Are We Done?
Notes
Transcript
Fasting for Fun and Profit
Fasting for Fun and Profit
Do I really have to feed them every day? Three times a day? It’s ridiculous!
I have decided our family Costco bill is too high.
I have a plan.
Turn to your neighbor and tell them what you are giving up for Lent.
Lent began a couple weeks ago, a time of fasting for the six weeks before Easter, part of the liturgical calendar. Traditionally you fast, sometimes not counting Sundays, and you “fast” from something. Some fast from meat, some monasteries would fast entirely, especially on Wednesdays and Fridays.
I have decided that our family Costco bill is to high and we are going to start a new “spiritual” practice.
We are going like Medieval style Lent fasting. One light meal a day, after sunset. No meat. But fish counts. And, officially, Thomas Aquinas classified a Beaver as a fish, so that’s not meat either.
But “we Protestants” are done with all that fasting stuff, right? We are past it, beyond it, we don’t need it!
Are We Done?
Are We Done?
1 In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev.
2 Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to entreat the favor of the Lord,
3 saying to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and the prophets, “Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”
We don’t know who these dudes are… but we hear a lot about Bethel. Bethel is the other great religious center in Israel. Before the temple was in Jerusalem, the tabernacle was in Bethel. If the ark of the covenant wasn’t in Jerusalem, guess where it usually was? Bethel.
It also was home to a lot of pagan and idolatrous worship too, but these folks are asking about a matter of religious practice.
Now there are many fasts and feasts in the Bible. This is not one of them. This fast is not commanded in the Bible, so this is something extra these folks have taken on.
Fasting is a beautiful and powerful spiritual discipline, still valuable. It teaches us to hunger and thirst for God and His righteousness. It teaches us to discipline the body, to listen to the Spirit. It can direct our eyes heavenward.
That doesn’t appear to be what they were doing. For 70 years the exiles have been fasting in the fifth and seventh months, presumably in repentance for their sins and the sins of their fathers. All the things that sent them into exile.
That is a tremendous undertaking. How long in the month were they fasting? Days? A week? I don’t know, but it’s pretty impressive, at least to me. They are doing a “good thing.” A spiritual thing.
Being repentant. And now they wonder: we are back in the land, the exile is over, the temple is well in progress, obviously the Messiah will be here any day now… are we done?
Are we done with all this Exilic repentance. This “Mourning”, grieving our sin and the sins of our fathers. This “abstaining” of the fast?
Are we done?
God says.
Nope
Nope
First of all, God sees your heart. And He isn’t fooled by your religious appearing.
4 Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me:
5 “Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?
6 And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?
Don’t pretend this is all for me. That isn’t where their hearts are. The implied answer there is “no.” You did this for you. Maybe to appear holy before other men. Maybe as a “holy hunger strike” to get what you wanted out of God (aka an end to the exile).
But the fast is not a payment to God that He should be thankful for.
And you are not done with “mourning and fasting.” Look at your own life. And then he gives them the old prophetic list of their sins.
Now, in these lists, it’s easy to look for a ranking of the “worst sins.” Go ahead and start a list now and see if it lines up.
Our list of “worst sins” never lines up with God’s. Because He isn’t calling out the worst possible sins… He’s calling out the sins that have their heart.
And those are the worst possible sins for them. Yours may be different, some of these may surprise you.
It isn’t the “heinous sins of the nations...” listen to these:
9 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another,
10 do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”
Truth and justice, that’s primarily in the marketplace, in buying and selling, in business. Honesty and “doing the right thing.”
Kindness, mercy to one another. Care for the poor.
This didn’t start with Jesus, this has always been God’s heart. Even down to, what’s in your heart and mind.
Your father’s didn’t listen, are you going to listen?
11 But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear.
12 They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of hosts.
He calls them again in the next chapter, calling them into righteousness:
16 These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace;
17 do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the Lord.”
They ask “are we done?” And God checks their heart. The fasting they did wasn’t for Him, it was for them. So did they ever really “mourn and abstain?”
Instead, they are full of sins, some the same as their fathers, some different.
There will come a day when everyone will be beautifully and perfectly righteous… and God looks forward to that day down here in chapter 8.
Zechariah 8:19–23 (ESV)
19 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.
20 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Peoples shall yet come, even the inhabitants of many cities.
21 The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts; I myself am going.’
22 Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord.
23 Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’ ”
Peace, love and truth, man. John Lennon didn’t make this stuff up.
Fasting turns to feasting, from mourning at our sin to joyfulness in the presence of God.
Here is a hint of God’s promise: 10 Gentiles for every Jew, saying, hey can I see God too? Can I be part of this?
We see some of this fulfilled now, thank God a Gentile like me is invited in to the presence of God.
So they ask if they’re done with fasting… and God calls them to check their pride. You weren’t fasting for the right reasons… and you are still steeped in sin.
And then he looks forward to a day when they’ll be free from sin, loving truth and peace, and fasting will turn to mourning.
If I were the original questioners in Bethel… “So… yes fasting? No fasting? Are we done?”
Two men walk into a temple
Two men walk into a temple
10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’
13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The Pharisee is doing even better than his forefathers from Bethel. Twice a week!!!
But who went home justified?
Luke 18:14 (M:BCL)
14 Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”
It isn’t about the fasting. That’s irrelevant, really. Fasting is only valuable as it directs your heart before God. As it humbles you before God. And if it doesn’t, if it fills you with pride, it is a danger to your soul.
It isn’t even about the sin. God reminds the men of Bethel of their sin, not to grind their faces in sin and shame… but to shatter their illusion of self-righteousness. It is an illusion.
Humble Heart
Humble Heart
The danger to your soul, the danger to your relationship to God, your intimacy with God… it isn’t the sin that’s “out there.” It isn’t the evil and sinful things that “they” are doing.
This is the heart of the “fasters” from Bethel. This is the heart of the Pharisee in the temple. I do this this good thing… and they are right that those are good things. But God sees the pride in our hearts. The dishonesty of our “good deeds” and every other thing.
The danger is any “good” or “religious” thing that you are doing that leads you to believe you are worthy or righteous and they aren’t. The danger is all the secret or hidden or small sins that “don’t count.” Not because God can’t or won’t forgive those… He is so eager to.
But God must and will always teach us that He is God alone. He “opposes that proud” because they aren’t ready or able to truly know Him as God… and there’s no other way to know Him.
We don’t “graduate from grace.” We live in it, and that’s where we find joy and peace and growth.
This is a forever posture before God. He is God. I am not.
I am His, and saved and redeemed by grace alone.
Never earned, always given.
He is Savior, I am Saved.
And then he invites us into the feast. And we are full of joy and thankfulness to be there. We enter in to His presence, humbly receiving all that He is and all that He has.