March 26, 2017 - MORNING WORSHIP

First Baptist Church of Manchester

The Sermon Jesus Preached

Matthew 5:5-6

Blessings of

the Kingdom – part 2

Pastor David Saylor March 26, 2017

READ Psalm 37:3-11

Today with the Lord’s help we shall look at two more of the beatitudes that begin the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 5:5–6 (NIV)5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Last week, we saw that these 8 blessings have 6 of them “sandwiched” between 2. That tells us that the promises of these beatitutes belong to those who are in the Kingdom of Heaven which is here already, but so much more so in the future.

We looked at the first two. Spiritual poverty and mourning (which taken alone are an entrance into the Kingdom of Christ) and now we continue with meekness….

Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Once again, we need to understand what Jesus means by the words he uses. What does it mean to be a meek person?

This is harder to answer than you may first think, because there seems to be no one English word that really says it, including “meek.” The GK. word Jesus used is also translated “gentle” or “humble” in many other New Testament passages, and those words help, but still don’t fully convey to us the Biblical meaning.

The one thing it is not referring at all, is shall we say, a born “personality type”. To most people today, meek means a person who is weak or lacking spirit, perhaps a wallflower or even cowardly. This is not about being a weak pushover type of person, or even just a gentle person, by nature. NO, no, no!

Strength Under Control

What Jesus is talking about is more about the demeanor and comportment of a person, not their weak nature. They are balanced and non-aggressive in their response to things, but they are strong.

Southern horse breeders, for example, are known to hold to the premise that "the meekest horse wins the race." By that they mean that the true champion is the horse, that extremely powerful, but He responds to his trainer. That champion horse is the picture of strength under control.

First it means "Strength Under Control."

So first, meekness has to do with strength, but a strength that is responsive to authority. By extension, the word was then used of persons who also knew how to behave.[1] (Gentleman).

(infomercials) But wait….There’s More!

An Allusion to Psalm 37

Probably the best place to go is in Psalm 37, because Jesus spoke this beatitude as a quotation or allusion to Psalm 37:11. But the meek will inherit the land

” And the word for “land” in Greek and Hebrew also means “earth.” Almost an exact quote.

So let’s try to see what meekness means in this Psalm.

The Meek Who Wait for the Lord

Notice the parallel between verse 11 and verse 9. Verse 11 says, “The meek shall inherit the land.” Verse 9b says, “Those who hope in (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.

Psalm 37:5–8 (NIV)

5 Commit (roll) your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: 6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.

8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.

What are these people like who, according to verse 11, are meek and, according to verse 9, wait for the Lord?

Well, verse 5 says they commit (roll) their way to the Lord and trust in the Lord.

George Mueller: “How to you maintain your composure and joy?” “I rolled 60 things off me and onto the lord this morning.”

Verse 7 says they are quiet or wait before the Lord and do not fret over others who prosper.
And verse 8 says they refrain from anger and forsake wrath.
Definition so far - Strength Under The Control Of The Lord

But Wait, There’s Even More!

To see another feature of the portrait of meekness let’s turn to the book of James. We will read James 1:19–21 (humble = meek)

9 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly (with meekness) accept the word planted in you, which can save you..

Two Kinds of People

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 someone doesn’t agree with him/her or questions their opinion. Ready to argue. We have all met such people.

On the other hand James pictures another kind of person. This person is slow to speak, and quick to listen (verse 19). If he hears something new or contrary to his own view, his first reaction is not fretful anger. He is slow to anger. He listens and considers. And when it comes to the word of God, he receives it with meekness. That’s a meek person.

Wait, Wait, there’s MORE

A Portrait of the Meek

So let’s try to put all this together into a portrait of the meek.

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. We get out of the drivers seat and put God in it.

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 fretful anger. But instead we hand our cause over to God and let him vindicate us if he chooses. You have “Strength under God’s control”. (it’s a fruit of the Spirit – God creates this in his people)

Inherit the Earth?

Now let’s turn our attention to the second half of the beatitude:

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

The Effect Jesus Wants This Promise to Have

What effect does Jesus want this promise to have on his disciples? I think the answer is that he wants all the promises in the beatitudes to give us the strength to carry them out.

This is the way the promise works in verse 12: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.” 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 which is largely referring to the fulfillment in the coming Messianic Kingdom, is now intended by the Lord to give us the strength to react in meekness when the natural inclination would be to defend ourselves or retaliate or give way to fretful anger.

All Things Are Yours

Someday everything on earth will be yours, so even before that, now, we can relax, sit back and not be grasping for more - it’s all coming to you eventually.

Maybe you can try this. Next time you see some really nice thing – say a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Go up to the owner, ask him to please take very good care of it. When he asks “why?” tell him “because someday that is going to be mine! I’m inheriting it.!”

And just as this helps us not to have a grasping attitude toward the vain pleasures of the world, and the fretting that we don’t have what someone else has, so we don’t’ have to be fretful or angry in our in our dealings with other people.

Matthew 5:6

Matthew 5:6 (NIV)6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

1. What Is the Righteousness Jesus Is Talking About?

It’s a BIG word. We know that we have no righteousness before a holy God, but that Christ’s righteousness is given to us. It is God’s perfection, but also it is “righteous actions” in accordance.

This beatitude is not a quote from the Old Testament but the word "righteousness" occurs five times in this sermon (5:6, 10, 20; 6:1, 33). So the best way to catch on to Jesus' meaning in this sermon is to look at these others.

So let's look at the ones that are closest.

Persecuted for Righteousness' Sake

The next use is found in verse 10. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." What does righteousness mean here when it says, "persecuted for righteousness' sake"?

The Structure of the Beatitudes

To answer this, it helps to see the structure of the beatitudes again. You recall from last week our “Beatitude Sandwich”? There are eight beatitudes with verse 10 as the last one, both giving the same words of assurance. It kind of looks like a sandwich: the top piece of bread and the bottom piece of bread both say, "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

What we didn't notice yet is that it’s more like a “double cheeseburger” – that in the 8 fillings, there are two groups of four, and the first four and the second four end with a reference to "righteousness." Verse 6 and verse 10.

Emptiness and Longing for Fullness

The more you ponder it, the more significant this becomes. Notice that the three beatitudes leading up to hunger for righteousness in verse 6 are descriptions of emptiness or passivity: poverty-stricken in spirit (verse 3), mourning over our sin and our pain (verse 4), meekly leaning into God, without retaliation or defensiveness (verse 5).

They are beautiful and good in their proper place, but they in a sense, empty us of ourselves. They leave us with a spiritual hunger to be filled. With what? V.6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness"—those who long to be filled with righteousness?

The first four beatitudes express in one way or another our dependence on God; the next three the outworking of that dependence. [2]

Fullness and Persecution

Then look at the next three beatitudes. This is just what we find. After hunger and filling in verse 6 comes, "Blessed are the merciful" (in verse 7). Now the blessed person is full and overflowing in active mercy. He is not merely broken and sorrowful and meek. He is now active and overflowing with deeds of mercy.

Verse 8 says that he is pure in heart and verse 9 says that he is not just peaceful, but a peacemaker.

Then this second group of four beatitudes ends with another reference to righteousness. Only this time it is not a hunger for righteousness which we were lacking, but a persecution for the righteousness with which they/we are overflowing in.

A Definition of Righteousness

Do you see the structure? The first four beatitudes describe the broken, grieving, trusting, waiting person who hungers and thirsts for righteousness. And the next four beatitudes describe the merciful, pure peacemaker who gets persecuted for his/her righteousness.

I think this structure, then, gives us the definition of righteousness? If we were hungering for righteousness in verse 6 because we were empty, and then we get persecuted for righteousness in verse 10 because we've been filled, then the righteousness that fills us is—namely, mercy, purity, and peacemaking? These are the root sources of a righteous life (that we shall see expanded in Matt. 5:20 ff)

And we shall look at these 3 things in the future weeks.

2. Filled – with what?

6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled

Filled with what? It doesn’t actually specify. I think the answer is two-fold.

Note first, it doesn’t say we can create the “righteousness” (Christlikeness) but that we “long or hunger for it”. Only God can do it as we lean in on Christ.

We will be filled with mercy, pure hearts and peacemaking. – i.e., the righteous kind of life as God empowers it in us.

-That means we will be filled with Christ himself. Christ himself yields “Christlikeness”.

Survey. Those who read Bible are ones who share Christ with others….

Filled also means satisfaction. Our hunger will be satisfied.

Some of the most evocative words in the Old Testament come from Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.,

What does this mean: that God has put eternity in man's mind and yet has withheld from us the vision of what he has done from everlasting to everlasting?

Restlessness and Longing

Restlessness and longing are universal traits of the human heart.

Augustine said it like this: Thou madet us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it rest in Thee.

Isaiah put it like this in Isaiah 55:2–3 2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. 3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. …

God has put eternity in our hearts and we have an inescapable longing. Many try to satisfy it with things: scenic vacations, accomplishments of creativity, sexual exploits, careers, national sports drugs and alcohol, etc., etc. But the longing remains.

As Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 2:13 “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.:

Many are like this, perhaps you. Your soul is hungry and your heart is thirsty. You feel an insatiable longing for something. You are restless. Almost everywhere you turn, the grass is greener than where you stand.

And the great tragedy is that even though this is the Spirit of God beckoning you to himself, you turn away again and again to short-term, temporary, pleasures of success or things.

And it all turns to ashes in your hands.

The thrill of lust leaves the residue of guilt and loneliness.

The drugs and alcohol can't keep you from waking up in the real world again and again with your messed-up relationships.

The tan fades so quickly.

And the new toy is so boring in just a few weeks.

We drink at broken cisterns. And we eat bread which does not satisfy. And the words of C.S. Lewis ring more and more true. He said,

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

Jesus Has Something to Say About Longing

Remember where we are? Jesus said:

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled - satisfied."

Do you want your longing satisfied? Here is where you find it.

In Jesus Christ.

You come

With spiritual poverty

Morning for your sin

Turning and trusting him, rolling your life onto him

Those three will bring you into His kingdom…and to Christ.

The conclusion of this study is that where there is this desire for righteousness there will be filling. And the filling will be Christ himself.

When the prodigal son left home he expected to find complete satisfaction. He wanted to live; and life to him meant money, clothes, food, companionship, and fun times. Instead of these things he found poverty, rags, hunger, loneliness, and misery. When he was hungry he turned to feeding swine. It was only when he was finally starving that he turned back to his father.

In his father’s company he found all he had thought to find in the world. His father clothed him, fed him, welcomed him, and rejoiced in his return.

How sad if you should turn from the One who guarantees satisfaction in life to things that will never satisfy for long! How blessed for you to return to the Father[3] AND BE SATISFIED.

PRAYER

To the disciples who had witnessed the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves in Galilee he added, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).

Have you drunk deeply at that spring and fed on that bread? Or are you still feeding on things that do not satisfy?

James Montgomery Boice, The Sermon on the Mount: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2002), 33. ↑
Leon Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1992), 100. ↑
James Montgomery Boice, The Sermon on the Mount: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2002), 42. ↑