How You Fast | 9/19/21
16 “And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get. 17 But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face. 18 Then no one will notice that you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in private. And your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. —Matthew 6:16–18 (NLT)
Previous Messages on Fasting
February 7th, 2021 | Shameless Audacity in Fasting
April 7th, 2019 | NEVER GIVE UP
June 8th, 2014 | New Is Better: Luke 5:33-39
BIG IDEA: HOW YOU FAST MATTERS
THOUGHT 1: AN OPPORTUNITY TO
1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. 2 For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry.
3 During that time the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.”
4 But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say,
‘People do not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
—Matthew 4:1-4 (NLT)
“It is a sobering thought that all the sin and sorrow, sickness and death in the world today stemmed, in the first instance, from tasting the forbidden fruit. But God be praised that in the fullness of time, there stepped into the arena another Man, “the last Adam” (as Paul describes Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15). He met the attack of the same tempter not in the perfect environment of paradise but in a desolate wilderness; not well nourished by the bounteous provision of Eden but with a body weakened by prolonged fasting and gripped by intense hunger… Where the first Adam failed, the last Adam triumphed. Through His death and resurrection, He has restored to man the paradise that the first Adam had lost through sin… Man, shut out from the paradise of Eden, is restored at last to the paradise of God through the obedience of the Man Christ Jesus.” —Arthur Wallis, God’s Chosen Fast
THOUGHT 2: AN OPPORTUNITY TO
3 ‘We have fasted before you!’ they say.
‘Why aren’t you impressed?
We have been very hard on ourselves,
and you don’t even notice it!’
“I will tell you why!” I respond.
“It’s because you are fasting to please yourselves.
Even while you fast,
you keep oppressing your workers.
4 What good is fasting
when you keep on fighting and quarreling?
This kind of fasting
will never get you anywhere with me.
5 You humble yourselves
by going through the motions of penance,
bowing your heads
like reeds bending in the wind.
You dress in burlap
and cover yourselves with ashes.
Is this what you call fasting?
Do you really think this will please the Lord?
6 “No, this is the kind of fasting I want:
Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;
lighten the burden of those who work for you.
Let the oppressed go free,
and remove the chains that bind people.
7 Share your food with the hungry,
and give shelter to the homeless.
Give clothes to those who need them,
and do not hide from relatives who need your help. —Isaiah 58:3-7
God’s fast does not remove or disparage appropriate ritual expressions of worship, but it integrates the attitudes of fasting with the behavior of a person before and after the fast. When one fasts and prays for divine intervention from an oppressive force (a drought, an enemy, a wicked neighbor), the ideal answer is for God to remove all oppression and give people freedom from injustice. If the people praying want or expect God to respond and bring them freedom from oppression, the people praying should do everything in their power to assist the hand of God in bringing freedom from oppression to everyone in that community. —Smith, G. (2009). Isaiah 40-66 (NAC)
ACTION POINT:
(1) FAST A MEAL THIS WEEK
(2) CONSIDER A RHYTHM OF FASTING
Take a quick moment to finish your connect card: HERE. We can’t wait to hear what Jesus is up to in your life and how we can serve you through prayer or any other needs.
