Gluttony
Purpose of this Series:
NOT Just some head knowledge
BUT an awareness of sins
So that:
1. We can confess it and be forgiven.
2. We can gain victory over these sins by
the power of the Holy Spirit.
Pride
We made a distinction between pride as a
virtue and pride as a vice.
To be Like God was the original temptation.
Plantinga asks:
“What sin makes God more irrelevant?
God wants to fill us with his Holy Spirit, but
when we are proud we are already full of
ourselves. There’s no room for God.”
Envy
The word “envy”
comes from the Latin “invidia”
= “to look maliciously upon.”
Cain no longer saw Abel as his brother
but his rival
The green eye of envy – changes our
perspective
Envy
Envy is different from covetousness:
Covet = I want what she has
= I want to fill my empty hands
with someone else’s goods
Envy = I want the other person not to
have what I don’t have
= I want my empty hands to destroy
or empty the hands of the envied
Gluttony
Scripture Reading
Philippians 3:12-21
Gluttony
• Balanced Diet: A cookie in each hand.
• I don't exercise at all.
If God had wanted me to touch my toes,
He would have put them up higher on my
body.
Gluttony
She does weight
lifting with the
wrong
equipment:
A KNIFE AND A
FORK.
Gluttony
You have to stay in shape.
My mother started walking five miles
a day when she was 60.
She's 97 now and we have no idea
where she is.
Gluttony
Gluttony
65% of North American adults are
overweight or obese.
Rate of childhood obesity is rising.
The acceptable “sin” in many circles.
Gluttony
N.B. Not every overweight person is
struggling with the sin of Gluttony.
Not every skinny person is free from
the sin of Gluttony.
Gluttony
Miriam-Webster dictionary definition:
Gluttony:
1 : excess in eating or drinking
2 : greedy or excessive indulgence .
Gluttony
Rick Ezel:
“Gluttony is not about appearance;
it is an attitude.
Not about being overweight;
it is overindulgence.
Not about too many external effects;
it is a lack of balance.” p.128-129
Gluttony
Gluttony is:
“Misdirected hunger.”
“…it seeks to feed the soul with the
body’s food.”
Gluttony
“18For, as I have often told you before and
now say again even with tears, many live
as enemies of the cross of Christ.
19Their destiny is destruction, their god
is their stomach, and their glory is in
their shame. Their mind is on earthly
things.” Phil 3:18-19.
Gluttony
Charles Buck:
“Their kitchen is their shrine, the cook
the priest, the table their alter, and
their belly their god.”
Gluttony
Neil Plantinga describes
the deadly spiral of addiction:
Delusion [Food is my greatest need]
> Obsession [Focusing on food]
> pleasure-seeking behaviour
[eating that cookie]
> despair [blowing your diet]
> obsession [eating the whole bag]
[cycle begins again]
Gluttony
Plantinga:
“No matter how they start, addictions
eventually center in distress and in
the self-defeating choice of an agent
to relieve that distress. In fact,
trying to cure distress with the same
thing that caused it is typically the
mechanism that closes the trap on
the addict...” p. 131
Gluttony
Plantinga:
“What drives addiction is longing – a
longing not just of the brain, belly, or
loins but finally of the heart. Because
they are human beings, addicts long for
wholeness, for fulfillment, and for the
final good that believers call God. Like
all idolatries, addiction taps this vital
spiritual force and draws off its energies
to objects and processes that drain the
addict instead of filling him.” p. 131
Gluttony
“18For, as I have often told you before and
now say again even with tears, many live
as enemies of the cross of Christ.
19Their destiny is destruction, their god is
their stomach, and their glory is in their
shame. Their mind is on earthly things.”
Phil 3:18-19.
Gluttony
Story about
Raynard III, a 14th century duke in
present-day Belgium.
Rick Ezel p.130
Gluttony
Gluttony is about gaining power.
You can’t control other people but you will
show this apple pie who is the boss.
This assertion of power leads to the
confession, “I have no will-power”
Gluttony
“In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has
the senior devil, Screwtape, write to his
nephew, Wormwood, ‘To us a human is
primarily food; our aim is the absorption
of its will into ours, the increase of our
own area of selfhood at its expense. But
obedience which the enemy [God the
Father] demands of men is quite a
different thing . . .’
Gluttony
‘We want cattle who can finally become
food; He wants servants who can finally
become sons. We want to suck in; He
wants to give out. We are empty and
would be filled; He is full and flows
out.’”
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, pp. 38-39
as quoted by Rick Ezell
in The 7 Habits of Highly Defective People, p. 131
Overcoming Gluttony
1. Feeding
You need to feed.
You need to be fed by God.
Feed on his Word,
which shows us God supplies our
needs.
Overcoming Gluttony
1. Feeding
“Man does not live by bread alone but
by every word that proceeds from
the mouth of God.”
God not only feeds us through the
written Word but through the Word
made flesh.
Overcoming Gluttony
1. Feeding
“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He
who comes to me will never go hungry, and he
who believes in me will never be thirsty.’”
John 6:35
“I am the living bread that came down from
heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will
live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will
give for the life of the world." John 6:51
Overcoming Gluttony
2. Following Christ
We follow Christ through the
problems not escaping from them.
Jesus did not get to Easter morn
without going through the cross on
Friday
Overcoming Gluttony
2. Following Christ
We enter those places of despair not
alone but with Christ with us.
He has the power to help us break the
cycle of addiction.
We turn to others to help us alone the
way.
Overcoming Gluttony
3. Focusing
“Their mind is on earthly things. 20But our
citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly
await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus
Christ, 21who, by the power that enables
him to bring everything under his
control, will transform our lowly bodies
so that they will be like his glorious
body.” Phil.3:19b-21
Overcoming Gluttony
3. Focusing
Rick Ezell:
“The object of our focus will determine if
we have willpower or, better yet, God’s
power working in our lives, if we are a
servant to food or a servant of Christ,
and if we are devoured by Satan or fed
by God.” p. 134
Overcoming Gluttony
With God’s help we can overcome the
sin of gluttony.
Feed
Follow
Focus