• The Beatitudes - Day 6

    <br />A Hunger for Righteousness

  • Read the fourth beatitude below. What is the characteristic of the one God approves.

  • Matthew 5:3-6

    Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

    Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

    Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

    Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

  • What is righteousness?

  • The Beatitudes - Day 6

    <br />A Hunger for Righteousness

  • D.A. Carson says righteousness in the book of Matthew is ‘a pattern of life in conformity to God’s will.’ (D.A. Carson, The Sermon on the Mount, 25). Christians are those who hunger and thirst to live God pleasing lives.

  • Notice what Jesus doesn’t say. He doesn’t say, "blessed are those who do righteousness." That would be something we can control. He says something beyond our ability to do. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." Hunger has to do with our desires, not our decisions. It is either there or it isn’t, and if it isn’t there, you can’t decide it to be there. You can’t choose to switch on hunger like you can a light bulb.

  • How do you think we can get a hunger for righteousness?

  • The Beatitudes - Day 6

    <br />A Hunger for Righteousness

  • We get a clue from Romans 6:17-18. In this passage the Apostle Paul describes the change that has happened to Christians.

  • Romans 6:17-18 But thanks be to God, that you who once were slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

  • What is this change?

  • Imagine you found a non-Christian and asked him if he was a slave of sin. What do you think he would say?

  • He would probably something like this. "I’m not a slave of anything. Nobody makes me do what I do. I do what I want to do."

  • In a sense he is right. The slavery of sin is not the kind of slavery where we have a master forcing us against our will. Sin works by producing in us sinful desires so that we willingly follow sin into sin. As slaves of sin, we sin from the heart.

  • But Paul says that Christians are no longer slaves of sin. We have been set free from sin and have become slaves to a new master, namely righteousness.

  • This means that something has happened to us so that we now have new desires; desires for righteousness. Notice Paul says we have become obedient from the heart. Our new slavery isn’t against our will because we have new hearts that want to do righteousness.

  • How did this change happen? Look back at Romans 6:17-18. Who does Paul give the credit to?

  • Hungering for righteousness doesn’t earn salvation from God; it is the evidence God has already begun His work of salvation in you. This is the hunger test. What do you hunger for?

  • The Beatitudes - Day 6

    <br />A Hunger for Righteousness

  • What blessing do those who hunger and thirst for righteousness receive?

  • Matthew 5:6

    Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

  • This happens in part now as we grow and mature to become more and more like Jesus. But we will only be satisfied in full when Jesus returns and we are perfected in Christlikeness. 

  • The Beatitudes - Day 6

    <br />A Hunger for Righteousness

  • In this meditation we have seen that the fourth characteristic of the one who is approved by God is a hunger and thirst for righteousness. This is the person who has been given a new obedient heart by God.


    In the next meditation, we will look at the fifth characteristic of the one who God approves.


    Until then may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 


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