Key Life Network

Announcer: Hey, what about fasting? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life.

Announcer: This is Key Life, dedicated to the message that the only people who get any better are those who know that if they don't get any better, God will still love them anyway. That teaching raises a lot of questions. So here's author and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Awenson from Forge Truth with answers from the Bible that will make you free.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. Hello, Peter. How are you doing?

Pete Awenson: I'm doing good. I'm hungry right now, quite frankly. I'm starving.

Steve Brown: Well, we'll do our best to get through this as fast as we can so you can get a donut.

Pete Awenson: Well, you're going to you're going to talk about fasting and I'm hungry.

Steve Brown: Oh, I didn't make the I'm a preacher. You got to explain things to me.

Pete Awenson: I see what you're saying.

Steve Brown: That's Pete Awenson. And if you live in the Central Florida area, there are a number of Forge groups that meet in the morning, and lives are being changed. Perspectives are being broadened beyond you could believe what you could believe.

Steve Brown: Check out ForgeTruth.com, and you can find out. And listen, if you're in other places in the United States, you can join the Forge group. There are a number of groups that are meeting around the country.

Steve Brown: And trust me, it is a great and you ought to go there anyway. Have a great podcast and some good stuff. As you know, Pete comes in and we answer questions. We've been doing this for over 25 years. Can you believe that, Pete?

Pete Awenson: I cannot.

Steve Brown: And we love it. I mean, we love your questions and we take you and your questions seriously. The only dumb one is the one you don't ask.

Steve Brown: You can ask a question by calling 1-800 Key Life. That's 1-800-539-5433. 24/7. Follow the instructions, and sometimes we put your voice on the air.

Steve Brown: Or you can send your question to Key Life Network, Post Office Box 5000, Maitland, Florida, 32794. If you live in Canada, it's Key Life Canada, Post Office Box 2060, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 6J8.

Steve Brown: Or you can email us at Steve@keylife.org.

Steve Brown: And if you can help us financially, please do. I know you expect me to say that, and I'm going to keep saying it until somebody gives us a gift so large that I don't have to ask for money anymore. That's one of my dreams. And I keep asking Jesus about that, and whoever that person is hasn't showed yet.

Steve Brown: So it's up to you. Help us if you can. If you can't, we understand, say a prayer for this ministry. And I promise we'll be as faithful with your gift as you were in giving it.

Steve Brown: Pete, pray for us and then we'll we'll get to these questions.

Pete Awenson: You got it, Steve.

Pete Awenson: All right, let's pray together. Our great God. What a joy to come into your presence and to pause before the one who thought of all existence, who designed it and who created all existence.

Pete Awenson: And Father, we give you honor and praise and glory. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are the one who redeemed us and the one who indwells us by your spirit. And so today at the end of the week, we just come to you, and we ask that you'd continue your great work that you began in us.

Pete Awenson: Oh, Lord, how easy it is for us to underestimate you, and we pray that we would not. That this weekend, even as we worship, we would see your mercy and your kindness, your power, that you have a plan that spans all ages. That you're eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God. And we give you praise. And we ask that we would give you worship.

Pete Awenson: And that we would rest and that we would kneel before you.

Pete Awenson: Lord, thank you for Key Life. Thank you for Steve, his mentorship in my life and the impact of so many people's lives through his teaching. And we just pray that you would bless Key Life and the voices of Key Life and this ministry and our hearers. And we commit our time of Q&A to you now.

Pete Awenson: As we pray in your strong and holy name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Steve Brown: Amen.

Steve Brown: Pete, let's first go to our phone lines.

Guest (Male): My question is in regards to fasting. Jesus made reference to when we fast. I was under a teaching where fasting is what you did to get God's attention. And so if prayer already does that, what does fasting do? Just curious. And I'm really hungry. Hope to hear from you. Bye bye.

Pete Awenson: That's my kind of guy.

Steve Brown: Yeah, my too.

Steve Brown: You know, there is, you got to understand that fasting is not to get God to be nice to you or to answer your prayers or to have the lady you're going to ask to marry you, marry you. That's not what fasting is for. Fasting is to get your attention, not God's. You've already got God's attention.

Steve Brown: And there is a sense in which it can be a wonderful and good spiritual discipline. I've said this before, my early mentor when I was a kid and just barely in ministry wrote a book on fasting.

Pete Awenson: Hmm.

Steve Brown: And was really big on it. And for years, I would fast often. And that's no problem for me. I often don't eat during a day because I forget about it until I get hungry. So I maybe I'll have dinner, but won't have breakfast or lunch.

Steve Brown: And it doesn't my wife has a blood sugar thing. If she misses a meal, she turns mean.

Pete Awenson: It.

Steve Brown: When she's traveling with the Key Life staff, they say somebody feed Anna before she turns mean.

Steve Brown: But I don't have I mean, that's not a big deal to me to fast. But when I've done it, I've thought about God more than when I'm full.

Pete Awenson: Well, I think that really puts it into a good perspective. We've already got God's attention. The cross proves that.

Steve Brown: That's true.

Pete Awenson: So do we manipulate God, do we get him to really show us special attention? I mean, special attention, like like I want to get that new job.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Awenson: Or so what you're really saying is no. But it really is a way for us to become more open to God.

Steve Brown: It really is. And it really there is something about food because almost all of us like food that when we don't get it, it's like having a personal lent anytime you want to. You know, lent, giving up something. The Bible doesn't say lent you got to give up liver or okra or whatever you got to give up.

Steve Brown: But we've learned that when you give up something that you like, you either think about that or you think about God. And a Christian's mind has a default and it's God.

Pete Awenson: So there's a there's a worship dimension to it. Even doctors say we eat too much probably.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Awenson: A lot of times, and that it's good for the body to fast.

Steve Brown: It really.

Pete Awenson: It's it's good health-wise. But what you're what you're saying is it's good for the soul as well.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Awenson: And I agree with you, it is. It's it's one of those disciplines that's very difficult for me because I have a pretty fast metabolism still.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Awenson: And I I get distracted when I'm hungry.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Awenson: But when your mind, when you get past a certain point, I think you have the ability to focus more on the Lord. And so prayer and fasting go together, don't they?

Steve Brown: And don't make a big deal out of it. There's a danger. People who practice fasting are often very self-righteous about it.

Pete Awenson: Boy, just like the guy in the Bible, right?

Steve Brown: Exactly. Exactly. And you and you and so you got to be careful when you do it. Don't tell people you're doing it.

Steve Brown: And don't get self-righteous about it because you're still a sinner.

Pete Awenson: Right.

Steve Brown: And you'll think things when you're fasting that are sinful that you wouldn't have thought about if you were not hungry. So all of that plays in it, but you might want to try it. You might find it very helpful.

Pete Awenson: And Jesus, it does carry over from a New Testament standpoint, whatever the New Testament doesn't say is discontinued, is still in force. And that's why Jesus says, when you when you fast. So he anticipates that it's something that will carry over.

Steve Brown: But it's certainly not a big deal in the in the New Testament for some of the reasons we just discussed.

Pete Awenson: That's right. That's good.

Steve Brown: Good. What do you think about the requirement of immersion for church membership?

Pete Awenson: For what?

Steve Brown: Immersion baptism.

Pete Awenson: Immersion. Oh, yeah. You know, I I find that fascinating that some denominations, and we won't name them per se, but those that are fully immersed back. You could be fully immersed in one church, but if you're going to join another church of the same denomination, you have to be immersed again.

Steve Brown: Do it again.

Pete Awenson: It's like, whoa.

Steve Brown: And we think that dual baptism is an anathema.

Pete Awenson: Not not that you're going to hell or anything. But we just think, you know, there's one baptism, it's spirit baptism, and one time is enough physically. So, yeah, I so I'm not in favor of that. I don't quite understand it as a as a requirement for membership in a local church.

Steve Brown: Well, generally those who don't even accept baptism from another church, generally their doctrinal position is baptismal regeneration.

Pete Awenson: Yeah, that's true. Be careful there.

Steve Brown: Yeah, you do. If you're not baptized, that's going to keep you out of heaven.

Pete Awenson: It won't. It won't.

Steve Brown: Interestingly, ask the thief on the cross who we will meet one day. Yeah, he didn't have time to get into the baptismo.

Pete Awenson: No, no, but no, but yes, if you come to faith in Christ, you should be baptized because Jesus commands it. And it really is that external sign of the internal baptism that is done by the Holy Spirit.

Pete Awenson: So, it really and it really is important to do, whether you're baptizing your infants or it's believers baptism. And we can talk about that sometime. But either way, it's Jesus commanded it, so we do it.

Steve Brown: So we do it and it's a good thing. The definition of baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality.

Pete Awenson: Right. Right.

Steve Brown: And it's kind of a cool one. I think God did well.

Pete Awenson: I think so. And so they say, well, with infants it's they don't have an internal reality. Well, it's it's looking ahead to what they will do as the children of the Covenant of Grace.

Steve Brown: And by the way, that's not a place that ought to divide Christians. It's good Christians, biblical Christians can have some disagreement at those points. And you know, you and I rarely, but occasionally disagree. And when that happens, you do it your way and I'll do it God's way.

Pete Awenson: That's always been the plan.

Steve Brown: Guys, it's time for us to go, but we very much appreciate you joining us for these times. And one other thing, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.