Jeff Miller

June 29, 2025

The Heart of Religion

The Secret to Fasting

Jeff Miller

June 29, 2025

The Heart of Religion

Introduction:

What is fasting? – Abstaining from food (and/or other things) for measured periods of time in order to heighten my hunger for the things of God.

What Am I Really Hungry For? (Matthew 6:16–18)

Am I hungry for ATTENTION ... (Matt 6:16)
...or am I hungry for GOD? (Matt 6:17–18)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:50-00:50
Matthew chapter 6. Are you there?
00:52-00:53
Look at verse 1.
00:54-00:57
This is the greatest sermon ever preached.
00:58-01:01
And here Jesus is talking about the heart of religion.
01:02-01:05
And this is how this whole section starts.
01:06-01:13
Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.
01:13-01:16
For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
01:18-01:25
Jesus says, beware of trying to impress people with your religious acts.
01:27-01:35
Beware of doing your church stuff in a way that you want people's attention.
01:37-01:42
And specifically, Jesus goes after three things here.
01:42-01:52
He goes after giving and praying and fasting.
01:57-02:05
And you know, anytime that I teach or preach about fasting, I always feel like I'm playing from behind.
02:08-02:21
What I mean is, you know, people recognize giving and praying as normal religious things that God's people do.
02:22-02:24
Those are kind of no brainers.
02:27-02:28
But fasting?
02:32-02:34
Well, look at verse 16.
02:36-02:42
Look at the first phrase, Jesus says, "And when you fast," stop there.
02:43-02:45
When you fast.
02:46-02:47
You know what that phrase tells me?
02:50-02:57
That phrase tells me that fasting is just as expected as giving.
02:59-03:04
Fasting is just as expected as praying.
03:07-03:08
Let's bow our heads.
03:08-03:21
I'm gonna ask that you would please pray for me to be faithful, to communicate a passage and a concept that's very simple and very hard at the same time.
03:21-03:27
Pray for me and I will pray for you that our hearts would be open to receive what God wants to tell us today.
03:34-03:36
Transform us, Father, by the power of Your Word.
03:37-03:40
We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
03:43-03:45
Let's talk about fasting, shall we?
03:48-03:52
Our culture is obsessed with food, have you noticed?
03:54-03:55
Turn on the TV.
03:57-04:03
If the commercial's not about a pharmaceutical, what's the commercial about?
04:04-04:05
Food, right?
04:07-04:09
Food, get on social media.
04:09-04:11
You'll find somebody took a picture of their hamburger.
04:14-04:15
Right? We're obsessed with it.
04:15-04:17
You know the thing that always fascinates me though?
04:18-04:19
These eating contests.
04:20-04:21
You ever seen those eating contests?
04:23-04:26
You know, the most famous one, like the hot dog eating contest.
04:27-04:29
How many people here, show of hands, have been in a hot dog eating contest?
04:31-04:31
Nobody.
04:33-04:36
You're like, well, Pastor Jeff, have you ever been in an eating contest?
04:36-04:39
Yeah, and I won.
04:40-04:48
It was eating a pie as fast as you can, hands-free, and I won.
04:49-04:51
I won a Shop-Vac.
04:52-04:54
That is a true story.
04:56-05:02
And I needed that Shop-Vac to clean up when I got sick after eating a pie that fast without my hands.
05:04-05:06
There's all kinds of eating contests.
05:07-05:09
A taco eating contest, I think I could win that too.
05:10-05:12
Wings, how about this one?
05:12-05:14
An oyster eating contest.
05:17-05:18
How many people would be up for that?
05:20-05:22
A couple of you would.
05:22-05:24
All right, Pastor Taylor, game on.
05:27-05:28
(laughing)
05:29-05:31
Or here's an eating contest.
05:32-05:34
I have no idea what this even is.
05:34-05:37
Slug burger, a slug burger eating contest.
05:38-05:39
Does anybody know what a slug burger is?
05:40-05:40
Anybody?
05:41-05:43
All right, we'll have to Google that one later.
05:43-05:45
Not now, later.
05:46-05:48
But I'm always fascinated by these eating contests.
05:48-05:49
This one caught my eye.
05:50-05:51
There was one eating contest.
05:51-05:55
It was eating a 72 ounce steak.
05:55-05:58
Do you know how much a 72 ounce steak is?
05:59-06:02
That's four and a half pounds of steak.
06:04-06:16
And I read of this woman, a 120 pound woman, ate the 72 ounce steak.
06:19-06:21
And then she ate another one.
06:24-06:31
And then she ate a third in 20 minutes.
06:34-06:54
And with that, she also ate three baked potatoes, three shrimp cocktails, three salads, and three buttered rolls in 20 minutes.
06:54-06:56
I read that.
06:56-06:58
I'm like, "You put butter on the rolls?
06:58-06:59
Does that seem excessive?
07:05-07:08
But there's TV shows all about food.
07:10-07:13
Like you see these shows, they have all these shows about cake.
07:14-07:15
You've seen this?
07:17-07:19
And it's not just like, what's the best tasting cake?
07:19-07:32
It's like, oh, I made a cake that looks like a football or whatever, like, And then there's these shows where they travel all over the world and they eat these exotic foods from all over the world.
07:33-07:36
And we're sitting at our TVs watching people eat.
07:38-07:50
And then you turn the channel and on the other channels, a show called "My 600-Pound Life." We're obsessed with food.
07:50-07:57
And we live in a culture where we are constantly, constantly taught that life is about consuming.
07:59-08:06
But how much talk is there really about refusing consumption?
08:10-08:18
So with that horrible backdrop, we're gonna talk about fasting because this is what the Word of God addresses.
08:19-08:20
So what is fasting?
08:20-08:21
We have a definition here.
08:22-08:23
What is fasting?
08:24-08:27
Fasting is abstaining from food and or other things.
08:28-08:29
We'll explain that in a minute.
08:30-08:38
Abstaining from food and or other things for measured periods of time in order to heighten my hunger for the things of God.
08:40-08:41
That's fasting.
08:45-09:03
Staining, measured periods of time in order to heighten my hunger for the things of God." You see, Jesus, when he talks about giving, praying, and fasting, it's really three categories of things.
09:03-09:07
Giving has to do with what you do with others.
09:08-09:12
And praying is what you do with God.
09:12-09:18
And fasting is what you do with yourself, right?
09:20-09:21
So there's different kinds of fasting.
09:21-09:25
There's a normal fast that's just no food, right?
09:25-09:31
There's a partial fast where you only have maybe vegetables and juice.
09:33-09:38
And there's an absolute fast where you have absolutely nothing.
09:40-09:48
But you can and should also fast from other things.
09:50-09:51
And we'll talk about that in a moment.
09:52-09:57
But primarily, primarily, biblically, fasting is about food.
09:59-10:06
Oh, speaking of biblically, fasting is mentioned more than 77 times in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
10:06-10:11
And it is almost always connected with prayer.
10:13-10:19
You see fasting throughout the Bible, different occasions, like for example, repentance.
10:20-10:23
I need to, I'm guilty of this sin.
10:23-10:25
I need to turn from this sin.
10:26-10:28
I'm going to fast and I'm going to pray in my repentance.
10:29-10:40
In the same line of thinking, fasting accompanies mourning over sin, my personal sin, the sins of our culture, our country.
10:40-10:47
We should be mourning and part of mourning is, is fasting and praying.
10:48-10:54
You see fasting in the Bible, at seeking God at critical times.
10:55-10:59
We need to fast because I really need to seek the Lord right now.
10:59-11:02
Think Jesus in the wilderness, right?
11:03-11:06
Think the early church in the book of Acts.
11:09-11:19
Now, when you're talking about fasting, you always have the person that comes along and says, "Well, you know, Pastor Jeff, Fasting isn't explicitly commanded in the New Testament.
11:20-11:22
And that's absolutely true.
11:25-11:33
But something we can't get around is this, Jesus obviously assumed that we would fast.
11:34-11:47
I mean, right here, you're going to see in this passage today, twice, he says, "When you fast." He says it again in Matthew 9, verse 15.
11:48-11:52
He's assuming that his people would fast.
11:52-11:57
Oh, and then, as I said, by the way, the early church did.
11:57-11:58
They fasted.
12:02-12:10
Fasting though, to clarify our definition here, we're going to make sure we understand what it's not.
12:12-12:13
Fasting is not self-punishment.
12:15-12:15
Okay?
12:16-12:17
It's not self-punishment.
12:18-12:20
Fasting isn't like, "I've sinned.
12:20-12:20
I've messed up.
12:21-12:21
You know what?
12:23-12:30
I'm not going to eat because I don't deserve to eat." And like you're sort of punishing yourself.
12:30-12:32
That's not what fasting is about.
12:33-12:33
It's not self-punishment.
12:34-12:37
But fasting also is not self-serving.
12:38-12:52
somebody could walk away from this service going, "Oh, you know, Pastor Jeff was talking about fasting "and I could stand to lose a couple of pounds, "so I'll fast." That's not what it's about.
12:56-12:58
Fasting also is not a bargaining chip.
12:59-13:01
Like I need something from God.
13:02-13:02
Oh, okay.
13:05-13:08
I'll fast and then God will have to give me what I want.
13:10-13:11
Talk more about that in a minute.
13:13-13:16
Fasting is not something that makes you holy.
13:18-13:18
All right?
13:19-13:24
Listen, fasting is not even about getting God's attention.
13:26-13:27
Understand that.
13:27-13:29
Fasting is not, "Look, look at me, God.
13:29-13:30
"I haven't eaten.
13:31-13:34
"Look at me, look at me." No, that's not what it's about.
13:34-13:37
Fasting isn't about me trying to get God's attention.
13:38-13:39
God noticed me.
13:39-13:44
Fasting is about me noticing God.
13:48-13:49
You see the difference?
13:53-13:55
Fasting doesn't make your prayer more powerful.
13:57-14:00
Fasting makes you more focused.
14:02-14:15
Fasting is what I do when I need my entire concentration, all of my being, every cell in my body focused on God.
14:19-14:29
That's what fasting is, because Christ follower, listen, I know, I know, you want to focus on God, you do.
14:31-14:37
But the problem is sometimes, if we're honest, and we should be, we wanna focus on God, but sometimes we want other things more.
14:42-14:51
You're like, what do I do when what I know I should want is not the thing that I'm going after?
14:51-14:52
What do I do?
14:54-14:55
You fast.
14:57-15:07
Fasting is stopping the feeding of ourselves with other things to focus only on our relationship with God.
15:08-15:09
'Cause here's the reality.
15:11-15:18
Every day, every day of your life, you have the capacity to only consume so much.
15:20-15:28
The capacity that you have to satisfy yourself is limited.
15:30-15:31
Here's what I mean.
15:33-15:38
Let's let this table here, this tabletop, let's let this represent you.
15:39-15:48
Okay? Let this table represent you, your heart, your spirit.
15:49-15:56
Do you realize every day of your life You are filling yourself up with stuff.
15:58-16:04
Obviously as we talk about fasting, one of the things that we fill up or we satisfy ourselves with is food, right?
16:07-16:09
This isn't just life.
16:10-16:12
This is mighty life. Cereal.
16:13-16:19
That's how we roll in our house. We fill ourselves up, right?
16:19-16:23
with food, this I need to tell here and we need to get more pretzels.
16:26-16:27
But we fill ourselves up, right?
16:28-16:32
We're filling ourselves up, but it's not even just food, right?
16:32-16:35
Think of how much stuff we fill ourselves with every day.
16:36-16:39
For some of us, it's maybe it's sports.
16:39-16:42
Like I'm on the church softball team, right?
16:42-16:46
That's one of the things that I'm filling myself up with.
16:46-16:48
I'm consuming myself with every day.
16:50-16:54
Maybe it's not even just eating the food, maybe it's preparing the food.
16:55-17:02
So we have our magazine with the latest recipes and we're filling ourselves up with this stuff.
17:03-17:07
And oh, maybe some of us, we like to grow our food, you know, in the garden.
17:07-17:10
So, you know, we have our seeds here, right?
17:10-17:13
So maybe we're filling ourselves up with that.
17:16-17:18
What else are we filling our hearts, our minds, our souls with?
17:18-17:23
For some of us, we're like, "Well, I gotta do my recreational reading, right?
17:24-17:30
So I gotta make sure I get that into me." And oh, here's more seeds.
17:32-17:42
And for some of us, it's like, "Well, I like to paint, so I gotta take time out." And that's something that I fill myself up with, a hobby that I do.
17:42-17:44
For some of us, it's exercise.
17:45-17:47
You gotta make sure you get your reps in, right?
17:48-17:49
Right, right, Dr. Andrew?
17:49-17:51
We gotta make sure that we get our exercise in.
17:52-17:53
That's something else.
17:53-17:57
This, this is 6.6 pounds.
17:59-18:01
That's why I'm, this is why I'm so ripped.
18:03-18:05
The first service laughed when I said that.
18:06-18:07
Can you believe those jerks?
18:09-18:12
For some of us, you're on the golf course, right?
18:13-18:16
That's something that we fill ourselves with, right?
18:16-18:24
For some of us, maybe you're a gamer, you spend time during the day playing your video games, it's something you're consuming.
18:24-18:29
I don't mean to show off, but this is a Pac-Man from PlayStation 2.
18:31-18:35
Not the old PlayStation, this is PlayStation 2.
18:35-18:36
That's cutting edge, right?
18:37-18:39
We fill ourselves up.
18:39-18:40
You see where we're going with this?
18:41-18:42
We're constantly filling ourselves.
18:43-18:47
Oh, and it's not even just that, because we gotta make sure, you know, we entertain ourselves, right?
18:49-18:50
With movies.
18:52-18:53
This is a DVD.
18:55-18:57
I had to explain to the first service what a DVD was.
18:58-19:05
Before streaming, this is a shiny circle that you stick in a machine that plays a movie.
19:06-19:08
This particular one was a gift.
19:09-19:14
It's called "The Masked Saint." It's about a pastor who becomes a pro wrestler.
19:15-19:17
I mean, have you ever heard of such a stupid thing?
19:19-19:23
But we gotta get our intake of entertainment, right?
19:23-19:25
Do you see how much stuff we're taking in?
19:25-19:26
Do you see all?
19:27-19:28
And that's not it.
19:28-19:30
I mean, how much time do we spend on our computers?
19:31-19:33
Right, we gotta get that in, don't we?
19:34-19:38
And am I forgetting anything?
19:38-19:39
Oh yeah.
19:43-19:44
How about this little guy?
19:46-19:53
How much time a day do we spend filling ourselves with content from this?
19:58-19:59
Do you see the point?
20:00-20:05
Over the course of a day, How much are you filling yourself with?
20:06-20:13
Your body, your mind, your belly, your spirit, you're constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly consuming.
20:14-20:21
Now, we're going to let this glass cross represent our walk with Jesus.
20:22-20:27
This represents your relationship with Jesus Christ, your personal walk with Him.
20:28-20:29
Now, do you see a problem?
20:30-20:42
We have to, well, that's, you see a problem?
20:45-20:55
Now we're so full of stuff that we don't have any room left for the thing that really matters.
20:55-20:57
And that's our walk with the Lord.
20:59-21:02
So do you see the purpose of fasting?
21:03-21:04
You know what fasting does?
21:05-21:27
Fasting, just, fasting takes everything off the table and says, the only thing that I'm going to focus on is my walk with Christ.
21:31-21:39
The only thing that my heart, my mind, my attention is getting is my personal walk with the Lord.
21:41-21:43
That's the purpose of fasting.
21:46-21:49
So on your outline, I want you to jot a couple things down here.
21:52-21:54
The question is, what am I really hungry for?
21:56-21:58
What am I really hungry for?
22:01-22:05
Number one, am I hungry for attention?
22:09-22:10
Am I hungry for attention?
22:11-22:24
Look at verse 16, Jesus says, "And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.
22:24-22:50
I say to you, they have received their reward. My hunger for attention. Jesus calls us the Pharisees. He says when they fast, they look gloomy. They disfigure their faces. You know the Pharisees and Jesus, they fasted twice a week. Like, why did they do that? Well, That wasn't commanded in the Old Testament.
22:52-22:53
Like, well, why did they do that?
22:54-22:55
Jesus tells us why they did that.
22:57-22:58
They were putting on a show.
23:00-23:00
That's why.
23:01-23:04
He tells us that they may be seen by others.
23:06-23:18
Actually, the Pharisees and Jesus, they would literally put ashes over their eyes because they were all in on the performance.
23:19-23:23
They wanted to make sure that people knew.
23:25-23:31
And when people knew that they were fasting, they'd be like, "Oh, you don't look so good.
23:31-23:33
What's going on?" "Well, I'm fasting." "You're fasting?
23:34-23:34
Wow.
23:36-23:41
Wow, you are really, you're a really devoted believer.
23:41-23:42
You're a really religious person.
23:43-23:43
Wow.
23:45-23:45
Wow.
23:47-23:58
And that little pat on the back there, that little, as Pastor Taylor calls it, the attaboy, that little thing, Jesus goes, "There's your reward.
24:00-24:06
Have fun with that." It's like giving, and it's like praying.
24:10-24:17
We can become tempted to fast with the wrong motive.
24:20-24:26
See, the fasting is supposed to be about seeking God, not human applause.
24:31-24:33
And look, let's just be real.
24:34-24:35
We love the attention.
24:36-24:44
There is something deep down in every one of us that loves the attention, and that's the problem with hypocrisy.
24:45-24:49
The problem with hypocrisy is it works.
24:55-24:56
I mean, we've all been there.
24:59-25:02
Someone makes a comment about how devoted we are.
25:06-25:13
Someone sees how religious we must be, and we start to feel pretty good about ourselves.
25:19-25:25
Jesus says, "Beware, beware." What about corporate fasting?
25:27-25:30
I mean, others have to know about that, right?
25:32-25:37
Oh yeah, there's New Testament examples of corporate fasting, Acts 13, Acts 14.
25:39-25:42
Now look, here's the thing with that.
25:43-25:47
It's not about whether or not other people know.
25:50-25:53
It's about whether or not you want them to know.
25:56-25:57
See the difference?
25:58-26:07
There's a difference between being seen fasting and fasting in order to be seen.
26:10-26:12
That's how it is with corporate fasting.
26:12-26:13
That's how it is with private fasting.
26:15-26:16
When I fast, I tell Erin.
26:17-26:17
Why?
26:20-26:25
Not because I want her applause, but because she feeds us, right?
26:25-26:32
Oh, and by the way, it'd be a pretty impossible thing for me to hide from her, right?
26:34-26:36
She's going to notice if I go days without eating.
26:40-26:42
But the point Jesus is driving us to is the motives.
26:42-26:44
The motives, it's a heart issue.
26:45-26:48
And it's the same as giving, and it's the same as praying.
26:50-26:51
It's the same point.
26:51-26:57
If you're looking for praises from man, don't look for anything from God.
26:59-27:01
So what am I really hungry for?
27:04-27:10
Am I hungry for attention or am I hungry for God?
27:12-27:14
Look at verses 17 and 18.
27:19-27:51
Jesus said, "But when you fast, "Anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." So here Jesus is saying, look, on the other hand, instead of making yourself look like you're dying, anoint your head and wash your face.
27:52-27:54
Oh, by the way, it goes without saying, right?
27:58-28:02
You don't make that a show, right?
28:02-28:09
Like I shouldn't come to church and like catch you in the men's room at the sink, washing your face.
28:10-28:12
Like, Joe, why are you washing your face?
28:12-28:16
Oh, I'm fasting and being obedient to our Lord.
28:17-28:20
Like you could make that a show.
28:24-28:26
Obvious point, right?
28:26-28:29
Jesus says don't leave any physical clues that you're fasting.
28:30-28:36
It's like giving, it's like praying, make it a secret, make it between you and God.
28:40-28:45
And he sees, and he rewards according to Jesus.
28:49-29:22
rewards. Listen, reward does not mean that God owes you one now. Like, "Look, God, I starved myself for you. I sacrificed eating for you, God. Now you have to do what I want." So, God never works like that.
29:24-29:31
Do you realize anything at all that we have from God is grace?
29:33-29:34
It's all grace.
29:34-29:47
Your salvation in Christ, believing that Jesus died for your sins, believing he rose to give you eternal life, if you've received him, if you are saved, It is only by the grace of God that you are saved.
29:49-29:56
The gift of the Holy Spirit, God indwelling His people, it's a gift, it's grace.
29:56-30:03
You know, God does not run a swap meet to say you do for me, then I do for you.
30:03-30:04
That's not how it works.
30:04-30:06
And that's not how it works with fasting.
30:08-30:09
So like, what is the reward?
30:11-30:13
The reward is connecting with God.
30:15-30:20
You're worth connecting with God because you're seeking Him in a very deliberate way.
30:20-30:31
You have taken off anything else that could distract you because you want to focus solely on your relationship with Him.
30:36-30:39
And someone would say, "Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, time out.
30:40-31:04
You're telling me that if I choose not to eat or I choose to abstain from other things and instead use that appetite and use that time to seek the Lord, you're telling me that if I do that, that something spiritual will happen?
31:07-31:13
Yeah, yeah that's exactly what I'm telling you.
31:16-31:26
Look, I know I could never fully explain it.
31:31-31:40
And it's hard to understand, but you will understand it if you do it.
31:45-31:47
If you do it for the right reason.
31:49-31:51
I just want to encourage you.
31:53-31:58
I'm sure there are people here that have never fasted for spiritual reasons in their lives.
31:58-32:00
I want to encourage you, try it.
32:03-32:14
Can you just as a simple act of obedience, as a simple, "God, this is what your word said, so I want to respond in obedience." Can you do that?
32:16-32:19
And look, you can modify.
32:21-32:29
Like maybe you say, "You know what? I've never done this before, "But this week, I'm gonna take a few days "and I'm gonna skip lunch.
32:29-32:38
"And instead of eating at lunchtime, "I'm gonna spend that time reading "a passage from God's word and praying to God.
32:38-32:40
"I'm gonna do that instead this week.
32:40-32:42
"Can you do that?" You can do that.
32:46-32:48
Or maybe you say, "You know what?
32:48-32:50
"I've never had an extended fast, "but you know what?
32:51-32:53
"This week I'm going to spend one day.
32:53-32:59
I'm going to spend just two days with nothing but water.
32:59-33:03
And instead I'm going to seek the Lord over something very specific.
33:08-33:09
You can do that.
33:12-33:19
Because look, if you're sitting here going, "Oh, I hear what he's saying, but you know what?
33:19-33:24
I don't know if I could skip a meal." Like, "I don't know.
33:25-33:37
I don't know if I could go without eating." Well, that might be a commentary on which appetite really controls you.
33:41-33:54
Are you hungry enough for God that you're willing to forego consuming food and/or other things to focus solely on seeking Him?
33:58-35:11
Because if you're finding that focusing on your walk with Christ has been difficult, if you're finding that lately you really haven't had much of an appetite for prayer that you know you should. If you're finding like, you know, in this chapter of my life right now, this season of my life that I'm in, I haven't really been seeking the Lord as I know He calls me to. If any of these describe you, I want to encourage you to use this gift that God has given and redirect your appetite. This is the heart of religion. God wants your And true religion comes from a heart that wants God.
35:14-35:28
I'm sure some of you have picked up on this, but you realize for the last three weeks between Pastor Taylor and I, we've basically preached the exact same sermon three times.
35:34-35:34
Why?
35:36-35:49
because our goal is to represent the text and really it's the exact same formula and all three things that the Lord calls us to. It's the same sermon.
35:50-36:02
Here it is. If you give, pray, or fast in order to be seen by others you're going to miss God's reward.
36:05-36:16
But if you do them in secret, God sees in secret and he will reward you.
36:19-36:30
There are rewards for a faith that says, I'm not looking for man's applause.
36:32-36:37
All I'm looking for is God's reward.
36:40-36:44
And with fasting, God is the reward.
36:46-36:47
Let's pray.
36:50-37:02
Father in heaven, we confess before you as a church that we don't seek you as we should too often.
37:03-37:18
But Father, we've allowed other things to crowd our hearts and our minds and our bellies and we very diligently distract ourselves from what's most important.
37:23-37:32
So Father, I pray that we would be hit with, for some of us it's an old concept that we need renewed.
37:34-37:56
And for some, I'm sure this is a brand new concept, but Father, let us take a serious and honest and hard look at Your Word, and that we would fast as our Lord assumed that we would, but with motives that honor You.
37:58-38:00
Father, put it in our hearts and minds.
38:04-38:09
Make us feel how desperately we need You.
38:12-38:18
Let us match that desperation with how hard we seek after You.
38:19-38:22
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Matthew 6:16-18

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What is the purpose of fasting? Why do you think that fasting isn’t more common in the American church?
How would you describe the spiritual benefit of fasting to a believer who has never done it?
How would you respond to someone who says “Due to my health issues, not eating is impossible for me.”?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

April 28, 2019

Spiritual Disciplines

When You Fast… (Matthew 6:16-18)

Jeff Miller

April 28, 2019

Spiritual Disciplines

Intro / Review:

What is fasting?

Abstaining from food (and/or other things) for measured periods of time in order to heighten my hunger for the things of God.

Fasting is NOT:

Fasting IS:

One question to evaluate your fasting (Matthew 6:16-18):

Am I hungry for ATTENTION ? (Mat 6:16)
...Or Am I hungry for GOD ? (Mat 6:17-18)

Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:18-00:22
Open up your Bibles with me please to Matthew chapter 6.
00:23-00:28
This is part 3 of a 3-part message from Matthew 6 that we started I think in January.
00:28-00:33
And next week we will be back in Revelation for 2 months and finish that book.
00:33-00:38
And that will take us all the way to July when we have the Fantastic Four coming in and preaching.
00:39-00:43
So people from our own church will be bringing the messages in July.
00:43-00:52
In Matthew 6, "When you fast..." And the key to all three of these sermons is really Matthew 6.1.
00:52-01:23
Jesus said, "Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven." That word for "seen," reminder, is the Greek word "theotomi," which is where we get the word "theater." Jesus is saying, when you do religious actions, for lack of a better phrase, so that people see you doing them, not for God, but so that people see you, Jesus said you're putting on a performance.
01:24-01:27
You want applause, you want pats on the back, you want attention.
01:27-01:33
And specifically, Jesus goes after three things that God's people are expected to do.
01:33-01:36
And the first one is giving to the needy, right?
01:36-01:38
I don't have to give much of a sales pitch for that, do I?
01:38-01:42
We see someone in need, it's our responsibility to give to the needy.
01:42-01:46
And the second one is praying. I don't have to give much of a sales pitch for praying, right?
01:46-01:48
God's people are expected to pray.
01:49-01:52
But the third thing on the list is fasting.
01:53-01:55
And I gotta be honest with you, I feel like I'm playing from behind here.
01:55-02:03
Because while people recognize that giving and praying are normal things for Christians, fasting? Like, really?
02:04-02:05
Well, look at verse 16.
02:05-02:09
Jesus said, just his first phrase here, but look at his phrase, this is huge.
02:10-02:17
Jesus said, "And when you fast," same phrasing he used for giving and praying.
02:17-02:20
And it's just as expected.
02:20-02:24
Fasting is just as expected as giving and praying.
02:24-02:29
We're going to talk about fasting and what it is and what it means, and it's going to be easy for people to tune out.
02:30-02:34
But I want you to see what the Bible actually says about fasting, all right?
02:35-02:42
It's a hard sell in this culture, because we are absolutely obsessed with food in our culture.
02:43-02:43
True or false?
02:44-02:45
We're obsessed with food.
02:45-02:51
We don't like to eat something unless we first take a picture of it.
02:52-03:00
Like, "Oh, this alphabet soup looks so alphabetty." And I know my friends want to know that I'm eating alphabet soup.
03:00-03:01
And we take pictures of it.
03:01-03:04
And look, if that's your thing, I'm not criticizing you.
03:04-03:07
I'm just saying true or false, that's a reality of our culture.
03:07-03:07
Don't we do that?
03:08-03:09
We do that.
03:09-03:14
That's only the thing that completely baffles me about our culture, eating contests.
03:15-03:20
And I think, you know, one time I think it was on ESPN, there was an eating contest.
03:20-03:22
And I'm like, this is a sport really?
03:22-03:27
And what must other countries where you have starving people what must they think when they see that?
03:28-03:32
Like we don't have enough money to feed our, or enough food, excuse me, to feed our family.
03:32-03:35
But these people are having eating contests.
03:36-03:39
I looked this up this week, 'cause I'm familiar like you are.
03:39-03:44
We're probably most familiar with the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, right?
03:44-03:47
How many of you have at least heard of the Hot Dog Eating Contest, right?
03:47-03:50
Most of us have heard of the Hot Dog Eating Contest.
03:50-03:55
But you know, that's not the only eating contest that we have in our culture, our food obsessed culture.
03:56-03:57
There's a taco eating contest.
03:58-04:00
There's a chicken wing eating contest.
04:01-04:04
There's a guyoza eating contest.
04:04-04:05
Does anybody know what a guyoza is?
04:06-04:07
I had to look this one up.
04:07-04:09
It's a meat and vegetable filled dumpling.
04:11-04:18
There's a gyro eating contest or gyro for the cultured among us, I guess.
04:18-04:22
Okay, how about the, there's an oyster eating contest.
04:22-04:26
Oysters, Matthew Gates, how many oysters do you think you can get down?
04:26-04:29
Three, oh, zero, I thought you were like three.
04:29-04:31
He's like, no, no, no, this is the part you look at.
04:32-04:33
I was like, wow, that's three more than me.
04:33-04:35
Okay, deep fried asparagus.
04:36-04:38
There's a deep fried asparagus eating contest.
04:38-04:42
And there is a slug burger eating contest.
04:42-04:44
And I know what you're thinking.
04:44-04:45
What is a slug burger?
04:46-04:47
You look that one up on your own time.
04:47-04:48
I don't care to know.
04:49-04:52
But there is a slug burger eating contest.
04:52-04:55
But of all these eating contests, here's the one that really got my attention.
04:55-05:02
There's an eating contest for the consumption of a 72 ounce steak, a 72 ounce steak.
05:03-05:12
And I read of this individual who took this challenge, a woman, oh, it gets better, a 120 pound woman.
05:13-05:15
Yeah, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second, Pastor Jeff.
05:15-05:19
You're telling me that 120 pound woman ate a 72 ounce steak?
05:20-05:22
I'm not telling you that, she ate three of them.
05:23-05:25
Oh, no, no, it gets better, it gets better.
05:26-05:27
You're like, "She ate three 72-ounce steaks.
05:28-05:32
She ate three 72-ounce steaks in 20 minutes." Oh, no, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait.
05:33-05:36
I'm gonna give you time to get your gasp out like for all of it.
05:36-05:47
She ate not only three 72-ounce steaks in 20 minutes, but with that, she ate three baked potatoes, three shrimp cocktails, three salads, and three buttered rolls.
05:47-05:50
Yeah, we have a food-obsessed culture.
05:50-05:53
They're like, "We're gonna talk about fasting today." You're gonna talk about what?
05:53-05:55
We have so many TV shows about foods.
05:56-06:00
We have TV shows about people that just travel around and eat stuff.
06:00-06:06
Look, again, I'm not criticizing if this is your thing, but have you ever sat and watched somebody else eat?
06:06-06:07
It's disgusting.
06:07-06:12
And we watch people traveling around, you know, eating these weird things.
06:12-06:16
And then we have all these TV shows about people that make cakes.
06:16-06:23
And so we have this one channel where people are traveling around and eating and they're making all these, you know, cakes the size of a Buick.
06:24-06:25
and we have on that channel.
06:26-06:36
And then we wonder why the other channel has a TV program on it called "My 600-lb Life" about people that, sad people who can't stop eating.
06:36-06:42
America is taught that life is about consuming, not refusing consumption.
06:43-06:50
And then we open our Bibles for a word from Jesus, and he says, "When you fast." Notice he didn't say, "If you fast," right?
06:50-06:51
He didn't say that.
06:51-06:57
He said, "When you fast." assuming that his people were going to fast.
06:58-07:02
And we're going to see what Jesus says about fasting.
07:02-07:08
The real question isn't even if you fast, the real question is for God's people, how you fast.
07:09-07:09
That's the real question.
07:10-07:12
Let's all get on the same page definition-wise.
07:12-07:12
What is fasting?
07:13-07:23
Fasting is abstaining from food and/or other things for measured periods of time in order to heighten my hunger for the things of God.
07:23-07:26
Okay, so we're abstaining from food and/or other things, we'll talk about that in a second.
07:27-07:30
For measured periods of time, why would I do such a thing?
07:31-07:34
This last phrase is huge and you've got to get this or you're going to miss the whole sermon.
07:34-07:38
In order to heighten my hunger for the things of God.
07:39-07:40
There's different kinds of fasts.
07:40-07:45
There's a partial fast where you, maybe for a season you just have vegetables and juice.
07:46-07:55
There's the absolute fast where you say, "I'm not going to have anything at all." There's corporate fasts where we are going to fast together.
07:56-07:59
Now yes, it is true that you can fast from other things.
08:00-08:02
Look, I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV.
08:02-08:09
I'm not a doctor, so I can't give you medical advice if you're like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, I have this health condition.
08:10-08:13
I'm not sure it's good for me to fast." Talk to your doctor about that, okay?
08:13-08:21
But if you have a health condition that you're like, "I absolutely cannot go without eating," you can certainly fast from other things, okay?
08:21-08:27
But primarily today, with that said, primarily today, we are going to talk about food.
08:27-08:33
Because that's what Jesus is talking about, and that is really the most common expected kind of fasting.
08:33-08:35
Through the Bible, fasting is connected with prayer.
08:35-08:37
We have so many examples throughout Scripture.
08:38-08:39
Jesus Himself fasted.
08:39-08:43
It's mentioned over 77 times in God's Word.
08:43-08:45
Fasting, various occasions.
08:45-08:47
Maybe it's repentance from sin.
08:47-08:50
Maybe you're in mourning over the loss of a loved one.
08:50-08:53
denying yourself to give to others.
08:53-08:55
That's Isaiah 58 type fasting.
08:55-08:58
Seeking God's wisdom at critical times.
08:58-09:01
That's what the early church did in the book of Acts, chapters 13 and 14.
09:02-09:04
We need God's wisdom and direction.
09:05-09:07
So we're going to church, we're going to fast.
09:08-09:12
And right now, somebody's thinking, I came to church on the wrong day.
09:12-09:17
I don't know where he's going with this because fasting is never commanded in the New Testament.
09:17-09:18
And that's true.
09:18-09:21
fasting is not ever commanded in the New Testament.
09:21-09:24
But Jesus just assumed that we would.
09:24-09:25
You can't get around that.
09:26-09:33
Jesus said, "When you fast." And the Greek tense of that phrase is habitual, customary.
09:33-09:35
Jesus says, "This is going to be part of your life.
09:35-09:41
So when you do it, our Lord expects that we're going to fast." And the early church did, okay?
09:42-09:45
So fasting is not, let's talk about that.
09:45-09:47
Fasting is not, everybody say fasting is not.
09:48-09:52
Fasting is not, first of all, if you're taking notes, fasting is not self-punishment, okay?
09:53-10:01
Like, oh, I was really bad and I committed these sins and I'm going to fast and like it's some sort of a self-punishment thing.
10:01-10:03
That's not what fasting is.
10:03-10:09
All of the punishment that you deserve, Jesus Christ took that on himself on the cross, okay?
10:09-10:13
There's no more punishment to be doled out if you're a born-again believer in Christ.
10:13-10:15
So fasting is not self-punishment.
10:15-10:19
Fasting is also, it's not, everybody say not.
10:19-10:21
Fasting is not self-serving.
10:22-10:25
Meaning somebody could hear a message on fasting and say, "Hey, you know what?
10:26-10:27
I could stand to lose a couple pounds.
10:28-10:33
So maybe I'll do a fast and there are some health benefits." And that's absolutely true.
10:33-10:41
There's tremendous health benefits from fasting and you might lose some weight, but that's not a motivation to fast biblically, okay?
10:42-10:45
We're talking about spiritual reasons for fasting.
10:45-10:49
And if you're like, well, two birds with one stone here, I'm just saying you gotta check your motives there.
10:49-10:50
It's not about self-serving.
10:51-10:53
The focus is on seeking the Lord.
10:54-10:58
Now fasting is not, everybody say not, it's not a bargaining chip.
10:59-11:00
Fasting is not a bargaining chip.
11:00-11:03
Like, all right, God, look, I really need this job.
11:04-11:05
And I'm going in for this job interview.
11:05-11:07
So I'm going to fast.
11:07-11:09
Now you make sure I get that job.
11:10-11:20
Almost like we're bringing some offer to the table and God's like, "Well, I guess I gotta get him that job because he's fasting." That's not what fasting is about.
11:20-11:21
It is not a bargaining chip.
11:22-11:26
Like, "Look, God, you have to cash in for me because I'm doing something for you." That is not what fasting is about.
11:27-11:29
Fasting is not, everybody say not.
11:29-11:32
Fasting is not something that makes you holy, okay?
11:32-11:34
Fasting does not make you holy.
11:35-11:36
Just a little bit of review from last Sunday.
11:37-11:38
Jesus Christ makes you holy.
11:39-11:41
He gives you his holiness.
11:41-11:46
You know, what was the sermon? He was raised for our justification.
11:46-11:50
So this idea that fasting makes me a holy person, it does not.
11:51-11:53
Jesus Christ makes you a holy person.
11:53-11:58
Fasting does not... Everybody say "not." Fasting does not get God's attention.
11:59-12:07
Okay, catch this. Fasting is not, "Hey, notice me, God!" Fasting is about me noticing God.
12:07-12:09
Fasting doesn't make your prayers more powerful.
12:10-12:11
Fasting makes you more focused.
12:11-12:13
So that's what fasting is not.
12:13-12:15
Here's what fasting is.
12:15-12:16
Here's what fasting is.
12:16-12:20
First of all, fasting is saying no to the flesh and yes to the spirits.
12:20-12:23
It's a way of preferring God over the gifts that God has given.
12:24-12:25
This is so important.
12:25-12:29
Fasting is, write this down, fasting is a means to an end.
12:29-12:31
Fasting is not an end.
12:31-12:35
In other words, we don't fast just for the sake of fasting.
12:36-12:41
They're like, "Well, then why do we do it?" Because we sort of give for the sake of giving, and we sort of pray for the sake of praying.
12:41-12:43
Why don't we fast for the sake of fasting?
12:43-12:45
Fasting is a means to an end.
12:46-12:47
What end is that?
12:47-12:49
Well, here's our problem, Christians.
12:49-12:53
Mine too, all of us, individually, Christians.
12:53-12:55
We want to focus on God in our lives, right?
12:56-13:00
Don't we want to live a God-centered, God-focused life?
13:00-13:01
We all want that.
13:01-13:08
But the problem is oftentimes, myself included, We want to focus on God, but we want other things more.
13:08-13:19
The question is, what do I do when what I want, which is a God-centered mindset, what do I do when what I want isn't what I choose because of all this other stuff?
13:20-13:21
Well, fasting is the answer.
13:21-13:27
Fasting is stopping the feeding of ourselves with other things in order to focus on our relationship with God.
13:28-13:32
Because you only have the capacity to consume so much every day.
13:33-13:37
You only have so much capacity for satisfaction.
13:37-13:40
So, that was a really long introduction.
13:40-13:43
But that's okay, because the sermon is one question.
13:44-13:49
One question to evaluate your fasting, because like Jesus, I'm assuming that you're fasting.
13:49-13:55
So one question to evaluate your fasting, and we're going to look at the question in two parts, as Jesus presented it.
13:55-14:01
Number one, first question is, "Am I hungry for attention?" "Am I hungry for attention?" Look at verse 16.
14:02-14:11
Jesus says that when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.
14:12-14:15
Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.
14:16-14:18
See, fasting was a part of Jewish culture.
14:18-14:19
It's certainly not part of ours.
14:20-14:22
You're like, well, then how relevant is this stuff?
14:22-14:33
And I would suggest to you, maybe a little more, because since it's not a part of our culture, Even more so today, people who fast are going to stand out.
14:34-14:37
Then we become tempted to fast with the wrong motive.
14:37-14:39
Like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hang on a second.
14:40-14:48
Jesus said, "Don't look gloomy like the hypocrites." I have a question about this. Why in the world is this hypocrisy?
14:48-14:55
Okay, like, if you are fasting, and you look like you're fasting, how in the world is that hypocrisy?
14:56-14:59
Because fasting is supposed to be about seeking the Lord.
14:59-15:02
Fasting is not supposed to be about seeking attention.
15:02-15:03
That's the hypocrisy.
15:03-15:06
Let's be honest. We love the attention.
15:06-15:08
Let's be honest. We love attention.
15:08-15:10
That's the whole basis of social media.
15:10-15:12
That's the whole basis of selfies.
15:12-15:14
We love attention from people.
15:14-15:17
How many likes did I get? How many shares did I get?
15:18-15:20
How many comments did I get?
15:21-15:23
Look, I'm not condemning it. I'm just saying this is a reality.
15:23-15:28
And Jesus knew this is a reality, which is why He taught what He taught.
15:28-15:32
One of the problems with hypocrisy is how successful it is.
15:33-15:34
I mean, we've all been there.
15:34-15:39
Someone makes a comment about how devoted we must be to the Lord, and we're so proud of ourselves.
15:40-15:48
We're walking around the rest of the day like, "Yeah, I'm like the greatest thing since the Apostle Paul to ever happen to Christendom." And we love the attention.
15:49-15:51
And the people in Jesus' day, boy, they made it a show.
15:52-16:00
That's why Jesus said, "Don't look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces." Their fasting may be seen by others.
16:00-16:09
"They disfigure their faces." They, with their facial expressions, wanted people to know that they were fasting.
16:10-16:10
Okay?
16:11-16:19
So I want you to turn to your neighbor right now and make your best, "I haven't eaten in six hours and I'm starving to death" face.
16:19-16:20
Go ahead.
16:20-16:22
Looks like some of you have been practicing this week.
16:24-16:41
But Jesus was like, "Don't be like these people, they walk around..." "What's the matter with you?" "I'm fasting." "Oh, why are you making that face then?" But Jesus said that's what they did.
16:41-16:48
In fact, I read this week that a lot of Jews would actually take ashes and smear ashes on their eyes when they were fasting.
16:48-17:02
It's like, "Dude, why do you look so horrible?" "Because I'm so spiritual, that's why." Jesus said when you do that, when your goal is to make sure that people know that you're fasting, and they notice, there's the reward.
17:02-17:03
There's the reward.
17:04-17:12
"What's the matter? You look sickly. You look like you're dying." "I'm fasting for spiritual reasons." "Wow, that's really cool." And there it is. There's your reward.
17:14-17:14
Yay!
17:16-17:16
Pretty lame, right?
17:17-17:19
Isn't that lame? It's lame.
17:19-17:22
But it's like giving, and it's like praying.
17:22-17:29
If you do it to be seen by others, and they applaud you, they pat you on the back, that's all you get. Enjoy that.
17:30-17:32
You're like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang on, Pastor Jeff.
17:32-17:37
You said there were examples of corporate fasting, like the church fasting.
17:38-17:42
I mean, when you're doing that, other people obviously have to know about it." Right on. Right on.
17:42-17:44
There are New Testament examples of that.
17:44-17:48
Again, Acts chapter 13, Acts chapter 14, you see the church fasting.
17:48-18:00
They're like, "Ha ha ha ha, other people had to have known about that." Yeah, but you see, it's not about whether or not they knew, it's about whether you wanted them to know.
18:00-18:01
You see the difference?
18:02-18:05
It's not about whether they knew, it's about whether you want them to know.
18:05-18:08
In other words, it boils down to your motive.
18:09-18:09
What's your motive?
18:10-18:17
There's a difference between being seen fasting and fasting in order to be seen.
18:17-18:18
Huge difference.
18:19-18:21
When I fast, I tell Erin.
18:22-18:22
Why would I tell Erin?
18:23-18:25
Because I want her applause, right?
18:26-18:28
Now, next week we will have been married for what, 17 years?
18:29-18:32
And I know at this point she's not going to applaud me.
18:33-18:34
She deserves applause.
18:34-18:45
When I tell her, I'm like, "Hey, I'm going to be fasting starting on Monday." It's not for her attention or her applause or her to, "Oh, let me get on my social media and tell..." It's not that at all. Why would I tell her that?
18:45-18:47
Because she feeds a family, right?
18:47-18:57
and it's going to get really awkward the next few days if she's making a meal and I'm trying to concoct some sort of excuse why I'm not going to eat it because I don't want her to know I'm fasting.
18:57-19:08
She's like, "What's the matter?" I'm like, "Um, all of a sudden I don't like pizza." No, I tell her that because, not for applause, but because she feeds a family.
19:09-19:11
It boils down to the motives, church.
19:11-19:15
Just like giving, just like praying, applause for man equals no reward from God.
19:15-19:15
All right?
19:16-19:18
So am I hungry for attention or secondly, am I hungry for God?
19:19-19:21
Am I hungry for God? Look at the next two verses.
19:21-19:27
Home stretch here. Jesus says, "But when you fast..." Oh, there it is again. That assumption that you will.
19:28-19:36
"But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret.
19:37-19:57
And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." So Jesus makes a contrast. Instead of making yourself look sickly, "I'm so gloomy and disfigured." Instead of doing that, Jesus said, "Anoint your head and wash your face." In other words, don't leave any physical clue, okay?
19:57-20:11
He wasn't, let's say you want to picture this as somebody might misunderstand this and think, "Okay, instead of the sign of a disfigured face, the sign that I let people know that I'm fasting is I'm just constantly washing my face." Like, what are you doing?
20:11-20:16
"Oh, Jesus said to do this when I'm fasting and that's exactly what I'm doing because I'm so spiritual.
20:16-20:17
No, that's not the point.
20:18-20:25
To draw attention to your fasting, the point is, as far as anybody else knows, nothing's different, everything's the same.
20:25-20:26
The obvious point, right?
20:27-20:29
Like giving, like praying, we've already studied.
20:29-20:32
Make fasting a secret between you and God.
20:32-20:34
And He sees, and He rewards.
20:35-20:39
Again, reward does not mean, "God, You owe me.
20:39-20:43
I did this for You, now You have to do this for me." That's not what the reward is.
20:43-20:45
Because you know God never works like that.
20:45-20:48
Everything that God gives is grace. Everything.
20:48-20:52
God never, ever, ever works on some kind of a reward system.
20:53-20:59
God doesn't show up at a swap meet and say, "Here's what I'll give, now here's what can you give." God does not work that way.
21:00-21:06
So when Jesus says God rewards, we're going to talk about what that means, but it's not a swap meet.
21:06-21:14
Your salvation, the gift of the Holy Spirit, your growing sanctification, all of that, It's a gift from God.
21:14-21:18
And the reward for fasting is connecting with God.
21:19-21:28
You see, with fasting, God is the reward because you are seeking Him in a very deliberate and focused way.
21:28-21:37
And you say, well, you're telling me that something spiritual happens if I choose not to eat or if I abstain from something else for a season.
21:38-21:44
And instead, I use that time and I use that appetite to seek the Lord.
21:44-21:48
You're telling me if I do that, something spiritual is going to happen.
21:48-21:50
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm telling you.
21:51-21:55
And if you've never done it, it's very hard to understand somebody talk about it.
21:55-22:02
But you will understand it better after you do it, if you do it for the right reason.
22:02-22:04
And I want to encourage you to try it.
22:04-22:06
And you say, "You know what, this week I'm going to skip lunch.
22:07-22:10
and instead I'm going to spend that time praying instead.
22:11-22:16
You try that for a few days, and tell me there's not an awesome reward of connecting with God during that time.
22:17-22:18
Or maybe you say, "You know what?
22:18-22:36
I'm going to go one or two days this week with nothing but water, and instead of eating and mealtime, I'm going to spend some time in His Word, and I'm going to spend some time praying for my family." If you do that, and you will see that there is no greater reward that God can offer than the reward of Himself.
22:36-22:47
The reward of an experience of sweet fellowship with Jesus Christ that you don't normally have because we're so used to filling ourselves up with this other stuff.
22:48-22:51
And pardon the pun, but food is a sacred cow in our culture.
22:52-22:56
And as soon as you talk about fasting, some people say, "I just don't think I can skip a meal.
22:57-23:05
I hear what you're saying, and I don't have any health issues, but I just don't think I can go without eating for a day or two." I'll do respect.
23:06-23:12
If that's what you're saying or thinking right now, that might be a commentary for what appetite really controls you.
23:12-23:22
I ask you, are you hungry enough for God that you're willing to forego consuming food and consuming other things to focus solely on seeking Him?
23:22-23:24
Are you that hungry for God?
23:24-23:32
If you're in a season of your life right now where you've been finding that, you know, focusing on my walk with Christ has been so difficult.
23:32-23:34
It's just, there's so many distractions.
23:34-23:45
at work and at home and I have sick parents or sick grandparents and my kids require 24 hour attention and there's just so much stuff happening in my life.
23:45-23:51
I just feel like in this season of my life, my walk with Christ has not been what I want it to be.
23:51-23:55
I'm just gonna be honest, I haven't felt like I've had this appetite for prayer.
23:56-23:59
I haven't been seeking God in this season of my life.
24:00-24:03
If that's you, I got some wonderful news for you today.
24:03-24:09
God has given you a gift to help you get back to a place of sweet fellowship with Him.
24:10-24:14
He's given you a gift that allows you to redirect your appetite.
24:14-24:17
So when you give, don't blow the trumpet.
24:17-24:19
When you pray, don't make it a performance.
24:19-24:22
And when you fast, don't look like you're dying.
24:22-24:25
Jesus said, don't let the left hand know what the right hand's doing.
24:26-24:29
Jesus said, go into your room and shut the door when you pray.
24:29-24:35
And Jesus said, "When you fast, wash your face." I gotta confess something to you.
24:35-24:41
When I was preparing these messages, maybe this is considered cheating, I don't know.
24:41-24:43
I just have to confess this to you.
24:43-24:47
With these Matthew 6 sermons, I basically just gave the same sermon three times.
24:48-24:50
Just swapped out giving, praying, and fasting.
24:50-24:51
You swap out those words.
24:52-25:00
But I basically just gave the same exact sermon three times because in all of our religious actions, It's in the text.
25:00-25:01
It follows the same formula.
25:02-25:10
Jesus said, "If you give pray fast to be seen by others, you're going to miss God's reward." Same formula with all three.
25:11-25:20
But same formula, "If you do these things in secret, then God sees and God rewards." And there are rewards, church.
25:20-25:25
There are rewards for a faith that says, "I'm not looking for man's applause.
25:25-25:35
I'm getting alone and I'm getting real with God And fasting brings the greatest possible reward, and that's drawing closer to God Himself.
25:35-25:36
Let's pray.
25:36-25:40
Father in heaven, we thank you for the gift of fasting.
25:40-25:47
You've given us the gift of giving and the gift of prayer, but Father, we confess in our culture the gift of fasting seems very strange.
25:48-25:49
But I pray, Father, for ears to hear.
25:50-25:51
These things are spiritually appraised.
25:52-26:02
And Father, I know that I have some brothers and sisters right here who are in a period of their life where they feel like they're in a desert place, that their walk with you has been dry.
26:02-26:11
They feel like you've been absent when we all know in our heads, God, that you promised to never leave us or forsake us, that when you feel absent, that's on us.
26:11-26:16
Father, I pray that we would be a people who fast with pure motives.
26:16-26:22
And Father, I pray for the people here that are sitting here right now and say, you know, I need to get closer in my walk with Christ.
26:23-26:23
I need to fast.
26:24-26:30
Father, I pray that this week they would see the fulfillment of Your Word unfold before their eyes.
26:31-26:38
When Jesus said, "Your Father who sees in secret will reward you," I pray they experience that sweet fellowship this week.
26:39-26:45
And they might not understand it now, Father, but I know that they will understand it because of the integrity of Your Word.
26:46-26:48
They will understand it after they do it.
26:49-26:50
Manifest Your glory.
26:50-26:55
Draw us closer to You, Father, and teach us how to fast.
26:55-26:57
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Matthew 6:16-18

GROUP

1. What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?

BREAKOUT

Pray for one another - to grow as prayers in these areas.

Jeff Miller

November 17, 2013

Follow the Leader, Jesus On Tour

Fasting: Training Your Appetite

Jeff Miller

November 17, 2013

Follow the Leader, Jesus On Tour

Fasting 101

What is fasting?

Fasting is: ABSTAINING from food (and/or other things for measured periods of time in order to heighten my HUNGER for the things of God.

Fasting is not:

SELF-PUNISHMENT
SELF-SERVING
A BARGAINING CHIP
A WAY TO GET GOD'S ATTENTION

Why do we fast?

Fasting is:
Fasting is not:
"Jesus, why do John's disciples and the Pharisees fast, but not your disciples?" (Mk 2:18)
1. You can't fast while you CELEBRATE. (Mk 2:19-20)
2. You can't add RELATIONSHIP to RELIGION . (Mk 2:21-22)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:08
Mark chapter 2 and verse 18, while you're turning there, tell me some of the biggest struggles you have with your Christian walk.
00:10-00:11
Just shout them out, go ahead.
00:11-00:13
This is a safe place, we've established that.
00:14-00:17
What are some of the biggest struggles you have with your walk?
00:18-00:19
Pray, who said praying?
00:19-00:20
Somebody said praying.
00:21-00:22
Yeah, that's like number one, right?
00:22-00:32
How many people would say, "There are times in my life that I know that I'm not praying the way that I need to." Everybody, that's me too.
00:33-00:38
There are times I'm like, I know how important prayer is and I know that's my lifeline with God.
00:40-00:43
Why am I not praying the way that I want to be praying?
00:43-00:43
Right?
00:44-00:46
What's another area in which you struggle?
00:48-00:52
Oh, waiting for answer, oh, yeah, that one is actually on my list.
00:53-01:04
I've been praying and I've been praying and I've been praying and I've been praying And a week goes by, and a month goes by, and God, are you hearing me, right?
01:04-01:09
You're not seeing the answer to prayer that you've been expecting.
01:10-01:11
Anybody else struggle with that?
01:13-01:16
That's been part of my story.
01:17-01:19
Something else, another area in which you struggle.
01:23-01:24
Knowing God's will, right?
01:28-01:32
Like, discerning what direction the Lord wants me to go, or the Lord wants me to take my family.
01:32-01:33
Anybody struggle with that?
01:34-01:35
Discerning God's will?
01:36-01:38
All right, here's a couple more on my list.
01:38-01:40
And you can raise your hand in agreement, okay?
01:41-01:42
How about spending time in God's Word?
01:43-01:48
How many people are like, "You know what, there are times I realize I don't spend time in God's Word like I should." Right?
01:50-01:50
Not true.
01:51-01:53
How about feeling God's presence?
01:53-02:01
Are there times that you're like, "I know God's with me, but I've been struggling with feeling His presence lately." Anybody?
02:05-02:10
How about focusing on Jesus in every area of life?
02:12-02:13
Anybody struggle with that?
02:16-02:17
Well, here's the thing.
02:18-02:27
You want to focus on God, but the problem is you want other things more.
02:32-02:46
The problem is sometimes I want other things more, and even in my heart when I'm saying, "No, no, no, no, I want God more," my actions don't show that I want God more than other things.
02:47-03:13
identify with me on that. Don't leave me up here. I'm sincere. I'm not perfect, but I'm sincere. And I sincerely want Christ at the center, but there are times that it just seems like if you look at my life and my schedule, I make other things the priority instead.
03:14-03:23
So here's the question, what do I do when what I want isn't what I choose?
03:26-03:32
What do I do when what I want, we all just admitted the things that we want, what do I do when what I want isn't what I choose?
03:32-03:44
Well, you know God actually gave us something to break the pattern and to make us focused on Him.
03:46-03:49
And do you know what incredible gift God gave us?
03:52-03:53
It's called fasting.
03:56-03:57
Now, I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, please.
04:00-04:04
I imagine there are probably some people in this room that have never fasted.
04:07-04:20
And I was talking to someone this week who's been walking with the Lord for a very long time and through life has been to quite a few churches, and he said to me, "I have never heard a preacher give a sermon on fasting.
04:21-04:28
I've just never heard it taught in the church." seldom discussed.
04:30-04:36
So to start this message before we get into the text is about fasting, but here's one of the things I struggle with as a pastor.
04:37-04:52
Like I really feel like before we just dive into the text that's about fasting, there might be some people that are like, "Well, I'm not quite sure what fasting even is." So in your outline today, this is fasting 101, okay?
04:53-04:55
This is fasting 101.
04:55-04:57
So number one, what is fasting?
04:59-05:00
What is fasting?
05:00-05:01
We'll start with this.
05:01-05:02
I'll jot this down.
05:02-05:24
Fasting is abstaining from food, parenthetically I have, and/or other things, for measured periods of time in order to heighten my hunger for the things of God.
05:25-05:44
substaining from food and/or other things for measured periods of time in order to heighten my hunger for the things of God." Now, when you study your Bible, and honestly I could spend probably a month worth of messages just on this subject, but we're going to just cover fasting 101 today.
05:47-05:50
But when you study your Bible, you'll see that fasting is connected with prayer.
05:52-05:53
It's connected with prayer.
05:55-06:02
You see fasting all throughout the Old Testament, you see fasting in the New Testament, you see fasting in the Gospels, you see fasting in the Epistles.
06:02-06:07
Do you know that Jesus Christ Himself fasted?
06:10-06:19
Alright, Bible students, in the Old Testament, did you know there was only one required fast in the Old Testament?
06:19-06:19
Just one.
06:21-06:28
And it was a one-day fast, and it was the most important day on the calendar in the Old Testament.
06:28-06:29
Who knows what that is?
06:31-06:33
It's actually the Day of Atonement, right?
06:33-06:43
Remember that one day a year, Leviticus chapter 16, that one day a year where the high priest would -- it was a picture of Christ who was to come.
06:43-06:44
What a beautiful picture.
06:45-06:50
That one day a year, you can read about this in Leviticus 16 and Hebrews comments on it.
06:50-06:55
But what would happen is the high priest, remember he had all these like really elaborate robes, right?
06:55-06:59
Remember he had the breastplate with all the stones representing the twelve tribes, and he had really elaborate.
07:01-07:07
But on the Day of Atonement, he would take all of those elaborate robes off and he would dress just like all the other priests.
07:08-07:11
And they actually had two goats and they would cast lots.
07:12-07:30
And the goat that's like rolling dice or it's like a game of chance, you would… it was to determine which goat was going to be taken into the Holy of Holies in the temple to be sacrificed for the atonement of sin for the entire nation of Israel.
07:31-07:38
Now this was a huge deal because this was the only day of the year that anybody went to the Holy of Holies, the only day of the year.
07:39-07:48
It was this room inside the temple where the Ark of the Covenant was, and nobody was allowed in there except the high priest and him just this one day a year.
07:48-07:56
So they would cast lots, he would sprinkle the blood of that goat on the mercy seat, that's the top of the Ark of the Covenant.
07:58-08:13
And the high priest would actually come out, again he was stripped down in his regular clothes, he'd come out from behind the veil, and then he would lay hands on that second goat.
08:14-08:20
And it was to symbolize that He was transferring the sin of the people onto that goat.
08:21-08:24
And with that goat, they would let it go into the wilderness.
08:25-08:29
And it was to symbolize that God was taking their sins away from them.
08:31-08:33
And that goat was actually called the scapegoat.
08:33-08:35
How many people have heard that term, the scapegoat?
08:35-08:37
You know the guy that like takes the blame for everything?
08:38-08:44
You know like that silly guy at your office that eats glue or whatever, and you're like, He's the guy that we blame everything on.
08:44-08:47
He's our scapegoat." Well, that's where that term came from.
08:48-08:51
Taking the blame, all of the sin put on, and it was a symbol.
08:54-08:59
And the reason that God instituted that was to prepare His people for Jesus Christ.
08:59-09:19
Jesus Christ, fully God, just like that high priest stripped off those elaborate robes, Jesus Christ in His humility, you could say stripped Himself of His divinity in a sense, by humbling Himself and becoming a man.
09:19-09:28
And Jesus Christ didn't just go into the Holy of Holies to offer the sacrifice of sins for the people.
09:28-09:29
What did Jesus do?
09:31-09:36
When He was nailed to the cross, what happened to that veil that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies?
09:36-09:43
The Bible says it tore, and that was to show that Jesus Christ gave us access to God.
09:43-09:54
You have the same access to God that Billy Graham does, that the high priest does, that anybody does, because Jesus Christ made that available by tearing the curtain.
09:55-10:03
But that one day a year, that lesson went a little further than I expected, but that one day a year was the day that Israel was called to fast.
10:06-10:09
But you also see there were many voluntary fasts.
10:12-10:21
After the Israelites came out of exile, the Jews started doing a four times a year fast.
10:23-10:30
Post-exilic Jews said, "We're not just going to fast one day a year now, we're going to fast four times a year." Well, fast forward to the New Testament times.
10:31-10:35
The Pharisees, you know how they were, right?
10:36-10:36
Overkill!
10:39-10:42
They're like, "We're fasting twice a week, okay?
10:42-10:45
Not this once a year stuff, that's Mickey Mouse, okay?
10:46-10:52
Not this four times a year, that's for kids." I'll show you who's holy.
10:53-11:01
The Pharisees said, "We fast twice a week, every Monday and every Thursday they fasted." All right?
11:03-11:11
There are many kinds of fasts, biblically normal fast, no food, drinking water but not having food.
11:11-11:17
There's a partial fast, maybe you just have vegetables or juice for a season.
11:19-11:22
There's the absolute fast, no food, no water.
11:24-11:26
And also there's the corporate fast.
11:26-11:32
You even see Acts chapter 13, Acts chapter 14, the church corporately fasted.
11:34-11:36
I'm not here to give you medical advice, okay?
11:37-11:37
I'm not a doctor.
11:38-11:42
So if you're considering fasting after we talk about this message, here's my little disclaimer, okay?
11:42-11:51
Make sure, you know, under a doctor's care, if you have some health issues, you might have to modify or adjust your fast, okay?
11:51-11:55
Like if you're diabetic or whatever, all right?
11:55-11:56
I don't want to get sued.
11:58-12:01
I'm not giving medical advice, I'm giving you what the Bible says.
12:02-12:06
Everybody say "message received." All right, confirmed.
12:08-12:09
That's what fasting is.
12:09-12:16
I'm abstaining from food and/or other things for measured periods of time in order to heighten my hunger for the things of God.
12:18-12:19
Okay, fasting is not.
12:21-12:24
Please, make sure you catch this.
12:25-12:30
I don't want anybody leaving here with this wrong idea of fasting or I've failed.
12:32-12:34
Fasting is not, I want you to jot these things down.
12:35-12:38
First of all, fasting is not self-punishment.
12:40-12:40
Okay?
12:41-12:42
Fasting is not self-punishment.
12:43-12:46
Like, "Oh, I've been such a bad boy and God must be so mad at me.
12:46-12:54
I'm going to punish myself by not eating." And that statement is like eight levels of wrong, okay?
12:55-12:56
Fasting is not self-punishment.
12:58-13:03
Like, "Yeah, I've really, I really screwed up, so I'm just, I'm going to let myself have it.
13:03-13:07
I'm not eating." That is not what fasting is for.
13:08-13:09
Secondly, fasting is not self-serving.
13:11-13:13
Like, "What do you mean by that?" Here's what I mean by that.
13:13-13:30
You could leave this message today and think, "You know what, Pastor Jeff, I do need to a couple of pounds, so maybe I'll do this fast, maybe get a little holy, shed a couple of pounds, you know, pants fitting a little nicer." That's self-serving.
13:30-13:35
If that's your motive, that's not what fasting is for.
13:36-13:40
Thirdly, fasting is not a bargaining chip.
13:41-13:43
It's not a bargaining chip.
13:44-13:46
Like, "Okay, I want something from God.
13:46-13:48
God, it's okay God, here's what I'm going to do.
13:49-13:58
I'll fast and then you give me this thing that I want you to give me." God doesn't work that way.
13:59-14:01
God doesn't play let's make a deal.
14:02-14:04
God says this is the deal, okay?
14:04-14:07
You're not going to bargain your way to get what you want.
14:10-14:13
Fourthly, along the same lines, fasting is not to get God's attention.
14:15-14:16
think, "Well, I'm just going to fast.
14:16-14:21
You know, I haven't really felt God's presence, so if I fast, I'll get God's attention.
14:21-14:22
Hey, look at me, God.
14:22-14:22
Look at me, God.
14:22-14:23
I'm fasting.
14:23-14:24
I'm really serious, God.
14:24-14:25
I'm fasting.
14:25-14:29
Do you see me?" Fasting is not about God noticing you.
14:32-14:33
Fasting is about you noticing God.
14:35-14:43
And lastly, and I would suggest to you most importantly, because this is what Jesus said, fasting is not for show.
14:45-14:56
Matthew chapter 6, Jesus talked about three things that followers of the Lord do, giving, praying and what?
14:57-14:58
Fasting.
14:59-15:02
All three of those have the exact same teaching.
15:03-15:30
If you're doing what you're doing to get people to notice you, Jesus says, "Congratulations, the pat on the back is all you're going to get out of it." He says, "You need to do what you're doing in secret, and your Father who is in heaven will see and will reward you." So if you're fasting and you're walking around like, "Hey Justin, you want to go to lunch this week?" "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot I'm fasting.
15:30-15:30
Sorry.
15:32-15:36
I totally forgot I'm fasting, you know, Justin, because I do that.
15:38-15:39
I'm a faster.
15:42-15:47
I don't even need breakfast because I don't break my fast.
15:48-15:49
My fast is intact.
15:51-15:52
I'm a faster.
15:53-15:54
I'm a faster.
15:54-15:58
I know what you're thinking, Justin, and you're right.
16:01-16:02
You're right.
16:04-16:05
I am just that spiritual.
16:10-16:11
Do you notice?
16:12-16:14
Do you notice how weak and faint I look?
16:17-16:18
It's because I haven't been eating.
16:20-16:20
I've been fasting.
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Did I mention that?
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Well, that's what the Pharisees did.
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The Pharisees would make it a big… it was this dog and pony show.
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It's Monday, I'm fasting," and Jesus was like, "Those applause, that's all you're going to get, because if you're doing what you're doing for show, you're totally missing it." All right?
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So that's what fasting is not.
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So number two, why do we fast?
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Why do we fast?
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is stopping the feeding of ourselves with other things to focus on our relationship with Jesus Christ.
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I'm going to say that again because it's really important.
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Why do we fast?
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We are stopping the feeding of ourselves with other things to focus on our relationship with Jesus Christ.
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Now, let me ask you, your hunger, your appetite, is it limited or is it unlimited?
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Is your appetite limited or unlimited?
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You're like, "Oh, this is a trick question." It's not.
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Your appetite is limited, isn't it?
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Isn't it?
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I mean, I know some of you can eat, but everybody stops eating at a point, right?
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So your appetite, can we all agree with that?
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Because this is really important.
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Your appetite is limited, right?
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It's limited.
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Otherwise, you'd pull the chair up to the buffet at Ponderosa, and you'd stay there from whenever they open until whenever they close, and then you'd need to hit McDonald's on the way home.
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Your appetite is limited, right?
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But listen, listen church, not just for food.
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Your appetite is limited for everything that you take in.
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And I want you to think about how much you take in over the course of a day.
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Food, work, conversation, entertainment, reading, television.
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People think, "Oh, I'm just going to relax and watch television." Do you know studies show that watching television is the most draining thing you can do?
18:59-19:00
Did you know that?
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Watching television is draining, but you only have so much hunger and every day the capacity to satisfy yourself is limited.
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I want to use an illustration.
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I want everybody to look up here.
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This table top represents your appetite.
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For some of you it's a little big, and for some of you, Darren, it's a little small.
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This table top represents your appetite.
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I can say that because I'm his brother.
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He won't hurt me too bad.
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But this is your appetite.
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Let this represent not just your belly, but your heart and your mind and everything.
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This is what you have room for to take in every day, right?
19:58-19:58
Is everybody with me?
19:59-19:59
Everybody with me?
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Okay.
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This is your appetite.
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And this is what we do over the course of a day, right?
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The first thing we do, one of the first things we do, is we have breakfast, right?
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So we get up and we eat and maybe we read the paper.
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Okay, more things going into our appetite, are you with me?
20:20-20:22
Our appetite is being filled.
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There's food, there's bad news, and then maybe we got the latest CTA catalog and we gotta make sure we're looking at that, taking more things in.
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And we're drinking this.
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I'll make sure we have coffee.
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I only brought one coffee cup.
20:37-20:40
This by no means signifies how much coffee I drink.
20:41-20:43
And then we go to work, right?
20:44-20:48
So we take our lunch for work, and then we gotta make sure that we have our snack.
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And look, our appetite, getting filled up, isn't it?
20:52-20:53
It's getting filled up.
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And oh, we gotta make sure that, you know, we gotta have our late afternoon snack.
20:58-21:03
And you're like, I don't know what you're eating for lunch, but I eat a lot more than that.
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and we're just constantly filling ourselves up, filling ourselves up, and then we get home, pizza, pizza, right?
21:13-21:18
And, okay, and then we're filling our appetite.
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Oh, at some point in the day, we had our beef jerky.
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Don't forget the beef jerky, right?
21:26-21:28
Oh, and our gelatin, make sure you have our jello.
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That's not real jello, that's like generic store jello.
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but make sure, okay, so then, is that it?
21:35-21:36
Of course not.
21:36-21:40
We have our Rice Krispie, I actually had this Rice Krispie treat pack, but no one ate it.
21:40-21:46
But our appetite is getting filled, right?
21:46-21:48
And this time of year, make sure you get your pumpkin pie.
21:51-21:57
And okay, so that's like all the eating that we do, but think about how you're filling your appetite in your heart and in your mind.
21:58-22:00
I mean, think of all the things you do for that.
22:00-22:02
Oh, I'll just get this one right off the bat.
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Here's the biggest one, right?
22:04-22:04
Your smartphone.
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Do you realize how much of your heart and mind appetite you're feeding with your smartphone?
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You have all of the information in the world at your fingertips.
22:16-22:25
And every time you're sitting there going through Facebook, scanning the net, checking your email, feeding an appetite, feeding an appetite.
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And maybe at some point in the day, we're going to read, okay?
22:31-22:33
And we have our book.
22:33-22:36
This is the world's greatest collection of church jokes.
22:40-22:41
Not one of them are funny.
22:49-22:52
Okay, oh, and then, oh, don't forget, oh, there's some candy.
22:52-22:53
You gotta have your sugar fix, right?
22:54-22:56
And then, oh, and the TV, right?
22:57-23:04
That fills up with, I mean, I just brought the remote, but how much of the space of the appetite of our hearts and minds does the TV fill?
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I just brought the remote for illustration purposes, right?
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Oh, and you know, maybe we take time, we play a little PlayStation, okay?
23:13-23:17
So we're gonna put this on our, fill our appetite with the PlayStation.
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Corinne sure hopes that you take some time.
23:21-23:22
This is to exercise, right?
23:23-23:29
This is a TheraBand that my kids ripped, but I couldn't rip it, but my eight-year-old did.
23:30-23:37
And you take time to exercise, and then maybe you take time at the end of the night to watch a movie.
23:40-23:46
So look at what you've done with your appetite over the course of a day.
23:46-23:50
Do you see, can you see visually how much you've filled yourself?
23:50-23:51
Can you see that?
23:55-24:03
You're like, "Well, what's the problem?" We're going to let this represent your relationship with Jesus Christ.
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Here's the problem.
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We get to the end of the day, and we've been stuffing ourselves with all of this stuff that we're just like, maybe, no?
24:21-24:26
I don't, I don't really have any room in my appetite left for God.
24:29-24:51
And somehow we just try to maybe fit it in, and we wonder, "Why don't I have much appetite for Jesus?" Because I've spent so much of my day filling myself with lesser things.
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Now, none of these things are bad, right?
24:53-24:57
None of these things are bad, but none of these things are Jesus.
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And we fill ourselves with all these lesser things and then wonder why we don't have an appetite for Jesus.
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So the question is, why do we fast?
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This is what fasting is.
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I'm not putting anything in my appetite except focusing on my relationship with Jesus Christ.
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This is what fasting is.
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I just want to focus on Him.
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I am going to voluntarily get rid of all these other distractions and all these things I've been feeding my mind and heart and belly with.
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I'm putting them aside for a season.
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I am putting them aside for a season because I just want to focus on Jesus Christ." That's what fasting is.
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So if you don't hunger for God, it's not because you're satisfied, you're full of God to the point that you have no hunger for that relationship, you have no hunger for that fellowship, it's because you've filled yourself with lesser things.
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Fasting gets everything off the table and frees us to focus on what we really want.
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So church, have you ever fasted?
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I encourage you, if you are finding focusing on Jesus Christ has been difficult, if you are finding that you haven't had an appetite for prayer, I would encourage you to use this gift that God has given to control your appetite.
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Maybe you would try a partial fast.
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Maybe you'd say, "You know what?
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For the next three days, I'm just going to skip lunch and instead spend time just praying and getting in the Word.
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Instead of feeding my belly, I'm gonna spend time feeding my soul.
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Maybe you start there.
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And then when you do, I promise you, when you do and you realize the benefits of it, you're going to start.
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You know what?
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I'm going to take a day to fast.
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I'm going to take three days to fast just to focus on my relationship with Jesus Christ, focus on my identity in Jesus Christ, Focus on the fellowship that God has blessed me with in Jesus Christ.
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That's fasting.
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My appetite is going to be focused on one thing and one thing alone, Jesus Christ.
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And then underneath that, fasting is not… fasting is not… just jot this down.
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Fasting is not to make you holier.
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Fasting is not to make you holier.
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You don't rise a rank in God's eyes.
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You don't get brownie points with God.
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You don't get street cred with God when you do a fast, okay?
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It's not to make you holier.
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It's to focus your appetite.
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The reason I needed to close this little section with this is because this is the crux of the issue in the passage that we're going to look at.
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Look at Mark chapter 2 and verse 18.
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It says, "Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting.
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And people came and said to him, 'Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast." On the surface, that seems like a pretty legitimate question, right?
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Keep in mind, John's disciples and the Pharisees, okay, not buddies, all right?
29:14-29:22
So don't think that them being mentioned in the same sentence meant that they were like on the same volleyball team, because they were not, okay?
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They were actually in quite opposition to some worldview things, you could say.
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But they did have this in common, was that they were very sincere people, and they were people known for fasting.
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So they come to Jesus and say, "John's disciples fast.
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The Pharisees fast.
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Why are you partying?
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It's like you're out of touch, Jesus.
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I mean, you hang out with sinners, you go to parties, and look, your people don't even fast like the religious people do.
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And they were stuck in a religious, got to keep the law mindset.
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So what's the answer to that?
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Well, number one, look at Jesus' answer, number one on your outline, you can't fast while you celebrate.
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That's just like, that's like fasting 101.
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You can't fast while you celebrate.
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Verses 19 through 20, "And Jesus said to them, 'Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?'" A parenthetical note, in the Old Testament, who was called the bridegroom?
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Jehovah God.
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He said Israel was his bride.
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So Jesus was equating Himself with God in this passage.
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He was saying that He's the bridegroom, which is what God referred to Himself as in the Old Testament.
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So can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
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As long as they have the bridegroom with them, Jesus said they cannot fast.
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The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.
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So you can't fast while you celebrate.
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Did you know in Jesus' day that was actually a rabbinical law?
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It was like a rabbinical law.
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It wasn't like, "Eh, fasting at a wedding is not a good idea." The rabbis wrote a law, "You are not allowed to fast at a wedding." A wedding ceremony actually took place over the course of seven days.
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Like, "You are not allowed to fast during a wedding ceremony.
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are forbidden to fast during a wedding. And we kind of get that, right? I mean, imagine, you know, for those of you who are married, think back to your wedding day. For those of you who aren't married, think ahead to your wedding day. But imagine it's your big day. You're sitting at that table up front with the wedding party. Just had this beautiful ceremony, and you look over at your brand-new spouse and their food is untouched on their plate. And you're like, "Are you sick?" Like, "No, I'm not sick." "Do you want me to get you some different food you don't like?" "No." "Why aren't you eating?" "I'm fasting." "You're what?!" "Fasting." "No, you and dancing and partying, and you wouldn't show up at the wedding and be in the wedding party and be fasting.
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Jesus said, "Someday the bridegroom's going to be gone." He said, "Then, then they will fast." And I want you to circle the word "then" in your Bible.
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Note the expectation.
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Don't think that Jesus was like fasting.
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That's not what Jesus was saying at all.
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He says, "You can't fast while I'm here." You see, if fasting is about focusing solely on your appetite and your relationship with Jesus Christ, you really can't do that when you're physically in His presence.
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The bridegroom is here.
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This is the most unique chapter in the history of the earth because God's walking on it.
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Okay, so how can you expect the people to be fasting when they're with the bridegroom?
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He says, "But someday the bridegroom's going to be taken away, then, then they will fast." Remember we mentioned Matthew chapter 6 earlier, Jesus said, "When you give, don't be like the hypocrites.
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When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites." And Jesus said, "When you fast," and He didn't say, "If you fast," He said, "When you fast." notice that there's an expectation, just like giving and praying, there's just an expectation that part of being a disciple is fasting.
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Oh, so now that Jesus is gone and He's not in our presence, I fast to get more righteous, right?
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Because you have to, we're going to close with this, but you have to see how Jesus cut off a wrong line of thinking before it got started.
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"Oh, so when you go, I fast and that makes me more righteous." Write this down in your outline, you can't add relationship to religion.
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You can't add relationship to religion.
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Two pictures here.
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Jesus said, verse 21, "No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment.
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If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made." "Aaron, what do I know about sewing and like doing the laundry?" Zero, right.
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So I had to study this part.
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In Jesus' day there were no synthetics, right?
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Like, "Hey, nice polyester toga." No.
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No synthetics.
35:37-35:39
So all the clothes that they had shrunk, right?
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They all did.
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And here's Jesus' picture, okay?
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So you have like, you have like these old blue jeans that have a hole in them, and they've They've been through the worsh, as my dad would say, they've been through the worsh so many times, they're like your favorite jeans.
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You know how your favorite jeans feel, right?
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Oh, you love your favorite jeans.
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But they get a big hole in them, and you're like, "I can't part with these, they're my favorite jeans." So you take a piece of brand new cloth that hasn't been shrunk, and you like patch that in the hole, what happens the next time you worsh them?
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That patch is going to shrink, and it's going to rip the garment, and it's going to be even worse than when you started, right?
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Jesus with the sewing lesson.
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Jesus was saying this, "You don't add a new to the old, or you ruin both." And just so there's nobody that thinks that Jesus...
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Like, how do you know He's not giving a sewing lesson, Pastor Jeff?
36:45-37:10
on with me. He says, "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins and the wine is destroyed and so are the skins." He says, "But new wine is for fresh wineskins." In biblical times, do you know what they used for wineskins?
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You can actually read about this in the book of Joshua.
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They actually used a goat hide.
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Okay, like chop off the head, that's the spout now.
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Chop off the legs, sew them up, and you have this nice little wine skin.
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Well, what happens to wine when it ferments?
37:34-37:36
That skin expands, right?
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It's only going to expand so far.
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So you wouldn't take this old wine skin that you've used already and say, "Well, I'm going to make more wine.
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I'm going to put the new wine into this old wine skin.
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When that ferments, it's going to stretch, and what's going to happen?
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Stretch beyond breaking point, right?
37:57-38:06
And just, "Pshh." And you're like, "Okay, I just made a terrible mess, and I've just wasted a lot of wine." So what's Jesus' point?
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You don't put new into the old or you ruin both.
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Does that sound familiar?
38:16-38:20
Both of these stories have the exact same meaning, and here it is.
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Religion, rituals, ceremonies, keeping the law, that is the old garment.
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And you can't patch the old garment with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Jesus Christ didn't come to patch.
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He came to replace.
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And church, please, you've got to hear this.
38:52-39:04
Some people think that God had this really great law in the Old Testament, and God was up in heaven like, "Oh man, those people just aren't doing what they're told.
39:04-39:05
They keep breaking my law.
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Oh, I got an idea.
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Jesus will fix it." That is not it at all.
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That's exactly what Jesus was talking about here.
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I'm not here to put a patch on the law.
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I'm not here to fix this broken system.
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He says I'm here to replace it.
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Again, there's the religion, the rituals, the ceremonies, they're the old garment that you can't patch, but they're also the old skins that you don't just add Jesus to it.
39:37-39:39
And church, that's the attitude that a lot of Christians have.
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As I'm a pretty decent guy, I'm pretty moral.
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I kind of grew up in Sunday school.
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I follow the Ten Commandments.
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Like, I'll just kind of add Jesus to that.
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Jesus didn't patch the law, and Jesus isn't an add-on to the law.
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Like, "Oh yeah, obey the Ten Commandments, just add Jesus." You can't add Jesus to the old, because Jesus Christ is about all things new.
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And again, church, fasting, which started this whole conversation, isn't about getting cred with God.
40:25-40:29
It's about single-minded focus on your relationship with God.
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And I believe that's why Jesus launched into this garment, wine-skin illustration, is because He knew that people would read this and try to make fasting some kind of like a New Testament law thing.
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It's not.
40:48-40:49
It's about focus.
40:51-40:52
It's not about keeping a law.
40:56-41:02
And church, you know, do you know why we pour new wine of the gospel into the old wineskins of the law?
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Do you know why we do that?
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Because it's easy.
41:06-41:07
But it's wrong.
41:11-41:14
Grace is not an easy thing for us to understand.
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I met a man very early on in this church that visited many times, by his own admission was an atheist.
41:23-41:26
And I've had lunch with him, and I've met with him.
41:26-41:28
Do you know what his hang-up was?
41:28-41:39
He says, "I don't understand unmerited love." He goes, "It just doesn't make any sense to me that God would love me." No strings attached.
41:41-41:46
At least He was honest, because the truth is I don't understand that either.
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I believe it, but I don't understand that, that God would love me?
41:54-41:56
Like the lowest of the low, He would love me?
42:01-42:03
Slightly less hard to understand, He would love you?
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But it's easy for us to try to add Jesus to our mindset of the law, because grace is so hard to understand for us sometimes, because we want to measure where we stand, don't we?
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We want to measure where we stand.
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Give me the checklist.
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Give me the Ten Commandments.
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Okay, didn't murder anyone today, didn't steal today, honored my parents today.
42:37-42:47
The gospel says you are forgiven, you are born again, you are a child of God, but there's something in us that wants something tangible, so we run to the law.
42:49-43:35
Or we try to make our own standard, and we try to treat the gospel of Jesus Christ like it's an outside-in thing. Like I don't dance, I don't smoke cigarettes, I don't watch dirty movies, so God must be happy with me." That is not the gospel. The gospel is, you were dead in your sins. You were at the morgue, and God gave you eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ, and now God's very presence lives within you. So the gospel isn't an outside-in kind of religion, And it's an inside-out relationship with the God who loves you and dwells in you.
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That's the gospel.
43:40-43:44
And the two ideas, obviously, are mutually exclusive.
43:47-43:54
Because church, isn't it true that we want to believe that when we're good, God loves us, and when we're bad, God's mad at us?
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True or false?
43:55-43:56
We want to believe that.
43:57-43:58
When we're good, God loves us.
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I had a good day today, I was pretty good to my wife, I was pretty good to my kids.
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God's happy with me today.
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God's happy with me today, but it has nothing to do with what I've done.
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It has everything to do with what His Son did.
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But more often than not, I hear the other, right?
44:21-44:22
Don't you hear the other?
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"Oh, I had a rough day.
44:25-44:26
I had a rough day.
44:26-44:35
You know what, I like totally cussed out a fellow employee, and I was kind of mean to my wife, and I watched something on TV that I shouldn't have watched.
44:35-44:47
God must be mad at me." That is not the gospel of Jesus Christ, because God's satisfaction or dissatisfaction with you has nothing to do with you.
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It has everything to do with the work that His Son accomplished on the cross.
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Jesus died to take away your sin.
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He arose from the dead to give you eternal life, and the Bible says that He actually gave you His righteousness, so that when God sees you, if you're a follower of Christ, when God sees you, He sees you as righteous as His own Son.
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Not because of what you've done, but because of what He did.
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But when we live with the attitude that when we're good, God loves us, when we're bad, God is mad at us.
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That type of living always leaves us defeated, doesn't it?
45:29-45:32
Maybe you grew up in a home where your father treated you like that.
45:33-45:39
If I did all my chores, Dad was happy with me and he was my buddy, but if I did something wrong he acted like he hated me.
45:40-45:43
And we try to transfer that same mindset of a relationship to God.
45:44-45:46
That's not God, because that's not the gospel.
45:49-45:54
You will never measure up to God in your flesh.
45:55-46:06
You never will, because your standing with God, Christians, your standing with God is permanently fixed on a finished work of Jesus Christ.
46:09-46:19
So trying to add Jesus to your works is like trying to add a new patch to the old cloth, Both are ruined.
46:20-46:32
You can't keep the law, you're just unable to, but in trying to keep a law, you nullify grace, right?
46:33-46:34
That's why both are ruined.
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Did you get that?
46:35-46:39
Jesus in both of these stories says, adding the new to the old ruins both.
46:39-46:40
This is what He was talking about.
46:40-46:41
You're unable to keep the law, right?
46:42-46:44
You're unable, you just can't.
46:45-46:51
Like if I said, "Bob Mastarino, I'll give you a $100,000 check if you can go this week without sinning," you would not make it, man.
46:51-46:53
You wouldn't make it on the drive home.
46:56-46:56
True or false?
46:57-46:59
I love you, man, and it's because you're honest.
47:04-47:11
You can't keep the law, but in thinking that trying to keep the law makes God happy means you nullify grace.
47:12-47:24
That's why Jesus said, "Well, you ruin both when you try to add the two." Christ is not an add-on, and He's not a safety net when we fail.
47:25-47:32
Jesus Christ is our righteousness, and Jesus Christ isn't just part of our life.
47:33-47:35
The truth is Jesus Christ is our life.
47:37-47:46
I believe it was Warren Weersbe that said this, "There are two ways to end the life of an acorn.
47:47-48:02
You can smash it with a hammer, or you can plant it, and out of its death comes new life." Well, the latter is what Jesus Christ did with the Old Testament law.
48:03-48:12
He didn't destroy it, but the law had to die, and out of it grew a whole new way of knowing God.
48:15-48:22
So church, it's time to stop striving to keep the law, and it's time to focus on your identity in Jesus Christ.
48:22-48:42
And if you've been having a hard time lately, resting totally in Jesus Christ, maybe it's time to fast and spend a season where He is all that you are focusing on. Let's pray.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Mark 2:18-22

Why do you think the disciples of John and the Pharisees were bent out of shape about Jesus’ disciples not fasting?
Was Jesus saying fasting is obsolete (see Matthew 6:16-18)? What would the purpose be of fasting today, if it is not something to make you “holier”?
What was Jesus’ point about His two stories (the garment/patch and the wine/wineskins)? What are ways people try to mix the old (Law, religious works) and the new (Gospel, grace)? Why can’t you mix the old and the new?

Breakout Questions:

When was the last time you fasted? Is there a reason for you to fast in this season of your life?
Pray for one another.

The Secret to Fasting

Introduction:

What Am I Really Hungry For? (Matthew 6:16–18)

When You Fast… (Matthew 6:16-18)

Intro / Review:

One question to evaluate your fasting (Matthew 6:16-18):

Fasting: Training Your Appetite

Upcoming Small Group Questions CLICK HERE

How much of the Bible have we covered since 2011?

Introduction:

What Am I Really Hungry For? (Matthew 6:16–18)

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Intro / Review:

One question to evaluate your fasting (Matthew 6:16-18):

Audio Transcript

Audio Transcript