The Bliss of the Starving Spirit

(02/12/2012)

Introduction (Text:  Matthew 5:6)

A.       In the Sermon on the Mount, we have Jesus’ instructions to his closest disciples.

B.       It has become clear that if we want to have the blissful life that God wants us to enjoy that we need to understand the beatitudes and put them into practice.

C.       In our text, Jesus tells us to realize how we need to hunger and thirst for righteousness, but what does He mean?

#1:  Background of Hungering and Thirsting

A.       Words do not exist in isolation; they exist against a background of experience and thought.

B.       The fact is that very few of us in modern conditions of life know what it is be really hungry or really thirsty.

C.       A working man in Palestine ate meat only once a week, and in Palestine the working man and the day laborer were never far from the border-line of real hunger and actual starvation.

D.       It was still more so in the case of thirst.

E.        So, then, this is the hunger of a man who is starving for food, and the thirst of the man who will die unless he drinks.

#2:  The Desire for Righteousness                                    

A.       Since that is so this beatitude is in reality a question and a challenge.

B.       It would obviously make the biggest difference in the world if we desired goodness more than anything else.

C.       When we approach this beatitude from that side it is the most demanding, and indeed the most frightening of them all.

D.       The true wonder of man is not that he is a sinner, but that even in his sin he is haunted by goodness, that even in the mud he can never fully forget the stars (1 Kings 8:18).     

#3:  Hunger and Thirst for the Whole of Righteousness

A.       From the Greek, we learn that the correct translation of this parable includes the following:  “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for the whole of righteousness, for complete righteousness.”

B.       All too often, we are content with a part of righteousness.  (Legalistic, no sympathy; immoral, but full of sympathy).

C.       Here is the translation of this beatitude:  “O the bliss of the man who longs for total righteousness as a starving man longs for food, and a man perishing of thirst longs for water, for that man will be truly satisfied.”

Conclusion:  How much will hungering and thirsting after righteousness impact our prayers and Bible study time?  If we don’t truly hunger and thirst after righteousness, we miss out on the bliss that God wants us to enjoy.