What Do You Crave?

Thank you, congregation, for that song. About a month ago, I spoke about one of the Beatitudes, and I said that we would periodically through the year go through the Beatitudes and look at those in depth. You know, when Jesus Christ began his sermon, or began his ministry, and he gave the sermon on the Mount, he talked to the people and let them know what they needed to do. And in that sermon on the Mount, there is kind of a blueprint for life. You know, in that sermon, he told us the type of people we need to be. He told us that the law and the process of the Old Testament we still pay attention to is the whole Bible. He lived by that law. If anything, he expanded it so that we don't keep it just physically but also spiritually, if we're going to live God's way. And in those first Beatitudes there, he gave us a picture of what we should be becoming or which we should want to become if indeed we are following God, if we believe in Him, and if we want to be in His kingdom. So let's turn back to Matthew 5. Last time we talked about, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. We're not taking these in any particular order.

Let's drop down to verse 6 here. It says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Now that's a Beatitude. Many of you could recite all the Beatitudes to me word by word in there. So we've heard of that a long time, but I want to talk about this in depth a little bit more today because when Christ says, they will be filled. They will inherit the kingdom of God. These are things that we need to be implementing in our lives or be conscious of in our lives and working toward in our lives that we are becoming the type of people that He describes here. So today I want to kind of use a way of looking at the Bible and letting the Bible interpret itself, because we all know those words. Well, there are key words in that verse. Hunger and thirst, righteousness, filled.

Let's go through the Bible as we look at this and let the Bible define for us what some of those words mean. That way we can get a better picture of what Jesus Christ is saying here. Let's begin with the word righteousness. Let me first give you what the Strongs, the Greek word, the original Greek word is there. I'm not going to try to pronounce it because it is a long word and it's difficult to pronounce, but it's Strongs. It's the Greek number 1343 in the Greek in Strong's Concordance, and it literally means the righteousness of which God is the source or author. So not righteousness defined by someone else, but what God would call righteousness. Thayer's dictionary defines it this way. They say, in a broad sense, it is the state of Him who is as He ought to be, with conditions acceptable to God. It's who He becomes. It's Him. When God looks at someone, He looks at them, and He says they are righteousness. They are filled with righteousness, the condition that God wants us to be in. Also, it says, it means, the doctrine concerning the way in which men may attain a state approved of God. We know what that is. The only way that we can be approved by God and live the way that He wants is if we study His Word, if we apply His Words into our lives, if we allow His Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us and mold us into who He wants us to become. A condition, a state approved by God. And finally, they say, it's integrity, virtue, purity of life, rightness, correctness of thinking, feeling, and acting. The whole body, heart, mind, and soul, all of us, all of us involved in it. Not just what we do, not just what we say, but everything. And over the course of a lifetime, as we yield our lives to God, as we let His Holy Spirit go through us, we become righteous. We become, if we're doing things the way that He wants and allowing Him to mold us and direct us, we become who He wants us to become. It defines us. So, let's go back, because this Word, this Strong's 1343, is used 92 times in the New Testament. But interestingly, in the Gospels, it's only used 10 times, totally. Seven of those times are here in Matthew. So, let's look at how Matthew used the word, righteousness, in his writing. We get a picture, I think, of how God would picture righteousness, that He would want us to be practicing in our lives. Or, not Revelation, Matthew 3. The first time it's used in the New Testament here, we find it in verse 15. Let's begin in verse 11. This is the time when John the Baptist is around, and he is practiced, and he's preaching the gospel of repentance. He's preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. And Jesus Christ is about to come to be baptized of Him. Matthew 3 and verse 11.

John says, John the Baptist, I indeed baptize you with water under repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, who sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn. But he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Then Jesus came from Galilee to John after Jordan to be baptized by him, and John tried to prevent him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and you're coming to me? Well, you can imagine what John was feeling. Here's the Messiah. He knew exactly who Jesus Christ was. He was the perfect man. He didn't need to be baptized. That was not part of what he had to do at all. But he had to do it for righteousness' sake. He had to do it because he set an example for us. Now, we need to be baptized if we are going to live a life of righteousness, if we are going to receive the Holy Spirit, if we are going to be part of God's kingdom. Notice how John, his reaction is similar to what you and I would have said at that point. No, no, no! Jesus Christ, I should be baptized by you. I can't be baptized by you. But Jesus answered and said to John, Permitted to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

Now, John has a natural reaction, a humble reaction, but Christ said, No, John, it's fitting for us to fulfill righteousness. This has to happen. If we are going to do things God's way, if we are going to be approved of God, if we are going to live our lives the way He said to live their lives, I have to be baptized. Before His physical existence, He was God. He was a God-being, but now He was a man born of the flesh. He had to be baptized in order to fulfill all righteousness.

It's a tremendous lesson in that. And as soon as John heard that, yes, it's for righteousness' sake, this is what has to happen, it was like, okay, Christ, then you'll be baptized.

You know, there are some things in our lives. And as we read through the Bible, or as we listen to a sermon, or someone may call something to our attention, if they say, you know, you're not doing that exactly right, or what you're doing is in contrast to the Bible, if you look at this Scripture or whatever. And our initial reaction would be like, no, no, no, no, no, what I'm doing is okay, I'm okay with what, you know, God is okay with what I'm doing, you don't intend to do anything wrong. But when something is brought to our attention, you know, we might have the same natural reaction that John did. He wasn't being resistant here, he wasn't being resentful here, he wasn't being rebellious here. He just thought, no, the right thing to do is I can't, I'm not worthy to be baptized, be baptizing Jesus Christ. But when we learn that it's for righteousness' sake, it's what God would have us do. Do we have the same reaction that John would have?

Okay? Then I need to give that up. Okay, then I need to do this this way. Okay, then I need to adjust my thinking so that it's in concert with the way that God wants us to be, in concert with His Word. And recently we've talked about His Word, that we live by every word of the Bible.

This defines righteousness. This defines who we need to be. When John realized that, he said, okay, for righteousness' sake, I will baptize you. Let's go back to Matthew 21, and we see actually the seventh time in Matthew that the word of righteousness is used, and it also pertains to John the Baptist. Matthew 21 and verse 32. Jesus Christ, among the many things that He was saying is He would have people learn the way of God, not just the way that the Jews did things back then, not just the way that the rabbis said to do things. They should have been leading the people in the way that the Bible said, but as we know that they had their own things that they added into the Bible, their own interpretations, their own burdens as Christ called them, that they added into the law. Jesus Christ came to do live the way that the God said here in verse 32. He says this as He's speaking to them. He says, for John came to you in the way of righteousness. He came to you preaching a gospel of repentance, preaching a gospel of the kingdom of God. He came to you living the way of righteousness. You know, John the Baptist, Christ said that there is no greater man, no greater prophet born among or from women than John the Baptist. That's pretty high commendation, isn't it? No one greater, no one greater than Him. He lived the way of righteousness. When people saw Him, He lived a way of life that God would prescribe for Him to do. He did God's will. He lived a life that's different than any of you or I have lived, but He did it the way God wanted Him to. And it was different than the way Jesus Christ lived because each of our lives that God prescribes for us can be lived in different ways. They still have to be defined by righteousness. John came to you in the way of righteousness, Christ said, and you didn't believe Him, but tax collectors and harlots believed Him. And when you saw it, you didn't afterward relent and believe in Him. I sent you an example of what righteousness is. You saw how He lived. You saw how devoted He was to God. You saw how He gave up His life. He gave up His comfort. He gave up whatever it took in order to preach the gospel that God wanted to preach, to live His life the way God wanted Him to live His life. You saw Him doing these things. You heard His words, but you didn't want to believe it. You didn't want to believe He was telling you the truth. It was different than what you had heard before. It was different than what the religious leaders of that day were saying. You didn't want to believe it. Were they just too full of themselves? Were they so set in their own ways? Were they so right that they had such pride that they thought, no, no, we have to be right. There's no way. No way for a people that lived back then that thought, we are following God. We're following Him. How could John the Baptist? It's different than what we do.

Similar, but different. They didn't want to believe it. But those tax collectors and the harlots, the people that were looked down on that society, they did believe Him. And so people like Matthew, people like Mary Magdalene, followed. They believed. They gave their lives. They listened to what was being said, and they became different people than they were before.

Tax collectors and harlots believed Him. And when you saw it, they still didn't relent. They still didn't repent. They still didn't get it. They just wanted to continue in their own way.

Not the way of righteousness, because righteousness is what is right in our own eyes, but righteousness is what God says is right. They had the example. Christ sent John the Baptist, or God sent John the Baptist before. To set the example, Jesus Christ was a perfect example.

They resisted. They rejected. They would listen. What we have, the examples of righteousness, and the way that they lived. And we can see it's a way of life that defined them. It wasn't just one thing they could point to. It was the person. John the Baptist was righteous. He just didn't speak righteously. He just didn't act righteously. The whole person was righteous.

Okay. Let's go back to where we began, back in Matthew 5. We read verse 6. That's where righteousness is. But just a few verses following verse 6. Christ uses the word righteousness again in Matthew 5 and verse 10. He says, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.

Because of the way of life they live. The way of life, then the people see who they are, how they are, what they believe, and they're persecuted for it because they're not like the society around them. They're not like the world. They're not like the people they work with. They're not like the people that they're in the neighborhood with. They're not like the people that go to other churches. They're living the way that God would have them live from every word of the Bible. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. Because of the way they live and because of the way that they conduct themselves, because of the way that they stand up and don't yield to the pressures of society, they don't yield to the pressures of family, they don't yield to their own ideas and their own pressures within that says, how much easier would it be if I would just do things differently? No, because righteousness is doing the right thing all the time, no matter what the threats, no matter what the persecution. And it's interesting when you look at verse 6 and verse 10 here, when one point Christ says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Just a few sentences later, he says, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. So what he's saying is, hunger and thirst to live your life in a way that is going to lead to persecution.

Hunger and thirst for that way. Now that's interesting, isn't it? That's interesting that he says, do that. Hunger and thirst for righteousness' sake. Pay attention to righteousness because it's not just what you do, it's who you are. And as you become that, people will take note. They will know. It will be a very big benefit and blessing for them to be around you because they'll be around the person of integrity, a person who has morals, a person who has honest and who speaks well and speaks the truth. But they will eventually come to resent that as society and as this world marches closer and closer to the time of Jesus Christ's return.

So we see that righteousness is something that when we live it, the world's not going to like it.

We live in a world of darkness. God has called us to be people of light.

And light and darkness can be a tremendous contrast.

Okay, down to the same chapter. Matthew 5, verse 20.

Christ here in the same context here in the Sermon on the Mount says, For I say to you, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

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

Blessed are you and you are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for yours is the kingdom of heaven. Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

While the Pharisees we know thought they were righteous, they thought they were keeping all the law of God. And if there's one thing Jesus Christ did when He was on earth, He refuted what the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Jews were doing. They were not living by the law of God. They had some concepts of it, but they weren't the people that He wanted them to be. He's not, they weren't the people that when He brought Israel out of Egypt and said, I'm giving you my laws, I'm giving you my statutes, I'm giving you my ordinances. Follow Me, obey Me, listen to Me, and I will set you high above every nation on earth. You will be a model to the rest of the world. Israel, ancient Israel, didn't do that. The Jews weren't doing that now. They changed the law of God. They were keeping the Sabbath, they were keeping the Holy Days, they were doing it in their own way. They had attached their own interpretations to things. They had attached their own methods on top of it. They had attached their own traditions to it, and thereby they polluted what they were doing.

The people of God, and yet they thought they were righteous. To the world around them, they would have said, we're the righteous ones, we're the ones following God, we're God's people.

But Jesus Christ said, no, that righteousness is not the righteousness of God. And unless my righteousness and your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, we won't be in the kingdom of heaven. And I hope that everyone who's here has the kingdom of God as his goal. Has that as his goal. Without it, we are missing the most important thing in life that overrides everything else that we do. The thing that gives us, that gives us the satisfaction, that gives us the purpose, that gives us the meaning, that gives us the reason to be living. So God says, there's something you need to do. You need to know the Bible. You need to apply the Bible. You need to be living by every word of God, not adding to, not taking away your righteousness, who you are.

It needs to be different than who the Pharisees were and the people, the religion of that day.

Following him, following him explicitly exactly the way that he wanted to be followed. And then finally, over in Matthew 6. Matthew 6 and verse 33, Christ is talking about the things that are important to all of us. You know, what are we going to wear? Where's our shelter? What are we going to eat? All those things that are part of life and that we need to be paying attention to, they need to be priorities in our life. We all are, we all need to be providing for our families, providing for ourselves. We need to be doing those things. And as we work and as we're out in society, doing things to the best of our ability, as it says in Ecclesiastes 9 and 10, working with all our might, being good employees, being good employers, being good and fulfilling honestly whatever the job that we have is. But here, as Christ goes through it, he says, you know, don't worry about this. Don't worry about what you're going to wear. Don't worry about what you're going to eat. And if I'm in verse 33, he says this, in verse 32. Now let's pick it up in verse 31. Find a read through his conclusion here. Verse 31, therefore don't worry saying what we'll eat, or what will we drink, or what will we wear. For after all these things the Gentiles seek.

That's their priority. Whatever they have to do to get by, they'll do it. They'll change morals. They'll do whatever they need to do. They'll compromise in order to have food on the table. They'll compromise in order to have a roof over their head. That's what they seek.

That's what they seek. But he says, not you, not you. After all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, but you seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. See what he's saying there? Seek first His Kingdom above all those other priorities and all those things we should be doing in life and that we're responsible for doing in life. He says, you, people of God, seek first His Kingdom. Seek first His righteousness. Let that be the overriding thing in your life.

Whatever you do in life, make sure that it's being done to God's glory. Make sure that it's being done the way He wants it done, and not the way the world around you is doing it, or what our ideas might be. Do it to the best of your ability, but seek first His Kingdom. Seek first His righteousness. Above all, God says, keep your eyes on the biggest goal. Become who I want you to become. Keep the Kingdom of God in mind. Remember that that's what you're called to. That's the purpose for what you're alive, and the reason when God calls us, He wants us to be in His Kingdom. He wants to give us eternal life, but we have our part to play. We have to seek it first. It has to be the highest priority. So if it comes the choice between working on the Sabbath, or trusting in God that He will provide for us, righteous people trust in God, and they don't violate His Sabbath.

If it comes the choice between lying about something to get yourself out of the Sabbath, or telling the truth, righteous people tell the truth, even if it costs them, because God is capable and will provide. We have to have faith. We have to be practicing. We have to be seeking first His Kingdom and righteousness. You know when Jesus Christ earlier in Matthew 6, and He gives the model prayer, when He says, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Your name.

The very first thing He says in that model prayer is, Thy Kingdom come. Thy Kingdom come.

The very first thing, after He praises God. People of God, we all need to think more about the Kingdom. Ask God for a vision of it, to make it important in our lives that that Kingdom, His Kingdom, His righteousness, what He's doing as He's preparing us, that we become the people that He wants us to become, so that we become or can become part of that Kingdom.

So, righteousness is more than just what we do. It's more than just keeping the commandments of God, physically keeping them and spiritually keeping them. It includes that, but it's not just that.

It becomes us as we allow God to purify us and become like Jesus Christ, because His Spirit in us, He will, if we let Him, if we allow Him to have us begin thinking and acting and behaving more and more like Jesus Christ. And anyone who has the hope of the Kingdom, it says back in 1st John 3, 1st John 3, purifies himself. Let's God develop in Him the righteousness that's defined by God and acceptable by God. Well, let's go back to the Old Testament, too, so you can see that the concept of righteousness was back in the Old Testament, just like it was, just like in the New. God hasn't changed anything. He's had a plan for mankind, and what He's expected of mankind has been the same from the time He created them and put them on earth. Let's go back to Genesis 15.

Genesis 15. We have Abraham. Abraham is called the Father of the faithful. God calls him righteous in the Old Testament, and He calls him righteous in the New Testament, as you look in Galatians. In Genesis 15, God is speaking to Abraham. You remember that He made promises to Abraham. You're going to have a child. Sarah is old. You're past time that you should have children, but you'll have a child, and your descendants will be as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands of the sea. And Abraham believed God. Let's pick it up in verse 5, and then we'll look in verse 6, where the Hebrew word that corresponds to the Greek word for righteousness is here. Genesis 15, verse 5. God brought Abraham outside and said, Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them. And God said to him, So shall your descendants be. And Abraham believed in the eternal, and God accounted it to him for righteousness.

Abraham believed. It was past the time where physically it didn't look like it could be possible that Abraham believed. He had a moment of weakness in there where he allowed his wife to talk him into having a child with Hagar, but that isn't what God had in mind. Sometimes we can get distracted and do things and think, Oh, this must be what God wants us to do. But when God says something and says, This is the way it's going to be, Abraham believed. He allowed himself to get distracted a bit, but he believed. Part of righteousness is believing in God, believing in him. He says that he will send his son, Jesus Christ, back to earth. He says he will set up his kingdom on earth. He says it will be a kingdom of peace and plenty and abundance for everyone. He says, For those who follow him this age, the first fruits, he gives promises.

Do we believe the way that Abraham believed? Part of righteousness is not just doing, not just jumping through the hoops, but believing. Remember, when we look at believe in the New Testament, it's that Greek word, the stoil, that means when we believe, it changes the way we think.

It changes our outlook on life. It changes the way we do things. We don't see things the way we do anymore. We have similar things happen to us we talked about in our lives that can change the way we think and change the way we react to things. When God calls us, as he called Abraham, remember Abraham was the only one, the only one in the world at that time following him, and he was willing to give us everything, everything to follow God. And God blessed him richly. Over in chapter 18 of Genesis, verse 17, the Eternal says, this is the time when he's about ready to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for the grievous sins that are there, and he's going to let Abraham know what he plans to do. And God said, verse 17, shall I hide from Abraham what I'm doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him. And he says something that I hope he says about me one day. I hope that he says this about you one day, for I have known him in order that he may command his children in his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him. I know him. I know him. He just doesn't talk the talk. He walks the walk. I've watched how he is in his family. He's teaching his children the way of God. He's arming them with the greatest thing they can ever be armed with, and that's a way of life that's going to lead to all good. It'll have its ups and downs along the way like anything in life does, but ultimately it will be for their good. And they will thank you for it.

I know him. His whole life is about following me. His whole life is righteous. If I ask him to do something, he does it. If I point out to something that he's done wrong, he changes it, and he repents and becomes the way that I want him to become. I've seen him. He believes in me, even to the extent. Oh, that's not him. That's either. He would say the same thing, that he would be willing to sacrifice his... Oh, no, there was Abraham sacrificing Isaac. Get my people straight here. That he would even be willing to give up his son that I promised him, because I asked him to.

That's righteousness. That's righteousness. Something that is being in the state that God would approve for us. What he wants for you, what he wants for me, what he wants for all of his people, to do his will to become who he wants us to become. It's a tall order. We can't do it on our own. We can't do it without God's Holy Spirit. It's impossible without God's Holy Spirit. And to have this Holy Spirit, we have to repent. We have to make the choice to choose life, as it says back in Deuteronomy 30 and verse 19. We have to repent. We have to be baptized. And then, when we do those things, God will give us his Holy Spirit. And with this Holy Spirit, we spend the rest of our lives allowing him to show us and teach us the way that we should go. And in Matthew 5 verse 6, he said, After this way of life, after this righteousness, I want you to hunger and thirst. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Hunger and thirst after righteousness.

I'm going to cover and talk about hunger and thirst. We all know what hunger and thirst are. We've all been hungry at some time in our lives. We've all been thirsty at some time in our lives.

I'm telling you, we in America just don't know what hunger is or thirst is, the way that most of the rest of humanity has experienced at some time in their lives. The longest I've ever gone without food is three days. And at the end of those three days, I can't say I was hungry, I was feeling pretty weak, but I also knew that there was food in the refrigerator and I would be eating when I decided to eat. For most of humanity, they've had to go a lot longer than that without food, and they had no idea where their next meal was coming from. None whatsoever. That's what hunger is. You and I don't know what that hunger is. At least, I don't know anyone in this room that's experienced that. Well, when you're experiencing that type of famishment, that type of hunger, there's an intense desire that goes along with it. When you look at the Greek word for hunger in Matthew 5 verse 6, it's from the Greek 1393, and it has a couple of meanings. One of them gives a figurative—I'm going to get to that in a minute—but it says, literal famishment, that somewhat is famished. They are just simply ravenously hungry.

Not to the point of starvation, because it's a different word for starvation. When you read through Revelation, there's a point where people are going to die of starvation. There are other times that they are hungry, that there is a famine on the land, and they are just really, really hungry. There is nothing out there to eat. And those hunger pains is what God is talking about—hunger and thirst after righteousness. I want you to think about the hungriest you've ever been.

Maybe you're out for a few days and didn't have much to eat. When you got back home, you said, I just want anything. I'll eat anything. And even the things that you don't even like look good at that point. Right? Just give me something, because I need that in my body. Well, the Bible gives us a few examples of what hunger is. When Christ says hunger and thirst, the people of that day, they knew the Bible, especially the Old Testament, inside and out.

So when they heard the word hunger, they probably immediately thought back to some examples in the Bible of, oh, he's saying hunger and thirst after righteousness. Let's go back and look at a couple of examples in the Old Testament of what hungry is or what hunger is. Let's go back to Genesis 25. You may already be in Genesis. You probably thought of this when I was talking about hunger. And you remember the story of Jacob and Esau, twins, and the twins born to Isaac and Rebecca. And they were two totally different people. Esau loved to be out in the field, and he was a man of the outdoors. Jacob was more of a man of the indoors.

Dad loved one more. Esau, mom loved Jacob more. But there was a time that Esau was out in the field, and he'd been out there for several days, I guess. And he came back, and he was really, really, really hungry. Not just, I haven't eaten since breakfast, but really, really hungry. And let's pick it up here in verse 27.

Genesis 25 verse 27. So the boys grew, and Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field. And Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents. Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebecca loved Jacob. Now, Jacob verse 29, cooked a stew. And Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. Now, weary means he was hungry, he was just tired, he was famished.

He was just, anything you can give me, I want anything to eat. You can imagine the feeling, you've been there, probably not in the same way that Esau was, but we've been there to some state of that. He was weary. And Jacob, Jacob, you know, he was pretty astute, and he was pretty crafty in his own way. You remember that Esau was the older of the two twins. And being the older, he had some very important things that he was going to be heir of.

He had a birthright that gave him the right to his father's belongings, and he would also be the one who would hear at the blessing. To be the firstborn in those days was very significant. Jacob, probably through his life, he was aware, wow, Esau has really gotten the better end of this deal if I had just been, you know, a few minutes out before Esau, this would all be mine.

And you can see it was on Jacob's mind, because as Esau comes in hungry for the stew that Jacob is cooking, you know, we'll see what happens. Esau said to Jacob, Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary. Therefore, his name was called Edom, because it was, well, because he was weary. But Jacob said, Sell me your birthright, as of this day. The same red stew, Edom meaning red.

But Jacob said, Sell me your birthright, as of this day. See how quickly he came to that? I don't know if he had that planned. I don't know if he knew that Esau had been out in the field, and he was going to be the one cooking the stew, so when Esau came in, it would be like, you know what, he's going to want this, and I'm going to ask him immediately, Give me your birthright. But he did. It's right there at the top of his mind. Give me your birthright, Esau. Now, Esau didn't consider that birthright to be so important.

We're told back in Hebrews, he just kind of despised his birthright. It wasn't that important to him. And even when he was sorry that he gave it up, he didn't really repent of what he did. He was just sorry he gave it up. But he didn't despise that birthright. He despised that tremendous blessing that he had of being the firstborn. And Esau said, Look, I'm about to die. What is his birthright to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me as of this day. So we swore to him, and he sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of soup.

Was Esau following the way of the Gentiles, or was Esau following the way that Jesus Christ would say many centuries later, Seek first God in His righteousness? What did he put more important? He was willing to sell his birthright for a bowl of soup. Something that important. He just couldn't wait another five minutes, ten minutes, half hour, or whatever it was, to get into the house and eat something else. He was willing, It's just, I'm just so hungry, fine, Jacob, you can have it.

It meant that little to him. God has given to everyone in this room an opportunity to be in his kingdom, an opportunity to be in his kingdom. It's a birthright worth far more than what Esau had. Worth far more. Can't even put a dollar figure on it of what Esau had. The right to be in the first born in his kingdom, a first fruit. Is there anything in this life that we would say, it's not that important, God. I choose this thing over the birthright you've given me.

That's a blessing from God, nothing that we, nothing that we earned at all. Just like Esau didn't earn that birthright, it was his because he was born. He was the first born, and he was willing to give it up for a bowl of stew.

What would we sell our birthright for? A job? To make a family member happy?

Because we're just tired of some things? Because of persecution that might come?

What would we sell our birthright for? Because whatever we would sell it for.

And there have been many over the course of history that have sold their birthrights for something that they should never have. They just didn't count it important enough.

Esau didn't count the physical thing important enough. He gave it all up. He was really, really hungry. It really, really affected him. He really, really had that physical sensation and that intense desire, I want food, and God, I have to give it up because I have to have food. Christ said, see, first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. Jacob didn't follow that principle, or Esau didn't follow that principle.

He didn't know it at that time, maybe. Christ hadn't said it yet. We know it today.

We could talk about Israel. Israel and Egypt. God brought them out of a life of bondage and slavery. They were going nowhere. They had no future, no hope. They had been slaves for hundreds of years. They had absolutely no reason to think they would ever be anything more than slaves in Egypt doing whatever the Egyptians wanted them to do, living a low-class life with nowhere to go, nothing to do except being told what they were going to do day in and day out. And then God miraculously brought them out through ten plagues, opened the Red Sea. They saw God doing these things, not by their power at all, but totally by God. He had called them. He had called them out of Egypt. And He said, I'm going to give you the Promised Land. I'm going to make it overflowing with all the things that you want. I will provide it for you. Boy, if that had happened to all of us, I would hope we would say, this is a God we will follow no matter what He asks, no matter what happens in our life. We will always have faith in Him. Look what He has already done.

But as soon as they got out into the wilderness, what did they do? After they had passed through the Red Sea and they were out in the wilderness for a few days and they got a little hungry, and they started complaining. Would you bring us out here, Moses, so that we could starve to death in the wilderness? We want food! They started complaining, and God saw what they did. He gave a manna that sustained them for 40 years until they went into the Promised Land. They got thirsty and they complained. They didn't just wait for God to provide it or ask, God, we need water.

He knew what they had need of. Right? God knows what we had need of before we even asked Him, but we have to ask. We have to ask, He says. Let's go back to Exodus, back to the 16th.

In chapter 15, you find about the manna, but let's pick it up in chapter 16, verse 1, where He talks about the water here.

Well, actually, in chapter 15, about the water, 16 is where He's talking about the food and they're hungry.

Chapter 16, verse 1, they journeyed from Elam, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, which is between Elam and Sinai, on the 15th day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them, Oh, if we had just died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the pool, for you brought us out of this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Sounds like a kid, right? I mean, sometimes you go on a journey and you don't eat for several hours and your kids are in the backseat and ours are going to die we're so hungry. We're just dying. We're so thirsty. We've got to stop, right? That's what kind of the children of Israel sounded like at that time. They were just so hungry that they were willing to complain about God. But I just wish we were dead. I wish we were still slaves. Forget everything you promised us, for everything that you're bringing us to, we would rather just be back there in Egypt, slaves with no future, no hope, no future at all. And just as long as we had the pots of meat and the things that we are missing from there. The Lord said to Moses, Behold, I'll rainbread from heaven for you and the people will go out and gather a certain quota every day that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not. God saw how they were. They saw what God had done. And yet, time after time after time, as you read through the accounts of Israel as they came out of Egypt, they just complained against God. They didn't believe. They weren't righteous. They weren't doing and living the way that God had wanted them to do. They continually tested Him and continually irritated Him. And He sent these things, these ways, to test Him. It says in chapter 15 that He tested them with the water. He's testing them here. He wants them to learn. Rely on me. Rely on me.

Trust me. Believe me. Follow me. But they just didn't do it.

Another example of hunger in the Old Testament you might have thought about.

We find back in 1 Kings 17.

1 Kings 17. This is the occasion when there's famine in the land and Elijah is the prophet.

And God sent him to a widow in Zarephath. Let's pick it up in 1 Kings 17 and verse 12.

Now, let's just read the whole thing here. Let's begin in verse 9. 1 Kings 17 verse 9.

God speaking to Elijah says, Rise, doth his Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there.

See, I've commanded a widow there to provide for you. So he rose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, indeed, a widow was there gathering sticks, and he called to her and said, Please, bring me a little water and a cup that I may drink. And as she was going to get it, he called her and said, Please, bring me a morsel of bread in your hand. And she replied, As the Lord your God lives, I don't have bread, only a handful of flour and a bin and a little oil in a jar. And see, I'm gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die. She was facing something far more stressful than you and I ever have. She was hungry, and she was down to her last morsel and didn't know where the next meal was going to come from. And Elijah says, Can you give me some of that? Can you give me some of that? Her natural reaction would have been, I've got to take care of my son first. I have to take care of myself first. And Elijah said to her when she said this, Don't fear, go and do as you said, but make me a small cake from it first and bring it to me and afterward make some for yourself and your son. Do this first and then make some for yourself. For thus does the Lord God of Israel. The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry until the day the eternal sins rain on the earth. She listened. She went away and did according to the word of Elijah, and she and her household ate for many days. She was hungry to the point that she thought, we're just going to die. And yet she did what Elijah asked her to do in the name of God.

She did it. She never read Matthew 6.33 like you and I did, but she practiced Matthew 6.33.

See first, the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.

She did it. She did it. A tremendous example. She lived Matthew 6.33.

Christ was a perfect example of Matthew 6.33. When He would face the great temptation in Matthew 4, He had passed her for 40 days and 40 nights. You don't think He was hungry after 40 days and 40 nights? He was a strong man, but anyone who has been without her food for 40 days and 40 nights would be hungry. Really hungry. Not like hungry what I think of or you think of, but really hungry.

He was a physical man, and here comes Satan. And the first temptation is, you know what? You're the Son of Man. You can just command those stones to turn to bread, and you can eat and have all you want. You don't think He was tempted by that and thinking, yeah, it would be kind of nice to have a little warm loaf of bread right there. But He said, no, no, no. Man doesn't live by bread alone. Man lives by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God. Every word of His is the bread I need and the strength I need. And He rejected it. He didn't let His hunger overcome Him. He lived, Matthew 6, 33, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Then all these things will be added unto you. And all those things were added unto Him. All those things were added unto Him.

John 6.

Jesus Christ draws the parallel here between physical bread and spiritual bread.

Remember the occasion when He was speaking to the group of five thousand, the disciples wanted to send them away. He said, no, feed them. They're hungry. And out of them, from five loaves and two fishes, they fed all the congregation, all the thousands of people that were there with twelve baskets left over. And the people knew they had seen a miracle, and they paid attention to Jesus Christ. The next day, they went home after that. The next day, they searched for Him. And in verse 26 of John 6, Christ says this, when they come and find Him, Christ answered and said to the crowd, Most assuredly I say to you, you seek Me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Don't 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. Don't seek the physical bread. Seek the eternal bread. Seek the spiritual bread, is what He's saying. He goes on to say later in the chapter here in verse 35. Now let's pick up in verse 32. Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, Moses didn't give you bread from heaven, but my Father gives you... I say to you, Moses did not give you bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Well, they're listening. He's got their attention and they say, Lord, give us this bread only, always. Verse 35, He says, I'm the bread of life. He who comes to me will never hunger, and he believes in me shall never thirst.

Pretty powerful words. You'll never be hungry again. You'll never be hungry again if you eat of this bread. Verse 48. I am the bread of life, Christ says. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they're dead. They had the physical bread. They died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. Eat of this bread. Eat of righteousness.

Eat of every word of God, and then you will have everlasting life. Then you will, as He says, be satisfied. Then you will. Then you will fulfill what Jesus Christ wants for you.

Eat of this bread. When we hunger and thirst, now we will hunger and thirst, hunger and thirst after the true bread. That's what Jesus Christ is saying. Seek first the kingdom of God. Seek first righteousness, hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Have that intense hunger, not just the little feeling that we have at the end of the day when we skip lunch. The other definition, or the other way that hunger that we read in hunger in Matthew 5, verse 6, can be translated according to Strongs. It can figuratively mean to crave. It can figuratively mean to crave. Now, we all know, we may not all know, what hunger is as Esau felt or as Christ felt or as the widow in Zarephath felt, but we all know what it means to crave, don't we? We all have our cravings. We may crave potato chips. We may say at the end of a couple of weeks, now I haven't had a potato chip in a while. I've got to get in the car and I've got to have one. Isn't there? There's a commercial out. Some commercial says something about the food that you crave or whatever. And when I see that commercial, I haven't seen it recently, but when it used to be on there, I could just imagine there's some people who will actually get in their car and go to this place and buy this stuff. We all crave something, right? And those cravings can be intense. They may not always be the things that are good for us. Rarely are the things that are good for us. But we have cravings. We know what craving means, and it could be an annoying thing.

Physical cravings could just be in our mind until we satisfy it with whatever we're looking for.

But often those physical cravings don't really satisfy us. Often they're all from the salty foods or the sugary foods or the things that really aren't good for us, but we really, really, really want them. We might feel okay for a while about it, but within a few minutes or an hour or maybe even before that, you know, there used to be the thing about Lay's potato chips that says, you know, no one can eat just one. I've eaten my fair share of Lay's potato chips, but you know, you just keep eating and eating, and you aren't satisfied. And often, you know, it's like within half an hour it's like I need something else. That wasn't all the things that I needed to be satisfied. I don't feel, feel, they don't feel like I've eaten what I need to eat.

Maybe your body is craving something else. Maybe it's craving something good.

You know, we can train our cravings. We can train them. They don't just train themselves. We train them, but we can change what we crave when we make choices to train them and go through those processes in life. We can crave. We can crave righteousness. Maybe we crave watching TV.

Maybe we crave movies and not the right kind of movies more than righteousness. Maybe we crave TV more than righteousness. Maybe we crave video games more than righteousness. Maybe we crave the wrong kind of whatever more than righteousness, but we just feel we need to have it, right? But we can train ourselves to crave righteousness. Not easy. With God's Holy Spirit, you can crave righteousness. And I can ask, what do I crave? Do I crave the Word of God?

If I get up in the morning and I'm busy and I've got to walk out the door, do I crave in the middle of the day the Word of God? I just missed it. I don't feel satisfied. I feel unsettled. Do I crave righteousness? Do I really, really, really want to be the way God wants me to be? Do I really want to change everything in me? Do I really want Him to search me, as David said in Psalm 139? Do I really crave to be like Him? Do I ask Him continually, show me what is wrong with me? Show me what you want me to be? Let me be more like you. Let your Holy Spirit sink into my mind and sink into my being. Do I really crave that? Because that's what Christ would say. Crave righteousness. Crave His kingdom. Crave that. Make that the thing that you miss when you haven't done something in the day. Make that something that you miss when you haven't been around God for a while, or when you feel distant from Him, you just feel, I've got this nagging craving. I have to get close to God again. I have to get down on my knees and pray. I need to fast. I need to meditate. I need to read the Bible. I need to be around God's people. Is that what we crave?

Christ says, and we can replace hunger and thirst maybe with something we can identify with more crave the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Blessed are those who crave righteousness, for they'll be filled. That craving will be satisfied. Isn't that the craving that we want God to satisfy? To be more like Him and to fill us up with what it is that He would want to fill us up to. And when God says He'll fill, He will fill. He will fill to abundance.

Blessed are those who crave righteousness, for they will be filled.

Let's look at the word filled for a minute. The Greek says, the strongest in accordance, that it also can be translated as satisfied. Satisfied. We know what it means to be satisfied. When we've had a good meal and we've eaten the right way, we kind of feel satisfied. We don't really need anything. We're just kind of happy. It doesn't mean we're busting out of our genes or whatever. Just we're happy. We're satisfied. We feel okay with everything.

God wants us to be satisfied. And He says, when you crave righteousness, when you crave those things of God, with His Holy Spirit He'll fill you. Let's look at a few scriptures back in the Psalms.

In a minute, you probably have Psalm 103, at least the first several verses here memorized.

Let's read the first five verses. Psalm 103, verse 1, Bless the Eternal, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies. He knows what we need before we ask. Verse 5, Who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. Satisfies you, rejuvenates you, if you're feeling tired, weary, spiritually.

If you're feeling a little apathetic and like, you know, I'll just go through the motions, but I don't feel on fire. I don't feel the zeal anymore. Maybe we need to look at our cravings.

Maybe we need to look at what we crave day in and day out. And when we crave righteousness, God says He'll satisfy us. Over in Psalm 107, verse 9, He satisfies the longing soul, the soul that longs for Him, the soul that has a craving for Him. You know what it is when you long for something? This is what I really want.

I'm missing that. I'm craving that. He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness. As Tim does it, he'll fill us. He'll satisfy us.

Psalm 145.

verse 14.

Psalm 145. verse 14. The Eternal upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down.

The eyes of all look expectantly to you, God, and you give them their food in due season.

You open your hand, and you satisfy the desire of every living thing.

It's God who satisfies. It's God who makes it happen. It's God who fills us up.

You want to feel satisfied? You want to feel content? You want to feel peace in your life? The peace that surpasses all understanding? The crave righteousness. Practice it. Think about it.

Ask God to help train your cravings away from what you're craving now to righteousness, to becoming like He wants us to be, to becoming in the state that's approved of God, the state that He wants us to be, and the condition that He wants us to be in.

I'm not going to take the time. You can mark down Psalm or Isaiah 58, 10 and 11. It's in the fasting chapter, as we call it, where it says, God will satisfy the afflicted soul. He'll satisfy the afflicted soul.

Psalm 42. As we think about this Psalm, and as we...or this...the attitude that Christ said, blessed are, blessed is He who hungers in thirst, or blessed is He who craves righteousness, for He will be satisfied, He will be filled.

I hope that we'll take the time. I hope we'll make the effort and the choices to follow what Jesus Christ said and to do in our lives what He asked us to do, because He will fill us, so we need to do it if we want to be in His kingdom. We sing this Psalm sometimes in services, Psalm 42, verse 1. As the deer pants for the water brooks...you know, the animals go through, they go through the field, and they're very hungry, and they are thirsting. They're thirsting for water. As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for you. Oh God! Does that define me? I ask myself...