Is It A Sin If You Don't Fast? [Matthew 6:16-18]

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John Newton, a famous writer, wrote these words, In evil long
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I took the light, Unawed by shame or fear, Till a new object struck my sight,
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And stopped my wild career. I saw one hanging on a tree,
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In agony and blood, He fixed his loving eyes on me, As near his cross
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I stood. How can it be, upon a tree, The Savior died for me?
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My soul is thrilled, my heart is filled, To think he died for me.
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What a good way to remember Jesus Christ, our Lord. And coming to our passage this morning, this passage
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I'm going to teach today isn't my favorite passage. Usually whatever I'm studying, that's my favorite passage. But I'm not really that thrilled to preach on the subject of fasting.
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How many people love to fast? How many people know what a biblical fast is? How many people, if you had to pick, you'd say, out of all the topics,
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I'd like to hear a passage preached on fasting. But then I begin to think, if my
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Lord that died for me, my Lord Jesus who stopped my wild career, thinks it's important,
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I think it's important. And if Jesus talks about fasting, I want you to know it's the most fascinating sermon you'll ever hear.
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Our most fascinating discussion. When our Lord talks about fasting, I want to pay attention.
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And matter of fact, it is interesting, and it is wonderful to look at what Jesus says about fasting.
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Let's turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6. And we're going to discuss what
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Jesus said about fasting. Should Christians fast today?
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If you don't fast today, are you sinning? Is it okay to fast if you just like to lose some weight?
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Is it okay to fast if you want spiritual gain? Should elders be good fasters?
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If elders are to be the mature ones in the church, out of all the people in the church, should they be the best fasters?
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How often should we fast? Is fasting just saying no to food, or no to other things, no to water as well?
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What is a fast? What is a biblical fast? And so we come to Matthew chapter 6 today to discuss this interesting passage.
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And as I began to study it, I thought, this is wonderful to learn what Jesus says about this very topic.
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Now, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus, as we know, is blasting and blistering the
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Pharisees who say, righteousness is good only on the outside. Forget internal motivations.
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Forget reasons for doing it. Forget God as the audience. We'll just do showy things.
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We'll do peacock kind of things, because we want to impress other people. And after all, does it go without saying, to make this comment, religious things should be made with God as the audience.
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Obviously. God is the one who we want to please, and so what kind of a twisted, perverted religion would it say, forget what
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God thinks. We want to impress other people. Isn't that a weird concept? But that's exactly what's happening with the
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Pharisees. That's exactly what happens with us if we're not careful. I remember my brother,
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Pat, who's now, of course, much older, but when he was little and we would play around and I would grab his arms, kind of by the wrist, and swing him around a little bit.
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Once in a while, if I picked up one wrist first, something would happen to my brother's arm.
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And it would become dislocated. And I remember my brother just walking around crying, my arm's dislocated, and we'd have to take the elbow and pop it back in.
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You think you have the freedom to just say out loud, the Pharisees have dislocated
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Moses. It's not that Moses would teach this. It's not that Torah would teach this.
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It's not from the Old Testament. But they have taken the truth of God in the Old Testament and they have twisted it and they have dislocated it from the truth.
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And wouldn't you think the Son of God, the Messiah, when He comes into the world, He would do many things, of course, but one of the things, would
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He not teach us what real righteousness is? Would He not correct the Pharisees?
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Would He not tell His disciples, real righteousness, real religion, is not only external, but it is with God as the ultimate audience.
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And it is certainly sometimes external, but not ever only external. Internal religion manifesting itself externally.
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And so Jesus says in chapter 6, verse 1, if you look at the passage again, really the key here, as we understand chapter 6, beware of practicing your righteousness before men.
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He says, I'd like you with a sentinel, sentry, lookout kind of mentality, to be careful that you don't fall into this trap.
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I want you with the kind of intensity and engagement it takes to land a ship in the harbor, to pay attention so you don't just say, religion is all external.
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It's just all show. And you need to be occupied, Jesus says to His disciples, and now therefore to us, with making sure whether it's alms, prayer, or fasting, or any other religious thing we do, that it doesn't turn into just show.
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We need to do things before God, and before God alone. And don't you find it fascinating that Jesus says there's sin involved, even in religious things.
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It's not there's just sin over there down in the red light district. There's sin over there in some kind of self -righteous area of town.
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There can be sin when a Christian gives money to the Lord. There can be sin when Christians bow down and pray.
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And there can be sins when Christians fast. Jesus says don't let hypocrisy sneak into Christianity.
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Augustine said, the love of honor is the deadly bane of true piety.
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Other vices bring forth evil works, but this brings forth good works in an evil way.
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So let's read our passage, Matthew chapter 6, verses 16 through 18, and then we'll take a look at it in context, and then we'll have some principles that we can derive from this passage for us today.
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So let's read the passage first. Matthew 6, verses 16, 17, and 18. Following up on almsgiving and prayer, now we come to this third common thing in New Testament times that people would slip into self -righteousness.
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Whenever you fast, verse 16, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they're fasting.
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Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your
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Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
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So what we'll do again today is we'll look at the passage in context, what was Jesus saying to these disciples, and then we'll talk a little bit in general about this topic that I think is much abused and misused today, the concept of fasting.
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So Jesus says in context here, overall, you try to please the Lord God in religious things, no one else.
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If other people see, that may happen, but who do you have as your object of worship?
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And look at the principle here. He says to the disciples in verse 16, whenever you fast, here's some things that you ought not to do.
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And by the way, fasting technically just means this, no eating. If you look at the Greek word, it just means not to eat.
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And he says, when you're going to fast, there's some things that I don't want you to do. Every time you fast, here are some reminders.
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And by the way, you have the Old Testament that talks about the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16, and people would fast.
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And this was the one time a year that all the nation would fast. Once in a while,
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God in the Old Testament would also say, here's a time to fast. But now, if we move forward to the
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New Testament times, there are some people who are adding personal fasts when they don't need to.
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Can't you remember? I remember in Luke 18, where the Pharisees fast, how many times a week?
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Remember the Pharisee and the tax gatherer, and they're praying, and he says, I fast what? Twice a week.
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And they would add these fasts. They would say this, Tuesdays and Thursdays, that'd be a good fast day.
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Those are both good fast days. Monday, Thursday, oh, those would be good fast days. Let's figure out, when did
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Moses go up to Sinai? Let's fast that day. And when did Moses come down from Sinai?
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Let's fast that day too. And so these Pharisees are all fasting in these days that aren't commanded by God.
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And they try to do things so everyone notices. This is show and tell, this is bring and brag, this is, oh, you want to see how religious
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I am? I think I'll put some ash on my forehead to show everybody that I've been to service for Ash Wednesday.
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Everybody can now know, I'll mark myself out. And Jesus says, you don't want to do that.
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Who is your audience when it comes to fasting? And Jesus doesn't want the disciples to buy into what these self -righteous
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Pharisees are doing. And so He says, when you fast, what? Don't put a gloomy face on as the hypocrites.
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Don't make your face sour. Don't make your face, you know, glum and gloomy and downcast and sad.
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And you look at somebody and you go, yep, they're fasting. Their face is down and, you know, woe is me.
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And Luther rendered it this way, look not sour. When you fast, look not sour.
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He also says, do something else. Don't neglect your appearance so that you're noticed by men.
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In other words, when it comes to acting, hypocrites overact. And so in the morning,
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He says, if you wake up in the morning and you normally comb your hair, they didn't comb their hair.
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If you normally put on makeup, they didn't put on makeup. If you say, I'm going to put some gel in my hair, they didn't put the gel on.
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Whatever you normally would do, they wouldn't do. So everybody goes, wow, look at them. They're really holy today.
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They're fasting and, boy, look at them. And basically, He says, literally, when they get up, they ought to make themselves invisible, but they don't.
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They make themselves visible. He says, don't disfigure your face. Whatever you normally do, do.
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The Academy Award to the best hypocrite leading actor goes to the
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Pharisees. It's just an act. It's a game. And Jesus says what?
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Truly I say to you, at the end of verse 16, they have their reward in full. What's their reward?
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They want men to see. Men did see. Paid in full. Everything they want, they get.
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But they get nothing from God. They don't get God's pleasure, God's approval. So He says in verse 17, but you, verse 16, don't do it this way, but now do it this particular way.
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Sude, but you, when you fast, every occasion in your life when you fast, anoint your head.
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Imperative number one. Imperative number two, wash your face. This is just what normal people did back then.
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This is not a special ceremonial anointing, but when you got up in the morning, you went over to wherever you would go,
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I was going to say they did have some mirrors back in those days, rich people, but when you got up you said, you know what, this morning
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I'm going to wash my face, and I'm going to anoint my head with some oil. That's just what they did. A little dab will do you.
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Wash your face. You wake up in the morning, you put deodorant on, and shave, and all those things.
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You do that now, so you don't go, hmm, I see that guy over there, and he's usually pretty dressed up, and he looks pretty sharp, but today, oh
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I know, he's fasting. We should not be able to tell. We don't draw attention to ourselves when we're fasting.
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But Jesus makes sure that they know God sees. God sees. Look at verse 18.
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You don't do this so your fasting will be noticed by men. You should be invisible to these men when it comes to fasting, but by your
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Father who is in secret. See, He sees, and your Father who sees the seen
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Father, literally, what is done in secret, will reward you. Pay me now, or pay me later.
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But the focus is on the Father. And you want your Father's good pleasure. You want your Father's face to shine with pleasure, not, oh, all these other people know, boy,
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He's one holy man. Here comes holy man. He says the Father is in secret.
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He's in a crypt. That's where we get the word crypt, a secret thing. He notices. All religion is for God and God alone.
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A first and second century writing said this. It's not in the
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Bible, but it was just writings of the time. Let not your fast be with the hypocrites, for they fast on Mondays and Thursdays.
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But do you fast on Wednesdays and Fridays? The writing was this.
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Pharisees fast so improperly. Don't even fast on the same days. Fast to God.
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It reminds me of Zechariah, chapter 7. Say to all the people of the land and to the priest, when you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months, was it actually for me,
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God says, that you fasted? So the principle is, proper worship has
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God as the focus. That's all he's saying here. When it comes to religious deeds for the
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Jews and for the disciples, alms, prayer, fastings, make sure you fast to God. Now let me give you, in the form of true and false questions, some other things to think about when it comes to fasting.
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I guess the sermon could be done right here because it's just an amplification of everything we've been learning in Matthew, chapter 6.
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Our righteousness has to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, chapter 5, verse 20. But it may not be a righteousness that's only shown itself externally.
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But let me give you some additional questions about fasting that will prove instructive.
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True or false? There is a time when fasting is inappropriate. There's a time when you ought not to fast.
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True or false? True. Let's go to Matthew, chapter 9. Matthew, chapter 9.
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Staying in the book of the King, Matthew, the book of King Jesus, Matthew, chapter 9, one of my favorite things about Jesus, before He gets to the cross, is how
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He annihilates false teaching. He just goes after it.
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And there's something about Jesus when He's around people who know they're sinful, who know they have no righteousness, who know they're sinners and tax gatherers.
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He is kind. He is warm. He is gentle, isn't He? But when He's around those who think that they contain righteousness themselves,
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He gets after them. My mother used to say to me lots of times, I'm going to give you, young man, a blistering you're never going to forget.
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And I always wanted to know, is that a blister with her hand, or is that a blister with her mouth? I always thought it would be better to be blistered with somebody's words than with their hands.
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But I'm not so sure that's true these days. And here, what does Jesus say when asked about fasting?
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It's mind -boggling. Matthew 9, verse 14. Here comes another one of the great accusations given against Jesus, but cowardly directed to the disciples.
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Chapter 9, verse 14. Then the disciples of John, John the Baptist's disciples, came to Jesus asking,
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Why do we, John the Baptist's disciples, and the Pharisees fast? But your disciples do not fast.
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Mark says the Pharisees and John's disciples were fasting. So you now got fasting people here,
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John the Baptist's followers and the Pharisees, they were fasting, and you know, Jesus and his disciples weren't fasting.
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And so, we fast, you don't fast, what gives?
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We think you should be fasting. Trying to discredit
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Jesus. Two groups of fasters, and they're both wrong. How could this group of John the
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Baptist's disciples, who were ascetics, join up and link arms with the Pharisees, who were formalists, when they have a common enemy, and the enemy is
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Jesus? They're both wrong. Look at John the Baptist's disciples.
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They came to him and they were wondering, What's going on? Maybe John's in jail by now? Maybe they're fasting because they're expecting the messianic age to come?
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Maybe they're fasting because John the Baptist fasted all the time? Remember Matthew 11, John came neither eating nor drinking?
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But I think they're in cahoots with the Pharisees, and they're fasting with the Pharisees.
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There are some followers of John the Baptist who said, Yeah, Jesus is the way, we better follow him.
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But some have not accepted who Jesus was. They have not accepted John the Baptist's words about Jesus.
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So now they say, You know what? We're not sure about Jesus. We're sure about John, though. We're sure about what John has done.
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And we're not going to go along with what Jesus says. Hey, we fast, why don't you fast? Pharisees are fasting twice a week.
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And we're with them. By the way, if you ever want to join up with a group, don't pick the Pharisees. That would be a bad deal.
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Lots of people today, with a new perspective on Paul, the Pharisees weren't as bad as we thought. It reminds me of an illustration.
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A man bought a new radio, placed it on the refrigerator, plugged it in, turned it to WSM in Nashville, and pulled all the knobs off.
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And the writer said he had already tuned in to all he ever expected or wanted to hear. Hey, we don't want to know about all this other stuff.
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We fast. The Pharisees fast. Jesus, you aren't fasting. They probably did it with disheveled faces, with a little ash on their forehead.
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Who knows what they had. Probably humming pomp and circumstance as well and making the sign of the cross.
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Who knows what they were doing. You say, why would this ever come up? Well, context always tells us.
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Look at chapter 9, verse 10. This is the best right here. I was studying this week and I thought, this has made my week to look at Jesus, the great
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Savior, how He deals with people. Look at what He did in chapter 9, verse 10.
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This is the stage being set for this fasting confrontation. Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold,
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Matthew 9, verse 10, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples.
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Can you imagine the gall of Jesus? He picks a social pariah like Matthew, a tax collector that for Rome is going to take some of the
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Jewish money and now Jesus is going to recline and eat with and be familiar with and accept and they probably even touch
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Him. He's going to become religiously unclean. Oh, the gall of Jesus Christ. He thinks
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He's the Messiah and He's hanging out with all the scumbags of the world, the dregs of the world.
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What kind of associations must He be keeping? It reflects more on Jesus than it does anybody else.
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Who hangs out with sinners, tax collectors, and whores? I don't know, but it's not the
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Messiah. That was the mentality. Probably what's happened is Matthew gets saved and when you first get saved, what's one of the first things you want to do besides praise
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God that you knew you deserved hell but you get heaven? What's the very next thing you think about? My mom's not a
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Christian and if she doesn't become a Christian, she's going to hell. My wife's not a Christian. My husband's not a
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Christian. My kids aren't Christians. My friends aren't Christians. They're not Christians. They need to know the truth.
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Isn't that the first thing you tell people? You're like, God, thank you for saving me. Now I've got to tell other people. You can imagine,
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Matthew just said, I've got a bunch of other people. My old tax collector friends, they're all not
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Christians. They need to be. And then the text says, it happened that Jesus was reclining at the table.
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Behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and his disciples. I think the
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Pharisees like it. Verse 11. When the Pharisees saw this, Mike Avendroth, loose translation, their blood began to boil.
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If there was smoke, it would come out of their ears. They are steaming. They are hot.
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They said to his disciples, see how this is? You go after the disciples, but you really mean Jesus.
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Why is your teacher eating? This isn't eating like we eat. Oh, hey, you want to have a meal? It meant familiarity and acceptance.
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Why is your teacher eating with the tax collectors, and under the same definite article, and sinners?
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Luke says they were grumbling. They were mumbling. They were muttering. This is inappropriate behavior.
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Please give us a detailed, precise parsing of this wrong behavior. A. Jesus says he is the
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Messiah. B. He is eating with these people. Now what gives? They are not saying, please give us some information.
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They want to accuse him and charge him publicly. Inference is, Jesus must be a tax collector and a sinner just like them.
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Then, Jesus speaks. They ask the question to the disciples, but Jesus, the ongoing advocate, says in verse 12, he had heard this,
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Is it not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick? But it's not a question.
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It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. These people know they're not righteous.
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These people that I'm having dinner with know they're sinful. And my proper place as a doctor to the sick patients would be with them.
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Exodus 15, I the Lord am your healer. How embarrassing.
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One sentence of Jesus just annihilates them. We could just say the end after this.
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But Jesus goes farther. I hope you never forget this in chapter 9, verse 13.
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One man called this quote from Hosea God's favorite verse. Because it is quoted over and over and over in the
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New Testament. Is this in fact God's favorite verse? If you have a favorite verse, it just might be
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John 3, verse 16. But could it be that this is God's favorite verse from Hosea chapter 6, verse 6?
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Jesus quotes it perfectly in context. And then he says to the Pharisees, the seminary professors of the day, but go and learn what this means.
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By the way, that's Hebrew for saying you don't know anything, you're ignorant, you call yourself a teacher of the
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Bible and you don't know anything. Zero. This is biting sarcasm by our
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Savior. You don't hear any of this kind of language when Jesus is reclining with the sinners and those who know they're sinful.
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And he basically says this. A. You don't know the Bible. B. You don't know
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Judaism or any other real religion. I wonder what they did. I'd love to see their faces.
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But go and learn what this means. I desire, quoting
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God in Hosea, compassion and not sacrifice. I want things driven from internal motives of real righteousness, not just external formalism.
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I do this and then that's fine. This is perfect application of the Old Testament for the
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Pharisees who want external duties of religion. God says, I prefer, I mandate,
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I desire internally that you serve Me. The Pharisees were sick.
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They thought they were healthy. They didn't understand Jesus' mission. So Jesus says, go and learn.
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One commentator said, as applied to the Pharisees by Jesus, therefore the Hosea quotation was not simply telling them that they should be more sympathetic to outcasts and less concerned about ceremonial purity, but that they were aligned with the apostates of ancient
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Israel and that they too preserved the shell while losing the heart of the matter. It was a shell game for them.
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And now Jesus gives three little illustrations. And the whole thing is happening between the feasting
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Jesus and the fasting Pharisees. Go back to Matthew 9, verse 15.
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Why did Jesus say these things? It's because Jesus is eating with sinners and feasting and now these fasters come and say, you're feasting and you should have been fasting.
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It's hard to keep saying that without mixing these two up. Feasting with the righteous versus... No. Fasting with the righteous versus feasting with the sinners.
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If you were religious, where would you be? First analogy.
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Look what Jesus does. He says, let me tell you about some things that are inappropriate. Let me give you three illustrations of inappropriate.
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Here's the first one. It's a marriage analogy found in verse 15. Jesus said to them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them.
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Can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast.
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Alright, let's think about any wedding here in the United States, in India, South Africa, wherever you want to go.
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The Old Testament days, there were some attendants of the groom and their job was to make the party happen.
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It was like the best man who, for a night today, says, you know what, we'll have a bachelor party.
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And by the way, it's going to be a bachelor party like you've never seen. We're all going to get together and we're not going to eat anything.
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It's a very solemn occasion. Paul warned that there'd be trouble in marriage. No, just kidding. When there's a wedding, isn't there a feast?
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And by the way, in the New Testament day, in the Old Testament time, it was going to be a week -long festival.
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Talk about king and queen for a week. When these people got married, for one whole week, everything stopped.
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Matter of fact, the rabbis would say, by the way, any fasting that you do during that time, during the feast for this couple, you don't have to fast anymore.
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Just enjoy yourself. The man who would lead the festivities is the attendant of the bridegroom and he's not going to mourn when the bridegroom's right here.
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I remember the first time I went to India and I don't know what time of day of the night or night of the daytime it was.
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I looked outside of the hotel and here's this huge entourage of people. And if memory serves me, the groom -to -be was on this horse and there was a group of people following and a bunch of men around him too and they're on their way to go get the bride so they can get married.
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Am I right? Is that what we do? No, we don't do it, but I think the Hindus do it. They're having a huge party.
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You don't say, well, you know, it's time for the wedding ceremony and we're not going to eat anything.
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It just doesn't make sense. And Jesus with insight and with brilliance says, do you know how you talk about John the
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Baptist as a forerunner? John the
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Baptist is also called something else and just let me remind you from John chapter 3.
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I wonder what John the Baptist calls himself. What metaphor does John the Baptist use?
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He who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice.
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So this joy of mine has been made full. I'm a friend of the bridegroom Jesus. And therefore,
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I'm happy when He's around. And Jesus says to these other disciples of John who aren't following Jesus, who should have been following Jesus, think about your own master and his own metaphor.
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It is insane, it is improper, it is inappropriate to have a wedding without feasting.
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Barclay said, all in attendance on the bridegroom are relieved of all religious observances which would lessen their joy.
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Jesus says, I'm here now. Enjoy yourself. There's going to be a time I'm not. You'll fast then. But John's my best man and he would welcome this day.
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You don't fast, in other words, because of some kind of Jewish tradition. The Messiah is here.
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Look what else he says in verse 16. There's another illustration. It's inappropriate to fast.
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Think of a marriage. It's inappropriate to fast. Think of how to sew things, verse 16.
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But no one puts a patch on unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment and the worst tear results.
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I don't even know if some of our kids know what this is today. I used to wear jeans that were patched up quite a bit until tough skins came along, but that's another story.
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But you mended things, and you darned things, and you fixed things back in those days, now you just throw them away.
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But in the days of fixing things, in New Testament time, you didn't say, you know what, I've got a really old, weak, piece of cloth, and I'm going to match that up with some kind of new cloth.
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And here Jesus says, no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. You're going to have a worse schism, literally.
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You think I'm going to bring God's Messianic Kingdom and attach it, and darn it, and affix it to some kind of made up,
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Jewish, rabbinic, false fasting? He says, I'm not going to do that at all.
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I'm not going to do this at all. You think the kingdom that I bring that talks about internal righteousness is going to be hooked on to this external thing?
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Both are going to be destroyed. And then He gives something else, the last illustration, and He does that in verse 17.
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Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins. Why don't you do that? Answer, otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out, and the wineskins are ruined.
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But they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved. They didn't have any glass back then.
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They had no PVC two -liter bottles. You would put wine in goatskins.
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And when the wine ferments, it grows, and so does the goatskin around it. And so, that's just the way it goes.
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But then you wouldn't take one of this old, already pre -stretched goatskin bladder, and then pour in a bunch of the new stuff, because it's going to keep stretching, and then what's going to happen?
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It's not going to be soft, and pliable, and stretch anymore. Do you think Jesus says,
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I'm going to come and patch in this New Testament righteousness that God requires from the inside, and I'm going to put it in this old, fake, formal, unrighteous religion that you
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Pharisees have, perverted from the Old Testament? No. Jesus did fast.
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But he didn't fast very often. Matter of fact, he was known as what, Matthew 11, 19?
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The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax gatherers and sinners.
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True or false? There is a time when fasting is inappropriate. The answer is true.
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Number two, conversely, there is a time when fasting is appropriate. True.
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There is a time when fasting is appropriate. When is that? I'll tell you, when I first got saved, every
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Tuesday was fast day. I was not going to eat today, and I thought that was a good thing to do.
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Christians fast, and I should be fasting, and I never thought about fasting before. Maybe I should fast.
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When should you fast? Is it a sin if you don't fast? Let me give you a little illustration, and maybe you can think about it this way.
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If you know someone that experienced a death in the family, and you go to them, and you want to love them, you don't know what to say.
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And sometimes it feels like you want to say more than, I love you, and just hold them, hug them.
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And so you say other things with good motives, but bad theology. And here's what you say.
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Have you eaten anything? Don't forget, you've got to eat. Now it's certainly right to bring all the food over, but if there's been a death in the family, and you bring all this food over, you should say to yourself,
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I consider this an act of love, but I know they're probably not going to eat any of it.
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So too with biblical fasting. People never just said, it's Monday and Thursday, I think
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I'll fast. There was something that created in the New Testament, a desire to fast.
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There, yes, in Leviticus 16, was the day of atonement, where there was this prescribed national fast.
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But beyond that, you will see this, there's a time of sorrow, there's a time of trouble, there's a time of sadness, there's a time of trial, and the natural response to that person's life would be what?
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I'd like a really juicy, double cheeseburger right now. I remember when
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Luke was born, and second child, and we were just, I was going to watch Luke be born, say hallelujah, drive home, and teach the
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Bible study. They said Bible study's on tonight? Yeah, Bible study's on, it's Tuesday night, we'll have the baby at like four o 'clock, and we'll just have
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Bible study at seven, no problem. You'd never do that for kid one, but kid two, three, and four, you know, you go, first kid,
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I can't take my kid out of the house for the next 14 months, I can't put him in the nursery for the next five years.
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By the time you get to kid four, you're going, oh, the Hollywood Bowl has a nice concert tonight, let's go, day one. Luke is born,
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Luke is blue, the Apgar is negative 20, I know they don't make those, but it's not eight, it's not high, and they said, you know, you don't know if your son's going to make it, we don't know if your son's going to make it.
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I didn't say to myself, if I could just have that 20 piece sushi platter right now, what do you do?
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There are other things more important, things that are fine, things that are appropriate, things that are good, but you say, there are deeper issues right now, and it's a response to a time of trial, sorrow, sadness, or mourning, and the response is, some things that are good and appropriate now,
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I don't have any desire for. That's the pattern you're going to see in the
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Bible. And so let's give you some of those illustrations. 2 Samuel chapter 12.
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And again, we're talking about times that are not prescribed by God to fast. This is not
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Leviticus 16, this is not a time in Joel where God would say, here's a time where you must fast.
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These are times where people, in response to trials, sadness, sorrows, mourning, they say,
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I'm not going to eat. 2 Samuel chapter 12. So my point is going to be this, there's a time not to fast, and there's a time to fast.
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But I don't want you just running around saying, you know what, I need some spiritual discipline in my life, and so Monday and Tuesday I fast.
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No, you ought not to fast on Monday and Tuesday, unless it's a response to one of these trials. It's very similar to 1
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Corinthians chapter 7. It's good for husband and wife to be together physically, but there's a time for a season agreed on by both, where they both go, you know, there's a bigger issue going on in life than being together physically.
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And it just naturally and normally happens. You don't say, you know, I just had a death in the family, and these things that are good and right and natural, need to just be tabled for a while.
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But it's always in response. And here's one of these responses. 2 Samuel chapter 12 verse 13.
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Here's a private affliction, and we know about this very well, don't we? Just briefly. Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the
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Lord, Yahweh. Nathan replied, the Lord has taken away your sin, you are not going to die.
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He deserved to die. Old Testament law would require him to die. He has killed other people.
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Verse 14 of 2 Samuel 12, but because by doing this, you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt.
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The son born to you will die. He doesn't even say your son, because on one side it is from him, but it's with a wife that didn't belong to him.
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Verse 15, after Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife, not
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David's concubine, not David's forced lover, that Uriah's wife had born to David, and he became ill.
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David pleaded with God for the child. He what? Fasted. It was in a response.
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This is not some kind of Mosaic law. This is response to trial and trouble. He fasted and went to his house and spent the nights lying on the ground.
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As Uriah would lie on the ground and sit there when he could have been going home to his wife, he's outside the door and he's waiting here.
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Now David is crying out to God, fasting. The elders of the household, verse 17, stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, mirroring
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Uriah's language, and he would not eat any food with them. On the seventh day, the child died. David's servants were afraid to tell them that the child was dead, for they thought, while the child was still living, we spoke to David, but he would not listen to us.
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How can we tell him the child is dead? He may do something literally evil, desperate.
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David noticed that his servants were whispering among themselves, and he realized the child was dead.
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Is the child dead, he asked. Yes, they replied, he is dead. Then David got up from the ground, and after he'd washed, put on lotions, and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the
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Lord, and what? That's an amazing statement right there. And he worshipped.
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Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.
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Why are you asking this way, his servants asked, verse 21. While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat?
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He answered, while the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, who knows, the Lord may be gracious to me, and let the child live.
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But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.
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Verse 24, then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him
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Solomon. The Lord loved him. What's the point? The point is not, after you have a death in the family, you've got to immediately eat.
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The point is this. The point is, fasting is the normal response to trouble and trial in your life.
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Let me just push the envelope a little bit. It's getting close to the end of the sermon, so it's time to push. Could you tell me anything about fasting in the book of Romans?
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How about 1 Corinthians? 2 Corinthians? Galatians? Ephesians?
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How about 1 Thessalonians? How about 1 Timothy? How about Hebrews? How about James?
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Could you give me one illustration of fasting found in all the New Testament epistles? We're going to find out next week as well.
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You can't find one. From Romans through Jude, where is the fasting?
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Now you say, does that mean we never have to fast? I'm just saying to you that there is no command for the New Testament believer to fast.
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But you will fast when there's a trial or trouble or catastrophe in your life.
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We're in 2 Samuel. Go to 2 Samuel chapter 1, please, and I'll just show you another illustration. I'll put more of this together as we work on this next week and talk about food and is food bad and all these other kinds of things.
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Joel Osteen said lately that you can't eat pork and you can't eat shellfish, and so I had a couple of big shrimps last night to just...
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Is there any food we shouldn't have? We're going to look at that next week too. But look at this public calamity that showed up and then the response, non -commanded response was there are other things more important than food.
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It's like Sinai. When the law is delivered, chapter 19, God says don't go near your wife.
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Is it wrong to go near your wife? No, never it is wrong to go near your wife except the time where God now is going to speak and give
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His law. There's a time where good things just need to be said no to. 2
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Samuel chapter 1, verse 12, They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan and for the army of the
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Lord and the house of Israel because they had fallen by the sword. Mourning, weeping, fasting because God had done this and the response is not let's have a party and eat.
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Let's have 50 jalapeno poppers and a bunch of greasy fries. That's just not how our mind thinks.
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You can probably go back in your own life and say that. When there's trial, when there's trouble, when there's difficulties, you just say, wow, it's 8 o 'clock at night and I just had like a half a granola bar this morning.
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That's all I had. Because there's times for eating and there's times for fasting. I'll just read this, don't turn there.
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2 Chronicles 20, verse 3, Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the Lord and proclaimed to fast for all
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Judah. So Judah gathered together to seek help from the Lord. They even came from all the cities of Judah to seek the
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Lord. The Moabites are coming to destroy us. The Moabites and the Ammonites are coming to take our wives and children.
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Let's all eat. Let's have a pig roast. Well, I guess the Jews wouldn't do the pig roast, but you get my point.
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By the way, I'm sorry to inform everyone today, those of you that have brought pot providence of food, it's a sermon on fasting, so we're not going to eat any of it.
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It's bad timing, I know. The question you need to ask is this.
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When Jesus said to his disciples, when you eat, his disciples were
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Jewish. They'd be celebrating the Day of Atonement. They'd be having responses to horrible things in their life.
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They'd just say, no to. This is not some kind of verse that says, when you fast, meaning you have to fast.
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We'll talk about that more next week too. Queen Esther sent this reply to Mordecai.
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Esther, chapter 4, Go gather together all the
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Jews who are in Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night and day. I and my maids will fast as you do.
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When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.
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Fasting is a response for the New Testament Christian to trouble, trials.
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You say, well what about picking ministers? What about picking elders in Acts 14? We'll talk about that next week as well.
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There's a time in my life, if I look back, kind of one shining moment.
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There may be many shining moments, I don't know, but out of all the times in my life where I felt like I was someone's advocate, that I was someone's standing in someone's stead, to when my mother was dying.
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Now if you call me, because one of your loved ones is in the hospital, I will try to stand up for the family.
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I will try to meet with the doctors. I will try to say to myself, you are grieving, and you can't take care of the family with as much brain power as you normally would, so I'll come alongside and help.
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You don't need a social worker. You need a pastor. You need a friend. You need another Christian. My mother was dying of lung cancer, and her lungs would fill up, and then she would always tell me, she'd say, my biggest fear is not dying, she was a
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Christian woman, it's drowning in my own lung fluid. And I thought that would be a horrible way to die, drowning in your own fluids.
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And so as I was telling Pastor Steve this this week, as he's suffering and trying to help his mother in the best way he can,
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I remembered this story. And the story was this. I fly back to Omaha, and the church was very generous and gracious, go back to Omaha as many times as you need to, serve your mother.
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My mom was about three days from death, now looking back at it, and she started having that gurgling sound where her lungs were filling up with fluid again.
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I thought, you know what, she needs to have her lung tapped. She needs to have that lung fluid out.
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So I went and I talked to the nurse, the respiratory therapist, I said, I think my mom needs a lung tap, right?
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Oh yes, she absolutely needs a lung tap. Long story short, we'll get to the biblical principle here in a minute. I said, you know what,
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I need to go ask the doctor. Would you please tap my mother's lung? It's filling up again. They used to tap it once every three months, then once every two months, then once every month, then once every two weeks, then once a week.
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Now it's like once a day. She really could use the relief. Could you please tap her lung so she doesn't have that feeling of,
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I'm drowning in my own fluid? He said, well, I don't think she really needs it. I thought, well, the nurses and the respiratory therapists say they do, say she does, but I won't say that.
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I said, could you just please, I'd really appreciate it. I don't have much medical background, but I was in the operating room for a long time, and I just talk like that.
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He said, no, I can't do it, I'm too busy. He didn't say it directly like that, but that's what I know he meant, and it's an unpleasant procedure.
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So I thought, who would stand up for my mother? Who's going to stand up for her?
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And I thought, well, there's something about someone given by God as an image bearer that says this,
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I will stand in my mother's stead. So I thought, all right, I'll go back to the doctor.
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I'll try to be nice, but here's what I said. If you don't tap my mother,
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I'm going to call 911, and then I'm going to have the ambulance come and pick her up, and then she's going to go to the other hospital that I've already called, and they're going to take her, and they're going to tap her lung, and then
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I'm going to call the newspapers. Now, I am sure there was sin in that.
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I think there was righteousness, but I'm sure there was some sin there. He got all mad and did what doctors do.
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Do we have any doctors here? Sorry. What many doctors do, what unbelieving doctors do, caused a big fuss, went in and tapped my mother, and then he came out, and I thought, now it's time for me to receive his 40 lashes, and I'm just going to receive them because I got what needed to be.
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And I thought to myself, if there's ever been a time when I've been heroic, courageous, selfless, yet still laced with sin, that was the time.
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And then I read this. If we say we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
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If we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
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If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children,
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I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate.
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Someone to stand in our place. When we're dead and gone, spiritually dead, and depraved, we can't do anything.
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We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. For he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not only ours, but also those of the whole world.
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And if there was anything in me that said, you know what, this is a good, right thing.
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How much more, because of my sin, and because of Christ's sinlessness, do
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I look at the Savior and think, we have an advocate, not for lung cancer, but for the cancer of the soul called sin.
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Don't we serve a good Savior? Isn't it wonderful when you think, forget some kind of, oh, we thought we were defending our mother.
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There's something a lot more important, and that is we have Jesus Christ, an advocate with the
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Father, who stands there and says, Father, I know they're sinful, but I've paid for their sins.
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I know they didn't perfectly obey the law, but I perfectly obey the law. I know that death would destroy them, but I've been raised from the dead and I've triumphed over death.
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I know Satan would sift them like wheat, but I am the one who have rendered Satan inoperative at the cross.
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And I am the advocate, and if I think to myself, I admire those who stand up for their mother, how much more do
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I admire the God -man Jesus Christ, who is our advocate? He is our Savior.
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If He talks about fasting, I listen. It's a wonderful thing to be a
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Christian, isn't it? Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we once are named hallowed, and we know it can't be any more hallowed in heaven or on earth, apart from the work of the
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Spirit on earth. In heaven it's the most hallowed, and as it's hallowed in heaven, we want it hallowed on earth.
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We pray that You'd use us, though. We pray that You'd protect us as a church. We pray that as we respond to these things in life, and trials and temptations, and as we learn more next week, we want to respond properly, but not with self -righteousness, not just externals, but help us to love
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You from the heart with our mind, soul, and strength. And Lord, we are weak without You. We can't do anything, and we'll fall into the trap of the
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Pharisees and the disobedient disciples of John the Baptist. We are those people. And so we'd ask that You'd strengthen us by grace, that You'd encourage us with the one who is called the
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Comforter, the one who comes alongside of us, the Holy Spirit. And we praise You this morning that we have an advocate,
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Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. Always righteous, never more righteous than what He was, and He is our advocate.
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He stands in our stead, and He was our substitutionary sin -bearer. We praise You for raising
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Him from the dead and having Him be called our Savior, our Friend, and our Redeemer. For His sake we pray.