Hungering for God
CCCAG May 28th, 2017
Scripture- Matthew 5:6
I want to speak to you today about hunger. Hunger doesn’t just involve the stomach rumbling, but can involve other things in life that bring you a sense of fulfillment or happiness.
In the early 90’s, I had taken the Wisconsin EMT basic class. After I graduated, I joined a basic, volunteer service in Kenosha as I couldn’t afford to do it full time as EMT’s barely made minimum wage and I had a family to support. I worked the volunteer squad doing special events and being the backup for other county squads.
Occasionally, we would interact with paramedics when we had a critical patient and needed the advanced help. The paramedics would come in and take over the patient. They were calm, professional, and seemed to know exactly what to do and what was going on with the patient. They had a patch on their arm that looks like this one (show patch), and I dreamed and longed for the day when I might be able earn the right to wear that patch on my arm.
So, in the mid 1990’s I went through a solid year of training known as paramedic school. For that year, Tammie and the kids saw very little of me. If I wasn’t working 50 hrs a week, I was at school. If I wasn’t working or at school, I was doing clinical or ride time. I was often running on very little sleep, and was really dedicated to getting all my time done before class ended. I had this vision at the end of having a license, and the patch with my license number on my shoulder.
I got to the end, graduated and then took my boards which I got a 98% on. A week later, my license came in the mail stating I was now able to practice as a paramedic. It didn’t mean a lot to me at the time until the day my patches came. I remember sitting on the couch and Tammie bringing up the mail and handing me the envelope with 6 of the patches in them.
I remember staring at that patch and seeing my license number on it. I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. I actually hugged it to my chest and for me it was the fulfillment of a year of sacrifice and really hard work.
A few months later, I took a job as a full-time paramedic, and over time that feeling of accomplishment faded, and I felt like I needed to do something else, so I became an instructor in CPR and ACLS- that made me an “expert” in prehospital emergency medicine. After that, they made me a preceptor- training new people and paramedic students. I found fulfillment in that for a while.
But that nagging feeling of needing more was still there. So, I became a station manager. Still, that feeling persisted. Then I became ALS manager, the boss of all the paramedics...and still there was something there that was empty in my accomplishment.
It was as if I felt, “Ok you did that, what is next?”
I’ve seen this several times in my life since then- I’ve completed bible school- took me 8 years but I did it, advanced paramedic including critical care and community paramedicine, and have had several accomplishments in my life. Initially there was the rush of accomplishment, then it faded and I was longing for something else again and I looked for something else to do and accomplish to feed that hunger in me for a challenge and a victory.
What I have learned through this self-examination is what the bible speaks to when it says What we hunger for in life speaks to what is really on the inside of us. It points to what we really place our sense of value and what we really trust in.
The first three beatitudes speak of a person becoming completely empty before God- casting aside everything in this life for the sake of knowing Jesus.
The 4th beatitude speaks to what we fill that empty vessel with- or what we actually pursue in life to bring us happiness and satisfaction.
Note what Jesus is saying here- He didn’t give us a list of things that might fill us. He didn’t say to build a resume here on earth to bring us satisfaction. He didn’t encourage us to heap up wealth and possessions, nor did Jesus encourage us to earn degrees and fame in this life.
Jesus breaks down the one thing we need to find happiness, fulfillment, and joy as we come into HIS Kingdom to learn HIS principles-
Matthew 5:6- Mat 5:6 “Blessed (Happy) are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Prayer
Big idea- One of the secrets of why people do the things they do comes down to this- We will pursue what is really important to us.
When that focus is on God and His Kingdom, beautiful attitudes and actions come out of us driven and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
However, when the focus is on self, what comes out of us usually isn’t very pleasant nor is it productive or nourishing to anything other than our own pride and ego.
So I want to begin this morning by looking at false, or bad hunger.
I. False hunger fulfillment
Jeremiah stated the fundamental problem with all of humanity-
"My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
Every blessing and every problem we have in life comes down to what we are hungry for. It’s not just physical food, although some of us struggle with making food our comfort instead of God, it’s about what we long for in this life.
I work with an avid hunter named Mark, and we talk all the time about hunting. Mark works as a radiology tech- he does the x rays and CAT Scans, and EKG’s. A week or so ago the ER was getting slammed with serious patients and Mark was just about running back and forth to get people the tests they needed so the doctor could have all the information he needed to decide their treatment. As we passed each other in the hall, I asked him how he was doing, and he said, “I’d much rather be in a tree stand right now”
I agreed with him and we kept on running.
Hunting by itself isn’t evil….except maybe for the deer. Focusing your entire life around hunting to the extreme of even it being more important that your spiritual life is bad
I know a pastor who pastored a church about our size who told me of his head usher took from mid-sept through most of December off so he could be out in his blind or tree stand hunting on Sunday’s. Nothing my friend could do or say could convince this man that he was needed and should at least come twice a month to help on Sunday mornings.
This man had dug his own cistern. He’s not the only person it affected.
His children saw how little importance God held in his life, and promptly walked away from the faith when they left home at 18 to go to college.
His wife saw him as a hypocrite and refused to continue to come to church alone, so she stopped coming all together. Before you knew it, my friend told me that they whole family no longer believed
For that man- his overriding hunger and thirst in life was a passion for hunting
For others, it might be entertainment- you spend hours and hours each day online or watching TV
For others your broken cistern is alcohol or other drugs
For others it’s a relationship that doesn’t line up with biblical values
For others it’s food
For others it’s education
Everyone of us has these broken cisterns in our lives that they continually turn to when life gets tough, and for many no matter how many times you choke on the rancid water you keep coming back for more.
But these are the symptoms of the illness.
Broken cistern’s only have power over you if this condition exists in your life- Forsaking your 1st Love for Jesus.
Jesus told us to seek 1st the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you as well.
Pursue the righteousness that Jesus offers-
Let’s continue by defining what righteousness is according to Jesus
II. Righteousness defined & Obtained
Righteousness defined- Acting in accordance with divine or moral law so that you are free from guilt or sin.
Keep this definition in mind for a moment as we do a quick review of something called Soteriology. Soteriology is the study of salvation doctrine, and for that we have to go back to the beginning-
It the mess we find our world in began with a hunger. That’s what makes this topic so important to us is because it was the root problem that started all of us down this broken trail of sin and death.
In Genesis, God gave Adam and Eve everything they could never want or need on this earth. They had only one rule- don’t eat from this particular tree.
To Paraphrase the biblical account- God was saying- “Adam my son, and Eve my daughter- you were not created with the ability to handle the information that tree represents. To eat from this tree would be like swallowing razor blades- it will eat you from the inside out until it produces nothing but death in your body.”
In this interaction with our first parents, God was stating a very basic truth about our lives- What we hunger for in life determines our future, both here and earth and in the life to come.
That’s why God gave Adam and Eve such a severe warning and penalty about eating from that tree- because it would plant the razor blades of evil into their heart and it would work it’s way through their spirits until it killed them and spread to others around them.
As we all know, they didn’t listen.
God set in motion His salvation plan and progressively revealed it to us throughout biblical history.
In the Old Testament times, salvation was based purely on performance based spirituality- the perception of how well you could check off your spiritual obligations, and how well you did in following the law determined how you stood before God.
We thank God that it is no longer the case for us, however many people in the world practice that kind of religion.
In fact, most of the major world religions follow that type of performance based model.
Islam- means submission or obedience to the Koran and it’s laws
Judism- follow the law
Hinduism- follow karma law so you get a better reincarnation
Buddhism- follow karma law so you can experience Nirvana
It’s all performance based salvation.
Christianity (the best view that represents our reality) teaches that inside every person there is the propensity for great evil because of the sin of Adam and Eve. Since we carry this sin nature, we cannot save ourselves and need help from someone outside ourselves to save us.
All have sinned and fallen short, and the soul that sins must die
Jesus came and took that sin nature and destroyed it by suffering and dying in our place, taking upon himself the guilt and penalty for our sin and then rising again to show us the new life that is possible in God.
It has to come from outside of us because what is inside is forever tainted by our selfish and sinful nature- until Jesus gets ahold of us and changes us forever.
That is the Soteriology of the bible- salvation through Christ alone.
Jesus illustrates the steps for salvation for us in the first three Beautitudes-
Blessed are the poor in Spirit
Blessed are they that mourn
Blessed are the Meek
Those three beautitudes are summarized this way-
Blessed are they who have died to themselves so that I can give them life.
Blessed are they that put aside the poison of self, so that they can live in me
Blessed are those who have knelt at Calvary’s cross and said with nothing Lord I bring, and to you I give everything.
Blessed are those who for righteousness sake cast down every sin and every selfish want so that others can come to know the salvation that is found only in Christ Jesus.
Jesus cleanses us from the inside out when we admit our need for HIM and HIM alone
That is what righteousness is- right standing before a Holy God.
But is that it? Do we just except Christ as God and Savior and that’s all we need to do?
NO! Righteousness is a life long pursuit that forms the image of God within us.
That brings us to our last point- righteousness must be pursued.
III. Righteousness pursued
One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 42
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
Another one is Psalm 63-
You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
King David wrote most of the Psalms, and the bible calls David a man after God’s own heart.
I have a question for you, and it was a question that plagued me for years.
Why does the bible call a murderer, a fornicator, an adulterer, a proud, violent, and temperamental king a man after God’s own heart?
Even if you just took the Old Testament, surely you could say that about Abraham, or, Moses, or Job, or Elijah, or really any of the prophets.
But David?
For years that question plagued me. It didn’t make sense to me how God could say that about David. It’s not like his mistakes were just little sins or character flaws- they were egregious sins that affected his whole kingdom, his family, and the people around him- how can God say this man is someone after His own heart?
Then a few years ago God showed me the answer in prayer- I found it in an old prayer journal of mine, and I was even reminded of this while sitting at my patio table writing this message-
For those of us who are part of the family of God, those who have become disciples of our LORD Jesus Christ-
God judges us based on our pursuit, not our performance.
Let that sink in for a minute.
See David had seasons where he failed miserably in life. If you were to measure his successes and his failures on a scale it would be tipped so far in the wrong direction you’d think there was no hope for him.
But the bible says he was a man after God’s own heart!
God looked at the same thing that God is looking at with you and me-
Where is your pursuit, and if it isn’t 100% on God then you need to repent and ask forgiveness and the strength to cast aside that thing that is keeping you away from more intimate fellowship with the God who loves you.
What you pursue in life shows who you really are as a person. You can say you are this and that, but in the end people and God will remember what you really stood for by what you ran after in this life.
All Stand
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for Righteousness for they will be satisfied.
What is our satisfaction?
God
When you pursue righteousness, you pursue God!
Your God is an endless source. You cannot possibly exhaust what He has to offer. That is why you can trust HIM to satisfy your every need, and then God will change your heart so even your wants will reflect HIS will for your life and use you to build HIS Kingdom here in Trempealeau County.
