in Acts chapter 13.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: If, by the way, if you haven't come on Wednesday nights, we're walking through Acts on Wednesday nights.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: This next week is a big week.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing Acts 2.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's the story of Pentecost.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's when the Holy Spirit comes down upon the church and blesses the church and moves the church so that it can do the work that we've been called to do as a church.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to go skip forward to this morning to Acts 13.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hear now the reading of God's Word.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: The church at Antioch included prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, nicknamed Niger, Lucius from Cyrene, Manion, a childhood friend of Herod the ruler, and Saul.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Just for a second.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: This Saul is the Saul that we call Paul.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, he's Saul of Tarsus here.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Very interesting, just a side note, real quick.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: He is converted to Christianity to being follower of Jesus in Acts 9.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: What chapter are we in right now?
• 2:58
  unknown: 13.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: 13, yeah, which is before or after 9.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Great, awesome.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: So in Acts 13, he's still being called Saul.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Really interesting because we grew up probably in the church.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you learned about Saul to Paul, you learned he was blinded on the road to Damascus, and then all of a sudden he became Paul.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: But the truth is, is that Saul is his Hebrew name, and Paul is his like Roman name.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And he starts to go by Paul as he's ministering to the non-Jewish people.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel that?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he starts to use a Roman name.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not so much a conversion as much as it's just a name change.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very interesting that Luke, the writer of Acts, in 13, he calls him Saul.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: So all there with all these people and Saul.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 2.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: As they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, appoint Barnabas and Saul to the work I have called them to undertake.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And after they fasted and prayed, they laid their hands on these two, and they sent them off.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pray over the preaching of God's word.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: May it speak to us, speak through us for the establishment of your kingdom on this earth.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight and in your sight alone, O God.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: You are our rock and you are our redeemer, and we love you.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: We give you praise.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Allison and I, my wife, moved here in July of 2020, crazy time in the history of the world.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: And in December of 2020, Apple, a company that I follow and let's be a little addicted to, released these things.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: You ever seen those before?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: I can I tell you that I remember, because I used to follow all the like rumors and all the sites and all this.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember seeing like Apple released a new set of headphones.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I have been addicted, as most of us are, to our AirPods, right?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: I literally have them in my pocket right now, right?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we're addicted to these things or similar devices like that.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I saw that Apple was releasing these, I was like, yo, banger, I'm a big headphone fan.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Let me go purchase them.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then I don't know if you remember when they released them, but I scrolled down and I saw$549.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: I gasped out loud.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, nobody's ever gonna buy these things.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then very quickly on a college campus, they became a status symbol.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: They became a status symbol.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Those of you who don't have them know exactly what I'm talking about.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And those of you who do, can we just have a word for a second?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: No judgment against having them.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're the best headphones I've ever used in my life.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: But why do you wear them to run in?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get it.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I'm saying?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like people work out in these things, they're heavy, they don't breathe well.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: I really don't get it.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: But the first time I ever put them on, because we don't have an Apple store in Tallahassee, I had to go to Best Buy.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And when I go to Best Buy, which is a mediocre experience at best, I put them on.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, if you've tried them on before, you know that they have two main modes, right?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: They have transparency mode, and then they have noise cancellation mode.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so in transparency mode, there are nine, could you believe that?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Nine microphones that are all around these things and similar products just like it.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And they recreate in real time the sound that's just around you.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you've ever tried them, they are way better than the AirPod Pros.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: They uh and the fact that it's like nine microphones and that it's processing all that in nine in real time is crazy.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like you almost feel like you don't have them on.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Those of you who have tried them, you know exactly what I mean.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you hit that noise cancellation button, everything disappears.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like when you put them on, you don't realize exactly.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what they were going for, right?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: They want this kind of integration in like wearing headphones and not wearing headphones.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: They want this kind of life.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you put on the noise cancellation, all of a sudden everything goes away.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: If you've ever worn them on an airplane or any sort of noise cancellation at all, you know what I mean.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because you don't really think about the noise from the airplane, like the sound of the jet engines and stuff.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: You really don't think about that that much until it's gone.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, whoa.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's crazy technologically how it works.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: They're literally capturing in real time the sound that you're hearing, flipping the audio wave upside down to cancel it out.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing, brilliant engineering.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they're doing it with things that cost a couple hundred dollars.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: This would have been thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in the past, if even possible.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Crazy, crazy.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I first realized when I first tried the noise canceling thing?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's more than quiet.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: We think about it as just being quiet.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about silence last week.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's more than just being quiet, though, it's clear.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's clear.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden, that that these sounds that were in your in your ears that you didn't even think about, your brain just sort of moved them out of the way.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden, they're gone.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Not that you your brain has to do any more work, it's just clear.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: And what I've learned about fasting is that the things in your life that you're just used to now, you just do them.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: You pick up your phone and you scroll it.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: You you get on a social media network, and and but before you know it, 45 minutes has passed and you haven't done anything.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: The the people in your life that are just not good for you, the toxic people in your life, you just get used to it.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's just something that exists.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Relationships, friendships, whatever.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: You just get used to it.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: When you start to take away some of those things, it's more than just quiet in your life.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's clear.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's clear.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: I really think that's what fasting does.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: So the question I want to ask today is what changes when we fast as a people?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about what fasting is in a second.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: But we're about to enter into a period of Lent.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's a time of 40 days that leads up until Easter.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, shameless plug, not this coming Wednesday, but the Wednesday after, we're going to celebrate Ash Wednesday, and that'll be in this space.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so we'll observe that together.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that'll be in place of Bible study that night.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's a great time for you to begin this process of fasting.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: But in the 40 days, the 40 days, there's a time period where you're invited into a practice that we often don't do, which is to give up things that are causing havoc in our life, sometimes that we don't even realize.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Addicted to caffeine, you don't realize it until you stop drinking it.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Guilty.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Addicted to other things that are toxic in your life?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: You don't realize it until you give it up.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: You don't realize it until its its noise is canceled.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, I want to go back to the church in Acts 13.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: This is verse 1.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in the church in Antioch, there were many prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, named nicknamed Niger, Lucius from Cyrene, Menaon, a childhood friend of Herod the ruler, and Saul.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, before we go any further, this church that you see, it's it's one of the premier early churches.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Antioch is not the only church at this point, but this is a major church uh that is going to actually spring forth ministry, as you heard in the first three verses, Paul and Saul and Barnabas.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, wait, wait, wait.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Why is that done?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: One, two, three.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, Joe.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Come on up here.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Don't worry.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: We've done it for everybody.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: You definitely have to wear the yeah, you have to wear the medallion.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, it's like the Olympics out there, buddy.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: All right, welcome, buddy.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is so fun.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so here's the church in Antioch in verse 13, and I want you to see how different all of them are.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: It included prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius from Simon, Man, and Saul.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: This is a very diverse church, and it's also a very healthy church.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very healthy church.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: We know that because it's about to birth future churches.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: You can't do that out of toxic cultures.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be a healthy church in order to grow.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's just the truth of it.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's just the truth of it.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes churches will utilize things to try to grow their ministry.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean that by numbers.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: They can bring in human beings.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what always is the case is there comes a time if that church is not healthy, if that church is toxic, there comes a time where everything comes to roost.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's a scandal involving the pastor.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's like, oh, their music changes and everybody just kind of leaves.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes there's something else.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: But if that church is not healthy, it will eventually fall apart.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And what we see here is actually a healthy church in Antioch.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we know that from other places, but I think that's really important because they go to worship and fast, which I think tells us something.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's that fasting is a posture.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's not because they're panicking.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, it's not because they're trying to fix something.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Fasting is just something that they do.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Very important.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of times in our spiritual life, especially when things are going great, we feel like we're being super faithful.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: We feel like we're, you know, we're just following Jesus in the best way we ever have been.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Our relationship with Christ is super close.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever we're in those spots, those high points in our life, that's the last time we think about giving anything up.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: But the truth is, is that the church in Antioch, they did just that.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: They fasted.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: So this is not a crisis moment.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is an active and it's a vibrant community, and that's super important.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go to verse two.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Appoint Barnabas and Saul to the work I have called them to undertake.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: As they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Appoint Barnabas and Saul to the work I have called them to undertake.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: The Greek word here, oh wait, I should ask you.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody want a chance at pronouncing this?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: No takers?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, come on, we'll sort of.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: I knew we'll sort of say it.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know what?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Give them a hand.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not quite seven miles run, but you know, yeah.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh lay to turgia.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's a G.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Lay Turgia, uh, or a gamma, as they would say.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: This is the word that we get the word liturgy from.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Have you heard this term liturgy?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Liturgy?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times in churches, they'll say, like, oh, we have we order ourselves by a high liturgy, or or we have more liturgical elements in what we do.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: And what they're meaning to say is like we're more traditional, and they'll utilize this.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: But the truth is the word liturgy has nothing to do with the style of music.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: It has nothing to do with uh how many times they placed the prayers, it has nothing to do with this.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: The word simply it actually was a secular word that they used to define worship, and they call it the work of the people.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: It means whatever the people, the community, are doing together, that's the liturgy.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's the liturgy.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they were doing here in this space before they began to fast.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then Luke adds the fasting.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Really interesting to me that those two things, the worship, the centering, the focus upon Jesus, and then the fasting, at that point, then the Holy Spirit speaks into their life.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's not accidental, I don't think.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: So the fasting acts as a hinge, a bridge, if you will, from the worship to what's coming.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Fasting.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: Giving up of things.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: For them, it might have been food.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: For you, it might be social media.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: For you, it might be a toxic relationship.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: It might be something that uh you're involved with in your life that you're just like, I need to let this go.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Fasting.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: So here, let's talk a little bit about what fasting does.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing I would say, and we're gonna skip that verse, we'll come back to that here.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing I would say is that fasting clarifies your attention.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: If the headphones are on and the transparency mode is on, you can hear everything around you, and it's just as distracting as any other time.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: But if you go into Strozier or you go into the living room at Wesley and you have transparency mode on, you will be distracted by all of the same things.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you turn on that noise cancellation, removing that noise from your life, it all of a sudden clarifies your attention.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: I have found that even in quiet places, libraries, places where I know there's not going to be people throwing you know frisbees back and forth, breaking ceiling tiles.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh even in those places, I've found in the quiet places, I still turn on noise cancellation to just focus my attentiveness and it clarifies it.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that I've learned in my own fasting in the past is that it exposes what you are attached to.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of us have habits and things that we do and we are mentally, spiritually, and emotionally attached to that we don't even realize it.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Some of us use humor to move throughout our lives to overcome, cope, whatever you want to say.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's all well and good, but have you ever found somebody whose humor always comes at the expense of another?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's something I've been personally convicted by many times in my life.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Am I utilizing this coping thing to just make fun of somebody else or poke fun at somebody else?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Then eventually, what happens is you get attached to that mentality.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Which means you start to be shaped by the fact that you're always poking down at somebody else.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if you were to give up that coping mechanism, if you were to give up that toxicity, all of a sudden it's gonna humble you and expose your own attachment to that.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Add whatever other example or illustration you want.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: It exposes our attachment to things.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: I might even say this a different way.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Fasting reveals what owns us.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Reveals what owns us.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: But isn't it true that there are a ton of things in your life you're so attached to that they have more say in your life than Jesus?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't it true that there are so many things that you're so attached to that they have a louder voice in your life than your church community, than your friends?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: A louder voice.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're claiming you.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: These things of the world, they don't own you.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: They don't.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes we need to be reminded of that, and it takes getting rid of the middleman in order to do that.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: It reveals what owns us.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: I would also say this fasting, I think, sharpens our discernment.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to listen to the voice of God, and you've got all the noise around you, then you have to get rid of all the noise around you.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: You have to get rid of the desire to be liked, the desire to be popular, the desire to be the person the world wants you to be versus who God wants you to be.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're trying to search for what's next in your life, and that's kind of what college often is, isn't it?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: You're like looking for this next place in your life.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard to discern that if you have all of the voices around you.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: When I was graduating from undergrad, I uh was really busy in my senior year.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Some of you can relate to that because you're involved in a bunch of organizations and do a bunch of things.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: That was me.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was uh the president of the student government, I was the recruitment chair for the fraternity council, I was the worship leader on Sunday mornings at our chapel service.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was engaged to be married and also doing a senior recital, which is really hard as a because I was a vocal major.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of work.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started to do that thing my senior year where I was like, I need a job because I'm about to get married.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out in life you need money, right?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was starting to get a job.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I started applying for things.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh as I started applying for things, I started to look for a bunch of different options.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them were campus ministry, some of them were seminary, some were all kinds of different moments in my life where I was gonna like, I'm gonna go do this, I'm gonna go do this, I was gonna do this.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was applying to graduate schools for vocal performance.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really want to do vocal performance, but I was applying for it and I was gonna go audition for it.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was getting phone calls from pastors.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Who were like, can you come be our worship leader?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: I had people who were like, Can you want to work in higher education?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I had all these voices along, and as I was discerning things, I felt so pulled in ten different directions.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever felt like that?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: So pulled in every direction.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: What's next in my life?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: And there were things that I loved.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Classical voice would be one of them.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I finally just had to decide I have to quit these things in order to discern what God's doing in my life here.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you just have to give it up.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because it clarifies it.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it sharpens your ear to hear what God is doing.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: I would also say this when you're less reliant on the things of the world, you're more likely to be sensitive to the work of the spirit.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: When you're less reliant on the things of the world.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: How is God going to speak in your life if every creator in the world has full access to your eyeballs?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta give it up.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hannah.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on these two and they sent them off.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Those two, by the way, being Paul, Saul, and Barnabas.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: After they fasted and prayed, they laid their hands on these two and they sent them off.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I've learned in my life when I've been invited and taken part in just getting rid of things in my life I don't need is that it has always, always put me in a posture of obedience after that.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: I want to say a word about obedience real quick, but uh put that up there, Hannah.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Fasting precedes our obedience.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now, some of you see the word obedience up there, and you're like, uh, not comfortable with that.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm 19 years old, I'm in college, I'm out of the house, I'm free, I can do whatever I want.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: The term obedience, not that exciting.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Secondarily, obedience, and we should be real with each other, has been used to oppress people for a long time.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Can we say that?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Obedience has been used to oppress people for a long time.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that word is somewhat triggering, that it precedes our that obedience is something that, like, I don't want to participate in, so why would I then fast in order to be obedient?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: But let me invite you into the world of the scriptures where Jesus says things like, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's the invitation to us.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: If we love Jesus, then we will do as he has said to do.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I want you to see obedience not as just like, oh, I gotta follow some sort of rule or some sort of law and I gotta check this thing off.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Obedience begins in relationship and it becomes a natural overflow of relationship.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: I had uh interesting conversation with a friend of mine last week who I'm doing some pastoral counseling with as they get ready to uh get married in this summer, and we were discussing the scriptures that have the husband and the wife obey each other.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Did you know that by the way?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes the one that's pointed out is that like it says, uh wife obey your husband.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: If you read the next paragraph, which by the way is way longer than that verse, um, it actually all talks about how the husband is supposed to love the wife.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Those two have to work together.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not this like hierarchical thing, which is how we define it now.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: It actually is a much more unified thing.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Go read the book.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't write it, read the book, that's what it says.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: But in that process, we were talking about the word obedience.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth is that every relationship has a bit of obedience in it.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give you leadership and I'll and you'll follow.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna give me leadership and I'll follow.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it becomes this very connected thing.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the same thing is true for our relationship with Jesus.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: To obey God is not a like, I gotta follow all these rules and regulations.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, to obey God is because God loves me and I love Him.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm going to follow Him.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's not oppression, it has been used that way.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Reject that.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that obedience is actually freedom in Christ.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: So when we talk about obedience in this context, it's obeying a Christ who has called us to go do something else.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: On Wednesday night, we talked about Acts 1 and we talked about how the people are the ones, the disciples are the ones who are going to continue this work of the church.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus rises into the heavens.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: He's gone, bro.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And now it's our turn to take up the mantle.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: So if we're gonna obey God, might it be that fasting, just as it was in Antioch, comes before that, so that we're ready, so that we're ready to move with God, not out of obligation, but out of freedom and joy because of our relationship with the Lord.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then sending becomes the outcome.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: Antioch is credited as a church with being the number one place that started more churches.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about Paul, Saul, being the church planner of all church planners.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Where did he come out of?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: He kind of came out of a worshiping and fasting community in Antioch.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you want to go and you want to do the work of the Lord, perhaps we follow their model of just getting rid of the noise and getting rid of all the things that draw us away from God and instead of center and focus ourselves on God by pressing that noise cancellation button.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then finally we could listen and discern.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: We'd be unattached from all that crap.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then here's the kicker.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: The grace that God gives us becomes so utterly clear in that moment.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: The grace that God gives us becomes so utterly clear.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: We see the work of God if we get rid of all of the rest of it.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: So my invitation to you, and you can start thinking about it.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I'm doing it this week and not next.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to think about this.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really easy to do the thing that we often give up.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm gonna give up soda, I'm gonna give up coffee, I'm gonna give up buying coffee out, I'm gonna give uh all these things that are gonna make a difference in my bank account or in my health.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: And those are all good, they're not bad.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: But really, they're just looking for the wrong thing, aren't they?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: What if, what if we would take the next week and a half before Ash Wednesday, what if we would just take that next week and a half and we might just say to ourselves, I need to find something in my life that's distracting me from being able to listen to the voice of God.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: I need to find something in my life that I'm so attached to that I don't even realize it.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: My guess is if you'll pray, the Spirit will open your eyes to it.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna invite you for that 40 days of Lent to give it up.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Cut it out completely.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a little over a month.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can do it.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want to, you can participate on those things on Sunday because they're a little bit of Easter's, okay?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: But like find that thing that's in your way, and then I'm gonna ask you to prayerfully approach the Lord about this and say, listen, I'm so attached to the likes on my Instagram.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so attached to this person that I know it's just not good for me.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: What I've found is that it's really hard for us to press that button.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Especially like, can we just say the placement on it?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: On that, it's bad.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Apple, do better, you know.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard for us to press that button.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: But when we do, things become clearer, clearer than we've ever known them before.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.