Ask the Pastors Season 7 Episode 10: "How sinful is gluttony?"

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Well, welcome to ask the pastors a segment of the West Hills Podcast. We have the opportunity to ask your questions and receive biblically grounded, pastorally sensitive answers from our pastoral staff. My name is Brian. I'm your host and one of the pastors, and I'm joined by Pastor Thad. Hey everyone. And our lead pastor will,

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I feel like I was too far out on my own separate table over here, so I'm on your own island. I'm going to come join y'all and try and it's my OCD. Get us equally spaced on the camera here.

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Yeah, well Thanksgiving be around the corner. It's a bit of a timely topic. The topic of discussion today is how sinful is gluttony.

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So I'll jump in quickly first

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Or when this gets released, it'll be today. Thanksgiving

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Is sure. There you go. Yeah. Should we release it

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Or we could release it early?

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We could maybe early. I don't know people,

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Can we send an email blast to everyone before you start today? Listen to that podcast. Podcast before you pregame on

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Thanksgiving, before you put the stretchy pants on.

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Yeah, I mean, it could be a, I don't know, maybe we'll release tomorrow. Just it's a great idea in case they're on the road early and need some listing food for listen thought spook food for listening and discussion. So it was Thad's joking question last week when we were talking about what should we do next week? And you're like, I mean, it's Thanksgiving, we could do gluttony. It's like actually though, and then we liked it, but then we were thinking, what's the angle? Because I mean you can't just do is gluttony of sin. Yes. That's a very short podcast. Done. Podcast. Over three seconds shortest ever.

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So we thought this the kind of hook being how sinful is gluttony with the implication there being that some sins are more sinful than others, which I've said many times from the pulpit and have to do this whole kind of explanation for it. But I think it is a helpful reminder to people even to think about because there's still, no matter how many times you say it, there's still, I think this just wrongheaded kind of stigma, stereotype, whatever saying in the church that all sins are equal. And I mean it kind of depends on what you mean by that. Will they equally land you in hell? Yeah. One sin. I think that's what James two 10, for instance, the scripture that most commonly gets thrown out is like if you've broken one sin, you're guilty of violating the whole law. I mean, yeah, Jesus, Matthew 5 48, unless you're perfect like your father is in heaven is perfect, then you're not getting to heaven on own righteousness.

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So if you're talking about all sins are equally damnable in the sense of landing you in hell, then yes, however, are all sins equal in God's eyes and as far as God looks and he can't tell the difference between Hitler and a glutton or drunkard or whatever, or certainly are all sins equal in the sense of their consequences both in this world and in the world in the life to come. So even if you want to talk about equally damnable in terms of how many fires and circles of hell you're landing in, then I think there is good biblical. Matthew 10 15, Jesus said, woe, do you best I and Corian, I tell you on that day, it's going to be worse for you, worse for you than Sodom and Gomorrah because if the works that I did had been done there, they would've repented and believed. And so what Jesus is saying is there is a sin worse than homosexual gang rape. I mean that was the sin that Solomon Gamora was homosexual gang rape. That's pretty bad.

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But guess what's worse rejecting Jesus. That's what best I in Corzine we're guilty of. And it's going to be worse for you on judgment day. So there is a worse solitary confinement in hell or whatever the case may be. You don't even want to imagine what's worse than even the least bad version of hell. But again, the point being, the more revelation of Jesus you have and reject, the worse it's going to be for you. One John five, I was even just reading with my kids this morning in our family devotionals or one John five says, if anyone sees a brother sinning and it helps bring 'em back, you've done a good thing. And then John says, I'm not talking about there's certain sins that you don't even bother with trying to bring 'em back. You don't come back from, I'm not talking about that sin.

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He's like, I'm talking about the sin that you can restore people from. So like, whoa, what is that the sin that you don't come back from? Well, Jesus tells us in Mark three, it's the unpardonable unforgivable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. So again, we don't have to do a whole, we've done episodes in the past on that. But the point being that there are even Jesus, Matthew 23 when he signed in the Pharisees woe to you, you tithe your mint and cumin and dill and whatever, but you've neglected the weightier matters of the law. All of law is not the same. There's weightier matters. There's more important stuff than tithing. It's like treating people well. You treat people like crap is what he's saying. In the Pharisees, Jesus wouldn't say crap, but first Corinthians six, when Paul says, look, sexual immorality is different.

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There's some sins that you commit that are just external and they're outside of the person who commits porn is sinning against his own body. There's something personal, deeply intimate about or sexuality that makes it different, that makes adultery, for instance, cheating on your spouse different than just gossiping about your spouse or being unkind to them with your words or something like that. So I mean we could go on and on and on again in the counter arguments too, Matthew five, well, doesn't Jesus say, well if you've gotten angry, it's the same as murdering. He doesn't actually say it's the same mean. What he says is if you've done this, you've done that. And what he's, again, I think you look at the context there, what's Jesus doing? What's he really? Jesus also says, if your eye causes you to sin your hand causes you to sin, pluck it out, cut it off. Well, how many of us really take him literally there? Is he really trying to be or is he trying to make a point again about

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Specifically to the people he is talking to and knowing that there's a lot of Pharisees and then everybody else who's been misled by the Pharisees teaching there that Jesus is trying to make the point. No, you cannot earn your way into heaven. The Pharisees think they are. They want you to think they're awesome because they're doing it, man, earning their way there. And Jesus is saying, you cannot. You need a savior, you need me. Unless you're perfect like God, you're not getting there. I don't care. Yeah, you pat yourself on your back. You don't murder. No, that's not it. You've gotten angry. You've gotten angry in an unrighteous, unholy way, then you're not making an end on your own.

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I was going to say, you also see examples of this for people who only point to the New Testament is this is what God does with the law that he's giving Israel in the Old Testament that certain sins committed, whether unintentional or high handed sins. Some of them could be atoned for other ones. And so murder, sexual perversion, oppression of the poor slavery and abuse, that there's a distinction given between even how Israel was to think about the sins that they were committing.

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Some of 'em were capital offenses, you get stoned to death. Some of 'em you slap on the wrist, whatever. Yeah. Like you said, the

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Leviticus four numbers 15, both

• Read more

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  Of those numbers. 15 was Yeah, what I thought. Yeah. So yeah, all just as context for asking the question for the person who's like, wait a minute, are you saying there's a sliding scale to sin? I mean, kind of. Yeah, I think so. Now obviously we want to be careful about saying something that scripture doesn't in terms of scripture. Nowhere other than the examples we just listed and maybe some others we forgot, we're going to for fun or maybe think about where might gluttony fall on that kind of a list. Not as bad as murdering someone or cheating on your spouse, adultery, but worse than some other sins that maybe we even make a bigger deal about in the church. I don't know. But what would be the other criteria we would be using for judging worseness again, if we want to be biblical about it? I think one of the things again you'd have to say is really is collateral damage in terms of how the relative consequences for your relationship with others and obviously the Bible number two, commandment love others one another. So yeah, I don't know. I guess we can get to that, but I felt like it was important to at least say upfront,

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  This is why we titled it the way we did and why we're coming at it from this angle. So I guess with that context, how just how sinful is gluttony. Here's the kind of flip side to it. You can kind of tell where I think we're all going to go with it in terms of not, we don't make probably a big enough deal about it, I think is the short version. But the flip side of that is it's certainly possible to make two

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  Too big.

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  The Roman Catholic Church, right? Seven deadly sins. Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. Meaning that it is a sin that automatically lands you in hell according to the Roman Catholic, based on this weird just kind of church tradition dating back to medieval times. Not at all. There's no list of seven anywhere in scripture. So I think it's important to give that kind of context too because for anyone who maybe came from a Catholic tradition or is a fan of the movie, seven Gluttony is going to come to mind in that context. So I'd say that's definitely an overstatement of the egregiousness of gluttony for sure. But just how simple it, and I want to throw in an additional question to that, which is related I think is the church is our extent to which we address gluttony, is it commensurate with its sinfulness?

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  Again, I would argue that we at least indirectly address the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit every single Sunday at West Hills in so far as we're sharing the gospel, and I'm pleading with people, don't reject Jesus. If God is convicting your heart today, don't turn your back on that. Don't just write that off. Don't shrug that off. Repent and come to Christ. And so don't commit the unpardonable sin. So I think the extent to which we address a sin in the church should be commensurate both with its sinfulness and seriousness, but also its relative threat I guess. Because murder, again, real big one, adultery. Adultery though. But some of those, it's like rape, go down the list, abortion. I mean there's really, really terrible sins that we don't talk about every single Sunday because I don't see our people going out and murdering people every Sunday or raping or So that's a factor in it too, is not only how egregious is it and its consequences and whatever, but how pervasive is it, if that makes sense.

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  And that's where I think we would have to say gluttony, even though I'm not hurting anybody else other than my own body if I want to eat more. But it's certainly pervasive. I mean, I meant to do the statistics. You probably did more research and found them, Thad, just as far, I can ai it real quick, but just what percentage of, I think it used to be like a third of Americans are technically by the textbook definition of obesity, whatever percent body fat that is something like a third of Americans are obese. I'll fact check that if you haven't already. But that's very pervasive if you're looking out, and maybe it's different in the church because we view it as a sin, but doesn't seem to be that different when you're looking out on a Sunday morning as far as one in how many congregants would qualify as technically obese. And even that, that's different. Well,

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  I was going to say that's

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  Different than gluttony, isn't it? Because there could be other health things that you don't know about that's also

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  You could be extremely skinny and belut.

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  Gluttonous.

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  Yes.

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  Because gluttony, maybe we should start by defining it, addiction to food in the same way that alcoholism, addiction to alcohol. You can be addicted to all kinds of things. I mean, is that a fair definition for gluttony? Is addiction to food?

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  Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, an unhealthy appetite. I not I want to eat food, but an overindulgence of it for excessive impulsive in order to fill something. You're not just eating because you're hungry, it's actually something else is inside of you.

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  Yeah. I go back to the fruit of the spirit and the works of the flesh

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  From Galatians five 16 to 25 where Paul gave the whole list of the works of the flesh and then at the end says drunkenness, orgies and things like these. And and the way I explained it in that sermon, or kind of ripped it from JD Greer explaining he's not, I was just talking about overindulgence in alcohol, overindulgence in sex. He's using these as placeholders for really any kind of overindulgence that rises to the level of that insatiable hunger craving. Have to have it not just a good thing to, but have to have it to fill a void, to get the dopamine to not feel empty or to escape or whatever, self-soothe, pacify, whatever that might be, that that's what he's naming there. And obviously Paul's saying and things like these, he's blowing that category wide open for that. I mean, that's smartphones, that's money, that's your family, that's whatever.

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  And so I think important though for this conversation, it'd be very easy to put all of those different things as far as grouping it in with gluttony. And even we were talking about with my research, how quickly people were moving away from food into food, alcohol, sex, comfort, entertainment, social approval, productivity, to make that quick jump. But we're specifically going to look at food and eating today.

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  Yeah, because even the word you said, you looked at the Old Testament too, but I just quickly looked at the New Testament. The word fargos in the New Testament means literally means eater

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  Or

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  Drunkard, like when they call, it's only used twice in the New Testament. But when the Pharisees were trying to ad hominem attack Jesus in Matthew 1119, and they say Jesus is kind of otting them and says, the son of man came eating and drinking. And they say, look at him a glutton and a drunkard glutton as Fargos means an eater. He's an eater and a drinker, a friend of tax collector and sinners. So yeah, that's literally what it means. So I think it's to not just generalize to all over indulgences, but let's talk about the overindulgence in food and try and help our people not send tomorrow on Thanksgiving if this comes out on Wednesday. So would it be helpful to start with what the Bible actually says about it? We've mentioned a couple of the kind of passages already, but I know there's some others we wanted to get to.

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  Yeah, I can run through some of those about even just scriptural warnings of gluttony. Proverbs 23, 19 through 21 talks about how gluttony leads to ruin be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty. Gluttony brings shame. Proverbs 28, 7, a companion of gluttons shames his father gluttony becomes idolatrous in Philippians three 18 through 20 for many walk as enemies of the cross. Their end is destruction, their God is their belly. Again, thinking about consuming gluttony is grouped with rebellion. And Deuteronomy 2118, our son is stubborn and rebellious. He's a glutton and a drunkard. And so again, gluttony is brought up over and over again that it is something that brings shame. That is not something to be well thought of often associated with drunkards as well. I don't think that's a coincidence as well as I had one more in here. I lost it. It's okay.

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  Yeah, I got a handful of others. I would, Proverbs 23, 2 I'm sure showed up on your list too, which is a short proverb that says, put a knife to your throat if you were given to appetite Pretty. What translation is that? That's kind of like the Old Testament version of Jesus's cut off your hand. Yeah. If it causes you to sin sexually cut off your throat, if it causes you to send, what's the adjective, not dietarily anyway, 15, 20 through 27. This is an interesting one. It is in the context of, I think it's E FI's, one of job job's, all friends who's telling job why you're a sinner and you need to repent. But anyway, he does say whether you want to view this as therefore biblical or whether he's being again wrongheaded about it. But it certainly, at the very least, it tells you what job's friends thought, and I guess otherwise God-fearing people thought back in the day, the wicked man rides. This is Job 15, 23, 27. The wicked man rides in pain all his days. He has stretched out his hand against God and defies the almighty because he has covered his face with his fat and gathered fat upon his waist. So similarly there with gluttony being lumped in, grouped in with lumped, in pun intended, grouped in with rebellion against God.

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  Like you said with the Proverbs one, one Corinthians 10 31, if you want to go kind of not too general, but where Pulse says, and it's in the context of I think, no, that's not the meat sacrifice to idols anyway. So whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. So again, there is a pulse saying there specifically with eat and drink, there's a way to glorify God with how we eat and drink. There's a way to not glorify God. So at the very least we recognize that. And then if, again, I think all these other passages make it clear that when you're eating to fill a void or avoid difficult emotions or whatever it might be, you're not glorifying God in the way that you're eating. Galatians.

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  I was going to say, I loop in with that one Corinthians six 12, not being mastered by anything. That's another where you can take it. And are you being mastered by?

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  Yeah, that was the very next one I was going to mention. One Corinth six 12, all things are lawful. I will not be dominated by anything, by anything. So that, yeah, you just go down the list. What are you dominated by or most susceptible maybe to being dominated by, that's whatever it might be. Even good things, again, even good things. That's a problem not going to be dominated by anything. Galatians five 16 to 26 we talked about already with the desires of the flesh, works of the flesh and just any of that over need and craving talked about Matthew 1119, the only one I got is one Corinthians six, 19 and 20 where again, the context as Paul's talking about sexual immorality, but then he does, I think he brought his language here, is true enough and broad enough that it would include something like gluttony as well, or any number of things, not exercising or alcoholism overindulging in drink instead, or even your mind as being a part of your body.

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  I mean your brain and thinking about what do you do to your brain. But the verse where he says, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. You were bought with a price, glorify God with your body. So that's kind of the one that again, and this maybe is a good segue point to where I think we both are and maybe all are diagnosing something like gluttony and oftentimes slipping very easily into that category that like Jerry Bridges wrote the book years ago called Respectable Sins, where it's kind of like, yeah, we've all just kind of agreed tacitly or unspoken agreement in the church world that this is one that we're going to go soft on

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  For a variety of

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  Reasons. Well, and certainly from the standpoint, a variety of reasons. Well, because number one, if I look out and one in three congregants are technically, literally obese, then well, that's factor number one, factor number two, it does have that feeling of if we are going to answer the question for the day, how sinful is it? It's like, well, am I really hurting anybody else? Number three, it is different from a lot of other sins and even over indulgences, insofar as you have to eat

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  Even sins like sex, alcoholism. You don't have to have sex. I mean, Bible suggests when you're married, it's good. It's better for a healthy marriage to, but you certainly don't have to drink alcohol. You don't have to do drugs, you don't have to have a smartphone. There's lots of, don't have tos. You have to eat to stay alive. So that inherently makes that relationship with food more complex, I think, and that addiction more complex in a lot of ways. I think that's a factor. I think the culture, our culture, we, in case anyone's listening in, can't tell from our voices. We're talking to 21st century American, 2025, whatever, upper middle class,

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  Midwest

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  America, Midwest, Midwest, a lot of corn products, whatever, high fructose corn syrup, RFK is still trying to make us healthy, I guess. I don't know if you gave up on that, but the point being that it's hard. I mean, you think about the Bible's context 3,500 years ago when the Old Testament stuff is being written, and it was just very simple. It was very simple in so far as you could tell the glutton because yeah, they were fat. And actually the interesting and sad or whatever thing is today, the population demographic that suffers the most with just obesity, if we just talk about that for a second, is actually the lower class, lower income. Because they don't have the same kind of resources and access to healthy food, which actually costs more.

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  So they're eating McDonald's three times a day or Cheetos and Fritos, and that's not good. And so that's just different than if Moses got in a time machine and was here with us, he'd be looking at the Fat Americans and be like, oh, they must be the really wealthy ones who also struggle with greed and spending too much money on their own pleasures. And we'd be like, no, no, no, it's actually, we have to explain our context to 'em. It's actually, we're so blessed, and I use blessed in quotation marks because is it really a blessing, so blessed materially that no one is starving to death in our country anymore. Now, in some ways it's a weird, so I think all that has to be named in this whole discussion of where we land on this, but I've been talking too long again, so what respectable sins, all the different reasons. Oh, and it's so personal. I mean, I guess I'll just say that too. The other reason that we kind of treat it with kid gloves and we don't really go after and in the church, even though it's so prevalent in a lot of ways, is that it's so personal. It's so personal.

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  I mean, in some ways, I know Paul makes the argument in one Corinthians six for why your sexuality is so personal, and it is, but the difference there being you're wearing this on the outside. I mean, you're wearing this for everyone. I could secretly struggle and be sleeping around all over town, and theoretically most people wouldn't know it, versus when you struggle with food, everyone knows it. I mean, you can hide, not necessarily If we distinguish, like we said, between you can be skinny and still

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  Strong.

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  Well, and certainly again, let's save it for another podcast eating disorder on the other end of the spectrum, anorexia, bulimia should probably do that at some point. If anyone cares to hear us talk about that, you can suggest that. But as a topic for later, but for now, with the overeating, again, I just think that that typically, not always, but typically someone who struggles with gluttony, yeah, you're going to see it on the eye. You're going to see the effects of that. And so it's so personal, and I think it does in that way bring a different kind of shame to people. So for all those reasons, but it's still a, and again, I think, I guess to put on to be pastoral for a minute about it, it's like for all those reasons too, all the more reason not to ignore it or avoid it, but to address it, but address it in hopefully loving, gentle, compassionate, pastorally sensitive ways that it's not like person wants to struggle in that way. It's not like they enjoy being tempted to grab for the Ben and Jerry's every time they face a conflict in their life. No one wants that. Certainly no Christian wants that. So let's have some compassion, but still a sin, still something that I think we would want to call out and say, Hey, let us help you with this. Let us pray for you.

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  Let's encourage you, hold you

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  Accountable, encourage you. Yeah, I mean if really it's so much driven by that shame cycle, just like any addiction, and then you feel guilty and then you feel ashamed, and then you go back to it because worthless, and this is all I deserve. Let us encourage you. You are loved. Your body is a temple and you're worth more than that.

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  To add just a couple more things to it, I think as you look at early church history, which I did slightly in preparing for this, it talked a lot about gluttony, which I assume that's where the Catholic church came up with it, but often linked towards conversations about fasting. Another thing that I would say the American church does not do very well, that I think we probably would do well to have a better theology of food as well as theology of the body. I would even add that the church itself has perpetuated this some in their potlucks. In all seriousness, I don't think I have nothing against potlucks. I love them. I love food. Are you

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  Saying we're only doing low fat soups next year for not a thing,

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  It is just lentil soup for everyone. If you made a lentil soup, that was not a day, you asked you that was a total dick.

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  Moms a good lentil soup. But I would also add part of adding this topic for today, I told Will earlier that I saw a tweet within the last couple of weeks of someone tweeting out, I would never attend a church where the pastor was overweight. And then he gave more context saying, that shows to me that the pastor does not have self-control, which again, just started stirring some own thoughts and how do I think about that? And we also are in a society, again, we're not promoting shaming of people, but some of the body positive language I think has become unhelpful in some of these conversations and encouraging people hugely so, massively so

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  Pun intended,

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  You just do you and that's you, and you're beautiful how you are. And again, we're not, again, theology of the body, Imago de I think we have not had really great teaching. And that's also part of why we find ourselves in this cultural moment of gender identity and confusion because all of those things together just has not had very great teaching in the church and anthropology as a whole.

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  Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, God, we could just talk

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  About this.

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  No, we could just talk about it so long. And it's just so true that the body positivity and the fat shaming and just the craziness of the world, again, it goes back to the last Sunday sermon, even with God's truth versus the world's lies and having objective standards and stuff. Because when you don't, then yeah, you slide into everybody needs to feel good all the time. Everybody needs to make sure that you do everything you can to not let anybody else ever feel not good about themself. And yeah, whether I feel like I'm a woman trapped in a man's body and well, can we help you get help with that? That's not healthy being a good healthy response as opposed to, Hey, you do you and who am I to whatever your truth. And you should just always feel validated all the time. Again, obviously we all draw boundaries with that at some point it's like, Hey, I really just feel like I'm murderer and trapped in a normal person's body, and so I'm going to go around and murder. Well, now you can't really do that. And again, so then it becomes, well, are you hurting anyone if you're not hurting anybody by thinking, if you're not hurting anybody by overeating, but you're hurting yourself. And that's just objectively true in this case with gluttony. And certainly again, when it's manifesting as morbid obesity, let's say you just, I again didn't do, but it's not hard for anyone to just look up the stats

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  On

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  Lifespan and quality of life and just all the various factors that come with doing that. And again, I don't want to share too personally here, but it's just, Hey, I'm from West Tennessee and everything's a casserole and everyone, I mean, we are leading, we're leading those stats in gluttony and it's just normal. And I probably grew up, I mean, I could sit here and think I definitely knew, I'm thinking about my friend's parents growing up. More of them were obese than not. So all that to say it's hard, what does it mean a loving, compassionate response? It's hard to watch people you love do that to their own bodies. I mean, I reject the notion that it's just a me thing, a personal thing and my body positivity, whatever, however I want to look and feel when it prevents you as a family from going on a walk together and enjoying one another's company in a normal family way because you can't walk half a mile without huffing and puffing or it's like, that's hard. That's hard to watch people you love not take care of themselves. And again, that could be smoking three packs a day or that could be day drinking or that could be being more obese. But if your body's a temple and you want to take care of it,

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  And I think for the believer in general, not just with gluttony with other, we have become very averse to calling out sin in one another's lives for fear of how will someone respond to this? As well as using our own sinfulness as a crutch of like, well, I've got my own sin struggles, which is true, lots of them. I sing against lots of people all the time

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  For you,

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  Me too. But to also, we should not use that as a crutch when we as brothers and sisters in Christ have a responsibility to care for one another. It's not just physical wellbeings, but also spiritual wellbeings. And what that means is addressing sin that we see. And

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  So the sin we don't see. Why is it, do you think that you always reach for the Ben and Jerry's when you feel sad or, and not for Jesus instead? Yeah.

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  And it also comes back to how open and honest are we with one another about our sin struggles in the church, whether it's in our life group or discipleship group or just with a mentor or however, how are we being honest with 'em and saying like, Hey, I want you to know these are my big three sin struggles that I just find myself constantly drawn to. I'm most tempted to, will you hold me accountable? Will you ask me the hard questions? And will you encourage me in this journey that I think gluttony, we've kind of put off, and maybe we'll do this at the end, here's some of the other respectable sins that we've just put off because it's uncomfortable. We use it as a crutch or else. But Jerry Bridges in writing about this. He puts those of us who can eat what we please without gaining weight may be more guilty of gluttony than the person who struggles often with failure to control his appetite. I know myself well enough that when I am stressed and alone overindulgence in garbage food and a temptation towards alcohol, I just know that about myself. I hate being alone

  (40:28):

  Because I am, look, man, I already told you I took November off of sex and alcohol and I've probably put on three pounds. I got to have something. I mean, that's what I'm learning is my YouTube time, my food consumption. It's like, yeah, it's a problem. It is got to be addressed. What do I reach for when I feel tired, when I feel alone? You mentioned when I feel sad, when I feel rejected, when I feel fill in the blank. Insecure. Yeah, it's something a lot of other things before Jesus. So yeah, just to

  (41:11):

  Say

  (41:11):

  Amen to what you're

  (41:12):

  Saying, and for me when it doesn't happen super often, but this last year, Nikki went out of town and took two of the girls with her, and I was like, I'm going to find people that I can eat meals with because Blair's not going to hold me accountable at three. She'll be like, yep, yeah, let's get all junk food we can. I'm all about this diet, but seriously, I found people who would like, Hey, can I come over for dinner and I'll bring whatever? And people were willing to do that. They didn't necessarily know why Nikki did. But just to say admitting there are holes in our hearts that we try to fill with things other than Jesus, and we need one another to help fight to fill those holes to 0.1 another to Jesus to fill those holes.

  (42:02):

  Absolutely. So with all that, to end it, unless there's more, when you think about, and again, y'all can disagree with me and reject the notion if there's a hierarchy of sins and blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is number one, Jesus said that much and Porneia is higher on the list than that category of sins is it got to be higher than others. That's one Corinthians six. That's clear too. Where do you put gluttony?

  (42:48):

  What are you putting at the bottom of the

  (42:49):

  List? I don't know. That's what I'm asking you. That's what I'm asking you. Going one mile per hour over the speed limit is that, I mean, you're technically not honoring the emperor, obeying, submitting to the authorities over you, Romans 13, but maybe that's the bottom one mile per hour of the speed limit. I mean, we can have a whole nother podcast on that if people even listen to this and care. Is that really you think that's a sin speeding? Absolutely. I do. And I do it every day. Yeah, it's a problem. So yeah, I'd put it above that, but I'd put it below murder and I'm not afraid to say it.

  (43:31):

  I put my flag here, where do you put it?

  (43:41):

  My hot take about what I would put above one, above gluttony anxiety

  (43:48):

  About to preach

  (43:48):

  On it. I'm about to preach on it, and I think we've given a pass. It's a free pass anxiety, and I would actually put in our cultural moment, I would say anxiety. Anxiety. It's very trendy though. Cloy

  (44:02):

  Anxiety is very trendy. Caffeine addiction. So

  (44:07):

  In between those,

  (44:09):

  You asked me where I would put it, and one of the things I said was just in terms of the sins that I feel like get even more of a free pass that like, okay, yeah, we do Christian comedians and even pastors will kind of make jokes about eating too much McDonald's or whatever. But the ones that get even more of an kind of laugh and treated more lightly. I mentioned to you caffeine. Absolutely. How many of us are addicted to caffeine? I mean in terms, if you think one of the signs of addiction, a dependency, like I convicted

  (44:50):

  Of that.

  (44:50):

  If I stop drinking coffee right now, which I'm doing right now, I'm drinking coffee. If I stopped, it would take me, I would get a migraine before this time tomorrow around probably noon, tomorrow I would get a migraine. That's my body telling me, you need this. You can't do life without this. But again, one battle at a time, sex and alcohol. Am I doing caffeine and YouTube and everything else too? I don't know. But I think caffeine gets a pass

  (45:27):

  Even probably you aren't on social media as much as I am, but they've started referring to Diet Coke as fridge SIGs. Instead of having a cigarette at you,

  (45:38):

  You have a Diet

  (45:39):

  Coke.

  (45:40):

  Diet Coke. Don't even get started.

  (45:42):

  That's how we're

  (45:42):

  Normalizing is the gross. Just don't even get me started.

  (45:46):

  Not sponsored by Diet Coke.

  (45:47):

  No, never. Gosh, I think phones get a pass. A pass.

  (45:53):

  Yeah.

  (45:56):

  I mean we talk about 'em, but certainly if there's a spectrum of how pervasive the problem is and how really severe the problem is on the Y axis and then on the X axis, how much we actually address it in the church, we almost, and I'm not being hyperbolic, we almost could, it's not possible for pastors and churches today to talk too much about the dangers of our phones and what they're doing to us addiction wise and rewiring our brains and anxiety and everything else. And again, I say that as someone who gets my screen time update every Sunday morning at 9 0 7, right before I go on preach and I'm like, wow. Oh God. It's like a good humbling conviction moment right before I go tell everybody how sinful they are

  (46:56):

  And use your iPad to

  (46:58):

  And use my iPad to do it. Yeah, exactly. I blame you for that. I used to do paper and then you're like, you should do an iPad anyway. So I think screens, phone, whatever is just, it's too much. And then I won't start a whole nother conversation I mentioned to y'all before. We click record just on family and work, I think are just in terms of how pervasive, I think more than one in three Americans, if it's one three, no one's fact checking me yet. While I keep saying that one in four, whatever the gluttony problem is, or not glut, but obesity. Obesity, thank you. I think family and work are both worse than that in terms of idolatry, in terms of unhealthy dependency on overindulgence, in giving too much of our hunger and appetite and drive and time and energy and waking every, I think

  (47:55):

  41%,

  (47:56):

  41%. See, it was where I'd rather rather conservative, 41%. So

  (48:00):

  From 2017 to 2020.

  (48:02):

  Yeah. But I think family and work, I think more of us would probably technically classify as being addicted to our families, addicted to our work. And again, that craving, shoving it in that hole in our heart, I think those two touch on probably even more people than food. But yeah, I don't know what else needs to be said about this.

  (48:38):

  To answer your question, I would feel like gluttony would be somewhere up there with sexual morality against your body, but likely lower, and I'm not sure why.

  (48:51):

  Yeah. Is it because even the language Paulsa uses in one Corinthians six, he says he's using the inside outside of the body and sexuality against your body. Yeah. Feels more internal. Whereas, or maybe again, it's just where you, I don't know. I mean, you're taking the food into your body, obviously, but then it also shows on the outside and I don't know, whereas sexual immorality doesn't. Does sexual immorality again, is our sexuality, is it a deeper part of us than some of those other I don't know. Don't you don't know either?

  (49:40):

  I don't have any. I mean, I even just would add, I don't think anyone would disagree with me with pornography being an issue. But I don't think churches in general talk about it, address it, provide enough help for as pervasive and severe and affecting as it is in our churches.

  (50:03):

  Yeah, it's another one that you almost can't overstate it

  (50:09):

  In terms of the statistics. That one, I think I do know, fact, check me, it's at least 70%, I want to say 70% to be conservative. It might be 80%. I think it's between 70 and 80% of regularly attending churchgoing. Males and females are the fastest rising demographic of porn users, but 70 plus percent of regularly attending church going males who have looked at pornography in the last at least month, it might even be weak that on an anonymous survey it meant to having looked at pornography, consumed pornography over the past month. So again, looked to your left and your right, both those guys looked at pornography in the last month and one of 'em is your husband. So yeah, 70 plus percent, so that's more than two and three guys, three out of four in the church,

  (51:14):

  68%. And then the same anonymous survey, 50% of pastors in there as well.

  (51:23):

  Yeah, it's that one. You almost can't Other podcasts,

  (51:28):

  Different podcasts,

  (51:28):

  Different podcasts. But just because we stated in terms of how sinful, it's helpful maybe to put it up there on the draft board alongside some others and say, where does this fall? But ultimately, at the end of the day, it's not I guess our judge to rank sins, but it is our job. Call a spade a spade and to call out sin, but to do it again, pastorally compassionately for those who struggle again, as someone who has an addictive personality, who has, as we've already talked about, that tendency to reach for things to cram in the void of my heart. Of course, I wish that was not the case. Yeah. But also needing accountability, like you said, and not just letting our compassion be a excuse to overlook and because we do one another a disservice when we do that. So anything else you guys want

  (52:47):

  To say? Can I ask, would it be helpful just to briefly close with what does it look like to eat to the glory of God? What can we think about for tomorrow Thanksgiving? What does it look like? Moderation.

  (52:57):

  Certainly thank thankfulness

  (52:59):

  With thankfulness. I was

  (53:00):

  Going to say, well, because it's Thanksgiving and even the passage you're going to preach on with anxiety in Philippians four, seven, but in everything, submit your with Thanksgiving, submit your request to God. So don't be stressful, but do it with thankfulness. I mean, certainly. So yeah, certainly in terms of

  (53:15):

  Eating,

  (53:17):

  Being thankful for, and again, jokes aside, if you can't pray before I eat this thing, and thank God for it out of conscience like this $9, 2000 calorie deluxe box or combo thing from Taco Bell,

  (53:36):

  Bless this to my body.

  (53:39):

  If it is a joke about bless this to my body, then probably don't put it in your body. I mean, that's a minimum sort of answer to your question, but what were you going to say?

  (53:48):

  Well, I was going to say scripture does include feasting, and that's different in a celebratory way, which

  (53:57):

  It's probably less about quantity of consumption than quality and just I guess the atmosphere and like you said, celebratory

  (54:07):

  Togetherness, which is what I would hope and pray for all of the congregants at West Hills, that it is a feast, its a celebration. And to do that. And then I put that aside and perhaps don't eat the same way tomorrow, although I do Thanksgiving, leftovers are the best.

  (54:24):

  Make

  (54:25):

  A sandwich out of everything. Throw it all together. It's true. It's great. So that's just another way to think about it, view it in biblical terms of this is a celebratory Thanksgiving feast to the Lord and what he has done and enjoy.

  (54:43):

  Yeah, but don't,

  (54:45):

  Don't over

  (54:45):

  Enjoy. Yeah. I mean actually, but honestly, it is, it's not dissimilar to the drinking where it's like wine gladdens the heart. It's good. Go for it. Even Jesus with the disciples wine, it's great, but don't overdo it because you don't need to, because Jesus, I satisfy you. You don't need other things. Yeah. That minimum bar of if you can't pray for it because you feel too guilty and you can't ask God to do a miracle to bless it to your body if you can't, don't eat quantity wise and quality. And I'll just personally, I mean, because again, I've been there speaking as a glutton at times. I have eaten so much. Not even at Thanksgiving, I have eaten. So, oh, well, one year it was Thanksgiving and then this has happened to me twice now where I ate so much, I threw up. That's embarrassing. That is not eating to the glory of God. The food was so good and I was feasting. It was a family big, and it was like, I want all of this. This is so good. Why would I stop? Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing? Yes, there is. When you throw it back up, you had too

  (56:06):

  Much. And you hate wasting food.

  (56:09):

  Hate's a double whammy. I hate wasting food. It's double whammy. Yep. So I maybe end with that by saying, take everything that I say, not with a grain of salt, but is coming from a fellow struggler of a skinny glutton who knows what it is to reach for other things to fill that

  (56:31):

  Void.

  (56:32):

  And so you don't have to struggle in silence and you're not alone. And we will support you and pray for you, and you can do the same for me.

  (56:45):

  Thanks guys. That's it for this week's episode of Ask the Pastors. Remember that you can submit your questions by visiting the info bar at West Hills or by submitting them online through our website at www.westhillssto.org. If you enjoyed this week's episode, hit that like button, subscribe and share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening, and Lord willing, we'll catch you right back here next week.