The Power of Prayer and Fasting

I told you this was going to be a different sermon. I may lose my place here with these young people here. I want to just give you the fourth point. The fourth thing that we see in the scripture is that they were passionate about prayer. Did you see there at the end? They devoted themselves to the teaching and to the fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and prayers. Folks, sharing our faith is not so much about a program. And I love Evangelism Explosion, faith, CWT, four spiritual laws. I love every one of those things. And I've been trained and certified, but that doesn't make me share my faith. It gives me some tools to allow me to share my faith. Sharing our faith is not about a program. It's about a heart and a passion. And it becomes a way of life for us that we live constantly with the heart and the desire to tell the good news. Just like Brevin did today, that he knows Christ as his Lord and Savior. That is good news. We talked a little bit about fasting today. But let me share with you the reason that we fast and why we should fast. Biblical fasting is always a spiritual process. And it's always connected to prayer and Bible study. This is not a diet program, folks. That's not why we fast. We fast because there's biblical examples of it in the Bible. Our Lord and Savior fasted. Paul fasted. Esther fasted. The kings would fast. Moses fasted. Most of the fasting in the Bible, though, is a private matter. Every now and then it was corporate. There are some examples of corporate times of fasting. King Jehoshaphat called the nation to fast. Esther called all of the Jewish people in Persia to fast because Haman was doing evil things and had a plan to actually get all of the Jewish folks killed. And she knew that she had to talk to the king. That could very much cost her life. So she asked Mordecai and all of her brothers and sisters and all of the folks that were there to fast three days. And God showed up. And in 1756, the king of Britain asked the nation to fast in England because the French were going to come and they were going to invade Britain. On February 6th, John Wesley wrote this. 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 tranquility. In a footnote he wrote, humility was turned into a national rejoicing for the threatened invasion by the French was averted. I don't know what that means to you, but that's answered prayer. There is a need for us to understand that fasting is a biblical thing that we should do. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was teaching about giving. He was teaching about praying. And he was teaching about fasting. And he used the word before those things, when you give, this is what you do. When you pray, this is what you do. And when you fast, this is what you do or what you don't do. I'd like to read what he said about that in Matthew chapter 6 verse 16. It says, and when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. In other words, they would put ash on them and they would be out in the square where everybody could see them. And they would be there just making the most wonderful faces, not. And people would look at them and say, well, they must be religious, they must be fasting, they must be holy. And all the time, they were hypocritical. Maybe not even truly fasting. But it wasn't about their relationship with God. Jesus goes on and says, truly I say to you, they have received the reward. But, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face. In other words, look normal. Look clean. That your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret. And when your Father who sees in secret will reward you. I believe the fasting that I'm calling you to is private. I'm not going to check up on you. But what it is, is that we center on God during this time. Fasting must forever center on God. And when we fast, we center on God. I would hope at the minimum that you adults would take one lunch hour, one supper hour, one breakfast hour. Take one hour. And instead of eating, fasting, and spending that hour in prayer. During this 21 days, I want you to pray like you've never prayed before. But to understand what it means to fast. Make at a minimum that commitment of taking one day a week. So we're only asking you to do that three times during these 21 days. One of the books that I've been reading just recently is by Richard Foster, called Celebration of the Disciplines. And he has a whole chapter there on fasting. If you want to know more, this little brochure will help you a lot on understanding fasting. But he has a whole chapter, and he really suggests that if you've never done a complete food fast, you need to work up to that. That's not an easy thing to do. If you've ever tried that, you'll understand that it's a difficult thing to do. But he says something that he quoted Charles Spurgeon. He said, our seasons of fasting and prayer at the tabernacle have been high days indeed. Never has heaven's gate stood wider. Never have our hearts been near the central glory. Let me encourage you this, that as a church, if we will commit to these 21 days of praying for our church, we will see God's glory open up in ways we never thought imaginable. I believe that with all of my heart. So therefore, fasting is not so much as an abstaining from food, as it is feasting on the Word of God. Spend some time with God. What are your time crunchers? What are the things that steal and rob time away from God in your life? Television, computers, phones, sports, activities. I don't know what it is. Let God convict you and convince you of where you can spend some more time and central and be focused on Him. Because when we do, let me make the transition back to the sermon. When we, God's people, get on our face before a holy God, there will be renewal, there will be revival, there will be lives changed. People will come to know Jesus Christ as a personal Savior. You will have opportunity upon opportunity to share your faith because God's people get on their face before a holy God in prayer. Prayer becomes probably the most important thing in sharing our faith. I would encourage you during this time to pray for lost people. We've been doing that on Wednesday nights. Pray for the lost. I've been praying daily for someone I know that is lost, that needs Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. So during this 21 days, focus on somebody that you know that needs to know Christ. And you pray for them. Pray for divine appointments. I have a lot of stories I could share with you where God just opened up the door and allowed me the privilege and the opportunity. I wasn't expecting it. They just showed up asking questions. And I had the privilege to share the gospel with them. Pray for divine appointments. So there's three things that I want to encourage us with as I come to a close. Number one, I think it's on the next screen, I think. No, go back up one. I'm sorry. Go back up. There. God calls us to share our faith. Sorry about that. 2 Corinthians 5, listen to this. All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Folks, God, if you are a believer, God calls you to share your faith. God calls you to share your story. We are ambassadors. We don't do the reconciling. We don't do the saving. That's God's job. God is the one who reconciles people unto himself. We are part of the ministry of the reconciliation. We have the privilege to be ambassadors of the gospel. We need to be prepared and ready to do that. And it's just as simple as sharing your story about what God's done in your life. The second thing, living your faith is the best way to share your faith. Let me ask you personally this morning, what is your evangelism strategy? If someone were to come up to me and say, come up to you today and say, I don't have a clue what's going on in my life. I don't know about eternity. What would you say? Let me share something with you folks that when we grow in discipleship, when we learn scripture, and that's why I wanted Maddie to share this passage of scripture with you today, because God puts that on our heart at the right time to be able to share the gospel with people. And when we grow, the church grows. When we learn God's word and we're able to share that, and there are all kinds of strategies on how to share the gospel, the last thing I'm going to talk about in just a moment is this. Speak up about your faith when the time is right. When God puts that person in your life, you need to speak up. Why do we get so afraid to share what God has given us? We should be running to tell people about Jesus. We should be on the mountaintop shouting, Jesus saves. But for some reason Satan gives us this little lie in that when somebody comes up searching for meaning in life, we clam up and we get afraid that they're going to not accept the gospel. That's not our job. Our job is simply to proclaim it. And what God has done for us and what we know is real in our life. He died for us. He has given us the gift of eternal life. You know that in your life. Sharing what God has done for you is simple. I have shared this with you before. Three quick things. Before I met Christ, what was your life like? Mine was rebellion, very simple. Without God, rebellion. How I met Christ is I heard the gospel being preached and a revival. I heard a Sunday school teacher teach me every week about my need to ask for forgiveness for my sin and my life changed when I accepted Christ as my personal savior. And now that I've met Christ, my life is full of obedience. I'm not perfect, but I live in obedience to what he's called me to do. See, I took one life concept, talked about rebellion. What's the opposite of rebellion? Obedience. I just shared a testimony with you. I could make it longer, I could make it shorter, but everybody can share what just Brevin did today. I accepted Christ as my personal savior. That is at the minimum of what we can do. You let God do the rest of it. He is the one that is the reconciler, but we have the opportunity and privilege to be ambassadors. That is God's word this morning on sharing my faith. In the middle of all this, someone here this morning, I believe, has never accepted Christ as their real and personal savior. If you were to die today, you would be lost in eternity, separated from God in a place that is not heaven, that is hell. You need to accept Christ today. Many of us here are afraid to share the gospel. You need to pray for boldness. You need for these next 21 days to ask God to help you on how to share the story of faith that you have in your life. Whatever God is saying to you today, would you be obedient? Father, Father, I've said what I believe you've told me to say today. I thank you for those students who went, as Joe White shared the gospel, and lives were changed. Father, may this church be sold out for Jesus. May we understand our mission is not to sit and be comfortable, but to go and make disciples that make disciples. Father, if there's someone that the Holy Spirit of God is convicting today that they are lost, Father, if there's someone that the Holy Spirit of God is convicting today that they are lost, may they simply ask Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sin, ask for Jesus to come into their life, and to be received as the resurrected living king. And we will give you praise for that, Father. In Jesus' name. We have a time called an invitation. It's a time for you to respond.