Fortunate Are The Hungry
Written by Ed Allen
Saturday, 23 March 2002 19:00
You can tell a lot about a person by knowing their appetites.
1. The object of the blessed persons desire:
- Not experience
- Not happiness
- Not worldly comfort
- Righteousness
- Right with God = more than belief, in right relationship
- Rid of sin =
- On the one hand, open ourselves to the charge of being prudish;
- On the other hand, this is not principally a matter of external behavior - (Not having such a tight rein on our behavior that we don't do anything wrong so much as having such a focus on God that we only want to do what is right.)
- Also OT law makes clear the Biblical view of "righteousness" includes social righteousness. Seeking justice for the oppressed.
- Luther quote from Stott
- Opposite is worldliness - worldly are concerned only with themselves, they cling to their loved ones, work to collect as much stuff as they can, make the postponement of death or at least its denial a principle priority. The righteous believe death is not a period, but a comma and live in light of the other side of the sentence.
- Self-test: What is the object of our desire:
- When you have time to daydream, what is the substance?
- What do you worry about?
- The amount of stain in our past is less an indication of our righteousness than how we view our past.
- If you regret mistakes and sins you may be on the road to righteousness.
- If you regret that you did not make more mistakes, chances are righteousness is not the hunger of your heart.
2. The desire itself:
- Cheers final episode ?
- Hunger and thirst (desperation)
- So basic that Jesus describes it as being "hunger" and "thirst." It drives all other desires.
- Also this desire is intense. Jesus could not have used a more intense illustration of desire. Psalm 27:4; Psalm 42:1-2; Galatians 2:20
- Chromatius: "He taught that we must seek after righteousness with earnest desire, not with fainthearted energy. Indeed, he calls those persons blessed who in their search for righteousness virtually burn with passionate longing in their hunger and thirst. For if each on of us really hungers and thirsts for righteousness with eager desire, we can do nothing else but think and seek after righteousness. It is necessary that we eagerly desire that for which we hunger and thirst."
- Filling. Word means to be satisfied to eat all you want.
- I have rich memories of being stuffed with food ?
- But I don't have many memories of going hungry. Jesus' audience knew well the pain of hunger and thirst.
- He was offering them the unimaginable.
- What about you? What is God offering and do you believe Him?
- Me:
- Do not know the power and freedom, the fullness, of consistently being desperate for righteousness. I'm too worldly.
- But I do know the disappointment of not pursuing it.