Their God is Their Belly, the Sin of Gluttony

Introduction

I want to start this morning just noting that I’m going to be saying things that are inevitably uncomfortable for most of us, including myself. This really kind of speaks to the spiritual importance of the topic we’re going to deal with this morning, a topic that’s often neglected and not really talked about very much, and that is the sin of gluttony, the idolatry of gluttony, which really ties into the title. I don’t often just stop and talk about the title itself, but I very precisely chose this title because of Paul’s reference in Philippians chapter 3 in verse 19 to this image of gluttony, to an excess of the stomach. And what he says here about this, and it’s really kind of a metaphor, as he does other places as well.

It’s a metaphor for other sins, is an aspect of this, but the metaphor speaks to the reality of the problem of gluttony. And the problem there is not merely that it is just a sin. It is. It’s not just that it’s excess, it is excess.

And we’ll talk more about some of these ideas and definitions later. But Paul very precisely labels gluttony as a sin of idolatry. It is placing something above God. It is disordered priorities. It is when excess becomes obsession and fixation. The statement there in Philippians 3 is talking about those who are enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, and their God is not Jesus Christ. It is not God the Father. Their God is their appetite, or their belly, or their stomach. Can be translated various ways and probably is in your different translations. And as we continue to dig into these ideas of spiritual disciplines, discipleship, I want to remind you of a statement made by the Apostle Peter that you’ve probably heard many times.

But in 2 Peter chapter 2, he says, For whatever overcomes a person to that he is enslaved. There are a number of passages we could talk about this morning that relate to all of this, and we just simply can’t do that. And I’m gonna have to, I think I need to do a lot of background work to even get to where we’re gonna go here in scripture to convince you that this is a problem, that it’s a problem in our culture. And so I want to spend some time doing that. I also want to sort of mitigate maybe some negative aspects of this by pointing out there are passages like Colossians chapter 2 and 1 Timothy chapter 4 that talk about the goal of what we’re looking at here in terms of discipline is not something like asceticism.

It’s not that the goal is something like fasting, as we talked about a couple weeks ago. Those are merely tools to help us grow spiritually along the way. So the goal is to seek first the kingdom of God. The goal is not to fast. The goal is not to have a strong body. These are just aspects of what happens if we are good stewards. And so body image and things like that may factor into some degree, but they are not the ultimate goal of what I’m talking about this morning. And the church fathers, who we’ll look at here in just a few minutes, a few minutes saw even greater capacity to what’s happening with gluttony beyond just the mere physical. It’s not just about eating food.

There’s a lot of other aspects to this that speak to other parts of our lives, and I want to convince you this morning that we need to think about that. That should at least be a consideration for what we’re doing, even in something as simple as how we eat. There’s a statement made by a Christian writer as he’s talking about discipleship. It says, Refrain from gluttony, and thou shalt the more easily restrain all the inclinations of the flesh. Now he comes much later, but I would say that well describes a lot of the thoughts of church fathers on the issue of gluttony, which they spoke on frequently. That is not just about this one issue, but in fact, gluttony as an indulgence of the flesh, as a symptom of excess, really speaks to a lot of other spiritual issues in our life when we go down this road.

And so why do we need to talk about this? Why is this so important? Why don’t we talk about it frequently? I mean, they did in the early church, so it’s kind of interesting that nowadays we really don’t spend much time talking about this. There’s sort of three things that go together, as we’ll probably at least allude to through the sermon this morning, and that is hunger, thirst, and sexuality that are often paired together not only in scripture, but often outside of scripture, talking about the areas of discipline, areas of following Christ. These are three that really are paired together metaphorically very often. And so we do pretty well at talking about things like drunkenness. Seems like the other two are often neglected in many ways, talking about them in the right way in the biblical way.

And so there’s lots of damage that is done when we neglect important biblical topics like gluttony.

1. We Have a Troubling Relationship With Food

We really have a troubling relationship with food, particularly in the United States, but really all over the world at this point. But within the United States, we have a really bad problem with food, and it’s shown in the data. Eating disorders have increased dramatically over the last 20 years, even. And if you go back further, it’s even more than that. Adult obesity has jumped 300% and it’s tripled since 1975. I was born in 1982. Some of you are much older, and you have experienced this. You have seen it. There’s things in my life that I’ve experienced and seen, not as much related to this, but I’ve seen things change over time. Some of you are old enough to have witnessed this change over the course of this time frame.

The tripling of this problem, child obesity has grown even more. And now we are closely approaching half of United States adults struggling with obesity. So maybe this will help you. Here’s a little chart to kind of show all of this. The little lines in blue, and again, the focus here is not on obesity is just a symptom of something else, right? And it could be a symptom of spiritual issues, and we’ll talk a little bit later about some of the other factors that can be involved in this. But the little blue lines are severe obesity, which has grown about 10 times since the 60s.

It’s a growing problem in our culture, much like mental health is also kind of a similar sort of growing problem, and they’re a lot of times related, actually, in many ways. And so, even things like hospitalizations have increased dramatically over this time frame. Over the last 20 years, it’s up 50% plus. And then, of course, with the pandemic, it grew even more. So, another 70% on top of that. Now, there’s a connection here that I can’t get into, and I can’t even get into all these studies. I’m just trying to referencing these for you, kind of give you the helpful information. Some of this is we need to acknowledge the dangers of things like gluttony. We need to understand the importance of discipleship and discipline and helping solve this problem and see how a life of discipline can not only better our life here physically, but also is helping us prepare for things that are even more significant than what we’re dealing with here.

All of this data is backed up by research and studies in multiplicity. I mean, it’s not just one, these are all over the place. this last one, this Harvard Medical School study, it is backed up by numerous other studies and various journal articles and medical journals showing very similar sorts of things, not just with eating disorders, but kind of mental health and all that was a complete disaster during COVID, in many ways, even greater than the virus itself. mental health is a complete disaster coming through the pandemic, and it affected all sorts of things, like the eating disorders and problems with food that have been growing over time. So we have to ask ourselves why is this happening? And of course, the studies do that, and these are just factors.

We can’t say, oh, this is why or that is why, but they give some reasons, some ideas about how kind of multiple things have come together over you know the last 50 or 60 years, has led to this. Has kind of pointed this direction. And what I want you to understand, and where I want to head this morning, is the idea that we, though it seems like we don’t have a lot of control, and in some ways, if we’re ignorant, we don’t have a lot of control, if we don’t know what’s actually happening. We there is an answer to this. And like everything else, the answer is Jesus Christ. The answer is taking up the yoke of Jesus. His yoke is easy and his burden is light, and he gives rest.

And whatever the item is, whatever the struggle is, it’s not that gives rest. It’s not food that gives rest. It’s not our fixation or obsession with food or with drink or with whatever it might be. That is not the answer. And what I want you to see this morning is that Jesus is the answer. And what we’re not trying to do through these sermons on spiritual disciplines is make up a bunch of rules and laws. That’s not really the goal here, but it is to help us understand the value of developing habits and disciplines in our life that put us in a position to overcome obstacles and hindrances that lead us down roads that are not good for us. That’s the goal. And so again, not losing sight of what we’re trying to do here.

These lessons are not saying you must have a time of silence every single day and you must fast a certain many times a week or a month. That is not the point of any of these sermons. It is that we’re using disciplines to help us with these kinds of problems. Because it can. It will. Unfortunately, in our culture, in Western religion, we have just seriously neglected the importance of discipline, particularly spiritual disciplines. We have not seen the value of them in helping overcome indulgences of the flesh. It’s not that is the path, but the path is discipleship and following Jesus. And when we follow Jesus and we take up his yoke, it is a light burden rather than the heavy burdens of the things that we face around us in the world.

2. Hurry-Up Culture and Highly Processed Foods

So there’s all sorts of factors. Some of these we’ve talked about before, and I won’t go in depth on them. But a really big one, a main one is just our hurry-up culture on the go. We’re just constantly needing to go here and go there and grab stuff along the way. And so there’s a big problem with even the types of food that we’re eating. And I’m not a health expert, and I’m not trying to tell you how to eat your diet, but just inevitably there are things about modern diet that have to be talked about in this regard. And maybe even a nuance here to help you understand some of this is not completely your fault. Some of this is designed, just like social media is designed to wrap you up and to keep you tied in.

A lot of the food we eat is as well. It’s just designed that way. But there are other influences as well. We have a lot of, we’re on the go, and so we don’t eat as many family meals. We’re not making meals at home as often. And we are just not inclined to let ourselves go through any sort of discomfort. In our culture, this even starts from childhood, when we essentially demand-feed our children at all times. We never let them feel any hunger pains. Immediately if they’re upset, we feed them. That is a dominant way to rear children.

And so there is a mental development that takes place in that where we are just not mentally strong to go through suffering or difficulty. It’s why fasting actually can be a very helpful thing to handle and prepare a discipline that helps us then later deal with suffering and problems we go through, because we’ve trained ourselves to handle uncomfortable things. It’s just part of a mental process and a spiritual process that’s very important. But we’re just unwilling to do that overall in our culture. We are used to immediate satisfaction with the things that we want. And so that leads us to have a very hard time saying no to essentially anything. There are things that are really beyond our control. There are actually there’s a lot of these things that are sort of positive in a sense.

It is everywhere. And beyond that, it is very affordable. And because of that, everywhere we go, it’s just large portion sizes. Titus and I were in Missouri last week for some things for him, he was doing up there. We went to this restaurant with some people, and we ordered this thing of fries. It was like one order of fries. It was amazing. But they brought it out. I mean, I’m not kidding. It was this big. I mean, right? That big? Yeah. I mean, it was a tray this big, piled high with fries and pork and barbecue sauce, and I won’t go on because you’ll want it. But I mean, unbelievable. They brought this thing out, I think it was like 13 bucks, and it was this massive thing, and this is like number one place in Missouri, and it wasn’t that much money, and it was a ton of food.

We couldn’t even eat it all. We shared it with another guy that was with us. This is just how it works in our culture. Right? And even with whatever financial struggles we may be going through, some of us at this time in our economy, and it kind of goes up and down, we know over time. Just the reality is it’s just all around us all the time. We don’t have to make anything from scratch if we don’t want to. That’s just how available it is. In the ancient world, that’s not even possible, right? I mean, if they want to eat, they have to get there and they have to prepare the food and it takes time. And they don’t go to their pantry and pull out Cheetos.

I mean, that’s just not how it works. And so just the availability, the prosperity, and of course, some of those things, it’s it’s amazing that we have such available food. That’s great. And so that’s a good thing, as long as we understand the dangers that can come with that. And this whole thing about large portion sizes, there’s even been studies done on that you will actually eat more. If they bring food to you in a bigger dish, you will eat more of it. You just will.

So these are more neurological factors, right? The way our brain works and it functions, and there’s all kinds of studies being done on this in all sorts of areas. They’re super fascinating, but even in the area of eating. And so highly processed foods, which is a huge problem in our culture. This is one of the factors. I just kind of wove it into some of these other factors here. But one of the main factors is the major increase in highly processed foods in our culture. So it gives us lots of food, but of course, they also engineer this food to make you want to come back and eat more and more and more. And again, plenty of studies on this. This is just part of the process.

What they’re trying to do is maximize the pleasure response, or you can say something like increase your dopamine hit when you eat their food, so that man, I love those spicy nacho Doritos. And I just have to say no to myself all the time. I love those things. If I get a bag, I mean, I’ll eat like so many of them. They’re so good. I remember Lay’s, you know, their motto for a long time, bet you can’t just eat one. I mean, they’re telling you. They’re telling you that they have engineered this food to make you want to come back and eat more and more and more. And part of this process also, it kind of hinders your leptin resistance. Now, what that is it’s your body telling you’re not hungry anymore.

So these highly processed foods, they don’t let you realize you’ve been satiated. And so I want you to understand, I’m not just trying to throw a bunch of blame on me and on you. There’s a whole system in all of this that is meant to keep us coming back and to pull us into a cycle that we need to be aware of. And if we remain ignorant of, we’ll have a hard time getting out of it. But just realizing this obsession and this fixation with food is partly an aspect of discipline on my part. And it’s also just the reality of how our world works. And then part of this also is spiritual factors, which we have just simply not emphasized spiritual disciplines in Western religion.

It has been looked down on because of the monks and monasticism and the extreme measures that they took in the Middle Ages for things like fasting and depriving themselves. Kind of modern religious culture looks down on all that as worthless and unimportant. And yet, if we’re going to follow Jesus, as we’ve already seen in multiple sermons, there’s a lot of things we need to be implementing or thinking about implementing in our life that can help us in our spiritual journey to become more like him. The goal is to be more like Jesus and to honor him and to realize we shouldn’t be indulging the pleasures of the flesh, whatever they may be. This morning we’re talking about gluttony and food. But if we’re going to live like Jesus, we’re going to factor this into all the things that we’re doing.

These neurological factors do things like they disrupt the satiate signals in our body. They create inflammatory responses, which influence hormones. They impact our gut in a major way, affecting mood and cravings and metabolism. They increase stress response eating. And it goes on and on and on. They’ve done neurological imaging that shows that when we eat highly processed foods, especially, that there are addictive qualities, they light up regions of the brain the same way that addictive substances do. These are just realities. And so I want us to understand truths about the world we live in to help us see the need for the discipline to keep us out of these kinds of cycles. Satan has craftily warped healthy, God-given desires, things like hunger and thirst and sexuality.

And he has used them against us to the extent that we are content to remain quiet and ignorant on such matters. We play into the enemy’s hand and we allow ourselves to be set up for failure. So what I’m saying is if we’re unwilling to talk or think about this, we’re going to fail. We’re going to get pulled into exactly what the world wants us to get pulled in. We’re going to love the things the world wants us to love because it’s set up for us to do that. And so there has to be some recognition of this reality of the work of evil, even in things that are good, unfortunately, like the desires God has created us with, and realizing they can be misused and they can be warped for wrong.

A recent study summarized this problem this way. The ability of highly processed food intake to alter emotional states, particularly positive emotions, may contribute to their reinforcing nature and underscore the difficulty with changing this behavior. It is plausible that individuals may repeatedly consume highly processed foods throughout the day to maintain positive emotions. The interpretation of that is it’s an addiction. And so throughout the day, to make yourself feel better, right? Maybe you’re popping one thing after another, right? These maybe candy or whatever it might be, just to make us feel good. That’s that’s sort of the point they’re making here. And it doesn’t really take away negative emotions. Like if I’m angry and I eat something, it might not take away the anger, but it might make me feel good for a minute.

3. What Gluttony Actually Is: Disordered Desire

And so in seeking that little dopamine rush, again, sort of like what happens on things like social media, you know, we like the likes or whatever it might be, and we get that little kick, right? It feels good, and so it keeps us coming back. The same thing happens with food if we aren’t careful. 2021, NIH study. And actually, it’s a meta-analysis of various studies all about this. Alright, so let’s talk for a minute about gluttony. That’s all kind of background information about the problem. But we need to understand what gluttony actually is. Now, you’re all very familiar with the idea of gluttony of like overeating, right? That’s usually how we think of this. the dictionary definition is a habitual greed. That’s interesting that they say greed.

I think we need to talk some more about that. But habitual greed or excess in eating. I’ll just say definitions are rather limiting, right? They just kind of give you a basic overview or idea, but definitions don’t work so well in context. So in connotation, we sort of see what words mean in their various settings. And so when we understand that like from scripture and how words are used, or just in life in general, we use words. We use words for all sorts of things. So for example, some of the words used even for this issue in scripture are used for things unrelated to the gluttony. Like the word belly, it’s used for conceiving children, right? It’s used for the womb. And so you can go through and look at these words, and they’re used all sorts of ways.

And so we have to be good students and see the context, right? But church fathers, the way they understood this, and I want to start with the church fathers just to give you an idea, kind of the history of interpretation, sort of what this is called. And then I want to look at some text ourselves and see what the Bible actually says. So that’s where we’re going here. The church fathers, they listed gluttony as one of the seven deadly sins. That’s how serious it was. You know, things like pride, right? This is wrapped up in this. It’s interesting, you know, the seven deadly sins, laziness, one of them. So gluttony there is connected to these is a very major sin in the eyes of early church fathers.

They regularly connected, as I mentioned earlier, gluttony to sexual sins. And in the ancient world, gluttony, drunkenness, and sexual perversion were often joined together, not just even within Christian circles, but even pagan, both in condemnation and commendation. So within pagan religion, often those three were joined in their worship, like in Bacchanalia or Saturnalia, the winter solstice, and the various things they would do would involve excess or indulgence in these areas, and they would be sort of paired together. And of course, even some pagans would have condemned those things, depending on their stance on that. But certainly Christians did. You know, those who are following Jesus would have sort of tied all those together and condemned them wholesale. John Christmas has written frequently on the idea of gluttony.

If you go look at his homilies, he’s a fourth century Christian. He connected gluttony to other sins, like we just mentioned, like drunkenness and lust, frequently in his writing. He said, we should not say that it is because of eating and drinking that all these evils exist. For it is not because of this, but because of our carelessness and insatiableness. So the point here is it’s not that eating is bad. In fact, eating is good. And God built us with the desire to eat. It’s the attitude that we bring to this that actually matters. And again, I just I can’t even go in depth on this. You can Google this and find information on these people if you want to. Pope Gregory in the sixth century did some extensive work on this, and he categorized gluttony into five categories.

So I want you to listen carefully to these, because it’s not just excess. There are other ways in which gluttony factors in. He said it’s eating too expensively, too elaborately, like you make a big show of it, right? excessively in quantity, too hastily, and too greedily. So one thing I think we need to understand is that the words themselves and how they’re used within scripture, and I’ll reference this in just a minute, they have moral dimensions to them. And so the idea of greedily, think of something like the rich man in Lazarus, a story within scripture where he eats lavishly. And Lazarus just wants the scraps, and he won’t even give them those. That’s gluttony. Right? That is, you have elevated yourself and your own prosperity and your own eating above the poor, those in poverty.

And so this guy is just eating in luxury every day. And there’s an element to habitualness to this as well. So it’s not that you can’t ever go eat a nice meal or something like that. Celebration is another discipline we’ll talk about at a later time. And so again, I want to balance this. You know, just because you go eat a nice meal somewhere doesn’t mean you’re a glutton. This is sort of a habitual behavior where we’re neglecting things that are more important by the way that we’re continually acting. Thomas Aquinas, who also wrote frequently on gluttony, this is more 12th, 13th century. He wrote a theological summary, Summa Theologica. You can Google that if you want to, and there’s all sorts of things in there beyond just gluttony.

Argued that gluttony was sinful because it represented disordered desire. That is a small little phrase to sort of explain most of what I’ve talked about already. Disordered desire. Desire’s good. God created us with it, but it’s when we warp it or it is disordered or is out of proportion, it becomes the primary thing instead of secondary, tertiary. These are where things are disordered in our desires and they create problems. Gluttony denotes not any desire of eating and drinking, so Aquinas is agreeing with Christian, but an inordinate desire. And then he goes into a lengthy diatribe, sort of like Paul does in Romans or places like that, you know, anticipating arguments. You know, Jesus said, it doesn’t matter what goes into your stomach, because it’s just going to be expelled anyway, so what we eat doesn’t really matter at all.

And so he deals with that argument. I mean, you can go read this and see the sorts of things that Aquinas goes into about all the aspects of the sin of gluttony. It’s very interesting. But I just want to give you, instead of going through all of that and putting quotes and all that, I want to quickly just summarize what these early church fathers said about the issue of gluttony. They said it’s a gateway vice. It’s a foundational sin that leads to many other sins. There’s a spiritual dulling that takes place. Kind of like when we eat a lot and then we want to go take a nap. That’s a physical sort of representation of what happens when we eat. But in terms of excess and gluttony, when we’re doing this habitually, they argued there’s a spiritual sleepiness or dulling.

It affects your prayer and things like that. There’s a social justice access to this, where aspect to this, where I, in my excess, I neglect people who have less. There’s a lot of teaching on moderation. So it’s not that you do extreme asceticism or fasting. That’s not the answer, but we’re moderate about how we see this. But most of all, it is a heart issue related to disordered desire rather than just merely physical excess.

And so you know you can trace how all these things are looked at over time. There is a recognized psychological disorder. First was mentioned in publications in 1998 called orthorexia. Ortho just means correct. Anexia means eating or appetite. And it is an issue in our culture. And a fixation and an overfocus on correct eating can also be classified as gluttony. It’s an obsession with proper or healthful eating. It is to the point where you feel shame or guilt if you go off your diet or you make a mistake. More so maybe even your identity is wrapped up in your diet. And I think in our culture of fad diets always portrayed as the only correct way, this is a substantially growing problem in our culture. And it has some offsets like people feel bad, like they can’t eat in front of people.

They feel judged whenever they eat, which then leads to other things like anorexia and bulimia. Right? And so this is a substantial thing, and it’s something that’s pushed very hard in our culture. That again, just like the other side of this, we need to be very aware of and aware of the dangers of this. Food is good. And we need to understand and tell people that food is good. Disordered desires are not good. And that is the problem. So if you want to go eat a donut this afternoon, great. You know, God said everything that we’re given is to be taken with thanksgiving. And so it’s not that we just have to stay away from certain types of foods or that sort of thing, but it’s to be taken in balance.

4. What Does the Bible Say About This?

It’s to understand we’re not letting food become our God. We’re going to control our food, we’re going to control our consumption rather than letting food control and consume us. That is the problem with gluttony. So, what does the Bible say about this? There’s a few key verses I think we could point to, and there’s a lot of illusions and other ones that we probably just can’t get to this morning. But as I mentioned this morning already, the Hebrew terms and even the Greek terms related to this as they’re used in scripture, you know, it’s not like they use this term and it just means gluttony, and that’s all it means. They have a much broader domain of meaning than that. So, for example, they indicate moral failing, or self-indulgence, excess, or lack of discipline.

And if you were to go look up these terms, you know, if you can do this if you have some computer software or that sort of thing, you can click that term and look up all the times it’s used in scripture. You’re gonna see a variety of uses related to all sorts of things. But in Proverbs 23, it does talk about this in relationship to diet and what we eat. Actually, a hefty portion of that chapter talks about food and drink both. So this is the chapter in Proverbs toward the end that talks all about the problems of drinking, right? Looking at it when it’s in the cup and all that. It’s like the closing section of this chapter. But it starts here in 23, verse 1.

When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is before you and put a knife to your throat. Now it’s not encouraging you to harm yourself, it is encouraging you to be careful what you eat, right? Think about the situation. You know, you’re you’re with here the situations, you’re with a ruler. Be careful about the way you eat, even the manner in which you eat when you’re before this ruler. So sometimes it’s even appropriateness. maybe one of the things I’ve noticed this with myself sometimes, but even the idea of hastily, right? The food gets before us, and we just immediately want to start eating. Ever struggle with that? Maybe eating before others are starting to eat. These are the sorts of things that are maybe symptoms of having inordinate desire with food.

Right? It’s not just eating too much. That’s only one element of it, and that’s a habitual element to it. But here it says to be careful to consider, right? To think about what you’re doing when it comes to food. Now he goes on. It says, put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite, right? If you’re given to this idea of indulgence, right? Do not desire his delicacies. Now he’s gonna say this a couple times. So this is kind of the wealth connected to this sort of sort of form of eating. Right? The ruler’s going to give you amazing food. Right? And so don’t seek after that. Don’t seek this excess of wealth in the way that you eat. Verse 6 do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy.

Do not desire his delicacies. Now here he’s talking about what can come back on you when you’ve been deceived by food or by someone kind of buttering you up to use a food metaphor, and how this is going to work. And then now it comes back on you, and now they have expectations for you because you ate their delicacies. Be careful. Be careful how you are marketed to and how you are pulled in, right? This is what he’s trying to tell this person that they are careful and wise, even in the area of food. Now, down in verse 19.

Be not among drunkards, or among gluttonous eaters of meat. For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags. There’s a social dimension to this. Stay away from people who are people of excess. People who don’t control themselves, who are indulgent.

Look what’s going to happen to this person. This person of excess, this person who is seeking delicacies, expensive food, all the things wrapped up with what can be gluttonous, they come to poverty.

And they don’t end up having the sort of wealth they imagine or they desire, even, with the way they eat and the excess with which they eat. And then there’s the, as I said earlier, the alcoholic aspect of this as he closes the chapter, warning about kind of the portrayal and the emotions that get tied up in drinking alcohol and how it seems pleasurable, but in the end you’re laying on a road beat up. This is the sort of thing that happens when we are indulgent. When we seek the wrong things and we have disordered desire. Matthew 11 19, there’s sort of a negative aspect of this, accused of Jesus, but it gives us the reality of how they viewed it. Matthew 11 19, it says, The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard.

You see how drunkenness and gluttony are tied in both of these passages we’ve already looked at. And so Jesus obviously wasn’t a glutton or a drunkard, but the point here is clearly they saw those things as serious sins. That’s why they’re accusing Jesus of this. And then there is the key text that I’ve started with earlier in Philippians chapter 3. He’s warning them about those who are enemies of the cross, those who don’t follow his example. They’ve gone their own way, and he says, their God is their belly. Similarly, in Romans chapter 16, there’s a metaphorical use of this, where it is talking about the idea of gluttony, but it’s really connecting it to other things. He’s warning them about people who are divisive. Watch out for the people who cause division.

This is Romans 16 and verse 17. And create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you’ve been taught, avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites or bellies. Now I think here’s a metaphorical use because he goes on to talk about smooth talk and flattery, but again, the metaphor proves the point. The gluttony and the excess is a problem, and he’s using that as a metaphor to describe something else. This is seen as a serious problem, and he connects this again really to the issue of idolatry. They’re not serving God, they’re not serving the Lord, they’re serving themselves. And when we get to a mindset of obsession and fixation, it is not just an ordinate desire. But I think a biblical view of this is that it’s actually disordered love and misplaced worship.

We begin to elevate something above God. We begin to elevate the earthly, the material, above the spiritual and the eternal. That’s what it means for the God, our God to be our belly. And that we glory in our shame. The things that really are not significant, we’re setting our minds on earthly things, he concludes that verse in verse 19. So again, there’s all sorts of passages. We could go to Colossians 3. What does Paul say there? Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. But the whole message that’s being given just vaguely and generally throughout scripture is to focus on the things that are eternal, that are more significant, that are spiritual. And the things of this life, they are what they are, and we need to eat and we need to drink and all of that, but it is not the point.

5. What Is the Solution? Control My Desires

That every single day, as we feel those hunger pains, it’s a reminder of the spiritual bread that we need, of that which comes down from heaven, as John 6 tells us, the manna that is from above, not what Abraham got, or not what Moses got, excuse me, in the wilderness, but this is something that was sent down by the Father to us, and so we imbibe on this every first day of the week. We eat his bread and we drink his blood. And all of this is a reminder, not that we need to be feasting on material and earthly food, but we need to be feasting on the things of God. And so, what is the solution? Understanding that I have to control my desires. This is true in all areas, not just eating.

But the ability and the willingness and the desire to submit my will to God’s is the answer. And what I’ve been suggesting to you through these variety of sermons on this is we can say that all day, but until we start developing habits and disciplines, we have no practical way to get that done. And so we can think good thoughts and we can believe good doctrines, but what are our actual practices and how are my daily practices and behaviors leading to the result of being more like Jesus? That’s why something like this is important to discuss.

You know, of what’s happening with the things I’m eating and the decisions I’m making. Because it’s pretty tough to get up and speak about all this in front of a bunch of people and then not do any of it yourself. And so maybe I’ve upset some of you, or you’re uncomfortable with some of the things I’ve said, but just understand I’m pretty uncomfortable with a lot of it too. Our deficiencies are pretty evident, aren’t they?

People who are around us, they see what we’re eating. They see how much we eat. They see what we look like. I mean, all of that stuff is out there for everybody to see. Not that all of that means I’m doing something right or wrong. But certainly it can be a symptom. I mean, it’s tough to study through this and to get up and speak about it and then think, man, I don’t know if I’m doing this myself. And I eat those big plates of fries. Should I really be eating this? And then a burger, too? I mean, like, it’s that’s our world, right? It’s just so much, and it’s so easy. And for relatively small amount of money, you can just get all kinds of food and do it almost every day.

And there’s great things about that, and having that kind of prosperity. I mean, that’s amazing. But we have to balance that with what is actually best for our walk in the kingdom. Romans 14, 17 says, for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy and the Holy Spirit. So don’t misunderstand. I’m not telling you can’t go eat food and you need to stop and you need to fast every week or anything like that. That’s up to you to do what you need to do to fit the picture of what’s in Scripture and to be like Jesus. That’s not my choice for you. You have to figure that out. But food’s not where it’s at.

6. We Need as a Solution to Trust Jesus

And we have to remember the words of Peter that I mentioned earlier that for whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. And are there times I’ve been overcome by food? I’m just going to tell you 100% yes. I’ve been pulled in and thought I needed more food than I needed. I’ve eaten more than I should have. That’s just a reality. And I have to face that and I have to make changes to fit my walk to be like Jesus. Or else I’m not understanding what scripture is actually teaching about all of this. And then I want to conclude with a verse you’re just going to hear over and over and over again as we work through these different disciplines, and that is we need as a solution to trust Jesus.

He’s the master.

There may be some other tools along the way, but listen to what he says. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He is the answer for rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for your psyche in Greek. I don’t like to use a lot of Greek words, but I’ll tell you what, I think that means something. I will give rest to your psyche. It’s not going to happen through medicine. Maybe that’s a tool, but that’s not going to give you rest to your psyche. Jesus is the answer to your psyche. And taking some pill is not going to stop you from eating too much or having a surgery or anything like that.

It is an attitude. And if I find rest in Jesus, he is the answer. That’s his promise. And if I will be like him and seek him and to be a true disciple and work to change my life over time, no one’s saying that overnight suddenly you’re going to be completely different. But this is the endeavor of spiritual growth that we’re looking at him, we’re seeing him as the answer, and day by day we’re establishing habits and disciplines to become more like him. And what he says is: if we do that, his yoke is easy. That’s the easy answer. And his burden is light. And so I want us to understand this morning that the answer is not fasting. The answer is not any of the spiritual disciplines themselves.

It’s what they actually mean. It’s what they’re trying to accomplish, which is the spiritual growth to become more like Jesus. And yes, those are great tools. And they can be helpful. And they’re tools that Jesus used: the silence and the solitude and the prayer and the fasting and even the celebration and the worship and study and all of that. He used all of those things. They are not the end goal. They only get us to become more like him. That’s the goal. And as I learn to control my desire and say, not my will, but your will be done, that is the answer that’s actually going to give me rest. And give me peace and give me joy, because that is what the kingdom is made of, not eating and drinking.

Conclusion

It could be this morning that you realize you need to deeply imbibe on the things of God. You need to give yourself fully to him and begin this process. Give your whole life. That’s what we mean through baptism, right? It’s a representative death. I’m dying to myself, and I’m going to be resurrected a new person out of water. The whole message here is I’m going to begin this process, whether it’s with eating or various other things we’ve talked about, that I want to be like Jesus. And so I’m dying to who I am, and now I’m going to come up and start trying to live like him. And if you want to do that this morning, we want to help you do that. We want to walk by your side.

We want to help you recognize the areas of weakness just like I need to, and just like others need to. And we want to grow in those areas, not just for the things here and for the benefit of this earthly life, although there is that, but for the sake of eternity and being with the Lord forever. Can we help you do that? Why don’t you come as we stand and we sing together?