UNLEASHING DESPERATION

Join me on a personal journey of spiritual renewal as I share the transformative impact of The Victory House's 21-day fast on both my life and the thriving community we've nurtured in Northern Virginia. As the world around us moves at breakneck speed, we've discovered the profound peace and connection that comes from Jesus's ancient practice of fasting, as laid out in Matthew 6. This episode peels back the layers of sermon preparation, revealing how a quest for relevance and immediacy shapes my weekly messages, and dives into the early, uncertain days of our church plant, where fears and hopes intertwined, leading to a robust congregation eager for spiritual depth.
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Chapters

• 0:00 Reflections on the 2024 Fasting Experience
• 15:23 Prayer's Power and God's Presence

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

the kubalithas podcast. Welcome to 2024, welcome to episode number 26. This is nick kubalithas, your host, and it is. It is great to be with you. I don't even know where this episode is exactly going to go. All right, because right now I'm recording this. It's 4 14 pm, january 27th.

Speaker 1: 0:36

That's Saturday night, and this is no ordinary Saturday night. I'll tell you in a moment what it is, but I'm glad to be with you and you know I was listening to episode 25. I don't know why I sounded like a surfer in the beginning, like bro, this is gonna be epic dude. So I'm just saying I don't know what's going on there, but I want to bring you in to this episode and I don't feel like a surfer this week. I feel a little bit revved up. I just got back from the gym. I I love getting to the gym and you get those endorphins going and the blood flowing and and I thought you know what I'm going to go back to the office because usually on saturdays, fridays, I am in the office preparing my sermon. No, it is not a last-minute thing, it is. I just I my heart as a senior pastor in northern virginia my wife and I we planted a church 13 years ago Is to have fresh bread. I don't want to schedule something out. My style is not this way. Other people's are, that's great. My style is not to schedule out my sermons like 10 months in advance and I just want to be praying and hearing what God is saying in the moment and and just saying, god, would you speak? And so that's why a lot of times I'm just in prayer and I'm seeking the Lord and in the word and and and hearing from God on saturdays anyway. But this is no ordinary saturday and I thought I'd come back from the gym and just give you my heart right now, right where I'm at. And I've already started this year off on this podcast a little bit different. I you know the last one more God, and I'm still on more God. And so we're finishing this 21 day fast.

Speaker 1: 2:11

It's saturday night and I want to say why do we fast? We fast because Jesus tells us to fast. Jesus tells us to give, jesus tells us to pray, jesus tells us to fast. You can look this up in the book of Matthew, chapter 6, and there's no condemnation, there's no legalism. We're not a cult that forced you to do it with us, but it's an invitation as a community to seek after God together, and so this has been.

Speaker 1: 2:41

I would say this has been an abnormal fast for the victory house. Usually it's like we fast, you know, we push through it and we see God move. But God has been on the move. Aslan's been on the move. God has been on the move since the very beginning of this fast and I would even just say it's seeing financial miracles, seeing family miracles, hearing people in our church going.

Speaker 1: 3:06

There's something different about this fast. I'm excited about this fast. It's doing something in me because what's a fast do a fast just kind of ridds you of your yourself. It's, it's. It makes room for God. Well, this is friday night and I have this unique perspective. Or this is not friday, this is saturday night and I have this unique perspective. Pretty much anybody in ministry has a unique perspective. But I have this unique perspective in our church Because I remember when there was pretty much no one in our church and what it was like in the very beginning of our church, where we didn't know who would be a part of our church.

Speaker 1: 3:42

We didn't know where people were going to come from. My wife and I and my mother-in-law and a few others. We came and we planted the church Back in 2000. We moved at the end of 2010 and we began praying in january of 2011 Our midweek prayer service. And so I have this unique perspective because in the very beginning I was, you know, I was 30 years old. I was 30 years old when, when, when god called my wife and I Actually, we both were. We were 30 years old when god called us to plant a church, and now we're 43. I'm about to be 44 and it's just a wild thing and I was able to be here from the beginning. And and now there is a people at the victory house who are hungry for god and hungry for more. We're not a perfect church. We have a lot to learn, a lot to grow, a lot to expand all the different things.

Speaker 1: 4:40

But I remember in the very beginning, in the very beginning, I was probably terrified on Saturday nights. I was terrified going into Sunday mornings because I'm that guy that was the reluctant preacher Not that I didn't answer the call, I answered the call when I was 16 to preach and I've preached since I was 16, but just fearful and just afraid and so worried about so many things and maybe one day I'll do an episode on that, but that's where I began. You know, I began in this place of just following the Lord, but terrified in following Him and I don't mean that in a bad way it was more insecurity and I just needed to grow as a man and I needed to grow in who I saw God as and I also needed to grow in how I understood God seeing me. And I remember so many Sundays I would be in this. We have this little room in our church. It's in the bottom level back. There's a refrigerator in there. It usually floods, and not so much anymore, but for many years it would flood in that room and we used to have a door in that room with a little window and on Sunday mornings I would stand on this ledge and look out this little window and I'd watch people drive into the church and I was terrified Because I was like what are people are coming to church here.

Speaker 1: 6:02

Where are they coming to hear me preach? This is I'm freaking out. I'm freaking out. This is crazy. And that was 13 years ago. In some moments it feels like it was yesterday. In other moments it feels like a lifetime ago. A lifetime ago I think I was freaked out because I didn't wanna let God down. I didn't wanna let these people down. I felt the gravity and the weight of preaching. But that's where we began and I was at the gym this afternoon and I sort of think about all this.

Speaker 1: 6:39

There's a lot of times of collage of things going on in my brain and going into Sunday and I'm not like that anymore because at this point I've grown past that. Thank the Lord, his grace has grown in me. I'm ready to go. But you know what? I'm not afraid of man In a sense. I'm not afraid of displeasing God in the sense of I'm gonna let him down and he's not gonna talk to me. That's orphan mentality and orphan spirit, because he's the good father and if I do something wrong, if I say something wrong, he's gonna come and gently and lovingly correct me and even if he comes with a heavy hand it's a heavy hand of love. He won't come to just beat his son. So I get that right now.

Speaker 1: 7:22

But I had this thought for a moment and I think what I'm most terrified I don't know if terrified's the right word I think what I'm most afraid of at the end of this fast is moving too fast. I don't wanna move too slow, and I'm gonna tell you what I mean in a second. I don't wanna move too slow. I wanna follow the Lord in rhythm with what he's saying and what he's doing. I wanna follow the Lord in rhythm, and that means not the rhythm of people's expectations, not the rhythm of my own feeling, not the rhythm of coffee and caffeine pushing me. I wanna follow the Lord in the rhythm of what Paul says to the church in Galatia, keeping in step with the spirit.

Speaker 1: 8:13

And so here's this Saturday night. We're ending our 21 day fast. There's this excitement. Miracles have been happening, god has been moving and Satan has been raging. People have been just excited. It's all these different emotions going on at once.

Speaker 1: 8:30

And here I am and I think the thing I'm afraid of is that I'm gonna move too fast, in the sense of I'm not gonna wait on God to move. I don't wanna show up at church tomorrow and rush through a service just to give vision, just to give the next thing. It's like God, I need you to move. I am crying out for you to move, to pour out your spirit in such a fresh way. God, I don't want to live the same way as I did in 2023. I don't want to. I don't wanna be that guy anymore. I don't wanna be the one who I was yesterday and the things I've been struggling with and the things that have been stretching me, god, I want all of those things to glorify you. My struggles, my stretching, my striving, god, I want it to glorify you, and so I want to find that place where I'm in rhythm with God. I'm in rhythm with his spirit. I don't want to miss him. I don't want to miss him and I think, at this end of this 21 day, fast, I feel like God has begun a new work in me and that work has.

Speaker 1: 9:43

It's like this construction site where you got to tear down some things before you build it up, and I feel like there's just some things in my soul that he just wants to tear down so he can build up, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. I want to say yes to that. Yeah, I feel the drawing of the Lord. What does that feel like? It feels like this desperation cry from the inside going God, I need more of you. I need more of you. There are so many demands that we have in life, and in those demands we can forget the invitation and the blessing of our Father drawing us in the demands of providing, the demands of being a dad and a father and a preacher and, a sense, a community leader, and we can feel as if we get overwhelmed and we forget the very essence of why we're even here, and we're here to see the glory of God. You know, something has been happening and I'm investigating, I'm Sherlock Holmesing it.

Speaker 1: 10:54

But over the course of this fast, I've heard the desperation prayer. The desperation prayer. What is the desperation prayer? See, I believe in revival. I believe and I don't mean just a cheap revival where everything's revival now right, but there's an essence to the word of revival that God takes over. He takes over cities, he takes over nations, he takes over regions, he takes over. And you just don't have enough information to prove me wrong. You just don't, because there's too much history that says God moves this way. But this is a generality. But one of the precursors to God moving that way is something I'm going to call the desperation prayer, the desperation prayer.

Speaker 1: 11:48

And the desperation prayer is not like any other prayer. It's not liturgical, it's not crafted, it's the desperation prayer, and it's not just loud either and it's not yelling and it's not, but there's this spiritual tone to it and in that spiritual tone you can hear the desperation of an individual. You know it's like a mother hearing the cry of their child, and when the mother hears the cry of that child, usually that mother will know if that child is hungry, if that child is hurt, if that child just wants attention. There's a tone to that cry that resonates in the mother's ear. And here's the thing there's a tone many times in our prayers that resonate in the heart of God.

Speaker 1: 12:40

I just want to say I've been hearing that, I've heard that in the last few weeks. I mean, this is like when, you know, in the line in which, in the wardrobe, when winter and everything begins to melt white because the curse is broken, I've started to hear the prayer of desperation in our region. I don't care if it's just one person or two people or three people or one church or two churches. There is a cry of desperation that goes beyond reputation. So in the beginning of this church I just felt like man. I'm afraid I might let God down, I might let these people down. And now I'm like Lord. I'm afraid that I'm going to miss this because I'm moving too fast. I hear this desperation cry, god. Let me hold on to that. Let me figure that out, let me keep coming to that. And I heard it. I mean, I'm telling you, I heard the desperation cry and in some ways, when you hear the desperation cry, that prayer, it's almost terrifying.

Speaker 1: 13:38

It's almost. It's almost. It's almost a mourning for God, m-o-u-r-n-i-n-g. It's like a mourning for His presence. It's a mourning for His presence. That's what. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. God said, blessed are those who mourn Like blessed are those who are in the process of mourning and grieving because God's going to answer it. And there's, there's this thing in us. The spirit and the bride cry out to God and many times there's this thing in us that mourns that, that we are not with Jesus, and the spirit is crying out to a Maranatha. Maranatha, come quickly Lord, come quickly, lord. So we're in this fast and it's a Daniel fast and there's all different types of fast, a Daniel fast.

Speaker 1: 14:21

And I always tell our church you know, maybe you're going to miss a meal, maybe you're going to miss. You know, maybe you're going to miss a certain type of food. Maybe you're going to, maybe you're just going to drink water or juices, I don't know. Daniel, ate certain foods and didn't eat others. It's not necessarily about broadcasting what you're doing. It's saying God, I'm setting aside things that are delicious to me or things that are a priority to me, things that are, are, are important to me. I'm setting those things aside because I want to seek you and put you first and so on this night, because now it's 429, I I'm like Lord, I just don't want to miss you tomorrow. I don't want to miss what you're doing. I don't want to rush it. I don't want to rush it. I don't want our kids to miss it. I don't want our children, our teenagers, to miss it, our college students to miss it, our young at heart which concludes me to miss it. It's like God, I don't want to miss what you're going to do.

Speaker 1: 15:23

I heard the desperation prayer that tells me God is moving. It is a sign. It is a sign that God is moving. I'm just telling you. I'm telling you, I'm just telling you. Let me give you a couple of things I just scribbled these out that I'm reminded of in this fast.

Speaker 1: 15:43

Number one prayer is power. Prayer is power and not that we're after power, we're after Jesus. But I don't mean power just for signs, wonders and miracles, and that's important, but prayer is power from on high to know Him. Prayer is that place where it brings the power, the grace of God in us to. He gives us grace to overcome our shortcomings, to overcome our temptations, to overcome our regrets, to overcome the voice of the enemy. Prayer is that place, not prayer itself, but what prayer is?

Speaker 1: 16:19

Prayer is communication with God. Prayer is our soul and body and mind and spirit crying out to God and God answering it. And I'm reminded that in prayer, that's where we have the power to be what God has called us to be a good dad, a good husband, a good person and I don't mean good as in terms of like, just like well, that's a I mean a godly person. A godly person is a good person in the Bible, a godly person Maybe that's better said, a godly man. And I'm just reminded that prayer. Because why, if you're really praying, there's a humility about it saying God, I can't do this without you and right now, god, I can't live this life without you. That's what I'm reminded of.

Speaker 1: 17:04

That prayer brings power, power to overcome, power to press through power, to break through power. Power In this 21 day, faster reminds me that nothing without God's presence works. You need God's presence to have favor. You need God's presence because in his presence, more than favor is life, and life abundantly. That you need God's presence, that his presence is a spring of life. His presence is a river of life. His presence is a well of life. It's a place of where you get to draw from that water and live and live boldly and live, live the abundant life. This fast is reminding me that I can't live without his presence. I can't live without his presence. It's reminded me one that prayer brings power, power to overcome, et cetera, but it also I can't live without his presence, his presence, and his presence is the one that brings favor, his presence.

Speaker 1: 18:08

Number three I'm reminded that in prayer and then with his presence, is that we have to go forward through battles, that we're going to be in battles. We know that he's going to win the war, but there is satanic battles that are coming against the church. Demonic presence, perversion, leviathan, you name it. It's coming against the church. Offense, little things, immature. Satan loves to, to find the places that are the weak places in the armor and attack them. So immature Christians are just man wide open for attack. Why? Because immature Christians get offended and stay offended. Immature Christians which there's areas in me that are immature, but immature Christians won't forgive immature Christians just get mad. Immature Christians are consumers. Immature Christians are spectators, and that that's always going to be around.

Speaker 1: 19:02

But even when that's like time to go forward, it's time to grow up out of that immaturity. It's time to fight these battles with the power and the presence of God and overcome and I'm just reminded through this fast Even even the demonic things that have cropped up, even the words that have been spoken that have been from the evil one, the accuser of the brethren, the one that has no redemption in his voice, the one that has that has no love in his heart. I'm reminded that Jesus is greater, jesus is King, jesus, jesus renews all things, jesus is the one and we have to go forward through these battles. I know this is not as clean. I'm just processing this right now because I feel all fired up and I, you know, this last one I'm realizing is that it's better just to shut up. It's better just to shut up. There's just so much words that we say things that we get off our chest, things that we have to tell people, things that we have to get of our opinion. And I'm finding at times that I just need to shut up, shut my mouth and pray, shut my mouth and seek him. Because here's the thing I've been thinking about this verse it's not about what I can. It's not about what I can. It's not about the power that I can release. It's not about the ability to tear somebody down because I'm powerful or something. No, it's about the ability to walk like Jesus. That's what. That? That's what I'm learning in this fast. There's a, there's a be attitude that I've been Mulling over, that I want to just get in my heart, and that's.

Speaker 1: 20:43

Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the meek. What does that mean? The meek means power under control. Meek is not weak. Meek is like you have your sword, but you keep it in the sheath, even when you wanna pull it out and cut somebody open, but you don't. This is Jesus standing before Pilate and Pilate's challenging him. Jesus is like I'm gonna keep my sword in the sheath. This is what Jesus was like. This he's like don't you understand. I can call 12 legions of angels Like I could. I could. I could come down and I could whoop this place, but he doesn't. He's meek, he stayed quiet.

Speaker 1: 21:32

And I'm finding that our society has taken freedom of speech to say, freedom to say anything, unless you're a Christian. But freedom of speech is not freedom to say anything. Freedom of speech gives us a right under our constitution to not be persecuted by our government, but freedom to say anything is not a right granted if you're a Christian. So this is what I'm learning all these things. And if I'm going to inherit the earth, grab hold of the promise, grab hold of the inheritance. And I have to learn to shut my mouth and be meek Doesn't mean that I. There might be times where God says speak. There might be times to turn over tables in the temple. There might be times to rebuke. There might be times but I'll tell you what there's more times, I believe, where you have to shut your mouth, shut up, keep it closed and process that thing with the Lord, because if I can come to a place of prayer, then I can find a place of power. If I am with God's presence, then guess what? Then I know everything's going to be all right and if I have those things, I can go forward. But I want to inherit the earth. I want to inherit the earth. I want to. What does that mean? I want to fulfill what God has called me to fulfill on this planet. I just feel like these are some of the things that are stirring up on me, stirring up on me, stirring in me that I'm sharing with you. I just want to be who God has called me to be.

Speaker 1: 23:12

And so tomorrow we're all going to gather at Harmony Middle School on a Sunday morning and I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if I'll end up preaching. I don't know if I'll end up doing vision. I don't know. I don't know and I don't want to know. But I'm ready. Hear me, I'm ready to preach. I'm ready.

Speaker 1: 23:30

But it's not about what I can say. It's like if God wants to show up, fine, and if I was in my prayer closet, so to speak, and prepping my sermon just because he wanted my heart ready, then I'm ready for that. Ok, that's fine, I'll shut up. I don't need to get up there and do my slides and do my points. And oh, that was a great sermon, pastor, I don't need to be like God.

Speaker 1: 23:50

If you desire and you want to show up and you want to bring people to repentance and you want to just drop the Holy Spirit in fire, then yes, lord, yes, lord, whew. That's how I feel right now. I feel all stirred up, ready to rock and roll with the Lord, and I don't want to go through this year without the Lord. I desire more of him. I desire more of him, so let's get after it. Thank you so much for listening to the Kupalethis podcast. Please consider supporting us by a donation at the Kupalethispodcastcom. It is a tax deductible donation. If you would like to write into the show, you can write me at Kupalethis at gmailcom. Yes, you've got to figure out how to spell that. But share, subscribe. See you next time, just show up.