We are continuing our series this morning. I'm not sure if it's one that we are built to necessarily just absolutely get up and scream and look forward to, but it's something that is necessary, and it's subjects that Christians avoid. Things that we just don't talk about. Maybe sometimes we shouldn't talk about all the time, but we should acknowledge them at times. This is the third part of our series. We're going to be covering one more topic on this on December 1st, right after Thanksgiving, and then we're going to take a break for the remainder of December. But two weeks ago, we talked about sin, worldliness, and God's judgment. If we shy away from calling sin what it is in a public setting, we can lose how serious the consequences of sin is to the lost. And so that's something that we need to be warned about. But in our personal life, we can diminish the seriousness of our offenses and miss the worldliness we still need to remove from our life or not recognize the world's influence that may have crept back in. So we don't want to diminish what sin is. Last week we tackled the subject of individual soul liberty. Individual soul liberty is the freedom that every follower of Christ has to determine how he or she will live their life for the Savior. Now as we consider that, I'm not going to read necessarily through all these, but we examined what freedom looks like in scripture. It covers areas of life not specifically dealt with in the scriptures or, most often, how we personally live out God's instructions. So we have some freedom within some of those things. A good example would be how you feel that God has led you to serve the Lord within the church and others and things like that. We don't dictate that to people and different things like that. Your giving, how you give to the Lord, how much you give to the Lord, is ultimately between you and him and you have that freedom. So there's just a couple of examples. But as we're thinking about these different things, there are certain things, again, that we are free to do, but it also means that we have responsibilities. responsibilities ourselves to do them. And they're not something that we can turn to somebody else and say, well, I didn't achieve this. So therefore it's your fault because you didn't achieve your responsibilities. Right? So our freedom comes with responsibility. And then we talked about the limits of our freedoms. There are a number of limits that we have to safeguard other people's freedoms to a degree, but also so that we don't take our freedoms and use them to live a selfish, godless life, right? So as we kind of consider all of those things, I want us to just be reminded, I followed up the topic of sin with our Christian freedoms because we can fall into the trap sometimes of projecting our own personal convictions, which are again between ourselves and the Lord, on other people and actually mistakenly saying that what they're doing is sin because it's different than what I'm doing or what they're not doing is sin. So we've got to be careful of that. Now again, we need to call an offense against God an offense against God. But what's the standard? The standard is not me and my sensibilities. The standard is the word of God. So when God's word doesn't specifically speak to something, I need to allow for the freedom of somebody else. But again, as we said, there are limits to that freedom. Today we're going to tackle the very real challenge of excess. By excess, I mean areas of overindulgence in which God's good gifts turn into selfishness. I'm not planning to do this, but there's a good possibility that I'm going to bother everybody in this room. But I just want you to understand, it's not me, and it's not personal, and I've already had to go through this message. All right? So I'm just saying, all right? But let's move on to see where we're at here. I want to give us first some warnings against excess. So we're just going to jump right into the scriptures here. Proverbs 25.16 says this, Have you found honey? Eat only as much as you need, lest you be filled with it, and vomit. We need to remind ourselves that the Proverbs are wisdom literature and they are a form of Hebrew poetry. Most tend to be rules for life as opposed to absolutes, right? If you live in this way, chances are this is what's going to happen to you, whether it be negatively or positively. If you're a liar, people aren't going to trust you, right? If you're truthful, people may come to you for advice, right? You get the idea. Honey is used here as a specific example of a greater principle, which again is very common in poetry. Eating discovered honey represents partaking in things with moderation as opposed to too much resulting in something bad. Right? So really this represents all of life to a degree, but we can probably Well, we're going to focus it in some other areas. I also want to look at Luke 21, verses 34 and 35. Jesus said, But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Here Jesus is concluding his warning about the coming day of judgment upon the earth. Now we, frankly, call that the tribulation period. And he concluded by telling his followers not to be weighed down by being preoccupied with worldly pleasures. A preoccupation with worldly pleasures is living in excess. All right? Proverbs 23, 20 through 21 says this, Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine, or with gluttonous eaters of meat. For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe one with rags." And that's from the New American Standard. Jesus' story of the prodigal son comes to mind as we think about this. An impatient, selfish younger son cannot wait for his father to die to gain his inheritance. That's the story. And so he asks his father for his inheritance in advance, and his dad separates what is his and what is his brother's, gives it to him, father obliges, and the son soon goes out and spends his entire inheritance. Luke 15, 13 says this, and not many days after, he's receiving his inheritance, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. The son gets his name from the way he spent his money. Prodigal means to scatter or to waste. So this son spent all that he had in sinful excesses. So what do we talk about today? Just in time for Thanksgiving, overindulgence of food. Now, I will tell you, this topic is very personal to me. may be to some of you as well. I have lost some weight recently, but not because of my recent surgery. Frankly, I was convicted. I have been convicted on and off different times in my life. Sometimes I've been more successful. With managing my weight than others, but quite frankly, I was. Disgusted with myself. I was going to say it. I was convicted with My overindulgence of food, and I just had to come to terms with the fact that it was sin. I was not living right. It did happen to coincide with my surgery, which wasn't all bad, especially when I couldn't eat for several days. So what I want to say from the beginning here, as we talk about overindulgence of food, this is not necessarily directed toward those of us who maybe struggle with what's around our middle. That could be part of it. But there could be reasons why someone may have a weight issue. Overindulgence doesn't necessarily mean how much we weigh or even how little we weigh. It's what we do with food. So it is a message for all of us. Some passages in our warning against excess applied to food. We saw that. But there are other more specific passages in addition to the warnings that we just looked at, and one of them is in Proverbs 23, verses 1 through 3. When you sit down to eat with a ruler, consider carefully what is before you and put a knife to your throat if you are a man given to appetite. So I wish I would have to have a knife ready. Do not desire his delicacies for they are deceptive food. Now, Solomon uses a bit of hyperbole here or exaggeration to get the point across that we need to keep our appetite in check. Some say he is warning against a manipulative people in power. I do not believe that's the case. I believe that the stronger message here is that it is a warning about getting hooked on rich foods and thinking that they will satisfy. Have you ever struggled with that? Now, let's move on. Proverbs 21, 17. He who loves pleasure will be a poor man. He who loves wine and oil will not be rich. The verse represents a preoccupation with luxury, especially in feasting and banqueting. That's what that wine and oil and pleasures all point to. For many of us, the modern equivalent of frequent feasting may not result in poverty, But does that then make it right? One of the issues that we have with scripture is not that it isn't truthful, but that there is no way that a biblical writer, unless it would be a matter of prophecy, would have been able to foresee what we have today. I mean, just the simple things of food preservation and packaging and shipping it would boggle their minds. And then we talk about all that we have available to us. Let's face it, folks, within an hour's drive at most, we could have nearly every cuisine that's on the earth. Today. Unless they're closed on Sunday. Seriously. We could go to grocery stores, and we could partake of any number of things that we chose to, and we could bring it home and we could reasonably preserve that for a decent period of time. It's amazing what we have access to. So these delicacies that were warned about, for me, they're just a walk through the living room and dining room to the kitchen from my office. Great. That's never a challenge. Oh, I'm typing, I got this stress while I'm working, right? It's all good stress, but I need to munch on something. Or you know what would go great with this movie? Popcorn, and ice cream, and chips, and so on, right? I understand, I'm only speaking to myself here. As Americans, it is easy for us to overindulge in the amount of food, the type of food, or even the experience of food. These warnings provide us with some important principles. Excessive consumption of food is the sin of gluttony. Overindulgence of food and extravagant food will not satisfy. And it also isn't healthy for us. Overeating or the wrong kind of eating is often a socially acceptable transgression among Christians. We have to admit that. This is the selfish desire that we tend to not talk about. We joke about it, but we don't talk about it for what it is, which then goes back to naming sin for what it is. It's interesting. There's been some responsible, accurate research which has determined that the decline in health and the rise in obesity in our country has taken place actually over a long period of time. Not that it's not worse now, but it has been a cultural trend for decades. And I'm going to go through some of those things. Now, this is not spiritual in nature, so to speak, and I'm probably gonna repeat this, but I want us to see what we're up against, just to be blunt about it, all right? So here's some things that has been observed that has changed how we eat, how we live. The first is major labor-saving technologies. All the things that save us time, all the things that save us all of our effort, what happens? We're not as active. and things are easier. And so if we don't replace that with other activity or if we replace that with more food, we're in trouble. Industrial food processing. Sometimes we don't understand the scale at which food is produced today and how it is produced so that it can get to our store shelves. The denaturing of food, etc. And by the way, I'm not gonna come across as a nutritional expert in all of this. This is not what the message is about. If you wanna see me later on and say, hey, what did you do? I can maybe help you a little bit, but you're gonna have to deal with some of that on your own if you battle things as I do, all right? So I don't wanna be anybody's nutritionist or have that responsibility. But these are some contributing factors to our decline. Another thing is the convenience food, fast food culture. I just need something quick. Enough said about that, right? The culture of consumption. I mean, that's what drives our economy. We are a consumer-based economy. We are called consumers. There's universities that have whole studies on this and put out national reports that everybody waits. What is the consumer index? How's everybody feeling? Businesses determine what they produce based upon it. The rise of an automobile-based way of life. In other countries, they laugh at us for eating in our cars. They wouldn't think of doing that. And not only that, again, all of the time signal and everything else. Now, young people, you have to use your imagination here, okay? I know this is like way foreign to what you... Radio and television, right? Now, we know that we have TV today and there's still radio around, but the point is this, media. Media has changed how we see food, right? Media has changed how our lifestyle is. Media has changed even what we might do at home. We celebrate the couch potato. The increase of women in the workforce. Now, I want to be careful here. I'm not saying that women shouldn't work. What I'm saying is this is part of the contribution because it goes back to, I got to grab something quick for my family. Happy meals all around. Mom's busy. Right? And let's face it, I mean, you know, Traditionally, moms usually do the cooking, things like that, so you get the idea. So don't hate me for that one, it's just university study. Okay, all right. And then the IT revolution. Not just more couch potato inactivity, but now I can send out for anything and everything that I want, and I never have to leave the comfort of my home. less and less activity, more and more access to more and more stuff, including food. So as we think about these things, we have some challenges against us. Check this out. Grocery stores carried about 4,000 products in the mid-1970s. In the late 1990s, they carried, on average, 7,000 products. I don't want you to say it out loud, I just want you to think in your mind, how many products do you think the average grocery store, your Meijer and your Kroger, how many do they carry today? The answer is over 40,000. Over 40,000 products. And they're all competing against one another to get down your throats. Ultra-processed foods make up over 60% of our daily calories on average. Our American culture is obsessed with food. Most of us are inundated with food commercials. Sometimes we don't even notice that they're there, but they are. We have whole networks dedicated to food and cooking. Cookbooks, online recipes, cooking videos, food bloggers abound. It's just everywhere. So why have I spent so much time talking about this? First, I want to look at a couple of commonly quoted verses. that we can and should apply to this very basic need that we have. And the first one is Romans 12, one and two. I beseech you, I beg you, therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, set apart, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world. Hmm, what have we been looking at? but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." And then 1 Corinthians 10.31, therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Much of our contemporary culture is working against us when it comes to eating in moderation and eating healthy. It just is. And folks, I want to speak to our young people as well. It's going to catch up to you. Trust me. Sometimes much sooner than later. Yeah, but I don't like. Well, get over it. We can't just continue to eat the delicacies, right? Again, going back to ancient times, they would have just been blown away, overcome with just standing where you put your groceries on the conveyor belt. Think about just what's right there. All kinds of little bags of snack chips, any kind of candy bar you can imagine. Right? That little box that has the cold sodas and everything else. It's right there. Snap into a Slim Jim. It's all there. An honest appraisal of our culture is not an excuse for overindulgence. but can be a help to understanding our challenges. Folks, we've got a food problem, culturally. Personally, we can and should overcome it. Then there is the overindulgence of alcohol. We will treat excess drinking similar to excess eating. We need to keep in mind the general warnings, and we saw those in Luke 21. It says, talked about carousing and drunkenness and the cares of this life. It got a little more general, but drunkenness was one of those things. And then in Proverbs 23, 20 through 21, talked about don't associate yourself with heavy drinkers. So I want to add a couple of more specific warnings to that. Proverbs 20 verse one says this, wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise. Okay? If we are led astray, if we are influenced by too much alcohol, it is not a wise thing. What's the opposite of not being wise? Not just being unwise, it's being stupid! Seriously, an overindulgence with alcohol is stupidity. Proverbs 23 gives us a graphic picture of excess drinking. I want you to turn there, Proverbs 23. I'm going to read for you verses 29 through 35. We're not necessarily going to explain our way through all of this, but I want you to, matter of fact, I'm not even sure that we have to, but I want you to see this picture. You've probably read this before, but it's a good reminder. Proverbs 23. Verses 29 through 35. This is one of the more unusual parts of Proverbs where it's a whole section. So think about that for just a minute. Let that sink in. Solomon is stopping and saying, hey, this subject is going to get a little more airtime than just the quick hitters that we see, you know, peppered here and there in the scriptures, in the Proverbs. This one's different. So here we go. Who has woe? Right. Who's got problems? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Right? Strife in relationships. Who has complaints? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who linger long at the wine, those who go in search of mixed wine. Do not look on wine when it is red. The idea is gazing at, staring at it longingly. When it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly, At the last, it bites like a serpent and stings like a viper. Your eyes will see strange things and your heart will utter perverse things. Yes, you will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea or like one who lies at the top of the mass saying, they've struck me, but I was not hurt. They had beaten me, but I did not feel it. When shall I wake that I may seek another drink?" Now folks, this might be a sensitive topic for some of us, but we need to be warned about these things. Wine is a beverage that can mock us. There is a genuine danger to it. We can't stop eating. We can abstain from alcohol. Isaiah 28, verses 7 through 8, say something interesting about how alcohol contributed to Israel's sinful state. Now, Isaiah first spoke to the people, and he expressed his issues with them regarding their alcohol usage, but look at this. But they also have erred through wine, and through intoxicating drink are out of the way the priest and the prophet. have erred through intoxicating drink. They are swallowed up by wine. They are out of the way through intoxicating drink. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment. For all the tables," and I'm sorry about this, but this is scripture, for all the tables are full of vomit and filth. No place is clean. What a picture of the religious leaders of the day. It's interesting how he uses that idea of being drunk with their judgment. They stumble in judgment, right? Well, what do drunk people do? They stumble around. Their drinking didn't just make them ineffective, it made them harmful to the people. The people were already harming themselves, but their leadership was completely taken over by alcohol. We hear in our scripture reading a clear warning against drinking in excess. So remind us of Romans chapter 13 verses 13 and 14. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts, to fulfill its selfish desires, the selfish desire for alcohol. Drinking can generate all kinds of sins. When our inhibition is lost, our judgment often goes with it, and we open ourselves to committing all kinds of sins in word and deeds that we may not have done without being high. Now, I just want to briefly insert here that all of these principles can really go with drug abuse as well, whether it be something that is prescribed or not. And so that's something that we need to understand is that that also alters our mind. That is going to become something that is going to enslave us. And we need to be very careful about that. I don't have to talk about care when it comes to legal. That should be far from us. Meaning illegal, right? So what I want to do now We've talked about overeating, we've talked about over-drinking. I want to put excess in perspective. The holidays are upon us, and with them comes times of feasting. Thank you very much, Pastor Scott, for ruining my holidays. I'm not going to do that. How do we correlate what we've just learned with celebrating the holidays or having other types of celebrations? Even on a topic like this, the Bible is very instructive and practical. One thing that we need to understand is we never have to be afraid of what God's Word says. And by the way, I'm going to give you exactly what God's Word says. In fullness? No. This is a bigger topic. But I'm going to give you what we have. Let's start from the beginning of Israel's history as a nation. Again, I want us to turn to Deuteronomy chapter 14, in your Bibles, Deuteronomy chapter 14, beginning in verse 22. We're going to go from 22 through 29. Deuteronomy chapter 14, beginning in verse 22, it says, I'm going to pause here for just a minute. There's a lot more that said about the offerings. This is the offerings in relation to what you harvest. It's what is increased. We can call it income, right? And so you tithe. They were to give 10% of that back to the Lord. There's details about these different things that you see in different parts of Scripture, but look at what it says. Verse 24, but. And I'm sorry, let me say one more thing. He was talking about a time when he would establish where they would specifically be doing this as a nation. And he goes on, but if the journey is too long for you, and God doesn't give a reason here. Conditionally, if the journey is too long for you so that you're not able to carry the tithe, meaning transport what you were going to be giving, Or if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name is too far for you, when the Lord your God has blessed you, then you shall exchange it for money, take the money in your hand, and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. And you shall spend the money for whatever your heart desires. for oxen, or sheep, for wine, or similar drink. For whatever your heart desires, you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household. You shall not forsake the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no part nor inheritance with you." Remembering the Levites, they didn't gain a portion of the land. They were dependent on the people. At the end of every third year, you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up with your gates. And the Levite, because he had no portion nor inheritance with you, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do. So I want us just to concentrate on—let's just talk about this real quick. As we said, Moses is giving Israel the law that he had received from God. In this section, he explains how each head of the home was to prepare to give a tithe at the place where he was to bring it. We know now that that was Jerusalem. A sin offering was completely burned up. But this type of offering, a certain part of it, yes, was burned. A certain part of it was given to the priesthood. But then part of it you actually enjoyed. It was part of the celebration of Thanksgiving, of recognizing all that you had received by giving of that 10%. And so even part of that 10% was what your household celebrated with, all right? So that's the picture that we had here. And we see that God made this provision for those who lived far away, that instead they could exchange their goods for money. In other words, they could sell 10% of what they were going to give, then travel, bring the money with them. And what were they to do? They were to give a portion of that, take part of it, buy what they would normally have to celebrate with. You say, boy, why did you go through all that? Because look at what it says. You exchange it for wine and similar drink and some of your translations, it would say other strong drink. For whatever your heart desires. This is a time of celebration, folks. This was a celebratory feast to the Lord at the temple for all that God had provided. Consider what Isaiah says as he describes the coming kingdom. Now, Isaiah, he's been hitting Israel with some judgment calls here, okay? But interspersed throughout different parts of Isaiah are also places where he is giving them some hope. And I've taken this out of the ESV just because it gives some of the wording a little bit better. There's some things that we don't use anymore, and it says this. Sorry, verses 6-9 of chapter 25. On this mountain 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. And He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all the nations. The idea is a death shroud, right? He will swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of His people He will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, behold, this is our God. We have waited for Him that He might save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for Him. Let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation. Folks, what is going to be a part of the celebration of God's salvation? Aged wine. Fine wine. Rich foods. It's part of the feasting. Can we admit here? This is not talking about grape juice. It just isn't. I know there are people that try to argue that the only stuff they really drank was some form of grape juice unfermented. It's just not scriptural. Lastly, I want us to return to the story of the prodigal son. In this parable, after burning through his entire inheritance, the younger son was living in total poverty. If you remember, he was eating with the swine. And by the way, the word pods there, it's the castoffs of the carob tree. These carob pods, they were long, hard, nasty things. And he was longing to chew on some of those. That's how horrifically poor he was. And he realizes Way too late, right? What he had done and decides to go to his father, ask forgiveness and beg for a servant's job. So let's take us back again to, as I say again, let's go back to Luke 15 in the scriptures here. Luke 15, I want to read for you this section. Now, by the way, This is not the main thrust of the passage. The main thrust of the passage is helping the older son understand, look, you have had my blessings this entire time. Don't be looking down on those that I have grace to, right? That's really what the main thrust of the passage is. But we can't miss the principle that's still here. Luke 15, beginning in verse 20. And he, this is the guy who spent everything, right, arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. By the way, you have to note. How do? The father saw him a long way off. The father was looking. The father was waiting. Verse 21, and the son said to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Now, he had more to say, but look at this, but the father said to his servants, bring out the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fatted calf here and kill it and let us eat and be merry for this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found and they began to be merry. They celebrated. That is the end of the story there, again, aside from the lesson that we have for the older son. So where does all this bring us? Let's first remind ourselves that freedom taken too far can lead to slavery. 1 Corinthians 6.12 says this, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. Remember that freedom that we're talking about? All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Specifically today, whether it be food or drink, we are not to be brought under the power of either of those things. I can't say that I haven't been controlled by my appetite. I can't say that. It's a battle for me. Folks, I'm just being very transparent with you. I love food. I love it. I like to try different things. I like to cook. I like to experience new tastes, all those things. But I can't lead an undisciplined life. If I do, I'm sinning. And it doesn't matter how many inches my belt covers. It doesn't matter. It's the heart. I really liked how one writer described how we should interpret and apply both the warnings against overindulgence and the place of feasting and celebration. I've paraphrased some of this, but before we go there, I want us to look at 1 Corinthians 9, 17. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified. Even Paul is saying, hey, I got to watch my appetites. I've got to be careful. I need to master them. One of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control, which we will exercise if we are led by the Holy Spirit. For many of us, it is not easy, but we need to be obedient. And so as we're thinking about this and we're talking about this, as I mentioned, this writer gave what I would consider to be some guidelines. I've kind of added to them and changed things a little bit, but here we go. A celebration feast. So now we're bringing back not the red light, not the yellow light, but the green light for Thanksgiving. Here's the problem. And I just got to say this real quick. Thanksgiving can't be every day. That's what happens in America. Right? It's just more of more. That's not the way it's supposed to be. All right? So here we go. Appropriate feasting. Oh, that didn't happen right. We'll see how this goes. Appropriate feasting will include a large amount of good food. Feasting should not be a lifestyle. Somehow that got mixed up. A feast most often involves a lot of people. Now, I want to qualify that by saying this. If you and your wife are going out to a nice dinner, and it's just the two of you for your anniversary, that's, in my opinion, that can still be feasting, all right? But for the most part, we're with a lot of other people. Feasting alone all the time, that's gluttony. Right? So feasting should not be a lifestyle. Appropriate feasting will include a large amount of good food. There's nothing wrong with that. A feast most often involves a lot of people, and a feast involves a celebration. We feast for something. We feast because of an occasion. Now, that can be a wedding. Many times we have a dinner at a wedding, right? Some type of feasting. A birthday. A holiday. which may not be religious in nature, or a religious celebration, any number of things like that. I consider even the dinners that we have together our fellowship meals. That's a feast together. In the New Testament, it's referred to even as a love feast, okay? So there are times when we can and should do this, and it's very appropriate. And then lastly, Feasting and celebrating is a spiritual joy. It really should be directed to the Lord, our provider. We see that example in the Old Testament. We can see it in other ways where there's different feast days, different celebrations, sometimes feast periods of time in the Old Testament. Jesus himself was not averse to feasting. He enjoyed a good, appropriate party. And sometimes he brought along the beverage. Remember when he changed water into wine? Again, folks, I want to emphasize. Oh, I'm the master of ceremonies here, right? You had the Welch's before. Now you have, you know, Top whatever, you know, store brand. You had the first round of alcohol, wine. Now you brought out the fine stuff. Wow, that's not normal. That's what it was. Jesus was not providing alcohol so that everybody could get stoned drunk. That's our culture. He was contributing to the celebration and saving the face of the family. And by the way, doing an amazing miracle to boot, all right? But feasting should be a spiritual thing. Now, when it comes to what we do with alcohol, it's helpful to remember what we learned last week about our freedom in Christ and its limits. So considerations for drinking. First, wine and strong drink is an acquired taste and is for the mature. That's why you're not supposed to be purchasing alcohol for certain and hopefully not using it before you're 21. In my high school, let's just say that there were a few lawbreakers. And again, I don't want to make light of that, but it is something that is for the mature. We are not required to drink. We have to eat, but we're not required to drink. Also, if you know you cannot handle alcohol or if you think you are predisposed to abuse, then abstain. That's the wise thing to do. Abstain at partaking violates your own conscience or you are concerned about offending others. Folks, I'm just going to tell you, I grew up in a Christian culture that said that drinking was bad. There were some that would thrust upon the scriptures that everything that you see there is the fruit of the vine is grape juice, unfermented grape juice. Unless, of course, it's talking about bad stuff, right? The negative things. And I'm sorry, we've shown here, that's not true. But I personally, abstain. If I were in a foreign country and I was offered a glass of wine by somebody, I have the freedom to say, I will partake of that. And I'm not going to feel like I'm sinning rather than offending my host. You see where I'm going with that? If you feel free to drink, then drink in moderation and drink with purpose. Avoid celebrating alcohol. You see the difference between alcohol being a part of celebrating and celebrating the alcohol itself? That's that whole revelings and partying and dissipation, those big words that we see in the scriptures that basically say a drunken party. That's what we're supposed to be avoiding. That is not supposed to be a part of who we are. Again, we need to remember, we can't offend somebody else with our freedom. We need to abstain if that is the case. So what's the point here? There are reasons to abstain, but there are also, dare I even say reasons, to enjoy a glass of wine or something else as a part of a feast, as a part of a celebration, even unto the Lord. Folks, I'm just telling you, that's uncomfortable for me to say. It might be uncomfortable for you to hear, but it's scripture. Seriously, I mean, I'm not trying to pick a fight, but I challenge you to show me otherwise. I'm not advocating it, but we have to put it in perspective and we have to conclude our message by giving us the truth of, hey, this is how we deal with it. All right? The way I deal with it is, I'm not going to touch it. I prefer to keep my distance from it. It doesn't make me wiser than you. It might just mean I know my own personhood, right? I don't want to be tempted by it, whatever. When it comes to food, for me personally, it is a consistent struggle for me to keep it in perspective, both on my waistline and in my mind. Just being honest. So as we're talking about these things, we need to ask ourselves, why do we do what we do? And even when it comes to Thanksgiving and Christmas, these other things, do we just kind of change up the menu and maybe ramp up the amount a little bit? Or is it actually something distinct, something special? a way that we're celebrating at Thanksgiving, giving thanks to God, at Christmas, right, the gift of his son, at Easter time, Resurrection Sunday, like we tend to gather as a family and have, again, some nicer foods, a little bit different foods. And what's that all about? It's remembering the resurrection of Christ, the hope that we have a salvation. There might be some other times. You know, one of the things that they did in the Old Testament is they just simply sometimes gave. They gave a portion of what they had just out of Thanksgiving. They were Thanksgiving offerings. And then again, a portion of the offering was then enjoyed as a household. Can you imagine just We're going to assume for a moment, you've got children, they come home from school, and you're like, hey, we're going to have Thanksgiving. It's not November. What are we doing here? This is June 12th. No, we're going to have a time of Thanksgiving. We're going to celebrate God's goodness. We're going to celebrate God's greatness. We're going to have a feast in honor of God. That's kind of cool, isn't it? By the way, we should be having one of those in a few days. But you can do that anytime. Now, that's just not an excuse to, hey, I'm really hankering for some, let's have a, you know, it's not, but it's not an excuse to have excess is what I'm getting at. But that's what the people did. In other words, you can have your own holiday. What a cool thing, huh? So in all of this, what's the point? Moderation. In all of this, honoring God. In all of this, it's also celebrating God. I cannot put my standards on you for how you celebrate. And I'm not going to walk around during our 50th anniversary celebration and inspect people's plates. Right? See where I'm going with that? That's not my job. My job is to take care of me. And my job is to allow you the freedom to take care of you. But hopefully we have looked at some scriptural things that help us to manage how we're supposed to serve Christ and glorify him whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we do it to God's glory. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, it's easy to stand up and talk about something that really isn't even a temptation to me. It's much harder to talk about something that's a daily struggle. And for all of us, we just have those things. It may not be food, it may not be alcohol, but they're still there. And so even though we focused on this today, on these things that we don't talk about very much, if at all, there's still that message. that we need to live a disciplined life, that we are not to live in excess, that we're not to have our luxuries and our experiences become what life is all about. Lord, I thank you for a professor years ago who taught us that there is a difference between sensuous, those things that we just simply enjoy that exercise our senses, and sensual, which becomes the lust of the flesh. It's clear from your word that you want us to enjoy life, including the eating and drinking, the feasting, the celebrating, But you also give us those very practical and important warnings that those things are not to control our lives. We're not to be consumed by them because they will not satisfy. You are our ultimate satisfaction. And Lord, there may be someone here who just doesn't have that satisfaction in their lives. They don't know you as Savior. I pray that you'll work even now in their heart that they will see even through this message that there's all kinds of things that we can go after, but they all fall short. We're always looking for that next hit of some kind. Not with you. You give us new life when we respond to you in faith. You come into our heart. You make us a new creation, the scriptures tell us. And it certainly doesn't make us perfect, but when you look at us, you see the perfection of Jesus. Father, I pray that even through this, that you would draw someone to yourself this morning. We thank you for who you are. We celebrate who you are, Lord, and we celebrate all that you have given to us, all that you have done for us. We thank you for the opportunity coming up these next several days. to do that. Lord there might be some who they have to work. There are some people that just they're needed in different areas. I pray Lord they will find the opportunity to have their Thanksgiving on a different day and be able to just give glory to you. In Jesus name. Amen.