AUDIO: (forthcoming)

MOTIVATE

–        Scale.. Anyone want to step up for public pronouncements?

–        SE7EN DEADLY SINS: Lust, Wrath/Anger, Envy & Greed… today is Gluttony & Sloth.

o   Gluttony & Sloth can go together but do have some distinction.

o   I’ve preached “God & My Work” which covered topic of laziness, so today will focus more on topic of gluttony.

–        Society points out Christians condemn a host of other sins (that they enjoy) while not ever condemning gluttony… Never see protestors with signs outside of Outback Steakhouse saying “God Hates Gluttons”. We’re sharing this series to examine all sin in everyone in every area of life.

o   We understand God seeks a holy church. His favor & face shines among a holy people.

o   We understand there is power and credibility in integrity; practicing what we preach.

 

–        Preaching on Gluttony can be a bit embarrassing…

o   my weight… up two sizes in past 6 years is not a pleasant feeling.

o   for many of us we are in shape – round.

o   The Baptist potluck is exercise – lifting spoon to plate and fork to mouth.

o   On surface it may seem one could view who struggles with this sin just by external observation, but reality is it’s deeper than that. Some people may be overweight due to low metabolism, hormone issues, or simply bc they have a job sitting behind a desk for long hours. The skinny person can struggle with gluttony as much as the stout person. So, let’s not play the Holy Spirit.

 

–        For the believer

o   my body was made by God and for God and His purposes (Ps 139:13-15; Col 1:16)

o   my body is to be used as an instrument of righteousness (Rom 6:13)

o   my body is a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1)

o   my body is the temple of God and requires stewardship (1Cor 6:19)

o   my body is to be fit with the armor of God to wage war against the world’s lies (Eph 6:11-12)

 

–        For the kingdom Great Commandment (Matt 25:40; Luke 10:37) & Great Commission (Acts 1:8)

o   Every day globally, approx. 30K children die from lack of nourishment and preventable causes. Another 300 million children suffer from illnesses caused by lack of clean water, nutrition & health services.[1]

o   Opportunities are open both locally – SPAN, regionally – The Well, and internationally – MPNICA.

 

EXAMINE       Se7en Deadly Sins                Sloth & Gluttony

Gluttony: An insatiable appetite, voracious consumption of food, drink, and/or other items or actions (glutton for punishment is repeated behavior without regard for consequences).

Our regular vocabulary includes XXL, Supreme, Whopper, Super Size, Double Double, Jumbo (my fav is jumbo a Chick & Ruth’s[2]); Cosco & Sam’s Club sell bulk quantities of food for the average and everyday household. Starbucks disguises their sizes with words like: Grande, Venti, Trenta Yet, simultaneously many Americans are obsessed with health and fitness.

Gluttony is an epidemic in America. More than 1 in 3 U.S. adults could be labeled as overweight and obese.[3]

Obesity puts extra stress on your bones, joints, and organs, making them work harder than they should. Too much body fat raises your blood pressure and cholesterol, and makes heart disease and stroke more likely. It also worsens conditions like osteoarthritis, back pain, asthma, and sleep apnea.

Too much fat causes inflammation that can damage cells. Obesity is also linked to several types of cancers. It can also make your body respond less well to insulin, which controls your blood sugar. Over time, that can lead to type 2 diabetes.[4]

So, gluttony and sloth are not only harmful physically but also spiritually speaking.

 

3 Features of Gluttony

1)   Over-eating.

Eating delicious food and tasting delightful drink is not sin. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food” (1Cor 6:13).

The sin of gluttony is eating in abundance or drinking too heavily, showing disregard for self-control. Eating abundance of food that leads to sickness or disease, or drinking in volumes that lead to drunkenness is gluttonous sin.

Our appetite and desires come from within. When our appetites rule our actions that reveals a lack of self-control. Our inability to have self-control for certain appetites or actions reflects a gluttonous heart and God-less life.

Proverbs 23:1-2 “When you sit down to eat with a rule, observe carefully what is before you and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite.” This proverb speaks to gluttony as disrespectful and leading to condemnation.

Proverbs 25:16 “If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, let you have your fill of it and vomit it.” This proverb speaks to gluttony for food can make you sick.

Proverbs 25:27-28 “It is not good to eat much honey, nor is it glorious to seek one’s own glory. A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.”

This proverb speaks to the vain glory of gluttony; fills only to leave feeling empty, exposed, and endangered.

Galatians 5:22; 2Peter 1:6 self-control is a fruit of the Spirit

1Timothy 3:2; 4:8 self-control and avoiding gluttony is a qualification for elders

è Moderation, Discipline, Self-control are godly characteristics to learn and live. 1Tim 4:8 “bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”

If we cannot exercise self-control in our eating habits then likely not in other places either; and contrast is true….

è Overeating is overcome by considering others.

Proverbs 11:26 “The people curse him who holds back grain, but a blessing is on the head of him who sells it.”

Proverbs 31 v) 15 “She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens”

Instead of gluttonous nibbling at night she is generously preparing food for others. v) 20 “She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy.”

Instead of greed & gluttony, she is generous to the poor and needy. v) 27 “She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.”

Instead of sloth and gluttony, she serves faithfully for the sake of others to enjoy.

 

2)    Overspend eating

Many of us do not only over-eat but we over-spend to eat. In 2015, Americans’ spending on dining out overtook grocery sales for the first time in history; largely so is the Millennial Generation.[5] Rather than a society who is a good steward of resources, we have become gluttonous sinners. “Waste not, want not” is replaced with careless consumption, use and abuse, throw-away society.
Gen 3 – The first sin with Adam & Eve was, in a sense, gluttonous eating of food – and going beyond what was already provided by God in the garden of Eden.

Num 11:4-6 “Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic [– and the Reeses]. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”

Later God provides them quail…

Num 11:32-34 “And the people rose all that day and all night and all the next day, and gathered the quail… And they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord struck down the people with a very great plague. Therefore the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah [graves of craving], because there they buried the people who had the craving.” – also cf. Psalm 78:18

1Sam 2:12-17 sons of Eli were gluttonous bullies eating meat to be used for sacrifices of worship

1Sam 30:16 Amalekites feasting and were defeated

1Kings 1:24-25 – Adonijah’s over-zealous sacrifice of meat

Ezekiel 16:49 “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.”

Daniel 5:1 – Belshazzar’s sin of gluttonous feasting when he should have prepared for war; cost his life.

Luke 12:16-20 “Jesus told a parable saying, ‘The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you…”

Proverbs 23:6, 20-21, 31-33 “Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy, do not desire his delicacies… 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… Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things.”

 

3) Over-value eating as worship – eating as elation & escape. We over-eat, over-spend to eat, and we over-value eating. This third feature is where gluttony grips us the most. When good things are exchanged for the ultimate thing as God, then we have made an idol. When we use our appetite as a means to celebrate the good or cope with the bad then food & drink has become an idol. When our taste buds are the measure of satisfaction in life rather than God, then we have become slaves to our stomach and substituted the proper object of our worship. We must not stuff our stomach’s want at the expense of starving our heart’s need.

Philippians 3:19 “Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.”

Titus 1:12-13 “lazy gluttons” must be rebuked sharply

Proverbs 28:7 “a companion of gluttons shames his father”

Gen 25:29-34 – Esau over-valued food while underestimating God’s purpose for his life.

–       Esau vs. Jesus tempted by food

o   Matthew 4:4 “man does not live on bread alone but every word of God” / Jesus fasting

o   Matthew 11:19 Jesus was accused of gluttony

o   John 4:34 “my food is to do the will of him who sent me to accomplish his work”

APPLY/THINK

Some final applications for

Grace regulates gluttony. Jesus calls us to redirect our gluttony from worldly priorities to eternal pleasures.

–       John 6:35 “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

–       Jonathan Edwards, “There is no such thing as excess in taking of… spiritual food. There is no such virtue as temperance in spiritual feasting.”[6]

–       Rev 19:9 the marriage supper of the Lamb, where we will feast on the food of God, glutton on the grace of the gospel of Jesus, and satisfy our soul in the fellowship of the Spirit.

–       The Lord’s Supper is a great way to overcome gluttony as it teaches us self-control in the regulated portions of the elements, as well as sharing a common meal with others in order to view food not as an end in itself but in the grace and goodness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

Gratitude regulates gluttony. The believer is to be filled with thanksgiving for God’s generous gifts and provisions.

–       Psalm 4:7 “[God] You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.”

–       Psalm 34:8-10 “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack. The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.”

 

Growth in the Spirit guides gluttony. The believer who is growing in the Spirit will exercise self-control. You must sweat both physically and spiritually speaking to not indulge in gluttony. Physical activity and spiritual service gets one moving to curb and channel our cravings.

–        Romans 14:17, 20 “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit… Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.”

–        1Corinthians 10:31 “whether you eat or drink, do it all to the glory of God.”

–        Psalm 90:14 “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”

 

 

 

 

 

[1] http://www.unicef.org/media/media_21423.html

[2] http://www.chickandruths.com/ate.html

[3] http://www.webmd.com/diet/am-i-obese

[4] http://www.webmd.com/diet/am-i-obese?page=3

[5] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-14/americans-spending-on-dining-out-just-overtook-grocery-sales-for-the-first-time-ever

[6] “The Spiritual Blessings of the Gospel Represented by a Feast,” in Sermons and Discourses: 1723–1729, ed. Kenneth P. Minkema; vol. 14 of Works of Jonathan Edwards Online (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997), 286. Available online at http://edwards.yale.edu/research/browse.