Hungry and Thirsty For What?
Matthew 5:6
Sunday October 23, 2016
Today we continue in the series the Upside Down Kingdom with a focus on The Beatitudes found in Matthew 5. As we begin I thought I would start with a short quiz to see how much you may remember of the beatitudes we have covered so far. So here are a series of short questions. Don’t shout out the answer yet. Just consider the options as I read them.
How many beatitudes are there?
1. 4
2. 6
3. 8
4. 10
There are 8 beatitudes!
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
1. for theirs is eternal life
2. for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
3. for they will be given riches
4. for they will be showered with money
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
1. for they have lost someone
2. for they will be comforted
3. for they will get better
4. for they will continue to mourn
Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
1. for they will be given much
2. for they will be made bold
3. for they will be weak
4. for they will inherit the earth
Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.
And now the focus of today’s sermon.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
1. for they will be emptied
2. for they will be filled
3. for they will be right
4. for they will find it
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
As we continue I want to give credit to Pastor Timothy Smith and other pastors for the valuable contribution they made to the development of this sermon.
Now moving on, how many of you have heard the song “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones. For those of you who haven’t heard it before, the words are simple – I can’t get no satisfaction, I can’t get no satisfaction, ‘Cause I try and I try and I try and I try.
Whenever I hear that song I am reminded that the reason that song was a hit, was that the words expressed accurately the condition of our culture and it is still relevant for our society today. Satisfaction seems to be so elusive for so many of us.
I hear it said like this: "My life seems so empty." "I’ve got so much and yet something seems to be missing." "I’m bored with living." "Is this all there is?"
Mother Theresa once said, "People in India are physically hungry. People in America are spiritually hungry. That makes people in India better off, because American’s (and I would add Canadians too) don’t realize why they are starving."
And there continues to be this gnawing inside for contentment, for a filling that really satisfies. So many people, including many of those who claim to be Christians, still echo Mick Jagger’s words. "I can’t get no satisfaction."
Why? Well, God says the reason we suffer from dissatisfaction in life is because we are looking for it in all the wrong places, just like one of Hollywood’s many rich, famous, and beautiful people, who said, “I obtained everything I wanted: wealth, fame, accomplishment in my career. I had beautiful children, a lifestyle that seemed terrific, yet I was totally miserably unhappy. I found it frightening that one could acquire all these things and still be so miserable.”
This person got what she hungered and thirsted for but was not blessed or satisfied. We too are tempted just like everyone else to think that our happiness is found in the stuff of life.
And so in this fourth beatitude, Jesus continues the progression that will build a blessed life. These are not just individual pithy proverbs. These "Be- attitudes," come in sequence and provide the keys to genuine joy.
Once we have recognized our need, (poor in spirit) have acknowledged and turned from our sin (that is to mourn), and released our lives over to God’s control, (that is to be meek), we are then, and only then, ready to seek genuine and lasting satisfaction.
The first three beatitudes taught us our need for depending completely on God; that we had to empty ourselves. Then Jesus says, Now that you’re empty, here’s how the starving can be satisfied; here’s how to be filled. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled (or satisfied)." And so an understanding of what Jesus’ is saying here is essential.
To begin with we need to understand that Jesus was talking to people who understood what it meant to be hungry or thirsty. The word he uses for hunger means to ardently crave food. It’s the same with thirst. He uses a strong word to describe thirsting which means to painfully feel the need for water.
Jesus wasn’t originally speaking to well fed Canadians. He was talking to people who knew what it was to go to bed hungry or famished, not just a craving for food but a gnawing hunger. The hunger that Christ spoke about wasn’t just a Big Mac attack, it meant hungry to the point of starving and thirsty or parched to the point of death.
Jesus is trying to convey the thought that the quest for righteousness is not some idle task that you do when you have nothing better to do with your time. It’s a top priority!
Few of us know what it means to be without food or drink for days on end, and to long for just the tiniest bit of nourishment. But that’s the kind of hunger and thirst that Jesus is referring to. When we are hungry and thirsty in the way Jesus describes, it changes our perspective.
One of the stories told about the sinking of the Titanic is about a wealthy woman who was about to get on a life boat and said, "Wait, I forgot something!" The mate told her she had 3 minutes. She ran back to her state room, past the money strewn about in the casino, past the antique glassware in the dining room, she reached over her diamonds and gold jewelry on her dresser, and ran back to the life boat clutching four oranges that she had saved from lunch.
That’s the kind of longing Jesus is talking about; the kind that radically changes our perspective. Our longing for righteousness is to be as a starving person desires food, and as someone perishing for drink. This is not a casual desire, or stomach growlings between meals, this hunger and thirst is the kind that comes from desperation.
And that "something" that we are to be desperate for is His righteousness. So what exactly is Jesus talking about? What does he mean by “righteousness”, because in the original language the word “the” is before it, meaning a specific righteousness, the righteousness of God?”
And the word Jesus uses here can have a couple of meanings, one I would think is a secondary definition and one a primary definition but both have relevance.
The first definition for this word righteousness would mean right living or living rightly. In the Greek culture the word Jesus used here, described a person who constantly fulfilled their duty to the gods and to others. It was a word of passion; passion to do the right thing no matter what.
In its simplest sense, righteousness is absolute obedience. We are to hunger and thirst for our lives to be in line with God’s design. James 4:17 tells us that to know the right thing to do and not do it, is just as wrong as doing the incorrect act. So, here righteousness means right living or doing the right thing.
But the second and I think primary meaning of the word "righteousness" is one that we do not think about often and it is this meaning that we so desperately need. The Greek word for righteousness that Jesus uses here has to do with more than doing the right thing, but rather emphasizes having a right relationship. We are to be intensely longing for a relationship with God.
It means "to justify." It means to recognize that God has justified us, or accepted us into a relationship with Him, even though we do not deserve such a relationship. This new relationship was offered at the cross, where Jesus sacrificed himself for our sin.
Back in 2002 Elizabeth Smart was reunited with her family in Utah after being abducted from her home and having been held captive for 9 months. When I think of Elizabeth, taken from her home, forced to live as someone else, in some other home, I think that she must have been longing to get back to her family. It must have been a hunger for her. I don’t believe that she was thinking “I need to get home so I can do my chores, and clean my room” I doubt that. She was hungry for HOME...it’s where she belonged! It’s where her love is. That’s what Jesus is talking about here...hungering for righteousness is our longing for home.
Turning this around. Do you think that Elizabeth’s parents were thinking during that 9 months of her abduction, “I wish Elizabeth were here to get her chores done, and clean her room and get good grades so we look good.”? No way! They ached to have their daughter back because she was theirs, they LOVE her.
This is the heart of God! God doesn’t want us to come to him because he needs some stuff done! He loves us because he created us and we belong to him!
And as long as you see your relationship to Jesus just as a commitment of obligation, as just doing the right thing, living a life of duty, you will never find the satisfaction that is promised. Jesus doesn’t just want right living, He desires a right relationship with you.
And so the problem with only looking at doing the right thing, is when we fail, we see God as a stern law giver. And as long as we think of God as the stern law giver, there can be nothing between us but distance, estrangement and fear.
But once we know God is ready to accept us as we are, and to love us and to forgive us just as we are, and to transform us from where we are, the distance is replaced by intimacy, the estrangement by love, and the fear by grateful trust.
Do you long, passionately, desperately, intensely for a right relationship with Jesus? Yes, flowing out of a right relationship is living rightly. But that becomes cold commitment and obligatory obedience if we do not have a real and vibrant relationship with Him.
And Jesus has always, always emphasized intimacy with him over just obedience to rules. For example He says in John 14:15 - "If you love me (notice the relationship factor?) If you love me, obey My commandments." (NLT)
And in Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV) the apostle Paul reminds us "For we are saved by grace, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast."
Sometimes people stop there but verse 10 is just as important. "For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." Ephesians 2:10 (NIV).
Do you see the relationship factor? He saved us by His grace, and we now serve Him, not purely out of cold commitment or obligatory obedience, but because we are so grateful to have been saved by the sacrifice of Jesus from the penalty and power of sin.
Please remember. Christianity is not meant to be a religion, it is meant to be a relationship, a relationship with God. And Jesus is saying, “If you want to be satisfied, if you want to be filled, then passionately, intensely, above anything else, hunger and thirst, long for and seek, a right relationship with Me."
The story is told of a young student who went to his spiritual teacher and asked the question, "Master, how can I truly find God?" The teacher asked the student to accompany him to the river which ran by the village and invited him to go into the water.
When they got to the middle of the stream, the teacher said, "Please immerse yourself in the water." The student did as he was instructed, whereupon the teacher put his hands on the young man's head and held him under the water. Immediately the student began to struggle. The master continued to hold him under.
The student was thrashing and beating the water and air with his arms. Still, the master held him under the water. Finally, the student was released and shot up from the water, lungs aching and gasping for air.
The teacher waited for a few moments and then said, "When you desire God to the same level you just desired to breathe, then you shall truly find God."
The Psalmist expressed it with these words, As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. Psalm 42:1,2 (NLT)
So what do you long for? Let’s be truthful, if I asked you about what you long for, what you would want if you could have anything at all, what would it be? A new car, a bigger home, a better job? What would it be? Maybe that’s the problem. How many of us can honestly say "If I could have anything in the world I would ask for righteousness"?
Now, you may say, "How can I know if I am really hungering and thirsting, longing for righteousness the way Jesus says?” Is there some measurement?
Well, it’s really a pretty simple evaluation- Just measure yourself by your longings. What are you passionate about? What are your priorities? Please don’t misunderstand. There are times you may long for the wrong things, you may not always do everything right.
But Jesus is saying here, that an increased longing for him and a decreased longing for the wrong things, is what will bring us to the point where we’re being filled. You see our walk with Jesus is not measured by perfection but by progress.
In Hebrews 12:1 (NIV) it says, “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Note that we have to throw off not just sin but also “everything that hinders”.
Our choice is not just between good and evil but also between good and better and best. Something may not be sin but it may hinder us from seeking God. It may be something that is eating up our time and strength. But we are not hungering and thirsting for God and what He wants for our lives.
Notice Jesus doesn’t say, "Blessed are those who always live right," but rather, "who long rightly." Your relationship with Him should be a growing one. You ought to be able to look back, say, 5 years ago, and say, "I’m closer to Him now than I was then." "I’m finding greater contentment in my life now, than when I didn’t know Jesus.” If you can’t say that, maybe you are looking in the wrong places for your satisfaction.
Now let’s watch this short video about the history of the mount of the beatitudes.
Video – Mount Of The Beatitudes http://www.sermonspice.com/product/65739/mt-of-beatitudes
I love history and geography and I thought you might enjoy this short video about it too.
There are a lot of things that will not satisfy that people long for. We could talk about power, pleasure and prestige, but let me just briefly mention two that I think are the most relevant in our culture today.
The first wrong place where I think we look for satisfaction, is in performance. Some of you here may labor under the impression that happiness is based on achievement. But those before you who thought that, will tell you different, because they’ve grown old and gray, and discovered that all their great performance lies in the dust of loneliness.
They have no meaningful relationships, they have lost love and have discovered that with time, they themselves have becomes expendable in the workplace.
Ecclesiastes 2:23 (LB) says- "What does a man get for all his hard work? Days full of sorrow and grief, and restless nights."
Here’s one to put on your desk to keep a proper perspective on performance. Read it with me- "You work for something with all your skill, and then you have to leave it all to someone who hasn’t had to work for it." (Ecclesiastes 2:21 TEV)
You see there is this myth that "success produces satisfaction," and it may to a degree, but that is not fully true. There are a great many "successful" people in the worlds eyes and yet, they are continually restless, discontented and unsatisfied.
Lasting satisfaction is not found in performance, nor is it found in another false front, possessions. Today there are more products than ever before and they all say, "Satisfaction" _____ what? "Guaranteed."
Do you know that according to the patents bureau that there are twice as many products on the market today then there were 10 years ago? Are people twice as happy? No.
Ecclesiastes 5:10 says - "Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness!.”(NIV)
We may not say it, but for many of us, deep down we believe that when I get enough money, my problems will be solved. Those that are rich will tell you that’s not true. They’ve got the money and are still not completely satisfied.
So, what is the key to happiness? The Bible tells us in Psalms 37:4- "seek your happiness in the Lord..." (TEV)
You see, this piece of the puzzle is gained when we stop looking for happiness and start looking for Him. Happiness is not found, it’s given.
The Bible repeatedly teaches us that happiness is a bi-product of seeking God. One of the great paradoxes of life is this: If you make happiness your goal, you’ll miss it. Genuine joy isn’t found by looking for it, it’s given to you when you find God.
And notice that Jesus promises lasting satisfaction. The word He uses here for “filled” means to be stuffed to the point of contentment. It’s that word that would describe us when we say, “I can’t eat any more.” So, this is no temporary filling, Jesus is promising complete and full satisfaction.
Nicholas Herman worked in the food service industry. He was a short-order cook and bottle washer. But he became deeply dissatisfied with his life; he worried chronically about himself, even whether or not he actually was a follower of Jesus.
One day he was looking at a tree, and the same truth struck him that struck the psalmist so long ago: the secret of the life of a tree is that it remains rooted in something other and deeper than itself.
He decided to make his life an experiment in what he called a “habitual, silent, secret conversation of the soul with God.”
He is known today by the new name given to him by his friends: Brother Lawrence. He remained obscure throughout his life. He never got voted to become leader, the CEO of his organization. He stayed in the kitchen.
But the people around him found that rivers of living water flowed out of him that made them want to know God the way he did. “The good brother found God everywhere,” one of them wrote, “as much while he was repairing shoes as while he was praying with the community.”
After Lawrence died, his friends put together a book of his letters and conversations. It is called Practicing the Presence of God and is thought, apart from the Bible, to be the most widely read book of the last four centuries.
As was mentioned earlier, one of Hollywood’s rich and famous who had every desire of this world satisfied and she doesn’t feel blessed. A monk who didn’t own the clothes on his back but who was so blessed, he lived such an attractive life that people collected his letters to put in a book, and people have made that book popular for over four hundred years. His one ambition was to know the presence of Christ, to experience His righteousness.
And yet there are so many people, perhaps some right here, that are discontented with life, who are not satisfied. I think, for some, that’s due to the fact that they’ve never heard about the radical search that Jesus gives here. For some, who have heard it, perhaps they just don’t know how to seek Him.
So, let’s close today by suggesting three things to do in order to hunger and thirst after Him so we can be satisfied.
Firstly, recognize your real need. The first thing you need to do is recognize your real hunger. What is it that is missing in my life?
Please listen. God made us as spiritual beings. We were made in His image. We are like Him. We were created to love Him and know Him and nothing, absolutely nothing will fill that gap. Not people, not possessions, not prestige... nothing except knowing Him. You must recognize that you are a spiritual being with a need, a hunger and thirst for God.
It says in John 7:37 (NIV) "On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink."
Jesus spoke these words during the Feast of Tabernacles. This was a highest, happiest, holiest day in the life of the Jewish People.
The Feast of Tabernacles was like Canada Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, all rolled into one.
During that feast the High Priest would go to the Pool of Siloam, take a golden pitcher, dip it into that water, and carry it back to the temple. There he would pour the water out on the altar of sacrifice.
At that moment the Levites would blow the trumpets and the great crowd would cry out: (Loud) "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation". That is from Isaiah 12:3 (NIV). There would be leaping, dancing, shouting, and singing, great hallelujahs would fill the air.
And it was right at this climax of this great Feast that the Lord Jesus stood up in that crowd and cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.” John 7:37b (NIV)
Jesus knew that they were drinking from the river of ritual. And after this day was over they would go back to the same old fears, the same old faults, the same old failures, the same old frustrations.
And what was wrong with that crowd is what is wrong with many today even among us. They were drawing water from the wrong well. And too often, we too drink from the well of this world, instead of from the well of eternal life, the well of life which is found only in Christ Jesus.
If you would like to gain a spiritual thirst than listen to our Jesus’ words once again: "If anyone is thirsty, let them come to me and drink." John 7:37b (NIV).
God lets us get hungry and thirsty because He knows that nothing but Him alone satisfies! When someone says to you, "I’m really dissatisfied with my life," "I’m really miserable." You should say, "Good! Congratulations! Now you can find out what God has been wanting you to know all along.
You need Him more than anyone or anything else! Jesus is saying, "Satisfaction is not in performance, pleasure, possessions, or people, it’s in me! I made you with a spiritual vacuum and unless you fill it with Me you will always be hungry."
As Blaise Pascal, a Christian philosopher of the seventeenth century said, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every person which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”
And similarly Saint Augustine said, "You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You."
Secondly, stop eating spiritual junk food. Stop spending your energies and wasting the majority of your time and energy on things that really don’t satisfy.
Isaiah 55:2 says, "Why do you spend money on what cannot nourish you and your wages on what does not satisfy? Consume what is good for your soul!"(GW)
In other words, put more energy into your relationship with Jesus, and less energy on the things of this world.
Let me ask you about your priorities? What do you read the most? What do you watch the most? What do you listen to the most? Who are those that you go to for advice? If your answers to those questions are not godly influences, than you have a problem. Now, I am not saying to become so spiritually minded that you are no earthly good. But what is the comparison between the influences you are digesting and the godly influences?
In Australia there is the nardoo plant, an edible clover fern that’s made into cakes. The nardoo is very tasty and sweet but if not prepared properly it has no nutritional value. So people who eat it, like it and feel filled, but it has no other value.
The same is true here. No one is saying you have to give up the things you enjoy (as long as they are not destructive or hurtful to others) but just make sure you’re giving proper priority to things that nurture your soul like a personal time with God set aside for reading the Bible, reflection and prayer, spending time with those who know and love God, serving Him, sharing your faith with others, and so on.
If you will begin to fill your life with these positive spiritual things, you know what you’ll find? The more you get spiritually, the more you want. You’ll start longing for it. I know that to be true from personal experience. Stop only eating spiritual junk food, things that fill, but won’t satisfy.
How do you experience satisfaction? (1) Recognize your need. (2) Stop eating spiritual junk food and (3) Start looking to Jesus Christ for your satisfaction.
Jesus says in John 6:35 - "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."
In closing, C.S. Lewis, a Christian author of the previous century pictured this craving for God and our resistance to it in an episode from The Silver Chair. The lion represents Jesus and Jill represents us.
When Jill stopped, she found she was dreadfully thirsty. She listened carefully and felt almost sure she heard the sound of running water. Jill looked around her very carefully. There was no sign of the Lion; so she plucked up her courage to look for running water.
She came to an open glade and saw the stream, bright as glass. Although the sight of the water made her feel ten times thirstier than before, she didn’t rush forward and drink. She stood still as if she had been turned to stone, with her mouth wide open. And she had a very good reason. Just this side of the stream lay the Lion.
“Are you thirsty?” said the Lion. “I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill. “Then drink,” said the Lion. “May I—could I—would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
“Will you promise not to—do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill. “I make no promise,” said the Lion. Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer. “Do you eat girls?” she said. “I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion.
“I dare not come and drink,” said Jill. “Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion. “Oh, dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.” “There is no other stream,” said the Lion.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."
Let us pray.
