Matthew 5, verse 6, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Notice in the first word that we're still referring to those who are the blessed. This is still the Lord Jesus addressing those disciples who, leaving the world behind, leaving the multitudes behind, have noticed that when Jesus saw the multitudes, he withdrew himself up the mountain But then they especially saw that he took the common posture in which he would teach in the synagogues. He sat down. And so knowing that he sat down to teach, they went up to him to listen. And so they are the blessed ones who have found Jesus and his word more to them than anything else. So blessed. And now he goes on to describe another aspect of the work that his spirit, whom he pours out, who grants that repentance, that conversion, be ye converted, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and the thing that is necessary, or the way by which someone may be converted, is not by the water that John poured, but the spirit in Jesus pours. And the fourth now aspect of that work that the spirit does is giving them a hunger and thirst transplant. So he had described the poverty of spirit, the mourning, the humility slash meekness slash gentleness, and now blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Everyone is hungry and thirsty for something because we are finite and needy. God has no need. He is unchangeable. He is impassable. Nothing can affect him. We are not so. We hunger and thirst. And amazingly, the Lord Jesus hungered and thirsted. He added that to himself when he added humanity to himself for our sakes. And as soon as he received the baptism of John, identifying himself with our neediness, the spirit who also descended from the heaven that had been opened at his baptism carried him out into the wilderness and led him not just geographically to the wilderness, but spiritually in fasting and prayer and meditation upon God's word for 40 days. And certainly, as the Lord Jesus was fasting and praying and meditating upon God's word for 40 days, he knew a greater hunger, a hunger for God's righteousness on the earth, a hunger for God's righteousness, especially for and in those whom he had come to save. And the Spirit of Christ gives us the same hunger, hunger and thirst for righteousness in the earth, and hunger and thirst for righteousness in those whom the Lord Jesus came to save. And he makes us hungry and thirsty for the righteousness that is in Jesus himself. Now, praise God, he does not give this hunger and thirst without the intention that it should be met. And so we're considering the, they shall be filled, which is future and full, shall be filled, not just in the final future, full satisfaction of this hunger and this thirst, but first in the forming of the hunger and thirst about which we have already begun thinking. And then in the feeding of this hunger and thirst, And then finally, in that future perfected state, to which the last part of the verse refers, the filling, the satisfying of that hunger and thirst. The blessed man, by this work of the Spirit that we have begun thinking about in language from the book of Matthew thus far, he has been given a holy and new nature. One of the things that his baptism testifies to him not the baptism of John, but the Christian baptism that is commanded at the end of this gospel. One of the things that that baptism testifies to him is that the Lord Jesus is the one who has all authority, not only on earth, but in heaven, and that he is the one who gives us to become disciples And He is the one who gives us to keep all that He has commanded, because He is the one who is with us always, even to the end of the age. And so you remember in Romans when there were those who hear gospel words, but are not having a gospel response, and yet they have been baptized, The Lord Jesus addresses them, reminding them that it is not water baptism that is the great baptism of the Christian, but it is that baptizing of the Spirit from Jesus. Jesus baptizing the spirit from heaven, and what the spirit does, it doesn't just baptize you into a name or a church the way that Christian baptism baptizes you into the number of the disciples by baptizing you into the name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Spirit baptism, the Lord Jesus is pouring his spirit at you, baptizes you into Jesus. himself. And so the old you that was apart from Jesus is dead and there's a completely new you that is now united to Jesus Christ with a new nature that hates evil and loves the good and is frankly longing, groaning to be rid of what remains from the old nature, including the body of this death, and all of the sinfulness that pertained to the old you that came with the body of this death. And so the blessed man has been given a new and holy nature. He is both set apart by God and brought out of himself and into Christ. The version of you that was in yourself, dead, gone, crucified. The new version of you walking in newness of life by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Now this forming of your new hunger and thirst, the old you, hungered and thirsted for pleasure, hungered and thirsted for sin, would do things like hear about how where sin increases, grace increases all the more and says, yes, that means I can sin more so that grace will increase more. But as we've been hearing in Romans, that's not a response that comes from the spirit, from the new self in Christ and union with him. That response comes from the remaining sin, the remaining flesh. this formation of new hunger that says, I am so hungry and thirsty to not just be satisfied with the righteousness that is in Jesus, but to see his righteousness worked out in me so that I never see sin in me and coming out of me again. Though the believer's remaining sin dwells in him, As we heard in Romans 7, 17 to 23, the believer does not dwell in his sin, does not remain in his sin. And so you have the flesh and the spirit, but we're in the spirit and the spirit of God leads us in a life that is against our remaining sin, like we heard about in Romans 8, 9 through 14. So the believer has had a hunger and thirst transplant The first thing about this hunger and thirst for righteousness in verse 6 is that it was the Holy Spirit who formed it in us to begin with. We don't start out with a hunger and thirst for righteousness. The being told that those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness will be filled does not mean you produce a hunger and thirst for righteousness yourself. Only the Lord produces it. It does mean you distinguish between your former hungerings and thirstings, and your new hunger and thirst for righteousness, and you starve the former. And you look to God by grace to feed the latter. And it means that if you don't have hunger and thirst for righteousness, or you recognize how small your hunger and thirst for righteousness is, you know to whom to look for hunger for righteousness. God will give it to you. You know to whom to look for thirst for righteousness. Christ, by His Spirit poured out, gives it to you. And you are hungry and thirsty, not just that you would be righteous, but that everything would be righteous. Because this is what Jesus deserves. This is what was prophesied about Him. This is what was promised to Him. This is what He has earned by His saving work. So first, the hunger and thirst for righteousness are formed. Second, they are also fed. If we thought of positional sanctification as that moment in which a new hunger and thirst are formed in us, then we might think of progressive sanctification becoming more and more holy in character and conduct as the feeding of this new hunger and thirst. Don't have to wait until glory to enjoy the Lord giving us righteousness in our character and in our conduct. He makes a genuine difference in us. It won't be perfected in this life, but it is real and it is good. The blessed man has already found Christ to be fully satisfying. So we're already fed just by the enjoyment of who Jesus is. It's not just a momentary resting upon Christ's righteousness that happens once at the beginning of the Christian life. We continue to live by faith. We continue to rest upon the righteousness of Christ and we increasingly rejoice in how righteous he is as the one who stands for us. But not only that, Christ more and more works out his righteousness in us. And as he gives us to taste of the good of the age to come, as he conforms us to himself more and more, we are not to grow puffed up about the progress we have made in faith. The amount that's left to be done should be enough to humiliate us. Shows us how fleshly we still are if it doesn't. But if rather than looking at how much there is yet to be done, we are amazed at how much has been done and how much is being done, which considered by itself is actually a miracle of grace. then we will find ourselves continually savoring the goodness of Jesus, even in the work that he is doing in us by his spirit, even in such a one as me, in whose heart there is so much sin that remains, in whose life there is so much sin that remains. And yet the Lord Jesus dwells in my heart through faith and works on my heart by grace. And so there is that wonderful feeding that is part of this, they shall be filled, because the satisfying of our hunger and thirst for righteousness is not something that begins in the last day. although it is something that is only completed in the last day. It is something that we enjoy increasingly throughout this life. And that really is blessed. Now being hungry or thirsty is not the most pleasant feeling in the world. Some of you get very hungry and just, we're all different. Don't like being hungry. But the enjoyment of the provision, even before you're full, is a real enjoyment, is a real blessing. And we are, as it were, enjoying already the appetizers of everlasting fullness, of the righteousness of God. But it's not just appetizers that are promised. Future and full or perfect satisfaction of this hunger is actually what is being described here in verse six. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. for they shall be felt, or to put it in the language that we have already used a couple of times, positional sanctification, when you are called holy by God and constituted as a new person with a new holy nature by God, and progressive sanctification, being made more and more holy in your character and more and more holy in your conduct always has its end in glorification. Those whom he called, he justified. Those whom he justified, he glorified. And so there is not only the enjoyment of what the Lord has done and is doing, but these two, because No one ever gets the first without the other two and no one ever gets the first two without the third. The enjoyment that you have already also includes or brings with it an enjoyment in the hope of the glory of God. That hope that doesn't disappoint. The love of God has been poured out, shed abroad in our hearts by Jesus Christ. We're thinking of those first eight verses of Romans five now. And this enables us to rejoice, not, this enables us to rejoice even in our sufferings, because suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, character hope, and hope does not disappoint us. And so the work that Jesus is doing in a believer already gives him the certainty that it will be finished. And he can already enjoy the reality of that certainty before he comes into it, before he comes into the experience of that about which he is certain. We rejoice in God. So rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, rejoice in our sufferings, rejoice in God himself, that progressive tripartite rejoicing in Romans 5. And here we are participating in that rejoicing. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They have the hope of the glory of God, and they're rejoicing in that. They're rejoicing in their suffering as their suffering is being used to produce more holiness in them. The feeding of that hunger and thirsting. They're rejoicing in God himself, who is the certainty. that the hope shall be fulfilled. So one day, everyone who has believed in Jesus will be perfectly righteous, never sinning again, and will be resurrected, glorious even in conformity to Christ's body. And at the resurrection, you remember, there will be no sin or pain or sorrow or suffering at all. At the resurrection, there will be a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. And not only will we never sin, we'll never be sinned against again, because all sinful spirits and men will have been cast into hell and do not have a place in the new heavens and the new earth. So we will rejoice over what the Lord has finished doing in us. We will rejoice over what the Lord has finished doing in the creation. We will rejoice in seeing the Lord Himself face to face, even as we have been purified so that we appear like Him, even as we have had produced in us the holiness that was necessary for us to see the Lord. And so they shall be filled. God, who loves us with adopting love, does not leave us as we are. He conforms us at last to the image of His Son, so that the Son is the firstborn among many brethren. And as our hearts and minds are conformed to Christ's, yes, we hunger and thirst for righteousness now, because there is much unrighteousness left in us and in the Church and in the world. But we hunger and thirst with a view toward future glory, a joy that is set before us, a desire for and confidence in that work that will have been completed, whether it's that work that has been begun in us, Philippians 1.6, whether it's that work that must be perfected in all of the church, Romans 8, 29-30. And it is in this hungering and thirsting for righteousness that we purify ourselves even as He is pure, 1 John 3. Those who hope thus purify themselves. even as He is pure. So the Lord give us that hunger, that thirst, that hope, the enjoyment of that blessedness, all of which are ours in Christ. Let's pray. Our gracious God and our Heavenly Father, we pray that our hearts would reflect this blessedness and hope. We pray that our habits would demonstrate that we are pursuing the righteousness that we are guaranteed to have at last. Thank you for counting us righteous in the Lord Jesus. and constituting us near and righteous in the Lord Jesus. And we pray that you would make us always to be looking to him and being satisfied by him until that day when his work in each of us has been fully perfected as well. We ask these things in his name, amen.