In this series we are talking about the road to abundant life, but this week we name abundance as a problem. Gluttony, if it is one thing, is an abuse of abundance. And if there is one story in the Bible about such abuse, it shows up in the story of the prodigal son. The younger son in Luke 15 asked for an early inheritance from the father and gorged himself over and over until he had spent every last dollar. When the food ran out, he found himself desiring food from the pig trough. Gluttony is a sin with a bottomless pit. At some point in the overeating and excessive drinking, you lose the joy of why you eat and drink in the first place.
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What We'll Cover:
How the story of the prodigal son is a story about sin, death, and the way back to abundant life, and how gluttony fits into this mold
The difference between a false abundance that leads to death and the Father's abundance that leads to life
What a 30-day fast can teach you about who is actually in control of your food and drink intake
Why gluttony is on the list of deadly sins, and why it is indeed “deadly”
Why confession and accountability is essential to regaining self-control
How there are seasons for fasting, for feasting, and for ordinary days in between, and how Jesus points us to wisdom in order to determine what time it is
Like what you hear? We’d love to know.
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Gluttony, the Prodigal Son, and Tying Yourself to the Mast — Sermon Transcript
South Run Baptist Church | Springfield, VA
Rev. Dr. Eric Gilchrest
Luke 15:11–32; Luke 7:31–35
Father's Day 2026
This is a full sermon transcript from South Run Baptist Church in Springfield, Virginia. In this message, Rev. Dr. Eric Gilchrest preaches on gluttony from Luke 15:11–32 and Luke 7:31–35. Delivered on Father's Day, this sermon is part of the ongoing "The Jesus Way" series on the seven deadly sins and addresses true abundance versus false abundance, the slavery of an undisciplined life, and practical wisdom — fasting, accountability, and learning when to feast and when to fast — for breaking free of gluttony.
A Father's Day Blessing for the Dads in the Room
Happy Father's Day. We celebrate Father's Day, and I celebrate this with you. The world is in need of good fathers right now, and the job of the father is one that has been perhaps too neglected in our society. We need children raised well. We need strong young men and strong young women. We need households in which fathers are capable of raising the next generation of believers. And so my hope and prayer this morning for you, dads, is that you are that kind of dad, and that you live into that kind of calling, because the world needs you.
Before we begin the sermon, I do want to start with prayer, so please bow your heads with me. Heavenly Father, we come and we have gathered here today to hear your word, to be together, to laugh, and to have joy in the company of other believers. Lord, we open our hearts and our minds to what you would have to teach us this morning. We give you thanks for the dads in the room, for the ways in which they have poured out their lives for their kids and for the world around them. As Clint prayed for the sleepless nights and for the strength in times where they probably felt weak, for the times where they needed your sustenance — Lord, we give you thanks for them. And now we ask a blessing over them. We ask for more strength as they will need it, for courage where they need it. But God, we ask for love, that everything they do and are be rooted in a love that mimics and mirrors your kind of love, a love that poured itself out for the world, did not hold back because you loved the world so much. You gave us Jesus Christ, and you showed us the way forward. And so, Lord, this morning as we come, we give you thanks. We give you praise. And we ask for you to open your word to us. In Christ's holy name we pray. Amen.
Where We Are in The Jesus Way Series: From Anger and Vanity to Gluttony
Friends, we are still on this rather lengthy journey together. If you've not been with us, we are calling it the way, which is to say that there's a way to live and then there's a way to not. There are really these two paths in life. There's a way that leads to life, abundant life, and then there's a way that leads to destruction. And on the ways where we're talking about the ways that lead to life, we're digging deep into the teachings of Jesus. And I'm doing my best to show you how the scriptures, how Jesus himself, is very interested in you living, not just half-hearted lives or just kind of making your way through life. He wants you to live an abundant life, like very full, just brimming over with a sense of what life has for you. I think this is what Jesus wants from each and every one of us.
And then there's this other version, and it's a road that leads not to life, but really to death. And it's a false version of the road to life. And there are any number of ways that we can go down that road. And so I've tried to frame this in kind of what the tradition has given us, and we call the seven deadly sins. And so we've already talked about things like anger or wrath. We've talked about vanity. And this morning we're talking about gluttony. Happy Father's Day.
And this is one of these that we probably take less seriously. I think there's probably more laughs out of this one because we all are kind of in this together, actually. You might feel called out a little bit this morning, but I want to frame it like this. This sin cannot be measured by the size of the belt you wear. And I will just say, maybe point of confession here, I think I have been given very good genes. This is nothing to do with me, and this is everything to do with my fathers and their forefathers, etc., etc. And I think in a different body — I have not spent as much time in the gym as I should over my lifetime. I've probably eaten things that I shouldn't be eating. And so I give thanks to God for all of this. But this is simply to say that our relationship with food and with drink is one that should honor God. And we all fall short in one way or another. And so if you find yourself in the evening unable to resist the cravings of that bag of chips that's calling out to you, this is what we're talking about this morning.
The Prodigal Son: Two Versions of Abundance
So in order to talk about gluttony, we have read this morning a passage that no doubt you are very familiar with. Even if you're not churched, you've probably heard the story of the prodigal son. We read it already and we don't need to read the whole thing through. And in fact, we'll probably focus mostly on the front side of it, because this is the son's sin, right? This is where he chooses the wrong path. Like quite literally, he goes the wrong way.
But I do want to start actually at the very end. The last lines of it — the father is celebrating, right? His son has returned home. But here's what he says. He says, go ahead and kill the fattened calf and let's eat and let's celebrate. And then he says, "My son was dead and is alive again." This is exactly what we're talking about through this whole series. It's how his son was not dead, right? Like literally dead. But he may as well have been. He was living that other life that leads to death. But now he's found his way back home in the right place, and he's living the kind of life that leads to life — abundant life.
And so when we talk about gluttony this morning, I'm going to fit it over the frame of the prodigal son. Is this the only sin sitting in the story of the prodigal son? No. But I do think it fits pretty neatly into this story. There are really three acts to this story. There's where the son takes his stuff and he goes off to the far country. There's the second act where he comes to himself, is what it says — he wakes up and realizes this is not how life should be lived. And then there's the third act where he returns home.
And it strikes me, and should strike you too, that the first and the third act are aiming at the same thing for this son. They're aiming at the same thing. And it's a word that I've been using a lot over these last months. Abundance. He is aiming at abundant life. And when he gets home with the father, the father is offering him, once again, abundant life. This is where you're supposed to be. This is the kind of life you're supposed to live. It is filled with joy, and it's even filled with feasting, and it is filled with the people that you're supposed to be around. This is the good life.
But the first act is the son trying to find abundance, but he's finding it in the wrong places. And so what happens to him is he strikes out on his own, and he tries to grasp the abundance for himself. And then it all falls apart.
Which is to say — this is a very nice opportunity for me to say what this series has not been and will not be all along. If you've heard me saying, God wants abundant life for you, God wants abundant life for you, for the last number of months here, and you're thinking to yourself, like, health and wealth, and all the good things of life, and I'm just supposed to get, get, get from God — that is not really what we're talking about. There's a version of that that actually doesn't lead to life at all. It leads to what happened to this son here, which is his death. The father says he was dead and has to come back to life. And so there is a version of abundance that is a false version, and you need to be alert to it. And then there's a version of abundance that God wants for you and for me. And it is filled with true joy and is filled with true life. And it only happens in the Father's house.
Luke 15:11–13: "Father, Give Me" — The Anatomy of Sin
Let's turn with me, if you will. We're in Luke chapter 15. I want to point out just a few things that I think connect nicely with gluttony.
"There was a man who had two sons." It's a father. It's a good Father's Day sermon. He's got his two sons out there, right? And the younger one says to the father, "Father, give me." We're already off to a bad start. This is how sin is often framed, actually. We could probably put just about any sin into this mold right here, which is to say, I know, Dad, you've got your way of doing things, but give me. I'm gonna do it my way. And here the son is already off to a very bad start. And so he asked for his share of the property that is coming to him. The father divided the property between them. And then, "not many days later" — it didn't take long, right — what happens to the son when he gathers up his stuff and he goes on a journey into a far country.
So if sin can be fit into the mold of doing things your way, well, the next part of it is what happens because of the sin, which is to say you are then ushered out of the land in which you are supposed to be living, and you find yourself in a far country. This is the story of Eden, is it not? The story where Adam and Eve are living in the Father's house and enjoying the fruits of the Father, and all is well, and then sin enters the picture, and what happens next? They are in the far country. And ever since, we're trying to get back, trying to get back.
Buccee's, Buffets, and Using Food to Control Your Environment
As this young man, the son, heads to the far country, there is no doubt in my mind — my son has asked me to say this — that there's a Buc-ee's along the way. And there is all sorts of opportunity to spend your money and to eat whatever you want. And there are buffets and there are things that just call out to you and are really hard to resist.
And doing things my way, when we're talking about gluttony, is to say that you are using food or using drink to do what? To control your environment. To say, you know what, I am feeling really restless right now, you know what will help me is that bag of chips that I mentioned. Or, I've had a really rough day at work, you don't know the pressure that I've experienced, I'm going to go ahead and grab that next glass of wine. And you begin to use things like food to do what? To have some kind of control over you, and to fix the problem that is out there somewhere. And maybe a few too many stops at Bucky's, you find yourself thinking that that's going to solve my problem and this will get me through to the next day.
Much like greed, if you recall — when we talked about greed, it was made real by Dante's La Lupa, the wolf, that is skin and bones, and it keeps eating and wanting more and wanting more and wanting more. But the greed, it never gets filled up. There's always one more dollar that you need, one better job, and then you'll feel satisfied. And gluttony is much the same. One more donut, and then I'll feel good about it. But it never satisfies. It never fills you up.
Feasting vs. Gluttony: Knowing the Difference
I will say you should differentiate this between the meal from the meal that you actually really enjoy. The thing that you sit down and you finish and you say, that was like a slice of heaven, that was a really nice meal — because you've probably shared it with some friends or some family. If you were in Sunday school this morning, you and I enjoyed a wonderful conversation together. And for those of you who weren't there, you missed it. And if at 9:45 in the morning you're just kind of chilling and not really doing anything, you should come. This morning in particular was really lively and was really nice conversation. And there was a vibrancy about it. And one of the things we talked about was the difference between feasting and gluttony.
And God wants you to feast in the right times, in the right places, in the right ways. And so when Christmas comes around and you've gathered your whole family together and you slaughter the fatted calf and everybody's enjoying themselves, sure, there is an opportunity for gluttony there, but it's also a right time to celebrate. Not unlike the father in this story right here who celebrates with the son who comes home. But as we said this morning, if every night becomes a feasting, this is when we run into some trouble, isn't it?
Luke 15:13–16: Reckless Living, the Far Country, and Rock Bottom
So the story goes on. He's in this far country. He is separated from the Father. He is living in sin. And then it goes like this. It was there in that far country that he squandered his property — or his inheritance, or the money that was given to him. He squanders it in reckless living. This, too, is a nice definition of how gluttony works. It's a wanting more. It's a taking what you have and giving more. It's an excess. There's no moderation in it, right? And this is what a prodigal is. It's all excess. And then connected with it is the reckless living, which is to say, an undisciplined living.
And if gluttony is calling us into one thing — please hear me this morning — it is a life of discipline. A life of discipline. And I would venture to say that life in the Father's house, at the end of this story, is a life of discipline, which might be why this son wanted to run from it. No one really likes discipline, right? Until you do. If the discipline is good and right, then it shapes you into the kind of person.
The analogy I like to use, and I've certainly used before, is the piano player, right? It requires discipline to learn how to play that instrument, and it's practiced time and time and time again. But eventually, the young pianist will get better, and then a little better, and a little better, and pretty soon all of that discipline begins to pay off. And what happens? Well, the disciplined child pianist becomes a master and is capable of entertaining and is capable of joy and treats the instrument like it is a symphony. I don't think it's all that different with other parts of our life. Living a disciplined life might not be the most fun thing in the beginning, but it is the way to add structure and to produce joy and to live lives that are indeed full. And you might push against it as a child would push against wanting to practice his piano. But man, when you lean into it, this is where life is found. Gluttony is the opposite of this. This is the prodigal, off in the far country, living the reckless lifestyle.
The story goes on, and it says that when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. And this is what we call rock bottom.
Now, it's a little harder to envision this with food, but you can probably envision this if you've seen enough television — hopefully not experienced this yourself — but with alcohol. The person who's drinking too much and too much and too much, well, eventually there is a bottom to it that they hit. It usually involves something else. Maybe it's a trip to the hospital, but it might be a spouse who leaves you. It might be a family who disowns you. But there's a rock bottom that happens. And what happens in the rock bottom is a wake-up call. It's what happens next in the story, which is to say, he comes to himself, and he realizes, I'm living out in the far distant country, I'm enjoying the feed that was meant for pigs, there's a better way out there. This is what happens in rock bottom.
Trouble with gluttony is that there's not always a rock bottom. This is why it's actually a little more dangerous. Now, the rock bottom might be a heart attack — so that's real. If you eat too much and you really lean into that, at some point your health is going to cause you problems, and then you might have the wake-up call. For a lot of us, that isn't what the rock bottom is. There is none. There's just kind of a drifting through life in a half-hearted kind of way, which requires all the more somebody — maybe me — coming along, ringing alarm bells and saying, wake up, there is a better way out there. There is more life available to you if you live the life of discipline and not the life of excess.
Luke 15:15–16: Slavery — The Sign That You're No Longer in Control
The result of the sin and the far country and the reckless life — the result of it all is what happens there in verse 15. He loses his money. He hits the rock bottom. And so he does what? He hires himself out. This is the slavery piece of sin. The slavery. You are no longer in control of your own life. And in the same way that the son is not in control of his life, he has had to hire himself out now. And he is enslaved to some other master — which is precisely what happens with food or drink when you are living a life of gluttony. You are enslaved to the food, and it is in control of you. You are not in control of it.
This is how you know, by the way, if you suffer from this. Fasting is a common and a surefire way to figure out if this is a problem for you. Take, again, alcohol. If you say to yourself, you know what, I wonder if I have a problem here — easiest way to figure out is to say, I'm going to stop for 30 days. If over the course of 30 days you can't make it to 30 days, well then maybe, just maybe, there is a problem there. Or if you say to yourself, I'm going to cut sugar out of my diet, and you begin to notice — oh man, I need those sugary things in my life. And why do I need them? I don't even know why I need them. But man, I keep going for them, don't I? This is how you know if something has more control over you than you over it. You are living a life of slavery. There's another master, and it is not you.
Why Gluttony Is Deadly: Killing Us Softly, Killing Our Joy, Killing Our Trust in God
Why is gluttony deadly? Let me offer you just three quick reasons. The one is from Roberta Flack and the Fugees. It is killing you softly. It is killing us ever so softly, right? It is making us weaker and weaker. And if discipline is intended to make us stronger and stronger, a lack of discipline makes us weaker and weaker.
Two is that it actually kills the joy that was intended to be there. Because we've probably all by now figured out that when you eat too many of anything, that thing that brought you joy at the first eating of it is not really bringing the joy at the end of it all. Now you're just eating it.
The third thing, and this is the most important, is that it kills us. It is deadly because we end up trusting it more than we trust God. We trust it to solve our problems more than we trust God to solve our problems. And so if we get to the end of that workday and we grab for the food, instead of trusting that God is going to get us through, this is the problem.
What to Do About It: Fasting, Tying Yourself to the Mast, and Accountability
All right, so then that leaves us with one more question, which is, well, what do we do about this? I've already mentioned fasting. Highly recommend if you're wondering — does this have mastery over me, or am I in control here? Again, simply just say, well, I think I'm just going to give this up for a month and see what happens. And you'll see how much control you really do or don't have.
The second thing, though, comes to us from a movie that's coming out this summer called The Odyssey. It's Homer's Odyssey, from the 800 BC, I think is when it was written. There's this scene in this, I look forward to, where Odysseus is on the boat. And he's sailing by an island with sirens on it. Do you know this story? And he tells his crew, put wax in your ears. Because if you hear the cry of these sirens, they are going to tempt you to come to the island, and you're going to crash into the island. But he says, I'm not going to put wax in my ears. And instead, here's what I want you to do. I want you to tie me to the mast so that as we ride by, I'm going to listen to them. And whatever I say, whatever I say, do not let — do not listen to what I'm telling you to do. And so if I tell you to go that way, do not go that way, right? And so the boat, indeed, sails on through, and there's Odysseus tied to the mast, and they've all got the wax in their ears blocking them.
The lesson here is that gluttony, or food — whatever the cravings are — they are calling out to you. And maybe it's the drink. You need to get radical sometimes, and to tie yourself to the mast, or to put the wax in your ears. And what this might mean is, if you don't want that bag of chips at night, well, you shouldn't have the bag of chips in your house at all then. Or if the drink is maybe too much, then just get it out of the house altogether. And don't put yourself in the situation where it's even possible. And so if gluttony is calling out to you, I would encourage you this morning to get radical with this.
Along with it, Odysseus wasn't alone. He had accountability. He had friends there who had rallied around him, and they all had a pact together on how they were going to get through this. What this might look like for you is a single friend that you reach out to today, and you say, look, I'm trying to solve this problem in my life because I want to be better than this. I want to be stronger than this. I want to serve God rightly. I want to be a righteous person. I want to be a man of character or a woman of character. And so you pull someone into your orbit and you say, I want to deal with this.
There have been a few times over the course of the last few years since I've been here where I'll offer to you — tell somebody about whatever it is you're wrestling with this morning. I want to offer you that this morning. You should tell somebody. I would encourage you, if you need somebody, I would be happy, more than happy to be that person. Because sometimes people have come to me, and they've shared this with me, and I assure you, this is the best thing that you can do. To bring light into the situation. To not be alone. To not try to muscle through this. But to bring somebody into it. To help you along. To tie you to the mast. And when you say, I don't want to do this anymore, me or somebody in your life says, you're right, we're not going to let you do that.
Luke 7:31–35: Jesus, the Pharisees, and Learning When to Feast and When to Fast
There's an appropriate version of fasting, an appropriate version of feasting. If you turn back just a few pages in your Bible to Luke chapter 7, there is something quite nice here that I don't want you to miss. Jesus calls for wisdom in how this kind of life is lived.
And if you start in verse 31, you might be surprised a little bit about the kinds of things that were said about Jesus and the kinds of things that he does in his life. And it goes like this. "To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like?" And here he's talking about his critics, just so we're clear. He's talking about the critics. "And they are like children sitting in the marketplace, and they're calling to one another. And he says, we played the flute for you" — Jesus is the one playing the flute, or John the Baptist too — "and you did not dance" — which is to say, when you should have been rejoicing, you weren't rejoicing. "And then when we sang the dirge, and you did not weep." And when you should have been weeping and grieving and fasting, you weren't doing that. And so you didn't know when to fast, and you didn't know when to feast.
And then he says — and this is the part that will surprise you — "For John the Baptist" — those Baptists — "they came eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you said he's got a demon." John knew how to fast, apparently, and a lot of Baptists do too. Actually, that's only half true. "But the Son of Man has come eating and drinking. And you say, look at him, he's a glutton and he's a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners."
Which is it, Pharisees? Are they supposed to fast and do nothing, or are they supposed to feast and then you call them gluttons and drunkards? Which is it? And Jesus is saying, you must learn to feast at the right time and to have that kind of joy, and you must learn to fast at the right time and to know when it is appropriate to mourn with others or to limit yourself and to not give in to excess. And how do we do this? He says it in verse 35. Wisdom. Wisdom is the way. "This is what is justified by all her children."
Closing: Two Stories of Abundance — Which Will You Choose?
There are two stories of abundance in the prodigal son. There's an abundance in which we try to take it for ourselves. And then there's an abundance that the Father wants to give to us in his household, on his terms, in his way, with his kind of discipline. The offer this morning is, which will you choose? The one leads to life and the other to death.
Let's pray. Father in heaven, we believe that you are a good father and that you know how to train your children and you know how to teach us the way to live a life. The question is, will we trust you? Will we do what we need to do? Will we give our lives to you? Or, like the prodigal son, will we flee? Will we take it for ourselves? Will we live in excess? Will we live the undisciplined life? God, this morning, may we be people who choose you and people who choose discipline. In Christ's holy name we pray. Amen.
South Run Baptist Church | 8712 Selger Drive, Springfield, VA 22153 | Sunday Worship at 11am Serving Springfield, Burke, West Springfield, Lorton, Alexandria, Fort Belvoir, and Franconia, Virginia. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify