Morning Church. I hope you are enjoying the teaching on the Beatitudes. I call these the Be-Attiudes. Our life values.
The Beatitudes are the spiritual charter of the kingdom. (W.F Albright and C.S. Mann) Much of the New Testament teaching is around working these values out.
So far we have discovered:
Pastor Jess Cave: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is in the kingdom of God. Jess reminded us that we have t acknowledge our poverty of spirit - we have nothing to offer God - so that we can be saved through Jesus. Theologians call this ‘moral bankruptcy. We are bad, Jesus is all good, therefore there is hope.
Rev Keith Warrington: Blessed are those who mourn - where he looked at how Jesus intervenes and sees, calls touches and restores us.
Layla and Risnam: Youth takeover: Blessed are the meek - the role of humility and strength under control.
Matthew 5:3-12: “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.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Today we come to number four:
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
What is the Blessing?
Blessed: makarios, adjective, (3107 Strongs). Means happy but is not just the characters that are blessed but the nature of that which is the highest good (Vines, Blessed, 3107).
Makarios is difficult to translate into English. It is an intangible thing (not materialistic). We have a limited idea of what a blessing is due to false prosperity teaching. (Yes, I said it - false).
The word used here incorporates the idea of wholeness, joy, well-being, of holistic peace expressed in the Hebrew shalom. Makarios is closely related to the peace the inner condition, that Jesus promises (John 14:27).
[When we come to peacemakers we will examine shalom a bit more, but it is not just ‘peace’, it’s more.]
What is righteousness?
Why should we thirst for it?
It is not the righteousness of a nation but something we cannot earn for ourselves. It is the very salvation through Jesus. What is Jesus saying? You hunger to be saved, to be right with God, you will be filled.
(Compare: John 4: 13; Psalm 107:9; 143:6; Isaiah 55:1).
Righteousness = right-with-God-ness
Psalm 143:6: I spread out my hands to you; I thirst for you like a parched land.
Humbling ourselves, praying, seeking the face of God, and turning from our wicked ways is what this fourth beatitude is all about. It is the seeking of God in our lives. (2 Chronicles 7:14).
What do you crave?
When Barbie was preggers with our first son, she suddenly had this craving for a custard slice. Not any old custard slice. One from a bakery a mile from our home. A bakery that was closing in ten minutes time owned by a lovely Greek family. I wasted two minutes trying to convince her that the craving would pass, but she gave me a look that would wither a fig tree, and so we set off in the car. I got there just as they were closing, left her in the car, and ran in.
“I need a custard slice for my wife.”
“Sorry, sold out.”
The world slowed down. Blood drained from my face. Barbie waddled in with her 8 month pregnant belly.
I said, “You tell her!”
Blood drained from the baker’s face.
When you are overwhelmed with a craving nothing else seems to do.
Are we overwhelmed with the craving for righteousness? The right-with-God-ness
What you pray for is what you crave for.
Let’s define what righteousness is and is not.
Stinking Righteousness
This is righteousness in our own strength which is actually the opposite of what we think it is. I heard a bishop speaking a heresy this week when, as a homosexual, he defined Jesus as a sinner. You see, righteousness in our own strength will try and make Jesus like us. Righteousness in God’s strength makes us like Jesus.
Isaiah 64:6: All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
Now, I do not want to be offensive, but there’s something you should know about this verse and our attempts to prove our own righteousness before God.
The Hebrew for "filthy rags" in Isaiah 64:6 is beged iddim (בֶּגֶד עִדִּים). While translated as "filthy rags," the phrase literally refers to menstrual cloths. Beged means "garment," and I from a root word 'iddah refers to the impurity associated with menstruation.
All our efforts to ‘make a deal’ with God, all our ‘goodness’, good deeds, attempts to earn our place in heaven is equivalent to offering God used …. Well, you can fill in the blank!
Philippians 3:8-9: What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 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.
(See also: Romans 10:1-3; Titus 3:5.)
Every effort made by us to be righteous in our own sight is rejected by God.
Unearned Righteousness
When a person places their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, His righteousness is put to their account, and their sin debt is canceled.
The word for this in the Bible is: justified.
This word justified pops up in scripture 17 times and 16 of those are in the NT (Luke 18:14; Romans 3:24; 28; 4:1, 2; 5:1, 9; 8:30; 10:10; 1 Corinthians 6:11; Galatians 2:16, 17; 3:11, 24; 5:4; Titus 3:7.)
Romans 4:4-5: Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. 5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.
It is the righteousness that God gives us - Just As If I’d Never Sinned.
Romans 5:1: Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ
Romans 4: 1-11: teaches that salvation is by faith alone. In this chapter, Paul states that the result of our faith in Christ is His imputed righteousness. Theologians love a technical word.
Eleven times the Greek word logizomai is used in Romans 4, which is where we get the word imputed.
V3: It is translated once as “credited" or "counted".
V4,9,10: three times as “credited”.
V6,8,11,22,23,24: and six times as either “credits, counts, credited, credit”.
Imputed means to credit to someone’s account. So, if one day I wake up and my bank account has £10 million pounds in because someone has gifted it to me, they have imputed it.
Isaiah 55: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.”
What does that mean? Righteousness that we crave is given to us by Jesus without us working for it or earning it.
It is His blood, not ours, that saves us.
It is His Spirit, not ours, that empowers us.
It is His love, not ours, that compels us.
It is His works, not ours, that justifies us.
It is His forgiveness, not ours, that restores our souls.
It is His peace, not ours, that soothes our anxiety.
It is His righteousness, not ours, that makes us right before God.
Thirsty? Hungry?
Matthew 6:33: But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
So often people will chase the blessing. Here, and in all beatitudes, the blessing is not something to be claimed in isolation. In fact, I would go as far to say you cannot just name and claim the blessing. The blessing is a direct result of how we live. Blessed are the …
There is a reason why this is the fourth beatitude. The person who is poor in spirit (knowing they need the Saviour), who mourns (calls on Jesus in times of tragedy), who is meek (walks humbly before God), will naturally thirst for the righteousness of God to be shown in their lives. They will thirst and hunger for their Saviour.
“This righteousness is as important to such a person as food and drink.” (DA Carson).
The righteousness that Jesus credits to us is not an optional extra to obtain a blessing. It is integral to our lives. Stop cultivating your relationship with Jesus we will literally starve to death.
1 Corinthians 15: 34 Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame.
1 Corinthians 15: 34 Think carefully about what is right, and stop sinning. For to your shame I say that some of you don’t know God at all.(NLT)
1 Corinthians 15:34: Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.(NKJV)
The righteousness in Matthew 5:6 is the sanctifying kind of righteousness, with the goal being to renew the image of God in the believer. The Christian who hungers and thirsts after righteousness is one who sees that sin and rebellion against God and they long to be free from sin in all its forms and in its every manifestation. They desire to be free from the:
- Power of Sin (Romans 6:6-23, John 8:34-36)
At the time of our salvation we were spiritually set free from the power of sin. The one who is hungering and thirsting after righteousness is the one who desires to make this true experientially.
- Predisposition to Sin (Romans 7:15-25; Galatians 5:17)
When the two natures are at war in the believer, the one that is the strongest is the one that will win. And the one that is the strongest will be determined by which one we feed the most.
The Christian who is hungering and thirsting for righteousness will be feeding the spiritual man more than the sinful nature. The desire for spiritual things will be greater than his desire for sinful things.
- Presence of Sin
Hungering and thirsting after righteousness involves avoiding everything that is in any way opposed to righteousness.
Hebrews 12:1, tells us the throw off the sin that entangles us, meaning in context of the race to trip us up.
Don’t let your life be filled with the non-beneficial but seemingly harmless things.
1 Corinthians 6:12: “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.
These small things will master you, and if they are your master, then Jesus is not!
Not an Impossible Pursuit
The promise given to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness is that they will be filled. This filling is three-fold.
- Filled Initially
The initial filling deals with the salvation experience. The moment an individual is made to see their need of Christ and they come to Him in repentance and faith, their initial need for righteousness is met in Him.
Romans 8:15: The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
The craving of your soul - that something missing feeling - is only satisfied in Jesus.
- Filled Continuously
The righteousness of God becomes part of our daily walk, bing incrementally changed to be more Christ-like.
2 Corinthians 3:18: And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Note this is a continuing work of the Holy Spirit within us (John 14:15-16).
- Filled Ultimately
1 John 3:2: 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
When He appears we will be transformed, to be like Him.
Coming into Land
If you have never given your life to Jesus, do so now (appeal).
If you would like prayer, for healing or a struggle, come forward and the elders/prayer team will pray with you.
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