Differences: Different Ways to Fast
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Intro:
18 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 in secret will reward you openly.
For the rest of this month, I want to speak about [Differences]. The subject of my message is [Different Ways to Fast].
We all have differences. Differences are not necessarily a bad thing. We have different:
personalities
styles
preferences
senses of humor
ideas
opinions
Look to the person next to you, and you will see, we are really different.
Bekah and I just celebrated seven years of marriage. We both agree that being married highlights the differences people have! At first I think we both thought, if her or I did it different, then the other person was doing it wrong.
We cleaned, cooked, washed clothes, loaded a dishwasher, drove, and lived very different. Eventually we discovered that sometimes the others differences were not a very big deal.
Because doing something different does not always change the outcome. There are different ways of doing things.
If Bekah wipes down the counters, she is very gentle and methodical, when I do it, I wipe them hard and get it done fast.
If Bekah loads the dishwasher she gets it to fit and starts it, when I do that, all the bowls go on one side, the glasses on another, the plates go one way, and the pans go another.
I can remember a particular conversation about the PROPER way to unload the dishwasher. To which Bekah explained, what does is it matter as long as it gets done!
There was a lot of wisdom in that slightly exacerbated comment.
God made each of us unique.
14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.
When God created us, He did so in a unique and special way.
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”
None of us are an accident. God made us all different, but He loves us all the same. He knows what motivates and what discourages us. He knows what excites and encourages us.
He knows it all. The reason I point this out is because God has the same desired goal for each of us. He wants us to walk close with Him and He wants to make us more like Him.
But, the way we get there is often different for each person. The tools are the same, but how we use them might differ slightly.
For instance, God wants us all to fast, but there are different ways to fast.
God wants us all to pray, but there are different ways to pray.
God wants all of us praise Him, but there are different ways to praise Him.
Part of the reason I feel prompted to focus on differences is so that we will see the many ways that God will draw us closer to Him.
We should never compare our walk with God and someone else’s walk. As one person said, “comparison is the thief of joy.” Instead, we need to each individually draw closer to God and trust that we have the tools necessary to fulfill the plan of God for our lives.
We are going to look at the topic of fasting. In part, because we are beginning a week of prayer and fasting. But also because fasting is to be a part of our lives and our walk with God.
What is fasting?
Tyndale Bible Dictionary– “Spiritual fasting entails setting aside activities as well as reducing the intake of food and replacing these activities with the exercise of prayer and preoccupation with spiritual concerns.”
Eerdman’s Dictionary of the Bible— ”Deliberate and often prolonged abstinence from food and sometimes drink.”
Global Dictionary of Theology– “Fasting is the voluntary abstinence from a given substance or substances for a particular cause, concern, petition or goal.”
Anybody in Scripture who was anybody fasted:
Scripture is filled with people who fasted:
Moses fasted forty days
before God gave him the Law
David fasted
when his friend Jonathan died
Nehemiah fasted when
he heard the walls were broken down
Esther fasted when
the Jews fasted extermination
Daniel fasted when
he needed to hear from God
The prophet Simeon and prophetess Anna fasted
for the coming Messiah
John the Baptist fasted
in the wilderness
The Early Church fasted
to fulfill their assignment
Most of all Jesus fasted,
forty days in the wilderness as He faced temptation from Satan.
And Jesus emphasized in our text that when we fast, God will reward us. So let’s look at different ways to fast. I have three points, [A Hypocritical Way], [A Private Way], and [A Corporate Way].
Let’s begin
1. A Hypocritical Way
1. A Hypocritical Way
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.
In Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, He paints the picture for the type of Kingdom He came to build. His words and thoughts go against the status culture of Israel in the first century.
Jesus’s main audience was Jewish people who looked for their coming Savior. I emphasize that there were only SOME who looked for their Savior.
Many, including many of the religious leaders of the day, were content with the way things were and had little hope or confidence in a coming Messiah.
The religious leaders were simply that—religious. They looked the part, the talked the part, the acted the part, but they did not truly live the part.
From the outside looking in, people thought the religious leaders were a prime example of how people were supposed to live. It was easy for people to underestimate their walk with God in comparison to the religious elites.
But Jesus saw it another way.
He viewed the pharisee’s fasting as nothing more than hypocrisy. A hypocrite is a person who says one thing and does another. The Pharisees would make an open show of their willingness to fast.
They would go around, looking miserable and disheveled so that everyone knew they were fasting. And if they did not look like they fasted, they loved to tell everyone.
11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.
12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’
At first glance, it would appear that this type of devotion toward God would garner favor and special attention. But Jesus had a sharp rebuke against the pharisees.
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.
28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Jesus explained that sorrow awaited the religious teachers and leaders because they were hypocrites. They looked righteous, but they lead a double life.
They were focused on what PEOPLE thought of them and not what GOD thought of them.
Why does God have a problem with hypocrisy?
Hypocrites misrepresent the truth. They pretend to be someone they are not. Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, does not have time for duplicity or double standards.
If fasting is for the attention of others, then it is hypocritical and pointless. It becomes nothing more than a glorified hunger strike, which does nothing to move the heart of God.
So there are different ways to fast, the first is a hypocritical way.
2. A Private Way
2. A Private Way
17 But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,
18 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 in secret will reward you openly.
Jesus outlines what He does not want in fasting— someone who does it for the applause of people. Then He discusses another way to fast.
Instead of walking around like the Pharisees, promoting their commitment by looking miserable. We can also fast privately. When we do that, not for people’s attention, but for God’s attention, He will bless us in ways that are unimaginable.
For the Father sees what we do in secret, will reward us in the open.
Let’s look at an example of private fasting.
2 In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks.
3 I ate no pleasant food, no meat or wine came into my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.
By this point in Daniel’s life, he is getting older, but he still heard from God. I love that, regardless of our age, we ALL should take an active interest in drawing closer to God.
The youngest to the oldest person should long to hear God’s voice. Daniel shows us this. He had a vision that did not make sense.
He chose to fast for three weeks. He shows us to different ways of fasting. Instead of abstaining from ALL food, he did not pleasant food, no meat, and no sugars, just fruits, vegetables, and grains.
That is one way that his fasting was different. He still sacrificed, but due to his age, he ate food.
This is important. Fasting food is important, but often because of health, medications, or other reasons, we have to eat something. That is one of the differences in fasting.
But Daniel was different in this regard to fasting in that he did it in private. No one knew he had a vision, but he did and he wanted to know what it mean.
He fasted for three weeks until finally God answered.
12 Then he said to me, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words.
13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia.
After twenty-one days in a private fast, God, who sees in secret, chose to reward him in the open. God explained what the vision meant.
But notice how important it was for Daniel to fast. God sent the answer to Daniel the moment he prayed, but it required prayer and fasting to get the answer to him.
God sent an angel, likely Gabriel, who told Daniel, I came with the answer, but there was intense spiritual warfare. I even had to call Michael to come and fight a spiritual battle.
12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
There are times we will need to fast because we need something from God. When we do so, it is as though we keep pulling the answer down from heaven, through our prayer and fasting.
I want this to settle in our hearts, because Jesus explains:
21 However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”
There are events that come up in life that will lead us to fast privately. We cannot give up when we feel led into this type of fast, for our fasting will be what God uses to bring the answer!
There is a hypocritical way to fast— to get people’s attention instead of God’s attention.
There is a private way to fast— to get God’s attention and see a spiritual breakthrough.
But there is also...
3. A Corporate Way
3. A Corporate Way
15 Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai:
16 “Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!”
If they hypocrites let everyone know they are fasting, and Jesus tells to do it in private, why do we call a corporate fast?
Let me ask that again, if fasting is private, what is the purpose of a corporate fast?
There were times in Scripture where people fasted together. It was a corporate fast.
Moses called the Israelites to fast on the Day of Atonement, as God covered their sins for the previous year.
We read what Esther told Mordecai. An evil plot was made to annihilate the Jews from history. But God used a Jewish girl named Esther to go before the king, who became her husband.
Esther knew the intensity of the situation and knew without prayer and fasting, she would not survive. So she told her uncle, Mordecai to call on all of the people to fast for three days.
The corporate fast worked and the enemy’s plans did not succeed. It all happened because there was a corporate fast.
This was not the only time people would fast together. In the New Testament, the Early Church faced persecution from the Roman Empire.
Herod killed James, the first of the twelve disciples to die, and arrested Peter, with plans to kill him. Needing direction from God, they began to pray and fast.
1 Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
2 As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
3 Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away.
In a service, perhaps similar to this one, the Spirit began to flow and God spoke a prophetic message. He instructed the congregation to send Barnabas and Saul for the work of the ministry.
But notice verse three, they fasted and prayed. Imagine if the Early Church did not pray and fast corporately. They would not have been sensitive to the Holy Spirit to know to get send the Paul out to take the Gospel to new places.
Had they not had a corporate fast, we would not have Acts 13-28, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, or Philemon.
God spared the Jewish people through a corporate fast with Esther.
God extended the Kingdom of God to new borders with a corporate fast in Acts.
Corporate fasting works!
Close:
Who in this room has fasted at least once in your life?
Who can verify for me, fasting works?
Fasting is a vital part of our walk with God. Notice in our text, Jesus did not say IF you fast, but WHEN you fast.
I once read an author who explained, Fasting is NOT about asserting OUR will, but about OPENING ourselves to God’s work.
When we fast, we open ourselves up to what God has for us.
Let’s take an honest assessment of our lives. Who can honestly say that EVERYTHING in life is great right now?
Who can truthfully say that EVERY PRAYER is answered?
Who can verify that you are FULLY WALKING in the plans and promises of God?
I can say, as pastor of this church, that is not the case for me. There is much that I desire God to do in our congregation and in my life.
But I recognize that in order to do and be all that God wants, it is imperative that we fast.
But we cannot be hypocritical when we fast. If we go the next seven days without food, but do not pray or humble ourselves before God, it has been a waste of time.
I will also say, over the next seven days, we do not need to walk around to everyone we see with a saddened look on our face. If someone offers us something, we do not need to become disgruntled and declare, I AM FASTING.
Instead, we politely decline and trust that what we do in secret, God will reward in open.
With that being said, in our church, we are entering into a corporate fast. We all know that we are fasting. It is okay to encourage each other and help each other during this time.
Because when we see everything that is ahead of us, we need to fast.
We’re living in days like Daniel. There is so much more God has for us, and if we want to receive revelation from Him, we need to fast.
We’re living in days like Esther. The enemy wants to hinder and destroy people of God. But if we will pray and fast, God will give us favor!
We’re living in days like the Early Church. There are more people who need to know Jesus and there is more God has for us. If we will pray and fast, God can raise up a prophetic voice that will speak for God in these last days!
Do we need to fast?
Let me ask it this way?
Is our entire family saved?
Is our nation divided?
Is immorality flaunting itself?
Is the enemy attacking marriages and families?
Are we as close to God as we need to be?
Have we experienced the revival God has for us?
If the answer to any of these question is NO, then I believe God is calling us to fast.
The way we fast will be different. Some will fast food for the entire seven days. Others will fast a meal or certain parts of the day. Others will fast a certain drink, be it coffee or pop. Others will fast social media or TV.
Regardless of the differences in our fast, what is important is that THROUGH FASTING, we will all begin this year becoming more like Jesus and opening ourselves us to His will.