Four Signs Food Has Become an Idol
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - We are in the middle of the holiday season
00:00:07.400 | between Thanksgiving and Christmas,
00:00:09.240 | so it is probably unfair to ask this question now,
00:00:12.020 | but a podcast listener named Jan writes in to ask it,
00:00:15.280 | and so I will pass it on to you, Pastor John.
00:00:18.080 | I was wondering, how would you define the sin of gluttony?
00:00:22.720 | - I think it's helpful in talking about gluttony
00:00:28.200 | to compare it to other sins and why it is
00:00:33.200 | that something good, like food and the enjoyment of it,
00:00:38.360 | becomes sinful.
00:00:40.360 | For example, the existence of sexual desires
00:00:44.780 | and the experience of them per se is not evil,
00:00:49.060 | but there is such a thing as the sin of lust.
00:00:53.220 | The enjoyment of someone's praising you
00:00:56.340 | is not necessarily evil,
00:00:58.960 | but it can become the sin of vainglory.
00:01:01.460 | The enjoyment of God-given rest is not evil,
00:01:07.420 | but it can become the sin of sloth or laziness.
00:01:12.020 | The enjoyment of proper self-respect
00:01:15.640 | can become the sin of pride,
00:01:19.380 | and the desire to have something innocent,
00:01:22.640 | home, car, computer, can become the sin of covetousness,
00:01:26.960 | or even worse, the sin of envy,
00:01:29.360 | if you're resentful that somebody else has it
00:01:31.320 | and you don't, and the legitimate desire
00:01:35.320 | and enjoyment of food can become gluttony.
00:01:37.880 | I think it's helpful to see what's really going on
00:01:41.880 | in all these so-called deadly sins.
00:01:45.700 | The larger question is, what happens in the human heart
00:01:52.360 | when all of these good things given by God
00:01:55.520 | become sinful things, what happens?
00:01:58.620 | And that really is the right way to ask Jan's question,
00:02:03.520 | I think, about the definition of gluttony.
00:02:06.280 | Gluttony is the sinful enjoyment of the good gift of food.
00:02:11.280 | So what happened?
00:02:14.000 | What made it sinful?
00:02:16.720 | So answering that question, I think, is what gluttony is.
00:02:21.520 | One of the historical ways of talking about those sins
00:02:25.040 | is that they are disordered loves,
00:02:31.160 | or another way is to say inordinate loves.
00:02:34.720 | They start with legitimate love,
00:02:37.040 | proper and proportional and Christ-exalting
00:02:40.680 | and God-rooted love for something innocent and good
00:02:44.440 | that God has given for our enjoyment,
00:02:47.520 | and then they become improper, disproportionate,
00:02:52.160 | they cease to exalt Christ,
00:02:53.840 | they cease to have their root in God.
00:02:57.040 | And the two passages that have helped me get my head
00:03:01.320 | around the biblical way of talking about this
00:03:06.200 | are 1 Timothy 6, 6-10, and Philippians 4, 11-13,
00:03:11.200 | and chapter three, verse eight.
00:03:14.960 | So just a quick glance at those.
00:03:18.040 | Paul says in 1 Timothy 6, 6,
00:03:19.880 | that godliness with contentment is great gain,
00:03:23.360 | and that contentment is contentment in God.
00:03:27.280 | And this is precisely what acts as the governor
00:03:30.480 | or the moderator or the regulator
00:03:33.000 | or the guide in all of our other desires.
00:03:36.120 | So when Paul gets to verse 10, he says about money,
00:03:40.120 | which in itself is not an evil,
00:03:42.080 | it's given for our proper use,
00:03:44.560 | and he says, "The love of money
00:03:47.120 | is a root of all kinds of evils.
00:03:50.080 | It is through this craving that some have wandered away
00:03:53.960 | and pierced themselves with many pangs."
00:03:57.480 | So what happened?
00:03:59.160 | The use of money governed by a sweet, deep,
00:04:04.040 | pervasive contentment in God
00:04:07.320 | has been replaced by the loss of that contentment
00:04:11.400 | and the emergence of a powerful love for money
00:04:14.800 | and craving for money, as Paul calls it.
00:04:18.320 | So the use of money has been disconnected
00:04:23.320 | or uncoupled from contentment in God.
00:04:27.640 | And without that tether,
00:04:30.040 | a legitimate desire has begun to run rampant
00:04:34.480 | and is about to destroy the soul.
00:04:37.800 | That's what happens in the use of all good things
00:04:41.360 | when they start to go bad.
00:04:43.480 | Supreme contentment or happiness or joy or satisfaction
00:04:47.800 | in God ceases to be the great guide
00:04:52.800 | or ballast or moderator or regulator of our souls.
00:04:57.840 | And when that goes, everything goes bad.
00:05:01.960 | The other text is Philippians 4,
00:05:04.880 | where Paul says in verse 11,
00:05:06.400 | "Not that I'm speaking of being in need,
00:05:08.240 | I've learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
00:05:12.760 | I know how to be brought low.
00:05:14.320 | I know how to abound in any and every circumstance.
00:05:16.880 | I've learned the secret of facing plenty
00:05:18.560 | in hunger, abundance, and need.
00:05:19.960 | I can do all things through him who strengthens me."
00:05:22.480 | So Paul is describing here the secret
00:05:26.160 | of a godly Christian life.
00:05:28.840 | And that would include the secret of the proper use of food
00:05:33.160 | and money and rest
00:05:34.680 | and all the other good gifts of God.
00:05:37.200 | And he says that this secret enables him to be content
00:05:42.200 | when he has a lot or when he has little.
00:05:45.880 | So clearly the contentment doesn't lie
00:05:48.880 | in the particular thing
00:05:50.600 | and how much of it you have or don't have.
00:05:53.880 | This is the secret of the Christian life.
00:05:57.120 | And what is it?
00:05:58.440 | And the answer is back in chapter three, verse eight,
00:06:01.000 | where he says, "I count everything as loss
00:06:03.640 | because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus.
00:06:08.120 | My Lord, for his sake, I have suffered the loss
00:06:09.960 | of all things.
00:06:10.800 | Count them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ."
00:06:14.440 | So the secret of Paul's contentment
00:06:18.000 | is the satisfaction that he finds in Jesus,
00:06:22.040 | a satisfaction that is so profound and so pervasive
00:06:26.440 | that even if everything else is lost,
00:06:29.600 | he doesn't lose this contentment or this satisfaction.
00:06:34.080 | So when contentment in God or contentment in Christ,
00:06:37.960 | as Paul describes it in these two passages,
00:06:41.120 | is present in our lives,
00:06:43.440 | then it functions as a wonderful governor and moderator
00:06:47.300 | and regulator and guide and control
00:06:50.680 | on the use of all good things.
00:06:53.320 | So they themselves remain good things in their proper place.
00:06:59.040 | And when they are enjoyed,
00:07:01.000 | they are enjoyed as expressions of God's goodness to us.
00:07:06.000 | So I would define gluttony then as the enjoyment of food
00:07:12.280 | that has become untethered from contentment in God
00:07:18.240 | as the governing love of our life.
00:07:20.820 | As long as contentment, while contentment in God is fading,
00:07:26.280 | food is starting to take its place.
00:07:29.800 | And there are several evidences that this is happening.
00:07:32.520 | Number one, we become indifferent to the harmful effects
00:07:37.400 | that the food is having on the temple of the Holy Spirit,
00:07:39.920 | our body.
00:07:41.120 | Number two, we become indifferent
00:07:44.360 | to the way we're stewarding our money
00:07:47.000 | as we spend unwisely on wrong foods.
00:07:49.280 | Number three, we start using food as an escape
00:07:52.600 | from our problems and a kind of medication
00:07:56.120 | for our sadness or our misery or discomfort.
00:07:59.120 | Or number four, we stop enjoying food
00:08:02.480 | as a way of enjoying God.
00:08:05.360 | We stop tasting the goodness of God
00:08:08.480 | in the goodness of the food.
00:08:09.920 | And we start replacing the goodness of God
00:08:11.980 | with the goodness of the food.
00:08:13.760 | So that's what I think gluttony is.
00:08:16.120 | That's what the signs are that it's present.
00:08:19.220 | And the way back may involve many external controls
00:08:24.960 | and disciplines outside, but in the end,
00:08:27.960 | the only way out will be when God himself,
00:08:31.760 | through Jesus Christ, becomes our satisfying soul food
00:08:35.740 | and contentment in him becomes the governor
00:08:38.620 | and the regulator of all our appetites and desires.
00:08:42.960 | - Yes, thank you, Pastor John.
00:08:44.680 | And for more on this theme, see our ebook, "Killjoys,"
00:08:49.080 | and the chapter on gluttony,
00:08:50.500 | which was written by Jonathan Bowers.
00:08:52.280 | You can download the book, "Killjoys,"
00:08:54.640 | at desiringgod.org/books and see chapter seven.
00:08:59.640 | It's very helpful, and Bowers is a wonderful writer.
00:09:02.580 | Well, we close out the week with a question
00:09:04.280 | about whether the cross of Jesus proves our inherent value.
00:09:08.400 | It's an important question and a question
00:09:09.840 | John Piper has faced for over 40 years.
00:09:12.480 | We'll hear from him tomorrow.
00:09:14.040 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:09:15.520 | We'll see you then.
00:09:16.480 | (upbeat music)
00:09:19.060 | (upbeat music)
00:09:21.640 | [BLANK_AUDIO]