This sermon is auto-transcribed and may contain inaccuracies.
Introduction and Context of the Beatitudes
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Since we met, we have been considering these Beatitudes in the order in which they appear here. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. And we notice that these are descriptions of the people of God, the disciples, the true believer, those who are in the kingdom of God, in the kingdom of grace, his disciples, who he was addressing first of all, blessed are ye, he addresses them, they are the blessed ones.
Contrasting, of course, with those who thought that they had access to and a right to the kingdom of God, the Pharisees and the scribes, who were the devout religious leaders, and in many ways setting themselves up as such among the people. And the whole burden of this sermon is to expose and correct and indeed put right the grievous error and mistakes that the Jews had come to through the leadership of the scribes and Pharisees concerning every aspect really of the religion of the Bible and the worship of God even, the next chapter, and particularly their abuse of the law. They think that they are righteous in God’s sight, but their standard of righteousness is very much lower than the law of God requires, and indeed they’ve added to it their own inventions, and they are grievously mistaken as to the favor of God that they expect from the way in which they live. Indeed they are boasting before others of what they have in comparison to others.
But the Savior is contrasting these with his own people who are truly blessed, and far different from the character and the spirit and the disposition and the attitudes of the Jews, who are those who are his true and sincere and blessed people, and how contrary to human wisdom these descriptions would have been to the Jews, how contrary to their own expectations of their Messiah, how contrary to the philosophy and teaching of the world they are also, and indeed to the religions that are in the world, poor in spirit, destitute, beggars, entirely dependent on others, on the grace of God and the mercy of God. That is really what the people of God are, like a poor beggar would be depending on others. The people of God are fundamentally in a relation to God and Christ, whereby they are debtors to grace entirely and completely, and they have a new relation to sin. They mourn for sin, not only their own but the sins of the world and the sins around them. They have a spirit of a broken and a contrite heart, which is in all their worship. It ought to be, it will be, more or less. That’s the blessedness of God’s people. They have comfort who are mourning, comfort in mourning, comfort for their mourning too. There is an answer to their mourning in the blood which cleanses from all sin. And they have this disposition too, they are meek. They are conscious of their own unworthiness, so they are inoffensive. They are meek and lowly toward God and towards their fellow men. They have a blessed promise and assurance that the Lord is theirs, that all that they have in this world they have by grace.
Understanding Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness
Well, it’s in that light that we are to therefore understand what is here. In this verse also, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. It is another description of the people of God. This is what is a mark and characteristic of them. They do hunger and thirst after righteousness. They are blessed in that hunger, they are blessed in that thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled, they shall be satisfied in their coming and their thirsting and their hungering after it.
And so, the language clearly is figurative, speaking of a vehement desire, longing. They are earnest, in earnest concerning this, this righteousness. Perhaps the Jews thought that they were in earnest about righteousness, going about to establish their own righteousness in the sight of God. But here are people who are truly in earnest. They know something of righteousness which the Jews didn’t. And that’s what he says later, Your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. You shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. What a shock for the righteous, proud, arrogant, self-conceited, self-dependent Pharisee that must have been. Turning their whole world upside down, all their ideas about religion.
Well, here is the Saviour’s manner of speaking then, to expose the error that was all around them, but also to comfort and indeed to guide and encourage His own disciples, His own people.
Application and Structure of Discussion
Well, we would like to consider the words then in that light, perhaps we can think of them in relation to each and every one of us here this evening, the application of them to us all. We may be here a mixed company, and we are indeed a mixed company of those who would make a profession of being the Lord’s people, and others who do not. And here is something to encourage the Lord’s people surely, but here is something indeed to prompt, to direct, to guide, to instruct those who are strangers to being the Lord’s people, who do not know the spirit and the blessedness indeed of the Lord’s people, they do not have it. And here is something to encourage you tonight to hunger and thirst, to desire earnestly and vehemently as a man would who was hungry and thirsty, fainting, desperate in his need and desire for this. Is that true of you?
The Five Aspects of Righteousness to be Considered
Well, notice firstly then the righteousness which we need. That is clearly implied, there is a righteousness that is needed. We need a righteousness. And then secondly the provision and indeed the offering of that righteousness by God. Here is something that the people of God have. They have some knowledge of it and they are desiring, they are hungering and thirsting after it. It has been provided for them. And then thirdly we might consider they who receive it. It is these blessed ones who have it already. They know something of it. They have this righteousness. And fourthly there is the consequent hunger and thirst for it. That’s implied in the way in which the Beatitudes describe the people of God. It’s not that they are unfamiliar with it, but it’s because they have it that they hunger and thirst after it. They desire it all the more. And then lastly we might consider the blessedness of such as have this hunger and thirst after righteousness. They shall be filled. They shall be filled.
The Nature of the Righteousness Identified
Well, what is the righteousness really that is being identified? It’s the righteousness, we believe, of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Somewhat of the view that it’s pointing to the desire that the people of God have for God to bring righteousness to the earth and right living and a way of vindicating what is right and honoring what is right and honoring His people in that way. That’s certainly what is promised in the Bible. It’s promised that God will establish righteousness in the earth. He will do justice in the world ultimately. The Lord’s people desire that and hunger for it. They long to see it. Some think that that is what is in mind. Others are of the view that it’s really just a description of the people of God who are pursuing after holiness. Righteousness, another word for holiness. They are desiring to be more and more righteous. Not that they are trying to win God’s favor by that, but they are seeking to live according to the commandments of God. That is also true, of course, a part indeed of this hunger and thirst after righteousness.
But we believe that in conformity to the whole message and teaching of this sermon, as well as the manner in which these blessings are identified with God’s people, that it is indeed a righteousness other than their own, not their own righteousness. It’s something like what the Apostle Paul has in his epistle to the Philippians. 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 that I might be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, not having mine own righteousness. He says, pressing for that, he’s earnestly seeking after this, that I might be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that righteousness which is the righteousness of God by faith, that I may know him, that I may have this righteousness that is his.
I. The Righteousness We Need
Well, firstly then, we might consider the righteousness that we need. And righteousness, of course, is a word that simply means that which is right, that way of life which God requires of us. That keeping of the law of God, fulfilling of the righteous law of God, the rule of righteousness is God’s holy law. And what God has given to men to fulfill, to keep in the precepts that he gives them. We need to have a righteousness if we are going to have any standing or acceptance with God.
The sad, fearful condition of the multitudes of men in our generation and people in our society and our world is that they do not take to do, they do not have dealings with the God who is a righteous God, a holy God, a God who has given his law. They put it out of their minds. Men live as though there is no God. They have no accountability to him. But here is the clear teaching of the word of God that God is requiring us to live righteously. And that he will judge the world in righteousness. And that he will require righteousness from us and does require righteousness from us. The keeping of his holy law, which is holy and spiritual and just and good, in which the Savior is largely unfolding in its purity, in its true meaning, in its true spiritual requirements. This is the righteousness which God requires. A holiness, a conformity to his will that is perfect and that is personal and that is continual all our lives. That was the condition under which Adam was brought when God made him in the beginning. He was a man created in God’s image, in knowledge and in righteousness and in true holiness. He had the image of God not only naturally in that he was a spiritual being with a soul. God breathed into him, he became a living soul. He had the powers of the soul which in some way reflect the being of God who is a spirit. But he had the image of God morally, he had the image of God in righteousness. He was conformed to the will and commandments and rule of God that was written upon his heart. God did not require to give him it on tables of stone like later on at Mount Sinai. He had it in his heart already and God was requiring him to keep that law. That was in his heart and indeed he was required to love the law, to delight in God. That God would be the object of his supreme delight and love. That is the fulfilling of the law, to love God with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind, with all the strength and his neighbor as himself to love as God loves, to be godly, godlike. Godliness and righteousness are just two words that mean the same thing. Godlikeness.
Have you ever considered that that is what you need, a righteousness to stand before God? Oh friend, is that something that you consider in your life day by day? Is it something that enters into your mind, arrests you in your conscience? What have I to stand before God with? How am I going to account for myself before the God who searches my heart, who knows my life? And the inadequacy of all our efforts and all our resolutions and all our attainments at law keeping, at moral conduct and behavior is so stark, so obvious, so plain to everyone to see that we must surely confess we do not have it, we do not have a righteousness before God. We do not have a righteousness before God. And that leaves us in a most fearfully solemn position, does it not? We were singing in Psalm 143, Thy servant also bring thou not in judgment to be tried, because no living man can be in thy sight justified. It’s not just that we, it’s not only that we haven’t fulfilled the righteous demands of the law of God, we’ve broken them and we’re vulnerable to the penalty, the wages of our sin. And no man living can be justified in God’s sight. And that is the declaration of heaven, it’s the declaration of the conscience of man too, that God, if he was to mark our iniquities, we could not stand. And that’s a fearful reality to dawn upon the conscience of any person. That he is in need of a righteousness that he doesn’t have, but he is in need of a righteousness in this light also that he has incurred guilt, he has involved himself in guilt and in unrighteousness. It’s as it were a debt that he must pay, a moral debt, It’s as it were a debt that he must pay, a moral debt that he owes to God. And oh, what effort, what resolutions, what attainments men think they can make in trying to clear their debt, in trying to amend, make amends for the past, in trying to do something to establish their own righteousness before God. Oh, the deceit of the heart of man, lowering the standard of righteousness and then thinking that they could patch up what they’ve failed to do with some additional works of their own imagination. That’s the patchwork of fig leaves that the Jews were endeavouring to work out and so together adding to the very law of God their own traditions, thinking that God will be very pleased with this and that and the other and lowering the standard of God’s law at the same time, ignoring its spiritual claims upon their heart and life and spirit and attitude and motives and just looking at the outward external formalities and outward religious observances and even there twisting and bending and manipulating it so that they would appear to men to be righteous in the sight of others. Oh, they have their reward, the Saviour says. They have the applause of others. Look at that holy man walking in the synagogue. Listen to his long prayers. Look at the alms he’s giving. Oh, look at how many times he fasts. You go and watch him in the temple. I thank thee that I am not as other men are. I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. Haven’t I such a good living person? God is going to be pleased with me. And we might look on at these discoveries of this folly and think, oh, how different I am from that. And that’s the very spirit in which we may live day by day and expose the fact that we are just a mirror image of the same spirit ourselves. And what a fearful thing the conscience awakened to this reality is. And the devil is very able to expose to men the horror and the terror and the fearful wretchedness of a being without a righteousness before God. The enemy hath pursued my soul, my life to ground down thread. In darkness he hath made me dwell as who have long been dead. The devil is able to accuse, to stir up the fear and the terror of the claims of God’s holy law. And the terror of the Lord is a reality in the conscience of men. It’s the very hell that is warned of, where the worm that dieth not and the fire is not quenched, that you do not have a righteousness and that God is just in punishing the guilty, that God is just in pursuing you, that God is the adversary, the adversary of guilty, unworthy, hell-deserving sinners. Well, that’s what is exposed in the Word of God, that sinners by nature and by practice, by habit, by choice, are destitute of a righteousness. They have no righteousness and all their law-keeping is not sufficient. It’s not a righteousness acceptable to God. They are under condemnation. The wrath of God abides on them. They are in a need of a righteousness not their own, other than their own. What an overwhelming perplexity! My spirit is therefore overwhelmed in me perplexedly. Within me is my very heart, amazed wondrously. I’ve got nothing. I’m destitute. I’m empty. I’m exposed. I’m under condemnation. And I’m in need of a righteousness. And that’s the great need each one of us have. That’s the great need of sinners in this world. It’s the great need that the Bible is addressing. It’s the great need of a ruined mankind by the fall, who has lost communion with God and is under His wrath and curse, and made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself and to the pains of hell forever. The Bible is written, friend, to find and to make known to you the remedy for that ruin and lostness and that unrighteousness and that condemnation under which and in which and with which you are living by nature.
II. The Provision of Righteousness by God
And it is such a righteousness that the Lord Jesus Christ is revealing in His Word. And that’s the glorious promise. It’s the prophecies that went before concerning Him. He was going to bring in an everlasting righteousness. The salvation is near at hand. The prophet Isaiah was saying, My righteousness will be revealed, an everlasting righteousness. That in Him the seed of Israel would be justified and would glory. And that’s what He’s comforting His disciples with, is it not? That He is their righteousness. His righteousness is their righteousness. He is their righteousness. And it’s implied in this that there is a hunger and a thirst for it, that God has made a provision of it. God has set it forth as though it were food, as though it were food and drink. And it’s in that image and that figure that it’s being presented here. It’s as though it were a banquet, a feast. It’s as though it were food to be eaten and drink to be drunk. And it’s a provision in that way.
And does that not remind us of the chapter we were reading where the Jews were pursuing and seeking after Jesus, not because of the miracles, not because they honored Him, as He ought to be honored as God manifests in the flesh, but because they did eat of the loaves and were filled. And He uses that to warn them, to exhort them, labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you. Ah, what’s that? And they’re asking, what is it? What are you going to give to us? He said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. You think Moses gave you bread from heaven. It wasn’t Moses that gave it to you. It was my Father. It was God who gave it to you. But my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. Oh, if your eyes were only to be opened to see what Christ is and who He is, like the woman at the well, if thou knewest the gift of God, if you only knew what Christ had come to do, what Christ had come to give you, and the gift of God, and the life that is in the gift of God, and the provision that God has given in the sending of His only begotten Son into the world, I came down from heaven. I came down from heaven. Marvel, wonder of wonders, that God has sent a provision from heaven, like the manna in the wilderness. A faint image and picture of it, but here is the living, the true bread. What is it? The true bread from heaven given for the life of the world, given by the Father for the life of the world, that a man may eat and not die. The Savior is not holding out some mystical idea about food, physical food. He’s not giving them some puzzle to unfold and to be confused by. He’s speaking of our reality, of the addressing the reality of their ruined death and lost condition under the condemnation and curse of the broken law of God. And He’s saying, I will give life. I will give bread that is living for the life of the world. What is it? He said, my flesh. My flesh is meat indeed. My blood is drink indeed. Oh, this is a hard saying. How can this man give us his flesh to eat again? Their minds are constantly focusing, looking at the mere external, literal significance of his speech. But the words that I speak unto you, he said, are spirit and they are life. It is the spirit that quickens. The flesh profiteth nothing. Oh, will you not understand my speech, that my flesh and my blood are pointing to a spiritual reality and truth concerning me? What is it? The living bread, the bread that came down from heaven. The bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. He’s going to give his life for the life of the world. What does he mean? What is the provision that Christ has made, that God has made in Christ? It is his life. That is, he who has that life, which was his, the Son of God taking our nature, it’s pointing to his becoming man. He’s taking our nature. He’s taking our flesh, our bone of our bone. Flesh of our flesh is coming down from heaven into the world. And from the moment he came into the world, he is that holy, righteous, pure, sinless one. And his life is without sin, fulfilling all righteousness. It becomes, as he said, to fulfill all righteousness. I came not to destroy the law, he says later. Think not that I am come to destroy the law of the prophets. I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. I am come to fulfill it, myself, in my life, in every single act and step of obedience. When he comes into the world, he saith, To do thy will I take delight, O thou my God that art. Yea, that most holy law of thine I have within my heart. A pure, immaculate, perfect person, the Son of God in our nature, doing the will of his Father, every thought, every disposition of his heart, who is the man that shall ascend into the hill of God, who within his holy place shall have a firm abode, whose hands are clean, whose heart is pure, and unto vanity who hath not lifted up his soul, nor sworn deceitfully, he from the eternal shall receive the blessing him upon and righteousness, even from the God of his salvation. And that’s the perfect obedience of the life, the conformity to the law of God, the righteousness, the righteousness of God manifest, made known now in the fullness of time, God sending forth his Son, the bride of a woman, made under the law, to work out her righteousness, to do the will of God, keep the law of God, to magnify the law of God, to honor it in every detail. My flesh and my blood, and my blood is drink indeed. The bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world, not just his incarnation, his active obedience, his fulfilling of the law, but his suffering, the penalty, his enduring the penalty, due to his people for their sins, the curse of the law, the Son of Man bearing the curse, the second Adam, who came to bless, and there’s no blessing without removing the curse, and so he must be made a curse for them. And he is brought into that low condition, made under the law, to redeem them that are under the law, to save them from the penalty and the curse of it. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, and so his flesh and his blood, are his life and his atoning death, his sin satisfying, his sin paying death, his just as satisfying death, a sacrifice for sin, a substitute in the place of the guilty, for the just, for the unjust, and it’s that whole obedience to the will of his Father, in doing his Father’s will, in giving his life a ransom, that is the righteousness that God has provided. My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven, has given it to you in the coming of Christ. As God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, and all the glory of that person, as the Son of God that he is, we might say is in the warp and woof of that garment of salvation, that robe of righteousness, which is prepared for his people. It is the righteousness of God manifest. Now the righteousness of God is manifest, witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, that is the righteousness of the Son of God, in our nature, his obedience, his satisfaction, his death, in the room, in the place of his people, doing for them what they could not do, and God is pleased for his righteousness’ sake, is well pleased with it. He doesn’t magnify the Law, he makes it honourable. He is the propitiation for the sins of his people. What does the word mean, children? It’s always useful if you hear a word that is perhaps a difficult word to understand, it’s in the Bible, and you wonder what it means, pursue after the question, what does it mean? And you might get more light the next time you hear it, on the glorious significance of it. The word propitiation means to appease, to appease God, to please him with our sacrifice, to remove his anger, to take away his wrath, to remove that which is coming between us and him, so that we can have access again to him, and he is the propitiation, Christ is the propitiation for our sins, and that is the blessed provision, the flesh that is meat indeed, and the blood that is drink indeed, the flesh that he gives for the life of the world, he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. He will not come into condemnation, he will not perish, but he will have everlasting life. He who eats and drinks of this, what does he mean? He who has it, he who receives it, he who takes it, who has it for himself, like a man would who eats bread and drinks, drinks wine, he lives by it. He that eateth me shall live by me.
III. They Who Receive Righteousness
Well, that’s the third thing we were going to mention. It is they who receive it. These are the disciples, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. They have tasted that the Lord is gracious. They have come to him, that’s what he said to the Jews, he that cometh to me shall never hunger, he that believeth in me shall never thirst. That’s what it means to eat and to drink, it’s to come to him and to believe on him, to receive the message, to receive the provision, to receive it and to appropriate it, to take it to ourselves, to believe on him in a way of receiving and resting and trusting to his righteousness for acceptance with God, to his satisfaction for sin, for the pardon of our transgressions. Whosoever believeth on him, trusting in his righteousness, in his obedience, in his satisfaction, oh, they are satisfied with this, in this way they are accepted as righteous in God’s sight. They are received, they are brought into the favor of God, they are brought into communion with God. Oh, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye by and eat. Yea, come by wine and milk without money, without price. Don’t spend money for that which is not bread, it’s figurative language again. Don’t spend money for that which is not bread, your labor for that which satisfieth not. Do not think for a moment that your little efforts at righteousness and law keeping are going to match the high and holy standards of the law of God. They will not. Spending money for that which is not bread, your labor for that which satisfies not, hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good. Let your soul delight itself in fatness, incline your ear, come unto me. Here in your soul shall live its describing faith, the faith that God’s people have, who receive and rest on Christ, who, as it were, eat his flesh, and drink his blood, so that they might have life, life, eternal life, spiritual, heavenly, eternal life, deliverance from the wrath to come, salvation from the condemnation of the law of God. That’s what the children of God have. They came to have a hunger and a thirst by way of the law of God convicting, convincing, of their need of a righteousness, and that they had no righteousness of their own, but they were brought to see the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were enlightened in the truth of this, that Christ Jesus is their righteousness, the Lord, our righteousness. That was the name by which he would be called, Jehovah Tzenkenu, the Lord, our righteousness. And they received and rested on him alone for salvation. Oh, that’s the great question on a day of self-examination. Are you trusting to that righteousness? Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access into this grace wherein we stand. By faith, receiving, resting on the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s what Peter says, it’s, if so be ye have tasted, ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious to whom coming. You’ve come to him and you’ve tasted. It is a willing coming. They are made willing to come. They are brought to an end of their own righteousness. They cannot trust for any longer in their own efforts and their own attainments. They have come to an end of themselves. I call to mind the days of old to meditate I use on all thy works upon the deeds I have thy hands to muse. My hands to thee I stretch. My soul thirsts as dry lands for thee. Were you ever brought to stretch out your hand to receive such a glorious provision, haste, Lord, to hear my spirit fails. Hide not thy face from me, lest, like to them I do become, that go down to the dust. And more, let me thy kindness hear, for in thee do I trust. That’s the relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ and his people. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and no man comes but the Father draws. They are drawn unto him. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And this is the manner in which they come on the foundation, on the warrant of his gracious invitation, his invitation and his offer to them. Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out. Are you here tonight and you’re standing at a distance, aloof, unwilling, unpersuaded? Perhaps you’re saying, Oh, must thou persuadest me to be a Christian? When we reason with you of righteousness and of temperance, your own sinfulness and unrighteousness, yes, and of judgment to come, perhaps the Word of God makes you tremble at times. But, ah, you’re saying, at a more convenient season I will call for thee. I’m not going to close with Christ tonight. I’m not going to abandon my own efforts and my own goodness and my own morality and my own reformations. I’m only young. Leave me to live my life a little bit more first and then maybe I’ll come to Christ later on. Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts. Here is a provision, friend, that will meet the needs of your soul for time and for a never-ending eternity. And it’s as freely available as, say, the very air you breathe, the water you drink. Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out. O, taste and see that God is good, who trusts in Him is blessed. Stretch forth your hand. Receive, receive. That’s what faith is doing. Coming to me, he shall never hunger. Believing on me, he shall never thirst. And the soul that is receiving Christ by faith, God accepts them as righteous in His sight only for that righteousness, not because their faith isn’t earning anything. It’s Christ’s obedience and Christ’s righteousness that earns the favor of God, that purchases God’s favor. It’s as though the sluices of mercy are opened up, the floods of mercy flow out. On that basis, God is satisfied in respect of that sinner, that Christ answers for them in heaven. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. Oh, what a relief! What a liberty from the curse! What a relief from bondage to their own efforts and their own righteousness a justified sinner has. And they have a right to that relief and that liberty. They may, in all the fears and terrors of the law and the fright that they’re in in pursuing after it, in coming to Christ for it, they may not see just how glorious it really is, but they’ve tasted it and they cannot do without it now. They cannot live without it. They know that there is no righteousness of their own that they can present before God. They have no confidence in themselves. They are rejoicing in this, that there is a way of access now open to them to come near to God, to stand in grace and in rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.
IV. The Consequent Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness
And so they are here described in this manner, blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness. That, we might say, sums up the entirety of their religion. It sums up their whole disposition, their whole attitude, their whole character. We might say their whole approach to God and the things of God and the worship of God and the law of God and the religion of God. It is this, that I might be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law. I’m done with that. I know there’s no standing for me on that foundation, but on this I stand, that I might be found with His righteousness, that righteousness which is by faith. And that’s the desire that is here described. They have a desire to know more of this righteousness. They hunger and thirst after it and that, the desire to discover and to see and to be acquainted with not only its nature, its value, its preciousness, its perfection, its glory, its acceptableness to God, how pleasing to Heaven it is, but they’re desiring to learn about the benefits that flow from it to them. They want to know what pardon of sin is like. They want to know the experience of free pardon and forgiveness. Oh, blessed is the man to whom is freely pardoned all the transgression he has done. The words are so sweet and lovely, but oh, that I would know it, that I would know him, and that I would know a sealed pardon, that I would know what it tastes like to have my sins, which are many, forgiven me for Jesus’ sake. They want to know that they’re justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. They want to know their sonship, their adoption into the family and their right to all the privileges. That’s their hunger, their thirst. Yes, and it’s accompanied with this, a new, oh, a new wonderful longing and a new desire and a new willingness and a new light in their minds and a new affections towards God and the things of God. Yes, and towards the very law of God, that law which was against them, that law which was condemning them, that law which was bringing them under darkness and bondage and the curse. Ah, now they delight in that law after the inward man. They desire to be keeping the law, far from putting it away as though it were of no value and interest to them. No, they desire to walk now in the way of these commandments. Oh, let my footsteps in thy word, are I still ordered be. A new longing for conformity to it. A new desire, new affections, new hunger and thirst after. Yes, the righteousness which is imputed to them, put to their account, but a new desire also for the righteousness which He works in them. A desire after that. That’s what the Saviour was saying in the chapter we were reading. Those who come to Him, He said, will never hunger. Those who believe on Him will never thirst. The desire of the people of God, the bread that came down from heaven, which if a man eat, he will live forever. As the living, he that eateth my flesh, he says, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him. It’s as though Christ is now working life inwardly as well as bringing them into the favor of God and acceptance with God. He dwells in them. As the living Father has sent me and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. Yes, there’s a life of justification, a life of in the favor of God, but there’s a life of sanctification too. A new obedience, a new desire after new obedience. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. There will be a new channel of their obedience, a new principle behind their obedience, a new spring of it. Christ himself, depending on him and his resources and his grace and the grace of that mercy and covenant which God has entered into with the returning sinner who is accepted in Christ. He is promising to supply all his needs and all his provisions. It’s a daily supply. It’s a feast. It’s food for the soul that will nourish the soul and nourish them in righteousness and in holiness that they might live before him in righteousness and in holiness all the days of their life. And so there will be daily endeavors after that righteousness, constantly pursuing it, seeking after it. And though it will cost them much persecuted for righteousness’ sake, they are not to fear. He is going to bring them to the end of life’s journey and they are to be found at last in him. They are to be complete in him. They shall be filled. In the Lord have I righteousness and strength. Righteousness, the ground of their acceptance. Strength, that grace sufficient to bring them through this world and to conform them to the righteousness of the law of God.
V. The Blessedness of Being Filled
Well, that’s the blessedness of such as have this righteousness. The Jews were saying it’s a hard saying. Who can hear it? But to whom shall we go? The disciples of Christ are saying thou art the words of eternal life. We are satisfied with the abundance of thy grace, with the goodness of thy house. That’s what satisfies our souls when we hear the words of eternal life. We believe and we’re sure that thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. We can look to no other. There’s no other righteousness we can trust. There’s no other salvation we can depend on. There’s no other savior we can turn to. To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life and thou hast all the resources. Oh, what a blessed people who are living a life like that. They are no longer going about to establish their own righteousness. They go down to their house justified, not boasting of their own goodness, but living poor and needy, living with a consciousness of their dependence, asking their daily bread spiritually from the glorious resources that are in the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the people of God in this world. The great question for us is this, are we of them? Do we know that fellowship with Christ whereby we sit at the table of the gospel and feast on him? We are satisfied with him. It’s what we desire to taste, anew and afresh. It’s what brings us to the house of God and his worship. Yes, it’s what brings us to a communion season. It’s the same food on the table of the Lord, the Lord’s Supper. This is my body that is broken for you. This cup is the New Testament and my blood that is shed for you. If you’ve tasted of it in the gospel, you are to taste it and remember it and keep it in remembrance and honor him as the one who has given it to you. My flesh is meat indeed. My blood is drink indeed. It’s to taste of the grace, to taste of the truths, to receive the truths, to depend upon the righteousness and the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s all your salvation. It’s all your desire and you are truly blessed. Oh, greatly blessed the people are. The joyful sound that know in the Lord have I righteousness and strength, the son of righteousness. It’s in that figure as well to you that fear my name shall the son of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. This is where you’ll find healing for your diseases, for your infirmities, for your sicknesses, for your sorrows, for your grief, for your fears, for your temptations. The son of righteousness arising on your soul with healing. The rays of that glorious person and that finished work that he accomplished, that death that he died, the influences of it, the benefits of it, the warmth of it, the comfort of it, the joy of it, the peace that accompanies it and flows from it, the influences of grace to make you live in a righteous manner, to prepare and fit you for heaven. All is in Christ, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. May the Lord bless His word.
Speaker: Rev David Campbell
Congregation Santa Fe
Text: Matthew 5:6
Date: 6 June 2025
Series: Texas Communion June 2025