Blessed are those who hunger and thirst

In just a few minutes, we get to see one of the most wonderful things in the entire world. Baptism is a celebration that these men and women have been united with Jesus Christ by faith. They have died to their old lives, and Jesus has raised them to new life by the power of His Holy Spirit, just as He died to ransom them from their sins and rose for their justification.

Another way of saying it is that they have found what is talking about. Each one of them, in their baptisms, are saying to the world, “This is what I was longing for. This is what I was thirsting for. And Jesus has brought me to the waters of life. And here I am, I’m His now, forever.” says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

This is week four of our series called “Kingdom People,” exploring , Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. The introduction to the sermon on the mount is found in eight statements called “Beatitudes,” and they all have the same form - they start with a declaration: “Blessed.” And we saw in week one that when Jesus says “Blessed,” he is declaring that these people are promised God’s favor. They are promised deliverance, rescue, salvation. And they’re promised that He will be with them.

In verse 6, Jesus says,

Matthew 5:6 ESV

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

The people he’s talking about are longing for things to be made right. Longing for joy, rest, peace, reconciliation, satisfaction. These are deep longings, and so verse 6 raises a question for us:

Q. How does Jesus promise an answer to our deepest longings?

ORG SENTENCE: And I’ll move through the text in four major themes.

1. What are hunger & thirst anyway?

Powerful Metaphors for matters of LIFE and DEATH.

he’s not talking about a mere desire, a simple craving, that feeling you get at 10:30am when it’s time for a Snickers and a Dr. Pepper. Not even the feeling of thirst after a football two-a-days or a day of yard work. He’s talking about the kind of hunger that drives you, the kind of thirst that preoccupies you.

But when Jesus says “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” we’re not talking about a mere desire, a simple craving, that feeling you get at 10:30am when it’s time for a Snickers and a Dr. Pepper. Not even the feeling of thirst after a basketball game or a day of yard work. He’s talking about the kind of hunger that drives you, the kind of thirst that preoccupies you.

Modern distance from real physical hunger/thirst

Most of us have never known a time when our lives hung in the balance and food and water were unavailable. But most of Jesus’s audience had seen or experienced that kind of deprivation.

Hunger after fasting

Most of us have never known a time when our lives hung in the balance and food and water were unavailable. But most of Jesus’s audience had seen or experienced that kind of deprivation.

In times of famine or drought, you don’t just feel hungry. You don’t just feel thirsty. Hunger and thirst define you.

They become a persistent need. An all-consuming obsession. Nothing else can keep your attention.

Your motivations change. Your tastes and preferences go out the window. In the ancient world, they used to say “To the hungry man, even the bitter is sweet.”

Army Base Stew

After the Korean War

Dish / poverty / scrounged surplus food from US army bases / hot dogs, baked beans, spam, kimchi, noodles, red chili paste /

One of my best friends says that his grandpa insisted that in the early days, it tasted better when they got the food from the trash on the army base. He said sometimes you’d have to pick out the cigarette butts. It wasn’t the flavor that made it taste better. It was the hunger.

Go back another decade.

In September of 1941, the city of Leningrad was besieged by the Nazis. Every road and railroad in and out of Leningrad was cut off. Food supply ran out

872 days, until January of 1944. Over a million civilians and soldiers died of starvation during the two and a half year siege. Starvation drove the people of Leningrad to desperate measures. Every culture has famine food - foods you turn to only when you must. The parable of the Prodigal Son has him starving and wishing he could eat the carob pods he was feeding to the pigs. On a walk to a nearby park the other day, Heather and the kids and I discovered one of those trees with the pods that look like huge green beans, the catawba trees? Have you seen these? They’re famine food. They’re not really edible, but starvation has a way of making people eat things that won’t do them much good. In Leningrad, they started harvesting wild plants and then collecting the bran that was still leftover from processing long-gone grain, mixing in sawdust, and frying it up into a cake, in motor oil. To the starving, even the poisonous tasted sweet.

872 days / 2 1/2 years, until January of 1944. Over a million died of starvation. Hunger drove the people of Leningrad to desperate measures.

Every culture has famine food - foods you turn to only when you must. Prodigal Son / seed pods for pigs / catawba trees / They’re famine food. They’re not really edible, but starvation has a way of making people eat things that won’t do them much good.

Leningrad - sawdust, bran, wild plants =>bread (motor oil)

To the starving, even the poisonous tasted sweet. But hunger drove the Soviets to other desperate measures as well

When Lake Ladoga froze over in the winter, the Soviets constructed an ice road cross the lake, bringing as much food into the city as they could, evacuating as many civilians as they could. They say the truck drivers would drive with the door open, standing on the running board, so they could leap off if the ice broke, which it sometimes did. The Germans often attacked the convoys from air and artillery. But that ice road was the only relief for the city. They called it the Road of Life.

Real hunger is a powerful motivator.

Famine or drought story?

Scientific nature of hunger/thirst

Hypothalamus etc

When Jesus says “Blessed are those who hunger & thirst for righteousness,” He is talking about a life-and-death matter. A consuming desire for righteousness. For the world to be set right. A longing to be right before God.

Money hungry, starved for success, starved for attention

These really are small in comparison to true hunger/thirst

When Jesus says “Blessed are those who hunger & thirst for righteousness,” He is talking about a longing. A life-and-death obsession. A consuming desire for righteousness. For the world to be set right. A longing to be right before God.

Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness?

2. What is righteousness, and why should I hunger & thirst for it?

Righteousness is an important word in the Sermon on the Mount. At one level, it refers to the outward actions that we do that are supposed to be good. Most of the time, that’s all people mean when they use this word, if they use it at all. A righteous deed is the right thing to do. It’s totally external.

But there’s a second way that Jesus uses the word “righteousness.” It’s an internal righteousness, moral character on the inside that reflects the character of God and produces genuine outward acts of righteousness. God always does what is right, and He is the standard for what is right. A healthy tree bears good fruit.

That’s the kind of righteousness

One of the things that’s pretty clear about hunger and thirst is that you can’t solve them without nourishment. Hunger and thirst imply you’re LACKING something. It’s not in you.

One of the things that’s pretty clear about hunger and thirst is that you can’t solve them without nourishment. Hunger and thirst imply you’re LACKING something.

Exercise can’t solve starvation. External acts of righteousness can’t solve the hunger for righteousness.

What we need is nourishment.

The starting point for this hunger and thirst for righteousness is a recognition that we’re starved for it. We’re in a besieged world in a righteousness famine. Those who hunger & thirst for righteousness look around and say, “This is not the way things are supposed to be. I’m not the way I’m supposed to be.” Sadly, many people start with that recognition, and then quickly fill themselves with famine food, like activism, or empty religion. Either that or they try their best to look away from the righteousness famine - ignoring the clear signs around them that we’re all starving for righteousness. Starving to see wrongs put right, starving to see shame replaced with glory, starving to see the world filled with love and peace and justice. But those who truly hunger and thirst for righteousness will quickly find that there is no created thing or cause or organization or commitment to social action that truly satisfies the hunger and thirst.

What we need is nourishment. Not famine food. Real bread.

See, the righteousness we need isn’t an external righteousness or a new moral fiber.

When you feel the weight of the righteousness famine around you, when you know things aren’t how they’re supposed to be, what you’re really longing for, whether you know it or not, is a vibrant, life-giving connection to the source of life Himself. Every hunger pain, even literal physical hunger pains, point back to the fact that the entire world feels the disconnection between ourselves and God.

We look at hunger and starvation and say, “Things shouldn’t be like this.”

And we look at the causes of hunger and starvation and say, “Things shouldn’t be like this.”

And we long for things to be different. For them to be made right.

And there’s only one way that hunger and thirst can be satisfied.

Last week, when we looked at Jesus’s words “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” helped us understand what he meant.

- David in the wilderness of Judea

Keenly aware of the righteousness famine in the world around him. His own son, Absolom, had risen up against him. He fled the city of Jerusalem, weeping as he ascended the Mount of Olives and headed into the wilderness of Judah. (). begins with these words: “A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.”

Desolate land in the dry season

As he looks out over the wilderness, though, he recognizes a need, a hunger and thirst even deeper than a need for water.

<<READ vv1, 3-4, 5-8>>

David understood, in the righteousness famine, what he needed most… was God. He hungered and thirsted… for God.

He’s not the only one. The Sons of Korah wrote ,

“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?” (, ESV)

A soul that’s awakened to the hunger and thirst for righteousness is a soul longing for nourishment. Longing for One who is righteous. For the very Source of Life. To hunger and thirst for righteousness is to hunger and thirst for God.

For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.

When the Prophets in the Old Testament predicted how God would send the Savior to rescue us from sin and death, this is how they spoke about the Gospel. The promises of God - the promises of blessing - God’s favor and saving presence. Isaiah captures both the problem and the solution -

<<DEFINE RIGHTEOUSNESS before this point>>

Isaiah 59:8–11 ESV

8 The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace. 9 Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. 10 We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among those in full vigor we are like dead men. 11 We all growl like bears; we moan and moan like doves; we hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.

But GOD KNEW: <<And here is how Isaiah says the LORD Himself will save us:>>

Isaiah 59:14–17 ESV

14 Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. 15 Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice. 16 He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede; then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him. 17 He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.

isa 59.14-

The LORD Himself will provide what we lack.

Jeremiah 33:16 ESV

16 In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

So if you’ve been looking everywhere for satisfaction, trying to drown your thirst in alcohol, or sex, or success, or achievement, or power, or tried to numb the hunger pains with the famine food of video games, or tv, or sports, or activism, hear what Jesus says: There is more. You’re not crazy to think there’s got to be more, got to be something that will slake your thirst.

So if you’ve been looking everywhere for satisfaction, trying to drown your thirst in alcohol, or sex, or success, or achievement, or power, or tried to numb the hunger pains with the famine food of video games, or tv, or sports, or activism, take a moment and think: There is more. You’re not crazy to think there’s got to be more, got to be something that will slake your thirst.

The LORD Himself is righteousness. HE is the source of everything good, and right, and true. And this is why Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

They shall be satisfied because He Himself is our righteousness. He Himself is our peace. Jesus says in

John 6:35 ESV

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.

Again

John 7:37–38 ESV

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”

Jesus promises you that if you come to Him thirsty, He will not just provide enough for you to survive; He will fill you so completely that His living water will pour out of your heart all around you.

I wonder if you’ve ever known someone who was empty of everything, with a parched soul and a starved heart, who came to know Jesus? Beloved friends, if you haven’t come to Jesus yet, I want you to think about that person in your life who has been changed by Him. The hungry, thirsty one who now seems to have water and food for the soul to spare. What changed?

I’ll tell you what changed. They found the Source. They found satisfaction.

WOMAN AT THE WELL?

There’s a wonderful story in the Gospel of John, chapter 4,

Well outside the city of Samaria. Jesus @ well, disciples => food

Woman comes to draw water. Mid-day, wouldn’t have come @ morning b/c shame.

Jesus: Give me a drink. Woman: How (Jew/Samaritan)?

Jesus: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have ask him, and he would have given you living water.”

Woman didn’t understand, there’s a little back-and-forth. Jesus says, “Look, I know you. You’ve had five failed marriages, and the man you’re with now isn’t even your own husband.” Then things get really uncomfortable. And we find out that she was longing and waiting for the Messiah to come, and Jesus says, “I am he.” And she runs off to the town and tells everyone, come see this man. He knew everything about me! I think he’s the Messiah! The Christ! The Savior!” And the people come out to see Him, and listen to Him, and believe.

She goes from a guilty, shamed woman to a source of life

What the hungry need is true nourishment. True food. And those who come to Jesus, hungry and thirsty for righteousness, shall be satisfied because He is truly righteous.

3. Why we can’t find righteousness elsewhere

If we look at the wider context of Matthew, we’ll discover something very surprising about this word, righteousness.

Matthew 5:20 ESV

20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Righteousness is seen in the actions in the beatitudes. Look in verses 7-9 - mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking - these things are righteous things. They’re actions that reflect the character of God. You and I were created by God, in His image, designed to rejoice in and reflect His righteous and glorious character. And that is why we long for righteousness. But we’re also desperately disconnected from Him until we come to Christ, so we long for righteousness imperfectly. We want righteousness when it suits us, but then we do unrighteous things when they suit us. The result is that we reflect God’s character in a sort of distorted way. Like a funhouse mirror or a really bad Snapchat filter. You can’t deny that the image is there, but it’s bent and warped around our own selfishness. So as a kid, you got mad when your brother or sister got away with something - it’s not fair, we all complained - and then tried to get away with things ourselves.

The Pharisees and Scribes certainly thought they had righteousness.

Jesus confronts us with a radically different way of understanding righteousness than we expect.

Trying to find satisfaction apart from Christ is like that. You can make out the

human nature - want God to grade on a curve - call it relative righteousness. “I’m ok as long as I’m better than the really bad guys.”

The Pharisees and scribes were the sort of standard bearers - religious, scrupulous. But Jesus confronts his listeners in

Matthew 5:20 ESV

20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Later,

Matthew 9:13 ESV

13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Starting point for Blessing is realizing that whatever “righteousness” you’ve got is not getting you anywhere.

And this brings us to a major obstacle for finding satisfaction.

Not everyone hungers and thirsts for righteousness.

In , Jesus says that people who think they’re righteous in themselves assume they’re in good with God, when in reality they’re starving in the righteousness famine and just don’t know it. But Jesus tells them a parable

Luke 18:10–14 ESV

10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Luke 10:10–14 ESV

10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ 12 I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. 13 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.

I want you to notice some things about this man who Jesus says “goes down to his house justified.” - to be justified is to be right with God.

lk 18.10.14

He’s a tax collector. Now, my brother works for the IRS, and I can tell you that he catches grief from people for that, but it’s nothing like what this guy experienced. This man was a traitor to his people. The Roman Empire financed its oppressive peacekeeping by extorting the people they conquered. In other words, the money Israelites had to pay to Rome in taxes not only kept the government running, but kept the legions supplied so they could keep Israel under its thumb. And tax collectors in turn financed their collections rackets and padded their cribs by overcharging. Imagine a debt collector, combined with a protection racket, and you’re paying it all to a foreign power.

He feels guilt and shame. He doesn’t parade his so-called righteousness before God, because he knows it doesn’t get anywhere with God. He pleads instead for mercy.

Now, consider the other man. By anyone’s account, he is not as bad as the tax collector. He is not an extortionist. That puts him ahead right there. So why does Jesus say the tax collector is the one who goes home justified, or counted righteous before God? The Pharisee has fallen into the biggest trap. He thinks "pretty decent” is good enough. He’s religious, he’s careful not to do the bad things everyone knows are bad, he gives tithes.

But I want you to think about how much unrighteousness is done by fairly decent people. The external righteousness of the Pharisee masks the death inside. Like famine food, he’s eating sawdust and calling it bread. Decent people still envy others. They help out friends but resent their enemies. Decent people don’t cheat on their taxes, they go to church, they seem like they’ve got righteousness figured out.

But if they haven’t hungered and thirsted for righteousness, and come to Jesus for the bread of life, recognizing that their decent righteousness lives in the same heart as their lies, and selfishness, and lust, and all the rest, then they’re still starving. Jesus says that the tax collectors and prostitutes enter the Kingdom of Heaven before the Pharisees, and it’s because they see their guilt and shame and want to be rid of it. He says he hasn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners - and that means that everyone who thinks they’re righteous had better stop and ask questions. There’s some of us here today who need to hunger, and that means we have to get honest with ourselves about righteousness.

Jesus says

Matthew 5:6 ESV

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

And he says

Matthew 5:20 ESV

20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

You might paraphrase - unless your righteousness exceeds that of the exceedingly good, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And he says

mat

Matthew 5:48 ESV

48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Who among us can claim that we have a righteousness that so far exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees that we can be said to be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect?

Romans 3:10 ESV

10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;

Romans 3:10–11 ESV

10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.

But Jesus says,

Matthew 5:6 ESV

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

How is it possible to have that kind of righteousness? How is it possible to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect?

Later in the Gospel of Matthew, in chapter 10, Jesus is commissioning his apostles to go out into villages and towns and proclaim the Good News that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and He tells them that whoever receives Jesus receives the Father, too. And then, he says, “The one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.”

The LORD saw that there was no righteousness, and so He put on righteousness like a breastplate and went to war to save sinners. He humbled himself and became a man like you and me, He died a sinner’s death in our place, and rose to new life in order to defeat and destroy sin and death forever. And if you receive Him, you will receive His reward, because He is righteous. Perfect, like His heavenly Father.

If you hunger and thirst for righteousness, receive Jesus, believe in Jesus, and you will be clothed in His righteousness. And received by His Father. Declared a beloved child and an heir to His Kingdom. Righteous.

says the Father made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

He calls the shamed and the guilty to come, all who are thirsty, and He will fill you up with living water. He calls to the righteous to lay down their masks and come, all who are hungry, and He will give you the bread of life.

He says “I will BE the righteousness you lack.”

And He says those who come to Him, hungry and thirsting, will be satisfied.

Does everyone hunger & thirst for righteousness?

Implies a LACK/NEED

So I’d like to close with this:

How do other hungers imply this one? (Point to our need for God as LIFE)

4. Do not settle - be satisfied in Christ

Do not settle for anything less than the perfect righteousness of Jesus. Nothing else will satisfy. Jesus promises satisfaction. First,

1. Declare => Perfect righteousness (CLOTHED) => receive Him, receive righteous person’s reward (

2. Radical transformation

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

New birth, new life, new SPIRIT, new HEART

3. He will satisfy by making you righteous (healthy tree bears good fruit), “out of his heart will flow rivers of living waters”. No longer a broken mirror/bad snapchat filter. He will begin to shine thru you more and more truly - YOU will be able to give the same life-saving, life-giving water to others. A source of transformation

4. Eternal righteousness in His eternal kingdom

Benefits of Christ

Dangers of settling

CALL TO CHRIST

Note righteousness by faith, imputation (Mtt 10:40-42, , , )

In order to be righteous, first you must receive righteousness as a gift

Note also the honor vs shame nature of this beatitude, inc. ref to baptism

Righteousness in Christ, in me, in you, in the world

Bread of Life

Way & truth & life - connect to “ROAD OF LIFE”

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