Just as we make our way to Matthew chapter 5, we've been rooted for some time now,

I want to remind you that we have been journeying through the beatitudes, this incredibly compelling

and altogether surprising way that Jesus introduces the sermon on the Mount.

And I hope that you have been formed and shaped over the course of this new year

as we have picked apart these words one by one. And today we are concluding this teaching series

by hearing from a guest who is with us. David Thomas is here all the way from Lexington, Kentucky, where he

serves in a number of different ways involved very closely at Asbury Seminary. He was one of the

key leaders of the outpouring that was experienced at Asbury College, 16 days of nonstop worship and prayer spontaneously

on a college campus among the student body. But he's also someone who has studied and immersed

himself in the biblical tradition of what is called travail for some time now.

Traveil is a way of praying from the gut. It is this gutteral kind of cry that honors the whole

person, both the thoughts that we're thinking that we want to express to God and the emotions that we feel.

When he and I had lunch together, I once heard him describe Treveille as emotionally honest prayer.

And there is a guttural beatitude. Jesus borrows this same imagery. It comes from Matthew chapter 5, verse 6.

And while Jesus has in mind more than just travail here, it did seem fitting to conclude our

teaching series by inviting David to come and teach us not how to understand

this beatitude so much as to how to express it and participate in them. So we're going to talk

about travail today as an expression of what I'm about to read you now. So with that being said, our teaching text for today comes from Matthew chapter 5, verse 6.

Read along with me.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

This is the word of the Lord.

Let's welcome David.

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