River’s Edge Church

In our current study on the Practices in the Way of Jesus, we come to Fasting. Jesus did it, his followers fasted, when speaking to the crowd, he assumed they did it. Why? What is it about fasting and why does it find itself in the Judea-Christian tradition? Why is fasting a key element in many other religions and world traditions? Even if we can answer these in theory, how does Jesus say we are supposed to fast? We explore these elements in this week's teaching.

We pause and reflect this week on the reality that we can get caught up in the Practices of Jesus and end up striving in them apart from Jesus. Bryan Olsen, sharing from Nepal, encourages us that in the practices we yield our hearts to the Lord, letting him have his way.

Jesus came declaring, “The Kingdom of the Heavens is in your midst!” This is the Good News: the abundant, never-ceasing, God-intended life is available and as Jesus’ followers, we get to share this Good News! As Paul described it, we are the “aroma” or “fragrance” of Christ in our World. Looking at the life of Jesus, how do we follow our Teacher and Master into sharing this Good News?

As we continue in our study on the practice of Sabbath, we want to take the time and get highly practical: How in our modern day do we lean into this discipline that has been practiced for millennia? In short, each of us does it differently. Today’s discussion surrounding Sabbath is a panel of Jesus’ followers giving their perspectives and what they have learned in regard to practicing the Sabbath.

As followers of Jesus, on this side of the resurrection, our question when it comes to the Sabbath is often, "Do we need or have to practice the Sabbath?" Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Jesus' contemporaries needed to hear that man was not made for the Sabbath - could we argue that we need to hear the first part of Jesus' statement: that Sabbath was made for man? We explore what Sabbath is and why we Sabbath and how Sabbath is a gift to be enjoyed.

What we do does something to us. Intuitively, we know this. Whether we are intentional about it or not, each of us are being spiritually formed by our repeated rhythms, habits and practices. As followers of Jesus, our desire is to be transformed into his likeness, and thus, we exercise disciplines (or practices) for life in the Spirit. These practices (or habits) are components that make up a “Rule of Life” - a “trellis” or framework in which we practically follow Jesus in the day-to-day.

As apprentices of Jesus, we hold that our aim is to be with our Rabbi Jesus, to be like him, and to do what we see him doing. We must bring into focus, however, that before we move on to doing - the practices, the disciplines - we have to conceptualize the "why". And it is this: our first and ultimate aim is to be with Him.

Of all the practices we can adopt from the life of Jesus, one of the most important is silence and solitude, and time spent “in the desert.” This soft start to the series also functions as Matt Deisen’s farewell as they head into their time of sabbatical.

The Gospel of John doesn’t end the way we would expect, and instead of the ascension or another miracle, the final story is devoted to Jesus telling Peter what lies ahead on his journey of discipleship, and (if we live long enough) what lies ahead for us.

After the resurrection, Peter returns to fishing, likely carrying the weight of denying Jesus three times. But one day Jesus appears to them again, and restores Peter back to Himself. Join as we hear David Dailey’s story of being restored back to Jesus.