Eat This

12, February 2006

Dakota Community Church

Eat This

Introduction:

I have a little problem. I guess you could say it is a condition. I’m sure I’m the only one here who deals with this kind of a disorder.

I have a split personality.

- Someone criticizes my sermon.

- I get cut off in traffic.

- One of the boys eats the last popcorn.

I have the peaceful, graceful, voice of the Spirit response:

- Thank you for sharing that, I’m glad you felt close enough to me to come up and say that.

I have the carnal, sharp, voice of my flesh response:

- You blind Pharisee. Ignorance and arrogance are an intoxicating mix aren’t they?

Romans 7:21-25

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Leviticus 11: 1-3

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Say to the Israelites: ’Of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat: You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud.

Have Chris read verses 4-17

Leviticus 11:44-45

I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground. I am the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.

What is the point of all this?

Most scholars agree that these laws were for health reasons; the forbidden foods are mostly those that eat dead things.

What is the point behind the point for us?

1. What we consume matters.

Ephesians 4: 31

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

1 Corinthians 6:12-15 (Message)

Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims.

You know the old saying, "First you eat to live, and then you live to eat"? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!

God honored the Master’s body by raising it from the grave. He’ll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master’s body. You wouldn’t take the Master’s body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.

Hebrews 12: 1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, 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.

We need to get rid of that stuff, bitterness, rage, anger lust.

Why?

2. We become what we consume.

We live in a society that is continually feeding us signals that go against holy living.

From the world:

- Lust images, food, sex, revenge.

From the church:

- Self righteousness, judgmental hypocrisy.

The voice of the Spirit is leading me one way, but the other voices are leading me another way.

What we consume eventually consumes us.

The voice of the enemy, the voice of the flesh when it is in league with the enemy is a liar.

- “It doesn’t matter, it’s no big deal.”

- “You deserve it.”

- “Just this once and then never again.”

- “If you just had that, you’d be happy.”

The other voice says that there will be no cost, no price to pay, no long term effect, no consequence.

Philippians 3: 17-20

Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ

When you craving becomes your God, destruction becomes your destiny.