I…like…eating. Not in a gluttonous way, or an unhealthy way. I just like eating. I praise God for giving us taste buds, and noses to experience the joys of this or that taste or flavor. So, food is fun to me, and eating it by myself or with others is always a good time. This has been true of me ever since I can remember. I wake up excited because I get to eat, and I go to bed excited for the next day when I’ll get to eat again. It’s a bit of joke in our house, as soon as we’re done with lunch I will often say, ‘What’s for dinner?’ Anyone else feel like this, or is there something wrong with me?
Well, as much as I enjoy eating there is something I don’t like about eating, the feeling of being stuffed. I really don’t like feeling stuffed after a meal. It’s hard to breathe, I feel all puffy and bloated, and my pants get way too tight. So instead of eating too much at any given time, I’d rather just graze all day long.
I thought about being stuffed as I was studying this week, because there is a stuffing in our text today. A stuffing not of the stomach but of the soul. In this kind of stuffing, we actually get a green light to glut and gorge ourselves as much as we can and as often we can. Of course I’m not referring to the eating of physical food in this, but of a spiritual reality in our souls.
See it for yourselves in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” That last word satisfied is a full word that has a sense of deep fullness to it. This then, is what’s in view for us today as we now come to the fourth beatitude. It’s given to us in Matthew 5:6, and in it Jesus teaches us, not just how to be spiritually healthy, but that true spiritual health comes from being spiritually hungry.[1]
We must begin again, where we’ve begun with each beatitude, by seeing the progression present in them. Remember the beatitudes aren’t just general truths or stand-alone platitudes, they progress from one to the next. By doing this they display what we experience within the soul as well as the way God intends His people to flourish. See the ordering of the progression up to this point.[2]
First, we see and feel our need as we realize our spiritual poverty. Second, being conscious of our sin we mourn and grieve over our lost condition. Third, we no longer justify or excuse our sin as we get low, humble ourselves, and have the strut knocked out of us by God as He makes us meek.
Now see what all of this leads to in v6. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Here we turn away from ourselves to Another, to God, in a great unceasing hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Now that we’ve seen the progression, let’s examine this fourth beatitude in more depth. Our first heading is…
A Healthy Hunger
This metaphorical language of the soul hungering and thirsting isn’t just found here in the Sermon on the Mount, it’s all over the Bible.
Psalm 36:8 stands out in this as it says, “They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.” Psalm 42 does as well, which starts with the following words, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (42:1-2). Psalm 63 also has this imagery, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (v1). Later Psalm 63 even speaks of the Christian’s pleasure in God as our souls being satisfied with fat and rich food (v5). And again Psalm 107 marvelously uses this imagery too, “Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things” (v4-9).
This language alone shows us that Christians are a people who have great desires, great longings, and great yearnings. This ought to be stirred up in us and fanned into flame, not suppressed. So see it Church. This fourth beatitude is teaching us what the Christian looks like, and what the Christian life feels like within. It truly looks like and feels like a deep hunger and a vigorous thirst. For what? For righteousness!
A hungering and thirsting for righteousness? What is this? What righteousness is in view here in v6? Well, I submit to you that the righteousness in view here in v6 is a threefold experience for all Christians.[3]
First, there is justifying righteousness in view. When we travel through the first three beatitudes, realizing our spiritual poverty, mourning over it, and are humbled by it…we then come to know what Isaiah says, that all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags (64:6). We know acutely that in our sin we’ll never be able to stand before a just and holy God. So we begin to long for a greater, truer, purer, and more lasting righteousness than our own. Where do we look? We look to Christ. For in Christ God provides a flawless righteousness to all who believe. As 2 Cor. 5:21 states, “For our sake God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” It’s not our righteousness, it’s Christ’s very righteousness that He accrued in His sinless life. This is the righteousness that God reckons, counts, and imputes to us when we first put our trust in Jesus. His is the righteousness we’ve longed for and the righteousness that is more than enough for us. I call this justifying righteousness because at the moment the sinner cries out to God to be saved, they are justified, declared to be the very thing they’re not, righteous…only because the righteousness of Christ now covers them. This is the first and initial way every Christian experiences hungering and thirsting for righteousness.
Second, after justifying righteousness there is sanctifying righteousness. When we first experience being clothed in Christ’s righteousness we are redeemed by Christ. When this occurs in us, the process isn’t over, it continues on. After being redeemed by Christ we hunger and thirst to be renewed by Christ day by day until the end. Meaning, after becoming a Christian, every Christian starts to hunger and thirst for righteous living, for obedience to God’s commands, for living in line with God’s Word. It’s as it is within our bodies. Just as we can powerfully feel physical pangs when we’re hungry or thirsty, so too the soul pangs with an intense longing to know Christ and grow in Christ.[4] The redeemed soul yearns for a closer walk with Him, to live nearer to Him, to glorify Him and enjoy Him more deeply. This really is a call for every Christian to pursue their growth and maturity in Christ.
What another paradox this is too, something that seemingly wouldn’t be true, but is.[5] Think of it, how can it be that the soul who comes to Christ can actually hunger and thirst at all? Isn’t Christ Himself the Bread of Life and the Living Water? Shouldn’t being saved by Him fully satisfy our souls? Well, yes. But it has ever been the experience of God’s people to be both satisfied and seeking.
Church, See this for what it is.[6] This hunger and thirst isn’t a comfortable thing. This isn’t hunger and thirst like, I’m hungry for a snack where I’m in charge and I eat and drink what I want. No, I think this ought to be far more desperate in us. It’s hungering and thirsting that feels the threat of starvation, as if, all will be lost and undone if this desire for Christ isn’t quenched. Do you want more of Jesus like this? Do you desire Him and His ways more than anything else in all of life? Do you hunger and thirst for Him that greatly? Or do you just snack on His infinite perfections when it suits you? Think of your daily ‘quiet time.’ I’m not against the phrase ‘quiet time’ but I do think it can be misleading. What often happens is that once we complete our quiet time we go off into the rest of our day and we don’t return to Word and prayer till the next day when we have another quiet time. This is great, it is. You should have a quiet time. But since hungering and thirsting for righteousness is the pattern for Christians, we should eat and drink from the Word and from prayer as often as we need to! So don’t settle for a once a day reading plan, read many times throughout out the day. Most of you eat at least three times a day to ensure you’re bodies are fed, why do we only feed our souls once?! Church, hungering and thirsting after righteousness isn’t a comfortable thing, it’s a posture of desperation. It’s a ‘I must have more of Christ, or else!’ kind of life. Is this you? If it is, great! Keep feasting and keep growing! If it’s not you, why isn’t this you? Is there another pursuit or object in your life that you desire to pursue more than Christ? Or do you not have time in your busy schedule? Or is it something else? I know we all don’t have the same vocations, or the same schedules, but we all have the same amount of time, and we all can make adjustments for the most important pursuit in life. We need to hear it…Christ, being with Him and growing in Him, should dominate our schedules, everything else should revolve around Him!
And I could go on with more, saying that hungering and thirsting is also a continual thing. It’s not something we come in and out of, as if it were seasonal. A healthy Christian is to be always like this. In a spiritual sense, a healthy Christian is to be always hungry![7] Satisfied yes, but always wanting more and more.
So Christians, though saved by Christ, still hunger and thirst for more of Christ. This is sanctifying grace. This is the second way every Christian experiences hungering and thirsting for righteousness.
Third, after justifying righteousness and sanctifying righteousness, there is final righteousness. What I mean in this phrase is once one becomes a Christian and begins growing, we see just how much in us and around us is still wrong and in need of redemption. Tears still fall. Children still starve. Girls still walk the streets. Some years are still just too hard. There is still disgrace. Lies and gossip abound still. There are still corrupt politicians. There are still meals served at missions. And there are still jam-packed prisons. The hope of final righteousness is that there really will be a day when all that is sad becomes untrue, when Christ returns, and rights all that is wrong, in all things. As Amos 5:24 says, on that day “…justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” But that day is not yet today, so we long for it to come. Part of hungering and thirsting for righteousness is hungering and thirsting for the righteous One to return and bring His Kingdom in full measure. What a glorious day that will be.
This is the third way every Christian will experience hungering and thirsting for righteousness.
A Stuffed Soul
Note how v6 ends with satisfaction? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” What is this?
The great promise to behold here is that such hunger and thirst will be satisfied. No one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness will be disappointed.[8] The word used for satisfied here is the Greek chortazo which carries the meaning of fullness, filling, satisfaction, fattening, or even ‘stuffed.’[9] Don’t you love that? The power word picture of a full belly is used here to describe what it looks like when God reveals Himself to His people. Far too often we think God isn’t like this. That He is stingy with His blessings, slow to pour out the riches of His grace to His people, or that if someone truly comes to Him they might get a little bit of joy. The end of v6 rids us of these low thoughts of God. Here we learn that God won’t be a dripping faucet of joy to His people, no, He’ll so pour out Himself to His people that Niagara Falls will seem like a mere splash in a puddle. This is a lovely thought…God desires to fatten our souls and stuff us with righteousness! We must take care with the quality and quantity of what we physically eat here in this life lest we become unhealthy and unfit to serve others. Yet, when it comes to the Lord, a gluttony of soul is encouraged when we’re feasting at His Word or drinking from His fountain!
As there was with righteousness I think there is an order to how we experience this satisfaction.[10] First, there is an initial satisfaction when we first meet Jesus, when the gospel so floods into the soul and we taste the Living Water for the first time. Second, this initial experience with satisfaction in the Lord creates a hunger for more, that presses us on to go further into the Lord in all of life.[11] And third, this continual pursuit of satisfaction in the Lord culminates and reaches its highest perfection in us at the moment many throughout Church history have called the Beatific Vision, when we finally see the Lord face to face. We will then learn and understand that all we enjoyed of God in our lives was just a foretaste…that all we enjoyed of God in our lives was just the table of contents to the great book that never ends, where each chapter gets better than the one before.
Conclusion:
Church, I do wonder how all of this hits you. Does it all seem too wonderful to really be true? Real life, you might say, isn’t as high and lofty as all these promises are. Real life is what matters, and we shouldn’t keep our heads and hearts in the clouds. Wrong. Don’t settle! God promises a lavish banquet in Himself for every Christian in v6! Avail yourselves of it, and your soul will soar in a stuffed satisfaction that will endure to the end.
If you feel weak, sinful, imperfect, overburdened, and unable to enjoy such things, remember what v6 actually says. Jesus promises great blessing not to those who are full of righteousness, but to those who hunger and thirst for it.[12]
So, are you hungry? I know you are. God made your soul to hunger and thirst for Himself. So let’s not ask if you’re hungry, let’s ask ‘what do you hunger for?’
I think we all need to hear and answer the call of Isaiah 55:1-2.
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.”
[1] R. Kent Hughes, The Sermon on the Mount: The Message of the Kingdom, Preaching the Word Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), 42.
[2] A.W. Pink, An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1969), 25.
[3] Pink, 26.
[4] Pink, 26.
[5] Pink, 26.
[6] Hughes, The Sermon on the Mount: The Message of the Kingdom, 43.
[7] Hughes, 43.
[8] Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew, PNTC (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992), 99.
[9] R.T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, NICNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 168.
[10] France, 168, footnote 30.
[11] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon of the Mount, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981), 82.
[12] Pink, An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, 28.
