Matthew 5:1-12 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them, saying: 3 "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 sons 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
Introduction: The Thirst of the Soul
One thing almost everyone in our culture has in common is a full schedule. If nothing else we are an incredibly busy people. Even our children are busy. Our lives are jammed full of all kinds of activities and relationships and stuff. And most of it is stuff and activities and relationships that we have because it seemed good to us.
Another thing we all have in common is we go through times of feeling empty on the inside. We all have those times when our soul is just restless – we just don’t feel right. We look around at all we have and think, “I should be happy, but instead I’m…bored. Judging from all the stuff I have got going in my life my heart should be full of joy, but instead there are so many times when I feel empty.” You know how sometimes you are lying in bed trying to go to sleep and for some reason you just cannot seem to get comfortable? That same thing happens to our souls sometimes. No matter how many fun things you do, no matter how many friends you have, no matter how well work is going – your soul is just restless and agitated and you cannot get comfortable.
Why is that? How come sometimes my heart is full, and other times – even though I still have all the same stuff in my life – I am just joyless, empty, bored, lonely, weary, depressed, unfulfilled – just kind of empty? What is that? The longings and groanings and dissatisfaction of the human soul are what the Bible calls hunger and thirst of the soul. Just like your body has hunger and thirst, so does your soul. And whatever it is you think will cure that feeling of dissatisfaction is what you are hungry and thirsty for.
We have recently begun a study of the Sermon on the Mount, and we come this morning to beatitude #4.
Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Righteousness
Righteousness basically means to be right with someone. In the Old Testament context they used that word to refer to behavior that placed you in someone’s good graces. So back then, when the secular people used the word “righteousness” in a non-religious context, they would use it to describe a good relationship between various parties. For example, righteousness toward the government was behavior that gave you favor with the government. You follow their laws, pay taxes, show loyalty, and in return you are in good standing with them. Righteousness toward your wife was whatever behavior it took to get her to be happy with you. Righteousness in the context of a covenant (or contract) was behavior that fulfilled the terms of that covenant so you are in good standing with the person you made the deal with.
The Bible writers use the term righteousness in reference to God. Righteousness toward God, in the Old Testament, was behavior that fulfilled the terms of His covenant (the Law in Old Testament times), and showed you to be a person who had God’s approval and favor. If you are righteous it means everything is right between you and God.
It is important for us to understand that background because the Sermon on the Mount is basically a sermon on righteousness – specifically what righteousness looks like in the Kingdom of the Messiah. And if you go through the whole Sermon on the Mount and summarize each thing Jesus says about righteousness, here is what you get: Righteousness is good deeds, internal and external, done out of obedience to Jesus Christ for the glory of God, that enable nearness to God. What does the life of the person who is right with God look like? What sort of life has the approval and favor of God in the kingdom? A life of obedience and loyalty to Jesus Christ – including both internal and external obedience
There are five parts to that definition and each part is crucial. Remove one part of it and what you have left is not righteousness.
1. Good deeds
First, righteousness is good deeds.
Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Righteousness is good deeds that conform to God’s will as expressed through the Law.
17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law … 19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven
God revealed His will for our behavior in the law, and righteousness involves living in accordance with that.
2. Internal and External
But in order for it to be real righteousness it has to be both internal and external. The religious leaders of that time thought that righteousness was just following all the external rules.
5:20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Their righteousness was only skin deep – it was only on the outside, not the inside. And to illustrate what He means by that Jesus spends the rest of the chapter giving examples. He says, “You say, ‘Do not murder’ – I say ‘Do not even hate, and reconcile broken relationships.’ Avoiding murder has to do just with the actions of your body. But avoiding hate and reconciling relationships has to do with what is in your heart.
Then Jesus moves to another example: You say ‘Do not commit adultery’ (an action done with the body) – I say, ‘Do not even lust’ (an action of the heart). Next – “You say, ‘Do the legal paperwork when you divorce’ – I say, ‘Be faithful in marriage.’ You have heard that it is OK to hate your enemies – I say love your enemies.” Righteousness has to penetrate to the heart or it is not righteousness.
All those examples involve interpersonal interactions with people. When we interact with people – friends, family, spouse, enemies – we need to have good works that arise from a heart of love. Then in chapter 6 He makes the same point our interactions with God – prayer, fasting, and giving. It all has to come from the heart. Those people already knew that righteousness involved good deeds, but Jesus hammers away at showing them that it has to be goodness that comes from the inside.
The inside is crucial – and so is the outside, by the way. That is also important to realize, because some people fall into measuring their righteousness only by what is on the inside. They spend hours in prayer and Bible study and their devotions are rich and deep and profound and delightful, and they sing to the Lord and involved themselves in private, personal worship all day long, but somehow all that supposed intimacy with God never seems to have much impact on their external actions. Somehow it does not end up getting translated into love and gentleness and humility and kindness and patience with people. They get done with all those fabulous devotions and then go to work and they are short with the people around them, easily angered, hard to get along with, argumentative, selfish, etc.
No matter how wonderful your private worship and prayer times are, until that intimacy with God finds its expression in actually loving people, it is not righteousness. We saw that again and again in our study of 1 John.
1 John 4:20 anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
When we have sweet intimacy with God, but it somehow does not translate into love for God’s people, it is only an imagined intimacy. It is not real – because it is impossible to love God without loving those He loves.
3. Obedience to Christ
So righteousness is good deeds, both internal and external, and then third – it is good deeds that are done out of love for and loyalty to Jesus Christ. You can see that by comparing verses 10 and 11.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness
11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Because of righteousness and because of me are parallel. They mean essentially the same thing because righteousness is living a certain way out of loyalty to and love for Jesus Christ. Remember – righteousness is a relational term. It is behavior that pleases a person so that you are not at odds with that person. And in the kingdom of the Messiah righteousness is focused totally on the King. When an unbeliever does seemingly good things – shows kindness, helps the poor, tells the truth, deals honestly in business – none of that is righteousness because the motive is something other than loyalty to Christ.
This is one of the reasons why it is impossible for those who have never heard the name of Christ to be saved. If they have never even heard of Christ then obviously their motive for doing good deeds is something other than loyalty to Christ, and therefore it is not righteousness. One of the reasons the people were so astonished at Jesus’ authority when He preached this sermon was because He pointed to Himself as the ultimate authority. The scribes and rabbis and prophets all pointed to Scripture as the ultimate authority. But Jesus pointed to Himself.
Matthew 7:24 everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. …26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." 28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29 because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
4. For the glory of God
So righteousness is good deeds, internal and external - done for the sake of Christ – and then the last part – for the glory of God.
5:16 let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven.
Righteous deeds done for self-glory are evil. In chapter 6 He talks about righteousness in dealing with God - prayer, fasting, and giving.
Matthew 6:1 Be careful not to perform your righteousness before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
They need to be done for the purpose of seeking God, not to impress men. Do them for self-glory and they actually become sinful.
Works Righteousness?
Now at this point you might be thinking, This sounds awfully works-oriented. Righteousness is living in a way that brings God’s favor and makes you right with God, and it is all about doing good works? Whatever happened to “not by works”?
Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
You are not brought into favor with God by generating good works. You are brought into favor with God by grace alone through faith alone.
That is true. That is the gospel. However, the rest of the gospel is this - when that grace comes to you through faith, it has a transforming effect on your heart. God did not save us because of our good works. He saved us in spite of our bad works. But He also saved us from our bad works. He did not save us so we would continue in sin; He saved us to free us from sin.
Ephesians 2:10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
He saved us not because we were righteous, but in order to make us righteous.
Titus 2:11-14 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12 It (that saving grace) teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age … 14 [He] gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
So according to Paul we do not get saved by becoming righteous. It is the other way around – we get righteous by becoming saved. The righteousness is given to you as a gift as part of what you get in the whole gift of salvation when you believe. So our righteousness does not come from us; it comes from God.
Romans 3:22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
So how can we reconcile Jesus and Paul? Did Jesus teach a system of works? Well, we already know the answer to that question because of the very first sentence of the sermon. If you are poor in spirit you have nothing whatsoever to offer God, so there could be no salvation if not by grace. So grace is demanded by the first beatitude. And it is demanded by the second as well. If blessedness in the kingdom comes to those who are mourning and grieving and repenting over their sin, then obviously they are sinners, which means they are unworthy to receive blessing.
And I would suggest that grace is demanded by this beatitude as well. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness implies that these blessed people lack righteousness. They are longing for something they do not have. And because of that, this righteousness that they do not have and are longing for will be given to them. If they already had it, what would be the point of promising they will get it? So clearly the righteousness that is promised is going to have to come from some outside source. It is a foreign, alien righteousness that comes from an outside source – not from our own hearts – exactly the same thing Paul taught. There is not tension between Jesus and Paul at all.
Hunger
So now we understand what righteousness is, but keep in mind the blessing is not pronounced on the righteous. It is pronounced on the hungry. Why? Why didn’t Jesus say, “Blessed are the righteous”? That would certainly be a biblical thing to say.
Psalm 106:3 Blessed are they … who do what is right.
Revelation 22:14 Blessed are those who wash their robes (symbolizing righteousness)
So “Blessed are the righteous” would have been a perfectly biblical message.
But that is not the message Jesus wants to give right now. He wants to say something about hunger and thirst. He wants to say something about desire – craving – appetite.
God makes demands on your desires
To be a citizen of this kingdom you have to have certain cravings. You are required to have certain appetites. And that reminds us of the awesome authority of Christ. We are used to authorities who only have jurisdiction over our actions. The government makes laws that govern what we do – but not how we think or feel for the most part. The law says you have to pay your taxes, but it says nothing about your attitude. It is perfectly legal to pay your taxes with a grumpy, grudging attitude. It is against the law to speed, but it is perfectly legal in this country to want to speed. Most authorities claim jurisdiction just over our actions, not our inner man.
But Jesus Christ is not just Lord over our actions. He is Lord over all. His lordship and sovereignty are awesome and they extend to every part of your being. In fact, there are at least eight areas that I can think of in which God makes demands of us.
1. actions (what we do)
2. words (what we communicate)
3. thoughts (what we think)
4. will (what we decide)
5. motives (what we are trying to accomplish)
6. affections/emotions (what we love and how we feel)
7. attitudes (how we are inclined)
8. appetites (what we desire)
There are commands in Scripture about all eight of those things. If someone thinks the only thing that ultimately matters is actions, they are in for a big surprise on Judgment Day. It is possible to have a day when you never did one single sinful action with your body – all your actions were in line with what God requires, and still be full of sin all day long. If a person obeys what God says about what to do and say and think, but then disobeys what God commands about how to feel, that is sin. If a person has no sinful actions or motives, but does have sinful desires, that is sin.
I am making a point of this because I know it is a revolutionary idea for some people to think that God makes demands on our desires. Many people think the Christian life is a life of learning to say no to your strongest appetites and desires. That is not the Christian life. If I have to say no to my strongest desires, then my desires are evil and unacceptable and God requires that I change them. Everybody’s soul is hungry for something. And if your soul is hungry for the wrong thing, you are excluded from the kingdom of God. At the beginning I talked about those times when your soul is dissatisfied and uncomfortable and restless. That is thirst. It is your soul getting thirsty, and the thing you think of as the solution to feeling that way – that is what you are thirsty for. If you think, “Man, I’m just not happy. I need to be married.” – then you are hungry and thirsty for marriage. If you think the problem would be solved if you could move away to another place, or get some money, or a new job, or a vacation – whatever you think would solve the problem of a restless heart – that is why you are hungry and thirsty for.
And in His kingdom, King Jesus requires that you hunger and thirst for the right thing. He has such extensive authority; He actually makes demands on your desires. And it makes sense that He would do that, because what you desire most will determine the direction you ultimately take in life. Let’s face it – our lives are driven much more by our appetites and desires than by our commitments. We commit to all kinds of things, but we usually end up doing the things that our cravings drive us to – more so than what your commitments call for.
Suppose you have a tough decision – you are trying to decide if you should move to Illinois or move to Washington. There are some very good reasons why Washington would be a good choice, but it just so happens that there is something in Illinois that you think will satisfy some powerful craving you have – something you really want. When that happens, it is amazing how every factor you weigh in the pros and cons seems to point toward Illinois. There are some things that, under normal circumstances you would interpret as a con – a negative thing, but since deep down you want to go there so bad your soul turns it into a big plus. “The weather is miserable in Illinois – always either really cold or really hot – just what I need for building character – that goes into the pro column. Or – “It’s got to be God’s will for me to go to Illinois, because I found this perfect house that would be just right for us and it is in our price range and everything – it is a sign from God.”
“What about Washington?”
“Oh, I haven’t checked houses there yet – no need to, it’s so obvious God wants me in Illinois.”
Our tests of God’s will become self-fulfilling prophecies because even though we think our brain is in charge of decision making – it isn’t. Behind the scenes, affections and appetites and desires are driving the ship and dictating to the brain how to interpret all the data.
And that is not bad. It is OK for our decisions to be driven by our appetites. That is the way God designed us, and there is no way to escape it. The goal is not to become totally unbiased and objective so that your mind is not influenced at all by your appetites and desires. The goal is to have good appetites and desires so you have a bias toward what is good.
Craving what you need
Jesus knows our lives are driven by our appetites, and so He said, “Blessed are those who have an appetite for good things rather than bad things.” It is an especially blessed thing to crave what you need. And it is a horrible curse if your cravings get twisted around so you crave things that will not satisfy what you actually need. Imagine you banged your head one day and messed something up in your brain, and as a result every time your stomach was empty, instead of triggering feelings of hunger it triggered a powerful desire to sleep. You had no desire for food – all you wanted was to sleep. Or imagine if every time your body started to dry out and get dehydrated, instead of that triggering feelings of thirst it triggered the desire to run. That would be a horrible curse because you would never be able to remember to eat and drink often enough and you would die.
Craving things what will not satisfy is our biggest spiritual problem.
Isaiah 55:2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Why do we need a Bible verse to tell us not to eat and drink what does not satisfy? Usually you do not have to tell people, “Hey, don’t drink sawdust – it won’t satisfy your thirst.” Why on earth would God need to tell us not to eat and drink things that won’t satisfy? He has to tell us that because somehow sin has gotten some wires crossed in our souls so that we have this terrible appetite disorder, where our desires and our needs do not match. Our taste buds are malfunctioning. If that happened to you physically it would result in physical death, and if it happens spiritually it results in spiritual death.
And many times – physical death as well. Just think of how many people in this world die an early death as a victim of their appetites. And of those who do not die – how many live in misery because of their appetites. Most of the people in jail and prison are there because of messed up appetites – they crave the very things that destroy them.
You may have heard the illustration of how they hunt wolves in Alaska – by putting blood on a sharp knife, and the wolves come and lick the knife. And they don’t realize that as they keep licking, eventually the blood they are tasting is their own, and they bleed to death as victims of their own appetites. I don’t even know if that is true. I don’t know if wolves actually do that, but I know humans do. When the wires get crossed in your soul so that you crave the very things that destroy your life, it is just like a wolf killing himself by having an appetite for that which destroys him.
And that happens in obvious ways and subtle ways. For some it is obvious – they have an appetite for drugs or perverted sex or drunkenness or violence. And they end up destroying their bodies with venereal diseases or cirrhosis or overdose. But there are more subtle ways too. The appetite for success in a career can drive a man to destroy his marriage. The appetite for love and affection from a man can drive a woman to get involved in a ruinous relationship. The appetite for respect in the eyes of the world can drive a person to compromise the gospel to the point of apostasy. The appetite for money can cause the cares of this life and all the stuff and money and stocks and cars and vacations and insurance policies choke the Word of God right out of a person’s life. The appetite for comfort can lull a person into such spiritual apathy and lethargy that when persecution comes he quickly falls away.
Distorted appetites are a mighty enemy that has slaughtered commoners and kings, princes and paupers, rich and poor, strong and weak, educated and simple. Her slain are a mighty throng, and many are those she has brought down to death. The mightiest of warriors have fallen before her, and she leaves a wake of millions of destroyed lives. She does it by promising pleasure and then delivering death. She has made no secret of her strategy, and yet men and women by the millions flock to come lick the knife. You would be better off with any other disease or disorder. You would be better off with leprosy or cancer or AIDS than with the fatal disease of distorted appetites. Because when you crave the very things that destroy your life, you are doomed. But blessed are those who crave the things that bring life and joy!
It is so sad when people have to learn this the hard way. They spend their whole life chasing one thing after another thinking they can find happiness through some earthly thing. They are spending all they have on that which is not bread and won’t satisfy. But they will not believe that until they have tried it and found that they still are not happy. But very often by then it is too late. C.S. Lewis: “If 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.” Blessed are those who crave the things that bring life and joy!
Why hunger and thirst rather than just desire?
And I use the word crave because hunger and thirst is stronger than just desire. Hunger and thirst are more than desires – they are drives. They cannot be denied for long. They compel action and control the patterns of your life.
And beyond that, they sustain life. If I fulfill a desire, that may or may not benefit me. I may get some pleasure out of it and nothing else. But eating and drinking do a lot more than just provide pleasure. They do provide pleasure, but they also nourish and energize and strengthen and refresh and give life to the body.
So hungering and thirsting for righteousness is more than just wanting to be righteous – it is needing to be righteous. It is the attitude of the soul that says, “I have to have righteousness or I’ll die. And if I am not succeeding in getting righteousness I will do anything to get it.” A desire is for something you would like to have. Hunger and thirst are for something you have to have. It is a need for something you consider a staple of life.
Needing righteousness
So blessed are those who need to be righteous. Blessed are those who have a deep craving and thirst to have love for God, love for people, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, wisdom, humility, faith, spiritual maturity, discernment, purity, servanthood, mercy, compassion, godly affections, integrity, honesty, generosity, alertness, strength, perseverance – blessed are those who have to have all that. It is not something you will get around to one of these days, it cannot be postponed, it cannot be placed beneath a more urgent priority – no if’s, and’s or but’s, you have got to have it.
And the reason you have to have it is because it is like food and water to your soul. Being righteous is your sustenance. It enables you to function. Just like if you do not have physical food you cannot work and you cannot think and you cannot do the normal activity of life, so it is with spiritual food. Without righteous character you cannot carry on the daily tasks of life, because all that you are doing as a citizen of this kingdom is so bound up in righteousness.
As a Christian, why do you go to work? You do it to accomplish kingdom purposes. Why do you get married or stay single? To accomplish kingdom purposes. Why do you do everything you do? You do it for the kingdom, and so all the things you are trying to do in your life are short-circuited if you lack righteousness. You need righteousness to accomplish what you want to accomplish every night with your family, in your marriage, at work, at church, when you are by yourself – every part of life.
Why do we crave righteousness?
One more question – why do we crave this righteousness? Righteousness involves saying no to the impulses of the flesh that can be so pleasurable. Righteousness causes the world to persecute us. Someone on the outside looking in might think, I can imagine being willing to be righteous. But I cannot imagine craving it. Why do you want it so much?
Remember at the very beginning when I was defining righteousness? Righteousness is the life that shows you to be a person who had God’s approval and favor. It means everything is right between you and God. We crave righteousness because we crave nearness to God. We do not want anything to hinder our intimacy with Him.
If you study hungering and thirsting in Scripture, at first it seems like this verse is out of place. Everywhere else in Scripture hunger and thirst is always for God. It is always hunger and thirst for His presence and nearness – and now this one place it is hunger for something else. That is the way it seems at first glance. But when you understand what righteousness is you see that it is not different. We hunger and thirst for righteousness because we long to be right with God. We crave His favor. Our thirst is a thirst to draw near to Him.
Psalm 42:1-2 1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
Psalm 63:1 O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So our thirst is a thirst to draw near to Him.
And who can draw near to God?
Psalm 15:1-2 1 Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? 2 He … who does what is righteous
The presence of God is the only thing that can satisfy the thirst of the human soul. That is why when you are restless and agitated and uncomfortable, your favorite things in this world sometimes make you feel better and sometimes do not. If those things were food and drink for the soul then they would always work. The reason they sometimes seem to work and other times do not is because the only thing that works is grace from God. And if God grants some grace – some access to His presence through those things, then they are satisfying. But when He does not, they are not. The favorable presence of God is the only thing that satisfies the hunger and thirst of the soul. Augustine: “You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You.”
Satisfaction
And if that is you – if your heart craves righteousness – a life that enables nearness to God – blessed are you because that desire will be satisfied.
They and they alone
Once again this is exclusive – they and they alone will be filled. Righteousness is given only to the hungry. No one is saved who does not have this appetite.
They will be filled!
But on the other hand – everyone who has this hunger and thirst will be satisfied. Nobody thirsts for righteousness and does not get it. There is never a time when someone craves righteousness and does not get filled with righteousness by God. Everyone who hungers and thirsts for righteousness gets righteousness.
Insatiable satisfaction
And it is an amazing kind of hunger, because the more you satisfy it the greater it becomes. It is a hunger that increases with the very act of satisfying it. I heard one preacher call it an insatiable satisfaction. What a great phrase that is. In the physical realm you are hungry, you eat to satisfaction, and then you are no longer hungry. That is the curse of Thanksgiving. I eat for a while, and then my hunger is gone, but I was not done eating! You can only enjoy physical food so much, and eventually you have to stop enjoying it. We try to make sure we do not spoil our appetite before a big feast – why? Hunger is a kind of pain – a kind of suffering. It is uncomfortable, so why do we want to be hungry before a meal? It is because the hungrier you are the more enjoyable the meal is. And the longer you eat the less you enjoy because you lose that hunger.
But feasting on God and His righteousness is different. The more you feast the greater the hunger, and so the joy just increases indefinitely. And God keeps supplying more – like in the life of Moses. Moses saw the burning bush, he saw the awesome miracles of the plagues and the Exodus, he saw the pillar of fire and pillar of cloud, he saw manna from heaven, he saw water come from a rock and satisfy an entire nation, God spoke to him face to face unlike any other prophet who ever lived, and yet when the time came for him to make a request of God he said, “Show me Your glory!” He could not get enough. And when he asked that, God did not say, “I think you’ve seen quite enough.” No, He revealed Himself to Moses even more.
Assurance
And when that process is taking place it is one of the greatest assurances of salvation there is. One of the purposes of the beatitudes is to help us know whether we are saved or lost. And that is important because I know some of you struggle with that question. Am I really, genuinely saved? Is my faith even real? Is this all a charade? Am I just going through the motions, or am I actually, truly born again? It is good and healthy for us to ask those questions from time to time (2 Cor.13:5). However, God does not want us to always be testing without ever getting any test results back. The purpose of the testing is to find out the answer – yes or no. God wants His children to know that they are His children.
I think some people think that humility requires that they never have any certainty of salvation. That is wrong. God wants you to have confidence in your salvation. Just like you do not want your spouse to continually question whether you love him or her, so God does not want you to always be questioning whether He has accepted you. He wants you to enjoy intimacy with Him as His child.
So Jesus gives us all these descriptions of what children of God look like so we can be assured. And of all the beatitudes, I think this one probably gives the most unmistakable assurance to a true believer. You can have a counterfeit poverty of spirit that seems like humility, but really is not. You can mourn with a wrong kind of mourning. You can have a quietness that seems like meekness but really is not. But having an appetite for being right with God so you can be close to God is pretty unmistakable. People in the world have an appetite to fail less, to have more success in carrying out their resolutions, to be a better person in some way, to stop doing the things that cause them problems – they might hunger and thirst for all that; but it is only the genuinely born-again citizen of heaven who really has an appetite for righteousness – a craving for good deeds, internal and external, done out of obedience to Jesus Christ for the glory of God for the sake of nearness to God. Do you have that? Does that appeal to you? That does not appeal to the heart of a fake Christian. If you have an appetite and longing for that, there is no natural explanation for that. It is not in the heart of an unconverted person to crave obedience to Jesus Christ for the sake of glorifying God.
“But I still doubt my salvation because I’m not very righteous. I don’t have very much success in living the Christian life.” OK – that aside for a moment – let me ask you this. If you were to see righteousness in your life, would that delight you? What would you do if Jesus came to you right now and said, “I’ll grant you one wish. If you say the word, I will make you completely righteous so that you will never sin again as long as you live, and you will live in perfect loyalty and obedience to Me the rest of your life.”? If Jesus said that to you would it be the happiest day of your life? Or would you have to think about it? The phony Christian would hear that and think about the sins he would never get to commit again and think, “Hmmm, I’m not sure. A life of total obedience to Jesus Christ – I don’t know if I am quite ready for that. That does not sound all that appealing.” But if you are the type who hears a promise of righteousness as an unimaginably fantastic promise, I cannot see that coming out of the heart of a non-Christian. So how do you know if you are truly redeemed? If you read this promise “they will be filled” and think, “Ho hum” – you should question your salvation. But if you hear that promise and the response of your heart is, “Let it happen NOW!!” – that is a sign of a heart that hungers and thirsts for righteousness. What a God we serve who rewards us for lacking righteousness and desiring it!
Benediction: John 6:32-34 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." 34 "Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread." 35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
