Ron Dunn Podcast - Birthmark Of Righteousness

Episode Date: February 10, 2021

Ron Dunn speaks on righteousness

Matthew chapter 5 verse 6 and then chapter 6 verses 19 through 34. Jesus has gathered his disciples about them and he is describing to them what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And he says, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. For they shall be filled. And then in chapter 6, verses 19 through 34. He describes and explains what it means to hunger and thirst after righteousness. Lay not up for yourselves treasures up on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust do corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink nor yet for your body what you shall put on is not the life more than meat

and the body than raiment behold the fowls of the air for they sow not neither do they reap nor gather in the barn yet your heavenly father feedeth them are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought

can add one cubit unto his stature? Why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory

was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,

and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the days is the evil thereof blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness hungering and thirsting after righteousness After righteousness. God always meets a man at the point of his desire. God will do just as much for you in your life as you desire him to do. You are just as close to God this morning as you want to be.

And one of the marvelous things about the Lord is that you can have all of him you want. And whatever else you may be hungering and thirsting for this morning, you never really are filled with it. You may not be able to get all the money you want, and you may not be able to take your fill and get completely satisfied with the things of this world, but the truth is that you can have all of God that you want. And it is only when a man has been hungering and thirsting after righteousness that he's really filled, that he comes to a point of satisfaction. Sometimes we want to blame coincidences or our own personal weaknesses for not being any more spiritual than we are.

But honestly now, you're just as spiritual this morning as you want to be. Because God always meets a person at the point of his desire. And he'll carry that person no farther than his desire. This is why the psalmist said, delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. God always works in our life according to the desires of our heart. The one hopeless condition that a fellow can get himself into is where he is not aware of any need and has no appetite for the things of God. And this kind of condition is one that God loathes. You remember in the book of Revelation as Jesus is addressing himself to the churches of Asia,

he speaks to one church in particular, the church at Laodicea. And listen to what he says about this church. He says, I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would that thou art cold or hot. Jesus is saying in modern terms, I wish you'd either get with it or give it up altogether. But he said, you're on and you're off, and you're just lukewarm. And so he says in the 16th verse, so then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am

rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knoweth not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. Jesus says, the thing that makes me sick about you is that you say I am rich, I am increased with goods, and I have need of nothing. And when a person comes to this place where he says, I have need of nothing, God says, that kind of attitude just makes me sick. And I can do nothing with that kind of person. So when God wants to move into a person's life and do a work in his life, the first thing he has to do is to create an appetite. He has to bring about some circumstances that will make him aware of his need.

There's a marvelous illustration of this in Deuteronomy chapter 8, Bring about some circumstances that will make him aware of his need. There's a marvelous illustration of this in Deuteronomy chapter 8 as Moses recounts the ways God had dealt with him in the wilderness and listen to what he says. In Deuteronomy 8 in the second verse, Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness to humble thee and to prove thee to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or not.

And the third verse, And he humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with manna. Moses says the reason God did things that he did in the wilderness, the reason he allowed you to fail utterly for 40 years was to make you hungry and to bring you to a point of desperation where you would cry out to God, oh Lord, I'm hungry. Then and only then was God able to feed them. And so God wants to start with a person at the point of his desire. And he first of all begins a work in that person's life to create an appetite, to create a spiritual desire. And so Jesus says, if a man is following me, if he is

actually being my disciple in his everyday life, this will be true of him. He will be hungering and thirsting after righteousness. He will have a spiritual appetite for the things of God. Now, it's important to see the relation of this beatitude to the other. The first beatitude talks about a man's spiritual bankruptcy. And the second beatitude talks about our reaction to that spiritual bankruptcy. We mourn over it. We grieve over the fact that as far as God is concerned, we're completely bankrupt. And this causes us to be spiritual bankruptcy. We mourn over it. We grieve over the fact that as far as God is concerned, we're completely bankrupt. And this causes us to be meek. You see, when a man sees

himself, not as his mother sees him or not as his neighbors see him, but when he sees himself as he really is, as God sees him, he is confronted with the fact that he is a spiritual beggar, a spiritual bankrupt, and it breaks his heart and he grieves over it, and this just naturally makes him meet. But it does more than that. It arouses in him then a desire to have that emptiness, that bankruptcy met, and so he hungers and thirsts after righteousness. I like to illustrate it this way. It's like climbing a mountain. You're going up one side of the mountain, and the first three Beatitudes are climbing up the mountain, aware of your spiritual bankruptcy, mourning over it, being meek because of it. And then you come to the top of that mountain, and there's where you

have your need met. There's where you hunger and thirst after righteousness and God fills you with his spirit and fills you with his righteousness and then everything else that follows is a result of being filled with the righteousness of God. And a man who is aware of his spiritual condition will always be hungering and thirsting after God. And a man who has absolutely no appetite for righteousness, for being like Jesus, and for being filled with the will of God is a man who probably in the first

place has never even had a taste of the Lord. First Peter chapter 2 says that as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby if so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious now what the apostle Peter is saying in those two verses is this that if a man has had a taste of Jesus if he has tasted of the graciousness and the mercy of the Lord that creates in him then an appetite, a spiritual appetite, and like a newborn babe desires milk, then this person desires to know more and more and more about Jesus. So what the apostle is saying there is that if a man and a woman manifest

absolutely no appetite for the things of God, it's a good sign they've never even had a taste of the Lord. If you once ever get a taste that the Lord is gracious and come to having a real experience with Jesus, there will be created in you a holy dissatisfaction with yourself and a holy craving after God. This is what Jesus is talking about. Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness. Now, I realize the word righteousness is a musty, sanctimonious sounding word for 20th century Christians. I think we could better say it like this. Blessed are those that are hungering and thirsting to be right, just to be right in every respect. You see, the Bible says

that only God is righteous, and apart from God there is no righteousness. Therefore, if a man is going to be righteous, then it means that he is going to have to be right with God, and it means that he is hungering and thirsting to be perfect as God is perfect to be exactly like Jesus to be less and less of like himself and to be more and more conformed to the image of God's son and Jesus says if you follow me then there is going to be in you a real desire a real appetite to be right with God and right with man in every respect. You're not going to be satisfied with one area of your life that is wrong or out of place or crooked. Every area of your life is going to be demanded to be righteous if you're really following me. This hungering and

thirsting after God. Now there's a very unusual construction of the Greek in that sixth verse. Normally, when the New Testament speaks about a man hungering or thirsting after something, it uses a certain Greek construction that would literally be translated like this. Here's a man who is hungry for bread. And it would not say he's hungry for bread but it would say literally he's hungry for of bread he's hungry for of bread or if he's thirsty for water it wouldn't say literally in the greek he is thirsty for water but it would say he is thirsty for of water and that construction means that the fellow who's hungry for bread doesn't want the whole loaf he just wants to

slurp the man who's thirsty for water doesn't want to drink the whole well, he just wants enough to satisfy him. He's thirsty for a little bit of the water. Now, this is a normal way that the New Testament uses the word hungering and thirsting. Not after the whole loaf, just the slice. Not after the whole well, just enough to satisfy him temporarily. But Jesus does a very unusual thing here. He abandons the usual construction, violates the law of grammar, and what he says is, blessed are those that are hungering and thirsting for the whole loaf. Blessed are those that are thirsty for the whole well of water. Jesus is not pronouncing a blessed on somebody who wants just a little bit of righteousness.

And you know this is the way so many of us live our Christian life. We come to church on Sunday morning, we say, Lord, just give me a slice of goodness. I don't want to gorge myself. I don't want to overdo it. Lord, just a mid-morning snack, just a brunch will satisfy us. We don't want to get too fanatical about this, don't want to overdo it, don't want to go too far. And really the truth of the matter is most of us are satisfied we have the spiritual appetite that can be appeased with just a little snack now and then. God pronounces no blessing upon

this. I know some people, because they have one slice of righteousness over here, they think that justifies them having no righteousness in this area of their life. I know some people who, because they witness faithfully for Jesus every week, they think this excuses them from having a violent temper. Now, can you imagine that? I know some people who think that because they go to church on Sunday and they tithe, that this excuses them from living a holy life during the week, Monday through Saturday. That God somehow is satisfied with that little bit that they do on the Lord's day. Have you ever noticed this inconsistency in people?

Now honestly, there are some people who live very rigid Christian lives. Their lives are immaculate. They don't do this and they don't do that and they have this strict set of rules and regulations. And yet, there's something about that person you would never go to them if you had a problem. You would never go to them if you had a problem. You would never go to them if you had a broken heart. Because there's something about them that emanates an absence of love and compassion. You know people like that? I do. I think that it's one of the embarrassing things about Christianity,

this inconsistency in our lives. Over here we're doing real well, and we sit down there and think, well, now this satisfies God. And yet over here are vast areas of desert life where God is not on them. And Jesus is saying, blessed are those that are hungering and thirsting to be totally, completely, utterly righteous in every respect of their life now it's interesting to notice how jesus describes our desire for righteousness he uses hungering and thirsting which are master appetites they are god-given appetites did you know that every person has a god-given appetite after god paul says in romans chapter 1 that even those who've never heard the name of

God are built, are created with a built-in craving after God. But simply because God has given us the appetite for hunger and thirst doesn't mean that we always satisfy that hunger and thirst in the right way. A child is born with an appetite to eat and to drink, but if you allow that child to eat and drink whatever he wants to, he will gorge himself on soda pops and candy. And he'll have an unbalanced diet, and he'll come up with a stomachache and be gripey and fretful. You know, there's some people in the church that are fretful and fussy and complain and gripe and seem to have a religious stomachache all the time. Never happy, always complaining, never satisfied.

Do you know what's wrong? God's given them an appetite, but they're out satisfying that appetite on the things of the world. And if a man is hungering and thirsting after power, he won't be satisfied. If a man is hungering and thirsting after power, he won't be satisfied. If a man is hungering and thirsting after pleasure, he won't be satisfied. If he's hungering and thirsting after money, he'll never be satisfied. It's only when we channel that hunger and thirst in the direction of Jesus that we're satisfied. The only person this morning that has real abiding peace and soul satisfaction in his heart is that person who is hungering and thirsting after righteousness because the promise is that he will be filled.

How strong is your desire this morning to be holy, to be like Jesus? If you describe it like this, Lord, I feel that I am at the point of starvation. I so desperately need and hunger to be like Jesus and to be totally right with nothing between my soul and the Savior. That's what God wants us to have. That is the desire he wants us to manifest in our lives. Well, now, what does it really mean to hunger and thirst after righteousness?

Let's have a little spiritual examination here for a moment. How can I tell whether or not I'm really hungering and thirsting after righteousness? Maybe I'm just hungering and thirsting to be in church more. Some of us are incurable churchgoers. We're there every time the doors are open. But that is not necessarily hungering and thirsting to be right with God. So how can I tell? What will I be like?

What will be right in my life if I truly am hungering and thirsting after righteousness? All right, let's look at that passage in chapter 6 that we read a moment ago. And in this passage, Jesus Christ gives us three characteristics of the Christian who is really hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Number one, if your spiritual appetite is as it ought to be and you're seeking the right thing, this means you'll have the right affections. You'll be seeking the right affections. Look at the 19th verse. Jesus says, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth

where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. And in verse 21 is one of the foundation principles of life. For where your treasure is, your heart will follow. Where your treasure is, your heart will follow. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Jesus is saying, to hunger and thirst after righteousness means that you'll be right in your affection. You'll be right in your affection.

And he says, some people's affections are centered on things physical, centered on things material, centered on things temporal. They've got all soil and no sky in their affections. And they're laying up for themselves treasures up on earth. And he says that's a foolish thing to do. Because if you have a treasure on earth, it is vulnerable to all the enemies on earth. A thief can break through and steal. A moth can come in and eat it up.

Now, back in New Testament days, fancy clothes were a sign of wealth. That was before they had master charge, and today you can have fancy clothes and be broke. But back in those days, they didn't have charge accounts and credit cards, and if a man had beautiful clothes, a great wardrobe,

that was a sign of wealth. Remember Samson said, if you'll give me 30 garments, then I'll do such and so for you. But notice what Jesus says. Jesus says, you put all of your wealth in your clothes, but a moth can come in and eat it. It's vulnerable. It's vulnerable. Now he says, Rust doth corrupt. The word rust is an interesting word.

It means to be eaten or devoured. And the picture behind that word is really not rust as it's translated in the King James, but it's really a rodent, like a mouse. And the word rust means to be devoured by a rodent. Now, one status symbol of wealth

was fancy clothes. Another status symbol of wealth was a large barn full of grain, large silo full of grain. Remember the rich farmer? I'll tear down my barns and build greater. This was an agricultural society. Jesus said a great many people, they think that their life consisteth in the abundance of material things they have. But he said, a little thing like a mouse can get inside and eat away your treasure. Have you ever noticed how the treasures and the things of this world are vulnerable to the smallest things? And then he says where thieves do break through

and steal. The word break through means to dig through because they lived in homes that were made out of a clay substance. And a thief, during the night while the man was asleep, they didn't have banks, and a man would put his money, his treasure, his valuables in his room, perhaps in a little earthen vessel, a jug. During the night while he was asleep, the thief would come at the side of the house and just quietly, deftly, dig away, dig away, dig away. And in the morning, the man would wake up, and there was a hole in the wall, and all of his possessions were gone.

And I'll tell you something about some people in this building this morning who think that everything in life really that's worth having are the things that are material and physical and visible and temporal. One of these days, you'll wake up, and you'll find a hole in the wall, and everything that you have banked on and counted on gone. Jesus said the man that lays up for himself treasures on earth is a fool.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. I can tell where a man's heart is. Always follows his treasure. I think if I had been writing verse 21, I would have reversed it. I would have said where your heart is, there your treasure will follow. That seems to be the logical thing that Jesus said, no, a man's heart is weak. A man's affections are weak. A man's heart always melts

in the presence of a treasure. A man does not determine his treasure by the status of his heart, but rather a man's heart, its status is determined by his treasure. And so if a man begins to accumulate earthly treasures, his heart will be riveted to the things of the earth. Therefore, he says, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Say, I wonder how your heavenly bank account is doing this morning. That's the only thing that is eternal. And God says that if a man is hungry and thirsting after righteousness, he'll be right in his affections. He'll be right in his affections. But not only will he be right in his affections, he'll be right in his allegiances. Look at the 24th verse. Jesus says, No man, no man. You underline that.

There's no exception. No man can be a slave. The word serve, there's the word slave. No man can be a slave to two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other,

or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot, it is a moral impossibility, Jesus says, you cannot serve God and mammon. Now the word mammon means material things. It means what a fellow trusts in, what a man trusts in. Some translations render that money or possessions. But the word mammon means anything that you trust in. Did you know that everybody here this morning trusts in something? It is impossible for you to live without faith. Your whole life operates on the basis of faith.

And everyone here this morning trusts in something and is a slave to something. And Jesus says that you're either a slave to mammon, the things of this world that you trust in, or you're a slave to God. And that if a fellow is trying to hang on to both of them, he's trying to make the best of both worlds, he's saying, I'm going to be a Christian,

I'm going to follow Jesus, I'm going to trust the Lord, but still I need to make it on my own, and God takes care of those that take care of themselves, and so I've got to also trust in the physical realities of life. Jesus says that is a physical impossibility and a spiritual impossibility. You cannot trust both of them.

Some of you are trying to trust both of them, and there's total frustration in your Christian life. You will either love the one or hate the other, or you will hold to the one, and this is the important thing that Jesus is saying. He says you will get a tighter grip on one, and the word despise means to underestimate and to undervalue. What a picture of what some of us have gone through.

We started out pretty well equal, pretty well balanced. And maybe we really trusted the Lord more than we trusted our job or trusted our ability to earn a living or trusted our bank account. But we tried to hang on to both of them. And Jesus says, this is what happens he says gradually your hold on one will tighten and tighten and tighten

and you'll begin to go through a process of undervaluing the other underestimating the other and where some of us are this morning is that we have a real tight hold on mammon, the things of the world, our own ability to make a living. And we really are undervaluing and

underestimating God's ability to take care of us. That's why Jesus says in the very next verse, therefore, don't worry about your life. Now, would you like to test yourself and see whether or not you're trusting in God or trusting in mammon? Simple test, really. If you're worrying about the things of this life, you're trusting in mammon. Simple test. If you're worrying about what you're going to eat

or what you're going to drink or what you're going to wear, if you're worrying about how you're going to meet this need and pay that bill, you're trusting in mammon, not trusting in God. He really makes a devastating statement in verse 32.

After he has told us not to worry about what we're going to eat or drink, the physical necessities of life, he says, for after all these things, the pagan seeps. The mark of an unbeliever, of a he He says, for after all these things, the pagan seeks. The mark of an unbeliever,

of a heathen, is that he worries about the things of life. You know, some of us are Christians on Sunday and pagans on Monday. On Sunday we come and sing these hymns and say that we're trusting in the Lord and we praise the Lord, but on Monday through Saturday we live pagan lives because we're worrying about the things of this world. Jesus says you've got to be right in your allegiance.

You've either got to let go of mammon and stop trusting in it and stop valuating it, and you must hang on to God and tighten your grip on him. You cannot serve two masters. in it and stop evaluating it. And you must hang on to God and tighten your grip on him. You cannot serve two masters. You just can't do it. And then the last thing Jesus says,

if you're going to be right and filled with righteousness, you've got to be right in your ambition. Verse 33 is a familiar one to all of us. Jesus says, if you're going to seek anything, seek this. If you're going to seek anything, seek this. If you're going to worry about anything,

worry about this. If you're going to be ambitious for anything, be ambitious for this. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things

shall be added unto you. And all these things, everything you need in your life, God says, I will take care of this. I will add this to you. You simply do one thing. You be a person of one ambition. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. He's not talking there about seeking heaven and wanting to go to heaven when you die. The kingdom of God does not refer to a place. It refers to a way of life. And the word, the expression kingdom of God literally means the rule of God. The rule of God. And Jesus

is saying this. Your ambition ought to be you should seek after and be ambitious to have the rule of God in your life. To be in such a condition that there's nothing between my soul and the Savior. The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent. It is managed and operated by Sherwood Baptist Church. If you would like to listen to additional Ron Dunn messages, visit sherwoodbaptist.net slash bookstore and search Ron Dunn. For more Ron Dunn materials, including sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from a study Bible, please visit

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