I don't think that it would take anybody by surprise to realize that our culture is so obsessed with food and dieting.

In fact, I'm told that in a given day in the United States, one third of the population, that's one third of the population, is on some sort of a diet.

There's always one thing you can be certain of that there will be more people

are going to be on a diet tomorrow than they are on a diet today. Have you noticed actually how

people announce that they're going to go on a diet after a huge meal? And as I're reflecting on this and and looking at our passage for today,

I understand that our culture is just so different from biblical culture,

and our mindset is so different from that of the time of the Lord Jesus Christ

and to whom he was speaking,

and how important it is for us to really try to grasp what Jesus is trying to say

when he said, blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. We are in a midst of a

series of sermons entitled The Master's Manifesto from the Beatitudes. And when Jesus said,

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness,

his hearers could easily not only relate to physical hunger,

not only relate to physical thirst,

but they also can relate that same physical feeling to spiritual things.

It was much easier for the people in Jesus' day to relate to hunger, to relate to thirst,

than those of us who are living in this abundance in the West.

To them, food and water were an absolute necessity, not a luxury that could they do away with or take less off.

In biblical times, both food and water were so scarce that they never, never, never wasted them,

nor taking them for granted as we do.

So when Jesus said,

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness,

...