HAPPY ARE THE HUNGRY & THIRSTY

This morning I would like to return to our study of the Beatitudes found in Matthew chapter five. Matthew chapters five through seven are called the Sermon on the Mount. It is Jesus’ most famous teaching. I encourage you to take some time this week to read through chapters five through eight in Matthew. Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you. Stop and pause on a word or phrase and reflect on what Jesus is saying.

Before we turn to God’s Living Word, let us come to the throne of the Living God in prayer. “God of all creation, we ask that You create in us a clean heart and renew our spirits as we worship this morning. Help us to understand what it means to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to be meek, to be hungry and thirst for You. Amen”

What I would like to do is read the passage in our normal fashion from the NIV translation and then lay Eugene Peterson’s The Message Bible translation alongside to reflect on these words in a little different way.

Matthew 5:1-12 The Beatitudes NIV

1. When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

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.

7. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

8. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

9. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

10. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.[i]

Matthew 5:1-12 The Beatitudes The Message Bible

You’re Blessed

When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:

“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule. You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you. You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought. You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat. You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘carefull,’ you find yourselves cared for. You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world. You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family. You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom. Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble”.[ii]

In New York City, there are eight million cats and eleven million dogs. New York City is basically concrete and steel. When you have a pet in New York City and it dies, you can't just go out in the back yard and bury it. The city authorities decided that for $50 they would dispose of your deceased pet for you.

One lady was enterprising. She thought, I can render a service to people in the city and save them money. She placed an ad in the newspaper that said, "When your pet dies, I will come and take care of the carcass for you for $25." This lady would go to the local Salvation Army and buy an old suitcase for two dollars. Then when someone would call about his or her pet, she would go to the home and put the deceased pet in the suitcase.

She would then take a ride on the subway, where there are thieves. She would set the suitcase down, and she would act like she wasn't watching. A thief would come by and steal her suitcase. She'd look up and say, "Wait. Stop. Thief." My guess is the people who stole those suitcases got a real surprise when they got home.[iii]

A lot of us are like those New York thieves. We're chasing after happiness, and we grab what we think will give us happiness; however, when we get it, it doesn't quite deliver.

When I was pastoring a church in Missouri, we took our youth group on a mission trip to Tennessee. We stopped in Memphis on the way out and visited Elvis Presley’s home, “Graceland.” I have always wondered why it was called “Graceland.” (The original owners, Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Moore, named it after their Aunt Grace.)

I don’t think Elvis Presley ever understood this fourth Beatitude. His life was a pitiful pursuit of materialism and sensuality. In Elvis’s heyday he earned between $5 million and $6 million a year. It is estimated that he grossed $100 million in his first two years of stardom.

He had three jets, two Cadillacs, a Rolls-Royce, a Lincoln Continental, Buick and Chrysler station wagons, a Jeep, a dune buggy, a converted bus, and three motorcycles.

His favorite car was his 1960 Cadillac limousine. The top was covered with pearl-white Naugahyde. The body was sprayed with forty coats of a specially prepared paint that included crushed diamonds and fish scales. Nearly all the metal trim was plated with eighteen-karat gold.

Inside the car there were two gold-flake telephones, a gold vanity case containing a gold electric razor and gold hair clippers, an electric shoe buffer, a gold-plated television, a record player, an amplifier, air conditioning, and a refrigerator that can make ice in two minutes. To the outside world, it appeared that Elvis had everything.

Elvis’s sensuality is legendary. Those friends and relatives most familiar with his state in the last months of his life tragically reveal that Elvis had very much become the victim of his appetites. He was what he had eaten—in the profoundest sense.[iv]

Elvis Presley’s tragic life dramatizes the significance of the Lord’s teaching in this fourth Beatitude, because in it Jesus sets forth the appetite and menu that brings spiritual well-being:

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

HUNGER & THIRST

The truth is that many of us today really do not know what it’s like to be hungry or thirsty. When we are thirsty, we can go the facet and out pours water that is drinkable, clean and pure. That’s not true for so many other people in this world. When we are hungry, we can stop at any fast food place and pick up something from the dollar menu. Again, that’s not true for many people in different parts of the world.

We need to put ourselves into the context of this passage. When Jesus gathered those, who were following him on that mount to teach them, Jesus knew that they knew what it was like to be hungry and thirsty. A working man’s wage was one denarius, not a wage on which anyone ever got fat or full. A working man in Palestine ate meat only once a week, and in Palestine the working man and the day laborer were never far from the borderline of real hunger and actual starvation.

Think for a moment of a traveler on a journey, in the area around Jerusalem. In the middle of the journey through the arid desert, a hot wind could bring on a sandstorm. We were down in Palm Desert yesterday for the memorial service for Pam Waddingham’s father. The temperature was 112 degrees. The sign leading out of town said, “Beware of blowing sand.” I thought of what it would be like to be back in Jesus’ time, walking through the desert to hear him preach.

If a person were to walk through the desert areas of Jerusalem, there would be nothing for him to do but to wrap his head in his hooded cloak, turn his back to the wind, and wait, while the swirling sand ﬁlled his nostrils and his throat until he was likely to suffocate, and until he was parched with an overpowering thirst.

Can you imagine being so hungry and poor that you only ate meat once a week? Can you imagine the wind blowing sand into your face until your throat was so parched and you thought you would die of thirst?

I can’t imagine that! The closest I’ve ever come to know what it was like to be hungry and thirsty was when I wrestled in college and I had to get down to my wrestling weight. I went from 180 pounds to 142. I would live on ice cubes for days. Sometimes, I asked my wife, Jac, to flavor them with unsweetened Kool-Aid so that my thirst would be quenched.

When Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” He is teaching that the ways of this world and the things of this world will never ever fill them.

The Greek words used for “hunger and thirst” are present active verbs which means that the action is a continuous and ongoing action. The more accurate way to translate these words would be --- “those who are hungering and always hungering and those who thirst and are always thirsty will be filled.” Another interesting point I learned this week was that we will be filled—not with a bite, not with a morsel…but we are going to be filled with the entire enchilada! We aren’t just going to stop into McDonalds and grab a Big Mac to go…we are going to get that Big Mac combo supersized. There’s going to be more than enough to be filled with.

SO WHAT

So What --- are we to be hungering and thirsting for?

Star Wars creator George Lucas described how the young Anakin Skywalker became the evil Darth Vader: “He turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things. He can’t let go of his mother; he can’t let go of his girlfriend. He can’t let go of things. Things make you greedy. And when you’re greedy, you are on the path to the dark side, because you fear you’re going to lose those things, that you’re not going to have the power you need to keep them.”[v]

Jesus says that we are to hunger and thirst for righteousness! Righteousness is a lifestyle or living that aligns with God’s ways. The actual Hebrew words means to walk in the right path. An easy way to think of it is: righteousness is right living!

So how do we hunger and thirst after righteousness?

I think of the opening lines of Psalm 42 which says, “As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (Psalm 42:1-2)

One on my favorite stories of Jesus’s miracles is when he feeds the five thousand men with a few loaves and two fish, John 6. Jesus feeds all those who were gathered—5,000 men—women, and children—the crowd could have been 10,000 people. The Scriptures teach us that this whole crowd was satisfied. Jesus told his disciples to gather up the crumbs so that nothing was wasted. What a powerful thought --- Jesus says that nothing will be wasted! Then Jesus gives one of His Great “I Am” statements in john 6:35 as he declares, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35)

So What is it that you pant after? So what is it that you long for? What are you hungry for? What are you thirsty for? Jesus is saying that if we come to Him, we will never be hungry and if we believe in Him, we will never be thirsty. In the Beatitude, Jesus is telling us that if we hunger and thirst for RIGHTEOUSNESS, right living, we will be filled. Look again at Peterson’s version: “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.”

In 1987 I made a grace weekend. I was challenged to read my bible for 15 minutes a day. That was when Jac and I read about Billy Graham and Pat Robertson and how they read 5 Psalms and a book of Proverbs a day. I started reading my bible. I wrote my thoughts down in my bible. I started journaling about what I read. I started buying other books that would help me to understand my bible. 31 years later, I’m still reading my bible. Jesus words are true for me. The more I hunger and thirst for right living, I find the answers to my life here in this book—the bible. Our bible study groups are starting back up. If you find you are hungering and thirsting for more of God—start reading your bible and join a study group. You don’t have to know anything, just start where you are. Remember that grace retreat I went on in 1987, Jac went on it, too. I remember when she came home she said she had signed up to read her bible for an hour a day. It wasn’t long before she told me, she just can’t do it. She started with five minutes. It’s taken her 30 years to ever be able to say she’s read her bible for an hour!

Your “SO WHAT?” is asking yourself this question: WHAT IS IT THAT I HUNGER AND THIRST FOR? Does it satisfy me? Do you hunger and thirst for more…food, money, clothes, fame, fortune, power, cars, homes, trinkets? Do they satisfy? I heard someone once say that within the human heart is a Jesus shaped hole that will never be filled with THINGS…that Jesus shaped hole needs these words of life in order to be filled and satisfied.

Darth Vader went to the dark side because he thought material things would satisfy. Elvis made over $100 million and learned too late that money nor things could not satisfy.

Today’s beatitude is pretty simple: Turn to God and hunger and thirst after Him. You will be filled! Not a morsel, not a bite, but you will be filled with the entire enchilada of the living words of life.

My challenge is simple: if you’ve never opened this book, find five minutes today and read a few Psalms or pick a Gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke or John) and read a chapter. Don’t be afraid to write in your bible. The Holy Spirit is going to bring thoughts to your mind. As I read, I’ll be thinking, “So n So, needs a call. I need to check on so n so who’s in the hospital…” I am living proof of someone who used to hunger and thirst for many things—but who found out that Jesus is the only one who truly satisfies my soul, my heart, my life.

Let us pray …

The Seed Christian Fellowship

Rancho Cucamonga, California 91701

www.theseedchristianfellowship.com

August 19, 2018

Pastor Dave Peters

[i] The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Mt 5:1-12). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[ii] [ii]Peterson, E. H. 2003. The Message : The Bible in contemporary language . NavPress: Colorado Springs, Colo.

[iii] https://www.preachingtoday.com

[iv] Hughes, R. K. (2001). The sermon on the mount: the message of the kingdom Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.