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[0:00] Man, you may be seated. Children, you are dismissed to your King's Kids class, and if you all would open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5. It's on page 962 of your Pew Bible.

[0:22] And we've been working our way through the Sermon on the Mount. Let me read the eight Beatitudes. This is Jesus. Seeing the crowds, He went up on the mountain, and when He sat down, His disciples came to Him, just like we're coming to Him.

[0:41] And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

[0:55] Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

[1:08] Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[1:23] May God bless the hearing of His word. So this fall, we've been making our way through these Beatitudes, one at a time. And if you're not familiar with the Beatitudes, it's basically a list of eight character traits of every Christian, of every citizen of the kingdom of Jesus, every citizen of heaven, anyone who's been delivered out of the domain of darkness, been transferred into the kingdom of the beloved Son, by God's great grace.

[1:56] If you are that, these are to characterize each and one in every one of us. So all eight of these Beatitudes are to mark our characters.

[2:08] It's to distinguish us from everybody else, especially in a contentious presidential election cycle. Two weeks ago, we looked at 5-3 being poor in spirit.

[2:25] Blessed are the poor in spirit. And it is the declaration of spiritual bankruptcy. It's like, I've got nothing. I've got nothing.

[2:36] In fact, I'm indebted. And it's only by God's, the riches of His grace, that He makes me, who is so poor, rich in His sight. And then we looked at 5-4.

[2:49] Last week, blessed are the mourned. Those who mourn. And that mourning is a grieving over what grieves God. That we are grieving the sin in us.

[3:01] And every one of us has a sinful nature. Maybe you saw your sin this morning. We grieve our sin. And today, this morning, we're looking at the blessed meek.

[3:13] Blessed are the meek. Meek! Meek! I don't know about you, but when I hear meekness, I start thinking of things like pushover, subservient, doormat, compliant, maybe a little sprinkling of cowardliness, domesticated.

[3:38] This word for meek was used in antiquity to describe domesticated animals. Sign me up!

[3:54] For many people in our culture, when we hear meekness, we think weakness. We think soft. And that can be distasteful.

[4:07] I'm not a listener of Joe Rogan, but he has a massive following on a podcast.

[4:20] Comedian, MMA, aficionado. And he was recently lamenting the state of men in our culture.

[4:32] And he picked up this quote. Shared it. This is what he said. Soft times make for soft men. Soft men make for hard times.

[4:46] Hard times make for hard men. Hard men make for soft times. Soft times make for soft men.

[4:57] And so he's putting his finger on this cycle. And what he's saying is this. Don't be a soft man. I wonder what Joe Rogan would think of Jesus' words, blessed are the meek.

[5:18] Blessed are those who get walked on. Blessed are the doormats. Blessed are the pushovers. Was Jesus a pushover?

[5:35] Was Jesus a doormat? Was he domesticated? This beatitude has two parts.

[5:47] And we're going to look at both parts in the sermon. The blessed meek. Let's look at what biblical meekness really is. And then let's look at this promise to the meek.

[5:58] God's promised earth. The hope for the meek. Now if you've come into this building and you're prone to holding grudges, getting defensive, you're critical of others, you fear what other people think about you.

[6:18] You need to hear these words. Blessed are the meek. It's your rescue from you. So let's dive in.

[6:32] We'll first look at the blessed meek and God's promised earth. So the blessed meek. Blessed are the meek. The first thing you need to realize is that this meekness that Jesus is talking about is thoroughly unnatural.

[6:50] This is an unnatural meekness. This isn't the kind of meekness that, you know, you may have a friend who is kind of just, kind of has a naturally mild temperament.

[7:02] You provoke them and you goad them and they will not get hot. They're just naturally mild. That's not the meekness Jesus is talking about.

[7:13] Or maybe someone who's just genuinely nice. That's not the meekness Jesus is speaking about. Maybe we're just talking about upper Midwestern hospitality.

[7:29] It's not that. This meekness is unnatural because this meekness is supernatural.

[7:43] Martin Lloyd-Jones talked about the Beatitudes as a spiritual, logical sequence, a progression.

[7:54] And it all starts with poor in spirit. It all starts with bankruptcy. Do you know that the only way that you can see your own sinful depravity is if the Spirit of God convicts you of it?

[8:14] What's being described in these Beatitudes is not something that you can do to yourself. These eight Beatitudes actually is a profile of a whole new nature in Christ Jesus.

[8:30] these are people who have been made new by the Holy Spirit. This meekness is unnatural.

[8:43] To be poor in spirit means that the Holy Spirit has convicted a sinner of their sin against God. I mean, Jesus said that's why the Holy Spirit is coming to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

[8:55] And then not only to convict a sinner of their sin against God, but that sinner starts realizing as part of that conviction that they are under God's just wrath.

[9:08] That they are spiritually bankrupt and desperate. And that their only hope is in God's forgiveness of them.

[9:22] That's moving towards this spirit rot, poverty of spirit. And then what follows is this grieving your sin.

[9:34] sin. This is a supernatural work as well. Where you are so concerned and grieved by what you have done and the offense that you have given God, you feel the weight and you mourn it.

[9:55] It's a godly sorrow that leads to repentance. This is a working of God. And as we go through all eight of these, you're going to see more and more that these are actually a profile of Jesus, just like the fruit of the spirit, and they are to mark each one of us and it's something we can't do to ourselves.

[10:17] We can't pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and be more meek. We lower ourselves.

[10:28] So the first thing that you need to know about this blessed meekness is it's unnatural because it's supernatural.

[10:40] It's a description of someone who has been born of God. The second thing I want you to know about this blessed meekness is what distinguishes meekness.

[10:56] It's relational. The first two beatitudes were concerned primarily with a right relating to God that I am spiritually bankrupt in his eyes and grieving that.

[11:11] That's called that you're being penitent over your sin. What meekness is is when someone who is aware of their spiritual bankruptcy and grieving their sin and they bring that heart posture towards God into their relationships with other people.

[11:36] That's meekness. That's a humble posture of heart towards God that results in a humble posture of heart towards other people.

[11:49] meekness has everything to do with the way in which we relate to other people.

[12:04] Before you were converted, before you became a Christian, you thought you were the controlling center of your own world. and most likely you lived out your relationships for yourself.

[12:24] What you can get out of it. What's in it for me. After your conversion, when Jesus becomes the controlling center of your life, what happens to your relationships isn't that now you live out your relationships for other people.

[12:47] You live out your relationships for Jesus with other people. Because he's the controlling center of your life. On January 1st in 1900, the Chicago River had its flow reversed.

[13:06] It had been flowing out into Lake Michigan and the problem that resulted from that was people living in Chicago were getting sick because they were drinking their own sewage.

[13:20] So they got the great idea, you know what, let's not drink our own sewage, let's let the people of St. Louis drink our sewage. So let's reverse the flow and instead of flowing into Lake Michigan, we're going to flow it down to St. Louis.

[13:39] when Jesus becomes the controlling center of your life, your relationships flow differently.

[13:50] They don't flow to you anymore. By God's grace, now they flow towards Jesus for his glory, for the good of those people in your life.

[14:04] This is the radical change that God brings about when he changes a sinner into a saint. And the resulting meekness has the effect of gentleness.

[14:22] That change brings about an approachability. So let me give you this definition for biblical meekness.

[14:37] Biblical meekness is a Christ-like posture towards others. He's both tender and tough and always truthful.

[14:52] Tender and tough and always truthful and he majors on tender. We're to be like Christ in our meekness.

[15:05] Let me just read this passage to you. This is Philippians. This is one of our favorite passages as a church because we need to be reminded of it so frequently.

[15:17] Philippians chapter 2 verses 3 through 11. Listen for the meekness of Jesus, his humility, humility, and our resultant meekness, our humility.

[15:28] Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, to be held on to, but emptied himself.

[15:50] How? By taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

[16:01] Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

[16:18] Jesus is exalted and exemplified for his meekness. Through his meekness, we're saved. But there's something else I want to point you to.

[16:33] John opened the service with it. He's going to close the service with it. It's what Jesus has to say about himself. Come to me. All who labor are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

[16:49] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle. It's the same word translated meek here in Matthew 5.5. For I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

[17:04] For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. The greatest biblical example of meekness is Jesus, who is meek and lowly at heart.

[17:22] Jesus is both tender and tough. He's always truthful. And what we see in the pages of the New Testament in the Gospels, he's always tender towards the penitent, but he is tough to the impenitent.

[17:36] Just think of what he said to the Pharisees, you brood of vipers. Just think of what he did his clearing out of the temple when he expressed anger. He was tough to the impenitent.

[17:51] Dane Ortlund, in his book, Gentle and Lowly, brings this out in a beautiful way. If you don't have this book, would you grab one on your way out? We've got stacks of it sitting out on the doorway.

[18:03] Just grab one on your way, one per household. You will be encouraged by this, and I think you will grow in meekness as a result of reading it. What I'm wanting to help you to see is meekness is unnatural because it's supernatural, and it's relational.

[18:21] It's how we relate to one another, and it's epitomized in the person of Jesus. And it results in supernatural relating.

[18:31] Has anyone in the room been sinned against? You can raise your hand.

[18:45] Yes. You don't need to raise your hand on this next question. How many in the room who have been sinned against tend to hold a grudge?

[19:00] A grudge is a kind of unforgiveness. A grudge is even a kind of cool vengeance. Do the meek hold grudges?

[19:18] No. The meek don't hold grudges because when the meek are sinned against, they go into a mode of thinking that says, oh, oh, you know what?

[19:31] that stings, but man, have I sinned so much worse, so much more. There's an awareness of your own spiritual bankruptcy and grief over your own sin.

[19:49] Meek people don't hold grudges. Jesus doesn't hold a grudge against you, brother, sister. How about when it comes to correction?

[20:04] Has anybody tried to correct you recently? It's one thing to see sin in your own life and say, you know what? Man, I saw this sin in my own life.

[20:15] I am so aghast by it. But when someone else points out a sin in your life, boy, that gets a little different, doesn't it? Who are you to think that? Who are you to say that?

[20:26] You can be defensive, even dismissive, but you know how the meek handle correction? They're like this. Oh, yeah, you're probably right.

[20:40] I'll think about it. But you don't know the half of it. Brothers and sisters, if you were in my head this week and you saw what went through my head this week, you would be shocked.

[20:53] Here's how the meek respond to correction. It's Proverbs 9.8. You correct a fool, you'll get slapped.

[21:08] You correct a wise man, someone who fears the Lord, who is Jesus as the controlling center of his life or her life, they will love you. They may even kiss you.

[21:20] They may even say, oh, thank you so much for caring for me and for what matters most. This is a supernatural way of relating. This isn't pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

[21:33] This meekness comes from the living God. Could you imagine a church who are growing in meekness more and more?

[21:46] They're tender, they're tough, they're always truthful, but they major on tenderness because they're all so aware of their need for God's ongoing grace.

[21:59] We can go on. How the meek respond to sinful comparisons, how the meek respond to a temptation to be critical of others, we can go on and on.

[22:11] But what I want you to see is meekness makes a dramatic difference in our relating to one another. And at the heart of it is a humility towards God.

[22:26] There's a phrase I've been chewing on all week. I think it's a freeing phrase, but it can be taken wrong.

[22:45] If spoken by a meek person, it makes sense. We can also hear a prideful person saying this, but listen to it. It matters little what you think about me because it matters much what Christ thinks about me.

[23:07] It matters little what you think about me. I will take it in so far as it serves my pursuit of Jesus because He's what matters most to me.

[23:22] we welcome correction. We forgive fully and quickly because it matters little what others think about us because what matters most to us is what Jesus thinks.

[23:42] Biblical meekness is a Christ-like posture towards others. you are both tender and tough always truthful but you're majoring on tenderness.

[24:03] Do you know what the greatest threat to meekness is? Your pride. God. The opposite of meekness is arrogance.

[24:16] It goes like this. You stop tending to your heart. You start forgetting about your God.

[24:28] You start getting caught up in the things of this world day to day just getting by. You start losing sight of the holiness and grandeur and majesty of God.

[24:38] and you start losing sight of the sinfulness of your sin and your constant need of your Lord Jesus. You start to think about these things less and they become less and less important and in the place of that importance vacuum you step into that.

[25:04] You start thinking more highly of yourself than you ought. You start thinking insisting on your own way. You start minimizing your sins.

[25:18] That's how that works. Your arrogance, your pride, it's deceptive, sneaky, and it's the greatest threat to meekness because when that kind of attitude, prideful attitude, shows up in the people of God, it's rot.

[25:41] It's cancerous. It's the opposite of love. It doesn't build up, it tears down. At this point, I just want to ask you, is there a particular relationship that God has been bringing to your mind, God's in which you need to circle back to, and you need to kind of re-engage that for the glory of Jesus, where you need to say, I've been arrogant, I've been prideful, I have not been meek, I've been insisting on my own ways, will you forgive me?

[26:24] is there someone you need to confess your sin to? Blessed are the meek. Meekness is cultivated by taking big, long, deep looks at Jesus.

[26:48] Seeing Him as He is the controlling center of your life. You'll be reminded of your spiritual depravity, you will be grieving your sin, and that is the tender spot in which we live out our relationships with one another.

[27:09] Meekness is a claim of forfeiture on your reputation for Jesus. You forfeit your reputation in the eyes of man.

[27:24] because it matters little to you what others think about you because it matters much to you of what Christ thinks about you. This is the way of the kingdom.

[27:42] This is a mark of a kingdom citizen. And you know what? if I made it sound like not holding a grudge is easy, forgive me because it's hard.

[28:01] If I made it sound like stopping being defensive is easy, forgive me. You've got to die to yourself. Dying to yourself is not easy.

[28:14] but when you see Jesus, oh, maybe you're sitting in your pew right now and you're like, okay, Salvati, move on.

[28:28] Got it. Well, before I move on to the promise, I just want to stoke something in you.

[28:40] if you're going to be meek as Jesus is meek, you're going to catch heat for it. People are going to call you soft. People are going to think that you're soft on sin.

[28:53] People think that you're just a softy pushover. They're going to interpret it, not as Jesus speaks it, but as they think it is. Is it worth it?

[29:06] And the answer is yes, it's worth it. And when we can see that it's worth it because of where Jesus goes next, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

[29:29] So let's move from the blessed meek to God's promised earth, and let me get some sweetness into your soul. There's a few things I want you to see about this promise.

[29:47] This promise of an earth. First thing I want you to know is that Jesus is actually quoting Psalm 37 and in Psalm 37 it's a Psalm of David.

[30:01] David is speaking to the righteous and he's saying do not fret when the wicked prosper. And four times in that Psalm he says someone will inherit the earth.

[30:15] Four times. The first is those who wait on the Lord, then the meek, then the blessed of the Lord, and then the righteous. When we're living on this earth among people who don't know Jesus and we're trying to be like Jesus, we're going to catch heat for it and we might start fretting over that.

[30:40] Brother, sister, there's something coming. Brother, sister, brother, sister, hear me. You got acreage waiting for you. You got a plot in the new earth.

[30:58] You got acreage. church. When things get tough and we start asking the question, is this worth it? Oh, yeah, it's worth it because I'm not living for this world.

[31:09] I'm living for the next, my heavenly homeland. That's the earth that Jesus is referring to. Not the present earth in its sin riddled state.

[31:22] No, it's the new earth. We will inherit it. It's a double promise. He's saying there is a new earth coming. I promise. And then He promises and you've got a stake in it.

[31:40] You've got acreage there. You've got a plot of land in the new earth. Blessed are the meek for they've got acreage in the new earth.

[31:55] This world is not it. brothers and sisters. Here's what we know about the new earth. We know that the new earth, it is a place of perfect peace.

[32:12] There are no more tears, there are no more mourning, there's no more pain, there's no more war, there's no more contentious presidential election cycles, and they're all gone because sin is gone. It's completely eradicated.

[32:23] Now, let me read for you a rather graphic depiction of this coming of the new earth. This is 2 Peter chapter 3.

[32:35] 2 Peter says, For the day of the Lord will come like a thief, when Jesus returns, and the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

[32:48] Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in light of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt away as they burn.

[33:06] But according to His promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. There it is. Your house that you live in is not your forever house.

[33:29] God, Jesus has gone to prepare a place for you. There's new earth acreage, brother, sister.

[33:41] There's a new earth house, brother, sister. You're not going to be disappointed. It's pristine.

[33:57] No sin. But that's not the best part of it. Do you know what the best part of the new earth is? It's who's there waiting for you.

[34:12] It's Jesus. Revelation 21. It's God dwelling with man, wiping away our tears. It's Him with us. It's who's there waiting for you. This is a little speculation.

[34:30] What kind of parcel is waiting for you? I don't know. I'm thinking my parcel, maybe for the first 10,000 years, is maybe it's kind of mountainous and with a bunch of mountain bike trails off the back.

[34:47] Could you imagine this? Jesus walking up the front walk of your parcel, tapping on your screen door, walking in saying, how do you like the place?

[35:02] I prepared it just for you. And then He says, let's go for a walk on the property. That's what makes meekness worth it.

[35:15] To be like Him and to be with the meek one in glory. Are you banking on this promise?

[35:35] Are you remembering it? And are you setting your heart on it? This promise gets a couple things done.

[35:47] This promise of a new earth, it stirs our longing. It loosens our grip. We start reading. We start seeing things that are light and momentary.

[35:58] And we let it go. I'm not living for my car because it's light and momentary and it's going to get burned up. I'm not living for a vacation or promotion because it's light and momentary.

[36:12] It's going to get burned up. It loosens your grip. It tightens your grip on what matters most. It's like smelling salts to the soul.

[36:24] It helps you to say, okay, hey, if all this stuff's going to get burned up on this present earth, what's not? And what's not is God's glory, the souls of men and women, and God's word.

[36:37] And so when you start realizing the values of that, that starts aligning you to what matters most. So this all translates into perseverance.

[36:50] Pressing on. Pressing on into meekness. Rather being wronged than having to be right. Meekness.

[37:02] Jesus. You've got acreage in the new earth waiting for you. Let's live for Him now.

[37:14] Being meek as He is meek. We've seen the blessed meek, the humble at heart as Jesus is meek at heart.

[37:26] It's tender and tough, always truthful, yet majoring on tenderness. Who are the meek? They are the blood-bought, grace objects of Jesus who are becoming more and more like Him.

[37:49] The penitent who bring in their spiritual poverty and spiritual mourning into their relationships with others. Do you need to own some of your prideful ways that grieve your God?

[38:11] Are you ignoring your arrogance? The meek don't ignore their sin. Do you need to take to heart your inheritance that awaits you, brother or sister?

[38:28] Have you neglected that? Set your heart on Revelation 21 and 22. This is the blessed meekness.

[38:40] A Christ-like posture of heart towards others. And what you're going to realize, it matters little what others think about you because it matters most what Christ thinks about you.

[38:55] Blessed are the meek. Let's pray. It doesn't matter, Lord, if people think we're soft or hard.

[39:10] It doesn't matter. What matters most is what you think. Father, would you pour out your Spirit afresh upon us that we would be meek as Jesus is meek to one another.

[39:30] That we would be humble. That we would walk in the ways of our meek King. Lord, would you create in our midst in greater and greater measure a Spirit-filled people who are living out the meekness of the kingdom.

[39:54] Lord, we look to you. We ask this of you.

[40:08] And we praise you. We wouldn't want it any other way. You are worthy. O you meek one, Lord Jesus.

[40:21] Make us meek. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[40:32] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[40:45] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[40:55]  Amen. Amen.