Did you know that only hungry and thirsty people are going to heaven? Well, it’s true.
We’re continuing in today’s lesson looking at one of the Beatitudes that we find at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus tells us who are the blessed people. We’re taking a look and asking ourselves the question, “am I one of those blessed people?”
And why do I want to be one of those blessed people? Because I get the blessings and the summarization of all those blessings is one day be in God’s kingdom, experiencing eternal life as a child of God. Because what could be a greater blessing than that? There’s nothing that compares with that of any blessing there ever was or ever will be.
We’re going to look at one of the Beatitudes today that’s very interesting. It shows us a fundamental basic essential truth about something that accompanies the salvation package. Because when you become a Christian, when you truly repent of your sins and believe in Jesus, you get more than just forgiveness of sins. You get transformation inwardly that shows up outwardly. And this beatitude we’re about to read today shows that in crystal clear terms. It also shows us something that we don’t get in the salvation package, which you’ll find quite interesting, I think, and it’s fundamental and basic.
All right, Matthew chapter five in verse number six, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.” The blessed people are all characterized. Those who are going to be called the sons of God, those who can say theirs is the kingdom of heaven, those who will inherit the earth, all these blessings, these people are characterized by hungering and thirsting for righteousness.
Now that’s beautiful. It shows that placed within them is a strong, strong, strong desire, because that’s what hunger and thirsting obviously symbolize. They hunger and thirst for what? Pizza? Well, maybe, but we’re not talking about pizza here. We’re talking about spiritual eternal things. They hunger and thirst for righteousness.
So their fundamental basic nature is transformed and they have a continual nonstop fundamental strong desire for righteousness. Why? Because they have the Holy Spirit in them. They’ve been changed. They’ve been born again. They long for that. And if you don’t long for that, well, as I’ve said, and say it again, the antithesis of all these Beatitudes is also equally as true. Not blessed are those who do not hunger and thirst for righteousness. You don’t have it. But you can get it. Just believe in Jesus, repent of your sins, and you’ll get it. It’s a gift. Alleluia.
And notice He didn’t say that they become automatically righteous. No. God doesn’t make us into holy robots. He gives us the desire. Hunger and thirst, but He hasn’t changed our free will nor taken away our ability to choose, and so we can go either direction. We can yield to the Spirit; that’s where that hunger and thirst for righteousness is, or we can yield to the flesh, which there’s a lot of rotten stuff in that nature. So we’re two-natured beings, and the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is the Christian gets the new nature, but is still with … let’s come into focus here … still with the old nature. The non-Christian just has that old nature. They need to be born again and get the new nature. All right? Crystal clear, crystal clear.
Okay, that shows us something we get and something we don’t get. Now in what sense do we long for righteousness? Well, we long for righteousness on every level. We just hate anything that’s not according to the will of God. It bothers us. We hate it when there’s evil and disobedience, when there’s lying and stealing and coveting and theft and hypocrisy in religion and adultery and murder. All these things that God hates we hate. All the things that God loves we love, because He came to live inside of us and He’s changed us now. We hunger and thirst for righteousness on every single level. We hunger and thirst to see it in our own lives, and obviously if you hunger and thirst for something, you’re going to go after it and you’re going to get it.
And so there’s righteousness in our lives. We’re living a righteous life because we have this desire to live a righteous life. And does that mean we never stumble or fall? No, but because we hunger and thirst for righteousness, when we do mess up, we feel terrible because we didn’t get what we hunger and thirst for. You ask God to forgive you and you get back up and you get back in the race of the hunger and thirsters. Praise the Lord.
And if you don’t have that … if you can’t say I’ve got a strong desire, then you don’t have it yet.
We also hunger and thirst for righteousness beyond just ourselves and everybody else. That’s why we tell people the Gospel, because we want them to repent and follow Jesus and line up with the will of God, and begin to live righteously. We want the whole world to be righteous. We want everyone to turn to Jesus. We know that’s the only way people are going to be righteous. You can enact laws and so forth and you can control people to a certain degree, or you can at least get them off the streets by putting them in prison if they break the law or create incentives to try to get them to behave, but the real answer to the world’s problems is Jesus. Why? Because Jesus transforms people and He puts His righteousness in them, and people who believe in Jesus hunger and thirst for righteousness. So therefore, they’re striving for it in any every way, on every level, in their own lives and out in the world, as well.
Okay, so here’s the same question I’ve been asking and I keep on asking. Are you blessed? Are you blessed? How do you know if you’re blessed? We just read one of the ways to know if you’re blessed. If you’re hungering and thirsting for righteousness, that means God has blessed you with a blessing. And what’s the blessing? He gave you hunger and you gave you thirst for righteousness, and wow, that’s a blessing, because the end result, if you stay on the narrow path and you continually yield to that hunger and thirsting for righteousness … remember, God leads us in the paths of righteousness, David wrote in Psalm 23 … if we stay on that path, then one day we’ll be living in the kingdom, in the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells.
One day it’s only going to be the righteous people here. That’s the end game. That’s the end plan. That’s what we’re heading toward. Get with the program if you’re not with it already.
Thank you so much for joining me. Have a great day. God bless you.
