Spiritual Disciplines: Fasting
Sermon Number 11
March 16, 2008
About two weeks ago, we were watching something on television and there was a commercial for the Olive Garden restaurant. Zachary commented “the food looks so good!” He was ready to dive in and eat another dinner. The commercial served its purpose, his mouth was watering for the great looking food. Doesn’t your imagination begin to run wild . . . you can picture getting that big Olive Garden (pictures of these foods are shown while I am talking via power point) salad, the breadsticks, maybe chicken parmigiana, or Capellini Pomodoro, with a little desert on the side. Um, you can almost taste it. Isn’t it incredible how food has such a stranglehold on us.
Of all the Spiritual Disciplines we will talk about, the one that is least practiced is fasting. On the Spiritual Discipline pre-surveys many of you completed, fasting was the discipline which was the least practiced.
That is normal, but why? Why is it we don’t practice fasting. Most people would say, ‘I could skip a meal or two and it wouldn’t hurt me.’ So, why don’t we skip that meal, not for dieting purposes, but for the purpose of growing in our relationship with Jesus Christ. It should be our everyday goal to become more and more like Christ. So, let’s see what Jesus had to say about fasting.
In Matthew 6:16-18, Jesus said, “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
Did you notice something about what Jesus said? He did not say . . . if you fast, He said, “WHEN you fast.” It was an expectation which arose from the teachings of the Old Testament. The Jewish people had a number of specific days in which they were to fast. It was expected. It is not a command, in fact, the words of Jesus just fall short of being a command. We are expecting to fast.
Also notice what Jesus said a little earlier in Matthew 6. In verses 2 and 4, Jesus said, “when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy...”
In verses 5 and 7, Jesus continued, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites . . . 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray . . .”
You see, there is an implicit expectation from God that we will pray and give. Nobody doubts that we should pray and give, we believe that is something we should be doing. Yet, in this very same section, we tend to ignore the words from Jesus, the expectation that we should fast.
And honestly speaking, it’s easier to give something and pray a little, but to fast - - to really abstain from eating food . . . ooooh . . . . how difficult that is. Just don’t watch television while you are fasting.
I mean, we see commercials that make our mouths water, because restaurants and advertisers know we can’t resist. Even sermons have commercials . . . kind of like little teasers, not really to tempt you . . . and ooooh look at that, oh man doesn’t that look good, and ooooh look at that pizza with all those pepperonis, but you need something to wash it down . . . there’s the dessert. WOW! I’m stuffed just thinking about that food. Now why did I show that food to you? (More pictures of food . . . pizza, hamburgers and dessert).
Think about how we think with our stomachs. How food becomes a god to us. What was the first temptation and sin in the Bible? What did satan tempt Adam and Eve with? Food was the means to get them to sin. He went after their hearts through their stomachs. Notice in Genesis 3:6, “Eve saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye.”
Think about the stranglehold food had over the Israelite people during the Exodus.
The Israelites were finally free and on their way to the promised land. They could care for their children. Husband and wife were together. The slavery and beatings were over. That was all behind them.
There’s no way you would ever want to go back to that kind of situation, is there? They witnessed the plagues, they were eyewitnesses to the amazing ways of God, the miracles of the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day to help them know God was with them. Nothing could bring them to want to return, was there?
Yet they were willing to reject everything God promised them and wanted to return to Egypt. Why would anyone want to return to slavery? Numbers 11:4-6 gives us the answer, “The(y) began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat! 5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. 6 But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!"
Do you hear the whining, over what? Over food. Folks, let’s understand, as much as we don’t want to admit it, food has a grasp on us, and that is a big part of the reason we don’t like to fast.
As we look at reasons for fasting, let me ask you these questions ~ ~
Do you schedule your day around eating?
Are you more likely to attend an event where there is free food?
Are you more likely to attend a pitch in than an hour of prayer?
Do you ever eat or drink to calm your nerves?
Or to alleviate fear?
Do you eat or drink for comfort?
Do you eat or drink to find joy?
Do you ever look to food in order to feel better about your day or life?
Do you ever eat, even when you are not hungry?
Frankly, I don’t like asking those questions, because I know I am guilty of saying “YES, YES, and YES” to a number of these questions. I also believe that is true for most of us. Think about how most of us act when we are hungry. We can get pretty cranky and uptight, we’re not much fun to be around.
Okay, so why fast?
When we fast, we “abstain from food for spiritual purposes”
I recently read when we “fast we lay aside any pleasurable and/or vital activity for a period of time in order to intensely pursue God and know His mind with the intent of obeying His revealed will.”
I like this second definition because it gives us a little more direction about the purpose of fasting. When we fast, our desire is to demonstrate to God we are serious about becoming closer to Him. We are the ones who always benefit from fasting. We have the desire to intensely chase after God with the purpose being we become closer to God and better understand His plan for our lives.
When I was growing up, I couldn’t wait to fast. You always knew I was a little strange. You see, growing up Jewish we were commanded to fast on the high holiday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is the holiest day for Jewish people. As a young boy, I was allowed to fast for 12 hours, until I reached 13 and had my Bar Mitzvah.
On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, my dad and I would begin our fast after eating supper. We would eat our meal, brush our teeth and go to Temple. What we did is called an Absolute Fast. This means you put nothing into your mouth, no food, no water . . . nothing. After Temple, we would come home, relax and go to sleep. The next morning we would head back to Temple, come home for a break, then go back again, until Yom Kippur ended, and we had repented for our sins, and asked God to seal us in the book of life for another year.
My dad and I would come home and break our fast together, with my mom, who usually fasted for 12 hours. We would eat breakfast at about 8 p.m. It’s amazing how much your stomach shrinks in just one day. I do have to admit, those last couple of hours in Temple were tough, my stomach was wanting food, and the minutes were ticking by ever so slowly.
WE FAST TO STRENGTHEN OUR PRAYERS
The Protestant reformer, John Calvin said, “Whenever men are to pray to God concerning any great matter it would be expedient to appoint fasting along with prayer.” When we have a major issue going on in our lives - - - maybe we’re considering a job change, we have a major medical decision to make, we have a financial or marital issue which is weighing heavily on our hearts, then in addition to prayer, we can add fasting.
The purpose of fasting is not to go on as some would say on a “spiritual hunger strike,” hoping God will give us whatever we want; the purpose of fasting is for our benefit. As we fast and pray, it changes our prayers. We come more in touch with our needs and most especially our need of God in our lives.
As Arthur Wallis said, “Fasting is calculated to bring a note of urgency and importunity into our praying, and to give force to our pleading in the court of heaven. The man who prays with fasting is giving heaven notice that he is truly in earnest; that he will not give up nor let God go without the blessing; that he does not intend to take ‘no’ for an answer.”
As Ezra was leading the Israelites to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls, we read, “There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions. . . 23 we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.”In Daniel 9:3, Daniel devoted himself to plead with God “in prayer and petition, in fasting.”
Prayer is always a vital aspect of fasting. A second purpose for fasting is ~
TO SEEK GOD’S GUIDANCE
When they were appointing elders in the church Paul and Barnabas prayed and fasted in order to receive guidance from God (Acts 14:23).
Not only does fasting give us help in strengthening our petitions to God, but they also help us become more receptive to God’s wisdom, guidance and leading in our lives. Again, one of the hazards of fasting is our attempt to manipulate God to do what we want. That is not what this is about. Fasting brings us closer to God because we have given up something so we can better understand our prayer concern and receive the wisdom we need to know what God’s will is.
We also fast in order to ~
EXPRESS GRIEF
Two ways we can express our grief through fasting occurs when we fast because our hearts have been saddened. Maybe it is an illness, a death, a significant loss in our lives; and we lay ourselves before God and seek His comfort and wisdom through a fast. When King David’s son was very ill, he fasted. In the same way, when a loved one is hurting, we can fast because of our need to petition to God.
Another form of grief is what we spoke about last week, coming through confession. When we confess our sins to God, as the Jewish people have been commanded to do in the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. We may fast and express our personal sorrow and repentance to God as we fast.
This is similar to the fast which is accomplished for the purpose of ~
EXPRESSING REPENTANCE
When we repent from our sinfulness, we not only are sorrowful, we have a desire to make things right. So, the slight difference between this type of fasting and expressing grief, is that when we repent, this should lead to changes in our lives. We should begin to take action, and fasting may help us discover God’s plan.
Fasting also helps us ~
HUMBLE OURSELVES BEFORE GOD
Sometimes we need to express our humility before God. Maybe we have had a period in our lives where we moved away from God, and we recognize the need to turn back to God. Fasting with this in mind helps us reconnect with God. It is very similar to people who get on their knees and pray. It is an act of humility, in which we are admitting God is God, and we are not.
Two final reasons to fast which I want to mention are ~
FASTING IN ORDER TO OVERCOME A TEMPTATION
There are times in our lives when we are facing difficult temptations or believe there will be temptations coming our way or to members of our family. Because of this, we may feel the need to fast. During fasts like this we recall the power and promise of the presence of Christ in our lives. We are reminded of the temptations of Jesus while He was in the desert. He fasted as a way to connect with the Father, to better understand His will and to resist the temptations of satan.
One thought about Jesus in the desert, we often assume He was at His weakest because He had not eaten for 40 days, however, I would say He was at His strongest. Now Jesus was hungry, but He had been fed by God in a spiritual way which ultimately strengthened Jesus for whatever would come His way during the desert journey.
The final purpose I want to talk about is ~
EXPRESSING LOVE and WORSHIP TO GOD through fasting
We usually think of fasting as an event which occurs when nations, cities, families and individuals are going through difficult moments in life. However, we see Anna, who “never left the Temple, but worshiped day and night, fasting and praying” (Luke 2:37).
Anna, who would bless the new born Jesus, spent year and year in the Temple praying, fasting and worshiping. Usually when we are so happy, we decide to have a party and have lots of food, but what if we had a fasting party? How many people would come. What if we had parties after the wedding and there was no food, instead, we just had prayer and singing and praising God. Think of the money you would save, not to mention the most unusual wedding in history.
Some people will skip a meal and spend that time in prayers of praise and worship to God for God being God, for Jesus, for grace; for the blessings in their lives and so on.
When we fast, it should have a spiritual purpose. Our goal should be connection with God, not wanting to impress others and be prideful or coerce God, our hope should be the experience of God.
So, as we close, what are some steps? Let me just give a couple of suggestions.
I’m going to make this pretty simple. Start with a small fast. Skip one meal, not a meal that you would not normally eat, but skip a meal, don’t tell anyone, just do it, drink plenty of water, and you will be fine.
If you have a medical condition, make sure that is taken care of, or check with a doctor to see if it is permissible for you to fast.
Then during your time of fasting, practice other Spiritual Disciplines we have talked about. When you become hungry, that has always been my time to make my requests known to God. My hunger pains are my reminder of why I am praying, I want to reconnect with God. So, when your stomach growls take a drink of water and pray. Listen to Christian music, sing, worship, dance, celebrate God’s presence in your life.
Or maybe you are trying to determine where God is in your life. So, talk to God about it, tell Him how you feel, cry out to Him, let your hunger remind you of the hunger your heart, spirit, mind and body have for God . . . of your longing to experience Him in your life.
Fasting is good for your physical body, it helps get rid of all the toxins we place in our bodies, but the greatest purpose for fasting is the help it can give us in coming closer to God.
This week is Holy week . . . today is Palm Sunday, a day of triumph and celebration, and within a week, Jesus was dead, hung on a cross because of your sins and mine. As we approach worship services this week, focus on the life of Jesus, what He did for you, how He died for you, so you would not have to face the punishment for your sins. Focus on the grace, the forgiveness offered to you through Jesus. Fast for a meal or two. Allow yourself to experience Jesus, for this week, the crucified Jesus, experience Him, know Him, embrace Him and allow Jesus to embrace you.
