Now our text is Matthew 5 and
verse 6. Blessed are they, this is the
description of the true citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Those
who are truly saved by the grace of God. The elect of God, you
can say. And he says in verse 6, they
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. They're
blessed. It's blessed to have this hunger.
I call this in your lesson a holy hunger. And the reason I call
it holy and understand now the word holy means separate. That's what it means. It means
to be different in a godly way in this sense. And what I mean
by that is this is a hunger and thirst that men and women don't
have by nature. Now, men and women by nature
are hungry. Obviously, we're hungry physically.
But even in a religious way, people are hungry and thirsty
for certain things, but not for righteousness. Now, let me show
you what I mean by that. Look over at Isaiah 51. This
is a prophecy of Christ. And in Isaiah 51 and verse 1,
the Lord calls upon the people of Judah through Isaiah, hearken
to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord. Following
after righteousness and seeking the Lord are synonymous here.
In other words, if you're truly seeking the Lord, that's Jehovah,
God who saves, the God of grace, the God of the covenant, you're
seeking righteousness. But man by nature does not know
righteousness. Now, he knows religion. He even
knows human morality and ethics. You know, a lot of people would
say, well, I'm going to try to be a better person. Somebody
might say, well, I'm going to join the church and give my heart
to Jesus and all that. Let me ask you a question. Are
they seeking righteousness? And the answer is no. Look across
the page there to verse seven of Isaiah 51, and do you well
to read this whole chapter because it's really good. He says in
verse seven of Isaiah 51, hearken unto me, you that know righteousness,
the people in whose heart is my law, fear ye not the reproach
of men, neither be you afraid of their revilings. Ye that know
righteousness. Now, throughout the Bible, We
see examples of men and women who thought they knew righteousness,
but they didn't. Example, Cain. He thought he
knew righteousness. What righteousness did he know?
He knew the righteousness of man, or what he thought was the
righteousness of man, and he brought his works to God to be
accepted. Man's standard, fallen sinful
man's standard of righteousness is always lower, way too low,
than God's standard. And we could go through the Bible
and talk about that. In the New Testament, here's
what did Christ say here in Matthew 5. He says in verse 20, For I
say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. You shall
in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. You've got to have
a righteousness that's way higher than what they're teaching you.
That's what he said. What is righteousness? Mark and
I were talking about this before the lesson, and I told him this. I said, you know, whenever we
talk about the Bible, when we talk about even the gospel and
verses of the Bible, we don't always use what you might say
is technically, doctrinally precise language. But we need, and that's
okay as long as we don't go astray. But for example, the word righteousness,
a lot of times when you see in the Bible the word right, the
word righteous, or righteousness, that word could just as easily
be translated just, justice, justified, or justification. Righteousness, technically speaking,
is a legal term. That's what it is in the New
Testament. And in the Old Testament, it's used in a legal way too,
but it's used another way, and I'll tell you about that in just
a moment. But it's a legal term. It's not a moral term. But righteousness
is the standard. It's the legal standard by which
all morality is to be measured. For example, love is a moral
term, a moral quality of character. You say, well, I'm gonna try
to love everybody perfectly. And you know we're gonna fall
short. Now why is that? Because our love does not measure
up to the standard of righteousness that God requires. Can I do anything
in love, in obedience, that will measure up to the standard of
righteousness that God requires? And the answer is no. We always
fall. That's what it means when it
says in Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and come short, missed
the mark of the glory of God. Now in the Old Testament, the
word righteous and righteousness is used legally, but it's also
used in a business way, mercantile. For example, when they went to
market and they were going to buy something, they had a balance,
a scale. But worth, the value, the cost
of something was to be measured as it weighed against the scale. Like if you had so much gold,
you'd weigh that against the thing you were wanting to buy
and it had to balance out. And that's where you come to
the term iniquity, inequity. It doesn't balance out. You hear
the term the scales of justice. That's where that comes from.
The Lord uses that term to pronounce someone guilty, like you remember
Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, who was throwing the party using
the vessels of the temple, and the handwriting on the wall,
many, many tikal ufarsin, thou art weighed in the balance and
found wanting. Now, why is that important? Look
over at Matthew chapter 7. It's important to understand
that man by nature does not know righteousness. He thinks he does,
but he doesn't. And here in verse 21, Matthew
said, not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my
Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name
have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful
works. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you,
depart from me ye that work what? Iniquity. Now, how could the
Lord call that iniquity? Now, you know what most preachers
say about that, don't you? Well, they just weren't sincere
in what they did. Well, where does it say that
in Matthew 7? It doesn't, does it? All right. And if that is the
case, is your righteousness that you'll plead before God, is it
your sincerity? And if it is, how sincere do
you have to be? Now think about that. Well, it
doesn't say anything about their sincerity there. What's the context
of Matthew 7? What's he talking about? Well,
he starts out talking about the broad road that leads to destruction
and the narrow way that leads to life. What is the narrow way
that leads to life? It's the gospel way. It's the
way of righteousness through the Lord Jesus Christ. And then
he talks about how false preachers preach a false message which
is a cursed tree that will produce no good fruit. In other words,
sinners aren't going to be saved under the preaching of a false
gospel. And then he says, many will say
unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, haven't we done this? Now preaching
in his name, casting out demons, many wonderful works, is all
under the category of what the world would call moral and good. But it falls short of the standard,
the standard of righteousness. What is righteousness? It's perfect
satisfaction to God's law and justice. That's what it is. And
anything that falls short of that is iniquity, sin, evil. That's what the scripture says.
Now that's what's offensive to the natural man. You mean to
tell me that all my efforts to worship, all my efforts in praying? Somebody asked me one time, does
God hear the prayer of an unbeliever? Now think about that. Well, what
is the basis and the ground of prayer to God, acceptable prayer
to God? We have what? A great high priest,
whom unbelievers deny. Now, as far as hearing it, is
God aware of it? He heard the prayer of the Pharisee
in Luke 18, but he didn't accept it. He rejected it. This man
went away unjustified, you see. The basis of prayer is righteousness
that's found where? Only in Christ. And that's what
this is talking about right here. Matthew chapter 5. The gospel
is the revelation of the righteousness not of men, but of God. And those who hunger and thirst
after righteousness, they are sanctified because, and how do
you know? Because it says they're going
to be filled. That hunger that they have for
righteousness. is going to be satisfied, that
thirst they have after righteousness is going to be quenched. How? Where? In who? Not in themselves,
not in others, not in their denomination, not in their church, not in their
ceremonies, only in Christ and his righteousness imputed. That's
it. That's what he's talking about.
Christ came to fulfill the righteousness of the Lord. And what happens,
see, the Holy Spirit gives us that hunger and thirst in Holy
Spirit conviction. Look over at John 16. What happens is the Holy Spirit,
through the Word of God, shows us that we have no righteousness. by which to be justified and
made right and reconciled to God. He shows us that our best
efforts to be righteous will always fail. He shows us that
our best works will not make us so in the sight of God. And
then He shows us that there is righteousness to be found in
one person by His one work, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Look at John 16 and verse 8, talking about the Holy Spirit.
When He has come, He will reprove or convict or convince the world
of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they
believe not on me. Christ is the one who was manifested
to take away our sin. If we don't have Christ, what
do we have left? Sin. What did he do on the cross? He was made sin. Our sin debt
was imputed to him and he satisfied God's justice. He drank damnation
dry. So without Him, all that's left
as we stand before God is sin, and sin demands death. Then he
says, verse 10, of righteousness, but righteousness how? Now think
about this. Righteousness because I'm gonna
make you a better person? No. Righteousness because you're
going to turn over a new leaf? No. Righteousness because Christ
goes to the Father. And you see me no more. Now,
how did Christ go to the Father? He went to the Father as the
one who died on the cross, was buried, arose again the third
day, the one who made an end of our sins, the one who brought
in everlasting righteousness for God's people. That's how
he went to the Father. As the surety and the substitute
of God's people. In other words, what he's saying
here is if you're convicted of sin, you're going to know that
you have no righteousness but that which Christ has accomplished
on Calvary that's imputed to you. You're not going to look
anywhere else. You can't find one who is convinced
of sin, one who is blessed of God, who truly hungers and thirsts
after righteousness will find no satisfaction from that hunger,
no quenching of that thirst anywhere else but in Christ crucified
and raised from the dead. And then he says in verse 11
of judgment because the prince of this world is judged. And
that's simply, that's a way of saying that when I, when Christ
died on that cross and was judged for my sin, I was judged in him. And I'm accepted before God in
Him. And I don't find righteousness.
Listen, don't look within yourselves to find righteousness. It's not
there. You say, but I have the Holy
Spirit indwelling me. Well, if you're a believer, you
do. And He is righteous in Himself. But we're still sinners saved
by grace. And that's all we'll ever be. And we'll talk about
that in just a moment. But that's the issue. Do you
know righteousness? If you do, if you really know
righteousness is taught by God in His Word, according to His
holy nature, then you won't be able to find it anywhere but
in Christ. You won't find it anywhere else.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,
they shall be filled. You know, Everything in this
Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is to be measured right here. Is it acceptable with God? Am I accepted with God? The Bible
says we're accepted in the Beloved. It means we're accepted in Christ.
When I worship, we're met here this morning to worship. Does
God accept that? Is he pleased with that? You
know, there are people who say no. And there are people who
say yes, obviously. When I pray, okay, we're commanded
to be people of prayer. You know, in the old tabernacle,
They had the altar of incense, which kept it burning there. It was in the holy place, not
in the holy of holies, but in the holy place. And that represented
the prayers of the saints going up before God and the intercessory
work of Christ going up and down. When I pray, does God accept
that? Is God pleased with that? When
I pray, let me ask you this. Now think about it. Have I ever
in my life prayed what I would categorize as a perfect, sinless,
uncontaminated prayer? No distractions from anywhere,
from the flesh, from the world. Have I ever done that? Well,
I'm gonna tell you I haven't. I remember before I was converted,
I was sitting up there at 13th Street Baptist Church, and Brother
Mahan was preaching. And he made this statement, and
I thought he was crazy. In fact, I didn't want to go
back. I didn't want to go the first time, but I didn't want
to go back. But my mother kept talking me into going back. That
was the Lord using her to get my attention. But he made this
statement. He said he was talking about
the sinnerhood, how we are such a sinful people. And he said,
there's enough sin in the best prayer I've ever prayed to sink
a world to hell. I thought he was off his rocker. I didn't know what he meant.
But then I come to understand by the power of God through his
word what righteousness is. We call it holiness. Somebody talks about holiness
and righteousness, and those are different terms. Usually
when we speak of the word holiness, we're talking about moral purity. But normally that's not what
it means in the Bible. You know, the writer of Hebrews
called the people of God holy brethren. Does that mean that
they were morally perfect in their thoughts, in their motives? No, it means they were set apart
by God. Set apart before the foundation
of the world when God chose them. Set apart in justification when
God put them in Christ. Their sins imputed to Christ.
His righteousness to them. Set them apart in redemption.
Christ died for our sins. Set us apart in regeneration
when the Holy Spirit brought us under the gospel and gave
us faith to believe. Gave us a new heart, a new spirit,
new mind, didn't he? Brought us to faith in Christ
and repentance. You see, that's different from
what I was. But one of that, he convicts us of sin and of
righteousness, and he shows us what righteousness is. For the
first time in my life, and I'm not setting a date or a time
on it, but for the first time in my life, I knew righteousness. I know what it is. I know the
measure. I know the scale now. I know
the standard. And here it is. Somebody says,
Well, I'm gonna do the best I can, that ought to be good enough.
Well, what does God say? Repent, because God has appointed
a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness. By
whom? By that man whom he hath ordained,
in that he has given assurance unto all men, and that he raised
him from the dead. Okay, you do the best you can,
but it better measure up to the standard of righteousness. And
where's that to be found? In Christ. Right there. You say,
I'm going to just love everybody. Unless you can say you love everybody
as perfectly as Christ loved everybody, you fall short. Isn't
that right? You fall short. What does that
show? You know, God requires perfect
righteousness. And a lot of people say, well,
that's unreasonable of God to require that, knowing that we
can't measure up. It's not unreasonable. Because
God provides a way of righteousness. But it's not a way we want by
nature. And the reason we don't want
it by nature is because it doesn't give us any room to boast. Doesn't
give me any room to glory. I mean, you think about it. I
was writing an article for a future bulletin on, you know, why me,
Lord? You remember that old song, why
me, Lord? Well, a believer, oftentimes,
We'll ask that question concerning, let's say, election. I mean,
you think about it. Look at the population of this
world and the number of people that we believe who know and love the
gospel, believe it, the true gospel, and the number of people
who don't. And we know that the only difference
between us and them is what? The sovereign mercy and grace
of God. Isn't that it? Can you think
of any other reason? Somebody said, well, the Jews,
they thought they were chosen too. Yeah, but they thought they
were chosen based upon things that gave them room to boast.
I don't have any room. Why did God choose me? There's
only one biblical answer given. It's found in Matthew chapter
11. And Christ said, you know, you have hidden this from the
wise and the prudent and revealed it unto babes. For so, father,
it seemed good in thy sight. He didn't say, for so, father,
they seemed good in your sight. It, his choice. God said, I'll
have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. He told that to Moses.
I'm going to talk about that a little bit this morning in
the main message. But this is it. There's nothing
in us. So how does he give us that hunger
and that thirst? He convicts us of sin. He shows
us that apart from Christ and his righteousness imputed, we
are eternally damned. The best of us and the worst
of us and everybody in between. Now that's it. Now, there is
a future aspect to this. Turn to Philippians chapter 3.
And let me show you this. The true citizens of the kingdom
of heaven are those who know righteousness. They know that
God must be just when he justifies. They know they don't have it
in themselves and can't work it. And they are filled when
they find it in Christ. His righteousness imputed. That's the true citizens of the
kingdom of heaven. And I'll tell you what, that
is a feeling, isn't it? Now you think about it. If you
know yourself, that is a feeling. In other words, everything that
God requires of me as to attaining and maintaining my salvation
and eternal bliss, I find complete in Christ. In him dwelleth all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you're complete in him. By
one offering he hath perfected, completed, finished forever them
that are sanctified. That's the truth. But now there
is a future aspect of this, beatitude. Look at Philippians chapter 3. Paul is talking about how he
can only find righteousness in Christ. But then in verse 11
he starts talking about the resurrection of the dead. See there in verse
11 of Philippians 3, if by any means I might attain unto the
resurrection of the dead. What is the resurrection of the
dead? The most comprehensive explanation that we're given
of resurrection from the dead is found in 1 Corinthians 15.
We won't turn there, but you can read the whole chapter. When
I wrote that book, What Is Salvation?, that was the fourth realm of
salvation, the glorified realm. When the apostle spoke of it,
he spoke of salvation in the future tense. We are saved, we're being saved,
we will be saved. And when we talk about the glorified
state, what we're talking about is being freed from the bondage
of this physical being, this flesh, this sin and its contamination,
and getting a new body, a spiritual body. And I always tell people
when you read about that and study it, we've got a lot of
questions about that. You'll still have a lot of questions
about it. We know some things about it. We know from Christ
appearing to the disciples after his resurrection, we know something
of that in his glorified body. But here's what he's talking
about here. The resurrection of the dead is this. You remember
Paul said in Romans chapter 7, O wretched man that I am, Who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? In other words,
I'm righteous in Christ right now, as righteous as I'll ever
be. That cannot be improved. That's my ground of salvation,
my ground of justification. That's the standard by which
God measures everything. But right now, I'm still subject
to the pains and the infirmities and the weaknesses and the consequences
of sin in this flesh. And sometimes it hurts a lot
more than others, doesn't it? And you know, if the Lord lets
us live long enough, it's going to get worse and worse, don't
you know that? I mean, I know people who have
what we call been healthy all their life. And then all of a
sudden, boom, it hits. But usually, it doesn't happen
like that, does it? Usually, for most of us, it's
a gradual waning away, isn't it? You know, you start feeling
better. Walter told me, Walter, you're
what, 86? And he told me, he said, I'm
beginning to feel my, I don't think I'm gonna have to wait
till 86 to feel my age. You're blessed that way, Walter.
You've been blessed. Most of us don't have to wait
till 86 to begin to feel our age, do we? And then, well, what's the Lord
showing us there? Paul, the apostle, one of the
things that he's talking about, look here, he says in verse 12,
of Philippians 3. He says, not as though I had
already attained, either were already perfect. What's he talking
about there? He'd already talked about being
perfect in Christ, hadn't he? Yes. But now he's talking about
in himself. I'm still just a sinner. We sing
that song, only a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved
by grace. This is my story. That's my story. To God be the glory. Only a sinner
saved by grace. That's what Paul's talking about.
I'm perfect in Christ. I'm righteous in Christ as I'll
ever be. But in myself, I'm still a sinner.
I'm still subject to all these problems, all these pains. And
it gets worse as I get older, physically if nothing else. So
Paul's saying, not as though I've already attained. What he's
talking about is perfection in himself. Sinlessness in himself. I haven't attained that yet.
I'm still the old wretched man. And then he says, but I follow
after if that I may apprehend that for which also I'm apprehended
of Christ Jesus. What I am in Christ, I'm going
to follow after that. I want to be as perfect and conform
to Christ in every way. Verse 13, brethren, I count not
myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, 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. Now to prove that
he's talking about perfection in himself, he already has perfection
in Christ, completeness in Christ. but not in himself to prove that
look at verse fifteen he says let us therefore as many as be
perfect I'm perfect in Christ let be thus minded think this
way and if in any other thing be otherwise minded God shall
reveal this unto you in other words we who are already righteous
in Christ God gives us a hunger and thirst for righteousness
in ourselves in the sense Of not thinking that we can make
ourselves so by our efforts. No, that would be a denial of
Christ. But in the sense of wanting to be free from the consequences,
the contaminations, the influence of sin in ourselves. Now, let
me caution you this way. That's not just a death wish. Okay? It's not simply saying,
well, I want to die now. Because I've often said this,
I'd kind of like to stick around a little while longer. We were
talking about this. I'd like to see my grandkids
grow up, wouldn't you all? I'd like to see them graduate
from high school, even college maybe. Maybe get married. Some
of you all have great grandkids, and you might want to see them.
But you know what? That may change. The Lord may
hit me with some dreaded disease that I go through pain and I
might wish to die to go to be with him. Lord, take me home. And I suspect the older we get
and the weaker we get, that desire grows. I call it dying grace. You know, Lord, take me home.
So what I'm saying here is we do hunger and thirst after righteousness. We want to be free from sin in
ourselves. Well, that's going to be filled
because Christ is going to take us home to be with him. Just
like he told the thief today, you'll be with me in paradise.
We're going to be, John said, beloved, it does not yet appear
what we shall be, but we will be like him. We'll see him face
to face. We'll be with Christ. Like I
said, there's a lot of questions that we ask about the glorification
state and the body and all the spiritual body. I don't know
all the answers, but I know this. We'll live forever and ever with
Christ, with no sin, no sorrow, no pain. That's not just a pipe
dream. That's not just religious talk.
That's reality. They shall be filled. And we have that longing. Okay.