Zach Peters' Podcast
A place for sermons, reflections, and general pondering on life and stuff.
Zach Peters' Podcast
The Beatitudes: Part 2
We continue our exploration of the Beatitudes from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, focusing on meekness and hungering for righteousness—two countercultural concepts that challenge our understanding of success and satisfaction.
• The context of Jesus' teachings matters—he spoke primarily to disciples while crowds listened
• Meekness is not weakness but strength under control
• Jesus himself exemplified meekness while demonstrating courage and boldness
• The world values dominance and aggression, but Jesus says the meek will inherit the earth
• True hunger for righteousness involves caring about justice, personal morality, and salvation
• Self-righteousness and checklist religion miss the point of God's standards
• We need Jesus' help to achieve the righteousness described in the Sermon on the Mount
• The world cannot satisfy our deepest hunger—only Jesus provides what we truly need
Let's examine our hearts and priorities today. If we're lacking in humility or hungering for the wrong things, let's ask God to help us right where we are. This doesn't have to be just another Sunday—it could be a moment when your life is changed.
All right, welcome to week number two of our sort of sermon series on the Beatitudes and our sort of walking through the Sermon on the Mount. We're going to be here for a little bit. This is week number two. I'm not going to do a crazy in-depth review or anything like that, but there are some things I've got to bring up and I'll bring up multiple times throughout this entire series that helps us understand this scripture in context. Right Last week we read blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted, which are beautiful things and beautiful reminders about how we all start in bankruptcy spiritually, and that's our entryway into the kingdom of heaven, which is good news. It's good. You don't got to have it all together to start your relationship with Jesus, ok, so that's wonderful. If you want more details about that, you can go watch it on Facebook or something. But there are some contextual stuff here I want to bring up very quickly that helps us this week, next week and the entire time we are in the Sermon on the Mount.
Speaker 1:First, here in this scripture, jesus is primarily talking to his disciples. They've gathered around him and he starts preaching, he starts talking to them, teaching them, and he's describing to them what life is like when you believe and you follow Jesus. This is what a life in the kingdom of heaven looks like. That's what he's telling his disciples. Secondly and these are all connected, by the way just because he's talking primarily to his disciples doesn't mean that there's not a crowd right behind his disciples also involved in this conversation and teaching moment. Right, there's a crowd there and some in the crowd. They will respond to Jesus' teaching to his disciples and they themselves will become disciples as well. And then there are others in the crowd who maybe they're curious about what Jesus is saying and what Jesus is doing. Don't worry, I'm Pentecostal enough to be loud so we can get through this. But it's okay, it really is okay. So you've got the crowd. You've got some who will become disciples. You've got some who stay curious about God and they're curious about what Jesus is doing. You have some who are curious for a moment, but they realize and recognize I don't want this in my life. And then you have people who close their ears immediately to what he's saying because it goes against a little bit what they believe. And then you have people like the Pharisees and the Sadducees who are in the crowd listening and they actively work against Jesus and what Jesus is trying to accomplish. And, to be honest with you, that's the crowd today. You have people inside the church, and probably 99% of people who step foot inside a church hopefully have a relationship with Jesus, and then you've got people who hear the message of Jesus and maybe they're curious about it, maybe they're rejecting it, maybe they're actively working against it.
Speaker 1:Thirdly, all of this matters because, as we read through the Sermon on the Mount, we realize that there are some exceptionally tough lessons there. Very tough lessons, very tough standards, very tough descriptions of what righteousness and holiness is and what it's like to live in the kingdom of heaven, and they are difficult to do and, matter of fact, I would argue that they are impossible to do on your own. You can't live up to the standard of holiness that is described here in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 without some help, without a flood of grace and mercy, without Jesus Christ helping you gain salvation and giving you liberty, without the Holy Spirit residing in your life and helping you every day to live with the fruit of the Spirit in your life. You can't do it without help. You can't, absolutely can't. And that's part of why Jesus is talking to this community, this Jewish community, about this. Because, if you don't understand and know this, the Jewish religion has a lot of rules and regulations and all of it was built towards righteousness, but it was self-righteousness. And so Jesus is preaching to people, disciples who already believe in him and what he's doing, but he's also preaching to a community who thinks that righteousness looks this way, but they need to understand that they need help and they can't live up to these standards. So those three things impact everything in last week's sermon, this sermon and the next couple weeks' sermon Matthew 5, verses 1-12.
Speaker 1:We'll read it again Again. We covered two of the sort of Beatitudes last week. We'll cover two more this week and we'll see how it goes from there. But let's, let's read together. If you would Seeing the crowds.
Speaker 1:He went up on the mountain and he sat down and his disciples came to him and he opened up his mouth and taught them, saying blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs of the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. And blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you, falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Blessed are the meek. The meek. We know what that word means. I say meek, you automatically have an idea about what that means in your own life, in somebody else's life. But blessed are the meek. Blessed are the meek.
Speaker 1:And maybe our modern understanding is a little shallow and we'll talk about that in a second. But the domineering, the aggressive, the harsh, the tyrannical are often those, in various contexts, try to dominate the earth. They try to make their own little domains, their own little kingdoms, and we know people like this In history. We know people like this In our own life. We know people who are hyper-aggressive and hyper-domineering and they try to sort of dominate the room and dominate this or that, and even if you're not guilty of that in a large sense, you still can be guilty of it in random spots.
Speaker 1:Okay, you don't have to be Ivan the Terrible in Tsarist Russia in order to understand what it means to be this domineering and aggressive and angry person, because, if you're like me, sometimes I can be Zach the Annoying in my living room. I can be Zach the big bad boss in my own house, and while I am the spiritual head of my house, that doesn't mean you're called to be domineering and aggressive and angry and a bully to accomplish what you want to accomplish. But Jesus says it's the gentle, the gentle, the meek who will inherit the earth. But this is the great temptation for all kinds of people, because you want success, you have an idea of what you want in your life, in your business, at school, in the grocery store, on the road, and the easiest way to get from here point A, where you are right now, to get to point B, where you want to be sometimes the straightest line is to push people aside is to go through people, to go through a group, to dominate, to be aggressive, in order to get here, but that's not what we're called to do Now before, because I used to read this and get a little annoyed, because I would just read over it real fast and think being meek doesn't sound very fun.
Speaker 1:Being meek sounds like I'm going to be a pushover, but that's not what being meek is. Being meek doesn't mean we get run over. Being meek does not mean that we allow ourselves to be abused. It just means that whenever we are in positions of influence and we are in positions of pursuing something, that we use our authority and we use the moments that we push forward with kindness, we push forward with patience, we push forward with gentleness and love. Instead of yelling and screaming at an employee who does something wrong, we take the patience and the time to figure out why did they do something wrong and we take the time and patience to help them not make that mistake Again. Do you see the difference right? You can just fire that person, scream at that person and move on, or you can be meek and humble and approach that person with patience and love and make a bigger difference in that person's life. The easy thing to do, of course, is just to scream and get it over with, but that's not what we're called to do. And again, meekness does not imply weakness. Meekness and weakness are not the same thing.
Speaker 1:Jesus uses the same term, meekness, which is connected to gentleness and humbleness, to describe himself throughout the book of Matthew. And yet we see in the book of Matthew and the rest of the Gospels that Jesus is not afraid to confront people. So meekness does not mean that we do not address problems that we see. Jesus has the boldness and the courage. I'm going to need that water, tara, if you get a chance. Jesus has the courage and boldness to stand up to the Pharisees and the Sadducees to call out the problems that he sees in his society. And yet he is still gentle and humble. He has the courage. Thank you so much. He has the courage to stand up and talk to his disciples when he sees that his disciples are having the wrong attitude about something. He sees that he has the courage to do that, even though he's still meek. And probably more impressively, jesus, this meek, humble, kind-hearted human, also has the courage and the boldness and the strength to walk into crucifixion, to walk into persecution, to walk to his very own death.
Speaker 1:So never for a minute when you hear the word meekness, and humility and kindness and gentleness. Do not think that it does not require courage and boldness and strength to live a life that way. Meekness is not weakness. And don't just think, because this world is brutal, that living a life of meekness is inappropriate. No, no, no, no, no. The meek will inherit the earth, the Lord says. Jesus exemplifies this. He shows us what it means to be truly gentle, loving and caring, compassionate and humble. It takes a tremendous amount of strength to bring others into the will of God, which is what Jesus is doing. And when that strength and when that effort is connected to selflessness and gentleness, it produces a gentle person who gently endures to bring about God's will and God's purposes for his kingdom. Whether that's Jesus, whether that's Peter, whether that's Paul, whether that's us, the church was birthed in humility, walking in strength every step of the way We've been recently walking through the book of Acts and is also gentle. And yet he is still strong. We are still a church that's called to be meek. But don't think that meekness is not going to produce results, because it will. The kingdom of God was born in meekness. It was pushed forward in humility and sacrifice.
Speaker 1:It's difficult to brute force someone into salvation. I tried. I've had family members who you just try to shove it down their throat right and you try to bully them to come to church and it's difficult and maybe if they're at church something happens and it clicks and that's great, but it's difficult. It's difficult. Gentle persons will inherit the earth. Gentle persons will inherit the earth. Gentle persons will inherit the earth.
Speaker 1:Jesus assumes this gentle posture as he preaches the good news, as he does ministry, as he walks through his three years of ministry. He's doing gentle things and proclaiming good news in a gentle way, with strength, with courage, with boldness. But it is gentle and he didn't raise an army, right, he didn't run a political campaign. He was gentleness. And if you consider the context of where he lived, it matters Rome and he's living in the Roman Empire. Rome was brutal efficiency. That's what Rome was. That's how they built their empire. It's how they built their empire. It's how they maintained their empire. They consumed this kingdom and this little kingdom and this part of land. They were consuming the earth. Essentially, if you think about it, if you boil it down to what the Roman Empire was. And yet in the middle of this empire building, brutal empire building, we have Jesus, who stands and proclaims in the middle of all this that the meek will inherit the earth, without the need for brutality, without the need for war. And while we might remember Rome, we worship Jesus. Yeah, we remember Rome, but we worship and serve Jesus. So which one inherited the earth? As you will, jesus did. It's powerful.
Speaker 1:I don't know, because I'm a firstborn, any firstborns in the house. I'm a firstborn and I have a tendency to, I don't know, be a little domineering. I have a tendency to be a little aggressive and to be a little pushy, to get my way all right. And so I read the meek Will Inherit the Earth, and it makes me pause and think about my attitude when it comes to my relationships with my wife, with my kids, with coworkers, with friends, right, and so this attitude is something that we have to have in our life. Some of you, you're a little further along than I am in my life being a meek person, and that's fantastic. Keep up the good work. But this is challenging to me Be meek, be meek.
Speaker 1:Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. By the way, I don't know if you caught this or not, but I almost knocked over my iPad and I caught it without looking. So I just want to make that clear. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much, appreciate that. That's why we film right. That's why Not the whole kingdom of God thing, just so I can see that moment. I'll probably send a group chat text of that clip if I catch it. Anyways, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness I thought we needed a humor break. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Righteousness Everyone say righteousness, rightness, righteousness Everyone say righteousness, rightness, rightness, not whiteness, rightness.
Speaker 1:Persons who hunger and thirst in particular in how this language is in the Greek are people who are in dire need. It's not just like oh, it's lunchtime, so I'm going to go grab some nuggets. Like this is when it's describing this it's lunchtime, so I'm going to go grab some nuggets. Like this is when it's describing this. It's describing people who are desperately in need of sustenance and if they don't get it, they're not going to make it. And I've been hungry before, not like lost in the woods for days or, you know, living through poverty hungry before, but I've been pretty hungry before in moments, through various circumstances a couple of like a day or something without a meal.
Speaker 1:Probably the worst time I remember I was working with this guy, this old guy. I love him to death, love him to death. He's great, he's an older gentleman and I didn't realize that he had evolved in his life somehow to where he was okay with one little meal a day. I'm not, I'm not I need you know three or four or five meals a day. I'm not, I'm not I need you know three or four or five meals a day, and I'm. You know, I like that, I'm like a hobbit, if you know Lord of the Rings, you know, I've got, I've got. You've got breakfast, you've got second breakfast, you've got brunch, you've got lunch and then you've got tea and then you've got second afternoon. Anyway, it's a, it's a, it's an elevens's, that's like that. Yeah, I like that. But so you know, like I don't know, I'm hungry, and so I didn't know this guy.
Speaker 1:We start the day he has like a granola bar for breakfast, I have some eggs or whatever, and then he's like all right, here we go and we're cutting things and we're pulling things and we're dragging things, we're climbing up deer stands and reaching over and cutting down branches and we're dragging hay bales and things like that and 4 o'clock runs around and I look at him I say I'm not doing another thing until we go somewhere and I get some food. I got to and he goes. Oh, I'm so sorry, I forget that you young people eat. I'm like old people are supposed to eat too. Like, what are you doing? Like, how are you doing this? He was a it's a freak. It's a freak of nature thing. He needs to be studied. He does. I won't say his name because he might watch this, but I do love him. If he figures it out He'll know the story.
Speaker 1:But so we stopped working nonstop since 730 on like two eggs, and we stopped at the nearest thing out in the middle of Kansas, which was this convenience grocery gas station store, and I'm going to tell you that was the best gas station pizza and the best lamp-warmed hamburger I've ever had in my entire life. It was so, so good, but it was horrible. It was horrible. It wasn't really good. It was just good in the moment, but I was so hungry I was willing to satiate that hunger with anything I could get my hands on. You see where I'm going.
Speaker 1:I'm not just talking about food anymore. What are you hungry for? What are you hungry for? Because the reality is we're going to be hungry for something in our life. We're going to be hungry for something in our life there are. You know, sociologically, psychologically speaking, if you're in certain environments, the only thing you can really focus on is survival. But if you start living in a way where you've got some extra time, you're going to immediately be aware that there is a hunger inside of me that's not just physical. I've got to have something. There's something else out there. I got to have this. I don't know what it is, and if you're not careful, you're going to be so hungry and you're going to be trying to consume anything you can get your hands on, like a gas station pizza, and you're going to think that gas station pizza tastes good and it's good for you. But it ain't. It's not. I know I'm moving in and out of metaphor here and I know we're going to have lunch here in a little bit, but stay with me here.
Speaker 1:It's not a blessing just to be hungry for something. It's not a blessing just to be hungry for life and for adventures. I'm not just hungry for success, I'm not just hungry for entertainment. I'm not just hungry for social fun. I'm not just hungry for a good spouse, I'm not just hungry for success. I'm not just hungry for entertainment. I'm not just hungry for social fun. I'm not just hungry for a good spouse. I'm not just hungry for physical gratification. No, I am hungry for something specific. I am hungry and can only be satisfied in this hunger by something specific. I am hungry for what is called righteousness. Righteousness, and only Jesus can provide the righteousness that will truly sustain us. Right, have you ever been at a point in your life where you were tired of the gas station pizza? Right, I have. I keep you know.
Speaker 1:You get older and you realize, well, it would be great to have that video game console. It would be great. I wish I could have this car, I wish I could live here, I wish I could have this vacation, this, that, this stuff. I wish this girl would like me, I wish whatever it is. And you think you're hungry for that. You don't understand that. You're really hungry for something else, but you're just trying to grab anything you can because you're so hungry. You need something.
Speaker 1:In the context of the preceding Beatitudes and all of Scripture, righteousness includes several parts. Righteousness boils down to just right things in your life Righteousness, but part of it includes what we call justice. Justice, part of righteousness is a desire for justice. You see things that are wrong and you want the right thing for those people, for that group, for that situation. That's part of righteousness. Are you hungry for that in your life? Do you look out and see problems and are you okay ignoring those problems? Because part of righteousness is caring about those problems and working to solve those problems. That's part of righteousness. It also includes a big part.
Speaker 1:Righteousness includes a big part about what I would call personal, ethical, moral righteousness. You have a desire to live in a way that is right and if you're a Christian, the desire to live in a way that is right is defined by living in a way that God has defined for your life. We have Holy Scripture and it lays out an ideal way to do life, and part of righteousness is a hunger to live that way. And of course, that's connected to the third part of righteousness, the most important part of righteousness, which is a desire and a hunger for Jesus to give that salvation to the world and to you, because we can't get justice, we can't get personal, moral, ethical living the right way without first receiving the good news that Jesus Christ has provided perfect righteousness for us.
Speaker 1:Are you hungry for righteousness? Are you hungry for those things? Because, if you're not, this is a great moment to ask yourself why might I not be hungry for the righteousness of God? Am I distracted by stuff? Am I distracted by life? Am I not taking and listen, I got three kids. I do this. This takes hours of my week. I've got an actual job that helps me eat and not just eat gas station pizza and so, listen, I get it.
Speaker 1:Even if you're not going out of your way to do dumb things and you're not living a sinful life, sometimes you get so buried in the time consuming process of living you don't take a second and think about what am I hungry for in my life? Am I just going through the motions? Am I just getting up, brushing my teeth, doing everything? Take the kids here, take the kids there, send this email, drive here, do this, break your hand, go to the hospital, get better? Am I just doing all of that and never taking the time to think about what am I actually working for in my life? Are you hungry for righteousness? Are you hungry for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Speaker 1:The ultimate source of this kind of righteousness is God himself, not your own self, not anything you can do. It's about a sacrifice and humility to accept that. I need help and the satisfaction for those who are longing for righteousness and that standard of righteousness that's found in the law. It can only be found in God, which is important in this context, because the teachers of the law, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They focus their entire life is focusing on attaining righteousness through studying and interpreting scripture and their own results and their own effort. It's called self-righteousness and unfortunately, self-righteousness is empty. It's the gas station pizza. You can't do it on your own. You can't, you can't be good enough.
Speaker 1:We live in a world full of people who care about justice. Right, social justice is a real big deal, right? Right, they care about justice. I'm going to tell you they will never achieve what they want if they're just chasing social justice without first chasing God. Won't work, won't do it. Plenty of people want to live the right way. Plenty of people want to be moral and just. I don't know how they justify doing that without believing in God, because to me, if God doesn't exist, there's no reason to do anything except for selfishly, because you are all that and your family. That's it. It's only through Christ and his message of other people matter that there's even a reason for morality. That's a tangent. I might even cut that out. I won't cut that out, but for those who deeply long for God's multifaceted righteousness, they will be filled. That's the good news.
Speaker 1:The minute you become hungry for the thing that you ought to be hungry for is also the minute that you will receive the perfect meal to satiate that hunger. You got to wait around. There's not like a journey. There's no like got to dig for buried treasure. It's just that if you're walking this way searching for this and you stop and realize that what you really need is back here, you turn around and it's there already. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing Now. That's great news. But how do we?
Speaker 1:This is almost another one of those sort of what I call a right now but not yet situation, and what I mean by that is this you can receive this righteousness, you can receive the satisfaction of your hunger right now, but that doesn't mean that we're not going to walk around and start to deal with stuff out there, because there's still sin, we're still going to be tempted and sometimes guess what? You're going to fail the temptation. You're not going to be perfect, not going to be perfect. Okay, if you're married, you know you're not going to be perfect, not going to be perfect. Okay, if you're married, you know you're not going to be perfect. Right, your spouse has told you that at some point in your life you're not going to be perfect, not going to be perfect ever. And so we live in a right now, not yet situation where you got to understand that you have righteousness, but it's not 100%, going to be 100% all the time, right right now. So it's right now, but not yet, and that might depress you, but it excites me because I just know where we're going. He won, jesus won the battle. He won the battle, and so one day we will have perfect righteousness. Those temptations won't matter, the injustice won't matter. They have an answer, and his name is jesus.
Speaker 1:Jesus's disciples and I'm disciples, and I'm very close to being finished here Jesus' disciples they see firsthand the contrast between the self-righteousness of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the other religious leaders of their society. They see the difference between them and the life that Jesus is living and leading them into. They see Jesus' ministry, they see his actions, they see the response of the people to him and they see the response of the people to the Pharisees and Sadducees. And the good news is we get that working in our life too. Today, right now, that's still available to us. Jesus still has grace and mercy for us, we still have scripture, which is his lessons and his teachings, and we still have the Holy Spirit showing up and showing us the right way to find the solution for the righteousness that we are truly hungry for in a real and genuine way.
Speaker 1:I'll close with this sort of little thought here. There is this interesting thing here, when you think about the source of the desire for righteousness. The source for the desire for righteousness because, yes, there are people out there who don't give a rip and they do whatever they want to do. They don't care about right and wrong, they care about feeling good. But I would say, even non-religious people, religious people, other religions, there is a focus on wanting the right thing, the rightness of life. Okay, there's a strong desire for that.
Speaker 1:The Pharisees and the Sadducees and the religious leaders in Jesus' time they followed Judaism. I am sure that they thought their pursuit of moral and religious purity a form of self-righteousness. I assure you they thought that it was pleasing to God. And yet clearly we see in the Gospels in multiple instances that their self-righteousness was missing the point. It had become a source of pride. The pursuit of righteousness became pride. It became a comparison game. It became an unfair standard of evaluation. You live this way, this way, that way, I am intrinsically better than you, because I have better self-control than you. And that's how they rated their existence and their life.
Speaker 1:And God, who had given them the law, who had given them the standard, who had given them the instructions and the roadmap to righteousness, was almost gone from the process of pursuing righteousness. It was a game, it was a checklist, and they would work through their moral checklist Do this, don't do this, pray now, pray here, pray now. This is this holiday, do this, all of this stuff. And they would is this holiday, do this, all of this stuff, and they would follow this checklist and it would probably produce a pretty stable society and it would produce the appearance of piety. But their motivations were all messed up. What are your motivations? What are your motivations? Why are you here at church? Did someone drag you here? Why are you at church? Why do you want at church? Did someone drag you here? Why are you at church? Why do you want a relationship with Jesus? What's your motivation?
Speaker 1:The law was given to the Jewish people by God for them to follow in order to protect the relational covenant with God. God looked at them and says if you just do things on your own, you're going to go astray. And so God gives them the law as sort of safety guide rails that keep them connected to God and even with it. We see all throughout the Old Testament that the Jewish people got it wrong. They messed up, they did this, they did that.
Speaker 1:Listen, I think of the story of Moses. Moses does all all of these miracles happen and Israel is released from Egypt the Red Seas part. That's insane. Do you understand how insane it is to live through that? And then, two weeks later, moses is up on a mountain too long talking to God and you get bored and you say, hey, we need something to worship, we need something to eat, we need something to satiate this righteous hunger that we have. Aaron, can you make us a gold calf? They're months removed from mighty miracles of God and yet they're still turning. So, even with the law, even with the standard laid before them, they get it wrong.
Speaker 1:Matter of fact, paul points out that the law was partially given so that the Jewish people would recognize that. Hey, wait a second, you're never going to be good enough. So you need help. You need what's called a savior, a messiah the word they used, messiah. They were always looking for a messiah. When's the messiah going to come?
Speaker 1:The problem is they turned Messiah into something from something that was supposed to be spiritual in nature, a Messiah for their sins, because that was the ultimate problem that they were dealing with is they kept failing to live up to the standard of law. They turned that Messiah into a Messiah that would defeat Rome, defeat Babylon, right, so the Messiah changed, but in the Old Testament, it was always a Messiah who was going to bring righteousness once and for all for the people of Israel. And yet the people of Israel tricked themselves into thinking that it was possible to achieve this righteousness on their own, which is why they missed the point when Jesus showed up claiming to be the Messiah, because they largely were looking for a different type of Messiah than the one that showed up claiming to be the Messiah, because they largely were looking for a different type of Messiah than the one that showed up. He showed up forgiving sins and healing people and calling people out of self-righteousness into holiness, and it all stopped. They didn't get it. They didn't want to get it and really, ultimately, this brings us back to one of the overarching points of all of the Beatitudes and all of the Sermon on the Mount is that there is this standard that Jesus is presenting that supersedes, that's even tougher than the law, right? God gave the law to Moses and then they took that law and they made hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other smaller laws. And Jesus shows up and says, yeah, you do a real good job following that checklist, but let me tell you what real righteousness is. It's more than that. It's more than that, right, oh goodness, I can't get ahead of myself, but it's more. It's more and they missed the point.
Speaker 1:Guys, you need help, we need help, and I know I'm preaching to the choir in here. I know a lot of you already have a personal relationship with Jesus, but there's always a danger that we grow stale. There's always a danger that we stop and we don't take it seriously for a moment or we get distracted. We have to have help. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. We have to have help. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled not by themselves, but through submission and allowing Jesus to do what only Jesus can do.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that people can't make it through life pretty happily without Jesus. They clearly can they do. But what a waste, in my opinion, what a mighty waste, for someone to walk through life with blessings enough to sort of satiate that hunger and then get to the end of their life and wake up in eternity and realize, oh shoot, that was I, missed it, missed it, don't miss it, don't miss it, don't miss it. So let me just say to those of you listening right now first and foremost, let's work on our humility and our meekness, right, this is challenging for me on multiple levels. But be meek in your relationship. Be a meek spouse. Be a meek and humble spouse, whether you're a husband, whether you're a relationship. Be a meek spouse. Be a meek and humble spouse, whether you're a husband, whether you're a wife. Be a meek parent, be a meek parent.
Speaker 1:Again, that doesn't mean weakness. It doesn't mean you get pushed over. It doesn't mean that you don't correct things or address things. It simply means that you're not pushing through this person or that person or this group or this situation in order to achieve what you want to achieve, because how you achieve something can have a greater impact than what you actually want to achieve.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're here right now and we talk about hunger. We talk about thirsting. You relate to what I'm talking about. You understand what it means to be hungry for stuff that you that you have had seasons in your life and maybe you might be even living through a season right now where it seems like you are not satisfied with what's before you. I would challenge you right now that if you are living a life that and you don't feel satisfied, then maybe you need to readjust your priorities of what you are hungry for right. Maybe you're spending way too much priorities of what you are hungry for Right. Maybe you're spending way too much time in the comparison material game and because you don't have this or that or that person has that, I can't have that, that your priorities might be a little wrong.
Speaker 1:Work your way back, through prayer and humility, back to a place where you desire the righteousness of God and you will be guaranteed to be filled and satiated. The world can't satisfy you, just can't, just can't, won't do it, you won't do it. Only Jesus can provide the righteousness that we need. Amen, let's. Let's pray together and just as we pray and obviously I'm always willing to pray for people if they want specific prayer but just in this moment, let's bow our heads and close our eyes and just take a couple of minutes here and, as we pray, examine our hearts, examine our lives, and if we are lacking in humility, if we are lacking living up to the call of meekness, if we are lacking in our priorities and we are hungry and we are thirsty for things and we know they're not the right things, let's take this moment of prayer to ask God to help us right where we are. I don't gotta pray for you. Open your own mouth, open up your own heart to God, have confidence that he is listening, have confidence to know that he will answer your prayers.
Speaker 1:As tough as it might seem, and even right now, in this moment, you can walk out of here different than you came in. This doesn't have to be just another Sunday. This could be a moment when your life has changed. This could be a moment with your journey in righteousness starts and is transformed. So, just in this moment, be honest with yourself. Be honest with yourself as we pray. I'll pray for you, but pray for yourself.
Speaker 1:Heavenly Father, we love you and we thank you, and we come to you in faith, believing that you hear us right now and that you want us. You want us, you love us, you care for us and in that process, lord, you're willing to move in our life to help us be who you desire us to be. Lord, make us a meek people. Make us a meek people, you know. Give us boldness, give us courage, give us strength, but, lord, above all else, give us the tools we need to be meek in every circumstance and situation, like you were. And God right now.
Speaker 1:For those of us in the room, like myself I'll be honest who struggles a little bit with this, I pray that you, through your Holy Spirit, you start softening our hearts and our minds and that you would start checking us in those moments that really matter, that you would whisper in our hearts and in our minds that wait a second, zach, there's a better way. Wait a second, there's a different way to do this. Before you do this, before you get aggressive, before this, before that, take a step back and think about how I would do things. Deliver us and help us, lord, in our hearts and our minds, to be meek people.
Speaker 1:Lord, I pray for any of us in the room who are hungry and thirsty. First and foremost, I pray that we would hunger and thirst for the right thing. Let us set aside distractions, let us set aside things that don't matter, let us get our priorities back in line and let us hunger and thirst after righteousness. Let us care about what other people are suffering from. Let us care about how we behave and how we act and what we do and what we say and how we are viewed in the world.
Speaker 1:God, we know that laws and regulations and doing this and doing that can't save us, lord, but once we are saved, there is a standard of holiness and I pray that you would give us the strength to grow every day, to be a little closer to you, to have a little bit better attitude, to give up this bad habit, to give up this word, this language, to every day, to draw a little bit closer to your righteousness, through your grace and through your mercy and through the power of your Holy Spirit. Thank you for salvation, thank you for security, thank you for eternity, lord. But, lord, I want to grow and be who you want us to be. Lord, help us, god, help us, lord, in Jesus Christ's name we.