Jesus Instructions for Fasting

Introduction
We’ve been studying Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount for the last 12 weeks or so.  It’s called the Sermon on the Mount because Jesus went up on top of a mount to teach these lessons.  Notice in the picture here:  The water is the Sea of Galilee.  The church on top of the “Mount” may be the place Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount.  In this sermon, Jesus lays out His vision for God’s people—who they are and how they live.  

There were 3 common practices for Jews of Jesus day. They gave, they prayed, & they fasted.  In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus addressed each one.  He assumed His followers would give, pray, and fast.  Each time in His sermon, He said, “When you give… When you pray… When you fast…”  It was not “If you give… pray… fast…”  It was when not if.  So if we follow Jesus, we should also practice these 3 pillars of faith.

However, Jesus was clear that when His followers give, pray, and fast, they shouldn’t be like hypocrites.  A hypocrite is an actor who puts on a show for people.  Jesus says, “Don’t be like that. Because if you practice your religion to impress people, that’s the only reward you will ever get.”  Instead, Jesus said to give, pray, and fast privately.  That way only God will know what you’re doing and He will reward you.

Today, I want to read Matthew 6:16-18.  Jesus said:

Matthew 6:16-18
¹⁶ “And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get. ¹⁷ But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face. ¹⁸ Then no one will notice that you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in private. And your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

So, What is Fasting?
Fasting is going without food for a set period of time.  Sometimes people fast if they have a medical procedure—like a colonoscopy or an annual checkup where they do blood work.  But the kind of fast Jesus is talking about is a religious fast.  It is a fast done out of devotion to God.
And I need to be clear, a religious fast is not a way to lose weight or et ready for the doctor…

We know Jesus fasted for at least two reasons.  First of all, Jesus was an obedient Jew who followed the Jewish Law prescribed in the Old Testament.  And the Law commands all Jews to fast at least once a year for the religious holiday Yom Kippor—the Day of Atonement. 
So we know Jesus would have observed this annual fast for the Day of Atonement.
But the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell how Jesus—at the very beginning of His ministry—went into the wilderness and fasted for 40 days.  40 days is an extreme fast that Jesus was able to complete as a miracle.  It’s not something that we should attempt to duplicate.

During the fast, Jesus was tempted by the Devil to turn rocks into bread.  Jesus’ reply reveals one of the reasons Christians fast.  Jesus told the Devil in Matthew 4:4, “People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

If done with the right attitude, fasting can remind us of our utter dependence on God.  We need God even more than we need food.  You may think,
“I already know that.  I don’t need to go without food to realize it.”  That may be true.  But, it is one thing to know something in your head intellectually.  It is another thing to know it in reality—to have your stomach grumbling and every physical fiber of your hungry body screaming: “Give me food to eat!” and to remain spiritually disciplined to say, “No.  I’m not eating today because I need God more than I need food.”  When we fast, it can change the spiritual chemistry of our physical body.  It’s something that goes deeper than your conscious thought—something that reaches down into your unconsciousness.  When you fast, your hunger becomes a form of continuous prayer.  Every groan of your stomach is a cry to God for spiritual sustenance.

Although typically, fasting means going without food, there are other ways to fast as well.  You can give up something else besides food that is very important to you.  Such as:  going without coffee, not watching TV, abstaining from social media, not listening to music, or spending time alone without any social interaction.  The point is to give up something that is as important to you as food (and that could be different for each different people depending on your personality).

When should you fast?
Jesus said, “When you fast…”  So when should you fast?  (Or when could you fast?)  First of all, I should say Christians have freedom.  We are not slaves to laws and rules and traditions.  God grants us grace.  So if and when we fast, it is for our benefit and not to fulfill some obligation.  But fasting can be a great spiritual benefit.  

You can fast anytime.  There is no hard and fast rules about it.  I have found that consistency is better than extremity.  What I mean is it is better to fast a little bit regularly and consistently than it is to do one big, long extreme fast.  It's kind of like physical exercise.  It is better to exercise 30 minutes a day, every day for a year than it is to exercise for 12 hours only once a month.  Consistency is the key to exercise and fasting.

But if you are looking for some ideas about when you can fast, I will share a few.  Jews today fasted once a year on the Day of Atonement, the holiday they call Yom Kippur.  Yom Kippur is celebrated in September or October and it would be a great time for you to fast as you meditate on God's forgiveness and the atonement that comes through Christ.

Christians have two seasons when fasting is very appropriate.  The season of Lent (the 40 days prior to Easter) is an excellent time for a fast as we prepare to celebrate the ressurection of Christ.  Another season when fasting is very appropriate is the season of Advent, as we prepare to celebrate Christmas and prepare for the Second coming of Christ.

Fasting can be very helpful before you make a big decision or start something new.  Jesus fasted before He started His public ministry.  If it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for you.  Fasting can help clear your mind, align you with the Holy Spirit, and give you clarity as your start a new job, move to a new home, or make a big life decision.  

You can also fast on behalf of others.  People have become accustomed to saying and hearing, “I’ll pray for you.” What if you said instead in some very important situations, “I’ll be fasting for you while I’m praying.”  Now that tells someone, you are really committed to seeking divine help for them.

Warnings
In closing, I want to remind you of the warnings Jesus gave about fasting.  He said in Matthew 6:16 , “And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting.”

So Jesus gave at least 3 warnings.  Don’t try to impress people.  If you do, that's the only benefit your fast will bring (and what a cheap reward that is).  Second, don’t look miserable as you fast.  That's just a way to get sympathy from people or try to impress them.  So, don't do that.  Do your fast in private.  Don't even let others know you're doing it.  That way, God in heaven (who see what you do in secret) will reward you.

How Did Jesus Teach People to Pray?

Introduction
I have odd question to ask.  It is an especially odd way to start a sermon on what Jesus said about how to pray.  Here’s the question:  Is there anyone here an expert on Dolly Parton?

I am not an expert on Kenny Rogers nor have I ever met him.  I have never even been to a Rogers concert.  I only know 2 or 3 songs Kenny Rogers sang.  But, I did dress up like Kenny Rogers once.  But do you think that qualifies me as a Dolly Parton “expert”?  Absolutely not!

Well, what does this have to do with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and prayer. 
I’m glad you asked!  Part of the fun of Halloween is being able to dress up like a character and pretend to be something or someone you’re not.  The reason I mention this is pretending to be something you are not is also the definition of a hypocrite.

Matthew 6:5
⁵ “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. 

Actors and actresses portray characters—sometimes so believable it’s amazing!  But just because an actor plays a doctor on TV, that doesn’t mean you should take his medical advice!  An actor takes the stage to play a role to entertain.  Their reward is the crowd’s applause.

In Jesus day, the religious leaders liked to put on a show by praying out loud in public.  It was a great honor to be asked to pray in meetings at the synagogues.  Everyone would see you and know you were a respected member of society.  But you didn’t have to wait until the Sabbath to be show off your amazing prayer skills.  Jews in the New Testament prayed three times a day—in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening.  Many religious leaders would show up to public places and pray out loud so everyone could see just how spiritual they were. 

However, Jesus warned us not to put on a show when it comes to our relationship with God and prayer.  He said, “Don’t be like the hypocrites…”  In ancient Greece, hypocrite was the word for an actor who performed in a theater.  Jesus said our relationship with God is to be real, not pretend and certainly not an act we put own to convince others we’re something we are not.  If your goal is to impress others or earn their admiration when you pray, then that is the only reward you will get.  And the praise and admiration of people is cheap and fleeting.  Ask a real actor or actress and they will tell you—one day you’re a star and the next day you are forgotten.

Matthew 6:6
⁶ But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private.  Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

When You Pray…
Jesus’ instructions for prayer are very simple.  Go away by yourself, shut the door, and pray to you Father in private.  Notice that Jesus said, “When you pray…”  That means Jesus expected His followers to pray.  It’s not if you pray.  It’s when

you pray.

Prayer is essential in a relationship with God.  It is how we connect with God.  Prayer keeps us focused.  Prayer takes our attention off ourselves and our problems and plugs us into the divine source of all life. 

I saw a video recently that is a wonderful illustration of prayer.  Some construction workers using a corded circular saw to cut some boards on a worksite.  Unfortunately, the word was not long enough to reach from outlet over to the saw horses where they were cutting the lumber (and they didn't have an extension cord).  They thought they were geniuses because they figure out a solution.  They would plug the saw into the outlet and rev the saw up to full speed.  Then they would unplug it and run across the room and let the residual spinning of the blade cut a little bit on the saw.  So little by little, they could cut through the board.  But when I saw it, I thought, "why not just move the saw horses closer to the outlet so you can keep the saw plug into the power source?"

That is how prayer is for so many us.  We do not have the power within us to be all we need to.  God is our source of life and prayer keeps us plugged into The Source of True Life.  Unfortunately, we often are like those construction workers.  We plug into God through prayer and get revved up, but then we unplug and run away to live life.  We run down so fast.  So we run back to our source of power to rev up again and unplug to go live life.  Why don't we just move closer to God through prayer and stay plugged in?  That is what prayer is supposed to be.

And Jesus assumed His followers would pray.  So he said, when you pray, do it privately.

Do It Privately…
Jesus is very clear.  Don’t use prayer as a means to impress others or win honor.  If you do, that’s all the reward you will ever get.  For some, looking good to others may seem pretty valuable.  Is that what you want?  If it is, then go ahead and pretend.  But the applause of people is a very cheap and short-sighted reward.  We are meant for so much more.

Now, does that mean we shouldn’t pray in public at all?  If that’s the case, I’m in big trouble because as a pastor, I prayed in public quite frequently.  A public prayer like a pastor prays at the beginning of a worship service is a different kind of prayer.  The pastor is praying on behalf of the whole community.  The pastor is trying to put the whole congregations' hopes and concerns into words and speak to God.  That is something appropriate to do in a worship service or other public gatherings.  

Our public prayers are part of a communal experience we share once a week in communal worship or at other public gatherings that celebrate what should be happening privately in each of our lives every day.  But if we aren’t praying privately on a day to day basis when no one can see, then our public prayers become hypocritical acts performed only for show that have no real substance.  Jesus said, don't be like that.  he said, when you pray, do it privately, to your Father...

To Your Father…
Jesus gives a very powerful clue to reveal the most important element of authentic Christian prayer.  He said, “When you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father."  There’s no magic formula.  You just talk to God the way you would talk to your Father.

How would you talk to your earthly father?  Many are blessed to have great fathers that are easy to talk to.  Some of you love to talk with your father.  Others had a great father, but he has passed away and you miss the meaningful conversations you had with him.  You understand how wonderful it can be to talk to a loving father.  That is how you talk to God.

Not all fathers are easy to talk to.  I understand.  Mine wasn’t.  But that’s because earthly fathers are imperfect humans and sometimes selfish or broken.  Some people struggle with the image of God as a Father because they never had a good father.  I didn’t have a good father, but it never kept me from relating to God as a Father, because I simply know that God is the perfect Father.  So I imagine what it would be like to talk to my Dad if all his shortcomings and failings were taken away and he was made perfect in every way.  

So when you pray, imagine the ideal father, the perfect father.  He would be easy to talk to.  He would always be kind and patient.  He would be slow to get angry.  He would always have time for you and always want to talk with you.  He wouldn’t be self-absorbed and always wanting to talk about Himself.  Instead, He would be keenly interested in you always wanting what’s best for you.  He would love you unconditionally and help you in everyway He could.  He wouldn’t try to bribe you by giving you everything you ask for, but instead would give you the things you really need and guide you to grow as an individual to reach your full potential.  That is what God is like.  He's the perfect Father.

And how would you talk to this perfect Father?  There’s no magic formula.  You just talk.  And sometimes you would have a long conversation about something really deep.  Other times you might make a joke about some silly thing you did that day or some irony you encountered.  Sometimes you might just send him a text message on his cellphone to check in or to pass along a bit of information or to ask a quick question.  Sometimes you may call in desperation and say, "Help!  I'm out of gas!" or "I've got a flat tire!  What do I do?"  Sometimes you might just call and say, "I love you, Dad."

Prayer isn’t hard.  If you talk you can pray.  And we communicate all day long in many ways to many people.  You do the same thing with prayer—only you are doing it with God, who is your Father.

Matthew 6:7-8
⁷ “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. ⁸ Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!

As far as I know, all religions include some form of prayer.  And there are often elaborate formulas for how to pray.  Many religions have prayers that are chanted over and over again--the idea being the gods will eventually be worn down by the incessant prayers of the supplicants.  It’s sort of like the 4-year-old child who bombards his mom with the endless request:  “Can I have a cookie?  Can I have a cookie?  Can I have a cookie?  Can I have a cookie?”  

Jesus says, don’t be like that.  God cannot be worn down by our incessant chanting, but He does care about you and wants to help you with what you really need.  He knows what you need.  In fact, Jesus says, your Father already knows what you need even before you ask! 

Some people ask, “Well if God already knows what I need, why do I have to pray.”  Well, for one thing, because we need to talk to God.  He’s the source of Life.  Prayer is how we plug in.

Another reason is prayer changes us.  Sometimes we start out praying for one thing, but through the process of praying we realize we’re asking for the wrong thing.  So we grow through prayer.

I can think of another reason.  The spiritual forces of darkness cannot stand to hear our prayers.  You cannot see, it, but Scripture says we are engaged in a spiritual battle.  Demons are all around wanting to trip us up and lead us astray.  Our prayers to God are a loud shrill that pierces their ears and drives them insane until they flee away.  So pray.  Pray, pray, pray!  It doesn’t have to be some fancy prayer.  You just have to talk to your Heavenly Father and the Enemy flees away.

We will talk more about prayer next week when we consider Jesus’ instruction about the Lord’s prayer.  But I challenge you to focus on prayer this week.  Establish a specific time each day when you will spend time in prayer.  And then also pray short prayers throughout your day.

You can study all kinds of materials and formulas about how to pray, but the best way to learn is simply to pray.  So, get out there this week and practice!  Just pray!

Are You Acting Like a Hypocrite?

Introduction
I think it’s obvious to everyone who knows us, that my family loves dressing up for Halloween.  Although, if I’m being totally transparent, after so many years of doing it—and with the expectation every year that we must have a great costume because it’s expected—the pressure of having a great costume is a bit stressful every year.  And with 2 kids now grown and out of the house, and Abigail being a full-fledged teenager who may or may not want to be part of the family tradition, some of the joy we had in the past has gone out of

it.

Still, we do love to dress up.  The hardest part is coming up with an idea—something that’s new and different, that we haven’t seen overdone, but also something people will recognize.  And something that’s doable (because we like to make our own costumes as much as possible.

Once we find the right idea, we may even research the characters a little bit to understand them.
A few years ago when we dressed up as Popeye and Olive Oil, we spent several evenings together watching old cartoons of Popeye. And I got curious:  why did Popeye love spinach so much? I found out the original cartoon’s creator wanted to encourage kids to eat healthier.  So, he made spinach the miraculous source of Popeye's super-stregnth. It worked. Some data shows kids consumption of spinach increased by as ⅓ at the cartoon’s most popular period.

Of course, we all know the characters we dress up as during Halloween are just make-believe. No matter how much we delve into it, when we take off the masks we become ourselves again.
Halloween is just pretend.

But what we do during Halloween—pretending to be someone else for the night—is a great example of a mystery of human behavior Jesus warned about often.  Jesus warned His followers not to be like the hypocrites. 

You know what a hypocrite is.  It’s become a churchy word.  Sometimes we use it in the church and sometimes people outside the church like to call people who go to church hypocrites.  In Jesus day, hypocrite was a Greek word that came from the Greek culture.  In Greece, people loved to watch plays in the theater.  And the actors in the play were known as hypocrites.

The actors in the plays would put on costumes or masks and pretend to be character from Greek mythology.  And then the actors would act out the great mythological stories of Greece.  Hypocrites pretended to be other people in order to tell the story.  That’s fine if you are an actor in a play (or if you’re dressing up for Halloween), but we shouldn’t be like hypocrites in real life. 

This is a theme Jesus touches on again and again throughout the 6^th chapter of Matthew in His Sermon on the Mount.  Today, we read Matthew 6:1-4.

Matthew 6:1-4
¹ “Watch out! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven. ² When you give to someone in need, don’t do as the hypocrites do—blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity! I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get. ³ But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. ⁴ Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

When You Give...
The people of Jesus’ day, as do Christians today, inherently knew that righteous people do good deeds—including giving charity to people in need.  Throughout the Old Testament, God instructed people to give to help people in need. 

And it’s important to point out, Jesus assumed His followers would give to the needy.  Jesus didn’t say, “If you give to the needy…”  He said, “When you give to the needy…”

Tooting Your Own Horn
Important and wealthy people of Jesus day—both Romans and Jews in Israel—made big displays of when they gave money to the poor.  Roman officials would often erect monuments to commemorate their giving.  One Roman official I learned about recently had a record of all the money he had given and all good deeds he had done carved onto a wall in the city where he governed.  The record of his “righteousness” is still preserved in ancient ruins to this day.

Sometimes, wealthy religious leaders in Israel would stand on a street corner and have trumpets blown to get everyone’s attention while they handed our charity to the poor.  Everyone in the neighborhood would hear the trumpets and know that person was a righteous and generous person.

But Jesus said, “Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven.”  It feels good to be admired by others.  And a fact of life in our modern world is:  Sometimes you do have to toot your own horn.  In order to succeed as a business or and individual, you have to "market" yourself.

If you’ve ever made a resume in order to get a job, if you’ve ever gone to a job interview, you know you have to show your potential employer that you are worthy of the position.  You may be competing against other candidates and you have to show your next boss that you’re the best choice for the job.  So you sort of have to "toot your own horn" in some sense in some situations.  There's nothing wrong with that.  And Jesus also said, "Let your good deeds shine forth before people so they will glorify your Father in Heaven." (See Matthew 5:16).  

What Jesus is saying in Matthew chapter 6 is:  don’t pretend you’re someone you’re not.  Don’t pretend to be righteous and holy like the religious leaders on the street corners blowing horns so every one will look at them and think, “Now there is a truly godly, righteous person.  You know God them!  Look how good they are!”

You see the Pharisee and Sadducees, the religious leaders in Israel where Jesus lived, were hypocrites.  They pretended to be righteous.  They did such a good job of acting, they fooled everyone.  People believed they were truly holy and righteous.  They looked good on the outside, but they were rotten and evil on the inside.  They cared more about what people thought of them than what God thought.  Their charitable giving was done to win people’s favor.  This helped them stay in power and protected their positions of authority and their income.

In fact, when the Son of God, Jesus, came to the religious leaders of Israel, they rejected Him.  They didn’t care about God.  They didn’t care about the people. They only cared about themselves.

What was worse, not only did they lie to the people and make them believe they were holy, they also lied to themselves and believed their own lie.  They believed they were holy and God must love them more than anyone else.  They were so blind the didn't recognize when the Son of God Himself came to them.  They crucified Jesus.

Don’t Lie to Yourself
We have to be very careful, because we want to believe we are good people who are holy.  We want to believe we deserve God’s blessings.  We should know better, because if we look inside our hearts, we can easily see we are often selfish and petty and sinful.  Even so, we want to believe we deserve some kind of divine reward because we’re so good.

When we believe our own lies, when we believe we are good, we are blinded to our desperate need of God’s salvation and merciful grace.  Jesus wants us to do good and give to the needy to glorify God, but Jesus doesn’t want these habits to be a way we lie to ourselves and others.

Be very careful, because when you make a big show of doing good or giving to the needy, you could become like an actor (a hypocrite) who is putting on a show, pretending to be good.  Impurity in your heart can sneak in and poison you’re motives to where you don’t even care about the person you’re helping.  You’re just show off for others to see—wearing a mask, pretending to be someone you’re not.

Protecting Yourself From Yourself
Since we are prone to believe our own lies that we are good and deserve God’s favor and people should look up to us, we need a way to protect ourselves from ourselves.  First of all, realize you are not good.  Realize you are sinner who desperately needs God’s grace.  You don’t deserve anything from God.  Every good blessing you have received is a gift given by God in spite of your sin.

Second, give anonymously sometimes.  Now, I’m not saying you always have to give anonymously.  It’s ok to get a receipt of your charitable giving.  It's even ok to get take credit for which you're eligible. But don’t make a habit of making a big show of your giving.  Make sure your giving for the right reasons—to help the needy, to show compassion, and to glorify God, not in order to show how awesome you are.  Do it for the glory of God and to help people in need.  And I challenge you to at least sometimes (maybe even often) to give absolutely anonymously.  As Jesus said, “don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.