As we have considered the beatitudes thus far, we have talked about how Jesus says that happiness is found in brokenness, happiness is found in mourning, happiness is found in meekness, and now, we will look at what Jesus had to say about how happiness is found in hungering and thirsting after righteousness (READ TEXT).
Notice how each of these fits together. “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” “They will be comforted,” “They will inherit the earth,” They will be filled.” Isn’t that wonderful? If we sum it all up, we receive everything there is if we are willing to accept God’s conditions for true happiness and live by the principles and promises laid out in these teachings of our Savior; and one of these conditions is that we learn to hunger and thirst after righteousness.
What is righteousness? The word means, “conformity to that which is right.” God is altogether righteous. There is nothing about God that is not right. His thoughts are right. His words are right. His actions are right. When it comes to being right and doing right - God is our standard to which we should want to conform.
Having realized our spiritual bankruptcy and trusted in God’s saving power, we have been made citizens of the kingdom of heaven. As such, we must learn how to live like who we now are in Christ.
To do this, we gain the proper perspective on sin and self. We are not to live for sin or for ourselves, but for God. That’s what hungering and thirsting after righteousness is all about - desiring to be right with God and do right for God. But what does such desire look like?
1. It is a conscious desire.
Jesus was talking about hunger and thirst to people who understood what He was talking about. The Greek verbs used by our Savior are very powerful. “Peinao” means to be needy, to suffer deep hunger. “Dipsao” carries the idea of genuine thirst. Jesus is describing a type of desire that one cannot ignore.
Now when we think of thirst, we think of simply wanting something to drink. When we think of hunger, we think in terms of it being 1 o’clock and we’re used to eating at noon.
Major V. Gilbert tells in his book, The Last Crusade, of the thirst he and his men suffered in the Palestinian desert in World War I:
“Our heads ached. Our eyes became bloodshot and dim in the blinding glare . . . Our tongues began to swell . . . our lips turned to a purplish black and burst. Those who dropped out of the column were never seen again, but the desperate force battled on to Sheria. There were wells at Sheria, and had they been unable to take the place by nightfall, thousands were doomed to die of thirst.
We fought that day as men fight for their lives. We entered Sheria’s station on the heels of the retreating Turks. The first objects which met our view were the great stone cisterns full of cold, clear drinking wa¬ter . . . It took four hours before the last man had his drink of water . . . I believe that we all learned our first real Bible lesson on that march from Beersheba to the Sheria wells. If such were our thirst for God and for righteousness, for His will in our lives, a consuming, all-embracing, preoccupying desire, how rich in the fruit of the Spirit would we be.”
This desire that Jesus speaks of here is really a “life or death” desire to be right with God and do right for God. It is a conscious desire, a desire we cannot ignore.
2. It is a continuous desire.
Jesus puts these strong physical impulses in a continuous action, literally, He says, “The one’s who ARE hungering; the ones who ARE thirsting.”
When I came to Jesus Christ, I hungered and thirsted to be declared right with Him; and now that I have been declared right with Him, I desire to live right for Him. Having come to know Him, I desire to know Him more. Such is the nature of the hunger and thirst that leads to true happiness and fulfillment in life.
R.C.H. Lenski, says in his commentary on this passage that, “this hungering and this thirsting continues and, in fact, increases in the very act of being satisfied.”
Let me use Moses as an illustration. When he had been in the wilderness for forty years, God called him. He saw God in the burning bush. When Moses went back to lead Israel out of Egypt, he saw God’s hand in the plagues and in the parting of the Red Sea. He saw God as they moved, guided by the great Shekinah glory of God in the heavens. He saw God in water to drink and manna to eat. But after he built a tabernacle in obedience to God, Moses said, “God, I want to see your glory.”
You might say, “C’mon, Moses, enough is enough!” But Moses would say, “No, it’s not enough.” God took him up into the mountain and showed him a flaming finger that etched the law of God in the tablets of stone, and when Moses came down, it was not enough for him. It was never enough. He kept going back up. “Please. Let me see your Glory,” he said in Exodus 33:18 (The Message). This is the characteristic of a believer who is blessed of God. They always hunger for more.
David was a man after God’s own heart who walked in close communion with the Lord. He wrote Psalm 23. He had known God all his life. God had protected him and cared for him. Zeal for God’s house had eatery him up.
The pain that fell on God fell on him. He knew God intimately.
Yet in Psalm 42:1-2 (NIV), he cried out, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?”
In Psalm 63:1 (The Message) he says, “God - you’re my God! I can’t get enough of you! I’ve worked up such hunger and thirst for God, traveling across dry and weary deserts.” He’s saying that the hunger and thirst never diminish. In the life of a believer who is blessed by God, this is the way of life.
The apostle Paul had three personal visions of Jesus Christ, beginning on the Damascus Road (Acts 9:3-9), then at Corinth (Acts 18:9-10), and then caught up into the third heaven to see things too wonderful to behold (2 Corinthians 12:1-4). Paul wrote theology and penned the great expressions of divine truth in the New Testament. What more could he want?
Yet the cry of his heart in Philippians 3:10 (Amplified) is: “[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly].”
Such is the nature of the desire of the truly spiritual Christian.
“A truly spiritual Christian is a paradox in that he is always satisfied, yet ever seeking. He never thirsts, yet is always thirsting. He is perfectly content, yet ever wants more. He enjoys to the full what he possesses moment by moment, yet knows there is always more beyond and eagerly longs for it.” - Ruth Paxton
If we would know true happiness and true fulfillment, we must gain the proper perspective on spirituality. A truly spiritual Christian is not one who believes he has “arrived,” but one who consciously and continuously hungers and thirsts after righteousness - to be right with God and do right for God.
3. It is a Christ-centered desire.
As we said earlier, righteousness is defined as “conformity to that which is right.” The righteousness spoken of by our Lord is therefore to be understood as “conformity to that which God says is right.”
But how do we know what God says is right? How has He revealed His standard of righteousness? He has done so through His Son.
“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’” - 1 Peter 2:21-22 (NIV)
The word Peter uses to speak of Christ’s example is “upogrammon,” which means, “pattern.” Christ is our pattern for right living. In hungering and thirsting after righteousness, we should desire to be like Christ.
We must always measure ourselves by Jesus - our pattern.
I’m not much of a carpenter, but one thing I have learned through the years is that when you have several boards to cut at the same length, you need to measure and cut one for a pattern, which you then use to measure the rest of the boards you cut. If you measure the first one, then use it as a pattern for the next one, then use the one you just cut as a pattern for the next one and so on, you will find that the width of the pencil mark will cause you to be progressively off until, when you finally get to the final board, depending on how many boards you cut, you may be off by as much as an inch or more. The further removed I am from the original cut, the more off I will be.
Likewise, though there may be much I can learn from the example of others, I must remember that they are still several “cuts” off from the original - Jesus. I must always measure myself by Him.
True spirituality then, is measured by the depth and intensity of my desire to be like Jesus. It is only as I develop a conscious, consistent desire to be more like Jesus that I can progress in my journey down the path that leads to true happiness and fulfillment.
Conclusion: A hungry man doesn’t want food and a new suit. A thirsty man doesn’t want water and a new pair of shoes. They just want food and water. Likewise, a truly spiritual Christian desires nothing other than Christ-likeness. This single focus in life is the key to me, as a Christian, experiencing the happiness that Jesus speaks of here. Again, this passage can be literally translated, “Blessed are the one’s who are hungering; the ones who are thirsting for righteousness, for they ALONE will be filled.”
When we think of hunger or thirst, we understand that there are two reasons why I might hunger or thirst for something.
A. I can hunger or thirst for something because of the satisfaction it brings.
“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” - 1 Peter 2:2-3 (NIV)
My prayer is that each of us might have this kind of hunger or thirst for righteousness. But if not, my prayer is that God might bring you to the point to where you have the second kind of hunger or thirst.
B. I can hunger or thirst for something because I am dissatisfied with what I have.
The prodigal in Luke 15 experienced this. He pursued his desire for wealth, popularity, high living, and in return found that all those things are fleeting. He ended up feeding pigs and desiring their slop to satisfy his hunger. As a result, his hunger caused him to realize he would be better off returning to the Father. That’s where some of you are today.
Only living with a deep desire to be right with God and do right for God results in a life of happiness, fulfillment and genuine satisfaction.
