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Sermon: Pleasure in Moderation: Food in Moderation Date: September 20, 2026, Afternoon Text: Philippians 3:19 Series: N/A Preacher: Conley Owens Audio: https://storage.googleapis.com/pbc-ca-sermons/2026/260920-PleasureinModeration_FoodinModeration.aac
Please turn your Bibles to Philippians chapter three. That can be found on page 981 if you're using the Pew Bible. Philippians chapter three. Please stand when you have that. I'll read from verse 12 all the way to four one.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Let those of us who are mature think this way. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal this also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have obtained. Brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.
For many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross. Their end is destruction. Their God is their belly and they glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things.
But our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and we pray that it would guide and direct us today.
So we consider your gifts toward us and our reception of them. We ask that you would lead us in the way of life. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, we've been going through a series on pleasure in moderation.
We have covered many different foundational issues and we've talked about moderation in wealth and now moderation in food, or rather food in moderation. This passage that I've chosen for us to look at today, Philippians 3 .19 may seem to be an odd one.
Their God is their belly, but I think it is a very good one for orienting us around the true problem with gluttony, which is a worship issue, of making one's own appetite a higher obligation, a higher duty to satisfy than God himself.
There are many other passages we could look at. There are Proverbs. There is 1 Corinthians 6, which says that we should not be mastered by the belly. But here we have a straightforward statement of how people are led astray, that their God is their belly.
Now, just by way of anticipation, I'll let you know that eventually at the end of the series, I intend to address the matters of feasting and fasting. I do not intend to address that much at all here.
There are times for extremes in food, extremes. There are times for eating much. There are times for fasting. There are times for eating very little. But here we're just addressing the normal situation, which is moderation, moderation.
This phrase, their God is their belly, this idiom of bellies being God's is not one, is not likely one that Paul himself came up with, given that it is a idiom that can be found in many well-known writers of that time, Seneca, Xenophon, others.
The notion of people being mastered by their own appetites was a common one and ought to be given that is such a common thing among men. Even Paul's choice here to describe people who are led astray to destruction away from the faith, to speak of it this way is to speak of someone's relationship with their own appetite with food as being something that is sort of a training ground for all other matters or representative of all other matters.
Esau traded in his birthright for a bowl of soup. This is, in some ways, the most quintessential thing when we talk about moderation, when we talk about man's relationship to the gifts of God, and I've mentioned that many times already, so hopefully it's beginning to sink in, that food is just one of the gifts that God gives, but in many ways, it is the quintessential gift.
It is the primary one that we need day to day in order to live. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Why is bread the illustration there? Because it is such tangible, such a visceral thing that we experience as we need and are satisfied, as we need and are satisfied is food.
And so it is a very good way to describe this relationship between us and the gifts that God gives, and it is those enemies of God who have left the faith that can be described this way, that their God is their belly, and woe to us, woe to you, Christian, woe to me, if we would claim the name of Christ and then allow ourselves to be mastered by our own appetites instead of subjecting them to Him and receiving God's gifts with thanksgiving as they were meant to.
At the end of the day, food in moderation is simply a worship issue. It is a worship issue before God, whether or not we would honor Him as God or honor our own appetites, some other desires as God. If you think about your relationship to your maker, and as you go about your day and you have opportunities to serve Him or opportunities to serve another master, as you experience temptations, opportunities for sin, what weighs on your mind in those circumstances?
On one hand, your flesh may weigh on you, your desire to be satisfied in one way, and on the other hand, your duty before God ought to weigh on you. Someone who has God as their master feels much that spiritual sensibility such that their appetites, their physical senses are minimized to not speak so loudly in their ears.
But someone who is sensual, that word being an appropriate word, commanded by their carnal senses rather than by their duties to the Lord will hear their senses, their appetite screaming very loudly, and hear God hardly at all weighing on the conscience.
Psalm chapter six, verse two. David says, be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing. Heal me, for my bones are troubled. David, in a situation of guilt, describes his situation as so agonizing to him that he can feel it in his bones.
Okay, David has such a sensitive conscience. He is so mastered by the Lord that it translates into his physical senses. But most people do not hear God at all and are only mastered by their carnal senses, just slaves to whatever desires they have, be that food or whatever, but food is the quintessential one.
So many people mastered by food. There are all different reasons that people feel the need to satisfy this God, to satisfy this idol of their own appetite, to feed themselves beyond what God has permitted or allowed.
There is comfort. Many people are serving an idol of comfort where they cannot handle any sort of discomfort. They are so afraid of feeling any kind of discomfort. They so despise discomfort that they must go to food for a kind of comfort.
Some people who go to food for joy. They so cannot handle any kind of distress or sadness in their life that they go to food in order to get joy. They do not have the joy of the Spirit. They are not going to God for their joy and rather they go to food in order to receive joy.
Food is there, feasting is there to make joy complete. Many people go to food when joy is lacking. And that is the opposite of how food that would be in great measure ought to be enjoyed. God gives us, blesses us with opportunities for feasting when we are experiencing great joy to make that joy complete.
But many people do the exact opposite. Same thing for wine, right, for alcohol. Alcohol is there to make joy complete and opportunities of feasting, but many people go to it when they are in distress to address their sadness.
Opposite relationship they are supposed to have with it. Many people go to food out of a sense of status. This might seem odd to you, but think about it. People treat themselves thinking, I deserve this.
I've worked hard, I deserve this. I need to reward myself. I'm not someone who deserves to experience any kind of discomfort. I am someone who is owed a treat. I'm someone who is owed something special.
Other people might have a self of self-righteousness over the matter, whereas even I am the kind of person who is capable of eating a lot. I'm a great person with a great appetite and I don't waste any food.
There are some things that are, some of these things are good things that get mixed in ways with sinful desires. It's good to be someone who has a lot of vitality, but if then that is a matter of pride for you, such that you are serving that as a God, eating beyond what you ought, then it is, yeah, then it is idolatrous.
There are different modes of immoderate use of food. Okay, there are different modes. It is not just a matter of quantity. There is the cost of food. Many people spend extraordinary amounts on food, not realizing that just because they are eating moderate amounts of food, that they have been mastered by it.
Right now, it is very expensive to eat out and someone who eats out or orders DoorDash all the time, even if they are not eating much, is being mastered by food because it is taking from them. It is destroying them slowly because they are feeding their desires for convenience or whatever the case may be.
There might be a sense of reverence that people have around food that would also be immoderate. Right, if you are overly particular about how you would have your food, very dainty with it. You know, there's a reason that people are a little disgusted when they see these scenes or even try for the first time some of these very high-end restaurants where what you're purchasing is the art form of the food, right, rather than the food itself.
It's not really for the, the taste is barely there sometimes. It's really for the construction of the food. There's a reason that people feel a sense of disgust about this or this doesn't feel quite right.
It's not that there's never a time to celebrate by having food crafted in an artful way or whatever, but people recognize that there's something that's immoderate about that if that were to be a consistent way that someone would just, without special cause, be eating their food.
It's immoderate. You would be mastered by a desire for special attention or something like that. There are ways that people can be immoderate with the time that they spend with their food. For example, the pattern in Scripture seems to be that, and I, from what I, the little that I have seen in history, it seems to be that a common pattern in many societies was eating in the morning and evening.
Now, we are a very blessed society that has the opportunity often to eat three times a day. That is a very special thing, but a lot of people feel like anytime they feel any kind of hunger, it needs to be satisfied, not just morning and evening, not just at noon, but boy, just snacking all the time, snacking all the time.
And if you have that feeling that you just always have to have something, that might work for you on a normal occasion where you have a full pantry, but then one, are you able to really enjoy meals with the appetite that you were meant to enjoy them with in order that you would be able to give God full thanks?
And also, when a time comes and you aren't able to just constantly be satisfied, are you going to be capable of handling yourself in that circumstance? So there are all kinds of various modes in which people are immoderate.
Just to name one more motive that people have that makes them immoderate in food, it's also a lack of self-control. You know, sometimes a lot of this is shoring up different fruits of the Spirit that people don't have by the Spirit, and so they try to get it through food, right?
They don't have joy, so they try to get it through food. One of them is self-control. A lot of people talk about being hangry, right? Oh, I'm hungry, therefore I act in all these ways. And so because I don't have a natural self-control, go to food to get this instead of going to the Spirit.
So there's all kinds of idolatrous motives where we're trying to be satisfied in ways that we shouldn't, either for good things or for evil things, but buy something that God has not authorized, excess food, rather than going to His Spirit for those things that we need.
And there are all different modes beyond just quantity. It's not only a matter of quantity, though that is, of course, an important one. This passage here says, their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and they glory in their shame with their mind set on earthly things.
They glory in their shame. This is true. People glory in their shame. Now, there are some who have a great pride about their gluttony, but does this not even describe people who do not have the shame they ought to have?
Few people have any kind of real shame about their gluttony, or they have some kind of shame, but it is so culturally subdued, given that it is impolite to speak of any of these things or to correct anyone on any of these things.
It's incredible. You know, it is an interesting stereotype of Baptist pastors, and there's a wide chasm between the average Baptist in America and then Reformed Baptists. A lot of people don't realize how different those things are, but there is a stereotype about Baptist pastors of being exceedingly overweight, and it's not an entirely false one.
And congregations who are supposed to accept a man who has the fruit of the Spirit are not permitted, you know, and in their own mind, they're kind of intentionally discounting this because it just seems too impolite to even address.
There's just not the shame about this that there ought to be. It is something that ought to experience shame. Husbands feel this with their wives or wives with their husbands more often in one direction rather than the other, do not feel that they're permitted to address these things because it is a matter that should not be treated with any sort of shame.
Yet it is. It is a matter that should be treated with shame. Now, the end of all this is destruction. If your God is your belly, the end is destruction. There are natural consequences, of course. Proverbs 23, 20 says, be not among drunkards or among the gluttonous eaters of meat for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty and slumber will clothe them with rags.
Poverty is one, one end of being a glutton. Proverbs 23, one, when you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is before you. Put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite. Being manipulated, being controlled by another person, something that could happen if you're given to your appetite, if in different circumstances, you aren't able to engage in the kind of self-control that you should have to keep from desiring the good things that someone else has.
And these different natural consequences aren't even the most obvious one that people see, which is weight, which is becoming overweight. A obvious natural consequence. But there are supernatural consequences as well.
There is a destruction of which this speaks. People think of gluttony as a very small sin, but think about what Paul is saying here. Their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and they glory in their shame.
This is not a small thing. If your life is characterized by sin, if your life is characterized by gluttony, with what confidence can you say that you are a child of God? It ought not be characterized by any kind of gluttony.
It ought to be characterized by the thankfulness that we have been looking at in the passages that we have addressed previous weeks, the thankfulness that receives God's gifts in moderation. Now, on one hand, this is something that happens directly as this is a sin in itself.
It is also something that happens indirectly. Indirectly in that, as I mentioned earlier, your relationship with food is in many ways a training ground for your relationship with all other sorts of pleasures.
There's a reason why fasting is something that particularly happens around food. It is a training for yourself to resist other kinds of things as well. As the case may be, as God may call you to greater service.
That's not the only point of fasting, but it is one result of it. The person who cannot control themself with their own appetite for food, what is the likelihood that they will be able to control themselves with appetites for other things?
I would argue that the relationship between food and other things is much greater than the relationship between other things and other things, right? Lack of self-control in one area may or may not indicate or bleed out to a lack of self-control in another area, but food is such a quintessential way that we receive gifts from God that it is very likely that a lack of self-control there bleeds into other areas.
Their God is their belly. Now the hope for us, of course, as always is the gospel. Paul describes this in contrast, of course, to God being their true God, to Christ himself being their sufficient satisfaction.
Consider Christ's own life. What was one of the things that he was accused of very early in his ministry? Was it not being a glutton? He was accused of being a glutton because unlike the disciples of John, he did not spend time fasting with his disciples and he being accused of this, what does that mean?
That as he hung on the cross, scripture indicating to us by communicating to us that charge, that he has died on behalf of gluttons. He has died on behalf of us who have been immoderate in our use of food.
So there is forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Now, moreover, he was perfectly righteous in this area, exercising perfect self-control with food. He fasted for 40 days with no food. He was perfectly righteous with his use of food.
Though he ate more than some other teachers given the nature of the circumstance, he was the groom with the bride. And so he would celebrate. Yet before that, he exercised great self-control in fasting as the Lord had called him to.
He has been perfectly righteous. And so by his righteousness, not only do we have a perfect sacrifice whereby we may be forgiven, but him having lived perfectly before God in this area, being glorified and exalted on for the sake of his perfect obedience, us being united to him, we have an excellent glory awaiting us as though we have lived perfectly in this way.
Now, moreover, he has given us his spirit by which we may have self-control in all these things. And he has given us by that spirit himself, himself, he who is manna from heaven, who satisfies. Man cannot live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
And what does that word communicate to us? It is the word of Christ. It communicates to us Jesus Christ. If your relationship with the Lord is right, if your relationship with Jesus Christ is right, he satisfies completely.
It's important to recognize this issue in order that it might be corrected. If you think of this as a small thing or as nothing, it will not be corrected. But if you recognize that moderation in food is a very important thing and bleeds out in so many other areas, then you can address it and you can begin looking to God for satisfaction for these things.
I have some points of advice on these matters. First is simply what I have stated before. Go to God with thanksgiving. Now, I would say, in addition to thanking him for your food before you eat it, change your mindset when you are thanking him.
When you are thanking him, do not think that this is just something that I say before him, but think also about the implications, your duties, and the way you receive it. I have found that this is very helpful in my relationship with food.
So when I thank God for the food, I'm thinking about, even in that moment, strategizing about how I'm going to approach this food before me to receive it in the most thankful way, to receive it in the way that I ought.
Think about it that way. When you are thanking God, change your mindset to actually be thanking him with a intention of following through. This is not a thank you that stops here and then we eat the food.
It is a thank you that is a commitment to receive this food in the ways that are designed for his glory in a moderate way, and then using the energy derived from that food to do his will. Think likewise about the various modes that are in moderate.
Don't just leave it at quantity and think that if I'm eating food any other way, it could be a matter of cost, it could be a matter of daintiness, or the times that you are eating, the constancy of you satisfying yourself.
Any of these things could be a moderate. So consider various modes where you may be a moderate in your relationship with food. Now, some words on weight, some words on weight. First of all, many people have some excuses for their weight that seem very reasonable.
They may point to health excuses. Sometimes these are self-diagnosed, those are questionable. Sometimes they are real things that the doctor has observed. Different people have different metabolisms.
I know that some people have much lower metabolisms and it is much harder to keep the weight down. But none of this is an excuse to a moderate use of food. And none of this says, well, just because one person's use is okay for them, therefore it is okay for me.
What you should know in any of those circumstances, this means that God is calling you to more discipline in your use of food. Okay, so any of those excuses, no matter how good they might sound in your head, all they mean, they are not excuses, they mean that God is calling you to something more.
God is calling you to a greater degree of self-control, a greater degree of discipline in your consumption. You might also observe, I've heard a number of people say that as they have traveled overseas and maybe eaten the standard diet for about a month or two, just eating what they would normally eat, their weight has gone down.
And so they suspect there is a lot that is wrong with American food that keeps people very heavy. I suspect these things are accurate. I don't know much, but I suspect these things are accurate. Once again, the implication is not, well, therefore we don't have to worry about the weight.
No, therefore God is calling you to something higher, whether it be to figure out the situation with your food or whether it be to more self-control. There is never really a sufficient excuse when it comes to this.
There are different reasons why God may be calling you to even more discipline, but they are never excuses for just letting the pounds pile on. Next, regarding weight. One thing that I have observed is that many people want to deal with their weight in a way that would involve little sacrifice.
So much of strategy around diet involves trying to figure out how to make the discomfort as little as possible. And when people describe the difficulty they have shedding weight, it almost always comes down to the fact that they're trying to do it in a way that isn't painful.
Okay, if you have piled on pounds, it is going to be painful. It is just going to be painful. And you have to know that, embrace it, and recognize that it is going to be a sacrifice. It is not going to be something that's easy.
And once you embrace that and recognize that this is going to be a sacrifice, as I stand before the Lord and try to honor Him with my body, and you embrace the pain, embrace the discomfort, knowing that it is the sacrifice that God has called you to, it'll be much easier.
Much easier if you acknowledge that. But if you're just strategizing around how to do it without sacrifice, very little will likely come from that. And some of these medicines that people use in order to shed weight without discomfort, you know, Zympic or whatever, a lot of things are coming out that it's harming people in other ways.
Just acknowledge that it will have to be a real sacrifice. There's no way of doing this without real sacrifice. By way of motivation, when it comes to weight, I would have you consider, first of all, just relationships, relationships.
For those pursuing marriage, you ought to keep your body in a shape that would be desirable to other people. This is going to be an easy way for you to attract more people to be interested in marriage.
This is how God has designed man and woman. People can be very superficial and only look out the outside, but God has not designed us to just ignore the outside. Okay, this is a real thing and we ought to heed it.
Secondly, this is not just something that you are supposed to work on or care about before marriage. This is something you're supposed to care about in marriage. Husbands and wives have a duty to each other to make themselves desirable to each other.
It is not just your duty to make yourself desirable before marriage. You should try to be desirable for your spouse during marriage. I don't know if you've spent much time thinking about that, especially married people, that you have a duty to your spouse to make yourself a desirable person.
Now, that is true with a lot more than just physical appearances, but physical appearances are certainly part of that. You're supposed to be a pleasant person, a kind person, et cetera, but making yourself desirable to the other person, and maybe you might say in your head, well, my spouse doesn't care that much about how I look.
That's, don't use that excuse. Give above and beyond what they would like. Give above and beyond. Also, consider the relationship that you would have in situations of authority, especially those of spiritual authority.
I'll tell you my own story with my own weight. I have a decent metabolism, so it's not something that I've always struggled with, especially in my teens. Once I got into my 20s, then I got a job at Google.
I'm eating all the Google food, and I was not just eating three meals a day. I would eat at the beginning of the lunch hour, and then two hours later when it would close, I would have second lunch, okay?
So I was just trying to get as much food as I possibly could, and I was gaining weight. I was gaining a good amount of weight. At the peak of it, I was probably not too much more than I am now, but without any muscle, so it did not look good on me.
It was very bad, and I was watching James White. If you don't know who he is, he's an apologist. I had started watching a lot of his videos, thought they were pretty good. He does a lot of debates, and then I saw an old video of his, and I was shocked because he used to be, back in the 90s, I guess it was the 90s, very, very overweight, and he had cut off the pounds, and I realized in my head immediately that I, in my mind, while I'm listening to him, and I'm responding to his message in both circumstances, I found it a lot easier to listen to him as one who was much more in shape than when he was out of shape, and I was surprised by that because I thought of myself as a very unbiased person who would just look past those kinds of things, hear the arguments out on their own merits, and not consider the appearance of a person, and here I am thinking that I am, if I, someone who is one of the more objective people, able to do that, or thinks he is, and then noticeably different reception of this man's message as he's arguing for different doctrines, et cetera, boy, what does that mean for me if I were to ever become a teacher, then not being a pastor or anything, just in my 20s?
I realized I needed to deal with that. I needed to change the way that I look. I needed to start taking care of my body. If you want to be any kind of spiritual leader, and everyone here should be in some capacity or another, even if it is just with other church members, you need to care about the way you would present yourself as someone who is a person of self-control.
If you are a father, if you're a husband, if you're a mother, these are all things that you should care about. And even in relationships with one another, Titus 2 describes mentor relationships between men and men, but then in more detail, mentoring relationships between women and women.
And this is something that people think about even as they're evaluating churches. They're asking themselves, what kind of people are these here? Are these good role models for me? And that role model nature is not just about hyper-spiritual things, but even as they affect our natural life, even as they affect the way that we take care of our bodies.
And this is something that people notice. People notice and they ask, and they ask themselves as they enter a church, they ask, are these the people who I would want to be mentored by? Are these people I would want my wife having Titus 2 relationships with these women?
Those kinds of things. You should think to yourself about how you would be able to encourage, encourage others in all aspects of the Christian life. And what Titus 2 describes also is women encouraging other women how to love their husbands, given that I've just described this as one of the ways that you love your husband, remaining in good appearance for him by the way that you take care of your body.
Does it not apply directly that an excellent Titus 2 kind of woman is going to deal with her body in an excellent way? God has called us to great things. I don't know if any of this sounds overly burdensome to you.
It is not meant to be burdensome. God's law is a good thing. Yes, it shows us our need for a savior, but we have a savior. We have a wonderful savior who has perfectly paid the penalty for gluttony and has been perfect in his moderation and has died on our behalf and has given us his spirit so that we may walk in moderation, not being burdened by a law that cannot be fulfilled, but being given a path and a law that has been fulfilled and that he has given us the strength to walk in it.
And he has promised more grace to any who need it. He gives more grace. Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gifts that you give. You have given most excellently. You have given us just a wonderful variety of food on this earth.
And we live at a time in a place where many more foods have been even discovered than have had been discovered in times past. Many spices, many kinds of foods, and technology has made it so they can be transported all over so we can have things that aren't even grown locally.
This is a wonderful privilege that we have. We pray that we would receive that privilege with all gratitude.