Feasting on God - Fasting

Q: When thinking about fasting, what kinds of people come to mind?
-John the Baptist, legalists, health nuts
-Q: What about Jesus? He practiced and taught fasting!

Q: How many people do you know who practice fasting regularly?
Q: How many sermons have you heard on it?
-In most religious circles it’s hardly mentioned.
-Yet in scripture it’s mentioned more than baptism (77 to 75)

I. What is biblical Fasting?
• Fasting refers to the abstaining from food for spiritual purposes.
-it’s distinct from health dieting…crash dieting
-always centers of a spiritual purpose

• Typical Fast
-In scripture the normal (typical) means of a fasting involves abstaining from all food, solid or liquid, but not from water.

Luke 4:1-2
-He was hungry…it mentions nothing of thirst.
-Also, since the body can normally function no longer than three days with our water, we can assume that he drank during this time

• Partial Fast
-a limitation of the diet, but not a complete withdrawal from all foods

Daniel 1:12, 10:3
-Him and three other young men only ate vegetables and drank water for 10 days
-Daniel mourned for three weeks, and ate not choice food…meat or wine

Matt. 3:4
-John the Baptist only ate Locust and honey

• Absolute Fast
-Without food or water

Ester 4:16
-She requests that the Jews fast and pray for her and to not eat or drink for three days

Acts 9:9
-For three says Paul was blind and did not eat or drink anything

• Supernatural Fast
-Moses and Elijah went 40 says and night without food and water
-In Deut. 9:9 & 1 Kings 19:8

• Congregational Fasts
-Can be a wonderful and powerful experience when a group is of one mind and purpose.

Acts 13:1-3
-Prior to the send off of Paul and Barnabus on the first missionary journey

II. Is Fasting a Command?
• Jesus first teaches fasting in the Sermon on the mount

Matt. 6:16-18
-Smack dab in between praying and giving
-It is as if there is an unconscious assumption that all three are all part of a Christians life.
-Yet somehow fasting gets often neglected
-Although Jesus does not say If you fast…neither does he say you must fast…simply when!

Matt. 9:14-15
-Jesus says a time will some when his disciples will fast…That time is NOW!

Q: Why is fasting not widely practiced?
-Is it possible that in our society it is easier to give a dollar than to miss a meal?
-Fasting today involves a greater sacrifice than giving money or praying

• And just like all the spiritual disciplines it is not to be a legalistic routine, but it is a privilege and an opportunity to seek God’s will and grace as often as we desire!

III. The purpose of Fasting
• Jesus very first teaching on Fasting dealt with motives
-It is so easy to take a godly thing and try to use it to get what we want
-Fasting must be God centered and not self centered

Zech. 7:5
-Here a delegation has been sent from Bethel to Jerusalem to inquire of the Lord. The issue at hand is the continuance of 2 fasts the Jews had held to commemorate the destruction of the temple. For 70 years they had kept these fasts, but now they wondered if they were still necessary since they had been restored to their land and were building a new temple.
- If our fast is not unto God…we have failed
• More than any other discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us!
- If it’s Pride, Anger, Jealousy, Bitterness, Strife…if they are within us the will surface.

Psalm 35:13 David says, “I humbled myself with fasting”

• Fasting entails feasting on God.

Matt. 4:4
-Fasting reminds us that we are sustained not by food, but by the word of God

Ex. If you were going to a feast…you don’t get a snack on the way… you are going to throw down when you get there…Fasting means to feast on the Word of God

John 4:31-34
-my food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work
-That’s why in Matt. 6 he says, “Do not act miserable when fasting” because in fact we are not…we are feeding on God and his will!

IV. The practice of Fasting

• If fasting is not common to you…start with a progression…1, 2, 3 meals.

1 Cor. 9:27
- You are to be the master of your stomach, not its slave

• Don’t be anxious
- Its silly really…the thought of missing a meal for God gets us all worried about our days
- Yet we often miss meals for busy days, shopping, recreation, studying, and lack of money!

-The point is: Whenever we believe an activity is more important than a meal…we naturally give it up without fear or anxiety.

• Outwardly you should perform all the normal duties of your day, but inwardly you should be in prayer, song, meditation, and worship to God

• The only ones who should know are those who have to know

*Fasting can brink breakthroughs in our lives, hearts, and characters that would have never happened without it.