In the Kingdom Character series, we’ve been looking at the opening verses of the most famous sermon in the Bible, the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus opens this message to His followers with a few short statements that really sum up what it means to participate in the life that Jesus is offering.
Read Matthew 5.6.
Regardless of our spiritual background, we all have one thing in common. We all experience a deep longing in our hearts and souls to be satisfied. It’s a common desire that we all try to satisfy in different ways. For some of us it might be our jobs, for others relationships, or even spending time in nature. There are any number of ways we can try to fill that deep longing.
Question: How do you try to satisfy the hunger that God has put deep within you?
Jesus says that we should hunger and thirst for righteousness. But what does this look like? Righteousness in the context of Jesus’ sermon is all about the kind of lifestyle Jesus is inviting His disciples to live. Throughout the fifth and sixth chapters of Matthew, Jesus gives multiple examples of how to live out this kind of lifestyle.
Read Matthew 5.21–6.4.
Matthew 5.25 tells us that a righteous person doesn’t just avoid getting angry at the difficult people in his or her life. Instead, they actively seek reconciliation with those difficult people. Righteousness isn’t about avoiding difficult people, it’s about moving toward them and pursuing relationships that are honoring to God.
In Matthew 5.28, we see that righteousness isn’t just about avoiding adultery and other sexual impurity. A righteous person models and maintains purity of heart toward the opposite gender. It’s about treating others around us with the dignity and respect they deserve as image bearers of God.
According to Matthew 5.44, a righteous person doesn’t seek to get back at those who hurt them. Instead of seeking revenge, they love the people who caused them pain. Through demonstrating this kind of righteousness—by loving the person who wronged us—we can even change the person’s heart toward us and God.
Matthew 6.2 tells us that a righteous person makes a habit of sharing generously with the poor. Righteousness doesn’t seek to hoard resources but to share them with those who don’t have as much as we do.
In all of these examples, Jesus is calling us to do more than just avoid certain behaviors. He’s calling us to actively live in ways that advance His kingdom on earth. Rather than emphasizing what righteous people don’t do, Jesus invites us to live into something beautiful, compelling, and attractive to the world around us. Jesus is much more “pro” than He is “anti.”
Question: How do these examples of righteousness change your view of what it means to seek after righteousness?
Notice that Jesus doesn’t say that those who do righteous things are blessed. He says that the person who hungers for righteousness is blessed. It’s the desire for righteousness that Jesus is calling us to. This desire can only come from being in a relationship with God that changes our hearts so much that we want to live righteous lives. And when we allow ourselves to hunger for righteousness, Jesus promises that we will be filled. The word Jesus uses for “filled” means well-filled or very satisfied. When He says that those who hunger for righteousness will be filled, He’s not talking about something that’s only temporary that will give way to more hunger later. He’s talking about being filled like we would experience at a Thanksgiving dinner.
Read Matthew 6.25–34.
Jesus does promise to satisfy the physical needs—like clothing, food, and water—of those who seek righteousness. But His provision doesn’t stop with our physical needs. He also promises to meet our need for unconditional love and acceptance. In John 15.9, Jesus tells us, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.”
The imagery of being hungry and eating reflects the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve attempted to satisfy their own desires apart from God. As a result, they damaged their relationship with Him and with each other. Thankfully, that’s not the end of the story. The imagery also leads us to look forward to the ultimate fulfillment of our hope in Christ.
Read Revelation 19.6–9.
John compares Jesus’ return to restore the world to a wedding banquet. Is there a better picture of physical, emotional, and spiritual needs being met than a wedding celebration? This is the kind of joy and satisfaction that is promised to those who hunger for righteousness.
Question: How is desiring righteousness different than simply acting righteously? Which do you think is easier, and why?
While the promised satisfaction for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness is incredible, there are two major challenges that stand in our way of obtaining it.
- The standard of righteousness that Jesus puts forward in the Sermon on the Mount is impossibly high. As imperfect people, it’s impossible for us to always avoid getting angry with people, sexual impropriety, seeking revenge, and hoarding our resources. We’ll fall short of always seeking reconciliation, modeling purity of heart toward others, loving those who cause us pain, and giving generously to the poor. Even in these couple of examples of righteousness, we’ll never live up to Jesus’ standard.
- Our desire for righteousness and to live up to the standard that Jesus put forward is much too weak. We can read the Sermon on the Mount and agree that it’s a great way to live. But do we really want to love those who hurt us, or to be reconciled to the difficult people in our lives? Do we really want to give away our money to the poor?
God’s standard of righteousness is incredibly high and our desire to live His way is much too weak for us to experience Jesus’ offer of satisfaction. Jesus knew this was true. He knew our desire for righteousness was too weak and that His standard was too high. So, He chose to live out the standard of righteousness for us. At the cross, Jesus exchanged His perfect righteousness for our inadequacy.
Jesus is calling us to walk in relationship with Him and experience His unconditional love for us. As we do, something in our hearts changes. We begin to desire to live His way. We begin to hunger for righteousness. We begin living out the righteousness He has called us to. We live the way Jesus teaches by being loved the way Jesus loves.
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