What do you desire?
Matt 5:6
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Intro: What do we want?
1: Hunger
a) craving
b) great need or desire for something
c) void or emptiness’ needing to be filled
Point: Blessed are those that hunger, those who desire who crave righteousness, to all the people who have looked to the sky and prayed on bended knees seeking to be more than what they were the day before. Always seeking a closer walk a more personal relationship with Jesus Christ, so what do you want?
2: Thirst
a) also a craving
b) a desire for a liquid to quench ones dry mouth and throat
c) to relieve the parched dried out sun beaten
Point: Thirst and hunger are synonymous they mean the same thing, Jesus is teaching a principle here for people to understand that just enough is not good enough. Just being saved will get you to heaven and that is phenomenal but there is some much more fulfillment to be had in the life lived for Christ.
Just going to church is not enough
Get involved in something
Just praying when you have a problem only opens a few doors
Speak to the Lord everyday, spend time with him
Just going with the flow, can get you washed away
Stand fast upon your faith and allow Jesus Christ to engulf you with his love and purpose
Body: Malnourishment
1: Look at the church!!
Mark 2:1-12
a) story of a paralytic man and his friends helping him to see Jesus
b) Jesus taught in the house that day
c) It wasn’t a Sabbath but he took the opportunity to share the gospel
d) So many people gathered around you couldn’t get in the door
e) You couldn’t see through a window
Point: Jesus would have been offered a time to teach in the synagogue on the Sabbath instead when folks found out he was in town they came too him. He didn’t turn them away; the scripture says he preached the word unto them. What about you? What would we have done, as a church are we only open on Sundays, can we only seek the Lord on the Sabbath? Doesn’t seem that way too me, he was doing work everywhere and anywhere he went.
2: What the church should be.
a) the church should be willing to carry sick folks to Christ
b) the church should be willing to find a way to get them to Great Physician
c) if we have to dig
d) bust open a roof
e) or tear down a wall
Point: Those people loved that man enough to carry him to where Jesus was, when they got there they didn’t give up or quit when they couldn’t get in the door. They found a way to get him to Jesus. What about us? How many times have we sacrificed or went out of our way to help someone get to Christ? The church should model this story of faith and care!!
3: Jesus forgives and heals
a) Forgiveness always precedes healing
b) V 5 Son thy sins be forgiven thee.
c) He came to Jesus with help from friends and by doing so was forgiven and healed
d) Faith takes action, read the book of James
Point: for healing to occur we must first confess we must act, we have to get up and do. These people were doing, when he saw their faith, what does he see when he looks at you? The church needs to be full of doers of the word, men and women of action. Too many people are sick with sin and lost too be sitting around in mediocrity and just settling for the minimum. Where’s the hunger, the thirst?
Conclusion: John 1:16
And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.
Fullness we receive is more than God’s disposition or impersonal favor, it is God meeting us at our point of need through Jesus Christ.
Maybe it’s time we embody the same character in ourselves in reaching others for Christ, meeting people at the point of their needs through and for Christ.
