Blessed Are Those With Holy Appetites
Beatitudes • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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We come to the 4th beatitude this morning, and it is perhaps the most demanding of all the beatitudesspeaks of desire. And it raises the question - what is your greatest desire?
Think about it for a moment.
If someone were to look at the way you spend your time, would that support your conclusion?
How about your bank account?
Your conversations?
We started our journey through the beatitudes with Matthew 5:3
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And we talked about coming to the end of ourselves and realizing that we, despite how great we might think we are, are in need of a saviour.
Then we got to Matthew 5:4
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
At this point we were challenged to recognize the people we were that were in contrast to who Jesus is. We mourned our own sinfulness.
Last week we looked at Matt 5:5
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
We talked about the meaning of meek: Humility, gentleness, self-control. And now we get to our fourth beatitude: Matt 5:6
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Context is everything. We here in the west, and in United States for the most part do not know what it is to be really hungry. In Matthew 4 we read regarding Jesus, Mt 4:2
And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
Ya think?
Note it is then the tempter comes. And we’ve talkeed before about how the devil tempts Jesus based upon his identity, “If you are the Son of God…” Not only is Jesus the Son of God, he knows he’s the BELOVED Son of God.
Finally the devil basically tries to bribe him, showing him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory and offers it all to Jesus if he will worship him.
You can imagine the hunger of someone who hadn’t eaten for 40 days. The hunger being described here in this beatitude is not the type of hunger you and I might have that could be satisfied with a simple snack. Or a thirst that could be quenched with a glass of water. No. This is the hunger of someone who is starving for food, and a thirst for someone who is parched and dying of thirst.
In context of Jesus sermon, a working man’s wage was one denarius, not a wage that would make anyone fat. In Palestine at the time a man would eat meat only once per week. The average working man was never far from starvation.
As for thirst, they did not live ina time where getting a cool glass of water was a simple as turning on a tap. Travellers in the area were often confronted by hot winds that brought sandstorms. Something we don’t experience much in our country, much less the Pacific Northwest.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
This beatitude is really asking both a question and issuing a challenge. It asks, “How much do you want righteousness?” For the sake of better understanding lets just call righteousness goodness.
How much do you want it?
The reality is that most people suffer from what has been called “The malady of not wanting.” As William Barclay put it, “It would obviously make the biggest difference in the world if we desired goodness more than anything else.”
But we don’t. We want what we want. We get distracted.
Yet on the other side of this beatitude is a built in encouragement. IF you are one who says, Yes, I want that, but I know that I’m not there and I don’t want it as much as I should.
A truth in this beatitude is those who are blessed are not necessarily the people who achieve it, but those who long for it.
The fact that you are here in person, on line, in our parking lot listening over our parking lot broadcast, tells me you’re longing for something. You at some level recognize that you’re not there yet and at some level are seeking something better.
As we began our journey through the beatitudes we discovered we’re blessed when we recognize that we are lacking, when we our genuinely sorry for our not being the person God calls us to be, when we are humble and gentle. Now from that as our honest assessment of who and what we are we recognize what we’re lacking and hunger and thirst for it.
When I was in HIgh School I met a man that I’ll admit I wanted to somehow emulate. I was on a weekend trip to my youth leader’s parents home in Salem to do some work. (That’s one of the perks of youth ministry is you have access to work crews who can be paid in pizza.) That evening his parents had a visitor who upon entering exuded a radiance of love, acceptance and forgiveness. He hugged my youth leader’s mom and my youth leader, and turned to me and said, “you want a hug too, don’t you?” He was right, there was something about him. The visitor was a Roman Catholic Priest, Father Rock. Over the decades our paths would cross a handful of times and yet I still feel the impact of is ministry.
I want what he had. I want to know Jesus the way he knew Jesus. I want to sense the moving of the Holy Spirit like he did.
Do you know someone like that? One of my best friend’s brother returned from a year of Bible School at Capernwray in England. He said to me, “When my brother got home I knew he was different. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that I wanted what he had.” He would end up going to the same Bible school.
Jeremiah gives us a promise from God, Jer 29:13
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
Jesus said, Matthew 6:21
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
and
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
John Baker gives us a great acrostic for us to prepare for God to satisfy this desire, using the word
READY
READY
R - stands for release control. The first three beatitudes spoke of this, we recognize we can’t and God can, we recognize our ways haven’t worked, we recognize we’re not perfect.
And we submit to God’s way.
E - stands for “Easy does it.” We’ve seen it often in our lives the people who go for it full bore early on and quickly fizzle out. They are like the seed in the parable of the sower that falls among the rocky soil. It quickly springs up and quickly fades. This is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.
Grow in your disciplines one at a time.
A - is Accept the Change. Seeing the need for change and allowing the change to occur are two different things. The space between recognition and willingness can be filled with fear. Fear can trigger our old habit of self-control, instead of turning over our lives to Christ.
D - is Do replace your character defects.
We’ve talked a lot during this season of Lent about examining oneself and recognizing our faults. Taking an honest look in the mirror and being honest about those areas in which we struggle.
If you struggle with eating junk food, you need to replace it with good food. The same is true of our consumption of media, news, movies, books, etc. Garbage in, garbage out. You cannot simply get rid of something and not replace it with something else.
Y - Yield to the Growth
As we change our old self-doubts and low self-image will tell you that you’re not worthy of the growth and progress you make.
I don’t know about you, but I struggle with ANTs- Automated Negative Thoughts. Those thoughts that tell me all the reasons God can’t love me; the thoughts that sound like Eeyore.
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.
Still, it’s one step at a time.
William Barclay reminds us that God does not judge us by our achievements alone, but also by our dreams.
“Even if we never attain goodness, if to the end of the day we are still hungering and thirsting for it, we are not shut out of blessedness.”
He concludes, “This beatitude says that it is not enought to be satisfied with a partial goodness. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for the goodness which is total. Neither and icy faultlessness nor a faulty warm-heartedness is enough. So the translation of the fourth beatitude could run:
The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 1 The Bliss of the Starving Spirit (Matthew 5:6)
O THE BLISS OF THOSE WHO LONG FOR TOTAL RIGHTEOUSNESS AS THE STARVING LONG FOR FOOD, AND THOSE PERISHING OF THIRST LONG FOR WATER, FOR THEY WILL BE TRULY SATISFIED!
Or perhaps John the Baptist put it the simplest as recorded in the Gospel of John, John 3:30
He must increase, but I must decrease.”
May we all have such a holy appetite for the righteousness of God. AMEN
