Is Drinking a Sin?

In this episode of Let’s Go There, we tackle a question that has created a lot of conversation and confusion in the church: Is drinking alcohol actually a sin? We talk through what the Bible says about alcohol, but more importantly, we look at the heart behind why we drink. Is it freedom, or are we using something to hide, escape, or avoid what God wants to heal? We’ll explore the difference between legalism and wisdom, and how followers of Jesus can honor God with their choices.

Transcript

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So, we have questions. But they're questions that you haven't asked. Because either they're uncomfortable or complicated, or even just a little bit a little bit risky. Questions that most people don't ask because they just don't want to go there. But in this podcast, we do want to go there because we believe that our companies is ready to find a lot of these questions. We believe that our company has a lot of answers that are more than questions than go for me. So in this podcast, we want you to be good questions. Let's look at them together. Let's leave it. Let's go there. What's going on, Landed Podcasting, and welcome to Let's Go There. I am joined as always in this beautiful, luxurious, incredibly small podcast studio with my friend. You know him, you love him, Russ the Bus Williams. I'm your host, Ben Pucas. And it's funny, I was actually just talking to Russ, and he said yesterday for the first time in church, someone came up to him and called him Russ the Bus. And so if you are listening to this and you know who Russ is, I need you guys' help. I need you from now on to never call him Russ or Russell again. I need you guys to help me out and call him Russ the Bus. Surely there's going to be a t-shirt that's made. Most of you have no idea what this man looks like. Uh that's a travesty for you guys because he's a beautiful looking man. But one of these days, I think I want we want to get a picture of him in the middle of a shirt and have let's go there with Russ the Bus Williams, because we all know whose podcast this really is. It's not mine, it is definitely Russ's. And so you actually may, in this podcast, we want to just be real with you guys. We want to bring you guys a little bit into our lives as well. Russ may be stepping out, and so you may hear some doors opening and tech directors walking out of podcast studios. Russ is uh waiting for a really important phone call. And so as you're sitting there, you don't even need to know what it is. Could you just say a quick prayer for Russ? I believe God isn't dictated by time that uh we he would just be able to get that phone call that he desires. Uh, and so he may be walking out here. He may not be, but we're excited for Russ. We're excited for his family for all the things that God is doing in and through his life. We're also excited to be doing this podcast with you guys. Russ and I were just talking before this. Like our goal is not to be famous, our goal is not to have thousands of followers. As you can tell, even to this point, I think this is like episode 13 or whatever. Uh, we haven't been on social media yet. We're not trying to reach a ton of people, we're trying to reach the right people. That's the goal of this, man. And it's been really fun talking to people at Chick-fil-A, I just talked to somebody, and talking to people out after church, people I don't even really know that well, that are tuning into this podcast and are being really encouraged by it. That's the goal that we have. Our goal is just to reach the right people because people have questions and they don't necessarily have an outlet to be able to ask them, including the question that we're gonna be answering today. And it's a question, a lot of these questions, as we always talk about, and we want to get the questions that most people are asking. It's a question that people ask and most people will disagree with based off of the way you grew up or the church that you attended. And the question we're gonna be answering today is is drinking a sin? When I say drinking, I mean is drinking and consuming alcohol of any type, is it a sin? And and this is one of those questions where I think we all really desire in our faith, we want a black and white faith. We want yes, we want no, we don't want gray, we want the it can I do it or can I not? Just tell me what you want me to do. And I think a lot of times we do that because we long for legalism in our lives. We want rules, we want regulations, we want boundaries, we want bumpers as if we're bowling. We want to know what's right and what's wrong. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. And that's not faith. That's also not relationship. It definitely isn't intimacy. Intimacy is risky. I mean, having a relationship with someone, whether it's a relationship with a friend or a relationship with a coworker or a relationship with a significant other, but even more specifically, the most intimate relationship we ever have is with God, where we are literally one with him, where he resides in us. Man, it's incredibly risky. It's not regulated. Relationship isn't regulated, relationship isn't robotic. And a lot of times relationship hurts. And so I think we want really easy yes or no answers, but very rarely does God ever give us a black and white answer. There's a lot of gray. I think we either want in this question, we want yes, drinking is a sin, don't do it. And you're like, yes, won't do it, won't touch a drop of alcohol again, or no, drinking is not a sin. So, like, party and have a good time and eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die. But scripture often takes us way deeper than just where's the line. Where scripture and where Jesus, as you actually see as he as he talks when people ask him questions like this, is it okay to divorce? Can you work on the Sabbath? Can you heal on the Sabbath? Jesus doesn't answer it ever with a yes or no question. In fact, Jesus answers questions with questions, and the reason that Jesus does that is because he's not a regulated, you need to do this and not do this kind of God. He's a where's your heart at in it? Why are you asking that question? Why do you want to drink? What role does drinking play in your life? And really, the question that we need to be asking ourselves when we're asking questions that do have a little bit of a gray area in them. There are some things, should I murder? No, there's your yes or no, black and white, don't do that. Jesus, very specifically, God very specifically in his word tells us not to take someone else's life. But in the gray, the question we have to be asking ourselves is does this lead us toward Jesus? Does it lead us to look more like him, or does it lead us away from him and looking less like him and more actually like the world? Because the heart behind drinking matters more than the drink itself. We always have to start with the heart. And I'll tell you this like every good thing comes from above. And I think when we look at at wine and you look at the way that God created things, and like I believe that God created, and I know this may get offensive to some people, and I need you to bear with me in this. I believe that God created alcohol for our good. He's not a God that that wants us to white knuckle you, he's not a God that doesn't want us to enjoy life. I believe in a perfect world, alcohol can be used for a really great thing. Like you see alcohol in scripture, you see Jesus turning water into wine. You're like, well, that's because water was poison. It's not really, it was not, first of all. Like water was actually like a good source. There is wells. Like there's pure water wells. Like you see Jacob's well. That was very good pure water. So the example of, well, they only drank wine because water was unhealthy to drink is not a true statement at all. But Jesus turns water into wine because it's a celebratory thing. Like you see, like you can drink alcohol to celebrate. You can drink alcohol in community, you can drink alcohol for enjoyment. But also, what you see is because the devil cannot create. The devil can only distort. The devil takes really good things that God created. All of the things in alcohol is a very natural process where I believe God created that for our good. The devil then takes a really good thing and he distorts it so we take it outside of the design that God intended for us to be in. Because then what alcohol goes from, it goes from celebrating and community and enjoyment, and it very easily can go to hiding, it can go to running, it can go to escaping pain, it can go to avoiding grief, it can do, it can go to avoiding processing our emotions. And when we use things to replace the spot where God deserves to rest on in the throne of our lives, no matter what that may be, I believe 100% that is a sin. Like, what do you mean by that, Ben? Okay, so grief. Like a lot of times you see people like you see the origin stories of alcoholism and you hear people's stories like, man, I was at a really hard time. I lost my mom. I just got back from war and I was grieving. And what people started doing is they drank with some friends. And they realized when they were drinking and they were getting tipsy, and after getting tipsy, they were getting drunk, they realized that the grief that they were feeling went away because it was replaced by this euphoric kind of drunken experience. And what people started realizing is hey, like a lot of times people with addiction, any kind of addiction, it's an escape from reality. I mean, that's that that's my story with pornography, which we don't need to get into now. I believe we're gonna get into that here in the next couple episodes, Russ, which I'm really excited about that. But it it can escape, and when we use things to escape, I believe we're taking it outside of the design that God gave us. Because the person that's supposed to fill in that gap is not a thing, it's a person, and it's Jesus. And we're, hey, Jesus, I'm inviting you into this grief. Will you help me grieve? I'm inviting you, Holy Spirit, into this hard thing. Like I want to use a very vulnerable personal example with you guys. Now I don't have any history with alcoholism. That's not because I'm better than anybody else, it's because I've had other addictions uh outside of alcohol. But uh, over the last few months, I've started to realize that, man, I I can struggle with anxiety. I don't think I have diagnosable anxiety. I need to let people know that. Like, I don't think I am someone who has anxiety. I think there are people with that. But I think because I have this major problem with control, and my friends in my community know that. Like, I always want to be in control, I always want to be in the driver's seat. And so when there are things that come into my life that feel so far out of my control, it freaks me out. And then what anxiety does is anxiety wants certainty. So it starts creating all of these false scenarios, a lot of times these worst-case scenarios, so that I can be ready for the hardest thing possible. So if that comes, I'll be okay. And I create these realities in my brain that just are not there, and it gives me super anxious. And so over the last uh few weeks, uh, I've gotten on some natural supplements. I've a friend uh who's a holistic doctor, and you know, she gave me some magnesium and she gave me some things that are natural to help me really cope with my anxiety. And and for a while I needed that, man. I was just like my my my central nervous system was firing on all cylinders. And uh about a week ago, I'm about to take you know these handful of supplements, and I felt God tell me, Hey Ben, you you've stabilized. You're not this like ticking time bomb, but you feel anxiety for a reason. And it's not because your brain is necessarily broken, but it's because there may be a little bit of sin in your life. There may be some elements where you're trying to control things that you're not meant to control. You're trying to move past the lamp that's uh me, that's a lamp to your feet. You want to be 20 steps ahead, but really you only see the next step. And so, like, man, I want to challenge you, Ben. Don't take these supplements right now, or take less of them. Allow yourself to feel that anxiety. Don't run from it, don't be afraid of it, but come to me with it. And I did, and it was, it's it's been a harder week, I'll be honest with you guys. Because I've had that anxiety, I've had that buzz going through my head of just like freaking out and not feeling in control. But even this morning I got to spend some extended time with Jesus. And I felt that tightness in my chest, and all I wanted to do was to take these supplements, they're natural supplements to make myself feel better. And I just said, Lord, I don't want to do that right now. But Lord, I feel this anxiety. Lord, I want to invite you into that. And man, it was a really good time with Jesus because I started to realize some things that maybe I didn't realize before, and it was really intimate with my Jesus. And so, why do I say that? I say that because in the hardest parts of our lives, sometimes the best thing to do is not run from it, but to run to Jesus with it. And so, if we are using alcohol to escape from something that we're supposed to invite Jesus into, like even if we're not getting drunk and going crazy, if it is replacing the spot that Jesus is supposed to sit on the throne of your life, it is a sin. And so there is also a sin too, outside of even replacing God, and it's very it's very known is getting drunk a sin. That's the question that we want to know. Because I know a lot of people and and like I that that drink, and when they drink, they take it way too far and they get incredibly drunk. The the issue in scripture is God tells us not to get drunk on alcohol, because as we are drunk, we lose our state of mind. And so the Bible is very clear about drunkenness. Ephesians chapter 5 says, do not get drunk with wine, but actually it says, instead of being drunk with wine, be filled with the Holy Spirit. The question isn't how much can I drink before I cross the line? The better question that we need to be asking ourselves, because yes, when we get drunk, it is a sin. And that is so subjective. But again, the goal and the reality that we need to get to is not trying to find the line, but it's trying to run away from the line. The goal isn't to go, what's drunkenness? Is it tipsy? Is it lose it blacked out? Like what is the level of drunkenness? The question we need to be asking is, Am I pursuing being controlled by the spirit, or am I pursuing being controlled by something else? Because at the end of the day, and I'll just be honest with you guys, there have been moments in my life where I have drank too much. And in those moments where I have drank too much, I am not in control of what I do. That means that I'm being controlled by something outside of the spirit of God. That means that I'm being controlled outside of something uh that I I'm being controlled by worldly things. And so drunkenness is a sin. And if it's replacing God, it's a sin. And then the question kind of goes into well, what about other times? Man, Ben, I I don't feel like I it replaces God in my life. I don't drink to get drunk. So am I allowed to drink? And I want to say very simply, yes, I believe that you can drink. But there's some things that we need to understand before we get into that. One, everyone listening to this podcast is not gonna have the same conviction on this. I have I have very good friends of mine that will argue until they're blue in the face that they believe that drinking is a sin. Now, this is where I believe unity comes into play here. I don't think unity is us agreeing on everything. That's not unity, that's just agreeing. We've talked about that before on this podcast. But I believe where unity can really take shape and where unity can actually really be beautiful is when we disagree on things and yet we continue to be brothers and sisters in Christ. So there's gonna be people who listen to this and you're like, no, no, no. Like we believe that alcohol is 100% a sin. And what we have to be careful to do is this all of us have our convictions, and do I'm not gonna let anybody tell me the Bible is clear about any of these things. I have read the Bible, I have studied these things. I know I'm only 31 years old, but I get very frustrated when we take a conviction-level thing and we make it an essential level thing, meaning something that I believe that God allows us to have some gray in, God allows us to have some freedom in, God allows us to have some discernment in. And then because this is the conviction that we have, we now throw it onto everyone else that that's the conviction that they're supposed to have too. One, we can't assign sin to people in a place where God has not assigned sin. There are people that I know that do that with a lot of different things. But people have a conviction that alcohol is a sin. And then if anybody else is drink, we start throwing that same conviction onto them and tell them that they're sinning. And that is just not the reality. We can't throw our convictions onto someone else. We can't look down on someone else because they don't have the same conviction. And then at the same time, when you look at Romans chapter 14, we can't do the opposite. We can't say, well, in freedom, Christ has set me free. This is not something that I struggle with. This is not something there's never been alcoholism in my family. I don't use it to replace God, I don't use it to get drunk. So, yes, I'm gonna eat, drink, and be married, and I'm gonna drink all of the time. And for you over here that believe it's a sin, forget you. I'm gonna continue to do it anyway. That's also not loving. The Bible tells us in Romans chapter 14 that if somebody else, man, has a struggle with it, maybe they have a past struggle. Man, maybe for them, like they did have a history of alcoholism in their life. Maybe they do have an addictive personality. Maybe they watch. I have a friend. There's his uncle was a drunk, and every time his uncle got drunk, he would beat the snot out of his aunt. He watched it and it was horrible, and so he associates alcohol with physical abuse. What the Bible tells us to do is to lay down what we believe is freedom so that we don't allow somebody else to stumble. That friend of mine, a good friend of mine, that's a true story. Like he watched his uncle beat the tar out of his aunt. And that's horrible. Like that man needs to be strung up. I just I have no patience for that. And so for me, I this is Ben Puka's talking. This is maybe gonna get me in trouble, Russ the bus. Maybe you're gonna be behind the mic the next time. I don't think out drinking alcohol is a sin for me. For Ben Pucas, for me individually. I don't, I don't, I don't think it's a sin. Because I don't have a struggle with it in the past. I've never seen anyone in my family or anyone in my life ever abuse it. I don't abuse it myself. But when I'm in front of my friend, guess what? I don't use my freedom. I'm not gonna be like, well, you know what, Jesus has set us free, and you know what, you're just gonna need to stop being a stick in the mud. You're gonna have to loosen up a little bit because I'm cracking up a beer, I'm open, I'm getting a glass of bourbon, and I'm gonna drink it in front of you, and you're gonna have to be okay with it. No, I love my brother because of the conviction that he has, and I serve him because I don't want to be a stumbling block to him, and this is what we need to understand about freedom. Because freedom is not, hear me say this, this is so important. Freedom is not, I can do whatever I want. That's not freedom. In fact, some would argue that's slavery. What freedom is, is freedom is saying I am no longer controlled by sin. Sin and the devil are no longer my master. So now what I have the freedom to do is I now have the freedom to choose what helps me to love God and love people the most effectively. And so for me, if my buddy is saying that he believes that alcohol is a sin, like, and I use my freedom to have him stumble, in fact, what I believe that I'm doing is I'm not exercising my freedom. What I'm actually doing is I'm causing a brother to stumble, and I'm actually wrapping myself and my brother in the chains that Jesus died to set us free from. Because your freedom is not more important than someone else's faith. Again, some may have a past struggle, some may have a family history. We don't say that we just need to have them grow up so they can understand freedom more. That person may never be there, people. And I think you uh you guys have known this about me. I've I've shared this before. Like, I have a history with sex addiction. Um it it came out through 100% through pornography. Uh and because of that, I don't have internet on my phone. Now I know that's like super big for some people. They're like, that's legalistic. I'm like, you can call it whatever you want. I need all the help I can get. I don't have safari, I don't have apps. I actually have two apps right now, and uh I'm walking in pretty deep community with those people in that. And so people will send me links and I'm like, hey, sorry, I don't have internet. And what I realize about myself is that may be my reality for the rest of my life. I may never have safari on my phone again, I may never have full access to the internet without any accountability on it ever again. Now, do I need to assign that to someone else? Do I need to look at Russ and say, well, Russ, I do this, you need to do this too. No, no, no, I don't do that. But also, there's some movies that I don't watch because of my past struggle. And that may not be something that Russ struggles with. Russ may be like, hey, I can I can watch these movies, I can, you know, see movies with a little bit of sexual ex sexually explicit material in it, and I'm okay with it, but I'm not. And the way that Russ can serve me is Russ can say, you know what, I have freedom to watch this movie, but I choose not to because I want to serve my brother. And in the same way, what I don't do is I don't throw my convictions onto Russ and be like, I can't believe you would watch something like that. And so for me, myself, I just want to say this like, I do not believe that drinking alcohol is a sin for me. But this is also what I want to tell people. I've also been put in a position to pastor a fairly large group of people. Uh it's one of the greatest honors of my life, it's one of the greatest joys of my life. What I don't want to do ever is to allow the freedom that I believe I experience in Christ to be a stumbling block to someone that I have the amazing opportunity to steward and to love. So for me, I do believe that I can drink and I can have freedom in that. But what I don't do ever is I do not ever, you will never see me in Cersei, Arkansas in public ever drinking an alcoholic beverage. Because if I'm in person with somebody, I'm able to have a conversation. If I'm with friends and I'm with my community and I'm with my family, they know my heart, they know my relationship with Jesus, and most importantly, I know their relationship with Jesus, I know their past. So I know this isn't a struggle for them. They've never seen this be abused before. They know me, they know my heart for Jesus, and so there's freedom in that. But when I'm out in public, I'm not able to have those conversations with everybody. Someone may walk past me at a bar and I'm having a good time and I've had one drink. I'm not abusing it, I'm just drinking with some friends, and they walk by and they see me for a half a second. I don't even see them. They just assume, well, my pastor is an alcoholic, or this pastor over here at Fellowship Bible Church is an alcoholic. So either A, forget the church, they're all a bunch of hypocrites, or B, man, that means that I can drink too, so I'm gonna eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow I may die. And that may be something that allows someone to go back into an addiction that they don't want to go in, and they use me as an example and a freedom to be able to go back to the reality of being stuck in sin. And so I that's why I don't drink in public in Cersei, not because I'm wrapping myself in chains, but because I'm actually using my freedom to serve and love other people. We have to stop asking questions like, where is the line, though? Like the question we need to be asking, and I'm so convicted by this because that's my heart and my personality. I'm like, where's the line? Because I'm the guy that wants to be crazy, I'm the guy that wants to live on the edge. If I'm in cheap grace or legalism, I'm way more towards cheap grace than legalism. I'm like, Jesus, save me from my sin. Let's be free for freedom. Christ has set us free. Where's the line so I don't sin? But we're gonna get really disappointed. Staying close to that line. And so often the Holy Spirit is like, stop doing that, bro. That's not life. That's death. You're inviting death into your life all of the time. The question we have to stop asking is, how close can I get to drunkenness before it's a sin? And we have to be putting that same kind of energy that we put into thinking about this and researching it and talking about it on a podcast. We need to put that same kind of energy into being drunk on the spirit. And you're like, that is such a Jesus juke, bro. I want to tell you, no, it's not. That is not a Jesus juke at all. We need to be asking ourselves, man, how can I be so enthralled with the Holy Spirit that I'm not even thinking about where the line is? I'm thinking about how I can just be completely inundated and magnificently obsessed with the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, I'm gonna give you full reign and full freedom to rule in my life. And I want to be led by you every step of the way. I'm gonna surround myself with the things of God because I want to fall in love with God Himself. And I want to end with this. I I believe there are people listening to this podcast that are stuck in addiction. And it may be alcohol, it may be drugs, it may be gambling, it may be an affair, it may be pornography, maybe Tinder. I mean, you insert, you know, when I said that, you that came into your mind. Like, I want to speak hoping to you for these last couple minutes. If those things have controlled you, let me tell you the truth of what it means to follow Jesus. Let me tell you about the power that's inside of you for those who have called upon the name of the Lord and have been saved. You have not been given a little bit of power. The junior Holy Spirit is not inside of you, but the full power of God that had the power to say, let there be and there was, that had the power to part the Red Sea, and that had the power to save us from our sins and to reconcile us to himself. That power is fully and 100% in you. And for those that follow Jesus, what Jesus is inviting you into is saying, you do not have to stay there. That does not have to be your reality for the rest of your life. You are not stuck. But Jesus breaks chains because Jesus doesn't just come to save us from eternal damnation. He came to make us new creations, give us new identities. And what he now tells us is, hey, you are no longer somebody who is an addict, but you are now a child of God. And he changes your identity to be able to say, I am no longer wrapped in chains, I am no longer an alcoholic, I am no longer a sex addict, I am no longer a gambling addict, I am no longer a drug addict, because Jesus came to not just set us free from eternal damnation, he set us free from the power of sin now. And so what I want to tell you to do in this moment is that if you are in this listening to this podcast and you're in this fear, and you are struggling with any kind of addiction, and you are struggling with any kind of stronghold that is holding you back, and you're looking yourself in the mirror, and I know it because I've been there for years, over a decade of my life. I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, You are worthless, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to ever get out of it. I want to tell you this right now, in this moment, right here, I believe Jesus can set you free and break you from the chains that have been wrapped around you for years of your life. And I want to encourage you to before this pause the podcast after I say this, even though there's only a couple seconds left. Get done with this podcast. Immediately call a friend and say, I'm struggling. I need you over at my house tonight. Get a bunch of friends over, talk to your parents, talk to your pastor, talk to an elder, bring it into the light, fall on your face before God. And if it's alcohol man, have a party where every single alcoholic drink in your house, you open it up and you and your community pour it down the drain. And every time you pour it down the drain, you cheer and you scream and you and you get excited because that's another opportunity for a thing that is holding you down, that is keeping you from living the full life that Jesus wants you to live to be completely gone. Throw away the thing that's controlled you, smash your laptop, smash your phone, pour gallons and thousands of dollars of alcohol down the drain. Because, man, I believe that freedom is something that you can experience and you can be able to say one day in your life, some near day in the future, where you'll be able to talk about your addiction, not in the present tense, in the future tense. But you'll be able to talk about your addiction in the past tense. That used to be what I did, but now Jesus has set me free, and that's no longer what I do. And so is drinking a sin. Man, there's no short answer to that. It really, it's I don't know. That's between you and the Lord. But you need to ask yourself, is this beneficial? Is it helping me love Jesus? Is it helping other people love Jesus? Is this controlling me or is the Spirit of God controlling my life? Because the goal isn't just avoiding sin, but the goal is becoming more like Jesus. And so if you have any other questions, and maybe this question brought up some other ones, if you'd be able to click on the link at the bottom, you'll be able to ask any questions that you want because we believe here that honest questions deserve honest answers. Thank you for tuning in to this podcast. Russ and I are super grateful for you. We love you guys. We'll see you next week on the next episode of Let's Go There. But until then, Russ the bus and Pucas out.