2025 Christian Fasting Part 2

Isaiah 58:1-12

Fast. Pray. Obey.

It is very common for God’s people to loose the main things.

Back in the day, people turned religious activity into the main thing.

God’s people, the Hebrew people, grew to believe all throughout their history… that God was just desiring their activity and not their hearts… giving without faith or love.

They got to believing that going to the temple and offering sacrifices was all that God was looking for…

Check this out… they went into the temple to perform religious duties… and then they would go out and commit sin habitually.

Can you believe that?!

They did religious things… but hated people. They went to religious meetings, did religious things, to leave and go abuse their families, cheat one another in business, forsake the orphan and the widow, showing no mercy to anyone...

This was their religion… It was a great a religious show.

Is this what God is looking for? No. This is not what God is looking for.

Just going without food has never been what God desires. Just saying a prayer… just going to church… just giving some money in the plate has never been the desire of God.

What has God always wanted and desired from His people? God has always wanted the heart. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong… that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.

The heart of the mere religious person focuses on the act. The heart of the mere religious, is selfish, is self-righteous, is self-seeking… Looking to themselves and their actions to save them… They are living to act. They desire to get life from what they do… And not from Christ… Not from God.

The heart of a Christian is to live for a Person, to Love a person, to serve a person… to love God with all our soul, mind and strength.

This is the heart of worship… This is why we do what we do… For Him.

God’s people are forgetting this. God’s people are only focused on the doing.

And God is telling Isaiah here to blow a trumpet, to proclaim loudly for all to hear. Isaiah is to expose their sin and hypocrisy. The people are religious rebels...

They appear pious. They appear spiritual. But they were whitewashed tombs… If we may borrow a name from Jesus in the New Testament.

They are focused on the wrong things. The main things are not the main things.

And the people are wondering… “ why isn’t God moving… why isn’t God doing something here?”

They say that they delight in the nearness of God and they are asking God for decisions...

Look at Verse 3 and moving on from there - They are fasting and claiming to deny themselves but they are not experiencing the work and response of God...

They had this formula: We fast, say a prayer… do this religious thing… and God you do something.

And God is not doing anything thing in response to their activity.

And God tells them why: Fasting and prayer is not disconnected from obedience.

Fasting and prayer is not disconnected from everything else God has said.

Fast. Pray. And Obey.

God is not blessing their fasts and prayers when they are continuing to hate, abuse, mistreat others...

Listen: True self-denial that God loves involves helping others. True self-denial that God desires includes showing mercy, giving grace, and love to others.

What did Jesus say in Matthew 23:23 - Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: Justice, mercy, and faithfulness… But these things you should have done without neglecting the others...

By all means… tithe… by all means… fast and pray… But don’t neglect the rest!

You are straining out a gnat and swallowing the camel… (You are focusing on the outside… not the inside.)

A day to give up food… Without prayer, without confessing our sins, repenting of sins, and continuing to practice sin… is not what God is looking for, and it will not be rewarded.

A day to give up food… but we talk about people, slander, gossip, we hurt people, we take, but never give anything to them...

Do you want to call this an acceptable thing (day)? In God’s eyes?

What about Sundays and Wednesdays? Are these days acceptable to God if we gather to have our way, to do our own thing… to go through the motions… just to leave and bash our own people, other people, never to help, always to take…

We might say: “Yeah… but at least we come. Yeah, but at least we give some money… Yeah, but at least we teach and preach, and sing…

And all of this does not justify or take away the sin you are committing. None of that makes it balance...

And all of this could be just for show. All of this could just be for us and not for God, and not for God’s people.

All of this could be as sounding brass or clanging cymbals… Just a racket without love.

Many folks who show up to the church house on these days may seem humble and spiritual here… but at the house and everywhere else… they are hard and hurtful.

James hits this very hard in his book: “If anyone thinks he is religious… but they are partial, but they do not look after the widow and the orphan, they show no mercy; they cannot control their tongues...

James 1:26-27 - If anyone thinks himself to be religious but does not bridle his tongue… this man’s religion is worthless...”

Do we need to blow a trumpet today?

Maybe a trumpet needs to be blown today. Maybe a loud voice needs to be heard in many churches everywhere...

Church, do you delight to know God’s ways? Do you want to see God move? Will you fast and pray?

Wonderful!

But how can you experience the blessings of God, the Spirit of God, and the benefits of fasting and prayer… when you will not obey God in all these other matters?

Fast. Pray. And Obey… Obey what God has told you to do. This is not an either or… but a “both and.”

In Joshua 7:10 - Israel sinned against God, or it turned out that Achan sinned against God and that is why they experienced their defeat.

Joshua tore his clothes, threw dust on themselves, and prayed… and God said “Get up!” Why do you lie there on your face?! Israel has sinned… deal with it...”

Then the Lord forgave and blessed them...

We have the full counsel of God. We have what pleases Him. We have what He desires for us to do, and how we should do it...

And it not just fasting… it is not just praying… it is not just going to church… It’s not just one or two things...

It is about loving God and Loving others always, and God tells us how to do this in His Word...

Maybe we need to sound the alarm… Maybe more people are leaving everyday because people are seeing this in the church… and they are concluding: “This is not real… There is nothing different here...”

Sound the alarm: Our faith, our Christianity helps people find freedom in Christ. Our Christianity takes the truth of God, the kindness, mercy and love of God to others to help them break free from lies, from deception, from addiction, from lifestyles of sin.

Our faith reaches out from the love that is within to feed the hungry, to help the homeless, to clothe the naked...

Our faith brings the salt and the light into the world. Our faith is never bound up in a building.

Our faith is not just wrapped up in one or two things. Our faith is not just wrapped up in what we do once or twice a week.

Our faith is living and active. Our faith comes out of us as we live before God, our spouses, our church folks, family, work people and so on...

And should God reward these people with more of His presence… with blessings on the people and the nation… While they continued to live this lifestyle of sin?

No. God is saying “no” and He is explaining this to them...

Fast. Pray. And Obey… Obey what I already told you.

Verse 8 - Then light will come. Then you will experience recovery. Then you will glorify God.

Verse 9 - Then The Lord will answer… when? If what? If you will put away your sin, your pride, your self-righteous actions, selfish ambitions, your coveting, jealousy. If you will remove the yoke, the things that you are connected to that are driving wedges in your relationship with God...

If you will do this while you fast and pray… then your light will rise in the darkness… the Lord will guide you and satisfy your desires, giving strength to you...

Are we praying and not obeying anything else He said? Are we fasting and praying… going to a church service… but we are not practicing these other things???

It may be time to sound the alarm again: God has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God...

And as we come into this new year and new season… We have a clear understanding of what God is after.

God wants your heart. God desires that you seek to love Him first, and to love Him with all your being. And He is calling us to love others as ourselves.

This is the whole Law wrapped up.

So when we come to church, we are the church. We gather to love God and to love others. When we go out from here, we go out to love God and to love others. When we fast and pray… We do it because we want to love God and love others.

And when we do it God’s way… we will receive God’s blessing and great benefits.

Close.