Transcript
Matthew chapter six, verses 16 through 18. In the nineties, my dad was starting off his ministry to parents. He was teaching parenting conferences. He decided to do a big blowout conference at Sandy Cove Christian Retreat Center up in Northeast Maryland. And he thought, okay, in order for me to really draw a crowd, maybe I can get a well-known Christian music artist that families love. And so at the time, there was this really popular singer who made Christian albums. And if you have kids either my age or you had kids at that time, you know, probably knew of this person. He would make all these kind of Bible songs for kids. And so my dad signed the contract, had the guy coming out, but people warned us, they said, listen, we did a concert with this individual and they are not very nice.
And sure enough, so my dad, on the day of this big concert, I think we had to sell 800 tickets, sold it out. My job, my dad was the kind of guy, all of us had a job, there was five of us, and all of his kids were doing something right. So I was logistics, pre-con, making sure the sound check was good, making sure everybody was happy. So I'm in there watching this person get ready, get their guitar all tuned up, and there was 15 kids that somehow had made it in before the doors were officially opened. And they were in there screaming like, yeah, what's up? And this guy was a total jerk. He was like, yo, I'm not that person yet, because he had this kind of stage name. He's like, I'm not that person yet. Get these kids out of here. And it was like, are you kidding?
You're a Christian and you work with kids and you're going to be that horrible. So anyway, what I learned as a probably 13-year-old in this setting was that man, not everybody that claims to be a Christian always acts like a Christian should. Ironic thing was I ended up at a lunch with him, just he and I sitting at a table before the concert started, we had missed the real dinner. And I actually got to tell him as a 13-year-old, maybe you should be a little bit nicer to the people, to the kids you're actually supposed to be. And he kind of listened to me, to his credit, he said, yeah, I just kind of get stressed and I act out. And you're right. I shouldn't do that. Anyway, I learned, learned in that setting that some people are performative in their spirituality. They kind of have a stage name as a Christian, they're kind of doing their thing, but they expected they can kind of turn off their Christianity like a performer steps off a stage and they have no requirement to have character any longer.
And some of us, I think all of us struggle with this to one degree or another as we're being shaped in the image of Christ where there's just a gap looking like Jesus and who we are on Sunday morning. So we may be here and it's like, oh yeah, I love Jesus. But then we get out there and we start driving around and we're like a disaster and somebody just slams their brakes on and it's like, oh yeah, I'm going to get you. I mean, I did that this week. So listen, Jesus wants to change us. So we're reading through the Sermon on the Mount and everything here in the Sermon on the Mount is like this is a new society that Jesus is forming, he's declaring, and he said, the down and out, the vulnerable, the sorrowful, the weak, they're welcomed in and they're said they're congratulated in their state because the kingdom of heaven is for them.
And then he gets into the section about righteousness and how he's not here to throw out the Hebrew scriptures, but he's here to fulfill everything that was written from Genesis all the way to Malachi and that he's going to fulfill the law and the prophets through his ministry, that he's not opposed to it, but he brings in a new layer of righteousness. And so he goes through this section of these six different ways in which you've heard it said, but I say to you, right? And he's giving depth to the ethical standards of this new society. And so for the last three, four weeks now, we've looked at chapter six and three practices that we're going to be a part of every Christian's life, every follower of life. The first was giving to the poor. If you read it in the King James version, it's giving to alms.
And then you get to the next section which is prayer. And he talks about performative prayer, performative alms giving compared to this genuine alms giving and genuine prayer. And now we get to fasting. Fasting. So Jesus is talking about his kingdom. He's saying, my kingdom is not about performance. My kingdom is about genuine people acting sincere in the presence of God. Christianity is safe as long as it doesn't cost me anything or it doesn't cost me anything. So long as I can relegate it to momentary performance or non-physical experiences that is ethereal or esoteric. It means floating out there like a cloud, whereas you live in a body which is not ethereal. And what we're going to see in this text is that we've been emphasizing genuineness and you know the idea of a genuine dollar bill versus a counterfeit dollar bill. We're going to continue with that theme of genuineness, but I want to tap in here to another aspect of these three. We call 'em spiritual practices, or maybe you grew up calling 'em spiritual disciplines.
I have here it says, I've been emphasizing Jesus' warning against performative spirituality. Performative spirituality does religious activity, so society will watch and applaud and we call that being disingenuous, but I want to draw your attention to the grittiness, earthiness, which is not a word. I made it up, and this idea of genuine spirituality. And in all three of these examples of alms giving, caring for the poor, prayer and fasting, there is a sub theme of spirituality that is ordinary, normal, typical, average, unexceptionable run of the mill, plain, same or common, right? That is this idea of it goes from being impractical, kind of floating out there as a concept to being embodied. Before we get right to that point, let's look at the text together. It says, whenever you fast, don't be gloomy. My version would say, don't be an Eeyore. Do you watch Winnie the Pooh?
Yeah. Don't be gloomy like the hypocrites for they make their faces unattractive so that their fasting is obvious to people. Truly, I tell you, they have their reward. But when you fast put oil on your head and wash your face so that your fasting isn't obvious to others, but to your father who is in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you, let's pray. Lord, we just ask that you would speak to us through this text, Lord, that you would continue to teach us about the very common normal pieces of living out our faith. We've talked about giving to the poor. We've talked about prayer, this whole idea of our relationship with food and fasting. God, we pray that you would speak to us this morning through this text and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So Jesus says this, when you fast, don't be gloomy like the hypocrites.
Let's just define fasting for a second. Do you know what fasting is? Fasting means that you are going to abstain from food for a period of time. Now it can be something broader than just food. It can be fasting from technology or it can be a practice of subtracting something else from your life. But primarily when we talk about fasting, we're talking about not eating food for a period of time. There is a holiday in the Jewish tradition where they will literally not eat food or drink water for 24 hours. It is a fast, it's a religious holy day for the Jewish people of dedicating themselves to the Lord. Now, fasting is a practice that is found in Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. It is not just a Christian practice, but we're going to look at it specifically through the history of Israel and then at Jesus's day.
And then I want to talk a little bit about even some of the modern findings around fasting as we head towards this very embodied practice of spirituality. So in Israel's history, there is communal and individual fasting. We go through the Old Testament. We see fasting was primarily a corporate practice, Israel fasted in response to national crisis seeking judgment, repentance or God's intervention. You can see those passages. We also though see individuals faceted such as David in grief and Esther when she was seeking deliverance. So it comes up in the Old Testament. In those settings, we also see that it is significant for mourning and repentance. Fasting expressed deep seated sorrow and humility before God, people wore sackcloth, tore garments and abstained from normal grooming as well as food and drink. That's important because Jesus has some things to say about your physical appearance and fasting.
It's also in the Old Testament connected with prayer, fasting, intensified prayer and supplication. It created a focused space for petition or lament. One of my mentors talked to me about this or explained it in this way, that we are given how many senses, five senses, right? And those senses, the idea is that those senses are signaling sending signals to your brain. If you abstain from one sense, it's almost like one receptor, one channel is now open and there is this ability to receive on a new channel. I would say this is something more experienced then taught in my own journey with fasting. One of the first significant times of fasting in my life was when I was 18 years old in Bible college and started out doing a fast called a Daniel fast, and that was where I ate one meal during the day. It was just a pile of vegetables and that was it, and it was a great experience because all of a sudden, all of the sensation of eating throughout the day and sending those signals to my brain that was turned off and I was in a bit of a weakened state, and I just had this ability.
I felt like, man, I'm like the radio turned on and I'm just hearing things spiritually that are going on. Then I decided, well, this is going so good. I'm going to just do the full on fast. I'm going to cut food out of my diet for 10 days. It was horrible, horrible. My breath stunk. I felt more of a spiritual darkness during that time than when I would normally, and I realized, wow, it's not just that the radio signal that I can receive spiritually, but I'm tuning in, everything's coming in, Satan's screaming in my ear, and I can hear just evil just as much as there is a sense of, yeah, God could speak to me in this setting. So don't think one of the things that when people ask me about fasting, one of the things I often will say is most of the time the benefit is not found.
The spiritual benefit is not found in the fasting moment. Now, if you do, if you're like, man, I'm hearing God's voice and I just love Jesus more when I'm fasting, that's awesome. Just don't lose too much weight. Consult a doctor before you do it. But for in my own experience, fasting is not fun. The benefits for some reason in my own life when I fast on the backend is when there's just this crazy benefit. I always liken it to this sense of being shot out of a cannon of like, man, the wind is at my back. I'm totally motivated. I'm excited about life. I've got vision. I literally think you put a wall in front of me, I'm going to bust through that wall. So it has this ability in it intensifies prints application. Why? So this is one thing though that is a benefit. In two Corinthians 13, Paul talks about his own condition and he says he uses this phrase, I'm weak with Christ. I'm weak with Christ. When was Christ weak?
When was Christ weak? When he was tempted that whole season, the temptation going to the cross, right? He's in this place of just incredible and yet what did God bring about out of the weakness of Christ? He showed his strength. He showed his strength, right? His power was on display through the resurrection. So within your framework of understanding God and relating to God, God is not afraid or looking for you to be superhuman in your strength. The faster you get to this place of weakness and dependency upon God, the more you're positioned for God's power to be demonstrated in your life. In two Corinthians four, Paul says, we went through a season where we were like a clay pot in your garage. He didn't use garage, but it was like you're a clay pot and some experiences like you're knocked down, you're pressed you, you're being jostled about, you're being cracked, but there's an excellency of power. He says, that's in you. That's God's spirit in you that's shining out. God totally has designed for you to be the clay pot jostled around in the garage, not glamorous because it's through your weakness that God's power is demonstrated. That is a principle. So in fasting, we are manipulating our body to be in a place of weakness.
The closest I felt to God over the past seven days was when I was weak, the closest I felt to God was in my weakness. So you go and you fast, you abstain from food and you bring yourself immediately or pretty quickly into a place of weakness. Hey, it kind of short circuits, it's like almost cheating. It brings you to that place of where God wants you to be in weakness, independence upon him. None of that's in my notes, but I do have that slide there, which is kind of cool. Now, Jesus, Jesus, let's jump over to Jesus. There's an increased let frequency of fasting when we get to the New Testament in Jesus time, fasting had become more regular, though not mandatory for devout Jews. The Pharisees prided themselves on fasting twice a week. You can look at Luke 18 verse 12. So it was very much a part of the time of Jesus.
We see Jesus addressing questions about fasting. Jesus is asked by his disciples, why or He's asked his disciples not to fast as often as the disciples of John the Baptist. He's asked why, and Jesus responded with the metaphor of the bridegroom implying that while the bridegroom is with you, when you're doing the wedding rehearsal and the wedding, you don't fast on that day, but in the absence of the bridegroom, then it's appropriate to be fasting, showing. That's his response to this question. And then in Luke 18, there is this story, this parable where Jesus contrasts the self-righteous Pharisee who proudly announces his fasting with the humble tax collector who simply pleads for God's mercy. And there he talks about how the Pharisees prided themselves on fasting twice a week, so fasting common practice at the time of Jesus, and we see that the way that verse 16 is written, Jesus expected that fasting would continue because he says, when you fast, not if you fast, but hey, when you fast as a citizen in my kingdom, here is how you need to do it.
Just a couple of medical things really quickly. There's a number of studies that have shown that fasting is good for your health as long as you are in a state that your doctor approves you to fasting. So if you struggle with your sugar levels or if you have other medical issues around eating or an abuse of food or absence of food, you really should not fast without really having the oversight, not just approval but the oversight of your doctor. But some studies have shown that there's a reduction of oxidative damage and inflammation through fasting. There's the cardiovascular benefits. Intermittent fasting shows a promise in reducing inflammation, aiding in weight loss and improving various cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure and your lipid profile. Another study showed the enhanced longevity and disease prevention. There is obviously weight loss and metabolic health, and last one is improved cognitive function.
Fasting can lead to an improved cognitive performance likely due to its effects on cellular and molecular protective mechanisms. There's some pretty cool documentaries on Netflix and Amazon Prime about fasting and not from any Christian perspective, but just there's even, I think the one that I watched was about these fasting clinics maybe in China where people will go for like a 10 days and it's like a hotel where they're caring for you as you fast and they give you a vegetable broth and it's kind of like this mini retreat center. It's peaceful, it's relaxing, but people there because there is this belief that fasting is so beneficial to your health, but not only is fasting good for our physical health, it is appropriate and useful in our relationship with God. Look at this quote from Scott McKnight. This guy wrote the book on fasting. He says this fasting is a response to a sacred moment, not an instrument designed to get desired results.
That's really important. I get this question kind of often about, pastor, I'm going through this, I really need God to answer this prayer. Maybe I need to fast. That's not what fasting is. You're not twisting God's arm by abstaining from food. That's not what God's looking at. He's looking at your heart. He's looking at your heart, and fasting can help your heart get to a place that is the place where God wants you to be. The focus in the Christian tradition is not if you fast, you will get, but when this happens, God's people fast fasting is a response to a very serious situation, not an act that gets us from a good level to a better level. One writer said, and if you get the church's emails, I sent out a 44 page booklet on fasting that's provided by Practicing the Way and John Mark Corner.
It's just a free resource on fasting, and if you didn't get that, talk to me after church and I'll send it to you. But one of the things that he talks about there is that fasting is our body talking to God. There is this just bringing our body along with us in our spirituality. So we've looked at fasting, but then what else does Jesus say? He first is going to command how not to fast. He says, don't be gloomy like the hypocrites for they make their faces unattractive so that their fasting is obvious to people. Truly, I tell you, they have their reward. He references the hypocrites again, I say again because he talked about the hypocrites in their giving to the poor. He talked about them when they pray and now he's talking about their fasting. This is performative spirituality. It's a spirituality. A spiritual act is done for a human audience.
Remember Jesus said of the hypocrites giving to the poor, that they sound a trumpet in the synagogues and on the streets and when they pray, they stand in the synagogue on the street corners to be seen. It's all an act. It's all a show that doesn't reflect a true genuine relationship with God and says of them, they've got their reward. Their reward is that they're noted. People think that they're religious, they've got some respect from some corners of whatever religion it is, and Jesus says, look, they've got their reward, but he doesn't just say, don't do this. He also gives some instructions on how to fast. He says, when you fast put oil on your head and wash your face so that your fasting isn't obvious to others, but to your father who sees in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you, so it follows the same template as giving to the poor and prayer that you're doing it in a way that is between you and God, but here it's even you're taking proactive steps to look normal, wash your face off, put the oil on your face. I don't know why you're putting oil on your face because I don't live in that culture, but it seems like it's like put your makeup on or put whatever you need. Get to yourself looking normal rather than having your clothes rent and you've got sat soot on your face and it's like, oh man, that person's super spiritual.
Jesus is emphasizing a practice that does not draw public attention. It is a discreet and private between you and God. The primary audience is God the Father, and he says, you will be rewarded A couple of things in closing, Jesus is not saying, no one can know that you're fasting. He is simply warning his followers not to fast for the purpose of getting social praise. He says, let your active fasting flow out of your relationship with God, your fasting because you love God, because you care about your relationship with God. It serves some purpose in your relationship with him. I want to broaden out for a second, just like I said at the beginning and talk about this second aspect of being genuine in our spiritual practices, and I want to ask, do you see the physical nature of these practices? When we look at umms giving to the poor, he says, giving and caring for the poor around you.
Your left hand is not knowing the right hand. Now, that is a metaphor for privacy, but he's using your anatomy to talk about the discretion that you use. Then he talks about praying in solitude. He says, go into your private room and shut the door. Prayer. He's connecting it to a physical act. Can you pray in your car? Yes, of course you can. Can you pray in your bedroom? Yes. Do you need the private room? No, not necessarily, but he's connecting the spiritual act of talking with God. It's happening in a very earthy common space that is private, and then here's fasting. He says, abstain from food, put oil on your head and wash your face. He's saying there's these very physical acts that are going along with this spiritual practice you can't separate. Again. Many see spirituality. This is taking from this book on fasting by McKnight.
He says, many see spirituality as separate from daily life, something lofty, perhaps detached from our bodies and physical needs, but God never intended that. In all three of these examples, there is a sub theme of genuine spirituality that is embodied. McKnight continues on. He says, what strikes a reader today is how significant the body is in the Bible, the ancient Israelites and early Christians did spirituality in the body and with the body. What strikes observers of the church is how insignificant the body has become. You and I have inherited the church's problem with the body whether we like it or not, whether we are Christians or not. It's a part of our western D-N-A-D-N-A. Those of us with a Western mindset have consistently struggled to embrace the insolvable unity of humans, body and soul, spirit at the forefront of spirituality. As Westerners, we don't do a good job of integrating soul spirit with body.
There's this, now there's a move back towards this. If you're in the secular arena, there's a hunger that is expressed and fulfilled through like yoga. Yoga. What is it doing? It's taking and saying, you're more than just a mind, but you are a integrated person. I love yoga because it is both a connection between the physical body and this internal immaterial person that you are. It's a quieting of the body. It's a consideration. It gives you space to do what you're actually desperate for. All of us are desperate for as busy, loud, distracted humans, something like a yoga practice. What it does is it brings us back to, whoa, I am more than just a brain on a stick, right? I'm more than just a brain carried around by a fadi, but I'm this integrated being in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is teaching us about his kingdom right now. He welcomes us into this new society. We can participate because of what Jesus did on the cross with his body.
Do you see that Jesus accomplished your redemption with his body? It literally says in Hebrews that his body was like the veil that was rent. We enter into the presence of God because his body was broken. For us, we are going to celebrate communion, which is these physical elements that we take into our body, and it is this mysterious thing that is happening as we recall, as we recall what Jesus did. Now, if you are a Baptist or kind of grown up in that tradition, which is kind of the tradition I grew up in, there's this bending over backwards like it's just symbolic. Don't read anything into it like the Catholics. Jesus's blood is not there. That weariness that kind of reaction that it's not just Baptist, but there's a lot of kind of denominations with that reaction. It's this fear of the body, right?
And I don't hold to a position that is the blood of Jesus or the physical body of Jesus. That's not my position, but I just want to point out to you that there is, that exists within Western Christianity and Western society, this general fear of the body, and yet when we read the Bible, we see this integration, this deep integration between the body, soul, and spirit. As we follow Jesus, we find ourselves delivered from a society that prizes performance, the weight of seeking public approval falls off of our shoulders. Jesus is saying, here's my new society where you worship me through abstaining, through some food. You connect with me through fasting, through prayer for loving the poor person around you. The timing of this, I mean I didn't really plan this, but it just so happens this Wednesday is an important day. Why is Wednesday important?
That's right. This is Ash Wednesday. It's also Valentine's Day guys, but it's Ash Wednesday. It's the beginning of Lent, so depending on what church Christian tradition you're a part of, maybe you'll get the ash on your forehead, but it marks the beginning of a season. I want to read to you a couple of quotes here about this season, but some of you, I'll just say this, some of you may associate lent with Catholicism, and there's nothing wrong if that feels unfamiliar. It may be like me. I did not grow up in a Christian denomination that celebrated Lent, but consider this fasting isn't owned by any one denomination. Early Christians of all kinds practice. This discipline Lent gives us a structured season to reconnect with an ancient way of focusing our hearts on Jesus. Here's a quote
That hopefully that's a cool quote. I don't see it in my text, but here it says, to repeat what was said a moment ago, we cut ourselves up into soul and body. The soul is immortal, the body mortal. Therefore, the body doesn't ultimately or eternally matter, wired with this western mindset, our bodies and our spirits don't work together very well. Here is just an encapsulation of Lent. Lent is a call to renew our commitment grown dull perhaps by a life more marked by routine than by reflection. After a lifetime of mundane regularity or unconsidered adherence to the trappings of faith Lent requires me as a Christian to stop for a while to reflect again on what is going on in me. I am challenged again to decide whether I myself do truly believe that Jesus is the Christ, and if I believe whether I will live accordingly when I can no longer hear the song of angels in my life and the star of Bethlehem as grown dim for me.
I love that passage, that quote, and I would encourage you as you go through this week and into this season, maybe you're not going to celebrate Lent this year. That's fine. There's nothing that says it makes you a better Christian, but it is a tradition, a Christian tradition that goes back centuries according to a Christian calendar. Rather than setting a calendar based off of when kids go to school or when your work is leased busy, there is this Christian calendar and is this season that leads up to Easter and it's typically marked by this renewed devotion of like, Lord, I want to reflect and anticipate the great sacrifice that you made on the cross. So Jesus teaches on fasting. It's both an emphasis on a genuine spirituality, not a performative spirituality, but if I could just plead with you to recognize and understand that you are not just a brain, but you are a embodied soul and that body, you are not called to be disembodied, right?
You are called for this body to be put off and to be given a new body. So some reason you and I having this body is a part of our being. The image of God, you're bearing the image of God is not just your immaterial aspect. It is very much a part of it's having a body and our body participates in this act of worship. Don't be afraid of that. I know there's Eastern mysticism. I know that some of the stuff that's associated with body practice, even me saying at the beginning of service, okay, let's take a deep breath. Some of you are like, woo, is he going eastern on us here? Is he getting kind of into some, but no, they don't get to hijack your body and the breathing that you do and the relaxation that you may feel and the way that you may sense God in your physical body.
Don't please, please in your own faith, do not discount the fact that God made your body and your experience in your body is an aspect of your spirituality just as much as the immaterial prayer life that you have internally. Lord, we come before you. We pray that in our life, in the future, in the seasons of fasting, when we abstain from food, that we would find you, that it would be a part of our worship, a part of our prayer, that our body would literally be talking to you and helping us be connected to you. God, we love you and we are grateful for how you designed us, and we ask Lord for a guidance and a teaching of your spirit in this regard. As we celebrate communion together, we ask God that you would draw our attention back to that sacrifice you made on the cross, Lord, that we would connect this act with you, and we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.