“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (5:6).  O, that the earth would be filled with the righteousness of God!  O, that those beyond this building would live by the righteousness of God!  O, that I would live by the righteousness of God.  We see the moral catastrophe around us, the depravities of this culture, the failures of this society.  Because we love this nation, its heritage and its hope, what we see hurts all the more.  The United States has the culture its people let happen, turn by turn.  We have the society we let happen, degradation by degradation.

We don’t exclude the American church, tainted by these catastrophes.  In this nation, we have the church we let happen.  There never has been a pure church, only the church being purified.  The church, and each congregation of it, and each believer in it, either cooperates with sanctification or resists.  We’re always doing both.  Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are those who mourn over their sins and this sin-stained world; blessed are the meek, getting the wild self under control by God’s grace.

The faithful wait and watch, pray and serve.  Waiting never did much for hunger or thirst, except to make it keener, harder.  There are those who will be filled and those who shall not be filled.  Who shall not be filled?  Those who do not hunger and thirst for righteousness.  What is righteousness?  Beloved, Jesus Christ is righteousness: he does what is right, willingly, promptly; he has compassion and tells the truth.  God’s Word is righteousness.  Every Sunday, we pray “Thy kingdom come.”  We’re saying something when we pray that; those aren’t empty words.  The kingdom is the society in which God’s will is done as perfectly—and promptly—as it is in heaven.  It seems we’re still a long way from that society.  The pull of the flesh is strong; the attractions of this world are strong.  We have spiritual enemies with which to contend: these will prevail in one battle and another, though the war has been won.  The skirmishes aren’t at an end.

Righteousness is not what the Left demands that you believe.  Righteousness is not what the Right expects you to believe.  Righteousness is not what I tell you to believe—I hope I never tell you to believe anything!  Righteousness is explained and exemplified for everyone in God’s Word.  If you would know righteousness, know, and love, and live, God’s Word without qualification or convenient betrayal.  When Christians, including me, start putting God’s way before our opinions, the kingdom will begin to become much more apparent, and desirable.

How to get there?  Because, you know, who really puts his or her own opinions higher on the obedience list than God’s Word?  How to get there?  Hunger and thirst for God’s Word.  It’s William Barclay again who explains that the Greek words Luke employs are intense words—the sort of hunger, the sort of thirst that deeply longs, longs for the whole and not just some part.  No half longing; no contentment with being half satisfied.  All God’s Word, all God’s way, all God’s grace, all God’s glory.  True food.  True drink.  Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Dt 8:3).  Jesus tells the crowds, “the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world [. . . .] I am the bread of life” (Jn 6:33, 35).

What we put into ourselves matters.  If we know it, physically, let us remember it spiritually as well.  It strikes me as terribly sad and maybe more than a little demonic that it seems to be the food we eat that is harming and killing us at an alarming rate.  McDonald’s—poor McDonald’s!—had $23 billion in revenue in 2021.  Yum! Brands, of Pizza Hut and KFC fame, had $6.6 billion in revenue that same year—I guess pan pizza just can’t beat a Big Mac.  Coca-Cola reported nearly $38 billion, worldwide, and, if you can believe it, PepsiCo’s worldwide revenue for 2021 was $79.47 billion.  I believe it because I did my part, generously and often.  Meanwhile, nearly 42% of American adults are considered obese, and 17% of children.  A recent headline stated, “Nearly Half of All Americans Have a Chronic Disease.”[1]  Of the top ten causes of death in 2022, fully five have some strong connection to what we put into our bodies to make our mouths happy.  Yet Americans seem to have no idea what to do about any of it, let alone the will.  A sugar tax probably wouldn’t go over so well, in Sugar Land.  I’d be the last person to petition for the closure of D & S Donuts!  Fast food in this quick culture isn’t going away anytime soon.  Snacky cakes and soda pop aren’t going away anytime soon.

Well, what we consume is not sinful, just sad.  And believe me, when I feel sad, I consume!  But what I consume consumes me, and I feel sure that’s not what God wants, not what God intends.  Food and drink are given for blessing.  God provides.

Most importantly, He provides true food and true drink for our deepest hunger.  People hunger deeply for love—the joy, peace, pleasure, security, and fulfillment of love—but this is neither our deepest hunger nor our deepest thirst.  Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”  Righteousness is Jesus Christ, and Christ is life on God’s terms.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for Christ Jesus.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst, above all, for God, all of God, not partial God, or a part of God, this part or that part, you know, like the love without the judgment, or the holiness without the obedience: a very accommodating, laissez-faire God, just like us.  No.  Feel hunger pangs for God complete.  “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God” (Ps 42:1).  “I thirst for you, / my whole being longs for you, / in a dry and parched land / where there is no water” (Ps 63:1).  God will not ignore that hunger; He will not refuse to satisfy that thirst.

But who longs for God like that?  Should we?  Can we?  Isn’t that a little weird?  Should we take this religion thing so seriously?  An okay add-on, if that’s your thing.  We devote our lives to many things: family, career, business, pleasure, obtaining a firm sense of security, health.  It isn’t wrong to pursue these things, but if we pursue them as though any of these were separate from or preferable to devotion to God, if we compartmentalize desire for and devotion to God, our journey goes awry.  “[S]eek first [God’s] kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mt 6:33).  Jesus couldn’t be plainer: to seek the kingdom is to seek righteousness, God’s righteousness, who is Christ Jesus; to know Christ is to know God’s righteousness, and to know God’s righteousness is to begin to find your place in the kingdom, and to become an outpost of that kingdom.  Hunger, then, thirst, then, for Christ.  “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

Jesus tells anyone who will listen, “my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink” (Jn 6:55).  His self-offering gives life; his sacrificial love slakes our thirst.  Each of us thirsts for love, life-sustaining love.  People foolishly, ignorantly seek substitutes for such love here and there, in this or that, this one or that one.  Jesus knows.  He warns us, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (Jn 6:27).  He will give.  He will supply.  God shall supply all our need.  My cup runneth over.

The daily aim of our living matters, then.  How is routine more than routine?  How is the daily grind more than a bore, a chore?  It becomes so much more when we remind ourselves, daily, that in Christ what we do, even the simplest, most routine tasks, we do for the Lord, in thanks and praise.  In thanks and praise—worship—God draws us nearer.  Muck the stalls, then, to glorify God.  Load and empty the dishwasher to honor the Lord.  Teach to praise Christ.  Build to the glory of God.  Labor and learn for love of the Lord.  Visit with friends and family to enjoy the goodness of God.  Jesus makes it all worthwhile.  Without Jesus, what makes it all worthwhile?  Short on money, short on patience, short on time.  Love ends; life ends; laughter ends.  Vanity of vanities, so much wasted breath.

The Word of God is the breath of Life.  Christ begs us to come and know him, saying, “I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (Jn 6:35).  Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be filled.

Do you truly, deeply want God’s way?  Desire works itself out in action.  What we believe and what we deeply want become plain in what we do, and what we refrain from doing.  Never perfectly so, in this minefield of life, but increasingly so, even if only incrementally.  Jesus followers don’t always understand why Jesus wants it this way rather than that way, or why Jesus thinks one thing is so very wrong and another thing so very good.  As we read Scripture, we wonder—we come across things that we love, and we can come across things that just don’t seem kind or loving, and they’re God’s clear teaching.  With whom, then, is the error?  Jesus followers follow Jesus who did not live contrary to God’s Word.  He did not abolish the least part of God’s Word.  Jesus knows God’s will better than anyone, and does it.

And what is Christ’s invitation?  Repent—turn.  Repentance involves change, deep change, and a change of attitude.  Repentance doesn’t necessarily happen completely and finally all at once.  Repentance doesn’t mean we never sin again.  We stop sinning when we stop living—why are we so afraid of death, then?  Repentance means we recognize the sin.  We give it its proper name; we hate it, hate that it is on us, like a stain we can’t wash out; we hate that it is in us, like a cancer that came from where and from what?  Repentance means we look to Jesus for light, mercy, and grace, confident that he will give, that he has already given, even before we turned to him shame-faced, humiliated.  Jesus takes our humiliation and by grace changes it to humility—very different!  Very blessed!  Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are those who mourn; blessed are the meek.  Blessed are those who yearn for righteousness.

To hunger and thirst for righteousness, then, is to keep our grace-steadied hearts on that road of repentance even as temptations keep beckoning to us from the wayside.  It’s amazing, the wreck people will make of their lives to pursue sin, yet how little effort or sacrifice they are willing to make for righteousness.  We take the bait too easily, too often.  Christ is the righteousness of God.  When did Jesus ever say go and sin some more; do as thou wilt?  When did he ever say or even suggest that, when you follow the stubborn desires of the flesh, it’s all good?  It’s the unredeemed, unrepentant will at the very heart of sin.  When Jesus, there in the garden, prays as with tears of blood, “Not my will but Thy will be done” he is also teaching us how to pray, how to live, and how to have our hunger filled.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

               [1] Epoch Times.  May 31^st-June 6^th.  A1.