Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Today we are continuing on in our series on the Beatitudes.

Now, I’ve said something specific about these Beatitudes each Sunday since we’ve started and I’m gonna give you a little test this morning to see who’s been listening.

These Beatitudes are what?

They are attitudes that ought to be found in the born again believer.

There are 9 character traits for Christian living listed here that our Lord talks about and we have managed so far to make our way through the first three.

If you will remember, in the first message, we learned that these first three deal with attitudes and ourselves, right?

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

We must come broken in spirit before the throne of grace in order that we might be saved and inherit eternal life.

Then, when we see our sad, sinful state in the light of a holy and righteous God and understand that God had to send His one and only Son to rescue us from our sins, it causes a godly sorrow to overcome us and we mourn over our sin.

But we also learned that those who mourn are blessed for they shall be comforted.

When we come to God broken and undone and submit to His call upon our lives, He instills within us His Holy Spirit to guide us, convict us and comfort us.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

And then, last week that our might resides not in ourselves and what we can do but in God and what He can do through us if we are totally submitted to Him and His will for our lives!

We learned that meekness is not weakness but rather strength under control.

Submission to the Savior is what meekness is all about.

And we learned that those who bow low will ultimately be lifted high and will inherit the earth for all eternity.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth!

And today we are going to transition to our attitude towards God as we look at Beatitude #4 and a message entitled The Secret to a Satisfied Life.

If you have your Bibles with you this morning, I’d ask you to stand with me in reverence to God’s word.

We will begin in Verse 1 of Matthew Chapter 5 and read down through Verse 12 with our focus today being on Verse 6.

Matthew 5 Verse 1, if you have it would you say Amen.

The Result of the Beatitude — (Vs.

6a)

“Blessed” — I don’t want to spend a ton of time here this morning because we looked extensively at the word blessed in the first message but the Greek word used for blessed is the word (makarios).

In it’s simplest form it means fortunate, well off and happy.

But in a deeper sense, the more I think of this word blessed, I believe it to mean complete, self contained, self sustaining.

The man who is blessed has everything he needs for the world has nothing else to offer him.

The man who is blessed understands that he’s just passing through; that his real home on high is somewhere beyond the blue!

He needs nothing for in God he has everything.

God is his sustenance and supplication.

He trusts in Him for provision and trusts totally and completely in God’s will and way for his life.

And Jesus tells us here that if these attitudes be in us we shall be blessed.

We shall have everything we need.

Maybe not in a physical sense or in the eyes of the world but spiritually speaking, the one who is born again and exudes these attitudes has all he/she will ever need!

They shall be blessed!

And He says here in Verse 6, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled!

The next thing I want us to look at this morning now that we’ve covered The Result of the Beatitude is...

The Requirement in the Beatitude — (Vs.

6b)

And the first thing I want us to see here in The Requirement is that this Beatitude has to do with desire.

A desire to do what you ask?

A desire to follow God!

And that’s the first thing I want to hone in on here in the requirement.

The Focus of the Desire.

The Focus of the Desire

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after “righteousness”: for they shall be filled.

The focus of our desire is to be on what?

The focus of our desire is to be on righteousness!

The Bible says in...

We are to seek God and His righteousness.

The word righteousness used here in it’s original form means the quality of being in accordance with God’s law.

The character or quality of being right or just.

But the Bible says in...

And then in...

So if we aren’t righteous and cannot be righteous on our own, and the very best of man’s righteousness is as filthy rags in the eyes of a holy God then that means we have a problem right?

That means that we need to be cleaned up some how.

We need something to take away our filthiness and cleanse us and make us clean!

If we have no righteousness of our own then we need to obtain it from somewhere else, right?

Well praise God, the gift of righteousness was sent down from heaven, wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger and given a name that is above every name and His name was Jesus!

The Bible says in...

Listen to me this morning friend, the only way any man, woman, boy or girl can be made righteous is through the blessed blood that was spilled on that old rugged cross on Calvary's hill!

What can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus!

What can wash away your sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus!

The only righteousness we possess is of God through belief in His one and only Son for He is the way, the truth, and the life and no man comes unto the Father but by Him! (John 14:6)

Paul told the Corinthians in...

The Lord Jesus Christ is our righteousness and apart from Him our righteousness is as filthy rags!

But not only do we need to know where our righteousness derives from but we also need to make sure we don’t miss what this verse is saying.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

The verse is speaking of desiring righteousness.

The focus of the verse is on righteousness and we now know where our righteousness originates but we must not miss the main point that is being made here which is the point that we are to seek to be righteous!

We are to seek to be more like our Savior!

Yes, it’s His righteousness that saves us from our sins and no, we have no righteousness in and of ourselves and yes, His righteousness is bestowed upon us when we believe upon Him but that’s not all.

After we believe, we must seek to be more like Him!

Go back to Matthew 6:33 for a second...

We are to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Isn’t that what the Bible says here?

You see, we are born in the image of God but we are born with the sin nature of Adam.

And what that means is that our desires from our youth are fleshly desires; worldly desires.

We don’t come out of the womb seeking the kingdom of God or seeking to be like God!

No, we come out of the womb seeking the ways of man but the ways of man the Bible tells us leadeth unto death so therefore something has to happen, there has to be a change that takes place inside the mortal man so that he might become immortal!

Paul told the Corinthians in...

Now, he was talking to the church, the born again believers, people who had put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and he explains here that we, those who have been born again, have won the victory over death and sin through the Lord Jesus Christ!

But friend, if you have never trusted in Jesus this morning, then you are corruptible, you are mortal, you are losing the battle to sin and that battle will ultimately end in death, eternal death, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth the Bible says unless you put your trust in Jesus!

But for the born again this morning, we are to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness first and foremost!

We are to seek to be more like our Savior!

Over and over and over throughout the Old Testament God told the children of Israel “be ye holy for I am holy!”

Now, some I know are going to say… “well preacher man that was the Old Testament and we don’t live under the Old Testament Covenant any more.

We don’t live by the law, we live by grace!”

You know what…you are absolutely right but it doesn’t change the fact that Peter also quoted the Old Testament scripture in the New Testament and said that we should follow it’s lead!

In...

Do you see it there?

Peter references the Old Testament and then said, “as it states be ye holy for I am holy we should also be holy in all manner of conversation!”

He also says to not fashion yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance!

What Peter is saying is the same thing the writer of Hebrews was saying in...

The word perfection used here means maturity!

Let us keep growing in our faith to be more like the one who brought us to faith!

That’s why Peter said to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! (2 Peter 3:18)

The focus of our desire is first and foremost to know and have a relationship with the only one who is righteous and then to seek to be more righteous, more holy for He is holy!

The focus of our desire is to be more like Jesus and the way we do that is by doing what he said in...