Now, please turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5. We have been going through
the gospel of Matthew since November, or end of November, and we are now in the Beatitudes,
in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' Discourse on Righteousness, Matthew 5, verses 1 to 12.
Let me pray for the reading and preaching of God's word.
Heavenly Father, as we sang, do give us ears to hear and eyes to see.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be pleasing in your sight.
O Lord, our rock and redeemer, instill in us as we hear you speak to us from your word
and insatiable hunger for righteousness.
Make us more like Jesus, our Lord.
For in his precious name we now pray. Amen.
If you are able, please stand to honor God as we read his word.
Matthew 5, verses 1 to 12.
I'll be focusing on verse 6 today, but I'll read all of 1 to 12.
Verse 6.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you,
falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,
for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
This is God's holy and authoritative word.
You may be seated.
In a now famous commencement speech that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005, the founder of Apple,
he quoted the words from the final issue of the Whole Earth Catalog,
which was an American counterculture magazine that Steve Jobs read religiously as a college-aged lad.
And the farewell word of this magazine was this.
Stay hungry.
Stay foolish.
That's the concluding advice that Jobs gave these Stanford grads.
Stay hungry.
In other words, don't ever be satisfied.
Stay hungry for more.
Stay hungry for new ideas, new breakthroughs, new accomplishments.
And this idea of staying hungry has a lot of currency in our culture today.
A coach and motivational speaker, Marcus Hungry, has this popular video that's been put into many different kinds of montages,
and it's been viewed millions of times.
And it says this.
Go ask any athlete, actor, musician, philanthropist.
It doesn't matter.
You ask anybody who is a champion.
And the difference between them and their opponent is that they were more hungry for it.
The slogan, stay thirsty, my friends.
You guys have heard this before?
Popularized, I think this was maybe in the 90s.
Maybe in the 2000s.
By a beer commercial.
It says, stay thirsty.
Stay thirsty in your studies, in your job.
Keep pressing.
Keep pursuing.
The people of this world are hungry and thirsty for many things.
And Jesus tells us in Matthew 5, verse 6,
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst.
But the hunger and thirst that Jesus talks about is not about money, fame, or sex.
It's not about staying hungry for research innovations or career breakthroughs.
And the fulfillment of our dreams and aspirations.
That's not what Jesus is talking about.
Jesus says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
The people of this world are never satisfied.
The people who stay hungry in this world are not blessed or happy.
There's another way we can translate the word blessed.
Because they are not hungry for the right thing.
It says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
To understand this, we're going to explore what righteousness means first.
And then we'll talk about what hunger means.
And then we'll talk about what being satisfied means.
Because that's the promise.
For they shall be satisfied.
When we first started with the Beatitudes a few weeks ago,
we observed some general patterns that I want to remind you of.
The structure of the passage.
We noted that there are eight Beatitudes.
Because verses 11 and 12 are an expansion of Beatitude number 8 in verse 10.
We know that because they have the same theme of being persecuted for righteousness sake.
And because verses 11 and 12 start to use the second person pronoun.
Your, as opposed to they, which is the form of the rest of the Beatitudes.
So it's an expansion.
This structure is confirmed by the repetition of the promise.
There is the kingdom of heaven at the beginning and end of the Beatitudes.
In verse 3 and verse 10.
This is the only repeated promise in the Beatitudes.
And it's the only one stated in the present tense.
Which makes it stand out.
So that serves to bookend the entire Beatitudes.
And it confirms that there are eight Beatitudes total.
We also noticed one more important feature.
Here, both verse 6 and verse 10 mention righteousness.
Verse 6 says,
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Meaning those who lack righteousness.
But long for righteousness.
And then verse 10 says,
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.
Meaning those who already have righteousness.
Who are full of righteousness.
And therefore are persecuted on account of that righteousness.
So this repetition of the word righteousness divides in half the Beatitudes.
And you will notice that the first four Beatitudes all speak to the lack of something.
The poverty.
The poor in spirit.
Mourn because you lost something.
You grieve something.
You're meek because you're not taking initiative and taking things to your own hands.
You hunger and thirst for righteousness.
While the second half all describe being full or overflowing with something.
You are full of mercy.
So you show mercy to others.
You are pure in heart.
You have an undiluted heart from which you can see with which you can see God.
You overflow as a peacemaker because you have the peace of Christ.
And you are persecuted for righteousness because you have righteousness already.
So there's a logical flow to these Beatitudes.
And that gives us a clue to the meaning of the word righteousness.
In verse 10, righteousness does not refer to God's righteousness.
Much like it says that we are persecuted on account of our righteous acts.
Much like the prophets who went before us.
So it's speaking of human righteousness.
Righteousness is a key word in the Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew uses it more than any other Gospel writers.
All of them combined actually.
He uses it more than them.
And most of those uses of the word righteousness occurs in the Sermon on the Mount.
Later in chapter 6 verse 1, Jesus says,
Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.
For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
So here again, the word righteousness refers to the righteousness that we practice.
That we do, that others can observe.
So this is not God's righteousness, but our righteousness.
What then constitutes righteousness?
Jesus summarizes it at the beginning and the end of his Sermon on the Mount.
At the beginning he says this, I think I have this to show in Matthew 5, 17 to 20.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter.
You will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Once again, righteousness is something that we do since it's compared to what the scribes and the Pharisees do.
Examined in this light, righteousness means obeying the commandments of God.
Obeying the teachings of God and teaching others to do the same.
Righteousness entails the obedience, the observance of the entire revealed law of God.
His scriptures.
His word.
Now, that doesn't mean that we have to keep all of the Old Testament laws in their original form.
Just in case some of you guys have that question as I'm saying this.
Because Jesus says that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill them.
Jesus has fulfilled the law.
He is the key, the legend by which we are to interpret and apply all of the scriptures, including all of the Old Testament.
As another preacher has used this analogy before of Jesus being the prism through which when the light of God's word is shown through it,
it reveals the true colors, the entire spectrum of light.
And that's how we are to interpret and understand and apply the word of God.
And that's how Jesus functions.
The key that brings together the New Testament and the Old Testament.
And so Jesus reveals to us the law's true intent, its end, its purpose.
And Jesus summarizes the law of God at the end of the Sermon on the Mount this way in Matthew 7, 12.
So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets.
So it's the golden rule.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and you should love your neighbor as yourself.
That's the summary of the law and what righteousness means and what righteousness looks like.
So if that's righteousness, then let's talk about hunger.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Hunger and thirst are sensations that involve two things.
First, it's the lack of something.
And second, it's the longing for something.
You need both in order to feel hungry or thirsty.
Right?
I don't own a sports car.
But I also don't have any desire for one.
So I'm not hungry for sports cars.
Right?
So you need to have the lack of it, but also a longing for it.
It's the physical need that our body has and then the signal that the brain sends, that you feel the sensation.
It's both a lack and a longing.
So likewise, hunger and thirst for righteousness means that, one, we don't have righteousness.
We hunger for righteousness because there is a lack of righteousness in our lives.
If you are resistant to that idea, let me show you from God's word.
Romans 7, 18, Paul says,
For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.
Ephesians 2 says that we all were once dead in our trespasses and sins and were made by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
In Genesis 6, 5, God's assessment of fallen humanity is this.
The thoughts of his heart.
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
This is what we mean by total depravity or the pervasiveness of evil that taints everything that happens and everything that we do.
We are not righteous.
And if you think that you are righteous on your own, apart from Jesus, then you are satisfied with your own righteousness.
You are not a Christian.
One thing that a Christian cannot be is to be a person who is satisfied with his own righteousness.
Maybe you're not a Christian, but you think that you are a pretty good person.
You think that maybe you can make the cut.
Let's measure ourselves now up against the standard of righteousness that Jesus teaches and expounds in the Sermon on the Mount.
There's a focus on righteousness throughout the Sermon on the Mount.
That's a key theme.
And these are some of the things that Jesus says.
Well, I mentioned to you, I read earlier from the whole passage, and we saw in verse 1 that Jesus goes up on the mountain to begin his teaching.
And I mentioned to you a few weeks ago that that's not incidental.
Jesus goes up on the mountain to receive, to give the new law of God, the new commandments of God, in the same way that Moses in the Old Covenant, in Old Testament times, went up on the mountain to receive from God and to relay the Ten Commandments to the people of God.
And that's why Jesus, throughout the Sermon on the Mount, repeatedly says,
You have heard that it was said to the people of old.
But now I say to you, he builds this contrast between how the old saints had understood it or misunderstood some things, and then how the new saints, how we ought to live now.
He's bringing the Old Testament to its intended end and purpose.
He's fulfilling it.
For example, the sixth commandment, the sixth of the Ten Commandments, says,
You shall not murder.
If you interpret that narrowly, I think we're probably all in the clear, I hope.
However, Jesus says in Matthew 5, 21,
According to Jesus, sinful, hate-filled, anger toward another person is murder within the heart.
How many of us are guilty of that?
All of us.
Whether you have that kind of explosive, hot kind of anger, or the brooding, cold kind of anger, we have all had that.
The seventh of the Ten Commandments says,
You shall not commit adultery.
Most of us are probably clear on that one, too.
However, Jesus says in Matthew 5, 27 and 28,
You have heard that it was said,
You shall not commit adultery.
But I say to you, that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent,
has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
According to Jesus, lustful glances of the eyes and the fantasies of the mind are already adultery of the heart.
How many of us are guilty of that?
Once again, if you're an able-bodied adult, probably all of us.
The third of the Ten Commandments says,
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Interpret it narrowly.
That means to keep all the oaths that you have made in the name of the Lord.
But then later, Jesus says in Matthew 5, 33, 37,
Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old,
You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.
But I say to you, do not take an oath at all.
Let what you say be simply yes or no.
Anything more than this comes from evil.
Jesus says that our words should be so transparently truthful,
that we should be characterized by such integrity in our lives,
that a simple yes or no carries as much weight as swearing,
taking an oath in the name of God.
How many of us are guilty of letting our words fall to the ground
with broken promises, lies,
saying yes when we mean no or no when we mean yes.
We can go down the list of the Ten Commandments,
and if we are honest with ourselves,
we have broken every single one.
That is the sad state of our own righteousness.
We have no excuse for self-righteousness,
because there is no righteousness within ourselves,
and that means all of us should hunger and thirst for righteousness.
We must be people who are poor in spirit,
people who mourn, people who are meek,
and recognize our own spiritual poverty.
However, despite this reality of our spiritual neediness,
not all of us,
in fact, hunger and thirst for righteousness.
That's because, as I said,
hunger entails both the lack and the longing.
There is the objective hunger,
the state of being hungry,
and the subjective hunger of feeling hungry.
The body's need for food,
the brain's signal for food.
Let me give you an illustration.
One of the daily responsibilities of parenting
is filtering what your kids eat and when.
Because if you don't,
they will eat candies and snacks right before their meals,
whenever they want to,
and then they will lose their appetite
for the nutritious meals that you serve them.
Because of the temporary blood sugar hike or whatever,
you could ask the doctors in the midst how that works.
The same is true in the spiritual realm.
In Mark 4, 19,
Jesus speaks of those who hear the word of God,
but the cares of the world
and the deceitfulness of riches
and the desires for other things
enter in and choke the word,
and it proves unfruitful.
What are the cares of this world
that are right now dulling your spiritual appetite?
Are you weary with care about your job,
about your bank account,
the stock market,
your health,
your future,
politics,
and the state of this world?
Are you consumed with cares
about the clothing you wear,
the food you eat,
and what other people are thinking about you
or saying about you?
Are these things masking your hunger for righteousness?
What about the deceitfulness of riches?
Have you bought into the false promise,
the lie that wealth can buy you security and happiness?
What are these desires for other things
that Jesus speaks of
that can choke out the word?
Is it desire for sex and romance,
for fame and renown,
authority and power?
Maybe it's nothing so grand.
Maybe it's something as simple and small
as a desire for entertainment,
for another show or a movie,
video games,
sporting events,
reading the news,
exploring new music.
Seemingly perfectly harmless things
can do a great deal of spiritual harm
if they spoil our appetite for righteousness,
if they displace our longing
for the things of God.
Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness?
Most of us, thankfully,
have never known desperate hunger or thirst,
but let's try to imagine it for a few moments.
Imagine being so dehydrated
that your throat is parched and dried and cracking
and your lips are cracked
and your mouth is dry,
you have a headache
you're desperate
just for a cup of cold water
to slake your thirst.
Or imagine being so famished,
you've seen pictures of starving children online,
you're emaciated.
You would do anything for a loaf of bread.
You're hungry.
You feel the pangs of hunger.
What would you do to satisfy their hunger?
What would you stop at?
You wouldn't stop at anything
to get food and water in a situation like that.
Nothing else in this world would take precedence
over getting food.
What?
So let me ask you,
do you hunger and thirst for righteousness in that manner?
Are you diligently attending to the means of grace
that God has given us to grow us in righteousness?
Are you reading and meditating on the word of God
as we were singing about earlier,
which teaches us righteousness?
Psalm 119 is full of admonitions about this.
Think about whether you relate to the word of God in this way,
as the psalmist does.
I will praise you with an upright heart
when I learn your righteous rules.
I have stored up your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
Behold, I long for your precepts.
In your righteousness, give me life.
Your testimonies are righteous forever.
Give me understanding that I may live.
Seven times a day,
I praise you for your righteous rules.
Those are the words of a man
who hungers and thirsts for righteousness.
Are you devoted to the word of God?
I will talk about this more when we get there,
but Jesus' discourse on righteousness,
his sermon on the mount,
is structured to bring attention to the Lord's prayer
in Matthew 6, 7 to 16.
That's the structural center
of the entire sermon on the mount.
That's how important prayer is for our righteousness,
for Christian obedience and discipleship.
Are you devoted to prayer?
Is your prayer life characterized by this hunger and thirst?
Do you attend faithfully to the local church
and its worship?
Hebrews 10, 23, 25 says,
that it is by meeting together
and encouraging one another
that we stir up one another
to love and good works.
In other words, toward righteousness.
I'm speaking to the choir here
because you guys are all here.
If the worship gathering of the body of Christ
promotes our righteousness,
if the fellowship of the people of God
promotes our righteousness,
then those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
will not miss the opportunity.
Would a hungry person be too busy
to find the time to eat?
Would a thirsty person be too busy
to find the time to drink?
No, you'd put all the other priorities aside.
Someone's talking to you
and you're really hungry
and you're really thirsty,
you have to go get a sip of water.
Hey, thank you.
That's a very interesting story,
but I'm going to go take a drink.
If we're too busy
to attend to the means
that God has given us
to sanctify us
and to grow us in righteousness,
then it shows we're not hungry
and thirsty for righteousness.
In John 4, Jesus says to Samaritan woman
who is drawing water at the well,
everyone who drinks of the water
will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks of the water
that I will give him
will never be thirsty again.
The water that I will give him
will become in him
a spring of water
welling up to eternal life.
Jesus is telling us
what we should be thirsting for.
In that same passage,
some verses down,
Jesus says,
my food,
when his disciples ask him,
have you gotten food?
Jesus says,
my food is to do the will of him
who sent me
and to accomplish his work.
Jesus says that we should seek righteousness
even more than we seek food.
How many days have we passed
neglecting the pursuit of righteousness
while still eating three square meals a day?
I'm not saying that eating is important.
I eat three meals a day.
But just that our priorities are not right.
This is one of the reasons
why we as a church,
as a whole body,
observe three days of prayer
and fasting once a month.
This Wednesday,
upcoming Wednesday,
is the first Wednesday
of the month of February,
which means starting tomorrow,
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday,
we are encouraging you guys
to fast and to pray.
If it has been a while
since you participated
or you've never fasted before,
take this opportunity to fast.
A typical fast
is to abstain from food
and or drink,
usually food
and then continuing to drink water.
A 19th century,
a South African pastor,
Andrew Murray,
describes fasting
helpfully this way.
We are creatures of the senses.
Our mind is helped
by what comes to us
embodied in concrete form.
Fasting helps to express,
to deepen,
and to confirm the resolution
that we are ready
to sacrifice anything,
to sacrifice ourselves
to attain what we seek
for the kingdom of God.
So then by fasting,
we declare that our hunger
for righteousness
is greater than our hunger
for food,
that we do not live
by bread alone,
but by every word
that proceeds
from the mouth of God.
So consider fasting
for a meal
or for a day
or maybe for all three days
and use that time
to express your hunger
for righteousness
in prayer
and the study
of God's word.
You can fast
from things
other than food also.
Think about the question
that I asked earlier.
what are the desires
for other things,
the deceitfulness
of riches,
the cares of this world
that are choking out
the word of the gospel
in your life.
Ask yourself,
is it social media,
YouTube,
dramas and shows?
Maybe it's ESPN,
video games,
dating apps,
shopping.
Consider fasting
for a time
just to deepen
your conviction,
your resolution
that seeking
the kingdom of God
and his righteousness
is first priority.
Brothers and sisters,
hungering and thirsting
for righteousness
is the way
to be blessed.
I've talked to you
about this,
that blessed
can be translated
as happy
or fortunate.
this blessedness
or happiness
cannot be found
apart from God.
This is very important
for us to get
because everyone
in the world
is seeking happiness
in some shape
or form.
Our country's
declaration of independence
has enshrined
pursuit of happiness
as one of the
inalienable rights
that God has given
to humanity.
This is what people
everywhere are pursuing
but they don't
attain happiness
because they're seeking
happiness apart
from God.
True happiness
can only be found
in God,
in being in right
relationship with God,
in living a life
that is rightly
ordered before God.
So if you want
to be happy,
you must hunger
and thirst
for righteousness
for they are
the happy ones
for they shall
be satisfied.
Seek first
the kingdom of God
and his righteousness
and all these things
will be added to you
as well.
Jesus said
in Matthew 6, 33.
So what are you hungry
for in life?
If people were to
observe your life,
your priorities,
your decisions,
what would they say
you are hungry for?
if we put anything
ahead of God's kingdom
and his righteousness
then we will not
be happy.
For what will it
profit a man
if he gains
the whole world
yet forfeits
his soul?
This is why
we as Christians
are in the gospel
preaching business.
It's good work
to indeed give
hungry people food
and to give thirsty
people water.
That is the way
to obey God's command
to us to love
our neighbors
as ourselves.
We need to
do that.
We need to serve
our neighbors
in those ways.
But we also need
even more importantly
to show people
how to satisfy
their hunger
and thirst
for righteousness.
righteousness.
Because there is
something worse
than physical death.
Eternal damnation.
And there is
something better
than a long
and healthy
and prosperous
life.
Eternal life.
At the heart
of all the problems
in the world
is the lack
of righteousness.
righteousness.
And that brings me
to my final point.
What does it mean
that we shall be
satisfied?
The word
satisfy here
means to feed
or to fill
to satisfaction.
It's speaking
of sufficiency.
Enough.
Plenty.
Abundance.
And that's a
delightful word
for a hungry soul.
So if you feel
that hunger
and thirst
for righteousness,
if you are aware
of your lack
of righteousness
and you long
for more of it,
then this is the good news.
You shall be
satisfied.
But how does that happen?
We can answer
that question
if we first figure out
who is doing
the feeding.
Notice the verb.
It's in the passive voice.
You shall be satisfied.
We are not the ones
who are doing
the feeding.
We are not the ones
who are doing
the filling.
We are not feeding ourselves.
We are not filling ourselves.
We are being satisfied
by someone else.
And this is an example
of the divine passive
when the passive voice
is used
without a subject
explicitly stated.
It often,
the Bible,
refers to
God himself
who is doing
the satisfying
and the filling
and the feeding.
As Psalm 107
verse 9 says,
for the Lord
satisfies the longing soul
and the hungry soul
he fills with good things.
This is the good news
that we proclaim.
Because Jesus
could have said,
blessed
are the righteous.
But instead,
Jesus says,
blessed
are those
who hunger
and thirst
for righteousness.
Jesus could have said,
for they shall
satisfy themselves.
But instead,
he says,
for they shall
be
satisfied.
We don't need
to be full
of our own
righteousness
in order to be
satisfied.
The only people
who are disqualified
from this promise,
from this blessing,
are the self-satisfied,
the self-righteous,
but if you,
in this room
right now,
you recognize
your own
lack of righteousness
and you are longing
for it,
you're hungry
for it,
then you are
blessed,
for you shall
be satisfied.
As I've been
saying for weeks
in this series
in the Beatitudes,
there is a present
and future dimension
to this promise.
The kingdom of God
is already here,
but it is not yet
fully here.
That's why
there's the first
and the last promises
in the present tense,
for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven,
but all the promises
in between are
in the future tense.
They shall be satisfied.
But we know
that there's a present
and future dimension
to this righteousness
as well,
because in verse 10
we have righteousness,
because we're persecuted
because of the righteousness
that we have.
So we already have righteousness,
but yet we do not
have righteousness,
and we shall be
filled,
satisfied.
In theological terms,
this is referring
to God's justification
and his sanctification.
Justification is God's
once for all
judicial pronouncement,
his declaration
of sinners
as righteous.
This is not something
that we earn
or accomplish,
it's something that God
by his divine authority
pronounces,
and we read about that
in Romans 4,
3 to 8.
For what does
the scripture say?
Abraham believed in God,
believed God,
and it was counted
to him as righteousness.
Now to the one
who works,
his wages are not
counted as a gift,
but as his due.
And to the one
who does not work,
but believes in him
who justifies
the ungodly,
his faith is counted
as righteousness.
Just as David
also speaks
of the blessing
of the one
to whom God
counts righteousness
apart from works.
Blessed are those
whose lawless deeds
are forgiven,
and whose sins
are covered.
Blessed is the man
against whom
the Lord
will not count
his sin.
Do you notice
the word blessed
there?
Who are the blessed?
Not those
who have never
done lawless deeds.
They don't exist.
Blessed are those
whose lawless deeds
are forgiven.
Who are the blessed?
Not those
who have never sinned.
Only Jesus
can claim that.
but those
whose sins
have been covered.
Those against whom
God does not
count their sin,
but rather
because of our
faith in Jesus,
because Jesus
died on the cross
for our sins.
Because Jesus
stood in the place
of sinners,
he was condemned
in our place
so that we can be
declared righteous.
The ungodly,
the unrighteous
declared righteous.
that's the blessing
of the gospel
and the promise
of the gospel
so that instead
of hearing the
guilty verdict
that we should
have heard,
we hear
the verdict
of emancipation
and freedom,
righteousness,
innocence,
forgiveness.
righteousness.
That's how
it says
in 1 Corinthians 1-3,
Jesus became
to us
wisdom from God,
righteousness
and sanctification
and redemption.
That's
the once for all
act of what
God has done,
that's justification.
And those
whom God
justifies,
he also
surely
sanctifies.
The Bible
speaks of
sanctification
in a two-fold
sense.
It speaks
of how
we are
once and
for all
immediately
at the
time of
conversion
consecrated
to God
to belong
to him,
to be united
with Christ
through faith.
That happens
once and
for all.
But it also
speaks of
the ongoing
sanctification,
progressive
sanctification,
how we become
more and more
like Christ.
We grow
in our holiness
and in our
righteousness.
How does
that work?
I'll close
with a couple
analogies to
explain to you
what that looks
like.
I've used
this one
before,
the first one.
You can think
of righteousness
of Christ
as this
oversized
hand-me-down
clothes that
you receive
from your
older brother
Jesus.
It's
yours.
He's
given it
to you.
You already
have it.
You're already
wearing it.
No one
can take
that from
you.
You've been
declared
righteous.
You belong
to God.
You belong
to Jesus.
You've been
united with
him.
And yet,
the rest
of our
days,
we grow
into that
and fill
that righteousness
out more
and more.
Justification
and sanctification.
You can
think of it
also as
marriage,
which is
not inappropriate
because we
are described
as the
bride of
Christ.
If you
think about
a newly
wedded couple,
things are a
little awkward
at first.
Think about it,
right?
A man and a
woman who
have lived,
I don't know,
20-something,
30-something
lives,
30-something
years,
on their own,
doing things
that they want
to do,
running their
schedules,
eating things
that they
want to
eat.
And then
they get
married.
And then
you clash.
Things are
not so well
aligned.
But they
are one.
They are all
married.
That's a
permanent
reality.
The covenant
is real.
And yet
they spend
the rest
of their
lives,
the rest
of their
marriage,
figuring it
out.
How to
fit better
together.
That's what
happens with
Jesus as
well.
reason
unknown to
us,
but clear to
the sovereign
grace and
mercy of God,
he has chosen
his people,
chosen us,
to be his
bride,
to be the
bride of
Christ.
And when we
put our
faith in
Jesus, we
are married
to him.
We are the
bride of
Christ.
We already
have the
unbreakable
covenant with
him.
We're justified.
We are
consecrated to
him.
And yet,
the rest of
our days,
every day of
our lives,
we spend
growing and
being more
and more
conformed to
his image,
to his
tastes,
to his
priorities,
to his
body, the
body of
Christ.
So if
you feel
that you
are not
quite fitted,
if you
feel your
profound lack
of righteousness
this morning,
don't let that
discourage you.
You are no
less the
bride of
Christ.
Close with
this hymn,
a few lines
from Charles
Wesley's hymn,
Jesus,
lover of
my soul.
Just and
holy is
thy name.
I am
all unrighteousness.
Vile and
full of
sin I am.
Thou are
full of
truth and
grace.
And that's
why he can
satisfy us
with his
righteousness.
Let's pray.
Okay.