How True Fasting Makes a Difference Matthew 6:16-18

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God created us to eat and drink so that we would live.
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You can't survive very long without eating and drinking. But God did not create food and drink just to keep us alive.
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He also created it for our enjoyment. As Ecclesiastes 9, verses 7 and 8 says,
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Go eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.
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One of the great joys of life is eating and drinking. We enjoy it, and we should.
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It's a good gift from God. But the Bible tells us about a spiritual discipline that makes us cease from eating and drinking for a time.
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And when I say eating and drinking, I mean more eating. We can't make it very long without drinking, but we can go quite a while without eating.
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And this is called fasting, and fasting has a purpose to it. Now, fasting is not a uniquely biblical idea, as non -religious people fast, and so do those in other religions.
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For example, in the religion of Islam, Muslims fast every year for an entire month.
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This month is known as Ramadan. During this time, Muslims cannot eat during daylight, but only once the sun goes down.
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A number of years ago, I did some evangelism in south Minneapolis with a
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Christian friend, and this is the part of the city where many Somali Muslims live.
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And one of the times we went down there to strike up conversations was during this fast, and it was a big celebration because we were there right when the sun was going down and they were starting to eat.
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So why do Muslims take part in this fast? They abstain from eating for this month during daylight every year because the religion tells them that they have to.
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In Islam, they have pillars of their religion that they are required to do in order to receive entrance into heaven when life is over.
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Islam, like all other religions besides Christianity, is a works salvation religion.
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This is contrary to Christianity, where salvation is 100 % dependent upon what
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Christ did for us when He died for our sins and rose victoriously from the dead.
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And as I have said so many times before, Jesus is the only reason that we are saved, and our righteous works are there because the
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Holy Spirit empowers these works in us, and they are evidence that you have been saved.
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So when we think about fasting, what this means is that Christians do not fast the way
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Muslims do, but fasting still does have a place in the
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Christian life. This morning, we will see this as Jesus calls His followers to fast in the right way.
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So this time, I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew 6. We'll be looking at verses 16 through 18.
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And if you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on page 964. This sermon is titled,
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How True Fasting Makes a Difference. So the last several weeks, we looked at how does true prayer make a difference, and now we're going to see how does true fasting make a difference.
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I'm going to begin by reading the text, Matthew 6, 16 through 18.
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These are the words of Jesus as He's preaching the Sermon on the Mount, as they're overlooking the Sea of Galilee.
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And this is what He says, So here's our big idea.
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This sermon is calling you to make fasting a spiritual discipline in your life.
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And we will see four reasons why in this sermon. But before we jump into our text,
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The last three weeks, we've looked at, of course, the topic of prayer in verses 5 through 15 of Matthew 6.
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And what that sermon called each of us to do is to follow our Lord, to know how to communicate to God properly.
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We saw eight examples given by Jesus. The first two examples were how not to pray.
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And if you can remember, these were to be seen by others and to pray mindlessly.
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These are two ways where Jesus says, don't pray like this. Then we saw six examples of how to pray.
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These were to pray for the Lord's name to be honored on earth, to live as kingdom citizens now, for God's will to be done on earth, for the physical necessities of life to be given to us, for forgiveness across the board, that we would ask for forgiveness and that we would forgive others as well.
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And also to pray not to enter into dangerous territory. Because when we enter into trials, we're more likely to sin.
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We're more susceptible to be tempted by Satan. So we should not pray for trials, but we should pray not to enter them.
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But we're also praying that when we do enter them, the Lord will bear us up.
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So may God be honored with our prayers and may our prayers be effective. Now, one of the ways we are not to pray is to be seen by others.
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And we have been on this theme in chapter six of not doing things for the praise of man, but for God's praise.
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What we have seen is that man's praise is so empty and so fleeting. And we are going to see that again this morning as Jesus addresses the topic of fasting.
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So this time we will dig into this text and we'll begin by digging into verse 16.
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We've already read this, but Jesus says once again, When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces, that their fasting may be seen by others.
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Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. You will notice right at the beginning of this verse that Jesus says,
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When you fast, not if you fast. The Greek word in this text is the word for when or whenever and not the word for if.
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Now, nowhere in the Bible are we commanded to fast in the Old and New Testaments like the
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Islam does that to Muslims. But it is practiced in many places.
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It is a pattern to follow. And the fact that Jesus says, when you fast, tells us that this should be a practice that we should follow.
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There is something found in fasting that will benefit our spiritual walk. What we are going to see is there is a right way to fast and a wrong way.
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Jesus first tells us the wrong way. It is interesting that some people like the good news first and some like the bad news first.
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Jesus seems to be one of those who likes to give the bad news first. And he's done this throughout the
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Sermon on the Mount. He has told them, don't do this, but rather do this.
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He starts with a warning and then he tells how we should carry out a particular action in our life.
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The theme we have seen is that God cares about the genuineness of our heart.
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We saw this already and that our works need to be genuine and our prayers to God need to be genuine.
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And what we are going to see here is so does our fasting. This is the problem with these
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Jewish leaders, once again, these Jewish false teachers. Jesus takes aim at them over and over again to show the
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Jewish crowd that he is speaking about those who have gone off the rails.
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And as the crowd is listening to Jesus, they might be wondering, he really doesn't like these people.
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And he doesn't because they thought that they were following God. They made all these man -made rules.
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They thought they were the spiritual and really these people were disgusting. The goal of their fasting, these
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Jewish leaders, was to be seen. And if no one else was around, they didn't want to fast because no one would see it.
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They did everything for the praise of man. Jesus tells us what the
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Jewish leaders did to make their fasting known to everyone. He says they made themselves gloomy and disfigured their faces.
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The disfiguring would have been leaving one's face unwashed. And they also would sprinkle themselves with ashes.
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What I'm going to show you in a little bit is that one of the reasons people fasted in the Old Testament was in repentance.
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So when people saw those ashes on their head, they would know they were fasting.
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And they wanted people to look on and see how spiritual they were. Look at me. I'm fasting. Look what I'm doing.
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You're not doing it, but I'm doing it. In this verse,
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Jesus calls them hypocrites as he already did in verse 2 and in verse 5 of this chapter. They are one thing in private and something completely different in public.
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They would not fast in private, of course. They wanted to be seen. And what they are doing is putting on a performance for everyone to see.
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Remember the word hypocrite? In the ancient world, actors and actresses, they were called hypocrites.
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They put on a show. The character they played wasn't who they were in real life. Jesus says in verse 16 that they are doing this to be seen by others.
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The same reason they gave to the needy and the same reason they prayed, all of this was done so that people would look on and applaud.
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At the end of verse 16, Jesus says the same thing that he said about their giving in public for the praise of man.
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And what he said is they have received their reward. They are not living for the praise of God when this life is over, when
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God says, well done. They're living for instant gratification.
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They're living for the praise that comes right now. What we have learned about the
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Jewish leaders in the first century is that they had a dead religion. They went through the motions instead of truly worshiping
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God. And when the Jewish leaders did these rituals, including fasting, they thought they were good with God.
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It was a good deal for them. They thought we get man's praise on earth, and yet we also are good with God.
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We have his blessing. And when this life is over, we will go to heaven. But that is far from the reality that they found themselves in.
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They were spiritually dead as they performed these meaningless rituals, thinking that somehow
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God's favor was upon them. But rather, his wrath is over them.
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John 3 .36 says that those who do not obey the Son shall not see life, for the wrath of God remains on them.
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God is just waiting to judge them for their wickedness. In Matthew 23,
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Jesus called them blind guides, fools, sons of hell, whitewashed tombs, and more.
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Jesus wasn't Minnesota Knights or Wisconsin Knights. Sometimes he was, but sometimes he wasn't, depending on who he was talking to.
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And it's interesting. When people abused God's word and said that it was
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God's word, he was very angry. And we see that with the
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Pharisees. Their forefathers in the Old Testament, so the Pharisees, their forefathers in the
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Old Testament, dishonored God in similar ways. There were, of course, saints in the
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Old Testament. There were people who we should emulate because of their faithfulness, those who pleased the
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Lord. But the truth is that most of Israel throughout its history did not follow God.
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And that is seen through their lifeless rituals in the Old Testament. In Isaiah 58, verses 3 -9, we learn about true fasting and false fasting.
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And I'm going to summarize what the text says about false fasting and then read to you the blessings that come from true fasting as the prophet
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Isaiah calls Israel to leave their false fasting and pursue true fasting. In this passage, the
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Israelites fasted as an obligation, thinking that God would hear their prayers.
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But he did not because they did not fast in the right way. In this passage,
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Isaiah explains that their heart was focused on their own pleasure and they treated others poorly.
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One of the ways they did this is they did not feed those that they were called by God to feed while they were fasting.
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So the food that they would normally have eaten that day, they were supposed to give that food to the poor. And they treated people poorly when they were fasting.
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Okay, so they're saying, okay, we're fasting, we're fasting. And yet, they were rotten people as they were fasting.
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They treated their workers poorly, those who had employees. They treated their family poorly.
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And they treated the poor poorly. They were supposed to be generous and help as they fasted, not stingy.
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This is what the Lord wanted them to do with their day's food. The fast was meant as a time to serve others, not ridicule others and bring the focus on self, ridiculing them by saying, look at us, we're spiritual.
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We're fasting and you're not. Somehow thinking that God is pleased with that. The Israelites also made a mockery of repentance.
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They wanted God to hear them and bring blessing upon them, so they put down sackcloth and ashes under them as they prayed, thinking that God would hear them.
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But their heart was not in it. They were living unrighteous lives.
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These Israelites had hearts that were far from God. And so when they came to the Lord to do this ritual before Him, He would not listen.
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Whatever they prayed, He would not answer. They wanted His favor. They didn't truly love
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Him though. So they clearly fasted wrongly.
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But in this passage, the prophet Isaiah, speaking on behalf of the Lord, tells us the true way to fast.
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This is what he wrote. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
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Then shall your light break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up speedily.
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Your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard. Then you shall call and the
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Lord will answer. You shall cry and He will say, Here I am.
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So as we see in Isaiah, the Israelites thought the more rituals they did, the more favor they would receive from God.
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But God is not impressed when one's heart is detached as one worships
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Him. This is a fasting and prayer that is wasted. Those who trust in the
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Lord by grace through faith alone and then have works that show that true faith, these are the ones whom the
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Lord listens to. This is the type of prayer in fasting that is effective.
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This is the prayer in fasting that the Bible promotes. What you noticed in that passage from Isaiah is that prayer and fasting are interconnected.
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Now I like peanut butter and I like jelly. And you probably do too. They're wonderful foods that we eat.
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But when you combine peanut butter and jelly, it's even better. I mean, think about peanut butter toast.
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It's okay. I mean, it's pretty good, right? Peanut butter or jelly toast, pretty good. How about peanut butter and jelly toast?
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Or peanut butter and jelly sandwich? So much better together. I know Mark would agree with that, right?
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And many of you would. True fasting goes hand in hand with prayer.
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True fasting will always involve true prayer. When you fast in the right way as you pray, then the
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Lord will answer your prayers. So it's not surprising that Jesus follows instruction on how to pray with instructions about how to fast.
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Now in a little bit, I'm going to explain when and why we should fast. But before we get there, let's see the main idea that Jesus is getting after in these verses when it comes to fasting.
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He tells us this in verses 17 and 18. So let me read these again. Jesus says,
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But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your
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Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. You'll notice once again
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Jesus says, when you fast, this repetition stresses this should be the normal Christian life.
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What he says in the second half of verse 17 is to anoint your head and wash your face.
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This stands in stark contrast to the Jewish leaders of Jesus' day. What they did.
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Remember, they did not wash their face and they looked gloomy. What Jesus is saying is don't let anyone know that you are fasting.
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Jesus tells us why in verse 18. If you let everyone know that you are fasting, then this lets everyone know that you are doing it for the praise of men.
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But if you do it so that only God can see you, then you are doing it for him.
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What Jesus says at the end of verse 18 is that your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
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Jesus already told us that we are to practice righteousness before him, pray before him, and now in this text to fast before him.
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We must resist the temptation to only do good things to be seen by others and then to be a completely different person in private.
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We have a Father in heaven who loves to reward those who do everything for his praise.
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When we fast not to be seen by others, but to be seen by him, then he is pleased.
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So we are to make fasting a spiritual discipline in your life and the first reason why is to worship your
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Father and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Now, we went through the text there, but now we're going to look at three other reasons that we are to fast.
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The second reason we are to fast is this, to accompany urgent prayer. The Bible, throughout the
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Bible, we are told the purpose of fasting. We've already seen the bad example of fasting in the
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Old Testament. They did it for appearances. But the book of Ezra, in other places in the
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Old Testament, but we're going to focus on the book of Ezra. The book of Ezra is very helpful as we think about fasting. Ezra fasted in two ways.
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The first in times of intense prayer. In Ezra, he fasted and prayed that the
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Lord would lead him and the exiles safely to Jerusalem. In the history of Israel, the people were taken into exile by the
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Babylonians in the 7th century BC. And then the Babylonians were conquered by the
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Persians. So then the Jewish people were under the power of the Persians.
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But the Persians were kinder than the Babylonians. Through the
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Lord's providence, they were allowed to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. And at this point in this story, they had already rebuilt the temple, but now
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Ezra was returning to Jerusalem with a large number of exiles. So Ezra is praying for this journey.
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And since their safety is so important, he calls a fast. In chapter 8, verse 21, this is what he said.
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He said, I proclaimed a fast there at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our
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God to seek from Him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods.
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So as we can see here, Ezra was praying for an urgent need, and he felt the need to fast.
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We also see this in the New Testament. In the book of Acts, there was a great need for the gospel to be brought to everybody in the
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Roman Empire, so that they would believe in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. And the people at the church in Antioch prayed and fasted to figure out who was going to be sent out as missionaries.
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And in Acts 13, verses 2 and 3, we read this, While they were worshiping the
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Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which
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I have called them. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
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This was one of the first great missionary enterprises in the history of the church.
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This was a very important decision about who was going to go, who was going to be sent out.
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Since it was so important, they prayed, as you would expect, but they also added fasting to their prayer, because they really wanted the
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Lord to reveal to them clearly who was supposed to be sent out. Now in our lives, we have big moments that come up where we should not only pray, but we should also fast.
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When you guys called me to be your pastor in December, January of 2017, my old church, one of the elders suggested, he said, we should fast so that the transition will be smooth for Pastor Seth as he goes to Eureka Baptist.
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And so me and the elders there, we fasted and we prayed during that season. And I think the
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Lord's blessing was upon that because I think the transition went well here. And let me give you another story.
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One of my professors in seminary had a daughter who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a few years back.
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They didn't know how serious it was when she was first diagnosed. It was either going to be treatable or terminal.
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My professor and his family fasted as they prayed for healing. And the Lord responded with kindness as the cancer turned out to be treatable.
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And after the surgery, the cancer was in remission. But they fasted and prayed and said,
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Lord, would you spare this young woman? So one of the ways we pray and fast is when an urgent need arises.
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Something very important that calls not only for prayer, but also that ceasing from food for a day or two takes place.
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So that's the second reason we are to fast. The third reason is this, to accompany our confession before God. So repentance.
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Earlier we saw that the Pharisees had ashes on their face. This was supposed to represent repentance, but really it was just a show.
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It didn't really do anything. And Ezra... We already looked at Ezra 8. Now in Ezra 9, verse 5, he fasted in repentance.
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This is what he says. At the end of the evening sacrifice, I rose from my fasting with my garment and my cloak torn, and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the
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Lord my God. So fasting was used in times of repentance to confess sins and heal the fractured relationship with God.
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There might be a time where we commit a sin or a string of sins, and we're like, you know what?
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I need to really give special attention to this. And I should fast and pray prayers of repentance.
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Now in the New Testament, we are called to live lives of repentance. We saw this last
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Sunday in the Sermon on the Mount in the Lord's Prayer. And since repentance is always important in the
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Christian life, repentance should be continual. And in times of fasting, one thing we should do is confess our sins.
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So if we say, you know what? I want to set aside a day to fast. And when we fast, we should pray.
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One of the prayers that we should pray as we fast are prayers of repentance.
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And sometimes we should repent corporately, like for the church. If we're concerned that the broader church is really doing bad, and I think it is right now, it might be a time to call a time of prayer and fasting.
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In fact, one of the pastors in our area said that on September 26, there is an international day of repentance.
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So there's going to be churches everywhere praying prayers of repentance. That might be a good day to fast and also to pray.
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So at the very least, we should repent of our individual sins when we fast, but we should also think about,
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Lord, corporately speaking, the broader church has sinned in so many ways. So this is the third reason why we are to make fasting a spiritual discipline.
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They should accompany our confession before Him. And the fourth reason I think is the most important reason, and that is to long for God's presence.
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To long for God's presence. And this reason is to show our satisfaction is in Christ more than food or anything on earth.
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Jesus explains this in Matthew 9, 14 -17. That's the passage that I read earlier when the disciples of John asked, well, why are we fasting?
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And why are the Pharisees fasting? But Jesus, you and your disciples aren't fasting. Jesus' ministry was three and a half years.
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And during that ministry, they never fasted. And that's an interesting question to ask. And Jesus answers the question.
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He says, can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?
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The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them. And then they will fast.
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Now, I don't want to spend too much time on that passage because we're going to be preaching this probably several months down the road.
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But in brief, Jesus is saying that once He left the disciples after His resurrection and went to heaven, new covenant fasting meant looking ahead to the final resurrection with longing.
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There is a tremendous joy at being in the presence of God. And right now, our relationship with God is a long -distance one.
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Imagine you're getting married to someone and you're hours apart from each other. And so it's like a long -distance relationship.
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And you just long for the day when you're married and you live under the same roof. Our relationship with God right now is kind of like that.
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We're not in His presence in one sense. We will be when we die and enter
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His presence. But this is a time where we must long to be in His presence.
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And that's what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying, I am in their presence. So there's feasting that takes place, not fasting.
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But when I leave and I go to heaven, this in -between period between when I leave and go to heaven and when
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I return to the earth, this is when Christians should take part in fasting. So in other words, we fast to show that our greatest longing is to be with Jesus.
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He is the one who satisfies our hearts. And He is away right now, so we're showing
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Him, Lord, these hunger pains that I have, they represent my longing to be in Your presence.
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Now, as we live in this world, we need to love God's gifts appropriately. And fasting, not only does it give us a longing to be in the presence of Christ, but it also shows us where our idols might be.
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Fasting helps us check where our true love is. Now, it's important to stress, we are to enjoy
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God's gifts. We are to feast with every one of His gifts. The Apostle Paul wrote in 1
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Timothy 4 and 5 that everything created by God is good and nothing needs to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.
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We are not to be ascetics. These were people who thought it was spiritual to deny themselves any earthly pleasure.
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That's not biblical. We should enjoy the gifts that God has given us. But there are times where we should fast to examine where our heart is.
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Am I happy because of this cheeseburger or am I happy because of Christ?
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Am I happy because of my kids or am I happy because of Christ? Obviously, it's a little bit different. You can't fast from your children so much.
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But sometimes it's appropriate to put the kids to bed and say, Lord, my joy is in You and not in my children.
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This could apply to anything in your life, wherever it might be. Good gifts that God has given you.
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Good gifts should remain good gifts because if we turn them into what they're not supposed to be, then they become idols.
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We should see them as gifts from God. They can be a temptation toward idolatry.
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And there are times when we need to take a fast and tell the Lord, You are the one who is truly my joy.
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Now, technically, fasting is abstaining from food. That's what the
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Bible is talking about here. But we can also fast from other things, as I mentioned. Think of all the things that, if done too much, may steer our hearts away from God.
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Television, Internet, music, phone, sports.
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There have been times in my life where I've had to fast from certain things. And it's interesting, during COVID -19, this fast has been imposed on all of us, right?
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All of our idols, the idols of our culture, have been taken away.
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Now, for some people, it's gifts. But some of these things have been taken away. And what we learn is that we don't need these things to enjoy life.
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It's interesting. There's a football season coming up. And in most years, I would have been excited, Oh, the season's coming up.
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I'm not even thinking about it. I could care less if they even had it. And it's interesting how that happens because you build new patterns in life where you realize you don't need this.
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There's more joy in other places. And fasting does that. So clean forms of entertainment are good gifts from God, but we can become too dependent on things where we are not enjoying the
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Lord like we could. So fasting is an opportunity to long for the
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Lord's presence, to have deeper intimacy with Him in our long -distance relationship that we presently have with Him, and to long to be in His presence when we pass from this earth, and to rip us away from things that might become an idol where we would have the right approach to these things, where they would have the right place in our lives.
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So we are to make fasting a spiritual discipline in our lives. And we've seen four reasons why in this sermon.
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To worship your Father in secret, to accompany our urgent prayer, and to accompany our confessions before Him, and lastly, to long for God's presence.
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And may we go to the Lord in prayer and ask about areas where we should practice fasting from time to time, whether it's from food or whether it's from something else.
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And my goal in this sermon is that you would start thinking about this. That the goal would be to deepen your intimacy with God and to learn what does true fasting look like.
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And this is going to help my walk with the Lord. This is something that I should do from time to time.
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And we could talk about this more, but my hope is that you would start thinking about this and praying about this.
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Now next Sunday, Jesus drills in to how He must be the treasure of our lives.
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So He's building off of what we've already seen today. We cannot serve two masters.
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We are created to worship Him alone. And I look forward to looking at that with you next
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Sunday in our next text. At this time, let's bow our heads in prayer. Father in Heaven, Lord, everything that You give us is meant for our good.
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And there's a reason that fasting is in the Bible. There's a purpose behind this that's meant for our good,
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Lord. And we would be foolish to just ignore it. We would be wise to consider it.
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We would be wise to fast in the biblical way. Not to fast like the
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Pharisees fast. Not to fast like unbelievers in the Old Testament fasted.
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Not to fast like Muslims fast or any false religion or any pagan group.
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But, Lord, that we would fast in a manner that is pleasing to You. And so, Lord, give us wisdom on this.
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And may all of this give us a greater longing, a greater hunger for You. May You truly be first in our hearts and not anything else.