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Most of us have never gone without a meal, yet Jesus in Matthew 5:6 calls us to feel that ravenous, stomach-aching hunger—not for food, but for righteousness. Do we feel that craving?
The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.
So is anyone hungry right now? Anyone hungry? Yeah, I’m kind of hungry. Yeah, it’s around dinnertime, and if you didn’t eat prior to coming here, you might be hungry, and so I’m going to help by talking about food for a little bit. That will help, right? We can talk about food.
And in particular, I was thinking back, generally speaking, I haven’t had a lot of reason in my life to be really hungry. I mean, hungry enough to eat a meal, but I’ve never gone without a meal. You know, I’ve never been wanting for food, so not that kind of hunger. But it did make me think back to when my family would travel to the Ozarks when I was little, and I would be looking forward for weeks towards what we were going to eat when we got there. And we’d stay at this little place on Table Rock Lake, and they had wonderful fried chicken, and I’d be thinking about that fried chicken. I could taste that fried chicken. I knew it was coming.
And so even though we’d eat a really nice lunch on the way down, by the time we pulled into the resort and we were still a couple hours away from dinner, my stomach was almost, it was just hurting. I was so hungry. I was ready to eat. I was ravenous. And then you get to the restaurant, and you’d walk in, and of course, they’d pull out the menus, and they’d take you to the table, and then you wait so you can order because you’re still not being fed. You’re getting hungrier and hungrier. You hope that maybe there’s some breadsticks on the table or something, because, I mean, I’m just starving, right? And finally, finally something comes, whether it’s the bread or the salad or finally that chicken I was anticipating, and finally that hunger was going to be quenched.
Or we kind of rushed into summer here. It feels like summer, except today’s a little bit more like spring, but it felt like summer this week, and you’re out on a really hot day, and you’re just so thirsty. Oh, I’m so thirsty. I just want something to drink, right? We know what it’s like, maybe not to the extreme extent, thankfully, that some people go through, but we can at least picture what it’s like to be hungry and thirsty, and praise God if we’re never going beyond just those mild examples of that.
But we know what it’s like to be hungry, and what Jesus is challenging the audience of the Sermon on the Mount to, because they would know it even better, more than likely than we do, not to think about that, but to think about it about something other than food and drink. He’s challenging us to think about that, too, to take that most hungry feeling we’ve ever felt and think about it for something else, righteousness.
In some sense, this next beatitude we’re going to look at, and we’re actually going to skip one beatitude for the moment, not because there’s anything secret or bad or mysterious about that beatitude, but we’re going to have a guest preacher that you’ve gotten to know over the last few years on the Psalm series and other This Week at Little Hills series. Jason, he’s going to be sharing in a couple of weeks, a few weeks, and so we’re hanging on to that one. He’s preparing a wonderful message about blessed are the meek, but today we’re going to look at those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and that we find in verse 6.
So let’s go ahead and take a look at verse 6, where we read this.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Let’s pray that tonight we would know what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness, and as we do, we also know what it means to be satisfied in the provision that God provides. Let’s pray.
Lord, as we come to you tonight, there are times that we get so distracted that we aren’t really occupied with being hungry and thirsty for righteousness. And then there are times that we’re just feeling like we’re dying, yearning for that righteousness, and yet it seems so far away. So Lord, as we come tonight, would you apply the truth of your word to our hearts and help us to see where we turn, where we experience that righteousness, and how you satisfy those cravings in us. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
So Jesus is challenging us here with two things. He’s challenging us to be thinking about hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and he’s challenging those listening: are you expecting to be hungry and thirsty? Are you so craving the sweet fragrance, the aroma of God’s righteousness that you’re starving right now?
The more I think about food, the hungrier I can make myself. But do I do that with God’s righteousness? We think about a Thanksgiving dinner, and we think about it, and we think about it, and we think about it, and we’re so hungry by the time we have it. Do I do the same with God’s righteousness? I’m thinking about it, and thinking about it, and thinking about it, so that I just need God’s righteousness right now. I can’t go another minute without God’s righteousness.
But then there’s another question that we need to ask, and this is fleshed out in the rest of the gospel. It’s fleshed out in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. It’s fleshed out in the rest of God’s word, which is, what is that righteousness? Here’s the other thing that can be a challenge, and this can be a challenge sometimes, for example, if you’re going to join some friends out to eat, and you plan to go, and you’ve been looking forward to, you’re all going to meet at a pizza place, right? And so you’re going to go to this pizza place, and you’re craving that. You know which pizza you want to order. You can imagine it coming out steaming, the steam coming off the pizza. You know exactly what you’re going to do when you walk into that place.
But there’s a brand new Chinese restaurant next door, and you walk up to the pizza place, and your friends are waiting for you, and say, hey, we haven’t been to this Chinese restaurant yet. How about we go there instead? Now, I like pizza. I love pizza. I love Chinese. I love them both, but if I’ve been thinking about that pizza all day, looking forward to it, the last thing I want to do is have Chinese, not because I don’t like it, but because I have set my hunger, and it has a straight course right to that pizza.
Sometimes we think about righteousness, but we’ve tuned our hunger not to the same place that God has called us to. And so even though we’re hungering for righteousness, we’re not actually hungering for God’s righteousness.
And so as we think about what Jesus is saying here, we need to actually think about what we find in Scripture. What is righteousness? What does it look like to actually hunger for God’s righteousness?
First thing I think we need to recognize here is that we are to hunger for the kingdom of God that is near. What does that mean? What do I mean by that? What does it mean that God’s kingdom is near? This is something that Jesus explores throughout his ministry as he helps people to start to understand what God is doing. He wants them to understand that the kingdom of God isn’t just a concept. It isn’t just something we talk about. It’s something that we do, that we are sent to go be the kingdom.
When we gather as a church, here at Little Hills Church, we’re gathering as a church, and when we think about those whom God is gathering, what are we called to do? We’re called to represent that kingdom to the world. What does that mean? Well, we can put some signs, and we’re doing that. We can run some advertising. Hey, come to Little Hills Church. We’re doing that. But it means more than that. It means more than just advertising, hey, we’re a church. We’re here.
It means more than posting the memes on our social media that say, I read the Scriptures. And I’m not saying it’s bad to share Scriptures on social media. It’s so much better than a lot of things that do get shared on social media. So it’s wonderful. But it’s more than that. It’s actually caring about the people around us in the world and showing what living in God’s kingdom looks like.
You see, when we look through the Gospel of Matthew and we look at this word that’s being used to say righteousness here, it’s always used in one particular way. Now, theologically, we know that we receive Jesus’ righteousness in our lives, and by grace alone we’re saved. And we want to read this and think, okay, hunger and thirst for righteousness, that means salvation. It does mean that. But in Matthew’s Gospel, he presents the different pictures we see of Jesus’ ministry throughout that ministry, that snapshot of Jesus’ ministry.
We always see this particular word used to refer to those who do righteous things. So as we look at this, it would seem quite clear Jesus isn’t talking merely about, hey, you’re going to receive my righteousness. That’s a true statement, but what is he saying here? He’s saying hunger and thirst for doing righteousness. Called to show the kingdom of God to the world, to be those who are righteous and just, don’t play by the rules of the world. We can do quite well in this world by playing by the rules of the world. We may actually, maybe not even may, we will do better in some worldly sense by playing by the rules of the world.
But Jesus says don’t play by those rules. Do justice, do righteousness.
You see, when we lock down this word, and we rightly want to protect the fact that we can’t do anything to earn salvation, and that is so important that we do because we talked about during the confession time, we want to cling to somehow that we’re going to do enough righteousness that God’s going to forgive us. And that’s a hopeless cause. It’s a cause that leads to death.
But sometimes we go the opposite direction, and we forget we’re so focused on the future that Jesus saves me, and I’m going to be in his kingdom someday, that we forget that we’re actually those called to bring the kingdom into the world today.
James, in his epistle, writes, chapter 2, verse 15 and 16, he says, if a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 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?
He’s reminding us of something that seems really pretty straightforward when we think about it, but yet we seem to sometimes struggle with it, which is that, yes, we should be preaching about salvation. Absolutely, that’s where our hope is grounded. But then Jesus calls his saved people, people who have received that righteousness that we can never earn, to go and actually care about daily righteous deeds, to care about the needs of people around us.
James knows that there were people who would over-spiritualize things. And so what do you do if someone’s shivering and cold? You say, be warm. Experience the Holy Spirit. Be warmed by the Holy Spirit. You’ll be on fire for the Lord. Everything will be great. You might freeze to death.
Sometimes we forget that the kingdom of God is near, and that we’re actually on the borders of it, carrying it forth into the world. But when we remember that, then we think, well, this thing that’s right before me, this person is being treated unjustly. This person is in a horrible spot, and I have means to help. This person needs someone to listen at this moment.
We realize, well, wait a second here. I don’t say, well, someday in God’s kingdom, someone’s going to take care of that unjust situation. Someone’s going to help this person out. Someone’s going to listen to this person. I say, well, if I’m representing God’s kingdom, God’s placed me here so I can do those things. He’s placed you here so you can do those things. He’s called us to do those things.
That’s what we see over and over and over again. If we go through and we start just going through the prophets over and over again, if we look through the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, if we look through the law, what do we see over and over again? We see that God is concerned with those who are downtrodden, those who are suffering, those who are mourning, over and over and over again.
We could just flip through any of the prophets. We’d find that over and over again. Yet we sometimes struggle, especially when things are going pretty well for us, to remember that. We care about those who are being mistreated.
And the challenge for each of us is to say, where in this near kingdom, this kingdom that’s here right now, we can feel it because God’s people are being assembled together. Where in this can I help do justice? Where in this can I help do righteousness? Not because I’m so righteous, but because I serve a righteous God.
And so I can say to those waves of the world, world, I don’t have any need for the way that you do things. I’m going to do things the way that God does things.
Where do we find that? But it’s hard, because the world doesn’t operate that way. So how do we feel confident enough to do it when we live in a world that doesn’t act righteously? And even when it does, it’s hungering for the wrong kinds of righteousness.
We hear lots about righteousness and justice in this world, but when we actually look at it in the context of God’s word, it’s almost always distorted. It’s like looking forward to that fried chicken and getting it that’s been sitting out for six or eight hours, and you know it’s going to be a very unpleasant experience if you eat it.
We think that we’re feeding that hunger that we have, and yet we’re going to get food poisoning. It’s going to lead us actually in the opposite direction of where we want to go, because we’re going to be really hungry after that, and we’re going to be miserable.
When we look at God’s righteousness, we’re fed. When we look at his love, and his love is the source of the strength that we get to do this.
Psalm 106, verse 1: Praise the Lord, O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Who can utter the mighty deeds of the Lord or declare all his praise? Blessed are they who observe justice and who do righteousness at all times.
Notice something there. Notice how that psalm progresses. We’re called to do righteousness and justice, but first we recognize that God’s steadfast love endures forever, because if we’re trying to do justice and righteousness on our own, we’re going to be running right towards that food that is tainted with bacteria. We’re going to be miserable. We’re going to think we’re quenching that need, that hunger and thirst for righteousness, but what we’re going to ultimately be doing is killing our bodies, killing our souls, because we’re trying to do it on our own.
But on the other hand, if we turn to God’s Word and we page through it and we see here’s what God’s heart looks like, and that’s what we’re hungering for, something different happens. It points to the true answer to thirst, because we’re seeing that thirst in the context of our good God and His good love.
Take a look at Isaiah 55 verse 1. The prophet says, come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money come by and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me, hear that your soul may live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant. My steadfast, sure love for David.
Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you because of the Lord your God and of the Holy One of Israel, for He has glorified you.
Isaiah is writing this as part of the set of prophecies that he gives to comfort the people of Israel when they’ve been exiled to Babylon. They’re going to be taken away from the land because they haven’t valued the Lord, they haven’t valued righteousness and justice, they haven’t valued what it means to be God’s people, and so they’re exiled.
But in his steadfast love, God goes to them in their exile even before they actually experience it. He’s already providing the message for them when they get there. He says, when you get there, turn to me. Be fed by me. Because here’s the thing that he realizes, and here’s the challenge, ironically, when we start to focus on how we do some of these things.
We fall right back into the world. You see, these people were maybe going to go through a shock treatment. They were going to go through a shock treatment. They were going to be exiled. Can you imagine being drug away from your home, drug to some foreign land as a prisoner, and then starting over there? I can’t even imagine. But they were going to go through that, and when they did, instead of going and racing towards God’s word and what he called them to do, what were they going to do? They were going to start becoming satisfied in the ways of Babylon. They were going to look at what they could have in Babylon and think, you know, this isn’t so bad.
Sound familiar? We do that too. I do that. We become satisfied with, well, this is how we do things in this world.
What does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? It means to go to what truly satisfies, not to be laboring and pouring ourselves into things that ultimately won’t satisfy and ultimately won’t bring true righteousness. We need to know exactly what we’re looking for.
It seems like over the last couple of years, maybe a couple of years, somewhere in there, I’ve heard a lot more about people trying to see the International Space Station go across the sky. It’s really neat. Has anyone had a chance to do that? It’s so neat to actually see the ISS going across the sky.
But I’m a lousy astronomer. I don’t know where anything is up there. You know, there’s all these stars I should know, and I have to pull out my app, and I pull out my star chart app, and you have to kind of move it around a little bit, get the gyroscope going, and then hopefully, hopefully, you know, I look for something I know really well. I look for the moon. Otherwise, I’m in trouble. So I look for the moon. I usually get that one right. I look for the moon, and I get it aligned onto there, and then I know, okay, I can look.
But if you’ve ever gone to look at that, or you’ve gone to look at a meteor shower or anything like that, if you ever had that experience, you start looking around, and you think, ah, there it is. I see it there. Oh, boy. Wait. The light’s blinking. It’s moving. It’s not moving the way it’s supposed to be. I think that’s a plane.
I don’t know what I’m looking for, and I kind of know what I’m looking for. I’ve done it several times now, and I still end up looking at the wrong things.
And we do that with righteousness, too, where we kind of know what we’re looking for. We’re looking up in the sky. We know it’s supposed to be a little light that’s going to be showing up up there, and maybe we’re even pulling out our phones and looking at the news and trying to line our gyroscopes through the news and whatever people that we respect that happen to have soapboxes happen to say, and we’re kind of getting close. We’re charging towards what we think is righteousness, and yet in that, we realize after a while it’s not moving in the right direction. There’s lights blinking on the wings. It’s a plane.
We need to understand that as we’re called to do righteousness, that it’s grounded in that salvation we were talking about.
Isaiah, in the next chapter, chapter 56, verse 1, says, “Thus says the Lord, keep justice and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness will be revealed.”
Notice what God says to his people in exile. You should be living and acting as those who care about the things I care about. Why? Because I’m going to save all of you. I’m going to bring my kingdom forward. Don’t do it just because you’re powerful. Don’t do it because you’re so wise. Don’t do it because the world’s going to praise you for it. Do it because my salvation is coming.
And we see time and time again that’s the reason.
And so even as we remind ourselves, wait, I should be thirsting for that kingdom that is near, I also need to remember that hunger and righteousness, we need to be thirsting for the kingdom that is coming, too.
Later on in the gospel of Matthew, we find this fascinating scene. Jesus goes to see some of his friends, and Mary comes up to him. Mary and Martha, we remember them. Mary comes and breaks this expensive ointment and pours it over Jesus.
And we’re told in Matthew 26, verse 8, when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.”
But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. And pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”
It’s hard being in this tension that God pulls us into. We try in our human way to somehow lean one way or another so we don’t have so much tension.
We say, okay, I need to recognize I need to do righteousness and justice in this world. And we start charging towards that, I’m going to take care of the poor. And then all it’s about, I’m going to do lots of good works, I’m going to do things, I’m going to make this world a better place, and we forget, but it’s grounded in God’s salvation.
You see the disciples as they’re grumbling here, they see this thing, they see this expensive, expensive fragrance being poured on Jesus, and they say, “Wow. We just did a can drive here. Imagine how many canned goods you could buy at Aldi with that. You could sell it, you could put it on eBay, Jesus, and it’s going to sell for a ton of money. And we could go and we could get a truckload of cans, we could feed those poor until they just couldn’t take a single another green bean.”
But Jesus says to them, “I’m going to make you a point.”
You see, what Mary saw was that, yes, she should go and live as part of the kingdom, but she should also not lose her sight on focusing on worshipping Jesus. Worshipping God. And she takes this thing that she has, this precious thing, and she pours it on him, recognizing, maybe in spite of herself, she didn’t understand exactly how this whole crucifixion and resurrection thing was going to happen.
It didn’t make sense to any of the people following at the time. They were scratching their heads. Jesus talks about dying for the people? I don’t know what he means. She may not have understood it fully yet, just like the others, and yet somehow she knew in her soul that she should give this gift to Jesus as an act of praise.
So at best we see the disciples, and we’re told the disciples in general are grumbling about this, at best we see these disciples thinking, well Jesus, you’ve been talking about how we should care for the poor, how we should do righteousness and seek justice, we should be doing these things, and now you’re just taking this expensive thing and it’s just extravagance, Jesus, we don’t understand.
But here’s another ugly truth that we run into when we start to dig into that. When we start to see those places where we’re grasping onto that kingdom near and we’re losing sight of the kingdom that is far, we’re often doing it not because we’re so tied up in wanting to bring righteousness into the world, but we’re wanting to benefit ourselves in some way.
And that’s what we see in John chapter 12 where we get this insight. You see, Judas is the one that brings the concern of the disciples to Jesus, and we’re told here, John tells us what Judas was thinking, he said this because he cared, not because he cared about power, but because he was a thief. And having charge of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put in it.
You see, Judas isn’t looking at this and thinking, “Ah, we could have helped so many people, Jesus.” That’s what he’s saying, but what he’s thinking is, if all that money had gone into the money bag, I could have been doing really quite well, Jesus. You’re taking the money away! I can’t steal the money that you don’t put in the money bag.
Sometimes we’re not so overt, we’re not actually stealing money, but why are we seeking to do near-term righteousness, righteousness in this world? What’s driving us? Is it so that more people know about a God who can save them? A God who calls them into his presence? Or are we doing it so that people say, oh, isn’t that nice? You’re such a dedicated person. You’re so passionate about caring for people who are suffering. Aren’t you wonderful?
See, oftentimes what we’re stealing, we’re not stealing actual money, we’re stealing God’s glory. We’re drawing the praise to ourselves rather than to God.
That’s been one of the challenges over and over again in this world, is when we try as the body to go and do righteousness and justice, is that we start out on the right course, but then we say, oh, I could take a little of that. And we take that money bag and we start pulling a little bit out and putting it on our own shoulders. You know, a little bit of gold decoration there, we’ll look pretty good here.
And so this is a constant challenge as we think of hungering and thirsting for righteousness. We have to hold these two things. We have to recognize both the near kingdom that here we are, we’re carrying it forward, the battle is right here in this moment, and also that the battle is for what God is ultimately doing. The salvation we find in him.
I remember back in college, I was in a religion in America history class and my professor was talking about the movement to bring about the abolition of slavery. And it’s fascinating how the American church was so engaged in that. It’s a wonderful thing it was so engaged in that. It said, we represent the kingdom of God and this is a horrible evil, we have to stand against it, we have to do something to stop it. And you look at those who were trying to pass legislation, those who fought with their own lives to stop it. You look at the underground railroad, you look at all these things and what do you see? You see a church saying, if we’re going to stand for God’s righteousness and we’re going to tell people about the God who saves them, we also need to actually save them physically if we have the opportunity.
But here’s the discouraging thing. This is a beautiful story, I don’t want to take anything away from it, but here’s the discouraging thing. If you look at church history after that in the United States, the church split a bunch of times, unfortunately that happens, but it split and it kind of ended up formulating into two general separate mindsets.
And one of those mindsets said, yes, yes, we need to go and we need to keep fighting these battles, we need to help people who are suffering. But as they did, they forgot about the kingdom that’s coming. They got completely focused on the kingdom that’s near. And as they did that, started reaching into that money bag and pulling it out and saying, and look at how great we are that we’re doing this. Because what’s really important is that we do these things and people see that we’re doing these things and that the world’s a better place and we can all live in this harmony.
Of course it’s unreachable because we’re sinful human beings.
On the other hand, some people said, wait a second, you’re forgetting about the kingdom that has to come. And they wanted to run from that, and that was a great thing. They wanted to run from that self-glory and focusing purely on making the world a better place because they recognize this world, as long as they’re sinful human beings, is never going to be the perfect place.
But as they did that, as they ran away from self-glory in that sense and just focused on somehow trying to change this world, they ran completely to the other side and they said, well, we need to just focus on what’s coming. And they forgot that God actually cares about what’s happening to the people around us right now.
Jesus doesn’t give us either of those options. Because in some sense they both end up glorifying us. If we’re standing over here, we’re saying, look at me, I’m so focused on God, isn’t that great? Be warm if you’re cold. If we run over here, we’re saying, aren’t I great? I’m helping people.
But Jesus challenges us to do righteousness in the moment, constantly fixed on what’s coming.
2 Peter 3. Peter writes, since all these things are thus to be dissolved, the world, the heavens, everything is going to be rebuilt. What sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God? Because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn.
But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells. What kind of people should we be? We should be people that look at that new heavens and new earth right now. We should be doing the things that should happen in that new heavens and new earth right now. Not because we forget about the new heavens and new earth. Not that we forget that we’re waiting for the second coming of Jesus. We’re waiting for Jesus to finally wipe away every tear and make everything right.
But precisely because we remember it. That we’re hungering for the right thing. That in some sense that the church is calling in this moment is to be an appetizer. What do we want an appetizer to do? Well, in its best form, an appetizer should help us with that hunger we’re feeling.
You’re probably saying by now, would you quit talking about food already? I’m feeling that hunger. Well, if we had an appetizer, you’d eat it. You wouldn’t be full. You wouldn’t be quite as hungry. And you’d be looking forward to the meal.
And what we should be as the church is an appetizer to the world showing what God’s kingdom looks like. Those people who are out there starving for righteousness, thirsting for something to be made right, eat of the church.
I say, well, I want to know what the main course is then. We don’t try to turn the appetizer into the meal, but we’re ready to serve that appetizer to the world.
Church is less effective when it starts to think of the kingdom as being too far off and ignore this earth or thinks of it to be too near and ignores heaven. Instead, we need to pay attention to both.
When we do, we not only hunger and thirst for righteousness, but we’re actually helping those around us to find that true righteousness in Jesus.
But it’s hard in the meantime, isn’t it? Because we are hungry.
When we think about the Lord’s Supper, and what Jesus has given us in it, why does he give us these elements? Well, in some sense, this is the appetizer. And I don’t mean that in some kind of irreverent way.
But when we eat of this meal, and we eat of the body and blood of Jesus in this meal, we’re reminded of the meal to come when we come and we find ourselves truly and fully in God’s presence. That he will actually dine with us as he wipes away our tears.
Disciples were going to be of desperate need to be reminded of this when they watched Jesus be taken to the cross. Because even as he was going to give them that ultimate righteousness in this world, they were going to feel hungrier than they had felt because now they knew what it was like to be with God. They knew what it was like to be taught directly by him.
He was going to be gone. But he wasn’t. And he isn’t.
And so it was on the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread and he broke it and he gave it to them. And he said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
And like manner after supper, he took the cup. And he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, poured out for you. Under the remission of sins, do this as often as you drink of it in remembrance of me.
For as often as you eat this bread and you drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
By the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus doesn’t leave us purely hungering, but he reminds us through these very tangible things that he is with us.
And as we take them, it’s not the period, it’s the pointer, it’s the comma to where? To the kingdom that’s to come.
Let’s come before our God now to prepare to take these elements.
Lord, we thank you that you are both near and present to us right now, and yet we also know you are coming in a much greater way in the future in which we experience the joy of direct fellowship with you in ways I can’t even understand right now.
But Lord, tonight, as we come and we take these elements, by the power of your Holy Spirit, we pray that you would apply the body and blood of our Savior, Jesus, to us.
That we might be nourished and strengthened, that we can show your righteousness in the world not to earn your forgiveness, but rather because we are forgiven.
Not to bring glory to ourselves, but rather to glorify you.
Pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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