Preached in Markham Baptist Church, May 23, 2004.

CELEBRATING THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES:
Part 2 - A CALL TO FAST

Matthew 4:1-11

A few years ago the sports fans of Altona Pennsylvania thrilled to the exploits of a young High School football star by the name of Steve Lack.  Saturday after Saturday the sports pages of the Altoona papers were filled with the deeds of daring of this young man as he led his team to consecutive State championships.

During his senior year the colleges of the country clamored for his services.  And Steve Lack agreed to play for the University of North Carolina.  There for three thrill-packed years he punched through the line, or raced around the end or caught a strategic pass that brought fame and glory to his chosen school.

So spectacular was the play of this young athlete that the cheerleaders at the university invented a cheer for him.  After a particular daring play they would line up in front of the coliseum and they would scream until their voices almost broke.  “Steve Lack, Steve Lack, What does Steve Lack?”  And the crowd would thunder back, “Nothing, nothing, nothing.”

When I heard that story – I wondered – how would the crowd respond if that cheer was offered up on my behalf?  “Tom Cullen, Tom Cullen, What does Tom Cullen lack?” Would the crowd shout back, “Nothing, nothing, nothing”.  What would the crowd say if the cheer was offered up on your behalf?

By all appearances we really lack for nothing.  We are all are well-fed.  We all have warm homes and comfortable beds to sleep in.  It would be a safe thing to say that all of us here have some sort of financial freedom. The degree is different from person to person, but we all enjoy some level of financial freedom.

And we live in great country, lots of freedoms, clean air, wide open spaces, clean water, good government, as a columnist from the Hamilton Spectator once said, “A bad day in Canada, is better than a good day in any other country on the globe.”

“Steve Lack, Steve Lack, What does Steve Lack?” “Nothing, nothing, nothing,”  said the crowd.  What would the crowd say about you and me?  I would venture to say that they would look at us and by all appearances they would say, “Nothing, nothing, nothing” 

And that is a great blessing, but have you considered that when it comes to nurturing our relationship with God that it just might be our greatest difficulty, hindrance?

Consider what Jesus says in Luke 18.  Think of it, here is a man, scripture tells us he is a ruler who possesses great wealth and he approaches Jesus to talk to him about what he has to do to have eternal life.  Jesus tells him to follow the commands – And the man says I have done that – then Jesus says, “You still lack one thing.  Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will treasure in heaven.  Then come and follow me.” (Luke 18:22) 

The man refuses and Jesus says this, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Luke 18:24) 

Now, note - Jesus doesn’t say that it is impossible, and this text is not an indictment against gaining or possessing wealth - we know from Scripture that there were some rich people who confessed Christ as Saviour and followed Him as Lord.   This story is about following Jesus.  In order to follow Jesus we have to give up what we love the most so He can have first place in our lives. 

But Jesus does say it is hard for the rich to enter into heaven.  Why? Because instead of having a hold on our wealth, our wealth can have a hold on us.  Because when we lack nothing, when we are in want of nothing, when we have everything and have no hunger, it tends to lead us away from God rather than to Him.  What does that look like?

Having everything can rob us of our dependency on God.  I have spoken of this before, and I have used the illustration of the people of God many times. Here are the people of God, they have been rescued from slavery by God. They have been fed in the wilderness by God.  They are lead into the Promised Land by God.  They are given the land by God.  And when they settle in the Promise Land, a land in which they lack nothing – they forget God and depend instead on their own strength or their own military alliances to rescue them from the hands of the enemy.  

We may not face any armies like the nation of Israel did in their day, no our enemies may not be so visible, but just as powerful, disease, sickness, stress, difficulties at work, difficulties in the home.  There are many and when these difficulties come our way, when we are in need of nothing our first instinct isn’t to trust God but to trust our own strength, our own resources, our own abilities. 

When we lack nothing it can rob us of the need to depend on God.  It can also mask our spiritual bankruptcy.  It was Augustine who said that there is within us all a God-shaped space that only God can fill.  That may be true, but it is a space that we can ignore, it is a space we can drown by filling our lives with the newest movie, the latest fad, and the coolest sport, the richest food.  It was Mark Buchanan who said that “consumption is killing us!”¹  Why?  Because it is masking our need for the one who can give life.

Our spiritual thirst is quenched with a poor substitutes.  We often think of the things that can keep us from God, and we think of those so called big sins, we think of drugs, and alcohol and illicit sex.  But you know Jesus told a parable once of a man who had a great feast and he invited people to come to the feast but each one gave an excuse.  Three excuses were given, "I have married a wife, I have bought me a cow, we have fields and commitments that cost a pretty sum I cannot come.” (Luke 14:18-20).  It is the regular day to day activities that can keep us from God. 

These things, these activities are not evil in them selves but together can be deadly to our relationship with God – so that gardening, decorating, walking, jogging, golfing, theatre-going, traveling, investing, T.V. watching, inter net surfing, shopping, collecting, road tripping, all of them are fine and wonderful gifts from God but you know it, you’ve seen it in others, if you are slow to recognize it in yourself, that these can all be deadly substitutes for God. 

So John Piper writes, “It’s not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite [for heaven] for God but endless nibbling at the table of the world.  It is not the x-rated video but the prime time dribble of triviality we drink in every night.  …. The most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simplest pleasures on earth.”²

Now here’s a quote for you - he writes, “the greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.  For when these replace an appetite for God himself the idolatry is scarcely recognizable and almost incurable.”³

When we lack nothing it can rob us of the need to depend on God, it can mask our spiritual bankruptcy and it can lead to pride.  When we have all we need we get to thinking that we are pretty special.  That we are indeed a special class of people.  And being middle class we are apt to have a double sense of pride because we aren’t poor and get to thinking that “if they just got their act together, if they worked a little harder and a little smarter they could be like us.”   And then we take pride in the fact that we aren’t rich!  We aren’t like those who live in those huge homes and don’t share with others, and to whom Jesus said, “How hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God!”  No we are middle class, we’re God’s special class of people. Pride.

And surely that’s not what we want for ourselves.  That’s not what we want for one another.  We do want to depend on God for we recognize that He is almighty, He is sovereign, He is God.  We recognize this God hunger that is within us and we want to feed it with real food, we are tired of substitutes, we don’t want to ignore it any longer.  And we don’t want to live a life of pride, we know that it is a great temptation, but it’s not the way we want to live. 

So how do we overcome it? How can we avoid it?  Enter the spiritual discipline of fasting, which simply means to go without.  Traditionally it means to go without food.  So we have called the first meal in the day “breakfast” since it is the time when we “break our fast” that we’ve been having while sleeping in the night.   

In the protestant faith fasting has not been talked about much and practiced little.  But during recent years there is a new interest in the spiritual disciplines and in particular in fasting.  I believe that this is not a fad, but a fresh emphasis that the Spirit of God is bringing to His church for its strengthening and for the glory of God.

You don’t need to go very far in Scripture to see fasting practiced by God’s people. Moses, David, Elijah, Esther, Daniel, Nehemiah, Paul the leaders of the early church ( we saw last week how the church in Antioch practiced this) all practiced the spiritual discipline of fasting. And Jesus too fasted. 

Well how does fasting enable us to avoid those three snares that we looked at briefly?

Well, fasting, going without food shows us first and foremost that “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)   These are the words that Jesus spoke in Matthew 4 at the end of his forty day fast when he was being tempted by the Devil.  They are words that we often repeat, they are words that we love, but as I was doing research for this sermon I was made to ask myself “How do I know of this?”  I can stand with the best of them and say boldly and confidently “Man does not live on bread alone” but it is the word of God that sustains and keeps.  I don’t depend on the things of this world, but on God!”  But have I ever put that to the test?  I can say, “Man does not live on bread alone”  but in the next breath really, I say, “Don’t let me miss lunch!” because then my world crashes in.  Let me skip lunch for an afternoon and I wonder if I don’t really prove this to be false in my life.  That while it may be true that Man does not live on bread alone – it’s an objective truth – out there and it is not yet a reality in my life, I hasn’t become a discovered truth.

Fasting, doing without food brings us to a place where we depend on God – that truly we don’t live on bread alone.   I believe that this was Jesus’ experience. I know that Jesus was fully God, and I have no doubt that He was clear about his relationship with God and His need to depend on God.  But He was also fully man and – it is Mark Buchanan who suggests that when we think of the Jesus and the devil coming to Him and tempting Him, we tend to think of Jesus being emaciated, weak, puny, groveling, after all he has just spent forty days fasting – He must be at his weakest point. 

But Mark Buchanan suggests that no, Jesus is not at His weakest, He is at His strongest.⁴ He has just spent forty days spiritually training, praying and fasting, concentrating on the goodness of God, about the wonder of God, the provision of God and when he steps into the ring with Satan He is ready for the match and He says with all confidence, “Man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”   It is a truth freshly discovered by Jesus through His fast.

Yes, Jesus knew the Scripture from Deuteronomy 8:3 and that truth was real for Jesus. That’s what the discipline of fasting can do for you and for me.  When we go without food we realize that we are indeed truly nourished and sustained by God and His word alone.  The aim of fasting is that we rely less on food and more on God.   We can fall into the trap of believing we depend on God and on Him alone, but we never put that to the test.  Fasting allows us to experience our preferences not only with word but also with deed.  The truth that we depend on God alone  and not bread is very hard to learn when we are constantly shoving bread in our mouths.

But not only this, fasting can lead to a greater hunger for God.   For it is in fasting, in going without that we experience freedom from a million and one innocent delights and we preserve that hunger for God.

People used to criticize Christianity for being a faith that is down on everything – we frown on dancing, we frown on shopping on Sunday, we frown on working on a Sunday, we frown on card playing, we frown on missing worship, we frown on having too much fun – a long list of don’ts!  And people maybe had a right to criticize for Jesus came to give life, and freedom not to put our lives in a straightjacket. And I believe that Jesus adds to our enjoyment of life.

But you do see the danger in these, right?  For, while they are all innocent delights, together they rob us of what is of eternal importance, recognizing that spiritual hunger and responding to God in love and adoration. 

Again it is John Piper who writes, “If you don’t feel strong desires” for God to show his power and his majesty in your life “it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied.  It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world.  Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great.”⁵ 

Jesus spoke of those who heard the word of God – received it but were choked by the pleasures of this life. (Luke 8:14).   Listen, the pleasures of this life are wonderful and they are all given by God but don’t miss the giver.  God did not create you for this.  There is within you an appetite for God, and if we will just stop stuffing ourselves with the things of this world, with food we just might recognize it.

Fasting brings us to a place where we stop gorging our appetite and recognize a deeper hunger for the living God. 

And then this, fasting can be a way to depend on God, it can be a means by which a hunger for God is nourished, and can be a way for us to meet the problem of pride.  Something happens when we fast, when we go without food.  When we fast we no longer have food to drown our inadequacies, fears and difficulties.  We do that, don’t we?  Don’t you know someone who when they are going through a stressful time try to drown that stress by eating?  We all do it, every one of us uses food like a anesthetic.  We all seek to ease our pain, our unhappiness by eating. I know I do - how many evenings I have gone home discouraged, depressed and instead of taking it to the Lord in prayer I drown my discouragement with Doritos, root beer and David Letterman. 

And fasting enables us to address it.  What happens is that discouragement or depression or anger comes to us and we say, "Oh well, it’s almost lunch I’ll drown it in lunch," and then we remember we are fasting so we now have to think, what am I going to do with that unhappiness, what am I going to do with that depression?  Formerly I covered it up with food, but not anymore now I have to find a new way.

And I am made to realize that I am not super-human.  I can’t deal with the stresses of life, I can’t deal with depression, I can’t deal with the anger and the hurt and all that ugliness – and I am brought low.  AND I am made to turn to God.  And say, “Lord I can’t deal with these things, but I trust that You can.” 

Fasting then, is a means by which all that can happen – we can have a greater dependency on God, it can be awaken and nurture a greater hunger for God and it can shake us out of our pride and bring us low before our God.

Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - May 2004
 

1.     Mark Buchanan, Your God is Too Safe, Multnomah Publishers, Inc., Belmont Michigan, 
        2001,   page 186

2.     John Piper, A Hunger For God, Crossway Books, Wheaton Illinois, 1997, page 14

3.     Ibid, page 14

4.     Mark Buchanan,  page 187

5.     John Piper, page 23 

6.     Ibid, page 44