Hunger And Thirst For Righteousness Series

BLESS THIS HOME

Wk 1 - Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

PASTOR TIMOTHY PORTER

TEXT: MATTHEW 5:6

INTRODUCTION:

let me get a little participation. How many of you would love to have your homes and families be blessed, raise your hands up high.

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There are some that do not have your hands up. So, I'm guess you want yours cursed?

No.

We all would love to see our homes and families blessed.!

But when you look at families today, in general, the first word that does not come to your mind is the word "blessed." Right?

?When we look at so many families today, rather than say, "Man, they're really blessed," more often, we say, "Wow, they're really struggling."

?"Their marriage is not what it could be"

?"raising the kids it's more difficult than they thought"

?"financially, Man, we're, you know, we're kind of living paycheck-to-paycheck."

And admittedly, there are a lot more temptations today than in the past.

There's the challenges of more and more blended families, which can be a blessing, but then you're raising your kids and her kids, and our kids. And both exes and it's complicated.

We see a record number of single parents today which can be so difficult when you're trying to support a family on one income and there's only one of you to carry all the load, and the discipline of raising the kids is overwhelming at times.

?So, what we're going to do is we're going to let Jesus teach us from Mathew, chapter 5, when he taught on what is known as the beatitudes, from the sermon on the mount.

?We're going to put application from several of the beatitudes into our homes.

?Now, some of you may say, "But I'm a student or I am not married. I don't have a family yet."

Oh, my gosh, this is the best time to prepare your heart for future blessings.

I would have given anything to have learned stuff like this years and years ago.

So, I believe it will speak to everyone.

And let me tell you where we're going to go in this series.

? Next week 2, we're going to look at the teaching of Jesus when he said, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God." Most of our homes would not be characterized by the word "pure". But for many, it would be "impurity" Of all the sins and temptations and struggles that we get into. How do we have homes full of people that are pure in heart?

?At week 3, we're going to study when Jesus said "Blessed are the peace makers."

?And the fourth week is my favorite week. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. For theirs is the Kingdom of God."

What I'm going to do is I'm going to be real transparent in this message series.

There are times when I'm going to tell you things that have worked from our home.

But I want to tell you our family is so far from perfect.

?It's always funny to Abby and I, when people from The Bridge see us somewhere, and something goes wrong with our family, they're so excited about it.

They are like, "Oh, I'm so thankful your family is not perfect.

" I'm like, "Duh! Duh! I mean, we are not perfect.

" When my kids are misbehaving, I don't just break into a hymn and speak KJV and they all stop and start worshiping; it's just not like that."

?And so today, let's look at Mathew 5:6 for our first of the beatitudes we're going to study.

READ TEXT

The Sermon on the Mount introduces a series of five important discourses recorded in Matthew. This sermon exposits the law masterfully and assaults Pharisaic legalism potently, closing with a call to true faith and salvation. In it Christ expounds the full meaning of the law, showing that its demands are humanly impossible.

When you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you will be filled, and yet so many homes today are not filled with what matters most, most are searching and striving for anything that would bring meaning and comfort.

[Jesus did not come to comfort us, He came to confront our unrightenouss]

Why is that?

Because we're filling our lives with things that don't matter, and we're not as blessed as we could be because we're not hungering and thirsting for righteousness, for right living, for doing the right thing in the way we live to please God, by faith and by the way we live.

?So, here's a question that I want to ask all of you just for application, and I want to dare you to be really, really honest.

Here's the question:

In your home, what are you hungering for? In your life, in your dorm/school, at work, with your friends, what are you pursuing? What matters most to you?