PURSUING HAPPINESS: Starving for Righteousness
Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied”
Romans 3:9-26
1. You would not be unique if the thought has crossed your mind, of what relevance is this study on the Sermon on the Mount at a time when our world is being engulfed with a deluge of war, terrorism, violence, brutality, selfishness, greed, and political, social, economic, and environmental problems that completely dwarf anything we have ever encountered before?
• Are we Christians simply seeking to bury our heads in spiritual sand, hoping that if we do so the problems will eventually go away?
• Are we guilty of focusing on heaven because the problems of earth have become too overwhelming for us?
• Or do we really need to pay closer attention to this word as the one and only certain cure for this world’s madness?
2. I firmly believe that the children’s nursery rhyme, "Humpty Dumpty", with a slight modification and extra verse I composed, is a descriptive parable of our world.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the world’s horses and all the world’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
But Humpty’s Creator looked down from above
And sent His own Son as the gift of His love
He took all our brokenness as He suffered in pain
And where He is welcomed, Humpty’s made whole again.
3. All our councils, committees, conventions, and conferences seem to be able to do is try to medicate the symptoms instead of getting at the root cause. We prescribe temporary pain killers or band-aid patches for the endemic, deadly, and oozing wounds of our planet and refuse to face the origin of our brokenness and disease which is our sin and rejection of God and His ways.
• When you reject the light, you have to suffer the consequences of living in the darkness.
• When you reject the air that sustains you, the natural consequence is asphyxiation and death.
• When we reject God’s righteousness, it is no wonder why we are neither blessed nor satisfied.
4. We turn this morning to the fourth “be-Attitude” in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount – His instruction manual for entry into and living the Christian life – “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
• We’ve already seen how the first Beatitude describes the doorway to the Kingdom of God or entry to the Christian life – that of acknowledging our utter spiritual poverty or bankruptcy before God.
• Building on that attitude we mourn our condition and experience sorrow over how our sin has separated and alienated us from God. As we do so in repentance and faith, God comforts our hearts.
• In that posture of meekness – strength under control – we allow God to place His bit in our mouths and willingly place the reins of our life in His hands.
• Now, because we have acknowledged that true and abundant satisfaction is the blessed reward of loving and obeying Him, we become aware of our need of a passionate hunger and thirst for His righteousness.
5. The blessedness of abundant satisfaction will never be found or enjoyed by those who seek just the experience – and people are seeking satisfaction and happiness all the time in myriads of ways – trying desperately to fill the gaping and aching void in their souls – in entertainment, education, sport, hobbies, relationships, sex, drugs, alcohol, and yes, even in church and religious conventions - running frantically from one event to another.
• The blessedness of knowing our soul’s hunger satisfied and thirst quenched comes only from being restored in a right relationship with the Lord of all righteousness.
6. So what is this righteousness that the blessed hunger and thirst after? There are at least three descriptions of righteousness in Scripture:
• First, there is the legal definition. Our sin has separated us from and made us guilty before God. But because of His great love for us, and through the finished sacrificial work on the Cross of His Beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, He has declared us not guilty and restored us to Himself in Christ. He has blotted out our iniquities and “has separated our sins from us as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12), and “He remembers them no more” (Isaiah 43:25). Paul writes in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” God has applied the righteousness of Christ to us and truly blessed are those who hunger and thirst for this freedom from the guilt and condemnation of their sin.
• Second, there is the moral or ethical definition. This understanding of righteousness describes the lives of those who seek to honor and obey God in all their thoughts and actions. In Genesis 6:9, Noah was described in this way, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation”. God characterized Job as “a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil” (Job 1:8). Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist are both described in Luke 1:6 as “righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless”. Those with this kind of righteousness not only seek to be free from outward acts of sinfulness, but also on the inside from the very desire of it. They recognize that they cannot produce this righteousness in and of themselves but seek God’s Spirit to work it into their characters. They want the character of Christ, the fruit of the Spirit, to be formed in them and radiate from them and blessed are those who hunger and thirst for this righteousness.
• Third, there is a future definition. This is the understanding that there is a day coming when God will fully and finally eradicate all sin and wickedness and death. God’s perfection will be fulfilled in us and we will be like Christ, reflecting His glory without distortion and richly blessed are those who hunger and thirst for this righteousness.
7. So what does it mean to hunger and thirst after this righteousness? First off, this does not refer to feeling just a bit peckish – having a bit of a tummy rumble – these words refer to the gnawing craving of one who will die if he does not soon get something to eat and drink. When last, if at all, did any of us here experience or endure any excessive degree of starvation or thirst? If we have had little or no experience of it physically or emotionally it is very hard for us to comprehend it spiritually. We even find pictures of starving adults and children too disturbing and so rather change the channel or turn the page. Was it hard to look long at the picture on the front of the bulletin?
• The closest incident I can recall in my life was as a young 14 year old on a 3-week Outward Bound camp, being lost for 24 hours in heavy mist up in the mountains on the SE tip of South Africa. During the previous days we had endured the hottest days on record in that part of the country and had consumed all our drinking water. Springs and streams that normally would have provided a respite had dried up and we were parched and our throats ached. We did what we could to capture some mist in plastic raincoats and even squeezed and drank what water we could from moss under rocks.
• Maybe some of you have come close to those pangs emotionally if you have ever felt starved of love and affection from a parent, a spouse, a child, a sibling, a one-time friend. You know the almost physical heartache you have endured.
• Those who are starving – or dying of thirst, have but one all-consuming and overriding drive – finding life-giving sustenance without any further delay. All other matters, what they wear, where they live, what the weather forecast is likely to be, which sports team is winning, what’s the best show on TV - become matters of total irrelevance because they have no bearing on their primary need.
• Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness have made loving the Lord their God with all their heart and mind and strength and the doing of His will their #1 priority.
• This impacts and determines how they manage their time, how and where they use their energies and resources, the activities they engage in, the careers they select, the house they live in, the car they buy – the totality of their life becomes given over to the plans and purposes of God. It all becomes HIS business.
• Jesus expressed this lifestyle when He told His disciples in John 4:34 “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work”. What nourished and fed His being and was the joy and satisfaction of His life was doing the will of His Father. It can be no different for us.
8. What might hungering and thirsting after righteousness involve in your life? Exactly how it might be expressed in each life will differ noticeably from one to another for God has made us all unique. There will however be a number of common characteristic hallmarks that will be evident in all. Just as we might recognize family likenesses in one another - "You’ve got your mama’s eyes", or "You have your dad’s sense of humor", or "You have your great uncle Ed’s gift of music". Here are just some:
• There will be a common passion for God and the things of God
• Conversation about our Father and His agenda will be natural, easy, and our shared joy and delight
• We will share excitement in the many unique ways our Father has chosen to make Himself known in and through one another.
• No one will consider his or her expression of God’s life more important or significant than another – from the youngest to the oldest, from the richest to the poorest, the worth of each will be acknowledged and celebrated.
• No longer will they speak in terms of “them” and “us” but only of “us”. Each will consider the needs of their brother or sister as though they were their own.
9. Jesus promises that those who hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness – who make the doing of His good and perfect will their # 1 heart and life’s desire – will be satisfied.
• In this life, that certainly does not mean that every want, wish or whim will be fulfilled, but it does mean that God is able to bring a divine contentment into our hearts with our status and station in life. No longer do we have to "keep up with the Jones’s" - or even want to!
• The Apostle Paul put it this way in his letter to the Philippians: “I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound; in any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do all things in him who strengthens me”. (4:11-13)
• In the life to come, that satisfaction will be one of ongoing and eternal contentment. There will never come a time when we will say or feel “Is this all there is?” For the capacity of the heart and our ability to grow in love for God and one another and all that He has made will be freed from the limiting, restricting, and destructive effects of selfishness and sin.
10. So where do you see yourself this morning in this journey? As you picture Jesus sitting on the hillside with His disciples in a circle in front of Him, where do you see yourself seated?
• As one who has overheard the things Jesus has been teaching to His disciples and has scooted closer and closer, longing to be part of that circle – to you I say, come, for the circle is wide open! There’s room for more.
• Have you taken that first step of acknowledging your spiritual bankruptcy? – if so, then you are blessed for the Kingdom of God is yours.
• Have you begun to see your sin from God’s perspective – what it cost His Son – and mourned and repented over it? If so, know that the mercy and forgiveness and comfort of God is yours.
• Have you asked God to place His bit in your mouth and placed your strength under His control by giving Him the reins of your life? Then be blessed in knowing that you have been made an heir of all that God has created.
• Are you hungry and thirsty for God’s righteousness – His will and His ways – to be expressed in and through your life? Then be blessed now and in the age to come through the One who completely satisfies.
• Wherever you are in your journey, I invite you to talk one step closer this morning as we stand to sing... AMEN.
