The Inheritance of the Humble (Psalm 37:9-11) | Worship Service

Call to Worship and Christmas Announcements

Our service with a call to worship in the book. In chapter two, verses 10 and 11, it says, and when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great, and after coming into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell to the ground and worshiped him.

Then opening their treasures, they presented to him gifts of gold, frankincense. Let's sing.

Together joy to the world. Well, good morning. Just two announcements for you this morning. The.

First is that we have coming up on Christmas Eve, our Christmas Eve service that falls on December 24th this year, so mark that on your calendar. 6 .30 p .m., Christmas Eve service here, usually about an hour long.

And then my second announcement is a little bit longer, and this is, I have to give this during this time, even though I would love to be able to put this off until next month, but I don't want to. For the last couple of years as a church leadership, we've had conversations about hiring eventually another staff member.

With a growing church, that is kind of an eventuality. We have a church this size and yet only one full-time paid staff person, pastoral staff person, and that is kind of an anomaly in long churches to have that.

And we've been having conversations about who do we hire, what do we hire for, what should that look like. We haven't quite been sure what to hire for yet, and so we don't need another me. One of those is plenty.

So then the question would become, what then are we looking to hire for? What is the need that we would want to be filling with hiring somebody? We don't need somebody to share the work of preaching because I handle most of that, and gladly so, and we have elders who fill in for me, and plenty of very gifted and capable men here who fill in the pulpit on a rotating basis, and we have plenty of men here that we could be developing and using in the future for that, so there's no need to hire somebody to come in and share the preaching load.

But it has become obvious to us as elders over the course of the last two to three years that we do need someone for a more focused and robust biblical counseling ministry. There is a great need for that in our congregation, and we have done a couple of things to sort of begin to meet that need, like having the counseling conference that we had in September, October, and November, training some lay counselors in our congregation and trying to get people interested in doing that.

We have a number of ACBC certified biblical counselors in our congregation, but even with them counseling, that load can be quite, it's not meeting the need that we have and have had for quite a while.

So even with all of the elders involved in the counseling ministry in some way and to some degree, there's more that could be done, and the health of our body really could be improved by having somebody who would focus on that.

So we started to pursue the idea of establishing a biblical counseling center as part of Kootenai Community Church. Now, I want to call it the Kootenai Counseling Center, KCC. My wife doesn't like that idea.

She thinks there's already enough KCCs, and so we have KCC at KCC, which I think would be clever, but we'll see what we call it. I started to pull some strings and kind of chase some leads with some contacts that I had at various locations and finding out if there might be somebody who would be interested in a position as a biblical counselor in a local church who could lead a counseling ministry, train up local counselors within the congregation, train our people, sort of head up sort of the discipleship aspect of pastoral shepherding ministry, and establish a biblical counseling training center, and we found somebody who is interested in that who comes very highly recommended.

His name is Joel Baker. He started his training in biblical counseling at the Master's College and Seminary, and he finished his education at the Expositors Seminary in Jacksonville, Florida, which are three theological training centers that are exactly aligned with where we are at theologically as a church, and he seems to be a very good fit, both theologically and philosophically.

For those of you who are familiar with the biblical counseling world, the last name Baker might sound familiar. That is because his father, Ernie Baker, teaches biblical counseling at the Master's Seminary and the Master's College, so he has that background.

He has years of experience. He is currently pursuing ACBC certification, and he appears, as I said, to be an excellent fit with us. I've had several conversations with him on the phone, a couple of Zoom meetings face-to-face.

He's met with our elders once, and the next step would be for Joel and his family to come out here to see our church, to meet you, have an opportunity to be here, and so that's what we are going to do.

We're having him come out here on January 11th through the 20th, which means he'll be here over two Sundays, have a chance to be here to worship with us for a whole two Sundays, and then the whole week in between, and for us to get to know him and sit down and talk about what this might look like.

So we are looking at possibly doing this sometime in the next calendar year, maybe halfway through the year would be ideal, but it may be later than that. I doubt if it would be much sooner than that.

So we are in the early stages of this process, and we would ask that you would pray with us and pray for us as we move forward with that, and I want to offer just two notes of clarification. First, we are not hiring another pastor.

That's not what this is. We're not hiring somebody to call them a pastor. We are hiring somebody who would oversee a counseling ministry under the oversight of the elders at Kootenai Community Church, and then also be involved in a counseling ministry and a training ministry all under elder oversight.

Now, he may at some point be qualified and recognized as an elder, and if that happens, that's great, but if it doesn't happen, that's irrelevant to what we're hoping to accomplish for the good of this body.

And second, we're not hiring my replacement. This is not somebody who's going to come in because I'm looking at retiring. Yes, Bitcoin is doing really good. It's not doing that well, so I'm not retiring yet, and I'm not going anywhere.

That was my promise to you a year ago. It remains my promise to you today. So I expect that we'll have more information about that at our annual meeting when we have more details, and we'll kind of have more of a discussion as a church body when we get together in February.

Psalm 52 and the Prayer of Thanksgiving

Will you turn now, please, to Psalm 52? Psalm 52, the superscript reads, For the choir director, a masculine of David, when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul and said to him, David has come to the house of Ahimelech.

Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man? The loving kindness of God endures all day long. Your tongue devises destruction like a sharp razor, O worker of deceit. You love evil more than good, falsehood more than speaking what is right.

You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue. But God will break you down forever. He will snatch you up and tear you away from your tent and uproot you from the land of the living. The righteous will see and fear and will laugh at him, saying, Behold, the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and was strong in his evil desire.

But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the loving kindness of God forever and ever. I will give you thanks forever because you have done it, and I will wait on your name, for it is good in the presence of your godly ones.

You stand with me as we pray. Let's bow our heads. Our gracious God, we thank you that you are our creator and our redeemer, our sovereign God that we joyfully, gladly gather together to worship on this Lord's day.

We thank you for what you have done, and we have sung of your great works this morning in our worship. We have heard of your great works sung to us as we have thought upon all that you have done and accomplished for us.

At this time of year, we reflect upon the sacrifice of our father who gave his son to come into this world to die on a cross in the place of our sins. We thank you that you have invaded this dark world with the light of the kingdom, the light of your son, the light of the glory that is our God in the person and in the face of Christ.

We thank you that he has come to live in our place and then to die in our place as our sacrifice, so that we may know the fullness of glory and grace in your kingdom to be adopted into your family as your sons, not just to be citizens of heaven, but to be welcome members at your table in your family, for you have loved us and you have lavished your grace and loving kindness upon us.

We thank you for your mercy, for your grace, for your goodness, for your work in redeeming unworthy sinners who are unworthy of mercy and grace in any measure. We deserve only your wrath, and yet you look down in love and came into this world to save sinners.

Thank you that your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, came to seek and to save that which was lost, and now we gladly rejoice as those who have been found, redeemed, saved, justified, cleansed of our sin. We rejoice before you and ask your blessing upon our worship and our fellowship, one with another, and our time in your word.

We ask in Christ's name. Amen. Let's sing together, Salvation is Born.

Christ Exalted and the Christmas Offering

The hope of the world, the promise of God, the hope of salvation and light of the world.

Chapter two, it says, Therefore God also highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Let's end our music this morning and sing together Christmas Offering.

The Land Promise in Psalm 37

We turn now in your Bibles to Psalm 37. Psalm 37. We're going to be in Psalm 37 today and then next Sunday, since it's the Sunday right before Christmas, we're going to break out of Psalm 37 for that one Sunday to deal with something Christmas-related that would also be somewhat related to Psalm 37.

At least that is the goal. But today, Psalm 37, when you've found your place there, let's bow our heads and pray before we jump into our text. Father, we are so grateful to you for the blessing that it is to gather together as your people before your Word, to have a copy of your Word in our own language, in our hands, to be able to see your words of life and to read them, to know them.

And we thank you that we can trust in the work of your Spirit and in the power of your sanctifying grace to apply your work to our hearts so that we may be conformed to the image of Christ. So I pray that as we talk about the destiny for the righteous and the wicked today from this psalm, as we see that in your Word, I pray that you would work in our hearts to give us a compassion for the wicked, to understand what you have promised to give to them that will not repent.

And I pray that you would help us to be encouraged and enlivened and excited about the inheritance that you have promised to those who are yours in your Son, in whose name we pray. Amen. We come now to verses 9 -11 of Psalm 37.

Verses 1 -8 is the peace that God gives to His righteous ones. Verses 9 -11 is a promise that God gives to His righteous ones. So let's read those verses together. Verse 9, For evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land.

Yet a little while, and the wicked man will be no more, and you will look carefully for his place, and he will not be there. But the humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.

Last week, we took a bit of a break to consider the land promise, which is mentioned six times in this psalm. In verse 3, you have the command to trust in the Lord and to do good, to dwell in the land and to cultivate faithfulness.

And then the other five references to the land are all promises regarding a coming inheritance in that land. So last week, we just reminded ourselves of what Scripture teaches concerning what we can expect as part of that land promise, that land blessing.

You see them mentioned five times in this psalm. Look at verse 9. Those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land. Verse 11, but the humble will inherit the land. Verse 22, those blessed by Him will inherit the land.

Verse 29, the righteous will inherit the land. And verse 34, wait for the Lord and keep His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land. When the wicked are cut off, you will see it. We considered different interpretations or different ways that the land promise has been interpreted.

One, that this refers to just entering the land under Joshua. We saw that can't possibly be. Second, as a promise of security and provision. Third, as a promise that they will live in the land all of their lives.

Fourth, as a promise that the righteous will enjoy success in the land. But we observed that none of those interpretations can match the context, because whatever is intended by this promise cannot be something that is also enjoyed and experienced by the wicked, because the distinction is made all the way through the psalm that the wicked are cut off when the righteous inherit the land, and they do not enjoy whatever it is that this land promise means.

And it's not merely a picture of heaven. It is the land that is the land that they were called to dwell on, verse 3, but it is the land at a time and in a condition when the wicked are cut off and the righteous possess the land alone with abundant prosperity and enjoy abundant prosperity.

We saw that this promise will be fulfilled when the wicked are excluded, that's verse 9, 22, and 34. It will involve an abundant prosperity, that's verse 11. It is an eternal blessing that lasts forever, that's verse 29.

All of these in our psalm here, psalm 37. And it will mean the exaltation of the righteous, that's in verse 34. So while the righteous lived in the land alongside the wicked, there was yet a future state of the land of Israel that the righteous would enjoy that involved an eternal dwelling, abundant prosperity, exaltation, and the removal of the wicked from the land.

So the land is not a spiritual reality, it is not a symbol of something else. In fact, it is a promise of the very land that they lived on and were called to dwell in and cultivate faithfulness in, but they would experience, the righteous will experience that land in the kingdom of the resurrected form.

That is what the promise is. Now that is something that is yet future for us, just as it was to them. We are waiting for the fulfillment of that promise. The righteous will receive an eternal prosperity in a renewed land, blessed by God and purged of the wicked.

Hear that again, the righteous will receive an eternal prosperity in a renewed land that is blessed by God and purged of the wicked. This is what God has promised. So verses 9 to 11, we see that God has promised something to the wicked and something to the righteous.

There's a promise to the wicked in verses 9 and 10 and a promise to the righteous in verses 9 and 11. It's odd that you would have 9 and 10 and 9 and 11, but that's because of the structure of these three verses.

Verse 9 tells us something about the righteous and something about the wicked. Verse 10 elaborates entirely on the wicked and verse 11 elaborates entirely on the righteous. So verse 9 and 10 describe the impoverishment of the wicked.

Sorry, I've been battling a cold all week long so I might have to do that a couple of times. Verses 9 and 10 describe or promise the impoverishment of the wicked and then verses 9 and 11 describe and promise the inheritance of the righteous.

The impoverishment of the wicked and the inheritance of the righteous. Let's look at verses 9 and 10. Notice how the evildoers are described or how the wicked are described. Verse 9, they are called evildoers.

In verse 10, the wicked man. The term evildoers simply describes one who does bad. One who does something that is bad. It was kind of a generic term that was used to describe people who do harm or bring disaster.

One who acts wickedly or spoils things. Somebody who is good for nothing. That word could be used to describe somebody good for nothing or something that is good for nothing. In verse 10, it's not so much a generic term for evildoer or somebody who spoils something but verse 10 describes the guilt that is associated with the wickedness.

The term that is translated wicked man describes somebody who is condemned or guilty, a criminal. So there is a judicial component to it. In other words, the phrase wicked man in verse 10 describes the guilt associated with the doing of the evil.

It is the opposite of righteous. And this would be a good opportunity to highlight again the difference or distinction between the righteous and the wicked. When we're speaking of the righteous in terms of this psalm and in fact in terms of all of scripture.

Unless we're talking about the righteousness of God or the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the term righteous does not mean somebody who has never sinned. Nor does it mean somebody who has earned God's favor.

That's not what the term righteous means. It describes in this context somebody who has sinned but somebody who, unlike the man in verse 10, his guilt is not imputed to him. He's not a guilty criminal.

I am a sinner but I'm not guilty before God. I'm not guilty before God not because I have done enough righteousness to overcome my guilt, but because I have trusted in the righteous one and therefore all of my guilt is taken out of the way.

So I can be a sinner and I am and I still sin and I confess that to the Lord but I am not guilty before God's bar of justice. My guilt has been removed. The condemnation has been removed. I'm no longer viewed in the courtroom of God as a guilty criminal deserving of punishment and justice but instead I am viewed as a son who has the righteousness of Christ.

So a righteous one is one who is not credited or not counted as wicked before God but instead credited or counted as righteous in the place in the sight of God by virtue of their faith. So this verse 10, wicked man describes his guilt or his condemnation and it reminds us that the justice that is described in verses 9 and 10, this is a just justice.

I know that's redundant but sometimes we have ideas of justice in our mind that are perverted or polluted and this is not that kind of justice. What the wicked get in this psalm, in fact what the wicked get at the end of time is everything that they deserve, nothing less and nothing more.

It's not an unjust punishment. It's not unwarranted. It's not over the top. It's not excessive. Neither does it leave anything out. This is the justice of God. The justice of God is perfect so that nobody will be able to claim the wicked got away with something and they weren't punished for it and nobody will ever be able to claim, certainly not the wicked, that their justice or their punishment was excessive or beyond the pale because God's justice doesn't work like that.

So their justice is deserved and the justice of God expressed in this psalm is an expression of his righteousness. The reference to evildoer in verse 9 connects it back to verse 8. Remember verse 8, cease from anger and forsake wrath.

Do not fret. It leads only to evildoing and remember the warning there with how the righteous are to respond to the wicked in this life is not to fret over it because in the fretting of it and in the anxiousness over the prosperity of the wicked, then we become tempted to do the thing that the wicked do to get the things that the wicked have gotten and in doing so then we become the very evil that we loathe.

So here's the warning or the reason why you should not fret. Evildoers will be cut off and if you fret over the wicked and their prosperity and then you end up doing the very thing that they are doing, you become evil yourself and then you run the risk of being cut off as the psalm promises.

The wicked will be cut off. Evildoers will be cut off but those who wait for the Lord will inherit the land. So why should you not fret? You should not fret because it leads to evildoing and evildoers will be cut off.

That's the justice that comes. Notice the end of the wicked is described here. By the way, if you and I could see the end result of all wickedness, we would not envy them in the least. If we could just get that perspective on the wicked.

That's what Asaph says in Psalm 73 when he says in verse 17 that he was perplexed over these things until he says, I came into the sanctuary of God. Then I perceived, I saw, I understood their end. And once Asaph perceived their end, all of his envy of the wicked went away.

Asaph says in Psalm 73, surely God sets them in slippery places. You cast them down to destruction. How they are destroyed in a moment. They are utterly swept away by sudden terrors like a dream when one awakes.

Oh Lord, when aroused you will despise their form. That is total and utter and complete judgment. Asaph says, I was envious of the wicked until I perceived their end. Once I perceived their end, no more envy.

If you and I could understand, if we could see everything that goes on in this world from the perspective of life a thousand, 10 ,000 years from now, we would not envy the wicked at all in this world.

This language of judgment and destruction is used in verse nine when he says evildoers will be cut off. That word was used metaphorically to speak of rooting something out, eliminating it, removing it, excommunication or destroying something.

It meant to cut down, to cut off, to exterminate, to destroy or to consume. And in this context, it must refer to the wicked being cut off from the land promise. In other words, again, whatever the land promise is, and I'm postulating to you that it is the enjoyment of the blessed land of Israel in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is to come, that that land promise cannot then be enjoyed by the wicked because they are cut off or judged out of it.

The promised blessing of what was given to Abraham's seed by promise from God is that they would reside in the land and it would be given to his descendants forever. That is what is promised. The wicked will be cut off from that.

The wicked will never see the land of Israel in the state that the Old Testament promises that the land of Israel would be returned to. Psalm 37 verse 10, look at verse 10 of our passage, says, yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more and you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there.

This is utter removal. Verse 2 of our psalm says, they will gather, they will wither quickly like the grass and fade like the green herb. So these are all future realities. These are not things that necessarily happen to the wicked in this life.

Sometimes the wicked are cut off immediately from the land of the living in this life. That happens. They're executed. They're judged. They suddenly die. God removes them. He kills them. He takes them out of this world.

Sometimes that happens. But sometimes, sometimes the Hitlers of this world die in the arms of their mistress. Sometimes in this world, the wicked die in ease and comfort and luxury in their sleep, peacefully, having never suffered any kind of torment or evil in this world whatsoever.

Sometimes that happens, which reminds us that this world neither promises nor provides final judgment, a final execution of judgment. This world cannot do that. And so these are future realities. Micah 4 verse 1 describes this.

He says, behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff. And the day that is coming will set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch, a total consuming, cutting off from the land and all blessing and promises.

Matthew Henry says this, quote, good people have no reason to envy worldly prosperity of wicked people, nor to grieve or be uneasy at it, because the prosperity of the wicked will soon be at an end. Evildoers shall be cut off by some sudden stroke of divine justice in the midst of their prosperity.

And what they have got by sin will not only flow away from them, but shall be carried away with them. Spurgeon said this, gone like a passing cloud, forgotten as a dream. What are his boastings and hectorings and where the pomp, which made the poor mortals think the sinner blessed, close quote.

That's good. Where's the pomp? Where's all of his stuff? For soon the wicked will be cut off and everything will go away with them and nothing will remain. And notice that verse 10 says this is going to happen in a little while, in a little while.

Now that was written probably what, 3 ,000 years ago? That doesn't feel like a little while, does it? But if we knew that it was going to happen 3 ,000 years from now, would we still call that a little while?

I would, because a million years from now, at 3 ,000 years is going to feel like just a little while. In other words, the judgment in the mirror is closer than it appears, right? It is just a little while.

It will happen quickly. It will happen suddenly. And when we get on the other side of it, what we thought took a long period of time, we're going to realize those events just folded in one upon another and it all came crashing down so quickly.

Why was I anxious over it? Why was I vexed by it? Verse 10 promises that the wicked man will be no more and you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there. This is a total removal. Nothing remains.

It's not just the man in verse 10 that is removed or cut off, but you'll notice that his place is gone. His place is not there. His stead, his position, his abode, his place. Remember Psalm 1 verse 6, the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

And we observed there that when God judges the wicked, it will not just be that the wicked are taken away, but ultimately and eventually the very way in which they walked, the conduct with which they conducted themselves, the choices that they made, the path of life and everything about them also will perish so that those things are no more as well.

Well, it's not just the wicked in Psalm 37 that are taken out of the way and cut off, but the very way in which they walk, their stead, their place, their abode, where they were, that vanishes as well.

All of it is taken away. The wicked man, a wicked man may be taken out of his estate and yet his estate remain, right? A wicked man may die and pass on his business empire and his land and his real estate holdings and all of his wealth and all of his possessions and everything that he owns and hand it off to somebody else and somebody else could take that over and remember the business that was called after this man's name or what this man contributed to it.

That tower, that building still has his name on the front of it. That product still bears his name and his mark upon it. So the wicked man may be removed, but not his place. His place might stay there.

But in the final judgment, it's not just the wicked who are cut off, but his very place is taken away. Let me give you an illustration. Back in Psalm 1, I mentioned to you that plum tree that I had that produced no fruit.

I am pleased to report to you that it has been cut off from the land. I cut it off. I took it to the landfill where it will be burned just as Jesus said that fruitless branches should be burned. He said that it should be burned.

I burned it to make sure it's going to get burned. It's cut off from the land, but the place that it was is still there. The little stump, even though it's just this high, I can mow over it, it's still there.

The roots are still in the ground. All the little dirt around the thing that I kept cultivated for the last decade of my life, that's all still there. All of the fertilizer that I poured onto that thing and the tree spikes, they're still all in the ground there.

It's probably the richest piece of, soil-wise, it's the richest piece of property that I own. That little three feet by three feet that I had that tree there, its place is still there. The tree is gone, but the place is still there.

Now, if you think you sound bitter about that tree, listen, I am bitter, and I have every reason to be bitter. I spent 10 years of my life cultivating that thing for nothing whatsoever. I have to start over.

I nursed it from the time it was this big till the time it became far big enough to produce fruit, and it never did. It has been cut off from the land, but its place remains. I'd love to build a building right on top of it so that it's forgotten by me, my kids, my grandkids, everybody.

Nobody remembers. Its place will be no more. For now, its place remains, but when the wicked are judged, it will not just be the wicked who are removed, but the streets that bear their names will be gone.

The buildings that bear their names will be gone. The industries that mark their names will be gone. The nations, the cities, the rivers, the bridges, the monuments to their wickedness, their bank accounts, everything they have held, their real estate, it will all be washed away so that in that kingdom when the righteous inherit the land, nobody will ever say, I remember that place.

That was the abode of the wicked man. Nobody will ever think that. The wicked and their memory will be forgotten forever, and their place will be wiped out, and it will be no more, and the righteous will inherit the land.

This is a complete impoverishment of the wicked that is described in the psalm. It is not just God slightly tilting the scales a little bit more towards His people. It is God entirely flipping the table so that everything is different.

The wicked are no more. Their place is no more. Everything that they held and had is no more, and their memory is forgotten from the face of the earth, and the righteous are given everything. Abundance.

Abundant prosperity, verse 11 says. Now, let's look at the inheritance of the righteous in verse 9 and 11. Notice how the are described. They're described as those who wait for the Lord, verse 9. In verse 11, they're described as the humble.

Those who wait for the Lord reminds us of the command in verse 7, just a couple of verses earlier, rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret because of Him who prospers in His way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.

So there's the consolation or the command, we should say, to the righteous. The righteous are to wait patiently for Him, and here is the promise in verse 9. Those who wait for the Lord will inherit the land.

This is why we wait. So just as we do not fret because we do not want to be removed with the evildoers, so it is true that we wait for the Lord so that we may inherit the land that is promised to us in verse 9.

We are waiting and believing the promises of God, trusting that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. We are waiting for the promise of God to be fulfilled when He will settle all accounts and bring justice and righteousness to bear on this earth and on all of the activities that have been done on this earth.

And so we are those who wait for the Lord. Verse 11, we are those who are referred to as the humble. The humble will inherit the land. Now I would prefer a different translation since to say that we are the humble kind of defeats that purpose just a little bit, doesn't it?

At least it feels like it does. The definition of that word in verse 11 that's translated humble means the afflicted or the humble, and it described those who are humble because they are afflicted or those who appear in a humble state because of affliction.

Because of the state that they dwell in, they are kind of poor. Other translations translate that word as meek, describes one who is afflicted and so is humbled by that affliction, one who is meek or powerless or without anything in this world, or at least without much in this world.

The NIV and the ESV translate it as meek. So the EIV says, but the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant prosperity or abundant peace, which the very translation of that as the meek shall inherit the land, that probably reminds you of something that Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5, but the meek shall inherit the earth.

I do think that the Lord Jesus is alluding to or referencing Psalm 37 in his description there. In Matthew chapter 5, he talks about blessed are those who persecute you for righteousness, right? So he's describing the righteous in Matthew chapter 5.

He's describing the blessings that come to the righteous. And almost as if in the language of Psalm 37, Jesus is saying the meek or the righteous ones who are persecuted for righteousness sake, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, etc., they will inherit the land.

Jesus is alluding back to, if not quoting directly, Psalm 37. And I would just remind you or point out something obvious there. Jesus did not feel the need to spiritualize that promise in Matthew 5. He just reiterated it.

The meek will inherit the land. He didn't say the meek are going to inherit. It's actually heaven now. Jesus didn't say that. He talks about the land. Their inheritance, what we inherit, is mentioned twice, verse 9 and verse 11, abundant prosperity.

The land that is promised to Abraham, this is where the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ will be seated. Christ will rule over the world, over Israel. The nations will be his inheritance, just as Psalm 2 describes.

The kings of the earth will do homage to the son and he will receive an everlasting kingdom of safety and security. Jerusalem will be called the Lord our righteousness, as the Old Testament promised. The salvation of Israel and the fulfillment of all the new covenant promises will be part of that kingdom and part of that establishment of that kingdom.