The Way Back Home: Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness | Part 4

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

So I'm picking up week four of the series called The Way Back Home.

For those of you who've been here, we've been going verse by verse through one of Jesus' sermons, the beginning of a sermon, actually.

And The Way Back Home is really the story of us, the beginning recorded in Genesis, where we're created by God and we started in harmony with God.

The first two of us, though, Adam and Eve, went their own way.

They didn't listen to God.

Wandering and disobeying resulted in shame and a break in the good relationship that they had with God.

And their relationship with each other was broken as well.

So God has been on this restorative, redemptive rescue mission ever since.

And we need a way back home, just like they did.

We do our own thing.

We don't listen.

We look for satisfaction apart from God.

But what are we really looking for?

Underneath it all, don't we want the wholeness and the flourishing of our true home, our true identity with God?

We believe Jesus is pointing us toward home with this sermon, this surprising, sometimes hard to understand sermon of Jesus.

In the past three weeks, we've zoomed in on three of the verses so far.

Nassim helped us to understand how we're poor in spirit.

Chris taught us about meekness.

And then last week, Roland gave us a powerful picture of what it looks like to mourn in the kingdom of God.

And today we're up to the fourth one.

It's found in Matthew chapter 5, verse 6.

Matthew 5:6

And if you brought your Bible, you can get it open and ready in Matthew chapter 5, or if you use your an app on your phone, or of course, that most of the verses are all in the digital bulletin.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

But before we get to our specific verse for the morning, I want to zoom out for context just a little bit.

I want to specifically look at the audience.

This teaching comes from the beginning of Jesus' public recorded interactions with people.

But it was long enough that the crowds began to form and follow him.

Verse 1 of chapter 5 says, when he saw the crowds, so there was a crowd.

And at the end of chapter 4, we get a glimpse of what this group was like in verses 23 and 25.

And it says this, and you'll be able to follow on the screen.

News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them.

Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and the region across the Jordan followed him.

In another spot, in another book, in Luke chapter 6, verse 19, we get another clue of what this crowd was like.

Luke 6:19

And it says, And the people all tried to touch him because power was coming from him and healing them all.

So people were coming from all over the region.

And we can see these people were desperate.

They were needy.

They were powerless.

They came because Jesus was powerful to act and to aid and to help.

They just wanted to touch him.

And I can imagine they ached for relief.

I like to pose questions when I teach to help you, the listener, engage with the text.

And I also believe that God wants to dialogue with each one of us through scripture.

So my first question for us is this do you see yourself as a person with needs who needs God's power?

Is that how you see yourself?

This message today is for those who have needs.

It's not for the ones who think they have it all together.

The people gathered around Jesus were not the ones with the perfect job, the perfect health, with all the right answers.

You can sit in the audience as a person with needs.

Jesus sees and knows you have them, and you're welcome here, and you're welcome with Jesus.

He actually has you in mind, us in mind, as desperate needy people.

And as you will see, the kingdom of God is actually yours.

A couple more points as a way of setup before we get to our specific verse.

I want to look at the word blessed in general again.

And the reason is because it gets repeated over and over by Jesus.

So we've been digging into it a little bit each week.

Nassim used the word congratulations to capture it.

Chris explained how it's like getting a pat on the back because of the condition you're in.

Poor in spirit, meek, mourning, and today hunger and thirsting for righteousness.

He said it's like God is saying you're going in the right direction.

Roland reiterated the idea that Jesus describes these people as fortunate.

I want to add to that picture a little bit.

Through this word, I hear Jesus saying to us, This is who you are.

Come home to who you really are.

It's your identity as a part of the family of God.

You and I might get out of touch with it, but it is who we are.

Kenneth Bailey in his book, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, explains the Hebrew word and the Greek word for blessed when he says this.

Blessed refers to a spiritual condition of divinely gifted joy already present, not a requirement to be filled in order to receive a reward.

It's already present.

It's simply true.

It's here for you and I to live in.

It's kind of like your family or your last name.

You're part of a family with certain attributes, which you may or may not like about your family.

For our family, we are, let's call us New Jersey Loud.

We originally grew up in New Jersey.

We like movies, we like music, we like Disney, we like the beach.

There's certain things about our family that are just true.

So the first thing is about this blessedness is that it's true.

It already exists.

We don't do anything to make it happen.

We get to discover its existence as a part of the kingdom of God.

The keyword study Bible, which I use a lot, use the word blissful even in the definition for blessed.

Glenn Pacquiaum wrote a book about this whole section of scripture, and he entitled the book Lucky.

Not lucky in terms of randomly receiving a gift, but being fortunate, being overwhelmed with receiving such an outpouring of goodness and wholeness, almost despite our circumstances.

He says, the Beatitudes, this whole section here, are chiefly an announcement, a proclamation that now, because of Jesus, everything will be different.

Our condition of need and longing and lack, Jesus calls blessed.

Like Chris said, Jesus blesses the void.

Jesus invites us to discover this countercultural kind of happiness and joy.

So let's pause for a question.

And I'm gonna ask them both personally and communally, and we'll get a little more into that later.

But when was the last time you experienced this kind of joy in God?

And as a community, when was the last time we as a community, as a whole group, as a body, experienced this kind of joy in God?

So now we're gonna read all the verses together from our series.

And I want you to keep in mind what we've been learning about this word blessed.

It's in Matthew chapter 5, and it's all the verses that we're going over in the series, verses 3 through 10.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Jesus is speaking to the crowds, and now Jesus is speaking to us today.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons and daughters of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

This is an announcement of very good news.

If it's old hat to you for some reason, if you've heard it so many times, pray for fresh eyes and fresh ears.

If it's new to you, listen with curiosity and joy.

As has been said in previous weeks, this is not a list of virtues.

It's not a to-do list.

Rather, it's a state of being.

It's not meant to be read and applied, like if I do this, then I'm gonna get this.

Although it's tempting to read it that way.

But to live in the kingdom of God, it's not a matter of following the checklist.

It's a matter of complete reorientation.

I kept thinking and praying as I studied and looked into this, and it's like if it's if we're not supposed to just like do this and get this, then what is it, God?

What's our posture?

You know, what's our action to get home, to experience this?

I was looking in the previous verses and the following verses, and then I came to to uh Matthew chapter 4, verse 17, and it was like a light bulb.

Matthew 4:17

This is what it says From that time on, Jesus began to preach, repent, for the kingdom of God is near.

I know that verse has been misused a lot in our society.

But he kept saying this, like from that time on, he kept saying this, leading up to the Sermon on the Mount.

He's like, reorientate yourself.

Something is arriving.

Get ready.

Simply put, turn.

Repent essentially means to turn, to change your mind.

A change of position is needed to receive this kingdom, to come back home with Jesus as King.

So, with all of this in mind, how we're needy and desperate people, how we can have joy, we can experience this joy, and how we need to reorientate ourselves.

Now we can zoom in to our verse for today, which is in chapter 5, verse 6, and I'll read it again.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

I don't know about you.

When I first read that, it just kind of sounds like religious mumbo jumbo.

It's not something that I immediately get.

It kind of sounds abstract.

So let's unpack it a little bit together and flesh it out.

So first we need to talk about how, in order to come home to Jesus, that we're gonna ache.

Like when we live at home with Jesus, we are gonna ache.

There is a longing.

Jesus uses the words hunger and thirst, these very physical words, to paint this picture for longing for righteousness.

In first century Palestine, Kenneth Bailey reminds us, many in Jesus' world would have personally known both unrelenting hunger and life-threatening thirst.

It's hard for many of us to imagine this, probably.

There might be some who have experienced this, um, and maybe even presently.

But I would say for most of us, it's isn't it more like, what am I in the mood to eat or what am I in the mood to drink?

We don't, it's hard for us to kind of grasp this all-consuming desire.

Jesus paints a strong picture here of desire.

And remember, the audience for Jesus at the time here was Jewish.

So communally, they were under the rule of Rome.

They longed for God to re-establish his rule and his reign, for God's kingdom to return.

They were mistreated, they were taken advantage of, they heard about God's actions of mercy and justice in the past, and they were waiting for God to act again.

The ache for things to be made right was very real for them.

So, my question for you, for us here, is what do we long for these days?

What are we consumed with?

What do we as a community, as a church body, as even maybe our communities out there, whatever part, whatever neighborhood you're part of, what do we long for these days?

Let's look at the verse again.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Jesus says, the ones in my kingdom are consumed with righteousness.

When we live from our true identity, we discover this longing inside for things to be right and good.

I had the opportunity to travel to Israel-Palestine in 2016 with our church at the time and an organization called Tell Us, who is pro-Israeli, pro-pro-Palestinian, and pro-peace.

Not easy to be.

We got to listen to people on both sides of the conflict.

We heard different perspectives.

It was the first time I really understood the concept of a dual narrative when two different groups of people experienced the same event so differently.

There was a time toward the middle of the trip while walking the streets when my friend and I were just overcome with an ache for the people that we heard.

We were overcome for a longing for things to be made right for the people of the Holy Land.

We saw injustice.

We heard misunderstandings.

We saw suffering.

We felt the tension of the issues.

We saw a power differential.

One particular day we visited a woman who was helping a 20-something woman apply for college so she could become a nurse.

We heard her story on speakerphone.

But because of the limitations for Gazans, this young woman also had to get permission to be able to leave Gaza and come into Israel for school.

This older woman, she's chosen a different path.

This older woman lived right at the border of Gaza, where when tensions flare, she's right in the middle of the crossfire.

But she drives to the checkpoint and she drives people to medical appointments or other important things.

And she was helping this particular woman.

Talk about ache.

Talk about things needing to be made right.

This young woman just wanted to go to school to become a nurse.

And there were all these hoops and all these things that she had to jump through in order to do this.

When we see things and hear things and experience things that are not right, we are the ones Jesus calls blessed.

Fortunate somehow.

So let's read our verse again as we keep working our way through.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Let's pick apart the word righteousness a little bit.

Righteousness is one of those things that we're supposed to care about, that we will care about in the kingdom of God.

But of course, it's kind of a churchy, you know, stuffy word a little bit.

So right here, the word in Greek means, well, it means righteousness, but it also means justice.

Ryan Post in his book, Jesus People, Communities Formed by the Beatitudes, so he says that the Greek word here for righteousness in a broad sense means the state of being things, the state of things being right, or things as they should be.

And both Post and Kenneth Bailey in his book explain how this word denotes relationship.

And the Hebrew word for righteousness also points to relationships.

It's not just an ethical moral list.

So a little story about a time that I maybe cared about justice a little too much.

I tend to have a strong justice meter.

I tend to live out in the world noticing maybe things right or wrong.

And if I see something, I might want to act or do something about it.

Like if I were caught on the show, What Would You Do with John Quinones?

I probably would be the one in there doing something in some way.

I might not be doing exactly right, but I usually want to get involved.

Well, my sons were playing Little League Baseball back in Florida a couple years ago.

And baseball, right, where we need like justice, right?

I noticed the pitcher on the other team did not have the same uniform as the rest of the players.

And he pitched the whole game and he torched us.

Like he was way beyond the ability of everybody else, both on his team and our team.

So I was like, something does not seem right here.

What is going on?

So I noticed some people in the stands who I thought maybe were his parents, and I just kind of casually said, So does he normally play on this team or is he normally playing a different team?

To which they said, no, he normally plays on a different team.

And I was like, I knew it.

So I had this sense of, you know, my justice is just not right.

I didn't leave it there.

I proceeded after the game was over, I proceeded to find the umpire just to check.

Like, is this right?

Can someone come from another league?

What's the deal?

And actually, the umpire said he actually knew that it was wrong.

He knew that this kid was from a different league, but he as the umpire is not allowed to say anything.

It has to be the coaches have to like put a protest or a challenge in.

And so I found out it was wrong and he shouldn't have been pitching.

But and did I leave it there?

No.

I I ended up finding another one of the coaches just because basically I sense like someone needs to know this is not right, and they need to know it's not right.

So let's just say that it ended up with me on the other side of the field behind their dugout, approaching with all of these mom, mostly moms, being like, What's wrong?

What are you saying?

Um, because the assistant coach came over and said, This woman here wants to ruin our victory.

I was like, oh my gosh.

And so I basically just wanted to find the head coach and just say, this was not right.

Um, so meanwhile, while all that was happening, I think my husband was hiding behind a tree somewhere, not really wanting to know anybody to know I was with him.

Um, so maybe it's debatable whether that is a circumstance that I should have acted and done something and said something.

But for sure, we are called to care.

We are called to be consumed in hunger after things being made right.

And the thing to remember about this righteousness is it's all about relationships.

Later in his public discourse, Jesus makes it clear how important relationships are.

When a Pharisee comes and tries to test him with this question, and he says, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?

To which Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.

All the law and the prophets in the Old Testament hang on these two commandments.

The hunger and the thirst, this longing is about relationships.

It's our relationship with God and it's our relationship with others.

God deeply cares about both being good and right.

And of course, it doesn't take a minute, whether it's on the baseball field or other parts of our lives, for us to see how our relationships are not right.

Look around at our communities, look at social media, look at our families, look in our own hearts and look at our own behavior.

That's where this hunger starts.

When we see what's missing, what we don't have, how things are not right, we need to admit that first.

And Jesus says to us, yes, notice this, pay attention.

This is a longing you can actually indulge in.

This longing for goodness and righteousness and wholeness in your relationships.

So a question is when was the last time that you admitted your own lack of personal righteousness?

When was the last time we as a community admitted our lack of righteousness?

When have we noticed and grieved and longed for things to be right in our community, in our church, but in our community at large?

So now we're gonna just look a little bit deeper into how this longing for righteousness is both personal and communal.

One Bible scholar says it like this.

He says, and he's talking particularly about this righteousness in this verse.

It is better to take this righteousness as simultaneously personal righteousness and justice in the broadest sense.

These people hunger and thirst, not only that they may be righteous, for example, that they may wholly do God's will from the heart, but that justice might be done everywhere.

All unrighteousness grieves them and makes them homesick for the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness, like Peter says, satisfied with neither personal righteousness alone nor social justice alone.

They cry for both.

In short, they long for the advent of the messianic kingdom.

We long for goodness and wholeness in our own hearts.

And we long for goodness and wholeness in our communities, for things to be set right.

This is part of who we are as Christ followers.

So this righteousness is both personal and communal, and we can experience satisfaction from God as we long for this righteousness.

Personally, communally.

Now and in the future.

So let's bring in the last piece, the last word.

Thanks for hanging with me as we work bit by bit through this verse, because there's so much good stuff in here.

The last word is filled.

So let's read the verse another time.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

The word filled could be translated satisfied.

It means to fill, to feed, or to satisfy.

And it literally can mean talk about food and our stomachs.

It's the same word that is used when Jesus feeds 4,000 people.

When the disciples say, Where can we get enough food to fill all these people?

And then they walk away filled.

Same word.

But here it means to be filled and satisfied with spiritual blessing.

And because it's the divine passive, according to Kenneth Bailey, it's God who is the one who satisfies, who fills us.

Like food fills our stomach, God fills us and satisfies us.

And Jesus says, so he says, okay, so we hunger, we thirst for righteousness, we're gonna be filled.

So it begs the question, when?

When can we expect to be filled?

And looking at the whole of Scripture and the whole story of God in us, I believe it's both now and in the future.

Broadly, God has done work that is finished.

Our salvation has been won.

Jesus said it is finished on the cross.

There are things that we can experience now because of what God has done.

We have the Holy Spirit within us when we believe.

We have communion with God, yet we know that our transformation is not complete.

We know that in society the transformation is not complete.

We are still in the process of being refashioned by God.

I believe it's the same with satisfaction.

That we can, as we seek after righteousness, we can experience satisfaction.

And then also there is this ultimate satisfaction in a promised future.

I want to share a little bit of my story just to drive this point home.

I used to live with a dark cloud of shame, which basically followed me wherever I went.

Most people wouldn't have seen it or known it, but I sure did.

I believed in Jesus as a young girl.

I believed that Jesus came, died for me, I believed that he was God.

But for those who might have a similar story of coming to faith early, it takes a lot longer to grasp really what Jesus did on that cross and really what he did when he walked out of that empty tomb.

During my high school years, I made some bad choices myself, and some bad things happened to me as well at the hands of another person.

Although I believe that God never left, it affected my view of God and it affected my relationships as well.

I really didn't know the fuller satisfaction of God until my early 30s.

But through time, relationships, Bible study, prayer, finally I awakened to the truth that set me free from this dark cloud.

Not that I never have any darkness, but just this one that just never left me.

And satisfied is really not a strong enough word to describe what I experienced with God.

I was overflowing with love and happiness as I learned the truth about what he did and what it meant for me.

Personally, I longed for righteousness.

And God revealed himself to me and gave me an understanding of what he did with my past and what he is doing in my present.

God lifted that darkness.

So for you, do you long for righteousness in you and over you?

Or is it possible that you're plagued with something that keeps you from being completely satisfied with God?

One of the places God used to awaken me was Romans.

I love the book of Romans, even though I don't understand all of it.

But in chapter three, quoting the Old Testament, Paul says this there is no one righteous, not even one, no one understand, no one who understands God, no one who seeks God.

All have turned away.

They together have become worthless.

There is no one who does good, not even one.

We are all in the same boat.

It goes on.

Ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.

There is no fear of God in their eyes.

Part of my thing was I would compare and contrast somebody else being up here, me being down.

And it was relief and freeing to know we are all in the same boat.

We can freely admit that we don't have it with God personally.

We can change our mind from thinking we have it in ourselves, that we are righteous enough, good enough.

Or also we can stop thinking, well, we can eventually get there on our own, and we can say to God, I don't have it.

I just can't be good enough, at least sustained.

I can't do it on my own.

But God, I want it.

Back to Romans chapter 3, verses 21 and 22 for the rest.

Romans 3:21

And there's so much more in there, but it says, But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the law and the prophets testify.

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

And further in Romans chapter 8, 3 and 4, it goes on, Paul says, For what the law was powerless to do, in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

And so he condemned sin in sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit.

God does for us what we cannot do on our own.

And it's the same for each of us.

The moment you believe Jesus is God, and Jesus fulfilled all the good and all the righteousness that you never could, you're covered.

It's fulfilled for you.

Condemnation and shame are gone.

And you can live that way.

And because of this, we can be in God's presence confidently, boldly, honestly.

God does not shun us, even though we're still in process.

We find our way back home to God.

He provides the way.

God freely makes it happen for us.

Personally, we're declared righteous simply because we believe Jesus, who he is, what he's done.

Believe, that's it.

Our relationship with God is put right.

God does not treat us as we deserve, God is kind and compassionate.

In this, God satisfies us now.

And then this longing and this satisfaction happens communally as well.

I'm gonna tell you a story to illustrate this a little bit.

Years ago, I had the honor of meeting a young woman while we lived in the suburbs of Chicago.

I won't use her real name out of sensitivity and protection.

Let's call her Isabella.

Isabella and I, along with another friend, got to meet for dinner one night.

Isabella had just made a huge decision.

She decided to get on the train and leave her situation of being trafficked and used like a disposable object by men who paid for fleeting evil pleasure.

She was nervous, brave, and beautiful.

Her courage astounded me.

Months before that meal, I had become aware that sex trafficking still exists today.

And there was a group of women at a particular church, a partner church, and then there was a woman at our church who decided to do something about this injustice and problem in our society.

And I had the honor to learn from them and work with them on the front lines, trying to reach out and love and support women who are being trafficked.

One night, I wasn't there for the initial call, our team reached Isabella on the phone.

Our normal practice was we would gather on a regular weeknight and make cold turkey phone calls.

We had a script, we had a plan, we offered support.

We always asked if they were safe, at least for the moment, in that moment.

And then if they started to respond positively to us, if they started to kind of lean into the conversation, we usually would ask if they want to meet.

And we could bring them something, something they needed, whether it be clothing or toiletry items, or if they had children, maybe diapers or something like that.

We wanted them to know how loved that they were.

We wanted to offer them a chance to get out, an opportunity to get long-term housing and care for a new start so they could live freely.

Before that initial phone call with us, Isabella longed for things to be made right in her life.

Inside, there was an ache for goodness and freedom and flourishing.

But due to a variety of circumstances, she found herself trafficked in the sex industry.

And we, sort of regular women who over the course of our lives discovered Jesus' love, we, the ones in the process of being healed and transformed by God, we just wanted to partner with God.

Because God seeks for every person to be loved and to be cherished.

God wants goodness and justice for everyone.

And we had that longing too.

So despite the challenging work of making intimidating phone calls, and despite how difficult it was for Isabella to get on that train, we found happiness and satisfaction from God in the midst of that injustice and brokenness.

So who's ready to be working on the front lines toward justice communally?

I know there's probably some who already are in different ways.

There's so many different avenues that this can happen.

So let's recap.

Isn't it crazy how all this stems from one verse?

Jesus really packs a punch with this one.

Jesus invites us back home to his kingdom to wholeness.

While we're still here on this earth, we will experience longing and happiness.

We get to seek after righteousness, goodness, and justice in ourselves and in our world.

Along the way, God will satisfy us and fill us.

And ultimately, we'll be filled completely and forever, like Revelation, the last book of the Bible, gives us this picture of where there's no more crying, no more suffering, no more pain.

When God will create a new heaven and a new earth, everything will be made right in every way.

And Peter points us to that day in 2 Peter 3.13 when he says this, but in keeping with his promise, God's promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

Until then, though, what about us now?

What does it mean for us that Jesus says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness?

And like I said, there's lots of different ways that this verse can apply and give us meaning in our lives, but I have four groups in mind to end.

I want you to think about which one might fit you.

To the first group, you're sitting here today and you never have turned toward Jesus.

Maybe you've been hardened for some reason.

Maybe you've just been simply exploring who Jesus is.

Today could be the day that you decide to believe Jesus' love for you and his sacrifice for you.

You are longing for righteousness in your heart and your life.

You know you don't have it.

You hear Jesus' invitation to come home and be filled with his righteousness.

I say to you, believe, be free, and celebrate.

And to the second group, you've been a Christian for years, maybe, and for whatever reason, you haven't fully grasped Jesus' righteousness covering you and filling you and freeing you.

As you've longed for righteousness, you still don't feel confident when you're in God's presence.

You don't realize the kind of intimacy that you can have with Jesus because there might be a dark cloud still following you somehow.

You hear Jesus' invitation to come home and be free from the shame of the past.

You're ready to be filled with overflowing because of how God sees you and accepts you because of Jesus.

You don't need to hide or play games anymore.

And to the third group, the Holy Spirit might be nudging you to join God in his justice mission work here in San Jose or maybe another part of the world.

God has awakened something in you.

You're more aware of your longing for righteousness and justice communally.

You hear Jesus' invitation to come home and join the work that he cares about.

It will require you probably to give something up in your life to make some room.

But God will show you how.

Trust the process.

And then the final group.

Whether it's local, whether it's global, you might be tired.

It might feel like the winds are against you.

It's gray and cloudy in your work.

And even though you're tired, you hear Jesus' invitation to you to stay home.

Do not give up.

Take respite, take rest, be refreshed, but don't give up.

You will be filled again.

God will satisfy you.

Your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like noonday, like Isaiah says.

There will be a day when all will be made right.

Until then, continue to carry the tension of hungering and being satisfied.

It's worth it.

Let me pray.

God, thank you for your word.

God, thank you that you came.

Jesus, you came here to earth as a human for us.

You spoke.

You ruffled feather, you ruffled feathers.

You made people ask questions.

You made people challenge you.

You came to bring us righteousness.

You came to set things right.

We thank you, God, that personally we can have that.

I pray for anyone here who is just on that decision and they're tinkering on the edge.

I pray that you would give them the faith to believe that Jesus, you are God, and you've done everything that they can't do.

And I pray for those who, for whatever reason, have had this dark cloud of shame that just kind of hangs over them.

And I pray that they would grasp to the full extent that they can that your righteousness is over them.

And because of that, God sees them in a whole different light.

Jesus, because of you, and because of what you did.

And I pray for those who are kind of something's awakening in them and they see an issue, they see a people group, they see something in society that's just not right and they want to get involved.

I pray that you would lead them by your spirit, guide them, show them how, show them where.

And I pray for the ones who have been working and working and working, and they might be tired.

I pray that you would encourage them.

I pray that they would get the rest that they need.

I pray that you would surround them with other people, with like minds, of wanting just people to know how good you are and to know that you want to bring justice and righteousness to the earth now, your kingdom here.

Show us what it looks like.

Show us what it looks like as individuals and also as a church.

We love you.

We thank you that you are real and that you speak to us and that you change us.

We pray all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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