The Pilgrim’s Path Part-4, Mathew 5:1-12
Thirsting For God
Introduction
Crowns have always been the sign of authority and Kingship. Charlemagne, whom historians say should deserve to be called “great” above all others, wore an octagonal crown. Each of the eight sides was a plaque of gold, and each plaque was studded with emeralds, sapphires, and pearls. The cost was the price of a king’s ransom. Richard the Lion Heart had a crown so heavy that two earls had to stand, one on either side, to hold his head. The crown that Queen Elizabeth wears is worth over $20 million. Edward II once owned nine crowns, something of a record. Put them all together, from all of Europe and from the archives of the East, all of them are but trinkets compared to Christ’s crown. Revelation 19 says he had many diadems. He wears a crown of righteousness. He wears a crown of glory. He wears a crown of life. He wears a crown of peace and power. Among those crowns, one outshines the rest. It was not formed by the skilled fingers of a silversmith, nor created by the genius of a craftsman. It was put together hurriedly by the rough hands of Roman soldiers. It was not placed upon its wearer’s head in pomp and ceremony, but in the hollow mockery of ridicule and blasphemy. It is a crown of thorns.
The amazing thing is that it belonged to me. I deserved to wear that crown. I deserved to feel the thrust of the thorns. I deserved to feel the warm trickle of blood upon my brow. I deserved the pain. He took my crown of thorns—but without compensation. He offers to me instead His crown of life, the crown of His righteousness conferred to you and me; the crown that fadeth not away.
Transition
This morning we continue on our journey through the beatitudes, discovering the way of the master; the Pilgrim’s Path. Our focus today is upon Mathew 5:6 where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
In all of the beatitudes Jesus is contrasting the wisdom of the world. He is spelling out in no uncertain terms what it means to be a citizen of the Kingdom. As we read these passages it is incredibly important to hear them as they were spoken originally rather than through the filter of our Western Cultural background.
You and I have heard these and other words of Christ many times. Even those who are un-churched in our culture have had at least some exposure to Christ words.
Perhaps the greatest trouble in the Christian life in having known Christian influences all of our lives is that to an even greater extent than the rest of our culture, we can easily become desensitized to the meaning if not even the very nature of the words of Christ.
This day as we examine our text I invite you to set aside preconditions of thought surrounding this saying of Jesus. Hear God’s word afresh and anew this morning.
Exposition
Just as every human being alive on this planet has a natural thirst and hunger, so too each one of us has a spiritual thirst and hunger. God created humanity to live in relationship with Him. Intrinsic in our very composition is a bent toward worship. The terrible folly of this is that though we were created to worship the One True and Living God, many have replaced Him with other lesser gods.
When humanity fell into sin our nature was corrupted by the power of rebellion and yet not fully destroyed. Every man, woman, and child on this planet is worshipping something; though it may very well not be the something that they were created to worship.
There are those who have exchanged the pure worship of God for a restatement of God into their own image. These, though having a form of religious devotion, have cast aside the power and majesty of the pure worship of the God of the ages who has revealed Himself in the Bible. To these folks God is little more than a familiar and comforting concept from childhood.
There are those who have abandoned God outright; declaring not His will be done but mine! Crying out with every fiber of their being, if not with every action and decision of their life, “I am the master of my own destiny. In my own wisdom, strength, and knowledge I will place my trust!” For this increasing segment of our population the Gospel message is an affront to their own way.
As the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 1:25-26, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised… Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.”
We see the fulfillment of this in our very day and the continuation of it from the days of old. Whenever and wherever men have abandoned, denied, or rejected the only true and living God, in spite of His absence, something has been worshiped.
Just as man’s physical being is unsustainable without nourishment, just as man’s body is naturally bent to hunger and thirst for the physical nourishment of bread and water, so too man’s natural state is to live in an attitude of worship. Be a person pagan, Christian, Buddhist, modern naturalist, or outright atheist, rest assured; there is yet to be a person born who does not live out the days of His life worshipping something.
I read the story of a man who took a slip of paper and wrote upon it only three letters spelling “God.” He showed it to his friend who was plainly overcome with greed and the worship of wealth. He took a coin and after having placed the coin over the slip of paper asked his friend the same question, from a different perspective, “Can you see God?” Of course the man’s friend said that he could not. So it is with all men and women in this life. Whatever things that we place in front of God will block our view of God.
In Matthew 6:24 Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” Though Jesus gives the example of money taking precedence in our lives over God, the same could be said of many things.
You cannot serve both God and pride, you cannot serve both God and blind ambition, you cannot serve both God and any other thing because Jesus point here is that at the very core of our nature we have been made to worship God. The nourishment which our soul hungers and thirsts for is the nourishment of Christ very presence, the Holy Spirit of God residing in us.
The desperate trouble is that some, through anorexic spiritual living, have lost the sense of hunger that was hard wired into them from their very birth. It is an interesting thing that happens to people with eating disorders. After even a number of weeks and months of living with anorexia a person’s appetite begins to change.
After long periods of going without food an anorexic person begins to crave food less and less. A physical change occurs in them as they abandon their natural desire for food. Anorexia is a terrible disease which afflicts man people in our culture. It affects primarily women and while the specific cause of anorexia is unknown, though common factors can be easily discerned.
According to what I have read on the subject, most treatment providers believe that it almost always involves a poor self image which is largely driven by a culture that worships physical beauty.
This plays out to the detriment of those who see themselves as unequally beautiful. Though many in our culture have abandoned the worship of God, they have not abandoned worship entirely. The worship of physical beauty defined by arbitrary standards of magazine covers, temples built to the worship of self abound.
In John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Contrary to the commonly popular modern conception, our ultimate source of life is Christ! The nourishment for which our souls hunger and thirst is the nourishment that is found in abandoning the worship of oneself in favor of the worship of God!
To this culture I say Care for the body because the Bible says that it is the temple of the Holy Spirit not in order to meet the arbitrary standards of beauty and self worth. Ultimate worth comes directly from the source of all life.
It comes through an intimate connection with the vine which nourishes our souls; the worship of the one only True and Living God who offers the nourishment and satisfaction that we long for freely through His Son Jesus Christ!
Today, if your soul is weary, come to the fountain of pure water that flows beneath the Cross of Jesus Christ. Today, if your soul is tired, abandon the yoke of slavery to self, self image, and self will. Pick up the yoke of Christ which is easy and light. Find the rest that our souls so desperately long for!
In the book of Exodus is recounted the familiar account of the provision of God in the form of bread from Heaven for the Israelites after having fled Egypt and Pharaoh. In Exodus 16:31 it says, “The people of Israel called the bread manna. It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey.”
Just as the Lord provided for His people in the desert by sending them bread from heaven for the nourishment of their physical bodies, God has provided for us bread from Heaven for the nourishment of very souls eternally.
In I Corinthians 10:1-4 the Apostle Paul writes, “For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.”
Conclusion
There is a place near where Christina and I used to live in Florida, called Wall Spring Park. When Sebastian was a baby and then very little and first beginning to walk, she and I would regularly take him there. We would often push him the stroller around this beautiful pathway which had been built on a several acre area. On one side of the park there was a very nice playground. On another end of the park there were scenic outlooks which provided incredible views of the Gulf Coast. There was even an elevated platform which could be climbed to see for miles around the Palm Harbor, Florida area. The park and pathways were centered though, around Wall Springs. This little pool of bubbling crystal clear water feeds an equally clear pond which makes its way eventually to a bayou which runs into the ocean. It is a wonderful place that we enjoyed very much. The life was obvious and visible in the clear water with fish of many varieties and Florida wildlife of all kinds abundant in the water of the spring. There are pictures dotting the entire area of people being refreshed in the water in years past when there was a pool house built for recreation in the water prior to its becoming a natural sanctuary for the area wildlife.
There is an abundant fountain, a spring, which flows freely with the water of eternal life, eternal nourishment, eternal refreshment, eternal peace and life!
Speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus said, “Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)
You and I have been created to worship God. It is as natural to the life of our spiritual being as eating and drinking is to the life of our natural bodies! We have only need to come to the fountain of living water – Jesus Christ – to receive the satisfaction for the thirst of our souls. We need only to set aside the worship of all peripheral things in favor of worshipping the only true and Living God who has given us life through Jesus Christ.
Amen.
