I assume that most of you are here this morning because you want to worship God. You want to say something to the Lord, perhaps, but most importantly, you want to hear from the Lord. It’s essential that we hear from God. Jesus said that God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
And so I want to emphasize to you this morning that when we read the words of the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in this passage, you are hearing the actual word of God. The word of God spoken by the Son of God, who John calls the Word. God is speaking to us in this passage in the most direct way possible. And this passage is truth because it is the word of God.
So my purpose here this morning is not to entertain you, nor to make a nice sounding sermonette, but to faithfully expound God’s word so that you can fully comprehend all that God intends to tell us in these statements. God is teaching us in this passage the essential characteristics of a citizen in His kingdom. He is telling us how we might enter the kingdom of heaven. He is telling us how we can receive the comfort of God. He is telling us how we might inherit the true riches of this earth. He is telling us how we might be filled with righteousness. He is telling us how we might receive mercy. He is telling us how we can see God. He is telling us how we can be the sons and daughters of God. He is telling us how we might become citizens of the kingdom of heaven.
And so we have been looking at these opening verses, in what is called the Beatitudes, we have been looking at each individually as part of our series on the Sermon on the Mount. And we have said that they are in a particular order. That they build upon one another. And we have said that they are all necessary. All are characteristics of all Christians. All are characteristics of a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.
And as I have said previously, we are born into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said to Nicodemus, “you must be born again.” You are not naturally entered into the kingdom due to your heritage, you cannot not join such as a club or denomination to enter, you can not earn your way in, or climb up some way or another through your efforts, but citizenship is by spiritual birth. You are born once in natural birth, you must be born again spiritually in order to be part of the kingdom of heaven. Notice that the Beatitudes are bookended by the phrase, yours is the kingdom of heaven.
Let me reiterate another important doctrine for those who are new here this morning. The kingdom of heaven is spiritual. It is the church. It is the church, visible and invisible. It is the body of Christ, the called out ones, (eklesia). It is the invisible, spiritual reign of Christ in the hearts and minds of His people. The kingdom of heaven is populated by the conversion of sinners formerly held captive to the dominion of darkness, who are supernaturally transferred into the kingdom of God’s Son, by the transference of Christ’s righteousness to our account by faith in the work of Christ upon the cross and His subsequent resurrection. That faith constitutes becoming a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.
So far then in our study of this sermon, we have understood the first Beatitude as a requirement of poverty of spirit, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” We recognize our spiritual bankruptcy, and out of that recognition of our poverty comes the realization that we need a righteousness that exceeds our own in order to attain the kingdom.
Secondly, having recognized our spiritual bankruptcy, we mourn over our sin. “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be filled.” When we mourn over our sinful condition, that really means we repent of our sinful condition to the point of being willing to die to the old man, that we might be made new, and we receive the comfort of God’s forgiveness of our sins.
Thirdly, Jesus said that “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” We learned last week that this refers to the need to humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God and then He will exalt you at the proper time. It’s a recognition that you cannot do anything to achieve your own salvation, that you are a sinner, and in order to be a citizen of Christ’s kingdom you are going to need a Savior who is willing and able to pluck you out of the pig pen of the squalor you live in, and wash you off and dress you in His righteousness and in His mercy and grace bring you into His kingdom.
Now we come to the fourth Beatitude. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” In the three previous Beatitudes, there was a predominantly negative element to them, in that they caused us to look at ourselves and see what was missing. But as we look at this Beatitude, we see a change in perspective, we see the solution.
We have been looking at the hopelessness of our spiritual bankruptcy, mourning over our sin and our helpless condition, and being humbled before God by the inadequacy we have in ourselves, and now we see the deliverance, the filling which comes by the grace of God. And this particular Beatitude emphasizes the doctrine of grace, which is so fundamental to our salvation.
There are three parts to this statement which will serve as something as a guide for our exposition today. And perhaps it is best to start with the term “righteousness.” Righteousness is the state of being accepted by God. It is meeting the standard of conduct that has been established by God. Many people have a misplaced trust in their own goodness, which is based on a comparison to other people. And they base their sense of righteousness on their own standard, and their standard is the failings of other people. So they say, “I’m not a bad person. After all, I am not like that person over there. I’m better than that person, so I am basically a good person.” They base their sense of goodness on other people’s failings, rather than on the holiness of God.
Jesus gave an illustration about that sort of judgment in the story of a Pharisee and a tax collector who came to the temple to pray. And in Luke 18:11 we read that Jesus said, "The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: 'God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 'I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.' "But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!' "I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
So there you have a person that did good deeds, he didn’t do the obviously bad sins, he tithed, he fasted, etc, but he was still not justified by his works. He still fell short of the kingdom of heaven. And that’s because he was trusting in his works to gain entrance. He was judging himself according to a scale that he had come up with, rather than by the scale of God’s righteousness.
And yet later in this very Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. So it’s necessary to understand that God’s standard is what constitutes righteousness, and only that level of righteousness can be acceptable to God.
Now notice what Jesus says, He says, “Blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness.” They are going to be the ones who are blessed. Notice that He doesn’t say, you should hunger and thirst for blessedness. Or to use the common translation for blessed which many Bibles use; happy. He doesn’t say those who hunger and thirst for happiness. But that is what the world’s mantra is. The world is seeking happiness. When happiness is what you desire and long for, you will end up missing it. But when righteousness is what you hunger for, then Jesus says you will be blessed, you will find true happiness. Happiness is found in pursuit of something else, not in pursuing it directly.
I have heard many a parent say, “I only want my children to be happy.” And yet that pursuit of happiness almost always seems to be at the expense of righteousness. They reject God’s righteousness because they think that is going to hinder their happiness, when in fact it’s the only thing that can produce it.
Imagine a man who is suffering from a painful disease. And he goes to the doctor and the doctor is very concerned about treating his pain and so he prescribes a pain killer for the pain and sends him on his way. That’s not a good doctor. A good doctor is one who is concerned about the cause of his pain. If you take care of the cause of his pain, then the pain will go away. But if you just treat the pain, you may look healthy for a while, you may feel better for a while, but actually you are still a very sick person on the inside, and the doctor has done nothing to help you. Your condition will eventually get worse.
That’s the folly of the world seeking relief from the pain of life, seeking pain relief in alcohol or drugs, in entertainment, in sexual hookups and so forth. They may feel better for a little while, but in the end it’s a bitter cup. Hebrews 11 speaks of the pleasures of sin, which last for a season, but the end is destruction.
We even see the same error in the church. Some people are so focused on trying to find a state of blessedness. Of course, they interpret blessedness to be health and wealth. They come to Christianity seeking God’s blessing of health and wealth. They are big advocates of the prayer of Jabez; O bless me indeed! Enlarge my horizons, fill my bank account. They hunger and thirst for what they think is blessedness.
Or the hunger and thirst for blessedness and they look for it in spiritual experiences, in some sort of ecstatic experience. We are not told to hunger and thirst for experiences, or for even for blessedness for that matter. If you want to have the blessedness of God in your life, then Jesus said we should hunger and thirst for righteousness. Seek righteousness and then you will find blessedness.
So what does righteousness mean? It doesn’t just mean morality. It’s not just some conforming to what’s considered upright, good behavior. It’s the opposite of sin. And sin is defined in the scriptures. Sin is that behavior and attitude that is antagonistic towards God’s nature. Righteousness is holiness. Righteousness is being free from the manifestations of sin in all it’s forms.
So we are to hunger and thirst for righteousness. And the response of God, the blessedness that He gives in response to that desire, is righteousness. This righteousness that God gives is first of all, the righteousness of justification. It’s the righteousness of Jesus Christ which is transferred to my account by the grace of God. 2 Cor. 5:21 says, “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Jesus became sin for us at the cross, bearing our penalty so that we might be set free. And by faith in what He did for us on the cross, God transfers our sins to Jesus, and His righteousness to us. That’s the righteousness of our justification.
The desire for righteousness then is the desire to be right with God. When you come to realize your poverty, when you are sick to death of your sin, when you humble yourself before God, and come to the point of wanting to be made right with God, then God grants you forgiveness for your sin, and imputes righteousness to your account on the basis of Christ’s atonement on your behalf. So in justification we are made righteous.
But there is another aspect of righteousness that God gives us. And that is not only justification but sanctification. Sanctification is the process of living righteously. Sanctification is the blessing of God that delivers you from the power of sin. Having been set free from the penalty of sin, we should naturally want to be free from the power of sin. And God graciously provides that blessing as well. And Jeremiah 31:33 speaks of this reality, saying, Jer. 31:33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Please understand that when the Lord says he is going to put His law within us and write it upon our hearts, that He is speaking of rebirth, of conversion, of a spiritual transformation whereby our heart is changed, our desires have changed, our minds have changed. That is the nature of a new birth. That is what it means to be born again. Many people try religion. Many people attempt turning over a new leaf. And yet they never find freedom from the life of sin. They are still suffering under the dominion of sin. The reason is that they have never been converted. They have never died to the old man, and been born again into a new man. They have never received the new heart.
You know, I love ice cream. I know it’s not healthy for me to eat a huge bowl of ice cream every night, but I do it because I love it. On the other hand I hate spinach. I am not ever tempted to eat a bowl of spinach every night. You couldn’t make me eat a bowl of spinach every night. The only way that is going to change is if you change my taste. If you change my desire. You change my heart and then you will see a change in my behavior.
And the same is true in regards to righteousness. I have to have a change of heart. Because naturally, in my old nature I don’t love righteousness. I love my sin. And so there has to be a transformation from within in order for there to be a change in my attitudes and behavior.
Christ did not die on the cross only to set us free from the penalty of sin, but also to free us from the power of sin. Sin no longer controls us if we are truly saved. Sin no longer has power over us. We can live victorious lives through Christ who lives in us in the power of His Spirit.
The other phrase that we need to look at is “hunger and thirst.” Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. What is meant by that description of hungering and thirsting? Many people today have no concept of what it means to be really hungry or thirsty. But the reality of being actually starving or thirsty is that it becomes the priority of your life. You will do anything in order to get something to eat or drink. Nothing else is as important. It’s something that causes you to feel desperate. You increasingly suffer until you get what your body craves.
The Psalmist expresses this desire in Psalm 42:1-3 “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, While [they] say to me all day long, "Where is your God?”
There needs to come upon a person the hunger and thirst for righteousness before there can be the filling of righteousness. In other words, one must come to the point of realizing their need, of the fact that the fodder of the world is unsatisfying, that they are starving for something that truly satisfies. You must come to realize that what you have been feeding on is worthless and that it doesn’t sustain life. You might be eating of what the world supplies, but inwardly, spiritually you are starving to death.
A good illustration of that is the story of the prodigal son. When the prodigal son went out from his father to live a life of wanton pleasure in the world, seeking the happiness the world promises, he eventually found himself eating the husks with the pigs in the pig pen. But when he realized he was starving, he got up and went home to his father. That’s the essence of being hungry and thirsty for righteousness. To be desperate, to be starving, to realize the urgency of my need and that the mammon of the world can never satisfy it. And then to turn to the supply and Father of righteousness as the only way to be filled.
So then finally, what is promised to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness? They shall be filled. Their hunger will be satisfied with righteousness. This is the grace of God in response to your need. God will graciously grant you righteousness. And notice that it is complete. It’s not a taste of righteousness. It’s not a little bit. But it’s a filling. It’s more than abundant. The righteousness of Jesus Christ more than satisfies the need on my part. When God credits the righteousness of Christ to my account, He gives me enough to last forever. Not just enough for today, and then tomorrow I have to go and get some more. But enough to cleanse even the vilest sinner for ever and ever.
So there is the immediate credit to my account, which tips the scale of God’s justice so completely on the side of righteousness that He may ever consider me as righteous. But then there is given to me the continual desire of righteousness which comes from a new heart, a continual hungering that causes me to seek the Lord in daily communion, to be fed with His word day by day. And that imputed righteousness to me allows the Holy Spirit to live in me as a holy vessel, filled with the Spirit of God to empower me, that I might do the works of righteousness as a child of God.
And then in that last day, when the trumpet of God shall sound and He will raise us up to be with Him, we will receive a new body in the new heavens and the new earth, and the presence of sin will be altogether removed, not only from my body, but from the world, and we will dwell in righteousness from then on through eternity.
So the Christian then is one who is hungering and thirsting for righteousness, who is filled with the righteousness of Christ in justification, then continuously hungering and thirsting for righteousness in the process of sanctification, and then in eternity dwelling in righteousness in our glorification.
Peter speaks of both this future and present state of righteousness in 2Pe 3:13-15 “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.”
The question I would leave with you today is, are you hungering and thirsting for righteousness? Have you been filled with the gift of Christ’s righteousness? Have you been converted, transformed, into a new creation with a new heart and a new mind? Jesus said, He who comes to Me I will in no wise cast out. He said in John 7:37, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” He said in John 6:51 "I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”
Jesus gave His life, offered up His body on the cross, so that we might feast upon His righteousness. Call upon the Lord today and ask Him to give you a new heart, a new life in Him. And He will fill you with HIs righteousness that you might have eternal life.
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