Hungry and Thirsty
Matthew 5:1-6
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” vs. 6
Favorite Food
Can you guess the top ten foods that people like to eat? Quickly write down on your outline three or four of the ones you think might be on there and let’s see how well you do. Just remember, lists can vary and you may not agree with these but this is the list given by TheTopTens.com website. So here is their list (read from ten to one):
- Pizza
- Chocolate
- Chicken
- Ice Cream
- Steak
- Burgers
- Bacon
- French Fries
- Sushi
- Tacos
So how did you do? Ask how many people got. It would pretty safe to say that the taste of food is pretty subjective. But as subjective as taste is, hunger and thirst aren’t. We all get hungry or thirsty and want something to satisfy that. We have been looking at Jesus Sermon n the Mount and the beatitudes. Today, Jesus uses food as an analogy to draw us closer spiritually. If you are able, please stand as we read Matthew 5:1-6:
Read Passage – Matthew 5:1-6
Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them. He said:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
What Do You Crave?
We all have food cravings. BTW I know what you’re thinking; I can’t believe he is talking about food right before lunch. And, as I mentioned earlier, Jesus uses the analogy of food to get us thinking about our spiritual life and how we live. He starts verse 6 by saying:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst…” vs. 6a
Jesus wants to challenge us in thinking about spiritual things. And that begs the question: What do you crave? More specifically, do you or what do you crave spiritually? As I say that, what answers pop into your mind? Share a few with me.
Craving The Right Thing
It is important not to stop there but to continue on with Jesus thought to find where he is going with this. So, let’s continue with verse 6:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” vs. 6a
The sentence structure here denotes an abnormal desire for food and drink. This is not a casual desire, or stomach “growlings” between meals, this hunger and thirst is the kind that comes from desperation. We might not 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 & thirst that Jesus is referring to. It’s a deep yearning or desire; what I called craving. For the people of Jesus day, depending on your profession and your means, many in the crowd might have been through those types of situations. A few times we see the people following Jesus and they haven’t brought anything with them and he provides food for them.
He emphasizes the spiritual by talking about having that deep craving for righteousness. Why righteousness? To understand this, we need to understand what righteousness is. Righteousness is “acting in accord with moral or divine law” but to put it in a spiritual context and a more simple definition is “standing right before God.” So Jesus really challenges us if we are living is a way in which we can stand right before God.
Ex. Many of us crave food that isn’t really good for us. Many of those foods we saw in that list at the beginning of the sermon. Many of the foods that are really good for us, we have to discipline ourselves to eat. (Give example)
Our Protection
Before we look at what that means to us on a daily basis, understand that it isn’t up to you and I to figure it out on our own or to make this happen, God as given us this righteousness as a tool. We find this tool listed in Ephesians 6:14:
“Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place…” Eph. 6:14
This isn’t a new thought. Solomon actually wrote about this same thing in the book of Proverbs.
“Righteousness guards the person of integrity…” Prov. 13:6
So righteousness is a tool for us to protect us. To protect what? In times past many soldiers would use chainmail shirt (a shirt of metal) and they would out that on and it would cover their arms and torso. Over that they would put on a breastplate. The breastplate covered the front and back. It was meant to protect your vital organs and more specifically it was meant to protect your heart, the most precious of our organs. So this is meant to be something that helps us, protects us, and sustains us in the midst of battle.
A Diet of Righteousness
The question is, what does this look like in our lives? What can we do to have righteousness in our lives so that we can stand right before God? Good question, here is what God tells us through his word about that.
-Belief
It starts with belief, and belief in the right thing. Notice what God says about Abraham in Galatians 3:6:
“So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Gal. 3:6
Belief starts in the head. It’s the conscious thoughts and decisions we make to believe in God. It really comes down to one question; Do you believe in God or not and do you believe in Jesus as the only way of salvation? Really the rest of this is not important if you haven’t answered that question. Many people want to stand right before God but they want to do that based on their own ideas of what that looks like or based on a list of “good things” they have done. Here is the bottom line, it’s what we believe, that God is real, there is only one God, and that salvation comes only through Jesus Christ. Jesus says:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except by me.” John 14:6
He is not one of the ways or one option, he is the only way. Part of righteousness becomes real in our life when we accept this free gift of salvation provided by God through Jesus Christ.
-Trust
A second way that righteousness is made real in our life is when it makes its way from our head to our heart and that comes in the form of trust. Romans 4:5:
“However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.” Romans 4:5
Trust is when we have that craving to see God and his way come out in every part of our life. This part of righteousness is really a work in progress. It’s the constant awareness and decision making to continually turn everything in your life over to God and know that he only wants the best for you. When I say that don’t think that when I say the best it means easy or plentiful. The best means he is forming and molding us to be more like Jesus.
Challenge: What have you not trusted God with? This is not a one time question, it’s one that we can ask ourselves hourly, daily, weekly, etc.
Here are a few challenges: your job, your finances, truthfulness, your sex life, your children, your integrity, your emotions, etc. Realize we can turn things over to God and then take it back or even still try to do it on our own. This can be a constant struggle.
-Training
A third area that righteousness comes out in our life is in our training. Notice what Hebrews 12:11 says:
“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Heb. 12:11
Training is the constant work it takes to continually work at being better at something. Training is our faith and trust coming out in our actions. Think of this in terms of an athlete. Athletes train day after day after day and many times on their own when nobody else is around; all with the intention of refining and perfecting their performance.
Ex. Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors. I was listening to a broadcast where they said that he shoots at a minimum 120 3-pt. shots a day in practice. He is probably the best 3-pt. shooter in history or at least really close to it.
Now listen to this closely: practice means you get it wrong a lot of times. I don’t know how many 3-pt. shots he misses out of those 120 but I would imagine it’s a pretty good number. In the NBA if you are shooting over 40% that means you are good. But realize this; that means you are missing almost 60%, that’s over half.
Training is about discipline and about striving to do better. Many players practice alone and when no one else is watching. They realize that you can only get better through training and discipline. Think about it, most players are not just disciplined in their game but in their sleep, their food, their focus, etc. It encompasses more than one area of your life. Are you training yourself to be more righteous and to let righteousness be a character trait of who you are? What are you doing in private; when no one else is looking? Think about the scenario of an athlete that didn’t practice and discipline themselves; they will probably not excel in their sport.
-A Person of Peace
Finally, righteousness shows itself in our life when we are people of peace. James 3:18:
“Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” James 3:18
The person who has peace, the peace of God, not only reaps more peace, but does that in righteousness. This is not an easy thing too. We are at war with the world. The world is saying to believe in yourself, to trust yourself, that it’s all about you and you should take all you can, you deserve it. But remember Jesus is called the Prince of Peace and if you state that you believe in him, then we strive to be more like him. If you can look at yourself and know you are a person of peace, you can be assured you are on the right track to being a person of righteousness and standing right before God.
Reminder: It is more important to be at peace with God than it is to be at peace with the world. The world may not like you or what you stand for but in the long run, it’s more important and fulfilling to be at peace with God. In fact, that might be the way you know you are really on the right path of following God and being a Christian, you hunger and thirst for more of him and more of him in all areas of your life.
Being Filled
The result is found at the end of verse 6:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” vs. 6
The blessing is that you will be filled. Getting back to the food analogy, think of how satisfying it is when you eat and you are filled. Not stuffed, not overfilled, but really filled in a good way. It is satisfying, enjoyable, and it allows you to focus on the rest of your life.
St. Augustine – Our hearts are restless until they find they rest in You, O Lord
Augustine famously wrote, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” This statement has been conceptualized with the image of the God-shaped hole in the human heart. This image suggests that we have a “hole” in our heart that nothing else can fill except God Himself. We can attempt to fill that hole with other things — personal relationships, hobbies, stuff, etc. — but those things are incapable of filling the hole. The writings of C. S. Lewis are heavily laden with this concept, but Lewis does not speak of it in Augustine’s terms. For Lewis, this “God-shaped hole” is experienced in the universal phenomenon of Sehnsucht. Literally translated, this German term means simply “desire,” but the concept is much stronger than this English word conveys.
C.S. Lewis put it this way; We all have a God size hole in us. He created us with that. That hole aches and craves to be filled. But it can only be filled with God. When it is empty, we are missing an important part of who we are.
