What do you and I need to be fully satisfied?  Do we need a large plasma TV, surround sound, a D.S.L. line for our computer and a nice car– is that your definition of satisfaction?  Or, do we need to go out to eat twice a week, to have a membership at McLeod Fitness or a yearly vacation in Aruba?  Most people in America define their level of satisfaction by these types of material possessions, vacations and luxuries.  We will work and work so we can take that vacation which sounded so good.  But once it is over, we are sometimes more worn out than before we went.  There is nothing inherently wrong with any of the things I have mentioned.  The issue is this– from where do we derive our satisfaction?  In the summers during my college years, I would go home to my parent’s house in south Florida and would teach people how to swim.  I was paid very well to teach the people who had gone to Florida to retire how to enjoy the pool a little.  These people had worked hard their whole lives and were supposedly living their dream retirement in Florida.  The problem was that most of these people were bored out of their gourd and would pay me anything to teach them how to actually float in the pool so they had something to do with their time.  It was sad.
Jesus talks about the key to real satisfaction in our text this morning.  Remember where we have been so you can understand this verse in context of the rest of the Beatitudes.  We begin by owning our poverty– we bring nothing righteous to Jesus when we come to Him, but acknowledge that He alone makes us righteous, and as a result we become a part of His Kingdom.  As we mourn over the loss we have experienced due to our sin and the sin of others against us, we find comfort in being near Jesus.  Then, we walk in humility before our God, and act in gentleness towards those around us– we submit our gifts and strength to Jesus our Lord, and He gives us more than we ever thought possible as we participate with Him in both building His Kingdom and then enjoying the fruits of the Kingdom.  This morning, we are looking at the next avenue of blessing, of being under God’s favor and goodness.  As we crave His righteousness, we will experience true satisfaction!

I. Becoming a people who crave righteousness.

If you were to spend some time alone reflecting– I know that is rare for some of you, but try it, because we all need to make time to reflect, even if it is at 4 a.m.– on what your heart really craves, I wonder what you would come up with?  What do you really crave?  I am not talking about the whim for some chocolate, because we all have these kind of cravings from time to time, but for what are you really starving?  We tend to fill our lives with so much stuff– entertainment, sports, children’s activities, better programs, the best music money can buy, noise from TVs, from computers, from I-pods, from stereos– that we have little time to listen to our own hearts or to the heart of God.  I would encourage you to set your alarm for the wee hours of the morning to get up and worship; bring out your journal and listen to your own heart cries and see what you find.  I believe many of you would be surprised.

I believe God created us with a God shaped void, as Pascal called it, inside of our souls.  Our relationship seeking God is the only One who is able to fill that void, even though we have tried to fill it with all kinds of things.  The focus on entertainment in our culture is largely a result of people trying to fill the void in their lives.  One of the reasons I know this is true in my own life is this:  after a tremendous time of worship, when we have met with the Lord, when His presence has been so real you knew that you knew you had met with Him, I am filled.  The gnawing that is at the fringe of my life at different moments is filled, so that I am content to do nothing but be in the presence of the Lord, enjoying His goodness and life as mediated through the body of Christ here at Trinity.  I have experienced this many times in this place.  Haven’t you?  We long for every one of you, brothers and sisters, to know that you have been in the presence of God when we gather for worship.  This is one of our prayers for every gathering.

When Jesus speaks of hungering and thirsting, He is speaking to a people who understood these ideas much better than we do.  When you live surrounded by the desert, hunger and thirst are very real to you.  Imagine being out in the barren land around the Dead Sea.  It is incredibly dry, and there is no source of fresh water near there.  The area is 100% dependent upon rainfall.  The deities of Canaan before the Israelites arrived were rain gods and fertility gods.  When it became dry, they would make sacrifices to the god of rain to bring them water.  Honestly, I have never experienced something like this.  The closest thing to dying of thirst I can remember is when I was playing football in high school, and the heat of the summer was still there during the day as we ran, hit the blocking sled, and ran some more.  I remember having no saliva in my mouth so that it was hard to concentrate on what the coach was saying because I was so parched.  The difference was I knew that I would have something to drink in the next half hour.  When you are truly hungering and thirsting for something, there is no promise that the food and water you so deeply crave is within sight.  If you are traveling through the desert, you may not know exactly where the next watering hole might be found.  You were told it was a five hour hike, but you don’t know exactly what that means as you lead your flock through the desert.  Do you remember when Moses was leading the people of God through the desert, and they were extremely thirsty.  The story is in Exodus 17...  The people were so thirsty they were ready to stone Moses to death.  That wouldn’t have done them much good, because they still would have been thirsty, but now they would have had no one to lead them to water.  When the people of God threaten to kill Moses, their leader, for making them die of thirst, Moses cries out to God and God tells him to take the staff he had been given and strike the rock at Mount Horeb and water would flow out of the rock.  Moses obeyed the Lord and water was provided. 

Remember that Jesus went off into the wilderness to fast for forty days, and then the devil came to tempt Him.  I don’t know if any of you have gone without food and water for a long period of time, but it makes you very weak.  It is in this point of physical weakness that we know how dependent we are upon the Lord to sustain us.  Some of these images may have been in Jesus’ mind as He spoke these words to His disciples, blessed are you when you are dying of thirst and starving from hunger for the heart of God.  Isn’t this what righteousness is all about?  Righteousness refers to the very character of God.  We are righteous in Christ.  When God looks at you, Christian, what He sees is the righteousness, the purity, of His Son Jesus Christ, who has died in your place.  So, you are in a right relationship with your Lord because you are righteous.  The truth that I am righteous in God’s sight through Christ, does not mean that my lifestyle perfectly reflects who He has made me to be.  So, how do we now live?  As righteous people or as unrighteous people?  You live according to who you believe you are in your heart of hearts!  This is one of the reasons why I harp so much on believing what the Word of God says about who you are in Christ.  If all I did was look at the trash which is still a part of my life at moments– I am not talking about any huge sin area, but the self-centeredness which rears its ugly head at moments in any given day– then I would view myself as hopeless.  I am well aware my own fallen nature.  If I simply looked at the wayward thoughts or selfish words in a given day, then I would not believe what the Scripture says about who I am.  This is what God says about me!  I am the righteousness of Christ!  Listen again to II Corinthians 5:21, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

But to hunger and thirst after righteousness is to crave to be like the character of God, to have heart of God.  The Kingdom of God is made up of righteousness and those who belong to Jesus should be growing both in righteousness and in the desire for righteousness, for therein they reflect the will and heart of God!  Paul says it this way in Romans 14:17‑18, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,  because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.”  So, to hunger and thirst after righteousness means we crave from the depth of our being to be like God in His character.

Now the question becomes– how does this work, because there are many people who proclaim to be born again who do not live a life which reflects the righteousness of God, right?  This is the issue– these people may have prayed some kind of prayer– only God truly knows their heart– but either they do not actually believe so are not actually born again (you will know a tree by its fruit) or they are baby Christians who do not know who they are in Christ.  I am not their judge, but God is and He will certainly judge them for the things they have done in the flesh!  The point is this, as you grow closer to Jesus, as you fall in love more fully with Jesus, you will begin to crave more and more His character.  The things of the world which you used to use to fill your soul no longer satisfy you, because you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good and you want more of Him in you and flowing through you!  This is the character of the person who is filled with the Holy Spirit. 
Try this one morning, if you truly want to know Christ and truly want to see where you really are with Jesus, carve out 3 hours to go off by yourself; take your Bible and music, and worship– don’t ask for anything for yourself except that you might know Christ.  Some of you are thinking– 3 hours!  I don’t know if I could fill 30 minutes.  If you really want to know where your heart is, set aside a segment of time to worship– use Psalms, use worship music you enjoy, and seek Him.  Then quiet your heart and listen.  Journal what you sense the Lord saying to you.  If you do this, you will grow in righteousness and a desire for righteousness.  If you try this and do not grow in your hunger for righteousness, then come see me, because there are other heart issues which the Lord needs to address.

My dear brothers and sisters, God has not changed His standard for His people.  His call on us is that we would live righteous lives, lives which reflect who He is as our God.  We cannot do this on our own– it is impossible.  But, as we ask for and trust the Spirit of God to work in us, as we walk in authentic relationships with our covenant family at Trinity, then we can and will grow in both our desire to live righteous lives and in how much we reflect the righteousness of Jesus!  He will do this in you as you believe His Word and make room for Jesus to work in your life!

II. Being stuffed with Jesus!

Somebody said this to me one time, “Christians in America are so filled with the stale white bread offered in abundance by our culture that we have no room for the incredibly delicious banquet Jesus has prepared for us to eat.”  I believe this is true of many Christians.  I love the language Jesus uses here.  Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be gorged- stuffed– fully satisfied!  This is not talking about physical hunger or having full stomachs.  This is an analogy which would have been well understood by the readers.  Most of those hearing this text in Jesus’ day would have experience both times of hunger, and times when they were physically stuffed.  There were seasons of feasting and times of both fasting and famine.  There was a more natural rhythm to life.  Jesus’ disciples would have identified with the idea of longing to be righteous, to please the Lord their God who was holy. 

When I was at the International House of Prayer last year, I went to a conference for leaders, and one of the break out sessions was on Transforming Our Cities.  I don’t know how many of you have watched the “Transformation” videos which have documented places in the world where God has brought revival.  One of those places is on the island of Fiji.  God used a man who was high up in the government to partner with pastors to repent of sin, to reclaim, by faith, things which were given over to the enemy due to sin, and to release the healing of the land we read about in the Scriptures.  They talked about the need to walk through God’s process before revival will come to a community.  One thing which tremendously impressed me was the level of commitment to prayer that all of those from Fiji had.  When they arrived in a city to ask God to heal and restore what had been lost to the enemy due to sin, 3 of these men would stay up all night and seek the Lord in prayer.  They were so hungry for revival that it was contagious.  They would sacrifice everything and anything to gain the heart of God, to not only live righteous lives, but to see victories break out in other cities too!  Their commitment to seek the Lord no matter what it cost was great.  These men hungered and thirsted for righteousness to be released in the city, and they were filled.  You didn’t have to spend 5 minutes with them and you knew God had done a work in them.  The quality of their relationships with one another and their very keen awareness of the presence of God affected me when I spent a short time with them.

When you truly hunger for more of God and His love and grace to be poured through you others, that is when you experience more fullness than you ever dreamed possible.  It is not wrong to want more!  The issue is, what do you want more of– of material things, of lustful things– these will leave you still hungry.  When you crave more of God’s character of righteousness, then you are stuffed with Jesus, and are truly content.

III. Living as satisfied people.

I believe it is the will of God that His children live as content people.  Paul says to his son in the faith, Timothy, “But godliness with contentment is great gain.” (I Timothy 6:6)  He is not speaking about our stomachs, but our hearts.  I told you in the introduction that the amount of money people have has very little to do with being content.  If your eyes are on material things you do not have– I really, really want that material thing–  then you will not experience true contentment.  Advertisements are designed to create dissatisfaction in you for what you have, so be careful what you are allowing into your spirit.