Daily Devotional For Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Good morning and it’s Terrific Tuesday. We are making our way through Jesus’ Sermon On The Mount. This is the best and most famous sermon ever. Currently, we are looking at what are called “The Beatitudes.” They are found in Matthew 5:3-12. Beginning today, we are going to look at the fourth Beatitude in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (ESV). As we have already seen, each Beatitude builds on the previous one and there is a specific order to each one. Each Beatitude is not so much a promise from Jesus as it is a possibility that can happen if humility is the main attitude in the believer. 

The first Beatitude dealt with recognizing our need for and dependence on Jesus Christ. Jesus used the term “poor in spirit.” We are helpless without Jesus Christ. The second Beatitude dealt with being broken-hearted over our sin. We mourn over what it does to us, to others and our relationship to God. We mourn when we minimize it, rationalize it, excuse it, ignore it and act like it is no big deal. We are blessed when we are penitent.  In case we ever wonder if it is a big deal, look at the cross and Who is on it – Jesus dying for our sins.

The third Beatitude dealt with humility and how God never rewards the proud, the arrogant nor the boastful – only the humble. In  Revelation 21-22, the meek are told they have the potential to inherit the earth. Pride is what got the devil kicked out of heaven (See Isaiah 14:13-15). Pride is what got Adam and Eve kicked out of Paradise. Pride always leads to a fall.

Today, the fourth Beatitude is the result of doing the first three. Only the humble, only those who know their need for dependence on Jesus Christ and only those who are humble will have a hunger and thirst for righteousness. We live in a culture that has hunger and thirst for all kinds of good and bad things:  money, wealth, power, sex, relationships, education and degrees, possessions and other things. 

Jesus uses something basic to human survival: hunger and thirst. We have to eat and we have to drink fluids. Jesus said we should hunger and thirst for righteousness. This is not a one time thing or some kind of supplement. It is a necessity. A hungry person’s body lets them know they need to feed. Their stomach growls like a lion, they can get headaches, and they can be irritable. We call it “hangry” – being hungry and angry. Just like someone who is starving has a single consuming drive to eat food and drink water, so should be our hunger and thirst for righteousness. 

New Testament scholar William Barclay writes this introduction about Matthew 5:6:

“The fact is that very few of us in modern conditions of life know what it is to be really hungry or really thirsty. In the ancient world, it was very different. A working man’s wage was one denarius, not a wage on which anyone ever got fat. A working man in Palestine ate meat only once a week, and in Palestine the working man and the day laborer were never far from the borderline of real hunger and actual starvation.

It was still more so in the case of thirst. It was not possible for the vast majority of people to turn a tap and find the clear, cold water pouring into their house. A traveler might be on a journey, and in the middle of it the hot wind which brought the sandstorm might begin to blow. There was nothing for him to do but to wrap his head in his hooded cloak and turn his back to the wind, and wait, while the swirling sand filled his nostrils and his throat until he was likely to suffocate, and until he was parched with an overpowering thirst. In the conditions of modern western life, there is no parallel at all to that.

So, the hunger which this beatitude describes is no genteel hunger which could be satisfied with a mid-morning snack; the thirst of which it speaks is no thirst which could be quenched with a cup of coffee or an iced drink. It is the hunger of someone who is starving for food, and the thirst of someone who will die unless given something to drink.

Since that is so, this beatitude is in reality a question and a challenge. In effect, it demands: ‘How much do you want goodness? Do you want it as much as a starving person wants food, and as much as someone dying of thirst wants water?’ How intense is our desire for goodness (and righteousness)?

Most people have an instinctive desire for goodness (and righteousness, but that desire is wistful and vague rather than sharp and intense; and when the moment of decision comes they are not prepared to make the effort and the sacrifice which real goodness demands. Most people suffer from what the author Robert Louis Stevenson called ‘the malady of not wanting’. It would obviously make the biggest difference in the world if we desired goodness (and righteousness) more than anything else.

When we approach this beatitude from that side, it is the most demanding, and indeed the most frightening, of them all. But not only is it the most demanding beatitude; in its own way it is also the most comforting. At the back of it, there is the meaning that those who are blessed are not necessarily the people who achieve this goodness (and righteousness), but the people who long for it with their whole heart. If blessedness came only to those who achieved, then none would be blessed. But blessedness comes to all who, in spite of failures and failings, still clutch to themselves the passionate love of the highest” (Source: William Barlay, The New Daily Study Bible Commentary,” “Matthew,” Vol. 1, pp. 114-116).

It is my observation that many Christians do not have the hunger and thirst for righteousness that they have for food and drink. As a result, they turn to other things to satisfy spiritual hunger and thirst that cannot fulfill it. Here is a graphic and accurate picture of this in Proverbs 26:11, “Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly” (ESV). Since every single person who has ever lived, is living and will ever live is created the image of God, God’s image then puts this spiritual hunger and thirst in us that only He can fill. 

Apart from God’s revelation to each person, they do not respond and some who do know God’s revelation, choose not to respond. The reason is found in Jeremiah 2:13, “For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me,the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (ESV). We all have the tendency to take good things such as possessions, positions, power, people and popularity for example and use them only for selfish and self-centered reasons. They are like the prodigal son in Luke 15, but they are also unlike the prodigal son in that they do not repent and come back to their heavenly Father.

Instead, they are content to stay and live in the mess their lives have created. This is the point of 1 John 2:15-17,  “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (16) For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. (17) And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (ESV).

Only those who seek righteousness can enter God’s kingdom. They seek ungodliness for godliness. They seek for their hubris to be replaced with humility. They seek their disobedience to be replaced with obedience. They desire their sin to be replaced with sanctification. In the words of pastor and author John MacArthur, he writes this:

“Jesus’ call to spiritual hunger and thirst also follows logically in the progression of the Beatitudes. The first three are essentially negative commands to forsake evil things that are barriers to the kingdom. In poverty of spirit we turn away from self-seeking; in mourning we turn away from self-satisfaction; and in meekness we turn away from self-serving.

The first three beatitudes are also costly and painful. Becoming poor in spirit involves death to self. Mourning over sin involves facing up to our sinfulness. Becoming meek involves surrendering our power to God’s control. The fourth beatitude is more positive and is a consequence of the other three. When we put aside self, sins, and power and turn to the Lord, we are given a great desire for righteousness. The more we put aside what we have, the more we long for what God has” (Source: John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, “Matthew,” p. 179).

New Testament scholar Martin Lloyd-Jones writes this:

“This Beatitude again follows logically from the previous ones; it is a statement to which all the others lead. It is the logical conclusion to which they come, and it is something for which we should all be profoundly thankful and grateful to God. I do not know of a better test that anyone can apply to himself or herself in this whole matter of the Christian profession than a verse like this. If this verse is to you one of the most blessed statements of the whole of Scripture, you can be quite certain you are a Christian. If it is not, then you had better examine the foundations again” (Source: Martin Lloyd-Jones, Studies In The Sermon On The Mount, Vol. 1, pp. 73-74). 

Jesus’ point is that the person who does not pursue God’s righteousness, does not have a hunger and thirst for righteousness, is not part of the kingdom of God. The proof you are saved, redeemed, in the family of God, is not that you go to church. It is not that you tithe or serve. It is not that you are at church every time the doors are open, it is that you have a hunger and thirst for righteousness. This is Jesus’ point in Matthew 6:33, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (ESV). The Amplified Bible (AMP) puts it this way: “But first and most importantly seek (aim at, strive after) His kingdom and His righteousness [His way of doing and being right—the attitude and character of God], and all these things will be given to you also.”

Pastor and author Chuck Swindoll writes this:

“True disciples of Christ have an insatiable appetite for spiritual truth and a life of holiness. The “righteousness” here is both positional—having a right relationship with God by grace through faith—and practical—living out that right relationship in our just acts of love toward God and others. Jesus is referring to a passionate desire to know and walk intimately with the Lord. When we have this desire, we can’t get enough of His Word, devouring it, digesting it, and putting it into practice. We can’t drink deeply enough from the fount of truth, letting it flow into us, through us, and out of us as we refresh the lives of others. Such a desire for righteousness has its own reward, the fruit of righteousness being a clean conscience, a deeper love for God and others, and a life free from fear, regret, and shame” (Source: Charles R. Swindoll, Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament, “Matthew 1:15,” Vol. 1A, p. 89).

Questions To Consider

1. What hunger and thirst occupy your day and time each day? Is it a career? Your spouse? Your children? Your grandchildren? Your position? Your education? Money, wealth and retirement? Whichever they are, how do these pursuits compare in your hunger for righteousness? Why?
2. When we go too long without food and water, our body lets us know. It can “yell” at us and if we do not satisfy that hunger and thirst, we can find ourselves yelling at everyone else. Take this same analogy and compare it to your soul. How does your soul let you know that you are not satisfying it with righteousness? If you satisfy your soul with something else, how does your soul let you know this did not satisfy?
3. What good things do you tend to let take the place of God’s righteousness in your life? Why do you do that? What will you need to do to change that?

Scripture To Meditate On: Psalm 42:1-2a, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for You, O God. (2) My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (ESV).

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, Your righteousness is not what dominates my hunger and thirst. It is so easy for me to attempt to fill the void in my heart with so many other good things, but in truth, they never satisfy. Please forgive me when I feed my hunger and thirst with anything other than Your righteousness. Please forgive me and Lord, please let me “come and taste and see that the Lord is good as Psalm 34:8 says. I love You Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you Southside!--Pastor Kelly