Dennis' Sermon Prep Workflow | Matthew 5:6

What is righteousness?

Dictionaries define righteousness as “behavior that is morally justifiable or right.” Such behavior is characterized by accepted standards of morality, justice, virtue, or uprightness.

The Bible’s standard of human righteousness is God’s own perfection in every attribute, every attitude, every behavior, and every word. Thus, God’s laws, as given in the Bible, both describe His own character and constitute the plumb line by which He measures human righteousness.

Thus righteousness is God’s own moral perfection.

So to hunger and thirst for righteousness means to long for God’s perfection in our lives, to strive to be like God.

This makes sense in the context of the rest of the passage:

First we recognize who we are in light of who God is, then we mourn our sinfulness in light of it. We meekly seek God’s will for our lives realizing our need for God to help us be who he’s called us to be and then we long for it, striving to be more Christlike.

This is what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness.