I was reading with my son the other day about space. We stopped at the subject of Black Holes. By definition a black hole is: a place in space that forms when a really big star collapses. Everything around a black hole is sucked into it, like water down a drain. The force of gravity in a black hole is so strong that nothing can escape from it, not even light.
Doesn’t sound like an ideal vacation spot.
The thing that bothers scientists is that they don’t know what happens inside a black hole and they fear that they’ll never know. No one would dare go near one or send anything near one because they believe that what goes in will not come back.
Many of you know that two months ago my wife and I returned from Ethiopia with our two new sons, Kidus and Moshe – thank you for your support and prayers, by the way. That brings us to a total of 4 kids in our home… two of whom don’t speak our language yet.
I believe that we are presently an invaluable resource to scientists. Everyday we wake up and according the definition I just read, we enter a black hole. Our kids seem to be able to suck everything around them into their world. When I get home from work at the end of the day I brace myself as I prepare to be pulled in. Once in my home for 5 minutes the rest of my life seems to have disappeared. I can now tell scientists what happens inside a black hole:
- there is a continual plea by little people to be taken to the bathroom
- there are food fights
- there are wedgies
- language becomes limited to the following words: stop, sorry, potty (both in Amharic and English), no, please no and “oh no” are all you hear
At this point in our lives, our household resembles a black hole… and we wouldn’t trade it for anything.
The topic of our series these days also resembles a different kind of black hole. We’re talking about the 7 deadly sins. We’ve heard about pride and greed. Today we’re gonna talk about gluttony.
By definition gluttony means: Uncontrolled desire that clouds reason, coarsening and darkening the mind. Like a black hole, our gluttony pulls us in, clouding all light and clarity.
A more simple definition of gluttony would be: Too much.
Most of us think about food when we hear the word gluttony.
I have stats on the US and we know that Canada usually follows what happens south of us.
- 100,000,000 Americans are overweight or obese – 60% of all adults
- Since 1980 the total number of overweight people has doubled in the US.
o There are 2x as many overweight children
o There are 3x as many overweight adolescents
- In Mississippi, 1 in 4 people are obese
- Obesity is now the second leading cause of preventable deaths, after smoking.
It used to be that the issue of food was what gluttony was about. But in North America especially, we have so much that the idea of too much applies to many things.
Choose your gluttony:
- Food
- Technology
- Sex
- Exercise
- Possessions
- Shopping
- Clothes
- Entertainment
I think that any of us who have experienced gluttony have had a black hole experience… a loss of clarity, vision, vitality and reason.
When I was 20 I was playing hockey on a team that with games and practices, was on the ice 5 times per week. I loved being on the ice that often. The ice-rink was my happy place where my mind was clear and my heart content.
At the start of the season things were looking good. We had some great players on our team. Things went downhill quickly. Within 5 weeks, our top three players went down with injuries. Then, in week 6, during a practice one of my teammates got tripped up and fell on my leg and sprained my ankle.
I remember the glazed-over look on my coaches’ face. He wouldn’t have it. Not another injury. He was in denial. So, I decided to suck it up and play through it. For the next three months the ice rink changed for me. It was no longer a place to think clear and free.
I would arrive at each practice and game to have the team trainer wrap my ankle. Then I’d squeeze my swollen ankle into my skate. And then for the first period of each game I would simply try not to get in the way or slow my teammates down. By the end of the first period my ankle would swell more and the pain would go away. My mobility was limited but I could engage again. Everything changed. I hated being on the ice without the freedom and clarity of mind that I was used to. I felt entangled in this injury.
This is what these deadly sins do. Sin takes away clarity, clouds our vision, and steals joy and vitality from our everyday lives. Gluttony in particular changes the way we think.
Thomas Merton says this:
“Everything you love for its own sake, outside of God alone, blinds your intellect and destroys your judgment of moral values… so that you cannot clearly distinguish good and evil, and you do not truly know God’s will.”
In another essay, Merton says this:
“No man can live a fully sane and decent life unless he is able to say “no” on occasion to his natural bodily appetites. No man who simply eats and drinks whenever he feels like eating and drinking, who smokes a cigarette whenever he feels the urge to light a cigarette, who gratifies his curiosity and sensuality whenever they are stimulated, can consider himself a free person. He has renounced his freedom and become the servant of bodily impulse. Therefore his mind and his will are not fully his own. They are under the power of his appetites.”
Thomas Merton
Things become cloudy when our desires get the best of us. Gluttony causes us to lose vision, clarity and vitality. That’s the bad news about desires gone wild.
In the past the church has over-reacted to this bad news and squashed any hint of desire. The truth of the matter is that desires are not bad. We should have desires. In fact, Larry Crabb goes so far to say that:
“The consequence of living with no satisfaction of our crucial longings is the beginning of hell.”
Jewish psychologist Abraham Maslow gave us a list of our needs that drive these desires:
6. Physiological Need – Need for food, water, exercise
5. Safety and Security
4. Belongingness – Acceptance and Security
3. Worth and Self-esteem
2. Self-actualization – To be who we were made to be
1. Beauty and Order
In an effort to find satisfaction for these needs we often stop searching too soon and attach ourselves to whatever brings quick or exciting gratification.
Parenting guru’s agree that kids will usually find a healthy attachment at around 18 months. My son Brennan did this like clockwork. He attached to his blanky. We’d always find him with a corner of it sticking out of his mouth and the rest of it held tightly in his arms or dragging on the ground. He found comfort in a familiar texture and smell… and it did smell.
If we were really wise parents we would have discerned along the way when it was the perfect time for him to say “so long” to blanky.
My father-in-law wasn’t a big fan of the blanky so one day he decided to coax it away from Brennan. When Brennan was 4 and he just kept the blanky for bedtime, my father-in-law took Brennan to Toys R Us and told him that he would buy him whatever he wanted in the whole store if Brennan would hand over the blanky. But Brennan couldn’t do it.
Brennan has long since said “so long” to blanky. When I tell that story to Brennan now, he can’t believe that he didn’t take up his “papa” on his offer. It would be a dream come true now. Too late, Brennan.
Brennan attached to his blanky and his desire for his blanky began to cloud his mind. How unreasonable is it for a 4 year-old to say no to “anything” at Toys R Us?
When our desires get the best of us, they suck us into a black hole and keep us from being able to reason.
Does anyone know the 20th century proverb that applies to our topic today? You are… what you eat. You become what you desire.
You are what you eat. You become what you desire.
Scientists have actually concluded that there is more truth to this proverb than originally thought. Take a look at this documentary clip. The little green guy is representative of one of billions of cells that make up our bodies…
The point these guys are making is that the focus of our desires actually change us physically. I’m not just talking about food. When we spend our time and energy in sexual fantasies, when we saturate our lives with entertainment, when we wear out a path to the fridge, when we feed the high that comes with exercise or the high that comes with buying something… when we do these things our bodies actually change so that we want more and more.
The little green guy in that video clip represents a cell in our bodies. And depending what we focus our desires on, we condition our cells – which continually reproduce more cells – to create more receptacles to satisfy those desires.
Today we might have 2 million cells that have receptacles relating to lust or food. Those 2 million cells are calling out to our brains – “Hey man, let’s eat French fries” or “Dude, let’s think about that girl from work for a while.” A month from now we might have 4 million instead of 2 million cells calling out to us, depending on the focus of our desires.
We are built to have our desires fulfilled. But when we let the focus of our desires deviate, our bodies evolve to accommodate more of those deviant desires. We literally become what we desire. We are what we eat.
Imagine that you’re a world leader who has the blind allegiance of your voters. You go left, they go left. You jump, they jump. But these voters don’t cast their votes based on what you say. They don’t care about your political savvy or your platform. They vote based on what you do. And every time they vote they bring more and more followers on board.
Like that documentary suggests, we have millions of little green dudes inside of us voting to do the things we show them we like. We can say that we want to eat moderately but if our actions tell our constituency otherwise, they follow suite. We can say that we are against pornography but if we go to those websites or stare at that billboard or mull over an image in our minds too long, millions of little green dudes reproduce themselves and create more and more desire around those deviations.
Every desire starts with a small group of followers. Every group of followers grows depending how we feed that desire. This is the road to addiction.
You are a leader of your desires. Your desires are millions of little green dudes inside you called peptides and cells. What kind of voting constituency do you have? What have you created by the desires you’re chasing?
What is our gluttony? What are we becoming?
Are your core values being overthrown? Is there a rogue group of little green dudes threatening to cloud your vision, your clarity, and your vitality? Are they sucking you into a black hole where your judgment is clouded and you are having a hard time distinguishing good from evil and what the will of God is? It may be time to bring in martial law. So, how do we change our voters?
Hebrews 12:1-2 says this:
“…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…”
Two things:
1) Look to Jesus
2) Throw off the entanglements
As we focus on Jesus, we show the little green dudes inside of us what we really want to reproduce inside of us.
The Bible says fix our eyes on Jesus. This is a word that insinuates permanence. It doesn’t say glance at Jesus or consider Jesus.
“Fix” carries the idea of construction… Let’s glue our eyes or fasten our attention or cement our gaze. If we want our true desires to be fulfilled there is no other place to look.
That hierarchy of needs fits with what Christianity promotes. He provides our physical needs; he is our safest and most secure place; he takes care of our need to belong – we belong to him and his kingdom; he placed invaluable worth in us when he created us in his image; he created us to join him in realizing our full potential – which is greater than we can imagine; and he is the embodiment of beauty and order.
Our fulfillment is found in only one place. Our search is for God alone. Fix our eyes on Jesus. As we do that we change our voting constituency. Before long, we have cell receptacles in us saying, “Hey man, I miss Jesus.” Or, “It feels good to be so close to God. I have peace and want more…let’s go further.”
But how do we throw off these existing entanglements… this sin that hinders and clouds and distorts?
Here are a few things we can try:
1) Sin boldly
A friend of mine emailed me last week encouraging me in the words of the 16th century church leader, Martin Luther who encouraged people to sin boldly. He didn’t mean what we first think him to mean… but he has our attention doesn’t he?
He meant that when we sin we should boldly call it that. We should call it what it is in our own heads and let others know as well. If someone offers you a plate of too much food that will feed the wrong little green dudes, say that out loud (but don’t mention the little green dudes): “Ah, you know, I should stop because I’m loving this food too much and it’s getting a hold of me.” Or even after the fact: “Ah, I should’ve said no because I let my desires get the best of me when you offered me that food.” A friend calls to invite you to the bar… “ah, thanks for the invite but when we went last week I ended up drinking too much and totally disrespecting those girls we were with. I’m gonna take a break for a while and see if I can get that under control.”
2) Fasting
Like gluttony can be about more than food, so can fasting. Fasting means to abstain from something so that something better can take its place.
Fasting helps to break the bondage something might have us in. Fasting helps to detach us from the control of our desires. Our Buddist friends would say that the discipline of detachment is at the root of ultimate inner peace and transcendence. I agree.
My wife and I have taken some time each year in the last couple years to fast from TV. I make sure it happens after the super bowl and before hockey playoffs. We do this so that our desire to veg in front of the TV doesn’t get too tight a grip on our lives. And every time we are glad that the grip was loosened and that we’ve taken back that ground.
An extreme version of this happens when addicts check themselves into a clinic where they go cold turkey off their addiction. Fasting from the things we desire will loosen the grip of our desires.
Fasting helps break us free from bondage but it also helps to breakthrough to clarity. Carmen Schock, our creative director who is the glue for our weekend service, often works fasting from food into her schedule, replacing it with focused attention on listening to God so that she can gain clarity and effectiveness for the weekend.
If we are at a loss with our desires… if we feel like we’ve lost perspective or can’t get that cloud to lift, we can fast. The important thing is to fast with the purpose of gaining clarity. This means not only cutting out food or TV or exercise or whatever, but replacing those things with intentional listening to God and looking at Jesus.
Richard Wurmbrand was no stranger to consuming desires. He lived the high life of hedonism. If he desired it, he experienced it: Money, sex, alcohol, food. Then he became a Christian. And then he became a pastor. He did this while living in communist Romania after world war II. Because of his faith he was eventually thrown in prison. The prison conditions were awful. He lost everything. He lost his family, his work, his money, his health. He was beaten, starved and left unclothed in a cold concrete cell. He was fasting but not by his own will. Slowly, but surely he refocused his desires (his hierarchy of needs) and let them fall at God’s feet. Slowly, but surely God became the focus and fulfillment of all of his desires… beyond his hopes. He maintained that some of his greatest joy came when everything was stripped away.
G.K. Chesterton said “Every man who enters a brothel goes there in search of God”. The root of the desires that once drove Richard Wurmbrand to sex orgies or more money or great food were now being fulfilled by God in a cold, dark prison cell. His desires around sex, relationship, food and power were being stripped down until they found their fulfillment in God. He describes moments of dancing with God – filled with joy. I read his story and thought this guy has nothing. But from his perspective, he had everything.
It wasn’t until he went to prison that he became free… of his desires.
3) Once we’ve unseated our gluttony we need to practice simplicity.
According to Dallas Willard, simplicity is:
The arrangement of life around a few consistent purposes, explicitly excluding what is not necessary to human well-being.
In other words, we find out what is truly important and then cut the fat from those important things.
Richard Foster puts it this way…
“We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. ‘We buy things we do not want in order to impress people we do not like.” We are made to feel ashamed to wear clothes or drive cars until they are worn out. The mass media has convinced us that to be out of step with fashion is to be out of step with reality.”
When we get into the habit of practicing simplicity we are in effect putting up a fence that stands between us and the grip of uncontrolled desire.
Gluttony is controlling desire which clouds reason, coarsening and darkening our minds. Gluttony is “too much.”
I can feel the war going on inside of me. Millions of little green dudes saying “feed us” with lust or food or money or a new car or more exercise. I wish they were saying “feed us more Jesus”.
Walking through life under the control of rogue desires is like trying to play hockey with a sprained ankle. Freedom and clarity, that spring in your step, all gets tainted and stifled.
I think it’s good that we’re in this series right now. I think this series is gonna to shake us awake regarding some of these things. There’s a great line in one of Erwin McMannus’ books:
“Rumblings are more often felt than heard and certainly never seen. They come to you through the soles of your feet into the depth of your soul. Only then do they open the eyes of your heart. They speak of a shift that is about to take place.”
Rumblings. It’s “go time” everybody. It’s time to take it to those little green dudes. A shift is about to take place but they’re not gonna like it. Unseating controlling desire is like waking a monster.
Sinning boldly is awkward vulnerability.
Fixing our eyes on Jesus may seem as unnatural as looking at the sun.
Fasting from consuming desires will feel like ripping off one of our arms.
Living a simple life will feel like being the kid who didn’t get invited to the birthday party.
But I believe this series is providing for us a moment of clarity. We need to take advantage of the moment and run with it before we get sucked back into the black hole of our desires.
My two year old son Moshe isn’t a fan of the vacuum cleaner when the beater bar is on. I was vacuuming a little while ago and had to enter his turf. He objected. He clearly didn’t want that scary thing near him. He also didn’t want to give up his territory for playing. So as the vacuum cleaner neared, he started to object. And when it came really close he let out a short but powerful scream and then moved. But he only moved 6”. And for the next minute he repeated those steps. Scream, move, scream, move, scream, move. But each time he only moved 6”. I wanted to roll my eyes at his response: “Moshe, if this is really a big deal, maybe the appropriate response would be moving 10’ or into another room.”
We have a moment of clarity in front of us. God is pulling back the cloud that blinds us so we can see the danger of our consuming desires. Is our response going to be appropriate? Are we gonna acknowledge the danger but only make a token response to it. Is God going to be tempted to roll his eyes at our response?
We should have desires… at their core every desire points us to God. We should have desires, our desires shouldn’t have us.
What kind of little green guys are we producing?
We should have desires… our desires shouldn’t have us.
Jesus said, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Matthew 10:39
Lose your life. Be a loser. Detach from your consuming desires so you can attach to the great satisfier – Jesus Christ – then the cloud will lift and you will have access to clarity, vision and vitality for life.
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