“Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness” -- Matthew 5:6

“Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness”

Matthew 5:6

Introduction

“Come, all who are thirsty, come to the waters;

and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money on what is not bread,

Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to Me, and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the riches of fare.

Give ear and come to Me;

hear Me, that your soul may live.”

These are the opening verses of Isaiah 55, the passage that includes the promise that God’s word will not return empty, but will accomplish what He desires and achieve the purpose for which He sent it.

Psalm 23 speaks of preparing a table before me. Revelation 3:20 speaks of Jesus standing at the door and knocking, with the promise that He will enter and eat with the one who answers the door.

There is a lot of references in the Bible concerning satisfying hunger and thirst. And it makes sense, considering the narrative of the Bible takes place in a desert land. The business of growing food and finding water was a constant struggle, and it should not surprise us when the Bible speaks of satisfying this most basic of needs.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus has addressed the blessings that come to those who recognize their spiritual bankruptcy, those who mourn their sinfulness and the sinfulness of their world, and those who are humble before God. Now He builds on that with the blessing to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. It is natural that those who recognize their desperate need for God and His salvation through Christ should want to learn from Him. It is reasonable to expect such people to hunger and thirst for that which satisfies the soul. And the blessing to such people is that they will be filled as they come to the One God who can save, the One Christ who redeems us, the One Spirit that brings us to the Bread of Life.

Central truth: The blessing of our hungering and thirsting for righteousness is found in our rewarding relationship with God.

To hunger and thirst for righteousness, we must:

Seek the One who can feed us.

I remember numerous times when I was growing up going to my mother and telling her I was hungry. She’d say, “Get yourself a piece of bread and butter.” That didn’t sound like it would satisfy my hunger, though, to which Mom would say, “Then I guess you’re not that hungry.”

And she was right. I had the munchies, but not just for anything. These days, I’ll look in the freezer, the refrigerator, the pantry, all for that which will appease my appetite, only to find that we have nothing in the house that really addresses that need in me.

The point of this is that, when I think I’m hungry, I look for something to eat. I have been blessed to live in a time and place where I never really had to go without a meal unless I wanted to. Which isn’t very often, I’ll grant you. When we’re hungry, though, we look for something to satisfy that hunger. Sometimes, we can look but never really find that thing that would hit the spot.

God understands this, because when we hunger and thirst for righteousness, He knows we need to look for Him. He mentions this throughout the Bible. In Jeremiah 29:13, He says, “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.” In Matthew 6:33, Jesus says we are to seek God’s kingdom first, and let everything come after that.

The whole idea of seeking God is present throughout the Bible, but it’s not like God is hiding from us. From the very beginning, He has sought us out. From Adam and Eve to Abraham to Moses and beyond, God has made Himself known to us. He is never far away, but neither is He forcing Himself on us. The need for us to seek Him is to let us know that this relationship is a two-way street. He is always with us, but we must also recognize our constant need for Him. Only by seeking Him do we acknowledge that He is the answer, He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Our relationship with God is one of continual looking to Him and for Him. Again, it’s not a case of “hide and seek,” but a case of, as the hymn says, turning our eyes upon Jesus.

Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness need to look for it, and in seeking it, we discover the satisfaction of our hunger and thirst in God.

Fill ourselves with what God provides.

When the Israelites were wandering in the desert, they complained about their hunger. In response, God gave them manna, a substance like sweetbread. The food was satisfying and it met the daily needs of the people. This manna lasted until the people entered the Promised Land. God told them to only take what they needed for the day. There were those who thought they might keep some for leftovers, only to discover that the manna didn’t last beyond the day.

“Give us this day our daily bread.” God is faithful to give us what we need as we need it, but never more than what we need.

When Elijah was fleeing from Jezebel, God provided a cake of bread and a jar of water to nourish the frightened, dejected prophet. God fed him twice with that meal.

Jesus tells us He is the bread of life. He says, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never go hungry, and he wo believes in Me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). To the woman at the well, Jesus says, “Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

When we seek God to satisfy our hunger and our thirst, we need to partake of that which He gives us. We need to find the food that He provides, the nourishment for our soul that always satisfies us. That’s why Isaiah 55 begins with the statement of coming to Him for food and drink, and concludes with the promise that God’s word never returns empty and achieves His purpose.

There have been times when people have given me advice, and I didn’t listen or I blew it off. When I was on my high school’s track team, I ran the 440—that’s one lap around the track. It was supposed to be a sprint. At one of our first practices, the coach told us to run about five 440’s. We were to rest for about a minute between the runs, and we were to run the laps in about 90 seconds. Most of us ran these sprints in the low 60’s. There were five of us, and two of us thought that was silly. Clarence and I weren’t going to trot around the track; we were sprinters; we were going to run those laps.

For the first two laps, things weren’t so bad. It was that third one, though, that started to make Clarence and I realize that maybe we were wrong. It was losing our lunch after the fourth run that confirmed we should have listened to the coach. And it took all we had to make it around the track for the fifth time.

Sometimes, we need to listen to people who know what they’re talking about, but we fail to do so. We we fail to listen to God, it usually ends up far worse than losing our lunch after the fourth run. When God speaks, we need to take heed and embrace His guidance.

For those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, we need to fill ourselves with what God provides.

Take that which we seek and receive and put it into practice.

Are you aware that there is a danger in taking in calories if we do nothing to burn off the calories? That there is a danger in eating more calories than we need? When all we do is eat, and never do anything afterward, then we start gaining weight. We get bigger. We get fat. We get obese.

The same is true with spiritual food. It’s isn’t enough to listen to God and learn from Him. We also need to put it into practice. That is told us time and time again in Jesus’ teachings. In Matthew 7 and Luke 6, Jesus likens us to wise men and foolish men. The wise man is the one who hears His words and does them, while the foolish man is the one who hears but doesn’t put it into practice. In Luke’s Gospel account, Jesus says, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46).

You see, if we are genuinely hungering and thirsting after righteousness, then once we find that righteousness that comes from God, we should equally want to put it into practice. We should want to apply the truths we learn from Him in our daily lives.

We should want to love the Lord our God with all our being, and our neighbor as ourselves. We should want to love as He loved us, and we should want to embrace the Golden Rule. We should want to seek whatever is excellent or praiseworthy, and we should want to emulate Paul’s commitment to Christ.

Everything about the Gospel is not just that we are redeemed, but that we are redeemed for a purpose. Our purpose is to be Christ on earth. We no longer insist on our rights, but yield ourselves to Christ’s Lordship.

We take that what we seek and receive, and we put it into practice.

Conclusion

There’s nothing quite like sitting down to a good meal after having gone a while without eating. It’s not just the food and drink, though, it’s the fellowship with those around the table. Some of my fondest memories are sitting around the table with Kim and the kids, talking and eating and enjoying each other’s company. I enjoy eating with friends and family.

When we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we are really looking for close fellowship with Christ as the Holy Spirit ministers in and through us. We want to be near Him, to fellowship with Him, to learn from Him and gain insights that only He can give us.

And the promised blessing is that when we hunger and thirst for righteousness, God satisfies us, and our satisfaction always leads us to draw closer and nearer.

Are you hungry? Are you thirsty?