Allen Jackson - Prayer and Fasting (02/08/2026)
In this message on finding a new destiny as Christ followers, the preacher stresses that true faith means yielding to God's will for a transformed life purpose beyond our own plans. He highlights seeking the Lord through prayer and fasting as key disciplines, using Daniel's story and Jesus' teachings to show that sacrifice and self-denial open doors to God's revelation, power, and a meaningful existence that grows stronger over time.
A New Destiny Through Seeking God
We began a new study talking about our destiny, a new destiny, as Christ followers. I think it's unfortunate that our faith is often presented in terms of eternity. Heaven to be gained, hell to be avoided. I'm okay with that. I believe in heaven and hell. But I believe at the heart of being a Christ follower is that God writes for you a whole new story. It gives you a brand new destiny.
And I believe that that exceeds anything we would do in our own. I think it exceeds any plan I could conjure up or any dream I could hold. And I think it takes great courage to say to the Lord, not my will be done, but yours. It took great anguish in Jesus' life for him to be able to make that statement. And I think it is nonsensical for you and I to say it in a cavalier way.
I don't think that begins all at once at the point of conversion. I think it emerges through the course of our lives as we continue to yield to the Lord. And that is an ongoing thing. But I want to highlight, I want to reiterate, I want to shout from the rooftops that serving God is the best possible existence you can have.
That there's nothing that God needs from me. God's not dependent upon my intellect. Aren't you relieved? You know, my IQ is not the difference maker in the great battle in the heavenlies. He doesn't need my strength or my resources. That I'm the beneficiary in this relationship with Almighty God.
There's a God in heaven, a creator of heaven and earth. And the presentation of this book, the most remarkable presentation, the inexplicable, there's really no, there's no reason offered for it is that God loved humanity. He created us as the pinnacle, the epitome of his creation. And then he said he wanted to have a relationship with us. It's amazing to me.
And if you're willing to enter into a relationship with God, it brings a whole new destiny to your life. It separates you from the people that are not pursuing that agenda. It's the most remarkable existence you can have. It's a new purpose. It's a meaning in the midst of the routine and the responsibilities of our lives, because all of us have routines and responsibilities that can feel mundane and monotonous and exhausting.
But in the midst of that, as a Christ follower, there's a purpose for your existence. And the part that's been remarkable to me as I have continued to have birthdays is that passion for the Lord doesn't grow stale. It doesn't become something that's outdated. It doesn't fade. I've had interest in hobbies and pursuits and wasn't wicked or wrong, but they tend to pass with the varying seasons of your life.
And the opportunity to be in a relationship with almighty God gains momentum. It's remarkable to me. So I want to talk about that destiny with you.
Seeking the Lord as the Foundation
We started in the previous session with seeking the Lord. And it's really the foundation of this whole thing. How do you live that out? Well, you have to determine to seek the Lord, to turn your face to God, not just to be saved or born again. I believe in that, but seeking the Lord is an orientation of your life towards the Lord.
That I'm going to be face forward towards the things of God. If you're not, you have turned your back on the Lord. It's a biblical concept. I'm not calling into question your salvation. I'm telling you, you're either seeking the Lord or you're turning your back on the things of the Lord.
The Bible says that your iniquity becomes a barrier between us and God. So the grand invitation is seek the Lord and find the new destiny for your life. That's not linked to economic cycles or global trends or fashion. That it transcends all of the things that can limit our lives. Seek the Lord.
Well, in this session, I want to give you some tools to do that. Some practical application. What's it mean to seek the Lord? You know, Christians are wonderful. I get to talk to lots of pastors and interview church leaders. We have a whole vocabulary of nonsense words. They mean nothing. Come on.
You know, we can talk in religious gobbledygook language. And I'm like, huh? I mean, I grew up in a barn. You either fed the horse or you didn't. I wasn't led by the spirit to ascertain the needs of the equine occupants of the habitation where they're dwelling. Say what?
And in seeking the Lord, we need some tangible practice. How do we lean into that? If I ask you for the last couple of weeks, what does it mean? Have you been seeking the Lord? See, we've distilled the devil. I went to church.
Folks, attending church in relation to seeking the Lord is like going and watching a sporting event and say you had a workout. Well, man, I knew you had to walk from the parking lot. And you sat and stood enough that maybe you could consider that was squats, but it's not really a workout. It wasn't momentum towards your fitness.
And attending church is a part of what it means to seek the Lord. But to imagine you have discharged that fully is really a pretty minimally informed perspective. So I want to spend our time in this session talking about prayer and fasting as a routine practice in your life.
Prayer, Fasting, and the Principle of Sacrifice
We're more familiar with prayer. It's another one of those words that has very little meaning because we use prayer as a transitionary thing. You know, we pray at the beginning of an event. We pray when we transition from one part of a worship service to another.
So whether it's stated or it's just implied, prayer becomes almost an expression of religious behavior, but we have very little meaning attached to it. That's very unfortunate. Because at the most critical junctures of Jesus' life, his response was to pray. And I believe we have misunderstood prayer.
And we've been working on that as a congregation for quite some time. But I want to add to prayer fasting, abstaining from food for spiritual purposes. We're going to unpack that a little bit.
I'm going to start with the principle of sacrifice. In 2 Samuel 24, it's an event in the life of David. David has made a mistake, committed a sin and judgment has come on the nation where he lives. Do you think, do you have the imagination that things that happen in the cultures in which we live have a relationship to our spiritual choices?
You know, Christians are so confused on that point that if you talk about current events, they say you're being political, you know, which is, is a great deviation from the scripture. Our spiritual choices have an impact on the world in which we live, for both the godly and the ungodly.
You're the salt of the earth. You're the light of the world. If the light is hidden under a basket, everybody stumbles in the dark. It's not just a personal choice to have a private faith. If you cover the light, you promote the darkness in the arena of influence that you're entrusted with.
So David has made a mistake. He's committed a sin and judgment has come on the nation that he's leading. And he needs to offer a sacrifice. So he identifies the, typically they offered sacrifices on the highest points available to them, the tops of the hills.
And he goes to the pinnacle of the city of Jerusalem. There's a hill there. And he wants to purchase the property to offer a sacrifice. It's a threshing floor for a man named Arun. It's in your notes. Arun said to David, let my lord, the king take whatever pleases him.
David's reputation precedes him. If you make him mad, he'll cut your head off. I mean, you've read your Bible, right? How many of you want to take bad news to David? Not me. I'm thinking, no, it's all good.
And David approaches this guy and he said, I need your property. And the man says, by all means. You know, David wasn't standing apart. The authority of an ancient Near Eastern monarch was absolute. There was no court of appeals. There was no due process.
So David wasn't unique in that. But David's response was in verse 24, David replied to Arun, I insist on paying you for it. I'll not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.
So he bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid 50 shekels of silver for them. He bought the threshing floor of Arun. It becomes the site where the temple would be built by David's son Solomon. At least by tradition, it's the same location where Abraham took his son Isaac to offer him as a sacrifice.
It's the same Ridge that would become Golgotha where God would offer his son as a sacrifice. But David introduces us to a biblical principle. It's the principle of sacrifice.
Methods change consistently through time. How we communicate changes. I remember when we communicated on these black things that had dials on them. They were hardwired to the wall. And you paid a fee for long distance service. Anybody old enough to remember that? There were dinosaurs roaming the face of the earth.
We communicate differently now. We have these little mini computers in our hands that you can shop with and buy airline tickets with. And oh, by the way, make a phone call. It's remarkable. Methods change constantly. Principles never do.
David understood the principle of sacrifice. I will not offer to the Lord something that isn't of value to me. I'm not going to try to hustle God. I'm not going to try to con God.
Well, it seems to me contemporary Christendom is working a pretty big con. We want God's best and we want to give him our margins. The time that doesn't matter. The resources that don't matter. The attention that we don't need elsewhere.
I know there's exceptions to that, but the general coaching, the trend is you don't want to be fanatical. You don't want to be a zealot. I mean, you need a little bit of faith. It kind of tempers your life. It's kind of a character adjustment.
You want your kids to have some engagement, but we spend a lot more time on the ball fields. The coaches in our kids' lives tend to have a lot more influence, a lot more authority in our homes and the youth leaders in our churches. Amen, pastor.
The principle of sacrifice. Well, I'm going to suggest to you that fasting, this biblical idea of abstaining from food in pursuit of God to seek the Lord is an expression of sacrifice.
Daniel's Example of Honor, Obedience, and Sacrifice
I know we may not know a great deal about it. We're going to start our study by looking at Daniel, a young man born in Israel, who spends his life, his adult life, as a slave in Babylon because the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem. They conquered the nation of Judah. It was about 587 BC when that happened.
And they took some of the brightest and most promising young people back to Babylon as slaves to serve in the royal court. And Daniel and some of his friends were selected for that privileged role, we're told.
You should know that Daniel as a courtier in the Babylonian court, a general condition for young men to serve in such capacity was that they must be a eunuch. That's probably not mentioned on the recruiting poster.
I think we should note, at least in passing, that gender alteration, sexual mutilation is not new. Throughout history, it has been understood as a punishment, as a form of mutilation, sometimes with very specific purposes.
My father was a veterinarian, I can tell you this, animals are neutered for two general reasons, to prohibit reproduction or to reduce aggression. Same is true in humans. Men and women are created with unique abilities and designed for unique contributions.
It's no secret to us that for quite some season now, our children are being subjected to propaganda, which leads them to confusion and frustration. And there are some powerful public educators that have the arrogance to declare that parents need not be notified as their children are making these decisions.
I think it fits right into the narrative of Daniel and his life. Daniel's going to overcome that. But at least I want to take a moment. There are some expressions of demonic influence that are so prevalent in our culture. They become so integrated into mainstream thought and discussion and life that I don't believe they will be uprooted and turned back unless the church finds our voice from biblical authority to stand against them.
I'm going to tag a couple just very quickly because I truly want to get to the focus of this, but I got to give you three trends really quickly. One is the mutilation and murder of our children. Whether it's the whole transgender confusion discussion, or it's abortion. We've lost more than 60 million children, or it's child trafficking.
It's patently absurd to me that we have the audacity to say that an open border and welcoming people to enter our country illegally is an expression of compassion. When we know as a matter of fact that as that's happening, tens of thousands of innocent children are being trafficked.
What has happened to us, church? At the moment there's a bit of a political wind that has opposed that, that's closed a border, that has managed to at least slow down the movement towards the mutilation of our children. But it's a very temporary political stop gap with the change of administration and a new batch of executive orders. Those prohibitions will be swept aside as quickly as a sunrise. That's the truth.
We have to have a fundamental heart change amongst the people of God that will say, not on our watch. Not in our generation. This isn't a political discussion. We have to use our voices. There's consequences for that as we will see in Daniel's life, but we have to stand for the truth.
I believe another expression of demonic activity is the widespread, the increasingly widespread diminishment of the Jewish people in the nation of Israel. It's fashionable even amongst Evangelicals these days, to the point that many of us are quiet, retreating into the shadows. It's a spiritual conflict.
God chose the Jewish people. We had no vote in that. It's an expression of the sovereignty of God. And the New Testament says repeatedly with great clarity that he has not rejected them. That you and I have been grafted into the inheritance that he promised to them. Their covenant becomes our covenant through our faith in Jesus of Nazareth.
The hatred for the Jewish people is unrelenting. And the third trend of demonic activity, I think you see these and hear these, is lawlessness in unprecedented ways. We have major cities and the governors of those states who protect them in rejecting federal law, in opposing federal officers, enforcing federal laws, not subtle things, while they demand federal funding.
That's a very small step away from secession. Are you watching? These are not political battles. We've seen a political response and I'm grateful for some of it, but it will be short lived without a true spiritual change.
If you'll allow me, there's more angst in Tennessee today over a loss to Oklahoma than these trends. I mean, if we get really honest today, we regret that we ever extended an invitation to Texas or Oklahoma to enter the SEC. Because Tennessee team suffered yesterday for that expression of kindness.
But if we talk about these larger trends that will shape the lives of our children and our grandchildren, it's most common in church settings that we don't have those conversations here. Folks, you can't talk about your faith in a vacuum. We're not theoretical Christians. Christians? That would make us historians, not Christ followers.
Fasting and prayer are presented to us in Scripture as having the potential to change the destiny of a life, a family, and even a nation. I think they are worth incorporating into your spiritual disciplines. I'm going to take just a few minutes and kind of introduce the topic.
Before we go, I'm going to ask you to consider making them a part of your routine on a weekly basis. The scope of that and the breadth of that, you can determine. If it's something that's brand new to you, you have to grow into that. You have to develop those abilities.
Any behavior that requires self-discipline has to be cultivated. If you're not a runner, I wouldn't suggest that for your first run, you try a marathon. If you're not a weightlifter, I wouldn't suggest for your first bench press that you rack up 300 pounds. It will not end well.
And if your spiritual disciplines are not exercises that have been a part of your routine, don't start with a 40-day fast. You might start with a 40-minute one. I don't say that to be funny. You have to develop the self-discipline to seek the Lord.
If you've never read your Bible, your first reading probably will not feel overly beneficial. We learn to seek the Lord like we learn every other expression of discipline in our lives.
Let's start with Daniel. Daniel chapter 1. Just make the observation. It's in your notes that honor and obedience. And I think all of us have some desire to honor God and to be obedient to Him. I know there's a scale of that depending on your maturity.
But the objective should be to honor God and be obedient to Him. If you don't intend to honor Him and you don't intend to be obedient, you're not a Christ follower. We serve God. God does not serve us. We call Jesus Lord. He called us friends, but we serve Him as Lord.
I serve at the pleasure of the King. As do you. Our days are in His hands. So the objective should be to honor Him and be obedient to Him. And the reality of that is in order to do that, it will require a sacrifice of our self-will. Isn't that good news?
Well, wait a minute. I thought being a Christ follower, God would do what I want Him to do. Well, that's not the whole story. In Daniel chapter 1, Daniel finds himself a slave. His nation has been conquered. The Jerusalem has been destroyed. Very humiliating. Very humiliating.
He's a young man, most likely a teenager when we meet him. And in verse 8, he said he resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and the wine. And he asked for permission not to defile himself in this way.
And God caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel. See, the Jewish people have a set of dietary restrictions, kosher rules. There's things they can't eat.
And it strikes me as truly remarkable that as a slave in a foreign country and a teenager, his life dreams have been put in the shredder. He's not going to the prom. He's not going to get to play his senior year at whatever he was interested in. He's not going to do holidays like his family has done holidays for generations.
I mean, his future has been completely destroyed. Most of us at that point would be angry and resentful and embittered. We're not going to be obedient. It's a license to be ungodly. Have you ever been really disappointed with God? I'm sure you have. I have.
Well, one of the voices that shows up in your head when you have that kind of severe disappointment with God is why be obedient, be indulgent. Have you ever heard that voice? And Daniel makes the opposite choice.
He's asking for permission. He's putting himself at risk. He said, if it's all right with you, I would rather honor my dietary commitments than eat the food that you're serving. He's going to honor God. It's amazing to me.
And the official, verse 10, the official said, well, I'm afraid of my Lord, the King. He's assigned you food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse? If you don't eat the good food, you're not going to look good. And he'll take my head.
So Daniel says in verse 12, just test your servants for 10 days. Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. And then compare our appearance with that of the others. And he agreed.
Verse 15, at the end of 10 days, they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink, and he gave them vegetables instead.
Verse 17 is the punchline. To these four young men, God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.
Daniel and his friends chose to eat a limited diet. They voluntarily did this. They made a sacrifice. And God honored their sacrifice in ways that they had not asked for. They didn't strike a bargain with God. I'll fast if you'll give me what I want.
They simply said that our choice is to honor God and be obedient to the principles that we know. And God responded to their sacrifice and their desire to honor him and their obedience by bestowing upon them this insight and understanding.
Their willingness to sacrifice in seeking the Lord proved to be preparatory for what was next. And that's what I want to suggest to you.
Seeking God Prepares for Revelation and Boldness
We see these great cultural clashes that are around us. And I don't know about you, but I feel powerless. I don't have the influence or the platforms. Nobody cares that much about my opinion.
I got to Jerusalem the same day. The day before we got there, the vice president arrived. We had appointments with the ambassador. We had private tours set up in the newest excavations. We had all sorts of remarkable plans put together. And the vice president of the United States showed up. And guess what happened? I got canceled.
Are you as shocked about that as I was? Surely it's a misunderstanding. I'm here. And nobody cared. The Lord had other things for us to do.
These four young men say they're going to seek the Lord. Chapter two. The king has a dream. And he demands of his... When he wakes up, he's frightened, but he can't remember the dream.
And so he calls in his wise men and he demands that they tell him his dream. And they say, that's no fair. We can interpret dreams you have, but we can't tell you what your dreams are.
And king says, well, it may not be fair, but I'm going to kill you if you can't tell me. Again, an ancient Near Eastern monarch. He said, I don't have to be fair. You'll tell me my dream or I'll find a new set of wise men.
So the message comes to Daniel that we're going to be killed tomorrow. Unless we can tell the king his dream. Well, we just read in the last verse that God gave Daniel and his friends the ability to interpret dreams. Doesn't tell us he's given them the ability to know what dreams people had.
And we step back into the narrative in Daniel 2. And Daniel returned to his house and he explained the matter to his friends who had weird names. And he urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men.
And during the night, the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Now, God met Daniel. But he did it after Daniel and his friends had already made a decision to seek the Lord.
See, what I'm suggesting to you is there's a different destiny for the people who will seek the Lord. We're a little offended by that. We say, well, I'm born again. What more do you want? How about we care about the things of God?
What if we put the things of God in priority above the things that Alan wants? Well, that's not easy. In fact, that's really difficult. Because we typically orient our faith to figure out how we can get God to do our bidding.
And I'm suggesting there's a better pathway where we say, God, I'll do whatever you want. I will seek you. I want to know your thoughts and your plans and your purposes and your priorities. And I will give myself to those.
There's all sorts of internal triggers that that will touch because that might make me vulnerable or I might give something up or whatever. Whatever. God reveals to Daniel the dream.
And then Daniel praised the God of heaven. Verse 20. And he said, listen to his prayer. He said, Praise be to the name of God forever and ever. Wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons. He sets up kings and he deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what lies in darkness and light dwells with him. I thank and praise you, O God, of my fathers. You've given me wisdom and power. You've made me known to what we ask of you. You've made known to us the dream of the king.
Daniel and his friends spent the night seeking God. They didn't do a let's pray moment. They didn't have a one-sentence prayer. They spent the night. God gave them a revelation.
God responded with a revelation of the king's dream. Daniel's expression of praise is what is truly insightful to me, more so than the dream. His perspective of God speaks to us across the ages.
Did you hear him? You change times and seasons. You set up kings and you depose them. Listen, Daniel understands the real authority over his life is not a Babylonian empire. I may be a slave. I may have been conquered. But I know the one who holds authority over this king.
He won't tell me what he's dreaming. Look, we have to have a change in how we imagine God. We believe almost every other expression of power is greater than the power of God. Economic power, political power, military power.
I'm not denying the reality of those things, but I'm telling you there's a greater authority. When we pray for our children that we'll see these things walked back, I'm looking for changes in places like the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Pediatric Association, that they'll not sign off on the mutilation of children.
The teachers union will propagate that nonsense. Daniel has a revelation of God that we can learn from. And he has reasons to be angry and bitter. He's a slave. He's been physically mutilated. But he hasn't focused on that. It hasn't diminished his zeal for God.
Don't allow expressions of evil that touch your life to diminish your enthusiasm for God. Evil exists in our world. And they'll interrupt you. They'll disrupt your plans. They'll intrude. They're unwanted. Evil is focused and intentional. It's directed. It's not arbitrary.
Daniel presents the dream and interpretation to the king. They took Daniel to the king at once. And he said, I found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means.
Don't you know they're all breathing? If this goofy kid from Jerusalem gets this right, we all get another sunrise. Look at verse 27. Daniel replied, No wise man, enchanter, magician, or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he's asked about.
If you're not with us on campus, we're turning our page right now. But there is a God, verse 28. There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He's shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the days to come.
Your dream and the visions that pass through your mind as you lay in your bed are these. Daniel has remarkable boldness. Remember, he's standing in front of a king who said, I'm going to murder dozens and dozens of people today.
And the king, Daniel says, You don't have any wise men that can do this. But there's a God in heaven that has more authority than you do, king. And he's revealed to me what you dreamt.
There's a remarkable boldness in that. Note Daniel's humility. He doesn't take credit. He didn't yield the selfish ambition. He said, I'm a prayer warrior. My friends and I have been fasting for several days. We come to you with spiritual superiority.
There's no flex on Daniel's part. The king's response is equally remarkable. The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and the interpretation is trustworthy.
And the king fell prostrate before Daniel. That means he put his face on the floor. And paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him.
And he said, surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries. For you were able to reveal this mystery.
I believe if the people of God would begin to seek God. And truly give him first priority. That God will give an expression of his power and his intent in the world. That will cause even secular authority to acknowledge there's a God in heaven.
I've said for a great while now that our problem isn't the depravity of the wicked. It's been the ambivalence of the faithful. Evil doesn't change, folks. It's the same in every generation. We have an ample expression of history to tell us what evil will do to humanity.
What we are short on is the people of faith who have surrendered their lives to seek God. So that we might see expressions of his power and authority.
New Testament Teaching on Self-Denial and Fasting
Now I'll take the balance of our time. I've got a few minutes. And look at this New Testament perspective on prayer and fasting. And I admittedly, it's a discussion about self-denial. Which is not a popular topic. Self-fulfillment is a far more popular topic.
In Luke chapter 9 and verse 23. Jesus is speaking. And he said to them all, If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
These were Jesus' words. If you're going to come after me, if you're going to follow me, if you're going to be a Christ follower. He said you must deny yourself and take up your cross. Not once at a point of conversion. Take up your cross daily and follow me.
The cross in this context is not ornamentation. It's not jewelry. The cross was the tool of execution. Capital punishment. You have to offer yourself as a living sacrifice every day.
Well, I don't really want to serve the Lord every day. Can I serve the Lord for a couple hours on the weekend? When I said the prayer, I mean, okay, okay, okay. Listen, if you insist, I'll read my Bible. What's that? Ten minutes a day, did you say?
You know how many people have told me, you read faster than I do. It takes me more than ten minutes. Sorry about that. You must deny. Your self-denial has been overlooked in our discussions of faith.
It's essential for anyone who wants to follow Jesus. I would remind you that when the fruit of the Spirit are listed in the book of Galatians, there's nine. One of them is self-control.
The evidence that the Spirit of God dwells within you will be, over the course of your life, increasing expressions of self-control. Why is that important? Because it's necessary for us to deny our old carnal nature in order for the purposes of God to be expressed in our lives.
Jesus practiced fasting. In Matthew 4, in verse 1, it says, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.
You think? We probably really didn't need that last little qualifier, did we? And the tempter came to him and said, If you are the Son of God.
That is so insightful to me. He didn't tempt him at day 10. He didn't tempt him at day 12 or week 2. But after 40 days, the tempter came. Satan came. And he said to Jesus, He's physically at a weakened point.
I mean, it takes a lot of self-discipline. It takes a lot of emotional energy to fast for periods of time. And at that point of depletion, Satan approaches Jesus to tempt him.
And he says, If you are the Son of God. I'll remind you that Satan dwelt in the heavenlies. He was one of the archangels. He had seen Jesus in all the glory of the kingdom of God. He knows very well who he is.
This is easy. I mean, there are multiple places where the demons, when they see Jesus, they say, We know who you are. Have you come to torment us? But Satan rolls up when Jesus is depleted and says, If you are the Son of God.
He doesn't play fair. It's why he's evil. But Jesus practiced fasting. Jesus anticipated that his disciples would fast. Look at Matthew 6. Verse 17. Jesus said, When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you're fasting, but only to your Father who is unseen. And your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
That's an interesting promise. Jesus said, When you fast, the assumption is that his disciples will participate in fasting. When you fast, he says, Don't disclose it. Don't make it your talking point.
Don't put your hat on that says, I'm grumpy today, because I'm missing a little bit of food. He said, Do your best for it not to be known. And your Father who knows what you do in private will reward you.
In the same way we saw him reward Daniel and his friends. Jesus' assumption is that his disciples would participate in this. Why? It's a means of seeking God.
Denying yourself in a momentary way, in a brief period of time, to say I'll say no to my carnal appetites in order to honor the Lord. is an expression of a desire to know God, to know his will, to know his purposes.
Not just because I want him to meet my needs or Grant me a favor or do me a miracle, but because I have a central focus of my existence, I would like to know God better.
Most of us, when the pressure gets great enough, will seek the Lord. Not all of us, but many of us will. I'm suggesting a different response, that we seek the Lord when there isn't tremendous pressure.
That we seek the Lord because we have a desire to know him better. Most of us want to talk to God about his misaligned sense of justice. We don't think he's done us right. Well, why did I have to put up with that? Why did I have to go through that? Why did that happen to me?
And I'm not saying those questions are evil, but they're lousy places to camp. We've got to move past them.
Even the emerging church, after Jesus returned to heaven, practiced fasting. In Acts chapter 13 and verse 2, it says, 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've called them.
What's implied is that the church had not been worshiping the Lord and fasting, that they would have missed the prompting of the Spirit of God? What do you suppose we've missed because we haven't practiced this?
What do you suppose we've forfeited because we've said, well, we're born again. I've got a baptism certificate. I've read through my Bible. We haven't really had an overly enthusiastic heart to seek the Lord because we felt pretty good about where we were and we've lived in the culture where there was enough affluence and enough freedom and enough Liberty that we can imagine dreams for our children without supernatural involvement of God.
So we've been kind of casual. I would submit to you, I think we've forfeited probably a great deal.
Fasting. It's a way of seeking the Lord. Now, I'll give you some approaches to fasting, just some practical ideas to do this. Again, if it's new to you and new to your spiritual approach, we have to, we begin with, you know, we're going to kind of keep that crawl, walk, run model in place.
If it's about food, it's about limiting your diet. Maybe if you've never fasted before, you start out by just fasting a meal and take the time and energy you would normally spend in preparing and enjoying a meal and spend it seeking the Lord.
Read your Bible. Talk to the Lord. Honor the Lord. If you have a bit more experience, maybe you can fast two meals. You want to hydrate. You don't want to dehydrate and call it spiritual.
But there are other ways to fast. Daniel didn't stop eating. He just ate a much simpler diet. Maybe if you've never fasted, you don't want to miss a meal. You just start out by limiting what you eat. Eat something that is more plain, more simple.
You know, when I was at home, we've been talking about having one meal a week as a family. Most of the spiritual disciplines that I follow today were introduced into my life when I was a child.
In the summer times, we were all out of school. My brothers and I, my parents would often introduce some project for some spiritual. And one summer, I remember they said, you know, the only beverage we would drink would be water, no sweet tea.
That'll change your heart when you're a teenager. But it was introducing the idea that to focus our lives. Every time it was time for a meal and I wanted a glass of sweet tea and I got a glass of water, I thought, this is a God thing?
I mean, it brought my thoughts back to the Lord. You'd be amazed how fragile you understand yourself to be when you stop gratifying all the demands of your carnal self.
So I'm not suggesting you start with a 40-day fast. I'm in all seriousness. It might be a 40-minute fast for you. You're going to miss a meal. People say, well, I can't do that. My health. Okay, there's other ways to fast.
I don't think there's a single way. Maybe you take, you fast social media. Now, if you're applauding because you don't ever use it, you don't count. You know, I mean, I would readily agree to fast mushrooms for my entire existence. You can have all the fungus allotted to me. It's yours. Enjoy.
But if you are highly dependent on that communication stream, it might be you put that down for some limited amount of time. Maybe no television, no Internet.
The idea is you prioritize seeking God before something that you enjoy. You make a sacrifice. You deny yourself. You get this. To do the things you enjoy, you deny other things.
So to seek God, to give him first priority is a rearrangement of your priorities as they have been. And you say, God, I'll give you first place.
It may be you serve other people instead of being angry because they're not serving you as you've grown accustomed. Because all of us have a pretty high expectation that we be served.
Sacrificial giving of time and effort, money, all of those can be seen in this context of what it means to fast. You see, we learn to prioritize God before other things. It is not a natural response. It's not intuitive. It is cultivated.
Seeking God is a life-altering discipline. And it begins with a personal choice to seek the Lord. It results in responses from God which transform our lives, which give us a completely different destiny.
Daniel becomes such a trusted friend of God that God reveals to Daniel, a slave in Babylon, the future of what will happen, hundreds of years beyond Daniel's life.
Why would he give that to Daniel? because he could trust him. Do you aspire to be so trustworthy with the Lord that he could entrust you with what his purposes in the earth are?
Are you willing to trade that for a better parking place? For a better business deal? The challenge before us is to develop the discipline of seeking God.
The pursuit of God can be incorporated into your awareness as much as personal hygiene habits. Or choosing personal gratification. Make it a priority in your life.
Personal hygiene is not natural. Your parents had to work on you. Or at least mine had to work on me. Have you washed your hands? No. They're good.
I mean, I remember being sent back multiple times to wash my face. How clean do they want it to get? And the same way we learn those personal hygiene, we learn to seek the Lord.
So here's the invitation. It's the holiday season. That is enormous. That has all kinds of implications for families and gatherings and interactions and for dealing with past hurts and present challenge. All the stuff. The dreams, the aspirations, the stresses, the joy, all the stuff.
What if we took this holiday season and we invited God in? Not to do what we want Him to do. But we actually said, Lord, we're going to seek You for Your best through this holiday.
And we've added this whole one meal a week thing which is an intrusion. What if once a week you give expression to this notion of prayer and fasting? Maybe it's a meal. Maybe it's your technology.
I'll leave that to you and the Lord. You know, when we were younger and at home with my brothers, we would fast until four in the afternoon. And I'm telling you, we were sitting there, we were counting the seconds. 358, 359, 59, 58, 57, 2, 1, eat!
We weren't very spiritual but we understood the nature of the sacrament. We have to learn. You decide what's appropriate for your health, your schedule. I'm not going to dictate.
If you can fast on Wednesdays, we're together on Wednesday evening, some of us. We can pray together. That's not a bad thought but I'm not a legalist. You choose what makes sense for you.
But what if we sought the Lord this holiday season? Instead of just asking Him to bless us more, if we said to Him, we would like to honor you more, we'll make an investment of that. We'll say no to ourselves a little bit.
Are you interested? I thought an appropriate closing was the prayer Daniel prayed when God showed him the king's dream, which meant Daniel's life got extended. It's in your notes if you'll stand with me.
It's an acknowledgement of the place we would like to give to God in our lives. I gave you the reference so you can check me later to see that I didn't make it up.
You know, our understanding of God will change our behaviors. If we believe He is the creator of heaven and earth, then it's only logical that we would make a sacrifice to know Him better.
So what you believe about God really does have a tremendous impact on the choices you make. Let's read this together.
Praise be to the name of God forever and ever. Wisdom and power are His. He changes times and seasons. He sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what lies in darkness and light dwells with Him.
Amen. And He's watching over us. In Jesus' name.