Meekness is Not Weakness

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew.
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We are continuing in our verse-by-verse study of the Sermon on the Mount, and today we are going to be in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 5.
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A few years ago there was a man by the name of J.
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Upton Dixon who was a Christian humorist.
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He was a writer and he made his living with humorous stories and writings and things like that.
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He once said that he wanted to found a group for submissive people.
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And he was basing it on a pamphlet that he had written called Cower Power.
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It was all about submission of the heart, submission of the mind.
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And the group was going to be called DOORMATS.
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Stands for Dependent Organization of Really Meek and Timid Souls.
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The DOORMAT Association.
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Their motto was, the meek shall inherit the earth as long as it's okay with everyone else.
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Their motto, their symbol was the yellow traffic light, you know, because that means caution.
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And of course, this was all done in humor, it was all done in jest, it was all joking, making light of the common misunderstanding of the biblical commendation of meekness.
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Many people see meekness just as Dixon described.
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They see the meek as DOORMATS.
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People who are not willing to stand for anything, but rather are the people that get stepped on and stepped over when someone else is going up the ladder to success.
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So in that sense, people look at meekness as being a very negative, a very bad thing.
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But yet at the same time, what we see in today's text is a call to meekness.
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And what I want us to see as we study today is that Christ's call to meekness is not a call to be devoid of strength or conviction, but rather it is a call to understand from where our strength comes.
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And the ultimate thing that I want us to understand today is that the call to meekness is not a call to weakness.
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With that being said, let us stand together and we will hear from the Word of God.
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Matthew 5, verse 5, and then we will pray together and ask God to bless our time of study.
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Matthew 5, verse 5 says this, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
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Our Father and our God, we thank You for this awesome opportunity we have to study Your Word.
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I pray, O Lord, that as we seek to invest time in this study, that You would open up our hearts to understand what Your Word has to say.
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I pray first and foremost, Lord, that You would keep me from error, as I am certainly capable of preaching error.
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I pray that You would keep me from that.
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You would put a page of protection around what I'm saying.
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And Lord God, do not allow me to wander off into untruth.
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And I pray, Lord, that I would stay solely tied to the posts of Scripture.
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And Lord God, that the Scripture would be our guide this morning.
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And Father, again, I pray for the congregation, that their hearts be opened, that their ears be attentive.
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And Lord God, that You bless this time of study as a time of worship to You.
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In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
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It has often been said, and it's true, that the key to interpreting the Bible is context.
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One commentator even made this statement.
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And he said, there are three rules for interpreting the Bible.
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Context, context, and context.
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That's right.
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That's the three rules for interpreting any verse of the Bible, is that you understand the context in which it comes.
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Context means that we understand what a passage means on its own, and we understand what it means in the relationship of the verses that are around it, and we understand what it means in relationship to the whole Bible.
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So that's what we have when we talk about context.
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What does the words in the verse mean? How do they relate to the verses around them? And how do those verses relate to the entirety of Scripture? So that being said, this morning I want to start by talking about the context of the verse that we're looking at.
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This is a very important beatitude.
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It's one that is often read, it is often spoken, but I will say this, it is just as often misunderstood.
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So we need to understand the context if we're understanding what it means.
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So let's first look at it in the context of what has come before it.
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We've already studied verses 1-4.
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Over the last three weeks, we've been in the Sermon on the Mount, we've been going verse by verse through the study, and we've got a context which is building.
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Jesus is giving the beatitudes.
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He's giving these blessings on His people.
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And we already know the first two.
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The first one is, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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And blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
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And what we have seen is that when we see the words poor in spirit, this is not talking about economic poverty, even though that's often been the mistaken understanding that when it talks about poor, it's talking about poor people as in those who don't have any money.
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But it's not about economic poverty, it's about spiritual poverty, spiritual poorness.
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A person who understands his plight before God.
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He understands his sin, he understands his depravity, he understands the fact that he is devoid of righteousness outside of Christ.
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He knows that as the Word of God says, that all his righteousnesses are as filthy rags before God's holiness.
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That's spiritual poverty.
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And that's what is being talked about when Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit.
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Second, is those who mourn.
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Well, what did we talk about last week with those who mourn? It's not talking about someone who simply mourns for the loss of a loved one, or someone who mourns because they have had something tragic happen in their life.
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It's talking about mourning over our condition, mourning over the reality of our sin.
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Not only are we poor in spirit, but it actually breaks our heart that we're poor in spirit.
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That it actually means something to us.
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That it's not just, you know, people all the time, well, I know I'm a sinner, so what? No, it breaks our heart that we have offended the God of heaven.
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That it causes an internal breaking of the soul, a mourning within us.
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That's the mourning that is blessed by God.
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So it seems natural then, if the poor in spirit is referring to spiritual poverty before God, and the mourning is talking about the breaking of our heart over our own sin, that meekness then fits into this same context.
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The meekness, which is the subject of today's lesson, follows this progression.
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And as we will see today, the meekness which is being spoken of here, fits into our response to the gospel.
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How should we respond to the call of the gospel? In meekness.
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How should we respond to Christ? Hey, you're lucky to have me.
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Really? That's how a lot of people, they get real, they have spiritual hubris, spiritual pride.
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They're very proud of themselves and proud of their accomplishments.
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And hey, God's glad, he ought to be happy to have me, I'm a good guy.
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You see, that's the opposite of the spirit that we're supposed to have.
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So we see the context that Jesus is reminding us, who is the blessed man? The blessed man is the man who can see who he truly is before God.
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Who is the blessed man? He is the man who beats on his chest and says, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.
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He is the man who sees the Lord seated on his throne and the train of his robe fills the temple.
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And he says as Isaiah says, Oh, Lord, woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.
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This is the blessed man, the man who sees himself in right condition before God.
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That's who the blessed man is.
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So that's the context in which the beatitude comes.
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But there's a second context, as I said, that we need to look at.
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And that is how this text fits in the overall text of the Bible.
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Remember, context is not just what the verses around it say, but what does the whole Bible say in regard to this text? Well, I want to show you something this morning that I think is very important.
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Matthew 5, 5, Jesus's words are blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
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Well, there is a verse in the Old Testament which is very, very similar to this one.
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So hold your place in Matthew and turn back to Psalm verse chapter 37, Psalm chapter 37.
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And look at verse 11, Psalm 37 and verse 11 says this.
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But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.
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Now, when I look at verse 11 and I see the phrase, the meek shall inherit the land and then I go back to Jesus's words and he says, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, I see a connection there.
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Don't you? There's a there's a connection of thought.
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It's obvious Jesus knew the Old Testament.
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It's obvious Jesus often quoted the Old Testament.
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So it's likely that this particular beatitude is a representation of this particular truth.
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So that tells me that I need to look at this chapter of the Old Testament and say, now, what do I learn about the meekness? That he's referring to, what is what is contained in this chapter? I want to show you a few things.
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If you'll just look at me in chapter 37, it says it begins in verse one.
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It says, fret not yourselves because of evildoers.
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Be not envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like grass and wither like the grass.
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Trust in the Lord and do good.
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Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
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Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
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Commit your way to the Lord.
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Trust in him and he will act.
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He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday.
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Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.
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Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices.
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Refrain from anger and forsake wrath.
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Fret not yourself.
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It tends only to evil, for the evildoers shall be cut off.
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But those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.
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In just a little while, the wicked will be no more.
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Though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
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But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.
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Now, after verse 11, the psalmist begins to address the ways of the wicked and how God laughs at their ways and mocks their ways because the ways of the wicked are foolishness to him.
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But what I want to show you is that this passage from verse one down to verse 11 actually gives us a progression of what meekness actually looks like.
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It gives us a definition of meekness.
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If you follow the progression, you see words like trust, delight, commitment, stillness, patience, refraining from anger.
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All of those culminate in verse 11, where he says, blessed are the meek.
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It culminates in verse 11 with the meek shall inherit the land.
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And the reality is that all of those things, in a sense, are part of what it means to be meek before God.
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Meekness is trust in God and not in self.
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Meekness is delight in God and not in our own accomplishments.
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Meekness is commitment to God and not to worldly pursuits.
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Meekness is stillness and patience before God, not an attempt to usurp his authority.
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Meekness is refraining from anger, even in the most difficult of situations.
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Beloved, chapter 37 of Psalms is all about what it means to be meek.
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In essence, the passage is painting for us a picture of what Jesus is saying when he says, blessed are the meek.
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Well, who are the meek? It's these people.
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It's the trusting, the delighted in God, the committed to God, the ones who are in stillness and patience and are refraining from anger.
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These are the meek and these are the blessed of God.
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So by examining this passage, we see that the context helps us to interpret what Jesus is saying rather than the worldly way in which this is often interpreted.
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And that's what I want to really address today, because we see what it means.
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We see what the word meekness means.
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But I think it's fair to say, and I think you would all agree, at least if given the opportunity, that this beatitude is often misunderstood.
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As I said already, people see the word meekness and they have this worldly understanding of what that word means.
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And they bring that worldly understanding into the text rather than seeing what the Bible says about meekness.
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They create a meaning in their mind and they introduce it into the text.
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And as such, they come away with a wrong understanding of what Jesus is calling us to.
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So there are two things I want to give you today.
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We only have a two point sermon.
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That doesn't mean it's going to be shorter.
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Trust me.
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But it's a two point sermon and the outline is very simple.
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Number one, meekness is not weakness.
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That's the simple.
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I had to go with the rhyme.
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Meekness is not weakness.
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Number two, meekness is not compromise.
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Meekness is not weakness and meekness is not compromise.
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So let's look at the let's look at the first one of those.
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Meekness is not weakness.
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As I said, unfortunately, the world has attached a very negative connotation to the word meek.
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Meekness has become synonymous with words like shyness or lack of intestinal fortitude, maybe otherwise known as lack of guts.
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You know, people say, oh, he don't have any guts.
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He's he's weak in the stomach.
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He's he's he's he is a wimp.
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Right.
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Someone might ask, well, pastor, you're big on the Greek and the Hebrew.
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What is the original word mean? What is the original word in the Greek for meek? This is going to be a rhyming day.
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What's the what's the Greek word for what does it mean in the Greek when it said Jesus said, blessed are the meek? Well, here's the issue with that is it's the same as in English.
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There are many connotations for the word meek.
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There are many connotations for how that word can be translated in the same way in English.
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It can be translated in different ways.
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But here's the one thing that we have to understand.
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It is never used in scripture to describe the weak.
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Meekness is never used as a description or a definition for someone who is weak.
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Meekness and weakness are not the same thing, even if that's the way our modern society understands it.
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That is not what the word means in Greek or in English.
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It's just the way we have translated it into our modern culture.
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But that's not what it means, because you think about today.
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Meekness and love and humility, they're often equated with what a lack of backbone.
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John Stott said this, he says, one would think that meek people get nowhere because everyone ignores them or else rides roughshod over them and tramples them underfoot.
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It is the tough, the overbearing who succeed in the struggle for existence and weaklings go to the wall, end quote.
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Now, it's interesting that Stott would say that, because if you've ever heard of a little thing called social Darwinism.
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Now, Stott wrote this a long time ago, but social Darwinism is the same idea.
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The weak get trampled over by the strong.
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It's the weak who die out.
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It's the weak cells that die.
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It's the weak people who die.
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And that's when you ascribe meekness and weakness together.
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What do people think? Well, they're not going to get anywhere.
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The meek are going to always be run roughshod over.
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They're always going to be used as stepping stools and doormats, and they're never going to have any success.
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And this is what the world thinks when it hears the word meekness.
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And that's why so many men have a tendency to shy away from this beatitude.
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So many men look at this beatitude and they know in their hearts that the cowardly and the weak are not respected.
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They know that the cowardly and the weak do not have any success.
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They do not have any.
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They don't have any ability to for growth and gain.
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And so men see this commendation to meekness.
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And as a result, when they hear it, they shy back from it.
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And they say, oh, I have to turn my ear from that because I can't obey that one because the world won't let me obey that one.
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The world won't let me be meek because they misunderstand meekness, because they don't understand what the word means.
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They've described a worldly definition to it, and as such, they can't obey it.
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Yet the reality, as I said, is they're not turning their ear from the command.
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They're turning their ear from the command, what they think the command says.
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They're turning away from the worldly understanding of it.
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And as such, they're misunderstanding the whole point.
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Meekness is not weakness, even though this is how the world may interpret it.
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In fact, it is quite the opposite.
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You guys remember A.W.
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Pink? I've been mentioning him.
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A.W.
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Pink wrote on the Sermon on the Mount, and this is what he says about meekness.
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He says meekness must not be confounded with weakness.
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True meekness is ever manifested by yieldedness to God's will.
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That's what true meekness is.
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It's not.
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Don't confuse it with weakness.
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Understand what it is.
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Meekness is yieldedness to God's will.
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That's what meekness is.
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And he goes on to say, God-given meekness can stand up for God-given rights.
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Isn't that an amazing thought that God-given meekness can stand up for God-given rights? And he goes on to say, when God's glory is impeached, we must have a zeal which is as hot as fire.
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End quote.
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You see, beloved, the apostles, they were meek men.
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But you know what? They stood for Christ.
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The apostles were called meek.
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Don't you agree that the apostles were called meek men? But at the same time, when they were put out there before and the Jews commanded them and said, you must not preach Christ.
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What did they say? Should we obey men or God? And we will obey God and we will do what God has commanded of us.
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Irregardless of what you say, we will follow Christ.
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And today, people might say, well, that doesn't sound very meek.
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That's the definition of meekness.
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They were yielded to God's will.
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Think about the reformers.
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Who's who's my favorite reformer? Anybody want to take a stab? So 15th century Protestant Reformation, 16th century Rock Cross.
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Who's my favorite? Come on, I say it all the time.
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Martin, Martin Luther.
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Some people would think it was Calvin, but it was Martin Luther.
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And the reason why I have this fascination with Martin Luther is because here's a man.
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Here is a man who was meek, but he was strong.
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He was meek, but he was a powerful man of God.
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He stood boldly before the Roman Catholic Church, before those officials, before the pope, before the bishops.
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And he made his convictions known.
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He was not afraid to stand for truth.
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But yet at the same time, Martin Luther feared God.
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And he understood that God's will was ultimate and that he was but a worm in God's sight and the sense of of his grandeur.
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One of the things that happened with Luther, and most of you are familiar with Luther's life.
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I've talked about him.
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I've taught on him.
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He's very, again, my hero.
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But what he said, what happened with Luther, he was commanded to recant all of his teachings.
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You see, during the time of Martin Luther, the Roman Catholic Church had so much authority.
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It was an authority we wouldn't even understand today because we live in a democracy.
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We were a democratic republic.
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I'm going to get corrected on that one.
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We live in a democratic republic, a constitutional republic.
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We live in a much different situation.
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But during the time of Martin Luther, there was a royalty and then there was the church and the church had an authority that even superseded the royalty.
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When the pope can condemn the king to hell, the pope wins.
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You know, when you talk about authority, the man who can condemn the other man to hell, he's the head.
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And everyone understood that the church had this level of authority.
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And the church began to sell these things called indulgences.
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And indulgence was a way for the people to buy their time in purgatory out because it was believed by the Roman Catholic Church that when you die, you don't go to the presence of God, but you go to this place called purgatory, a place where you're purged of your of your of your remaining sinfulness.
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And you could spend thousands of years being purged in purgatory before you ever reach the kingdom of God.
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So there were men who would go out and sell these indulgences.
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One of the men was Johann Tetzel would go and he would sell these indulgences and the people would buy these indulgences because he would tell them, this indulgence gives you rights from the pope to get your mother or your father or your children who have died before you out of purgatory.
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They have 10,000 years in purgatory.
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We can bring it down to only a day if you pay for this indulgence.
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It was a horrible misrepresentation of the gospel.
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It was a horrible misrepresentation of the church.
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And men like Martin Luther said, no, we won't stand for this.
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And he stood up and he proclaimed that the church was wrong and he was condemned.
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So he was brought before the Council of Worms, the Diet of Worms, actually, he was brought before the Diet of Worms and they said, you must recant your teachings.
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You must recant.
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You've preached against the church.
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You've written against the church.
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You must recant what you have taught.
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And to Luther's credit, he didn't automatically say yes or no, because he was scared.
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People think he just automatically stood up.
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No, he was scared, just like any one of us would have been.
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So he asked for a day for prayer.
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And when he came back, they said, are you going to recant? And this was these were his words.
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He said, unless I am convinced by scripture and plain reason, I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have often contradicted each other.
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My conscience is captive to the word of God.
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I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.
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God help me.
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Amen.
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Some might say that Luther was filled with pride in his unwillingness to accept rebuke.
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But beloved, I believe that his words demonstrate a meekness that few men find.
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Because he stated these words with confidence, he says, my conscience is captive to the word of God.
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Would that all men be able to say that our conscience was captive to the word of God? That it is owned by God's word, that it is enslaved to the truth of the word.
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Would that all men could could echo Luther's words.
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And what did he finish with? He said, God help me.
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See, Luther understood from where his strength came.
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He knew that it was not from within himself.
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He knew that on his own, he was nothing.
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But he understood also that with God, his strength was secure and some may scoff and say, I can't believe you'd let me try that again.
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I can't believe you would use Luther as an example of meekness.
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And I believe that Luther was filled with pride in his unwillingness to accept rebuke, because Luther did have a way with words.
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He was a little harsh with his words sometimes.
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And some people say, how could you use him as a definition of meekness? Well, beloved, meekness is absolute dependency upon God.
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And I believe Luther had.
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He wasn't weak, but he depended upon God wholly and fully.
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And in that, I believe he was meek.
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Beloved, and men especially, hear my words.
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Meekness is not weakness.
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It is true and utter dependency on God.
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And that is where our strength is supposed to come from.
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So that's number one.
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Number two is that meekness is also not compromise.
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This goes along with the first one, but it's a bit more focused because there is a lie which has infiltrated the church.
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And that lie is this.
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That commitment to meekness means that we must accept any and all behavior and teaching within the church.
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Anyone who is seen standing for truth and drawing a line in the doctrinal sand is seen as being hard hearted, ego driven, and least of all, meek.
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You should see the comments I get on my sermons.
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Ego driven.
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I'm trying to think of some of the other mean ones and nothing's coming to mind.
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I don't try not to spend too much time on those.
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But the whole thing is, here's a guy who thinks he knows everything.
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First of all, I know I don't know everything.
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That's that's silly.
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But the other side of the coin is because I stand for the truth of the word of God, people don't like that.
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People would much rather hear a pastor who is willing to be void of theology, tell his people what they want to hear.
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Hell doesn't exist.
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You know, the biblically illiterate preacher who tells his people that God is most concerned with their health and their happiness has become the most popular preacher of the day.
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He's biblically illiterate, but he's willing to tell people how how how much God wants them to have the best parking space and how God wants them to have the highest salary and how God wants this and wants that.
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And it's nothing about holiness.
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It's all about health and wealth.
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And those preachers have become the most popular of the day.
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And they look at me and they say, oh, but you lack meekness.
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Those men lack meekness because they're the most prideful of all, because they think that their wisdom is wiser than scripture.
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And that's the truth.
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It is the man who submits to the word of God who is meek, not the man who runs roughshod over the word and tells people what they want to hear.
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He is not only the false prophet, he's the most prideful of all.
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One man, one teacher told R.C.
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Sproul one time, asked him in class, R.C., do you believe Jesus is the only way to heaven? It was a liberal professor.
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And she said, R.C., do you believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven? And R.C.
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said, yes, I believe Jesus is the only way to heaven.
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And she said, you are the most prideful person I've ever met.
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And he was stunned.
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He was a little embarrassed.
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But after class, he went up to her and he said, I need to share something with you.
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He said, you tell me I'm the most prideful person that you've ever met.
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He said, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.
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No one comes to the Father but by me.
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Jesus said that he is the only way to heaven.
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Now, if I say I believe that what my Savior said is true, I'm not being prideful.
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He said, it's the person who says Jesus said that, but he was wrong and I know better.
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That's the person who's being prideful.
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It's a person who looks at Jesus's words and say, no, I don't need that.
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I have a better wisdom, a better truth, a better understanding of God than Jesus.
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That's the person who's filled with pride.
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It's not prideful to simply say that what my Savior said was true.
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And I follow him and I submit to him.
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That is the essence of meekness.
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It's the essence of turning off self and turning to Christ.
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Beloved, meekness is not compromise.
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I would argue that the men who have demonstrated the most profound meekness in history are the ones who have stood the most boldly for the gospel.
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Men like Billy Graham, who unflinchingly proclaims the reality of sin and the need for salvation and what his dependency upon God.
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Men like John MacArthur, unwavering commitment to the truth and yet what? Full, complete dependency upon God.
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He will tell you it is not from himself, but he trusts in God.
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Men like John Piper and R.C.
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Sproul and Al Mohler and Steve Lawson and Ligon Duncan and on and on and on and on.
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These men who have not given in to the call of ecumenism, these men who refuse to to compromise the truth of the word of God.
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And yet their hearts are captive to that word.
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And they know that without him they are nothing.
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These are men of meekness.
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They are not weak.
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They do not compromise.
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But yet at the same time, they have an utter and complete dependency upon God.
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That is the meek man who is blessed by God, not the weak and the compromising, but the one whose utter and sole dependence is upon God.
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The Bible says a lot about meekness and our call to demonstrate this important virtue.
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And in all the Bible, there is one man who is called the meek, the most meek of all, the meekest, I guess one man is referred to as the most meek of them all.
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And in reality, it's not the one that a lot of people think of automatically when you think of the person who's most meek.
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But the one man who was called most meek of all is a man who killed another man for abusing his brethren.
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He's a man who demanded that Pharaoh let his people go.
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He was a man who destroyed the Ten Commandments when he saw the idolatry of God's people.
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He was a man who melted down the golden cap and made the people mix it with water and drink it as a result of their sin.
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He was a man who put men to the sword and men to the stone for their transgressions against the law of God.
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He is not what the modern man would call meek, but he is what the Bible says in Numbers 12 and verse 3 that the man Moses was the most meek of all the men on the face of the earth.
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And that amazing thought, it says now the man Moses was very meek more than all the people who were on the face of the earth.
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Moses wasn't just called meek.
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He was called the most meek, the meekest.
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He was a warrior.
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He was a leader.
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He was a prophet.
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He was a priest.
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And yet he was called the meekest of all.
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That proves my point today.
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It proves what I've said this whole time, that meekness is not weakness.
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It is not compromise.
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It is one thing and one thing only, complete and utter dependence upon God.
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Moses trusted God completely.
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He was his source of his strength.
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So, too, when we humble ourselves before God, when we are meek before him, he will strengthen us to do great things in his name.
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And we indeed shall inherit the earth, not by might from us, but by his might.
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We will inherit the earth.
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Let's pray.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you for your word.
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We thank you for this opportunity that we've had to study it together.
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And I do pray, O Lord, that your word has been faithfully taught today.
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I pray that in the minutes and in the hours and in the days to come, that these words would resonate in the hearts of our people, that our call to weakness is not our meekness, is not a call to weakness.
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And it's not a call to compromise, but it is a call to stand for truth, knowing that you are our strength.
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And I pray, O God, that you would even now strengthen us even more to stand for the truth of the gospel.
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We praise you for all that you have done and are going to do.
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We do pray for every believer in the room, Lord, that you would you would firm up our commitment to you.
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And Lord, if there are those here who do not know the gospel, I pray that they have heard it today, that they have heard about our plight, our poorness and sin, our poorness of spirit, having been sinners before you, but yet the willingness of Christ to save our soul.
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And I pray for the strength, Lord, for the believer to continue to live for Christ and for the unbeliever to be converted is our prayer in Jesus' name and for his sake.
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Please stand as we sing.
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And if you have a need for prayer, please come.