WEBVTT 00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:04.959 So we are working our way through the Beatitudes this summer. 00:00:05.679 --> 00:00:11.679 Nine weeks, nine Sundays, and as well, nine Beatitudes, so it works out perfectly for us. 00:00:11.919 --> 00:00:13.279 So that's our verse for this morning. 00:00:13.359 --> 00:00:14.640 So we're going to dig into that. 00:00:15.119 --> 00:00:16.399 Blessed are the meek. 00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:21.839 So right away, I immediately as I started in on this verse this week. 00:00:22.079 --> 00:00:24.480 My first thought is like, really? 00:00:25.199 --> 00:00:27.920 Because it doesn't seem this way, right? 00:00:28.079 --> 00:00:29.760 It just doesn't quite seem this way. 00:00:29.839 --> 00:00:59.039 It seems like a little bit of a contradiction for our culture and our age because the people that I'm seeing be blessed are looking like people who build a really good platform, who have a lot of followers on social media, who have a network, a really great network to network through, who are the most noticed, those tend to be the ones who seem to me to be the ones prospering and making things happen and getting opportunities. 00:00:59.119 --> 00:01:01.280 So right away I'm kind of going, okay, so what does this mean? 00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:02.479 What's going on here? 00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:03.920 What does blessed mean? 00:01:04.239 --> 00:01:05.280 What does meek mean? 00:01:05.359 --> 00:01:06.640 And what does it mean to inherit the earth? 00:01:06.879 --> 00:01:08.560 We've got to define all these things. 00:01:08.799 --> 00:01:13.599 So this is in your bulletin as well, in the handout in the New York Times. 00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:16.640 I read this this week, an older article, but I read it this week. 00:01:16.799 --> 00:01:18.799 Tony Schwartz is a writer and a CEO. 00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:22.319 He was writing toward leaders, but I think it applies to all of us. 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:25.200 You can follow along in your bulletin. 00:01:25.680 --> 00:01:31.280 So when we identify with a particular strength, the opposite we're avoiding is almost always a negative. 00:01:31.519 --> 00:01:34.319 For confidence, it's insecurity or self-doubt. 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:36.799 But what happens when we overuse confidence? 00:01:36.879 --> 00:01:39.920 It turns into arrogance, hubris, or even grandiosity. 00:01:40.159 --> 00:01:43.359 Any strength overused eventually becomes toxic. 00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:50.480 Excessive honesty becomes cruelty, tenacity congeals into rigidity, bias for action can overwhelm thoughtful reflection. 00:01:50.719 --> 00:01:54.959 This is where positive opposites serve as a balancing or humanizing role. 00:01:55.120 --> 00:02:00.719 Humility comes from the Latin word humilus, which literally means low. 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:04.879 It resides just a stone's throw away from humiliation. 00:02:05.040 --> 00:02:11.520 Sure enough, excessive humility eventually softens into obuscuousness. 00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:12.960 That's a tough word for me. 00:02:13.120 --> 00:02:14.639 I'm sure you can't pronounce it either. 00:02:14.879 --> 00:02:16.800 And self-subjugation. 00:02:17.039 --> 00:02:27.360 False humility is even worse, a conscious manipulation covertly aimed at winning praise, often to compensate for unacknowledged feelings of inadequacy. 00:02:27.520 --> 00:02:32.800 But genuine humility is a reflection of neither weakness nor insecurity. 00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:44.560 Instead, it implies respectful appreciation of the strengths of others, a lack of personal pretension, and more relaxed sense of confidence that doesn't require external recognition. 00:02:45.360 --> 00:02:55.919 When leaders openly accept the whole of who they are, for better and for worse, they no longer have to defend their value so diligently. 00:02:56.639 --> 00:03:04.879 I make missteps and mistakes as a leader, and they're often a reflection of the same overused strengths and blind spots I've been struggling with my whole life. 00:03:05.759 --> 00:03:08.960 I don't need to say out loud that I value confidence and strength. 00:03:09.039 --> 00:03:14.000 I do need to demonstrate that I also value humility and vulnerability to embrace these opposites. 00:03:14.159 --> 00:03:21.840 In the end, the less time we spend protecting our own value, the more time we can spend creating value in the world. 00:03:22.080 --> 00:03:33.840 Alright, so that's Tony Schwartz, the CEO, writing to leaders in the New York Times, wherever you lie on the spectrum of belief, you read that and you go, yeah, I've seen a good bit of that. 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:37.039 Like that, some of that resonates with me. 00:03:42.479 --> 00:03:44.319 In the business world, he's saying, I've seen this. 00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:54.639 I've seen so much waste and exhaustion when anybody, when any of us attempt to defend and protect our own value. 00:03:55.840 --> 00:03:57.039 Anybody ever do that? 00:03:57.280 --> 00:03:59.599 Anybody ever been on that path? 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:02.400 You can feel yourself when you go into it. 00:04:02.639 --> 00:04:04.800 That's the opposite of meekness. 00:04:05.039 --> 00:04:10.080 So Jesus comes in and he speaks in Matthew 5, 5, blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 00:04:10.159 --> 00:04:15.520 So meekness, meek is this mildness of disposition. 00:04:16.319 --> 00:04:18.959 It's a gentleness of spirit. 00:04:19.439 --> 00:04:23.519 So if you remember two weeks ago, spirit is this idea of your pneuma. 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:27.199 It's the core principle of who you are. 00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:35.120 It's the inner drive, the inner self of who you are, and it's sort of, it fuels like how you feel and how you react and decisions you make. 00:04:35.839 --> 00:04:45.199 And meekness is saying that part of you is poor, is low, is gentle. 00:04:46.879 --> 00:04:56.160 That place is low, and because it's low, that place is poor, and because of that it's gentle, and because of that it's mild. 00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:08.079 That part of you has no concern, and this is what Tony Schwartz is saying, that part of you has no concern to defend or protect or prove yourself. 00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:10.160 That's meekness. 00:05:10.959 --> 00:05:17.519 So years ago, we were out of town, our family, and our now five-year-old has been a couple years ago. 00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:23.839 Uh she must have been three or so, and she wake, she woke up and she had hives all over her body. 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:24.959 I mean, all over her body. 00:05:25.199 --> 00:05:26.480 We're going, like, what is this? 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:28.720 And how we, you know, are we gonna take her to the hospital? 00:05:28.879 --> 00:05:29.600 Did she eat something? 00:05:29.759 --> 00:05:34.959 We're like reviewing the day before, like, okay, no, like she ate all normal foods, it's probably not a food thing. 00:05:35.120 --> 00:05:36.079 I mean, what could this be? 00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:44.800 And so we narrow it down to like, oh, it it must be like the harsh, the harsh chemicals in the commercial cleaners in the sheets. 00:05:44.879 --> 00:05:55.040 Like it's the only thing we figured because it was like dur after sleeping, so it went food and it was after sleep, so it must be the harshness of the chemical cleaners on the sheets. 00:05:55.120 --> 00:06:00.720 And so we rush out, we buy some all, which by the way, on all it says gentle for sensitive skin. 00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:02.079 So this is our situation. 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:08.000 And we rewash these sheets with all, put them back on, and she's fine. 00:06:08.399 --> 00:06:08.720 Right? 00:06:08.879 --> 00:06:12.639 I mean, and you know soaps like this, they say gentle for this and mild for this. 00:06:12.800 --> 00:06:18.959 I actually took a stroll through the aisle this week because that's I get all my sermon illustrations in the grocery store. 00:06:19.120 --> 00:06:22.480 Um, Dove, gentle exfoliating. 00:06:22.720 --> 00:06:24.720 Anybody use Dove? 00:06:24.959 --> 00:06:25.439 Maybe. 00:06:25.600 --> 00:06:25.920 Okay. 00:06:26.079 --> 00:06:33.279 We also uh now the opposite of Dove, and I just bought this one because it was funny, is this soap, lava. 00:06:35.199 --> 00:06:36.879 It's named Lava. 00:06:37.839 --> 00:06:50.720 And it's made by WD40, which basic there's a safety number on the back, very large, which I'm pretty sure just means it just burns off the top layer of your skin. 00:06:50.959 --> 00:06:52.240 It's the opposite. 00:06:52.399 --> 00:06:57.279 It's the opposite of gentle exfoliating, it's just complete annihilation. 00:06:57.519 --> 00:07:02.399 Uh this is a a dial uh hand soap. 00:07:02.560 --> 00:07:06.720 Um that it's it's gentle on your on your skin. 00:07:06.879 --> 00:07:08.480 Uh this was just in our house. 00:07:08.639 --> 00:07:11.680 We use this um honest shampoo body wash. 00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:13.759 Anyone use honest company? 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:15.120 They got in trouble a few weeks ago. 00:07:15.199 --> 00:07:15.920 Did y'all hear about that? 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:18.480 They weren't honest about a few things, which is ironic. 00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:23.439 But uh this it this, perfectly gentle. 00:07:23.680 --> 00:07:24.480 Perfectly gentle. 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:26.319 You know, gent gentle, you know, Dove was gentle. 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:28.720 You know, they had to kind of you know step it up. 00:07:28.959 --> 00:07:30.720 Perfectly gentle, right? 00:07:30.800 --> 00:07:32.240 I mean, you know these soaps, right? 00:07:32.319 --> 00:07:34.560 You've been down the aisles, you've shopped, and you're eating. 00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:40.639 I mean, it is a lot of gentle and a lot of mild over and over and over again. 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:42.480 They're all communicating the aims, the same thing. 00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:43.839 It's all the same thing. 00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:49.360 It does not easily provoke, it's not gonna cause hives. 00:07:50.480 --> 00:07:50.879 Right? 00:07:50.959 --> 00:07:54.720 It's tender toward the thing around it. 00:07:54.959 --> 00:07:58.000 It's tender toward the thing it comes in contact with. 00:07:58.240 --> 00:07:58.879 Here's my point. 00:07:59.040 --> 00:08:00.720 Soap's just a way to do it, right? 00:08:00.879 --> 00:08:03.759 Uh the commercial detergent's harsh and provokes. 00:08:03.839 --> 00:08:06.480 Uh, the more natural does not provoke. 00:08:06.720 --> 00:08:19.839 Meekness is a quality that does not easily provoke because it's not so consumed with protecting its own value, defending its own value, and proving its own value. 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:26.399 In that way, it's a it's a poverty, it's a it's it's poor, it's low. 00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:28.480 Meaning, meaning this. 00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:33.120 Here's the good news you don't have to be so defensive, right? 00:08:33.519 --> 00:08:36.320 I mean, this is the freedom of blessed are the meek. 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:40.960 I mean, Jesus is coming along and saying to you, like, you don't have to be so defensive. 00:08:41.039 --> 00:08:45.120 You don't have to be so offensive and trying to form your own value or identity. 00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:46.320 You don't have to do that. 00:08:46.399 --> 00:08:48.480 You the guard can come down. 00:08:48.960 --> 00:08:50.799 You don't have to prove yourself. 00:08:51.039 --> 00:08:54.879 And because of that, you can be gentle. 00:08:55.200 --> 00:08:57.519 And maybe you're here and you think gentle is weak. 00:08:57.759 --> 00:08:59.200 Gentle is not weak. 00:08:59.519 --> 00:09:01.600 Gentle is secure. 00:09:02.159 --> 00:09:03.600 That's what gentleness is. 00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:07.759 Gentle listens and it cares and it doesn't want to provoke. 00:09:08.559 --> 00:09:18.559 Gentleness confesses when it needs to, it apologizes when it needs to, and it's fine too, because it's not busy trying to prove and defend and protect. 00:09:19.039 --> 00:09:20.159 So, two points. 00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:29.919 Number one, meekness is a life of receiving and responding, not a life of proving and defending. 00:09:30.559 --> 00:09:31.840 Sort of what I've already said. 00:09:31.919 --> 00:09:32.879 So, this is what it means. 00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:40.000 We're unburdened by the pursuit of self-justification that shows itself in proving and defending, right? 00:09:40.159 --> 00:09:42.720 We love to prove and we love to defend our value. 00:09:42.799 --> 00:09:46.159 When we do that, we're not gentle, we're not low, we're not meek. 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:54.159 But in meekness, there's no comparison, there's no competition, so it frees you to be, you are already secure. 00:09:54.320 --> 00:10:00.720 That's why you don't have to compare, and you don't have to compete, and you don't have to prove, you don't have to defend, because you're already secure. 00:10:01.919 --> 00:10:07.679 And so you can love people, you can serve people, you can listen, you can apologize, you can confess. 00:10:07.919 --> 00:10:10.799 I mean, can you feel the ease of meekness? 00:10:11.200 --> 00:10:11.600 Right? 00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:14.080 The meek just attend the meeting. 00:10:14.159 --> 00:10:19.360 They don't have to go into a meeting to like try to be more or to be the top guy. 00:10:19.440 --> 00:10:22.720 They can just go to the meeting, they can just love people. 00:10:23.840 --> 00:10:32.960 They probably they probably fish more than the rest of us because they're not busy using like work or you know, really being addicted to work to try to prove their value. 00:10:33.039 --> 00:10:35.360 So they could they can go fishing and they're okay with it. 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:37.360 When they're fishing, they're not thinking about work. 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:53.200 And I think meet people probably when they're planting flowers in their yard, they enjoy their flowers and they're not looking at their neighbor's yard, like wishing and looking at their neighbor's flowers, going, man, if I could only have flowers like their flowers. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:55.440 They're just okay. 00:10:56.960 --> 00:11:07.759 Maybe you know these feelings because you're constantly trying to prove yourself and defend yourself, and maybe it comes out verbally, or maybe it's just like a passive-aggressive thing, and maybe everybody else sees it, but you don't see it yet. 00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:09.279 Maybe you'll see it today, that would be great. 00:11:09.440 --> 00:11:13.200 Maybe you do it in a realm of ways we can do this. 00:11:14.320 --> 00:11:16.480 And maybe you know this as exhaustion. 00:11:16.639 --> 00:11:21.120 Maybe you know it because you're harsh with people, you're you're harsh with words. 00:11:21.360 --> 00:11:25.679 I mean, the idea of being gentle, the idea of being kind. 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:33.519 I mean, these things are so far from the way maybe your personality is wired, or or just your disposition. 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:40.960 But listen, if you're exhausted, that means you're really close to being broken. 00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:56.240 And if you're broken, you're you're really close to being on the path where meekness is not something that you're trying to become, but it's a quality that you become just because you're tired of the other the other path. 00:11:56.480 --> 00:12:12.960 You're tired of trying to work your way out of shame, trying to, you're tired of trying to work your way into favor of God, you're tired of self-justification in general, and so you begin on a different path, which is the path of receiving and responding to God's love toward you in the person of Christ, that you are sufficient. 00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:18.000 You are for your forgiveness is sealed, your security with God is secured, secured. 00:12:18.159 --> 00:12:32.720 I mean, you as a person and identity, you are learning your identity is in Him, and so you don't have to protect and prove and defend, which means you're on a path where a quality of meekness starts to come around you. 00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:34.639 That's point number one. 00:12:34.799 --> 00:12:43.279 Point number two, a life of receiving and responding, which is what what produces meekness is a life of inheriting the earth. 00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:44.159 And what does this mean? 00:12:44.240 --> 00:12:45.759 So, how do the meek inherit the earth? 00:12:45.840 --> 00:12:46.480 And what does that even mean? 00:12:46.559 --> 00:12:47.840 Well, it's a bit of a mystery. 00:12:47.919 --> 00:12:49.039 I hope you're okay with this. 00:12:49.120 --> 00:12:50.799 There's a little debate here. 00:12:51.039 --> 00:12:59.279 Uh, some people think this word earth is better put land, and Jesus seems to be quoting Psalm 37, verse 11. 00:12:59.519 --> 00:13:09.120 But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace, which that verse would have been written and spoken to Jewish people. 00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:18.399 But now Jesus is speaking this, quoting, probably quoting that, but now he's speaking it in the context of the new covenant to Christians. 00:13:19.600 --> 00:13:32.320 So a little theology here, what it could mean is it could mean, maybe you don't care about this stuff, but I'll mention it for those who do, it could mean Jesus is replacing Israel as the recipients of the promise with the Christian church. 00:13:32.399 --> 00:13:34.399 That would be known as replacement theology. 00:13:34.559 --> 00:13:35.919 It could mean that. 00:13:36.159 --> 00:13:44.639 Or it could mean it's still a promise for the Jewish people, and God still has concern for them and the actual land of Israel. 00:13:44.799 --> 00:13:46.639 Now, some people get fired up about these things. 00:13:46.799 --> 00:13:48.960 Maybe you are you know more about this than I do. 00:13:49.200 --> 00:13:51.840 That's about all I know, really, about this. 00:13:52.799 --> 00:13:55.600 Maybe you get fired up, maybe you don't, maybe you don't care. 00:13:55.759 --> 00:13:56.799 Here's what I tend to think. 00:13:56.960 --> 00:14:04.320 I tend to think while the Jewish people still don't recognize Jesus as Savior, I'm not willing to say God's done with them. 00:14:05.440 --> 00:14:12.720 And so I think personally this verse has something to do with them, and it has something to do with us as Christians. 00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:23.919 And Canaan, this land, I mean, throughout the scriptures, we know, especially in the Old Testament, it begins to be this huge, beautiful metaphor of peace, of coming into peace. 00:14:24.639 --> 00:14:31.440 And Jesus says, people of meekness will know this land, will know this peace. 00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:41.519 So whatever you believe about replacement theology, if you care at all, it still has to do for us about coming into a place of peace. 00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:52.720 In college, I always loved finding a place in between classes, if you had like an hour break, to find a place to go and knock out some studying, and I would prefer to be outside than inside. 00:14:52.799 --> 00:14:54.960 And so I always try to find a quiet place. 00:14:55.120 --> 00:15:08.639 And so my roommate had found, and a friend of his had told him, uh, we were in the business school at Georgia, and he's in this one particular building, he said, I mean, if you go to the bottom floor, I think it was Caldwell Hall, I think is what it was called. 00:15:08.720 --> 00:15:12.159 And the bottom floor, it was all the offices were. 00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:14.399 Nobody went down there, it's just all professor offices. 00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:19.840 There's one, there's like two doors, there's two doors, one on one side, one on the other, and it went into a garden. 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:25.039 I mean, this courtyard garden inside of the building was surrounded by building on all four sides. 00:15:25.200 --> 00:15:27.200 Nobody knew about this, at least when I was there. 00:15:27.360 --> 00:15:31.039 There's about five people that I figured out knew about this garden. 00:15:31.200 --> 00:15:38.639 It was like when you walked in and you suit you saw one of the other ones, there's this acknowledgement, like, we don't tell anybody about this place. 00:15:38.879 --> 00:15:45.279 There's a thousand people on the quad, like sitting, and we are in this secret little garden. 00:15:45.600 --> 00:15:52.159 And there is a patio table on one side and a patio table on the other, and there's crepe myrtles, and there's all these perennials and ivy. 00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:55.440 It was beautiful, it was perfect, it was perfectly quiet. 00:15:55.600 --> 00:15:58.639 I've gone down there every single day. 00:15:59.360 --> 00:16:01.120 There's only one way in. 00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:03.039 The bottom. 00:16:03.679 --> 00:16:04.799 Only one way. 00:16:05.919 --> 00:16:27.120 And for me, it's a it's a good metaphor, it's a good picture because the only way in to having any measure of characteristic of meekness or and or also leading to inheriting the earth or peace is the bottom floor. 00:16:27.679 --> 00:16:44.639 When you're just finished, you're so exhausted with trying to prove yourself and protect yourself and defend yourself and create your own righteousness outside of Jesus and create your own, work yourself into favor with God or keep yourself in favor with God. 00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:51.200 And you're just so over all of this, you're at the bottom floor. 00:16:51.360 --> 00:16:52.879 It's the only way in. 00:16:53.120 --> 00:17:03.679 You have to be broken to all the ways you depend on your righteousness and your justification and receive God's provision for you in Jesus, where you're just done. 00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:09.680 You're done working, you're done using the secular world and you're done using the religious world for this. 00:17:11.039 --> 00:17:13.119 And thus you're made low. 00:17:14.079 --> 00:17:16.559 And you're not even trying to be meek. 00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:18.240 You don't even know if you are meek. 00:17:18.799 --> 00:17:21.440 You might not even care, but you're just low. 00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:23.759 You don't have anything left. 00:17:29.119 --> 00:17:31.759 So you inherit the earth and you know some peace. 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:33.920 Now we hear all of that. 00:17:34.160 --> 00:17:40.319 And no, we know we are not perfectly, sustainably meek. 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:41.119 Right? 00:17:41.279 --> 00:17:42.160 I mean, we know it. 00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:46.400 We know we don't experience perfect and sustainable peace. 00:17:46.559 --> 00:17:47.599 We know that, right? 00:17:47.759 --> 00:17:48.720 We know it. 00:17:49.039 --> 00:17:57.839 We become offended and we lash back, or we become offended and then we passively over time make the person pay us back in different weird ways. 00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:02.480 Or we're misunderstood and we erupt on some somebody. 00:18:03.519 --> 00:18:05.519 We just need them to understand our point, right? 00:18:05.599 --> 00:18:07.440 Like if they could just understand our point. 00:18:07.599 --> 00:18:13.920 We have to have the last word, or we come into a meeting, or you know, a conversation, we have to prove ourselves. 00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:17.200 I know nothing about, nothing about this. 00:18:17.680 --> 00:18:19.039 Of course. 00:18:19.519 --> 00:18:22.319 Never happens, never ever happens. 00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:29.359 I mean, I when it it happens all the time, but when it happens, I just go, wow, like that's still in me. 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:32.400 That's still in me. 00:18:32.720 --> 00:18:36.720 I became a Christian when I was 13, I'm 37. 00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:39.279 24 years. 00:18:42.400 --> 00:18:44.880 I'm still just immature. 00:18:45.519 --> 00:18:48.319 I mean, immature in these things. 00:18:49.119 --> 00:18:50.319 Here's the good news. 00:18:50.480 --> 00:19:04.400 And here's why I don't walk around freaking out and I'm not counting all the ways I'm not meek and feeling bad about myself today, is because in the grace of God, I, you, are saved by the one who is perfectly meek for you. 00:19:06.640 --> 00:19:08.160 Jesus was that for you. 00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:12.160 He died the death for you, and he lived the life for you, right? 00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:14.480 This is that imputation we talk about all the time. 00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:19.279 On the cross, your sin is put upon him, and his righteousness is put on you. 00:19:19.519 --> 00:19:24.079 So his perfect meekness comes onto you. 00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:30.640 All that arrogance and that pride and that proving and that defending, all of that was put on him. 00:19:31.200 --> 00:19:32.960 That's why you're secure. 00:19:33.200 --> 00:19:35.279 That's where your security is. 00:19:35.759 --> 00:19:42.079 As long as we hold our poor hearts in our own hands and try to use our merit and implement five ways to become meek this week. 00:19:42.240 --> 00:19:43.440 I mean, all we're helpless. 00:19:43.599 --> 00:19:44.079 We're helpless. 00:19:44.160 --> 00:19:45.680 It's more proving, it's more defending. 00:19:45.839 --> 00:19:47.759 Our only hope is that bottom level. 00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:49.839 That's the only hope. 00:19:50.319 --> 00:19:52.640 Is we just see the fact that we're not getting anywhere. 00:19:52.799 --> 00:19:53.279 We're just done. 00:19:53.359 --> 00:19:54.880 We're just we're just exhausted by it. 00:19:54.960 --> 00:20:04.640 Our only hope for rest and change is to live in the appropriation of what God has already done for you, that you begin to receive it and respond to it. 00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:07.119 And this is what you preach to yourself every day. 00:20:07.279 --> 00:20:16.400 Not Sundays, every day you preach it to yourself over and over again that you are wonderfully not meek. 00:20:17.519 --> 00:20:20.720 But Jesus was so wonderfully meek for you. 00:20:21.519 --> 00:20:24.079 And God didn't even see you as not meek. 00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:27.279 And then it maybe he sees you as meek because of Jesus. 00:20:27.440 --> 00:20:29.359 That's why you're so secure. 00:20:31.680 --> 00:20:42.559 And we understand ourselves as his child, and we don't have to keep defending ourselves and proving ourselves and protecting ourselves because we're already loved. 00:20:42.720 --> 00:20:48.640 This week I read a great quote by Henry Nowen, who's a renowned uh theological professor. 00:20:48.799 --> 00:20:51.119 Uh he was a spiritual writer. 00:20:51.279 --> 00:20:58.720 He he taught at Ivy League schools, and then he left and he became a chaplain at a uh place, a community for the disabled. 00:20:58.880 --> 00:21:08.079 And he tells of a time when a lady in their group uh came up to him within a group session, and he came up to him and said, Hey, will you bless me? 00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:13.119 And it's it wasn't like um he's some spiritual guru with magical powers. 00:21:13.279 --> 00:21:15.680 She was just saying, I need to hear it. 00:21:15.920 --> 00:21:17.359 I need to hear it. 00:21:19.039 --> 00:21:24.000 And then one by one, everybody else said, I need I need to hear that too. 00:21:24.160 --> 00:21:25.039 I need to hear that too. 00:21:25.200 --> 00:21:30.880 And and he went around and he held every person in the room in his arms. 00:21:31.519 --> 00:21:35.119 And he would just say, You are a joy to us. 00:21:35.680 --> 00:21:38.400 I know you have had a rough life. 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:42.400 And you are God's beloved. 00:21:43.279 --> 00:21:46.160 And he just went one by one by one. 00:21:46.559 --> 00:21:58.720 And in his book, Life of the Beloved, then he writes this when we are thrown up and down by the little waves on the surface of our existence, we become easy victims of our manipulative world. 00:21:58.960 --> 00:22:08.319 But when we continue to hear the deep, gentle voice that blesses us, we can walk through life with a stable sense of well-being and true belonging. 00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:13.839 The feeling of being blessed is not, it seems to me, the feeling that we generally have about ourselves. 00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:21.039 Still, I say to you, as the beloved Son of God or child of God, you are blessed. 00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:25.759 Good words are being spoken to you and about you, words that tell the truth. 00:22:25.839 --> 00:22:30.480 The curses, noisy, boisterous, loud-mouthed as they may be, do not tell the truth. 00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:34.400 They are lies, lies easy to believe, but lies nonetheless. 00:22:34.559 --> 00:22:46.720 The problem in modern living is not that we are too is that we are too busy looking for affirmation in the wrong places to notice that we are being blessed. 00:22:47.039 --> 00:22:54.640 Blessed are the meek, fortunate, lucky, so fortunate. 00:22:55.519 --> 00:22:58.079 So, my brothers and sisters, receive the blessing. 00:22:58.319 --> 00:23:02.960 Jesus is perfectly meek for you, toward you. 00:23:03.200 --> 00:23:05.839 He is gentle and he is mild. 00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:14.799 So may we grow in a simple heart that breaks to the bottom level to receive and respond. 00:23:15.519 --> 00:23:20.559 And may we live in the security of Christ's sufficient blood for us. 00:23:20.960 --> 00:23:22.880 Your sins are forgiven. 00:23:23.119 --> 00:23:24.880 You are secure with God. 00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:27.839 May you live in the peace that God gives us. 00:23:28.079 --> 00:23:29.279 Let's pray together. 00:23:31.039 --> 00:23:34.400 God, thank you that we do not have to work our way into meekness. 00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:57.519 Thank you that you do not see us as arrogant as we are, as manipulative which we are, as uh insecure as we are, but that you see us as perfectly meek through your humble sacrifice to us and your love and grace to us. 00:23:57.759 --> 00:24:02.799 Would you help us to find our identity in you in a greater way? 00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:07.680 That meekness might begin to be a quality that comes around us. 00:24:08.640 --> 00:24:20.000 Would you help our Numa to be poor in spirit, low, at that bottom level, that we might inherit the earth. 00:24:20.559 --> 00:24:23.599 In Jesus' name we trust and pray. 00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:24.480 Amen.