Blessed are the Tamed
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SERMON PREVIEW
Jesus said that the meek will inherit the earth. What exactly does that mean? Meekness isn't a concept that we speak of today, let alone value. Join us as we delve into this neglected topic and seek to understand who is blessed and how he is blessed. |
Message begins at approx. the 28:25 min mark.
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Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth
Matthew 5:5
Matthew 5:5
Our beatitude for today is one that I am glad that I had some extra time to study. I always appreciate having a week off and being able to sit under the ministry of the word as John, Dave, or Mike fill the pulpit. One of the reasons I appreciate it is because it allows me to take some extra time to study.
And by God’s good providence I it all converged perfectly this past week. I needed that extra study because today we are dealing with this whole concept of meekness. And it is not one with which I’m overly familiar.
I would suppose that you might say the same thing. Meekness is not a term we throw around a lot. It’s not a concept that we speak much of in regular conversation. You might even call it an archaic word.
I actually did a google search on it. Google has an application where you can search terms and it will tell you how frequently a word is used in books going all the way back to 1800. And there’s an obvious curve that you see. It is used somewhat frequently in the 1800’s, but it is almost nonexistent in the literature today.
And by God’s good providence I it all converged perfectly this past week. I needed that extra study because today we are dealing with this whole concept of meekness. And it is not one with which I’m overly familiar.
I would suppose that you might say the same thing. Meekness is not a term we throw around a lot. It’s not a concept that we speak much of in regular conversation. You might even call it an archaic word.
I actually did a google search on it. Google has an application where you can search terms and it will tell you how frequently a word is used in books going all the way back to 1800. And there’s an obvious curve that you see. It is used somewhat frequently in the 1800’s, but it is almost nonexistent in the literature today.
You can see how it compares to the word masculine. The word masculine was used less frequently in the 1800s, but has risen significantly in the present age. I also compared it to the word dude and you see that rise in usage of that.
I don’t know that you could qualify this as a scientific. But you can at least see that the word meekness is virtually extinct in our day. And I would suggest that the concept is vanishing too. It’s not just terms that we’re talking about. I think it is a reflection of where we stand as a culture. The word is disappearing because it’s not a virtue that is being pursued.
And this is why I’m so glad I’ve had some extra time to study this subject. And I hope that this message today will help renew some interest in it. Maybe we could see a renaissance where we begin to put more focus on developing this characteristic in our lives.
And really, grasping this concept is fundamental for understanding the blessing of God. Our beatitude says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
And our goal, of course, is to understand what it is to be blessed. And so, if we are going to understand who are blessed and how they are blessed, then we need to come to grips with the whole of what it means to be meek.
And so, to understand who is blessed, I want to take a second to define meekness and then describe the virtue by way of some biblical examples.
I. Who is blessed?
A. How meekness may be defined
And here I went to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. And this gives you an overview of all the ways that it was used in the ancient world. It looks at the literature of guys like Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon and how these guys used the word. And here are some synonyms that I found there: Mild, calm, soothing, friendly, gentle, pleasant, humble. Meekness stands over and someone who is irritated, angry, rough, hard, or violent.
Another word that may be a parallel is the word tame.
That’s an interesting one because it is used in reference to wild animals that have been domesticated. For instance, Adrian Rogers in a sermon of his says that this Greek word “paraus” was used in the ancient world in regards to breaking a wild horse. You know that a horse doesn’t want someone to ride him at first, especially if for much of his life he’s been off on his own, running freely through the wood and hills. He doesn’t want to have someone jumping on his back and trying to ride him. He doesn’t like being in submission to a person in that way. So he will buck and kick and try to throw the cowboy off. But at some point he can get used to it and become domesticated. The cowboy can begin riding that horse and turning him where he wants. When that happens, in the ancient world they would say that this horse has been “meeked.” We’d say he’s been tamed. [1]
And this is a really good way of understanding the term before us. It is that moderation of one’s passions where he now becomes submissive to God. It is not the changing of the strength, but it is an issue of the will. That’s what happens to that horse. Its legs are not broken; its will is broken. So when someone is meek, its talking about the fact that their passions are no more wild and rowdy due to seeking his own desires, but the passions are tempered because he is now in submission to God.
So use that as your basic definition. It is the gentleness of spirit that expresses itself as a result of his having come to submit himself to God.
And you will see how this definition fits with what we have studied so far. The blessed one is poor in spirit. He’s recognize his spiritual bankruptcy. He’s a mourner because he is grieved for having broken God’s law and offended the Most High. But then he takes it one step further. He now submits himself to God. Though he was wild in his self-serving passions before, he now bends his will to the service of God.
Another way to think of it is that he is friendly towards God. It’s the opposite of the sinful state of man who is at enmity with God. He has not yielded himself to God, but remains at odds with him. When it comes to God he is volatile; he is hostile to him. He wants nothing to do with God. He has no desire to submit to His will, engage in his worship, seek his face, or pursue his glory.
You’ll say, “Hey, would you like to go to church with me?” And a person who is not meek will make up any excuse he possibly can to avoid having to make a commitment to carving out that time each Lord’s Day. that’s because his soul is untamed. It’s still at odds with God because he has not yielded himself to the Lord.
So if you want to understand meekness, that is the way you should do it. It is defined as being gentle because he is not resistant any longer. Rather his passion is tempered because he has submitted himself to God.
But now that we’ve defined it, let’s take a moment to see how the Bible describes it. The Bible provides us with a number of examples that can serve as illustrations of what meekness really looks like.
B. How meekness is described
The word for meek is sprinkled throughout the pages of Scripture. For instance, one of the very first appearances of the word is in the book of Numbers. It is used of Moses. Numbers 12 says that Moses was the ‘meekest man who ever lived.’
Now if you go back and read Numbers 12 you’ll find that those words are spoken of Moses when his name was being drug through the mud. Miriam and Aaron became jealous that Moses was leading the people and they instigated something of a rebellion. They tried to usurp power and become the leaders of the Israelite people. And it is in this context that Moses is called the meekest man who ever lived.
And do you know how Moses displayed that meekness? He displayed it in his not letting his passion rule him. As a matter of fact, the Lord struck Miriam with leprosy. And instead of cheering and saying, “Oh yeah! Take that! You mess with me, you mess with God!” Instead of having an angry, vengeful spirit, you know what Moses did? He prayed for Miriam. He asked the Lord to heal her. His spirit was in such subjection to the Lord that he was not filled with jealousy or vindictiveness, but rather could forgive her, overlook her abuses, and seek her welfare.
That friendly, pleasant, gentleness is what meekness is all about.
You see a similar thing over in 1 Peter 3. You know meekness is supposed to be a characteristic of every Christian, but it is one of those traits that is specifically to adorn those of you who are women. In 1 Peter 3, Peter’s talking about the husbands do not obey the word. These men are either unbelievers or they are very immature Christians. They are men who are not being the leaders and lover that they are supposed to be. And Peter says that women are to be submissive to these men. He says their adornment is not to be with gold, jewelry, or braided hair. Rather they are to be clothed with the incorruptible beauty of a meek and quiet spirit.
Now you know what that’s talking about, right? It’s talking about how she acts gracefully and exudes gentleness in the midst of the frustrating things she’s experiencing. It is about taking all that passion of anger and bitterness and putting it in submission to God.
When a man isn’t being the kind of man he should be, what does a woman naturally want to do? She wants to get all Eve all over him. She’s going to get angry and try to usurp power. She’s going to want to nag him and rant and rave until he gets his act together and begins to listen to her.
But meek woman will not do that. She’s going to react to his failures, not with wild passion, but with a calm and gentle spirit. Instead of being one who adds to the contention and further disturbs the household through rowdy words and an angry response, she’s going to show that God has tamed her soul as she expresses patience and a long suffering attitude. And she’s going to focus that strength into a gentle and sweet spirit that will encourage his leadership because that’s what the Lord wants her to do.
James 1:21 is another place where the term meekness is used. James tells us that we should “receive the word with meekness.” And that’s contrasted with an angry and violent spirit. In the context James is talking about being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. He says that the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. And he follows all that up by saying that we are to receive the word with meekness.
In other words, it can be hard being corrected, can’t it? If there’s one thing that our pride doesn’t like, it is being rebuked. And we all know what our first reaction is when someone comes to you and speaks to you about the error of your ways. You get mad. You want to make some excuse. (he started it; I wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t…) You want to blow them off and maybe blame someone or something else.
I tell you this is the biggest problem with being a counselor. Sometimes I’ll have to point out that the problem isn’t where you think it is. The problem is you and the way you behave. And people don’t like that. They will want to argue with me and a lot of people don’t come back.
Meekness is responding to that correction in the way God wants. Receiving it with a calm spirit because you are in submission to the Lord.
Will you bear with me for one more example? Because this is the most important one. The preeminent example of meekness, of course, is our Lord Jesus. Matthew 11 says, “Come to me all who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you for I am meek and lowly in heart.”
Meekness is one of the distinguished characteristics of our Lord. And it is why you can come to him. He is not one who is oppressive or abusive. It’s beautiful, because that's not what you would expect. As a sinner who constantly provokes his wrath and displeasure, he should break out against you. That's what you deserve. You deserve his wrath and curse poured down upon you for all eternity. But he doesn't treat repentant people like that. There will come a day where he does. But during this time He’s not violent or abrasive. Rather He demonstrates that friendly and gentle composure towards those who come to him. He displays a forgiving attitude and willingness to treat you not as your sins deserve.
And it is because his will is perfectly bent to the Father. You see that in the garden of Gethsemane, do you not? There in the garden Jesus was faced with the cross. In just a few hours he would bear the hot displeasure of God as it is unleashed in His crucifixion. And in the garden he begged that another means of salvation be afforded. He eagerly prayed, "Take this cup from me." But we see his meekness on full display. Even though it was difficult for him, he did not buck against the Father’s will. But he says, “Not my will, but yours be done.” He yields, as a horse to his master.
When it comes to Christ, he is the very embodiment of meekness. And because he fulfills this virtue, we through him can begin to embody it as well.
Those are some examples that I hope will further describe for you what it means to be meek. You begin to see that this is one of the main qualities of God’s people. We are people who have yielded ourselves to God. We’ve recognized his Lordship over our lives and we’re putting ourselves in submission to him. We will not let ourselves be ruled by our own passions or by our circumstances. Rather we only acknowledge one rule and authority over us and it is Jesus Christ.
If that describes you, if that is how your life is defined, you are one of the blessed. God’s blessing is upon you. Which leads to the next question. How are you blessed?
II. How are they blessed?
The passage says that the meek are blessed because they “inherit the earth.”
Now I want you to understand the full meaning of this blessing. It entails at least three things.
A. They are blessed because they receive the long expected promises of God’s covenant.
All through the Old Testament the people of God looked forward to the fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham, primarily that of his receiving the land. And that land promise was not just a certain segment of the Middle East, known as the land of Israel. They understood that God had promised much more than that. Abraham, we are told, was in search of a city whose foundations were from of old. He was searching for a better country, a heavenly one. In other words, he was looking forward to the end of time when the whole world would be renewed and freed from the curse of sin.
Psalm 37 further expands our understanding of this promise. For this Psalm speaks of the hope of the righteous and the doom of the wicked. It tells us that the whole earth will be inherited by those who put their faith in God. But the wicked will not remain. They will be swept away and God’s people will come to possess the territory that they leave behind.
The meek then are blessed because this long expected promise comes to them.
B. They are blessed because they receive that for which the world longs
This is where this beatitude is surprising. It almost seems ironic. It goes against everything that is natural to our understanding. Think of it: world conquest comes to, of all people, people who are mild.
Now, think of how backwards this sounds. How is it that you get ahead in this world? It’s typically by being aggressive. Alexander the Great conquered the world. But he was hardly a mild or gentle person. He was a man of violence. He was one who dealt a hard and heavy blow to his opponents. He gained everything he had by means of the sword and by means of his fist.
And that’s not that much different than what we experience in everyday life, is it? You’ve all heard it said that it is a dog eat dog world. What do we mean by that? It means that if you are going to advance in this world—if you are going to gain some possession of the earth’s goods and climb the corporate ladder, you need to be ready to fight for it. And you will sometimes hear it said that you have to do “whatever it takes.” And by that they mean bending the rules, cheating, maybe causing a few casualties along the way. You need to be anything but gentle, quiet, and tame. You’ve got to be ready to step on the guy next to you so that you can get to the next rung.
No one in their right mind would ever believe that a meek person would ever gain anything, let alone the whole earth.
I like what Martyn Lloyd Jones says in this regard. “The world thinks in terms of strength and power, of ability and aggressiveness. The more you assert yourself and express yourself, the more you organize and manifest you power and ability, the more likely you will succeed and get on.”
That’s the way the world operates. The world does not exalt meekness. It exalts the tough guy attitude. It’s the thug life where power is supreme. Because that’s the way you get your fair share of this world.
The world believes that if you don’t strike hard and strike fast, then you’ll lose out.
But Jesus turns all that on its head. He says, “If you want to inherit the land, this is the way you do it. It’s not by being strident. It’s not by playing hard ball. I give it to those who are yield themselves to me.”
C. They are blessed because they receive they receive what they have often lost
We can just look around the world and we can see that those who are yielded to God are often suffering loss and are being robbed. Just look at Afghanistan and you hear how Christian families there are losing homes, losing jobs, losing any kind of inheritance that they may have had in this world.
Just this past week I’ve been reading through the book of Genesis and I read the stories about Isaac, the son of Abraham.
While Abraham was alive he dug several wells in the land of Gerar. Isaac came to that area in order to dwell there and he found that the Philistines had stopped up all the wells. Isaac went and dug them out again so that he could maintain his estate with those waters. But then some of the people of that area began to quarrel with him. They claimed the water for themselves. They stole it right out from under him. And since Isaac didn’t have any other recourse—there was no judge he could appeal to—he decided to just let himself be wronged and move on. So he went and dug some more wells in another place. Unfortunately, the same thing happened there. The people of that area came and said they were the ones who had the deed to the land.
Isaac’s life is very much characteristic of the kind of suffering many Christian people have in this world. Christian people will often suffers loss in this world.
But that loss does not compare with what is in store for them. In the end, God grants this meek people that which they never were able to gain for themselves in this world. That which was always being taken from them, is ultimately going to be given to them forever. They inherit the earth.
______________________________
[1] Adrian Rogers, The Mighty Meek
I don’t know that you could qualify this as a scientific. But you can at least see that the word meekness is virtually extinct in our day. And I would suggest that the concept is vanishing too. It’s not just terms that we’re talking about. I think it is a reflection of where we stand as a culture. The word is disappearing because it’s not a virtue that is being pursued.
And this is why I’m so glad I’ve had some extra time to study this subject. And I hope that this message today will help renew some interest in it. Maybe we could see a renaissance where we begin to put more focus on developing this characteristic in our lives.
And really, grasping this concept is fundamental for understanding the blessing of God. Our beatitude says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
And our goal, of course, is to understand what it is to be blessed. And so, if we are going to understand who are blessed and how they are blessed, then we need to come to grips with the whole of what it means to be meek.
And so, to understand who is blessed, I want to take a second to define meekness and then describe the virtue by way of some biblical examples.
I. Who is blessed?
A. How meekness may be defined
And here I went to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. And this gives you an overview of all the ways that it was used in the ancient world. It looks at the literature of guys like Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon and how these guys used the word. And here are some synonyms that I found there: Mild, calm, soothing, friendly, gentle, pleasant, humble. Meekness stands over and someone who is irritated, angry, rough, hard, or violent.
Another word that may be a parallel is the word tame.
That’s an interesting one because it is used in reference to wild animals that have been domesticated. For instance, Adrian Rogers in a sermon of his says that this Greek word “paraus” was used in the ancient world in regards to breaking a wild horse. You know that a horse doesn’t want someone to ride him at first, especially if for much of his life he’s been off on his own, running freely through the wood and hills. He doesn’t want to have someone jumping on his back and trying to ride him. He doesn’t like being in submission to a person in that way. So he will buck and kick and try to throw the cowboy off. But at some point he can get used to it and become domesticated. The cowboy can begin riding that horse and turning him where he wants. When that happens, in the ancient world they would say that this horse has been “meeked.” We’d say he’s been tamed. [1]
And this is a really good way of understanding the term before us. It is that moderation of one’s passions where he now becomes submissive to God. It is not the changing of the strength, but it is an issue of the will. That’s what happens to that horse. Its legs are not broken; its will is broken. So when someone is meek, its talking about the fact that their passions are no more wild and rowdy due to seeking his own desires, but the passions are tempered because he is now in submission to God.
So use that as your basic definition. It is the gentleness of spirit that expresses itself as a result of his having come to submit himself to God.
And you will see how this definition fits with what we have studied so far. The blessed one is poor in spirit. He’s recognize his spiritual bankruptcy. He’s a mourner because he is grieved for having broken God’s law and offended the Most High. But then he takes it one step further. He now submits himself to God. Though he was wild in his self-serving passions before, he now bends his will to the service of God.
Another way to think of it is that he is friendly towards God. It’s the opposite of the sinful state of man who is at enmity with God. He has not yielded himself to God, but remains at odds with him. When it comes to God he is volatile; he is hostile to him. He wants nothing to do with God. He has no desire to submit to His will, engage in his worship, seek his face, or pursue his glory.
You’ll say, “Hey, would you like to go to church with me?” And a person who is not meek will make up any excuse he possibly can to avoid having to make a commitment to carving out that time each Lord’s Day. that’s because his soul is untamed. It’s still at odds with God because he has not yielded himself to the Lord.
So if you want to understand meekness, that is the way you should do it. It is defined as being gentle because he is not resistant any longer. Rather his passion is tempered because he has submitted himself to God.
But now that we’ve defined it, let’s take a moment to see how the Bible describes it. The Bible provides us with a number of examples that can serve as illustrations of what meekness really looks like.
B. How meekness is described
The word for meek is sprinkled throughout the pages of Scripture. For instance, one of the very first appearances of the word is in the book of Numbers. It is used of Moses. Numbers 12 says that Moses was the ‘meekest man who ever lived.’
Now if you go back and read Numbers 12 you’ll find that those words are spoken of Moses when his name was being drug through the mud. Miriam and Aaron became jealous that Moses was leading the people and they instigated something of a rebellion. They tried to usurp power and become the leaders of the Israelite people. And it is in this context that Moses is called the meekest man who ever lived.
And do you know how Moses displayed that meekness? He displayed it in his not letting his passion rule him. As a matter of fact, the Lord struck Miriam with leprosy. And instead of cheering and saying, “Oh yeah! Take that! You mess with me, you mess with God!” Instead of having an angry, vengeful spirit, you know what Moses did? He prayed for Miriam. He asked the Lord to heal her. His spirit was in such subjection to the Lord that he was not filled with jealousy or vindictiveness, but rather could forgive her, overlook her abuses, and seek her welfare.
That friendly, pleasant, gentleness is what meekness is all about.
You see a similar thing over in 1 Peter 3. You know meekness is supposed to be a characteristic of every Christian, but it is one of those traits that is specifically to adorn those of you who are women. In 1 Peter 3, Peter’s talking about the husbands do not obey the word. These men are either unbelievers or they are very immature Christians. They are men who are not being the leaders and lover that they are supposed to be. And Peter says that women are to be submissive to these men. He says their adornment is not to be with gold, jewelry, or braided hair. Rather they are to be clothed with the incorruptible beauty of a meek and quiet spirit.
Now you know what that’s talking about, right? It’s talking about how she acts gracefully and exudes gentleness in the midst of the frustrating things she’s experiencing. It is about taking all that passion of anger and bitterness and putting it in submission to God.
When a man isn’t being the kind of man he should be, what does a woman naturally want to do? She wants to get all Eve all over him. She’s going to get angry and try to usurp power. She’s going to want to nag him and rant and rave until he gets his act together and begins to listen to her.
But meek woman will not do that. She’s going to react to his failures, not with wild passion, but with a calm and gentle spirit. Instead of being one who adds to the contention and further disturbs the household through rowdy words and an angry response, she’s going to show that God has tamed her soul as she expresses patience and a long suffering attitude. And she’s going to focus that strength into a gentle and sweet spirit that will encourage his leadership because that’s what the Lord wants her to do.
James 1:21 is another place where the term meekness is used. James tells us that we should “receive the word with meekness.” And that’s contrasted with an angry and violent spirit. In the context James is talking about being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. He says that the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. And he follows all that up by saying that we are to receive the word with meekness.
In other words, it can be hard being corrected, can’t it? If there’s one thing that our pride doesn’t like, it is being rebuked. And we all know what our first reaction is when someone comes to you and speaks to you about the error of your ways. You get mad. You want to make some excuse. (he started it; I wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t…) You want to blow them off and maybe blame someone or something else.
I tell you this is the biggest problem with being a counselor. Sometimes I’ll have to point out that the problem isn’t where you think it is. The problem is you and the way you behave. And people don’t like that. They will want to argue with me and a lot of people don’t come back.
Meekness is responding to that correction in the way God wants. Receiving it with a calm spirit because you are in submission to the Lord.
Will you bear with me for one more example? Because this is the most important one. The preeminent example of meekness, of course, is our Lord Jesus. Matthew 11 says, “Come to me all who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you for I am meek and lowly in heart.”
Meekness is one of the distinguished characteristics of our Lord. And it is why you can come to him. He is not one who is oppressive or abusive. It’s beautiful, because that's not what you would expect. As a sinner who constantly provokes his wrath and displeasure, he should break out against you. That's what you deserve. You deserve his wrath and curse poured down upon you for all eternity. But he doesn't treat repentant people like that. There will come a day where he does. But during this time He’s not violent or abrasive. Rather He demonstrates that friendly and gentle composure towards those who come to him. He displays a forgiving attitude and willingness to treat you not as your sins deserve.
And it is because his will is perfectly bent to the Father. You see that in the garden of Gethsemane, do you not? There in the garden Jesus was faced with the cross. In just a few hours he would bear the hot displeasure of God as it is unleashed in His crucifixion. And in the garden he begged that another means of salvation be afforded. He eagerly prayed, "Take this cup from me." But we see his meekness on full display. Even though it was difficult for him, he did not buck against the Father’s will. But he says, “Not my will, but yours be done.” He yields, as a horse to his master.
When it comes to Christ, he is the very embodiment of meekness. And because he fulfills this virtue, we through him can begin to embody it as well.
Those are some examples that I hope will further describe for you what it means to be meek. You begin to see that this is one of the main qualities of God’s people. We are people who have yielded ourselves to God. We’ve recognized his Lordship over our lives and we’re putting ourselves in submission to him. We will not let ourselves be ruled by our own passions or by our circumstances. Rather we only acknowledge one rule and authority over us and it is Jesus Christ.
If that describes you, if that is how your life is defined, you are one of the blessed. God’s blessing is upon you. Which leads to the next question. How are you blessed?
II. How are they blessed?
The passage says that the meek are blessed because they “inherit the earth.”
Now I want you to understand the full meaning of this blessing. It entails at least three things.
A. They are blessed because they receive the long expected promises of God’s covenant.
All through the Old Testament the people of God looked forward to the fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham, primarily that of his receiving the land. And that land promise was not just a certain segment of the Middle East, known as the land of Israel. They understood that God had promised much more than that. Abraham, we are told, was in search of a city whose foundations were from of old. He was searching for a better country, a heavenly one. In other words, he was looking forward to the end of time when the whole world would be renewed and freed from the curse of sin.
Psalm 37 further expands our understanding of this promise. For this Psalm speaks of the hope of the righteous and the doom of the wicked. It tells us that the whole earth will be inherited by those who put their faith in God. But the wicked will not remain. They will be swept away and God’s people will come to possess the territory that they leave behind.
The meek then are blessed because this long expected promise comes to them.
B. They are blessed because they receive that for which the world longs
This is where this beatitude is surprising. It almost seems ironic. It goes against everything that is natural to our understanding. Think of it: world conquest comes to, of all people, people who are mild.
Now, think of how backwards this sounds. How is it that you get ahead in this world? It’s typically by being aggressive. Alexander the Great conquered the world. But he was hardly a mild or gentle person. He was a man of violence. He was one who dealt a hard and heavy blow to his opponents. He gained everything he had by means of the sword and by means of his fist.
And that’s not that much different than what we experience in everyday life, is it? You’ve all heard it said that it is a dog eat dog world. What do we mean by that? It means that if you are going to advance in this world—if you are going to gain some possession of the earth’s goods and climb the corporate ladder, you need to be ready to fight for it. And you will sometimes hear it said that you have to do “whatever it takes.” And by that they mean bending the rules, cheating, maybe causing a few casualties along the way. You need to be anything but gentle, quiet, and tame. You’ve got to be ready to step on the guy next to you so that you can get to the next rung.
No one in their right mind would ever believe that a meek person would ever gain anything, let alone the whole earth.
I like what Martyn Lloyd Jones says in this regard. “The world thinks in terms of strength and power, of ability and aggressiveness. The more you assert yourself and express yourself, the more you organize and manifest you power and ability, the more likely you will succeed and get on.”
That’s the way the world operates. The world does not exalt meekness. It exalts the tough guy attitude. It’s the thug life where power is supreme. Because that’s the way you get your fair share of this world.
The world believes that if you don’t strike hard and strike fast, then you’ll lose out.
But Jesus turns all that on its head. He says, “If you want to inherit the land, this is the way you do it. It’s not by being strident. It’s not by playing hard ball. I give it to those who are yield themselves to me.”
C. They are blessed because they receive they receive what they have often lost
We can just look around the world and we can see that those who are yielded to God are often suffering loss and are being robbed. Just look at Afghanistan and you hear how Christian families there are losing homes, losing jobs, losing any kind of inheritance that they may have had in this world.
Just this past week I’ve been reading through the book of Genesis and I read the stories about Isaac, the son of Abraham.
While Abraham was alive he dug several wells in the land of Gerar. Isaac came to that area in order to dwell there and he found that the Philistines had stopped up all the wells. Isaac went and dug them out again so that he could maintain his estate with those waters. But then some of the people of that area began to quarrel with him. They claimed the water for themselves. They stole it right out from under him. And since Isaac didn’t have any other recourse—there was no judge he could appeal to—he decided to just let himself be wronged and move on. So he went and dug some more wells in another place. Unfortunately, the same thing happened there. The people of that area came and said they were the ones who had the deed to the land.
Isaac’s life is very much characteristic of the kind of suffering many Christian people have in this world. Christian people will often suffers loss in this world.
But that loss does not compare with what is in store for them. In the end, God grants this meek people that which they never were able to gain for themselves in this world. That which was always being taken from them, is ultimately going to be given to them forever. They inherit the earth.
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[1] Adrian Rogers, The Mighty Meek