Here today. Listen, if you're excited to be in church, can you say Amen here today? And I am recognized that you could be any other place here today and you have chosen to worship with us. I do want to say welcome to any of our guests. I know Pastor David always welcomes you. I want to say welcome as well if this is your first time ever at our church or the first time in a good while. Thank you so much for being a part of our service here today and we do not take that lightly.
We understand you could be in a lot of places and you've chosen to worship with us today. So thank you and if you didn't do this on your way in, most of the time people grab these on the way in. Let me encourage you before you leave today and the seat back directly in front of you, take one of those new here cards.
You can't miss it. It's green and white and take one of those, fill it out and we would love for you to turn that into the Welcome Center which is right outside that door there on your way out and we would love to get a free gift in your hands just as our way of saying thank you for being here today. Well it is good to see you. I know here it's a busy time around this place and for our staff it has been, our school staff specifically, it has been a very very busy week and we are so excited about school starting and we're excited about all schools starting. We understand that there's a lot of great schools in our community and we are grateful for each one of them and here if you didn't know this we have a Christian school here and so we will have over 590 students show up tomorrow here at our Christian school and we are super excited about that. Well I am. I can't speak for every teacher in this room okay and but they're, I'm sure they're excited as well.
They've worked hard to get us to this point. As you went to your Bible fellowship classes and things like that you probably saw some things that were different and I want you to know that if you pass some paper towels, some toilet paper, some wipes and stuff, those aren't just free for you to take and grab and go and things like that. That is for each classroom and so I hope that you notice that and I'll tell you this, that brings excitement to my heart. I love when our campus is busy.
I love when it's full. I love when there's people here because it is a reminder of the ministry that we get to do each and every day to show students the love of Jesus and try to reach as many students as we possibly can. We are praying for that so I'd encourage you to pray along with that. On September 8th, it's coming fast.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time because you've heard about it. If you've been a part of our church we are entering a new Sunday morning schedule and so we will have two morning services right now. We have one so we're going to have two morning services with our Bible fellowship classes in the middle of that and so our early service will be at 8 30. For all of you early risers we will have full kids programming.
That means primary church, nursery, junior church and things like that and so we'll have full kids programming at both of those 8 30 and our second service will be at 11 with Bible fellowship in the middle of that. So we're going to mention that every single week so that you know and as we go to that because it's kind of crowded in here and here's what I want you to know. When we go to that each service there's going to be more open seats next to you and that's okay. Don't look at that as a negative.
Here's what you need to see. Who could you fill that seat with and who do you need to invite that you can fill that seat with and maybe it's somebody in your neighborhood. Maybe it's somebody on the team that you play on or maybe it's a relationship of somebody you know in the community.
Somebody that you work with or perhaps a family member or whatever. Who can you fill those seats? I want to challenge our church to use this as an opportunity so that we can continue to grow and accomplish the mission that God has called us to which we should know this by now. Our mission is to reach as many people as possible and to disciple them into becoming devoted followers of Jesus Christ.
That's why we exist. That's the scoreboard by which we do ministry here and so we would love to fill as many seats as possible for that. All that starts September 8th so don't miss it. So it starts on what date? Let's say it together. September the 8th. Well listen if you have your bible go to Matthew chapter number six.
Matthew chapter number six. While you're turning there we're going to take a sip of water and try to not make this as awkward as possible. I understand anytime you're up front and you got a break and take a sip of water it's kind of like what do we do in the meantime?
While he's kind of drinking his water what do we do and that kind of thing. Talk amongst yourself whatever you need to do. We were at a gymnasium for most of the day yesterday and we were cheering on it was the first tournament of the season our volleyball teams from our school and so we were there yesterday and I don't know if I scream too loud or whatnot and you know pastors get a little crazy right and so maybe that was it and so I apologize if I lose some of my voice here this morning but we are continuing a series that we have been in you'll see it up on the screen entitled the greatest sermon ever. Now if you're new here that does not mean I don't think a lot of my sermons so I don't want you to think wow he thinks a lot of himself. It does not have anything to do with the sermon that you're going to hear preached today but we are slowly dissecting week by week Jesus who's the famous teacher and he's the best teacher ever and we are examining his famous sermon on the mount. This is week number eight of our sermon to our knowledge Matthew 5 through Matthew 7 was one compiled sermon one sermon that Jesus preached a multitude of people there were some his followers his disciples were there and then also obviously critics and different people were also in there a lot of the religious leaders of that day Pharisees and and things like that they all gathered on a hillside and Jesus in Matthew chapter number five he sits down and he begins to teach them on so many different things in fact if you ever wonder if the Bible is relevant to your life here today I want you to always if that's a question that somebody asks you like hey the Bible means nothing to me it's just some old stories and different things all you need to do is take them to Matthew 5 through Matthew 7 because Jesus brings up and teaches on some of the most cultural challenges in even our society here today he starts out his sermon with what we call and refer to as the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5 which is talking about joy and happiness and where that comes from and that's like the biggest question that our society is asking each and every day is where does joy and happiness come from Jesus tells us that and then he goes on and he starts to talk about different things like lust he talks about divorce he talks about keeping your your word and he talks about anger and he brings up the law and he begins to say to all the religious leaders like like we when we talk about murder and we talk about adultery and we talk about those things we feel really good with ourselves because not a lot of people may struggle with those things you haven't gone out and killed somebody this week or or you haven't gone out and and slept with somebody that wasn't your spouse or or things like that and and so a lot of us feel pretty good and he says but listen here's the thing if you have hatred in your heart towards somebody else then you're already a murderer in your heart and and so it just is a reminder that we all fall fall short well then he continues his sermon and he begins to talk about some spiritual disciplines now that's what we would refer to them as and so he begins to talk about giving we looked at that a couple of weeks ago and pastor david i appreciate what you said about giving because the truth is is is giving is an act of worship it is something that you don't have to debate do i need to be generous do i need to tithe do i need to give that's not a debatable thing the scripture is clear about it and what he says is when you give when you give not if you give he says when you give so he begins to talk about that then he talked about prayer remember prayer that's not a negotiable thing it's not something you need to do i need to pray don't i need to pray he says when you pray so as a follower of jesus we all are commanded to pray and then he goes on to this third one and it's found in matthew 6 16 through 18 and he begins to talk about fasting let's all say that word together fasting now i'm going to be very honest with you a lot of pastors probably wouldn't ever admit to this but one of the struggles about being a pastor and uh if i can be fully transparent with you is one of the struggles about being a pastor is a lot of times when i get up here to preach and to really shepherd you and teach you the word of god here's the pressure that i feel is i feel that a lot of times you just assume that i am an expert on everything that i'm talking about i remember that when i was sitting there i just thought man my pastor he just has it all together and my pastor just he he lives and exactly what he says and what he preaches and and everything that he teaches it's like man he's got he's got it all figured out and things like that and here's what i want you to know this week has been a very difficult week for myself personally because i'm going to be very very honest with you is that what we are going to look at today the spiritual discipline of fasting has been somewhat neglected in my own life and here's what i want you to know is that for me when i started studying fasting and really diving deep into what fasting is i found that i have not fasted very much in my spiritual journey at all and here's what i want you to realize is that i bet if every single one of us in our christian life was honest as we look at this today we probably all agree that we do not practice fasting in the way that jesus is going to tell us it should be practiced and so what i want to do as we look at this i want to explain what fasting is i'm going to give you kind of the where we're headed for the next few moments i want to explain what fasting is because here's the truth i think a lot of us don't really understand what fasting is in the first place and i think that was my problem i just thought fasting was just you know keeping myself from food whatever i don't think i understood what the purpose is and jesus is going to tell us okay i think that's a part of it and we're going to look at that and i'm going to give you some things he talks about that specifically and then through my study this week i'm just going to tell you i'm going to look at some things with you of reasons that you should fast and i'm going to give you some stories in scripture where it shows us when it is appropriate for you to fast and when you should consider fasting in your your life but i want you to know as we are coming to this this is something that for me i have had to deeply repent of my neglect for this passage of scripture in fact when i was thinking back of this i don't even remember many sermons preached about fasting we preach about prayer and we preach about bible reading and we preach about these things but but fasting is kind of one of those gray area disciplines that is in the middle of everything and it's something that jesus has a lot to say about and it's something we see throughout scripture but i don't think the average christian knows much about at at all here's what i want to say up front i mean this because i think a lot of people struggle with this fasting and dieting are not the same can we agree to that listen i i tell you i hear of all the different uh diets that come out and and some of them even have have taken you know this word like we are going to do the whatever fast and and that's what we're going to do here's what i want you to scriptural fasting and dieting are not the same and here's why dieting deals with the flesh right you're dieting to eat right you're dying to to lose weight or or you're dieting whatever here's what fasting deals with not the flesh but the spirit and that's the biggest biggest difference that i have learned this way a fast in scripture was a time found throughout the old and new testaments where god's people would deny themselves physical food and they would replace it with that which is spiritual the goal of fasting is to turn ourselves from something earthly to set our minds and hearts fully on on god it's in other words you're taking something in your life something that means a lot to you in scripture it was almost every single time talking about food and how many of you love to eat right okay and uh how many of you in the next few moments are going to google where you're going to lunch today anybody going to be honest before god okay i see a few hands and so and so i i get it we all love to eat and we think about food a lot the point of fasting in scripture a lot of times was when something came up in somebody's life and we're going to look at some of those here in a moment but when something would happen they would they would take away something in this case food physical food and they would replace it with god so that they could turn their hearts from something earthly and set their hearts fully on something heavenly and and god him himself and here's what i want you to know fasting here's what i've learned this week is that fasting has has showed me that that we as followers of jesus we need god here's what fasting is we need god more than anything else in this world anything and fasting is a demonstration where you give up something that matters to you and you replace it with something that should matter more to you fasting says the spiritual is more important than the physical fasting says that the supernatural is more important than the natural fasting says that that we need heaven more than i need what is on this earth fasting says we need him more than anything that this world has to has to offer fasting is letting go of something that is on earth that is on earth so that we can get something that is from heaven and what i want you to understand is what fasting is and and here's the challenges because i mentioned earlier that fasting and dieting are two separate things and so i don't want you to think like wow this is a great way to lose weight pastor is all about the losing weight so he's telling us to fast okay there are two separate two separate things fasting is not about your earthly temple your body fasting is about your spiritual body but here was a challenge for the religious leaders and we're going to jump into the text here in a moment i promise and so fasting was a challenge to the religious leaders because here's what they thought they thought that if they fasted okay that it would move god in their direction in other words a lot of religious leaders felt that if they fasted and they made it public and and people knew about it and they sacrificed and they gave stuff up that to be sure that that would move god in their direction in other words their prayers would be heard and that god would do exactly what they are praying for because because of their sacrifice in giving something up on this earth for him listen fasting and this is the big idea and so if you forget anything that i say the rest of the time here here's what i want you to remember fasting is not to manipulate god it's not to get him to bend in your direction but in my study here's what i'll tell you here's what fasting is for and the purpose of fasting it's not to manipulate god it's to delight in god that's the point and so if you wonder what fasting is here's what it is it's to delight in him it's not to get him to bend your direction it's to get your heart to bend his direction it's not for him to to just have your prayers answered so that your kingdom could come it's to get your heart changed and your heart fully set on him so that you are fully committed and fully surrendered to his kingdom coming here on this earth that's what fasting is it's not to manipulate him and so if you're in here today and you got some big need in your life and you think wow let's go because i think we misinterpret this a lot of times and you think wow i'm just going to leave here and i'm going to fast and whatever it is that i want to see done if i sacrifice enough and i fast then god's going to do whatever i say that's not it it's not about manipulating god think about it david you know when david and bat you know you have the sin with bathsheba bathsheba has a has a child and and the child gets sick you remember this story in the old testament child gets sick what does david do praise and fast you know what happens to the child the child dies can you imagine if fasting was only for the purpose of god doing exactly what david's praying for then he would think man what's the purpose of prayer what's the purpose of fasting if that's your purpose or your motive behind praying that god would change that person that god would give me a new job that god would do this that god would help our church do this that god would do this that god would answer my prayer then you have misinterpreted the purpose of fasting fasting is not to manipulate god to do your will it's to get our hearts aligned with him so heavenly that you are fully surrendered to do his will and his above anything else that's what fasting is so let's look at it jesus he talks about it the first thing i want you to see in verses um here here in this text is this is the motive for fasting the motive for fasting look at our text matthew chapter six verse number 16 jesus says this in his sermon on the mount the greatest sermon ever he says moreover when you fast everybody say the word win win when you fast let me remind you this is not a a option for you if you're a follower of jesus and so if you're like me today and you are reading this as a christ follower you're a christian if you're reading this and you can't remember a time where you fasted the way that jesus commands us to then your next step today is probably to repent before him i've been on my knees about this one because i had to as your pastor i'm thinking man uh praying i'm pretty decent there bible reading yes giving yes this is a discipline that that i don't think's practiced a lot in my life and so i've had to repent asking me listen jesus is saying this when you fast it's not an option and he says this be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast verily i say unto you they have their reward but thou when thou fastest anoint thine head and wash thy face that thou appear not unto men to fast but unto thy father which is in secret and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly openly so jesus talks about the motives with fasting the first thing and i said this fasting is expected in the life of a believer if you take notes i encourage you to write that down fasting is expected in the life of the believer here's what i thought i thought fasting was only for the spiritual elite fasting is only for the pastors fasting is only for you know the real religious crowd the ones who teach a class fasting yeah the deacon should fast but me no i'm just a church member or whatever listen here's what i want you to know the sermon on the mount preached by jesus was not preached only to religious leaders he preaches it to every follower of jesus he's saying that as a real in your relationship with jesus fasting should be a regular routine to your spiritual life it should be something that every single one of you could look into your life and say that god taught you something and god did something in your heart and your heart changed when you fasted but listen a lot of us we have prayer stories we have stories i love when you come up and show me what god showed you in your word i love things like that but you know what i never get as a pastor i never get hey you know what god showed me this week when i fasted when i fasted because we neglect it a lot of times as followers of jesus listen fasting is expected in the life of a believer because that's why we call it a discipline a discipline is something that you know you should do but you don't really want to do it right think about it like we you know what's a discipline is exercise okay exercise every single one of us i don't think anybody will tell you you know exercise is not good for you okay you ever heard somebody say that no everybody will say exercise is a good thing but i'll tell you this if you try to start exercising it's kind of painful to get started isn't it it's a discipline there's some days where that's why that's why in january why gen memberships are so high because everybody knows it's the right thing that they should do but by february they're so empty why because they're just like hey this discipline i know i should do it i know it's good for me but the practice and the execution is just not there the discipline's not there so what he's saying here is this is the discipline it's hard for you i'm not going to lie to you fasting is difficult not going to sit here and say it's just a you know a great thing for you to do and it's so simple for you to do fasting the way jesus says it is not always easy but is for all of us it is a discipline something that is good for you but also hard for for you the second thing jesus says is not only is fasting expected in the life of a believer fasting is not to impress those around you fasting is not to impress those around you let's all say this phrase together motive matters motive matters our motives matter now we sometimes have impure motives don't we you do something spiritual and you want everybody to know about it right so what do we do we talk about it you find a way i got to let everybody know the people that i served this week i got to let everybody know the amount of time that i spent doing whatever religious activity you did this week it's almost like we have a motive that we want everybody around us to look at us as spiritual we put things on facebook and and we try to get everybody to look at us like we are the elite of the elite in our spiritual journeys here's what i'll tell you jesus was talking directly to that when we see that motive matters and he says this fasting it's not to impress those around you in other words jesus is explaining and differentiating between a godly way to fast and a hypocritical way to fast and so if you're going to try to implement fasting in your life i'm going to give you the hypocritical way to fast first because that's what jesus talks about and here's what he does he describes the hypocritical way to fast and he specifically talks about the hypocrites he specifically talks he's talking directly to to pharisees they were the religious leaders of that day who only did everything so everybody could see it like if they were living today modern pharisees they would be the ones that everything that they do good in their life they would post a big thing on facebook about it you know what i'm saying that would be their thing they want everybody to read all the spiritual things that they have done and all the spiritual things that they have done and so jesus calls that out here's what pharisees would do pharisees would fast a lot and so what they do would do in their fast is that they would give themselves like they would do these fasts and they would keep themselves from food and they would sacrifice for god and so in other words what they would do is they would take dirt and they would take ashes and they would kind of rub it on their face seriously and they would rub it on their face and what they would do is they would go around and they would try try to come across people and really the goal was, they wanted to impress the people around us.
Woo, I have just been in a fast. And so they got dirt and ashes on them because they want everybody to see their agony, the difficulty, the sacrifice. They wanna impress everybody so that everybody around them, all the church members, all the people in the community could look at them like, wow, let's pat them on the back.
Let's appoint them to whatever needs to be done in the synagogue. Wow, I wanna be like them because of their sacrifice. I wanna sacrifice the way that they are sacrificing.
I wanna do exactly that. So they wanted everybody to see their agony and their sacrifice and that they could walk around and say, wow, this is so hard. That's why there's dirt on my face.
That's why I got ashes on my face. And so they would do all this stuff and they wanted to impress everybody around them. They would brag and they did this just to be noticed by others and to impress them. Listen, let me tell you this, fasting, and he goes on giving, remember he talked about giving, talked about praying, he talked about fasting. Here's the thing, he said, don't be like that. Your spiritual disciplines are not there to impress everybody around you. Your spiritual disciplines are to change your heart to be focused on them and that's the point. And so fasting, it's not to impress those around you. And then he goes on, he says this, fasting is personal. Fasting is personal.
So if he tells us not to fast a certain way by going out and impressing everybody, putting stuff on our face, whatever, he goes on in verse number 17, look what he says in our text. But thou, that's you, when you fast, anoint thine head and wash thy face. This would be kind of like equivalent to tell you, hey, go out and don't dress like you're fasting.
Wait, I thought we're supposed to let everybody know how spiritual. If I'm going down, if I'm sacrificing, I want everybody around me to know it. Like if I'm gonna go through the agony of this and keep food away from me for a day or something like that, I want everybody to know it.
And you know what Jesus comes back and tells us? He says, no, no, no, when you fast, I want it to be like a normal day. You don't have to let everybody know that you're fasting.
It's personal, it's private. He goes on in verse 18, and here's why, that thou appear not unto men to fast. In other words, like the hypocrites, remember they would put stuff on their face and they would try to impress everybody around them. They would be your modern day person that only wants to serve when they're being noticed, when they're in front of people.
Like if they're not up here serving, they don't wanna do anything else, right? Because they want the praise of men. That's kind of what the modern day hypocrite or Pharisee would look like. And so Jesus says, don't be like that. Don't put your stuff on your face and stuff and try to show everybody the agony and sacrifice that you're doing in fasting. He says, instead, act like a normal.
You don't have to let everybody know around you because it's not to impress them. But he says this, but unto thy father which is in secret and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Fasting is personal. Fasting is not to manipulate God. Fasting is for you to delight in him. It's for you to delight in him. So for a couple of moments, here's what I wanna do.
I wanna show you just, and remember, I learned a lot this week, so I could get up here and talk for a very long time about this. We're gonna look at just a few stories of when fasting is appropriate in your life. Because if you're like me today, you're probably like, when I first started studying this, I thought, oh man, I need to jump into this now. What am I gonna keep myself from? What am I gonna do? Do I need to just not eat lunch today?
Do I need to whatever? And I didn't understand like, okay, when is it appropriate for me to fast? Like obviously we can't fast every single day, right?
So when is it appropriate? Like what needs to be happening in your life for you to fast? And there's several stories in scripture about this. And so I wanna give you some biblical reasons to fast, some biblical reasons to fast, of why we should fast. The first one is this, when is it appropriate for you to fast? The first thing is this, fasting is appropriate for spiritual leadership.
Aren't you surprised I'm starting there? Listen, here's the thing, Acts chapter 13, this is when Saul, Paul and Barnabas are being commissioned for ministry. And in Acts chapter 13, verse number two, it says this, as they ministered to the Lord, that means as they worshiped. So they're worshiping, the church is worshiping, the spiritual leaders are worshiping together, and they're about to commission some leaders. They're about to commission Barnabas and Saul for gospel ministry. And we know that Barnabas and Saul, they're about, it'd be equivalent to today when we are calling up maybe a missionary and they're being commissioned and sent out to go somewhere in the world to preach the good news of the gospel. And so that's what's happening here to Barnabas and to Saul or Paul. And so they're being commissioned to go out and we know that they're gonna go out and plant churches, right? So their first missionary journey, they're gonna go out and plant the churches at Galatia that we read the letter from, Galatians and things like that.
So before any of that happens, here's what takes place. They ministered, they worshiped to the Lord, the church, and they, what's the next word? Fasted, they fasted. The Holy Ghost said, separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work where into I have called them.
This is gonna get extremely uncomfortable for some of us in here because it's so deeply convicting. Listen, before they were commissioned, they fasted. They fasted. Let me just say this, when was the last time that you fasted in prayer for the spiritual leaders of our church?
I'm just curious. Don't answer out loud. I'll take the silence probably because we don't do it because I'm right there with you, right?
When was the last time that you prayed? Listen, you know what we're good about doing? Pointing out all the wrong in the leaders that God appoints?
Aren't we good at that? Here's what I'm gonna do. The next time, this is kind of joking.
The next time you come to me and complain about a spiritual leader in our church, first question I'm gonna ask you, have you fasted for them? Man, it's quiet in here. You guys okay? Listen, I'm not gonna do that and so I don't want you to get uncomfortable. But here's my point is that here, we see before somebody's commissioned, before somebody's sent out, the church, you know what they're gonna do?
They're gonna get together and they're gonna fast. Now, I'm harping a little bit on church members. Let me talk to the leaders of our church. Deacons, that's you. Pastors, because I'm right there with you.
When was the last time we fasted for one another? I don't want to get emotional because I've cried about this because I'm thinking, man, I haven't fasted for our deacons. I've not been that committed to it, that I'd be willing to give something up in order to pray for them. Like, I'm not that committed. Hey, I'm a good Christian. I pray, I read my Bible. I come to church, I give, I tithe, I do my thing. But listen, I am not that committed.
And that's been deeply convicting for me. Listen, you want to know when it's appropriate to fast? Is when you just feel the need for a leader, maybe it's your Bible fellowship teacher, that they pray, they prepare, and then they take their time to get up and to teach you for 30 minutes every single week.
And they very rarely get a week off. And listen, here's the thing. When was the last time you said, man, I am so grateful for my class, I'm going to fast and pray because I'm so grateful for the spiritual leader that God's appointed. Like, your deacons, your pastors. Listen, you want to know when it's appropriate for us to fast? It's when it involves spiritual leadership. Another thing is, this one's more fun because some of us are feeling really bad and we need to have an altar call right now, right? Here's the second time I think fasting is appropriate.
Fasting is appropriate when we are broken over the sin that is around us. Two illustrations, Nehemiah chapter one. Nehemiah was in the king's house there in Persia in chapter one, and some of his own people, they'd come back and they had just gone to Jerusalem, and they had seen that the city of God was in disarray. The city of God was so far from God, there wasn't a presence of God, there wasn't a temple. Jerusalem at one time was the pinnacle of where God would meet and dwell with his people. And now his people, they get out of exile there in Babylon, and they go to Jerusalem, and when they show up in Jerusalem, they say, wow, the state of our society is terrible, it is bad, and so what do they do? They go to the king of Persia, and in his courts, Nehemiah's working there, and they begin to pour their heart out to Nehemiah about the state of God's people, and where society is, and it was bad, and it wasn't good, there was nothing good that was happening, and God was so far from him, and it was awful. And so it says in Nehemiah chapter one, verse number four, it came to pass when I, Nehemiah, when he heard these words, he sat down, and first he wept, he mourned over the state of Jerusalem, and he did that for certain days, and you know what else he did? What's the next thing? He fasted, and he prayed before the God of heaven.
Here's what I'll tell you. Fasting is appropriate when we are so broken over the sin that is around us. Here's where I was really guilty this week. I talked to a lot of people about how disappointed I am with our culture and our world today. We might get so mad about the way things are as followers of Jesus that we will go to social media, and we will make a post about how terrible, and wicked, and evil our world is, and by the way, it is.
There's a lot of bad stuff, and for followers of Jesus, it should deeply hurt us that the name of our God and our society is being defamed the way he is. But here's the thing. We get so mad, we talk to one another about it, we go to Facebook about it, but I bet you in this room I'd be shocked if anybody has been so broken over it that you were willing to fast for it.
I know I haven't. I'll just be honest with you. I complain about our government all the time, and I'm so mad sometimes.
I get so worked up, right? So mad and angry. I'm like, I can't believe this is happening.
I can't believe it. Think about how this story would be different. Imagine all these people from Jerusalem. They come, Nehemiah, you'll never believe that God is nowhere near Jerusalem.
I mean, there's nothing. There's no temple there, and there's no presence of God, and at one time it loved God and things like that, and now the state of God's people is so broken and awful. What if Nehemiah said, oh my goodness, let me go tell the king of Persia.
King of Persia, hey, you'll never believe this. What a terrible thing that is. Let me get on my Facebook feed and tell the world how terrible and upset I am about the state of our world, and then it stayed there.
No. You know our response as followers of Jesus? When we see things that are so far from scripture and so far to what is pleasing to the one true God of heaven you know what we should do before anything else?
Weep, mourn, and get on our knees and fast. Maybe that will change things. Like, do you really think that your Facebook post is changing it?
No, and I'm not against Facebook. I know that's just a funny thing that we're kind of harping on, but listen, what changes, what could make a difference if we get on our knees and we fast and mourn over the brokenness that is our world? Isaiah 58, verse six. Isaiah, the whole chapter's about fasting, and he's pleading with God for Israel to be delivered and for them to repent for the sin that they have committed. He's pleading for the entire nation of Israel, and the whole chapter is about fasting and the brokenness over the sin that is around us. Listen, fasting is appropriate when it comes to spiritual leadership. Fasting is appropriate when we're broken over the sin that is around us. Number three, fasting is appropriate when we are interceding for others. When we are interceding for others. In Psalm chapter number 35, you see David, he says this, but as for me, when they were sick, and here's what's on, this blows my mind. It's sometimes easier for us to intercede for our friends and loved ones, isn't it? Somebody you like really good. Like, sure, I'll pray for them.
They love me and I love them. That's an easy one to pray for. You know who David's praying for if you read Psalm chapter 35? He's praying for his enemies. Now that's a whole different ball game.
I'll tell you this, I'm not that committed, okay? But he said this about his enemies. But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing, look at what he does, they were sick and he's praying. My clothing was sackcloth, which was common when they would fast. I humbled my soul with fasting and my prayer returned into my own bosom. Here's what he's saying, is he's like, listen, when they were sick, I interceded before God for them and it was a time of fasting. Listen, we all have people that we wanna intercede for. Like if you don't believe me, there's a prayer sheet out in our welcome center.
Take one and read it. And there are so many people that we should intercede for, people that we love, that we should be praying for. Listen, if you're interceding for somebody, care enough that you would be willing to practice fasting because throughout scripture, there is times of intercession for our loved ones, in this case, our enemies, people that he didn't even care for and he's interceding for them and it was a practice for him to fast and pray for them. Listen, I don't know who you're interceding for. Maybe it's a family that you know that they're about to get divorced.
Fast for that. Maybe it's somebody is on drugs and you can't seem to see victory, fast for that. Maybe it's somebody who has ran so far away from God, maybe you tried to raise them in the church and raise them to love Jesus with all of their hearts and now as they get older and they make their own decisions, they run the other way. Listen, care enough that you are willing to give up something so that that person can be coming back to God, fast for that. Maybe it's somebody in your life, you're watching them make poor decisions and they're making these decisions that you know are gonna impact their future.
Fast for that. Maybe it's a grandkid that you're watching and you love them so much and they're young and the world's out to get them and there's all these things being thrown their way. Care enough to fast for them. Maybe it's somebody that is sick and in need of healing in your life or in their life. Care enough to intercede by fasting for them.
And then the last thing, I can mention so many more. Fasting is appropriate as an act of repentance. As an act of repentance. The prophet Joel in Joel chapter one, he is asking for repentance. And here's what's interesting about this passage in Joel chapter one. He's asking for like the entire nation of Israel for them to repent and be delivered for their sin.
And here's what I'll tell you. We take repentance so casually. When you look in scripture, it makes me so uncomfortable about the way that I take repentance compared to the way they take repentance. When they repent, they would cut themselves, they would fast, they would keep themselves from things because they were so broken over the sin that they had committed or the sin that their nation had committed.
And here in Joel chapter one, you'll see it on the screen. He says, gird yourselves and lament ye priest. How ye ministers of the altar, come lie all night in sackcloth. Ye ministers of my God for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholding from the house of your God. He goes on in verse number 14. And he sanctifies ye a fast call solemn assembly. Gather the elders together and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God and cry unto the Lord. Here's the point, is when repentance was necessary, when sin needed to be dealt with, you can read this throughout scripture, that was a time where it was appropriate to fast.
When you are so broken over the sin that you have committed. By the way, it's not gonna be up on the screen, but we read about this even in Leviticus chapter number 23. Leviticus chapter 23, if you don't know, it's all about one of the Jewish feasts that would happen every single year called the Day of Atonement.
And it was the day where all the wrong would be made right. It was the day, the one day of the entire calendar year where the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies. Even the high priest, he only went in there once a year, Day of Atonement. What he would do is all these different rituals and we won't go into it, but he would go in there and he would make sacrifice for all of the nation of Israel.
And as they watched him go in on that day, they knew how serious this was. But you know what the whole nation of Israel did while he was doing business and interceding and asking for forgiveness for all the nasty sins that they had committed for the past year? It was a day of fasting.
It was a day of fasting for them because they were so deeply convicted over their own personal sin and the sin of their nation that they were saying, listen, we are so guilty, we are so wrong, we have sinned against a holy, righteous God. We are so broken in comparison to how holy he is. And so not only are we gonna repent, but we are gonna fast so that we can keep something that means something to us here on this Earth like food. We're gonna keep that from us so that we can replace it with more of God. The Puritan John Owen, he said this, fasting, memorization, and meditation, and Bible reading all have their place. But they are to be looked on as the streams that lead to the fountain, not as the fountain themselves.
Listen, as we kinda land the plane here, here's what I want you to know. Fasting, praying, giving, all of the disciplines, Bible memory, all the things that we look towards, don't let us think that's the end. It's not the fountain. All those things is, and fasting is one of them, it is the stream that leads to the fountain. Say, what's the fountain? Delight in God. Fasting is just the stream that leads to that fountain.
You see, here's the problem. We all wanna experience the fountain, don't we? Nobody in here doesn't want the delight of God.
That's why you're here on a Sunday morning, because you're looking for it. But we're not willing to do the things, the streams, fasting, praying, giving, memorizing scripture. All of the streams lead to the fountain. Here's what the fountain's not. It's not God's gonna answer every prayer that you pray.
But I'll tell you this, He's gonna change your heart so deeply if you do and apply all of the different fountains that lead to Him. Fasting is the stream to lead to spiritual breakthrough in your life. It trains our hearts to love God and His glory above anything that this world has to offer.
But here's the problem. You say, if that's so true, why, and I've been in a Baptist church my whole life, why don't we talk about fasting much? Why don't we practice it? Why do, if we really looked internally, you don't have to say anything, but if you really looked internally, why don't we do this more?
And here's why. I really believe this, because this is true in my heart, and I bet my heart's very similar to yours. I think we just truly care more about earthly things than we do our Heavenly Father.
I really do. We make time for what's important to us. We make time for everything else. And sometimes I think we're like, wow, fasting? That's too hard. I love food so much.
I love fill in the blank so much. And so I'm not gonna give up this to get more of God. I'm doing pretty good the way that I am. And we forget that fasting is when we desire the supernatural over the earthly. Here's the challenge. I just want you, we're not gonna do a church-wide fast.
We might in the future, because I've been really convicted over this of how I've shepherded you over this, okay? But here's what I want you to hear. I want you to just think about what's something you could fast for for the next week. You say, does it have to be food?
It can be. Maybe you need to do a fast for the next 24 hours, and by the way, it's not a diet. Don't think like, well, I'm gonna lose weight. I'm gonna look really good tomorrow when I go in, right?
It's not that. No, what it is is it's a time for you to give up food, which means something. I love it. I'm like your typical pastor. Ask me to go to lunch, and I'm 100% in, right? I love that. But listen, it's giving up something that we care about here on this earth, not to show anybody, not to impress people, but so that we can replace it with the delight of God, so that we can spend the time that you were gonna eat, you're gonna spend it delighting in Him and learning about Him and learning how to love Him and asking Him to change your heart in His direction, not for you to change.
It's not a time for you to ask Him to change to your direction, and so I wanna challenge you. What's something you could fast from this week? It could be a meal. It could be TV. It could be social media. It could be a hobby.
It could be anything. What's something you spend a lot of time on that you're like, man, I could give something up, and I'm gonna replace it with God, so that at the end of the day, I'm not asking God to change His will to mine. I'm not manipulating Him, but I hope that after I fast and after I pray that my heart has turned so far away from the idols in my life that my heart is fully 100% dependent on who He is.
That's the goal of fasting. Would you bow your heads with me? Nobody's looking around. I'd invite you to stand.
Everybody's standing. I don't want anybody looking around. Listen, my heart breaks for you. My heart breaks for myself because, trust me, I have had to be on my knees repenting. This is not something I do often.
I don't fast much. If you're in here today and you say, Pastor, and I just want you to be honest before myself, before God. If you're in here today and you say, Pastor, God spoke to me. I don't practice this the way that I should, but I'd like to. Would you just slip up your hand high enough for me to see it, long enough for me to recognize it?
Listen, hands going up everywhere. Listen, why don't we just spend a moment right here? You can pray where you are.
This altar's open. Listen, when were you so broken over your sin? You're like, man, I'm gonna fast for this. When was the last time that you were so just upset and sad over the state of our country and our world?
Like, fast forward. When was the last time that you cared so deeply about somebody else that you wanted to intercede for them? You're like, man, I'm gonna get on my knees. I'm gonna fast for it. I'm gonna give up something. Listen, hands went up everywhere. I'm gonna pray and then this altar is open and I wanna invite you to come. Father, we love you. Bless in this invitation time.
God, forgive us for not practicing this discipline the way we should. Give us the courage and give us the right motivation so that we can go out of here and get rid of the idols in our life and fill our hearts with who you are. Bless in this invitation time, for it's in your name we pray. Listen, if God spoke to you, maybe your hand went up. I wanna invite you to come and I want you to pray. We're just gonna have a moment of prayer in this place. Thank, God bless you.
