Monday, February 7, 2011
The Beatitudes, Part 26 of 50
TEXT: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).
IDEA: The strong and arrogant do not necessarily inherit the earth.
PURPOSE: To help listeners appreciate the truth contained in the third beatitude.
Jesus declared in the opening of the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”
Do you know many Christians that you consider to be “meek”?
What sort of people are they?
Do you pity them or admire them? Why?
I. Meek people live in submission before God.
Do you see that the Beatitudes follow a sequence that describes the citizens of Christ’s kingdom?
The poor in spirit will inherit the kingdom of heaven.
Those who mourn (about their destitute condition) will be comforted.
The meek (who submit themselves to God) will inherit the earth. They are not arrogant or oppressive.
How does meekness contrast with the values of the kingdoms of earth?
Whether we are on the left or right politically, the culture tells us to assert ourselves.
We assume that we are at the center of the universe and therefore we relate poorly to five billion others who assume the same thing.
In our culture, power wins and meekness loses.
Henry Drummond observed that anger and irritation at others for not giving us “Straight A’s” in our lives is probably responsible for more pain than any other sin.
The meek person sees himself/herself under God and the meek people don’t think more highly of themselves than they ought to think.
This beatitude reflects Psalm 37:1-11. The meek are content to wait upon the Lord instead of fretting and scheming to right the wrongs they feel others have done to them.
II. What do you think Jesus means when He declares that the meek “will inherit the earth”?
“Inherit the earth” is another way of talking about the “kingdom” in the other beatitudes.” It pictures a reversal of fortunes.
In the Old Testament God’s people were given the promise of the land, but in the New Testament that seems to have been widened to the earth: “Go into all the world,” Jesus commanded.
We tend to think of the “kingdom of heaven” as heaven—a place totally and completely different from anything we know here: e.g. “golden streets, gates of pearl, a mansion over the hilltop,” etc. But the promise of the kingdom is for a new heaven and a new earth that will go beyond anything Adam and Eve knew in the Garden of Eden.
