Intro: He was a professional thief. His name stirred fear as the desert wind stirs tumbleweeds. He terrorized the Wells Fargo stage line for thirteen years, roaring like a tornado in and out of the Sierra Nevada’s, spooking the most rugged frontiersmen. In journals from San Francisco to New York, his name became synonymous with the danger of the frontier.
During his reign of terror between 1875 and 1883, he is credited with stealing the bags and the breath away from twenty-nine different stagecoach crews. And he did it all without firing a shot.
His weapon was his reputation. His ammunition was intimidation.
A hood hid his face. No victim ever saw him. No artist ever sketched his features. No sheriff could ever track his trail. He never fired a shot or took a hostage.
He didn’t have to. His presence was enough to paralyze.
Black Bart. A hooded bandit armed with a deadly weapon. What was his deadly weapon? One word, it was FEAR!
Fear has prevented many Christians from experiencing the blissful happiness that Jesus is defining in the beatitudes. Fear of death, fear of failure, fear of God, fear of tomorrow – and the list goes on and on. Fear’s goal is to create a cowardly, joyless soul. He wants you to take your eyes off the mountain peak and settle for the dull existence of the flat lands.
John 16:33
33"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Illustration: A legend from India tells about a mouse that was terrified of cats until a magician agreed to transform him into a cat. That resolved his fear…until he met a dog, so the magician changed him into a dog. The mouse-turned-cat-turned-dog was content until he met a tiger-so, once again; the magician changed him into what he feared. But when the tiger came complaining that he had met a hunter, the magician refused to help. “I will make you into a mouse again, for though you have the body of a tiger, you still have the heart of a mouse.”
We as believers too often forget that everything we face in this world is subject to God. If we live our life for God, and He’s in control of everything, then what do we have to fear? Many people are born with all the physical attributes they need to be superior athletes. But they never excel because their hearts aren’t into sports. Then some people have very little natural athletic ability but they put their whole heart into a sport and they do real well. God has given us the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and the church body, but if our heart isn’t into living a life of faith then we will be struck with fear and misery.
Illustration: If power could deliver us from fear, then Joseph Stalin should have been fearless. Instead, this infamous Russian premier was afraid to go to bed. He had seven different bedrooms. Each could be locked as tightly as a safe. In order to foil any would-be assassins, he slept in a different one each night. Five chauffeur-driven limousines transported him wherever he went, each with curtains closed so no one would know which contained Stalin. So deep-seated were his apprehensions that he employed a servant whose sole task was to monitor and protect his tea bags. Stalin; Ian Grey (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979), 457
The power of this world is futile and insecure. Worldly power always has the threat of being overpowered by someone or something bigger and more powerful. But God is “all powerful”; nothing in all creation is close to His power because He created it.
2 Peter 1:3-11
3His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Illustration: One New Year’s Day, in the Tournament of Roses parade, a beautiful float suddenly sputtered and quit. It was out of gas. The whole parade was held up until someone could get a can of gas. The amusing thing was this float represented the Standard Oil Company. With its vast oil resources, its truck was out of gas.
Often, Christians neglect their spiritual maintenance, and though they are "clothed with power" (Luke 24:49) find themselves out of gas.
Steve Blankenship in God Came Near by Max Lucado, Multnomah Press, 1987, p. 95.
MEEKNESS does not mean weakness. The word is used to speak of power under control. An unbroken colt is useless; medicine that is too strong will harm rather than cure; a wind out of control destroys. Emotions out of control also destroy, and have no place in God’s kingdom. Meekness uses its resources appropriately.
Meekness is the opposite of violence and vengeance. A meek person knows he needs not to defend himself because God is in control. When he takes control of a situation and defends himself he by force takes it out of God’s hands. Who would you rather fight your battles, you in your human strength, or God in His all-powerful, all knowing strength?
Meekness is not cowardice or emotional flabbiness. It is not lack of conviction nor mere human niceness. But its courage, its strength, its conviction, and its pleasantness come from God, not from self. The spirit of meekness is the spirit of Christ, who defended the glory of His Father, but gave Himself in sacrifice for others. Leaving an example for us to follow, He “committed no sin, nor was nay deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously” (1 Pet.2:21-23).
Though He was sinless, and therefore never deserved criticism or abuse, Jesus did not resist slander or repay injustice or threaten His tormentors. The only human being who did no wrong, the One who always had a perfect defense, never defended Himself.
When His Father’s house was profaned by moneychangers and sacrifice sellers, “He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the moneychangers, and overturned their tables” (John 2:14-15). Jesus scathingly and repeatedly denounced the hypocritical and wicked religious leaders; He twice cleansed the Temple by force; and He fearlessly uttered divine judgment on those who forsook and corrupted God’s Word.
But Jesus did not once raise a finger or give a single retort in His own defense. Though at any time He could have called legions of angels to His side (Matt. 26:53), He refused to use either natural or supernatural power for His own welfare. Meekness is not weakness, but meekness does not use its power for its own defense or selfish purposes. Meekness is power completely surrendered to God’s control.
David was chosen by God and anointed by Samuel to replace Saul as Israel’s king. But when, in the cave of Engedi, he had the opportunity to take Saul’s life, as Saul often had tried to take his, David refused to do so. He had such great respect for the kings office, despite that particular king’s wickedness and abuse of him, that David spared his life when it was in his hands to take (1 Samuel 24:1-22).
Matthew 5 is not a list of proverbs or a compilation of independent sayings, but rather a step-by-step description of how God rebuilds the believer’s heart.
The first step is to ask for help-to become “poor in spirit” and admit our need for a Savoir. The next step is sorrow: “Blessed are those who mourn…” Those who mourn are those who know they are wrong and say they are sorry. No excuses. No justification. Just tears. The next step is one of renewal: “Blessed are the meek…” Realization of weakness leads to the source of strength – God. The first two beatitudes pass us through the fire of purification; the third places us in the hands of the Master. The result of this process? Courage: “…they shall inherit the earth.” No longer shall the earth and its fears dominate us, for we follow the one who dominates the earth.
When the disciples asked Jesus who was the greatest in the kingdom, “He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, ‘Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven’” (Matt. 18:2-4).
Meekness is necessary to enter the kingdom of heaven because only meekness gives glory to God. Pride seeks its own glory, but meekness seeks God’s.
Conclusion: For the believer earthly fears are no fears at all. All the mystery is revealed. The final destination is guaranteed. Answer the big question of eternity, and the little questions of life fall into perspective.
And by the way, remember Black Bart? As it turns out, he wasn’t anything to be afraid of, either. When the hood came off, there was nothing to fear. When the authorities finally tracked down the thief, they didn’t find a bloodthirsty bandit from Death Valley; they found a mild-mannered druggist from Decatur, Illinois. The man the papers pictured storming through the mountains on horseback was, in reality, so afraid of horses he rode to and from his robberies in a buggy. He was Charles E. Boles – the bandit who never once fired a shot, because he never once loaded his gun. Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story; (New York, NY: Bantam, 1977) Page 117
The devil’s number one device is deception, and his number two is fear. How do we keep from being deceived and frightened by Satan?
James 4:7
7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
The first and most important step for us is to “submit ourselves to God.” No one can resist the devil’s deception, or face up to his scare tactics in their worldly human power. Only the Christian who is full of the Word of God, under the power of the Holy Spirit, fully submitted to God can stand against the wiles of the devil.
Eph 6:11
11Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
