The Beatitudes: Blessed are the Meek

Introduction:

When I was in school, my favorite subject was social studies. As school progressed I became more and more fascinated with government, especially the theories behind government. I even majored in political science in my undergrad.

And we’d always have a project about designing the perfect government. It was always a fun exercise as we think through how to bring about the best society that meets the needs of the people.

Something that I always found interesting is that inevitably a lot of people would pick a monarchy with themselves as king or queen. Because when you know best, you need the power to enforce your vision.

And yes, I was King James. I even had my own Bible named after me.

Because even as kids we knew that in order to ensure that the kingdom is led exactly how you want it, you need the absolute power to enforce laws and punish all disobedience.

To be sure we were arrogant kids who thought we knew better than anyone else.

But to be fair, it’s hard not to see that God’s perfect kingdom is a monarchy with Christ as King.

Because the only way to have a perfect kingdom is to have a perfect king.

So we need to understand from the very beginning that the sermon on the mount is about a perfect kingdom dictating the rules of His kingdom.

And Jesus starts not with the laws, but with the people. Because every government on earth even the really bad ones are dealing with fallen and sinful people who left to their own devices do evil things.

So the beatitudes deal with what kind of people get to be a part of this kingdom.

And while the invitation is sent out to all, there are expectations that may exclude some people.

This is what Jesus means in Matthew 22:14

Matthew 22:14 ESV

14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Now to be sure the kingdom has been inaugurated in heaven as Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father but it has not been inaugurated on earth yet.

So we live in the in between.

We live as citizens of heaven and citizens of, in our case, the US.

So the question emerges, where does your loyalty really lie?

Which kingdom are you living for?

To be sure there is cross over and that whole question can get messy which is why we don’t mix politics with religion. But we should participate in this world. We should vote our consciences. Each one of us has to figure out how to navigate that divide.

But we should also keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and His kingdom first. Ands when we step in, we step in as representatives and ambassadors of the kingdom of God.

And the laws and expectations of God’s kingdom always supercede those of any earthly kingdom or government.

But as we have said through the last few weeks, it begins with attitude.

Before we get to today’s beatitude, we have to first understand the relationship between each beatitude. Each one clearly follows from what came before because there is logical connection. Jesus isn’t haphazardly naming qualities He wants in HIs people. The build.

The foundation is poor in spirit which focuses on our need for God and utter dependence upon Him.

Last week we looked how we mourn our sin and then how this begins to shape the way we look at the world and we mourn for the world as well.

And today we come to our 3rd beatitude.

Read: Matthew 5:5

Matthew 5:5 ESV

5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Beatitude #3: BLESSED ARE THE MEEK.

But—and I want to emphasize this—we not only find this logical connection between them. I would point out, also, that these Beatitudes as they proceed become increasingly difficult

We should probably try to understand what Meekness is before we get to far into this.

Let’s start by identifying what it’s not.

It’s not weakness.

It’s not niceness.

It’s not about gentleness for the sake of not causing a stir.

Like we have said from the very beginning, our model for each of these beatitudes is Jesus.

Jesus was the epitome of poor in spirit in that He made Himself completely dependent upon the Father and the Spirit.

Jesus was the epitome of mourning as He mourned over the sin and wickedness of His people and His city.

So if we want to know what meekness is we have to look to Jesus. And again we don’t have to go beyond Matthew.

Matthew 12:17–21 ESV

17 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: 18 “Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. 19 He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; 20 a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; 21 and in his name the Gentiles will hope.”

Jesus welcomes the outcast and the rejected. Not for the sake of them being outcasts and rejects but that He might change them and make them like Himself.

Again…

Matthew 11:28–30 ESV

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

This is a call to all who have labored to get right with God and have been told that their best isnt’ good enough. Jesus is gentle with and lowly in heart to the humble and downcast.

Now contrast this with His response to the religious leaders…

Matthew 21:12–14 ESV

12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” 14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

So how do we reconcile these 2 reactions with the call to be meek.

I love how one pastor describes meekness.

“Strength under control.” (Matt Chandler)

Because as we learned last week we are called to be bold. We are called to be courageous. To correct error and to warn and invite the lost.

If you’ve ever seen the Lord of the Rings or read the book, you have 2 very good pictures of meekness.

Aragorn and Samwise Gamgee. Never impulsive. Never arrogant. Never selfish. Always holding the bigger picture with grace.

But they know when to fight and have the courage to stand firm and sacrifice everything. Even when other don’t understand them.

Meekness is about courageous strength with a gentle heart.

And of course our Lord and King Jesus is the epitome ofbeing meek in His strength and in His gentleness.

And we are called to follow His example.

Peter said it this way:

1 Peter 3:15 ESV

15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

So how to we get there?

1. MEEKNESS is the result of a godly PERSPECTIVE.

Again, we recognize that these beatitudes are build off of one another.

First you are poor in spirit and fully dependent upon God. This leads to mourning over our sin and the sin of the world that leads us to the cross for our own salvation and leads to our knees as we plead with God for the souls of our friends and family.

Dependence on God and mourning for sin leads to a perspective of meekness.

Meekness if very different from simple humility and lowliness. And there is such thing as false humility and there is cowardly meekness.

Biblical meekness is never cowardly.

Meekness without being poor in spirit leads to cowardice.

Matthew, vols. 1-4:The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: The Meaning of Meekness

The essential difference between being poor in spirit and being meek, or gentle, may be that poverty in spirit focuses on our sinfulness, whereas meekness focuses on God’s holiness. The basic attitude of humility underlies both virtues. When we look honestly at ourselves, we are made humble by seeing how sinful and unworthy we are; when we look at God, we are made humble by seeing how righteous and worthy He is.

Now something you may not know is that in Matthew 5:5 we have to understand that Jesus is quoting Psalm 37. Jesus had a very high view of the OT testament and would often point people there to answer their tough questions. Have you not read? So whenever Jesus quotes the OT, we should go to that passage to fully understand what he is saying. Let’s read…

Psalm 37 ESV

Of David. 1 Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! 2 For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. 3 Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. 4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. 6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. 7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices! 8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. 9 For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. 10 In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. 11 But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.

Explanation: There are 2 things that this Psalm addresses. How the people of God think about God and how they think about the world they live in.

There are several commands here.

Fret not

Trust

Delight

Commit

Be still and wait patiently

Fret not

Refrain from anger and forsake wrath

It is the people that can follow these commands that are then called the Meek.

So as we mourn over the world, we do not fret over what evil people do and we are not envious of what they have.

They will get what is coming to them. All sin will be accounted for in the end, either at the cross or in hell. So nobody is getting away with anything.

The meek trust in the look and endeavor to do good to all but especially to others of the faith.

One of my favorite verses is Psalm 37:4

Psalm 37:4 ESV

4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Not only does God give us the desires of our heart but changes our hearts so we desire the right things. He literally teaches our heart what to desire.

Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him and he will act for HIs glory and our good.

verse 6 says that he will use you to point others to Him. Your righteousness and justice are a light. We’ll get to that when we talk about how “You are the light of the world.”

Notice what is happening in this Psalm…as the world gets more and more evil, God tells us to not fret, not worry, but to trust in Him.

To Wait patiently for him.

Illustration:

Application: Meekness is about keeping your focus on God and His plan for your life and the world. It’s about keeping your eyes so fixed on eternal things that you keep a loose grip on the things of this world.

And when you are meek, you will be single mindedly focused on Jesus. You will live to please Him and Him alone.

We are to leave everything—ourselves, our rights, our cause, our whole future—in the hands of God, and especially so if we feel we are suffering unjustly

2. MEEKNESS leads to godly ATTITUDES about GOD, SELF, and OTHERS.

Explanation: This is kind of like the what came first the chicken or the egg type situation. Does meekness lead to godly attitudes or does it stem from godly attitudes about God, self and others.

A little of both.

On the one hand, in our salvation, God creates in us the ability to be meek in the way we look at life.

We begin to recognize that it is God that is ultimately in control of our life and this world. We stop fighting Him for control and let Him lead us in the direction we will go.

Just considering the Psalm.

Trust in the Lord

Delight yourself in the Lord

Commit your ways to the Lord. A second trust in HIm

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.

This is what Jesus wants from His people.

We spend so much time questioning His plan. Wondering where He is.

And rather than doing what He has told us to do, we sit idly twiddling our thumbs.

That’s what so many of His parables are about.

Matthew 24:43–46 ESV

43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. 45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.

And in doing this we stop seeing ourself as God and we start seeing ourselves as we really are.

We are servants of the most high God.

Check out what Jesus says in Luke 17:7-10

Luke 17:7–10 ESV

7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”

Sounds strange right? But this is our posture before God. Humility knowing that He is in control. Trusting that in control, God will do the right thing all the time.

This was Jesus’ posture before the Father.

Matthew 26:39 ESV

39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

Meekness is about confidence in God which frees you from worry and anixiety about yourself in the world.

Finally, the attitudes towards others.

Now to start we see as the Psalmist says, twice he says don’t fret or be envious about wrongdoers.

Refrain from anger and wrath.

The meek have a very different view of people because they see them not as the enemy to be beaten but sinners to be pitied.

For sure we understand as Paul says

Ephesians 6:12 ESV

12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

But it goes further than that with Jesus. Later in the sermon on the mount

Matthew 5:43–45 ESV

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Meekness means that we treat others well regardless of how they treat us.

Illustration: Many of us look at this world and think that we are losing because the wicked prosper while the faithful are persecuted.

Application: Again, trust that God is in control. Have a healthy view of self and think about others in terms of point them to Jesus.

We fight for the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

3. MEEKNESS is rewarded in UNEXPECTED WAYS.

Explanation: For they shall inherit the earth. What a bold statement. The only part of the earth that the Jewish people ever cared about is the land promised to Abraham which they are occupying at the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry and they still occupy today.

But they have always been in conflict. At the time of Jesus, Israel was conquered by the Roman empire. For them the Romans might as well have controled the whole world. And they figured that the only way to get rid of the Romans was revolt. And many tried to do it.

All of them failed.

We often think of the strong acquiring the earth because throughout history land had to be conquered by military might and then it had to be protected and kept by military might. Those with the might to take it from the weaker. So in order to protect what you love and those you love you have to be strong.

But over and over again, in the Old Testament God demonstrates that He is able to protect His people from their enemies. It’s not that they don’t have to do anything. It’s not that they don’t have to fight and go to war. But God often forces them to depend on Him and His power rather than numbers.

Look at the story of Gideon. Gideon had 32,000 soldiers to go against the 135,000 soldiers of the army of Midian and God said, 32,000 is too many. You can have 300. Why? Because if Gideon’s army won, they’d get the credit, even with 32,000. But with 300, everyone would know it was all God.

But Jesus says that the meek will inherit it. They won’t have to fight for it, it will be given to them as an inheritance.

Now I think we can go beyond this as well, especially when we pull in Psalm 37.

The meek are rewarded in other ways as well.

Because their attitudes about life create a beautiful life.

They are not worried about the things of this world.

They have meaning and purpose that transcends this life.

They don’t covet what evil people have or experience. They are content with what the Lord provides.

Illustration:

Application: Meekness trusts that the reward often comes later. Now what are we talking about here? Most likely it’s the meek who will join Jesus when the Kingdom of God is on the earth. Something that we don’t often acknowledge is that heaven is not our eternal dwelling place.

Heaven is the temporary dwelling of our souls when we die as we await the resurrection into a new heaven and a new earth.

Jesus’ kingdom will last forever and we will enter into it by trusting in Him completely.

But some of us spend more time fighting for this world which is going to be destoryed or purified with fire than we do fighting for the kingdom that is to come.

Response: Are you MEEK?

Summation:

Beatitude #3: BLESSED ARE THE MEEK.

1. MEEKNESS is the result of a godly PERSPECTIVE.

2. MEEKNESS leads to godly ATTITUDES about GOD, SELF, and OTHERS.

3. MEEKNESS is rewarded in UNEXPECTED WAYS.

Closing Illustration: Not let me be clear. It takes a lot of courage to be meek. You can’t be meek and be a coward.

I have a pastor friend that named His son Samwise after his favorite character in His favorite books and movies.

Samwise is not the main character in the story. It’s not about him. I know a lot of people are trying to say that Sam was the hero of the story, but it’s not really true.

Samwise is the one who supports the hero. And in this case, the heros are flawed.

And Sam’s meekness comes out when his courage has to overcome the failings of Frodo.

To stand before a giant spider, much like David in the Bible.

To carry Frodo much like Simon of Cyrene carried the cross of Jesus.

So many of us mistakenly believe that we are the main character in the story. We’re not.

Jesus is.

And we are just His servants. And it is our joy to serve with Meekness.

But let’s not forget that it begins with coming to Jesus poor in spirit and being filled with His grace and love.

The pathway to meekness is the Gospel of Grace.

So if you have never embraced Jesus as your Lord and savior, may today be the day.

Let’s pray.