Deleted Scenes: The Purpose and Pitfall of Fasting. Romans 2:17-29

On Sunday, I concluded the sermon with an invitation to let go of every spiritual badge of pride, every basis for self-righteousness, every way that we think we can save ourselves, and come to the Lord in humility. I began that morning by talking about my very humble car. As a human, my heart is able to take even that car and twist into something that displays my superior virtue. Paul’s fellow Jews in Romans 2 had done that with the Law and with circumcision. The fact is, we can do that work of self-justification with just about anything.

I was thinking about that today in relation to fasting. In many ways, fasting is a manifestation of that heart posture of complete humility that I’ve talked about in Romans. It is the physical representation of having nothing apart from a dependence on God’s grace. It seems to me that this is the way fasting operates in the Bible (fasting as the act of abstaining from something, primarily food, for a period of time). Fasting is an appropriate act when you know you’ve come to the end of yourself. It’s for when you don’t know which way to go. It’s for when you become most aware of your weaknesses and sinfulness. When we come into situations like that, we often puff ourselves up and try to summon whatever strength we have in ourselves. Fasting does the opposite: it gets us to lean into our weakness, fully acknowledging it before the Lord, in order to give Him the space to do what only He can do.

For example, the prophet Joel announced that because of the unfaithfulness of God’s people, He would be sending an onslaught of locusts that would destroy their crops. Joel urged the people to heed this warning: “‘even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’ Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.” (Joel 2:12-13) This is evidently what the people did, and God replied. He promised that because of their acknowledgement of sin and sincere repentance, He would restore them and even “repay you for the years the locusts have eaten” (2:25). Again, fasting is an expression of our weakness and our need for God to do what only He can. As a result, fasting can be a way of opening up room for God to make His power known.

I want to recommend this practice to you if there are situations in your life where you long for God to work but you know you’re helpless to accomplish. To be clear, I don’t mean longings that are really about your status and pride, but rather longings that would glorify Him. Fasting is not something that is common in the Western church, because humility and desperation have not been common either. We’ve generally lived in excess and with the expectation of comfort. Fasting grates against that. For that reason, it’s something we need to re-discover in the Western church.

However, a caution needs to be made here. Remember what I was able to do with my Hyundai, and what the Jews were able to do with circumcision and the law? We can do that with fasting too. We can wear our willingness to forego food for a period of time as a spiritual badge of pride that marks us out as superior to others. Instead of expressing our weakness, it becomes a way to prove our spiritual strength. Once that shift happens, fasting is completely devoid of its purpose. That’s why Jesus, in Matthew 6, says “when (notice that he seems to assume this is something we’ll do) you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:16-18)

When you come to the end of yourself and are desperate for God to work, consider fasting. But watch your heart, that it doesn’t become a point of pride. Instead, let it be an expression of your weakness, that His power would rest on you (2 Corinthians 12:9).