Well, in that Psalm there, you see that the matter of gluttony is not a light matter in any way, shape, or form. The Lord is cutting down people because of their unbelief in that sin. And so, it is something that we ought to take seriously. Raise your hand if you need a Bible. We're going to be turning to Proverbs 23. It's a topical series looking at seven deadly sins. These are kind of following the tradition of the scriptures of various lists of sin like we read earlier in the book of Mark. The early fathers thought along these lines as well as people in the Middle Ages and then the Puritans as well. And they were looking at what are the sins that are not necessarily those surface level sins, the things we can obviously see, but what are the things that are going on in our hearts that are leading people to hell? that are deadening people to the truth of the gospel and so forth and so on. So we come to the sin of gluttony. When I laid this out, it really wasn't intentional that it be right in the middle of the holidays, but that is how it fell as you take up the list as the fathers have laid these things out. And so we're going to do that today. But I do want to assure you of one thing, and that is that while there may be a number of people saying, how could you do this to us on the holidays? If we rightly understand this truth, it will free you up to feast in better ways than you've ever feasted before. So it actually belongs right where we are in the calendar, because God's word speaks truth to us that allows us to live in gospel freedom as we relate to the things of this world. So let's give attention to God's word. Our key verses here are gonna come from verses 20 and 21, but I wanna begin our reading by reading the first eight verses, which also relate to it. And before you do that, let's pray. Lord, we thank you that your word is bread from heaven, and we pray that we would eat now with delight, and we pray that you would satisfy us as we come to your word as only you can, and we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. This is God's word, Proverbs 23, one. When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is before you and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite. Do not desire his delicacies for they are deceptive food. Do not toil to acquire wealth, be discerning enough to desist. For when your eyes light on it, it is gone. For suddenly it sprouts wings flying like an eagle toward heaven. Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy. Do not desire his delicacies, for he is like one who is inwardly calculating. Eat and drink, he says to you, but his heart is not with you. You will vomit up the morsels that you have eaten and waste your pleasant words. And then move your eyes down to verse 19. hear my son and be wise and direct your heart in the way be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty and slumber will clothe them with rags thus ends this reading of god's holy word we pray that he would be pleased to write it upon our hearts well we come to this uh particular topic in this sin, and we know that it affects all of us in various ways because we all love to eat, if we're honest, and we love to see food-type things in the news. You probably saw that the inventor of the Big Mac died this week at age 98, and the inventor of General Tso's chicken, and these are the sorts of things that just kind of arouse our curiosity because we can relate, we've tasted these things, we've seen, and we know. And we also, I think, as we think about falling into sin with respect to the area of food, probably do so because we tend to think of it as kind of an acute sin because it doesn't have acute effects necessarily. And so as we begin to think about this sin, we need to recognize that it's one of the more pernicious sins. A sin like lust is mentioned and nobody's chuckling and giggling and sort of elbowing their neighbor in the row at church, right? But a sin like gluttony comes up and this is the case. And so we need to recognize that this is perhaps one of the places where the devil can come in at our heart most freely. because our guard is perhaps most down with relation to food and drink, these things that we handle every single day of the year. So we wanna ask the question, what does the Lord teach us about gluttony and how does he then want us to fight against this? And whenever you consider something topically, you always have to ask, well, how is this going to best be organized? And it seems that it would be best to organize this today as a four course meal. And we're going to begin with the appetizer and then we'll move on to the bread and the salad and then the entree. And then we'll finish up with dessert. That's not coming from the text. That's simply something we're imposing here as we take the text in and as we set it before us. So please understand that. But we do want to be answering this question and we'll begin with the appetizer, which is designed, a variety of different thoughts that are set before us. Maybe not necessarily all completely related, but it whets our appetite for what is further to come. So one of the things we want to look at as we taste this appetizer that is set before us here with respect to the sin of gluttony is the word itself. It comes to us in English from Latin and it simply means to gulp. It means to gulp, and it's a word that has different forms in different languages, but every language has this word in one way, shape, or form. Ours simply comes from the Latin, but you get the sense here, first of all, it's not necessarily so much about the food as much as it is about the activity of what is happening within us. Gluttons are those who make pigs of themselves. And one commentator has said that the glutton takes all food and makes it mere slop. reduces it to that level. So gluttony then really is an enslavement to food. And it can have a variety of expressions. It can take the form of excess, which is what we primarily think of as gluttony, but it can also take on other forms. So we look at people on the other end of the food spectrum within our culture who idolize food, and you might find them at a CrossFit gym. They are given to worshiping what they eat and what shape their life is taking. but it's entirely different than a sin of excess. In his screw tape letter, C.S. Lewis is addressing Wormwood, the junior devil is being addressed and he's told one of the things that has most effectively removed the preaching on the topic of gluttony from the churches is that we have focused on this sin as a sin of excess rather than a sin of delicacy. And so he's instructing the junior devil to begin to just help people think about food in all kinds of dainty ways, to just become fixated on food, perhaps at the opposite end of the spectrum of eating in excess. And so again, we see this with picky eaters. We see it with those who are hanging out at the gym all the time. The issue for both parties is really the same. It's a heart issue. And we'll touch upon that here in just a moment. But as we think about it in this wider term, I want you to recognize that the result of the things we've just said in terms of various forms of gluttony is that it's impossible for us to judge simply by looking at people. Now, we can look at things from a public health standpoint with the state of Indiana, for instance, and depending on which metrics you're using, you'll find that we're either somewhere between the 7th and the 15th most obese state in the nation as a percentage of adults. In other words, if you were to take the state of Indiana and put it on a scale, you would find out that this is probably a serious sin that we ought to be dealing with. And yet, we wouldn't be able to go point our finger at any one other person simply because of their weight or their shape and necessarily know what's going on in their hearts. And I think this is something that's very important for us to consider as we take up a sin like this. God's calling us to recognize the sin and what it looks like, but he's calling us to see it applied to our own hearts. Because there may be people who are on the heavier side, who are seeking the Lord with respect to food and drink in far holier ways than most. There may be others, on the other hand, who are quite thin and yet are horrible gluttons at heart. And so we, as a people, need to recognize that, yeah, there are trends in culture and we can recognize this is probably a sin that we face. but we need to be careful about pointing fingers and make sure that the word of God is examining our own heart first of all. We see as we continue to take up these appetizers, just thinking about bits and pieces of truths about the sin of gluttony and food, we recognize that in the garden, the first sin had to do with eating. Fascinating little thing to think about. And yet, as we think about food, we recognize that for the wicked who reaches out for that fruit, it will never be enough. Proverbs 13, 25 says, the righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite, but the belly of the wicked suffers want. In other words, the problem here with gluttony is that you can keep going after food, you can go after drink, you can go after these things thinking that they will satisfy you, but because they are not eternal, they will always leave you hungry. there will always be an emotional emptiness. We use the phraseology comfort food, but as we know, we eat the comfort food and it supplies for a little while, but then the comfort goes and the calories remain. and we're weighed down then by our sin quite literally, and it deadens us, and it deadens our hearts, it deadens our lives. And yet, God has given us food as a good gift. This was part of the promise given to Adam and Eve right there in the garden. They were to eat of any other tree. They were to bring forth the produce of the earth. We see God promising His people that His blessing would include giving them food. He's going to give them, as He told the people who were taking the land, cisterns already dug, vineyards, olive groves, fruit trees in abundance. so that they would be able to delight themselves in God's great goodness. And we see Jesus coming and He's satisfying hungry people by giving them bread to eat, feeding four and five thousand people at a time, enjoying in and delighting in meals with His disciples. So we're asked then, we ask the question then, what's really the problem here? What really is the heart of the matter? Well, it's as we read earlier from Mark chapter 7. It is the heart that is the heart of the matter because it's not things Jesus says that come from outside that go into a man and defile him. Those just go right through us. Jesus shows us, but it's what comes out of a person, out of a person's heart that defile him. All of these kinds of sins and gluttony is one of those sins that comes out of our heart. Paul in writing to the Philippians says that ultimately the problem here is that people who are enemies of the cross of Christ whose end is destruction, their God is their belly. They're longing to satisfy themselves and to glorify their own appetite. rather than giving glory to God. So gluttony in all of its forms is a sin that represents a selfishness of heart, a self-love that is destructive and will never ultimately satisfy. And so we move on then from these appetizers that we've sort of sampled from the various plates to our second course, which would be our rolls and the salad. And again, this is simply structure. It has nothing to do with actually coming from the text here, but I want you to think about being at a meal and you get a basket of bread and you open it up and there are a number of rolls. There's one for everyone at the table. And there's a variety. You might have some pumpernickel, you might have some wheat, you might have some white, and so forth and so on. And everyone gets to choose one roll out of the basket. Well, as we think about this particular sin, there are a lot of different ways it can be expressed. And so just for your own thinking, think about the expressions of gluttony here being like this basket of bread that we're going to look at. Here's a list of six, and these actually come from Thomas Aquinas. He thought about the breadth of different ways in which gluttony might be expressed. You might not experience all of these, you might experience one or more of these, but these are at least six different ways in which the sin of gluttony can be expressed. And then we'll move on to a seven-layer salad of the consequences that come from this. But first of all, the six ways in which the sin of gluttony can be expressed. The first of these would be eating too soon. eating too soon, out of time, out of season, not meditating upon Christ and the giver of the gift, but racing right in to eat the food. And in scripture, you see this with Esau. He comes in from the field and he cannot wait to eat. His God is his belly. And he was willing to give up everything he had and everything he was, give up his birthright, for a pot of soup, beans was all he got for it, right? But we have this same kind of attitude as well when we've been out doing other work. We've been running around, perhaps, and we're growing hungry, and we start getting really grumpy with other people. It's not necessarily time to eat yet, and we know that, but we let our hunger overcome us. This is an expression of gluttony. When we start letting it bleed then into other sins, and we pretty well snap someone else's head off, and we're ready to take a pound of flesh from them because we can't get it at the table. This is what it means to be eating too soon. We're racing in. Secondly, eating too expensively. Moderation here is not a matter of moderation in volume, but in expense. Song of Solomon, in writing in Ecclesiastes, talks about how he tried to become really a gourmet. Thinking of drink, he says, I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine, my heart still guiding me with wisdom. He's asking, what's the best I can drink? What's the best that I can eat? He consumed himself with that, hoping that that would satisfy. And of course, you know, his answer is all is vanity. You see this even more sinfully expressed by the children of Israel when they come out of Egypt. They've been in the wilderness for a while, and they say, we remember the fish which we ate in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Here we are, manna. All God gives us every day is just bread from heaven. You know, just a miracle, that's all. Egypt was better. We have the same sort of expression when we're discontent with the food that the Lord provides to us. And again, you see it begins to deaden our hearts. A third expression that Aquinas identified is eating too much. This, of course, would be a matter of volume. And this is why Sodom was judged, one of the reasons. Ezekiel 16, verse 49 says, Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom. She and her sisters had pride, excessive food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me, so I removed them when I saw it. This, of course, is a great temptation in our land. It's simply to eat more than we need. Why do we do it? We don't always know. We eat and we wonder, what was I thinking? The answer is we really weren't thinking. We just wanted more food, so we ate. Fourth, Augustine identifies eating too eagerly or burningly, eating too fast. So it's not necessarily being angry before we get to the food, but it's when we get there, we just dig in. And again, we're not giving thanks, but we're just wolfing the food down. failing to recognize this pleasure that the Lord has given to us as his people. This is what we sang about in Psalm 78, the people of Israel pled for quail and then they just started snarfing it down and God brought judgment when the meat was still between their teeth. Children, this is sometimes a temptation for you, not to learn, to enjoy the good gifts of God, but simply to fork it in as quickly as possible. This can be an expression of the sin of gluttony. Fifth, then, eating too daintily or being a picky eater. Again, think of Israel with the manna in the wilderness. Think about various people with different eating disorders. They've become so fixated on eating a very small amount of food that this food has become their idol. We perhaps sometimes see it with people who begin to lose sight of the fact that God has given all of a range of foods to eat, and they begin cutting things out of their diet needlessly. Now, certainly there are people with eating disorders that are managed by physicians. But it's amazing how many people in our culture have decided to take it upon themselves to improve their diet by simply removing some things, and you'll hear people say, I stopped eating such and such, and I felt a whole lot better. Well, You know, when I cut certain things out of my life, like exercise, for a while I feel better too. But only for a time, right? God has given us a range to eat, and we ought not to be picky eaters. As we do that and try to think ourselves wiser than God Himself, we begin to commit the sin of gluttony, and we're putting ourselves above even God Himself. Sixthly, Augustine identifies the sin of eating too wildly or boringly. Eating without thinking, without gratitude, without giving appreciation to the one who has given us the food. Again, it may be similar to other sins, but you can think here of the man who goes to try to drown his sorrows with alcohol. The substance is meaningless, he just wants an escape. Or the woman whose boyfriend just broke up with her and so she curls up with a half gallon of ice cream to watch a movie and just eats until she feels sick. There's a longing here and a desire for comfort to be brought somehow through the substance. But a comfort that is forever escaping us Well, that's the bread bowl that we've looked at here sort of a sampling of different ways that we can fall prey to the sin of gluttony and and you begin to see the Hardening of heart that that comes and so then we move into our salad here again for the sake of organization think about this as a seven-layer salad of consequences that come now first of all It's idolatry. 1 Corinthians 10, verse 7 says, and do not become idolaters as some of them were, speaking of the people in the wilderness, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Gluttony always deadens the heart of the worshiper. It always sets food as something that it supposes will satisfy. And then that often leads to other sins, as happened here. The people rose up to play. They rose up to engage in sexual immorality. Their hollowness of heart gave way to gluttony and then lust. All of that tied up in idolatry. This leads us then to a sense of hopelessness as we look at the world, which is why the world says, let's eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Why not just try to have it all now if we really live in a hopeless world? For the Christian, maybe it doesn't lead us to hopelessness, but when we become fixated on our food, and this idolatry takes a little bit different turn for us, we focus on the substance rather than the giver of the substance, and we become legalistic, and we become judgmental. Look at how much of the New Testament is given to warning against judging one another over what you eat. This is perhaps another subtle form of gluttony. Paul writes to the Romans in Romans 14, Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a brother. He goes on to talk about not letting the things that that we eat Destroy the one for whom Christ died and he concludes with this Reminding us that the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking But of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit But a consequence of our becoming fixated on food in the body of Christ is we'll start judging other people. Why are you eating that? Why do you give yourself to that rather than focusing on our own sins? Fourth sin that this leads to or at least can lead to is a sin of laziness Paul writing to Titus speaks of the lazy gluttons who were there on the island of Crete as we eat too much or we become fixated on our food in other ways we're just We're just more lethargic. We don't want to act. So again, this sin leads to further other sins. And then it leads fifthly to poverty. Something we read here in Proverbs 23, that the glutton will come to poverty. When our hearts are hardened toward the Lord and hardened toward other people, when we become those who are lazy, there's going to be a poverty. Maybe a material poverty, but there's also going to be a relational poverty between us and others and between the Lord himself, us and the Lord himself. And all of this then leads us six to rebellion, poverty and gluttony rather, and rebellion are always put together. Proverbs 28 verse seven says, the one who keeps the law is a son with understanding, but a companion of gluttons shames his father. Here's rebellion of heart that is expressed through our misuse of food. And Paul certainly felt this. He recognized that he could not live in rebellion against God with regard to food and drink if he wanted to call others to imitate him as he imitated Christ. It's a really striking thing, isn't it? How can we press forward in discipling others If they look at our lives and see that we live in rebellion to God with the basics of food and drink, how much more simple does life get than this particular topic? We take up food every day. So Paul said, I buffet my body. I make it my slave. Lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified. Now, we're not looking for people who are perfect here, but we're looking for people who are bringing their whole selves to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, even down to the basics of food and drink. Well, we don't want to see that sin of rebellion born out in our lives as one of the consequences, and then the implications that that would bear for all of these others around us. But there is one final implication, and that, of course, is final judgment. Where is it that the sin of gluttony, the misuse of food, the idolizing of what we eat, where does it lead? Well, it leads to the same place that Sodom eventually went. Sodom through the scripture is sort of given typologically, or maybe not as a type, but as a very vivid picture in the Old Testament of final judgment. And often people think of the sin of homosexuality as being associated with Sodom. Very clearly there in the passage we read in Ezekiel, near the front of the list was the sin of gluttony, fullness of bread. a sense of fulfillment that the people there sought in their food and in their diet. Well, it would be a horrible thing to leave a meal after just the bread and the salad, as much as Olive Garden may say otherwise. It's a sad place to be left, especially with the structure that we're looking at here, so we need to move on to the entree. Where is it that we're really going to find ourselves satiated here and filled? What is the answer to this sin? Well, of course, the answer is from the one who is the giver. What is it that's gonna satisfy us? Psalm 107 verses eight and nine give us the answer. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men, for he satisfies the longing soul and the hungry he fills with good things. Our satisfaction has to come from the God who has made us, who's entered into relationship with us and who gives us everything that we need for life and for godliness. And how does he bring this satisfaction to us? Well, he himself, that is Jesus, has come in the flesh. And do you remember who he came and he ate and drank with? He came to gluttons and to drunkards. So if you've just looked in the basket of rolls and you've looked through the seven-layer salad and you see an awful lot of yourself and you recognize, Lord, I am a glutton and my sin is deadening me to you and to people around me, then the good news for you is this. that the one who satisfies delighted to come and eat and drink with gluttons and drunkards. He loves to come particularly to you in this sin. He loved it so much that the Pharisees, those who were self-righteous, accused him of such. And Jesus didn't deny it. Jesus came to sit at the table with people like you. And so what should we do? We should confess our sin to him, the one who has humbled himself and comes to us. Jesus is the one who took this sin of gluttony upon himself in his body and saw it nailed to the tree on your behalf. And what did Jesus do? Well, he satisfied his disciples with food on earth. And he gave them the Lord's Supper as a memory that he would be the one who would satisfy them. And not simply to be a memory, but that as they would partake, they would really and truly, by faith, feed on Jesus himself and find their satisfaction in him. The problem with gluttony is that people don't believe that God satisfies. Actually go to something that God gives thinking it's going to satisfy them, but they've disconnected it They've severed it from the giver and made it slop and it'll never satisfy there but as we see these good gifts connected to the one who gives them and who forgives sin and Then, every time we go to food, our hearts will be turned to Him, aright, so that we become able to feast. But first of all, we have to see that what ultimately satisfies is Him. I'm sure I've told the story before, but my grandfather, when he was 37 years old, came to the Bible study that Dr. Blackwood led, and he was very taken with his cigars in that day. And Dr. Blackwood recounts how he and this other man would sit at the back of the room as the Gospel of John was being opened, and they would nurse their stogies. And they were worth something, and so they took care of them. But as the word of God began to be proclaimed, as sin, righteousness, and judgment was proclaimed from the book of John, as Jesus was set before these men, Dr. Blackwood says he knew that they were really taken when the tobacco flamed out and didn't smoke anymore, still in the hand. But the hearers were so totally taken with Jesus that the substance didn't matter anymore. That's how gluttony is defeated, you see. When our eyes are lifted. to the Maker, the Redeemer. And we find our satisfaction in Him. And He promises, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. And as we go to God's Word, we recognize that it's milk for the new believer. It's meat for the one who is maturing. And people who are enthusiastic about their relationship with Christ are able then to say that they don't need anything more. And it's when we come to the point of not needing this earthly food anymore for our satisfaction that that's when it really ultimately is able to satisfy us afresh. So that we're able to say with Solomon in Proverbs, The smallest amount will satisfy us in the right context. And so, how do we respond then? How do we relate to earthly food? Well, like the disciples of old, Acts chapter 2, the people were continuing daily as they came to faith in Christ. With one accord in the temple, breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart. And how is it that we eat with gladness and simplicity of heart? Well, we're not mastered by the food, but we learn to master it. And there are maybe three ways in which we can do this. First of all, we learn to know when to feast. You're gonna have a holiday coming up, and there is a sense in which you should eat too much. That is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. You should eat it all. You miss that, you miss the blessing of God. And will you eat too many calories? Yes, absolutely. but God wants it for you. But we need to learn not only to feast with joy, we secondly have to learn when is it we should be fasting as a means of demonstrating that we're not taken with food, but we're taken with the giver of it. There should be times that offset the feasting of fasting like the disciples of old. And then of course, thirdly, there's the rest of the time when we ought to be eating in moderation, taking in what we need And one of the ways in which we do this is we always need to be giving thanks for the food that we've been given. And as we're giving thanks, we should be asking ourselves the question, what is this fuel going to be used for? That becomes a guide then in terms of how much we should eat, how much time we should spend on eating at a particular meal. And the beautiful thing about all of this, all of these points I'm raising here is it calls for Christian wisdom. It doesn't call for you to studiously keep a 2,000 calorie a meal a day diet. It calls for you to recognize what God has called you to in the particular moment. and then to act by faith and faithfully. And as we do, we will see the sin of gluttony brought to nothing. So if you struggle with this particular sin, what are some ways in which we can see it defeated by finding our satisfaction in Christ? Well, first of all, we need to know the truth of his word as we've just considered. But secondly, we need to pay attention to our bodies because our bodies, like our consciences, remind us when we're crossing the line. Now, consciences can be seared and hardened, and bodies can be adapted. You know, it's been said we all have different builds, it's just some people have additions. Sometimes we get used to accommodating those additions when we shouldn't. But if we pay attention, we recognize when we begin to become hungry, and that ought to remind us to stop. or our clothes become a little bit of a source of conscience for us, and the belt begins to hurt. Take these as signs from God himself in his common grace, reminding you that it's time to pull back or to think differently. But we also then ought to be thinking as we hold out every bite that we would eat, we need to be asking the question, can I righteously rejoice in the Lord by eating this food here and now? If the answer to that question is no, then in Christ put the food back down. But if the answer in Christ is yes, then enjoy. That's the way in which we fight against the sin of gluttony so that we're enjoying when we should be enjoying and we're abstaining when we should be abstaining. We as the people of God then also ought to not only be giving thanks and rejoicing, but we also ought to be thinking about the fact that sometimes we should set our food aside so that the needs of others can be met. Are there others, we might ask, who ought to have this food that I should be sharing this with in the present so that I can serve the Lord better? That's another way in which we can mentally fight against the sin of gluttony. And then, as we've already mentioned, we ought to be asking the question, what is this food going to be useful to do? What will this energy empower me to do? This has a profound impact on the way in which we eat and drink. If we know we're not going to need those calories to serve the Lord, then we can set them aside. But if we look ahead in our day and we see that the Lord is calling us to do things and these are needful, then our lives become governed by seeking first the kingdom of God and not worrying about food and drink. Jesus was able in the course of his ministry to say, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish this work. Obedience was more satisfying to Jesus as he stood there with the woman at the well than even taking in the calories that were needful to accomplish all that he came to do. He wasn't enslaved to food. He enjoyed it as a blessing. So that's the entree. Our satisfaction ultimately comes from Christ. And when we're seeing Christ the way he ought to be seen, then we see all of the food that's set before us the way it should be seen so that we can feast and so that we can fast and so that we can moderate our intake and we can use the energy the Lord gives us to serve him. And then finally, in closing, there's one last course of course, and that would be dessert. And I've tasted a lot of these other things by experience, but this one I haven't. It's on the menu, but none of us know what it's like because we're promised through the scripture that we're going to taste even better things still when we're with the Lord in glory. What was the promised land described as in the Old Testament? a land flowing with milk and honey. God promises in Isaiah chapter 25 that on that mountain, looking forward to the last day, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food, full of marrow, of aged wine, well-refined. The Lord promises us unimaginable blessings as he seats us at his table. as he gathers us to the marriage supper of the lamb. And this was what he promised to his disciples there at the last supper is that they were going to sit at his table with him ruling. And the promise for us as believers is that we will be there at that same table with the Lord. And so every time we eat here, every time we drink, We ought to be giving thanks to the Lord above and anticipating that great and final day when he will call us home and he will let us taste and see from this last portion of the menu what we have yet to taste and see. So brothers and sisters, let us seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and let these other things like food and drink take care of themselves as we serve our Lord in His kingdom, and let us hunger and thirst for righteousness, which can only be found in Jesus Christ, and know that in Him we will be satisfied. Let's pray. Lord, we bless your name that you have given food to eat. You've given us bodies to use and you have saved us from our rebellion in these bodies. And we thank you that you have sanctified now the use of these means so that we would give you glory and praise. So Lord, give us grace that whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we would do all to your glory because Lord, the last thing we wanna see happen is the misuse of food here in our midst, and by our members, lead people to hell itself. Rather, Lord, we pray that our hearts and minds, as we consider the food that's set before us each day, would point us to the giver and to the Redeemer, and would make us hunger and thirst for His righteousness. May there be nothing short of that, Lord, in our sanctification as a congregation, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.