Why You Still Feel Empty After Getting Everything You Wanted

It was uh just a couple of years ago in Alberta, Canada.

Uh a gentleman was hungry and he he wanted a cheeseburger.

It was four o'clock in the morning.

He knew that in his little town there was only one restaurant that was open, so he got in his car and he drove to this drive-thru fast food restaurant to get himself a cheeseburger at 4 a.m.

He pulls up to the little uh machine that you talk into, the the intercom system, and uh he proceeds to order himself a cheeseburger, and there's a pause on the other side, there's a delay.

And when the employee comes back on, rather than confirming the order, they informed him that they would not be serving him a cheeseburger today.

I don't know how irate you would be if that happened to you, Monroe Saganal.

How would you feel if someone said, I'm not going to serve you?

Here's what you need to know.

It was very obvious to the employees that this man was very intoxicated.

Uh, he had been drinking, he was hungry for a cheeseburger, got in his car, drove to the drive-thru restaurant, and at 4 a.m.

is ordering his cheeseburger.

After an argument ensued and he got nowhere with it because they refused to serve someone who was drinking and driving, he pulls his car into a parking space and proceeds to call the police department.

He called the police department to have the police officers come and force the restaurant to sell him a cheeseburger.

And he told him the entire story, including how much he had drank that night.

So the police department says, Sure, sir, we'll come by.

And he says, I will wait patiently for you to arrive.

And the police department showed up, and sure enough, there he was sitting in his car, waiting for the police to come.

He did not receive a cheeseburger a couple nights in a comfy, cozy cell, but no cheeseburger.

But isn't it crazy what hunger will do for us?

Like hunger actually, it actually drives us, it motivates us, it moves us forward.

You've all experienced it before.

You experience it every time you pick up one of these.

Every time you receive a menu from a restaurant, you open it up and you begin to peruse it looking for the one thing that's going to satisfy the hunger that you have.

There's all kinds of menus, too.

Some of the restaurants you get, it's just page after page after page, and it's like this place can't have good food.

Like, you how do you serve that many things that actually produce quality?

Like at some point, you dilute your product.

And then there's a uh a friend in our small group put us on to a chicken shack in Silver Lake that where you walk in, there is no menu that they hand you.

It's up on a board and they sell chicken wings and French fries.

That's the entire menu.

And if you're like me, you walk in, you read that, it's like this is gonna be good.

Because if you can only make one thing and be successful, you are probably pretty good at making that one thing.

Then there's other menus like this one that you you open up, and I don't even understand the words.

Benito del Norte, Raviola de Langusta, and I'm not sure why I just had an accent there, but like I don't even know what the word means.

I don't know what the food is.

So when I open up a menu, what I do is I look for the chicken section and the steak section.

I don't care about the soup and salad, certainly don't care about the seafood, just chicken and steak.

And I can tell you within about 60 seconds what I want to order.

There are others of you that do it the wrong way.

And what you do is you open up a menu and you have to read every single item on the menu because you're afraid you're gonna miss something.

I've eaten with some of you, I know you do it.

And some of you, like you'll you'll read through the fish section and you don't even eat fish, but you still have to read through, and it takes you forever to make a decision.

But regardless of how you approach a menu when it's given to you, the reality is life will put you in situations where you find yourself searching for that which satisfies your hunger or quenches your thirst.

Years ago, a friend of mine and I uh went to lunch together.

We were kind of in a similar scenario, we're both pastors and both just trying to become healthier.

We were both exercising, we're going to the gym, we were trying to eat healthier.

Uh I was trying to just do some body recomposition, lose a few pounds.

He was uh trying to lose a lot more weight, but we were both trying to move toward being healthy.

So we get together for lunch to commiserate about ministry and talk about our journey and trying to be healthier.

And I remember sitting down and the server gave us our menu, and we we quickly perused the menu.

He's a good person like me, so we made a decision pretty quickly.

And and we ordered.

I don't even remember him ordering, I just remember our our conversation continuing.

It was not too much longer.

The server brings our meals out and sets in front of me the plate of what I ordered, which was a grilled chicken with some sort of sauce on it, I don't remember what it was, mashed potatoes and broccoli.

That was my meal that I ordered.

And then I looked up and I saw what she placed in front of him.

Have you ever looked at someone else's food and got physically sick before?

Here's on his plate was a pile of deep-fried restaurant-made potato chips, and next to it was the hamburger that he ordered.

Look, I'm not opposed to a hamburger, but let me just describe the hamburger to you for a second.

It was a double, so two quarter bound patties.

It was a double cheeseburger with bacon, grilled onions, smothered in peanut butter.

Oh, oh yeah, I know, it's bad.

It gets worse.

The entire thing was dipped in batter and deep-fried.

It was a donut that was encapsulating a hamburger.

It was the grossest thing I've ever watched someone eat.

When he took a bite, like grease drips down his chin, and he's got to lean over the it was so disgusting.

I had the nine and the one already dialed because I knew I knew that next one was gonna be coming soon.

Here's a guy who said, I want to be healthier, I'm exercising, I'm trying to eat better, and then he ordered a heart attack on a plate.

And you're like, something doesn't line up here because here's the reality for every single one of us when it comes to our hunger.

There is a difference.

Hear this, friends, this may be the only thing you need to hear today, and I'm giving it to you really early.

There is a difference between what you hunger for and what you want to hunger for.

There is a difference when it comes to your food, and there is a difference when it comes to your faith.

There is a difference between what you hunger for and what you want to hunger for.

If you have your Bibles, flip with me to Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

We are in this series that we are calling the good life because we know that Jesus has already shown us what the good life is.

The world will tell you a million different things about what the good life is, but Jesus told us really early on.

In the Gospel of Matthew, we see Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist.

He goes into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, tempted by the devil, and after that, he he begins to preach the gospel.

He goes from towns and villages and people groups and begins to proclaim the good news.

And in chapter 4, verse 17, Jesus says, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.

This is the foundation of everything that Jesus does.

The entire gospel is built upon this proclamation from Jesus.

Yes, in the gospels, he healed people.

He healed the lame.

He gave sight to the blind.

He cured the sick.

He raised Lazarus from the dead.

He did miracles.

He walked on water.

He turned water into wine.

He fed 5,000 people with just a little bit of food.

He calmed the storm.

He had power over the weather.

He did all those things, but that's not why he came.

The reason that Jesus came is to call you and me into repentance because he was ushering in the kingdom of heaven.

And everything Jesus does was to point to that purpose.

The rest of chapter seven shows a gives us a picture of Jesus beginning to gather his disciples.

And then we enter into the most famous sermon the world has ever seen.

We call it the Sermon on the Mount, chapters five, six, and seven.

Some of the most famous teachings of Jesus take place in this sermon.

But what we are focused on is how did he start?

Because Jesus didn't start by giving an introduction.

He didn't give his background.

He didn't talk about his education that he had.

He didn't give announcements about what's coming later.

He didn't tell a funny story about some guy in Alberta who was drunk and tried to get a hamburger.

He just began with blessings.

We call these the Beatitudes.

What he was doing was he was showing people what the good life is.

And here's what I need you to understand about the Beatitudes.

This isn't Jesus looking at a crowd and saying, hey, there's some meek people here.

Y'all are blessed.

That's not what he was doing.

What Jesus was doing was looking at everyone and telling them what it meant to follow after him, what it meant to live the good life.

It wasn't blessed are the meek, blessed are those who choose meekness.

Blessed are those who follow me in a way that make you live a meek life.

This is what Jesus is doing.

He's telling us how we can live the good life.

And today in verse 6, we hear Jesus say, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Or they will be satisfied, depending on the translation that you have.

Would you pray with me as we jump into this?

God, I thank you for your word.

I thank you for your truth.

I thank you, maybe even more so that you are here and you are present with us.

God, there is never a moment that we approach you and you don't want to transform us and change us.

There is never a moment that we enter into your presence and you don't want to draw us closer.

So Lord, would you do that today?

Would you do that in us and through us?

And Lord, yes, even in spite of us.

Would you whisper into our souls so that today we may discover the difference between what we hunger for and what we want to hunger for?

It's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

So let's talk a little bit.

I just want to actually walk through this verse.

We're just gonna like pick apart what Jesus said so we really understand what he's calling us into.

So what does he mean when he says hunger?

Like we've all experienced hunger before.

If you ever do the spiritual practice of fasting, you know what it's like to feel hungry.

Maybe you just had to go without a meal and you have your stomach starts to growl and churn and you just feel hungry.

To hunger is to be unsatisfied.

That's what it means to be hungry.

It's to know that there's something missing.

And it makes sense, right?

Like when we are hungry for food, we know that there's just something missing in our life or unsatisfied, so we go searching for something that's going to satisfy that hunger.

So when Jesus talks about people who are hungry and thirsty, he's acknowledging blessed are those who are unsatisfied with this life.

Blessed are those who know there's something missing.

Blessed are those who hunger.

I mean, this is this look.

This is kind of what Jesus was talking about in chapter 4, verse 17.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is drawn near.

Blessed are those who who long for that.

Because there is something different.

There is a kingdom that Jesus is ushering in, and it is greater and it is more powerful than anything in this world.

Blessed are those who see that.

Blessed are those who hunger for what I'm bringing into the world.

Blessed are those who blessed are those who are unsatisfied with the world as it is.

Now we have to acknowledge not all hunger is equal.

Right?

I mean, there are at this very moment children in this world who don't remember when their last meal was and aren't sure when their next one will come.

People who are starving, who are experiencing real, genuine, dangerous, life-threatening starvation and hunger in their life.

And on the flip side, we have the hunger of my 12-year-old who just had a snack and dinner's in 20 minutes and is in the kitchen whining because she's starving to death.

Not all hunger is the same.

It's just not the same.

And neither are the things that we hunger for.

The things that we hunger for aren't equal either.

Because some of us, we hunger for power, we hunger for influence, we hunger for sex, we hunger for money, we hunger for all kinds of different things, pleasure and approval.

Not all things are equal.

What Jesus is trying to identify is blessed are those who hunger and thirst for something very specific.

Not just those who hunger and thirst.

Because there is a difference between hungering and thirsting for something healthy and hungering and thirsting for a deep-fried double bacon cheeseburger.

There's a difference.

And Jesus is pointing out that there is a difference because he says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what?

For righteousness.

Blessed are those who are unsatisfied with the level of righteousness in their life.

Blessed are those who hunger for something more.

Blessed are those who hunger to be more like Jesus.

Blessed are those that hunger to be more holy.

Blessed are those that know that they are broken and need to be redeemed.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

What are you hungry for?

Look, what are you really hungry for?

Because here's the thing.

Like when I sat with my friend that day, yes, he wants to get healthy, he wants to exercise, he wants to eat better, but at the end of the day, what he really hunger for is something very unhealthy.

Because what we hunger for and what we want to hunger for are sometimes very different things.

And Jesus is calling us to hunger for righteousness.

Blessed are those who are unsatisfied with a level of righteousness in this world.

So what in the world is Jesus talking about?

What is this righteousness that we hunger for?

At its core, let's just define it this way it is to be rightly aligned with God.

Righteousness is to be rightly aligned with God.

At its core, that's what it means.

And here's the thing: the people that were listening to Jesus speak on that hillside, they knew.

They knew they were unrighteous.

And they knew they couldn't do it themselves.

They had been waiting for generations for God to come and bring righteousness into the world.

They were waiting for God to show up.

They were waiting for God to rescue them.

They were longing for it.

They were hungry for it.

You've probably been there.

You've been in a situation in your life where you were just, you were wondering, where's God?

Why hasn't God showed up in my life like he has theirs?

Why isn't God doing it in my life?

What I see him do in the Bible time and time again.

And you find yourself longing for the presence of God in a different way.

You long for him to show up, you long for him to come and save you.

You long for him to come and bring righteousness into your life.

You've been there before, you've felt it before, and what that is, is a hunger and a thirst deep within you for righteousness.

You are hungering because you are unsatisfied with this life, you're unsatisfied with this world, and you want something deeper, something better.

The good life is for people like these.

The good life is for those who hunger to be rightly aligned with God.

But notice what Jesus didn't say.

Jesus didn't say, Blessed are those whose pantry is full of righteousness.

Blessed are those who have all the righteousness that they need.

Blessed are those whose stomachs are filled with righteousness.

He doesn't say any of that.

He doesn't say anything about the level of righteousness that you already have.

All he says is, Blessed are those who are hungry for it.

Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness and thirst for righteousness.

Not blessed are those that have, but blessed are those that hunger.

You see, here's what Jesus does: Jesus awakens that hunger in us.

I want to read to you a series of scripture passages.

Because the difficulty we have is that Jesus calls us to hunger and thirst for righteousness, but we also know the Bible tells us that we're not.

You and I we're not righteous.

Romans 3 10 says, as it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one.

You and I are not righteous.

But this is why Jesus came, and this is why Jesus says, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

John 6 35.

Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life.

Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

John 4, 14, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.

Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.

2 Corinthians 5.21.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become what?

The righteousness of God.

Romans 3.22.

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

There's no difference between Jew and Gentile.

You see, friends, the gospel redirects our hunger toward the one who can satisfy.

Because we've all been there.

We've all opened up a menu and we found an item on there that we thought was gonna satisfy us, and at the end of the day, it didn't.

This is why I avoid salads.

We've always we've all done it.

And we find ourselves coming back to the menu time and time and time because we haven't turned to the one who satisfies.

Let me read to you what the psalmist writes in the very first psalm.

He says, Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked, or stand in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditate on his law day and night.

That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not wither, whatever they do prospers.

Not so the wicked.

They're like chaff that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in judgment, hear this, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous.

But the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Blessed are those who understand that your righteousness relies on God.

But this righteousness isn't just about being rightly aligned with God, it's also about the fact that a righteous life reflects God's character.

A righteous life necessarily results in obedience to God's word and God's commandments.

It calls us to live out our lives of righteousness.

You see, the Sermon on the Mount talked about this by itself.

Like throughout the Sermon on the Mount, we see, Blessed are the persecuted because of righteousness.

He tells the disciples their their righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees.

He says, Be careful about practicing your righteousness in front of others, which means righteousness is something that should be practiced.

Don't miss that.

Sometimes we read it, we're like, well, I can't do those things in front of people.

No, no.

You need to do those things.

That's the first thing that he's telling you.

And then don't be showy about it.

But righteousness is to be practiced.

He also says, seek first the kingdom of God.

And he doesn't stop.

And he says, and his righteousness.

All throughout scripture, we see this call not just to rightly align ourselves with God, but also for us to reflect God's character into the world.

It is the obedience to the righteousness that we hunger for and the righteousness that we long for.

There's one more layer.

That layer is a righteous life as one who longs for the world to be made right.

That we long for God to make the world right because this is the promise.

Not only did he say, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, there's no period, it is a comma.

They will be filled.

They will be satisfied.

You see, it's not just a blessing and a call to people to live a life that hungers and thirsts for righteousness.

It is a promise of what that life will actually look like.

It is a promise that you will be satisfied.

That you will be filled, that you won't have to return to the menu any longer because you found the one that satisfies the hunger and the thirst that you have inside of yourself.

The Gospel of Luke tells the story of the feeding of the 5,000.

And at the end of that passage, we read this they all ate and were satisfied.

Circle that in your Bibles.

And the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

This is the same word.

It's cortazo.

It's the word that's used when Jesus says, Blessed are the righteous.

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

They will be satisfied.

It's the same word that is used here in the Gospel of Luke, that they were all satisfied.

They had their fill, but they didn't just have their fill.

There was an abundance of what Jesus offered.

You see, it is the promise of Scripture, it is the promise of Jesus that you will be filled.

When you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you will be filled.

Not because you hungered, and not because you thirsted, but because you found the one that satisfies your hunger.

It reminds me of the book of Revelation.

We just got out of this series a few weeks ago.

In chapter 7, this is a picture of the great multitude worshiping God.

And the angel has just asked, one of the elders had just asked John if he knew who these people were, and he answered, Sir, you know.

And he said, These are those who have come out of the great tribulation.

They've washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple.

And he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.

Never again will they hunger, never again will they thirst.

The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching.

He, for the lamb at the center of the throne, will be their shepherd.

He will lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eye.

This is the fulfillment of the promise in Matthew 5, 6.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled, because Jesus is the bread of life.

Jesus is the source of living water.

The thing that you hunger for deep within yourself is found right here in the Word of God, in the person of Jesus.

There is nothing else that's going to satisfy your hunger.

There is nothing else that will quench your thirst.

Nothing other than Jesus, the Lamb who was slain.

What if the greatest problem isn't that you hunger and thirst?

What if the greatest problem is you're choosing the wrong meal?

What if the greatest problem isn't that you hunger and thirst?

It's that what you hunger for isn't the same thing that you want to hunger for.

You see, we find ourselves in lives, in our lives, sometimes staring upon a menu, trying to find the thing that will satisfy our hunger.

In this world, there are a lot of things on your menu.

It is a really big, bigger than cheesecake factory kind of menu.

There's a lot of stuff.

You can you can I can order um uh popularity, riches, sex, friends, stuff, money, safety, security, protection.

It just goes on and on and on.

And here's my biggest fear about the church the big sea church is that we are filled with people who want to hunger for Jesus, but actually hunger for something else.

We say we hunger for Jesus, but when the menu is placed in front of us, we're ordering the wrong meal.

Jesus is the one who will satisfy your hunger.

He is the one that will quench your thirst, he is the bread of life, he is the source of living water, and it is only when you order up Jesus in your life that you will be satisfied.

That you will be filled.

Friends, this isn't just some blessing over people.

This is Jesus telling you how to have the good life.

And the way that you'll have the good life is when you hunger and you thirst for righteousness.

And the only way to have that hunger and that thirst satisfied is to order up Jesus in your life.

Would you pray with me?

Lord Jesus, we are um so grateful that we can come to you.

We are thankful for your sacrifice on a cross.

Jesus, thank you for thank you for taking my place and giving me the chance to step into your righteousness.

So guys, we continue to worship and we continue to be in your presence today.

Would you would you show us what it is that we're hungering for?

I don't think there's one person in this room that doesn't somewhere within them want to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

I just fear that there are many of us choosing the wrong menu item.

There are many of us ordering the wrong thing.

So, Holy Spirit, would you do what only you can do?

Would you convict us?

Would you encourage us?

And would you call us?

It's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.