Hungering and Thirsting for Righteousness – Matthew 5:6
Pastor Tan Thai · Jul 24, 2011
This sermon expounds the fourth Beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount, calling believers to hunger and thirst for God's righteousness with the same desperate urgency as one who is dying of starvation. This longing is not physical but spiritual, and only Jesus Christ can truly satisfy it.
This sermon, preached on Sunday July 24, 2011, focuses on the fourth Beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6). The pastor establishes the historical context, noting that most of Jesus' original audience were poor people who regularly faced real famine, making the imagery of hunger and thirst immediately relatable. The sermon surveys famines throughout world history from ancient times to the 20th century, including the 1944–1945 Vietnamese famine, to illustrate the severity of physical hunger.
The pastor analyzes the Greek grammar of the verse, pointing out that the word "righteousness" is used in the direct accusative case rather than the usual partitive genitive. This means the blessed person does not merely desire a portion of righteousness but hungers and thirsts for complete, total righteousness from God, with the same desperate urgency as someone on the verge of death from starvation or dehydration. This is an urgent, non-negotiable longing that cannot be satisfied by worldly pursuits such as beauty, intelligence, success, wealth, or power.
The sermon contrasts what the world craves with what believers should desire. Drawing on 1 John 2:16, the pastor summarizes five things the world hungers for: beauty, intelligence, success, wealth, and power. In contrast, those who have received Christ must experience an inward transformation, focusing more on spiritual life, godly character as taught in Scripture, and eternal rather than temporal matters. Philippians 3:18–19 and 4:8 are cited to emphasize that believers are citizens of heaven and must set their minds on things that are true, honorable, just, and pure.
The final section of the sermon points to the only true satisfaction for spiritual hunger: Jesus Christ himself. The pastor draws on Psalm 42:1–2, Amos 8:11, Matthew 4:4, John 6:33–35, and John 4:14 to demonstrate that Christ is the bread of life and the living water. The Apostle Paul in Philippians 3:12 is presented as a model of one who never became self-satisfied but kept pressing forward in faith. The sermon closes with a call for every believer to seek God's righteousness not just once a week or once a month, but every hour and every day of their lives.