What To Eat When You Fast

We are taking the month of January, the entire month, as a time of fasting and prayer And we are going to be praying together.

Now we're not asking you to do a 30-day fast unless you are directed by the Spirit to do so.

You're certainly welcome to do that.

I hope you prepare for that.

We could talk about that.

But we are asking you to take time through the month of January.

However you decide to do it a day fast and so forth and so on And we're going to be praying in our house churches.

As Paul just announced, our house churches are going to be adding a meeting on their off weeks just for prayer, as well as praying during the regular weeks.

And if you're not in a house church, this is an excellent time to come and connect with a house church and spend these four meetings or some of the meetings, if you can't get to all of them praying with us.

We are sending out prayer topics to our house church leaders that we want to pray together as a church.

We'll be praying for gospel understanding.

We'll be praying for the working of the Spirit in our midst.

We'll be praying for other things being missional and being a church that really is getting the gospel out And we want to do this in our house churches And, of course, we want you to also join in your personal prayer.

As far as fasting, what I want to do in this message for a few minutes this morning is to prepare you for fasting And again, probably this is unnecessary, as I thought about it, because most of you have overeaten and are ready for a 30-day fast.

Remember that in Scripture there are different kinds of fasts.

There are.

One of the popular fasts in Scripture seems to be a three-day fast.

Any normal healthy person can do a three-day fast where you just drink water or even juices.

Some in Scripture there's the Levitical fast, where people don't eat until sundown, and I do a lot of those fasts where you only eat one meal in the evening.

That's a good fast.

And there are, of course, longer fasts And maybe some of us in the body will be directed by the Holy Spirit to do longer fasts seven days to 21 days.

We have done 40-day fasts and I really think you need more than a day preparation for that.

You might be directed to do a seven to 21-day fast where people only drink liquids and no solids, and I trust that if you feel directed to do a longer fast.

You will prepare your body and not just rush into it, and you can find good information on the web about how to prepare your body.

But what I want to do in this message is take a few minutes and motivate you for this time of fasting, and I'm calling this What to Eat When You're Fasting.

So turn with me in your Bibles to the first Psalm, verse 1 of Psalm 1, blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

And turn over quickly to Psalm 16.

And David says this in Psalm 1611, you make known to me the path of life.

In your presence there is fullness of joy.

At your right hand are pleasures evermore.

And finally, this morning, if you turn with me to the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, the great Hall of Faith as it was, and we want to look at specifically at what the writer of Hebrews records about Abraham I'm sorry about Moses in verse 24, by faith, moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

Father, i pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus, that every man and woman in this room this morning, and men and women in this church who could not make it this morning that you entice us, seduce us with a greater pleasure found in you than that which the world, the flesh and the devil could ever offer.

I plead with you to give me strength to impart this, and it would be an empowering for this season of fasting and prayer.

Lord, i pray that you speak to every member of this church about what you would have them to do in participating with this time of fasting and prayer, whether it's meals or days of not eating, or perhaps even weeks.

Whatever it is, lord, not only call each one to what you want, but empower each one by the pleasures and delights found in you to say no to our bodies and the gratification of our flesh, to say yes to the Holy Spirit of God.

We ask it in Jesus' name and everyone said amen.

Okay, i'm not crazy when I'm calling this what to eat when you're fasting, because you might be surprised by me saying this, but listen to me Fasting, if properly understood, is really about feasting Feasting in God.

It's not about giving up food for its own sake.

How many of you have ever fasted and had the Holy Spirit bust you because you really were doing a hunger strike?

I've done one week fast where I wasn't thinking about God and Jesus but about Burger King.

Have it your way.

I, even you, know it gets the point where crystals looks inviting.

But here's the deal Fasting is not really about giving up food for its own sake, but about being so hungry for God.

You're not even thinking about eating.

Some people fast, but it is little more than a hunger strike because they're focused on not eating.

But what we should do when we fast is think about eating.

We should think richly about eating.

We should become spiritual gluttons.

The reason we fast biblically is we are motivated by something other than food and our own needs.

Fasting is really about the heart crying out I want this more than my necessary food.

That's how Jesus remember summed it up in the wilderness when he was fasting for 40 days.

And the devil tempts him to eat.

And his retort was man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that precedes from the mouth of God.

And that's what fasting is about.

This is what this message is about.

It's about really being hungry for God, so hungry for God, and forget about your own bodily needs for a time to pursue Him.

I like the way Wesley Duel, in one of his books, stated what fasting is.

He said, quote fasting in the biblical sense is choosing not to partake of food because your spiritual hunger is so deep, your determination in intercession so intense or your spiritual warfare so demanding, you temporarily set aside even fleshly needs to give yourself to prayer and meditation.

But I want to take it further.

Let me tell you what this message is about, and then I'll try to prove it from Scripture.

Fasting really is about finding pleasure in things other than food and entertainment and sex and everything else the world can offer.

It's ultimately about finding pleasure in God.

One day a Bible teacher came on the radio and here's what he said.

He said these words the greatest single insight I've ever had in studying Scripture, the single most important principle I ever discovered, is this The goal or purpose of the Christian life is to glorify God, not to be happy.

And I'm sure that when he said that, thousands of listeners in radio land agreed.

The goal of the Christian life is to glorify God, not be happy.

And I myself once would have wholeheartedly agreed with that statement, because I grew up in a church where we were taught that God was more interested in my holiness than my happiness and therefore I should put my happiness aside and seek to be holy.

And in my mind for years holiness and happiness were antithetical.

They were opposed to each other.

If you were going to be holy, face it, you're going to be miserable.

I want to stand here this morning and tell you unabashedly I no longer agree with the evangelist statement on radio.

In fact, i want to assault you with this thought I actually believe the opposite is biblical, that the goal or purpose of the Christian life is the pursuit of happiness, but a happiness found completely in God.

Now don't get me wrong.

I understand where that Bible teacher was coming from, because we're all sick of the self-centeredness of not only our world but the majority of the church.

It's nauseating.

Our theology is so sick that we have construed a God who serves us, and I understand what he was saying He was echoing the proper biblical belief that God's glory must be paramount in the way we live our lives.

But unfortunately, in doing that and saying that, he was creating this tension between God's glory and our happiness.

And somehow he said they are opposed and you have to choose.

Here is the truth that will set you free.

They are not opposed, they are gloriously wedded.

Your happiness and God's glory are not opposed.

You can have both.

In fact, i want to shock you even more and say I glorify God most when I am most satisfied in Him.

Somebody was glorifying a movie to me, so I had to see it because they were glorifying, they were praising it And nobody was paying them to do it.

They took delight, they found pleasure in this flick and they were talking about it And I said I've got to see it because they're so delighted with it.

Now, this is a concept that is probably difficult for some of us to really understand.

Many here might be uncomfortable with it.

I mean, you might be thinking aren't we supposed to serve God and forget about our own happiness and live a life of sacrifice?

But here's the thing I want to say to you.

Listen carefully.

The fact is it is impossible.

Impossible for a human being to live without seeking his or her happiness.

It's not that we shouldn't seek our happiness.

It is that there is a law of our soul that says men and women will always seek to be happy, no matter what.

And you should never be ashamed of that desire.

It is no different than, and as natural as, the desire for hunger.

How many of you are hungry right now?

I haven't had breakfast.

I'm hungry.

I'm not ashamed, i'm not hanging my head and telling you I'm hungry.

I'm hungry.

It's natural.

If you skip breakfast and you preach, i'll be looking for a Burger King very shortly.

And so it is that the desire to be happy, to be satisfied, is natural.

The philosopher Blaise Pascal.

He talked about happiness as the natural desire of all men.

He said it this way, quote all men seek happiness.

This is without exception.

Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end.

The cause of some going to war and of others avoiding it is the same desire in both, attended with different views, the will never takes the least step.

But to this object of happiness.

This is the motive of every action, of every man, even of those who hang themselves.

Now I remember first reading that and saying what Pascal?

you're nuts, you're telling me that someone hangs himself because he wants to be happy.

But then I thought about it, because I originally thought, well, someone's hanging themselves because they're so unhappy.

But then I realized what Pascal was saying.

The truth is, men and women who commit suicide do so because they believe, unfortunately, that death will bring them more happiness than life ever could.

So even in the attempt to take your life, it is motivated by a greater desire to be happy.

They believe, unfortunately, that death will deliver them from the miseries of life.

So it is a law of the human soul that we seek to be happy.

It is natural.

But somehow many Christians have convinced themselves that the only way to act virtuous is to compel ourselves to do something against our native desire to be happy.

I grew up believing that the worth of my acts was determined by the depth of pain and sacrifice I endured when I performed it.

Now, having laid that foundation, and I'm sure you're not all convinced, come with me into the texts that we read this morning.

Three of them, because they all use the same word.

All three have the word pleasure in them.

One says delight, but it is also translated pleasure.

The psalmist in Psalm 16 talked about, at your right hand, our pleasures.

Forevermore.

Moses found greater pleasure in identifying with a race of slaves than he did enjoying all the treasures of the Egyptian court.

Apparently, from these three texts and I could produce a string of others apparently God is interested in our pleasure And, as I said earlier, that's not.

Pleasure was not a word that was used in our Pentecostal church for the Christian life.

Pleasure was the word used for what you did before you were a Christian and unfortunately, in some church experiences I was taught.

You know, i was the Psalm one Christian.

We were big on verse one of Psalm one.

That was our verse in our Pentecostal church.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the godly or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the scornful.

And that was it.

We started our Christian life by determining what we didn't do.

We didn't walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners, and we were the not do people.

The Christian life was characterized for me by what you didn't do And in fact you signed a card to get into this church saying what you wouldn't do?

I think it was smoking and drinking and bowling.

I think it was bowling.

I never figured out why bowling was demonic, i know, actually I think one was going to the movies, and so there's no hope for me.

But one day, as a young Christian, i read Psalm one, verse two Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly or sit in the seat of the scornful or stand in the way of sinners, but his delight is in the law of the Lord.

And that verse jumped out and assaulted me.

I said what is that delight?

My Christian life at the time was not characterized by the word delight.

It was characterized by the word duty.

And I tried to look up delight in the Hebrew so I could do away with it.

But it was worse, because most times that Hebrew word is translated pleasure.

Here's a man saying yes, we're in covenant with Jehovah.

We don't walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners, but we are men and women who find great pleasure in the law of God.

So pleasurable is the law that day and night we make it our meditation.

And I learned that the godly man is not just a man characterized by what he doesn't do, but by the delight, the pleasure in the things he does do.

See, i had learned what God expected at me, but I had never found listen because this goes to the heart of white grace as the only means of living the Christian life I never seemed to find.

Though I had a heart to obey, i never found the power to carry it out.

I was not finding pleasure.

In fact, i was asking tough questions, like you know.

How do I give generously when my heart is held captive to greed and materialism?

Or how do I love irritating people when I can't stand the sight of them?

I know you've never asked that in this church Or how do I walk in sexual purity when my flesh rages with sinful passions and lust?

Or how do I serve in the children's ministry when, the truth is, i don't want to be bothered.

And I began to learn that no amount of appeals to shame or fears or threats could work to change me.

And I found a quote by a man that sums up the way I lived the Christian life before I burst into an understanding of the grace of God in Scripture.

Before long I found myself living as Jeff Imbach describes when he says, quote life becomes proscribed by all the things we should avoid and prescribed by all the things we must be careful to do.

We're so busy trying to demonstrate our spiritual correctness that we lose the art of living out of our souls.

We downsize our souls to achieve a safer bottom line of religious acceptability.

We are left to live between the rock of crisp, correct religious rules and the hard place of duty-bound activity as supposed proof of our spiritual fervor.

What became evident to me in those early years is that I knew the rules, i knew what was expected, but no one had ever taught me that the power to live the Christian life was found in learning to take great pleasure in God Himself.

And I am convinced today which is why I will not do it that the religious approach to dissuading people from sinning is seriously flawed.

We spend time in the church focusing on sin and focusing on the negative and telling people what we shouldn't do, and we use threats and prohibitions to try to get them to obey God.

And we do so by drawing up lists of proscribed activities that Christians can do and people and events that define the Christian life, and we throw in not only Scripture, but we throw in a few of our own.

Everybody has, every church has their private list of taboos, and what has holiness become according to this pattern?

It's measured essentially by how successful we are in saying no to our list of personal prohibitions, and so what happens ultimately is our identity in Christ therefore becomes defined by what we don't do.

But I have this question this morning In the long run, how effective in our fight against sin are prohibitions and threats?

Do you find yourself more and more conformed to the image of Jesus because of your list of dos and don'ts?

Don't get me wrong.

I'm not suggesting there isn't a place for warnings and threats of punishment.

The Bible is full of them, i'm aware of that, and they are for our welfare and should be heeded.

But here is what I'm saying In the long run, it takes more than threats to energize our hearts towards God.

It takes grace, a grace that allows us to find greater pleasure in God than anything the world has to offer.

What we need to do and let me take a moment and do it this morning is we really need to examine the reasons we sin.

Does anybody know the reasons we sin?

Very few people inquire about why they sin.

They just do it, but they remain clueless as to why they sin.

How many know one thing's for sure we don't sin out of a sense of moral duty.

How many woke up this morning and said okay, let's see, i need to commit four sins before breakfast and six after lunch?

No, we don't sin because we feel like we have to.

We're not under a moral rule of sinning.

Why then do we sin?

It's very simple, but listen to this.

It is critical to grace.

We sin because of the pleasure it brings, because it makes us feel good.

In fact, the Hebrews passage we read confirms it.

It refers to the passing pleasures of sin.

In a nutshell, we sin because we are convinced that the passing pleasure it will bring us is greater than what God can give us.

The power of temptation is the false promise that sin will make us happier than God.

Let me give you a definition of sin.

It's not original with me, but it's the best I found.

It's so simple but profound.

Sin is what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God.

Sin is what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God.

Sin taps us on the shoulder and here's what sin says You deserve better than God is giving you.

Right now He's holding out on you.

You deserve to feel good about yourself.

Come to me, i'll make you feel real good.

And we give in to the lie that sin promises more pleasure than God can give.

And if you grasp this this morning, this simple but profound reality, you will have a working definition of the only way, biblically, to successfully resist sin.

This on your refrigerator, telling you what to do and won't do, aren't enough.

The only way to fight the seductive power of sin is by replacing it with a greater pleasure.

And it is only by replacing the pleasure of sin with the greater pleasure of knowing God that the seduction to sin is cripple.

Pastor John Piper said it this way, quote faith stands or falls on the truth that the future with God is more satisfying than the one promised by sin.

Where this truth is embraced and God is cherished above all, the power of sin is broken.

Sin has power through promising a false future.

In temptation, sin comes to us and says the future with God on his narrow way is hard and unhappy, but the way I promise is pleasant and satisfying.

The power of sin is in the power of this lie.

So to live a godly life, to be hungry for God.

So you say no to the passing pleasures of sin as well as your own physical desire for food when you're fasting.

We basically have two choices We can devote our time and energy to trying to dissuade ourselves and others how bad sin is and retort to threats of punishment and the like, hoping that by doing so we will diminish the power of sin.

Or we can demonstrate the beauty and the splendor of all that God is for us in Jesus.

So we are enticed by a rival affection.

By the grace of God.

This morning I have not committed adultery.

But I have not committed adultery just because there's a statement in the law that says I shall not commit adultery.

I haven't committed adultery because I'm so satisfied with Shelly.

I don't need anyone else or want anybody else.

I'm satisfied.

The only way to liberate the heart from servitude to the passing pleasures of sin folks is by cultivating a passion for the joy and delight of beholding the beauty of God.

In the face of the Lord Jesus Christ.

At your right hand, there are pleasures forevermore.

What breaks the power of sin is faith in the promise that the pleasures of sin are temporary and toxic, but that there are pleasures at God's right hand that far exceed the pleasures of this world.

One author says it this way this is kind of corny.

I give you a warning if you don't like corn you might want to leave now, but it's true and you can do an acid test on your Christian life right now.

He said it this way pleasure is the measure of our treasure.

Mark, could you write a song using?

is it possible?

Pleasure is the measure of our treasure.

I just wrote it.

Pleasure is the measure of your treasure.

It's not the measure we've used to depict the Christian.

We've used the metric that a Christian is the one obeying the rules.

He's hating it.

In fact, in my early church I discovered something.

We were the people that didn't do certain things, but we sure wish we could have.

So, as you're fasting and praying over this next month, however, you're led of the Lord and we aren't telling you what to do.

I am releasing you to God, trusting that the Holy Spirit will put on your heart what you need to do, if anything, and I believe that all of us can fast in some way, and I hope you will.

I realize there are a lot of us that have demanding jobs.

Physically we can't do long fasts.

Maybe you can take your lunch break and get off with God instead of eating, open the Word of God and get in prayer.

My prayer for all of us this month is that we would move, as a people, from duty to delight, from duty to delight.

So I want you to ask yourself the following questions during the fast.

I'll be posting them on the website and we'll be sending them out to the house, church leaders, but ask yourself these four questions while you're fasting this month.

Do I take great delight in God and His Word more than anything else, but His delight is in the law of the Lord.

Does that characterize you?

Is delight a Word?

Or do you come to Scripture out of duty and you read it dutifully every morning and it's like reading right readers digest, but you read because you're obligated to read the Word.

Or do you find delight in God and you come to Scripture like a lover would come to a love letter, because this is a correspondence from His or her lover?

Number two am I more enticed by the pleasures God offers than the pleasures this world offers?

We will never, as a church, stand here and tell you what movies to see or not to see, what to watch on TV.

I trust you have discernment, but the greater issue for me that grieves me is much of the church is no different from the world in terms of entertainment and addiction to entertainment, and now video games and internet surfing, and all of this can be a blessing, but are you enticed more by the pleasures of God than you are by the pleasures this world offers For those that have a stomach?

here's a third inquiry.

I'd like you to ask the Lord this month What idols have control of my heart Fear of man, unbelief, lust.

One of the things that the Holy Spirit does is He doesn't ask you to always look within and walk around in introspection.

That's not the Christian position to always be looking within.

It's looking away to Jesus and trusting that the Holy Spirit of God can reveal idols in your heart, such as fear of man and unbelief and lust.

And every time I seriously fast and ask the Lord to search me according to Psalm 139, it's just an amazing thing to see what the Holy Spirit does And finally ask the Lord what heart work?

what heart work do I want God to perform during this fast?

There are men and women in this room that are addicted to television.

One is the way I like to say it is.

It's a good servant and a lousy master.

Maybe you're a man or woman that can't not watch and you have shows you have to watch And it's not.

I'm not talking about watching wicked things, but maybe during this fast could it be, could it be the Holy Spirit will say turn off the two.

And we've done fasts.

We did them in Florida several times.

Bob and Debbie remember We did media fast and I think people had a harder time with that than food sometimes.

You know, i was going to go to this retreat center and pray and fast and someone said well, there's no internet and there's no TV and you probably won't get cell phone coverage.

I started shaking already.

I never went.

What heart work do you want God to perform during this month?

Maybe there's an untoward addiction to entertainment.

Maybe you're enslaved to food, maybe you're enslaved to other things, but let God perform heart work because the reality is pleasure is the measure of our treasure.

You see, grace changes you at heart level.

It's not about trying to live up to an external code.

It's allowing the Holy Spirit within the citadel of your heart to do radical heart work.

Let's close by praying together that, these four requests, and we're going to be praying for many things pertaining to Trinity that were presently involved in house churches gospel outreach things we're doing.

We're going to be praying for that in our house churches.

These requests that I just gave you are more for your own personal life during this month of January.

This is a good way to start the year.

Would you stand with me, father, help us during this time?

We thank you for these days of fasting and prayer And again, we trust you, father, to speak to every man and woman in this room as to what they should do.

But, lord, we desire to come out of this time taking greater delight in you and your word than anything else.

We want to be enticed by the pleasures of God more than the pleasures that this world offers.

So, lord, whatever idols have control of our hearts during this time fear of man, unbelief, lust, covetousness, whatever they are.

Father, we humble ourselves before you.

Keep us from introspection, but we want Holy Ghost inspection.

Father, i pray that every man and woman in this room and the partners that aren't here would begin to have the Holy Spirit form within them, a prayer request asking what heart work that they want God to perform during these days of prayer.

We just commit it to you in the mighty name of the Lord Jesus.