Blessed
Are Part 4
“The
one about Hungering for Righteousness”
Sunday,
March 1, 2015- MRWC
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Have
you ever been hungry? I realize that this is a horrible question to be asking
you at something to twelve on a Sunday morning; but I’m curious as to how many
of us have ever been hungry…..
So hungry that
you thought about eating your least favorite food in the world? Anyone ever
been that hungry?
ILLUSTRATION- As some of you may know, I
will be leaving for Halifax in just a few days for a few procedures, including
my 8th ERCP.
I
will spare you the details of this awful procedure, but I will tell you that
one of the things that must be done for this procedure to be successful is too
fast for at least 12 hours.
Well,
the last time I was in Halifax, I had fasted the night before the ERCP, and I
was “all ready” to go for my scheduled appointment time of about 9 o’clock in
the morning….
Instead
of going down at 9 AM, I had to wait for at least 3 more hours. Did I mention
that I had to fast for this test?
By the time I
was being wheeled down to where the procedure was taking place, I tasted the
air and imaged that it was a T-bone steak… I was hungry.
Fortunately
the doctor gave me so much medication that I was completely out of it for the
rest of the day, and night; but when I woke up early in the morning, I was
dying of hunger.
I
remember texting Beth and asking her to bring me something; I didn’t care what
it was, I just wanted something to eat before breakfast arrived.
Beth
showed up about 7:30 that morning and brought me a chocolate chip muffin, which
I destroyed in no time, and then asked if I wanted something else, but I
declined, as I knew breakfast would be arriving very soon.
When
breakfast arrived, I was deeply disappointed…. Not (just) because it was
hospital food, but because it was all juices… (Does it look like this body was
built by juices???)
Normally
I am allowed to eat 3 hours after my ERCP, but someone missed that memo, so
again I asked Beth if she had any food, and she reached into her bag and pulled
out Marcy Blaney’s homemade Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.
I
think I destroyed like 5 of these cookies at once, they were soooo gooood!
Shortly
after eating the cookies, the doctor who normally does my procedure came in and
told me that he had ordered no food for 24 hours; and I just looked at him and
told him that I had already eaten; and he just stared at me with that doctor
stare……
I
want to tell you that day I was hungry; when the food people finally showed up,
I didn’t even let my tray hit the table before I dived in….
Hunger
and thirst represent the necessities of physical life. Ignore them, and you
won’t be on this earth for very long. Likewise,
having a spiritual hunger and thirst is good, but ignore them and you won’t be
living the life God intended you to live.
As
we continue on in our Blessed
Are series, we will be looking at the “One about hungering after righteousness”,
so if you have your Bible with you, please turn to Matthew 5:6. I will be
reading from the NIV.
If you don’t
have a Bible, there should be one in front of you, or as always, it’s on the
screen.
Jesus
said: “Blessed
are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
(NIV84)
I
would like to ask and answer three questions that stem from this verse and then
give you very simple application steps to apply this verse to your life this
week, so, the first question I have
that stems from this verse is:
What is Righteousness?
This
word is used hundreds and hundreds of time in the Bible, but what does it mean?
Well,
I’m glad you asked, because a bible dictionary defines “righteousness” in this
way: “Holy
and upright living in accordance with God’s standard.”
I can boil that
down a little more to say that this word, righteousness, is living right
with God.
The
wisest man who ever lived, Solomon, once wrote, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does
what is right and never sins.” (Ecc.7:20,
NIV84)
Paul
wrote in the book of Romans: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23, NIV84)
These
are just two, of several verses in God’s Word, the Bible, that tell us that we
are not living right with God. We all have a problem and that problem is sin.
We all have
sinned against God, and we are unable to become right with God on our own.
Thankfully
God knows this, and God did something about this. He sent His Son, Jesus, into
this world.
Some
of the best words in all of Scripture can be found in John 3:16-17:
"For God so
loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not
send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through
him. (John 3:16-17, NIV84)
God loves you so
much that He sent His one and Only Son to come into this world, and die the
death that you and I were supposed to die, so that, if we surrender our lives
over to Him, we can be made right, we can live right before God. There is no
other way that we can be made righteous.
A moment ago, I
read to you from Romans 3:23; I want to go back to that verse and read it
again, as well as the verses that come after it:
“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious
standard. 24 Yet God freely and
graciously declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus
when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.
25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are
made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding
his blood.” (Romans 3:23-25, NLT2)
God makes
people right with Him, when they believe in and accept His Son Jesus Christ.
Please don’t miss this truth.
The only way that we will ever be righteous or live right before God
is by confessing our sinfulness and asking the Saviour of the world to come
into our hearts and lives.
“Salvation is found
in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which
we must be saved."(Acts 4:12, NIV)
Are you living
right before God? There is only one way to live right before God, and that is
by accepting--and living for-- Him. We do that when we confess our need for a
Saviour.
The Bible
reminds us that: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”
(Prov. 14:12, NIV84)
We may think we
know the way to go, but we really don’t, because we are unrighteous people. But
if we surrender to Jesus Christ, we will know the way, because He is the way.
Jesus Himself
said: “I am the
way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except
through me.” (John 14:6, NIV84)
Do you know
Jesus, personally? The only way to live right before God is to surrender to
Jesus.
Now that we know
what righteousness is, (living
right before God) the second question I want to ask and answer is: What does it mean to Hunger and Thirst for righteousness?
Very simply put:
To want the
things of God.
There are some
incredible words recorded for us in John 15. These are the words of Jesus:
"I am the true
vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that
bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes—or cleans--- so that it will be even more fruitful…
4 Remain in me, and
I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the
vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 "I am the
vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear
much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
6 If anyone does
not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such
branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” (NIV84)
The only way that I know of to
hunger and thirst for the things of God, is to stay connected to God. You
want to Know Him more than you did yesterday; you want Him to go to that
untouchable spot in your life, the one that you have been doing your best to
hide from your friends; you want God to go there in your life, because you want
Him more than life itself.
David wrote in
Psalm 42: “As
the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. 2 My soul
thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (1-2, NIV 84)
David longed to
be with God; he was hungry for God. Does this describe your life? Do you want
to be with God; do you want to hunger for the things of God?
If so, then get
alone and tell God. Tell Him that you want Him more than you want life itself. The only way to Hunger and
thirst for righteousness, is to remain connected to God and to want the things
of God.
If you have lost
some of your appetite for God, for whatever reason, I want you to know that you
can come back to Him today. You can ask God to fill you with a Hunger and a
Thirst for God and for the things of God.
The third
question I want to ask and answer is: What happens if I
hunger and thirst for Righteousness?
Well,
like the other beatitudes before it, this beatitude comes with a promise from
Jesus himself. What is that promise? Look at the text:
“Blessed are those
who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
(NIV84)
ILLUSTRATION- My kids went to the dentist
this past week. Apparently Erica has a couple of cavities, and by a couple, I
mean 12. She is not filling up on the correct things. Don’t worry; we have
taken steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
Don’t
be fooled, we can fill up
on all kinds of good things, but they may not be the best things. We,
who profess to follow Jesus, need to fill up on the best things.
The
psalmist wrote in Psalm 34:8: “Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who
takes refuge in him.” (NIV84)
Jesus
said: "If
anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as
the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within
him." (John 7:37-38, NIV84)
We
read in verse 39 of the same chapter: “By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him
were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since
Jesus had not yet been glorified.”(7:39, NIV84)
In order for you to be filled,
you must come to Jesus and ask Him to fill you with His Spirit.
To stop feeding
on okay things, even good things, and ask Him to fill you with the best… His Holy
Spirt.
So
what do I want you to do this morning? Well, 3 things:
1.
Receive Jesus as
Lord and Saviour.
If you have
never asked Jesus to come into your life to be your Lord and Saviour, today is
your day.
The Bible says
that today is the Day of Salvation. Today is the day that you get right with
God, today is the day that you start living right before God.
It starts by
confessing your sins, and asking God to forgive you of your sin and inviting
Jesus to be the Lord of your life.
“If you confess with
your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God
raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9,
NIV84)
In order for you
to live right before God, you must give your heart to Jesus. There is no other
way to be made right with God, than to surrender to Jesus.
The second thing
I want you to do is:
2. Receive the Holy Spirit.
ILLUSTRATION-When I was attending Kingswood
University I had the opportunity to sit under the teaching of Dr. John Oswalt,
a great bible teacher and theologian.
One thing that
he said was of such importance to me, that I wrote it in the front flap of my
bible, he said this:
“You’ll never
get more of the Holy Spirit when you were converted, but the Holy Spirit needs
more of you.”
Paul wrote in 1
Thessalonians 5: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through
and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1Th
5:23, NIV84)
I know there is
more that the Holy Spirit wants and needs of my life, and I know the same is
true for each and every one of you; I know this because you’re not dead yet.
(Well most of you, anyway.)
Will you receive
the Holy Spirit today? Will you receive all that God has in mind for you? If
so, I’m going to ask you to respond in just a moment…
But there is one
more application step that we all can take:
3.
Fill up on God, daily.
In order for us
to hunger and thirst for righteousness, and to be filled, we need to fill up on
God. You can do that in several ways: pick up a copy of the newest Our Daily Bread devotional
book and spend time reading that and God’s Word.
If you have a
smart phone or a tablet, download the You-Version app and being a daily bible reading
plan.
You can go to
the Lighthouse Christian store in Fredericton this Tuesday and purchase Third Day’s new worship
CD, or download it on iTunes…it’s called “Lead us Back: Songs of worship.. (I
also have a couple tickets for their show in April…)
There is so much
available to us to fill up on God and the things of God.
So as the band
comes back I want you to listen to the invitation given to us by God Himself:
“Is anyone thirsty?
Come and drink— even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine or
milk—it’s all free!
2 Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen
to me, and you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the finest food.” (Is. 55:1-2, NLT2)
God invites all
of us—no matter where we are on the journey—to come to Him just as we are, and
when we come to Him, He will fill us with the best thing imaginable, Himself.
So if you would
like to receive Jesus, you can.
If you would
like to receive more of the Holy Spirit, you can
If you would
like God to fill you with the best things, you can.
You can come to
the alter; you can stand up in your space, you can remain seated, you can raise
your hand; you can ask someone to pray with and for you, but promise me one
thing: don’t leave this place without telling someone about the step you just
took to draw near to God.
Jesus said: “Blessed are those
who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
(Matthew 5:6, NIV84)
