Growing up one of my favorite movies was the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Being a lover of chocolate myself, one of the characters that most stood out to me was Augustus Gloop. Remember him? His insatiable desire for chocolate leads him to disregard the rules and ultimately suffer the consequences of falling into the chocolate river and getting sucked up the tube to who knows where.
Augustus Gloop embodies the immediate, unrestrained gratification that defines gluttony, where the pursuit of pleasure and satisfaction prevails over restraint and self-control. He serves as a humorously clear illustration of how an unchecked appetite can lead to downfall.
But’s that an older example, maybe the more modern example is all the people in the movie Wall-E. On those cruise ships wandering throughout space men and women are presented as obese, lazy, sedentary people who have so given themselves over to convenience and passivity that not only have they lost nearly all their bone structure, but they’ve lost their sense of purpose as well.
Both Wonka and Wall-E are powerful critiques of society and modern culture. Church, in our Sins of the Church sermon series, today we come to the sin of gluttony. (DISCLAIMER)
How do we begin a discussion on this deadly sin?
Perhaps I can say this: most people have a complicated relationship with food. When stress or pressure piles on some people eat and drink too much hoping to drown their woes or swallow their problems, while other people lose their appetite altogether and can’t eat at all. Some people believe the best part of the day is mealtime, they wake and think about breakfast and coffee, and as soon as that meal is over, they’re already thinking about the when and what of their next meal.
The sin of gluttony is popularly believed to be all about food, and a large part of it is, but it also has much to do with the gluttonous unquenchable desires present in every soul.
This morning I want to do two things.
First, I want to define the sin of gluttony. And second, I want to direct you to how we can correct the sin of gluttony.
Defining Gluttony
You’ll be hard pressed to find a single passage discussing the evils of gluttony, but you will find many passages describing it.[1]
Jacob and Esau are a good place to begin. In Genesis 25 we find the account of Esau selling away his birthright, despising his inheritance, all for a bowl of stew. In Deuteronomy 32 God warns Israel that their gluttonous hearts would lead them into idolatry of many kinds saying, “When they have eaten are and full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them.” In Judges 3 we’re told of Eglon the ruler of Moab, who was so obese that when Ehud stabbed him in the belly the knife disappeared. In 1 Samuel 2 we’re told of the priest Eli and his worthless sons who did not know the Lord, and yet these helped Eli perform many priestly duties. When the time came for the people to bring sacrifices his sons harshly treated the people and violently stole meat from the offerings for themselves to eat. For their sins the Lord put them to death.
Proverbs 21:17 describes the glutton as a poverty stricken lover of pleasure when it says, “Whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man; he who loves wine and oil will not be rich.” Proverbs 23:20-21 says much of the same, “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.” Later on in Ezekiel 16 God rebukes His people and calling out their sins of pride, excess of food, prosperous ease, and neglecting to aid the poor and needy.
Jesus gives attention to this as well. In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6 he mentions, “O you of little faith…do not be anxious saying ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’…for the Gentiles seek after all these things.”
Paul including gluttony in a list of sins as he warns against certain people in Romans 16:17-18, “I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites…” He gives this warning again in Phil. 3:18-19 when he says, “For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly…”
Paul had a choice of which word to use when he wrote that last phrase in v19. Belly could have been literally mentioned in the Greek word stomachos but Paul didn’t use that. He used the word koilia. Why did he prefer this word? Because the word koilia specifically refers not just to the belly of a person but points deeper within, to the sinful and disordered desires and cravings of the soul, that’s what koilia brings to mind. Simply put, Paul is saying these enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction and whose god is their belly…they are gluttons for all manner of sins. Church, if your god is your belly, for you, food is worship.[2]
From all of this, how are we to define what gluttony is?[3] Long ago Gregory the Great defined gluttony as one who has lost restraint and given themselves over to self-indulgence in food. C.S. Lewis would follow this and define gluttony as a defect, where we eat like beasts, driven only by sensual gratification.
Or we could put it like this.[4] Gluttons eat wrongly. They eat at the wrong time, not willing to wait to satisfy their hunger. They eat hastily and greedily with excessive desire. They eat abundantly with unnecessary quantity. And they eat exotically to stimulate their palate with new delicacies.
Gluttony has economic implications. While the drunk spends an exorbitant amount of money on alcohol, the glutton spends an exorbitant amount of money on food. This can be the poorest quality like fast food, or it can be the highest quality like caviar and bluefin tuna.
Gluttony has historical implications. It’s a fact that today, we are all heavier and larger than previous generations. The rise of processed foods and our unsatiable desire for them has done this. To illustrate that, let me take you back to 1935. The boxer James Braddock, the real life ‘Cinderella Man’, was 6’3” and 190 lbs. To get that image in your head that’s almost me exactly. While many people would call that kind of build skinny in our day, the crazy thing about it is that in 1935 he fought in the Heavyweight division. I think history has shown, we are growing more and more gluttonous.
Lastly, gluttony has medical implications. Other sins are easier to hide. You won’t see envy, pride, lust, or greed as easy as you’ll see gluttony. Not all obesity is due to gluttony but gluttony leads to obesity, which of course, brings countless other medical issues with it. This is a widespread problem in the church. The world’s go to sin is drowning their sorrows in alcohol, the church’s go to sin might just be found at the potluck dinners. This isn’t just my opinion, multiple studies have found this to be true. One study was done by The Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion, after carrying out multiple tests with multiple patients they found a significant correlation between being religious and being obese.[5] It’s as if the church is living out the motto, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!”
Church, I don’t want to shame anyone, not at all. There’s no room for that here. But I do want to challenge you and ask some questions, how’s your relationship with food? Has this described you? Do you sympathize with Esau selling his birthright, or Eli’s sons stealing more food than they need? Do you know what Paul means when he says, “…their god is their belly…”?
Church, this is the problem, let’s turn from defining to correcting.
Correcting Gluttony
To correct gluttony, let’s turn to Romans 6:12-14. Here Paul gives us wise and insightful and practical tips for how to live rightly in these bodies. There he says this, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”
Such good counsel is here for us regarding all sin, for us today we employ it to fight our gluttonous desires.
Before this, in Romans 6:1-11, Paul establishes a profound theological truth: believers have died to sin, and are no longer bound by evil or the evil one. Our identity is now bound up with Christ, being united to Him by faith. So just as Christ died to sin and lives to God, so too do we through our union with Him.
This truth is holding up v12. Because sin no longer reigns over us, we must not permit it to reassert its dominion. Delivered from sin's oppressive rule, we must not willingly place ourselves back under its yoke. The command in v12 is a call to continuous commitment to live under Christ's rule.
This is not passive; it unfolds as we deliberately live in obedience to His rule. The word that describes this best is the word appropriation which means we must actively apply in our lives what is already ours in Christ. This means we must resist, fight, and flee from sin, opposing its influence. Passivity in this battle, is a failure to live in light of our new identity and will inevitably lead to a relapse into sinful patterns.
Paul further clarifies the struggle in the rest of v12, showing how sin attempts to regain control. The battle is to make us obey our passions. This looks like good instincts turning into exaggerated desires and lusts, imposing their will on us. Paul states that while we’re dead to sin, sin itself is not dead. Until Christ’s return we’ll be susceptible to sins sway. So, while we eagerly wait that glorious day when He returns, until then we fight (!), v12 reminds us that sin aims to re-enslave us by tempting us to obey our sinful desires rather than Christ.
In v13, Paul goes further, building on the truth laid down in v12. Here he presents both the negative and positive to us. Negatively, v13 commands, “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness.” This bans us from using any part of our bodies for sinful purposes. Positively he urges, “…but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.”
The term instruments in v13 is worth our attention. It refers to tools or weapons used to accomplish tasks. Paul uses that word picture and applies this to all of life…both visible and invisible ‘members’ of our bodies. This includes physical limbs, senses, faculties, including our stomachs, but it also extends deeper to include our minds and hearts. So, the word ‘instruments’ then refers to our whole person. The call here is that all we are is to be wholly employed in the Lord’s service and not employed in the service of unrighteousness. No part of life can be left out of this.
As far as gluttony goes, you know one way this shows up in us? Perhaps we wear ourselves out for the Lord, busy Sunday at church, loads of Bible reading recently, attending small group, or prayer meeting…and we grow proud of ourselves for doing good work, and we begin to tell ourselves, ‘Go get a blizzard on the way home, you deserve it!’ We can so easily justify indulging in unhealthy foods with a spiritual sense of entitlement. This is the very thing we must fight!
As a sculptor wields a chisel, as a mechanic wields a wrench, or as a musician wields their instrument to create masterpieces, so too, these tools can be wielded to make vile things. The same is true of us, body and soul. These great gifts can be directed towards God-honoring ends or towards man-centered destructive ends.
The call in Romans 6:13 is an invitation to intentionally employ every member of our being to serve righteous ends, our belly included. By doing so, we’ll visibly demonstrate to a watching world that we have been miraculously raised from spiritual death to new life in Christ. Many Christians are diligently striving to obey the negative command, refusing to employ their bodies to sin…Paul challenges us to move beyond mere abstinence. He urges us towards the positive…to actively and entirely employ our lives for God's glory in the world.
All of v12-13 are glorious, truly. But, our ultimate hope and fuel for these things spiritual is found in v14, “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”
This is a divine guarantee. Our standing before God is now defined by grace, rather than by the law's thunderous demands and severe penalties, thus, sin's power over us has been broken. So sin shall never…not now, not in the future…have dominion over us. This liberating truth, which was made our own by the work of Christ, is the sure foundation for all that we’re called to do for God in life.
We’re not left to our own strength to obey the challenging commands of v12-13. Rather, we are enabled to do so precisely because of the liberating and enabling promise of v14. This divine enablement is the inexhaustible source of our spiritual strength, perseverance, and ultimate victory in the Christian life.
Conclusion:
So when it comes to our gluttonous desires, Church, we can say no.[6] Self-control can be strong again, restraint can be real again.
Church, remember that gluttony is bondage. No glutton enjoys food, they’re imprisoned by it. We’re tempted to think that restraint is oppressive and limiting while, in reality, restraint is the road to freedom. But it’s not a road to freedom in and of itself. Restraint is the road to freedom because it reminds us of our deepest need, for Christ. Church, our gluttonous desires are not too strong, they’re too little. Food is a great gift, but it’s an awful god. We must fight to remember that Jesus is the true Bread that has come down from heaven, and He has no recommended serving size. We can, we should, we must, go to Christ once, come back for seconds, and thirds, fourths, fifths, and on and on and on. In the words of Jonathan Edwards, “There is no such thing as excess in our taking of…spiritual food. There is no virtue as temperance in spiritual feasting.”
If we do this, Church…many things will happen:
First, we’ll find the Lord to be our joy. Psalm 4:7, “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their wine and grain abound.”
Second, we’ll experience the goodness of God. Psalm 34:8, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!”
Third, we’ll rejoice in God’s abundant love. Psalm 36:7-8, “How precious is Your steadfast love, O God! The children of man take refuge in Your wings. They feast on the abundance of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your delights.”
Lastly, our lives will count for eternity as we look to and live for the Lord in all things. 1 Cor. 10:31, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
[1] Daniel M. Doriani, From Gluttony to Thanksgiving, The Death of the Deadly Sins: Embracing the Virtues that Transform Lives, ed. Daniel M. Doriani (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2025) 120-123.
[2] Jonathan Bowers, Killjoy (Minneapolis, MN: Desiring God, 2015) 74.
[3] Doriani, From Gluttony to Thanksgiving, 125.
[4] Doriani, From Gluttony to Thanksgiving, 124.
[5] Doriani, From Gluttony to Thanksgiving, 127.
[6] Jonathan Bowers, 80-82.
