Happy Are the Hungry and Thirsty

Now, please turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5. We have been going through

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

the gospel of Matthew since November, or end of November, and we are now in the Beatitudes,

in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' Discourse on Righteousness, Matthew 5, verses 1 to 12.

Matthew 5:1–12

Let me pray for the reading and preaching of God's word.

Heavenly Father, as we sang, do give us ears to hear and eyes to see.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be pleasing in your sight.

O Lord, our rock and redeemer, instill in us as we hear you speak to us from your word

and insatiable hunger for righteousness.

Make us more like Jesus, our Lord.

For in his precious name we now pray. Amen.

If you are able, please stand to honor God as we read his word.

Matthew 5, verses 1 to 12.

Matthew 5:1–12

I'll be focusing on verse 6 today, but I'll read all of 1 to 12.

Verse 6.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you,

falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,

for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

This is God's holy and authoritative word.

You may be seated.

In a now famous commencement speech that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005, the founder of Apple,

he quoted the words from the final issue of the Whole Earth Catalog,

which was an American counterculture magazine that Steve Jobs read religiously as a college-aged lad.

And the farewell word of this magazine was this.

Stay hungry.

Stay foolish.

That's the concluding advice that Jobs gave these Stanford grads.

Stay hungry.

In other words, don't ever be satisfied.

Stay hungry for more.

Stay hungry for new ideas, new breakthroughs, new accomplishments.

And this idea of staying hungry has a lot of currency in our culture today.

A coach and motivational speaker, Marcus Hungry, has this popular video that's been put into many different kinds of montages,

and it's been viewed millions of times.

And it says this.

Go ask any athlete, actor, musician, philanthropist.

It doesn't matter.

You ask anybody who is a champion.

And the difference between them and their opponent is that they were more hungry for it.

The slogan, stay thirsty, my friends.

You guys have heard this before?

Popularized, I think this was maybe in the 90s.

Maybe in the 2000s.

By a beer commercial.

It says, stay thirsty.

Stay thirsty in your studies, in your job.

Keep pressing.

Keep pursuing.

The people of this world are hungry and thirsty for many things.

And Jesus tells us in Matthew 5, verse 6,

Matthew 5:6

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst.

But the hunger and thirst that Jesus talks about is not about money, fame, or sex.

It's not about staying hungry for research innovations or career breakthroughs.

And the fulfillment of our dreams and aspirations.

That's not what Jesus is talking about.

Jesus says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

The people of this world are never satisfied.

The people who stay hungry in this world are not blessed or happy.

There's another way we can translate the word blessed.

Because they are not hungry for the right thing.

It says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

To understand this, we're going to explore what righteousness means first.

And then we'll talk about what hunger means.

And then we'll talk about what being satisfied means.

Because that's the promise.

For they shall be satisfied.

When we first started with the Beatitudes a few weeks ago,

we observed some general patterns that I want to remind you of.

The structure of the passage.

We noted that there are eight Beatitudes.

Because verses 11 and 12 are an expansion of Beatitude number 8 in verse 10.

We know that because they have the same theme of being persecuted for righteousness sake.

And because verses 11 and 12 start to use the second person pronoun.

Your, as opposed to they, which is the form of the rest of the Beatitudes.

So it's an expansion.

This structure is confirmed by the repetition of the promise.

There is the kingdom of heaven at the beginning and end of the Beatitudes.

In verse 3 and verse 10.

This is the only repeated promise in the Beatitudes.

And it's the only one stated in the present tense.

Which makes it stand out.

So that serves to bookend the entire Beatitudes.

And it confirms that there are eight Beatitudes total.

We also noticed one more important feature.

Here, both verse 6 and verse 10 mention righteousness.

Verse 6 says,

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Meaning those who lack righteousness.

But long for righteousness.

And then verse 10 says,

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.

Meaning those who already have righteousness.

Who are full of righteousness.

And therefore are persecuted on account of that righteousness.

So this repetition of the word righteousness divides in half the Beatitudes.

And you will notice that the first four Beatitudes all speak to the lack of something.

The poverty.

The poor in spirit.

Mourn because you lost something.

You grieve something.

You're meek because you're not taking initiative and taking things to your own hands.

You hunger and thirst for righteousness.

While the second half all describe being full or overflowing with something.

You are full of mercy.

So you show mercy to others.

You are pure in heart.

You have an undiluted heart from which you can see with which you can see God.

You overflow as a peacemaker because you have the peace of Christ.

And you are persecuted for righteousness because you have righteousness already.

So there's a logical flow to these Beatitudes.

And that gives us a clue to the meaning of the word righteousness.

In verse 10, righteousness does not refer to God's righteousness.

Much like it says that we are persecuted on account of our righteous acts.

Much like the prophets who went before us.

So it's speaking of human righteousness.

Righteousness is a key word in the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew uses it more than any other Gospel writers.

All of them combined actually.

He uses it more than them.

And most of those uses of the word righteousness occurs in the Sermon on the Mount.

Later in chapter 6 verse 1, Jesus says,

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.

So here again, the word righteousness refers to the righteousness that we practice.

That we do, that others can observe.

So this is not God's righteousness, but our righteousness.

What then constitutes righteousness?

Jesus summarizes it at the beginning and the end of his Sermon on the Mount.

At the beginning he says this, I think I have this to show in Matthew 5, 17 to 20.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.

I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.

For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter.

You will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Once again, righteousness is something that we do since it's compared to what the scribes and the Pharisees do.

Examined in this light, righteousness means obeying the commandments of God.

Obeying the teachings of God and teaching others to do the same.

Righteousness entails the obedience, the observance of the entire revealed law of God.

His scriptures.

His word.

Now, that doesn't mean that we have to keep all of the Old Testament laws in their original form.

Just in case some of you guys have that question as I'm saying this.

Because Jesus says that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill them.

Jesus has fulfilled the law.

He is the key, the legend by which we are to interpret and apply all of the scriptures, including all of the Old Testament.

As another preacher has used this analogy before of Jesus being the prism through which when the light of God's word is shown through it,

it reveals the true colors, the entire spectrum of light.

And that's how we are to interpret and understand and apply the word of God.

And that's how Jesus functions.

The key that brings together the New Testament and the Old Testament.

And so Jesus reveals to us the law's true intent, its end, its purpose.

And Jesus summarizes the law of God at the end of the Sermon on the Mount this way in Matthew 7, 12.

So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets.

So it's the golden rule.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and you should love your neighbor as yourself.

That's the summary of the law and what righteousness means and what righteousness looks like.

So if that's righteousness, then let's talk about hunger.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Hunger and thirst are sensations that involve two things.

First, it's the lack of something.

And second, it's the longing for something.

You need both in order to feel hungry or thirsty.

Right?

I don't own a sports car.

But I also don't have any desire for one.

So I'm not hungry for sports cars.

Right?

So you need to have the lack of it, but also a longing for it.

It's the physical need that our body has and then the signal that the brain sends, that you feel the sensation.

It's both a lack and a longing.

So likewise, hunger and thirst for righteousness means that, one, we don't have righteousness.

We hunger for righteousness because there is a lack of righteousness in our lives.

If you are resistant to that idea, let me show you from God's word.

Romans 7, 18, Paul says,

For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.

Ephesians 2 says that we all were once dead in our trespasses and sins and were made by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

In Genesis 6, 5, God's assessment of fallen humanity is this.

The thoughts of his heart.

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

This is what we mean by total depravity or the pervasiveness of evil that taints everything that happens and everything that we do.

We are not righteous.

And if you think that you are righteous on your own, apart from Jesus, then you are satisfied with your own righteousness.

You are not a Christian.

One thing that a Christian cannot be is to be a person who is satisfied with his own righteousness.

Maybe you're not a Christian, but you think that you are a pretty good person.

You think that maybe you can make the cut.

Let's measure ourselves now up against the standard of righteousness that Jesus teaches and expounds in the Sermon on the Mount.

There's a focus on righteousness throughout the Sermon on the Mount.

That's a key theme.

And these are some of the things that Jesus says.

Well, I mentioned to you, I read earlier from the whole passage, and we saw in verse 1 that Jesus goes up on the mountain to begin his teaching.

And I mentioned to you a few weeks ago that that's not incidental.

Jesus goes up on the mountain to receive, to give the new law of God, the new commandments of God, in the same way that Moses in the Old Covenant, in Old Testament times, went up on the mountain to receive from God and to relay the Ten Commandments to the people of God.

And that's why Jesus, throughout the Sermon on the Mount, repeatedly says,

You have heard that it was said to the people of old.

But now I say to you, he builds this contrast between how the old saints had understood it or misunderstood some things, and then how the new saints, how we ought to live now.

He's bringing the Old Testament to its intended end and purpose.

He's fulfilling it.

For example, the sixth commandment, the sixth of the Ten Commandments, says,

You shall not murder.

If you interpret that narrowly, I think we're probably all in the clear, I hope.

However, Jesus says in Matthew 5, 21,

According to Jesus, sinful, hate-filled, anger toward another person is murder within the heart.

How many of us are guilty of that?

All of us.

Whether you have that kind of explosive, hot kind of anger, or the brooding, cold kind of anger, we have all had that.

The seventh of the Ten Commandments says,

You shall not commit adultery.

Most of us are probably clear on that one, too.

However, Jesus says in Matthew 5, 27 and 28,

You have heard that it was said,

You shall not commit adultery.

But I say to you, that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent,

has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

According to Jesus, lustful glances of the eyes and the fantasies of the mind are already adultery of the heart.

How many of us are guilty of that?

Once again, if you're an able-bodied adult, probably all of us.

The third of the Ten Commandments says,

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Interpret it narrowly.

That means to keep all the oaths that you have made in the name of the Lord.

But then later, Jesus says in Matthew 5, 33, 37,

Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old,

You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.

But I say to you, do not take an oath at all.

Let what you say be simply yes or no.

Anything more than this comes from evil.

Jesus says that our words should be so transparently truthful,

that we should be characterized by such integrity in our lives,

that a simple yes or no carries as much weight as swearing,

taking an oath in the name of God.

How many of us are guilty of letting our words fall to the ground

with broken promises, lies,

saying yes when we mean no or no when we mean yes.

We can go down the list of the Ten Commandments,

and if we are honest with ourselves,

we have broken every single one.

That is the sad state of our own righteousness.

We have no excuse for self-righteousness,

because there is no righteousness within ourselves,

and that means all of us should hunger and thirst for righteousness.

We must be people who are poor in spirit,

people who mourn, people who are meek,

and recognize our own spiritual poverty.

However, despite this reality of our spiritual neediness,

not all of us,

in fact, hunger and thirst for righteousness.

That's because, as I said,

hunger entails both the lack and the longing.

There is the objective hunger,

the state of being hungry,

and the subjective hunger of feeling hungry.

The body's need for food,

the brain's signal for food.

Let me give you an illustration.

One of the daily responsibilities of parenting

is filtering what your kids eat and when.

Because if you don't,

they will eat candies and snacks right before their meals,

whenever they want to,

and then they will lose their appetite

for the nutritious meals that you serve them.

Because of the temporary blood sugar hike or whatever,

you could ask the doctors in the midst how that works.

The same is true in the spiritual realm.

In Mark 4, 19,

Jesus speaks of those who hear the word of God,

but the cares of the world

and the deceitfulness of riches

and the desires for other things

enter in and choke the word,

and it proves unfruitful.

What are the cares of this world

that are right now dulling your spiritual appetite?

Are you weary with care about your job,

about your bank account,

the stock market,

your health,

your future,

politics,

and the state of this world?

Are you consumed with cares

about the clothing you wear,

the food you eat,

and what other people are thinking about you

or saying about you?

Are these things masking your hunger for righteousness?

What about the deceitfulness of riches?

Have you bought into the false promise,

the lie that wealth can buy you security and happiness?

What are these desires for other things

that Jesus speaks of

that can choke out the word?

Is it desire for sex and romance,

for fame and renown,

authority and power?

Maybe it's nothing so grand.

Maybe it's something as simple and small

as a desire for entertainment,

for another show or a movie,

video games,

sporting events,

reading the news,

exploring new music.

Seemingly perfectly harmless things

can do a great deal of spiritual harm

if they spoil our appetite for righteousness,

if they displace our longing

for the things of God.

Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness?

Most of us, thankfully,

have never known desperate hunger or thirst,

but let's try to imagine it for a few moments.

Imagine being so dehydrated

that your throat is parched and dried and cracking

and your lips are cracked

and your mouth is dry,

you have a headache

you're desperate

just for a cup of cold water

to slake your thirst.

Or imagine being so famished,

you've seen pictures of starving children online,

you're emaciated.

You would do anything for a loaf of bread.

You're hungry.

You feel the pangs of hunger.

What would you do to satisfy their hunger?

What would you stop at?

You wouldn't stop at anything

to get food and water in a situation like that.

Nothing else in this world would take precedence

over getting food.

What?

So let me ask you,

do you hunger and thirst for righteousness in that manner?

Are you diligently attending to the means of grace

that God has given us to grow us in righteousness?

Are you reading and meditating on the word of God

as we were singing about earlier,

which teaches us righteousness?

Psalm 119 is full of admonitions about this.

Think about whether you relate to the word of God in this way,

as the psalmist does.

I will praise you with an upright heart

when I learn your righteous rules.

I have stored up your word in my heart

that I might not sin against you.

Behold, I long for your precepts.

In your righteousness, give me life.

Your testimonies are righteous forever.

Give me understanding that I may live.

Seven times a day,

I praise you for your righteous rules.

Those are the words of a man

who hungers and thirsts for righteousness.

Are you devoted to the word of God?

I will talk about this more when we get there,

but Jesus' discourse on righteousness,

his sermon on the mount,

is structured to bring attention to the Lord's prayer

in Matthew 6, 7 to 16.

That's the structural center

of the entire sermon on the mount.

That's how important prayer is for our righteousness,

for Christian obedience and discipleship.

Are you devoted to prayer?

Is your prayer life characterized by this hunger and thirst?

Do you attend faithfully to the local church

and its worship?

Hebrews 10, 23, 25 says,

that it is by meeting together

and encouraging one another

that we stir up one another

to love and good works.

In other words, toward righteousness.

I'm speaking to the choir here

because you guys are all here.

If the worship gathering of the body of Christ

promotes our righteousness,

if the fellowship of the people of God

promotes our righteousness,

then those who hunger and thirst for righteousness

will not miss the opportunity.

Would a hungry person be too busy

to find the time to eat?

Would a thirsty person be too busy

to find the time to drink?

No, you'd put all the other priorities aside.

Someone's talking to you

and you're really hungry

and you're really thirsty,

you have to go get a sip of water.

Hey, thank you.

That's a very interesting story,

but I'm going to go take a drink.

If we're too busy

to attend to the means

that God has given us

to sanctify us

and to grow us in righteousness,

then it shows we're not hungry

and thirsty for righteousness.

In John 4, Jesus says to Samaritan woman

who is drawing water at the well,

everyone who drinks of the water

will be thirsty again,

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.

Jesus is telling us

what we should be thirsting for.

In that same passage,

some verses down,

Jesus says,

my food,

when his disciples ask him,

have you gotten food?

Jesus says,

my food is to do the will of him

who sent me

and to accomplish his work.

Jesus says that we should seek righteousness

even more than we seek food.

How many days have we passed

neglecting the pursuit of righteousness

while still eating three square meals a day?

I'm not saying that eating is important.

I eat three meals a day.

But just that our priorities are not right.

This is one of the reasons

why we as a church,

as a whole body,

observe three days of prayer

and fasting once a month.

This Wednesday,

upcoming Wednesday,

is the first Wednesday

of the month of February,

which means starting tomorrow,

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday,

we are encouraging you guys

to fast and to pray.

If it has been a while

since you participated

or you've never fasted before,

take this opportunity to fast.

A typical fast

is to abstain from food

and or drink,

usually food

and then continuing to drink water.

A 19th century,

a South African pastor,

Andrew Murray,

describes fasting

helpfully this way.

We are creatures of the senses.

Our mind is helped

by what comes to us

embodied in concrete form.

Fasting helps to express,

to deepen,

and to confirm the resolution

that we are ready

to sacrifice anything,

to sacrifice ourselves

to attain what we seek

for the kingdom of God.

So then by fasting,

we declare that our hunger

for righteousness

is greater than our hunger

for food,

that we do not live

by bread alone,

but by every word

that proceeds

from the mouth of God.

So consider fasting

for a meal

or for a day

or maybe for all three days

and use that time

to express your hunger

for righteousness

in prayer

and the study

of God's word.

You can fast

from things

other than food also.

Think about the question

that I asked earlier.

what are the desires

for other things,

the deceitfulness

of riches,

the cares of this world

that are choking out

the word of the gospel

in your life.

Ask yourself,

is it social media,

YouTube,

dramas and shows?

Maybe it's ESPN,

video games,

dating apps,

shopping.

Consider fasting

for a time

just to deepen

your conviction,

your resolution

that seeking

the kingdom of God

and his righteousness

is first priority.

Brothers and sisters,

hungering and thirsting

for righteousness

is the way

to be blessed.

I've talked to you

about this,

that blessed

can be translated

as happy

or fortunate.

this blessedness

or happiness

cannot be found

apart from God.

This is very important

for us to get

because everyone

in the world

is seeking happiness

in some shape

or form.

Our country's

declaration of independence

has enshrined

pursuit of happiness

as one of the

inalienable rights

that God has given

to humanity.

This is what people

everywhere are pursuing

but they don't

attain happiness

because they're seeking

happiness apart

from God.

True happiness

can only be found

in God,

in being in right

relationship with God,

in living a life

that is rightly

ordered before God.

So if you want

to be happy,

you must hunger

and thirst

for righteousness

for they are

the happy ones

for they shall

be satisfied.

Seek first

the kingdom of God

and his righteousness

and all these things

will be added to you

as well.

Jesus said

in Matthew 6, 33.

So what are you hungry

for in life?

If people were to

observe your life,

your priorities,

your decisions,

what would they say

you are hungry for?

if we put anything

ahead of God's kingdom

and his righteousness

then we will not

be happy.

For what will it

profit a man

if he gains

the whole world

yet forfeits

his soul?

This is why

we as Christians

are in the gospel

preaching business.

It's good work

to indeed give

hungry people food

and to give thirsty

people water.

That is the way

to obey God's command

to us to love

our neighbors

as ourselves.

We need to

do that.

We need to serve

our neighbors

in those ways.

But we also need

even more importantly

to show people

how to satisfy

their hunger

and thirst

for righteousness.

righteousness.

Because there is

something worse

than physical death.

Eternal damnation.

And there is

something better

than a long

and healthy

and prosperous

life.

Eternal life.

At the heart

of all the problems

in the world

is the lack

of righteousness.

righteousness.

And that brings me

to my final point.

What does it mean

that we shall be

satisfied?

The word

satisfy here

means to feed

or to fill

to satisfaction.

It's speaking

of sufficiency.

Enough.

Plenty.

Abundance.

And that's a

delightful word

for a hungry soul.

So if you feel

that hunger

and thirst

for righteousness,

if you are aware

of your lack

of righteousness

and you long

for more of it,

then this is the good news.

You shall be

satisfied.

But how does that happen?

We can answer

that question

if we first figure out

who is doing

the feeding.

Notice the verb.

It's in the passive voice.

You shall be satisfied.

We are not the ones

who are doing

the feeding.

We are not the ones

who are doing

the filling.

We are not feeding ourselves.

We are not filling ourselves.

We are being satisfied

by someone else.

And this is an example

of the divine passive

when the passive voice

is used

without a subject

explicitly stated.

It often,

the Bible,

refers to

God himself

who is doing

the satisfying

and the filling

and the feeding.

As Psalm 107

Psalms 107:9

verse 9 says,

for the Lord

satisfies the longing soul

and the hungry soul

he fills with good things.

This is the good news

that we proclaim.

Because Jesus

could have said,

blessed

are the righteous.

But instead,

Jesus says,

blessed

are those

who hunger

and thirst

for righteousness.

Jesus could have said,

for they shall

satisfy themselves.

But instead,

he says,

for they shall

be

satisfied.

We don't need

to be full

of our own

righteousness

in order to be

satisfied.

The only people

who are disqualified

from this promise,

from this blessing,

are the self-satisfied,

the self-righteous,

but if you,

in this room

right now,

you recognize

your own

lack of righteousness

and you are longing

for it,

you're hungry

for it,

then you are

blessed,

for you shall

be satisfied.

As I've been

saying for weeks

in this series

in the Beatitudes,

there is a present

and future dimension

to this promise.

The kingdom of God

is already here,

but it is not yet

fully here.

That's why

there's the first

and the last promises

in the present tense,

for theirs is

the kingdom of heaven,

but all the promises

in between are

in the future tense.

They shall be satisfied.

But we know

that there's a present

and future dimension

to this righteousness

as well,

because in verse 10

we have righteousness,

because we're persecuted

because of the righteousness

that we have.

So we already have righteousness,

but yet we do not

have righteousness,

and we shall be

filled,

satisfied.

In theological terms,

this is referring

to God's justification

and his sanctification.

Justification is God's

once for all

judicial pronouncement,

his declaration

of sinners

as righteous.

This is not something

that we earn

or accomplish,

it's something that God

by his divine authority

pronounces,

and we read about that

in Romans 4,

3 to 8.

For what does

the scripture say?

Abraham believed in God,

believed God,

and it was counted

to him as righteousness.

Now to the one

who works,

his wages are not

counted as a gift,

but as his due.

And to the one

who does not work,

but believes in him

who justifies

the ungodly,

his faith is counted

as righteousness.

Just as David

also speaks

of the blessing

of the one

to whom God

counts righteousness

apart from works.

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.

Do you notice

the word blessed

there?

Who are the blessed?

Not those

who have never

done lawless deeds.

They don't exist.

Blessed are those

whose lawless deeds

are forgiven.

Who are the blessed?

Not those

who have never sinned.

Only Jesus

can claim that.

but those

whose sins

have been covered.

Those against whom

God does not

count their sin,

but rather

because of our

faith in Jesus,

because Jesus

died on the cross

for our sins.

Because Jesus

stood in the place

of sinners,

he was condemned

in our place

so that we can be

declared righteous.

The ungodly,

the unrighteous

declared righteous.

that's the blessing

of the gospel

and the promise

of the gospel

so that instead

of hearing the

guilty verdict

that we should

have heard,

we hear

the verdict

of emancipation

and freedom,

righteousness,

innocence,

forgiveness.

righteousness.

That's how

it says

in 1 Corinthians 1-3,

Jesus became

to us

wisdom from God,

righteousness

and sanctification

and redemption.

That's

the once for all

act of what

God has done,

that's justification.

And those

whom God

justifies,

he also

surely

sanctifies.

The Bible

speaks of

sanctification

in a two-fold

sense.

It speaks

of how

we are

once and

for all

immediately

at the

time of

conversion

consecrated

to God

to belong

to him,

to be united

with Christ

through faith.

That happens

once and

for all.

But it also

speaks of

the ongoing

sanctification,

progressive

sanctification,

how we become

more and more

like Christ.

We grow

in our holiness

and in our

righteousness.

How does

that work?

I'll close

with a couple

analogies to

explain to you

what that looks

like.

I've used

this one

before,

the first one.

You can think

of righteousness

of Christ

as this

oversized

hand-me-down

clothes that

you receive

from your

older brother

Jesus.

It's

yours.

He's

given it

to you.

You already

have it.

You're already

wearing it.

No one

can take

that from

you.

You've been

declared

righteous.

You belong

to God.

You belong

to Jesus.

You've been

united with

him.

And yet,

the rest

of our

days,

we grow

into that

and fill

that righteousness

out more

and more.

Justification

and sanctification.

You can

think of it

also as

marriage,

which is

not inappropriate

because we

are described

as the

bride of

Christ.

If you

think about

a newly

wedded couple,

things are a

little awkward

at first.

Think about it,

right?

A man and a

woman who

have lived,

I don't know,

20-something,

30-something

lives,

30-something

years,

on their own,

doing things

that they want

to do,

running their

schedules,

eating things

that they

want to

eat.

And then

they get

married.

And then

you clash.

Things are

not so well

aligned.

But they

are one.

They are all

married.

That's a

permanent

reality.

The covenant

is real.

And yet

they spend

the rest

of their

lives,

the rest

of their

marriage,

figuring it

out.

How to

fit better

together.

That's what

happens with

Jesus as

well.

reason

unknown to

us,

but clear to

the sovereign

grace and

mercy of God,

he has chosen

his people,

chosen us,

to be his

bride,

to be the

bride of

Christ.

And when we

put our

faith in

Jesus, we

are married

to him.

We are the

bride of

Christ.

We already

have the

unbreakable

covenant with

him.

We're justified.

We are

consecrated to

him.

And yet,

the rest of

our days,

every day of

our lives,

we spend

growing and

being more

and more

conformed to

his image,

to his

tastes,

to his

priorities,

to his

body, the

body of

Christ.

So if

you feel

that you

are not

quite fitted,

if you

feel your

profound lack

of righteousness

this morning,

don't let that

discourage you.

You are no

less the

bride of

Christ.

Close with

this hymn,

a few lines

from Charles

Wesley's hymn,

Jesus,

lover of

my soul.

Just and

holy is

thy name.

I am

all unrighteousness.

Vile and

full of

sin I am.

Thou are

full of

truth and

grace.

And that's

why he can

satisfy us

with his

righteousness.

Let's pray.

Okay.