SPEAKER_01: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: I am Pastor Jason.
SPEAKER_00: If you are visiting with us, we're glad that you are here to worship together with us, to open God's word.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that what was just sung is true of you, that Christ is your hope and your reward, your delight.
SPEAKER_00: And we hope that that becomes true of you in every part of your life, in every aspect of your following of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible or a device, I encourage you to open it to Matthew chapter 6 this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We have taken a couple of months off, actually, it's closer to three months now, from our study in Matthew's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to pick back up in that this morning in Matthew chapter 6, beginning in verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 6, beginning in verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is speaking here, and he says, And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.
SPEAKER_00: Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.
SPEAKER_00: But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we come and bow before you this morning, asking that by the power of your Spirit the things of this life, the things of this week, would be set aside, and at least for these few moments you would be our delight and our reward.
SPEAKER_00: To have our spiritual lives be awakened, perhaps even renewed this morning by your word.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: In my original preaching calendar planning, this passage fell the Sunday after Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: That may have been very appropriate for those of us who gorged ourselves over the holidays.
SPEAKER_00: But in our final planning, it worked out better to have this passage on fasting come up today.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's actually helpful in order to get away from the holiday time period when we do stuff our faces too much so that we can properly understand what Jesus is saying here and not get so focused on just food.
SPEAKER_00: Because his focus here is not simply about refraining from eating.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get into that in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Before we get there, we want to consider a little bit what the Lord has to say in the whole context of the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_00: Let's review a little bit since it's been a while.
SPEAKER_00: If we go back to the beginning of chapter 5, especially chapter 5 in the very first verse, we are reminded that Jesus is sitting on a hillside, on a mountainside, and immediately surrounding him and right in front of him are his twelve disciples.
SPEAKER_00: This sermon is to his disciples, it is to those who are following him intimately.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, this sermon, if you call yourself a Christian, is to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's to me.
SPEAKER_00: And then beyond those disciples, that ring of followers are the crowds gathered, hearing what Jesus has to say.
SPEAKER_00: So his intention is to his disciples, but he knows all along there are going to be other people who are going to be hearing what he has to say.
SPEAKER_00: With that in mind, we see the intention of his sermon in chapter 5, verse 20, where he says, I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds, unless it goes beyond that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Greater righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Something more is needed to be right with God.
SPEAKER_00: That's an astounding statement in first century Judaism.
SPEAKER_00: Common belief was that everyone who followed the rules of Judaism properly was good with God.
SPEAKER_00: They had their way in, their passport to heaven was stamped and ready to go.
SPEAKER_00: And the Pharisees were the gold standard of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone could see how sold out for God they were.
SPEAKER_00: And the Pharisees loved to show off.
SPEAKER_00: They loved to show off their spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus then showed up to put a stop to that.
SPEAKER_00: You know how little boys like to show off?
SPEAKER_00: Older boys like to show off too.
SPEAKER_00: Grown men like to show off.
SPEAKER_00: When I was about eight or ten years old, I really can't remember exactly when it was.
SPEAKER_00: One fall night.
SPEAKER_00: You know, one of those, one of those nights where it's it's warm still in the fall and in the evening, and you just love being outside, but it's starting to get dark early.
SPEAKER_00: We were at church that night.
SPEAKER_00: I it's probably a Wednesday night, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: There was something musically going on on Sunday, and my my mom and my dad were there as part of the practice for that music.
SPEAKER_00: And the the adults were all inside the church practicing their music.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, that meant that all the kids were outside, right?
SPEAKER_00: Enjoying the fall evening.
SPEAKER_00: One of the little girls that was there with us had brought her bicycle.
SPEAKER_00: And so we boys found a wooden box, probably about probably about that tall, two feet by two feet, something like that.
SPEAKER_00: We found a wooden box and we turned it upside down and set it on the sidewalk.
SPEAKER_00: And then we found a piece of plywood.
SPEAKER_00: And we set that piece of plywood up on that box and made a ramp, right?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you guys are nodding, you know exactly what I'm talking about, right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that little girl didn't get her bicycle the rest of the evening because the boys took turns riding the bicycle over that ramp, having all kinds of fun, right?
SPEAKER_00: And as we did that, we were showing off.
SPEAKER_00: We were doing the best that we could do, get as high as we could get, or as far as we could get, or whatever the case might be.
SPEAKER_00: We took turns all evening.
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea how long it was.
SPEAKER_00: But as the evening progressed, you know, as fall evenings do, they get darker earlier and quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Well, this was on the side of the block that didn't have a light on the side of the road.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I don't even think there was a light pole at the corner of the block.
SPEAKER_00: I think it was on the far corner of the block.
SPEAKER_00: So it was, it was really pretty dark.
SPEAKER_00: And it came my turn again to show off, and so I was intent on doing just that.
SPEAKER_00: I got on the bicycle, and the bicycle was one of those, not the not the old kind of banana seat, but the the newer kind of banana seat that was about this thick and was really soft, and so if you if you landed hard, it didn't hurt at all.
SPEAKER_00: So we were just going crazy, and I went as fast as I possibly could.
SPEAKER_00: I probably backed up to the very corner of the block and got going as far and as fast as I possibly could towards that ramp.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that went on all night long, and this one point it was my turn, and and Jesus decided that I'd shown off enough.
SPEAKER_00: I took off down the sidewalk, but in the darkness, I didn't know that the piece of plywood that served as the ramp had fallen off the box.
SPEAKER_00: No one no one knew until I got up off the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Hit that box right right on.
SPEAKER_00: And I really don't know what happened after that.
SPEAKER_00: All I know is that when I got up off the ground, I was really hurting.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm really surprised that I didn't I didn't break something.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I I could hardly move my arm.
SPEAKER_00: My shoulder was just hurt, hurting like nothing else I'd ever experienced.
SPEAKER_00: I was limping.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I I knew I knew later that I had skinned my knee and skinned the back of my shoulder.
SPEAKER_00: The back of my shoulder, folks.
SPEAKER_00: Surprisingly, I didn't tear my clothes.
SPEAKER_00: So, as far as I know, my parents never found out.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my parents knew everything, so they probably did find out and just didn't say anything to me, but that would be a surprise.
SPEAKER_00: Believe me if if they didn't say anything.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but but that wasn't the only thing.
SPEAKER_00: Well, when I when I got up, we realized that the bicycle wasn't the same.
SPEAKER_00: The steering wheel or the the handlebars and the front tire weren't were not aligned anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't our bicycle.
SPEAKER_00: So another boy and I, we you know worked really hard to get that fixed really quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Um don't know how well that bicycle worked after that, I can't remember.
SPEAKER_00: All I can remember was that that hurt really badly.
SPEAKER_00: That hurt really, really badly.
SPEAKER_00: You know, fasting has gained popularity in the last few decades, mostly for health reasons.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, there was a recent study published in the New England uh journal for medicine.
SPEAKER_00: It was picked up and published by uh a large news organization, and they published this this news organization organization published this article on December 26th, the day after Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: And the article was entitled, quote, Fasting Diets May Add Years to Your Life as well as help you lose weight, study suggests.
SPEAKER_00: Great headline for the day after Christmas, right?
SPEAKER_00: The article stated that new research suggests that people who use the trendy new diets that involve intermittent fasting may actually be adding years to their lives.
SPEAKER_00: It's a new study by Johns Hopkins University that was published in the Journal of Medicine.
SPEAKER_00: It demonstrated that fasting occasionally for at least eight hours at a time or for up to two days may improve your body's metabolism.
SPEAKER_00: So that, you know, all good and fine stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And then the article added a caveat from the lead doctor.
SPEAKER_00: But it usually passes after two to week two weeks to a month as the body and brain become accustomed to the new habits.
SPEAKER_00: Fasting.
SPEAKER_00: Judaism was fasting.
SPEAKER_00: It was part of their religion.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus came along and said, Stop showing off.
SPEAKER_00: Stop showing off.
SPEAKER_00: What is fasting?
SPEAKER_00: Fasting is very simply abstaining from physical desires.
SPEAKER_00: But when we see fasting in the pages of Scripture, it is always abstaining for spiritual purposes.
SPEAKER_00: You will never find fasting for dietary reasons in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some might object to the Daniel fast, but that wasn't really a dietary fast.
SPEAKER_00: That was a religious fast because of the implications of eating the particular foods that Daniel wanted to abstain from.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the fasting today, though, is directed towards the health benefits.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we hear about.
SPEAKER_00: We hear very little about the spiritual side of abstaining.
SPEAKER_00: We can fast from any number of things, from food to electronic devices to all kinds of elements.
SPEAKER_00: The internet, books, anything.
SPEAKER_00: Now, throughout history, fasting has been used for religious purposes, for political purposes, even for health reasons.
SPEAKER_00: And some will argue that fasting is a key part of curing whatever ails you.
SPEAKER_00: Mark Twain even wrote about it.
SPEAKER_00: His article was picked up by three different newspapers.
SPEAKER_00: He wrote that fasting, very much like Johns Hopkins' saying, is good for whatever ails you.
SPEAKER_00: Mark Twain said that it was a cure for the common cold.
SPEAKER_00: So there's nothing new with what we're hearing today.
SPEAKER_00: And many of you from liturgical backgrounds have experience in things like Lenten fasts and other kinds of religious fasts.
SPEAKER_00: But when we understand the biblical intent of fasting, we need to first grasp that it's probably inappropriate for us to apply it to merely food.
SPEAKER_00: So we need to understand that when the Bible talks about it, it talks about it in terms of food.
SPEAKER_00: But when we apply it to your life and to my life, it could be applied to many different areas of life.
SPEAKER_00: It will become clear to us that we can fast from any number of things because fasting is designed to enable us to focus on spiritual matters and to do so more effectively.
SPEAKER_00: Now, fasting from food may be more effective given our need for it.
SPEAKER_00: We need food.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need your phone.
SPEAKER_00: We need food.
SPEAKER_00: We don't need other things.
SPEAKER_00: While fasting may be engaged in for a variety of purposes, in Scripture it is uniquely applied to spiritual reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Fasting in the Bible is almost entirely connected with a relationship with God, enabling the person who fasts to work towards and to desire a deeper and more connected relationship to God, to God's desires for us and as his followers.
SPEAKER_00: But even more than that, to a distancing, a breaking of the relationship that we often have with sinful desires and sinful passions that will take us away from God.
SPEAKER_00: So when we find people in the annals of Scripture fasting, they are purposely avoiding food.
SPEAKER_00: But they're doing that in order to focus on God and their relationship to Him.
SPEAKER_00: We might say, if we can simplify it, that fasting is intended to bring richness to a person's faith.
SPEAKER_00: Fasting is intended to bring richness to a person's faith.
SPEAKER_00: And remember that in this Sermon on the Mount, Jesus isn't grasping at straws.
SPEAKER_00: He isn't guessing at what people might be interested in hearing.
SPEAKER_00: He's not taking a guess to see, hey, what might draw more listeners today?
SPEAKER_00: His inclusion of fasting is intentional.
SPEAKER_00: This is the third spiritual activity or spiritual discipline that was common in New Testament Judaism.
SPEAKER_00: We notice the first in Jesus' teaching on giving in verses 2 through 4.
SPEAKER_00: And then the second is prayer in verses 5 through 15.
SPEAKER_00: And so now we have the third spiritual discipline that is fasting.
SPEAKER_00: Those three activities were an integral part of religious life in Judaism in Jesus' day.
SPEAKER_00: So taken together, Jesus makes strong points about the common spiritual activities of the time.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the truth that he wants to communicate.
SPEAKER_00: Stop showing off.
SPEAKER_00: As we saw with the giving in prayer, Jesus assumes that his disciples will participate.
SPEAKER_00: He says, and when you fast, and when you fast.
SPEAKER_00: But he does not want them to fast in the way that they commonly do.
SPEAKER_00: See, the typical means of giving and praying and even fasting was to do so in a way that gained attention.
SPEAKER_00: Any mode of giving of your resources or of praying that enabled others to witness, to see your spirituality to show off was declared to be sinful and hypocritical by the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't bring you closer to God.
SPEAKER_00: And any good spiritual discipline, any honorable part of your following of Jesus can be substituted for those three items.
SPEAKER_00: If you serve in a Sunday school class or maybe in the children's ministry, if you help serve a fellowship meal, or maybe help clean up after the fellowship meal, and you do that in order to be noticed by other people, then you're showing off.
SPEAKER_00: And it only serves to promote your pride and turn you into a hypocrite.
SPEAKER_00: If you support the Lord's work with your resources, whether it be your finances or your time or your energy, and you do so intending to be noticed, to gain attention, then you're performing the work of a hypocrite.
SPEAKER_00: You're setting yourself up for praise and you are stealing the glory that belongs to God alone.
SPEAKER_00: And so in this third spiritual discipline, Jesus says, that is true of fasting.
SPEAKER_00: If you go about looking glum or complaining to everyone you come in contact with about not being able to eat today, or about not being able to use the internet because you can't use your phone, or whatever the form of fasting is, then you're not doing it for godly purposes.
SPEAKER_00: You're doing it for selfish reasons.
SPEAKER_00: You're showing off.
SPEAKER_00: And if that's what we're doing, sooner or later Jesus will come along and pull out the ramp.
SPEAKER_00: Say you're ready for a wake-up call.
SPEAKER_00: Fasting is found in the Bible, but you might ask, is it a good thing?
SPEAKER_00: Is it a positive thing?
SPEAKER_00: Because here Jesus kind of lays it out there, it might not be a positive thing.
SPEAKER_00: So what do we see in the pages of Scripture?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we see some strange uses, actually.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees here, in some sense, are employing it to prove their spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout the course of earth history, fasting has been used as a means of rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: So some might wonder, does God approve of it?
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's look and see what God has to say.
SPEAKER_00: Got several passages here.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to write these down and study them later, you can.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have time to look at them in depth, so just run through them fairly quickly.
SPEAKER_00: We find in the book of Judges, chapter 20, that fasting was implemented as part of civil war.
SPEAKER_00: Civil war.
SPEAKER_00: In Judges chapter 20, verse 26, the people of Israel have just returned from a battle against their own people in which they killed 18,000 of their own people.
SPEAKER_00: And they come and they gathered together, and it says, All the people, the whole army went up and came to Bethal and wept.
SPEAKER_00: They sat there before the Lord and fasted that day until evening.
SPEAKER_00: They offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You're familiar with Hannah, I'm sure, Samuel's mother.
SPEAKER_00: She was married to a man named El Canah, but El Cana had a second wife.
SPEAKER_00: That second wife was very cruel to Hannah.
SPEAKER_00: And this happened year after year after year, Samuel chapter 1 tells us.
SPEAKER_00: And every year they went up to the temple to worship.
SPEAKER_00: And every year the sister wife used to provoke Hannah.
SPEAKER_00: It says Hannah wept and she would not eat.
SPEAKER_00: She fasted.
SPEAKER_00: She was so torn inside, so hurt, so pained that she refused to eat.
SPEAKER_00: That's connected perhaps to fasting during a time of grief.
SPEAKER_00: In 2 Samuel chapter 3, there's a man by the name of Abner that was killed, murdered, by David's general, Joab, even though David did not want that to happen.
SPEAKER_00: So David was grieving.
SPEAKER_00: People came to David to persuade him to eat, and he said, No, God do so to me.
SPEAKER_00: May God kill me if I eat anything before the sun goes down.
SPEAKER_00: That may be what David was referring to in Psalm 35.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about his enemies in Psalm 35, and he says, Listen, when my enemies were sick, I went about grieving.
SPEAKER_00: I put sackcloth on myself.
SPEAKER_00: I afflicted myself with fasting.
SPEAKER_00: I prayed with my chest, my head bowed to my chest.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Listen, I employed fasting as part of my grief when my enemies were sick.
SPEAKER_00: David also fasted when his own son was sick.
SPEAKER_00: You are familiar with this story, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_00: You remember when David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then murdered her husband to sort of cover it up, and God came along and said, uh-uh, David, not going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: David ended up marrying Bathsheba.
SPEAKER_00: She conceived from that adulterous relationship, and God said, David, that son is going to die.
SPEAKER_00: Son was born, and David sought God on behalf of the child, and David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: His grief and his in his in his pursuit of God to do something differently, to change his mind.
SPEAKER_00: David's fast ended when the child died.
SPEAKER_00: There's another fast in Esther chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Esther was encouraged by her relative Mordecai to go into the king of Persia to rescue the Jewish people who were about to be wiped out.
SPEAKER_00: She couldn't do that legally unless the king offered her an invitation.
SPEAKER_00: So she told her relative, go out and tell everyone in the city to hold a fast on my behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Do not eat or even drink for three days, night or day.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll do the same.
SPEAKER_00: Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of dangerous activities, there was a time when Israel was threatened as a nation.
SPEAKER_00: So there was a national fast declared by King Jehoshaphat.
SPEAKER_00: He was afraid.
SPEAKER_00: So he set his face to seek the Lord and he proclaimed a fast throughout all the land, seeking God's help.
SPEAKER_00: Fasting also was a sign of repentance and submission to God in 1 Kings 21.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of King Ahab, Ahab was probably the worst of the worst of all of the kings of Israel, all the kings of Judah and Israel combined.
SPEAKER_00: The worst king to ever live, evil beyond measure.
SPEAKER_00: And God finally said, I've had enough.
SPEAKER_00: And he sent a prophet to Ahab and said, I'm about to bring judgment on you for your evil.
SPEAKER_00: And Ahab repented.
SPEAKER_00: He said, When he heard God's words of judgment, he tore his clothes, he put on sackcloth, and he fasted.
SPEAKER_00: And he went about dejectedly.
SPEAKER_00: And God sent the prophet back to Ahab.
SPEAKER_00: And God said to the prophet, Do you see how Ahab has responded to me?
SPEAKER_00: He has humbled himself in repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Fasting is a sign of repentance.
SPEAKER_00: It's also a sign of humility.
SPEAKER_00: The primary passage in the Old Testament for fasting is Leviticus 23.
SPEAKER_00: This is where Israel was commanded to have a fast on the Day of Atonement, where God would make atonement for the sins of the entire nation on that one day.
SPEAKER_00: The one day where the high priest would be allowed to go into the inner sanctum of the temple, of the tabernacle, the holy of holies.
SPEAKER_00: God said that day is to be a holy gathering, a holy fellowship time, a holy convocation.
SPEAKER_00: And on that day you're going to fellowship together by afflicting yourselves, presenting a food offering to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Remember how David in Psalm 35 said that he afflicted himself by fasting?
SPEAKER_00: Very similar situation here.
SPEAKER_00: They humbled themselves by afflicting themselves with no food.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they gave their food as an offering to their God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: What about the New Testament?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we've already seen in our study of Matthew and Matthew chapter 4, and it's paralleled in Luke 4, that Jesus fasted when he was out in the desert.
SPEAKER_00: He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.
SPEAKER_00: Not going to do that one.
SPEAKER_00: He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.
SPEAKER_00: There's another one in the Christmas story in Luke chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: Near the end of that account in Luke 2, they are in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus and Mary and Joseph are in the temple, and they come across a woman named Anna, and it says of Anna that she didn't leave the temple.
SPEAKER_00: She spent all of her time worshiping and fasting with prayer day and night.
SPEAKER_00: Then we get to the early church.
SPEAKER_00: In Acts chapter 13, we see the early church fasting in connection with decision making.
SPEAKER_00: It says they were worshiping the Lord and fasting.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that connection, that link between worship and fasting.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to come back to that in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I've called them.
SPEAKER_00: There's God making a decision and saying, To that church, do this while they are fasting.
SPEAKER_00: A little bit later in the next chapter, in chapter 14 of Acts, when the church had appointed elders with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
SPEAKER_00: So there is the assumption here in Matthew 6 that disciples will fast.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing else said about it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just there's this assumption that fasting is a normal part of spiritual disciplines and that Jesus' followers will incorporate that into their spiritual life.
SPEAKER_00: But that was a very common part of New Testament Judaism.
SPEAKER_00: But as we look throughout the Bible and we see the Old Testament and the New Testament together, it seems that Jesus' own statement shows that fasting is understood to be a normal part of the relationship between God and his people.
SPEAKER_00: However, we need to notice that there is not a New Testament command given to the church to fast.
SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: The only time there is a command to fast is given to Israel in Leviticus 23 on the Day of Atonement.
SPEAKER_00: There is no command for you or for me to fast, and some of us are saying, thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So as we think about that, what do we do with that?
SPEAKER_00: How do we walk away from this passage on fasting changed today?
SPEAKER_00: Like, thought and prayed about this and came up with some principles that I think we need to consider.
SPEAKER_00: The first principle is that fasting is not commanded, but it can indeed be incorporated as an integral part of our following of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You can fast, and it can be a part of your walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There's a book called The Didiche, it's an ancient book.
SPEAKER_00: It was in place in the local church from sometime around 100 A.D.
SPEAKER_00: and on.
SPEAKER_00: The Didiche simply means the teaching.
SPEAKER_00: And in that book, Christians were encouraged to fast on Wednesday and on Friday, on Wednesday and on Friday, in order to be different from the Jewish hypocrites who fasted on Tuesday and Thursday.
SPEAKER_00: If you just switch your days, you're okay.
SPEAKER_00: But that aside, that tells us that even though we don't have a lot of information about fasting in the early church, that one book tells us that it was considered to be a normal part of Christianity, of following Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And since, especially in the book of Acts, fasting is connected with significant decision making and spiritual issues within the local church, we can be assured that it plays an important part in the life of the church, in our gathering together, in our worship together, in our spiritual lives.
SPEAKER_00: Fasting reminds us that we do not live for our appetites.
SPEAKER_00: We don't live for our appetites.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, we're to be self-controlled and subdue those appetites in order to pursue Christ.
SPEAKER_00: To pursue Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, fasting in and of itself is between the individual and God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: It is up to you.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's no command for us to follow, it's your decision as to whether or not you participate in fasting as part of your walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The pattern in Jesus' time was much like it was for giving and prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Make sure you know what you're doing and make sure that you let everybody else know what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: For fasting, that meant be as grumpy and as grouchy as you can be on the day you're fasting.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted everyone to know how spiritual they were.
SPEAKER_00: They were showing off when they were fasting.
SPEAKER_00: So they did what they did whatever it took to be noticed.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we put that into our modern context, what might that look like?
SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe it would look like this: on the day that you choose to fast, don't shower.
SPEAKER_00: That's right, don't bathe.
SPEAKER_00: Don't fix your hair.
SPEAKER_00: Don't wash your face.
SPEAKER_00: Ladies, don't put on makeup.
SPEAKER_00: Don't brush your teeth.
SPEAKER_00: And by all means, don't put on clean clothes.
SPEAKER_00: Make it look bad.
SPEAKER_00: Make it look like you are suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Then people will know that you are fasting, and of course, they'll know that you're a spiritual person.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you need to do.
SPEAKER_00: We're good at that, aren't we?
SPEAKER_00: If we know that there's something that we ought to be doing, but we don't really in our heart of hearts want to be doing it, we'll go along with it and then be as grouchy and as grumpy as we can be, won't we?
SPEAKER_00: We'll do it, but we're not going to be happy while we're doing it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells us here that fasting or or giving or praying or any spiritual discipline that you pursue in that way only builds up your pride and leads you to hypocrisy.
SPEAKER_00: If you're doing your spiritual life so that others will notice, then your actions are not genuine.
SPEAKER_00: They're prideful, they're self-centered, and they do nothing for your spiritual life.
SPEAKER_00: But remember, let's not just limit it to praying and giving and fasting.
SPEAKER_00: Those are just the primary elements of first century Judaism.
SPEAKER_00: True fasting is abstinence from food or anything else that might hinder your walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's abstaining from it in a way that only you and God know about it.
SPEAKER_00: There's to be nothing showy about it.
SPEAKER_00: If it makes you feel better for someone else to know how much you're suffering because you're not eating food today, or if you want everybody else to know how grumpy you are because you haven't used your phone in three hours, you're doing it wrong.
SPEAKER_00: At best, you're participating in hypocrisy, and at worst, you are a hypocrite.
SPEAKER_00: Starting to feel Jesus pull away that ramp a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Next principle eating is lawful, but not all eating is helpful.
SPEAKER_00: This comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 12, where the apostle Paul says, Listen, everything's lawful for me, but not everything's helpful.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm not going to let myself be enslaved by anything.
SPEAKER_00: You see, eating is good.
SPEAKER_00: God created food and he created us to eat.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
SPEAKER_00: He told Peter, remember when he let down the sheet of all the unclean animals filled with?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Peter, get up there, kill and eat.
SPEAKER_00: It was the first barbecue.
SPEAKER_00: It's biblical and it's good to eat.
SPEAKER_00: It's a way to celebrate God's sovereign provision and to praise his kingship, to declare his rule and authority over all the world.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, it's good and biblical to not eat.
SPEAKER_00: See, the intention with fasting relates to self-control.
SPEAKER_00: Apostle Paul wrote, I will not be enslaved by anything.
SPEAKER_00: As human beings, we get into ruts and habits that begin to control us.
SPEAKER_00: We do, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Eating is good and appropriate.
SPEAKER_00: But if it comes to the point where we are enslaved to it, then it ceases to be helpful.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a time when information is right at our fingerprint, fingertips, but we can become enslaved to our phones, to the games on our phones, to video game machines, to tablets, to internet, to whatever might be out there in our world today that they didn't have in the first century.
SPEAKER_00: That can apply to everything in our lives, not just food.
SPEAKER_00: God has given us many blessings.
SPEAKER_00: From food to friends and television to telephones, but we can become enslaved by anything, can't we?
SPEAKER_00: It's then that fasting in regards to that item may become even more important.
SPEAKER_00: What has mastered you?
SPEAKER_00: To what are you enslaved?
SPEAKER_00: Now don't give me that the line I can quit any time I want.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: To what are you enslaved?
SPEAKER_00: Fasting is abstaining from something that is good and helpful and proper for a time.
SPEAKER_00: Are you mastered by your family?
SPEAKER_00: Are you enslaved to financial stability?
SPEAKER_00: Are you enslaved to a clean house?
SPEAKER_00: Are you enslaved to obedient kids?
SPEAKER_00: Those are all good things, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00: Those are all good things in and of themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They're helpful things, they're righteous things, but good things can take over and become ultimate things, can't they?
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps then it's time for a fast to bring about the fruit of the Spirit, especially self-control for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Douglas O'Donnell said it like this I do not live for my appetites, my physical appetites, my sexual appetites, my material appetites.
SPEAKER_00: My brothers and sisters in Christ, as Christians, our appetite is to be for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He is to be our first and our greatest desire.
SPEAKER_00: Fasting can help break the idols of our earthly appetites and redirect them to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the Puritans called fasting soul fattening.
SPEAKER_00: It fattens the soul because it increases your hunger and your thirst for God.
SPEAKER_00: For what do you hunger and thirst?
SPEAKER_00: Fasting is about self-control.
SPEAKER_00: Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5.
SPEAKER_00: And the Holy Spirit can use fasting to develop the discipline of our bodies through self-control.
SPEAKER_00: You might remember what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I don't run around aimlessly.
SPEAKER_00: That's what my son does.
SPEAKER_00: He's got more energy than an energizer bunny.
SPEAKER_00: He runs around aimlessly.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't run aimlessly.
SPEAKER_00: I don't box as one just beating the air.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I discipline my body and I keep it under control so that I don't disqualify myself.
SPEAKER_00: See, fasting, whether it be from food, cell phones, computers, books, friends, family, television, or the internet, the practice of saying no to the things that we desire works to weaken that item's hold on us.
SPEAKER_00: And it is then a way to discipline our body and keep it under control.
SPEAKER_00: Working to discipline our bodies, even through fasting, then becomes a weapon in our pursuit of God.
SPEAKER_00: It becomes a weapon against sin.
SPEAKER_00: It becomes a weapon for use in our fight for faith.
SPEAKER_00: The practice of disciplining our bodies is a way to ensure that the good things God has given by His grace do not become a snare in our spiritual lives.
SPEAKER_00: Someone has said that fasting prevents luxuries from becoming necessities.
SPEAKER_00: Fasting is also meant to starve sin, not us.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't say fast because I don't want you to have something.
SPEAKER_00: If it directs us away from him to ourselves or to the praise of other people, then it becomes unhelpful.
SPEAKER_00: It's meant to starve sin, not to starve us.
SPEAKER_00: Properly utilized and directed, fasting begins to build your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That means that it's directed against the sinful attitudes and passions that we have in this world toward good things, and directed instead towards God to increase the depth of our faith in Him, the sincerity that we want to have in our faith towards Him, as opposed to building up our relationship with the object of our passions.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna finish with this.
SPEAKER_00: Fasting is part of our worship.
SPEAKER_00: Comes from Romans 14, 6.
SPEAKER_00: Apostle Paul says some people might choose to worship on this day, and some people might choose to worship on this day, some people might choose to have a celebration on this day, and some people might choose to have a celebration on this day.
SPEAKER_00: Well, whoever does that observes the day in honor of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, the person who chooses to eat eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I love to worship through fellowship dinners.
SPEAKER_00: Especially if there's meat.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever thought about worshiping through fasting?
SPEAKER_00: Worship through fasting.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we we talk on our Sunday mornings about we worship through singing, and the same way we worship through prayer and we worship through the study of God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: Those are all aspects of our worship.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever thought about worshiping through fasting?
SPEAKER_00: When we worship through fasting, we display that God is supreme, not the object from which we're abstaining.
SPEAKER_00: It directs our thoughts heavenward, and we turn to worship the Creator rather than the thing that He has created.
SPEAKER_00: Now, with any aspect of worship, fasting can be done for the wrong reasons, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus speaks against here.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, worship through your fasting.
SPEAKER_00: But greater righteousness fasts for God, not the approval of other people.
SPEAKER_00: If you fast from anything for the approval of other people, then pretty soon the Lord's gonna come along and he's gonna take away the ramp and you're gonna smack right into the box.
SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna wake up and realize you're full of hypocrisy.
SPEAKER_00: See, greater righteousness doesn't show off.
SPEAKER_00: And if you show off, be sure that Jesus will show up.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes he'll point out to you the truth of fasting.
SPEAKER_00: He will show up and he will remove the ramp of your success.
SPEAKER_00: If you if you for some reason decide that fasting is not for you, you decide that fasting is not to be a part of your spiritual life, remember that's between you and God.
SPEAKER_00: If you decide that fasting is not a part of your spiritual life, then make sure that you are doing that not for the praise of other people, but for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And if you choose to not fast, make sure that you evaluate the other parts of your spiritual service of worship and make sure that they are done properly.
SPEAKER_00: If you do choose to fast as part of your spiritual walk, praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Do it for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Do it for him and for him alone.
SPEAKER_00: Because as we started our service, it's to him alone that all the glory belongs.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, help us.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Lord, we're all selfish, self-centered.
SPEAKER_00: We can so easily take the good things that you have given us and turn them upside down.
SPEAKER_00: We confess that sin.
SPEAKER_00: And we ask that by the help of your spirit, you would you would help us to recognize the motives of our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: That we would be people who have new hearts, hearts that have your word written upon them, and that desire to have your spirit developing fruit within us that brings glory to you.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this for your praise.
SPEAKER_00: Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_01: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.