A Healthy Hunger!
Matthew 5:6
Introduction:
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."
There are a few issues we need to address with this text, the first being the language in the words hunger and thirst. An interpretation that more accurately reflects the original meaning would read this verse like "Blessed are those who are hungering and thirsting for righteousness." This text is not speaking of a one-time event or a past occurrence, something that happened to be gotten over, but a constant longing, a deep insatiable continuous craving for righteousness.
Many folks in this building will never experience what it is like to really hunger and thirst, we are too busy struggling with the decision of whether or not we should supersize our next meal.
In 1987 I got such a sense of hunger and thirst. I was stationed on the Unites States Coast Guard Cutter Sweetbrier out of Cordova Alaska. The scope of duty for this ship and her crew was to provide search and rescue, aids to navigation, law enforcement patrols and international intervention. Since our missions were carried out in the Prince William Sound and the Bearing Sea, we all had to go through the Cold Water Survival School, which included a few days on an uninhabited island. We were dropped of a couple of hundred yards off the beach in our leaking ¡§water proof¡¨ Gumby suits and were required to swim to shore, establish a camp in our groups of four, get dry, build a shelter, conduct a perimeter search, compile resources and survive for a few days. We found out later that some groups smuggled cans of tuna, lighters, and tobacco. Our group followed the rules to the tee and we had nothing but wet clothes that became stiff as boards during the night. Toward the end of this training, I drank water from my rung out socks, and ate the rotten flesh off a washed up dead fish. I can tell you that I was really hungering and thirsting and had gotten to the point that my entire focus was on finding something to eat and drink and nothing else mattered.
THAT is the theme of this text. Jesus wants to get us to the point that we are hungering and thirsting to the degree that it is all we think about, He is all we think about. Having a deep insatiable continuous craving for righteousness
So, what are we to hunger and thirst for? Righteousness! What is righteousness? Well, it¡¦s really not that simple. In fact, scholars have debated this question as it pertains to this text for years. Some think this is speaking of:
1. Salvation given to us by God: And, that would seem to confirm the thought brought out in Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." I stated last week that those that desire a relationship with God must come to the place in their lives where they need a relationship with God. This is desperation, hungering and thirsting. The same hungering and thirsting that caused an entire congregation under the preaching of Jonathan Edwards to run down the aisle, grab onto the pew, cry out for mercy, fearing that at any moment the floor would open wide for hell to receive them.
The same hungering and thirsting that caused this pastor in 1990 to double time down the aisle of a church in Mass. under the full conviction of the Holy Spirit of God that I was a sinner in need of a Savior.
The same hungering and thirsting that has been experienced by countless thousands that have grown weary and tired of never being satisfied never being filled that finally cry out for satisfaction and discover what joy comes in salvation given to us by God.
Righteousness can mean our salvation given to us by God.
Another thought of what this righteousness is could be:
2. Standing given for us through Christ: Many scholars believe this hungering and thirsting to be eschatological in nature, that this righteousness causes us to look ahead and be confident through this life knowing that there will be a time when our Father will return, fix everything broken and make every wrong right. That when it is time for all of humanity to bow down before God that we will be found righteous and be permitted to remain in His glorious presence. Listen, I may not know much, but I know who Jesus is, what He did, where He is and who I am because of it all. I know that there is coming a day when I my heart will stop beating, my eyes will close, my breath will leave and those that are left behind will bury this body in the ground, throw up a gravestone marking the place where many think it all ended. But meanwhile up in heaven there will be some rejoicing going on for another sinner has come home. The angels will be swirling, the saints dancing, the greats shouting, my Savor standing, oh what a day, glorious day that will be!
Knowing these things are true, I am hungering and thirsting for that final day when the clouds are rolled back like a scroll, the trump shall resound and my Lord shall descend even so it is well with my soul!
And, still other theologians and scholars believe this righteousness to be:
3. Sanctification given by us for this world: This is where I settle down in the interpretation of the word righteousness. Sanctification, simply means "to set apart for a special purpose" and the "process of becoming holy." And, boy, do we need more believers that have an insatiable hungering and thirsting for the things of God to be more and more conformed to His image to be set apart and becoming holy!
The result of not having a hungering and thirsting for righteousness is hypocrisy owned by a professing Christian hence someone with a desecrated testimony. Remember when you first came into a relationship with Jesus Christ? If you were anything like me:
a. You could not read and hear enough from the Word of God.
b. You could not stay away from the house of God, coming every time the doors were opened, not imagining a time when your church family was meeting and you were not in the center of it all.
c. A time when you were telling everyone you met about the glorious transformation that had occurred in your life.
d. A time when you spent more time in prayer than you did watching TV.
e. A time when you were on committees, working with children, teaching youth, helping on church workdays, going on visitation, filling up the offering plate, planning that next mission trip: loving God and loving people!
f. A time when you were so consumed for the things of God, obsessed in the Word of God and in desperate love for the people of God and it was like you could never get enough, that your cup was constantly running over.
THAT is what it means, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Never getting over it nor losing the wonder of it all!
Tragically, so many Christians that used to be in the race are now in the ditch of life, no longer hungering and thirsting for righteousness.
Oh, friend, the need for you to hunger and thirst after righteousness is much bigger than you! Oh God will bless YOU if you are hungering and thirsting after Him. David knew this concept for he was a man AFTER, hungering and thirsting after God's own heart. There are certainly benefits to having an insatiable appetite for the things of God.
But here is the warning. When you cease to hunger and thirst after righteousness, you desecrate your testimony and trade power for hypocrisy and become gospel useless. And when that happens, you lose joy, power, peace and victory in your life at best and become the excuse others use to reject the gospel of Jesus Christ at worst.
I believe that Christians have unintentionally started more religions and cults than anyone else.
ILL: In the 6th century a young man was born in to this world, his dad dying before he was born and his mom dying when he was but 7 years old. He was then raised by his Grandfather who died and left him in the care of his Uncle. In spite of this background, he became a young man of great reputation: honest, hard-working, driven and passionate. He would go off every year in isolation during the holy month of Ramadan and fast from sunup till sundown, spending that time praying. It was during this time that an "angel" came to him, declared him a messenger and told him to start a new religion. He ran home scared and told his wife and family to cover him for protection. When he questioned this "angels" message from God for him to become a messenger and to start a new religion, his wife brought him to her cousin, who was known as a Christian savant, someone that had a reputation for being informed and educated in Christianity. This "Christian" confirmed his calling, declared him to be a true prophet of God and empowered him to start a new religion. This religion is now the second largest religion in the world, I am talking about Muhammad and Islam.
ILL: In 1869 Mahatma Gandhi was born in India and became a leader and voice of the third largest world religion, Hinduism. He had the power to convert all to Christianity and did in fact investigate other religions even embracing some aspects of another religion, Sikhism. This is what he stated of Christianity: "like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
ILL: In 1930 Howard was born in Chicago, a very intelligent man with a troubled past, dropping out of high school and joining the carnival. He was exposed to many religions and even dabbled in the occult; he was what we would call a seeker. He was drawn more to Christianity than any other religion and even started playing the organ for traveling preachers. Of Christianity, he writes, "On Saturday night I would see men lusting after half-naked girls dancing at the carnival, and on Sunday morning when I was playing the organ for tent-show evangelists at the other end of the carnival lot, I would see these same men sitting in the pew with their wives and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday night they¡¦d be back at the carnival or some other place of indulgence. I knew then that the Christian Church thrives on hypocrisy, and that man¡¦s carnal nature will out!" So, he wrote a book and started his own church, the book? The Satanic bible and the church is the church of Satan.
That is why I stated that I believe Christians have unintentionally started more religions and cults than anyone else. What would this world be like if more "Christians" were hungering and thirsting after righteousness? What would you be more like if you were hungering and thirsting after righteousness?
Poor in Spirit: inherit the kingdom of God, mourn: receive comfort, meekness: inherit the earth, hunger and thirst after righteousness:
4. Satisfaction given in us with the Holy Spirit
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."
This is the message humanity needs so desperately to hear today, when you hunger and thirst for Christ, HE WILL FILL YOU! This world just does not get this! Oh, there are many that are hungering and thirsting today, just for the wrong things.
Drugs, relationships, alcohol, family, hobbies, education, money, approval, health, vanity, position, careers, power, and the list goes on and on. Never forget: God designed us to have a hungering and a thirsting, He placed eternity in our hearts, it is in our DNA! This is not new. Nor is it new for humanity to hunger and thirst after something other than God:
a. Satan was hungering and thirsting to rise into the heavens and become God. God humbled him. This was a hunger and thirst for Power that was never satisfied.
b. King Nebuchadnezzar looked down at the great kingdom of Babylon and declared, "Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?" God humbled him. This was a hunger and thirst for Praise that was never satisfied.
c. In the story of the rich young fool, as taught by Jesus, depicted a man who thought life was summed up in the statement "eat, drink and be merry". God humbled him. This was a hunger and thirst for Pleasure that was never satisfied.
Hear me. Only when we hunger and thirst after righteousness will we ever experience the deep down, complete satisfaction and filling that comes from God.
INV.
