Matthew 5:6 "Blessed are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness"

1:19No one on our staff is starving. We just haven't eaten in the last 15 minutes. Most of us don't know what it's like to be starving. And you might be thirsty as well this morning. I understand that coffee is a diuretic. I don't know what that means. But from experience, coffee makes you thirsty. Maybe you drank some coffee today. Maybe you drank nothing. And so you're sitting here and you're a little bit thirsty today. But you're not dying of thirst. You're just a little dehydrated.

1:53Most of us don't know what it's like to truly thirst. Friends, I point that out because this is one of those verses in the Bible that we read and we understand the words. We think it's a good metaphor, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. It's one of those verses you read and then you make the Christian sound afterwards. But there is a great chasm between comprehending what Jesus is saying in this verse at a theoretical level and truly hungering and thirsting after righteousness.

2:35And so, friends, my hope this morning is that from now on, hungering and thirsting for righteousness is not just theoretical for us. We don't just simply understand what it means, but we actually experience hungering and thirsting for righteousness in our daily lives. Because Jesus says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. You are blessed if you hunger and thirst for righteousness, because you will be satisfied. What a promise that is.

3:12But that promise raises a lot of questions, good questions that we should ask. Questions like, who is righteous? What if I don't hunger and thirst for righteousness? How can I cultivate an appetite for righteousness? There's so much in the Bible about righteousness. These are important questions to answer. And so let's begin with that first question: who is righteous? To be righteous is to be virtuous or upright. It's to conform to an expected standard or norm. And the Bible reveals that only God and His Word are perfectly righteous.

3:54Look at Psalm 7. God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day. Look at Psalm 19. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandments of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord is the Lord. The Lord are true and righteous altogether.

4:35So God is perfectly righteous, and as a result, every word that He speaks is perfectly righteous and pure and true. They are righteous all together. And God's word reveals that He created us, you and I, in His image and likeness, that He created us upright, that is, virtuous and righteous like He is. But we did not remain that way for long. Adam and Eve gave into temptation. They doubted God's righteous character and His righteous word. They sinned against God, breaking His righteous command.

5:11And as a result, they were no longer righteous. They were no longer virtuous like God. And they passed that unrighteousness down to their children. Their firstborn son, Cain, unrighteously killed his brother Abel. And then that unrighteousness was just passed down generation to generation, to where just a few chapters later in Genesis 6, we read this. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

5:49God sent a flood to cover the earth, to wipe everybody out except for Noah and his family, because they found favor or grace in the eyes of the Lord. And you'd think that maybe. Now, now that all of the people, except for this man and his family who had found grace and favor in the eyes of the Lord, maybe now with this fresh start, things would be different. But they weren't. Century after century, people continued in unrighteousness to the point where, when the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans, he quoted King David from centuries earlier and he said this: None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God.

6:35All have turned aside. Together, they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Consider those words for a moment: that no one is righteous. Not a single person is virtuous, upright, perfectly conforming to God's character and his word. Now, you might think that since we rebelled against God and against his righteous word, that we don't care about being righteous anymore. You might think that we don't care what people think about us. You might think that we don't care about living righteously.

7:23But that's not even remotely true, is it? No matter what people may say to themselves, Or to others or on social media, we are all very concerned with righteousness, especially of being thought of as righteous by others. I have never met a person who did not want to be considered a good person. I've never met anybody who wanted to be thought of as a bad person. It is almost as if we were created to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

7:58But from birth, we pursue the wrong kind of righteousness in the wrong way. We pursue our own version of righteousness through works rather than God's righteousness through grace. And here's what I mean. One person says, I will be righteous if I do more good things than bad things. And for them, it's all about that ledger. That at the end of the day, as long as they've done more good than bad, according to their own definitions of good and bad, they're a righteous person.

8:33A second person says, I will be righteous if I do these good things. Now, that sounds the same, but it's a little bit different because this person thinks they can do as many bad things as they want as long as they do the few good things on their list. A third person says, I will be righteous as long as I don't do these bad things. For them, it doesn't matter how many good things they do, they don't have to do anything. Good as long as they don't do the few bad things on their list.

9:06You see, friends, the problem with all of this is that these people have defined righteousness for themselves. They have defined what is good and what is bad. They have defined what makes someone righteous. And that is exactly what the Jews did in Paul's day. Look at Romans 10. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. Do you hear that? They sought to establish their own righteousness instead of submitting to the righteousness of God.

9:50The Pharisees made up their lists of good things and bad things, and as long as they avoided the bad things and did the good things, they believed, they trusted in themselves that they were righteous. This is what people naturally do. We seek to establish our own righteousness. And then we mistakenly believe that we get to judge ourselves, that we get to grade our own papers. But that's not true. God is the judge, and He is the one who will judge us. Look what Jesus says in Matthew 16.

10:30For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Look what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. So, friends, we were created to care about righteousness. But God's character and God's word are the standard for righteousness. It's not some standard that we get to make up for ourselves. And we don't get to judge ourselves. In the end, we are going to all appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive what is due for what we have done in the body, whether good or evil.

11:24So, what is the alternative? What is the alternative to pursuing our own kind of righteousness? Look again at Romans 10, but this time look at verses 3 and 4 on the screen. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone. Who believes? The alternative to pursuing our own version of righteousness through our works is to submit to God's righteousness through faith in Christ.

12:14Unlike us, Jesus was born sinless. He lived a completely obedient life in line with God's righteous character and God's righteous word. He died in our place for our unrighteous thoughts and words and actions. And he rose again so that all who trust in him would be counted righteous today and one day be made righteous just as he is righteous. Look at 2 Corinthians again. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

12:59Friends, we will never be righteous if we seek to make up our own standard of righteousness and then try to meet that standard. The only way for us to be righteous is to submit to the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, the righteous one, so that we can be counted righteous today and made righteous in the end. But, friends, this raises a second question. What if I don't hunger and thirst for righteousness? That's been true of me at various times in my life. I'm sure it's been true of you as well. Some people in here have never hungered and thirsted for God's righteousness, while others haven't been hungry or thirsty for God's righteousness in some time.

13:51I believe there are at least two reasons why we may not be hungry or thirsty for righteousness. We might be sick or we might be full. First, we may not be hungry or thirsty for righteousness because we are sick. You understand this. When you're sick, nothing sounds good. You don't want to eat anything. You lose your appetite. All food sounds gross. And the same is true when you are spiritually sick. You've got no appetite for God, for God's word, for God's people. And that is because you are spiritually sick.

14:35Jesus uses this very language in Luke chapter 5. In Luke 5, Jesus calls Levi the tax collector to follow him. And Levi throws this big party for Jesus and his disciples and a bunch of his tax collector friends. And the religious leaders are furious about this. Take a look at what happens. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, Why do you? Eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answered them: Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

15:18Jesus says, The people who are already righteous are healthy, they do not need a doctor. But those who are sick are those who are sinners. They're not healthy. They need Jesus, the great physician, if they're going to get better. You see, Jesus compares sin to sickness, which is such a great illustration. Because when we're sick, we often cannot see the disease, but we can see its symptoms. And in the same way, we cannot see sin in our hearts, but we can see its symptoms. And sin, our spiritual disease, will eventually kill us. That's what Paul writes in Romans 6: the wages of sin is death.

16:11So here in Luke 5, Jesus says that sin is sickness. Righteous people are spiritually healthy. They don't need a doctor. But as we saw earlier, nobody is born righteous, not even one. That means that we are all born unrighteous. That we are all born spiritually sick. We're all in need of a physician. We need Jesus, the great physician, to come and heal us by calling us to repentance and faith in Him. So, friends, if you don't hunger and thirst for righteousness, if you have never hungered and thirsted for righteousness, it may be because you are spiritually sick and you are in need of Jesus, the great physician.

16:57Sometimes doctors have to deliver bad news, like telling you that you have a terminal illness. That's not fun for them. That's part of their job, is telling you the truth. And, friends, as a pastor, it is spiritual malpractice for me not to tell you that you have been born, I have been born, we have all been born with a terminal illness, sin. But the good news here is that there's not just a treatment for our disease, there is a cure. And the cure is Jesus Christ and His life and death and resurrection.

17:36And so, if you don't hunger and thirst for righteousness, if you've never hungered and thirsted for righteousness, it might be because you are spiritually sick and you need Jesus. Receive Him by faith this morning. But the second reason that you might not be hungry or thirsty for righteousness is because you're already full. And in this case, I'm talking to Christians. People who are not spiritually sick, but who also have not been hungry or thirsty for righteousness in some time.

18:09You ever been to Caso do Brazil or one of those places? You walk in, and as soon as you get past the lobby area, there is a bacon mountain. We just got back from Colorado. I didn't see anything that beautiful. The servers come around with fried cheese drenched in honey. Amen. It cannot be good for you. And you wonder who came up with that idea. But in the meats, these servers come by again and again, as long as your little card is turned over to green, green for go.

19:06They will shave off as much as you want. You know, I've only been to those places a couple of times, but on both of those occasions, I didn't walk out of that restaurant and say to myself, you know, I'm just so hungry. I thought to myself, I may never eat again. And that's because I was full. And, friends, spiritually speaking, that's the case for many professing Christians. We are not hungry and thirsty for righteousness because we've stuffed ourselves at the table of the world.

19:43The word binging used to be only associated with eating, but in the internet age, it's associated with many things: watching shows online, shopping, viewing pornography. Social media platforms are called feeds. And they're called feeds because it's an endless buffet of content. Social media has proven to be so harmful, so addictive, and destructive, that this last week, the Surgeon General of the United States of America wrote an op-ed saying that a warning label should be placed on it, like you'd see on a carton of cigarettes.

20:39Brothers and sisters, we might not be hungry or thirsty for righteousness because we're already full. We've gorged ourselves on Netflix and Amazon and pornography and social media. So when Jesus calls to us and he says, if you're hungry, Hungry, if you're thirsty, come to me. Many professing Christians are like, no, thanks. I'm already stuffed. But here's the good news: appetites can be cultivated. And the last question that we're going to seek to answer today is: how can I cultivate an appetite for righteousness?

21:26So, let me give you four biblical ways to cultivate a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. First, stop eating junk food. Stop eating junk food. Growing up, like probably many of you, I love the Berenstain Bears. And Too Much Junk Food was one of the best books. Mama Bear's got to drop the hammer on papa and brother and sister for eating too much junk food. Look at this situation. Mama Bear's had enough of the sweet pops and the yums and the crunch chips. It's just too much.

22:06So, whether it was your own mama or mama bear who taught you this lesson, junk food will ruin your appetite for wholesome, nutritious meals. When you eat highly processed, sugary food, you aren't hungry for the food that's actually good for you. And brothers and sisters, the same thing is true spiritually as well. Eating unhealthy spiritual food ruins our appetite for wholesome, nutritious, spiritual meals. Look what God said through the prophet Isaiah. Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come, buy, and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

23:02Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food. Through Isaiah, God asks us, why do you keep making a reservation at the world's table, running up a huge tab, just to leave unsatisfied and unsettled? For some, we need to consider what our spiritual junk food is. I mean, look at these verses in Isaiah 55. This is not a rebuke to you or to me for eating at the table of the world. This is an invitation from the Lord. Come, come and eat. Come and eat food that actually satisfies. Don't settle for that. Stuff that doesn't satisfy you. So we need to answer the question today: what is my spiritual junk food?

24:09What is the stuff that I turn to when I feel lonely or sad or angry or upset? You know, for some, it's literal food. When we feel those things, that loneliness, that sadness, that anger, we turn to comfort food or to alcohol. And we don't even realize that we're doing it until that whole tray of dessert is gone. We're not keeping track of just how many drinks that we've poured. But we wake up the next day feeling miserable.

24:56For others, it's shopping. You're having a bad day at work, a tough day at home with the kids, and so you jump on Amazon and you buy something. That endorphin rush gets you through that day and the next day as you wait for it to come. But those purchases make us happy for a day, a week, a month, and then we're right back in the same place. For others, it's social media. Scrolling online is an escape from your life.

25:31Which is hard or sad or boring or unfulfilling. On social media, you can live vicariously through famous people or through old high school friends or even through your fellow church members who just seem to have it easier or better than you do. But I don't know anybody who's ever gotten off of a session scrolling and felt filled with more hope or joy or peace. For others, it's pornography. Pornography promises intimacy with no strings attached. The smiling, beautiful people online don't ask for commitment or sacrifice, they're just there when you want them, and then with a click, you can make them disappear.

26:27Beloved, I don't like talking about our sin issues with such specificity. But just like doctors have to be specific with their patients, I believe that as pastors, we have to be specific about the things that are killing our appetites for righteousness. Later on in Matthew 5, Jesus says that if our eye or our hand causes us to sin, we have to cut it out and throw it away. He says, you need to go to any length necessary to ensure that sin does not die. Dominate your life, that you don't go back into slavery to sin, that Jesus died to set you free from.

27:07And so, for some of us, you need to listen to me carefully this morning. For some of us, it is long past time that you admit that you cannot handle a smartphone, that you cannot handle access to YouTube, that you cannot handle social media, that you cannot handle having dessert or alcohol in the house. And my guess is we've had such a hard time beating that. Not because we haven't tried. I believe that everybody here has tried, but it's usually because we're doing it alone.

27:46We need one another. And so, friends, I invite you this morning: if you're struggling in any of those areas or in dozens of others that I didn't mention, do not leave today without going to a Christian you know here at church. Don't leave without approaching a deacon or an elder here, a life group leader. If we want to develop an appetite for righteousness, we've got to stop eating spiritual junk food by the power of the Holy Spirit.

28:15Second, how do we cultivate an appetite for righteousness? Stop eating. I don't mean permanently, but stop eating for a time to cultivate hunger for righteousness. Righteousness. What I mean is practice fasting. Fasting is voluntarily abstaining from eating for a short period of time for spiritual purposes. Jesus expected us to fast. In Matthew 6, he gives instructions on giving and prayer, and he says, when you give and when you pray. And then he gives instruction on fasting, saying, when you fast.

28:58And so it seems very clear that Jesus obviously expects us to give and he expects us to pray. He seems to expect us to fast. And he himself fasted. But many Christians don't fast. And I believe that we don't fast because fasting is uncomfortable. I don't like fasting. We're used to eating large quantities of highly palatable foods frequently. We've conditioned our bodies to tell us, you usually eat at this time. If you don't go to Wendy's and get the pretzel baconator, you're going to die.

29:36Friends, when we read this phrase, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied, one of our biggest problems is that we don't have any idea what it means to hunger and thirst. That is the value of fasting. We make ourselves artificially hungry and thirsty for a short period of time so that we can learn to hunger. Hunger and thirst for righteousness. Look at the connection that Moses makes for the Israelites. It says this in Deuteronomy 8, and he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

30:30God says through Moses that he allowed the Israelites to experience hunger and thirst so that they would learn that they don't live by bread alone, but by every word of God. Friends, fasting helps us to learn that same lesson. So I want to encourage you to make a plan to start fasting. I don't want you to say, all right, I'm not going to eat until Thursday. I don't think that's a good idea. I recommend starting with one meal.

31:03Make a plan to set aside one meal this week and use that time to read scripture, to pray, to memorize the word. It's best if you can do it with others. Yes, for the accountability, but also so that we can encourage each other and read scripture together, memorize scripture together during those times. When you're ready for the next level, plan a 24-hour fast from lunch to lunch or dinner to dinner. You're really only skipping two meals, and most of the time you're asleep.

31:31The point is, fasting is a biblical discipline practiced and expected by Jesus for our spiritual good. So, if we want to develop an appetite for righteousness, we need to stop eating for a short period of time by the power of the Holy Spirit. Third, how do we cultivate an appetite for righteousness? Start eating good food. Start eating good food. Look at 1 Peter 2 on the screen. Peter says, like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

32:13If you want to be healthy, you can't simply stop eating junk food, and you certainly can't stop eating. Jesus did not say man doesn't live on bread. He said, Man doesn't live on bread alone. So to be physically healthy, we have to eat, and to be spiritually healthy, that's true as well. Peter says the way to do that is by longing for the pure spiritual milk, which in the context of that chapter is the living and abiding word of God.

32:47Brothers and sisters, what does your spiritual diet consist of? Is this the only time that you ingest the word of the Lord here in worship as we read it and preach? It or in the 11 a.m. hour as we teach it in our classes. Friends, we do our best to preach and teach the Word of God here at New Life. We go verse by verse through books of the Bible almost all the time and worship. All of our kids, our high school students and middle school students, our college students, we're opening the word and teaching them how to understand it and apply it. Pastor Mark and Debbie did a long class on the Bibles, teaching on parenting. I taught a 16-week class recently on systematic theology. What does the Bible say about all these different subjects? We do our best to preach and teach the word here regularly at New Life.

33:47But, friends, nobody can be healthy on a couple meals a week. And so you've got to ask yourself, what does my spiritual diet consist of? You know, my favorite Bible reading plan is the one that you actually use. So read a chapter a day. Read a paragraph a day. Read a verse a day. Download Church Center. Go to our homepage and click join our Bible reading plan. We pay for a membership at Dwell, which is an app that allows you to listen to scripture and all these different Bible reading plans. We pay for that for everybody who attends New Life. We want you to be in. The word. We have the time, we have the resources. By God's grace, perfect spiritual food is literally at our fingertips. We just have to take and eat.

34:43And so, by the grace of God, if we want to develop an appetite for righteousness, we've got to start eating good food. And then, fourth and finally, how do you cultivate an appetite for righteousness? Start training. Start training. In 1 Timothy 4, Paul writes these words to his disciple Timothy. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

35:28Any nutritionist is going to tell you, any doctor is going to tell you, diet and exercise go hand in hand. You can't simply have a good diet or simply exercise. You have to have both. And Paul tells Timothy in this text: train yourself for godliness. I want you to think about that word, train. People who are really serious about fitness do not work out. They train. They go into every session with intensity and intentionality and focus.

36:09Me and Easton go to Planet Fitness several times a week together. Not a lot of training going on there. Some working out, mainly thumbs. I'm like, hey, if you're done scrolling, we'd like to use that machine. I know it's the judgment-free zone. But pastors are sinners, too. Christians, we aren't called to work out. We're called to train ourselves for godliness, to set a goal spiritually, and to go after it with intensity, intentionality, and focus. Are you training yourself for righteousness? Do you have a plan for that? You know, historically, that's been called a rule of life, a set of spiritual practices that you follow. And some of those practices are things that we've mentioned today: Bible reading, and fasting, and prayer. There are other spiritual disciplines like silence and solitude, or corporate disciplines like worshiping together, serving, giving. All those things are part of the training plan, how we become more righteous people.

37:23Because you know what training does? It makes you really hungry and thirsty. When you're training, you are hungry and thirsty from the last session, and you've got to eat good food and drink a lot of water to prepare yourself for the next training session. Training makes you really hungry and thirsty. So, if you want to develop an appetite for righteousness, then by the power of the Holy Spirit, we've got to train daily. So, friends, I've given you four biblical ways to cultivate an appetite for righteousness.

38:01But I want you to remember: you will not have an appetite for righteousness if you are spiritually sick or if you are already full. So, this morning, if you are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, praise God. God has given you that hunger and thirst for righteousness, and He says that you will be satisfied. That is a promise because Jesus Himself will satisfy you. But if you are sitting here and you are thinking to yourself, I have never been hungry or thirsty for righteousness, or I haven't been hungry and thirsty for righteousness in a long time, then by God's grace and the power of the Spirit, you've got to do some self-examination and figure out if it's because you are spiritually sick or because you're already full. If you're sick, the great physician is the one that you need. He came to cure you from sin's power and sin's penalty. He died for you. Your unrighteousness, the only truly righteous person who ever lived. So, confess your spiritual sickness to Jesus and ask Him to heal you, and He most certainly will. He will give you an appetite for righteousness that He intends to satisfy.

39:16And, Christian, if you're already full because you've been eating at the table of the world, then you need to confess that you've been buying and eating bread that doesn't satisfy. Like Jeremiah talked about back in the spring, you've been drinking water out of broken cisterns. So, I want you to hear this invitation from Jesus, John 6:35. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

39:56That is the good news for Christians as well as non-Christians: that as long as we keep coming to Christ, we will never be hungry or thirsty again. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Let's pray. Father, what a hard word you've given us today. I've had a tough week thinking and praying and evaluating my own life. And I trust that this is a challenging word for everyone here today. So I pray at the close of such a challenging sermon that we would fix our eyes on Jesus, who did not come to condemn the world, but to save it.

41:09May we look to him, the great physician, as the one who doesn't promise a treatment for our sin, but a cure. Thank you, Lord. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.