Sermons
The Beatitudes, Pt. 3
November 1, 2020
Ministry:
- Sunday Morning
Speaker:
- Jeff Crotts
Text: Matthew 5:6-5:6
Series:
- Matthew
Intro: Verse 6 of Jesus’ list of Beatitudes says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (v. 6).
At the risk of trivializing a verse of this magnitude and importance, I want to share that our dishwasher broke this week.
- If I believed Murphy’s Law, it was full go.
- I just committed to keeping the dishes clear of our sink and we were humming!
- Seven of us for one meal means things stack up quickly.
- Intentionality keeps the kitchen functional.
- We were off and running and the dishwasher glitched.
- Yes, I YouTube’d and took things apart and cleaned filters.
- Still, with consult of several of the best dishwasher minds, it was declared dead.
- The immediate pile-up of dishes, silverware, and glasses was legendary!
- Dishracks of half washed dishes.
- Piles forming post-apocalyptic towers threatening to totter.
- This makes the point of how significant food is to our household.
- Eating and drinking set the atmosphere of our home.
- Any home really.
- When this rhythm is interrupted, there is a system shutdown!
- Vice versa, when all his functional.
- Eating, drinking, cleaning, and reset, all is well.
Basic hunger and thirst represent what is necessary for physical life.
- Jesus makes the immediate parallel to spiritual life.
- Physical survival is analogous to spiritual survival.
- Impulses in the natural realm compare with impulses seeking Christ.
ESV Psalm 42:2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
ESV Psalm 63:1 A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Our modern age affects how we view being hungry and thirsty.
In Bible times, someone on a journey in the desert could find themselves in the middle of a hot wind and sandstorm. All he could do is wrap his head and turn his back to the wind, wait, and try not to suffocate.
We might understand this extreme in Alaska.
- The convenience of food makes us forget.
- This is not missing a meal.
- Most have never suffered life-threatening hunger and thirst or famine.
E.M. Blaiklock, wrote in his book, Water
During the liberation of Palestine in WWI, a combined force of British, Australian, and New Zealand soldiers was closely pursuing the Turks as they retreated from the desert.
As the allied troops moved northward past Beersheba they began to outdistance their water-carrying camel train. When the water ran out, their mouths got dry, their heads ached, and they became dizzy and faint. Eyes became bloodshot, lips swelled and turned purple, and mirages became common.
They knew that if they did not make the wells of Sheriah by nightfall, thousands of them would die-as hundreds already had done. Literally fighting for their lives, they managed to drive the Turks from Sheriah.
As water was distributed from the great stone cisterns, the more able-bodied were required to stand at attention and wait for the wounded and those who would take guard duty to drink first. It was four hours before the last man had his drink.
During that time, the men stood no more than twenty feet from thousands of gallons of water, to drink of which had been their consuming passion for many agonizing days.
It is said that one of the officers who as present reported, “I believe that we all learned our first real Bible lesson on the march from Beersheba to Sheriah Wells.”
Blaiklock comments: “If such were our thirst for God, for righteousness and for His will in our lives, a consuming, all-embracing, preoccupying desire, how rich in the fruit of the Sprit would we be?”
Hunger is one of man’s single greatest drives.
- More than physical intimacy or even sleep.
- Bible makes this connection because the stakes are high!
- Being alive necessitates wanting to eat and drink of God.
- You know you need nourishment.
ESV 1 Peter 2:1-3 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation–3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
When babies are hungry, they scream.
- They may not know what they will know in a few brief years but they know something essential to survival.
- They need to eat and eat often!
This beatitude has been called the most demanding and most frightening but also the most comforting.
- It cuts down through all religious pretense.
- What makes or breaks Christian life.
- Asking, “Do you have an appetite for righteousness?”
Lloyd-Jones says: “I do not know a better test that anyone can apply to himself or herself in this whole matter of the Christian profession than a verse like this. If this verse is to you one of the most blessed statements of the whole of Scripture, you can be quite certain you are a Christian; if it is not, then you had better examine the foundations again.”
This sets the bar for Christians while diagnosing what is going wrong with our world.
- Tuesday, our country casts final votes in view of this problem.
- The endless pursuit of happiness, no one can seem to find.
- Outside of this promise people grab for happiness and it slips through their fingers.
- Why our country is laced with C-4; angry at feeling sad and empty.
The Bible says lust feeds anger.
ESV James 4:1-5 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?
Jesus’ solution is profoundly simple.
- Jesus wants you to be happy.
- Nine beatitudes say as much.
- But the point is not to aim at happiness.
- Happiness is the fruit of seeking righteousness!
- Never meant to seek experiences.
- Meant to seek God.
- Seek righteousness and God gives happiness.
Unbelievers seek a lost cause lacking any real appetite for God.
- The solution is the Gospel; not getting their person in office.
- Taking the direct route to happiness by-passes the cure.
D Martyn Lloyd-Jones, preacher, former medical doctor, makes the point!
Think of a man who is suffering from some painful disease. Generally, the one desire of such a patient is to be relieved of his pain, and one can understand that very well. No one likes suffering pain. The one idea of this patient, therefore, is to do anything which will relieve him of it. Yes; but if the doctor who is attending this patient is also only concerned about relieving this man’s pain he is a very bad doctor. His primary duty is to discover the cause of the pain and to treat that. Pain is a wonderful symptom which is provided by nature to call attention to the disease and the ultimate treatment for pain is to treat the disease, not the pain. So if a doctor merely treats the pain without discovering the cause of the pain, he is not only acting contrary to nature, he is doing something that is extremely dangerous to the life of the patient. The patient may be out of pain, and seems to be well, but the cause of the trouble is still there. Now that is the folly of which the world is guilty. It says, ‘I want to get rid of my pain…!’
Verse 6 in context builds a logical staircase.
- Stair stepping from being “poor in spirit” – “mourning” to “meekness.”
- These are attitudes and not driving actions.
- Now (v. 6) is an Action Attitude.
- Verse 6 breaks itself into a logical outline by defining the basic terms.
Prop: Why hungering and thirsting for righteousness satisfies
1. Hunger and Thirst
A strong desire and driving pursuit. Ambition but not perfection.
Barclay said of common man, “The true wonder of man is not that he is a sinner, but that even in his sin he is haunted by goodness, that even in the mud he can never wholly forget the stars.”
H.G. Wells: “A man may be a bad musician and yet be passionately in love with music.”
Sir Norman Birkett, famous lawyer and judge, speaking of criminals said, there is an inextinguishable something in every man. Goodness, “the implacable hunter,” is always at their heels, the worst of men is “condemned to some kind of nobility.”
Jacob:
ESV Genesis 32:26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
Moses:
ESV Exodus 33:15-18 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”17 And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”
David:
Who wished to build the Temple but was denied; however, God honored his passion:
ESV 1 Kings 8:18 But the LORD said to David my father, ‘Whereas it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart.
Jesus’ example:
ESV Matthew 4:4 But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Jesus’ promise:
ESV John 4:14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
ESV 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.
Paul:
ESV Philippians 3:8-13 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith–
10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead
This kind of hunger and thirst is what only God provides.
- Understand, finding God’s happiness requires seeking God’s righteousness you’re your whole heart!
- This beatitude rules out half-hearted religion.
- Only accepts, a full committal approach!
Allow Jesus’ words to strip you back to passions you had when you first met Christ.
- Time blunts devotion from the blessing of being desperate.
If “hunger” and “thirst” were partitive genitives they would call for hungering and thirsting for some of righteousness.
- Thirsting for some water or some bread.
These are direct accusatives commanding “hunger” and “thirst” for the whole of righteousness!
Now defining righteousness.
2. Righteousness
Righteousness should be understood in two ways.
- Imputed righteousness and Personal righteousness.
- Justification and Sanctification.
When we first hungered and thirsted for Christ, he gave us full righteousness.
- Declared righteous!
ESV Romans 4:1-8 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?
2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
Jesus here is speaking to our sanctification or personal righteousness!
“Hunger” and “Thirst” are both present active participles making this pursuit ongoing!
- Pursuing “righteousness” is pursuing God’s mind, His will.
- Pursuing holiness.
- Right conduct!
Matthew 5:1-6 points to this.
- The stair climb leads to hunger and thirst.
- Matthew 5:10 and 6:1 and 6:33 point to obedience to God’s will!
ESV Matthew 5:10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
ESV Matthew 6:1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
ESV Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
- “Righteousness” is someone’s conduct who has been struck by grace.
“Do you remember the prodigal son?”
ESV Luke 15:14-21 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”‘20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
- Undivided hunger drove him back to his father.
- What God blesses.
3. Satisfied
The same word used later in Matthew 14:20.
ESV Matthew 14:20 And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.
Jesus feeding the 5,000.
- Nothing less than being completely stuffed.
- Full!
The words, “hunger” and “thirst” are present active participles meaning:
Staying hungry and Staying thirsty – while being Satisfied!
This paradox means that reaching your limit makes you hungrier.
We are coming up on Thanksgiving and you know this reality.
- Eating until we are full.
- Being satisfied is what draws us back for more!
The comfort of knowing God loves you.
- Joy knowing you are growing because of grace.
- Happiness knowing God is sufficient to meet every need.
- Security knowing nothing your salvation is secure.
The paradox says, “The more filled you are the hungrier you become!”
- Receiving grace upon grace.
ESV John 1:16 And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. (Joh 1:16 ESV)
ESV John 7:37-39 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Conclusion:
- This the cycle of Christian experience!
ESV 2 Peter 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
Our world seeks unrighteousness.
- Leading to guilt; leading to sadness.
- Empty pursuits leading to hopelessness.
- Hopelessness driving the world’s paradox.
Break the cycle by seeking God’s righteousness!
- Seek all of Christ.
- Eat and drink of all not some of Him!
- Seek Him – Not self – And God promises satisfaction!
You may have to climb the stairs.
- Repent, weep, and mourn.
- At Jesus’ feet, your thirst will be slaked
- By inexhaustible wellsprings and endless bread to fill your life!