Longing For Satisfaction
By Alex Nichols
Matthew 5:6
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
In our culture there are a couple things that are of utmost familiarity to each and every one of us. First, what Jesus speaks to in Matthew 5:6, our hunger; a longing for something that in many cases could be food. Second, a sense of wanting to drink and enjoy a beverage - to thirst. Finally, all of us desire true satisfaction. All of us to some degree long to be satisfied and naturally long to be filled. We hunger and so we eat, we thirst, and so we drink, all while trying to be physically satisfied. It makes sense that satisfaction comes after the desire and fulfillment of what we crave. Is it not the hunger and thirst that motivates us to go to the fridge to be satisfied?
The problem is that what comes out of the fridge never satisfies. More time never satisfies, the new book never satisfies, the next hit Marvel movie doesn’t satisfy, summer break, spring break, and “quarantine break” never ever satisfy. Why? Ecclesiastes 3:11 helps us understand the unquenchable longing each of us feel when it says, “…he has put eternity into man’s heart…”. This means that God, our Father, created us as eternal beings with eternal longings, so it makes sense when we consider that we are trying to satisfy an eternal longing with a temporal solution it doesn’t work. It’s like trying to run a marathon after having filled your body with cans of Red Bull. It’ll last only a short while and you’ll be able to run, but afterwards you’re going to need something more substantial to actually be satisfied and finish the race. And like any race, there is a goal. There is something in which our gaze is focused on and that we’re aiming for. In Matthew 5:6, Jesus speaks of the hunger, the thirst, and aim being, “righteousness.”
The first question we must wrestle with and ask ourselves then is, “what is righteousness?” Righteousness is a right standing with God. It means that before God the Father, we stand justified and right. Unfortunately, Paul in the book of Romans makes a few things clear for us. For starters, he concludes (as should we) that no one is righteous. He says in Romans 3:10-12, “None is righteous, no not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” Then again in Romans 3:23, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” This becomes an even greater issue when we consider the implications of not being righteous and falling short of the glory of God. In other words, not being in a right standing with God is a problem because our iniquities or sins separate us from him eternally. Isaiah 59:2 says, “…but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you…”
Our final question then becomes, “Well then, if I’m not righteous and the results are eternal, what hope do I have?” Following the third chapter of Romans, Paul goes on to explain the hope we have, and how it is received. Romans 5:1-2 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” Our hope is in the reality that we are justified and made right because of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is through him that we have been justified, and are in a right standing with God our Father because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Jesus is our only hope, he is our righteousness, and it is, “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8)
So then, where do we go and what do we do in our pursuits (our hunger and thirst) for righteousness and true satisfaction? David speaks to the way of the righteous in Psalm 1 and says, “Blessed is the man who … delights in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.” And then again in Psalm 16:11 declaring, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness recognize that God is our ultimate source of righteousness, so they long for his righteousness and his presence to be in themselves and others, for that is where true satisfaction lies. In the presence of God and his law (his word) we have fullness of joy. The degree in which we understand and are changed by the Biblical reality that only God can satisfy our deepest longings will be the degree in which we are actually satisfied and experience the rest Jesus gives. In his book, Confessions, St. Augustine says, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” This then begs the question that we must consider, “Where do we go for ultimate rest and satisfaction? What do we look to in order to be filled and be in a right standing with God?"
Jesus made us to enjoy and be satisfied in himself, and we will continue to be like hamsters on a wheel working tirelessly for rest and satisfaction, getting nowhere, unless we turn to King Jesus. The pandemic that we are all experiencing has only highlighted and emphasized more of what was already hidden away within each of our hearts; a longing to be satisfied. The only difference now is that we're using different methods such as Zoom, Google Hangouts, and FaceTime to quench our longings (and it’s still not working). We long for the real thing, the face to face encounters, and the hugs we once enjoyed, which is why God our Father sent his one and only son to rescue and redeem us. God our Father was fully aware that we would be a people worshiping and filling our lives with things that would prove themselves to provide nothing. We ultimately need to see the great connection between pursuing righteousness and true satisfaction. Now that we understand that Jesus is our righteousness, and in fact the only one whom is righteous, we must conclude that the only way to be truly and deeply satisfied and experience the joy mentioned in Psalm 16:11 is to know Jesus, pursue Jesus, and experience a relationship with Jesus. After all, we are eternal beings created for the enjoyment and worship of God our Father.