Sermon Tone Analysis

*Date:*      24th June 2007                                                                        (Sunday AM)                                                                       *Ref:* A0317

*Place:     Kambah P.S.*

*Title: When You Fast*

*Text:        *& Luke 5:33-35

 

*Illust:     *Ever alert for the hippest new trend, the New York Times recently reported that fasting has become fashionable.

Eating in chic restaurants is out.

Not eating is in.

According to the Times, people are paying as much as $3,484 a week to visit health spas where they go without food.

One spa in Desert Hot Springs, California, is booked through October with a clientele that includes celebrities Ben Affleck and Courtney Love.

Fashion designers and mortgage brokers have joined the fasting trend.

Instead of stuffing themselves with steak and lobster, they subsist on apple-celery cocktails, herbal teas, laxatives, bee pollen, blended soups, and water mixed with squeezed lemons, Celtic Sea salt, and honey.

"Not eating really hasn't been a problem," explained one faster.

"I haven't even been hungry.

One time I was, but I ate a pinch of bee pollen, and it went away."

Fasters claim that a 4- to 30-day regimen not only helps them lose weight but has spiritual benefits, as well.

"It used to be that people who came in to fast talked about weight loss," said Stephanie Paradise, owner of the New Age Health Spa in Neversink, N.Y.

Now, she says, it's about "detoxing the mind, body and spirit."

Not all of the fasters are doing it for spiritual reasons, however.

Natalia Rose, a nutritional consultant, appeals to their vanity.

She organizes four-day fasting weekends for women that include motivational trips to a fashionable department store, to "remind them what it's all for."

This week we have a day long fast on Tuesday – I want to remind us what its all for:

!

I.                   Our Present State

!! A.               Our Opposition

i.                 Personally – There are battles that we all face personally, they could revolve around habits, sickness, sin you struggle with, emotional or spiritual torment.

Challenges that you are facing: - Face constant opposition from 3 main forces:

     World:

      By ‘The World’ we mean the society, culture within which we live day to day and the various pressures it puts on us to conform to its ways:

      The world wants all religions to coexist peacefully, denies the exclusive nature of many religions and also more fundamentally denies the reality of ultimate truth.

The world is constantly flooding our minds & spirits with materialistic & hedonistic images: Magazine covers, billboards, TV advertisements, Movies, Posters

      Especially in the fashion & entertainment world.

Out at Brand Depot – bombarded with highly sexualised advertising images

         1 John 2:15-16 15 Do not love the world or the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.

(NKJV)

     Flesh

      The things of the world stir up our next enemy ‘The Flesh’ – Your carnal nature, your fleshly desires, hunger, emotional & physical fulfilment, comfort, security.

All desires of the flesh, not necessarily evil in of themselves but they constantly seek to control your behaviour & tip you over into sin.

– Gluttony, going into debt to purchase triflings; Paul gives us a good summary of the works of the flesh:

         Galatians 5:19-21 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

(NKJV)

      Who here doesn’t struggle with at least some of these?

James 3:2 For we all stumble in many things.

If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.

(NKJV)

     Devil

      Then there is the devil prowling around seeking to bring you down, seeking to inflame your fleshly passions; where the flesh may desire something, the devil will be there to pour petrol on the smouldering ember of fleshly lust.

– Turn into a destructive firestorm

      Need to remember that there is a devil.

There is a very real enemy of your soul.

He will

      Sickness

      Mental ~/ emotional torment

      Story of Job – Natural disaster, attacks by enemies, possessions robbed, sickness – All clearly the work of the devil.

Job 2:7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.

(NKJV)

ii.

Corporately as a church we face opposition from the secular nature of our culture & society in seeing people saved and come to Jesus.

We live in a city & nation where individuals by & large ignore God & are consumed with their own material pursuits & chasing a temporal & vain happiness.

– Hard to witness and see people saved.

iii.

Other Needs around the world.

Churches, Cities, Nations all fighting against the 3 foes of the world the flesh & the devil.

Facing persecution, political turmoil, economic meltdown, cultural & religious bondages

!! B.               Breakthrough Required

i.

The need is very great, the need for personal breakthrough against those things that seek to distract, divert, disqualify, distress us.

– We all need personal breakthrough against the influences of the world, the desires of the flesh & the assault of the devil.

ii.

As a church we need to see breakthrough;

     Souls saved and locking in, to be disciples of Jesus Christ not just church attendees

     Greater dimension of the supernatural; anointing, gifts of the Spirit

     Unity of heart & purpose – Praying against The world, flesh & the devil’s assaults

iii.

Breakthrough is required in cities & nations around the world:

     Samoa & the fellowship church there:

      Religious people: - They will go to church – Not saved.

Come to the Potters House, get saved, but then through cultural, religious or fleshly reasons.

Just not lock in.

We need to pray for genuine conversions, people to lock in and be discipled.

Zimbabwe, Solomons, PNG, Sth Africa, Indonesia, Fiji,....

      All desperate for breakthrough against lawlessness, religious & cultural bondages, demonic oppression.

!

II.

Power for Breakthrough

!! A.               Jesus’ Example

i.

We may be familiar with the story of the demon possessed boy, whose father brought him to the disciples while Jesus was away & try as they might they could not cast it out.

Jesus arrives and cast out the demon, ~* then later the disciples come to Him to ask why they had no breakthrough in this situation: Jesus answer:

         Matthew 17:20-21 20 So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

21 However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

(NKJV)

      Some opposition, some assaults just not going to be broken even with fervent prayer, going to require you to get out the big guns & fast.

Daniel 9:2-3 2 in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

3 Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

(NKJV)

      Here is Daniel, understands the seasons, and wants breakthrough – So he fasts.

ii.

Before starting His public ministry, even being the Son of God, Jesus led by example to you & I & fasted.

Luke 4:1-2 1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.

He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.