The Lord Jesus Christ would have
us remember what true blessedness is, what true blessedness comprises
of, what blessedness is in this world and where it is to be found. And once again, when we think
about the values of the natural man, and we think about the established
worldly values that men and women possess, worldwide, at any time,
in any place, We will perhaps be surprised to realize that
true blessedness is not to be found in the possession of things,
not to be found in the gathering of things, in the getting, in
the becoming, in the satisfying, but rather it is to be found
in the experience of the Lord Jesus Christ and those things
which Christ bestows on his people. This world will never know happiness. It may know the pleasures of
sin for a season, but it will never know happiness until it
discovers the happiness that is discovered in Christ. This
sermon that the Lord Jesus Christ preached speaks of blessedness,
speaks of happiness, speaks of those blessings of contentedness
and joy and the experience of God's goodness, which he is pleased
to bestow on his people. For many, happiness is getting
a raise at work, or becoming a graduate at school, or satisfying
some sort of desire or need. For many, joy is in the touching,
or in the tasting, or in the having. But for believers, the
Lord Jesus Christ would have us know, have us remember, that
there is blessing in the journey as well as in the arriving, that
there is a blessing in waiting as well as in receiving, a blessing
to be had in trusting that the Lord will do those things that
he promises. Men will say that it's in the
obtaining But the Lord's people discover that it's waiting upon
the promises and the word of God that brings blessedness to
our soul. In spiritual matters, there is
a happiness and a joy in yearning after things. In spiritual terms,
there is a blessedness in the seeking after those holy things,
those blessed things. There is a blessing in hungering. There is a blessing in thirsting. People would say, no, happiness
comes when the thirst is satisfied. Happiness comes when the hunger
is slaked. But the word of God says, blessed
are they that hunger and thirst. We have a blessing in the hungering. We have a blessing in the waiting. We have a blessing in the exercise
of patience. The Lord Jesus Christ says, ask,
seek, not. wait upon the Lord. Go to him with our requests and
wait upon his goodness. The desire after these spiritual
blessings is a mark of grace in the life of the believer. It is in the very yearning, in
the seeking, in the asking, in the knocking, in the waiting,
in the patience, there is a mark, a testimony, a reassurance that
there is a blessedness from God flows to us. A joy in waiting upon the Lord. Think about that. Think about
what that means. Think about what that means when
you're going through a period of trial, what it means when
you're in a time of sickness, or you're beginning to feel the
frailty of your body, or you're called to go through some dark
valley of experience, or you're called to anticipate the failure
of this body that we live in and prepare for death, or all
of the things that challenge us day by day in our relationships,
be it in the home, in the family, or in the workplace. the weaknesses
that we encounter, the persecution that we endure. These things
which we have discovered as the Lord's people, as the Lord's
little flock, are part and parcel of our pilgrim journey through
this world. And the Lord says, yes, we're
on a journey, yes, we're on a road, yes, we're travelling to those
destinations that have been promised, that glory that has been set
before us. But in the journey, there is
a blessing also. In the hungering, in the waiting,
in the seeking, in the thirsting, in the patience, in the forbearance
that is called for, the Lord is pleased to give a blessing
to his people. Hebrews 6, we read it a little
earlier, that passage from Hebrews 6 that speaks of Abraham being
given promises from God and we are told that Abraham patiently
endured. And after he patiently endured,
he obtained the promise. God had made promises to Abraham,
promises about children, promises about an heir, promises about
an heritage, promises about a people that would come in years to come,
that would be closely wedded to God because of his love towards
them. And Abraham had to wait patiently. Indeed, he was called and he
was tested in many very intense ways. You'll remember how when
that child actually came, he was asked to sacrifice Isaac. The promises of God he trusted,
and he obtained a blessing even in that time of waiting. Now,
why is that? I've stressed that perhaps a
little bit emphatically, but I wanted to do so because I want
to show you the importance of faith. the importance of faith. Faith not simply as some sort
of abstract concept that we talk about having, oh yes, I've got
faith because I came to the Lord many years ago, or I've got faith
because I trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ back during a particular
meeting or at a particular moment in my life's experience. That has to happen. There has
to be a beginning of faith. There has to be a moment in time
when that faith, though it be ever so small like a mustard
seed, though it be ever so embryonic in its existence, nevertheless
exists. So I'm not despising the beginning
of faith, but I am saying this, that it has to go on. It has
to develop. It has to be nurtured. It has
to be tried and tested. It has to be proven. And when
the Lord gives faith to an individual, we would like to say to them,
you've arrived. But the reality is that every
true believer will say to you, your trouble has only just begun. You think it's been hard up to
now? And yet blessedness flows to
believers who exercise their faith in the promises of God. Faith is forged in the fires
of adversity. Faith grows and deepens. Faith becomes the glorious thing
that it is only when it is tested, only when it is tried. Now I know some of you are sick.
And I know some of you feel the weight of physical frailty. And I know some have suffered
great loss. And we carry with us, each of
us, the scars of past mistakes and the wrong decisions that
we have made. We struggle with temptation.
Every day, we have doubts. Doubts that, when we realise
that those doubts are there, when we countenance those doubts,
it almost shocks us that we can have doubts like those. Doubting God, doubting Christ,
doubting the work on the cross. doubting the efficacy of his
blood, doubting the promises that he has made. And we do. And yet it is in the patient
endurance. It is there in the going through,
the adversity, in the coming to terms with and in the dealing
with these doubts, these troubles, these failures of our trust and
belief, that the Lord teaches us His faithfulness to us and
shows us that while we are so often faithless, even His faithful
people Faithless, he is faithful and he is just and he will bless
his people. And so we discover in our trials
that our faith is tested. We discover that in our experiences
our trusting in God, trusting in Christ is put to the test
and we discover peace and joy which we would ordinarily imagined
to be impossible, nevertheless flows to us in almost inexplicable
ways in the midst of our deepest trials and troubles. You see,
that's the essence of faith. Faith requires waiting. Or else it isn't faith. It isn't
faith. if it possesses the reality,
if it possesses that which it looks to, that which it hopes
for. It doesn't become faith. There
isn't faith any longer. It's the experience of these
things. But faith, that which we are called to, demands and
requires waiting. Come with me to 1 Peter. A couple
of verses in 1 Peter that speaks just to this point. 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1 and verse 3. The apostle says here, Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according
to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance
incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved
in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith
unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. wherein ye
greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are
in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of
your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth,
though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and
honour and glory at the appearing of the Lord, at the appearing
of Jesus Christ. whom having not seen ye love,
in whom though now ye see him not yet believing, ye rejoice
with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of
your faith, even the salvation of your soul. It's in believing, it's in trusting
what has been promised, that we will have joy. It is taking God at his promise. It's hearing his word and saying,
yes, I believe that. Yes, I depend on that. Yes, I will rest upon the promises
that he has made. In this Sermon on the Mount,
the Lord Jesus Christ calls those who hunger, blessed. He calls those who are thirsty,
blessed, happy, joyful, content, at ease, at peace. Their blessedness
consists, like those who are poor in spirit, Like those who
mourn, didn't we think about the contradiction that that carries
a few weeks ago? Mourning, blessed are they that
mourn. Blessed are those who are impoverished
in their spirit, in their soul. Blessed are the meek, the humble,
the inconsequential ones, the ones that are looked down upon,
the ones that are despised, the little ones, the little flock,
the persecuted, the mocked. Wherein is blessedness in these
things? And yet in all of these graces,
the preciousness is in the fact that there is a spiritual reality,
a spiritual life. There is the possession and the
existence of faith in the heart of the individual. The true source
of our spiritual wealth, the mourning, the poverty, is
the fact that those things are initiated by the fact that we
have got spiritual life in Christ. We mourn about the regrets of
our sin, that indwelling sin. We long for the wealth that the
Lord Jesus Christ has promised us, and we know nothing about
boasting ourselves or our works or our abilities or our achievements
because we understand that everything that we have amounts to nothing
except those things which Christ himself has given to us. Do you
see the progression here in this sermon as the Lord lays out these
truths? Here is a poor people and they
mourn They mourn for their sin. They are humble souls. But in their humility, they seek
a righteousness from God. These are a people who have been
quickened by God, the Holy Spirit. A people who have been made to
see their need. A people who are sensitive to
their soul's state and condition. You may or may not be aware of
this, but there is a long tradition and arguments that have been
put forward throughout the history of the church, particularly amongst
Baptists and particularly amongst what we call particular Baptists,
that is those Baptists which believe in particular redemption
in a limitation within the atonement for those that God has chosen
and committed to Christ within the covenant of grace. And that
controversy has had to do with this word, sensitive. Sensitive. Because people say
that, oh no, we have the right to offer salvation to everyone. But the reality is, the scriptural
teaching is, that that offer is only meaningful to those who
are sensitive of their need for the gifts and the graces of God. It's only meaningful to the poor
in spirit. It's only meaningful to those
who hunger and thirst after righteousness. It's only meaningful to those
who have been brought to that place of humbly recognizing that
there is nothing that they can do in order to please God, but
they must simply throw themselves at his feet and rely upon him. They bewail their sin, and they
desire to be pure. They know that without holiness,
they are lost. Without holiness, it will be
impossible for them to please God. But they do not know where
that holiness is to be gotten. They do not know where that righteousness
is to be had. And in their weariness, and in
their weakness, and in their loss, they are sensitive to this
sin in their life. Then when they hear the gospel,
it's not just words. It's not just a sermon. It's the very words of life. It's the very water of life to
their souls. It's like that poor woman there
at the well. It's a living well of water bubbling
up within them. Why is it so meaningful to them?
It's because they understand. the true nature of their souls
and they hunger and they thirst after righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
come into this world in order to make people morally upright. It wasn't that he came to teach
them a code of conduct, that he came to tell them, this is
the way that you should live your life. He came in order to
make them righteous with a righteousness which was beyond their ability. And that righteousness flows
from the divine person. It's not something that's worked
up within us, but it comes to us as a gift from God. The Lord's people hunger and
thirst after righteousness. The Lord's people desire holiness. Remember what we've said already
about the blessedness of the journey. We know what it is to
live in the flesh. We're doing it every day. We
know that weakness, but we desire better. And we believe that God
has promised us better. We believe that he has for us
laid up in heaven so much of that holiness, that blessedness,
that experience of his goodness to us, that we simply long to
be there. But here's the beauty of the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to make us holy. He came to make us righteous,
perfect, heaven ready. And like everything that a sovereign
God does, He succeeded in doing that. He accomplished that which
he came to do. So here we have a question. If the Lord Jesus Christ has
made us holy, has made us righteous, has made us sinless in the sight
of God, how is it we are still hungering and thirsting after
righteousness? Well, the answer to that is simple.
that the new man lives side by side with the old man, and he
will do until the Lord takes us into his presence. Until that
old man is laid down, God calls his people to trust him, to trust
him even when they're not experiencing holiness, righteousness, perfection. Even when they feel the struggles
of the old man, even when they feel the weakness of their own
soul, when they succumb to temptation and they know the problems of
sin, the Lord calls them nevertheless to hold fast, to trust Him, to
look to the work of Christ and look to the promises of God. Everything required by God for
the complete salvation of the elect was achieved by the Lord
Jesus Christ. He won for us a holiness and
a perfection. There is nothing outstanding.
There is nothing left to be done. There is nothing left undone
by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we call this justification. We are justified, we are perfected
already by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has atoned
for our sins, the blood is shed. That precious blood, that efficacious
blood is shed. That covering has been granted. The cleansing power has taken
away sin. Those sins are atoned for. They
are carried away like that scapegoat that carried away the sins of
Israel in the Old Testament into the desert. Our sins have been
carried away. Well, why do I still feel them?
Why do I still feel the weight of them then? Because the Lord
calls us to wait patiently upon Him for the experience of that. He calls us to be faithful. He
calls us to trust Him. Not only has the Lord taken the
believers' sins away, No sin will ever again be chargeable
to him. Now try and get a hold of that. No sin that you commit for as
long as you live in this world will ever be charged to you because
the Lord Jesus Christ has taken them all away. Some people will say, does that
mean that I can go out and sin without having to worry about
it? Shame on you, you've no understanding. If you began at all with that
thought, it's because you have no sense of gratitude and thanksgiving
to the one who has done all for you. But let me tell you this,
Christ's body is perfect right now in Him. And there is sinlessness
and purity and holiness and heaven readiness right now in the body
of Christ. And if the Lord Jesus Christ
came back right now, before this service was over, and we were
all gathered together from the four corners of the earth, as
the angels went out and brought us into his presence, we would
see just how perfect we are. Nothing remains undone. Everything
is prepared. In Romans chapter four, verse
eight, the apostle writes, blessed is the man to whom the Lord will
not impute sin. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Well, we're talking about those
who hunger and thirst after righteousness, aren't we? Because if God says
that these are a blessed, if Christ says these are a blessed
people, and Paul says to us in Romans, blessed is the man to
whom the Lord will not impute sin, that is the selfsame group
of people. Those who hunger and thirst after
righteousness are the very people to whom God will not impute sin. In Psalm 103, verse 12 says,
as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed
our transgressions from us. Mitch preached on that verse
the other night at the rescue mission. Forgive me, brother,
for picking up on it. He has made us righteous. righteous
with the righteousness of God our Saviour, righteous to perfection,
righteous, holy, spotless, perfect, Christ-like, incorruptible. That's what we are. And he calls
us to wait patiently in faith until the fullness of that revelation
comes to view. 2 Corinthians 5 21 says for he
hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. In Romans 4 verse
23 we read this now it was not written for his sake alone that
it was imputed to him, that is righteousness. But for us also
to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised
up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offences,
but was raised again for our justification. Why is it then that we have to
yet hunger and thirst after this righteousness? Because we're
still in this body of flesh. Because the Lord has not deemed
it timely to take us yet to glory. Because the Lord yet has more
blessing to give us as we wait patiently upon him. more to teach
us of himself, more to let us see of his dealings with us in
our souls, more service to call us to, more work yet to be completed. We are still in this body of
flesh, and that old man of sin still rises and struggles against
the new man of the Spirit. And until that old man is laid
in his grave, we will continue to carry his legacy. We will
have to fight against his influence as we dwell in this fleshy body
of sin. And it's not going to get any
easier as we get older. I used to think that the The
fires that burned in the lusts and passions of a young man would
be so good to be rid of. If you think you get rid of them,
you've got another thing coming. Because all that happens is that
they, like a chameleon, they change shade and colour and then
jump out and surprise you when you're not expecting it. The victory is won. The Lord
Jesus Christ has accomplished all that is needful. We are completely
justified in the sight of God, but we're not yet glorified.
We sit together in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, but we are
called to wait patiently on those things being revealed. And he
has promised us that in the waiting, in the desiring, in the seeking,
in the knocking, we will be blessed as we hunger and thirst after
Him. God has called us to faith. He
has called us to trust in his word, to believe what he says
is true. And we are called to lay our
hopes upon the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and upon his perfect
righteousness. We are called to trust God for
those things that he has promised us. People will say, Surely God wants
me to reform my life. The Bible says, trust in the
blood and righteousness of the Saviour. People will say, surely
God wants me to do good works. Trust in the blood and the righteousness
of God, our Saviour. Surely God wants me to live to
his glory. God wants you to trust in the
accomplishments of the Lord Jesus Christ, our God and Savior. Nothing more, nothing less. Do you see, what can we add? to the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ? What can we add to the atonement? What can we add to justification? What can we add to Christ's perfect
sacrifice and obedience? What offering can we make that
is going to enlarge God's blessing to us? The father's requirements
were the son's accomplishments. Only believe, only trust, only
wait upon the promises of God. Faith lays hold on those promises. Faith says, faithful is he that
calleth you who also will do it. Blessed people that you are. You hunger and thirst after righteousness. And that's not an indication
that you don't have righteousness. It's an indication that you do
have the promises of God and the righteousness of God and
Christ imputed to you. It is a mark of grace from above. You thirst after holiness because
you have tasted its presence in your soul and you want to
quench your thirst in its fullness. Your hunger and your thirst is
proof of God's sovereign grace for you. And though you do not
feel it, nevertheless, you trust him for it. Well, let's hear
what the Lord Jesus Christ said about those that hunger and thirst
after righteousness. He says, you shall be filled. You shall be filled. You will
be filled full. Luke 6, 38 says, you'll be filled
in good measure, pressed down and shaken together and running
over. This is the fullness that the
Lord has for his people. It's already ours. Paul says
to the Ephesians, we are already seated together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. The reality in the spiritual
realm is already fulfilled. And now it's just a case of being
faithful and waiting patiently to see the fullness of that blessing
revealed to us. I want you to go home this evening
weary of sin that you are, mourning your weakness as you do, yet
utterly confident of the saving and keeping power of the Lord
Jesus Christ, your Saviour. 1 John 1 verse 9 says, If we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Amen.