Beware Of Practicing Your Righteousness Before Men #9

So this morning is a sermon from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 6, and it's something I don't think I've ever preached on or taught on before, ever. Now, I haven't been preaching for decades and decades, but it has been a while, and I don't think that I've ever given any real time to the topic of fasting. I don't know if I've ever listened to a sermon on fasting, certainly never preached a sermon on fasting, but that's what is on the table for us today, is the topic of fasting. This topic of fasting happens in this sort of overarching section of Scripture here in Matthew 6, where Jesus is warning us of the danger of practicing our righteousness before men. And the danger specifically is that we would only practice our righteousness before men so that we would be seen by them. And the reasons that we would do this would be to gain their respect, their admiration, or their favor. And so Jesus warns that if we do this, if we spend our lives trying to look holy,

in the eyes of men, we will have our reward in full. Time and again, this is the refrain or the warning that we find in this passage. Jesus applies this warning to both prayer and to giving to the poor, which we covered a few months ago earlier in the chapter. And now we're coming to the third section, the third occasion, where he applies these warnings, and that's fasting. And so my hope this morning is that God will increase our understanding of fasting because I don't know that I'm... unique in that I've had little experience with talking about fasting or considering it. And so I hope first that God will help us understand it better and then help us to actually practice it in a way that he sees and that he blesses. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord from Matthew chapter 6, verses 16 to 18. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance.

so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So I want to start, I think, when I started to... to think about this passage, I thought, okay, what is our working knowledge of fasting? Like, where do we see it? We've all heard of it. We have some awareness of it. We have some conception. This is what fasting is. This is why people do it, when people do it. And so I want to start by saying the type of fasting that Jesus is talking about here generally. I want to say what it is not. The first thing is that fasting is not, in this text, a health or a weight loss strategy.

It has absolutely nothing to do with that. I think this is probably the most common way or interaction that we have with fasting today. How many of you guys have heard of intermittent fasting? We all talk about intermittent fasting. We all know how many hours before we go to bed we're supposed to stop eating if we want to sleep well or wake up well in the morning. It's very, very common for this type of thing to be talked about in our days. And so this is our working knowledge of fasting. It's a health consideration. It's a weight loss technique. It can get more complex where you abstain from certain types of food for a time and then you switch over here and then you switch back and then you trick your body. All of this has to do with losing weight and looking nice and perhaps relieving some digestive issues. Not all of it is vain, but it all has to do with health or weight loss.

Now whether these things are true or not, whether intermittent fasting is good for your health or bad for your health or whether it's a good way to lose weight or keep weight off is not my concern today. That's not actually what we're here to talk about because it's not what Jesus is talking about. And so if your only conception of fasting is for health reasons or for weight loss or for digestion, you can rest assured that's not what Jesus is talking about here. That's not the kind of fasting he has in mind. If we were to take away that motivation, weight loss, health, what have you. Fasting's not the sort of thing that any of us would say, yes, I think this would be a good thing for me to do. We would look at it and say, that doesn't sound pleasant at all. And so is it any surprise to us that the thing in our society that gets us to do it, I won't ask you to raise your hand if you've done the intermittent fasting thing, but I know hands would go up in this room if I asked. Isn't it interesting that the only thing that can get us to do fasting of any sort is our health, something that we care about?

Oftentimes, if we're going to be motivated to do something, we have to know why it's important. There has to be something of value at the end of it. We say, yes, I will sacrifice so that I can get over there. And so when it comes to our food, when it comes to our comforts, when it comes to our coffee or our chocolate or our cheeseburgers or whatever it is, our health and our appearance are about the only things that would motivate us to not eat for a period of time. The sad thing is what we're willing to do for our health or for our appearance.

we're not nearly as eager to do for our souls. Many of us could talk about the benefits of intermittent fasting. We could talk about all of the reading that we've done, all of the studying. We could talk about the benefits personally that we've experienced from it. How we slept better at night, how we felt better, how the color of our skin changed, how we lost weight. How much time have we given to it? How strongly do we hold our convictions concerning it? How many arguments have we gotten in with other people about it? You see, this sort of fasting is the kind of thing that brings people together. I mean, it divides people, but in the process of dividing it, it unifies you with other people. And in turn, it can cause a lot of division within the church. This sort of fasting has no spiritual benefit, but only a spiritual danger of division. We could take this sort of idea surrounding health or our appearance or what others think of us, which is the warning overall that Jesus gives us in this passage. Don't do what you do for the sake of other people watching you.

And think of how easily and how often we end up divided with our brothers and sisters and with other people over these sorts of things. Over health, over our appearance, over the food that we eat, or the food that we won't eat, or the food that we can't eat. Am I saying that there's no reason, is the point to say, you shouldn't have any concern for your health, your appearance, or the longevity of your life? Is that actually what I'm arguing for? Is that the Christian principle I'm driving at? No. But I am saying there's actually something far more important than your health. or your appearance or your blood pressure. And it's whether or not when this life is over for you, you'll have a reward waiting for you in heaven or whether you will have received your reward in full. And my hope and my prayer for you and for me is that we not get to that point and say, we've had our rewards. We were concerned about all of the appearances, all of the things that we're afraid of, all of the aches and pains and troubles that we have in our bodies.

My fear is that they will have consumed us and shaded out any spiritual fruit that's there to be harvested. And so there's a real danger for us here. Now you might be tempted to say, okay, well I know what I'm supposed to keep my head down about now. No one better hear about me and my eating habits. Actually, that's not the point. I know there are people in this room who have particular dietary constraints and that they need to take those into account. This passage is not telling you not to do it, but only not to make an idol out of it. And only not to do it to impress other people. And we would all say, I would never do it for that reason. I don't do the things I do for other people. And I say, okay, do you eat that way when no one's around? Do you enjoy it? Are you willing for nobody to know that you do it? I have a friend who's a pastor who has some sort of digestive issue. He's had it his whole life. We would probably call it irritable bowel syndrome or Crohn's disease. Constantly.

He's constantly in pain. You see the ads where it's like, oh no, you can't live your normal life because you've got a problem. I only know that because he's a close friend of mine. He doesn't tell anybody that he has it. And every day he's miserable with it. And it's not because he doesn't try to take care of it or isn't aware of it. I have another pastor friend whose diet is severely restricted in terms of what he can eat. Like to the point where if he comes to small group, he has to bring his own food. If he comes anywhere, he has to bring his own food. And he feels miserable about it. Like it's just...

It's just an awful thing for him to have to do. But he doesn't do it so people will see it. And he certainly doesn't make a big deal out of it. And so if you have health issues, if you have food that you need to avoid or you need to eat, I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. I'm just saying don't do it for the sake of other people. And certainly don't make it an issue of spiritual significance. Our bodies are different. And sometimes fasting may be helpful for you. For some people it may not be. This is not the point of what Jesus is talking about here. And yet it is our most common interaction with it.

What other sorts of interactions do we have with fasting? Probably the next most common place that you would see fasting, and this has a religious element to it, not just a physical one, is during Lent. You guys know what Lent is? You know who does Lent? Everybody, no, you're wrong. Everybody does Lent. But it's actually a Catholic tradition. It's when they take, you know, you hear of Fat Tuesday, and then Ash Wednesday, and then Lent. That's how Lent starts. Timothy has no clue what I'm talking about. Just telling you. If I'm not mistaken, Mardi Gras is attached to Fat Tuesday. So there's this whole like, and it's religious. Lent's religious right down there in New Orleans, right? Fat Tuesday is indulge in the way that Mardi Gras encourages you to indulge. And then Ash Wednesday, repentance, dust and ashes, sackcloth, right? And then go 40 days without something. All in anticipation and leading up to Holy Week.

And so Lent is generally a time where religious significance is attached to self-denial of some sort. And if you were to read Catholics on it or to read what is Lent and why you do it, they would be very clear in attaching, if they're conscientious about it, religious significance to it, saying we need to be preparing our hearts and our minds. We need to be learning to discipline ourselves and to deny our lusts and to be remembering the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ as he. entered into and anticipated his own death. We need to actually do this work. And denying ourselves is a good way to do it. And so we fast from very different things. Typically during Lent, Catholics will not eat meat on Fridays. Have you noticed all the fish, all the restaurants, we have our fish sandwiches back. Do you know why that is? It's because of Lent. As soon as Easter's over, all of a sudden, the fish sandwiches are gone because nobody likes them.

I mean, have you had a fish sandwich from Arby's? They do some meat well, and fish is not one of them. But they have it because there's this unspoken or under-the-surface knowledge of Lent and of not doing things. And the way it's typically found its expression is through going without meat on Fridays. So people will say, we don't eat meat on Fridays for these reasons. What other sorts of things? If I were to think, what have you given up for Lent? Again, if I asked you to raise your hands, I know hands would go up and say, I participated in Lent. What did you give up? What types of stuff gets given up? Soda, chocolate, dessert, caffeine, coffee. And my question to you then is, why? Why are those things given up? Isn't it true that those things that we give up, What'd you say? We would say they're unnecessary, but I would say we give them up because they're bad for our health or because they're too expensive. And we're right back to the first observation of fasting, which is that we're only willing to give stuff up if we can see the physical benefit to it. Show me how this will benefit me, and you can talk me into giving it up for a time. Am I crazy? Am I making this stuff up? I don't think I'm making this stuff up. I think this is...

what our interaction with fasting as a society and as Christians typically is. We do it for health reasons. And then we hear that there's like, all the cool kids are doing it and it's called Lent, so we're going to do it. But it's still, if we were to talk about it, it still actually is for health reasons. I've never met a person who said, I'm giving up something for Lent for any other reason. Because we don't know of any other reason why we would not eat something. We just have this general notion that there's something spiritually good about denying ourselves something we enjoy. The danger here is that we're straining out gnats and swallowing camels, if you understand my meaning. That we think the biggest problems in our life is too much sugar or too much caffeine, too much carbonation. Again, if you want to give those things up, if you need to give those things up, if you're convinced that those things are attached to some...

spiritual problem in your life, give them up. You won't be the worst off for them. But I think these things often become the gnats that we strain out. While there's these huge areas where we don't deny ourselves, even as we make a show of denying ourselves. And this is what it means to practice your righteousness before men. When we deny ourselves, we're sure that other people know we're denying ourselves. That's why we talk about our intermittent fasting. Because we need other people to know what we're doing. So we talk about Lent or what we've given up or what we're looking forward to getting back to. It's been a long time since I've had this sort of fasting, this worldly, self-serving, physical abstention. Even if it's been papered over with some religious significance, Lent is not what Jesus is talking about here. This is not the sort of fasting that he has in view. It's not spiritually motivated. It's worldly motivated.

And when we're motivated by the world, we do things to be seen by the world. When we're spiritually motivated, we're motivated by spiritual things to be seen by our Father in heaven. And we're content for other people not to know about it and not to praise us for it. Whenever you talk to people, if we were to step away from fasting for a minute and zoom out sort of generally, when you see someone who has a lot of self-discipline in whatever area it is, it can be physical discipline. You know, they run and they exercise and they eat right. And they do all this stuff. It could be discipline at work. They're highly productive. They're always working and planning and doing the best thing for their company or for their project. And they're always exceeding expectations. What is your inclination when you see someone doing and performing at that level? Huh? I want to be like that. Because you go, good job, man. You're killing it. You're killing it.

And so there's a real danger in us practicing our righteousness or doing the things that we do in our lives, many of them necessary. There's a real danger in us doing them to be seen by men. Jesus warns us that if we do that, we'll have our reward in full. At one point he warns them, when you fast, don't do this, but when you fast, do this. He says, anoint your head and wash your face. Simply all he's trying to do is say, in the context at that time, those who had fasted would like... make a show of it. They'd make sure other people knew that they were denying themselves. And he says, simply by, there's no huge magic in anointing your head and washing your face. All he's getting at is saying, look normal. Look like you normally look. Don't draw any attention to yourself. You ever see guys that try to grow a beard but really can't? You see them show up in November because we have this holiday of no shave November. You know what I'm convinced of? No shave November is just vain.

And all it's meant to do is draw attention to yourself, whether you can grow a great beard or whether you can't. It's all meant to get people to look at you. And what do the men who, some people are like, oh man, you got whiskers down your collarbone. Isn't that neat? It all grows down here and not up here. And you look unkempt. Your employer is not going, good on you, man. They're looking at their numbers going, why are our sales down? I have an idea. Isn't it just to be seen by men? You know, here's an interesting thing. When I was reading on this, John Chrysostom, I like to read John Chrysostom. He's an early church father, early, early, early. And he's really extreme in a lot of the things that he says. And what he says here when he's commenting on anointing your face and your head, and he's dealing with this issue of not drawing attention to yourself. He says, here, men ought not to draw attention to themselves by cleaning their face up. And he says, if men are forbidden from doing this, then women shouldn't wear makeup either because all they're doing is drawing attention to themselves. And they should be modest after all.

In their appearance and in their dress and in their behavior. And he doesn't apologize for it. He's just like, here's this thing about being a Christian. You shouldn't be doing it to catch the attention and the eye of those around you. How much of our lives are spent that way without us even knowing that we are seeking the approval and the attention of others? What will they think if? How much of the attention we pay to other people is based on such superficial and external and momentary appearances? When God looks on our heart, but we look on the outward appearance, don't we? And so there's a real danger here that we need to be cognizant of, we need to be aware of, we need to be working against. So how do you fast if it's not for health benefits or losing weight or being able to talk about the fact that you made it 40 days without whatever it is you made it 40 days without? Those are worldly motivations. Is there spiritual motivation? Yes. The practice of fasting, as Jesus is talking about it here, is the practice of self-denial.

for the purpose of pursuing a closer relationship with God. That's what's papered over the top of Lent, is that this has a spiritual good for you. And it's true in so far as it goes, but the expression of it, the application of it, doesn't pan out. So what sort of things might go along with fasting? The first, and probably the one that would come to the top of your mind, would be prayer. These two things in Scripture are often tied together. Instead of eating, pray. And usually for something in particular. And usually when something bad's going on. It used to be that our civil government could call a day of fasting and prayer. But the president could do such a thing. And that the people would do it. We have the other side of that. We have Thanksgiving. What's Thanksgiving? It's a day of thanksgiving and feasting. You see, these are the opposites. When things are going well and you want to praise God, you have a feast.

When things are going poorly and you need help, you set aside the eating so you can pray and ask God to help you. In Acts 14, when they were setting aside elders, they fasted and they prayed. They fasted from food. Here's another thing. Food's not the only thing you'll fast from. If fasting is a self-denial for the purpose of pursuing a closer relationship with God, there are other things we can fast from. When Paul warns husbands and wives about their intimacy, And he tells them not to be apart from a very long time. He's talking about an expression of fasting. And why is it that they are supposed to fast? For the purpose of prayer and for a set amount of time. And why are they not supposed to go too long? Because they haven't built up their strength of self-control sufficient to be able to go too long. And so fasting is a time where you deny yourself something for the purpose of prayer. And that thing,

is most often some sort of food or food altogether, but not always food. There are other things you could give up. Why else might we fast? Well, we may fast for deliverance and protection. There's this sweet passage in Ezra 8 where he talks about fasting. He calls a fast because they're going out and they're going into the land. And so he says this. This is Ezra 8, verse 21. He says, Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava. That we might humble ourselves before our God and seek him, seek from him a safe journey for us, our little ones, and all our possessions. And so they were going to pray, and they were going to pray for protection. They were going to pray for deliverance. Now here's the thing. Ezra lets you know what's really going on in his mind in the verses right after it. Do you know what he says? He says, this is the very next verse, he says, they need protection, right? So he says, I didn't know what else to do, so I called a fast. And this is why he called a fast.

For I was ashamed to request from the king troops and horsemen to protect us from the enemy on the way, because we had said to the king, the hand of our God is favorably disposed to all those who seek him, but his power and his anger are against all those who forsake him. So we fasted and sought our God concerning this matter, and he listened to our entreaty. And so you realize, Ezra sort of backed himself into a corner. telling the king the truth. And now when it came time to act on it, he's like, well, I was ashamed to ask for help because I told him that the Lord would protect us. And so he called a fast. And the Lord heard his entreaty. I think prayer is something we often know we should do when things are good or we should do when things are bad. I simply want to say to you, scripturally, fasting and prayer have a lot stronger connection than we've been taught to.

It was common for them to fast and to pray. In our scripture lesson this morning that Eric read, it didn't say anything about fasting other than Saul was terrified and what? He hadn't eaten or drank all day because he was desperate for something. I'm not saying what he was doing, going to this spiritist and conjuring up Samuel from the dead was at all the right thing to do. But he understood, I have a need and I'm fasting. I've got something else I need to do. I need deliverance. And if you start reading Scripture and you start looking at when they ate and when they refused to eat, you'll see it showing up often. And so if you're in need of protection or if you're in need of deliverance, as you pray, fortify your prayer with fasting. Ezra said, we told the king that God would be favorable to those who seek him. So then when the time came, he says, we're going to fast and we're going to seek him. The things we need directly from his hand. There's another thing that fasting goes with.

And that's repentance. You remember when Jonah was called to go to Nineveh and he was supposed to preach to them and he didn't want to go to Nineveh and he didn't want to preach to them, but then he ended up in Nineveh and he preached to them and then this is what happens. It says in Jonah 3, verse 5, then the people of Nineveh believed in God and they called a fast and they put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. If there's one thing that I can impress upon you most, I think you understand fasting. goes along with prayer. What I would have you take away is that fasting goes along with repentance. And this is the reason. Fasting creates an impulse inside of you, a natural impulse, a desire to eat that you learn to control. And that's what repentance is. It's facing a temptation or a desire that you have and learning to control it. And so fasting is a tool that God's given to us and he's infused it with spiritual significance. There are lessons to be learned from fasting.

that are not about your digestive tract or your weight loss, but about your soul and your ability to learn to control your lusts and your desires. And so fasting creates this desire to eat, and we say, no, I'm not eating. I need to learn to say no. Now, is it true that we can go too far? That you could treat yourself harshly? Yes, actually, that's possible. And Paul warns against that. You remember when he says in Timothy that we should be careful about... that bodily discipline is of little benefit. That bodily discipline, he's not talking about running and exercising, actually. That wasn't a thing back then for Christians. It's a thing now for Christians, but it wasn't a thing for them back then. They weren't thinking, oh, how far did I run today? How many steps did I get in? That wasn't their life. This bodily discipline that he was talking about having little spiritual benefit was this excessive, harsh treatment of the body, not eating for extended periods of time.

That was the bodily discipline that he was warning against. He says it's of little benefit. I think the confusion at that time that he was addressing and the danger that is still present today is that we would turn this sort of blessing or gift or tool from God, we might turn it into some sort of punishment or penance. I need to go without because I've been, and we end up not repenting, but just punishing. That's not what I mean by connecting fasting with repentance. I mean looking at fasting as a tool that God's given to us to teach us to deny ourselves. Not just food, but our temptations. It's practice. That's what fasting is when it's connected with repentance. It's practice. That you would practice saying no to yourself. And that you would do it in a controlled environment for a set amount of time instead of having your temptations rush upon you with no preparation. You'd say, you know, this day I'm not going to eat today.

I'm going to do it because I know that I need to learn to deny myself. I've been failing at that in this area, so I want to strengthen that muscle, that ability to say no. And so when I'm hungry and I'm fasting because of my sins that I want to repent of, I'm going to ask God to help me to say no to those impulses and those desires. Not forever, for a day, or however long you say. Fasting is not penance. It's not a punishment. It's a response to conviction of sin, and it's the fruit of a renewed desire to pursue righteousness. This is one of the ways. If you're going to fast as a Christian, and you should, this is probably one of the most common reasons you should do it. I've been falling into this temptation. I've been falling into this sin, which simply means I haven't been saying no the way I should. I don't have the strength in me to say no. If we could admit that about ourselves, I don't have the strength to say no to it. I need to build up that muscle of no. Fasting is a great tool to learn.

That strength, to build that strength. What you'll realize is for a day or two or however long you fast, you'll feel like, I'm so, I just can't do it. But then you'll realize that you actually can. And you actually didn't die. And your blood sugar didn't plummet and kill you, but that you survived. It wasn't as bad as you thought it would be. And that reality will give you strength to say, you know what, I can say no to sins in my life. I need to learn to develop this resistance to them. And that I won't go crazy if I say no to them. Have you ever had the thought, man, if I stop sin cold turkey, I don't know what will happen to me. Like, we're afraid that we'll go through withdrawals. And so we try to wean ourselves off of our sins. Does it work? You're good at weaning yourself off of sin? That's not how Christian and Pilgrim's Progress got out of the city of destruction. He didn't go, well, just a day at a time, you know. I'm just going to, you know.

He turned and he ran away, and as the city was calling, come back, come back, he says, no, no, life, life, eternal life, and he runs away. This is repentance. Fasting is a tool to that end. And what you'll find out with sin, just the same way you will with fasting and staying away from food, is that you actually can go without it. And your life does not fall apart. And that's one of the most awful lies that Satan tells us, is that you can't live without this. You are dependent on it. You're not dependent on maintaining a sinful life. And so when we fast, these are the things that we should be seeking. Prayer, deliverance, repentance. If you have an urgent prayer need, fasting is a good go with. Are you in danger? Do you need some sort of protection? Fasting. You want to strengthen your repentance, your pursuit of holiness. Fasting is a help to you. You realize how differently motivated that is than doing it so other people will see.

Like nothing in any of that has to do with whether people see you doing it. But God sees it and God blesses it. And he promises to reward those who do these things, who fast for these reasons. And this is what we ought to want. Some people would say you should live a Christian life because it's just a superior life. It's just the right thing to do and the best way to live. Well, it's true. But it's not inspiring because of our sins. It's just not as inspiring as we would like it to be. So God knows our frame. He's mindful that we're but dust. And so all through Scripture, He reminds us and tells us time and again, there's rewards, there's blessings from doing these things. And they will come to you from my hand. That's meant to motivate us. That's meant to strengthen our resolve. At some point during the day when you're fasting, I've had it happen. I'm sure you've had it happen. You go, I just don't know if this is worth it. I just don't think it's going to matter that much. And it's at that point,

that it really matters the most whether at that point you've finally gotten down to where there's traction and you have to deal with what you actually want. And whether you're willing for God to see you struggle and persevere or whether you're like, no, I'm just going to do what I want. I'm just going to go out for a late lunch. You might think fasting is really hard. You might misunderstand this text and think, well, if you're going to fast, then nobody can know about it. You have to do it like in secret means doing it like... where no one can have any knowledge. So basically what I have to do is isolate myself from anyone who might wonder. That's not the case. If that were the case, then Mr. Hess wouldn't have sent us an email a few days ago for Good Friday saying, hey, let's have a fast. Because then there's this knowledge that there's people, some people in the church who are fasting, and you have knowledge, and aren't they doing it to either impress you or make you feel bad for not doing it? But I don't think that was Abram's motivation at all when he talked to me about it.

It's possible for you to fast and have people know that you're fasting. Not everybody, but the people who you live life around. And to not be doing it for them to look at you. Look at you and think some sort of praise for you. There's a way of doing it humbly. That's what Jesus is driving at here. If you're going to fast, do it for the sake of your soul and do it humbly. Some of you might be wired to think, well, I can't fast because I have, you know, some people say I need to fast because I have medical... And other people say, I can't fast because I have medical realities. God knows that. Is there anything other than food that can be given up? Is there a shorter amount of time that it can be given up? We all have things we could go away from for a time. None of us can honestly say, there's nothing in my life I could give up. There's just nothing. Everything is absolutely essential. I mean, you realize that's just not the case. People give up Facebook. They give up social media. They say, I'm going to get off social media for a month.

You see the posts. I'll be back later. I just need a break. Wouldn't it be better if you said, I need to work on my repentance and my relationship with God. I'm out of here. We all have things we can give up for the sake of godliness. So when you fast, don't put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do. Don't draw attention to yourselves. When you fast, do it so that your God can see it, your Father in heaven, and be glorified by it, even if nobody else knows. The best thing about sweet relationships and intimate relationships And something I've had to learn and that Vanessa has taught me is that there are things in relationships, things that make them sweet are that they're only known by your spouse. That's what the intimacy is, is there's things that only they know. Nobody else sees it. It wasn't done. It wasn't talked about. It wasn't acknowledged to anyone else but to them. And it makes your relationship very close. The same is true with God. Fasting, out of the public eye,

It makes your relationship with God closer because he's the only one who sees it, and perhaps your family. And the good thing about your family is they're the people who are least likely to think more highly of you than they should. When they see you, they'll be like, okay, well, he's trying something here. They're not going to be like, oh, look at this guy. So godly, because they live with you. So, seek after a close relationship with God. In prayer, seek his protection. Seek after repentance. With fasting. If you have questions about it, how it works, or what would be wise, talk to me. Talk to the Eric. Talk to the elders. This is what we're here for. If this is supposed to be spiritually motivated, you should talk to those who keep watch over your souls. One of the things I realized when I was thinking about reading and studying and preparing for this is I have never told somebody they should fast with repentance. We want to start. We need to learn to say no.

even if God's the only one who sees us saying no. And we'll receive our reward from him. And he won't be ashamed about it. And we won't have earned it. Because it takes spiritual strength to deny ourselves and to say no to our temptations and our sins. That takes spiritual strength. Remember I said about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, if you haven't eaten, you're kind of like, man, maybe just a snack, maybe a smoothie, maybe something, some calories here. Your physical strength won't carry you through that. And if it does, it won't benefit you spiritually. But if at that point you pray and ask God to help you to deny yourself, God won't be ashamed of you needing his help. In fact, he'll reward you for it. There's nothing better for a father or for a mother than for their children whom they love to come and say, Mommy or Daddy, I need your help. Will you help me? I don't know what to do. I've gotten in a mess. Help me with my homework. Help me with my car. Help me with...

my shower, whatever it is, whatever age they're at, and they say, will you help me? Their parents are happy to do it, love to do it. And the only reason we as parents love to do those things for our kids is because that's the imprint of God's love and affection toward us, written into us, not completely obliterated by the fall. And so God will reward you seeking after him. Coming just a few verses after this, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all things will be added to you. Don't be ashamed about seeking after God. Don't rely on your own strength or you won't make it. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. And all the things you need will be added to you. If you've got health considerations, take those into account. If you've got schedule constraints, take those into account. One day we will do things perfectly. But if we could just practice now, it would be the best thing for us. Less than perfect in the direction of righteousness. That should be our goal.

and trust that God will reward our less than perfect efforts. Let's pray.