Pastor Matt Higa
August 27, 2017 - W1735

Thank you, everybody, for joining us out of your busy time and everything.  Thank you for having me.   The title of today's message is "You Are What You Eat," but in Psalms 34:8 it says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good."  Amen?  Ono for our souls.  

But all throughout the Bible they talk about food, and they use food as a symbolic theme a lot of times. Jesus always said, “I'm the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will not hunger or thirst.” (John 6:35)

 What we ingest mentally, spiritually, and emotionally is who we are, so that's why we are what we eat both physically and spiritually. So we gotta really be careful what we put into our lives and what we ingest into our lives.

 I remember one time Pastah Wayne used an illustration about taking his dog for a walk. The dog went into da bushes, and came out with a dried toad or something.  Well when I was living in Kalihi I had a dog, part German shepherd, very, very, very intelligent dog, one of the best.  He understood hand signals and was just disciplined and obedient.  

Then one day he was underneath the house. It was dark, and he had something in his mouth and it was big. I said, "Come here.  Eh, come here, boy."  He wouldn't come.  I get the flashlight, "Come over here."  He would come close and then go back and run away. You know that deal.  

And finally when he got close enough, I looked. It was this big rat that was decaying.  And my dog is holding this rancid putrid decaying disease infested carcass in his mouth salivating and wagging his tail!  And I'm like, "Get that thing outta your mouth!"  

So I go in the house, I get the doggy treats, the ones that look like beef jerky, you know.  That bugga ono, you know. So I'm over there, "Come on, boy.  Give me dat.  You can have this. It is so much better.  This is good for you, taste good," but he wouldn't budge.    

And then I thought, “Sheesh, I bet that's how God looks at me sometimes:  ‘Matt, look at that thing in your life. You think it's just great, but that thing is just rotting, putrid, decaying.  It's decaying.  It's disease infested and you want to hang onto that in your life---that offense, that unforgiveness, the things in your thought life, the things that you look at and the things you're ingesting.  I have something so much better for you.  I have My word and My grace and My love.  That is what I have.  Let go of those other things.’”  

But, you know when it comes to food combos, certain foods just gotta go together; right?  Peanut butter and jelly, stew and poi.  Whew, da Hawaiians go poi, da Japanese go rice.  You eva go to one dinner where only get stew?  

And then certain things should not go together.  Like if I took a nice cup of juice and just pour oil inside.  How's about shoyu on top your cereal or maybe ketchup on your ice cream?  Those combos don't work, huh?  

And sometimes the Lord says, “You're mixing too many things of the world with the things of God.”  Be careful.  You might have more den sour stomach.  You might end up with a sour spirit and a sour heart.

But I'm going to bring up someone from Kauai and a good friend of mine. He’s one of our leaders, and he's gonna help us a little bit more with an illustration over here.  This is Keone Garma. He is going to share with you a little bit.  

Keone Garma:

Hello New Hope. I brought with me a couple drinks here.  Pastor Matt asked me to do this here. You guys like lemonade over here?

You know, the other drink I love is Frappuccino.  Anybody like Frappuccino here?  But how does it taste together? Let me mix it together and taste it. Whew, wow, awful.

You know sometimes I truly believe we love Jesus Christ. I mean, that's why we're here, right?  But sometimes we love sin.  You know, it's just that we're human, right?   

And so we wake up in the morning and we say, “I love you Jesus and I smoke pakalolo.”  

Or we say, “I'm going to dig into my Word today and watch naked people on the internet.”  

Or we say, “I love you, brother and I hate her.”

All right.  And we go back and forth and back and forth.  We're fighting this; right?  And we say this:  "I don't do that.  I don't go back and forth.”  So, you know, what we tend to ingest is just that little bit of sin.  90 percent God, right? And just a little bit of sin. And what do we do? We drink it. That’s just sick.

Pastor Matt is going to come back up here and he's going to encourage us with the Word of God and see how we can get over this because a lot of times we mix sin into our Christian lives and some things in life just don't mix, right? Just like lemonade and Frappuccino.  I'm just learning that right now here on stage.   So I'll be at the back in the restroom here in a couple minutes, but let's bring up Pastor Matt.  We love you guys.  Aloha.

Pastor Matt:

So I'm gonna do another presentation for you, but you know they not goin' invite me back! I'm gonna need a volunteer, which I asked earlier for someone to come and help me with this visual here, so could Joey come up?

So I have right here in front of me a can of Pedigree dog food, and a can of Hormel chili.  Now, Joey, one of us is gonna eat the dog food.

PASTOR MATT:  Now, I will Jan Ken Po you for it.  

JOEY:  Okay.

PASTOR MATT:  Okay.  Last one.  Okay.  Sweetheart, you know as well as I know that I'm not eating that because I gotta finish the message.    

JOEY:  You goin' eat one after I eat one?  

PASTOR MATT:  Well, you just risked eating the dog food, and sometimes in life we take unnecessary risks and chances and then we end up doing something that we wouldn't do otherwise.  

PASTOR MATT:    I will give you $20 if you take a bite of that dog food.  20.  Put that in your pocket.  Some people say don't do it.  But many are shouting, “Eat it! Eat it!”

JOEY:  It's gone.  It's gone.  

PASTOR MATT:  You want some Frappuccino with lemonade?  Let me ask you a question:  Why would you do that?

JOEY:  You gave me the 20.

PASTOR MATT:  Well, people were cheering you on.  That's called peer pressure.  And then there’s the $20. You chased the almighty dollar.  

A lot of times in life our peers are gonna cause us to give in to peer pressure, especially for young people.  And then when we chase the almighty dollar, we end up doing things we would never do, right?  

 Instead, we should remember that the Bible says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good." He is ono for our souls.  Amen?

Now, I have one last presentation.  

Okay.  We've been bringing out some gross things earlier, yeah?  But I have here a delicious McDonald’s Extra Value Meal. There are plenty of ways to eat this, but the best way, in my opinion, is to take a bite of the quarter pounder, mmm, maybe couple fries, mmm, and then wash it down, mmm.  I would say that's like the best way to eat this meal.  Anybody agree?

But what if I took this and I stuck that in there, put in the fries and then the drink? And then what if I did this?  [Pastor Matt places all three food items into the blender and grinds them all together!] Man, I wish you could smell what I'm smelling now! 

Would anybody like to come up and try some of dat?  Come on, gotta have one guy.   Even though people volunteer, I mean, I'm a go getter, charge 'em kind of guy, too, you know.  I do some crazy tings, but I wouldn't allow you to do it. 

Because when we take a bite at a time, the enzymes under our tongues will break down the food and then the acids in our stomachs will break it down correctly.  But when you blend it like this really quickly, it gets volatile in its chemistry, and then now when it goes directly into your bloodstream, your body will start to reject it.  

But sometimes, especially for you young people, instead of going thru da process from fries and the drink that God puts into our lives, we wanna rush things in life.  We just wanna have sex with everybody before we get married and even after we get married.  We just wanna do our own trip and not follow God's protocol and His Word.  And then next thing you know, something that was delicious ends up gross, something that was mouthwatering is nauseating, something that was supposed to be so ono, now it's not good for you.  

I wonder if we do that in our lives all the time. Maybe we impulsively rush into things and don't follow the directions and steps that God has for our lives.  Sometimes we take something that was supposed to be good and turn it into something that is gross. That's why the scripture says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

And I'll close with this.  In life, all of us are gonna get a taste of so many different things and have opportunities to get a taste of a lot of diverse spices of life.  It's up to us to use God's Word to guide us and help us. We're in the church, but we're taking in things emotionally, spiritually, and mentally that we shouldn't. And then we're mixing something of God with something that is not. Then we get tricked by the enemy into doing what society, peer pressure and the almighty dollar tells us to do. We end up doing things that we would not normally do. We can find ourselves impulsively not following the process and the steps that God has ordained for us to take in life.  Something that was delicious is now gross, something that was mouthwatering is now nauseating.  

So we gotta go back, and we gotta understand that you and I will never ever be satisfied or fulfilled.  To quench our spiritual thirst and our hunger, there's only one way, and His name is Jesus Christ.  That's why the Bible says to taste and see that the Lord is good. He is ono for your spirit and your soul. Nothing else will do.  Without Jesus, we will just be living life trying to quench this hunger that only God can fulfill by saying yes to Jesus and no to the other guy. We should not bite into deception and not mix things that we shouldn't. We should definitely follow the steps and the order of God.

Questions:

1. Why do we have to be careful what we ingest in our lives?
2. What are some of the reasons why we do things that we should not do?
3. What happens when we rush into things in life?
4. What is the only way in which you can be satisfied in life?