¡ñ We have been walking through Matthew 6 the past three weeks
¡ð focusing on the spiritual disciplines that Jesus talks about in this
passage
¡ð giving, praying, and today . . . fasting.
¡ñ Fasting defined:
¡ð To abstain from food. To eat very little or abstain from certain foods,
especially as a religious discipline
¡ð practice of deliberately and voluntarily abstaining from usual
nourishment, which, when performed in the context of prayer, brings
supernatural power to our prayer
¡ð renouncing the natural to invoke the supernatural
¡ð personal, voluntary humbling of the heart before God that increases
spiritual brokenness
¡ð a commitment to self-control that enables a believer to die to self
¡ð a worship activity that increases spiritual receptivity by creating a
climate in which the holy spirit can speak
¡ñ Don¡¯t you love it how Jesus sort of warms us up to the idea of fasting?
¡ð we can give without being changed ¨C it makes giving easy
¡ð It¡¯s even a little more difficult to pray
¡ð Fasting is probably most costly
¡ð prayer and giving can be token, but fasting always has a price. Missing
a meal is difficult.
One day, my husband announced to the family that he was going to fast and
pray. Ginny, our 5-year-old, had recently learned that fasting meant not eating.
"No!" she shouted. "You can’t fast! You’ll die!" Her dad carefully explained that
many men and women fasted in Bible times. Ginny paused a moment. Then, with
a flash of insight and a note of warning, she proved her point. "And they all
died," she said. Citation: Kathy Cash, Dallas, TX. Today’s Christian Woman, "Heart to Heart."
¡ñ fasting is difficult, but it won¡¯t kill you
¡ð The only thing that might die as we fast is our selfish motives and
desires
¡ñ she¡¯s right -- they did all die, but not from fasting! (The following are
individuals who fasted in the Bible
¡ð Moses, Elijah, David, Ezra, Daniel, Nehemiah, and, of course, Jesus
- When Jesus started his 40 day fast in Luke 4:1, the bible says he
was ¡°full¡± of the Holy Spirit
- When he completed the fast in 4:14, the word says he returned in
the ¡°power¡± of the Spirit
¡ð think of the victorious lives and the great things that God did through
each of these men, and fasting was a normal part of their lives.
¡ð one more thing (beyond prayer and giving) that helps us develop a
deeper relationship with the father
¡ñ Matthew 6:16-18 (This is a short teaching on fasting compared to the
amount of time that Jesus spent on prayer, so we will supplement it with
Isaiah 58)
¡ñ Three things come to mind as I read those passages:
¡ð reasons for fasting
¡ð responsibilities of fasting
¡ð rewards of fasting
¡ñ Challenge: begin a regular practice (discipline) of fasting while keeping the
reasons, responsibilities and rewards of fasting in mind
¡ð be great to take a church that is full of the HS and let it be empowered
by the spirit
¡ð as you practice these three disciplines, I believe that God will empower
you!
¡ð Eccl. 4:12, ¡°a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.¡±
I. Reasons
16"When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure
their faces to show men they are fasting. . . 17But when you fast, put oil on your
head and wash your face, 18so that it will not be obvious to men that you are
fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen . . .
A. The hypocrites would do it out of a sense of duty -- It¡¯s not just about
DUTY:
1. They would look pathetic so others would know that they¡¯re
fulfilling their obligation
2. It is not just to fulfill a religious obligation
Once upon a time, a king ordered a three-day fast throughout the kingdom.
Anyone caught eating was to be struck seven times with a rod. Anyone caught
assisting another in breaking the fast would be shackled to a ball and chain.
After two days, one nobleman, a count, decided he couldn’t hold out. So he
ordered three servants to prepare a meal.
Word leaked to the royal palace that the count and countess were breaking the
fast. The king and queen were furious, and rushed to the count’s home,
bursting in just as dessert was being served. The king growled in a sarcastic
voice, "Is the count full?"
"Yes," declared the queen, pointing to the five offenders and ordering their
punishment. "Ball three and strike two!"
3. We don¡¯t do this to be holier than the next guy (like praying and
giving)
4. It won¡¯t give you a higher position in our church structure
5. We don¡¯t have a fasting club
6. We don¡¯t have a holiness measuring rod here at the church (how
much do you give, pray or fast) MEASURING TAPW
B. It¡¯s not about duty -- it¡¯s about DEVOTION
1. When Jesus told US to fast, he told us to do it in secret, ¡°17But
when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that it
will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your
Father, who is unseen . . .¡±
2. It is essential for a progressively deeper walk with the Lord
3. Christian fasting, at its root, is the hunger of a homesickness for
God. Citation: John Piper, A Hunger for God (Crossway, 1997),
p.14
4. Some of the most spirit-empowered and devoted men of the past
practiced regular fasting:
a. Charles Finney. Whenever the ¡°battery charge¡± of the spirit
would go down, he would immediately fast for three days.
(1) Our batteries can get corroded, too. Fasting cleans us
out physically and spiritually
(2) when people would enter the cities where he was
preaching, they would begin to weep and repent
(3) when he entered buildings, newspapers recorded that
people would fall under the power of the spirit
b. Jonathon Edwards. ¡°Preached sinners in the hands of an
angry God,¡± while people clung to the pews for fear that they
would be sucked into Hell.
c. John Wesley. (Drama group makes way to stage)
(1) fasted every Wednesday and Friday and demanded the
same from those under his authority
(2) french revolution, having affected all of Europe, didn¡¯t
affect England. Historians say it was his preaching.
5. While it should be a secret from men ¡ª Your father wants to see
you fasting
a. It¡¯s hard to get away from the ¡°and when you fast¡±
C. It¡¯s not about duty ¡ª its about devotion
(DOCK drama group performs human video here)
II. Responsibilities ¡ª Isaiah 58:2-12 (as the passage starts, you¡¯ll see a
picture of people who are fasting out of a sense of duty, and hoping that
God will respond to them dutifully!) ¡°we¡¯re doing our part, God, now you
have to do yours¡±
A. Breaking of Bonds, 6"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to
loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the
oppressed free and break every yoke?¡±
1. Do you think your Heavenly Father would be pleased with the way
you treat people?
2. We can often treat people so unjustly. Without even thinking about
it, we can really put a heavy load on others and oppress them.
3. The less we expect of God, the more we expect from people.
The man or woman who does not know God demands an infinite satisfaction
from other human beings which they cannot give, and in the case of the man, he
becomes tyrannical and cruel. It springs from this one thing, the human heart
must have satisfaction, but there is only one Being Who can satisfy the last
abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Citation: Oswald
Chambers
4. Fasting should bring us to a place where we are desperate for God
and forgiving toward people
B. Benevolence, ¡°7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to
provide the poor wanderer with shelter- when you see the naked, to
clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?¡±
1. A danger in being hungry for God, and pursuing him is that we
become negligent of people. Isn¡¯t that ironic?
2. These are the two extremes ¨C either we burden people or we
ignore them.
3. We mistakenly believe that the best way for us to express our
devotion to God is through worship, hours of prayer, and days of
fasting.
4. I believe that one of the best ways to express our desperation for
God is to minister to the needs of people
5. We can be too quick to classify things as spiritual or unspiritual.
Perhaps the most spiritual thing we can do at times is to share our
food, time, clothing, and resources with those who are less
fortunate.
III. Rewards of a true fast, ¡°your father, who sees what is done in secret, will
reward you.¡±
A. Illumination
1. 8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
2. Last extended fast I took, I received two answers to things I had
been praying about for a long time. The answers were SO clear to
me.
3. One of those things was the LifeGuard Bible-reading bookmarks we
started with the youth.
B. Healing
1. 8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
2. On the first Daniel Fast I ever took, I was healed of my allergies
C. Divine Justice
1. then your righteousness will go before you,
2. As I researched for this message, I looked at a message I had
shared with the youth a few years ago on fasting. I then
challenged them to a 40-day cooperate fast. Two of the prayer
needs during that time were:
a. The highschool would change the name of its mascot
b. We would have a permanent home for our youth ministry
c. To me, this was justice. These were things that needed to
happen.
D. Divine Protection
1. 8: the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard
In 1863 President Lincoln designated April 30th as a day of national humiliation,
fasting, and prayer. Let me read a portion of his proclamation on that occasion:
"It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, who owe their dependence upon the
overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble
sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and
pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures
and proven by a history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the
Lord. The awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a
punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of
our national reformation as a whole people. Intoxicated with unbroken success,
we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and
preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. We have grown in
numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has grown, but we have
forgotten God."
We came out of the Civil War as one nation, and have now become the world¡¯s
only ¡°superpower¡± (No doubt that this fast deeply affected our nation¡¯s destiny)
E. Spiritual Healing
1. 9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
2. Our prayers lay the track down on which God’s power can come.
Like a mighty locomotive, his power is irresistible, but it cannot
reach us without rails. Citation: Watchman Nee (prayer and fasting
are the twin rails that bring the locomotive of his healing power!)
3. We so often focus on the needs of our flesh and neglect the needs
of our spirit.
4. As we die to our flesh, God will minister to our spirit
F. Guidance
1. 11 The LORD will guide you always;
2. Patty and I fasted for three days as we were deciding whether we
should get married or not.
3. Do you have a decision that there seems to be no answer for? Try
fasting and give that decision to the Lord
4. Why agonize for weeks over something ¨C when fasting and prayer
bring direction and guidance
G. Sustenance
1. he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will
strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like
a spring whose waters never fail.
2. I have never met a soul who has set out to satisfy the Lord and
has not been satisfied himself. Citation: Watchman Nee
3. As we fast, we see the miracle --- we call our body --- go into
action
a. Try driving your car for 40 days without ever re-fueling
b. Try even one solid day of driving!
c. Your body is a MIRACLE in that God sustains you through
many circumstances
H. Restoration
1. 12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the
age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
2. Restore the vision that was here as the original church-planters
laid the foundation for the church
3. Prayer, coupled with loving obedience, is the way to put God to the
test and to make prayer answer all ends and all things. Citation: E.
M. Bounds
