Good morning to you all. May today and the week ahead be a blessed time for you. May God supply all your needs as we turn to Him in worship. This morning I ask, if you Hunger & Thirst after the things of God, because if you do, you will be blessed. Let us worship
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He left His Father’s throne above—So free, so infinite His grace— Emptied Himself of all but love, And bled for Adam’s helpless race: ’Tis mercy all, immense and free, For, O my God, it found out me!
How can we not Hunger & Thirst For Him
Let us sing: And Can It Be
Scripture Reading: Matthew Ch 5:1-12
Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down.
His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them.
The Beatitudes
He said:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
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Let us join together in prayer and to help us, let us sing; Be Still
Let us pray
Psalms 42:1-2
As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for Thee, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?
Lord, make me hungry and thirsty for righteousness’s sake! Grant me a passion for loving, knowing and doing your word! Give me the discernment to see what the people around me truly really need. Help me to be wise enough to tell the difference between truth and justice and lies and corruption. Teach me to stop judging others and to begin to worry more about the distance between the life I live and the life you expect and desire of me. This day, Lord, make me hungry and thirsty for righteousness! Through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Remember to spend time in personal prayer today. Bringing all you concerns, joys, family and friends to the Lord in prayer. Then we will share in the Lord's Prayer together.
Let us share together in the Lords Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
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I truly believe that no matter what we go through God is always near. I invite you all to
sit back and enjoy the Staff Songsters sing: When God comes Near
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Just before we go to the word, please join with me in singing: To God Be The glory
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Hunger & Thirst For Righteousness
When looking at the Christian faith it can look like having to follow a bunch of rules. But the one thing that Jesus wasn’t into was religious rules. So what did He mean when he said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” You know, by and large, we all want to live a good life, to do the right thing, be a good upstanding citizen, but is it possible? Is it taking this goody two-shoes thing a bit too far?
When Jesus comes along and says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” our reaction could be, I do hunger and thirst for a few things, a good meal, more money, a better job, but righteousness? I don’t need that. I’m a good person.
Before I became a Christian, I thought that following Jesus was just a bunch of rules. I have enough rules in my life as it is. Who needs more rules in their life? But when I started to read the Gospels; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, I thought that this Jesus is my kind of person. And one thing I found to be true, is that, this Jesus was not into religious rules at all and yet He says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled”. Surely that means following strict rules.
So what does it mean to be blessed?
When Jesus uses that word, He’s saying, “Look, there’s a special joy, a special satisfaction, a special something that you can get out of me that you can’t get out of anyone else. There’s no deep satisfaction anywhere else except in me.” And He says, “When I bless you, I’m blessing you with all the riches of heaven, the whole kingdom of God and all the joy that comes with that.” “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness because they will be filled.” I know some people think that Jesus is talking about a bunch of rules that must be followed.” But let’s look at it from a different point of view. When we do that, we see that Jesus is not talking about religious rules. He is talking about a relationship.
What do you understand by righteousness? For me it’s doing the right thing. You see, righteousness is a doing word, and the moment we have “doing the right thing”, we can say, well, there must be rules to arbitrate whether it’s right or wrong. So, we as people create rules and regulations that define what is right and what is wrong. When we think about it, we would be amazed at how many stupid little rules that we have.
When I was growing up, you were not allowed to put your elbows on the table when you were eating, and I taught my kids that rule as well. The reason for this is that it was supposed to be good etiquette, but, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really make any difference if we put our elbows on the table or not. My point is this, we love to make rules, don’t we? In fact, every other religion and belief system, other than Christianity, is based on rules. You do the right thing, and you will be saved. You perform and you get rewards.
A lawyer once asked Jesus, “What must we do to be saved?” Well, that’s a good question. And Jesus replied, “The work of God is this, that you believe in Me.” You see the lawyer had a picture in his mind that there had to be rules and regulations to make it to heaven. But Jesus said the thing that you need to do to inherit eternal life is simple; to believe in Me. So, for Jesus it wasn’t about rules; it was about relationship.
In the early 90s I went to Canterbury University not long after I became a Christian and I studied Theology & Religious Studies. We spent a lot of time on this concept of righteousness, the righteousness of God. I knew the theory. I had it all in my head, but it never really sunk deep into my heart. Then I read a book by Joyce Meyer on righteousness. So let me try and explain what she say’s and see if it works for you too.
She talks about our “who” and our “do”. We think that if we do good things that we will make it into God’s favour, that we’ll have eternal life. Most people think, well, I’m a good person. I’m not a murderer, or a thief, or anything. If there is a God, I’m sure I’ll make it into heaven. So, we think that we have to do the right thing. But look at what Jesus is saying, “when you believe in Me, it’s not your “do” that I’m interested in. What changes is your “who”.” The moment we believe in Jesus, who we are in God’s eyes changes. Because all the things that we’ve done wrong, all our failures, all our sins (I know it’s not a very popular word.) If we look into our hearts, we can see the ugly parts of our personalities. And because of Jesus all the things that we have done wrong are washed away. When Jesus was nailed to that cross, He was the perfect sacrifice. He paid for all those things that we have done wrong. And because of that, who I am changes. God looks at me as cleanly as purely as though I were Jesus Himself. You say, “How can that be”? Well, because the sense of justice, the sense of righteousness of God has been fulfilled when the perfect sacrifice, Jesus, paid for my sins and, indeed, paid for your sins. The moment you and I believe that Jesus is our Saviour, we have eternal life. Who we are changes; we become a child of God. And as we have a relationship with God, and we love Him and we enjoy Him. What we do, changes. So first, our “who” changes and then our “do” follows along afterwards.
So, who I am has changed. And now that my “who” has changed, and I’m enjoying who I am, the “do”, the doing the right thing follows as naturally as night follows day. And that’s what Jesus is saying here. Righteousness is not about doing the right thing. Righteousness is about having a relationship with God, and then what we do changes down the track. In fact, one translation of this verse says this, “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. His food and drink is the best meal you’ll ever eat.” Jesus wants us to have an appetite for Him, to be hungry and thirsty for Him. Can you remember a time when you have been very thirsty? Then you drink a cold refreshing glass of water and you cannot believe how satisfying that was.
That’s the satisfaction that Jesus wants us to have. He wants us to hunger and thirst for Him, and to be so deeply satisfied that we will change, that our behaviour will change. Does He want us to change our behaviour first? No! He wants us to have a relationship with Him first, and as certainly as night follows day, the “do” will change as well.
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Psalm 42
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
Let us Hunger & Thirst for righteousness. Let the soul pant for God, then all things will be added unto you.
I truly believe that no matter what we go through , God through God is always near. I invite you all to you all to you all to ,
ll to u all to all to all to ll to l to to to o
Eternal God you are my refuge, and underneath are your everlasting arms. One thing I ask from you, Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in your house all the days of my life, to gaze on your beauty. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.
Please join with me in this final prayer:
Dear Lord, I am so grateful to You for all that You have done for me. You drew me to Yourself because You loved me and then gave me the best gifts: eternal life and a hunger to know You, experience Your love, and follow You. But Lord, somewhere along the way in my walk with You, things became familiar, comfortable and I became complacent and lukewarm. Will You please forgive me for this? Would You fill my heart with fresh hunger for You? Would You birth a new hunger in me? I don't want to be satisfied without You. I ask for restored intimacy with You, Jesus, to feast on Your Words of life and for the power that comes from Your Holy Spirit to please and obey You. I want raw desperation so that my heart will reach for more. Birth a new hunger in my heart for You, Jesus. Amen.
The Lord bless thee and keep thee
The Lord make His face to shine upon thee
And be gracious unto thee
The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee
And give thee peace
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