Join us online! - Next online service starts Sunday at 9 AM • Watch Live →
Apr 03, 2022
The Conspiracy of God | Secret Fasting
Our message series, The Conspiracy of God , will take us through the Sermon on The Mount.
A conspiracy involves a secret power at work behind the scenes, undermining those that currently hold sway. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is God’s invitation to participate in his great conspiracy by apprenticing to Jesus.
Listen to an audio version of the message
Songs for this week: Spotify
Matthew 6:16-18
Message Questions:
- Do you have any experience with fasting? What did it teach you?
- Explain how going without food could deepen your relationship with Jesus. See if you can explain it in words that would make sense to your friends who don’t yet believe.
- Three times Jesus cautions us about good behaviour that we can distort by using it to gain other people’s approval. What is so wrong with that?
- Three times Jesus tells us that, “our Father who sees what is done in secret will reward us”. What do you think that reward is?
- Are you considering fasting? What can your group do to support those who want to step into this piece of the Way of Jesus?
Fasting may be new for you. Check out a video by Andrew Allison and Lynnita Weber as they talk about fasting: Habits for Life – Fasting
Share with a friend
Recent Sermons
Paul never recovered from God including the Gentiles in the salvation invitation.
Like some of us, perhaps, he felt like some people should be excluded by virtue of where they were born or how badly they have behaved.
More than included, Paul instructs that former ‘outsiders’ should be treated as precious insiders, treated even better than we would treat ourselves. What would it look like if love came to town?
Human beings need reminders about how to get along, and Christians are no exception. We especially need reminders about how to love each other while we disagree. Paul draws the believers' hearts and minds back to what Jesus has done, and that paves the way for loving each other well through conflict.
How do we live with Jesus in a society that opposes him? Paul tells us to wake up to our resurrection hope. When we do that, loving others and rejecting sin in our own lives makes sense.
Romans 12 is the description of what happens when God’s mercy overflows in a church’s life. Lifelong attitudes change, love becomes genuine, mocking enemies are not met with equal and opposite force but, quite the opposite, with peace and gentleness. Be praying even now for how God will speak uniquely to your small group.
All along, we’ve been saying that God’s heart is to see us INCLUDED. That’s why Jesus came, and that’s the subject of Paul’s letter to the Romans. At times, Christians forget God’s radical inclusion of them and go back to the old patterns of competing and comparing. Sadly, that was happening in the Roman Church. Paul has one powerful dose for that sickness.
The resurrection changed everything! The story includes an invitation, a blessing, and a commission for the first witnesses … and for us today.
