Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, you call your children to attention on Sundays like these. Where we are reminded that the world we live in is dark and death still rules. But God, we know that for those who are part of your kingdom, death has no victory. We know sin has no sting. We thank you for your son, Jesus, who died for us to make that our reality here and now. As we look forward to your second coming, we ask that you keep our hearts in check, and our minds clear to your ways, to your purposes, and to the things that you are doing in this world to redeem it in all the fullness of your glory. God help us love each and every person, from the baby still unborn to the oldest of us. Lord, we know that it is when we love one another fully like you love us that the world we know you and we want the world to know you. Help us sit in your word today and grow spiritually and have clarity in following you as radical disciples. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.  

We’ll be in Esther, chapter 4 today.

When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and he cried out with a loud and bitter cry. ² He went up to the entrance of the king’s gate, for no one was allowed to enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth. ³ And in every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.

⁴ When Esther’s young women and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed. She sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. ⁵ Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what this was and why it was. ⁶ Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate, ⁷ and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. ⁸ Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her and command her to go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of her people. ⁹ And Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. ¹⁰ Then Esther spoke to Hathach and commanded him to go to Mordecai and say, ¹¹ “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.”

¹² And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. ¹³ Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. ¹⁴ For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” ¹⁵ Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, ¹⁶ “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.” ¹⁷ Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him. (Esther 4:1-17 ESV)

Introduction

We’re in week three of our series, “This is What We Do” where we’re talking about seven spiritual practices that causes us to be radical followers of Christ. Today we’re talking about fasting and prayer and this is like a two-for-one because we’re talking about the benefits of practicing two spiritual practices together.

Have you ever had the need of a breakthrough in your life? A breakthrough is a sudden, dramatic, and important discovery or development.

Maybe a

• a medical breakthrough from a diagnosis
• or a financial breakthrough because you don’t know how you’re going to pay next month’s bills
• or a relationship breakthrough because your marriage is on the rocks
• Maybe even a faith breakthrough.

The reason we need breakthroughs in our lives is because, well we find ourselves stuck and without a breakthrough we’re not moving forward with life, but we know we can’t move backward nor are there any lateral movements we can make that would change our circumstances. So in faith we turn to God. Many of us placed our trust in Jesus with our lives for this very reason. There was just a never-ending cycle of sin and destruction that caused us to cry out for help and it got us started looking for somebody who could help. Breakthrough came for us in Jesus Christ.

An area Michelle and I have been praying for breakthrough lately is for a medical breakthrough for our younger daughter Clara who has suddenly, from about six months ago began suffering from seizures on an almost monthly basis with no rhyme or reason and after the fact, so we’re helpless as parents and then afterward, we’re picking up the pieces of her little life as it was disrupted until she can return to normal. Through this, what I’m sure about is that God is Clara’s faithful father and he provides breakthrough to his children.  

Whether you need him to intervene and change your life or if you been looking for ways of breaking through to another level of being a radical follower of Jesus, then take note of the importance of prayer and fasting in our lives.

The book of Esther follows the story of an orphan girl, taken in, and raised by her cousin as if she were his own daughter, in a foreign country, in which she later becomes its queen with some help from a faithful guide. If that sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the Disney princess archetype, but note that it was in the Bible first.

Let me set the stage for this book.

In the days of king Ahasuerus, that’s king Xerxes of Persia, there was a queen. Her name was Vashti. Queen Vashti was asked by the king to come to one of his parties, and she refused. The king became angry and then had her executed to make a point. We won’t go into anger issues or marital problems. So now the king is a widow and the people who were taking care of his needs said, the man needs a wife. And thus began a nationwide search for the next queen of the Persian empire.

Esther was entered into this nationwide search for a queen and Mordecai being the only family she had would regularly checking up on her and giving her advice. That’s what it’s like to have spiritual family in your life. The main piece of advice he gives is how she could best fit in with the majority being a minority in society. If you’re a child of immigrant parents, or immigrants yourselves, you understand the need for yourself and/or you kids “fitting in” and the advice Mordecai gave to Esther. All that to say, when it was Esther’s turn to be taken to the king, she fit in better than the locals  and won the contest of becoming queen. The Bible says when it was Esther’s turn, the king fell in love with her and made her queen.

Here’s the plot twist. There was a man named Haman who hated Esther’s cousin, Mordecai. He hated Mordecai because Mordecai refused to violate his conscience by bowing before somebody else as if a god. Haman found out that Mordecai was a Jew, and comes up with a plan to lobby for and legalize the genocide of all the Jewish people in Persia. Political vendettas, also not a new phenomenon, documented in the Bible already.

This brings us to chapter 4 that we just read. Mordecai, Esther’s cousin, becomes sad, despondent and inconsolable at the news of this new law. The exact the advice Mordecai gave to Esther – don’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself by not “fitting-in”, Mordecai did just that, he was out there in front of the king’s gate drawing unnecessary attention to himself by not fitting in.  

So Esther tries to console her cousin. Mordecai asks Esther to use her title and position to go plead before the king on behalf of her people and give them a breakthrough. But here’s the problem, verse 10.

¹⁰ Then Esther spoke to Hathach and commanded him to go to Mordecai and say, ¹¹ “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.” (Esther 4:10-11 ESV)

Nobody can just go walk in before the king without risking certain death, and depending on his mood, you may be executed. So even though she’s the queen, she hadn’t seen the king in a month. Then Mordecai responds in verse 13,

“Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. ¹⁴ For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13b-14 ESV)

Mordecai paints the picture well, the people of God need a breakthrough and that breakthrough is going to require Esther to act boldly in faith. Breakthroughs only come if you’re looking for it. It requires faith to start looking. Mordecai tells Esther to consider the very purpose and mission of her life. Is to simply live in within her own comforts or does it have greater meaning and purpose?

You and I are called by God for a mission and purpose greater than this life alone. That’s why prayer and fasting are so important for us to practice as Jesus’ radical disciples bridging Christ’s love to those that do not know him.

• Prayer is our act of faith and our work of interceding for God’s breakthrough.
• Fasting postures us to rely on God for breakthrough.

 Verse 15.

¹⁵ Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, ¹⁶ “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.” ¹⁷ Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him. (Esther 4:15-17 ESV)

Esther tells Mordecai to gather “all the Jews” and fast together. What’s implied here is that while they are fasting they are praying to God for a breakthrough.

Point 1. Prayer and fasting seeks God’s blessing for his mission for us

Don’t miss this, God’s blessings are our breakthroughs. When we pray and fast together we are seeking God’s breakthrough for his purposes for our lives.

Starting tomorrow, Monday through next Sunday, that’s 7 days. I want to invite you, just as Esther invited all the Jews in Susa, into a week of fasting and praying. There are three specific breakthroughs we are seeking a blessing in from God in 2024:

1. [show slide 1] For personal revival and a vision of God’s promises in our lives (breakthrough for ourselves)
2. [show slide 2] For specific opportunities to share the gospel with people in our lives (breakthrough for others)
3. [show slide 3] For our church family and the accomplishment of God’s mission here in the DMV area (breakthrough for our church family)

What is fasting?

In the Bible, fasting is the spiritual discipline of going without food for the purposes of connecting with and relying on God for our sustenance. In principle, fasting, is withholding from something we need so our attention can be on how and what God provides.

Theologian Donald Whitney, says about fasting:

… fasting is [not] a kind of spiritual hunger strike that compels God to do our bidding. If we ask for something outside of God’s will, fasting does not cause him to reconsider. Fasting does not change God’s hearing so much as it changes our praying. (Spiritual Disciplines, 166)

Don’t fast to get the winning lottery numbers from God this year, it’s not happening. But do fast if your aim is to align your prayers and your way of life to the way God prescribes.

Having said that, I want to introduce you to four types of fasts that you can participate in this week so you can set your attention on God. [show slide 4]

1. Complete Food Fast – In this type of fast, this is typically the type of fast you see in the Bible. That’s what Esther and the Jews of Susa did. In our version, you drink only liquids.
2. Partial Food Fast – This fast involves abstaining from eating any type of food for a certain period of time each day. For example, you can choose to skip certain meals. This is like intermittent fasting. Historically, this is what the Jewish people did on their minor fasts, as they abstained from eating between sunrise and sunset.
3. Selective Food Fast – This type of fast involves removing certain elements from your diet: like no meat, sweets, and bread from your diet and consume water for fluids and going vegetarian for your meals. This is what Daniel did when he came to Babylon. This is similar to traditional Catholics and Eastern Orthodox practices during lent.
4. Soul Fast – If you don’t have much experience fasting food, have health (or other) issues that prevent you from fasting food, then try this fast. In a soul fast, you seek to remove activities and habits that distract your attention from God. So you might choose to fast social media, or television, for the duration.

Here’s what I want to make clear as I invite you to fast with your church family. 7 days is a long time. You may not make it all 7 days in one type of fast. So if you are tempted to not participate because you can’t do one type of fast all 7 days, then don’t let that be an excuse. Mix and match the types of fasts but choose the fasts that will stretch your faith and draw your attention to God.

For example, my plan is to go total food fast for three days, then move into a partial food fast the rest of the time. Here’s why, I have two young kids that run around, when I’m fasting and leaning on God, I don’t want anybody’s pity, I need to keep up and take care of the people I need to take care of.

Church don’t give up fasting, don’t elect not to participate, plan to fast this week so you can spend the entire 7 days drawing your attention toward God with the rest of your church family. Myself, the church staff, the elders, the deacons, deaconesses, your life group leaders, we’re all praying for you and cheering you on as we do this together.

Here’s what you’ll notice as you fast and draw your attention to God, you will pray for breakthrough and your prayers will change. Listen to what the Bible says.

• Nehemiah 1:4-6: ⁴ As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. ⁵ And I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, ⁶ let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant…
• Daniel 9:3-4: ³ Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. ⁴ I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession…
• Joel 2:12-14: ¹² “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; ¹³ and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. ¹⁴ Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him…
• Acts 13:1-3: ¹ Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. ² While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” ³ Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

Fasting enriches our prayers.

What is Prayer?

Prayer is simply communicating with God. “Prayer” might be a spiritual word, but really the only difference between our communication with God and with other people is who is on the other side of our communication.

So lets break the wall of prayer down further. If prayer is communication, then like all  communication, prayers can be categorized in one of 4 categories. Let me show you. [show slide 5]

1. Adoration – praising God for all that he is. Or if this is with people, it’s telling people you love them or care for them. It’s lifting up their spirits.
2. Confession – being honest about your mistakes and asking for forgiveness before God. Or with people, it’s saying sorry and then working to make things right.
3. Thanksgiving – telling God thanks for things in your life. Yes, when somebody gives you a cup of water, you say thank you.
4. Supplication – bringing on requests for yourself and others. This can be solicitation if you’re in sales. Now the back and forth of supplications between two people is called a debate or an argument, the extreme version is called fighting.

This is how we pray, just like we’re having a normal communication with somebody else. There is no difference in the categorization of our communication with God as there are with other people, so let’s not over-engineer prayer. Let’s just communicate with God.

The goal this week for praying is to spend enough time to have a two-way communication with God. For me, that’s anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour and a half each day. That sounds like a lot, but it’s really not. The average person spend about 2 hours verbally communicating every day. An average conversation is just under 30 minutes in fact. So we’re going to break down our prayers like our normal communication. So try this method of praying as you’re fasting.

During the time you’re supposed to be making, eating, and cleaning up breakfast, spend 15 minutes praying in lieu of those activities because that’s how long it would take you to complete those activities. If that’s longer than your normal breakfast, then do 10 minutes. The point is to take the time to communicate with God. [show slide 6] Then do the same thing at lunch, snack, dinner, or before bed, etc. Before you know it, you’ve communicated with God that day between 40 minutes to an hour.

If that’s difficult because in many conversations you feed off the other person to give you prompts, then try writing down your prayers using this framework of prayer prompts. [show slide 7]

• Remember the three areas of breakthrough we are seeking this week? Those are prayer prompts.
• Remember the categories of conversation? Those are the lenses by which you should be talking about the prayer prompts.

Here’s the beauty of this framework, when you are praying, you’d be surprised by the insight you receive from God communicating back to you through vision, feelings, and even your words of prayer through lenses of those categories. Writing down your prayers and recording the responses from God is called journalling. 

When you journal, number one, prayer becomes easy, but tracking back what God is telling you and doing for you becomes much more clear. If you never journaled before, I want to encourage you to try journalling as you fast and pray this week. There is a 7 day journal online, on our website, you can download to help you practice using this framework. By the end of this week, you’ll see three things:

• Patterns in your gratitude toward God.
• Specific action steps that you should incorporated as you seek breakthroughs.
• Opportunities to minister the gospel in word or in deed to specific people.

Now you’ve not communicated with God in prayer for at least 10 to 15 minutes each time you journal. When we communicate with God and read what we wrote or received from God in prompts, we believe them, and then we implement them.

Back to Esther. The second reason Esther asked Mordecai to fast and pray with the other Jews, was because:

Point 2. Praying and fasting gives us the resolve to obey God

Esther 5:1-3

¹On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king’s palace, in front of the king’s quarters, while the king was sitting on his royal throne inside the throne room opposite the entrance to the palace. ² And when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, she won favor in his sight, and he held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. Then Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter. ³ And the king said to her, “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you, even to the half of my kingdom.” (Esther 5:1-3 ESV)

Breakthrough came because Esther resolved to act in faith and obey God’s calling on her life. This is only the beginning of her breakthroughs from God. I want to encourage you to read the rest of Esther on your own to see how God blesses Esther for her faith.

The two reasons I’m inviting you to fasting and praying this week is because I believe we will experience the spiritual breakthrough we need and want as radical disciples of Jesus, but more than that, it is so that we would have the resolve of faith we need to live well this year as we work on the mission God gives us, confident to obey his will for us.  

Before Jesus’ public ministry, he spent time in prayer and fasting in the wilderness. It was in fasting and prayer that God not only blessed Jesus’ mission by rebuffing the temptations of the devil, but also empowered him with the resolve to live perfectly, fulfilling the law of God. It was this same resolve and blessing from God that Jesus was enabled to bear the cross of our punishment and die for our sins. The act of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross gave us the ultimate breakthrough in this life. We did not deserve or earn that breakthrough, but received it as a gift when we most needed it. We became adopted children of God, citizens of the kingdom of God and the impossible, became possible because of this breakthrough caused by death of the perfect on a tree.

Fasting and prayer are not a means to salvation, Jesus is the only way. But we follow Jesus as his radical disciples in fasting and prayer so that through these disciplines we can be resolved to obey God in our lives and also to seek God’s breakthroughs on the mission he puts us on. God’s mission for us is too great for us to carry out on our own, but God is faithful and provides breakthroughs for the mission. Let’s

Big Idea: pray and fast to declare our reliance on God’s provision

Pray with me.

Father in heaven, thank you for blessing us with the ultimate breakthrough – salvation by faith in your son. I ask that as we purpose ourselves to fast and pray this week, that you would provide encouragement, provision, and resolve as we declare our reliance on you and you alone. Lord, I want to pray for the people in this room who need breakthroughs in their lives, both spiritual and physical breakthroughs, God, I ask that you allow them to experience the fullness of your grace and mercy and the breakthroughs you are providing. Bless us father as we take a giant leap of faith by fasting and praying this week. Sanctify us through this act of faithfulness. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.