Good morning. We are continuing our series called Learning to Live Like Jesus. A series that is based on the extended passage known as the Sermon on the Mount. The past few weeks, we have been looking at chapter 6 that really speaks of the obstacles to living life in the kingdom. A few weeks ago, we talked about the biggest obstacle that comes into play is the idea that sometimes we tend to do spiritual practice in order to be seen by man rather than by God. A few weeks ago, Austin talked about the need that some people have to do their works of service for others to see. Last week, I talked about how some people pray in public in order to be seen. This week, we are going to talk about the topic of fasting. People sometimes fast in order to be seen by God. I had thought about actually skipping over this passage because I think we have to shorten the series, but I also realized that for many people fasting is a foreign concept. We live in a culture that is all about instant gratification. So something like fasting almost seems like an ancient relic from the past. As I thought about it, I thought this is something I should probably preach on because sometimes because of the fact we don’t practice fasting enough some people are living flat or they are stuck in their spiritual life. The reality is that Jesus fasted so we should fast. Jesus understood the importance of fasting when it came to spiritual warfare, and he also understood the importance of fasting when it came to intimacy with God. I would like to have somebody read through the first couple passages today, which is from the book of Matthew 6:16-18. (Scripture read here.)
As we can see, this passage is about fasting. Since fasting is such a foreign concept, I thought I would like to shed some light on this idea of fasting and, hopefully, more importantly, that some of you would actually begin to take the practice of fasting and incorporate it into your spiritual life or what we refer to around here as your rhythm or your rule of life. As we begin, we need to come up with a working definition of fasting. Fasting is simply to deprive oneself of food for spiritual purposes. At its purest sense, fasting is really just depriving yourself of food. We know that although fasting isn’t really trendy in culture, there are certain people that believe fasting does have some health benefits to it. I did a little bit of reading. I am by no means an expert. But some suggest that periodic fasting can help reduce the risk of diabetes, high cholesterol, and even cancer. Not to mention the possible weight loss that comes through it. But just as the world focuses on fasting for health purposes, the intent of the Christian is to focus on fasting for spiritual purposes. We know that there are some health benefits that could come through fasting, but we also know that our primary objective is not the physical health benefits but really the spiritual health benefits that come to our soul. In case you were wondering, there is no New Testament passage that commands us to fast, but there is a lot of biblical precedence for it. In fact, the first three words of today’s passage assume that we will fast. It starts out by saying “When you fast.” If you were here a few weeks ago, one of the passages started out “When you give to the needy” the assumption was you would give to the needy. Last week we talked about the idea of how it began with “When you pray” the assumption was Jesus’ disciples would pray. Today, when it starts out “When you fast” there is an assumption that the disciples would engage in fasting. It was not whether you fast or not. It was really all about the intention. What was the heart motive behind the fast? As we see, the heart motive behind the fast for the Jewish people was to be seen by men. The passage goes on to read “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men that they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.” Again, we see these guys doing it for show. I was reading one commentary that suggested they were doing it for the people in the gallery. They were treating the fast, a spiritual and sacred practice, as really a performance. When Jesus says “they have received their reward in full” what he is really suggesting is that they fasted in order to receive the applause and approval of men. That was the reward they were seeking and that was the reward they got. Little did they know, when they took that reward, they were giving up on a reward that maybe God had intended for them. There is a basic assumption that the disciples were intended to fast when they were with Jesus and really even on after Jesus left and right up to today. We see a biblical precedent just as we saw a biblical precedent for the need to give to the needy. We saw a biblical precedent for prayer. We also see a biblical precedent for fasting.
Although we can’t pinpoint when in history fasting began, some suggest that fasting can be traced all the way back to the beginning of man. Really back to the garden. For those of you who are familiar with the book of Genesis, you know that the first commandment in the book of Genesis has to do with food. In Genesis 2:16-17 God says to Adam and Eve “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Granted, it does not say in here that you are going to conduct a fast, but I think we could make a pretty good case that that is exactly what they were doing. Initially, they were willing to deprive themselves of food. They were willing to deprive themselves of really good food. We see later that the fruit on that tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye. They were really doing it for spiritual purposes to be able to remain in fellowship with God. If that isn’t a spiritual purpose, I don’t know what is. So again, we could make a case that that first command had to do with fasting. We know as the story goes Adam and Eve broke the command. They ate the forbidden fruit and literally all hell broke loose and sin entered the world. They were kicked out of the garden.
But listen to this. This was one thing I read this week that I thought was very interesting. A perspective I never took on fasting. Some suggest that just as the unwillingness to fast and being disobedient to God was the cause of Adam and Eve getting kicked out of the garden, some suggest that fasting and the willingness to abstain from food today in obedience to God is what is going to restore our relationship back to God and back to the garden. The garden being the kingdom of God. What I am saying in a nutshell is that some suggest that fasting along with things like prayer and worship have the tendency to reverse the effects of the fall. If that isn’t a good enough reason to fast, I don’t know what is. Whether you buy into that reason for fasting or not, you cannot deny the reality that fasting has been a part of the Bible since the beginning of history. There were so many verses in the Old Testament. I started to list the verses and there were just too many. I had to just summarize a few. One in particular is you think of the prophet Ezra who was bringing his people back from Babylon going back to the homeland of Israel. He had a long way to travel and he had all these possessions. He had his family and his tribe. He was so worried something might happen and he wanted to keep them safe, so he prayed and fasted. Some of you are familiar with the story of Nehemiah. We went through his whole story a few years back. Nehemiah was upset because the temple was rebuilt but the walls surrounding the temple had been destroyed. They were in ruins. They were leaving themselves exposed to the mockery and the attack of their enemies. Then you have the king do Nineveh where Jonah went to talk about their sin and evangelize. The king of Nineveh was so worried about the wrath of God that he called all the people and even the animals to pray and have a period of fasting. Then you have later on the prophet Joel. He was the one who was grieving over the sins of the people and desired so much that there would be a revival that he prayed and fasted. There are a lot more stories like that in the Old Testament.
The practice of fasting extends well into the New Testament. One particular passage that I like, because it really shows the necessity of fasting especially when you are engaged in spiritual warfare, comes out of the book of Matthew about chapter 17. There was a man who had a little boy and the boy was having seizures and apparently demon-possessed. The man brings this little boy to Jesus so Jesus would deliver that boy from the demon. The man had brought him to the disciples and the disciples could not cast the demon out. Jesus being Jesus rebukes the demon and the demon flies out and the boy is healed. Apparently, the disciples are watching this and wondering what is going on here? Why couldn’t we cast the demon out? They say to Jesus “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” And Jesus replied “Because you have so little faith.” If you are familiar with this story you know that he goes on to talk about the idea that if you have faith as little as a mustard seed, nothing is impossible with God. But then he adds a little disclaimer here. He adds a qualifier that suggests that in order to deal with these types of situations you really have to be pretty spiritually fit. He goes on to say “But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” That is Matthew 17:21. If you read from the NIV translation you may notice that there is no verse 17:21 in your translation. It goes from 20 to 22. There is a reason for that. Some translators suggest that since this phrase was not in the original ancient scrolls, they aren’t sure if it belongs there. It wasn’t in the earliest scrolls. Whether Matthew intended it to be there or not, we do know that probably the Holy Spirit doesn’t mind it being there. Because the Holy Spirit understood the importance of not only faith but faith coupled with prayer and fasting in order to cast out demons or spiritual strongholds.
I think most of you would accept the fact that faith and prayer go together. The passage in Hebrews 11 says that faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see. Prayer requires a faith in confidence that the heavenly Father is there listening to your prayers. Faith and prayer pretty much go hand in hand. You may say where does fasting come in? There was a man named Andrew Murray. He was a Christian missionary, pastor, writer who lived in the early 1800s in South Africa. An amazing man. Probably wrote about 30 or 40 great books. His logic is that, when you think about it, the thing that connects us most to the world is food and the enjoyment of it. If we want to really connect with God, then we have to be willing to let go of food because that is our closest connection to the earth and to the visible. He says “Prayer is the one hand with which we grasp the invisible; fasting the other with which we let loose and cast away the visible.” That is an amazing passage. I love that passage. These two go together. We see that prayer is grasping for the unseen God out there and fasting is releasing the things of the earth. Letting go of those things that hinder our connectivity with God. And not only that. Fasting has a way of letting God know the intensity and how serious we are to see our prayer request answered by him. Murray goes on to write “There may come times of intense desire when it is strongly felt that the body and its appetite, lawful though they may be, still hinder the spirit in its battle with the powers of darkness.” There is nothing wrong with food and those types of things, but there are times when you really have an intense desire to have a prayer answered that it makes sense that you are going to let go of some of the things of the earth. Ideally, it would be food. Especially when you are beginning to deal with spiritual warfare.
About this time, some of you may be thinking does it really always have to be food? I would say yes and no. I would say yes for the reason Andrew Murray is giving us. That is our closest connection to the earth. Most of us have three meals a day and a lot of snacks in between. It is important. But having said that, I would also say it doesn’t have to be a complete fast from food. It can be a partial fast from food. Some of you are familiar with the story of Daniel. Daniel was the guy who, along with his buddies, when the Jews were taken into captivity in Babylon, were placed into service in the king’s palace. That wasn’t a bad gig because the king was concerned about making sure they were strong and healthy. If they were going to work in the palace, he wanted strong, healthy men. So he allowed Daniel and his friends to eat the same food that the king ate on his table. To eat of the choicest foods and the fine wines and all that sort of thing. But Daniel being the spiritual, Godly man that he was thought I don’t want to eat from the king’s table because somehow this seems to be dishonoring God. So what he suggested to a guard was let me and my friends eat nothing but vegetables and water for ten days. If at the end of the ten days we don’t look physically fit then we will go back to eating the food of the king. As the story goes on we read that at the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young man who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead. It is an amazing story. Some people have adopted the Daniel diet because it does seem to promote some health. In fact, a guy named Rick Warren out at Saddleback Church has developed a thing called the Daniel Plan which incorporates this type of diet along with some nuts and grains and exercise.
But still I suspect there are some people that are still giving a little pushback and saying what about if I have some sort of a medical issue and I just can’t fast. Having said that, I say I get that. I understand that some people should not fast for medical reasons. In fact, you shouldn’t fast unless your doctor gives you the okay. And obviously if you are pregnant you shouldn’t fast. But having said that, there are many ways to fast besides food. I suspect there are things that you are involved in that reveal that you are a little bit too attached to the world. Things as simple as TV or sports as we spend our time in March Madness. Thinking about things like the internet and especially things like online gaming and all the other things associated with the internet. Think of things like magazines and romance novels and all those types of things that reveal that you are a little bit too attached to the world. You can give those things up. Then there are old standbys like alcohol and drugs and pornography and those types of things. Thing that, if you give it some thought, they might have a little bit too much of a grip on you. So you have to be willing to give those things up. If you don’t know what to give up, just begin to think about some of those things and begin to reflect on where you are feeling the most tension and the most anxiety when you think about giving up one of those things. That is probably the very thing that you should give up.
Having said that and as we begin to wind down this sermon, I suspect very few people will leave here today with any additional thought that they should fast. I guess I am kind of negative. I believe that 90% of the people will leave here today and won’t give fasting a second thought. The reality is when they give it a second thought they begin to think I will be miserable. I will hate it. It will be horrible. The reality is that if you go into the fast with the mind of Christ it probably will be miserable for you. You will hate it. It will be horrible. If you do go there and you start feeling the miserableness, you start feeling sad, you start feeling anxiety, you may quickly adopt the attitude of the Jews. The attitude that spoke about if I am going to be miserable then I want everybody else to see me as miserable so that I can at least get the benefit of people thinking I am spiritual. I think that is a risk that you take. And of course Jesus always has an answer for the risk. He goes on to say “But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so 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.” I love the paraphrase of The Message. Eugene Peterson puts it very succinctly. He says “If you are going to go into training inwardly, act normal outwardly. Shampoo and comb your hair. Brush your teeth and wash your face.” In other words, don’t draw attention to yourself that you are fasting. It is easy to read this and think it almost sounds like Jesus is suggesting that we should fake it. We should act like everything is fine when it is not. I don’t think that is what he is doing here. What he is doing here is suggesting that when you take fasting seriously, when you incorporate fasting as part of your regular spiritual training, after a while you will no longer see it as depriving your body of something. You would rather begin to see yourself as feasting on God. It is the same way when you work out physically. When you begin it, it is drudgery. After a while, it becomes easy and you are feeling pretty good because you feel good about yourself. You are not in agony anymore. That is the same way with fasting. Jesus is not just pulling this stuff out of thin air. Jesus practiced this sort of thing. He was experienced with it. You know the story at the beginning of Matthew. Following his baptism, Jesus went out into the desert for intense spiritual training that included 40 days of fasting. We read that after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. As a side note, the fact that he was hungry gives evidence that he was partially human. We talk about Jesus as fully divine and fully human. He was hungry. That was his human nature. He was feeling the hunger pains. Even though he was hungry, even though he was exhibiting human hunger pains, there is nowhere in the passage that suggests he was also trying to outwardly show or demonstrate the idea that he is miserable by disfiguring his face or making some weird comments trying to let everybody know that he was miserable. The reality was there was nobody else in the desert at that time. So when Satan comes along and said “If you are son of God, tell these stones to become bread” he was so ready for it. He voices the classic passage that every disciple should memorize. He says “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Jesus was at his physically weakest point. 40 days of fasting. Some suggest that at 40 days of fasting, your body is going into starvation mode. He was hungry. But in addition to spending time in fasting, he spent those 40 days in the desert probably doing a lot of prayer and probably meditating on the word. In fact that is where this passage comes from, Deuteronomy. He was memorizing the scripture. He was meditating, memorizing, and I guarantee he was probably worshipping. He was doing all these things. So again when Satan came and started throwing these temptations at him, Satan wasn’t a match for him at all. He just said get out of here. This time, unlike Adam who had to leave, it was Satan who had to leave. Jesus did over what happened in the garden. He did it better.
In closing, I know you have a lot questions. I didn’t know how much to cover on this so what I did was I had some copies made of an article about fasting that I suggest when you leave here you pick it up. But I would also hope that some of you, especially the people who have been exposed to the idea of a rhythm of life or a rule of life, you have gone through sacred rhythms or you have gone through God In My Everything type of book, consider adding fasting to your spiritual repertoire of spiritual practices. Not only do it just to expose yourself to the things that have a grip on you. Do it to demonstrate the intensity of your desire to see some of your prayers answered. Some of you know that the United States is kind of in a mess now and especially a political mess. A lot of people are complaining about it. And a lot of Christians are complaining about it all over Facebook. But I wonder how many of them are praying and fasting over it. I would suggest that maybe you quit complaining about it and you start praying and fasting about it. Fast that God would somehow intervene and expect that he will. Some of you are worried about the safety of your children. Maybe you are getting ready for a move. Maybe you just moved to this area and you are worried about your kids getting into school. Maybe you are worried about your finances. Maybe you need to be like the prophet Ezra who fasted and prayed for his family and for his possessions. Maybe there are people who maybe just grieve over the status of the community. The sins and the crimes and all this stuff going on in the community. Maybe you need to be like the prophet Joel who was willing to fast and pray to confess the sins of the community and pray and fast for revival in the land. Then there are the people that are just worried about the spiritual, physical, and emotional health of your family members and your friends. So again I would suggest that you do what Jesus suggested the disciples would do. That you would pray and fast to be released from the spiritual strongholds of life. In a nutshell, quit complaining about it and start thinking about fasting about it. Thinking about taking prayer and fasting with a little seed of faith and see what happens. When I say see what happens, I am not suggesting that fasting is any sort of a magical formula. But if anything, it demonstrates that you have an intense desire to see your prayer request answered. Not only that, it continues to show that you are taking the first steps or learning to live everyday life like Jesus to be a disciple. Because you know where things come from. You know that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Now as we transition to the time of communion, this table is a table of remembrance. It reminds us where our real food comes from. Especially during this week of Easter, it really reminds us that Jesus was a real human. But at the same time he was really God. He was fully human and fully God. He loved us so much he came down to this world and walked this earth for 33 years and was willing to take the sins of the whole world on the cross and die a terrible crucifixion on the cross for our sake and for our salvation. As we will learn next Sunday, he didn’t stay in the grave but after three days, he arose from the grave and ascended to heaven. And all who put their faith in him will too someday rise and go into heaven. We are reminded of that when we come to the table. And we are really reminded of this whole situation as we think about Paul’s letter to the Corinthians where he says “Jesus, on the night that he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.’” Let us pray.
