A Month of Prayer and Fasting

Intro

I remember when I was in Basic Training there was a guy we called Shipley. And I can remember having multiple conversations with him about God.

You see Shipley was an atheist who did not believe in God or the Bible or anything to do with what we believe here.

The conversations were always positive, I never got this sense that Shipley held any animosity toward me for believing, it was just as he would say, not for him.

But one thing that always surprised me about him is that he would from time to time pray. And I remember asking him, why. Why would someone who doesn’t believe in God pray?

His answer, because it made him feel better when he was scared or stressed out. He said it helped to sort of share what he needed or was hoping for just in case someone or something was listening.

And unfortunately this is the same approach that many Christians take today about prayer.

We believe in prayer, or at least we say we do. But when you measure the amount of time we actually spend in prayer, it is quite low.

Except when we are facing something big and want God’s help. Then we pray like crazy only to get what we want and then drop prayer again just a fast as we picked it up.

If we are being honest with ourselves I think we would agree that this can’t be what Jesus meant when he said “When you pray”

Today’s message will be the launching pad for a month of prayer and fasting in our Church. We have been doing this for several years now.

But the need to talk about it and then follow through with it is still so very important.

We need to pray, whether we feel the need to or not. And we also need to fast. These spiritual disciplines can radically transform our lives and the lives of those around us.

Prayer

Jesus had some very important things to say about both pray and fasting. Some of the most instructive is found in Matthew 6.

Matthew 6:5-8 NLT 5 “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. 6 But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

7 “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. 8 Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!

This was part of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, his most famous sermon written in the gospels. He begins this portion on prayer by saying, When you pray, not if you pray.

This is something Jesus assumes his people will do. If you follow Jesus, then you pray. This word “when” in the Greek is used to describe things that one assumes will really occur.

For example, this particular Greek word would not be used to say the phrase, when pigs fly because one cannot assume this is ever going to happen.

Instead you would use it to say something like when you wake up in the morning. Barring some unforeseen tragedy, one assumes they will wake up in the morning.

So Jesus is saying when you pray as if to assume that there is no way that one of his followers wouldn’t be praying

Jesus goes on to teach at length on prayer. First he states that prayer is an act of humility, not an act we should do to be seen by others (vv. 5–6).

The spiritual leaders of the day loved to make themselves look more spiritual than everyone else. They believed they were superior to other, the God loved them more, and they wanted to flaunt it.

Having a lot to say or being wordy isn’t the point either (vv. 7–8). The Gentiles in their pagan worship use to say prayers that were more like a chant that they would repeat over and over again. These chants would in their minds convince the gods to act in their favor.

Prayer isn’t about how many words you use, or how spiritual and flowery they sound. There are people who when they pray sounds like they almost reading one of David’s psalms.

But it isn’t about how great the prayer sounds, it is about the heart of the one speaking those words.

Paul says that If I could speak in tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

In other words, if when I am praying I don’t have the right heart attitude, all I am doing is making noise.

So we see Jesus telling us what not to do. but then He gives us a model: the Lord’s Prayer (6:9–13).

Matthew 6:9-13 NLT 9 Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. 10 May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today the food we need, 12 and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. 13 And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.

In this prayer we see a balance between an interest in God’s glory and our needs. Verse 6 shows us that when we go off by ourselves to be alone with God, he sees us. What does it mean to pray? To pray is to know God and to be known by God.

It’s that simple. It isn’t about getting things from God. God is not a genie who we make wishes to. Yes God answers prayer and many times gives us what we ask for but not to give us stuff for the sake of giving us stuff.

He answers prayer as we get to know him and allow ourselves to willingly be known by him. That is the purpose of prayer.

Fasting

But remember, this message isn’t just about prayer. It is about another spiritual discipline that was always meant to coincide with prayer. I referring to fasting.

In the same exchange he flow directly from pray to fasting.

Matthew 6:16-18 NLT 16 “And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get. 17 But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face. 18 Then no one will notice that you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in private. And your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

Again Jesus uses the this when. Prayer is something we are familiar with, but fasting, depending on you religious upbringing or the Church you go to may be an entirely new concept to you.

But in the eyes of Jesus, fasting isn’t some practice that was only meant for those living 2,000 years ago. And it isn’t something reserved only for the spiritual elite, or for Christian leaders and Pastors.

No, in Jesus’ eyes, fasting should be as regular as prayer.

Fasting is a spiritual discipline whereby we deny ourselves so we can rely on and trust more in God. In biblical days fasting almost always if not always meant the denial of food and our drink.

The idea is that by denying our flesh the very thing that sustains us for a period of time, it forces us to rely more on God and the Holy Spirit to be sustained.

There are many examples of fasting in the Bible. In almost all cases it only meant the limiting of food, but not water.

However there are a few occasions where people would fast from both. This kind of fast is not recommended to last any longer than 3 days because of the risk of dehydration.

Usually it was just the denial of food. In some cases it was all food, for periods as long as 40 days.

In other cases it was the denial of certain types of food like meat for a certain period of time.

Regardless of the type of fast, the purpose remained the same for all of them, to deny ourselves and focus more on God. So during those times when we would normally be eating, we are instead praying.

If when you are fasting you aren’t also praying, and in fact praying more than normal that I hate to break it to you, but your fasting isn’t serving any purpose.

While biblically speaking, fasting was always about food, not everyone can fast from food; sometimes health requirements, medications, or age limit it.

But we can all fast from something. When we do so, we are removing something from our life to create space for increased reliance on God.

Fasting, like prayer, is an act of humility. We don’t do it to draw attention to ourselves (vv. 16–18) but to put our attention on God.

Whether it is food or if for some reason you can’t do food maybe TV, or social media, or fill in the blank—for the next month starting in January, remove something from your life, and then fill that space with the presence and power of God.

Adele Calhoun in Fasting: A Practical Guide says this...

Fasting is not a magical way to manipulate God into doing our will; it’s not a way to get God to be an accomplice to our plans. Neither is fasting a spiritual way to lose weight or control others. … While fasting, we are one on one with God, offering him the time and attentiveness we might otherwise be giving to eating, shopping or watching television. Fasting is an opportunity to lay down an appetite—an appetite for food, for media, for shopping. This act of self-denial may not seem huge … but it brings us face to face with the hunger at the core of our being”

Application/Closing

We as a Church pray and fast together in January not because of tradition, but because of how important it is that we do this regularly. It is my hope that you will join me.

It is also my hope that this month of prayer and fasting will be a launching pad for you to see both of these practices become a regular part of your lives year round.

Fasting is personal, so not one person here may be fasting the same thing. That is okay. I don’t need to know what you are fasting anymore than you need to know what I am fasting. So don’t feel like you have to try to measure up to others, especially if this is your first time doing it.

Just choose something and stay committed to it as you pray in January.

I will close with this. Thunder is a sound created by the intense heat of lightning. As the heat increases, the air expands quickly, creating a sonic boom.

The next time you see lighting and hear thunder think about the power of prayer. George Herbert’s poem “Prayer” describes prayer as “reversed thunder.”

This lines up with what the Scripture says in Revelation 8, that the prayers of Gods people ascend before God and heaven responds with thunder and lightning.

This is why it is important to pray and fast. We get to know God better and to be known by God, and God responds to our prayers in power.