The Blessing of Gentleness
Defensiveness – we all suffer from it at times. Nobody enjoys it. Neither the one being defensive or the one on the receiving end of it. I sat through so many counseling sessions where one of the spouses attacked and the other defended themselves that it just wore me out. Neither spouse was meek, quiet, humble. Neither was right in their attitudes or actions. Husbands would protect their sense of competency and usually come back with quick retorts to their wives’ accusations. You don’t care about us. You don’t spend any time with me. You don’t listen to me. Your not being a good role model for our kids. But I’m working all these hours to provide for us. I need some time with the guys, playing golf or cards or both. Listening went out the window in most sessions. Wives would feel free to say what they had longed to say for days, months, years. After all, they had a witness in me so I could see what a jerk their husband was. The husbands wouldn’t come back.
But we’ve all been defensive at times. I remember when my daughter came out of surgery and I called my father. He was glad her problem was corrected but upset that the doctors hadn’t realized what was going on with her sooner. I started to tell him that the doctor was the best in the city etc, etc. And I’ve certainly been defensive many times in my marriage. Guys, I’ll give you a hint. Never respond to your wife when she is upset about something you’ve done with “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Yet defensiveness isn’t what God desires. We usually become defensive when we feel our rights have been violated or we shouldn’t be treated a certain way. Yet we don’t see Moses or Jesus acting that way. These are the only people in the bible described as meek. Moses in Numbers 12:3 and Jesus in Mt. 11:29.
Yet we might think of ourselves as not defensive, as meek, gentle, mild people. We might think that we are broken and spiritually bankrupt. We may think that we have mourned over our sin and the sins of others yet when someone comes at us, we defend ourselves. If that’s the case we really haven’t come to grips with our spiritual bankruptcy nor have we really mourned for our sins. Because if we have, we wouldn’t have to defend ourselves when falsely accused or when our rights are violated.
Families are difficult places to not be defensive or to be gentle. I remember seeing the wife of a high level business person and she was upset because he didn’t have time for her or the kids. He went in on Saturdays as he had to bill so many hours a week and so he was roasted in my office for being an insensitive, uncaring father and husband. When the verbal assault came, he defended himself. Why wouldn’t he? But that’s not what Moses or Jesus did when accused, when their rights had been violated. . When these things happened they responded with meekness. Nothing the world ever wants us to be. Nothing we can be if we are going to succeed in the world. The culture says, look out for number 1. If you don’t, who will. Be pushy. Come across like you’ve got the world by the tail. Be arrogant, ambitious, cocky, You’ll be happy if you do because you’ll be a success.
Yet Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.” Again, the words of Jesus cut right across the grain of the culture. They don’t make sense. But they do in God’s kingdom because The Beatitudes are God’s core values and as disciples he wants to embrace these values here and now.
As I’ve said for the two previous Sundays, blessed does not mean happy as the world defines it. Happy has at its root the middle English word hap which means luck, good fortune, favorable circumstances. The word Blessed, makarios, say that with me, Makarios means a state of well-being for being aligned with God’s values or purposes for your life. And here we see in Matthew 5:5 that another of God’s values is meekness.
But what does the word meek mean? The Greek word translated meek is praus. Aristotle took great care to define it in his work on ethics. There he always defined the virtues as the mean between the excess of a virtue and deficiency in it. He defined generosity as the virtue between stinginess and wasting one’s resources. He defined meekness as the mean between excessive anger and not showing anger at all. According to Aristotle, the meek man was one who is “angry on the right occasion and with the right people and at the right moment for the right length of time.”
The word was also used to describe the domesticating of animals. Animals that have learned to accept control from their masters were properly behaved. The word praus came to be used of the upper class who were well-mannered, polite, balanced. The word is better translated “gentle.” And Jesus used this word to describe himself in Mt. 11:28-29 where he said, “Come to me all you who were heavy burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle (praus) and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.”
Pastor James Boice also tells us that the word was used of a subservient and trusting attitude before God. It is the characteristic that makes a man bow low before God so that he might stand high before men.
I agree with Boice that Jesus is using the word, praus, meek, gentle, in this way. Jesus is saying, Blessed are those who have a subservient and trusting attitude before God. He concludes this from the Psalm that Jesus quotes here in Mt. 5:5. Jesus is quoting from Psalm 37:10, 11 that Coach read for us. The psalmist concludes the first 11 verses of this psalm by saying “But the meek, gentle, shall inherit the earth. In the first 11 verses the psalmist says to trust in the Lord, delight in the Lord, commit your way unto the Lord, be still before the Lord, don’t get angry about your situation when you see evil people succeeding and don’t worry about the success of evil people because they will be gone before long. Those who are like this are meek, gentle people.
The pushers and shovers won’t inherit the earth. No matter how hard they try to possess all kinds of things including land ultimately the meek, the gentle will inherit the earth.
The late Bishop Edwin Hughes once delivered a rousing sermon on "God's Ownership" that put a rich parishioner's nose out-of-joint. The wealthy man took the Bishop off for lunch, and then walked him through his elaborate gardens, woodlands, and farm. "Now are you going to tell me," he demanded when the tour was completed, "that all this land does not belong to me?" Bishop Hughes smiled and suggested, "Ask me that same question a hundred years from now."
We see this definition of meek, gentle in Moses was described as the meekest man on the face of the earth in Numbers 12:3. Here in this instance, his brother, Aaron and sister, Miriam, began to talk against Moses because he had married a Cushite. Some commentators believe his first wife Zipporah had died and he then married an Ethiopian, a Cushite, a woman who was not a Semite. Her skin color was darker than his and Aaron and Miriam were not happy about this. So they started to talk against him saying that they were just as special as he was. So the Lord called a family meeting and that was one family meeting you didn’t want to be in. The Lord confronted Aaron and Miriam telling them how he spoke with Moses face to face and that he didn’t do that with any one else. So they should have been afraid to speak against the Lord’s servant but they weren’t.
The Lord then gave Miriam a case of leprosy which turned her white probably showing her how skin color doesn’t matter to God. When Aaron sees this, he asks Moses to do something and he does. He asks the Lord to heal her. Then in verse 13 Moses cried out to the Lord, “O God, please, heal her.”
Some have said that Moses was so gentle that he wouldn’t defend himself so God had to. Jesus did the same thing. In I Peter 2:22-23, Peter says about Jesus, “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.”
In fact, Jesus asked his
father to forgive those who put him to death because they didn’t know what they
were doing. Like Moses he asked God to do something positive for those
who came against him. That is a gentle person. That is a meek person.
Someone who is trusting and submitted to God’s will for his life.
Remember Jesus said, “Not my will but yours be done.” Moses too in
Numbers
And Jesus even though he was meek, gentle didn’t mince words with the Pharisees when he called them white washed tombs, open graves, a brood of vipers. No, meekness does not mean weakness, it doesn’t mean sickness, it doesn’t mean slickness, it means yieldedness, it means a gentleness that leads to obedience.
Are you and I gentle people? Or do we have to have it our way? Do we have to be right all the time? Is our will more important than God’s will? If we answer yes to those questions, then we won’t experience the blessing of being aligned with God’s core values.
But what about the promise that Christ makes that the gentle will inherit the earth? Few commentators touch this but it is a very rich statement. As we saw this statement of Jesus is from Psalm 37:11. The word inherit in the N.T. is very interesting. It is kleronomeo in the Greek and it means to possess, to own, to receive as one’s own, to acquire. So the meek will inherit – take possession of the earth. When? I believe when Christ returns to rule and reign for a thousand years.
Remember I said meek, gentle
people are obedient servants of the Lord. If you remember Joshua
and Caleb were the only two spies who said the children of
If you remember Joshua and Caleb were told in Joshua 1: 6, 7 to “Be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left that you may be successful wherever you go.”
But we don’t have to cross
the
Jesus said this in Matthew 5:19 where he states, “Anyone who breaks one of the least ot these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven but whoever practices and teaches these commandments will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” These believers are merely residents not co-rulers with Christ.
Or we can cross the Jordan, decide to follow Christ and after a while like Achan in Joshua 7 become disobedient to the point where we are disinherited as any father might disinherit a wayward son or daughter who is dishonoring his wishes. Achan was taken home by the Lord and this can even happen to believers who would rather do it their way than God’s. Hebrews tells us that our God is a consuming fire and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. We will be saved like Achan was but so as by fire. All our works will be burned up because they were done in disobedience to the glory of self rather than obedience to the glory of God. Again, they will be residents but not rulers in the kingdom.
Paul said this well in 2
Timothy
If we died with him – and we did if we have accepted him as our Savior
We will also live with him. – we will for sure live with him in heaven forever
If we endure, we will also reign with him – if we persevere as Joshua and Caleb did and are obedient, we will inherit the kingdom and rule and reign with him.
If we disown or deny him in this life, he will disown or deny us any rewards, we will be disinherited of our rewards in the next but not lose our salvation because as Paul goes on:
If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
We will be saved even if we are faithless like Peter and the Israelites in the wilderness, because he will remain faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
But here’s the catch. Only meek, gentle people who submit themselves to the Lordship of Christ are obedient and only they will inherit the kingdom.
If we are meek, gentle, obedient Christ-followers, one day we will rule the world as co-heirs with Christ. As Dr. Jody Dillow tells us in the Reign of the Servant Kings tells us “to inherit the kingdom means far more than mere residence there; it is to have authority and rulership there. If we endure, we will also reign with him.
To him who overcomes and
does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations. Meekness
leads to obedience and obedience leads to an eternal inheritance.
May you and I be the meek, gentle, obedient people God desires us to be so we
will be called great in the
And all God’s people said,
Amen.
Rev. Bruce R. Grentz, Senior Pastor