Again, we're reading from Matthew chapter 5, verses 1 through 12, looking at verse 6. This is the Lord's word. When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain. And after he sat down, his disciples came to him. He opened his mouth and began to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Amen. Please be seated, friends. Again, Lord, we come to you asking that your grace be given to us now and for your spirit to be present with us, both to help this preacher and also help these, your people. Father, we know that we are engaged in something that is lofty and wonderful and is likewise mysterious. How can preaching, which the world would consider a foolish thing, how can preaching affect anything? And yet it is the very means that you have chosen to use to advance your kingdom and your glory, to cause hearts to come to life. I realize, Father, that it is not my words that will do it. There is no magic formulas, but we are completely at your disposal and at your mercy. For unless your spirit comes and enlivens hearts and causes ears to be opened, how will anyone come to life? How will anyone hear? Would you please pour forth your spirit and would you please bless these people and myself and use us, oh Lord, for your glory. Give us understanding of these things now and prepare us to take your word or to take your supper by this word. We ask all of this now in Jesus name, amen. Are you satisfied with yourself? I'll ask that again. Are you satisfied with yourself? When I ask this, I'm not asking if you are happy with your body type. I'm not asking if you are happy with the color of your eyes or how your teeth are arranged in your head. I'm not asking whether you are pleased with your education, your skill set, or your position in the workforce. But when I ask, are you satisfied with yourself, I'm asking this, are you satisfied with what you are spiritually? Are you satisfied with what you are spiritually? The funny thing is, most people are not satisfied with their bodies, their hair, their teeth, nor with their level of accomplishment in the world. And yet many people are quite satisfied with themselves spiritually, believing that they are fine, that they're really very good, At least I'm no worse than many people, and I'm certainly not as bad as others. And so, yes, I'm rather satisfied with myself. Thank you. Our culture certainly promotes the idea that we are spiritually healthy. John Harris alluded to something of this in our Sunday school class. Ideas like universalism, that all people go to heaven. Well, if we're all going to heaven, what's the big deal, right? Of course I'm satisfied. What's not to be satisfied with? I'm going to heaven. Good enough, right? Or pluralism. All roads lead to God. Well, if all roads lead to God, it doesn't matter if I'm satisfied with myself. I'm good enough, right? Because whether I take Buddha or Islam or if I take the Mormon road or if I'm just a very sincere atheist, it doesn't matter. I'm getting to heaven because all roads go to heaven. That's what we're told, isn't it? Or postmodernism, that truth and absolutes are a thing of the past. Therefore, right and wrong become whatever the individual determines for himself or herself. And therefore, there is no more calling anything wrong. So then we're left with the position of whatever happened to sin and whatever happened to guilt, whatever happened to the need of redemption or of salvation, not a problem anymore because everyone's getting saved and everyone's on the right road and there is no sense of right and wrong so everyone's good and I'm good and thank you, yes, I am quite satisfied with myself. Man no longer sees or feels his need for deliverance because ultimately He's okay. This is why we see that it is okay for a man to desert his post, and a bunch of people get killed, and, well, he's got his issues. It's okay. And this is why it's okay for a man to hop in a truck and mow over eight people, and we treat him with sympathy. Right? Because there is no right and wrong anymore. Come on. And this is why it's okay for homosexuals to adopt and marriage to be between two men or two women or a human and its dog, I kid you not, or a person can marry themselves. What? It's being done. Parents can have children removed from their care if they oppose their little boy wanting to become a little girl, and why a woman can kill the child in her womb, and we celebrate as a culture her freedom of choice. That's where we are. Yes, I would say. I think as the world is concerned, the world is quite satisfied with themselves just the way they are. This is the world in which we live. The world is self-satisfied. And I will add, friends, that this will become more and more so the issue, the problem, as the truth is suppressed. It is why the gospel must go forward and why we continue to pray and why we continue to push you to speak of Jesus Christ. How will anyone ever see their deficiency unless they know that they are deficient? You see this? Unless we draw a line in the sand and say, there is right, there is wrong. I'm not the one determining it, but God is. And unless we abide by this, how will anyone in our world ever come to see their own deficiency and need of a savior? I mean, I gave you a bunch of isms, and there's probably a bunch of other isms that I should have given, and I didn't, but overall, I think the point is made, we're in a bad way in this country, and we don't seem to understand that the fires are stoked and we're being cooked alive, but we're all okay. I have my flat-screen television, and I've got my comfortable chair, and I've got my kombucha in the refrigerator. Life is good! we think. What else is there? The world of men is quite pleased with themselves, their performance, their spirituality. And if by chance, and if by chance they have qualms in their conscience, they can find a humanistic counselor, a psychotherapist, as John mentioned, who can tell them and assure them that religion is a thing of the past and fret not. God, if there is one, God loves you. God loves everybody. Because the majority say so, that makes it so. Eventually your soul just becomes numbed and you continue down a path away further and further from the Lord ever the more self-satisfied and hard-boiled in your fleshly pride. Jesus here in this sermon is addressing crowds of people, people no doubt, many who because they had experienced some marvelous grace from the Lord, or because they liked something he said, or because they were caught up in the excitement of the moment, they have come to hear Jesus. This is the context. Again, his sermon is not a prescription of how to get to heaven. Do this three times a day and you'll be fine, but rather it is a description of the one who is a citizen of the kingdom. And we've been asking this question, and again, I put it out to you, and I will continue to put it out to you, do you belong to Jesus Christ? Do you belong to Jesus Christ? The Sermon on the Mount is a challenge to broad and general spirituality, a spirituality that boasts in its flesh and looks to feel good about ourselves by comparing ourselves to those who are around us. But Jesus gives this sermon as a challenge perhaps so that we might feel and understand our own deficiencies. And in feeling those deficiencies, we might come to him who alone is sufficient for the world and efficient to redeem those who are his own. The Christian friend is a different creature. He is out of necessity a different creature because he is, first of all, a creature who is blessed. He is blessed. He is the privileged recipient of divine favor. He has a happiness and a prosperity that this world does not and cannot understand. It is something of a paradox, a huge paradox, like when the writer of Ecclesiastes says, when a face is sad, a heart may be happy. Huh? When a face is sad, a heart may be happy. Subjectively, the Christian is prosperous. He feels a happiness. There is a blessing that he has, but it's not based upon anything that is earthly or external, but it is based upon the objective well-being that he has in Jesus Christ. It is based upon something that Christ has done, not in his circumstances. The man or the woman in Christ is blessed. And apart from Jesus Christ, and hear me out when I say this, apart from Jesus Christ, There is absolutely no blessing to be found for you. I think when I am preparing these sermons, you don't know how your faces clip through my mind. And I wonder, are we really resting in Jesus Christ or are we just happy with Jesus today because I've got money in my bank account and my four tires are staying inflated? If they came in and took away our homes and threatened us, would we still say, I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold? It's easy to be a Christian when everything's going our way, isn't it? What are you going to do when you have nothing? Will you still say, I have everything and I lack nothing? Jesus says, for what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? He can have everything, but if you don't have Jesus, friends, you have nothing. You have nothing. The Christian is one who is blessed and you know it because unlike the world, listen to me, he is not satisfied with himself. He is not pleased with his soul. I asked you, are you satisfied with yourself? The Christian is not satisfied with himself. He's not satisfied. He's not pleased with his soul. Jesus says very plainly, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. The Christian hungers and thirsts for righteousness. Notice the progression here in the Sermon on the Mount. The Christian is poor in spirits. He's spiritually bankrupt. He mourns over this fact. Because of this, he is meek and he's humble before the Lord, and he looks to the Lord saying, in effect, your will be done. And then he looks to the Lord to provide him with all that he needs. He looks to the Lord to provide for him all that he needs. What does it mean to hunger and thirst? You ready for this rocket science? The word means just what you think it means. Hunger and thirst means just what you think it does. To hunger means to suffer want. We see it with our Lord expressing his total humanity when it says in Matthew 4, 2, and after he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he then became hungry. He's hungry. Or in Matthew 12, 1, where it says, at that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath and his disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. That's what it means to be hungry. And to thirst, again, is to suffer, one, only this time with water or some other liquid. Jesus says in Matthew 25, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. So clearly here, when he says they hunger and thirst for righteousness, there is a deprivation in their soul of some sort. They are suffering some kind of want, but the Lord here is not speaking about money. He is not speaking about food or drink. But he is speaking of that which the Christian ardently craves, feels painfully his need and want of. No man craves or hungers or thirsts for what he already has. No man craves for what he already has. Rather, the Christian hungers and thirsts for righteousness. What is this? What does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? How do you hunger and thirst for something like righteousness. Consider what righteousness is. It is integrity. It is virtue. It is purity of life. It is uprightness, blamelessness, holiness. It is a life that is in harmony with God, that is in harmony with his laws. It is a life that doesn't feel shame before the face of God. The Christian hungers and thirsts for righteousness because he knows within himself he has no righteousness of his own. The cupboard is bare. The cupboard is bare. The world is satisfied with itself, but the Christian is not. A Christian is painfully aware of what he is. He is all sinfulness. He is all sinfulness. And this might be one of those isms, humanism, let's put it like this, where you will hear people say, human beings are basically good. Is that true? I'm not saying humans don't do nice things, but are we basically good? The humanist says, well, of course we are. Of course we're good. Why wouldn't God love me? What's not to love? I am man. The paragon of virtue. That's not what the Bible says about us. And I need to tell you this, because some of you, I don't think you spend time reading your Bibles as you ought. I think maybe you read it perfunctory, but I'm not sure you're reading it for the meat that's there. You need to check me out on this. Check out what I'm saying and weigh it against the scripture, because as I read the scriptures and as the confession of faith addresses the scriptures, neither the scriptures nor our confession of faith speaks favorably of man's nature. You see, it's the funniest thing. In humanism, we elevate man and we lower God. in biblical theology, God is elevated and man is lowered, making the chasm huge between us and our need of salvation great. Paul says this in Romans 5, therefore just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned. My friends, when the Apostle Paul speaks of man, he speaks of us as being products of the fall and in the Garden of Eden. Why do we sin? Is it because it's a lapse in goodness? Not at all. We sin because we are sinners. My dog barks because it's a dog. My dog rolls on my shoes because my feet stink and he's a dog. That's what dogs do. Why do sinners sin? Because we're sinners. It's our nature is fallen. We're not basically good. We are fallen. We are bad. We are evil. And David says this in the midst of Psalm 51. Why? How could King David, a man after God's own heart, commit adultery and then murder and then try to hide his tracks and try to live like this? How could he do something like this? David, in essence, says, because I'm a sinner. Psalm 51.5, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. I do wretched things because I'm a wretch, fundamentally. Now look, in case you think you came to church today, you're going to be encouraged, I think. But before you can be encouraged, we have to wake up and smell the coffee. We're not basically good. If we're basically good friends, basically Jesus didn't have to die. Basically, I don't need a Savior, and grace, it's okay. But that's not what the Scripture says. That's not what the Scripture says. The Scripture says that we are fallen, we are sinners, we come from the womb. My granddaughter, sweet, innocent looking, beautiful little child in her heart is a raging maniac bent on satisfying her own desires. And the rod of discipline drives it far away, controls it, but can't redeem it. Only the Lord can redeem that little girl. Understand, you might be very moral and upright. That doesn't make you a Christian. That just means you're a disciplined sinner. Only Jesus can give new hearts. Out of this fallenness that we have comes all of these actual sins. We sin because we're sinners. We lust. We murder, we get drunk, we gossip, we cheat, we lie, we steal, we set ourselves up in the place of the Almighty, on and on and on, because we are sinners. That's why we do the things we do. The cupboard is bare, Christian. You went to the cupboard. I thought there was some righteousness in here somewhere. And all there is is emptiness and pride and self-centeredness and self-aggrandizement. I'm hungry. I'm thirsty. I can't find anything by which I can be set free, that I can be at peace with God. I'm empty. David says in Psalm 32, when I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long for day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. And in Psalm 51, three and four, he says, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me against you. You only I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge. The Christian goes to the cupboard, and he sees it is empty, and he says, who's going to help me? I have nothing to offer God. Are you satisfied? The Christian says, oh man, I have nothing. I have nothing. People will say, you're so good. Say, no. Now, what you're witnessing and what you're recognizing is the work of God's grace in my life. If you were to know me before I was the Lord's, I don't think you would have wanted to know me. I can match any unregenerate man's flesh pound for pound. That's nothing to brag in. That's nothing to be satisfied in. The Christian says, my transgressions are always before you, O Lord, and I feel it, and I'm ashamed of it, and I don't know where to go. I don't know what to do. He craves a righteousness. He craves what he can't manufacture, and he knows he can't. This is the one telltale sign that he has been blessed by God. He has come to an end of himself and admits, I am not good. And frankly, I would say he's not afraid to tell you he's not good either, but will freely admit I am a wretch. Before God and before men, he has no righteousness, he has no righteous position, and he has no righteous practice. And this is what he hungers and thirsts for. because it's not there. Like Adam and Eve hiding behind fig leaves, he feels his shame before the Almighty. And again, he knows that no good thing will come and can come from him. So he looks to God and what Luther referred to as an alien righteousness. The Christian looks to God and says, I need your righteousness. I cannot, I cannot generate this on my own. And I can't tell you how many times I run into people who act as if, if I just try harder, if I'm just a little more disciplined, if I get into one more Bible study, if I put a little bit more money in the tithe box, if I go and visit the shut-ins more, if I read my Bible more, then God will be happy with me. What is that? But to say, I'm pretty good, basically, I just need to tweak this program I'm on. Again, that's not what the scriptures teach. And that's not what Martin Luther was looking at. Remember, we talked about Luther. He tried and tried and tried and realized there is no righteousness that I can accomplish for myself by trying harder. So I must go somewhere else if I'm going to be made right. I must look to someone else." And he looked to Jesus Christ, and that, my friends, is where you will begin to find righteousness. That's where you will find it in Jesus Christ. Turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 3. Listen to verses 21 through 26. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That includes all of us in this place. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Do you understand, friends, the righteousness that you feel your need of and that you actually have a need of only comes through Jesus Christ. Stop! Stop looking somewhere else besides Jesus Christ. My friends, look to Jesus. Look to Jesus Christ. Don't become more disciplined if you think that that is going to Secure a place for you in heaven. Don't read your Bible with the thought that now God will finally smile at me. Boast in the Lord. Stop boasting in yourself. Look to Jesus. Jesus said this, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger and he who believes in me will never thirst. How could he say that? Because Jesus himself is the answer to the craving of the Christian. He's that answer. Augustus Toplady said this wonderful hymn. Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling. Naked, come to thee for dress. Helpless, look to thee for grace. Foul, I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die. In Christ, the Christian finds his righteousness. In Christ, the Christian is declared right with God. Is your cupboard bare? Do you feel how empty your cupboard is apart from Christ? The man, the woman who looks to Christ, who flees to that fountain, who cries to him, wash me, Savior, will be washed. and your cupboard won't be empty anymore. The cravings that you have for righteousness will be met in Jesus Christ, and they will be met fully. He also hungers and thirsts to practice this righteousness before the world. And this is the other thing about a Christian. He craves the righteousness that can only come in Jesus Christ, but he's not content with just leaving it into theoretical, or it's a Sunday school thing, or a Sunday thing. He's eager, he craves living out the Christian faith. I'll never understand people who resist the Lord, who say, I do love the Lord, I just don't care about what he says to do. Friends, that's not a Christian. You understand that, right? He craves and hungers thirst for righteousness. And so as he's reading his Bible, and he says, oh, I'm not supposed to be drunk anymore. This is what it says in Ephesians 4. I'm not to be given to be drunk. You know what he says to himself? I need to stop getting drunk. That's what a Christian does. Oh, my Lord hates it when I'm drunk. So I'm going to stop getting drunk. And if I can't stop getting drunk every time I pick up a bottle, I think I better just quit drinking altogether, because I can't handle it. He says that as he reads his Bible, the Christian isn't supposed to be given to immorality. Oh, I better stop my immorality. I better stop sleeping around. I better stop watching X-rated movies. I better stop looking at pornography. He reads the Bible and he finds out, oh, my Lord wants me to say things that are edifying, that build up people and not tear people down. I think I better stop gossiping. I think I better stop my sarcasm that seems to tear people down and not build them up. See, that's what a Christian does. And a Christian goes, I want this. I want this because Jesus loves me. And I want these things. I crave these things." A true citizen of the kingdom of heaven is not content with sin or wickedness in his life. He yearns to be in practice what Jesus has declared him to be. So if Christ has made him righteous, he wants to live out the righteousness. He yearns to be free of sin. He ardently desires to do what is right before the world, before men, not to be noticed by men like he's some kind of Christian showman, but because of who God is, because of his amazing grace, his kindness to this wretched man. Because of the Lord's kindness, he wants to walk, to live blamelessly before the world. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. A wonderful example of this, Genesis chapter 39. You know the story of Joseph, how his brothers sold him into slavery. And as he was sold into slavery, the Lord had another plan for Joseph, one that I doubt anyone could have anticipated. As Joseph is climbing the ranks, he becomes falsely accused. In Genesis 39 verses 6, the second half of 6 through verse 9, it says this, Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. It came about after these events that his master's wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, Lie with me. But he refused and said to his master's wife, behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge. There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God? Joseph is a man who fears the Lord. Joseph is a man who takes to heart his responsibilities in Egypt, and he does them conscientiously. And when Potiphar's wife throws herself at Joseph, and she does it repeatedly, it's not just a one-time occasion, she does it repeatedly, finally to the point where she would grab his robe and he would run away. The reason he doesn't have sex with her is because he fears the Lord. It's not because he's afraid he's going to get caught by his master. He says it there, how could I do this great evil and sin against God? It is because of God, you see, because of God's blessings because of God's love, because of God's covenant promise, because of the hope of a better day coming, he would live a righteous life in this life. That's the Christian. He desires in his heart to do what is right because God has done right by him through his son. Yet, sadly, friends, sadly, we don't do this so well, do we? Paul would say, I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. Like Paul, or like Peter, who denied the Lord three times or fell into hypocrisy, or like Moses, who struck the rock when he was instructed to merely speak to it, like David, who had succumb to adultery and murder, or like Thomas, who doubted, or Mark, who abandoned the ministry, so often we fail, and we fail miserably, at living out the righteousness that Christ has secured for us. And we cry out like Paul, and we should, wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death. If you're like me, you get terribly frustrated. What's the point of being a Christian if I'm not going to live like a Christian? Lord, after all these years that you've been so good to me, 30 some years, you've been so faithful to me. Why do I doubt? Why do I worry? Why do I entertain the thoughts that I entertain in my head? When will I ever get out of these old patterns of thinking? When will I stop responding to others sinfully? Or when will I be shaken free from these sinful habits? And we want to cry out, and you're right to cry out, Lord, help me. Help me to be what I am in Christ. That's the hungering. That's the thirsting that we experience even today. Don't you? Don't you, Christian, experience that? grit your teeth and kick the door and slap the bed? When will I be free from this stupid stuff? The Christian does. Help me to be what I am, Lord. Help me to practice, to live out what you have declared me to be in Christ. It's a frustration we live with now in our time. We have the world saying you don't need to feel guilty and religion's a waste of time anyways. If there is a God, you don't have to worry about a thing because you're better than most people and besides, everyone's going to heaven. And you sit there and you go, that doesn't sound right, and it's not. But on the other hand, you have the preacher yelling at you, telling you, here's the law of the Lord. You're not abiding by the law of the Lord. You're a fallen wretch, and you need Jesus Christ. And you say, I believe upon Jesus Christ. But why do I still struggle with this sin? And I tell you, it's because, one, you were born in sin and brought forth in sin. And you struggled with sin until the day that you were glorified to heaven to be with the Lord Jesus. So right now, we are in the midst of a colossal fight And we are having to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We're putting on our boxing gloves and we're buffeting our bodies and we're running this race so as not to be disqualified. That's the Christian. He's engaged in a battle. That's why theologians call it the church militant. Because we're at battle, we're in a war. And there are temptations from without, and there are temptations from within. We have our world around us, we have our own flesh, and we have Satan himself. And we're in this battle. And do you ever get discouraged? I know I sure get discouraged. Thirty some years, Lord, really, my parents, kind of like what we're doing now, my parents were clearing out the house. and they'd have a box with my name on it, and they'd go through the house and they'd open up buffets. I don't know how my things got stuck in the buffet, but they did. And they'd pull things out of the buffet and out of a closet somewhere, and here was a little green New Testament Gideon's Bible that I was given as a ninth grader when I was new to the faith. And with a silver marker, I drew praying hands in the front cover. And I said in there, Read your Bible and pray. 15, 14 or 15 years old, I write this, read your Bible, pray. 35 years later, guess what I'm still struggling with? Read your Bible and pray. Really? Couldn't I have conquered that one 30 years ago, maybe? Do you have anything like that in your life? You struggling with anything? Sin still seems like it's holding on. You're discouraged and saying, Lord, when? When am I going to be satisfied finally? What does the Lord say? Soon. Soon. He's going to meet you and this thing's going to be put to rest. He says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. for they shall be satisfied. There is a promise and a hope and an encouragement given to us here, friends. Those who crave the righteousness before God and before men, they will be satisfied. And it's a beautiful word. It's actually kind of funny. The word satisfy means to feed with herbs and grass or hay to fill or satisfy with food, to fatten as of animals. And of course, I'm thinking of all the big fat cows that sit in our fields around the region and you just see them fat and happy. And that's the picture we're given of someone who's satisfied. They're like livestock. They're fat and happy, contented and satisfied. And the Lord assures us, friends, that you're craving for righteousness both before God and practically before the world, you will be satisfied. In one sense, friends, that promise is already being fulfilled in the sense that we now have that alien righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus Christ credited to us by faith, to which this supper before us that we'll take in just a couple minutes the supper's testimony of this very thing. We do have a righteousness in Jesus Christ, a righteousness that makes us complete and fit for heaven. And yet, in another sense, we don't have that righteousness yet. We still struggle. We still struggle with sin in this world. If you would turn with me to Revelation chapter seven, I want to read to us verses 13 through 16. I will say, I question whether or not I should use this passage of scripture in this way, and I think it is appropriate. It is speaking more directly of the martyrs who would die during the tribulation, and yet we remember this, that all who are in Jesus Christ, as we will see in a few weeks, do suffer persecution in this world. And so after tussling with this text of scripture, I thought, no, it is appropriate to use. Listen to chapter 7, verses 13 through 16. Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, these who are clothed in white robes, who are they, and where have they come from? I said to him, my lord, you know. And he said to me, these are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night in his temple, and he who sits on the throne will spread his tabernacle over them. They will hunger no longer, nor thirst any more, nor will the sun be down on them nor any heat, for the lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd. It will guide them to springs of water of life, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Friends, a day is coming when we'll be satisfied. We will be like livestock, well-fed in green pastures near our Good Shepherd. And we won't be hurt anymore. We won't struggle with sin anymore. The desires for righteousness before the Lord and the desire to be finally rid of this sin and the struggles that we engage in every day, they will be put to rest. At the coming of our God, when he judges the world to punish the wicked who refuse him, at that time, he will satisfy our cravings for righteousness. the righteousness that his people desire. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, again for your loving kindness to us. And I thank you for your word and for the encouragement that it brings to us. We do hunger and thirst for righteousness. We sit here, Lord, today because we know we don't have a righteousness of our own that we can boast in. We've come to you, to your son, to our savior, be clothed in his righteousness, that we might no longer fear condemnation, that we might no longer dread. But we pray, Father, as we struggle with our sin, we pray that you would help us to become what we are, that we would live out this righteousness before the world, that we would be those who are faithful witnesses and servants of yours. We pray, Lord, that you would use the supper we are about to take in this manner, that we might be strengthened in the righteousness that is found in Jesus alone, and that you would cause us not to boast any longer in our flesh, to be satisfied with what we are in this world, but that we would be dissatisfied with what we are so that we might have our desires satisfied in the one who came to give his life, his body and blood for us. We do ask all of this now in Jesus' name, amen.