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September 6, 2026
Empty Stomachs
- Matt Nickoson
Sermon Notes
"We are being thrilled to death! Our continuous pursuit of high stimulation is snuffing out our ability to experience genuine pleasure in simple things." - Dr. Archibald D Hart, Thrilled to Death: How the Endless Pursuit of Pleasure Is Leaving Us Numb
“Sugar is the devil!” – Tracy King
"We are obsessed with increasing our level of excitement to feel a sense of pleasure." - Dr. Archibald D Hart, Thrilled to Death: How the Endless Pursuit of Pleasure Is Leaving Us Numb
Proverbs 23:19-21 NLT
My child, listen and be wise: Keep your heart on the right course. Do not carouse with drunkards or feast with gluttons, for they are on their way to poverty, and too much sleep clothes them in rags.
1 Corinthians 6:12 NIV
“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.
God desires that you are in control of your own body. You are master over it and not the other way around.
1 Corinthians 6:13 NIV
You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
While self-control with food is good, there are more critical things to pay attention to (i.e., sexual immorality).
1 Corinthians 6:18-20 NIV
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
Your body is a house of the Lord. So, care for God’s house!
Philippians 3:18 NIV
For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.
Philippians 3:19 NIV
Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.
Philippians 3:20-21 NIV
But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
One of the benefits of fasting is to help me gain strength to overcome now so that I might have the power to overcome later when my body is craving something more insidious than sugar.
Matthew 4:4a NIV
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone…’”
Matthew 4:1 NIV
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Matthew 4:2 NIV
After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
Matthew 4:3 NIV
The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Matthew 4:4 NIV
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
We were made for communion with God, and to feast on His Word; which is Jesus.
1 Timothy 4:4-5 NIV
For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
1 Timothy 4:6 NIV
If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed.
1 Timothy 4:7-9 NIV
Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance.
Be careful that these principles remain that – principles; not harsh rules for life.
Colossians 2:20-21 NIV
“Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?”
Colossians 2:22 NIV
“These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings.”
Colossians 2:23 NIV
“Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”
What is one food or health change you sense the Lord nudging you to make?
John 6:35, 53-58 NIV
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”