January 29, 2017
Sermon: Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”
Series: The Sermon On The Mount
THE PROBLEM: We are incomplete.
I want you to think of the best meal you’ve ever had. Maybe it was the perfect steak, or a fat juicy hamburger, or a hearty italian feast. Getting hungry? I know, I’ve probably just ruined most of us for the rest of the sermon. But think about that food for a minute. Does that not sound so satisfying? If we could just have that right now, we would be set. Everything would right in the world. Yet we know that this promise of satisfaction in food is too good to be true, don’t we? What happens when you eat that perfect meal, and you go home, brush your teeth, sleep for a few hours and wake up again? I NEED some breakfast! The satisfaction that this wonderful meal brings to us is not lasting. It is simply a temporary fix, to get us through to the next day, where we start all over again. This simple cycle of hunger, consumption, temporary satisfaction, and then hunger again, reminds us of one the most basic things about us as humans. We are incomplete creatures.
God has created us, on purpose, as incomplete beings. George Herbert wrote a poem called the pulley which beautifully describes this intentional incompleteness.
The Pulley
When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by—
Let us (said he) pour on him all we can;
Let the world’s riches which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.
So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flow’d, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone, of all His treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.
For if I should (said He)
Bestow this jewel also on My creature,
He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.
Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.
– George Herbert
I think this poem so clearly describes the heart of man, and that most basic longing that lies under everything we do in this life. We have been given all we need to enjoy the creation, except the ability to rest in the creation. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”
There we see this incompleteness, that there is by design, an imprint of eternity, an imprint of God’s nature and the beauty of all that he has made, and yet an inability to grasp it all. An inability to hold onto that which looks so satisfying in the creation and be truly at rest. Why do you think God created the Sabbath? It wasn’t because he was tired. It was to remind us of our neediness. To remind us that no matter how much we strive to be independent, we can never sustain ourselves, and to point us to the only one who can.
Some have described this longing within us as a God-shaped hole in every man and woman who ever lived. There is this desperate sense of longing that we cannot escape. It’s how we were made. Ever since our exile from the Garden of Eden, this longing has been felt. We are always consuming and never filled. Proverbs 27:20 says, “Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man.” And Jeremiah says it like this in Jeremiah. 12:12-13 “My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” So we know that we need water, and we’ve made ourselves jars to hold this water that are filled with holes. So we go to the well, and fill up our jars, and then when we come home from the well, there’s not a drop left. And we grab another broken jar and head back to the well again.
The world is continually offering us these broken jars. Something that promises to satisfy, but can never live up to that promise. The creation can’t bring us the rest that we so long for. Now, if you’re here and you’re not quite convinced that this is in fact the reality that we live in, let me remind you of the words of the famous philosopher, Mick Jagger. I can’t get no…satisfaction. One of the most popular songs by the Rolling Stones speaks so clearly of this insatiable quality we all feel as humans. He describes a man on the radio trying to sell him something, and he knows there is no satisfaction in it. He speaks also of women and fame, and that neither of these can quench this hunger that we all feel. As a man in one of the most popular bands of all time, with access to most anything that this world has to offer, here is a man who says, there is one thing that I just can’t get. Satisfaction, rest in the creation, a contentment with what I have with no need for something more. In fact, in the bible, there is a man who speaks very much the same message, only with a few more pointers to the solution. Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, in which he ponders over the meaning of life and what in the world we should be doing with this short amount of time we have here on this earth. The resounding cry throughout this book of Ecclesiastes is that there is nothing here, under the sun, that will satisfy. It all fades away quickly, here today and gone tomorrow.
THE SOLUTION:
It is into this longing and restlessness that Jesus speaks in the beatitudes, specifically verse 6, which we are looking at today. Let us read together, verses 1-6.
Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to 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 those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
What I want you to see today, is that Jesus speaks into our problem of incompleteness. More than that, he gives the answer. He points us to the only place where satisfaction can truly be found.
All the desires and the longings that we feel, they were meant to be filled. They were meant to be satisfied, but Jesus says, “you’ve been looking in the wrong place. Let me show you where to find completeness. Let me show you where to find rest. Let me show you where to find satisfaction. The answer to your hunger and thirst is RIGHTEOUSNESS.”
WHAT IS RIGHTEOUSNESS?:
Now, that is not abundantly clear at the surface level. What does he mean, that if we seek after righteousness we will be satisfied? The first question I want to ask here is; what is this righteousness that he’s speaking of? It sounds like keeping a list of rules, or making sure that we look better than others. Thankfully, Jesus uses this same word several times in the this sermon on the mount. The closest one to verse six is found in verse ten, the last of the beatitudes. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
So we have people hungering and thirsting for righteousness in verse six, and then people being persecuted for righteousness’ sake in verse ten. I want you to see two things that are implied by these two uses of the word. In the first case, hungering and thirsting, there is a sense of longing because we need righteousness. We don’t have it in us. In the second case, we are being persecuted for it, would imply that it is something we have. So I want you to see the difference between the first three beatitudes, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh beatitudes. In the first three, there is a sense of complete emptiness. This is exactly what we’ve been talking about, this incomplete quality of men and women. The poor in spirit recognize that they have nothing to offer in and of themselves. Those who mourn recognize that they are completely unworthy. That the thoughts and intentions are of our hearts are for evil and not for good. And the meek, recognize that because of this complete lack of anything to bring to the table, and this unworthiness because of our sin, our kingdom is not worthy of fighting for. So there is this great awareness of emptiness described in one, two, and three. I don’t have anything, I deserve death, and I don’t have a cause to live or die for. This recognition is important, because without it, we would continue to turn to ourselves, and continue to try the old ways of filling that hole within us. But then Jesus says in the fourth, blessed are those who hunger and thirst, blessed are those who long, and their longings have been pointed in the right direction. Towards righteousness. Then we see in five, six, and seven this idea of fruit blossoming, or cups being filled to overflowing. As we are filled up with forgiveness, grace, and mercy we pour them out in our relationships. As our eyes our filled with a clearer and clearer picture of God’s perfect holiness and our sinfulness, we long to be pure, we long to be pleasing to Him, and it comes out in our thoughts, our actions, our priorities, and our conversations. As we recognize all that we have fought for is unworthy, The Lord fills our hearts with a passion and desire for His Kingdom to come and that the Prince of Peace would bring forth his reign in the hearts of many. We become makers of peace. It spills out of us. So what does righteousness look like? It looks like mercy, and purity, and peace. Jesus expands on these ideas later in the sermon as he takes us down deeper to the heart of the matter. In chapter 5:20, he says “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
He then proceeds to spell out how the law was meant to connect to our hearts, our motives, our priorities, the way we see God, the way we see people, and ultimately, where we are finding our satisfaction. He equates anger towards our brother with murder. You’re not satisfied with God’s justice, or His timing, or what God says you deserve. He speaks of lusting after a woman being the same as adultery. We are not satisfied with God’s provision. He speaks of divorce, we are not satisfied with God’s plan or His ability to sustain us even through the most difficult of marriages. And on and on he goes. As he lays out the heart of the law, he’s not simply giving us guidelines to follow, he’s describing himself. You want the Kingdom of heaven, you want to know what true righteousness looks like, it’s Jesus. He is the only righteous one. So what are we to hunger and thirst after? Christlikeness. We want to be like Jesus. And Jesus says in verse six, that if we are hungering and thirsting after his character, if we aspire to be like him, we will be satisfied.
God is pleased to humble us and show us our need, and when we cry out to him, he is pleased to pour out himself into our hearts, to display Christ in our lives, to live out the righteousness for us that we could never live on our own no matter how hard we tried. Isaiah 53:11 says, “by His knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”
WHAT SPECIFICALLY IS GOING TO SATISFY US?:
Now one question remains, what specifically is going to satisfy us? Because I don’t believe the answer is that we simply need to trade the things that the world offers for satisfaction for good works, and that in doing good things, showing mercy, abstaining from sins, and making peace, we will find fulfillment. I don’t believe that is the answer, so my question is, what is it, that God will use to fill that hole inside of us? And I believe the answer is abundantly clear throughout scripture. God made us, on purpose, without error, to be incomplete beings in and of ourselves, and to find our completion, to find our satisfaction, to find our rest in Him and Him alone.
Psalm 63:1-8
1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
3 Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
4 So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
6 when I remember you upon my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
7 for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
8 My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.
Now is this satisfaction and rest simply to be enjoyed in heaven, or is this something that we get to experience here and now? I believe the answer is both. There is a day by day sense of rest and satisfaction that comes from abiding in Christ that is sustaining, that propels us through this life, and there is also a completion of this rest that will be experienced in heaven that anchors our hope through the trials and fires that we experience in this life.
Jesus says in John chapter four to the woman at the well, “whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never be thirsty again.”
Christ is the water that quenches our thirst, and he is so abundant that we will never need to look anywhere else. And in John chapter fifteen he says, “I am the vine, you are the branches”.
This is a picture of close connection and rest in Jesus, who like a vine to its branches, is pumping life-giving, life-sustaining food into us moment by moment. And as we abide, as we remain connected to him, what happens? We bear much fruit for the Kingdom. Righteousness comes bursting forth from the depths of our souls like the fruit out of the branch.
At the end of the beatitudes Jesus says, “Blessed are you when others revile you, and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven.”
In Romans 8:18, Paul says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
In Psalm 84, David sings, “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.” 1-2
“For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!” 10-12
WHAT DO WE DO NOW?:
So what do we do with this? I think the first part is simple, Jesus gave us the equation. Everyone ever born is missing something, including you. What are you using to fill that void? We know what the right answer is, but are we actually finding our satisfaction in him? So question number one: Where am I looking for satisfaction?
Next, just like with food, it takes time and effort to grow a hunger for something new in our hearts. A hunger and thirst for righteousness, just like a hunger for broccoli, is something that must be cultivated. So question number two: What are ways that I can begin to grow my hunger and thirst for righteousness in my own life?
And lastly, as we can see so clearly with meekness and mercy and making peace, following Christ is not simply about becoming better people. It must involve a care for others that they might know this satisfaction that we have found. So the last question is this: What can I be doing in my life to help others develop a hunger and thirst for righteousness?