Sermon - March 7, 2010

Get Blessed: Hungry and Thirsty, Mercy Me
Psalm 42:1-5, Philippians 3:7-11, Matthew 5:6-7 

      The Beatitudes, or Be- attitudes, are the character map for every Christian; what we are to be to be like Jesus. Each beatitude builds upon the previous one. For instance, in the first week, we learned “blessed are those who are poor in spirit.” those who recognize their need of God – for the kingdom of God is theirs. To know your need of God and His gracious love is to mourn over things that grieve God. Through our repentance we receive the comfort of God. Aware of our weakness, our bent to sin, we are humbled in the presence of our Holy God. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. When we are truly meek before God, we discover we can no more live without Him than we can without food or drink.
     Are you happy when you're hungry? Does a growl in your stomach bring a smile to your face?  Do you get all warm and fuzzy when you're parched? After you have worked hard on a hot day, do you whistle a happy tune?  Yet Jesus tell us this morning, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be fulfilled. Matthew 5:6.  The words Jesus uses for hunger and thirst are not likely anything most of us have faced.
    King David did and describes it in Psalm 42.  “As a deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” A thirsty deer will run full throttle to find water. When he does, he will stick his face in the cool stream oblivious of everything else around him – very uncharacteristic of normal behavior because deer are generally very alert and cautious. A threatened, fearful panting deer will do nearly anything to quench his thirst.  King David, fleeing from his murderous son jealous for his throne, is hiding out in the desert. His physical thirst is a metaphor for his spiritual thirst for God. It is life-or-death desperate thirst. Water, juice, pop, coffee, tea, can slake physical thirst. But only the living God can quench our spiritual thirst.
    Such hunger and thirst for God caused Moses to climb a mountain through earth tremors and billowing smoke. In Exodus 33:18 we see him talking with God: “Show me Your glory.” God replies in effect, “Sorry Moses, My glory is too much for you. If you saw Me, it would kill you. But here's what I'll do. You hide in the cleft of a rock near Me, I'll cover you with My hand as I pass by and let you see My back.” So the next day,  Moses took the second set of tablets chiseled from stone as the Lord commanded him to the place God had shown him, “Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name. And he passed in front of Moses.”  Ex. 34:6 God's glory transfigured Moses' countenance and his life - enough to have the courage to lead the Children of Israel through the wilderness to the Promised Land. God satisfied Moses' hunger and thirst by empowering him to complete his mission.
  The Apostle Paul wrote of his  hunger and thirst for God in his letter to the Philippians:  “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.” Phil. 3:10. We know that Jesus  satisfied Paul's hunger and thirst because he writes: “What is more I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing  Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” Phil. 3:8
   Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled. “But Pastor,” you say, “I don't have a big appetite for spiritual things. I believe Jesus is my Lord and Savior, but I don't have a deep and driving desire to experience God – or an intense craving to study the Bible. That's just not my thing.”  God honors your honesty. You might not be feeling that hunger for God, and there's a reason.
   God designed us for fellowship with Him. Just as hunger and thirst is hard wired into our physical bodies for survival, spiritual hunger and thirst is wired into our spirits to fully live. I'm not talking about being religious.  I'm talking about longing for abiding relationship with God. The trouble is we fill our spiritual hunger with bogus stuffing like  busyness, entertainment including television, net surfing, sports, movies, video games, and social calendars that leave very little time or space for our relationship with God. None of those things are evil or wrong in and of themselves, but when they take up hours of our time at the expense of our fellowship with God, we are in jeopardy of  spiritual starvation. During famine, people have been known to fill their stomachs with saw dust. Although they feel full, they have no nourishment to sustain life. If you're not hungry for God, you are so full of things of this world that you have lost your appetite for the meat of God's Word and the honey of His presence. 
  Ordinarily I love steak. My top three favorites: roast lamb, lobster, and t-bone. But if I'm sick, the sight of a t-bone will turn my stomach. I have no appetite not even for  the foods I love. As His children, if we have no appetite for the things of God, something is wrong. So what do you do?  What do you need to do to have holy  hunger for God?
   First, be honest before the Lord and cry out to God for help. “Lord, I need Your Word to spiritually live as much as I need food to physically survive. I've been pigging out on stuffing and running after everything but You. Loving God, forgive me. Please give me back that hunger for You.” Jesus promises,“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” John 6:35
  Second: Get off the spiritual junk food. Turn off the TV and sit down with the Bible. Ask the Lord to speak to your heart through His Word. Turn off the cell phone, and cry out to God “Can You hear me now?” Turn off the car radio, or the I Pod and have a heart to heart conversation with your Creator. 
  Third, add some nourishing spiritual food to your intellectual and emotional diet. We have a rich Bible Study during Lent that will season your life with spiritual spice. Take time to read the book of Proverbs, or the Gospel of John. Ask God to make you long for His Word and to show you how it applies to your life. “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”  Ps. 34:8  If that were not true, it wouldn't be painted on my kitchen wall.
   You will know that you are on the mend and spiritually hungry when you have a greater appetite for the Bible. You won't be satisfied with a 10 or 15 minute sermon once a week. You'll want to know more of the Truth, expounded, and applied to your life. Jeremiah will speak through your heart: “When Your words came, I ate them. They were my joy and my hearts delight, for I bear Your name, O Lord God Almighty.” Jeremiah 15:16
  If you are God hungry and thirsty, your relationship with God takes priority – the most important thing in life. You will live by “All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give. I will ever love and trust Him. In His presence daily live.” Talking with God through out the day will be as natural as talking with your best friend, or beloved. Tom Landry, former coach of the Dallas Cowboys said, “The most important thing in my life is not my two Super Bowl rings. It's not my job as coach of the Cowboys. The most important thing in my life is my personal relationship with God.” For folks God hungry and thirsty, everything else is a far second. When I'm hungry, I 'm never hungry for something like lima beans. No, I want steak, or pancakes, or ice cream with chocolate hardshell, nuts, real whipped cream, malted milk and a cherry. Jesus promises that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, will be filled! They get the best, what they hunger after, a robust joyous loving and intimate relationship with Him.
  Folks who are God hungry and thirsty can never do or be enough for His Kingdom. Their longing motivates them to keep going and going and going – which brings us to the next Be-Attitude. “Blessed are the merciful”  To grasp something of  the depth of this Beatitude, we need to understand the scope of “mercy.” Mercy goes beyond giving clothes to Goodwill, accepting a friends apology, or dropping coins in the Salvation Army bucket at Christmas time. Mercy is the gift given to the guilty. Grace is getting what I don't deserve. Mercy is not getting what I do deserve. A mother approached Napoleon asking for her son to be pardoned. The emperor replied that her son had committed an offense twice and the sentence was death. “But,” she replied, “I don't ask for justice, I  plead for for mercy.” Napoleon insisted, “But your son does not deserve mercy.” “Sir,” the mother cried, it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for.” “Well then,” said Napoleon, “I will have mercy.”  He spared the woman's son.
  God did not forgive us because we deserved it. We did not and cannot earn it. God forgave us because He is merciful. He forgave us at great personal loss: the life of His Son Jesus. God is the source of mercy. “But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions -it is by grace that you have been saved.” Eph.2:4 Jesus demonstrated God's mercy healing sick, raising the dead, restoring the woman caught in adultery, the tax collector,  the thief on the cross, and  His executioners, Father forgive them they know not what they do.
  God's grace saves us, mercy sustains us. Mercy soothes the pain. Grace cures the disease. Because we have by God's grace received mercy, we offer mercy to others in His love. The more we know Jesus personally, intimately, the more we will want to be  like Him: merciful, forgiving and generously giving to meet the physical and spiritual needs those for whom He died–and that is everyone. We are never more like our heavenly Father than when we are being merciful to others. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” Jesus is saying “I will do for you what you do for others.” Mercy reaches out and meets others needs with the love and spirit of Christ embodied in each of us. Have the heart of King David: My soul thirsts for God. When can I go and meet with God? Beloved, here and now. Come to the Lord's table, hungry and thirsty.

     

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