We are now in the third part of the series of the Beatitudes and as we said the Beatitudes are the opening volley that Jesus shot when he began what is called The Sermon on the Mount, one of the most famous sermons that we refer to when we think about Jesus.
Some people refer to the Beatitudes as the attitudes we are suppose to have, it is also more than us taking on attitudes it’s recognizing that what matters in the Beatitudes is the blessing that God has given to us within them. The blessing that is contained within them that draws us near to him.
Review
Matthew 5
Introduction to the Sermon on the Mount
5 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them.
The Beatitudes
He said:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
What does this mean? It means intellectually they get it, they come to the point that they have sinned against God. They have come to an understanding that they have made a mess of their lives. They have come to the understanding that there is nothing good in them as Apostle Paul would say, all of our good deeds are nothing but filthy rags, that no one loves God, not one. They have come to the point of realizing just how much rotten dwells within us.
4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
The intellectual recognition drives the emotional expression, they mourn. The Second Beatitude, blessed are those who weep and grieve and are broken hearted over the factthat they have sinned against a holy God and have sinned and hurt people around them. Blessed are those who are driven to their knees over their own depravity.
This Week
5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Who are the meek when we think about the term meek? We usually think about the kid who goes to school and gets his lunch money taken away by the school bully or the husband whose wife leads him around by the nose and he never disagrees, or the wife who is too sheepish to say “no” to an abusing husband. The guy or gal who always gets ripped off by the car salesman because they don’t want conflict. When we think of meek we think of weak we think of the employee who is too afraid to ask his boss for a deserved raised or a mom who is too afraid to say no to her children because they might not like her and so she just tries to keep everything together.
When we think of the meek we usually think of the weak. But is that what Jesus was saying? The people who were surrounding Jesus were the people below poverty line these were people distant franchise from the economic and political power structure. These were people nobody really cared about. These were people who tended not to say boo to anyone.
What did Jesus mean by the word meek? In greek the word means; a quiet strength that originates from God. Hebrew meaning: dealing hard with yourself.
Meekness
Immeasurable Power
Under Intentional Control
It’s the young person who doesn’t flip out when something doesn’t go their way, but they trust God. It’s the husband and wife who aren’t willing to bicker over their selfish desires, needs or hold again one another their pain and bitter-mint. It’s the person who wakes up every morning and embraces the morning as a new day is a gift from God and they are not looking back at the day before and they see as all their losses.
Blessed are those who have that incredible power under intention control. Why is it incredible power? because the ability given by God to hold in to control the forces within us that makes us want to simply act out one way or another. Blessed are those who don’t flip out, don’t get angry, don’t claim their rights. Blessed are those who don’t run around thinking that the world was made for them and they deserve and they are going to take. Blessed are those who understand their sin, mourn over it, turns themselves over to God’s power and thus have the power to restrain the incredible forces within them that would destroy them and that would destroy everything around them.
It takes power to not say something, it takes control to not do something, and just because you might not do something in that moment does’t mean it won’t seep out in some passive/aggressive way. How we act out can be something that happens when we flip out or something that happens in passive waves. But to hold in that incredible force thats within us, that makes us want to strike back at others and makes us want to claim our rights, makes us want to reach out and grab what we think we deserve and others don’t.
Blessed are those who have that ability from God to be able to be so intentional that they control the power that really is incredible, think about it who is more powerful? The person who is angry and acts out or the person who is able to walk through anger and not become bitter and not flip out on the people around them. Who is more powerful? The person who understands their desires but doesn’t succumb to them, the person who knows their rights but doesn’t claim their rights as something that is guaranteed.
1. life's is not fair and neither am I
Meekness comes with the understanding that life’s is not fair and neither am I. Meek people understand that. When they look around the world and say it’s not fair people treat me in ways that I deserve better, but then meekness calls us back and says, wait a minute, who are you?
2. Pain Is Universal, Not A Rationale
Because you are in pain it doesn’t mean you get to hurt others and cause others pain because they hurt you, It’s not a license for you. People who are meek understand and realize that everybody has pain. My pain does not give me the right to hurt anybody.
3. Circumstance Don’t Make Victims
We always hear that I’m a victim of circumstance. If you are not a victor of circumstance then you can’t be a victim of circumstance, you are what you decide to be. You can be in tough circumstances but that doesn’t mean that we have to become victims. Jesus was never a victim. Jesus walked in meekness and he walked in victory at the same time.
4. Not where is God / Where am I with God
Not being concerned about ‘where is God’ but where am I with God. The proud is always asking, “Where is God? Why didn’t he show up? I prayed, I rang the bell, why isn’t he here?” Instead of looking inward and asking the question, “Where am I with God?”
If your in tough circumstances, that is the first question you should ask, “Where am I with God?”. It doesn’t mean you caused the circumstance but it will determine how you feel about them and it will determine how you go through them.
5. Not What I Want But Want What I Have
To live in meekness, to live in the ability to control ourselves means that we spend our time looking more at wanting what I have and not wanting what I don’t have.
6. What Others Think About Me Does Not Define Me
We like to think that people who are meek are always people who want everyone to like them but the truth is real meekness is only concerned about one thing, ‘does God like me?’. Is what I am doing pleasing to him? Even if it isn’t pleasing to anyone else.
7. Who You Are Is Bigger Than What You Do
Most people want better jobs, homes or bigger stuff. People rarely every say, I want to become a better person. We just don’t think that way, that is just our flesh. Our flesh is looking for pleasure all the time, increase pleasure, decrease pain and life must be going well. Yet the truth is you can accumulate, accumulate and accumulate and in God’s eyes have nothing.
When you come to that point that you regret something you have done so deeply and you know there is nothing you can do to change it and you just pick it up and carry it with you and allow it to change you then honesty will tattoo itself on your face. What is honesty tattoo’ing itself on your face? humility, going forward, understanding, being made better, being strengthening in character because there is no character without humility.
What is Humility? It is the strength of discipline and only God can give you that. He gives it to you when you mourn over what you know to be offensive to him.
8. Others First Does Not Make You Last
People who walk in true meekness understand this, they understand that being first doesn’t mean anything. Being first makes you last in God’s eyes sometimes, if that is what your ambition and desire is.
Who you are is bigger than what you do.
9. Desire Controlled Is Destiny
If I can control my desires, if I give them to God that will determine destiny. Most people throw away their destiny because they don’t control their desires. Most people want what they want and they’ll do anything to get it to the point that they will burn themselves with everyone, they will burn themselves personally and they will hurt themselves and in the end, what they really desired for themselves never comes to pass.
The ability to control your desires is an act of meekness and an act of humility.
10. Power Does Not Bring Peace
The idea that people have is that the more control I have over things in life the more power I have, the safer the more secure I’ll be. Think about this last economy dip we had, how many people do you know lost their 401k, pensions, and when they thought they were going to retire they had to go back to work. They thought that money was power and power was security and it was taken away from them. You can have all the power in the world and have no peace, all you are left with is lonely and in charge and a lot of work.
11. Pleasure Does Not Negate Pain
the mindset is that if I feel good and I increase my pleasure then I’ll negate pain in my life and that’s not true. The idea if I get high, drunk, engage in affairs that all that pleasure will make all my pain go away, no it doesn’t, it will just increases it. Once you gone through all that pleasure you will have to come back to sanity, the problem has gotten bigger and more complicated than you could of ever dreamed. We just look at taking care of ourselves and feeling good, and then afterwards seeing what a colossal mess we made.
Meekness doesn’t do that, meekness understands that I don’t deserve, that I have to walk through pain and I have the privilege of walking through pain knowing that God walks me through the pain. Pain is a wonderful gift, on this side of paradise it is one of the real evidences that God is with us. That God sustains us no matter how bad it gets.
12. Attention Is Not Affection
Seeking the attention of other people doesn’t mean that they love you. You can be popular but it doesn’t mean anyone is going to do anything for you or show up for you. The only attention that you need to seek is the attention of God and the only affection you need to seek is the affection of God because your husband/wife will never love you like you need to be loved. they will love you but if you are looking for a perfect love that will sustain you and meet all of you needs and fill all of your gaps, it’s not going to happen.
13. Right Is The Reward
We always think if we do the right thing we will be rewarded, but what happens when we do the right things and we don’t get rewarded? You feel stupid, right? You feel like a chump, but the meek don't feel that way, the meek understand that the reward is right, it’s being able to live close to the ground to God, its being able to see righteousness take place and that’s reward enough. How many times have you felt that way or heard this from other people? ‘I played by the rules and did all the right things and it didn’t work out’ Talk about having it upside down. it’s only when we recognize the real reward is the ability to engage in whats right because in our nature in our flesh we are so far from right that’s incredible that we can even get close to it, and yet through meekness through strength thats been disciplined, through humility we get close to it and that becomes the reward.
14. Sin Is Slavery
We forget that. We think that obedience is slavery. Obey God, what does that mean? That means you have to follow all the rules you have to walk around fearful of doing anything wrong. Obedience is freedom, because when I walk in obedience there is no strings there is no complications, no twists or turns you didn’t see coming. When you walk in obedience you get to be free in your spirit and even in your flesh. It’s when you start to walk in sin you become a slave to your desires, reputation, other people, lying, grief, pretense. The meek understand it why? Because they just got done grieving it, they just got done recognizing how devastation it’s been to them. A
truly meek person isn’t sold on sin because they understand sin’s slavery and they have just came from slavery.
15. Loving Is Serving
It means to serve them, to care about Their needs above your needs. It doesn’t mean being a doormat, that is not loving or serving. Serving is trying pour life into someone where they need life. If you love someone you will serve them, if you love God you will serve him. Jesus said, if you love me, you will obey me.
16. Giving Outreaches Spending
the meek understand because they’ve been greedy they know what it’s like to try to get as much as you can and to become full, bloated and sick with the junk of this world and they recognize that it’s only in giving that you really have anything. It’s only in what you give do you get to experience and keep what you earned. What you give always comes back to you.
17. Blame Doesn’t Shift It Splits
When you look to blame other people for your sins, problems, it doesn’t shift. It just splits you from them, yourself, God, reality. Meek people don’t go around blaming people for what they done, Meek people take responsibility for what they have done.
Meekness means that I get so close to God for my repentance, all I want is what he wants for me. I understand I deserve nothing.
When recognition is being called out at work and they miss you and you go off in a quiet fit. Is that meekness? No, that is pride. When you look at something that someone else has and you think they shouldn’t have it, I should have it. That is jealously.
Meekness is looking to God and saying, ‘Here I am today with another day of all the people that ended up in the obituary you gave me another day. Of all the people who have horrible diseases you gave me the health I have. Of all the people who do back breaking work for little, I have the job you have given me that is enough and tolerable. Meekness comes from recognizing that you deserve nothing and so through God’s spirit I am given this incredible power for intentional control, to control my intentions and actions based upon God’s will for me.
If you walk in meekness
I. Care Better
If we engage in such a way of living, you will care better for people, you won’t be looking at what they got and what you didn’t. You will be applauding what they have and encouraging others to go further than where you have gone. You will be celebrating their lives because you are not miserable with yours, because your thankful for what you have.
II. Witness Better
What God is doing in you can only come out and become visible and how close you are.
If you walk in meekness you’ll care better and you will witness better and you’ll live better, you will live with contentment, control, thanksgiving, praise, you will live with every day knowing today is perfect and everything that happens to me today will be perfect even if according to the world that it isn’t perfect. Because I’ll know God allowed it and God is in it and God is going to work it to my good and to the benefit of his kingdom even if it’s hard God will strengthen me, and if it’s easy, God will bless and favor me. Either way, my life will be good.
When you think of meekness what do you think of? Do you even think of meekness? Ask yourself this week, ‘How am I doing in these three areas? Do I really recognize my sin? Do I really mourn it? Do I really care? Has that caring brought me to a point that I am just thankful for what I have, and I just want to do what he wants for me, because that is all there is.
Meekness is not weakness, it’s just strength under control to be used for God’s purposes.
Notes taken by: Lorelllawrence@comcast.net The notes is for you to have for review in the series, also to reflect on during the week.