The Hungry and Thirsty

Good morning, welcome to NHCC. Please open your Bibles to Matthew 5.

Read Matthew 5:1–6- “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

Pray.

Progression- Poor in Spirit, Mourn, Meek.

What does all of this drive us to?

We finally see what is the solution to our problem. In what direction will spiritual poverty, mourning and meekness point us?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

1. What is righteousness?

Justification.

A desire to be right with God.

Daniel Doriani- “Justification wipes away all our sin and guilt, whether we have progressed much toward personal righteousness or not.”

A desire to be in the presence of God.

A reversal the consequences of the sin of Eden.

Romans 5:1- “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Sanctification.

A desire to be free from sin.

Romans 6:6- “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones- “So the desire for righteousness is a desire to be right with God, a desire to get rid of sin, because sin is that which comes between us and God, keeping us from a knowledge of God, and all that is possible to us and for us with God and from God.”

A desire to be free from self.

The focus is taken completely off of ourselves and instead placed on God.

Psalm 84:10- “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.”

2. What does it mean to hunger and thirst?

Highlights grace.

The very nature of hunger and thirst creates a picture of something that we cannot create within ourselves.

Instead, we must rely on that which we find outside of ourselves. It must be created, provided and given.

To hunger and thirst after something, thus, shows us our limitations.

Within ourselves, we do not have the power to come up with those things that we most truly need; namely, to be right with God.

Highlights desire.

Psalm 42:1–3- “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, ‘Where is your God?’”

Have been fed on the bitterness of tears. Longing for something more.

Again, if the first steps of the beatitudes have taken place, we find in ourselves a longing for righteousness that nothing else will satisfy.

Highlights duration.

Fake hunger passes quickly.

Hosea 6:4- “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.”

Real hunger persists.

J.N. Darby- “When the prodigal son was hungry he went to feed upon husks, but when he was starving, he turned to his father.”

Why eat the husks first? Because that is preferred to repentance.

This hunger continues and causes discomfort in all of life. It must be satisfied, no matter the cost.

Hunger drives behavior.

Zaccheus.

Luke 19:3–4- “And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.”

Luke 19:8- “And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.’”

3. What else might we pursue?

Pursuing happiness through any means necessary.

We aim to bring in eternal happiness and blessedness with that which is not eternal and thus cannot satisfy.

If the end goal of our happiness is built upon non-lasting means, then our happiness and blessedness will be incomplete.

You will be happy as long as you have money, and marriage, and possessions, and children, and influence.

But as soon as those are taken from you, or fail to live up to your expectation of them, your happiness fades away entirely.

Making blessedness the aim of our pursuits.

For many, the goal, or target, at which we are aimed is happiness itself.

Doctor seeking to bring healing to a patient.

Not merely looking for relief from pain. We are looking for true health, vitality, happiness, blessedness.

So we must know what will bring such results. What must be healed within us?

Martyn Lloyd Jones- “The world is seeking for happiness. That is the meaning of its pleasure mania, that is the meaning of everything men and women do, not only in their work but still more in their pleasures. They are trying to find happiness, they are making it their goal, their one objective. But they do not find it because, whenever you put happiness before righteousness, you will be doomed to misery.”

Happiness, blessedness comes not from being an end at which to aim, but instead aiming at something else entirely.

Remember the formula- blessedness is a product of having sought after righteousness.

4. Why do we lack hunger and thirst?

Never felt any emptiness.

Self-righteous.

See themselves as full. See themselves as good enough.

Have yet to stack themselves up against the goodness and holiness of God.

Can make a shift to do well without righteousness.

No prioritization of righteousness.

As long as they have money, influence, popularity, community, then there is no need for righteousness.

Complaint only comes when lacking some other commodity.

Eva coming down in the morning and crying when I don’t immediately feed her.

We ought to be this way in our hunger and thirst for righteousness, for God Himself.

5. What creates hunger?

Exercise.

Azariah spending all day in the yard playing.

Work hard at obedience.

Find yourself hard at work in knowing the Scriptures, in serving your local church family, serving your community.

Pray hard over what you are experiencing in this life. Make worship with your church family the highest of priorities.

Love your family well. Give of yourself to those who are in need. Forgive your enemies and seek their good.

When you exercise hard, you seek sustenance. You come to the words of Jesus.

John 6:35- “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.’”

Is it possible that we rarely hunger after Christ, after righteousness, after God Himself, because we so rarely work at the life to which He has called us?

Realism about hunger.

One of the most encouraging parts of our text- Those who see themselves as righteous are not mentioned as being blessed.

Instead it is those who hunger and thirst.

A.W. Pink- “This is a fearfully heavy burden, and greatly casts down the soul. But here is divine consolation. Christ pronounces ‘blessed’ not those who are full of righteousness, but those who hunger and thirst after it. Those who mourn over their depravity, who grieve over the plague of their hearts, who yearn for conformity to Christ are accepted of God in Christ.”

6. What promise is made to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness?

They shall be filled.

choratzo- Filled up, or satisfied.

Stories of the feeding miracles. Those who were listening to Jesus were hungry and had no food. Jesus fed them.

They were satisfied.

Fascinating what happens. Already and not yet.

The more we long for righteousness, the more we are filled, the more we grow, and the more we are satisfied in Christ.

And as we grow and mature in our faith, the more we long for even greater righteousness.

We simply cannot get enough of God.

Imagine being starved. Difficult to imagine.

When you take a first bite of sustenance, it is delicious and it is satisfying.

But the first bite causes you to want to take another. To continue tasting and filling up and satisfying your hunger more and more.

You continue to eat more and more. Each bite leads to the next. All of which leads to a continual filling up of the stomach.

This is the description of life today. Hunger and thirst, and always being filled and satisfied.

But one day, we will find ourselves truly filled and truly satisfied.

An elder describes to John those who have been saved from great tribulation.

Revelation 7:15–16- “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.”

If there is time- This changes the way that you relate to the world around you.

How do we live in a world that is upside down from God’s Kingdom?

The priorities of the world will not be our own priorities.

Consider how hungering and thirsting for righteousness changes the way you engage with those around you.