Holy Habits | Matthew 6:1-18 | Gary Hamrick

[Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] let's take our bibles and go to matthew chapter six matthew chapter six in your bibles we're continuing in our study through the sermon on the mount which takes up matthew chapters five six and seven it is uh the longest recorded sermon of jesus in the bible and it is called the sermon on the mount because he delivers it on a hillside on the slopes of the northern coast of the sea of galilee so let me take you by way of pictorial background this is the northern slope of the sea of galilee where it is believed jesus delivered this sermon i'm a little um sad right now because tomorrow was supposed to be our trip to israel those of you who registered and so i was going to be here tomorrow but now just only a picture behind me but we had 300 people who had registered for this trip and then of course kovid changed a lot of things in people's lives so it got cancelled and rescheduled to 2021 and so i'm giving those 300 people the first option for the new dates um but then we'll open it up and and see if you would like to go with us and if hopefully things will be better by 2021 in august and september 2021 so anyhow this is the pictorial background for our sermon out of matthew chapter six where jesus teaches for us and i'm going to read uh from this sixth chapter first 18 verses then we're going to pray and then we'll talk about this first half of chapter six so here's what jesus said verse one take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them otherwise you have no reward from your father in heaven therefore when you do a charitable deed do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may have glory from men assuredly i say to you they have their reward but when you do a charitable deed do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing that your charitable deed may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will himself reward you openly and when you pray you shall not be like the hypocrites for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they may be seen by men assuredly i say to you they have their reward but you when you pray go into your room and when you have shut your door pray to your father who is in the secret place and your father who sees in secret will reward you openly and when you pray do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do for they think that they will be heard for their many words therefore do not be like them for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him in this manner therefore pray our father in heaven hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and do not let us lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen for if you forgive men their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you but if you do not forgive men their trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses moreover when you fast do not be like the hypocrites with a sad countenance for they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting assuredly i say to you they have their reward but you when you fast anoint your head and wash your face so that you do not appear to men to be fasting but to your father who was in the secret place and your father who sees in secret will reward you openly let's pause there and pray father god we're thankful for your word that we can open and hold on our laps and read these words that jesus declared some 2000 years ago that are still timeless truth for us today and we pray that you would help us to apply these things that we hear so that we would not be guilty of hearing only but not doing what it says may we be hearers and doers lord and we thank you for your grace and your love and our lives and for those of us who know you in a personal way we just want to be stretched in our walk with you that we would be more like jesus and for those here today or those watching online who don't make a profession of faith they don't know you maybe they're just here out of curiosity a friend invited them or they're just interested lord i pray that the eyes of their hearts would be open to see who you are that they would receive you as lord and savior so we commit our bible study to you now we're thankful for your grace and your love and your mercy in our lives be with us now in jesus name and all god's people said amen well the first half of chapter six that i just read here jesus introduces to us what we call three disciplines of the christian faith now don't let that scare you off here by way of a definition is what a spiritual discipline is spiritual disciplines are simply habits practices and experiences that are designed to develop grow and strengthen one's spirit to build the muscles if you will of one's character as a follower of christ now there's not a prescribed list in the bible one two three four here are the disciplines of the faith that christians are supposed to follow but when you look throughout scripture we can glean from instruction and from example different spiritual disciplines there are not only three but these are three that jesus highlights for us in the sermon on the mount and so these are the three that we're going to look at he highlights giving praying and fasting and so i'm going to talk first about three things that jesus says each of these have in common together and then we'll circle back and take a brief look at each of them but first here are the things that jesus says that these three disciplines have in common the first one is that jesus assumes we are already doing these things because in verses 2 5 and 16 when he talks about giving praying and fasting he uses the words when you not if you when you he already assumes that we are going to be doing these things and so in chapter 2 rather in chapter 6 verse 2 as it relates to giving jesus says therefore when you do a charitable deed in verse 5 in regards to praying he says and when you pray in verse 16 in regards to fasting he says moreover when you fast so you might just want to underline in your bibles or highlight in your electronic bibles at verse 2 5 and 16 where he uses the word when when you do a charitable deed when you pray when you fast jesus bypasses if you are doing these things and he goes straight to when you do these things because as far as jesus is concerned it's not a question of if it's about how and why you should be doing these things in other words in what way are we practicing these disciplines and with what motive we'll get into that a little bit as we go through this text here but first the implication here of the words by jesus when you do these things is that these disciplines are a given every follower of christ should be giving should be praying and should be fasting with some kind of regularity as part of the habits of the christian life now listen not as religious rituals this this is not like okay in order to be a really good person you better do this this and this but again this is for the benefit of us as believers that when we practice these things it strengthens our souls and it draws us closer to the lord so in regards to giving in regards to praying in regards to fasting these should all be regular habits of the christian life jude in his little epistle right before the book of revelation jude in verse 20 says but you dear friends build yourselves up in your most holy faith and one of the ways that we can build ourselves up in our faith is by practicing spiritual disciplines like giving praying and fasting the second thing that all three of these have in common that jesus points out by the way that he repeats different phrases here is number two that these things should be done discreetly and he uses the phrase in secret for each of these three disciplines in verse four in regards to giving he says that your charitable deed may be in secret he uses the same phrase in verse six when he talks about praying he says pray to your father who is who is in the secret place and your father who sees in secret and then also with fasting in verse 18 jesus says do not appear to men to be fasting but to your father who is in the secret place and your father who sees in secret so there is this emphasis here on these three disciplines on doing these things that build us up in our faith as a way of connecting with our father in heaven not as a way to draw attention to ourselves or to somehow try to impress people that we are more spiritual so jesus is telling us listen no fanfare no drawing attention don't be doing these things to help people make them think that you're more spiritual that's why he says here for example in regards to giving that's why jesus says that when you give don't announce it with trumpets and he says in the section about giving he says don't even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing now these are idioms these are expressions today we would say it like this hey keep it on the down low you know what i'm saying to you down low like don't let anybody know you're doing these things and we also use this expression about you know don't don't blow your own horn don't sound your own trumpet you know don't draw attention to yourself that's what jesus is saying about this same thing about praying in verse five when he said for the hypocrites love to stand to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they may be seen by man i mean picture this you had these religious leaders in jesus day on the street corner just in the middle of town you're speaking like oh god i beseech you you know that's what these guys were doing because they wanted attention they wanted people to go oh wow look how spiritual that dude is praying on the corner of king and market street man what a christian what a believer don't do that okay don't do that now listen jesus is not opposed to public corporate prayer okay what he's opposed to is when people do it for show when they do it to draw attention to themselves when they want people to think that they're more spiritual than they really are otherwise what jesus says here regarding prayer is go into your rooms close the door and pray to your father in secret discreetly just get alone with the lord don't try to do this for public attention this is important for us to ask ourselves do we give because we want people to see how generous we are do we pray out loud somewhere because we want people to see how spiritual we are these are the questions we need to be asking ourselves because jesus is confronting the motivation of our hearts in regards to these disciplines are we doing these things unto the lord or are we doing these things sometimes to impress other people same thing about fasting in the section about fasting in verse 16 jesus says hypocrites go around with a sad countenance and disfigure their faces so that they might impress people with their fasting and in jesus day check this out people would actually throw dirt or ashes on their heads to announce to people that they were fasting to look all you know trodden and then they go around like why the downtrodden face i'm fasting oh you are yeah you know me and the lord that's how we connect i just fast a lot and throw ashes on my face oh it's really spiritual of you now jesus says don't go around doing that kind of thing it was all for a show and then the third thing that he says these disciplines have in common number three is that these things will be rewarded by the lord he tells us in verse 4 in regards to giving and your father who sees in secret will himself reward you openly in regards to praying in verse 6 he says that your father who sees in secret will reward you openly and in regards to fasting same thing in verse 18 and your father who sees in secret will reward you openly and so jesus promises not only are there intrinsic benefits to the spiritual disciplines of giving praying and fasting but he says check it out i'm going to actually reward you in addition now the bible doesn't say how in what form that reward comes we don't we don't know the bible doesn't say is it in our lifetime or is it some kind of reward we receive when we're with him in heaven we don't know the bible is silent about how it's actually dispensed but jesus makes the promise that we will be rewarded for developing these habits in our lives so let's circle back real quickly and just look at each of these giving and praying and fasting and understand a little bit about the how and the why and in regards to giving first in the section on giving in the new king james that i'm reading from jesus talks about doing your charitable deeds if you read from niv or the esv it says when it translates those words it says specifically when you give to the needy and the original greek language is the word el amazune and el masune means charitable giving or compassionate acts toward the needy so i i don't want to make you'll be relieved to know i don't want to make this into any kind of a sermon of like well you need to give more to the church and tithes and offerings because that's not the actual context the context here about giving is jesus talking about being specific regarding being generous towards the needy now that said we are able to help the needy in our community because of your generosity uh through the church so i just want to take a moment to say thank you for that because especially during this time of covid with this virus i just so appreciate how you all have really stepped up your generosity not just in financial giving but in your generosity of serving with your time and your resources to to really help the needy in our community through our outreach ministry and it's a it's been a blessing to see literally thousands of people in our community being helped who really have genuine needs because of your generosity so i thank you and i commend you and i praise god for you and you can give yourselves a hand because you've been generous in many ways uh for all that you're doing uh you know recently we um were a part of a um a food distribution here in our parking lot called farmers to families um and it's really in conjunction with the federal government i i was actually mowing my lawn and i got a call from a liaison in the white house they have your numbers friends let me just tell you right now and um and you know and i was asked hey can your church be a part of this farmers to family program i i got to be honest with you i was kind of ignorant about what the program was and so they had to explain it to me here's the way it works because of covid farmers had all this excess produce and you know in terms of fruits and vegetables and then even livestock like excess chickens and all this stuff because schools were shut down so they didn't need to supply food for cafeterias uh major stadium events were shut down so they didn't need to supply food for major events and so farmers had all this extra food that they were just going to throw out the federal government stepped in through the program called farmers to families three billion dollars the president um released for this program and he just released another one billion dollars a couple weeks ago and and here's how the program works the federal government steps in pays farmers for their produce and livestock so that they don't go to waste and then we'll distribute it to families who are in need especially right now because a lot of people have lost their jobs but the problem is the federal government's a big bureaucracy how do you get all the food from the farmers into the hands of the needy people so actually it became the heart for of ivanka trump and she said how about we involve the faith community how about we get churches involved in being the boots on the ground if you will to be able to use volunteers to take the food from the farmers if we bring tractor trailers of food then the churches can take the food and actually distribute it in their communities to people who have needs so i get this phone call and i'm like i'm being asked in 48 hours can we have two tractor trailers at your church and you distribute to needy families what am i going to say no of course i'm going to say yes and then i'm thinking of course we could do this then i call mike frick our pastor of outreach mike we're in a bind man i don't know how we are going to do this because two tractor trailers and and there was a box of uh perishable items like uh milk and chicken and cheese and butter and then there was a 22 pounds of it and there's 22 pounds of non-perishable fruits and vegetables and every family who had a need would get one box of each and they'd leave with 44 pounds of food and it didn't cost us as a church a dime and it helped farmers and it helped needy families and we just became boots on the ground and we could be a part of the joy of seeing needy families benefiting and so um so so you know praise god you guys stepped it up and we had a lot of volunteers here and um and we were able to do that um and since then they've asked us can you do this regularly so if you're interested in helping we have another distribution coming up this friday on the 18th and you can just text us outreach at cornerstonechapel.net if you're interested in helping that's us no no punctuation just the letters u s outreach at cornerstonechapel.net and um and if if we can't use you this friday on september the 18th we have another distribution in october and and we're going to continue to do this as long as the program is available to help our community and so it's just it's a wonderful opportunity to be able to be generous why because god has been generous to us and we have to be mindful of the fact that in general when it comes to giving whether it's acts of service or whether it's time and resources or whether it's finances that it should be done because we love jesus and we love people and and that when we understand as believers see this is the mindset you know being a christian is a is a different mindset from what the world it's not like the world isn't consistent with some biblical principles at all it's just that there are times when you're going to find as a believer that your principles are very very different from the rest of the world standard and when we realize as believers that everything that we possess everything that we have has come from the beneficent hand of our father in heaven then we should be eager to be generous to others because every good and perfect gift has come down from our father in heaven and so we just want to be conduits of it and we just want to be generous and we want to we want to be giving people and so when jesus talks you're about giving and not letting your left hand know what your right is doing and don't announce it with trumpets you know he's like don't do it for show and don't do it for attention but be generous people and help the needy and serve people as best as you can according to your resources and your ability so that's in the area of giving now when you look at the section here on prayer the section on prayer here includes a section that is commonly referred to as the lord's prayer or if you have a catholic background you refer to it as the our father right and so this prayer here look there's been many books written on the lord's prayer a lot of good resources out there so i'm not going to try to dissect all the the nuances of what we commonly call the lord's prayer but what i would like to simply do is to highlight the elements of his prayer and then focus on the beginning verse and the end verse around the lord's prayer there are some verses like bookends around the lord's prayer that are often overlooked because all we want to do is focus on the lord's prayer itself and we miss i think some important things that jesus says around it so first let me say this i believe that the lord's prayer what we call the lord's prayer is to serve as a model or a pattern but not necessarily to be recited as a wrote prayer it's the reason why we don't say it around here commonly now i will sometimes get emails from people who have traditional backgrounds and they will say why don't you ever say the lord's prayer and my gentle answer is i don't know that it was ever really intended to just be simply recited i don't think there's anything wrong with it i've certainly done it you know and there are different appropriate times i think for the lord's prayer to be recited but as a regular thing i i don't think there's anything wrong with reciting it only to the extent that the constant repetition of it will lose its meaning and and it just reduces it to just let's just say this prayer and there are some of you that could say the lord's prayer in your sleep because that's how well you know it and we can go through the motions without the emotions so in general i think what we have before us is a model of some elements that jesus says here's what i think you should include in your prayer life so that's what i want to highlight with you and so on the screens i'll put for you the different elements that that are included here in what we call the lord's prayer the first is adoration because he starts that way our father in heaven hollywood be your name you know our prayer life should not just be dear lord here's what i need i mean how about just starting with some praise and some thanks to the lord and adoring him and worshipping him and that's verse 9 and then in verse 10 it says your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven well this is an element of submission this is saying lord your kingdom your will may may your purposes be done and so this is submitting to the will of the father you know when jesus was praying in the garden of gethsemane just before he was crucified there was this moment of in terrible terrible angst where he's praying and luke says he's even perspiring droplets of blood because of the anxiety of the moment the intensity of it all and in that in that time jesus prays father if there's any way for this to be accomplished you know take this cup from me if there's any other way that this can be accomplished but then he says but nevertheless your will be done not mine and so even jesus being fully god and fully man was constantly deferring to the will of the father constantly deferring to the will of the father in submission to the father and that's what he's calling us to make sure we include in our prayers a remembrance of god is sovereign we are not humility and submission to him and then in verse 11 jesus says give us this day our daily bread and that's the element of provision god god invites us to pray that he would meet our needs now not our greeds there's a difference but our needs a lot of times we want to pray for what we want but they're not really needs so we got to weigh that carefully and make sure is this really necessary is this a greed or is this a need god will always meet our needs verse 12 and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors or forgive us our trespasses our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us this is confession this is the element of confession you know just getting our hearts right with god making sure our hearts are right with others and then in verse 13 he says and do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one this is the element of protection i heard uh not too long ago within this last year that the the catholic pope um decided that we could strike that from the lord's prayer because he says god doesn't lead us into temptation well first of all don't mess with god's word if i could say so uh your holiness don't ever mention uh mess with god's word um but really it's not that god leads us into temptation the rest of it is but deliver us from the evil one it's the evil one it is satan who leads us into temptation and this is a prayer of protection may god protect us from our flesh and from the enemy and then he ends it by just kind of circling back to adoration for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen now catholics don't say that last line and i was at a wedding one time i wasn't performing and i was just attending it was a at a catholic church and um so they were reciting the our father and they got to you know near the end and being protestant as i am i just continued and and thine is the power and the glory no one else is saying it oh right forever you know and so it was a little awkward but i finished it for them so those are the elements i think it's good for us to include those in our prayer lives but i want to focus on the bookends around it if you look in your bibles at the verse before he launches into the lord's prayer verse 8 and then we'll look at the verse behind it too but verse 8 therefore do not be like them the hypocrites for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him i think that's an important thing that often gets overlooked because all we do is focus on the content of the lord's prayer itself but jesus says here that your father in heaven knows what you need even before you ask him now that is both comforting and it is also challenging it is comforting to know that our father in heaven our daddy in heaven who loves us so much knows what our needs are even before we ask him and that he is always aware of our deepest concerns and cares and needs and that he always has our best interest at heart that's the nature of our father in heaven and so that's comforting god knows what i need even before i ask him and he cares but it's also challenging in the fact that if god already knows everything i need then why should i have to pray have you ever thought that i was like okay well god knows everything and he's sovereign anyway and why even bother praying and yet jesus tells us right here this is you should pray something like this so you should pray anyway even though god knows what your needs are in advance and here's the reason why we should still pray even though god already knows what we need because our father in heaven is waiting for us to ask so that a it would show our humility and be so that it would be an opportunity for him to show his strength in our lives that we would otherwise miss if we didn't ask see think about this if you're really stressed out or going through something really difficult and god just intervened so that you didn't have to experience any of that how would you ever see him working strong in your life if he just always stepped in to spare us every adversity every difficulty then how would we ever appreciate the nature of our father to help us to love us to care for us to answer our prayers how would we ever develop a close abiding relationship with our father in heaven if he just always spared us the difficulty in instead of showing himself strong in the midst of it and so this is why we pray james tells us in his epistle you have not because you asked not the reason why you don't receive is because you haven't asked your father see god stands ready but he wants to see a are we going to humble ourselves enough to ask and b are we going to afford him then the opportunity to step in and show himself strong so this is important why we should pray there's and i'm sure many of you can testify to this there's nothing quite as awesome as when god answers your prayers and how that bolsters your faith for the next situation but that we would deny ourselves that opportunity to have our faith bolstered if we never even prayed and then never even saw god's hand move in miraculous amazing ways the other thing i want to point out is the the verse that follows the lord's prayer and this is also sometimes overlooked but if you look in your bibles here at verses 14 and 15 these are like bookends around the lord's prayer and after he finishes the lord's prayer and says amen he says this in verse 14 for if you forgive men their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you but if you do not forgive men their trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses wow let that sink in that's tough that's tough stuff right there now listen of all the elements within the lord's prayer that jesus could have emphasized he didn't emphasize the adoration part he didn't emphasize the provision part he didn't emphasize the protection part the part that he emphasized within the lord's prayer here is this part about forgiveness and in particular forgiving others who have wronged you and offended you now that's part of the lord's prayer forgive us our trespasses or our debts as we forgive those who have trespassed against us that is the one element within the lord's prayer that jesus circles back and emphasizes here he says i want you to get this one i want you to forgive men of their trespasses and if you do then your heavenly father will also forgive you but if you don't he says neither will your father forgive you your trespasses now this issue of unforgiveness is one of the greatest hindrances in a christian's life in anybody's life but just talking specifically as christians here i have seen unforgiveness and bitterness figuratively speaking but literally eat people alive just the just the animosity and and the bitterness and the unforgiveness destroys people and we have with we have something that the rest of the world that doesn't know christ does not have and that is the ability not within ourselves but the god-given ability beyond ourselves to actually forgive people who have wronged us and sinned against us because we do it through what christ has done for us now here's why this is so staggering when jesus says here if you don't forgive men they're trespassing neither will your father and heaven forgive you of yours and and people have a hard time on on this one and let me just explain to you what i think that he that he means when he says this here he said if if you decide i'm not going to forgive somebody who is who has wronged me by saying that you refuse to show mercy towards someone who has sinned against you all right despite the fact that god has shown you mercy for having sinned against him okay when you refuse to do for others what god has done for you you are in effect positioning yourself above god because you were saying despite the fact that god has forgiven me of my sins when i sinned against him i refuse to show mercy to someone who has offended me you are actually positioning yourself above god you're saying i'm not going to do what god does because what because you have a different standard a better standard because you're you're bigger and better than god and so in effect what jesus is saying is when you position yourself above god because you are reluctant to do for others what he has done for you then god is not willing to forgive you because you are in effect saying you are superior to god how can you experience the forgiveness of god if you were saying you were superior to him and by your actions or by your words you are basically expressing that when one refuses to show mercy to somebody who has sinned against them though god has shown mercy when you have sinned against him you are removing yourself from that avenue of forgiveness because you are placing yourself above god unwilling to do for others what he has been willing to do for you here's a verse that i think is liberating in in when we struggle with this kind of thing about forgiving others mark it down and if you need to put it on a three by five card and put it somewhere you can see it every day and just really pray that god can help you to do this it's colossians 3 13. okay it's a simple verse it's colossians 3 13. forgive as the lord has forgiven you that's what says forgive as the lord has forgiven you i run into people from time to time who say to me if i forgive this person i'm basically condoning what they did no you're not you're actually freeing yourself from being in bondage to the bitterness and the animosity that rises up in one's heart because you've been wronged or you've been offended so you have to give them to god you can't be in bondage to this it's so destructive you have to just give them to god you have to forgive as the lord has forgiven you and you let god deal with the person but don't be in bondage to unforgiveness and bitterness be liberated forgive as the lord has forgiven you and then the last category real quickly we'll touch on here is the subject of fasting i'll just talk on this briefly and then let you go home and eat um the subject of fasting just a quick working definition fasting is denying ourselves food or anything else that would help us to direct our focus and attention to god now um strictly speaking fasting in the bible is giving up food we've kind of modernized it a little bit and we've and i don't think there's anything wrong with it um but sometimes people want to take a fast from you know certain things that can actually preoccupy them and take them away from god like you know maybe you need to get off of social media for a day uh i know that's like sending some of you into trembles but um you know or or maybe you know just give up your phone for a day or or um something that otherwise steals your time and attention away from god and so you know sometimes people can can give up things um again you know talking about some of my catholic friends our pediatrician when the kids were little he was catholic and right around lent um he he loved jelly beans and chocolate and my doctor and but because he was catholic when it was when lent came he had to give up things you know and so he's like i have to fast from stuff i have to give up some stuff and so if i ever had an appointment with one of our kids around lent my doctor would always say to me he'd bring me into his office said you have to take all these jelly beans and all this chocolate home i can't have them in my desk i'm like praise god i'm not catholic praise god take it home take it home praise god you know and so i tried to time it like kids are you sick i got to go get some jelly beans here and uh but you know so you can give up things that might you know stand in your way but strictly speaking fasting is denying ourselves food the puritans called it soul fattening and i like that because it's the idea of you deny yourself physical food because you're you're fattening your soul you're drawing closer to the lord fasting is mentioned about 65 times in the bible there are examples of full fasts or partial fasts a full fast would be you know giving up all food for a certain amount of time make make sure you keep hydrated though a partial fast would be i'm just going to fast breakfast for example and and spend some time praying or i'm going to fast breakfast and lunch and then i'll have dinner that night so you can you know there's no again this is not a religious ritual where it has to be prescribed in a certain way there's some freedom and flexibility with it but there are physical health benefits to fasting periodically as well as spiritual benefits and i'll just give you some quick typical reasons in the bible why people would fast uh for example to repent in nehemiah chapter nine they would they would repent and fast as a part of just kind of you know humbling themselves before god there's an example of fasting when when one would mourn or grieve in the book of esther chapter four you can fast to intercede for others in psalm 35 you know maybe somebody's really heavy on your heart you want to pray for them and intercede for them join it with fasting uh also you can fast to break the chains of bondage in isaiah 58 maybe there's some kind of a sin stronghold and you really just need victory over something and and there's there's just some kind of bondage thing maybe it's the unforgiveness issue and you really need to start the process being forgiving and so couple it with fasting there's example in ezra chapter eight of fasting to petition god to seek answers maybe you're at a crossroads in your life you have important decisions to make you need wisdom from god maybe spend some time fasting and then another example is in acts 14 when they would appoint leaders in the early church they would fast at the same time and so these are just a few examples of many but it's an important discipline that i think periodically is good for christians to to practice now i um you know i've known two people in my life who actually did 40 day fasts i was not one of them no i'm not that spiritual i'll just be honest um i you know and and i even you know three days four days then i'm i'm hitting like a point where i'm just putting anything in a blender you know what i'm saying to you because it's like well as long as it's juice have you ever juiced krispy kreme doughnuts amazing that's not true anyway um so some people have even done 40 day fasts you know they still drank liquids and they would visit their doctors every once in a while the fast that jesus did of denying himself food and water that was a miraculous kind of a fast um but otherwise it's it's a it's a discipline that jesus encourages us to practice once in a while it kind of it kind of clears up our cloudy heads and allows us to focus better and and pray and seek his face john wesley once said quote some have exalted religious fasting beyond all scripture and reason and others have utterly disregarded it i think the modern church tends to be guilty of the latter but here's my prayer for all of us that we would be people who are generous we are giving we are people who are praying people and we are people who are fasting people as as the need requires that we might draw closer to the lord and strengthen the muscles of our soul if you will as followers of jesus christ amen amen let's pray together lord we thank you for your word today and we thank you for jesus who taught us these things we pray in the areas of giving and praying and fasting that i'm sure we all have room to grow and to be stretched and and to um to just um be mature in these areas lord as these spiritual disciplines are important we want to be people who are generous to the needy we want to be people who seek your face there's so much of our world that crowds out our prayer lives and may we be more diligent to seek you to pray and at times to fast to deny ourselves whatever might hinder our walk with you so that we can really draw near to you lord strengthen our hearts we we receive these things not as religious rituals but as an opportunity for us to just be strengthened in our spirits so we thank you lord for your instruction and now we pray that we would apply it in our own lives we love you and we praise you together in jesus name and everybody said amen amen

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

Views: 19,322

Rating: 4.9272728 out of 5

Keywords: Cornerstone Chapel, Calvary Chapel, Gary Hamrick, Biblical sermons, leesburg va, cornerstone chapel leesburg virginia, great sermons by great preachers, Sermon on the Mount, if god knows what i need why should i pray, Holy habits, what are spiritual disciplines, why do people fast in the bible

Id: MS_wYvEA8qU

Length: 42min 54sec (2574 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 14 2020