Stay Hungry

Happy feast, everyone! Thank you, Duncan. Very beautiful. We really appreciate sharing your talents with us and worshiping God in that way, and certainly edifying us as well on this beautiful Holy Day.

Have you heard the new data from the COVID symptoms study? Now, you might think it's talking about symptoms of the disease, but it's not. This is a study that was created by doctors and scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, King's College, both in London and Stanford University School of Medicine. You know what they found? They found that COVID-19 has led to increased snacking. Anyone have that problem during a lockdown? Oh, boy. The result? People have gained five times more weight than even during the holidays. What do you think the average weight gain during COVID has been? Over seven pounds. Over seven pounds. And we all know, okay, sustained weight gain is not good for you. That's not helpful. It's really rough. In fact, there was another study that Frito-Lay has done. They call it the Frito-Lay Snack Index. And they found that 66% of us keep more snacks in our house than before COVID. Probably guilty as charged, I suppose. I mean, we've had this developing craving for snacks. And they've noticed that in America, at least, it has changed our eating landscape. And we've adapted to this new eating normal. And it's kind of driven us. It's driven Americans to have a need for comfort, a need for escapism, a need to get away from the pressures of life. All right, now switch gears for just a moment. Think about this from a whole different perspective. Do I snack my way through every day on the junk food activities that are all around us? I mean, we've all got hectic schedules. We've all got distractions. There's all kinds of entertainment opportunities out there that will steal our time. And oftentimes we end up snacking on those things rather than feasting on God. We complain about being busy and being tired. But wait a second. Isn't that really more of a spiritual problem than a physical or a scheduled problem? When you really get down to it, we have a tendency to desire all the things that are out there rather than desiring God. Maybe we're all a little guilty of this. Do we have a tendency to just maybe snack on God? Maybe just a little bite? Maybe just a little God appetizer? Maybe we do that during the week and we have a mini spiritual snack and, well, maybe that'll tide me over to the Sabbath. And then Sabbath, I'll get my God time in. Do we catch ourselves thinking like that? Can we catch up on God time like that? I don't think so. You see, God gave us the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread that we have to have a different outlook when it comes to eating. We have to have a bare-bones hunger and a voracious appetite for God's spiritual food. And He wants us to desire the best. And in fact, Passover and Unleavened Bread remind us this isn't just a good idea, but it's a command. It's a command. And so let's think about that for a moment. Do we have a true hunger for God? What is that? What is a true hunger for God? What does that look like? And if I'm just a snacker at heart, how do I develop a true hunger for God?

Christ spoke of that over in the book of John. John 6, verse 53. Here's a passage that will sound familiar. We just read this the other night at the Passover. John 6, verse 53. Here we find a difficult situation during the ministry of Christ as He explains how important it is to develop this kind of hunger for God's way that had caused many who were following Him to go away. They could not understand and grasp what He was talking about and this difference between just being an occasional snacker of God's way versus what it really means to have a true hunger. John 6, 53.

And I in Him.

You see, Christ is telling us we have to have a hunger for God and His way and His will. And it is a critical factor. This is all about what it really means to live because if we don't, if we don't consume Christ, if He doesn't live in us and through us, He says here, we're as good as dead. We have no life and Christ must then be in us. And we certainly symbolize that at the Passover. And if we just think about physical hunger for a moment, until that hunger is satisfied in us, does anything else really matter in life? And if you are dying of starvation, first and foremost, you've got to have food. And before we can truly be concerned about anything else, we need nourishment. We have to be nourished. And that's true physically and absolutely true spiritually as well. That's what Christ is telling us. He says this basic, all-consuming life or death desire, this need we have for food, is exactly what God wants us to realize and learn during the days of Unleavened Bread. This is a chief lesson that we need to grasp because that's the kind of craving, that yearning that Christ had in mind. Now, of course, it has to be the right kind of food, not just the junk food that surrounds us, but real, down-to-earth spiritual food is the only thing that Christ says will sustain us. You put it in an interesting way in the Beatitudes. If you go over to Matthew 5 in the Beatitudes, the blessed R's, He talks about this very fact in one of those Beatitudes. In Matthew 5, verse 3, He says, Verse 4, He says, Verse 5 in Matthew 5, And then in verse 6, Matthew 5, verse 6, Now, maybe like me, if you skip a meal, I think, wow, I've really accomplished something. Or maybe we're trying to cut back a little bit, or maybe trying to get rid of a few of those extra COVID pounds we've put on, or maybe we're counting the calories a little bit, or I'll just have one dessert this time instead of three. And we think, oh, wow, I'm really hungry. I'm really sacrificing now. Is that the kind of hunger Christ is talking about here? Not at all. It's not going on a diet kind of hunger. It's not sitting down to watch TV, and I wish I had some popcorn kind of hunger. That's not what Christ is talking about. It's not like, well, look at that! It's almost noon. I guess I ought to stop working and have something for lunch. That is not what Christ is talking about. In fact, when you make a comparison of that, think of where we are, even as Americans, how blessed we are and how much we take it for granted. We are so blessed we don't even realize how much we need food because it's everywhere. It's all around us. And we don't often step back to recognize how our world is suffering because of a lack of food. Begin to think about that for a moment. Do we really realize how hungry our world really is?

What do you think is the country that is the most appalling in its food crisis? The disaster that they are going through right now is overwhelming. It's Yemen. The country of Yemen is going through a terrible human disaster right now. It's because of political instability. It's because of conflict. Famine-like situations have developed there. So more than 20 million people are going hungry every single day. 50,000 people are dying. They are literally starving to death. And millions upon millions and millions are going hungry. We don't often think about that, but it is a devastating fact and a reminder what the lack of food will do, what conflict will do to a country.

And they're not the only ones. And you might have thought of Sub-Saharan Africa, Haiti. These places are starving to death in so many instances. And so if we put our place with those individuals, what would it be like to have some food? The yearning for something to eat, that desire, that longing just to be nourished. It's an overwhelming desire. That's the kind of hunger Christ is talking about. That's what He's saying here. He's talking about a see-through-the-bones kind of hunger.

He's talking about a malnourished, life-and-death-about-to-die kind of hunger is what we're supposed to have toward God. Can we imagine that kind of need, that kind of desire? Life-saving food. That's what Christ had in mind. That's the desire God wants us to have in mind when He says, hunger for me, hunger for me.

And of course, Jesus isn't talking about physical hunger. He's got a whole different kind of diet in mind. Look at verse 6 again, "...blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." That's a spiritual hunger, a spiritual desire.

And that desire begins where the festivals begin. Passover shows us we need a Savior. We cannot survive without a Savior. Without God, we have absolutely no hope. And hungering begins there. That's where it starts, that we have a deep-seated desire for real contact with God. And it goes beyond just contact. We have a longing. We're supposed to develop a craving, a personal connection, a bond, a deep relationship with God. And that righteousness has to follow, that I need and I want and I desire to put on the character of Jesus Christ.

And if we're hungry at all, it tells us we're alive. We're still alive. When you're hungry, it is a sign of life. And that initial hunger that God starts to work in us is for family. That we need a Father. We need a spiritual Father. We need an elder brother. We need each other. We need a family. We need God's kingdom to come. So that His rule will be established on this earth, but in my life as well. So we're to hunger for righteousness. Are we starving? Are we starving for holiness to be in us?

Are we famished wanting a personal relationship with God the Father and with Jesus Christ? Are we really yearning for a closer relationship? Or maybe just a snack is good enough. I'm okay. I don't really need any more. And maybe often we find ourselves in that attitude, in that kind of perspective that, yeah, I'm good. I'm good. But that's not what Christ is saying here.

In this little passage in chapter 5 verse 6, He's saying so much more. So much more. In fact, we get a little idea of that over in chapter 6 verse 4 in the book of John. In John chapter 6 verse 4, here's an event that took place at this time of the year.

At this time of the year, it was the Passover. And in this particular situation, I think we're fairly familiar with this particular event. It was the Passover and Christ was preaching and teaching and He had a massive following. There was a multitude of people that were listening to Christ. Now, what was their motivation? What was their thinking? What was on their mind? What was their attitude? Well, in verse 5, John chapter 6, Jesus lifted up His eyes, saw the great multitude coming toward Him. And He said to Philip, Where shall we buy bread that these may eat?

Of course, this is what is often called the feeding of the 5,000. Feeding of 5,000. Now, if we looked in the book of Matthew, it tells us there was not only 5,000 men, but there was women and children as well. Oftentimes, scholars will say there was probably 15,000 to 20,000 people that were here. How in the world could you feed that many people with just five loaves and two fish? But that's exactly what Christ does.

That's what He does. But as a conclusion to this amazing miracle, the physical blessings of food, Christ draws a very specific spiritual lesson. Look down to verse 27. John 6, 27, He tells them, Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you because God the Father has set His seal on him. You see, these people were in it for free lunch.

That's why they were there. They followed them all around because they were looking to the miracles, the signs, and the free food. But when you look to verse 27, Christ says there's a deep spiritual lesson here. Yes, we need physical food, but how much more do we need the spiritual? If you look back to verse 27, in the message translation, it says this, Don't waste your energy striving for perishable food. Work for the food that will stick with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides. He and what He does are guaranteed by God the Father to last.

You see, Christ wasn't talking about snack food, real spiritual nourishment. And that's what Unleavened Bread is about. Unleavened Bread is about eating. It's about eating. You see, Passover and Unleavened Bread, they're not just a one-time experience. Oh, that's done. It's over. This week is finished. Now, the lesson is we have to continually eat.

Keep eating. Don't stop. What happens if you stop eating? Well, you do it long enough, you're going to die. So we have to keep eating. And so, do we have that kind of spiritual hunger? That's what Christ wants for us. He wants to live in us and through us, accomplish His will in us, if we'll allow Him to.

In fact, He describes a situation that happened to ancient Israel. It's in Psalm 81, if you'll turn there over with me. He describes an event that happened as Israel had left Egypt and as they were to come into the Promised Land. In fact, we sing Psalm 81. It's on page 42 in our hymnal. The title in the hymnal is, Praise the Eternal with a Psalm.

Remember this? As we read the words, it'll probably sound pretty familiar. Right? Praise the eternal with a Psalm. Sing to the God of Jacob. And it tells us this is even on the feast days. The feast days we do this. Down in verse 10, we're told, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. He says, Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. Don't we sing those words? Here, O Israel, open wide your mouth.

What does God say? Yes, He's absolutely going to... How do you eat? Open your mouth! You've got to eat! You need sustenance. And there's a spiritual lesson here as well. Remember the rest of the verses of that song?

But Israel would not heed God. They would have their own ways. Oh, if they'd only obey... Well, that's down in verse 11. But my people would not heed my voice. And Israel would have none of me. None of me.

I'm reminded of my little grandson reading this. Little kids, they learn pretty quickly what they like and what they don't. So last night at the Night to Be, there was some appetizers, little pickles. So I had this little pickle on a stick. It's like, Jackson, would you like this pickle? And they go to put it in his mouth and what do they do? It's not the best talker yet. No, shut that mouth. That is coming nowhere near my teeth. Not going to happen. Yeah, it reminds me of what Israel said to God. I'm going to give you the best. This is really good. No, not having it. That was Israel's perspective. God said, open your mouth. I want to fill it. Days of Unleavened Bread, we fill our hearts and our minds with the spiritual truth of God. Israel wouldn't listen. In fact, down in verse 16, look what God would have done. He would have fed them also with the finest, the finest of wheat. And with the honey from the rock, I would have satisfied you. And think of that spiritual application of that very fact. Yeah, the things that this world has to offer, the snack foods, it's all empty. It's all useless. It's vain. Without God, there is no lasting meaning. And if you just think for a moment, what happens when we stop eating?

If you fast for a while, that first day can get to be a little rough at the end. Second day, it's pretty hard. But if you are actually to go without food, about four or five days into it, the scientists will say that your stomach muscles start to shut down. They start to shut down, and after those four or five days, you're not hungry anymore. You really don't feel those hunger pangs anymore. And so we know that's what happened to Israel after a while. They just didn't feel it anymore. God said, open your mouth, and they said, no thanks. Do we do that? Do we do that? I mean, is our motivation and our perspective that we have a spiritual appetite, and we're going to open our mouth as wide as we can to take in all God has to offer? How much of God do we really want? Do we really want more and more and more of God? Is He becoming more and more a part of our life that we're becoming Christ-like? We're more like Christ than ever before. Because Christ is telling us that we should be wanting more, and we just can't get enough. In fact, we can't say, I'm good. We can't say, I'm satisfied. Because you've got to eat. You've got to eat to live. There's a beautiful Psalm. You might just write down Psalm 34 verse 8. It says, oh, taste and see the Lord is good. Taste it. Taste it. Now, you begin to think about that. All right, I'm supposed to have all that God would give.

But can I really do that? I mean, literally what He's saying back in Matthew chapter 5 verse 6 is such a powerful thought. He's saying, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. But if you were to read this in the Greek, it's not really a normal type of sentence. Because normally, you'd read something like, well, I'm hungry for food. That means, I want some food. So you read that, you might think that's what He's saying here. But that's not. That is not what He's saying. It's not the usual phrasing in this particular passage.

Christ's intent here is to say, blessed are those who hunger, not just for some of God, not just for some of His righteousness, but for all of it. That's what He's saying here. In other words, happy are those who are famished with a continual, never completely satisfied desire for God and all that He is. And so, we need to crave righteousness. We need to hunger for God's approval. We have to work up an appetite for living His way and putting that way into practice, because we need God every minute of our life. And so, we have to develop that desire to love God and do what He wants, what He requires, what He commands, and want to do right more than anything else.

And we're committed to do whatever it takes, whatever it takes to be like Christ. And when we set our mind to Matthew 5, 6, what's the result? Well, it's like the Psalm says, they shall be filled. They shall be filled. The result is we will be totally fulfilled. We will be satisfied. The way He phrases it here, it's like an animal that you feed until it's had so much, it's not hungry anymore.

It's not interested in food. You've satisfied it, at least for the moment. So, when you look back at Matthew 5, 6, the intent is, happy are those who are starving for all the righteousness of our infinitely righteous God with the kind of continual, all-consuming hunger that really is never completely satisfied. And we can be happy. We can be blessed because God's promised to be with us.

And you really want a different perspective? You want joy? You want to have the character of Christ? Live the attributes of God? This is what it's going to take to feed on God's faithfulness, to feed on every attitude, every attribute, every behavior of Christ, every word of Christ, to hunger and thirst after Jesus Christ.

That's what it's about. Now, we might say, well, is that possible? To have an all-consuming hunger? Is that something that we could even accomplish, especially spiritually speaking? Well, I think God gave us an object lesson. We celebrated the night to be much observed last night. Anyone have a nice meal last night? Okay, we did, didn't we? We did. Did you happen to think, I never want to see another piece of food in my life? Anybody think that after you got done last night with the third dessert? Okay, maybe a few of us did. I thought, I'm not going to have to eat for a week.

That's the way it's going to be. But this morning it was like, I'm kind of hungry. Anybody eat today? All right, we did. We did. And as long as we're alive, we're going to get hungry. Even if we got to that point, we thought, I'm never going to have to eat again. And so, what a beautiful object lesson. That's what Christ is talking about. We can fill to the full, but then we're going to need more. And we have to have more. The next morning it's time to eat breakfast again. And as long as you're alive, you're going to get hungry. And if you're like me, sometimes just thinking of food makes you hungry.

Oh, I'll bet it does. You think of your favorite dessert. Sometimes that memory just kicks in. It's like, wow, that juicy filet. Wouldn't it be nice to have that?

Did you eat lunch today? Get a little hungry. Or maybe it's chicken marsala. Oh, that's good. That is really good what it's prepared. Comfort food. That's what it's all about, right? Yes, it feels good. This feels right. And when we think about some of the past favorites, that can even cause us to get hungry all over again. That craving can start. And I think there's a spiritual lesson in that as well, because we get hungry all over again. And that's what God wants for us. He wants to satisfy us and fill us, but then to continue that we get hungry all over again.

And we have to be satisfied even more. There's a beautiful Psalm, Psalm 107, reminds us of that very fact. Notice what God teaches us here in Psalm 107. We'll pick it up in verse 8. Psalm 107, verse 8, is such a beautiful reminder of this very fact. It begins in verse 8, Psalm 107, No wonder God uses this object lesson of food during the days of Unleavened Bread. Our experience at this time, the physical food that we eat, I think God intends it to teach us a lesson to feed on the Lord, to eat from His table.

Think about that for a moment. Isn't the Word of God meant to be eaten, that we consume God's Word? Unleavened Bread should remind us we need regular meals, regular spiritual meals at the table of God. And so we have to come to the Word of God, to Scripture. And we can't just have a snack or two. We have to feast on the Word of God. If we don't, then we're shutting our mouth. We're shaking our head to God. We're saying, ah, I'm okay. But God says, no, open wide your mouth. Feast on my Word. Approach me through my Word.

Study. Study who I am. Study what is faith all about. Put on my grace. Put on my peace. Put on my mercy. Are you forgiving? How about sacrificial love? Is that what describes me? We have to know it and come to terms with that and strive to live that way. Because this isn't the time that we fast. God calls us, Ellen Love and Bread, to eat, to eat of His Word.

And that beautiful metaphor spells it all out. He tells us, don't spoil your dinner. Don't just snack away. Don't eat the useless junk food. That will not satisfy you. And that's what the world offers. We look at all the pleasures, the gratification that comes out there. There's no contentment. There's no spiritual substance there at all. Never find it. We'll never find it. But they have that need.

They recognize there's a need. They know they need something. But they don't recognize that it's God, that it's God. And so He says, enjoy the meal. Enjoy the spiritual meal that I provide. That's what God says. Because ultimately, without Him, there is no way we can be satisfied. So if you imagine the most wonderful things you love to eat, maybe it's a double hot fudge sundae. Okay, that's my thing. Of course, I was always taught, if you eat too much of it, sooner or later, it's going to make you sick. You're going to get sick.

Okay, now think about that in the way that Christ is describing this. I mean, just imagine that for a moment. No problems attached with spiritual food. There's no calories. We don't have to worry about that. There's no cholesterol. There's no clogged arteries. You're never going to get sick. And every bite of God's way and His will, striving to put on Christ, wets our appetite for more and more.

And the more you want, the more God's going to give you. And it's not only allowed, He encourages that. In fact, we think of unleavened bread. We are out of sin. We've left spiritual Egypt behind. We are striving and walking toward the Kingdom. Sin is at our back. The only way to stay out of sin is to spiritually consume Jesus Christ. We eat of that bread. And when we do that, Christ is in us. And spiritually, that's what God's intent is. He wants us to have a continually better, growing, stronger relationship with us. And He wants us to be dedicated to grow day by day, to strive to live more and more and more like Him.

And so He's given us this week. He's given us an opportunity to create a new habit. We don't want to let COVID's impact drag us down, physically or spiritually, for that matter. So we've got to cut that useless snacking and choose instead, feast on God. Put the world's snacks behind and feast on God. And each and every meal that we partake of, we're going to leave here this afternoon, we're going to eat here sometime this evening. When we do, in fact, every meal we eat during this time, ask yourself, am I starving for God? Do I desire, do I have a passion for His will, His way, a passion for the character of Christ? You see, the unleavened bread we eat and the meals we eat this week should remind us, I need to be filled with sincerity and truth. He is my food. He is my life. He is my nourishment. There is none without Him. And I need that spiritual filling. So let's do that very thing. Let's seek an ever-closer, growing relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ. And choose, choose to have our heart and mind more focused on Him than ever before. Don't just taste it! Spiritually eat all you can, over and over and over. For blessed are the hungry, for they shall be filled.