What is Fasting?

Text: Isaiah 58

Focus: Fasting

Function: To help people understand the importance of this discipline.

Form: Topical Study

Intro: I hope you have enjoyed, learned from and have been challenged by our 3 months of looking at the basics of Christianity and Christian practices. Today is our final lesson and we are studying the Christian discipline of fasting.

I know that many of you are currently on a 40 day Lenten fast. This year, my sacrifice is Chocolate, and it is funny just how much a person can crave something that they do not need!

Lent sacrifice. I was never raised with the tradition of observing Lent, practicing Advent disciplines and etc. It is important to understand that Lent sacrifices, Lenten fasts, any kind of fast, does not make one a better Christian than others.

In Luke 5:33, we read how the Pharisees tried to make themselves superior to Jesus disciples because they practiced a regular and visible fast.

Fasting isn't commanded, but the concept of fasting is throughout the Bible. And most often, it is not so much a commandment as an assumption. If you are a believer, this is something assumed of you.

So, it is good for us to look into a practice that the Bible assumes we will do.

What is a fast?

• An attitude of the heart
  • Isaiah 58 about justice
    • But it uses the discipline of fasting to teach the importance
    • It is about “being religious” versus having an heart that wants to love God and His passions.
  • Not an outside practice -it moves the heart.
  • A symbol of our desire to align ourselves with God's ways instead of ours
    • We have looked at the way Jesus symbolically lived His life
    • Fasting is a symbol of a change and desire here (point to chest) in our hearts.
• Giving something up for a period of time:
  • Ranges from everything to something small
    • Jesus and Moses fasted 40 days.
      • With no food or water
      • Obviously divine intervention.
        • One can survive between 2 and 10 days depending on temp
      • Some people do a total fast a day, 3 days or up to a week.
      • Some people fast all food, or a specific item of food or something else they enjoy
    • Apparently, Daniel fasted for 21 years.
      • It began in the first year of Darius (Daniel 11:1) and it ended in the 3^rd Year of Cyrus. (Daniel 10:1)
      • He only ate simple food. No meat, no wine and no seasonings (Daniel 10:3).
        • Although he was the second most powerful man in the kingdom
        • He was rich, wealthy and had access to the finest things that money could buy, including food.
        • He choose to eat simply as a form of fast.
        • He too was fasting for his homeland.
        • I understand that in some monasteries, the monks fasted speech.
          • Not to make light, but silent monk joke (they could speak every 7 years and just two words. After 7 years, a monk said: “Food cold” so they moved him closer to the kitchen at dinnertime. 7 years later he said: “Bed hard” so they gave him a new feather bed. 7 years later he said: “I quit” and the abbot said, “It doesn't surprise me, you have done nothing but complain since you got here.”)
  • Lenten fast is also that symbol

Why Fast?

• It is a practice assumed by Scripture
  • Not specifically commanded at any one point in time, but it is assumed that we will do it.
• Fasting reminds us of God's sovereignty
  • Jesus said “man lives by God's word”
    • Deuteronomy 8:1-5
  • It reminds us that man lives by God, not by what He can accomplish
    • It reminds us to live by faith in God.
    • Fasting then, becomes a symbol of our faith.
  • This is an important discipline.
    • Jesus tells the Devil the importance of His fast. He refers to the story:
      • They were hungry when God sent the Manna
      • God wanted them to rely on Him.
• MOST PEOPLE FAST BECAUSE THEY HAVE A SPECIFIC PRAYER REQUEST
  • Daniel was a prophet, exiled in a foreign land and he wanted assurance about the future.
  • So, he fasted in order to understand the purpose of God.
• Fasting places us in a position of humility
  • We are symbolically telling God that we depend on Him.
  • We acknowledge that God is the one who provides our life and health.
• Fasting reminds us of our connection with God.
  • For me, every time I feel that hunger pain, I remember that at this specific time, I am setting myself apart to know God, or understand His purpose.
  • The Lenten fast is unique in the fact that we attempt to bring ourselves into fellowship with Jesus who knew that He was going to go to Jerusalem and face such terrible pain.
    • Jesus willingly suffered for us.
    • So, we join in fellowship with His suffering by fasting.
    • Some work hard to forgo any pleasure
    • Others choose an item to symbolize it.

What does fasting accomplish?

• Dependence
  • That is what Jesus did
  • It proves to ourselves that we are not led by desire, but by God.
• Surrender
  • The longer it gets, the more we begin to understand what we are fasting for.
  • We want it to mean something, therefore we do not want it to be a waste of time or meaningless.
  • The more we realize that we can do without and still be happy and have a sense of peace, the better able we are to surrender to God's will.
  • The more willing we are to accept that God knows what is best for us.
• A sense of purpose
  • Daniel, although the ruler of Babylon, used his fast to remind himself that he was first and foremost God's prophet and knowing God was more important than anything else to him.
  • And again, the hunger pain, the craving reminds us that at this particular moment, we are on mission, we are on point.

Is Fasting magic? Is God obligated by our fast?

• No
• God is never obligated to bend to our will
  • My experience is that fasting bends us to God's will
  • Isaiah 58 is an important chapter about the connection between being spiritual and caring for the poor. That is the point of the chapter.
  • However, the underlying spiritual principle about fasting is that fasting may start out as a request for a specific blessing from God and in the process, God refines our requests to our concern for others and the way it affects everyone.
• But I have seen miracles happen
  • The biggest miracle is the miracle of all of a sudden, hunger pains being replaced by a time of prayer and connection to God.
    • It is a spiritual discipline with spiritual results. We somehow know, or understand, what Jesus meant when He said that man lives by the Word of God.
    • I don't know how to better describe it, but it does sharpen our spiritual focus.
    • That is probably why most major religions of the world practice fasting.
  • We also see specific answers to prayer.
    • Daniel wanted to know the future.
    • In the chapter we read that his answer was delaying for these 21 weeks of years.
    • There is a real story in the chapter about spiritual warfare and the powers of both good and evil that influence cultures. Read it, it is fascinating.

How does it change us?

• An attitude of the heart
• It helps us sort out what is important.
• It reminds us that we live by faith