Hunger
Hunger is a sign of life. Only live
people need food, they crave water. A hungry person is a normal person. Hunger
is a God-given gift for us to live a life. Along with this physical hunger, every
person who has breath is also given a different kind of hunger – a spiritual hunger.
Blaise Pascal once famously said, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” Sundar Singh, Indian missionary, also rightly said, “In comparison with this big world, the human heart is only a small thing. Though the world is so large, it is utterly unable to satisfy this tiny heart. The ever-growing soul and its capacity can be satisfied only in the infinite God. As water is restless until it reaches its level, so the soul has not peace until it rests in God.”
But sadly, we see so many people try to satisfy their spiritual hunger and quench their thirst in wrong places rather than in God. God said to the Israelites, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jer 2:13). God’s people, you and I, have dug our own cisterns – the cisterns of money, security, fame, pleasure, and success. The more we drink from those cisterns, the more thirstry we become. It’s like drinking seawater. So what’s the cure? Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matt 5:5).
Hunger for Righteousness
What does it mean to hunger for
righteousness? In this context, righteousness means to be right with God.
So to hunger for righteousness means to have a strong, constant desire to be
right with God, to be in fellowship with God, to walk with God.
The sons of Korah are a great example of those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Today’s Call to Worship, Psalm 42, is written by the sons of Korah. “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” (vv. 1-2). If we go to the Judean wilderness, we can see the dead deer here and there because they couldn’t find streams of water. For the deer, to find water is a matter of life and death. For the sons of Korah, to be right with God is a matter of life and death.
So who were the sons of Korah? How come they had such a desperate desire to be right with God? We can find the name Korah in Exodus 6. Korah was a younger cousin of Moses and Aaron. Moses became a leader, and Aaron became a priest. Korah became jealous. In Numbers 16 it was Korah that led a rebellion against Moses with the tribe of Rueben and 250 leaders from the other tribes. Korah demanded an equal access to God in the tabernacle. So what happened? Korah and his followers all died. The Bible says, “The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them with Korah, and fire devoured 250 of their followers.” (26:10).
But that’s not the end of the story. The very next verse says this way, “However, the sons of Korah did not die that day” (v. 11). Not only did God spare their lives, but also later in King David’s time God restored them and put them in charge of worship service. The descendants of Korah, including Heman and Asaph, became worship leaders. They wrote this beautiful Psalm 42 and 11 more Psalms. Their recuring theme is a hunger for God, desiring God. In Psalm 84, the sons of Korah pray, “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked” (v. 10). The sons of Korah always remembered the God of forgiveness, the God of second chances. And they always wanted to be right with God and to walk humbly with God. That’s what it means to hunger for righteousness.
Believing and Receiving
You may ask, “I want to have that
hunger, that desire. What do I have to do? Where to start?” Basically,
that was Nicodemus’ question. Jesus said to him, “You must be born again.”
Then, how can we be born again? The Bible says anyone who believes in
Jesus and receives him, they become children of God who have new
heart, new desire to be right with God the Father.
You may say, “I already do believe in Christ. I believe in the Church, and I believe in the Bible. Isn’t that enough?” No! We must receive Christ. Billy Graham explains the difference between believing and receiving this way: I may go to the airport. I have a reservation. I have a ticket in my pocket. The plane is on the ramp. It is a big, powerful plane. I am certain that it will take me to my destination. They call the flight three times. I neglect to get on board. They close the door. The plane taxis down the runway and takes off. I am not on the plane. Why? I “believed” in the plane, but I neglected to get on board.[1]
As a pastor’s kid, I always grew up in the church, I always believed in God, Christ, and the Bible. In my college years I read the Bible every day, I prayed every day. But for some reason, I felt like my Christian life was powerless and lifeless. My belief was rather impersonal and speculative. At that time I believed in many other gods (competing values and priorities) as well as the God of the Bible. I was an “on the spot” Christian. Only when I was desperate, I asked God for help and asked myself, “What would Jesus do?” But at other times I lived just like everybody else. My faith didn’t involve complete commitment to Christ. In other words, I believed in him, but I didn’t receive him as the Master, until I was walking through the valley of the shadow of death in East Timor. There I committed myself completely to Christ. There I put Christ first in my priorities. There I received him as my Master. Then I began to see changes in me, in my Christian life. My prayer life, my Bible reading time became living and active and personal, instead of cut-and-dried tasks to be done. I was born anew. I was given new nature, new desire to be always right with Christ, to be always in fellowship with him, to be more and more like him.
Satisfaction in Christ
Jesus promised the disciples,
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be
filled (satisfied).” Jesus satisfies the hunger and thirst of those who
follow him daily and are fully committed to him. What a wonderful experience it
is to wake up every morning and know Christ’s living presence in the room! What
a joyous experience it is to know in the evening, when the sun is setting, the
deep satisfaction in Christ as you go to bed! And you lie down in peace and
sleep the sleep of only those who know Christ!
As I close, I would like to share the story of Brother Lawrence, whose nickname was the kitchen saint. He entered the priory at Paris in 1666 as a lay brother. Because he was lame and had no education, he was assigned to the kitchen. He had naturally a great aversion to the kitchen. But, he determined to live as if there was none but God and he in the world. He wanted to be always right with God and to live in front of him daily. He began to do all the kitchen work for the love of God with prayer in all occasions. He prayed before and after the work, and also prayed all the intervals of his time. Every morning as he started a day, he practiced the presence of God. He considered himself as a stone before a carver. He truly desired God to form His perfect image in his soul, and make him entirely like Himself. He did every common business and little things for the love of God. He said, "Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do. . . We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God."[2] He did seek one thing – being right with God, and nothing else – neither God’s blessings, nor answers to his prayers. And he was satisfied in God.
Before we leave this room today, let us ask ourselves: “Am I filled? Am I blessed in this sense? Am I hungering and thirsting and desiring to be right with God?” This is the glorious promise of Christ to all his followers: “Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for you will be filled.” Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment