Flourishing in Pursuit
Flourishing in Pursuit
Sermon Summary:
In our exploration of happiness and flourishing, we delve into Jesus’ teaching from the Beatitudes: ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.’ This profound statement challenges us to examine what we truly desire in life. Are we pursuing fleeting satisfactions or the lasting righteousness that comes from God? We’re reminded that true fulfillment isn’t found in worldly achievements or possessions, but in aligning our lives with God’s will. The imagery of hunger and thirst powerfully illustrates our deep spiritual need – one that can only be satisfied by God Himself. As we reflect on this, we’re encouraged to shift our focus from temporary pleasures to eternal values, finding true happiness and purpose in our relationship with God and our pursuit of His righteousness.
Sermon Points:
Theme for Winter 2025: Happiness Is . . .
Happiness and Life Satisfaction
1. Overall, how satisfied are you with life as a whole these days?
2. In general, how happy or unhappy do you usually feel?
I can’t get no . . . satisfaction! So many in our world engage in wrong, meaningless, and/or “less than” pursuits!
HUNGER AND THIRST
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
-Psalm 42:1-2
Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money without money and without cost.
-Isaiah 55:1
RIGHTEOUSNESS
For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
-Matthew 5:20
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please, not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
-Wilbur Rees
FILLED
Key Takeaways:
- Biblical happiness is deeply connected to righteousness and obedience to God’s Word
- Worldly pursuits often lead to a cycle of emptiness and dissatisfaction
- True flourishing comes from living life as God intended
- Righteousness in this context refers to right living made possible through a relationship with God in Christ
- Pursuing righteousness leads to being filled and satisfied by God
Scripture References:
- Matthew 5:6 – “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
Stories:
- The pastor’s recent experiences in Rome, including a meaningful encounter with a Catholic priest in the Sistine Chapel
- Arthur Brooks’ story about his teenage daughter watching a Mick Jagger video and his subsequent reflection on satisfaction
- Brooks’ anecdote about a Harvard colleague with cancer who found joy in observing a flower bloom
- The pastor’s personal story of receiving prayer from a Catholic priest in the Sistine Chapel
- The announcement of Barry Rock’s retirement after 31 years of service to the church
- The return of Ryan and Sarah Pursley, missionaries from Slovenia, after 8 years of service
Transcript
Well, again, good morning, church.
I would tell you that today in this first worship service and then in this service, I’ve just been reminded how blessed our church is to have Aaron Toms and Michael Glenn leading us in worship these days.
They’re both awesome men.
And we had a great time walking around Rome with Michael and Blair.
And they just flew in last night like us.
And he’s here leading worship today.
It’s been a powerful time.
I want to say a word of thanks to y’all as a church just for your love and prayers for us while we’ve been away these last few weeks.
It’s been a little bit of a challenging season for us.
And I want to thank you for your prayers.
A number of you have written, called.
And I think many of you know, not all of you know, but our nephew, Ben Vaughn, died tragically Thursday a week ago in Nashville.
He was married to our niece, Carly, who died a couple years ago with a brain tumor.
And many of you remember Ruby, who was with us all summer, who’s our grandniece.
Those are Ruby’s parents.
And so Ruby and Zeke and Griffin have lost both mom and dad in the last two years.
And so it’s a very difficult time for them.
And Cindy and I were in Rome and were not able to…
Get back to be with our family.
I appreciate our son, Josiah, who flew to Nashville and represented our family and was a blessing to Ruby and my brother Tommy and his wife Martha and Mr. and Ms.
Vaughn who live there.
So thank you for your prayers.
And encouragement also, while we were in Rome, our good friend and colleague, Steve Wells, is the pastor at South Main Baptist in Houston.
And his wife died tragically at home unexpectedly this past week.
And good friends of ours, we love Steve and Missy.
Many of you may know Missy’s dad, Dan Urie.
He’s a long-time Baptist minister.
But Missy’s funeral is tomorrow in Nashville.
I mean in Houston, rather.
And then I know that many of you have followed the news and you know that the story of our young minister, Clint Dobson, and also Judy Elliott was back on the news again this past week.
And I want to thank y’all for your prayers for them.
And want you to know that for the last 14 years,
Since that tragedy occurred here at our church, at our mission church, we have embraced the sacred pastoral responsibility of shepherding those two families, Clint’s family and Judy’s family.
And in fact, that’s what we’ve been doing over this last little stretch.
And even this past week, I was in contact with Laura and also Clint’s sister and brother and mother, and Brad, Elliot, Judy, and John’s son.
And as y’all might imagine, there was a lot of news about it, and I was asked to be drawn into a conversation that became a referendum on the death penalty, and I refused to be a part of that conversation because my responsibility, in my opinion, was to continue to lead this church, to shepherd those two families, and that’s what I intend to continue to do.
And refuse to be drawn in into a conversation that I don’t believe is mine to be a part of publicly.
So thank you for your prayers about all of that.
And it’s been a challenging journey to say the least.
But I would tell you the Lord has been faithful to us.
In the last month, I have been able to be in West Africa and visit our global center there.
And Gabe and Seda are thriving, I would say flourishing there.
And that ministry is.
We also got to be a part of our expanded work that’s sponsored through Restore Hope.
And we had a powerful trip.
Then Cindy and I were able two weeks ago to be in Western Europe with Emily and Guillermo.
And they lead our global center in Western Europe.
And we so enjoyed being with them and their children.
And we were there to welcome Jacob and Kayla.
Y’all remember we commissioned them just a couple weeks ago.
We were there for their arrival.
We got to video their arrival and then help them unload their nine trunks.
Actually, I let Guillermo help unload.
I just videoed, which I thought I was better at, to be honest with you, than carrying everything.
And anyway, but they have done well and are doing well, and we’re grateful to the Lord.
And then for the last 10 days or so, we’ve been in Rome, making our way across the eternal city with church members, and we’re grateful for that.
Glad to be back here.
I’ve been in every church in Rome.
There’s over 900 of them.
Okay, not every church in Rome, but I’ve been in a lot of them.
But I’m happy to be back in my all-time favorite church on planet Earth, and that is First Baptist Arlington, Texas.
And so we’re glad to be here.
And Cindy, do I need to reintroduce you?
Cindy’s been gone for over a month, but my wife Cindy Wiles is here today, and I’m so glad to have Cindy back.
And she’s been on quite an adventure, but we’re glad to be home today.
So, you know that we’re on this journey, this multi-year journey together, where we are learning more about flourishing.
And so, our theme for these next three years or so has to do with that.
And so, for 2025, flourishing together rooted in Christ is our theme.
And you know that we have learned from those who were a part of this human flourishing, global flourishing study, they have isolated what they call domains, six of them, that they believe help us better understand what it means to flourish as a human being.
One of those domains is happiness and life satisfaction.
So we’ve decided to address that.
Our theme for the winter is happiness is.
And we are looking at this domain from a biblical perspective.
We’re going to look, we’ve already begun, but we’re looking at happiness through the lens of what the Bible teaches about it.
Now with that said, let me just remind you, some of you were here for the launch weekend and you participated in the conversations about flourishing.
You heard Kate and Scott that weekend, many of you did.
And you remember that Harvard has published this survey that helps you evaluate your own sense of human flourishing.
It’s a self-evaluation, and it’s connected to a much broader study.
So, let me just remind you, the happiness and life satisfaction domain, the survey from Harvard has two questions for each six domains, and those are just the introductions to the conversation.
So, here are the two questions about happiness and life satisfaction from the Flourishing Project at Harvard.
Number one, overall, how satisfied are you with life as a whole these days?
And you rank yourself on a scale of zero to 10.
And then secondly, in general, how happy or unhappy do you usually feel?
Again, ranking yourself from zero to 10.
And you remember that these two questions linked to the other 10 is just the introduction.
The researchers in the Global Flourishing Study have produced 60 more questions that are actually being used to help over 200,000 people who have been selected randomly through Gallup’s help in 22 countries for them to actually understand what does it mean for a human being to flourish.
And one of those is a conversation about happiness.
Now y’all remember that we began a conversation a few weeks ago before I left for Rome to talk about happiness.
And what I’m interested in is a biblical view of happiness.
Let me remind you, I shared two main points with you in my first sermon on happiness a couple of weeks ago.
I know y’all always memorize the points in my sermon.
I don’t even know why I’m reading this to y’all because I know you got it.
But just in case you missed it, okay?
Here are the two points I want to make about happiness.
First of all, biblical view of happiness.
Neither joy nor happiness are portrayed in the Bible as glib surface realities.
Happiness and joy are both exhibited in the lives of faithful people who serve God with humility, faithfulness, and obedience regardless of the situation.
For example, Paul and Silas.
So we talked about that.
Secondly, let me remind you of this because this is the one to me that is the most important.
And that is this.
According to the Bible, in my opinion as I study it, joy and happiness are deeply connected to righteousness, obedience to God’s Word, godliness, living according to God’s purposes, aligning one’s life with God’s will, exercising faith in God, and rejoicing in both the presence and the goodness of God.
In other words, happiness and joy are not these glib realities that are completely dependent upon the surface level circumstances of your life.
We’re interested in a biblical view of happiness, which has to do with righteousness.
Godly living.
Align in your life with the purposes of God.
Being willing to be obedient to God’s will.
Exercise in faith in God.
Those are the things that contribute to a biblical understanding of happiness.
Now with that said, I want to say the very same thing about flourishing.
On the one hand, there is a flourishing study underway led by Harvard and Baylor.
And, you know, as I told the folks at 830, I don’t work for Harvard or Baylor.
I’m not a professor or a sociologist.
I’m the pastor of a local church.
So I’m grateful for that research, and we are participating at some level, ultimately, I believe, with Kate’s research.
As y’all remember on Friday night, Kate shared with us, she’s actually doing something alongside the global flourishing study where she’s looking at Christians only.
How do Christians flourish?
Churches, how do churches flourish?
I’m interested in that conversation completely.
So the biblical view of flourishing is what I’m interested in.
So what is the biblical view of flourishing?
I would state it very simply.
Living life as God intended you to live it.
That’s how you flourish.
Becoming the person God designed you to become.
Becoming the very best you with God’s help and through God’s grace.
To be deeply rooted.
To be given to God’s transformational truth in your life.
And apply it to your life.
To be fruitful and productive.
A few years ago, Gordon McDonald was pastoring, he’s an author, pastor.
He was pastoring a church in Manhattan.
And he said one day, one of the men in his church came up to him and said, Pastor, I just want to tell you.
I’m a physician here in Manhattan, but I don’t live in Manhattan.
He said, so every morning I ride the metro over an hour to the hospital where I work.
And he said, at my job here, I work all day.
Crazy hours as a physician.
I find myself in all kind of stressful situations.
I have to make so many decisions.
And then after that full day of work, I ride the metro home, another hour or so home.
And I get up the next morning and I do it again.
By the end of the week, I’m exhausted.
Then on Monday morning, I get up and I do it all over again.
And he said, Pastor, Manhattan can just be a debilitating place.
Here’s what I’d say about that.
So can Arlington.
Arlington.
As a matter of fact, anywhere can be a debilitating place, particularly if your life is governed by the wrong pursuits.
And if you don’t have the sustaining presence and the perspective that God can give us in the midst of any challenge we face, regardless of where you live on planet Earth, life can be incredibly debilitating.
It can pull the rug out from under you.
So what we’re doing is we’re looking to Jesus.
We’re asking Jesus to show us his way, his will, his plan for human flourishing so that we can find our way on his way.
So the Sermon on the Mount.
It’s where we’re starting this year.
We’re using the Beatitudes to guide our study of happiness, of how that contributes to human flourishing.
And Jesus is showing us a life that is meaningful, that is purposeful, that is significant.
As a matter of fact, if you read the Sermon on the Mount and the other four sermons in the Gospel of Matthew and truly allow them to guide your life, you will live a revolutionary life.
It’ll be very different than the people around you.
Because remember, if you’re following Jesus, Jesus has invited you and me onto the narrow way.
You remember that?
And remember, I’ve shared this with y’all before.
Dr. McGorman taught me this in seminary.
I used to think that when you came to an intersection in your life, you made a decision to go the broad way or the narrow way.
Dr. McGorman helped me understand that’s really not the way to look at it.
We are all born on the broad way.
The narrow way is cut right in the very middle of the broad way.
And so when you make the decision to follow Jesus and you then begin your life on the narrow way, you turn around and you’re actually walking in the very opposite direction on the narrow way cut right in the middle of the people on the broad way who are walking in the opposite direction and wonder what in the world is going on with you.
And so that’s where we are as Christians.
Are y’all still with me already?
We’re…
Okay, y’all are, right?
Y’all are here.
You’re just kind of all looking at me.
So, okay.
So, we’re on the narrow way.
So, guess what?
Our guide is very different than what guides people on the broad way.
The Sermon on the Mount is not a suggestion.
The teachings of Jesus are to be embodied in our lives.
And that’s the pathway to flourishing.
So we began this series with a sermon entitled, after we did Don’t Worry, Be Happy, Flourishing in Purity, where we talked about the pure in heart.
Last Sunday morning, Flourishing in Poverty.
And how about my man, Ryan Chandler?
Didn’t Ryan do a great job preaching last Sunday?
Thank you, Ryan.
Ryan, y’all know, is our minister to young adults and young families, but Ryan is a wonderful preacher and teacher, and I’m grateful for that.
So, with that said, let’s take the next leg of the journey today in this conversation, flourishing in pursuit.
So, if you have your copy of the New Testament, Matthew 5 is where we are, and we’re just going to look at one verse.
So, y’all know it’s our custom to stand and honor the Lord Jesus when the gospel is read together as a congregation, so I’d ask you to stand with me.
So, we’re in Matthew 5, first couple of verses.
Matthew just tells us Jesus saw this crowd that was following him.
He then goes up on a mountainside.
He sits down.
His disciples came to him.
And then he begins to teach them in what we typically refer to as the Sermon on the Mount.
Verse 6 is our text for today where Jesus says this.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Amen.
Amen.
Thank you.
You may be seated.
Okay, I just gotta get this out of my system, y’all.
So, let me show this photo.
Can we do that real quick?
Seriously, okay.
Here’s the thing.
I leave town for two weeks and y’all let this happen.
I mean, I first get this news about Luca, and I thought somebody was just pranking me.
There’s no way.
And then not only that, I’m talking to several people, and I say, when I figure out this really happened, I said, well, great.
Then we must have got somebody’s entire team and all their draft picks for the next 20 years.
No.
Okay.
I started to put him in a Lakers jersey, but I still have the heart to do it.
I’m just going to be honest with you.
I can’t take it.
You know, on the first service, there was a guy in the church who raised his hand, and he said, I’m a Laker fan, and we just dismissed him from the church.
Okay.
It just felt like the right thing to do on this Sunday.
I mean, we will get over our grief eventually, but not today, okay?
I’m sorry.
Here’s the deal.
I just can’t hardly believe it.
But nevertheless, whoo, okay, all right.
So, got that out.
So now, I’m looking at my society, okay?
And when I look at my society, Western society in which I live, this is the mantra, I believe, of our society.
I can’t get nowhere.
That’s just the world I live in.
Because so many people in our world engage in wrong, what I would consider meaningless, empty, less than pursuits.
And if you engage yourself in that, then you’ll be singing the song that the Rolling Stones made famous.
I get it.
Mick Jagger and his team made those words famous, but they didn’t actually discover it.
Emptiness has been around a long time.
It’s as old as humanity.
Spiritual vacuums.
In fact, that hard question that many people ask after they’ve achieved whatever it is that was in front of them, they ask the question, so is that all there is?
How many people have been plagued by that question?
I’ve done this.
I’ve achieved this.
And that’s all there is.
So engaging in the wrong pursuits, it can lead in just a never-ending cycle of emptiness.
So I get it.
You know, today’s Super Bowl.
Y’all know I love sports, right?
You know that I do.
My goodness, my Auburn Tigers are number one in the nation in men’s basketball, okay?
I get it.
Yeah, thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
We’re enjoying it, okay?
We got beat yesterday, but hey, it’s okay.
It’s all good.
But you know, I love it.
But think about it.
Y’all know who won the Super Bowl last year.
Y’all know who won it the year before that, right?
We all know that.
The Chiefs were on a roll.
Who won the Super Bowl five years ago?
Who won it ten years ago?
Oh, come on.
Okay, we got the Tom Brady section over here.
We know all about that.
Okay, got it.
And 20 years ago, 30 years ago,
Okay, there you go.
Man, y’all have a better memory than the 830 crowd, okay?
How about the World Series?
You know, I love my Rangers now.
Come on, man.
We love those Rangers, yeah.
So, who won the World Series 10 years ago?
20 years ago?
30 years ago?
You know, Yankees.
I heard that.
Okay, here’s the point.
It’s like you get it, and then guess what?
You turn right around, and you just got to do it again.
And then you get it, and you achieve it, and then you turn around, and you just got to do it again.
And it’s just, that’s the world that we live in.
It’s like we just have this constant cycle.
And you know what?
You know what our favorite word is to me in my society?
More.
More.
And you know what?
In my society, you don’t have to have a lot more.
As a matter of fact, just a little bit more, right?
If I could have just a little bit more.
I mean, we’ll watch the Super Bowl today and guess what?
It’ll be characterized by great commercials helping us to think through what we don’t have.
Man, if I could just have that Labrador retriever that could jump up and catch that frisbee man and everybody all around me in slow motion, my life would be.
If I could just hang out with the cool people that I see in all these commercials.
I mean, there’s just something that’s just woven into us.
It’s just a…
Just a little bit more and we’re on this never-ending cycle.
You know, there’s another professor at Harvard.
His name is Arthur Brooks.
He teaches in the Harvard Business School.
He’s a very devout, committed Roman Catholic and attends worship every day by his own testimony.
And he is an expert in human happiness.
That’s what he studies.
What he teaches, part of his teaching at Harvard has to do with that experience of happiness.
He went in his teenage daughter’s room one afternoon.
This is back in 2022.
He wrote an incredible article I’d recommend to you on The Atlantic.
It’s entitled, How to Want Less.
It’s back in 2022, but it’s worth the read if you’ve never read it.
He said he goes into his teenage daughter’s room, and she’s watching. a video of Mick Jagger singing, I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.
And she says, so dad, is this how all baby boomers look when y’all get a certain age?
Is this what happens to y’all?
So get that out of your system.
But he says, he then begins to have a conversation with her about satisfaction.
And then he writes this, he said, about himself.
He said, I’ve fallen into the trap of believing that success would fulfill me.
On my 40th birthday, I made a bucket list of things I hope to do or achieve.
They were mainly accomplishments only a wonk could want.
Writing books and columns about serious subjects.
Teaching at a top school.
Traveling to give lectures and speeches.
Maybe even leading a university or a think tank.
Whether these were good and noble goals or not, they were my goals.
And I imagined that if I hit them, I’d be satisfied.
I found that list eight years later when I was 48, and I realized I had achieved every item on it.
But none of that had brought me the lasting joy I’d envisioned.
Each accomplishment thrilled me for a day or a week, maybe a month, never more.
And then I reached for the next rung on the ladder.
I devoted my life to climbing those rungs.
I was still devoting my life to climbing, working 60, 80 hours a week to accomplish the next thing, all the while terrified of losing the last thing.
The costs of that kind of existence are obvious.
But it was only when I looked back at my list, I genuinely began to question the benefits and to think seriously about the path I was walking.
So what about you?
Your goals are probably different than mine, and perhaps your lifestyle is too.
But the trap is the same.
Everyone has dreams, and they beckon with promises of sweet, lasting satisfaction if you achieve them.
I love this line.
But dreams are liars.
When they come true, it’s fine for a while until a new dream appears.
There’s just something about being on that cycle.
There’s nothing wrong with accomplishment.
There’s nothing wrong with ambition.
There’s nothing wrong with great achievement.
As long as it’s held in balance and you have the right perspective as you’re gaining them.
But it’s so hard to do.
It’s just so easy to lose our balance.
And we get into that cycle of pursuing.
Here’s what C.S.
Lewis said.
Lewis said, if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
What a great insight.
I agree with C.S.
Lewis.
As a matter of fact, if I could, I would nuance it a bit.
I would say we’ve been created both for this world and for another world.
We live in this present evil age, and the age to come has intersected it.
We’ve been designed by God to live in the kingdom of God on this earth and in eternity.
And to me, flourishing is about finding our way into God’s kingdom and living for Him in this world.
That’s true flourishing.
Now, let’s look at what Jesus said in this text we read.
Jesus uses this illustration, hunger and thirst.
Now, y’all, we all know what it’s like to be hungry.
We know what it’s like to be thirsty.
Our bodies tell us we’re hungry, we’re thirsty.
I mean, my goodness, y’all just got back from Rome.
Come on, man.
Rome, the food in Rome, y’all, the pizzas, they make that really thin crust.
They kind of burn it around on the edges.
You know what I’m talking about?
It’s kind of flaky.
It is so…
They have the best pasta in Rome, the best vegetables in Rome.
The best sauces, to me, are there in Rome.
I mean, they—we go to Neroni’s, my favorite restaurant there.
They have this tender steak that has this green pepper sauce.
We go to Falcolinto, another one of my favorite restaurants.
They have the best fresh fried prawns and fried shrimp.
Then you get tiramisu and panna cotta and gelato.
I mean, come on, y’all.
Rome is awesome.
You just eat your way through Rome.
It’s incredible.
And I just did it.
It was great.
I WOKE UP THIS MORNING, AND GUESS WHAT?
I WAS HUNGRY.
CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?
AFTER ALL OF WHAT I JUST SAID, AND MAN, THIS MORNING, Y’ALL, I HAD ME A BOWL OF RICE CRISPIES WITH HONEY ON IT AND MILK.
IT WAS SO GOOD.
YOU KNOW, JUST WHAT I NEEDED THIS MORNING.
GUESS WHAT?
AT SOME POINT LATER TODAY,
I’m going to be hungry again.
It is what it is, okay?
And, you know, while we were in Rome, there’s a lady that runs the, she used to run our little restaurant there in our hotel.
Her name is Cinzia Cindy.
And all you had to say was, Cinzia, you know, could you please bring me a cup of coffee?
I try that at home, y’all.
Cinzia, how about a little cup of coffee?
I got nothing.
So, anyway, I’m just teasing, honey.
You know that I’m just joking.
But Cinzia is Cindy in Italian if you didn’t catch that little joke, okay?
But here’s the thing.
Here’s what I would say when I read this text and I think about the way God created us.
I’m grateful that he created us with hunger and thirst.
Our bodies have to eat and drink.
And so the Lord put that inside us.
But not only did the Lord put the physical needs and hardwire them into us, he also has created within us a hunger and a thirst for something else.
A different kind of hunger and thirst.
And he’s put it in the heart and the soul of every human being on this planet.
Here’s how St.
Augustine put it.
He says, oh God, you’ve made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.
There’s something about a need we have.
You know, in the Bible, there are numerous passages in the Bible about a desire for God.
Psalm 42 verse 1 says, As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts.
For God, for the living God.
In the book of Isaiah, Isaiah says, come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters.
And you who have no money, come and buy and eat.
Come buy wine and milk without money, without money, without end.
In other words, the things that you need to buy, you don’t really have money for.
Money can’t buy those deep things in your life.
Come and receive what only God can provide for you is the invitation of Isaiah.
So here’s the question.
Jesus says you’re blessed when you’re hungry and thirsty.
Well, hungry and thirsty for what?
Well, here’s what he says.
Righteousness.
He says, be hungry and be thirsty for righteousness.
Now, that is a high dollar Bible word right there.
Righteousness.
You find it in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Tzedek in Hebrew, in the Old Testament.
Diakosune in Greek.
Sometimes
Those two words in English are translated with righteous or righteousness, sometimes justice.
What the words can mean is just perfect.
Perfection, if you will.
Everything is right.
And so when you’re studying righteousness in the scripture, if we wanted to have a theologically precise conversation this morning, we could do that.
And we would have to talk about things like the mosaic ethic, the ethic of the law, the righteousness of the Old Testament law and covenant.
Or we would talk about the salvation that God offers us, the righteousness of God.
Or we would talk about the Christian ethic, the righteousness of the Christian life.
All of those are applicable.
In fact, that word righteousness, it’s only found one time in the other three Gospels.
It’s found seven times in Matthew.
As a matter of fact, it’s found five times just in the Sermon on the Mount.
It’s one of Matthew’s favorite words.
So what is the righteousness that Jesus is mentioning?
Pursue this faith.
Be hungry for this.
Be thirsty for this.
And you’ll be blessed.
Well, when you think about righteousness, we often think of the righteousness of God.
The rightness of God.
The purity of God.
Paul says in Romans 3 that the righteousness of God is now revealed through Christ Jesus.
So, it’s the gift of salvation, the grace of God.
I think that’s at play here at some level.
As a matter of fact, if you just flip down to Matthew 6, 33, what does the text say about righteousness?
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
The righteousness of God.
He says, seek that and all these things will be added unto you.
But I think what’s really going on here, if you’d let me just offer a brief explanation of righteousness here in this text in Matthew 5, 6.
I think Jesus is talking about primarily our righteousness.
I think that’s the focus of the Sermon on the Mount.
In fact, if you’ll read a little bit later, you’re told that you are blessed.
Look at verse 10 of Matthew 5.
You’re blessed if you’re persecuted for righteousness.
It has to do with our righteousness.
In fact, let’s explore it just a little bit further.
Jesus issues a challenge in Matthew 5 verse 20, if you just read on down a little bit further.
He says, I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
And so our righteousness is important to Jesus.
He says it needs to supersede righteousness.
The righteousness of the Pharisees.
In fact, if you keep reading Matthew 6 verse 1, he says, be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others just to be seen by them.
So, he says, if you’re not careful, you will think that your righteousness is just so you can be seen and complimented.
So, what is Jesus after here?
Here’s how I would put it as I study this text.
I think righteousness, as Jesus puts it here, is right living that is made possible through a right relationship with God in Christ.
Here’s what we learn as we study the Scripture.
None of us is righteous on our own.
The Bible says there’s no one righteous, not one.
We need deliverance from ourselves.
Because our tendency is to live in our own power.
Live within our own self-sufficiency.
That leads to self-centered living.
And eventually that results in this, which is really dangerous.
Self-righteousness.
That’s what’s dangerous in our family. to be self-righteous.
That was the judgment on many of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.
The righteousness that Jesus is pointing me and you to, I believe, is derived from being in this right relationship with God first.
Then we’ll be transformed from the inside out, and then we will live in restorative relationships with others.
And so it’s through God’s power at work within us, we can rise above that gravitational pull of selfishness, me first, a self-centered life.
We’ll see God at work in us, around us, and we’ll become reflectors of His glory in this world.
In fact, here’s the goal.
That the Sermon on the Mount and these other sermons in Matthew’s Gospel are not just sermons, but they will actually be embodied in how you and I live every day.
That’s the righteousness that is mentioned here in Matthew 5.
But here’s what I want to warn you about.
You don’t just get it.
You’ve got to long for it.
You’ve got to pursue it.
As a matter of fact, Jesus said you need to be hungry for it.
But you know what I’ve learned about many folks in my society?
They want it, but they only want a little bit of it.
They don’t want it all.
Let me read you this famous paragraph from Wilbur Rees.
He says, I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine.
I don’t want enough of him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy, not transformation.
And I love this line.
I want the warmth of the womb, but not a new birth.
I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack.
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Now, come on, y’all.
Here’s the thing.
That right there won’t work.
Jesus says, if you want to be blessed, you’ve got to be hungry for righteousness.
You’ve got to thirst for it.
And if you do, you’re blessed.
But you’re not just blessed.
You’re fortunate.
You’re happy.
You’re not just fortunate and happy.
Guess what else you are?
Filled.
What did Mick Jagger say?
I can’t get no what?
Satisfaction.
If you pursue righteousness, satisfied.
Filled.
Blessed, filled with righteousness, filled with God’s spirit, filled with God’s power, filled with meaning, filled with purpose.
Jesus said in John 6, I’m the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me will never go hungry.
Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Do you remember when Jesus was talking to the woman at the well?
She came at noon so she wouldn’t have to encounter all the women of the village.
And Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks this water that I will give them, everybody who drinks this water will be thirsty again.
But you drink the water I give them, you’ll never be thirsty again.
As a matter of fact, it’ll be like a spring of water welling up inside of you into eternal life.
In other words, this kind of righteousness, Jesus says, will truly bless you, fill you, satisfy you.
In fact, you will flourish in it, I believe is what the Bible teaches us.
Arthur Brooks, when he wrote this article, How to Want Less, he gets kind of toward the end of the article and he starts talking about his own journey and what he’s learned about happiness.
And he says, I’ve had to learn there’s a difference between intrinsic kinds of motivation and extrinsic motivation.
And he says, real happiness, real purpose is found intrinsically, not extrinsically.
And he points to a life within the human being.
And he says, when you see it in other people and when you do, you marvel at it.
And he tells a story about a colleague of his at Harvard who was stricken with cancer, battling cancer.
And got a really poor diagnosis or prognosis in the beginning.
And yet this man was able to flourish in it and he continued to live many, many years past what was originally thought.
And he says one day he invited his colleagues over to his house.
And he said, we had marveled at how he had stayed so healthy in this, how he had flourished in it, how he had been so happy in it all.
And he said, he asked his colleagues, he said, here, I want to show you all something.
He invited them out to this garden, and he said, okay, I want you to look at this flower, and let’s just wait for a few minutes.
Just look at this flower.
And he said, here we are, these Harvard colleagues, you know.
He said, but this man’s life was such an example to us.
He was such an inspiration to us.
We were trying to wonder, how has he done this?
And he said, so we just stood there and we waited five minutes, six minutes.
He said, finally about eight or nine minutes, all of a sudden this flower just went and just opened right in front of him.
And he said, this professor turned and just looked at all of them and smiled.
And he said, these are the things of God.
They’re all around us.
You just need to see them.
Brooks said, you know, I’ve never gotten over the satisfaction of that moment of being in the presence of God.
It wasn’t tied to my accomplishments.
It was just knowing I was in God’s presence and saw his glory.
That’s what we’re after, y’all.
It’s okay to accomplish?
Yes.
It’s okay to be ambitious?
Absolutely.
It’s okay to accumulate?
Yes.
It’s okay to do all of that as long as we don’t lose our way in it and we continue to have the perspective that only God can give us.
So that we understand when all of that happens in our lives, it’s happening for a reason way beyond just us.
So that we can flourish and be the person God designed us to be and become.
And be an example to those who are around us.
So when they see it in us, they will be drawn to the one who provided it all in the very first place.
And that’s our Heavenly Father.
Jesus said, hunger for that, thirst for that righteousness, and you will be filled.
May it be so in your life.
Let’s pray together.
Father, we are grateful today for the teachings of Jesus and that the message of Jesus hits us where we actually live.
We live in this real world, this world of desires and ambitions and accomplishment and judgment and the desire for affirmation and admiration and putting so much stock in it all.
And Lord, we need your help to help us keep it all in balance and focus.
I ask you to do that for us.
There are those right now within the sound of my voice, Lord, who may be on a path of empty, vain pursuits.
I pray that you’ll deliver them.
Lord, baptize them in their journey and draw them into your pursuit, hunger and thirst for righteousness, so that all those others will truly be significant and purposeful.
Just pray, God, your grace to be sufficient for all of us as we engage in our real lives every single day.
And we pray that in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
Let’s stand together.
We’re going to sing a song of invitation.
Casey Tanner here at the front and if you need to respond today publicly join the church give your life to Christ be baptized as a believer as Ella was the beginning of this service whatever it may be you can slip out from where you are and come forward and share that with these ministers here it could be though that this is just a time in your own heart to reflect upon what does it mean to pursue the right things what am I really hungry for what am I really thirsty for and ask God to guide you in that let’s do that while we sing together thank you
Open the eyes of my heart, Lord Open the eyes of my heart I want to see you I want to see you Open the eyes Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Yes, I want to see you.
I want to see you.
To see you high.
To see you high and lifted up.
Shining in the light of your glory.
We’ll pour out your power and love as we sing holy.
We sing holy, holy, holy.
Holy, holy, holy.
Holy, holy, holy.
I want to see you.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Thank you, Michael.
And we just trust that whatever it is that’s going on in your life right now, you know, as I just shared with you all,
Life is not lived evenly.
Don’t you wish it was?
Don’t you wish it was just lived really evenly?
It’s just not.
So whatever it is that you find yourself in today, I know that God can give you the wisdom to pursue the right things in it, to have a hunger and a thirst for the right things in it, and let Him guide you in that.
And then He will fill you as He promises He will do, give you what you need for it.
And we’ll pray for each other in it, journey with each other in it, listen to each other.
You know, I was in the Sistine Chapel this past Thursday and there was a Catholic priest who was standing at the front and they just said, if anybody wants to come up for prayer, come up for prayer.
And I went up to him and I just told him, I said, I’m not a Roman Catholic.
I’m actually a Baptist pastor back home.
And I started going through the list of things that had just happened and some of the emotions that we felt that I was feeling.
And he finally looked at me and he said, Pastor,
Do y’all hear me?
This is a Roman Catholic priest.
He said, Pastor, you and your flock, you’ve been through so much.
I’m sorry.
The good news is you’re standing in a holy place.
Prayers have been offered up here for centuries.
Let me pray over you.
And he prayed the sweetest prayer over me and embraced me as a brother in Christ.
How meaningful.
It just reminded me of the beauty and the richness of the gospel.
It just transcends so many things.
And in that moment, it transcended the differences between me and him.
They were cultural, theological.
It didn’t matter.
We were brothers in the Lord.
And then when I finally looked at him, he looked at me and he said, I will be praying for your flock.
He said, what’s the name of your flock?
I said, First Baptist Arlington.
He said, well, just know there’ll be a priest here.
In Rome, praying for First Baptist Holy Night.
Thank you.
That’s what I said.
Thank you.
You just never know what you’re going to need in this world and how you’re going to face it.
I’ve just learned a long time ago, if you’ll give it to the Lord, He’s good.
He’s good.
Let Him sustain you in it all.
Praise His name.
Well, let me just tell you, there’s a couple things we want to do this morning.
Do y’all mind just standing for just a couple of seconds?
Can we do that?
We want to welcome the Persleys back home here in just a minute.
But also, I want to share with y’all a letter that I have received from my dear brother, Barry Rock.
Barry and Lex are standing right there.
And Barry is announcing his retirement today.
So let me read you what he’s written.
Dear church, I love this community of faith with all my heart.
Serving you has been among the grandest privileges I could have imagined.
My dearest friends are in this church.
My brothers and sisters are on this staff.
Lexa and I have tried to serve well over the last 31 years.
It’s time for me to step down.
After much prayer, conversation, and soul searching, I’m going to retire from paid ministry.
This decision has been difficult to discuss and ponder.
Over the past few months, it’s occupied a lot of discussion and reflection.
But Lexa and I are at great peace with the decision.
I will serve my last day on the final day of March.
After that, we’ll take our places among this incredible congregation.
Notice I said paid ministry.
It’s been my belief since day one almost 50 years ago that I will never cease being called to live and serve as a minister of our Lord.
Thank you for receiving this letter of retirement.
The greatest joys in my life have been knowing Christ, Mary and Lexa, having a loving family, making the greatest friends I could have imagined, supporting two of the best pastors anywhere, and serving God and His remarkable church.
I hereby tender my retirement this day, February the 9th, 2025, effective March 31st, 2025, with all of our love, Barry and Lexa Rock.
So Barry and Lexa, we love y’all.
And you know we’ll be praying for y’all.
Obviously.
And so, and just for y’all to know, on the final Sunday in March, March the 30th, we’re going to have a time as a congregation to honor Barry and Lexa and thank them for their many, many years of faithful service in this place.
And so, Barry, you know I love you, brother, and thank you for the life we’ve had together.
I’m not going to talk about it right now because I’ll start crying, okay?
Amen.
Pursleys, please come up here, y’all.
Ryan and Sarah and little Sadie Riker and Maverick, come on up on this platform with me.
These folks, as y’all know, most of you know, some of you may not, but they have been your workers, representatives, missionaries for the last eight years now in Slovenia.
So I don’t know what you were doing eight years ago, but for the last eight years, they have been faithfully serving in Slovenia.
And, of course, a lot’s happened in eight years.
We’ve got three Slovenes that have been born right here, all three of them born in Slovenia.
But they have been faithful servants serving our church and our global center there.
One of the goals was to get a church established with national leadership.
It’s really difficult to do there.
As a matter of fact, take all the members of the Evangelical Union in Slovenia, and our church is still bigger than all of them put together.
So it’s hard work.
And so one of their goals was to get that church established, get Slovene leadership.
And that’s what’s in place.
And we just want to say thank y’all for eight years.
We appreciate what you’ve done.
We’re so proud of you.
And we want to welcome you back home with just love and a warm embrace as you begin the next leg of the journey.
So can we just say thank you to the Purseleafs for a job well done.
Praise God.
So proud of y’all.
We love you.
And a lot’s happened in their life while they’ve been gone.
But we are so glad to have them back.
And we’ll keep praying for our brothers and sisters in Slovenia.
You haven’t just done that.
I meant to say this at 830, but I forgot.
You’ve nurtured and blessed and trained a whole bunch of our people.
Because our folks have come to see you.
Cindy and I have been able to be there with you.
We’ve sent teams there.
We’ve had folks from our church come and live with you for a season and learn more about mission and what it means to be called by God.
So y’all have blessed and nurtured so many people in our church, even while you’ve been doing that ministry there among the Slovenes.
So thank y’all for a job well done.
And we welcome you home warmly with great love and appreciation for all the sacrifices you’ve made. and learn in Slovene, okay, which is a little bit challenging.
But great job, and God bless you.
So I want to pray over them and let this be our benediction.
We’ll let them come back down here, and you can come greet them if you’d like to today.
But let’s pray, and we’ll be dismissed.
Father, we love you.
And we thank you for Ryan and Sarah and their sweet children.
I thank you for the ministry that you called them to, their faithfulness in serving, the sacrifices they made, the friendships they forged, the paths that they helped develop, and their ministry to Slovene believers, the blessing they were to the mission family there.
The church now that remains, we pray for the leadership of that church, Lord.
We believe that Slovenes are the best ones to reach Slovenes.
And so we pray, God, for that leadership and that community of faith that will grow and blossom and mature.
And we’ll just see that hard work. blessed and see the fruit of labor.
Thank you that they got to see the fruit of their labor.
Now we receive them home.
We welcome them with open arms.
We love them.
They’re ours.
We pray your blessings on them as they make a transition to whatever the next leg of the journey is going to be for them.
So Lord, bless them in every way.
We thank you for this church and its faithfulness. and it’s calling to take the gospel to the world.
We pray we’ll continue to be faithful in that.
So, Lord, thank you for this day.
We ask your blessings on us in Jesus’ name.
Amen and amen.
God bless you, and you’re dismissed.
Good job, guys.
Thanks for worshiping with us.
We hope that it was a meaningful part of helping you follow the Jesus way.
Once again, if you’ve never connected with us before, we would love it if you would text the word follow to 817-518-6353, or you can go to fbca.org slash events to learn more about the things happening at our church.
We’re praying for you, we love you, and we can’t wait to see you again.