True Faith 5: Prayer and Fasting

SLIDE 1 - as I go up

There was a young man named August born into a family of mixed religion. His mother was a devout Christian while his father was a self professed pagan. This family was of moderate means, upper middle class, enabling him to go to special schools where he learned all kinds of history, philosophy, and religion. He furthered his education against his mothers wishes traveling to a well renowned school a ways away where he fell into the wrong lot of friends, practiced bad habits, lived with a woman with whom he fathered a child yet never married, all while his mother back home prayed tearfully for her son. It is reported at one point he snuck away, planning to take a boat across a sea, leaving his mother praying the ship would be delayed, or unable to depart, but to no avail, August sailed to the new city, a new school, a new life. Eventually his mother and he reconciled and she moved to where he was working as a teacher, she hadn’t stopped praying for him, and in the new town she found a new church, and eventually found her son attending church with her. Her son this rebellios man-child, eventually came to follow Jesus. He eventually went into ministry, and while I call him August, the rest of Church history knows him as Saint Augustine of Hippo. St. Augustine lived three to four hundred years after the death of Jesus during the early expansion of the church. His background in philosophy and pagan history gave him a unique view on the world, and because of that he is known as one of the greatest minds of the early church laying the foundation for our modern understanding of truths such as the Trinity, original sin, the Church as a spiritual body existing beyond the physical realm. Reflecting on His life and his mothers never ending prayers, Augustine wrote SLIDE 2

"And what did she beg of you, my God, with all those tears, if not that you would prevent me from sailing? But you did not do as she asked you. Instead, in the depth of your wisdom, you granted the wish that was closest to her heart. SLIDE 3

"For she saw that you had granted her far more than she used to ask in her tearful prayers. You converted me to yourself, so that I no longer placed any hope in this world, but stood firmly upon the rule of faith. And you turned her sadness into rejoicing, into joy far fuller than her dearest wish, far sweeter and more chaste than any she had hoped to find."

Despite years of chasing women, pleasure, and fame Augustine’s mother never stopped praying and believing that God could save her son, and in an interesting twist of fate, God not only saved her son, but as Augustine began to know and follow Jesus he began to change more and more, he found ways to shed off and throw away his old temptations, and found the real answers to the longing he had always wanted. Not only does he write of the greater joy he found in Christ, the greater relationships he found in the church, but he is now honored fifteen hundred years later not because of his philosophy or cultural prowess, but because of his work in the church!

God answered the prayers of a weeping mother, and the church was blessed for it. Monica of Hippo, his mother, was the catalyst for more than she could ever imagine because she kept praying. While she prayed the ship would not sail, it sailed, while she prayed he would come home, he did not come home, her prayers seemed unanswered, but I love how St. Augustine realized, SLIDE 4 and I think she realized too,

you (God) did not do as she asked you. Instead, in the depth of your wisdom, you granted the wish that was closest to her heart.

Sometimes God answers out prayers as we pray them, other times He does not, because He is answering the wish that was closer to our heart.

We are in week five of our series on Spiritual disciplines. SLIDE 5 which we have defined as

(Spiritual disciplines are) Biblical practices that put us in a position to experience God - leading to a greater maturity and affection for Him.

This week we are looking at the powerful tools of prayer and fasting. So just as every other week we are asking the question, how can we use prayer and fasting as resources, as actions, to put us in a place to experience God?

As I was outlining this sermon the question I wanted to begin by answering was why do we pray. And I started plotting out the reasons I was going to give you. We pray to hear from God. We pray to talk to God. We pray because we need something. We pray because someone else needs something… then I paused and thought, why do I, Brian Bremner, why do I usually pray? And I realized, I think I often pray because I want what appears to be a given outcome to change. I want what seems to be the current path to change. Someone is sick, I pray they get better. A relationship is breaking, I pray it gets fixed. And then the question came to me, can our prayers change the mind, the plans, of God?

That’s a scary question. Can my prayers, the prayers of a human, change the mind and plans of God, the creator and master of the universe? In Richard Foster’s book which I’ve referenced a few times this series, Celebrating Discipline, SLIDE 6 he says;

It is easy for us to be defeated right at the outset because we have been taught that everything in the universe is already set, and so things cannot be changed. And if things cannot be changed, why pray? We may gloomily feel this way, but the Bible does not teach that. The Bible pray-ers prayed as if their prayers their prayers could and would make an objective difference. (p. 35)

I won’t ask you to raise your hands or turn to your neighbor, but some of us may have grown up believing this. Some of us may still believe this. To others this is a foreign concept, you may have always believed we can speak into God’s plans. So while some people thing we have no say in the throne room of God and others say god cares deeply about our views, what does the Bible say? I can stand up hear and preach it one way or the other for hours, but unless what I am preaching is found in scripture, I’m wasting both your time and mine! So lets look at scripture for our answer. I’ll summarize one story and we can read the next, so you can turn to 1 Samuel 15 if you want to follow along, but while you do let me summarize the book of Jonah for a second.

In Jonah God calls a prophet, Jonah, and tells him to preach to the city of Nineveh. Jonah fled from God and his mission and one thing led to another, Jonah was eaten by a great fish, gives in to God’s will, is vomited up from said fish, walked to Nineveh as God commanded, and gave them this message; SLIDE 7

4 Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!”

We don’t know if Jonah preached more or if he just repeated those 7 words over and over, but whatever he said was enough as the people of Nineveh confessed of their sin, turned from their evil ways, and did all they could to stop sinning and honor God… and guess what SLIDE 8

“10 God saw their actions - that they had turned from their evil ways - so God relented from the disaster he had threatened them with. And he did not do it.”

God had a prophet prophecy of their destruction, and I don’t think it was an empty threat… God had destroyed cities before… Sodom and Gomorrah, Jericho, every city in the time of Noah, but Nineveh was spared, God changed his mind… Normally I say, ‘that’s a sermon for another day”, look at that today I did the opposite, I summarized an entire sermon series in 3 minutes…

But that takes us to 1 Samuel. In chapter 15 verse 29 we have a line from the prophet Samuel talking to king Saul SLIDE 9

29 Furthermore, the Eternal One of Israel does not lie or change his mind, for he is not man who changes his mind.”

So God doesn’t change his mind then? (pause) Maybe Samuel hasn’t read Jonah… or maybe Jonah is wrong? Or maybe Samuel is wrong? Or maybe this is why context matters so much and we can’t read a single verse out of context!

Chapter 15 begins with Samuel reminding Saul that God anointed Saul as king over Israel, the kingdom is God’s not Saul’s. Then Samuel tells Saul that it is time God punishes a group called the Amalekites for what the did to Israel while they were fleeing Egypt almost 400 years ago… God waited almost 400 years to punish these people! God commanded Saul to wipe the Amalekites off the face off the earth, so Sual gathers the armies and goes to war, but Saul disobeyed part of God’s command and didn’t wipe them off the face of the earth - Saul kept the king alive as a captive and they stole some of the livestock - which God had called them to destroy. So God declares, SLIDE 10 starting in verse 10

10 Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, 11 “I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned away from following me and has not carried out my instructions.” So Samuel became angry and cried out to the Lord all night.

God regretted making Saul king! The word of the Lord said that! Samuel eventually confronts Saul, who lies about following God’s orders and why he took some of the livestock, there is an awesome rebuke form Samuel in verses 22 and 23, but then Samuel declares in verse 26 SLIDE 11

“26 Samuel replied to Saul, “I will not return with you. Because you rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” 27 When Samuel turned to go, Saul grabbed the corner of his robe, and it tore. 28 Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingship of Israel away from you today and has given it to your neighbor who is better than you. 29 Furthermore, the Eternal One of Israel does not lie or change his mind, for he is not man who changes his mind.”

The context of this story is that God DID change His mind, he made Saul king, Saul disobeyed God, doing what God called evil, and God eventually stripped the power away from Saul, God changed his mind and His blessing from Saul to David, and that was not to be undone, Saul was not to be king ever again. It was not an immediate punishment, either, but gradual it was 18 years from this incident to Saul’s death and David’s kingship. And in that 18 years God did not change His mind a second time about Saul. God changes his mind, not his character. What God calls good is always good, what God calls evil is always evil. God does not change, people do. And Saul turned from God, so God’s blessing turned from Him.

So yes, sometimes, God changes his mind. In Nineveh’s case he removed his wrath and replaced it with a blessing. In Saul’s case he removed his blessing and replaced it with His wrath. So why should we pray? Because God cares, God listens to our requests and needs.

Just as God speaks to us through the Bible, we speak to God through prayer! We pray long prayers asking God to fulfill the needs of those around us and our needs as well. We pray for our leaders and those we lead. We pray for our enemies and our friends. We pray for God’s will to be done and our will to become like Gods! That is why we pray!

So how do we pray? I will have a video on our social media this week that is focused solely on this question but I will give one requirement and five steps.

First we pray along the will of God. James 4 says SLIDE 12

2 You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.

We need to ask, that’s one requirement, God answers prayers not unprayed wants. And those prayers must be asked with the right motives, not to be spent on our pleasures, but to be aimed at God’s kingdom. Our prayers need to align with the will of God, not the will of mankind. Friendship with the world is hostility towards God… if our prayers align with worldly wants... we’re probably not praying the will of God. And remember St. Augustine’s mom, her prayers seemed to fall on deaf ears, but God was listening to the deeper prayer, not that a ship wouldn’t sail, but that her son would find God, and change to world for God. So that’s the rule - pray the will of God, and here are 4 ways to do that, and again I’ll go more in depth on these in a video this week. And here is how you can remember it, just remember CATS, SLIDE 13

First confess your sins to God.

Second adore our God, praise Him, worship Him in prayer.

Third Thank God for all he has done.

Finally pray supplication, meaning ask him to fulfill the needs of others, then ask Him to meet your needs.

Confession, Admiration, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. CATS. Most pastors teach ACTS, beginning with admiration, and that’s fine too, but in Pslam 66 SLIDE 14 scripture says,

“16 Come and listen, all who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for me. 17 I cried out to him with my mouth, and praise was on my tongue. 18 If I had been aware of malice in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. 19 However, God has listened; he has paid attention to the sound of my prayer. 20 Blessed be God! He has not turned away my prayer or turned his faithful love from me.”

So I like to begin my prayers ensuring I am not cherishing sin, inequity, or malice in my heart. So we pray because we want to talk to God, we want to share what is on our heart and ask Him to intervene, but we need to be aware, God is not a puppet on a string whom we can dance across a stage and make to do our bidding – rather God is a loving father who wants what is best – and wants us to be involved and thus is willing to listen to us – but he won’t do something foolish on our behalf. He wont go against His character on our behalf. He wont ignore or overlook sin on our behalf. God wants us to be involved in His will, but ultimately it is His will, not ours, that wins the day.

What then about fasting? I did mention at the outset that today we would be looking at prayer and fasting, so what role does fasting have to do with prayer or are they simply two disciplines that we, pastors, like to toss together because we don’t know what else to do with them....

I’ll have the verses up here, but if you’d like to follow along in your own Bibles you can turn to Matthew 6. We just spent a month in Matthew 6 looking at the Lords prayer, but we’re now going to look at a few verses following that. This is still a part of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, and having just taught us how to pray he adds starting in verse 16 SLIDE 15

16 “Whenever you fast, don’t be gloomy like the hypocrites. For they make their faces unattractive so that their fasting is obvious to people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting isn’t obvious to others but to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

A few observations. Jesus doesn’t say IF you fast, but rather whenever you fast. This isn’t a command, it is a presumption. Jesus is presuming that those who wish to follow God will fast. He doesn’t say if, he doesn’t say you must, he says, when you do.

Second when we do so, don’t do it in a way that draws attention to ourselves. Don’t broadcast that you are fasting, people may be able to guess, but you don’t need to tell them, unless they invite you over for dinner… than maybe you need to tell them. Fasting, however, is meant to be a something we do for God in secret, because we’re not doing it for others, first and foremost we’re doing it for God. But we’re also told, by Jesus, that our Father, that is God, not your parent, will reward you. Jesus doesn’t elaborate here in what that reward looks like, will it be an earthly reward, a heavenly reward, a crown in Heaven, or a gold star - we don’t know - but we know it is promised, and that should be enough!

The two main questions that we need to answer, however, are why do we fast and how do we fast. Jesus teaching in Matthew 6 presumes we will, so we should live up to that and figure out why and how.

John Wesley while preaching on this passage, Matthew 6:16-18 declared;

first, Let it be done unto the Lord with our eye singly fixed on him. Let our intention herein be this, and this alone, to glorify our Father which is in heaven: to express our sorrow and shame, for our manifold transgressions of his holy law: to wait for an increase of purifying grace, drawing our affections to things above: to add seriousness and earnestness to our prayers: to avert the wrath of God, and to obtain all the great and precious promises, which he hath made to us in Christ Jesus.Let us beware of mocking God, of turning our fast as well as our prayer into an abomination unto the Lord, by the mixture of any temporal view, particularly, by seeking the praise of men.

We fast first and foremost - the main goal of fasting (pause) is to glorify, to worship, God, our father. That should be our primary motivation - we fast to praise God. And how does fasting do that? Well. When you fast you will find yourself hungry - and when you find yourself hungry pause. In that moment of pause think about God. Think about His holiness, His greatness, His purity… His wrath… think about your sin, your temptations, and how his wrath has been diverted, not removed, detoured. His rath did not disappear, rather it was laid upon, showered upon, hammered upon Christ at the Cross. That should turn then into thankfulness, gratitude, praise. I used to think while fasting all I had to do was replace my meal time with extra Bible or prayer time. And that’s a good use of that time, but fasting is more than that, the hunger follows you throughout the day, use that hunger, that discomfort, as a reminder of God’s greatness, may your fast be first and foremost an act of worship.

There are secondary benefits of a fast, however, health wise, yup benefits there, but I’m not gonna talk about those, I’m not a nutritionist, I’m a theologian, I’ll talk about the spiritual benefits! As we fast we may find ourselves tempted to sin. Is that a bad thing? No, so long as we don’t act on those sins, rather it can be a sign of areas we need to surrender to Christ. Just before starting His final years in ministry Jesus fasted in the dessert for 40 days where he was tempted by Satan. The temptation was not sin, it was an opportunity for sin, but Jesus countered and avoided it. So too as we fast we may find temptations revealing themselves and we have an opportunity to face them, counter them, and defeat them. In your hunger you may find yourself hangry… and in so learn, perhaps you have a spirit of anger within you, a temptation prone to anger, and in that fast you may realize you need to surrender that anger to God. In your hunger you may find yourself growing anxious. And learn you have a spirit of fear, of anxiety, within you and you need to surrender that fear, that anxiety to God. In your hunger you may find yourself trying to control everything and find you are prone to put your faith i your own ability, your own planning, your own skills, not in God. And in your fast you may have to turn that need for control over to God. In fasting we face our vices and we can give into them or we can give them to God.

A second secondary benefit in our fast we are also reminded we are to rely on God, and we are reminded that God is sufficient. That He is our all in all. That we are not to live on bread alone, but as Jesus declared while in His fast,

but on every word that comes form the mouth of God.

Take time when your fasting and read scripture. Listen to worship music. Read Biblical commentaries, listen to sermons, spend extended time in prayer and fellowship. Don’t broadcast that you are fasting again - go about your day like you would, only with a greater attention turned towards God. There was a time when certain church leaders would not ordain a minister unless they fasted both Wednesday and Friday, fortunately for me that requirement is gone, but also unfortunately for me that requirement is gone (pause). Jesus said whenever you fast not if you fast… perhaps that requirement should come back until it becomes an extension of who we are once again. Again, a second secondary benefit is it reminds us of our reliance on God.

A third benefit of fasting, it helps us grow in discipline. Once again Richard Foster on fasting SLIDE 16 once said;

in many ways the stomach is like a spoiled child, and a spoiled child does not need indulgence but needs discipline.

Far too much our culture has attuned its ear to the spoiled child within us, the child that looks at the flesh, at sin and says ‘I want that’ and we say, well, my flesh wants that. My heart wants that, and surly my heart knows what is best. My heart wants that thing I don’t have and I will be jealous for it, I will lie for it, I will steal for it.... My flesh wants that person I’m not married too… I’ll have them on the side… my flesh wants to punish that person I’ll tarnish their reputation… I’ll ruin their career… I’ll ruin their family.... I’ll beat them… I’ll kill them… We live in a culture that lacks discipline, we have replaced discipline with blanket acceptances. Rather than disciplining ourselves and others when sin creeps at the edges of our life we accept that as a want of the heart… The heart which the Bible tells us SLIDE 17 in Jeremiah 17:9 is

(“9 The heart is) more deceitful than anything else, and incurable - who can understand it?”

If there is any one thing we should not trust… (pause) maybe it is the heart… let me rephrase that and drop the maybe - if there is any one thing we should not trust - it is the heart!

We as a culture lack discipline - and fasting is one way we can grow in that discipline.

So (pause) how do we fast? Practically, how do we do it? Start small. Skip a meal once a week. Then start to skip 2. Eventually fast an entire day once a week. Then maybe a weekend a month. Eventually try a week a year. Note, when people fast in the Bible they still drank water most of the time, rarely in the Bible do we see an absolute fast and then only when God called them to do so. Start small, and go from there. And remember you’re to do it for God first and foremost.

Prayer and fasting. Tools, practices, disciplines, made to honor God, to remember Him and remind us of His will, His power, His provision.

Let me pray for us today.