What is Righteousness?

April 3, 2024

In Jesus’ most famous sermon, the sermon on the mount, he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” 

Jesus says you’ve got to hunger and thirst for righteousness. What is righteousness? The Bible says that God loves righteousness. Let me just boil it down for you into two sentences. It’s about a relationship and it’s about a lifestyle. 

RIGHTEOUSNESS IS . . .

A Relationship: Righteous Means Right With God

Righteousness first simply means a right standing with God. It means being right with God.  

Romans 1:17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight.

Look at that verse for a minute. The Good News. The word “Gospel” – Gospel is simply the old English word for good news. That’s all it means. The good news tells us how God makes us right with himself. Notice God makes you right with him. You don’t make yourself right. This is something that God does for you. He makes us right with himself. It’s a relationship.

A Lifestyle: Righteous Means Living Right

The second thing righteousness is it’s a lifestyle. That means living right. Living right as God intends. So it means being right with God and living right in faith or as God intends. So, it’s a position and it’s a practice. 

Why should I hunger and thirst for these two things? In a nutshell two reasons: One, it’s the only way to live. And two, it’s the only way to heaven.  

Proverbs 12:28 (NIV) In the way of righteousness there is life; along that path is immortality.

You’ve heard me say this many times: you’re made by God and you’re made for God and until you understand that life isn’t going to make sense. Life is not about the acquisition of things or the achievement of goals. Life is about getting to know God. The God who loves you and made you for a purpose. Not only is it good for here on earth, the Bible says righteousness is the path to immortality. In other words it’s the way you get to heaven.

Here’s the point. God is not going to force you to go to heaven. It’s a choice. You choose to go to heaven on God’s terms. God created heaven as a place for his children that he loves and he wants you to be with him forever and ever and ever. God has long range plans for your life. He wants you to be in heaven, but he’s not going to force you to go to heaven. So God gives you a choice. You can spend your life connected to him or disconnected to him. If you want to you can rebel against God, you can ignore God your entire life. You can pretend God doesn’t exist.

The only problem is one day you’re going to stand before God and God’s going to say, “You didn’t connect with me on earth. You didn’t want to be close to me on earth. Why in the world would you want to be close to me now in eternity?” And you will be eternally separated from God. In those both cases God will simply say, “Have it your way.” If you don’t go to heaven, that’s your choice. Because he wants you to choose to love him.