Worship Preparation Guide for Sunday, February 22

Throughout this week I have been working on the sermon from John 18 and thinking through this last section of John that we are beginning this Sunday.  All week I’ve been burden for us all to gain deeper insight, more profound awe, and a deeper love for Jesus based on what we see in this section of John’s gospel.  I pray we will see the reality of his Passion,[1] and the specific steps He took leading to the cross; the depth of suffering He endured for our sake before He ever got to Golgotha.  I am praying that as we work through John's account of Jesus’ arrest, abandonment, denial by his disciples, the mock trial, the beatings and humiliation He endured, and finally His crucifixion, that the reality of the Word will come alive to us.  I am praying that as we walk with Jesus through His final hours and we will be confronted again with the reality of our sin that put him there, be amazed by God's grace that sent Him to save us, and be filled with praise at the glory of the cross and resurrection.  I think this is what revival looks like and I am praying this is what will happen in our church over the next several weeks. 

Please pray with me for this.

I also would ask that you consider joining me in another way as we make our way through this last section of John.  I would ask that between now and Easter you join me in a weekly time of fasting. 

Fasting can narrowly be defined as the spiritual discipline of voluntarily abstaining in some significant way from normal food for spiritual purposes.  Fasting is not to be coerced and it is not for the sake of appearance. (Matthew 6:16-18) Unfortunately fasting may seem very foreign and strange to many of us, because we are not used to doing without food or drink, and we are not interested in voluntary discomfort.  Donald Whitney says, “Christians in a gluttonous, self-indulgent society may struggle to accept and to begin the practice of fasting.  Few disciplines go so radically against the flesh and the mainstream of culture.”  Whitney also says, “Like all the spiritual disciplines, fasting hoists the sails of the soul in hope of experiencing the gracious wind of God's Spirit.  But fasting adds a unique dimension to your spiritual life and helps you grow in Christlikeness in ways that are unavailable through any other means.”

My first encounter with fasting occurred on my first mission trip  - a trip to South Korea.  I was a fairly new believer and there I encountered the work of the Holy Spirit, and saw the reality of revival in ways that I had never seen, and have not seen since.  There I met and served briefly alongside Pastor Cho, a diminutive man who as a spiritual giant who in the course of his ministry had completed several forty-day fasts.  God was using him in powerful ways there in his community and throughout South Korea.  Fasting was a regular part of every believer’s walk that I met in South Korea.  The connection between fasting, prayer and the life changing power of God was visible and clear.

Dallas Willard, in The Spirit of the Disciplines wrote, “Fasting teaches us a lot about ourselves very quickly.  It will certainly prove humiliating to us, as it reveals to us how much our peace depends upon the pleasures of eating.  Fasting confirms our utter dependence on God by finding in Him a source of sustenance beyond food.  Through it, we learn by experience that God’s Word to us is a life substance, that it is not food (bread) alone that gives life, but also the words that proceed from the mouth of God.” 

Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, wrote extensively about fasting and practiced it regularly like few others have.  One of the reasons for fasting highlighted by Dr. Bright was that through fasting “the Holy Spirit will quicken the Word of God in your heart and His truth will become more meaningful to you!”  He also stressed that “fasting will also transform your prayer life into a richer and more personal experience.”  

So I will be fasting one day a week for the next eight weeks. 

I will be fasting one day a week for the next eight weeks for many reasons, one of which is for my prayer life to be renewed and awakened into a deeper and more meaningful aspect of my relationship with God.  

I will be fasting one day a week for the next eight weeks for another specific reason: that through fasting and prayer the Holy Spirit will quicken the Word of God in my heart and His truth will become more meaningful to me. 

I will be fasting and praying that God will quicken my heart and open my eyes specifically to His truth in John 18 - 20.  I want to see the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus with new clarity and depth.  I believe that to see the cross and the empty tomb in this way it would be important to see the specific steps Jesus took, and understand what he experienced in those last hours of this life.  My hope and prayer is that fasting will help me do that.

I will be fasting and praying that God will quicken my heart and open my eyes to see the Passion of Jesus, his suffering, death and resurrection, with new clarity and depth, and that my soul would experience revival as a result of this renewed vision of Jesus. 

I hope you will join me in this journey and I look forward to seeing you in church this Sunday. 

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[1]  The word Passion comes from the from the Latin verb patere meaning to suffer.  The Passion of Jesus is generally understood as the period of his intense suffering in the last days of his life from Gethsemane to the cross.