Blessed Are (Part 3)

[0:00] We've been working our way through Matthew chapter 5 verses 3-12 under three headings.

[0:16] We looked at blessed defined, we're in the middle of blessed described, and eventually we'll get to behavior demanded. Remember that Jesus starts every major statement in these verses with the Greek word makarios, and we'll include a reminder of that word's meaning in each study of these verses.

[0:36] Of course, it means blessed, happy, fortunate, or blissful. The fullest meaning of the term had to do with an inward contentedness that is not affected by circumstances, and that's the kind of happiness that God desires for all his children.

[0:52] It's a state of joy and well-being that doesn't depend upon physical or temporary circumstances. So let's read all of Matthew 5, 3-12, and we'll see how Jesus defines blessing or happiness here.

[1:06] He says, 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.

[1:19] 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.

[1:32] 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. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

[1:50] Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. The Beatitudes are a series of connected statements that get progressively harder to do as they go along.

[2:05] And the Beatitudes we've studied so far are anything but easy. Because of that, we can get dejected into thinking that we can never measure up to these standards. And if you're thinking that, you're correct, at least in this life.

[2:20] Let's remind ourselves, though, of a couple of things that we covered three weeks ago before we get tempted to give up on trying to live the Beatitudes. First, challenging ourselves to live the standards that Jesus set in the Beatitudes will help to sanctify us.

[2:37] Challenging ourselves to live the standards Jesus set will differentiate us from the world and will help us be more like Christ. And as we become more like Jesus, we'll be more blessed or more happy.

[2:49] And these blessings or happiness are measured according to the one standard that really matters, and that, of course, is what God's Word says. The more we try to practice the Sermon on the Mount, the more we will experience blessing.

[3:04] And we just need to look at the blessings promised to those who practice it. So, if you want to have power in your life and be blessed, go straight to the Sermon on the Mount. Live and practice it and give yourself to it, and as you do, the promised blessings will come.

[3:21] Jesus says in Matthew 5, 6, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. On the flip side, we also should remember that we will fail to live up to these standards, and even that failure can be a good thing if we approach it the correct way.

[3:40] Here's a quote from James Montgomery Boyce that we saw in week one of this study. He said, Show me a man who claims that he is living up to the standards of the Sermon on the Mount, and I will show you a man who either has never read it, does not understand what it is teaching, or is lying.

[3:58] The Sermon on the Mount does not encourage righteousness in man apart from Christ. It condemns him for falling short of God's righteousness, and it drives him in desperation to the cross.

[4:10] When we come in desperation to the cross, realizing that we can never be righteous on our own, that begins to develop in us the poverty of spirit that Jesus commended in verse 3.

[4:21] And when we have the poverty of spirit, we mourn over sin, as Jesus demanded in verse 4. When we realize that our sins nailed Jesus to the cross, we realize that we can begin developing biblical meekness that Jesus demanded in verse 5.

[4:38] And last week, we looked at the biblical concept of meekness. We saw that biblical meekness is always getting angry at the right times and for the right reasons, but never getting angry at the wrong times for the wrong reason.

[4:53] Biblical meekness carries the idea of being broken by a skilled trainer so that we can provide useful service. In other words, meekness is power under control.

[5:04] Meekness refers to someone taking a lowly place before God so that he will receive God's salvation. In these studies, we've also seen the rewards associated with the requirements.

[5:16] We've seen that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are poor in spirit. Comfort comes to those who mourn properly, and that comfort comes from all three members of the Trinity.

[5:29] A third reward we've seen is that the meek will inherit the earth. When we're exhibiting the biblical characteristic of meekness, our meekness will bring with it a hunger and thirst for righteousness, and that hunger and thirst for righteousness brings us to verse 6, which is the only verse we'll cover tonight.

[5:49] So here again is the main idea of Matthew chapter 5, verses 3 through 12. We've seen it for three weeks now, and we'll see it every week until we make it through verse 12, and that is that Jesus expects every believer to demonstrate all attributes of character and conduct described in these verses.

[6:07] Because Jesus exhibited these traits perfectly, we can paraphrase the main idea as Jesus expects every believer to be like him.

[6:19] According to Jesus, the way to happiness is found in a poverty of spirit, in a character marked by meekness, in a hunger and thirst for righteousness, in mercy, in purity, and in a desire to make peace.

[6:33] Jesus lived all these things, and because he lived them, we too can find happiness through him. And even though we can't live these traits perfectly in this life, we'll be blessed and we'll find happiness as we become more and more like Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit working within us.

[6:52] So look now at verse 6. In verse 6, Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Ever since famine drove Joseph's brothers to Egypt, and probably also before that time, crop failures and the consequent hunger and starvation have been a chronic problem for humans.

[7:16] Droughts, wars, and plant disease have always swept through history, and that leaves behind the trail of misery and death. Often, especially in the biblical times, little could be done to stop the famines and droughts.

[7:30] Unfortunately, physical hunger and thirst of some men is only a pale reflection of a far more serious hunger and thirst that affects everyone, and that is spiritual hunger and thirst.

[7:44] Spiritual hunger and thirst are satisfied only by God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus actually showed us how this hunger and thirst could be satisfied. Verse 6 is the fourth beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount, and it is God's answer to man's spiritual longings.

[8:02] Martin Lloyd-Jones said, This beatitude again follows logically from the previous ones. It is a statement to which all the others lead. It is the logical conclusion to which they come, and it is something for which we all should be profoundly thankful and grateful to God.

[8:22] He says, I do not know of a better test that anyone can apply to himself or herself in this whole matter of the Christian profession than a verse like this.

[8:33] If this verse is to you one of the most blessed statements of the whole of Scripture, you can be quite certain that you are a Christian. If it is not, then you had better examine the foundations again.

[8:46] He also says, Here is an answer to the things we have been considering. We have been told that we must be poor in spirit, that we must mourn, and that we must be meek.

[8:58] Here is the answer to all that. Even though this beatitude logically belongs to all the others that have gone before it, it is nonetheless true to say that it introduces a slight change into the whole approach.

[9:12] It is a little less negative and more positive. There is a negative element, but there is also a more positive element. The others have been causing us to look to ourselves and examine ourselves.

[9:25] Here we begin to look for a solution. This verse emphasizes one of the most fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, and that is that our salvation is entirely of grace or by grace, and that is entirely the free gift of God.

[9:43] And that is the verse's great emphasis. Like the other beatitudes, this verse has a requirement and reward. And to understand the requirement and reward properly, we will define the key terms, starting with the words translated hunger and thirst.

[10:01] Does anybody want to guess what the Greek words translated hunger and thirst mean? Hunger and thirst. All right, we'll give Mike a gold star.

[10:13] Hunger means to be hungry, or to have a strong desire for something, typically food. And thirst means to be thirsty, or to have a strong desire for something, typically water or liquid.

[10:26] Aren't you glad you came here tonight to learn that? The definitions of hunger and thirst are easy to grasp. The jaw-dropping thing in the first part of the verse is the intensities of the hunger and thirst.

[10:44] So we'll talk about the textbook definition of the intensity that Jesus demands, and then we'll follow it up with an example to illustrate the point even more. The textbook meaning is that the one who hungers and thirsts as Christ intends him to hunger and thirst must hunger not after a partial or imperfect righteousness, either his own or God's, but he has to hunger and thirst after the whole thing.

[11:10] He must long for a perfect righteousness, and this means, therefore, a righteousness equal and identical with God's. So let's use real food and drink as an example, and I apologize in advance if this makes you hungry and thirsty.

[11:29] I'm starting to get thirsty up here just thinking about it, actually. Some of you, I know, go to a restaurant for dinner after these Wednesday Bible studies. So let's say that when you get to the restaurant tonight, James tells the server, take my order first.

[11:44] I'm so hungry that I want all the food and all the drink items that you have in the restaurant. And then he says, all of them. I don't just want one of everything. I want everything that you have.

[11:55] I want everything that's in this place. So even if the restaurant normally closes, it probably will stay open around the clock tonight because the owner or manager will be recording his biggest day of sales ever, and the server will be anticipating the biggest tip ever.

[12:13] So let's carry that example further because it still doesn't get to the idea of what the intensity is here. Let's say that two-thirds into his feast, James still is as hungry and thirsty as he was when he started.

[12:28] So he calls the server over and says, if you'll get me all the food in any area restaurant and all the food in the grocery store and have the chef fix that too, then I'll pay you for that as well.

[12:40] So the scene keeps repeating itself nonstop until he's consumed all the food and beverages in the city, the county, the nation, the state, and the world.

[12:53] He was so hungry he got state and nation out of order there. Then James starts pestering all the farmers and ranchers to produce more so that he can have that cooked for him too. And he's still not fully satisfied.

[13:05] That is the type of hunger and thirst that Jesus says we should have for righteousness. True Christians should want all righteousness rather than just some of it.

[13:20] So do you get the idea of the intensity of the hunger and thirst that we're talking about here? So let's talk about an example of someone who hungered and thirsted after righteousness similar to what God required.

[13:32] And that is Moses. You know, we can't have a Wednesday lesson without mentioning Joseph and Moses. So we've already taken care of both of those now. When Moses was in the wilderness, God appeared to him in a burning bush.

[13:45] Then when Moses went back to Egypt to deliver his people, Moses saw God's might and power in the miracles and the ten plagues. He saw God part the Dead Sea and swallow up the Egyptians.

[13:57] Then he saw God's glory in a pillar of fire and the cloud that led Israel in the wilderness. Then he built a tabernacle for God and saw the Lord's glory shining over the Holy of Holies.

[14:11] Over and over, Moses sought and saw God's glory. So the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.

[14:23] That comes from Exodus 33, 11. But Moses was never satisfied and he always wanted to see more. Listen to the exchange between Moses and God in Exodus 33, verses 18 and 19.

[14:37] Moses said, Please show me your glory. And God said, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

[14:53] David is another Old Testament example of someone who hungered and thirsted after righteousness. Listen to what David wrote in Psalm 63.

[15:05] And we're going to read the entire psalm. Again, this is Psalm 63. And the heading in the ESV is, My soul thirst for you. It says, A Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah.

[15:20] O God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

[15:32] So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live.

[15:45] In your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips when I remember you upon my bed and meditate on you in the watches of the night.

[16:00] For you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you, your right hand upholds me. But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth.

[16:15] They shall be given over to the power of the sword. They shall be a portion for the jackals. But the king shall rejoice in God. All who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.

[16:31] Moving over to the New Testament, the Apostle Paul was an example of someone who hungered and thirsted after righteousness. Listen to Paul's familiar words in Philippians 3, verses 7 through 11.

[16:45] He said, But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

[16:58] For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

[17:31] The Apostle Peter wrote these words to his readers in 2 Peter 3.18. This verse is the final verse of 2 Peter. And Peter wrote, But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

[17:45] To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. Growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is another way of saying grow in righteousness.

[17:58] Remember the main idea of this section. Jesus expects every believer to demonstrate all attributes of character and conduct described in these verses, or Jesus expects every believer to be like him.

[18:12] Now that we know how intensely we are to hunger and thirst after righteousness, let's spend some time talking about what Jesus means by righteousness. The scope of righteousness here is as big as our hunger and thirst for that righteousness should be.

[18:29] Someone who would know true happiness must desire not merely righteousness, but perfect righteousness, and this means desiring the righteousness of God. John Stott wrote, Righteousness in the Bible has at least three aspects, legal, moral, and social.

[18:48] We'll talk about what each of those means briefly. Legal righteousness is justification or a right relationship with God. The Jews pursued righteousness, but they failed to attain it because they pursued it in the wrong way.

[19:03] They sought to establish their own righteousness and prove it by following their own laws and didn't submit to God's righteousness, which of course is Christ himself.

[19:14] Moral righteousness is the righteousness of character and conduct which pleases God. Jesus goes on after the Beatitudes to contrast the Christian righteousness with the Pharisees' righteousness.

[19:27] The Pharisees' righteousness was an external conformity to the rules. True Christian righteousness is an inner righteousness of heart, mind, and motive.

[19:39] Then finally, social righteousness, as we learn from the law and the prophets, is concerned with seeking man's liberation from oppression together with promoting civil rights, justice in the law courts, integrity in business dealings, and honor in home and family affairs.

[19:56] Christians are committed to hunger for righteousness in the whole human community as something that is pleasing to a righteous God. Summing these up, then, true righteousness, as Jesus demands here, includes a proper relationship with God, a proper relationship with other people, a pure heart, a pure mind, and pure motives.

[20:18] True righteousness, then, includes more than what we do. True righteousness includes what we think and even our motives for what we do. Martin Lloyd-Jones summarized Jesus' meaning in his verse like this.

[20:33] He said, The desire for righteousness, the act of hungering and thirsting for it, ultimately means the desire to be free from sin in all its forms and in its every manifestation.

[20:46] That one sentence packs a big punch, so here it is again. He said, The desire for righteousness, the act of hungering and thirsting for it, means ultimately the desire to be free from sin in all its forms and in its every manifestation.

[21:03] Think about that for a minute. Who is the only person who has been completely free from sin? Obviously, Jesus.

[21:13] So, given that Jesus is the only person who has been totally free from sin, do we see why we can paraphrase the main idea of this passage by saying that Jesus' followers should be like him?

[21:24] Let's look a little deeper about what Martin Lloyd-Jones meant when he said that righteousness is to be free from sin. He said, Sin separates us from God.

[21:38] Positively, desiring to be free from sin means a desire to be right with God. That is, after all, the fundamental thing. All the trouble in the world today is because man is not right with God.

[21:51] Because he is not right with God, he has gone wrong everywhere else. That is the teaching of the Bible everywhere. The desire for righteousness is a desire to be right with God, a desire to get rid of sin, because sin is that which comes between us and God, keeping us from a knowledge of God and all that is possible to us and for us, with God and from God.

[22:18] Incidentally, Lloyd-Jones' last sentence there is a good summary of the consequences of sin. He said again, Sin is that which comes between us and God, keeping us from a knowledge of God and all that is possible to us and for us, with God and from God.

[22:37] He went on to say, Desiring to be free from sin also means a desire to be free from the power of sin. Having realized what it means to be poor in spirit and mourn because of the sin within, we naturally come to the stage of longing to be free from the power of sin.

[22:55] The man we've been looking at in terms of these beatitudes is a man who has come to see that the world in which he lives is controlled by sin and Satan. The man sees that he is under control of an evil influence.

[23:09] And he continues, it goes further still. Desiring to be free from sin means a desire to be free from the very desire for sin because we find that the man who truly examines himself in the light of the scriptures not only discovers that he is in the bondage of sin, still more horrible is the fact that he likes the sin and wants it.

[23:34] Even after he has seen it is wrong, he still wants it. But now the man who hungers and thirsts after righteousness is a man who wants to get rid of that desire for sin, not only outside, but inside as well.

[23:48] He continues, he longs for deliverance from what you may call the pollution of sin. Sin is something that pollutes the very essence of our being in nature. The Christian is one who desires to be free from all that.

[24:04] We need to pause here for a second though and make one point. The definitions we just read say that Christians desire to be free from sin. None of the definitions says that Christians are free from sin in this life.

[24:18] A big difference exists between being actually free from sin and desiring to be free from sin. Think of course of 1 John 1 verses 8-10.

[24:31] Those verses say, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

[24:46] If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. The positive in these three verses is sandwiched by the negative.

[24:59] If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and make God out to be a liar. However, we must always remember 1 John 1-9, which of course again is, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

[25:17] Someone who confesses sin is someone who hungers and thirsts after righteousness. In his sermon on Matthew 5-6, Martin Lloyd-Jones later restated the summary of the verse more positively than the definitions we covered.

[25:33] He said, To hunger and thirst after righteousness is nothing but the longing to be positively holy. I can think of no better way of defining it. The man who hungers and thirst after righteousness is the man who wants to exemplify the Beatitudes in his daily life.

[25:51] He is a man who wants to show the fruit of the Spirit in his every action and the whole of his life and activity. To hunger and thirst after righteousness is to long to be like the New Testament man, the new man in Christ Jesus.

[26:06] That is what it means that the whole of my being and the whole of my life shall be like that. He says, Let me go further. It means that one supreme desire in life is to know God and to be in fellowship with him.

[26:20] To walk with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the light. Here's a little bit more of what he said. He said, To be in fellowship with God means to be walking with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the light in that blessed purity and holiness.

[26:38] The man who hungers and thirsts after righteousness is the man who longs for that above everything else. That is nothing but a longing and a desire to be like the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

[26:51] Look at Christ. Look at his portrait in these gospels. Look at him when he was here on earth in his incarnate state. Look at him in positive obedience to God's holy law.

[27:03] Look at him in his reactions to other people, his kindness, his compassion, his sensitive nature. Look at him in his reaction to his enemies and all that they did to him.

[27:16] There is the portrait and you and I, according to the New Testament doctrine, have been born again and have been fashioned anew after that pattern and image. The man, therefore, who hungers and thirsts after righteousness is the man who wants to be like that.

[27:31] His supreme desire is to be like Christ. Reading that quote, it sounds as if Martin Lloyd-Jones stole the main idea of this section from me, but in reality, he passed away in 1981, so I think I stole the main idea from someone else who actually stole it from him.

[27:51] Nearly every commentary I've checked quotes Martin Lloyd-Jones at least once on every verse. Look now at the promise or the reward that comes after the requirement in verse 6.

[28:04] Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. So Jesus says here that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be given total satisfaction.

[28:17] The giving of satisfaction is God's work, and we can tell that by the passive tense there. Our part is to seek satisfaction. God's part is to give that satisfaction.

[28:29] And God will give us satisfaction when we hunger and thirst for righteousness. John MacArthur put it, There is a marvelous paradox because those saints continually seek God's righteousness, always wanting more and never getting all, they nevertheless will be satisfied.

[28:47] We may eat steak or our favorite pie until we can eat no more, yet our taste for those things continues and even increases. It's the very satisfaction that makes us want more.

[29:00] We want to eat more of those things because they are so satisfying. The person who genuinely hungers and thirsts for God's righteousness finds it so satisfying that he wants more and more of that righteousness.

[29:14] God being the source of satisfaction is a common theme throughout the Bible and we'll look at that in a few verses here. Psalm 34.10 says, The young lions suffer want and hunger but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

[29:32] We won't read the verses but Psalm 23 expresses the same idea in verses 1 and 5. Prophesying about the blessings of the millennial kingdom, Jeremiah wrote these words in Jeremiah 31 verse 14.

[29:49] He said, I will feast the soul of the priest with abundance and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, declares the Lord. So you see the Lord here in Jeremiah saying that he will satisfy the people.

[30:04] In the New Testament, consider the exchange between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well after Jesus asked her for a drink of water. Here are John 4 verses 10 through 14.

[30:17] Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

[30:29] The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob?

[30:39] He gave us the well and drank from it himself as did his sons and livestock. Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.

[30:56] The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. A little bit later in John, we see these words in John 6.35.

[31:08] Talking to the disciples, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

[31:22] John Darby wrote, To be hungry is not enough. I must be really starving to know what is in God's heart toward me. When the prodigal son was hungry, he went to feed on the husk, but when he was starving, he turned to his father.

[31:37] That is the hunger of which the fourth beatitude speaks, the hunger for righteousness that only the father can satisfy. What is that satisfaction that God promises?

[31:51] We actually saw it in the cross references we just read from John 4 and John 6. Where there is the desire for righteousness, there will be filling, and that filling is Christ himself.

[32:03] James Montgomery Voice referenced the verses about Jesus being the living water and the bread of life. He also referenced the parable of the prodigal son.

[32:14] Listen to what James Montgomery Voice said. He said, Have you drunk deeply at the spring and fed on that bread, or are you still feeding on things that do not satisfy?

[32:25] When the prodigal son left home, he expected to find complete satisfaction. He wanted to live, and life to him meant money, clothes, food, companionship, and good times.

[32:38] Instead of these things, he found poverty, rags, hunger, loneliness, and misery. When he was hungry, he turned to feeding swine. It was only when he was finally starving that he turned back to his father.

[32:53] In his father's company, he found all that he had thought he would find in the world. His father clothed him, fed him, welcomed him, and rejoiced in his return.

[33:06] At the beginning of the lesson, we talked about why we should try to live out these Beatitudes, even though we'll never live them perfectly in this life. And we heard a quote from Martin Lloyd-Jones that said in part, The more we live and try to practice this Sermon on the Mount, the more we shall experience blessing.

[33:24] And here's a quote from John MacArthur that expands on that theme. MacArthur said, The blessings of the Beatitudes are for those who are realistic about their sinfulness, who are repentant of their sins, and who are responsive to God in his righteousness.

[33:40] Those who are unblessed, unhappy, and shut out of the kingdom are the proud, the arrogant, and the unrepentant, the self-sufficient and self-righteous who see in themselves no unworthiness and feel no need for God's help and God's righteousness.

[33:55] In our introduction to the Sermon on the Mount a few weeks ago, we talked about how countercultural Jesus' words were, and they still are. We're starting to see that as we go through the verses.

[34:10] Most pagans, dating from the time when Jesus first spoke this sermon until now, view happiness itself as the end goal. The Rolling Stones and later Britney Spears summarize the pagan worldview well when they sang the lyrics, I can't get no satisfaction.

[34:29] So listen to the opening lyrics there. They say, I can't get no satisfaction. I can't get no satisfaction because I try and I try and I try and I try I can't get no I can't get no.

[34:48] Apparently, they couldn't get a good English or speech teacher either. But you get the idea there. Although these lyrics perfectly summarize the pagan worldview, my college composition teacher and my high school debate coach would give the lyrics an F.

[35:04] I had to mention that I realized that just in case either one of them listens to the recording here. Contrast the pagan worldview of happiness expressed in the song with this quote from Martin Lloyd-Jones.

[35:17] He said, according to the scriptures, happiness is never something that should be sought directly. It is always something that results from seeking something else. That quote really resonated with me.

[35:30] Here it is again. According to the scriptures, happiness is never something that should be sought directly. It is always something that results from seeking something else. That brings us back to where we started.

[35:44] Being realistic about our sinfulness, being repentant of our sins, and being responsive to God and His righteousness will continue developing in us a hunger and thirst for righteousness.

[35:56] And what do we know about a hunger and thirst for righteousness? We know that blessed or happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied. Here's one last cross reference to show that God will satisfy true believers if they hunger and thirst for righteousness.

[36:14] Listen to the first nine verses of Psalm 107. The psalm's heading is Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. And here are verses one through nine of Psalm 107.

[36:26] They say, O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.

[36:43] Some wandered in desert waste, finding no way to a city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and He delivered them from their distress.

[36:58] He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man, for He satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul He fills with good things.

[37:15] Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this reminder of the type of righteousness that we should strive for. We know we can't accomplish that on our own.

[37:28] Please continue to work in each of us as we seek to become more and more like Christ and let that seeking become more and more apparent to those we come in contact with every day.

[37:39] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.