Well, we turn again to the Beatitudes, these words that our Lord spoke on this memorable occasion, opened his mouth and taught them saying, blessed, happy. That's where the word Beatitude comes from, these happy sayings, these sayings that indicates, do this, happiness, blessedness. And that's not some cheap kind of form of happiness, but something weighty and spiritual, something really, really worth having. This morning, we come to verse six, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Matthew 5, verse six, title of the sermon, An Appetite for the Things of God. And each beatitude follows from the one that went before, not haphazard and random. We begin with our dependence upon God, our sense of our own spiritual need and emptiness. We saw last time, meekness, that in all of these things, it's a disposition, that there's some reality within, that it's not sort of a bit of a makeover, like you just sort of, there's a bit of a dodgy wall, slap some paint over it, there you go, there's a bit of meekness. No, it's something more fundamental that we're talking about here, not a bit of window dressing, slap of paint over some defects. This is a heart that's changed and where there is already a kind of submissiveness that we're not quite to rise and assert that we are something actually. You can't really talk to us or speak to us like this because we're something because no, we've already admitted we're nothing. and that we're dependent upon God. So that, the attitude followed there, and so does this one here. Because now we are actually asking for the very life itself that we need to be able to fulfill all that's gonna follow, and the rest of the things follow quite logically, but we need to be those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, righteousness. a standing in the eyes of God where it is declared of us that we are well pleasing to him. That's what we want. Not that we are pleasing to men. Not that we're pleasing to ourselves and we think we're doing okay. No, we don't want any of that. We don't think we're doing okay and really when it comes to what does the crowd have to say? They're all unbelievers for the most part. They've got nothing to contribute. God has. And it's his decision, it's his verdict that we are most, most interested in. And we're hungering for that. We're looking for a declaration from him that we're in favor with him, that we are well-beloved, that we are secure in his sight, and that it's not as a result of just some say-so, but that we will know it. We hunger and thirst for that. And that's to be our heart's desire. And to the extent that it's not, then we need correction, and we need repentance, and we need investigation of our hearts. And just as with all these beatitudes, they're not sort of done, sort of ticked box, well that's good, done, verse five, I'm pouring spirit, I think I've got there. Now let's try for a little bit of meekness and quite tick that, I think I've got some. It's not like that. This is a life's work that we have before us here. It was the scribes and the Pharisees who had the tick box and thought, done it, that's good. We've washed our hands in the right and approved manner, done. Washed our cups and our pots and pans, done. Didn't do this on the Sabbath, done, sorted. It's not that. And how our Lord said emphatically, it is not that. It's a heart that is changed, and it is a desire within to have the favor of God. The Pharisees and the scribes, it was an easy deal. Well, we didn't do this on the Sabbath. I didn't pick up a log or something like that, so that's me sorted. And from that comes some glow of self-righteousness. Oh, I've washed my pot thoroughly after that, and I get my hands in the way that the scribes command and prescribe, so sorted in that. None of that. It's something much, much more. That's self-righteousness. That's man giving himself, basically, approval and thinking he's got the authorization of God to give it. We want the real thing. And this is what's hungered for here. Righteousness. Well, that's a loaded, loaded term for us, isn't it? Our ears prick up at this. This is the area of justification. Is it not? Yes, it is. God declares, and we'll come to this in a minute, wretched sinners, to be in favour with him, in good standing with him, yes. But it's more than that as well. It means, well, what will follow from that? What else develops out of that? It's not just a declaration, heard, end of the story. This is saying, no, in a sense, that's the beginning of the story. There's so much, much more to come. It'll come from that, without that justification, nothing else will happen, can't happen, but when there's life there will be something happening and we expect to find that happening. That's actually an evidence that you are truly justified when we see the next part coming which is a desire to be conformed to Christ actually, to live as he lived, to be in all respects in which we as human beings can be like him, then to be like him. We can't be God. We can't be that. That would be blasphemous to think we're going to be that. But he was fully human. And whatever in his perfection is his perfect humanity, we want that. And that is also part of what we have here that we should be hungering and thirsting for. Powerful words, isn't it? This isn't sort of just casual, kind of vaguely interested in this. You get nothing for that. This is powerful. And this is a dissatisfaction with everything and anything else. And this is a being unprepared to be satisfied with anything less than him and us moving towards him. Well then my first heading, righteousness as justification. There it is, it is there. Whenever we see the word righteousness, we are right to be thinking about, well, how come we to be regarded by God as righteous? Can we do anything? Can we be somehow within ourselves that which God will look at, that which God will approve and smile upon? To which the answer is emphatically, no. Never, ever, ever. And though we could seek out all our bad habits and bad words and bad thoughts and somehow, in our own strength, overcome them, as if we could manage all our affections, all of our feelings, and make them match the perfect law of God, as if we could. And isn't even a desire, sin robs us of a desire to hunger and thirst. It makes us satisfied with very, very little, no? We need God to do something for us. We're helpless. We need God to act on our behalf. If we're ever to be regarded as fit people, as people that he could receive and have fellowship with and extend his love towards, he has to do all, everything to make that happen. And that's what he does. That's what his son does. That's why he came in the flesh to do what we could not. That's why He is the fulfillment of the law. We could have read on in that. He didn't come to destroy, but to fulfill the law in one very large sense he did by himself living it out. And not living it out in just a way of not doing particular things, but doing all the right things and doing all the right things for the right motive. That everything you read in the Beatitudes here that might be appropriate to the Son of God, that he was merciful, he was surely that, he was pure in heart, he was surely that, he was a peacemaker, he was surely that, and to the height of perfection, he was surely all of those things. And he took his perfection, and he took it to the cross, because we perish, it's the bad news, the very bad news, we perish. For all our wrongdoing and wrong thinking, we perish for all that is not in our hearts and that God would desire to have in our hearts, but it's not there because sin's there instead. But he took his perfect humanity to die in the place of broken, fallen, ruined sinners and offered himself up there and died very, very, very dead. He was very, very dead. And I witnessed accounts say he was dead. He was dead when he was taken to the tomb. He was very dead. There's a body. Of course, he rose again because he is the son of God. We need to know, did that death make the difference for us? And the answer is yes, it did very much. That if we believe in that death, we believe in forgiveness flowing to us from the cross. If we can see that all our sins were laid upon him and that by believing in him, we have everlasting life. Then we have what lies at the roots of what we talk about when we say justification. God's declaration that these who are guilty are now not guilty, that those who are unrighteous, in other words they've got nothing in them that is upright, nothing in them that is noble, pure and excellent in terms of character. Yes, God says I know all about it, but my son died for precisely that and I, on account of my son, will regard them as forgiven and pardoned And he takes the language further, and he says, and they are now my family, and I'm going to love them, and I'm going to stand with them, and I'm going to help them, and I'm going to bring every single one of them finally out of this fallen world, out of their fallen bodies, and they're going to be with me in heaven, and I'll open up my home to them, and I'll say, all this is yours to enjoy with me forever. That is justification. All follows from that. And on to us, well, how? Say, we're not perfect people. You may have thought, well, that's his death. That's done wonders for us there. Forgiveness, if I am earned death for my sin and he's died in my place, I can see that. Yes, but he also says that all that he loves in his son, all the beauty, all that purity of heart and all that merciful nature and all that peacemaking and all that righteousness, I'm now going to give to you, and not as just a kind of empty bit of words here, but a positive. I'm going to be drawn to you as I'm drawn to my son. Because even in your imperfection, I actually don't see that imperfection. I see my son's perfection. I see you clothed in it. And I'm going to respond to that as I respond to my son. And you have my love. Well, that is justification. And when we know that, and how can we ever fully know that? It's amazing. It's amazing grace. This is amazing justification. This is the declaration of God that has such a huge implication for our place before God. And that out of that, we keep drawing and drawing and drawing, because that actually, and only to know that, to know at least the beginnings of that, is our satisfaction for the soul in a big, big sense. Our hungering and our thirsting ends at that point. The world cannot give that and it cannot give to you peace of mind, peace of conscience. It can't give you contentment and in the best sense of the word, satisfaction. It may promise you it, it sure does. That's what the advertising industry is built upon. Billions spend every year trying to persuade you to have this, do this, save with us, do this particular activity, go to this particular place. Satisfaction. That's for a while. For a while, maybe. But then after that, you'll still need something else. And then after that, you'll still need something else, something better, something more. And so you will forever be chasing the wind. You'll forever be pursuing vanities. And you'll never find there is no crock of gold at the end of that particular rainbow. It's a lie. It's a false promise. And only God can bring true hope, joy, satisfaction, peace to the heart. Only God can give true rest that we then cease from our ceaseless activity, our searching here and searching there. No, we can say like the prodigal son that I'm starving out here. My father's house, the servants have food to spare. I shall go back there. You know, we were looked after there. We know we'll be fed. We know that there is comfort and reality, that there is journey's end. Christ, journey's end. He is the end point that we need to come to and find the pearl of great value. Pearl merchant man, the Bible isn't it? looking for the pearl that would satisfy his search, and he finds it. Parts with everything else to have that one pearl. That's it. Part with everything else to have Christ. Part with it all. Every other hope, every other ambition, every other desire, every other thought that you might find joy, excitement, hope, fulfilling life. Part with it all. Find it in Christ, the only place where you can. So in the psalm that we read earlier there, we read in psalm 19, and in just reading there what we find in verse 10. What the judgments, the commandments, the statutes of God, all that he's spoken, more to be desired of they than fine gold, than much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Over by them your servant is warned. In keeping them there is great reward. You see hunger is met there. There is satisfaction and peace. There is something, what it means, hungering and thirsting after and for righteousness. There is part of what it means to be filled, to find Christ. Initially, there, right at the beginning, to know then that this, this is the one that I must believe in. So there is peace, Romans 5 verse 1 in the New Testament. Therefore, having been justified by faith, as our word justified, or I've just been describing what Christ does for the sinner, we believe in it, that's the faith. What do we have? Peace with God. Priceless. That is more valuable than gold. That is sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb. Peace with God. How do we have it through our Lord Jesus Christ? By his life, by his death, by his resurrection, by his everything, you and I can have peace with God. Or as 2 Corinthians, and there in chapter five, just turning to that in verses 20 to 21. Now then, writes the apostle Paul, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. So Paul is saying, as if God is just voicing what he wants you to hear through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. He knew no sin, but he was treated as though he was the worst sinner that ever had been and must bear the sin of many, many people. But he did that we instead might become not sinners, but regarded as righteous, that the righteousness of God, his declaration that I'm well pleased with these people might become ours. And that, dear friends, is everything. There is peace for the conscience. There is peace for the soul. There is the knowledge that judgment now, well, it's there. Christians will be judged, we're all going to appear before the judgment throne of Christ, we surely are, but we know and believe and we survey ourselves and say well there's nothing there and even since I've become a Christian there's not so much there either, we have to say. But I know this, that Christ owns sinners at the cross and then takes their names forward to the judgment throne and he'll own our names there and the father will smile and say enter into the kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the world. What words, what peace living now in the light of that, what relief that there isn't some new performance that you and I must meet, some standard, some marking regime where we have got to get this particular mark. You're never quite sure whether you've reached it. You're never quite sure whether you've done enough of it. There's always that fear and that uncertainty. Maybe, maybe I'm not doing enough. Maybe I'm not doing it well enough. As if then it might all collapse and end. Oh, sad and wretched thought that is. And many Christians actually labor under that doctrine. No, we don't believe that. And we believe that we can actually rest in him. and move on actually to what is next, because we're going to talk about good works, not to earn salvation, not as a sort of horrible, horrible threat over us, not some performance we must reach by second heading righteousness as Christ likeness. That God's favor, which in one way is described as him declaring us righteous, but then there is attached to that word, the kind of life that God loves, that he can give that accordance, that particular declaration to. In other words, his son, the only one who's ever earned it properly. But now we want to live like him. And we want, beyond what we have in justification, to know that actually we are moving nearer and nearer and nearer to be like him. And then when God, therefore, declares us righteous, he will also be able to see in us his son being formed and his character coming into being within us. And so he's not looking at us, well, I declare them righteous, but there's not much to see in them. There's not a lot there. They look pretty much like they did when they were first justified, and that's sad. No, that he'll be able to see, there's my son, I can see my son there. I begin to see by the way that they react in that situation, I can see my son there. And the way they talk to people, I can see my son there. And the way that their motives now are not self-seeking, but they're seeking my glory and the help of other people. Ah, that's like my son. I'm reminded of what I see in them, of what my son, does and how he does things, that actually then we want to live like that. And the only reason we want to live like that is that when we are declared righteous and when God's Spirit has worked in us to desire that and to ask for it and to cry out for it, we've got a new nature. We actually have a new nature. It's what new birth brings, new nature, new life within. So there's great, great hope in our hungering and our thirsting because we are crying out now and hungering and thirsting now out of a new nature, which when that nature is functioning at its best, when sin is not interfering, it actually desires to do the will of God. And he loves the laws of God. And he's actually happy to live under new rules and new government. So now we are fully indeed taken up with Christ. And the more we abandon sin and all the fleshly hopes and all the carnality of our world that we're in and it infects us, then the more Christ is all in all and our everything. People who hunger and thirst after righteousness and having been justified are now taken up with him for he's the everything. We've now finally, into our dull, sinful minds, ah, the light has come. And we see, he's everything, isn't he? And because he's everything, so our responses now are different. And we recognize, because we are justified and declared righteous, we recognize We're in a whole different place now. And that we've got a whole new set of resources. We have new power to go with the new nature and the new desires that we have. We have power to turn back against our sins and say, be gone. And to just speak to our carnal lust and say, stop. I do, because there's new power there. And we begin to change and we reflect on that change. We think, is that not amazing? I used to be like this and a bit more like that. I'm not perfect, but I'm on the way. I'm on a journey here. Yes, we're hungering and thirsting after righteousness. And the fact is this, the more we see him doing us, the more we want to see that there is a big incentive scheme in this, that when you see him at work and you find something a bit different now, and that you're living a bit more according to the new nature, not the old, that's such an encouragement. And you know, if anything, or more of that actually, I've got that, it's made me hungry, actually for more. I'm thirsty after a bit more. If he can do that, and he hasn't stopped there, there's more, and I want more, and I'm asking for more. And you and I then are well, well on the way. We draw new conclusions out of our new nature, out of our experience of being forgiven, out of the discovery of God's kindness to us. What new conclusions do we reach? Well, here's one, sin is awful. Sin is really, really terrible. Not to be humoured, not to be excused, not to find nice forms of words to sort of kind of massage out of the way what it is and make it more palatable. But no, we do the opposite. We want it in its true colours. It's horrible. It's wretched. This brings God's anger down upon sinful mankind. This is what occasioned or the things in the past, Sodom and Gomorrah being consumed in fire and brimstone, the flood on the ancient earth that wiped out the majority of mankind. This is God's verdict on it, that in His eyes is absolutely awful. Our unrighteousness, our selfishness and self-centeredness, our cruelties and our violence, our inhumanity, our pride, all of the evils we'd commit against other people, who we would take, take another man, take another woman, I have that. And the sheer lack of any thought of God. And God declares this to be awful. And I'm minimizing there really by saying that, that this is the most awful thing, that it is a horrible blot upon a whole of the cosmos. And that is his verdict on it. and hungry and thirsting after righteousness, we agree with that. And we find still within ourselves such selfishness, so still given to bad habits, so unbelieving, so not believing in God and in his power and in his love, so quick to believe the opposite of those things. And we deplore it because God deplores it and we want it no more. And of course we see, but why did Christ go to the cross? Why all that suffering? Why did he have to come in such humiliation as we will be rehearsing again this Christmas? Why? Why did he put up with all of that insult, injury to his dignity, and die in the way that he died? Well, he did because that's how awful sin is, and it needed all of that and more than that for our Saviour to go to the cross in order to die for us. That's why. If you want to know how bad sin is, well, follow life of Christ and follow him to the cross and see him on the cross and hear his words and the darkness that descended and get the message that is God turning his back upon the awfulness of sin purer eyes than to behold sin and that is what it was required of the son to do to experience actually good news in it that we would not, but we don't lose sight of the fact that sin needed that work, needed our savior to suffer that much, needed him to have an imaginable, the son of God have the favor and love of his father removed from him in order that he might instead be regarded as guilty and regarded there as condemned and feel it, feel condemned. And that's what he did. And so we see that this cannot be. How can sin, how can we be comfortable with it? How can we live with it? How can we live with ourselves living with it? How can we cope with being that when we know that that is what sin is, what it required? Oh, it's injury. Injury it's done to ourselves, because let me reliably inform you, our sins have done us no good whatsoever. Bad for health, bad for our conscience, bad for our wellbeing, bad for everything. And the injury it does to other people, hurt, harmed by our selfishness and thoughtlessness, by our own cruelties, by our vengeances, by everything that still is in within us, even as Christians. Broken relationships, destruction and hurt. Sin is awful. And if you want something to hate here, hate sin. If you want to find a reason to hate something, then this is your reason. You can hate sin, because God hates sin, and God is angry at sin. And we have to share that perspective. And out of our new nature, we actually do. And knowing God's forgiveness, we can see, what have I to do with sin? Why still have it? Why not share in God's verdict upon it, recoil from it, be horrified at it, and resolve to be more than this? Something else we conclude that we do feel obligated to God. We feel obligated to Him. Why? We've learned of Him. We've learned to take Him seriously. You know, it's open to your mind. There's judgment to come. There's an eternity. There's life beyond the grave. And this is major. And this is serious. And when it's dawned upon us, we never forget that. And so we see ourselves an obligation to Him. He's a great God. He doesn't like sin. He's gonna punish it. He's got eternity. He's eternal. And we feel ourselves a little hushed, a little reverent, and a little awed in his presence. And seeing ourselves bought at a price, we therefore want to know, well, how do I behave before such a great being as this great God? Yes, I know about his love. Yes, I know about his compassion, but I know about his justice. I know about how he deals and wants equity proper treatment and fair treatment and he wants holiness, he wants purity, he's looking for us to be pure people, relate to each other and him in a way that is holy. So I must take that seriously because I'm under obligation to him and I must learn what this needs to have him as Lord of my life. And we also do it because we're grateful. We also act out of gratitude. Because if we've learned anything of what he has done for us, we've just realized this is the greatest thing that could ever happen to us. If you become a Christian, that is the greatest thing that could ever have happened to you. And it happened to you, it didn't happen from you, that this wasn't a good idea, I'll become a Christian. that you didn't have the kind of equipment, the faculties, the, that's now a bit of extra, I see it, to be able to become a Christian. How easy, how simple, not at all. Because we were dead in trespasses, needed life from above, needed truth with power to waken the dead. And it did. And the result of it is what we are now. Company of people, come to church on a Sunday, open our hymn books and praise God. We open our Bibles you suffer preachers like me to stand and to talk to you from the scriptures, I hope we are, and we take it seriously because we know that something so wonderful Amazing has happened to us that out of our thankfulness, out of a sense of sheer gratitude, why me? Why am I here? Why am I not still out there? Why, Lord, in your mercy, did you call me and give me this and declare this of me and speak of me and tell me of heaven and on judgment day that I'll be all right? Why did I see your son in those ways? Why did I appreciate the blood that he shed? Why am I coming to the communion table? And I'm picking up this piece of bread and being thankful to God for his body and drinking this cup of wine and being grateful for his blood that was shed. Why me? Why is it that the majority of people, no thought of it whatsoever. You're just so grateful. So, so grateful. Who, who is this being? They're going to be so kind. Who is this God who is holy and just and beyond us in terms of his brightness and purity, but that he's shown us such kindness? He's somebody I want to know better, and he's somebody I want to serve. I want to just live out my gratitude to him and the happiness that I feel at him. by living as he would have me to do. I want to conform to his expectations because if he's already done all this for me, his expectations, his laws, his rules must be the best that there are because they've obviously come from the best person that there can be. And I'm very grateful. And out of that gratitude, that's what I now want to do. You know, as children, receiving an inheritance perhaps from our parents. I don't know. In that situation, I don't know. but you feel a duty, or if you're just given a gift, I don't know, perhaps there's a Christmas gift on its way to you, something there for a relative somewhere. He's given me this gift, and what would he, what would she want me to do with this? How would he, she want me to spend this? So you've been justified, I've been justified, forgiven, sorry, I'm in this new nature, I've been given all this help, all this mercy, So what would he want me to do with what I have? How would he expect me now to live? And of course, we find our duties written here in the scripture. We find what we are to be here in these Beatitudes. And as we go on in weeks ahead, and we get more of the detail, filling in the gaps, as it were, we're seeing that's what he wants me to be. Well, then that's what I want to be. That's the thing that he says he looks at and approves. Then I want to do that thing as well. And that's the kind of nature of the relationship we have, that gift, that mercy, these riches that he's given to us. Well, how does he want me to use this? What does he want me to do with this? And we figure out from the Bible what those things are. So we look, new conclusion again to draw, to grow in his likeness. What we see in him, we love. The more we read the Bible, the more we see, the more we love. All the details spring out at us. Well, that was a surprise. How did he do that? Why did he say that? How calm he was to act like that then. How wonderful that he wasn't swayed by this or that temptation that he just pushed it away. And you look at that and you think, I love that. I love that. And I want to be like that too. I want to be the same. I want to grow more and more like that. Well, You and I then have just got our lifetime's work, called sanctification. That is it. We begin it, we never end it, because we're always getting nearer and nearer. Always there, just a bit more to get, a bit more to see, a bit more to work on. And that's the wonder of the Christian life. Christian life is not boring, friends, at all. It's happening. And there we are, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. That's because it's happening. And we're not just sat still there going around the triviality that so much Christianity offers as being truth. No, we're not satisfied with that. So many of us have left that behind and we don't want to go back to it. Thank you very much. We've seen more than that now, and it's got our attention. And the Christ that has now got our attention is not the empty Christs that so many preach, not the almost Christless Christs that many weigh before us there and get us to do this or believe that or have a little bit of a decision in this. No, we've seen more. And we're persuaded that there's power that comes with this. The new nature has power. So we're not like flightless birds trying to take off and there's this glorious image where we're being conformed to the holiest person there ever was, and the most loving person there ever was, the most forgiving, the most meek, the most everything person, everything we now want to be. And we go, we can't get anywhere near it. No, we have the Holy Spirit, we've got power, and we can be moved nearer, nearer, and nearer to that image. And you can read about it there, Colossians 3, verses 9 to 11, for instance, or Ephesians 4, verses 20 to 24, if you will. And we learn, in the end, we're meant to delight in the law. Romans 7, verse 22, we find it, a delight. That's astonishing to the world out there. Do you know, they think that this must be, oh, hard drudgery, not to lie. Oh, you must want to lie, don't you? No. Oh, you must want to commit adultery, don't you? No. Oh, you must want a bigger house, and a better holiday, and a better job, and a better deal, more money, don't you? No, we're actually quite content with what we have, thank you. Are you sure? And they regard us as strange, strange creatures that we actually delight in the law of God. Don't you want to take that there if there's a chance to fiddle the books there, get a bit of money on the sly there? How many people during furlough we heard were just milking it, getting money they weren't jeering, happily and cheerfully claiming it, trousering the money, laughing all the way to the bank. And they think that we must feel so restricted and so sad and frustrated, and, oh, we're missing out on what we could be doing, because we're straitjacketed here by these Christian commandments and statutes and everything else there. And we say, not a bit of it. We are so happy that we don't want to do what you want to do, that we find no pleasure in your New Year's, Christmas binge drinking and foolishnesses and fripperies. We find no joy in those things there. And we don't want to sort of get by by lying, get what we need here by manipulating a bit of deception and a bit of this and a bit of that, or being aggressive and angry and getting on in work that way. We don't want that at all. I hate that, in fact. We love this instead. We love him. And we've seen him. And that's now the way forward for us. we see as well we believe it is actually in our interest to hunger and thirst after righteousness to grow in this way because we want to get to heaven actually and we want a good entrance we want such an entrance to be abundantly supplied to us in 2nd Peter chapter 1 verses 10 to 11 and within that how do you get that how how do you have an assurance here now there's brotherly kindness and perseverance and love and all of these qualities of life that we see writ large in our Lord Jesus Christ. We want that Christ-likeness. And it says, for they shall be filled. Promise, promise there. All right, put it there in heaven, we can say, oh yes, we'll be filled there. We will be so, so satisfied with heaven. It'll be everything. No, it'll be more than everything that we could ever long for on earth below. We will be so, so happy there. Oh, the beatification, the blessedness, the happiness. Well, that'll be ours there. Sure will. But it'll be ours now too. that this is not painting a picture of dissatisfaction and always being hungry, going to bed at night feeling wretched and low, getting up in the morning feeling wretched and low, coming to church on a Sunday feeling wretched and low, going away from church on a Sunday feeling wretched and low. It isn't because God is actually well pleased with hungry and thirsting people who want to be Christ-like. He's actually pleased with that. He's not expecting perfection. Let me reassure you of that. The perfection is Christ. But as we aim for that perfection, love that perfection, agree with that perfection, God is there. The Holy Spirit is working within. And he's bringing comfort, warmth, peace, contentment. And it's not as if you think, ah, there we are there. I just got a bit of contentment in my heart. You know, five units of it there. It's more subtle than that. It's deeper than that. You can't kind of put a measuring rod on it and say, well, there, there it is. That's a, I can fill up your petrol tank. It's filled there. There it is. Good. No, it's deeper than that. And it brings joy to the soul, happiness there, comfort, contentment, and it just somehow comes over everything that we are, just becomes who we are in that way. And that's because God's spirit is doing something and making something happen. And he actually then, doesn't he, out of that experience, we hunger and thirst for more, as I was describing earlier. You've seen that? Well, that was worth having. Whatever it was, however it came, I can't measure it, but if something's happened in here, something's happened, it's changed. It wasn't me that did it. I want more of that. I want to grow. I want to see God work more deeply in my heart yet. And so we keep hungering and thirsting and God keeps installments of joys and pleasure of the soul and a happiness within, a contentment, a help through these very, very sobering and wretched times that we live. But no, a hope and that's burning strong within us. So there, oh we've only begun the subjects haven't we? I want to stop so I've seen the time, but we've only begun the subject. Well may God help us all to Hunger and thirst for righteousness, because in a way that sums up the whole of the Christian life in one verse.