Blessed Hunger Pangs

Scripture: Matthew 5:6
Sermon Series: Vote! King Jesus – Sermon 04

Do you struggle with leftovers? Do you have creative names for them? Here are a few from Reddit: The Sequel, Future Food, FFY: fend for yourself.

One pastor’s wife was a wonder at conserving food and rarely threw any away. At one meal she gave her husband nothing but leftovers. He was obviously not enthusiastic about the meal. He began to pick at the food and ate a little…but he’d not said grace yet. His wife smiled sweetly at him and gently said, “Dear, you forgot the blessing.” He looked over at her and said: “Sweetheart, if you can show me one item here that hasn’t been blessed at least two times, I can’t see what another prayer can do for it.”

We’re continuing our series, Vote! King Jesus and working through the eight statements Jesus gave called the Beatitudes. We’re in the fourth one. Matthew 5:6 says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

It’s a beatitude most of us can relate to. We all understand what it’s like to be hungry and thirsty. What separates some people from others is not that some hunger or thirst while others don’t. What separates us is what we choose to eat and drink.

Hungering and thirsting are descriptions of a driving force. Hungry or thirsty people are highly motivated. English novelist, Frederick Forsyth (picture) says the greatest motivation in the world is hunger.

Consider this in the biological sense. You hunger for food and thirst for water. They’re both essential for life. Without them you’ll die. Take that into the spiritual. You hunger and thirst for things vital for your soul. They’re essential to a sense of purpose. If you don’t have them, you’ll die spiritually. Life will be empty. 

Jesus says Christ-followers will hunger and thirst for righteousness. They’ll have Blessed Hunger Pangs. Hungering for righteousness is a passionate and sacred desire for Jesus Christ. This hunger develops an intimacy with the Savior that’s the foundation of our faith.

We’re at a turning point in our series. So far, we’ve learned the blessed person is one who first becomes poor in spirit, mourns over his or her sins, and submits to God’s will. The first three beatitudes deal with our greatest need. They humble us and motivate us to bow before God with penitent hearts. This fourth is about the desire that arises from such a heart. So, out of the blessings found in the first three comes the blessing of a heart that hungers and thirsts for God’s righteousness.

If you’ve ever wondered how to foster a stronger desire for holiness in your life, the answer is right here. Just as food and water are basic to your physical life, righteousness is basic to the spiritual. What’s true in our physical bodies is true spiritually. Unless there’s a craving for righteousness, you’ll perish spiritually. It’s essential. It’s not an option. 

Our physical yearnings are a pale reflection of a far more serious yearning we all feel. Every generation seems to have a song that acknowledges this, a song that laments our emptiness. We all long for something more in life.

Years ago, it was Peggy Lee’s (picture), Is That All There Is? Then,  it was Bruce Springsteen’s (picture), Everybody’s Got a Hungry Heart, or The Rolling Stones’ (picture), I Can’t Get No Satisfaction. More recently, it was Stacey Oricco’s (picture) (There’s gotta be) more to life.

She’s right. There’s more to human life than the temporary thrills of this world. In their heart everyone knows this. It’s why these songs are popular. We all sense that to be satisfied, we need more than this world can provide.

C. S. Lewis (picture) shared how he came to this conclusion with: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, then the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” He’s not alone. John Piper (picture): “God has put eternity in our hearts, and we have an inconsolable longing.” We all sense it. Jesus told Satan, “Man does not live by bread alone.” (Matthew 4:4) We need more than bread. We hunger and thirst for this fulfillment.

Some of you this morning are like this. Your soul is hungry, your heart is thirsty. You feel an insatiable longing for something. You’re restless. Everywhere you turn, the grass is greener than where you’re at. The great tragedy for some is that though this is the Spirit of God beckoning you to Himself, you’ll turn away again to temporary, backfiring pleasures of porn or sex, drugs or alcohol, tanning parlors or some new toy. You can’t get no satisfaction because it’s not out there. It’s only found in Jesus Christ.

To hunger and thirst means to be dissatisfied with our present situation. In order for our lives to change so that we can experience the spiritual satisfaction that only the Savior can provide, we must first admit that we’re starving and thirsting. We must change. The question is – Do you want to change? If so, it’s time to develop an appetite for God.

I’m not an expert on developing a good physical diet. I’m sure I’ll have my fair share of Halloween candy today. This beatitude helps us have a healthy spiritual one. There are three parts to it, and we’ll look at each separately: What did Jesus mean by righteousness? What is spiritual hunger and thirst? What does it mean to be satisfied?If you’re taking notes…

1. What did Jesus mean by righteousness?

Jesus urges us to long for righteousness. But let’s be honest, is righteousness even on our desire list? Does it have a priority? How many of us thought this last week, “I need to be more righteous”? How many prayed that we’d be more righteous?

Perhaps we’re not sure what righteousness is. If you’ve grown up in certain kinds of churches, you think of righteousness in terms of negatives—rules and regulations that are joy killers. In these churches to be righteous is not to go to certain places or do certain things. It’s cutting out lots of fun things.

No wonder Mark Twain (picture) said, “Having spent considerable time with good people, I can understand why Jesus liked to be with tax collectors and sinners.” If righteousness is all negative, we’re not sure we even want it.

To desire righteousness, you must understand what it is. We must know what Jesus means by righteousness. This word occurs only once in the other four gospels, but it occurs seven times in Matthew, five times in the Sermon on the Mount. The word is a bit of a mystery to us.

Whenever you encounter a term in the Bible you don’t understand, it’s helpful to look at other passages that may shed some light on it. With that in mind, let’s look at four other uses of this word in the Sermon on the Mount.

Righteousness is a lifestyle that distinguishes us as true Christians and invites opposition from the world.

Later Jesus said, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness (Matthew 5:10). It’s the last beatitude. Taking the 4^th and 8^th beatitudes together, we have something like this: We’re to hunger and to thirst after a kind of life that will cause some people to hate and persecute us for our faith. Righteousness is a lifestyle that distinguishes us as true Christians and invites animosity from the world.

Righteousness starts in the heart and changes a person from the inside out.

In the second usage Jesus said, For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20). The Pharisees concocted a religious system built on rigid rules. But it was like wearing cheap perfume to make yourself smell good but can’t really cover odor. True righteousness begins in the heart and changes you from the inside out. It’s a righteousness that only God can give. 1 Corinthians 1:30 refers to Jesus as our righteousness, God’s imputed righteousness.

Imputed righteousness is what’s given to an unbeliever when they’re born-again, when they admit they’re spiritually bankrupt and run to Jesus’ cross for forgiveness. The focus is on being hungry and thirsty for salvation.

When you put your faith in what Christ did for you on the Cross, His righteousness is credited to your account. This righteousness is always by faith, not works. We’re saved by faith, not by morality or good deeds. When we receive Jesus, His perfect righteousness is credited to us! Romans 10:10: For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

Has your desire for something beyond yourself led you to the only One who can satisfy it? Have you received Christ’s righteousness? When Jesus died as the substitute for our sins, He took our sin debt. Then He gives us His righteousness: God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthains 5:21). You won’t desire righteousness unless you let God give you, His righteousness.

Righteousness doesn’t need to be seen by others, but only by God.

Jesus said: Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of people, to be seen by them. Otherwise, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven (Matthew 6:1). The Pharisees loved to pray in public – loudly! They loved to dress up in religious garb and throw their offering in the metal container, so people heard the coins rattle. They loved the praise of others. Because of that, they thought God was pleased and would reward them.

It was cotton-candy religion. It looked good but had no substance. Like Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard, there was nothing there. But true disciples seek a righteousness that doesn’t need to be seen by others, but only by God.

Righteousness causes us to seek God’s approval above everything else.

You probably already know the fourth one. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you (Matthew 6:33). This hits our priorities. What is it you’re longing for in life? Fame? Fortune? Career advancement? A good salary? A secure future? As good as those things may be, they aren’t the most important. Put God’s kingdom and His righteousness first, and when you do, everything you need will be given to you. Seeking “His righteousness” means letting His Word set the standard for your life. It means doing what’s pleasing to Him.

Put these passages together and what do you have? We’re to hunger and thirst after a truly Christian lifestyle that changes us from the inside out. We no longer seek the praise of people, but it motivates us to seek God’s approval before anything else. And this kind of life is possible for anyone. Jesus plainly says that everyone who lives this way is blessed by God.

2. What is spiritual hunger and thirst?

Americans love to eat! Annually we spend over 4 trillion dollars on food. About 5% of our food money goes for snacks. That’s 20 billion dollars a year just for snacks. We have so much, but that’s not the case with much of the world.

In his book, The Insanity of God (picture), Nik Ripken shared how every day they would have to choose between three regions in Somalia to take food too, but they only had enough for two of the three. They knew that in the one that they couldn’t take food to, people would starve to death that day. That was the case in ancient Palestine when Jesus gave this beatitude.

The word Jesus uses for hunger means to be ravenous with hunger. Thirst is the idea of a desperate, insatiable thirst. They’re the strongest words possible to refer to hunger or thirst. Jesus is talking about an intense desire for a right relationship with God.

But most of us don’t know what it means to be really hungry or thirsty. Thanks to this bountiful land that God has blessed us with, hunger and thirst is never really intense. Being hungry is a “Big Mac Attack.” Being thirsty is gulping down a glass of water. That’s not what it was like for the people who sat on the mountainside that day and heard this sermon.

The typical working man in Palestine almost never had a full belly. As hard as he worked, he made barely enough to survive. He’d eat meat only once a week, if that. The people listening to Jesus were never far from real hunger and starvation.

Thirst for them was an even greater issue. They didn’t have running water. There was no such thing as a bubbler. There were no bottled beverages. They were thirsty all the time, especially after journeys like they took to hear Jesus. Food and water were necessities, not luxuries. Both were used carefully and not wasted. The owning of a well and the cultivating of a field were matters of life and death.

The words used here reflect this. So, the hunger this beatitude describes is not mild hunger that could be satisfied with a Snicker’s bar. The thirst Jesus is talking about isn’t a thirst that could be slaked with a cold bottle of water.

Jesus was talking about the hunger of someone who’s starving. The thirst of an individual on the edge of dehydration. Jesus is saying that the people who are satisfied are those who desperately want to be right with God. They yearn and long for it! They know their lives depend on it!

There’s something unusual in Jesus’ wording. Usually, Greek verbs like “hunger” and “thirst” have partial objects. For example, “I am hungry for some bread” or “I’m thirsty for some water.” Jesus uses an unqualified object. It’s like saying, “I’m hungry for all the bread” or “all the water.” Christ-followers are hungry for complete righteousness, not partial.

It’s not OK to say you love God, and compromise your behavior, language, ethics or thought life. Instead, you long to be fully righteous. Partial righteousness won’t cut it. God created us for this. Ephesians 2:10 says, For we are His workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.

Hunger is a sign of need.

In 1981 a remarkable event took place in Northern Ireland. One inmate, Bobby Sands (picture) went on a hunger strike, while in prison and eventually died. Incredibly, another nine inmates also took their lives in the hunger strike. Bobby and the other nine were serious about their demands and prepared to sacrifice their lives.

And so, it is with God’s demand for us. No, He’s not demanding that we starve, far from it. He’s demanding though that our attitude be the same. Our single focus must be on His righteousness. There are many things that we get caught up in and forget that we were ever called by God to be righteous.

Just as we need to eat several times a day to stay physically healthy, so we must consume spiritual food on a regular basis if we’re going to be spiritually healthy. God never promises to give us all the food we need for the entire year so we can fill our fridges and forget about Him. Matthew 6:11 tells us to pray, Give us this day our daily bread.

The Israelites received manna every morning, so they’d learn that God meets our needs on a daily basis. When God provided manna, He was using it as an object lesson that represented a much deeper truth. Deuteronomy 8:3: He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Here’s the principle: no matter how much you feed on God and His Word today, you’re going to need more tomorrow.

Hunger is a sign of life and health.

Dead people don’t eat. One of the first things that goes when you’re sick is your appetite. Lost individuals have no desire to read God’s Word. The Bible compares a Christian to a sheep who enjoys green pastures and still waters. When a professing Christian has little or no appetite for the things of God, something is very wrong.

The words of Scottish preacher, Thomas Guthrie, (picture) are still true though written in the 1800s. “If you find yourself loving any pleasure better than your prayers, any book better than the Bible, any house better than the house of God, any table better than the Lord’s table, any person better than Christ, any indulgence better than the hope of heaven – take alarm!” A sign of spiritual disease in a believer is the lack of hunger and thirst for God.

For too many it’d bother us more to miss a Packer game than time in God’s Word or with God’s people. When we’re more concerned about the election than we are our lost neighbor, there’s a problem. Many professing Christians would consider a desperate longing for righteousness as weird, even fanatical. Are you a Christian? Let me ask then, if you were put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? 

Hunger is a powerful motivation.

When we’re physically hungry, we get something to eat. When we are spiritually hungry, we look for something to satisfy us. Have you ever seen a teenager eat? Teens are growing. Their bodies need extra nutrition. We need to be motivated with spiritual hunger like a teen who hasn’t eaten all day.

We won’t be spiritually hungry if we fill up on junk food.

When infection of unconfessed sin is at work in the life of a disobedient Christian, we lose our appetite for spiritual things and fill up on the Twinkies (picture) of a dying world. The Bible warns us that our spiritual appetite can never be satisfied by the things of this world. Why do you think that when we’re away from the Lord there’s discontent and a lust for more?

What are the hungers of your life? They say a lot about the state of your heart. We’ve fallen into what the prophet Amos warned of who pant after the very dust of the earth (Amos 2:7, NASB). Anything other than the righteous, eternal things of God is like eating mud pies.

Ben Affleck (picture) has two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Most would say he’s living the good life, but he’s still empty. He put it this way: “That [relentless striving] never goes away. All these habits that we develop, that help us at some point, they have flip sides. In this case, it’s hard to turn that feeling off…The urge of making it good and trying to make sure that it works, that you’ve done the most interesting version that you can—it’s like a neurosis that drives me to work every day.”

Christian, are you munching on the junk food of this world, hoping it will fill you up? Are you snacking on having a good time thinking it will satisfy? Are you consuming your career hoping it meets your needs? Do you salivate over sports more than you should? Are you eating up entertainment to distract you from the depression or despair you’re feeling?

If so, it’s time to eat what’s healthy so your soul will thrive. Gorge yourself on the things of God. Turn from this world’s junk food that never satisfies. John Piper (picture) writes: “The hunger and thirst of your life that cannot be satisfied by anything in this world is the constant beckoning of God to remember that we were made for another world, we were made for God.”

3. What does it mean to be satisfied?

It must have shocked Jesus’ listeners as much as it shocks us when Jesus equated holiness with happiness. For the Christ-follower nothing else will ever satisfy us. This isn’t externalism but an internal heart change and growth that works its way out into life.

The reason some struggle with so much unhappiness and discontent are that they’re not hungering for righteousness. Filling up on righteousness is like eating Chinese food. Jane and I love good Chinese food. But have you ever noticed that a couple of hours after eating General Tso chicken, you’re hungry again? That’s this idea. This paradox describes a spiritual cycle. The more one conforms to the will of God, the more fulfilled and content you become. That in turn spawns a greater discontent. Our hunger for more of God and His will increases and intensifies in the very act of being satisfied.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (picture) writes, “The Christian is one who is filled and the same time is hungering and thirsting, and yet he is filled, the more he hungers and thirsts. That is the blessedness of the Christian life. It goes on.”

Conclusion

It’s the sign of spiritual life, that we hunger and thirst for “right-ness.” In certain parts of China, when they bury a person, they put some food, usually bread, and some water in the casket. The corpse never says, “Thank you.” If we dug up the corpse a few days later, the bread and water would still be there.

Corpses don’t eat bread or drink water unless they do it at the same time, they smell the flowers! What makes a corpse a corpse is its deadness. Hungering, thirsting, and smelling are out of the picture. Hunger though is a sign of life and health.

If we don’t have an appetite for righteousness, it’s a red flag. Something is very wrong. To see ourselves as God sees us, to recognize how far we have to go are the beginnings of spiritual hunger and thirst. God can fill us but not with one meal.

We’ve all pulled away from the Thanksgiving table thinking that we could never eat again, yet that night we’re back in the kitchen. Dining at God’s table once will not take care of hungering and thirsting forever. We must have a constant appetite for “right-ness” and with that consistent desire, God gives continual filling.

An old Scottish woman used to pray, “Oh God, make me as holy as a forgiven sinner can be.” I love that. It’s a great prayer! Those who pray out of honesty, out of a sense of need are the ones who are blessed. The meek, who live in submission before God will inherit the earth. They’re God’s kind of people. And blessed are those who hunger and thirst to be right before God. That constant, continual desire, will be continually filled.

Spiritual appetite indicates spiritual health. God smiles on and approves of those who desperately hunger and thirst for righteousness. Because they hunger and thirst, God fills and satisfies them. One day, they’ll ultimately be satisfied with God’s presence and His perfect righteousness in heaven.

My friend, are you hungering and thirsting for righteousness? If so, God promises to fill those desires.