The Jesus Manifesto: Hunger for Holiness
Matthew 5:6; Luke 15:11-24
Chenoa Baptist Church
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
07-29-18
Hungry Mountain Men
A couple of years ago, I did something that was way out of my comfort zone. This city boy went to the mountains. Two friends and I drove to Wyoming, then went fifty miles off road to the trailhead, and then hiked nine hours up into the Tetons with fifty pound packs on our back. We camped at the tree line in view of the continental divide. We were the only humans there…with the elk…and snakes and bears…oh my.
It probably had something to do the altitude but I was dizzy the first few days and had no appetite. I managed to eat some jerky but really didn’t eat much during my mountain adventure.
As we hiked back down and into an open field, it started to hail on us. There was nowhere to hide so I just crouched down, yelling “ouch,” and waited for it to pass. But that’s when my stomach decided to come alive and started growling. I was hungry. Actually, I was really hungry. I felt a rumbly in my tumbly.
When we got to the car, my friend had heard about a restaurant about an hour away that had amazing food. I sat in the back of the truck, my stomach turning back flips and letting me know that an hour was too long to wait.
When we got to the restaurant, we must have been a sight. We hadn’t showered or shaved in a week. We truly looked like mountain men. They brought us an appetizer – tortellini. We devoured it. They had steak and I had a tuna steak that was bigger than my plate. With a salad and baked potato.
I looked at the plate and thought that there was no way I could eat all of that food. And then I ate every last bite of all that food! They rolled me back out to the truck and I took a nap in the back seat.
We ate like we were starving. But the truth was, we were just hungry. I’ve never actually been “starving” in my life, well, at least not for food.
MeekWeek?
We are continuing our summer sermon series on the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the first twelve verses known as the Beatitudes.
We have now looked at the first three Beatitudes.
* “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3) The kingdom belongs to those who realize that they are spiritual bankrupt.
* Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4) Once we understand that we bring nothing to our salvation except that sin that nailed Jesus to the cross, we will feel deep sorrow over that sin. We are called to confess and repent and God extends forgiveness based on the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, in our place, to pay our sin debt.
These two Beatitudes will lead to a posture of heart marked by humility, kindness, gentleness, and grace:
* “Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)
So, how did your “MeekWeek” go? I talked to several people that admitted that they didn’t exhibit the virtue of meekness very well this past week. I did well at the post office but not so well with the group of kids that were spraying me at the pool!
Let me encourage you. Being meek is not natural for most of us. It’s okay, that’s why we need to be yoked to Jesus and allow Him to grow the fruit of meekness in us.
Beautifully Broken
The first three beatitudes paint a picture of a person that has been broken in the best possible way. A follower of Jesus is one that has been beautifully broken of their pride, their self-sufficiency, and self-righteousness and see their deep need of God’s grace.
They find themselves empty, which leads us to the promise of the fourth beatitude:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)
In the Greek, this verse contains only ten words. But in these ten words we find a summary statement of the entire Gospel! In fact, there is so much to learn from this verse will be camping out in it for a couple of weeks.
Before we dive in, let me point out something that is very encouraging to me. All the other beatitudes promise a blessing for the virtue itself. If you mourn, you will be comforted. But in this promise, Jesus says all you have to do is want it, desire it, go after it, and you get the blessing.
This week, I want to define our terms – “blessing,” “hunger and thirst,” “righteousness,” and “filled,” and then look at a story that Jesus told to help his disciples understand what true hunger looks like.
Prayer
Bless my soul
Let me remind you what the word “blessed” means in the Bible. The word “blessed” is sometimes translated “happy” but that doesn’t do the Greek word justice. Happiness often times depends on circumstances. This is deeper. This is an inner satisfaction…that doesn’t depend on outward circumstances. Steve Andrews writes, “Blessed is God’s favor extended to an individual.”
“Blessed” is actually not used of human emotions at all. It is something that is given to the believer. At the very core of the word, it means, “Approved by God.” Max Lucado calls this, “The Applause of Heaven.”
Everybody’s Got a Hungry Heart
Who are the blessed? Those that “hunger and thirst.” Hunger and thirst are basic human appetites. We are born hungry and thirsty and food and water are a daily need to survive.
Remember that the crowd listening to Jesus that day did not have refrigerators or grocery stores. Water was at a premium and food was scarce. Famine was a regular occurrence and many people knew what real hunger pangs felt like. It can lead to desperation and hopelessness.
Rome experienced a terrible famine in 436 B.C. and many people actually committed suicide by throwing themselves in the Tiber River.
There are places on the earth right now, such as Sudan or Ethiopia, where the same hunger and despair are just a way of life.
There are children who can’t go to school because most of their day is spent walking back and forth to a dirty water source just to survive.
But it isn’t just an African problem. Believe it or not, there are people in this community who don’t have enough food to eat.
In a couple of weeks, we will focus on these issues but for now let me just say that true hunger and thirst is not something most of us have ever experienced.
God-shaped Hole
Jesus is talking about more than just a basic human appetite. He is pointing us toward “hunger and thirst” in a spiritual sense. The great New Jersey theologian Bruce Springsteen sang, “Everybody’s Got a Hungry Heart.”
Our hearts are hungry and thirst for meaning, significance, relationship, and purpose. But instead of seeking true satisfaction in God, the only one who can give us these things, we seek it everywhere else.
We hunger for power, possessions, prestige, and popularity and wonder why we always feel so empty.
C.S. Lewis captured this well when he wrote:
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
What is your heart hungering and thirsting for? Pascal said that there is a “God-shaped void” in each of our hearts. When we try to fill that hole with anything other than God, we end up hungrier and thirstier. It’s like giving a man dying of thirst salt water.
This is nothing new. The prophet Jeremiah cried out:
"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.” (Jeremiah 2:13)
Augustine knew the answer to this dilemma:
“Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”
Demi Lovato has it all by the world’s standards – fame, fortune (an estimated net worth of 33 million dollars), and millions of adoring fans. But this week she nearly died of an OD. She had been clean for nearly six years but recently fell off the wagon.
When I look at her I see a little girl who is trying desperately to fill the hole in her heart with things that can never give life. Instead of judging her, let’s pray that she finds true satisfaction in Jesus.
The Sons of Korah compared this to a deer exhausted from running from hunters:
“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirst for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (Psalm 42:1-2)
David knew what it was to be hungry and thirsty when he was on the run from Saul, but his spiritual thirst was an all-consuming passion:
“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.” (Psalm 63:1)
Just like physical hunger is a sign of health, our spiritual desire shows God is at work in our souls.
Let me quote C. S. Lewis again:
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
What is your heart hungry and thirsty for?
Chuck Colson was known has Nixon’s “hatchet man.” He was a ruthless lawyer, (he famously said that he “would walk over his grandmother for Richard Nixon”), that had reached the very pinnacle of power and prestige – the White house. By the world’s standards he had it all – money, power, influence, fame. But it was all a house of cards. When the Watergate scandal engulfed the staff, Colson admitted that he had “no moral compass” and was in deep trouble.
In 1973, at Tom Phillips house, the head of the Raytheon Corporation at the time, Chuck Colson came face-to-face with his spiritual need and committed his life to Jesus.
He pleaded guilty and went to prison for a short period of time. He spent the next 35 years, going back into prisons sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. A year before he died, I had an opportunity to hear see him preach and he still was hungry and thirsty for God.
The Greek tense of the words “hunger and thirst” indicate that they are a continual action. Blessed are those who keep hungering and thirsting, not after happiness but holiness. Jesus uses the word “righteousness.”
That brings us to our third definition. What is righteousness?
Righteousness
Righteousness is a “churchy” word that isn’t used very often in our culture today. This word is used only one other time in the Gospels but Matthew uses it seven times, five times in the Sermon on the Mount alone.
Let’s look at a few of those verses and it will help us understand this word better: (I’m thankful to Ray Pritchard for this)
* “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10)
This is the eighth beatitude that we will be studying in August. Righteousness is a lifestyle that distinguishes us as true Christians and invites opposition from the world.
In countries like North Korea, Pakistan, Egypt, and Nigeria, Christians are routinely murdered for simply believing in Jesus.
Andrew Craig Brunson, a 50 year old originally from North Carolina, has pastured the Izmir Resurrection Church in Turkey for the last 23 years. Last year, he was arrested and charged with “terrorism.” A lot of pastors in Turkey are accused of all kinds of crimes. He was finally released from prison but is now on house arrest until his trail in October.
In the United States, we do not fear being arrested, kidnapped, tortured, or martyred for our faith but those who hate Jesus still will oppose us. Jesus told us not to be surprised by this:
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
* “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20)
I can just see the crowd’s eyes bulging out when Jesus said this. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were the spiritual standard. They were the most “holy” people in their culture. Jesus seems to be setting the bar impossibly high.
But He was actually making a contrast. The Pharisees’ righteousness was outward and full of rules you had to follow. It’s what I call the “I don’t drink and I don’t chew, and I don’t go with girls who do” approach to religion.
A visitor to a Cairo zoo posted a picture of himself with the zebra this past week. He had some questions about this strange looking zebra. It turns out that the zoo bought a donkey and painted stripes on it! It was a zebra only on the outside. It had a donkey heart.
Jesus is showing that righteousness is actually a posture of heart and changes a person from the inside out.
* "Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1)
The Pharisees loved to be seen. They loved to pray in the public squares and let people know how holy they were. But Jesus says that true righteousness doesn’t need to be seen by anyone else to gain approval and attention. God sees and that’s enough.
As a new Christian, I started reading about missionaries and found a couple that were ministering in Albania. I decided to financially support them and, at lunch, told my friends about it. Later, one of my mentors encouraged me to continue supporting them but not to talk about it. He said, “It seemed like you were telling the story to draw attention to yourself. No one needs to know. God sees and He is pleased with you.”
* But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33)
Righteousness is something to be hungered and thirsted for above all else in our lives. It is the mark of a true Christian that is being changed from the inside out. They no longer need the praise of others but intensely desire God’s approval above all else.
What we hunger for reveals the character of our hearts. Jesus said you don’t have to have “arrived.” The blessing is for those who simply want righteousness.
So “blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.” What’s the promise? They shall be filled.
Fill’er Up
The word “filled” here is a very strong Greek word that means the feeding and fattening of animals in a stall. That how I felt after eating the entire tuna steak!
Charles Spurgeon said:
“When God works such an insatiable desire, we may be quite sure that He will satisfy it…and fill it to the brim.”
When David was hiding in a cave, he wrote in his journal about this satisfaction:
“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Fear the Lord, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” (Psalm 34:10-11)
Only Jesus can satisfy your deepest longings. It doesn’t mean you won’t have those longings anymore. But Jesus is stronger that your lesser desires.
Just like we still eventually get hungry after we have eaten, we will never been completely filled. But we are promised that we will be satisfied.
Come Home
Jesus told a story that drives home this point in response to the muttering of the Pharisees:
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:10)
They were looking for a Messiah to conquer Rome not One who could conquer lost hearts. Can you hear them, “ You know he calls himself a rabbi and some say he is the Messiah. Doesn’t he know whom he is sharing bread with? Doesn’t he know that God hates sinners?”
They were grumbling and muttering and they were wrong. Or at least, partly wrong. God hates sin because it separates us from Him but he loves sinners enough to give His Son for them. The teachers needed teaching and Jesus tells three parables to drive home His point -
* a lost sheep – the shepherd leaves the 99 to go search for the one lost sheep and celebrates when it is found.
* a lost coin – the woman sweeps the house clean intensely looking for the coin and, upon finding it, celebrates.
* and a lost son.
He was trying to help them understand how the Father feels about “sinners.” He also wanted to show that there is really only one response to spiritual starvation. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Read Luke 15:11-12
I can just imagine the indignation the older people in the crowd felt when they heard the beginning of this story. This would have been seen as the height of arrogance and disrespect.
The Message translation puts it this way, “ I want right now what is coming to me.” You can hear the anger in his demands. It was as if he were saying, “Dad, you old fool. You are as good as dead to me. Cash it all in Pops and give me my share. I’m going to blow this one horse town and live it up!”
Yet, in the story Jesus tells, the father liquidates his assets and gives his son the money. We are not told why he does this. I’m sure the older men were shaking their heads.
Read Luke 15:13-16
This young man had a hungry heart so he set off to a foreign land. The Hebrew implies that he went as far away as he could. It was time to live it up.
He spent it all on wine, women, and amusements. It was one long party. This is until the money ran out.
Sin will take you farther than you ever wanted to go and, in the end, leave you not only financially devastated but also emotionally and spiritually bankrupt.
At the exact time he ran out of money, the country he was living in ran out of food and the kid heard his tumbly started to rumbly.
Famines were fairly common during this time but this one affected the entire country. So the playboy becomes the pig boy. The Jews considered pigs unclean animals and they were not permitted to touch them or eat them, let alone have lunch with them. It is very difficult to convey the amount of shame this would have brought on the young man. A common proverb of that time stated, “Cursed in the man who tends swine.” But he was growing desperate.
In fact, he was so desperate that he actually wanted to eat the pig food. But they just hogged it all.
A hungry man might try to eat pig food but a starving man knows he needs to go home to the Father.
Read Luke 15:17-20
He “came to his senses.” (My favorite verse in the Bible) He had an epiphany – there’s food at my father’s house.
So he rehearses a little speech.
* “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.” He is poor in spirit and mourning over his sin.
* I’m no longer worthy to be called one of your sons, make me one of your servants” - He’s been humbled and his circumstances have worked the virtue of meekness into his heart.
He didn’t know what would happen but he knew he was starving to death where he was. Hunger and humiliation led to homesickness. Though tired and weak, he starts the long road home to his father’s house, rehearsing his speech every step of the way.
.
Read Luke 15:20
At this, I can hear the older men start to protest to Jesus. This young man deserves nothing and they certainly would never debase themselves to hike up their robes and run.
But this Father had been standing on tiptoe, scanning the horizon. He was looking for his son. When he saw his son, he ran and embraced him. The son tried to say his rehearsed speech but the Father didn’t need to hear it.
Read Luke 15:22-24
The son was clothed in the best robe, which probably belonged to the father, which represented the wealth of the family being restored to him. He had a ring put on his finger, representing authority of the father. And he had sandals put on feet, signifying that he was a son not a servant.
The Father satisfied the deepest longings of his heart. But he satisfied his hunger as well. People in that culture rarely ate meat and the calf was being fattened in anticipation of a celebration. This amount of meat could have feed a whole village. The father made him huge steak, not tuna, and the celebration was on.
This is my Story
This is the Scripture that God used to bring me to faith. I heard it taught at a winter retreat that I went to on New Year’s Eve 1990. After I heard Rich teach about this “prodigal son,” I walked around the lake alone thinking about my life. Something was stirring inside of me that I didn’t understand.
That night, I was at my girlfriend’s house for a New Year’s Eve party. But I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate. I sat on the couch in a daze. I couldn’t stop thinking about this kid and the way the father responded to him.
And then…I came to my senses! The Holy Spirit whispered to my soul – you are that kid. I had taken my one and only life and I was squandering it in the far country of wild living. I looked around the room at all my friends that were drunk and I suddenly realized that I had been hungering for things that can never satisfy. I realized for the first time how spiritually hungry I was. I was done.
I didn’t know how to pray or even what to say. In the middle of a wild party, I simply looked up and said, “I want to come home.” And on December 31, 1990, amazingly, I found the Father’s arms opened wide.
Desire
Remember that the Beatitudes are not a “to-do list” but a “to be list.” They describe the characteristics that a follower of Jesus will exhibit in a lost and dying world.
But let me address one question before we end. What if you don’t desire God? What if you heart is still hungry for the things of this world?
If you don’t hunger for the things of God, it could be because you are not born again. But that can change this morning. Just admit you’re a sinner, trust Jesus’ death on the cross as payment for your sin, and surrender to Him.
What if you are a Christian but your heart has grown cold lately? It’s actually very simple. Pray for God to give you the desire to desire! Pray, “God, if I’m honest, I don’t really hunger and thirst for righteousness. But I want to. I really do want to. Help me to see my poverty before you. Help me to sorrow over my sins. Not because I’ve broken rules but because it breaks your heart. Help me to humbly see myself accurately as a sinner in need of a Savior. Stir in me a holy hunger for You and to seek my satisfaction nowhere else but in Jesus.
