Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6
PROBLEM
- “You can’t eat that; you will spoil your appetite.” Well, isn’t that the whole point of eating—to get rid of my hunger? You will spoil your appetite. What a curious phrase. The big question is, what are you hungry for? That’s what matters
- We all want both/and. Your appetites reveal whether you’re on a trajectory of life or death.
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
GOD
- Philippians 3:18-19 (TNL)- For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth.
- If you’re here today, there is a certain level of a hunger and thirst for righteousness. If not what the text says about you is true, you are driven by your belly.
- A righteous person is a right-living person, living a moral, blameless life, right with both God and neighbor.
- It’s the hunger that God blesses
- The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world.
APPLICATION
4 Things if we’re going to hunger and thirst for righteousness
1-actively read and understand the word of God
2-You have to obey what you know.
3-prioritizing people that stir our desire for the things of God.
Hebrews 10:24-25. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day drawing near what we do continually and together, shapes us. What we do continually and together, shapes us.
4-identify our idols and starve them.
VISION
- Lewis wrote in his book Mere Christianity: “God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.”
- The hunger Jesus blesses is about never being filled. As worshipers of an infinite God, we are always longing, always filled.
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