How To Fast: Matthew 6:16-18

[Music] Jesus was seated on a hillside up from the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee as the hill slopes up there it's covered with grass there's flowers everywhere Jesus sat down somewhere on that hillside of course nobody knows exactly where you see that picture up there and not very far from that picture there's a big church that's built there meant to commemorate that as the Mount of Beatitudes and you know we don't know the exact spot but we really believe it was that general area where Jesus sat down he spoke to a multitude how big is a multitude I don't know I'm figuring at least 100 maybe 200 people and it says that they were his disciples it's probably using disciples in the broader sense they're those who had an interest in being followers of Jesus and Jesus explained to these people in this famous message that we call the Sermon on the Mount he explained to them what it meant to be a citizen of his kingdom you see the Jews of Jesus's day had great anticipation of the kingdom of God they were waiting for it they were expecting it they were longing for the kingdom of God but what they had in mind for the kingdom of God was very different than what Jesus explained to them and what Jesus is trying to do is to correct their misunderstandings of what the kingdom is all about now the Sermon on the Mount has several different sections in it Jesus is making some big points in different sections in the particular section that we're in right now Jesus is speaking of three spiritual disciplines or practices that were commonly carried out among the Jewish people of his day those practices were giving praying and tonight we're gonna take a look at fasting giving praying and fasting and don't you think I'm thrilled to talk about fasting on the Sunday before Thanksgiving how about that what a great time to talk about it take a look here now at these verses Matthew chapter 6 beginning at verse 16 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 is in the secret place and your father who sees you in secret will reward you openly the first thing I want you to notice about what Jesus says about fasting there is he uses a phrase beginning at verse 16 did you notice that he says moreover when you fast he did not say if you fast which is really what he would say to us today because I man guess that most of you are like me and fasting is not a regular part of your Christian disciplines if it is god bless you and I mean that genuinely but for most of us fasting is just one of those things that we don't think about there's no regularity we most of us don't say I'm gonna fast once a week or once a month or once a year even we just think of it from time to time when somebody preaches a sermon on it but that's not how Jesus thought Jesus assumed that his followers would fast notice in these three things that he talked about giving praying and fasting he said when you give when you pray when you fast now the Old Testament commanded a sting on the day of atonement you'll find that Leviticus chapter 16 chapter 23 and in numbers chapter 29 that was the one day that the Hebrew Scriptures commanded fasting there are excuse me there are instances in the Old Testament where they fasted at other times but as part as a regularly scheduled fast once a year on the day of atonement which observant Jews do to this day they fast on the day of atonement I would think that as believers it probably would not be a bad idea for us to have at least one day a year that we kind of regularly schedule that's what they did in the Old Covenant but this was a known practice in Jesus's day and Jesus is telling them not to fast but how they should fast because he assumed that they would now what is fasting well the biblical pattern for fasting is simply to abstain from food the ancient Greek word that we translate fast there it comes from two words that are put together the one word means to eat the second word means not so it's pretty simple not to eat it has simply the idea of not eating any food you could say this no consumption of calories so you can drink water and of course that's a good thing to do on a fast but no consumption of calories the reason why I mention that is because in the Christian world today and for the last few generations people call a lot of things fasting that I don't think the Bible calls fasting I've known people who have gone on a liquid diet for you know two months and they've called it fasting now listen if God puts it on your heart to make a sacrifice and a self-discipline of going on a liquid diet for two months and you do that unto the Lord praise the Lord I'm not going to question that and it could do a lot of good times any practice of self-discipline can be beneficial whether you say I'm only gonna have a liquid diet whether you say I'm not gonna eat meat for a period of time where you say I'm not gonna eat any sugar I've heard of people fasting chocolate I don't know whatever okay but but any kind of deliberate self-denial for the kingdom sake can have value I'm just saying that's not fasting fasting means not to eat to abstain from food or any kind of consumption of calories now Jesus approved of fasting so when he said don't be like the hypocrites he wasn't telling people not to fast he was just saying do it the right way Jesus approved of fasting because he himself practiced it how do we know Jesus practice fasting well I could tell you two ways that I know for sure number one Jesus was an obedient Jewish man do we agree with that he obeyed the law in every aspect well the law commanded that everybody fast on the Day of Atonement so Jesus fasted on the day of atonement we know that that Jesus fasted at least then but we also know specifically during the his temptation in the wilderness as recorded in Matthew Mark and Luke Jesus for forty days in the wilderness fasted and then the devil came to him with the temptation to make stones into bread when he became hungry again after fasting in the wilderness by the way forty days of fasting that's that's radical you almost wonder if there wasn't something supernatural about that I've never personally known anybody to fast for that long now I do know somebody quite closely who I think is an amazing man an example of fasting and that's my father-in-law England's dad his name is nils bergstrom they live in sweet but for as long as I've known Nils which is well over 30 years now he's been a man who has made fasting a part of his daily life or let's say part of this weekly routine normally and I can't tell exactly what his practices right now but for many years he would make a regular routine of fasting two days a week and then periodically he would go on extended fasts and I know personally of times at least twice when he fasted for more than 20 days just water just water for those 20 days and it's a remarkable thing and and he would be just soaring spiritually during those times now 20 days that's only about half the time that Jesus fasted when he did 40 days yet we know that Jesus practiced this idea of fasting now even though Jesus approved of fasting and practiced it he criticized the way that they did it in his day that's why he said do not be like the hypocrites you see fasting is a good thing but our flesh is sometimes so wicked that we can find a way to corrupt even good things now Jesus and His disciples were also criticized for not fasting enough in Matthew chapter 9 excuse me in Matthew chapter 9 we have an instance where the religious leaders and some of the followers of John the Baptist came to Jesus and they said Jesus what why don't your disciples fast the way we do now the scribes and the Pharisees had a practice of fasting twice a week and apparently the disciples of John were instructed by John the Baptist's too fast frequently you could see John the Baptist being guy fasting a lot I mean if you are just eating locusts it's not a big deal too fast I would probably fast from that as well but Jesus wasn't the same way and What did he say he said listen we don't put as much emphasis on fasting because I'm here and I'm like the groom at the wedding and it's a celebration we put an emphasis on feasting but he says but there will come a time when the bridegroom is taken away and in those days they will fast I just want you to gather one thing from this Jesus indicated to us that there would be both feasting and fasting in the Christian life and experience now if you take a look at the life of ancient Israel God commanded many more feasts than he did fasts there are several feasts that are commanded but only one fasting day a year I think it's appropriate for us to say that in the Christian life we should have a feast mentality when you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner this particular Thursday and there you are around the table with whatever family or friends you might gather with and you got a big turkey in front of your on oh maybe one of those family I know if you find a Chinese food on Thanksgiving I don't know why exactly but you're there around the food on Thanksgiving and the tables loaded and you just eat until you're dizzy praise the Lord there is a genuine place for feasting in the end - doing it unto God God we thank you for your rich blessings to us we thank you that this table can be loaded with food we thank you that we can enjoy each other's presence together as a family don't feel guilty about it don't sit down at Thanksgiving you said I should really be fasting no enjoy the feast our problem isn't that we feast too much our problem is that we fast too little and both of them should coincide together in the Christian life so enjoy the feasting we just need to think more about the fasting why well one reason excuse me one reason is because fasting fasting expresses earnestness and seriousness before God have you ever been so consumed with a need that you forgot to eat you you'll see this at hospitals you'll see somebody sitting at the bedside of somebody who's sick or maybe dying and you ask them when's the last time you ate something they're like I don't know it turns out it was yesterday that they ate something they've been so consumed by the crisis or the need that they forget all about food it's a statement of priorities food is unimportant to me because this is so important to me fasting communicates some of that fasting says unto the Lord God this is so important to me that food is not so important I need you in some special way God give me your guidance this is important to me now I remember one time in my life when Engle ill and I we really sought the Lord by fasting and God answered in a dramatic way the situation this was about 15 years ago was when we were praying whether or not we should go to Germany and start a Bible College there I was pastoring a church in Simi Valley California and we had been at that church for 14 years and the ministry was blessed and we were praising the Lord for it but quite unexpectedly a guy asked me if I wanted to come to Germany and start a Bible College and be the director for it there and so I told the guy well whatever man I'll pray about it and so when we started praying about it God started our stir in our heart to do it it was like and that's a big deal too to say to this church that you found and pastored for 14 years and to move your three teenage kids and take them all the way to Germany and say man this is a big deal so you just don't want to do it on a whim so we prayed about we felt God stirring our heart man this so we took if we were taking a family vacation to Europe that's summer anyway because Ingalls family's having a family reunion in Sweden so as part of that trip we took the kids to this city in Germany and that just seemed to confirm it all the more we came back from that trip and we're like man we really think this is what the Lord wants but how do we know for sure this is a big deal we want to have a greater sense of certainty about it and so we said let's give it I can't remember we said one more week or two more weeks let's just say two months let's give it two more weeks and keep praying and seeking God and then we'll make up our mind for sure after that well it was in the midst of that period of time again I can't remember if it was one week or two weeks but it's in the midst of that period of time that Inga li'l came he said David we haven't fasted about this yet Michael you're right it's you know I'm a pastor I wasn't bearing with embarrassing when your wife's a little more spiritual than you are but so I said you're right we got a fast so we I don't know if we pick the next day or two days off we pick the day that week okay we're gonna fast unto the Lord that day and ask him for his guidance and I'm not gonna go into detail but I'll just tell you this on that day that we decided to fast and pray God brought us such a supernatural prophetic word confirmation of what we were to do that it was astounding I mean after that it was like this is the Lord and and when I would explain what happened and when I explained what God showed us on that day it was like well yeah God wants you to go I mean how could it be any different now I say that realizing that I might be saying something kind of dangerous to you because we don't fast demanding that God answer us on the day or days that were fasting fasting remember this fasting is not a hunger strike where you go before God and say I'm not gonna eat until you give me the answer I want you're not twisting God's arm when you fast you're trying to align yourself with his will so don't even expect or demand an answer on the day or days that you're fasting expect that the answer might come later now if it does happen to come on that day that's kind of special but it doesn't have to at all we don't approach fasting as if it were a hunger strike twisting God's arm to tell us what we want to know but I'll tell you there is something powerful about our seeking God in a special way and you find this throughout the New Testament see God met the Roman centurion Cornelius in a special way as he was fasting that's in Acts chapter 10 God spoke to the Christians in Antioch in a special way as they fasted and God moved upon them to send out Paul and Barnabas as the very first intentional missionaries of the church and then they fasted again before they actually sent them out Paul fasted with church leaders in the churches that he founded I love the phrase there in Acts chapter 14 where it says that they prayed with fasting 1st Corinthians chapter 7 makes special mention of husbands and wives fasting before the Lord to seek God and then Paul described fasting as part of what he endured for the sake of Jesus in 2nd Corinthians chapter 6 and in chapter 11 matter of fact Jesus spoke of fasting as being connected to prayer for especially difficult situations do you remember that time in the Gospels when a man had a son who was possessed by a demon and he brought the son to the disciples and the disciples couldn't help him I don't know what the disciples did but whatever they did it didn't work then they brought the boy to Jesus and Jesus just rebuked the demon and the demon was cast out and the disciples were blown away they're like hey we tried really hard how come we couldn't do it one of the things Jesus said in response was this he said this kind only comes out with prayer and fasting in other words there is something about the focus and the intensity of fasting that adds earnestness and faith to our prayers again it's like our declaration to God God this is so important to me it's more important than the food I eat it's more important than me taking care of this physical body you see that leads to another aspect of fasting fasting is a way that we demonstrate what Jesus said to the devil in the wilderness do you remember what he said in Matthew chapter 4 verse 4 he said man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God fasting is just a logical working that Oh God my life is not found in what I eat my life is found in you and so to demonstrate that I'm gonna put what I eat on the shelf for a day or two days or whatever it is that you would lead me and I'll put the priority on you you see fasting is a powerful way to put the priority on the spiritual we tend to get obsessed with the physical and the material but fasting is a way that we say God you mean more to me than food itself friends let me explain it to you this way God made us in three parts body soul and spirit but it's very important which one of those three aspects has the priority in our life God wants it to be ordered spirit soul and body we usually order it body soul and spirit most of us make much more time to take care of our bodies than we ever do to take care of our spirit before God now please hear me on this God doesn't want you to hate your body God doesn't want you to think oh the material is unimportant God cares about your body and he cares about the material God wants you to take care of your body and to be healthy and if there's things you can do to take better care of yourself God wants you to do that God does not want us to despise our bodies or the material not at all but neither does he want us to put our bodies in an idolatrous place our spirit is more important than our body our soul and sometimes the soul is a little difficult to define sometimes we define the soul as the mind the will and the emotions it's part of the inner life that anybody has whether or not they're a believer or not but God wants things to be ordered properly and fasting is a way that we speak to our own body and say you're not in charge here you're not running the show you know you my spirit is more important than my body I'm gonna put things in the right order and I think that's a very important thing for us to be able to say now this kind of leads me to another point I believe it's true and if you go out there and read the literature on it there are many health benefits to fasting good heavens look at my father-in-law my father-in-law is over 80 years old and that man is healthy I mean he's active and he's made fasting a regular part of his life for you know well more than 30 years so there are many health benefits to fasting but that's not primarily why we do it I know as soon as I started thinking about fasting some of you we're thinking fasting huh yeah I could stand to lose a couple of pounds that my be good look look quite apart whether or not you or I could stand to lose a couple of pounds that's not the point that may be a helpful side effect from fasting but that's not why we do it we do it for the spiritual benefit not for the physical benefit although the physical benefit is a blessing as well now again notice Jesus says in verse 16 when you fast do not be like the hypocrites the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees wanted to make sure that everybody knew that they were fasting so what did they do look at verse 16 it says that they had a sad countenance and they disfigured their faces I don't know what they did and walking out with this pained expression oh I'm fasting today you got oh well what's wrong David oh I'm fasting before the Lord you know what it's like oh man you know it's just my sacrifice for the Lord you know that kind of thing that sounds even better with my voice bad really and so here they are you know China seemed oh it's just my burden for God you know there's wow he's so spiritual and gods in heaven just shaking his head man he's so sick is what God's saying but more than anything what does God say cuz if you do things like fasting for the applause that you'll get from other people for showing how spiritual goes that's your reward right there you got it how much better to get a reward from God for your fasting so he says verse 17 when you fast anoint your head wash your face so that you do not appear to men to be fasting in other words says put on your deodorant take a shower look nice before everybody and just carry on your daily routines my father-in-law makes it his practice when he fasts to carry on his daily routines as much as possible fasting is a very natural part of his life and so it's not like on a day that he's fasting you walk into him in the liver goes he goes hush not my child for I fasted unto the Lord this day it's not like that at all it's just very natural he doesn't make any ostentatious display about it again because he's not doing it to be impressive to other people he's doing it unto the Lord and that's the pattern that Jesus speaks about here matter of fact my father-in-law is so committed to this idea of not interrupting your normal routines that during one of his very long fasts he did it while he was in an or working at an orphanage down in Mexico and he worked construction all that time and he just kept active and you know i mean courts he monitored his work because he didn't have as much physical strength but he just kept busy and kept around people because he wasn't like oh i have to go away to a monastery to do this no he just did it as part of his normal life but here's the great part look at verse 18 this is Jesus's promise when you fast properly your father who sees in secret will reward you openly God promises that there is a reward for fasting and I believe that there are many ways that God might reward us there's the reward of having the right priorities when we put things in the proper order spirit soul body there is a benefit from that there's the reward of demonstrated repentance sometimes in the Old Testament people fasted to demonstrate repentance over sin I'd love to get back to that practice I'm wondering about the next time I pray with some backslidden Christian who's coming back to the Lord they've lived their life in a season of sin and now they're coming back to God to say you know what let's fast about this for a day let's fast as a way to demonstrate our repentance unto the Lord I mean I think it would be a beautiful thing that's a reward right there there's the reward of a focus on God and honest there's the reward of spiritual breakthrough there's the reward more than anything of drawing nearer to God I love what it says in James chapter 4 verse 8 where God says draw near to God and He will draw near to you this is God's promise if you do something special to draw near to God he'll do something special to draw near to you and oftentimes that's what fasting is simply an expression of now let me conclude this with a few points very practically on the idea of fasting I got many things on this list from a pastor friend of mine named Nate Holdridge he's the pastor of Calvary Monterey and just within the last week or ten days he posted something on his blog about fasting and I was fascinated by it knowing I was gonna preach on this and he had a lot of very great practical points and so much of what I'm gonna talk to you now and just these practical things I got from his blog number one he says plan your fast in other words decide in advance how long your fast is going to be if you say okay I'm going too fast to God let's just see how it goes today you're gonna eat before lunch I'll tell you that's just how it's gonna work but you get okay no Lord I'm gonna fast and I'm gonna do it for this long plan you're fast don't make it a happy thing and as you plan that Fauss speak with anybody who's going to notice it okay you you might have dinner plans or something don't you think you should tell the person that you might have dinner plans with don't you think you should tell your wife you should plan on making dinner or something like that for you so anybody would notice just inform them not not ostentatious waiter hey I think I'm gonna fast today all right secondly don't set high expectations during the fast fasting is a struggle your body is going to crave food and you're going to experience weakness many times people go into fasting expecting to experience a date of spiritual ecstasy and you know what they end up just feeling hungry like oh man I thought there's all oh god it was just like the heavens parted it was like the Holy Spirit came down I said man I'm just starving that's all there is listen get your eyes off trying to feel spiritual ecstasy if God blesses you with it praise the Lord but that's not what you're seeking you're not seeking ecstasy you're seeking endurance Lord I want to do this with a spirit of endurance unto you and by the way in your daily Christian life endurance will get you a lot further than ecstasy so have proper expectations next if you're gonna start fasting start with a brief fast maybe for some of you a fast will begin by saying okay I'm gonna skip two meals today all right well that that seems to go pretty good for a couple of times they say okay next I'm gonna go from a daylight fast from sunrise to sunset I won't eat anything and I know what you're thinking right now in your corrupt hearts you're thinking yes the days are so much shorter I can do that right now that's right I don't want to do that one during the summer I want to do it right now during the winter okay so maybe you go next to that you go you go from from sunrise to sunset you're gonna fess then what's next then you maybe try a 24-hour fast then maybe try 36 48 hours I personally I've never done more than a three day fast I've heard it said that when you start getting past three days that it becomes much easier they say and again I don't know this by my personal experience but I've heard other people say it that you get in today four or five six that actually your body gets kind of used to it and there's a period of time where you can just kind of like cruise in the fast again I have an experience what I hear people say this if you are a person who regularly exercises or you do hard physical labor at your job you might need to adjust your expectations during the fast I'm not saying that you have to treat yourself like an invalid but maybe approach you work out at half level you know you you're just sensitive the fact that you're gonna be a little bit weak or a little bit more depleted again you don't have to treat like you have to stay in bed no not at all but just adjust those expectations here's another very practical point if you are a regular drinker of caffeine coffee tea whatever you may need to decide ahead of time if you're gonna do that during your fast and the reason why I say say well I drink coffee that's not any calories but you know is that breaking the fast or not listen I'll leave that between you and the Lord but I've known some people whose greatest difficulty during a time of fasting wasn't the food it was that the headaches that they got from caffeine deprivation so you think about that ahead of time plan ahead of them am I gonna do this with or without coffee or tea just think about it ahead of time it's also very important for you to remember your dietary concerns maybe you have a medical condition that prohibits you from taking a total fast maybe your doctor would say no no no because your blood sugar because of this or because of that you shouldn't go without meals for this long well then listen then don't do it don't go against your doctor but then go on some kind of par so fast and God will receive it as a holdfast God wants you to listen to the wisdom of your doctor let me add another thing here that I think is important don't do an extended fast alone let me explain to you I I have a man I know in in in Europe this was a precious sweet young man a real servant of the Lord and he decided to do an extended fast all by himself out in the woods he had a cabin he was okay Lord for like two weeks I'm just gonna go and just seek you and have beautiful time together with you and he went out by himself and he went there any fast and for a long extended period of time and I'll just say it ended in tragedy I think it's dangerous to do any kind of extended fast in isolation because if weird things happen to you in your body or in your mind you need people around you who can say hey wait a minute what's going on here so don't do and extended fast in isolation make sure you're around people but most of all remember to seek to know God more during the time of fasting the goal is not to go without food the goal is to seek God and the fasting is a means to that end he's the giver of every good and perfect gift don't start loving the gift more than the Giver friends I think there's just sometimes a practical need for us to starve the flesh so that we can feed the spirit I think God honors that so here's what I'm gonna do this week this week on Tuesday November 22nd I'm gonna fast and I'm inviting anybody from our congregation who wants to join me in that you go right ahead and do that it's not like we're gonna gather together the church or anything like that you just do it in your own life you know time will just make it for special matter of Prayer if you want to send me an email or text message I'm like that's you're doing it great that's fine but you don't have to I'm just gonna say Engel and I we're setting aside Tuesday this week to fast unto the Lord and this exciting thing to challenge our congregation as God would lead you I'm not putting this as an obligation on you but if God would lead you to do the same then let's fast and let's pray that God sends an outpouring of his Holy Spirit upon us upon this congregation upon this community that God's work would continually go forward Jesus told us about the danger of being a hearer of God's Word only and so if we only hear about fasting but never do it something's wrong so Thursday's your day of feasting Tuesday if God so leads you can be a day of fasting and God will show you how both of them can have a place in your life so father we commit that unto you we thank you for your word for its clarity for its wisdom for its power and more than anything I pray that we as a congregation and as individual believers Lord I pray that you would enable us to put things in their proper priority that we would really live Lord with the spirit preeminent than the soul than the body Lord not despising our bodies they're good gifts from you but Lord just putting things in proper order we love you we thank you and we ask that you would show us day by day how to draw closer to you in the precious name of Jesus amen [Music] you [Music]

Channel: David Guzik

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Keywords: matthew, matthew 6, sermon on the mount, david guzik, guzik, fasting, how to fast, gospel of matthew, enduring word, book of matthew

Id: AMurBzIv-3o

Length: 38min 57sec (2337 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 20 2019