Did you see Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nyberg. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Mattawar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Todd Nyberg. Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. It's important to remember regarding
the Beatitudes that this is not something that a believer strives
for. It's what a believer is. A believer
is poor in spirit. A believer does mourn over his
sin. A believer is meek before God. A believer is pure in heart. God's given him that new heart.
A believer is merciful. A believer is a peacemaker. A
believer is persecuted for righteousness sake. Now, what I want us to
consider this morning is this fourth beatitude, blessed are
they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. They're
given a promise. They shall be filled. Our first order, is to find out
what is meant by the word righteousness. Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after righteousness. What does the Word of God have
to say with regard to this thing called righteousness? In Isaiah
chapter 64, verse 6, Isaiah speaking under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit said, For we are all, me and you, All men, we
are all as an unclean thing, and our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags." Now, that's what God calls human righteousness. Any righteousness that comes
from man is nothing more than filthy rags. David said in Psalm
71, 16, I've made mention of thy righteousness, even of thine
only." Now why did David only speak of God's righteousness? Because God's righteousness is
the only righteousness there is. If you want to know what
righteousness is, it's the righteousness of God. There is no other righteousness. but the righteousness of God. Paul said in Romans 1, 16 and
17, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it's the power
of God and the salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek, for therein in the gospel is the righteousness
of God revealed. Righteousness is who God is. Righteousness is His character. Shall not the judge of the earth
do right? It's God's rightness. It's what God requires. What
does God require of me and you? Perfect righteousness. He will
accept nothing less. God doesn't negotiate with sinners.
All He will accept is perfect righteousness. How good do you
got to be for God to accept you? You have to be as good as God
Himself. That's the only way you can be
accepted. Righteousness is a perfect standing
before God's holy law. Righteousness knows nothing of
degrees. You can't be moderately righteous. You're either altogether
righteous or you're altogether sinful. Righteousness is a perfect
standing before the Ten Commandments. You can't break one commandment
one time. If you only break one commandment,
you're guilty of breaking them all. Righteousness is a perfect
standing before God. That is what God requires. Righteousness. Now, the first
time the word righteous is used is in Genesis chapter 7, verse
1. where God says regarding Noah, thee have I seen as righteous
before me. Now, if God saw Noah as righteous,
there's only one reason, because Noah was righteous. God said,
thee have I seen as righteous before me. Now, in the previous
chapter, we read, and God saw the wickedness of man was great
on the earth, and that includes Noah. God saw the wickedness
of man was great on the earth and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Now, how can Noah, if he's included
in that bunch, be called by God righteous? Well, the next time
the word righteousness is used is found in Genesis 15, verse
6, where it says, Abraham believed in the Lord and it was counted
to him for righteousness. And Paul quotes that in Romans
chapter 4, beginning in verse 3, as to how a sinner can be
righteous. It's said of Abraham in Romans
chapter 4, verse 3, for what faith is scripture. Abraham believed
God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Quotation
from Genesis 15, 6. Now to him that worketh, someone
who tries to earn God's favor, is the reward not reckoned of
grace, but of debt. If there's something that you
can do to save yourself, that means God is your debtor and
He owes you salvation. But, to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted
for righteousness, even as David also described the blessedness
of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose
sins are covered. Blessed is the band to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Now, how can Noah be righteous
before God? By God not imputing his sin to
him. His sin was imputed to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Christ became guilty and Christ's
righteousness is imputed to the believer so that they really
are righteous before God. Now, most men never hunger and
thirst after righteousness. Our Lord says, blessed are they
that hunger and thirst after righteousness, but most men know
nothing of that. Now, you think of hunger and
thirst. I suppose those are the two most
urgent needs that we have. When I'm hungry, I have to have
something to eat. I'm not indifferent about it.
I have to have something to eat. When I'm thirsty, I have to have
something to drink. Hunger and thirst are the pain
of a perceived absence. You don't have any food in your
stomach. That's why you're hungry. You need water. It must be brought
from without you. You can't produce it on your
own. It has to come from without side
of you. The only way your thirst can be satisfied, the only way
your hunger can be satisfied is by food and water being brought
from outside of you into you. Hungry and thirsting. The pain
of a perceived axis. If you're hungry for righteousness,
it's because you feel like you don't have any, and how you desire
it, how you crave it. If you're thirsting for righteousness,
it's because you perceive that you don't have any, and how you
crave it, how you desire it. Oh, you desire to have righteousness
before God. Paul said in Philippians 3, 8
and 9, Oh, that I may win Christ and be found in Him, not having
my own righteousness. I don't want to have anything
to do with my righteousness because I know it's nothing more than
filthy rags. Listen to this statement real carefully. The biggest problem
you and I have is not our sin. It's our righteousness. And let
me repeat that. The biggest problem that you
and I have is not our sin. He saved sinners. If you ever
see your sin, it'll drive you to the Savior. It's your righteousness
that will keep you from Him. Your sin won't keep you from
the Savior. Do you hear that? Your sin will not keep you from
the Savior. It's your righteousness that
will keep you from the Savior. Self-righteousness. And Paul
said, Oh, that I may win Christ and be found in Him, not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is
of the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God. Remember, there's
only one righteousness, the righteousness of God, and how I hunger and
thirst to have His righteousness. We thirst and hunger for a right
standing before God. We hunger and thirst to have
right conduct before God and men. They hunger and thirst after
righteousness. Not simply hungering and thirsting
to not go to hell or to go to heaven, but actually hungering
and thirsting for righteousness. If you're hungry, if you're thirsty,
This is not a thing of indifference. This is not a take-it-or-leave-it
thing. You must have this need filled, hungering and thirsting
for righteousness. The hungry man craves righteousness
before God, a righteous nature, perseverance in righteousness.
He craves a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. He prays the company of the righteous,
most especially of Jesus Christ, the righteous. Now, hunger. Hunger. Let's think about hunger. If
you set bread on the table and somebody doesn't eat it, perhaps
they don't like white bread, they want whole wheat. And so
they don't eat it. There's one reason. Because they
weren't really hungry. If they were hungry, they'd eat
that bread. If a man's really hungry and
thirsty, He won't be so concerned about the place setting. Now,
I enjoy a presentation of food in an appealing way with nice
silverware, plates and so on. I tell you what, if I'm hungry,
I don't care if it's on a paper plate with plastic spoons and
paper cups. What I'm concerned about is the
food. That's what is important. Oh, hungering and thirsting for
righteousness. Now, the Lord says, blessed are
they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. That's a paradox. How can it be blessed? Because
that's a painful thing to be hungry and thirsty. Yet the Lord
says, blessed, blessed by God, supremely blessed are they who
have this pain of hungering and thirsting for righteousness because
of a perceived absence of it in themselves, but how they long
for righteousness. How they long for the very righteousness
of God. How they long to be righteous,
even as He is righteous, and to be done with sin forever.
Hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Now, how could
that be blessed? Well, first of all, because the
Savior said it was. That's enough of a reason, isn't it? If the
Lord says that person is blessed by God, that person is blessed
by God. Now, hunger and thirst cause
weakness. And that's a good thing. Because
Paul said, when I'm weak, then am I strong. That one who hungers
and thirsts knows the truth. He knows he has no righteousness
and it must be brought to him outside of himself. He knows
the truth. That person who hungers and thirsts
after righteousness has the right value. He's not hungering and
thirsting for power and prestige and all those kind of things.
He sees the vanity of those things. He's hungering and thirsting
for righteousness. That man who is hungering and
thirsting for righteousness has not been deluded by the greatest
delusion, self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is any righteousness
that comes from self. Now, if you have self-righteousness,
you're not going to be hungering and thirsting for His righteousness
because you already have one. But if you have no righteousness,
if you can say with Paul, I know that in me, that is in my flesh,
dwelleth no good thing. If you know that so about yourself,
you hunger and you thirst for righteousness. And you can't
be satisfied with anything short of perfect and complete righteousness. That's why you need grace. That's
why you need grace. You see, someone who hungers
and thirsts after righteousness, they need the free favor of God. They can't earn their salvation.
They can't merit their salvation. They can't buy their salvation
because they don't have anything to pay for it with. They're nothing
but sin in and of themselves. They need grace. Oh, listen to
me. I love the doctrine of election
because I love the God of election and because I need God to elect
me. Because if He doesn't choose
me, it's over for me. I love the doctrine of Christ's
successful atonement for His elect because I know that the
only hope I have is for Him to die for me and accomplish my
salvation. I love the doctrine of God's
irresistible, invincible grace because that's the kind of grace
I need. That's the only kind of grace that will do me any
good. You see, someone who's hungering and thirsting after
righteousness has a great need of the grace of God. Now, these
people are blessed because they have the Holy Spirit. They have
a new nature. God's done something for them.
All these beatitudes, these states of blessedness is the work of
God in a man. And someone who is hungering
and thirsting after righteousness is someone who has been born
of the Spirit of God. Blessed, our Savior says, blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for
they shall be filled. Filled with what? righteousness. They shall be filled with righteousness. Everybody, without any exception,
that hungers and thirsts for righteousness, for God's righteousness,
to be righteous, everyone who hungers and thirsts after righteousness
is promised, you shall be filled. filled with righteousness, filled
to the brim. And remember this about righteousness.
There are not degrees of righteousness. You're either perfectly righteous
or you're nothing but sinful. Now, if you're in Christ, you're
perfectly righteous. Now, how is it? And I want to
be real here. Oh, may God give me grace to
be real in dealing with this. I am a sinful man. I really am. You're sinful men
and women that are listening, whether you know it or not. Sinful. So how can I honestly, being
a sinful man, Think that God can see me as altogether righteous
and that God, when God sees me as altogether righteous, He's
not just pretending. It's because I really am altogether
righteous. Now, how is it that a sinful
man can be righteous before God? Let me give you five things,
all of which are necessary in the sinner being righteous. First,
I have to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what does
it mean to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ? It means I'm in
Him. That's what's confessed in believer's
baptism. When I'm baptized, I'm confessing
that my hope of salvation is that when He lived, I lived because
I was in Him. When He died, when I go under
the water, that's talking about his life, death, burial, and
resurrection. When I go under the water, I'm confessing that
when he died, I died. My sin was paid for. When he
was raised from the dead, I was raised from the dead. I was in
him, united to him. If he's righteous, I am too.
That's the way a sinner can be righteous, by being in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Then somebody says, well, how
do you get in him? God's got to put you in him. 1 Corinthians
1.30 says, But of him are you in Christ Jesus, of God, who
of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. A sinner can be righteous if
they're united to the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, a sinner can
be righteous by this thing of imputation. This is a big word
in the Bible. It's so very important. Why did
Christ die? There's only one reason for death,
and that's sin. Now, he never sinned in and of
himself, but he was made sin. 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. He was made sin so that he became
guilty of the sins of all of God's elect. who His own self
bear our sins. Not just the punishment of our
sins, but the sins themselves. Who His own self bear our sins
in His own body on the tree. My sin became His sin, and His
righteousness is imputed to me. Just as truly as my sin became
His sin, His righteousness becomes my righteousness, so that I am
righteous before God by imputation. Thirdly, a sinner is righteous
before God by the divine gift. Romans 5.17 calls the righteousness
of God the gift of righteousness. I love that. The gift of righteousness. The free gift of righteousness. It's the gift of God. If God
gives you righteousness, you have righteousness. I think of
what our Lord said to that woman at the well. He said to her,
if you knew the gift of God, and who it was that said unto
thee, give me to drink, thou would have asked Him, and He
would have given thee living water. If you knew the gift of
God, here's what you'd do. Righteousness. If you knew the
gift of God, you'd ask for it. Oh Lord, give me righteousness. and He would give. There's never
been anyone who asked for the gift of His righteousness that
He turned down. Righteous by nature. That's the
fourth thing. Righteous by nature. What that's
talking about is the new nature. Being born again of the Spirit
of God. You see, the new birth is not God changing your heart
and all of a sudden you become better. That's a fallacy. That's
the way most people believe. I keep getting better and better.
Well, that's a lie for one thing. That's a lie. The new birth is
not God changing you and making you better. The new birth is
God putting something in that was not there before, a new heart,
a holy heart, one that's pure, the pure in heart. And so, you
have a righteous nature. Now, you still have the sinful
nature with you, and it's always there, but you have a new nature,
righteous by nature. And then there's righteous by
faith. To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies
the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Now, does
that mean faith is a substitute for law keeping? And God's lowered
His terms and He'll accept faith? No, faith is not your righteousness
before God. Christ is your righteousness
before God, and faith believes that. Now, how do I know that
I've been united to Christ? How do I know what's my evidence
of union with Christ? Faith. I believe the Gospel. I'm relying on the Lord Jesus
Christ. What is the evidence? that God imputed the righteousness
of His Son to me. I believe the Gospel. That's
the evidence. What is the evidence that God
has actually given me this gift? Faith. I believe the Gospel.
What's the evidence that I have this new holy nature? Because
I believe the Gospel. I wouldn't believe if I didn't
have that new nature. Faith is the evidence of things
not seen. Now what I'd like to do now is
show you a man who didn't hunger and thirst after righteousness,
and I want to show you another man who did. In Luke chapter
18, beginning in verse 9, this is the Lord Jesus speaking, and
he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves. that they were righteous and
despised others. Now, if you believe that you
are righteous in any way, I'm not talking about the righteousness
of Christ being counted to you. If you have any self-righteousness,
here's where you got it. You tried to compare yourself
to somebody else. And you found somebody else that
you thought was not as righteous as you, more sinful to you, and
you think, well, I'm better than them. That's the root of self-righteousness. You look at somebody that you
think you're better than them, and it makes you feel good about
yourself. Well, this was this Pharisee. Wherever there's self-righteousness,
there's always looking down your nose at somebody else. And that's
what this fellow was guilty of. He spake this parable unto certain
which trusted in themselves, that they were righteous and
despised others. Two men went up into the temple
to pray. These were both men who wanted
to seek the Lord. One, a Pharisee, which means
a separated one, a modern-day fundamentalist, a separated one. And the other, a publican, a
rolling tax collector, a Jew employed by the Roman government
who ripped off his fellow countrymen, the most despised man in his
day. The Pharisee stood, the religious
man, the separated one, the fundamentalist. The Pharisee stood and prayed
thus with himself. He thought he was praying to
God, but he wasn't. He prayed thus with himself.
God, I thank thee, he gives God the credit. But he didn't say,
God, I thank Thee for the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
didn't say, God, I thank Thee for the freeness of Your grace.
He said, God, I thank Thee that I'm not as other men are. He was comparing himself to somebody
else. And then he commits to telling a bunch of lies. He said,
I'm not an extortioner. He was, too. He said, I'm not
unjust. He was, too. He said, I'm not
an adulterer. He was, too. He committed adultery
many times in his heart if he hadn't done it in the act. Or
even as this publican, I fast twice in the week, I give tithes
of all that I possess. Now this man was not hungering
and thirsting for righteousness because in his own mind he already
had plenty of righteousness. Now the publican And the publican,
standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto
heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me,
thee sinner, Now here's a man who did not have a drop of righteousness. He wouldn't even, he just smote
on his breast because he knew he had an evil heart. All he
could cry is, God be merciful to me, the sinner. Now he was
hungering and he was thirsting for righteousness because he
knew he didn't have any. Now look what the Savior says
in verse 14. He says, I tell you, this man,
this publican, went down to his house justified rather than the
other. And that word justified is the
verb form of the word righteous. He went down to his house altogether
righteous. Christ said he was justified,
so he was justified. And then the Lord says for everyone
that exalts himself Just write this down, this is the unalterable
law of the kingdom of heaven, shall be abased, and he that
humbles himself shall be exalted. Now we have this message on DVD,
CD, if you call the church right now we'll send you a copy. This
is Todd Kniper, praying that God will be pleased with you. To request a copy of the sermon
you have just heard, send a request to messages at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.