Righteous Hunger
Matthew 5:6
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
We all know people who say that they really want something, but at the same time do absolutely nothing to get it. “I really want to eat healthier” all the while they continue to choose the unhealthiest foods imaginable. “I really want to get more sleep” and yet they continue to stay up late watching TV. How can someone want something, but continue to behave in such a way that they never go after it? The hard truth here is that these people never really wanted the thing they claimed to want in the first place.
So far, in our study of the beatitudes, we have learned that these aphorisms are not one-dimensional promises, but descriptions. Descriptions of the person who has been transformed by the Holy Spirit. They describe the person who has placed their faith in Jesus Christ. The beatitudes describe the character of the Christian.
In our beatitude today we learn that the Christian is, by nature, someone who hungers and thirsts for righteousness. What this means is that the Christian is someone who wants to do good, who wants to walk in the right, who abhors evil and shuns the devil. As the hungry longs for food or the thirsty longs for water, so the Christian longs for righteousness. That is what this beatitude means.
But what does it look like to “hunger and thirst for righteousness”? I think it looks like three things:
1) It Looks Like a Desire to Obey
One of the marks of the Christian life is a desire to be obedient to God’s Word. The Christian is someone who has rejected their past life and lives into their new life in Christ which looks like obedience.
This is a big part of Paul’s argument in Romans when he writes, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Rom. 6:1) Evidently some people amongst the Roman Christians misunderstood the gospel to mean nothing more than a get out of jail free card. Since Jesus had totally forgiven them, they now had a license to do sinful things knowing there would be forgiveness for them on the other side. Yet, listen to Paul’s response to this question, “By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6:2) What Paul is saying here is that to live in such a way is not merely a mistake, but it is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of Christian salvation.
For Paul, salvation is not some trite forgiveness that we can accept without our lives being utterly changed. Salvation is instead more akin to a death and a resurrection. Apart from Christ we were dead in our sins, but when we come to believe in Christ, we are given new life. We are not the same thing that we were before. We are a new thing, a new life. This is why Paul can write in the book of 2 Corinthians, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (5:17). The implication of this is that our old desires towards sinful practices were actually something done away with when we came to know Christ. Salvation includes a renewal of the heart where we no longer want to disobey God’s word but have a desire for obedience.
We do need to be careful though. Even though the Bible clearly teaches us that one of the marks of a true Christian is a desire to obey God’s Word, that does not necessarily mean that we always will. Unfortunately, we will not be completely free from our old self until the dawn of the new creation. Therefore, we still—from time to time—give in to our sinful inclinations and disobey the Lord’s will for our lives. Yet, when we do this, it does not mean we are not a Christian. The mark of the true Christians is a desire to obey. It’s a hunger and thirsting for righteousness. A true Christian is not a perfect Christian.
The true Christian will make mistakes, there can be no doubt about that. But when they do they feel guilt over their sin, they seek the Lord’s forgiveness, they repent of that sin, and they continue living into the new life that they have in Christ.
2) It Looks Like a Hatred of Sin
While a desire to obey is certainly one of the marks of a true Christian. To hunger and thirst for righteousness means more desiring to obey. It also means that you develop a disgust at sin in all of its forms. Something you’ll often hear people say in regard to certain foods is, “it’s an acquired taste.” The Christian has acquired the taste of what is pleasing to the Lord, and to feast on things that do not please God now leave a bad taste in their mouths.
This logic definitely applies to our sin. If we are the type of people who “hunger and thirst for righteousness” then we will also be the type of people who find our own sin abhorrent. We are often told in our culture to not be so hard on ourselves. However, when it comes to our sin, to be hard on yourself, is actually evidence of your hatred over that sin. This is a good thing. We should have a sense of moral outrage over our own sin. That’s what it looks like to be a new creation in Christ.
More than this, we also find the sins around us in the world less and less pleasing. When I was a younger man, I really enjoyed listening to certain types of music that was by no means edifying. However, as I matured in my faith—without even trying—I found those same songs less and less catchy. I found myself turning them off, being revolted by them, and sometimes even angry about the types of things they were talking about. The reason for this change isn’t because I’ve become a grumpy old coot. It’s because as the Lord has worked in my life I am naturally starting to develop a hatred for sin which includes things that glorify sin. A natural outcome of being a Christian is a developing hatred for sin in one’s own life and the world.
3) It Looks Like a Longing for Judgment
One of the results of desiring righteousness is a longing for judgment. When we are given new affections and a desire to be obedient, as well as when we learn to hate the sin that we see in the world, we begin to long for judgement. We want the Lord to return, we want him to exact justice, and we long for him to make things right. This is a part of what it means to “hunger and thirst for righteousness”.
However, we need to consider what this longing for judgement looks like because, truthfully, we can easily misconstrue this desire so that it becomes something ugly. When we say that we long for judgement we are not saying that we have an intense desire to see certain people experience hell. This would be an unbiblical way to look at things. In fact, those groups of people which protest various things and talk as if they are happy about seeing these people experience eternal damnation do not understand the Bible. 2 Peter says, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that we should all reach repentance” (3:9). Even God does not desire that people should perish, but that they should reach repentance.
What is meant when we say that the Christian “longs for judgement” is a desire to see things made right in the world. It is not that particular people should perish, but that God will return, that he will finally deal with evil, and that perfect righteousness will reign in the universe forever. Yes, it is true that the Christian hates evil. Yes, it is true that the Christian hates sin in all of its forms. But, it is also true that the Christian’s response to sin in the world is to preach the Gospel of God’s grace so that evil people might be forgiven and made right with God.
Conclusion:
In this beatitude we learn that the Christian is someone marked by a desire, a hunger and thirst, for righteousness. The Christian will have a love of God that goes so deep that it will change the way they live. The Christian will want to obey God’s Word so much so that they will start to hate sin. Finally, the Christian will hate sin so much that they will long for the day when Jesus will finally set all things right. This is ultimately what it means to long for righteousness.
Yet, more than this, our beatitude promises us that all those who have these characteristics will receive the thing they long for. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). Or, in other words, “If you are the kind of person who longs to obey my word, who hates evil, and can’t wait to see things made right in the world, then you will enjoy eternal life with me.” The true Christian will one day see righteousness reign in the person of Christ, and they will enjoy that reign with Jesus forever.