A Theology of Desire

We are living in the 4th quarter—a time of urgency and opportunity to consecrate our lives and become the fourth soil. Drawing from Mark 4, the call is to resist distractions, align ourselves with God’s Word, and bear lasting fruit. Today, we focus on the chokehold of deceitful desires and how self-control, powered by the Holy Spirit, frees us to live as God intended.

Modern culture has shifted from a “should” society to a “could” society, glorifying self-indulgence while leaving us more broken and dissatisfied. Through the lens of scripture, we see the destructive power of unchecked desires—whether in Esau trading his birthright for stew, or Paul’s warning in 2 Timothy 3 about people becoming lovers of self and pleasure over God. Desire, though not inherently evil, becomes destructive when disordered or directed away from God.

Paul’s exhortation to exercise self-control teaches us that spiritual maturity requires both mastery and mystery. While we actively train ourselves to resist sin (mastery), we rely on the Spirit’s power to transform our hearts (mystery). Fasting emerges as a key practice to cultivate this balance, helping us reorient our desires toward God and find true fulfillment in Him.

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Our big idea this year, if you weren’t here last week, that’s totally cool. But we introduced our theme for 2025 and it’s, if we’re truly living in the fourth quarter, it’s time for us to become the fourth soil.

If you weren’t here, I would encourage you to check it out on our YouTube page. Cause it really does help set context for what. We’re doing for the next 12 months, but the quick version and I love it. Jonah’s here in the second row. He’s very helpful. Jonah’s like, what’s about to happen, uh, for he’s like fourth quarter.

So is that like a sports analogy? I’m like, good point. I never necessarily said that last Sunday. Fourth quarter is a sports analogy that simply points to the urgency of the moment. So if you’re like me, I’m a fair weather sense son’s fan when we’re doing great. I’m all about it. I even know the 12th man on the roster, and we’re terrible, like this year, I just don’t even look.

But, what I do is I check in in the fourth quarter, and if things are tight, I watch, and if not, who cares? The fourth quarter is this moment of urgency, and yes, our, the end of the world could be near, or it could not be, but every generation, friends, we’re not gonna live forever, we should always live as if it’s the end times, cause there will be a time of end, for you and for me, welcome to church, you’re gonna die.

Uh, and so, Instead of wasting these moments away, the call is to consecrate ourself and concentrate on what God has called us to, specifically to be a fourth soil, a heart that is receptive to the Word of God. And we’re going to do exactly that today. Our whole anchor text for this year is Mark chapter four.

In fact, we might still have some, uh, I’m sorry ahead of time if this isn’t true, but I think we still have some fourth quarter fourth soil bookmarks, uh, around. Ask me, uh, and I can get you one. This has been helping me memorize this text, but I want us to start Again, today, reading Mark 4, 14 through 20.

And so to honor God’s word, I invite you, if you’re willing and able to stand with me as I read from Mark chapter four, Mark’s gospel. These are the words of Jesus starting in verse 14. The sower sows the word. Some are like the word sown on the path. When they hear immediately, Satan comes and takes away the word sown in them.

And others are like seeds sown on rocky ground. When they hear the word immediately, they receive it with joy. But they have no root, and they are short lived. When distress or persecution comes because of the Word, they immediately fall away. Others are like seeds sown among thorns. These are the ones who hear the Word, but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the Word, and it becomes unfruitful.

And those like seeds sown on good ground. Hear the word, welcome it, and produce fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was sown. You may be seated. Today, we’re going to look at the third soil, specifically Jesus warning about the desires for other things. The title of today’s message is The Theology of Desire.

Let’s pray. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we welcome you in this space. We praise you, God, that you’ve used this passage to draw people to yourself for the last 2, 000 years, and we stand in line with that history, and we ask for you to do the same today. God, I pray that we’d leave here change, that we’d leave here trusting you more and seeking your face.

In Jesus name, everybody says, Amen. Amen. Amen. Shooting yourself. This is a popular phrase in psychology to help alleviate the guilt many have and impose on themselves every single day. Even if they’re not religious, it’s kind of hard for us. To give up a list of shoulds and one since this is true Some of us put way too much pressure on ourselves and more Christian terms.

It’s imperative. We stop condemning ourselves I believe Romans 8 1 is a beautiful promise for Christians. Let me be specific Romans 8 1 says there is therefore now no condemnation For those who are in Christ Jesus, for those who have sought to trust and believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are covered by the blood.

There is no need for guilt or shame or condemnation. But again, this only applies to those who follow Jesus Christ. But in a secular world, it means more than just offering yourself grace. When a therapist or somebody tells you this phrase. What they mean by it is giving yourself the permission to do and become whatever you want.

It’s to indulge in every desire and certainly not apologize for it along the way. Byung Chul Han, he’s a South Korean philosopher and cultural theorist. He observes this way of thinking, that we need to get let go of the shoulds, is really a more recent phenomena. He grew up in the 50s, and so he said in school hallways, the posters would say things like, honor your elders and follow the rules.

But now, In a typical school, not just in America, but around the world, people are starting to see posters that says, you can do it and be whoever you want to be. He goes on to argue we have shifted and it’s a dramatic shift from a should society to a could society. You and I are no longer asking questions like, what should we do?

What do others expect from us? Cause that sounds oppressive. That sounds authoritarian. We have been sold the lie. No, start asking the questions. What can you do? What are all the options and possibilities before you? That’s freedom, right? But we are learning, swapping rules with pursuing every desire. It sounds like the key to happiness.

But upon further examination, it may be why we are more depressed than ever before. And it seems if you study the ancients, not just in scripture, but people throughout history always knew that there was a dark side to this pursuing of every desire. For example, in the Biblical text, the first book of the Bible is Genesis.

And we see this warning played out with the brothers of Esau and Jacob. If you’ve never heard the story, that’s more than fine. Esau, he’s a man’s man, he’s a hunter. Jacob, mama’s boy. Okay? And so Esau, he is out hunting, working out in the fields, and he comes home exhausted. Jacob, He’s been hanging out with Chip and Joanna Gaines.

He is cooking a beautiful pot of stew, and he loves his recipe book. And so Esau asks for stew. But Jacob, also means deceiver by the way, he’s not exactly the best character in the Bible, but God still uses him, which is good news for you and for me. Jacob responds, because every younger brother does this, I will give you this stew, but first, sell me your birthright.

Esau didn’t really even think twice. He despised his birthright and thus an inheritance and his future all because he desired a bowl of stew. Hebrew families since then would gather around a campfire and share this story generation to generation because they knew how deadly desire could be. We are not having those sorts of stories in a typical American home today.

Strahan Coleman puts it this way,   📍 for the ancient mind giving to the whims of our desire was madness. Today, it’s heroic.   Put another way, the modern man doesn’t harness his desires, he lets them off the leash. And the beast of desire is destroying everyone in its path, including ourselves. See, we assumed it was the harness that was choking us out.

But as Jesus reminds us in Mark chapter 4, it’s actually the desires for other things that is suffocating us. With all that in mind, turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter 3. 2 Timothy chapter 3. The Apostle Paul is writing this letter. This is his last letter in the Bible. And he is writing to his young protege, Timothy.

In fact, if you were to put a bookmarker in here, we’re going to be in 2 Timothy a lot for the rest of this month. Because you can summarize this entire book as fourth quarter. Fourth soil, you’ll catch on, okay? So Paul, he’s in the fourth quarter of his life. He will soon be beheaded by the emperor Nero for boldly sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Nero thinks he’s going to put an end to the church by putting an end to Paul and that is not the case at all. But he uses his final hours, his fourth quarter moment to talk to Timothy and his aim, if you read 1st and 2nd Timothy, is for Paul, Timothy, to become a fourth soil person, one who receives the word, hears it and produces fruit 30, 60, and a hundred fold.

Paul’s essentially saying, I have finished the race. I did live a fourth soil life, but it’s my duty to make sure you do the same. So within that context, Paul read this with a sense of urgency, knowing his moment and knowing what he wants from Timothy and thus you and me, he says in second Timothy chapter three, starting in verse one.

But know this. In other words, lean in. This is important, what you’re about to hear. Hard times will come in the last days. This word hard times can be translated times of stress. It also has this emphasis of being in danger or violent or even menacing. So hard times will come when? In the last days. Now, if you read Paul, you’ll quickly find out he believed he was in the last days.

Days, so was he or was he a liar? Is that true or is it not? And biblical theology says Any time between the ascension of Jesus and the second coming of Jesus is what the Bible calls the last days or the end times. So technically, ever since the birth of the church in Acts chapter 2, we have always been in the last days.

Paul, the Holy Spirit, God in the biblical text wants all of us to assume this might be the last moment. We need to become a fourth soil. We need to view this moment with urgency and to stay focused. In other words, we are just like Timothy. We too were in the last days and they will be hard days if you haven’t noticed already.

Verse two. Now he’s about to give a really long list. Just buckle up. For people’s will, for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient parents, ungrateful. Unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self control, brutal, without love for what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God holding to godliness but denying its power, avoid these people.

Now, this list can get super overwhelming, to be honest, as I was thinking about preaching it. It’s like, where do I even go with this? This is a lot, word for word, line for line, but let’s go through that as much as we can. One commentator I always suggest, I find him to be really helpful, is John Stott. He’s written a lot of great commentary on the New Testament, and that’s always a go to for me.

Him and Warren Wiersbe are good ones. He actually puts this long list into four different groups, and so I’m going to kind of Work through those groupings and hopefully we’ll get more understanding of this text. First of all, though, it starts with people will be lovers of self. This is like the headline.

This is the full picture. Everything because we love ourselves, by the way, more than God and others, that’s the context here. It’s not just that it’s okay to love yourself. Jesus says to love your neighbor as yourself. He assumes you love yourself. But to love self above God and others, that’s when you have the problem.

So this is the header. All of these problems are because we love self above everything. Now we have four more groupings. So the first set of groupings is lovers of money, boastful, proud, and demeaning. These are people that live this way because, again, they love themselves. Think about it. If you meet people who are all about them, they’re not really fun people to be around.

Demeaning. It’s those who love to tear others down in order to lift themselves up. That is, for some people, a way of life. And you’re like, I know. I was with all my family during Christmas. I know this list very well. Okay. The next five, Stott argues, have to do with family life. So it starts with disobedient to parents.

Okay. Which, you know, parents, memorize this verse, you know what I’m saying, right? Disobedient to parents and those types of people are also ungrateful, unholy, meaning they’re not set apart, unloving, and I, this phrase is so hard, irreconcilable. Throughout my time in ministry, what’s probably grieved me the most, because I think we should all assume we will hurt each other.

That’s a part of life. But the worst part is when we hurt each other and decide that there’s no way we’ll try to make things right. Irreconcilable is exactly that. Look, we have hurt each other and I refuse to meet at the table. I refuse to try to make this right. I’m going to live with my bitterness and walk the other way.

The scriptures would argue. When you do that, you are not a lover of God. Above all things, you are a lover of self, and it will lead to your destruction. The next seven extend well beyond friends and family. It starts with slanderers, which by the way, I think slanderers of all every generation, every culture has a set of sins that we think are okay, and other sins that we still agree are bad.

Slanderers Fascinatingly enough, was one of the worst sins according to the Hebrews who read the Old Testament. I, this last year, uh, Jewish Rabbi Jonathan Sachs wrote an incredible book. It’s called Lessons in Leadership. And I learned from this book that the Hebrews really believed slandering or gossip, that kind of thing, is one of the worst sins.

In fact, he says, quote, Slander is as bad as the three cardinal sins, idolatry, murder, and incest combined. That was their view of slander and how bad it is. And for us, it’s just another Tuesday around the water cooler, slandering people that we know. So then he goes on, talks about things like brutal, without, uh, self control.

This, without self control is you’re not able to be governed. Without love for what is good. One person noted, we love what feels good, but that’s different than loving what is good. And then you’ll see more of this list, like traitors, reckless, conceited. And then Stott argues the final category is the book end to this list is lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

I love that he included that last line, lovers of God, because Paul is not against love and he’s not against desire. The Bible talks about love in a good way all the time. It’s just about what you love. And what you desire. Look with me, it’ll be on the screen. Psalm 63, starting in verse one. This is one of my favorite Psalms, specifically verse three is like a life verse for me.

Psalm 63, 1 through three says, God, you are my God. I eagerly. Seek you. Notice this desire. I thirst for you. My body faints for you in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water. So I gaze on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory. Verse three, my lips will glorify you because your faithful love is better than life.

There is nothing better than the faithful love of God. And that’s what we’re called to desire. In other words, Paul would say it, David would say it all throughout the Bible. Desire isn’t inherently bad or evil. It’s what you desire that makes the difference. First service kind of failed me. We’ll see if you do too.

Anybody seen the movie Equilibrium with Christian Bale? Raise your hand. It was about the same percentage y’all have homework to do. So here’s what happened. It came out the same year, I believe, as the matrix, and it kind of had like the same cinematic flair. And so most of y’all went to the matrix instead of equilibrium.

Raise your hand if you’ve seen the matrix. You guys are so cliche. All right. So I’m kidding. I saw it too twice. But equilibrium is this whole idea that maybe what’s wrong with the world is that we have emotion and we have desires. So, the whole context of the film is Christian Bale is one of the guys to make sure everybody takes a shot every day, and so it deadens your emotions.

And the idea, again, is there will be world peace. The movie, of course, points out, if we deaden desire, we still have a bunch of suffering and evil in our world. It just comes in different forms. The Bible would argue the same. It’s not that desire is bad. It’s bad. It’s what you desire that changes the ballgame.

God created us to have desire. That’s why he created us with good, uh, with our own free will. And it’s our ultimate satisfaction to find our desire in him. St. Augustine of Hippo. He’s a theologian, a philosopher, and a shaper of Western Christianity in the fourth and fifth century. He famously put it this way,   📍 you have made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

So we desire and desire and never get enough. But once we set our gaze on the goodness of Jesus, all of a sudden, our thirst is quenched. We realize what we were made for. And this was why one of the reasons St. Augustine was such a powerhouse in the church, both then and now, was his understanding or his theology of desire.

Again, desire isn’t bad. But there’s a few ways it gets corrupted, and I’m going to give you four reasons, kind of loosely based off Augustine’s teachings, and of course, based off of the scriptures. Number one, our desires can be in the wrong order. So when Paul says lovers of self, it’s very important he put this first, and the very end is lovers of God.

Notice how that’s totally backwards. So if it was lovers of God, all of a sudden there is a beautiful way to love yourself and how God has made you and called you according to his purposes. But when you switch the order wrong, everything is dysfunctional. For example, I love and I desire my wife. That’s a very good and holy thing to do.

But when I love her more than God, I actually will destroy my marriage and I will put way more expectations on her than she could ever hold on her own. Marriage counseling 101. Do you love God more than your spouse? If not, that’s what we have to fix first. In the same way, I love Passion Creek Church so much, but problems arise when I love Passion Creek Church more than I love my family.

It’s actually the most unloving thing I can do for my congregation is by lifting you up higher than my children. You see, loving those things aren’t bad, but having a higher love. For certain things. It’s where Augustine would call it disordered. We have our desires in the wrong order. And that is what brings about destruction.

Now, the good news is we believe in discipleship to Jesus, which means he saves us, but also he transforms us slowly, but surely. And so our theory here at our church is that we will slowly begin to reorder our desires, to reorient our life, to where we can enjoy really good things. But we always know it’s not God.

And we put things in the right order. Dallas Willard. It’s not a good Trey Sermon without a Dallas Wheeler quote, put it this way.   📍 God’s yes to our request is conditioned on our yes to God’s will. What we can do is become the kind of people God can empower to do What we want. So the culture says, do whatever you want.

Dallas Willard says, well, kind of. First, make sure you love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Then yeah, you can do whatever you want because God can trust you with that. Do you guys see that? Psalm 37 4 puts it this way, take delight in the Lord and He will give you your heart’s desires.

Again, we want the different order. We say, okay, God, this is, this is the deal. You give me my heart’s desires and I will delight in you. It is not going that order. That is the formula for disaster. You must first delight in the Lord and then he will give you all of your heart’s desires, which leads to point number two.

Our desires usually conflict with each other. Anybody else want 7 percent body fat, but can never say no to a cinnamon roll, right? Yes and amen. I know for me, like, I want to have a powerful prayer life that starts at 4 a. m. and ends at 10 a. m. But I also really love this thing called sleep, and anything below 45 degrees counts as freezing in my vernacular, and so there’s no way I’m gonna wake up at 4 and walk outside and pray.

Right? Our desires conflict with each other. That’s why it’s so weird when the culture says, do what you desire. Okay, which part? Which part of me? All of us have desires that compete with each other, even within the church. We want to be great godly people, but we also want to pursue the world. And a lot of us, we try to fit those two things together, which leads to number three.

We can desire the right thing in the wrong way. This is pretty simple. Uh, some things are really good. And so it’s really bad of us to say it’s bad. No, it’s a good thing, but it has to be done the right way. The easiest example is marriage. If you want to intimately connect with your partner, but you want to do it before covenantally committing to each other, that is a sin and it is not just wrong.

It’s just bad for you. The data is clear. It leads to not a great life. If you want blessings, do it the right way, covenantally commit, and then intimately connect. And that leads to all sorts of beauty and blessings. And the last point, number four, actually we can desire the wrong things. I think sometimes our desires, they can just be plain wrong, and that’s really hard for our culture to hear because the narrative is hardwired into us, thanks to Elsa from Frozen, that if I want it, I must be able to have it.

I gotta let go all the pressures and do what I want. I, thankfully, my kids have outgrown Elsa, so I don’t even know the lyrics. God is on the move, folks. I thought that could never be possible. I’m like, what are the words? Praise Jesus. Okay. Jeremiah 17 9 says our hearts are deceitful and wicked who can know it.

This is why the gospel is so needed. Jeremiah points, hey, we have wicked hearts. And then Ezekiel also says, but guess what? The spirit is coming and we will receive new hearts with the new desires and it will be soft like the fourth soil. That’s the good news for us. But even then, as Christians who have received new desires, we now have conflicting desires, which Paul says wages war within us.

Which is why we think we cannot do the Christian life alone. We need each other as we fight this good fight together. Sam L. Alberry, somebody who’s a really good pastor and really helpful in his understanding of desires and has a great testimony in his own life, said the following,   📍 Desires for things God has forbidden are a reflection of how sin has distorted me, not how God has made me.

That’s the small lie culture wants to say, well, if you want it, that means God made you that way. We love Genesis 1. We are created in God’s image, Genesis 1 and 2, but Genesis 3 says we have fallen and there is a curse and there is a distortion that has occurred and we desperately need forgiveness and a rewiring of our affections.

It is possible for you to want something that you should not want. And that doesn’t feel like great news, does it? What do you mean the gospel? The gospel is I can’t do the things I want? Especially today, we’ve been told our desires are our identity. We identify, we introduce ourselves based on our desire.

And so we think to forsake a desire is to forsake who we are. And that is really, really hard. But, What if, It’s our disordered or deceitful desires that are actually choking us out. See, we’ve just been trained in our society to never assume it’s the desires that are the culprit for our dysfunctions.

James K. A. Smith, he wrote a wonderful biography on the life of St. Augustine. He helps us connect the dots between our desires and our despair or our depression or dysfunction. He says, quote,   📍 Insofar as I keep choosing to try to find that satisfaction in finite created things, whether it’s sex or adoration or beauty or power,   📍 I’m going to be caught up in a cycle and notice the cycle.

I know all of us have felt this where I’m more and more disappointed in those things and more and more dependent on those things,  which is the definition of being an addict. You’re so disappointed in them, but you can’t help but be dependent on them at the very same time. Is there a way to break free?

Is there a way to live in joy and freedom? Paul would say yes and amen it’s found through the person and work of Jesus Christ And we see particularly what he tells timothy to do second timothy again Now we’re going to be in chapter four just a reminder chapters are man made And so I think this is all one train of thought look with me at verse three for the time will come When people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own what is it?

desires will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths. But as for you, Exercise self control in everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, and fulfill your ministry. I mentioned at the beginning, Mark 4 will be an anchor text all month.

Starting now, 2 Timothy 4 verse 5 will also be an anchor for the year, which is why on these banners it says, but as For you, this is a key idea for us all year long. And so today I want us to look into what does it mean but as for you exercise self control Next week will be how do we endure hardship?

And the final week will be how do we do the work of an evangelist? I hope you guys come back and do that with me. But what is paul saying to timothy? hard times Create hard hearts Because of the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things, people will fall away. But, as for you, said differently, in the fourth quarter, people will pursue self indulgence.

But as for you, become the fourth soil by putting on self control. In other words, say no to the love of money. Because we believe Jesus when he says it ends in emptiness. We say no to slander, because it actually ends in loneliness. We say no to pride, because it ends in God himself opposing you. We say no to disordered desires, so that you and I can actually experience what we were really made to desire.

See, this type of self control is a combination of mystery and mastery. Self control, first and foremost, we talked about this last week a little bit towards the end, is a mystery from God. I love that is a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians chapter 5, which means if it’s a fruit of the Spirit, it’s God Himself who gives that gift.

You and I cannot fabricate self control to the extent by which He’s expecting of us. It has to be a Result of just abiding in Christ, of spending time with him in community, doing the practices, seeking his face. Along the way, all of a sudden, you will be able to control the impulses of the flesh. But at the same time, and here’s where we always are trying to do this tightrope.

It does require some mastery. Self control does require you to do something. This is why the text says to exercise self control, or to practice self control. It’s a command to do, not just a concept to believe. It’s weird. It’s this passive and active spirituality. It’s what some theologians call synergism, where it’s like, God does something, but we do it as well.

So self control, there are a series of choices I need to make that will actually make space for the grace of God to do things that I could never do on my own. And I love that God made it that way. We have a part to play. It’s not just a passive spirituality. We have something to do. I think Augustine, again, he put it the best.

Without God, we can’t. Without us, God won’t. That is a great summary of the type of Christianity we are pursuing here at Passion Creek Church. We can’t do anything without him. But in God’s love and grace, we have to do something or else he won’t. He invites us in this journey. Now, to land the plane.

Remember, I’ve done that before. Is there a practice from the way of Jesus that sets us free from the chokehold of desires for other things? Is there a way we can train our mind, body, and heart to exercise self control in everything so that we can experience what we truly desire? By the power of the Holy Spirit, we can exercise self control in everything, and I believe it’s through the practice of fasting.

Now, fasting, you’re going to hear about this a lot in February, but fasting has completely changed my life and I’m filled with so much hope it will change yours as well. In 2018, I was really a depressed church planter, really struggling with a lot of different things such as rage and anger that were coming up because my life wasn’t where I thought it would be.

And fasting, was a miracle from God at just the right moment for me. So most of us though, we avoid fasting because we’ve been taught about it incorrectly. So let me just say a few bullet points. We’re about to give you a whole lot more. So come in February. But first of all, fasting isn’t cutting off all your desire.

It’s curating the right desires. So again, it’s not an equilibrium world. It’s just putting desires in the right order. Fasting isn’t killing your body. It’s actually just consecrating your body, and there’s a major difference we’ll talk about there. Fasting isn’t even deadening your desire. In fact, it’s deepening what you were truly made to desire.

And I think most importantly, fasting isn’t making yourself more precious to God. I’ll say that again. Fasting isn’t making yourself more precious to God. It’s making God more precious to us. St. Leo, a bishop of Rome in the 400s, talks about fasting this way. It’s incredible. He says, quote,   📍 fasting gives strength against sin, represses evil desires, repels temptation, humbles pride, cools anger, and fosters all the inclinations of a goodwill, even under the practice of every virtue.

Honestly, this sounds too good to be true. Until you actually try it. Can you imagine if there was a pill that gave this sort of promise? Strength against sin, repress your evil desires, say no to temptation easily, humble your pride, and cool off your anger? Sign me up! Well, it is there, and it’s through the practice of fasting.

Of course, there’s a caveat. If you fast the wrong way, meaning with the wrong intention, like you’re just leaning into the mastery part, thinking it’s just all about you and your power, fasting’s not going to give you those benefits. In the same way, if you think fasting is just a mystery, where it doesn’t require anything from you, it’s really weird to say you love fasting, and then you’ve never actually fasted before.

That’s not going to work. I remember I was studying for this, uh, practice that we’re going to engage in, in February. And literally when I was at the cabin, same trip where I flew the plane back home and we all survived, I was literally, hear me, eating a donut while reading a book on fasting. We are all hypocrites, brothers and sisters.

Right? But there is a way when you lean into the true heart of fasting. It is incredible what it can do for you. More specifically, it’s incredible what God can do for you. And so we’re introducing this practice in February, officially. And it’s the practice of fasting. We think this is important. If you’re new here, we do three practices of Jesus every single year since 2023.

We do one in February, we focus on it, and then May, and then August. I finally figured out the best way to pitch what we do, and here’s what we do. We give you a theology, then we give you a template, and then we give space for a trial run. A quick word on each. A theology. In January, which is now, what I just did was a theology on desire, which thus points to a theology on fasting.

We think it’s utterly important for us to understand the purpose of fasting and what God’s word says about fasting. So this was part one. We’re just starting that conversation today. Come February 2nd, we will give you more and more a theology. Theology of fasting. We think it’s very important not just to engage in the right practice, but to have the right mind about it.

Why does God say to do it? Secondly, as a template, that’s why I would invite you to come in February. We are just creating a series of steps for you to take. I called a template because it’s just kind of a few boundaries, but we’re hoping you tailor it to your season of life and your stage of maturity. I, it’s been a while, Since we’ve had little, little babies, but I’m pretty sure scientifically a mom with a brand new newborn probably shouldn’t be fasting.

We understand there’s some situations, those who struggle with bulimia, do not fast. So there are a lot of caveats, but there’s other ways you can engage in this practice. So we give you a template. Starting week one, we’re going to give you all of you guys a, a, uh, what do we call it? A booklet, a guide that Pastor Caleb already wrote.

It’s available online if you want to cheat. Go to formedbyjesus. com slash fasting. It’s already there. We’re going to help you build out a template in February. Then, is the trial run. What I love about trial runs is, like, You can just try it and if it didn’t work, oh well. So that’s why I say trial run, it’s just grace, like hey, let’s try it out.

And we love the way the calendar is falling because March 5th will be the beginning of Lent, Ash Wednesday. And let me just be clear, we’re gonna do the most Protestant version of Lent the world has ever seen. But we are going to engage in this very ancient practice of fasting for 40 days. Now, here’s what’s really cool.

March 5th to April 20th, if you do the math, that’s more than 40 days. And you’re thinking, well, then why is it a 40 day fast? If it’s more than 40 days, it’s actually 46 up to Good Friday. And, uh, that’s because those six days should be on Sundays where the church of God, us feast together. So we get a cheat day.

Good Friday. Even in the middle of Lent. And so our hope and desire, I’m so excited for grace to help spearhead this for us between services. So we’re asking a lot from you folks. Cause you love to show up at 11 Oh five, no judgment, no judgment, but show up at 10 30 for food. That’s the only way to get people to do things right.

So come for food. We’re going to feast together and just celebrate. Hey, we’ve been fasting and saying no all week. And again, you’re going to actually eat at night. We’ll give that whole caveat later, but I’m excited for this trial run. And that’s why we created the podcast for us to have conversations with you.

How’s the trial run going? How is fasting working in your life and you share the ups and downs and we’re honest with each other now That’s a lot to do and there’s a lot that I’m excited for but here’s the good news brothers and sisters today I’m not asking you to fast this week So enjoy those burritos those doughnuts those whatever’s to the glory of God sushi If you’re there invite me, but anyways, I Actually now want to invite you though.

I want us You to really respond, especially here in January, with a sense of expectation for what is to come. And I think the best way to do that is to confess and to desire him. So let’s stand as we respond together. I want us to create that space right now. However it is that you talk with God, either with your eyes closed.

For me, honestly, it’s eyes up at the ceiling. I want us to create some space right now to confess All of your disordered desires, it could be the right things you’ve done in the wrong way or simply they have been wrong desires and just be honest with God and confess all of your quote deceitful desires.

Father God, we just, we confess our desire to want to control every outcome rather than just trust in you.

We confess running to the poison of addiction rather than seeking your ultimate comfort.

We confess our desire to slander others rather than to reconcile and honor them.

Oh God, would you show us what we need to confess in this moment? May we have the courage to tell you all about it.

I encourage you maybe even to continue this practice of confession throughout the week. But now I want to turn our attention. As we confess those disorder desires, will you join me in talking to God and expressing our desire for Him? Just simply tell God you want Him.

Because your love is better than life, Jesus. We want you.

You, Jesus, are our refuge and our strength. We want you.

You are good. And your love endures forever. We want you, God.