A Hungering and Thirsting

Mt 5:6

Up to half of the world's population goes to bed hungry and thirsty. Most people lack proper nourishment. There are famines and wars which disrupt the production of food. Overpopulation in a local area with not enough resources to move food to them causes others to die of starvation. Floods and drought damage crops so there is little or no food produced. I've never experienced starvation but some of you might have. I'm told that the gnawing hunger can drive a person to do almost anything, rob, kill, deceive or sell your body just to get a little food into your stomach. The body demands that energy be produced and even bone cells within the body are used to keep the person alive until a person wastes away. Starvation brings about a natural instinct to get food no matter what the cost.

Thirst produces a similar drive. People who travel in the desert begin to dehydrate. They see mirages of lakes on the shimmering horizon giving false hope. There is only one goal of a person dehydrating - dying from thirst - that is to get water. It drives a person to insanity and incoherence. There is no thought of others as he searches for water.

Christ says in Matthew 5:6 says, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. Do we hunger and thirst for righteousness or are we satisfied and fat with our own righteous deeds not caring for anything else? What are we striving after? How can we make this beatitude practical in our lives?

What are we striving after? The world about us is searching and looking for happiness. Where are they looking for happiness? A survey indicated that 45% of the people asked thought that family and friends brought happiness, 15% said health, 12% said jobs, 9% said leisure, and only 8% said that religion could bring happiness. I wonder what we would think brought happiness. Do we have the same ideals as those about us in the world? I trust that we don't because our passage indicates that to search and look for happiness is the wrong way to go about it. If we look at this verse as a math equation like 1+1 = 2 we will put Happiness on one side of the equation and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness on the other. If we hunger and thirst for happiness out equation is out of balance and we come up with nothing.

Our hungering and thirsting should be in pursuit of righteousness if we expect to be satisfied. What do we think of a righteousness? It is just obeying the laws? The rich young ruler claimed he had fulfilled all the laws since he was young and he went away from Jesus still empty and sad.

Righteousness is not just being moral and decent. A lot of people live cleaner and are morally - outwardly at least - upright than christians. They still are not satified and content with life. Is 64:6 says, "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousn deeds are like a filthy garment;" Ephesians 2:8,9 says that it is "by grace that you have been saved through faith' and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast."

Thus our righteousness is not just living right but recieving God is a fift of forgiveness and being conformed to the image of christ - becoming like our perfect example Jesus Christ.

The Israelites were exhorted to become holy as God was holy. Christ said to become perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. The standard is there and it is high. We cannot reach perfection or holiness by our own efforts. We can only become perfectly holy when we are washed, cleansed of our sins by believing that Jesus died for us - he took the punishment for our sins that we could have a new life, freedom from guilt and unsurpassing peace in our hearts.

Maybe you've come this morning looking for righteousness and peace in your hearts. You can have it. It isn't something we can earn but it comes when we ask God to cleanse us with the blood of Jesus. Our beatitude says that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. They will be filled by God, filled to satisfaction by God's wonderful grace.

We are told that hose hungering and thirsting after righteousness are not satisfied by self-effort - trying do please God by some feeble effort on their part by t they are satisfied by someone else. The verb be filled is a passive voice which means someone beside the subject does the filling.

There is some activity done by these people hungering and thristing for righteousness is that activity. Hungering and thirsting are two activities which drive a man with only one goal in mind. Hunger continues on until it is satisfied (satiated) (Story of Prodigal son) Hunger brings a person to despiration. Have you ever seen a hungery man eat? Forget the small talk at the table. He digs in like there is no tomorrow. A hungry man doesn't just sit at the supper table and look! He gets involved. There is an active part required on his part to get the food into his stomach and get rid of hunger pangs. Dabling in sin is like eating junk foods and snacking. These things take away the hunger for nutricious food.

There are things which will dull our spiritual appetites. A person striving after righteousness avoids all things which are opposed to righteousness. There are certain things we know to be wrong. Most of us have no question about these. Lying, stealing, gossip, causing friction between fellow Christians, adultery, lustful thoughts and we could go on. There are long lists and laws against certain behaviour and we know these will dull our spiritual appetite. If we've done one of these . We won't regain our appetites until we confess our sins befofre God. He will resotre us.

Then there is a number of things a person who is hungering and thirsting after righteousness will avoid because He knows that although there are no commands against them they tend to dull or take the edge off of our spiritual appetites. These kind of activites generally take the place of activities which help us in our pursuit of righteousness.

One area I've struggled in is the area of reading the newspaper. There is nothing wrong with reading a newspaper but I was spending more time reading the paper than reading my Bible. Another area might be watching TV or Movies, Reading novels, video games things which distract us from our focus on God. These can be tools of Satan.

Do we spend more time at these activities than we do sharing our faith or studying the Word? We need to examine ourselves and bring our lives into line with today's verse. Blessed are theose which hunger and thrist after righteousness. What's your appetite like and what kind of snacks are spoiling your spiritual appetite?

I enjoy reading biographies of successful men, especially Christians. There are some excellent models which we can follow and learn from. One area I've been consistently impressed in is the area of prayer. Many saints who have been successful, haveput us to shame when it comes to our prayer life. They set aside 4-5 hours per day for prayer and Bible study. They were busy men but because their lives were focused on God . They accomplished great things for God. We need to discipline our lives to be actively righteous.

Our beatitude today stress the fact that first of all to achieve true happiness we are to strive - hunger and thirst - after righteousness. We can ony do this successfully when we ask Jesus to come into our lives and fill us with His peace as He removes all the sin which separates us from God.

We can pursue righteousness by avoiding that which we know to be evil and those things wich spoil our spiritual appetite.

We can actively live for God by spendind time in prayer, making sure we read God's Word, keeping in close fellowship with other Christians by consistent church attendance and by striving to be like Christ.

I know we all need to grow and I'm going to give you a moment to determine where you feel you need to grow the most as you apply this verse to your life this morning. Only as you apply it and determine to follow through will you achieve the happiness that the world is searching for but cannot find. Prayerfully consider what God would have you do.