Pastor of Formation & Mission Benjamin Kandt continues our series on Unforced Rhythms of Grace, preaching from Matthew 6:1-18 about the importance of the practices of blessing, prayer, and fasting.
Pastor of Formation & Mission Benjamin Kandt continues our series on Unforced Rhythms of Grace, preaching from Matthew 6:1-18 about the importance of the practices of blessing, prayer, and fasting.
Our scripture reading this morning comes from the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 6, verses 1 through 18. Here now the word of the Lord Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father, who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. No, when you give to the, for, truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father, who is in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
Speaker 2:And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then like this Our Father in heaven. Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces. That they're fasting may be seen by others, but when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face. That your fasting may be seen, not by others, but by your Father, who is in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. This is God's word. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.
Speaker 2:We're in a sermon series called the Unforced Rhythms of Grace and the idea of this Unforced Rhythms of Grace? It's connected with slowdown, spirituality. It's connected with what does it mean to order our lives in such a way that we are able to become the kind of person not only that we want to become, but the kind of person God wants us to become. And so we're using this all of life guide to lead our congregation in what that means to reorder your life towards the goal of becoming more like Jesus in all of life. So another way to say that is if you want to experience the life of Jesus, you must adopt the lifestyle of Jesus. Another way to say that is, if last week, damian pointed out from John 15, if you wanna bear a certain kind of fruit in your life, not only do you need to draw from the vine, but you need to have a trellis that structures your life towards fruitfulness and flourishing. Another way to say that maybe for more in the business realm is that your life is perfectly designed to get you the results that you're currently getting. Let's go back to the hurry sickness, right. If your life is characterized by hypersensitivity or irritability or restlessness or emotional numbness, your life might be perfectly designed to get you those outputs. If you want your life to be characterized by things like the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, you might have to find a new way of being. That's the invitation of this series is to follow Jesus in what he calls the unforced rhythms of grace.
Speaker 2:Now, some of you, you see our text this morning. If you don't have it, get it out in front of you. Matthew 6, chapter one, and you read Jesus saying this and he says beware of practicing your righteousness. You just pause there full stop and you're like see, jesus said it, beware of practicing your righteousness. You can't get super serious about this whole spiritual discipline thing. You know and some of you that comes from a legitimate place you grew up in environments of religious rigidity and you were fed kind of a religious diet. It was a starvation diet of sorts, with a spoonful of shame and a dollop of guilt. And you come into a place like this and you hear us calling you to reorganize your life around following Jesus and what that actually looks like. It's gonna include practicing some spiritual disciplines that have gone on for thousands of years and you kind of smack with the legalism of your childhood.
Speaker 2:Well, I want you to hear me say that feeling, the feeling that shows up when the intentional, sacrificial pursuit of Jesus in all of life it begins to feel like legalism or like a religious rigidity. If that feeling shows up for you, I don't think you're crazy. People have done some really messed up things in the name of religious zeal Like Paul justified killing people, and so I want you to hear me say you're not crazy, but I think Jesus wants to invite you into something this morning For those of us who feel like any version of self-denial is inauthentic, because doing what I feel in the moment is actually the best way for me to be me. If that's you and Jesus has called a self-denial in a practice like fasting that we'll see in a moment it's gonna feel crazy, it's gonna feel inauthentic, which is a cardinal sin in our age. Well, jesus has something to invite us into, and maybe it begins with just a quick diagnosis Does that work in any other area of your life?
Speaker 2:Doing what you feel in the moment, because that's congruent with who you are? For example, if you did that with your diet or your financial plan or your most important relationships like, what kind of outcomes would you get in those areas of your life? We know, actually, that doing things that are right and good, even if they don't feel good, is the way to true freedom and joy in any human existence, and so Jesus is gonna invite us to the things that are truly right and good. But in order to do that, I wanna make a distinction here. Some of you experience the Christian life as rowing versus sailing, and when you experience the Christian life as rowing.
Speaker 2:I totally get why this feels exhausting, because all of it requires your effort, your energy. You're the engine, you've gotta drive it, you've gotta move it forward. But with sailing, although it requires skill, effort, intentionality, planning, all the same things that rowing require, sailing is actually about harnessing and energy from outside of you that pulls you along, that sends you in the direction of your destination. And so this morning I want you to hear me you cannot make a sailboat move by direct effort. The only way you can make a sailboat move is if you practice things like hoisting the sail and setting the jib and swabbing the deck. Some of you are like he has no idea how to sail, clearly, and you'd be right. Instead, in the words of Dallas Willard, "'practice has enabled us to do what we cannot do by our own direct effort'". And so spiritual disciplines. Following Jesus is actually more like harnessing the wind than it is like pulling an oar. That's really important.
Speaker 2:So Jesus, in this text, assumes that practicing your righteousness is essential to any spiritual vitality. Jesus' primary concern is not that you practice your righteousness, but he assumes that. So his concern is why do you practice your righteousness? So, if you have a Bible or a device. Get Matthew 6, verse one, open and we're gonna look at this text together. Matthew 6, one beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. Then you will have no reward from your father, who is in heaven.
Speaker 2:Jesus begins with a warning. He warns you that the very source, the places that can actually connect you with life can also bring death. By that he means spiritual disciplines or practices, and the real issue here is that Jesus is concerned with the heart of your practices. Why? Because motives matter, and there's a principle in the Sermon of the Mount. Our text right here 6, 1-18, is the very center of Jesus' most famous teaching, called the Sermon of the Mount, and this principle throughout the Sermon of the Mount is you get what you most want, and that's both a promise and a warning. You get what you most want, and so, because of that, motives really do matter here, and he unpacks these core practices from the common rhythm thank you Jesus Blessing, praying and fasting in this text in order to show us what practicing properly actually looks like in a world where motives matter, where the heart of the issue really is a significant thing. So what I wanna do is I wanna structure this the way Jesus structured it, and look at blessing, praying and fasting in that order.
Speaker 2:John Stott talks about how the trio of practices here is a whole orb spirituality Blessing is towards our neighbor, towards others, praying is God word and then fasting is towards your own self, inward. And so let's look at these together, as blessing helps us to serve our neighbor, especially the poor, praying is to seek God and fasting is to say no to ourselves. Look first with me at the heart of blessing. In the common rhythm, we define this as asking the spirit who you might bless with words, time, gifts, prayer or service. Jesus has a little bit more of a narrow definition here as he talks about giving, particularly financially, particularly to the poor. Okay, we broaden that a little bit in our blessed practice, but let's look at how he talks about it in verse two. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you pause.
Speaker 2:And you thought virtue signaling was a problem in our day and age. Like these, dudes would literally walk out and like boop, boop, boop, here's a hundred bucks. What in the world? If you just post something on your Insta profile, I don't think it's as bad as that Hiring a trumpeteer to go in front of you as you give cash to people, craziness Anyways, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets. Here it is motives matter. He says. Why do they do this? That they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
Speaker 2:The author, Malcolm Gladwell, wrote an article called A Modest Proposal for the Future of Public Philanthropy, and I could not find it, which tells me something. I don't know why I couldn't find it. It's not on the internet anymore, probably in the archives somewhere. Anyways, this is what he was getting at. Over the last handful of years, institutions very well known some Ivy League have had a problem. Here's their problem. They were happy to take generous donations from particular donors, but then, more recently, people did the history on those donors and found that they had some skeletons in their closet, making these well-known institutions quite embarrassed. So they had a problem on their hands. Do they rename the building? But they named it in honor of the donor. Do they tear down the statue, do they? What do they do? Here's Malcolm Gladwell's Modest Proposal. I love this. He begins by saying Let us start with some Scripture because, as is nearly always the case, the Bible holds the solution to our most pressing contemporary problems.
Speaker 2:I love that Malcolm Gladwell believes that, like he out-believes some of us in that regard. He goes on. Here's his Modest Proposal. He says If there's a simple change in the tax laws in light of what Jesus says in our text this morning, this is what it would look like. One here's your first option you can donate the money and get the corresponding tax deduction, but if you choose to exercise the tax deduction for the gift, you cannot have a building named after you. In other words, your giving has to be in secret. Or two you can donate the money for a new building and put your name on it, but in that case you cannot get the tax deduction. Those are your two options To edit the tax laws. You get people out of this problem. To quote Jesus, simply, they have received their reward.
Speaker 2:And so, in our social media age, it's as if our culture has taken Jesus' principle here, inverted it and then poured gasoline on it. Like the idea of doing something in secret in order to not be seen by others is almost unthinkable In an age when everything can be postured or plastered wherever we need to so that people can get a glimpse at our righteousness and don't think for a moment, here I just mean religious people. The irreligious, the secular are just as committed to a vision of righteousness that is anybody else and portraying that for other people to see. And so I can remember having a conversation with a barista at Starbucks, and I've told you this before. I think hypocrisy is a great inroad to conversations about Jesus, because in an age of authenticity, our culture cannot stand hypocrisy. Guess who else couldn't stand hypocrisy, jesus? It's a wonderful conversation starter. So I'm talking to a barista at Starbucks about this and she actually gives me a term to describe what Jesus is talking about here, which is performative activism. Quote activism done to increase one's social capital rather than because of one's devotion to the cause.
Speaker 2:Our culture has come up with a term, performative activism, to name the tendency that Jesus is naming here. It's profoundly insightful. On a mountain in Galilee 2000 years ago, he's naming some of the concerns that influence our culture to this day. So what do we do about this? Well, we get to the heart of the matter. What is the heart of blessing? Well, the hypocritical heart is that they may be praised by others and notice Jesus' statement is just a statement of reality. It's very non-anxious.
Speaker 2:He just says, truly, I say to you, they've received their reward. Like, if what you most want is the praise of other people, you can have it In full. There you go. I think this is important. Jesus isn't like tightening the screws on people right now. He's just saying, hey, what do you want the most, you can have it. It's yours. If you most want the praise of others, that's all you. If you want something more than that, if that ever becomes not enough to satisfy eternal aches, maybe there's more on offer for you. And so his invitation is in light of the fact that we are rewarded according to our desired audience. Before whom do you want to be seen doing your righteous deeds? That's who you're going to be rewarded by. And so if you want to be praised by others, you'll receive that reward and nothing else. But Jesus says there's another way. Look with me at verse 3.
Speaker 2:But when you give to the needy, notice Jesus assumes generosity will typify his disciples. When you not, if you not, should you. When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. This is a.
Speaker 2:According to Dallas Willard, this is what's called the discipline of secrecy. The discipline of secrecy is summarizing that beautiful phrase do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. In other words, do it do something good in Jesus' name, but do it in a way where you don't have to Instagram it and that the only person that really knows is you and your father. Why would you do that? There's four, so that your giving may be in secret and your father, who sees in secret, will reward you. You see, the discipline of secrecy actually protects your heart from seeking the acclaim of others and it actually invites you to move out and do things before an audience of one, one who can actually give you the reward that you're really seeking, one who can actually tend to your heart in a really meaningful way In Jesus' mind. Here's the heart of blessing six-syllable word Theocentricity. In other words, have God at the center of your sense of security and value and success and meaning in the world. Make God the ultimate reference point for your life and you'll be set free from needing the praise of other people. That's what he says in essence here, and I love the psychological insight here.
Speaker 2:Jesus knows that one of the most powerful ways to create intimacy with another person is to share secrets with them. Statistically, I understand that most adulterous relationships start in emotionally confiding in the other person who's not your spouse. Why is that? Because secrecy creates intimacy and Jesus is inviting us. Do you want to know God as Father, to be a bright living reality in your life? Do things that you have a secret between you and him that you're the only ones who know. Do things such that he gets to enjoy your heart, to just please him and nobody else gets to know about it. You have a secret between you and the Father. It actually cultivates an intimacy, a reality between you and God.
Speaker 2:Some of us don't have reality with God because we don't have life in the secret place with God, and so Jesus is inviting us to that, and so when you feel the tug to tell others about the good things that you do, there's an invitation to go into the secret place, into that secret intimacy with the Father, and talk to him. Father, how fun is this? Wasn't it awesome when we got to just give that money and nobody has any idea where it came from, but I saw the glow on their face when they realized they were paying rent this month. That was amazing and just enjoy that experience with the Father. You don't have to tell anybody about it. Father, wasn't incredible when I was able to serve those people in a way where I drew no attention to myself. I just I'm grateful that you've called me to goodness and that we get to share this together. There's something really meaningful in this idea of they don't know but you know. There's a secrecy and intimacy that's cultivated in that place.
Speaker 2:Jesus' antidote to hypocrisy is to develop a history in God, a hidden life in God. That's his antidote to hypocrisy, not the cultural antidote to hypocrisy in an age of authenticity, which is do not do something that you don't feel like doing. That would be inauthentic. That's hypocrisy, jesus says in the kingdom of heaven, hypocrisy is when your insides and your outsides don't match. It's when your motives undermine your practices. So he invites you to the discipline of secrecy, but he goes on. Not just the heart of blessing, but the heart of prayer. Look with me at Matthew 6, verse 5. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love. Pause for a moment. Here's the heart of things. What do you love? That's the most important thing about you. They love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners. Why do they do it? Here he goes that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. Listen, living to be seen is a form of slavery.
Speaker 2:In Colossians 3, 22, the apostle Paul seems to have coined a new word Never before spoken in the Greek language. Here's the word Apsalmumodulia, something like that You're like, didn't you take Greek? I did like six years ago. This is what he says. It's this combination of apsalmus, which is the word for I think about, like an ophthalmologist right, and then dolos, which is the word for slave. And so he makes a new word called islave. Wow, what an insight that there's a form of slavery in the eyes, in the gaze, in the beholding of the other people. There's an enslavement that comes from that.
Speaker 2:To be an islave is when the level of intoxication from being praised is the exact measure of the level of depression you're going to get from criticism you track with. That. That's an islave. To be an islave is islavery is when you are equal, captive to both success and to failure. You have no idea what it's like to actually be faithful and then to abandon outcomes to God. You don't know that experience because you're an islave. You have to succeed and if you fail you're undone. In the words of Sean Hagan, who is the former general counsel of the International Monetary Fund, which I think is ironic. He confesses islavery became so bad. That quote I wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral, just wanted all eyes on him. He needed lusted after the attention of other people. He had to be beheld by other people in order to matter, in order to gain any significance in his life.
Speaker 2:Jesus wants to set you free from islavery this morning. That's the invitation. How? By receiving your image within the gaze of God. Look with me at verse six. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father, who is in secret, and your father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
Speaker 2:Listen, your identity, your sense of self, can either be one of two things, no more. It can either be achieved or received, no other way. Is your identity an achieved identity? You'll always be insecure. Is your identity a received identity? Provided that the one you're receiving it from is secure, you'll never be shaken. Jesus wants to invite you to this practice that defined his life. This is why Jesus could take criticism and it didn't bother him. Why? Because he cultivated a history of in God in the secret place. In the secret place, only in the secret place can you receive your image within the gaze of God. Only in the secret place can we actually slow down, because we care less about proving ourselves to get the praise of others. The secret place is the key to a proper pace. You have to know that If you don't have a cultivated life in God, a history in God in the secret place, you're always gonna be on the treadmill of achievement, trying to gain what you can only find in the secret place with God.
Speaker 2:Read the gospels we're almost finished with Matthew and the McShane plan but pay attention to the ways in which Jesus, at the height, at the pinnacle of his power and praise and acclamation, dips out to go in the secret place with his father. Why? Because he knew that there's no way he could derive a sense of self, a sense of identity, anywhere else, if it was gonna be stable anywhere else, but in the secret place with his father. And so he invites us to share in that. In the secret place we realign our loves to treasure the reward of being with the father. That's what the secret place does in our life, and so Jesus wants to set you free from striving, free from performing. He wants to invite you into a place where the father's approval can set you free from people's approval. He wants to invite you to a place where your life, your private life before God, actually shapes who you are in public, before others. Leonard Ravenhill put it like this a man who is intimate with God is not intimidated by man. That's the invitation of Jesus here. So tell me, tell me about your history in God, tell me about your hidden life with God. Maybe don't, given the text, but I'm curious like do you have that? Have you cultivated a life in the hidden place, in the secret place with God? It's the most important thing about who you are. Why? Because there is the only place where you can receive who God says that you are.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite prayers is this Father, help me to see what you see and feel what you feel. I prayed this for some friends recently Help me to see what you see and feel what you feel for John. Help me. I wanna know what that is, but to invite him to help you to do that, for you to see you as the Father sees you, to feel about yourself what the Father feels about yourself. That is the foundation of a sense of self. Yourself is created in dialogue with God. That's what Jesus wants to invite you into here.
Speaker 2:And so I was praying recently, which is a scary illustration, given that Jesus says beware of practicing your righteousness before other people. I didn't pray to be seen by you, but I'm gonna tell you this because I don't know any other way to illustrate this other than to tell you what it looks like in my life. So, disclaimer aside, I found myself this was, I don't think, premeditated, but I just found myself, as I was praying, saying I want the angels to know who I am when I show up in heaven. And I was like, oh, that's an interesting thing to say. But it was in the secret place with the Father, so it was good. And I realized in that moment what I was saying was I wanna be famous in the heavenly courts and don't care at all what it looks like on earth. Now, that's not entirely true. In that moment it at least felt true.
Speaker 2:And then we were reading in the McShane Bible reading plan Acts 19,. There's this amazing story that's it's so funny to me Like the Bible is humorous where the seven sons of Sceva are trying to do what Paul does and cast out demons and the demons literally say something like yeah, jesus, we're familiar with that guy, he's important Paul we even recognize cause he's doing some cool things. Who are you again? And it was interesting. I just thought the inversion of that is what I'm actually aiming at. Like I wanna show up before the throne of God when I die in heaven and I wanna be ushered in and the angels go.
Speaker 2:We know you. You've been here often, we're familiar. You're actually pretty popular in this place. You were kind of obscure on earth, but we know you. Imagine what that would do to your value system. How does that invert reality for you? Actually, in the most real way, it's the only thing that would set you free to love your neighbor, cause you don't need to get from your neighbor, do you see that? And so, as we consider what popularity before God would mean, it actually sets me free. It gives me a security to embrace obscurity before people. I don't need that promotion. I might get it and that's fine come what may, but I don't need it, because obscurity before others is okay. I have a popularity in the secret place before my father that can shape the way, alter the way you exist in this world if it really gets inside you.
Speaker 2:I know I believe most of you, almost all of you here would probably say I believe what he's saying is true. I want you to feel the truth of it, and the only place, the only way to feel the truth of it is to experience it in the secret place. It's to go to your father and to be with him there, because communion with God is the only thing that enables us to pursue community and commission with others, because we don't need to use them anymore, the people around you. You can serve them with no strings attached. Notice what Jesus says in verse 6. He says pray to your Father, who is in secret.
Speaker 2:Some of you have been asking the question lately where is God? Where is God in this, where is God in the world? Where is God in my life? Throughout the Sermon of the Mount, there's only two answers to that question. You read Matthew 5 through 7. God is in one of two places in heaven and in the secret place. That's remarkable. That's remarkable. It means that the place where you can find God most readily is going into the secret place. What Jesus says when he says go into your room, shut the door and be with your Father in secret, who is in secret. That's a promise. And your Father, who sees in secret there, will be delighted to be in your presence and to share His presence with you.
Speaker 2:Psalm 91 puts it like this he or she that dwells in the secret place of the most high will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. So in the common, rather than prayer, is to punctuate our days with prayer, to practice dependence. That's what that means for us. But some of you you hear me talking about being alone with God in the secret place, and it stirs up dread or at least disinterest. Corey Russell man I've learned a lot about prayer from says it like this we don't pray because nobody likes to talk to someone who's ugly boring and doesn't like you. That just kind of puts it on the head right. Maybe that's why you don't pray. You don't like to talk to somebody who's ugly boring and doesn't like you, and maybe that's the latent understanding of who God is One of those, or all of those. And so Jesus recognized that this is a real posture in prayer and he says in verse seven when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases, as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. He's getting at something which is a pagan form of prayer.
Speaker 2:I've quoted this before, but in her book on Exodus, the Old Testament scholar, carmen Joy MS, she quotes this ancient prayer in Akkadian, which is a language, babylonian kind of around the time of the Exodus, ancient Assyria and Babylon, and basically it dates to about the time of the Exodus. And here's the prayer I quote prayer to any God, and it's characteristic of pagan literature at that time and characteristic to the way Jesus is talking about the danger of heaping up empty phrases, as the Gentiles do, those who do not know God. This is what it says. May my Lord's angry heart be reconciled. May the God I do not know be reconciled. May the goddess I do not know be reconciled. May the God, whoever he is, be reconciled. May the goddess, whoever she is, be reconciled.
Speaker 2:Oh my Lord, how many are my wrongs? Great are my sins. Oh my God, many are my wrongs. Great are my sins. Oh my God, many are my wrongs, great are my sins. Oh God, whoever you are, many are my wrongs, great are my sins. Oh God, whoever you are, many are my wrongs, great are my sins. I do not know what I've done wrong. I do not know what sin I've committed. I do not know what abomination I've perpetrated. I do not know what taboo I violated. Amen.
Speaker 2:Jesus says. Pray then like this Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also forgiven our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, amen.
Speaker 2:Do you feel the contrast? Do you notice the difference? When you know the Father, when you've been with the Father, who is in heaven and in secret, it changes the way you pray. You don't have to twist the arm of the deity to get you what you want. Martin Luther said it best when he says prayer is not compelling the reluctance of God, but laying hold of the willingness of God. That's what Christian prayer is. That's the prayer that disciples of Jesus experience. That's why Jesus says here, verse eight do not be like them. I love that he doesn't pull punches Just like straight up. You know those people. Yeah, don't be like them.
Speaker 2:Why, before your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him? I have meditated on that text. I've been running around like Baldwin just meditating on those words. My Father knows what I need before I ask Him. I want that getting from my head down into my heart, seeping into my bones, my nervous system, to where my reactions are actually responses, living in a world where I have a Father who is in heaven and in secret, who knows what I need before I even ask, so I don't have to twist his arm.
Speaker 2:That's the invitation here. John Stott says it like this God is neither ignorant so that we need to instruct Him, nor hesitant so that we need to persuade Him. He is our Father, a Father who loves His children and knows all about their needs. You see, here's the core of the Gospel. Jesus came to give us His access to the Father. Jesus came to give us His access to the Father. All that he did in life and death and resurrection was for that aim to give you His access, so you could know the Father like he knows the Father. So the anxiety that shows up internally would be able to be dissipated and de-centered as you relate to God as Father.
Speaker 2:Union with Christ by faith enables communion with the Father in love. That's the invitation of this text in the secret place. And so, if you belong to Jesus, he introduces you to a God who is far from ugly, boring and doesn't like you. Belonging to Jesus by faith alone invites us into a relationship with a God who is both, who is beautiful and fascinating, and abundant, instead of fast love towards you because he is your Father. How? How is that possible? Ji Packer says that adoption is the highest privilege of the Gospel.
Speaker 2:The traitor is forgiven, brought in for supper and given the family name. How is that possible? Because Jesus, who is sustained by secret place intimacy with the Father, was willing to come and offer it to you, to give you access to it. You see, jesus lived a life where His Father was the ultimate reference point of His very existence. In the secret place, jesus found the answer to the fundamental questions that we all wrestle with the question of identity who am I? And the question of destiny how does my life matter? What am I here for? In John 13, one of my favorite passages in the New Testament, jesus, it says, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands and that he had come from God. That's identity origins. He had come from God and was going back to God. There's destiny.
Speaker 2:That robust sense of self, cultivated in communion with the Father in the secret place, enables Him to do the next thing here in John 13, verse 4. He rose from supper, laid aside His outer garments, taking a towel, tied it around His waist and began to wash the disciples' feet. You have to have a sense of self in order to give yourself away. Jesus knew that. But where do you get that sense of self if not in the secret place, in communion with your Father? And so Jesus, because of His theocentricity, he was enabled to take up the towel, but eventually take up a cross. You see, the reality that Jesus never knew anything but constant communion with the Father is actually. It heightens the pain, excuse me, the agony of the cross when Jesus cries out my God, my God, the first time in the Gospels where he doesn't call God, father, why have you forsaken me? God forsakenness was hell on earth for Jesus. Why? Because the Father is Jesus' ultimate point of reference for His very being. And so he tasted God forsakenness, this cut off experience for us. Jesus went out so you could be brought in. Jesus came from heaven to earth so that he could invite you into a relationship with the God of heaven. Jesus died in public, naked on a cross, ashamed, so that you could cultivate a history in God and private where you can actually allow yourself to be naked and unashamed, to stop hiding, because nothing is hidden from Him who sees you in the secret place. And so there's this powerful quote from Haddon Robinson. It should be up on the screen behind me here.
Speaker 2:Where was it that Jesus sweat great drops of blood? Not in Pilate's hall, nor on His way to Golgotha. It was in the Garden of Gethsemane. There he offered up prayers and petitions, with loud cries and tears, to the one who could save Him from death. Had I been there and witnessed that struggle, I would have been worried about the future. If he's so broken up, when all he's doing is praying, I might have said what will he do when he faces a real crisis? Why can't he approach this ordeal with the calm confidence of His three sleeping friends? Yet when the test came, jesus walked to the cross with courage and His three friends fell apart and fell away. You see, jesus was able to derive a sense of boldness and confidence from the secret place. That's where he agonized, was in the garden, in the secret place before the Father, so that he could, with boldness and confidence, carry the cross for you and for me. And now he opens up access to that secret place with the Father so that you can draw near with boldness and confidence to that throne of grace and to find mercy and grace and help for the time of need. I'm going to end where Jesus ends.
Speaker 2:We talked about the heart of blessing, the heart of prayer and now the heart of fasting. Look with me at verse 16. 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's in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
Speaker 2:If you were to ask hey, jesus, tell me like what are your core spiritual disciplines? He wouldn't say Bible reading. He wouldn't say gathered worship. I don't think he wouldn't say Sabbath, or journaling, or Instagramming Psalm 23 in the background of your Starbucks latte. He wouldn't say those things, as good as those things might be. He would say bless, pray and fast. Would you put fasting in your top three in your little triumvirate of spiritual disciplines? Jesus did and he lived it.
Speaker 2:You look at His lifestyle want of fasting and praying and blessing. Why? Because you have to remember that the principle here is that you get what you most want. You get what you most want and, unlike any other spiritual discipline, any other practice, fasting has a way to alter your desires. We talk about fasting as denying ourselves food or social media, etc. To hunger for God with others. This is because fasting, like a thermometer, actually reveals our desires. But fasting also like a thermostat, can shape our desires. As you begin to direct your hunger God word it actually shapes your desires you realize the longings that you have, these deep desires that you have. What you most want is being directed heavenward or to the secret place.
Speaker 2:John Mark Comer puts it like this. He says it's wise to regularly deny ourselves from getting what we want. That way, when somebody else denies us from getting what we want, we don't respond with anger. We're already acclimated. We don't have to get our way to be happy. I don't know about you. I'm from Detroit. I walked out this morning and I am thoroughly acclimated to Orlando, and so I was very cold. In fact, I went to Starbucks rather than the new city office, because I didn't think the office would be warm enough for me. They'll have to heat on at Starbucks.
Speaker 2:And so I say that to say there's this thing where your body actually resists a certain discomfort because you've been acclimated a certain way. Fasting acclimates us to not get what we want and to be okay with it. Like nothing's taught me this, quite like parenting. Think about parents. Think about the possibility of not getting your way and still being happy. Wouldn't that be amazing? I mean, that's the lifestyle of parenting, right?
Speaker 2:So Ronald Roheiser says you can pray an hour a day to make progress in the spiritual life, or you can be a parent. They're equivalent. Children's cries are like the monastery bells calling you to prayer. There's something to that, and so, as we close, I just want to point out fasting is not for the strong, but for the weak. You might think you got to be a spiritual titan in order to take up fasting, Like that's the last of the eight practices you're really going to take on. Listen, fasting is nothing more than voluntary weakness, and that's the way you experience it, embodied as you do it right, voluntary weakness.
Speaker 2:And so we take up Jesus's words in 2 Corinthians 12. He says my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. That's why fasting and prayer together lead to more power in the spiritual life, not because you're earning anything, but you're positioning yourself to receive what's already freely been given. That's what fasting does. It places us in the secret place before the Father, as verse 18 says, who is in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. Why? Because the heart of blessing, the heart of praying and the heart of fasting is coming heart to heart with the Father in the secret place. Let's pray, lord Jesus, we praise you that all of your life, your death, your resurrection is an invitation to us, a welcome to the access that you have with the Father. Holy Spirit, would you create new faith in people's hearts this morning, new faith to trust Jesus as the one who gives access to his presence, his secret place, relationship with the Father? Would you invite those of us who have faith, would you strengthen it, that we would seek you in the secret place, not to earn, but to receive what is already freely been offered. Praise you for that, lord Jesus. It's in your name we pray Amen.
Speaker 2:After the scripture reading and the sermon, we respond. We pray. God speaks to us through scripture and through sermons, and now we are responding in prayer because we're being invited, right here in this very moment, into that dialogue. That is the foundation of your sense of self, and so here's what I'm inviting you to do I want us to go to the secret place right now. I want us to come to the Father through Jesus. I want you to lay hold on the access that is yours by faith in Christ, and I want you to go there simply to receive, to receive from the Father, who is in secret and who sees you in secret. I'm inviting you now even to close your eyes and to turn your attention towards God, who is present to us in this very moment.
Speaker 2:I'm asking you, father, would you speak over these brothers and sisters of mine. Speak over them the words that you spoke over your son, jesus, at his baptism you are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter, with whom I am well pleased. Holy Spirit, it is your work, according to Romans 5, to pour out the love of the Father into the hearts of your children. Do that now, as we open ourselves to you to receive from you Spirit of God. Search us and know us, highlight to us the places where we have resistance, show us the things that hinder us from receiving from the Father in a secret place. We have access in one spirit, through you, lord Jesus, to the Father. We claim that in Jesus' name, amen.