Word of Salvation – Vol. 36 No. 16 – April 1991

 

The Meek

 

Sermon by Rev. S. Voorwinde on Matthew 5:5

Reading: Psalm 37:1-11; Matthew 5:1-12

 

Introduction

Jesus was a master at taking His hearers by surprise!  Here He is speaking to people who lived in the backward province of a land that had not known political independence for over 100 years – and these of all people were going to inherit the earth!  Here is the promise of world conquest and it is made to the meek.

But Jesus takes us by surprise as well.  For aren’t we prone to say:
            ‘Blessed are those who assert themselves,
                        for they shall inherit the earth.’
             Happy are the rich for the world belongs to them.
             Happy are the popular for the popular
                        for the world lies at their feet.
             Happy are the billionaires, the Miss Universes,
                        the sports heroes, for surely the world belongs to them!

Or does it?  Think of those whom the world once hailed as ‘blessed’ – Hitler, Stalin, Marilyn Monroe.  It no longer thinks of them as such.  Or again let’s look at history.  Who was the most influential figure in the 19th century?  Was it Napoleon or Queen Victoria or Bismarck?  No, it was a penniless Jew who lived in a shabby London apartment in exile – and his name was Karl Marx.  In 1799 a man was buried in Vienna, too poor to pay even for a tombstone.  And who was he?  The great composer Wolfgang Mozart.

During the London Blitz of 1940 Hitler said:
            ‘England is on her knees.’
            To which Churchill replied: ‘That’s when she’s strongest!’
            And so it was.

Even in a secular sense, even from a this worldly point of view, there is a lot to what Jesus says about the meek who will inherit the earth.  Just a glance at history is enough to shake our natural assumptions.  The real influence and power in this world is not necessarily where we think it is.

So let’s try and get to the heart of this statement of Jesus that is so surprising and yet so true to life:
            ‘Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

And I’d like to deal with this subject by asking and answering three questions:

            1.  Who are the meek?

            2.  How can we be meek?

            3.  What does it mean to inherit the earth?

1.  Who are the meek?

Perhaps your Bible doesn’t even have the word ‘meek’.  It might have ‘gentle’, ‘lowly’ or ‘humble’.  And all of these words convey basically the same idea.  In his dealings with others the meek person expresses gentleness, lowliness and humility.  One Bible commentator has put it like this:

“’The meek’ are the mild, gentle and patient… when they are wronged or abused they show no resentment and do not threaten or avenge themselves.  The opposite are the bitter, the wild and the violent.”

Now before you draw the conclusion that because you are not bitter, wild or violent you must therefore be meek, let me remind you of one thing: Jesus is here not talking about a natural quality.  He is not talking about those who by nature are nice and easy-going people.  So meekness is not niceness.  One dog is nicer than another.  One cat is nicer that another.  But that is not meekness.  A person is not meek because he is naturally nice or easy to get on with.

Meekness is a spiritual quality that is produced by the Spirit of God.  And it is something that God expects of every Christian whatever his natural temperament or psychological make-up may be.  God expects all of us to be meek.  And for some that may be a much tougher assignment than for others.  By nature we are not meek, and yet by grace that is what we must become.

Let’s just take a few examples from Scripture:

• Think of Abraham who was perhaps the greatest gentleman in the O.T. and yet what a great portrait of meekness. He gives first choice to his nephew Lot, and when Lot takes what is best, Abraham lets him go without a murmur and without a complaint.  That’s meekness.
• You see it again in Moses who was actually described as the meekest man on the face of the earth. He had tremendous possibilities ahead of him. He had all the advantages of being known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.  But he threw it all in because, as the Bible says, ‘he chose to be ill-treated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time.  He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than all the treasures of Egypt.
• Or think of David, especially in his dealings with Saul. David knew that he was to be king. He had been informed.  He had been anointed.  He was mistreated by Saul.  He was abused.  But he never tried to get even.  He never tried to take revenge.  In many ways he was an extraordinary example of meekness.
• And I could go on. There were men like Jeremiah or Stephen or Paul. It was amazing how much they were able to take from other people.

And yet, of course, the most perfect example of meekness was our Lord Jesus Christ who was so meek that He could even say how meek He was in those words with which we opened the service this morning:

‘Come to me all you who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.  Learn from me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.’

We are to learn from Him because He was meek.  We are to take our lessons from Him as our teacher in the school of meekness.  And His teaching method is very simple and it’s the best there is.  He teaches by example:

• How did He come riding into Jerusalem?  How did He enter the city of which he was the rightful king?  I think we all know the answer.
• How did He react to other people?  How did He take their scorn and sarcasm and division?  Again we all know the answer.

Jesus teaches us meekness by His example.  We see it in His whole life and in particular we see it in His death.  Listen to Paul in Philippians:

‘Jesus Christ…  made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross.’

Jesus’ death on the cross is the greatest act of meekness ever demonstrated in the history of mankind.  Never has meekness gone to such depths or reached such heights as when Jesus died on Calvary.  It justified every word when He had said: ‘I am meek and lowly in heart.’  Jesus did indeed teach by example.

So much so in fact that we can say that meekness is Christ-likeness.  To be meek is to be Christ-like, and to be Christ-like is to be meek.  Those who follow Christ are meek and those who are meek follow Christ.

Without Christ
            meekness becomes weakness,
            gentleness becomes mushiness,
            and humility becomes self-effacement.

Only in Christ will meekness retain its true backbone.  Think of Abraham, Moses and Paul.  They weren’t weak, mushy, spineless individuals, but they did know what it was to be meek.  Each in his own way had a truly Christlike character.

But this leads us now to the second question and my next point which is this:

2.  How can we be meek?

Some people would say: You just follow the example of Christ.  By some almighty act of will you decide to be a Christ-like person.  You make some huge resolution that, come what may, you are going to be like Him.

But that’s not the way to become meek.  Of course, we must be Christ-like but you don’t do that by waking up in morning and deciding that that’s what you’re going to do.  But what Jesus does in the Beatitudes is to give us some steps.  How do you become meek?

(i) You must be poor in Spirit.

(ii) You must mourn – mourn over your sins.

So there is no way you can be meek without first mourning and being poor in spirit.  First you are poor in spirit, then you mourn and only then do you become meek.  And each of these steps is harder than the one before.

You are poor in spirit because of what God says about you.

Let me illustrate:

1. You mourn when you know in your heart that you are a miserable sinner.
2. And you are meek when you can take other people telling you that you are a miserable sinner.

And surely that’s the hardest part of all.  If God says it, that’s all right; I can take that.  If I know it within myself, that’s okay, I can put up with that too.  But if someone else were to tell me, that’s what I resent.

Now let’s say you are at a stage of life where you are gaining weight.

Your bathroom scales tell you, you are overweight.

Your mirror shows you, you are overweight.

You know you are overweight.

But heaven help the poor soul who tells you, you are overweight!

All of us prefer to condemn ourselves than to allow somebody else to condemn us.  That is what Jesus is dealing with at this point.  And I think you will agree with me that this is more humbling and more humiliating than anything that has gone before.  It is to allow other people to put the searchlight on instead of doing it myself.

So that’s the essence of meekness to be able to take it when other people condemn you, when they tell you the hurtful truth about yourself.  If you can handle that then a lot of other things will flow from that.

Dr. Lloyd-Jones has put it like this and these are penetrating words indeed!

“To be truly meek means we no longer protect ourselves, because we see there is nothing worth defending.  So we are not on the defensive; all that is gone.  The man who is truly meek never pities himself, he is never sorry for himself.  He never talks to himself and says, ‘You are having a hard time, how unkind these people are not to understand you!’  He never thinks: ‘How wonderful I really am, if only other people would give me a chance.’

Now listen to this.  It’s an exaggeration, but it makes the point:

‘When a man truly sees himself, he knows nobody can say anything about him that is too bad.’

And surely if this is your attitude then it will translate itself into words and actions as well:

• Meekness is saying, ‘I am sorry’ and meaning it.
• Meekness is being able to take advice from someone who’s younger, less mature and less experienced than you.
• Meekness is being thankful when someone points out a fault you have.
• Meekness is never looking down on anybody.
• Meekness is not talking back to your parents or teachers even if you could get away with it.
• Meekness is taking out the garbage even if you’re not told to.
• Meekness is doing the unexpected.
• And meekness is a fruit of the Spirit.

And this brings us to our third question:

3.  What does it mean to inherit the earth?

Which earth do the meek inherit, this one or the next?  And really the answer is: Both!

For a start it must be this earth.  Jesus is referring to Psalm 37 which certainly isn’t talking about heaven.  And in Proverbs we read that:

‘The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, honour and life’.

And the N.T. doesn’t spiritualize that kind of teaching.  It makes it far broader and richer still.  Paul writes some remarkable words to the Corinthians in this respect:

‘All things are yours’, he says, ‘whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future – all are yours, and you are of Christ and Christ is of God.

Now let’s think of this with respect to meekness.  I once heard it said that ‘happiness is wanting what you have.’  And ‘happy is the man who has great riches, but happier still is the man who does not desire them’.  And isn’t that the person who is meek; he doesn’t desire great riches and he wants what he has?

Or who is better off, the man with 1000 houses and no home, or the man with only one house but which is truly a home?  Who truly possessed the earth: King Agrippa or the tent-maker, Paul?  The meek are God’s sons and the world was made for them.

But there is also of course a future dimension to what Jesus says: ‘The meek shall inherit the earth’.  As the saying goes: ‘You can have your cake and eat it too’.  That’s far more Biblical than saying: ‘a pie in the sky when you die.’  The Bible doesn’t teach that we must grin and bear it through this life so that we can enjoy the next.  For a Christian it’s not a matter of either or, it’s a matter of both – and.  We don’t have to choose which world we’re going to enjoy, this one or the next, we can enjoy them both.  God has given us all things richly to enjoy, the Bible says.  We don’t have to squabble as to whether Jesus was talking about inheriting this earth or the new earth.  There is only one and that’s this one which will be renewed when Jesus returns.  I’m sure we’ll enjoy it more then than we do now.  I’m sure our possession of it will be more real than it is now.  But I’m also sure that the meek enjoy it more and possess it more now than even the very rich who live without God.  After all this is our Father’s world.

It’s like a child who lives in his father’s house.  He’s still a minor, but in a real sense that house is his because it belongs to his father.  He enjoys all its benefits and he has full use of it.  The house is his but one day he will still inherit it.

And so it is with the meek.  This is their Father’s world and therefore it is theirs to use and enjoy.  It is already theirs but the day will come when they will inherit it and take possession of it.  They are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.  Are you one of them?

Conclusion

The Beatitudes of Jesus have been called the ‘beautiful attitudes’ of Jesus.  And surely meekness is a beautiful attitude to have towards other people and to have towards life.  And as Christians we must have this attitude.  But we will never make ourselves meek.  It cannot be done.  Nothing but the Holy Spirit can humble us.  Nobody but the Holy Spirit can make us poor in spirit and make us mourn over our sins.  And if we claim to be Christians then we also claim to have received the Holy Spirit.  Therefore we have no excuse for not being meek.  The man who is outside has an excuse for it is impossible for him, but if we claim we have the Holy Spirit then we have no excuse if we are not meek.

Brothers and sisters, here is something that is possible for us all as Christians.  Will we do it or will we quench the Spirit?

AMEN