Turn with me, if you would, to
Matthew 5 again. Matthew 5, our text for this
message is going to be the same text we just had for the Bible
study. I told you that we were going
to first look at the mind of it, the mind of this subject
of righteousness, and then we were going to look at the heart
of it. And if the Lord is willing, that's
what we'll do now. After mentally understanding
the difference between man's righteousness and God's righteousness,
after having a mental understanding of that difference. Man's righteousness,
being his own insufficient sinful works and his sinful deeds, which
are only damning. There are no righteousness at
all. And God's righteousness being the all sufficient, spotless,
accomplishing works and deeds of the Lord Jesus Christ, which
is the only righteousness that will justify a sinner before
God. That's the only one. Now that we've mentally looked
into the fact that a true hunger and thirst for righteousness
is a hunger and thirst for Christ. Not who I am, not what I've done,
but who he is and what he has done. Now that we've entered
into the mind of that. Let's see if the Lord will let
us enter into the heart of it, the blessing of it, the absolute
blessing. You know, these Matthew five,
I have always loved this portion of scripture. I've always loved
these, these verses, blessed, blessed, blessed. This is how God's people ought
to be. This is true happiness. And it is one thing to say, this
is how we ought to be, but it's another thing altogether
to be that. It's one thing to say it, but
it's another thing altogether to be this. It takes the blessing
of God. to actually be any of the things
that our Lord has listed right here, to actually have a heart
and any ability at all to do any of this. It is such a blessing
from God to have a poor spirit. Our Lord said, blessed are the
poor in spirit. It is a blessing from God to
have a poor spirit. It really is. It's like verse
three says, blessed are the poor in spirit. That is totally against
the nature and the character of our flesh. It is so against
it. By nature, we are so high on
ourselves. We can't walk past a mirror without
looking at ourselves every time we walk past a mirror. We're
so high on ourselves. It takes the blessed touch of
God to bring a man or a woman to a place of emptiness. Like when the Lord wrestled with
Jacob, you know, the Lord came and he
wrestled with Jacob and Jacob wrestled back with him. The Lord
said, let me go. Jacob, you know, was wrestling
back with him. But, you know, that was a very
merciful event to Jacob. You know that? And what the Lord
did is the blessing of the Lord touched the hollow of his thigh
and it crippled him. That man limped from that moment
on. The Lord brought him down. That's
what happened in that moment. The Lord brought him down. And
I pray the Lord will bring us down. Was that a painful encounter
for Jacob? Yes. Am I praying God would send
trial after trial upon us? No. I just pray he in mercy would
touch us. It takes the blessing of the
touch of God to bring a person down. and make a person poor in spirit. To see a person who has truly
been made to be poor in spirit before God, that is a blessed
person. And I'll tell you, that's a beautiful
person to me and to all of God's people. That is a beautiful character
trait. God in mercy, bringing a sinner
down. I wanna see that so badly. I
do. I want to see God in mercy, bring
sinners down. So many of you quite often will
come to me complaining about your sin. And I'm the first one
to tell you, I'm right there with you. Somebody will come
up and say, I can't stop sinning. I'm always right there to say,
I know me too. Join the club. But I have that conversation
quite often with a lot of you. I don't know what's wrong with
me. Why am I still the way that I am? That's called mourning
over your sin. Like verse four says, lest are
they that mourn. And I want each one of you to
know that you're a blessed person because you do that. I am being
very serious right now. You're a blessed, singled out,
set apart person. You're not a blessed person because
you sin. Don't get me wrong on that. You're
not a blessed person because you sin. You're a blessed person
because God has revealed to you your sin. Oh, you're so blessed. Blessed are those who just pour
and emptied and hang their head mourning over what they are.
You want to see a blessed person? You ask people, how are things
going? Oh, we're blessed. Things are high. Things are up.
That's not a blessed person. Business is good. It's not a
blessed person. I hope your business does well.
That's not a blessed person. A blessed person is one that
God reveals to him or her their sin and God allows them the absolute
privilege before God of mourning over it. Mourning over it. Evidencing the fact that they're
one of the ones who will be comforted. Our Lord said, blessed are they
that mourn because they're going to be comforted. That's the reason. Comforted in Christ. People don't
naturally mourn over their sin. They don't. They do not. Naturally, people rejoice in
the fact that they're not sinners. That's what people do naturally
in their own eyes. They rejoice over the fact that
they're not sinners. In reality, Every person on this
earth is just as much a sinner as any other person on this earth.
I'd like to repeat that. In reality, every person on this
earth is just as much a sinner as any other person on this earth. It's just not every person on
earth has been blessed with the revelation of that. And the comfort of the fact that
Christ came not to call the self righteous, but centers to
repentance. People will say, yeah, I hear
you. Okay. Maybe I'm a center. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I'm a center,
but I'm not as much of a center as that guy is. And whether people will openly
say that or not, that's what they'll think in their heart
and in their mind. Honestly, all of us are guilty of that.
All of us are guilty of that. Yes, I'm a sinner, but I'm not
as much of a sinner as that guy is. Again, we just said this in the
Bible study, let God be true and let this man be a liar. God says, I am. God says, I am
the pride of saying, I'm not as much of a center as the other
guy is. That's the number one sin that
God hates at. I just made the top of the list.
Our Lord gave us a list in Proverbs six, verse 17. He made a list and he put pride at the top of
it. First one. Here in the coming verses of
Matthew 5 in the weeks to come, if the Lord is willing, and we
continue on, he's gonna go on to say that every soul on this
earth is a murderer. He said, I say unto you, he said,
you know that you're not to kill. That's what he goes on to say.
You've heard the law. You've heard it said that thou shalt
not kill. You know that. But he said, I say unto you that
if you've ever gotten angry with a person, you've murdered them
in your heart. And that makes you just as guilty
as any man or woman sitting on death row. This is important. I would like
for everybody to really get a hold of this. This is important. Our
outward actions. Our outward actions. that cause
us to suffer the consequence of man, the consequences of the
laws of man, the laws that have been given to man. You commit
a crime, you suffer the consequence of the law. Our outward actions
that cause us to have to suffer the consequences of man, Every
one of those will be judged by man. It is the inward actions that
cause us to be judged by God. Every outward action started
with an inward action. All the outward actions are included
in the inward actions. But God looks on the heart. God
deals with us on the heart. It's our inward actions that
cause us to have to suffer the consequences of God, the judgment
of the law of God. Men and women naturally think
that the inward things don't matter. They do. They think, well, that's
just an, I've kept all that inside. That's just an inward thing.
You know, they've locked me up because of what I did on the
outside. And they think that the inward things don't matter
because they don't have to suffer the consequences of man for the
inward things. Man doesn't even know what's
going on in here. Man can't see what's going on
in here. But God does. God sees it all. He knows it all. And the truth
is, The things that go on inside are more vile than anything that
has ever gone on outside. So much more vile. But man naturally
has no conscience toward it, naturally. And man is not affected
by it. He's not really affected by what
goes on inside. And man just goes on about his
business, sinning against God inside. flaunting his pride before God
inside, stealing the credit and the glory from God for whatever
he sees himself to be, whatever he is, whatever he's done, not
realizing that he's about to have to deal with the God that
he is so unknowingly sinning against. Man, you know, makes
a little list of his sins and he only puts the outward things
on there. But man is going to have to deal
with God on every single thing that happens in the heart and
in the mind. And I'm going to tell you, that's
not a blessed man. That is not a blessed man. The
blessed man is the one that God reveals his sin to him. And then he spends all of the
rest of his days on this earth mourning over his sin, smiting
himself, crying, God, be merciful to me. I'm a sinner. I have sinned against you. I
acknowledge my sin. It's ever before me. It's ever
before you. I need your blood. If you will blot out my transgressions,
they will be gone. I can't right my wrongs. Wrong
has been done. Now that's a blessed man and a blessed
woman. because God has caused that man
or that woman to cry out for mercy. Every soul that cries
out for mercy, God revealed their sin to them. God started the
work. That's not a work of man. God
quickened them and put life in them and they felt pain, the
pain of their sin, and they responded to him. And every soul who responds
to his work and cries out for mercy will get it. Every soul
who cries out for mercy will get it. I have an announcement
to make. Every soul who cries out to God
for mercy will get it. Somebody will hear that and say,
well, I thought only the elect would get mercy. Only the elect will cry out for
mercy. They're the only ones that God
will reveal their sin to them, truly. and cause them to cry
out for mercy. No man or woman's hard, cold,
stony, dead heart will cry out for mercy unless God, with His
blessing, touches them and causes them to cry out. Don't
turn, but in John 16, the Lord said that He was going to send
His Holy Spirit to each one of His people. And He said, when He comes, when
the Spirit comes, the first thing that He will do is He will convince
you of your sin. Not your perfection, not your
new leaf, your sin. And not just the sin of mankind,
the sin of you. Not just the sins that we, have
done, but the sins that we are. If you ever find yourself in
a place where you loathe yourself, and I believe some will find
themselves in that place, I do. If you ever find yourself in
a place where you loathe yourself, and you're repulsed by what you
see in yourself, and fear and horror and sorrow overtakes you
because of what you are and what you do in the sight of your God.
If that ever gets to you, take comfort. You're a blessed person. You're a blessed person. The hymn writer wrote, a sinner
is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so. If a person mourns over his sin,
it's only because God in His mercy allowed that person to
mourn over his sin. And that's how it is with meekness
and mercifulness and holiness and all of these things that
the Lord is listing here. But this thing of hungering and
thirsting after righteousness, that's the one we're talking
about today. And it's God's blessing that causes a man to hunger and
causes a man to thirst. God has to put that in there.
Verse six says, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness. Blessed. Again, a moment ago,
we saw which righteousness he's talking about. He's talking about
the righteousness of God, the righteousness of Christ. Now
we realize, oh, it's such a blessed man that hungers and thirsts
for that righteousness. First Corinthians 1 verse 30
says that Christ has been made unto us righteousness. He is
our righteousness. Therefore, if we hunger and thirst
for righteousness, it means we have a hunger and a thirst for
Christ. To have a heart that desires righteousness is to have
a heart that desires Christ. And a heart that desires Christ
is honestly a very rare thing. Very rare. People get religious things confused
with Christ all the time. I'm going to repeat that. People get religious things confused
with Christ all the time, like religion itself, just like religion
itself. Having a heart for religion is
not having a heart for Christ. When the apostle Paul was at
Mars Hill, he, there was a bunch of, they had all these statues
and all these idols made up that they were worshiping. They were
worshiping all these gods. And just in case they wanted
to cover their bases and make sure that they, you know, were
worshiping everybody they needed to worship. So they had one to
the unknown God. And Paul said, that's the one
I'm going to tell you about. But he said, first, let me say
that I perceive you're too superstitious. And what that word means is religious.
He said, let me say this first. He said, this is the problem.
You're too religious. Too religious. Having a heart
for religion is not having a heart for Christ. Having a heart for doctrine is
not having a heart for Christ. If we hunger and thirst for religion,
we will be filled with religion. And if we hunger and thirst after
doctrine, we'll be filled with doctrine. But that's not where
the blessing is. The blessing is in hungering
and thirsting after Christ. I want to read something to you
that I put in my Bible. 15 years ago, I posted this in
the, I just taped it in the cover because it's just so good. I don't want to ever forget this.
And this was an old article whenever I put it in here, written by
a preacher of the truth, true gospel preacher. But the name
of this article is The Difference Between Preaching Christ and
Preaching About Christ. And there is a difference. There
is a difference. He said, years ago, I read the
following quote by an unknown author. I can appreciate the
ability of the learned botanist to give me the scientific name
of a rose, the origin of it, the various types of roses, how
and where they grow, and the number of petals, thorns, and
leaves to expect on a genuine rose. But too often, those who
become overly entangled in these things somehow lose the most
important things, the beauty and the fragrance of the rose.
I hope in our teaching, preaching, and witnessing concerning the
gospel of our dear Savior, we do not become more concerned
with the system rather than the sweetness, with the mechanics
rather than the mercy, with the right terminology rather than
the right spirit and attitude. You will soon weary my head if
you don't warm my heart. While I'm eager to learn more
of how, why, and when I came to Christ, I would like to rejoice
and enjoy my relationship with him now. He is my Rose of Sharon,
which brightens my life and sends his sweet fragrance through my
soul. One can preach about Christ and
not preach Christ, just as we can know how God saves sinners
and not be a saved sinner. Oh, the wonder of it all, just
to think that Christ loves me. A person who has that heart for
Christ. We can talk about righteousness,
righteousness, and we can use words like sanctification, redemption,
and all these big words, but a person who has a heart for
Christ, this blessed man, A person who has the heart for
the Savior Himself, that's a blessed person. Having that hunger and
that thirst makes us to be blessed people. A hunger, and I'll just
say this as I'm wrapping up, but a hunger and a thirst That's
an acknowledgment of need and an acknowledgment of lack. That's
what it is. It's a desire for something and
a need for something because you know you don't have it. You
feel an emptiness. Being thirsty is what tells your
body, I need water. That thirst tells your body you're
getting dehydrated. You're going to die if you don't
drink water. You've got to have water. Well, to hunger and thirst
for Christ is to see Him as being the only thing that will fill
my lack. To hunger and thirst for Him
is to not hunger and thirst for yourself, but to hunger and thirst
for Him. And it's to see that I can't
fill my lack on my own. It's got to be Him. It's a desire and it's a need
for His life and not your own. And a believer will understand
that. Which would you rather have, Christ's life or your life?
I need His. It's a need and a desire for
His blood and not your own. His works, not your own. His
glory, not your own. His goodness, not your own. His
acceptance, not your own. His worthiness, His exaltation,
His will, His right, not your own. It's a hunger and a thirst
for all things unto Him, all things of Him, all things unto
Him, not of me, not unto me. Go with me one more time to Philippians
3. We were just here a moment ago
in Bible study. And we saw Paul's mind in the
matter of throwing everything away, everything that was unto
him. He said, I throw it all away.
Now let's see the heart in the matter of clinging to everything
that's unto Christ. Philippians 3 verse 8, he said,
Yea, doubtless I count all things, but loss for the excellency of
the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I've suffered
the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may
win Christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may
know him. I want to know Him, and I want
to know the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. I want to know the fellowship
of His sufferings that He suffered for His people, being made conformable
unto His death. I want to know His death. I don't
want to know my own. I want to know His. If by any
means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not
as though I had already attained, either were already perfect,
but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also
I'm apprehended of Christ. Brethren, I count not myself
to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those
things which are behind." What's behind you, Paul? All those works
of self-righteousness I was trying to build up. forgetting those
things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things
which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus." He said, it's not unto
me anymore. It's unto Him. Not unto us, only unto Him. It
takes the power of God to make a man say that. It takes the
power of God to take a man out of religion and put him in Christ. out of his hunger and thirst
to fill his own need and into a hunger and thirst for Christ
to fill his need. And if God does that, that's
a blessed person. We're about to sing a song that
says, out of my bonded sorrow and night, into thy freedom, gladness, and
light, Out of my sickness into thy health, out of my want into
thy wealth, out of my sin into thyself, Lord Jesus, I come to
thee. Out of my shameful failure and loss into the glorious gain
of thy cross. Out of unrest and arrogant pride
into thy blessed will to abide. It's not about me anymore, I'm
coming to you. coming to you. That's the evidence
of a blessed man and woman. Blessed are they which do hunger
and thirst after Christ, their righteousness, they'll be filled. If God has given us a desire,
if God's given us that hunger and that thirst, then he'll fill
that desire. They shall be filled." I pray
God will give us a hunger and a thirst for Christ. John Newton
said, "'Tis a point I long to know. Often it causes anxious
thought. Do I love the Lord or no? Am I His, am I not?" At the
end of that, he said, you decide this doubtful case. You're going
to have to do it. He said, let me love thee. If
I have never loved before, let me start right now, Lord. Please
give me a heart for Christ. May God give us all a heart for
Christ. If he does, we'll be blessed.
We'll be a blessed people.