REVIEW
“The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ description of what Christ wants his followers to be and to do” (John Stott, 15).
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness …..” (Matthew 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Refer to definition of meekness.
Meekness that was exemplified in the life of Jesus and Moses was not spineless, mousy weakness. Instead it was living a life that was God-controlled and God-confident …. Fully dependent on God trusting Him in all situations.
The tax collector showed this same confidence and dependence upon God when he cried, “God have mercy upon me, a sinner.”
We are not only worms (5:3), but worms infected by sin, repulsive to God, and our horrid condition should cause us to be broken-hearted (5:4). Thus meekness that encompasses humility because of our ondition, dependence and confidence in God is essential ingredient in conversion (5:5).
FLIP CHART: Show “window pane” of the 8 beatitudes.
“The Beatitudes do not come at the end, they come at the beginning of the Sermon, and I do not hesitate to say that unless we are perfectly clear about them we should go no further.” (MLJ, 23)
INTRODUCTION:
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
1. Righteousness Must Be Our Focus
2 Hungering and Thirsting for Righteousness
3 Hungering and Thirsting for Legal Righteousness
4 Hungering and Thirsting for Moral Righteousness
5 Hungering and Thirsting for Social Righteousness
6. Being Filled and Hungering Still
READING: BEATITUDES:
3“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS
I. RIGHTEOUSNESS MUST BE OUR FOCUS
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (5:6)
Mankind’s Search for Meaning: “The German philosopher and historian Karl Jaspers has spoken of the period between 600 and 300 BCE as an ‘axial age’ (a period that determines future outcomes) in human history, when people in remote and apparently unrelated lands achieved major spiritual and intellectual breakthroughs. This was the time of Confucius and Lao-Tse in China, of Buddha in India, of Zoraster or his major disciples in Iran, of the prophets in Israel, and the philosophers in Greece.” (The Middle East, Bernard Lewis, Pg. 28)
“Plato wrote The Republic. This book is really a study of the human soul and of the condition in which the soul must be in order for human beings to live well and manage to do what is right. The condition required is called, precisely, dikaiosune {dik-ah-yos-oo’-nay} in the Republic.” (Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, pg. 145.
“A couple of centuries after Plato – certainly beginning sometime prior to 285 BC – the Old Testament began to be translated into Greek, yielding the text we call the Septuagint. The word dikaiosune {dik-ah-yos-oo’-nay} was used to translate the Hebrew terms tsedawkaw and tsehdek, usually rendered in English ‘righteousness.’
To simplify the definition we might say that {dik-ah-yos-oo’-nay}
dikaiosune is “true inner goodness” or “moral excellence.”
Jesus, in the fourth beatitude focuses on this ancient longing, the desire for righteousness and says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (5:6)
The first three Beatitudes discuss man’s inherent condition and are negative. So Jesus points to the solution, the solution for becoming righteous.
“The first three beatitudes are costly and painful. Becoming poorer in spirit involves death to self. Mourning over sin involves facing up to our sinfulness. Becoming meek involves surrendering our power to God’s control. The fourth beatitude is more positive and is a consequence of the other three. When we put aside self, sins, and power and turn to the Lord, we are given a great desire for righteousness.” (MacArthur, 180).
“Dik-ah-yos-oo’-nay” is used in our text, in the eighth beatitude, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake” and in several of our “high-demand” verses.
FLIP CHART: Four High Demand Verses
“For I tell you that unless your righteousness (dikaiosune) surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (5:20).
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect .” (5:48).
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness (dikaiosune), and all these things will be given to you as well.” (6:33).
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (7:12).
“Righteousness is not an optional spiritual supplement but a spiritual necessity. We can no more live spiritually without righteousness than we can live physically without food and water.” MacAthur, 178)
Elaboration on the definition of righteousness: We are defining Biblical righteousness as “true inner goodness” and “moral excellence.
“Righteousness here means not only justification but sanctification also. In other words, the desire for righteousness, the act of hungering and thirsting for it means ultimately the desire to be free from sin in all its forms and in its every manifestation.” (MLJ, 77)
“To hunger and thirst after righteousness is to long to be like the New Testament man, the new man in Christ Jesus. That is what it means, that the whole of my being and the whole of my life shall be like that. Let me go further. It means that one’s supreme desire in life is to know God and to be in fellowship with Him, to walk with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the light.” (MLJ, 79)
*** We are not to hunger and thirst for blessedness, happiness, security, long life, wealth, health, power, beauty, knowledge. Our supreme goal as Christians is righteousness, true inner goodness, moral excellence!
II. HUNGERING AND THIRSTING FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (5:6).
We are to hunger and thirst for “perfect” righteousness: “In order to understand how this point emerges from the text it is necessary to point out a fact of Greek grammar. In the Greek language it is a rule of good grammar that verb of hungering and thirsting are followed by nouns in the genitive case. This is the case that is expressed by the preposition “of” in English. An example of genitive would be the last words in the phrases, “peace of mind,” “love of good,” “object of faith,” and so on. The Greek would express a feeling of hunger by saying something like this: “I am hungry for of food” or “I am thirsty for of water.” This particular use of the genitive case has an unusual characteristic on the basis of which is called a partitive genitive. This means it has reference only to a part of the object that occurs in the sentence. Thus when the Greek would say, “I am hungry for of food,” he would be saying that he was hungry only for part of the food in the world, not all of it. And similarly, when he would say that he would like some water, the genitive would indicate that he did not want all the water the world has to offer, but only some of it. [We would say, “Pass all the food” instead of “Pass the carrots.” The idea is that a person hungers for some food and some water, not for all of the food and water in the world]. The significance of this point for interpreting the fourth beatitude lies in the fact that the normal Greek usage is entirely abandoned in this verse. Instead of ‘righteousness’ occurring in the genitive, as it should, it occurs in the accusative. And the meaning is that the one who hungers and thirsts as Christ intends him to hunger and thirst must hunger, not after a partial and imperfect righteousness but after the whole thing. He must long for a perfect righteousness, and this means, therefore, a righteousness equal to and identical to God’s.” (Boice, 40).
“But in this beatitude, most unusually, ‘righteousness’ is in the direct accusative, and not in the normal genitive. Now, when verbs of hungering and thirsting in Greek take the accusative instead of the genitive, the meaning is that the hunger and the thirst is for the whole thing. To say I hunger for bread in the accusative means, I want the whole loaf. To say I thirst for water in the accusative means, I want the whole pitcher. There the correct translation is, ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for the whole of righteousness, for complete righteousness …” (Barclay, 101).
The words “hunger” and “thirst” reveals our desperate need.
“Hungering and thirsting” means a consciousness of our need, of our desperate need, even to the point of pain. It is a pain that stays with us until it is satisfied. This is not a passing feeling or desire. It is not something that passes as a morning cloud. It is as actual and as real as physical hunger and thirst. It becomes the controlling passion of our lives to satisfy this hunger and thirst.
“Since there is almost nothing in our experience today to suggest the force of Christ’s words, we must put ourselves in the shoes of his listeners if we are to full understand them. Today almost none of us know hunger. And few of us have ever known more than a momentary thirst. But it was not that way for Christ’s contemporaries. In the ancient world men often knew hunger. Wages were low, if they existed at all. Unless men were of the aristocracy they seldom grew fat on the fruit of honest labor. Many starved. Moreover, in a desert country where the sun was scorching and sand and wind storms were frequent, thirst was man’s constant companion. To such a world hunger meant the hunger of a starving man, and thirst, that of a man who would die without water” (Boice, 41).
READING: Boice, page 41 re the experience of the British Army in 1914 in Palestine … and the wells of Sheria.
Hunger and thirst a pre-requisite for being filled with righteousness: Jesus speaks throughout his ministry of the pre-requisite of hunger and thirst if righteousness is to be experienced. He tells the Samaritan woman that He can give water that will keep her from being thirsty. He tells a crowd that if they drink of Him they a spring of water welling up in them to eternal life. After feeding the 5,000 he says: “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.” (John 6:35).
III. HUNGERING/THIRSTING FOR LEGAL RIGHTEOUSNESS
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.” (5:6)
FLIP CHART: Show the chart that shows straight up line to legal righteousness, diagonal lines to moral and social righteousness.
The only righteousness that will satisfy is a perfect righteousness and only God possesses that righteousness, we are sick and sinful worms. We can never generate this perfect righteousness.
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23).
“But we are all as an unclean [thing], and all our righteousnesses [are] as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isa. 64:6).
So, what is the solution?
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (II Corinthians 5:21).
“It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” (I Corinthians 1:30).
ILL: READ OR HAVE SOMEONE READ: The prodigal son did not come to his senses and seek righteousness, return to his father when he was in need and hungry but once he started starving he turned for home. (Luke 15:11-21).
TABLE ACTIVITY: Share with those at your table your experience of spiritual hunger before you received Christ. Explain any longing or interest or hunger that you felt in your heart.
IV. HUNGERING/THIRSTING FOR MORALRIGHTEOUSNESS
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (5:6).
FLIP CHART: Explain about “moral” righteousness as opposed to “legal” righteousness.
READING: “Concern for righteous living is on the decline in the evangelical church. Many watch more murders and adulteries on television in one week than their grandparents read about in a lifetime – and with no twinge of conscience. Their casual viewing is a tacit approval of evil. The pollsters tell us that the ethical gap is narrowing between the church and the world. And many evangelicals are no more concerned about the unrighteous plight of the world than their non-Christian neighbors. Some professing evangelicals would regard a desperate longing for righteousness as odd, even fanatical. (Hughes, 42).
“There is no greater secret of progress in the Christian living than a healthy, hearty spiritual appetite.” (Stott, 45-46).
Spiritual hunger is a characteristic of God’s people, whose supreme ambition is not material but spiritual. Christians are not like pagans, engrossed in the pursuit of possessions; what they have set themselves to ‘seek first’ is God’s kingdom and righteousness.’ (Stott, 44)
“What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. . . . . I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death …., Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:8-14).
We know what we must do to pursue righteousness if we hunger and thirst for it …. The spiritual disciplenes = Bible study, prayer, memorization, small groups, adult communities, church attendance, practicing the presence of God, giving, serving. As we do these things God will put His finger on things in our lives that need to be made right.
FLIP CHART: Refer to the Spiritual Formation Flip Chart – 1) Concentration, 2) Choice, 3) Reflection, 4) Confession
V. HUNGERING/THIRSTING FOR SOCIALRIGHTEOUSNESS
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (5:6).
“Social righteousness is concerned with seeking man’s liberation from oppression, together with the promotion of civil rights, justice in the law courts, integrity in business dealings and honor in the home and family affairs. Thus Christians are committed to hunger for righteousness in the whole human community as something pleasing to a righteous God.” (Stott, 45)
Thus SOM focuses on not being angry, settling matters with your neighbor, honesty at all times, avoiding retribution, loving your enemies etc. These all relate to moral righteousness with social implications.
There is a great emphasis in the Minor Prophets on social righteousness.
VI. BEING FILLED AND HUNGERING STILL
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.” (5:6).
As to legal righteousness, note that they do not fill themselves. They are filled. This is grace, you come, you seek, you hunger, you thirst … but God fills with His righteousness. It is not a righteousness that you generate. This is imputed righteousness credited to you because of the death of Christ.
READING: The truest thing I can say about myself these days is that I am a seeker. This may seem strange for a pastor’s kid who was saved when she was four years old, who later went to a Christian college and seminary, and who has been involved in vocational ministry ever since. But it is true. On any given day, I am aware of longing in my life, hungry places that ache to be filled. Sometimes God is present to me in ways I can see, feel, and know. At other times, I sense a desperate yearning for Him. On some days, my desire for love and connection is satiated in relationship with family and community. But other days, I am overcome by a loneliness out of proportion to the richness of my relational world. At times the pains of the past are a distant memory. Other times, an old wound can make me suspicious and self-protective. Sometimes, I can bear the pain of injustice. But other times, my longing for things to be right gets all riled up and turns into impatience and frustration. To experience so much longing this far into my Christian journey has been disillusioning at times. I was taught that once Jesus comes into your heart, He will satisfy everything—once and for all. This has not been my experience. So I am grateful for the beatitude that says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Mt. 5:6). It is Christ’s word to seekers, people like me who are baffled by the ongoing presence of hunger and thirst in their spiritual pilgrimage. (Ruth Haley Barton)
The word “hunger” and “thirst” are present tense and on-going. It is perpetual.
All of the qualities in the beatitudes are perpetual characteristics of Christ’s disciples. They go on and on and on. We never stop mourning, we never stop rejoicing, we never stop showing mercy, we never stop hungering and thirsting.
We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread,
And long to feast upon Thee still;
We drink of Thee, the Fountain-heard.
And thirst our souls from Thee to fill.
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.” (Isa. 55:1-2).
BEATITUDE’S PARADE OF STARS: Have someone walk in front of the class holding up “Hungering and Thirsting” while the class applauds.
SO WHAT????
1. Righteousness (true inner goodness, moral excellence) must be the
spiritual life goal of all Christians.
2. In Christ we experience full “legal” righteousness by grace when we entrust our sins to Him and His vicarious death for then we are credited with His righteousness.
3. We grow in moral righteousness as we cooperate with the Holy Spirit in spiritual formation. This happens as we focus on character qualities, make right choices, reflect on those choices and confess when we fail.
4. All growing Christians should exhibit spiritual hunger. We should all be hungry and thirsty for a closer relationship with God, for righteousness.
5. As we grow we will be filled with His righteousness but still hunger and thirst. Our hunger and thirst will only be fully satisfied when we are in heaven. Then Christ, our Shepherd, will lead us to “springs of living water”. (Rev. 7:16-17)