Secret Fasting

FULL SERVICE: *See SERMON ONLY below

SERMON ONLY:

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Questions: Message 26 – Secret Fasting (Matthew 6:16-18)

1. When you saw the title of this message, what were your first thoughts? Be honest!
2. Fasting was really common in the day of Christ’s coming. Today? Not so much! Feels more like the thing someone in a religious order world do. Jesus said, “whenever you fast.” When was the last time you fasted? Was it a spiritual one or just a medical one?
3. Three things were done as marks of obedience, (1) Giving Alms to the Poor (2) Praying (3) and Fasting. I suppose you could say they go in three directions. Outward to others, upwards to God, and inwards, to ourselves. Do you think that there is a place for fasting today?
4. I said that one of the most important things to understand fasting is that “the Gospel of the Kingdom fulfils everything in the Law and the Prophets.” So that obviously means that fasting changes because the coming of Jesus changes Everything. The whole focus now has actually changed and transformed. The application therefore, has also totally changed. So now, the heart of the Christian is first lived in secrecy. It is the intimacy enjoyed with the Father. Have you ever though of that? What significance does that have?
5. If the Christian life is now “lived in His presence, for His pleasure, and by His provision,” how would that change the way we would fast, if at all?
6. Fasting then must be done in freedom for it to have your Father’s attention and approval. Why is that?
7. When Jesus tells us now to put on a gloomy face, what is behind it?
8. It’s a pretend face if it’s not done in the secret place of intimacy with the Father, isn’t it? What was the point of the hypocrites doing it then?
9. I said that fasting for the sake of others approval, was “the worst PR in the history of the world to give people a sense of a relationship with the Lord, who is the giver of life! Why?
10. Here is a reminder of the kind of fastings they did in their day, that absolutely needed no instruction, as we do. Three kinds of well-known spiritual fasts in Jesus day – Normal: no intake of food for a prescribed period of time, may be an intake of liquids. Partial: the diet is limited, some food allowed, and Absolute: a total abstinence from food and liquids in all forms. What things in your life would you see yourself fasting with prayer? Do you think there is a place for a church-wide call for fasting, ever?
11. In Jesus’ fast in Matthew 4, He emphasized three things that are sharpened, (1) An Insatiable Hunger for the Word of God (4:4) (2) A Radical Submission to the Will of God (4:7) (3) A Joyful Glorying in the Worship and Service of our God (4:10). Why do you think that Jesus fasted at all? Why should we, if we desire to do so?