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Charity Disposes Us Meekly To Bear The Injuries Received From Others (1 Corinthians 13:4) | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reformed thinking. It's great to be back.
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  Today we're going to get into something a little different.
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  When you think of the Puritans, especially someone like Jonathan
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  Edwards, you probably think of, you know, fire and brimstone.
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  Right. Sinners in the hands of an angry
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  God. Spiders dangling over the pit.
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  That's the image that sticks. Exactly.
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  Or you think of these incredibly dense high level theological
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  arguments, metaphysics. But today we're looking at a
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  sermon that feels almost uncomfortably practical.
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  It's from his series on 1st Corinthians 13, and the sermon
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  itself is on verse 4. Charity suffereth long and is
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  kind. The title he gave it is Charity
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  disposes us meekly to bear the injuries received from others.
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  It's a striking title, and you're right.
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  It challenges that one-dimensional view of Edwards.
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  When you read this series, His Charity and Its Fruits, you see
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  a pastor who is intensely focused on the friction of daily
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  life. Well, that's the thing, isn't
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  it? That's the universal problem,
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  dealing with difficult people. I can't imagine anyone listening
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  to this who doesn't have someone in their life.
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  A boss, a neighbor, maybe a family member.
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  Oh for sure. Who's just seems to know how to
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  treat them unfairly. It's part of the human
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  experience. It is.
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  It's the result of living in a fallen world full of fallen
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  people. And that includes us, by the
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  way. We are often that difficult
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  person for someone else. Right.
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  And my natural reaction, my gut reaction when someone pushes me
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  is to push back. It's almost a reflex.
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  You insult me. I want to find a better, sharper
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  insult to throw right back at you.
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  You want to win, You want to get even.
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  Yes, it's revenge. It's resentment.
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  It's venting to your friends about how awful this person is.
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  We're wired for it. That's the instinct of the
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  flesh. But Edwards, right here in this
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  text, he's presenting a completely countercultural
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  thesis. He's saying that real Christian
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  love or charity compelled you. It forces you to bear these
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  injuries meekly. OK, let's stop on that word
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  meekly, because in 21st century English that is not a
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  compliment. If I call you meek, I'm
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  basically calling you a doormat. A pushover.
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  Spineless. Exactly.
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  Is that what Edwards is telling us?
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  To be just spineless? Not even close.
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  And this is where we have to do a little work to reclaim the
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  biblical meaning of the word. Meekness in this tradition isn't
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  weakness at all. It's actually strength under
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  control. How so?
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  The classic illustration is a powerful War Horse.
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  It has all this muscle, this immense capacity for violence
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  and speed, but it's completely submitted to the writer's
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  command. It has the power to bolt, but it
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  chooses not to. That's meekness.
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  It's having the capacity to retaliate, but choosing not to
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  for a higher purpose. So the goal for this deep dive
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  then is to sort of dismantle our natural defense mechanisms to
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  look at why this meekness isn't weakness, but a very specific
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  kind of theological strength. Yes, and to see how the Reformed
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  view of Providence, the idea that God is sovereign over
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  everything, including the insults you receive, completely
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  changes the game. OK, so let's start where Edwards
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  starts with the problem itself. He doesn't just say people are
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  mean, He gives this incredibly detailed breakdown of how people
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  are mean. It's like a taxonomy of injury.
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  He was a very careful observer of human nature.
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  He wanted his congregation to see themselves in these
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  categories, both as the one being hurt and, more
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  uncomfortably, as the one doing the hurting.
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  Let's get into this inventory. His first category is injuries
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  to our estates and dealings. So this is about our money, our
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  property, our business life. Right.
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  And he starts with the obvious stuff like fraud and seat.
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  But then he adds this layer of nuance.
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  He talks about taking advantage of a neighbor's ignorance.
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  That one hit me right away. I immediately thought of the
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  classic shady car mechanic scenario.
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  You bring your car in, you don't know anything about engines.
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  Mechanic knows you're ignorant, so he tells you that you need
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  $1000 of work you don't actually need.
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  He's weaponizing his knowledge against your lack of it.
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  That is precisely what Edwards is getting at.
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  It's using an information gap to extract value unfairly.
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  He also talks about a related idea, oppression based on
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  necessity. What does that look like?
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  That's exploiting someone who has no other choice.
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  Think about a company that jacks up the price of bottled water
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  after a hurricane. Price gouging.
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  Exactly. Or, and this is a modern
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  example, think of a payday lender.
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  They know the person coming to them is desperate.
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  They have no other options, so they charge these insane
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  interest rates. The person agrees, but are they
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  really free? No.
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  They're acting out of necessity, Edward says.
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  Leveraging that desperation is a form of injury.
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  It's theft, just with a contract wrapped around it.
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  That feels incredibly relevant, but he gets even more specific,
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  and this is where I think a lot of us might start to squirm.
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  He talks about unfaithfulness and promises, specifically the
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  Slack worker. Oh, this section is fascinating.
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  He describes someone who does the absolute bare minimum to
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  meet the letter of the contract, but doesn't, in his words,
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  improve time to the utmost. It sounds a lot like the modern
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  term quiet quitting. It has echoes of it for sure,
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  but Edwards frames it theologically.
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  His argument is that if you're hired for a job, you have
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  effectively sold your time and skill to that employer for that
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  specific period. If you intentionally waste that
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  time, or if you're negligent and don't give your best effort, you
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  are, in a sense, stealing. So you're withholding the value
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  you promised to give. Correct.
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  You're not just taking a paycheck, you're supposed to be
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  contributing to the good of your neighbor, who in this case is
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  your employer. If you're just phoning it in,
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  you're acting out of pure self-interest, not charity.
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  And then he flips it. He doesn't just talk about the
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  worker, he talks about the one who pays withholding what is
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  due. This is a big one, making your
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  neighbors struggle or even beg to get paid what you owe them.
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  Anyone who's ever done freelance work knows this feeling.
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  You do the job, you send the invoice, and then crickets.
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  You have to send three follow up emails.
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  You get excuses. Oh, it's an accounting.
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  Oh, the checks in the mail, right?
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  Edward says that putting your neighbor to that unnecessary
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  trouble is an injury. You're using your power as the
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  pair to make their life difficult.
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  It's a power play. You're holding their livelihood
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  hostage. OK, So that's the financial
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  side, that's injury to the wallet.
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  But then he moves on to something that, for many people,
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  hurts even more. Injury type B.
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  Our good name, our reputation. And he comes out swinging on
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  this one. He calls speaking evil behind
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  someone's back the most common and quote base iniquity.
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  He says the amount of damage done by this is beyond account.
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  He makes a really important distinction here that I think we
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  need to 0 in on. He talks about slandering, which
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  is easy enough to understand. That's spreading outright lies.
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  But then he talks about misrepresentation.
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  How is that different? This is such a subtle but
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  critical point. Misrepresentation isn't always
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  about lying about the facts of what happened, it's about how
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  you frame them. It's in his words, painting a
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  neighbor's actions in the worst colors.
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  Can you give an example? Sure.
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  Let's see a Co worker makes a mistake in a report.
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  A charitable interpretation might be he was probably rushed.
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  He's got a lot on his plate. A misrepresentation would be
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  going to the boss and saying you won't believe how sloppy his
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  work is. He just doesn't care.
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  The fact is, the mistake, the misrepresentation, is assigning
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  the worst possible motive to it. It feels like that's the default
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  mode for a lot of online discourse.
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  Oh absolutely. You take a 10 second video clip
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  of someone, you strip it of all context.
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  You post it with a caption that frames them as a monster.
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  You're not lying about what they said in those 10 seconds, but
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  you're creating a completely false impression of who they are
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  and what they meant. You're exaggerating the fault
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  you're amplifying. It exactly.
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  And Edward says this is just as destructive to a person's
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  reputation as a direct lie. Because once that good name is
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  gone, you can't just give it back.
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  You can pay back stolen money. You can't easily restore a
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  ruined reputation. Which is why he calls it so
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  base. It's a kind of theft you can't
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  undo. Then he goes even deeper.
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  We've covered business, we've covered reputation.
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  Now he goes to injury type C thoughts and contempt.
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  This one is genuinely scary because it's entirely internal.
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  It is. The question is, can you
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  actually injure someone with just a thought?
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  And Edwards argues, yes, you can.
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  How does that work? For two reasons.
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  First, because God sees the heart, the sin, the violation of
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  charity begins there. But second, because those
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  internal thoughts never stay purely internal.
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  They always leak out. So holding someone in low esteem
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  or contempt in your heart, that's the root.
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  That's the root. It's that feeling of looking
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  down your nose at someone, thinking they're beneath you,
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  they're an idiot, they're worthless.
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  That internal attitude is the injury in seed form.
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  And he says the tongue becomes the tool of these thoughts.
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  He uses some really vivid metaphors.
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  He compares the tongue to a scourge, a whip, and then to the
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  fangs of a poisonous snake. The.
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  Snake bite metaphor is so powerful.
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  Think about it. The puncture wound from a Fang
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  can be tiny, almost invisible, but the poison gets injected
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  deep into the system and does its deadly work.
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  A sarcastic comment, a backhanded compliment, a
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  contemptuous sigh. Those are the things.
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  They might seem small on the surface.
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  Right. But they inject the poison of
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  contempt into the relationship, and it spreads.
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  It creates bitterness. It all comes from a heart that
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  has refused to honor the image of God in that other person.
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  Yeah. And that is a profound injury.
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  OK. This is leading into his fourth
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  category, injury type D, which is treatment and behavior.
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  This seems to cover all the ways we interact day-to-day.
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  It does. He looks at authority dynamics.
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  He talks about superiors acting tyrannically, the boss who just
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  loves to throw his weight around but he's balanced.
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  He also talks about inferiors denying proper respect to
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  superiors. It's a two way St.
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  He also has a section on willfulness.
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  I think we all know this person, the person who just has to have
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  their own way. The one who shuts their eyes to
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  reason, who just refuses to yield no matter what, Edwards
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  says. That level of stubbornness is a
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  form of injury to everyone around them.
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  Because it's fundamentally selfish.
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  You're acting as if your interests are the only ones that
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  matter. If you're in a family or on a
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  team and you refuse to compromise simply because you
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  want what you want, you're damaging the group.
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  It's a violation of community and very close to that is what
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  he calls party spirit. This felt very political when I
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  read. It it did to me too.
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  And it is, but it also applies to the office politics, church
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  politics, you name it. It's when you act not for the
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  common good, but just to oppose another person or another party.
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  So you'd vote against a good proposal just because it came
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  from the other side? Exactly.
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  You're injuring the whole community just to score points
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  for your team. It's prioritizing tribalism over
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  charity. And the last item in this grim
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  inventory is malice and envy, hating a neighbor.
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  And this one is chilling, being pleased when they fall.
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  The Germans have a word for it, Schadenfreude, taking pleasure
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  in someone else's misfortune, Edward says.
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  If your Co worker gets fired and your first feeling is little
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  thrill of joy, that's an injury in your heart.
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  Or feeling ill will because of their prosperity.
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  Their kid gets into a great college and you feel bitter.
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  They get a promotion and you feel resentful.
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  You're wishing them harm. Even if you never lift a finger,
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  you're committing the injury in your spirit.
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  OK, so the list is complete, it's comprehensive, and people
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  do all of this to us and we do it to them.
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  The big question now is what does reformed thinking say we
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  should do about it? How are we supposed to respond?
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  Right, and this brings us to his solution.
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  This is where he defines meekness, and
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  characteristically, he starts by defining what it is not.
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  The first thing to go is retaliation, he says.
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  Meekness means bearing the injury without doing anything to
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  revenge it. And he's incredibly strict about
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  this. No bitter words, no injurious
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  deeds, no subtle getting even. But he goes even further than
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  actions. He talks about your appearance.
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  You have to maintain a calm, undisturbed countenance.
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  Wait a minute, I can't even look angry.
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  That sounds impossible. He's trying to police my facial
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  expressions. It sounds that way, but his
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  logic is that the face reveals the heart.
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  If your face is all twisted up with rage, your heart is
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  probably not in a state of quiet repose.
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  The goal is an internal peace so profound that it actually shows
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  on your face. But does this mean I can't say
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  anything? This is the doormat question.
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  Get him. If someone is actively
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  slandering my name or defrauding my business, do I just have to
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  smile and let it happen? Is he just advocating for total
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  passivity? No, and this is a really
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  critical piece of nuance, Edwards says.
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  You can reprove them. You can and sometimes should
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  confront the person. But, and this is a gigantic but,
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  it has to be done without anger or impoliteness.
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  How is that even possible? How do you confront someone
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  about something that has deeply hurt you without being angry?
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  You have to change your motivation.
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  The reproof, Edward says, has to be rational and it has to be
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  aimed at their good, not your own vindication.
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  So the goal isn't I'm going to tell you off so I feel better.
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  No, the goal is I'm pointing this out because what you're
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  doing is self-destructive and dishonouring to God and I want
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  to see you restored. You're lamenting their sin
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  against God, not just venting your own personal resentment.
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  The focus shifts from you to them and their relationship with
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  God. That is a massive shift and it
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  leads right into the next part, what you called the internal
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  requirement. This is where it gets really,
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  really hard. This is where Edwards, the heart
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  surgeon, comes out. Yeah, he says it's not enough to
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  just be silent on the outside. You can be silent while your
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  heart is a cauldron of rage. You can be silent while plotting
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  their downfall. That's not meekness.
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  Meekness. Requires that the heart itself
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  must remain free of revenge. Yes, he says, we must continue
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  to love the person who injured us.
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  We might pity them for their sin, but we cannot hate them.
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  And here's the key phrase We must not lose the quietness and
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  repose of our own minds. That phrase quietness and repose
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  is so convicting. He basically says if an injury
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  messes up your peace or if it ruins your prayer life, you
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  failed to suffer long. It's such a practical diagnostic
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  test. If you sit down to pray and the
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  only thing you can think about is replaying that argument in
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  your head, we're imagining what you should have said.
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  Then the injury has conquered you.
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  It has. You've lost possession of your
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  own soul, he quotes that verse from Lewd in your patients.
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  Possess ye your souls. If an insult from someone else
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  can send you into an emotional tailspin for three days, who's
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  really in control of your soul? Not you.
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  You've handed the keys over to them.
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  They are now driving your emotional car.
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  What a terrifying thought. We think of anger as a form of
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  power, but Edwards is reframing it as a total loss of control.
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  It is an abdication of self government.
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  You've become a puppet and they're pulling the strings.
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  Now, Edwards is a realist. He knows there's a practical
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  cost to this. He says that sometimes for the
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  sake of peace, you have to be willing to suffer loss rather
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  than fight for your right. He brings in First Corinthians
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  6.7 where Paul just asks why do you not rather take wrong?
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  It's a question our culture never asks.
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  We're obsessed with our rights. My right to be respected.
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  My right to be paid on time. My right to my reputation.
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  He's not saying self-defense is always sinful.
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  No, not at all. But he's arguing that our
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  default setting is to jump to self-defense way too quickly.
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  Charity, he says, should lead us to suffer considerably before we
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  try to vindicate ourselves. And the goal is to win the
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  enemy. That's a strange phrase.
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  It is, but think about it. If I immediately sue you over a
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  dispute, our relationship is over.
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  We are now adversaries, probably for life.
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  But if I absorb a small loss, if I choose to take wrong, there is
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  a chance, maybe a small one, that my gracious response could
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  disarm you and open the door to reconciliation.
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  It's the long game. So why is this called
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  long-suffering? Because of two things, magnitude
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  and duration, it's not about small annoyances, he says.
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  We have to bear great injuries and it's not about being patient
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  for a week and then exploding, it's about burying them for a
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  long time to the end if necessary.
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  Which sounds, humanly speaking, impossible.
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  That sounds like a recipe for a total breakdown.
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  How do you absorb that much poison and not die from it?
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  And that is the perfect question to lead us into the next section
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  because you're absolutely right. Humanly speaking, it is
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  impossible. You can't white knuckle your way
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  through this. It has to flow from something
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  deeper. And that's the theological
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  basis. That's the theological engine.
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  It's the core of Reformed thinking.
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  All true virtue flows from a right relationship with God.
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  You don't do this for the person who hurt you, you do this for
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  God. OK so let's walk through his
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  arguments. How does loving God help me deal
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  with the Co worker who just stole my idea in a meeting?
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  Argument number one is the imitation of God.
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  It's simple, really. If you love God, you want to be
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  like Him. And the Bible over and over
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  describes God as long-suffering. Edwards asks us to just stop and
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  consider what God's long-suffering actually looks
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  like. And it's staggering when you
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  think about it. God gives sunlight and rain to
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  people who are actively blaspheming His name.
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  He provides food for entire cities full of wickedness.
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  He gives a very breath to the man who uses that breath to
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  curse him every second of every day.
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  God is bearing with an astronomical amount of injury
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  from his creatures. And then he makes it personal.
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  He says God bore with us. For every single Christian,
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  there was a time when we were God's enemy.
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  We were rebels, we were doing our own thing, and God was
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  patient. He bore with our sin and
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  rebellion until he brought us to himself.
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  So Edwards's logic is if you claim to be a child of this
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  patient father, how can you be so impatient with your brother?
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  It's an argument from family resemblance.
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  Exactly. OK, argument to is gratitude.
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  This is the math. Problem it is it's based on the
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  parable of the unmerciful servant Edward says the injuries
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  we received from other people are like pence they're pennies
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  the injuries we have committed against the holy God are like
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  10,000 talents a debt so massive it's literally unpayable the.
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  Logic is just devastating. If you truly grasp the size of
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  the debt God has forgiven you. How can you turn around and
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  throttle your brother for his tiny debt to you?
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  To refuse to forgive, Edwards argues, is to practically
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  disapprove of God's forgiveness of you.
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  It's like saying I accept grace for me, but I demand strict
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  justice for everyone else. And if you demand strict justice
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  for others, you're inviting God to apply that same standard to
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  you. That's a terrifying place to be.
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  It is. It's a very dangerous prayer to
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  pray. Argument #3 is humility.
• 18:22
  This one gets to the root cause of our anger.
• 18:25
  Love for God shows us our own unworthiness.
• 18:28
  And what's the root of almost all anger?
• 18:31
  Pride. It's that feeling of how dare
• 18:33
  you treat me like that? Don't you know who I am?
• 18:35
  We feel like we're big and the insult is beneath our station.
• 18:38
  Precisely. But the humble person, the
• 18:41
  person who has stood before the holiness of God, doesn't see
• 18:44
  themselves as big. They see themselves as a Sinner
• 18:46
  saved by grace. So when someone insults them, it
• 18:49
  doesn't land with the same force.
• 18:51
  Because they're already thinking you don't know the half of it.
• 18:54
  My own conscience has called me far worse things than that.
• 18:57
  You've hit it. It deflates the ego if yourself
• 19:00
  image isn't built on a lie of your own, perfection and insult
• 19:03
  can't shatter it. A humble person is hard to
• 19:06
  offend because they're already low to the ground.
• 19:08
  You can't fall very far from the floor.
• 19:11
  Right now, for argument 4, this one feels like the most
• 19:14
  distinctly Reformed argument of the bunch.
• 19:16
  Providence, the sovereignty of God.
• 19:19
  This is the absolute game changer, the core ideas that a
• 19:22
  love for God leads us to see his hand in the injury, not just the
• 19:27
  hand of the person who hurt us. He uses that incredible story of
• 19:31
  David and Shimei. It's.
• 19:32
  One of the most powerful stories in the Old Testament.
• 19:34
  David is on the run, his own son Absalom is trying to kill him.
• 19:37
  He is at his absolute lowest point and this guy Shimei from
• 19:41
  the House of Saul comes out and starts throwing rocks and dust
• 19:44
  at him, cursing him. He's kicking a man when he's
• 19:46
  down. It's just cruel.
• 19:48
  And David's General Abishai says what any of us would think.
• 19:51
  Why should this dead dog curse? My Lord, the King let me go over
• 19:53
  and take off his head. Which would have been completely
• 19:55
  justified. It was treason.
• 19:57
  But David's response is just shocking.
• 20:00
  He says no. And his reason is, the Lord has
• 20:03
  said to him, curse David. He looks right past.
• 20:06
  He looks past the secondary cause, the angry man with the
• 20:09
  rocks, and he sees the primary cause, the sovereign hand of
• 20:14
  God, using this humiliation for some greater purpose, maybe for
• 20:18
  correction, maybe for a trial of faith.
• 20:20
  So if I apply that when my Co worker insults me, the real
• 20:25
  issue isn't just the Co worker, it's that God in his wisdom has
• 20:30
  ordained for me to experience this insult right now for my
• 20:33
  good. It completely reframes the
• 20:35
  event. You stop raging at the person,
• 20:36
  the stick that hit you, and you look to the hand that's holding
• 20:39
  the stick. Your question changes from how
• 20:42
  do I get revenge on this person to Lord, what are you trying to
• 20:45
  teach me through this? It transforms the injury into a
• 20:48
  potential means of grace. That's a radical shift, and the
• 20:51
  final argument #5 is superior happiness.
• 20:54
  This is the idea that if you truly love God, your happiness
• 20:57
  is located somewhere that your enemies can't touch.
• 21:00
  He uses the analogy of a fortress.
• 21:02
  If your treasure, your true source of joy and security, is
• 21:05
  in heaven in the favor of God, then earthly attacks are like
• 21:09
  arrows bouncing off a high Stonewall.
• 21:12
  An enemy can hurt your reputation.
• 21:14
  They can take your money. They cannot touch your standing
• 21:17
  with God. He quotes Mephibosheth, who
• 21:20
  after a dispute over his land, tells David let him take it all.
• 21:23
  For as much as my Lord the King is come again in peace to his
• 21:26
  own house. It's such a beautiful
• 21:27
  declaration of what really matters.
• 21:29
  I have the king back. The land is just dirt.
• 21:32
  If we truly believe that having God is our greatest treasure,
• 21:36
  then losing a bit of reputation or money doesn't devastate us.
• 21:40
  It's a question of where you've stored your happiness.
• 21:42
  OK, so that's the theological foundation.
• 21:44
  It's deep and it's solid. Now Edwards moves into what he
• 21:47
  calls motives and improvement. He's trying to give us practical
• 21:50
  reasons to actually live this out, and he starts with the
• 21:53
  biggest one, the example of Christ.
• 21:55
  Yes, we've talked about imitating God the Father's
• 21:58
  patience, but now he zooms in on the life of Jesus.
• 22:01
  He was the Lord of glory, and yet he was, in Edwards's words,
• 22:05
  set at naughty. He was treated like he was
• 22:07
  nothing. And the list of specific
• 22:10
  injuries is just brutal. He wasn't just disagreed with,
• 22:13
  he was called a glutton, A drunkard, a friend of tax
• 22:17
  collectors and sinners. They accused him of being
• 22:19
  insane. In John's gospel they say he has
• 22:22
  a demon and is mad. Can you imagine the eternal
• 22:25
  word, the very logic and reason of God being called a madman by
• 22:29
  his own creatures? They called him a Samaritan,
• 22:31
  which was the ultimate ethnic slur of the day.
• 22:34
  They called him a deceiver. And it wasn't just words.
• 22:37
  They threatened him physically. They tried to stone him.
• 22:40
  They tried to throw him off a Cliff.
• 22:42
  And through every single bit of it, Edwards points out, Jesus
• 22:45
  maintained his internal calm. He never retaliated.
• 22:48
  He went, as Isaiah prophesied, like a lamb to the slaughter and
• 22:53
  on the cross itself in the middle of the ultimate injury.
• 22:55
  He's praying for his murderers father.
• 22:57
  Forgive them. He's not just passively
• 22:59
  enduring, he's actively seeking the good of those who are
• 23:02
  killing him, Edwards says. That is the pattern for us.
• 23:06
  If the master endured this, the servant should not expect a life
• 23:09
  of ease. That flows right into his second
• 23:11
  motive, which is simply the nature of the world, A reality
• 23:14
  check. Right, Jesus himself told us.
• 23:17
  Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.
• 23:21
  We need to manage our expectations.
• 23:24
  This is not heaven. This is a fallen world.
• 23:27
  I love the image he uses. He says.
• 23:28
  Being agitated by an injury is like a sailor being surprised by
• 23:32
  a storm at sea. It's a perfect metaphor.
• 23:34
  If you're a sailor, you expect storms.
• 23:37
  It comes with the territory. If you're a Christian living in
• 23:40
  a fallen world, you should expect to be treated unjustly.
• 23:43
  Sometimes it comes with the territory to be shocked and
• 23:46
  outraged. I can't believe they did.
• 23:48
  That is, in a way, foolish. Of course they did.
• 23:51
  They're a Sinner living in a sinful world.
• 23:53
  So our anger is often a sign of our own unrealistic
• 23:56
  expectations. We're expecting Eden, and when
• 23:59
  we get the wilderness, we throw a fit.
• 24:00
  It's a failure of Christian realism.
• 24:02
  We forget where we are. Motive #3 is about true
• 24:04
  greatness. This is where he flips our
• 24:06
  definition of strength on its head.
• 24:08
  He brings up Proverbs 16.32. He who is slow to anger is
• 24:12
  better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who
• 24:15
  takes a city. Better than a great conqueror.
• 24:18
  Think about that. Our world idolizes the
• 24:22
  conquerors, the people who impose their will through force.
• 24:26
  But God says the person who can control their own temper is
• 24:30
  greater than the one who can conquer an entire city.
• 24:33
  The real battle is internal. Edwards uses another water
• 24:36
  metaphor here. He says little shallow streams
• 24:39
  make a lot of noise when they hit small obstacles of babbling
• 24:42
  brook. But a mighty Deep River flows
• 24:44
  silently over those same obstacles.
• 24:46
  Think of a massive river like the Amazon.
• 24:48
  You drop a car into it and it'll just swallow it up and keep
• 24:51
  moving. He's saying that noise and
• 24:52
  agitation are signs of spiritual shallowness.
• 24:55
  Meekness, the silent absorption of injury, is a sign of
• 24:59
  spiritual depth and greatness. And the Babylon metaphor.
• 25:02
  Yes, the walls of ancient Babylon were said to be so high
• 25:05
  and thick that when an army came to besiege them, the people
• 25:08
  inside would just stand on the walls and laugh.
• 25:10
  They were completely safe, Edwards says.
• 25:13
  A meek soul is fortified like that.
• 25:15
  The insults and injuries are thrown, but they can't get over
• 25:17
  the wall to disturb the inner peace.
• 25:19
  That's a powerful picture. Not the laugh of mockery, but
• 25:21
  the laugh of absolute security. His fourth motive is the example
• 25:25
  of the Saints. It's not just Jesus.
• 25:27
  Other mere mortals have lived this way.
• 25:30
  He. Brings up David again, his
• 25:32
  relationship with Saul. Saul was hunting him like an
• 25:34
  animal, and David had two clear opportunities to kill Saul and
• 25:38
  end his suffering. But he refused to touch the
• 25:41
  Lord's anointed. He chose to wait on God's
• 25:43
  timing. And Stephen, the first Christian
• 25:46
  martyr. As the stones are hitting him,
• 25:48
  His dying words are a prayer for his executioners.
• 25:52
  Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
• 25:54
  He's echoing His Master. It proves that this is possible
• 25:58
  for a human being filled with the Holy Spirit.
• 26:00
  And then Paul, he lists his own sufferings.
• 26:03
  Reviled, persecuted, homeless, treated like the scum of the
• 26:06
  earth. And what's his response?
• 26:08
  When we are reviled, we bless. It's the consistent witness of
• 26:11
  the sinks. They turn the world upside down
• 26:13
  not by fighting back with worldly weapons, but by out
• 26:16
  loving and out suffering their enemies.
• 26:17
  OK, so the motors are laid out, but Edwards is a good pastor.
• 26:20
  He knows that even after all this, we're still sitting here
• 26:23
  making excuses. Yes, but.
• 26:25
  So he moves into his final section, answering objections.
• 26:29
  And he anticipates them perfectly.
• 26:31
  They're the same objections we made today.
• 26:33
  Objection #1 The injury is too great.
• 26:35
  It's intolerable. Flesh and blood just can't bear
• 26:37
  this. And Edwards just immediately
• 26:39
  turns the mirror back on the objector.
• 26:41
  His response is, is it really, is this injury you've suffered
• 26:45
  worse than the injuries you have committed against God?
• 26:47
  Back to the 10,000 talents. Always back to that, he asks, Do
• 26:51
  you approve of God forgiving you for your massive debt?
• 26:54
  And if the answer is yes, then why won't you imitate him?
• 26:58
  And then he drops the hammer. If you pray the Lord's Prayer,
• 27:02
  forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
• 27:04
  And you are not forgiving. You are literally asking God not
• 27:07
  to forgive you. You're praying a curse on
• 27:09
  yourself. That's a sobering thought.
• 27:10
  It is OK objection too. But they won't stop.
• 27:14
  They persist in it. They keep doing it over and
• 27:16
  over. His response is twofold.
• 27:18
  First, God bears with your persistence.
• 27:21
  You sin every day. You don't just sin once and
• 27:24
  you're done. You persist in your sinfulness.
• 27:26
  And yet His mercy is new every morning.
• 27:29
  And second, he suggests, the persistence might be the whole
• 27:32
  point of the trial. Right.
• 27:34
  Maybe God is allowing it to continue to test and strengthen
• 27:37
  your grace. A muscle doesn't get strong from
• 27:39
  one lift. It needs sustained resistance
• 27:42
  over time. All right, Objection 3.
• 27:44
  This is the big one for modern years.
• 27:46
  If I don't fight back, they'll just walk all over me.
• 27:49
  My meekness will just encourage their bad behavior.
• 27:52
  I have to stand up for myself. This is the objection we all
• 27:55
  feel, and Edward's rebuttal is first you don't know the future.
• 27:59
  You assume that fighting back is the best strategy to stop the
• 28:02
  behavior, but observation often shows the opposite.
• 28:05
  Revenge just provokes more revenge.
• 28:07
  It's an escalating cycle. It is where's a meek and gentle
• 28:10
  answer can sometimes, not always, but sometimes, disarm an
• 28:13
  enemy. It puts the fire out by refusing
• 28:16
  to add more fuel. But the more theological part of
• 28:19
  his answer is the promise from Romans 12.
• 28:21
  Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.
• 28:24
  So if I take vengeance myself, I'm playing God, I'm stealing
• 28:26
  his job. And you're almost certainly
• 28:28
  worse at it than he is. The argument is, if you obey God
• 28:31
  by being meek, God himself will undertake your 'cause he will be
• 28:36
  your defender. You can trust him to bring about
• 28:38
  justice in his way, in his time. That requires an immense amount
• 28:42
  of faith. It's the whole ball game.
• 28:44
  It all comes back to whether or not you believe God is sovereign
• 28:47
  and just. So as we bring this deep dive to
• 28:50
  a close, Edwards leaves us with a final warning and a final
• 28:53
  vision. The warning is stark.
• 28:56
  God deals with us by the same standard we use for others.
• 29:00
  If we are harsh, critical and unforgiving, we cannot expect
• 29:03
  gentleness and forgiveness from Him.
• 29:05
  But then there's the vision he asks us to just imagine.
• 29:08
  Imagine a society where this spirit of meekness actually
• 29:12
  prevailed. No backbiting, no gossip, no
• 29:15
  fighting for position, no harsh words.
• 29:18
  Just a community of people patiently bearing with one
• 29:20
  another's faults in love. He says it would be a foretaste
• 29:24
  of heaven on earth. It really would.
• 29:25
  It would be what the Church is called to be.
• 29:27
  And I want to leave you with a final thought to chew on
• 29:29
  something. And it's woven through this
• 29:30
  whole sermon. We tend to think that the person
• 29:33
  who lands the last punch or gets in the last cutting remark is
• 29:37
  the winner. That's the world's definition of
• 29:39
  victory. But Edwards flips that
• 29:40
  completely. He suggests that if your enemy
• 29:43
  can disturb your inner peace, if they can make you lose your
• 29:46
  quietness and repose, then they have conquered you.
• 29:50
  They've gotten inside your walls.
• 29:51
  They are living rent free in your head.
• 29:53
  But if you can remain calm, if you can possess your soul in
• 29:57
  patience. Then you frustrated their entire
• 29:59
  goal. The arrow they shot at you has
• 30:02
  fallen harmlessly to the ground. You are the one who remains
• 30:05
  unconquered. The ultimate power move isn't
• 30:07
  striking back, it's having a soul so at peace in God that the
• 30:11
  injury can't even find a place to land.
• 30:13
  That is true strength. That is true greatness.
• 30:15
  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive at Reformed
• 30:18
  Thinking. We'll see you next time.