Life Group Leaders’ Notes
Title: Blessed when you are Hungry for God
Key Text: Matthew 5:6
Jesus said in the 4th Beatitude Matthew 5:6 NIV: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Here in the beatitudes Jesus shows us how we can be truly happy or blessed in life in ways that are so different to what we often think. We see that if we want to have a blessed or happy life, we need to be hungry for righteousness above all else. For then we ‘will be filled’.
We need to be really Hungry and Thirsty for God
What does it mean to be hungry?
What does righteousness mean? (Isaiah 33:22; Psalm 42; 1 John 1:9)
We need to get rid of anything that will stop us hungering for God
Sinful pleasures (Matthew 6:33; 1 Timothy 6:9-11)
Independence: Self-sufficiency (Proverbs 3:5)
Neglect of our Spiritual life
We will be so happy when we hunger and thirst for God (Matthew 5:6)
Apply
We need to be really Hungry and Thirsty for God
a) What does it mean to be hungry?
Sadly, as we heard a few weeks ago from Natasha Airey, the vast majority of the world still lives in great poverty and many people still face Hunger and thirst each and every day of their lives.
Physical Thirst can make you feel desperate. This is how the Lord wants us to feel for the things that are right. That we would really long to be right with God. To hunger and thirst after righteousness means to be have a strong desire to come into a right relationship with God.
The founder of this church WTH Richards or Pastor Billy Richards as many of us knew him wrote: ‘It is not enough to applaud Righteousness; we must crave for it like a starving man. We must long for it like one in a desert desperately seeking Water
B) What does Righteousness mean?
According to the dictionary: Righteousness, in human standards, is defined as “the quality of being morally true or justifiable.”
In its deeper Biblical and spiritual meaning, righteousness is the quality of being right in the eyes of God, including character (nature), conscience (attitude), conduct (action), and command (word). Righteousness is, therefore, based upon God’s standard because He is the ultimate Lawgiver (Isaiah 33:22).
God’s righteousness is nothing to do with self-righteousness, which, as Jesus taught, is one of the great sins of people who are merely religious. In fact, we all need to recognize just how far we fall short of Gods standards and to continually ask him to help us to develop the character of Jesus in us every day so that we can live right with God and for God in every way.
Righteousness applies to every are of our life, we need to always reflect God’s character. In our business’s, our homes, our friendships and wherever we are. The Old Testament references this particularly in regard to business. For example, we read in Proverbs, Hosea, and Amos about the use of dishonest scales. We see in the New Testament that Zacchaeus, a chief Tax Collector, repented and confessed to Jesus how he had cheated people and wanted to make it right. After meeting with Jesus, he wanted to live right or righteously.
To be a Christian we cannot be unrighteous in our business, “use dishonest scales” we have to conduct ourselves well and with a purity to please God. People in the natural are not righteous, this is something only God can help with. This passion to be righteous is always seen in great men and women of God. We know that Abraham believed God and he credited it to him as Righteousness. He was obedient to God and followed his commands regardless of how difficult and seemingly contrary to what he may have expected.
Daniel is another great example of someone who Hungered and Thirst for righteousness (quite literally with his prayer and fasting) to be right with God, to intercede for others and to stand up to the opposing world powers that were against the Israelites. Even when it meant facing death.
We read in Psalm 42 how David sang to the Lord of his great longing to meet with him.
“As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?”
Billy Graham said: ‘The only way that man can again have fellowship with God and find the happiness that he longs for is to find some way to possess a righteousness and holiness that will commend him to God.’ And that can only happen when as 1 John 1:9 says: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.’ Only through Jesus can we made righteous.
If you are truly hungry and thirsty for righteousness, you will earnestly seek God every day, you will take time to read and study your Bible, you will take every opportunity to be with the people of God in your life groups and Sunday services.
How Hungry are you today? Do you feel the hunger and thirst that David speaks about in the Psalms? Do you desire to have God’s love in your life?
We need to get rid of anything that will stop us hungering for God
Think about it like this. A responsible parent will not let their child be stuffed with junk food. They will eliminate what is unhealthy from the diet and look to feed them what is right or best for them. And this is the same for us so, we too need to do this spiritually…here are some of the things that can affect our spiritual hunger
a) Sinful Pleasures
…Wealth, possessions, Career, status. These can sometimes be incredibly subtle but if we spend our time, energy and focus on these areas, suddenly we can become too busy with Life to develop a life with God. It’s ok to want nice things. Yes, God wants to bless us “Abundantly” but we have to get the order of priority right.
As Mathew 6: 33 says: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
We read these words in Paul’s Letter to Timothy, and as my name is Timothy I always read Paul’s letters as if they were to me personally. 1 Timothy 6:9-11 NIV says: 9 Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.”
b) Independence- Self sufficiency
If we are full of ourselves, we have no room for God. We have to be dependent and not independent if we want to receive the blessings God has in store for us.
Proverbs 3 vs 5 : Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
A great example of someone who became independent and turned their back on the father is the story of the prodigal son. It was after he had lost everything and was with the Pigs and was Hungry that he realized that he needed to return to the father. He needed to return to a place of a right relationship and knew that then he would have all that he needed.
We see from this that really his deepest yearnings and longings were not for food but for being reconciled to his father because there, he had everything that he needed.
c) Neglect of our Spiritual life
Are we too busy with Life to attend Church, Life group, Prayer meetings. This can all take away our appetite for righteousness. It is Just like someone who refuses to eat and eventually grows weaker and weaker until he/she dies, so it is with person who is “too busy” for God, they will starve themselves and wither away spiritually.
We will be so happy when we hunger and thirst for God
We will be filled…. overflowing and overjoyed, When God fills us with his Holy Spirit that we will receive the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Wow, who wants this type of life instead of Fear, anxiety, stress etc.
So, here’s what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness. There are dangers we must overcome if we are to have and keep a passion for God. Here is a sure road to real and lasting happiness.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
Do you hunger and thirst for Righteousness. For if you do, you can be assured that we will be satisfied when we live close to God and live right for God. It’s the best life and one you can know too.
