A Holy Hunger: What Are You Really Hungry and Thirsty For?
Pastor Victoria Sowell
There are some hungers we can ignore for a while, and there are others that become impossible to ignore. When your body genuinely needs food or water, eventually it gets your attention. Jesus uses that very human experience to teach us something deeply spiritual in Matthew 5:6: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” As we continue walking through the Beatitudes and learning the upside-down ways of Jesus’ Kingdom, I want us to ask what it looks like to develop a deep hunger for the things God cares about. Click the link above for the full message.
The Upside-Down Kingdom of Jesus
We have been walking through the Beatitudes, a series of statements from Jesus shared in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, and growing in our understanding of the ways of Jesus. Jesus did not come to be popular, to be convincing, or to simply do things the way everyone expected Him to. He came to establish God’s Kingdom, a Kingdom that functions in unexpected, upside-down ways.
In Matthew 5, Jesus begins describing who is blessed in this Kingdom, and His words are surprising. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the needy and humble, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those who mourn and grieve, for they will receive comfort. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
And then Jesus says:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
This is the fourth Beatitude, and it carries two beautiful guarantees from Jesus. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be blessed, and they will be filled. Jesus takes two of the most basic human needs we experience, hunger and thirst, and uses them to describe the kind of desire we are called to cultivate for the things of God.
What Does It Mean to Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness?
When we hear the word righteousness, we might immediately think about holiness, doing the right thing, living differently from the world, or looking more like Jesus. None of those ideas are wrong, but Jesus is describing something deeper and more comprehensive in Matthew 5:6.
The Greek word translated “righteousness” is dikaiosunēn (δικαιοσύνην). It carries the meaning of right standing before God, integrity, and right relationships. The word also carries the weight of justice, honesty, generosity, purity, and love.
That changes the way we hear Jesus’ words.
Jesus is relating our human understanding of feeling hungry for food and thirsty for water to becoming people who deeply desire, crave, and need a life that is about standing before God with integrity and relating to one another in right ways of love.
So if I were to put the main idea of this Beatitude into one sentence, I would say it this way:
Jesus invites us to crave a life of righteousness with desperation and urgency, to live with integrity before God and in right relationship with others.
That is a holy hunger.
Jesus Uses the Language of Desperation
The words Jesus uses for hunger and thirst are important. The Greek word for hunger is peinōntes (πεινῶντες), and the word for thirst is dipsōntes (διψῶντες).
These are present active verbs. Jesus is not describing a mild appetite or an occasional desire. He is describing a continuous, agonizing, desperate physical need. Hunger here is the kind of hunger that demands attention. Thirst describes the kind of craving for water that can become severe and even life-threatening.
Jesus intentionally chooses these words to depict the kind of desperation, desire, and need we are called to cultivate for righteousness.
Think about the difference between saying, “I could eat something,” and saying, “I am starving.” Think about the difference between occasionally wanting a glass of water and being genuinely thirsty after going without it for a long time. Jesus is asking us to consider whether righteousness has become that kind of desire in us.
Do I simply admire a righteous life, or do I hunger for it?
Do I occasionally wish my relationships were healthier, or do I deeply desire right relationship with God and with other people?
Do I want justice when it benefits me, or do I genuinely hunger for what is right in God’s eyes?
Jesus is inviting us into something deeper than behavior modification. He is talking about what our hearts have learned to crave.
You Get a Say in What You Crave
One of the things I want you to hear from this passage is this: you get a say in what you crave.
We can cultivate new cravings.
Our appetites are shaped by what we repeatedly feed ourselves, and this is true spiritually as well as physically. You can adjust your appetite for the ways of God, and the Holy Spirit, when invited, helps you do this.
Think about what happens when you live your life on a bowl-of-cereal diet. Eventually, that is what you expect. You may even settle for it. You can convince yourself that it is enough because it is familiar and convenient.
The same thing can happen spiritually.
When you feed your soul with AI-generated encouragement, you may stop craving the words of a trusted friend. When you feed your soul with explicit content in what you listen to, watch, and enjoy, your desire for purity weakens. When you feed your soul with gossip, bitterness, and isolation, right relating to others becomes a projection rather than the reality of your heart.
When you feed your soul with thirty-second soundbite sermons, you can lose your attention span and your palate for the depth of the Word of God.
And when you repeatedly feed your soul with lies, discouragement, distraction, or isolation, you may struggle to recognize truth, encouragement, opportunities for presence, or the gifts of community when they are right in front of you.
So we have to consider what we are currently feeding ourselves.
What are we hungry and thirsty for?
Beneath our habits, cycles of sin, and ways of being are beliefs that either serve us or starve us.
What Are You Really Trying to Fill?
Sometimes beneath the surface, there is a hunger for affirmation, love, success, belonging, position, security, or understanding. Those desires can be good things, but when we ask them to satisfy the deepest places in us, they will eventually leave us empty.
If we are honest, many of us settle for the easy thing, the quick fix, or the familiar solution.
We reach for our phones.
We reach for approval.
We reach for control.
We reach for another purchase, another relationship, another achievement, another distraction.
We reach for whatever promises to make the uncomfortable feeling go away.
But Jesus is calling His listeners to understand that nothing except a hunger and thirst for the right things can truly satisfy us.
At some point, we have to be able to say, I am done craving and filling my life with empty solutions, and I am ready to turn my heart toward the things God prioritizes.
Until we do, we will remain hungry and thirsty.
The Sin Problem Distorted Our Hunger
This tension and struggle is ultimately a sin problem.
When sin entered the world, our righteousness became distorted. Integrity before God and right relating to one another changed forever.
In Genesis 1, the world God created was designed around right relationship. From the very beginning, we see male and female walking with God, created as partners who bear His image and entrusted with the care of everything else He made.
This gives us our first picture of righteousness: humanity living in right relationship with God, with one another, and with the land they were created to inhabit.
But when Adam and Eve choose to disregard God’s instruction and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they are doing more than breaking a rule. They are choosing to step outside of right relationship with their Creator.
Immediately, we see a seismic shift in how they relate to God, to each other, and to the world around them.
When God asks Adam, “Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” Adam responds:
“The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it” (Gen. 3:11–12).
When God turns to Eve, she does the same thing, shifting the blame to the serpent.
In a moment, what was once a relationship marked by trust, unity, and shared responsibility becomes one marked by fear, self-preservation, and the need to protect oneself at the expense of another.
From Right Relationship to Self-Protection
Where there was once openness, there is now hiding.
Where there was once honesty, there is now deflection.
Where humanity once walked freely with its Creator, it now retreats from His presence.
The consequences are devastating. They begin to experience death because right relationship is essential to the fullness of life God intended for them.
And ever since, humanity’s deep, God-given desire for right relationship has been distorted by fear and replaced with an appetite for personal protection and gain.
We learn to compete for resources rather than share them. We defend what we have rather than trust God to provide. We keep people, especially those we perceive as a threat, at a distance, sometimes at any cost.
What began as a fracture in our relationship with God has rippled into every relationship we have, shaping the way we see ourselves, one another, and the world we inhabit.
This is why Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:6 matter so much. He is not simply telling us to become nicer people. He is inviting us into the restoration of something that sin distorted from the beginning.
He is teaching us to hunger again for what God originally intended.
What Are You Feeding Your Soul?
There is a reason the word “feed” feels so appropriate when we talk about our spiritual lives.
Consider social media. We literally call it a feed.
You are bored, lonely, numb, or even well-intentioned, and you begin scrolling. Five minutes can easily become fifty. We even call it “doom scrolling” because rarely do you finish feeling truly better, truly full, or truly satisfied.
Instead, the feed keeps you coming back.
There is something deeply ironic about that.
No feed, algorithm, or amount of time spent consuming other people’s lives can fill us or solve our sin problem. We need something that truly fills.
And thankfully, God has never left us to simply figure it out on our own.
Throughout the Old Testament, through Moses and the prophets, God repeatedly speaks to His people about returning to righteousness as He originally intended.
God Invites the Hungry to Come and Be Filled
In Isaiah 55, we see Isaiah share these words from God to Israel:
“Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.3 Give ear and come to me;
listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful love promised to David.”
God asks a powerful question: Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?
That is still a question worth asking today.
Why are we exhausting ourselves trying to be filled by things that cannot fill us?
Why do we keep returning to the same patterns expecting them to finally satisfy?
Why do we continue feeding ourselves with things that leave us emptier?
Like loving parents gently lifting their child’s gaze to meet their own, God invites His people to be transformed by a desire for right relationship with Himself and one another.
He invites us to allow our perspective of the world to be turned upside down and to yearn for a new way of living and relating.
Righteousness According to God, Not Us
This kind of righteousness goes deeper than our limited understanding of personal integrity.
Consider even the phrase “personal integrity.” In our society, we often define integrity for ourselves. Instead of looking to the character of Jesus and the Scriptures to define our integrity, we define it for ourselves.
Instead of allowing the Word of God to teach us how to live in right relationship with one another, we allow our experiences and feelings to lead the way.
But Jesus says those who desire a life of righteousness as He defines it are blessed and filled.
In our world, anyone can excuse their way of doing things. In His upside-down Kingdom, it is God’s way or emptiness.
Throughout His ministry, Jesus teaches that it is possible to become consumed with following rules without actually pursuing right relationships.
In Matthew 5:20, Jesus says:
“For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
The religious leaders could look righteous while missing the heart of righteousness entirely. They were oppressing the vulnerable, making their religion about themselves, and still thinking they were the most righteous people around.
Jesus shows us something different.
Jesus Shows Us What Righteousness Looks Like
Real righteousness points back to the first garden and describes the ethic of God’s Kingdom.
This way of life is inspired not by an appetite for personal gain or superiority, but by a hunger for a godly life and a love that compels a person to be fair toward others, to seek peace, and to live generously.
Jesus lived like this without fail.
He consistently moved toward the overlooked, the hurting, and the people who had been pushed to the margins. At the same time, He challenged those who used power to protect themselves or elevate themselves at the expense of others.
Jesus did not simply teach us what righteousness looks like.
He embodied it.
And ultimately, He gave His life for it.
The cross becomes the clearest picture of this. Jesus’ death reveals both the depth of humanity’s hunger for power and control and the immeasurable mercy, justice, and love of God, who continues to pursue right relationship with His creation.
Jesus calls us to loosen our grip on personal gain, self-protection, and getting our own way. He calls us to become people who hunger for what is right in God’s eyes and who pursue right relationship with Him and with others.
Trust God to Satisfy You
There is another part of Matthew 5:6 that we cannot overlook.
Jesus does not only tell us what to hunger for. He gives us a promise about what happens when we do.
They will be filled.
It is deeply important to Jesus that we trust Him to fill us, to satisfy, to provide, to protect, and to bless us. We cannot do those things for ourselves, not really. He invites us to let Him do that work instead.
What Do We Do With a Holy Hunger?
Jesus does not simply invite us to live as hermits and wait for our homecoming. He invites us to become people who live as citizens of His Kingdom now. We are not called to simply hope that our cravings will someday change; we are called to cultivate a desire for His ways and His Kingdom now. That means allowing the reality of where God is taking history to shape the way we live, love, forgive, pursue justice, and relate to one another today.
So what does that look like in everyday life? As I close, I want to give us three practical ways to respond to the invitation of Jesus and cultivate a holy hunger for righteousness.
1. Pay Attention to What You Crave
Jesus uses hunger and thirst because they are hard to ignore. When you are truly hungry, your body starts telling you what it needs. In the same way, what we consistently desire, pursue, think about, and make time for reveals what is shaping our hearts.
So ask yourself honestly:
What am I hungry for right now?
Is it recognition?
Control?
Comfort?
Approval?
Security?
Being right?
Getting even?
Or am I developing a deeper appetite for God, integrity, justice, reconciliation, and right relationship?
Pay attention to what occupies your emotional energy. Pay attention to what you reach for when you are bored, lonely, discouraged, stressed, or afraid. Your cravings are discipleship clues. They can reveal what has been shaping your heart, whether you intended for it to or not.
We cannot cultivate a holy hunger if we never stop to notice what we are already hungry for. Jesus invites us to bring those desires into His presence and allow the Holy Spirit to reshape our appetites.
2. Choose Right Relationship Over Self-Protection
If righteousness means right relationship with God and others, then hungering for righteousness will eventually challenge our instinct to protect ourselves at all costs.
Sometimes righteousness looks like telling the truth when a lie would be easier. Sometimes it looks like apologizing first. Sometimes it means forgiving instead of keeping a record of wrongs. Sometimes it means setting a healthy boundary. Sometimes it means pursuing justice for someone who has less power than you.
No one is suggesting that we endure abuse, or that forgiveness automatically means restored trust. Right relationships can also look like relationships that have been adjusted or appropriately limited. We need the wisdom of Scripture and the guidance of the Holy Spirit as our guides here.
So instead of asking only, “How do I get what I want?” we can begin asking, “What would right relationship require of me here?”
That question, when we ask it humbly and honestly, can completely change the way we approach our marriages, friendships, families, workplaces, and church communities. It moves us away from self-protection as our highest priority and toward the kind of righteousness Jesus describes.
3. Feed Yourself With What Fills
Finally, pay attention to what leaves you more full of God, more grounded, more peaceful, more loving, and more alive. Then make room for more of it.
Get into the Word. Sit with God. Pray honestly. Worship. Spend time with people who help you become more like Jesus. Create space to be still.
We start by asking, “What am I hungry for?” Then we get to the next question: “What will I feed myself with today?”
Invite the Holy Spirit to fill you, and He will. The invitation for real satisfaction—for true blessing—is extended to all of us today. Jesus invites us to stop settling for things that temporarily satisfy an appetite and start feeding ourselves with what actually gives life.
Jesus says:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
That is the promise. Our hunger will not go unanswered.
There is a holy hunger that God wants to cultivate in us—a hunger for righteousness, for integrity, for justice, for reconciliation, for peace, and for right relationship with Him and with one another. And beneath all of those desires is a deeper longing for home.
We were created for a place where everything is right. We were created for the presence of God, for relationships marked by love rather than fear, for a creation free from death and decay, and for the day when God will make all things new.
Until that day, we hunger.
Until that day, we pursue righteousness.
Until that day, we practice the ways of God's Kingdom here and now.
And Jesus gives us this promise: those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied.
Questions for Reflection
As you take some time to sit with this message, consider these questions:
What am I hungry for right now? What desires are receiving most of my attention, emotional energy, time, and resources?
What might my current habits be teaching me to crave?
Where am I tempted to choose self-protection over right relationship?
What would right relationship require of me in a particular relationship or situation right now?
What am I feeding myself with that leaves me empty?
What practices, relationships, Scriptures, and rhythms help me become more like Jesus?
Where do I need to trust God to satisfy, provide, protect, or bless me rather than trying to satisfy that hunger myself?
What would it look like for me to live as a citizen of God's Kingdom today while longing for the fullness of home that is still to come?
My prayer for us is that we would become people with a holy hunger. May we learn to recognize the empty things we have been using to satisfy ourselves, turn our hearts toward what God calls good, and allow the Holy Spirit to cultivate within us a deep desire for righteousness.
Because Jesus does not promise that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will remain hungry.
He promises that they will be filled.