Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction:
My name is Adam, I’m the pastor here at Abide church.
I’m also a professor in here at CBC.
I teach Accounting and Economics courses.
If you’re new, I want to thank you for visiting us and tell you that we’re really glad you’re here.
Continuing 1 year sermon series on “The Sermon On The Mountain”
Jesus came preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
The Sermon on the mountain is Jesus’ introduction to the “Kingdom”
Jesus opens this sermon with 9 “Blessed are” statements.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington, a professor at Souther Baptist Theological Seminary, and an expert in New Testament Studies, specifically Matthew and specifically the Sermon on the Mount.
Blessed = Makarios
Dr. Pennington describes Makarios as more than just “happy” or “fortunate” but as “holistically flourishing”
Jesus begins his public ministry by painting a picture of what the state of true God-centered human flourishing looks like.
He is making an appeal and casting an inspiring vision, even as the Psalms, Proverbs, and Isaiah do, for what true well-being looks like in God’s coming kingdom.
Today we look at the 3rd “blessed are” statement:
Blessed are the meek:
- The meaning
- The location
- The achieving
- The result
The meaning of “Blessed are the meek”
To understand how the meek are blessed, we need to understand the word “meek”
When I googled the definition of the word:
[SLIDE][SLIDE][SLIDE]
Meek = quiet, gentle, and easily imposed on; submissive.
On the face of it, this sounds bad.
So do the other “blessed are” statements we’ve looked at so far:
poor, sad, next week “hungry”
3 cultural reasons this sounds bad
1.
Our culture celebrates crazy
2. Our culture exults dominance
3. Our culture hates submission
Meekness is not virtuous inherently, but the question is the source of the meekness.
Just like mourning is not virtuous inherently, but mourning over sin results in blessedness.
Scribes and Pharisees
Also remember that pretty much everything Jesus taught in his sermon went directly against the attitudes of the Pharisees.
The Pharisees were constantly challenging Jesus
testing Jesus
accusing Jesus
The attitude of the Pharisees was opposite of meek
They were loud, harsh, judgmental, and quick to put others down to lift themselves up
Spiderman
Jesus is the supreme picture of meekness
Gentle = meek, same word
Jesus entire life demonstrates meekness, but some of Jesus’ most radical demonstrations of meekness are in the week prior to his crucifixion.
I want you to note here that the gentleness, the meekness of Jesus is NOT because of a lack of power or authority.
Nor is it an act of cowering
The gentleness is an act of care for others and an act of submission to God the Father.
When Jesus goes before the Jewish leaders and Pilate:
During this entire time,
Jesus is mocked
Jesus is beaten
Jesus is unjustly tried
Jesus is falsely accused
And he takes it all upon himself
Again, notice that it’s not a lack of ability, power, or authority.
His meekness is demonstrated in his loving sacrifice and his submission to God the Father
Let’s look at one more radical picture of meekness demonstrated by Jesus:
Yes, he could save himself, he could come down off the cross, he could have torn those people to shreds!
But no, how does Jesus respond:
Jesus demonstrates meekness for us beautifully.
And Jesus said,
Blessed are the meek
[SLIDE][SLIDE][SLIDE]
When Jesus asks us to be meek, to be gentle, he is not asking us to be week; he is asking us to trust his strength.
Meekness is a turning over of your right to fight and trusting God to fight for you.
To be meek means you have nothing to prove.
To be meek means to have peace no matter what your situation
Meekness comes from knowing you place in relation to God and knowing deep in your bones that God is in control.
The meek are gentle because they don’t have to fight for position; the meek receive their position confidently from God.
To be meek is to avoid the brawl, because you already stand in confidence on the winning side.
The location of “Blessed are the meek”
The kingdom belongs to those who recognize their condition before God.
Our spiritual condition is poor, beggar poor, destitute
It’s first on the list because if we don’t come to God openhanded acknowledging that we have nothing to offer, we have no place with Him.
This leads us naturally into a state of mourning over our sin.
As we realize our condition before God is poor, we mourn.
BUT GOD, comes to our help.
And he comforts us.
He was broken so we could be made whole.
And then we get to verse 5.
Now we have a meekness.
A gentleness.
A confidence not in ourselves but God.
Do you see how the first 2 statements lead us naturally into the 3rd?
The achieving of “Blessed are the meek”
How do we get this?
We need to first become poor in spirit and mourn over our sin.
[SLIDE][SLIDE][SLIDE]
We need to relinquish control of our life.
We need to resist the urge to fight and trust God to fight for us.
We need to look at the life of Jesus as our hero and stop believing the cultural narratives that are shoved in our face day in and day out.
The result of “Blessed are the meek”
This idea of inheriting the earth goes back to the garden of eden.
When God made made he charged man to take dominion over the earth and subdue it.
That is to rule over the earth.
The whole thing is broken now because of Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God.
Our call as Christians is to be the greatest servants the world has ever seen.
We are called to love each and love the world like Jesus loved us.
We are called to serve each other and serve the world like Jesus served us.
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