What about Fasting?

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Let’s Jump into today’s message.

If you are new to our church today, it would be helpful for you to know that we practice a form of preaching called “Expository Preaching”.

What that means, is we believe the Bible is best taught by taking books of the Bible and then breaking them down from beginning to end, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. Our goal, to better understand not only what God’s Word says, but what it means in our lives today.

We are currently walking through the NT book of Matthew.

Last week we found ourselves looking at an encounter with Jesus from a birds eye view.

We get to look at it from all that we have heard, read, and experienced.

Most of the time we don’t look at it from what was actually going on.

So let’s reread what we read last week.

Matthew 9:9–13 CSB

9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, “Follow me,” and he got up and followed him. 10 While he was reclining at the table in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came to eat with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 Now when he heard this, he said, “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Let’s look at the players here.

Matthew and his Party of Sinners.

Pharisees:

The Old Websters definition:a self-righteous or sanctimonious person or hypocrite.

This is the view most of us see them as. This is at the core of our Christian beliefs.

We tend to see them as adversarial. But that really isn’t the case here.

The Pharisees were not the bad guys.

The Romans were!

From a Religious semblance they are the good guys.

What we have to understand that at this time when Jesus is eating this meal.

The Ark of the Covenant has been missing and not mentioned since the Before the Babylonians destroyed and looted Jerusalem in 586 BCE.

So it has been nearly 600 years since the presence of God has filled the temple.

It has been 400 years since the last prophet Malachi had spoken Thus says the Lord.

In that time period the Pharisees and Religious leaders have tried to uphold and keep Biblical Judaism alive in spite of worldly influences ruling and reigning over the People of Isreal.

So how did they do this. The did it by creating fences around the Torah or Word of God so that the people would and could not possibly violate the Laws of God thus displeasing God.

It was no longer about relationship with God it was about not displeasing God.

Now let’s look at the real definition of Pharisee.

Websters Dictionary: capitalized : a member of a Jewish sect of the intertestamental period noted for strict observance of rites and ceremonies of the written law and for insistence on the validity of their own oral traditions concerning the law.

The Oral law became what we call now fences.

The problem for the Pharisee is that they had driven so many fence posts to protect the law that they no longer needed the fencing. There was no space for freedom.

So as we enter the this conversation we have to understand that this is an insider conversation.

They call Jesus Rabbi because they see him as one of them. In fact as we learned two weeks ago They are there to try to determine if he is in fact the Messiah.

This is a good thing. Something we want our religious leaders to do as well. To vet leadership.

So they are asking questions to determine if Jesus is Who He claims and is Showing signs and wonders to Be.

As Jesus speaks to them we need to understand He is not adversarial either. He is attempting to open their eyes to their problem.

Jesus is taking the people who by action are closest to the Kingdom and trying to get them over the wall spiritually.

With that information Let’s look at today’s scripture.

Matthew 9:14–17 CSB

14 Then John’s disciples came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” 15 Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests be sad while the groom is with them? The time will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one patches an old garment with unshrunk cloth, because the patch pulls away from the garment and makes the tear worse. 17 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. No, they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”

From our limited perspective this would look like the oddest question ever.

We tend to look at it as John’s disciples trying to catch Jesus doing something wrong.

Historically, though this is a very good question.

In order to better understand it would be nice to look at Luke’s account of this story because His story is in chronological order.

By looking at the events of Luke 5 and 6 we can see that This feast at Matthew’s house was most likely a couple of days before the Sabbath so we can ascertain that This Meal took place on a Thursday.

This naturally explains why these men were preoccupied with the fact that Jesus and His Disciples were not fasting.

In this day Rabbi’s taught their disciples that they must fast every week on Mondays and Thursdays. Because Moses went up on Mount Sinai on a Thursday and returned on a Monday.

Thus to this day the Jews read from the Torah out loud on Mondays and Thursdays.

What you will find is that nowhere in the Bible does it say anywhere that you should fast on Mondays or Thursdays or an day for that matter. There are no requirements as to what days you should fast.

This is an example of an oral law that imposed more unnecessary burdens on the people of God as a means to try to help them please God.

The problem for the Pharisees and all believers is when our acts of sacrifice or Righteousness become an idea of things we must do in order to be pleasing to God.........

That the acts in themselves is what makes us righteous instead of acts of righteous being out of devotion and relationship with the one who made us Righteous through our Faith.

These Oral obligations are often Seen as

Rules of the Community.

Which is not foreign to us today.

I found out in my studying this week that AG Churches used to hand out Membership Cards to members with a list of things that Members of the Church Community were forbidden from doing.

Such as Going to Movies on Sundays, Playing Cards, Drinking Alcohol, Wearing Earings or Make up, and Women were forbidden to wear pants.

You laugh because it became legalism but the root of the matter was pure.

They were trying to set up fences in order to please God and bring in the presence of God.

They were trying to make themselves Righteous.

Get That Self Righteous.

This doesn’t mean we are not called to live lives that evolve Righteous acts or sacrifices.

Righteous living comes out of relationship.

I did not just come out of 21 days of prayer to please God or to make myself pleasing to God. I did 21 days of prayer to try to realign my heart to the heart of the Father.

It was a course correction.

So how does Jesus answer. First he addresses John’s Disciples.

Matthew 9:15 CSB

15 Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests be sad while the groom is with them? The time will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

The point of fasting is do deny the flesh in order to feed the spirit while we wait for the coming kingdom.

Jesus is using the same language John used when describing Jesus.

John 3:27–30 CSB

27 John responded, “No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven. 28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I’ve been sent ahead of him.’ 29 He who has the bride is the groom. But the groom’s friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the groom’s voice. So this joy of mine is complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Jesus is speaking to John’s Disciples affirming that he is the one John was the forerunner for.

He is connecting the Dots for them.

Giving them the opportunity benefit from what they already know.

Fasting denies the body joy for a time and that is the spiritual benefit.

Joy has come so be liberated and join the feast.

Then he Turns his attention to the Pharisees.

Matthew 9:16 CSB

16 No one patches an old garment with unshrunk cloth, because the patch pulls away from the garment and makes the tear worse.

This is a statement speaking to the Outer Garment a piece of clothing so sacred to protecting the wearer that Jewish law forbade the confiscation of an outer garment overnight.

This garment was adorned with fringes mandated in Numbers 15:37-39

Numbers 15:37–39 CSB

37 The Lord said to Moses, 38 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them that throughout their generations they are to make tassels for the corners of their garments, and put a blue cord on the tassel at each corner. 39 These will serve as tassels for you to look at, so that you may remember all the Lord’s commands and obey them and not prostitute yourselves by following your own heart and your own eyes.

These tassels reminded them to stay true to the word of God.

The issue with adding a new patch to this garment is that it was adding undue burden to the fabric and would cause it to be divided or ripped more.

Do you see how the Rules of the Community can rip the community from the Liberation we find in our salvation being by Faith not Works.

Ephesians 2:8–9 CSB

8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast.

Jesus is not coming to abolish the Old. Seriously why would God go through the motions of establishing the Law for Jesus to show up and throw it all away.

Then Jesus gives another Parable.

Matthew 9:17 CSB

17 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. No, they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”

I am going to make an aside here. The Rules of the Community would state that is a Sin to Drink. No where in the Bible does it say that it is a sin to drink alcohol.

It says it is a sin to be Drunk.

We have taken it a step further to say that the Wine Jesus drank was not fermented and was just grape juice.

This scripture completely nullify that idea. Jesus is talking about the fermentation process.

New Wine was put into New Bags made from the Skin of animals and as it fermented the gas in the process would cause the bag to swell and stretch. By using a new skin this meant the bag had not already been stretched to point that it could no longer stretch.

This was the case for if you put new wine in old skins.

Jesus was bringing something new because he was the author of the old. Who better to interpret the Law than the Writer of said law.

However, the people who were closest to the ability to accept the new were to caught up in the old ways of the fence to be able to expand and receive anything new...........

They were so caught up in trying to make themselves righteous that they were missing the freedom of the one who could make them righteous.

So Here I stand this morning asking you to consider what ways we ourselves are no different than the Pharisees.

In what ways are we so caught up in our own attempts to make ourselves presentable that we miss the fact that we have already been made presentable by putting our faith in Jesus.

We do not live out acts of righteousness in order to find favor but out of Gratitude and appreciation for the Favor we have already recieved.

The Pharisees where so focused on appearing to be the people of God that they missed the joy and benefits of being the people of God.

Please Stand with me this morning.