Written Into the Will--Sermon on the Mount Series

            I’ve always enjoyed the scene in the movie “Cast Away” when Tom Hanks’ character learns to make fire after getting stranded on a deserted island. He dances around his bonfire a bit, then sticks out his chest and says, “I have made fire!!” I can just picture myself doing the same thing.

            Fire has all kinds of beneficial uses. We can cook with it, heat our homes with it, sanitize things with it, even use it to clear land. Of course, it can also be very destructive. It can burn down our homes or run wild across the prairie. So what’s the difference? The fire is exactly the same whether its heating my home or burning it down! The difference is whether it is under control. When we use fire for good things, we harness its power by keeping it in proper boundaries. We channel its heat and energy for a specific purpose. Fire only becomes destructive when it breaks out of those proper boundaries and channels.

            In our study of the Beatitudes today, Jesus is going to praise a character trait called “meekness,” which we can describe as strength of character, properly channeled. The Lord pronounces God’s approval upon meekness in Matthew 5:5, which says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Here is yet another statement from Christ which turns the wisdom of our age upside down.

I saw that very clearly in a moment during my early teenage years—it’s a moment I wish I could do over. I was over at a friend’s house around the 4^th of July. They had some other family friends over, and somehow the conversation got around to the fact that I was a Christian. Once that became known, a middle-aged man looked at me and said, “Do you really believe all that stuff about the meek inheriting the earth?” Now at that point in my life, I probably hadn’t spent five seconds thinking about that verse, so I had no idea what to say. I wish I had said something like, “I’ll have to look into that one some more,” but instead I just grinned, hung my head a little bit, and said, “Nah, I guess not.”

            I never found out why that man mentioned that particular verse, but the fact that he did illustrates just how crazy Jesus’ words sound to people who don’t believe the Bible. What do you mean the meek are going to inherit the earth? Plenty of people have tried to conquer the whole world, and no one has done it yet. Do you mean that the meek are going to do something that the mighty have never been able to do? Well, we shall see what Jesus means.

In this Beatitude, Jesus begins to talk about the way that we interact with other people. In the first Beatitude, He spoke of the way that we think about ourselves with respect to God; in the second, He spoke of the way that we respond to our sins. Now, Jesus starts to mention the way that we interact with other people. This observation is a great reminder that each part of my life should be tied to every other part of my life. That’s truly what it means to have integrity—your life is a unified whole; you have the same way of thinking and the same way of acting whether you’re at church or home or school or work. The Beatitudes remind us of this. The way that I think about God and my condition before Him is directly tied to the way that I treat other people.

Let’s discuss the two halves of this verse.

“BLESSED ARE THE MEEK…”

            If you can remember the last time you used the word “meek,” you have a better memory than I do. I fill out character references for people every so often, and none of them ever ask me to rate how meek a person is! This is a word that people rarely use any more, so why do Bible translators use it—especially in a very recent translation like the English Standard Version that I use?

            Here’s a good lesson to remember about Bible translations: translators tend to stick to the dictionary much more closely than we do. When we speak to each other, we don’t stand there with dictionaries in our hands! We have a basic idea of what words mean, and for the most part we just rely on the context of the conversation to understand each other. But the people who make Bible translations can’t have a face-to-face conversation with everyone who reads them, so when they do their work, they rely on the dictionary definition of words because we all have access to a dictionary.

            In other words, Bible translators expect us to do a little homework in order to understand the Bible—and that’s exactly what they should expect of us! So, let’s take a look at the dictionary definition of “meekness.” In my dictionary, there were two possible meanings: 1) showing patience and humility; and 2) easily imposed on. The second definition is what most people think of when they hear this word. They think of someone who is a doormat; someone who is spineless; someone who never ruffles any feathers or stands up against anything. They think of Neville Chamberlain as opposed to Winston Churchill, or they think of last year’s Kansas City Chiefs—easily run over.

            But that second definition is certainly not what Jesus is talking about! He has something like the first definition in mind, and we know this because Jesus elsewhere uses this word to describe Himself. In Matthew 11:29, Jesus tells His followers, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.” That word translated “gentle” is the same Greek word that is translated “meek” in Matthew 5:5.

            So Jesus is saying, “Blessed are those who are like me!” Now what was Jesus like? Was He a doormat? Was He spineless? Certainly not! Jesus became angry with people who showed no compassion to others, and He was willing to correct people who were doing wrong and to issue stern warnings to people who heard Him. On two occasions, He chased people out of the Temple with a whip after they had violated God’s intentions for that holy place.

            And yet, Jesus must have had a very approachable demeanor. Little children were not afraid to come to Him; lepers and beggars were confident that Jesus would not turn up His nose at them. The fact that He came to Earth at all speaks of love and humility. Jesus had strength of character, properly channeled.

            Scripture also gives us other examples of people who fit this description. Numbers 12:3 says, “Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.” Moses twice held incredible power in palm of his hand, yet did not abuse it. The first occasion came as he was growing up in Pharaoh’s household. He may have been in line to become the Pharaoh himself, but he chose to take up the cause of his oppressed relatives, and he had to flee for his life for many years.

            The second occasion came after God used him to free the children of Israel from their slavery in Egypt. God performed incredible miracles through Moses. He could have easily declared himself king of his people, but he never did. In fact, when his father-in-law suggested that he share some of his judging responsibilities because he was getting worn out, Moses willingly agreed. He did not jealousy cling to every ounce of power that he could get his hands on.

            Yet Moses also acted decisively in the name of God when it was necessary. I think about the incident with the golden calf. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai after receiving the Ten Commandments from God, he found the people worshipping an idol that they had made. The text says that he melted the idol down, ground up the gold into dust, scattered it onto a source of water and made the people drink it. Moses had strength of character, properly channeled.

            I also think of Abigail in 1 Samuel. Abigail was married to a fool; her husband was Nabal, which literally means “fool.” Yet 1 Samuel 25 says that she was discerning and had an obvious faith in God. She was apparently a good wife to her husband, even though he was a fool. One day, Nabal foolishly insulted David, and David foolishly decided to pick a fight with him. But Abigail diffused the situation by giving David a generous gift to smooth over her husband’s insult, and she undoubtedly saved many lives. Abigail had strength of character, properly channeled.

            So meekness is clearly an honorable trait. It must be so if the Lord Jesus referred to Himself as “meek” (or “gentle” as your translation might read). And so Jesus called the meek “blessed” because of what they have to look forward to.

“…FOR THEY SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH.”

            It is easy and common for people to misread this statement. They read it as if Jesus had said the meek shall conquer the earth, but that’s not what He said. He said the meek shall inherit the earth. What is an inheritance? Its something you receive from the person who owns it. Let’s read the verse with that idea placed in it—“Blessed are the meek, for they shall receive the earth from the person who owns it.” And who owns the Earth? God, of course; more specifically, we could say that Jesus owns the Earth, and that will become obvious to everyone when He returns one day to set up His kingdom in this world.

            I think this phrase is saying the same thing as verse 3. We learned that when Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” He was saying that the poor in spirit would share in a piece of His authority over His kingdom. A portion of it would belong to them, and they would be its caretakers for the Lord. I think Jesus is saying the same thing in in v. 5, but now He simply uses the language of receiving an inheritance.

            Most children eventually receive some kind of inheritance from their parents. Since we are children of God, we can expect to receive an inheritance from Him. When the New Testament talks about our inheritance from God, it speaks of it in two aspects. The first is a guaranteed inheritance, which will be ours simply because we are children of God. This part of our inheritance is described very well in 1 Peter 1:3-5 [READ 1 Peter 1:3-5]. Notice how Peter emphasizes the unchanging nature of this inheritance—it is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. This, I think, would refer to our future home with God. It is guaranteed to us as His children.

            But the New Testament also speaks of an inheritance that is conditional. It is not guaranteed to us, but it is available to us based on our faithful service to Christ. This is what we’re referring to when we talk about receiving rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. This conditional inheritance is expressed well in Romans 8:16-17—“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

            These verses talk about both aspects of our inheritance—we are heirs of God, and we can be fellow heirs with Christ, but notice that there is a condition we have to meet to be a fellow heir with Christ. We must suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. You might remember the statement from Jesus to the Apostles that we read a couple of weeks ago. He said to them in Luke 22:28-30—“You are those who have stayed with me in my trials [that sounds like suffering with Christ, doesn’t it? And how does Christ continue?] and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom [in other words, “this is my inheritance from the Father—a kingdom, and now I assign to you a kingdom] that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

            The Apostles will be fellow heirs with Christ, and why is that? As Jesus said, they stayed with Him in His trials. He wasn’t talking about His legal trials before Pontius Pilate because those hadn’t happened yet. He was saying that the Apostles had stuck with Him through thick and thin. We know the Apostles weren’t perfect—you barely have to read one page in the Gospels to find that out!—but despite all of their failings, they just kept following Jesus.

            There is an incident recorded in John 6 that illustrates this well. A huge crowd had come to find Jesus because the text says they wanted to make Him their king, but Jesus said some hard things to them because they were not spiritually ready to submit to Jesus as their king. At the end of the chapter, virtually the whole crowd walked away from Jesus, and Jesus turned to the Apostles and said, “Do you want to leave, too?” Peter piped up for all of them and said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

            The Apostles weren’t perfect followers of Christ, but they just kept following Him! That’s what the Lord wants to see from us—He’s looking for us to keep following Him, even if its like a little child following her daddy. He wants us to say, “Lord, my steps forward may be small steps, and you may have to turn around often and say, ‘Come on, keep going this way,’ and I may get distracted by a dandelion now and then, and I may fall down and skin-up my hands and bloody-up my knees, but I’m just going to keep following you!”

            That’s the attitude the Lord wants to see, and that’s the attitude that He will reward. Its not hard to see how meekness ties into that attitude. We need to have our energy properly channeled, don’t we? We need to have our decisions properly channeled to keep us going in the right direction. We need to be like Moses; we need to be like Abigail; we need to be like Jesus! He is our spiritual “big brother,” and we will live with Him someday. And if we live our lives like He lived His life, we will share in a little bit of His inheritance from the Father—He will give us the right to serve as lords and ladies in His kingdom.