Blessed are the meek

Sermon on Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth.

Monday, May 11, 2020

8:20 AM

By way of recap from last week

We see how closely this follows the pattern that Jesus is teaching us. First must come by necessity Poverty of Spirit, recognizing our complete and utter poverty within ourselves before a holy God and our dependence on his loving merciful self. As we recognize our spiritual poverty then we can really mourn our sin and destitution, and no one can be Meek until they know their poverty and have begun to mourn their own condition. The beatitudes build on each other. So what is Jesus saying with this particular amazing statement that is so counter cultural and unnatural? He is not saying as Martin Luther points out: about how we become a Christian but only about the works and fruit that no one can do unless he already is a Christian and in a state of grace."

We are also powerfully once again made aware of the fact that we are Christian, we are different than the world, we are other, we are set apart we yield to a different master, we belong to a different Kingdom and our characters need to reflect the nature of the King we serve.

In Psalm 37:11 from where Jesus quotes Matt 5 verse 5 we get amore exhaustive explanation of what it means to be meek.

1.The Meek Trust in their God: Because they trust they are able to do good things, they live securely no matter what is going on in their lives. They delight in their God and see his blessings even here on earth. They trust him in the life decisions they make He acts on our behalf.

2. The Meek Wait for the Lord expectantly,

3. They control their anger and rage

4. The meek do not concern themselves with the prosperity or advancement of the wicked

5. They do not go after revenge trusting in their God to bring them justice.

And through the whole Psalm he reminds us that we shall inherit the land and prosper, be satisfied, never abandoned, dwell there permanently,

In Our Culture we do not look at meekness as a valued character trait,

we don't celebrate meekness in our culture. Instead, we celebrate assertiveness. We celebrate getting things from other people, sometimes even taking advantage of other people. When is the last time you saw a movie that celebrated the virtue of meekness? When is the last time the big buildup for the movie was the moment when the good guy meekly restrains himself, even though he was wronged? We don't want to go to a movie like that. We want to see a payback movie in which the first half consists of bad things happening to the hero, and the last half consists of bad things that come to the people who did those things to the hero. That is what entertains us. That is what our culture celebrates.

John Piper maintains that Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount so that his Father would get the glory for the way the disciples lived. His aim was to create a lifestyle in his disciples that would make people think about the value of God.

To the Jews of Jesus time this message would have stirred some deep resentment because their view of the coming Kingdom was one of kicking out the Roman oppressors by violence, a king that would lead an army to victory. But Jesus had a vastly different Kingdom in mind and a different method of conquering the World " I say unto you Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" What are you talking about Jesus no one takes over a country by love this is not the way it is done! So we are beginning to see that Jesus had a very different training program for his disciples than any standing army in existence. This army would march to a tune of meekness and Love

It’s the kind of army that Dr Martin Luther King led in the civil rights movement in the 50,60 his famous sermon at Christmas in 1957 at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama,

To our most bitter opponents we say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you.

Meekness does not mean weakness which is what is so often perceived by the world. None of the martyrs would be considered weak maybe stupid, simple, crazy but never weak they were prepared to die for what they believed and gladly so. Huge Latimer Bishop of Worcester was arrested for treason and for heresy as he was being burned at the stake in 1555 along with Nicholas Ridley Whether, as the flames were kindled, Latimer really said, ‘Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as shall never be put out’ is uncertain.

The remark, if Latimer made it, came ultimately from the account of the martyrdom of Polycarp in the second century.

Lloyd Jones

Sums up Meekness in this way: "Meekness is essentially a true view of oneself, expressing itself in attitude and conduct with respect to others. It is therefore two things. It is my attitude towards myself; and it is an expression of that in my relationship to others."

But if we are to be truly meek we must not only ‘stay the angry blow’, we must get into that state and condition in which we do not feel like doing it at all. We must control the lips and the mouth, and not say the things we feel like saying. You cannot spend time with a verse like this without its humbling you. It is true Christianity; it is the thing for which we are called and for which we are meant.

John Bunyan puts it perfectly.

‘He that is down need fear no fall.’ When a man truly sees himself, he knows nobody can say anything about him that is too bad. You need not worry about what men may say or do; you know you deserve it all and more.

We see meekness in the life of David in dealing with the oppression of Saul when his men constantly urged him to retaliate. 1 Samuel 24:12-15. We see it in Moses, in Numbers 12:3-16 pleading for Miriam's healing after they got on his case about his marital arrangements. And of course, we see it in Jesus when he referred to his own meekness in Matthew 11:28-30” “Come unto me all who are burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me because I am lowly and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.” Phil 2:5-11,

John Calvin-

“So if in the course of life we endure many difficulties, we do not have to look far for the explanation: the pain men suffer comes from their fellow men. It is, of course, true that people all have their excuses. They want nothing better, they say, than to be gentle and mild-mannered, and to show patience toward those among whom they live. But, they add, it is not possible to deny our human nature:

we must hunt with the hounds, because to be a sheep is to risk becoming someone else’s dinner. That, then, is the excuse usually offered by men to cloak their actions.

As for us, we must constantly return to what God’s Son declares to us, for what he says is eternally true and trustworthy. Let us be clear about this: provided, as he says, we exercise self-control and are patient, provided we possess that gentleness which he requires of us and to which he calls us, we will inherit the whole earth. With thankful, free and open hearts we will enjoy the good things which God in his kindness provides for us here. We are assured too that we will always be at peace, whatever troubles we are in.

That said, we should recognize that this promise is not yet totally fulfilled. It is enough that today we experience its truth in part. Scripture rightly says that the last day is the day of our redemption, the day on which God’s children will be revived and restored. So we must patiently wait to possess the inheritance which Christ has promised, and to claim the earth as his gift to us. We should be content to pursue our course to the end and complete our earthly pilgrimage. Regardless of where we are, regardless of the trials we bear and the oppression and losses we endure, we should, I say, be content to trust God’s assurance, and the testimony of our conscience, that all will be ours because we are his children and heirs.