A. Hunger is basic to human existence: even babies experience it on their first day of life.
1. It was created by God, not just the elements that cause it, but the sensation itself.
B. The hunger I’m speaking about this morning is broader than just hunger for food, but when any perceived needs are unmet.
1. For example, lust, greed, and ambition are all different kinds of hungers, albeit unrighteous (“Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” 1Timothy 6:9).
C. In life you don’t always get fed when you cry out in hunger. God will not always give you everything you want. Many young people base their happiness on getting what they want.
1. But the fact is, your life will not be all that you hope it will be. Disappointment will be a part of your experience.
2. Young people, you’re going to experience hunger in your lives. And this morning I would like to try to help you prepare for it: how to think about it and how to deal with it.
II. The Bible says a lot about hunger. Most of it talks about the hunger that comes from sin, and the way God will fill the righteous.
A. For example:
1. Proverbs 13:25 “The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite, but the belly of the wicked suffers want.”
2. Proverbs 10:3 “The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.”
3. Proverbs 19:15 “An idle person will suffer hunger.”
B. This is the general pattern.
1. Most of the adults in the congregation can tell you many stories of amazing manifestations of God’s provision for us.
2. And yet it is still true that sometimes the righteous go hungry and the wicked are given everything they crave.
3. This is what Psalms 37 and 73 are all about: when the believers observe the wicked prospering while they seem to be constantly struggling.
C. But the Bible also talks about how hunger is also a tool God can and does use to bless us.
III. Hunger can be a blessing because:
A. Hunger keeps us humble and forces us to see our need.
1. God could have created us without a need for food. Think about how much time and money goes into food. What's it all for? Hunger for food is a very vivid daily reminder of our need and dependence.
2. When we have everything we need in abundance, we can easily forget how dependant we are on God and where our blessings come from.
3. The danger of fullness/affluence can be seen in the letter of Jesus to the Laodiceans in Rev.3:17: “For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, there is nothing that I need.’ And you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.”
a. This verse reflects the great test and temptation of our affluent American society: prosperity makes people forget God.
4. In one sense we need hunger in order to keep perspective. Listen to Moses’ warning to the Israelites just before they entered into the promised land in Deut.8:7-17:
a. “The LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing... And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. Take care lest you forget the LORD your God ...lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna..., that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’”
5. Hunger also helps us realize we need more than earthly satisfactions.
a. We see this in Deut.8:3 where Moses also told the Israelites: “He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna... that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”
b. Through the right recipe of provision and hunger, God teaches us that there is something we need even more than we need food. We need Him, the true Food. “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 42:1–2)
B. Hunger helps us to appreciate our blessings.
1. Prov. 27:7 “He who is full loathes honey, but to the hungry, even what is bitter tastes sweet.”
a. We’ve all experienced this, haven’t we? When we’re really full, even our favorite foods don’t seem appetizing. But when we’re really hungry, even bland foods taste delicious.
2. So it is that we tend to not appreciate our blessings when we have no trouble, no unmet needs.
a. E.g. we don't appreciate good health until we are sick, we don't appreciate a good night's sleep until we are exhausted, we don't appreciate friends until we are lonely.
3. We don’t want to be like spoiled kids who are lavished with blessings but spend their time complaining because they also want this and that. We want to be people who savor every morsel of blessing that God sends our way!
4. But it’s very hard to impress the person who is full. Even the most delicious things don’t impress him. But the hungry, they enjoy even what is bitter.
5. When we were in Africa a few years ago, wherever we went, they fed us their best, but frankly to my spoiled palate found the food boring at best.
6. Hunger makes food taste good. Hunger helps us appreciate our blessings.
C. Hunger is a motivator to do good.
1. Prov. 16:26 “A worker’s appetite works for him; his mouth [i.e. his desire to eat] urges him on.”
2. In Bible times oxen would be hitched to a mill pole and by walking in circles they would rotate the millstone and grind grain into flour. As some of the grain or flour would fall on the path of the oxen, the animal naturally would bend down to eat it. Some were tempted to put a muzzle on the ox in order to keep every last bit for his own use. But the Bible says, “Don’t muzzle the ox that treads out the grain.” (Deut.25:4; 1Cor.9:9; 1Tim.5:18). By doing so you would be cutting off a chief source of the animal’s motivation — the fulfillment of his hunger.
3. Reading on in 1Cor.9 makes it clear that this principle is not just for oxen. Hunger motivates human beings to work too.
4. We can also see this in Matthew 10:10 when Jesus was giving instructions to his disciples before sending them out two-by-two to proclaim the kingdom. He told them to bring “no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food.”
a. We might have expected Jesus to instruct them to take enough food so that their needs would be met so that they wouldn't have to worry about those things but would be able to devote themselves fully to their ministry.
b. However, going with no supplies, no money and no food into a town would force them to preach diligently, knowing that the only way they would eat would be by the support of those who they ministered to.
c. The idea was that their hunger would drive them on to obey Christ's commission.
5. This is why it says in 2Thessalonians 3:10: “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” (Otherwise, you take away the power of hunger to motivate him to work.)
D. (Just because I call it a blessing isn’t meant to imply that God enjoys watching us suffer in hunger. God did not enjoy watching His Son suffer, so He doesn’t enjoy watching us suffer. But He does will it at times, for good purposes.)
IV. The danger of hunger
A. Hunger can be a blessing, although it can also be a curse. Hunger can drive a man to do evil as well (e.g. Prov. 6:30; 30:9).
B. For instance, we are more susceptible to certain temptations when we are hungry, like the temptation to be grumpy.
1. This is why Jesus’ temptation by Satan took place after 40 days of fasting. If our Lord still would not sin after not eating for 40 days, it demonstrates His sinlessness in a vivid way.
C. So, hunger and fullness are both dangerous. This is why the author of Proverbs says: "Two things I ask of you, O Lord, . . . (#2) Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, 'Who is the Lord?' Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God." (Prov. 30:7-9)
V. Conclusion
A. The big picture is that the one who fears and loves God gets filled by Him, as Mary says in Luke 1:53 “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”
1. Many verses speak of the fullness which will be ours in the end. E.g. Rev.2:7 “To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”
B. But in one sense the age we’re in right now is still an age of hunger, during which we wait expectantly for our final fullness.
1. As Jesus said in Luke 6:21, 25: “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied... Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.”
C. The question for each of us is: What are we going to do when we are hungry for food or for money or for a spouse or for attention or for relief from responsibility?
1. Are we going to refuse to recognize hunger as a blessing sent by God, and let it produce a harvest of thankfulness, humbleness, diligence, and faith that He is the thing we really need? Are we going to allow God to use His tools to make us His masterpiece, including His tool of hunger.
2. Or are we going to allow our craving to master us and drive us to sin?
3. Remember what Jesus said when He was twice faced with hunger:
a. "Man does not live by bread alone." (Matt.4:4)
b. "My food is to do the will of My Father who sent Me." (John 4:34)