2025-06-15 Fasting: To Grow in Holiness

Well, we are continuing our series / / When You Fast, talking about the Spiritual Discipline of fasting. As a community we fast on Wednesdays. And this past week may have been your first time joining us. I am happy for you and hope you felt the grace of God in the midst of the personal offering you gave.

Last week we covered essentially the basics of what fasting is, why we might do it, where it comes from, biblically, historically, and how the church for 1500 years was so committed to it.

Sometimes I wonder why is it so hard for me to get something that clearly so many before me have utilized in their lives to be closer to God, more in tune with His Spirit, and to fulfill the invitation to be a disciple of Jesus.

Why is it that I think I get a pass?

Why is it that somehow I think that my sin, or laziness, or lack of desire to learn or commit, why should that get a pass when so many before have given such a heartfelt and beautiful commitment to the Lord in their offering of their lives as a living sacrifice? And here I am thinking, “Ya, that seems a little too hard.”

I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to me. Maybe you identify with that feeling. Or maybe you’ve never thought about it. That’s ok. But I certainly have.

And I want that to change. I said this last week. Regardless of what I feel, or experience, He is worthy. What am I offering to God?

So, last week we talked through the first of four reasons we fast:

/ / 1. To offer ourselves to Jesus

2. To grow in holiness

3. To amplify our prayers

4. To stand with the poor

So, this past week, / / were you intentional and aware of the offering you were bringing?

/ / Yourself!

I hit a midpoint in the day where I had a really intense headache and I thought, “certainly it is ok to have a coffee… the Lord does not want me to suffer like this…”

And I stopped and thought, “Whatever this is. Why I feel this way. Why I’m struggling. Why I want to give in. My weakness…. Here it is… I’m offering it to you. It’s not my best. I feel like I have so much better I could be or should be offering you. But I am offering you my weakness.”

It’s what I had to give.

I think of the boy from John 6 that only had five loaves of bread and two fish. I think of that often. That is the culture we’re trying to create here. / / You come with what you have… Jesus does the rest.

The story goes: Anywhere from 12-20 thousand people have followed Jesus out to this place where he’s teaching them and it’s gotten late. The disciples tell Jesus to send them away because they need to go get food and go home. Jesus says, “You feed them.”

There was no way they could feed them. Jesus knows this. So, what’s the point here?

Mark records Jesus saying to his disciples, “How many loaves do you have?”

I think this is where I connect with the story so much. You ever feel like God asks of you, “How much do you have to give?” And your response is simply, “Not enough. Not even close to enough.”

This is the / / 5&2 culture. We bring what little we have to the hands of the miracle worker.

In many ways, this is what fasting does. We do nothing by our fasting but bring our weakness, our little bit, to the hands of the miracle worker. And he takes what we give him and works in our lives.

We read this last week from Matthew 6:17-18, / / “But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

And remember, we don’t know what the reward is, when the reward comes, how it happens, just that Jesus says, “When you fast, and don’t use it as some sort of weird virtue signaling, holier than though, self-righteous act, the Father sees you because you put yourself into the secret space of self-sacrifice, of a living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable to God, and he rewards you.”

/ / Obedience leads to God working in and through our lives.

Does that mean God does not work in and through us, is not gracious toward us, is not sovereign when we aren’t obedient? Not always the case. Matthew 5:45 says, / / “…he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

The very fact that we are brought to an awareness of our need for Christ through the leading and prompting of the Holy Spirit is a gift we do not deserve.

BUT, scripture over and over again describes for us the invitation to obedience that brings something to us. In the case of fasting, Jesus says, a reward from our heavenly Father.

Read Hebrews 11. It’s this amazing chapter on faith. Yet, in every situation it says, “BY faith ‘so-and-so did…”

If you’re following along in our daily bible reading, which I would encourage you to do. Don’t worry if you haven’t been, just go to the website, download the pdf and start today. But if you already are, then you read Hebrews 11 this past week on Thursday.

Hebrews 11:6 says, / / And without faith it is impossible to please [God], for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

So, a quick scan of Hebrews 11:

/ / (4) By faith Abel offered…

(7) By faith Noah built…

(8) By faith Abraham obeyed…and he went out…

(9) By faith Sarah conceived…

(23) By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden…

(24) By faith Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter…

(27) By faith he left Egypt…

(28) By faith he kept the Passover…

(29) By faith the people crossed the Red Sea…

(30) By faith the walls of Jericho fell down…

On and on it goes…

By faith….someone DID something…. And then God did something.

Noah built… God saved his family from the flood and preserved all of humanity.

Abraham obeyed… God preserved, blessed, and made his name great.

Sarah “knew” Abraham… God opened her womb and she conceived…

Moses was hidden… God provided a way for safety and preservation of his life.

You can / / add to your own story.

By faith ________ fasted and prayed.

By faith ________ read scripture.

By faith ________ follow the leading of the Holy Spirit to talk to my co-worker about Christ.

By faith ________ invited their neighbor to church.

By faith ________ leads his family in the way of God.

/ / By faith we are obedient… showing that we believe both, that God exists, AND that he rewards those who seek him.

And he does. I have heard testimony of it from many of you.

Pastor, I did this…and I’m seeing change in my life.

So, let’s continue the conversation on Fasting as we look at our second topic:

/ / Fasting To Grow In Holiness

Let’s read Romans 7:15-24:

/ / For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

We have a war going on inside of us. Choices to make. Decisions of obedience. And Paul says clearly. This is a fight. He struggles with why he can’t do the right thing, why he ends up doing the wrong thing.

Do any of you ever feel that way? I know I do.

The Greek philosopher, Nikos, writes a story in his autobiography of a conversation he has with a monk. And the monk said this to him.

/ / “God sits at the summit of hunger, thirst, and suffering; the devil sits at the summit of the comfortable life. You choose.”

In response, he says, “I think I still have time to choose.”

And the Monk replies, “Wake up, my child. Wake up before death wakes you up.”

We don’t want this to be true, do we?

We want the comfortable life. Easy is much more fun than hard!

We prefer not having to give up certain things.

Yet, and we keep coming back to this point, the invitation from Jesus in Matthew 16:24 is, (AMP), / / “(24)If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me]. (25) For whoever wishes to save his life [in this world] will [eternally] lose it [through death], but whoever loses his life [in this world] for My sake will find it [that is, life with Me for all eternity].”

I love the additional explanations the Amplified adds here.

If the goal is to become more and more like Christ until we are fully like Christ. And it is; both in the ancient way of discipleship, and in the Christian life, which is discipleship. Then this is the way. To take up the example of Christ.

Matthew 28:18-20, The Great Commission, / / “…make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

Go teach other people to follow me like I have taught you to follow me. That has been the mission for 2000 years.

And as hard as it might be, the more we choose, of our own free will, to deny ourselves, to endure patiently through trial and suffering, to continue to seek first His kingdom in the midst of how difficult that can be, God does a beautiful, Holy Spirit empowered transformation of our lives, when we do.

/ / Sometimes it seems like following Jesus makes our lives better.

/ / Most of the time following Jesus makes us better in spite of our lives.

Which is why Paul could say, “I have found a place where I am content whether I have or have not. It’s not about my life, it’s about His.”

And fasting, is the best practice we have to cultivate this powerful and precious invitation from Jesus. Not just for the moment of fasting, giving up food, but for the instruction and discipline it teaches us in denying our very wants and desires.

So, this week we are continuing through the four reasons we are outlining as to why we fast, which brings us to, / / We Fast To Grow In Holiness.

Now, before we get into that, I want to just honor Scripture and correct myself.

Last week I said that the book of Daniel doesn’t say fasting. That’s not entirely true. The book of Daniel DOES say that Daniel fasted, but not in chapter 1 or chapter 10 where it talks about his restricted diet.

In Chapter 9:1, 3 it says, / / In the first year of Darius… I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him in prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

Then in Chapter 10:1-3, / / In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia… I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat, or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.

Again, some people call this a fast, some people don’t. Arthur Wallis in his book, God’s Chosen Fast calls Daniel 10 a “Partial Fast” and says this. / / “We are not told why he did not engage in a normal fast, as we find him doing in the previous chapter… Undoubtedly there is a definite spiritual value in a special season of seeking God with such a restricted diet. For Daniel it resulted in a great spiritual victory over the powers of darkness as well as the unfolding of the vision by an angelic messenger… God never fails to honor such self-denial.”

Three things I want to point out here.

1. I 100% agree with Wallis. / / God honors self-denial. It’s what we’re talking about. It’s the greatest and hardest part about fasting. And Jesus says fasting, will bring a reward from the Father. He also says deny yourself, take up your cross…this is the key to losing your life for His sake, which gains you life in Him.

a. Paul in his letter to Titus says in 2:11-12, / / For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly possessions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age…

b. So that’s the first thing. I 100% agree with Wallis and Scripture that self-denial is a path that is difficult to walk at any level, and God honors those who walk it.

/ / 2. It’s not about being right or wrong.

a. I want you to hear this. I’m not trying to say I have some special revelation about Daniel and whether he fasted or not, like I’m smarter than all the other people that do call it a fast. My style of teaching is to present to you, to the best of my ability,

first, what Scripture says that is definitive,

second, where there is variance of belief, to hopefully communicate that in a non-confusing and helpful way, and

three, the least important, what I personally conclude from the study I’ve done and how I have followed the Holy Spirit in my life to the best of my ability to hear Him and follow Him.

b. So it’s not about being right or wrong.

/ / 3. YOU are responsible for YOUR discipleship.

a. No one can be discipled for you.

b. No one can conclude for you what you must do.

c. I’ll tell you 100% there is only one way to salvation, one mediator between God and man, and that is Jesus Christ. As for many other things, my hope is that in teaching and pursuing Jesus together, we are all individually and corporately led by the Spirit.

d. That means it’s up to you to read, study, and understand scripture. Although we are here to help.

e. That means it’s up to you to pray, fast, sabbath, give, and all the other disciplines. Although we are here to do that with you, so you’re not alone in the journey.

Like I said last week.

/ / When we fast personally, we grow personally. That is true of any of the disciplines.

When we fast corporately, we grow corporately.

Last week I said that Fasting might be one of, if not the most powerful of the Spiritual disciplines. And, although I do not agree with all that he said or did, Pope Benedict said this of fasting, and it rings very true: / / “In our own day, fasting seems to have lost something of its spiritual meaning and has taken on, in a culture characterized by the search for material well-being, a therapeutic value for the care of one’s body. Fasting certainly brings benefits to physical well-being, but for believers, it is, in the first place, a ‘therapy’ to heal all that prevents them from conformity to the will of God.”

The medical world is very into fasting these days.

The health world is all about it.

The bio-hackers and the influencer world will tell you the best ways, the best times, how often, the benefits, it’ll change your life.

And we can be that quickly robbed of spiritual blessing by seeking first the body, rather than the kingdom.

I said it last week, I’ll say it again. The devil just simply does not care if you fast for bloodwork or losing weight, or fixing some gut issue.

And although fasting in of itself does have fantastic benefits if done properly and in a healthy way, I agree with the late pope in this regard, fasting for the Christian is about the will of God, not the body of man.

So, we fast to grow in holiness.

And if we’re going to understand that, we first have to ask,

/ / 1. What is holiness?

Holiness can often be seen as, and in one sense is, being morally right, or morally good. We have sayings like, “Holier than though” meaning, you think you’re better than everyone else, or more righteous.

And then we have the abundance of ways that holy is used in a negative sense, or just in a very irreverent way. Holy cow, Holy moly, holy….you name it they say it, right?

What about the Christian ways we use it. We call the week leading up to Easter, Holy Week. We have the Holy bible, or Holy Scriptures. We have Holy Communion. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. If we visit Israel we say we went to the Holy Land.

We’ve used and overused the word holy.

So, what does it actually mean?

Let’s look at a few scriptures.

Genesis 2:3, God has just finished creating everything. He spent six days on it and then, / / God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

This comes up later in the story of Israel as God gives them the law for right living. One of the ten commandments, Exodus 20:8, / / Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God…

There are tons of examples throughout scripture on the word Holy. The tabernacle, when it was built, much of the items involved were meant to be holy. It contained the Holy of Holies, the inner most part of the tabernacle. It was only worked by priests who were made holy.

But I want to focus in on one verse in particular. Leviticus 20:26, in giving the law and order to Israel, God tells them when they live by the law He is giving them, / / You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy…

And the rest of that verse actually gives the definition of the word…

/ / …for I the Lord am holy…and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.

The Hebrew word is / / qadosh and it means to consecrate, sanctify, prepare, dedicate, be hallowed, be holy, be sanctified, be separate.

So, that is really the definition of Holy - to be separated from everything else. Set apart.

And I want to talk through three things here that we really need to understand about holiness.

/ / I. God IS Holy

II. God MAKES us Holy

III. God invites us to BE Holy

/ / 2. What makes God Holy?

We read a couple things. The Sabbath is called holy. Leviticus says God is holy and wants his people to be holy.

What is it that makes God holy?

This is where we get into some of the doctrine of God. Understanding what we believe about God.

/ / To live in the WAY of God we must know and understand what we believe ABOUT God.

Let’s read from Isaiah 45:18, / / For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): “I am the Lord, and there is no other…”

/ / A. God is Self-Sufficient

God lacks nothing. And God wants for nothing. If God had lacks, or needs that had to be met outside of himself, he wouldn’t really be God. This is why the doctrine of the Trinity makes so much sense.

Have you ever heard someone say that God created humanity because he “needed” someone to love? That’s not true. God doesn’t need humanity in order to love, God is fully sufficient within himself because the Father has always loved the Son, the Son has always loved the Father, the Spirit has always been in full and complete loving union with the Father and the Son. This is why God is not just loving, but God IS love.

The same is true of every other aspect of God. God is purely and uniquely self-sufficient.

We also know that everything that is created, was created by God, right? Scripture says in Colossians 1:16-17 of Jesus, / / For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

This can be very difficult for our human brains to reconcile with, to think outside of time and space. To think before there was, God was. Not in time. Not in space. But existent.

I can’t think about it too long, it kind of breaks my brain. But this is what makes God holy.

/ / God is unique, set apart, wholly and completely other than anything else. God is the only thing uncreated, because he has always been and forever will be. He has no equal.

None can compare. That is what makes God Holy.

/ / 3. What Makes us Holy?

In Exodus, God gives Moses the instructions for the tabernacle. This was where the worship of God and the sacrifice for the redemption of the people would take place. A super important place. And the details are impeccable. Down to the utensils used in the ceremonies (Exodus 27:19), / / All the utensils of the tabernacle for every use, and all its pegs and all the pegs of the court, shall be of bronze. Everything was incredibly specific. And in Exodus 40 it describes how it is all meant to put it all together in building the tabernacle. And vs 9 says, / / “Then you shall take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and all that is in it, and consecrate it and all its furniture, so that it may become holy.”

Holy utensils huh? God can do what he wants.

So, if God can make utensils holy, how do we become holy?

We read this a moment ago, Leviticus 20:26, / / You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.

Our actions, our works, our adherence to the disciplines are NOT what make us holy. That would be a works-based holiness, which is not possible. We are completely flawed in our humanity, and unable to be perfect.

/ / It is only by the grace of God choosing to make us holy by taking us into Himself.

So, with Israel he took them OUT of the world. Out of Egypt. Out of the environment they were in. Out of pagan culture. Out of kingdoms and empires. And separated them for himself.

You may have heard Exodus 33:15 quoted before. Moses says to God, / / “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.”

It’s a beautiful thought. But he says this for a very specific reason. Not necessarily because he’s so enthralled with God, but because it is God who makes them anything other than just human, like everyone else.

/ / (16) “For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct (separated), I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”

Moses identifying here. YOU, God, are what make us separate, different… holy.

What about the New Testament? What about us?

Let’s talk briefly about / / sanctification vs holiness.

/ / Sanctification by definition is to be made holy.

Jesus prays this in John 17:17, when he’s praying for his disciples, and by extension all those who would believe in the words they spoke. / / (15) I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. (16) They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. (17) Sanctify them [make them holy] in the truth; your word is truth.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:11, / / …you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

By works? No.

By effort? No.

By the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

So, hear me today. If you have come to the place of recognizing Jesus Christ as Lord of your life, this verse is for you. Your former life now holds no eternal weight on you. You have been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

You have been sanctified, made holy, set apart for God by God!

So, / / God IS Holy. God MAKES us Holy. And yet, God invites us to BE Holy.

Let me ask you a question. When you got saved, did all sin stop? Did your ability to sin just suddenly disappear? Or are you, like Paul that we read in the beginning wondering why you long to do the right thing, but for some reason you just can’t. And you try to stop doing the wrong thing, but in all your efforts you fail time and time again.

Salvation doesn’t make us robots. It secures our eternal hope in Christ alone, but it does not rob us of our free will to choose on a daily basis whether we honor God with our lives or not. This is why Paul, who is writing to Christians in Rome, says, / / “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship”. Because if it just happened all on its own, we wouldn’t need to, would we?

/ / 4. How does fasting grow holiness?

Leo the Great said, / / “Fasting gives strength against sin, represses evil desires, repels temptation, humbles pride, cools anger, and fosters all the inclinations of a good will even unto the practice of every virtue.”

There is a rich history within the Christian church that identifies fasting with overcoming. That in the abstinence of food, we do more than just what involves food.

Thomas A Kempis (13-1400s) said, / / “Restrain from gluttony and thou shalt the more easily restrain all the inclinations of the flesh.”

In one sense, he’s saying, “if you can get this under control. The rest should be reasonably easy.”

All of the significant writers throughout church history all agree that without fasting it is almost impossible to attain a high level of holiness.

Christian thinkers have long said that an undisciplined appetite has a domino effect across all the other areas and aspects of our lives. They especially noticed a connection between gluttony and sexual immorality.

Our capacity to steward our bodies’ natural drives for food and intimacy in a healthy way rise and fall together.

Paul’s language in Romans 7 is strong.

/ / (15) For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate (completely detest). (18) For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

Paul is basically saying, “In my will-power I just can’t do it!”

This is a pretty healthy place to get to. In AA there’s a story of an alcoholic that comes to the point of admitting they are actually an addict. Listen to what it says, / / “I knew from that moment that I had an alcoholic mind. I saw that will power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots. I had never been able to understand people who said that a problem had them hopelessly defeated. I knew then. It was a crushing blow.”

I think everyone who struggles with sin and then reads Paul, the great apostle of our faith, the writer of most of the New Testament, say, “I too struggle with this…”

There’s a sort of relief. Like, I’m not the only one.

Change alcohol to basically any other issue we have, or simply just change those words to:

“I knew from that moment I had a human mind.”

“I knew from that moment I had a sinner’s mind.”

“I knew from that moment I had a depraved mind.”

And my own personal will-power would never be enough.

This is why Step 1 and Step 3 of the twelve steps are so powerful:

/ / 1. We admitted we were powerless over _____ - that our lives had become unmanageable.

/ / 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.

So listen to Paul in vs 21, / / So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

I remember being in a 12-step meeting and someone said they always felt like the devil was just outside, doing pushups, waiting for him to make that one small mistake and step outside.

Paul continues to say that he actually loves the law of God. He wants to do right, but there’s a war waging inside of him that is doing it’s very best to keep him captive to sin.

And remember, this is the Apostle Paul. Who writes some of the best understanding of sanctification we have in the Bible, being MADE Holy. Yet, he defines for himself and all of us, the need to BE holy - and the struggle.

And I encourage you this week, go ahead and read Romans 7 & 8.

Romans 8:12-13 (AMP) / / So then, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation, but not to our flesh [our human nature, our worldliness, our sinful capacity], to live according to the [impulses of the] flesh [our nature without the Holy Spirit] – for if you are living according to the [impulses of the] flesh, you are going to die. But if [you are living] by the [power of the Holy] Spirit you are habitually putting to death the sinful deeds of the body, you will [really] live forever.

I don’t know if you’re like me and can identify with Paul here:

What we want to do, we don’t do. What we don’t want to do, we do.

You want to trust and not be overcome with worry and anxiety, You know Jesus told us to be anxious for nothing, but when you lie down at night you can’t help but overthink and gave way to the pressure.

You want to give up the habits of sin, drinking, smoking, pornography, swearing, sexual sin, but it feels like they just have a grip on you.

You don’t want to lose your cool, but every time you yell at your kids or wife you feel horrible and ask why you can’t seem to change.

And there’s this dichotomy here of how Paul talks about what happens in our bodies.

In 1 Corinthians he says: / / Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

In Romans he’s saying: / / Your body is a body of death with a war being waged inside.

Which is it? Well, the answer is both!

Scripture is clear, we are hidden in Christ. Jesus prays in John 17:21, / / “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us…”

Don’t ever doubt the sanctifying work of Jesus Christ for those who believe. You are holy, set apart, made righteous, in right standing with God. You have the gift of eternal life.

There is a part of us, Paul calls it the spirit, or some translations call the inner man, we are MADE Holy, separated by God for God with God and in God. Because He is Holy, we are made holy.

BUT, we also have this part of us, that seems to be infected by sin.

And part of the wrestle, and we see this all around us in the world, is that people want to believe they are just good, without identifying that they aren’t ALL good.

Christianity at its core is brutally honest about our human state AND who we are in Christ.

And unless you’re perfect. Which, let me know if you are, I want you to pray for me. But unless you are perfect, you know this to be true. Because if you’re saved, you know you’re redeemed, you know you’re sanctified, and yet, you’re not perfect…

/ / 5. Put to death the flesh

So, we’ve read this a few times, Jesus invites us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him.

Paul takes up that idea and says in Galatians 5:24, / / And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Again, this is Paul who we just covered really struggles with this stuff. But there’s a determination. I know I am not done sinning, but I am certainly DONE with sin. It’s like you’re declaring war on the way of the flesh.

He flat out tells the Colossians (3:5), / / Put to death therefore, what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Why does he have to say this? Because it’s not easy. It’s incredibly hard, actually.

There’s no denying: We want the freedom. The question is, “how?”

I’ve said this before, but / / you will not overcome sin by simply trying not to do it.

It doesn’t work. If you’ve tried, you know. “I’m just gonna muscle my way through this and not do it.” good luck with that.

That’s with anything, from what we might call a grave sin, a terrible addiction, to something like worry. Are you ever worried about something, and someone, super well meaning, but not at all practical, tells you, “Just don’t worry.”

Thank you…

It doesn’t work to just try to turn sin off.

So, Paul has said, those who belong to Christ have crucified their flesh, he encourages, put to death your earthly nature, and then in Romans 8:13 he gives us the key. / / For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

You cannot overcome the flesh with the flesh.

Will-power is not enough.

We need the power of the Holy Spirit.

That does not mean our will is not involved. It means our will aligns with the Spirit.

We don’t throw out will-power completely, we recognize we are created with free-will to choose, and the choice we need to make is to come to the Spirit who is life and lay down our desires and purposes for God’s.

Dallas Willard says this: / / “The disciplines are activities of mind and body purposefully undertaken, to bring our personality and total being into effective cooperation with the divine order. They enable us more and more to live in a power that is, strictly speaking, beyond us, deriving from the spiritual realm itself, as we ‘yield ourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, and our [bodies] as instruments of righteousness unto God.’ as Romans 6:13 puts it.”

/ / Fasting is a way to feed your spirit and starve your flesh.

So in Growing in Holiness, here are four things Fasting is doing in you:

/ / i. Fasting works to get rid of the pleasure principle

This is the driving motivation of the immature. When you only want to do what feels good. That’s the world’s mantra right now, I think. “If it feels good, it must be good.” “If it feels good, just do it.”

The world around us tells us that to be truly happy, we need to fulfill all of our internal desires.

Reality Check: / / Being “true to your authentic self” is rarely true to God’s word.

I have all kinds of desires that are real, “authentic”, they come up in me, and they need to be put to death, not acted upon.

/ / Through fasting we slowly mature beyond this childish idea of living for pleasure and our own personal gratification.

I’m just stepping out on a limb here, but I would suggest that some people don’t want to give that up, and that is why they don’t fast, because they know the two are competing for the same space in their lives.

/ / ii. Fasting reveals what’s in our hearts

Richard Foster wrote, / / “More than any other single discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us.”

I was talking to my therapist this week and explaining to her why it wasn’t good for me to drink coffee when I’m fasting. She asked, “Are you being legalistic about this?” Great question. Also, sadly, no. I know my relationship with food, with coffee, and fasting reveals to me how deep that actually goes.

John Mark Comer says, / / sometimes, when you fast and it’s a terrible day, it’s not because it’s not working, it’s because it is!

When Kelley comes home from work and I’m frustrated and I get short with Kaylee and she looks at me and goes, “Oh, right, it’s Wednesday”. That is a reminder to me, I’m still a work in progress!

And that is our chance, not to try and do will-power through being better, but to offer ourselves, in our weakness, to God.

“God, I’m a mess…. Here I am. Come Holy Spirit. I offer you myself, all my weakness.”

/ / iii. Fasting re-orders our desires

Not instantly, unfortunately. This is something we see over time. From my experience this is one of those rewards we can’t name when Jesus says the Father will reward us. I don’t know how, or when it will happen, but I have noticed that I am changing as I am committing to the discipline of fasting.

Even if the greatest realization is actually the identification of how much I still need to change! It gives me opportunity to lay myself before God as a living sacrifice.

/ / Fasting has the ability to humble us and create in us a hunger for the things of God and a hunger for His change in our lives.

/ / iv. Fasting draws on the power of God to overcome sin

Again, and sadly, not instantly. This is a discipline, a habit, that takes time to build in us.

/ / Fasting is an opportunity to practice self-discipline, or take our will-power, or our free-will, and, as Paul says, crucify the flesh, and lean into the Holy Spirit to experience His fruit of self-control.

/ / Self-discipline is the ability to say yes to something you should do

/ / Self-control is the ability to say no to something you shouldn’t do

So, in our own will we offer our lives as a living sacrifice, we self-discipline and fast before the Lord, intentionally offering ourselves to Him, and through that we experience the work of the Holy Spirit in and through us in the way of self-control.

This is a great saying, / / Fasting is a way to turn your body from an enemy into an ally in your fight against the flesh (sinful nature).

Also, this is why fasting can be so hard.

When you fast as a spiritual discipline before God, you are waging war on the sinful nature of the flesh – as Paul tells us, crucify the flesh!

This is both why it’s so hard, and why it works.

So, in closing. I want to invite you again to join us on Wednesday from sunrise to sunset. A little tip, your phone will tell you when the sun actually sets. Just click on the weather app on your phone and it’ll tell you exactly when sunset is. I utilize that not because I’m trying to be legalistic, but because I’m trying to be honest in my offering. I don’t have to understand why sundown, as much as I need to listen to the invitation.

And so for this week, as we did last week, focus on the topic we’ve covered today: / / To grow in holiness.

Offer yourself as a living sacrifice with the intention of putting to death in your life the deeds of the flesh, the sinful nature that is waging war inside of you, trying everything it can to get you to do the thing you don’t want to do, and stop you from doing the things you do want to do.

Offer this to God as acceptable worship.

Offer this to God with prayer.

Offer this to God with hope of the Father’s reward in your life.

He loves you. He cares for you. He wants to work in and through you by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I want to encourage you. It may not sound pleasant, and it may sound painful to talk in words of “putting to death the deeds of the flesh” and “denying yourself” and “taking up your cross”, as Paul would say, “Crucifying yourself”

But Scripture also says that the Lord is gracious and compassionate. Slow to anger. Rich in love, or showing tender mercy. Jesus when he was on this earth read from the Scroll of Isaiah and said, / / “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

He is a kind and gracious God. He is love.

So I want to leave you this morning with the words of David from Psalm 139:23-24, and I encourage you to make this your prayer throughout the week, and especially on Wednesday as we fast together:

/ / (23) Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

(24) Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Let’s pray.