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.
1Peter 5:8
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
If you allow your feelings to set the course for your life, if you give the flesh the privilege of being in charge; you need to be aware that it will go the way of the enemy of your soul and his goal is to take you out.
Satan wants you dead, depressed, and defeated, miserable, out of the game.
3. We all need outside help.
Galatians 2: 19-21
"If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"
Galatians 2: 19-21 (Message)
What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.
Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.
The other voice must die and we cannot kill it alone.
There must be a massive shift in thinking, no longer about to competing selves but now about a former, dead self, and a new self alive in Christ.
How then do keep this frame of mind?
4. We continually consume Christ.
John 6: 51-58
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."
He did not say I will give you bread, He said I am the bread of life.
1 Corinthians 11:23-25
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
The only thing we really need is God.
I want to pray with you this morning.
- Do you feel like the other voice is winning?
- Have you accepted and personally identified with Christ?
- Is there some other issue God has stirred this morning?
Let’s pray.
This Sermon based on a message by Rob Bell entitled “Food Part III” available for purchase at http://www.mhbcmi.org/findex.html
PowerPoint available on request – dcormie@mts.net
