Matthew 5 and verse 5, as we
continue in the Beatitudes, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit
the earth. I have in your lesson that as
we look at these, you know what we're seeing here in these Beatitudes,
we're seeing a description of true citizens of the kingdom
of heaven. And this is important because
The audience that the Lord is speaking to here are those Jews,
or Israelites, who had been taught wrong concerning the law of Moses,
and who imagined that they were citizens of the kingdom of heaven,
that they were children of God. And of course the Lord starts
out by showing, now these right here, and these beatitudes, these
are the true, this is the character this is the attitude this is
the spiritual uh... quality of character evidence
by the true citizens of the kingdom of heaven and every one of these
things it's important that we always remember that what we're
seeing here is not things that are natural to human beings sinful
human beings we're all born spiritually dead we fell an atom were spiritually
dead so when he talks about those who are poor in spirit when he
talks about those that mourn and today those that are meek
he's not talking about qualities of character that are natural
to sinful human beings and then he's not talking about
human achievement here this is not something that's a certain
segment of sinful human beings achieve over and above other
human beings. If you're poor in spirit, truly
poor in spirit, as identified not just in the Beatitude here,
but in all of Scripture, if you truly mourn over sin, if you
truly are meek in a godly way, that's the work of God. That's
the work of Christ by the Spirit. when he gives us a new heart,
brings us to faith in Christ. In fact, every spiritual quality
of character described here stems from faith in Christ and repentance
of dead works. It's the work of God. The Bible
says, for by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
And then it says what? We are his workmanship, God's
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, That is, it's all based
upon the glorious person and finished work of Christ, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. What you're seeing described
here in these Beatitudes is the work of God, the workmanship
of God, the grace of God. And that's stated in that one
simple word, blessed. To be blessed of God is to be
a sinner saved by grace. To be blessed of God is to be
one whom God chose before the foundation of the world and gave
to Christ and conditioned all of your salvation upon Him. To
be blessed of Christ is to be justified before God, washed
in His blood, clothed in His righteousness imputed. To be
blessed of God is to be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, redeemed
how I love to proclaim it. He paid the full price. He didn't
leave me anything to pay on that. To be blessed of God is to be
born again by the Spirit and brought to faith in Christ. So
there you have it. So this is the work of God. It's
not the product. To be meek, to be poor in spirit,
to be mournful is not the product or the result of the human will. It involves a change in the human
will, but it's a change that God brings about by His Spirit
as He convicts us of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.
Now, also understand this. Satan does have counterfeits
for all of this. Poor in spirit, mournful, meek,
all that. Satan has counterfeits for this. Now, how can we tell the difference
between true Holy Spirit workmanship in these areas and Satan's counterfeits? I'll tell you how. It's in the
context of the gospel. the true gospel, wherein the
righteousness of God reveals. And that's the second thing we
need to realize about these spiritual qualities of character are not
any part of the righteousness that we plead before God for
our salvation and our justification. They're the work of God. They're
a change of heart. It's necessary. but this is not
my righteousness christ is my righteousness and everything
that he says here like for example uh... the poor in spirit theirs
is the kingdom of heaven well christ is the king of heaven
who earned it who established it and who brings his people
into it they that mourn they'll be comforted the difference the
difference between satan's counterfeit in this morning The true citizens
of the kingdom heaven in their mourning is that the true citizens
of the kingdom of heaven will find absolutely no comfort except
in Christ crucified and risen from the dead. No comfort at
all. They won't find any comfort in
their decisions or their baptism or their works or what they call
their evidences. They find it in Christ and his
righteousness alone. Now what about this meekness?
Well, first of all, understand that to be meek is not the same
as being weak. I think a lot of people may think
that way. A person who's meek is somebody
who's a weakling, but that's not true. The Lord himself was
not a weak person. but he's called meek and i've
got listed here you know this is in matthew twenty one in verse
five it's i've got listed in your lesson here that's when
he was riding into jerusalem triumphantly on the donkey they
were crying hosanna hosanna well it says he quoted here in matthew
twenty one five tell ye daughter of zion behold thy king cometh
unto thee meek and sitting up on an ass and a coat, the foal
of an ass. In other words, he was showing
that his coming into Jerusalem with the hosannas and all of
that, that was a fulfillment of prophecy. And he would be
a meek person. Now, how was Christ meek? Well, he submitted himself to
the will of his father for the salvation of his people. He took
everything that everything that the father required for the salvation
of his people, every condition for their salvation was laid
upon his shoulders and he freely and lovingly accepted that. The
Bible says in John 13 1, I didn't list that in your lesson here,
but John 13 1, it says that he loved his own people, his sheep,
unto the end, the word end there means finishing of the work.
It's the same word that he used in John 19.30 on the cross, it
is finished. In other words, Christ submitted
himself to the will of the Father. And I forgot to put, I was studying
this in this lesson, but I forgot to add this passage. Look at,
and I want you to look at it, it's Philippians chapter 2. This
shows the meekness of Christ. And again, He was not weak. But
He came to this earth and took into union with His deity a perfect
sinless humanity in submission to the will of His Father You
see that? In submission to the will of
his father to do what? To fulfill all righteousness. Remember he said that to John
the Baptist at his baptism. Suffer it to be so for us to
fulfill all righteousness. He submitted himself unto the
law. He, listen, he's the lawgiver.
Well, I'm going to talk about Moses in the message this morning.
Where Moses stood before that burning bush, that's a pre-incarnate
visitation of Christ, I believe. And later on, he gave Moses the
law. He's the lawgiver. Well, he submitted himself to
his own law. In fact, we're gonna see later
on in Matthew chapter five where he said, I didn't come to break
the law, I came to fulfill the law. And he did it as the surety
and substitute of his people. But look here in verse five of
Philippians two, let this mind be in you, which was also in
Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, took
upon himself the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men,
being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself." Now, in
the Old Testament, the word meek can often be translated as humble. But now, every one of those beatitudes
fall under the umbrella of humility, godly humility. But now meekness
is a certain aspect of humility, and we'll talk about that in
just a minute. But he humbled himself, became obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross. And that's why he kept
telling them, he said, I didn't come to do mine own will, but
the will of my Father. He wasn't denying his deity there.
He was simply showing his servitude to the Father as God-man, to
save his people from their sins. He was showing his meekness.
Submission, that's what it was about. He was a man of sorrows. He submitted himself to the derision
and criticism and false accusations of sinful men. Remember he said,
he told Peter and the rest, he said, you know, I could call
10,000 angels if I wanted. You remember when they came to
arrest him? And he said, who do you seek? He said, we seek
Jesus of Nazareth. And he said, I am. And they all
fell back. If he didn't want them to take
him and arrest him and crucify him, he could have stopped it.
That's why that silly old false preacher from up in Ohio said,
if I'd been there, I'd have stopped it. Are you crazy? Are you kidding
me? He could have called 10,000 angels. There's a song about that. But
he submitted, why? For the glory of his father and
the good of his people, the salvation of his people, his sheep. The
good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. He knew that's
what it took to save his people from their sins and bring in
the righteousness that God requires. Now, Moses was not a weak person,
but he's described as one who was very meek above all men which
were upon the face of the earth, over in Numbers chapter 12. So
that's the first thing, meekness is not weakness. So what, secondly,
what is meekness? Don't think of weakness, think
of that word I've been using, submission. That's what meek
means. Submission. Submission to who? Submission to God. Submission
to God's word. That's what meekness is. Now,
got in your lesson here. People will naturally submit
to themselves. Now you say, well I don't understand
that. Well think about it. Anyone who thinks more highly
of themselves than they ought is actually submitting to themselves.
When Cain decided naturally that he was going to bring the works
of his hands to seek salvation and acceptance with God, what
was he doing? He wasn't being submitted to
God there. Because God said, that's not the way. Here's the
way, the way of the blood, the way of the lamb, the way of the
seed of woman, the way of a blood-bought sacrifice. Grace, the way of the cross,
the way of righteousness imputed. That's what God says. Cain said,
well I'm not going to submit to that, I've got a better way.
Cain was not a meek man. No sinner who comes to God seeking
salvation or blessing based upon their efforts, their works, or
their will, submits to God. That's right, God's way. There's
one way of salvation. When God the Holy Spirit gives
us a new heart in the new birth, what does he do? He causes us
to submit to God's way. You remember in Romans chapter
10 where Paul talked about the Israelites who were ignorant
of God's righteousness and have not submitted themselves to the
righteousness of God? They're going about to establish
their own righteousness. When God the Holy Spirit convicts
a sinner of sin, his poverty of spirit, and brings him to
be contrite and penitent in the way of mourning, what does that
sinner do? He submits to God's way. God,
your way is right and my way is wrong. Your way is the only way, and
I repent of every other way. That's the issue. We submit to
God's word. God's word is the right. Let
God be true and every man a liar. In that sense, that's what he's
talking about. You know, you take a person who has a good
reputation in business, in relationships on this earth as being an honest
person. When it comes to salvation, when
it comes to a right relationship with God, Every man, every woman
is a liar. Until God intervenes, shows us
his way, and brings us to submit. And that's the meek that he's
talking about. God's will, God's way. And so,
how do we know God's will and God's way? His word. This is
God's word. The word of the king is to be
obeyed. Isn't that right? I mean, listen,
I hear these guys all the time, they argue, say, well, the believer's
not under the law. Well, we're not under the old
covenant law, but we're under the law of Christ, not in order
to be saved, not in order to be made righteous, because his
law forbids that. But here's the thing, when the
king states something, He's not making suggestions. Do you understand
that? It's just like your children.
Have you ever said to your children, you know, you told them to do
something and they didn't want to do it and they say, why, why, why?
And you say, because I said so. Why? Because you're the head
of the house. You're the daddy, you're the mama, you're the one
who makes the rules in this house. You ever said to him, say, if
you live in my house, you're gonna go by my rules, that kind
of thing? Well, we're in God's house. And when he states something,
it's not a suggestion, it's not up for a vote. The kingdom of
heaven is not a democracy. It's a theocracy, it's a Christocracy. And what the king says is law. And he says, here's the gospel,
here's the way of salvation, we submit. There's only one way
of righteousness, Christ's righteousness imputed, submit. That's what
meekness is. Now, I've listed several things,
I've already mentioned several of these, but just to go through
them. God-given meekness. God-given meekness brings a sinner
to take his rightful and honest place as a helpless sinner before
God, knowing this, salvation's of the Lord. It's not of me.
If I'm a sinner saved by grace, if I'm justified, it's not of
me. It's the workmanship of God.
He's the potter. You know what I was? The clay. And if I'm, listen, if I'm saved,
the Bible says I was a vessel of mercy, marked out for that
before the foundation of the world. Now, I'm gonna tell you
something, that's humbling. For no reason whatsoever, no
reason I can figure out. Somebody says, well, why did
God choose me? I don't know. If he'd have looked at anything
in me, he would have said, to hell with him, that's what he
would have said. And that's what we submit. That's how, you know, I think
several months ago, we were talking about this on Wednesday night,
how can we keep the doctrine of election from being a point
of pride? Because the Jews did turn it
into a point of pride. Here's how election can be a
point of pride. If you think that God chose you
based upon anything about you, in you, or done by you, that's
when it becomes a doctrine of pride. The Jews thought they
were chosen because they were physically connected to Abraham,
because they were circumcised, and because they kept the law.
That's pride. But why did God choose any of
us? It seemed good in His sight. Had nothing to do with... Listen.
Just like one old preacher said, if God came down here and gave
everybody and said, now I'm gonna save you if you'll let me, if
you'll just make the right choice, according to the Bible, every
one of us would make the wrong choice. Every one of us. Because of our natural pride
and self-righteousness. Salvation is of the Lord. There's
a God-given meekness. brings a sinner to submit to
God's way of salvation and righteousness by Christ, I have nothing to
recommend me unto God. Now, later on, and I often refer
to this passage in Matthew 7, verse 21 through 23, where these
professing Christians stood before the Lord and said, haven't we
preached in your name? Haven't we done many wonderful
works? All of that. Is that what makes me righteous
before God, the fact that I'm up here preaching the truth? I don't believe I'm preaching
a lie, do you? I believe I'm preaching the truth. But does
that make me righteous before God? No. I have no righteousness
to plead before God, but the righteousness of his son imputed
to me. That's it. No other reason. And that's one
way this meekness is evidenced. When he talked about, referenced
here Matthew 11, where he says, come unto me all you that labor
and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest. And he said, my
yoke is easy, my burden is, that yoke, that's the yoke of God's
love and grace in Christ. But it brings us to submission,
to be servants. bond slaves. I didn't put that
in your lesson. If I keep these lessons to a
front and back page, I can't put everything on here. If I
was writing a book on this, which I may do sometime, I'll add all
that to it. God-given meekness causes a sinner
to acknowledge this. Now listen, if God were to judge
him at any time based on his best efforts to do right, that
sinner would be condemned. Now that's so. That's submission
to God's judgment. God-given meekness brings a sinner
saved by grace to submit to God's judgment of saved and lost. Now, I do not enjoy saying anybody
is lost. Do you? I hope you don't. Even our worst enemies. I don't want to see anybody perish.
But the fact that I have that desire, and that desire is part
of loving our neighbor as ourself. I certainly don't want to perish.
So I don't want to see anybody else perish. Plus the fact I
know this, my worst enemy in relation to the gospel, if God
ever were to save that person, he wouldn't be my worst enemy
anymore. But here's the thing. The fact
that I don't enjoy saying anybody's lost doesn't change the fact
that they are lost if they don't believe Christ, if they don't
believe the gospel. Isn't that right? The preaching
of the cross is foolishness to them that believe not. And so
we have to submit to God's judgment in these areas. When we recognize
the lostness of any person, what do we do? Well, we pray for their
salvation. We even pray for opportunities.
God, give me the opportunity to preach the gospel or tell
them the gospel. And then we pray that God would
give them a new heart. Isn't that right? Now, there's
a lot of people I never have opportunity to speak to. And
I'm not going to go bust down the door. The scripture tells
me not to do that. There's some I have opportunity
to preach to, to talk to, who don't want to hear it again.
What does the Bible tell me to do? It says, wipe the dust off
your feet and move on. That's a sad thing, isn't it?
I hope that, you know, I heard a preacher one time talking about
a false prophet. And, you know, he was talking
about how I hope God sends him to a burning hell and all that.
Well, you know, The fact, you know, and they go by Galatians
1 where Paul says, let them be anathema, false gospels. I don't believe Paul there was
relishing in the fact of his desire to send anybody to hell.
What Paul was doing there was simply recognizing if they're
not preaching the true gospel, if they're not submitted to God's
truth, we have to say they're cursed of God. They're lost. Saul of Tarsus, think about how
many Christians were afraid of him before God converted him. And somebody said, well, do you
think they expected Saul to be converted? Well, how could they?
When he was on the Damascus Road, as my old former pastor used
to say, he wasn't on his way to a prayer meeting. But God
stopped him and saved him. So we do pray, but we don't want
to fool ourselves. We want to submit to God's judgment.
So we have to be careful about saying, well, this person's saved
and this person's lost or anything like that. We have to be careful
to go totally by God's word on this area. You say, well, they
believe in Christ. Well, we say, well, is it the
true Christ as he is identified and distinguished in the Bible?
That's the key. The gospel, what is the gospel? Well, God given, I see it's the
one, two, three, four, the fifth paragraph down on the second
page, I left out the word meekness. God given, it says, and so put
the word meekness in there. God given meekness is the disposition
of spirit in which a sinner saved by grace recognizes and acknowledges
that God is just and wise in all his dealings and judgments
with men. In other words, here's what meekness will say, whatever
God does is right. You understand that? If God does
it, it's right. One old preacher said, God doesn't
just do right, it's right because God does it. So whatever God
does, he's right. Remember when God came to Abraham
about Sodom? And there's a lot down in Sodom.
And Abraham was telling, you know, if there's just 50, is
there 40? Is there five righteous men?
Well, God knew what he was gonna do. He knew the score. Here's
what Abraham said in Genesis chapter 18. He said, Shall not the judge of all the
earth do right? God judges according to truth.
And so whatever God does right is right. So I referenced there
Romans 9, you know. Who art thou, O man, that argues,
debates with God? And then, God-given meekness
brings a sinner to rely on God's goodness and strength in all
things rather than his own. A meek person is one who recognizes
that every good and perfect gift comes from God. The next breath
I take. is a gift from God. I didn't
earn it and didn't deserve it. It's God-given. And then God-given
meekness brings a sinner to acknowledge that all he has in this life
and in salvation is a free gift. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. That's it. Well, for they shall
inherit the earth. Notice it says they're going
to inherit something. You don't earn an inheritance.
And you really don't even deserve it. Now somebody said, well,
if a father bequeaths riches to his son, his son deserves
that because he's his father's son. But you see, when it comes
to salvation, when it comes to a right relationship with God,
we've got to first understand that we don't deserve to be children
of God. We weren't naturally born into that. We're brought
into that by the spirit of adoption, and adoption is of grace. So
the inheritance that we receive, as Peter described it, as being
incorruptible and reserved in heaven for us, something we don't
deserve and don't earn. Now, he said they're going to
inherit the earth. Well, that's true, but not this earth. It's
a new earth. Read about it in 2 Peter chapter
3. This earth, this world is under
the curse of God because of sin. And it's going to be burn up
and made new, and that's the earth we're going to inherit.
So in other words, it's all of grace. Those who are meek, submissive
to God's will and God's way of salvation, they're going to inherit
and inhabit the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. No sin
at all, no sorrow at all. stuff there.