Sermon Transcript

0:00:00.0

Well, as followers of Jesus, as Christians, we sometimes have a way of emphasizing some sins more than others. I learned this the first time as a young boy growing up in Indiana, growing up in the church. I often heard instruction and admonitions about smoking and drinking. Those were things that we weren't supposed to be doing as followers of Jesus Christ. Regarding smoking, this was long before we as a culture kind of figured out that smoking was really, really bad for your health. But you heard it in the church. You shouldn’t smoke. You shouldn’t inhale that smoke into your body because your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, drinkers were always warned about the dangers of alcoholism, and rightly so. Rightly so about both of those practices, smoking and drinking. Not to be legalistic about it, but there were reasons why followers of Jesus should not practice such things.

0:01:08.4

But I never once heard a sermon about gluttony. I wonder why. I heard a lot of jokes about gluttony. I heard people in the church and even the pastor from time to time joking about how, "Yeah, we just can't wait to have the next potluck. We love our potlucks." And we called it fellowshipping with one another, but in reality, we just feasted and gorged ourselves with food. I heard jokes about how the Baptists get to those Sunday lunch spots quicker than the Methodists and the Presbyterians. We just made fun of that. We joked about that.

0:01:42.3

Well, we've been in this series of messages titled "Undefeated." We're talking about the seven deadly sins, a list of sins that came forth back in the 6^th century. Pope Gregory I came up with this list- pride, anger, lust, laziness. Now we're onto gluttony, envy and greed. The one that we're talking about today, gluttony, is probably the one that, if we're honest with ourselves, most of us would rather not talk about. Because the truth of the matter is…and let's just be honest. We're in church today. Most Americans and, yes, even church-going Americans, are overweight. But I want to set your mind and your heart at ease today. Because if you're thinking that, oh, this is one of those sermons that's going to shame me because I 'm overweight, no, that's not where we're going this morning. In fact, it would be wrong and overly simplistic to say that if somebody is overweight, they're a glutton. Likewise, it would be overly simplistic to say that if a person easily slides into his or her skinny jeans, they don't have a problem with this sin. No, the truth of the matter is—and we all know this—some people, because of their physiology, can just look at a plate of food and gain 3 pounds. Amen? Come on. You know that's true. Other people, they can eat three Big Macs in one day and lose weight because they're blessed with a metabolism that just spins it out. So, we're not here to shame people because they're overweight or because of obesity. It would be wrong and simplistic to do that.

0:03:23.5

But what we do want to talk about is what gluttony is. Why does the Bible even mention it? What does it mean when it does? And why would gluttony end up on this age-old list known as the seven deadly sins. Is there something about it that, perhaps, we don't know?

0:03:42.1

Let's start with a definition, a dictionary definition of what gluttony is. You might guess that this is definition. Gluttony is "excessive eating or drinking." And, yes, the Bible kind of falls in line with that definition in terms of what gluttony is, but the Bible takes it a step further. The Bible always associates gluttony with drunkenness and a reckless, riotous, rebellious, kind of, partying lifestyle. So, the Bible takes it that much further.

0:04:15.6

Let me give you some examples. Deuteronomy 21 we step inside the mosaic law. And the mosaic law gives some instruction to parents who might have a rebellious child, who is living a life of debauchery, a profligate life. In Deuteronomy 21 is says to bring that child out into the public square and let the leaders of the community deal with him. "You're to say, 'This our son is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.'" That's one of the first references to gluttony in the Bible associated with this reckless, riotous, drunken kind of life.

0:04:58.7

Proverbs 23:20-21, "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." Those are wise words and warnings from the pages of scripture. One more from Proverbs 28:7, "The one who keeps the law is a son with understanding, but a companion of gluttons shames his father." Here gluttony and the lifestyle associated with it bring shame upon the son and shame to the family. Think of the student who goes away to college and spends the next four years traveling from one party to the next and just lives the gluttonous, drunken, profligate life there. Or think of the prodigal son that Jesus talked about in the story in Luke 15 who demanded his father's inheritance, ran off and lived a reckless life, the Bible says, and spent all of his money in just riotous and reckless and rebellious living. Or think of the time that the Pharisees, the archenemies of Jesus, insulted Jesus by calling Him a glutton and a drunkard. Can you imagine that? Have you ever thought of Jesus as a glutton and a drunkard? But they called Him that. They insulted Him that. Why? Because He was a friend of tax collectors and sinners. And they just assumed by association He was a glutton and a drunkard. Back then, it was an insult to call somebody such things.

0:06:40.0

And so, gluttony in the Bible was considered a deadly sin. It was considered this, back in the 6^th century, not so much because of its association with obesity as much as its association with the three R's. And no, I'm not talking about reading, writing and arithmetic. I'm talking about rioting, recklessness and rebellion. That's the gluttony that the Bible warns about.

0:07:02.7

Now, gluttony also has a long, long history as an indication of someone's moral laxity. The glutton and the drunkard were just morally reprobates. According to Seneca the Younger, a Roman philosopher, he said if men ate and drank more than what they needed for their basic sustenance, they were indulging their vices, not their virtues. That's not the Bible speaking. That was a Roman philosopher about 2000 years ago. And Seneca reserved particular criticism for those who spent their fortunes on exotic dishes. He said, "They vomit so they can eat, and they eat so they can vomit. They don't even consider the dishes which they have assembled from across the earth worthy of digestion." And this Roman philosopher named Seneca was referring to something you can find in the history books about the Romans, the elite Romans and their wasteful, indulgent lifestyles and the hedonistic banquets they would attend and the vomitoriums that were next to them. They would go to these banquets, and they would lavish themselves and indulge themselves with this eating. And they would go over to the vomitorium, vomit it up, and then go back and just eat more, and then vomit it up and go back and eat more. This is what Seneca the Younger, this Roman philosopher, was referring to.

0:08:30.4

Now, there is some debate in history among the historians as to whether the vomitoriums were myth or not. Some say the vomitorium was actually a reference to…actually vomitoria was the word. It was a passage beneath a tier of seats in a performing arts theatre through which crowds could disgorge rapidly. So, there is some debate in the literature out there about the reality or the mythology of these Roman vomitoriums. But this young Roman philosopher named Seneca had obviously seen some very self-indulgent Romans, elite Romans who could afford the very expensive and lavish foods, participating in this way.

0:09:16.4

Let's move from the Romans to the Greeks. There was a Greek philosopher named Epicurious who denied the existence of God. And because he believed that life had no real meaning and no real purpose, he came up with this famous saying—you can probably quote it—"Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die." That was Epicurious. In Acts 17 you might remember that the apostle Paul on Mars Hill confronted both the Epicureans and another group known as the Stoics. He confronted them with the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They laughed at Paul. They mocked him as a babbler that just had some kind of new-fangled teaching out there. But Paul kept giving them the gospel and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Different than the Epicureans, the Stoics were more dutiful and reserved about life. They only ate when they were hungry. The Romans indulged themselves, vomited it out, and then indulged themselves for more. But the Greeks and the Stoics were a little bit more reserved. "We only eat when we're hungry."

0:10:21.3

And then there were two other groups known as the Cynics and the Ascetics. They both took their reservations even further by only eating what was necessary to live. They didn't necessarily eat when they were hungry but ate when it was necessary to keep the body functioning. The Cynics believed that the body was evil and must be restrained. The Gnostics believed that as well, and Gnosticism was one of the early church heresies that kind of floated into the church in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries. Asceticism was a lifestyle characterized by the abstinence from pleasure. So, you can imagine that monasticism, which rose out of early Christian ascetism, adopted this idea. The monastic orders did not believe that the body was evil, but the monastic orders did believe the body needed restraint.

0:11:21.3

Now, why am I going into all this ancient history here? Because Pope Gregory back in the 6^th century came from this tradition. He came from the monostatic tradition, making it no surprise that he included gluttony as one of the top seven gateway sins. And that's really what we're talking about in this series "Undefeated: Overcoming the Deadly Sins that Drag You Down," because every one of these seven—pride, anger, lust, laziness, gluttony, envy and greed—they're called gateway sins. Anger is a gateway to murder. Lust is a gateway to adultery. Gluttony is a gateway to a riotous, reckless, rebellion lifestyle. And if you can't get control of your appetites, if you're constantly indulging your appetites, never restraining your appetites even as it relates to your belly, maybe you've lost control in some other areas of life as well.

0:12:24.7

Well, so much for the history of it all and understanding what we're talking about this morning. The real question is, how do we overcome it? How do we defeat gluttony? If gluttony is first and foremost about eating excessive amount of food—and that's the definition we'll stick with this morning—then I believe the first way to defeat gluttony is by practicing fasting. There are two words that we don't talk about very often- gluttony being one. When was the last time you heard a sermon about that? And fasting. Let alone in the same sermon. But I believe the first way to deal with this overindulgence we call gluttony, the excessive eating of food, is by practicing something as strange sounding in our 21^stcentury culture as fasting. By definition, biblical fasting is the abstinence of food for a period of time and for a spiritual purpose. Let me say that again. Biblical fasting is the abstinence of food. It's saying no to food for a period of time, but for a spiritual purpose. And I emphasize "for a spiritual purpose." I emphasize that because today one of the hot new fads in dieting is something called intermittent fasting. Have you seen that? The dieting world has figured out that you might be able to lose some weight with some periodic or intermittent fasting. It might even be good for your body physiologically. That's certainly true. But that's not why fasting is a spiritual discipline that we must pursue in the Christian life.

0:14:08.9

Keep in mind that Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount when He talked about prayer and giving and fasting, He didn't say "if you pray" and "if you give" and "if you fast." He says, no, "when you pray," "when you give," and "when you fast, and He gave some instructions on how to do each of those. I call those the three pillars of piety in Jewish life. And there was an expectation that came from Jesus and an expectation in the early Jewish community and in the early Christian church that you practiced at least these disciplines of giving, praying and fasting.

0:14:48.8

But fasting in a biblical way helps us with some things. It helps us draw closer to God. It also helps discipline our desires. It forces us to say no to the cravings of our stomach in our belly rather than giving in and indulging those cravings at every moment, fasting puts the brakes on and says no.

0:15:19.3

Now, why is this such an important spiritual discipline, the discipline of fasting? And what does it have to do with gluttony? Well, in two of Paul's New Testament letters, Paul says that some people have made a god out of their belly. Philippians 3:18 says, "For many of whom I have often told you and now tell you, even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ." Paul goes on to say, "Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things." Every once in a while, you read the Bible and you go, "Wow, those are some strong words. That has some holy starch in it." That Paul would say there are some people out there who he calls "enemies of the cross." They're not followers of Jesus Christ. They see the cross of Christ as foolishness. The end of their way, he says, is destruction. And not only that, but these are the kinds of people who have made a god out of their belly. They're constantly indulging every desire that comes along at the moment that it comes. And when the stomach says, "I'm hungry," they feed it. There is no restraint. There is no times or seasons of fasting in them.

0:16:53.8

Another place, Romans 16, Paul alludes to the same thing. He says, "I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught." He says avoid them. Now, we could stop right there. Again, a pretty starchy section of scripture there. He says there are some in the church, they've caused divisions. They're dividers, not uniters. He says stay away from them. Avoid people like that. Then he goes on to say, "For such persons do not serve Christ our Lord but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naïve." I take these two sections from Paul's writing from two different letters—one to the Philippians, the other to the Romans—and it seems that Paul is suggesting this- gluttony, excessive eating without any restraint, could lead to idolatry, the making of your belly into a god. That your belly is controlling the shots, and you live a life of self-indulgence. The excessive consumption of food turns our belly and its cravings into a god. Just that thought right there should make any one of us pause the next time we put a fork into a sumptuous meal and think twice about bringing it to our lips. Or as the writer of Proverbs says in Proverbs 23:2, "Put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite." If your appetites are what drive you and you know no restraint in those areas, do something radical like putting a knife to your throat, obviously hyperbole and an exaggerated suggestion.

 0:18:47.2

It's interesting in Matthew 9. One day the disciples John the Baptist came to Jesus with a question. They asked Jesus, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast but Your (0:19:00.1) disciples do not fast?" Good question. "Why do the Pharisees and we fast, but we look at Your disciples, Jesus, and they aren't fasting?" And Jesus came back with a very interesting answer that had a wedding analogy to it. He said, "The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast." In other words, what Jesus was saying to them is as long as our heavenly bridegroom is with us—and Jesus is our heavenly bridegroom—then it's a time for feasting and not a time for fasting. You go forward in the life of Jesus, and we know He went to the cross. He was buried in the ground. He rose from the grave. He ascended to the Father. He promised He would return. Now, our heavenly bridegroom is not with us anymore. When He was with us on this earth and with His disciples, that was a time (0:20:00.0) for feasting, not for fasting. Now that He is away from us, it's a time for fasting, not for feasting.

0:20:08.3

It's interesting the wedding analogy that Jesus uses here because it's similar to the one you find in John 14. In the upper room discourse on the night before He was crucified, Jesus said words like this- "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many rooms." He says, "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also." We've heard those words, and they're comforting words. But did you know that He's using wedding language here? Because in that culture, 2000 years ago, when two young lovebirds got engaged or betrothed in marriage, the betrothal period would last for up to a year. During that time, the groom would go back to his father's house, literally. He'd go back there, and he'd start a construction project. He'd build on extra rooms and extra wings, because one day he was going to come back, get his bride, marry her, and then take her back to the father's house. And that's where they would live. So, Jesus is using that analogy on the night before He was crucified and says, "Guys, I'm leaving. But I'm the heavenly groom. I'm going back to my Father's house. But I'm coming back to get you. You are the bride of Christ. The church is the bride of Christ. And I'll take you back to my Father's house, where there are many rooms." Right now Jesus is building a room for believers in Jesus Christ to one day be in the Father's house. Well, He uses that same analogy to say, "While I'm here, this is a time for feasting. While I'm gone, it's a time for fasting."

0:21:49.8

What's the point of this eschatological lesson? What does it have to do with gluttony? My point is simply this- the regular eating habits of believers in Jesus should fall somewhere between feasting and fasting, with a greater emphasis on fasting because we're waiting for the return of Jesus Christ. But the reality is, if you look the eating habits of most Americans and most church-going Americans, they tend toward the feasting and rarely, if ever, the fasting. You go to restaurants today, and the portions are feasting-size portions. Cathryn and I go out to dinner, and here is usually her first question- Do you want to split this? I'm usually hungrier than she is, so we go on to something else, or she has chosen something on the menu that I don't want to eat. But it's a legitimate question, because we know at this particular restaurant the portions are so big. So, she'll order hers, plus get a to-go box. I'll order mine, get a to-go box. Then we've got lunch for tomorrow. We were in Europe about a year ago, and we noticed in the restaurants the portions were smaller. We also noticed that Europeans were thinner, and I think there was a connection between the two.

0:23:06.7 

Again, not to shame anybody, but we know that in America we have an obesity problem because our regular eating habits and our eating-out habits are more on the feasting end of things than the fasting end of things. I’m just saying from a health standpoint, it needs to be somewhere in the middle. Is there time for celebratory eating that is feasting? Are there times like that in our lives? Absolutely. Wedding and other occasions where we feast. But not as a regular, daily way to eat. But our culture has even drawn us as believers in Jesus Christ into this feasting culture.

0:23:47.8

As believers who are waiting for the soon return of our heavenly groom, we need to face an emphasis on fasting. Now is the time for fasting, not for dietary reasons that the diet world has figured out. That's all fine, and there may be physiological benefits and weight loss benefits in that. But we do it for spiritual purposes and as a way to defeat gluttony. You work those seasons of fasting into your spiritual life. Are you still with me? I'm sure I have already blown to pieces your Sunday lunch plans, right? You're saying, "We've got to do something else besides go to lunch after church today."

0:24:30.1 

There is a second way that we can defeat gluttony. First, practice fasting. Secondly, closely related, practice self-denial. And here is how I want to set this one up. Gluttony is the enemy of discipleship, and here is what I mean by that. Luke 9:23, Jesus said this, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." How dare Jesus drop a little thing like self-denial into this discussion about what it means to be one of His disciples. I mean, we live in a self-indulgent culture. Everything about us is about indulging ourselves, never putting a restraint on any appetite we might have, whether it's a physical appetite or a sexual appetite or an appetite for anything. We live in a very self-indulgent culture and culture that will applaud your self-indulgence. And Jesus comes along, and He says, "If you want to be one of my disciples, deny yourself. Deny yourself. Deny yourself. Put some restraints in your life." In fact, self-indulgence cannot coexist with self-denial. Gluttony and the self-indulgence that comes with it is the enemy of discipleship. It's just that simple.

0:26:00.7

Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount, "You cannot serve God and money." He didn't give us that choice. Likewise, He would say, "You can't follow me and follow your belly at the same time. You're going to have to practice and learn self-denial." Again, I'm totally ruining your Sunday lunch plans, and I get that. I apologize…no, I don't apologize for that.

0:26:27.9 

But I want you to consider this. Let's step outside the world of the Bible for a moment. The Foodmix Marketing Communication firm came up with some recent research that suggests even healthy-minded Americans are having a problem with self-indulgence. New research reveals even America's healthiest eaters cave into indulgences based on their emotional status. Listen to this. Forty percent of US Foods brand lovers who rated their daily diet as extremely healthy agreed with the statement, "When I'm feeling down, I eat something indulgent to make me feel better." "Food indulgence has become a form of self-care," says the market research firm. "Instead of hitting the gym after a bad day, many of these normally super healthy eaters are hitting the refrigerator or nearest restaurant for an indulgent treat." How interesting that even the secular world has seen how self-indulgent we have become and how hard—even when we make a commitment to healthy eating—how hard it is for emotional reasons to give restraint to our appetites. Self-care. "My comfort food," people refer to it as. Deeply embedded maybe in some fears and insecurities and, "Well, I've had a hard day, so I guess I'll go indulge myself." And this is the endless cycle that we get into.

0:28:00.9

But the follower of Jesus Christ learns self-restraint. Not through the power of self-help, no, but through the power of the Holy Spirit. Because one of the fruits of the spirit is self-control, right? And this whole series, just as a reminder, is not about pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps and trying harder. Maybe you figure it out after pride, anger, lust, laziness and now gluttony, you're in a world of trouble. And the "try harder" just doesn't work. That's why you need the power of the Holy Spirit in your life. You need Jesus Christ in your life, who has made you an overcomer.

0:28:43.8

So, let's review. We practice fasting. We practice self-denial. How about a third one? And we'll finish there. I'm just going to borrow some words from an old Greek philosopher named Epicurious and phrase it this way- eat, drink and glorify God, for soon Jesus is coming. That's better than, "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die." No, eat, drink and glorify God, for soon Jesus is coming.

0:29:15.5

Go with me to 1 Corinthians 6:19, where the Bible says, "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body." Now, this is what I call the starting point in a biblical theology of the body. The Cynics, even the Gnostics, believed that the body was evil, and they put the body under all kinds of restrains for all the wrong reasons. The Bible never says that the body is evil. It just says that your body, on the contrary, is sacred. As a believer in Jesus Christ, your body, my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. This was a legitimate argument for not smoking, for not doing other things that would damage your body, intentionally damage your body, because this body you've been given is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which means that everywhere we travel provides a worship experience for us. Your body is the sacred dwelling place of the third member of the trinity, the Holy Spirit who comes to live inside of you at the moment of salvation.

0:30:44.2

The other thing that this verse tells us as far as a biblical theology of your body is your body doesn’t belong to you. Now, I know the first things that most people would say is, "Get your hands off my body. This belongs to me. Don't tell me what to do with my body." You hear it all over our culture today. But as a believer in Jesus Christ, that's never appropriate for us to say. Paul says, "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price." Your body and my body, it's on loan to us from God. By the way, if I loaned you my car or if you loaned me your car, how would we treat it? You would expect me to return your car in at least as good a condition as I received it, if not better. It's always good when you loan somebody a car and, you know, you haven't washed it for two months. But he comes back and says, "Hey, I ran it through the car wash." We do that when we're borrowing something from somebody else. Well, our body is on loan to us from God. On the contrary, it's not evil. In fact, in eternity we won't just be disembodied spirits floating around on clouds. In heaven we will have bodies. Death is when the spirit separates from the body, and more often than not, the body goes into the grave. And the spirit…well, the Bible says for a believer, "absent from the body, present with the Lord," or for an unbeliever, absent from the body, present in a place of torment. Those are the two choices. And at death, both disembodied spirits are awaiting a resurrection. We talk about that all throughout the New Testament, the future resurrection of the dead. Everybody who dies and goes into the ground, a disembodied spirit into eternity, there is a future resurrection of the dead awaiting us. Some will rise to eternal life, some will rise to eternal death, the second death, eternal separation from God in a place called hell.

0:32:54.0

But on that day of resurrection, the spirit will be reunited with the body. The body will come up out of the grave. For believers in Jesus Christ, we will now have a glorified body, the Bible says. That's when your six-pack is in view behind that cooler that you have right now. It's a glorified body. It's a body like Jesus had when He came out of the grave, a resurrection body with capacities like we can't even begin to imagine. What I'm simply saying is there is a future for that body of yours and mine. It's on loan to us from God. We will be bodies and spirits in heaven with work to do and places to travel and all of that. Paul just says, in light of all this, that you are not your own, and your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Glorify God in your body. Make sure that what you're doing with your body honors Him first. And it starts with that fork in that piece of whatever before you bring it to your…I don't want to get overly crazy about all of this, but it starts with what we eat, what we put inside of our bodies. Eat healthy. Treat your body healthy.

0:34:06.4

1 Corinthians 10:31, Paul says it this way- "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do,"—he broadens it to whatever—"do it all to the glory of God." "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." No, not if you're follower of Jesus. Eat, drink and glorify God, for soon Jesus is coming. Our heavenly bridegroom is returning, and we want to be a bride that is waiting for Him and is ready for Him. A bride that has lived an undefeated life, one that overcomes the deadly sins that drag us down, including this one called gluttony, evidence of an excessive, self-indulgent kind of life that never learns to put the brakes on, the restraints in place certainly before we cross over into that dangerous place where our belly, our stomach, our appetites, our desires become our god because they have first place in our life and secondary to anything that God would instruct us with about our bodies and about how we live our lives.

0:35:30.4

Amen or oh me? Have I completely ruined your lunch plans, your dinner plans? No, enjoy yourself. Eat and drink. That's part of life, but let's do it to the glory of God. And let's go on our way to a 7-0 seasons, where we've lived an undefeated life and an undefeated season against pride, anger, lust, laziness, gluttony. We have two more in the next two weeks- envy and greed. These are tough ones, aren't they? But again, this is not about pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. It's not about doing it the Avis rental car way, "Just try harder." No, that's the way you get frustrated in the Christian life. We need the enabling resources of the Holy Spirit to walk by the Spirit and live by the Spirit. That's how victory in Jesus comes to people like you and me.

0:36:33.2