Text: Matthew 6:16–18
Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé

Fasting in the Father’s Realm

Though we have been focusing on the Lord’s model prayer for the last few weeks, it’s important to back up and remember that even that segment, focused on prayer, is part of a larger section about something bigger—in fact, this section of the Sermon on the Mount gives us nothing less than the pole star, the compass bearing, which our entire life and everything we do in it is to be pointed at and oriented towards.

That is pretty big. He gives us lots of ethical instruction in this section—how to pray, how to relate to our enemies, how to give, how to fast (as we’ll see this morning)—but all of that ethical instruction is grounded in a surpassingly important purpose.

Why love your enemies? For the reward of the Father. 
Why give generously in secret? For the reward of the Father.
Why pray privately? For the reward of the Father.
Why fast without public show? For the reward of the Father.

This section teaches us that one of the ways we could describe the underlying biblical motivation for all of life and everything we do in it is the reward of the Father. Live for his reward. Live as sons in the Father’s realm, and make your life’s quest his pleasure, his well-done-good-and-faithful-servant, his reward.

So today, even as we focus in on his instruction concerning fasting, we will find that we are also talking about the point of our entire lives. Look with me, if you would, at Matthew 6:16. This is the Word of the Living God:

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” 

-Matthew 6:16–18

Thus ends the reading of God’s Word; may he write it on our hearts by faith.

We’re going to do a few things today, basically starting at the most obvious level of the text—what is fasting, what is it for, etc.—and then burrowing down into the implications of these things, seeing how fasting trains us for the most important things in the Christian life, and how Jesus’ instruction here teaches us the purpose of our entire lives.

Fasting and the Father’s Kingdom

What is fasting and why is it a spiritual discipline? We need to understand that—I mean, obviously—if we are to understand Jesus’ instruction to us here.

What is fasting?

Fasting is intentionally abstaining from food, and sometimes even drink, to serve some spiritual purpose. The purposes behind fasting are varied in Scripture. Fasting can be an act of mourning, as in 2 Samuel 1.

Fasting can be a cry to God for justice and help against enemies, as in Esther 4. Fasting is often connected with prayer, to devote oneself wholly to and strengthen it, as in Ezra 8. Daniel also sought understanding of a difficult matter through prayer and fasting.

Fasting is connected to repentance and return to God after sin, as in Joel 2. The Apostles fasted and worshiped before sending men out for new works, as in Acts 13 and 14. Fasting can be an expression of humbling yourself before the Lord, as in 1 Kings 21.

Self-Affliction & What it Teaches Us

So fasting is, at its most basic, abstaining from food, and sometimes drink as well. When I say that that’s what fasting is at it’s most basic, I mean to say that it is not less than that, but it is certainly much, much more. Think about what it is to fast, to abstain from food. It is intentional self-affliction. It is not pleasant to fast. Hunger is the growing expression of something you actually need to function, something you were made to need.

And so as an intentional self-affliction, fasting trains us to remember, believe, and live at peace with the most fundamental law of the Kingdom of God—really, of reality itself. The law I’m referring to, the deep magic, to put it in Narnian terms, concerns the essence of holiness; the essence of the good, true, and beautiful; the essence of human purpose and satisfaction and happiness; the mission of God; and more. It is a law that concerns the true nature of love.

Think about it like this: Love is that which gives—especially that which is precious—for the good of the other. Real, authentic, cask-strength biblical love is the giving away of the self in service of another’s good. The greatest display of love, according to the Lord Jesus, is to die for another. 

So love entails giving yourself away, giving what is precious to you away, to serve the good of another. Do you see how fasting trains us for love? Fasting trains us to embrace personal loss for the sake of something greater than ourselves. It trains us to give ourselves away—to give away our comfort, our strength, our very self—for the sake of another.

All of this comes together in the topic of fasting in Isaiah’s fifty-eighth chapter. I’m going to read a lot of it, so turn there with me, if you would, so you can follow along with your own eyes.

“Cry aloud; do not hold back;
lift up your voice like a trumpet;
declare to my people their transgression,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet they seek me daily
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that did righteousness
and did not forsake the judgment of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments;
they delight to draw near to God.
‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you take no knowledge of it?’
Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,
and oppress all your workers.
Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to hit with a wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day
will not make your voice to be heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
a day for a person to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a reed,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
and a day acceptable to the LORD?
“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.
And the LORD will guide you continually
and satisfy your desire in scorched places
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters do not fail.
And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to dwell in.” 

-Isaiah 58:1–12

The deficiency in their fast—which made it worthless and impotent—was a deficiency of love. Their fasting, their self-affliction, was clearly not training them to give themselves away. They were fasting, yes, but then they were serving themselves and neglecting their neighbors. And so their fast was worthless, because it was clearly not training them as it ought to have done, it clearly was not resulting in what it is designed to accomplish: Love. Real, incarnate, enfleshed love.

Something similar was taking place in the kind of fasting the Lord Jesus warns us against in our text this morning:

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”

Fasting of the sort Jesus warns against here was pursuing the opposite end for which a true fast is meant to accomplish. This is fasting of the Pharisees, not the true sons of the Father.

Their fasting, their self-affliction, was not training them to be given away. What were they trying to do with it? Not learn to love the Lord and their neighbors. No, they were trying to leverage their fasting for the sake of human praise! This is base hatred of their neighbor. Their neighbors were made to glorify God, and they would pervert a spiritual discipline—meant to glorify God and train them to love God and neighbor—into a means of robbing God of that glory, and enticing their neighbors to sin by glorying in men.

Not Whether, But Which

There’s something very interesting about this instruction that I’d like to point out—it’s another one of those not-whether-but-which things. It’s not whether you will live your life, do your deeds, think your thoughts, on a stage or not, only which stage you will perform on.

It is inescapable that life is a performance for some audience. You will be seen by some crowd, and so you must decide which audience you will live to be seen by.

Remember, here at the center of the sermon on the mount, from Matthew 6:1–18, Jesus is right at the center of what it means to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. Remember, their core problem was that they loved the glory of men, and so sought it at the expense of the glory of God. 

They lived for the wrong reward—not the reward of the Father, who sees us loving our enemies, praying to him in secret, giving generously without ostentation or public renown, and fasting without making a show of it and rewards us. They lived, rather, for the reward of men seeing them and praising them.

They were, to put it baldly, hypocrites. They pretended to be doing righteousness in obedience to God, but they were really laboring to be praised by men. Their so-called righteousness relates to true righteousness like what happens in a brothel relates to what happens in the marriage bed. So Jesus warns us, “…do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.”

But what I want you to notice is that Jesus does want us to be like the Pharisees in one way; does want us to be like them, just in reverse, or mirror image, or negative image. Remember, the word “hypocrite” just comes from the word for a stage actor; it is one who is pretending to be other than they are for some audience. The Pharisees pretended to worship God for the audience of men. Jesus would have us pretend in a certain way, for the audience of the Father; to please the Father. 

We are to pretend like we’re not fasting when we really are. We are to pretend like we’re not giving when we really are. We are to pretend, even, that we aren’t praying, though we really are. Do you see the perspective shift, here? Play the part, yes. But do it for the right audience. Fast before the Father. Pray before the Father. Give before the Father. Do it in secret as far as men are concerned, but know that your Father sees. Do it, in fact, because he sees, and because he rewards.

Living for a reward, living before an audience, is an inescapable concept. You just will spend yourself and do all the deeds of your life with some audience in mind. We’re hardwired to do that. The point here in Matthew 6:16–18 is merely that we would do our deeds on the right stage, not no stage at all:

“But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

So when we fast, we are abstaining from food—embracing intentional, temporary, radical self-affliction—for the sake of training in righteousness, learning to be given away in love, and in so doing, we are seeking a better reward than food or drink or even human praise. We are seeking the approval and reward of our Father, who is in heaven, who does all that he pleases.

Final Applications

Let me leave you this morning with five things to do and consider by way of application:

1. Fast. 

Jesus simply assumes that we will fast in this instruction. So may we fast. May we do it regularly and intentionally, and may we also ensure that we don’t forget the most central thing in our fasts: Giving away our strength, our stuff, and our lives to serve the Father’s Kingdom and love our neighbors. 

2. Fast with a smile.

When you fast, and when you do the things that fasting is to train you to do—to give yourself up and die and be afflicted, even, for the love of others—do it with a smile.

How worthless is a dour-faced fast? How worthless is it when you go and die to yourself for the sake of another to do it with an exaggerated gloominess—just to make sure that nobody overlooks the gravity of what it is you are giving up for their sake. “I will help you out with your problem, but I hope you know the sacrifice I’m making for you.”

Parents, we do that, don’t we? “Oh kids, if you only knew what a labor and a chore it is for me to have you and serve you. But I’ll do it. I’m that great.”

That’s dumb. 
Fast with a smile. 
Give with a smile. 
Give yourself away with a smile—or not all.

3. Meditate on the flimsiness of human praise.

The real motivation underneath that public display of gloom is worse than you think: It is nothing less than the desire to be a god. It is an expression of the desire to be a god, because it is at heart calculated to make people worship you, praise you, exalt you. But think about that: What if you were to get what you want? What your flesh wants? What if you were to get worship? 

It would be a curse, not a blessing. Human praise is a flimsy thing when it falls short of God. It cannot satisfy you any more than a car can run on corn syrup, because you were not designed to run on human praise, but on the approval of the Father

So are you in Christ? Yes? Then get this: You already have it. You already have the approval of the Father.

4. Meditate on the silliness of the flunky, the sycophant, the fawner, the suck-up.

There is a reason that we have about a hundred different ways in the English language to disparage someone who works way too hard to get people to notice him, like him, and think he’s better than he really is.

It’s because we all hate it when we see it. It’s gross. When even the pagans hate something they should hate, you know it’s bad. 

5. Mediate on the glory of the Father’s reward.

The praise of men is ephemeral. The approval of the Father is enduring. The reward of men is a vapor. The reward of the Father is forever.

Make sure that when you give your life away, it is for something worthy. Make sure that when you pour out your days and your strength, you do so for the sake of something enduring, bigger than yourself, bigger than the sorts of things that crumble away with time, that don’t last.

Be poured out for the sake of the Father’s Kingdom and the Father’s reward, and even when they put you in the ground, you will have spent your last beats of your heart in the service of something whose foundations are not flimsy, but abiding.