Prayer and Fasting
Our focus the last four weeks has been on prayer as an invitation to intimacy with the father. God God wants us to know him, not know about him, but to know him in intimacy and in-depth of heart. And one of the means of our knowing him or one of the pathways to knowing him in a greater, more intimate way is the pathway of prayer. Prayer builds intimacy with God. Now, like I said, praying or building intimacy is not the same thing as knowing a lot about him.
Speaker 1:We don't wanna just know a lot about God. We know a lot of people. I'm sure you have encountered people in your life who know a lot about God, a lot about God, but don't know God themselves. You know, this is akin to someone who has, like, an an extent. I don't know if there's any, like, people who really like history here.
Speaker 1:Any any, like, history, like, just love history. Oh, I love World War two history. It's like one of my favorite if you could have have a war era be a favorite era. I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Favorite. It's my favorite war. Didn't mean it sound like that, but you know what I mean. But I really like I really like, you know, reading things on World War two, studying World War two. And I consider myself to be really, really knowledgeable about, like, the politics and, like, the geographical stuff going on and the war itself and what happened afterwards.
Speaker 1:Right. I know a lot about world war two, but that is not the same type of knowing as someone who was on the beach in Normandy. Right? I know a lot. They know a lot.
Speaker 1:Right? And so there's a part of knowing that goes beyond what you know and goes to what you know. Right? And what we wanna do in our growth in prayer is we wanna we wanna know here. Right?
Speaker 1:It's important to know here, but, really, we wanna know here to develop an intimacy with the father so that prayer comes from a place of desiring relationship rather than prayer coming from a place of, well, this is a spiritual duty, a thing that I have to do. I don't really wanna do it. It's kind of boring. I don't really get how to do it or understand it, but I guess I have to because that's what all Christians should do. We wanna move away from that with no judgment, but into an invitation to enter into intimacy with God the father.
Speaker 1:That's been our hope and our prayer together is that God would not just teach us about prayer, but that he would raise up in us an increased desire to pray. A hunger and a thirst for righteousness that could only be quenched by him. And so prayer, has these many dimensions, I guess you could say your tributaries or about them. And we can explore those tributaries to the end result of building intimacy with the father. Some of those tributaries that we've kind of traveled on the last couple of weeks was a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1:We talked about the secret place of prayer, This place of this place of prayer that we often saw Jesus go to a place that was private from the public eye and that gave him for whatever mysteriously spiritual reason, kind of breakthrough power in his spiritual life and about developing our own practice of seeking the Lord in the secret place of prayer. Last week, we talked about prayers of intercession. How prayers of intercession differ from prayers of petition, where prayers of petition are things that I'm praying for myself. Here are things that, lord, I need, that I desire, that I want. Lord, I need you to show up in my life in this way.
Speaker 1:Intercession is a little bit different. It's when I have a burden of love to pray for someone else or to pray for something else. Outside of myself, what to pray for them, to pray for it, to pray for this thing over here. Intercession, building intimacy with the father through intercession. Today, we're going to talking about building intimacy with the father through prayer and fasting.
Speaker 1:Now most scholars and commentators rightly describe praying and fasting as two sides of the same coin, meaning that we cannot rightly, if we're going to be true to what we see in scripture, separate them from one another. There is no true spiritual fasting without also praying. Fasting without prayer is rare. If ever seen in the pages of scripture, I could not come across the single instance where fasting did not include prayer. Now, some throughout time, have, especially in, like, the as it's come to the Western church or the really in the Protestant church as well, not so much in the Catholic church or the orthodox church anymore.
Speaker 1:Some throughout time have tried to downplay both the biblical prominence of fasting, but probably more significantly for you and I today is the contemporary necessity for fasting. It has become a practice for the Christian life that has kind of gone by the wayside, Kind of reserved for those who are very deeply, inward in their disciplines, kind of weird and awkward, and, not really a place for it in this new modern version of Christianity that we have. It's just kind of like this old time aesthetic practice, a little out of fashion for those of us who are conscious, right, of the importance of our bodies and getting three square meals a day to make sure this physique remains in peak. Right? And so fasting has become this thing that's like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:I read about some old church dudes way back when that fasted as some kind of thing that they did to try and get closer to God. Or, yeah, my aunt, she fasts from meat during lent, but she eats fish on Fridays. K? So while fasting may be a little bit of little bit out of fashion in comparison to worldly standards or even in some cases in comparison to church standards these days, I feel like we need to be reminded brothers and sisters that we are not of the world. And then no matter what type of, no matter what type of viewpoint, opinion, or perspective the world has on the spiritual act of fasting.
Speaker 1:That fasting is written through the tapestry of God's rule and reign with his people and has forever been a part of or a piece of a way that brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of God have grown in intimacy with the father. We're gonna look at a few instances of fasting in scripture today. We're gonna learn what we can, and then we're gonna try and practice what we preach. On more than one, occasion, Jesus himself fasts and encourages others to do so. As one instance, Matthew chapter nine verses fourteen and fifteen, the disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus and they question him on why his disciples do not fast like they do and like the Pharisees do.
Speaker 1:Goes a little something like this, Matthew nine fourteen and fifteen. Then John's disciples came and asked him, how is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? Jesus answered, how can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they will fast. Jesus' response and this whole this whole instance in Matthew chapter nine leads us to like, it communicates a few things to us.
Speaker 1:Number one is that the people of God were fasting long before the time of Jesus. See that a little bit more in the old testament. Right? We'll see some instances of corporate fasts that the people of Israel, the people of God were called to. But what's clear here is that John the Baptist disciples had a practice of fasting, that the Pharisees had a practice of fasting, that it was already a well established religious practice and discipline in the life of those who called God their father.
Speaker 1:So when they came to Jesus, the disciples of John came to Jesus, they were already coming with this assumption that, hey, fasting is something that all followers of the father do. And they wanna know, hey, Jesus, why doesn't your why don't your disciples fast like we do? And what they tell or what Jesus answers them, how Jesus answers them is a really important part of our understanding of the purpose of fasting. Jesus kind of describes what the purpose of fasting is without describing the purpose of fasting. The first thing that we learn here is that, fasting, like prayer, is an invitation to greater intimacy with Jesus himself.
Speaker 1:How do we know that from this little snippet of scripture here? Well, look at the way look at the way that Jesus responds to the disciples of John. What he says to them is he's like, hey. Look. This is, you know, paraphrasing, of course.
Speaker 1:There will come a time where if you look at my disciples, they're they're with me right now. They follow me around. We spend all of our time together. They are we they are as close to me as they can possibly be in this life. We have intimacy of relationship and friendship.
Speaker 1:They are seeing all that I do, they are hearing all that I say, they're experiencing all that I am experiencing. It could not be humanly possible for them to be in closer intimate relationship with me right now than they are. And so, there is no need for them to fast right now. There will come a time when I, the bridegroom, Jesus says, have ascended back into heaven and I am no longer with my disciples, that then they will fast. Why?
Speaker 1:Because when I'm gone from their presence, the act of fasting will then replace the intimacy that they're receiving in my presence now. It was it was the act of fasting in the absence of the presence of the Lord that draws us into God's presence, but Jesus is like, why would they fast when I'm here? I'm right here. The purpose of fasting is to become closer to me. I'm here with them.
Speaker 1:They don't need to fast when I'm here. They can fast when I'm gone to develop intimacy with me. So even in Jesus' own words, he was communicating that fasting was a pathway to greater intimacy with Jesus himself. It's also, I think, helps us to understand that it was Jesus' expectation that his followers would fast, that it would be a part of their life. Hey.
Speaker 1:When I'm gone, then they will fast. Not as a optional addendum. If you're feeling super spiritual, why don't you just pick up the discipline of fasting? But, no. Like, when they fast, I'm gone.
Speaker 1:And when they fast, the there'll be developed intimacy with the father. Now I suppose at this point, it would be wise of us to kind of circle back to the baseline of what it is that we're talking about when we talk about fasting. Because, I, you know, I'm not one of those or at least I try not to be one of those, like, slam my fist on the pulpit table, about, how the world is getting it wrong and how the church is getting it wrong, and we have the real truth here. Like, it's just maybe we can be more humble than that. But there are some things that we need to understand about that about a biblical understanding of fasting in comparison to a more modernized contemporary view of fasting that is kind of gradually sought to seep its way into Christian belief and the church in general.
Speaker 1:What we talk about fasting, what exactly are we talking about In scripture, the normal means of fasting involves abstaining from all food, solid or liquid, but not from water. In 99% of the examples in scripture of fasting, fasting is the abstaining from all food, solid or liquid, but not abstaining from, like, what they would consider to be water or drink usually like some sort of wine based or grape based drink. Now there are a few rare instances in scripture where someone is either called to or fasts from all food and water for a short period of time. For instance, queen Esther called the people, called the Jews through Mordecai to fast from all food and water for three days to pray for deliverance from the Jews, from, the genocidal Xerxes. But that is an that is an exception.
Speaker 1:Right? We also see a couple instances in scripture, like in the life of Moses and Elijah, where it appears that their fasts were miraculously sustained by the spirit of God themselves because it says in scripture that they fasted for forty days from food and water, which is physiologically a death sentence. Right? So we we can see, although we know that that's not possible physiologically, that there must have been some miraculous supernatural miraculous intervention in that spiritual practice for them that sustained them in that way so they could continue that type of fast. But the vast majority of fasts in scripture are are, focused on the abstaining from food in both solid or liquid form, but continuing to drink water or whatever was the basis of your, your drinking diet at that time.
Speaker 1:There is also some scripture evidence to suggest in first Corinthians chapter seven verse five that a husband and a wife could upon mutual agreement fast or abstain from sexual relationship with one another in order to devote themselves to prayer is what Paul says. And so, again, we see that even in this kind of exceptional aspect of fasting in Corinthians, Paul is saying, if you're going to abstain from something like that, the purpose of abstaining from it is for prayer. Just like in a fast of food, the purpose of abstaining for it is to develop intimacy and prayer. The purpose from abstaining from sex in your marriage for a period of time is to devote yourselves to prayer, is again what Paul says. So if we try to kind of drill down into a, into a a a basic definition of what fasting is, here's what we're gonna work off of.
Speaker 1:Fasting is the intentional decision to deny our flesh something that it wants and needs for a period of time so that we can channel more of our focus towards the pursuit of God in prayer and his word. Now it's kind of wordy, but welcome to my life. So, if we think about that and break it up a little bit more, fasting is an intentional decision. Right? Meaning that if you just don't have any food in the house, and you don't eat for a few days, you're not that's not a you're not fasting.
Speaker 1:Right? You're stranded on a desert island, you'd be like, oh, thank god there's no food here. I can finally fast. Right? No.
Speaker 1:Fasting is an intentional decision, alright, to deny our flesh, our bodies, something that it wants, I want to eat, and something that it needs, I need to eat in order so that I can channel more of my time, more of my focus, more of my mental, emotional, spiritual energy towards the pursuit of God in both prayer and in his word. In this way, we cannot fast without prayer. Fasting without prayer is simply some, it's like some kind of voluntary hunger strike. Fasting must accompany prayer for it to be a spiritual exercise. Additionally, it's become pretty popular in modern times to fast from things other than food.
Speaker 1:I'm fasting from social media. I'm fasting from Netflix. I'm fasting from this person because they bother me. Right? I'm fasting from some some some specific food delicacy that I I'm fasting from chocolate, or I'm fasting from the I'm fasting at this or this, whatever.
Speaker 1:Listen. While abstaining from or quitting these types of things that exert control over you is a righteous and godly pursuit, it needs to be stated that fasting in scripture is aimed directly at food, not Facebook. K? You need food to live. You do not need Facebook to live prior or contrary to popular opinion.
Speaker 1:K? And so the spiritual act of fasting is to deny our bodies something that it must have to live so that we can channel every bit of spiritual power and heart energy that we have into the pursuit of God. Listen. I am all for abstaining from things in our lives that do not promote spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical health. I am all for, like, you know what?
Speaker 1:Less Facebook. You know what? Less Netflix. You know what? Less coffee.
Speaker 1:You know? Listen. I am I am on I am on that plan of being like, lord, whatever it is that is an obstacle between my heart and yours, Lord, let's destroy it. Let's bring it down. Let's get rid of it.
Speaker 1:Let's put some governors on it. Let's put some boundaries on it. Abstaining from things that become obstacles to your relationship with the Lord or even your ability to give full devotion and full consecration of life to the Lord is a righteous, godly thing that we all must do. But that's not the same thing as fasting. Fasting is intentional and purposeful for a specific period of time for a specific reason of prayer.
Speaker 1:K? So, like, I am I I know it's all it's a funny joke. I'm not fasting from coffee. I've said no to it because of all the reasons that I shared with you before. Right?
Speaker 1:I fast from food in an effort for that period of time to say, okay, lord, I I give my full the full devotion of my heart, the full consecration of my life, the full commitment, lord, of all that I have to you in this time, in this space, for this purpose. I am praying into this thing. I am praying for this person. And, Lord, Lord, look. I'm clearing the land of my heart for you.
Speaker 1:Fasting is done from food because food is necessary for life, and it displays a heart of someone who would lay life dependent items aside to pursue God more wholeheartedly. Now probably Jesus' most famous teaching on fasting is in the same section of the new testament as his most famous teaching on prayer. And the context of that teaching remains the same from prayer or from giving to prayer to fasting. It says in Matthew chapter six in the sermon on the mount, Matthew six sixteen through 18, Jesus says this, when you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
Speaker 1:But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your father who is unseen. And your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Now if you were here for the sermon on the secret place a few weeks ago, this scripture should sound fairly familiar to you. Because, essentially, what Jesus has done in this little section of the sermon on the mount is take three separate things, giving, praying, and fasting, and just kind of uses them interchangeably to talk about the same thing, which is the motive of your heart. Why is it that you give?
Speaker 1:Why is it that you pray? Why is it that you fast? What's clear from the context of Jesus' sermon in the mouth here, this little section, is that there are some who do all of these things, who give, who pray, who fast for selfish purposes, seeking to build in the court of public opinion, a reputation as a person of extraordinary righteousness and holiness. Hey. I just wanna let everyone know.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna saunter back there to the offering bucket and, just drop this big wad of cash in it. Just letting you know. Or, please, pause and, listen to me as I, wow you with my vocabulary in prayer. Or I don't know if you may have noticed, but I'm pretty somber today. My body is looking a little weak and disheveled.
Speaker 1:Don't worry. I'm not sick. It's just because I'm fasting unto the Lord. Right? And the Lord is like he he uses these three things in the city.
Speaker 1:He is just the same context. He says, like, those who would pursue notoriety in the world will receive it, and that will be their reward. But even in the practice of giving, in the practice of prayer, in the practice of fasting, if you do it to seek notoriety in the world, you will forfeit the spiritual power and reward that God has promised for those who do it in secret. Richard Foster who, famous pastor and author who wrote the book celebration of disciplines. I said this in first service.
Speaker 1:If you have not I'm gonna be quoting him a few times this morning. If you do not have or have not read Richard Foster, Richard Foster's book, the celebration of discipline disciplines, do not walk to get it, like, run to get it, and read it once a year. K? It's like a Christian classic. I try to read it basically once a year.
Speaker 1:But Richard Foster writes this. It says he says it's a sobering fact that the first thing we hear Jesus say about fasting has to do with motive. To use good things to our own ends is always the sign of false religion. Fasting must forever focus on God. Our fasting always should draw us into intimacy with the father.
Speaker 1:Now in this way, and in keeping with the context of Jesus talking about motive, we should avoid the extremes, the same types of extremes that we avoided in the sermon on the secret place of prayer. Jesus wasn't unilaterally banning the public nature of a fast or that someone else may know that you're fasting. That's not Jesus' point here at all. In fact, if you read throughout the scripture, you will find that the vast majority of fasting happens as a corporate practice rather than an individual practice. Meaning, the majority of times you see someone fasting in scripture, they're fasting alongside or with a group of people who have been called to fast together for a specific purpose.
Speaker 1:And so even biblically speaking, the whole council of scripture seems to communicate that fasting is something that we do with the knowledge that others know that we're doing it. But just like prayer, but just like prayer many times in scripture, kind of communicate this public fast. I wanna go over just a few examples. I don't even have them on the screen for you here. I'm just gonna tell you the reference and generally what was happening here.
Speaker 1:From Old Testament to New, we see in the book of second Chronicles chapter 20, starting right at verse one, like even the first three verses, That the king the king of Judah, King Jehoshaphat, was being threatened by invading enemy armies, the Moabites and the Ammonites. And in fear for the safety of the residents of Judah, the people of Judah, and needing God to respond in power in this moment, he called Jehoshaphat called on the entire nation of Judah to fast and pray for both safety from the Moabites, but also victory over them in in battle. And so the whole nation of Judah came and fasted and prayed for military victory, safety, and con conquest over this invading evil army. And the lord answered, and they will remain safe. Another really important critical example of prayer of fasting being a corporate exercise rather than merely an individual one is the whole book of Esther.
Speaker 1:Anyone that read the book of Esther lately? Listen. Put down celebration of discipline that I just talked about. K? And if you have not read the book of Esther, the story of Esther in the old testament, it's like 10 chapters long.
Speaker 1:They're short chapters. It's an easy sit down and read it one one time through, like run, don't walk to the book of Esther and read about the power of God that is harnessed on behalf of his people when they unite themselves in the spiritual power of prayer and fasting. The story goes essentially something like this, is that during the Babylonian exile, wicked Babylonian king, Xerxes, was looking for a new queen. And so among all of the people, he chose a Jew named Esther, who the who the scripture says was beautiful and was pleasing to his eye. And he brought, he brought Esther into his kingdom, into his palace, and she was now, she was the queen.
Speaker 1:Queen Esther. But she was hiding all of this time that her actual nationality was Jewish. She was of the Jewish people. Well, there came a point where, one of Xerxes, king Xerxes evil advisors, a man named Haman, sent out a decree. That's right.
Speaker 1:Every time you hear the word Haman, you can say boo. Right? Sent out a decree that on such and such date, in such and such month, that all the Jews in the Babylonian empire were free game to kill and then plunder. You could kill whoever you wanted. And Esther's over here like, my goodness.
Speaker 1:He doesn't know that I'm a Jew. These are my people. And so Mordecai, Esther's uncle, comes to Esther and says, listen. We need to call the Jewish people to fast and pray to the Lord on our behalf. Otherwise, genocide is gonna happen.
Speaker 1:We're gonna be slaughtered at the whole nation, the whole empire. And so Esther's like, okay. Yeah. Go out. Call all the Jews in the whole of the Babylonian empire.
Speaker 1:Here's the example. To fast from food and water and pray for three days that the hand of God would deliver them from the edict of genocide by King Xerxes. And so they do, and long story short, the Lord answers, And through a series of, like, ironic narrative reversals, Haman that was weak. Haman, okay. Better, but still not there.
Speaker 1:He I'm not even gonna say it again because you're so disappointing. The guy the guy ended up being the one that was killed and the Jews through Esther and Mordecai were saved through the act of fasting and praying. Now we can go into the new testament as well and see that this was that fasting was a corporate act. In acts chapter 13, it says verse three, it says that the church, the whole of the church, fasted, prayed, and then laid hands on Paul and Barnabas as they commissioned them out into their missionary journey in all of the gentile world. And so it was through the act of fasting and praying that the church commissioned the greatest missionary endeavor that the world has ever seen.
Speaker 1:Paul and Barnabas out into the gentile world. We literally have a new testament full of letters that Paul wrote to the churches that he was sent to after he was prayed for and the church fasted. Letters like first and second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, first and second Thessalonians. These are all cities, brothers and sisters, that Paul and Barnabas were sent to after the church fasted and prayed and been like, okay, boys. Go get after it for the glory of God.
Speaker 1:The overwhelming evidence of scripture is that fasting was a was a corporate practice by the people of God as a mark of devotion to God in prayer. Now there have been times where I, as the pastor and spiritual leader of this church, this congregation, have called on a number of you in large groups and small groups to pray and fast over important decisions or specific spiritual battles that we were facing at a specific time. And there certainly may come a time, maybe even like the end of this message, whereas a community of faith, we will call ourselves to the act of fasting and unite ourselves once again in devotion to the Lord through a communal fast and prayer over something that we are facing. Now this is not so that we can look or be more spiritual than any other group or church or person or whatever, but rather so that we can drill down in our intensity as a body towards the intimacy with the Lord as we seek his mighty move in specific areas of our lives. Now the question is, well, why would why would I want to fast?
Speaker 1:I will say this in general, fasting builds our intimacy with God. It is a pathway by which our intimacy with the father is built. But I will also say this, humbly, that fasting is mysterious. It stands kind of in that same mysterious environment that prayer sits. So we talked about back a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 1:For listen. We are not told why. We're not told in scripture why fasting holds spiritual power. We are only told that it does and that we should do it. We have poured over the scripture.
Speaker 1:We have looked for it. We've been like, any instance where God is like, and here is why I honor the fast, and here is why it holds so much power, and here is why I want you to do it. We're not we don't see any of that. What we see is that we should fast and then it holds spiritual power, but not why it holds spiritual power. Now we can make some inferences, and I think that those inferences are based on fairly good wisdom from the rest of scripture and from our own experience.
Speaker 1:Now for instance, how about this? Something like this. Fasting strengthens our spiritual appetite and weakens our fleshly appetites. The act of fasting and devotion to the Lord in prayer, it strengthens us in our spirits, and weakens the fleshly desires that wage war in our bodies. Again, foster says this fasting reminds us that we are sustained by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Speaker 1:Food does not sustain us. God sustains us In Christ, all things hold together. Therefore, in experiences of fasting, we are not so much abstaining from food as we are feasting on the word of God. Fasting is feasting. Fasting seems to be, like the act of clearing spiritual land in your heart for God to come and build something beautiful with his presence.
Speaker 1:Like, if you set out to want to build something beautiful and you go and buy a plot of land, And that plot of land is full of briars and bushes and thorns and hedgerows and weeds and trees and rocks and valleys. Not suitable at all for building something worthy of the dream that you have in your mind. And so you go about the hard, laborious work of clearing that land and making it suitable for what it is you want to build. Fasting is like that for our hearts and our spirits. The practice and act of fasting goes about clearing the spiritual land of our heart so that our hearts become a suitable environment for God to build something beautiful for his kingdom.
Speaker 1:The heart of one who seeks after the Lord. The heart of one who wants the father and nothing else. And so when we empty our lives and our hearts and our bodies of things of this world, Jesus will fill us with the things of heaven. Additionally, fasting has this unique way of attuning our spirits to both our physical bodies and the spiritual world more sensitively. It helps us reconnect with how we're feeling in our bodies.
Speaker 1:Here's something that I've experienced in fasting. I know those of you maybe who have practiced fasting a little bit have experienced this as well. I'd say that in fasting, the spiritual sensitivity dial gets turned to, like, level 10. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is, like, if normally we live at a level three in, like, our spiritual sensitivity, a sense of, like, the Lord's presence with us, a sense of the, being able to hear and discern the the the spirit of God, the voice of God in our lives.
Speaker 1:Like, it's level three. Like, I'm trying to drown out the white noise, Lord. I'm trying to hear you, Lord. Everything's really loud in my spirit. Everything's really loud in my mind, but I'm here and I'm listening.
Speaker 1:I'm listening to your word. I'm listening in prayer, Lord. But it's, like, hard. It's, like, level three. Or on the same side over here, we're, like, we generally live at, like, a man, I could feel like, something just feel like, it feels evil.
Speaker 1:It feels dark. I feel like I'm being tempted. I feel the presence of the enemy. I feel I feel the presence of, like, burden on my life. When you set yourself when you consecrate your heart to begin to fast, it's like both ends of the spiritual spectrum get turned on level 10.
Speaker 1:Right? And then, like, just in your everyday coming and going, there's this sense of, like, man, the lord's presence is here. Or, like, when you give yourself to the work of prayer in the midst of fasting, You hear the Lord louder. You see the Lord more clearly. You can feel the Lord more tangibly, but the same is true with evil.
Speaker 1:You feel the power of darkness buffeting against your life and your heart more significantly. It becomes the the presence of evil becomes more pronounced in your life. The enemy pours on temptation and attack and darkness. When you fast and empty your flesh of the things that it needs so that you can turn up the sensitivity of your spirit to the things of the spiritual realm, it's like everything is on level 10 all the time, which is why it is difficult to stay in a posture and practice of fasting for very long outside of just the physiological limitations that there are. Finally, fasting offers us an additional place of identification with Jesus.
Speaker 1:Look. I don't know about you, but every opportunity that I get to identify with the life and practice of Jesus, I wanna try and get some of that. Like, I I don't I just feel like it's probably a good spiritual practice and endeavor for us to be like, hey. Any way that I can identify with the life and practice of Jesus, I'm going after that. I'm gonna go try and get me some of that.
Speaker 1:Because if I can identify with Jesus, the Holy Spirit and power come and transform me into the image and likeness of his son. Right? That's the will of God for me. And so Jesus fasted and Jesus commanded his disciples to fast and Jesus talked about fasting and Jesus taught on fasting. So if I can identify with Jesus in my practice of fasting that's a good enough reason for me to say, why would I fast?
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know. Jesus did. Seems like a good practice. Maybe you, maybe the practice of fasting is new to you, and you're looking for some of the more practicalities of it. Now I did say, like, we are trying to develop intimacy, but I know that listen.
Speaker 1:Usually, I've got, like, five or six pages of notes that are, like that's that's one sermon, usually. I I usually determine how late I'm gonna keep you by how many pages the printer kicks out when I say, okay. I'm done. I'm like, today, I had seven pages of notes, but I actually had 15 pages of notes on this subject that I tried to whittle down to, like, a reasonable amount. And a lot of it is in this, like, practical practice of fasting.
Speaker 1:Okay? So I'm not gonna be able to hit on absolutely everything, but if you can kinda be patient with us as we're developing the life of prayer in our church over the next year or so, we'll push out more of these resources to you, so that you can you can grow in them alongside of us. Listen. Just like prayer, when we fir the first week we talked about prayer, said if you're just developing a prayer life, feel like, yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1:I don't really pray, but I wanna I wanna start praying. Alright? You should pray as you can and not as you what? Do you remember? Can't.
Speaker 1:Right? Pray as you can and not as you can't. Meaning, if you've never prayed before in your life, it's probably not a recommended practice to then go out and be like, okay, first day praying for four hours, anything less than four hours is failure. Up at 3AM, praying for four hours before work, here we go. Like, listen.
Speaker 1:Like, don't go run a marathon if you can't walk to the mailbox. K? Right? Get out there and train your spiritual life to endure the spiritual practices in a way that keeps you moving forward consistently in progress. And the same is true with fasting.
Speaker 1:If you've never fasted before in your life, I would not recommend being like, alright. Pastor said fasting is important. Tomorrow morning, seven day fast. Here we go. Now listen.
Speaker 1:With the exception of if you get if you hear clearly from the Lord and the Lord's like, I don't care what your pastor says. I want you to fast for seven days and you listen to him. K? Not me. But as a general practice, if you're beginning to develop this discipline, start and fast as you can, not as you can.
Speaker 1:Now I'll also say it's not generally recommended that people with sensitive medical conditions, women who are pregnant or nursing this sounds like a prescription, commercial. Women who are pregnant or nursing should fast for long periods of times. I'll save the rest of the side effects. You may find it encouraging, and helpful for your growing practice of fasting to ask a Christian brother or sister to fast with you on a specific day or time. Just and then and then spend some of your time praying for them on that day, and they for you, that you may that you may hear the Lord more clearly, that you may receive from the Lord the intimacy that he desires to give to you.
Speaker 1:If you have a small group, it's great to say, hey. As a small group, let's fast on this day together. If you're part of a bible study, hey. Guys, why don't we all fast on this day together? Devote ourselves in prayer to the Lord.
Speaker 1:Pray for one another, and and we'll we'll do this together in a corporate fashion. Incredibly powerful. I would encourage you to start with one meal or two meals, something similar to that. Drinking fruit juice can help, as you learn more about fasting, kinda keeps those glucose levels up a little bit. It will keep you from feeling a little bit light headed if you're not used to skipping meals.
Speaker 1:After maybe you've gotten down to the point where, okay, I'm skipping one meal, for my the days that I fast, or I'm skipping two meals for the days that I fast, or I'm skipping all three meals on that day, you might want to you might want to, you know, chart out on a few day fast. Always drink plenty of water as you're fasting, and maybe you should expect some of these some of these kind of typical symptoms. You're likely to get a headache in the first day or so if you're fasting from, if in a full fast from food, especially if you are also laying aside the caffeine that you often that you drink. Expect, don't be surprised for a headache. You're gonna experience stomach growling and hunger pains.
Speaker 1:If you fast for an extended period of time, you can expect that after about two to three days, those hunger pains will go away. If you're extending beyond that, and you won't have them anymore, they generally subside after that. You might experience, like, why does my breath, smell like a bad diaper? It, like, you often get bad breath. A little bit of gum or a mint can help to take the edge off of that.
Speaker 1:You might feel some general fatigue at the beginning, maybe some light headedness when standing up quickly. The point here is to take it and everything in the process of fasting slower than you would normally. Not only because you're taxing your flesh in a way that you're not used to, but also because you're seeking to have increased sensitivity and attunement to the spirit of God in your life. And so it does not help for you to fast and then run around in a chaotic nature the rest of your day like we normally do, but to say, like, okay. We're gonna we're gonna slow it down a little bit so that I can attune my heart, attune my ears to the spirit of God.
Speaker 1:Speaking into me, you'll begin to recognize how much comfort you receive mentally, emotionally, and physically from food When you fast from it, you will be surprised at how much emotional control food and the desire to food has over us. If you fast for more than one full day, I would be careful about your first meal back after fasting. If you're fasting like a day or two, like, listen, don't go crush a whole pizza to break the fast. Like, your body will regret it. Okay?
Speaker 1:Something easy like fresh fruit, vegetable, beef, or chicken broth will kinda ease your system back awake and help you feel, and help you feel a little bit better. But listen, that's just the physical. That's just the physical. Even more important than the physical is the spiritual preparation that we walk into a fast with. Remember, a fast is an intentional decision.
Speaker 1:I recommend that you go into your fast having one, two, maybe three things specifically specifically that you want to ex that you want to spend extended time in prayer over during the course of your fast. Meaning, like, I know the spiritual reasons why I am fasting. I know the things that I am praying for as I deny my flesh and elevate my spirit. I know I can put my finger on before I even start my fast. These are the things that I'm giving my heart to in prayer, Lord.
Speaker 1:And then ask God to speak clearly to you, to use this time of fasting to clear the white noise of your life, to clear the land of your heart, to prepare it to build something beautiful. During those regular meal times that you would skip, however meals however many would be, if it's one meal or two meal or three or whatever, spend time in the word. Instead of sitting down at the table with the bowl of cereal in the morning, sat down at the table with the bible open in the word for that period of time. Even if for the five and ten minutes that you usually have your coffee and eggs in the morning, sit down with the same amount of time. Regain that time.
Speaker 1:Reconsecrate that time. Set apart that time for special devotion to the Lord, and he will meet you in that place. K? Don't be surprised if it is really, really difficult at first. When you set yourself to consecrate your life to the Lord, the spiritual battle comes hard.
Speaker 1:Becomes very, very difficult when the enemy sees that the children of God are consecrating their hearts in prayer and fasting to intimacy with the Lord. There is, like, no greater threat to his continued control over your life than you giving yourself fully to the lord and praying and fasting for the things of the kingdom. Don't be surprised if you gain a spiritual sensitivity that you did not have before, Seeing, feeling, experiencing the presence of god more. Seeing, feeling, experience the presence of evil more. Fasting has a unique way of making us more spiritually sensitive.
Speaker 1:So here's the, here's the invitation. I would like to invite you to fast. This is not a fit. This is not judgment. If you're not, if you, you're like, no, it's just not for me right now.
Speaker 1:Or, or I can't, I'm not, I'm not able to, or I don't want to, or it doesn't work for me that day is bad. That's fine. There's no, I want you to hear me. There is zero judgment whatsoever here. Zero.
Speaker 1:This is pure invitation. If you would like to come and join with with those of us who feel so inclined that we would, as a church, that we would, as a church, this coming Thursday, March 6, fast together as a church. Now this fast, like I said, can take whatever form it is that you that is appropriate for, like, your wherever you are in your fasting practice or journey. If that means you fast from one meal that day, like, listen. God God gets glory in that, and I celebrate that.
Speaker 1:If you're if you're gonna fast for all three meals a day, that if you're gonna start your fast on Tuesday and end it on Thursday with everyone else, like, again, that's great. There's no judgment. This is an invitation to begin to develop intimacy with the Lord and fasting in whatever way, in whatever place you are in this journey. And so if that means one meal, if that means two, if that means three on Thursday, I wanna invite you to do that with us. And together, as a church, I wanna be praying about these two things.
Speaker 1:Okay? The first is this. I want you to be able to identify one personal or family issue that you or, like, someone in your family is facing. Like, I don't even need to say it again. You already know what it is.
Speaker 1:You do. You already know the thing in your personal life or the thing in your family where you're like, lord, I need you to show up in this. See my devotion. Lord, look, I'm setting I'm consecrating my heart, and I'm setting it aside for you, lord. In this moment, father, would you please show up in this situation, in this person's life, in this thing?
Speaker 1:I need you and I need you desperately. So we're gonna be praying for one thing personally, for you and your family, but then we're gonna be praying corporately for something within our body, our our church here. And that's I'm gonna ask you I'm gonna ask us to all pray that God would give wisdom and direction to our leadership, what the leadership team and the staff here for next steps in ministry planning for here at the for here at the church. We talked about this the last couple of weeks. We need we need wisdom for how to maximize the space of our physical building to meet the growing needs of the congregation of the parking lot, right, of the bathrooms of the kids ministry.
Speaker 1:Right? We need we need wisdom and direction and discernment on how to best maximize the space that God has given us. We need wisdom and discernment on, like, ministry programming, like how to how to best be in leadership over our kids ministry, how to best be in leadership over small groups, how to lead men, how to lead women, how to heal marriages, how to bring things back to the center of God's kingdom and God's glory. We need wisdom. We need direction.
Speaker 1:We need discernment. Please, please, please pray for that. Please. And so receive that invitation from your pastor to join together in a corporate fast on Thursday of this week where we will together pray over these things. We will deny our flesh that our spirits may become alive, the kingdom.
Speaker 1:Lord, thank you that when we were blind, Lord, you have healed us and made us to see. Lord, and now we only wanna wanna see you. Lord, we seek your face. We desire your presence, Lord. Give us, Lord, a deeper hunger for your for your word.
Speaker 1:Give us, Lord, a deeper hunger for prayer. Give us, Lord, a deeper hunger for you, father. We want you here in this place. Come and make your presence known in Jesus' name. Amen.
Speaker 1:God, do it. You are loved. Have a great week.
