Fasting | Matthew 6:16-18

So we'll read Matthew 6 verses 16 and 18 and Michael will come and bring his sermon.

Matthew 6:16

I'll just get you to turn to that on your device or in the Bible, whichever way you find a scripture nowadays.

There's many ways.

We will read the word of our Lord.

So far the reading of God's word. May God bless his word.

Thanks. Good morning everyone.

It's great to be together. It's great to be praying together. It's great to be singing together.

And most of all it's amazing to come around God's revealed word together.

So let's go to the author and ask for his help this morning on this very, very interesting passage.

Would you please pray with me?

Father God, we do thank you that as the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, we can look at the words of eternal life.

And we do ask this morning, Father, as we look at these words that by your Spirit you would help us to understand them

and that you would hold our Lord and our Saviour so high amongst us that these words would not be burdensome to us

but that they would be words that we cling to and that they would change us.

We ask for this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Church, it's incredible the things you find on the internet.

And I have found that Google has been a wonderful tool when I'm trying to look up things quickly

to get information about really anything that I want to know.

In fact, Google has shut down a few conversations at our Connect Group because when some weird and wonderful facts are floating about,

usually someone will eventually whip out their phone and say, well, let's ask Google.

Now the other day I was wondering just how many people own a Bible in Australia.

So out comes Google, which suggested a website called mcriddle.com, which gathers data about people in our nation.

Here's some interesting facts that I found on that website.

Less than half of all Australians own a physical copy of the Bible, 45%.

Less than one in three generation-wise, which I had to Google, means anyone born between 1982 and 1994,

have ever owned a personal copy of the Bible.

Sydney is Australia's Bible reading capital of Australia, and they access the Bible online seven times more than Darwin.

Richmond in Melbourne is Australia's leading Bible reading suburb, accessing the Bible more than any other suburb in the country.

And Warren Ball in Victoria read the Bible the longest, which averages out at about 13 minutes,

whereas people in Gladstone, Queensland clock in at the shortest at about four minutes.

But this last fact really, really caught my attention,

and that's that the most Googled passage in Australia is chapter six of Matthew's account of the Gospel.

That's right, the most Googled passage that Australians are interested in is not the Sermon on the Mount as a whole,

but about the very chapter that we're in at the moment.

However, what is incredibly interesting is that many Christians in Australia will confess that they have never practised fasting.

So on the one hand, we might say that many people have read about fasting,

but on the other hand, many people have not put what they have read into practice.

So I suppose we want to ask this question this morning.

Are Christians meant to practice fasting like our Lord speaks about here,

or are we to leave what Jesus has said to his disciples in the historical records of the church?

We want to have a little bit of an investigation of our passage this morning.

We want to look at three things. We want three things answered.

We want to think about should we fast, and if we should, how should we go about it, and then finally, why we should fast.

So if you have your Bibles with you, let's look at the first two words of verse 16.

Jesus says, when you.

Now, if that phrase seems familiar to you, when you do such and such,

perhaps because we're in a part of the sermon on the mount where our Lord has been telling his disciples

not to do the things that they have observed by those around them in the religious community,

predominantly in the synagogues.

Now, you might remember just a couple of weeks ago that we entered into this section of Christ's sermon by looking at what it was to give.

But remember that giving wasn't the problem that Jesus had on view.

No, we are to give and people in this context, they were giving.

But what was on view was how they were giving.

That's what Jesus was kicking back against.

People had taken what God had told them to do, but made it all about themselves.

And they did that by making sure that people could see them as they were going about doing these acts of righteousness.

No, says Jesus, that's not why God told us to give.

He didn't tell us to give so that people around us would think, well, that that person is holier than thou.

We're to give because our hearts are so transformed that we genuinely want to help people.

So says Jesus, when you go and give, don't bring the horn section with you.

Go do it in private.

And when you do that, when you give from that place of genuine concern for others and love for your Father,

then our Heavenly Father will reward those actions.

Last week, our guest preacher, Justin, wonderfully brought our attention to the total and utter dismal display of hijacking prayer.

And again, we see that same language when you, when you do such and such.

And again, prayer wasn't a problem in the religious society of Christ's day.

They were praying, and that's because praying is what people in covenant with God do.

We speak to the one who has rescued us from this world.

We speak to the one who is leading and guiding us in response to what he has revealed in his word.

And as you heard last week, some things can be pretty hard to do.

That's why he invites us to go to him.

Yet said Jesus, in the same way that giving had been hijacked as to make it about the one giving,

prayer had gone through the same treatment.

People in the synagogues were making sure that prayer had become about them and not about the one in whom our words are meant to be directed towards.

No, says Jesus, when you pray, go into that secret place, go into that place where real intimacy can happen

and trust that your words that come from your heart are being heard by our Heavenly Father.

And it's there, says Jesus, it's there that our Heavenly Father will reward you.

And that's the pattern that we've seen, that we've noticed over the last few weeks in this part of the sermon, isn't it?

Jesus has said to his disciples, when you give, don't be like the hypocrites who make it about themselves.

No, when you give, do it in secret.

When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites, you make it about themselves.

No, when you pray, do it in secret.

And as we've seen, Jesus is directing us to do this because God is a good Father.

And he gives his children who he loves things to do, not so that will be crushed under the weight of the task

or that we would hijack it and make it all about ourselves and receive praise from our contemporaries.

So that as we go and live our lives in obedience to the words of Jesus,

we will discover the things that our good Father has given us to do are so incredibly for our benefit.

This brings our attention to the passage that we have before us this morning.

You're going to notice the same pattern, but a different problem at hand.

So verse 16, if you have your Bibles,

When you fast, do not be sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others their fasting.

So suppose the first question that we want to ask this morning is what exactly is fasting?

Well, I want to answer that question first by telling you what it's not.

You see, fasting is a word that's not just used in the church.

It's also a word that is used in the wider world.

So we really want to get our thinking straight on what Jesus has on view here.

I mean, just the other day I was watching an interview with Henry Cavill, who played Superman in the latest DC film,

and he was asked how he got so ripped for the role, to which he replied,

Don't let me fool you, I did a lot of working out to be sure,

but all those scenes that you see me without a shirt on, I was fasting food and water for about two days prior.

People just don't look like that.

So that's one definition of fasting.

It's not eating, or in this case, not drinking as well,

so that your fat shrinks, I suppose, and your muscles are a little bit more apparent on film.

But there's also other advantages to fasting as well.

The Association of John Hopkins University has recently released research

recommending that people practice intermittent fasting because of proven health benefits.

Neuroscientist Mark Mattson states,

research shows fasting for a certain number of hours each day,

or eating just one meal a couple of days a week, may have health benefits.

Scientific studies are showing that intermittent fasting may help protect organs against chronic diseases

like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, age-related neurodegenerative disorders,

even inflammatory bowel disease and many cancers.

And may I please commend to you to go and talk to Gary and Tina

about any of that that I've just said at our community lunch today.

So we might say that society has come to see fasting as a good thing.

It defines it as not eating food so that there's physical or health benefits.

There's some more ways in which fasting may be used,

and it's usually seen in a positive way as well,

with products like SlimFast or the KetoFast diet.

But we don't have all the time in the world this morning to look at every single use and benefit.

But what we might say is that fasting is denying yourself food

so that some sort of physical change for the good, for the positive, might happen.

Is that what Jesus had in mind here?

Does he want all his disciples to be ripped like a comic book hero

or eating here and there because he has health benefits in mind

and he just wants his disciples to live a little longer?

Well, to that question, I think we can firmly say no.

Because in context, to those he's speaking to,

the disciples were in a world where they knew exactly what Jesus had in mind.

As the religious people around them were practicing fasting

because like giving and praying, as we've seen,

fasting was also a thoroughly biblical practice to partake in.

So what does the Bible reveal fasting to be?

Well, Church, I need you to strap yourselves in this morning

because we're going to be looking at it in a bit of detail in just a moment.

We're going to tour our Bibles just a bit.

But I hope for now this definition will suffice,

which sums up what the whole Council of Scripture has to say on the matter.

Remember, we're going to pull it apart a little bit later, but for now.

Fasting is a voluntary going without food to give oneself over

entirely to some task for a spiritual benefit.

Let me say that again.

Fasting is a voluntary going without food to give oneself over

entirely to some task for a spiritual benefit.

Now, we're going to have a look at why I've presented that definition in more detail in just a moment.

But for now, notice this, there's a contrast as to how the world understands fasting

as to what the Bible reveals fasting to do.

One focuses on physical aspects and benefits,

while the other focuses on a spiritual interest.

And like we've seen over the weeks, that was the problem that Jesus had with the Pharisees.

They were so taken over, so interested in the physical benefits of the things that they were doing.

Just so you know, the Jews did have a required national day of fasting on the day of Atonement,

as revealed in Leviticus 16.

And they knew that fasting was something to be done for a spiritual benefit in response to God's

incredible graces shown to their people through the atoning sacrifices that God had provided.

But it does seem that over time, the Pharisees had hijacked the practice

and they did it to be seen by others.

In fact, in Luke 18, the Pharisees boasted that they fasted more than anyone else in the nation,

up to two times a week, they would say.

In other words, fasting for some in the religious community had become more about a physical benefit for them.

Not because they wanted to look like the Justice League, but because they loved the praise of others.

We know that, it's right there in our text this morning, verse 16.

They, being the hypocrites, disfigured their faces to show others their fasting.

Now that language around disfigured faces basically means that they neglected their appearance

so that people would notice that they were on what one blues brother called it, a mission from God.

They wanted people to notice that they were neglecting food so that people would say to each other,

look at that guy, look how spiritual he is, look how holy he is, which in a sense is a false type of humility, isn't it?

It's like writing a book on humility, ten steps to being humble and how I got there in three.

That's what Jesus is going after here.

He's saying to us, disciples, when you fast, well it's an act of humility before God.

Who is in that secret place. So don't be like those you see out there with their faces all disheveled

because they want you to know how spiritual they are.

They're not people who are concerned about what God sees.

No, they're directing their fasting towards someone and that's actually towards you

so that you'll be impressed by their spiritual fervour and praise them.

Truly I told you, says Jesus, they've received their reward in full.

Now church, I want you to notice something very interesting here

and I do think it answers our first question this morning.

Our first question about if we as the disciples of Jesus are meant to fast in our day and age.

Notice this, Jesus is not condemning these people for the practice of fasting.

It's not what's going on here. He's not saying to his disciples,

see these people who are fasting, that's not good. I tell you not to fast.

It's just the opposite. Jesus says when, not if, when you fast, don't go about it like those

who want all the attention on them.

They have their reward from the fan club. They have the handclaps. They have the tip of the cap.

No, when you fast, put oil on your head, wash your face so that it won't be obvious to those around you

that you're fasting, verse 17.

In fact, I'll go so far to say that the Lord Jesus never condemns fasting,

not here nor anywhere in the New Testament. He never abolishes the practice.

Every time Jesus speaks about fasting and it does have something negative attached to the teaching,

it's only ever directed against prideful false fasting of the Pharisees.

And so I think that answers our first question this morning.

Is fasting something that is meant to be left in the past or like giving and praying,

is it something that's meant to be part of our discipleship on this side of eternity?

According to the New Testament, there is nothing to indicate that Jesus has abolished this practice for his church.

No, it's as we're reminded of here again. There are things that we are to do,

things that Jesus expects us to practice that is part of our discipleship,

part of our growth in the Christian faith.

We should be giving to those in need. We should be praying to our Father in heaven.

And in the same language used of those things, we should be fasting.

And, and this is a big and, when you go and do those acts of righteousness,

none of it should be done in such a way that it results in smug self-satisfaction.

No, it's as we'll see this morning, not only has fasting not been tossed aside to the annuals of the past,

but is supposed to result in a real sense of humility before God

that reminds us of just how dependent on God's grace we really are.

So with all that said, we might have a think here.

If we're not to neglect fasting, how on earth are we meant to go about it?

Now, as we've already seen this morning, fasting isn't something that is practiced

with a high amount of degree in the Church of Australia.

We know the statistics and to be honest with you, my dear brothers and sisters,

I know my own Christian walk. It's just not something many think or talk about.

So I do for that sake want to get pretty practical on this because

this might be the only time you've ever heard a sermon preached on fasting.

Now, going back to that definition that I gave before,

fasting is a voluntary going without food to give oneself over entirely to some task for a spiritual benefit.

I don't know about you, but that definition might conjure up all sorts of images in your mind

of maybe monks in castles all going around and humming as they don't eat,

whacking their head with a Bible.

Maybe it might give you a picture of other people who fast as a legalistic requirement of their religion.

I do understand that fasting can seem like such a foreign concept,

but believe it or not, fasting is mentioned more often in the Bible than baptism.

In fact, it's mentioned 70 times.

And so we have a massive plethora of scripture to pull from

so as to understand what spiritual benefit might be on view

and how we as the people of God might practice fasting.

Here's some things that I found helpful.

And if you're taking notes this morning, I've tried to be kind in numbering it.

So the first kind of fast that we see in the Bible is what we might refer to as a common fast.

Now, admittedly, the world does have this half right.

And that totally abstaining from food is on view here.

But water was always meant to be on hand.

So it might be referred to as a partial fast,

but it has been the most understood and practiced type of fasting in the history of the Christian faith.

Christians in church history would plan to set aside their regular meals throughout the day

so that they could engage in prayer.

Yet, they made sure they had access to water to balance things out

so that they could break their fast the next day.

Interestingly, where we get the word breakfast from, break fast.

Now, common fast didn't just have to be a day.

It could go for as long as you wanted them to,

as we saw in the case with Jesus.

He went at it for 40 days.

And not reading too much into Matthew's account,

Matthew never said that Jesus was thirsty, right?

He just said he was hungry after his fast.

That's because we can't go without water for more than any given amount of days.

Probably going without three days is pretty full on,

without some supernatural intervention.

And that's why when the Bible does record 40-day fasts of food and water,

like in the case of Moses and Elijah,

there would have been some incredible supernatural intervention to keep them alive.

If Jesus was simply abstaining from food and not water,

then I think we do have an example of a common fast in the Bible here.

The second kind of fast is what's known as a partial fast.

And for that example, I would draw your attention to Daniel when he was in Babylon.

See, after he was taken into that pagan country,

he engaged into a partial fast,

abstaining from certain kinds of food and drink,

because God's honour was in view.

He didn't want what was on offer,

and so he would only eat vegetables and drink water.

And I would commend reading Daniel chapter 1, too,

Daniel 1 · chapter mention

because it's interesting what happens there.

The third kind of fast is an extreme fast,

and what I would call an absolute fast.

And I just touched on this.

This is the kind of fast where no food or water is consumed.

Ezra tells us about this.

He engages in it in chapter 10 of his book.

But as I said before, this is a supernatural phenomena

that Moses experienced over a 40-day period.

And I call it a supernatural phenomena

because there's no way known that anyone could live

without food or water for that amount of time.

And so it's worth mentioning that it wasn't Moses that said in Deuteronomy 9,

all right, now I'm going to go on a 40-day fast to get close to God.

You won't find those words there.

No, God called Moses to that mountain and into that fast.

And Moses, as we read, was in God's presence the whole time,

being miraculously sustained,

which we should also understand happened in the case of Elijah in 1 Kings 19,

which just so happened to be the same place where Moses had done this very thing.

Now I mentioned before that Israel was called to a national day of fasting.

It was called the Day of Atonement.

But in looking at the evidence before us in just those few scriptures we've gone through,

there were other times that people could voluntarily fast as well.

And so with the passage that we have before us this morning in Matthew 6,

we can see that Jesus must not only be referring to that national day of fasting,

but also to private fasting.

And so we might say there's a fourth type of fasting, which we would call a secret fasting,

which is a secret individual abstinence from food for a period of time

because one is totally given over to the task that they have before them.

Think of King David as he interceded on behalf of his first son, conceived to Bathsheba.

But we might ask the question,

does that mean Christians can never partake in public prayer and fasting together?

Well let's say there is a fifth kind of fasting,

and we actually have an example of a church that publicly fasted together,

which we might call a corporate fasting.

And I'm of course referring to Acts 13 in that the church in Antioch came together to pray

and fast before sending missionaries into Europe.

And we see that instead of the Holy Spirit rebuking them for this public display of prayer and fasting,

he actually moves very freely among them.

And even if you read the language carefully, the Holy Spirit actually speaks to them,

sending Barnabas and Paul out to Europe.

Yet balancing what our Lord has said here in verse 17,

when you fast, put oil on your head, wash your face so that it won't be obvious to others that you're fasting,

we're meant to see that when we engage with others in prayer and fasting,

it's all about the heart attitude.

So we must keep in mind why we are fasting in the first place.

Is it because we're seeking God or are we after others well done?

It's a lot of information there church, but it's good to have a look at these things.

So first, we as the disciples of Jesus, we are to fast.

Second, we have various examples in the Bible on how to do it.

Common fasting is abstaining from food while still having access to water.

Partial fasting is refusing to eat some types of food in honor of God.

Absolute fasting is a supernatural sustaining of the human body through the miraculous work of God.

It can be done in private, yet churches are still welcome to gather together in corporate fasting.

However, as we've seen, the heart should be directed to the one in whom you're humbling yourself before

and not to your peers for their praise.

So this leads us to our final question this morning.

Why do we fast? Why?

Now you might be here this morning and thinking to yourself,

Michael, I already find it really hard to find the time to pray with my busy life.

So on top of that, you're telling me that I should skip meals as well.

So not only will I be stressed about not doing the things I know I need to be doing, but I'll be tired and hungry.

I've got to admit that the Bible says a lot on this subject.

We are only skimming over this great, great theme.

However, we do need to have a think about the words of our Lord here.

He does expect that fasting will be part of the life of the disciple.

And for his immediate audience, you'll notice it.

That just doesn't seem to be a problem for them.

Now, it just seems strange to us because we don't hear a lot about it in our day and age.

Hence, we tend to ignore the things in the Bible that seem otherworldly or foreign,

making excuses as to why fasting seems impossible to be part of our discipleship.

But if we've learned anything, Church, over the past few weeks,

Jesus isn't giving us things to do to crush us or to push us away.

No, just the opposite. He's giving us wonderful instructions to free us from the burden

of dead religious works that we put on ourselves in order,

and he's leading us to have a greater intimacy with our Heavenly Father.

It's what we've seen. He's continually leading us in ways to have that greater intimacy with our Heavenly Father.

You see, we tend to look at our own works in order to feel like we're doing the right thing.

We know in theory that we shouldn't be like that, but there is something innate in us that is pulled towards

always looking to ourselves to find the approval of others.

And we've seen this warning time and time again from the Lord Jesus

in regards to what the Pharisees were leading people to do.

We've seen it over the weeks. You've heard it taught this way, but I say unto you,

you've seen it done this way, but when you do it, do it like this.

And through the weeks, we've seen Jesus leading the way in taking our dependency off ourselves

and our works and leading us to depend more and more on our Heavenly Father.

And so fasting was abused as a way to find the approval of men.

Yet Jesus leads us here to the heart of fasting as it was given to us to be a physical act

that we practice that helps remind us of a reality, and that's that man cannot live by bread alone.

That's what's happening at the heart of Fasting Church.

It's the physical act of saying that there is something in our life that is more important than food itself.

Now as we know, we can't live very long without food, but in the act of fasting,

we're showing ourselves that there are priorities that are more important to us

than the very things we do to sustain our own lives.

That priority is God.

That priority is our relationship with Him and our time spent with Him in prayer.

When we fast, we're ordering our time in such a way that we devote ourselves to God above everything else,

even those things that are necessary for us to physically live.

I heard this put so brilliantly once.

It's very hard to ask God for your daily bread when your food is sitting right in front of you.

But that's what fasting does for the average Christian in Australia.

It reminds us that we don't actually provide for ourselves in its fullest sense,

but that we're totally reliant on our Heavenly Father to sustain not just our lives, but our very souls.

That is not a bad thing to be reminded of.

It's a great thing for us to contemplate in our very, very, very privileged lives.

I mean, we live in a consumer-soaked society that preaches to us continually

that you are the writer and provider of your own destiny.

Be whatever you want to be.

If we're not careful, that does creep into our Christian thinking.

So it is a good thing from time to time to be reminded physically that, no, there is another.

Another who provides for us in such profound ways that I don't even begin to understand.

That's why Jesus says, when you fast, aim it in such a way that it is to your Father who's unseen,

and your Father who sees what's done in secret will reward you.

Verse 18.

As we end our time in this passage this morning, we see so very clearly that fasting, it's been given to us.

Not so that we can gain the approval of others or twist God's arm into doing what we want Him to do for us,

but for the good of our own souls.

That's why we're guided by the Lord Jesus into this practice.

Now as we've seen, there's really no strict way in how we are to go about it in the New Testament age.

But in saying that, at the end of the day, fasting is a tool that's been given for the disciple to use as a way to humble us.

Humble us into not just knowing, but experiencing that we are finite beings, totally reliant on the Heavenly Father for all our needs.

Admittedly, fasting, as we've seen, has fallen out of practice in our privileged Western world.

But maybe practicing a bit of a fast will help remind us that we are not the providers of our own destiny,

but totally reliant on our Heavenly Father for all things.

I know for myself, that would foster some gratitude in my day-to-day life, which I so easily forget time and time and time again.

So church, let me encourage you with this this morning.

If you have never utilized this tool that's been put in the discipleship kit,

then along with giving and prayer, it's vital that we think about how to practically go about taking the Lord Jesus' lead in this.

It will look different for every single one of us.

But let me end by saying this.

Fasting, as we've heard this morning, is not about exposing our muscles or losing weight or impressing the religious community.

It's about coming to our Holy God in complete humility, showing that there is nothing greater or worth our attention.

It's about desiring to know just how much our Heavenly Father blesses us in the day-to-day without us even realizing it.

So might I suggest that as you put what the Lord Jesus has said to us this morning into practice,

you don't isolate it from prayer.

That's right. When you plan to practice fasting, whatever way and in however way you go about it,

don't isolate it from going to God in prayer.

Go to him in that secret place.

And please don't misunderstand me here this morning.

Fasting isn't something that manipulates our Heavenly Father into hearing us,

but it is something that reminds us how seriously we are taking the matter that we are going to our Father in prayer over.

Church, fasting is God-given and ordained.

It's ordained as a way of impressing upon ourselves the importance of the matter that we take to God in that prayer closet.

I don't know what you're going through this morning,

but if you feel like your prayers are more like text messages that just hit the roof

rather than meaningful quality time spent with your Heavenly Father,

then might I suggest you take these words seriously.

Put some quality time aside not to rest, watch TV or read,

but go into that prayer closet, go into that room,

to not think of anything else apart from the task at hand, what you're taking to your Heavenly Father in prayer.

I think that you'll find that prayer and fasting is a wonderful way to spend the time that God has so graciously given you.

Let's pray.

Father God, we thank you indeed for these very amazing words,

incredible words that can seem so countercultural to where we find ourselves here in Western Australia in 2023.

But we thank you that they are not ancient words, but living words that are directed to us now,

growing us, leading us, guiding us.

We do ask, Lord Jesus, that as we've heard these words this morning,

that as you're teaching us and as we are still on this journey of being disciples,

that you would guide us in all wisdom to put what you have said into practice.

We're not sure what that would look like for us individually or as a church,

but Lord, we don't want to disregard or push to decide anything that you have said to us.

So would you please help us? Would you please guide us by your Spirit?

And we ask for this in your precious name, Lord Jesus. Amen.