Valley View Chapel June 10, 2012 Credibility 101, Part 4 Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Transcription

1 1 Valley View Chapel June 10, 2012 Credibility 101, Part 4 Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth Introduction Today we re looking at the third beatitude Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5 (NIV) Unfortunately the word meek is more often than not, misunderstood. I checked out a few dictionaries and here s what I found when I looked up the word meek : deficient in spirit and courage ; not violent or strong ; overly submissive or compliant ; spiritless. It seems like meek is a synonym for weak in the English language. Why would Jesus pronounce a blessing on spiritless, cowardly, and overly compliant people? That is perhaps why certain translations search for another word to describe the blessed person. The NLT renders Matthew 5:5, God blesses those who are humble. (NLT) Eugene Peterson in The Message put it this way: "You're blessed when you're content with just who you are no more, no less. (Msg) But the word meek rightly understood is the perfect word to describe what Jesus is trying to communicate. It does not mean deficient in spirit and courage ; not violent or strong ; overly submissive or compliant ; spiritless. It can t, because Jesus twice commanded his disciples to take courage in Matthew 14:27 and Mark 6:50. After Peter and John boldly testified before the religious authorities of their faith in Christ, we re told the reaction of the Jewish leaders: When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished. Acts 4:13 (NIV) Nevertheless the people of Jesus day must have been as perplexed as most people are today when they heard Jesus exalt the trait of meekness. John MacArthur observed: The Jews hoped for deliverance to come through the Messiah. He would throw off the yoke of Roman bondage and establish a Jewish state. They did not expect a humble and meek Messiah. The idea of a meek Messiah leading meek people was ridiculous. And we don t understand how the quality of meekness contributes in any way to where we want to go in life. Who makes it to the top in the corporate, academic, political, and athletic worlds? Isn t it the people who are self-sufficient, aggressive, and ambitious?

2 2 So we re puzzled by this beatitude. Assuming that meekness isn t weakness, we still have trouble grasping what it really looks like. And we have trouble understanding why it s so essential for Christian credibility in a skeptical world. Moses Sometimes we can understand a concept better if we can see an example or two. The Bible obliges us by providing two outstanding examples of meek men. The first is Moses. We re told in Numbers 12:3, Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth. (ESV) Of all the adjectives that might describe Moses, meek would have been the last on my list! In Exodus 2:11 we re told that when he saw an Egyptian beating up a Hebrew slave, he killed the Egyptian. After Moses received the Ten Commandments on two tablets of stone, he came down the mountain to find the people in an orgy of idolatry, worshiping a golden calf. His response seemed anything but meek : When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it. Exodus 32:19-20 (NIV) Does that sound like a spiritless, overly compliant man who was deficient in courage? The Scottish biblical scholar William Barclay declared: History has never seen a leader with more strength and force of character than Moses, nor a leader with a greater gift of righteous anger, when there was occasion for it. Jesus The second sterling example of meekness in the Bible is none other than Jesus himself! He used the same word found in Matthew 5:5 in Matthew 11:29 to describe himself:

3 3 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart. Matthew 11:29 (KJV) While most translations use the word gentle instead of meek, it s the same Greek word found in Matthew 5:5. Moreover, Jesus knowingly fulfilled Zechariah s prophecy when he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday: "Say to the Daughter of Zion, 'See, your king comes to you, gentle [same Greek word for meek ] and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'" Matthew 21:5 (NIV) Yet this meek man twice overturned the tables of the merchants and money changers in the Temple; confronted the most powerful religious leaders in Israel on numerous occasions and branded them hypocrites, blind guides, and whitewashed tombs; faced down the demons of hell again and again and each time, he overpowered them. This meek man endured without flinching, compromising, or asking for mercy the worst death imaginable. Many things can be said about Jesus but it can never be said that he was spiritless, overly compliant, and deficient in courage. The meaning of meek The Greek word praus (pra-ooce) was used in a number of contexts. It described a soothing medicine; a refreshing breeze; and a horse that had been broken. An overdose of medicine, a hurricane force wind, and an unbroken stallion can be incredibly destructive, even fatal. But they can also be agents of healing, refreshment, and usefulness. A young soldier in the Peloponnesian War (5 th century B.C. between Athens and Sparta) wrote to his fiancé about a gift he had for her. It was a white stallion. He described it as the most magnificent animal I have ever seen. He responds obediently to the slightest command. He allows his master to direct him to his full potential. He is a meek horse. The horse possessed great spirit but was submissive to his rider. So what is meekness? It is power under control. Jesus promised a rich blessing on those who are able to keep their power under control; people who use their power like a soothing medicine, a gentle breeze, and an obedient horse. In his treatise entitle Nicomachean Ethics the Greek philosopher Aristotle said this about the meek man: He feels anger on the right grounds, against the right persons, in the right manner, at the right moment, and for the right length of time.

4 4 He amplified his thoughts about the self-control of the meek man in his tract titled Virtues and Vices: To the meek belongs the ability to bear reproaches and slights with moderation, and not to embark on revenge quickly, and not to be easily provoked to anger, but to be free from bitterness and contentiousness, having tranquility and stability in spirit. Just one problem, Aristotle! Nobody can live this way! Raise your hand if every single time you ve been in an anger-producing situation, you feel anger on the right grounds, against the right persons, in the right manner, at the right moment, and for the right length of time? What Aristotle held up as ultimate meekness is impossible for unaided men and women to achieve. There s only one man who ever lived up to Aristotle s standard and it wasn t Aristotle. It was the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone 100 times out of 100 felt anger on the right grounds, against the right persons, in the right manner, at the right moment, and for the right length of time. This kind of wisdom, patience, and self-control comes only from the Holy Spirit. No one is born with it. No one can get better at it, like you can improve your golf or tennis game with practice. You can t get it by imitating meek people. Certainly self-discipline can t give it to you. Think again about the soothing medicine, the gentle breeze, and the obedient horse. When the medicine is given according to the doctor s orders, it does its healing work. When the gentle breeze cools us and refreshes us, it s simply following the instructions of the Creator. When the horse responds to the command of the jockey, he s yielding his will to the man in the saddle. So what is the key to meekness? What is the secret to being a person whose power is under control and whose power is used for good purposes and not harmful ones? Like the healing medicine, we need to live our lives according to the doctor s orders. Like the gentle breeze, we need to follow the instructions of our Creator. Like the obedient horse, we need to submit our will to the will of one who holds the reins. In the first message in this series, I said that none of the Beatitudes come naturally. If we are going to integrate these transformational truths into our lives, we have to cast

5 5 ourselves upon the power and the grace of God. Each and every time I read the Beatitudes, I need to lift my eyes heavenward and confess: I can t, but you can! I can t be meek, but Jesus who lives in me can be meek. Jesus, live your life in me! Inherit the earth Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Charles Darwin championed the idea of the survival of the fittest. Jesus said that Darwin got it wrong. It s the survival of the meekest. Those who are under the mastery of Christ will inherit the earth. Notice right away that an inheritance is a gift. It s not something we have earned or deserve. An inheritance is a gift freely given by the generosity of the benefactor. So whatever it means to inherit the earth it is never to be interpreted as a reward for a lifetime of meekness. Since meekness is only possible through the operation of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we can t take credit for it anyway. It s pretty obvious that Jesus was referring to a time in the future because the meek are not in control of earthly affairs in The wealthy, the arrogant, the movers-andshakers, and the ambitious call the shots. But Jesus said that it will not always be so. The meek will one day inherit the earth. I love what Haddon Robinson said about the third beatitude: The lions and tigers should be in control; the lambs should not be around anymore. If we were betting people, no doubt we would place our money on the eagle rather than the sparrow. Yet the lion, the tiger, and the eagle are endangered species. Plenty of sparrows and lambs! If we re one of Jesus lambs, we will one day inherit the earth. The rich, the strong, and the influential will be nowhere to be found. Jesus said to his disciples: You have followed me. In the re-creation of the world, when the Son of Man will rule gloriously, you who have followed me will also rule. Matthew 19:28 (Msg) Paul announced to the Corinthians: Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? 1 Corinthians 6:2 (NIV) I don t know exactly how Jesus is going to do it but those who have put him first and not their own personal comfort, convenience and ambition, will rule and reign with him when

6 6 he returns to set up his earthly kingdom. That will be the fulfillment of Matthew 5:5 when the meek will inherit the earth. Conclusion Perhaps no one captured better the essence of meekness better than A.W. Tozer in his book The Pursuit of God: The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather, he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is, in the sight of God, more important than angels.... He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. So, here s our beatitude for the week: Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Matthew 5:4 (NIV)