PRAYER: Fasting & Answered

Matthew 6:16 CSB

“Whenever you fast, don’t be gloomy like the hypocrites. For they make their faces unattractive so that their fasting is obvious to people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward.

INTRO—

Question: “What do people who fast look like?”

John the Baptist (wearing skins and eating locusts…); sullen, emaciated…; health nuts

…intimidated by thought of ‘being “odd for God.”’

BUT...

Matthew 6.16 “Whenever you fast...” <— OO

So, fast we must! If you’re like me, we need to learn more about fasting from a biblical worldview

FASTING: What?

Definition (‘Why’): “a Christian’s voluntary abstinence from food for spiritual purposes” [Whitney, p. 160]…ALSO, “the voluntary denial of a normal function for the sake of intense spiritual activity.” [Richard Foster, in Whitney, p. 160]

FASTING: When & Why?

Biblical Types of Fasts...

Normal - Matthew 4.2 “After he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” [abstaining from food only; to have additional intentional time for focus on the defined purpose]

Partial - Daniel 1.12 “Please test your servants for ten days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink.” [adjusted diet; focus of biblical trust amid a challenge]

Absolute - Esther 4.16 “Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa and fast for me. Don’t eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my female servants will also fast in the same way. After that, I will go to the king even if it is against the law. If I perish, I perish.” [abstaining from food and drink/water; intense immediate need]

Supernatural - Deuteronomy 9.9 “When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant the Lord made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I did not eat food or drink water.” [absolute fast beyond physical limitations; unique…largely biblical times(?)]

Private - Matthew 6.18 “so that your fasting isn’t obvious to others but to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” [personal; ‘you & God’ focus]

Congregational - Joel 2.15 “Blow the ram’s horn in Zion! Announce a sacred fast; proclaim a solemn assembly.” [& Joel 2.16 “Gather the people; sanctify the congregation...”; a unified focus (like a solemn assembly)]

National - Jonah 3.5 “Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth—from the greatest of them to the least.” [rare; response to God’s call to a people/nation]

Regular - Leviticus 16.29 “This is to be a permanent statute for you: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month you are to practice self-denial and do no work, both the native and the alien who resides among you.” [set time…Day of Atonement in OT; like an established HABIT!]

Occasional - Esther 4.16 “Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa and fast for me...” [as a need arises]

Most common today are…normal, occasional, & private.

FASTING: Jesus said...

Matthew 6.16-18 “16Whenever you fast, don’t be gloomy like the hypocrites. For they make their faces unattractive so that their fasting is obvious to people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that your fasting isn’t obvious to others but to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

Don’t Advertise It (6.16-17…like giving/tithing, etc)

Said in the negative = don’t try to look bad, pitiful

Said positively = look ‘normal’; your audience is God alone

Assured Answer (6.18)

God blesses, rewards, honors the faithful obedience we undertake when we obey his commands.

CONCL—

SPEAKING OF ANSWERS (to our fasting…and our praying)...

Luke 18.2-8 “There was a judge in a certain town who didn’t fear God or respect people. And a widow in that town kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ “For a while he was unwilling, but later he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or respect people, yet because this widow keeps pestering me, I will give her justice, so that she doesn’t wear me out by her persistent coming.’ ” Then the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. Will not God grant justice to his elect who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay helping them? I tell you that he will swiftly grant them justice. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Luke 18.1 “Now he told them a parable on the need for them to pray always and not give up.”

Psalm 65.2 “All humanity will come to you, the one who hears prayer.”

Matthew 7.7-8 “Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

[SO…are you ready to fast? Here are a few good purposes for which to fast…

To strengthen your prayer life.

Daniel 9.3 “So I turned my attention to the Lord God to seek him by prayer and petitions, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.”

To seek God’s guidance.

Acts 14.23 “When they had appointed elders for them in every church and prayed with fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.” [Paul appointing elders in Antioch]

To express grief.

2 Samuel 1.11-12 “Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them, and all the men with him did the same. They mourned, wept, and fasted until the evening for those who died by the sword—for Saul, his son Jonathan, the Lord’s people, and the house of Israel.”

To minister to the needs of others.

Isaiah 58.6-7 “Isn’t this the fast I choose: To break the chains of wickedness, to untie the ropes of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to tear off every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your house, to clothe the naked when you see him, and not to ignore your own flesh and blood?”

To express love and worship to God. [Even initially, a “fast of dedication”—God-focused as you begin adding this habit to your life.]

Luke 2.37 “and was a widow for eighty-four years. She did not leave the temple, serving God night and day with fasting and prayers.” [Anna]

Matthew 7:7 CSB

“Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you.