Blessed Are The Hungry

Summary

Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon's captions — published in summary form; watch the full sermon at the source.

One verse from the Beatitudes

He comes to the platform calling for "a sacrifice of praise on this Sunday morning," and marvels at the house: "It's so good to be in church one more time at New Bethl. What a tremendous honor it is to be here... Churches all over this world — there's people that are going to assemble into buildings all over this country today and have no real move of the Holy Ghost. But aren't you thankful today that when you go home, you're going to know that God met us in this house?" He honors the pastor and the leadership, thanks God his wife is with him, and confesses his dependence: "I've never learned how to do anything in church by myself. I've never learned how to preach. I've never learned how to worship. Everything I've done has been me with God." Then one verse: "Matthew chapter number five and verse number six, one verse... And this is part of the Beatitudes. This is Jesus preaching. He said, 'Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.'" The subject: "Blessed are the hungry. Blessed are the hungry."

Scriptures: Matthew 5:6

Sick and tired of being sick and tired

"There is something so divine and spiritual that happens... there is a spiritual shift that happens when people get sick and tired of being sick and tired. When people finally say, you know what, I've been bound long enough. I've been down long enough. I'm tired of having to take something to get up in the morning and take something to go to bed at night. If God can get you to a level of desperation where you'll do whatever it takes to see your need met, I promise you God will meet your need today." The devil's first victory is satisfaction: "When the devil can get us satisfied and get us convinced that where we are right now is where we will always be, he has already won the battle... I'll always struggle with this. I'll always have this problem. I'll never be free." Against that stands the most powerful prayer he knows: "I found three of the most powerful words that I've ever prayed in my life was, I need help... There has never been a time that God did not help me." Hunger is room: "If we are full and we have everything that we need and we are not hungry and we have no desire, I'm telling you, then God has no room to work in our lives." Esau is the warning, retold: rich in cattle, sheep, and servants after years apart from Jacob, "but he did not have a relationship with God. But all that stuff had convinced him that he was fine. He looked at his brother and said, 'I have enough.'... The day we stop growing is the day that we say we have enough. I don't care how many revivals we've had. I don't care how many people have gotten the Holy Ghost. The day that I say I have enough... that's the day God will stop working in my life." Spiritual success, like business or sports, belongs to those who did what others would not: "No matter how good the previous service was... when they got up the next morning, there was something in them that said, 'Do it again. God, I know you worked last week, but do it again. I know you healed last week, but do it one more time.'"

When hunger itself is missing

"We think of hunger, we think of a lack. We think of something that is missing... But Jesus did not say, 'Blessed are the rich. Blessed are those who drive the newest vehicles. Blessed are those that are talented. Blessed are those that are perfect.' But he said, 'Blessed are those that are hungry.'" He tells of reading about restrictive ARFID, an eating disorder of little or no interest in food — people afraid to eat, some needing feeding tubes, the condition able to cause osteoporosis, infertility, "in some extreme cases it can even cause death. And the thought struck me: isn't it an amazing thing that people have died from lack of interest in the very thing that is keeping them alive." The application is direct: "The reason I am spiritually alive today is because of this book right here... He said when you came you were dead in your trespasses and sins. I'm telling you that that was me when I came to God... But he said now you're washed. Now you're sanctified. Now you are redeemed. Church is what saved me. Preaching is what saved me. God forbid I come to church and I no longer have interest in the thing that has kept me alive." The forefathers' contrast: "When I hear the stories about the Brush Arbor meetings and I hear the stories about what our forefathers went through... they may not have had music, but they had anointing. They may not have had talent and likes and money and buildings, but they had a prayer life. They had a hunger. They had a desire... God forbid we ever let the blessing of God become the thing that causes us to stop reaching. I know you're blessed today, but are you still hungry?" And the settled law of his own life: "As long as I am content to live without revival, I will. As long as I'm content to walk out of this house without a breakthrough, that's exactly what's going to happen for me."

Make room

Inside every person "there is a void that can only be filled by a relationship with God... He is water when I'm thirsty. He is bread when I'm hungry. He is my peace. He is my joy." Careers and kingdoms have their place but not first place: "We're still pilgrims... This world is not my home. I'm just passing through." He quotes the treasure saying without a citation — "Lay not up for yourself treasures... on earth, but lay up for yourself treasures in heaven. Thieves can't get to it. Rust can't get to it" — and adds, "When it's all said and done and the world is over, the only thing that's going to last is what you have done for God." Then the vision he received praying late one night at his home church in Georgia: a full service, angels descending with platters "full of the most beautiful food that I had ever seen," walking the aisles through the whole service — "and I'm telling you, not one time did any saint or preacher stop those angels and reach up and get what they needed. I began to pray about it... I felt the Holy Ghost speak to me and simply say this: The reason they did not eat is because they were not hungry. God cannot do things for you that you have not carved out the space in your life to receive... He's either going to be Lord of it all or He's not going to be Lord at all. You've got to make the room." The dinner-party parable follows: invited to the Robinsons' table for filet mignon, "how rude would it be if on the way over there I stopped by Burger King or I stopped by McDonald's and I ate and I ate and I ate until I was sick... 'We've prepared for you.' 'Hey, that's so nice, but we actually already got McDonald's.'... I wonder how many times we come to church and God has prepared custom-made blessings for you... God's had it simmering on the stove, but by the time we get to church, we've already consumed so much garbage in the world that we do not have room to receive the things that God wants to do in your life."

Show God you want Him to move

Belief must act: "It's just like how most of the world views salvation today. Well, I'll just say it. I'll just believe it in my heart and everything's going to be fine. No. If you really believe it, there's going to be some actions." He tells of a close friend from his growing-up years, tormented and sleepless, who had neither prayed, read, nor fasted about it: "It come all over me: you're not as bad as you're saying you are. Because when you really are, you're willing to do anything to get help... It was when you hit rock bottom that you finally turned to God." He points to a man who, mid-preaching the week before, walked to the front and lifted his hands: "He was serious about getting help. Because if he wasn't, he'd have sat in his pew like a lot of us do." Jesus' complaint is quoted — "My word, it had no room in you" — and the nativity retold: the Messiah waited for thousands of years, "and here is his mother going to find him a place to stay. And they go place to place and hotel to hotel. But the Bible says that there was no room... How many places does Jesus go and people just don't have the capacity?" The close is a standing appeal: "God won't do nothing where people are not hungry. He will not force his will on anybody. This could be a life-changing service for you today... The ball is in your court if you would make up your mind, 'I'm going to get something from God today.' I promise he'll meet your need." To the backslider: "You don't have to keep living that way. God wants you back. God wants to restore you today." And the question that ends the segment as the singers come: "How hungry are you? How bad do you really want help today? How bad do you really want change?"