The Hero of Our Story: Blessed Dissatisfaction

That’s Just Not Right! It was late September, 2013. Becky and Kayla had just left to go shopping for stuff for her Senior Year at Oregon State. We lived in Tacoma, and I had just heard that it was going to rain and not stop raining for the next couple weeks. So    I went out to mow the lawn. As I finished up, I noticed how the flowers in my planters were long and scraggly, and it was time to trim them back. So I quickly grabbed my pruning shears, grabbed hold of some flowers and started hacking away. But in my haste, as I grabbed a handful of flowers, I didn’t just cut down on the stems, I sliced open the top half of my little pinky. Oh yeah, I immediately knew what I had done. And yes, there was blood. So, I quickly went inside, grabbed a towel, and proceeded to head across the street to get my friend Loren to drive me to urgent care. We quickly drove to urgent care, but when we arrived, it was no longer there. They had moved. But there was no sign telling us where they went – not right…   So then we headed to the emergency, where I now wait 3 and half hours to get seven stiches – not right… Then 2 weeks later – I got the bill. Not going to tell you how much they charged me – I’m just going to say – it just wasn’t right!

I’ll bet there’s all kinds of stuff in your life that you feel the same way about. “It was just not right that my dad left when I was three.” “It was just not right that my spouse left me for another man.” “It was just not right that she had to die so young. The thing is all of us are wired for things to be right, to go right and to even look right. We go to the restaurant, we want our food to taste right. We go to the mechanic, we want our car to run right. We go to the gym, we want our bodies to work right.

Then there’s our world. We turn on the news and we are greeted with injustice after injustice. Although our murder rates in this country are the lowest in 33 years; lives are still taken – not right.   Cancer claims another victim, not right. And poverty. There’s so much poverty today that in many of our schools 60 to 70 percent of students are on free or reduced lunch, not right. There are still thousands of orphans in Africa who will never have a home; not right. Every minute another child gets is enslaved in the sex trade. It’s just not right. And the sad reality, is this list could go on and on…

But what about you? Do you ever feel like something’s not quite right inside you? Do you ever feel like your relationship with God could be better than it is? If you have, if you long for things to be right in your life, if you long to see things made right in our world, then as we return to continue to look at what Jesus’ taught, He has some good news for you. In fact, if you brought your Bible with you today, our text comes from Matthew 5. Where in verse six, Jesus proclaims this one gem of good news: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled!

Today we are return to the heart of Jesus teaching about the good news of the kingdom, he speaks to the core of our human condition: this sense of “dissatisfaction” that haunts us day in and day-out; this sense that “yes, I’m not satisfied with my faults and flaws! “Yes, this world is not as it should be;” and “Yes, I long for something more, better than the status quo.” And if you grapple with this sense of dissatisfaction – the good news is that your hunger for righteousness didn’t start with you. It started with God. Your longing to see things made right in your heart and in our world means that God is waking you to what He wants to see in our world.

Let me illustrate for you what I mean: In my early 20’s, prior to God bringing me to faith in Jesus, I had no desire to worship God, serve God or even care about what God cares about. I was happy to just go through life and do my own thing. Sure I was aware of some injustices in the world, but they didn’t really bother me. I didn’t think about them. I wasn’t drawn to spiritual things, my mind was blind to spiritual realities. Then one day, a friend I worked with told me that one of his friends was going to get an abortion. Row verses Wade was just a few years old, and I’d never really thought about the implications of this law. But now a friend was about to get one. And at that point, maybe for the first time, I thought about the morality of such a decision. But at that point, I had not met God, had not been spiritually awakened to His righteousness or love. Had no grasp of the sanctity of life. So when I thought about such things, I was morally ambiguous. I wasn’t sure if it was right or wrong to get an abortion.

This how it is with most of the world. People without God’s Spirit alive in them just don’t see the world the same way God does. They are blind to His truth, to His ways, and most of all, to life as He intended it to be lived.

This is why Jesus says WE ARE BLESSED if we hunger and thirst for righteousness! We are blessed because God is now at work in our hearts to want what He wants. We are blessed because the hunger and thirst in us is not just our own – it’s God’s. We now long for what He longs for. We crave what He craves! And Jesus says, that if we want what He wants, if we hunger and thirst after righteousness – He will deliver. HE WILL SATISFY US – He will fill us with righteousness.

But the question for us today is this: Just what is this “righteousness?” Well, I can tell you what righteousness is not: It’s not self-righteousness. Someone who is self-righteous has little if any appetite for genuine inner righteousness. Someone who is self-righteous doesn’t think there is anything wrong with their inner person. So they have no hunger or thirst to be right with God or to live as the way He intended them to live. Those listening to Jesus were familiar with self-righteousness. This was the righteousness that characterized the Pharisees. As we’ve noted time and again, they were the religious police, who were quick to point out where you didn’t measure up to God’s law. And they were quick to condemn you for it.   As a result, their zeal for “letter of the law” was suffocating. There was no joy, no peace and no grace in their righteousness. Their demands of self-righteousness placed burdens on people with no relief. So, the righteousness Jesus was talking about was not an external righteousness – It was not a righteousness of rules – it was not a righteousness of sin management.

So what is a hunger for righteousness? Well, this hunger has two aspects to it:

1) It is a strong desire for God’s righteousness in our lives and

2) It is a strong desire to see our world made right.

Let’s look at each one of these separately:

It is an intense hunger for God’s righteousness in our lives    This flows from the previous blessings: we who hunger and thirst after righteousness are keenly aware of their own moral bankruptcy. We know we are “poor in spirit,” We are fully aware that our moral character is damaged. We know that we are not right!

This is why we mourn over our own sin. We grieve because we’re aware that our sin offends our God. This grief creates in us a broken and contrite spirit – a meekness. And now, our meekness not only makes us teachable before God, but it awakens in us a hunger for the kind of righteousness only God can give.

The result of which is this: WE NOW HAVE AN APPETITE FOR GOD’S WILL! We hunger to learn what God wants us to learn so we can live the way God wants us to live. So we are ready “to eat up” whatever Jesus has to say. We are eager to “drink in” as much of God’s truth as we can, so we can change and start living like Jesus. An appetite for God’s will; a thirst for God’s Word; a longing to live a new way! This is what it means to hunger and thirst after righteousness… Now, let me ask you: How’s your appetite for God’s will this morning? How’s your hunger for God’s Word? How’s your thirst for God’s righteousness in your life?

I am convinced, that one of the evil one’s greatest strategies, is to try to satisfy our hunger and thirst for righteousness by making us religious – just like the Pharisees. That is, if we go to church fairly regularly, if we live pretty decent lives, if we don’t cuss out loud, cheat on our taxes, and we are generally nice to people – then we are good enough…. But are you satisfied with that? Are you satisfied with some external actions – or does your soul long for something deeper, stronger, more life affirming? You see those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be satisfied.

Jesus says it. But do you believe it? God isn’t interested in our outward appearance of religion. No, He cares about the state of our hearts.  He looks at our hearts and He wants to change them. That’s why He sent us Jesus. He wants to remove hard hearts and replace them new hearts: heart’s filled with love, joy and peace. That’s why Jesus came teaching the good news of the kingdom. That’s why we have the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is teaching the true intent of the law. As you read through this sermon you see this time and time again. God wants to change our hearts so we can begin living this kingdom life – this life the way He intended us to live when He first created us.

And so as Jesus teaches the Sermon on the Mount, he declares a new kind of righteousness that surpasses the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. For example, God doesn’t want us to hold onto anger against those who hurt us. Instead, He wants to fill our hearts with His peace so we will make peace with those who hurt us. Listen to how Jesus says it: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:21-24   Be reconciled. Make Peace. Mend fences. The way of peace and harmony is the way of the kingdom. This is the righteousness God longs to see lived out in our lives. Is this what you hunger for? If it is, then Jesus says you’re blessed.

But that’s just one example of the new way of life in the kingdom – this new way of life that Jesus calls us to when He calls us to follow Him. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. This is a hunger to become more like Jesus – to live like He wants us to live: pursuing peace, loving mercy, treating people right, even our enemies.

So the question for us this morning is this? Do you have an appetite for what God wants to give you? One person has said it this way: “Whenever you pray for God’s will to be done, you are getting hungry for righteousness.” How’s your appetite for God’s will? Are you getting hungry for God’s ways: For His righteousness, His goodness, His life in your life? If you are, then Jesus says you are blessed.

But this is just the first part of our hunger and thirst after God’s righteousness. Let’s look now at the second aspect. These two are interrelated. You can’t have one without the other. Whereas this first aspect of righteousness focuses on a hunger for God’s righteousness in our lives, this second aspect…

Is an intense desire to see our world made right.   Once God begins to change our hearts with His righteousness, not only do we become more aware of the wrongs in the world, but He begins to change us into people who can do something about it.

To be specific, this form righteousness has to do with JUSTICE Delivering people from oppression and restoring them into community. This is where we look at our world and see all that’s wrong and say: that’s just not right!   Here’s some examples:

Starvation: Currently 1 out of 15 children in developing countries dies from hunger every year.

Education: Every year nearly 75 million children of primary school age have no access to education in the developing world.

Disease: Every year there are 350–500 million cases of malaria, with 1 million fatalities. Aids continues to take 1.7 million lives each year. Diarrheal Diseases claim 2.46 million lives each year, mainly children in developing countries, mainly because of the lack of clean water. In fact 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.

Poverty/Orphans: Number of children in the world: 2.2 billion Number of children living in poverty: 1 billion It is currently estimated that there are somewhere between 147 million to 200 million orphans currently alive in our world.

Now, do you remember a few weeks back, when we introduced Jesus as the teacher? And he read the scroll of Isaiah? Then he sat down and said, that He was the fulfillment of this prophecy? Do you remember?   What he read was all about righteousness – about making things right in the world: The Restorative Justice of the Kingdom. Listen to this text again, this time directly from Isaiah 61, and see the parallels with these blessings:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,  and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

What does He do for us? He proclaims good news to the poor – to us who are spiritually bankrupt. He heals the broken-hearted. He sets us free. He comforts all who mourn. And then, he bestows on us a crown of beauty – this crown is a crown of royalty – we become part of his family, his community! He then gives us the oil of joy: the Holy Spirit. He takes away our misery and replaces it with joy… And then… he gives us a new name: They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

We are the blessed, who God plants in the world, to show the world what He is like. And we show what He is like as we work with him to set our world to rights. And so He describes our work: He says of us: They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.

Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, we, His Oaks of righteousness are who God uses to rebuild, restore and renew.God makes us Oaks of righteousness so we can bring new life and peace to our neighborhoods, to our cities, to our nation. To rebuild broken lives through things as simple as the Santa Cruz Valley Food Bank. To restore hope for a generation who has been overwhelmed by poverty. To renew lives by sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. We are planted here as Oaks of righteousness for the display of His splendor, to show our world there is another way of life… the way of the kingdom.

Over the years I have been asked a really good question: Why doesn’t God intervene and stop evil? Why doesn’t He put an end to suffering and poverty, oppression and wars?  This is why?

Because He is creating a new kind of people – His people; people He is blessing and filling with His righteousness, so that we might be Oaks of Righteousness for the display of His splendor. It is us, who have been blessed by the grace of Jesus Christ, us who He is making right, us who He is putting in us this hunger and thirst to make things right – the church… we are the hope of the world. That’s why there is a holy dissatisfaction in our souls for what’s not right in the world. God put it there so that we might show the world the compassion and mercy of God. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled!