Blessed Are Those Who Hunger And Thirst For Righteousness
An Upside Down Kingdom • Sermon • Submitted
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· 12 viewsAs a follower of Christ we should desire to live a righteous life which is living the way God calls us to live.
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We are in week 4 of our series, “An Upside Down Kingdom”.
We are looking at the Beatitudes that Jesus opens up his Sermon on the Mount with.
The Beatitudes are statements that Jesus makes that proclaims a blessing over people who do a certain action or have a certain attitude or mindset.
These are things that Jesus is telling us we should be doing if we are true followers of Him.
Then He ends each statement with a promise.
The first 3 we’ve gone through start in Matthew 5:3
Matthew 5:3-5 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”
If you missed any of the messages you can go back and watch on our website, app, Facebook page, or YouTube channel.
Today we are moving on to verse 6 and the fourth beatitude.
Matthew 5:6 NIV “ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
This is a powerful message and probably one of my favorite beatitudes.
To start I think we first need to talk about what that word righteousness means.
We’re supposed to hunger and thirst for righteousness so it’s kind of important to understand what exactly that means.
Because I’m sure many of us have heard that word plenty of times in our life.
A lot of times when we hear about righteousness it tends to be in a negative way.
For example when we think someone is being “self-righteous”.
Basically they think they’re better than you or more spiritual than you.
But what does that word “righteous” or “righteousness” even mean?
The Greek definition of this word is, right, correct, or justice.
An easy way that I think of righteousness is basically it’s “right living”.
It’s living the right or correct way.
So the question is then what is the correct way to live.
And to that the answer is simple. It’s GOD’S way!
A righteous person is living their life the way God has called them to live.
Now there can be some confusion with this.
Because the Bible speaks of righteousness that comes from God and that can sometimes be confusing to people.
For example let’s look at a couple scriptures.
Philippians 3:9 NIV “and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”
2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
What that means is our works alone don’t make us righteous.
Following the law doesn’t make us righteous.
Our faith in Jesus and what He did for us on the cross makes us righteous in God’s eyes.
What that means is when you truly surrender your heart to God and give your life to Him, He now doesn’t see you based on your flaws and mistakes you’ve made.
He looks at you like He looks at Jesus.
Because of Jesus you have been made right with God and now He sees you as a child of God, forgiven and free.
Now this is where people can get confused.
Because if we are righteous in God’s eyes based on our faith and what Jesus did on the cross, why do we need to hunger and thirst for righteousness?
Being made righteous in God’s eyes doesn’t mean you can just live the way you want because “God looks at you and sees Jesus”.
It’s the same mindset that we talk about when dealing with grace.
Many people treat grace as a free pass to sin.
And those same people think of “becoming the righteousness of God” in the same way.
Well I believe in God therefore He has made me righteous therefore it doesn't matter how I live.
WRONG!
John 3:6-10 NIV “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. 7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.”
There are so many other scriptures I could share that say the same thing.
You see when you become a follower of Jesus, yes you become the righteousness of God.
And it’s because He has put you in RIGHT standing with Him and motivates you to LIVE a RIGHTEOUS life!
It’s not about doing what’s right because the law says to or because it’s my “Christian” duty.
It’s about because of what Jesus did for me on the cross and because I have been forgiven and made right with God, I now out of gratitude and true love for God am going to choose to follow his commands.
I’m going to live a righteous life because I’ve submitted my life to Him and want to live FOR him!
And this goes back to the conversation of what does it mean to truly be saved?
Because I struggle a little bit when Pastors tell people all you have to do is believe that Jesus died on the cross and you will be saved.
Now some of you might be sitting there and think, “what did he just say?”
Because when we say you just need to believe Jesus died on the cross and rose again it makes it sound like all you have to do is “ACKNOWLEDGE” what He did.
Acknowledging that Jesus is real and went to the cross does not save you.
That’s not BELIEVING in Him and surrendering your life to Him.
Because you can believe Jesus was a real person who died on the cross and rose again and still not be saved.
You’re not saved because you haven’t submitted your life to Him.
I’ll prove to you in the scriptures that just believing what Jesus did doesn’t save you.
James 2:14-19 “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.”
James tells us that if just acknowledging or believing in God and what Jesus did was good enough then wouldn’t demons be saved?
Wouldn’t the devil be saved?
They not only believe Jesus rose from the grave they SAW Him do it!!
Because believing what Jesus did and who He is, is different from believing what He did and who He is AND surrendering your life to Him and wanting to live according to HIS will!
That’s why I actually have respect for people who say, “I believe in the bible and in God, but I know what I have to give up to follow Him and I just can’t do that right now.”
They get it!
Believing is one thing.
Doing what’s right and living it is another.
And the Bible is CLEAR that if you are a true follower of Christ you will LIVE it!
You hunger and thirst to live a righteous life!
And it’s interesting when you look at the words used for hunger and thirst.
Remember in week one when we were talking about the word “poor” for poor in spirit?
We said there were two words to describe poor in the greek.
One was describing someone who had their basic needs but just not anything extravagant.
Then there was a word that meant destitute.
Meaning you don’t even have the basic necessities.
It’s the same with these two words.
There’s a kind of hunger that we’ve all experienced.
You haven’t eaten in a few hours and your stomach starts to growl and you become hungry.
Or you have kids like mine who 20 minutes after dinner come up to you and ask for a snack because they’re so “hungry”
Has this scene ever happened to anyone else?
Your child comes up to you after they just ate dinner and say, “I’m hungry, can I have a snack?”
To which you reply, “No, you just ate dinner, you're not still hungry.”
To which their response is to collapse on the floor and say, “BUT I’M STARVING!!!”
The truth is most of us in America have NO IDEA what it’s like to be starving.
We can eat whenever we want.
Even many people who are struggling and homeless have access to food through organizations or churches.
Most people have never gone days without eating.
But the word that Jesus uses for hunger and for thirst means to starve or be severely thirsty.
Like what you would feel after a week with no food.
I heard a Pastor tell a story about a friend of his who group up in Rwanda.
The pastor asked him one day, “what’s the difference between being in Rwanda and in America?”
He answered by saying, “I’m learning how to have fun in America. It’s hard to have fun when you’re starving.”
You see when you haven’t eaten in days and your body is truly starving that’s all you think about.
And that’s the kind of mindset Jesus is telling us we should have towards righteousness.
Towards living the way God calls us to live.
And what’s the promise that comes with it?
“For they will be filled.”
That word filled means “satisfied” or “eat their fill”
So Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
Obviously, He’s comparing what we feel when we are hungry and eat our favorite food and are stuffed and satisfied when it’s gone.
Have you ever been really hungry and ate something and thought, “that was not satisfying”?
“It wasn’t what I thought it would be”
To me that’s what Jesus is comparing this to.
Because Jesus knows that we all have a natural hunger and thirst for things of this world.
We have natural desires that scream at us to do something or try something and we think if we do it we will be satisfied.
But many times we find ourselves standing there thinking, “that wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be.”
Because Jesus knows that there is NOTHING on this earth that will ever truly satisfy you.
You’re going to just keep going from one thing to the next.
Because the only thing that can truly give us fulfillment and satisfaction is Jesus.
You will always have an emptiness inside you until it gets filled by Him.
A perfect example of this in the Bible is the woman at the well found in John 4.
Jesus approaches a well that a Samaritan woman is at.
He asks her if she would give Him a drink.
She’s perplexed that Jesus would even talk to her because He is a Jew and she is a Samaritan and says, “how can you even ask for a drink”?
But Jesus says to her....
John 4:10-18 NIV “Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
Jesus knew that this woman had an emptiness inside her.
She was hungry and thirsty to fill it.
So she thought that relationships were the answer.
So she would bounce from one guy to the next.
She would be with a man and maybe she felt good or fulfilled for a short time but those feelings would go away and the emptiness would return.
So then it was off to the next one.
And Jesus makes the powerful statement, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.”
He’s not talking about being physically thirsty.
He’s talking about our thirst for things of this world that we think will satisfy us.
I’ve seen plenty of interviews with celebrities and athletes who have said when they achieved everything they wanted it didn’t feel like they thought it would.
Tom Brady talked about after he won his first Super Bowl he thought to himself, “is this it?”
His whole life he had dreamed of winning a Super Bowl and when he finally achieved it he realized that wasn’t the thing that would bring him fulfillment in his life.
Jim Carrey the actor said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.”
So many people who have EVERYTHING we think you need to be happy have realized that those things aren’t the answer.
And many of them are still searching today for that answer.
Well we know the answer.
Jesus told us!
It’s HIM!
If you feel an emptiness in your heart it’s not going to be filled by relationships, drugs, alcohol, material things, or popularity.
That emptiness is only going to be filled by surrendering your life to Christ and living the life He’s called you to live.
Many people in this church can attest to that truth!
So church is very simple.
If you want to follow Jesus then you need to desire to live a righteous life.
A life committed to doing what’s right in the eyes of the Lord.
Because it’s in doing that, that you will fill that empty void in your life.
That you will be filled and satisfied.
NOTHING in this world will ever satisfy you.
Stop searching for it and accept the true answer in Jesus Christ.
Altar Call (Prayer Team)
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