Fulfillment

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January 20, 2002 - Matthew 5.1-2, 6

Open It

  1. In what ways are all people the same?
  2. How would baby-sitting a two-year-old for a week influence your opinion about the goodness or badness of humans in general?

Explore It

  1. How is personal righteousness described? Isaiah 64.6
  2. How many people are originally righteous? Romans 3.10
  3. What negative process have some entered into in order to obtain righteousness? Romans 10.3
  4. What is righteousness? 1 John 2.29-3.3; 1 John 3.10
  5. Where is righteousness to be found? John 6.27-35
  6. Who is the Lord of righteousness? Jeremiah 23.5-6.
  7. Who alone is righteous? Matt 6.33; Acts 17.31; Rom 1.17; Eph 4.24; Jas 1.20; 1 John 2.29
  8. How is the hunger of the hungry satisfied? John 6.48, 58
  9. How is the thirst of the thirsty satisfied? John 6.35
  10. What is the cost paid by the hungry and thirsty to be satisfied? Isaiah 55.1-2
  11. The acquiring of righteousness is based on what course of action? John 16.1-11
  12. The person seeking righteousness is undergoing what process? 2 Corinthians 3.18

Get It

  1. What sorts of things tend to draw you away from living and doing what is right?
  2. What do you usually boast about?
  3. Why do we tend to base our worth as Christians on our performance, rather than on our being (That is on what we do rather than on the kind of person we are in Christ.)?
  4. Why should our identity and confidence be in the Lord?
  5. How is the commitment to Christ of the apostles of the early church an example to you?

Apply It

  1. What do you need to start counting as rubbish for the sake of Christ?
  2. When you face struggles this week in doing what is right, how can you remember to stay connected to Christ?

Notes (1)

The fourth Beatitude. (1) "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." (a) Righteousness here is equivalent to holiness--personal, spiritual holiness, holiness of heart and life. It is the sum of all Christian graces. But we have no righteousness of our own "All our righteousness are as filthy rags." Christ is made unto us Righteousness: "This is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness." If only we are his, grafted once into the true Vine, abiding in him now, then his righteousness is ours, for he himself is ours. "My Beloved is mine, and I am his." (b) We must hunger and thirst after this righteousness. 'The desire of the Christian heart is righteousness; not simply happiness hereafter, but righteousness now. All men wish for happiness, present and future. The true Christian wish is for righteousness first; happiness will follow. "The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever." It is righteousness that the Christian soul desires. And that desire must be like hunger and thirst; not a faint hesitating wish but a strong longing desire--a desire that cannot be satisfied till it has attained its object. Hunger and thirst imply a previous void, a want. the desire of righteousness implies a sense of sin and weakness. There is a felt want in the soul, a craving, an aching void--a longing like that of David expressed in the fifty-first psalm; not the fear of punishment, but a longing after a clean heart--after the Holy Spirit of God. To hunger and thirst after righteousness is to hunger and thirst after Christ. He is our example here as always. His meat was to do the will of him that sent him, and to finish his work. He hungered for our souls, he thirsted for our salvation; and we must hunger and thirst after him, who is the life of our souls, the true bread that came down from heaven, whose flesh is meat indeed, whose blood is drink indeed, who alone can fill our restless craving hearts. "He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." (2) 'The reason of their blessedness. "They shall be filled." For Christ desires us; he longs to give himself to us, as he has given himself for us. "Behold," he says, "I stand at the door, and knock." He asks us only to open; he will enter in and sup with us, and we with him. We may hunger and thirst after many things, and never gain them; if we do gain them, they often become mere ashes in our mouth, vanity and vexation of spirit. But they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, after Christ, cannot fail to attain the object of that longing desire; for the word of Christ is pledged, "They shall be filled." And he has all things who has Christ. He needs nothing more who hath chosen the good part, the one thing needful. As for me, I will behold your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with your likeness."

1. Taken from The Pulpit Commentary

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