The Kingdom Manifesto - 4

The Kingdom Manifesto - 4

Empty on the World

Introduction

In 2005, author Peter Menzel published the book “Hungry Planet: What the World Eats.” In it he researches humanity’s most basic behavior, what we eat. He chronicles what a week’s worth of food looks like, and costs, for families in different cultures around the world. The results are fascinating, showing the extreme differences between cultures, and the level of wealth that exists in the West.

Pic – Germany, $325.81

Pic – Sicily, $260.11

Pic – Sudan (Darfur), $1.23

Pic – Peru, $31.55

Pic – Bhutan, $5.03

Pic – North Carolina, $341.98

It would seem that we live in a country where we have more than enough food to eat. When we have TV channels dedicated to food and shows highlighting the “sport” of food challenges, we have enough.

Few of us know what it is like to be truly hungry. In fact, we try to avoid it at all costs. So, Jesus’ words in Matthew 5 strike us as odd.

Matthew 5:6 - God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.

Blessed to hunger and thirst? Jesus speaks these words to a culture familiar with hungering and thirsting. A culture of day laborers who had to work that day if they wanted their family to eat that night. To a culture that essentially lived in a desert region and had to search for water.

But notice what Jesus says about those who are blessed by God...what are they hungering and thirsting after? Justice. Some translations put this word as “righteousness.” Both ideas convey the same thing…hungering and thirsting for what is right.

It is an interesting word in the Greek, a word with a multi-faceted meaning.

-Our Relationship With God

Romans 3:21-22 - But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.

Romans 10:10 - For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.

-Our Own Lives

Matthew 6:1 - “Watch out! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven.

Romans 6:13 - Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.

1 John 2:29 - Since we know that Christ is righteous, we also know that all who do what is right are God’s children.

Essentially this word represents the totality of God’s will. Everything made right with him. And when we see God for who he is, we want all of him. We hunger and thirst for more. When we see what God wants and how much better it is, we want it all. And, it turns out, that is exactly what Jesus is saying here.

In the Greek language, structure matters in translation and interpretation. There is a structure that could say, “I hunger and thirst for a bit of justice.” As if you are sitting at a restaurant and ask someone to pass you the rolls. You are not asking for them to pass you all of them, or all the bread in the world, but just some.

But there is also a structure, as it is here in Matthew 5:6, that says, I hunger and thirst, not just for a little bit, but ALL of it. I want it all. That is what Jesus says God blesses. Those who want all of the rightness with God that is possible.

God doesn’t bless those who want him as an appetizer, or as one breadstick. He blesses those who see him as the entire meal. As we’ve talked about a little the last couple weeks, there are so many who view God as the appetizer. He is the nice little addition to life...he is not the substance of it, but an addition to it. Chase God 1/7 days, really so that they feel better about themselves.

The Bible presents a different path:

Psalm 27:4 - The one thing I ask of the Lord—

the thing I seek most—

is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

delighting in the Lord’s perfections

and meditating in his Temple.

Psalm 34:8 - Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!

Psalm 42:1-2 - As the deer longs for streams of water,

so I long for you, O God.

I thirst for God, the living God.

When can I go and stand before him?

Psalm 63:1-5 - O God, you are my God;

I earnestly search for you.

My soul thirsts for you;

my whole body longs for you

in this parched and weary land

where there is no water.

I have seen you in your sanctuary

and gazed upon your power and glory.

Your unfailing love is better than life itself;

how I praise you!

I will praise you as long as I live,

lifting up my hands to you in prayer.

You satisfy me more than the richest feast.

I will praise you with songs of joy.

God blesses those who want all of God. Because those who have tasted a little bit of having God in their life want more of him. To see him in every aspect of life. The hungering and thirsting never end.

-God, I want more of you filling my soul. I cannot get enough of your Word. Prayer is a delight. Serving you in a joy.

-God, your ways are better than mine, so I seek ways to implement your will into different areas of my life. I want all of me to line up with you.

-God, I want the world around me to have what I have. To experience the same joy I am experiencing. I am seeing the emptiness, the weariness of those around me...only you can fill.

Greg Ogden, The Essential Commandment - “Though God is the satisfaction for our souls, there is so much of him that our appetites expand as our knowledge of God increases. In other words, hunger and thirst for God do not lead to a place of satisfaction where you never hunger and thirst again. It is, rather, a state of continuous pursuit that only expands our appetite, because there will always be more of God to feast upon.”

So what does this spiritual hunger look like? Much like physical hunger.

1. SENSE OF EMPTINESS

To be hungry implies that you realize the tank is empty. You need to eat.

2. SENSE OF DESPERATION

When you are truly hungry, you need to eat. Now. When you’re at a place of true hunger and thirst, this isn’t the time to plant a garden or dig a well.

3. SENSE OF MOVEMENT

When you’re hungry or thirst, you go get it. You go to the kitchen and make a sandwich. You go to a restaurant. A deer panting for water is actively seeking water.

Those are most certainly true of spiritual hunger as well.

Emptiness - You recognize that you are empty from what the world has been feeding you. You need God to fill. How did the beatitudes start? God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him. They understand they don’t have it within them to fill themselves. They need God to fill the emptiness.

Desperation - You can’t do it on your own. You are in a place of desperation because you have not been filled and you need to be. You need someone to fill you. It consumes your thoughts. How did Jesus continue the list? God blesses those who mourn. They can’t do it and see the brokenness in their own lives and those around them. Someone else has to fill the emptiness.

Movement - Ok, if you are hungering and thirsting for more of God, what are you doing about it? Where are you going for sustenance? How are you being filled? What did Jesus say was next on the list? God blesses the humble. Those who place themselves in a posture before God that puts God first. Because then God can fill them.

You know, we all hunger and thirst for something. The question is what. And is it filling? Some hunger for money. Others for progression in their career. Some for sex. Others for relational fulfillment. Here is how you can identify what you are hungering after:

What do you feel empty without?

When you have free times, what do you think/dream about?

What do you most look forward to?

What are you sacrificing things for?

But here is the problem with chasing after things like money and careers and sex - you end up empty. Because they really don’t satisfy and no matter how much you get of them, it is never enough.

C.S. Lewis said that it is no longer sufficient to be smart, good-looking or successful; you must be smarter, better looking and more successful than others. The game never ends...it is never enough. He then went on to say this - “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by an offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Isaiah 55:1-2 - “Is anyone thirsty?

Come and drink—

even if you have no money!

Come, take your choice of wine or milk—

it’s all free!

Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength?

Why pay for food that does you no good?

Listen to me, and you will eat what is good.

You will enjoy the finest food.

Let’s go back to Jesus’ words. Notice the promise to those who hunger and thirst for justice, for God...they will be filled.

Matthew 5:6 - God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.

Only God fulfills. And sometimes the pain of life is learning that lesson.

Jeremiah 2:13 - “For my people have done two evil things:

They have abandoned me—

the fountain of living water.

And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns

that can hold no water at all!

Oh, how often that is true.

In John 4, Jesus approaches a woman at a well in a little Samaritan village. This is a woman who is thirsty. Not just for water. She comes out to the well at an odd time because she has been ostracized from her community for her immoral lifestyle. She had multiple marriages, and then apparently gave up and now is just living with a guy. She’s thirsty for something that can fill her soul. She has tried so many things that only left emptiness. This is what Jesus says to her...and to us:

John 4:14 - Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

Invitation Prayer by A.W. Tozer:

“O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.’ Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”