According To Luke: Hungry?

According To Luke: Hungry?

Opening Illustration:

Have you ever been hungry? I mean really hungry? Do we even know what hungry looks like? I dare say that most of us have never felt real hunger. Perhaps we have felt hunger pains, but never real long lasting hunger. It is easy for us to feel hungry and immediately meet that need. Even the homeless in America can generally find 2-3 squares a day to eat. I cannot tell you how many times in the 7 and a half years I have served here as pastor that our staff members or myself have gone to Publix or Wal-Mart to purchase food for hungry people. Food is pretty easy to come by here. 

However, when you leave America, hunger is easily found. I have been to Haiti and China. I have seen what real hunger looks like in those places. I have have seen starving children up close and it is a heart breaking thing to witness. When people realize that we adopted a son from China, the question that follows that realization is why. Why did you adopt from there? There are lots of spiritual answers to that question but what first got me traveling down the road of adoption was seeing a small Chinese child in Yantai, China in the gutter of a street. He was drinking water from the gutter and appeared to be starving to death. It was in that image that God implanted the idea of bringing home a child that might not be able to eat. 

When we first met Jett in China, I saw hunger. Jett had never had a solid meal even though he had a full set of teeth. When we first met Jett, the first thing we did was feed him. 

My wife told me in preparation for this sermon that Jett’s favorite place was and still is the pantry. 

Physical hunger is one thing, spiritual hunger is a different matter. It is not hard to think of a starving child and how sad that image is, but whats worse is spiritual hunger. It is not as easily seen but it is more tragic. Possessing a spiritual hunger, a hunger for spiritual fulfillment and forgiveness and never having that need filled is just awful. 

Everyone is hungry. Everyone is spiritually starving if they do not know Jesus. If you do not know Jesus, you’re spirit looks like an emaciated child, skin and bones. You might thinking that is graphic but Scripture tells us that without Christ that we are really just a dead rotting corpse. Without Jesus we are starving, dying from the inside out, hungry, and in need of healing. 

Quote: 

“No matter how much we try to run away from this thirst for the answer to to life, the meaning of life, the intensity only gets stronger and stronger. We cannot escape these spiritual hungers.”

Ravi Zacharias 

Brothers and sisters, there is a spiritual hunger in the world today and it cannot be satisfied by better cars on longer credit terms. Our spiritual hunger can only be met in the person of Jesus Christ. 

So, answer me this question today…

Are You Famished or Full?

Background

Today we continue with looking at the beatitudes of Jesus. A beatitude is really just a blessing. In each case, Jesus attaches a blessing to a negative circumstance in life. You are blessed if you are poor. You are blessed if you are hungry. You are blessed if you weep. Jesus was speaking to broken, beaten people. There was not much about their life that anyone would describe as being blessed. They were oppressed by a foreign government. They were frustrated by a dead and lifeless religion. They were discouraged with sickness and illness. They were unable to give assurances to their children that they would be fed that day. These were hard times for sure. 

However, Jesus encourages the people. He blesses them in their hard circumstances and provides for them truth. So, let’s take a moment to read the second of the beatitudes. 

Luke 6:21 ESV

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.

3 Lessons From Hunger!

I. Hungry For Food vs. 21

Luke 6:21 ESV

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.

Intro Snickers Commercial

Illustration: Snickers Satisfies 

The tag line of the commercial is “you’re not you when you’re hungry, Snicker’s satisfies.” So, the answer to my hunger is a candy bar. Oh how I wish that were true. Sadly, Snickers is not the answer to physical hunger. While it might satisfy for a moment, you will want more than a Snickers bar. Snickers certainly does not satisfy spiritual hunger either. 

Point:

There are lots of themes in the Bible. Certainly Jesus would be the chief theme of the entire work of Scripture. Yet, if you take a closer look, you will see lots of other themes. One of these themes is hunger. Hunger is everywhere in the Bible. Food, the lack of food rather, is everywhere. It is in the Old and New Testament. It seems that everyone is starving in the Bible. Go back to the very beginning. One of the great punishments that Adam and Eve were to suffer is that the earth would be hard to farm. What was once easy for them will now work against them. Adam and Eve were going to have to work and work hard in order not to starve. We see that hunger drives people to do silly crazy things. Esau traded his birthright to Jacob away because he was hungry. It was hunger that drove Joseph’s brothers to Egypt to find food. When the Israelites had been freed from Egyptian oppression, they are fed in the desert manna and quail because they were…you guessed it…hungry. Remember the time that David was hungry and ate the Holy bread, the consecrated bread. Even Elijah was hungry and asked the widow woman for some bread. 

Then we come to the New Testament and it appears that everyone, and I mean everyone, was in some level of starvation. 

Jesus starved in the desert. 

Remember when Jesus was teaching on the hillside and thousands of people showed up? Peter and the disciples were worried about those listening that they would have nothing to eat so Jesus prayed and multiple food and fed every one of them. He did that little gem twice. Awesome. 

Jesus even tells the parable about Lazarus and Rich Man. While alive, Lazarus was starving and eventually died. The rich man could have helped but no, he had his fill. Then he died. Jesus portrays heaven as a place of fulfillment and unending supply and hell as a place of hunger and want. Better to starve here and now then starve in hell. 

James has plenty to say about hunger. 

James 2:14-17 ESV

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

What about Acts 6. The disciples are hearing complaints that widows are not being provided for and are not being allowed their daily need of bread. Literally, there were widows in the church who were starving and the disciples figure out a system to meet the needs. We call that system being a deacon today. 

Point:

Let’s bring this point home. Hunger is real and hunger is brutal. The Greek word that Jesus is using is πένης and is pronounced pie-now. It means to suffer want, to be needy, and to crave. Jesus is talking about real hunger here. Physical hunger and spiritual hunger. In the case of Christ, He meets both needs. Jesus met their physical hunger pains and more importantly would meet their spiritual hunger pains. One of the reasons that Jesus created the church was to meet the physical hunger of people so that their spiritual hunger could be filled. That’s why when there is a disaster in the United States, some of the first people on the scene are Baptists with their food trailers. We come in to meet the physical need in hopes that we can see Jesus meet the spiritual need. 

Jesus reminds us that physical bread is never enough. He reminds us that the ultimate answer to our hunger is Him. 

John 6:32-35 NLT

32 Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. 33 The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 “Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.”

35 Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 

Jesus does not just want to fill our spirits, He also comes to quench our spiritual thirst. 

John 7:37 NLT

37 On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! 38 Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”

Point:

Jesus understood that these people’s greatest need was not for physical food, rather spiritual food. Jesus was the answer to that need. 

Point:

Jesus tells the crowd that they are blessed if they hunger. How can this be? Friends spiritual hunger will eventually point someone to Jesus. Being pointed to Jesus does not mean that they will eat of Jesus. That is free will for you. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. The same is true for us. Scripture tells us that our hunger can be filled by Jesus and only Jesus. However, we can say that we know better and try to fill that hunger elsewhere. 

Remember what Jesus tells us in Matthew 4:4…

Matthew 4:4 ESV

But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

3 Lessons From Hunger!

I. Hungry For Food vs. 21

II. Hungry For Freedom vs. 21

Luke 6:21 ESV

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.

Point:

I have long been a student of history and one of the more interesting figures in American history was Fredrick Douglass. Douglass was born on a plantation in Eastern Maryland in 1817 or 1818 – he did not know his birthday, much less have a long-form birth certificate – to a black mother (from whom he was separated as a boy) and a white father (whom he never knew and who was likely the "master" of the house). Of course Douglass ran away to New York were he found education and became a famed speaker and abolitionist. In a book that I read several years ago, My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass wrote that Hunger was his boyhood companion. He was always hungry and his slave owners used hunger as a weapon against him and those where also enslaved. Not only was he a slave to his master, but he was also a slave to his hunger. 

Quote:

"I have often been so pinched with hunger, that I have fought with the dog – 'Old Nep' – for the smallest crumbs that fell from the kitchen table, and have been glad when I won a single crumb in the combat.”

"Many times have I followed, with eager step, the waiting-girl when she went out to shake the table cloth, to get the crumbs and small bones flung out for the cats."

Point:

Douglass gives an interesting picture of what it means to be a slave to hunger, not just to a white master. When we are hungry, we are consumed with filling that need. Be reminded of the prodigal son who leaves his home and chases after worldly things. He loses everything and signs on to help with a pig farmer. The boy begins to starve to the point that he begins to eat the food of the unclean pigs. 

Being a slave to hunger, want, and craving, means that we do not have freedom. Like Fredrick Douglass, hunger becomes our master. 

While we may not have physical hunger pains that Douglass had in those days, we are still a hungry people. We hunger for fame. We hunger for self admiration and narcissism. 

Hold on let me take a selfie!

We hunger for material possessions. We hunger for money, power, adulation, praise, love, and relationships. We hunger for alcohol, for meds, for cigarettes, for drugs, for pleasure. 

This hunger never seems to go away and while we are able to fill it temporarily, it always seems to come back and knock on our door. 

Message From John Piper:

We were designed for more than the trivial pursuit of pleasure. The hard truth is that we will never find relief if we continue to seek it through possessions or through people. Seeking satisfaction in the things of this world is like chasing the wind. Once you’re finally exhausted and weary from your pursuit, you’re left empty-handed and disappointed. You’ve wasted valuable time chasing nothing when you could have been pursuing true joy and peace.

The problem is our hearts are black holes of discontentment, devouring relationships and possessions, all while screaming, “I need more.” We’re always eating, but famished. Always drinking, but never satisfied.

Point:

The people of Jesus’ day were starving. They were physically and spiritually starving and there was seemingly no answer. They were not free. They were slaves to their hunger. However, Jesus brings them the answer. In Jesus, if you are hungry, you will be filled. He will give you freedom. Like Douglass ran away to freedom in New York, you can run to Jesus today to find ultimate freedom from our worldly master. 

John 8:36 ESV

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Point:

So ask yourselves this morning, in what area of my life am I a slave to hunger?

How have you made a worldly hunger your master?

God has not set you free through the blood of Jesus so that you can live as a slave to the world. Hardly, Jesus has set you free, so be free. Jesus wants to fill your hunger, so be fed. 

Remember Paul’s words in Galatians 5:1…

Galatians 5:1 ESV

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

3 Lessons From Hunger!

I. Hungry For Food vs. 21

II. Hungry For Freedom vs. 21

III. Hungry For A Father vs. 21

Luke 6:21 ESV

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.

Point:

Do you know what “Ceasar” means? The word was first used about 2 centuries before Christ’s birth. It is Roman in origin. Over the years it has been taken to different cultures and pronounced different ways. In German, it was known as Kaiser and in Russian it was pronounced Czar. Caesar is a powerful name with many meanings. It means King. It means Ruler. It means Lord. It means Savior. It also means Father. 

Caesar would often chid his oppressed by calling them their King or their Father. This was insulting you can imagine to the Jews. 

This is why when they wrote over Jesus’ head “King of the Jews” that Jews and Romans both took offense. For the Romans, Caesar was the King of of the Jews. For the Jews, they did not regard Jesus as a King of anything. 

Caesar was no good Father. He was most certainly not a very good King for the Jews. The Jews were punished brutally. They were taxed enormously. They were starved, under educated, and slaves. 

Those that Jesus was speaking to were hungry for more than food, more than freedom, they were starving for change. They were starving for a different Father. Someone who actually cared for them. They were hungry for a King, a good King, a loving Savior. 

Point:

Jesus tells them that if they are hungry, they will be satisfied. The Greek word being used here means that Jesus will fill them, satisfy them or satisfy their desires. 

Jesus is telling them quite literally, everything you need is in me. I can give you everything you desire. 

I will fill your life and make you whole.

That is quite a promise isn’t it. Here is the great news, the promise still holds true today. 

He is enough. He will fill your hunger. He will make you free. No longer a slave. He will set you free. He will be your Father, your brother, your redeemer.  

Jesus is enough.

Let’s say that today! Jesus is enough! 

More than we need. 

Philippians 4:19 ESV

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Point:

Today’s prayer will come in the form of a video. The video is from Matt Chandler. He is one of my favorite preachers, teachers and speakers. I want you to listen to his words this morning and ask yourself this question, “Is Jesus enough for me”. 

Remember, Jesus Is Enough!