Fasting & Feasting

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. We're going to be bouncing around a little bit today. We typically have A-text that we're kind of walking through. That's different.

We're going to be walking through what it looks like to continue to abide in Jesus. And two of those ways is fasting and feasting. So open up a Bible or follow along on the screen. We're bouncing around. So one of my favorite genres of TV shows or movies are shows or movies that highlight the president.

I think politics in general is fascinating to me, but also the life of the president. It's very entertaining. I enjoy watching it. Shows like West Wing, which is one of, I would argue, one of the better shows out there. Shows like Designated Survivor that we just went through, which was really good for two seasons, and then Netflix got and ruined it. But it fascinates me specifically to follow the schedule of the president.

He is a busy man. And all these are kind of based loosely on reality, on the schedule of the president. And in these shows, the president can wake up to like an international crisis, and they immediately have to enter the situation room, and they have to make life and death decisions that are super serious, that are going to affect all kinds of things across the world. And they make that decision, and then they go to like a celebration of like pardoning the turkey, or some type of ceremony like that, signing of something that's kind of lighthearted. And they leave that meeting, they go to another meeting where they're debating fiercely over different policies, trying to get the government to be run, and it's just, that gets really intense.

And then they have all these meetings. At the end of the day, they'll have this big dinner party where they have politicians and people from all over the world that come, and it's this festive, joyous occasion with food and drink, and that's a day. And then they do it all again. And it fascinates me how, it's remarkable how you can move between both seriousness and joy like that. The president has serious things he needs to address, and also joyous things that are worth celebrating. That's what it means to run a country.

You have serious things to deal with, but there's also things worth celebrating. And you kind of look at his life, you kind of look at how the day-to-day goes. It's like, how does he do this every day? And the reason is, is because he's the president. He serves a higher calling. He serves a higher office.

He serves our country. How much more, as we as Christians, that live with an eternal hope and an eternal kingdom, how much more should we be able to move between the extremes of both seriousness and joy? That's what we're going to take a look at today. We're going to take a look at this, how we can move between mourning and celebrating, laughing and crying, as the book of Ecclesiastes says. There's a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. How we move between seriousness and joy.

And we really are modeling our Savior, that our Savior, I mean, think of Jesus. He fasted for 40 days in the wilderness. For 40 days, and also, he knew how to feast. That he knew how to celebrate. That his first miracle was keeping the party going at the wedding of Cana, turning water to wine. He knew how to fast, and he also knew how to feast.

And that is what we're going to walk through today. That if we can grow in these two gifts that God has given us, that if we can grow in these, we can further abide in Jesus. All right, so let me pray, and then we will jump into this. Father, thank you that you have given us an example in Christ. That you have given us an example in your word that calls us to seriousness, that calls us to joy, that calls us from fasting into feasting. God, I pray that you would speak to us this morning, that you would teach us, and that we would respond.

In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so we're going to cover fasting first. There is a time for fasting. Fasting is kind of a simple subject, and it's also very complicated. I mean, the general idea is agreed upon, it's abstaining from food, but it's also complicated. I think it's further complicated with pop culture, because I feel like the last decade, fasting has become some type of fad.

Like, you can do a juice fast, which is drinking sugar, and it's supposed to be healthy for you, and that's all you would drink. They have the Daniel fast, which has been a pretty popular one nowadays. It's loosely based on the book of Daniel. Chris Pratt did it. And Matt Freeman looks like Chris Pratt, so it might have some merit. I don't know.

I've never done the Daniel fast. But there are all kinds of fasts out there that pop culture is putting out there, and it can be a little bit confusing. So I want to take a step away from kind of pop culture fasting and ask, what is a biblical fast? What is the goal? Where is it in the Bible? Why should we practice it?

I want to walk through that and give you an overview of fasting. So traditionally, fasting is abstaining from food that you might draw near to God for a few different reasons. We see a lot of those outlined in the Old Testament. The Old Testament gives us a picture of a lot of different reasons that you would fast. There were private fasts that you would do by yourself, and there are corporate fasts that the people of God would do together. And there's some overlap in the reasons why you would do one or the other.

Let's take a look at the private fast first. The first thing we see in private fasting in the Old Testament is you would do it for reasons of repentance. That you had real sin that you needed to address, and that you would fast as a means for helping you repent of sin. We see this in the book of Judges, chapter 20. We see it in 1 Kings 21. We see it in Psalm 69.

We see this over and over again. The people of God individually would fast in order that they might repent of sin. We see another reason for private fasting is mourning. That if you experienced loss, whether it was death or loss of something, we see that individually you would use fasting as a means to help you mourn. That fasting was connected with grieving. Those two are connected in the Bible.

We see that clearly in Nehemiah 1. Another reason that you would individually fast is you would seek God's counsel. That you would come to God looking for wisdom, seeking counsel. We see this in Psalm 35. We also see it in Daniel 9. That there are individual reasons why you would fast that you might draw close to God.

We also see reasons for public fasting. So the nation of God would come together to fast. One of the reasons they would do this is for protection. There were outside enemies looking to destroy Israel. And they would come together and they would fast. We see this in Judges 20, 1 Samuel 14, Joel 1, Esther 4, Ezra 8.

They did this a lot in the Old Testament. They'd come together and they would fast. We did something similar to this about a month and a half ago. About a month and a half ago we realized that our church was getting punched in the face. Over and over again we saw all these situations come up and we said we need to pause. And we chose a day where those who could join us fasted collectively, came together at the end and prayed together.

That's based off of what they would do in the Old Testament, praying for protection. We also see corporate repentance with the people of God in the Old Testament. In 1 Samuel 7 and in Jonah 3, they would come together realizing that they had sinned and they would repent together. And they would use fasting as a means to help them repent. We also see evidence for collective mourning, that the nation of God would collectively together mourn. And they would use fasting to do this.

We see this in 1 Samuel 31 and in 2 Samuel 1. Now, what is the common thread that runs through each of those? Repentance, mourning, seeking God's wisdom and counsel. What is a common thread we see that runs through them? It's neediness. That each of these come from a position of need.

It's God's people saying we are in need and we're going to fast in order to lean in to God. Now, that's the Old Testament. You flip to the New Testament and it gets a little bit complicated. Because most of the references in the New Testament of fasting are in kind of a negative context. It's a lot of Jesus addressing really the heart behind fasting that was used at the time that was done very poorly. You see, fasting for people in the time of Jesus was used for really self-righteous, outwardly pious, look-at-me reasons.

We see the most clear teaching of that in Matthew 6. I'll read this from verse 16. It says, So it was common at the time that some of the religious leaders, that then they would fast. They would take ash and kind of a makeup and they would paint their face up a little bit. That's what he says by disfigure their faces. And they go out and they demonstrate in the streets, look at me.

I'm fasting. How holy, how pious are we? And Jesus cuts through and says, That is not the goal of fasting, that you would outwardly show everyone else that you are holy. And Jesus absolutely cut through that. The other negative kind of context we see it in is that the Pharisees come to Jesus and they say, Why don't you fast like John's disciples? John's disciples are fasting and you guys are feasting.

What's going on here? And Jesus has to address it and he makes the point that there will be a time for fasting. But the bridegroom is with the bride. And he has to cut through that. Here's another time where a guy comes up to demonstrate. And he's coming up to ask, How do you get into the kingdom of God?

And he says, I follow the commandments. I fast twice a week. Which in Second Temple Judaism, the time of Jesus, is something that was common, that you would fast twice a week. And Jesus cuts through that to the heart as well. But over and over again, he's addressing the heart behind fasting.

He's not looking to give us a how-to manual for how to do it, which is so badly what I want. No, he wants to make sure we have the right heart. All right, so what is the point of fasting if it's still a thing? Which, spoiler alert, it is. That's why we're talking about it today. If we still are called to fast, what's the point?

So let me give an even more clear definition for what, for we as Christians, what fasting is. It is the foregoing of something like food that it might intensify our neediness, our dependence on God. The foregoing of something like food that it would intensify our need and our dependence on God. I left that open a little bit because there, people have the question, can't you fast for other things? Can't you fast for technology? I'll get to that.

But primarily, it is food. That is what fasting is getting at, that you would forego food, it would intensify your dependence on God. So I want to go back to Matthew 6 because Jesus, he's attacking the heart behind fasting. But then we catch something. He says, And when you fast, and when you fast, Jesus is teaching the disciples, he's teaching the followers. This is a teaching for the church.

And the expectation is not if you will fast, it is when you fast. So Jesus expects his followers, he expects Christians to fast. So if that is the expectation, I want to walk through some reasons why. Why it is actually good for us to fast. Because I think we need a little bit of convincing as American Christians. The first reason you should fast is because we are needy people.

We are needy. And if you just thought quietly, I'm not needy. I'm self-sufficient. Especially you. You just don't see your pride in it. We are needy people.

We have different needs. And what happens is, when the stresses of life come at us, as we talked about a little bit in the Idol series, we are going to fill those needs. We are going to look to something. And I would argue that oftentimes, food is something that we will look to. I mean, think about it just practically. Right?

What happens when someone dies in the South? You get a stocked fridge. You get all kinds of food. When someone dies down here, there are all kinds of dishes that are going to end up, now we are sophisticated, we have a meal train that you set up online, you are going to be fed. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. It is really nice for someone to think, hey, you are going to be kind of mourning and grieving over the next few weeks.

Let's not worry about food. We are going to make some food for you. That is not necessarily a bad response. But what are the dishes that typically show up at a funeral, that show up after someone dies? They are comfort dishes. They are literally, it is literally called comfort food.

It is meant to comfort you. That is our go-to. You might be comforted by food. And like I said, I do not think it is wrong in and of itself to actually have food that you would eat. I just think that we need to expand our categories of grieving and mourning. That maybe, just maybe, the pattern that is established in the Bible sees some merit in the fact that we might actually abstain from food for a given time, that we might lean into God and depend on Him.

This shows up in different sin patterns for different people, that we run to things in the midst of sin, that we run to things. It could be a lot of things, but I would argue oftentimes in the midst of stress, in the midst of anxiety, in the midst of different trials, a go-to for a lot of people is to eat, to go out of the freezer, to get the ice cream tub and a spoon because you don't need a bowl, and to go for it. It is what we do. And especially as Americans, we are so obsessed with food. This is our go-to. But our neediness needs to be driven towards Jesus.

It brings me to my second point of why fasting is a good thing. It helps us see that Jesus is better than food. Jesus is called the bread of life. He actually is better than food, and we need to understand that as an American-obsessed culture with food. I don't Instagram. It's just, it's not my thing.

But I get the general gist. It's a lot of food photos. And it's reflective of our culture, that we love food so much. There are food blogs. There's literally a food channel. And I think there's a lot of good that comes out of some of it.

But also I think it highlights we are obsessed with food, and fasting helps us see, no, no, no, no, no, Jesus actually is better. That he is better than food. And we need that as people that really are obsessed with it. I remember my, I remember the first time I ever fasted. I had, I became a Christian when I was 17. When I, going my senior year, I heard a teaching on fasting.

And I was like, man, that's awesome. I'm going to do it. So I went for it. And I went for the full 24 hours. I went from lunchtime to lunchtime, which I'll get to in a minute, why you practically shouldn't start there. But I went for it.

I went for the full day fast. And it was miserable. It was awful. All I could think about was food. What I was not having, when the hunger pains hit, I just, all I could think about is, man, how awful is this? I just want to eat.

And it's because we've been so trained in our minds that food is something, it's a literal need that we need, but it's also something culturally that we obsess over. And we need fasting as a means to step in and say, no, no, no, no. Jesus actually is better than food. I mean, the third reason, I think this is the most important reason why fasting is a good thing for us. It strengthens prayer. It strengthens prayer.

That is the, that's why Jesus, when he's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, there's a reason why, in the middle part of Matthew 6, he starts teaching on prayer, which we walked through last week. And then right after that is fasting. They're linked. Prayer and fasting are linked together. Fasting is a means that strengthens our prayers that we might depend on Jesus. It makes us, fasting literally makes you vulnerable.

It weakens you. That you might depend on something, and we would say, no, no, depend on Jesus and your fasting that really practically, when the hunger pains hit your stomach and you feel that twinge, the goal is, is that we shift our minds to Jesus. That as we seek to be a people who walk in continual prayer as Christians, that's the ideal for all of us, that we would be in a continual posture and position of prayer, that fasting would help strengthen that as a really strong reminder from the gut that says, no, no, no, no. My dependence is on Jesus. It's a tool. Fasting is a tool that might strengthen our prayers.

Now let me clearly say this, because I know this has been, I've heard this has been taught incorrectly in other places. It is not a tool to get what you want. You know, sometimes the understanding is, if you fast, if I do this, if I'm willing to give up food, and I'm willing to be devoting to you, Lord, and fasting, would you give me this job? Would you give me this thing? Then, which asking for things from God, that's encouraged in the Bible, that we would bring our prayers to God, asking things of Him, but it's not a tool to get what you want. My daughter will do this.

She'll come to me sometimes, and she'll say, Daddy, I love you. I'll go, Baby, God, that's so sweet. And then she'll say, can I have a popsicle? Can I watch a show? And it's like, oh, that wasn't sweet, that was manipulative. Like that?

Some people think, if you just fast, just butter God up a little bit, He's going to give you what you want. That's not the goal. The goal is ultimately, we walked through last week, in Matthew 6, in prayer, the aligning of our will and God's will. Your kingdom come, your will be done. The hope is, is that in our fasting, we would say, God, here are the things, here are my burdens, here's what I'm asking for, may your will be done. That's the hope, as we depend on Jesus in prayer.

One of the ways this is beautifully displayed, in the New Testament, is in the book of Acts, in chapter 13. The church at Antioch, is coming together, in verse 2 and 3, and it says this, while they were worshipping the Lord, and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas, and Saul, for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting, and praying, they laid their hands on them, and sent them off. This is a profound moment, in the history of the church. The church of Antioch, wanted to seek God, they wanted to seek His wisdom, they prayed, they fasted, the Holy Spirit speaks, and says, Paul, Barnabas, set them aside, we're going to send them off, and the world was never the same.

It started the global missions movement, it's the reason why everybody is in this room today, because they responded, by praying, and fasted, and God sent them out. It's one of the coolest things, we see in the New Testament, as it's related to fasting, that we might depend on God, and we might hear Him, speak, and respond. So Jesus expects His people to fast, we glean from the reasons of the Old Testament, that we see outlined, we want to make sure that our heart, is in the right place, and once we're bought in, how do we actually practically do it? Let me give you, six kind of practicals, if you've never done fasting, if you're not familiar with fasting, six practicals, that will help us understand, how to actually do this.

My first practical, is to start small. Start small. Maybe just start by skipping lunch. If you've never done this, skip lunch. Fast through lunch. And then later, you can graduate on to bigger fast.

Like the most regular kind of fast, in the time of Jesus, was from evening to evening. That was how Jewish days worked, that they would fast from one evening, to the next. So you can start small, and then graduate to bigger fast, and if you want to go more, there's more stuff out there, that will help you understand, even bigger fast. But start small. And it's okay. For the majority of fast, it was okay to drink water.

So drink water. If you want to drink Gatorade, that's fine. I would even say, a little bit of coffee, is fine. Take your medicine, because here's the deal. The goal is not deprivation. The goal is dependence.

That's the hope. That we would depend on Jesus, by depriving ourselves from food, that we might lean into Him. So start small. Second, be wise. If you are hypoglycemic, or as I said earlier this week, when I was walking through the chat, I said hypoallergenic, and he just smiled, and I was like, why are you laughing? I don't.

Hypoglycemic. If you have some type of dietary restriction like that, be wise. You might need to start small, and you might need to stay small. I don't know. Maybe you do this, and God kind of expands your physical ability to be able to do this. I don't know.

But be wise as you approach this. Third, fast to focus. The goal is that you would focus on Jesus, not other things. And specifically, I want to highlight, not your phone. Our go-to when we're in need, in crisis, our go-to when we're hungry, our go-to in a lot of things is to pick up our phone and to go through it. I want to show you this picture.

It's from the Boston Globe. It's kind of become a, really an indictment on our culture. You've probably seen this. It's circulated a lot on the internet. You've got a bunch of people that aren't in the moment. They just got phones out.

They're just trying to absorb what's right in front of them through their screens. I also love this because people say millennials, we're the worst generation. And we might be. There's a lot of evidence. But how many Gen Xers do you see up there?

We're all bringing society down. But look closely at Grandma. She, y'all, she's just enjoying the moment. She's just leaning in. She's enjoying what's right in front of her. And I used to think, man, what a profound photo.

I wonder what she's actually enjoying. And I finally found out it was Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp's walking by. Everyone's got their phones up. Grandma's just like, Johnny Depp. I'm going to lean in.

I'm going to focus and enjoy you. And it's like, oh, that kind of takes away from it a little bit. But you get the point. The goal is that we focus on, we so delight in Jesus, we just lean in and we focus on Him. That's the goal in fasting. The dependence, that focus, and be driven towards Jesus.

We fast to focus. Fourth, be consistent. Be consistent. This is where I often fail. When I read about fasting, when it shows up in the Bible that I'm reading, I'm like, cool, I should do that. And I'll do it.

But it's not a consistent part of my walk. It's not something that I actually plan to do. It's not something that I make a fixture in my schedule. And that's a value statement. Because I'll make time for the Word. I'll make time for prayer.

Those disciplines that help me abide, I'll do those. But I'm not actually going to make sure that on a regular basis, I'm coming before the Lord in fasting. And my guess is is that many of you probably fall into the same boat. That it's like a special circumstances type of thing that you, like if we're in life crisis mode, which is fine, I think the Bible upholds a different principle that we might actually be consistent in this. So if you're like me and it hasn't been a consistent part of your walk with Jesus, repent.

Change. Join me. I'm looking at this as I'm preparing. I'm like, man, I need to change. I need to grow and be more consistent in my fasting. Fifth, check your heart, but don't be weird.

All right, so do what Jesus says and check your heart. Don't be like, I'm going to fast all day on the day of group. And you show up to group and they're like, oh, did you bring your sign? No, because I'm fasting. And it's like, okay, we're down a sign. And we're doing accountability night.

This is going to come up. Like, don't, so check your heart. Obey what Jesus teaches. Don't be outward about it. But don't be weird.

Y'all, if you're going to fast, tell your spouse, like, don't show up to dinner and she's like, he or she's like, it's time to eat. I say, no, I'm good. What do you mean you're good? I just spent an hour with two kids hanging on my legs making a meal. What do you mean you're good? I say, no, I'm just, I can't eat tonight.

And it just gets weird where it's just like, people, she's trying to find out. Like, what, what's going on? It's like, well, I'm, just say, I'm fasting. Just communicate, obey the principle, but don't be weird about it. If you have friends that say, hey, let's go out to lunch, just say, no, I'm good. I'm good.

And if they like interrogate you, finally just say, dude, chill, I'm fasting. Obey the principle, just don't be weird about it. Six, the last thing. what about other forms of fasting? Can you fast from Facebook? Can you fast from phones? Can you fast from TV?

Sure. I think there's some, I think that's actually a very good thing. I think it would be good for you to actually take a step away from technology that so absorbs our attention and our affection to say, no, I want to focus on Jesus. I'd say absolutely go for it. I would not say supplement that for actual food fasting. I'd say do both because both have a need and there's something really good about this biblical principle of fasting from food on a daily, on a daily level when you're doing it that helps you depend on Jesus.

So don't give up the OG food fast. Stick with it. All right. The Bible upholds fasting as a good. It is a good thing for us to do and we should do it. And I get it.

It is going to be difficult. We're so trained as Americans to avoid suffering of any form. It's just like we want to take the path of least resistance. We don't want to suffer. We don't want to give up anything that remotely would seem like we're giving up food. We're just so trained in that.

It seems counterintuitive that we would suffer in order that we might draw near to Jesus, but we live under the eternal wisdom of a king who says, no, no, no, no. This is good. Do this when you fast. So let's do this. Let's be obedient.

Let's not just say, oh, that was a good thing I learned today. Let's actually incorporate it into our walks with Jesus because the reality is is we got real things we need to fast for. That we are wrestling with real sin. And yes, we do all the things of confession, repentance, of walking the light that we should do, but maybe, just maybe, every once in a while we need to pause and say, no, I won't do fast. That God might help free me from this sin that so wants to enslave me. That in the midst of mourning, in the midst of loss, that we might, yes, eat the food that people have brought us.

But we might also just pause and say, maybe, just maybe, the Old Testament has something to say about mourning and fasting. The two are linked and that I want to do this and that I might need to bring other people from my group into this that we might mourn together. We got things to fast for when it comes to guidance. Right now, we have some big decisions ahead of us as a church trying to figure out that this Casey First Baptist thing is a thing that we need to pursue. This is the time for fasting. Some of y'all have got decisions you've got to make coming up.

It is a time for fasting. Let's actually see this as the good that it is even when it doesn't feel right. Lean into it and make it a practice that we do. It will help you abide in Jesus. We are called to fast. But the flip side of that coin is we are also called to feast.

There is a time for feasting. In the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in the C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia series, there is a picture in it that shows that feasting is an act of war against the enemy. It is an act of war against Satan. When the children arrive into Narnia, it signals the return of Aslan who is the lion. He is a Jesus type figure in this allegorical story.

And they come into the land and good things joy starts to come back in. There is a witch, the White Witch, who rules over Narnia with her long winter and her evil reign. She is a Satan type figure. And when the kids come in, it is the signal that Aslan is coming back, that joy is coming back. And one of the parts of the story that really helpfully shows this is the White Witch stumbles upon this Christmas feast because part of the joys of returning is that Father Christmas, who is a Santa type figure, that Father Christmas is coming back and that it is a joyous thing to celebrate. So she stumbles upon the White Witch, she stumbles upon this feast these creatures in Narnia are having, this Christmas feast and she is enraged.

She looks at him and she says, Speak, vermin. What is the meaning of all this gluttony, this waste, this self-indulgence? Sounds so much like the Pharisees. They confess and they say, Father Christmas has come back. This is a Christmas feast. And she turns them to stone.

And it is such a picture of how feasting is actually an act of war because we as Christians have things to celebrate. We have an eternal joy that is worth celebrating and when the enemy sees this, he sees our joy, he hates it. He hates the things that he'll never experience, that he'll never know, that he'll never enjoy, that when we feast, we declare we have things worth feasting for, that we can look back to the cross and the resurrection and we can point back to past things that we feast for that are worth celebrating, that we can look at this moment right now and the good gifts that God has given us and we can feast, that we also know that our feasting points forward to something later. I want to walk through these three principles of feasting, feasting in the past, feasting in the present, feasting in the future.

The first is we feast to celebrate the past. This is what the whole Old Testament calendar was about, that they would feast and they would look back. There were all kinds of Old Testament feasts in Judaism. There was the Passover feast, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Trumpets, the Feast of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles. Their whole calendar was lined up with feasts. And the reason why is because these feasts were established by God to help them remember what He did for them, that He rescued them from Egypt, that He established them as a people in this new land that He's given them.

It was to help them remember. It was so important that they would feast that in their tithing system was basically a clause that helped them pay for it all. Go to Deuteronomy 14. It says, this in verse 23 and 26. It says, And before the Lord your God and the place that He will choose to make His name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. It says, that you may learn this, that you may remember what I have done for you.

This is to help you worship. You go to verse 26, and He says, And spend your money for whatever you desire, oxen or sheep, wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. They literally had a part of the tithing system to set aside for these feasts that they might celebrate. I don't know if you saw it, it may have made you uncomfortable to celebrate big. You just spend your money on whatever you desire, wine, strong drink, sheep, oxen, whatever your appetite craves. Now we take that into the context of the Bible, right?

The Bible says, don't get drunk on wine, the drunkenness is sin, don't be gluttonous. We take that into context, but we also take the force that comes with it to actually celebrate. Well, let me give you two kind of polar extremes of celebrating that we as Christians try to stay in the middle. You should celebrate in a way that makes the very hyper-religious people uncomfortable. It should be mildly offensive to the self-righteous. It just should.

I mean, and if you do this, you're in good company, so is Jesus. He was called a gluttony drunkard. So you should celebrate in a way that actually offends the self-righteous, but it should look different than the world. That our feasting is feasting not for the substances, but feasting for the substance who is Christ. That we might actually in our feasting declare we have joyous thing, we have a joyous God to celebrate, and yes, we're going to celebrate well, but it's not going to look like a frat party. That people should look at Christians and say, man, they are joyous.

It is different. And I would like to know more about why they celebrate the way that they do. That's just some practical wisdom on how to feast and to feast well, but we should feast as Christians to remember, to look at the past.