Meekness

Matthew 5:5

Turn to Matthew 5.

Put a bookmark in Psalm 37.

Discuss the end of the 40 days of prayer and fasting.

Encourage them to ask the Lord how to properly come off the fast. Don’t jump so fully back into the thing you fasted and loss all of the ground you have gained in your walk.

Maybe your fast will continue.

Maybe this prayer guide will continue. Honestly, these different daily prayers are things that we ought to be praying for anyways!

Or maybe it will bring some order to your prayers throughout the week to help you focus more and cover more prayers.

Regardless, my prayer for you is to not just quit and go back to the way things were before we started the 40 days but allow this season to mold you and your prayers to reflect what the Lord has done in you and in the church and community.

Today, we have another prayer guide for you to pick up on your way out.

It is a passion week prayer guide. We ask that you take one per family and go through it together.

Its an all ages prayer focus through the week of Jesus from Palm Sunday leading up to Easter next week.

The goal is to keep you and your family focused on Jesus this week and hopefully come back to worship with us next Sunday as an overflow of a week spent praying and thinking about what Jesus did and when through for you and me.

Next week, we will begin with the Lord’s Supper as we remember the cross and the service to shift to focus on the celebration of the resurrection. Don’t miss Easter and invite your friends and neighbors!

Sound good, church?

Please be praying for next week!

Let’s get into the message and next Beatitude this morning.

Typically, I would start by refreshing our memories about the last couple of weeks, but this morning we are going to do that during the message because the ways that these verses are progressive and add on top of each other is becoming more and more obvious as we go through them.

Let’s read our passage.

Matthew 5:1–5 ESV

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed - An adjective describing a person as experiencing positive circumstances or a happy disposition.

Blessed describes a believer in the fortunate position for receiving God’s provision or favor, to extend His grace or benefits.

So, again, these are conditional promises of the Lord. If you allow the Spirit to produce this in you, you will be blessed and He will give you this.

We have seen the blessing of the kingdom of heaven and the comfort of the HS.

This morning’s verse says, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

If I was being honest, this week’s study has not been easy. On one hand, everyone has a different definition of the word meek and on the other hand, not many people have good explanations of what is means to inherit the Earth.

So, when it comes to meekness, I have been overwhelmed with an overflow of explanations and definitions and biblical examples and when it comes to inheriting the earth, its been vague.

So, bear with me and pray that I can be concise and clear.

The word meek used in this verse is

πραΰς (praus), πραεῖα (praeia), πραΰ (prau): adj.; ≡ Str 4239; gentle, meek, mild (Mt 5:5; 11:29; 21:5; 1Pe 3:4+)

6705 עָנָו (ʿā·nāw): n.masc.; ≡ Str 6035; TWOT 1652a—1. LN 88.51–88.58 humbleness, humility, unpretentiousness, i.e., a quality of sincere and straightforward behavior, suggesting a lack of arrogance and pride

So this word most often is referred to as meaning humble. The opposite of prideful. But there is gentleness as well. There is submission. There is not thinking highly of yourself.

Its a complex word with many interruptions.

The Hebrew word is used to describe Moses as the most humble man.

The Greek word that Jesus uses to describe Himself in one of our favorite verses.

Matthew 11:29 ESV

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

On this Palm Sunday, as we remember the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem leading up to His crucifixion.

We remember Jesus coming in to the city not a conquering horse but on a donkey.

This was to full a prophecy from Zechariah.

Matthew 21:5 (ESV)

“Say to the daughter of Zion,

‘Behold, your king is coming to you,

humble, and mounted on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’ ”

In fact, as you go through the passion week prayer guide, I challenge you to look at the humility and meekness that Jesus showed during the final week.

It starts with a humble ride.

He deals so gently with the pharisees questioning everything about His words, opinions and actions.

He doesn’t flip out on Judas and Peter, both who He tells are going to betray and deny Him today!

He has an honest yet, humble conversation with His heavenly Father as He submits to the Father’s will that leads to the cross.

Jesus’ life, ministry and week leading up to the cross, is marked continuously by His meekness.

It seems like every theologian and great preacher has to have their own definition of what meekness is and how a Christ follower has it in their seen in their life.

So, I’m going to give you one definition that this a bit of my own combined with bits of others definitions. This is a Frankenstein of a definition.

Meekness is a true view of God and yourself expressed in your attitude and conduct towards God and others.

Now, let’s look at this two different ways. First in our attitude and conduct towards God and then we will look at it towards others.

First towards God. Everyone have this one written down?

Write this down.

Meekness towards God is being flexible to His Word and submissive to His will, because of your confidence in who He is.

Meekness is not a place of fear or weakness but of confidence. Not in yourself or your ability but in who God is!

The Lord has never said that we would not have struggle or difficulty in this life but in all seasons of life, we can have confidence. Confidence in who He is!

Look for the past almost two years, we have been studying who God is. Believe it or not, you are a theologian. You are to live a life pursuing to study who God is through His Word, study and through the way that He moves in your life.

The challenge has been and will always been to as often as possible think about God. Study Him. Pursue Him. Spend a lifetime looking at Him. Fix your eyes and attention on Him. The more you do that, the better your understanding of who He is grows, the greater your confidence will grow. The greater your faith in Him will grow.

So, it won’t matter what the circumstance are. Your confidence is in Him. Who you KNOW Him to be.

This is why a meek person is flexible to His Word. He does not bring what He believes to the Word to seek validity to his thoughts or opinions, but is humble and flexible to allow the Word of God to mold his thoughts and opinions to reflect the truth about who God is.

This is where you will find the Spirit produce the first Beatitude in your heart. A realization that apart from the greatness of God and who He is, we are nothing. We can do nothing. We are not capable. The greater we see Him, the more humble we become because who can compare to HIM! The more we stare at Him the smaller we become! We stop coming to Him and demanding our way, we stop quarreling with God and with confidence say like Christ, not my will, but your’s be done.

Do you seen how the person that is flexible to His Word about who He is and fixing our eyes on His greatness and pursuing Him will lead to confidence and submission to His will?

A better understand of who God is will lead to an easier time submitting to whatever the situation is in life because you KNOW you are right in middle of His will. And because you know Him, you can have faith and confidence in right where you are.

Again, to look at Passion Week, the meekest man in the world is the man who stepped out of the Garden of Gethsemane after fully submitting to the will of His heavenly Father.

Jesus was meek and humble to the Father’s will but that does not mean that He was weak. He was strong and confident to face His accusers and death.

He stepped out confident that even though He was going to suffer, He was going to suffer humbled to the Father’s will and confident that He would be raised from the dead.

He walked out not fearful of the physical pain or the emotional pain that He was going to suffer.

He was determined to go through whatever the Father’s will was because He KNEW WHO GOD WAS!

He knew that if the Father said, it was going to happen, it was GOING TO HAPPEN!

You and I can have this same kind of confidence in our heavenly Father no matter our circumstances. Keep your eyes fixed on God. Run after Him. Know Him. And you will see that the absolute best place in the world to be is right smack dab in the middle of His will surrendered and confident in who He is.

Spurgeon tell of a priest asking a shepherd in the field what he thinks the weather will be like tomorrow. The shepherd responds with “The weather will be exactly what I want it to be.” The priest asks, “How can that be?!” The shepherd responds and says, “Because the weather will be whatever the Lord wills it to be and what is exactly what I want it to be. Whatever He wills.”

A meek person is a content person.

A meek person is thankful in every circumstance.

A meek person spends more time looking up than around them.

Psalm 37 describes a meek person. In fact, Jesus was quoting Psalm 37:11 in this beatitude and the Psalmist describes a meek person.

I won’t read it all but look through here with me.

A meek person does not fret or worry because of evil in the world.

They do not look at the evil doers prosperity and envy them.

They know that only God brings eternal life.

They trust in the Lord and dwell right where He has them and they will remain faithful to God!

Their delight is not in the things of the world but in the Lord only!

They are not striving to end where they are quicker but they are willing to be still before the Lord and wait patiently for the Him to move them or the situation.

They refrain from evil.

Psalm 37:11 (ESV)

But the meek shall inherit the land

and delight themselves in abundant peace.

Meekness is a true view of God and yourself expressed in your attitude and conduct towards God by being flexible to His Word and submitted to His will.

Not because of your ability but because of your confidence in who He is.

The attitudes are confidence, not fretting or worrying, abundant peace, contentment, and humility. Those are the inner attitudes of meekness.

The conduct is not turning to your own understanding or your will. The conduct is staying submitted. Its saying I won’t move without you. Its saying not my will but your’s be done. And then walking out of that garden ready to face whatever the Lord brings into your life with confidence that the best place in the world is dwelling in the house of the Lord forever.

We said

Meekness is a true view of God and yourself expressed in your attitude and conduct towards God and others.

We looked at the attitudes and conduct towards God. Now, let’s look at how meekness is attitudes and conduct towards others.

Meekness towards others is having the mind of Christ.

Paul tells us in Philippians 2 that we should have the mind of Christ. One of humility. One of

Philippians 2:3–5 ESV

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

Jesus told the disciples in Matthew what His mindset was with others and that they should have the same mindset.

Matthew 20:25–28 ESV

But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The life of Jesus is marked by continuous service to others. To giving His life to others. To serving those who would eventually shout crucify and betray Him.

It is a life of considering the needs of others as greater than His needs.

Because He was first living a life in submissions to the Father’s will.

If our life’s are submitted to the Father’s will and that is exactly where we want to be then when others oppose us or persecute us, we can say like Christ and Stephen, Father, forgive them.

A meek person is able to say Matthew 5:39

Matthew 5:39 ESV

But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

A meek person can count it all joy when they are persecuted by others.

A meek person is like Paul.

1 Corinthians 15:9 ESV

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

1 Timothy 1:15 ESV

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

1 Corinthians 9:19 ESV

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.

Jesus and Paul lived lives that are the example of loving God first and then others second.

Jesus said,John 15:12-13

John 15:12–13 ESV

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Look, because we have our eyes fixed on God, studying Him, pursuing to know Him more, we see how not great we are in comparison to Him and how apart from Him, we can do nothing.

This will create a poor spirit.

When we allow the Spirit to let us experience the grief caused by our sins and we are able to be comforted by that same Spirit, we will mourn our sins properly.

This will create in us a meek heart.

How can those first two things be true and pride still dominate the heart and mind of a person?

How can we approach Him thinking that we know everything about Him?

How can we not be flexible to His Word?

How can we think we know better and resist His will for our lives?

How can we think of ourselves and our interest as more significant than others?

So, blessed is the meek.

Blessed are those who have a true view of God and themselves.

Blessed are those whose attitudes and conduct a heart that is flexible to God’s Word and submitted to His will.

Blessed are those whose confidence is in the Lord.

Blessed are those who do not see themselves as more significant than others and are willing to lay down their lives for others.

For they shall inherit the Earth.

I think this has two meanings.

There is one aspect that talks our inheritance is the Kingdom of God that will be established on Earth in Revelations. In the end, we will be inheritors of a heavenly kingdom here on Earth.

We will dwell in the presence of our God uninterrupted for eternity!

Jesus’ inheritance has become our’s now. We are co-heirs with Christ.

There is another aspect of inheriting the earth that we receive as well.

And that is what we have in the promises of Christ.

Psalm 23:1 ESV

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Romans 8:31 ESV

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Matthew 19:26 ESV

But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Philippians 4:13 ESV

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Romans 8:28 ESV

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Ephesians 1:3 ESV

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

Every spiritual blessing!

There is nothing in this world that is not possible when we are walking in meekness before the Lord!

Who can stand against us?

Who can hinder the promises of the Lord?

We can do all things through Him!

With Christ leading your life, anything on this Earth is possible!

AW Tozer says,

The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he may actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One.

A meek person looks not to the world to search for that which he desires to inherent but looks at the world God has given him and is content with the blessed gifts of God in their life.

When we live lives in meekness to God, surrendered and confident in Him and His will, we are gaining everything in the One. The rest of the things of this world will not seem like must as they pass away from our lives as we receive the fullness of our all in all.

Our inheritance is not the things of this world but the fullness of the King of the world.

Blesses are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Amen.