Getting God to bless you (Part 3) "Blessed Are the Meek".

Matthew 5:1-5

One more blessing, the third beatitude. Verse five

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

(Matthew 5: 5)

Who are the meek, what do we think? We usually think the strong and powerful control the world. To be on the top one must be aggressive and maybe even a bit arrogant. Sometimes it feels like the world is run by powerful and the manipulative. Military dictators, political and national leaders, despots, wealthy businessmen and in some cases the kingpins in organised crime, the drug lords, and the gang leaders, it seems like sometimes that it is all these types of people who run the world. How then can Jesus possibly say, the meek shall inherit the earth, not the powerful. This is an upside-down way of looking at the world, some might say even a revolutionary way of looking at the world.  It’s not the powerful, Jesus says it’s the meek that are going to inherit the earth. In the 1940s, sports coach Leo Doucher, came up with the strapline “Nice Guys finish last” and that is what many people think.

So, the question remains exactly what is meekness, because Jesus tells us the meek will inherit the earth. Is meekness the same thing as weakness? I would answer categorically, but if meekness is not weakness, then what actually is it? Let’s talk about this word in the bible that is translated for us in most versions of our modern bible as “meek”. As a matter of fact, this word is so full of layers of meaning it’s almost untranslatable with one single modern word. There’s no one English word that captures all this word is meant to convey. Let me give you some steps in approaching it. 

The Greek word means to be many things, it means to be gentle, to be humble, to be courteous, to be considerate, to be kind, all these are aspects of the word “meek” used here. The idea behind the word is a combination on gentleness and humility. I prefer the translation, meek to that of gentle sometimes used in some recent translations but like I say, no modern English word captures its entire essence. There’s actually another word that is also sometimes translated in the New Testament, as meek, which also has a of being fair contained within it. My favourite translation of that word is a rare one but a few translations of say, “let your “sweet reasonableness” be known to all people “Let me suggest that, since there’s so many nuances in this word that I thought it best to mention them all. 

The way the Greeks used this word, which had with it the idea of a submissive spirit. During the Polynesian war is a soldier wrote his fiancé about a white stallion he was going to give her. He said the horse, and now I’m quoting, “it responds obediently to the slightest command, he allows his owner to direct him to his full potential” and then he said he is a wonderfully meek horse”. That sort of captures the idea of meekness. It’s not weakness, its quiet strength under control. It’s strength , but strength that is held under control. 

In the Exodus story Moses is sometimes called meek in fact one verse described him as the meekest man in all of the land. Do you think Moses was weak. H e stood before Pharaoh, and said, “let my people go”. Nobody else was prepared to do that. He may have had a meekness about him but he certainly wasn’t weak.

One of the main things that characterized Jesus Christ was meekness, yet he stood up to the Pharisees and he kicked over the tables of the money changers. Does that sound like somebody that’s weak to you? No way. So, it’s about being submissive yes, but submissive to the Lord. Moses was submissive to the Lord; Jesus was submissive to the will of his father. That’s what made them meek, but not weak. It’s gentleness, it’s a submissive spirit, a gentle spirit

Aristotle had an interesting way of defining words. He would talk about the median between two extremes. For example, on one extreme there’s the spin thrift, and on the other extreme there is the miser. And he put in the middle the median, the average, the sensibly generous person. Aristotle dealt with the word meek in the same way and he said it was the median between anger on one hand and listlessness on the other. In other words, it wasn’t too much anger, but wasn’t a complete lack of righteous anger ; it was mild anger, but only when it was appropriate.  So, meekness is a mild but firm-controlled spirit that is the opposite of an outburst of anger.  If you can live that way and develop a personality that has an abundance of that characteristic, then we are told here we will be blessed. So, what do you get? Well, look at verse five. You shall inherit the earth. 

I thought the powerful and power seekers were going to inherit the earth, the answer appears to be, not so. As a matter of fact, if you think about it, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians and the Romans all dominated the earth for a while. But they were overthrown. In modern times, the same thing could be said of Napoleon, and Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Tse Tong. They all conquered their part of the world, for a while they even tried to spread their hateful ideologies and control huge portions beyond their borders, but they all fell too soon. The Hitler regime in 1940 shouted to the world that the third reich would last 1000 years and was gone 5 years later. They powerful may appear to inherit this earth for a a while, but it’s an illusion and their Towers of Babel come crumbling down. It’s not the powerful that will really inherit the earth, it’s the meek, and it’s not now, it’s later. 

As a matter of fact, even the powerful rule in the animal Kingdom is always under threat. Then the lion, the tiger and the eagle should be in control of their domains, right? Well, those happen to be the endangered species. So that’s not the powerful even now today that will inherit the earth, although it might appear that way for a little while, it’s certainly not going to happen for them in the long run.

Jesus tells us here that it is the meek shall inherit the earth. I think this is ultimately a reference to the Millennium. Because when the Lord comes back, those who are poor in spirit, who know how to mourn properly, and who are meek and gentle, they’re the ones that will inherit the earth.  They will rule and reign with the King of Kings and the Prince of Peace. The powerful may get ahead in the queue or fight for the best tables at restaurants and become angry or  when they don’t get the best seat at the front on at important events, but the truth is that it is what is on inside those counts. Often power hungry types are miserable people, and they end up with ulcers, or worse still strokes and heart attacks. 

So, it’s the meek who inherit the earth. Submissive, gentle, mild people who don’t easily get angry, enjoys life, they care about other people, and they will end up ultimately happy and inheriting the earth.

Maybe I should say just a word about this word inheritance. Because we are told the meek shall “inherit” the earth. It’s a tricky word in the Bible. If you’re saved, there’s a sense in which you inherit eternal life straight away. But in the Old Testament, there is this idea that there was a double portion awaiting the  1st born. The oldest got twice what the others got, indicating there’s two kinds of inheritance. I think this is the kind of inheritance that’s talking about rewards we will receive. Your greatest rewards are going to come to you in heaven when you stand before the Lord and he says 

‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness”.

(Matthew 25: 21)

So, you are going to be greatly blessed in the sense that you’re going to be greatly rewarded in eternity. If we summarise where we have got to so far. I’ve given you 3 little attributes so far, five more to come. 

Number one is to be poor and spirit. What does that mean? It means coming to God with no spiritual resources of your own. You’re dependent on the Lord for all that you get.

Number two, you mourn. Identify the things in your life that should cause you grief and mourn about them, and if you learn how to mourn for yourself you will then be able to help other when they are struggling and mourn with them also.

Three, be gentle, be meek. Is it possible that these three things are related? Think about it being poor in spirit. If we stand before God and recognize our lack of spiritual resources and depend on him. The emotional outgrowth of being spiritually poverty stricken is grieving over your sin and being comforted by God. And out of that should come a spirit of gentleness. 

Flip it. Somebody who is not dependent on the Lord will have an arrogant attitude, one of defiance and rebellion. They will not know how to empathize with other people. They won’t grieve their own sins, they will tend to concentrate on being angry about the perceived sins of others. Are they gentle people? Absolutely not, and they are the sort of people we should want to get away from. You see the problem for them is not now, it’s when the Lord comes back. There the ones who are going to have a problem because when the Lord comes back and they have to give an account to him. 

I want to finish today by trying to put something in focus because it’s critical for what I’ve said today and it’s absolutely vital for what we’re going to see in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. I began by asking, who does God bless? And I quoted my childhood and talked about people who were what were called “good living”. Maybe me and my friend were right, it is about living the right way.Not like a Pharisee and following a set of religious rules and demonstrating to the world your external righteous. Because then you will miss what the Pharisees missed 2000 years ago. They put all the emphasis on external righteousness, looking good on the outside. Jesus is saying this isn’t about looking good, this is about being good. Blessed it, or the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the gentle, that’s all about internal. righteousness, that’s the type of person that is going to be blessed by God. 

I grew up in a rural farming area and in the summer holidays  I worked (I say worked ?) . and one day and old Christian farmer my brother worked for, he was a brethren Christian by the way, He said to me you should always live a life where you feel you can hold your head up. Don’t let the approval of other push you around and neither let your head be filled with foolish pride. See the fields, he said ripe and ready for harvest . The heads of grain that are ready when they stand up straight.  Only the heads that are right stand up are they ready for harvest. Those whose heads become too full bend under the weight of it. Left to their own devises they will become too full and will begin to collapse under their own weight. Brought down so low and can’t be brought in at the harvest.

That’s right. Father, thank you for the assurance that you’re coming back and bringing us home to be with you. Help us inherit you blessings by being aware of our own poverty of spirit, help us also see what we should regret and repent about, and help us also remain meek and gentle in our approach to everything, because where we are week you come right in and make us strong.