Flourishing: Blessed Are The Hungry and Thirsty

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.

And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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

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

Blessed are those who are hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

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

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

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

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Father, we thank you for your word.

Thank you, Lord, that this is your word, and we give thanks to you for it.

We say, Lord, this morning, um, what we don't know, Lord, uh, we pray that you you give clarity and make us know it, Lord.

Uh we pray that uh you may humble us, oh God.

May give us a sense of a hunger, may arouse our affections for you, may give us a sense of desperate need for you, for your word, for knowing you.

Pray, Lord, that you increase all the more our hunger and thirst for you as we dig into your word.

And so, Lord, we pray that you may satisfy us with yourself and your son Jesus Christ.

I ask all this in your son's name.

Amen.

Um, if you would turn with me again to um can I get a glass of water, please?

Thank you, Gabe.

Um, I'm a bit fluy and it's hard, so it's a fair combination.

Um can you turn with me to um Revelation chapter 7?

Revelation 7 · chapter mention

Again, it's homework.

I'll read from verses number 9 all the way to verse 17.

Um the reading of God's word.

I'm not gonna wait for you, I'm just gonna go ahead and read.

You'll for you catch up.

Revelation is the last book in the Bible.

We can't assume that, right?

Um behold, a great multitude that no one could number.

Thank you.

No one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.

And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying, Amen.

Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God for ever and ever.

Amen.

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, Who are these clothed in white robes?

And from where have they come?

I said to him, Sir, you know.

And he said to me, These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.

They have washed their robes and made uh 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, for they shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore.

The sun shall not strike them, nor the any scorching heat.

For the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

This is God's word.

Wow.

What does it take to get your appetite?

What does it take to get your appetite?

In other words, friends, there are things that we want in life, and then there are things we have an appetite for.

There's a difference there, friends, between what you want and what you um what has your appetite.

Um, in other words, friends, my question again is what does it take to get specifically your appetite?

There are things that, as it were, that you would be happy to have, and then there are there are desires that that actually begin to organize or reorientate your life.

They determine what you think about when nobody else is talking to you, like they they they kind of frame you like um uh what do you daydream about?

What would you sacrifice for those things?

What what disappoints you most deeply if someone said no for to you regarding that thing?

What what gets your best energy?

What are you reaching for in life?

In other words, friends, as we um unpack this idea, this is just an introduction.

Um, there's a difference then between a preference and a craving.

You see, uh a preference is like, hmm, that would be nice.

It would be nice to have a Ferrari.

That would that would be nice, you know.

Um it would be it would be nice to have that thing, but but a craving is yeah, it's it goes beyond that.

Would be nice.

It's I must have that thing.

My gateway drug to Tim Keller's books, where uh counterfeit gods were like I I must have that thing to have significance and meaning in life.

I I there's no other way.

I need that thing, I need to taste it.

That that's what carries, as it were, our cravings.

It's it's a desire that is intensified to the point of necessity.

And friends, what's interesting about our appetites is that you can learn a lot about yourself by paying attention to what makes you hungry.

I use hunger here metaphorically.

Some of you are hungry to succeed because you want to be seen.

Some of you are hungry and thirsty for security.

Some are some are hungry for intimacy.

You can't do without an adorable, or even friends.

Some are some of us are hungry to prove ourselves, to prove something to people.

Some are, as we went to Life on Life on Friday, are hungry for money.

So, friends, we can all be sitting here in church singing the songs, yes, believing the right things, and underneath all of it, all friends, is this appetite that that is driving your life.

Which makes, friends, this language Jesus gives us here incredibly probing and searching.

Says blessed and carriers.

Flourishing are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

But they shall be satisfied.

Oh Lord, is it not is it not the money that will satisfy me?

Is it not the promotion?

Is it not all these?

You'll be satisfied if you hunger and thirst for righteousness.

In other words, friends, the flourishing person uh Jesus presents us with is one who has uh, as it were, developed a different appetite, a different framework, a different longing, a different desire.

This this person is uh desperate.

I don't know if you've been desperate in your life.

This person is different in the sense they are desperate about these.

Uh I'd say three things.

If I if if I'm taking notes, I'd name them.

Number one, I'm I'm desperate for for for what God wants.

I want what is right.

I'm desperate for what God wants.

Maybe number two, then we you you you go beyond just the desperation for what God wants.

It's a desperation of I want what is crooked in me to be made straight.

I'm desperate for what God wants, but but uh, my collegium.

God would would you make what's not right with you straight in me?

Thirdly, the desperation kind of like alludes to the confession we had this morning.

I want my life increasingly brought under the the reign of the king.

I want my life to to live under that weight, to to impact society under that weight.

May I be may I hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God that prevails even to the point of talking about justice?

Notice, friends, the promise is simply clear here.

Those who hunger for this righteousness will be satisfied.

So Jesus is going to confront us this morning not simply with whether we have desires or not.

That's that's a given.

We all have desires.

What our de what our what what he is confronting us with is basically what do those desires point us to.

We're going to flow them with these three points, as I mentioned.

Number one, desperation.

In other words, a hunger that reveals our need.

Number two, we're gonna look at righteousness, a hunger for what only God can give.

And lastly, we're gonna look at satisfaction, a hunger that grace both fills and deepens.

And underneath that question, or underneath all these three points, is this point that what has your life, what is your appetite in life?

What are you desperate for?

What are you longing for to satisfy you?

And what is Jesus saying pushing back against that?

Let's jump into the first point.

Are we still together, class?

Amen.

Desperation, a hunger that reveals our need.

See, friends, um, we are in verse 6 of chapter 5.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

And just with this point, we're just gonna unpack what this hunger and thirsting for is.

See, hunger and thirsting um speaks to specifically necessity.

Um, I mean, that's clear, right?

Uh, I I asked for a glass of water out of what?

Out of necessity.

But but but Jesus goes even deeper here.

There's a sense of an intensity and a dependence that is being um revealed with the word of hunger and what and thirst.

So so uh think about the time where you were hungry.

I don't know what happens to you, but some people when they are hungry, they are very impatient.

Somebody in Zulu, there's a saying, illa ibanga ini ulaaga.

So so so food in this context is not an accessory.

Food in any life, in any context, actually, is not what an accessory.

When you are hungry, you make sure you know that you are hungry.

Something has to be done.

When you are genuinely thirsty, water then isn't a what a preference, it's not a nice to have.

Um and Jesus, Jesus' original heroes, friends, would would have have have felt the force of this picture, this imagery uh more immediately than any of us in this room because water and and and and and food were a thin line between life and death.

Now we have uh water that cost 22 rand or 30 rand, uh, vitamin water, blue, pink, purple water.

It's just all sorts of water, but here in a desert land, in a desert area, like being thirsty meant life or death.

Being hungry meant life or death.

In other words, friends, there's a sense of which many of us have never felt that immediate need.

When you want water, you just open the temple.

Here it's like you're going to a far, far away place to get water, you're going to a well to get water.

Like there's a sense in which finding water is an exercise, is is a labor in and of itself.

The only uh reminiscing or memory you have of finding water is if you've lived in Midland.

I know that's a top one where uh the government or municipality brings water tankers and people are in Midland with their uh Louis Vuitton's and going to kill some water.

It's a weird picture, anyway.

Uh the point here, friends, is that hunger and thirst weren't just metaphors.

Um these were kind of like encounters that they had daily.

Food and water represented then a daily dependence.

And notice the language Jesus uses here.

Those who hunger and what?

And thirst.

Those who hunger and thirst.

It's a continuous, ongoing quality that he's pink giving us here.

He's describing people whose lives are characterized by that appetite.

I know some of you are not foodies, you go days without eating.

Not days, mommy.

Like food feels like a preference.

I know a sensitive in the room who likes wearing hats is like I'm not a foodie, I'm not food doesn't move me, but there's a sense in which your body will tell you that you need to eat.

Yes.

So Matthew has already shown us the picture of hunger in Matthew chapter 4, verse 2.

Matthew 4:2

I was saying he was hungry.

And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was what, friends?

He was hungry.

That's Matthew 4, verse 2.

Matthew 4:2

In other words, friends, what Matthew is showing us here is that even Jesus, when he had fasted in the wilderness for 40, the Savior of the universe was what?

Was hungry, revealing his humanity.

And Satan says essentially then, hey man, just make some bread.

Turn these stones into what?

Into bread.

And Jesus answered, Man shall not live by what?

By bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Don't miss the the connection here.

That the one who blessed, who is blessed, the one Jesus is the blesser is was hungry himself, and he knows what it means to be what?

To be hungry.

And in his hunger, Jesus reveals a reordered appetite.

Obedience to his father mattered more than satisfying even a legitimate physical desire on Satan's terms.

Can I say that again, friends?

Jesus is revealing something about a rightly ordered hunger.

A rightly ordered love, a rightly ordered desire.

Yes, he was hungry, yes, he had desire, but he would not succumb to Satan's terms in meeting and satisfying that hunger.

He says, Man shall not live by what?

By bread alone.

But by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Father.

And then he goes on to say that his satisfaction, his feeling.

It's him legitimately being satisfied by what?

By the Father's will.

My food and drink is to do the will of my what?

Of my father.

Blessed are those friends who hunger and thirst for what?

For righteousness.

But friends, there's a sense of which this is a progressive, um, you cannot kind of preach this out of the context of where the beatitude is flowing from.

Um poverty of spirit says, um, I have nothing to bring.

Right?

Mourning says, I grieve what sin has done.

Mekness says, I I relinquish, I let go of my claim to rule and secure my life.

And holy hanger says, God, I'm I'm lacking.

God, I'm hungry.

Lord, I'm I'm thirsty.

You don't hang up because you are full.

Hanger in even in your body telling you something is missing.

You need to clear it too slightly.

I I need something um I don't presently have.

And and spiritually, this is the confrontation here.

Our problem isn't that, friends, we've uh made a few bad decisions in our lives.

Scripture is diagnosing something deeper here, which um the shorter catechism kind of describes in question 18.

I want to read it, I did it.

I wanted to pull it up, but there was no time.

Um, here the question, uh, it's free online, you can check it.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism question 18 says, wherein consists the sinfulness of that state uh we're into man fair, big English.

But the point is that where is the source of our hunger?

Where is the source of our thirst?

Where does all this come from?

Why are we, why are we what what's the source of our sinfulness, of our desperation?

Here's the answer: the sinfulness of that estate wherein man fell consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin.

Are we together?

The want, in other words, the lack of original righteousness and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called then original sin, together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it.

What this confession or this this answer is saying, this catechism is saying, is that look, um, every other hanger, every other sin flows from the original sin.

In other words, all our sins are symptoms of the original diagnosis of our fallen human nature.

In other words, we lack righteousness, we lack the righteousness God requires.

And the problem is even deeper, friends, we don't merely lack that righteousness, our appetites are banned.

Because of that fallenness, our appetites are we we lack a hunger for God, but we have a hunger for other things to replace God.

Sounds familiar, friends.

We are like starving people who keep reaching for things that cannot nourish us, and that's why everybody in Joburg is hungry for something.

We're hungry for career advancement because we think we'll find recognition there.

We're hungry for money and security because we hope that we can actually buy our security through that money.

We hunger for status, we hunger for comfort, we hunger for approval, we hunger for romantic love.

We are hungry.

I mean, we have a Thirsty Thursday, Pooza Thursday, all of those Thursdays.

People are our friends, are hungry.

And some of those things are not bad things in and of themselves.

Do you get that, friends?

I keep making that that point that some of these things, Jonathan Paddington kind of gives us a picture of flourishing and said, Well, these things are not bad, bad in and of themselves.

It's when they have a constitution in and of themselves, it's when they are their own uh authority, it's when they are an end in and of themselves, it's when they are moved outside of the authority of God.

That's when they are destructive.

See, friends, the problem is what happens when a good desire begins carrying the weight of your deeper anger.

That's the problem.

We don't merely want then uh the problem looks like this.

We don't merely want promotion.

We we actually want what we think the promotion will finally settle in us.

We think that promotion will satisfy us.

We don't merely want money.

We think that that that money will finally guarantee us a sense of security.

We don't merely want somebody to love us.

We want another human being to settle the question of whether we are worthy of love.

And friends, those are disordered desires.

Asking creative things to make right what they were never capable of making right.

And perhaps that's why getting what we hunger for so often doesn't end the hunger.

There's always another.

Thing to be hungry for.

I was trying to avoid hip hop illustrations, but anyway, one guy was like, this guy is hungry, he raps like he's hungry.

Someone said this in this room, I know.

The whole point is like as long as you're hungry, you do well.

Like but the whole idea is these things, your hunger will never end.

Your hunger will never end.

Your hunger will never satisfy you.

Your appetite is pointing you to something.

Dare I say to someone?

Your appetite is exposing your dependence.

Your appetite is sending you to look elsewhere for satisfaction.

The question, friends, is what are you hungry for?

And that's where the next phrase is important for us.

Blessed are those who are hunger and thirst for what?

For righteousness.

Aye man.

Righteousness.

Are you saying hunger for righteousness?

What are you saying?

A hanger for righteousness, in other words, what we are hungering for should be what only God can give.

Let's think about it for a moment.

What exactly are these things people are hungering and thirsting for?

What do they ask of them?

And I've made that point.

They ask of them to be God, right?

They ask of them to satisfy.

But Jesus lays the clean.

For righteousness.

The word uh basically gives us an enormous picture that Matthew has been using throughout the book of righteousness.

Uh, the first time he uses it in chapter 3, um, Jesus comes to John and and and he's baptized and and and and and and then this is what it said.

Let it be now, let it be now known.

That's what Jesus is saying.

Let it be so now, actually.

For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness, for him to fulfill all righteousness, Jesus had to be what?

Baptized.

I want you to check with me how Matthew uses Bible studying, quote unquote, how Matthew uses this.

In chapter 5 as well, um, verse 6, then it says, Blessed are those who humor in thus for what?

For righteousness.

And Jesus later on in chapter 5 kind of gives us a picture.

Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

So he's describing his people here.

And then in chapter 6, he says, verse 33, seek ye first what?

Come on, class.

I'm sure you went to Sunday school.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God.

And what?

And his righteousness.

You see, friends, looking at these passages together, what you will realize is that the theology of Matthew in terms of righteousness is giving us a different framework, a life being brought into conformity with God's righteous will and reign.

I think Sean alluded to that.

It's not just justification, it's it's living under the will, rightly so, with God.

Being right with God, being right with his purposes and will.

God making right with what sin has made wrong.

Now, friends, I want to kind of have us look at it again in this sense that hungering and thirsting for righteousness is something we we have to, it's like a prayer that we have to long for.

Lord, would you conform my ambitions to your will?

Would you help me, Lord, in terms of my ambitions?

Would you make right my ambitions, my parts to your will?

May my life be right with you.

In other words, friends, what would it mean for you, young professional or old professional?

What would it mean for you to want righteousness more than your professional success?

That's the honesty test, friends, that you have to ask yourself.

Do I want to be good more than I want to be impressive?

Would I rather have integrity than promotion?

Would I rather obey God than advance myself?

Let me warn us in two ways here.

There are two ways we can get this wrong.

Number one, the one way we can get it wrong is that we can have this gospel hanger that that that not even a gospel hanger, I don't know what to call it, a self-righteous hunger, where you're like, Lord, look at what I've become.

That's self-righteousness.

But but gospel hanger is actually and thirst is actually saying, God, I need you.

God, I need you.

Search me.

Search my heart, Lord.

I wanna I wanna live right.

I wanna live in a court.

I want my pleasure to be your will.

And the other one is like an example of the self-righteous uh flaw is like the Pharisee who was like, God, I thank you that I'm not like that other man.

That's self-righteousness.

But the other man was what, friends?

Was hungry.

God, I am nothing.

All that I've committed is against you.

But I need you.

I I need your righteousness.

See, friends, we cannot be so righteous that we are impressed with ourselves.

That's what self-righteousness.

That's our own righteousness.

We have to long for the righteousness of God to be true of us.

We have already received it.

That's that's an imputed righteousness, the big word.

That's a righteousness we have been clothed with.

That's the righteousness we have been given freely in the righteousness of Christ, right?

But at the same time, we we want to walk in line with that.

Right?

That righteousness that said, I have nothing to bring, Lord, uh, but my sin.

And you walk away justify, you you walk away righteous, right?

But but but the paradox of what we're looking at here is that there's a there's a sense in which we are also being called to genuine holiness.

The closer you get to God is the more clearly you see both your hunger and his beauty.

The closer you you marvel at God is the is the more you see his holiness and how crooked you are.

That's why you're like, Lord, would you make me right with you?

You see, real holiness, friends, makes you hungrier, not prouder.

It makes you hungrier, it doesn't make you look, stick your nose down at other people.

It makes you what, friends?

Hungrier.

And and there's this other than danger, the the opposite direction is that if if if we don't, if we don't, if we don't check ourselves in this one, friends, we we we we can be those Christians who are so accustomed to talking about grace that we quietly stop caring about our godliness.

I'm prone to this one.

We we want justification without growing, transformation, and and we want the benefits of Christ without the likeness of Christ.

We need to be careful even here, friends.

We can't take our friends, we need to live under his lordship, we need to live in his ways.

So we need to be clear, friends.

We are not justified by our personal righteousness, right?

We are justified through faith in Christ alone.

But the Christ who justifies his people also makes his people holy.

The word is sanctification.

Big word, right?

Holiness is never the the the root, as it were, of our acceptance.

It is, friends, the the fruit of our union with Christ.

It's whose we are being formed into his likeness.

It's like, man, you are part of the household.

This is you are in God's house, you are the family of God, and now you are you are you're taking the the customs of the whole.

You are taking on the customs of the you are you're enjoying the presence of the father.

You are you are you you want to walk like the father, you are you are pleased, it's it's your pleasure to to live in his ways.

You're not an orphan trying to please him.

You you are you are a child, you are a son, you are a daughter already in the house.

And the father is like, oh we don't open the fridge at midnight here.

Uh uh, okay, we we we eat together at six o'clock.

You know, you learn the the customs and habits of the home, and and and the father is is forming you through through his word.

It's not a performance, it's not you, it's it's you coming honestly and saying, Lord, I want to be right, but there are things in me that are obscene, obscure, they are crooked.

Would you would you make me right with you?

And and you don't you don't force it.

You lean into God's means of grace, you lean into community, you lean into prayer, you you lean into to the word, you you lean into coming to church, being formed by the gospel.

You lean into deep groups.

Amen.

You the point is, friends, you lean in.

That's why Jesus here is making a pronouncement of these are the flourishing people.

The flourishing people are those who remain hungry, remain thirsty, not self-righteous, but hungry and thirsty for the righteousness of God.

These are those friends who desperately want, but they can never have.

And they can only have it through the Father, through the Son, from the Father.

Now, friends, I wanna kind of uh learn this play and um jump into the last point, but before I do, I wanna make this very clear.

Jesus Christ is the righteous one.

Wakey wakey.

Jesus Christ is what, friends?

The righteous one.

Jesus Christ is the righteous one.

In Matthew 3.15, which I alluded to, he says, I have come to fulfill all what?

All righteousness.

The stakes are so high.

He says, your righteousness must exceed theirs.

You must be so perfect that that perfection must exceed theirs.

You know what he's saying?

I'm going ahead of myself here.

In Matthew 7, it kind of gives a picture of a building, right?

Says there are those who build on on a foreign material, the rock.

And there are those who build on what on sand.

Those who build on sand when the wind comes and blows, it debilitates the structure.

But those who build on the rock, a foreign substance, foreign material, they're not building on themselves.

They're building on another.

The picture there, friends, is this that this righteousness that Jesus is calling us to to live out is built on his own righteousness.

Not of our self-righteousness, not of us, not of our own words, but but the words he produces in us.

Jesus Christ, friends, is the what is the righteous one.

The fact that he was hungry in the wilderness and and he was tempted, friends, and and he said, Not my will but yours.

He he had to fulfill all righteousness.

His perfect obedience is the obedience that we need to stand justified before the holy God.

Everywhere we have rebelled against God's righteous rule, Jesus submitted to it.

Everywhere our desires have become disordered, his desires were perfectly ordered toward the Father.

Friends, Jesus fulfilled all righteousness.

He fulfilled all righteousness.

Where we failed, friends, he prevailed.

Where Adam fell, he prevailed.

We need him as our representative, no longer under Adam, but under who?

Under Christ.

And we heard the asshodence of pardon earlier, friends.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no what?

Sins.

So that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

That's that's the exchange, friends.

Our sin countered to Jesus Christ, Christ's righteousness counter to us.

God does not, friends, accept sinners because our performance finally makes us an adequate people.

We will always fail.

We'll never measure up.

God accepts sinners because Christ is the one who's adequate.

And I need us to hear this, friends, especially if the sermon is about us being hungry for righteousness.

It can be a sense of a performance review.

Am I hungry enough?

Do I do I desire God enough?

Am I holy enough?

Friends, you are not accepted because your hunger is strong enough.

You're accepted because Christ's righteousness is enough.

In other words, you being hungry is an indicator of the truth of this that you are in the kingdom of God.

Your hunger was was never your righteousness.

It's it's your your your empty hands.

This this is you, Christ, giving you his own righteousness.

You you receive him, he gives you his spirit.

The spirit begins creating you an appetite for for the very righteousness you have received in Christ.

Grace doesn't say, friends, um live however you are now that you are a child of God.

No.

Grace gives you a hunger to please the Lord because I belong to Christ.

I I increasingly want my life to look like Christ.

Justified people become a hungry people.

Are we together, class?

Takes us to our last point.

Those people will be satisfied.

Notice the promise.

They shall be what?

Satisfied.

The hungry don't finally satisfy themselves.

God satisfies them.

And the word Jesus is using here, I I I couldn't resist it.

It sounds like kotado.

The word is like a sense of satisfaction.

It's a sense of being filled.

It's a sense of like to eat until you are full.

Have you hung out with someone who's who's had amatefs?

We had cottages on Friday, Ammachieps and Russians and all of that.

And we call it it.

I know it's a bad word, but here we are.

Just want us sleep.

You are full.

You have rest.

You have rest from the chase.

That's the word they all ate and were satisfied.

Jesus uses this word when when he feeds the 5,000.

I love that word.

They were satisfied.

Hey, sorry for people about Nelly Savie.

People are never satisfied.

There's always a chase.

There's always something to add.

There's always a number to chase.

There's always another thing to look to for significance and mean.

But here, Jesus says, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, okay.

Are satisfied.

I know we we always speak of the the the already and and not yet, but this is an already reality of life.

You are content.

God is enough.

Even when you have nothing, even when the hunger is actually real and true for you.

No, we we break bread together.

We wanna share all things common as a church.

That's the purpose.

But sometimes people are overlooked.

People go to bed without food and still pray that prayer.

Our Father in heaven, Holy Your Name.

Your kingdom come.

You will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily prayer.

They're only getting by daily prayer.

The one who promises friends satisfaction on the mountain will later sit with hungry people and feed them.

That's that's the whole allusion there to feeding the 5,000.

If Jesus promises friends satisfaction, why do mature Christians still hunger for righteousness?

That's the question.

Because, friends, the gospel here is producing a strange combination.

There's a sense in which there's a deep rest and a holy contentment at the same time, a holy discontentment.

The two are held to together.

Uh would say, our joy is always mingled with sorrow.

That's the Christian life.

You'll never be at the point you you have to be.

You'll never arrive.

But at the same time, there's the fullness of joy that you carry with you.

There's a sense of deep rest and holy discontent.

Deep rest because Christ in him, you are justified.

You don't have to work to be accepted.

You are full, you are satisfied.

You are adopted, you are secure.

But but holy discontent says, because I increasingly see what remains unlike Christ in me, and and what is wrong with the world around me.

Lord, I would I would always hammer for righteousness.

Paul captures this in Philippians 3, where he speaks about this righteousness that comes through faith, and yet he says at the same time, that I may know him.

I press on to make it known because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Christ Jesus has made me his own, therefore I press on.

Are you pressing on?

You see, friends, we need to be careful here.

Being wholly discontent must never become insecurity about your acceptance.

The insecure heart says, I need to grow so that God will accept me.

The adopted child says, Because God has accepted me in Christ, I want to become more like the one who has accepted me.

So grace friends should make every Christian capable of saying, God has been extraordinarily gracious to me.

And man, I need to grow.

Are you growing?

That's not condemnation.

It's a sense of man.

I need to grow, I need to I need to grow in sanctification.

I need to grow in the likeness of Jesus Christ.

As opposed to I need to grow in my ambition, I need to, I need to become more and more like Jesus in how I do my work, in how I wait patiently, in how I'm a homemaker, in how I I raise my kids, in how I I walk into those hospitals, into those boardrooms, into those classrooms, into those government offices, into those streets, into those some of you are navigating unemployment.

How are you navigating it in a Christ-like manner?

It actually looks like you being honest with those invoices, business people.

It's actually you being fair with those contracts.

It's actually you refusing to, as it were, massage the numbers even when the advance advancement of those numbers or depends on it, like you massaging.

And and uh curating numbers in a way that advances your project.

It looks like you letting that go.

I'm in someone's WhatsApp group, I know.

No, they say, don't touch me in my studio.

It looks like friends, us looking at our city, which is holding up to us extraordinary beauty and extraordinary brokenness.

Sometimes on the on the same street.

Christ didn't drive.

Extraordinary beauty, extraordinary brokenness.

If we hunger for righteousness, friends, corruption, exploitation, and justice should trouble us because we long for God's righteous reign to be increasingly miserable.

And again, I'm not saying you start a political party.

Because the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.

It's the reign of God on one individual at a time.

It's the gospel infiltrating one heart at a time.

And perhaps one of those hearts could be the very president of the country.

It could be a policymaker.

It's faithfulness with that little scene as his inaugurated kingdom comes to life.

It's hungering for things being made right.

And friends, I want to say this again.

No one lives to learns to live like this alone.

Because our appetites are slippery, right?

That's why scripture says, exhort one another every day.

That none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

See, this to me says we need each other.

We need people who will love on us enough to remind us that man, not your hunger is changing.

Not your appetites are changing.

That's one reason we start these deep groups.

Not because joining a group makes God accept you, no.

It's it's in light of what Christ has done, you want to share that with someone.

You want to share your life with someone.

It's you simply sitting around a table.

I call it chopping it up.

A prayer there, a pedal game, another time.

Hey, how are you doing?

How was your week?

Hey man, I'm I'm struggling with with temptation and internet pornography.

I'm struggling with with hungering for satisfying my body.

Hey man, let's pray together.

Hey man, let's let's open some scriptures together.

Hey man, are you are you okay?

That's deep groups, friends.

We can't do this alone.

And as I close, friends, I wanna remind you of one thing.

Not remind you, tell you a short story.

My my little girl, the older one, every time, like she has a classic line, pick up half past one, every time, without fail, she says, Dad, I'm hungry.

What can I have?

Those are her words every time.

And I'm thinking, girl, you you have a lunch box full of food.

She always brings food and then starts opening and bagging, like having a lunch she never had during the um hours of the day.

That's why, quote unquote, my car is dirty, is because she doesn't have to be.

Dad, I'm hungry, what can I have?

And there's something that being fed doesn't mean she never hungers again.

She was fed in the morning, she probably bought some sweets at the thank shop, but without fail, Dad, I'm hungry, what can I have?

Friends, that's the posture of the Christian life.

Father, I'm hungry.

I need you.

Lord, I'm hungry.

Yes, you have fed on the Lord, you have you have you have heard the word, you have heard the word preach to you.

You're gonna you're gonna feed on him in in a spiritual sense and and and and fellowship with him and enjoy the blessedness of community.

But but but here in this friends, you you can never stop saying, Dad, I'm hungry.

I need you.

Father, I want more of you.

Ah, Lord, there's something not right with me.

The father may give you, that's why it's daily bread, friends.

Give us this day our daily bread.

There should never be a moment where you're like, I think I'm fine today.

Always, dad, I'm hungry.

What can I have?

And and Jesus stretches his his promise of satisfaction beyond this life.

He says, everything will be made right.

There will be a time where you, as it were, hunger no more, where where there will be no more tears, where where they are hungry and thirsty, as we read in Revelation 7, uh, are fully satisfied, where there's no remaining sin in us, where there's no injustice around us, where there's no corruption or exploitation, where there are no fractured relationships, where there's no more war, where everything between us and God is right, between us and the world is made right, where we will fully be, as it were, satisfied.

We taste God's satisfaction now, friends.

That's where Matthew 5, 6 is taking us.

We're tasting it.

We will completely then have it.

But until that day, we remain hungry.

Until that day.

Until that day, friends.