Feeding Sheep S1E7 Sermon on the Mount: Fasting & Treasure

We are continuing steady in Season 1 titled “Back to the Basics.” Episode 7, Fasting & Treasures, will show us God’s way of fasting in it’s simplest form and call for us to examine the posture of our hearts. 

Fasting in it’s simplest explanation—there could be a whole season on this topic or more—is a time of abstaining from food and sometimes drink, to come away in a time of prayer and communion with the Lord for a specific purpose. It is not supposed to be evident to others that it is what you are doing, it is a private time of devotion between you and the Lord. People fast for many different reasons alone or corporately for a specific purpose, to get in alignment with God’s will, or to break down strongholds in our lives that we haven’t been able to move past. 

Just like giving and praying, we are instructed to not fast to be noticed by men, but rather to be noticed by our Father who is in heaven. It is to be done in secret so that He can reward us openly. There are blessings that He bestows upon us on this side of heaven, for which we are grateful, but there will come a day when all the nations, tribes, and tongues are gathered together at the throne room of God, and it is there that all of the little and big thins we did FOR HIM will be rewarded openly in front of all! What a magnificent thought to imagine! When the One we labored for applauds us in front of ALL of His creation. He truly will never be outdone in any area!

He then calls us to examine where our heart is, by encouraging us to not be held captive by this world and the temporal things that will one day pass away. If our hearts are to win the approval of men, that will be our only reward. He’s not saying it’s wrong to have material possessions, but it becomes wrong when those “things”/“relationships”/etc. have us. We can not be devoted to God and to the appetite of our flesh. 

We dress it up pretty, but it’s either heaven or hell, Jesus or Satan, Good or evil. There is no middle ground. The line of separation is like a thin sheet of paper. You can try to walk that line as long as you can, but eventually you will lose your balance and fall to one side or the other. Make sure that you’re making a clear choice. Don’t leave your eternity to chances or perhapses that you may or may not fall on the side of Christ. 

We cannot serve or give ownership and governing rights to two different entities. It will tear us apart, or in an act to self preserve we may make wrong allegiances to the enemy’s camp.

The Spirit of the Lord hit me so heavy during this episode. I almost didn’t do it because of leaving for a mission trip, but I felt the urge to press on and do it anyway. Someone needs this word today. Someone needs to hear. Someone is on the fence and needs to know the Truth and make a decision. I have prayed for you! The LORD has prayed for you! Choose Him. He has chosen you. He’s calling you friend! Share this with someone who needs Jesus! I know that God is knocking on the door of hearts with this episode. 

I hope you enjoy this episode and will continue to follow along with us as we endeavor to walk this path together, and sit at the table of the Lord and feast together!

Please feel free to reach out with any questions or comments that you may have. We will do our best to answer in a timely manner either in writing or on another future episode! But we do want to hear from you and be able to interact with you. 

May God bless you! Can’t wait to see where we grow from here. It’s an honor to be able to speak into your lives, and I don’t take it for granted!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Good morning. Welcome back to Feeding Sheep Podcast. I am so glad to be with you this morning. I hope this message finds you well and that you're having a wonderful day. Excuse me as I move this for a second. All right. I hope it didn't make a loud noise on your end. We are going to be in episode seven of our podcast of season one. And today we are going to be back in Matthew chapter six, and we are going to be talking about God's way or Jesus' method of fasting, what to do and what not to do, mostly what not to do, a little bit of what to do. And we will also be talking about our treasures and where they lie. And so without any further ado, I want to dive into this so that I don't waste any of your time because Lord knows I can chat it up. Okay, so we're going to begin in Matthew 6 and verse 16. And it says this Jesus said, Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance, so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your father who is in secret. And your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Okay, so fasting in a basic nutshell, um, because just like prayer last week, uh, we could do a whole entire uh season on fasting. Um, there are teachings and all of the things, but basically, in a nutshell, fasting is abstaining from food, uh sometimes abstaining from food and drink to make time for prayer and communion with the Lord. That's it in a nutshell. Um, there were several times during the Old Testament when people would fast and pray, um, not just for personal reasons, uh, but before important events would happen, before battles would take place. Um, fasting is a time for you to come into alignment with the will of God, to hear from Him, uh, to have His heart and his mind about a certain situation or a certain area of your life. And um fasting is multifaceted, multi-purposed. Um, but what Jesus wants to focus on here is the manner in which you fast. If you're not having food, you know that your body is going to be hungry. Ta-da. That's the way our bodies are made. Uh, our bodies are made to let us know when there's no food in our system and our tummies are gonna growl. Sometimes you're gonna get a headache, uh, sometimes you're gonna be cranky, and all of the things, but Jesus said, Don't do that. You say, Well, how do I not be cranky? How do I not act like I'm hungry if I'm starving to death? If you're focusing on how much you're starving, uh you might need to just stop and try again later. Um, because your focus is not in the right place. Uh your focus when you're fasting cannot be on your belly and everything that you're missing. Your focus needs to be on the Lord and on his purpose in prayer, reading his word, getting into alignment with him. And so Jesus is talking about the hypocrites, and he said, whenever you fast, don't put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, which means don't let your face tell what is supposed to be private between me and you. Fasting is a time of coming away with the Lord, away from the normal lunch crowd, away from the normal breakfast bunch, away from the dinner table and the conversations and putting him first and having conversation with him. But if we're walking around while we're fasting and everyone can tell that we're missing out, or we want people to think that we're holy because I'm not eating today, Joanne, I can't go to lunch with you. I'm not eating today, David, I can't go to lunch with you. I'm fasting. Jesus said, This is not the way that you need to be doing things. If you want to be noticed by men, um that's your reward. If you want people to know you're fasting and they find out you're fasting, congratulations. That's all this fast is gonna do for you. It's gonna let people think, oh wow, they're super great. They're doing something that I don't do. Um, he said, but when you fast, he said, I want you to anoint your head. I want you to take oil. I want you to anoint yourself. I want you to wash your face. I want you to fix your face. I want you to focus on how you're appearing. If I'm going to anoint my head with oil, if I'm going to wash my face, I'm usually going to be right in front of my sink. I'm going to be right in front of a mirror. Because God says, watch your face. Your face is going to tell the story. Your eyes are going to tell the truth on you. Okay, so make sure that you're not in a sad and lowly condition, and woe is me, and poor, pitiful, starving you. Okay. Um, because he said, because so your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your father who is in secret. Fasting is not to get the attention of the people around me. Fasting is to get heaven's attention, to get my father's attention, and the father who is in secret. And your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. You may be saying, Well, my fasting isn't working. I've been fasting for years and nothing's happening. How many people do you tell when you start your fast? How many people do you complain to? How many times have you looked around and been like, oh no, I can't today because I'm fasting? You know what I'm saying? Um, if that's if that's what we're doing, and maybe you don't even notice it, maybe, maybe you're not even thinking about it, but start paying attention. Fasting is not something that we go into nonchalant, it's not just a spur of the moment whim. Uh sometimes Holy Spirit will say you need to fast tomorrow or you need to start fasting right now. That's a different story. But when it's our choice to say, Lord, I'm gonna set this time aside for you and I'm gonna come away with you because I have this certain need or I have this certain area of my life that I can't seem to get under submission. I can't seem to keep it from going into chaos. So I'm gonna dedicate and set this time aside for you. He said, set it aside for me and leave everybody else out of it. Because obviously, if other people could fix it, it would be fixed by now. Fasting is a time for just you and him to communicate, for you to talk to him, and for you to listen for what he has to say back to you. And um, this this passage of scripture, so that uh do this to be noticed by your father who is in secret, and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. It goes back to the way that we um in the beginning of Matthew chapter six, whenever he talked about practicing our righteousness before men to be noticed by them, that when you give, you give in secret. So the father who sees what is done in secret will reward you openly. When you pray to him, when you commune with him, do that in your secret place. Don't be praying just to impress everybody around you because you're like a superman or superwoman prayer. He wants you to pray to him in secret because the prayer isn't about everybody else. The communication isn't about everybody else and what they think about it and how they ooh and ah over it. It's about getting his attention. It's about him taking notice. Prayer is about moving the heart of God, in turn, moving his hand in our direction. So, fasting, praying, giving, all of those things are things that God wants you to do before him. Like giving, I know that we have to sometimes we give to other people, but it's still about God. It's still about him. It's not about being noticed or applauded for what we do for others. Um, and so he's telling us, I want you to fix your face. I want you to pay attention. There's so many people in this world, they're like, well, that's just my face. That's just how I am. Respectfully, just fix it. Just fix your face. Maybe if you can't fix it on the regular, at least fix it during the times of fasting so that your mopiness is not drawing, your joy should be what's drawing everybody to you, not your depravity. Um, and that's what the Lord is saying. I I want the glory of the Lord to shine upon you. I want your face to be anointed. I want it to shine, I want it to be bright and clean. Why? And people will say, What's gotten into you today? Because the Lord is good, friend. I might be starving, I might have been starving for three days, but let me tell you, Jesus is good. I don't even have to bring up food because I'm eating bread that you have no idea about. I am drinking from a fountain that you have no idea. I know you got Dasani. I know you got your sparkling water. I know you got whatever you got. You got your Dr. Pepper or whatever, but I have this living water and I've been drinking it, and it is good to me, friend. Okay, that's what God, that's what his desire is for people to see the goodness of God upon your life, not the woe is me, poor pitiful me. Fasting is going to kill your flesh. It's gonna make you feel like your flesh is dying. If you don't feel like you're dying, you're not doing it right. Okay. If you don't feel like you're suffering, you're not doing it right. But it's how, it's how we suffer. It's how we present that to the outside world. Um, I'm not I'm not suffering because God is punishing me. I am yielding up what seems important in the moment because God is more important than the bread that I eat. He is more important than the water that I drink. Because without him, what is this life anyway? If he doesn't come into my situation, if he doesn't move in this regard, what is the food and the water going to do for me anyway? Nothing. I need him more than I need anything else in this life. Okay. Um, and then moving on, he said, Do not store up for yourselves treasures on the earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And you might say, How does this tie into fasting? Because sometimes we because fasting is a depriving of what the body wants to get in tune with what the spirit wants. And if if our treasure, if we are treasuring our food, if we are treasuring what comforts this flesh, if we can't abstain from food, we're not going to be able to abstain from anything. If we cannot curb our appetite for the things of this world, the physical food, we are not going to be able to curb our appetite for the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life, the things that are around us. If we're not careful, this world that we're in, but we're not supposed to be of it, will become an idol to us. It will become something that we cannot live without. And Jesus said, I want you to not worry about this place. Everything that you see is temporary. Everything that you can touch or smell or feel, it's going to pass away. Everything. This life is a vapor. It is temporary, it is momentary. But what the Spirit desires to do, it is eternal. It is about bringing the eternal will of God into the present, right here, right now. And he said, I don't want you to store up for yourself treasures. It's not that he doesn't want you to have things, he doesn't want things to have you. And I'm gonna get to that more so in a moment. He said, I want you to store up treasures in heaven. I want you to, I want you to give the gospel to people and store up treasures in heaven. I want your joy to be in spreading, spreading my name and in and praying for people, and bringing joy to situations, and bringing comfort in the midst of grief and sorrow, in bringing me to the world around you. Because in doing that and doing and doing it unto the Lord and not for men, it lays up treasures in heaven. Okay, I want to be noticed by my God who's in secret because what is done in secret, he will reward me for. The temporary gratification that we get when others are pleased by what we do or they're proud of us or they're applauding us or whatever, all of that will pale in comparison to the day that comes that Christ rewards us openly when everything is open, when the books are open, when everyone is in attendance that has ever been or ever will be. And he says, This is the reward. Do you remember that time that you fasted and you didn't tell anyone? Do you remember that time that you set aside for me? Do you remember that time that you fed that person and you didn't take a picture of it and you didn't ask for any applause and no one, your spouse didn't even know that you did it. I know that you did it. I wrote it down and I want to give you something in eternity. I want to give you something that's going to be eternal, not momentary. I could have blessed you while you were on this earth, but I wanted to bless you forever. My goodness, how amazing is our God. What a beautiful picture of the heart of the Father and his plans for us. They are they are more magnificent and magnified than we could ever even imagine. And then he starts, he says, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. There your affection is. And one thing that we need to understand about the Lord is that we are never going to hide the contents of our heart from him. And even more so, we're not going to be able to hide forever the contents of our heart from the people around us. What's in you will either justify you or it will betray you eventually. Um, you will be known by the fruit that you bear. And I want you to hear this verse. He said, The eye is the lamp of the body. So then, if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. If your eye is clear, if it's healthy, if it's sincere, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If your eye is bad, if it's evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? And I was on mission, uh, I was on a mission trip in January, um, end of January, first of February, got to go um to one of my favorite places on the planet, um, got to go to Kenya. And when I tell you that I saw this scripture played out in front of my very eyes, it could not have been more real to me. We were um, we were going about some day-to-day errands, and we ran across um some missionaries that were um perpetuating a false gospel and you know, whatever, but the place that they were doing it was right outside of a school, right outside of an elementary school, a primary school, little children with no parental permission, nothing like that, just preying on the youth of tomorrow. And um our our leader, he felt led to stop and we begin to talk to these people and say, you need to get away from this place. These children don't have parents. There's no one here to give you permission to funnel this false gospel to their children. You know, if you want to preach this, you need to go to the marketplace and let the adults judge for themselves whether they want this. Um, because parents do have a right to give their children and raise them up in the way that they desire for them to go. Go preach it to the market. And there was a man, there was a Kenyan man that was with these missionaries from Asia, and because he was helping speak the language and the things, and I remember his eyes were so dark. I had just read this scripture because it was part of our reading plan in February that we were to read the book of Matthew every single day. We were we were reading one through seven on week one, every single day of week one, and we just so happened to be in the first week of February. So I was reading Matthew one through seven every single day. So I'd already passed by the scripture, and I thought, God, I wonder what that looks like. And he showed me, he showed me this person that was consumed with a false gospel that had bought into a lie, and it was like his eyes were just pitch black. They were deep, deep wells. It might have uh of darkness, it it might as well have just been his eyes were just black holes, they were empty, and they were just sucking, just trying to to grasp for anything that would bring light. But it was like the more that his eyes could take in, the darker and the darker that it got until it was like he almost didn't have any eyes at all. It was it was very intense. And I just thought this is this scripture that is manifest right now in front of my very eyes. If the light that you have is darkness, if the only light you have is pitch black dark, how how dark is that darkness? But if your heart is pure, if it is sincere, people will be able to discern it. They can look in your eyes and they can know that this is light, this is truth, this is real. You can look into the hollowness of the soul. The eyes are the window to our soul. You can see what is in your heart through the windows of your eyes. They will tell the tale. You might say one thing with your mouth, but your eyes are not going to lie. They are either going to justify you or they are going to betray you. Wherever your treasure is, if your treasure is in a lie, your eye is going to be dark. If your treasure is in the truth, if your treasure is in heaven, your eyes are going to be light. You are going to show forth the light of Jesus Christ. There is no light in darkness. When you give your heart over to something, you become enslaved by it. And this is what this passage is doing. He's showing us it's a slow fade when you're living for the applause of the world and not to be noticed by heaven. You see this constant tug of war in Matthew chapter 6. I'm giving to be seen by men. He said, Don't do that. Be noticed by heaven, and the father who sees in secret will reward you. I'm praying to be noticed by men. But God, Jesus is saying, Don't pray to be noticed by men. Pray in secret and let the Father notice you. There's a tug of war going on for our heart, for our soul. Don't fast to be noticed by men, to be applauded by them. Fast and Secret, and so that I can reward you openly. Don't give in to the lust of your flesh and your appetite of your body. If it's for this world, you are going to be entangled with it because this world and and everything that is in it is right now, it is wickedness. It is evil. God created it perfect and beautiful, and sin corrupted from the very beginning. The thorn came and the hard ground and the curse fell upon the land. And it has only increased and increased and increased as time has gotten uh longer. Uh the sins of this world have just got exponentially greater and in and wrong. And it's like it's it's just about to implode on itself, if you will, and we get entangled with this darkness, or we can be pulled and we can be we can be surrendered and submitted to the light. And this is where we're going to end today. In verse 24, it says, No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. And and many people will say, Well, you know, well, God just wants me to be poor. No, that's not what this is saying. I want you to understand here that this word serve, it does indicate a level of slavery almost, um, but it's not a it's not a slavery as in um, you know, you've just you've been captured and blah, blah, blah, and you've been taken into slavery against your will or whatever. The word serve here, if you go back into the original text and the original language, this word means to willingly give over the prerogative to be self-governing. See, Jesus is preaching in Matthew, in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. Do it my way, do it the Father's way, do it God's way, willingly give over the prerogative to do it your way or the way of the world. Give that over and do it our way. Let let us lead you, let Holy Spirit take over, let me teach you, go in in my way and in my direction. And so we surrender and we submit our will and we become servants to the Lord most high. It means that we have we have given all personal ownership rights and we have assigned them over to another owner. This is not something that is done against our will. This is something that I choose. I choose to serve the Lord. I choose to give ownership rights to my life over to Christ Jesus. I choose to give over the prerogative to choose my own path and to go my own way to give that direction to the Lord, to let him lead me and guide me, because he knows the best way and the only path that I need to be walking in. So I'm giving that over to him and I'm serving him. Okay. And vice versa. Like if I if I'm not giving it to the Lord, I will give it over to the enemy. If I serve myself, if I serve my appetite for this world and the things of this world, I am willingly giving myself governing over to the ways of this world, to the ways of sin and darkness and evil. There's only two choices. There is no middle ground. Well, I'm just, you know, I'm just doing what I do and figuring it out. It's not like that. You're either surrendered to the Lord or you have surrendered to the enemy. There is no middle, there's no middle ground. We've given over personal ownership rights and we've assigned them to another owner. Either I'm light or I'm darkness, either it's good or it's evil, it is Christ or it is Satan. There is no other option. It says nobody can serve two masters. You cannot be a slave to both. Because eventually you can only ride the fence for so long before you lose your balance and you fall one way or you fall the other. Okay? You can only walk a tight line for so long because the divide between the two is so thin. It's so paper thin. You can't balance on it. You're gonna tilt to the evil way or you're gonna tea tilt to the righteous way. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and he will love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. And when you say wealth, the original word there is mammon or wealth that is obtained in this world, money, riches, power, the things. You can't serve God and feed this flesh. Is it wrong for believers to have wealth? No. What is wrong is if wealth has you. Remember, the word serve means that I have willingly given over the prerogative to be self-governing. I've given that over to something else. I have transferred all personal ownership rights and assigned them to a new owner. It's fine to have money, but if the money has you, you have a problem. If the if the relationship it's not wrong to have a relationship, but if the relationship has you, if God is not the governor, if Holy Spirit, if Christ Jesus is not the governing source or body over your life, then something else, you are serving something else. And maybe today this is the light bulb moment that says, Oh my goodness, I've been serving self, and that's not godly. That's not Christ. That is evil. And we call it, you know, I'm I'm doing what I want to do. If you're governed by the your appetite, by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life, you can dress it up and call it whatever you want to, but you are following blindly into the plans of the enemy. And eventually those plans are going to lead you to destruction, and they're going to leave you out of God's eternal blessing, God's eternal reward. There is an eternal reward, and there is an eternal damnation. People will say these days, heaven is real, but hell doesn't exist. That is a lie. The truth is not in it. It's not, it's not in it. I don't care how well they explain it. Hell is hell is being separated from God, hell is being um void of his presence, void of his spirit. But hell is not just a state of mind or a state of being. Hell is a place. It was created for Satan and his angels. But people will go there if they choose to surrender the ownership of their life, the rights to their life, the prerogative of being self-governing. If they give it over to the enemy, they will join him in his fate. Not because God is not loving, not because God didn't want better, not because God could have could have fixed it all. He's been trying to fix it all, he's been trying to give you the gospel. You're you're coming across this right now because God wants to open your eyes. I don't know you, I don't know where you are, but he does. I don't know where this is going to reach out to. I can't see who all sees this, but God can. And he already knows the direction. He knows your life, and he knows that you're going down a path you don't need to be on. Turn around. Take back your life so that you can give it to the Lord, so that you can surrender it in the place. Stop doing things for the approval of people who are going to pass away. Do it for God. Do it with purity. Do it cleansed. Do it from a place of sincerity, of truth. Because any other way eventually is going to tell on you. Your eyes are going to tell the story. He's either real to you or he's not. And so I know that this was a very intense lesson. I'm I've I just realized I've gone over the time limit. So I'm going to hush right now. Um, we will get into the rest of Matthew 6 next week. Um, Matthew 6, 25 through 34. We will we will go on to that. Um, but this is very important. Um maybe, maybe later we can do a season on prayer and a season on fasting. Um, but just basic knowledge. Um, this is what we have for the basics, okay? We can dive in deeper later. But I love you. God bless you. I hope you have a good Friday. Examine yourself, friend. Examine where you are, see if you be in the faith, see if it's light or it's dark, is it evil or is it truth and goodness? Is it Jesus or is it Satan? Is it heaven or is it hell? Only you are going to be able to know. Pray and say, Lord, open my eyes to see. Cleanse me, God. If there's any wicked way in me, show it to me, purge it out altogether, rip it from me, Lord. Hang it in front of my face so I can see it clearly. He will. He loves you. I love you. I'm praying for you. I just, I feel this in my guts. I'm going on a mission trip and I'm supposed to be leaving in the morning. I'm recording this on Monday night to release to you on Friday. And I just, I thought about skipping, but I couldn't. I knew I had to get here and I had to do it. You have to hear this. God's gonna let you hear this on purpose because he wants to save your life, not just in the right now, present moment, but for all of eternity, friend. Turn to the Lord. And if you don't know how to do that, message me. Reach out. I will help you. I will pray with you. I will whatever we need to do. Find a local pastor, find a friend, a believer, to pray with you today. Don't go to bed without it being right with the Lord. I'm telling you, a true believer is never going to be bothered that somebody reached out and said, I don't think I'm where I need to be with the Lord. I don't want my whole eye to be full of darkness. I don't want the only light that I have to be black, dark. I want the light of the truth. I want the joy of Jesus Christ. I want a relationship with him in private that will be displayed publicly. Not because I'm trying to get applause, but because the joy of the Lord just radiates off of me, not this mess that I've been living in. I love you. The Lord loves you. Like I said, I'm praying for you. Reach out if you need help. God bless you. May He keep you. I will see you. I will talk to you. I don't see you guys. I just say that. It's something I say. I will talk to you next week. I hope to hear from you. God bless you. May your life be forever changed just by the basics. It's not the deep things, it's just the simple things. It's the simplicity of the gospel that leads people, the kindness of God that leads people to repentance. And this is his kindness today that this crazy lady is just telling you that God has a greater plan for your life than what you've been settling for. I just pray for you right now. God, touch them, Lord, wherever they are in their car. God, I usually don't even pray on here, but I feel so like you're touching somebody, you're drawing somebody by your Holy Spirit. So God, reach and touch them, Lord, in their car, in their bathroom, God, in their on their job, at their desk, Lord, wherever they are. Father God, reach out to them, Lord. Send somebody by, God, to water these seeds, God. Lord, send somebody by to harvest. God, whatever's happening, God, on the other end of this podcast, on the other end of this Facebook post, God, wherever it's going, God, you know it. Lord, be there and meet these people, Lord, that you're talking to. Even if it's just one, Lord, it's worth it, God. Lord, I pray, God, souls from a higher. God, let heaven be crowded. Lord, let lives be forever changed in the mighty name of Jesus. And I give you praise and glory and honor in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you again. I'll talk to you next week. Bye bye.