The Life You were Created For- Abbie Sawzak (Jan 09).

Time with Jesus can kind of reset some of our habits, the way we live life with Jesus so that we can continue to come more like him, to create the culture of Christ, which is what we're after here at New Culture. This time of the year I've been one of those people where I like the idea of New Year's resolutions, but I also get so overwhelmed by all the New Year's resolutions. Or like the next day when everybody already has their like five-year plans posted on Instagram, I was just trying to catch up on sleep from staying up until midnight because I don't do that very often. You guys have your whole five-year life plans out. That's a little overwhelming.

But it's the classic things, right. It's the time of year where we all want to exercise more and we get our gym memberships back and we try to get organized and we're buying all this new stuff to make us do that. If you're going back to the gym, that's good. It's good to take care of our bodies and move our bodies. Let's do that.

But this idea of a resolution, right, it's just this firm decision to do something. Making the decision to do something. This year, we are going to make the decision, and I'm going to invite you to make it with me as a church, to say, will we continue to just radically center our lives around Jesus. Continuing to be with him, to become like him, so that we can do what he did. That we can continue to create his culture in all areas of our life.

We're going to start today by talking about this idea of formation, of how we are formed into the image of Christ. Because if we are going to create the culture of Christ, we are going to have to become like him. Which means we're going to have to spend a whole lot of time with Jesus if we're going to become like him. We've probably heard that before. We are who we surround ourselves with.

This is something that I would always hear and I couldn't fully believe until I went away to college and my little brother came to visit for the first time. When I went away to school, I don't know if you know who Stevie Nicks is, but she's an old musician. Bobby knows who Stevie Nicks is. I was just in this phase of life when I was 18 where I wanted to be Stevie Nicks. I wanted to dress like her, I wanted to act like her. My hair, I had these baby dreads and feathers. Not like the cool feathers. Feathers that I would somehow wrap in with these hair wraps. I wore all this jewelry and I just looked like a straight-up hippie through and through. That's your thing. That's great. You do that.

But all of a sudden, a few months in, my brother comes to school to visit me and he's like, sorry, I had trouble finding you in the cafeteria because you just look like everybody else. Are you kidding me. My whole life I was trying to be my own person and I realized how quickly I started dressing like everybody around me.

We are formed so quickly and so easily, whether it's unintentional or intentional. We as a church want to set out to be people that are intentional about who is forming us, about how we are being formed. It's going to take us making a resolution to do that. Deciding to do that. Deciding to move in that direction.

To create the culture of Christ, we need to become like Christ

When we're talking about what's kind of the big show of this message, if there's one thing you get out of today, it's this. To create the culture of Christ, we need to become like Christ. And so, how do we do that. We have to radically center our lives around Jesus so that we can become more like him every single day.

When we're talking about what is a culture, it's these practices, these rhythms, these customs, beliefs that have been passed down. When we're talking about Christ, we're talking about someone that was holy, that was pure, that he was God himself in the flesh. Those are the practices that we have to look at. We have to look at how did Jesus live his life and how did he invite us into that.

We're going to hang out today in Romans chapter 12. If you have a Bible, if you don't, we would love to give you one today in the back at the welcome table. Or you can go to the YouVersion Bible app and get it there. We're going to be reading out of Romans chapter 12 and we're going to kind of break this down of what does this teach us about the formation process and being formed into the image of Christ. Starting in Romans chapter 12, verse 1:

Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is. His good, pleasing, and perfect will.

Romans 12:1-2

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that we are able to come here together and to gather. God, we are able to worship you, to fix our eyes, our attention, our gaze on you. God, we thank you that you have something that you want to speak to us in this supernatural yet simple way. God, I just ask that you help us to hear that. God, would you help us even now just take a minute to breathe deep, to open up our hearts, to open up our ears to hear. God, would you just speak to us in a unique way that we need to hear from you today. We love you, Lord. We just surrender this time to you in your precious name we pray, amen.

One of the most popular verses that you're probably going to hear on this whole chapter is Romans 12:2. Do not conform to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. It's talking here in Romans about this idea that we are every single day being formed to the patterns of this world and so we have to intentionally fight against that and form ourselves back into the image of who we were created to be. We were created in the image of God. We were created in his likeness.

We have to constantly make that decision to find ways to form ourselves back into the image of Christ. The first thing that I want you to see from this beginning of this passage here is that formation is happening. Just as the sun's rising and the sun's setting, we are being formed in the image of someone or something.

It goes back to that idea. Show me your friends and I'll show you your future. If you were to show me your planner today, I can show you your priorities. I can show you some of the direction of the places that you're going to go and who you're becoming based on where you spend your time, how you spend your time. Formation is happening.

It's not only this spiritual thing, this spiritual formation becoming like Jesus, but it is happening when we're watching Netflix. That's a spiritual discipline. We're becoming someone. We're being formed into something. When we're washing the dishes that could be a spiritual discipline where we're being formed into something or someone. It goes on and on.

But the reality that we see in these first few verses is that we are being formed. Going on to verse 3:

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you do not think of yourself more highly than you are, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment and accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, So in Christ we, though many, form one body and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith. If it is serving, then serve. If it is teaching, then teach. If it is to encourage, then give encouragement. If it is giving, then give generously. If it is to lead, then do it diligently. If it is to show mercy, then do it cheerfully.

Romans 12:3-8

Formation happens in community, not isolation

The next thing that we see here in this passage is that this idea of formation is practiced in community and not in isolation. He's talking about this idea of everybody using their gifts to contribute to one another. Everybody using their gifts to give to one another. Basically, he's saying here that whatever you have been given, practice those things.

What I want to point out here is a lot of times when we think about the gifts that God has given us, sometimes we don't want to use it or we struggle to use it. There's a fear that it's not going to be perfect, a fear that we're not going to get it right every time. But that's the beauty of even Sundays and times like this. When we get to gather and we get to practice using our gifts, right.

We get to practice serving. People who come and hold the doors open practice serving. This week, people practiced serving by helping clean some stuff downstairs and some of the church closets. But it's a safe space for us to come and practice our gifts, from the things of serving to the things of prophesying and teaching. But it's this idea that we have to practice becoming more like Jesus in the context of community, not isolation.

Formation was never meant to be a solely individual thing. I think sometimes when we start to talk about prayer, when we start to talk about fasting and spending time with Jesus, it's easy for us to think, well, then that just means our quiet time in the morning all by ourselves. That's part of it. Part of it is silencing everything and spending time with Jesus. But it's also meant to be done in community. We need community to continue to form us into the image of Jesus because we are just one piece of the body of Christ. We're one part of the body of Christ. We need others to continue to form us into his image and his likeness.

Continuing reading here in verse 9:

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal. But keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayers, share with the Lord's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Romans 12:9-13

This continues to show us this idea of community being. Formation being something that a community and corporate is showing us here specifically that spiritual formation is not self-help but self-sacrifice. It's about honoring other people above yourself, of looking for ways to practice that hospitality.

If we were to just stop at those first verses in Romans 12, where it's the don't conform to the patterns of the world, right. Don't be formed into the lens of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, right. Be transformed by the presence of Jesus, by hearing from his word. If we were to stop there, you might think that spiritual formation is just individual. You might think that spiritual formation is something that's just for yourself. But as we continue to read what comes after it, we see that it's meant for community and we also see that spiritual formation is to lead to greater love.

Spiritual formation is to lead to greater love. As you see in verse 14:

Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

Romans 12:14-16

This is all continuing to show us that our spiritual formation, that if we are to be like Christ, it is going to continue to lead us to greater love. It's going to lead our lives to this idea of saying that we have to continue to die to ourselves. That we have to continue to die to our pride. In Luke 9:23-24, it says this:

And he said to the crowd, If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way. Take up your cross daily and follow me. If you try to hold on to your life you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake you will save it.

Luke 9:23-24

This is so much opposite to what the world is going to tell us. The world is going to continue to tell us time and time again that it's all about finding fulfillment for ourselves, right. It's going to be the better job, the better house, the better this, the better relationship. It goes on and on. It's so much about how are we gaining from those situations.

But the life of Jesus, to be transformed into his image and his likeness, it is going to be losing our lives. And it's then that we will find it. We will find it with Jesus in the image of who we were created to be like.

These verses though, in verse 14 on, this is some hard stuff. You realize our need for Jesus to come and to help us do this. When it's saying to live at peace with everyone. Maybe I'm the only sinful human here but there are a few people that I'm like even them. Even them. Those people too. Live at peace with everyone in harmony. If we're going to live like Jesus and we're going to become like him then we're going to have to forgive and forgive and we're going to have to show grace like we never knew possible.

We're going to overcome evil by good and in that we're going to live more and more like Jesus. As we pray and as we fast, we're going to talk more about that over the next few weeks. There are so many reasons why we do it, but we're going to know, are we really growing in the likeness of Jesus. Are we really becoming more like him and creating his culture.

The test is whether or not we continue to grow in our love for the least of these, in the ways that we continue to grow in our love for those that are hard for us to forgive, hard for us to continue to walk in harmony with.

Spiritual formation through fasting and prayer

So as we kind of cover all that when it comes to what is this idea of spiritual formation and some of those areas that it's not just for in isolation, that it's to be done in community, that it's going to lead us to greater love. Now how do we do that. Well, we have to make a resolution, right. We have to be intentional about the decision to say that we're going to wrap and center our lives around being with Jesus so that through that we can become more like him and ultimately create his culture everywhere we go.

It's not just something that's going to happen in a moment. It's going to be something that we have to continue to practice. There's this quote that I've heard in a lot of different circles lately that I honestly couldn't remember or tell you who actually said it because I've heard it in so many different ways. But essentially it's this idea that when it comes to following Jesus, it's about heart transformation, not just behavior modification. Yeah, that's good, right. We need that heart transformation, not just behavior modification.

But the reality is that Jesus can heal us and he can save us and he can restore us. But if we never start walking in that freedom and walking in that healing, we're the ones that are holding ourselves back, not Jesus. I think of it often, right, where you have any type of surgery and you can be completely healed. But then you go to physical therapy to train your body now how to walk healed and how to walk whole.

What we're talking about here today is we are going to pray and we are going to fast and we are going to create room for Jesus and his Holy Spirit to come and to transform us in our hearts in a radical way. But then we're going to be committed to practicing living as that new creation made in the image of Christ.

The first thing that we're going to focus on for this new year is we are going to focus on fasting and praying together. That's going to be our first practice that we talk about when it comes to how we actually now grow and become like Jesus. We need to pray and we need to fast.

Prayer simply is talking to God. It is our lifeline to him. It's where we bring our requests. We spend time with him. Over the next few weeks, we're going to have a prayer and fasting guide that we have to give to you. We're going to send an email, on our website or on social media. Every day we have different things that we're going to be praying for as a church community for the next 21 days. And with that, we're also going to fast.

Why do we fast. Simply put, it is to grow our dependence on God. It's to grow our dependence on God and it's to glorify God. That's why we do it.

If you look at the story in Luke chapter 4, we read this story of Jesus going into the wilderness where he is fasting and he is being tempted by the devil. This story comes right after his baptism. Jesus is baptized in water. We see that the Holy Spirit has come on him and God said, this is my son whom I love, with him I am well pleased. It's like this incredible moment and it says that the Spirit leads him into the wilderness where then he's fasting and he's tempted for 40 days.

What I love about this story is that as it continues to grow on, the way that the devil is tempting him to give in to his ways just gets stronger and stronger. You would think that the weaker that Jesus' physical body got the harder it would be to resist the temptation. But what you see actually take place is that the weaker that his physical body grew, the stronger that his spirit grew. The stronger that he was able to overcome those temptations. We sang the song today where we're saying, Jesus, you are enough. As we fast, we start to truly recognize that he is enough.

Why are we doing this. Well, one, because Jesus did it. If we're saying that we want to be like Jesus, we want to create his culture, we're going to have to follow in his way. Jesus went in the wilderness, he fasted. We see that in scripture. So we're going to do it too.

The next thing that we see is that he did it full of the spirit, not empty, right. It says that the spirit led, he was full of the spirit, he wasn't empty. When we're thinking about fasting, and if you're taking notes today, I want you to write this down. Fasting is proactive, not reactive. Fasting is something that we need to continue to fuel our spirit to be able to overcome temptation.

The next thing that we see about that story there with Jesus in the wilderness is that he didn't wait until he was desperate. He chose to continue to remove everything else from his life and to grow in his desperation for God. He didn't wait until this moment where he absolutely needed God to come through for a miracle. He chose to position himself in a place where he could rely on nothing else except for the Holy Spirit.

When I read that and I think that Jesus himself had to go and remind his body, remind his flesh of his need for the Holy Spirit in such a radical way. How much more do I need that in my life. Jesus grew stronger in the Spirit when his flesh was growing weaker.

When we're talking about fasting, I'm talking about it primarily through the lens of food. We are going to invite everyone, if you want to join us as a church, and we did this for the past couple years, that on Tuesdays, we fast from 6am to 6pm of all food. But I want to preface it with this. If you're here, if you're listening on the podcast later, if you have any dietary needs, any health conditions, if you cannot eat, please, please, please do not fast and not eat all day. If you cannot do that, that is okay. There are other ways that you can practice this and some of those ways could be giving up social media, it could be not doing any entertainment for the day. There are other ways that you can fast and we have more resources for you on that in our prayer and fasting guide.

But we are going to ask that if you are physically able that you would go without food for that day. One of the reasons that we do that is it really is fasting. The practice of fasting is starving our flesh so we can feed our spirit. The practice of fasting is starving our flesh so we can feed our spirit. The purpose, why do we do it. It's to grow our dependence on God, it's to glorify God. The practice of it is starving our flesh so we can feed our spirit.

If you're like me, I get a little hangry when I'm hungry. So you might not want to be around me on Tuesdays, if we're just being honest, okay. One of the things that I've learned about fasting, as I've done this and practiced this through the years and researched this, is you know how certain times of day it's like you're not eating and your stomach's growling and you might be thinking, how am I going to sit for your work meetings all day or my stomach's growling like that.

One of the things about our bodies is that actually when our stomach growls, it doesn't always mean we're hungry. Sometimes our bodies just know we actually eat during that time. It's kind of like reminding us. You can just ignore it and you can be like, no, I'm not listening to my flesh. I am okay. I will get through this.

But I want to invite you to do this because the power of fasting is that we really do draw closer to Jesus, right. The power of fasting is we are reminding our flesh of all the things that we've sang about today. We are reminding our flesh that he is enough, that he is our sustainer, that he is our provider, that he is all of those things and so much more.

Jesus went out to remind his flesh. We can do that too through fasting. However, we see all throughout the Old Testament and New Testament, there are all these different references of places where people fasted. We read in Ezra chapter 8, this idea of fasting to strengthen our prayer life. We read in Judges chapter 20 that they were seeking guidance at the time so they fasted. In 1 Samuel 31, and again in 1 Samuel 11 through 12, they talk about fasting as a way to express grief.

If you're lamenting, if you're going through some hard season, to fast. That might even be so countercultural to think that instead of coping through all these different ways that you would say right now to process the grief I'm going through, I'm going to remove everything from me, including food, including the thing that really sustains me to remind myself that Lord, you are enough. We can fast to express repentance as a way to turn back to God. There are all these different reasons that we can fast. I just want to invite you, if you haven't done this before, would you try it.

Would you commit to the next three Tuesdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. to not eat and to starve your flesh so that you can feed your spirit. If you are able to join us for prayer in the evenings, join us from 7 to 8 so you can go eat dinner and break that fast and then we can come pray and seek God together.

The power of fasting

I wanted to share kind of some of the power of this from the past couple years. We did this two years ago. It might have been our first time that we did this. One of the things that I had in my notes here was we were writing corporately asking God for a miracle of giving us a location.

We were meeting in Lipinski, the nightclub on university, and rent had gone up and we knew we couldn't afford it. We felt like the Lord was inviting us into something else. I got up one Sunday and I said, we are moving the end of the month, but we have no idea where we're moving to. This journey that we've been on since, right, when we were in another location and then that didn't work out and then we're back to square one. I have seen how God has continued to provide as we have fasted and we have prayed and he's opened these doors in these radical ways.

Another thing two years ago that we were praying for was unity as the body of Christ. Can I say that it has been such an honor and a blessing to pastor this church through the pandemic. When so many other churches are struggling with this disunity, I have just celebrated and almost made other pastors mad when I talk about how incredible our church has been and unified through this entire process of having to make hard decisions. When to cancel services and not have services and house churches and all of that. I've seen that unity that God has provided. It goes on and on and on.

We want to continue to, as we fast, to pray and to ask God to do the miraculous in our lives for healings, for provision, for all of that and so much more. Fasting can be one of the most incredible experiences if you'll let it. But I want to encourage you with some kind of practical steps here when it comes to fasting.

When I first started fasting, it was a big struggle for me because my church growing up would also do it in the beginning of January. The thing is, everybody would encourage us to do different types of fasts. Maybe give up sugar or all this kind of stuff. I was a go-getter so I was always like yes, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna make it. But I never made it through the full 21 days because my birthday's in January and I would always fall over my birthday. I'd be sitting there with that chocolate cake that someone would make me and that fast would never last because my birthday and it wouldn't happen.

Also shameless plug, my birthday's coming up soon. If you want my gift list, let me know.

When it comes to fasting, we have to plan, right. If we don't plan for it, if we're not proactive in it, it's probably not going to work. We have to have a plan for the practices and the ways we want to become like Jesus.

Here's what I want you to do. Determine your purpose for fasting. If you don't have something that comes to mind right now, that's okay. Think about it. If there's healing in your life that you need, is there guidance or direction that you're seeking. Is it simply just saying, God, I want to follow what Jesus did and I want to grow my dependence on you. Then I want you to start to make a plan for how you're going to do it. Prepare for this.

We're going to ask this all to start small, but just one day a week. It could be really big for you if you've never done this. If you're like, I don't know if I can go that whole day without eating. I would say maybe it's a meal that you're going to give up. But here's what I think a lot of people do wrong when it comes to fasting.

A lot of times people just say, okay, I'm going to give up all this stuff and then they don't actually fill it with something else. I've done that where I'm like, okay, I'm going to fast today and so I ended up starving myself and not eating. But then I planned a bunch of meetings that day. I'm just sitting there all angry and frustrated. I get to the end of the day and I was like, wait, I didn't actually spend any time with the Lord today. I didn't even have time to read my Bible this morning. So really I just starved myself. That was just stupid. Why did I do that.

So don't do that. Plan to fill your time and to fill it with something else. If you are going to fast with us on Tuesdays, I would say look at your schedule that day when you would normally have breakfast. Don't just skip it and schedule something else. When you would normally have lunch, carve out those times to spend with Jesus. Carve out those times to read your Bible, to pray, and to fill your spirit, okay. It's both in. It's starving our flesh and filling our spirit. It's not just starving our flesh because that's just stupidity. We want to fill our spirits.

Then the next thing is to involve community. If you were in a community group this past semester, I would encourage you to text someone from that group and tell them, hey, I'm doing this. Let's do this together. Or text somebody else in the church if you're not in a group yet. You can even text me if you want. Involve community. That's so important to us practicing becoming more like Jesus, telling people about it and practicing community.

So that's the thing that we're going to walk through. Determining your purpose for why you're fasting. Preparing and planning. Be sacrificial but also realistic. If you know your birthday falls on a Tuesday, maybe switch your fast to a Wednesday. Don't just go hungry. Feed your spirit and involve community.

Closing

Jesus, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you that we're not the first ones to read these things, but so many ears have heard this. So many hearts have responded that we get to join with the many tonight that are saying yes to stepping in, to radically centering our life around becoming more like you so that we can create your culture in all areas of our life.

God, we thank you that we were created in your image. We thank you that through your Holy Spirit you give us the power to overcome everything that's trying to form us into anything other than you. God, I just pray that right now if there are things in our lives that we maybe as I was speaking were brought to our attention, or relationships that are brought to our attention that we know are not helping us form into your image, would you highlight that to us, Lord. Would you help us to surrender that to you and hand that back to you.

God, I pray right now for maybe anybody here that is realizing that there's things in their lives that they need to do to practice becoming more like you. Would you just give us that Holy Spirit creativity to create those plans. Would you give us the boldness to just take that next step in practice and becoming more like you. Holy Spirit, for these next few moments, as we sing, as we worship, as we pray.