Kingdom Attitudes Pt. 2
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Introduction:
When you hear the phrase: “humble, meek, and mild,” what image comes to your mind?
Some of you would say Jesus because you’ve heard that phrase used to describe Him. But what exactly does that mean? We probably know what it means to be humble, but what does it mean to be meek or mild?
Charles Wesley, the famous hymn writer wrote,
“Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild”:
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child;
Pity my simplicity,
Suffer me to come to Thee.523
Charles Wesley
When you think of Jesus being meek and mild, you might think of Jesus as a pushover. That would be the wrong image of what it means to be gentle, meek, and mild. Jesus is also the One that Psalm 2 describes for the kings of the earth that would rebel against the King.
9 You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
We often use phrases and character descriptions without realizing that the words that we use can become tired and trite expressions. When these phrases loose their meaning, they loose their ability to describe for us what we are trying to paint a picture of.
Tonight, we want to paint the picture of Jesus. All of these beatitudes find their completion in Him. Remember that it is Jesus that we want to come out in us, so let’s go back to our text from this morning.
1 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Pray
We mentioned this morning that the word “beatitude” means blessed. Well what does it mean to be blessed?
Some might say “happy.” That’s certainly an option and you are happy when you follow God’s commands. You at least have joy in your heart. You may not be happy always with where it leads or what it costs you, but you have the joy of the Lord as your strength.
Here’s something interesting. The New Testament was, of course, written in Greek. The Greek translation of the Old Testament is called the Septuagint. Now, did you know that the only time the same Greek word found here in our text for blessing is used in the Septuagint is in Deut. 33:29? It says,
29 Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help, and the sword of your triumph! Your enemies shall come fawning to you, and you shall tread upon their backs.”
You can only know joy in the Lord. That’s why we spent so much time this morning talking about coming to Jesus through prayer and the Holy Spirit and having that joy manifested in your life as Jesus is displayed in you. It’s a joy to be in the presence of the Lord and you can have that all the time. You can “Rejoice always, and again I say rejoice!” if you are letting Jesus shine through you.
So the first three ways we can do this are found in the first three beatitudes.
1. Blessed are the Poor in Spirit (v.3)
1. Blessed are the Poor in Spirit (v.3)
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
You can’t have Jesus lived out in you unless you are first poor in spirit. You have to recognize that you are a sinner and need to be changed.
That’s why Isaiah prophesied and Jesus applied this prophecy to Himself Isaiah 61.
1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
A few chapters later, Isaiah said
1 Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?
2 All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.
Now, I don’t want you to think that Jesus doesn’t care for those who are oppressed and beat down. That’s absolutely not true! Jesus can relate to any of these people. But the reason these are described as poor in spirit and the ones to whom God preaches the good news to them through Jesus is because they’ve first heard the bad news that we are all sinners and separated from God.
The Puritan preachers were notorious for bringing out the sinfulness of man. I recently saw an article where a well-known Bible teacher was picking on Jonathan Edwards’ sermon Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God. In this sermon, Edwards describes God as angry at us for our sin and he describes us as if we were a spider hanging over the pit of hell by a thread.
Now, the Bible teacher blasted him and said if this is the God he is presenting, I would run far away from Him. I wouldn’t want anything to do with Him.
That’s because the Bible teacher didn’t finish the sermon, or either ignored it. You see Edwards was painting the picture of the predicament that we were in so that he could then turn his attention to what Jesus did for sinners so that they did not have to remain in their sins, but instead shows the love of God demonstrated through Jesus on the cross.
The Puritans were excellent at doing what modern evangelicals don’t like to do and that is to make people uncomfortable with their sins. We have to be broken by our sinfulness and become “poor in spirit” so that we can hear the good news.
Remember what Jesus said from Isaiah again.
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Why is it good news? Because there was bad news to begin with.
Now, I mentioned to you that all of these traits were represented in Jesus. Sinfulness was not represented in Jesus, because He was sinless. But the humility of submitting Himself to God was.
The Bible says this,
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
So what is the reward for those who are poor in spirit that Jesus says?
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
We gain heaven when we humble ourselves and come to Jesus to receive the good news.
2. Blessed are those Who Mourn (v.4)
2. Blessed are those Who Mourn (v.4)
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Again, why are those who mourning blessed? Like before with those who are crushed, we need to know that Jesus weeps with us. He wept with Mary and Martha at Lazarus’ tomb.
Hebrews says,
14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Jesus can relate to our sorrows, but that’s not what Jesus is getting at here.
These people are mourning over their sin. If you are like the Bible teacher I mentioned earlier and you are offended by God’s hatred of our sin and His anger poured out on it, you don’t look at your sin the same way that God does.
Now, let’s take for a moment that possibility that what they meant was that this approach is not gentle enough to woo someone to Jesus. Well, two problems with that are seen.
In urgent cases of dire need where someone needs to be warned immediately of the ever-pressing dangers upon them, you don’t woo them. You don’t gently tell a child to get out of the way of an oncoming car. You don’t care if you dislocate his arm trying to pull him out of the way! We can fix his little broken heart and his feelings, but not if he’s dead!
We have no reason to boast in the flesh or feel good about ourselves, but we can get over that later. We are in a 5 alarm fire and need to get out of the building NOW!
The second problem with this is that it assumes that my wooing is drawing the sinner to Christ. It’s not! It’s the Holy Spirit and He uses the Bible to do the drawing. Interestingly in the Bible, there’s no wooing. Look for example with me in Acts 2 at possibly the largest evangelistic movement of God in a single day in the Church’s history.
Peter says,
17 “ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
20 the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Okay, we have to start with the fact that these people call upon the name of the Lord because they see the signs of judgment coming in the sky. It’s an awesome, terrible day of the Lord.
Second, Peter goes on to say this.
22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—
23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
He didn’t coddle their feelings! He said, “You killed your own Messiah!”
The Bible records their response.
36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”
41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
So the application for us is this:
Use the means of God and the methods of God and the Words of God to see people won to the Love of God.
Now what is the reward for those who mourn?
They will be comforted.
There’s no greater relief to your hurt feelings over sin than realizing you once were dead, but now you are alive!
Now how did Jesus fulfill this? Well, Jesus was often grieved over the sins of other. He said,
34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
Jesus didn’t weep over His own sin, but He did weep over our sin. We, too, should weep over not only our own sins, but also the sins of our own people like Daniel, Nehemiah, Moses, and many others throughout the Bible. Jeremiah was even known as the Weeping Prophet.
3. Blessed are the Meek (v. 5)
3. Blessed are the Meek (v. 5)
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Now meekness is a trait that Jesus clearly demonstrated. We’ll see that in a minute, but first let’s define meekness.
What do you think it means to be meek?
Meekness is to be humbly patient and compliant.
Some people have defined meekness as power under control.
Jesus certainly demonstrated this.
I could go to a number of passages that illustrate this, but my favorite is found in the Garden of Gethsemane with two different opportunities for Him to demonstrate His meekness.
The first is with the band of soldiers that come up when He is praying with the disciples. There’s that prayer thing again, but I’m not going to go there again, at least not now.
1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.
2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples.
3 So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons.
4 Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?”
5 They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them.
6 When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.
The second example is when Peter swings his sword at the servant of the High Priest and cuts off his ear.
10 Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.)
11 So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”
Even later another example of this is when Pilate asks Jesus, “Don’t you know that I have the power to release you or have you crucified?”
33 So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
34 Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?”
35 Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?”
36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
Conclusion
So what does all of this mean for those who are of the Kingdom?
We have to have the same resolve as Jesus. Strength under control!
We have to allow our enemy to strike us on the cheek and turn the other one to him also.
We have to be willing to be wronged and defrauded for the sake of the gospel.
Why? Because we’ve done all these things to Jesus ourselves! And God didn’t give us what we deserved. He saved us instead!
Go be poor in spirit.
Go mourn and be comforted.
Go be meek and watch God work in your life to bring glory to Himself and win people to Jesus.