A Personal Encounter with the Sermon on the Mount – Chapter 5 (Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness)

*Section 1 – Kingdom Character

Five- Desiring Righteousness Brings Satisfaction

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6).

The first four beatitudes follow a logical progression: Conviction leads to confession which leads to repentance. These postures, when progressively combined, compel us to seek after what we cannot attain, the righteousness that comes only through the Lord! In Matthew 5:3, “the poor in spirit”—those who acknowledge their spiritual bankruptcy before holy God—are positioned to receive entry into “the kingdom of heaven.” As they are confronted with the holy demands of God, they characteristically mourn over their sinfulness. Doing so allows them to enter into the type of humble state, or meekness, that’s required of those who will inherit God’s kingdom. When a person experiences this reality, he or she gains the key to happiness: the ability and incentive to pursue a godly life.

When His people get hungry and thirsty for His righteousness, God promises to satisfy their cravings and to bless them! Often that blessing comes in the form of joy. But humanity seeks carnal happiness instead. Sadly, we routinely grasp for contentment through pleasure, possessions, accumulation, relationships, climbing the ladder at work, and carving out a pain-free and comfortable life—none of which offer the joy and long-term satisfaction we crave. Real satisfaction and contentment remain elusive. Why? Because we won’t find happiness in the temporal and the tangible: we need a relationship with God that’s both spiritual and eternal. The idea that we can have happiness without holiness proves a fatal flaw. Jesus, in His Sermon on the Mount, clearly taught that true contentment comes from the pursuit of righteousness.

“Righteousness” in this passage speaks of a personal and practical standard of holy living that projects both the King (Jesus) and the type of ideals and principles on which His kingdom is founded. Humanity finds “blessing”—true joy and fulfillment—when they relentlessly pursue a life that reflects Christ. Living in moral uprightness and demonstrating faith through it leads to Christ-imitating growth, to contentment, to a blessed and purposeful existence. Poverty of spirit, brokenness, humility, and the pursuit of righteousness prove essential steps in attaining joy and in living in a manner worthy of the God who invited us to share in His kingdom.

At one time I got caught up in the world’s definition of success. I wanted the so-called American Dream: grow up, get an education, get a good job, marry your sweetheart, buy a house, have some children, climb the corporate ladder, buy a bigger house, have some grandkids, and then retire to the beach or golf course. But in spite of my best efforts, I couldn’t find deep-rooted satisfaction on that path. Once I began to pursue God and His righteousness, however, I realized that true contentment derives more from His description of holiness than our culture’s definition of success. In other words, when I hunger and thirst after Him I find a better way to live.

Though the notion completely clashes with popular secular belief, holiness—moral integrity— is a fundamental prescription for true happiness. Without Christ, a life of holiness can’t happen. When, however, we pursue righteousness-giving Jesus, He empowers us to live the holy lives that reflect the joy we find in Him. Through Jesus we can live rightly. As we do, we find the consummation of holiness and happiness in Christ. Through Jesus we are blessed with every spiritual blessing (see Ephesians 1:3).

A hunger and thirst for righteousness, a desperate desire to know right and to live uprightly, defines a fundamental ambition of God’s kingdom dwellers. While those without relationship with Jesus understandably pursue the things of this world as a means to fulfillment, believers find satisfaction in the righteousness that only comes through Christ. Those who follow Jesus should seek the spiritual and not the material, knowing that living the type of godly life Christ requires provides the only means to satisfying our thirsty souls. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). He has promised to fill those famished for Him, those who pursue His timeless righteousness over the latest thrill.

The desire for holy living and the joy it brings rise out of a passionate pursuit of the Lord. It flows instinctively out of our love for God and our gratitude for what He does for us. When Christ died for our sins, He justified those who would come to faith in God through Him. That means that He made us just as if we never sinned. This justification of sins and resulting positional righteousness before God through faith in the atoning work of Christ should create in us the desire to live free from sin. The desire to do right.

“Be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord,” the writer of Hebrews said (Hebrews 12:14). As we routinely ponder what Christ has done for us, we’ll desire no part of anything which would hinder our relationship with Christ or injure our ability to demonstrate His love. Let’s make it our passion to honor the Lord through every thought, word, and action.

Apply It.

Consider your life goals and daily priorities. Analyze your prayer life. How well do you integrate the pursuit of righteousness? Memorize Ephesians 4:22-24 and ask God to empower you to seek His holiness and to experience His joy in that pursuit.

*This is an excerpt from Captivated by the King and His Kingdom: A Personal Encounter with the Sermon on the Mount published by Crossbooks in 2010. The links for this book are:

Amazon in book form – http://www.amazon.com/Captivated-King-His-Kingdom-Encounter/dp/1615073418/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302820767&sr=8-1     

Amazon Kindle – http://www.amazon.com/Captivated-King-His-Kingdom-ebook/dp/B004KAA9UC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1302820767&sr=8-2

Barnes and Noble in book form – http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Captivated-by-the-King-and-His-Kingdom/Linden-C-Wolfe/e/9781615073412/?itm=3&USRI=captivated+by+the+king

Other eReader formats – http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/33572

If you follow along with this category (albeit, backwards) by the same name as the book, eventually, Lord willing, we will have walked through the Sermon on the Mount verse by verse in a devotional commentary approach. I pray that this series impacts you as much as it did me as I studied this passage and wrote this book. Grace to you!

American Idolotry – Season 10*

“When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.”  So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron.  He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”  When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.”  So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry” (Exodus 32:1-6).

*Confession time: I have watched a good part of American Idol this year. I think Pia went home too early and Casey should have won it all. Can you believe Scotty won it? He was one of my favorites but is so young, still just an embryo!

I know American Idolatry is not the name of the TV show but, symbolically, maybe it should be. For our American culture is filled with idols. They may not look like the golden calf that the Hebrews erected and worshipped in Exodus 32 but they are real, very real. Although worshipping other gods is prohibited in the 10 commandments (see Exodus 20:3-5 for the broader implications of desiring something above the sovereign creator of the universe, God) and is the first of God’s commands, mankind has consistently violated this decree ever since it was first proclaimed. Claiming that even an attitude of covetousness qualifies, the New Testament is not silent on the danger of idolatry: “For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God” (Ephesians 5:5). Therefore, we must beware – I believe idolatry is probably more subtly pervasive in America than any other culture that has ever risen. How so?

Tom Steller aptly explains what idolatry is: “Idolatry is valuing any thing or any person more than the one true God. An idol is any thing or any person that takes center stage in our affections. God is a jealous God. He deserves center stage in our lives. Anything that usurps that place becomes an idol, whether it be a spouse, a child, a humanitarian project, or pornography, or drugs, or power over the poor, or religion. An idol is a god-substitute. Archeology limits idols to stone statues; biblical theology teaches that idols are any things that take the place of God in our lives. When understood this way, we can realize that idolatry is not ancient history but is alive and flourishing in America as we rush toward the twenty-first century.” Martin Luther captures the idea this way: “Whatever man loves, that is his god. For he carries it in his heart; he goes about with it night and day; he sleeps and wakes with it, be it what it may – wealth or self, pleasure or renown.”  And in America that could include TV, politics, careers, clothes, self-indulgent and consumptive pleasure, technology gadgets, entertainment, cars, hobbies, houses, sex, power, material possessions, “success,” popularity, and money, just to name a few.

The Apostle John earlier shared his motivation for writing this letter: “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” He wanted us to know!!! That’s why I believe John concludes his first letter in the most perplexing way (see 1 John 5:21). He knew the subtle and insidious nature of idol worship. He knew his reader’s eternal destinies were at stake. So let’s be discerning – our culture woos us with false gods and idol worship at every turn. The lure is so fast, furious, and stealth-like it’s easy to miss before it has overcome us. And let us gaze inwardly with objective honesty and question what thrills us the most and what we seek after to fill and satisfy us, what we love the most in this world. We dare not presume that we, too, aren’t involved in some form of idol worship.

The penultimate verse (1 John 5:20) of this letter describes the understood purpose and priority of those who prize and worship Jesus above all other things. “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” Why then do we put nothing before God? Because He is God, the only true God as revealed in Christ Jesus, and true eternal life. Anything else we love, pursue, exalt, honor, or find more pleasure in than Him is just the opposite – a false god. And they keep us from Him and eternal life. That’s why John signs off with, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” Jonah sums this up well with his sobering reminder: “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs” (Jonah 2:8, NIV).