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Sermon
The Gospel of Matthew

Fasting for the Glory of God

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March 2, 2025
Matthew 6:16-18
Jon Nowlin
North Campus Youth, Dir

Fasting

Worship

Killing Sin & Holiness

Transcript

0:15Well, I want to begin by asking you this morning, what comes to your mind when you hear fasting? Did you notice three, four different times and three verses? Fasting was brought up and I wonder what categories do you have for that? What thoughts Rush in when you hear that the sermon title is fasting for the glory of God. Do you have a category for that? What is fasting? First a word to the youngest children among us. I'm so thrilled that you're here worshiping with us, but you might not even know what the word fasting means. So we'll start there. Fasting, a very simple definition would be foregoing food for a season in order to seek God primarily in prayer.

1:12Others of you might have categories from the internet like intermittent fasting and all the benefits to your health that that could bring like regulating blood sugar and things like that. Others of you, your mind may immediately go to the nations, the the approximate 2 billion people that began fasting for Ramadan on Friday and you pray that they would see Christ and turn to him and to the truth. Others of you may realize, wow, I've never heard a sermon on this or teaching as I grew up in my tradition. This is different for me. One of the pastors shared a statistic this week, a Gallup poll that said that 16% of people in this survey's estimation in our stream of faith fast.

2:07If that's true of this congregation, that would mean less than one in five. So maybe a few people in your row. So you may not have a category for that and others of you were here when we were in Matthew four and you're like, Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. What does that have to do with me? Yikes. Others of you have a practice where you understand fasting and God has led you into that and maybe it's fallen by the wayside. And this teaching, this opportunity, this text, which many people who teach about fasting turn to this passage. And by God's grace we are here today. Others of you, you do have an ongoing practice.

2:52God has good things for you, good things for you. This is a good gift from him. I'm so thankful as one of your pastors that we are methodically preaching through the gospel of Matthew and that means we take what comes. We wouldn't necessarily say, you know what? In a few weeks we should preach on fasting. But in God's good discipleship plan and in Jesus's phenomenal sermon, he wants to teach us about this subject. He wants us to draw near to the Father and have a heart that expresses to him some of the things right above it in the Lord's prayer, his name being hallowed, his kingdom being built through this gift of humbling our bodies before him in fasting.

3:45So here's our very simple outline, three points. Point number one is the basics of fasting. We're gonna look at the opening phrase by Jesus and when you fast as well as wider biblical teaching, why would we do that? Because Jesus' original hearers had more context perhaps than we do. And so we wanna look at what the wider Old Testament is teaching and and what the practice was like in his day so that we can understand his teaching. The second point will be from verse 16, how not to fast self-centered selfish fasting, believe it or not. And finally we're gonna look at 0.3, how to fast and the many great rewards that come with that.

4:38Jesus mentions rewards here and he mentions how we should do it. So that's gonna come in verses 17 and 18. So I'm gonna invite you to pray with me as we seek God's help to understand the good things that he has for us. Please pray with me. Father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for how you want to give us a good gift from this text. Would you please help me to be clear? Would you please be at work in our hearts and would you be at work coming out of this sermon? There's so much that can't be said. There's so much more that we could understand and look at.

5:19So would you shepherd us even into that understanding? We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, let's begin with wider Old Testament teaching on fasting basics of biblical fasting. If you were to, uh, if you grew up in this culture that Jesus entered into Leviticus two, three would be a key text that you would know about. The one day that God commanded his people to fast in the Old Testament was on the day of Atonement. I'm gonna give you some different texts. Some of them will be up on the screen, especially the longer ones so that you don't have to flip, flip back to Leviticus 23. But you're welcome to do that if you'd like to.

6:05Leviticus 23 verses 27 and 29. Now on the 10th day of this seventh month is the day of atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation and you shall afflict yourselves. And if you were looking at it in the ESV, it would say, the footnote would say fast or fast and present a food offering to the Lord. Then skipping ahead to verse 29, whoever is not afflicted or whoever's not fasting on that very day shall be cut off from his people. Now why is this significant? Well, the day of atonement was a day where the sins of the people was very forefront. And this was a day that there was a sacrifice made and sins were dealt with, uh, through those sacrifices in the specific ways that God called them to be.

7:01But God wanted them to fast and this is the only place he commands them on a specific day as fast at a specific time. Now, what we need to know is Hebrews in the wider scripture teaches us that the day of atonement, this day of dealing with sins is not a yearly occurrence anymore. We don't fast on the on yang kur or the Day of Atonement because Jesus is our sacrifice. At the end of this sermon, we will celebrate the day, the cross Jesus Christ, when he dealt decisively with our sins for all who trust in him. Jesus is the Passover lamb. Jesus is the one true perfect sacrifice, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

7:52It's also important to know that fasting was a practice throughout the Bible. This is the only place it's commanded. The other places that we turn to look for instruction about fasting take place in various examples throughout the Old Testament and the scriptures that God gives us of his people doing that. You don't need to turn here, but Psalm 69, verse 10 gives us some instruction on fasting. David says, when I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, notice when I wept and humbled my soul, the context here, David is in uh, a hard circumstance and people have turned against him. He was good to them. They're returning evil for good.

8:36And notice how he talks about fasting, humbling his soul. If there was gonna be like a banner on the website over fasting, it would be humbling your soul. We can bow our heads in prayer. Um, we can prostrate ourselves or kneel, but how do we humble our souls? We can bow our souls before the Lord through this opportunity of fasting. One of the greatest examples I love it is in Jonah three verses five, seven, and nine. We learn a lot from the example of, believe it or not, the Ninevites Jonah comes with this sermon to them and it's this really short sermon in the book and God gives them the most amazing gift of repentance.

9:24And it teaches us some things about fasting. Look with me at the text. And the people of Nineveh believed God. So their actions were in response to God's word. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them by the decree of the king and his nobles. Let neither man nor beast herd nor flock, taste anything. Now just think about that for a second. A rebellious king who days earlier was probably feasting and thinking, I'm the king of the world. Everybody does what I say and what I do. And he has been radically changed by God's word to say, I'm not feasting anymore, I'm humbling myself before the one true king.

10:14And that can be a picture of what fasting would be like for us. How often do we see ourselves as king of our lives? And in fasting, in setting aside food and seeking God's kingdom In prayer we're saying, you are king and I am not going on. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and let them call out mightily to God. It's connected to prayer. Let everyone turn from his evil ways and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. That last phrase is super important. We might be tempted to think, well, if I'm praying and God's not answering, I just need to reach up to heaven and twist his arm behind his back like I need to do something to get God on my page to do my agenda.

11:13Did you hear what I read from Jonah? He might, he may, maybe God will do this. We don't control God. He is the sovereign ruler of all, and fasting is not some way that we earn his rewards or convince him to pray or to answer our prayers. It's done with a humble heart that he might, it's offering a petition with our soul's bowed that God might answer us throughout the scriptures. In the Old Testament, God's people fast for several reasons for healing. David fasted for his child with Bathsheba in second Samuel 12. We fast in mourning and grieving. For example, Nehemiah heard about the condition of the exiles in Jerusalem and he fasted grieving over the situation of God's people in God's fame in that area, king Jehosaphat fasted seeking God's deliverance from a great multitude of foreign enemies marching on God's people.

12:20Now most of the examples that we get in scripture are about extreme circumstances like when you have several kings getting together and marshaling all their forces onto your uh, place and you're like, whoa, this is desperate times. Call for desperate measures. Let's fast. I just want to clarify. Fasting is an ongoing habit for God's people so that when something significant happens, our knee jerk reaction is, well, maybe I should fast. We see some of the extreme examples, but that doesn't mean that it's not supposed to be a regular practice. Well, let's look at Jesus teaches this. Let's look at our text that was sort of some context to understand what they may have been thinking.

13:05Let's look at our text. And when you fast the first few words of six 16, you need to understand if you glance up the page, this all fits under the banner of practicing our righteousness before other people. We're not supposed to do that. We're supposed to be on the lookout just as we go to our doors and lock them at night. And if you have an alarm system, turn that on because you're aware that other people may try to, to do malicious things. To the same extent we should be aware that our hearts do malicious things. We oftentimes practice our righteousness to be seen by other people. And Jesus gives three different examples as you glance up the page in verse two, we can give so that other people see our giving.

13:54And Jesus says, watch out for that in chapter six, verse five, we can pray when you pray. We can pray in a way that other people will see our righteousness and be like, whoa, they are a holy, righteous person. We're supposed to guard against that. Watch against that. Turn our hearts in other directions, organize our circumstances so that it it is not seen by others and many other examples could be given. But right here in this final area of this teaching, in this section of Jesus's sermon is when you fast. So notice four things about that phrase. First, this practice will continue for Jesus followers, the cross did not change the reality of fasting.

14:38We'll see more and perhaps learn more about this discipline when we get to chapter nine. And we'll try to understand why did Jesus disciples not fast when he was here and why do they fast, um, after he's taken from them, which is our current situation before he returns. We'll look at that when we get to chapter nine. But this practice continues. Secondly, notice the word when assumes that his followers will not only practice fasting, but it does not specify when they will practice or fast when they'll practice this fasting. It doesn't give a precise thing like when you fast on these specific days, on this specific holiday, in this specific way, in these specific circumstances, it just says in general it's gonna happen for God's people.

15:27That's a good thing. He's not necessarily giving us all these different things. He's saying this is something that you should pray and seek your father about and be shepherded into and insert into your life at various times and in various ways. Third, you may not see it here, but in the original language, Jesus uses a present tense verb here for fasting. He doesn't mean. And when you fast once on your 30th birthday from noon to to sundown, he doesn't say that it's an ongoing practice. When you are involved in fasting in the future, you should be doing these things. And finally, the original language is a compound word, it the front part of the word or the prefects is negative and the back half of the word is the verb to eat.

16:21So just like a compound word, somebody is a moral, it means they're not moral. The same thing here with this word is not eating. Now we talk about fasting in a lot of different ways. You'll perhaps hear several different people in the next month or so talk about giving up something for Lent. But the reality of biblical fasting, the primary thing that's given up and even built into the word is giving up eating, giving up, eating. Well, let's look at how not to fast. Oh, before we do that, uh, it's, it's probably helpful for you to know what was going on with fasting in Jesus' day. If we read Luke 5 33, uh, the religious leaders of Jesus' Day, one of the religious leaders say the disciples of John fast often.

17:20So it was known to be an ongoing practice of John's disciples. And in Luke 1812, when Jesus was telling a parable about a man who trusted in his own righteousness, which we don't want to do, he said in a, in a proud way, in a self-reliant way, I fast twice a week and it was well known by scholars that the religious leaders of Jesus day would fast every Monday and Thursday. So it was like clockwork. People knew that they were gonna be doing this. So that's an important piece to try to help us understand what's going on here in Jesus' instructions. Let's read verse 16 again. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.

18:09Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. What is going on here specifically? He often calls the religious leaders hypocrites. If he has them in mind and he doesn't want any of Jesus followers to follow them, how does it fit that? Perhaps it's already known that they fast on Monday and Thursday fit with the, with what Jesus is teaching here. Notice their faces. Have you thought recently how much our face displays what's going on inside of us? Like several years ago when whoever invented emojis to send along with your text, like I'm saying something and you might not catch my drift, so I'm gonna put it like this laughy cry face.

18:57How do we even invent the word laughy cry, by the way, anyway, I put this little thing at the end or this smiley face so that you know this is not like meant to be mean to you. This is like, this is what I'm trying to communicate. Our faces display communicate much. That's why a lot of struggles can happen when we send somebody an email rather than talk to them in person, our faces communicate much. And what the Pharisees or the hypocrites, he doesn't say Pharisees. What the hypocrites in Jesus' teaching are saying here is, look at my face. It's gloomy. Or another way of saying gloomy is sad. And I think what they're trying to say is, I'm not just doing my Monday and Thursday thing.

19:40I really mean, oh God, I'm seeking you and I'm, I'm so grieved over my sin. They're displaying what the biblical intention is for their fasting by their outward face. But because they're hypocrites, they're pretending their play acting, they're trying to show everybody how serious they are, perhaps in our day because not as many people fast on a regular basis, maybe even just fasting. We might want to be seen just for doing it. But in this day when fasting was regular, it's probable that they were trying to do it to be seen for their earnestness, their heart righteousness in the reality or, or just the fact that I'm one of those guys that's like two times a week.

20:25That's me. That's what they're trying to do. They're disfiguring their face, which is kind of means hiding or having it be unwashed or, um, Jesus is doing a pun here. He's saying they're trying to hide their faces in order to be seen. They're trying to do this so that others look at them, they're trying to darken or, um, make their faces look unkept and and kind of dark when they want to shine before others. That's what Jesus is doing with this teaching notice. They are honoring, in quotes, honoring the Lord with their empty stomachs, but their heart is extremely far from him because they're seeking their own honor.

21:10And we do this in a lot of different ways. So why is hypocritical fasting wrong or any sort of wanting our righteousness to be seen by others? Why is that wrong? Well, first everything that we do is from and through and to God. The breath that you just took is from God. The energy that you had to get up out of bed and get yourself all washed up and the breakfast that you ate, perhaps the coffee that's reviving you a little bit to pay attention to this sermon. All of that is from God. So when we start to say, well, look at all this is coming from me, that is denying that reality. Second, we were made to display him.

22:00Let's go right back to Genesis. We were made in his image. We are image bearers meant to image him. What do image bearers do? They image We are meant to image God. And when we try to show our righteousness, we're trying to image ourselves, it's treason. It's like climbing. It's like going into the throne room and saying, God, excuse me, I'm putting you over here and I'm gonna set myself up on the throne. Look at me, everybody. The world's about me.

22:35Finally, it is preaching a false gospel. It goes explicitly against Ephesians two, eight and nine. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. But when we're trying to drag our good works in front of other people, we're saying, look at me and don't just look at me, be in awe of me and follow me. That's wickedness. That's wickedness. And our hearts should recoil at that. The reason that Jesus is telling us this is so that we'll watch our hearts Chapter one, I'm sorry, chapter six, verse one. Beware. Be watchful. We should watch ourselves not just for this discipline, but all sorts of different things.

23:28I don't remember what I was doing yesterday, but I was like, my heart wants to be seen in that yesterday or earlier this weekend. That's how we are wired in our sinful nature. And we need to watch out for that. Avoid that, see that it's sin, confess it right away. So Jesus is saying, I don't want you to try to build your kingdom through this gift of fasting. I want you to build my kingdom.

23:57So how do we build God's kingdom through the discipline of fasting? Well, Matthew six 17 and 18 help us see that. But when you fast anoint your head and wash your face that your fasting may be seen by others, may not be seen by others, but by your father who is in secret and your father who sees secret will reward you. Do you notice the contrast between the two? What not to do and what to do? What's what's in the center? What's in focus? The person's face. The person's face. So don't be dejected. Don't leave yourself all like disheveled. Wash your face, anoint your head. Now most of us aren't anoint.

24:48Raise your hand if you anointed your head this morning. Probably maybe like, I don't have any hair, so maybe I'd be somebody to do that. No, I don't do that. It it was a thing in a dry culture where you need to put lotion on yourself so you're not struggling in that way. This was basically just like do your normal thing, wake up and be normal. Look like you're normal, like be normal. Take your shower, shave. It would kind of be like if somebody, maybe to put in our cultural terms, let's just say that somebody decided that they were gonna wear black, put a veil over their heads, maybe not fully keep themselves, or maybe their hair's kind of going crazy and they're just like, they're gonna walk in and do their daily life as if they're mourning.

25:33And somebody's like, oh, did somebody die in your family or somebody that you care about? And they're like, no, I'm just fasting. I'm, I'm really serious about my sin. I'm so grieving over my sin. That's what the hypocrites were trying to do. And what he's saying is just be normal, dress normal, wash normal, anoint normal, just be normal, fit into your daily lives that your fasting may not be seen or advertised before. Others, we should not try to be seen in these things. Well, let's look at the heart behind this. You see the aim is that the unseen father would be seen that the unseen father would be seen.

26:20But let's, let me just ask a practical question. If you live with smart people, I live with smart people, they noticed things like, I just happened to be walking through the kitchen and my wife a couple days ago noticed that one of my buttons was not buttoned. And I didn't even notice that. And she's like, your button's not buttoned. So I buttoned my button. If you live with people that are observant, they might be like, oh, well they didn't pack their lunch for today or, well, all the, the whole staff is, is gathering for this gathering. Or we're gonna like go out to Chili's for lunch as a team.

26:52Are you coming with us? No, actually I'm gonna, I'm going on a walk today. I'm gonna go do something different. If somebody is actually fasting there, the aim is not never be seen. And if you're seen, you're sinning. That's not what it's saying. The emphasis here is trying to be seen. People might bump into it or realize or, or it might become visible. Don't try to do that. But if it is, don't fret. If your heart is not to be seen. That's the aim of this text here. The aim is that we would seek the father's kingdom. Fasting is about declaring with our body that God is king and we are not. So when we fast seek an audience of one set aside time, it's like having lunch with God.

27:41How amazing is that? Rather than having a meal with somebody else, you're having not a meal with God and you're gonna spend time with him, you're gonna go after him with his priorities. God, would your kingdom be built in this situation? Would you help me to love you? Would you hallow your name in my eyes and in my life? Would you go after this string person that I care for greatly? Would you build your kingdom in this part of my world or this part of your greater world? As we do that notice that Jesus has rewards for us. I think it's probably pretty evident to most of us that the cost of fasting is pretty clear.

28:28We, we like, we like to eat, we don't like our tummies going raw. Um, we don't like that. So it's really helpful that Jesus includes rewards here. What does he mean by your father who sees in secret will reward you? What are the rewards? Well, I think the primary reward is the father himself. The primary reward is the father himself. If we were to look at Luke chapter two verses 37, we would encounter a woman named Anna a prophetess. And what Luke says is she did not depart from the temple worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. That was like her thing. Some people's thing is baseball, some people's thing is this, that and the other thing, some people's whatever, crafting that kind of stuff.

29:24Anna's thing was fasting and praying and worshiping before the Lord. Why did she do that? Because she loved intimacy with God. We get the example of Jesus disciples after he left in Acts worshiping the Lord. And in the book of Acts, the Lord pay very close attention is Jesus. They're worshiping the Lord and fasting in Acts 13, two and again in Acts 14. Well, why were they doing that? They received other benefits from it in their fellowship with other believers, but they were primarily doing it because they were worshiping Jesus. It was a chance to be with him. So if I asked one of my sons to go to lunch with me, the reward would be being with my son.

30:17The same thing is true by giving up a meal and being with the Lord or having a season of fasting to seek the Lord. The reward is the Lord himself. So we need to ask ourselves a heart question. Is the nearness of God a reward to us? It better be because it's one of the greatest rewards the Bible has to offer. Before the fall, what was the reward of the garden being with God in heaven? What's gonna be the great reward to be forever with the Lord? That should be our heart's cry, our heart's leaning to be with the Lord. And if it's doesn't seem very reward, a, a big reward to us, we need to pray and seek God's grace in that area of our hearts.

31:14Is the nearness of God a reward to you? Second, God may listen to our ENT treaty. God may listen. We get a really good example of this from Ezra's fasting and prayer in Ezra 8 21 through 23. Then I Ezra proclaimed a fast there at the river Ava that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek him for a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and our goods. Okay, this is a little bit different. Probably most of you who are planning a trip or a road trip this summer will not be like, all right everybody, we're fasting today for a safe trip to and from Nebraska or wherever you're headed. This is a very particular situation for I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemies on, on our way.

32:09Since we had told the king the hand of our God is for the good of all who seek him and the power of his wrath against all who forsake him. Now notice in this circumstance, Ezra had already been proclaiming the greatness of his God. And he didn't want the king who he wanted God's name to be hallowed in his eyes. He didn't want the king to be like, now you just told me that your God is in control of all thing and is in mighty. And and anybody that would come against him would would be like experiencing his wrath. How can you tell me that? And then you need me to protect you? He didn't want any confusion to be there.

32:48He perhaps could have explained it or whatever, but he didn't want that. So he sought the Lord for protection so that God's name would be hallowed in the eyes of the king. And what was the reward? And he listened to our ENT treaty. Now, why is that a reward? God was hallowed in the name of eyes of the king, but all the people, can you imagine being a little kid on that journey? Like, whoa, there's some scary people out here. And we sought the Lord in prayer and he answered us, our God is great.

33:24The Reward was seeing God's name hollowed, God's reputation being grown. And in the next chapter when Ezra arrived, he also fasted and prayed because the people were committing great wickedness and they were turning away from the Lord. They, they had done things against his word. So he humbled himself. He was confessing, he was praying, he was grieving. And God also heard that prayer and turned the heart of the people so that there was a national, uh, repentance to move away from the iniquity that they had done. What was the reward there? God's name was hallowed through his people who had turned away from him.

34:14God's word was shown to be right when everyone was ignoring it. And all of these people who are living against him, were now walking with him and in line with his word. So another question that we should ask ourselves is, is God's name being hallowed a reward for us? It should be when God is great and he gives us faith to see that he's great and hard circumstances come up against us. It's so good to be stable and trusting our God rather than, oh, I don't know. I'm panicking. I'm freaking out. Can somebody help me? Now, certainly we have those times when we can run to the Lord in repentance and seek his help.

34:56But when he hallows his name in our eyes, we're steadfast. Or is it good for our neighbors and the lost people around us to turn away from iniquity and turn to the Lord or turn back to the Lord? Absolutely. Do you believe blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the wicked, but delights in the law of the Lord? Do you believe that? That is our good. That is our good.

35:31So their reward was God himself and their reward is his, his answer to the various prayers that they brought before him. And if you noticed, I kept going back to the Lord's prayer, God's pattern for prayer. If fasting is connected with prayer, our fasting should be connected with Jesus's pattern for prayer, for praying for his heart, praying for his name to be hallowed in our good in many ways. So what does all of this mean to us? Like I said and prayed at the beginning, there's much, much more that could be said, particulars, things, details to figure out. But let's just return to that text. Um, the wider passage.

36:09And I just wanna point out three implications for us. First, watch your heart for a desire to be seen. What if you were to begin this practice? Just know that like right over your shoulder is a desire to be seen and and any, any righteousness that we'd practice, we're gonna take communion in a little bit. In some hearts, there could be a desire to be seen. We'll sing a closing song. There could be a desire to be seen. We'll interact with others in the commons. There could be a desire to be seen. Certain people will do various things around this building, teaching, serving, whatnot. There could be in our hearts, a desire to be seen.

36:52Watch out for that. That is rebellion. We should confess that to the Lord right away and seek if there's ways, take steps to bring that practice of righteousness underground. If we're able to do that, to hide that so that it's only seen by the Father and we aren't as tempted to be like, Hey, did you notice that I, now that one. Secondly, take practical steps towards fasting or growing in the practice of it.

37:25I would encourage you to add fasting to your prayer list. I think we should all have certain things that we pray for our walk with God. Like, God, I know that I'm supposed to memorize scripture. I need more help memorizing scripture. Would you help me memorize scripture in that same way? I would encourage you to ask, add fasting to prayer list. God, I'm not quite sure. I had never heard about it before. Or this was sort of whatever. This is my situation. Would you help me understand the blessings and the benefits and the beauty of this? Would you help me to see the reward of it? I would also encourage you to learn more.

38:05We hope to send out resources in Pastor Steven's email or just go to desiring God. David Mathis has written quite a bit about this in his book, habits of Grace. I'd encourage you if, if you've never heard of that book, read the opening chapters and then flip, I think it's chapter seven or chapter 10 that talks about this discipline and sort of gives you some orientation and ideas. Talk with your small groups or believing friends. You might know somebody who has more context in this than you do. Also consider your own specific health realities. Some of you take regular medication and this would not be a wise thing for you to be like, well, you know what it says, take with food, but I'm gonna try this anyway.

38:46No, no, no. I would encourage you to check with your doctor about that if you're gonna take steps forward and then take a small step. It's been a while since I've done running and I shouldn't try to run a marathon tomorrow. That would not be good. So you're like, oh Jesus, 40 days. Whew, I can do 40 days. No, I would not recommend that. Small steps small. What small step would God have for you?

39:14And this is the most beautiful thing that I really wanna draw your attention to. The final application is keep your heavenly Father in view. Keep your heavenly Father in view. Our goal is not getting it done, checking a box, but it's being with the Father and pursuing his priorities. We have such a gift. Jesus Christ has brought us to God. There are billions of people fasting for a very exacting deity in their minds. In our world, we don't have that. We have a heavenly Father. He is both great and near. This is a privilege. We have a good shepherd. He's not out there like, let's see if he get it right this time.

40:08He's like, let me help you. We have a good father. If you're trusting in Jesus Christ, you have a good heavenly Father. Seek his help in each step that you take. And also know that if life events come up like, you know what? I'm gonna set aside this Tuesday to be with the Lord over at at this specific time. I'm gonna set aside eating and I'm gonna go after him in prayer. And if your schedule gets readjusted and something gets messed up or a kid is sick and throwing up and you need to take care of that and you can't do this, you have a heavenly Father. He's happy to reschedule with you.

40:53He's happy to reschedule with you if you have medical issues. He knows it better than you do. He knows it better than your doctors do. He is good and gracious. So if you're gonna pursue the Lord in this, Keep your heavenly Father in view. And I think that's one of the greatest blessings. It's like we struggle to focus on the Lord throughout our daily lives. This habit helps us do that. It helps us see and bring the reality of God. It brings our hearts down so that we can acknowledge that He's God and we are not, and we can see Him and he can attune our affections and our heart desires to His. Keep Your Heavenly Father in view. Please pray with me.

41:45Heavenly Father, in your kindness. Would you help us? Would you teach us? Thank you for this gift. Thank you for putting this on our radar. If this is the first time that it's been there, or thank you for reminding us that it should be on our radar again, thank you that you are a good heavenly Father that we can go to and we can seek help on this in so many other ways. And thank you for the cross that allows us to have a heavenly Father. We ask for your help in these things. In Jesus' name, amen.

Jump to live

Jump to live

Sermon Text

Matthew 6:16-18

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