Meekness is not Weakness

Introduction

Let's think this evening hour about meekness and perhaps the best way to approach this text is to take it from 4 different aspects.

1. First of all, the meaning of meekness.

What are we talking about?

2. Secondly, the living.

How can we tell if we are growing in meekness in our lives?

3. Thirdly, the cultivating it.

How can we grow in meekness?

4. And finally, the blessing of it.

What does it mean to inherit the earth?

Maybe you don't even want it, I don't know.

1. The Meaning of Meekness

First of all, the meaning.

What does it mean to be meek?

What is meekness?

Meekness is power under control.

Meekness is power under control.

Have you ever walked through the great machine shops in Chicago?

When I was going to seminary, I worked for the Rockwell Manufacturing Company.

To this day, I cannot read a blueprint.

I'm afraid to start a machine.

But I was in the time keeping department and nobody really cared.

Often it was my job to go out into the Ford shop or into the place where they had these huge stamping machines, and you'd stand there and look at this machine, almost as big as a house.

And here's a man at control and a tremendous power that's in this machine.

And yet he had that machine so adjusted that when it came down, it didn't wreck the plant.

It stamped out the piece of material that was supposed to be stamped out and kept on doing its job.

That's meekness.

Power under control.

You see, meekness is not weakness.

There are those who think that because they are timid, they are meek.

Not necessarily.

There is a timidity that is sinful.

We've all heard the statement silence is golden, and many times it can be.

But sometimes silence is yellow.

It's based on lack of courage and cowardice.

Meekness is not being a coward.

Meekness is not being complacent.

There's some people whose attitude toward life is just, well, if it's going to be, it's going to be.

We'll do nothing about it.

They can never get angry at some sin.

They can never get worked up over something that's gone wrong.

They're just rather complacent about the whole thing.

That's not meekness.

We Christians ought to be content, but not complacent.

Meekness is power under control.

I think that Proverbs chapter 16 and verse 32 puts it beautifully.

I don't know that Solomon always practiced this.

I'm not so sure I always practice it, but here's what the word says.

Proverbs 16:32.

He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.

Now the opposite of that is over in chapter 25 and verse 28.

Proverbs 25:28.

He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.

Now you put these two verses together, and you find out that meekness has to do with the control of the inner man.

Now there's power to the inner man.

God made us with power.

My mind ought to have power and my will ought to have power.

I don't want to be a spineless, a spaghetti spine kind of a person and my emotions ought to have power.

There's nothing wrong with temper.

Just don't lose it.

I used to go past the steel mills down in East Chicago, IN.

You can't miss them anymore.

Just look there they are, and they temper the steel makes it stronger and they want temper in steel.

And God has put within us the capacity to be angry at the right things in the right way at the right time.

And it's such a wonderful gift.

Don't lose it.

That's what he's talking about here.

He's saying that meekness is power under control.

Now when you get saved, another dimension of power is added to your life.

You have not only intellectual power and emotional power and willpower, you have spiritual power.

And the Holy Spirit wants to get a hold of my mind and make me spiritually minded and my heart that I might love the things that God loves and hate the things God hates.

He wants to get a hold of my will.

It is God that worketh in you both the will and to do of His good pleasure.

So here's this tremendous reservoir of power, and if it's not under control, all the damage that we do, he says a man who can control his inner man is a far greater person than somebody with a sword or an atomic bomb who can go out and conquer kingdoms.

The most important Kingdom for me to conquer is right down inside.

Now, back in Paul's day and back in Jesus' day, this was a familiar word with the Greek people.

In fact, this word that's translated meekness was used in three different ways.

It's beautiful.

This word was used of a soothing medicine.

Whenever the doctor came and examined the patient and discovered that the patient needed to be quieted down, he would use a soothing medicine.

Oh, how grateful we are for a soothing medicine.

That's the word.

The word was also used for a gentle breeze.

These hot days we've been having lately, how thankful we are when there comes a gentle breeze off the lake.

So there's the uneasiness and the nervousness and the turbulence of sickness.

But here comes the soothing medicine.

There's the stifling situation of heat and humidity.

Here comes the gentle breeze.

The word was also used on the farm when they broke a colt.

Now I stay away from horses.

I've told you about this lady who wanted to lose weight and took up horseback riding and the horse lost 15 lbs.

I've told you about her.

I stay away from the horses.

I'm not a great lover of horses.

I don't know why The name Phillip means a lover of horses, and my mother was going to name me Phillip when I was born.

I'm glad that she didn't.

When a colt is brought in and that colt is just full of power, it can jump here and run there and don't you get too close to it.

Finally, somebody gets on his back and holds on tight and breaks that.

That animal.

That animal is no good until it's broken.

Power under control.

Now look, medicine has power.

If it's not under control, it'll kill you.

People have died from overdoses of medicine.

The wind has power.

If you doubt that, just go down to Florida or Texas when a hurricane is coming along.

You'll find out how much power the wind has.

The wind has the power of hundreds of atomic bombs.

When it's a breeze, it's power under control.

A horse has power.

That horse could lift up that great Bigfoot and come right down on your head and your dad, here's this tremendous animal.

Ah, but when it's broken, the power is under control.

Medicine, power under control.

Breeze, power under control.

A broken horse, power under control.

Now says the Lord Jesus, this is what we need in our lives.

Power under control.

Not because we're complacent, not because we're contented with things as they are, not because we're cowards, but because we're consecrated.

2. The Living of Meekness

Now, perhaps the best way to discover this is to look at some Bible examples of meekness.

We're talking now about the meaning of meekness.

Let me just walk through the Bible with you and you'll recognize these examples.

I think of Abraham and Lot.

Lot followed Abraham when Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, they came to the promised land.

And you remember Lot wanted to make his own way, and their flocks and their herds were increasing so much, and there was a fight.

It's a terrible thing when brothers and uncles and nephews and cousins don't get along with each other.

Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

And they couldn't get along.

And so Abraham calls a lot.

And he says, now look, let there be no strife between me and thee, between my herdman and your herdman.

You just choose which way you want to go.

You take first choice.

Now, Abraham could have said, look, I'm the patriarch in this family.

You're my nephew.

I'm the leader.

I get first choice.

But Abraham had power under control.

He wasn't afraid of losing anything.

He was afraid he might lose something on the inside.

I would much rather lose something out there in the world than lose something in here, he said.

Lot, you just take first choice.

You recall how that lot chose the well-watered plains of Jordan.

He moved into Sodom, lost his family, lost his testimony, lost his purity.

But Abraham showed meekness, power under control.

He said you get first choice.

Paul wrote something about that when he said in honor, preferring one another.

I think, for example, of Joseph and his brethren.

Oh, did they mistreat him?

They lied about him.

They wanted to kill him.

They sold him as a slave.

He ends up in Egypt.

You'll recall how 13 years later he's elevated to be the second ruler in Egypt, and then his brothers show up.

What would you have done?

I think some of us would have said, boy, now I've got them.

He didn't.

He wept when he realized this, this group of men, these were his brethren, and he wept and all how He exercised His power for their good.

He brought them to the place of repentance and confession that He might be able to give them all he wanted to give them.

That's meekness, power under control.

You see, meekness shows up when we're right, not when we're wrong.

Anybody can hang his head and close his eyes and say, well, I made a mistake.

Anybody can be.

A little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar doesn't take any grace at all.

Ah, but when you're right and the other fellows wrong and it's in your power to do something, there is where meekness has to show up.

I think of David.

I'm convinced that David's greatest victories were not with his sword.

His greatest victories were with his heart.

Here was Saul sound asleep, and he could have killed David, could have killed him.

He didn't do it.

Power under control.

When David was leaving Jerusalem and Absalom had taken over and David was a broken king.

He's walking out and here's Shimmy Eye up there throwing dirt on him.

You bloody man.

You bloody man.

And one of David's men said, let me go up there and chop his head off.

David said no, no, we deserve this.

Just maybe the Lord told him to do it.

That's meekness.

All David had to say was kill that man.

Power under control.

I suppose the greatest example is the Lord Jesus Christ as a sheep before her shearers is dumb.

So he opened not his mouth.

He's brought as a lamb to the slaughter.

When the Lord Jesus was persecuted and spat upon and slapped and lied about, he just calmly took it.

He testified of the truth.

He could have called down the legions of heaven.

While back in the Old Testament an angel killed 185,000 soldiers.

If Jesus had called down legions of angels that would have been the end.

He didn't.

The same power that healed Peter's Malchus ear when Peter cut it off could have called down judgment.

He didn't do it.

This is meekness, power under control.

I think Arthur Pink has put it beautifully when he says meekness is the opposite of ill will toward men and self-will toward God.

If truly we are practicing meekness, there is surrender to God and gentleness toward men.

Our gentleness is not a revelation of weakness, it's a revelation of strength.

David looked back at his life one day and he said this in the Psalms.

He said, "God, thy gentleness has made me great."

Aren't you glad God's gentle with you?

Aren't you glad that God doesn't smite down swiftly with thunderbolts and storm clouds?

No, God gently deals with us.

He's the shepherd who carries the sheep on his shoulders.

Meekness is power under control.

So much for the meaning of it.

Let's look, secondly at the living of it.

How can we tell if we are exercising meekness?

3. The Cultivating of Meekness

How can we grow in meekness?

Galatians 5:23 tells me meekness is one of the fruit of the Spirit.

The fruit of the Spirit is meekness.

Now fruit is something you cannot manufacture.

You can manufacture artificial fruit, but please don't try to eat it.

Fruit is something that has to come from life.

Now fruit is cultivated in the light.

I don't know of any fruit that grows in total darkness.

If you want to have mushrooms, that's one thing.

We want to have fruit.

And the Lord is telling us here in Galatians that the fruit of the Spirit, which is meekness, is something that grows out of our lives as we walk in the light, the light of God's blessing, the light of God's Word, keeping our lives clean.

Jesus said an interesting thing.

I wouldn't dare say this, but the two men in the Bible who are characterized as being the most meek are Moses and Jesus.

It says of Moses back in Numbers 12:3.

Now this man, Moses was the meekest man on the face of the earth.

Now I couldn't write that if I wrote a book about my, if I wrote Numbers and put that in there, he'd say, "My this man's very, very proud."

But see, the Holy Spirit wrote Numbers and the Holy Spirit said about Moses, he is the meekest man.

Now Moses knew what it was to get angry at the right thing at the right time, in the right way.

He came down from the mountain and there were the Jews worshipping an idol.

And he took those tables of stone and he smashed them.

I admire him for they say, well, Moses had a temper tantrum.

Oh, no.

Moses had a holy hatred for sin.

I tell you, the man and the woman who can't get angry at sin, there's something wrong.

Now, if Moses had a temper tantrum over himself, that'd be a different story.

He never did.

When Korah and his crowd came and said, "Who do you think you are to run this?"

To run this nation, "We have as much right as you do."

Moses didn't defend himself.

He said, "Lord, you got to take care of him."

And God did.

When Aaron and Miriam came and said, "Who do you think you are?"

"We belong to your family too."

He said, "God, you got to take care of him."

The meek person is quick to defend the other man who's right and slow to defend himself.

He lets God defend him.

Likewise Jesus.

Jesus said this, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, that means submission and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls."

You know what He's saying there.

He's saying the closer you get to Me, the more you submit to Me, the more my heart is going to beat with your heart, and you're going to pick up this meekness.

The difficulty about meekness is this.

You can't have meekness without going through trouble.

How did Moses get power under control?

He wasn't always that way.

When Moses was a young man, he saw something happening and he pulled out his sword and he killed a man.

Moses had power, but it wasn't under control.

Ah, but after he'd spent some years in the desert walking with God, and then God called him, he had power under control.

Paul, when Paul was Saul of Tarsus.

Oh, the power he had, the intellectual power, the devotion.

He was out killing and arresting.

Ah, but he was just like an animal that hadn't been broken.

In fact, Jesus said, "It's hard for you to kick against the goads.

You're an animal that hasn't been broken yet."

Ah, but God broke him.

You know how God broke Paul?

He put him through difficulty.

You say, "Pastor, why am I going through what I'm going through?"

I think one reason we go through things is that God may teach us how to be meek.

Because when I go through difficulty, it draws me closer to the heart of Jesus.

I get into the Word and I feel the heartbeat of Jesus.

And somehow by this spiritual chemistry, this wonderful work of the Holy Spirit, the meekness of Jesus starts rubbing off on you.

You don't get meekness by taking pills or listening to sermons or reading spiritual books.

We have to surrender to the Holy Spirit, we have to get close to the Lord Jesus through the Word, and we have to be willing to go through trouble.

4. The Blessing of Meekness

Finally, the blessing of it.

What is the blessing of meekness?

You'd think it would say, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit."

Heaven doesn't say that blessed are the meek, for they shall get a reward.

Heaven doesn't say that.

It says, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

You say, "I don't want the earth."

You know what he's talking about here.

He's talking about what the psalmist was talking about back in Psalm 37:11, because this is a quotation from Psalm 37, verse 11.

Go back to Psalm 37, would you please?

We shall quickly go through this and then we shall be on our way.

The blessing he's talking about is not necessarily a material blessing.

When he says you'll inherit the earth, it doesn't mean you're going to have the biggest bank account in town.

Jesus was meek and he was poor.

It doesn't mean you're going to cease having difficulties.

Moses was meek and he had troubles up to the very end with all those people to take care of.

He's not talking about a material blessing on the outside, He's talking about a spiritual blessing on the inside.

Now here's what he's saying.

Would you remember this?

To inherit the earth means when you can control yourself, everything belongs to you.

Have you got that?

When you can control yourself, then everything belongs to you.

I read comic strips.

Now you may not admire me for that, but sometimes it's the only part of the paper that makes sense.

One of my favorite comic strips for many years has been Walt Kelly's Pogo.

Now Walt Kelly is dead.

I'm sorry about that, but he had a fabulous series that ended up with everybody in the comic strip looking in the mirror and saying, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

That's a great statement.

Bad grammar, but mighty good theology.

"We have met the enemy and he is, you know who your greatest enemy is?

Yourself."

I've talked with people who come and they say, "Pastor, I lost my job."

"Well, I'm sorry, how did?"

"Well, I got to confess to you, I shot off my mouth."

Well, I can't criticize them because I've done that sometimes.

But you see, we lose something out there because we've lost something in here.

Is that not true?

Our Lord Jesus Christ never worried about the wind or the waves or the bread or the soldiers.

He never worried about anything out there because everything was taken care of in here in His heart.

That's what he's talking about.

He says, "Blessed are the meek."

If you can control this Kingdom out in on the inside, you don't have to worry about the Kingdom out there.

It's all yours.

Now when you read Psalm 37, for example, I want you to notice in verse 9.

"For evil doers shall be cut off, but those who wait upon the Lord shall inherit the earth."

Meekness keeps you waiting on the Lord.

You don't get impatient.

Look at verse 11.

"But the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace."

I'll tell you, friends, I would rather have peace in my heart than own the best piece of property in Du Page County.

What good is that 100 years from now, but right now to have God's peace in my heart?

And by the way, if you notice that those who cannot control themselves don't enjoy what they do have.

Oh, how many people who have so much that you may be envious of are miserable because they don't have any self-control.

And so to inherit the earth does not mean God gives you a big fat bank book, doesn't always mean God's going to promote you.

Jesus didn't see any promotions.

In fact, with him it meant getting more and more lonely until finally he died on the cross.

The apostle Paul who said, "I beseech you by the meekness and the gentleness of Christ," oh how he suffered.

You'd think that the apostle Paul with all of his meekness would have had perfect peace in every church that he pastored.

He certainly didn't.

But you know what he did have?

He had peace in his heart.

He had that wonderful self-control.

And I tell you friends, when you have that self-control through the Holy Spirit down inside, you aren't out to assert yourself, to brag about yourself, to defend yourself.

There are times when we perhaps should defend ourselves, but ordinarily let the Lord do it to push ourselves.

Not just thinking about self at all, we're thinking about Him.

There's an amazing control and peace and power, and you've inherited the whole earth.

Paul said an interesting thing when he wrote to the Corinthians.

He said, "As poor, yet making many rich."

I meet people who can't control their emotions.

They can't control their memories.

Can't control their tongues.

And Jesus is saying if we've come to the place of meekness, that inner Kingdom is under control, and when that's under control, everything out there belongs to you.

You won't miss it if you don't have it.

If God gives it to you, you'll enjoy it and you'll have His peace down inside.

Verse 34 is a.

Verse 34 is a verse.

"We better hang on to wait on the Lord, keep His way, and He shall exalt thee to inherit."

The Lamb, that's beautiful.

So when the right time comes, Joseph, you'll be exalted.

When?

The right time comes.

David, you'll be exalted.

Oh, David could have made himself king by killing Saul, but he wouldn't do it, and God exalted him.

He tells us here that God is the one who takes care of all these things.

Verse 38:

Cease from anger, forsake wrath.

Fret not thyself in any way to do evil, for yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be.

Yeah, thou shalt diligently consider his place.

It shall not be.

But the meek shall inherit the earth.

I think this next week I'm going to be asking God to help me have more power under control.

I want to be a soothing medicine, not a poison.

I want to be a refreshing breeze, not a blast of hot air.

I want to be an animal that's been broken that God can use.

I'm going to pray that way perhaps?

You'll be praying the same way.

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

Our Father, we want to come in surrender.

Sorry for those times when we have plotted and schemed to hurt others.

When our prayers have not been for people.

They've been against them.

When our motive has been self-protection and self-promotion instead of glorifying Christ for these sins, we are sorry.

May we this night realize the blessed experience of the Kingdom and the kingship of self-control, which is Christ's control.

We would by faith take His yoke upon us and learn of Him, for we too would be meek and lowly in heart that we might experience that abundance of peace that means life is in control.

We pray for any here tonight who know not the Savior.

Oh God, if any have been rebelling against His commands, speak to their hearts.

May all of us, Oh God, take a step closer to the fulfillment of this beatitude.

We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.