WEBVTT 00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:06.879 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 00:00:07.280 --> 00:00:11.119 Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:16.559 Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:24.640 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:28.960 Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. 00:00:29.600 --> 00:00:33.119 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 00:00:34.079 --> 00:00:38.719 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 00:00:39.679 --> 00:00:43.200 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. 00:00:43.679 --> 00:00:47.119 For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 00:00:49.439 --> 00:00:55.679 I want to open with a couple of uh stories of the Lord Jesus Christ from the book of Mark. 00:00:56.320 --> 00:01:00.479 The first one comes from Mark chapter 1, and there is a leper. 00:01:01.359 --> 00:01:05.040 Leprosy, we're not entirely sure which disease that that refers to. 00:01:05.120 --> 00:01:07.280 There are various different skin diseases it could be. 00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:22.719 What's currently called leprosy in the world today is a very uh very horrible disease in which you can't feel pain, which sounds great until you realize that it means that you can't defend yourself against things which you're not noticing are happening to you. 00:01:22.799 --> 00:01:26.959 Your hand goes on the hob, your foot goes on a thorn, you don't deal with it. 00:01:28.159 --> 00:01:33.439 Seeing people with leprosy begging by the side of the road in Africa, all their fingers missing. 00:01:34.319 --> 00:01:40.400 Whether or not it's that, what this man has is a contagious disease which is incurable. 00:01:40.799 --> 00:01:44.879 And so, back 2,000 years ago in Israel, if you were a leper, that was it. 00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:47.040 You couldn't live with others anymore. 00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:51.120 You had to go out, out of all the towns, out of the villages, into the wilderness. 00:01:51.280 --> 00:02:00.079 If an ordinary person came near you, someone without leprosy, you had to shout at them, unclean, unclean, so they'd know not to touch you. 00:02:01.519 --> 00:02:10.080 So this leper, cut off from society, thrown out living with a death sentence in his skin. 00:02:10.879 --> 00:02:19.759 He hasn't had a hug, or a handshake, or even a friendly pat on the shoulder for years. 00:02:20.639 --> 00:02:40.400 But he hears somehow, through maybe through the leopard networks or in some way, that there is a man called Jesus with extraordinary power, who throws out evil spirits, who heals fevers, who makes lame men walk and preaches with the authority of God himself. 00:02:40.879 --> 00:02:44.479 And once he's heard that, the leper has one thing and one thing only in his mind. 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:46.240 He has to find Jesus. 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:47.759 And so he goes on a journey. 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:51.759 And as he travels, he keeps on hearing stories, new stories of what Jesus has done. 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:57.599 And a terrible certainty and a terrible fear grow in his mind. 00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:00.000 Terrible certainty. 00:03:00.319 --> 00:03:03.039 Jesus can heal him. 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:05.919 The more he hears, the more obvious it is. 00:03:06.240 --> 00:03:09.039 This man can make him completely well. 00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:12.479 And a terrible fear. 00:03:13.280 --> 00:03:14.879 What if he doesn't want to? 00:03:15.759 --> 00:03:21.360 What if he gets to Jesus and sees in Jesus' face the same disgust he's seen in so many faces through the years? 00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:24.000 What if Jesus turns him away? 00:03:24.719 --> 00:03:28.479 And so the leper travels on, and at last he gets to Jesus. 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:33.919 There's a big crowd around him, and all he has to do is shout, unclean, unclean, and the crowd parts like water. 00:03:34.240 --> 00:03:42.879 No one wants to touch a leper, and when he makes his way through, he falls on his knees and says, Lord, I know if you want, you can make me well. 00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:47.840 Just pause that story. 00:03:47.919 --> 00:03:48.800 We'll come back to it. 00:03:49.039 --> 00:03:51.680 But consider another story from the Gospel of Mark. 00:03:51.840 --> 00:03:57.360 A woman who's been bleeding inside for twelve years straight, in constant pain. 00:03:57.680 --> 00:03:59.919 Her bleeding has made her unclean. 00:04:01.599 --> 00:04:04.240 So she's a little like the leper. 00:04:04.479 --> 00:04:05.919 But she's not totally like him. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:10.080 She can still live with others, still live in a town, but she can't eat with them. 00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:11.840 She can't have any ordinary friendship. 00:04:11.919 --> 00:04:14.159 She can't go into the temple to worship God. 00:04:14.639 --> 00:04:18.959 Over twelve years, she's spent money on doctor after doctor. 00:04:19.519 --> 00:04:21.600 The money running out and running out. 00:04:24.399 --> 00:04:26.800 Sell the flat and move into a camping van kind of situation. 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:30.399 She spent all she has and it has done nothing. 00:04:30.959 --> 00:04:33.279 And she too hears about Jesus. 00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:35.439 Like the latter. 00:04:35.519 --> 00:04:38.160 She hears those stories of healings. 00:04:39.120 --> 00:04:41.120 The stories of the preaching, too. 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:43.199 The authority. 00:04:44.240 --> 00:04:45.360 The love for God. 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:48.720 And she knows here is God's man. 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:51.600 I can't bother him. 00:04:52.959 --> 00:04:55.120 I couldn't speak to a man like that. 00:04:56.079 --> 00:05:01.120 But it sounds like he's so good and so strong that I might not need to. 00:05:01.519 --> 00:05:04.079 If I just touch him, that will do it. 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:06.160 Jesus is in town. 00:05:07.199 --> 00:05:09.920 She hears that she's there, and she goes out, and there he is. 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:12.160 Again, he's in the middle of a big crowd. 00:05:12.399 --> 00:05:13.839 And she doesn't shout anything. 00:05:13.920 --> 00:05:14.959 She's not that sort of person. 00:05:15.120 --> 00:05:20.399 Rather, she just makes herself small and pushes and squeezes her way through. 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:23.759 No one notices a little bent-over woman. 00:05:24.079 --> 00:05:25.759 Jesus is just a few people away. 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:27.839 She squeezes between two more. 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:30.959 She's just a couple of bodies between her and him. 00:05:31.120 --> 00:05:32.240 She pushes forward. 00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:39.920 She sticks out a hand between two men, and with a tip of a finger, she brushes the edge of Jesus clear. 00:05:41.600 --> 00:05:44.399 Desperate for the Lord's healing. 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:47.600 We'll come back to both those stories in due course. 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:49.519 But let's have a look at our blessing. 00:05:49.839 --> 00:05:57.439 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:01.680 Again, we're going to do this in two halves, there's two obvious halves. 00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:09.199 First of all, thinking about hungering and thirsting, and then second, thinking about being satisfied, being filled. 00:06:09.519 --> 00:06:14.480 So first, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. 00:06:15.920 --> 00:06:22.959 We thought just a couple of hours ago about the first three blessings, and they lead to this one, don't they? 00:06:23.199 --> 00:06:38.800 If you receive the blessing of realizing that you've got nothing, if you've received the blessing of hating your sin, the blessing of giving up on your demands, you really see yourself like that, what will happen? 00:06:38.959 --> 00:06:41.040 Well, you'll wish you weren't like that. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:47.360 If I catch a glimpse of how ugly I really am, I will start longing to be beautiful. 00:06:49.600 --> 00:06:51.920 These are not one-off blessings. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:54.480 This grows throughout our whole Christian life, I think. 00:06:54.639 --> 00:06:59.439 The more I see my sin, the more I hate my sin, the more I'll long for righteousness. 00:06:59.680 --> 00:07:05.519 I have a deeper and deeper hunger, a hole in the belly of my soul, if you like, a hunger for righteousness. 00:07:05.680 --> 00:07:11.759 Like that leper seeing his disease and longing to be well, I will long for holiness. 00:07:12.800 --> 00:07:26.319 But at this point you might think, well, longing for righteousness doesn't sound like that big a deal because when you get down to it, everyone kind of wants those things, right? 00:07:27.120 --> 00:07:29.759 No one goes, I really like to be a coward. 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:32.560 Everyone would like to be brave. 00:07:34.240 --> 00:07:40.160 No one says to themselves, I would love to be not at all in control of how much time I'm spending on my phone screen. 00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:42.079 Everyone wants to be self-controlled. 00:07:42.480 --> 00:07:46.560 So what's the sort of big deal about hungering and thirsting for righteousness? 00:07:47.519 --> 00:07:55.519 I think we need to say actually, it is not the case that in the sense Jesus means it, everyone does hung and thirst for these things. 00:07:55.680 --> 00:08:05.279 Although there is a natural recognition in us that righteousness is good, that does not necessarily meet in our hearts a deep desire for it. 00:08:05.519 --> 00:08:20.560 One of the ways I think that can help us with this is the old Christian idea of disordered desire, disordered affection, you might find some people talking about it as the idea of that is this. 00:08:20.800 --> 00:08:23.680 Human beings are made with all kinds of desires. 00:08:23.920 --> 00:08:27.360 You are built by God to want loads of things. 00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:41.919 Here you are put in a world with a mouth that tells you to want food and eyes that desire beauty and a body which likes to be the right temperature, but also a soul which craves friendship and purpose and all these good things, and most of all, you are made to desire God Himself. 00:08:42.080 --> 00:08:46.720 But those things are not just a sort of random bunch of things that are also sort of scattered out there. 00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:48.639 They have an ordering to them. 00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:50.879 There are lower things and higher things. 00:08:51.039 --> 00:08:54.559 The lower things you're meant to desire in proportion to the higher things. 00:08:54.639 --> 00:08:57.279 So let's take just a little example. 00:08:57.440 --> 00:09:01.360 Um, you have God and friendship and chocolate. 00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:06.080 And those are all three very good things, and it's fine to desire them. 00:09:06.559 --> 00:09:11.279 But they need to be rightly ordered in your heart, and very often they're not. 00:09:11.600 --> 00:09:24.240 You can imagine a person who comes along to church and worships God because she knows that if she worships God, that might help her at church to find some more friends, and that's what she wants more than she wants God. 00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:29.679 And actually, when you dig down into her friendships, she likes friendships because it's quite a good excuse to eat chocolate sometimes. 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:35.840 That is a deeply wrongly ordered set of designs. 00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:42.399 And so it is with a great deal of what passes in the world for hungering for righteousness. 00:09:42.559 --> 00:09:51.919 I would like self-control in order to serve my higher desire for success in my career, which is in order to serve my higher desire for money. 00:09:52.559 --> 00:09:55.440 That's those are all the wrong way around. 00:09:57.120 --> 00:10:04.080 What the Lord Jesus is speaking of here, and what he offers us in this blessing, is a reordering. 00:10:04.639 --> 00:10:07.120 You can think of these pulls, these desires of your heart, like muscles. 00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:08.639 Muscles are things which pull, aren't they? 00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:15.759 None of your muscles push, and all of them work by pulling two sort of bones or whatever closer together, or in your heart sort of contracting as a whole, or things like that. 00:10:16.240 --> 00:10:17.360 They're all pulls. 00:10:17.679 --> 00:10:21.679 And what you need is for all your muscles to be sort of rightly ordered, rightly intersecting. 00:10:21.840 --> 00:10:33.919 If you have some of your small, weak muscles incredibly tight and tense, and some of the muscles which are meant to be big and strong, very weak and flabby for some reason, what you end up with is a horribly bad back, and then you can't sleep, and it's incredibly painful. 00:10:34.480 --> 00:10:37.840 That is what many of us walk around with spiritually in life. 00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:42.399 Our desires, our sort of muscles, our pulls are all out of whack, out of order. 00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:51.360 And the Lord Jesus comes in order that we might desire rightly to sort of, as a kind of heavenly chiropractor, if you like, to put us back into shape. 00:10:54.399 --> 00:11:06.080 So we learn to love what is beautiful for the sake of its true beauty, and to order all our desires under the greater and deeper desire for the God who gives those things. 00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:11.279 What is it going to look like hungering and thirsting for righteousness? 00:11:11.679 --> 00:11:15.360 Well, it will be painful and frustrating. 00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:18.960 We mentioned name-checked a couple of times this morning, Romans chapter 7. 00:11:19.039 --> 00:11:22.799 Let's actually turn there at Romans 7 in the Bibles. 00:11:30.879 --> 00:11:45.840 And in Romans 7, you have this great unpacking of Paul's experience, both coming to faith in the first place, and then I think also going on in faith as a believer, Paul's experience of the frustration of his own sin. 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:50.159 I'm going to pick up from verse 15, and we'll read all the way through to the end of the chapter. 00:11:50.639 --> 00:11:54.720 You can sort of grab the drama of what he's describing. 00:11:55.519 --> 00:12:04.000 For I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 00:12:04.559 --> 00:12:07.919 Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it's good. 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:11.759 And now it's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 00:12:12.399 --> 00:12:16.159 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. 00:12:16.399 --> 00:12:21.440 I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:27.759 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 00:12:29.360 --> 00:12:34.720 Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 00:12:34.960 --> 00:12:41.600 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 00:12:42.799 --> 00:12:53.519 For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 00:12:53.840 --> 00:13:01.200 Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? 00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:05.120 Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 00:13:05.440 --> 00:13:11.600 So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. 00:13:12.399 --> 00:13:17.679 There is hungering and thirsting for righteousness in practice. 00:13:17.919 --> 00:13:22.879 He has the desire to do what is good, and he finds he can't do it. 00:13:23.120 --> 00:13:28.080 He doesn't do the good he wants, nearly evil, he doesn't, the evil he hates, that he keeps on doing. 00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:30.639 It's miserable, wretched man that I am. 00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:35.440 And that makes sense, doesn't it, of the language that Jesus uses. 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:46.240 We live in a pretty comfortable society, and the language of hunger and thirst uh is not something that we often feel at a very visceral level. 00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:56.639 But if you ever have gone 36 hours without food, you might know what the feeling is of having a real kind of hole in your tummy. 00:13:57.840 --> 00:13:59.600 It's urgent at that point. 00:14:00.080 --> 00:14:01.360 I want to get this. 00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:03.519 Oh, I feel my need. 00:14:04.960 --> 00:14:06.480 That's what the Lord Jesus says. 00:14:07.519 --> 00:14:08.480 He's blessed. 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:19.600 Let me at this point then offer both a challenge, perhaps, and an encouragement before we go on to the second half of the verse. 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:21.519 The challenges. 00:14:24.240 --> 00:14:25.919 Feel that frustration. 00:14:27.519 --> 00:14:30.559 Does that sin, does your sin drive you onto the wall? 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:32.720 Your your lack of righteousness. 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:38.720 Kevin Deoung a while ago wrote a book called The Hole in Our Holiness. 00:14:39.440 --> 00:14:44.320 Um, very good book, and it's maybe on your church bookstore, and I certainly recommend it. 00:14:44.559 --> 00:14:48.159 Um one of the things he says, what's the title, The Hole in Our Holiness about? 00:14:48.399 --> 00:14:54.960 And he goes, uh, his fear for the Western church is that there is a hole where our holiness should be. 00:14:55.279 --> 00:14:57.600 We don't deeply desire it. 00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:00.639 Our instincts are often in the opposite direction. 00:15:00.799 --> 00:15:04.639 How much can I be like everyone around me and still be a Christian? 00:15:05.519 --> 00:15:15.200 When it comes to money or sex or TV or worship, our question is often not, what would real holiness look like here? 00:15:15.840 --> 00:15:18.000 But what can I get away with? 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:20.320 Here's what I want. 00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:22.399 What makes me comfortable? 00:15:22.639 --> 00:15:24.480 How close to that can I get? 00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:30.639 So we read room seven and it leaves us going, kind of cold. 00:15:31.120 --> 00:15:32.159 We don't have that. 00:15:42.799 --> 00:15:44.080 You have a desperate need. 00:15:47.120 --> 00:15:48.639 It is almost certainly a sign. 00:15:50.559 --> 00:15:52.720 You are lacking the quality of spirits. 00:15:53.919 --> 00:15:56.080 You have to learn to mourn your sin. 00:16:00.639 --> 00:16:04.639 You need to ask the Lord for those things and you need to pursue them. 00:16:05.600 --> 00:16:11.759 Talk a bit more about how to do that over the course of this weekend, and do come and talk to me or to others about that. 00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:17.200 But let me, along with that challenge, give us the encouragement. 00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:30.080 Do you notice that the Lord Jesus says here, not blessed are those who have been satisfied after they hungered, but blessed are those who hunger. 00:16:31.039 --> 00:16:51.519 If you read Romans 7 and resonate with what Paul is saying, if you are in a position not of being the most sanctified person in the room, but of grieving over your lack of sanctification, the Lord Jesus says, you are already, right now, deeply blessed to have received that hunger. 00:16:51.600 --> 00:16:52.879 That didn't come from you. 00:16:53.039 --> 00:16:55.360 That is a gift of the Holy Spirit. 00:16:55.759 --> 00:16:59.360 And you get to claim for yourself the second half of that promise. 00:16:59.519 --> 00:17:06.480 Even before it's realized in you, if you like, even before you've attained that righteousness that you long for, you get to go, okay, this is the way it works. 00:17:06.559 --> 00:17:10.079 The Lord Jesus has told me, if I hunger for it, I'm gonna get it. 00:17:10.720 --> 00:17:22.799 And so, in the midst of my mourning now, in the midst of my frustration, in the midst of my wretched man that I am, I do get to say at the same time, thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 00:17:23.279 --> 00:17:28.160 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, but they will be satisfied. 00:17:29.359 --> 00:17:38.880 If by any chance you close Romans, uh, do open it again, as we think about this second half being satisfied. 00:17:39.599 --> 00:17:47.920 Chapter 7 of Romans unpacks that deep frustration with sin or hungers and thirst for righteousness. 00:17:48.079 --> 00:18:07.119 And then chapter 8, verse 1 says this there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 00:18:07.759 --> 00:18:10.160 That's a bit of a mood shift, isn't it? 00:18:11.359 --> 00:18:18.640 You've got this wretched misery, two verses before, and then freedom and life. 00:18:19.599 --> 00:18:21.359 What has made the difference? 00:18:22.799 --> 00:18:23.920 Verse 2. 00:18:24.400 --> 00:18:26.480 It is the Holy Spirit. 00:18:27.039 --> 00:18:36.720 And chapter 8 is one of the most famous chapters in the Bible, one of the most beloved chapters in the whole of Scripture, because it is all about the work of the Holy Spirit. 00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:39.200 And the shape of Paul's argument is chapter 7. 00:18:39.279 --> 00:18:43.279 I find that I'm empty, I'm wicked, I want to be righteous, but I can't. 00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:46.079 I long to do good, but I can't. 00:18:46.720 --> 00:18:56.240 And chapter 8, I find to my amazement and joy that what I can't do, the Spirit does in me. 00:18:56.640 --> 00:19:00.640 I hunger for righteousness and I'm filled. 00:19:01.279 --> 00:19:09.599 I really do change in ways that I couldn't change myself because the Spirit changes me. 00:19:10.559 --> 00:19:18.240 Important to say that Romans 7 followed by Romans 8 is not two phases of the Christian life. 00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:27.519 You don't go through kind of, I don't know, years 1 to 5 in Romans 7, and then you have this experience, and then years six onwards are Romans 8. 00:19:28.319 --> 00:19:34.240 Rather, both of these run on parallel tracks all the way through. 00:19:35.599 --> 00:19:42.000 I struggle and grieve over my own inability and wickedness, and at the same time I rejoice that the Spirit is at work. 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:44.319 The grief and the joy grow together. 00:19:44.480 --> 00:19:56.559 In fact, the more I have the Spirit working in me, the more holiness I actually receive, the greater the grief is, as I see, even though my sin is now smaller, I see it much more clearly, and I grieve over it much more. 00:19:56.799 --> 00:20:08.640 Take a really a spirit-filled older believer that you know, and you will find that they are humbler than you are, and hate their sin more than you do. 00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:17.599 It is those who hunger and thirst for righteousness that are satisfied, and the more satisfied they are, the more their hunger grows. 00:20:18.640 --> 00:20:20.319 That's just for this life. 00:20:20.480 --> 00:20:26.000 One day the satisfaction will be complete, but here these things go parallel. 00:20:26.720 --> 00:20:28.559 And so we want to ask, don't we? 00:20:29.200 --> 00:20:30.319 How does that work? 00:20:30.559 --> 00:20:32.799 How do I get in on that good bit of action? 00:20:32.960 --> 00:20:34.400 How does the spirit do this? 00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:38.559 And it's important to say that in one sense, uh, we don't know. 00:20:38.799 --> 00:20:44.480 Um the Lord Jesus says that the spirit is like the wind, it blows uh where it pleases. 00:20:44.640 --> 00:20:47.599 You don't know where it comes from or where it's going, but you feel its impact. 00:20:47.680 --> 00:20:52.240 He's the spirit, he's in charge, and everything he does is in some sense a mystery. 00:20:52.480 --> 00:20:58.880 But there are ways in which we can unpack very, very clearly how the spirit works in us. 00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:04.000 Uh first of all, you can see that in there in verse 2. 00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:11.920 The law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 00:21:12.160 --> 00:21:18.240 The spirit is, as Romans will, uh Paul will go on to say in Romans 8, the Spirit of Christ. 00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:31.519 And what he always does, anytime he blesses, is blessed by bringing you the Lord Jesus, and by working the Lord Jesus in you, and by lifting up your eyes so that you can more fully see him. 00:21:33.119 --> 00:21:36.160 Christ and the Spirit, in fact, always go together. 00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:40.160 It's not just that the Spirit is always giving you Christ, but that Christ is the one who gives you the Spirit. 00:21:40.319 --> 00:21:42.880 That's how John the Baptist introduces his ministry. 00:21:43.039 --> 00:21:46.720 Look, here comes the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. 00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:58.079 So there's this wonderful knitting together as the Spirit gives you Christ, Christ gives you the Spirit, and the two together, as the two hands of God, if you'd like, bring us into the embrace of the Father. 00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:12.160 I want to say therefore that one of the ways we can learn how the Spirit will work and how this hungering thirsting for righteousness works is by looking at Christ. 00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:17.039 Because again, as with all the Beatitudes, this one first describes him. 00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:23.279 Again, we might find that a little bit odd in first hearing. 00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:26.720 Does the Lord Jesus hunger and thirst for righteousness? 00:22:27.599 --> 00:22:29.119 He has it, doesn't he? 00:22:29.920 --> 00:22:33.920 Well, yeah, so in that sense, his hunger and thirst is a little different from ours. 00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:37.359 Not hungering and thirsting from a position of being a sinner. 00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:50.720 And yet, as you look at his life in the Gospels, it is wonderful to see his deep desire for the Lord, his huge appetite for godliness and for God's word and for all God's things. 00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:55.039 When he's twelve, his family leave him behind in Jerusalem by accident. 00:22:55.759 --> 00:22:57.839 And they come and they find him. 00:22:58.079 --> 00:23:08.720 And he, remarkably, in a way that are appropriate for a twelve-year-old with his parents, but still, he kind of rebukes them and says, Didn't you know that I'd be here in the temple? 00:23:08.960 --> 00:23:13.039 Speaking of God's things about my father's work, where else would I be? 00:23:13.759 --> 00:23:16.240 When he's led by the Spirit into the desert. 00:23:16.799 --> 00:23:18.640 What does he say to the devil? 00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:24.160 Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. 00:23:24.720 --> 00:23:28.240 The Lord Jesus was hungry for righteousness. 00:23:30.400 --> 00:23:33.440 And boy was he filled. 00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:36.640 Doesn't it stagger you as you read the Gospels? 00:23:36.880 --> 00:23:50.960 How well he knows his Father, how deeply loving he is, how completely untouched, unspotted he is by lust or pride or envy or self-seeking or laziness or any of those things which trouble us so much. 00:23:51.119 --> 00:23:56.880 He is brilliantly, blazingly pure and wonderfully gently merciful, all in the same element. 00:23:59.200 --> 00:24:05.200 Because he is the truly spirit-filled man who shows us God. 00:24:07.119 --> 00:24:14.480 And the same spirit who works at that in Christ will work Christ in us. 00:24:15.200 --> 00:24:19.279 Let me say as well, so that the Spirit gives us the Lord Jesus. 00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:21.519 Again, you can, I think, probe a bit deeper. 00:24:21.599 --> 00:24:22.960 How does he do that? 00:24:23.519 --> 00:24:35.039 And I think the church has rightly said through the ages the main way, the ordinary way that the Spirit works Christ in us is through what is called the ordinary means of grace. 00:24:35.599 --> 00:24:46.079 Those are normally listed out as something along the lines of prayer and the word of God and the sacraments which the Lord Jesus instituted, baptism and the Lord's Supper. 00:24:46.400 --> 00:24:50.480 Perhaps sometimes you might add the fellowship of the saints into that list. 00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:56.240 That's just worth working through this to see how briefly this works. 00:24:57.279 --> 00:25:03.119 The word, your Bible, is an ordinary means of grace to you. 00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:05.839 That's true when you open it on your own. 00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:18.880 It's true particularly, I think, we see in scripture when God's word is preached to God's people together, perhaps even particularly on the Lord's special day as he gathers his people for worship. 00:25:19.440 --> 00:25:26.559 But I don't just want to say it's a means of grace, but if it's a means of grace, what that means is that when you come to it, what are you doing? 00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:32.720 You are not there to slowly pull yourself up by some biblical bootstraps. 00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:46.880 You do need to work hard as the Lord speaks to you in his words, but it is ultimately the Spirit who is at work in you through these words, and the work that he's doing is giving you Christ. 00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:50.559 That might change the way that you go about reading it. 00:25:50.880 --> 00:25:53.119 There's a receptivity to that. 00:25:53.519 --> 00:25:56.640 An open hand as you open your Bible. 00:25:58.960 --> 00:25:59.839 Prayer. 00:26:00.480 --> 00:26:02.480 A great means of grace. 00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:07.440 On your own, but again, especially together as God's people gather. 00:26:07.759 --> 00:26:12.079 Again, we often have this sense that prayer is this great hard thing. 00:26:12.559 --> 00:26:16.319 Many Christians are happy with their prayer lives if only I prayed more. 00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:20.880 And the sense of I just have to really grip my teeth and work, work at this. 00:26:21.119 --> 00:26:23.200 It's like breaking a rock in pieces. 00:26:24.960 --> 00:26:33.680 But in Romans 8, Paul speaks wonderfully, gently of the way in which, even when we don't know what to pray, the Spirit is with us, interceding for us. 00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:36.000 Groans that words cannot express. 00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:43.200 He is the one who gives us the power to pray and brings our prayers up to the Father. 00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:49.519 He is the one who unites us to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is interceding for us. 00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:55.279 In our prayers, we receive the Lord Jesus, and our prayers are brought to the throne. 00:26:57.200 --> 00:26:58.079 Sacraments. 00:26:58.559 --> 00:27:00.079 Don't know how much you think of. 00:27:00.319 --> 00:27:10.160 The Lord's Supper, for example, as something which the Lord Jesus Christ intends to give to you to fill you with righteousness. 00:27:12.640 --> 00:27:16.960 And the Holy Spirit is at work through that, knitting ye together. 00:27:17.200 --> 00:27:24.000 Those wonderful verses in 1 Corinthians 10 that the cup that we share is a participation in the blood of Christ. 00:27:24.079 --> 00:27:27.119 The bread we break is a participation in the body of Christ. 00:27:27.279 --> 00:27:33.279 Those are mysterious words, but clearly the Spirit Himself is at work in some way when God's people gather. 00:27:33.680 --> 00:27:37.039 And there's a joining that's happening and a giving and a receiving. 00:27:37.759 --> 00:27:39.759 Wonderfully, mysteriously. 00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:54.000 Now perhaps if you want one verse at a time, all these things together, you might go for Acts chapter 2, verse 42, where the early church, having just heard that first Christian sermon at Pentecost as Peter preaches, and as 3,000 people are baptized, what do they do? 00:27:54.160 --> 00:27:57.519 They devote themselves to the apostles' teaching. 00:27:58.079 --> 00:28:18.160 To I'm probably going to get the order wrong, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, the prayers, and those four things, those standard means of grace, of the Lord Jesus' way to work in each of us regularly and ordinarily through all these millennia. 00:28:18.319 --> 00:28:20.559 So devote yourselves to them as well. 00:28:22.480 --> 00:28:28.960 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 00:28:29.440 --> 00:28:32.000 That is a promise. 00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:40.559 And really, what I want to say to us this morning, with all the other things that I said, is take hold of it. 00:28:41.759 --> 00:28:43.200 It's a promise. 00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:47.359 Is there a sin in your life that you are tired of? 00:28:50.720 --> 00:28:52.480 Well, here's God's promise. 00:28:53.200 --> 00:28:54.559 You will be free. 00:28:56.079 --> 00:29:01.599 Even in this life, you can, through the Spirit's work, win huge victories over that. 00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:07.200 And in the new creation, you will be so transformed you won't even recognize yourself. 00:29:08.799 --> 00:29:12.000 Remember that bleeding woman in the crowd. 00:29:12.480 --> 00:29:14.079 She longs to be whole again. 00:29:14.319 --> 00:29:18.799 She reaches out, she brushes Jesus' cloak with the tip of her finger. 00:29:19.599 --> 00:29:22.240 And she's well, just like that. 00:29:22.480 --> 00:29:25.599 She feels inside her that she is freed. 00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:28.319 But the story does not end there in Mark's Gospel. 00:29:28.559 --> 00:29:29.920 Jesus stops. 00:29:31.119 --> 00:29:32.240 Who touched me? 00:29:32.400 --> 00:29:33.359 He says. 00:29:35.039 --> 00:29:37.039 And no one understands what he's talking about. 00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:38.880 You're in a crowd, people are touching you all the time. 00:29:39.200 --> 00:29:40.000 What's going on? 00:29:40.160 --> 00:29:43.440 But he keeps going, No, I know that someone's touched me. 00:29:43.519 --> 00:29:45.839 I've felt power go out from me. 00:29:46.720 --> 00:29:50.960 And in the end, the woman sees that she can't get away. 00:29:51.519 --> 00:29:57.519 She comes forward trembling from head to toe and falls on the ground and tells him the whole story. 00:29:58.480 --> 00:30:00.240 What does he say to her? 00:30:01.359 --> 00:30:03.039 Very beautiful line. 00:30:03.839 --> 00:30:09.119 Daughter, your faith has healed you. 00:30:09.359 --> 00:30:13.200 Go in peace and be freed from your suffering. 00:30:14.160 --> 00:30:19.119 What gentleness and kindness and love there is in our Saviour. 00:30:19.359 --> 00:30:29.680 She came for physical healing, but she left with not just physical healing, but with the peace and love of Christ in blessing on her head. 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:35.200 Jesus' plans for you are bigger than your desires for yourself. 00:30:36.240 --> 00:30:47.119 I don't know what you first came to him for as a Christian, but he plans more blessing on you, more satisfaction than even you currently hunger for. 00:30:47.759 --> 00:30:49.839 Plans, in the words of C.S. 00:30:50.079 --> 00:30:57.759 Lewis, not to just do a little bit of tinkering in the house that is your soul, but to really sort of knock it down and rebuild it into a palace. 00:30:59.119 --> 00:31:05.920 It will be painful, as such renovations often are, and it will be a joy bigger than you can imagine. 00:31:06.480 --> 00:31:08.400 Again, this is a promise. 00:31:08.640 --> 00:31:13.119 Actually, all eight of these are promises, and we can do what I'm suggesting here with all eight of them. 00:31:13.200 --> 00:31:15.440 But what do you do with a promise in practice? 00:31:15.599 --> 00:31:16.720 You pray it. 00:31:17.759 --> 00:31:20.480 God says the promise, you take it back to him. 00:31:21.839 --> 00:31:23.359 Look, you said you'd do this. 00:31:23.440 --> 00:31:24.960 Please do it for me. 00:31:25.519 --> 00:31:27.279 And God loves it when we do that. 00:31:27.359 --> 00:31:29.599 It means we're taking his promises seriously. 00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:31.839 There's a lovely story about Alexander the Great. 00:31:32.240 --> 00:31:39.440 Alexander the Great sort of great king of Macedon, Greece, the Greek Empire, some two, three hundred years before Jesus. 00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:45.920 And there was an old man in Alexander's kingdom who had done him some big service, I don't remember what it was. 00:31:46.319 --> 00:31:52.000 And Alexander said to this old man, As a thank you, have whatever you want. 00:31:52.640 --> 00:31:53.440 Give me some money. 00:31:53.680 --> 00:31:58.400 Treasury, and tell him my treasurer for tell him what you want, and he'll give it to you. 00:31:58.960 --> 00:32:01.359 And the old man went to the treasury. 00:32:01.759 --> 00:32:06.160 And I can't remember what exactly he'll ask for, but some ridiculous sum. 00:32:09.519 --> 00:32:15.519 And the treasurer went, pretty sure, Alexander, like you're meant to understand how this works. 00:32:15.680 --> 00:32:18.799 Like, you don't come and ask for like half of the treasury. 00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:19.680 That's ridiculous. 00:32:19.839 --> 00:32:21.920 That's he's gonna be a bit cross when he isn't that. 00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:24.960 But the the old man said, Yeah, well, go and ask him, go and check. 00:32:25.279 --> 00:32:32.640 And the treasurer went off to Alexander and told him, That guy you sent asked for this much, 10 billion. 00:32:33.279 --> 00:32:38.960 And Alexander said, That old man has honored me. 00:32:39.599 --> 00:32:46.960 He's shame, he's got a big view of my wealth, a big view of my generosity, a big view of my promise. 00:32:47.680 --> 00:32:49.519 Give him the 10 billion. 00:32:50.880 --> 00:32:52.799 It is like that with God. 00:32:54.880 --> 00:32:58.720 With God's promises, we can go very big. 00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:05.599 It's worth saying, I think Christians often need to say this, we don't just ask for whatever we want, right? 00:33:06.160 --> 00:33:12.960 God has not promised us rolls-roises, so if you ask him for 10 rolls-roices on the basis that it's good to go big, you're not necessarily going to get that. 00:33:13.200 --> 00:33:17.519 But when he has made a promise, you can take it and go very big. 00:33:17.759 --> 00:33:19.200 And he loves that. 00:33:19.680 --> 00:33:21.759 So ask him for righteousness. 00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:25.279 Ask him for the fruit of the Spirit. 00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:27.599 He'll give it to you. 00:33:29.440 --> 00:33:32.400 Pass to him about your sin. 00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:36.160 Ask him to deal with that anger. 00:33:36.400 --> 00:33:38.160 Ask him to make you generous. 00:33:38.400 --> 00:33:47.039 Ask him to help you kill that habit, or stop those thoughts, or learn that virtue, and take on that glory. 00:33:48.880 --> 00:33:52.720 And put yourself as you ask those things in the way of the spirit. 00:33:53.680 --> 00:33:54.240 Tend. 00:33:55.039 --> 00:33:56.079 Preaching of the word. 00:33:56.960 --> 00:33:58.720 Be regular in prayer. 00:33:59.839 --> 00:34:01.599 Fellowship with God's people. 00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:09.039 What if you're not hungry for righteousness and you've been sitting here thinking the problem with me is I don't even really want these things, then ask for hunger. 00:34:09.760 --> 00:34:13.760 And again, put yourself where the spirit works, and you'll change your lack. 00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:18.960 This is tremendously freeing, brothers and sisters. 00:34:19.119 --> 00:34:24.320 There is not a single bit of righteousness that you have to do yourself. 00:34:26.079 --> 00:34:40.320 My guess is, I'm not going to take a show of hands, but my guess is that if I went around the room, many of us would say that we are in some way dissatisfied with our prayer life, our devotions, our quiet times, our regularity in that, our depth in that. 00:34:41.679 --> 00:34:51.119 I wonder if I had asked for that show of hands and many of you had stuck your hands up, and then I said, and how many of you are asking God for help with that? 00:34:52.079 --> 00:34:53.840 Most of those hands would go down. 00:34:54.719 --> 00:35:02.239 We so often think that there are particular bits of the Christian life which God will help us with, and other bits that we sort of need to do ourselves. 00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:05.280 It's not true. 00:35:07.199 --> 00:35:08.719 Be poor in spirit. 00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:10.480 You can't do any of it. 00:35:11.199 --> 00:35:12.880 Ask God for help. 00:35:13.760 --> 00:35:15.760 God works in his own time. 00:35:16.239 --> 00:35:18.639 Works on his own time, but he will answer. 00:35:20.719 --> 00:35:21.280 Ask him. 00:35:21.599 --> 00:35:23.679 Ask him to help you, hunger and thirst. 00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:24.960 Ask him to help you. 00:35:25.039 --> 00:35:25.599 Read the Bible. 00:35:25.679 --> 00:35:27.119