Blessed Are The Meek Series

Blessed Are The Meek

Matthew 5:5

OKAY MGCC - welcome to week 10 in our series on Matthew’s Gospel “the King and His Kingdom.”

NOW WE - are currently at the beginning of Jesus’ sermon on the Mount, specifically the Beatitudes, the blessed are you…

who. (btw the word Beatitudes comes from the Latin word for blessed, ‘beatus’)

NOW – the Sermon on the Mount, is the longest sermon of Jesus’ that we have on record, and it is kind of like Jesus ‘manifesto’ as to what life in His kingdom is all about.

AND LISTEN – there is a huge crowd gathered to hear Jesus as He delivers this teaching alongside of the mountainside.

A crowd of people coming from different places and representing diverse ethnic, religious, and political backgrounds.

I MEAN…

• THERE WERE - religious Jews from Judea with their devout commitment to Torah observance and keeping things kosher.

• THERE WERE - Galilean Jews for whom synagogue life, though important, was not the obsession it was for the Judeans.

• THERE WERE - nonobservant Jews who, having dropped out of religious life altogether, were dubbed “sinners.”

• THERE WERE - Greeks from the Decapolis region (the ten cities east of the Jordan) with their sophisticated love of art, philosophy, and athletics.

• And of course, THERE WERE - the Romans—the triumphant foreign occupiers from the dominant superpower.

AND MGCC - what Jesus has to say in the Beatitudes and in the Sermon on the Mount (about the path to real life, to a blessed life in His Kingdom) He addresses to all of these different people.

AND LISTEN – as we have said the last few weeks…

IT IS NOT - the path that (they or we) expected and it is certainly not a path that most people are on.

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down… and he began to teach them.

– Matthew 5:1,2

Blessed are the poor in spirit

Blessed are those who mourn

AND THIS MORNING – we are going to unpack Matthew 5:5 (the 3rd Beatitude) in Jesus’ upside down, counterintuitive, radical manifesto, about… what real life, what Kingdom life is all about.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

– Matthew 5:5

OKAY – so here is how I want us to attack this conversation, “Blessed are the meek.” By unpacking two statements…

• What Meekness Is

• How We Develop (learn) Meekness

Prayer

I. What Meekness Is…

Blessed, are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

– Matthew 5:5

YOU KNOW – I think that when it comes to meekness, it’s not something that many of us desire, OR – for that matter even think about all that much. I MEAN - we’ll pray…

for love, for joy, for peace, for faithfulness, for goodness, for patience and even for self-control.

BUT B/S – let me ask you, when is the last time that you prayed for meekness? Have you ever prayed for meekness?

QUESTION – why is that?

NOW - I really like what Brian Zahnd writes in his book, ‘Beauty Will Save The Earth…’

(I quoted from this book last week)

Perhaps the most counterintuitive of all the Beatitudes is the third blessing Jesus bestows. Jesus blesses the meek—the quiet, the gentle, the nonassertive, the nonaggressive—saying they will inherit the earth.

But I doubt we believe this. We would say something different. Something like: “Blessed are the meek, for even though he comes in last, he’ll be called a nice guy, receive a certificate of participation, and be named ‘Miss Congeniality.’”

That’s what we think about the gentle—but it’s not what Jesus says! Jesus says the gentle will inherit the earth.

Inherit the earth?! Really?

That is the question, isn’t it?

Who gets the earth?

Who gets to carve up the pie?

Who gets the biggest and best piece?

When the Roman soldiers stationed in Tiberius and standing on the edge of the crowd heard this pronouncement, they must have looked at each other with knowing smirks.

They knew better. They knew how the real world was run. Rome ruled the world—from Britain to India.

Caesar had conquered the world, and it was the Roman Empire that inherited the earth.

You can be sure Rome didn’t gain the world by being meek! Rome ruled the world because they were smart, bold, aggressive, and willing to make war to secure their superpower status.

YET - here is this poor Galilean rabbi announcing that the meek will inherit the earth. Crazy talk. I’m sure the Roman soldiers had a good laugh.

YET - Jesus says it. The meek will inherit the earth.

Jesus was saying… that there is an alternative way of viewing the world other than seeing it through the lens of a self-aggrandizing superpower where it’s dog-eat-dog, winner-take-all. Instead of grasping and clutching, there is the way of relaxing and trusting.