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The Inward Attitudes of a True Disciple is our theme for the next few Sunday mornings.

This series is based on the Beatitudes, found in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.

Today we are discussing, Rest Unto Your Souls.

Text

Matthew 5:5 NKJV

5 Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth.

Scripture Reading

Matthew 11:25-30 NKJV

Jesus Gives True Rest

25 At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.

26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.

27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Introduction.

As Australians, our heritage has hardly prepared us for this beatitude.

Our heritage is one that encourages contempt for what we understand as “the meek” and admiration of the self assertive.

One the one hand, we have inherited, through the times, the Roman ideal of greatness in which meekness has no place.

On the other hand, we are the heirs of Anglo Saxon self assertiveness and insistence on personal rights and privileges.

Under these influences, we have come to admire power, domination, and personal success.

Matthew 5:5 NKJV Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth.

On hearing this the average Australian will say, “To tell you the truth, I just don’t admire that. Doesn’t that mean a weak and spineless creature, a namely pamby, flabby in character and lacking self respect?”

Labouring under this false impression of what meekness is, they ask, “Who wants to be meek? More than that, the statement “They shall inherit the earth” is ridiculous. Maybe some of them will go to heaven someday, but “inherit the earth?” Forget it! I don’t believe it!”

This beatitude meets with a poor reception by most people.

Perhaps none in the list is as unpopular as this.

To the popular mind this beatitude is undesirable and unbelievable.

But popularity is no reliable test of anything and certainly not of things that pertain to Christ and His kingdom.

The popular conception of Christian meekness is both erroneous and inadequate, and these ideas are therefore false.

This is not a popular beatitude, because in the world’s failure to understand what true meekness is, it neither admires nor desires it.

But there are some other more reliable tests to apply to this saying of Jesus.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Jesus was stating a simple fact, and that fact is demonstrated to be true by three important tests.

1. The test of God’s Word.

The word meek and injunctions to be meek are sprinkled throughout the Bible.

Our attention is called to the profitableness of meekness.

Moreover, meekness is enjoined as one of the most commendable traits of a saint.

The psalmist said it will meet the test of survival, “The meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.”

Jesus took these words and expanded them into our beatitude.

Paul urged the virtue of meekness on those to whom he wrote.

In a great passage in Galatians 5:22-23, Paul described this fruit, which the Spirit will plant in our hearts, “The fruit of the Spirit is… meekness.”

To the Colossians, Paul exhorted how, as “God’s elect,” they were to clothe themselves, “Put on therefore, as God’s elect, holy and beloved, a heart of… meekness”

To Timothy, Paul’s own son in the faith, he wrote, “But thou, O man of God…follow after…meekness”

The apostle Peter also urged the virtue of meekness on those to whom he wrote.

In his first epistle, he said to his female readers, “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment…Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.”

Peter knew the mind of the world in these things, so he added, “which is of great worth in God’s sight.”

The Bible, in general, demonstrates that the people most conspicuous for meekness are God’s greatest people.

In the Old Testament.

The outstanding example of meekness is not some person of colourless character without spirit, passion, or vitality, but Moses, one of the greatest men of all times.

Numbers 12:3, (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.)

And what a man he was, courageous, resourceful, able, high spirited, and strong.

He was broken to God’s bridle, that’s what meekness is, amenable to correction, teachable in God’s hands, and submissive to God’s yoke.

He was enduring, forbearing, suffering, not because of cowardice or fear, but for God’s sake, His work’s sake, and His people’s sake.

In the New Testament.

In his list of the twelve, Mark said of two of them in Mark 3:17, James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, that is, “Sons of Thunder”.

Think of it! John, the beloved apostle, who had once been described by Jesus as a “Son of Thunder,” became meek and lowly in heart, bowing to Christ’s yoke, learning from Him.

Above all, Jesus Himself is the world’s supreme example of meekness.

He demonstrated His own beatitude to be true.

2. The test of Jesus Christ’s character and person.

What is meekness?

In a word, meekness is Christlikeness.

To become meek is to become like Christ.

How do we attain it?

In our Scripture today, Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me.”

We become meek by submission to Christ.

Take my yoke upon you was a figure the rabbis used for going to school, but it carried with it the idea of submission to the teacher.

The actual word used to express the idea of meekness is the word used by the Greek writer Xenophon to speak of a horse broken to the bridle.

He was not speaking of some old plug without spirit, strength, or sensitivity, but a horse strong, sensitive, and high spirited yet submissive to its master’s bridle.

This beatitude has been translated as, “Blessed are the God tamed.”

That is meekness.

We could say, Blessed are those whose strength is great, whose sensibilities are well developed, whose spirit is hot and quick, but who yet have taken Christ’s yoke upon themselves, who have submitted to His bridle, who have become God tamed.

Meekness is the courage to fear God rather than men.

We become meek by learning of Christ.

“Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.”

The basis of Christ’s appeal is not His power and wisdom, but the fact that He is “meek and lowly in heart.”

He wants us to imitate that, to cultivate it.

We are to learn the unselfishness of Christ, the unselfishness of the One who “came not to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

We are to learn the gentleness of Christ.

Peter said of Him, “Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again, when He suffered, He threatened not.”

The greatest heroism is the strength of gentleness, to bear, to endure for Christ’s sake.

We are to learn the humility of Christ.

Lowly in heart means teachable, thoughtless of self, thoughtful of others, depending not on self but on God for strength.

Humility is an inseparable part of meekness.

We are to learn the courageousness of Christ.

At the bottom of the world’s bravery lurks a miserable cowardice, the terrible fear that people will think we are afraid.

Jesus had the courage to follow the will of the Father all the way to the cross, regardless of people or malice, of custom or convention.

We are to learn the strength of Christ.

Paul caught the meaning of this when he said, in 2 Corinthians 12:10, Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Dependance on God releases his power in us.

3. The test of results.

Jesus assured us that the power of meekness is vindicated by the results.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Who owns the earth?

Those who, like Jesus, are meek and lowly in heart and have found “rest unto their souls.”

We may understand the word rest in three ways.

Cessation from strife.

The quiet and tranquility of inner peace.

The world belongs to those who have peace in their hearts.

To rest on something as on a foundation.

The meek person rests on Christ.

As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:11, For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

To rest in the sense of a legal term.

The lawyer, having finished his plea for his client, turns to the court and says, “We rest our case.”

The meek man rests his case in the hands of Jesus, for if indeed he is meek, he has faith in the final vindication of the right, the triumph of love.

Conclusion.

God help us to follow and to imitate Him who is “meek and lowly in heart,” for to Him heaven and earth belong.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Until next time

Stay in the Blessings I really want to encourage you to be diligent with your Bible study time, because God has so much more for us than we can get from just going to church once or twice a week and hearing someone else talk about the Word.

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