A. A certain Texas rancher had a pair of boots made, and they turned out to be too tight.
1. The bootmaker insisted on stretching them, but the rancher wouldn’t let him.
2. The rancher explained to the bootmaker his reason for wanting the boots to be too tight: “There is little in my life that is pleasurable. Every morning when I get out of bed I have to go corral the cows that busted out during the night and then mend the fences they broke. All day long, I watch as my ranch blow away in the dust. After supper I listen to the TV tell about the high price of feed and the low price of beef, all the while my wife is naggin’ me to move to town. So when I get ready for bed every night I want to look forward to the only pleasure I have had all day – pulling off the boots that are killing my feet because they are too tight.”
B. Very few of us would put up with a life that is that devoid of pleasure.
1. Just think about the place that pleasure takes in our modern lives.
2. There has always been some pleasure in life between games, stories, jokes and songs, but today pleasure has become the entire goal of daily life.
3. Today, we expect our daily work to be pleasurable, much more than our ancestors did.
4. In our day and time, if it isn’t fun, we don’t want anything to do with it.
C. In our modern culture and society, we have more leisure time and more money to spend on pleasure than any time in history.
1. Kyle Idleman writes: “People spend trillions of dollars each year trying to make themselves happy, whether it’s with food, with various forms of entertainment media, with travel, with drugs or drink, or with one of the countless other items that promise to turn your frown upside down.”
2. You might be thinking, “What surplus time? I am busier than ever!”
a. That’s true, but what are you busy doing? Quite often the answer is “chasing pleasure.”
3. Or you might be thinking, “What pleasure? My life has been and is devoid of pleasure!”
a. But even if you haven’t experienced very much pleasure in your life, you’ve probably experienced enough to know that you want more.
b. And thus begins the quest for the elusive narcotic of pleasure.
D. In our new sermon series, “Counterfeit Gods: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Our Hearts,” so far we have learned that idolatry is a problem even in our modern, sophisticated lives, because an idol is anything that takes the rightful place of God in our lives.
1. Last week, we learned that God is jealous for us and that His jealousy is a good expression of His love for us and is a protection for our wellbeing.
2. With today’s sermon, we begin to investigate the specific counterfeit gods that battle for our hearts.
3. And borrowing from Kyle Idleman’s book “gods at war,” we will for the most part, be following his outline and his grouping of counterfeit gods.
E. Idleman groups the counterfeit gods under three headings: the temple of pleasure, the temple of power, and the temple of love.
1. In the temple of pleasure, we will investigate the gods of food, sex, and entertainment.
2. There are other gods in the temple of pleasure for sure, but these are the ones that we most often find ourselves bowing down to.
3. And let me make something absolutely clear – this is something you will hear me say often during this series – all the things that can become counterfeit gods, including food, sex, and entertainment, are not sinful or evil in and of themselves.
4. In fact, all these things have the potential to be good gifts from God that draw our hearts to God all the more, but they can be turned into counterfeit gods when we mishandle them.
5. And as we move from the general topic of idolatry into specific counterfeit gods, like the one we are going to discuss today – the god of food, we move from the abstract to the concrete, and as the old saying goes: “we move from preaching to meddling.”
6. You might be interested in knowing that I have given a whole sermon on the subject of our relationship with food only one other time in my 34 years of preaching and it was back in 1996 when I preached a sermon on gluttony called “To Hell on a Cream Puff.”
a. I guess I was a little radical back in my youth!
F. How many of you remember the animated movie called “Over the Hedge”?
1. This innocent animated comedy provides a good illustration and starting point for our discussion of the god of food.
2. This movie is about a group of animals that move from the woods to the suburbs.
3. RJ the raccoon has made a discovery – human beings, who dwell in the suburbs, are bottomless pits of food.
4. RJ explains to the other animals, “We eat to live, but humans live to eat.”
5. RJ tells his friends that if they just hang around the hedges, then there will always be something to eat.
6. He offers to show the other animals what he’s talking about, and so they follow him to peek in on a human family.
a. RJ explains to them that the human mouth is called a “pie hole,” and that people are called, “couch potatoes.”
b. He explains that telephones are devices for summoning food – and they watch someone use the phone and then sure enough, a pizza man shows up at the house to deliver.
7. RJ continues to explain that: “Humans bring the food, take the food, ship the food, and drive the food.”
a. He points to passing trucks with pictures of food on them.
b. It seems that everything people do involves food.
c. As the family prays at the dinner table, RJ explains that that is the altar where they worship food.
d. Then he points to the treadmill and explains, “That gets rid of the guilt so they can eat more food.”
G. Obviously there is some tongue and cheek to this humor, but it is not that far offbase.
1. Think for a minute about the role that food plays in our lives.
2. Statistics from 2015 show that Americans spend $208 billion dollars a year on fast food.
3. In 2015, Americans spent $7.5 billion on potato chips and according to the USDA, potato chips are the most eaten form of potatoes in American homes.
4. According to the American Center for Disease Control, 68 percent of Americans are overweight, and one-third of Americans are obese.
5. The average American consumes 2 to 3 pounds of sugar per week, whereas 100 years ago, when heart disease and cancer were not nearly so common, the average person consumed 5 pounds of sugar per year.
6. It is hard to argue that the god of food is less than a central power in our country.
H. But in all fairness, the god of food is an equal opportunity god, and so it is not just those who are overweight that struggle with this counterfeit god.
1. A person can have a strong metabolism and look very fit, and yet food could still be a god for them.
2. Food can also be a god when we are consumed with diet and exercise.
3. A person can build their life around organic health foods, and they might still be building their life around a counterfeit god, even if we might argue a more healthy god.
4. Nevertheless, it is a god that can demand an incredible sacrifice of time and money and a god that specializes in vanity and pride, as that god encourages us to worship our own image and to take credit for our good health.
I. Let me emphasize again the fact that food is not bad in and of itself.
1. In the Bible, food is mostly treated as a gift from God.
2. God created us with bodies that require food for our nourishment and survival.
3. God could easily have made the fueling process of the body cut and dry, like putting gasoline in our cars, but that is not how God chose to make us and make life.
4. Instead, God clearly wanted eating to be an enjoyable activity and so God created a vast spectrum of foods and flavors, and gave us ten thousand taste buds to give us high-definition tasting.
5. And so, eating is meant to be a blessing, but the problem is that every gift God gives us can be twisted into a lure to pull us away from Him.
J. Let’s think for a minute about the way the god of food works.
1. Let’s imagine walking into one of the food god’s favorite temples – the Cheesecake Factory!
2. Like all good restaurants there is nothing inherently wrong with that restaurant, but let’s just use it as an example of how it is designed and marketed to lead us into trouble.
3. The restaurant is not designed for bodily sustenance or nutrition, it is all about satisfaction.
4. The menu and its offerings are all about throwing a big party for our taste buds.
5. And for the few minutes that we dine there, all is right with the world – it is like a piece of heaven.
6. Have you ever noticed how often we apply heaven or spirituality to the pleasure of eating?
a. “This cake is heavenly!” “This pie is to die for!” “I love soul food!” “This is truly comfort food.” “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!” “This is the nectar of the gods.”
7. Let me again make it perfectly clear that there is nothing wrong with eating at the Cheesecake Factory and it is not idolatry to enjoy a good meal.
8. The problem begins when we start to look to food to do for us what God alone should do.
9. Instead of turning to God, how often do we try to treat a troubled life or troubled soul as if it were a growling stomach?
a. Idleman wrote: “When the going gets tough, the tough get chewing.”
b. Frank Ferrell wrote: “A very large part of mankind’s ills and of the world’s misery is due to the rampant practice of trying to feed the soul with the body’s food.
K. Let’s consider some of the ways that we give ourselves over to the god of food to bring meaning to our lives.
1. First of all, some people look to the god of food to give themselves a feeling of control.
2. Succumbing to the desire to overeat may be a way that some people demonstrate power and control.
3. Our lives can be so complicated and are often filled with unmet desires and disappointments.
4. Although we cannot control others and make them do what we want them to do, we learn that we can exert control over food – we are going to show that chocolate pie who is boss!
5. And interestingly enough, the opposite problem of undereating – anorexia – can have the same root desire to demonstrate power or control – the anorexic person starves himself or herself as a way of proving they are in control.
L. Second, some people look to the god of food to give themselves an escape or distraction from reality.
1. A constant stream of pleasant eating sensations can cover up our troubles or can keep more troubling self-examination at bay.
2. A box of chocolates is much more pleasant than self-assessment and self-improvement.
3. One minister says, “When people ask me why God seems so distant, I ask them, ‘How much junk food have you been eating and how much TV have you been watching?”
4. Food can be a great escape and balm for what hurts.
M. Third, some people look to the god of food to give them insolation or an outer protection from harm.
1. For some people, compulsive eating is linked to a desire to get larger because they are afraid of being thin or small.
2. Because of the abuse they have experienced in their lives, they may equate being thin with becoming an object of sexual attraction, and they are trying to avoid that at all costs.
3. For others, because of the abuse they have experienced, the bigger they can get the greater the feeling of safety or power for protection.
4. One cartoon showed an enormously large man looking into a refrigerator, while a smaller man stood by holding up a finger of admonition saying, “You are what you eat.”
a. The large man replied, “Good! That makes me omnipotent!”
N. All of us need the sense that life is not out of control, or we need comfort from our fears and pains, and we need a sense of protection and safety, but the question is: where will we look to have those needs filled?
1. Will we look to the god of food to meet those needs or will we look to God the Father?
O. Let’s turn to the Gospel of John, and consider a moment in Jesus’ ministry when we see how food became his competition.
1. We are all familiar with the time when Jesus fed the 5000.
a. It was a massive crowd, and the 5000 who were numbered were the men present, but that number didn’t include the women and children who must have also been present.
b. It had been a long day and they were all far from home, and they needed to be fed.
c. And so Jesus miraculously fed them with just five barley loaves and a couple of fish, and yet everyone ate until they were filled.
2. Jesus used that opportunity as an object lesson – He wanted them to see the need to satisfy their souls more than their need to satisfy their bodies.
a. Jesus wanted to help the people to learn to hunger and thirst for righteousness.
b. Jesus wanted them to discover the truth of what he taught in the Sermon on the Mount when he said, “Is not life more than food?” (Mt. 6:25)
3. So after everyone had eaten their fill, Jesus dismissed them and made his way to the other side of the lake.
a. When the crowds Jesus had fed woke up the next morning, yesterday’s feast was digested and gone and they were hungry again.
b. They began looking for Jesus thinking that surely He would be open for breakfast.
4. When they found Jesus on the other side of the lake, here’s what Jesus had to say to them: Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.” (John 6:26-27)
a. Jesus told them that all they had to do was to believe in Him.
b. And I have to laugh at their reply to Jesus – they suggested that Jesus should give them a sign so they could believe.
c. And just in case Jesus couldn’t think of a good sign, they suggested that He could give them some nice, fresh bread from heaven, kind of like the bread that Moses provided, and they even quoted Scripture to Jesus.
d. The crowd definitely had bread on the brain.
5. Jesus explained to them: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (Jn. 6:35)
a. With those words, Jesus was explaining to the crowd that though they haven’t realized it, He is the read bread that they need.
b. They had come wanting some bread for their stomachs, but Jesus was the bread they needed for their souls.
6. The question that each one of us needs to wrestle with and answer is: Do I really believe that Jesus is the bread of life and that my real hunger and thirst can only be satisfied by Him?
a. Have we learned and experienced Jesus’ promise: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled”? (Mt. 5:6)
b. Have we taken the Psalmist up on his challenge – “Taste and see that the Lord is good”? (Psalm 34:8)
c. Have we understood what Jesus understood when Satan tried to tempt Jesus and He said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” (Mt. 4:4)
d. Have we come to have the mindset that Jesus had when He said, “I have food to eat that you do not know about…My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” (Jn. 4:32, 34)
e. Has the god of food taken our attention away from our real God who is the bread of life?
P. Let’s finish up this lesson by asking ourselves some questions to help identify if our relationship with food is in line with a right relationship with God.
1. Question 1: Do I eat more for pleasure or for nourishment?
a. Why do I eat what I eat? Is it mostly because of pleasure or nourishment?
b. Again, let me repeat that there is nothing wrong with finding pleasure from a gift that God has given us, but when we pursue pleasure for its own sake, it has a way of expanding beyond its border and taking over.
2. Question 2: When and why do I overindulge?
a. Does the word “comfort food” really describe the reason for my eating?
b. Do I use food as a salve for my daily hurts?
c. When things in my life are going wrong, is my first impulse to reach for food?
d. Or do I use food as a reward – after a long day at work, I deserve a Big Mac on the way home, or at the end of the day that big bowl of ice cream is my reward for making it through another day?
3. Question 3: Am I able to exercise Holy Spirit given self-control?
a. Can I enjoy a slice of pizza, or do I have to consume the whole pie?
b. Can I enjoy a piece of chocolate or does it have to be the whole box or bag?
c. One of the easiest ways to gauge the power that the god of food has over you is to go on a fast.
d. I know that diabetics and people with some other health problems have to be very careful about fasting, but how hard would it be for you to fast from a meal, or for a day or two, or even just from certain foods?
e. I’m not suggesting fasting as just a test of discipline or control, or as a way to lose a pants size, but as a way to draw near to God, and to experience a hunger for God that is greater than the relentless demands of our stomachs.
Q. I want to end with the point that Kyle Idleman makes in his devotional thought: Jesus My Portion.
1. He wrote: “Idols are defeated not by being removed, but by being replaced.”
2. He continued, “The god of food promised us a feast, but we came up empty. He invited us to consume until it consumed our lives. We tasted everything until nothing had taste anymore.
And so finally we came to Jesus. We discovered that he offers the one true feast. He fills our every need. Every hunger ultimately leads back to him.
David wrote, ‘Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure.’
Jesus frees us from an abusive, dysfunctional relationship with food because he is our portion and in him we discover what we were searching for all along. If we seek our joy and meaning in food, then the source of our joy always disappears and always must be found again – a consumable god. It is different with Jesus.
Nothing tastes better than the joy and satisfaction of knowing Christ. Nothing nourishes the soul as he does. Nothing feeds and strengthens and renews us like the time we spend with him each day.
He bids us to take and eat. He bids us to come to the well where he offers living water, so that we never thirst again.
Think of a time when you’ve come in from the hot sun, drenched with sweat and with a parched throat, and downed a cool glass of ice water. Did anything ever taste better?
Such a moment is more than a vague hint of what it feels like to be spiritual starving and to be given the bread of life, to have a thirsty soul and to drink deep from his living water.
Ironically, it is only when we find our meaning in Christ, when he takes the throne of our lives, that earthly food recovers its taste, its delight. In its right place food is a great gift from God.”
Resources:
gods at war, Kyle Idleman, Zondervan, 2013
Counterfeit Gods, Timothy Keller, Dutton, 2009
