Hungering And Thirsting For Righteousness (pt-2) - [Matthew 5:6]

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I found a real medical condition this week and it's called polydipsia. How many people know what polydipsia is?
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Several people know. Polydipsia, excessive thirst, the abnormal desire to drink all the time, to drink water, to drink soda, to drink anything, poly, many, dipsia, to thirst, excessive thirst.
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Sometimes it's a psychological issue, other times because of bleeding or because of diuretics or because of excessive sweating because you're running or something, people get polydipsia.
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And so today, by the grace of God, I want to give you a sermon to increase your spiritual polydipsia.
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I want you to thirst for righteousness. I want to give you an excessive or show you why you should have an excessive thirst for righteousness even as a
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Christian. So if you'll turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5, we're looking at the
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Sermon on the Mount. Words in red, yes, but red or black, inspired by the
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Spirit of God as truly God's Word preserved for us.
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Sermon on the Mount is basically King Jesus on earth telling his followers and would -be followers this is what
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I require to follow me, these are the entrance requirements to my kingdom, and here's how
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I expect kingdom citizens to live, to think, to do, to feel, to be.
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And I love the Beatitudes as we're finding Matthew chapter 5 because they're just opposite, they're upside down compared to what the world says.
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Jesus would say many times in the Sermon on the Mount, you have heard it said, but I say to you.
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That's the way the whole sermon is. You have heard it said this way, but I'm telling you the real truth.
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He'd say strange things like love your enemies. He who wants to save his life will lose it.
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And it's almost this oxymoronic message and that's just what we need to hear because we're influenced by the world all week and here we come to truth, the real truth of God found specifically in our series on the
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Beatitudes. The blessings are the approval of God for people. Let's just review the first several
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Beatitudes and then we'll come up to the one that we looked at last week. Blessed are those who are thirsting and hungering after God's righteousness.
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But in review, Beatitude number one found in verse 3, Jesus of course is in the posture of formal teaching.
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If you look back at verse 1, he's sitting down. He's opening his mouth, not just to speak, but it's language that says this is very important.
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And he says the first Beatitude, approved by God, this positive judgment of God, positive assessment of God, not some kind of feeling, but approval of God, are those who are poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Now week in and week out I review these and so pretty soon you could probably preach this to yourself or someone else, right?
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It's just repetition is the mother of all learning and we just go over these again and if I ask you what is the poor of spirit, you would tell me that is when the grace of God is working in the heart of an unbeliever and they say
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I'm bankrupt, I have nothing to offer you God, I realize that spiritually I'm a beggar, spiritually
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I'm poor, I have nothing to make myself approved and God doesn't look at me and say well because of that, because of their personality, because of their good deeds, because of their family relationship, because they're married to a pastor, whatever it might be, they still are poor in spirit and bankrupt.
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And theirs, if you notice in the text, and theirs alone is the kingdom of heaven, no one else's.
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Anyone who thinks they're rich spiritually the kingdom of heaven is not for them. The attitude number two, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.
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And here's the ongoing grief and lament as God opens the eyes of the unbeliever and they say
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I'm a sinner, I don't have a disease, I don't have a syndrome, I don't have some kind of affliction,
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I am the problem, we have met the enemy and the enemy is us. Personal grief over personal sin,
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D .A. Carson said. It's really the logical counterpart, isn't it? The attitude number one, intellectual assessment of self.
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The attitude number two, emotional response to that truth. The attitude number three, blessed are the meek.
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I was pleased today, a little Miss O 'Brien came up to me and she got a little lamb and that lamb's name is what?
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Meekness. She said you're preaching on meekness and now I have the little lamb named meekness. And that's the third, the attitude.
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Blessed are the gentle, are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. You realize you're empty before God, you have a consciousness of guilt before God and now thirdly, instead of saying
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God I'll tell you why I should get to heaven, I'll try to promote myself, I'll tell you why I should come to the front of the class,
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I'll tell you why I deserve heaven and this other poor guy doesn't. It's taking a lowly place before God and meekly, with self -assessment, remembering who we are before God and we're powerless to promote ourselves to salvation.
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And then the attitude number four from last week, verse six, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.
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The first three kind of showed the problem and now we're turning it, we're on the hub here of this is the solution.
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What's the solution to realizing I have chapter 11 spiritually, I'm now convicted about it,
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I realize I can't promote myself to salvation, I can't save myself. What do I do?
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Here the work of God inside the soul of a man or a woman, they're beginning to thirst and hunger after someone else's righteousness.
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We realize we have no righteousness, we realize that God is righteous and then we say I want that righteousness,
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I want to be right in God's eyes. Instead of looking inward, now we look outward, our upward, reminding me of Luke 21, lift your heads because your redemption is drawing near.
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God save me for myself. You hear that all the time, are you saved?
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Well, a good question to ask is saved from what? Saved from who? God and his wrath, yes, and saved from yourself too, we're saved from our own selves.
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Puts these two participles together, hungering and thirsting. For those hungering ones and those thirsting ones, two drives or craves or desires, natural impulses signifying the attitude and the demeanor of one who really wants the righteousness of God.
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It's not kind of a take it or leave it. This is desperate, this is with determination, this is what we call in Nebraska a real hankering.
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You are just bound and determined, you have tunnel vision to say if God doesn't save me
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I'm in trouble and I know that this God, even singing the song from Psalm 130 today with Luther's words,
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God if you count iniquities who can stand? I can't stand before you so I'm gonna have to come to you to help me stand, you're gonna have to be my righteousness.
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And I love it here that Jesus just uses this natural impulse to drink and to eat, primary needs, you can imagine in Palestine, this area of Israel where this is a big deal, water, food, no hannifids around, no shahs, stomachs growling spiritually for righteousness.
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You ever have your stomach just growl? You want food. Nothing else is gonna do.
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You're really hungry, let's say your little child is hungry. I remember when little Maddy and little Gracie were just wanting food and I'd give them my watch, still cry.
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I kinda sneak sometimes and just give them my little pinky and they're just little three months old and they go for that for a couple minutes till they realize no milk is coming out.
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I could jump up and down and do dances you pay to see that. Dancing at home,
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I play nice music, you know those lullaby musicals that you can just play for kids. So, nothing would satisfy those little children until they got mommy's milk.
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Frantic. When you realize you're on the road to perdition, you have to say to yourself,
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Lord, I have to come to you. Can't sleep at night. I remember telling someone once that how could they be a
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Christian with the lifestyle that they're living in by my assessment that they are not a Christian and don't put your head down on the pillow at night thinking, oh yeah,
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I'm gonna go to heaven. I'm not your judge, but the way you're living is not in the Bible saying that's
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Christian behavior, that's an unbelieving behavior and don't you think you're a Christian when you go home tonight. Anxiety attack the person had.
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Anxiety attack is good once it's then turned to say, you know, in and of myself I have no resources but now
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I turn to you, God, who bestow righteousness. By nature, God, you're a Savior. Look at the object of this ardent desire, thirsting and hungering for what?
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Righteousness. Remember last week I went into the big song and dance about genitive and accusative and basically what he's trying to say is blessed are those who hunger and thirst after all the righteousness there is to be found.
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Not a blessing for those who hunger and thirst for just a slice of bread but those who hunger after the whole bit of bread.
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Jonathan Edwards was right when he said, quote, the first effect of the power of God in the heart in regeneration is to give the heart a divine taste, to cause it to have a relish of the loveliness and sweetness of the supreme excellency of the divine nature.
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When God begins to work a work in your heart as an unbeliever, you just start loving this great
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God and you want to get a taste of Him. Reminds me of Martin Luther.
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Remember what happened with Luther? He knew that God's righteousness would condemn his unrighteousness.
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And if you haven't read this book by Jim Cromartie called A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, you should read that book. It is a great book.
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I like reading biographies for two reasons. One, I like to read them because I realize that God can use just regular people for His kingdom.
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I can't believe that God could use... that person, they seem like they're giants on the pages, but they're just regular fallen creatures who have been saved.
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And secondly, I get motivated because I think what God can do with these fallen creatures to serve
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Him and have more purpose. Luther was just used of God and he was afraid of Jesus. They said, do you love
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God? And he's a priest now, by the way. Do you love him? No, I hate him because I know he's righteous and I know
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I'm not. At least he knew that. Today we kind of have the believers think he's kind of the buddy
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God. He's the pal. He's my old chum. Kind of George Burns God. Oh God. Oh God is right.
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Luther's pilgrimage, he knew that God demanded righteousness and he knew he was bankrupt. He was mourning over his sin.
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He'd go to the Catholic priest and he would sometimes confess his sins for how many hours? We have that little acronym,
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ACTS. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. We kind of go through.
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Imagine getting to Luther and hearing his confession. Not one hour, not two hour, not three hour, not four hour, not five hours, but six hours of confession to the priest because he knew if there was one sin unconfessed and one sin that wasn't forgiven, there's no hope of heaven for him.
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They all have to be covered by the blood of Christ because only one sin will keep you out of heaven. Can you imagine?
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They'd tell him, stop it. Stop confessing so much. And he knew there was something going on. Just like Pilgrim in Bunyan's Just like a
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Christian in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Just the weight. Then one day he was in a little small room,
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Luther was, in a tower and he read these words in 1515. My God, my
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God, why have you forsaken me? And then Luther realized that God forsook his son because as the sin -bearer
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Jesus, the father could no longer look upon his son with the love of a father to the son.
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For the first time, Jesus at Calvary calls his father, not the father, but my God. And so the father turns his face away as the song we sing says.
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He turns his face away as he judges Jesus for sins that he didn't commit but that his people committed.
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And Luther realized it's not how he pays for sins, but how God pays for sins. And then amazingly, condescendingly, generously,
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God then does another part of the transaction and that is gives Luther, or any of us who are
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Christians, the perfectness of God, the righteousness of God, and he sees us as perfect.
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He credits to our account perfect spiritual righteousness.
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And then Luther, thinking about Romans 117 said, for in it the gospel is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.
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And all of a sudden Christ redeems us from the curse of the law by what? Becoming a curse for us and we have the great doctrine of the substitutionary atonement.
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Now what about Christians though? If you're a Christian, should you hunger and thirst for righteousness? We have been talking about entrance into the kingdom and how unbelievers should thirst and hunger for righteousness, but what about Christians?
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Should you? Should you have polydipsia? The answer is yes. Of course, it's part of our nature in America.
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Life, liberty, and the pursuit of righteousness. Conformity to a standard of God.
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Sadly, I think as Christians, too often we go on hunger strikes.
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Even in the last week, I've read about two hunger strikes. Guantanamo Bay, US Naval Base. Prisoners are going on a hunger strike to protest their detention.
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As of Wednesday night last week, 22 prisoners had refused at least nine consecutive meals. January 19th also,
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French -based Chechen human rights activists had been on a hunger strike for nearly six weeks in Strasbourg, but said he would end his protest.
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We as Christians should do everything but go on hunger strikes for God's righteousness. This is not just the standard to get into heaven, hungering and thirsting after righteousness that we don't have, but once we're kingdom citizens, as it were, we should still have that taste for the righteousness of God.
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I studied this week, what happens to your body when you don't eat fasting? Did you know that physical fasting becomes dangerous just after three to five days?
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Your body begins breaking down fat in order to produce energy. When the liver is reduced to breaking down fat instead of glucose, like normal, it produces ketone bodies, probably pronouncing it wrong, but I know how to pronounce sacerdotalism, so a toxic byproduct.
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These can be excreted through the kidneys and a particular variety of the acetone can be expelled through the lungs.
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Acetone makes a person's breath smell like pears. It's all downhill after week three, the article says, or whenever weight loss exceeds 18 percent of the starting weight.
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The body tries to compensate by slowing down its metabolism, entering starvation mode. Once fat stores are entirely depleted, the body has no choice but to mine the muscles and vital organs for energy.
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The striker simply wastes away his body, quite literally, it consumes himself.
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And if spiritual fasting, if physical fasting is bad, what about spiritual fasting? Are you lethargic?
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Lack of joy? Unthankful? Could you be starving for righteousness? Thirsting for righteousness?
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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. It's kind of a weird cycle.
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We are at once blooded by God and satiated by his righteousness as God cloaks us with Christ's perfect righteousness.
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At the same time, though we're satisfied with the righteousness of Christ, as Christians, do we still desire more?
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And the answer is yes. The more you're filled with the righteousness of God, the more you hunger for it on a practical basis.
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So in the remaining time, I'd like to give you a few exhortations for increasing your appetite as a
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Christian for righteousness. If you're looking for an outline, here's the outline. This is kind of like salt tablets or something.
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Call them salt tablet number one, two, three, and four if you like. Number one, if you'd like to increase your appetite for righteousness as a
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Christian. Number one, examine your foundation. Number one, you should examine your foundation.
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Martyn Lloyd -Jones says this, I do not know of a better test than anyone can apply to himself or herself in this whole manner of the
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Christian profession than a verse like this, talking about 5 .6. If this verse is to you one of the most blessed statements of the whole of Scripture, you can be quite certain you are a
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Christian. And then he says something pastoral that we don't say usually. If it is not precious to you, then you had better examine the foundations of your
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Christianity again. I hunger and thirst for righteousness. I know
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I fall short, but I know that's God's standard. I know he wants me to do that. Lloyd -Jones says that's a good way for you to say
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I'm a Christian. On the converse, if you don't hunger and thirst for righteousness, then maybe you're what?
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Not a Christian. Maybe you're not a Christian at all. I've seen plenty of dead bodies in my life and one thing about them, they don't cry out for some
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Gatorade and pork chops. And if you see someone who is not eating, you're gonna have something to say about that and you're probably gonna go, are you what?
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Sick. Something's wrong and for Christians they should be feeding and growing. And so the first thing
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I could do is say if you never have a desire for God's righteousness and his word, then are you really a
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Christian? One man said we have too many casual
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Christians who dabble in everything but are committed to nothing. They have a nodding acquaintance with a score of subjects but are sold on nothing.
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Of course I'm interested in church, but my club, my lodge, my golf, my bridge, my stamp collecting, you can tell this is dated, my ceramics, my
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African violets, but I just can't get too excited about religion. Vance Havner went on to say, our
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Lord has no place in his program for casual disciples. It was all or nothing. How about you?
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All or nothing. Secondly, number one, examine your foundations.
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A second way to increase your appetite is that you should not worry what this desire for righteousness might cost you.
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Hey, if I go all out and thirst and hunger for righteousness and God and his program and the word, then what am
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I going to do? I have to pay the bills. I have to get food and clothes. I have to go to work.
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You know, I have a career by the way. What would Jesus say to that? I think he did say something.
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Turn to Matthew chapter 6. Getting ahead of myself, but we won't be there for three years, so what does it matter?
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Preaching God's word, half a verse a week. What will it cost you to thirst and hunger for righteousness as a
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Christian? As an unbeliever, it costs you everything. Your life, your wife, your friends, your family.
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Jesus, thankfully, didn't require that of everyone, but you have to be willing to give up your entire life. You're walking this way in life.
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God calls you to repentance and you respond with that and you say, I'm following you no matter what. Well, as Christians too, we should hunger after righteousness.
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Look at chapter 6 verse 33. You can see this theme in the Sermon on the Mount. But seek first his kingdom and his what?
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Righteousness and all these things will be added to you. What do you mean all these things? Well, if you go back up to verse 25, it tells us, for this reason,
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Matthew 6 .25, I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink, nor for your body as to what you will put on.
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Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow nor reap nor gather into the barns, and yet your heavenly
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Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you, by being worried, can add a single hour to his life?
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Why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow. They do not toil nor do they spin.
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Yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
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Verse 30. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow, sown in the furnace, will he not much more clothe you?
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You of little faith. Do not worry then, saying, what will we eat? What shall we drink? What will we wear for clothing?
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For the Gentile unbelievers eagerly seek after these things. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these.
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But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things, food, clothes, sustenance, housing, dwelling, everything will be added to you.
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So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
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When it comes to Christianity, we say, you know, if I go all out for the Lord and all out to study and I really want to just go for it, then what's going to happen?
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How am I going to pay my bills? What about work? What about my career? What about all these other things? And that is all just kind of, kind of a faux worry.
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If God's given you the greatest gift, salvation, won't he take care of you? Won't he take care of your food, your children?
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The priority of the kingdom over material things, even over our own lives. If you look at Matthew 6, verse 33 there, the word seek, just an amazing word by the way, it means to hunt.
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It means to pursue. It means to let the foxes out and then the hounds follow with zeal, with determination.
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It means to follow so much that you have to grab it and hold it, devotedly, strenuously obtaining something.
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And so Jesus is saying, if you've got to go all out for the kingdom, worry is going to paralyze you.
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What about tomorrow? What am I going to eat? What's going to happen? I'm going to have to meet with a job. I'm going to get downsized. I'm going to get laid off. I can't make enough money.
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So I'm not sure about that. I can't do this. All that's just paralyzing. Tomorrow's got a bunch of troubles too.
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Today's got enough of its own. Seek after God and his righteousness and he'll take care of you. Spend too much time seeking after these other things.
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You don't have the priority in your life. Do I say don't work? Of course I want you to work. You have to take care of your family or you're worse than an unbeliever.
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But you have the attitude when you're working that still God will take care of me.
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I like Paul when he said in Acts 20, 24, I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself in order that I may finish my course and the ministry which
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I receive from the Lord Jesus. My life, my food, my clothes, my everything else, I'm in it to serve the
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Lord. And do you think God would bless that kind of attitude and say, by the way, here's your food and here's everything else you need?
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Of course. If you really live all out for the Lord, he'll take care of you.
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He'll provide for you. I'm wondering too about churches.
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What should churches promote? What should churches sell? What should churches say when we say, here's what we're all about.
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We're all about God's righteousness. First, that you would be righteous in his eyes, get saved. Secondly, that you would try to live a life worthy of that calling by acting righteously with you and your neighbors and your friends and everyone else.
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Should we promote that or should we promote this? Authentic relationship. We are into community here.
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We want friendships. That's what we promote. Could you have friends? Of course you have. What should the church promote?
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We're looking for purpose. We want authenticity.
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We want low -cost, low -effort Christianity. We want to feel good. We want how -to sermons.
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We want to feel good about ourselves. I got here nine years ago and a short time after that someone once said to Kim, normally our old pastor this time of year would preach those sermons that would really make us feel good.
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I'm wondering when Mike's going to kind of do that, kind of tell Kim so she gives me the little rib deal at home.
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You've got to kind of stroke him and pet him and make him feel nice. Here's feeling nice.
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I deserve to go to hell and you do too and God and his love has condescended and he's demonstrated his love for us. While we were sinners he died for us and we go that's right and that's righteous thinking.
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Those who said amen even verbally or silently said the righteousness of God, that's what I'm after. Sometimes in love we have to get spanked from the word so we finally start thinking right and then we drive away going yeah that's right and it's not about my feelings.
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It's not about I like that about the service. I didn't like that. Oh I like that song. I didn't like that song.
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I hate to tell you but we didn't pick the songs to make you like them. We picked the songs because they extol the righteousness of God.
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We hope you like them. If you don't, get in your car and Pete Townshend windmill it or something. I don't care what you do.
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Rock out. Listen to jazz. We're here to promote the righteous standards of God.
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That's what we're here for and that's what churches should do. What's your church all about? How about this? The righteousness of God.
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Won't he then add everything else to you? Friendships, authenticity, experiencing community, having purpose, having a prayer to repeat every day,
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Jabez. I mean won't he do that? No. He'll do everything except the last one. And we're gonna see in Matthew chapter 6, don't pray that way he even said.
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That's how pagans pray, repeating things over and over and over. Jesse O 'Neill wrote a book about affluenza in society and these are the symptoms but I think it's in the church sometimes too.
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Loss of personal productivity. You've got so much at home. Loss of personal productivity.
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Loss of future motivation. The inability to delay gratification. A false sense of entitlement.
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Preoccupation with externals. Self -absorption. Materialism and consumerism.
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And I'll tell you the solution to all that. Here's God's righteousness and if you want to be approved in his eyes, run after it with all the desire and thirst and ardent fervor to say
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I'm after God's kingdom. And I want his righteousness displayed not only in the church and in my life but the world. One man said, why is it that a man riding a good commuter train from Larchmont to New York, whose needs and drives are satisfied, who has a good home, loving wife and family, good job, who enjoys unprecedented cultural and recreational facilities, often feels bad without knowing why.
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Percy Walker in The Message in the Bottle is right in his analysis. But the solution he doesn't know about and that solution is burn after the righteousness of God and all these things will be added to you.
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You say, well I'm frustrated in life and I'm upset and I'm down and I'm checked at every point.
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I say to you, seek after God and his righteousness and everything you need will be added to you. That's how great God is but he wants our priorities right side up.
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I can't tell you I never watch TV but I must be getting old because I drive down the street sometimes at 8 .30
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at night thinking, why am I out so late? 8 .30, that's when I used to just go out to start the day, you know, half the time in my 20s and driving outside and I just see this kind of blue, kind of this azure kind of blue cathode ray tube stuff coming out of every house.
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I just sit there every single night like this. Just the TV culture. And again,
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I'm not a legalist, you know me. Some of you do but if you don't know me, I don't think
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I'm a legalist. It's not about if you watch TV, you're damned. If you watch cable
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TV, that's another story. But I love the
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Sermon on the Mount because it's what are your priorities? And you can't come up with the excuses because God has allotted for your day 24 hours.
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I wish I had more time in the day. No. You have this amount of time for the day. And should you be a good witness at work?
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Absolutely. Should it be your driving passion is your job? No. Should your driving passion be something on TV or anything else?
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No. We should be absorbed, addicted to this kind of righteousness that Jesus was talking about.
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He was, matter of fact, he was about God's kingdom. Nothing else mattered. It didn't matter if people liked him or hated him or crucified him.
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He didn't need more righteousness like we need to act more righteously. But he sets a good standard.
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Paul and Peter and James and who do you like to read? Mary Slessor, John Payton, Elizabeth Elliot.
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They're all about God and we're going to lose our lives one time anyway, aren't we? We all are going to die.
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And if I'm around, I'll preach at your funeral. And then what?
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Number three, how to increase our desire. Examine your foundations, number one.
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Don't worry about what this desire for righteousness might cost you. Number three, approach
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God's word properly. Now, there's something to be said for the desire for righteousness and the desire for the word.
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Almost interchangeably, as God conforms us into his son's image, makes us more righteous, the more we study the word and it chips away our lives and encourages other areas of our lives.
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And so let's turn to 1 Peter 2, something very similar. And here it's a little more tangible.
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Instead of desiring God's righteousness and his righteous standard and his ethical norms, here we're going to try to desire the word of God.
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And I think that will help us. 1
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Peter 2. I mean, I could probably almost say, have you read your
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Bible this week? And how much have you read your Bible? And I can tell you how your week went. We want to have a striving desire, a
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God -given desire to say we want more of the word. It's all about the word. And look at 1
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Peter 2, this book about suffering and submission and Jesus. And here, the only imperative in the first ten verses of 1
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Peter 2 is found in verse 2. And it says like newborn babes, long,
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I could say desire, crave, yearn for, it's emphatic, ache after the pure milk of the word that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.
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I love that. Just like a newborn baby can't get enough of the word of God.
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This is, by the way, earlier in 1 Peter 1, this is the word that was preached to you.
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See that in verse 25? 1 Peter 1 .25, this is the word that was preached to you. By the way, if you back up even two more verses in verse 23, this is what has made you born again.
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This is the seed that has made you born again, the word. The word has saved you. Now the word is going to sanctify you.
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You want to be more righteous? Study the word of God. Like newborn babies, rabid -like, with resolution, wildly going after the word of God.
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I mean, I could just kind of really bring it down to the table right now. Did you read your Bibles this week?
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Did you open your Bibles up and say, God, as Lewis went through the Psalms, Psalm 119, show me some of your wondrous things today.
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Did you read your Bible more than just a little daily bread kind of thing? I'm not saying you do five chapters, you're good with God, and you just do it and everything's fine.
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I'm talking about here's this great God of the universe who's given us his love letter, and he said, this is the way you grow.
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You don't grow by behavior management. You don't grow by psychological principles. You don't grow by corporate America things. You grow by the word of God.
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And God, I want to be so like you. I want to be so much like your son. This is the ordained method, the word of God.
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And people say, well, I'm having a hard week. I'm having a hard time. I'm kind of in one of those ruts. And I get in them too, but I just say to people, are you reading your
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Bible? And if you're not, it's kind of like driving around with this self -induced hunger strike, and no wonder the fat cells start getting eaten up, and you just don't have anything to give out.
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And you say, well, I feel down. I feel depressed. I feel moody. I feel this way. I've kind of lost my joy.
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And then we need to have someone come along and say like Psalm 51, God, restore to me the joy of my salvation.
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I start, if I don't read the Bible, I start thinking about things from my own perspective. I don't know about you. I analyze things and see things and look at world events and kind of think, okay, if we go to war against Iran and oil goes to $90 a barrel, and then all the botulitum things that they've got to spread all over us, one pound of this stuff put over the city of Boston is going to kill us all within five days.
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What am I going to do? How am I going to pay for that? The roof leaks. I just kind of have all that, and all those things are all true.
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But when I'm in the word, I think, God raises up kings. He puts down kings.
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God doesn't let anything happen unless He ordains it. God, I can trust in You, and I don't have to see things through my own prism.
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I'm going to look and see how the way You think about them. You say, well, I've got a decision to make in life. Study the
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Bible, and you're going to say, well, God's going to help me in guidance with this decision, and I'm just going to make a good decision.
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We don't need God to tell us something. We don't need God to focus on anything except the Word. How about Job?
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I have not departed from the command of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
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What would you do if I preached for another hour past your lunchtime? I told you,
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I just got a raise, and the percentage raise I get is how much longer I preach. You pay me to preach.
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I talked to somebody. They said, well, we have to have an hour service because you just have to end right on the hour. What I want to do on Sundays is glorify the triune
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God by preaching His Word, and I want to give you just kind of a taste of what it's like for you.
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Every day you could do this. Every single day. Well, but if I study the Bible tomorrow, what about my career?
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What about your career? You're a dead man walking. Well, if I read the
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Word of God, my studies are just going to go down the drain. Glory to God, an A in God's class and a
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C in organic chemistry. All the WPI guys are just going, oh, great. Like newborn babes, put it off another day, that pig show,
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Babe. I just remember the pig leader, whatever the guy's name is.
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I just remember the man, the farmer. That's what they call him. Good old Nebraska boy, pig leader.
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Excuse me. You know what he said? That'll do, little pig.
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That'll do. And God, in His mercy and God in His tender forbearance, grants to us the fruit of our lack of desire for His Word, His Son.
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And when we don't do what God tells us to do, by His mercy and goodness, He doesn't make us lepers without any kind of nerves and feelings.
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He lets us reap what we've sown. And when we don't try to study God's Word and be focused on Him and His program, we become self -consumed.
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And the God -ordained fatherly chastisement for those who are consumed by self will be frustration, lack of joy, and lack of purpose.
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I mean, you think about Jeremiah. Thy words were found, and I ate them.
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And Thy words became a joy for me and the delight of my heart. The ministry was shot.
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They're trying to kill him. They're throwing him in cisterns. And he said, God, You're my joy. You're everything. It's the
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Word. I like the psalm. Psalm 119, How sweet are Thy words to my taste,
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Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth. I used to remember Gracie when she would breastfeed, and she would just almost kind of kick.
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Just kind of kicking. Just so happy. I'm food. And for us, yeah, I've got to study the
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Bible again today. I like David Livingston.
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Starts across Africa, 73 books in his pack, 180 pounds. Parties gone 300 miles.
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He had to throw a bunch of books away because his back is killing him. Kept throwing away books. Kept throwing away books.
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Kept throwing away books. He's got one book left. What was it? I'm okay. You're okay.
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He's got the Word of God. He knew. And just, we don't have time, but when we come to the
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Word of God, my point was going to be this. Take a look at verse 1, and this may help us.
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We want a desire for the Word of God, but we don't really come to it like we should. So verse 1 is basically saying, get rid of the sin and confess it, and come to the
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Word of God with just great eagerness. Therefore, putting aside all malice.
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What's malice? Hate somebody. Harboring ill will against somebody. Get rid of that. All guile, which is deceit.
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Having some kind of impure motives. God, forgive me those. Next one, hypocrisy.
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Kind of, well, I'm not the same person as I am at home, as I am at the church. God, just forgive me. Like that old country preacher about hypocrisy said, be what you are and not what you ain't.
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Because if you ain't what you are, then you are what you think you ain't. God, forgive me for my hypocrisy.
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You didn't get that one, did you? But I won't repeat it. Let's just keep going. It's a little story about hypocrisy. Envy. God, I'm getting rid of my jealousy and wanting things that aren't mine.
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Slander. Speaking against other people. God, just get rid of those things, and then like newborn babes, you come to the pure milk of the
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Word. This is just like James 1 .21. Putting aside all filthiness and all the remains of wickedness, in humility receive the
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Word implant. Christianity's hard, I know.
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But the solution, the God -ordained means of growth, are pretty easy. It's the Word of God applied by the
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Spirit of God as He illumines our mind. I remember when
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I was first saved. Could you get enough of the Bible when you first got saved? I thought I was going to have a heart attack trying to figure out to just read the whole thing.
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I've just got a short amount of time. I want to know everything that God has for me. I want to read it. Nobody ever said to me, Leviticus was boring.
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It's a bunch of boring stuff. Can you imagine getting to heaven and saying, God, I think Leviticus is pretty boring. Forget reading that.
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There's nothing for me in Leviticus. You say, well, I don't have that desire to read
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Leviticus. Just say, God, I want to just have everything You have for me. I want it all. I want the good.
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I want the convicting. I want the stuff that just pushes me in a corner. I want the sweetness of Christ, the excellency of Christ, the chastening rod of Christ.
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I could probably say that number five. If you can't do this on your own strength, ask God to do it. These commands are impossible.
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You can't do it without the grace of God. The only hope we have is for Him to do it. We call this church
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Bethlehem Bible Church for a reason, and that is we want to preach the Bible to you as you feed on the righteousness of Christ and that you will grow.
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That's the way to grow. Bernard of Clairvaux said, We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread, and long to feast upon Thee still.
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We drink of Thee the fountainhead and thirst our souls from Thee to fill. No more hunger strikes for us.
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Let's pray. Lord, thank You for our day today. Thank You that You would sustain us. And Lord, it is hard to preach.
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It's hard to listen. It's hard to say no to self. It's hard to say no to the world and all its influences.
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Yet by Your grace, You have made it easier for us to say. You have strengthened us to say yes to Jesus Christ and yes to His righteousness.
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Our risen Savior and Lord deserves our attention and honor. And Lord, we would ask today that You would help us to seek after righteousness.
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Father, would You help us to repent of seeking after money, career, husbands, wives, children, friendships, fellowship, whatever it might be.
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Lord, we want to seek after You. And then in Your mercy and Your grace and Your abundant goodness, You'll give us everything else we need.
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Lord, I would confess that if I give my children good things and I have a wicked heart, how much more will
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You give us? A great good God, perfect in condescending love,
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You'll give us everything we need. Would You increase our desire this week and our hunger to thirst after Your righteousness?
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And Lord, certainly there are some here today who have not ever hungered for Your righteousness and they still love their unrighteousness.
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I pray, Lord, that You would grant them the conscience of the Martin Luther who could not sleep until he was made right in Your eyes by the blood of Jesus Christ.