Sermon
Change Of Diet
September 19-20, 1998
Pastor Donald Sheley

Let's take our Bibles and join together in the passage we've been talking now about for a number of weeks.  If you have your own Bible this morning, we're in Matthew chapter 5. I'll read the first twelve verses:
And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. 
Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 
Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted. 
Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth. 
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled. 
Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy. 
Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God. 
Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God. 
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 
Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Now the verse that we want to talk about today is verse 6, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled. Thus far, as we have studied the Beatitudes we've observed that they describe a spiritual journey into the kingdom of God. In verse 3 we talked about spiritual bankruptcy, that there is no righteousness within ourselves. We have nothing to offer to God but a life filled with rebellion and sin, and we come spiritually poor and we have nothing in our hands to bring, simply to His cross we cling. The fourth verse said, blessed are those who mourn, and even though we observed that the word for mourning describes one who weeps with intense pain for the loss, the death of one; we found though that this verse relates to the spiritual experience of weeping over sin. And that is that realizing when we come what sin has done not only to the heart of God, not only to those around us, but even unto ourselves. And we sense sin's vileness and its wretchedness and its destruction, and in that, we come to weep over our sins before Him.

Then we went to verse 5; Blessed are the meek, and we suggested that right over the entrance to the kingdom is this great big sign that says surrender. That is, when I come into His kingdom I don't bring my agenda. He must be Lord of all and the meek man is the one who sets aside all of his personal interests for the interests of others, and that other is none other than Christ who becomes our Lord. It's a total surrender. You don't get into the kingdom without it. There is a teaching that goes about in some areas of evangelicalism that you can believe in Jesus as your Savior, but at a later time you can accept Him as your Lord. That's a lie. Because His very name is the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you come into His kingdom, it's not just a fire escape insurance, you come into His kingdom as one who surrenders your all to serve Him with everything inside you.

Now we come to verse 6, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled. And this is that moment when in total surrender we have opened our life completely to God, and the result is that He pours in His new life within us. Nicodemus knew it as the moment of new birth. It's that moment when the old passes away and we become new creations in Christ Jesus. And now, we're a part of His kingdom and His life is within us. And one of the first characteristics or indications that there's life is hunger. If you as parents have walked down the halls of a hospital awaiting the arrival of your first born, and you hear that little cry, there's excitement. You know the nurse will take care of the details of preparing the little one for presentation, but it doesn't take very long till that new life begins to cry out for food. It's an indication that there's life. And hunger always is true within the new experience. God's life within us gives us a hunger, and at that moment there's a dramatic change that takes place. That which satisfied us before no longer satisfies us. The diet changes.

Paul explains to the Ephesians the diet, the desires, of a nonbeliever. He says, And you, He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. Paul says that for which we sought satisfaction in our worldly state was the hungering after the things of the flesh. Something that would just simply satisfy, that's what we wanted, but now we come into God's kingdom and the diet has changed. For the first thing that indicates life is the cry for the spiritual.

When we come to the kingdom in a deep sense of spiritual poverty and we bury our face in tears of repentance, surrender our life and everything we have to Jesus, we now find ourselves with David on our face crying this prayer; As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. It's a beautiful Psalm. Go there with me. It's Psalm 42 in your Bible. It's David's thirst for God and his hunger for the things of the spiritual. And he expresses it so beautifully. He says, As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, While they continually say to me, "Where is your God?" David says as that little deer seemingly being chased maybe for some time finds a little brook where there's water, as he thirsts for water, so my soul thirsteth after You, O God.

Now Jesus used the word for hunger, not something that was just an appetizer, but the word for hunger involved within it the whole thought of pain. Most of us have never hungered to pain. Those around the world that have gone without food for long periods of time, they understand the pain of hunger. Most of us don't. But here Jesus is saying that when life vibrates within us, there is this panting after God, there is that for which is holy, that for which is righteous, that's the thing for which we reach, that's the thing that's the desire of our hearts now.

Old Augustine, 400 years after the birth of Christ, the great theologian writes, who will give me what it takes to rest in You? You will make it so You come into my heart O God and captivate it so I can forget my rottenness and take hold of You the one good thing in my life. A thousand years after Augustine wrote those words another seeker after God wrote, God of Your goodness give me Yourself. For You are enough for me. If I ask anything less I know I shall continue to want. Only You I have everything.

And an ancient prayer that was written about 1800 years ago; O my Lord, if I worship You from fear of hell, burn me in hell, and if I worship You for the hope of paradise, exclude me from it, but if I worship You for Your own sake, then withhold not from me Your eternal beauty. David says, as the little deer pants for the water brook, so pants my heart after You, O God. It's true that once life has come, Paul says, if we then were raised with Christ, we are to seek those things which are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

If we're to hunger and thirst after righteousness, what is righteousness? Here's the definition. To hunger and thirst after righteousness means to yearn after God's favor. To have a passion for what is godly, what is right, in my relationship with God and in my relationship with my world. It's a desire to get rid of sin because sin is that which comes between us and God keeping us from the knowledge of God, and all that is possible to us and for us with God. Righteousness? If I'm to hunger and thirst after righteousness, I'm to yearn for those things that bring favor and honor to my God. Things that are right. Things that are eternal. A purpose and a passion to know God. That's hungering and thirsting after righteousness. And when you study the Scriptures, you'll notice that hunger is often referred to, hunger not only comes with pain, and Jesus says there's that painful desire, that yearning for God, but also hunger is perpetual. You get up in the morning. You eat your breakfast. It isn't very long in the middle of the day your stomach is telling you you're hungry again. You eat to satisfy it and then a few more hours it tells you you're hungry again. Hunger is perpetual.

Thus, when that life of God is within us, that divine life, there will be that perpetual reaching out for God, and that passion for His holiness will always be there. I also notice another thing in studying the Scriptures, and that is there are at least three distinct aspects about this matter of holiness. There is what I call legal holiness, there is moral holiness, and there is social holiness. Let's take them one at a time. Legal; you say, how did we get legalities into this relationship with God? Well, in the musty old books of theology in ages past, the theologian spoke of this legal righteousness as forensic. You say, why did he give it that fancy title? Well, forensic has to deal with court proceedings as a person stands within the court. So when we speak of forensic righteousness we're speaking of a man or a woman's standing before almighty God. Now the Bible tells us that when we enter the kingdom and now His life is within us, we now have a totally different and a new relationship and a standing with God. Because before I came into His kingdom, I was a sinner under His condemnation and His wrath and His judgement. I was the object of His judgement. Now that I'm in His kingdom, that status, that standing changes. I'm now a child of the King. I have been translated from the kingdom of darkness and now my new status is I'm a part of the kingdom of His dear Son, the kingdom of life.

And what happens when Jesus pours His life into us? He does something very beautiful, and in the theological terms it's called justification. Our sin is forgiven and it's cleansed. As it were, we stand at the judgement bar of eternity and we plead our case and say God, I'm a sinner and I need Your grace and Your forgiveness. And God because of what Christ did at Calvary says to me, Don, I declare you righteous. He doesn't declare me perfect. But what happens, He clothes me with the righteousness of Christ and now God almighty doesn't see me as the weak sinner. He now sees my need through Christ, and my forensic, my legal, my eternal standing before God has been changed. It's known as justification. It's a big word.

I've used this illustration hundreds of times, but it's so clear that you can't miss the point. When Leighton, who led us in worship today, was a little boy we dressed him up one Sunday morning in a nice suit getting all ready for church. And we thought he'd stay in the front room while we prepared for church, but when we got dressed I looked out the window and here's Leighton out there in a mud puddle, and I mean he's just having fun and that suit is mucky from top to bottom. And so I go out and I pick him out of the mud puddle, and I bring him into the kitchen sink, and I stand him in the sink, and I wash him down with Tide. And he stands there squeaky clean and I put new garments on him, and you look at him just as if he'd never been in the mud puddle. You see, that's what happens when we come to Christ. He cleanses us. We come in from the mud puddles of sin. He bathes us with His precious blood and He clothes us with His righteousness, and we stand before God just as if we'd never sinned.

I mean, when you really grasp that, you won't be able to sit still because that's the joyous truth of our faith. No matter how high the sins were before we came to Him, He blotted them all out and He took them from us as far as the east is from the west, never to be remembered against us ever again. Forgotten, forgiven, and made new in Christ. That's legal, eternally legal, forensic righteousness. Secondly, there is moral righteousness. What's that? That's righteousness that's lived out of a character that is Christ like. It's that for which all of us strive. That's why you're here today. You want to be a better Christian tomorrow and the next day. You want Christ's likeness to flow through you.

Sometimes we sing it in the form of a chorus; to be like Jesus, to be like Jesus, all I ask is to be like Him. And I want to be better this week than last week, and that is known in theological terms as sanctification, that process through which all of us are going through. Changing from glory to glory, from His image, as we day after day, week after week, year after year, and we'll never be totally sanctified until we arrive in heaven. Just ask me. I needed sanctification this week. All of us do because none of us are perfect. And it's that sanctification; the word is to sanctify or to set aside. And it's that process through which God is dealing with us every day of our lives trying to make us more like Him, and molding us into His image. That's called moral righteousness when it's defined.

Go with me to Ephesians. Here I think Paul gives us the best. You want an idea of moral righteousness. Look at what he says in Ephesians 4:20, But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. Now that's the picture of justification. We've learned of Christ. We've set aside the old man. We're a new creature in Christ. Christ's love and His power and His life is flowing through us. Now here's the description of moral righteousness.

Look at verse 25; Therefore, putting away lying, "Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor." What's he saying? Moral righteousness is honesty and integrity in our world living with one another. That's morally righteousness, to be honest and to be integris. And he goes on to say, for we are members of one another. "Be angry, and do not sin." That is, we do have our emotions, but a righteous man will have his emotions under control. He said you could be angry, but don't sin in the anger of it, in the performance of it. You say, give me an illustration of that. Pastor, how does that work out? I'll use Jesus. Remember, He walked into the temple. He saw these people so misusing the temple. He called it a den of thieves. He picked up a whip and He started through there, and I mean He chased out those that had their herds and He overturned the money changers, but there's one thing that He didn't do. And this is always fascinating to me; the ones who had the doves in the cages, He said get them out of here. You see, if He had kicked over those cages, the doves would have flown and there would have been a loss, but in His anger He controlled that anger in the temple.

So Paul is saying, listen, moral righteousness is our emotions under godly control. It is right to be angry sometimes. I get angry at sin. And sometimes I get angry to the point of almost embarrassment. Anger at certain things is right. It's godly anger. But he says you don't sin in your anger. And he says, Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, so he can build up a big bank account. It doesn't say that. God gives us strength. God gives us wisdom to make life's substance, but most of us become selfish with it and we tuck it away, and God doesn't even get His portion.

Why does God give us health? Why does He give us a job? Why does He bless us with these blessings? So we can turn around and have something to give to somebody else. God never made us to be a reservoir. He made us to be a channel. And most of us stick it in the reservoir and He didn't want a reservoir in the first place. He gives us life's blessings to bless other lives. That's what it says here; that he may have something to give him who has need. Moral righteousness.

Verse 29; Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification. That is building up. That it may impart grace to the hearers. Moral righteousness has to do with how I use my tongue, and what I say should be to encourage and edify and build up someone not tear them down. It's not morally righteousness to gossip. That's a sin. It's morally righteous to encourage others. What else does he say? And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. That's interesting because in the living Bible it says; don't grieve the Spirit of God, because He's the one who marks you present. That's the thought. He's the one who marks you present on that external day.

I remember as a little guy going to school. The teacher would get out the attendance book when the class started. Mary? Here. Joseph? Here. Donald? Here. She's the one that marked me present, and the picture is moral righteousness causes our lives to be so lived that we never grieve the Spirit of God who's going to be there on that eternal day marking us present for all eternity. What else does it say? Moral righteousness says, let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking to put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Got the picture?

Moral righteousness is a character that's being transformed by the work of God in our lives. And I'm to hunger for that. I'm to hunger. I'm to weep before God when I know I have failed, and yet have that yearning passion; God, I want to be the kind of person You want me to be! Please help me. Moral righteousness, a character that is growing into Christ's likeness. And thirdly, there is social righteousness. Let me explain. Outside the kingdom I'm a selfish, self-centered, I'm going to live just for myself. It's me, myself, and mine, and if anybody gets hurt in my getting, so what. That's the world, dog eat dog, that we live in. We all were there. We were self-centered. We wanted to do that which pleased us. We didn't care about anybody else, genuinely care, but, when I come to the kingdom and I realize I'm spiritually bankrupt and I bow and weep because of my sin, and I surrender my life to God, and the life of Christ is poured within me, all of a sudden when I open my eyes, now I've got a new relationship with God, and a new responsibility in that relationship, and I now am a part of a family of believers.

When you came into God's kingdom you assumed a Christian relationship to be conducted towards your brothers and sisters. I did too. I have a responsibility to my brother and my sister. I have a responsibility to you who are a part of this same kingdom. And I don't live my life selfishly. We learn that a meek person who has surrendered to God surrenders to others and their concerns become more important than his. And thus, in this kingdom now I've got social, relational, responsibilities that are a part of my righteousness. And I'm living in a world where the only hands that Jesus has are my hands, and the only feet that He has are my feet, and I'm to be the Christ to my world in showing His compassion and His love. That's righteousness.

Jesus described it oh so clearly. Go with me to Matthew 25:32. Folks you can't miss this one. This is as clear as the nose on your face. This is social righteousness. Listen. "All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. "And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. "Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom. That's what we're talking about. Getting into the kingdom. What does He say? Prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 'for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 'I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' "Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 'When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 'Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' "And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.' That is social righteousness.

Let's go on, verse 41. "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire. Why? Why are they going to be thrown into the fire? And it's the fire prepared for the devil and his angels. And He said, look at, 'for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 'I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.' "Then they also will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?' "Then He will answer them, saying, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. That's social righteousness. I can't live in my world as a selfish individual. If I'm going to exercise and live out the life of Christ in my world, His compassion is going to flow through my life. When there's a need, I'm going to reach out and help. When there's somebody who is hungry, I'm going to give them something to eat. When there's something I can do to radiate the love of Christ, that is righteous. That's doing the right thing. It's not right for me to pull my cloak around me and leave the hungry and not do anything for them if I possibly can. That's not righteous.

You see, the interesting thing about this Christian experience, so many times we get all caught up in the first two stages. Yes, get right with God and let Him declare you righteous. Get saved. Yes! We all should put our lives in His hands. And we say now that you're saved it's time that you get filled so that you can sense His presence. But very, very seldom that's where we stop. Because we don't reach out with this whole concept of righteousness and say now that I'm a Christian I'm the appointed person for Christ's kingdom to represent His kingdom in my community, in my neighborhood. How long has it been since you went down the street and found somebody in need? How long has it been since you moved away from your selfishness to bring joy to someone else. You say, Pastor, is that a part of righteousness? Yes it is, because He says if you don't do it.

Look at verse 46. I mean, that's something. "And these will go away into everlasting punishment. I mean He tied it very, very emphatically to righteousness, didn't He? You say what Jesus is saying then is those that hunger and thirst after righteousness are people who really want to live the life of Christ and His compassion in a world that's looking for it. Was it old Gandhi, the great Indian philosopher, a genuine seeker, but when he closed his days, do you know what he wrote? I would have liked to have become a Christian if I could have ever seen one. Here was a man who had a social passion, and what bothered him intensely was the righteousness of Christians only went so far, but when it came to a needy world they stopped. It's interesting, isn't it?

And you say, Pastor, I've never thought of righteousness that way, but if I'm hungering and thirsting and God's life is in me, and the spirit of Christ dwells within me, I'm going to want to do that Jesus wanted to do. Right? And what did He want to do? He touched the hurting. He fed the hungry. That's part of righteousness. Now, let's get back. I'm going to end the message with a short quiz. Here's the lesson. If hunger is an indication of life, which we say it is, and I'll tell you folks, when you loose your hunger, you're sick. And if you don't eat you'll starve to death. Right? And if I find myself deficient of hunger I am spiritually sick, and if I don't give attention to it, I'll die spiritually. Right? And thus, what I do each day, each week, will tell how hungry I really am and how much life of God is really in me. Right?

Here's the quiz. Rate yourself on a 1 to 7 -- 7 days in a week. Question number one: How often this last week did you pull out your Bible and meditate in God's Word? Write down your number. Second question: Did you spend as much time on your knees in prayer, and in fellowship with God, as you spent before your television set this last week? The way you answered that will show you your spiritual health. Because if I neglected God's Word and I spent more time feeding my mind and my soul from the garbage of the media that's broadcast across the waves, I am sick spiritually and I need to get on my knees and repent before God. You say, Pastor, don't get so straight. Listen folks. I can only preach it one way. There's only one way and if hunger is not there, if you have no hunger for the spiritual, you are not spiritually alive folks; you're dead. That's what Jesus said. Dead in our trespasses. And the thing that amazes me is there're so many people who think they're Christians because of something that happened long ago. Christianity is something, that hunger, is something that's perpetual. That's lived out every day in a passion for God and doing right with my fellow man, and doing right with God, and doing right with my world. That's hungering and thirsting after righteousness.

And listen, there is nothing that so fills the human heart with joy, this feeding on the eternal. I tell you, some of you folks have been down life long enough and you could say, Pastor, it's true. I have reached into every category of life. I have tried it and it's empty. It's empty. The only thing that satisfies and that fills the human breast with a sense of completion and a sense of joy, is a wonderful relationship with God, and a continuous perpetual reaching out for Him more and more every day. That's life. That's life in its richest dimension. Old Augustine the great theologian said every man has a God-shaped vacuum in his heart, inside of him, and that vacuum will constantly gnaw away until it's filled with God. God made us to have fellowship with Him so He could love us and bless us. That's the reason He made us. He didn't make us just to fill an earth. He wanted somebody back in the garden to have fellowship with. That's why He came down in the cool of the day, and He talked and walked with Adam. He wanted friends, and He still does.

He wants our fellowship. He wants our love. And in return, Jesus said, if you'll hunger and thirst for Him, He'll so fill your life with everything that's meaningful, everything that's rich, and everything that's eternal. Nothing in this world compares. Nothing. Well you say, if I had a million dollars, I'd be happy. Nonsense. I've known millionaires. Most of them are the most miserable people, I mean, they're worrying about the stock market and where it's going to go tomorrow. And they have a lot of reason to worry now. I mean, money doesn't make you happy folks. Rockefeller was asked, when does a rich man have enough? He said, when you have another million dollars. You never have enough. The point is there's nothing in this passing world that fills the human breast that was made to be filled with God. Nothing that satisfies. Jesus said, you turn your heart and life over to God, and you live for that which is right and you live to please God, you hunger and thirst to be more like Christ, and you'll live a life that's going to be rich, and full, and glorious. And when John starts painting the picture of heaven, you know what he says? In heaven there's no more hunger and no more tears. That perpetual hunger will have it's fullest satisfaction when we arrive there. Amen? 

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we've looked ourselves in the mirror today and some of us are sick. That passion, that hunger, for You that filled our hearts when we first commenced our journey with You, we've neglected that hunger and we've filled life with all the crud that amounts to nothing. And we've starved out that spiritual life that You gave us. Some of us are neigh unto spiritual death. O God, forgive us for neglecting our souls. When we had to answer those questions, some of us let this entire week go by and we didn't spend any time in Your Word; we didn't pray, oh yes, we said some passing prayers, but we spent more time being entertained by the world than enjoying Your presence. For that, please forgive us.

And I pray Lord Jesus that we will recognize that You placed that hunger within us, and that hunger will only be satisfied with eternal things; with righteousness, with godliness, with purity, with integrity. Some of us thought that righteousness ended the whole issue with our relationship with You and our character, and today we've learned that righteousness has a social dimension some of us have completely forgotten about. And yet, to live Your life in our world, dear Jesus, we're the only hands You have, ours are the only feet that You can use. Would You today give us a compassion for our hurting world, and help us to find areas of life, to look for it, to hunger after those areas wherein we can demonstrate Your love dear Jesus to hurting people. Now that we're in Your kingdom the diet has changed, no longer things of this world, but the things that are eternal. So please help us. And everybody said...Amen.