The Practice Of Fasting Series

The Practice Of Fasting

Matthew 6:16-18

Dismiss Grove KIDZ

OKAY – I want to start our time this morning by reading just a few verses that Jesus (God the Son) spoke on a hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee 2000 years ago.

For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 5:20

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven... So 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 others... And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others... “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. – Matthew 6:1,2,5,16

Prayer

MGCC – Jesus said that if we want to be a part of His Kingdom that our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law.

AND LISTEN – one way to live that out, is to not practice our righteous (our giving, our praying and our fasting) like they do in order to be seen others... to impress people to win their approval.

JESUS – said that to do so, is to be a hypocrite.

AND REMEMBER – last week I said that...

2 types of Hypocrites…

One is explicit: doing things to be seen. Presenting a picture of ourself on the outside that is not who we are on the inside.

One is implied: by the fact that in each of these 3 examples Jesus uses that word ‘when’ (hotan) and not the word ‘if’… ‘when’ we give, ‘when’ we pray, ‘when’ we fast. UNDERSTAND B/S – it is not only hypocritical for us to do, to live out… these Kingdom activities in order to been seen by others (you know in order to impress them), but it is also hypocritical of us to both claim and present ourselves as a Kingdom person and not have these Kingdom activities as a regular part of our lives.

OKAY – here’s the deal...

In Matthew 6 Jesus is telling us to embrace the spiritual discipline of secrecy.

Spiritual Discipline – any activity that I can do by direct effort that will help we do what I cannot do by direct effort, (gain the power to live life as Jesus taught and modeled). An activity that we can practice that puts us in a place where God can transform us

It's not about trying harder, but training wisely.

Because simply trying harder does not work.

AND LISTEN – it can be hard for us at times to see the connection between our training and actually reaching our ultimate goal. BUT UNDERSTAND – even though we may not be able to see how our training will help us reach our goal, does not mean that that the connection is not there.

This morning we are to talk about the practice of biblical fasting… Not fasting to lose weight or to detox your body – but fasting, going without food for a period of time for a specific spiritual purpose…

NOW – if you were here last week, you know that I intended on covering ‘fasting’ last week...

HOWEVER – during my sermon, I decided to delay that discussion for two reasons

#1 – because, I felt we had already given ourselves enough to chew with the practice of ‘giving in secret’ and the practice of ‘praying in secret,’ AND...

#2 – because I felt that I did not have enough time to do justice to the practice of fasting in secret.

AND – I gotta tell you that was the right decision...

• Because it made my message shorter, and that is always a win, right? and...

• Because it gave me more time to dive in deeper (and I sure did) into the spiritual discipline of fasting...

A FEW QUESTIONS – as we begin, and you do not need to raise your hands.

• Do you give on a regular basis?

• Do you pray on a regular basis?

• Do you fast on a regular basis?

• How many sermons or lessons have you ever heard that were solely dedicated to the topic of fasting?

Check out what Richard Foster wrote as he opened up his chapter on fasting in his book, ‘Celebration Of Discipline, The Path To Spiritual Growth.’

In a culture where nearly every street corner is dotted with shrines to the Golden and Arches and an assortment of pizza Temples, fasting seems out of place and out of step with the times. In fact, fasting has been in general disrepute both in and outside the Church for many years. For example, in my research I could not find a single book published on the subject of Christian fasting from 1861-1954, a period of nearly 100 years. More recently a renewed interest in fasting has developed, but we have far to go to recover a biblical balance.