Unknown: I'm here with Grant Caldwell, one of the pastors at Christ Church, with lent quickly approaching, we're going to be talking about fasting and the Christian life. To start, let's define what is fasting?
Unknown: Yeah, thanks for having me on.
Unknown: Fasting is simply this it is giving something up. That's good. In order to receive something better, you are you're giving something up, you're fasting, you're you're keeping yourself from something for a specific spiritual purpose.
Unknown: So why do Christians fast? What are the biblical reasons for fasting?
Unknown: Yeah, you see, we are made to feast. And that's the thing that when you look at humanity in Scripture in the Garden of Eden, we're feasting. At the end of Revelation, we're feasting. But in this in between time, we're in a season of emptiness. And so what fasting does is it causes us to feel that emptiness, to lean into that emptiness, and let that emptiness lead us back to our need for God.
Unknown: So what are some great examples of fasting that are found in the Bible?
Unknown: Yeah, fasting is is all over scripture. And that's, that's the thing with it, when we see fasting taught in Scripture is it's not taught as optional if you do it. Jesus teaches in Matthew six, he says, When you fast, it's right there with when you give, and when you pray, when you fast is listed in that same part of the Sermon on the Mount, so it's, it's seen not as an option, but an expectation.
Unknown: You see Moses fasting, you see Daniel fasting, you see all sorts of different types of scope of fasting both individual or private, congregational, corporate national fast, you see different individuals fast. What can be considered like a normal fast, which is just withholding food, but still drinking like Jesus does in the Gospels. You can see a partial fast happening like Daniel does, and Daniel one where he has a selective diet where he says, I'm only going to eat these certain things. But then other times you see full fasts in response to tragedy or a great need. Like you see Paul in Acts nine, or Esther and Ezra, and Esther for. So all all over scripture, just this, this leaning into this emptiness, by the people of God.
Unknown: One of the things I picked up on in your response is that it seems like there was a reason behind participating in these fasts. It wasn't just to trim the waistline, it seems like fasting should have a purpose.
Unknown: Can you speak to that? Yeah, absolutely.
Unknown: And I feel like fasting is trendy right now, like intermittent fasting is, I'm not going to get into it, because I'm not fully sure exactly what it means. But I feel like fasting is one of the things that it's it's popular to talk about from a fitness or health perspective. And to be clear, biblical fasting, is has to be attached to a spiritual purpose, whether that spiritual purpose is something that that connects you in a new way with God, whether that causes you to lean inward into your own heart, or to focus outward on a concern in the world. Fasting has to be attached to a spiritual purpose, or it's just that it's a weight loss plan. It's while I'm just going to not eat lunch for the next few weeks. On these days to trim some pounds are going exactly the said, it's it's it's doing this, it's giving something up to receive this spiritual purpose to receive the spiritual need.
Unknown: So this is a simple question.
Unknown: And we've kind of touched on it, how do I fast? How do I actually go about this? Is this just a fast from food? And how long should it be?
Unknown: And that's completely up to you.
Unknown: And and I would recommend starting small. And the thing I will say is that when we see festoon scripture, it's always attached to food. I think that's tied to our need for food. It's tied to the regular rhythms of our lives and the way that we eat. I think food uniquely shows us more of who we are. I think when we are hungry, we realize I'm really not as loving or as patient or as kind as I want to be. I'm kind of irritable and mean, when I'm missing my lunch.
Unknown: I think food fasting specifically speaks to our culture of we live in this world of abundance and need, and I can do everything and accomplish everything and to be able to withhold a meal from yourself speaks directly to that. And so I think that the norm of it is food fasting. But here's the thing, the point of it, is about this sense of longing and emptiness. It's not about the technicalities, and so if food fasting is something that's not advised to you maybe by a doctor or by the stage of life that you're in right now, this is not something thing that, well, if I can't do it, I'm just going to skip this whole thing. For regular fasting food is preferred. But beyond that, anything that can point you to this sense of emptiness or this sense of need, would be a good place to start. I would start small, maybe a short period of time, maybe one meal once a week, and then build your way up to fasting more.
Unknown: So what should you be doing in this time when you're fasting?
Unknown: Is it sitting in despair, thinking about how hungry you are counting on the men as what do you do to pass this time and to make it productive for the Lord.
Unknown: So you know, Jesus said, not to look gloomy and do that. But it's really hard to because when you skip a meal, again, the irritability comes out, the gloominess comes out, you, you really begin to see how food driven we all are, throughout the course of the day that how much we begin looking towards that cup of coffee, we begin looking towards the lunch break at the center of the day. And so, again, the spiritual purpose of it is that that time would not be self centered, it would be directed back to God. Which means also, and this is what's hard for me is that when you fast from a meal, that doesn't mean I get an extra hour of work to be able to work through lunch and get more stuff done. It's a clear pause in your day to fill that time up with something else. So instead of filling your body with food, or instead of filling in your time with social media, or filling something else up, you're filling it up with Godward thoughts, you're filling it up with prayer, you're filling it up with worship, you're filling it up with extra time reading scripture during the day, you're turning your attention towards God, because what's happening is that you're feeling this hunger, and it's leading you to emptiness, and your mind is going, I'm hungry, I need something, which then should lead you to, I need God.
Unknown: And then once you get to, I need God you need I need God's redemption, both for my life and the world around me.
Unknown: So you touched on this earlier for people that are new to fasting or may have health concerns. What's the alternative? How do you ease yourself in? Is there a ways to go about this? That you can stay safe? If that's you?
Unknown: Yeah, absolutely. And with with all spiritual disciplines, it's not about making sure you get the exact right way. It's about what is it that's going to create that sense of longing. So of a food fast, is impossible for you, based on health conditions, leaned into giving a certain aspect of the food, maybe it's sugar, maybe it's meat, maybe it's alcohol, or it's caffeine? Or if even that's impossible for you lean into some of these luxuries that you might have in your life, social media, television, desert internet, I mean, there, there's something that that the thing that you're thinking of, well, I don't know if I could give that up for a day or more days, that might be the area that God's calling you to direct your attention towards him in? What is it in your life that without it would cause you to feel a sense of lack or longing? And what is it that you could remove from your life for a certain season that would free you up to both just feel just the emptiness and brokenness of this world, but also to feel in a new way? The way that God's working and redeeming in the midst of it?
Unknown: How do you avoid allowing this to become ritualistic? How do you what do you do if you catch yourself becoming gloomy? Like you said, in scripture or any other number of ways? How do you avoid that? Or what do you do if you find yourself in that situation?
Unknown: Yeah, and that's the that's the challenge with all spiritual disciplines is that our habits so quickly become the measuring stick of our godliness and our relationship with God. We use them as well. I've read my Bible today. I've prayed today. I fast today, which fasting is probably one of the most misunderstood spiritual disciplines because we have in our mind, those guys will see crazy if they're fasting from something or they're super Christians.
Unknown: They're fasting from something.
Unknown: We have to shift it from I'm doing all these things to get to God, to instead thinking of spiritual disciplines as a way that we respond to God. So God loves you now, like you're in relationship with God. Now, when he looks down at you, he smiles, he cares about you. You have that relationship already. We do spiritual disciplines as a response to the affection that God has to us. So we don't read our Bibles to gain a relationship with God. We read our Bibles to respond to our relationship with God and it's the same thing with fasting. We don't fast to twist God's arm to hear our prayers in a new way.
Unknown: We're doing this as a response to we're in a relationship with Him, He has told us to do this.
Unknown: And we're responding in obedience and in love not to earn anything but to respond.
Unknown: So this fasting is something that you hear talked about often when the Lenten season approaches. So let's let's start with the very broad, what is the season of Lent?
Unknown: Yeah, so the season of Lent, and the church goes through different seasons throughout the year from start to finish. And so two of the most well known ones are the season of Advent, which is the the weeks leading up to Christmas, and lint, which are the 40 days that lead up to Easter. And so Lint is the 40 day period that leads from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday in the Christian calendar. And it's a specific time that Christians focus in on the cross and focus in on Easter, and focus in on Christ's work in the world.
Unknown: In light of our conversation today, we've talked a lot about giving up food, but when I hear people talking about Lent, they're often giving up social media, they're giving up television screen time, any number of things that are typically not related to food.
Unknown: What is that? Is his lint a season when you give up other things? Or is it food? Can you go into a little bit about that?
Unknown: Yeah, again, I think your heart will lead you more on that than any regulations or rules can. If the goal is to lead to emptiness and longing, if the goal is to center your hearts towards the longing and redemption for the world around us. Food, I think plays a unique role. I think I think you can't ignore the fact that when fasting is distress discussed in Scripture, it's always tied to food. So I think fasting has a specific food function that you can only fully kind of see that with the food function for those that are able, however, for those that are not fasting from other things like that are absolutely acceptable. It is not a second rate fast or anything like that.
Unknown: Because the heart of it is how do I create this sense of longing? How do I create this sense of need? And how do I create myself and position myself into this spot of emptiness that's is leading me back to Christ.
Unknown: When I think about giving up, say, sugar, or social media, I think, you know, instantly, my first thought is, if I give up sugar, my pants are gonna fit better. If I give up social media, my handle, my mental health will be better. How do we refocus that perspective, that self an individualistic perspective, back to focusing on the Lord in this kind of period?
Unknown: Yeah, I think it's seen that like, in what we're doing with fasting, we're giving up, we're becoming more like Christ. This is an aspect or in spiritual disciplines, or a second Timothy says, or, as Paul says, in second, Timothy, you're training yourself for the purpose of godliness, you are doing activities, not for the sake of your own self, but to become more like Christ to grow and godliness. And so when we fast, we're focusing ourselves on the same Christ who did fast. I mean, we see him fasting for 40 days, who called us to fast and then modeled just the Gospels interaction in what we're doing with fasting. I mean, we're emptying ourselves to be like the one who emptied Himself for our sake. And so it talks about in Philippians, two, how Christ emptied Himself, He humbled Himself. That is what we're doing. And so by shifting the goal of, well, this is something that I'm receiving that might be more self centered, we're able to focus our thoughts on what Christ did, and what the gospel is doing in the midst of our hearts, which may not have a direct, immediate result. I mean, we're not prosperity gospel. People that feel that if I do this, then God will do this. I defined fasting as we're giving up something good to receive something better. It's not that I want to be clear that it's not we're giving up sugar to get a better waistline is the better and the rewards that Jesus talks about in the gospels, and the way that fasting is talking about is God's activity in our hearts and in the world around us. It's it's spiritual, it's holistic, it's Kingdom centered. It's not a direct one to one. It's what God's doing in his world and through his people. That are the reward. How do we prepare our hearts to enter this fasting? How do we seek God and what he's asking us to fast from?
Unknown: Yeah, well, I think prayer and fasting just go hand in hand.
Unknown: But I think it takes Time to just look around. I think praying, examining your heart, examining your days, and then just truly looking around I mean, if, if the emptiness leads us to our need for God, and our need for God leads us to a longing for redemption, looking around at the world, and fasting specifically for something outward that needs redemption, is something that you just have to look around and see, you have to see the hurting in our city, you have to see the global crises going around us, you have to see the lostness and unreached peoples of the world that haven't heard the gospel yet. If you examine and look on the external, you'll see where God is at work. And you'll see areas where you can long for God to be at work. But I think it's just taking the time to slow down enough to do that.
Unknown: For those who have never done a fast of any kind and may be nervous, what are your words of encouragement for them?
Unknown: Yeah, I think my encouragement would just be in a to see that this is something that God has for you. This isn't an if it's a win. And so therefore, us as all of us, as Christ followers, we are called to walk into this.
Unknown: But also to start small, to start with one meal to start with one short period of time to start with that. And then to give yourself grace. Because again, this isn't about checking boxes, this isn't about keeping a perfect fasting score, this isn't about making sure that we can earn our way up to God's affection. These are these are things that are a response, God loves you, God cares for you, he sees you. And He wants you to experience His goodness, fully an integrator way. One author said we, we fast from what we can see and taste because we have tasted in seeing the goodness of the invisible God, and are desperately hungry for more of him. And that's what we're doing where we have tasted and seen the goodness of God and fasting as an opportunity to have that amplified. And so know that, yes, you will be hungry, yes, you might be irritated, yes, you might be irritating to others. But in that need, you will feel the emptiness of God and that brokenness, and you will sense the redemption of what Christ is doing in this world and that beauty in a whole new way. And fasting will bring that beauty and brokenness together in your life in a powerful, powerful way. As we wrap up, is there anything that we may have missed or anything that you would like to add to this conversation?
Unknown: Yeah, for those listening that call Christ Church, their home, would love to encourage you to check out our to the nation's focus that will run through Lent, fasting is going to be a huge portion of this focus. To the nation's is Christ's churches, yearly initiative to engage one specific population with the gospel that is either unreached with the gospel or facing significant persecution.
Unknown: And so we will be working with international leadership institute this year with a specific project to reach the Fulani people group of West and Central Africa. And one of the ways that we're doing that is through fasting. And so we're calling our congregation to fast through the season of Lent. Now both on Fridays, fasting from a meal specifically, but also through the season of Lent, giving up one specific item, whether that's social media, whether that's caffeine, whether that's alcohol, one specific item throughout the season of Lent. And then when you give up that meal, when you give up that specific item, we're asking for you to take the money that you would have spent on those things over the eight weeks and over the 40 days, and donate that towards the project. So if you give up coffee and you get a $5 drink every day at Starbucks at the end of the week, we're wanting you to make a $25 donation towards this Fulani project. And that way, your prayers and your giving will be in line with God's purposes in the world. And so you will have something direct to fast and pray towards while you're doing it. So would love for you to participate and would love for you to be a part of what God's doing among the nations. You can find more information about that on the Christ Church website at Christ Church vis.org/fulani And that's f you la in