I Want To Do Right Always Series

Introduction: No matter how you cut it, 72 ounces is 4 1/2 pounds.

That is a lot of meat. In an upscale steakhouse chain, a 4 1/2 pound steak would cost you around $200.

At The Big Texan, in Amarillo, TX, it is absolutely free; If you can eat it in an hour. While everyone else in the restaurant watches.

Many people have tried to eat the Big Steak and here are some amazing facts…

Approximately 42,000 people have tried to eat the BIG STEAK DINNER, which includes; a 72oz. sirloin, a baked potato, salad and a shrimp cocktail. 7,000 have been successful.

The oldest person to eat the meal was a 69 year old grandmother

The youngest an 11 year old boy

Approximately five women attempt to eat the big steak meal each year – two succeed.

Professional wrestler “Klondike Bill” has eaten two complete dinners in less than an hour.

The record for eating the meal the fastest goes to former Cincinnati reds pitcher, Frank Pastore – his time 9 minutes and 30 seconds.

If you are going to eat a dinner at “THE BIG TEXAN STEAKHOUSE”, you had better come hungry.

We seem to be a nation that obsesses over food – for many of us the bigger the better, many of us have heard those famous words asked at the temple of the Golden Arches, “Would you like to “super-size” your meal?”

Who has not heard of the “Whopper” or a Baconator! When it comes to food, we do not want to become hungry. Moreover, if we do become hungry our body lets us know it – THE GROWL and we are off to the fridge, looking in the cabinets or diving into the cookie jar wanting to be satisfied. We wanting to be avoid hunger.

Yet 2,000 years ago, on a mountain top in Israel, far from any golden arches or pizza huts – Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Happy are the people who have a hunger for the things of God!

Jesus is not saying happy are those who have a desire for the things of God or happy are the ones who are seeking the things God, but happy are the ones who have an intense craving for the things of God. In the first 3 beatitudes Jesus has focused on empting oneself…

When you are poor in spirit, you realize you must empty yourself of your desires, your wants. It is at that point you can say to God and to others, “I NEED YOU”

When you mourn, you come to the realization, there are to be no more hidden sins in your life, you empty your secrets through brokenness and confession, first to god and then to one another by saying, “I AM SORRY”

When you become meek, you press down your wants and desires for the good of others, emptying your rights so others may grow in maturity. Thus you have the ability to say, “I RESPECT YOU”

Now Jesus changes gears – having emptied ourselves of the world’s wisdom and ways, Jesus now tells us the key to being filled or as the NLT puts it – BE SATISFIED, is to have a hunger and a thirst for something the world cannot give us; Righteousness; more to the point God’s righteousness.

Jesus is teaching his disciples, and us, the deepest desire of every person ought to be to hunger and thirst for righteousness. That is the spirit-prompted desire that will lead a person to salvation and him strong and faithful once he is a part of the kingdom.

Jesus says the way to happiness, the way of truly being truly blessed is the way of spiritual hunger and thirst. This beatitude leads us to ask several important questions…

What does it mean to hunger and thirst after righteousness?

Hunger and thirst represent the necessities of physical life.

Scientist and nutritionist have discovered one can go for weeks without food, but one can only go without water for about three days. When we go without vital nourishment, our body kicks in a mechanism, which begins to draw energy from our fat cells and eventually our muscles. In as little as 3 days without food, our body begins the process of taking from our surplus fat and muscle to survive.

Jesus is equating the need for righteousness with our need for food.

Just as food is necessary for the physical body to survive, so righteousness is necessary for the spiritual body survival as well. Just as food is not an option for the physical body, neither is righteousness an option for the spiritual body.

Must be the right kind of righteousness

Later on in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will make a startling statement to both his disciples and the crowd, For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:20