A Sermon on Fasting

Former president Ronald Reagan once had an aunt who took him to a cobbler for a pair of new shoes. The cobbler asked young Reagan, "Do you want square toes or round toes?" Unable to decide, Reagan didn't answer, so the cobbler gave him a few days. Several days later the cobbler saw Reagan on the street and asked him again what kind of toes he wanted on his shoes. Reagan still couldn't decide, so the shoemaker replied, "Well, come by in a couple of days. Your shoes will be ready." When the future president did so, he found one square-toed and one round-toed shoe! "This will teach you to never let people make decisions for you," the cobbler said to his indecisive customer. "I learned right then and there," Reagan said later, "if you don't make your own decisions, someone else will."

We all make countless decisions every day—what to wear, what to eat, what to say, and where to go. But some decisions carry enormous weight, leaving us trapped in paralysis by analysis, so overwhelmed by uncertainty that we struggle to move forward. That’s exactly the kind of weighty decision Ezra faces in Ezra 8:21-23. He is about to lead a second wave of exiles—about 4,000 to 5,000 men, women, and children—on a 900-mile journey from Babylon to Jerusalem. Unlike the first group of some 43,000 people led by Zerubbabel, who returned to rebuild the temple, Ezra’s mission is spiritual reform—to restore the people’s faithfulness to God.

But before the journey begins, Ezra faces a crisis of decision-making. This is not a simple road trip—it’s a dangerous, four-month journey through hostile lands, carrying the equivalent of $250 million in gold and silver. Ezra had previously told King Artaxerxes that God’s hand was upon them, and they didn’t need a military escort—but now, standing on the brink of departure, the reality of that decision settles in. What will Ezra do? Will he go back on his word and ask for Persian soldiers? Or will he seek the face of God for wisdom and protection? In this passage, we find Ezra turning to prayer and fasting in the face of an enormous decision. Perhaps you find yourself at a similar crossroads in life—facing a decision so overwhelming that you don’t know what to do. If so, I invite you to examine this passage with me as we consider the role of fasting in times of critical decision-making. Here we will find three things for us to consider: First, fasting communicates humility before God. Second, fasting is a catalyst for prayer. Third, fasting cultivates community.

Fasting Communicates Our Humility Before God.

In verse 21, Ezra proclaims a fast “that we might humble ourselves before our God.” By fasting, these believers were stripping away the comforts and delights of delicious meals and sweet wine to expose their vulnerability, to declare their dependence, and to direct their attention to the Lord. The word that Ezra uses for “humble” also means “to oppress, humiliate, and suffer.” Thus, the text could read, “I proclaimed a fast that we might oppress, humiliate, and bring suffering on ourselves before our God, to seek from Him the right way…” Now, I will admit that in our comfy American culture, nothing about that definition seems exciting to me, but that is exactly why a rediscovery of fasting is so needed.

Several months ago, I began researching the subject of fasting. So, I went to my four most trusted systematic theologies, consisting of twelve books in total, to see what they might have on the subject. To my surprise I discovered one sentence among them all on this discipline. Which led me to a deep dive on the matter which has been a tremendous blessing. To summarize my understanding of fasting, I believe that by subjecting ourselves to hunger, we declare a firm reliance upon God, acknowledge our weakness, and allow the soul to take inventory of its dependence on things other than God.

Now, this is not a fun experience. It is a struggle like a snake shedding its skin so that it may emerge anew. And it is not simply being hungry. We must understand that there is nothing particularly superior in the lives of those who simply practice intermittent fasting, which I will explore more in our next verse. One thing we need to understand now is that for Ezra, he understood fasting to be a humiliating and humbling experience for the good of our spiritual warfare.

In line with this theme of fasting as a tool in spiritual warfare, I believe there is something significant to be found in the ties between Mt. Sinai and the Mount of Transfiguration. In Exodus, Moses fasted 40 days and 40 nights in preparation to receive the law from God, similarly to how Ezra is fasting to receive direction for their journey. After receiving the law, Moses comes down the mountain and what does he find? The people of Israel had built a golden calf and what do we find them doing? Exodus 32:6 says, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” In the Gospels, Jesus has taken his closest disciples up the Mount to witness His transfiguration. When He comes down, He finds that His other disciples are unable to heal a seizing boy who is demon possessed, to which Jesus responds, “This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” While I’m not insinuating that eating a good meal leads us into sin, I do think it’s undeniable that there is a link here that connects fasting and discipline in the face of temptations. This would be why Jesus calls them “A faithless and perverse generation…”

When we first moved into our home, there was a bee in Ella’s room. And as I tried to kill it, I gently pressed it against the window with the bristles of a broom, and it broke the window. Well, a few months back, I walked out of my front door to find that a branch had crashed through my truck window, leaving tiny shards everywhere as opposed to the big pieces that came from Ella’s window. The reason that the truck window behaved that way is that it had been tempered. Tempered glass is glass that has been heat-treated, which makes it significantly stronger. This is effectively the use of fasting for spiritual discipline, it is a means by which we temper ourselves against the future trials of temptation in our lives.

Before I move on, I do want to take a moment to address an issue that is frequently brought up with those concerned with fasting today which is the issue of health. First, some people simply cannot fast due to health issues, which would put them in a precarious situation. If you are in that category, use caution in this area. However, there are some people who are otherwise healthy who share concerns on this subject. To that, I want to emphasize that first, fasting is a subject that has exploded on the health and fitness scene and has been proven to be beneficial in moderation as it causes autophagy and hormone regulation, but I want to emphasize that this is not the reason we fast. We are not interested in the nourishment of the body in these seasons of fasting, but the nourishment of the soul.

One thing I believe must be recovered in our thinking, which is discussed briefly in Samuel Renihan’s work on anxiety, is that we are more than bodies, and so we must stop thinking like atheists. Medicine is good, but not every issue you and I have is an issue of the body. For instance, if you reflect with me on your conversion, you might share a similar experience with me as you remember the sleepless nights and the inescapable discomfort and anxiety, where there is nothing on earth that soothes your troubled mind. Well, believer, what was the cure for that? It wasn’t a klonopin, it was Christ! In Daniel 10, Daniel fasted for three weeks on what we believe was most likely bread and water alone and what do we find strengthened him? It wasn’t a buffet, but it was the word of the angel to him that strengthened his inner man. In the gospels, when Jesus is fasting for forty days in the wilderness, the text tells us that He was hungry. But after His victory over Satan, the text doesn’t tell us that He was strengthened by a meal at Mary’s house. Rather, it tells us that He was ministered to and strengthened by Angels.

What I’m getting at isn’t that if you fast for a long time, you’ll have an angelic experience. However, what I am getting at is that in this season of fasting, the focus of the believer is not the nourishing of the body, but the flourishing of the soul as we focus on Christ in a consecrated time of prayerful fasting. If this sounds miserable to you, think about this quote from Basil of Caesarea, a Christian minister from the 300s. He says, “Isaiah has taught us the grace of fasting… No one crowned is despondent; no one glum holds up a trophy. Do not be gloomy while you are being healed. It is absurd not to rejoice in the soul’s health, and rather to sorrow over the change in food.”

To put it simply, in fasting, we are humbled as we realize our dependence on the Lord’s provision. Furthermore, as we realize that we aren’t immortal, we are brought to worship as we realize that our God alone is self-sufficient and worthy to be trusted and praised. So, when we fast, we are bringing ourselves to humbly seek the direction of God for our lives. This is especially helpful in times of decision making since fasting is a means by which our motives are searched and purified as we seek the face of God.

If you are new to fasting, I want to encourage you to enter fasting slowly and with wisdom. It may be best to fast from a single meal and to devote that time to prayer and work your way up to longer times of fasting. Finally, if you are medically hindered from fasting from food, it may be beneficial to examine your life and discern what may be a beneficial thing to fast from, such as social media for example.

Now that we see how fasting strips away self-reliance, let’s explore how fasting ignites a deeper, more intentional prayer life.

Fasting is a Catalyst to Prayer.

In verse 21, Ezra continues stating that this prayerful fast was not only to humble themselves, but “to seek from God the right way for us and our little ones and all our possessions.” Now, before I get into fasting as a catalyst for prayer, I do want to point out a fact I found interesting. In Ezra, we find that he rejected the king’s escort. However, when Nehemiah makes his trip, they take advantage of the king’s offer of an escort. What I believe we can gather from this is that this passage is not demanding that we always reject help and pray for God to make another way. However, I do believe that we learn two things. First, we might often be guilty of hedging our bets because we don’t trust God to come through. Second, I believe we can learn that believers can disagree on subjects such as this one and neither of them be wrong or in sin, but that it is a matter of conscience.

Now, as it pertains to fasting and prayer, I want us to take note that Ezra did not call for a fast that was isolated from prayer; rather it was a catalyst which intensified their prayerfulness. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin writes:

In general, the only object that they had in fasting was to render themselves more alert and disencumbered for prayer. We certainly experience that after a full meal the mind does not so rise toward God as to be carried along by an earnest and fervent longing for prayer, and perseverance in prayer. In this sense is to be understood the saying of Luke concerning Anna, that she “served God with fastings and prayers, night and day” (Luke 2:37). For he does not place the worship of God in fasting, but infers that in this way the holy woman trained herself to perseverance in prayer.

To summarize Calvin here, he points out that when the Christian begins a time of fasting, he finds himself free from the tired and burdened down feeling that we often have after a meal, and that this freedom allows us to be more mentally prepared for seasons of devoted prayer and then he points out that Anna’s purpose for fasting was so she could pray and worship more intently. Fasting is, as Augustine put it, wings of loving-kindness, which help our prayers fly more easily.”

In Ezra 8, we find that this is a time of serious concern. As a parent, I feel the anxiety here when I read, “to seek from Him the right way for us and our little ones…” For Ezra, this isn’t the time to be flippantly praying empty prayers. It is a time to remove all distractions and to seek God intently. He had no army, no plan B. They were wholly dependent upon the Lord’s provision. Beloved, have you ever been this desperate? If so, I want to encourage you to add fasting to your prayers as a catalyst to communicate your urgency before the Lord. Ezra didn’t fast so that God would hear his prayer, he fasted so that he would pray with greater dependence, clarity, and faith. If I might use imagery here for communications' sake: For the believer, fasting is throwing oneself into Nebuchadnezzar’s fire, knowing that we go in search of the fourth man. For those of us who were around before everything became Bluetooth and crystal clear, fasting is the dial with which we focus in on the channel of prayer and remove all other distractions.

As we look at this passage, we notice that fasting was not an isolated ritual, but that it was accompanied by fervent prayer, and this is what true fasting is. True fasting always directs the heart towards God in prayer, it yearns for His wisdom, strength, and provision. With this in mind, we have to keep ourselves from thinking that fasting is a way to manipulate God’s favor. All of our seeking of God must be through the Lord. We don’t fast to move God’s heart, as though He wasn’t already willing to bless us as His children. Instead, we fast as a means of drawing near to the One who draws near to us through His Son.

If you are new to fasting, I want to encourage you to plan what you will do instead of eating. One of the most effective aspects of fasting is that it opens time for devoted prayer. Be careful to guard that time from distractions.

Also, when the hunger pangs come, and they will, let them be alarms which call you to prayer. And when your stomachs growl, and it will, let it remind you that you hunger for more than this world has to offer and that you crave the wedding feast which is to come. Let your time of fasting remind you that Jesus is the Bread of Life and that we are weak people relying on our sustaining God.

Now that we have seen how fasting promotes a more earnest prayer life, I want to show how fasting cultivates community.

Fasting Cultivates Community.

As we read through this text, we find words like “we, us, and our” collectively appearing nine times in three short verses. Thus, the communal aspect of this passage is undeniable, and this gives us a good reason to consider community and fasting. In the gospels, the Lord warns against fasting in public with the wrong motives. However, while He does warn against fasting to be seen by others, this does not completely remove the validity of fasting in community. For instance, in Acts 13:2-3, we find that the church in Antioch was fasting as they ordained and sent out Saul and Barnabas. Another example is in Acts 14:21-23. There we find that Paul has ministered in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. Before he leaves, these churches appoint elders, and while this is occurring, we find that we are fasting. So, while the motives of our hearts are not to be seeking public acclaim, fasting may certainly be done in communion with other believers. One thing we find in these two examples is that Christians should consider prayerfully fasting as they are considering ordaining leaders in the Church.

Later on, around 130 AD, we find records of a man named Justin Martyr, who mentions that when the Early Church was preparing to baptize a believer, they would encourage the convert to fast so that they could prayerfully understand the seriousness of this commitment. He also adds that the rest of the believers would fast with this new convert as an opportunity to rehearse and embody the same commitment. The reason that I bring this up for us today is that in the Bible, there are a plethora of fasts: personal and communal, private and public, congregational and national, regular and occasional, absolute and partial. While I am primarily wanting us to employ fasting as a private and personal aspect of our Christian devotion, I did want to take this opportunity to also encourage you to entertain communal fasts with other believers. In our text for today, we find that there is general adherence to the fast because it pertains to everyone’s children, possessions, and safety. What I am getting at is that the suffering nature of fasting ensures that the heart of a people is collectively focused on the subject at hand. This is because no one will agree to suffer for things they don’t care about. So, if you and a fellow believer are collectively burdened for the redemption of a friend or the restoration of a fallen brother, it would be a wonderful idea to seek the Lord together in a season of prayerful fasting.

We all know what it means to be hangry, where we are hungry, so we start acting a little grumpy. If you are new to fasting, I want to encourage you to be careful not to tarnish the beauty of fasting with a critical spirit. It would be a shame for us to take an instrument which is designed to help us earnestly seek the Lord and have it make us into critical gripes. When we fast, let our mouths be filled with prayers to God and not the backs of those who love us.

Conclusion:

Illustration: JC Fowler and Honduras.

Ezra reveals to us that the Lord heard their petition and delivered them safely to Jerusalem. With that in mind, if you are facing a season of difficult decisions and burdens, I want to encourage you to seek the Lord in fervent prayer and to persist in your praying like the persistent widow of Luke 18, who gave the judge no rest until he heard her case. In our lives, we will all face seasons of difficult decision-making; when the weight of these decisions burdens us down, let us set aside time to prayerfully fast and seek the right way for our lives.

In conclusion, I want to rehearse a few things for those of us who are new to fasting.

First, enter fasting slowly and with wisdom. It may be best to fast from a single meal and to devote that time to prayer and work your way up to longer times of fasting.

Second, plan what you will do instead of eating. One of the most beneficial aspects of fasting is that it opens time for devoted prayer. Be careful to guard that time from distractions.

Third, when the hunger pangs come, let them be alarms which call us to prayer. And when our stomachs growl, let them remind us that we hunger for more than this world has to offer and that we crave the wedding feast which is to come. Let your time of fasting remind you that Jesus is the Bread of Life and that we are weak people relying on our sustaining God.

Benediction:

Isaiah 58:6-9 “Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not hide yourself from your own flesh? Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ “If you take away the yoke from your midst, The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,