“The Beatitudes” series: (post #4)

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.” (Matthew 5:6, N.K.J.V.)

With the fourth Beatitude from Matthew’s account of The Sermon on the Mount, we come to another difference between Matthew’s version of the sermon and Luke’s version of it. You might recall that Matthew quotes Jesus’ first Beatitude as, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” while Luke quotes it as, “Blessed are you poor…” Well, similarly, Matthew lists “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” as being Beatitude #4, while Luke’s account puts “Blessed are you who hunger now…” as being Beatitude #2. As for the reward promised in both versions, it is the same in that the believer will be filled.

As I explained in my post about that first Beatitude, the simple explanation for any and all differences between Matthew’s version of The Sermon on the Mount and Luke’s version of it is that Jesus preached the sermon (or parts of it) on at least two separate occasions in different settings to different audiences. Evidently, He preached the Matthew version exclusively to His disciples while He was sitting atop a mountain, and He preached the Luke version to not only those same disciples but also to a great multitude of people while He was standing on a level site. And since many individuals in that great multitude were no doubt literally poor (Luke’s Beatitude #1), literally hungry (Luke’s Beatitude #2), and well acquainted with crying literal tears (Luke’s Beatitude #3), it would have made sense for Jesus to speak directly to those needs.

However, for the purposes of this entire series and this specific post, I’m sticking primarily with the Matthew version of the sermon because it offers the most Beatitudes. So, with this in mind, I’m going to build this post around Christ’s words, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” (N.K.J.V., emphasis mine). That’s why I’ve entitled the post “Righteousness & You.”

I’ve been a pastor a long time, long enough to have learned some things about professing Christians. One thing I’ve learned is that not many of them hunger and thirst for righteousness. How rare are such Christians? They are so rare that when you do come across one, you are actually taken aback by how much he or she stands out from the crowd. Your reaction is, “Wow, now that’s the way this Christianity thing is supposed to work. That’s the kind of person it’s rumored to produce.”

I take no pleasure in reporting that a high percentage of professing Christians are only interested in living righteously enough to keep God from getting too ticked off at them. The time they spend in prayer is minimal. Their Bible study is barely a blip on the radar. They attend church only if all the planets align and the creeks don’t rise. They give sparingly, even begrudgingly (2 Corinthians 9:6-7) of their finances. They’ve never witnessed to anyone.

Even the professing Christians who do better in some of these areas typically fall short when it comes to thoroughly repenting of sins and making needed changes in their lives. I’ve known professing Christians who were at church every time the doors were open, but they were petty, bitter people who refused to forgive any perceived slight. I’ve known others who made prayer a vital part of their lives but didn’t mind engaging in premarital sex or “shacking up.” Others would give some money to the church but spend even more on alcohol or drugs. To all of these people, the idea of hungering and thirsting for righteousness was foreign. They had just enough religion to keep them at peace with themselves and certainly didn’t have a burning desire for anything more.

Imagine that a man who hasn’t eaten for two days gets the opportunity to sit down at a buffet filled with delicious food. The way that man’s eyes dance over that food is the way the Christian’s eyes should dance over righteousness. The way that man craves that food is the way the Christian should crave righteousness.

Or imagine a woman who has been stranded in the desert for hours. When she is rescued, a rescue worker hands her a bottle of water. At that moment, there is nothing on earth she wants more than that water. That’s how the Christian should thirst for righteousness.

Christian, when you are obsessively hungering and thirsting for righteousness — when righteousness is what you are chasing in life — you won’t have to be goaded into attending church. You won’t have to be begged to pray. Your pastor won’t have to chide you into Bible study. It won’t take a ten-sermon series on stewardship to get you to give generously. You won’t have to be coerced into telling others about Jesus. All of that will come as naturally to you as breathing. It will flow effortlessly out of your hungering and thirsting for righteousness. 1 John 2:29 describes this as “practicing” righteousness:

If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him (1 John 5:1; John 3:1-8, N.K.J.V.).

Furthermore, in the fourth of the Beatitudes, Jesus promises that your pursuit of righteousness will not be in vain. He says you shall be filled. I see a two-fold meaning in this promise. First, it only makes sense that the more you devote your life to righteousness, the more righteousness will be exhibited in your life. Second, in regards to your eternal standing with God, the moment you realize your life is stained by unrighteousness and you place saving belief in Jesus, God actually imparts His spotless righteousness to you (Romans 1:16-17; 3:21-26; Philippians 3:7-9). That is an even more important filling.

So, Christian, how hungry are you? How thirsty are you? Are you burdened enough about your level of righteousness to do some repenting? Will you commit to practicing more righteousness in your daily life? When you get hungry and thirsty enough to actually make some changes in how you conduct yourself, you’ll find Jesus standing ready to help you. He’ll be right there with a never-ending buffet and a bottomless well. But you’ll never get to enjoy the blessings of that buffet or that well as long as you are satisfied with the amount of righteousness you currently have.