Transcript

Well, good morning. My name is Don McKenzie. I'm a part of the pastoral staff here at great Commission church and our pastor who you saw earlier, Trevor Davis, will be back speaking next week, but I am thrilled to be able to continue in our series entitled how can I be happy when. And today it's how can I be happy when I feel so insecure? Now life is filled with many things that contribute to a sense of insecurity.

Past failures in marriage, work, children, school investments, traumas that are physical or emotional and spiritual criticisms or cruel treatment from others. Life is full of so many uncertainties. So how is it possible to be happy if you feel insecure? Well, Jesus taught that the only way to true, deep, meaningful happiness is to be blessed by God. Now, when God saves a person and he gives them eternal life, I want you to see what else he gives them.

Ephesians, chapter one, verse three. This is a great verse and it says, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. So Jesus paid it all, and what he bought is a truckload of blessings for his people. Now today we're just going to drill down on one of those blessings, and this particular blessing will help you overcome insecurities. Now, we find this blessing in Jesus famous sermon called the Sermon on the Mount.

And the way he introduced that sermon was with eight short sentences. And they all start with the word blessed. And they're called the beatitudes. And they're found in Matthew, chapter five. The first one was, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The second one is, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And today we're looking at the third one, and it's in verse five of chapter five. And it says, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Now, each beatitude has three parts to it. They all start with the word blessed.

Then who is blessed? And then why are they blessed? Now pastor Trevor explained the word blessed in the previous two messages, but he said it's so important and not everyone is here every week that he wanted me to repeat it one more time. So let me just rehearse what it means to be blessed in these beatitudes. First, the blessing is from God and that's what we need.

Secondly, the blessing is not a reward for performance. If you do this, then God will bless you with that. Jesus doesn't require us to work hard at becoming meek. And if we somehow succeed and reach meekdom we will inherit the earth. That's not what he's talking about.

Blessings are gifts from God that we don't earn or deserve. Now, Trevor gave us a sample beatitude and I fell in love with it. It really helped me understand these beatitudes. So here it is. Blessed is the cheerful daughter of Mister Smith, because one day she will inherit the Smith farm.

She's not trying to be cheerful, so she will end up being blessed and inherit the farm. She's not working to try to become the daughter of Mister Smith. She's cheerful because she is the daughter of Mister Smith. And that's a great blessing for her, because she knows that she's going to inherit the farm. That puts her in a blessed state.

Now, here are four words that Trevor used to explain the word blessed. And I'm going to insert our beatitude today as I go through these. So first, what does it mean to be blessed? Well, it's really more than just human happiness, you might say it's going to go well with the meek. Fortunate.

How fortunate are the meek? Honored God honors the meek. And the one I kind of like enviable. Don't you wish you were meek? Why?

Haven't you heard? They're going to inherit the earth. Wow. Now that's the blessed part of this beatitude. Now, who are the meek that Jesus is talking about?

Well, the meek are the sons and daughters of God. Those who are saved, those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, love him and follow him. Because we are meek, we will inherit the earth. Now, there's a lot of confusion about the word meek, so we need to first figure out what did Jesus mean when he used this word meek? Well, it helped me to discover that this word is also translated as lowly, as gentlemen, or humble.

And for some reason, the word gentle jumped out at me. So I decided to do an experiment. I asked Jen Jones, our beloved children's director here at GCC. I ask her a question, and here it is. Who do you know that you would describe as gentlemen?

Who do you know that you would describe as gentle? She thought. And then she started giving me some names, about five or six people here at church. And I liked her list. I agreed with her.

And I noticed she listed people that seemed to be soft spoken. People who were not strong willed, or aggressive, or highly opinionated. People who showed a sensitivity in not wanting to offend others, but wanted to get along and cooperate with her and with others. Now, the world might describe these people as weak, or easy to manipulate, or people that you can push around. But Jen saw them as having this beautiful quality of gentleness.

So that was interesting to me. But I couldn't help but notice that sweet, thoughtful, spiritual Jennifer Jones. Who did she leave off of her list? First of all, I was sitting right in front of her and she left me off her list.

I mean I don't know if she did this on purpose or what. I mean, I just don't know. But since I was consciously trying to be gentle, I didn't say anything I wanted to. But second, she didn't even put her own husband on the list. So there's obviously some issues going on at home.

But most importantly, she left Jesus off her list. Jesus is the gentlest person that Jennifer knows. And she knows Jesus, but she still left him off her list. I know those of you who are bothered by me making fun of Jen Jones, I want you to know that Jen gave me her full permission to have a little fun at her expense. But we really did go through that exercise.

Ah, but the truth be told, when I was thinking about who I would put on my gentle list, I also left Jesus off. I know, it's awful. It's going to ruin my reputation. Trevor, did you know that Jesus also has a gentle list? Would you like to see it?

Matthew 1129. This is Jesus speaking and he says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and there's our word. For I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. Now Jesus is meek or gentle.

It's the same greek word that he used in the beatitude. Jesus did not forget to put himself on the gentle list. And you know who else Jesus put on the gentle list? Every single person he will ever save. See, every follower and lover of the Lord.

Jesus has been blessed by God with this gentleman gene or seed down in our souls. Jesus is gentle and he is slowly making his people to become more like him. So we need to study Jesus and find out what it means to be meek or gentle. Now the apostle Peter spent three and a half years with Jesus watching his every move. And he reveals the secret to Jesus's meekness or gentleness.

And he does it in one peter, chapter two, verse 23. And it starts like this. Who when he Jesus was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten. Now reviled means to be slandered or verbally abused.

Jesus was reviled all the time. For example, the jewish leaders told people that Jesus was a drunkard and a glutton they said he was energized by the devil. They criticized him all the time. They never stopped jabbing and poking him. They treated Jesus like dirt.

They even threatened his life. And eventually they murdered him. So if there was ever a person who could have truthfully returned criticism for their wicked criticism, it was Jesus. He could have said, oh, yeah? Well, the truth is that you are the vile and wretched sinners.

I have never sinned, and I will never sin. But you are wicked and wrong, and you will pay dearly for daring to talk to me like that. It would have been true, but Jesus never did that. In fact, look at this. Jesus never lashed out in personal anger for how people treated him.

Jesus never lashed out in personal anger for how people treated him. Now, you and I will never be able to say that, nor will anyone ever say that about us. Right? But Peter said it about Jesus, and he watched him like a hawk for years. Jesus is amazing.

He was perfectly meek or gentle, but he had a secret that caused him to be kind and gentle to those who were mean and hateful to him. Would you like to know how jesus did it? Do you want to know the secret sauce, the sacred family recipe to meekness? Well, it's the rest of verse 23, because I left the last half out when we looked at it. So let's look at the whole verse one, Peter 223, who when he, Jesus was reviled, he did not revile and return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten. Why? How did you do this? Jesus, but committed himself to him who judges righteously. Now, meekness or gentleness is bound up in these seven words.

Committed himself to him who judges righteously. Who was Jesus committed to? Well, it says he was committed to him who judges righteously. Who do you think that is? Sure, it's God the father.

And Jesus understood at least four things about his father in heaven. And I have to tell you these four things I've been working on for years, because it's the secret sauce.

Let's look at these four things. Jesus committed himself to him who judges righteously. Jesus knew, number one, that God the father is the one and only judge. See, God has a monopoly on judgment. He alone is the judge and no one else.

And Jesus understood this. Number two, he understood that his father was a righteous judge. Now, in order to be a righteous judge, you need at least two qualities. One is you need to know everything, because whoever you're going to judge, you need all the facts. God knows your every motive, your every action.

He is able to put all the evidence on the table. And secondly, in order to be a righteous judge, you have to know the difference between right and wrong. And you have to be utterly committed to rewarding right and condemning wrong. You have to be objective. Jesus knew that his father was not only the only judge, but that he was a righteous judge.

Thirdly, Jesus knew he was not the judge.

This is going to be really important in a minute. Jesus knew he was not the judge. And number four, Jesus knew that his father would perfectly do his job as judge. Jesus was totally committed to trusting the fact that it was the sole and exclusive job of his father to judge, condemn and punish the guilty. Jesus fully understood it was not his job to judge or punish anyone.

So he didn't do it. Therefore, he didn't retaliate. He didn't fight back, revile, or threaten those who were mistreating him. Jesus trusted his heavenly father to do all the judging whenever the father thought it needed to be done. All right, well, let me illustrate this.

Imagine you are married, and then imagine you have a fight with your spouse. I know this is far fetched, but imagine that you have a fight with your spouse, and then you are suddenly in a courtroom, and the bailiff shouts, all rise. And so as you stand up, in walks the judge, and it's your spouse, and you start screaming, whoa, what's going on here? You're not the judge. Where's the real judge?

This is ridiculous. You can't do this. And besides, you've already condemned me, so this can't be a fair trial. And your spouse smiles and simply says, I've appointed myself to be your judge today, so sit down and shut up, or I will hold you in contempt of court.

What would you think if that had happened? Wouldn't you say, this is ridiculous, this can't happen. It's crazy. And of course, we all know this would not really happen in real life, right? But I'm telling you, it happens every day when we get angry and we start tearing someone down in our hearts and with our lips.

Because anger is when we sit in judgment of others. Because we have decided they are wrong and they need to be stopped, changed or corrected in some way. So therefore, we just simply appoint ourselves to be their judge, jury, and executioner with no conscience whatsoever. We slice and dice them in our minds, and we find that we're making a list of all their faults. Do you know that kind of activity is wrong?

It's wicked to pretend to be God and do his exclusive work of judging and condemning. Yet it happens every day. We do it to people and people do it to us. It is the opposite of being meek or gentle. We all need to learn from Jesus that God will perfectly do all the judging needed, and he'll do it when it's needed, and therefore, we don't have to.

And we shouldn't even try to do it because we're not unbiased judges. We're not fair. We don't have all the facts. We've already condemned the person. But here's my problem.

God takes too long to judge people. I've noticed that. God won't strike them immediately like I want him to. You know what I'm talking about. Wouldn't it just be better if I appointed myself judge and took care of the situation?

No, it's not better. It's insane. It's illegal. It's bizarre. And it's completely wrong for me to try to steal God's robe and act like I'm a legitimate and fair judge when I am not, I'm an imposter.

Well, if I can't condemn, criticize, make fun of people and act like I'm the judge of the universe, well, what can I do? What's left? Well, we can follow the example of Jesus and do what he did and what he taught. Look at just a few verses later in chapter five. In verse 44, Jesus says, but I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.

This is how we are to think and act in the worst case scenario. And this is what Jesus did all the time without fail. And it's one of the reasons I love Jesus. It's one of the reasons I love to learn about him. Do you see how powerful Jesus was to be able to control his thoughts, emotions and actions when people were constantly sinning against him?

Being meek or gentle is not being weak. In fact, it takes supernatural strength from God to care more about the welfare of the person hurting you than your own welfare. The world cannot do this, nor does it even want to do this. They think it's insanity to even think this is a value.

Look at these commands about being meek and gentle in Philippians, chapter two, because these are truly considered foolish by the world. I hope you don't think they are. Philippians, chapter two, verses three and four. It says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, lowliness and meekness. Count others more significant than yourself.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interest of others. Jesus said his followers can no longer just live for themselves. We must give up our lives here and now and sacrifice for others, especially the ones who mistreat us in some way, because that's what Jesus did for us, and we want to become like him. Now, the process of putting the interest, the well being, the feelings of others above our own is the journey of learning to become gentle, kind, and sacrificial, which all of these are elements of the love of Jesus Christ. Now we must become experts at giving away the love of Jesus.

And that means that we have to learn how to treat those who mistreat us with grace and gentleness, patience, understanding, and a desire to accept and love them for Jesus sake.

Now, here are some personal steps that I have taken so many times, I don't even know the number. I tried to actually figure it up, and it's well over 1000. I'm a slow learner. Here are some personal steps I've taken. I'm just going to list these out, make a little comment here and there.

Number one, I had to learn about unjust suffering. This is a major Bible doctrine because Jesus suffered unjustly, that we, the guilty might get all the blessings that we've been talking about. So the concept of suffering because someone else has caused the problem, that's just life. And so I had to learn what the Bible had to say about unjust suffering. And it has a lot to say because it basically is the christian life.

Number two, I had to start praying for more and more divine understanding of the love of Jesus Christ. And I got that from Philippians. Chapter one, pray that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight. And I began to pray that and pray that, and God began to help me and open my mind to understand more about the love of Jesus Christ. Number three, I started practicing this on the, on those closest to me because they can irritate you the most.

I think everybody gets that. So when I got mad or irritated, I had to start refocusing on how I could bless or benefit the other person. My irritation or madness is focused on their wrongness. And I start making a list of their faults. Of course, I'm innocent, and I'm also the judge.

That works out real well. And so I'm going, okay, I'm not the problem. The other person is a problem. I had to start refocusing my mind and saying, forget all of that. Wait a minute, I'm stinking the place up with my sin?

Cause I'm not supposed to be judging. That's my heavenly Father's job. So how do I now focus on blessing this person who does not deserve this? And that took refocusing, and you have to do it. You gotta go.

Wait a minute. I can't do this. So what am I supposed to do? Oh, I've gotta, I've gotta bless and pray and do good. How can I do that to this person who doesn't deserve it?

Fifth, I ask God to give me grace to repent of my sin, of judging and condemning, and help me confess that and seek reconciliation. Number six, I would approach the person with as much humility and gentleness as God had given me and I could possibly muster up because I did not want to do this, because they were wrong. Why would a right person want to go in and, well, I realized, no, I'm not right. I'm stinking the place up with my own sin so I could go in and confess that. Number seven.

Therefore, I never mentioned one single aspect of their perceived faults, but only confessed my rebellion to Jesus. And number eight, I then enjoyed the reconciliation because gentleness, in my experience, has always won the day. In the past 20 years, I told you I have done this well over a thousand times.

And sadly, I don't think I've ever enjoyed it once yet. I knew I was obeying the Lord, but I have enjoyed the fruit of reconciliation. See, I want to be more like Jesus. And when I pray and ask to be more like Jesus, boom. He makes me want to be gentler and mean.

So here are some questions. In closing, I want to ask you, and I urge you to answer these in your heart. Number one, do you understand that Jesus is meek and he chose to suffer for you on the cross even though you were lost and sinful in his eyes? Number two, do you want to honor the Lord Jesus by becoming more like him? Number three, do you want to trust the Lord to fight your battles, or do you want to keep sinning against him by fighting them yourself?

Number four, do you want to grow in showing the love of Jesus Christ to others by setting aside your personal desire to be right and focus on how you can bless the person who hurt you? Well, if your heart was answering yes or no, some yeses, or mostly yes to these questions, you know why? It's because you are blessed by God. It's because the seeds of meekness are in you and you have a glorious future ahead of you. No matter how difficult this life might be for you, Jesus wants us to not focus on the hurts and the pains, but on the future that we have with him, because we're going to inherit the earth and all that comes with it.

What does that mean? I mean, one day Jesus is going to return, and when he does, he's going to destroy this present universe, and then he's going to create a new one. Now this new universe will be a present from God to all he ever saved, those he calls the meek or gentle or humble. Look at one. Peter 310 13.

It says, but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat. Both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for the new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. It is a great blessing to be a part of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and you enter his kingdom by faith in the king himself, Jesus. You must believe he died for your sinfulness at the cross.

You must trust him to save you and forgive you for how you've mistreated him. Otherwise, when God judges, and he will, he will righteously expose all your wicked thoughts and deeds, and your punishment will indeed be seen to be just and right, escape the wrath to come by trusting the Lord Jesus to forgive you. And if you do, you will enter the envious position of being in the group called blessed, and you'll no longer be a victim. God will help you to not worry about how people have treated you. He will turn you into someone that will be able to treat others like Jesus Christ.

And you will be more than a conqueror in this life. And when we die and when Jesus returns, what the world chases after, they don't get. But we will get it. There is no sacrifice, no loss that you will take in this life that God says, don't worry, I'm going to give it all to you. Trust me.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you that you judge and you've taken that burden off of us. Set us free, Lord, to love people who need to see Jesus Christ, may they see him and us. We ask in your name, Lord Jesus.