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Continuing our series on the Sermon on the Mount (you can go back and read blessed are the poor in spirit and blessed are those who mourn), today we’re taking a look at Matthew 5:5-

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.

I won’t spend too much time on this – if you missed it I’d encourage you to go back and read Meekness, Anger’s Bridle from back in June.

I did find the definition of meekness in the lexical aids to my study Bible to be so interesting.

“Meekness, not in a man’s outward behavior only nor in his relations to his fellowman or his mere natural disposition, rather it is an inwrought grace of the soul and the expressions of it are first and chiefly toward God. That attitude of spirit in which we accept God’s dealings with us as good and do not dispute or resist. Prautes, according to Aristotle, is the middle course in being angry, standing between two extremes- getting angry without reason, and not getting angry at all. Therefore, prautes is getting angry at the right time, in the right measure, and for the right reason. Prautes is not readily expressed in English since the term “meekness” suggests weakness, but prautes is a condition of mind and heart which demonstrates gentleness not in weakness but power. It is a virtue born in strength of character.”

As I am humble and broken before God, as I both intellectually assent to the fact of my sin and am broken over it, meekness is a natural follow-up. I am meek before God when I accept what He has brought or allowed into my life without rebelling against Him, trusting Him to be a good and true God whose ways are higher than my own. I am meek before my fellowman as I appropriately bridle my anger.

There is a right time, reason, and expression of anger. Meekness is not covering over another’s sin and patting them on the head to assure them of their innate goodness. It is not being a doormat. But dealing with another in meekness means that 1. I am genuinely humble – I recognize who I really am as a redeemed but sinful human being, 2. I take my own sin very seriously, and 3. I take sin seriously in others because I recognize the deep affront it is to my holy God.

There are some things that should make us angry. Very angry. But typically, when we express anger it gets all mixed in with pride and self-righteousness and becomes very ugly, attacking, and cruel.

Just to make this more applicable…

I definitely understand and agree with many of the deep concerns that so many of my fellow conservative Christian Americans have expressed over the Obama administration. I do not like the direction our country is taking. I have strong opinions about the healthcare plan, etc. [State-funded abortion makes me very angry. Appropriately so.]

But friends, how much of our anger is being expressed correctly, in the right way, in the right measure, over the right things? How often do our deep convictions and opinions come across as arrogant attacks rather than as a longing for righteousness that flows from recognizing the stench of our own sin? (And please, please remember that we are commanded to respect and submit to our authorities, whether we agree with them or not!!)

Guess what – we don’t have to go to war against people. Do we need to stand for Truth? Of course. Do we need to do what we can to influence our culture toward God-honoring principles? Absolutely. But, rest assured – we know the end of the story, and the Sovereign God of the universe has already made magnificent promises to us:

A little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look for them, they will not be found.
But the meek will inherit the land
and enjoy great peace.
Psalm 37:10-11