Happy Are the Meek

[0:00] Heavenly Father, we come to these Beatitudes with the recognition that they are beyond our reach.

[0:19] Apart from Christ, on our own, in our own strength and in our own righteousness, these Beatitudes are beyond our reach. So Lord, we ask that you would fill us more and more with your Holy Spirit.

[0:40] That by him we might live more and more in light of our union with Christ and commune with him. So we bear the fruit of the Spirit, one of which is meekness.

[0:56] That we might receive your word. Lord, give us this morning ears to hear, hearts to receive. That we might receive with meekness the implanted word, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[1:10] And that it might bear fruit in our lives. Save those who are lost. Mature your saints. Make them more like your Son, Jesus Father. In Jesus' name we pray.

[1:22] Amen. If you are able, please stand to honor God's word as I read from Matthew chapter 5 verses 1 to 12. Seeing the crowd, he went up on the mountain.

[1:45] And when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

[2:25] Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

[2:38] Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who are before you. This is God's holy, authoritative word.

[2:49] He made this here. From between 1760 and the early 1900s, what we call, what the history books call, the age of imperialism, when the industrializing nations of Europe colonized and annexed many parts of the world, including the notorious scramble for Africa.

[3:20] And that doesn't seem like such a distant future nowadays when Russia threatens to gobble up Ukraine and China threatens to gobble up Taiwan.

[3:30] And whether, however seriously, even our own president talks about buying greenland. Right. It seems when we look around at our world that the lands, the world, they belong to people who are aggressive, people who are powerful, people who are forceful, people who have military might.

[3:56] And this seems to be the case, not only in the geopolitical realm, but also in academia, in the media, in the public squares, the internet, social media.

[4:07] The people who seem to own the world are people who seem self-assured and aggressive. People who stand up for themselves and demand their rights.

[4:18] People who assert themselves and express themselves into more and more territory and influence. But Jesus' third, the attitude turns all of that on its head.

[4:32] He says in verse five, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Who possesses and inherits the world?

[4:45] Not the proud, not the conquerors, but the meek. Happy are the meek. That's another way you can translate that.

[4:56] Blessed are the meek. Happy are the meek. For they shall inherit the earth. First, we're going to look at the character of the meek. Second, we're going to look at the examples of the meek.

[5:06] And then third, we're going to look at the inheritance of the meek as we talk about this verse. It's fitting first as we look at verse five, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

[5:20] To go to the Old Testament to learn the meaning of meekness, because that verse is alluding to Psalm 37, verse 11, which says, But the meek shall inherit the land.

[5:31] And the Hebrew word for meek is actually the same word for poor that we talked about last week with the first two Beatitudes. Beatitude number one was, Blessed are the poor in spirit.

[5:42] And so that word has a range of meanings. It can mean poor, humble, afflicted. Those who are poor in spirit, as we talked about last week, are spiritual beggars. People who recognize their own need for God.

[5:55] People who recognize that they are cripples in need of a crutch. Sick. People who recognize their sickness and recognize their need for a doctor. When we recognize our own poverty of spirit, we can't help but mourn.

[6:10] And it's only those who are poor in spirit and therefore mourn that can be meek, as we talk about in verse. Five. Psalm 37 describes something that meekness does, and then it describes something that meekness does not do.

[6:26] What does meekness do? According to verse 2 and verse 5 of Psalm 37, you're actually, you're welcome to turn there with me because I'm going to park there for a little bit. Psalm 37, verse 2 and verse 5, it says, Trust in the Lord.

[6:41] Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in Him and He will act. To trust someone is to rely on someone. To place your security and your confidence in another person.

[6:58] It comes from a root word that means to fall to the ground. Because when you fall prostrate on the ground, it's the exact opposite of a fighting posture. Ready to pounce and ready to strike, ready to defend yourself.

[7:13] When you're on the ground, there's nothing you can do. You're helpless. You have placed yourself in the trust of someone else. In the confidence and security of someone else.

[7:23] That's what it means to trust God. To place yourself completely at His mercy. Instead of keeping your guard up and fending for yourself, it means to entrust yourself to God, knowing that He will act on your behalf.

[7:39] So it means to trust Him. It's related to the word commit in verse 5. Commit your way to the Lord. That's a translation of a Hebrew word that literally means to roll something away.

[7:50] To commit your way to the Lord means to roll your fears, to roll your distress, and to roll your concerns and needs all over to God.

[8:02] Say, here you go, God. This is beyond my pay grade. I can't deal with this. Here you go, God. Rolling it over to God.

[8:14] It's a form of relinquishment, surrendering of control. Sometimes when we pray to God or commit our way to Him, we treat it like a game of paddle ball.

[8:27] I don't know if you guys have played paddle ball before. Some of my kids came back with a paddle ball from a birthday party favor. It's like a wooden racket paddle with a ball, but the ball is attached to it by this stretchy string.

[8:41] So it's a one-player game and you're trying to hit the ball as many times as you can. It just keeps coming back to you. And I think sometimes when we commit our way to God, when we try to trust in Him or pray to Him, we treat it like a game of paddle ball.

[8:57] Instead of actually rolling things over to Him, it's like, boom, and then it comes right back. Instead of rolling it over to Him, we say, well, here, God. Take it. And then you just never let go of it.

[9:07] You keep holding on to it. It's like a botched baton exchange in a track and field race or something because you keep holding on to the baton. But to truly trust in the Lord is to roll over our way to Him.

[9:24] The meek are not self-sufficient people. They recognize that God is sufficient. The meek are not, I'll do it all by myself, the people.

[9:37] They ask God to act and they roll over their concerns to Him. This leads to another action related to meekness. Psalm 37, verse 11, the meek shall inherit the land.

[9:49] That is paralleled by Psalm 37, verse 9, which says those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. The parallel construction suggests to us that meekness involves waiting on the Lord.

[10:03] This makes sense because if we really entrust ourselves to God and roll over our ways to Him, then the matter is really out of our hands at that point and we have no choice but to wait for Him to act.

[10:16] Verse 7 echoes the same sentiment. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. We wait patiently, rather than getting antsy and fidgety.

[10:27] We are still and silent before the Lord rather than being busy bees that are buzzing around everywhere trying to solve all of our problems. The Hebrew word for wait used in verse 9 is sometimes translated as hope.

[10:43] And it's derived from a Hebrew word that means taught, like a guitar string that is taught rather than loose or slack. It's a word that means tension, something that is taught.

[10:56] It's a very apt word to describe waiting if you think about it. When there is tension, something is not yet resolved. If a rubber band is stretched out and it is taught, there is tension that's waiting to be released and as soon as you let go, it returns to its original form.

[11:16] It springs back. Similarly, if you are waiting for something, then you are waiting for the release or the resolution of something that is yet to come.

[11:28] Imagine waiting for a friend that has not yet arrived at a cafe. You're meeting a friend and you're waiting for your friend. You're waiting because you're expecting your friend to arrive.

[11:41] When you stop waiting and you leave the cafe, that's when you have given hope, given up hope. You're no longer waiting. You're no longer hoping.

[11:54] You don't expect your friend to arrive. If you don't think that God is actually there, if you don't think that God's actually going to answer, if you don't expect God to actually show up and act in your life, then you're going to treat your prayers like praying into the empty air, never looking for or expecting an answer.

[12:24] You will think that God helps those who help themselves and you'll take matters into your own hands. Seen in this way, waiting is not a dreadful thing.

[12:34] It's actually a very hopeful thing. You wait because there's still hope. So to be meek is to not give up on God, to hope, to wait on Him, to trust in Him, knowing that still He will act.

[12:54] To be meek is to live in this tension between present reality or present struggles, present faith, and future reality. When guitar strings are loose, you can't play any music, just clattering of metal strings.

[13:10] It's only when it is taught, when there's tension, that it produces music. The same is true for the believer. It's only those who live between the already kingdom, the kingdom of God that has already been inaugurated, and the kingdom of God that is not yet consummated.

[13:27] Only people who learn to live in that tension between the already and the not yet, between Christ's first coming and His second coming that can produce this beautiful music of weakness.

[13:42] It's this waiting on God that enables the meek not to take justice and vengeance into their own hands. Again and again, if you look at Psalm 37, it says, fret not.

[13:53] Fret not yourself because of evil doers. Be not envious of wrongdoers. Verse 7 and 9. 7 and 9. Fret not yourself over the one who prospered in His way, over the man who carries out evil devices.

[14:06] Refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Fret not yourself. It tends only to evil for the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

[14:18] This is where things get a little harder for us, isn't it? As proud people, it's hard enough already for us to be poor in spirit and mourn, to admit that we are sinners and to humble ourselves before God and to mourn our sins.

[14:30] That's already hard enough. And so we daily depend on the convicting work and the comforting work of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that we can be broken and contrite in spirit before God. But being humble and poor before God is one thing.

[14:45] Being meek, being humble and poor before others, other fellow creatures, fellow sinners is another. That's even harder. Of course, we should be meek and lowly before God.

[14:58] He is God and we are not. He is holy and we are sinful. But what about these other people who are just as sinful as I am? Fellow creatures. We are their equals.

[15:13] And in our pride, we often, in our self-delusion, we like to think that we are better and more deserving than those around us and which is why we are resentful and bitter when others are doing better than we are, when others are promoted before us, when others get married before us, when others have children before us, when others get published before us, we fret.

[15:39] That's not there. When we are disrespected by other people, when we are disregarded by other people, when we are treated like dirt by other people, we fret because who likes being stepped on all over?

[15:59] When evildoers are not cut off, when they are inheriting the land, we can become indignant at the injustice of it all and take matters into our own hands and get angry, give way to anger and wrath, as it says here.

[16:14] But God says, refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Fret not yourself. It tends only to evil. Instead, the meek leave vengeance to God.

[16:27] As it says in Romans 12, 19, Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord.

[16:39] The meek fret not because they're not done waiting on God yet. Yes, the evil are not caught off yet.

[16:51] yes, the evil inherit the land still, but I'm not done waiting on God yet. So they fret not. The meek shall inherit the earth.

[17:09] This is where we get the popular meaning of the word meek. It means, as Merriam-Webster Dictionary puts it this way, enduring injury with patience and without resentment.

[17:19] the meek are not defensive. They are not sensitive. They're not defensive because they have a strong defender in God.

[17:34] The meek are calm and steady in the midst of upheaval and unfair treatment because their God is an immovable fortress. This is why only Christians can truly be meek.

[17:46] remember what I said last week. God is the ultimate blessed one. So that state of blessedness, happiness, blessed are the meek, cannot be found apart from God himself.

[18:01] It's part of the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5.23, it's often translated gentleness, but it's the same word as here, meekness. These are Holy Spirit born traits. These are not the natural temperament of human beings or a certain personality that people have.

[18:18] We can easily confuse this with people who tend to appear to have a meek personality or temperament, but that's not the meekness, that's the fruit of the Spirit that is described here. D. Martin Lloyd-Jones is helpful.

[18:32] He puts it this way in his book, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, which is really just a collection of his sermons. He says, there are people who appear to be meek in a natural sense, but they are not meek at all.

[18:43] They are indolent. We're lazy. That is not the quality of which the Bible is speaking, nor does it mean flabbiness. I use the term advisably.

[18:54] There are people who are easygoing, and you tend to say how meek they are, but it is not meekness, it is flabbiness. Nor does it mean niceness. There are people who seem to be born naturally nice.

[19:07] That is not what the Lord means when he says, blessed are the meek. Nor does it mean weakness in personality or character. Still less does it mean a spirit of compromise or peace at any price.

[19:17] How often are these things mistaken? How often is the man regarded as meek who says anything rather than have a disagreement? Let's agree. Let's try to break down these distinctions and divisions.

[19:28] Let's smooth over these little things that divide. Let's all be nice and joyful and happy. No, no, it is not that. Meekness is compatible with great strength.

[19:39] Meekness is compatible with great authority and power. These people we have looked at have been great defenders of the truth. The meek man is one who may so believe in standing for the truth that he will die for it if necessary.

[19:54] The martyrs were meek, but they were never weak. Strong men, yet meek men. This is a needful qualification.

[20:07] Meekness is not the same thing as weakness. The powerless and the powerful may both be meek in Christ. The Greek word that's used in the passage for meek is most often found outside of the Bible to describe animals.

[20:27] In particular to describe animals that are calm or tame. The Greek philosopher Xenophon says this, As you know, we call those creatures noble that are beautiful, great, and helpful, and yet gentle or meek toward men.

[20:44] For example, a powerful ox that is tame and gentle toward the farmer. In one instance, Xenophon comments that warhorses that have done hard work, that have been drilled and have been run hard, worked hard, will stand meekly together with other warhorses.

[21:03] soldiers. And he adds that soldiers, when they are well drilled, like these warhorses, they will be certainly more courageous in the face of the enemy. We can see from these illustrations that meekness does not refer to weakness.

[21:17] Who would ever call an ox or a horse weak? They are massive, powerful animals, but they are meek when they are tamed.

[21:30] when their strength is under control. A wild, unbroken stallion, despite all its strength, is completely useless in battle.

[21:46] But a meek stallion, who heeds the call of its master and can come to heal in a command in a moment's time, and can gallop into the din of battle at one command, that meek stallion is very useful.

[22:01] Great asset in battle. Meekness also does not mean that you cannot ever contend for or argue for the truth. Meekness, as Martin Lloyd-Jones said earlier, is not agreeableness, agreement at all costs.

[22:20] That's not what meekness is. Nowadays, identity politics is the name of the game, and people think that it's your identity that gives you the right to speak.

[22:33] It's your identity that makes you credible. If you belong to a particular race, or ethnicity, or nationality, or religion, or gender, or sexual preference, or caste, or class, or disability, then you're allowed to speak.

[22:49] Then you're allowed to speak with authority on certain things. And if you don't belong to those classes, then, well, you should just shut up and listen. That's what they say. But that's what G.K.

[23:03] Chesterton calls the dislocation of humility, or dislocation of modesty. He wrote this in his book, Orthodoxy, in 1908. What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place.

[23:16] Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth.

[23:30] This has been exactly reversed. Nowadays, the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt, the divine reason.

[23:45] We're on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication they are. He said this, can you guys believe it, over 100 years ago.

[23:59] And we've already arrived in 2025. Cambridge Public Schools, I found out when I went to the parent-teacher meeting with my daughter, they've changed the way they teach long division, because the way they have taught long division, they've been just inequitable.

[24:16] How is long division inequitable? That's a dislocation of modesty.

[24:28] That's false humility. It must be the problem with the way we teach it, because surely it cannot be the problem with those students. Nowadays, people say, well, this is my personal opinion.

[24:49] When they say, well, this is my personal opinion, then it's almost as if they assume automatically now their opinion is sacrosanct, is no longer contestable. Well, this is my personal opinion.

[25:02] Yes, everybody is entitled to their personal opinion, but that doesn't mean your opinion is reasonable. Nobody is entitled to their own version of the truth, because there is only one truth.

[25:21] Meekness does not mean that we make no claim on another person's opinion or other person's belief. Meekness does not mean that we never share our Christian faith with others.

[25:31] You believe, you do you, and I do me. You believe what you believe, and I'll believe what I believe. Meekness does not mean that we never correct others. Oh, I think I would never do that personally, but I'm not going to say anything about it.

[25:43] No, meekness brings correction. Meekness speaks the truth. Meekness does not mean we don't do these things. It just changes the way we do these things.

[25:59] When Paul is addressing the Corinthians who mock him, Paul is humble and face-to-face. He's only bold when he is away from us and writing his letters.

[26:10] That's what Corinthians were mocking him. And then Paul says to them, he entreats them, in 2 Corinthians 10 verse 1, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. Paul says to them in 1 Corinthians 4.21, what do you wish?

[26:24] Shall I come to you with a rod or with love in the spirit of gentleness? Same word, meekness. Galatians 6.1 says, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness or meekness.

[26:45] Same word. The Lord's servant, it says in 2 Timothy 2.24-25, must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

[27:00] Again, the same word, meekness. And this applies to all of us, not just to the servants of the Lord. 1 Peter 3.15, in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

[27:19] Yet do it with gentleness and respect. Same word, meekness. Meekness of wisdom, James 3.17 says, is first pure and peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

[27:37] Two people might disagree strongly and even argue passionately, but if they are meek, they're going to be teachable, they're going to be peaceable, they're going to be gentle and open to reason, they're going to be impartial and sincere.

[27:51] So yes, we are supposed to make a defense for our faith in Jesus Christ. We are supposed to correct our opponents and restore them to a caracad in transgression, but we do all of those things with meekness, in a non-quaralsome way, non-self-defensive way.

[28:10] The goal is to defend the truth, not to defend ourselves. Having defined meekness, now let's look at some examples of the meek from scripture.

[28:24] We'd be remiss to omit Moses, since we're told, it's quite a compliment in Numbers 12 verse 3, Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.

[28:38] That's pretty amazing. We learn that personal detail about Moses while he's facing intense personal criticism, and not from anybody, from people who are closest to him, his own brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam.

[29:01] who are also leaders in the Israelite camp, with prominent positions and influence. He says in Numbers 12, 1-2, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.

[29:17] And they said, Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also? The narrator confirms Miriam and Aaron's accusation Moses did marry a Cushite woman.

[29:37] Faithful Jews should have married other faithful Jews to continue their faith, protect, and safeguard the covenant. Moses, however, was married to a Cushite woman. Miriam and Aaron were also right that God hadn't only spoken through Moses.

[29:52] It was true. God had spoken through Aaron and Miriam, and we see that throughout the book of Exodus. So what they're saying is surface level and it's true.

[30:06] But what they're implying, however, is very false. Because they're suggesting Moses doesn't keep the law of God. Moses doesn't deserve to lead the people of God.

[30:20] let's find someone more qualified. Oh, look, we're right here. Miriam and Aaron. There are many lines of defense that Moses could have taken.

[30:39] If I were Moses' lawyer in this situation, there are many things I could have said. Miriam and Aaron, don't you know, somebody really powerful named Pharaoh was trying to kill me.

[30:52] I was exiled and living in the wilderness of Miriam for 40 years. Where am I supposed to find a Jewish woman to marry?

[31:09] I never thought I would see my people again. And plus, Zipporah and her family have only been good to me and she is now a faithful follower of Yahweh.

[31:24] You think that I want to do this? I told God many times I don't want to do this. But he told me I have to do it. He told me I have to speak for him. He told me I have to lead the people of God.

[31:35] I didn't choose this. God put me in this position. I didn't choose this. God put me in this position. But what's amazing about this passage is not what Moses says, it's what he doesn't say.

[31:49] He doesn't say a thing. Do you know who says something? Not Moses.

[32:02] God. It says in verse 5 and 10, Numbers 12, and the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam.

[32:14] And they both came forward and he said, hear my words. If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make myself known to him in a vision. I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses.

[32:26] He's faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds a form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?

[32:39] And the anger of the Lord was kindled against him and he departed. When the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous like snow. Probably because Miriam was the instigator.

[32:53] That's why her name is named first in verse 1. This is an illustration of meekness. This is the reason why the narrator inserted that comment in verse 3.

[33:06] Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all the people who were on the face of the earth. Because he was meek, Moses did not fret when his authority and his integrity were unfairly questioned and challenged.

[33:18] He committed his way to the Lord. He rolled over his way to the Lord and waited patiently for God. And God graciously acts. He doesn't have to, but God acts.

[33:30] King David is another great example, one of my various examples. While he is still a servant of King Saul, the envious Saul, who knows that David's becoming more popular and that David's the one who's destined to be king, starts trying to kill him.

[33:49] And David escapes by a hair several times from Saul's grip. And then later on, when he has two opportunities, not one, two opportunities to kill Saul, take his life, he refuses to raise up his hand against Saul.

[34:04] And the reason is because Saul is still the Lord's anointed. Yes, he's imperfect. Yes, he has sinned, but he's the Lord's anointed.

[34:18] It's remarkable meekness. Never mind that prophet Samuel earlier in 1 Samuel 15-26 have already pronounced the Lord's rejection of Saul. You have rejected the word of the Lord.

[34:29] The Lord has rejected you from being king over his will. Never mind that prophet Samuel has already anointed David to be the next king in 1 Samuel 16-13. It would have been so easy for David to justify killing Saul.

[34:42] He tried to kill me many times. This is self-defense. And he's been rejected by God. This is divine sanction. I'm supposed to be king. This is right. This is destiny.

[34:54] And God has brought him right here and I can just kill him. He's asleep. And yet he doesn't do it. It's as if he has this allergic reaction to doing anything to harm the Lord's anointed.

[35:05] It's his fear of God. It stays his hand. How can I touch the Lord's anointed? If God is going to impose him, let him do it.

[35:21] I will have no part in destroying the Lord's anointed. George Orwell wrote in the dystopian novel 1984, we know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.

[35:35] Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution. One makes the revolution in order to establish a dictatorship. isn't this too often true in our sinful world?

[35:52] And for that reason, we think this is very common knowledge. This is how Washington, D.C. is run. People assume that if you want power, you have to seize it. But David does not seize power.

[36:03] He does not seize authority for himself. He waits for the Lord to give him the kingship that he promised. That's meekness. And then, obviously, he's not perfect.

[36:16] He is very far from perfect. He sins, commits adultery with Bathsheba, and then he arranges for her husband, Uriah, to be killed.

[36:27] And because of that, he's confronted by prophet Nathan, who comes to him and says, you are the man who did these wicked things. And in David's response, and this is the punishment that's pronounced on him, is that he's going to have rebellion on his hand.

[36:42] One of his own is going to overthrow him. And he is going to sleep with his wives in broad daylight while everybody's watching him. This is the punishment, consequence of his own grave sin.

[36:55] And yet, when that is told to him, there's not a hint of self-defense or self-justification or a plea for the commutation of his sentence. David simply says, I have sinned against the Lord.

[37:09] That's poverty of spirit. mourning. And then later on, in 2 Samuel 16, when Nathan's prophecy is fulfilled, Absalom, his son, stages a coup and overthrows David.

[37:22] And then he proceeds to sleep with all of his concubines that have been left in the palace. And as he is fleeing in shame with his soldiers, his army, and as he's leaving, there's a man named Shimei who is from the household of Saul.

[37:34] And he starts slandering him and reviling him and cursing him and pelting him with stones, saying, Get out! Get out, you man of blood! You worthless man!

[37:45] The Lord has avenged on you all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned. And the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. See, your evil is on you, for you are a man of blood.

[37:57] It's quite an unfair criticism if you consider the fact that David, that the length that David went to not lay a hand on Saul. And not only that, David's not alone when he's being reviled in this way.

[38:10] He's surrounded by his mighty men. All the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand, on his left, as he's being mistreated in this way. And one of his mighty men, Abishai, says this to David, Why should this dead dog curse my Lord, the king?

[38:27] Let me go over and take off his head. And then David says to him, if he is cursing because the Lord has said to him, curse David, who then shall say, why have you done so?

[38:44] Leave him alone and let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. It may be that the Lord will look on the wrong God to me, and that the Lord will repay me with good for his cursing today.

[38:59] That's what meekness looks like. 17th century English pastor John Bunyan penned this hymn.

[39:16] It's found inside his book, Pilgrim's Progress. He that is down needs fear no fall. He that is low no pride. He that is humble ever shall have God to be his guide.

[39:32] When you are already poor in spirit, when you're mourning your sins already, you cease to be sensitive and defensive because he that is down already have no need to fear falling.

[39:45] Charles Spurgeon once said this in one of his sermons, Brothers, if any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him, for you are worse than he thinks you to be.

[40:01] If he charges you falsely on some point, yet be satisfied, for if he knew you better, he might change the accusation, and you would be no gainer by the correction. If you have your moral portrait painted and it is ugly, be satisfied, for it only needs a few blacker touches, and it would be still nearer the truth.

[40:27] It's hard, isn't it, when you are unfairly treated as we deem, when you are slandered or when you are spoken ill of, but in truth, in light of God's holiness, aren't we all doing so much better than this?

[40:45] aren't we all treated, showered with so much love and affection and respect that we don't deserve? The meek are not sensitive or defensive because they see in themselves nothing worth defending.

[41:05] to motivate and encourage us in this hard truth, in our meekness, Jesus gives us a promise in the second half of verse five, they shall inherit the earth.

[41:24] Again, it's so counterintuitive. The meek seem to us with worldly lenses like the last people will ever inherit the earth. but not according to Jesus.

[41:38] And like all of the beatitudes, there's a present and a future dimension. Remember the present tense promise of verse three and verse ten, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[41:49] These are, to a certain degree, already our possession. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But it's not yet fully ours, because the kingdom of heaven is not consummated yet.

[42:00] And those are what the future promises of verses four to nine capture. They shall inherit the earth. So in what sense do we already inherit the earth?

[42:11] Second Corinthians six, ten, Paul describes himself as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything.

[42:24] How does this poor itinerant tent making preacher think that he possesses everything? First Corinthians three, 21 to 23, he says, so let no one boast in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Seth or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours and you are Christ's and Christ is God's.

[42:52] The whole world is ours. And what's his logic? God is all in all. He's the one who fills all things. He's the one who owns all things and possesses all things. God is all in all.

[43:03] And Christ is of God. He's the son of God, the representative of God. And we are in Christ through faith. So we are of Christ and all that belongs to Christ belongs to us.

[43:14] And so Paul raises, all is yours, all the world. Because God says in Psalm 50, verse 12, the world and its fullness are mine. we live in a pretty small house, 750 square foot apartment.

[43:39] And we're so grateful for it because it's God's provision for us. And sometimes I joke with the kids and say, we have the biggest backyard in all of Cambridge. Because Gore Park is right behind.

[43:54] And that's true in a far deeper sense for all of us. Maybe you live in a tiny hole in the wall in the city. Maybe you feel like you inherit very little of the world.

[44:07] Maybe you feel like you have nothing to show. Maybe you don't have much to show. Maybe you don't have nothing to post on social media to post about, to show people about. But guess what? The cattle of a thousand hills belongs to the Lord.

[44:20] And it's yours. This whole world belongs to you. Because it belongs to Jesus. But it raises the all-inclined question.

[44:40] What if you were not meek? meek? How do you become meek? You want to inherit the earth, but how do you become meek?

[44:57] As I said earlier, there's no true meekness apart from Christ. Matthew uses this word meek two more times in his gospel, in the gospel of Matthew. And in both of those times, it refers to Jesus.

[45:10] in Matthew 21, verse 5, as Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey, he is described as fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 9, 9.

[45:22] Behold, your king is coming to you humble, same word, meek, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. The word humble there is the same word, like I said is meek.

[45:35] Imagine King Jesus coming into Jerusalem. He's coming into hostile territory where He will be framed with false trumped charges and He will be sent to the cross to be executed as a slave and as a criminal that He is not.

[45:49] And as He comes to Jerusalem, He does not gallop in on a war horse, on a stallion. He rides in gently in peace on a donkey, on a beast of burden.

[46:01] Meekness. And that's the same word that Jesus uses of Himself in Matthew 11, 29 that we read from our assurance of pardon.

[46:12] Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am meek, gentle, and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

[46:26] For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Because Jesus came not to labor, burdens on His people, but to lift up their burdens.

[46:42] Because Jesus came not to condemn His people, but to save His people, to justify them, and to redeem them. Jesus could have come to condemn all of us.

[46:57] He could have come in haughtiness. He could have come in judgment, in self, in righteousness. And yet instead He came in humility and meekness.

[47:09] And you wonder why all throughout the Gospels sinners flock to Him. Tax collectors flock to Him. They don't think, oh, Jesus, He's too holy, holier than I can't be with Him.

[47:26] They flock to Him. Why? Because He's meek. Because He dies. He comes to die.

[47:36] Instead of coming to kill, He comes to be killed as a sacrificial lamb. He could have defended Himself. He could have defended Himself before God in Gethsemane.

[47:48] He says, God, what have I done? Father, what have I done? Take this cup from me. Instead, He says, but only if, according to your will and not mine. When He's being tried in court, He could have defended Himself, but He doesn't.

[48:04] He goes like a lamb to the slaughter, and just as a sheep before it shears His silence, so Jesus does not open His mouth, and in meekness He dies, so they can save those who put their faith in Him.

[48:19] And that's what it means to be meek, and that's how you become meek. Maybe you're not yet a follower of Christ. To become meek is to take that first step of faith. Your first act of meekness is to receive with meekness the implanted word, as it says in James 1 21, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

[48:45] This is the path to salvation. Stop trying to inherit the earth with your own strength and with your own power. Stop trying to justify yourself with your own righteousness.

[48:56] Stop trying to fight for yourself and fend for yourself. Instead, receive with meekness the implanted word. Say, Christ is enough. Say, Christ is my defender.

[49:07] Christ is my righteousness. And that saves souls.