Words do not exist in isolation; they exist against a background of experience and thought; and the meaning of any word is conditioned by the background of the person who speaks it and also conditioned by the person who hears it. This is particularly true of this beatitude. It would convey to those who heard it for the first time an impression quite different from the impression which it conveys to us.
As we look at the Sermon on the Mount, we find that it is a masterful presentation of the conditions for entering the Kingdom of God and the characteristics of those who are in His kingdom. But His presentation is not exactly what the people expected. He was offering them happiness in a way they had never heard in their lives and consequently it fascinated them. And by the time He was done, they were more than fascinated. They were absolutely astonished at what He had said. And so our Lord is offering real happiness, real blessedness, but it is the kind of blessedness that only comes by being a part of His kingdom.
To enter the kingdom, you must be poor in spirit. And as you live in the kingdom you continue recognize your spiritual poverty. In order to enter the kingdom, you must mourn over your sin. And as you continue living in the kingdom as a son of God, you will mourn over your sin. In order to enter the kingdom, you must come in meekness, not pride. A proud man can’t enter, and once you’re in the kingdom, meekness continues to be your attitude as you look at God and as God becomes more and more wonderful as you study and learn more. And in order to enter the kingdom, you must hunger and thirst after righteousness. And once you’re in the kingdom, you’ll continue to hunger and thirst for more of that same righteousness. So it is both a condition for entrance and a characteristic of living in the kingdom.
Now let’s look at verse 6, for this particular aspect. “Blessed are they who are hungering and thirsting after righteousness for they shall be filled.” Now, this Beatitude speaks of a very strong desire. It speaks of a driving pursuit. It speaks of a passionate force inside of us, an ambition, if you will. And ambition is a word that can be used in a good sense. It also can be used in a bad sense. There are a lot of things that people strive for and pursue and have a passion for and have ambition to see fulfilled, and there are a lot of strong desires that are perverted, that go in the wrong way.
For example: I think of Lucifer. Lucifer was God’s most glorious creation. The most wonderful creature that God ever made. And Lucifer had a consuming, resolute ambition. He had a passion that was really a driving force within his mind. What was it? In Isaiah 14:13-14 it tells us what the passion of Lucifer was. You said to yourself, “I will climb up to the sky. Above the stars of El ,I will set up my throne. I will rule on the mountain of assembly, on the remote slopes of Zaphon. I will climb up to the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High!” (NET) His ambition was to be like God. He was hungry, but he was – mark it – power hungry. He had a resolute ambition and a consuming passion but it was for power. And in the response of God, we see God says, " But you were brought down to Sheol, to the remote slopes of the pit. You’ll not realize your ambition.”
And then there was Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar, who was the king of Babylon, the greatest of all the world empires. Nebuchadnezzar had a strong desire. In Daniel chapter 4, it tells us of his desire in verse 30. the king exclaimed, “Is this not Babylon the Great that I have built by my vast power to be a royal residence and to display my majestic glory? ”
If Lucifer was power hungry, then Nebuchadnezzar was praise hungry. So hungry was he that he praised himself and God reacted. While the words were still in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven: “King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared that the kingdom has departed from you. You will be driven away from people to live with the wild animals, and you will feed on grass like cattle for seven periods of time, until you acknowledge that the Most High is ruler over the kingdom of men, and He gives it to anyone He wants.” Dan. 4:31-32
Lucifer was power hungry and Nebuchadnezzar was praise hungry. And neither of them ever saw the fulfillment of their ambition.
There’s another individual I would draw to your attention who had ambition. There are many examples, but I’m just giving you one more illustration. In Luke chapter 12, in verse 17, we meet the rich fool Then He (Jesus) told them a parable: “A rich man’s land was very productive. He thought to himself, ‘What should I do, since I don’t have anywhere to store my crops? I will do this,’ he said. ‘I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones and store all my grain and my goods there. Then I’ll say to myself, “You have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.” ’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared — whose will they be?
There have been plenty of people with ambition. Power hungry, praise hungry, possession hungry. We could even say of this man, he was pleasure hungry. “Eat, drink, and be merry.” But they were all fools. They were hungry for the wrong thing. Nothing wrong with ambition. Nothing wrong with passion. Nothing wrong with a resolute drive. Nothing wrong with a great desire if it’s for the right thing.
The problem is that people are hungry and thirsty for the wrong things. Notice that Jesus did not say:
"Blessed are those who are hungry and thirsty for:
1. Pleasure
2. Happiness
3. Wealth
4. Recognition
5. Blessings
6. Experience (the latest religious fad)
You say, “Then what’s the right thing?” Go back to Matt. 5 and verse 6, that’s the right thing. “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Now, this is a strong statement. Food and water are necessities, so is righteousness. That’s the first indication of this Beatitude. You need righteousness like you need food and water. It isn’t wrong to hunger. It isn’t wrong to thirst. It is the most normal thing. It is the most common drive. It is the most necessary drive, and so it is with righteousness.
Of course, when we have what we want, we do not hunger and thirst for it. Only when our desire is still unfulfilled do we truly strive to fill it. This beatitude of hungering and thirsting pictures a believer who has an acute sensitivity or awareness of a need in his life that must be filled. Because it is yet unfilled, he yearns for it with all his being.
The Bible's writers frequently employ the imagery of hunger and especially thirst to illustrate an ardent desire, particularly for the things of God:
Psalm 42:1-2: As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
Psalm 63:1: O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.
It is equally important to understand that Jesus is teaching his disciples a totally different concept of religion, of spirituality, of relationship with God, and of relationship with people.
Jesus is not merely telling them something different. He is sharing with them thoughts and revelations that is radically oppose to what they always accepted, and always understood as being the truth of the scriptures.
The theme of this magnificent discourse is put in a nutshell in Matthew 5:20,
"For, I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven."
How is our righteousness to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees? How important is it that we have this righteousness?
And how can we obtain this higher kind of righteousness?
What then did Jesus mean when He said that " our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees.?"
First of all who were the Pharisees?
The Pharisees were the most affluent and powerful group in the Jewish culture, at least at the time of Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry. Their name means the “separated ones". They regarded themselves as above others and separated from the “unclean masses,” but Jesus shocked them when He told them, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others” (Matt 23:23). Don’t miss the fact that Jesus said “these you ought to have done,” but obviously they rejected true justice, mercy, and faithfulness to God, they were the “separated ones,” but not in the way they thought.
They were separated from a Holy God by their sins of hypocrisy and self-righteousness (Isaiah 59:2). They rejected grace and mercy because they were so entangled in their ritualistic religion of tithing, washings, purifications, and other man made traditions that no one could possibly live up to them, so thus Jesus tells them to their face, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in” (Matt 23:13), and you “travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves” (Matt 23:15). Obviously, Jesus was not pleased with their hypocrisy.
The Pharisees Righteousness
But were the Pharisees really righteous? Weren’t they self-righteousness? The Pharisees didn’t have the righteousness that God demands to enter the kingdom of heaven, and the Pharisees thinking that they were righteous were wrong, because the Bible teaches none are good or righteous (Rom 3:10-12), so why does Jesus say our righteousness must exceed the Pharisees?
Remember, they only had their self-righteousness, which is unacceptable to God. Instead of trusting in Christ, Jesus said these were they “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt” (Luke 18:9), so He told the Pharisees, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15). They failed to see that only those who trust in Christ can be justified, and everyone needs the righteousness of Christ (2nd Cor 5:21) or you can’t even enter the kingdom of heaven.
The Pharisees "trusted in themselves that they were righteous" (Lk. 18:9-14). They supposed their purity had earned them salvation. This led the Pharisees to devise human plans and traditions to get around the parts of God's law which they did not desire to keep (cf. Mt. 15:1-9; Mk. 7:1-14; Rom. 10:1-3) and to compare themselves to sinners rather than to the perfect standard of the law of God (Lk. 18:11; cf. 2 Cor. 10:12).
The concepts and teachings of the Pharisees were accepted as being truth by "the man on the street" in Palestine. The positions and thoughts of the Pharisees were so commonly accepted and had been so for such a lengthy period of time that they represented what most Jews accepted to be the "way things are." In this sermon, and in much of Jesus' teachings, he is contrasting His teachings and concepts with the thoughts and understandings that the common Jewish population accepted without question or doubt. This contrast was very evident to those who seriously listened to his teachings.
The Lord Jesus Christ never condemned a Pharisee, nor any one else, for teaching and practicing observance of divine law. on the other hand Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, in that they said and did not do (Matt. 23:1-4). In contrast, I believe we must be "doers of the word, and not hearers only" (Jas. 1:22-25). The Lord condemned the Pharisees for doing their works to be seen of men (Mt. 23:5-7), whereas we should seek God's approval, not man's (Mt. 6:2-6, 16-18). They were condemned because they set aside the law of God to keep their own traditions (Mt. 15:1-9; 23:16-22; Mk. 7:1-14), but Christians must disregard human traditions to observe the law of Christ (Col. 2:8-10). They kept the small details of the law while disregarding the weightier matters (Mt. 23:23-24), whereas we must obey all the law (Mt. 23:23-24; Jas. 2:10-11). The righteousness of the Pharisees consisted of outward, ceremonial observations empty of any true love for God, as proven by their obstinate disobedience (Matt. 23:25-33). We must obey from the heart to be saved (Rom. 6:17-18). It was perfectly consistent with the Pharisees' concept of righteousness to bring the woman captured while committing adultery to Jesus and say, "The Law says stone to death such women , but what do you say?" (John 8: 5)
Pharisaic righteousness was concerned with external conformity to rules and regulations. ie. self-righteousness.
However Christian righteousness was internal. That inner righteousness of heart, mind, and motives based upon a personal relationship with Jesus. The believer wants to live right but he recognizes that in himself dwells no good thing. So he submits to God’s righteousness. The hunger and thirst for righteousness he has comes form within him motivated by the Holy Spirit.
Of course not all scribes and Pharisees were thus condemned (e.g., Nicodemus, Jn 3:1; 7:45-52; 19:38-42).
How then can a person receive the righteousness that is required to enter heaven, since nothing unclean can enter in (Rev 21:27)? It isn’t going to be a “self” righteousness as practiced by the Pharisees because we’ve seen that’s not enough. It will take a perfect holiness to enter in, and we know how that’s achieved (John 3:16; Acts 4:12; Rom 10:9-13).
What then is "Righteousness?"
In ancient Judaism, righteousness meant “to acquit, vindicate, restore to a right relationship.” The righteous are those who maintain right relationships—with God and with the people around them. It flows from meekness (the third beatitude) because we can only form right relationships with others when we cease making all our actions revolve around ourselves Hunger is a sign of life. If we see that we have God’s grace for this, we will hunger and thirst for right relationships, not only with God, but with the people with whom we work or live. The Bible, though, shows many kinds of righteousness, and each is important in its own right. All are included within the scope of Jesus' words because all are important to Christian life and development. All are to be sought within each Christian's relationship with God and with fellow man.
(1) The first is the righteousness of faith that comes when God justifies a sinner by grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. This results when Christ's righteousness is imputed to him, thus giving him legal righteousness before God. David writes in Psalm 14:1, "There is none who does good, no, not one"; Paul changes this wording in Romans 3:10, "There is none righteous, no, not one."
God makes these powerful indictments against a world in which most people undoubtedly consider themselves as "good." But it is a goodness perceived through their own standards—in a mind not awakened to God's righteousness, filled with the pride of self-righteousness, deceived and blinded by the god of this world (Revelation 12:9; II Corinthians 4:3-4). Such a mind can be, like the unconverted Paul, an accomplice in killing and persecuting God's true children and think all the while it is righteously doing God service (John 16:2). They are like those described in Titus 1:16: "They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work."
According to Paul, all of us have been somewhere in this picture. As sinners we frequently broke God's law in word, thought and deed, and in many cases, were ignorant of doing so because of the deception and blindness Satan has wrought. But God in His calling removed the veil that was over our minds and revealed Himself, His purpose and His standards. We convicted ourselves of spiritual bankruptcy. Where we formerly thought of ourselves as perhaps involving ourselves in a "little" sin—but basically okay as measured against our neighbor and the evil people in society—we now begin to see ourselves in a far different light. We do not have a leg to stand on before God .
Romans 2:4 makes it clear that only by God's mercy are we led to see ourselves to some degree as He sees us: "Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?" God enables us to measure our goodness, our righteousness—which He describes as "like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6)—against Him rather than our neighbor. We realize that certain death for sin is staring us right in the face, yet He has graciously provided us with a perfect righteousness in Christ. This offer is not free, though, because we must totally surrender our lives to His rule. Even as it cost Jesus His life to provide this deliverance, it also costs us our lives, as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1), to take advantage of God's offer. Nonetheless, it is amazing how hungry and thirsty we become for God's offer of justification leading to salvation.
However, we cannot stop here. Hunger and thirst have brought us this far, but it is only a beginning. If it is a true, godly hunger and thirst, it remains, even though we are justified, because the justified person realizes God has only begun a good work in us (Philippians 1:6). The hungry person will recall Romans 5:1-2:
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
What is the Second Righteousness
(2) The second kind of righteousness for which we are to hunger and thirst is the one that occupies the greater portion of our life after conversion. Notice how Jesus states this beatitude. He does not say, "Blessed are those who have hungered . . . ," but rather, "Blessed are those who hunger [do hunger, KJV]." This hungering and thirsting is a continuous state, and it must be this way for the second kind of righteousness, elsewhere called:
(a) pursuing holiness,
(b) going on to perfection, or
(c) growing in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Frequently the Bible calls it sanctification. None of these terms is specifically righteousness, but all are contained within its broad meaning. This righteousness is created in us, imparted to us by God's Holy Spirit following justification as we grow in our relationship with God. It is seeking godly character to be prepared for living in His Kingdom.
God cannot create His holy and righteous character in us by a command. It requires the willing and freely given cooperation of the called; by exercising their free moral agency, they submit to Him in the experiences of life. Submission is difficult, and thus Christianity is no cake-walk through a garden. Jesus often warns that it will require a commitment to Him of such degree that all else must be secondary to Him. We are to bear our crosses and count the cost (Luke 14:26-28). He also warns, "The way is difficult and narrow" (Matthew 7:14), and "He who endures to the end shall be saved" (Matthew 24:13). The trek of the ancient Israelites through the wilderness is a type of the Christian's pilgrimage to the Kingdom of God. Their wilderness experiences expose a number of pitfalls that can destroy a Christian's faith and enthusiasm for continuing to the end.
Through this beatitude, God presents us with a serious challenge. Because it is continuously needed, it establishes a demanding requirement. How much do we want the righteousness of God? Do we want it as much as a starving man desires food or a parched man wants water? Do we so lack vision that we will give up our faith as all the Israelites, save Joshua and Caleb, did in the wilderness? According to Hebrews 4:1, though they heard the good news, they did not believe it sufficiently. They, therefore, died in the wilderness, their pilgrimage finished before they reached their goal. Rather than submit, they resisted God until their deaths. Apparently, they did not hunger enough for it.
Most of us have a desire for God's Kingdom and His righteousness .However when the time comes to make a choice, we are not prepared to make the required sacrifice that the righteousness of God demands. It is situations like these that reveal that we do not desire righteousness more than anything else.
Why do we do things like this even when we desire righteousness? It is very easy to answer that the problem lies with human nature. But this is not so. Jesus gives an answer along this line in Matthew 15:18-20:
But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.
The heart symbolizes our innermost being, the source of our words and actions. Today we call it the mind. When God awakens us to some of His great truths, when we at last begin to realize the vital importance of righteousness, there is a blush of first love, and we begin to hunger to apply them in our lives. But what is already in the heart fights almost desperately not to be displaced by the new nature in the hope of wearing down our enthusiasm for the truth. Paul illustrates this resistance in Galatians 5:17:
For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
Why do we not do the things we wish? The answer lies in the extraordinary power of ingrained habits. They are most difficult to break because they have had free sway for so long one unconsciously does what they incite.
Paul speaks of this using a different metaphor in Romans 7:23: "But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." There are things we can do to enhance the initial hunger God gives to us. If we were physically hungry or thirsty, we would give every last ounce of strength we had to find food and water or die in the effort. We must be willing to do whatever it takes to make progress in our quest for God's righteousness. For we find that the Lord has already given us the victory: " No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us." " We are more than conquerors" another version tells us. In Romans 8:37 Paul writes in II Timothy 3:1, "In the last days perilous times will come." For us, a great deal of that peril exists in the multitude of visible, emotional and audible distractions that occupy minds nurtured by television, movies and radio and the internet. Through these mediums we invite the world and much of its appeal directly into our homes. We have come to tolerate television's intrusion into our lives. By means of the Internet, some of us have become information junkies, and most of us can hardly go anywhere without being accompanied by our ipad or smartphone. We need to honestly examine ourselves as to whether we are showing God that what this world bombards our minds with through these mediums is really what we hunger and thirst for. How are they preparing us for the Kingdom of God?
God is the Source of what makes us grow spiritually, so we must strive to keep the relationship with Him vibrantly alive through constant communication and striving to obey. We must fill our minds with His character and His wonderful purpose, counterbalancing these with knowing what this world is really like and what horrific situations those who have no knowledge of Him or His purpose experience. These things will help to put an "edge" on our hunger, helping to keep it alive and sharp.
(3) Social Righteousness
Because of the nature of Christianity today, the third kind of biblical righteousness does not touch as much on our lives. At the same time, we must not allow ourselves to think it is of little importance. Righteousness is more than a private and personal affair, something only having to do with our direct personal relationship with God. This third kind of righteousness can be called a social righteousness. It is hungering and thirsting for righteousness for the community as well as for the self. It is much more evident in the Old Testament, when the covenant people lived in a single community - "Israel" - as a kingdom of this world. In the New Testament this righteousness contemplates, "Let your light so shine before men, that they see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).
We must realise that "our citizenship is in heaven" (Philippians 3:20). Peter describes us as "sojourners and pilgrims," showing Christians as being aliens in a land not theirs, just passing through, as it were, to another place (I Peter 2:11). Paul calls us "ambassadors for Christ" (II Corinthians 5:20). Therefore, in many aspects of the exercise of citizenship normally required in a country of residence, our priority goes to the Kingdom of God.
Jesus is a clear example of what we must seek to do. Despite all of His divine powers, He never moved to change society externally. Though exceedingly wiser than the entrenched government, He in no way attempted to overthrow it or get a crowd behind Him to vote it out of existence. He did not participate in its politics, nor did He sit in councils or juries judging cases that normally come to those bodies. The apostle Paul followed His example. For that matter there is no record of any of the apostles concerning themselves with these things, even though they were undoubtedly disgusted with the outrageous injustices perpetrated and were sympathetic toward the victims. Indeed, like Jesus, they all may have been victims of human government. They, like us, undoubtedly yearned with great desire for the time to come when they could change things according to God's way.
We should have this desire to change things, and thus we pray virtually every day, "Thy kingdom come." But this should not stop us from doing good as we have opportunity. Jesus did move to change society internally by laying the groundwork through the preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom of God and dying for the sins of mankind. He used His office as God's apostle by traveling around the nation doing good through healing, counseling and teaching. Similarly, though we do not have the office of God's apostle, we nonetheless have His authority to do good works within the framework of our part of His body.
Thus Paul writes in Galatians 6:9-10:
And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
It is noteworthy that Paul includes some incentive to gain more willing participation in seeking this righteousness. We are not to give in to weariness but to know that we will reap reward. That is God's promise. If, like a farmer, we want a harvest, but we must also prepare the ground, sow, water and cultivate. Otherwise we will not have a harvest.
We should be thankful for the privilege of representing our Savior in this manner. If we are not, we might need to ask ourselves, "Just how hungry am I to carry out this search for righteousness?"
We can see from the biblical examples given above , as well as from our experiences in life, that uncontrolled wrong hungers will be fed! It seems to be an unwritten law. Unless something happens to forestall the process, hungers for the wrong things will seek satisfaction to the detriment of those who possess them. James writes, "When desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death" (James 1:15).
How can we derail these hungers before disaster strikes? In Matthew 16:24-25, Jesus Christ instructs us in how to control wrong desires:
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If any one desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."
(a) He tells us to deny ourselves. This means we must disown and renounce ourselves and subjugate everything—all our works, interests, and enjoyments—to the standards set by God. Paul commands us to bring under our control every thought that opposes God and His way (II Corinthians 10:5).
(b) Jesus also instructs us to bear our cross. We need to embrace the situations God has set us in, and with faith in Him to bring us through them, bear the troubles and difficulties that come upon us. Just as Jesus accepted His role, even to "the death of the cross" (Philippians 2:8), we need to be content with what God gives us to do (Philippians 4:11). As Paul says in I Timothy 6:6, "Godliness with contentment is great gain." What an achievement it is not to be driven by evil hungers!
God has called us to lay down our lives in subjection to Him. The supreme object of our lives is not our personal happiness or fulfilling our every desire. Our goal is God's kingdom and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33), but notice what Jesus says next: "And all these things shall be added to you." If we yield ourselves to God's instruction and grow and overcome, He will fulfill our legitimate desires!
Matthew 16:25 shows us the two sides of this issue. Jesus says that if we insist on preserving our way of life, with all its wrong hungers and desires, we will lose it eternally! But if we take control of our mind and emotions and destroy our way of life—ridding ourselves of all the wrong hungers and desires that are against God—then God will save it eternally! The better option is obvious.
Satan has filled this world with hungers of every sort to tempt men, including the people of God. Hungers of lust, power, money and fame seem inviting after the monotony of day-to-day living, but Satan's way is a trap, though an enticing one. It always looks good on the outside, but inside is sin, destruction and ultimately death, eternal death.
God allows us to make decisions. He allows us to learn from the decisions we make—both right and wrong. The right decision to make about the wonderful calling and opportunity He has given to us is to yield ourselves under the mighty hand of God in faith that He will work in us. His work is always wonderful and good. Once we yield, we can set our mind to overcome, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. And God will satisfy us!
