Change Your Spiritual Diet

The Problem of a Sugar-Only Spiritual Diet

I guess Christmas break is a time to think could be a dangerous thing for a preacher. But here's my thought today you got to change your diet. What I mean by that. Well we're in a day I guess dieting is always kind of being a fad.

But we are in the day we're like diets like keto or popular and and carnivore diet. And one of the things like keto and carnivore obviously try to do is they cut out the sugar. They cut out the excess sugar that we're all accustomed to.

I'm accustomed to it as you can look watching this video too much sugar as a whole as bad to say around Christmas time isn't it. But we got too much sugar in our diets. Well I'm not talking about your physical diet.

You can take that up with your doctor. What I'm talking about is our spiritual diet. I was I'm a dangerous told my wife I got to stop watching segments of teaching and preaching. But I was watching this segment and I and I had this thought.

I wonder how many services you can go at your church without hearing the word law or sin or repent or propitiation. We live on a diet in our churches of words like love acceptance maybe forgiveness although it's hard to really talk about forgiveness without sin but maybe that's mentioned a relationship with God those kinds of things are mentioned.

I have no problem with a lot of those words actually being accepted by God being loved by God. Forgiveness. Of course I have no problem with any of those words. The problem is in a lot of churches you're hearing words like that and you're not hearing anything else.

You're not hearing about law. You're not hearing about sin. You're not hearing about repentance. You're not hearing about propitiation. In fact I'm afraid there many Christians that maybe never heard the word propitiation even though it's a biblical word.

It's in the Bible first John 4 I think and also Romans 3. Why don't we hear these words. Because we're on a steady diet of sugar in our churches we have sugar songs and sugar preaching and sugar Bible studies that never want to deal with the hard truths of Scripture.

And in these aren't even hard truths. I mean it's not that they're hard it's not that they're difficult. The problem is these truths run contrary to human nature. And so if you if you never understand that you've broken the law of God well how do you understand what Christ has done.

If you don't understand repentance how do you understand sin. If you don't understand sin how do you understand the whole focal point of the gospel. Matthew 121. Right. We're still in the Christmas season she shall she will bear a son he will call his name Jesus for he will save his people from what.

From their sins. And I should mention that there are certainly I guess the opposite can be true although it's kind of fewer and far between nowadays. But you you think of some of the old-school maybe kind of maybe you think fundamentalists were the opposite in their spectrum.

That is all you're hearing about is sin. You're never hearing anything about grace. And sin is always defined as the things that that that you don't like in other people so like maybe it's always addressed about clothing and tattoos and that kind of stuff and maybe not the the true heart sins of the Scripture anyway that that can be a problem.

The Need to Preach Law, Sin, Repentance, and Propitiation

But I think more of the problem I'm seeing today is that we have all this idea of love and no idea of sin. And by the way sin specifically mentioned from the pulpit. Homosexuality is a sin. Abortion is a sin.

Marxism is a corrupt sinful economic system. Other things in our day pornography is sin. Adultery is sin. We're not hearing these kind of things from the pulpit. We're just hearing hey God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

It may not be couched in that precise language but but that's the gist of it. And so it's sugar sugar sugar sugar sugar. Like if you can go service after service after service and you don't hear the word sin.

You don't hear the word repent. Not as people need to repent but like you need to repent if you don't hear the word law. I mean if you can go all these service after service of service and you're never hearing any of these words even the word propitiation.

I understand maybe you're not hearing that every sermon. I get that I don't say that word every sermon. But but but if you're like never hearing that word certainly if you're not ever hearing what propitiation is wrath satisfying sacrifice that Jesus is our vicarious penal substitutionary sacrifice.

If you're never hearing that kind of stuff then you're being fed a diet of sugar in the church. And here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna get spiritually fat. You're gonna get spiritually lethargic.

You're gonna get spiritually diabetic. And and and it may be actually that you're not converted because you're just living on the sugar that's provided without ever any meat without ever understanding what these words mean biblically now I did keto once.

From Sugar to Meat in the Full Counsel of God

I don't remember how long it was but several months. I don't know three four or five six months maybe total in 2023. It's hard to do but it was productive. It made a difference in my life. I know people have done carnivore.

It's hard to do. I haven't done that yet. But it was. It's been productive. It's made a difference in people's life. So maybe there's somebody out here we're listening and you would think well okay I'm gonna try this.

I'm gonna get off the sugar and I'm gonna listen to the meat. Well I'm gonna tell you it's gonna be hard. That's gonna grate against your flesh. It's it's it's it's going to maybe lose you some friends gonna be difficult people ridicule you people make fun of you people try to pull you back into their sugar-induced coma.

It may be difficult. I can tell you this. It's productive. It'll have effect when you get the Bible for what it is the high-octane fuel of the scriptures. I don't mean like a necessary certain level of passion and preaching maybe one level or whatever.

But what I mean is just like the the full counsel of the Word of God. And you hear that preached week after week after week and taught week after week after week. And you hear about law and grace and sin and an atonement and resurrection and gospel.

And you hear this in church and membership and discipline and all these things week after week after week after week. It may be hard at first. But I'm telling you change your diet to that God just may change your life.