IV. The Honestly Hungry
Verse 6 says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” When a person sees his morally bankrupt position before God and mourns his sin, he understands that he has no personal righteousness. He recognizes that God requires righteousness in order to enter into His kingdom, so he longs for, begs for, and greatly desires personal righteousness. Jesus says these people hunger and thirst for it. We would call them the honestly hungry. They know what they need and hunger and thirst for it. These honestly hungry people come to understand three things about God’s righteousness.
A. They see their need for personal righteousness.
The first thing they come to understand is their need for personal righteousness. If God is going to receive you into His kingdom then you must possess perfect righteousness. For the Scripture says, “The righteous scepter (staff) is the scepter of His kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.” And in Romans 14:17, Paul says, “The kingdom of God is… righteousness.” God will not allow anyone into His righteous kingdom without righteousness. One must be morally perfect to enter into the kingdom. His law, written in our hearts, has shown us the standard. The book of Revelation speaks of those who are left outside: “The cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” The ones who recognize their moral bankruptcy will see that they desperately need righteousness. They understand that they cannot produce the righteousness God requires and so hunger and thirst for it from God.
Even Jesus described this need for absolute righteousness in this chapter in Matthew. In verse 20 He says, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” What a statement this was. Think of the most religiously astute people you know. They labor over trying to do everything right. These were the Pharisees. They were meticulous in trying to keep the Law. And yet Jesus said you won’t enter into heaven unless your righteousness exceeds theirs. That meant that those religious people weren’t going to get into the kingdom either. How righteous then do you need to be to enter into God’s kingdom? At the end of chapter 5 Jesus states it most plainly: “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Why do you need to possess this perfect righteousness? As Paul said in Acts 17:31, God “has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness.” If you do not possess this righteousness you will be condemned along with the cowardly, unbelieving, immoral liars who will inhabit the lake of fire.
B. They receive the provision for personal righteousness.
So how do these morally bankrupt come into this blessed condition in which they (of all people) inherit the kingdom of heaven? They receive the provision for personal righteousness.
Understand that God in His justice must punish sin. But God, in His great mercy and love, would not require personal righteousness from us, separated from Him because of our transgressions, without making provision for us to receive it.
And so those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are the ones who receive this personal righteousness. God loves to fulfill the desire for righteousness. Psalm 107:9 says, “For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, and the hungry soul He has filled with what is good.” Throughout the Scripture God speaks of His own desire to provide righteousness and the eternal life that comes with it. In Isaiah 55 God calls out to you who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness. He says, “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” The righteousness that you and I cannot earn He has provided without cost to us. He goes on in Isaiah 55:2b, “Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance.” He is saying, “Come receive this good gift of eternal life and delight in its abundance!” And in verse 3 He says, “Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you.”
It is without money and without cost because that righteousness that God requires
could never come through obedience to Him because you and I are never completely obedient. The apostle Paul said in Gal. 2:21, “If righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.” This provision for righteousness and the eternal life that comes with it is found in Jesus Christ. Paul says in Romans 3, “Apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested… even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe… for all have sinned… being justified (made righteous) as a gift by His grace through the redemption (the payment) which is in Christ Jesus.” Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection was the appropriate sacrifice and payment so that our sin might be washed away and we would be given His righteousness as a gift.
I don’t think there is a much clearer verse than 2 Cor. 5:21 to describe this wonderful truth of the substitution: “God the Father made Jesus Christ the Son who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Substitution illustration – Someone gives you a ticket to a Patriots game. When you go to the gate, does the person ask, “Did you buy this ticket?” No, he doesn’t. He asks, “Do you have a ticket?” Righteousness is the ticket that gives us entrance into the kingdom of heaven. And the price for that righteousness has been paid through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
If this righteousness, this gift of eternal life, is available to you, how then do you receive it? In that same passage in Isaiah 55 that speaks of the free gift to everyone who hungers and thirsts for it, Isaiah says in verses 6-7, “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, and He will abundantly pardon.”
C. They experience the presence of personal righteousness.
When you call upon the Lord and receive the gift of righteousness, you will experience the presence of personal righteousness. When a person sees that what he hungers for is the restoration of his relationship with God, broken because of sin and now brought about through the gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ, he experiences the presence of personal righteousness. In other words, God’s righteousness is not just a characteristic that is given to us, but it is found in the person of the Holy Spirit who indwells us.
In the gospel of John, Jesus speaks of this indwelling Spirit for those who thirst for righteousness. In chapter 7:37-39, John says, “Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, “From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”’” John goes on to explain what exactly Jesus meant for those who were thirsty for God’s righteousness and came to receive it through faith in Christ. John noted, “But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive.” The Spirit of righteousness assuages, quenches that thirst for righteousness, because He is the Holy Spirit. He is the one who makes us holy before God.
It is His Spirit, in sealing us for the day of redemption, who testifies with our human spirit that we are children of God, as the Apostle Paul declares in Romans 8:16. Realizing all that God has done for us does not puff us up but humbles us to realize all that God has done for us in Christ Jesus. He has lavished upon us all the riches of heaven. He has come to dwell within us. He has made us perfect in His sight.
This is why the blessing of satisfaction is given when we come to the source of righteousness, Jesus Christ. It is interesting to note that three of these key words in this verse (hunger, thirst, satisfaction) are found in John 6. Earlier in the chapter Jesus had just finished feeding 5,000 with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. They ate until they were full. The next day when the people caught up with Jesus, who had given them the slip temporarily, He said in verse 26, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled (satisfied).” And in verse 35 He says, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” Jesus is the solution to our righteousness problem. If we rest in Him, our hunger and thirst will be satisfied.
If you are hungry and thirsty for righteousness you know you need to call upon the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. What would hinder you? Don’t allow the allure of the world to keep you from hungering and thirsting for the satisfaction that only God can give by the righteousness of His Son. Enter into this blessed condition of one who is satisfied in the righteousness God provides.