Sunday, July 20, 2008

Fasting God's Fast

Today, we will have a Covered Dish after the service. Today, we will talk about Fasting because fasting is not always dealing with food.

How many of you have ever missed a meal? How about not eating for a day because of sickness? Is there anyone here that has gone without food for a week because of lack of money to buy food? Is there anyone here who has purposely stopped eating because you wanted to loose weight?
皆さんは食事を取れなかったときがありますか?
または病気で食べれなかったことはありますか?この中でお金がなくて一週間ほど、食事が出来なかったことがある人いますか?また、減量したくて食事を取らなかった人はいますか?

Have you ever fasted? Missed one meal? Two meals? Three meals? Two days? Four days? A week long fast? One month? 40 days?

Let’s answer what a fast is. One man wrote that fasting is the most powerful spiritual discipline of all the Christian disciplines.
断食をしたことはありますか?一食だけでしたか?二食でしたか?それとも三食ですか?二日ですか?一週間ですか?一ヶ月ですか?40日ですか?
では断食とは何でしょうか?ある人は断食とは霊的訓練の中で一番強力なものだと言っています。

I would think there is a more powerful one but it goes along with fasting and that is what? Prayer. Through the twin disciplines of fasting and prayer, the Holy Spirit can change and transform your life and your life’s direction.

Fasting has not been on the “I want to do this” list for a long time.
私は断食とあるものが一緒になるともっと力強いものとなると思います。それは祈りです。断食と祈りを通して、聖霊は皆さんの生活とその方向性を変えてくださるのです。
断食はやりたいことリストにはないと思います。

Fasting had been part of the believer’s arsenal for a long time. Over the years, I have seen real evidence of God’s pleasure in those who exercise Fasting and Prayer together.
断食は信者の武器の一部となってきました。ここ何年間、私は断食と祈りの中で神さまの喜びを見ました。

I believe that these two tools, if you will, when put under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and in light of the Scriptures in seeking God’s heart--not His hand--our churches, our families, our communities, our nation and yes, even our world will see a huge difference. “If My People who are called by My Name will humble themselves and pray...I will hear from Heaven and will heal their land.”
私は断食と祈りを通して、聖霊に導かれ、御言葉の光の中で、神の御手ではなく、心を求めるなら、教会、コミュニティ、国、世界までもが変わると信じます。

Our land needs a touch of God. So do our families. We are all in turmoil and in need of healing in our relationships with each other and with God.

This discipline has been listed in many books today as being one of many.
この地は神さまに触れられることが必要です。私たちの家族にも必要です。私たち全ては混乱の中にいるので、人間関係、また神さまの関係において癒しが必要です。

Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Don Whitney and Kent Hughes and others have listed them out in book they had written to help restore this discipline as a regular part of the Christian Walk of Faith.

Internal disciplines: Meditation, Prayer, Fasting, and Study.
External: Simplicity, Stewardship, Solitude, Submission, Service, and Evangelism.
リチャード フォスター、ダラス ウィラード、ドン ホィットニー、ケント ヒューズはクリスチャンの信仰の歩みなどについて本を出しました。 内側の訓練として黙想、祈り、断食、勉強があります。
外側の訓練は純真さ、管理義務、世を捨てる、従順、奉仕、伝道などがあります。

We are reminded
"Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come." 1 Timothy 4:7b-8 NASBⅠ
1テモテ4:7-8の御言葉が思い出されます。
敬虔のために自分を鍛錬しなさい。
肉体の鍛錬もいくらかは有益ですが、今のいのちと未来のいのちが約束されている敬虔は全てに有益です。

Fasting has been a forgotten road for the follower of Christ maybe because it had some bad press. Someone did it and died. Some world leaders did it but they were not Christian so why should we? No time. I don’t HAVE to do it because Jesus does not command us to do it.
断食はクリスチャンに忘れられてしまっています。悪い印象があるのかも知れません。断食をして死んだ人がいる。クリスチャンでない世界的リーダーがしているからしない。時間がない。イエス様が命令していないから。

That last statement is a true one YET Jesus does say: “When you fast…” Matt 6:16-18 "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, 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 men 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."
確かに命令はされていませんが、聖書にはこう書いてあります。
マタイ6:16-18

To borrow from Dallas Willard, fasting in its purest form is nothing more than a confirmation of our “utter dependence upon God by finding in Him a source of sustenance” beyond all other things. (The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives).
ダラス ウィラードの言葉を借りて言いますが、純真な断食とは生活の前面において神を探し求め、完全に神に信頼することを確認するものなのです。

As though it was something one does without being told to do it---the ‘YOU UNDERSTOOD’ in a sentence. “____ sit down!” How about; “____ pray.”

Where does Fasting first start? With Moses. He did a long one: 40 days! That has come to be called “A Divinely directed fast” as it is way hard and LONG. Only a few in the Bible, we are told, did such a long fast. It is not the length of the fast that counts. It is your attitude. Your heart condition.

I want to humble myself and deny myself for His Sake.

Could be fasting from anything: Food, drink, smoking, sex, TV, chocolate, but not fasting from things that are sin, like fasting from stealing, lying, killing, swearing. We would just need not do those things.
断食は強制されてするものではありません。断食はいつ始まったのでしょうか?モーセからです。彼は40日断食をしました。それは「神に導かれた断食」と言われ、長く苦しいものでした。聖書の数箇所にこのような断食のことが書かれています。断食は長くやればいいという訳ではありません。皆さんの態度、また心のあり方によるのです。神さまのために自分を捨て、へりくだりたいという思いが必要です。
断食は何にでも当てはまります。食べ物、飲み物、タバコ、セックス、テレビ、チョコレート。しかし、盗み、うそ、殺し、呪いなどの
罪はそれには当てはまりません。


In the Old Testament, we find that fasting was part of the Day of Atonement celebration.

Leviticus 16:29-30 gives us the set up. "This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourselves [fast] and not do any work—whether native-born or an alien living among you-because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the LORD, you will be clean from all your sins."
旧約聖書の中で、あがないの日の祭りで断食をしたと書いてあります。
レビ記16:29-30

Part of the whole package of being a member of the Hebrew Family. Just one day each year, for this particular fast.

God’s Fast is described in Isa 58:1-10 ヘブル人として生まれたのなら断食はつきものです。一年に一度断食をしました。イザヤ58:1-10
1 "Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins. 2 For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. 3 'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?' "Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. 4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD ?
6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. 9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. "If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, 10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.”

Not only Moses ‘did it’ but also David, Daniel, Esther, Shadrach (Hananiah), Meshach (Mishael), and Abednego (Azariah), and the People of Israel ‘did it’. Fasting was a sign of either mourning, joy, national needs, part of worship, soon coming death or to keep life.
モーセだけではなくダビデ、ダニエル、エスター、シャデラク、メシャク、アブデネゴやイスラエルの人々も断食をしました。
断食は悲しみ、喜び、国の必要のため、礼拝の一部などの現れでした。

There are warnings for doing fasting wrongly:
Zech 7:5-6 "Ask all the people of the land and the priests, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves?' "
間違った断食を警告している箇所があります。ゼカリヤ7:5-6

There are the right reasons as well. Right after these passages are from Zechariah 7:9-10,
"This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.'"
正しい断食もあります。 ゼカリヤ7:9-10

God was looking for justice and mercy not a fad of not eating--trying to only deal with the outside and not the real heart issues.

Zechariah 8:19- deals with a better way... This is what the LORD Almighty says: "The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore love truth and peace."
神は一時的に食事を絶つ外面だけではなく、正義と憐れみを求めておられたのです。ゼカリヤ8:19

Along with the God’s Fast, one would find joy. One would find peace. One would find glad occasions.

In the New Testament, we find that Jesus fasted regularly, as did The 12, Paul, the early church. Not a problem, as fasting is found in the Early Church and beyond.
神さまとの断食は喜び、平安、嬉しい出来事を見出します。
新約聖書にはイエス様が定期的に断食をしたと書いてあります。
十二弟子やパウロ、また初代教会も断食をしました。

A few cautions: We must not see this fasting thing as something that by itself impresses God as with Isa. 58 –to love and to do justice. And we must not see fasting as something that forces God to grant our requests in --
Ps. 35:13 Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting. When my prayers returned to me unanswered,
断食について、いくつかの注意点があります。断食は神さまによい印象を与えるためのものではありません。イザヤ58章
それは愛し、正義を行うためのものです。また、断食は私たちの願いをかなえてもらうために、神さまを無理強いするためのものでもありません。詩篇35:13

  1. Dallas Willard - Fasting’s “role in prayer is not to earn the right to an answer," – it’s to increase our hunger for God and conform our will to His. ダラス ウィラード:断食のいのりは正しい答えを得るためのものではない。神に対する飢え渇きを増し、神の意思と一致することである。
  2. Scott McKnight- from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, The Bible never describes fasting as a technique for spiritual benefit – it is always the heart broken before God that brings benefit. Fasting is just something broken people do because their bodies don’t need food as much as they need God. “It is not so much a discipline as it is a potential environment for all the disciplines.” スコット マックナイト(トリニティーエバンジェリカル ディビィニティースクール)は聖書は断食が霊的な益のためにするものだと決して言っていない。断食は傷ついた人々が食べ物よりも神が必要だと言っているようなものである。訓練というより、訓練を受ける人のための環境である。
Reasons for planning your fast are two-fold...
The first is physical. Throughout your fast, you may feel somewhat weaker than normal. During the first few days, you may feel tired and irritable. Lightening your workload and cutting down on strenuous exercise would be a very good idea to maintain your health and your morale.
断食には二つの理由があります。
一つ目の理由:断食するといつもより、力が出ません。
2,3日断食をすると、疲れたり、イライラしたりします。
仕事量や過激な運動を減らすのは健康やモラルを保つのに役立つでしょう。

The second reason is spiritual. Fasting is not just denying yourself food. It is exchanging the needs of the physical body for those of the spiritual. Long times of prayer and reading God's Word will be very essential if you are to enter into a more intimate communion with God to maintain your fast to its completion. While fasting, if you dissipate your energy on numerous errands or busy-work to the neglect of spending special time with God, you will starve both physically and spiritually. You will find yourself becoming discouraged and frustrated with your fast instead of being benefited and uplifted and blessed. I don't want that to happen to you.
二つ目の理由は霊的のためです。
断食はただ食事を絶つだけではありません。
それは肉体的な必要と霊的な必要を取り替えるものです。
長い祈りと御言葉を読むことで神さまのより親密な関係の中に入ることができるのです。
断食をしている間、仕事や用事が忙しくエネルギーが消耗したり、神さまとの時間が持てないのなら、霊的にも肉体的にも飢え渇いてしまいます。祝福や益になり高められるのではなく、断食に対し、落胆し挫折してしまうでしょう。みなさんにそんな風になって欲しくありません。
• • Fasting aids daily denying ourselves and following Jesus (Luke 9:23-NIV)
"If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me."
or in the Message:
"Anyone who intends to come with Me has to let Me lead. You're not in the driver's seat—I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow Me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, My way, to finding yourself, your true self.” 断食の日々自分をすて、イエス様に従うことを助けるものです。(ルカ9:23
Much thanks goes to Sister C.T.-San for this translation!!