The Beatitudes
Blessed are the Meek
Matthew 5:5
Meekness Toward God
- Responsiveness to His Word
James 1:21-22 “put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
John Stott said this. “I myself am quite happy to call myself a miserable sinner. It causes me no great problem. I can take it my stride. But let somebody else come up to me after church and call me a miserable sinner, and I want to punch him in the nose!
I am not prepared to allow other people to think or speak of me what I have just acknowledged before God that I am. There is a basic hypocrisy here; there always is when meekness is absent.”
True biblical meekness hears God’s Word, knows God’s Word, and responds to God’s Word with the goal of living it out daily.
- Submission to His Sovereignty
Psalm 37:10-11- “In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.”
Meekness Toward Others
- Enduring Injustices from Others
I Peter 2:23- “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”
- Forgiving the Injustices of Others
Not long before she died in 1988, in a moment of surprising candor in television, Marge Laski, one of the best-known secular humanists and novelists, said, “What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me.”
- Returning Good for Evil
Romans 12:14-21- “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
A.W. Tozer.
“The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather, he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is, in the sight of God, more important than angels. …
He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring.”