Matthew 6:16-18

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 48:1-3
• Hymn — How Great Thou Art (#44)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Responsive Reading — Psalm 5
• Hymn — O God, Our Help in Ages Past (#30)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Scripture Reading — Matthew 6:16-18
• Sermon
• Hymn — (#534)
• Benediction

Sermon Title: The Benefits of Fasting

Scripture: Matthew 6:16-18

I. Fasting Brings an Eternal Focus

• A. Fasting reorients our whole self — body and soul — away from temporal concerns and toward eternal things.

  1. We are slaves to the clock, and the clock works hand in hand with mealtime, crowding out eternal concerns.
  2. C. S. Lewis illustrates this in The Screwtape Letters: the demon Screwtape instructs Wormwood to make his subject feel hungry so that the hustle of the world drowns out his eternal focus.

• B. Matthew 5:6 — Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied — points to the primary purpose of fasting: hungering for righteousness.

• C. James 1:22-25 warns against hearing the word without doing it, like a man who looks in a mirror and forgets what he looks like — fasting keeps eternity before our eyes so we do not forget who we are in Christ.

• D. Matthew 6:33 — Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness — fasting is a means by which our hearts beat for that kingdom which is not of this world.

II. Fasting Brings Expectation of the Future

• A. Jesus says when you fast, not if — there is a clear expectation that his disciples will fast (Matthew 6:16).

• B. Luke 5:33-35 — Jesus explains that his disciples will fast when the bridegroom is taken away; we are living in those days, in the time between Christ's first and second Advent.

• C. The example of Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 19 — he did not trim his beard or wash his clothes while King David was gone; likewise, we fast while our King is absent.

• D. Herman Bavinck's The Philosophy of Revelation is referenced: every worldview has an eschatology, but only the Christian eschatology is concrete, resting at the right hand of God the Father.

  1. Marxist, Nietzschean, and Darwinian eschatologies are wishful thinking.
  2. The Christian eschatology is solid — 2 Peter 3:13: we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

• E. Fasting cultivates the waiting posture of the Christian — enabling us to say with the early church, Maranatha, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

  1. Christians are not a "give me my best life now" people but a "give me the hope of the best life ever" people.
  2. Fasting counters our culture's demand for instant gratification and draws our hearts forward to the day of new beginnings.

III. Fasting Brings an Experience of the Father

• A. Jesus instructs his disciples to fast in secret — not to disfigure their faces like the hypocrites — so that their fasting is seen by the Father alone, who rewards in secret (Matthew 6:17-18).

• B. This mirrors Jesus's earlier teaching on prayer (addressed the previous week): go into your room, shut the door, and pray to your Father in secret (Matthew 6:6).

  1. When Jesus repeats himself, we must pay attention.
  2. Both prayer and fasting are not for the praise of men but to draw us closer to the Father.

• C. The illustration of Saving Private Ryan: Captain Miller refuses to describe his wife and her rose bushes, saying he has kept that memory just for himself — to share it would cheapen it.

  1. Intimate fellowship with the Father in secret can similarly be cheapened when made into social currency.
  2. A social media mentality — posting every spiritual experience for approval — seeps into the Christian life and undermines genuine communion with God.

• D. The reward of fasting is not praise from others but the Father himself — union and communion with the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit.

  1. The Gospel of John presents the reality of being made one with the Son who is one with the Father.
  2. Fasting is one of the means by which we experience this objective reality — invited into the Triune fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

• E. Practical encouragement: if fasting is not yet part of your Christian life, start small — skip a meal and devote that time to prayer.

  1. Fasting in Scripture most strictly refers to fasting from food, though there may be seasons of fasting from other idols.
  2. God uses fasting as an instrument to draw his saints into deeper fellowship with himself.