Matthew 6:16-21. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, March 3, 2024.
Today, we will finish this central section where Jesus corrects the righteousness of the hypocrites for his followers. We will particularly be looking at fasting.
Let’s look at our passage regarding the way we should fast.
As Jesus has said in the other issues of charitable giving and prayer, so he says here. The hypocrites are only fasting in order to be seen by others. They want the glory and praise that comes from people. It is an interesting thing that, in all the ways we shouldn’t be focused on others, we generally are, and in all of the ways we should be focused on others, we generally are not. Of course, this is the tendency of our sinful nature.
I will give a caveat up front in this passage. It is clear that Jesus is talking about a private fast that you may do on your own and not a group fast for a specific purpose. Israel did have a fast on the Day of Atonement, in which everyone would fast. We see some similar things among the early Church. Acts 13 shows us that Barnabas and Paul were called into their missionary work during a time of group prayer and fasting. Later, in Acts 14, they had been able to build many groups of converts. We see Barnabas and Saul fasting and praying as they commended elders in each new church. So, there is a time and a place for fasts within a community for specific purposes. In such things, others will know that you are fasting, but generally so are they.
Jesus is not making a new law in which no one can ever see you fast, or you are in trouble. The true point is that the hypocrites “love” others seeing them, rather than God. There is no fundamental relationship of love to their times of fasting. Thus, such group times of fasting should be the tip of the iceberg. Ice bergs always have much more mass under the water (that you can’t see), then what is above the surface. In fact, icebergs that have large chunks drop off under the water can even flip over.
Again, Jesus is showing us how to please God in our personal times of fasting.
Last week, I mentioned The Didache, a document for new disciples whose title means “The Teaching.” In this manuscript, new converts are told not to fast on Monday and Thursday like the hypocrites. This may seem odd, if you don’t know the cultural dynamics in Israel at the time.
The religious leaders had developed the tradition of fasting on Mondays and Thursdays. It wasn’t required, but if you wanted to be seen as a righteous leader, then you pretty much needed to do so. The idea is that new Christians who continue to fast on Monday and Thursday are doing so in order to avoid persecution. You would look like you are following the traditions of the elders, and no one would suspect you are a Christian. The point is not the day, Monday and Thursday. The point is the reasoning of your heart. What are you after? They wanted people to see them fasting, and this is hypocritical.
Jesus is able to judge this because he knows what is in their hearts. Yet, he doesn’t point to this. Instead, he points to some external acts that they do, which reveal their hearts. It wouldn’t take divine omniscience to recognize something was wrong with these guys who were always looking for attention.
Jesus points to their sad countenance. They would walk around with a sad countenance when they were fasting, and most likely acted a little more weak than they needed to do. Of course, it is not about sadness. We may sometimes fast following a sad event, like the death of a loved one. The point here is about drawing attention to the fact that they are fasting. Jesus further describes them “disfiguring” their faces (NKJV). Here is the idea of the Greek word behind this. Whatever you are talking about will have something that is considered to be nice-looking, presentable condition of it. When that is spoiled or ruined, this word would be used of it. Thus, a person goes to bed at night not looking so bad, but then wake up in the morning not looking so good. We usually fix ourselves up to go out in public. These guys would purposefully not fix themselves up, of course, because they were fasting. This also drew attention to them.
I remember one time in grade school where a friend and I walked off of campus to his house in order to play video games. The school called the house and my friend answered the phone. We were busted of course and told to come back to school (where his mom worked no less). As we headed to school, we figured our best excuse would be to say that we were feeling sick. And, guess what, I had no problem looking pale and sick when I arrived at the principal’s office because I knew I was in trouble when my parents found out. We should never underestimate the power of a hypocrite to put on an act that is worthy of an Oscar Award when they desperately want to do so. I was powerfully motivated by my flesh.
However, God was not impressed with what these hypocrites were doing- I’m back to talking about the religious leaders of the days of Jesus. Many people were impressed with their sheer volume of fasting. However, I wonder if there were some people who were turned off by this?
Jesus then tells us that “Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.” God doesn’t owe them a red cent. They want the praise of people and that is all they are going to get. However, they probably vainly imagine that God is impressed with their works, like the praying Pharisee in Luke 18:12. “I fast twice a week…”
Yet, in Isaiah 58, we are told that God is more interested in the heart that is behind the fasting. If your heart is oriented towards God, then your fasting will become focused on the things that are important to God. You will be focused on honoring His Name, living out His Kingdom rule and doing His will. Yes, Isaiah speaks about helping the poor, but think about what that means in light of honoring God, His rule and His will. We can help the poor out of a wicked heart as well. We can do it as a moral cloak for selfish reasons. However, when we love people as God loves them, it then becomes a clean thing. They had gone without food, but the fought with one another and ripped off their employees. They weren’t fasting for God, but for their own glory. Am I working for the glory of God and His purposes?
All of this begs the question, why should we fast at all? Fasting is a way to bring your fleshly desires under control. They are a battle for everyone who wishes to become like God, like Jesus. We do not want to be ruled by our flesh and its desires. We don’t want to be a person of the flesh, but a person who is led by the Spirit of God. James used the analogy of a wild horse. Breaking in a horse so that it is useful is essentially a battle of will, and it requires wisdom. Our flesh is naturally hostile to the things of the Spirit of God (His purposes). Fasting is a mechanism by which we put a bridle in our flesh, so that it can be useful for the work of God’s Kingdom.
This brings us to a second purpose. It not only brings our flesh under control, but it also orients and focuses us towards the things of Christ, of His Spirit. Fasting is always accompanied by increased prayer. We are telling ourselves that we would rather have God than a full belly. God means more to me than food. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” This is essentially at the base of all true fasting. It is a worship of God.
Of course, we must avoid thinking that God is impressed, i.e., answers our prayers, for the sake of a quantity of days we fast. In fact, we should be careful that our fasts are not driven by a single-focused prayer for a particular item or act that we desire from Him. Ultimately, we come as beggars to God asking for wisdom to live out His purposes in this life. “Lord, please lead me by Your Spirit!”
Jesus tells his disciples to fast in order to be seen by the Father, and not men. In fact, he just assumes his people will give charity, pray and fast in this section.
The Father who is in the secret place will see your fasting and reward you. This is different than prayer. We don’t have to go into our closet to fast. However, we should keep our private fasts hidden as we go about our day. In this way, the “secret place,” or “hidden place,” is a spiritual place before God, no matter where we are. No one can tell your belly is empty as you walk around. We are to squelch the desire of our flesh to obtain credit and praise from the people around us. This is what makes it a hidden place before God.
Jesus tells us to do the opposite of the hypocrites. Instead of looking sad and a “disfigured” face, we should do all the things that we would normally do when we go out in public. Jesus tells them to anoint their head and wash their face. You might even want to slap your face a couple times to combat that pale look you might get when you are not used to fasting. The whole point is to make sure that you do not stick out, so that people won’t ask if you are fasting, or guess that you are.
By the way, don’t be a person who is always asking people if they are fasting, or other such things. Don’t be a guesser. We are to be brothers and sisters walking together with the LORD. We will have different expressions of love for God at different times, and that is good. Let it be what it is.
Let me just say a few more things on our reward for fasting. You may not receive everything that you want, or even prayed for. Fasting is not the secret to receiving everything you want. It was never about that. In fact, we don’t always know what is good for us. Sometimes, God is saying no to the thing we asked for, but giving us something greater (like intimacy with Him).
In Psalm 106:15, the psalmist says of the LORD, “He gave them their request, but He sent leanness into their soul.” When Israel was in the desert, they began to complain to the LORD that there was no bread and meat. God gave them what they wanted, but then sent leanness into their souls. Why? When things become more important to us than the presence and love of God, then they essentially become our God, even when we pray. The life that we think we are deriving from them, however, always fails to satisfy the heart. Our soul was not designed to be satisfied with anything less than the presence of God, relationship with Him. Until God means more to us than bread, meat, water, gold, wealth, fame, glory, etc., our soul will always be spiritually starving and lacking the good thing it needs, God Himself.
If we will listen to the wisdom of Jesus in this sermon, then we will not be men and women driven by our flesh. We will be a people who would rather have leanness of flesh, than leanness of soul. It is not that there is always a choice. I do believe God would have provided bread and meat for them, just as He did for Jesus when he fasted in the wilderness. However, it would have happened in a way that was good. Yet, sometimes you have to make a choice. Fasting helps us to have a better grip on the lusts of our flesh so that we do not displease God, and miss what He has for us.
We are very blessed in these United States of America. Perhaps, you have nothing that you need and would ever fast for. How about just to know Jesus more? Maybe, we should fast to ask God whether we have grown complacent and blind to all the things we should be fasting and praying for? The Laodicean believers thought they were rich and in need of nothing. If they had spent more time in fasting and prayer, they may have been enabled to see how spiritually poor they had become, how naked they were, and how spiritually blind they were. Do not trust the eyes and the mind of flesh when it comes to spiritual matters.
Lastly, let me add that some people have medical conditions that make fasting hard, or even dangerous. They may get the shakes, or have a glucose imbalance. We must understand that this is not a contest and a necessity in order to please God.
I have a brother whose adult life has been one physical battle after another. Essentially, he has battled lupus and the variety of ways that it attacks his body. He has been physically challenged his whole adult life. He has other brothers who haven’t ever had a thing wrong all of that time. On the one hand, a person can beat themselves up emotionally because they are so weak and think that God doesn’t care, and on the other hand, a person could think that God is quite pleased with them. God knows your heart and He knows your physical frame.
I say this to challenge us in the area of fasting, and yet not to place a burden on those to whom this cannot happen, at least not in the traditional way of going without food. It can be tough to accept our lot in life without blaming God. It is even tougher to catch the vision and to rise up to the calling that is in those things we call weakness. Sometimes it is our weakness that enables us to do the greatest spiritual good in the lives of others. However, we have to learn that by the help of the Holy Spirit as we fight against the mind of flesh and bring it to heel.
This brings us to the third section. Jesus begins to reveal areas that are pitfalls for becoming a hypocrite. If you do not want to be an actor, a spiritual poser, then listen up as Jesus teaches us how to avoid it.
Jesus first speaks to our relationship with things (verses 19 to the end of the chapter). Chapter 7 will open with a look at our relationship with difficult people. It will then move to our relationship with God. Hypocrisy grows out of improperly relating with things, people and God. He spends most of his time on this topic looking at things.
Before He gives us direct teaching on what to do and what not to do, Jesus deals with three images that ask a question. This first one has to do with what our treasure is, and what our heart loves. What’s your treasure? We can pray for our heavenly Father to bring His heavenly things down to earth, but is that where our heart truly is? This tension between loving earthly things versus heavenly things is important to face in your spiritual walk. Yet, it is not just a metaphor, but more on that later.
Jesus commands us not to be laying up treasure on the earth. The focus here is in storing up treasure, literally treasuring up treasure. It does beg the question of what qualifies as “storing up,” but let’s hold on to that for a bit too.
Jesus gives us one immediate reason for not laying up earthly treasures that has leverage on a natural minded person. It has to do with the threats that exist on the earth to the treasure that we store here.
He gives three different kinds of threats: moths (sentient but animal), rust (the laws of nature) and thieves (sentient beings). If you want to retain wealth, then you will have to plan against these categories.
Moths could just as easily be mice or rats, etc. How many clothes, bins of grain, etc. have been ruined by such critters. They have the ability to break past many of the best attempts at stopping them.
Rust is not even sentient. It represents things that have no mind, but we might be angry with God about them. Why would God create a universe where my hard earned stuff rusts, rots, essentially falls apart and is ruined? This is why certain things have risen over time to be a better store of wealth than others. Gold resists tarnish more than many other metals, and it also has a rarity that is enough to be desirable, but not so rare as to not be obtainable to use as money.
As if animals and the laws of nature aren’t bad enough, then we have to deal with thieves. In general, these are other humans who work extremely hard at stealing the accumulated hard work of others. For some reason, they get excited at stealing from others rather than putting their hard work to honest ends.
For every thing a man does to make his wealth safe, another man can figure out how the safe works and see a way around it. It is not hard to see that if one man can create something, another man can figure out how to dismantle it.
Today, we are being sold on digital currency because of the great trouble with scammers and thieves. Yet, digital currency is just another mechanism created by a man. It is a lie that it will be impossible to hack. In fact, the greatest threat to stored wealth throughout all of history has been governments of some sorts. Either your own government taxes it away, or another government conquers yours and takes it from you. How much stored wealth was capture for the glory of Rome, or Genghis Kahn and his “Mongol hordes?”
The main point Jesus is making here is not that you should be fearful of all of these things. His main point is that you can spend your whole life amassing wealth on the earth, and then it is gone. What have you obtained? He doesn’t mention the ultimate robber of all wealth, death.
Thus, Jesus points us to a wiser plan. Lay up treasure in heaven. This continues this tension between heaven and earth. We tend to think that a lot of stored wealth on this earth will make my existence heavenly. However, this is not God’s way, and it is a way that causes pain, fighting and sorrow on the earth. Before He gets into what it looks like to put treasure in heaven, Jesus balances out his argument.
You don’t need risk management plans for treasure that is stored in heaven. The risks of earth cannot touch wealth stored in heaven. You don’t need to purchase insurance for things in heaven. Jesus is not only our insurance, but even more, he is our assurance that our spiritual treasure is safe. God doesn’t lie, and there is no being in the universe strong enough to take it from Him. There is no safer place in the universe for treasure. He is the great Safe of safes.
Yes, there is a thief who dwells in the heavens, the devil. John 10:10 tells us that he is a thief, a murderer, and a marauder. Yet, even the devil cannot touch heavenly treasure.
1 Peter 1:4 tells us that God has called us to “an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” In fact, this suggests that you “kept by the power of God” are His treasure. This obviously comports with Malachi 3:17. There, speaking to those who fear the LORD, God says, “‘They shall be Mine,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.’” Jewels sparkle when they are in the presence of great light. Thus, the resurrected righteous are described by Daniel in chapter 12 as shining like the stars. The reason the battle is down here on the earth is because the devil knows that you are His treasure.
Jesus is teaching us that to make an earthly difference, i.e., cause His kingdom to come, we need to put our treasure in heaven. So, how do we store treasure in heaven? We do it by making the Kingdom of heaven our primary purpose: His Name, His Kingdom and His Will. When we do earthly things for heavenly reasons, God credits it as true righteousness born of the fruit of faith in Jesus. We can use our wealth of time, knowledge, money, relationships, etc. for reaching the lost and strengthening God’s people.
In fact, two people can do the exact same thing and for one of them it will be earthly treasure and for the other heavenly. Let’s take as an example the raising of a family. Two people can raise up the same number of kids into society. One can do it for the glory of their family name, or their national fame. The other can do it for the glory of the Lord. Of course, they won’t do everything in raising those kids “exactly the same,” but you should be able to see the point made earlier. Raising a family has a natural aspect that anyone can do, but it also has spiritual aspects.
This brings up another point. Don’t read this to mean that you will have nothing on this earth. A family raised for Christ is great heavenly treasure, but it has earthly rewards to it as well. Often those who try their hardest to obtain earthly rewards, at the expense of heavenly purposes, find that it never turns out as great as they had hoped. The point is where your heart is.
This is why Jesus says what he says at the end. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Who or what has my heart? What is my heart longing for, and what is it fixated upon? The Lord’s prayer is a prayer that is focused upon the purposes of Heaven, and yet it still affects this world because God’s purposes are uniquely focused upon this world, particularly His image-bearers that He placed upon it.
He knows that we are flesh and blood, mortal. As mortals, we will need literal, daily bread. However, we can live out eternal purposes in these temporary lives.
The point is not about never having a bank account, or saving up to buy a house, etc. It is asking the deeper question. Messiah is asking us. Do I have your heart? Or, does this world and the things thereof have your heart? If you had to choose between Jesus and the desires of this world, which would you choose?
The apostle John reminded us of these questions in 1 John 2:15-17. There he commands us (in the name of the LORD) not to love the world and the things of the world. This world is passing away, and the things of it, especially the lusts that we have for things. However, he who does the will of God abides forever!
This brings us back to the Garden of Eden. Yes, there is a choice between innocence and knowledge of good and evil. However, deeper than this is a question of love. The serpent is tempting their heart away from what they already knew, God loved them greatly. He tempts them away from the love of God towards the love of things (in fact, they are His things). How can we be in right relationship with God’s things in our life? It starts by not making them our treasure. Instead, God Himself must be our greatest treasure.
God is the greatest good. He is the source of all things that we might deem as good (and countless others that we are too ignorant to realize their goodness). He gives us all kinds of things. Yet, I guess He held back one thing, the knowledge of good and evil. Have you been seduced by things that become nothing if they are divorced from God? A love of things that cannot satisfy a soul that was made for the love of God is essentially what Romans 1 pictures. We worship the creation rather than the Creator who made it all. In the end, we will be left with things and a very, very lean soul.
God forbid!