Matthew Beatitudes: Blessed are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

So we're working our way through the Beatitudes.

Uh it's the beginning of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount there at the beginning of uh the Gospel of Matthew.

So each week through the summer, we're taking uh one of these thoughts that Jesus presents.

And that this morning is blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be or they shall be satisfied.

And so we're gonna talk our way through it, dig our way into a few of these words and sort of flesh out what Jesus was talking about.

So this word satisfied, it means to be fed or to be filled.

So it's the idea, it's like that meal, that burger, that burrito, that nochi, that whatever, that just at the right time is just everything you wanted it to be, everything you needed it to be.

It filled you up.

So last Sunday afternoon after church, went home, it's Father's Day, we had lunch together, and then I packed up and I went to Blue Skies, which is the camp that our church uh helps support.

And some of you guys have been there before, it's in Florida, and it's a camp run by a lady who comes to our church, and it's a camp for families with children with cancer.

And so the whole family gets to come for a free week at the beach.

And so the kids have you know fun activities all week.

I mean, they're just just uh it's a break from their sad reality on a week-to-week basis in terms of just medicines and treatments, and doctors and siblings are left behind while the other sibling goes to the hospital and family is split because you know, mom and the the child with the illness is in Memphis, and then the rest of the family is in Birmingham, and you know, just all those realities go away for a week.

And then, as well, uh we have counseling sessions, big group counseling sessions where all the parents sit in one room together and they get to talk and hear each other's stories, and for some of these people have never spoken out their story and their anger and their doubt and their issues with God, um, and the ways they've been burned by friends and family and their church through this process and for them just to speak it out.

And so I sit in that room with those people during that time, and so I was in those rooms a few times with 11 different couples.

So I so driving down there, it's about a five and a half hour drive, and so I was gonna take some back roads, and so anybody been on highway 27 going through South Georgia?

Isn't it beautiful?

I mean, it's the most beautiful road.

I mean, I it was just it was so lovely.

I mean, every and every time I turned on Waze to be like, how far?

Like, she's like, get off of Highway 27.

She wants me to go somewhere else.

But that road was fantastic, it was so beautiful, and I'd eaten lunch before uh before I got on the road, and I think it was about five and a half hours, and so I figured I'd get down there for dinner, and so but I'm on Highway 27, and I'll tell you, it's beautiful.

There's not a lot to eat on Highway 27, which is what I learned.

Is that been, you know, podcast, you know, radio, podcast radio, and by the way, some killer, if you want some killer country stations, I mean, it is going on in South Georgia.

Don't go home a drinking with loving on your mind.

Does anybody, can anybody who's who's Loretta Lynn?

I mean, just give me a break.

It was like just killer song like that.

This is fantastic.

Like, where is this in Metro Atlanta?

It's nowhere, nowhere to be found.

All right, so anyway, so driving through, um, and and I'm getting hungry because it's taking longer than I thought, and there's there's nowhere to eat.

There's just there's just nowhere to eat.

And I'm not looking for the Whole Foods buffet, right?

I'm I'm not being picky here.

I'm just looking for a burger and fries, but also don't want like Slick Ricks gas station, like the hot dogs.

You know, I've been there for like three weeks.

Yeah, I'm not looking for that.

So there was some boundaries to this, but I am just looking in the fur so the further I drive, I'm getting hungry and hunger, but I thought I would I would get there, and I'm just not getting there.

And then all of a sudden, like as your hunger builds, you've been to this point, like as your hunger builds, like you don't care about the podcast anymore.

You don't care about um don't go home drinking with loving on your mind.

You don't care about the great country station.

You don't you're all you're doing is your eyes are on like the next town, is there is there a Bojangles, is there Hardy's, is there a McDonald's, is there is there a subway?

Like, I don't care, I don't care what it is, not Slick Riggs, gas station, hot dog, but just something, like, is there something, is there a burger and a fries?

That's all you want, right?

Because when you're hungry, all of a sudden, all the other things don't matter.

You are on a hunt.

You you are seeking with eager desire, right?

That's that's what this word hunger, to hunger, to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

This word hunger means to seek with eager desire.

It's like you're on a hunt.

And all of a sudden the other stuff doesn't matter.

I've never been hunting a day in my life.

We got some hunters, Josh is a hunter, yeah.

Anyway, this is open air.

We're not gonna judge you.

We're not like like everybody in here's not a liberal, we're all gonna judge you.

We're a mix of people, okay?

Anybody, hunters?

You got some hunters?

One in the hall, okay.

He it's interesting, had already left.

Like I knew, like he knew I was gonna ask the question.

Little guy's a hunter.

I I've never been hunting in a day in my life, but uh from talking to a few of you, is but you sit somewhere, right?

Maybe that's why you hunt, it's just like so nobody can bother you.

Is you sit somewhere, or you're walking, like you're walking through, like like and you're you're waiting, but but there's a there's an eager desire, like a waiting, a looking, like you can't wait for that whatever, that deer or what what do you hunt?

Duck, what?

Deer.

Deer, okay, deer, bird, ducks, and stuff like that.

So but you're just waiting to see these these animals, right?

Now it's different than say, like, the Kalahare, Bushmen, and Nambia, right?

Like when they hunt, this is their sole source of food.

Like, that's a different hunting.

This is the this is the strength of that word.

It's not like American hunting, and you know, like if we shoot a deer, it's great, and we'll you know, we'll keep the meat and we'll eat it and be responsible.

Like, no, it's more like the the Kahlar Bushman.

Like, I've I have I have to get an animal because I need to feed my family, right?

It's that strength of a word of seeking with eager desire, right?

I mean, it's so it's this kind of intensity, and it raises the question.

It raises the question, but this is what Jesus is doing.

He's taking that kind of word and he's applying it to like inner life issues.

And it raises questions like, what do you hunt for?

What does your inner self seek with eager desire?

And listen, because what you hunger for matters because some places satisfy and some places only promise.

And most of us are driven in our culture to find this filling, right?

This satisfied, this filling of the inner self with what we achieve or what we look like or what we have, right?

Sound familiar?

That's our lives basically.

But it's remarkable, like the studies, all the studies show, like no matter what income you have, if somebody asks you like how much money would you do you need to feel okay?

Does anybody remember all these studies?

And they keep repeating.

It's like it's just just human nature.

And you know how much we all answer?

10% more.

It's always 10% more.

It doesn't matter if you make$40,000 a year or you make$150,000 a year.

It's always 10% more.

That's what's going to make you feel okay.

I was listening to a podcast this week, I think it was actually on my drive down to Blue Skies, and uh, this lady lost 110 pounds.

And she said, I'm thin and I don't feel thin.

Right?

Like it's never ending.

There's no end to some things don't have an end.

Because some places satisfy and some places only promise.

Right?

I mean you drive a Honda Accord and you love it, and then you sat in your friend's Audi, and you thought that car was fantastic, and so maybe you got an Audi, you figured out a way to do that.

You know, it took you a few years, but you figured out your way into that Audi 6, and you got that Audi 6, and then you saw that jaguar, and that jaguar was awesome until you saw that Tesla, right?

And it just doesn't stop.

And we know this, we know it.

So, Ruth Whitman in the New York Times, in this great article, America of the Anxious, which I've I've quoted before, it's there in your handout.

Here's what she writes in the New York Times.

The American approach to happiness can spur a debilitating anxiety.

The initial sense of promise and hope is seductive, but it soon gives way to a nagging, slow burn feeling of inadequacy.

Am I happy?

Happy enough?

As happy as everyone else?

Could I be doing more about it?

Even basic contentment feels like failure when pitched against capital H happiness.

The goal is so elusive and hard to define, it's impossible to pinpoint when it's even been achieved, a recipe for neurosis.

So here's what we find when it comes to this idea of satisfaction to be filled.

Is the thing is not always the thing.

We think the thing's the thing.

Like we think the you know, that weight you're gonna hit, that's the thing, or the car, that's the thing, or the achievement that that's the thing.

Actually, the thing is not the thing.

And kind of the sad thing is that we're we're actually addicted to the hunt.

We have an addiction to the hunt, which is dangerous because it means we're never really filled because the hunt is never ending.

Because what the hunt is, it is us trying to justify our existence by these things.

And it might even be righteousness by merit.

I mean, it doesn't have to be all secular.

I was just naming a bunch of secular stuff.

It could be your own righteousness, your own sense of being a good Christian.

I mean, that can be your hunt that is never ending versus a secure, forever righteousness that God provided to you in Jesus.

Now we could all blame our culture and blame advertising or blame a church you went to at one point, but but like the reason why our culture is the way it is is because of us.

The reason why advertising works is because we sort of believe the advertising.

Because we all hunger, we're all on this hunt for a life of satisfaction and for to be deemed righteous.

We all want to be deemed righteous.

And so this word righteousness, this word righteousness in this verse, it's it's the way you ought to be.

To be right.

But here's the thing, it's not to be right like here and there, and then like if it sort of like like the tipping of the scales, and like if there's more good than bad, then you're righteousness, it's a comprehensive righteousness, it's a complete righteousness.

But then also this word has this meaning, and this is where you get into like you read a bunch of commentaries, and I did this week, and you get some people who take this verse and they go one way, and some people take this verse and they go another way.

And so another way this word can be defined is the right way in which an individual should be treated.

Okay, and so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna I'm gonna make two points based on those two different possibilities of how this word can be defined.

So, point number one, satisfaction comes by hungering for righteousness in the world.

So the right way in which people should be treated.

Meaning this, you and I should actually care about other people.

We should.

Not just neurotically addicted to the next thing.

And it turns out, and this is why Jesus is constantly teaching us to love people and care for people, it turns out that caring for people, loving people, loving people, and fighting for people and for them to be treated right, it turns out that actually speaks and gives to your heart.

Right?

I mean, it it's it's it's about seeing a human being, no matter what they look like, if they don't look like you, no matter what socioeconomic place they're at, or no matter where they come from, or that you even agree with things that they do or believe in their life, but that you know as a human being they should be treated rightly.

And so you see things like the Orlando shooting, and it should burden you that a human being would be treated like that.

Or you hear about human trafficking and it should affect you, that the cycle of poverty should affect you, that this isn't right for people, for the world to be like this.

There should be a burden, there should be a groaning for it to be right.

Because you love people.

Widows and children that are forgotten around the world, just a friend, your friend that's hurting, who gets sick, or their spouse is sick, or their kid are sick, or they're they're lonely, that should bother you.

It should have an effect on you.

Abuse and racism that's still in our country, it's still in our community.

That should bother us.

That thought, right?

Like the thought you had about that person that looked so different from you, that thought should bother you.

That there would be a drive in you, a hunger for these things to be right.

It turns out, it turns out that that actually brings satisfaction in your life.

I think it's because you're actually fighting for something that matters.

It's crazy, right?

I mean, it's radical teaching against everything we tend to do in life, which tends to be sort of around our own self-centeredness.

And this teaching and so much of Jesus' teaching about loving people just comes around this idea that we will be more satisfied in our existence when we use our existence to care about people being treated rightly.

So that's point number one.

Which might feel a lot of burden, actually, right?

I kind of put it on you right there.

Number two, satisfaction comes by hungering for a righteousness beyond yourself.

Now, this is really good news, especially after point number one.

Because point number one, you hear all of that and you go, oh man, I do some of that, but I also I fa I fail for that.

I fail in response to that.

I don't always care.

I don't always care to the point that I should.

I don't perfectly care.

I don't comprehensively care.

And then this point number two, satisfaction comes by hungering for a righteousness beyond yourself.

So this verse definitely has something to say for us in terms of that we should want to live a righteous life.

Like you should want your life to be righteous, so your thoughts to be pure and your life and your behavior.

But see, even that comes as a response to a righteousness beyond yourself.

So I ran into this quote this week by Alistair and Joanna McGrath in this book, Self-Esteem, the Cross and Christian Confidence.

It's in your handout.

It's a bit long, but it is really, really good, so hang with me.

There are two quite different ways of thinking about the idea of being justified in the sight of God.

The first way involves an internal style of attribution, in which the following style the following style question is asked.

What is it about me that would allow anyone to count me as righteous?

This way of thinking can lead to despair if the person's self-view is negative, and to an unmerited conceit if the person holds a good opinion of himself or herself.

The internal attribution style naturally leads to the triumphalist view that we can do something to establish our righteousness.

If we can justify ourselves by works, our emotional investment tends to fall on our achievements and spurs us on to attempt to achieve more.

Our sense of personal security and esteem thus comes to rest upon what we do and the way we feel about it.

Might sound familiar to some of us.

Here's the second approach.

The second approach concerns an external style of attribution in which the question is being asked is what is it about God that makes him see me as righteous?

This style of attribution creates a sense of expectancy for action on the part of God rather than a feeling that we ought to be achieving something.

This vital shift in the frame of reference moves us away from a human-centered, works-oriented approach to our personal worth and instead points us firmly towards a God-centered, faith-oriented approach.

Now you may think all that's quite wordy or intellectual, but what I know is, is I know your desire for righteousness, whether we want to take that word and apply it to the world and the way people are treated rightly, or we just want to apply it to your personal life and how righteous you are.

Either way, I know you comprehensively do not do this.

I know I comprehensively do not do this.

And therefore, if we're going to go into the internal attribution style for righteousness, we will feel the burden, the pressure, the exhaustion.

We become neurotic about it.

Some of us become like just legalistic about it.

Some of us give up and run the other way.

And that's what happens with this internal attribution style.

That amount of pressure of always having to be better or to find something else and find the next thing, right?

Because we're all hunting.

We're hungering.

We're seeking with eager desire to find the thing that will make us okay.

And ultimately, it's the sinful nature of the self.

It's our sin, it's our rebellion to God's provision in Jesus for our righteousness that we're gonna self-save.

We're gonna self-save with our religion, we're gonna self-save with our moralism, we're gonna self-save by running after a million things in the world, but we're gonna self-save, we're gonna make ourselves justified and righteous in the world by what we do.

But you and I, we can't comprehensively do it.

The internal attribution style, if you're on that path, you will exhaust yourself.

You are working your way there.

And the good news is this external righteousness, which is attributed to you, right?

This is what we talk about every week, this imputation.

That Christ on the cross is our sin.

All of that that I just mentioned put upon him, and it's relieved from us, is put upon him, and his righteousness is put upon us, so we are securely his beloved, and we are deemed righteous.

So, what is it about God that would see you and see you as righteous?

What it is, it's perfect forgiveness and love.

It is the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for you, the greatest act of humility and love.

Do you remember last week I told you about that wonderful garden in the business school at the University of Georgia?

If you're here, I talked about this garden at the business school, but the only way into the garden was the bottom floor of the building.

Right?

The bottom floor was the way in.

The bottom floor was the way into goodness.

There's the saying that God's office is at the end of your rope.

And I mean, goodness, anybody seen Goonies lately?

Anybody kept up with Goonies?

Do you remember Data?

He falls into the pit, and his pinches of peril shoot up and grab, and he falls down and he starts saying, Pinches of pearl, push up and he says, I'm in another room, I'm in another room.

And the way out was the bottom.

The way out's always the bottom.

It always is.

That's why in AA they begin with confession and brokenness and honesty.

That's why we began our service with that.

That's why only the sick need a doctor.

See, if you are exhausted in the hunt for satisfaction via this world, then you are on a path.

You are on a path to looking for external source for righteousness.

You're in a good place, is what I'm saying.

But you have to open your eyes to see that the way out is at the bottom.

It's not by you climbing back up.

It's by you going, I cannot comprehensively earn my righteousness.

I cannot comprehensively fill my inner self unto satisfaction.

I have to receive this position by God's love to me and by the act of Jesus on my behalf.

So this week at Blue Skies, when I was there, uh Melinda, who runs the camp, she pulled me aside and she said, Hey, we're we're having a little problem.

Um the kids are uh like they're like the so I so you have volunteer families and the kids come, and then you have um guest families.

Um the guest families are the families with the children with cancer.

And so the volunteer families, there's a bunch of little kids there too, and so all the volunteer families, uh all the kids are like cutting in line in front of like you know, I mean you're cutting in line in front of like a child with cancer, you're like, come on, kid, I mean, I mean, just common sense here.

Um I mean that's just bad, right?

Um it's bad in general, that's even worse.

All right, so so she said, hey, can you give like a little pad talk about like not cutting and like don't grab the toy first, or like when the Tootsie Roll Pops get passed out, like, hey, just back off.

Like let the guest families get them first.

I'm like, this is this is just human nature.

I mean, this is just like the perfect picture of human nature.

We're just so concerned it's gonna run out, right?

I mean, we're just so concerned that the goodness is gonna run out, that there's not an endless supply of Tootsie Roll Pops.

I better get mine now, and I better go after it.

What if this runs out?

And the good news here when it comes to God's love and goodness to you, whether you emotionally feel it today or not, it doesn't run out.

And it doesn't leave.

So it doesn't it doesn't pull away when you're in suffering.

It doesn't all the way all of a sudden show up because times are good.

It doesn't pull away when you screw up and then come back when you have your act together.

It doesn't run out, it is comprehensive for you.

It is always there, it is covering us and just deeming us righteous.

We are already righteous and we are secure because of Jesus' act on the cross for us.

That is where we find our rest.

So blessed, lucky are you, fortunate are you if you hunger and thirst for righteousness?

Yeah, because it will lead you to needing that external source of righteousness, and you will be satisfied.

So, my brothers and sisters, may we hunger for the thing that just keeps pouring itself out in never-ending love and mercy to us.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that you do not look at our record of righteousness to decide whether we are righteous.

Thank you that you do not keep a tally on today.

Thank you that we do not have to form our identity around what we have, what we accumulate, how we invest, our jobs, what we weigh.

Thank you that we are free from these measurements.

Help us to measure our security by the comprehensiveness of your sacrifice and love for us, thus being free.

God, we entrust that this life of resting in your grace and mercy to us, that your Holy Spirit would flood and work and create great fruit for your gospel and spur us on to a life of righteousness that glorifies you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.