Latest / Reformed Thinking / Blessed Are the Meek: Meekness and the Promise of the Earth (Matthew 5:5)

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Blessed Are the Meek: Meekness and the Promise of the Earth (Matthew 5:5) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to the Deep Dive, brought to you by Reformed
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  Thinking. Today we're zoning in on a
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  single statement. It's short, but it's one of the
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  most potent things ever said and the most famous sermon ever
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  preached. We're looking at the third
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  Beatitude, Matthew 5.5. That's right, blessed are the
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  meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
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  And for this deep dive, we've gone through a number of sources
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  that really treat this first not as some, you know, sentimental
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  platitude, but as a hard hitting definitional claim about what it
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  actually means to be a citizen of Christ's Kingdom.
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  I think what strikes you immediately, what makes it so
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  radical and honestly so countercultural, is how it just
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  flips the script. It completely turns our normal
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  ideas about strengthening success upside down.
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  It really does. I mean, you look at the world we
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  live in, business, politics, even just scrolling through your
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  social media feed. We celebrate the assertive
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  person, the loud person, the one who seizes control.
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  One who takes what they want. Exactly.
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  We admire that ambition. And then Jesus comes along and
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  pronounces this divine favor, this settled blessing from God
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  on the quiet, the lowly, the person you'd probably overlook.
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  It's just a stunning reversal. It's a complete inversion of
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  human wisdom. Yes.
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  And to really get the weight of it, we need to peel it back in,
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  I think, 3 distinct layers. So our mission for you, the
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  listener, is to break these down.
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  First, we need to get clear on what that word blessed is
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  signaling about your status before God, a status you already
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  have. OK.
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  Second, we have to meticulously define what biblical meekness
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  the Greek word is, Prowse, what that truly is.
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  We have to separate it from our modern idea of weakness and see
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  it for what it is, strength submitted to God.
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  And the third piece. And finally, we have to unpack
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  the colossal scope of that promise, the inheritance.
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  We'll see how it moves far beyond the Old Testament idea of
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  just the land and stretches out to cover the entire renewed.
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  Earth. That's a helpful road map.
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  So let's start with that framework.
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  We're in the Sermon on the Mount.
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  The King is giving instruction about his Kingdom.
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  Right, the setting is everything.
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  You find this in Matthew chapters 5-6 and seven.
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  And you cannot read this as just, you know, generic ethical
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  advice or some suggestions for self improvement.
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  It's not a self help book. Not at all.
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  This is authoritative. These are non negotiable Kingdom
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  instructions and they're delivered by the king himself to
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  his disciples, the ones who've already come to him.
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  And Matthew, he sets the scene very deliberately, doesn't he?
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  He has Jesus sitting on a mountain.
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  The disciples come to him. You can't help but hear the
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  echoes of of Sinai. It's impossible to ignore.
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  I mean, Matthew is being so intentional here.
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  He's presenting Jesus as the greater Moses.
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  You think back. Moses went up Mount Sinai to
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  receive the Law, to transmit it to Israel.
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  He was a mediator. Jesus goes up the mountain not
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  to receive the Law, but to speak with his own inherent authority
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  about the Law, about God's will, about the very character of God.
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  And that distinction in their authority really comes through
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  in that famous rhetorical structure he uses over and over
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  in the sermon. Absolutely.
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  That structure, it's one of his highest claims to divinity.
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  Really. You have heard that?
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  It was sad, but I say to you. So when he says that, but I say
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  to you, he's not throwing Moses under the bus, so to speak.
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  Not at all. That's a great way to put it.
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  He's not correcting Moses. He's correcting the centuries of
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  flawed human traditions, the the external box ticking focus of
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  the Pharisees that had grown up around the law.
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  And at the same time, he's speaking as the divine law
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  giver. He's laying down the
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  constitution, the charter for his new Kingdom.
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  He doesn't need any external validation.
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  His own word is the final authority.
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  OK, so we've got the authority set, but left Kirkle back to
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  something you said earlier. If this sermon isn't just A to
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  do list, don't be angry. Don't lust.
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  Turn the other cheek then. What is its actual purpose in
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  the life of a citizen of this Kingdom?
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  It's fundamentally descriptive, not just prescriptive.
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  It's a portrait. It's a description of the
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  character that is produced in someone who has already repented
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  and has already entered the Kingdom by grace.
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  So the Beatitudes are like the spiritual DNA of a Kingdom
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  citizen. That's a perfect way to describe
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  it. A fingerprint or DNA and the
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  instructions that come after, like laying up treasure in
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  heaven, are turning the other cheek.
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  Those are actions that honestly, only a person who already has a
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  lowly spirit, a meek spirit that trusts God, only they can
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  actually sustain that. The sermon shows us what life
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  looks like after salvation has already taken place.
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  It all flows from God's mercy. That framing is so important
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  because it totally changes how we read that very first word in
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  every line. Blessing.
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  That repeated word, blessed the Greek, is macarioi, and it is a
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  weighty theological verdict. It's not just saying, oh, you'll
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  be happy someday or happy are they who do this.
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  It's more than a feeling, much more.
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  It signals a state of settled happiness, yes, but a state of
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  divine favor. And that favor rests entirely on
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  God's assessment, His declaration, not on your
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  external circumstances or you know how you're feeling that
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  day. So if I'm listening to this and
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  I hear Jesus called the meek blessed, what that means is that
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  in God's eyes I'm already living under what one of our sources
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  called God Smile. Precisely.
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  It is a declaration, a declaration that your status,
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  your position before God is good, It's secure.
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  And that's true regardless of any visible hardship or
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  persecution or loss you might be facing.
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  Jesus is using powerful covenant language here, you know,
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  inherited from the Old Testament, where a blessing was
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  tied directly to God's nearness, his presence, his fatherly care.
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  He takes that whole concept and applies it to those now living
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  under the reign of the Kingdom of heaven which he himself has
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  brought near. You mentioned the grammar
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  earlier, and I think we need to slow down and camp out here for
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  a minute. What does that grammatical
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  structure blessed are? Tell us about where the
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  spiritual status comes from. Why is that detail so
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  theologically vital? The grammar is the anchor.
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  It's everything. Jesus uses what's called the
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  indicative mood. He's stating a fact.
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  Blessed are where you know this is the state of things.
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  He is describing these qualities, meekness, mourning,
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  hunger for righteousness, as the undeniable result of God's
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  redemptive work in a soul. They are not the 'cause that
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  earns His acceptance. In other words, these are the
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  fruits of regeneration and justification.
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  They're not the roots of our salvation.
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  Correct, you've hit the nail on the head.
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  If the Beatitudes were a moral command, if they said become
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  meek and then you will be blessed, well then they would
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  just be another system of works righteousness.
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  Which is exactly what Jesus is confronting.
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  Exactly. But because he pronounces them
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  as a subtle status, a present reality, we see that salvation
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  rests completely on God's mercy. It rests on the finished person
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  and work of Christ. You are justified.
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  Therefore you are becoming meek. You're becoming meek because you
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  are justified. That indicative structure
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  protects grace at every single point.
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  And this status then explains the specific order of the
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  Beatitudes. We don't just, you know, wake up
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  one day and decide to be meek. It seems to flow from a very
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  specific, carefully arranged spiritual progression.
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  It's the third step in a sequence.
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  It's a deliberate order, absolutely.
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  It's pastoral and it's theological.
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  It's designed to show us that meekness is a consequence of
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  conversion. It flows from something that has
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  to happen first. It's not a starting point.
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  You can just cultivate through willpower.
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  So let's walk through that step. 1 Matthew 5.3 Blessed are the
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  poor in spirit, which is the polar opposite of worldly
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  self-confidence. Poverty of spirit is that
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  foundational moment of realizing your absolute spiritual
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  bankruptcy before a holy God. It is the conviction that you
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  bring nothing, nothing of your own merit, religious or moral,
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  that could possibly make God accept you.
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  The self is just stripped of all his proud claims, all his
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  worldly boasting. You stand before God, totally
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  empty handed, utterly dependent. And when that truth really
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  lands, when it sinks in, the second step has to follow.
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  Yes, morning in Matthew 5.4. It's the necessary sorrow and
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  grief that follows that recognition of spiritual
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  emptiness. Once you've seen your true
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  sinful state, your offenses against a holy and good God, you
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  grieve. You grieve over the sin in
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  yourself, and you grieve over sin in the world.
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  This is that godly sorrow that leads to real repentance, to
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  real change. The self is broken.
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  It's grieved over its own guilt and its total inability to fix
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  itself. And it's only out of that
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  profound recognition of bankruptcy and that subsequent
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  repentance and grief, that meekness finally appears in
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  verse 5. It is the natural outgrowth.
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  That's the perfect way to put it.
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  Meekness flows directly from those first two steps.
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  Once a person has fully grasped their spiritual destitution,
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  once they've wept over their guilt, the grip of pride is
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  fundamentally loosened. All that internal machinery, the
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  soul, you know, it's frantic attempts to exalt itself, to
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  defend itself, to justify itself.
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  It just stops. Meekness is the external posture
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  of a person who has been through that crushing but absolutely
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  necessary experience of poverty, of spirit and mourning.
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  That's a powerful transition, and it brings us right to the
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  core definition of this quality. We really have to get rid of
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  this modern and frankly secular idea that meekness means being a
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  doormat, being spineless or passive, The biblical term
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  Prowse. It carries a much more robust
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  meaning. That distinction is so critical,
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  the Greek term Prowse. Yes, it describes gentleness,
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  humility, and restraint, but it fundamentally presupposes
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  strength. The historical context here is
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  really illustrative. Outside the Bible, Prowse was a
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  word often used to describe something powerful, like a wild,
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  fierce animal or a War Horse that have been tamed and brought
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  under control. OK, so the animals natural, you
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  know, violent strength is still there.
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  It hasn't been removed, but now it's subjected to the control
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  and the rule of its master. That is the perfect analogy.
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  Biblical meekness is not the absence of power.
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  It's not the absence of anger or ability.
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  It is strength. It is passion.
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  It is all our natural reactions placed entirely under God's rule
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  and God's restraint. It's the intentional control of
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  that power, especially when you're facing injury or
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  provocation or some kind of offense.
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  The primary Old Testament example that the sources point
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  to is Moses. Numbers 12.3 says he was very
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  meek, more than all people who are on the face of the earth,
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  which can be a bit confusing when you think about some of his
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  actions. Right.
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  And we have to hold that description right alongside his
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  actions. This is the man who, in a moment
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  of righteous anger, shattered the tablets of the law.
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  This is the man who later struck the rock when God commanded him
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  only to speak to it. And yet he's the meekest man on
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  earth. How does that work?
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  His meekness didn't make him pushover.
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  What it meant was that his great moral courage, his leadership,
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  his ability to stand up to Pharaoh, all of that was
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  controlled by his deference to God's will, not his own ego.
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  His meekness kept him from exalting himself.
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  It's what stopped him from taking vengeance or judgement
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  into his own hands. I find the struggle that Moses
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  had with maintaining that meekness, you know, sometimes he
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  succeeded, sometimes he failed. That's actually a comfort
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  because it just highlights the point we made earlier.
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  This quality is not a natural personality trait.
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  Some people aren't just born meek.
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  Absolutely not. It is an acquired
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  characteristic. It is a work of grace.
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  The sources all remind us that the natural person in our
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  default setting is inherently proud.
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  It's self willed. It's hostile to God.
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  We are constantly seeking to assert our own interests, and we
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  often do it through anger or manipulation or even violence.
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  So if it's not natural, it must be supernatural.
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  It has to be a work of the Holy Spirit.
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  Precisely. Meekness, or proutise in the
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  Greek is identified by Paul as a necessary grace that the Spirit
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  works in everyone who belongs to Christ.
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  It's listed right there as part of the fruit of the Spirit in
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  Galatians 5.23. And this gets to the heart of
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  what sanctification is all about.
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  Justification deals with the guilt of our sin.
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  It removes it completely. Sanctification is the process
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  that follows where the Holy Spirit begins to break the
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  domination of our pride and our selfishness, and He gradually
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  forms in us a genuinely lowly and submissive frame of soul.
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  And the goal of that whole process of sanctification is to
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  be conformed to the image of Christ.
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  So we have to look to the King himself as the ultimate pattern
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  of meekness. Christ is the definitive measure
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  and it's so important that Christ defines this quality
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  Himself in Matthew 11299 to give this incredible invitation to
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  the weary in the heavy laden. He says learn from me, for I am
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  gentle and lowly in heart. Just think about that.
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  The King of Heaven, who has all authority and all power, chooses
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  to describe his own inner reality with words the world
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  would just dismiss. Gentle and lowly.
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  That's the ultimate proof, isn't it?
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  Meekness cannot under any circumstances be dismissed as
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  weakness, because if you do that, you're insulting the very
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  character of God the Son. You would be.
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  His entire life was a demonstration of true royal
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  greatness being worked out through lowliness.
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  I mean, think about Philippians 2.
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  He existed in the form of God, yet he humbled himself.
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  He took the form of a servant. He was obedient to the point of
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  death on a cross. His meekness was his act of
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  condescension for our sake, even His triumphal entry into
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  Jerusalem, which we read about in Matthew 21.
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  It fulfills the prophecy by describing Him as entering,
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  quote, humble and mounted on a donkey, not on some mighty War
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  Horse. The whole Christian life is
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  about the life of this meek Christ taking shape in His
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  people. OK, so we've established that
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  meekness is strength under divine control, and it flows
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  from a broken spirit. Now let's get practical.
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  Let's apply that control. Where does a meek person first
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  apply that submission? The first place meekness shows
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  up is in a believer's posture toward God.
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  We could call it vertical meekness.
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  It starts in that internal collapse of self-confidence we
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  talked about and the submission of our will to the sovereign
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  reality of God. So this is where those first two
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  beaticules poverty of spirit and mourning.
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  They become visibly functional. The meek person stops arguing
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  with God about His verdict on their sin, and they start to
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  just bow low and submit to His will.
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  And crucially, that submission is immediately applied to God's
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  Word. The meek person refuses to sit
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  in judgement over Scripture. Like a critic.
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  They approach it as a student, as a servant who is ready to
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  obey. James 1.21 tells us to receive
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  with meekness the implanted word.
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  That idea of receiving the Word with meekness is so important,
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  especially today when it's so easy to filter Scripture through
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  our own feelings or, you know, cultural biases.
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  It is a huge test of true meekness when scripture
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  contradicts our deeply held opinions, or our comfortable
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  habits, or just a raw emotional response to something.
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  The meek person is the one who bends their feelings.
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  They repent of their habits. Their posture becomes the echo
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  of young Samuel. Speak for your servant hears.
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  They refuse to direct the Lord. They only want to be directed by
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  Him. OK, so submission to God's word
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  is the first part of vertical meekness.
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  What's the second? The second area is acceptance of
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  God's Providence, especially when life is difficult or
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  painful. The meek person, as First Peter
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  5 says, humbles themselves under God's mighty hand.
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  They refuse to accuse God of injustice or malice or
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  incompetence during suffering, even when his ways just make no
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  sense to our finite minds. They learn to trust the hand
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  even when they can't trace the plan.
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  That requires a huge amount of internal discipline.
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  Have spiritual surrender. It really does.
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  I mean, think of the classic illustration Job.
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  In a single day, he's stripped of everything.
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  His wealth, his children, his health.
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  The temptation to just rage at the heavens, to accuse God of
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  doing him wrong must have been immense.
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  And yet, what does he say in Job 1.21?
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  The Lord gave and the Lord is taken away.
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  Blessed be the name of the Lord. That is meekness in action.
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  It's accepting God's sovereign hand without bitterness.
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  He surrendered his right to demand an explanation, His right
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  to indict the judge. For someone listening, what's a
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  practical daily step that helps build that reflex of submission?
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  A simple but very practical exercise is to intentionally
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  build words of submission right into our prayers.
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  Words like your will be done. We need to do that instead of
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  letting prayer become just a list of demands that are based
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  on the premise that, you know, my will must be done.
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  Now this Godward posture, the surrender of the right to
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  complain, the refusal to criticize the king, that's the
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  root, and all horizontal meekness grows out of it.
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  OK, let's move to that outward posture then.
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  Horizontal meekness our dealings with other people.
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  If vertical meekness is about submission, horizontal meekness
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  seems to be primarily about restraint.
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  It is. It's the practical daily
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  restraint of our anger and our pride.
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  Meekness refuses that urge to seize control, to settle the
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  score, to repay evil for evil. Romans 12 gives that command
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  very clearly. Leave vengeance to God.
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  The meek person understands they are not the world's judge and
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  their reputation doesn't depend on winning every argument or
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  getting in the last stinging comment.
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  So they absorb the insult without exploding.
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  They allow themselves to be wronged without demanding
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  immediate payback. That's the heart of it, Jesus's
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  instruction to turn the other cheek and go the second mile in
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  Matthew 5. That's not some strategy for
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  martyrdom. It's a description of what
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  meekness looks like in social and political action.
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  It's choosing non retaliation. It's demonstrating that your
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  internal freedom from pride allows you to bear the slight,
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  because you know your true vindication is still to come.
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  How does this apply to how we communicate, especially when
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  we're facing opposition, whether it's theological or just
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  personal? It absolutely governs our
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  interactions. The sources really stress this.
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  The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome.
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  They have to correct opponents with gentleness.
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  That's from Second Timothy 2. The goal has to be the
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  opponent's restoration, not your intellectual victory lap.
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  If our tone is angry or arrogant, even if our facts are
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  100% correct, we are betraying the very spirit of Christ that
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  we claim to uphold. And I assume the same principle
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  applies when we're doing evangelism or just sharing the
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  reasons for our faith. Yes, Peter tells us that our
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  witness has to be delivered with gentleness and respect.
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  We have to remember we are speaking as forgiven rebels, not
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  as self-made Saints. Arrogance and apologetics is
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  fundamentally anti meek. The moment we start speaking
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  down to people, we've lost the posture Christ demands of us.
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  This whole issue of horizontal meekness, it's probably most
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  challenging and most relevant in the digital space.
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  I think we have to talk about what digital meekness looks.
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  Like we really do. The online environment, you
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  know, social media, comment sections, theological forums.
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  It feels like it's designed to reward the exact opposite of
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  meekness. It rewards the sharp, immediate
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  comeback, the public shaming, the quick, decisive mic drop
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  rhetoric. Meekness chooses a restraint in
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  that environment. So how does a meek person apply
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  that restraint when they see something they fundamentally
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  disagree with, or when they feel personally attacked online?
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  The first rule of digital meekness has to be the rule of
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  the pause before you hit send. Before you post that reply, the
• 18:34
  meek person has to stop and ask several key questions.
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  Will these words show the gentleness of Christ?
• 18:40
  What's my motivation here? Is it really to correct or
• 18:42
  wrong, or am I just venting my own pride and anger?
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  Am I actually seeking my neighbor's good, or am I just
• 18:48
  trying to secure my own reputation?
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  That last point is huge. So much of online performance
• 18:54
  turns discussion into a competition.
• 18:56
  It just feeds what our sources call the Cult of Self.
• 18:59
  Precisely the whole digital landscape runs on self
• 19:02
  assertion, on the elevation of self esteem.
• 19:05
  Meekness runs directly against that current.
• 19:08
  If meekness means ruling your own spirit, then digital
• 19:11
  meekness means quietly deleting that sharp retort.
• 19:13
  It means refusing to join the online pile on.
• 19:16
  It means choosing the difficult path of silence over the
• 19:19
  satisfying but often destructive path of the clap back, As
• 19:22
  Proverbs 16.32 reminds us, ruling your own spirit that
• 19:26
  outshines the greatest military triumph.
• 19:28
  It takes a kind of spiritual heroism to stay quiet online
• 19:31
  when that urge to assert yourself is so overwhelming.
• 19:34
  It really does, because the world looks at that silence and
• 19:37
  sees it as weakness or as admitting defeat.
• 19:40
  But the meek person, the one who refuses that fretful envy or
• 19:44
  that violent grasping for reputation, they're simply
• 19:48
  choosing to rest their case with God.
• 19:50
  They know that the King will in the end vindicate them.
• 19:54
  OK, so we've established the divine verdict, which is
• 19:56
  blessedness, and the character required, which is meekness.
• 20:01
  Now we get to the massive promise that makes all of that
• 20:03
  restraint worthwhile. Inheriting the Earth.
• 20:06
  Right. And this promise, it should
• 20:08
  sound familiar. Jesus is explicitly pulling from
• 20:10
  the Old Testament, specifically from Psalm 37 verse 11.
• 20:14
  What does that song say? Psalm 37.11 promises that the
• 20:17
  meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant
• 20:20
  peace. So to understand the scope of
• 20:22
  the New Testament promise, we have to start by understanding
• 20:24
  what the Old Testament meant by the land.
• 20:26
  The land Canaan was absolutely central to the Old Covenant.
• 20:29
  What did it signify for Israel? Canaan was the place of rest.
• 20:33
  It was a geographical center where God dwelt among his
• 20:36
  people. It was supposed to be a
• 20:37
  foretaste of redemption, a physical space where they could
• 20:40
  taste peace and covenant blessing.
• 20:43
  But that possession was always inherently fragile.
• 20:46
  It was never secure. It was continually threatened by
• 20:49
  Israel's own sin, by foreign enemies, by political
• 20:53
  instability. So Canaan was acting as a
• 20:55
  signpost. Yes, exactly.
• 20:57
  The sources confirmed that the land served as a partial,
• 20:59
  limited promise. It was a Type A shadow that was
• 21:03
  pointing forward to something much wider, something permanent
• 21:06
  and something far more secure. And that's where Jesus expands
• 21:09
  the promise in a big way. He moves from the land to the
• 21:12
  earth. Yes, when Jesus uses the Greek
• 21:15
  word gay, which can mean land but also encompasses the idea,
• 21:18
  the physical world, the globe, the earth, he is stretching that
• 21:21
  old promise to its absolute fullest universal horizon.
• 21:25
  He's showing that the limited strip of land that Israel
• 21:27
  possessed was just the first draft of a cosmological world
• 21:31
  size inheritance. This connects all the way back
• 21:33
  to the Abrahamic covenant, doesn't it?
• 21:35
  Absolutely. This global widening of the
• 21:37
  promise aligns perfectly with what God told Abraham hundreds
• 21:40
  of years before the promise that he would be.
• 21:43
  As Romans 4.3 clarifies the air of the world, the scope of the
• 21:47
  blessing was always meant to be global, covering all of
• 21:50
  creation. So the inheritance is nothing
• 21:53
  less than the renewed creation itself.
• 21:55
  That is the ultimate destination.
• 21:57
  The promise refers not just to a piece of real estate, but to the
• 22:00
  full, renewed creation under Christ's eternal reign.
• 22:04
  We're waiting for, as Second Peter 3.13 says, new heavens and
• 22:07
  a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
• 22:10
  This is the eschatological fulfillment that John sees in
• 22:12
  his visions in Revelation 21. What does that really mean for
• 22:15
  righteousness to dwell in this new earth?
• 22:17
  What does that physical reality look like?
• 22:19
  It means the complete reversal of the curse from Genesis 3, the
• 22:24
  physical world which right now is subject to futility and
• 22:26
  decay. As Romans 8 says, it will be
• 22:29
  cleansed and restored to its perfect, original design.
• 22:33
  There will be no more sin, no sickness, no death, and
• 22:35
  crucially, no more pride or envy or competition.
• 22:39
  The very things that fuel the chaos of our current age, the
• 22:42
  very atmosphere of that future world, will be characterized by
• 22:46
  that eternal, abundant peace that Psalm 37 talks about.
• 22:50
  And that state of abundant peace is the reward for the meek who
• 22:54
  refused to engage in the violent, fretful grasping today.
• 22:57
  The contrast is completely deliberate.
• 22:59
  Those who choose the way of meekness now, the ones who seem
• 23:02
  to lose their advantage, manage, who suffer slights who turn the
• 23:04
  other cheek. They're the ones who will
• 23:06
  possess everything later. And those who grasp and claw
• 23:08
  their way to the top today will find themselves completely
• 23:10
  dispossessed when Christ returns.
• 23:12
  But we have to be really careful here not to equate this
• 23:15
  inheritance with current worldly success.
• 23:17
  The sources are very clear. This is not a promise of present
• 23:20
  prosperity. That distinction is paramount.
• 23:23
  This beatitude is not a spiritual guarantee of present
• 23:26
  day health or wealth or, you know, temporal political
• 23:29
  influence. In fact, it often implies the
• 23:31
  opposite present hardship. The promise is an assurance to
• 23:35
  the meek who seem to suffer loss by refusing to retaliate or
• 23:39
  grasp. It's an assurance that they will
• 23:42
  stand securely and possess everything when the proud have
• 23:45
  inevitably vanished. It's the principle of the cross
• 23:48
  before the Crown. Exactly.
• 23:49
  The path to glory runs directly through suffering.
• 23:52
  Paul confirms this theological necessity.
• 23:54
  He says believers are fellow heirs with Christ, provided we
• 23:57
  suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
• 24:01
  That's Romans 8.1 scene. Our present suffering is
• 24:03
  momentary, and it's serving as the necessary Crucible for the
• 24:06
  eternal glory that is going to be revealed.
• 24:08
  Knowing that the entire renewed earth is our guaranteed future
• 24:11
  possession, that has to completely change how we relate
• 24:14
  to our current circumstances. It has to.
• 24:17
  It provides the ultimate anchor of hope.
• 24:20
  This truth should loosen the grip of greed and self promotion
• 24:23
  and anxiety in our daily lives. I mean, why would I frantically
• 24:27
  clutch every promotion or defend every tiny right I think I have
• 24:31
  when my future ownership of the entire cosmos is already secured
• 24:35
  in the coming Kingdom? This hope is what enables
• 24:38
  believers to endure losses and insults and professional
• 24:41
  setbacks now, without falling into bitterness or rage.
• 24:45
  OK, we have to bring this entire discussion back to Christ.
• 24:48
  The meek are promised the earth, but they don't earn it.
• 24:50
  So what is the basis? What guarantees this colossal
• 24:53
  inheritance? The basis is Christ's ownership
• 24:56
  and our union with Him. The deepest reason the meek
• 24:58
  shall inherit the earth is that they're joined by faith to the
• 25:00
  One who owns it all by eternal divine right.
• 25:03
  And he's explicitly called the air of all things in Hebrews
• 25:05
  1.2. How did Christ attain this
• 25:08
  universal inheritance? He inherited it through His
• 25:11
  meekness. The Father exalted Christ and
• 25:13
  gave him dominion over every realm and every name as His
• 25:17
  rightful possession, because He humbled Himself to the point of
• 25:19
  death on a cross. Philippians 2 shows us that
• 25:23
  Christ's meekness, His perfect obedience and lowliness is the
• 25:26
  very reason for His exaltation and His subsequent universal
• 25:29
  authority. So if a believer is justified by
• 25:32
  faith, that means they are credited with Christ's perfect
• 25:35
  righteousness, and that must include his perfect meekness and
• 25:39
  lowliness. Absolutely.
• 25:40
  A believer doesn't stand before God, presenting their own
• 25:42
  faltering, inconsistent meekness as some kind of ground for
• 25:46
  acceptance. We rest entirely in Christ's
• 25:48
  perfect lowliness, His perfect obedience, which is credited to
• 25:51
  our account through faith. The meekness that we see
• 25:54
  starting to emerge in a believer's life, the fruit.
• 25:57
  That's not the means of our acceptance.
• 25:58
  It is the sure evidence of our union with Christ.
• 26:01
  So the inheritance isn't a prize for good behavior, it's a gift
• 26:04
  of a shared status. It is entirely a gift.
• 26:08
  Those united to Christ by faith are elevated to share His
• 26:10
  status. We become, as Romans 8.17
• 26:14
  declares, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.
• 26:18
  The inheritance is inextricably bound up with Christ himself.
• 26:21
  We inherit the earth because He is the rightful owner of the
• 26:24
  renewed earth and we belong to Him.
• 26:26
  The ultimate take away here is security.
• 26:28
  Then our future is secure, not because of how meek we managed
• 26:32
  to be today, but because of the perfect meekness of the King who
• 26:36
  reigns. Precisely.
• 26:37
  The meek are the only true heirs, and they are guaranteed
• 26:40
  to share in Christ worldwide reign on the coming renewed
• 26:43
  earth. They received the earth not
• 26:45
  because they seized it, but because they bowed before the
• 26:47
  One who inherited it through His own perfect submission.
• 26:50
  This deep dive into Matthew 5.5 has really, I think,
• 26:53
  repositioned the word meekness. We've seen it's not weakness,
• 26:56
  but strength under God's total control, and it's born from
• 26:59
  recognizing our spiritual bankruptcy and then mourning our
• 27:01
  sin. This character has lived out
• 27:03
  daily through humble submission to Scripture and patience toward
• 27:07
  others. And it's all anchored in this
• 27:09
  massive, guaranteed promise of inheriting the new creation
• 27:12
  itself. And that promise has to be the
• 27:15
  engine for our posture right now.
• 27:17
  I mean, if you are guaranteed the entire renewed earth, if you
• 27:20
  are a fellow heir with the King who owns everything.
• 27:24
  We have to recognize the sheer foolishness of grasping for
• 27:28
  momentary self assertion, or demanding immediate revenge, or
• 27:32
  anxiously seeking worldly status.
• 27:34
  Today we have to ask ourselves, what am I fighting for when I
• 27:38
  already own everything? It certainly puts into
• 27:40
  perspective those moments of digital rage or the temptation
• 27:43
  to retaliate against a slight and that final promise.
• 27:47
  It assures the meek will delight themselves in abundant peace.
• 27:51
  We should genuinely contemplate what that life will be, what
• 27:54
  kind of work, what kind of existence, what kind of
• 27:56
  interaction will a life of total, abundant, peaceful Co
• 27:59
  reign with Christ on a cleansed earth actually look like?
• 28:01
  You know, when Peter speaks of a world in which righteousness
• 28:04
  dwells, it forces a final thought.
• 28:06
  What specific ways will righteousness be at home there
• 28:08
  in our politics and our relationships and our daily
• 28:10
  laborers? That will starkly contrast with
• 28:12
  the chaotic, proud, and unjust age we inhabit now?
• 28:15
  A. Compelling question, and it's
• 28:17
  grounded in the astonishing reality that one day the humble
• 28:20
  will in fact possess everything.