Matthew 6:16-18
PDF Manuscript: Kingdom Living - Creating an Appetite for GodToday, I want to talk to you about what I believe is a “forgotten” spiritual discipline—one that seems odd, unnecessary, and impractical. I want to talk about biblical fasting. Now, I would venture to guess that very few of you woke up this morning thinking, “If only I could hear a riveting sermon on fasting!” Yet fasting is a biblical tradition that is practiced all throughout Scripture and throughout Christian history by people like Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd, Charles Finney, and many others.
Richard Foster once said, “In a culture where the landscape is dotted with shrines to the Golden Arches and an assortment of Pizza Temples, fasting seems out of place, out of step with the times.” But I would argue that the reason fasting seems “out of place” in our lives is that we don’t understand it. Even this week, I was thinking back to the fact that I never heard a sermon on fasting when growing up in church. For the last eight years, I’ve listened to myself talk every Sunday morning….so I guess I carry as much blame as anyone!
Did you know that fasting is such an important activity that it is talked about 77 different times in the Bible? Take a guess at how many times baptism is mentioned in the Bible—75. I’m by no means equating the two. But we really shouldn’t ignore the fact that fasting is given great importance in the pages of Holy Scripture. Consider some of the instances of fasting in the Bible:
· Abraham's servant when he was seeking a bride for Isaac
· Moses on several occasions
· Hannah as she prayed for a child
· David on several occasions
· Elijah after his victory over Jezebel
· Ezra when he was mourning Israel's faithlessness
· Nehemiah when he was preparing the trip back to Israel
· Esther when God's people were threatened with extermination
· Daniel on numerous occasions
· The people of Nineveh, including the cattle, involuntarily no doubt
· Jesus when he began his public ministry
· Paul at the point of his conversion
· The Christians at Antioch when they sent off Paul and Barnabas on their mission endeavor
· Paul and others when they appointed elders in all the churches
It’s no wonder, then, that Jesus gave instructions about fasting in his most famous discourse—the Sermon on the Mount. I’d like you to make your way to Matthew 6:16–18. It’s in these three verses, along with the rest of Scripture, that we see fasting as a means of creating an appetite for God. My hope this morning is that you would leave here not asking, “Why should I fast?” but rather, “Why don’t I fast?”