The Be-Attitudes #5 - “Getting your heart’s desire”
Matthew 5:6; 6:25-34
By James Galbraith
First Baptist Church, Port Alberni
February 4, 2007
Text
5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
6:25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Review
We have, so far, looked at the first three Be-attitudes Christ shared with us.
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Seeing ourselves for who we really are, people in need of forgiveness. When we do this, we are then ready to accept Christ’s forgiveness and enter “the kingdom of heaven”
4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Speaks to facing up to tragedy, feeling true sorrow not only for what hurts us but also for the sin within us. We cannot hide from our hurts, or bury our guilt. When we hand over our sin to God, he does forgive us, comforting us. When we face tragedy with Christ at our side, he will see us through.
5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Means to follow Christ’s example and live as servants to those around us. We may try to build earthy kingdoms in our own greed and efforts, but Christ tells us that to be truly rich, we put others in front of ourselves.
Introduction
This fourth be-attitude tells us to look at our desires.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
I looked at a comparison chart that placed the words,
“satisfied”, “well-adjusted” and “practical” in opposition to this verse.
Now, that doesn’t seem right. If someone calls us “satisfied”, “well adjusted”, or “practical” , we would usually take it as a compliment.
And so we should. As far as I understand the terms,
Being satisfied means not wanting any more than what we have. Some one who is satisfied doesn’t always want this or demand that - they see what they have or where they are and feel content.
I don’t relate to well to this, and I always admire those who do. I have a hard time not flipping through the latest Canadian Tire flyer, looking for just the right socket set to replace my “never-good-enough” tools. Same with the “hi-tech” section of the London Drugs flyer, or the latest Sears catalog.
My goal is to leave this sort of “wanton desire” behind me, and I think I’m making headway. That said, this is not the sort of satisfaction I’m talking about today.
Being well adjusted means that we have adapted well to whatever is happening around us. It is being the lone male presence in a room full of women, and still being able to keep your wits about you. I know that I’ve walked out of a few rooms thinking, “too much estrogen in there for me!”
It is being the new employee settling into the patterns of action in your workplace. It is also taking hardship in stride and adapting to the new realities that tragic events can bring.
All of us will “adjust’ in these kind of situations; we just don’t always adjust well. Being well-adjusted is exactly what it says. That said, this is not the quality trait I want to focus on today.
Being practical means that we’re quite useful in our own resources. Practical people are always nice to have around. They are the ones that can help you unplug your sink or fix the leak in your toilet, and will take nothing more than a cup of coffee in return.
I meet a lot of practical people in summer camps. I remember one man in particular. He watched as 80 campers and staff would take off their shoes to enter the main hall.
These shoes would be scattered around the entryway, and posed not just an inconvenience but also a safety hazard. Now many people would see this and make a fuss, but have no help to offer.
Not this fellow - he simply started building shelves, the very next day. And they were good, sturdy shelves, because this man had acquired a lot of practical skills in his lifetime.
That’s what I think of when I hear the word “practical” someone who can and will get the job done. But again, this is not the sense of being “practical’ that I’m talking about today.
Satisfaction, being well-adjusted and being practical are, when applied to most areas of life, good qualities.
However, there is at least one situation when all three of them can actually bring us down. Now, what is that area?
Our “spiritual” fitness. Now what exactly is that?
I think of our spiritual fitness as the different elements of our personal faith. Our desire to know God better.
Our knowledge of his Word, and our track record in applying it to our lives. The time we spend in prayer, and our faith in the results of prayer.
The fellowship we enjoy with other believers.
We need each other if we are to grow as Christians.
If our physical fitness means the strength of our physical hearts and our bodies, our “spiritual fitness” represents the strength of our spiritual lives, our faith.
Now, if we look at our spiritual fitness and say “good enough”; we’re walking down the wrong path. Being satisfied with our faith, and by that I mean thinking of our faith as complete and without room for growth, is downright wrong and a sure way to stop growing spiritually.
If we’ve allowed our minds to become “well adjusted” to the sin around us, comfortable in it, then we need to get out the comfort zone we’ve wandered into.
It’s amazing how inoculated we can become to things which, in a different context, would cause us to react in disgust.
For example, if I wrote down all the bad words we’ve heard in our workplaces and read them from this pulpit, you all would probably rise up and throw me out of here. And yet when we hear them on TV, we simply shrug them off as another sign of the times.
And if we think we are practical enough to rely on our own resources for our spiritual nurture, we’re not very practical at all. It is the atheist, not the Christian, who thinks that everything they need is within them already
So what can we do to build up our spiritual fitness? It is to this issue that Jesus said,
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
By righteousness, he means our desire to know God and to live the way he wants us to.
God is often identified as “righteous”, and “the God of righteousness”,
so when Jesus says “hunger and thirst for righteousness”,
he is calling us to seek after God Himself.
Righteousness is also simply the right way to do things, or living our lives the way of the righteous.
By telling us to strive for righteousness, he is telling us to put God and a life that honors him at the very core of our being.
This is so essential to how we live as people that Jesus compares it our desire to eat and drink. Aside from breathing, these two instincts are probably the most powerful in our bodies.
We can control them, and sometimes we do a good job with this and sometimes we don’t. But if we try to ignore them for too long they can and will take over all but the strongest minds. It is hunger and thirst that makes people walk miles for water and a handful of food.
They are appetites, desires that keep us alive,
so it is good that they are as strong as they are.
So if Jesus uses them as examples, he must be making a strong point. That point is that we should crave spiritual food just like we do physical food.
More than that, we should see our spiritual health as MORE important than our physical health.
After Jesus had been fasting for forty days, he was tempted by the devil to turn stones to bread, in order to feed his famished body.
There would be nothing “wrong” with this;
if Jesus wanted to turn stones into bread, he was certainly allowed to!
But to put the Devil in his place, Jesus refuses, telling him that,
Matthew 4:4 - Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
He knew that in his situation, a loaf of bread was nothing compared to the life-giving power of the Word of God.
He also knew the power of hunger and thirst; why do you think he refers to himself as “the Bread of Life”, and salvation as “springs of living water”?
Because he knows that these things, bread and water, were essentials of the people he was talking to, and that referring to them would trigger a powerful association.
He also knew how hard his audience had to work to attain these things. The area he was speaking in was incredibly poor; people had to dig far for clean water and work hard to make a living off the land.
Food and water were hard earned staples, not kitchen conveniences,
so when he says to this crowd “hunger and thirst for righteousness”,
he knows exactly how much these appetites consume his hearers.
He is saying that righteousness, knowing God and living for him, was as important as life itself. And without righteousness, they would never “be filled”. This leads us to the second half of the verse.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
FOR THEY WILL BE FILLED.
Hunger is a desire that is never completely “filled”. It can be satiated by food, repressed by drugs or willpower, ignored for short periods of time, but it is never truly filled. The same argument can be made for thirst. It ebbs and flows, but it never, ever leaves.
And there are other appetites, other desires we have, that never really find fulfillment. We go to the electronics superstore and see all the new TV, but when we bring one home we’re already looking at bigger and better ones.
We can earn so much, but there is always more money to be made,
We can live in a big house, but there is always a bigger house to hope for.
We can have ten outfits in our closets, but want ten more.
We can drive a nice car, and want a nicer one, or a truck. 4x4. etc etc etc.
We may enjoy what we acquire for a time, but just like our hunger and thirst, all of our desires end up compelling us to want more. Desire is something that compels us, and doesn’t like to let go.
These desires can drive us to distraction, and that is why Jesus bring up our desire again in Matthew 6:25-34: (re-read)
In short, he is telling us to not let our desire for food, drink and clothing consume us. We need these things, but we need God more,
and when we put him into first place, the other things fall into place.
I say this knowing that there are many people living in desperate situations, and I do not minimize their situation one bit.
I also say this from experience,
having lived in some pretty difficult situations,
facing many more needs than my very limited resources could meet.
When Lori and I were in Vancouver studying, we hit situations that tested our faith and strained our resources.
When we fixed our hearts on God’s ability to help us, he did. We lost count of how many times we were blessed by the love of God expressed through others.
I also read this passage knowing that many believers in different parts of the world find themselves in situations I may never face. Where food is scarce, water rare and unhealthy when available, and clothes ragged or non-existent.
Yet I will maintain that God takes care of our needs when we place our faith in him.
When our desires cloud our perspectives to the point where we worry too much about what we’ll eat, we lose sight of the God who feeds us.
When our want for drink overwhelms us, we forget that it is God who leads us to water.
When we worry too much about our daily apparel, we are ignoring the God who gives us the strength to meet each day.
And all of these desires will never, really be filled, when we make them the focus of our lives. They will drive us into a worry that will consume us and leave us wanting more, more, and more.
But when our desire is righteousness, to know Him and live for Him, we will one day find fulfillment. Because God promises us that
12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
Our desire to know God will be met, because we will see him face to face.
Our desire to live for him will be filled, because will live with him in Heaven.
One last word before I wrap up.
I can understand if all this talk of righteousness can leave us feeling inadequate. And that’s not a bad thing, because if you think you’re righteous enough already, you’re sorely mistaken. Jesus saved some of his harshest words for those who were “self-righteous”
In this be-attitude, Jesus is not saying that we have to already be righteous, but that we have to desire righteousness.
We cannot earn God’s love by impressing him with our deeds.
We come to him in faith, trusting that he will help us, love us and save us.
And the righteousness that builds up with in us, as we seek him,
is not the sum total of the good things we have done.
How do we desire righteousness? We desire righteousness by living in faith. Listen to these words from Romans
1:17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
3:21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
4:4 Now when a man works (for his salvation), his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. 5 However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
Without preaching a whole new sermon, let me tell you what I believe these verses are saying.
God sees us as righteous, not when we try to impress with ourselves, but when we put out our faith in his love and care for us.
When Jesus is telling us to live as through righteousness is our food and drink, he is telling us to put our faith in God.
He is telling us that we can seek righteousness by living in faith. He is promising us that we will, through our faith, see God’s face.
He’s not expecting us to generate righteousness form within us, but to trust that God will provide to those who seek him.
To wrap up today, these first four beatitudes, all pointed to the inner self.
Seeing ourselves for who we really are, people in need of forgiveness.
Facing sorrow instead of trying to bury it or run from it, .
Seeing ourselves as servants to those around us,
and seeking God and his righteousness like we seek the very basics of life.
We must never look at our personal faith and say “good enough”.
We must never let our hearts become numb, or “well-adjusted” to sin.
We must never think of ourselves as “practical” enough to take care of our own spirits like we take care of ourselves.
Jesus deliberately chose our appetites for food and drink to show us how completely we should seek him. He spoke to people who spent most of their lives seeking to meet these very needs, and said make God and his righteousness your heart’s desire.
He backed this up by doing the same, making his Father his heart’s desire, refusing to minister to his own appetites when the devil tempted him in the desert.
He promises that our desire for God, unlike our need for food and drink, will one day be completely fulfilled. We can seek God knowing that we will see Him face to face; we can strive to live his way knowing that he will one day bring us home to be with him.
And we don’t have to do it on our own. We seek to know God, and to live life the way he wants us to, knowing that to do so is to live a life of faith. He knows we can’t do it on our own – he expects us to look to him for help, to rely on him, to put our faith in him.
When we make God and his righteousness our heart’s desire, and seek him in faith, we will not be disappointed.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
