3 Blessed Are The Meek
3 Blessed Are the Meek 27th November 2015
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.(NKJV)5 God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth.(NLT)I looked up the synonym of the word meek and found that the word can also mean humble , gentle, modest, submissive, timid, mild. I think the most important question that we can ask of every beatitude is: What does this beatitude have to do with God? So today the question would be,
What Does Meekness Have to Do with God?
The reason this question should be uppermost in our minds is that if we don’t have an answer to it, we will not be able to fulfil the aim of our Lord in this lesson. He said in Matthew 5:16, further on “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount so that his Father would get the glory for the way the disciples lived. His aim was to create a lifestyle in his disciples that would make people think about the value of God. And so, if meekness is what some people are like just because they always got bullied as a kid or because their parents never raised their voices or because they have some peculiar metabolism Then how would meekness then be a desirable quality to draw the attention to the glory of God?
Jesus does not care about the changing of manners or the transformation of personalities for their own sake. The first requestin the Lord’s Prayer, which stands at the centre of this sermon, is, “Hallowed be thy name!”(That is to make holy His Name)This was the passion of our Lord’s life. Therefore it should be the passion of ours. And we must ask,what does meekness have to do with God? How does becoming meek and being meek promote the hallowing of God’s name?
In answering this question we will in fact discover that meekness is a very beautiful thing even though it may be very painful.
Probably the best place to begin is in Psalm 37, because it is almost certain that this beatitude is a quotation or reference to Psalm 37:11It says, “The meek shall possess the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.”(NLT) ….11 The lowly will possess the landand will live in peace and prosperity.In the Greek Old Testament the words of Psalm 37:11 are almost identical with what we read in Matthew 5:5. It says, “The meek shall inherit the land.” And the word for “land” in Greek and Hebrew also means “earth.”
So let’s see what meekness means in this Psalm and what it has to do with God.
The Meek Who Wait for the Lord
Notice the parallel between verse 11 and verse 9. Verse 11 says, “The meek shall possess the land.”Verse 9b says, “Those who wait for the Lord shall possess the land.” So I would conclude first that the meek are people who wait for the Lord. But what does it mean to wait for the Lord?
We get a picture of those who wait for the Lord, that is, the meek, if we read verses 5-8 of Psalm 37.5 Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you.6 He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn, and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun.7 Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act.Don't worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes.
8 Stop being angry! Turn from your rage!Do not lose your temper-it only leads to harm.9 For the wicked will be destroyed, but those who trust in the Lord will possess the land.
What are these people like who, according to verse 11, are meekand, according to verse 9, wait for the Lord? verse 5 says TheyCommit everything they do to the Lord and trust him,Verse 7 says they are still in the presence of the Lord, and they don't worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes.
And verse 8saysthey stop being angry! And turn from their rage!they do not lose their temperand they refrain from anger and forsake wrath.So let’s try to put all this together into a portrait of the meek.
1. They trust in God
Meek people begin by trusting God (verse 5b). They believe that He will work for them and support them when others go up against them. Biblical meekness is rooted in the deep confidence that God is for you and not against you.
2. They commit their way to God
Meek people commit their way to the Lord (verse 5a).The Hebrew word for “commit” means literally to “roll.”Meek people have discovered that God is trustworthy, and so they roll their “way”– their business, their problems, their relationships, their health, their fears, their frustrations–they roll all this onto the Lord. They admit that they are insufficient to cope with the complexities and pressures and obstacles of life, and they trust that God is able and willing to sustain them, guide them and protect them.
3. They are quiet before God and wait for Him
Next, according to verse 7a, meek people are quiet or still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. First, they discover that God can be trusted. Then, secondly, they commit their way to him. And then, thirdly, they wait patiently in stillness for the work of God in their lives.This doesn’t mean they become lazy. It means that they’re free of emotion. They have a kind of steady calm that comes from knowing that God is omnipotent, that he has their affairs under his control, and that he is gracious and will work things out for the best. Meek people have a quiet steadiness about their lives in the midst of upheaval.
4. They don'tfret or worry over the wicked
in verse 7b we read that they don’t fret themselves over the wicked who prosper in their way. Or, as verse 8 says, they refrain from anger. Their family, their work and life are in God’s sovereign hands; they trust him; they wait patiently and quietly to see how his power and goodness will work things out; and so the setbacks and obstacles and opponents of life do not produce the kind of bitterness, anger and worry that is so common among men.
So the portrait we have of meekness so far, based on the the closest biblical parallel (in Psalm 37:11) to the third beatitude, is that it begins by trusting God. Meekness commits its way to the Lord in the confidence that he will use his power and mercy to do good for us.
Then it waits patiently and quietly for the outcome. And, finally, it does not give way to anger and worry when faced with opposition and setbacks.
So it is clear already, in this preliminary sketch from Psalm 37, that meekness has very much to do with God. Meeknessconsistsof a peaceful freedom from irritable anger and is based on trusting God and rolling all our ways onto God and waiting patiently for God. Meekness has very much to do with God.
The Meekness of MosesNow let’s add some detail to our portrait with someother biblical instances of meekness.Numbers 12:1-4 describes an occasion when Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses severely.While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because he had married a Cushite woman. 2 They said, "Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn't he spoken through us, too?" But the Lord heard them. 3 (Now Moses was very humble-more humble than any other person on earth.)4 So immediately the Lord called to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam and said, "Go out to the Tabernacle,[a] all three of you!" So the three of them went to the Tabernacle.the tent of meeting
What happens in the following verses is that the Lord rebukes Miriam and Aaron and defends his servant Moses.
Meekness etween opposition and justification
Now what is the point of calling Moses meek in this context-right between bitter opposition and God’s justification? I think the point is that meekness means committing your cause to God and not needing to defend yourself. Just where we would expect the text to tell us what Moses said to justify himself against the charge of Miriam and Aaron, the text says he was the meekest man on earth. Moses doesn’t say a word. Instead he waits patiently for the Lord. The critical words used against him does not worry him at all. And God comes to his defence.
Meekness refrains from revenge and defensiveness
So we can add to our portrait of meekness this: Not only does meekness trust God, and commit its way to God, wait patiently for God, and refrain from anger; it also refrains from revenge and defensiveness. Meekness loves to give place to wrath and leave it to God to justify it. Meekness is the power to absorb adversity and criticism without lashing back.
Receiving the Word with MeeknessTo see another feature of the portrait of meekness let’s turn to the book of James 1:19-21.19 Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. 20 Human anger[a] does not produce the righteousness[] God desires. 21 So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.
Two kinds of eople
James has in mind two kinds of people here. He pictures on the one hand a person who does not like to listen to what other people have to say, especially if they speak with authority. This person is quick to speak and quickly becomes angry if the words of others cross his opinion or question his behaviour .This person is not receptive to the Word of God. He filters it through his own desires and receives it selectively, if at all.On the other hand James pictures another kind of person. This person is slow to speak, and quick to listen (v. 19). This person recognizes the limitations of his knowledge and the unreliability of his thinking, and so is eager to listen and learn anything valuable that he can. If he hears something new or contrary to his own view, his first reaction is not worried anger. He is slow to anger. He listens and considers. And when it comes to the Word of God, he receives it with meekness.Meekness Is TeachableSo the new feature of our portrait of meekness is teach ability. To receive the Word with meekness means that we don’t have a resistant, hostile spirit when we are being taught. But it doesn’t mean we are gullible. And it doesn’t even mean that we will never get angry about what some people teach. Verse 19 says that we should be “SLOW to anger,” not that we should never experience anger. Jesus said in Matthew 11:29,“Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart"But in Mark 3:5 it says he became angry and deeply saddened grieved at the hardheartedness of the Pharisees; and in Matthew 21:12. he drove the merchants out of the temple and turned over their tables.Meekness does not mean the absence of passion and conviction and even righteous anger for the glory of God. But it does mean that we don’t have trigger fingers.It does mean that our nature is one of readiness to listen and learn. It does mean that we are slow to write a person off, slow to condemn and slow to anger.Let us be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves in discerning what meekness is and what pride is.
The Meekness of WisdomThis becomes even clearer in James 3:13 and 17.Verse 13 says, “13 If you are wise and understand God's ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom.“The truly wise people are also the truly meek people. Why?Look at verse 17: “17 But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others….” Notice that the reason the truly wise person is also the truly meek person and that true wisdom is peaceable, gentle, and open to reason. These are the marks of meekness! Isn’t it remarkable that the marks of biblical wisdom and biblical meekness are the same?Wisdom in the Bible is never a merely intellectual affair. It is a character of the heart as well as ideas in the head. And therefore, in a sense, meekness and wisdom is one thing. They are both peaceable, gentle, and open to reason.You can see how that ties back to the previous verse from James 1:19-21. There we saw that meekness meant being quick to listen and slow to criticize and condemn. Here meekness is open to reason. Meekness and ReasonablenessThis Scripture teache us that there is a link between meekness and reasonableness .And that reasonableness is the willingness to listen to another person’s reasons for his opinion and the willingness to give reasons of your own.If I put forward my opinion without giving any reasons for it except that it is my opinion-I would not be acting in meekness, no matter how soft-spoken I might be. On the contrary, I would be acting in a controlling way, because I would be appealing to nothing outside myself.
At this point there may be a good deal of confusion about the meaning of meekness. We must beware of confusing certain temperaments with meekness or with the absence of meekness. A conversation between two people may become passionate and heated and still be marked by meekness, if they both speakreasonably, that is, if they are defending their opinions by appealing not to themselves but to a standard of truth that is over them and of which they are humble servants.
But on the other hand there could be a very soft-spoken, laid-back conversation between two people in which they express their different opinions, but instead of arguing for them with reasons, and submitting themselves together to a higher standard of truth, they give the impression of being very meek by saying that they just want to give their opinion and not argue about it. No one has to accept my opinion and I don’t have to accept anyone else’s. Live and let live.
Too often we think this is the spirit of meekness. Two people making no claim on the other person’s opinion, refusing to submit their own opinion to an independent standard of truth, unwilling to make themselves vulnerable to the claims of truth and the possible need to admit error-that is not the spirit of meekness, no matter how soft-spoken or meek it looks on the outside. It is not meekness. It is self-protecting and wipe out truth. What could be more helpful to the spirit of pride than the view that neither you nor I have to give an account of our opinions before any standard but our own private selves?
How does Modern Culture affect HumilitySixty years ago G. K. Chesterton spoke about the dislocation of humility. He said,A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays we tend to emphasizeourselvesThe part of ourselves that we doubt is exactly the part we ought not to doubt-the Divine Reason .Meekness cares about the truthSo let me say it again: the meekness of wisdom is:Open to reasonIt is quick to listen to the reasons given by others for their opinions, And it is willing to give reasons for its own opinions. Meekness cares about truth and whether others agree. And therefore it may become passionate and forceful. But it is always submissive to a higher standard of truth. It is always willing to change to bring its opinions into line with truth. Meekness knows its own weakness. But for that reason it takes debate and argument seriously. It wants to recognize its own errors and give it up.
But the soft-spoken conversation in which two modern people react to each other’s opposite opinions, not feeling the need to submit his opinion to a standard of truth higher than himself, by not exposing himself to the possibility of error and repentance-that is not the spirit of meekness.
Meekness and the knowledge of fallibility or weakness and SinLet’s look at one other feature in the portrait of meekness. It is found in Galatians 6:1-2.Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer[a] is overcome by some sin, you who are godly[] should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. 2 Share each other's burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.Not only is meekness slow to speak and slow to anger, but when it decides that it must speak-even words of correction as we have here in Galatians 6:1-2-it speaks with the deep awareness that it is fallible. More specifically when meekness reaches out to bring back a person overtaken by sin, it first takes the log out of its own eye and then admits that without grace which is free and undeserved,it would fall to the very sin it is now trying to correct. “Look to yourself lest you too be tempted.” And Scripture warns us in1 Corinthians 10:12“12 If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall..”
The Full Portrait of Biblical MeeknessNow let’s stand back and see if we can see the portrait as a whole. Meekness begins when we put our trust in God. Then, because we trust Him, we commit our way to Him. We roll onto Him our anxieties, or frustrations, our plans, our relationships, our jobs, our health. And then we wait patiently for the Lord. We trust his timing and his power and his grace to work things out in the best way for his glory and for our good.
The result of trusting God and the rolling of our anxieties onto God and waiting patiently for God is that we don’t give way to quick and agitated anger. But instead, like Moses we give place to wrath and hand our cause over to God and let him defend us if he chooses. And then, as James says, in this quiet confidence we are slow to speak and quick to listen. We become reasonable and open to correction. Meekness loves to learn. And it counts the blows of a friend as precious. And when it must say a critical word to a person caught in sin or error, it speaks from the deep conviction of its own shortcoming and its own weakness to sin and its utter dependence on the grace of God.Meekness begins with God and ends with God. And therefore whenever we see a person like that, we give God the glory and the aim of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is fulfilled.
They Shall Inherit the EarthNow let’s turn our attention to the second half of the beatitude:Blessed are the meek,FOR THEY SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH.What effect does Jesus want this promise to have on the disciples? I think the answer is that he wants the promise to give them strength to continue in their meekness. This is the way the promise works in verse11&12:Matthew 5:11-1211 "God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers.12 Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.In other words, the promise of great reward gives the disciples strength to endure persecution with joy.
So I think the promise that the meek shall inherit the earth is intended by the Lord to give us the strength to endure in meekness when the natural inclination would be to defend ourselves or retaliate or give way to fretful anger.
All Things Are Yours
There is a passage in 1 Corinthians 3 that has helped me see how the promise of inheriting the earth gives strength to our meekness. In verses 18-23 Paul tries to help us overcome pride. The Corinthians were boasting in different teachers and in their worldly wisdom. So Paul says,18 Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world's standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say,"He traps the wisein the snare of their own cleverness."[a]20 And again,"The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise;he knows they are worthless."[]21 So don't boast about following a particular human leader. For everything belongs to you-22 whether Paul or Apollos or Peter,[c] or the world, or life and death, or the present and the future. Everything belongs to you, 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
Now notice the logic in verse 21: 21 So don't boast about following a particular human leader. For everything belongs to you-And one of the things mentioned is the world. Don’t boast, because the world is yours. Does that make sense to you?
It simply means: you don’t need the vain pleasures of one-up-man ship because God has already made you an heir of the world? Would I feel the need to brag that my house is bigger than your house if I knew that my Father owned the city and I was the beneficiary in his will?
Against Our Sinful Nature
The quietness and openness and vulnerability of meekness is a very beautiful and a very painful thing. It goes against all that we are by our sinful nature. It requires supernatural help. And that help is available, thank God!
If you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, sitting at his feet on the mount this morning, that is, if you trust him and commit your way to him and wait patiently for him, God has already begun to help you and will help you more. And the primary way that he will help you is to assure your heart that you are a fellow heir of Jesus Christ and that the world and everything in it is yours. He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not freely give us all things with him? All things! Means not a single good thing will he withheld from those who walk uprightly. “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”
Next Friday we will study number 4 from the be attitudes:Blessed are those who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness