{"id":22988,"date":"2013-12-17T17:30:06","date_gmt":"2013-12-17T17:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/?p=22988"},"modified":"2020-06-13T10:12:21","modified_gmt":"2020-06-13T09:12:21","slug":"blessed-are-those-who-hunger-and-thirst-after-righteousness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2013\/12\/blessed-are-those-who-hunger-and-thirst-after-righteousness\/","title":{"rendered":"SERMON: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Earlier this year I preached two sermons as part of our series on the Beatitudes. \u00a0This one was on Matthew 5:6 \u201cblessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness\u201d<\/p>\n

You can watch the video, download the audio<\/a> or read notes below.<\/p>\n<\/iframe>\nI remember well at the end of the first term of university how nervous I was when I faced my first examination. I knew that failure would lead to resists, but only if they allowed it, and definitely if I failed any re-sits that would mean the end of the career I had set my heart on. I was worried all term that somehow there had been a mistake in the marking of my A Level papers and I wasn\u2019t really meant to be there.\u00a0 Now they would find me out and send me home! \u00a0I felt like I knew nothing just days before the exam. I worked hard. I studied well. I even found a revision partner. And so I passed.\u00a0 It was a great feeling.<\/p>\nBut there were many more exams, and each one I passed made me more confident for the next. A couple of years later I faced a whole new type of exam that the university had never set before. This time, I was confident. I knew how this went.\u00a0 It was a practical exam which those of you who know me would realize should have worried me, but it didn\u2019t.\u00a0 I was so confident, I was over-confident.\u00a0 I was cocksure. This would be easy.\u00a0 I turned up at the exam, did all the practical stations and was certain I had passed easily.\u00a0 Imagine my shock when I went to the results board as I had several times before and saw my name in the \u201cfailed\u201d section!\u00a0 I thought I knew what I was doing, but I didn\u2019t.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nThere were some little things that I didn\u2019t understand about that exam which I can tell you about over coffee.\u00a0 Those little things undid me\u2026I thought I knew all about it but I had misunderstood at crucial points.<\/p>\nSometimes we are so cocksure that we are right only to find out that we are wrong. \u00a0Today\u2019s subject can be a bit like that: righteousness.\u00a0 Many people talk about righteousness and they think they know but they don\u2019t\u2026 \u2026..Many people think they know what righteousness is but they don\u2019t\u2026.that word comes from this Bible but you don\u2019t know it\u2026. This subject is critical for those of us who were like me going into that exam over-confident<\/strong>, but it is also critical for us if we are more like I was going into that first exam: terrified that we are going to fail to hit the mark.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\nJesus says, <\/strong>\u201cBlessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be satisfied\u201d<\/p>\nSo far in the beatitudes we have spoken about an emptiness. Now we move to a desire to be filled. We recognize that we are spiritually poor, we mourn loss, and we are we are to be emptied of pride and become meek.\u00a0 Now we will begin to see over the next three weeks what we are meant to be full of: righteousness, mercy, peace.<\/p>\n1.\u00a0 The hunger and thirst we all share:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hunger and thirst are inate and natural impulse God built into everyone.\u00a0 Every living thing in the world has this.\u00a0 God put it there not because he wants you to suffer, he doesn\u2019t want you to die.\u00a0 The instinct leads you to go and get food\/water.<\/li>\n<li>Thirst in recent heat\u2026.can kill\u2026agony etc etc\u2026.\u00a0 land of the Bible knew frequent famines and droughts<\/li>\n<li>That hunger can get warped\u2026.people hunger after all sorts of things\u2026.money, good jobs,\u00a0 all sorts of things.<\/li>\n<li>There by nature an emptiness in all people\u2026we don\u2019t know what it is we long for sometimes<\/li>\n<li>Empty people long to be filled.\u00a0 The trouble is we don\u2019t naturally know where to go to be filled<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It is this that drives us. An inner restlessness, a nagging irritation, a sense that things are not as they should be, a longing for more, career, money, an ache for approval, for pleasure, for what we are not quite sure, but all we know it is never satisfied.<\/span><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 NEVER REALLY CONTENT.<\/li>\n<li>When we are hungry for food and thirsty for drink we have agony that can be satisfied by nothing else. Playing nice music on our stereo wont wash!\u00a0 When we try and quench this hunger we have we cant because we don\u2019t realize what the hunger was designed for.<\/li>\n<li>All have this hunger. Some of us are better at controlling it and others at hiding it. \u00a0 Hunger impulses. Drive. We have what the bible calls \u201clusts of the flesh.\u201d\u00a0 Some of these drives the mentally ill find it harder to control.<\/li>\n<li>Advertising plays on our hunger, feeds it.<\/li>\n<li>Pornography massages the hunger for many<\/li>\n<li>With great effort we try to live our lives and yet never manage to feel content: \u201cMy people have committed two evils: \u2028\u00a0They have forsaken me, \u2028the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, \u2028broken cisterns, that can hold no water.\u201d Isaiah 2:12-13<\/li>\n<li>SIN is all about how this desire within us gets twisted\u2026.it is not the desire, nor the passion that is wrong, but rather the way we try to satisfy it.<\/li>\n<li>Can be GOOD Things that we long after too much or long after in the wrong context.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIf I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.\u201d\u00a0 CS Lewis<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nToday\u2019s verse tells us that there is Nothing wrong with hunger and thirst, the issue is where is it directed.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What is it that we really long for ?<\/li>\n<li>Jesus tells you want to hunger for: righteousness. Jesus tells us direct our hunger and thirst to righteousness and we will find we will be satisfied and contented.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>What is Righteousness<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A DESIRE must FILL US for righteousness<\/li>\n<li>Righteousness consists of three things:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote>\n<ol>\n<li>right behavior\u00a0 = Bible calls this sanctification <\/strong>includes both the absence of sin and the presence of good acts such as justice<\/li>\n<li>right standing before God\u00a0 i.e. \u201cdeclared righteous\u201d a legal concept = \u201cdeclared not guilty\u201d or \u201cjustification<\/strong>\u201d<\/li>\n<li>right relationship with God, others and ourselves.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\nTo long to be filled with righteousness is to long for all these things, but our longings get distorted.<\/p>\nSo we long to behave \u201cright\u201d<\/strong> but forget who defines that and so run around trying to please others and follow others. We think we are \u201cfree\u201d but really we just copy those around us. A desire to live \u201cright\u201d when distorted becomes Peer pressure.\u00a0 We \u201clet the world squeeze us into its mould\u201d JB Phillips paraphrase of Romans 12<\/p>\nWe long to have a right standing<\/strong>, and this when distorted becomes Phariseeism.\u00a0 Here we are proud of our own righteousness and look down on others. This distortion encourages us to personally reject and hate \u201csinners\u201d who are worse than us. For centuries many \u201creligious\u201d people have not wanted to associate with those less \u201crighteous\u201d than themselves. It is so easy to conveniently forget our own sins, BUT, our own sins do come back to haunt us.\u00a0 The hunger remains.<\/p>\nWe long to have right relationships<\/strong>, and when distorted this simply becomes a desire for significance for closeness, for any sort of relationship. This can lead to promiscuity as we are terrified of being left on the shelf of nobody loving us.<\/p>\nAs we begin to be awakened spiritually, and we begin to understand that it is righteousness that we must long for, we naturally think that the order here is<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0Right behavior which leads to<\/li>\n<li>Right standing before God which leads to<\/li>\n<li>Right relationship with God, ourselves and others.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\nIn other words we think people (including God) will like us if we do the right thing.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nBUT, we simply can\u2019t seem to make it work this way\u2026hence our hunger increases!<\/p>\n\u00a0We long to behave right:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cWe cannot be truly happy and live in sin.\u201d CHS\u00a0 Especially true of the believer who drifts away. Man who lived in sexual sin having been a believer who said that he felt a presence with him like a parrot on his shoulder: \u201cI\u2019m still here and I still love you.\u201d Wasn\u2019t a comforting voice really: it compounded his misery of knowing he was doing wrong:\u00a0 miserable as sin!<\/p>\nWe long to be declared right ie have a right standing before God, but we are secretly terrified that he is angry with us, that we deserve his wrath, and that we are clearly not good enough for him. Like when you pass a police car, and slow down to below the speed limit and feel guilty even if you have done nothing wrong!\u00a0 WE KNOW WE ARE NOT RIGHT WITH GOD\u2026<\/p>\nJesus defines righteousness pretty clearly for us later in this same sermon v20 \u201cunless your righteousness exceeds the Pharisees you won\u2019t enter the kingdom of heaven\u201d\u00a0 SHOCKING!<\/p>\nThey were known for their showy righteousness\u2026.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>don\u2019t kill \u201ccheck!\u201d But Jesus says anger is just as dangerous for our soul!<\/li>\n<li>don\u2019t come to church unless you have done everything in your power to reconcile with someone who has things against you<\/li>\n<li>don\u2019t commit adultery\u2026in our age a bit harder perhaps, but still I am sure many of us can say \u201ccheck!\u201d but he says \u201cif you look at a woman with lust you have already committed adultery with her in your heart\u201d If he was speaking today he\u2019d say \u201cif your laptop causes you to sin install blocking software, and if that doesn\u2019t work throw it away.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>OT made allowances for divorce, Jesus says \u201cno divorce!\u201d unless the other partner commits adultery.<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t swear falsely\u2014Jesus: be the sort of trustworthy person who doesn\u2019t even have to swear.<\/li>\n<li>OT limits retaliation to \u201can eye for an eye\u201d Jesus says, turn the other cheek!<\/li>\n<li>Jesus says if someone sues you, you should give double what he asks for, that we should work twice as hard as we are expected to, and we should give to beggars, and loan people money.<\/li>\n<li>In summary he then says \u201clove your enemy not just your friend\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nA terrifying picture when we realize we can\u2019t fulfil it in our own strength, and yet an enticing one.\u00a0 Who wouldn\u2019t want to be like that?<\/p>\n3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>How are we satisfied?<\/strong><\/p>\nRighteousness is not just to do with behavior but location, standing\u2026.right if I behave right then I will right and live right and be accepted by God when you do your right sanding and living\u2026he says it doesn\u2019t work it is like filthy rags\u2026compared to him, you don\u2019t have any rightwousness hide it away only way get it if he gives it to \u2026.gift of righteousness never earn it never let you insult him by buying it\u00a0 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become s<\/sup><\/em>the righteousness of God. 2 Cor 5\u201d21\u00a0 only out of that everything else works out\u2026.can be a christian have still have things that are workling on because the standing is fixed\u2026.<\/p>\n>>>>>FILLED what does that look like?<\/strong><\/p>\nREVERSE THE ORDER\u00a0 NOT BEHAVIOUR, STANDING, RELATIONSHIP other way round:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0 In the desert the cry goes up \u201cSand! It\u2019s all sand! GO TO WHERE THE WATER IS\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0 \u201cThou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it rest in Thee. \u201c (Augustine)<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0We have a longing that can only be satisfied by Jesus<\/li>\n<li>\u201cHe hath filled the hungry with good things; and. the rich he hath sent empty away.\u201d FROM MARYS SONG\u2026.<\/sup><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nTHOSE WHO HUNGER:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cGod will fill them; and when he fills men with his fulness, they are full indeed.\u201d\u00a0 -C. H. Spurgeon,<\/p>\nA relationship<\/strong> with Jesus: On \u2022the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, \u201cIf anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink (John 7:37).<\/p>\nCome, everyone who thirsts,\u00a0 come to the waters;\u00a0 and he who has no money,\u00a0 e<\/sup><\/em>come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk\u00a0 without money and without price.\u00a0 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,\u00a0 and your labor for that which does not \u2022satisfy?\u00a0 Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,\u00a0 and delight yourselves in \u2022rich food.\u00a0 (Isaiah 55:1-2)<\/p>\nRivers of Living Water \u00a0\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>HE IS OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS! HE IS THE BREAD OF HEAVEN!!! FEED ON HIM!<\/p>\nIt is in our relationship of faith and trust in him that our need is satisfied. We have a God-shaped hole in us.<\/p>\nJESUS DIDN\u2019T COME FOR THOSE WHO THINK THEY ARE RIGHTEOUS BUT FOR SINNERS LIKE YOU AND ME!\u00a0 REF\u2026.\u00a0 COME TO HIM EMPTY WITH NOTHING TO OFFER.<\/p>\nThis relationship is the key to everything<\/strong>: The Sermon on the Mount ends in 7:22\u201323 with these words of Jesus:\u00a0 \u201cOn that day many will say to me, \u201cLord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?\u201d And then will I declare to them, \u201cI never knew you<\/span>; depart from me, you evildoers.\u201d<\/p>\nThe final exam question it turns out is not about right behavior, not even about right sanding, but rather about a right relationship<\/strong>.<\/p>\nA RIGHT STANDING that comes by faith in Jesus i.e. our relationship of trust with Jesus<\/strong><\/p>\nThrough this relationship, through being IN CHRIST we receive the GIFT of righteousness<\/p>\n\u201cIf we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart God raised him from the dead we will be saved\u201d Rom 10<\/p>\nHE is our Righteousness.\u00a0 He DECLARES US TO BE RIGHTEOUS!\u00a0 He loves us and sees us as righteous already\u2014we \u2026so we can do anything and he will<\/p>\n\u201cThere is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.\u201d \u201cTherefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cI am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: \u2018The righteous will live by faith\u2019\u00a0\u201d (Rom. 1:16\u201317)<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\nBUNYAN: One day as I was passing into the field . . . this sentence fell upon my soul. Thy righteousness is in heaven. And methought, withal, I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God\u2019s right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, he wants [lacks] my righteousness, for that was just before [in front of] him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, \u201cThe same yesterday, today and, and forever\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/biblia.com\/bible\/esv\/Hebrews%2013.8\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Hebrews 13:8<\/a>).<\/strong><\/p>\nOur identity is no longer sinner but saint. No longer rebel but righteous!<\/strong><\/p>\nSometimes we think may think that nothing has really changed, or that we are no different but the Bible says we are born again! God has changed us already on the inside. There is a new seed within us, a new desire for God.<\/p>\nOver time this leads to our right behavior<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/strong>ONCE SAVED THE HUNGER TAKES ANOTHER FORM\u2026NOW the true Christian really WANTS to be righteous\u2026.<\/p>\nIt is through our relationship with Jesus that this desire for righteousness grows because HE IS RIGHTEOUSNESS SEEING HIM inspires us and enables us<\/span><\/em><\/strong> to be transformed from one degree of glory into another and the behavior begins to follow.\u00a0 We behold the face of God\u2026.\u201dNow the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.\u201d (2 Corinthians 3:17-18, ESV)<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\nWe are willing to do ANYTHING to learn how to be righteous\u2026.It is not that our sinful desires disappear, they are still there but are abhorrent to us.\u00a0 Where the world would say \u201cas long as you aren\u2019t hurting anyone else\u201d<\/em><\/strong> we feel \u201cbut that behaviour stinks!\u201d<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 We want to please our new master, but even more than that he changes our desires to match his.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There is a continual hunger and a continual satisfaction!<\/li>\n<li>We are urged to \u201cput on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.\u201d He thirsts to be \u201crenewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created him.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\u201cLittle children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous\u201d<\/em><\/strong> (1 John 3:7).\u00a0 Our identity impacts on our behavior<\/strong><\/p>\nWe don\u2019t defeat sin by merely running from it, we defeat it by running towards God.\u00a0 Our desire for HIM is what gradually defeats the power of sin in us.<\/p>\nSo flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with \u00a0<\/sup><\/em>those who call on the Lord \u00a0<\/sup><\/em>from a pure heart\u00a0 (2 Timothy 2:22).<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/biblia.com\/bible\/esv\/Matthew%206.33\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Matthew 6:33<\/a> says, \u201cSeek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness\u2026.\u201d EVERYTHING ELSE GOOD IS ADDED TO US\u00a0 we no longer have to be passionate for other things. Doesn\u2019t hunger for money, even for health, but to be righteous in every u way\u2026. In the presence of the ONE hunger, all other hungers die out\u2026.He will provide all our needs\u2026maybe not all our WANTS but all our needs!<\/p>\nCONCLUSION:\u00a0\u00a0 DON\u2019T start with the desire to behave well.\u00a0 Start with the desire to BE in a relationship with him and let that work from the inside out, not the outside in.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this year I preached two sermons as part of our series on the Beatitudes. \u00a0This one was on Matthew 5:6 \u201cblessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness\u201d You can watch the video, download the audio or read notes below. I remember well at the end of the first term of university how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[686,562,449,516,424,380],"class_list":["post-22988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons","tag-messages","tag-prophecy","tag-sermon-ideas","tag-sermons","tag-social-justice","tag-spurgeon"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>SERMON: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Earlier this year I preached two sermons as part of our series on the Beatitudes. \u00a0This one was on Matthew 5:6 "blessed are those who hunger and thirst\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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Just not all at once. Healing takes time. Compassion and patience carry us over a lifetime of change. These are the themes I explore in my books and in the articles I have written for Patheos since 2003. My writing draws on my scientific training as a doctor and psychiatrist, my work in the UK's National Health Service and the pharmaceutical industry, alongside more than twenty-five years as a member of a growing church where I served on the leadership team offering pastoral care. My perspective has also been shaped by chronic illness since 2017, when I developed life-threatening pneumonia that caused lasting damage to my body, triggered several further conditions, and uncovered a diagnosis of blood cancer. This was successfully treated, although doctors expect it to return in the future. Out of these experiences I founded Blood Cancer Uncensored, an online patient-led support community. 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