Sermon Series: Sermon on the Mount
Sermon Title: The Meek and the Hungry
Pastor Chris O’Brien

The Meek and the Hungry

You should find in your bulletin your insert. It should say the meek and hungry. If it says hungry for righteousness, turn it over. We’ll read the Beatitudes and then we’ll read Matthew 11:28 underneath that. And then we’ll read Galatians 6:1 at the bottom, as Jesus preaches this sermon and begins reminding us all of the godly character that we all are to have. Let’s hear God’s word.

Matthew 5:3-10

“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 meek, 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 are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 11:28-29

Jesus says to the sinner burdened down with his sin, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Galatians 6:1-2

“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

This is the word of God.

Not Super Christians

So as I mentioned in our announcement time, this month is the officer nomination period. And we could misunderstand the teaching of scripture at this point. You could read the list there in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, for instance, concerning the elder or the overseer. They are the same office with different titles. But you can read that list and say, wow, these guys are super Christians. So I’m nominating some really, really super Christians to be an elder. No ordinary Christian can be an elder. No ordinary Christian can be a deacon. But that would be a misunderstanding.

You see, the qualifications for elder and deacon, other than the elder being able to teach and to manage the church, in a similar way for deacons, other than that, they’re all character qualities. But they’re not character qualities of some super Christian. The character qualities are basically analogous to what we find here in the Beatitudes, what we find in the fruit of the spirit. In other words, they’re the things that all ordinary Christians should be growing in grace. So what we have in front of us today, these Beatitudes, these aren’t just for elder and deacon. That’s clear from the context. Jesus is speaking to all of his covenant people.

Now, all of us vary in degrees of growth in godliness. Some of you show more patience than others of us, but if we are in Christ, the seed of patience is there. And if you deny that, shame on you, even though every day you get in your car, you might deny it in practice. But these character qualities, at least in seed form, are there in all of us.

The preaching and teaching of the word is to make them blossom. As we might be convicted of the fact that, oh, it’s not very evident in my life, and then we repent of that, and then we strive by the help of the spirit, the encouragement of God’s people, to go on becoming more and more like Christ.

Humility, Gentleness, and Patience

We looked last week at blessed are the meek in verse five. We thought especially of Jesus’s meekness, his gentleness, his humility. These three terms, we’re gonna see in a minute, Paul repeats them in Ephesians and Colossians. They’re almost like a triad. They’re kind of a word group that goes together. Sometimes they’re hard to distinguish, but they certainly go together, sort of like a package deal. Jesus especially showed his gentleness as he calls out to people to come to him in repentance and faith who are burdened down by their sins.

Now, what we want to do is think about how should that be exhibited in our lives as, again, ordinary Christians. Look at Paul in Ephesians 4. Of course, we studied this passage at length back when we were going through Ephesians. So let’s just read these verses here.

As Paul begins the application half of his letter to the church at Ephesus, he begins saying, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord (Paul is in prison for the gospel as he writes this), urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Walk or live according to your calling. You were called to live like a Christian, so do so, Paul says, by God’s grace, by God’s help. How do we do that?

Bearing with One Another

Paul says, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another. You see, Paul doesn’t envision Christian people that are perfect dealing with each other. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have to mention these things. But he’s talking about Christians that have to roll up their sleeves as they work with each other, serving the Lord in the church and other ways. They have to do that with humility and gentleness, as Paul would say in Philippians, thinking of others as better than yourselves.

With patience. Why with patience? Because as we work with people, they don’t necessarily work with us. They’re slow to come alongside us and work with us. Maybe they resist. Maybe their Christian character is not like ours. We kind of rub. There’s tension among us. And so we have to be patient with them. We’re bearing with one another. It’s a challenge to work with each other.

He emphasizes a similar thing in Colossians, a companion letter that Paul wrote probably about the same time he wrote Ephesians, so it makes sense that many of the phrases, the paragraphs, are analogous. Paul says to the Christians, put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. You see how these go together? They’re teammates. They gotta work together to be effective.

Galatians 6 and Matthew 11

Now, I put Galatians 6 there because I think that Galatians 6 is, in a way, the most analogous passage, or parallel passage, to the way Jesus is described in dealing with sinners in Matthew 11. In Matthew 11, the idea is that Jesus is looking out to the crowd. He’s seeing sinners that are burdened down with their own sin. That burden is multiplied because they’ve been listening to the Pharisees and the scribes distort the gospel, distort the law of God, try to turn the gospel into salvation by works, so that the burden is even greater upon them. And Jesus in his gentleness says, come to me with the burden of your sin, the burden of your guilt, and I will forgive you. I will cleanse you of your sin.

So now look at what Paul is saying here in Galatians 6. In our own Book of Church Order, in sections about church discipline, this passage is quoted or referred to on several occasions. But interestingly, this passage in the context in Galatians 6 is not written to the elders. It’s not written just to the officers, but rather it’s a broad instruction for all of us.

Restore Him in a Spirit of Gentleness

Brothers and sisters, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. So imagine someone comes to you, and maybe they have to confess to you that they have gossiped or said something inappropriate about you. Maybe it was yesterday. Maybe it was a week ago. Maybe it was a month ago. Maybe you never found out about it at all. It didn’t get passed down the gossip chain, which would be good if that didn’t happen.

But nonetheless, this person felt guilty and decided, I’ve got to follow biblical principle. They went to the person that they had said this wrong thing to and said, I shouldn’t have said that, and apologized to them. Now they’re coming to you to say, look, I said something about you. It was wrong, it was hurtful, it wasn’t correct. Whatever the reason may have been, the rationalization, it was wrong.

Now you’ve got a couple choices, don’t you? You can look down your self-righteous nose and say, you better be glad you repented. No, no, no, of course we wouldn’t do that, would we? We as God’s people should respond gently and say, brother or sister, I understand. I’ve done the same kind of thing myself in circumstances. You want to relate to them. How come?

Spiritually Bankrupt

Well, because you’re poor in spirit. You recognize your spiritual poverty. Were it not for Christ and his death on the cross, you would be, of all people, hopeless, without God and without hope in this world. Moreover, you are characterized by one who grieves over your own sin.

So now a brother or sister comes to you to acknowledge their sin. You don’t see yourself as better than them. You just humbly and gently say, brother, sister, you’re forgiven. Please don’t say another word about it. Let’s go have a cup of coffee or what have you. You want to acknowledge it, but you don’t want to dwell on it. You want to deal with them gently.

And so that’s what I think Jesus is emphasizing here in blessed are the meek. Because our tendency is to be prideful. Our tendency is to be self-righteous. That is our sinful tendency. But our redeemed tendency should remind us we are spiritually bankrupt. We have nothing on any sinners, nothing at all. And so we want to deal with them in that kind of circumstance gently.

Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

Now, let’s move on to blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

One of the greatest desires, one of the most basic desires in life, is the desire for food. The desire for water. If you’re genuinely dehydrated, what is going to fix that? Only one thing. Water. Now, some of you in this room have been in war circumstances and maybe other circumstances I’m not aware of. And so in those periods of time in your life, maybe you experienced something like that. So I’m not trying to ignore that. But I would say, all things being equal, in most of our life situations, we haven’t been in a situation where we’ve been without water and unable to get it. Maybe it’s not your favorite bottled water. Yeah, it’s a really cool bottle. And it says it’s got all kinds of minerals in it. Oh my. But you could turn on the faucet.

But people in Jesus’ day, there were some that getting water could be something of a challenge. And then eating. Food enough to nourish them. Again, most of us have the opposite problem. And I don’t say that proudly, but it’s a reality. But we’ve had the hunger pains. We’ve been in a situation where we went without, got distracted. We’ve missed a meal. And now that hunger pain is really there. And our circumstances might be such we can’t just get food right away. And now we sense the need. Maybe there’s something else in your life that you’re longing for.

What Are You Longing For?

I remember a young lady in this church. I’ve only been here four years, so it must have been four years ago. And this young lady was working so hard in her schooling, and she thought she’d never survive school and become a nurse. But she did. But before that time, you could just see, oh, if I could just survive these classes. And she had this weird thought in her head, even though she’s a pretty smart gal. Oh, I’m not smart enough. I’m not going to pass these classes. I was so glad, and I know she was. She passed. And now that earnestness is over. And I don’t know what took its place. I’ll have to ask her husband.

But I know a young man in here. He’s working full time. He’s going to seminary. He’s trying to be a decent dad and a decent husband. And man, trying to learn Hebrew and also be a pipe fitter. Can you imagine two things that don’t go together? Learning how to read backwards and put a pipe on, I guess, forwards. I don’t know. It’s absurd.

And I know this young man wants so much to be done with seminary. It’s what he’s longing for. Now, what about you? Is there something that you long for, you want? Maybe not now, but maybe in the past you can think, if I could just graduate from this class or get to this point in my career or get beyond this trial or that trial. Isn’t it interesting that Jesus uses this language of hungering and thirsting, this earnest, unquenchable desire till he gets satisfied?

Hungering After God’s Righteousness

Not hungering and thirsting for the good life. Not hungering and thirsting for my own satisfaction of my own self-centered needs, but hungering and thirsting after God’s righteousness. Just like I said to the elders when I told them that we were going to be looking at these qualifications for elder and deacon. Every time we look at them, we sort of scratch our heads and say, how woefully short we fall of exhibiting this kind of character in our lives. How can we truly be leaders when we seem to fall short of these in so many ways?

And when you come to something like this in the scripture, again, not just for church leadership, but for all of us, hungry, yearning, the greatest desire of all, in a sense, Jesus is saying for the Christian, is that we be righteous. Now, what does Jesus mean? Well, I’m going to elicit help from Paul and then work backwards to Jesus’s teaching. I hope that doesn’t bother you. It’s the way I want to do it. And so that’s what we’re going to do.

None Is Righteous

Of course, Paul, when he, in Romans, makes the case against mankind in Romans 1, 2, and 3, he summarizes it this way: none is righteous, no, not one. Not Jew, not Gentile. Doesn’t matter who you are, what your social standing is, your ethnicity, whether you’re purple, green, blue, violet. It doesn’t matter. None is righteous, no, not one.

This is the bad news of the gospel. And then Paul says these amazing words: the righteousness of God has been revealed, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. And then later on in the passage, emphasizing how we receive that righteousness, Paul says in verse 28, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Justified by faith means declared right with God. It means righteous. If we are resting in Christ this morning, regardless of how you feel, if you are truly resting in Christ, you are righteous. You are right with God. And we should rejoice in that every day.

How did that happen? Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:21, for our sake, he, the Father, made him, Christ, to be sin who knew no sin. The Father laid upon Christ on the cross all the sin of all of his elect from all the ages, laid it upon him. He suffered for it. He paid the debt, so that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God.

Already Right with God

And that’s what we are. But when Jesus says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, he doesn’t mean that’s what we’re hungering for. How can I say that? Because you already have it. You have the righteousness of Christ. It cannot be taken from you. If you are truly in Christ, you are right with God. You are righteous in God’s sight.

Now, don’t be cynical, but you can imagine a scenario where somebody has confessed faith in Christ, but then they turned away. They didn’t really believe, and they walked away from the gospel. But then someone urged them to come back, to truly repent and trust in Christ. Okay, if they weren’t really believers, they weren’t right with God, even if they professed it.

But if you truly are right with God, or you come to the point that you are resting in Christ, you’re right with God, nothing can change that. All of us here in this room who are resting in Christ, trusting in Christ, we are right now right with God. As J.I. Packer rightly says, it is as if Judgment Day moved forward at that moment you put faith in Christ. And the judge of all the earth said, not only not guilty, but right with God, and a son or a daughter of the living God. But Jesus is not talking here about the righteousness of Christ given to us. He’s talking about our personal growth in righteousness.

The Righteous Requirements of the Law

Look at how Paul says it in Romans 8. This is so important, brothers and sisters. So many Christians miss this point. So many are taught what we’ve just emphasized. They’re forgiven in Christ, they’re right with God. But then they don’t understand the implications of the cross for the Christian life. It’s like they’re not connected at all. And yet Paul makes it abundantly clear that the death of Christ is, yes, to make us right with God, but also to make us grow in righteousness. Hear Paul say it right here.

For God has done what the law (the Ten Commandments, say), weakened by the flesh (the sinful nature), could not do. The law can only convict us. The law can only say, you can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it, because of our weak and sinful nature.

God did, by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. Jesus was like sinful flesh, but not exactly like it, because he was righteous. He was sinless, and he came for sin. He condemned sin in the flesh. Jesus on the cross died and condemned sin. But brothers and sisters, look at verse four. It doesn’t stop there. Why did Christ die on the cross? Yes, to condemn sin. But that’s not Paul’s point.

In order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk, or live, not according to our sinful nature, but according to the Holy Spirit that indwells us. Brothers and sisters, feel the force of that. Christ died in order that you and I, by the Spirit, would obey. Oh, but I can obey to be saved.

That’s not the point. You’re saved in Christ by faith. But that having happened, now you must go on to live for Christ. But how? Christ died so that you would no longer be a slave to sin, Romans 6.

Unless Your Righteousness Exceeds

So brothers and sisters, with that laid out as, if you will, Paul’s foundation, listen to how Jesus talks about righteousness. Now, we’ll get to this passage later down in Matthew 5:20. We’ll study this in depth. All I’m doing here is touching on it because I want you to see how Jesus talks about righteousness. He only uses the term in its forensic, legal sense one time, as far as I know, in Luke 18, when he talks of the tax collector who went home justified, or righteous, or right with God, because of his repentance and his faith. But otherwise, Jesus talks about righteousness in the way that we often think of it, right living according to God’s word.

Now look at what Jesus says in Matthew 5:20. I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. You see what Jesus is doing. What he does at that point is he goes on to expound the moral law of God.

The Pharisees and the scribes, their view of righteousness on the whole was very much external. But Jesus, of course, is teaching that the law is a matter of the heart. And if we’re going to exceed the obedience of the scribes and the Pharisees and the self-righteous of our day, our obedience must be from the heart. Matthew 6 and so forth talk about doing your righteousness, like prayer, fasting, giving alms and so forth.

Come to the Table

And so we come to the table now. Does this have anything to do with it? It has everything to do with it. Paul says that Christ died in order that the requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us. We are going to have this meal, this vivid reminder of Christ’s death on the cross. And you and I should be reminded, yes, our sins are forgiven, but also, I’m no longer a slave to sin. I’m free to live for God. And by his grace, you and I, not just individually, but as a body of believers, will become more and more like Christ.

Let’s Pray

Heavenly Father, remind us that Christ died on the cross in order that the righteous requirements of your law might be fulfilled in us, that we might more and more become like Jesus, our Savior, in moral character. Work the work of conviction of sin in our lives where it is needed, where we fall so woefully short of the calling of hungering and thirsting for righteousness. But Father, don’t stop there. Transform us by your word and the work of your Spirit to delight in your law, to love your word, to enjoy fellowship with your people in worship, that we might also become more and more like our Savior Jesus. And we pray it in his name. Amen.

The Meek and the Hungry

Fairfield Church, PCA