Sermon Tone Analysis

Better Is One Day

Welcome (Joel Whitcomb)

Scripture Reading (Matthew 6:16-18)

Prayer of Praise (God is lawgiver), Holly Boutot

Blessed Assurance

I Will Glory in My Redeemer

Prayer of Confession (Envy & Jealousy), ______________

Great is thy Faithfulness

PBC Catechism #19

What do we believe about Jesus?

He is the second person of the Trinity, truly God, eternally begotten of the Father, not created.

He became truly human, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and lived a full life without sin.

His perfect life and death on the cross provide the only atonement that satisfies the righteous requirements of God for sinful people.

Pastoral Prayer (Bubba Jones)

SERMON

Preaching is different from most other forms of public speech.

When the self-help guru gives a motivational speech, you’ll likely hear about the changes he made to his actions or attitudes that changed his life.

When the saleswoman gives her pitch, you’ll likely hear how her product or company made her rich, or greatly improved her quality of life.

When the politician gives a campaign speech, you’ll likely hear him talk about how he is the one who can bring about the change we need.

In these and other types of public speech, the speaker presents himself or herself as an object to be followed.

That is not what should happen in a Christian pulpit.

The preacher doesn’t stand here as the one who has figured it all out.

We don’t stand here saying, “just follow me and you’ll fill in the blank.”

Now don’t misunderstand me.

I am not saying that preachers shouldn’t pursue faithfulness and holiness.

I am just saying that even the best of us have not arrived.

The preacher does not stand here and say, “Follow me and all will be well.”

He says, “let’s follow Christ together.”

And then the preacher with confidence says, “this is the direction Christ would have us to go.”

Not because the preacher is walking perfectly in that direction, but because he has labored to understand the text.

I begin that way this morning because in our study of Matthew’s gospel we have come to a text that I am far from mastering in my own life.

I dare not say to you this morning, “follow me and all will be well.”

I cannot even say “follow me as I follow Christ.”

But I can say, “this is the direction Christ would have us to go.

So let’s follow Him together.”

Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 6:16

Jesus is teaching His disciples about how to live faithfully as citizens of the kingdom of heaven while living in the kingdoms of this world

We’ve studied Jesus’ teaching on prayer.

This morning we’ll examine what Jesus has to say about another spiritual discipline, the discipline of fasting.

This is not a discipline I have mastered, but I have labored to understand this text.

So this morning I can say with confidence, “this is the direction Jesus would have us to go.

So let’s follow Him together.”

Big idea: Jesus expects His followers to fast rightly.

Matthew 6:16-18—And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.

Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

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.

Two truths:

1) Jesus expects His followers to fast.

2) Jesus expects His followers to fast rightly.

Before we walk through those truths together, let’s answer a crucial question.

What does it mean to fast?

In his book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, Donald Whitney defines fasting as...

“A Christian’s voluntary abstinence from food for spiritual purposes.”

[1]

Each of those words are important.

The fasting we’re talking about is for Christians.

You don’t have to be a Christian to temporarily abstain from food.

Many other religions value fasting, and some religions require it.

Many nonbelievers fast for health reasons.

But the fasting we’re talking about is different.

Christians don’t fast to earn something (whether that’s God’s favor, or a better number on the scale).

If you’re not a Christian, fasting will do nothing to gain you favor with God.

In fact, it may harm you!

EXPLAIN THE GOSPEL

One of our pastors will be at the white flag after the service

The fasting we’re talking about is voluntary.

This is not skipping food because you’re so busy you forgot to eat, or you’re stuck in traffic, or you slept in, or you got stuck in a long meeting, or you were pressured into it by a religious leader.

The type of fasting we’re talking about is a voluntary, conscious decision.

The fasting we’re talking about is abstinence from food.

I have heard many Christians say that fasting can be applied to all sorts of things, sort of like a choose-your-own-adventure novel.

You can fast from chocolate, or red meat, or Facebook, or your smartphone, and whatever else you can imagine.

If that’s the way you think about fasting, you’re not alone...

Even a spiritual giant like Martyn Lloyd-Jones once wrote that fasting “must not only be confined to the question of food and drink; fasting should really be made to include abstinence from anything which is legitimate in and of itself for the sake of some special spiritual purpose.

“[2]

Three problems with redefining fasting this way:

The word “fast” in the Greek is the word for eating with a prefix meaning “not” or “without.”

The word fast literally means “not eating.”

The Bible never does this.

Never.

The Bible only refers to fasting as an abstinence from food.[3]

The closest we get to a fast from anything else other than food is in 1 Corinthians 7:5, where a husband and wife are told not to deprive one another from intimacy “except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer.”

Certainly there may be value in abstaining from other legitimate joys for a season, but the Bible never uses the word “fast” to describe anything other than an abstinence from food.

It undermines biblical fasting

What happens when we refer to fasting as an abstinence from other things?

We end up abstaining from the other things and never abstaining from food.

No wonder John Stott wrote that “some of us live our Christian lives as if [Jesus’ teaching on fasting has] been torn out of our Bibles.”[4]

Could it be that fasting is so rarely practiced because we have so quickly explained away its meaning and significance?

Even if you disagree with me and prefer to stick with a broader definition of fasting, we cannot deny that the fasting Jesus had in mind here is an abstinence from food.

The fasting we’re talking about is done for spiritual purposes.

It’s not about weight loss or physical health.

There might be certain health benefits associated with fasting, but the fasting we’re talking about is not concerned with things like weight loss.

This is about something far greater.

It’s a spiritual discipline done for spiritual purposes.

Now that we’ve established what we mean by fasting, let’s look at the text.

1. Jesus expects His followers to FAST.

Years ago when I was a student pastor, I led our students to fast from one meal for one day.

The idea was that we would skip a meal and donate the money we would have spent on lunch to help children in extreme poverty.

Now I’m not sure how effective that effort was as a ministry to the poor, but what surprised me was the anger I received from some parents.

The day after I announced the initiative, my inbox was flooded with emails about the physical and psychological dangers of missing a meal.

That type of thinking is actually quite common in the well-fed West.

Perhaps already you’ve come up with a host of objections to the spiritual discipline of fasting.