Hungering and Thirsting for Righteousness | Matthew 5:17-20

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Good morning, morning, we talk through. Good morning.

Good morning to you and you and you man. Hey,

good morning everybody.

It's it's only the second day of this week.

Yeah, I forget it might not shake it up a

little bit.

Wow, I'm pretty well to it. I'm feeling wild, get

right to it.

Hey, wild cherry Life Savers?

Did you No?

I don't even like Life Savers really I used to

as a kid. I'm not a candy person.

Yeah that's right. You aren't a candy person.

Yeah that's weird.

Yeah, which which is why we're friends. Yeah, right, because

that leaves more for me.

That's right.

I never have to ask are you gonna finish that?

Right? Right?

It's true, especially chocolate. That's the thing I don't understand

about you.

Yeah.

As a matter of fact, I question our friendship over

the chocolate.

Hey, that you're not like I told you my experience.

I don't know two people that don't like chocolate, and

both of them are psychopaths.

What are you saying I'm a psychopath? Yeah?

Like, did you ever hear Hannibal Lecter mentioned that he

liked chocolate. No, no, no, what I'm saying. So there's

one he liked liver. So anyways, anyways, I might be

making a leap there.

Okay, Hey, so you know I don't mind chocolate, Like

I can eat chocolate with like like peanut m and m's.

If I were to buy a box of peanut lem

and M's in a movie theater, I get about halfway

through it, I'm like, I cannot eat anymore. But I

can only eat the first half because it has peanuts

in it. Ow I get to the end of a

Snickers bar, I'm like, whoa wow. But like, but halfway

through it, I'm fine.

I walked through. And if there's chocolate, I have to

taste it. I have to have it. I don't know why.

It's just I mean, I will say this very very strongly.

If it's like a Hershey's kiss, absolutely not even a

chance while I eat that just pure chocolate.

No, I just ate five her She's kisses last night,

back to back to back. So funny.

Yeah, No, I just don't do it.

Okay, Well, sorry, all right, So, hey, Jeff, can the

misery of your life?

It's great, it's great. All right, Hey, listen, we are

launching into a segment the Desiree is calling Hot Takes Showdown,

and this is supposed to be where we debate. Yes,

we're supposed to commit. Okay, okay, so uh so here

we go. She said, do you agree with this the statement?

The statement debate, stand your ground, no middle ground. Here

we go. The first statement, is this cursive should still

be taught? Yes, absolutely, it should.

It should be. I think you think so too. Yes, wow,

I thought you would say no.

No, I should be. Yes, it is. It is a

it is a lost art and and honestly it is. Uh,

it's it's there's so many things about it. It's elegant,

it's quicker to write, it is. Yes, it's you know,

it's interesting because people have signatures in cursive, and yet

nobody writes in cursive anymore. So I think it's I

think it's.

Uh, I do I like I'll write in cursive. I'll

write in cursive. If I'm writing you a note, I'll

write in cursive and not print it. Yeah, because you

can't read my printing?

Oh is that why?

Yeah?

I have decent penmanship, but I still like to do

cursive when uh, when I write a card to my kids,

I do cursive just to show them that cursive exists.

Yeah, and can they still read it?

I think so?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Another credit, Well, because I

think they were they were.

The cutoff was after them, Okay, so I think they

all learned it right then there's a cutoff. So yeah,

I mean the generation alpha they I don't think they'll

be able to recognize cursive.

I don't know.

Yeah, I like it.

I like how it looks. I like it's I think

it's easy to read. Yeah, even if they yeah, poor penmanship.

Cursive you usually read the beginning and the end of

a of a word anyways, and incursive there's usually distinct

beginnings and ends. Write your first letter and your last

letter stand out. Even if there's kind of scribble in

the middle, you can usually and that's how you read.

Is that so that's part of it? It's easy to read.

The bottom line is is it not that hard? Why

do we get rid of it? It's not that hard.

We are standing our ground.

Yeah, let's go, people pick up the pace.

I don't know why did we get rid of raise

the bar because everybody's typing and so we don't need

to write cursive I think, so I guess, okay, it's

it's it seems silly to me, okay. And then the

second one is it's okay to quit things you start.

Absolutely it is absolutely yes, hate quitting things I start.

It depends on what liz.

I hate it, but I do it. I just hate it.

Why.

I don't know. I always feel like less of a

man when I don't finish the things I start. Every time.

Let me let me give you an example. So I, uh,

I am the worst at this. Somebody said, somebody said, hey,

let me talk you to run in the marathon, and

I was like, great, I'm gonna commit to it. I

went public with it in front of everybody, in front

of thousands of people. Then I started training for it,

and then sometimes someone hurt my back and I was like, oh,

thank God, thank god that I hurt my back. I

don't have to run this race. And then what I

realized was like two years later down the road. And

I'm not kidding when I say this. My old church

used to work at. Running was a big thing, and

everybody on staff was a large staff. There were like

twenty avid runners, twenty where they were like, running's my thing,

man marathons. And by the way, I'm not against runners.

I'm just against runners running longer than your body was intended, right,

because you know, a half a marathon. I think your

body can handle a half a marathon.

But every single people some people's bodies.

Right.

You ever see me running, the cops are tasting me.

Right, right. But anyway, bottom line is is twenty out

of twenty had surgery. Twenty out of twenty. Yeah when

he out of twenty had surgery because I.

Am, and then they die their body falls apart.

Yeah, they all had surgery, back surgery, leg surgery, knee surgery.

It was just terrible.

There's a whole vein of medicine called sports medicine.

Yeah, that's right, right.

And and there's a whole segment just most of the

orthopedic surgeons and stuff. It's for runners, right most.

Well, our good friend Dave Wilson he can't walk upright

because he blew his knee out in the first game

he ever played at in college football and he's been

on bone on bone on his knee and now he

can't straighten up.

Well, we need to fix it. Well, I got a

pocket knife. Maybe I don't know if I'm good at it,

but it might be.

Yeah, give me a new knee.

Yeah yeah, so yeah. So I think the if you

ever asked me, what is the thing I wish I

could change the most about me, it's this. I start

a million things and I and I don't always finish them, really,

and there's nothing in me that says that's okay. Everything

in me says just finish it. I would rule the

world if I could finish all the stuff I start.

And I think it's the adhd thing in me. Oh hey,

look at the squirrel. Squirrel right always there's another thing

that catches my attention and it's really exciting. And so

I start tons of stuff. Home project. You can ask

my wife. I'll start home projects and I can't finish them.

I've already made fifteen trips to home depot. I get frustrated.

It's time to call somebody to come and help me

fixing a car, same thing, and I just feel like

I should, I should be able to do it. I

just don't. And either I don't or I can't. There's

a ton of those things. I probably have twenty five

unfinished projects right now. And nothing in me says that's okay. Yeah, yeah,

well not just at home. I'm not at home, just

projects are writing. I'm writing a couple of different things.

I'm writing three things right now. None of the three

are done. I just put a deadline on one of

them recently. Deadlines. I like deadlines. Deadlines get me moving,

get me motivated. But yeah, I've got so many loose

ends and it drives me nuts.

Huh.

I don't think it's okay.

I will say real quick, because I know we're coming

up on our time. One time, I tore the whole

bathroom apart down to the studs and I and I

had friends that I know come in and just do

bits and pieces. And it took forever because it was

like mostly free and uh, but the bathroom was still

undone after like a year, and slowly but surely we

just got it put together. And so I kept on

telling my wife. I was like, She's like, let's just

hire somebody, and I said, no, no, no, I'll get

it done. I promise. And then I went to Cuba

and I came back and it was done done, and

she had hired somebody when I was in Cuba. Good

and she had planned the whole thing. So I'm like,

how much do we own this guy? But thank god

he was a good guy and charges a small amount.

That's funny.

So well, hey, speaking, I'm strong, I wouldn't say.

The one thing it is okay to quit thing is

if you're if you're eating a meal that's too big

to finish.

Oh yeah, right yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and uh that's what we're talking about. It's being hungry, hungry.

We both went for it, okay, very good. Yeah yeah yeah.

I like it as a weak transition.

No, no, no, we got no. I thought it was it

got us there, clever. Yeah, it was better than our

normal lazy transition.

Yes, that's right. So in Matthew chapter five, we just

read in verse six, God blesses those who hunger in

thirst for justice or righteousness, for they will be satisfied.

And then the premise of this entire series is Jesus

sets up these eight or nine things that God blesses

at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount,

and then peppered all throughout the Sermon on the Mount

our illustrations about those things, and one of them is

this idea of hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Oftentimes, the

people in Jesus day looked at the Pharisees as being

like super righteous because they obeyed all the laws of Moses,

and so they measured they equated righteousness with law. And

so here in Matthew chapter five, verse seventeen, Jesus says,

don't misunderstand why I've come. I did not come to

abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No,

I claim to plish their purpose. And I tell you

the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the

smallest detail of God's law will disappear until its purpose

is achieved. So if you ignore the least commandment and

teach others to do the same, you will be called

the least in the Kingdom of heaven. But anyone who

obeys God's laws and teaches them will be called great

in the Kingdom of heaven. But I warn you, unless

your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers

of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter

the Kingdom of heaven. Woo about righteousness. So on one side,

yesterday we said, God doesn't say I'm going to reward

your righteous living. He said, I'm going to reward your

desire true bless you. And now Jesus says, you're not

going to go to heaven if your righteousness doesn't exceed

the righteousness of the Pharisees.

Yeah, so some people can some people can misinterpret that, right, Yeah,

so some people misinterpret that as saying Jesus is saying

you have to live right in order to obtain heaven. Right,

But he's talking about the law being the thing, the

vehicle that gets you to heaven. Right. Right.

If you think the law is what gets you to heaven,

you have to keep it perfectly.

That's right, that's right. That's what he's saying. He's saying,

the righteousness of the law is not what gets you

to heaven. Right, and so's and he's actually he's actually saying, listen,

I've come to accomplish the law. I've come to fulfill

the law. I'm not doing away with it, right, just

because I'm giving you new rules, and you know, I'm

giving you a new commandment love one another. And Jesus,

you know, you know, he's the sacrifice, that is the

ultimate sacrifice. So he gives us a new Covenant because

of that right, that the brand new promise of salvation

everything else. So so in a lot of ways, the

Old Testament, some of the Old Testament laws, they don't

apply to us today because Jesus has fulfilled them. You know,

if there's a prophecy that's just been lingering unfulfilled for

seven hundred years, Jesus fulfilled that, right, He's accomplished that.

There are some things in the Old Testament where Jesus

came to complete He put a bow on it, and

it's done with. Right. But he's not saying, but he said,

I'm not coming to do away with the law, right,

because anything that's not fulfilled, anything that I have not

fulfilled or accomplished, it will exist all the way to

the ends of the earth. Right, So all the things

that Jesus didn't come to satisfy, all the stuff in

the Old Testament that still exists that aren't satisfied by Jesus,

by his you know, salvation, What am I saying? Just

his fulfillment of salvation, prophecies, right, and everything else he's

saying will still exist. But then he's really talking about

the law and he's saying he's saying listen the law.

You think the Pharisees are righteous, but you have to

surpass them in order to get to heaven. So I

just think that people will take this verse out of

context a lot of times and think that they have

to be righteous in order to get to heaven. But

that conflicts with every other verse when God promises salvation,

when God explains salvation. If you take all the verses

about salvation, this verse cannot mean that.

Yeah, well, this verse is consistent with what Paul says.

So Jesus is saying in a few sentences. Well, Paul

took several chapters in the Book of Romans to unpack. Right.

If you think that the law can get you to heaven,

the law is just a task master. All the rules

are there to prove to you that you can't keep

the laws, and so then the only thing we have

to fall back on is God's grace. Right. And so

I talked about this, you know, and I preached this

at my brother's funeral in Psalm or in Roman seven.

Even Paul says, the things I wish I'd do, I

don't do, and the things I don't want to do

I do. And he's talking about the law. In that

whole chapter, he's talking about the law, and he said, oh,

what a wretched man I am? Who can ever save

me from this body of death? And he says, thank Goodness,

only Jesus can. But then you turn to Romans chapter eight,

verse one, the very next page, and he says, there

is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in

Christ Jesus. So if I'm going to try to earn

it my own way, Romans chapter seven says, oh what

a wretched man I am. And I just living in

a body of death. I'm miserable all the time. Romans

chapter eight says, there's no condemnation for those who are

in Christ Jesus. How do I have my righteousness transcend

the righteousness of the most perfect people on the planet

At the time, the pharisees, not on my dime, It's

on Jesus dime. Right. The Bible says that we are

plunged into Christ, those who are in Christ. Jesus is

that word, and it talks about we are in His righteousness.

We're clothed. The Bible says, we're clothed in Jesus righteousness.

And so my righteousness on its own can never measure

up to the perfection of the law, let alone to

how good the Pharisees were. But when Jesus gives me

his righteousness and I possess him, he's in me, and

I have him, then my righteousness. When God looks at me,

he sees Jesus, and that's the only way any of

us are getting in. It's through Jesus, and he unpacks it.

So it's interesting, I just noticed this, by the way,

so rate before this he goes, Hey, you guys are

the salt of the earth. You're the light of the world.

He'd already said he's the salt, the other the light

of the world, but now he's saying, you guys, are

you represent me? So he says, let your good deeds

so shine before men, that they would see your good

deeds and glorify your father, who's in heaven. Then he says,

don't misunderstand why I've come. And then he says, I

came not to get rid of the law, but to

fulfill it. But if you're trying to fulfill it, there's

no chance. And then from there on the next verses

he talks about murder and anger. He talks about lust,

He talks about divorce and marriage and social contracts. He

talks about vows. He talks about revenge. He talks about

how we should be treating other people in our communities

and our enemies. He talks about generosity towards the needy.

He talks about prayer. He talks about fasting. He talks

about money. He talks about faith and worry. He talks

about judging. He talks about getting your prayers answered right,

all the religious stuff, He unpacks, everything attached to the law.

He talks about through the whole rest of the thing,

And every one of these goes and you can't do

it on your own, and you can't do it on

your own, and you can't do it on your own.

And finally he gets down to the end in chapter seven,

and he goes, so keep on asking, keep on seeking,

You're gonna find it, You're gonna receive it. It's a

faith thing. This is what he's trying to turn. He's

turning it all on his head. He talks about all

the religious things. They think, if they can just give

enough money, if they can just avoid committing adultery, if

they just don't kill anybody, they're going to be good,

and Jesus goes, that's not enough, because if you are

angry at somebody enough to kill, it's the same as

killing him. If you lust after a woman, it's the

same as sleeping with it. Right, he goes on down

the line. He said, listen, you are not perfect. There's

no chance for you if you think that you can

keep the law. The whole rest of the message is

just proving that the law isn't enough for you. You

can't do it. And then he gets here to chapter

seven and he goes, but listen, it's a faith thing.

So he keeps tying faith is better than the law,

and then he gets there and then finally goes, so

let me just sumbon it, afraid, treat people the way

you want to be treated, and then seek me right.

And then he says in chapter seven, you can enter

God's kingdom only through the narrow gate. So the other

one says, if you're trying to trying to earn your

way to heaven, you're not going to make it in

the kingdom of heaven if your personal righteousness doesn't exceed

the righteousness of the Pharisees. He said, but let me

tell you how to get to him. It's a narrow

it's a narrow way. Not the highway to Hell is broad,

and this gate is wide for the many who choose

that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow,

and the road is difficult, and only if you ever

find it. And he's saying it's him. There's another point

where Jesus says, I'm the gate right, I'm the door

is what he says. So I don't think I'd ever

realized it before that. The whole message is him proving

that the law doesn't work. And then he gets in

and he goes, I'm the only way. We get to

John fourteen and he goes, I'm the way the truth

in life. No one comes with Father except through me.

And so Paul takes chapters and chapters and chapters to

unpack these ideas, and Jesus in here he just takes three.

And so his language is tighter, it's shorter, But when

you compare it to everything else that we know in

the Bible, he's saying the same thing. He's saying the

same thing. You can't earn your way to Heaven. You

need my righteousness. Let me prove it to you. Because

even how you look at the letter of the law,

I'm looking at the spirit of the law, and you

can't get to heaven because you've broken all the law anyways.

So then let me summarize it on this it's faith.

I'm the only way. And then you're trying to figure

out how to live. Just treat people the way you

want to be treated.

Were you surprised that I didn't sing Highway to Hell

when you Yeah, it says, and then I just rested

in the f I rested in the fact because I

just knew that all of our listeners sang it in

their minds. As soon as you said how it out,

we all say.

So there was a day when even rock stars knew

the Bible.

Right, that's right, that's right. You know, the whole world

knew the Bible. You know he watched like an old

seventies movie, did every Did I ever tell you what? You know?

There?

There was a there was a version we have a

little bit of time here. Uh remember that movie Bedazzled

with Brendan Fraser.

I think I'm aware of it.

Yeah, and Elizabeth Hurley, she played the devil. Well, there

was an old seventies version with Dudley Moore, he was

the guy, and rackel Welch was in it and everything else,

and uh, anyway, it was it was there just a

movie about Satan visiting this guy and trying to trick

him into some wishes, okay, and anyway, so during this movie,

now keep in mind, this is like a Dudley Moore

at the time of the time, very popular, right, So

this is a this is a well known movie. It's

like in today's day and age, you have to be

a Bible scholar to even get all the jokes in

this movie. So like here he.

Is the people in the room would have known it.

Back in the seventies, people in the room would have

known it. And so it just shocked me as I

saw this old movie that he's making all these references

about Moses and Abraham and the Seven Deadly Sins and

he's you know, he's in and there's these one offs

and he's not making them with the devil or with God.

He's making them like with people, and they're all laughing

and talking about it, and it's like and it's like

it's like they're at a party and he's making Bible references.

You know, Well, just like Joseph in the prison, And

I'm like, is it true that our culture like this

movie was written to be a good movie to make

a bunch of money, And so everybody must have understood

these things right, right, because our culture.

You would have to understand the joke for it to

be funny. Yes, and everybody would have understood it, yes,

And now.

No, no, I'm telling it. It's no wonder why they

redid it, right, all the Bible jokes went away.

Yeah. So anyway, well, just even in these seven in

these three chapters, I mean, Jesus says, go the extra mile,

people for going the extra mile.

Yeah, that's right, right.

Coaches will talk about going the extra mile. Drill sergeants

to talk about going the extra mile. That one there.

Treat people the way you want to be treated. The

Golden rule. How many everybody almost everybody's heard somebody reference

the golden doing to others as you'd have them doing

to you. And don't judge, not judge, don't judge. Cheek, Yeah,

the cheek, and those are just in these three chapters

here that they still permeate a lot of culture. But yeah,

the Highway to Hell thing, that's where the idea comes

from well we did.

We did a series that I'm not advocating for the song,

right even Yeah, even the rock stars know the knew

the Bible back then.

That's right, that's that's what exactly right.

But but anyway, the.

So I hope our listeners learn the Bible better than

rock stars. How about that?

Right, I was gonna say.

I had a thought, unless your unless your righteousness succeeds

the righteousness of the rock stars, you're never gonna make it.

That's right, that's right. Well, I had a fleeting thought

maybe tomorrow. That's okay. Now I sang, that's what happened.

That's what happened, all right.

Well, hey, that is definitely our time. So thank you

for tuning in and hopefully we will see you tomorrow

on the bubble guys.

H m hm hm h