Blessed are the Meek

We are in Matthew, the gospel of Matthew, we are looking at the Beatitudes of Jesus in his sermon on the Mount. Hear the word of the Lord. Matthew 5, seeing the crowds Jesus went up on the mountain and when he sat down his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth, the word of the Lord. The crowds are all around, the Jesus seeks a little refuge from the crowds and moves on up kind of into the mountains to what Luke tells us is kind of a flat place on the mountains, kind of a plain level place and his disciples come to him. The other crowd begins to move toward him as well I'm sure but Jesus teaches his disciples and what Jesus is trying to impress upon them and will be for the rest of his earthly ministry right on up to the last minute before he ascends back into heaven. Jesus is trying to get across to his disciples the nature of the kingdom of God God has a kingdom. It is embodied in the king himself. All the promises of old is that God would come and would raise up the son of David to sit upon the throne of David and that throne is an eternal everlasting throne. Jesus comes and they begin to recognizing he makes claims. He begins to teach them about the nature of that kingdom and that's what he's going to do. He has, we're looking at the discourses of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew this entire year and later on he'll have parables about the kingdom, teaching them the nature of the kingdom and one of the first things they have to understand about the kingdom of God is it is not like the kingdoms of this world. The kingdoms of this world are bent, are built by men who are men of aggression, of assertion of themselves, men who have what we call that charismatic dynamic leadership in which they're together around them a cadre of forceful people who are able then to in contrantic circles move out and enforce and organize and draw people by their own free will at first to the movement for power but then eventually gain such power that they're able to coerce others then they are to subjugate vassal states and vassal peoples and that's how the tribal and the kingdoms of this world have developed. Jesus is saying his kingdom is not like that, his kingdom is one in which he himself embodies all of the authority, all of the power and that he himself will by his own work first in humility upon this earth and upon a cross and in a tomb and then by power as he comes out of the tomb of sins to heaven to sit upon the throne and to rule over the nations and over his people and gather a citizenship into that kingdom one by one by one of both Jews and Gentiles he will gather a citizenry into that kingdom and then one day he will come in military power and bring the kingdom which will last forever and ever and ever but he's in the process of redeeming, of making all things new, of making new creatures in himself, new creatures in Christ, a new creation that will culminate one day in a new heaven and a new earth and an entire new creation but it's temporal it's in time now and it has to take on a certain character so Jesus is telling them he first talked about the poor in spirit we talked last week about the poverty of spirit recognizing that we have come to the end of ourselves we saw also blessed are those who mourn they shall be comforted we talk about the primary morning is to be that morning that sorrow that godly sorrow for sin that repentance that calls us to humbly place ourselves at the feet of our Savior calling for mercy and we talked about the nature of the kingdom a little more and we shall a little more this morning begin to get a little bit more of a glimpse into the nature of that kingdom but the kingdoms of this world are kingdoms of self assertion self assurance and self expression that the kingdom of god is one where a man and a woman finds quite the opposite the one that is called to be blessed or to be given the fulfilment in the outpouring of the blessing of god are those who are meek blessed or the meek that's our title today blessed or the meek for they shall inherit the earth we saw last week that the promise was that the poor in spirit theirs is the kingdom of god the kingdom of heaven and we pointed out that so often we talk about building enlarging and extending the kingdom advancing the kingdom but the Bible doesn't use that language the Bible uses the language of seeing the kingdom receiving the kingdom there's a difference we've got to get in our minds right away that it is that which god has himself planned which he himself will build and order and Jesus told his disciples that little fledgling band a little cadre of faltering men he said it is the father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom it's just totally different from what we're we're used to and the person that will inherit the earth is the one who has relationship to others relationship to others they are poor in spirit this is an absence of pride this is the negation of self assertion and the asserting of our rights and our benefits this is not making demands being meek is not being defensive or overly sensitive or self-pitying

it is the coming to the end of ourselves it is not really a natural disposition of the human heart it's something god has to work in us meekness now meekness is not weakness it is not indolence it is not passivity it is not laziness neither is it a natural temperament of personality the meek person is not just the nice guy or the easy-going person or the person who seems to have an attitude of live and let live the one who seems to be able to let things sort of slide off like water off of a duck's back you know just sort of doesn't bother them the person who's capable of just chilling that's not this quality this quality is the way we relate to others the kingdom of god is made up of a huge complex of relationships the most important being the relation of each person to the king we talked about that last week your personal relationship to the king let me review have you recognized him as the king of kings and the lord of lords the almighty sovereign over all the earth in general but over your particular life have you bowed your knee to the king have you received that which the king has offered in salvation and in grace what is your relationship to the king are you a loyal faithful obedient subject of his but it's also a relationship a complex of relationships with one another one another within the kingdom and within the life that we live as loyal and faithful and obedient subjects of his royal majesty the son of David the king of kings Jesus Christ himself and that is how do we treat others the bible gives us several examples of men who behave in the way in which i think the scriptures are outlining our behavior men who dealt with others in meekness and i'm indebted as almost any evangelical preacher is to David Martin Lloyd Jones studies in the sermon on the mount to point out some of these intricacies and he highlighted these men in the bible who in their relationship with others showed meekness the father of the faithful father Abraham himself the father of many nations many ethnic groups some good and some not so good but he's the father of them all he behaved meekly toward his nephew a lot do you remember the story they were wondering arameans at the time in the land of Palestine wondering and a superintendent what came to be massive herds and flocks as nomadic shepherds and herdsmen they were seeking pasture and there were good places of pasture in the land of Palestine but then there were places that wasn't so good from time to time there was places in the land that was rocky and steep but then there were broad plains and one of those plains went down moving on down toward the Jordan River was a large grassy plain and that was where Abraham wanted to take his flocks and herds but his nephew with him having a large possession as well wanted that property as well and you remember what Abraham did Abraham very humbly even though he was the one that had received the call to go to the land in fact the lord had said leave thy kindred and go to the land I have a little sermon I've preached a couple of times over the years called the sins of Abraham I want you know that Abraham was a sinner we have him as an exalted man in scripture because he is so much an example of faithfulness and there's so many wonderful things about the life of Abraham but Abraham was a mixed up messed up broken center saved by grace just like you and me and among the many sins of Abraham was that he failed to obey God to the letter God said leave thy father leave thy kindred and go into a land that I should show you and he took nephew with him lot and lot was a lot of trouble all the way through but in this particular instance Abraham told lots that you choose which part of this massive pasture land that you want and guess what lot did naturally he chose the better and the greater part and he pitched his tent towards Sodom to enjoy the grasslands and Abraham had to take the lesser the least desirable of the property that was weakness on the part of Abraham that was Abraham's willingness to see that even though God had promised all to him that God was faithful and his his faith went beyond just the what he could immediately see by the way Abraham never possessed the land in any sense all he owned was a little bitty piece of real estate which he had to had to purchase and all it ended up being was a burial ground for him and his wife and his family that's all he ever possessed of the land at all in his lifetime but his faith could see beyond and that's really what we have to do our possession our inheritance is not this little dab of whatever we've got in this earth right now our inheritance our lot the promise to us is greater and further away and while we're here we don't have to fight tooth and claw for every little bit of it every bit of the instincts of our nature or primal and territorial but God has said meek will inherit the earth another example was Moses in his dealing with the people of Israel in fact the Bible even says that Moses was the meekest man to ever live and Moses was not weak Moses was not a pushover and Moses had an enormous amount of personal ability he was an extremely capable person and it been well trained by God 40 years in the courts of Pharaoh and 40 years in the wilderness he was trained and conditioned and prepared by God to be the tool that God would use for that particular job of leading the people out of the land and into the land of Canaan he never got to do that can you imagine the frustration of being ready to take the people into the land and being stuck there for 38 more years in that desert

and the best you can do is train Joshua and Caleb and some others to finally take them into the land but yet the Bible says that he took that assignment and fulfilled that ministry and that generation that was upon his part a meekness a meekness there's your meek man that didn't inherit the earth

but he believed the promise of God that the meek would inherit the land he didn't get to but he knew it was going to happen and it was going to happen according to the sure word of God's promise another is his day is David in his dealing with Saul David had been anointed King he had the blessing of the Lord he had the anointing upon his life he had the gifts David even had the track record Saul has killed his thousands but David has killed his 10,000 in the eyes of most of the people and certainly in the eyes of David's mighty men and in the eyes of many people David was ready to ascend to that throne of Israel but he did not he deferred because he knew scriptures had told him the Lord touched not the anointed of God and even though Saul was seeking into an awful spirit of evil and sin and depression and paranoia and all that came upon Saul in those disgraceful latter years he was still the anointed of God and David meekly bided his time waiting upon the Lord to put him upon the throne he didn't try to do it himself

Jeremiah in dealing with the false prophets I feel sorry for Jeremiah as much as any prophet in the Bible that poor man preached he's called the weeping prophet he wasn't because he had an emotional problem is because he had a lot to to be to weep about Jeremiah in his day was preaching the new and fresh word from the Lord which said the Babylonian captivity is coming it's determined it's going to be 70 years it's going to be upon your people Jerusalem is going to fall the people are going to go into captivity and that's the end of it that's what's going to happen God says I have determined it and meanwhile all the other preachers in the land were preaching Isaiah's old sermons from 150 years earlier in which Isaiah had said stand strong God's going to protect Jerusalem it'll never fall it's the impregnable fortress it's the mighty throne of God the temple will remain which which prophet would you have believed the prophets preaching Isaiah's old sermons are the prophet that had the fresh and new word for God the fresh breath of God the one who knew the heart of God the one that had inquired of the Lord and found his will and yet Jeremiah was humble stuck with his guns he continued to say the message but he continued to love the people he didn't abandon they accused him of treason but he did not he was mistreated in every way but his treatment of the people and even the false prophets was an example of that meekness we move to the new testament we find Stephen Stephen in his dealing with the Sanhedrin one of the most magnificent sermons you'll ever read in your life is Stephen sermon there in the book of Acts when he recounts the history of Israel and brings everything to its climax and its epitome of fulfilment in the person of Jesus Christ and yet Stephen humbly willingly continued to hold his ground and I believe one of the things that just tore the apostle Paul to pieces is he never won a debate against Stephen Stephen every time Paul and Stephen would debate Stephen had the fresh word from the Lord and the old fair cycle interpretation of the Old Testament finally when God confronted Paul it finally fell and Stephen had meekly with great strong and strengthened determination had held out for the truth of the word of God and then we see Paul in his example of dealing with the churches the way Paul meekly and humbly even though he was often especially at particular churches like the church of Corinth and others where he did not enjoy some of the prestige that he would certainly do and didn't enjoy in other places and did enjoy in other places Paul would be persecuted on the one hand and and be littled on the other and yet the example of the faithful ministry he had all of these problems shipwreck and beatings he's mentioned them all he says but most of all I have the care and the concern of the churches these were men who were meekly going about the development and the enjoyment and the the work of working for the king within the kingdom of God but the prime example we'll find anywhere of course as Christ himself in fact Jesus just flat said coming to me all you little labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest straight up I am meek the first person that's meek that will inherit the earth is the first born son the first born of the father the first born of many brothers the first born of all creation the Bible tells us Jesus Christ himself will receive the kingdom it will be given it is given to him by his father I am meek it is the meek that will inherit the earth it was Jesus who was willing to humble himself and become a servant it was Jesus who was willing to serve the father in a meek and humble and obedient and diligent effort giving that which we needed for our salvation so while we can look at in admiration to Abraham and Jeremiah and David and Moses Paul and Stephen let us really look to Christ he is the one and let me say one word for him through which we had time and we will before we're done to talk about that little phrase shall inherit the earth if we're going to talk about inheritance we've got to talk about the father and the son the whole notion of father and son is that notion of a legacy passed on to a rightful heir and inheritance given to him and that's what we have the theme of all scripture God Almighty is given the whole universe to the rightful heir his only begotten son Jesus Christ and those that are in Christ share participate receive are awarded that inheritance so it's a matter of inheritance it's a gift it's a grace it's what God gives to the son for his obedience and we in the son by faith participate in that and enjoy that a lot but that that inheritance and then let me say finally shall inherit the earth in the Old Testament the word eras could be could be translated earth or land and sometimes it's it's translated according to context as so much Hebrew is but inheriting the earth is inheriting the land it's getting the inheritance the inheritance it's not just canine anymore canine with all of its milk and with all of its honey is just a pale shadow and a lightly sketched type of the inheritance that comes to the people of God the people of God who are in the kingdom of God related to the king will receive the inheritance the inheritance is the land God saw them humanity lose Eden God saw his people fail to really possess canine God it's not going to strike out the third time with humanity he is going to accomplish it himself we're not just going to get Eden back we're not just going to get canine we're going to get the earth the meek shall inherit the earth