Good Morning Church!
We welcome you back to the house of God. It is He who has allowed us to speak with Him and praise as well as worship Him.
Today we will be learning about the importance of “Fasting & Praying!”
If we read the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 9, we read that Jesus heals a paralytic person and then we will notice that Jesus calls a tax collector and asks him to follow Him. However there is one of the most important question that we hear after these two…
Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.
Matthew 9:14-15
John was at this time in prison; his circumstances, his character, and the nature of the message he was sent to deliver, led those who were peculiarly attached to him, to keep frequent fasts. Christ referred them to John’s testimony of Him. Though there is no doubt that Jesus and his disciples lived in a spare and frugal manner, it would be improper for his disciples to fast while they had the comfort of his presence. When he is with them, all is well. The presence of the sun makes day, and its absence produces night. Our Lord further reminded them of common rules of prudence. It was not usual to take a piece of rough woolen cloth, which had never been prepared, to join to an old garment, for it would not join well with the soft, old garment, but would tear it further, and the rent would be made worse. Nor would men put new wine into old leather bottles, which were going to decay, and would be liable to burst from the fermenting of the wine; but putting the new wine into strong, new, skin bottles, both would be preserved. Great caution and prudence are necessary, that young converts may not receive gloomy and forbidding ideas of the service of our Lord; but duties are to be urged as they are able to bear them.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
Matthew 5:6
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
Acts 13:2
In the OT we will find several times where fasting and prayers are duly practiced.
– Deuteronomy 9:15-18
Moses fasted for 40 days.
– 1 Kings 21:17-29
He fasted and forgiven.
– 2 Samuel 12:16-23
David fasted and wept.
– Jonah 3:4-10
Jonah asked people to repent to God and we find people from Ninveh fasted and prayed and repented to God.
-Daniel 9:3-5
Daniel fasted and confessed sins of people of Israel.
– Judges 20:26
Israel fasted in Bethel when they were to go and fight Benjaminites seeking strength from God.
Throughout the Bible, people fasted, prayed and repented. We as a church, need to remember two things:
1: Fasting will help you hear the voice of God.
Why we are going to hear the voice of God? Because we are humbling ourselves before God.
Most of us take three meals a day, and sometimes we also eat snacks in between. Even if we are hungry or not, we have programmed our body to eat at those specific time slots. However, when you read the word of God, it programs your body to be hungry for God.
When you humble yourself, God will reveal Himself to you.
For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.”
Isaiah 57:15
Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.
Isaiah 66:1-2
If you ask, Spirit of God will help you with the right attitude to learn from the word of God.
2: Fasting will release supernatural powers in your life.
Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country.
Luke 4:14
O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.
2 Chronicles 20:12
If you read this chapter, Judah was in big trouble. It looked like enemy will come and destroy completely. In the midst of that, Jehoshaphat asked his people to fast and wait.
As we are going to enter 21 days of fasting and praying, let us look unto God and fix our eyes upon Him.
So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.
Ezra 8:23
“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Isaiah 58:6
In Matthew 17, father of one boy came to Jesus and said that he brought his possessed son to His disciples but they couldn’t help. So He brought his son to Jesus. He said your disciples could not heal and I seek your intervention because I have faith in You.
And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:14-20
The case of afflicted children should be presented to God by faithful and fervent prayer. Christ cured the child. Though the people were perverse, and Christ was provoked, yet care was taken of the child. When all other helps and succours fail, we are welcome to Christ, may trust in him, and in his power and goodness. See here an emblem of Christ’s undertaking as our Redeemer. It encourages parents to bring children to Christ, whose souls are under Satan’s power; he is able to heal them, and as willing as he is able. Not only bring them to Christ by prayer, but bring them to the word of Christ; to means by which Satan’s strong-holds in the soul are beaten down. It is good for us to distrust ourselves and our own strength; but it is displeasing to Christ when we distrust any power derived from him, or granted by him. There was also something in the malady which rendered the cure difficult. The extraordinary power of Satan must not discourage our faith, but quicken us to more earnestness in praying to God for the increase of it. Do we wonder to see Satan’s bodily possession of this young man from a child, when we see his spiritual possession of every son of Adam from the fall!
The important thing is that Jesus fasted and Prayed Himself.
That according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
Ephesians 3:16
Fasting without prayers will not be effective and they must go together. As you enter the 21 days of fasting, we encourage you to continue seeking His face and fix your eyes unto God.
We thank you for joining us and look forward to seeing you again next Sunday. God bless!