The Superpower of the Christian Life

Today in the episode is one you're gonna wanna stay in for. Why? Because if you've ever sought direction from the Lord, if you've ever tried to overcome a temptation or ever tried to get sobriety from an addiction, today is the episode for you. We're gonna give you the superpower of the Christian life and it's not probably what you're thinking. Welcome to the Forgotten Jesus Podcast. I'm your host, Adam French, here with Pastor Robbie Gallaty and Kandi. Start off with some little shenanigans here this morning. We did start off with shenanigans. We got a surprise for Kandi. I went ahead and got her a little gift. This is awesome. Oh, come on now. This is gonna be a joke. No, no, he's got lots of gifts. What? Not a joke. Here it is. A little gift from me and Adam. No, it's not. It is. We gave you a little spending money in there, $20, to go spend on what you want. What is this? Can we money shot ourselves? Yeah, money shot.

Yeah, let me give it to you. Let's scratch it out. We just figured, nobody thanks you for us. No, I bet Josie brought this for me. If you have questions, you have to hit your button. If you got a question, you gotta hit your button, yeah. No, that's actually a gift somebody gave me at church I repurposed. But anyway, so. I was about to say, you stuck the $20 in there. But Adam and I saw. Now, I'll take the $20. This is an opportunity, we seized it. No, we took it. The $20 was actually funny. When we had our 10 year anniversary here, the staff wrote cards and we put them in like a box. Well, Angie just happened to be going through the cards today. This is like seven months later. And she found a $20 bill on one of the cards, just sitting there. Are you serious? From a staff member? From a staff member, yeah. I love that, yeah. From a staff member to who? To me. And you. But it was really.

Oh, look, she's like, this is my money. How sweet. It was labeled to me, but I figured all my money goes to you, so I just gave it to you. He probably does. He just doesn't want to say it. All my money goes to him. Don't you love it when someone gets a gift for themself, but then they give it to you? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, me? I don't know. Like the time you bought me left-handed golf clubs for Christmas. What does that mean? Well, they say when you shop, you should shop for something you want. It was really a gift for you. Well, I bought you a disc golf disc and they never worked out either. Are you a golfer? You brought me disc golf? She actually did play golf. One time we did go. This is why I really started to stop playing golf. We were practicing golf before kids and I had gone through lesson after lesson and I just weren't that good at golf. But anyway, so we're in Morgan City

and I said, I know what we'll do. We're going to hire a professional golf coach, because finally, because I'm finally. Brilliant idea. So we went out the first day and the guy's coaching both of us. She never hit a golf ball in her life, but she's naturally, you know, naturally had a decent swing. At the end of the hour lesson, the guy literally looks at me and he says, you, I don't think there's much hope, but Candy, most natural swing I've ever seen. She went pro. No, it's literally as tall as Vivian. And that was. She's less at you, less at it. No, she's sitting way better than me in one lesson than I was in, you know, all these lessons combined. So anyway. That was my one time. That was the beginning of the end, so. So you switched to disc golf. Switched to disc golf, where at least I can have fun with my friends. You enjoy it, yes. I think that was a really good move for you, honey. All right, today, Adam, where are we? Now we got our gifts given out. Pepper jelly.

Let's see. Milano. We're in summer on the mount. $20 tip. It's got Dubai chocolate too. Dubai chocolate. That's like a thing right now. It's everywhere. Is it dark chocolate or just regular? Well, I don't know. Hate to interrupt the podcast, but I want to tell you about two YouTube channels. I just started a YouTube channel. You can search it on YouTube, at Pastor Adam French. I'm talking about biblical recovery. If you know someone or you have a friend, maybe it's a loved one who struggled with sobriety, or maybe they're in sobriety now, but they want to blend biblical truth with neuroscience and secular recovery, it's definitely the channel for you. And also I want to tell you about Robbie's channel. It's at Pastor Robbie Gowdy. He's going in little segments, right? But he's still going deep into the Hebraic culture of the word of God. And he's got an exciting series on revelations coming up. Let's get back to the podcast. We're at Matthew chapter.

We finally made it, Chris, to Matthew chapter six, verse 16 on fasting. It's only taken us- Oh, we are there. 40 something episodes. What episode are we at, Robert? Anybody know? 42. We talked about forgiving others their offenses. We are rolling through this season. I don't know. Did we talk about what? Forgiving others their offenses. Yeah, we did when we talked about forgive us our debt, give us today our debt. I just kind of lumped those in. I think we did talk about it. Okay, so let's see if we can quote. And whenever you fast, don't be gloomy. Candy did ask me a question about quoting scripture the other day. I'll let the audience chime in. Adam, you can chime in. She said, is it okay if I memorized half of, if I memorize part of a chapter, they're memorizing the chapter Hebrews 11 with her D group. Is it okay if I memorize part of the chapter in ESV, and then I switch back to the other part in CSB? Is that gonna work? I can't do it.

I had memorized already maybe 10 to 15 verses of Hebrews 11 in a certain translation. Okay. Years and years ago, ESV. And so, but all my girls, they're, we all read CSB. Right. And so they're all memorizing in CSB, but I feel really weird if I was to memorize half the chapter in CSB and then have half in ESV. Like, because then I'm quoting and I'm going back and forth. Yeah. I just don't like that. So I'm sticking with the ESV. But I have like a smart answer. Like when people ask me, they say, well, which version of the Bible should I read? I always say, which one of the version of the Bible is the best? Whichever one you're reading. So that's why I say when it comes to memorizing scripture, as long as you're memorizing it, whatever, you know, whatever method you have, whatever app you use, I'm fine with it. Cause bro T, he, he did that. Like he memorized the Bible and like King James and then he memorized it. He's like, well, let me quote it in the NIV first. I'm like, I didn't write it like that. I'm like, what? He's an anomaly. He can quote whatever translation you want. He'll tell you the translation. He's quoted for me. I'm like, just quote it. And ESV is actually harder. I feel it is harder because it's more choppy. That's why people ask me, why did you, why did you switch to the CSB? The number one reason was, was easy to memorize. That was a number of reasons. And if you're a disciple maker and you're making disciples, you not, not only want a translation that has integrity to the original languages or close to the original languages, but you want something that reads devotionally well and something that memorizes easy. So that's why we did it. So anyway, all right, we'll quote it. And when you actually, we'll just let you do the KSV, the candy standard version. So go ahead. Whatever works for you, babe, you go for it. I'm gonna try this. That's good. Okay. Whenever you fast, don't be gloomy like the hypocrites who love to make their faces unattractive so that their fasting is obvious to others. Don't be like them. Truly. I tell you, truly. I tell you they have their reward. Yep. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face so that your fasting isn't obvious to others, but to your father who is in

secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you. Oh, nice. That's pretty good. What's funny about candy is when she doesn't know if it's right or not, she goes real high and yeah. And they have received their award. It's not like, like, like she's strong, man. She goes, giving is in secret. That's what she does. No, that's true. That is true. Robbie is so good at this. He catches everything I do. And I have no clue. I do it. Oh, yeah. All day long. Oh, my gosh. Like, I totally do study. You study your wife. Right? Exactly. I'm so in love with you. I just can't make fun of her. But no, I'm like, Josie, you can't not not see this love. There's so much love there. Yeah, exactly. No, but the boys told me the other day when I was paying like at a drive through. Yeah. And they gave me my money back. And I said, Thank you. They say I say thank you every time like, like, I go high on a thank you to like, thank you. Like, it's a it's a certain way I say it. And I'm like, must be a never would have known that thing you do. Yeah, boys. Three men. So they they they're very perceptive. Well, I have to give back because you're always pointing out like you didn't take out the trash. You left your plate on the couch. Honey, I don't do that to you. Matthew. Okay, Matt. Here we go. Here we go. Okay. No, I'm playing. I'm playing. Okay. 67. We got to get started. We have to cut everything. 55 minutes. All right, here we go. What we get into the last part of the threefold summary of giving or three I'm sorry, three full summary of walking with the Lord. That's what's happening. Jesus takes the three greatest ways you can demonstrate faithfulness to God. First with what you remember giving second with I mean, first with giving Yes, second with praying and third with fasting. These are the big three. If you were going to say how would I demonstrate my faithfulness to the Lord and notice and every time verse two what is what does Jesus say to begin with and whenever you what six to and whenever you give give then he goes on in verse five whenever you pray verse 16 whenever you fast fast notice what he's not saying

here. He's not saying you probably should do this. He's not saying you might want to consider this. What is he saying? Whenever he's assuming as you're going to do as a Christian now this was probably the most convicting of all of them probably for all of us. I used to really be big into fasting and seminary candy I'll tell you how fast I use this all the time. In fact for two years I fasted every Thursday because that's what john Wesley did years ago when he was in the holy club and so I did that for a while I just haven't done it in a I mean, frankly part of it is because of medical medicine and heart condition, but it's really no excuse. But anyway, the fasting one is probably the hardest one. Because most people listening can say, ah, I'm generous, maybe not as much as I should, but I am generous. I do pray, maybe not with the right spirit all the time, but I do pray. But fasting is the one that really gets us. Now, fasting has been part of the culture of the Jewish people all the way in the Old Testament. The patriarchs fasted. The first biblical account of fasting was Moses fasting for 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain with God when God is giving him the law. But according to Tertullian, he actually traced fasting back to Adam. Interesting. Tertullian, early church father, he said, Adam who was commanded not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So that's a form of abstinence in a sense. I don't know where we take that, but I thought that was interesting. God says, don't eat of this, so stay away from that. The prophets fasted. All through the prophets, they fasted. Judges 20, 26, Israel fasted during the Civil War. We have people like Elijah.

We have Ezra fasting. We have Daniel, obviously, with the Daniel fast. Then you get to the New Testament. Jesus fasted for how long? 40 days, right? 40 days and 40 nights. The apostles fasted. Paul himself fasted many times. He said, I fasted three days, Acts chapter 9, 9, after I was blinded by the light. Paul said in St. Corinthians 11, 27, he fasted frequently. And then the early church leaders talk about fasting. I mentioned John Wesley. That was a big part of his life. St. Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther fasted, the reformers, John Calvin, John Knox. So fasting has been- I have a question. Do me a favor. I know we're in the middle of the episode, but if you've benefited from the podcast or any podcast up to this point, would you hit the subscribe button? Believe it or not, many of you who watch and listen aren't subscribed to the channel or the podcast. And if it's benefited you, would you share it with a friend and leave a comment if you're so inclined to do so? She's back with her questions. It's been a while with the questions. Here we are. Can I ask? Yes. You already did one? Ask another one. Okay.

Question number two. What is the longest you've ever fasted? The longest I ever fasted was almost seven days, six and a half days in seminary, which is not a ton of time. Have you ever done a big fast? But- Mine was about the same. I think I got to like eight, seven, eight, 10, somewhere around there. And I made a mistake. I went to work and they had these- it was when I was working at Google and they had all these free drinks. And they had a drink and I thought it was like a Gatorade and it had caffeine. It was like high amounts of caffeine. And I started drinking it and I started to feel really sick, so I had to break my fast and stuff. But it was around that time. That's awesome though. That's really good. Yeah. That's nothing now. I've done longer like only juice fasts, but like I'm talking, you're talking just water, no food. Yeah. No food. Yeah. Yeah. That's the longest. Tommy on our staff, Wallen, I think he's done some 40 day fasts before. Yeah. I remember he said that.

Yeah. I've known a few people that have done those. Ronnie Floyd. But you really do have to be careful with those medically. You do have to be careful with those medically. I mean, the longest I've ever done was three days and I'm like, I'm a terrible faster. Yeah. Well, I mean, well, okay, let's, let's talk about what is fasting then. Okay. What is fasting in the Bible? What is biblical fasting? Cause there's a lot of different renditions or different explanations for it, but let's start with the Bible. Well, it's abstinence from food. Yes. Biblically, it is a voluntary denial of the normal function of eating for the sake of intense spiritual dependence or activity in your life. That's a definition from Richard Foster, uh, wrote the book, the spirit of the disciplines, I think. Uh, and new Testament fast. I mean, in the Bible fasting, most of the time, most all the time is a fasting from the food. Okay. You're fasting from food, uh, physical food. Uh, and the idea is there's a connection, they believe between the physical digestive system and clarity of the mind. When the mind now, now science has proven now when you don't have to digest food, the mind is clear. Your perception is better. Your ears, your hearings better.

Um, according to Jewish tradition, they, the, the, the mission says most people fasted on Mondays and Thursdays because that's the day Moses went up to Sinai on Thursday and descended on Monday, according to tradition, that's the Jewish tradition. So fasting is the discipline. So think of it this way. It's the discipline of renouncing the flesh in a way through abstinence. When you deny the flesh pleasure of eating or consuming, it strengthens your prayer life. And, and I would say that's what you should do. So if you're thinking about, okay, I've never fasted before. You restrict food, physical food, but you increase spiritual nourishment from the word. So the. The way most people fail at fasting or have a hard time is they don't supplement food with the Word. The Word of God becomes, now it's not easy, obviously you've done it like me, it's not easy, but it is doable when you supplement, because I ask people, like, I tried fasting for a couple days. Well, how often did you read the Word? I didn't have time to. Okay, well, that's your problem. When you're supposed to schedule a lunch appointment or your lunch time, go read the Word. At dinner, at six o'clock, you read the Word. You see what I'm saying? When you're eating breakfast, you read the Word. So that's really what fasting is, biblically, the Word. Now, Daniel fasts from not just food, Daniel eats fruits and vegetables. I think that's the Daniel fast, you'll see that. Some people fast from technology today. I don't think that's a bad thing. If you can't fast from food or abstain from food, I think that's fine to do.

Something that your body needs to function. Now, our teenagers, we all have them in here, our grandkids, they have to have technology to function. So that could be probably harder for a Gen Z, Gen Alpha person than food itself, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, there's a difference between detox and fasting. You can type in detox on social media, Instagram, everything, and there's all these ways to detox your body and abstain from food. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about training yourself to be dependent. That's what we're doing. We're just saying, okay, the Word says we need to be dependent. We know we have a flesh that does not want to be dependent, wants to be independent, wants us to follow it and not follow the will of God. So Jesus, He's God, He's brilliant, saying whenever you fast, whenever you're training your body, when you're intensely saying, I want to choose my dependence to be on God, right? I was taught when it comes to fasting that every time I feel that hunger, I pray. Then when I should be eating, I'm either on my face or I'm reading. So at lunchtime, I should be reading. At dinnertime, I should be reading. Every time I feel that hunger pain, I should be praying. And then when I'm doing it, I'm training my body to say, or my mind and my body to say, God is more important than food, as Jesus says, right? I can live and survive on God. We don't want to push this out there too much, but I mean, God can do what He wants to do. I mean, you know, doctors will say, you can only live this so long and we've seen supernatural events. So that's not what the point of it is.

The point though, is I'm training my body to say, if I put God first and I rely on Him on everything, He's going to provide. Yeah. Yeah. So good. Yeah. So the monastery, the monks in the monasteries promoted something called asceticism, if you ever heard of this. This is the idea where they would restrict things, luxuries, pleasures of life. This is why monks actually retreated to monasteries, and you can say whatever you want about monks in monasteries. I've done a lot of research on them. I've been to monasteries, I've studied them. Yes. The pushback is yes, they should be out sharing the gospel. The Great Commission is not, you know, shared by staying inside of a room with a bunch of them. I get that. Yes. But they are mostly women incumbents, but men who have committed themselves to a life of abstinence, a life of silence, and a life of solitude. I remember one time when I went to the monastery in Gethsemane in Louisville, where Thomas Merton was years ago, and we got to meet with Brother Paul, who was a mentee, a disciple of Merton. He's in his 80s now. He's still alive. It's crazy. Thomas Merton, the great, and he's controversial too, so don't email me, but I get it. He wrote a lot of good stuff. Contemplation, Seeds of Contemplation, others.

But anyway, we went to see Brother Paul, and went with Cliff, who is a counselor of mine, and Russell Irwin, myself, we went. And Brother Paul, we emailed him before we got there, and he said, I will take you on a special, exclusive walk in the woods to the hermitage of Thomas Merton. So in a monastery, you could go retreat for, obviously you're in a monastery, so you're insulated from the world. You're praying, and they follow the Benedict rule, most of them, if it's a Trappist monastery, follow the rule of Benedict, which is a combination of work, rest, and prayer, and worship. That's their whole life, work, rest, and prayer, and worship. But then out of the monastery, there's like the masters of the PhD engagement, which is yes, I'm going to live in a monastery, apart from the world, but at least I live in the brotherhood of the brothers. But sometimes these monks would request to go stay in a hermitage for 40 days, six months, or a year. Nobody sees them. They don't see anybody for a year. Their food is brought to them on their porch, and they see no one. They talk to no one. Well, Merton did this for like six months. In fact, they built this monastery, I mean this hermitage. for Thomas Merton. So you imagine the joy it was for us to be able to go and walk and see this uh this this hermitage that they built for Merton and one of the reasons was this um they believe that by detaching from the world you're able to really connect and get close with God. Now somebody listening is like man I can't do that there's no way I can detach for that long. Fasting is a superpower that really gives you a way to tap into this connection you wouldn't otherwise have by not going to a monastery. So uh the reason you fast or a couple reasons you fast one is you're fasting and I'll get to this in a moment to overcome temptation okay we're going to get to all these in a moment you're going to fast to get spiritual direction from God you're going to fast to deliver yourself or others from strongholds we're going to get to this in a moment uh and those are the three big ones I think I have some others but uh let's just kind of unpack those in the text so

what does the text start with the text starts with don't be like the hypocrites so with any good thing you can make it bad which is what they were doing they took it made it bad don't just don't be like the hypocrites who what make their faces unattractive well they disfigure their faces yeah that's what the csb says csb says they disfigure their faces which means what uh disfigure their faces so that their fasting is obvious to people so what does disfigure mean well I mean that would normally mean you're losing a part of your face if you're disfiguring so so what I'm assuming is like their hair's messed up their beards are disheveled that is a strong word by the csb disfigure means like to rearrange your face it actually means in the in the greek it actually means to conceal or to mask uh your true appearance with another form in order to display outward humility that's what it means they wanted people to perceive them as more godly and pious than they were they wanted people to look at them and say wow look at that adam he don't even he can't hit man he hadn't taken a bath in a while he hadn't look at that hair well your hair wouldn't but like chris chris clap you know look at that hair it's not it's not the sunshine golden blonde look we're used to you know it's disheveled it's dirty you know wow he must be a holy man you know so uh instead of an attitude of humility they portrayed jesus said hypocrisy they're wearing a mask in a sense we talked about this before so we fast for a couple reasons okay don't fast like that you want to be genuine the first one is overcoming temptation i'll give you a pop quiz where do we see an instance of a person fasting and at the same time overcoming temptation or a direct assault by the enemy himself anybody know jc baby jc jc jesus christ look at her jesus christ now where was he at where was this at in the wilderness in the wilderness three times saying comes to him and three times what does jesus do he rebukes him with scripture with scripture donald whitney said one principle we learned from jesus example in life is this fasting is a way of overcoming temptation and of freshly dedicating ourselves back to the father that is a way it's almost like a recommitment to the father again it's like a recommitment to god uh perhaps today you're facing a situation in your home perhaps today you're listening you're like man i've got a financial challenge i've got an issue in a marriage marriage i got an issue with a child uh you've been offered a new position and you're trying to discern you know what do i do where do i go maybe you have a new opportunity to move into a new state or a new job uh maybe you're being tempted in your life like man should i do this or should i date this person or should i give into this situation fasting for the purpose of enduring and overcoming trials or tribulation

or temptation that's one way you fast okay so or maybe you can't break a a addiction right you can't break a cycle you can't you know you basically say god i'm going to fast from everything to to deliver me from this thing yeah that's right jesus starts out and he's saying listen this isn't so that everyone else can see this is see this is so that god can see and you may not be able to actually see with your own eyes what god protects you from how he changes you or what the results are yeah but if you're just worried about what the world sees it's gonna it's gonna be cheap right so because literally coming out saying they're saying hey look at me i'm fasting with god he's saying like you're you want the wrong you got the wrong people's eyes on you you want guys god's eyes on you you want god to see what you're doing now that's that's the hard part is we can't always see the results when we practice the principles of god we're so result i'm result driven uh we we hand out trophies at the end of the year, like all these things, we have awards, and he's saying, no, listen, your reward is that God sees you in secret, he's gonna reward you in secret, but that doesn't always mean that we know. Like sometimes we think, oh, if I fast, all of a sudden I'm gonna, I'll be feeling different, I'll be walking different, or this one prayer that I've been fasting for is gonna completely change. It could, or it may not. That doesn't ultimately mean that, but what ultimately will happen is we will change, our devotion to him, and the circumstance may not change, but how we deal with it, how we see it, our presence with God, our peace with God changes. So, I just wanna put that out there. That's a good point. Most of the time we're fasting and praying, it's not for us to move the heart of God

or change the mind of God, it's for God to change our heart. Right. To receive and be ready to receive whatever God has for us, right? Yeah, that's good. Mm-hmm, that's good. Yeah. Anything to add, Candy? She's worried about my cup. Yeah. All right, turn to Mark chapter nine. No, but what I was gonna say is you fasted before you asked me to marry you. I did. Mark what, nine? Yep, I fasted. So, it can help you make really good decisions. Lifelong, best decisions you'll ever make in your life decisions, yeah, exactly, yeah. No, we fasted before going to our first church or second church or third church. Any big one will get to direction from God. So, the first one is overcoming a temptation. Temptation to take a new job. Temptation to take a new position. Temptation to whatever. The second one is fasting helps you with deliverance from a stronghold. Now, this is one of my favorite passages to talk about this in.

This is the passage where Jesus is up on the mountain. Let me just set it up. On the mountain in Mark nine for the transfiguration. Jesus is up on the mountain and Elijah and Moses come. So, you have the representative of the Torah and the prophets, Elijah and Moses, and they meet with Jesus. While Jesus is up on the mountain with the three apostles in a mountaintop experience, you have a church business meeting gone bad below. Okay, at the bottom of the mountain, you have this church, I'm jokingly saying that, but it's a business meeting gone bad because they come to the church. This father comes to the church with his demonic son, demonic-filled son, and he basically says, this is my son, can you do anything for him? Okay, now watch this. It's an indictment on the church, but let's just read it. So, let's just read verse 14 and following. Just get the context. When they came to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and scribes disputing with them. When the whole crowd saw him, they were amazed and ran to greet him. He asked him, what are you arguing with them about? Someone from the crowd answered him, teacher, I brought my son to you. He has a spirit that makes him unable to speak.

Whenever it seizes him, it throws him down and he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they couldn't. Let's just stop here. That's the hardest line to swallow right there. So, here's a father who has tried everything. Jesus comes down with the disciples. They're just on the cloud nine, literally. They just saw Moses and Elijah. These guys are amazed, they're all excited. And they come down and there's this yelling, screaming confrontation going on between church folk and the church leaders, right, in a sense. And so, the dad says, hey, I've been everywhere. My son has this demonic spirit living within him. He throws him in the water, he foams at the mouth, he grinds his teeth, he's rigid. And I've done everything, and here I am. I finally come to the church, and I brought my son to your disciples, and here's the line, and they could do what? Nothing. Nothing, nothing. What an indictment on the church today, right? I finally come to church, I'm limping in with my marriage, and I've come to Long Hollow today, and I've come here for help, but your church could do nothing for me.

I have my addicted son or daughter on drugs and alcohol. I heard Jesus is the answer, but I came to church. Would this father say the same thing about your church if you're listening? I brought my son to your church, lot of pump, lot of prestige, no power here. There's no power here. Lot of lights, lot of sound, lot of music, lot of hype. No power here, no power. I was trying to look to see, and Jesus, I would assume that he'd already sent them out by twos. Dude, you read mine. Okay, so watch, you're getting ahead of us, but that is exactly right. Because he already gave them the authority. That's exactly right. This is why, okay, you're getting ahead of us, but read, brace yourself, because this is where Jesus, in a sense, loses it over the disciples. I mean, you never see, this is like Jesus to the extreme. Like, he has lost it with these boys over this thing, and I want you to see if you could figure it out. Jesus replies to them, verse 19, embrace yourself. What does he say? You unbelieving generation, how long will I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him to me. Okay, so what does he? Basically Jesus says you, in one translation it says, you perverted generation, you unbelieving generation.

What am I gonna do? How much longer am I gonna put up with this garbage basically? How much longer am I gonna have to deal with this? What is Jesus saying here? Now think of the context of what you just said. Where, what just happened? Now it doesn't happen in Mark because you don't have Mark in chronological order. But if you go to a Harmony of the Gospels, which we used to have one on this desk, but we threw it out. Because we moved too slow. But if you go to the Harmony of the Gospels, Adam's right, just moments earlier, Jesus sent them out, Luke 9 records it, two by two, the 12 of them, to do what? A couple of things. To heal the sick. To heal the, to cast demons. Cast demons out. Heal the sick and preach the good news. Okay, so they just came back from a short-term mission trip where they did these things in the power of God. Jesus leaves them alone for one moment. And now they forgot everything they just did. And what Jesus says is, what is wrong with you people? How much longer should I put it? What is the, here's the way I put it. What is the one thing that ruffles Jesus's feathers more than anything?

Powerless disciples. That's good. Powerless disciples. That's strong right there. Disciples, men and women, you and I, who have the spirit of God, who know the word of God, who have met the person of God, and we don't have the power of God. The power of God. Now I know that's. I have a question. I know that's not, hold on one second. I know that's not your spiritual listening, but I've heard of churches like this. Kandi, go ahead. Okay, so since they've just come back, you know, by the two by two, they've been able to go and do all these things. They were excited about it. Do you think part of the problem is now they're too puffed up because of what they think they just accomplished? And now they come back thinking they're gonna be able to do all things or whatever, and they actually, like the Lord's like, no. You know, like, you know, like maybe they're like, I don't know, I'm just thinking. Like could pride or the belief in themselves, you know what I'm saying, and everything they just got to do,

be kind of in the way of what they should have been doing here? Could be. That's exactly what I think's going on. Really? I'll tell you why. Okay. I'll tell you why. Wow. I was thinking it was their humanness, it was convicting to me because obviously I encounter people in very difficult situations. Just last night I had a call, a guy's just 70 milligrams of Kratom struggling. 70 milligrams? You can't stop, guess where he's getting it from? Gas stations. You know, you can buy it, it's legal, but it's a synthetic heroin. But you know, our mind, immediately I'm like, oh, this guy can't come to the house, you know what I'm thinking? But then, I was like, wait, hold on a second, you know, wait a second, what could God do? And started thinking about what was the next step? Okay. And I think that's where, for me, I was thinking that they were looking at the difficulty of the circumstance and not necessarily of the divineness of God.

Like, that's what we get caught up in, and like, oh, how much is this going to take? How much is this going to cost? Oh, there's reasons why they can't live here, reasons why they can't get better, instead of thinking, that's what my human mind thinks, and not necessarily thinking that, hey, God can step into any situation and transform it. We shouldn't be sitting here. He transformed us so that we could sit in these seats, only by his power. Somebody had to believe in us, believe that God could do it, or if they didn't believe, we wouldn't be here, because somebody shared the gospel with us. Well, and in a sense, we have something these guys we read about don't have at this time. We have something they long for, they would have longed for, and that is, we have the Holy Spirit not living next to us or Jesus beside us. We have Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit living in us. So we don't have to wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon us intermittently. We have it, we have the Holy Spirit, he's indwelling within us. So you see what I'm saying? So they had something we don't have. Now, here's the problem, here's what I'm getting to.

This is what happened. I think Candy's exactly right. And don't miss this. We should be able to do the same kind of miracles that they do, because there's no difference. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Maybe not to the same capacity, because we live in a world where people have water and have food, and we don't have to pray for rain, in America, at least. But the same Holy Spirit that's in them is in us. The same resurrection power Ephesians 1, Paul said, is in us today. The problem is, we don't tap into it because we don't need it. Or, better yet, Candy's point, we become self-sufficient, professional Christians. That's the problem. The problem is, when the Chinese government years ago sent, or the Chinese leaders, not the government, Chinese leaders sent a bunch of Christians to America to figure out what was happening in the American church, the underground Chinese church, which was being persecuted and being beaten and imprisoned for their faith. When the Chinese Christians came back to China after viewing America, they said, what is the one thing that was astonishing about your trip to America? They said, here's what we were blown away by.

We're blown away, the number one thing they said, we're blown away by the number of American Christians of how much they do for God, separate and apart from the Holy Spirit. Wow. How much they do in their own strength, separate and apart from the power of God. Think about your own life. How much do we do that? You know, and we don't pray, we don't need God, we're good at this. Man, especially everybody in this room, if you're in ministry, this is really convicting, you, it's very easy to become a professional Christian. It's very easy to do ministry for Jesus without ever having intimacy with Jesus. That's a problem today. And here's the problem, we'll get to it without belaboring the point. Drop down to the end. Jesus says, well, let's keep reading because I love this part. Jesus says, bring the man to me. How long has this been happening? The father said, he's been thrown in the water for a while. And Jesus said to him, and the man said many times, but if you can do anything, my favorite line, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus, if you can do anything. And Jesus, I have to imagine,

I don't know if this is what happened, Chris, but in my mind, Jesus chuckles, he looks around, he's like, can I do anything? What do you mean, can I? Jesus, I brought him to the church, your church could do nothing. Last-ditch effort, can you do it? Jesus is like, are you joking? Is that serious, are you serious? What do you mean, can I do anything? And what does Jesus say to him? If I can do anything, what do you mean? Everything is possible for the one who believes. I could do everything. But the problem is not with what I can do. The question is, what do you think I can do? And the man, thank God for his honesty, what is he saying? Help mom, maybe? Jesus, I have a little bit of faith, but I need help. And you know what Jesus says? I love this. You would almost assume this man, I mean, how many people, I've always thought about this, how many people in church, if that was the case, if I said, hey, God just told me, let's just say, maybe it wouldn't happen, but maybe it would. God just told me that he wants to heal somebody long, hollow Sunday morning, let's just say. It could happen, I mean, I've prayed for people before.

Let's say you come up, and one guy comes up, and I say, hey, brother, you're up here? Yeah, my son here has been ill for years, took him to every doctor, and I look at him and say, God wants to heal him. Do you believe God can heal him? How many people actually, let's say a dad, you're up there with Jojo, I'm up there with Ryan. How many people in the church, Robert's up there with Anna, whatever. How many people would say, I have a little bit of faith. No, they'd say, of course I believe. What are you talking about? That's why I'm here. Yeah, I have faith. What are you talking about? That's why I go to church. Just raise a middle ten. How many people would actually say, I don't have a lot of faith, I'll be honest with you, but I'm here, and I took a walk to the front. See what I'm saying? And Jesus says, I don't have to have much, but I can work with that. I can move mountains with that honesty. And that's maybe, if you're listening, that's what God wants from you. He wants you to take off the mask, to stop being a hypocrite, to stop playing games, to stop acting like you have it all figured out,

to stop putting on an act on Sunday, my marriage is all good, my family's all good, and say, God, I'm here. I don't have a lot of faith in what's gonna happen, but I'm here. And Jesus takes the boy, and he heals the boy. Now, watch this. They come back, and I love this. This is a wonderful discipleship principle, because once Jesus heals the man, then it says, verse 28, Kandi, read 28 and 29, watch this. After he had gone into the house, his disciples asked him privately, why couldn't we drive it out? And he told them, this kind can come out by nothing but prayer. Now, one other translation says by prayer and fasting. Some manuscripts don't have that. I do like that in there. I don't think it hurts the text regardless, but I think it's the way we've been taught. But notice what Jesus does. Every time Jesus teaches, every time Jesus puts them in a scenario where they have to learn, he always gives them feedback on the back end. I love this. This is a wonderful discipleship principle for life. So he brings them back, and they are defeated. I mean, there's nothing worse

than being called out by your rabbi. How much longer am I to put up with you guys? Bring the guy to me. Golly, what is wrong with you? That's literally what just happened. So they're like moping around. You're like, oh, man, here we go again. Judas? No, it wasn't Judas. It was Matthew. Matthew, shut up. And blaming each other. And Jesus says, all right, boys, any questions? Yeah, I got one. I got one. Why couldn't we cast this one out, Jesus? Simon the Zealot, I'm glad you asked that question. Let me tell you why. When Jesus says this line, he's saying a lot without saying anything. He's saying this kind only comes out by what? Prayer and fasting. Prayer, fasting, and fasting. You know what Jesus is saying they're not doing? Praying and fasting. Praying and fasting. which goes back exactly to what she said. I think what happened, Adam, is this, and if we're not careful, we can have false mountaintop experiences in our life

that produce self-dependence and not God-dependence. We do this all the time. You preach one good sermon, you think you're the greatest preacher in the world. You share the gospel, one person, they get saved. You think everybody, or I did this, and now I'm the expert at this. I think that's what happened. They're riding high. Man, we just got back, we saw demons cast out. We saw a priest. You just had a sermon you preached. And then they got self. They had an inflated view of self. They started reading their own press clippings. They started believing in their own Twitter accounts, and they're like, man, I'm somebody. Look, I'm somebody. And Jesus said, no, we're gonna cut this down right now. You're gonna cut it back. I think they got stuck very quickly in performance mode, not prayer mode, right? Because they had just got through doing all those things, and now they're just gonna perform. Not in a way like I'm acting, but it's just performance. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Literally, what you're saying is what we're talking about. How do you perform? By being a hypocrite.

Because a hypocrite, remember, the root word, you love this, I don't know if you do, but the root word is you go to the edge of a play, or edge of a theater, and you pick up a mask, and the mask is the hypocrite. The hypocritos is the mask you put on. So literally, that's what they were doing, what Jesus warned against in the Sermon on the Mount. Yeah. Yeah, I think the way that we, it's okay to have arrived, but we should always be arriving. We should always be continuing on, and the only way that we can fight against that is continue to get right-sized each day. That's why the practice of prayer, and silence, and in the word is so important. Because if it don't, I start to inflate myself, right? And then decrease God, when we're actually supposed to increase ourselves, or decrease ourselves, and increase the Lord in us. We have to get right-sized. Yeah, that's good. Or, people don't like to hear this, but the truth is, we can make God sound a lot like us. Like people that have no accountability, or not spending time on the word, and just starting to go off, resting on what they have in the past, we start to move on into our ego,

which is easing God out. We start to ease God out, and then we start to make God sound like us. Wait a second, that's not what God sounds like. I'm speaking from experience here. So, I have to get right-sized. And sometimes, and love what you said, the discipleship moment is, they come to Jesus, and he gets them right-sized. He said, hey, you guys missed the whole point. The point is, you're supposed to be dependent on me. You're supposed to be praying to me. And when these big moments come up, you need to actually say, God, I don't want anything else. I don't even want food. I just want you to do a work in me, or in this situation. Yeah. Yeah, they got good at ministry in a sense where they thought, I could do this in my own strength. I would ask you if you're listening, think about this. What are you attempting to do for God right now that if he doesn't, what are you praying for God to do in your life where if he doesn't step in, you are toast? You're done. And a lot of people, I would say a lot of people listening would say, I'm not praying for anything right now. Like, do you have a, I have a God-sized vision. I'm praying for the church, praying for my own life, praying for my own ministry.

I got personal prayers that I've been praying, big prayers for the Lord. One is our future expansion here in Hendersonville. So I'm praying big prayers. On paper, it looks unbelievable, but what are you praying where God, if God doesn't step in, because a lot of our prayers, I think you could say, are offensive to God in the sense of God's like, I can do that. You can do that yourself. You don't need me. What are you praying for me for? And that's what he does with these disciples. He puts them in a position where they realize this is not about you. You can't do this on your own. In fact, you have inflated yourself. Here's the thing. If you step in and you say, I got this, God's gonna step back and say, you're right, you do have this. But if you step back and say, God, I can't do this without you, God steps in and he always does what's right. Andrew Murray, the great prayer author, and he wrote a lot about prayer, said prayer needs fasting for its full and perfect development. Prayer is, on the one hand, that which grasps the invisible.

Fasting, on the other hand, is that which we cast away the visible. I like that. Prayer is grasping the invisible. Fasting is casting away the, or prayer is grasping the invisible. Fasting is relinquishing or casting away the visible. Lastly is direction from God, and this is one you probably know, but I could go through scripture. I got a lot of them here, but you go through scripture after scripture. Daniel 9.3, he cried out to the Lord, prayer, petition, fasting. Nehemiah, before he rebuilt the walls and went back to Jerusalem, he prayed and fasted before the God of heaven. Joel 2.12, God directs the entire nation to fast. The church at Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, before they sent these brothers out. they prayed and fasted before laying hands upon them. And then Ezra led the people of God from exile all the way back to Jerusalem. And he did that as they fasted and implored the Lord. And it says, he listened to our cry or our prayer. So I would just, what's that? Esther. Esther. Yeah. Calling the whole nation to fast. So fasting doesn't, you said this earlier, but I wrote this down. Fasting doesn't ensure that we will hear clear from God, but it cultivate cultivates a sensitivity to hear better from him. That's good. And say it again. It's not that God's going to answer our requests and rubber stamp our plans. It's that it cultivates in our heart, a sensitivity to hear better from him. So when you fast, you have to determine three things. And this is worth the whole episode. Number one, the purpose of your fast. Number two, the type of your fast. And number three, the time of your fast. Okay. You need to do this on the way

in the purpose of the fast. Is this directional? Meaning I need direction. Is it devotional and active worship? Is it dependence? I need to trust more, overcome a temptation or addiction. Okay. That's the purpose. The type of fast. Is it going to be a selective fast? Is it going to be a regular fast? Meaning I'm going to fast consistently once a week, or is it going to be a complete fast? I'm going to fast five days, seven days, 40 days. Okay. And then the time of fast, meaning how often are you going to fast? Are you going to fast one day? Are you going to fast one meal? Are you going to fast one week or 40 days? By the way, always consult a doctor if you're going to fast over three days. That's what I always try to tell people. What fasting does is it creates a scenario in a sense where you're homesick for God. And I was thinking about this when I was putting this together. And I was thinking, after I met Candy, we met on a blind preaching date. I think I've told this story before. Adam, have you heard this story before? I don't know if I told you this story. Yeah, I think so. The church where... Jeremy set it up, right? Jeremy Brown, he was the youth pastor. Big germ. Big germ. And he had invited me to come preach at his church for a student event. And Candy and I had a mutual friend I had from college she worked with who found out where I was preaching. And we never met each other, but it was a blind preaching date. And I tell people it was the best sermon I've ever preached to this day, Josie. To this day, the best sermon I've ever preached. Brought him in. It was a money shot. Brought her in, Robert. Now I'm playing. But seriously, probably it was a horrible sermon. But anyway, I don't remember. Thank God there weren't YouTube back then. Although I will tell you, Josie, I was doing some hunting on the Adam French YouTube channel. And I don't know if you know this, Candy, but we have a poet and we didn't know it. We had a poet and didn't know it, Mr. Adam French. Adam French. I found this, Josie, 12, 13 years ago. What? Yes, young Adam. I think he scraped them all off the internet after I sent them out. He tried to scrape them. Oh, you found it on the internet? He wrote, he would write poems and he would say, he'd memorize it. It was like a spoken word before it was popular. I never wrote anything until I got saved. That's the Holy Spirit. I never wrote a poem or anything. I remember I showed it to a guy one time. It was Gerald actually. He goes, oh, this is all poetry. And then he goes, oh, you know, poetry is all songs. Yeah. I was like, I didn't know that. He's like, yeah, it's all songs. That's awesome. That's the Lord. Speaking of poems, I used to write candy poems. Who knew? Back in the day, she said you hadn't written me a poem since we got married. I said, well, I don't need to.

Anyway, Vivian, I'm sorry, but anyway, but here's the point. So, so we actually started dating after that March. I met her on March the 14th, 15th, sorry. Very, very close. I met her on March the 15th, March 15th. Uh, and we, uh, dated till June. So we only dated two and a half months, basically March. Yeah. March. Well, you left in April, May. Yeah. So two and a half months. And then I went to Glorietta, New Mexico, 1100 miles away to go be the camp pastor for, uh, with Tim LaFleur, you heard my story for the whole summer. And so I would be, I was away from her two and a half, three months. I was away from her as long as I was with her when I met her. And so, uh, Candy obviously was a little anxious. I was probably a little anxious, you know, like I'm going to go to summer and I was around all college students. So she's probably thinking, well, so much for that. He'll never talk to me or call me again. Oh, a hundred percent. I was thinking that. Oh, did you? I was like, he's going to go off and he's going to meet somebody and I'm gonna be left in the dust. But then I thought, well, if we can make it through this, we can make it through anything. Did you pray Lord's strength in my faith? That's when she fasted. She was fasted, baby. Let me just say this. This is actually really, really bad. This is a confession. Well, you've heard this before. We're going to confess it on the air. Should I, I should probably not, but we're talking. about prayer and all that, I actually, like, did not want to pray to the Lord. Whoa, okay. If Robbie was the right one, because I was afraid if the Lord was gonna tell me no. Wow. So, no lie. I was like, I'm just gonna let Robbie pray about this. And if he breaks up with me, then I know it's not meant to be but I didn't want to hear God tell me no. And so I'm like, Lord, cause I really liked you. And so I was like, no, I don't want, I don't, you know. You didn't want the no, yeah. Right.

You didn't want the no, yeah. And I had gotten a lot of no's, right? From guys I had dated. And so I was like, I did not want Robbie to be a no. So I'm like, I'm just gonna let Robbie pray about this. And he'll tell me what God tells him. And God said, it's a green light. So it's a green light, it's a go. Thank you, Lord. I mean, it worked. Well, and not saying don't pray, but. Let me just say too. Well, it was a big act of faith for her because I was going with 160 college students. I was in seminary. So the chance, you know, for her thinking, here he is, boys, male and female, half and half. So it was like, so, but Tim will tell you, Tim will forward tell you, he'll, and there they attest to this. After about halfway through the summer, I would show pictures of Candy and talk about her every day. And Tim's like, man, you talk about this girl, Candy, when are you gonna marry this girl? Now I told Candy, it's a funny story, we get sidetracked, but I told Candy when I met her, I said, Candy, I just started seminary. I was only in the semester two months. Yeah, two months.

And I said, I had a plan, you know, I said, I'm gonna finish my master's and then eventually maybe I'll get my PhD. And I just don't see us, you know, thinking about marriage till I'm done with schooling. Well, that would have been eight years, Vivian, eight years, okay? Yeah, so when I met her, and I had a plan, Chris, and when I went away for the summer, she's thinking, so I come back from the summer, the next week I proposed to her. We got married. He got around both of us. We got married five months later. I'm like, he put a ring on it real quick. I'm ending with this, but here's the point of this. When I was away in Glorietta, this was before, the cell phones didn't work because we were in the mountain. And this was before, you know, I mean, well, they had cell phones, but they didn't work. So I had to go. Tim gave me a little key to the front office. We lived in the back of the property, but the front office where his office was, he gave me a key to a phone in a room by myself that I would every day at the end of the day, I would drive up to the front, long day, because I'm with college students. And my day didn't start for them. You know, they were just getting cranked up at midnight,

you know, one or two, those college students, because they're just getting off of work at the property. But anyway, so I would go sneak away and call her every night. And I would talk to her. And I remember I would picture in my mind talking, I had a little picture of her, but I picture in my mind the day we'd be reunited again, the day we'd see each other again. And the longer we were apart, the longer I longed to see her. That's what fasting does for the Lord. You will create a longing in your heart for more of God. When you remove the physical things, you're basically creating a scenario where you miss the presence of God, and you become homesick for heaven. And it's a great way for us to do it. So if you've never fasted before, I would just encourage you, maybe try fasting a day. You know, I fast, you know, I do other kind of fasting, but I would say, let's try something. And remember, you must replace the physical food or the physical technology you take away with spiritual food. When it's time to eat, make sure you sit and feast on the word of God and watch what God does. That's so good. I think a lot of people think that this is something difficult, but the pressure of wearing the mask

and hiding everything from God is way more difficult than a meal or the beginning. Like you're gonna feel that pressure. You're like, oh, I can't do this. But the pressure, the pain of staying the same is way harder than the pain that it takes to change. And fasting is a great first step in changing anything. As Leslie Kleiser always says, unless something changes, nothing changes. Hold up. Nothing changes, nothing changes. Unless something changes, nothing changes. Powerful, so much good stuff. This is a way to like really shock the system. Like I'm gonna change. I'm going radical. Let's go. I love it. Come on, baby. Great episode, strong stuff. Anything else, Kandie? Nope, that's it. All right, thank you again for tuning in. If you will, please subscribe, comment, share. If you're listening to this, share this with someone. Share this with your best friend or somebody that's in your discipleship group or at your church, so they can learn more about the forgotten Jesus.

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