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Spiritual Formation: Making Room for Something Greater
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Watching the World Cup recently reminded me of something powerful about our culture. During the commercials, we see athletes training—running, clearing hurdles, flipping ropes, doing plyometrics and weight training. They hydrate with special drinks, take protein powder, use gadgets to optimize their preparation. We've committed ourselves as a culture to physical workouts, dieting, and balance for about 50 years now.
But so many of us fail to apply that same intentionality to the most important thing in our lives.
Paul writes about this in 1 Timothy 4:8:
"For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things holding promise for both the present life and the life to come."
Paul knew his audience in Ephesus was obsessed with athletics and training. So he takes that cultural passion and pivots it—comparing physical training to spiritual formation, to working out and being intentional about our training in godliness, in following Christ.
That's why we've been exploring spiritual formation this summer. Spiritual formation describes the process of how we become more like Christ. It doesn't happen by floating around. It requires intentional practices.
We've already looked at two intentional practices: silence and solitude, and meditation. Today, we're looking at a third critical practice that we all need to participate in: fasting.
Let me say this parenthetically—it's important: Spiritual formation practices don't save you, but they help sanctify you. In theological terms, spiritual formations are means of grace that God has given us to help us grow and understand him better, and to apply his life, his reality, and his truth to our families, our businesses, our schools, and every aspect of our lives.
How do we understand fasting? Let me tell you a story from the New Testament.
Imagine you're a parent with a child who's seriously sick or hurting. You'd do anything—climb any mountain, sacrifice anything—to help your child. That's exactly what happened to a father whose son was possessed by an evil force so intense it caused the boy to convulse and throw himself into fires. This father was absolutely distraught.
Finally, he heard about a group of people who might help. He brought his son before the disciples—Jesus's followers—and begged them: "Can you help me? Can you help us?"
They tried and tried, but they couldn't succeed. So the father took his son to the leader of that group: Yeshua, Jesus Christ. He said, "Lord Jesus, I tried to get help from your disciples, but they couldn't heal my son. Why did they fail?"
Jesus answered: "This type of healing only comes through the power of prayer and fasting." And he cast out the demonic power and healed the boy.
Jesus doesn't explain what he means in detail, but the message is clear: there is power in fasting. For thousands of years, men, women, and young people around the world have engaged in these intentional practices of spiritual formation—silence, solitude, meditation, and fasting.
Matthew 6:16 onwards is one of the key passages in the entire Bible about fasting. Jesus speaks:
"When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others that they are fasting. In other words, they're posting on social media: 'Hey, look at me. I'm spiritual. I'm fasting.' Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head, wash your face so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father who is unseen. Your Father, God, who sees what you have done in secret, will reward you."
Notice the language here: Jesus says "when you fast, not if you fast." Fasting is presented as a given in Christian spirituality.
Look at the contrast in 1 Timothy 4—there's value in training for godliness, and there's value in fasting. There's a reward in it. Jesus emphasizes this: fasting is covert, not public. Unless it's a congregational or community fast, fasting should not be something you broadcast. It's not something you should tell people about, post about, or brag about. Fasting is about helplessness, brokenness, and neediness—showing our dependence upon God.
When I think about fasting, I think of Jesus launching his three-year ministry. Before he began, he spent 40 days in fasting and preparation. In the Didache—that early first- and second-century church document we studied months ago—the church would fast on Wednesday and Friday, skipping breakfast and lunch and breaking the fast at dinner.
When I was preparing for a mountain retreat with our high school and junior high students, I fasted from news and entertainment media. Why? Because I wanted to receive guidance from God about what he wanted to say to our students. We fast to prepare ourselves for something we deem really important and vital in our lives.
In Scripture, people fast for different reasons:
Fasting over brokenness and sin. People are devastated by a habit or behavior that has displeased God. They enter into fasting to seek forgiveness and transformation.
Fasting over grief and loss. When going through a time of profound loss, people skip meals to receive comfort and remember loved ones who have passed.
Fasting when life feels helpless. When life throws something so difficult, so random, so intense that we have no idea where to turn, fasting helps us focus on God and hear him.
There's a powerful story in 2 Chronicles 20. King Jehoshaphat is being invaded by three different enemies attacking from three different fronts. He's overwhelmed: "God, this is impossible. How can we go to battle?"
He seeks the Lord while fasting, and God speaks to him: "Listen, Jehoshaphat, the battle is not yours. It is mine. The battle belongs to the Lord."
So Jehoshaphat put his choir and worship leaders on the front line. They began to praise and worship the Lord. They didn't fire a single shot. They didn't do anything—and they won that battle. All of that happened because they were seeking to hear God in the midst of a helpless and impossible situation.
When I fast, I'm putting aside food—something that's good. Eating is good. Bread is good. But I'm setting it down to focus on the great—to focus intensely upon God.
Professor Eugene Merrill says: "Fasting is a theology of priorities in which believers express undivided and intensive devotion to the Lord." Fasting is not simply about closing your mouth to food. It's about opening your heart to what God is trying to do and say in your life. There's power in setting aside time to pray, to meditate deeply on God's word, to hear his voice, to receive direction, guidance, and power.
Richard Foster said: "More than any other discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us."
He tells a story about a businessman who decided to fast. He thought the challenge would be refraining from food—how could he stop eating? But when he started, the hunger pains weren't the real problem. Once he began fasting, he realized he had massive anger issues in his life that he'd never really dealt with.
Someone else who fasts might realize: "I've got serious issues with pride. I've got serious issues with trying to control everything and everybody. I've got resentments I'm holding onto." Fasting gives space in your life for God to work and convict you of something or someone you're holding onto. It reveals what we're attached to, the underlying forces that may be controlling and dictating your life.
You want to go below the surface, into the roots of what's going on? Fast. What's controlling you? What are you attached to? What are you holding onto that God says you need to let go of?
Do you remember when Jesus was fasting? His disciples saw him and said, "How do you have this energy? How do you have this power? You're not even eating."
Jesus answered: "I have food that you don't even know about." He was talking about spiritual food, spiritual strength—feasting and communing with his heavenly Father.
Fasting, refraining from food, skipping a meal or several meals, allows you to revive your capacity to feast on God. To feast and meditate on God's holiness, God's power, God's love, and God's grace. As our physical hunger awakens in us this spiritual hunger—so deep and so real that only God can fulfill—we hunger for his holiness, his love, and his infinite mercy.
Fasting revives all of this in our lives. It refocuses us, reveals what's below the surface, and revives our capacity to really feed on, worship, and focus on God—his character, his promises for us.
Some of you here have fasted before. It's a regular part of your life. You can testify today: "Yes, it's real!"
Others are thinking: "Fasting? Really? How do I fast? What does fasting look like?"
Well, you just need to start fasting. But be wise about it. If you're about to do two-a-days in student football in August, that's not your season to fast. Think of fasting like a special play in your playbook—not the offense you run every single game, but that fake reverse, that double reverse, that lateral pass, that special move you pull out when you need it.
Fasting is something you put into your game plan as you're doing life and seeking to grow with God.
What is fasting? It's primarily stopping eating for a while. Skip a meal, skip two meals, skip three meals—drink water. There are other ways to fast—from media, from certain activities—but by and large, fasting means abstaining from food.
Be wise when you fast. I remember years ago I was doing a 24-hour fast, and I broke it with pizza. Let me tell you—that's a rookie mistake. Don't do that. But start fasting. You can start where you are. Start with one meal. Say, "I'm not going to eat breakfast this Wednesday so I can spend time with the Lord."
Maybe you've been listening to this series on spiritual formation and thinking, "Silence and solitude—I wish I could do that. Meditation—I need to do that. I just don't have the time." Listen: Fasting will give you space and time to spend with God. It will give you that space in your schedule when you need it, to spend time in silence and solitude before him.
Start fasting. Ask God to lead you. Start simply. Watch what he does in your life.
Someone put it this way: "Fasting doesn't change God. Fasting changes me." It's not about manipulation. It's about transformation.
Think about Esther from the Old Testament. Her people, the Jewish people, were threatened with complete annihilation. They were going to be wiped out. She didn't know what to do, so what did she do? She fasted.
She had to appear before the king to plead with him—to warn him of a plot to kill his people. So she fasted for three days and three nights. Somehow the king gave her favor and listened to her request. He abolished and wiped out the attack on Esther's people—an attack that could have destroyed them completely. As she prepared for the biggest moment of her life, she fasted. God gave her power, and God delivered her and delivered her people.
Conclusion: Fasting is not primarily about the physical benefits—the reduced insulin, the inflammation reduction, the weight loss, the metabolism boost. Yes, you might experience those things, and that's a good place to start. But what God's Word tells us is something deeper: fasting is about refocusing your heart, revealing what controls you, and reviving your hunger for God himself. As you fast, you open space for God to work in your life in ways that eating—even when eating is good—cannot accomplish.
