The Only Way to Happiness - Be Famished
The Sermon on the Mount • Sermon • Submitted
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And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto 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 they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Introduction:
Introduction:
The bottom line in all of these things is that Christ is offering to the people kingdom living.
He offers real blessedness, real happiness but He is offering it on very different terms than the Jews might have been expecting.
Each of the Beatitudes expresses a condition or a characteristic that belongs to those people that are in the kingdom.
The kingdom is made up of people with certain characteristics, certain things in their lives that are profoundly the gifts of Grace.
And Jesus gives to His listeners and to us a list of kingdom characteristics that go completely the opposite of what we would think.
You would not think that those people that are poor, would be happy.
But this is kingdom focused, this is eternal focused.
And as long as our attention is focused on earthly things, these things will seem to us to be totally contrary to out intuitive way of thinking.
The truly happy being poor…contrary to the thinking of the society.
The truly happy mourn....contrary to the thinking of the society.
The truly happy are meek…contrary to the thinking of the society.
However, when we realize that these are just beatitude attitudes of those that are in the kingdom.
Those that are in the kingdom have the realization that the poor are truly happy because they have recognized their spiritual poverty and has come as a beggar to the throne of Christ and found mercy and forgiveness.
Those that are in the kingdom have the realization that those that mourn are truly happy because they have a deep heart-felt anguish and distain for their and have found forgiveness and grace at throne of Christ.
Those that are in the kingdom have the realization that the meek are truly happy because all of their wills, all of their ambitions, passions, and desires have been yielded to the will of the Father and they alone will be the ones that will rule and reign with Christ when he comes in glory to set up His kingdom on earth.
These are not just kingdom suggestions for the future kingdom, these are kingdom characteristics for the heavenly kingdom, the kingdom of God now.
And for this morning, we come to the fourth beatitude that is found in verse 6.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
This beatitude speaks of strong desire, of a driving pursuit, or a passionate force that is inside of the soul.
It has to do with ambition and it has to do with the right kind of ambition.
The kind of ambition whose objective is to honor, obey, and glorify God by partaking of His righteousness.
When someone hungers and thirst here, it communicates to us something of a deeply felt need.
And that is exactly the point that our Lord is making.
People who are in the kingdom and people who live in His kingdom are characterized by a certain kind of hunger and thirst.
They have a strong desire.
They are driven by a passionate ambition.
They are on a very intense pursuit.
Have an intense pursuit is not an uncommon attitude in our society.
In fact, most people spend their lives pursuing things, but their spend the good majority of their lives pursuing the wrong things.
Because of depravity many have perverted ambitions, but even those who have ambitions for what on a human level might be noble, find themselves at the end of their life either having never attained what they pursued or having attained it found that it was not all that it was suppose to be.
It is very easy to spend your life look for the wrong things.
And we could go, of course, to the Word of God and find illustrations of those who pursue the wrong things.
First of all, their is Lucifer who was already God’s most glorious creation, who was already the supreme angel in heaven, and yet he was driven with a passionate ambition, a strong desire, a consuming pursuit.
He had the resolute devotion to being like God.
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
He was hungry, he was passionate for a greater glory.
And God’s reaction to his passionate was to throw him out of heaven.
Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
I am reminded of another person that was very ambitious who pursued the goals of his life which he himself had devised was Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of Babylon.
He had a strong desire for glory, and he wanted all the glory for himself.
That is, of course, the reason why he wanted everyone to bow down and worship him and not pray to another other gods.
And, of course, that led to Daniel’s three friends to be thrown in a fiery furnace when they disobeyed the king’s desire.
And Daniel records for us a time when the king was reflecting on his kingdom.
The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?
Here was a glory-hungry individual, a praise hungry individual.
And you remember how God reacted to him.
While the word was in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is departed from thee.
And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field: they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.
The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.
He was bereft of his senses and became a madman for the next seven years when God punished him for his perverted ambitions.
I am also reminded of an example from the NT of a man that is generally called “The Rich Fool.”
This passage deserves a brief comment .
This man was a very productive.
And then he began reasoning within himself.
And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?
The interesting thing about this man is that giving is extra even to somebody else never entered his mind.
And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
Here is a man who was pursuing pleasure, he never had enough, he just wanted more and more and Jesus basically indicated in verse 20 that this man was a fool.
And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.
That is how the world is.
People in the world pursue fame, fortune, glory, possessions, an achievements.
There is nothing wrong with pursuing a goal.
And that is the implication of Matthew 5 that people who come into the kingdom and people who live in the kingdom are passionate people.
They are very much aware of what they do not have and how desperately they want it.
And that is depicted in the language of hungering and thirsting.
People in the kingdom have a passion about something.
They have strong desires.
They ambitiously pursue it.
But it is not a worldly ideal or possession that they pursue.
It is righteousness.
Listen, righteousness is to the kingdom citizen what food and water is to the natural person.
That is why the parallel is so good.
Food and water are necessities, not luxuries, and so is righteousness.
People cannot live without food and water and people that are in the kingdom cannot be in the kingdom without having a desire for righteousness.
Out physical lives depend on food and water and our spiritual lives depend on righteousness.
Jesus declared that the biggest desire of every person to be to hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Let’s look at what Jesus meant when he said:
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
I. The Practice of Spiritual Hunger
I. The Practice of Spiritual Hunger
Righteousness is not an optional spiritual supplement but a spiritual necessity.
We can no more have spiritual life without righteousness then we can gave physical life without food and water.
Since the great famine in Egypt during the time of Joseph, and probably long before then, the world as been periodically plagued by famines.
Matthew, vols. 1-4 (The MacArthur New Testament Commentary) The Necessity for Spiritual Hunger
Rome experienced a famine in 436 B.C., which was so severe that thousands of people threw themselves into the Tiber River to drown rather than starve to death. Famine struck England in A.D. 1005, and all of Europe suffered great famines in 879, 1016, and 1162. In our own century, despite the advances in agriculture, many parts of the world still experience periodic famines. In recent years Africa has seen some of the most devastating famines in the world’s history. In the last 100 years tens of millions throughout the world have died from starvation or from the many diseases that accompany severe malnutrition.
Listen, a starving person has one single, all-consuming passion for food and water.
Nothing else has the slightest attraction or appeal; nothing else can get his attention.
The progression of the Beatitudes are very instructive.
If we know our sin and spiritual poverty, if we mourn over it and live meekly because of it, we will have deep, passionate hunger and thirst for righteousness.
We will seek it, we will yearn for it, and ask God to help us attain it.
The language of hunger and thirst is well known in the Scripture.
Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.
Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.
And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.
Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.
To hunger and thirst for righteousness is to seek it fervently and regularly as we seek food and water.
The person that is in the kingdom, their deep inner desire is to have righteousness.
You yearn for it, you seek it, you have to have it.
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
The first three beatitudes are costly and painful.
Becoming poor in spirit involves death to self.
Mourning over sin involves facing up to our sinfulness,.
Becoming meek involves surrendering our power to God’s control.
The fourth Beatitude is more positive and is a consequence of the other three.
When er put aside self, sin, and power and turn to the Lord, we are given desire of righteousness.
The more that we put aside what we have, the more long for what God has.
Martin Lloyd-Jones said:
Matthew, vols. 1-4 (The MacArthur New Testament Commentary) The Necessity for Spiritual Hunger
“This Beatitude again follows logically from the previous ones; it is a statement to which all the others lead. It is the logical conclusion to which they come, and it is something for which we should all be profoundly thankful and grateful to God. I do not know of a better test that anyone can apply to himself or herself in this whole matter of the Christian profession than a verse like this. If this verse is to you one of the most blessed statements of the whole of Scripture, you can be quite certain you are a Christian. If it is not, then you had better examine the foundations again”
The person who has no hunger and thirst for righteousness has no part in the kingdom.
to have the life of God in you through the new birth in Jesus Christ is to desire more of His likeness within us by growing in righteousness.
This is crystal clear in David’s confession:
MEM. O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
The true kingdom resident desires to obey, even though he struggles with unredeemed flesh.
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
There is probably no greater evidence of the person that is in the kingdom of God, that is truly born again, then to be so sick of yourself, to mourn over your sin with a deep heart-felt anguish, to what God to be so in control of your life that you yield all things to Him and that you have a driving passion, and driving hungering and thirsting over righteousness, that you see it as more necessary then food.
Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
Those that are in the kingdom, have a hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Again, because of the flesh we many times fail in that, but there is ALWAYS a hunger and thirst to have it.
That is the Practice of Spiritual Hunger.
II. The Principle of Spiritual Hunger
II. The Principle of Spiritual Hunger
The hunger and thirsting that Jesus had in mind in His sermon is a more intense sort that any of us can imagine hunger and thirsting to be.
In his book, The Last Crusade, Major Gilbert gives this fascinating account.
During the liberation of Palestine in World War I, a combined force of British, Australian, and New Zealand soldiers were closely pursuing the Turks as they retreated from the desert.
As the allied troops moved northward past Beersheba they began to outdistance their water-carrying camel trains.
When the water ran out, their mouths got dry, their heads ached, and they became dizzy and faint.
Eyes became bloodshot, lips swelled and turned purple, and mirages became common.
They knew that if they did not make the wells of Sheriah by nightfall, thousands of them would die- as hundreds had already done.
Literally fighting for their lives, they managed to drive the Turks from Sheriah.
As water was distributed from the great stone cisterns, the more able-bodied were required to stand at attention and wait for the wounded and those who would take guard duty to drink first.
It was four hours before the last man had a drink.
During that time the men stood no more than 20 feet from thousands of gallons of water, to drink of which would have been their consuming passion for many agonizing days.
It is said that one officers who was present reported:
Matthew, vols. 1-4 (The MacArthur New Testament Commentary) The Meaning of Spiritual Hunger
“I believe that we all learned our first real Bible lesson on the march from Beersheba to Sheriah Wells. If such were our thirst for God, for righteousness and for His will in our lives, a consuming, all-embracing, preoccupying desire, how rich in the fruit of the Spirit would we be?”
This is the kind of hunger and thirst that Jesus is talking about in the Beatitudes.
The strongest ands deepest impulses in the the natural realm are used to represent the depth of desire the called of God and the redeemed have for righteousness.
The Present Participle of “hunger and thirst” signifies a continuous longing, continuous seeking.
Those who truly come to Christ come hungering and and thirsting for righteousness, ands those who are in Him continue to know that deep longing for holiness.
This righteousness consists in perfect conformity with God’s holy law, that, is, with His will.
It is, first of all a righteousness of Imputation.
And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
Man is absolutely unable to earn this right standing with God.
No amount of good works will ever be able to atone for his sins.
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
No human cleansing of any kind can ever wash away sin.
For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD.
In fact, as far as man in concerned the situation is entirely hopeless.
His chief, basic, and irreplaceable need is to be in perfect accord with God; and this is also the goal that he can never attain.
I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?
The manner in which the Father would rescue is through the His sovereign grace demonstrated through the Lord Jesus Christ.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
However, the righteousness that Jesus is referring to here is not only a righteousness that is imputed, but it is a righteousness that is imparted.
This is a righteousness that is not merely of legal state but also of ethical conduct.
Listen, the two are inseparable.
You cannot claim to have imputed and imparted righteousness (by saying that you are a Christian) and not have an intense desire of a hunger and thirst for those things.
Righteousness is something that the believer cannot be enough of.
When Moses was in the wilderness, God appeared to him in a burning bush.
When he went back to Egypt to deliver his people, he saw God’s might and power in the miracles and then ten plagues.
He saw God part the Rea Sea and swallow up their Egyptian pursuers.
He saw God’s glory in the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire which led Israel in the wilderness.
He built a Tabernacle for God and saw the Lord’s glory shining over the Holy of Holies.
Over and over Moses had sought and had witnessed God’s glory.
And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.
Even with all of this, Moses was never satisfied and always wanted to see more.
And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.
David proclaimed:
O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
The Apostle Paul was not satisfied:
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
Peter was not satisfied:
But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.
Matthew, vols. 1-4 (The MacArthur New Testament Commentary) The Meaning of Spiritual Hunger
“To be hungry is not enough; I must be really starving to know what is in God’s heart toward me. When the prodigal son was hungry, he went to feed on the husks, but when he was starving, he turned to his father.”
That is the hunger and thirst for which the fourth beatitude speaks, the hunger and thirst for righteousness that only the Father can satisfy.
Listen, the true believer does not pick and choose to be nibble at whatever suits your desire.
The true believer never sees the level of righteousness in their life as good enough.
They are constantly coming to the Father empty handed craving more righteousness that can only come from Him.
The constant desire and hearts cry: “Father, I long to be righteous. Work in me righteous.”
Only the hungry get fed, only the hungry are in the kingdom.