When someone mentions gluttony, we probably picture an overly rotund person shoveling in massive amounts of food. But the deadly sin of gluttony may not be what you think. In fact, gluttony does not necessarily involve what you eat—or even how much. It is the overindulgent focus on, and enjoyment of, too much of virtually anything other than God. Food, drink, sex, work, rest, recreation, sports, hobbies, money, houses, and cars—the possibilities are endless.
Gluttony occurs when we place too much focus on our own pleasure and gratification, instead of lovingly fixing our attention on the Lord and finding our greatest joy in knowing, loving, and walking with Him.
The Lord God—who rightly desires first place in our hearts—has provided a virtuous remedy for gluttony: moderation. We overcome gluttony by learning and practicing moderation. But even moderation, on its own, can become hollow or prideful. True moderation must be rooted in love.
This sermon helps us see how a loving moderation leads us to love God, love others, and love God’s world. God-centered moderation moves us to live generously, avoid selfishness, and care genuinely for the well-being of our neighbors and the world we share.
Read the full sermon transcript below!
As you are aware, for some time we have been giving attention to a series of sermons on what are commonly called the Seven Deadly Sins. Theologians frequently prefer to refer to these deadly sins by the name of the Seven Capital Vices. They like that name because the deadliness of these sins is that they can easily become habits, things we do automatically with little if any thought beforehand, sins which, if not forsaken, can become as it were second nature. Another reason these sins are morally and spiritually deadly is that when we habitually engage them, they lead inevitably to other sins. For example, greed is one of the seven deadly sins, and greed can motivate people to practice all manner of wicked things to fulfill their greedy lusts—like stealing, cheating, lying, taking advantage of other people.
The deadly sin we are going to address this morning—sixth in our series of the seven—is one that will probably make some of us a bit uncomfortable. If so, praise the Lord because our discomfort is a good indicator that we need to repent and be diligently and sincerely seeking the power of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of God’s Word in overcoming it.
We are referring to the sin of gluttony. Now, before you lose your cool, allow me to say that the biblical idea of gluttony might not be what you think. We can easily jump to conclusions, thinking we have the right understanding when, in fact, often we do not.
Teaching lessons and preaching sermons are different in a lot of ways. For one thing, when teaching one might be apt to cite lengthy passages from an author whereas, in preaching, one might generally avoid it, which usually is my own approach. But, since we are dealing with a subject that is so frequently misunderstood, please allow me the liberty of sharing a fairly lengthy passage from Rebecca De Young’s very good book about the seven deadly sins titled Glittering Vices.[1] Perhaps her words will help fine tune our thinking from the start.
In the supermarket checkout line, the cover of Family Circle vividly displays a chocolate cappuccino pie. The featured articles of the month are “Trim Your Tummy: 10 Ways to Curb Your Cravings,” and just below it, “Irresistible Chocolate Desserts.” With food-obsessed mixed messages like this everywhere, is it any surprise that eating disorders are now something every middle-school kid knows about?
Fast-food diets have sent obesity rates soaring, while the diet industry makes billions of dollars a year. Food chains are being sued for not warning customers how many trans fats are in their entrees. An elementary school’s hot-lunch menu includes pizza, an ice cream sandwich, soda, and doughnuts in a single day’s offerings. Our craving for tasty food begins early and makes its effects felt for a lifetime—on our health, our lifestyles, and our economy.
Perhaps the most shocking thing about the vice of gluttony is that it may not have much directly to do with any of this [emphasis added]. Our stereotypical picture of the glutton is the obese man in the cartoon, who looks at his belt after dinner and comments, “One more notch. Room for dessert,” or the billboard ad for a weight loss clinic with a little alien on it warning that “when they come, they’ll eat the fat ones first.” But what if gluttony isn’t first of all about overeating or being overweight, about dieting and doughnuts? What if being fat is not sinful? Gluttony, like many of the other vices we are studying, has been both oversimplified and misunderstood.
Now, allow me to clear the air lest you misunderstand and joyfully think, “Wow! This is great! The fat pastor is about to tell us that gluttony is OK!” No! Gluttony is not OK! In fact, the Bible lists it right beside other sins, some which gluttonous Christians self-righteously berate and criticize in others. One of the things I have noticed over the years is that people tend to criticize, accuse, judge, and condemn other people regarding sins that are not a problem for themselves. Christian often criticize certain sins in others that are no temptations for them. Yet all the while they ignore their own sin.
Kevin De Young has a very challenging article that addresses this phenomenon in which he asks, “Why do conservative Christians make such a fuss about homosexuality and give everyone a free pass—most notably themselves—when it comes to gluttony? Everyone’s a biblical literalist until you bring up gluttony.”
Notice how the Bible speaks sternly and with serious warnings about the sin of gluttony and calls out that deadly sin right alongside others.
For example:
Proverbs 23:20-21: Do not join with those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves with meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.
Titus 1:12-13: One of them, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.
Proverbs 28:7: Whoever keeps the law is a discerning son, but a companion of gluttons shames his father.
Proverbs 23:2: Put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony.
Isaiah 22:13: Slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine: [saying] “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”
Deuteronomy 21:20 speaks about parents bringing an incorrigible son before the elders of the city to be prosecuted, charging: “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.”
It is obvious that Scripture sharply condemns the deadly sin of gluttony right along with others. So, let us not judge the drunkard, the drug addicted, the sex addicted, or any other if we ourselves are food addicted, seemingly unable to get through breakfast without another plate full of sausage gravy and biscuits.
Preparing this sermon has prompted me to examine myself in this area. I love good food, which is not a bad thing, but sometimes I love it too much. Join with me in attempting to be more diligent in heeding the warning and putting into practice Proverbs 23:2: Put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony.
Here, now, is something we need to understand. Although the Bible frequently relates gluttony to food, gluttony is not all about what you eat or not always even how much. Gluttony is about the attitude of the heart. In fact, a skinny bean pole with a raving metabolism, who can eat and eat and eat while not gaining a pound, can be a glutton just as much as the person who seems to gain a pound by just smelling the barbecue wafting through the air.
This is important, so listen and remember: gluttony can be not about food at all. It can be about a person’s indulging his or her appetite for material things—money, cars, houses, and boats. Gluttony can include one’s overindulgence in recreations and amusements. It can be indulging in too much rest and idleness or too much work without enough rest for the body. Gluttony can be the love of too much sex. It can be an overindulgence in sports. It can be an inordinate craving for attention or acceptance.
Gluttony can be an overindulgent focus upon, and indulging in, too much of virtually anything, anything other than God! Anything God has made for man’s service—which includes all the world—can become an object and item of gluttony because of what gluttony truly is—and this is the part most people overlook.
Gluttony is when we have too much focus on pleasure. That’s it, that’s gluttony! Excessive pleasure. Would you like a biblical definition from Scripture? 2 Timothy 3:2, 4: People will be lovers of self, lovers of money…without self-control…lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. That is gluttony. Remember this. The gluttonous person is one who seeks pleasure from whatever it is that he desires more than and in place of the pleasure he should derive from God. The glutton is someone whose pleasure in life should be fellowship and communion with God, loving and serving him. But the glutton prefers fellowship and communion with something else, loving and serving it in place of God. That is gluttony.
Immediate, tangible pleasure. Living for too much pleasure. Practicing too much pleasure. Living too much for pleasure and not enough for God. That is gluttony. Gluttony must be one of the most rampant—if not the most rampant—sin in today’s America. Americans—whether thin and picture perfect as a model or more like Jabba the Hut—are too much given over to pleasure, ease, and affluence. Do you think the thin, gorgeous actress or that muscular hunk of an actor is not liable to gluttony? Well, think how many of them destroy their health and even their lives with drugs, alcohol, and sex. And that, brothers and sisters, is what gluttony is all about.
Food is the easiest and most common example of gluttony so let’s focus on food while not forgetting that anything can be inserted into that blank. Taking food as our example, consider that gluttony is really not about how much we are eating, but about how our eating reflects how much pleasure we take in eating food and why. The idea is not so much a question of too much food but a problem of taking too much pleasure in the food. Why do we eat a third sausage gravy biscuit? What is happening in our heart when we have two scoops of ice cream on our apple pie when we know we shouldn’t? The heart of the matter is in the heart, a sinful desire in the heart for pleasure from something other than God.
“Ahh!” some might say, “that means I can eat and eat and eat, drink and drink and drink all I want as long as I remember to give thanks to God!” No, it does not mean that at all. If we love God, then we will desire to obey him and follow his commands. If we love God and our pleasure is in him, then we will want to honor him with our lives according to his word.
And what does God’s word say to the Christian about how to treat his or her body? 1 Corinthians 6:19: Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
According to this Scripture, I understand that if I do have the extra sausage gravy biscuit, I am not necessarily being a glutton. So, when am I being gluttonous? Well, I think the conclusion is clear, according to the Scripture passage we just cited. When food, drink, work, idleness, exercise, sex, or any other behavior is harming the body, which the Bible says is the temple of the Holy Spirit, gluttony is there. If overindulgence harms the body, at that point it is gluttony.
From this perspective, being overweight according to the medical charts, does not necessarily mean you are a glutton. For example, I have a very big frame. A few years ago, I weighed in for a new physician who, when she saw my weight, looked at me and said, “I wouldn’t have thought that.”
I explained, “I have a big frame.”
She looked me over and replied with an acknowledging nod, “Yes, you do.”
The suggested guidelines say I should weigh about 180 lbs. With my large frame, if I weighed 180 lbs. I would look like somebody’s laundry hanging on a clothesline. Weighing more than the charts suggest does not always indicate gluttony.
I thank the Lord and give him all the credit that, every year, when my annual bloodwork is done, everything on the report is within range. I know that can change any day, but so far, by God’s grace, it hasn’t. So, I believe that although yes I would like to lose some pounds, my weight overall is not harming my body, so I am generally OK with it. But if our behavior as God’s image bearers is harming the body that God made as a physical organ for bearing his image, then we need to make some changes.
Since gluttony is not necessarily about the extra sausage gravy biscuit, what is it about? Food, like other things—drink, work, sex, exercise, recreation—is a gift from God. God made the world and all its contents to be a pleasant environment for mankind, useful and good. 1 Timothy 4:4: For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. But gluttony creeps in and corrupts those pleasures when our desire for them runs out of control.
Gluttony occurs when God’s good gifts, that he made for our pleasurable and beneficial use, gain control over us. What is vicious about gluttony is that the pleasures of life dominate everything else that is important, especially God. Gluttony degrades us into mere pleasure seekers, as Paul describes in Philippians 3:19: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame—who set their mind on earthly things. Gluttony degrades us into lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. That is what it is all about.
De Young contends that the main question we should be asking is not, “How much is too much? But rather, “How dominated by the desire for this pleasure am I? How difficult would it be to have to give it up or do without it?”
The trouble with gluttony is that it reduces perfectly good things in life to exercises in gratifying our desires for pleasure, indulging in whatever we think will make us satisfied. Rather than simply enjoying the good things of life, we use them to give ourselves a pleasure fix. We seek pleasure, meaning, happiness, and satisfaction in the gifts of God rather than in God. The good things of life are “goods’ but we turn them into gods.
So, when it comes to the proper use of the goods of this world—food and drink, work and productivity, recreation and amusements, or anything with which you might fill in the blank, a good guiding principle can be found in Paul’s letter to the church of Corinth (1 Corinthians 6:12): 12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.
The Divine Remedy
In each of the sermons on the seven deadly sins, we have followed the pattern of first addressing the sin and then discussing the divine remedy for it. For each of the seven sins, there is a virtue, or virtues, provided by God which, if practiced consistently, will force that particular sin out of our life.
Do you remember the illustration we have been using in other sermons? Think of a foul, filthy, polluted pond. If you wanted to clean up the pond, one way would be to let clean, pure, good water flow into it and flush it out. Then you would have a pond full of nice clean, refreshing, healthful water. Our soul is like that pond. What we introduce into it will either make it polluted or keep it clean. We want to make it our practice to do the good and virtuous things until they become second nature for us instead of corrupt, sinful practices.
What virtue does God’s Holy Spirit supply for true seekers who desire to overcome the vice of gluttony? It is moderation. Moderation is the holy virtue we want to practice in order to overcome the vice of gluttony.
There is, however, a danger we must avoid. It is true of moderation vs. gluttony and is likewise true of any of the seven deadly sins replaced with corresponding virtues. We must avoid thinking that by merely changing external behavior patterns we will be achieving the moderate way of living that pleases God. Remember the words of the prophet Samuel by which he warns not to emphasize the externals (1 Samuel 16:4): “For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Changing outward behavior without a change in the heart can lead to legalism, which is deadly to the soul. Legalism invents a list of do’s and don’ts, usually external things like the way you dress, the way you wear your hair, what you eat and drink (dietary restrictions), no smoking, no drinking, or whatever taboos are normal for the list-makers and list-keepers. Then by following the external behavior required to keep the list, people mistakenly believe that all is well with their soul and that their right behavior is all it takes to please the Lord. But Jesus preached very sternly against mere external conformity to a man-made list of do’s and don’ts. Remember his harsh words for the Pharisees?
Godly change and virtuous living begin within us and require that the inside of us—the heart, mind, soul—be in line with what God truly desires from his people. David prayed to God (Psalm 51:16-17): You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; you do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, you will not despise.
So, does the Lord desire moderation in the way we live? Does he want us to change our external behavior from sinful to virtuous practices? Yes, of course he does! But moderation in external practices alone can become sinful legalism if our hearts are not right. We must ask ourselves, therefore, the key question: How can my heart be right in God’s eyes? What must be my motivation for making the change to a more moderate lifestyle and practicing it?
What motive in our heart makes our moderate living pleasing to God? Love. Moderation without love is legalism that is dangerous to the soul. “Loving moderation” is what God desires from us.
The classic passage about love in the Bible is when the lawyer asked Jesus a question regarding which is the greatest commandment in all of God’s law. You know the response of our Lord. The two greatest commandments—the two commandments that contain the entire moral law of God—are these (Matthew 22:37-39): “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind” and “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love for God, love for people, that is what our Lord Jesus desires from us, along with love for God’s world.
True, biblical moderation, the kind that beats the sin of gluttony without becoming just a checkmark on a moral checklist, is moderation that flows from love. It is when our love for God and for others is greater than our love for pleasing ourselves. It is love springing from God living in our hearts by the Holy Spirit—love from God and for God that is greater than ourselves.
When you love God first, you don’t need to worship food, attention, approval, money, comfort, entertainment, or any other thing. When you love God first, you are so satisfied with him that you can live just fine without the usual attractions that enslave people.
When you love your neighbor with the kind of love that would be otherwise directed toward yourself, you avoid gluttonous overindulgence that springs from ugly selfishness. I used to see a saying that I really like, I imagine it is still around: “Live simply that others may simply live.” When you love your neighbor, you practice “simple living”—moderation in the material things of life. How? By not gathering all the luxuries and trappings of life in this material world for yourself only. Rather, you share with those who are without.
Loving moderation also includes loving God’s world that he has made. We are not talking about the kind of radical positions I once heard a man advocating. He said that humans are the most destructive force on the planet, and the Earth would be a lot better off without them. I doubt that he voluntarily eliminated himself from the planet, don’t you?
I think I am right, however, when I propose that Christians should be the most devoted environmentalists of all, meaning, of course, true, biblical love for the earth. Love for the earth, good stewardship, that causes us to pause, reassess, and alter our practices toward our environment.
Psalm 24 rightly tells us: The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Love for God requires that we love God’s works and respect God’s ownership. God created the world and all who dwell in it. He created it all and owns it all. If we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves, then we should practice loving moderation toward God, toward all our neighbors, and toward all the earth. Practice good Christian stewardship of God’s world. Avoiding excessive, wasteful use of natural resources is just one of many things to consider in the practice of loving moderation.
One more thing to consider in the practice of loving moderation is this: Not only should you love God, people, and the world, but you should also love your own soul. When you love God, you will make the kind of changes that are good for you because you realize that, as the Bible says, you are not your own; you were bought with a price.
If you are a Christian, then God has purchased you for himself, to be a member of his own family and his treasured possession. The price he paid for you was the life and blood of his own Son Jesus. You have an obligation, therefore, to live in a manner that honors God your Father, Jesus your Savior, and the giver of your spiritual life, the Holy Spirit. God loves your soul and so must you. When you love your own soul as God’s treasured possession, made in his image, you will refuse to be ruled by appetites and desires that can enslave your soul.
Gluttony is slavery, and God’s redeemed children are to be free. Let us remember the principle and follow the words of Galatians 6:1: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Gluttony is slavery, but Jesus sets us free! And let us rejoice in the wonderful assurance of 2 Corinthians 3:17: Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
Praise God that we are not destined to bear the chains of gluttony and suffer its innumerable damages. No, Christ sets us free; therefore, we are free indeed. Let us relish the pleasures of freedom in Jesus by having nothing to do with the idolatry of too much love for anything other than God himself.
Benediction: Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13).
[1] Here and in other parts, credit is due to Rebecca Konyndyk De Young Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies, Brazos Press © 2009 by Rebecca Konyndyk De Young.