Meekness Is Strength Worth Possessing! Series

Meekness is strength worth possessing! Matthew 5:5

During the last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at Matthew 5:1-12 which is the beatitudes at the start of Jesus Sermon on the Mount.

We’ve looked at what the beatitudes are, that they describe blessings as the word beatitude comes from the Latin word for blessing which is beatus.

We’ve also looked into the first two beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven and blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. If you weren’t here, the main thrust of both of these things that people will be blessed for; that they will receive divine joy for is sorting out their spiritual lives. The blessing comes from figuring out that we don’t weigh up with where God would have us and through realising our poorness of spirit and mourning for being out of touch with God, then we can be comforted by him.

The next blessed comes though something we might have an idea of as being a bit woosey or soft; Meekness!

There’s a movie by Monty Python that is in some respects a bit of a take off of the life of Jesus, you may have guessed that I am talking about ‘The Life of Brian.’ Now this was a very controversial movie when it came out, at the time it was seen as being a bit of a mockery of Jesus life, and this is probably the only time you will ever hear of it referred to in a church service.

In the movie there’s a scene where Brian is at the Sermon on the Mount and because he is standing down the back from where Jesus is speaking the message comes through as, ‘blessed are the Greek’, before someone says “he said “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”, to which the reply comes and I’ve removed the bad language, “that’s nice, I’m glad they get something, because they get such a hard time.”

When we look at the word meek in English it means a few things one being “easily imposed upon; submissive” which are what Brian’s cohorts were referring to.

The thing is that Jesus wasn’t, meek also means again from the English dictionary to “showing patience and humility; long suffering and another meaning is an archaic meaning, which is actually “kind and merciful.”

Now to get to the meaning of the word in the scriptures; the Greek word refers to gentleness and the positive moral quality of dealing with people in a kind manner with humility and consideration. When Paul referred to the meekness of Jesus he used a word that talked of gentleness and true humbleness. The Greeks also used the word meek to describe a horse that had been broken, the taking of some thing that was only good for dog tucker and turning into something that was useful, a broken horse is “power under control.”

So the question arises why will these meek people inherit the earth, what is the go with that? Was it because they get such a hard time?

1) This one thing for a start, this meekness is highly valued, highly valued, it’s hard to believe why it would be. If we look at the word in this world of dog eat dog, man fight man, woman fight woman, lets hope they get Gadaffi and we wonder where the kids get it from world?

As I said meekness is highly valued; well it is in God’s eyes!

Straight up those who run countries don’t set a very good example, it’s a case of you have a go at us, we will retaliate.

But

God puts incredible value on meekness, so much that he showed us His example of meekness through the life of Jesus Christ. In Jesus we saw that meekness is strength, not weakness. For unity in the body of Christ the church we are instructed to follow His example, Paul in his letter to the Ephesians says this “as a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:1-2)

Now I wonder if I was to ask right now who here has gone through the week without getting a bit snotty with another person, a fellow believer or can say that they are always gentle, that they are humble in all circumstances. I just thought I’d ask! A question like that leads to a bit of self reflection; I know asking it makes me ask a few questions of myself.

2) You see this meekness thing can be a bit scary with a bit of self examination. The opposite of meekness could be seen as pridefulness which is seen as a looking at yourself and seeing a pretty jolly good polished being, without fault, someone who has no blemishes and faults who stands as a fine example to all.