Sunday 03 • 24 • 19

Would you bow your heads with me? Father, we thank You for this opportunity we have as a community to hear and talk through and wrestle through Your calling to us to go and to be Your people who are constantly going, who are measured by our sentness. Lord, we pray that You would mobilize Your church more fully in Jerusalem and Judea, the places that are close by with people like us, in Samaria, places close by with people different from us, and to the ends of the earth. And Father, we pray that You would send Your church. Father, we pray as You tell us to pray for harvest workers that the fields are white. And Lord, we should ask You. Lord, so we ask You, would You help us to see what you see, love what you love, and go where you want us to go. Lord, we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

We're going to turn our attention to God's word. I'm going to invite Kyle to come and read for us from Proverbs 23 and John chapter six. Please follow along in your bulletin or up on the wall behind me.

When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is before you and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite. Do not desire his delicacies for they are deceptive food. 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. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who tarry long over wine, those who go to try mixed wine. 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. You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies at the top of a mast. They struck me, you will say, but I was not hurt. They beat me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake? I must have another drink. — Proverbs 23

Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. The Jews then disputed among themselves saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the living father sent me and I live because of the father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. — John 6

The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Would you join me in prayer? Abba Father, as we continue our track of remembrance back to Calvary, make to our hearts Christ the dearer, his cross the nearer, our sins the graver, the grave the colder, the weight the longer, the stone the heavier, the tomb the emptier, the triumph the brighter, and His risenness the higher. In His name we pray, amen.

Gluttony and the Series on the Seven Deadly Sins

We're in a series on the seven deadly sins, and I've heard from some of you that you are tired of this series, and I get it. So every week, we come together, we focus on yet another sin, and you go out and you feel terrible. And that is not the point. The point of doing this series is not to make anybody feel bad. It's not to beat you up during March. The point of the Christian life is not becoming experts in sin management. The point of looking at our sins during this time—historically, church has used this season leading up to Easter to remind ourselves how precious and how big what we have in the cross is for us and how much we need it. And so looking at each of these sins every week is to lift our eyes, yes, to see our own hearts, but to see how much we need Him. And second, it's also to help us to grow, to grow as followers of Christ, to become more and more like Him. So that's why we're doing this series.

So today, we turn our reflections to Homer Simpson. Right now, probably no single character in modern American literature or TV or movies embodies the seven deadly sins as much as Homer Simpson. So Homer is lazy. He says, "I'm just a big toasty cinnamon bun. I never want to leave my bed. I know I have a terrible Homer sense the next day, okay?" He's greedy. "Where's my money? Where's my money?" He's envious, especially of his neighbor Ned Flanders. So Marge says to him, "Homie, you know, if you gave Ned a chance," but Homer says, "Oh, here we go again. Look, I don't care if Ned Flanders is the nicest guy in the world. He's a jerk." And then finally, of course, when you think of Homer, what do you think of? Gluttony. Right. Donuts. Right, right. So he's gluttony, he is one of us.

Today, as we consider gluttony, gluttony comes from the word from the Latin to swallow. And of all the deadly sins, this is the one that I think we know the most about.

So here's how most people identify gluttony. Gluttony is a fat person. Someone who's a glutton is a fat person. Someone who is not a glutton is a skinny person. In fact, our stereotypical picture in our heads of a glutton is someone who's a big guy at Thanksgiving dinner who's just stuffed his face and had to loosen one notch in his belt. And then you say, What about dessert? And he says, Okay, twist my arm, right?

My guess is that most of us have never heard a sermon on gluttony. I've never preached one personally and I kind of think, wow, I should have probably done that at some point because I think of all the seven deadly sins, this is the one that we think we know the best, but probably know the least about.

So here's my outline for us this morning. Two things: how gluttony leaves us empty, and how God can make us full.

Our passage today comes from the book of Proverbs. If you're not familiar with Proverbs, it comes right after Psalm in the Old Testament, and it's a collection of wisdom sayings. It's not a book that you read through like a story. Rather, it's pithy sayings that describe how to live life well. And chapter 23 in particular talks a lot about food and drink and about wisdom with food and drink. It points us to the heart of gluttony.

Look at verse two. It describes gluttony as an appetite, really a disordered appetite. It describes someone who's given to appetite. It's something that's reinforced over and over again. It's a routine, a pattern, sort of a groove that is worn in the soul from overuse. It's a vice. It's a sinful habit.

If there's anything simple about gluttony, it's that it's about pleasure—excess pleasure, immediate pleasure, tangible pleasure, pleasure that comes from consumption of any sort.

The Bible and Food

Now, I want you to think with me. Have you ever noticed how much the Bible talks about food? The Bible is just filled with food. The first story in the Bible of the man and the woman in the garden is a story about food. And while we sometimes think of that primarily about the one fruit they're not supposed to eat, remember, it's all about God's abundant provision.

So the first man, the first woman in the garden are told, "Look, pomegranates and passion fruit and mangoes, and papaya, and pineapples, and pears, and apples, and peaches, and plums, and nectarines, and apricot—all for you. This abundance for you."

The Bible ends with another story of food—with a picture for us of what is the consummation of all things: a feast, a great banquet, eating and delighting with God. And all between is food. All kinds of eating together, eating with God.

We're told not only this in a descriptive way, but in a prescriptive way, that God richly provides us with everything to enjoy. First Timothy tells us that wine is for making us merry and feasting. Feasting brings us laughter.

Look, if you like food, you are in the right place. God loves food. And Jesus loves food. One of the first statements about his ministry is that the Son of Man came eating and drinking. Do you know that only twice in the New Testament someone is charged with gluttony, and both times, it's Jesus—charged with being a glutton, with one who loves to eat and loves wine. He must have really liked to eat to be charged with this.

So, whatever you think of Jesus, he is no ascetic. He is not like Shiva from Hinduism. He is not like Buddha who are about denial of the self and denial of all pleasures. Rather, what we see with Jesus is a party. Jesus went to parties. Jesus ate and drank.

Remember the story in John chapter two of the wedding feast where the family runs out of wine and Jesus instead of producing just a couple of bottles for them, transforms 180 gallons of water into 180 gallons of wine. You talk about excess and party and celebration.

See, if you love food, you are in the right place. God loves food. Jesus rejoices in food. Food is not what makes you a glutton.

The Danger of Gluttony

So why is gluttony bad? Let me just say all these things really clearly. Gluttony is not about being overweight. There's no sin in being fat. Being fat is not wrong. There are plenty of skinny gluttons out there.

But gluttony is dangerous for this reason: it is parasitic on the good. You know what a parasite is? A parasite invades. A parasite distorts and ruins. Gluttony is parasitic on good.

See, eating and drinking are always meant to be pleasurable. They're meant to be pleasurable. Notice in our passage from Proverbs 23, verses 29 to 35. This writer clearly knows something about drinking wine.

Listen the way he describes the pleasures of drinking wine. He talks about tarrying over wine. He talks about the pleasures of mixed wine. That's like a good Cabernet Shiraz blend, right? That's what he's describing here. He talks about wine as it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. Anybody enjoyed that before? Right? He talks about verse three speaks of the delicacies of food. Those things that are just extra and over the top. And the pleasure of eating food is a God given gift. But corruption, see gluttony is corruption of that gift. It's missing the pleasure of food and making pleasure the pleasure. It's our desire for pleasure run amok.

Think of it this way. It's like a river that overflows the banks. So in First Corinthians six, Paul says this:

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. Food for the stomach and the stomach for food. — 1 Corinthians 6

What's he saying? He's saying there's a right place for these things. Picture a normal river. And during normal parts of the year, it flows and stays within its banks, and it's enjoyable. But when the spring rains come, it overflows and it destroys all kinds of things. Gluttony has that kind of power in our lives. It's an overappetite for pleasure. It's using food or drink or other consumable things for a pleasure fix.

So as we've done every week, let's flesh this one out. See what I did there? Come on. Are you all awake this morning? Come on. Wake up. Wake up. So let's flesh this one out.

The Five Categories of Gluttony

Back in the Middle Ages, the monks described gluttony in a lot more complicated ways than we do. They had five categories for gluttony, three of which had to do with how you eat and two on what you eat. So let's consider these.

First is this: excessive eating. This is what we normally think of as gluttony. Eating too much, a person who takes in more calories regularly than their body needs. An excessive eater will choose the restaurant based on where you can get the most food. When I was a kid, I was like three Musketeers candy bars the best because they were the biggest for the money. Right? So this is the buffet. This is the Mexican restaurant because you get free chips. This is supersize my meal.

Again, Proverbs reminds us that this is dangerous. Listen:

If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomited it out. — Proverbs

It's overeating, excessive amounts.

Second type is hasty eating. You might think of this as shoveling it in, eating too fast. Now, I can't tell you how many times in my marriage I'm almost done with my first plate of food, and I look over and Susan has barely started eating. So my mother-in-law has said this to me countless times. Did you even taste it? Right? Like shoveling food in. You're eating one bite and you're looking, planning out the next one that's about to go in. You're eating too fast. It's about getting it down. Hasty eating.

Third kind is ravenous eating. That's eating in a greedy fashion. Am I going to get enough? Think about our fellowship meals we sometimes have here. You know, we have a great group of cooks in our church, men and women. And so we have our big meals together. People bring awesome food. But when you see that spread, this is how you know if you're a ravenous eater. You pile your plate. You're worried like next time I go through that dessert, that salad, that chicken leg, that biscuit is not going to be there. Better get more extra this time. It turns food into competition.

In my fraternity in college, we used to eat our meals together, and it was always like this. You're eating and you're watching out for what's on the plate. You're like, I've got to get through this fast so I can get more. It's all about greed.

So those are the obvious kinds. Those are the kinds of things that we think of as greed. But what about these? What about these two? See, historically, this is what the fathers before us have pointed to as also greed.

Fastidious eating. You know the word fastidious? Fastidious means difficult to please. So do you have a friend who it's always got to be ordered just a certain way? Like the things have to be brought on the side. Take the cheese off of that. I need some extra mayonnaise on that or none, no mayonnaise on that or extra spices or none at all. Bring this on the side. This is the person who sends things back to the chef at the restaurant because it's not quite right. Fastidious eating. It's not eating too much, but rather a focus on food being prepared a certain way.

C. S. Lewis, in his book, The Screwtape Letters, describes a fastidious glutton this way:

She is a positive terror to hostesses and servants. She is always turning from what has been offered to her to say with a demure little smile and a sigh, Oh, please, please, all I want is a cup of tea, not too strong, not too weak, and the teensiest, weensiest piece of really crisp toast.

This is what Lewis says about her.

He says, Do you see? Because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognizes it as gluttony. In her determination to get what she wants, she is troublesome to others. See, if your eating experiences are never what you really wanted, if you experience being let down by meals regularly, you may be a fastidious glutton.

And then the last one, sumptuous eating. A sumptuous eater is not focused on quantity, but quality. This is, don't give me Costco. I want whole foods. It's got to be done a certain way. So the Desert Fathers used to say it this way: this is a person who won't go to chain restaurants. Come on, they didn't say that. Wake up. Wake up, people. There were no chain restaurants in the third century. But this is a person who it's always got to be farm to fork. Right? It can't be Applebee's. Never can be Chili's. This is a person who cares about special ingredients. The Desert Fathers did used to say this: it's always about the special sauces, special spices.

See, this may feel harmless to some people, but isn't a fixation on food always just a fixation on food? Isn't it really any different from the other ones? This is the one that the Israelites in the desert leaving Egypt on the way to the Promised Land were guilty of. In Numbers 11, it says this:

Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, "Oh, wish we had meat to eat. We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost us nothing, and the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up and there's nothing at all but this manna to look at." — Numbers 11

You can remember those, by the way. Those spell out the word FRESH. Fastidious, ravenous, excessive, sumptuous and hasty.

Now why are we so hungry? The reality is we're not hungry as much as we think we are. We're empty. That's our problem. This is why verse three describes the food of the ruler as deceptive food. Now, how could it be deceptive food? Was it made of wax or plastic? No, that's not why it's deceptive food. It's deceptive food because we're looking for food or drink or something else we can consume to fill our appetites in ways they were never designed to do. That's why we drink up life in great gulps.

Have you ever seen a group of tourists maybe at a national park or historic site, and they get off the bus, and they all have their cameras, or they got their iPhone with their selfie stick, and they don't even seem to stop for a moment and just look before they start taking pictures. It's not about being in the moment. It's not about enjoying the beauty or appreciating what's in front of you. It's about capturing. It's about consuming. It's about hoarding or getting that photo, either with the selfie stick or with the photo through the lens of a camera. It's not about enjoying.

See, gluttony is like that. It's predatory on God's good gifts. Listen to our gluttonous language. Have you ever said or heard someone say, "I really need a cup of coffee"? "I'm dying for a cigarette." "I really need a glass of wine." See, we're gluttonous. Or don't we binge watch? Got to consume those episodes. Just need to fill up the time. Fill up my emptiness. Or we even use moral categories to describe how we eat. "I was bad this weekend." What does that mean? "Shouldn't have had dessert." I was bad.

So while I've picked on food, you can be gluttonous for anything that we consume. Videos, alcohol, cigarettes, exercise, cheese, all these things. But here's the question. What we should ask ourselves over and over again is, what are you using to distract yourself from the emptiness that you feel inside? What are you using to distract yourself from the emptiness on the inside?

See, a lot of gluttony, I think, is born of boredom. Work is boring. Relationships are unfulfilling. Life is not as exciting. Solomon wrote, "Wise men and fools alike spend their lives scratching for food, yet his appetite is never satisfied." I love that. Scratching for food, like digging, trying to get something.

See, life is not enough. Food's always there. Tastes good. Drink goes down quickly. Here's how you know you're a glutton. When more and more produces less and less on the inside. More and more of whatever it is that you fill your life with to distract yourself from the emptiness, it does less and less. You enjoy it less and less. It does less and less for you.

Gluttony is Killing Us

Finally, we need to realize this. This is a deadly sin. Gluttony is killing us. Gluttony is killing us. We're in a gluttony crisis in The United States. And no, I'm not talking about obesity or cholesterol or high blood pressure. The problem is we are so focused on that aspect of our overconsumption that we miss the spiritual part. There are thousands of books available for us on dieting.

At any one moment in the United States right now, sixty-five million people are dieting. That is staggering. And yet, we're missing the one part. The one thing I never see in books is not just about how our overconsumption affects our bodies, but what it's doing to our souls. Consumption is never just about bodies.

You may know the dangers of emotional eating. Have you ever heard that phrase before, emotional eating? Emotional eating is when you consume something to deal with your own sadness or loneliness or anxiety. But the reality is that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Gluttony is a deadly sin because it transforms an image bearer of God when I'm in a room full of them into a consumer. It's like swallowing a vacuum cleaner that's constantly turned on. It's like having a black hole in the middle of your life.

Frederic Biechner says it this way: "A glutton is someone who raids the icebox for a cure for spiritual malnutrition, and it's killing us."

C.S. Lewis, I quoted him a few minutes ago, was a literary genius. He wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of children's books that really all adults should read. In the first one, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, there's a little boy named Edmund who encounters a witch, and she seeks to have power over him. So she gives him a box of a dessert called Turkish Delight—very popular in England, not in the United States, kind of gross, like little jelly bars.

This is what Lewis says: "She knew, though Edmund did not, that this was enchanted Turkish delight, and that anyone who tasted it would want more and more of it and would, even if they were allowed, go on eating it until they killed themselves."

That's what gluttony does to us. We would never say it that way, but Proverbs does. Listen to how the writer of Proverbs captures what gluttony does to us.

Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining, redness of eyes? — Proverbs 23:29

I mean, doesn't that sound like someone who's suffering? Someone who's crying, someone who's had some catastrophe hit their life? But no. Who's he describing? He's describing someone who's consumed with consumption. He's describing a glutton.

It bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. — Proverbs 23:32

You think this person wants to run away from whatever's hurting them. But in verse 35, it says this:

When shall I awake? I must have another drink. — Proverbs 23:35

See, what we consume ends up consuming us. Gluttony is a disordered love of pleasure. It's a craving for food or drink or exercise or anything else we consume that ends up consuming us. It eats us alive.

How Gluttony Consumes Us

So how is this consuming us? Three things really briefly here.

First, it distracts us from the presence of God. Worship of the senses—worship of what is sensual and pleasure—turns us away from the things of God. This is why in Philippians, Paul warns about people whose God is their stomach, whose glory is in their shame.

Second, gluttony isolates. Remember what we said. Food is created for what? A feast. Wine for celebration. It's meant to be shared. It's meant to be gathered around the table with those we love and celebrated. But gluttony turns food into a solo sport. It's all about me. What am I getting? Am I getting what I want?

And finally, gluttony is a false savior. Think about that phrase we use. Have you ever heard people talk about comfort foods? Comfort foods—those foods your mama made you growing up, they have a lot of cheese, a lot of starch in them. Comfort means finding solace and relief. And yet we know the God of the universe is the only one who gives solace and relief. Comfort eating keeps us from savoring the only comfort we have in life and death, which is God Himself.

John Piper said this, and it's my favorite quote about this: "The greatest enemy of a hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It's not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It's not the x-rated video, but primetime drivel of triviality we drink in every night. The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies, but his gifts."

Do you see how we're starving our souls by overconsumption? We're hurting ourselves.

God Can Make Us Full

But here's what I want to leave you with. I want you to know this: God can make us full. How can God make us full? I want to tell you, God delights. This is the God who created food and drink. Don't you think He wants to satisfy you? Don't you think that it is His great joy to give you what is most satisfying? He knows your appetites. He knows your hungers.

This is why I love how the Bible speaks to us using our own language. It speaks to us in food metaphors about God Himself. So milk...

Desire the sincere spiritual milk of the word. Taste. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Thirst. Come everyone who thirsts. Come to the waters. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Good food. And he who has no money, come by and eat. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

See, why so much food talk in the Bible? Because food is always meant to be a pointer to us for God. It always is meant to show us this is what satisfies. God is this good. But here's the question. And I think this question needs to be asked over and over and over again. Why would you prefer something you've never tasted?

You know, I see some picky eaters in my family. Maybe some of you were picky eaters growing up. You ever seen a child who puts something new in front of them, especially if it's green, and they say, "I don't like it. It's yucky"? And what did your mama say to you? Everybody's mama said the same thing: "How do you know if you haven't tried it?"

And here's the question. Have you tried Him? Have you tasted Jesus? That is not an empty question. I quote Psalm 34:8 every week in our communion liturgy.

Taste and see that the Lord is good. — Psalm 34:8

See, the gospel is not some doctrines you sign on to. It's tasting. It's savoring. It's enjoying. It's something you enjoy. So here's my question. Have you done that? Have you tried him? Have you tasted and seen that this is good?

See, why does the Bible compare a life with God to a feast? Because to know God is not just to remember Him or to believe in Him or assent to the truth about Him. It is to savor Him. It is to enjoy Him. When God comes into your life, the Holy Spirit gives you—can you hang with this? It's like getting a new taste bud on your tongue. It's like being given a new faculty to be able to enjoy something you've never enjoyed before. That's what He's like.

This is why Jonathan Edwards wrote on this and he said, "There's a difference between someone who knows about honey and someone who's tasted its sweetness." It's one thing to know about God, and it's another thing to have tasted Him, to know Him. See, this is the difference between agreeing with doctrine about God and having a new taste bud in the heart. It's never just hear and agree—it's taste and see. Taste and see.

Christianity as a Feast

See, this is why Christianity is so different from what people think it is in the Bible Belt. It's so different. It's not signing up a series of doctrine. It's not following a moral code. It is a feast in the heart. And of course, there's going to be sacrifice and serving and giving of yourself. But all those things are in line for one purpose in your life: that knowing Him and being with Him. It is festival joy. It is feasting on Him. It's delighting in Him.

This is why Jesus not only liked to eat, but he compares himself to food. In John 6, did you hear what he said? "I'm like bread." Think about it. Have you ever walked into someone's house right as they're pulling freshly baked bread out of the oven? I mean, it just knocks you over. Freshly baked bread has got to be one of the most powerful smells in the whole world. Or you watch someone take bread and break it and the steam rises out of it. You're like, "Ugh, give me some of that." That's how good it is. Even gluten-free bread—it's not so bad as it used to be, right?

Jesus is saying, "This is how I'm to be known." I think he intends for us to walk down the line of every aspect of what it means that he is bread. How bread smells, how bread satisfies, how it fills you. It's not just the staff of life. It's not something you just eat to get through. It's something to be savored and enjoyed. This is how Jesus finds himself. It's almost as he's saying, "Find this joy in me. Find me tasty and satisfying and delightful and filling and this good."

Jesus says here in John 6 that his body is real food and his blood is real drink. And lots of people go, "Yuck." But for those of you who have tasted, you're like, "Yeah. That is right. That is what gives life." See, if that's gross to you, you haven't tasted Him. You haven't tasted Him.

You know what? This is why so many people in Raleigh are so joyless and bored with Christianity. So many people who are like, "Yeah, Jesus, He's okay. I like Him. He's fine. I would vote for Him." But why is there no joy? Why is there no transforming power in the lives of people, maybe in our own families, our lives, and people we touch? Why are we like, "I don't know"? Because they haven't tasted. It's like reading the recipe versus eating the meal. They've read the recipe. It's the same thing, right? No, it's not.

Look, there is no shame if you're here this morning and you called yourself a Christian a long time, and you're like, "I'm not sure I've ever tasted this." Like, I know lots of things about God. Look, I want you...

We want you to know what it means to have the taste bud on the tongue. We want you to know Jesus is this good. He is this satisfying and this delightful. Now how do you do that? How do you taste Jesus? You believe. You believe and you keep on believing and you keep on coming back for more and more taste. Sometimes this is an acquired taste. It's hard. If you've grown up reading the recipes all your life and you don't know what it is, you have to keep coming back and believing.

Now, I want to speak to those of you who maybe like, you've tasted Jesus, and you can name a time. You remember what that was like. You remember, there was a time in my life when I was filled with joy. There was a time in my life where I would have said, yes, Pastor, Jesus is that satisfying. He's that good, but that's not now. And you can name that season. You can remember what that's like.

And look, I have good news for you. Because you may have tasted, but your appetites have been dulled. But here's the good news, they can be retrained. They can be retrained. Right now, you may not feel like, yeah, Jesus is the most satisfying. You're like, yeah, I remember that. But here's the good news. If food is a pointer to God, then we can look to Him. We can look from the pointer to the point.

Have you ever had a pet? Take a pet out and I did this with a dog. So we had this dog for a while. You go play fetch with this dog, and I throw the ball, and then the dog would miss me throwing it. And I'd point. I'm like, It's right there. The dog would sit there and stare at my arm. You're like, No, look, follow the point, you know, and the dog just stares at you like, You stupid animal, right? Or your cat. You're like, Get off the furniture, and the cat sniffs your finger. Right? Like animals miss the point. They don't follow the pointer to the point. And we do the same thing.

See, when we miss the point, we need to follow the pointer. Look, when Jesus says, I am the bread of life, that is a massive hint to you whose tastes have become dulled. There's a massive hint to you because it's not that you need to say, My desires are bad. I need you to stop eating. I just need to cut out all these things in my life. No, no, no, no. You need to replace them. So you become satisfied with empty substitutes. You're looking at the arm and not the point.

And this is the good news of this. When Jesus says, I am the bread of life, it means this. Our tastes can't be suppressed, but they can be replaced. This is why diets almost never work, because we're trying to suppress something. The way that we grow as people who get the point and taste and see over and over is we replace it. And there are two ways you can do this.

Two Applications: Fasting and the Lord's Supper

First is fasting. Fasting is an ancient spiritual practice of going without something good so you become hungry for something better. It's this practice of going without something good, usually food, so you become hungry for something better. So you can say, I'm going to fast lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Or you can say, I'm going to fast from watching Netflix for this month. I'm going to fast from alcohol. I'm going to fast from coffee. I'm going to fast from going out to eat every day. I'm going to fast so that I become aware of the false things I go to, that I'm feeding myself on that really aren't satisfying.

And here's what you do with a fast. You don't just go without, you take it and you pivot off of this. So this is NCAA March Madness time. So you get what I'm going to do right here. Okay, so you're like, man, I really could use a glass of wine, a cup of coffee, a dessert. And in that moment, what do you do? You pivot. Pivot off that. See that? See what I just did there? Pivot, right?

So you're like, I really need dessert tonight. I'm dying for Jesus, help me to long for you like that. You pray. You go to Him and say, Jesus, I know that what I need is not a cup of coffee. I need more of You. I'm not hungry for You. I don't think You're what I need or what satisfies me. You pivot off of that. You take it and turn off that.

Look, fasting from food is not for everybody. Some of you have health reasons why you shouldn't. But you can fast from all kinds of good things that have become too big in your life so that Jesus can become greater. If you want to learn about fasting more, I've got a handout up here you can grab after the service. And it's a guide for you for how to grow in identifying the false things that you go to and eat air in your life instead of Jesus.

The second application is this, and you knew this was coming. The Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper. See, Jesus gave us a meal. We eat together every week. And I use the words taste and see. We come together and we sing and we pray and we listen and we eat. But here's one of the things I've noticed. When I stand up on Sundays and I say, hey, we're about to take this meal.

All the adults are like, okay, and it's kids who come to me afterward and say, "Pastor Jeff, that wasn't a meal. That was a snack." And I love your kids because they're paying attention. This is what you say to them: You're right, honey. That's because Jesus is the feast. Jesus is the meal. It tastes like a snack right now because that's not the point. The little cracker and the thimble, that's not what it's about. It's about a weekly feast on grace. Mama and daddy, the adults around you, they are feasting on Jesus. And we love this.

Taking the Lord's Supper every week is appetite retraining. This is why I tell you: look, we don't take attendance in our church. You should never miss a Sunday. You know why? It's not because I'm a great preacher. It's so you can taste every week. You can remember. You can retrain your appetite for what is most satisfying.

What the Lord's Supper Does

Taking the Lord's supper does four things for us. First, it helps us recognize what we're really hungry for. It helps us remember: I've been eating spiritual junk food all week—that Netflix, cigarettes, alcohol, desserts. Those things are not doing it for me. It reminds us what we're really hungry for.

Second, it helps us to repent of eating air. Remember, a glutton is one who raids the icebox for a cure for spiritual malnutrition.

Third, it reconfigures your appetites to remember that what you're craving—something or anything besides Him—what your hunger for is God Himself. That bread is not the bread of life. He is.

Finally, we receive the spiritual food. Remember Jesus. Remember Jesus who came as a baby and grew up and lived an obedient life for God. He was tested in the wilderness. He does the opposite of Adam. Adam in the garden gives in to his appetites. Here's Jesus being tested by Satan in the wilderness, and he denies himself food. The tempter comes to him and says, "Make some bread." And he says, "No, the real bread is the word of my Father in heaven."

And then like bread, he himself is broken. Like the sheep at Passover, his blood is poured out for gluttons who feast on the gifts and forget the giver. And Jesus becomes the bread, the real manna that will never ever run out.

The Grace That Never Runs Out

You come in here every week and you're weary and you're anxious and you're fearful and you're so worn out and you're sad. I stand up in front of you and I preach to you and I preach to myself. This is what I want you to hear every week: You're never going to run out of manna. He will always satisfy. He will always be here. You will never run out of His grace. You will never get to the end of it. There's plenty for tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and He loves to satisfy His children.

This is the point. God wants you to be a glutton for grace. He wants you to be a glutton for grace.

A Signpost to Satisfaction

Food and drink, it's a signpost. It's pointing us to what really satisfies us. So I want you to walk out of here and I want you to have a great lunch today. I don't want you to feel guilty. I don't want you to feel terrible about how you're eating. But I want you to look from the lunch to the Lord. I want you to look from the physical food to the food that really satisfies. And I want you to pray: Lord, make me hungry, and then fill me.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.