Pastor of Formation & Mission Benjamin Kandt continues our series on the Beatitudes, preaching on love constrained power, which is a way to define meekness.
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at NewCityOrlandocom. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:Hello, I'm Jordan Shepherd and I'm a part of the Northwest Orlando community, so will you stand with me as we recite? What did I say? Oh good, oh, whoo whoo, yeah, okay, can I get an amen? All right, let's pray this prayer of illumination together. Here it is, here we go. Holy Spirit, open our hearts to hear your word and, through your word, create in our hearts a home for your presence that we might live for the glory of the Father and the kingdom of his beloved Son. Through Jesus Christ, we pray Amen.
Speaker 1:Our scripture reading today is from the book of Matthew, chapter five, verses one through twelve. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain and when he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you, falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who are before you. This is God's word.
Speaker 2:I like to call that Jesus calisthenics. That's what we're up to in here. Well, when you hear that beatitude the third one, blessed are the meek I wonder what that conjures up in your mind. What comes into your mind's eye when you think about meekness? Does a person come to mind that maybe embodies meekness? Does a concept is another word, that's a synonym what comes in your mind when you think about meekness?
Speaker 2:Well, dallas Willard has a fantastic book on the Sermon of the Mount called the Divine Conspiracy. It's amazing, but he's wrong at one point at least, and it's right here. And he tells this story about how he taught on the beatitudes one time and he said that doesn't sound very meek. Does it for me to get up here and say Dallas Willard's wrong about something? He's a hero of mine, if those of you who don't know, he says he's teaching on the beatitudes and this older lady comes up to him afterwards and says to him hey, thank you so much. I really appreciate how you taught the beatitudes, because my son is a grown man, intelligent, strong, ex-military, and he's totally left the Christian faith. And the reason he left the Christian faith is because he heard a sermon on the beatitudes and he got to bless it with a meek and he thought that's not me. I could never be that.
Speaker 2:And Dallas Willard goes on to explain meekness this way, and this is where I think he's wrong, humbly, my opinion. He says this the meek, these are the shy ones, the intimidated, the mild, the unassertive. They step off the sidewalk to let others pass as if it were only right, and if something goes wrong around them, they automatically feel it must have something to do with them. And other step forward and speak up. They shrink back their vocal cords, perhaps moving, but producing no sound. They do not assert their legitimate claims unless driven into a corner, and then usually with ineffective rage. That's what he understands the meek to be.
Speaker 2:Well, what's interesting is, I want to ask the question is that what Jesus means when he says blessed are the meek? Does he mean? This kind of weak, wimpy, cowardly, timid personality Sounds more like a temperament or a character defect than the virtue that Jesus might be calling us to. Well, it's important to notice that meekness as weakness was never the interpretation of this beatitude for the first 1700 years after Jesus said it. That should lead us to wonder about something, and so, for 1700 years, there was a different interpretation of it. Shilin, one of my favorite rappers, summarizes it like this. He says if you think being meek is weak, try being meek for a week. It gets at the heart of things. So if meekness is not weakness, what is it then? What is meekness? That's my first point.
Speaker 2:We're going to explore this together. You want to get Matthew 5, chapter 5, verse 5 in front of you so we can look at this text together. Jesus says blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. What is meekness? See, when you study the Bible, one of the best ways to do it is to look at a word like this. Do what's called a word study. You find that word meek, and then you figure out what the Greek word is behind it and find out any other ways or places that shows up in the New Testament, and you can use a website called Bible Hub to do that. You don't need some fancy software or a bunch of books, you can do it online. It's really helpful and you'll notice meek actually only shows up four times in the New Testament, which means it's a pretty rare word, and every time it shows up it's translated either meek, humble or gentle, one of those three ways of translating the same Greek word.
Speaker 2:But here's the thing the New Testament this is an overstatement. The New Testament is simply a commentary on the Old Testament. That's an overstatement. It's much more than that, but it's less than that.
Speaker 2:If you really want to understand the New Testament, you absolutely have to understand the First Testament, the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament. You can't unhitch them from each other. They're essentially integrated and you'll know that Jesus is the most Psalm-soaked man that's ever lived. It was his favorite book of the Bible. Quoted it more than anywhere else, and you'll know if you know the book of Psalms. He's actually quoting the Bible. When he says this. Psalm 37, verse 11 says blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth and dwell in abundant peace. He's directly quoting a Psalm. And so, in order to really understand meekness, not only do you want to study the Greek New Testament and understand kind of those words, and it's not as hard as it sounds but you also want to understand if there's an Old Testament backdrop to it, like Psalm 37. And you want to really understand that whole Psalm, because Jesus is probably alluding to the entire Psalm even by just quoting verse 11.
Speaker 2:Now this makes me really sad I don't have time to show my work this morning. In other words, I can't go through those texts in the New Testament and walk through Psalm 37 in the Old Testament, although it would bring me great joy and delight to do that with you. It would make this sermon double the length. So what I'm going to do instead is I'm just going to, I'm going to put forward a definition of meekness and I'm going to invite you to, later this afternoon, look up Psalm 37, read it, ponder it, meditate on it in your heart, tell me if that's what you think it is. Okay, here's my definition. I gave it to you on week one when I summarize all the Beatitudes, and that is meekness. Is love constrained power? Love constrained power? That's the definition of meekness I want to put forward Now.
Speaker 2:Jesus tells us in Matthew 22 and Mark 12, I believe in various other areas that the highest aim of human existence is this love the Lord, your God, with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. That's the definition and the path in the bullseye of greatness in Jesus' mind. Everything you do ought to be towards that end loving God with all of yourself and your neighbor as yourself. Our lives play out in this kind of trial log of relationships between God's self and others. Meekness I want to apply it in those three relationships. Meekness first what does it mean that we have love constrained power with God? What does it mean that we have love constrained power with ourselves? What does it mean that we have love constrained power with our neighbors? Those are the three kind of sub points under what is meekness? That's what I want to look at together With God. Love constrained power with God could be summarized with this one word surrender. Surrender. Now, david, I'm sorry, benner, david Benner.
Speaker 2:David Benner has a book, he's got a trilogy. The third book is called Desiring God's Will. It's phenomenal on this topic. I really recommend it to you. And he says in that book in the end there's really only two prayers, two fundamental prayers that can come off the lips of a human being.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter if you're religious or unreliagess, or Christian or not. Two prayers, who they are my will be done or thy will be done, no others. Those are the fundamental two prayers and they actually represent two kingdoms. One is the kingdom of self, the other one's the kingdom of God. One is ruled by independence and autonomy, and it's the one that we're born into. The other one is ruled by surrender and willingness, and it's the one that we're born a second time into.
Speaker 2:Those are the two fundamental prayers that characterize the human spiritual life, and so this matters because, as somebody has said one time, you don't really have any way to gauge somebody's spiritual maturity until you see them not get their way. It's impossible. You might see somebody that looks uber-Christian on the outside and then you watch them not get their way and see what comes out in that moment. That's how you know how mature somebody really is. And so, if that's true, then another question, maybe a diagnostic you can ask yourself is this when was the last time you did something because Jesus said do it? An example come to mind when was the last time, jesus, that you didn't do something because Jesus said don't do it?
Speaker 2:What it means to carry your cross is to let the cross, let God's will, cross your will, and if that never happens, you're not a disciple of Jesus. If Jesus doesn't actually have reign and rule in your life in any way, shape or form, you don't actually know him. And so one of the most important things you can hear me say is that meekness towards God is a. It's a constraining of your own will because of the love of God, for the love of God. That's what that looks like in that direction.
Speaker 2:Now, before you think of this as some begrudging submission, this is actually more like yielding to God. It's more like giving up the fight of white knuckle gripping, shaking your bald fists at God and instead opening your hands in a sweet surrender. That's actually what it feels like, but it but. Here's the important thing. I love the word surrender because it implies a conflict. You know what a surrender is. It comes from the military. It's waving the white flag after you know that you're surrounded and defeated. That's what it looks like in our relationship with God. Oftentimes, we wrestle with God it's the name of Israel, right this, contending with the Almighty, if you will, which is crazy.
Speaker 2:Nobody else does this but, Christians, and as we contend with the Almighty, eventually we go, we get to the place where we, open-handed, yield, surrender, give up and find the sweetness of his providence ruling our lives. And so this is an invitation not to some bitter resistance, begrudging, okay, fine, it's not that. It's an invitation to a delighted relationship with the one whose ways are not our ways, whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts, but has your best interests in mind and invites you to surrender to his ways. One of my favorite ways of praying is this acronym, which is PRAY, which is pause, rejoice, ask, yield, yield. If you're teaching your kids, you can say yes, say yes, and this is what it is. You start with just some silence and collecting yourself, or maybe meditating on scripture, and then you rejoice in who God is and you tell him back in praise and thanksgiving, and then you ask for what you want. Desire has a really important role in Christian spirituality, but only as a means to an end, which is to yield those desires to a God who knows better. And if you practice yielding on the daily, when you actually get to the point where you really need to yield in a meaningful way, you've habituated yourself to posture yourself before God in a open way like that. This is what meekness before God looks like.
Speaker 2:Cs Lewis said something to this effect, very similar to how I started. He said there are only two kinds of people in the end those who say to God, thy will be done, and those to whom God says in the end, thy will be done. In other words, hell is a realm of independence. In the end, god will give you what you most want. If you want your will to be done, he will relinquish you to that and you will be cut off from the source of all light and love and life for an eternity. Hell is a realm of autonomy.
Speaker 2:Lao Tzu, ancient Chinese philosopher, says this people are born soft and supple Dead. They are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant Dead. They are brittle and dry. Thus, whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft in yielding is a disciple of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail. This is a pagan author speaking in our language. In many ways, A disciple of death are those who are rigid and religious and hard, and those who are open and yielding and tender-hearted are disciples of life. This is the invitation with our relationship with God as we practice meekness. But also we relate to ourselves. Meekness is a way that we relate to ourselves.
Speaker 2:For the first 1500 years of the church, the dominant interpretation of blessed or the meek was a form of self-restraint, especially related to your anger. In the biz that is counseling, we call this self-regulation. Do you know how to regulate yourself? That's what 1500 years of Christian interpreters would have called. Blessed or the meek is a form of self-regulation that matters, because not only do you do word studies to understand the Bible, but you look at the way the Christian community, the communion of saints, our brothers and sisters, our fathers and mothers for millennia have read those texts, and that's how you kind of get an understanding or an idea of what these passages actually might mean. So it means something that for 1500 years we thought this meant a form of self-restraint, particularly related to anger. We should take that seriously. Now they would kind of cross-reference this, because the Bible's the most hyperlinked book before Wikipedia. It was doing the same thing, and so it cross-references to Proverbs 1632, which says this whoever is slow to anger is stronger than the mighty, and he who here's the language rules his spirit than he who takes a city. My summary of that is it's better to be able to keep your cool than to be able to do a 10 second KO in the octagon, like that's more impressive, it's more manly, it's more. There's a strength in that. You'd be better off being able to rule your five senses than to be a five star general. That's what Proverbs is saying here. In other words, strength, fortitude, resilience actually doesn't look like some ostentatious display of power and force. It actually looks like self-restraint.
Speaker 2:Some of you may be listening to the Jaco Willings podcast. Bottom line he can kill people really well. Jiu Jitsu Navy SEAL. I mean, this guy has. He's done it. And he says if I get into a bar fight or if something starts getting developing, I run away. You go. Whoa weird. He's like I don't wanna fight somebody. He goes, but if they persist, I will kill them. That's what he says. There's a certain type of meekness in that. Right Like I have this insane power. You've never probably met somebody who could more quickly defend himself as effectively as Jaco Willing. And he says hey, if somebody starts talking trash, I just walk away. I don't want anything to do with that. What is that? It's this power under constraint. Now, I don't know his motives, maybe it's love, constrained power, maybe it's something else. But I'm saying there's a way in which that embodies better than Dallas Willard's depiction what meekness is really getting at, and that's actually that's important.
Speaker 2:Now it's important for me to say this is not saying you feel no anger whatsoever. It changed my life when I heard Tim Keller say anger is energy to defend that which is loved. Because now you've got a built-in diagnostic. Why am I angry? What do I love? Is it me, my image, my comfort, my reputation? Is that why I'm angry? Or is it something that's good and beautiful and true? Is that why I'm angry? You can diagnose your anger if you view it as energy to defend that which is love.
Speaker 2:So this beatitude is not saying you don't get angry, it's saying you're not hot tempered, you don't slip off the handle even when provoked. You see, this beatitude in kind of a Aristotle was brilliant at talking about virtue is this kind of middle way between two equal opposites, on one hand, if a hot temper is what meekness is resisting on this side, on this side it's resisting timidity. So don't hear meek and think be timid. Timidity is a character defect rooted in the fear of man and an unhealthy sense of self. That's what timidity is. That's not what you're being called to here. You're being called to living between the wildfire of anger and the wilting flower of fear. You don't want either of those. You want meekness. This middle road is a way that you relate to yourself with love, constraining power that is constrained by love.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you a story. The first four years of my marriage were really hard. My wife's in city, kids right now. I asked permission to share everything I'm about to say. They were really hard. I can remember running around Lake Baldwin quoting God's word back to him. Not the good stuff, but I was saying, god, this woman that you gave to me Not a good moment. I was overwhelmed because we'd get into these conflicts that would just spiral in neither of us and we really wanted to be in them like an hour later. But we couldn't get out. We didn't know how. And so here is the camp family two step plan for better marriage. You ready? Here's the two things that helped for us. First, we suffered. Second, I got emotionally healthy. That's how we got out of spiraling conflicts. I'm not gonna talk about the suffering, but I'll talk about the emotional health.
Speaker 2:This is what it looked like for me, and I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to model for you what does it look like to constrain your anger by love? This is what it looked like for me. The first thing was I had to grow in self-awareness. You see, in conflict I get calm and cool and cutting with my words. I don't go rage monster, okay.
Speaker 2:And so because of that, overtly, I didn't think I was an angry person. I get calm and cool and I hurt people with my words, most often my wife In the biz. We call that hypo-regulation. I was going calm and cool. I was dialing down, not dialing up, if you will. Some of you. Your anger actually presents that way. It's really important to know that. So what I had to learn was self-awareness, which meant what are the early signs that I'm getting angry? Here's what they looked like for me. My heart rate increased. I had to know that that was going on. Words, particularly defenses and attacks, would spin through my mind faster than I could comprehend until I decided I needed to pay attention to these things. So I had to grow in awareness of the early signs of anger. What it presented like for me.
Speaker 2:The second thing was is I started practicing this ancient thing called the Jesus Prayer First Thessalonians, 517,. Paul says "'Pray without ceasing'. Most of us go cute thanks Paul, sentimental" and we disregard it. Some people said this is a biblical command. We gotta learn how to do this. What else do we do without ceasing? We breathe without ceasing. You go, oh, if we could marry our prayer with our breath, maybe we could obey this command. And thus was born this idea of a breath prayer and so. On my inhale, not out loud, but on my inhale, I would pray Lord Jesus. On my exhale, I would pray have mercy, lord Jesus, have mercy. Anytime I get anxious, nervous, fearful future tripping about what's coming, angry. You can probably guarantee, if I'm aware that that's happening, I'm going, lord Jesus, have mercy, lord Jesus, because this breathing actually has a way to regulate your emotion in that moment.
Speaker 2:And the third thing I would do is I would make contact with my values. In other words, what kind of man do I wanna be in this moment? You see, one of the worst things about conflict with my spouse was I was, in every one of them, transgressing my own values about the kind of husband I want to be Gentle, patient, understanding, non-defensive with criticism. I wanna be the kind of person who receives criticism as good advice, poorly packaged. That's what I wanna be like, and I wasn't being those things in that moment. You know, 1 Peter 3, I think it is talks about oh husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, lest your prayers be hindered. That freaks me out y'all. I don't want my prayers to be hindered because I'm not living with Alana in an understanding way. So I had to make contact with my values. What kind of man do I wanna be?
Speaker 2:In conflict as I got clarity on those things if I grew in self-awareness and prayed to Jesus' prayer and made contact with my values and probably a lot of things I'm oversimplifying this under I, we began to make progress in those conflicts, in those moments, in ways that we hadn't four years prior. What had happened for me? I was learning how to restrain my anger. I was experiencing the blessedness, here and now, of meekness. My marriage flourishes now because I got a little bit more meek, like maybe 2% more meek than I was before, and it was a major win for us.
Speaker 2:And so this is why this is I want you to hear me say like I mean it does help that I float and kind of hover through my house now like a Zen ninja, like that helps. I'm just kidding, it's not like that. Alana's not here to speak up about it, though, so you can ask her. But here's the thing. It's made a difference and I want it to make a difference for you. Jesus is inviting you to flourishing. He's a wise teacher. You can't just trust Jesus for your life there and then, without trusting Jesus for your life here and now. He's trying to disciple you into a way to carry life that's better than the one that you have right now. That's what he invited me into.
Speaker 2:So it's not just relating to God, it's not just relating to ourselves. It's also how we relate to our neighbors. If the first one is about surrender, the second one's about self restraint. The third one is about gentleness Gentleness. Dallas Willard has a book with this title. The title's amazing. I think about it often.
Speaker 2:The allure of gentleness Isn't that true? In your relationship with somebody who's gentle, isn't there something alluring, even if they're disagreeing with you? And so the allure of gentleness. This is how we relate to our neighbors. But here's the thing these are ordered properly. The first thing is you have to learn to surrender your will to God and His will. The second thing is you have to learn a form of it takes the strength of God to restrain yourself. I promise you that. But then, only then, can you actually relate to your neighbors properly in this way. And then here's why Because then gentleness won't be the result of a personality trait or the result of the fear of man. People pleasing Gentleness then, when you've surrendered to God and restrained yourself, comes out of an actual desire to love your neighbor and to move toward them in a meaningful way. And so why that's significant is because Christopher Ash, as a Bible commentator, says that anger is the drawn sword of human relationships, and Jordan Peterson famously defines meekness as those who have a sword and know how to use it but leave it sheathed.
Speaker 2:There's something interesting in that, that that's what meekness actually looks like in relationships. I remember we actually preached through the Sermon of the Mount, like seven years ago or something like that, here at New City, and I can distinctly remember when Damian preached on Blessed or the Meek, and he described it as a doberman, like a full grown adult doberman dog carrying around its puppy by the nap of its neck. That's meekness. You see, the power constrained by love. This is how we show up in relationship with our neighbors. Those of us who are married, it's our spouses, our children, our roommates. It's the people that are closest in our concentric circles of neighbors. We show up with a power under constraint, but I think it's important to say the Gospel of Matthew is the one that talks about Jesus being meek. In the same gospel, jesus flips tables and calls people a bag of snakes. Okay, so what that means is meekness does not rule out direct confrontation. That's actually really important to know. In the words of our very own Joshua Coraloo said it so poetically. He says this love is virile, voracious and meek. He will turn your tables and then his cheek. It's a powerful way to describe what it means for meekness to show up in relationship, and so let me give you an example from scripture.
Speaker 2:Those of you who are reading the McShane Bible reading plan with us. You read 1 Corinthians 6 on Monday, and in 1 Corinthians 6, if you have a Bible, you can turn there because we're gonna. I'm gonna read this together with you. In 1 Corinthians 6, paul says this Verse seven To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? Verse eight but you yourselves wrong and defraud even your own brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2:Okay, so imagine with me for a moment. Imagine two Christian business partners Both of them profess to be Christians are working through a conflict about the division of profits in the way that they structured their policies, and the conflict becomes so intractable that they actually cannot come to some sort of a resolution, and so one of them takes the other one to court. Okay, pause. Different scenario Imagine for a moment the elderly parents of a Christian family die and the siblings, the brothers and sisters, are left dividing up the inheritance, the property, the assets, the various things that they would inherit, and their Christian family. They begin to have conflict because one of them thinks they're being taken advantage of by the other, and so it begins to spiral on and on until eventually one of them takes the other one to court. These are the real-life scenarios Paul's talking about here.
Speaker 2:And so what is Paul's recommendation to you if you find yourself in a scenario like those two, or the countless others where you might be in a situation like that? What is his encouragement? Look again with me at 1 Corinthians 6, verse seven. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? How does that strike you Like? How does that land on you that the apostle Paul is commanding you? Oh, actually, he's not commanding you. He's befuddled by the fact that the Corinthians don't get this. He staggered that they would take each other to court rather than just saying have the inheritance, I don't need it. What world do you live in, paul? Actually, that's the right question to ask. What world do you live in? New City? That's the question.
Speaker 2:And it brings us to our second point, which is what does it mean to inherit the earth? What does it mean to inherit the earth? Why would you yield your ground rather than standing your ground? Why would you do that? Well, because you will inherit the ground, literally all of it. But many of us don't believe that. Not functionally. And so we think we've got to get on social medias and dogmatically take a stand for our positions, and we don't have the allure of gentleness about us.
Speaker 2:And so what does it mean to inherit the earth? Well, you have to hear this we're not meek out of fear or weakness, but out of hope and confidence. We have hope that this is the world. We live in the world where our father is the one this is my father's world where Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth. We live in that world, and one day that world will actually become ours. And so to surrender a few hundred thousand dollars of an inheritance of some business earnings, what is that to you? You're gonna inherit the earth. Now you're like this is crazy. This is crazy. It is depending on what world you live in. It's unbelief that thinks that's crazy, and so the invitation here is profound.
Speaker 2:But you have to get it in light of the whole story of scripture. We have to see that the Bible is constantly basically saying something like this If you master others, you will inherit the throne. If you master yourself, you will inherit the earth. That's your choice, and you can use coercive power for sure to get things done, and it'll ruin you in the end and the people that you use it against.
Speaker 2:There's another form of power, a creative power that's constrained by love, the kind of power that God brought the world into existence through, the kind of power that parents good parents have over their children. And so this is relevant, because power is a really big deal in our cultural moment. We've been taught through the critical theories that everything's about power. All this stuff is just a power play, and the biblical view of power is that it's actually a good thing. God gave to human beings to steward. Well, the whole storyline of scripture is one where God is trying to give his power to men and women and children who can handle it. This is why Dallas Willard calls discipleship training for reigning. You're developing to be the kind of person who could actually be entrusted with the power of God to rule this world.
Speaker 2:Martin Lloyd-Jones says it like this the reason the meek inherit the earth is because they're the only ones who could be entrusted with it. Everybody else would use it for selfish gain. This is the world that we live in. So when we go, paul, what world do you live in? He goes, the one that's true and real and good and beautiful, not the social Darwinism that you are formed in every single day. And so the invitation that the meek will inherit the earth is beautiful, it's powerful. But here's the thing, lest you think Jesus is just this pie in the sky, visionary, and don't realize he's the most intelligent man who's ever lived.
Speaker 2:Let's just talk about this in more less spiritual, quote, unquote categories. Here we go for a moment. Sociologically, there's a woman named Erica Chenworth at Harvard who studied and found that nonviolent resistance movements that are being from a marginalized people to a majority power are 10x 10 times more effective at bringing about democratic social change than violent resistance movements. Okay, sociology is telling us this. Biology, there's a man named Franz Dual who studied apes and found out that the apes that actually have the longest tenure as the alpha male in the group are not the ones that viciously tear other apes apart, because all it takes is like three betas to destroy that one alpha. Actually, the apes that seem to reign in authority the longest are the ones who look out for the people at the lowest, the apes at the lowest part of the hierarchy. He actually sticks up for the ones who are being bullied. That kind of an ape is actually super popular with the lowest people and reigns in power a lot longer than the ape that is vicious and tyrannical. Okay, so this is the sociological, biological, psychological.
Speaker 2:Jesus is helping us by inviting us to envision the future different than the present. This matters. Psychology talks about this idea of the future self, and it's really important to get connected with the fact that you are a self across time, including the future. I can't get into all of that, but it's amazing. Look into it if you will. But here's the thing that we know we default to thinking about the past 12% of the time, to thinking about the present 28% of the time and to thinking about the future 48% of the time. Jesus is trying to harness this predisposition in your mind to aim towards what's to come. He wants to give you what's called affective forecasting, where you see the future and you forecast that you will feel affectively better there and then when you inherit the earth than here and now when you are yielding your ground.
Speaker 2:Jesus is a genius. He's a genius. We give him up to just. He's my savior. He's also your teacher and your rabbi. He shows you how to live into the full world, into the fullness of human life, as he put it. I want my joy to be in you and your joy to be full. What does that look like? Becoming meek, biologically, sociologically, psychologically, and so I'm not gonna keep going, but I could.
Speaker 2:I had to cut a lot on this topic. This is what I want you to hear me say. If you read Revelation 21, there will be a day when there's no more evil, there's no more coercive power, there's no more tears or mourning or crying or death anymore, and the shalom, the peace of God will reign and rule, and that's where you will inherit the earth. That's what you have to look forward to. So, as I close, how do we become meek? How do we become meek? Well, I live in this principle, which is we become what we behold, and so the invitation here is not only to figure out strategies to handle your anger although that's super important it's not only to envision a future where you inherit the earth. The way to become meek is by beholding the person of meekness.
Speaker 2:Week one, I said that all scholars. One of the only things they all agree on with the Beatitudes is this Jesus embodied them perfectly. He is the epitome of the Beatitudes. And so as we behold and worship and adore and trust and obey and listen to and delight in Jesus and his meekness, we become more and more like him. Over time, you will resemble what you revere for ruin or for rejoicing. That's what I'm inviting you to here. And so what does that mean?
Speaker 2:Charles Spurgeon pointed out that in the four Gospels there's 89 chapters in the kind of autobiographies, not autobiographies, the biographies of Jesus, these four Gospels Matthew, mark, Luke and John 89 chapters. There's only one verse that tells us where Jesus himself discloses to us what his heart is like Matthew 11, 29,. He says I am gentle and lowly of heart. I am meek and humble of heart. What that means is that in the very heart of God, meekness reigns. In the very heart of God is love constrained power. In the very heart of God, gentleness rules. Gentleness is Godlikeness, according to Matthew 11, 29. That's worth meditating on. That's worth receiving for a moment. What does it mean that God relates to you out of gentleness and meekness?
Speaker 2:Fundamentally, I wanna give you a few quick vignettes from Jesus's last days to really fill this out, all of which, most of which happened in the Garden of Gethsemane. So, in the final hours of Jesus's life, jesus is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane and in Mark 14, 36, one of my favorite scriptures, he says this Abba, father, all things are possible for you Remove this cut from me. Yet not what I will, but your will be done. I love this. What does he do? Pause, rejoice, ask, yield. He starts. I don't know he paused I'm sure there was some silence there for a moment. But he starts by rejoicing Abba, father, all things are possible for you. This is who you are. I'm giving you praise which actually cultivates trust. I trust you, god. But then he offers his desire by asking Desire really matters in the Christian life. He asks. He says remove this cut from me, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna taste hell on the cross, I'd rather not. Very understandable Offers his desire and then he says yet not what I will, but yours be done. He surrenders his desires to the Father's will.
Speaker 2:Now there's this little thing that you might scroll past. As you're reading in Mark 14, a little bit later in the chapter, it actually says that Jesus went back and prayed the same words three times. Why, I don't know. He's probably doing three times prayer from the common rhythm. I think this is actually what it is. I think, like you and like me, jesus had to struggle to surrender. I think he had to pray through this. I think he had to agonize with God. I think he had to wrestle through his desire and surrender, like many of us have to do, especially in moments of suffering. It's powerful to me to witness Jesus' meekness on display and he doesn't hover through the garden like a Zen ninja. Now he's earthy and real and he feels deeply and he agonizes with the Father and he tells him and then he finally says, with the words upon which human history hinge not my will, but your will be done.
Speaker 2:Fast forward a little bit, john 18,. There's this moment when Jesus and we were actually in the Garden of Gethsemane in August of last year, and it's powerful to see the vantage point he would have had. He would have seen these soldiers, hundred soldiers, rolling up on him all the way up to the garden. This whole time he's praying, he sees his captors coming I'm pretty convinced of it. And as he's praying he comes away to his disciples and hundred Roman soldiers, big beefy guys with shields and swords, roll up on him. And there's this moment when they say something to the effect of hey, where's Jesus of Nazareth? And he goes. I am he. And everybody face plants, says in John 18, go read it. You're like what in the world? A hundred beefy soldiers on their faces. As soon as he goes, I am In that moment.
Speaker 2:I think what was happening was Jesus was flexing a little bit. It was a show of force, not for the same reasons you flexed to try to self aggrandize. But because of this reason, right here you ready. Jesus wanted to know that nobody takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord. You can come with swords and shields, it doesn't mean anything to me. I am the one who talked to Moses out of the burning bush, the self-existent one. You can't take me with swords and shields. I am. They boom, face plant and then they stand back up, probably staggered, like what just happened, and then Jesus surrenders himself to them.
Speaker 2:But right before that happened, in Matthew's telling of this situation, peter's feeling a little froggy and so he leaps up, cuts off the servant of the high priest's ear Mind you, bunch of Roman soldiers, the dude carrying scrolls that's who he goes after, not meekness. Pulse his sword, chops off his ear Jesus amazing that they still arrested him takes the ear, puts it back on his head, as one does, and then Peter gets rebuked by Jesus. Jesus looks at him and he says put away your sword, sheath your sword. Okay, hear that. He says do you not know that I could call out to my father and 12,000 legions of angels would come to my defense in a moment? Do you not know that, peter? I don't need your sword springing on the wimpy guy. I did the math 12 legions, about 6,000 people. 12,000 legions is 72,000 angels. Okay, in Isaiah 37, verse 36, one angel killed 185,000 men in a night. Here's the math About 13 billion people is how many people could be killed by 72,000 angels. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm bad at math, but just bear with me, this is hard for me. 13 billion people is almost the entire globe's population today, twice over Oppenheimer.
Speaker 2:Eat your heart out Like this is insane power. Why? Why does Jesus do that in that moment? Because I think he wanted people to know in that moment, when he's pinned to the cross, it's not the nails of hate, but the bonds of love that hold his arms there. Love for the very people who are betraying him, accusing him, abusing him, crucifying him. They cry out to him save yourself. You, saved others. What's wrong with you? Aren't you the Messiah? Don't you have power? He says if you only knew my power, if you only knew that the only thing more potent than omnipotent power is omnipotent love, you would see what's happening here on this cross right now.
Speaker 2:And as Jesus is being crucified for sinners like you and for me, he's displaying the meekness of love. Constrained power. Then he's raised again from the dead and he says all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. In other words, the meek one inherited the earth. And what does he do? He turns around and gives it away to the meek here. Come to me, all that is mine is yours, if you belong to me, if you belong to me, and I have something really great to give you. It's called the earth. Welcome. Let's pray.
Speaker 2:Jesus, we praise you. We praise you for your meekness. We praise you for your love, constrained power. We exalt you. You are worthy. Spirit of God, would you form us into Christ likeness? We want to be like him. The deep desire of our heart is to be like Jesus, to help us form us by grace and for Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 2:As always, we take a moment to respond in prayer to God's word to us, and so what I want to do is I want to pray through love, constrained power, in those three relationships with God, with self and with our neighbors.
Speaker 2:And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to stay up here and I'm going to prompt us, and then I'm going to invite you to pray silently, and then I'm going to prompt you again and then I'm going to invite you to pray silently. I'm going to prompt you a third time and invite you to pray silently and then I'll close us in prayer. Join with me, father. We trust your leadership. We believe that meekness is our highest good. Would you make us meek towards you right now, as we offer our wills freshly to surrender to your will? We do that now. Amen, father.
Speaker 2:We pray thy will be done, not my will be done. Would you help us also restrain ourselves where we need to have love, be the constraining power over ourselves, especially with regard to our anger. Spirit, search us where our anger has caused problems. Lead us to confession and repentance, lead us to restitution where need be, but we want to constrain ourselves by love. We offer that to you now, father. We come to you now with our neighbors on our hearts. We want to live with the allure of gentleness towards our neighbors, especially those we have conflict with or disagree with. We come to you now asking for your help in that regard. Father. We yield to you because all that is ours is actually yours, and as we give it to you, you sanctify it and then give it back to us. It's for Jesus' name we pray, amen.