Hunger & Thirst

Intro:

When’s the last time that you were really, totally, extremely, undeniably hungry?

Mine was at Hershey Park on Thursday. We ate at 11 and didn’t eat again until 10 pm…because money

How about thirsty? So thirsty to the point that if you didn’t get a drink you were going to die of thirst depravation?

Okay, so maybe we’ve never been to that extreme of hunger or thirst before, but each and every day, we all do the same thing....if we are fortunate enough to do so, and that is to eat and drink

Probably the last time you went a day without doing one or both of those things was when you had the flu or were really really sick!!

But when we talk about hunger and thirst, we can all agree that these are both essentials to life right?

If we don’t eat, we can make it several weeks, it won’t be super comfortable, but it’s possible

If we don’t drink, the tops is a week, sometimes only 2 or 3 days

But the long answer is yes, both hunger and thirst, and the satisfaction of those desires, is essential to living right?

RIGHT! It’s the most important thing to our lives

Which leads us to Matthew 5:6......

Hunger & Thirst

In our 4th Beatitude, Jesus says this:

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

So what is Jesus saying here?

I think he’s saying this....that our pursuit of righteousness is so essential and evident to who we are in Christ that it is equivalent to our human pursuit of food and water

Which we already talked about how we pursue on a daily basis, right?

So, a descriptive of a believer in Jesus Christ should be someone who pursues righteousness like that

So define righteousness for me

Right standing before God

Pure heart before God

And this pursuit of that righteousness affects all areas of your life, not just the ones you want it to

Just like food and drink, our days are planned around those events

What we’ll eat for breakfast is one of the first things in our head

Who we’ll eat lunch with at school, or if we’re going to eat the “salisbury steak” or even better the “meatballs” two days later that look and taste a lot like the salisbury steak!

It affects our days, and so should our pursuit of righteousness!!!

Broken Cisterns

Beach Illustration

Me and my family went on a 3 day mini vacation this week…and we went all over the place:

Hershey Park, LegoLand, Point Pleasant Beach, Crayola Factory, Turkey Hill Experience....

It was a packed 3 days, but it was a blast

But anyways, we were at the beach Friday afternoon, and I hadn’t planned my week well and was a little behind on this message, and by a little, I mean I hadn’t written anything down. (I’d been thinking and praying over it....)

But, we were at the beach and we had just gotten there and Cheyenne couldn’t wait to get the buckets we had brought out and start filling them up with water and making a sandcastle or whatever

And she grabbed one bucket and went running down, filled it up, came back up, and the water was gone. So she went again…and wouldn’t you know it, gone again

We discovered the problem…there was a slit down the side of the bucket pretty much from top to bottom…kind of useless

Buckets #2 & #3 were the same…meaning we only had one good bucket…which K-rae was using…so she just went and did something else

But I’m sitting there, and this beatitude is going through my head.... “hunger and thirst” “hunger and thirst”....and then boom, God takes my mind to the book of Jeremiah

So turn there with me....…and someone read it for me

“and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

Does anyone see what I’m getting at here?

Let me help you out…here’s the deal

We’ve already determined that to hunger and thirst is essential to life, and that Jesus was using this illustration to make it clear to us that the pursuit of righteousness should be THE essential to our lives

But so many of us…myself often included, are guilty of “hungering and thirsting” after the wrong things....just like the Israelites who had walked away from the fountain of living waters

In , Jesus makes it perfectly clear that only He can truly satisfy our thirst

But Jeremiah here in this passage is pointing out the fact that we as humans have gotten very good at hewing out cisterns for ourselves

Meaning, we think we can find true satisfaction in so many different things…so we forsake God and pursue those things as if our lives depended on it

The problem is our cisterns are broken…like cheyenne’s bucket

Illustration…broken pitcher…keep pouring into it

And what we do is we end up putting so many things in front of our pursuit of righteousness thinking, whether we realize it or not, that they will truly satisfy our need

Sports

Friends

Relationships

Family

Jobs

Our Desires

Our Happiness

Stuff

Entertainment

Future Plans

College Choices

And the list can and does go on and on and on

And they are all being poured into broken cisterns, broken pots, that will not fill us up, and will not satisfy us

And you can challenge me on that, but I won’t back down, it’s the 100% truth

So let me ask you this, and I want you to answer honestly in your heart....

When is the last time your pursuit of God, your hunger and thirst for righteousness took 1st place in your life, in your plans, in your day to day, in the decisions to make?

See for so many of us our relationship with God is an inconvenience…meaning, our relationship with God gets in the way of our empty pursuits because they are our priority

But let me ask you this:

When’s the last time your life was inconvenienced for God

When’s the last time everything else became an inconvenience and God took priority

For far too many of us:

Our quiet time with God will happen only if nothing else gets in the way

Our commitment to church on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday nights is totally dependent on whether our schedule can fit it in: sports, jobs, family time, relationships, our desires, our stuff....it’s all the priority

Makes you think doesn’t it?

Imagine with me what it would look like if this group of teens and adults pursued righteousness over top of these things:

Job - an employer has to work with you to develop a plan to have off for religious days of worship, did you know that?

And do you know that all you have to do is simply....ASK?

I know I know, it’s crazy right?

And as an added bonus, guess who you get to talk about?

JESUS!

Sports - now if you are really good at sports, and some of you are…are you telling me that if you told your coach that you had to be done with practice by 6 o’clock on a Wednesday, or that you couldn’t play travel ball on a Sunday morning or afternoon because God was important to you and He was the main priority, that they wouldn’t work to accomodate you?

And as an added bonus, guess who you get to talk about?

JESUS!

Or your friends/boyfriend/girlfriend want to hang out on a Sunday night…or take you to breakfast on a Sunday morning, or catch a movie on a Wednesday night....you’re telling me you can’t find other time during the week to do that?

I beg to differ…you’ve just got to be willing to want to bring it up

And as an added bonus, guess who you get to talk about?

JESUS!

And the list goes on and on and on

You know what I think the problem is?

We either aren’t willing to do it, or we don’t want to do it

But either way, we don’t hunger or thirst for righteousness, we don’t hunger or thirst after Him above everything else

We’re perfectly content pouring our lives into these empty, broken jars, that will ultimately leave us empty and broken on their own accord

For many of us this is true…but it doesn’t have to be

Jesus is the bread of life

Jesus is the living water

He alone can and will satisfy

But only those who pursue it above all else truly get it

You can temporarily fill yourself up on all of these other things, and Jesus can be an add-on, like when you graze at a buffet but your not hungry because your too full....

and you can take it or leave it…not a big deal....then i’m afraid you’re missing out

Jesus said “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

He’s the only true satisfaction, I promise you that

And if you will pursue Him first, frequently, and with finality…those other pursuits, they’re not bad!!!, can be filtered through this, and can be used to glorify God

But He’s got to be first

Is He first in your life

Are there changes you need to make?

If so, MAKE THEM!