INTRO – The third Beatitude, spiritual meekness, must flow from the first
two; see the multiplicity of the graces of God. This is not a natural meekness, which can be evil, having a love
of ease, slothfulness, and a self-serving shyness. Fleshly meekness can be easily deterred from good and persuaded
towards evil because it has no backbone.
Spiritual meekness is not wimpy.
At the same time, consider some of Christ’s audience – Jewish zealots
looking for a military and political overthrow of the Roman government through
their new Messiah. You can hear them
exclaim, “What do you mean, meek?”
The Beatitudes in the Old Testament – Jesus is again using the
OT in His teaching (Psalm 37:11). We
see in this psalm that those who wait on the Lord are the meek (vv. 9-11), and
then we can see before that the picture of ‘waiting’.
-
vv.
5-6. They commit (lit. ‘roll’) their
way to the Lord. Meekness is rooted in
a deep confidence that God is for you – not just that He is in control
(Rom 8:32).
-
v.
7. They rest in the Lord and wait
patiently. They do not fret. They are quiet before Him.
-
vv.
7-8. They cease from ungodly anger, not
fretting over the wicked’s success.
They are confident of their Lord’s vengeance (Rom 12:19).
Abraham – deferring to Lot (Gen
13:8-12).
David – sparing Saul (1 Sam 24,
esp. v. 12).
Moses – rather than hearing a
word of defense, a comment is made about meekness (Num 12:1-4).
Jesus
– describes
Himself as meek (Matt 11:27-30). He
makes great claims, none of which negates His meekness. Meekness is not inconsistent with strength.
We are to take on His yoke and learn from Him the grace of meekness. Meekness is a grace, a fruit of the Spirit
(Gal 5:23).
God - One who is meek is ready
to submit to the providential, decreed will of God in events (Job 1:20-22), and
to the revealed will of God as displayed in His Word (Matt 4:4).
Others
– Meekness
must characterize our relationships with one another.
-
We
must refuse to be provoked by others (Ps 38:12-13, Prov 19:11).
-
We
must extend forgiveness (Matt 6:12). We
must forgive really (all the way down), fully (across the board), and often (as
often as you are wronged), because this is the way that God forgives us (Col 3:12-13).
-
We
must love others (Phil 2:1-8).
-
Meek
wisdom points away from self to an objective standard (James 3:13-17). How backwards we have become. Man is supposed to doubt himself, and not
doubt the truth. But we teach “Believe
in yourself and question all authority”.
Relativism is not meek; it is arrogant.
-
Meekness
in correction (Gal 6:1-2) is required.
That is, there are times we must correct, but we must do so with a
particular spirit.
-
Meekness
is not a “super-grace” for “super-Christians”.
We are all to put it on (Col 3:12), seek after it (Zeph 2:3), and walk
in it (Eph 4:1-2). This cannot be
attempted in the flesh, but only in the Spirit.
We
must be faithful with the text. We
cannot say “Blessed are the proud…”. Neither
can we say “…for they shall inherit heaven when they die”. Jesus says that the meek will inherit the
earth. The majority view of the
evangelical church (and most Christian fiction writers today) is that 1) God is sovereign is some sense, but Satan is
very much in control. 2) The world is going to get progressively wicked;
righteousness will not prevail. 3) The church will grow increasingly wicked,
and eventually apostasy, not revival, will characterize her. This is not a picture of the meek inheriting
the earth. Nor is it what scripture
teaches.
1)
Satan
is bound (Matt 12:28-29, Col 2:15).
2)
Christ
promised to build His church, a building Hades could not withstand (Matt
16:18-19). We are commanded to
participate in that victorious work (Matt 28:18-20).
3)
The
Old Testament prophecies are full of predictions of the glorious Christian era
(Ps 22:7-28, Ps 110:1-2, Is 11:9, Zech 9:9-10).
We
do not inherit the earth through political or military processes, but the
fullness of all things is promised (Eph 1:10).
It will come in meekness, the preaching of the gospel, a righteousness
and power outside ourselves. We will
inherit like leaven takes a lump, like a tiny mustard seed takes a garden. But we are going to take it. The meek shall inherit the earth.
Dave Hatcher – Aug 1st,
1999