Gospel Translations - User contributions [en]

I Love Jesus Christ

2009-01-07T17:45:16Z

Bouchdi:

=== ''An Unforgettable Moment in Seminary'' ===

By John Piper

December 31, 2008

One of the most memorable moments of my seminary days was during the school year 1968-69 at Fuller Seminary on the third level of the classroom building just after a class on systematic theology. A group of us were huddled around James Morgan, the young theology teacher who was saying something about the engagement of Christians in social justice. I don’t remember what I said, but he looked me right in the eye and said, “John, I love Jesus Christ.”

It was like a thunderclap in my heart. A strong, intelligent, mature, socially engaged man had just said out loud in front of a half dozen men, “I love Jesus Christ.” He was not preaching. He was not pronouncing on any issue. He was not singing in church. He was not trying to get a job. He was not being recorded. He was telling me that he loved Jesus.

The echo of that thunderclap is still sounding in my heart. That was 40 years ago! There are a thousand things I don’t remember about those days in seminary. But that afternoon remains unforgettable. And all he said was, “John, I love Jesus Christ.”

James Morgan died a year later of stomach cancer, leaving a wife and four small children. His chief legacy in my life was one statement on an afternoon in Pasadena. “I love Jesus Christ.”

Loving Jesus is ''natural'' and ''necessary'' for the children of God. It’s natural because it’s part of our nature as children of God. “If God were your Father, you would ''love'' me, for I came from God” (John 8:42). The children of God have the natural disposition to love his Son.

Loving Jesus is also ''necessary'' because Paul says that if you don’t love Jesus, you will be cursed: “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed” (1 Corinthians 16:22). Loving Jesus is an essential (not optional) mark of being a beneficiary of God’s grace. “Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible” (Ephesians 6:24). If you hold fast to the love of anything above Jesus, you are not his disciple: “Whoever ''loves'' father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever ''loves'' son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37).

Loving Jesus is not the same as obeying all of Jesus’ commands. Jesus said, “If you ''love'' me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). That means that obedience to the commandments is the ''result'' of loving Jesus, not the same as loving Jesus. Love is something invisible and inside. It is the root that produces the visible fruit of loving others.

So here at the beginning of 2009, I join James Morgan in saying, “I love Jesus Christ.”

And as I say it, I want to make clear what I mean:

*I ''admire'' Jesus Christ more than any other human or angelic being.
*I ''enjoy'' his ways and his words more than I enjoy the ways and words of anyone else.
*I ''want his approval ''more than I want the approval of anyone else.
*I ''want to be with him ''more than I want to be with anyone else.
*I ''feel more grateful ''to him for what he has done for me than I do to anyone else.
*I ''trust'' his words more fully than I trust what anyone else says.
*I am ''more glad in his exaltation ''than in the exaltation of anyone else, including me.

Would you pray with me that in 2009 we would love Jesus Christ more than we ever have? And may our Lord Jesus grant that from time to time we would deliver quietly and naturally a thunderclap into the hearts of others with the simple words, “I love Jesus Christ.”

“Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

Loving him with you,

Pastor John

Prayer, Fasting, and the Course of History

2008-04-27T23:01:24Z

Bouchdi:

== Acts 13:1-4 ==

Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers: Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

I begin this morning a series of messages on the biblical practice of fasting. This is not new for us at Bethlehem. We have taught on it before and we have called for fasting especially during Prayer Week in years gone by. But when we did the survey in the morning service several weeks ago, we found that 40% of those in attendance that morning had been at Bethlehem three years or less. Which may mean that fasting is a biblical discipline you have not thought about much and have practiced even less, since it isn't a widespread corporate practice in the evangelical movement.

I expect to dwell on this much-neglected biblical and spiritual discipline at least through the month of January and perhaps longer, if the Lord leads. If you have read the Bethlehem Star, you know that I am calling us to fast one 24 hour period a week through this month as we begin 1995, namely, from Tuesday after supper through Wednesday lunch. Together we would skip breakfast and lunch on Wednesday and devote those two mealtimes, if possible, to fasting-prayer that 1995 would be a year of great awakening in the body of Christ; a revival of holiness and happiness and prayer and faithfulness and fruitfulness in ministering to each other and reaching the perishing. My prayer is that by means of these messages you will hear God's call in my call to fast.

==== Hungering for God's Leading in Antioch ====

 You may understand better why I believe this is God's will for us now if we get right into our text. The situation is that Saul (Paul) and Barnabas and some of the other leaders in the church in Antioch were worshiping—ministering to the Lord—and fasting (v. 2). Judging by what happened we may assume, I think, that the burden that drove them to fast was this: "Where do we go from here as a church?" They were fasting to seek the leading of the Holy Spirit in the direction of their mission. You could call it Master Planning if you want to. The upshot was more magnificent than any other Master Planning effort the church has ever undertaken.

They were hungry enough for God's leading that they wanted to say it with the hunger of their bodies and not just the hunger of their hearts. "We want your leading, O God! O Holy Spirit, what is your will for the mission of this church?"

Do you know what boggles my mind about Master Planning at Bethlehem. Most of the questions we need to answer are not answered explicitly in the Bible. The ones with clear biblical answers don't require a Master Planning team to discern. The questions that press on us are the kind of questions that the leaders in Antioch faced: "Lord, shall we begin a world mission venture? Should it be now? Should we send some of our own teachers? Should it be Saul or Simeon or Niger or Lucius or Barnabas? Should we send two or three or four? Which way should we send them: by land or by sea? Should we fund them fully or expect them to work for their keep or hope that there will be sons of peace in the towns where they go who will feed them? Should other churches join with us?" Etc.

Most of the questions that planning teams have to answer are of that kind. Where will we get the answers? Do we have anything to learn from the fact that these deeply spiritual early Christians worshiped and fasted and prayed as they sought the leading of the Lord?

=== Four Observations ===

==== Consider four observations from Acts 13:1–4. ====

===== 1. After Christ's Coming =====

This fasting was after Christ's coming.

I simply point this out lest someone say that fasting was a part of the Old Testament spirituality but not of New Testament spirituality. We will tackle this issue head on next week and ask, "Is fasting part of the old wineskin that needs to be discarded so that the new wine of the kingdom will not burst the wineskins and be lost?" The apparent answer is that Saul and Barnabas and the others in Antioch did not think fasting was the old wineskin.

===== 2. By a Group Together =====

 This fasting was done by a group together.

Another concern with fasting is that Jesus warned against fasting to be seen by men (Matthew 6:17–18). He said, "Your Father who sees in secret will reward you." But Saul and Barnabas evidently do not take Jesus to mean that group fasting is evil, even though people often know you are fasting when you are doing it as part of a group—as when a church-wide fast is called, the way I am calling for a fast on Wednesdays through the month of January.

Evidently the church leaders at Antioch take Jesus to mean not that we sin if someone knows that we are fasting, but that we sin if our motive is to be known for our fasting so that men applaud us. Group fasting has marked God's people all through biblical and post-biblical history.

===== 3. An Occasion for the Spirit's Special Guidance =====

This fasting proved to be an occasion for the Spirit's special guidance.

Verse 2 says,

And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." 3 Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.

In reporting it this way, Luke clearly wants us to see a connection between the worship, prayer, and fasting on the one hand, and the decisive guidance of the Holy Spirit on the other.

Without evidence to the contrary I would say that this teaches us the value of worship-fasting-prayer in the earnest pursuit of God's will for our lives and the life of our church.

===== 4. Changed the Course of History =====

This fasting changed the course of history.

It is almost impossible to overstate the historical importance of this moment in Antioch in the history of the world. Before this word from the Holy Spirit there seems to have been no organized mission of the church beyond the eastern seacoast of the Mediterranean. Before this, Paul had made no missionary journeys westward to Asian Minor, Greece, or Rome, or Spain. Before this Paul had not written any of his letters which were all the result of his missionary travels beginning here.

This moment of prayer and fasting resulted in a missions movement that would make Christianity the dominant religion of the Roman Empire within two and a half centuries and would yield 1.3 billion adherents of the Christian religion today with a Christian witness in virtually every country of the world. And 13 out of the 29 books of the New Testament were the result of the ministry that was launched in this moment of prayer and fasting.

So I think is it fair to say that God was pleased to make worship and prayer and fasting the launching pad for a mission that would change the course of world history. Is there not a lesson there for us?

It had happened before and it would happen again and again in history.

==== It Happened in 2 Chronicles 20 ====

 For example, in 2 Chronicles 20 the Moabites and Ammonites and Meunites came against Jehoshaphat the king of Judah. It was a terrifying horde of violent people. What could the people do? What direction should they turn? Verse 3 says,

Jehoshaphat was afraid and turned his attention to seek the Lord; and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. 4 So Judah gathered together to seek help from the Lord; they even came from all the cities of Judah to seek the Lord.

So there was a great nationwide fast for divine guidance and deliverance. In the midst of that fasting assembly, verses 14–15 say,

the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel . . . and he said, "Listen, all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: thus says the Lord to you, Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God's."

The next day when the people of Judah went out, they found that the people of Moab and Ammon had destroyed one another, and it took them three days to gather the spoil, there was so much. What looked like defeat and calamity was overnight turned into stunning triumph.

Again the course of history was changed through the fasting of God's people.

==== It Happened in Britain in 1756 ====

 John Wesley tells us in his journal of a similar kind of deliverance in 1756. The king of Britain called for a day of solemn prayer and fasting because of a threatened invasion of the French. Wesley wrote,

The fast day was a glorious day, such as London has scarce seen since the Restoration. Every church in the city was more than full, and a solemn seriousness sat on every face. Surely God heareth prayer, and there will yet be a lengthening of our tranquillity.

Then in a footnote he added later, "Humility was turned into national rejoicing for the threatened invasion by the French was averted." It would not be difficult to multiply story after story from the Bible and after the Bible to show that fasting and prayer have changed the course of history. We will see in the coming weeks that this is especially true in the way fasting figures into times of great revival.

But let me try to put our focus on fasting and our call to fast in the wider context of what God seems to be doing today, and then what he may be doing at Bethlehem.

==== What God Seems to Be Doing in the World Today ====

 In November one of you came to me and said you thought God might be calling us to a day a week of fasting as a church. Would I pray about it and try to discern if this was of the Lord for us at this time? I had recently been invited by Bill Bright, the head of Campus Crusade, to join 600 others in Orlando, December 5–7, for two days of prayer and fasting for awakening in our land and for the advance of the kingdom around the world.

I decided to go, with the desire that God might lead me concerning how fasting should figure into this present moment in the history of our church. Bill Bright said that he had completed a 40 day fast last summer and had felt led to call this time of fasting and prayer in the hope of rekindling the practice of fasting-prayer throughout the church in America.

==== The Resurgence of Worship and Prayer but Not Fasting ====

One of the insights I got in Orlando was that there are three elements in Acts 13:1–3—worship, prayer, and fasting. In our day there has been a remarkable resurgence of worship and prayer. Tens of thousands of congregations around the world are experiencing more vibrant, freer, more engaging worship in the last 20 years. And the prayer movements around the world are unprecedented in number and scope. In our own state the Minnesota Prayer Coalition is unprecedented in pulling the body of Christ together to pray for the reviving of Christ's church and the advance of his kingdom.

But there is not yet a comparable resurgence of the practice of fasting as there has been with worship and prayer. Bill Bright suggested that God may will that all three be in place and that the church be humbled and hungry with fasting before he blesses us as fully as he means to. It is remarkable how neglected this spiritual practice is.

==== A Growing Hunger for Fasting ====

The first thing they did in Orlando was open the microphones for some of the people to say why they had come. I was listening with my ear attuned to our situation here and the question of whether we should call for a day of fasting each week. The second person to stand up said he was from Promise Keepers and that he was there because he believed fasting was crucial and that Promise Keepers were seriously considering calling the men to fast a day a week, namely, Wednesday. Later in the meeting Paul Cedar of the Free Church said that historically the church has often made weekly fasting a part of her life. He wondered if we should again.

When I got back, Bob Hamlett showed me that Promise Keepers were in fact born in the atmosphere of fasting. In the fall publication of Men of Action it says,

In 1990 Coach McCartney asked 72 men to commit to pray and fast through lunch every Wednesday [which is what I am calling for], praying specifically that Almighty God would stir the hearts of men to pursue Jesus Christ. The board, leadership team, and many of the staff are recommitted to this end, and we invite you to join us.

Well, I am happy to say to Promise Keepers and to Bill Bright and I believe to thousands of other believers around the world, especially in places like South Korea, I am very eager to join you. And I am calling our church to join you as well.

These are wonderfully hope-filled days at Bethlehem. I will explain next week from Matthew 9:14–17 why I think hope-filled people will want to fast. In the meantime I invite you to do several things. Purchase and be reading God's Chosen Fast by Arthur Wallis (published by Christian Literature Crusade), pray about how the Lord might want you to join in the special prayer times this week, including the night of prayer this Friday, and seek the Lord concerning his call to fast in your life.

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

When the Bridegroom Is Taken Away, They Will Fast--With New Wineskins

2008-04-27T22:56:44Z

Bouchdi:

= ''' When the Bridegroom Is Taken Away, They Will Fast—With New Wineskins''' =

=== Matthew 9:14-17 ===

Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results. Nor do men put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out, and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved." Last week I called you as a church to join me in fasting one day a week through the month of January. In doing this we join the leaders of Promise Keepers and Bill Bright and Campus Crusade and thousands of others around the world in the biblical discipline of fasting. For you it may be new. But for the Christian church throughout history it is not new.

'''Fasting in the History of the Church'''

''' '''The Didache, a manual of church instruction from near the end of the first century says,

Let not your fasts be with the hypocrites, for they fast on Mondays and Thursdays, but do your fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. (7:1)

In other words the early church sought to distance itself of the emptiness of fasting without losing the value of the practice.

Epiphanius, a bishop in Italy in the fifth century, said,

Who does not know that the fast of the fourth and sixth days of the week are observed by Christians throughout the world?

John Calvin, in the 16th century, said,

Let us say something about fasting, because many, for want of knowing its usefulness, undervalue its necessity, and some reject it as almost superfluous; while, on the other hand where the use of it is not well understood, it easily degenerates into superstition. Holy and legitimate fasting is directed to three ends; for we practice it either as a restraint on the flesh, to preserve it from licentiousness, or as a preparation for prayers and pious meditations, or as a testimony of our humiliation in the presence of God when we are desirous of confessing our guilt before him. (Institutes, IV.12, 14, 15)

Martin Luther wrote,

Of fasting I say this: It is right to fast frequently in order to subdue and control the body. For when the stomach is full, the body does not serve for preaching, for praying, or studying, or for doing anything else that is good. Under such circumstances God's Word cannot remain. But one should not fast with a view to meriting something by it as by a good work.

In more recent times the evangelical church in South Korea has taught the rest of the world a lesson in prayer and fasting. The first Protestant church was planted in Korea in 1884. One hundred years later there were 30,000 churches. That's an average of 300 new churches a year for 100 years. Today evangelicals comprise about 30% of the population. God has used many means to do this great work. One of them is a recovery not just of dynamic prayer, but of fasting-prayer. In the OMS (Overseas Missionary Society) churches alone more than 20,000 people have completed a 40-day fast—usually at one of their "prayer houses" in the mountains.

'''A Call to Fasting'''

God has confirmed in my own experience this week the value of fasting in getting long-prayed-for breakthroughs. I believe that if we seek the Lord with the hunger of fasting, there will be many more such breakthroughs that we long for. Is there something you have been praying for a long time? Is there an unbeliever you would like God to awaken to spiritual things? Is there a broken relationship you would like God to reconcile? Is there a perplexity of direction on the horizon of your life? I believe that God is calling us to rediscover the place of fasting in appropriating his power.

I suggested that as a church we fast corporately for 24 hours, skipping breakfast and lunch each Wednesday in January. Thus we would not eat between supper Tuesday and supper Wednesday. Instead we would try to devote some of the time given to those meals to meditation on God's Word and to prayer for spiritual awakening and for the advancement of Christ's kingdom around the world.

===== Many Ways to Join the Spirit of Fasting =====

 I realize that this will not work for everyone. Some have schedules on Wednesday that make that unworkable. Others have physical conditions that make fasting unsafe. Don't worry about that. There are many ways to join the spirit of fasting. One woman wrote me this week whose job won't fit with this schedule. So she said,

So I have a couple things that I believe are from the Spirit that may be more of a fast for some than food. I thought that not watching television for a week or a month or a night of the week when I normally watch it may be more of a fast than food. Instead of watching my favorite program I spend the time talking and listening to God. I wonder if there might be others for whom this would be a fast and would be a focused time of payer for them.

Don't ignore God's call on your life to fast if you can't be a part of the Wednesday focus. If your heart is willing, he will lead you, as he did this woman, to something fruitful for you.

Martin Lloyd-Jones said in his great book on the Sermon on the Mount,

Fasting, if we conceive of it truly, must not . . . be confined to the question of food and drink; fasting should really be made to include abstinence from anything which is legitimate in and of itself for the sake of some special spiritual purpose. There are many bodily functions which are right and normal and perfectly legitimate, but which for special peculiar reasons in certain circumstances should be controlled. That is fasting.

===== Fasting: An Intensification of Prayer =====

 I pointed out last week from Acts 13:1–3 that the course of history was changed when the leaders of the church in Antioch were worshiping, praying, and fasting. I suggested that in our day there has been reawakening in worship around the world and reawakening in prayer around the world. But not yet does there seem to be a reawakening in fasting, except in some places like Korea. I asked, Might God not ordain that his fullest blessings will come to the church when we prevail in prayer with the intensity of fasting? That's what I think fasting is at heart. It's an intensification of prayer. It's a physical explanation point at the end of the sentence, "We hunger for you to come in power." It's a cry with your body, "I really mean it, Lord! This much, I hunger for you."

For the next two Sundays I want to turn our attention to the words of Jesus on fasting. Does he teach us to fast? Or is it part of the old wineskins left over from the Old Testament that has no place in the new, free, celebrating people of God?

Richard Foster, who wrote the book Celebration of Discipline, said in his chapter on fasting of Matthew 9:15, "That is perhaps the most important statement in the New Testament on whether Christians should fast today." That's probably true. So let's give close attention to this text and ask the Lord to teach us from it what we should know and what we should do in regard to fasting.

==== Why Didn't Jesus' Disciples Fast? ====

In Matthew 9:14 the disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus and ask why Jesus' disciples don't fast? So evidently Jesus' disciples were not fasting while he was with them.

===== '''While the Bridegroom Is with His Attendants''' =====

Jesus answers with a word picture. He says, "The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they?" With those words Jesus teaches us two things: one is that fasting was by and large associated with mourning in that day. It was an expression of broken-heartedness and desperation, usually over sin or over some danger. It was something you did when things were not going the way you want them to.

But that's not the situation with the disciples of Jesus. This is the second thing he teaches: the Messiah has come and his coming is like the coming of a bridegroom to a wedding feast. This is just too good to mingle with fasting. So Jesus was making a tremendous claim for himself here. In the Old Testament God had pictured himself as the husband of his people Israel (Isaiah 62:4f.; Jeremiah 2:2; 3:20; Ezekiel 16:8; Hosea 2:19f.). Now his Son, the Messiah, the long hoped-for one, has come and he claims to be the Bridegroom—that is, the husband of his people, who will be the true Israel (cf. John 3:29). This is the kind of partially veiled claim Jesus made about his identity with God. If you had ears to hear, you could hear it. God, the one who betrothed Israel to himself in covenant love, has come.

This is so stunning and so glorious and so unexpected in this form that Jesus said, you just can't fast now in this situation. It is too happy and to spectacularly exhilarating. Fasting is for times of yearning and aching and longing. But the bridegroom of Israel is here. After a thousand years of dreaming and longing and hoping and waiting, he is here! The absence of fasting in the band of disciples was a witness to the presence of God in their midst.

===== "Then They Will Fast" =====

But then Jesus said, "But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast." This is the key sentence: "Then they will fast." When is he referring to?

Some have suggested he was referring just to the several days between his death and resurrection. They would fast just for those days. But that is very unlikely. For several reasons. One is that the early church fasted after the resurrection, as we have seen in Acts 13:1–3 (cf. Acts 14:23; 2 Corinthians 6:5; 11:27). The other is that in Matthew 25:1–13 Jesus pictures his second coming as the arrival of the bridegroom. In other words, the Bridegroom is taken away until the second coming of Christ.

So I think Arthur Wallis is right in his sixth chapter of God's Chosen Fast: "The time is now." Jesus is saying: Now while I am here in your midst as the Bridegroom, you can't fast, but I am not going to remain with you. There will come a time when I return to my Father in heaven. And during that time you will fast. That time is now.

It's true that Jesus is present with us by his Spirit. But Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:8, "We [would] prefer to be absent from the body and at home with the Lord." In other words, in this age there is an ache and a longing—a homesickness—inside every Christian that Jesus is not here as fully and intimately and as powerfully and as gloriously as we want him to be. And that is why we fast.

===== A Patch of Unshrunk Cloth and New Wine =====

But then Jesus says something very crucial in verse 16–17. He says,

But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results. 17 "Nor do men put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out, and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.

The patch of unshrunk cloth and the new wine represent the new reality that has come with Jesus—the kingdom of God is here. The Bridegroom has come. The Messiah is in our midst. And that is not merely temporary. He is not merely here and then gone. The kingdom of God did not come in Jesus and then just vanish out of the world.

Jesus died for our sins once for all. He rose from the dead once for all. The Spirit was sent into the world as the real presence of Jesus among us. The kingdom is the reigning power of Christ in the world subduing hearts to the king and creating a people who believe him and serve him. The Spirit of the Bridegroom is gathering and purifying a bride for Christ. This is the new wine.

===== Old Wineskins Can't Contain the New Wine =====

And Jesus says, The old wineskins can't contain it. What is the old wineskin? In the context it seems to be fasting. Fasting was inherited from the Old Testament and had been used as part of the Jewish system of relating to God. Now Jesus says, the old wineskins of Judaism can't contain the new wine.

So what shall we say? In verse 15 Jesus says that we will fast when the Bridegroom is gone. And in verse 17 he says that the old fasting cannot contain the new wine of the kingdom.

===== New Wine Demands New Fasting =====

My answer is that the new wine demands new fasting. Years ago I wrote in the margin of my Greek Testament beside this text, "The new fasting is based on the mystery that the Bridegroom has come, not just will come. The new wine of his presence calls for new fasting."

In other words the yearning and longing and ache of the old fasting was not based on the glorious truth that the Messiah had come. The mourning over sin and the yearning in danger was not based on the great finished work of the Redeemer and the great revelation of himself and his grace in history. But now the Bridegroom has come. In coming he struck the decisive blow against sin and against Satan and against death.

The great, central, decisive act of salvation for us today is past, not future. And on the basis of that past work of the Bridegroom, nothing can ever be the same again. The wine is new. The blood is shed. The Lamb is slain. The punishment of or sins is executed. Death is defeated. The Bridegroom is risen. The Spirit is sent. The wine is new. And the old fasting mindset is simply not adequate.

===== What's New About the New Fasting =====

What's new about the fasting is that it rests on all this finished work of the Bridegroom. The yearning that we feel for revival or awakening or deliverance from corruption is not merely longing and aching. The first fruits of what we long for have already come. The down payment of what we yearn for is already paid. The fullness that we are longing for and fasting for has appeared in history and we have beheld his glory. It is not merely future.

We have tasted the powers of the age to come, and our new fasting is not because we are hungry for something we have not tasted, but because the new wine of Christ's presence is so real and so satisfying. The newness of our fasting is this: its intensity comes not because we have never tasted the wine of Christ's presence, but because we have tasted it so wonderfully by his Spirit and cannot now be satisfied until the consummation of joy arrives. We must have all he promised. And as much now as possible.

So I urge you to join in the January fasting. Not because you haven't tasted the new wine of Christ's presence, but because you have tasted it, and long, with a deep joyful aching of soul, to know more of his presence and power in our midst.

  By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Prayer, Fasting, and the Course of History

2008-04-27T22:47:04Z

Bouchdi:

Acts 13:1-4

Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers: Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

I begin this morning a series of messages on the biblical practice of fasting. This is not new for us at Bethlehem. We have taught on it before and we have called for fasting especially during Prayer Week in years gone by. But when we did the survey in the morning service several weeks ago, we found that 40% of those in attendance that morning had been at Bethlehem three years or less. Which may mean that fasting is a biblical discipline you have not thought about much and have practiced even less, since it isn't a widespread corporate practice in the evangelical movement.

I expect to dwell on this much-neglected biblical and spiritual discipline at least through the month of January and perhaps longer, if the Lord leads. If you have read the Bethlehem Star, you know that I am calling us to fast one 24 hour period a week through this month as we begin 1995, namely, from Tuesday after supper through Wednesday lunch. Together we would skip breakfast and lunch on Wednesday and devote those two mealtimes, if possible, to fasting-prayer that 1995 would be a year of great awakening in the body of Christ; a revival of holiness and happiness and prayer and faithfulness and fruitfulness in ministering to each other and reaching the perishing. My prayer is that by means of these messages you will hear God's call in my call to fast.

Hungering for God's Leading in Antioch You may understand better why I believe this is God's will for us now if we get right into our text. The situation is that Saul (Paul) and Barnabas and some of the other leaders in the church in Antioch were worshiping—ministering to the Lord—and fasting (v. 2). Judging by what happened we may assume, I think, that the burden that drove them to fast was this: "Where do we go from here as a church?" They were fasting to seek the leading of the Holy Spirit in the direction of their mission. You could call it Master Planning if you want to. The upshot was more magnificent than any other Master Planning effort the church has ever undertaken.

They were hungry enough for God's leading that they wanted to say it with the hunger of their bodies and not just the hunger of their hearts. "We want your leading, O God! O Holy Spirit, what is your will for the mission of this church?"

Do you know what boggles my mind about Master Planning at Bethlehem. Most of the questions we need to answer are not answered explicitly in the Bible. The ones with clear biblical answers don't require a Master Planning team to discern. The questions that press on us are the kind of questions that the leaders in Antioch faced: "Lord, shall we begin a world mission venture? Should it be now? Should we send some of our own teachers? Should it be Saul or Simeon or Niger or Lucius or Barnabas? Should we send two or three or four? Which way should we send them: by land or by sea? Should we fund them fully or expect them to work for their keep or hope that there will be sons of peace in the towns where they go who will feed them? Should other churches join with us?" Etc.

Most of the questions that planning teams have to answer are of that kind. Where will we get the answers? Do we have anything to learn from the fact that these deeply spiritual early Christians worshiped and fasted and prayed as they sought the leading of the Lord?

Four Observations Consider four observations from Acts 13:1–4.

1. After Christ's Coming

This fasting was after Christ's coming.

I simply point this out lest someone say that fasting was a part of the Old Testament spirituality but not of New Testament spirituality. We will tackle this issue head on next week and ask, "Is fasting part of the old wineskin that needs to be discarded so that the new wine of the kingdom will not burst the wineskins and be lost?" The apparent answer is that Saul and Barnabas and the others in Antioch did not think fasting was the old wineskin.

2. By a Group Together

 This fasting was done by a group together.

Another concern with fasting is that Jesus warned against fasting to be seen by men (Matthew 6:17–18). He said, "Your Father who sees in secret will reward you." But Saul and Barnabas evidently do not take Jesus to mean that group fasting is evil, even though people often know you are fasting when you are doing it as part of a group—as when a church-wide fast is called, the way I am calling for a fast on Wednesdays through the month of January.

Evidently the church leaders at Antioch take Jesus to mean not that we sin if someone knows that we are fasting, but that we sin if our motive is to be known for our fasting so that men applaud us. Group fasting has marked God's people all through biblical and post-biblical history.

3. An Occasion for the Spirit's Special Guidance

This fasting proved to be an occasion for the Spirit's special guidance.

Verse 2 says,

And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." 3 Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.

In reporting it this way, Luke clearly wants us to see a connection between the worship, prayer, and fasting on the one hand, and the decisive guidance of the Holy Spirit on the other.

Without evidence to the contrary I would say that this teaches us the value of worship-fasting-prayer in the earnest pursuit of God's will for our lives and the life of our church.

4. Changed the Course of History

This fasting changed the course of history.

It is almost impossible to overstate the historical importance of this moment in Antioch in the history of the world. Before this word from the Holy Spirit there seems to have been no organized mission of the church beyond the eastern seacoast of the Mediterranean. Before this, Paul had made no missionary journeys westward to Asian Minor, Greece, or Rome, or Spain. Before this Paul had not written any of his letters which were all the result of his missionary travels beginning here.

This moment of prayer and fasting resulted in a missions movement that would make Christianity the dominant religion of the Roman Empire within two and a half centuries and would yield 1.3 billion adherents of the Christian religion today with a Christian witness in virtually every country of the world. And 13 out of the 29 books of the New Testament were the result of the ministry that was launched in this moment of prayer and fasting.

So I think is it fair to say that God was pleased to make worship and prayer and fasting the launching pad for a mission that would change the course of world history. Is there not a lesson there for us?

It had happened before and it would happen again and again in history.

It Happened in 2 Chronicles 20 For example, in 2 Chronicles 20 the Moabites and Ammonites and Meunites came against Jehoshaphat the king of Judah. It was a terrifying horde of violent people. What could the people do? What direction should they turn? Verse 3 says,

Jehoshaphat was afraid and turned his attention to seek the Lord; and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. 4 So Judah gathered together to seek help from the Lord; they even came from all the cities of Judah to seek the Lord.

So there was a great nationwide fast for divine guidance and deliverance. In the midst of that fasting assembly, verses 14–15 say,

the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel . . . and he said, "Listen, all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: thus says the Lord to you, Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God's."

The next day when the people of Judah went out, they found that the people of Moab and Ammon had destroyed one another, and it took them three days to gather the spoil, there was so much. What looked like defeat and calamity was overnight turned into stunning triumph.

Again the course of history was changed through the fasting of God's people.

It Happened in Britain in 1756 John Wesley tells us in his journal of a similar kind of deliverance in 1756. The king of Britain called for a day of solemn prayer and fasting because of a threatened invasion of the French. Wesley wrote,

The fast day was a glorious day, such as London has scarce seen since the Restoration. Every church in the city was more than full, and a solemn seriousness sat on every face. Surely God heareth prayer, and there will yet be a lengthening of our tranquillity.

Then in a footnote he added later, "Humility was turned into national rejoicing for the threatened invasion by the French was averted." It would not be difficult to multiply story after story from the Bible and after the Bible to show that fasting and prayer have changed the course of history. We will see in the coming weeks that this is especially true in the way fasting figures into times of great revival.

But let me try to put our focus on fasting and our call to fast in the wider context of what God seems to be doing today, and then what he may be doing at Bethlehem.

What God Seems to Be Doing in the World Today In November one of you came to me and said you thought God might be calling us to a day a week of fasting as a church. Would I pray about it and try to discern if this was of the Lord for us at this time? I had recently been invited by Bill Bright, the head of Campus Crusade, to join 600 others in Orlando, December 5–7, for two days of prayer and fasting for awakening in our land and for the advance of the kingdom around the world.

I decided to go, with the desire that God might lead me concerning how fasting should figure into this present moment in the history of our church. Bill Bright said that he had completed a 40 day fast last summer and had felt led to call this time of fasting and prayer in the hope of rekindling the practice of fasting-prayer throughout the church in America.

The Resurgence of Worship and Prayer but Not Fasting

One of the insights I got in Orlando was that there are three elements in Acts 13:1–3—worship, prayer, and fasting. In our day there has been a remarkable resurgence of worship and prayer. Tens of thousands of congregations around the world are experiencing more vibrant, freer, more engaging worship in the last 20 years. And the prayer movements around the world are unprecedented in number and scope. In our own state the Minnesota Prayer Coalition is unprecedented in pulling the body of Christ together to pray for the reviving of Christ's church and the advance of his kingdom.

But there is not yet a comparable resurgence of the practice of fasting as there has been with worship and prayer. Bill Bright suggested that God may will that all three be in place and that the church be humbled and hungry with fasting before he blesses us as fully as he means to. It is remarkable how neglected this spiritual practice is.

A Growing Hunger for Fasting

The first thing they did in Orlando was open the microphones for some of the people to say why they had come. I was listening with my ear attuned to our situation here and the question of whether we should call for a day of fasting each week. The second person to stand up said he was from Promise Keepers and that he was there because he believed fasting was crucial and that Promise Keepers were seriously considering calling the men to fast a day a week, namely, Wednesday. Later in the meeting Paul Cedar of the Free Church said that historically the church has often made weekly fasting a part of her life. He wondered if we should again.

When I got back, Bob Hamlett showed me that Promise Keepers were in fact born in the atmosphere of fasting. In the fall publication of Men of Action it says,

In 1990 Coach McCartney asked 72 men to commit to pray and fast through lunch every Wednesday [which is what I am calling for], praying specifically that Almighty God would stir the hearts of men to pursue Jesus Christ. The board, leadership team, and many of the staff are recommitted to this end, and we invite you to join us.

Well, I am happy to say to Promise Keepers and to Bill Bright and I believe to thousands of other believers around the world, especially in places like South Korea, I am very eager to join you. And I am calling our church to join you as well.

These are wonderfully hope-filled days at Bethlehem. I will explain next week from Matthew 9:14–17 why I think hope-filled people will want to fast. In the meantime I invite you to do several things. Purchase and be reading God's Chosen Fast by Arthur Wallis (published by Christian Literature Crusade), pray about how the Lord might want you to join in the special prayer times this week, including the night of prayer this Friday, and seek the Lord concerning his call to fast in your life.

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org