Blessed – Hunger and Thirst
Victory Life Church, Central — Sunday, June 14, 2026
Key Text: Matthew 5:1-11
Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons[a] of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Introduction
We need our imaginations baptized into Jesus’ way of seeing who is blessed (fortunate, lucky, flourishing) and why. I will tell a brief story from an interaction with my daughter over the past month. After giving a ride to a gentleman in our church who often needs a ride or simply walks to places in our small town, I tried to offer a lesson in gratitude to my kids. I said, “Guys, remember, we are blessed to have two cars to get where we need to go.” One of my children immediately, incredulously fired back with, “Wait, he’s not blessed?!” It stopped me in my tracks, and that’s exactly what these beatitudes should do to us.
His ways are higher than ours. His thoughts higher than ours, and we need to give serious thought to who our King calls blessed. We will take this statement sequentially, talking first about hunger and thirst, then righteousness, then satisfaction.
Hunger & Thirst
It may be tempting to skip straight to the “for righteousness” part of this statement, but it is important that we camp out on hunger and thirst—visceral, powerful longings that reveal our desperation. Luke’s account of Jesus’ same teaching centers the focus on the hunger itself.
Luke 6:21
“21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.”
When is the last time you really were hungry?
We are very likely to fill up and stay full on food, drink, and endless snacking. We eat not when we feel hunger, but when the clock tells us to, or just instinctively, subconsciously, constantly. Rarely, in the society that we are in do we experience real hunger.
This is why fasting is such an important practice as a Christ follower. When we are not forced by circumstance to be reminded of our deep physical longing, its incumbent upon us to put our bodies willfully in the position to know our need. Just like lifted hands in worship or bent knees in prayer, we put our bodies in the same state that we want our hearts to know.
Jesus assumed, in this very sermon, that His followers would fast.
Matthew 6:16-18
“16“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
“I now took little interest in anything except my daily plate of soup and my crust of stale bread. Bread, soup—these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.” Elie Wiesel, Night (p. 50).
Wiesel’s account as a young man in a Nazi concentration camp depicts some of the depths of what hunger can do. He came to identify as his starved stomach. His identity was his need, which he was constantly, desperately aware of. The experience of hunger and thirst is pain and desperation.
What do you desperately long for? So much so that you’d be weak without it and pained in its absence?
What are we currently ruining our deeper appetites with? As soon as a whisper of pain or desperation comes up in our souls, do we quiet and satiate it with spiritual junk food (reputation boosts, flesh gratification, numbing and distraction)?
It is important for us to give hunger and thirst the time of day. Pay attention to what we are truly longing and desperate for. Starve out the other appetites and develop a palette for righteousness. Like coffee or rice and beans, acquiring the right taste is important.
Righteousness
Jesus calls blessed those who are ravenously desperate for righteousness. What does He mean by that?
Righteousness is certainly a churchy word. There is some debate by scholars about how we are to understand it and it has multiple layers of meaning, all of which make it difficult to discern here. However, it is also intuitive and instinctive enough for us to hunger and thirst for it.
At its core, it simply means to be in right standing or right relationship either with a person or community. It is a relational word, indicating that I have done right by others and I am in proper standing.
God Toward People
Right relationship is modeled and begins with God towards His covenant people, which is why righteousness is so associated with God, Himself. He cannot be anything but correct, right, perfect. Therefore, He is the perfect model of righteousness toward the people He made and covenanted with.
God’s acts of deliverance and covenant faithfulness are His righteousness.
Micah 6:4-5
4“For I brought you up from the land of Egypt
and redeemed you from the house of slavery,
and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.
5 O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised,
and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”
God’s redeeming work and faithfulness to His covenant people is His righteousness revealed.
Psalm 146:5-9
“5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
6 who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
7 who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
9 The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.”
God perfectly, justly relates to each and every one of us. He is in right relationship to each and every one of us, by His very nature and through His acts in the world.
People Toward God
People who are in right relationship with God are those who relate to Him properly, with trust, awe, and humility.
Genesis 15:6
“6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”
Abraham’s simple belief in the Lord was counted to him as righteousness. You are relating properly to God when you believe Him, when you trust Him, and when you see yourself and others properly in relation to Him.
This is often a thought or belief that comes to mind in the popular consciousness of righteousness—“Someone who cares a lot about God and godly things.”
People Toward People
Those who walk in right standing with God will also do right by others. This is why in the Old Testament, the words for righteousness and justice often went hand-in-hand.
Amos 5:11-15
11 “Therefore because you trample on the poor
and you exact taxes of grain from him,
you have built houses of hewn stone,
but you shall not dwell in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink their wine.
12 For I know how many are your transgressions
and how great are your sins—
you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe,
and turn aside the needy in the gate.
13 Therefore he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time,
for it is an evil time.
14 Seek good, and not evil,
that you may live;
and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,
as you have said.
15 Hate evil, and love good,
and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,
will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”
Amos 5:21-24 ““I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
24 But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
The prophet is calling out the hypocrisy of acting as if you are doing right by God while doing wrong by the poor and the oppressed. The way that you act rightly with others reflects and flows into the way that you act rightly with God Himself.
1 John 4:20 “20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
So righteousness, which Jesus said is the desperate longing for those who flourish in this life, pulls together relational integrity from the God of the universe down to the person that we may be most likely to overlook or abuse. Our deepest, purest desires should be to see righteousness, within ourselves and between us in the webs of relationships that we inhabit.
When Jesus says “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” is He meaning those who long to see God’s mighty work done and character revealed, those who walk humbly before God, or those who see the justice of the community and relationships around them? Yes!
Satisfaction
Jesus’ bold statement is that those who are desperate for this kind of rightness in the world will be satisfied (filled up / bloated). Only He can truly satisfy a hunger and thirst for all relationships to be made right and just. No human effort can see that to completion.
2 Corinthians 5:21
“21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Conclusion & Response
Psalm 63:1-8
1 “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
3 Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
4 So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
6 when I remember you upon my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
7 for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
8 My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.