Happy are the Hungry
Contents
Introduction:
Matthew 5:6 1. It is a normal desire to thirst for food and water. I know of a man, would not eat because he was not hungry. He wasted away until he almost died. To have life a person must have eat and take in food to nourish his body.
a. Hunger and thirst are natural desires of our bodies to sustain it. God made us that way. It tells us when to eat and drink.
b. However, hunger and thirst which can not be satisfied is painful. It is the message of a dying body, that it needs food.
2. A normal desire of a man is to be happy. All men have that desire. we all have a God given appetite for happiness and lust after it.
a. The problem is that man tries to satisfy his hunger from the world's foul table. He feeds on garage and polluted things the world has, which do not in truth meet his needs.
b. When in Vietnam, I watched on many occasions little children, men and women digging through garage heaps seeking some small morsel of food. I went to an orphanage, and saw little bodies all wrinkled and leathery. Their enlarged stomachs, and their big round eyes. They were hungry yet had not be fed. I wrote my mother who told her church and they sent canned milk, sugar and baby food. I watched young boys swimming in the polluted Saigon River, I watched them dive into water that was visibly polluted with human waste.
c. But as revolting and pathetic are the scenes they in no way compared to true state of a man without Christ. Of a man hungering to satisfy his natural hunger to know the God who created him, to know who he is himself and why he is on earth. Oh, that the lost of the world could see themselves as they truly are.
See themselves as God sees them. In truth starving, wrinkled, drawn hollow shells feeding on garage, things that offer no lasting satisfaction, eating with a passion - and yet never finding truth satisfaction to their spiritual hunger. Lets us look this morning at a women needed to be fed with the truth. This woman had tasted all the world's food but was left empty. A this woman left her home to go and draw water I am sure she never dreamed on this day she would receive spiritual water that would change her life and that she would never spiritually thirst again.
I. The Woman at the Well. John 4:1-26
A. Look first at the Woman to whom Jesus spoke.
1. She was seeking happiness in the manner of the world. She was living a gay life, she had had five husbands. v17-18 It reminds us of today, people get married because they are in love.They pledge vows till death do us part and then divorce when their spouse doesn't satisfy them any longer. Adultery is a part of this worlds seeking pleasure and satisfaction.
2. She had religion also and a faith. V25. She said she knew the Messiah would come. She believed this much of the Scriptures.It was not a saving faith, but a knowledge of national tradition. She was a half- Arab/Jew as Samarian. Her heritage passed down through generation taught her of the Messiah. She knew too her fathers worshiped on the mountain, but the Jews said the place of worship was in Jerusalem.
3. So she was like all men and women in that she lived her life for pleasure. She did not seem to be too concerned with her eternal soul being satisfied with a religion of tradition instead of what the Bible teaches. Her religion was that of her ancestors. Her religion, also taught that adultery was wrong. It had morals and principles, but they had little effect on the way she lived.
B. Lets look at who she met.
1. She met Jesus, the Son of God, and in V26 He emphatically states, He is the Messiah!
2. She was so privileged!
She had the opportunity to hear the truth! She was addressed by God, and he offered her "living water."
C. Did you know that even this morning almost the same thing is happening?
1. The Truth of God's word goes out to men and women who are doing what is natural to them. They are seeking happiness and pleasure. Seeking peace. Seeking to satisfy their need to know and be fed by a loving and caring God.
2. Yet, like this woman, many seek it in the not where it can be found, but from a polluted world corrupted by sin.
3. Many too, may have religion. Religion that is not too demanding on them. Religion that is comfortable and can be lived with.
The world has much of that. It comes in all shades, sizes and to meet any taste. Want to be a God, become a Mormon. Want to sin and have forgiveness the next morning, join the Catholic church and go to mass. Afraid of Hell, join the JW's, Christian Science. Want to go to heaven and ignore Christ, the Church and the Gospel, become a Mason. (A man I witnessed to for several years recently died without a care in the world for his soul, he will be buried by his lodge brothers and go to the great celestial lodge in the sky. Each time I tried to witness to him he would show me his Masonic ring.) Don't want to make a public profession of faith in Christ as the Bible says, and be baptised as Christ commanded.
That's OK, become a Protestant. They will baptise you as a little baby into the church, confirm you at 12 and you're in. Folks that is the raw truth.! It is not pleasant to talk about, or to look upon, or even to preach, but it is reality! In is seeing things as God sees it. It makes the Scripture which says our righteousness is as but filthy rags, take on a more enlightened meaning.
3. Jesus offers us living water, and food that fills the soul.
A. John. 4:10,13-14, Jesus said if you drink of the water he gives you will never thirst again.
That's why the cults are not having Saved people join them. Baptist are the LDS church's greatest converts. But not saved, born again Baptists who have drunk from the well of living water that satisfies the soul for eternity.
B. John 4:31, Jesus' disciples offered him food, and he replied, "I have food to eat of which you do not know." He said the food He had was to do the will of His Father.
C. Down through the ages Men/women/boys/girls have gone to the well of living water. Water that satisfies the soul. Jesus said the water he gives, V14, will become a fountain of living water springing up into everlasting life.
D. The woman immediately ask Christ, "Give me this water that
I may not thirst, not come here to draw." You see, she looked at God offer, in a material sense. She at this point could not see what was being offered. Her spiritual eyes were blinded by sin. Jesus went straight to the heart of the matter. He brought the fact she was a sinner into the forefront. "Go call your husband, to come here" said Jesus.
READ v17--18.Did, Jesus in bringing out in the open the fact of her sinfulness, do it to ridicule or belittle her??? It is very obvious His intent was to get her to start thinking of spiritual things. She did too! She said, Sir you must be a prophet. You see she was then turned toward reality, and truth. She began to thinks of God and what see knew of Him. He did not (V22), condone her in her false religious beliefs. He stated the she worshiped in vain, and that Salvation was in truth that salvation was of the Jews. They had the truth, she did not. V23 Jesus said, "those who truly worship in spirit and truth."
The two are inseparable. So many ask me whether this group or another will be saved! God has answered the question, not I.One must worship God in spirit. That means ritual and ceremony are not included. All false religion has great pomp and ceremony. But Jesus said the we worship God with our hearts.
A heart that loves God, will love and honour Him always. Not just in a ceremony on Sunday morning. And one cannot worship without truth. Many as the woman at the well have religion, but not God's truth. They worship in religious systems man has dreamed up. Not God, Not truth. Folks God is Truth, to worship Him you must worship truth, not lies.
Conclusion:
1. This morning the matter can be settled for eternity. How this morning are you seeking to satisfy the deep desires of your heart. From the world's garage heap? Eating more and more yet never satisfied! From Satan's table of false religion. Perverting the truth by ceremony, ritual, offering false hope False Christ's, False conversions, false baptisms, false teaching, false preachers.
2. Jesus said, those that hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled! Jesus offers living water, food that satisfies. Would you accept it freely offered, free given.
3. How can you have it? Now! - where you are ask for it...repent of your sin and ask God to save you.