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.
But being meek is about examining ourselves and being humble before God, realising our position before him.
There’s a story about two men who were standing for parliament and who were in a public debate just prior to the election, both were pretty keen on themselves but with one backed into a corner and the other getting stuck into him he came up with an interesting defense. He cried out “There are hundreds of ways of making money,”, “but only one honest way.”
“And what’s that?” jeered his opponent.
“Aha!” he called out. “I knew you wouldn’t know.” (paraphrased from Logos library)
It’s an interesting thing is that humility sometimes it gets forced upon us, but those who are humble, the meek never have to worry about that because they are there already. They are grounded!
It’s an interesting thing humility, especially when we see ourselves as we should before God, seeing him as our creator and the owner of all we have and us, seeing our place in his creation something happens, greed, desires of the flesh, the want for the next great thing, that big boys or girls toy the others have, the need to be top dog, to be heard our even to make others take notice of us, seems to pale in comparison with the relationship we have with God, we won’t put anything in the way of that relationship.
In humility there is no distance to fall from the dizzying heights of pride and the proud, from all that we possess or desire. Because the meek are grounded!
Meekness is a strength that is worth possessing.
3) You might be wondering did Andrew just say that meekness is strength, it is! Meekness is something that only the strong possess, in life the strong can afford to be kind What was it again that Paul said about imitating Jesus; “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.” Meekness is strength worth possessing.
Meekness is also something that requires effort, it’s not something that just happens, it’s a thing we practice to get good at, but it also comes as fruits of the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of God works in our lives, those things; “patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22 part), all contribute to a persons character helping to the development of this strength, meekness. If the Holy Spirit is working in your life, if you have taken the time to invite him to journey with and within you, these things along with the other fruits of the Holy Spirit will be becoming evident to you and too those who you are in contact with.
4) Part of this being meek as I have already said is about being humble before God; it’s right that this verse follows “blessed are those who mourn”. They mourn because they have taken a look at how far they are from God’s ideal for their lives.
Those who possess meekness have also taken a look at themselves, summed up where they are with God and stopped making excuses. This can sometimes be really painful. To do this something happens, to get past the lies you tell yourself, to be strong, to stop making excuses. And trust me the excuses for what you are and who you are, while being shaped by family and circumstances all come back to one person, for before God the responsibility for you rests on your shoulders. Now it might cause a bit of pain, to become meek, but I found this quote on facebook the other day by a lady called Elisabeth Elliot, she said this, "I am not a theologian or a scholar, but I am very aware of the fact that pain is necessary to all of us. In my own life, I think I can honestly say that out of the deepest pain has come the strongest conviction of the presence of God and the love of God."
This is where the meek find themselves, in the presence of God and in the love of God. Wrapped spiritually in his arms, in that place of strength they are strong. Meekness is strength worth possessing.
5) With meekness come those changes; the patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control, those fruits of God’s Spirit but also with the fruits comes a sense of Justice, a change in the way we see others, a desire to see others done right by and to work for others, remember the Greek meaning of the word, the Greek word refers to gentleness and the positive moral quality of dealing with people in a kind manner with humility and consideration.
This is the stuff of the strong, those who can afford to be strong, not strong in the financial sense but because in their character, as spiritual beings they are strong individuals, they know their place before God and frankly they have nothing to lose because in God, they have gained everything, in him they can say, “for to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”(Philippians 1:21). To give themselves away in service to Jesus is gain, to give away the gifts he has given them through the toil of their hands is gain, giving one weeks salary on missionary service is gain, fully supporting the church in it’s work is gain, supporting foreign children so that they are not sold into slavery is gain, working for the kingdom of God is gain, to be patient in affliction is gain, telling their friends and neighbors there’s a better way is gain. It is all gain because these kind, humble meek people are strong people made alive in Christ. This meekness is strength worth possessing! (SBI).
Jesus said something about the meek in his Sermon on the Mount, something about an inheritance. That “they will inherit the earth.”
Nice the earth, I’d like a block of ground with a nice wee stream full of salmon and trout, a bit of coastal land with some paua’s (abalone’s) and blue cod and about ten acres of beech and rata forest where I can keep four bee hives, with enough ground for a good vege garden and a small orchard, and the capability of running a dozen ewes and a milking cow, with calf at foot. Whoops I nearly forgot the chooks, half a dozen chooks, with a scrawny little bantam rooster! This surrounding a small cob cottage, with a wooden floor a modern kitchen and bathroom and a craft room with a flower garden and strawberry plants for Rochelle.
But when I look at this part of his sermon I’m not sure if this is what he meant.
I have two thoughts about this that actually have some sort of basis in scripture.
The first, being that these meek people possess such a strength of character that they are completely grounded, is this what inheriting the earth is about, that there is nothing false about them, completely grounded, they have given everything up to follow Jesus and in doing so they have found themselves alive in him. This doe not mean that life will all be a box of fluffy ducks with a scrawny bantam rooster, beside the sea. Jesus himself talked about persecution and this is something the meek may have to contend with, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”(Matthew 11:39)
The inheritance occurs as lives are handed over to God, not as God bestows great things in the here and now, not to say that he won’t. The inheritance of the meek comes through his grace as people give their lives to him. Psalm 149:4 says it this way, “for the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation.”
This is an eternal inheritance! Salvation is eternal.
But what about the earth?
There is some thought that Jesus had borrowed his words from a Psalm, being Psalm 37:10-11 that goes like this, ”A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found. But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace.” The land that David is referring to here is Israel, Jesus was talking about land also, the earth.
I want to leave you with a couple of thoughts: could this earth that Jesus is talking about be the new earth that will be at the end of the age? Or could it be because of their groundedness ‘the meek’ possess the strength through their relationship with God to change our planet? Or maybe both?
What I do know is that meekness is a strength that can change the world in the same way it changes those who possess it A final question, will you join me and put your hand up to be meek?
Please rate this sermon, ta!
