Happy Are The Hungry - Part 1

Christian, have you ever been so physically hungry little you can forget about Jesus, about spiritual hunger should be just as powerful and all-consuming royalty report. Dr. Berg drew more towards a closer look at what amazed me spiritually hungry why God is awesome for his children while brings such a satisfaction is message hungry is thank you for joining us today. We are studying the Beatitudes we have called the series how to be happy.

According to Jesus portable document says Americans is the pursuit of happiness. I was think it's kinda crazy because I think a lot of people have let them become their whole life.

The pursuit of happiness. Many people I know have no idea that got in the Constitution but is there and I wonder if you know what it means to be happy.

I wonder if you know what it means to be blessed. Jesus is giving us the real truth about this.

Down in the center of your sold truth. It's not all, of the outside stuff that is paraded before us every day know it's attitudes. These are the Beatitudes and I want to talk about one of them today and tomorrow. That is really one of my favorites were in and talk about what it means to develop a hunger for God and for his truth. Well let's begin our study today of what it means to be spiritually hungry rivals together. You know there's a life we all have to acknowledge and that is the when it comes to accomplishment and success. A lot of it scared him how badly we really wanted. How much do you really want to achieve the goal. Isn't it strange that we never ever think about that in the realm of the spiritual.

In fact, for many of us. We are like the lawyer Jake Greg Nance and John Grisham's novel, a time to kill. Jake was raised Methodist and his wife Carla, a Baptist when they got married they decide to become Presbyterians. They were happy with their church and its activities, and they seldom miss services, but in the novel.

Grisham, who I understand is a Christian said that they sat in their usual pew and ignored the sermon, Jake ignored it by watching the preacher and picturing his upcoming trial case. Carla ignored it by watching the preacher and mentally redecorating the dining room, week after week, Jake would pass out by the pastor and shake his hand and telling enjoyed your sermon reverent and he lied, you know there are a lot of sermons that we might not listen to carefully have been known as pastors to ease people out the door into the virtual reality of business without much to take home. But somehow I have a hard time believing that the people who heard the Lord Jesus and the apostle Paul and John the Baptist would rush out of the service, or even leave early so they could get a seat at the fish market for brunch or get home in time for the game have a feeling they listened more carefully than sometimes we do now to be honest I need to John the Baptist Jesus Christ to Paul the apostle and I never will be. Ability belong in the same category. But the truth of God's word is the same as in the issue in so much of our growing and developing as believers is just how badly do we want to grow. That's why think Jesus scored his listeners when he said in his Beatitudes. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. We do not know very much about hunger and thirst in our culture. But Jesus was speaking to people who knew about that. They knew how hard it was to get water.

Often, many of them were hungry for the basics of life. And Jesus said that until a person gets to the place where he is as hungry for God and is thirsty for God as he is for Brad and for water, he will not be satisfied and when he says they shall be filled. He's using an Old Testament euphemism for the concept of success. They shall be happy. Now the Bible teaches us this principle of hunger. And if you read very widely in the Christian literature of our day, you will discover that while it may seem obscure, it's there.

AW closer who is one of the great great writers of the past generation made much of the hunger factor.

He wrote these words. He said the great people of the Bible and Christian history have had an insatiable hunger for God. He wants to be wanted, said toes are too bad that with many of us, he has to wait so very long.

In vain I remember as a young preacher somebody gave me a copy of the book Hudson Taylor spiritual secrets. It's a book written by a man was a great missionary statesman and it talks about the things in his life that set him apart from others I will never forget copying out of that book. This little statement in writing it into the Bible that I was using at that time. This is the statement that he made concerning his relationship with God. He said I saw him and I saw him and I wanted him and I had him that's how he felt about God. No wonder he turned his world upside down for the Lord. The Scriptures are filled with reminders to us of the importance of having a hunger spiritually. If you turn in your Bibles to the book of Psalms. I'll show you some of them and will look at them together.

The 27th Psalm, I'd like for you to see these verses will find them in your Bible if you will. Psalm 27 and verse four. This is a Psalm of David and these are his words. He said one thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and inquire in his temple. David said I like to just boil my life down to one basic thing and that is I really desire God.

I have a hunger to know him. The classic Psalm in regard to this truth is Psalm 42 turn over to the 42nd Psalm, and you will remember these words written in this great Psalm. The very first two verses go like this. As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for you. Oh God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God, turn to Psalm 63 in verses one and two, Psalm 63 verses one and 20 God, you are my God, early will I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. Jeremiah the prophet said in Jeremiah 29 and you shall seek for me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart, with all your heart and the 119th Psalm which is the longest chapter in the Bible there is a reoccurring theme that I have well I remember when I discovered this some years ago. I don't know that I've really ever truly recovered from this thought. It is an great and marvelous truth with regard to our walk with the Lord. There are several places in the Psalm were this little word heart shows up. It kind of jumps out of the Psalm.

For instance, in verse 10, look down at your Bibles with my hair part. I have sought you or look over at verse 34.

Give me understanding and I shall keep your law.

Indeed, I shall observe it there it is again with my whole heart. Verse 40 behold I long for your precepts reviving me your righteousness. Terry has the longing in his heart. Verse 58, I entreated your favor with my whole heart and there are several other references like that. Now let me ask you question class. What is it mean seek for God with your whole heart.

I don't know if I can explain that is easily by telling you what it means to be wholehearted as I might possibly explain it by reminding you of what it means to be halfhearted.

How many of you who are employers have some people working for you who are halfhearted in their approach to the job.

How many of you parents have children who clean up their rooms halfheartedly. Are we together on this idea. We know what were talking about here. We know what it means to be halfhearted only so then what does it mean to search for God, and to desire God and to reach out for God with one's whole heart.

It means to be hungry to know him and to grow in your relationship with them, you cannot really go forward with God halfheartedly. It demands that you have a hunger to know him and to grow in your knowledge of him major. V. Gilbert was a famous military leader during the first world war and in the book called the last Crusade, he talks about what they experienced.

By way of hunger and thirst. He said our heads ached. Our eyes became bloodshot and dim and the blinding glare. Our tongues begin to swell our lips turn to a purplish black and burst those who dropped out of the column were never seen again. But the desperate force battled on to sharia. There were wells at sharia and they had been unable to take the place by nightfall if they had not taken it. Thousands were doomed to die. We thought that day as men fight for their lives. We entered sharia station on the heels of the retreating Turks. The first objects which men are viewed with the great stone cisterns full of cold clear drinking water. It took four hours before the last man had his drink of water. I believe that we all learned our first real Bible lesson on that march from Beersheba to the sharia wells.

He wrote, if such were our thirst for God and for righteousness and for his will in our lives, how rich in the fruit of the spirit we would be the hunger for God to search for God with our whole heart and I want to give you a little paradigm that will be like a bone caught in your throat it will not be something you will easily dislodge.

It goes like this, and I believe it to be the truth. We all have about as much of God as we really want everyone of us no matter who we are. We can complain about what's happening in our life spiritually, and why were not fired up as we should be are moving in the direction we should be but the bottom line is this. We all have about as much of God as we really want the whole issue is how hungry we are to know him not want to tell you three things about that that I think will be an encouragement and a challenge to us all.

First of all hear me carefully hunger spiritual hunger is the reality of your faith.

You know that this is supposedly the most demanding of all of the beatitude.

This spiritual hunger and thirst, and yet in some ways as I view it.

It is also the kindest of all the statements that Jesus made for notice what he said he did not say Blessed are those who attain righteousness. Said that, how many of us would be candidates for the blessing of God. He didn't say Blessed are those who are cleared down at the end of the road. Having accomplished everything they wanted in their spiritual walk know you said, Blessed are they who hunger and Blessed are they who first after righteousness Martin Lloyd Jones writes that this beatitude follows logically from the previous one. He said it is a statement to which all others lead. It is the logical conclusion to which they come. It is something for which we should all be profoundly thankful and grateful to God. I do not know of a better test that anyone can apply to himself or herself in this whole matter of his Christian profession. Listen to this. If this verse is to you. One of the most blessed statements in the whole of Scripture you can be quite sure you're a Christian. If it is not, you'd better examine your foundations again what he mean how many of you are totally 100% fully, completely, absolutely satisfied with your spiritual walk notetakers watch this you have a desire to use the vernacular of today to do better. Do you ever get exasperated with how you're doing with God. Do you ever feel a sense of yearning that your relationship was more intimate, more you hear others talk about sensing God's presence at do you ever in your life have this desire to go on with God. We say to you that if you are a Christian, I can almost promise you that you do because that is one of the greatest evidences that you belong to Christ. He has put within your heart this year. I mean, this desire to know him this insatiable appetite to grow and this frustration sometimes with the fact that things are where you wish they were in your walk with the Lord now, the other side of it is there some Christians who got into Christianity at the entry level and they haven't had a spiritual thought since that day, they don't really even care. They say they are Christians, but they don't want to go on with God. They have just locked into a certain level of convenience, don't challenge me to go on with God. Man, I have a hard enough time getting the church for the last service that's all they want.

They don't ever think about it they don't have any restlessness in their spirit. They don't care anything more about spiritual things than just kind of showing up at the bottom line I tell you what if that were my spirit. I'd be worried.

One of the truest evidences that I am a child of God, is the realization in my heart that I'm not nearly where I could be in my walk with him, not merely in that every day there is this hungering and thirsting in my life to know them better to somehow get closer to them in the sense his closeness to me, that desire that hunger in my spirit is a testimony that I belong to God, my friend. If you've got that you may feel like that's not a very good indication of spirituality, but if you've got that in your heart. Praise the Lord for it online and follow that hunger, but praise God that you got it because it's a testimony to the reality of your faith.

Second thing about spiritual hunger.

I want you to put down in your notebook is the spiritual hunger is not on the reality of your faith. It's the requirement for your growth. You can't go beyond where you want to go. Remember what I said. We all have about as much of God as we really want to if you want to go on with God. That's the whole thing that will spur you on to discipleship and growth in him that's exactly what happened to the rich young ruler in so many ways came to Jesus by night and he was obviously a very attractive character he could've gotten were you.if you haven't had something going for them. Jesus began to talk to about eternal life and this man talked about how he really wanted God he really wanted God. Jesus said okay if you really want God, let me tell you.

Here's what you have to do going take all your assets and liquidate them and give them to the poor. The Bible says the man went away sorrowful, and Jesus wasn't trying to say some folks of talk that what he meant was, in order to get in the kingdom of heaven. You gotta become more get rid of every asset you have known what he was saying is if you don't love me more than you love that, then you cannot get into this thing about discipleship and walking with the Lord Jesus was the only spiritual leader that I ever read about.

Honestly, who tried constantly to divide his crowd every time the crowd began to grow in Jesus teaching. He tried to get smaller. I never knew the spiritual leader like that my life whose goal in life was to have a smaller crowd, but you remember when the crowds begin to follow Jesus. One day he stopped and turned around and I can see this visually in my mind. He held up his hands. He says wait a minute you come with me. Let me tell you what the requirements are. If a man does not love me more than he loves father and mother and sister and brother life cannot be my disciple. If a man is not willing in his love for me to see that relationship as the goal in the primary purpose in life, so that everything else kind of fades into the oblivious periphery cannot be my disciple was Jesus saying he saying that the only way you go on to discipleship and growth and development in your walk with the Lord is to have a desire for God. I'm always intrigued by that in the life of the apostle Paul, I have to tell you that in studying the book of Romans.

I have gotten so much insight into the life of this great apostle. What an incredible man. He was, do you know he was one of the most blessed of all of the men of the Bible. Some folks have said that Paul was the most important and influential man who lived on this earth apart from Jesus Christ you know that he had three separate audiences with the Lord.

First of all, he was accosted on the road to Damascus when he was knocked off his horse by the white light of God's righteousness and brought into the kingdom of God and then on another occasion we read about in acts chapter 18 in Corinth, he had a vision of the Lord and then in second Corinthians 12. We are told that he was caught up into the third heaven to see things too wonderful to behold, three different times what an incredibly blessed man but you know what, at the end of his life. You know what he wrote at the end of his life. Having accomplished all this and had all this happen.

You talk about you have to say qualifies as a spiritual giant. But here's what he wrote, that I haven't attained I haven't accomplished what I really want to accomplish. Let me tell you what my heart is. He said that I may know him and the fellowship power that is in him. Paul had this insatiable hunger to know God and he carried it with him through his life all the way to his death. That's why he was a great man.

He never thought he had arrived.

You know what friends there is no place where you arrived in the Christian walk. If you discover that a lot of folks could get to a certain level, I think, well, this is kind of where I belong. You know, someone told me a long time ago that living the Christian life was like writing a two wheel bicycle you either go forward or you go off there some truth to that, but you cannot just stay static. Paul the great Christian leader and writer of the 13 epistles in the New Testament was a man at the end of his life was still hungering for God to know him and his fellowship.

He said that was his goal.

He put everything else behind any press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Paul was such a great example and is an example to us today. How to finish your life how to keep striving turn to know him better and serve him more faithfully and he is a wonderful example as we study the New Testament happy are the hungry. Happy are those who are hungry for righteousness to mention that the Bible doesn't say happy are those who are righteous, although that is true. The Bible says happy are those who hunger after happy are those who realize what more of Jesus in my life. I want more of his word in my life happy are those people who appear among them, and you probably are. You would be listening on the radio today. Thanks for listening message you just heard the guy from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Dr. David Jeremiah, senior pastor is God touching your life through Turning Point is about Turning Point PO Box 3838, San Diego, CA 9216 visit our website@jeremiah.org/writing ask for you a copy of David's Bible study John the divinity of Christ is not of the Jeremiah Bible study series energy gift of any amount you can also purchase the Jeremiah study Bible and the new English standard and new international version standard or lodgment in the new King James in your choice of several attractive, visit David Jeremiah.org/radio data on Gary who join us tomorrow as we continue to be happy. According to Jesus, that's here on Turning Point with the Jeremiah thanks for taking time to listen to on the non-decent Christian