BBC Sermon Cast

There may be no spiritual discipline with which we struggle more than closet prayer. It is probably also true that there is no spiritual discipline that we completely neglect quite like fasting. You may have fasted for weight loss or medical purposes. But when was the last time you fasted for purely spiritual reasons? In this study, we consider what the Bible teaches about the Christian discipline of fasting.

Christian faith is not an ethereal emotional fog or mere mental assent. Christian faith is rooted and grounded in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Christian faith is spiritual but works itself out in physical love and obedience. Ultimately it is Christian faith that overcomes the world.

This text brings to a close the tragic account of Israel’s sin of unbelief as they stood on the threshold of God’s Promised Land. Just when we think that things could not get any worse, their belief becomes blatantly exponential—seemingly boundless. In this account we learn that not only will Israel not believe God when he promises blessings; neither will they believe him when he promises them judgement. It is a text from which we do well to learn.

We all know that devotion to prayer takes hard work. No spiritual discipline is harder than prayer. We know we need it. We know we should do it. But we so often find ourselves like the disciples: willing in spirit but weak in flesh.

The spiritual discipline of memorising Scripture is a natural result of reading and meditating on Scripture. More specifically, Scripture memorisation aids in preserving Christian truth and being conformed to Christian truth. Even before the writings of the New Testament took shape, Christians have been committing to memory the sayings of Jesus and early gospel formulations. In our own day, there are many situations where we rely solely on our memory. This forgotten discipline is much needed in our overly digitised culture.

In Numbers 14, the nation of Israel—the graciously chosen people of God—minimised God as they made much of themselves, manifested in their pursuit of self-preservation. This is the story of a great tragedy in which God is demeaned and humans are destroyed. It serves as a historical example to catechise us, who have also been graciously chosen by God, to steward well the promises of God.

Meditation is one of the means by which we can grow in our understanding of Scripture, our appreciation of God, and his word. It is one of the most neglected of the spiritual disciplines. As we take our cue from Psalm 1, we look at what Christian meditation is, why we should practice it, and how we can go about doing so.

Numbers 13 is the story of defeat grabbed from the jaws of victory—of the failure of the mission because of the failure of faith. What should have been mission accomplished became mission defeated. Unbelief won the day. The consequence was forty years of wandering; forty years of being so close and yet so far away. Because the people looked back rather than looking up and forward, they experienced defeat where they could have experienced victory.

Numbers 12 continues what we might call a negative narrative. Having examined the ugliness of grumbling and ingratitude in chapter 11, we now enter another sad example of God’s people behaving badly. Here we have the record of what Allen has described as “a classic example of sibling rivalry—but not among children. These are adults who adopt the tactics of children in the schoolyard.” The big sin recorded here for posterity is that of envy.

Psalm 1 is a helpful text to point us to the need for Scripture reading. This short anonymous psalm, like the rest of the psalms, is a song that can be prayed. It exhorts the faithful to be faithful and it does so with the promise that the faithful will be fruitful: faithful to the word, faithful with the word, and therefore fruitful in all of life because of the word.