Good morning everybody. Happy Sunday. Welcome to The Edge Church online. My name is Steven Van Denend, I’m one of the pastors here. We’re so glad to have you joining with us today as we continue on in our sermon series for 2021 that we’re calling The Blueprint: Spiritual Disciplines for a God Filled Life. If you’re not familiar with the spiritual disciplines, these are, really simply, the practices that are founded and modeled for us in scripture by the people of God, that promote spiritual growth in us and amongst us as believers in Jesus.
Spiritual disciplines are not so much attitudes as they are activities. These are things that you actually do and practice regularly. Some of these practices are personal and others of these practices are corporate things that we practice in together. Ultimately, however, the spiritual disciplines are a means and not an end.
The goal or the purpose of practicing the spiritual disciplines is godliness and intimacy with God. In 1 Timothy 4:7, it says to us:
Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness (NASB).
So while you are not godly simply because you practice spiritual disciplines, by making a habit of doing these things you will grow in godliness and in your relationship with God. And really that’s our prayer for you and our prayer for our church — that we would be people who pursue Jesus. That we would be a people who grow in him, who obey him, who live lives that reflect him and what he is like to others. And so this morning, I want to talk to you about perhaps the most neglected of all the spiritual disciplines but really one that I believe is essential for our life and our growth in God — and that is fasting.
And so I pray that, as we open God’s word today, that you’re challenged and encouraged. I pray that you are built up in your faith, that you experience the love of God and that his word would just get inside of you, that his word would transform you and stir up your affections for him and make you more like he is. And, as always, at the end of every message I will leave you with some questions just for you to process to hopefully help you just kind of break down and think about this word today, or for you to talk about with the people gathered in your home or your house church gathering. Also, just a reminder that, at the end of our service, we have a virtual community group that is available to you, led by pastor Neil Schori. If you’re interested in gathering with some people online, talking about today’s message, then we invite you to be a part of that. There will be information about that in the comments section near the end of the message today.
So I just want to pray. I’m going to invite God to speak to us as we open up his word. If you’d join me:
Father, thank you for today. God, thanks for this time. Thanks for your word. Thanks for these people, God, every person tuned in now, or every person that will watch this later. Father, I pray that, God, you minister to each and every heart by your Spirit. Lord, that you would speak truth to us. God, give us ears to hear from you today. Give us hearts that are open to receive of you today and God, I pray that you would transform us by your word. God, teach us about your heart for this spiritual discipline of fasting, and God may we receive exactly what it is that you have for us today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
So, we’re talking about fasting today and to get at this, I want to answer a few questions for us that I hope will help us see God’s purpose for this spiritual discipline and stir our heart to maybe put it into practice. And so I want to answer these questions:
1. What is fasting?
2. Why do we fast?
3. What does fasting accomplish for us? What does fasting do?
And so here’s the first question: What is fasting? Well, a simple definition of fasting would be this: “Christian fasting is a believer’s voluntary abstinence from food for spiritual purposes and growth.” There are lots of fasts that people of all different beliefs and persuasions practice for all kinds of reasons, but biblical, Christian fasting is not simply some kind of self-improvement work. It is a God-directed, God-focused work. Author Tim Challies says it like this — he says that:
In fasting, you are withholding from yourself something that you need [being food] in order to pursue something that you need even more [communion with God].
Now the reason that, for why we see food being abstained from in scripture as opposed to other things is because food is something that we actually need. It’s something that we depend on for life and growth and health, and I’m certainly not saying here that there can’t be other things that we fast from that God will use to help grow us. But oftentimes, I think that we attempt to abstain from or to fast from things that we probably don’t really need anyway, and so while it might be good to fast from things like social media or Netflix or alcohol, these aren’t really things that you need. These are simply things that you may enjoy, and perhaps they are things that you ought to have some time away from anyway.
Biblical example of fasting in that we see God’s people abstaining from food because food is an actual need that we have. We feel it when we don’t eat. Think about this for a second: God created our bodies to hunger. That’s part of our design, and hunger has this great influence in our life. Doesn’t it? It actually has the ability to move and to motivate us. Hunger helps to inform our decision and even affects our emotions and our behaviors.
Have you ever been hangry? Have you ever gotten angry/hungry where you were like, “Just give me something to eat right now or stay out of my way”? Have you ever been there? Hunger is this powerful motivator, and God created our bodies to hunger. It is a good thing. It is a sign of physical health, and it makes us aware of a very real need that we have to fill up on food that fuels our body to function and grow and be healthy and thrive.
Those of you with little kids know that something is not right with your child when they no longer want to eat, when they don’t have any hunger, right? It’s one of the signs in our bodies that we have a problem when there isn’t any hunger. So hunger is a gift from God for our good, and one of the things that I love about God is that he often allows us to experience something in the natural or in the physical realm that gives us insight into something that is true in the spiritual realm, and in the same way that God created our bodies to hunger for physical food, he created our souls to hunger spiritually for him. And in fasting then, we recapture a hunger for God. I’ll talk more about that in a few minutes.
Before we get there, I want to answer the next question: Why do we fast? So that’s what fasting is, but why do we fast? Here’s the simple answer: we fast because Jesus did and Jesus assumes that we will also. Jesus did. In Luke 4, Jesus is getting ready to begin his public ministry. He’s standing on the threshold of the most important ministry and mission in the history of the world, but before this, scripture tells us that he is going to be tempted by the enemy, he’s going to be attacked, and the devil is going to try to tempt him away from God, away from his identity, away from his calling and his identity in the Lord. And how does Jesus prepare for what lies before him?
Well, scripture tells us in Luke 4 that Jesus fasts. Jesus fasts. This truth alone ought to make us consider it. Fasting was important to the life of Jesus and his ministry and God’s call upon him, then perhaps fasting might also be important for mine. I’ll answer that question for you. The answer to that is: yes, it is important for yours, okay? And if you ever wonder about how it is that you’re to walk out this Christian life, then might I suggest that looking to Jesus as your example might be the best way to do that. That’s the right place to start. And Jesus fasted. And Jesus just didn’t fast, but Jesus also assumes that we, as his disciples, will too.
In part of Jesus’ message to his followers known as The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks specifically about fasting, and in Matthew 6:16-18, he says this — he says:
16 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father in heaven, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you (NIV).
Notice what Jesus says here. Do you see it? Jesus doesn’t say, “if you fast.” He says, “when you do.” Jesus assumes that his followers will fast as he did. And the point that Jesus is making here is that fasting isn’t some kind of spectacle that you make for the sake of showing other people just how spiritual and how godly you are. Fasting Isn’t something that you do for the approval of others, but for the reward of heaven that comes from the Father. Fasting is about getting my focus off of me and putting it onto God, and so our fasting is for God, it’s to partake of him.
Later in Matthew 9:14-15, the disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus to question him about fasting and here’s what it says — it says:
14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
15 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast (NIV).
Now, Jesus here is saying some really profound things to them and to us. For one, by talking about the bridegroom, Jesus is alluding to this Old Testament imagery of God as a bridegroom and the people of God as his bride, and so what Jesus is saying here is that he is God in the flesh who has come. And so the reason that his disciples are not fasting is because he is present with them. God is here. But Jesus says that there is a day that is coming, there is a time when Jesus is not going to be present in the flesh, and that those then who follow him will indeed fast, which would include all of us today. We, as believers in Christ, filled with his Spirit, we fast because we have tasted of the Lord and nothing else will satisfy the hunger of our soul except for more of him.
What does fasting do then? I’m glad you asked. There’s a lot that could be said about what fasting does. I want to just share three things with you today and here’s the first one: in fasting, we fill up on God. In fasting, we fill up on God. Fasting causes us to draw near to God and put our focus on him and so, as we abstain from food, as we feel that hunger with that time that we would normally use to eat and indulge ourselves, instead we direct our attention to God in prayer and worship and meditation and studying God’s word. Our soul is hungry for God and we fill up on him.
This is why Jesus says to us in John 6:35, he says:
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty (NIV).
Now, it’s easy for us to read these words from Jesus or hear these and miss what he is really saying to us, because, in our day in time, bread is like an appetizer. Bread is something that is an accessory to our main course, but for those people, in that day, in that culture, bread was the main part of the meal. Bread was the centerpiece and everything else of the meal was built around it. So when Jesus is saying here that he is the bread, he is saying to us that not only is he the main course that’s going to fill up your life, that is going to sustain you, but that everything else in your life is also then to find its place around him, and so as you are pursuing Jesus in this relationship, it’s all of your life being conformed to him, Jesus making you more like him. He is informing your decisions. He is directing your steps and filling up your life.
Listen to me here. Every other thing that you pursue in this life, everything that you chase after, everything that you look to to fill your life and to satisfy you, is going to ultimately leave you empty. Everything. I promise you. God says so, okay? Everything except for Jesus, everything except for being with him, knowing with him, walking with him, trusting in him, living for him. He is it. okay? So don’t waste your life spending it on things that will only leave you starving and never truly satisfied. Instead, fill up on the one thing that truly satisfies, the one thing that will truly fill your life — the presence of God.
Psalm 107:9 tells us that he, being God, He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness (NKJV). The satisfaction for our soul is found in God, in being with him. See, fasting doesn’t cause God to be present with us. Okay? Fasting doesn’t like make God show up for us. God is never absent. Right? He is always with us. Fasting helps us to be present with him.
Guess what? The way that it works too is that the more of God that you have, the more of God you actually want. The more of God you experience, the more of him that you want to experience. See, in the physical realm, you get hungry by not eating, but in the spiritual realm, you get hungry by eating. You get more hungry by tasting, right? Your hunger is increased by being satisfied. That’s an amazing thing. Have you ever eaten something that was so good, that though you were full, you still wanted more of it?
For me, I think about Thanksgiving. I love going to my mom’s at Thanksgiving. I love the food that they make and, by the end of that, I am totally stuffed. Usually I’m absolutely satisfied, but yet I’m still wanting more. There’s still as part of me that says, “I just want a little bit more of that.” This is kind of how it is with God, okay? God fills us and we’re completely full, and yet there is still more of him that we desire, more that we want to have. In fasting, we fill up on God.
Here’s the second thing about fasting. Fasting exposes our hearts and our hurts. Fasting is like an MRI for our soul. In his book A Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster says, “more than any other discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us.”
Do you know that the number one drug of choice for comfort is not alcohol, but food? Have you ever heard the phrase that you can eat your feelings? Well, you actually can and many people do, and here’s the way that it works: That you have this script that is running in your brain, that, most of the time, you’re not even consciously aware of, and it’s a tool of the enemy that he uses against you, where the voice that you hear throughout your day or in moments throughout the day says things like, “yeah, you’re never going to be good enough anyway.” Right? “They don’t actually like you or love you or care about you anyway. Nobody really does. You’re just a failure, and you’ll always be.” Or maybe it’s just this one: “You will always just be [fill in the blank].”
You know what shuts up that voice for a little bit? Cookie dough ice cream, right? You know what shuts that up for a little bit? A big ole piece of pizza at 10 o’clock at night, right? What fasting does is it takes away this unhealthy defense mechanism, this distraction that we try and use to protect ourselves to feel different and instead, it forces us to deal with what is inside of us, our emotions, our anger, our hurt, our sin. And so that, instead, we bring all of those things to God and invite him to do a deep work within us.
Let me remind you of this as a son or daughter of God: that God never brings about conviction to shame you, okay? God never brings about conviction to guilt you and shame you. God always brings conviction, God always exposes things within you, to lead you into greater life, to lead you into the fullness of life that God has for you in him. So as you feel things in fasting, don’t push God away but lean into him. It is for your good and for your growth. It is an opportunity for God to minister healing to you. Fasting is like an MRI revealing things within us.
Lastly, this: fasting releases supernatural power. Fasting releases supernatural power. God moves supernaturally in response to fasting, and I’m not saying that, in fasting, we somehow control God or bend God to our will and our desires. It’s not like fasting is the lamp and that we can rub and then God comes up and does whatever that we want him to do. I’m just saying that, in fasting, God works in supernatural ways.
There’s this great scene in the gospels. You can read it in Mark 9 and in Matthew 17. But in this story, Jesus’ disciples are trying to cast out a demon and, up to this point, they’ve been pretty good at it. Actually, Jesus had sent out 72 disciples and it says that he gave them the power and authority to drive out demons and to heal the sick, and they’ve been doing this work. In fact, it says that they come back bragging a little bit saying things like “Man, even the demons obey us.” But for some reason, they are having trouble and not being able to release the demon to minister deliverance to this boy who is demon-possessed. And so Jesus shows up and he says, “Listen, bring the boy to me.” And so they do and, of course, Jesus, he just rebukes this demon, right? And he just commands him to come out, and the demon leaves. And the disciples are watching all this happen and they’re sort of like, “What the heck?” Right? Like, “What’s up with this, Jesus?” Like, “Why didn’t this work for us?” And Mark 9:28-29, it captures this for us, and here’s what it says:
28 After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
Listen to Jesus’ answer here:
29 He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer and fasting” (NIV).
You see this? The disciples are like, “Why could we not do this work, Jesus? Why could we not overcome this? Why could we not see the breakthrough in this situation?” And Jesus says, “Listen, I’m going to let you all in on a little bit of a spiritual secret here: There are some things, some spiritual issues that require a different spiritual application in order for there to be breakthrough, in order to be overcome, and for those things, it’s going to require fasting.
For most things, we pray and we ask the Lord, right? But there are some things, at some times in our life Jesus tells us, that require not just our prayers but also our fasting. Jesus obviously, clearly understood this truth, which is why we see Jesus fasting and why he then invites us to do the same, because there is a different measure of power that is released to us and through us in fasting to experience supernatural breakthrough in the Spirit. It is a supernatural work. I don’t understand exactly how all of it works. That’s what makes it supernatural, okay? All I know is that Jesus says so, so it must be true, and don’t you really want to find out?
As I think about this, it makes me wonder then if there isn’t maybe something in our lives, or maybe in the lives of others that we have been praying for, that something that hasn’t yet been overcome, where there hasn’t yet been freedom, where we haven’t seen or experienced a breakthrough, not because we haven’t prayed, but perhaps because we haven’t fasted and, until we do, nothing will change. Some things only move by prayer and fasting.
So, why do we fast? We fast to fill up on God and to experience more of his presence. We fast for our hearts and our hurts to be exposed so that God, the healer, can do a work in us, and we fast for the supernatural power of God to be released in and through us. I want to invite you this morning, church, to partake of the spiritual discipline of fasting, that you might experience God’s presence and his work in and through your life in deeper ways and perhaps even in new ways in this new year.
I want to wrap up and close just by leaving you with a couple of questions and a challenge this morning. A couple of questions for you to help maybe think through, to process, as you’re thinking about this spiritual discipline of fasting, or to take some time to talk about with the people in your home or your house church gathering. Three questions and a challenge:
What is your biggest takeaway from the message today? What is one thing that, as you hear about fasting, that just resonates most deeply in your heart? That’s the first question. Here’s the second question.
In all honesty, what have you been filling up on in your life and soul? What are the things that you most consume? What are the things that you’ve just been feeding yourself? I’m not talking about physically; I’m talking about your soul. What is it that you’ve been investing into your heart and your soul?
And then, thirdly, here’s the challenge, okay? Here’s the challenge I want to leave you with and give to you. I want to challenge you this week to set aside a time to engage in this discipline of fasting and filling up on God.
Now, that can look like a lot of different things, okay? And depending on your experience with fasting or not, that might change the way that you approach this. So I would say this: if you’re new to fasting, if you’re like, I’ve never fasted before, then I’d encourage you to maybe just start with a meal, like a breakfast or a lunch or a dinner, or — perhaps if you’re up for it — maybe even two, maybe even breakfast and lunch. If you’ve fasted before, maybe you just take a day to fast. Maybe you pick one day this week, you say, “God, I’m going to fast and pursue you and seek you.” Right? And maybe you’re somebody that, if you’re honest, you’ll say, well, physically, that’s not good for me to go without food and eating. Then I would just say this, ask the Lord what it is that God would have you fast from. Ask the Lord what it is that he would have you just abstain from during this week as a way of just seeking the Lord, focusing on him, drawing near to him, encountering him and getting after the things of God. Okay?
One of the things that I’ve put together for you guys is a fasting guide. In there is just some information about fasting, ways to approach it, ways to enter into that. That’s going to be available for you on our Facebook page. So you can check that out. I hope that that helps you to kind of navigate your time, but I’m praying for you that you would dare to step into this thing. Step into this discipline of fasting and see how God meets you in it. I’d also encourage you to grab a journal in that time, listen for God, write down things that God’s speaking to you because God will minister in your time.
I want to just pray for us and then we’ll close our time:
Father, thanks for today. Thanks for your word. God, thanks for this spiritual discipline of fasting, Lord, that you’ve given to us that you’ve set an example for us to follow. God, I pray that, Lord, we would follow you in it and, God, that as we dare, Lord, to fast and to pursue you, that, God, you would meet us. God, that you do a work in us, God, that you’d expose things in our hearts. God, that you’d expose wounds and hurts and that, God, we would invite you in and, Holy Spirit, that you would do a work in us. God, I pray that power would be released to your people. God, that we would see and experience breakthrough in our lives and in the lives of others. God, may your word continue to produce good fruit in us. God, may your words stir in our hearts this week and lead us into deeper things of you, God, into a greater pursuit of you, that, Lord, would you just transform and change us. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well guys, we are gonna close here. Go ahead and take some time just to answer those questions. If you want to just hold on for a couple of minutes, then our worship team will close us with a song. God bless you guys. Have a great week.