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Can you tell if this mic is working or not? Okay. Our Gospel reading is from Luke chapter 18, and we're going to read 9 through 17. This is God's word. He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Two men went up to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee standing by himself prayed, Thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all I get. But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you this. This man went down to his house justified. Rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted. Now they were bringing infants to him, that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, Let the children come to me and do not hinder them, for such belongs the kingdom of God. Only I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. Let's pray. Father, in heaven, as we come to your word, we pray that you would open our hearts and minds and reveal yourself to us. Change us in Jesus' name. Amen. We're studying the Beatitudes part of the Sermon on the Mount. We're studying the whole Sermon on the Mount, but we're in the Beatitudes right now. Sermon on the Mount is possibly the most famous sermon that Jesus preached. And in chapter 6, verse 5, Matthew records the words of Jesus. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Now that's a pretty straightforward statement. If you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you'll get it. You will be filled. You will be satisfied. But remember, the Beatitudes are not if-then statements. Their statements are what is true of a Christian. Their statements about what it is true of the followers of Christ, what is true of believers in the God of the Bible. You see, the problem though is according to Scripture, none of us seek for God. None of us seek righteousness. In the letter to the Romans, Paul quotes Psalm 14 and 53, and he says this, none is righteous. No. Not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together, they have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. No one seeks for God. Not very few seek for God, but no one. It's a condemning statement for all mankind. All of us are guilty of sin. All of us are rebellious against God. Paul says in Ephesians 2 that we are dead in our sins and by nature children of wrath. So how do you reconcile these two statements? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and no one is righteous, no one seeks for God. If we believe the Bible is the Word of God, and we do, we have to believe that both statements are true. So how do you do that? Well people have different strategies. People try to exonerate themselves. They try to justify themselves. Even if you don't believe, you try to exonerate yourself and justify yourself. But let's start with those who believe in God, which is the majority of people in the world. How do we ourselves justify ourselves before a holy God? Well we employ a variety of strategies I'm going to mention too. One is to blame others for our misdeeds, our shortcomings, our failures, our sins. Now very few of you are old enough to remember a TV show way back in the 60s, the Flip Wilson show. And he would do a skit, usually dressed as a woman, and his catchphrase was, the devil made me do it. And the audience was waiting for this catchphrase, and when he said it they would howl with laughter. No matter what it was, no matter what he had done wrong, no matter what he was caught doing, he would say the devil made me do it. What is ironic though is this excuse, this justification is as old as mankind. That was what Adam and Eve did in the garden after they had sinned. After they sinned against God by eating from the tree of good and evil, which God had forbidden, but they had excuses, they had justifications. In chapter 3 of Genesis verse 8 it says, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? That's through verse 11. Now in verse 13, Eve says, the devil made me do it. And in this case it was anything but funny. She said, the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. The devil made me do it. And as bad as that is, in verse 12, the verse before, Adam's excuse was even worse. He blamed Eve and God. He said, the woman whom you gave to me, or gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate. The woman, he doesn't even call her by name. But you gave to me, blaming God. Adam is essentially saying to God, this is your fault. I was fine here in the garden with the animals and the fruit trees. But then you brought this woman into the picture and now we're in this mess. Now one writer says this strategy has been adopted from then throughout the ages and he calls it the hide and hurl strategy. Hide from God and hurl blame. Adam and Eve had sinned against God and instead of confessing it, first they hid, which we read about, and then they hurled accusations. Now many of us still employ that strategy in our family with friends, classmates at work, shifting the blame. Might work temporarily but it's ultimately damaging to others and ourselves. Now many marriages unfortunately fall into this trap. There's a blamer and the one who receives the blame. Sometimes it's how they were brought up. Sometimes it's just in their nature to be the blamer, to be the person who can never seem to apologize. So that's one strategy is to try to shift blame, is to accuse, is to blame somebody else for our shortcomings, our sins. But there's another strategy and that's the one that was used by the Pharisee in the Gospel passage we read from Luke 18. We justify ourselves by comparison with somebody else who we think is inferior to us. That's what happened in the Gospel passage. Pharisee comes to pray. Now he should know the word of God and understand acutely more than anyone else the perfection of God and how far he falls short, but what does he do to make himself feel more justified? He compares himself to others and ultimately to the tax collector. Now why does Jesus use tax collector in the parable? He does so because the tax collectors were the most vilified people in all of Israel. Because tax collectors often, maybe even usually, worked on the side of the Romans. Well they did that but they cheated. The Romans looked the other way if they collected more tax than was owed. So let's say a hundred of whatever the coin was, was owed. They would collect 200 and keep 100 for themselves. There were a lot of tax collectors who became rich that way. There was a kias. When he came to Christ he said that he would repay fourfold everything that he had stolen, which was essentially promising to impoverish himself. But he compares himself to the tax collector. I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. The list isn't very flattering but the tax collector is the worst. So there's the negative comparison but then he has the positive which he says, I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all I get. Remember we talked about a couple of weeks ago being poor in spirit. He's not poor in spirit. He thinks he has much to commend himself to God. But God should be happy with him. He justifies himself by comparison. I'm not like other men. He's really raised the bar, hasn't he? And he thinks he's done some good things. I fast, I give tithes. So by comparing himself to people that are worse than him and comforting himself with his good works, he feels good about his spiritual condition. He believes he's justified before God. Unfortunately, some Christians do this. This is what I do in the church. This is what I do for God. I'm obviously, maybe they may not say this out loud, I'm obviously better than you. But we see this in other areas of life. It's probably most obvious in public affairs. For instance, liberals have disdain for conservatives. They kind of tolerate the NDP. Conservatives have disdain for liberals and feel superior morally and economically. And let's be honest, they think they're smarter. By comparing, we can think we're justified and even righteous. Your couples can fall into this habit. The tendency to blame your spouse for what the troubles happen to be in your marriage is not uncommon. Some in the marriages often have difficulty apologizing. And it can lead to bitterness and disdain and in some cases even in the marriage. So what is there to do? That's where the gospel passage from John tells us that hungering and thirsting for righteousness is really hungering and thirsting for Jesus. He says in that last great day of the feast, Jesus stood up and cried out, if anyone is thirsty let him come to me. Whoever believes in me as the scripture set out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. On the last great day of the feast, the feast that John is referring to is the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths. It was a yearly celebration that took place in the autumn. Many of the people would dwell in booths, really just lean tos, for the entire eight days to remind them that they dwell in tents for 40 years and God provided for them as he led them out of Egypt into the Promised Land. God provided food in the form of manna and even provided water one time from a rock. So this week-long celebration is to help themselves remember what God had done for them and that they belonged to him. Now every day they were to make sacrifices to God and according to Numbers 29 they sacrificed nearly 200 animals, 64 bulls, 105 lambs, 15 rams and 7 goats. And each day, although this wasn't part of Moses' instruction, the priests would go to the Pool of Shalom, draw out water using a golden pitcher and they would have a processional to the altar and sing Isaiah 12, with joy we draw water from the wells of salvation. So Jesus is at this feast, but he also knew that the Pharisees wanted to kill him. The Pharisees had ordered officers to arrest Jesus so they could accuse him and kill him. But it's on this last day of the feast that Jesus knew that there were people wanting to kill him that he still stood up and cried out. He didn't draw people aside secretly and in hushed tones tell them this. He cried out. He wasn't giving a lecture. He cried out. What did he say? If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me. After watching the water taken from the pool for seven days and hearing them sing, we draw water from the well of salvation, Jesus cries out. This must be important. If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Jesus himself is the fulfillment of the great feast and not just the temporary fulfillment, but the permanent and eternal fulfillment. All of the Old Testament feasts are symbols that point to Jesus. In the passage we were looking at this morning, Jesus is demonstrating how he is the fulfillment of the great feast. He's the improvement of Old Testament feasts and symbols. He's the reality where they are only symbolic. So the satisfaction he offers is a real and permanent satisfaction to which these things are appointed. The Feast of the Tabernacles celebrated God's provision in the desert as Israel escaped the bondage of Egypt. The hunger and thirst that Matthew describes in the Beatitudes is not only hunger and thirst, but an intense, gnawing hunger. My flesh yearns for you and a parched desperate thirst in dry land like the deer pants for the water brush. You might say, well that applies to religious people. I'm not sure I believe the Bible. What does it have to do with me? Through the ages, philosophers like Blaise Pascal has said that we all have a God-shaped hole in our heart. Augustine said our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. Now this person is not the equivalent of those, but Bruce Springsteen said everyone has a hungry heart. Everyone's got a hungry heart. Lay down your money and play your part. Everyone's got a hungry heart. Way back in the 60s when I was just a little kid, yeah I used to be a little kid, the Rolling Stones sang, I can't get no satisfaction. I can't get no satisfaction because I try and I try and I try. This is the true condition of every human heart that it longs intensely for something. And whatever satisfaction it gets is temporary. And Jesus is claiming to be the satisfaction of that something, whatever it is. Yesterday I was watching a hockey game. The Red Wings finally won after losing seven in a row. And these hockey players, both teams, they jump on the ice, they skate their guts out for 45 seconds or so. It's their turn. Then they go to the bench. And what you never see on the bench is them asking for saltine crackers. No, they want to drink something. They're parched, they're thirsty, they've expended themselves. And all these other attempts to satisfy your hunger and your thirst are like eating saltine crackers, no matter how many you eat, you will not satisfy your thirst. And that is what John's gospel is communicating in every chapter up until chapter seven. He's using the imagery of water to point out that our souls are thirsty and that the only thing that will satisfy your soul thirst is Jesus himself. In chapter one he says he's the word. He's God who's become one of us. He's full of grace and truth. In chapter two he announces himself by changing the water used for ritual purification into wine, symbolizing the sacrifice of his own blood to purify for himself a bride, the church. In chapter three he says you must be born of water in the spirit. In chapter four he tells the woman at the well, I am the water that will satisfy the greatest longings of your heart. Chapter five he says I'm healed here to heal your most significant sickness, your sin. In chapter six he says I'm the bread of life. Chapter seven, if anyone is thirsty, not for water, there's plenty of that. But if anyone's soul is thirsty, if anyone's heart longs for satisfaction, I am the one who will satisfy you. This isn't the first time in the Bible that this kind of thirst is described. Psalm 42, as a deer pants for flowing streams so my soul pants for you, O God, my soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Psalm 63, O God, you are my God, I earnestly seek you, my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. That's that parched desperate thirst that the words in John seven describe that Matthew five six refers to, if anyone longs for righteousness, they will be satisfied. Psalm 84, my soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord, my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. The passage we read in Isaiah, come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, he who has no money, come and buy and eat, come buy milk and wine without money and without price. But the problem is we have sought our satisfaction elsewhere. Jeremiah two says, has the nation changed its gods even though there are no gods, but my people have changed the glory of that which does not for that which does not profit be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, my people have committed two evils. They forsaken me the fountain of living waters. There it is again, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. People can and do seek their satisfaction elsewhere. They seek to satisfy their thirsts with other things, things that don't satisfy even though they think they will. Seeking to satisfy the longings of your soul apart from God is what the Bible calls idolatry. First John two, do not love the world of the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all it is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with his desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. How are you to satisfy your soul thirst? Going back to the Gospel of John, Nicodemus tried to satisfy his soul thirst with religion, with his nationality, with his position, with his education. The woman at the well tried to satisfy her soul thirst with immorality, with self-righteousness, with victim status, looking for love in all the wrong places. Dean Martin said, you're nobody till somebody loves you. The reality is that's all invalid. Even physical healing, if you don't have your health, you ain't got nothing, we're told. In the Gospel of the crowd ate the loaves and were filled. And in each situation, Jesus reveals the idolatry of the heart, the desire to have the soul's thirst satisfied apart from him. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be satisfied. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for Jesus, the righteous. Those of us who believe the Gospel, who trust God, are satisfied. Goes all the way back to Genesis 15, when Abraham said to God that I don't have an heir. Someone else is the heir of my house. And God brought Abraham outside and said, look at the stars, count them if you can. So shall your offspring be. Can he believe the Lord and the Lord counted it to him as righteousness? Paul quotes this in Romans 4. To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Ephesians 2 says, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved, even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved. Raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And that's not your own doing. It's the gift of God. Not as a result of works that anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before him beforehand. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness is hungering and thirsting for Jesus. And you will be satisfied. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for the gospel. Thank you that all of our soul's desires can be satisfied in Christ. We pray in his name. Amen.