Hunger & Thirsting for Righteousness
Pastor Bill Nichols - July 11, 2010Today's Scripture reference is Matthew 5: 6
Introduction
When I was a boy, growing up in eastern Missouri, there was a widow woman who used to take us to Sunday School, and sometimes watched us kids when mom and dad had to go someplace. Her name was Velva Magruder. Is not that a great name? Velva Magruder! I remember she lived across the highway from my Grandma and Grandpa Nichols. She had a bum leg or knee, and walked with a kind of stiff legged limp. My brothers and I would go to her house and play with her two nephews Bobby and Frankie Magruder. We played cowboys and indians, freeze tag, and other games, but our favorite game to play was king of the hill on top of her old cellar. After I was old enough to mow, I would mow her yard with the old push mower. When I mowed she would always cook me up a snack of hash brown's. She would take a couple of potato's, wash them real good, peel them, and then grate them with a metal grater and then sprinkle them around in some very hot crisco shortening. She cooked them until they were golden brown on one side and then would fold them in half to finish cooking them. When they were finished, she would take them out and drain them on a brown paper bag serve them to me with as much ketchup as I could smother them with. Ohhhh how good they were. And ohhhh how much I looked forward to going to mow at Velva Magruder's house. I fix hash brown potato's like this to this very day, with the only exception, I do not use the crisco to cook them in. I like them golden brown on the outside, and mushy in the middle. Making you hungry?
Well, I want to tell you about my Grandmother Stier's lemon pie! I like pie. When people ask me what my favorite kind of pie is, I usually tell them hot and cold. There are only two kinds of pie I can remember not liking, mince meat and raisin. But if pressed, I would have to tell you that my very favorite kind pie is my grandmother's lemon pie. She would make lemon pie with "Mighty Fine" pie filling. I used to like to lick the pan after she was done. The one thing about mighty fine lemon pie is that it is just tart enough to make you want to pucker, but oh how good.
Isn't it funny how we can remember every detail about some of our favorite foods. How it looks, how it smells, how it tastes, the texture, and how it satisfies our appetite. And oh how we hunger for those favorite foods.
Matthew 5: 6 says
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."
What does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness, and how many of us really do that? We all know what it feels like to be hungry or thirsty. We get pains in the stomach and dry parched throats and so we feed our hunger and we quench our thirst, and we do it often!
Imputed and Attained Righteousness
How many of us truly hunger and thirst after the righteousness of God? What does Jesus even mean when He says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled?"
The Greek word translated righteousness means "equity of character." Equal in character to whom or what? If you read on to the end of the chapter I think that Jesus gives us the answer. Matthew 5: 48: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
I believe that Jesus is saying, "Blessed are those who crave to be perfect, like God is perfect. Blessed are you when you hunger and thirst for the perfection of God in your life.
Can we be perfect? The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3: 10, "There is no one righteous, not even one."
I think that Jesus had two thoughts in mind when He used the word righteousness. Imputed righteousness and attained righteousness.
Imputed righteousness is the righteousness that is attained by a man when He believes the Gospel and accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of his life. In Romans chapter 4, Paul argues that Abraham's faith was imputed to him because he believed the promise of God, and then in verses 23 & 24 he states: The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit (impute) righteousness - for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus From the dead." We have a righteous standing before God because of our faith in Jesus Christ. When God looks at us, He sees us through Jesus shed blood on the cross, and we are holy and blameless because of what Jesus has done.
But there is another kind of righteousness that I think Jesus had in mind when He spoke these words, which I will call an "attained righteousness."
Attained righteousness is the righteousness that you develop in your life as you grow in your faith and mature in your spiritual life. The Apostle John wrote in 1 John 3: 7 "Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as He is righteous."
I think that this is primarily the righteousness Jesus had in mind when He talked about hungering and thirsting after righteousness. This is the kind of righteousness that is lived out in our lives through our actions and our deeds. This is the kind of righteousness that men can see on a daily basis. It's the kind of righteousness Jesus was referring to when he told his listeners that their righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees and teachers of the law. Matthew 5: 20.
Signs That You Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness?
How can you know if you hunger and thirst after this kind of righteousness?
A. Study
I think one sign is that you hunger and thirst for God's word.
Peter wrote in First Peter 2: 2 "Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation." Have you ever heard a baby cry when he was hungry? You can pick him up and hold him, make all kinds of faces at him, sing songs and do just about anything else you can think of to get him to stop crying, but the only thing that will get him to stop crying is to give him what he wants, to give him what he hungers and thirsts for, and that is his milk.
But instead of crying for the spiritual milk of the word and for righteousness, many Christians cry about how long the service was or how loud the music was. They cry about how much they money they have to give in the offering. Many people who claim Jesus as their savior cry about having to go and worship Him period. They cry about having to teach a class or do some other work of service. I hear people crying about all kinds of things, but I do not hear them crying because they crave the spiritual nourishment that they need from the word of God.
In Psalm 42 the author wrote, "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God."
If you thirst for God, there is no better place to find Him than in His word.
Jesus, when tempted in the desert by Satan, replied, "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."
(Matthew 4: 4)
And He told the woman at the well that He was the living water, and that whoever drinks the water that He would give them, would never thirst again. John 4: 14
Do you hunger and thirst for God's righteousness? You will begin to find it as you study and meditate on the written word that God has provided in the Bible.
B. Worship
We all need to individually and privately study and meditate on the word of God, but we also need to publically and corporately assemble together to worship God and encourage one another.
Hebrews 10: 25"Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching."
One indicator of a person's hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God is his participation in the corporate worship of God. My guess is that when you are hungry, you find something, somewhere, to eat. And I doubt that too many of us miss a meal too often. Oh, sometimes we fast for spiritual reasons, more often we might miss a meal or two when we are trying to lose a little weight, but those hunger pains begin to work on us, and it is not very long before we find something to satisfy our appetite.
The body is funny is some ways. It tells you when you begin to be hungry. A little rumble here or there, a pain now and then, weakness if we allow ourselves to go very long without food, and so we quickly find something to satisfy those symptoms. But, if we get through those initial pains, often the intense hunger goes away. And the longer we can go without eating, eventually, the body will overcome those hunger pains, and begin to feed itself on the stored energy (fat). You will begin to lose weight, and at some point, if you do not begin feeding the body again, you will eventually die.
The same is pretty much true about your spiritual life. Quit feeding it, quit reading and listening to God's word, quit going to church, quit praying, and you will no longer be hungry or thirsty for God or His righteousness. You will starve to death in a spiritual sense, and become like the rest of the world.
C. Prayer
One of the things that characterized the life of Jesus was His dependence on prayer to the Father. When you read the gospels, you find that Jesus was often praying, telling others to pray, or teaching His disciples about prayer. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica to pray always, without ceasing. I Thessalonians 5: 17. To the church in Philippi he wrote, "Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness pray often.
You know, we generally eat at least three times a day. The Jews of Daniel's day prayed three times a day. Daniel 6: 10
Several years ago I went through a weight loss program called weigh down weight loss. One of the keys to losing weight was to recognize true hunger. One of the ways we were encouraged to distinguish real hunger from false hunger was to pray whenever we became hungry. We were to feed, not our stomach, but our spirits. Instead of grabbing a candy bar or other snack to get me through from breakfast to lunch or from lunch to dinner, I was to grab God's word and to pray. When you get into the habit and actually do it, you would be surprised how content you can become and how you can overcome the physical hunger you have by feeding the spirit instead.
Conclusion
Matthew 5: 6 - Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. What does it mean to be blessed? One meaning is happy! I remember how happy I was when Velva Magruder would cook those hash brown potato's for me. She made me feel special. They satisfied my hunger. It provided me a time to just sit and listen, to watch and to learn. And my grandmother's lemon pie? I can remember the pot she used to cook it in, watching her stir and make sure it was just the right consistency. And eating the extra crust she would cook in the oven in strips with sugar and cinnamon on them. These thoughts about potato's and pie make me happy, because they remind me of two very special people who have had an influence and impact in my life.
How happy are you in your relationship with God? It may very well depend on whether or not you hunger and thirst for His righteousness, and how you go about satisfying that hunger and thirst.