(Preached at First Baptist, Pauls Valley, OK 10-26-14)
A Christian disciple from India came to the United States a few years ago, and made the tour of a number of our Baptist churches, both observing and speaking. After a few weeks, he asked a question of his host. He said he had enjoyed the worship services, and the preaching, and the fellowships, and he noted all the good food they had eaten together at their Baptist churches. “But,” he asked: “When do you fast?” That’s a good question. When DO we fast?
As we continue our series, “The Disciplines of Disciples”, we have seen that Jesus commands those who would come after Him to deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow Him. And we have seen that there are a number of spiritual disciplines which we are to adopt as His disciples, including daily time in God’s word & prayer, spontaneous praying throughout the day, and scripture memory. This morning we will look at another discipline, but one which has received scant attention from most Baptists, and that is the discipline of fasting.
I will say up front that I am not the world’s greatest authority on fasting. I grew up a Southern Baptist, and we are much more famous for our fellowships than our fasting! But I have fasted some in recent years, and God has been speaking to me more about it. In fact, a few weeks ago, I was considering fasting about something important to me, and then in the course of my daily Bible reading I came across a passage in Ezra which speaks about fasting, and it confirmed some things in my heart about it. I think it would be good for all of us to look at this passage together. Ezra 8:21 will be our text this morning as we consider “The Discipline of Fasting.”
shawnethomas 