Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

Again Jesus begins with an attitude of heart that we can relate to.

In the first beatitude, Jesus compares the people in the kingdom to those that are not only poor, but destitute.

One thing the poor understand is hunger and thirst

There is nothing worst than being hungry.

When you are hungry, it occupies your mind

It’s almost impossible to do anything but think about food

While trying to work, or read or even watch TV, you just keep thinking “I’m so hungry”

To hunger and thirst for righteous is to have the same obsession we have with food, but for the righteousness of God

What is Righteousness?

In our world, righteousness is a bad word

it’s most often associated with being self-righteous

being proud of how good you believe yourself to be

dikaiosyne

In reality, to be righteous simply means to be right with God

To be faultless according to Gods law

It refers both to moral and legal standing

while not the same thing, righteousness and holiness are related

Holy means set apart, it is to be different

God is holy, he is completely different than we are

though we are made is His image, and share some qualities with Him, He is not like us

one of the ways God is set apart from us is His righteousness

as we have talked about in the previous weeks, the sermon on the mount is changing the view of how we should live

it’s no longer only about what we do, but about what we think

we are to be righteous not just in our actions, but in our thoughts

And to crave righteousness is to change the way we thing about ourselves and the world

We Should Hunger and Thirst for Our Righteousness

If the first beatitude was to recognize our spiritual poverty, the second was to mourn our sin, and the third was to humble ourselves, this beatitude transitions from the negatives of who we are to the positives of who we should be

This beatitude is about what we want our life to look like, what it is to be marked by

The goal here is not to look righteous to those around us, but to desire righteousness for God’s sake

Matthew 6:1 “1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”

Matthew 23:28 “28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

The righteousness of God should be our priority in this life

In the midst of a passage discussing anxiety in life, we are told see His righteousness

Matthew 6:33 “33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Paul twice tells Timoty to “pursue righteousness”

1 Timothy 6:11 “11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.”

2 Timothy 2:22 “22 So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”

How do we pursue righteousness?

We are to life that is not marked by sin

This isn’t a call to perfection, but a call to be sanctified

That as we progress through this life, we should be desiring to draw closer to God, and thus closer to His righteousness

Put off put on

We should be replacing the sin in our life with righteous actions

Ephesians 4:18–24 “18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

God is calling us to leave behind our old sinful life, and begin to act with “true righteousness and holiness”

Thankfully we are not along on this journey

2 Co 5:16–21  From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

We become righteous not through our own power, but through the power of Christ in the new birth

We are made new, our sin is removed and we, not just recieve, but become the righteousness of God

One of the ways God helps sanctify us is through the use of His word

Matthew 4:4 “4 But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ””

Here Jesus uses another

2 Timothy 3:16 “16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

It is through the word that we are trained in righteousness

We are not left alone, to figure out God’s will, but His word spells out for us how we are to act and what we are to do.

Don’t know what God wants you to do? Read His word.

Don’t know how to live? Read His word.

Don’t know what is right and wrong? Read His word.

One of the major problems with the church today is a lack of knowing God’s word.

There have always been heresy, but there seems to be an increase in this generation.

Sadly, many are misled by false profits on TV, Youtube and even books in Christian bookstores.

Why can many believers be mislead? They do not know the word.

They trust these “experts” simply because they have a big following.

Hebrews 5:13 “13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.”

If we truly hunger and thirst for righteousness, it will drive us to the Word.

When we hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God, we receive direct benefits

We receive the promise of Heaven and eternity with Christ

But seeking righteousness doesn’t just mean ourselves

We Should Hunger and Thirst for Others Righteousness

If we truly hunger and thirst for righteousness, it should not stop with us

We should deeply desire the world around us to be impacted by God’s righteousness

Be it a motivation to do righteousness to our neighbors or a motivation for our neighbors to embrace God’s righteousness themselves

To truly hunger and thirst for righteousness, we cannot stop with what goes on within these walls

Ezekiel 33:7–9 “7 “So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. 8 If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 9 But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.”

Ezekiel was commanded to deliver the Word of the Lord to Israel.

To warn them of their unrighteousness and urge them to pursue righteousness

To God, the delivery of this message was so important that Ezekiel will be punished

In the New Testament the importance of calling people to righteousness is no less stressed

Jesus commands us in the Great Commission to teach people to “Obey all” He has commanded

In Romans 10, Paul tells us people will not believe unless they hear and they wont hear without a preacher

1 Co 9:16 Paul even goes to say Woe to me if He does’t preach the Gospel.

As we declare the Gospel, we are calling people to righteousness and one cannot come to righteousness without Christ

So to truly hunger and thirst means both that we pursue righteousness, and that we call others to that same pursuit

We Will be Satisfied

It is rare in life to find a guarantee

It is so rare, that when we encounter one, we often look for the “proverbial sting” to be attached

A company may offer a 100% cash back guarantee, and we look to see where it says only valid on purchases made on the fifth Thursday in February

But in this instance, we have a promise with no strings

When we hunger and thirst for righteousness, our hunger will be satisfied

Why can we be guaranteed to be satisfied?

We will receive Chris’t righteousness

He has given it to us

At His coming, we will partake in His righteousness