Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst...

...after righteousness, for they shall be filled.

Have you ever been hungry? Not the "Pastor Brian is preaching long and I haven’t eaten yet" kind of hunger, but really hungry? I don’t think most of us really, really know what it’s like to be truly hungry or thirsty.

When we’re hungry, we generally know that soon we’re going to get to eat. When we’re thirsty, we know that soon we’re going to get a drink.

But when you’re really hungry, I mean really, really hungry, when you’re starving, there’s nothing else that you’d rather have but food. When you’re really, really thirsty, there’s nothing else you’d rather have but water. Nothing else will even get your attention.

This is what Jesus is calling blessed: to be starving for God – to want nothing more than Him. And if we put this into the context of the first three blessings: the poor in spirit, the mourners, and the meek, we realize that the more we put aside what we do have, the more we long for what God has.

Truth be known, we’re all hungry. We are made for a perfect relationship with God, but sin got in the way, and since then, we’ve never been satisfied.

We try to find satisfaction everywhere…

It’s easy to point fingers at those who fill their hunger with alcohol, drugs, and material possessions, but what is just as bad is this: think about this scenario: it’s 2:30 pm, and you’re hungry. It’s going to be hours until you eat dinner. What do you do? Advertisements tell you that Snickers satisfies you. What happens when you continue to eat junk food? You are no longer satisfied by healthy food.

We eat spiritual junk food all the time. We fill ourselves with good-tasting stuff, like our jobs, our families, sports, music, even good behavior, but we’re missing out on the meal that truly satisfies.

French mathematician and theologian Blaise Pascal wrote this in response: "What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself."

Jesus tells us to be hungry and thirsty for the only thing that can satisfy.

We’re blessed when we hunger and thirst for righteousness. Well, that’s easy for him to say. After all, who really knows what righteousness is? It’s one of those Christianese words that’s sometimes thrown around without definition.

Righteousness is, simply put, being in a right relationship with God.

The Jews saw righteousness as conformity to the Old Testament laws. The Pharisees were a group of Jews who were purity-driven. They heaped law upon law in order to adhere to the 613 individual statutes of the law. They behaved in a way that made them look righteous, but Jesus told his followers: For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

You see, they had all the acts down, but their hearts weren’t right. In fact, their greatest obstacle to receiving the Good News was their self-righteousness and self-reliance – their confidence in their own purity and holiness. They didn’t hunger and thirst for God. It was all about themselves, not about how much they needed God! In fact, they didn’t even need God, they were so holy and pure!

Righteousness is conformity to all of Jesus’ teachings: fulfilling the Law and revealing a new standard of conduct.

• Be righteous in conduct – in other words, in your behavior, do God’s will and pursue justice
• Don’t just conform outwardly, but demonstrate the necessary fruit of commitment to Jesus, fruit such as giving to the poor, prayer, and fasting.
• We must have right hearts – righteousness is a response of our everything: heart, strength, soul, and mind. Jesus tells his followers to be perfect, meaning having complete commitment to God’s will, not sinless perfection.
• The poor in spirit are able to see their desperate need for God, to hunger and thirst for Him.

John Darby wrote the following: "To be hungry is not enough; I must be really starving to know what is in God’s heart toward me. When the prodigal son was hungry he went to feed on the husks, but when he was starving, he turned to his father."

In Matthew 6, after talking about necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter, Jesus tells his followers to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Our part is to seek, and God’s part is to satisfy.

Here is a paradox; we see a picture of the saints continually seeking, always wanting more and never getting it all, and who are nevertheless, satisfied, living out Psalm 84.

Psalm 84: 1 How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

Only a couple verses later, the Psalmist writes:
10 Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

He realized that God is the only thing that satisfies, and that it’s better to serve at God’s door than to live anywhere else.

The result of hungering and thirsting for righteousness is that we will be satisfied.

So how can hunger and thirst for righteousness be credited as righteousness itself? Due to human limitations, only a few can claim full righteousness, and only pretense and self-delusion could claim otherwise. Given these limitation, merely keeping up the desire for full righteousness requires total commitment. It takes no less than loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength – if this is what’s required, God will reward the faithful for maintaining their hunger and thirst.

The satisfaction spoken of here is a Messianic hope. The prophet Isaiah prophesied it in Isaiah 49: This is what the LORD says: "In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances, to say to the captives, 'Come out,' and to those in darkness, 'Be free!' "They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill.

10 They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat upon them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.

The promise is satisfaction – the metaphor points to God’s end-times banquet, where, as we read in Isaiah 25, "On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine— the best of meats and the finest of wines."

This is the heart of the matter: only Jesus Christ can satisfy.

How do you know that you are hungering and thirsting for righteousness?

1. You are dissatisfied with yourself.
2. You find freedom from dependence on external things for satisfaction
3. You crave the Word of God (Jeremiah 15:16 is a great example of this)
4. You discover the pleasantness of the things of God, even the Lord’s reproofs and discipline
5. You act unconditionally – seeking and accepting God’s righteousness in whatever way he chooses to provide it and obedience to his commands no matter how demanding.

What does this mean for us?

If you want to be hungry and thirsty for righteousness, ask the Holy Spirit to remove any self-satisfaction.

Take a time of fasting – this will help you gain independence from external things.

Make an intentional time every day to read and feast on the Word of God.

Pray for meekness, that you will even accept God’s reproofs and discipline as good and helpful for you.