The Sufficiency of God

Download: Audio

Click to download the sermon manuscript.

 

Scripture: Deuteronomy 26:1-11

When you have entered the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it, 2 take some of the first fruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land that the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Read more…

Looking to Sunday

by Elaine Poproski

I’ve been thinking a lot about fasting as I’ve been preparing for Lent this year. It’s not a new thing for me to think about, but I find I’m thinking about it in a different way this year. That’s because of our focus on Spiritual Disciplines.

Fasting is a commonly recognized Spiritual Discipline. It’s about going without food. Sometimes people fast for a morning, or for a day, or longer. Sometimes people fast from everything except water. Sometimes people fast only from particular foods or particular types of foods. There’s not much in the Bible about how to fast because it was such a common practice shared by most religions, that people didn’t need to be instructed. They just knew to do it and how to do it.

I don’t think I had ever heard of fasting until I was an adult. And then it was a Lent thing people sometimes did. They fasted from chocolate or coffee mostly. I had a friend who fasted from going to movies. As I understood it, Lent was a time to give something up that we enjoy. I was a bit fuzzy on the why. I knew it had something to do with the cross. Maybe by giving up something we enjoyed we were supposed to be identifying with the cross? But I couldn’t figure out how my giving up chocolate for 6 weeks could possibly compare to Jesus giving up everything on the cross.

I also encountered people who fasted whenever they really, really wanted something from God. They prayed and fasted, as if the fasting would help persuade God if the praying weren’t quite persuasive enough. And then there were those who said we had to practice fasting because doing so would help us overcome sin and bad habits. It was all couched in spiritual language, but seemed to have more in common with dieting and self-improvement than God.

So, what is fasting supposed to be? In what way is it a Spiritual Discipline? And why, if I’m talking about fasting on Sunday, are we going to read Deuteronomy 26:1-11 – a passage that’s usually used to talk about giving?

As you prepare for Sunday, considering your own assumptions and embedded beliefs about fasting. What is it about? What is it supposed to accomplish? Why should any of us bother with fasting at all? Perhaps also spend some time reading Deuteronomy 26:1-11. We’ll have time to listen for God’s voice in those words on Sunday, but maybe we could start listening before Sunday.