Let us read together from the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 5, verses 1 through 12. "And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.'"
Heavenly Father, we ask now that You would send the Holy Spirit to minister to our hearts the truth of Your Word in such a way that would raise our love and affection to You, in a way that would humble us under Your mighty hand, that You may exalt us in due time. We ask this in Jesus' name.
Last week, we considered verse 4 of the Beatitudes, which reads, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." We considered what spiritual mourning looks like and also the comfort that is promised to all those who experience that mourning. We looked at that blessed comfort that is now in the comfort that God gives to us as His people through His providences and His Word, but also in the age to come, where that comfort will be forevermore, where there will be no more sorrow and mourning and tears and pain, for God will make all things new.
We continue now to consider the next text before us in verse 5, which reads, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." The common question that comes to the mind, perhaps of many, is simply this: Is meekness to be regarded as weakness? And I think it depends by what is your authority and how, through whose lenses you're viewing it from, you might come to a different answer. For example, consider history's great conquerors that have conquered nations. I think of Alexander the Great, one of the greatest conquerors known in the history of our world, a great army general who, in his 13 years of reign, created one of the largest empires that span from Greece to northwestern India. The man was regarded as a very strong, mighty, unstoppable force, really a man of great strength who conquered nations and lands and who was very strategic and very skilled and had a way of securing his army so that they would do whatever he asked of them to do. And so, in many respects, we consider the greats that have gone on like him and Genghis Khan and all the other great conquerors, and we consider them as men of strength, men of great power, men of great authority.
But in the encyclopedia that I was reading that was giving information about Alexander the Great, it goes on to say this about him also: He was swift in anger and under the strain of his long campaigns, this side of his character grew more pronounced, ruthless and self-willed, showing no hesitation in eliminating men whom he had ceased to trust, either with or without pretense of a fair trial. And so, a man that is regarded as a great example of strength in the eyes of the world, in light of Scripture, is regarded quite the opposite. In Proverbs 16:32, it says, "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city." And so, here you have this man who is a great conqueror, whose life was not marked by meekness, and in the world's eyes, he's considered a man of strength and valor and might, an unstoppable force, but in the eyes of God, he is regarded as the weakest of the weak, for "he who rules his spirit is stronger than he who takes a city."
And so, meekness, in God's economy, is to be regarded as true strength. God, knowing the nature of man and the amount of grace that it requires to restrain him, teaches us of true meekness. Now, what is meekness? It's a very important thing to understand if we want to have any consideration of what Jesus is trying to say here. But a simple definition might refer to a mild, non-excessive temper of spirit. R.C. Trench goes on to explain it like this: It is an inward grace of the soul that is exercised primarily toward God. It is a quality of spirit that accepts God's dealings with us as good, without disputing or resisting them. And I think that's a good definition. It receives God's dealings with us as good, without resisting or opposing or kicking, if we could say, against them.
And the most common illustration that is used by many commentators is that of a horse, a wild horse that is being broken in. And the breaking in of a horse can take months, and perhaps even much longer than months, depending on how stubborn the horse is and how skilled the one who's breaking the horse in is. But the idea of breaking in a horse is trying to domesticate it in such a way as to break down that wildness of spirit that will not let that horse submit to the instruction of its master. And so the horse must be subdued, but that process is not necessarily that process of getting that horse down to the place of being harnessed and harnessing its power and its control. It's not a process of just simple force. Those that are trying to break in a horse are seeking to earn the trust of the horse, and there's a sense in which there must be a closeness and a way to communicate to the horse, and so to bring it into subjection.
And we are told in Scripture, in Psalm 32:9, that we are not to be like the horse or the mule, which has no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come to you or come near you. And there are many of us that are a little bit like that horse that has not been broken in, that the only way to get our attention is by a certain force. But it should not be so for God's people. We ought to be marked by meekness, with a wildness of our spirit that will not submit itself to the providence of God, to the Word of God, to the instruction of God. That must be broken, and so that we might be like that horse that is broken in, that hears and obeys and listens and trusts the goodwill of the master.
And so, when we consider this idea of meekness, or this concept of meekness, we are not talking about that which is natural. We are not born with it. It is something that requires taming to become meek. So it is not natural. Our wild spirit within, our disposition as people that are born into this world, is not one of meekness. It is one that doesn't like to submit itself to the ways that are not our own. And so now, we must understand that this is something that requires taming. It is not natural; it is spiritual. And beyond that, it is not only spiritual, but as I mentioned, it is related to trust. And it is not a matter merely of temperament, although just like some horses, they're easier tamed than others. But it's not just a matter of temperament; it's a matter of trust. It's a matter of conviction. It is a matter of conviction regarding God, who He is, His sovereignty, His purposes, His will, His authority. And as we enter into that sort of conviction, that spiritual conviction, then we will find ourselves to be more meek, more tamed, understanding not only His divine sovereignty but His care also for us.
And as Trench said in his definition, that this is God-ward, but even though it is God-ward, it affects, as all of us know, our relationships to one another. And so it is important to realize that our views of God affect the way that we behave to one another. And so it's simply not enough just to examine how we behave toward one another, but it should drive us to consider, "Am I thinking right about God and what He expects and who He is?" This meekness, that what is God-ward, receives from God all His providences without resisting them.
And I think the best way, or the best example of this, is Job himself. Two places in the book of Job, in the first two chapters, where Job declares emphatically his commitment to the sovereignty of God, despite his inability to understand everything that was taking place in his life. He says in Job 1:21, "Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Here is a man that loses his family, his livestock, his servants, all in a single day, and yes, he mourns, but he mourns and does not give up the hope that he has in God, that this God who gave everything to me has the sovereign right to remove everything from me, and I will still bless His name. This is meekness exemplified in his relationship to God.
And in the next chapter, in chapter 2, verse 9, Satan touches his body. God gives permission to Satan to afflict him with sores, boils from head to toe, and he's sitting there scraping them, and his wife comes to him and says, "Why don't you curse God and die?" Job responds to her, "Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord and not evil?" The Bible says, "And in all this, Job did not sin with his lips." Why? Because he was a man of meekness that trusted in the sovereign disposition of God. God was doing something that he did not understand, but he committed himself to the Lord and displayed such meekness. And so, not only is there this meekness that receives from God's providence as the things that God brings into our lives as good for us, but more than that, it receives God's Word also.
In James 1:21, it says that we are to put away all wickedness and filthiness, but it goes on to say, and we are to receive with meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save our souls. Not only are we to receive that which God brings into our life that we do not understand, but beyond that, we are to receive the Word of God and not kick against the commandments of the Lord. His commandments are meant to be to us as not grievous things, but that which we delight in, His law, His Word, and His commandments.
So the meek not only accept those hard providences from God as good, but beyond that, they simply, as Samuel said to God, "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant hears." And they do not kick against not only the providence of God but the Word of God. And that attitude that submits itself to the providence of God and the Word of God affects our relationship to others. Our conviction about God and His sovereignty and His providence and our conviction about God's Word as being authoritative is very important for our relationships with one another.
Paul goes on to explain to Timothy that the servant of the Lord must not strive or be quarrelsome, but he must be in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves. And then he goes on to say, "Lest peradventure, or perhaps, God may give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth." You know what he's saying to Timothy? Timothy, when you relate to others in your evangelistic efforts, understand this: that it is not your grappling and wrestling with them that is going to bring them into the kingdom. God must grant them repentance, and your job is to, in meekness, instruct them because they are opposing themselves. You're not to be quarrelsome in your dealings with them.
You can see how Paul's telling Timothy, "Trust in the sovereignty of God. You can't bring them to repentance; God brings them to repentance. So trust in what God will do, and you just present the gospel and be faithful to plead with them regarding the mercy of God found in Jesus Christ." And so it affects our relationships in our evangelism to one another, but not only that, in our restoration of others.
You know, in Galatians 6:1, it says that you which are spiritual should restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, lest we ourselves are also tempted. People are taken in a fault, and Paul says to the churches of Galatia, "You are not to bite and devour one another and fight with one another just because that brother's not doing what you expect them to do, but you are in meekness to confront them. You are in meekness to go up to them, and you are to instruct them and to encourage them, and in meekness, you are to remember that you are no different to them but for the grace of God." And so, not to think of yourself more highly than them, but also to gently instruct them, rebuke them, bring them back to where they need to be.
But if we don't have this understanding of meekness, what ends up happening? We don't understand that we are part of what God is doing in their lives, and we seek, as I've said to others in evangelism, we want to sow, reap, and all that in one sitting, or even in now trying to restore a brother, we want to see them now get right now. But we don't understand, and sometimes we can be forceful and over-the-top as a result of not understanding meekness.
But also, that affects the way in which we retaliate in our relationships to others and even our enemies. You know, if we don't have a strong confidence in the sovereignty of God, we will not know how to respond and to retaliate when things come to us that shock us, if we could say. I think of Abishai and Shimei. You don't know the story; I won't go into it all now, but Abishai, Shimei is cursing David the king, and Abishai is David's soldier, and he says, "David, let me go. I'm gonna cut his head off." Keen, anxious, ambitious, gonna take him down. And David, looking at this man as it were that was cursing him, replies to Abishai, saying this: "Let him curse, because the Lord has said to him, 'Curse David.' Who then shall say, 'Why have you done so?'" And what he's simply saying is David saying, "Don't you understand that in God's providence, this is happening to me? Abishai, do not try to take matters into your own hands and to secure results that you delight in. God is doing something here." And David humbly submitted himself to that hard providence and received the cursing of Shimei.
And so we see this in Scripture, that the relationships we have to evangelize or either lost and even to our enemies and even to those that are doing us harm, or even to our brothers, are all affected by our understanding of meekness. So I hope you understand this is a very relevant subject for us, that if your view of God falls short of the scriptural view, number one, and number two, if you are not walking in meekness and pursuing that pathway, you will soon start to find that your dealings with others will be very complicated, and you'll be marked as a troublesome person. You'll find yourself being an angry person that seeks to control outcomes that are not in your control, and beyond that, it obviously destroys the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel.
And so the pathway of meekness is one that we are to pursue, and the Bible gives us many examples of those that displayed such meekness. Do you remember the contention between Abraham and Lot over the land? Or there wasn't really much of a contention because it was between their herdsmen, and Abraham wouldn't enter into the contention. What did Abraham say? "Please, let there be no strife between us; we are brethren." He said to his nephew, the uncle said to his nephew, "No strife between us." He didn't say, "I'm taking that land; you're my nephew, get out of here." He said, "No, let there be no strife between us. Take whatever land you want." What's so interesting is that Abraham was residing in God, that God would give Abraham the land that God wanted Abraham to have. And it's so interesting that the land that Lot chose was the land that was not of Canaan; it was of Sodom, towards Sodom. And the land that God had for Abraham and promised to Abraham was the land of Canaan. You see how God, just in His providence, worked it out without Abraham having to wrest it to get his own way.
Beyond that, we see even with Moses, when his family, which is Miriam and Aaron, they question him, and they undermine what God had called him to do, and they turn the people of God against him. And Moses, he had all the right to declare judgment upon them. What we see of Moses is that he goes before the Lord, and he pleads that God will have mercy on them, even when God judged them. God, Moses intercedes for his enemies, those that were doing him harm, so that they might be delivered from the judgment of God because he was a man, as the Bible says, that was the meekest man in all the earth. Moses, what an example.
But the greatest example of all, no doubt, is the Lord Jesus Christ, is it not? The one of whom the Prophet said, "My servant shall not cry, nor shall his voice be heard in the streets." He was not coming as a mighty conqueror; He came on a donkey, lowly, meek, riding into the city. And He came not as an aggressive conqueror like Alexander the Great, but He did conquer the nations by His love and by His mercy and by His tenderness. And the Prophet said of Him, "A bruised reed shall He not break, and a smoking flax shall He not quench." The bruised reed, which is the reed in the garden that just is so feeble because it just gets knocked over when someone walks through the bushes, He comes to that broken person, and He straightens them up and wants to see them restored. The outcast, the defeated, He gently comes when the conquerors give no consideration to these ones. He comes and ministers grace to them. And the smoking flax, which is the wick of the candle that's just about to go out, where most people just go, "Get out of here; it's done," He comes to that and He extends the wick and He gives more light to that candle. That is the flickering torch that is about to give way, and He sparks that flame that is just about to go out, and He gives life to that flame. This is the Lord Jesus, the bruised reed He won't break, and a smoking flax He will not quench. And in meekness, He was not marked by quarreling and fighting and aggressiveness, but as one who submitted Himself to the will of God.
And Peter says that we should follow in His steps, that when He was reviled, He reviled not again, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously. You see what the Bible is teaching us here? The Lord Jesus was reviled by the leaders, by the Jews, by His own people, and what happened? Did He revile in return when the thieves cursed Him from the cross? No, He was quick to say when they repented, "Father, forgive them also, for they know not what they do." All His offenders, He had mercy upon them. He was meek, not responding in ridicule, not calling, as it were, twelve legions of angels to come and rescue Him from the garden, but He submits Himself to the will of the Father, knowing that God's way is best.
You say, "This is an amazing meekness. How can I obtain it? How can we obtain this meekness?" Well, first, we must get a right view of God. God as sovereign, and not only as sovereign, as God who cares. And this is very important to couple those two things together, that the God who works all things after the counsel of His own will works all things together for good to them that love the Lord. The God who is overall, the Judge of all the earth, calls us in Peter that we should cast all our cares upon Him, for He cares for us.
You see, Christ Jesus had this view of the Father. He says in 1 Peter that He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously. And so here we have the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, suffering the death of the cursed when He is sinless, and He's being reviled and persecuted, and the Bible doesn't say that He just acted in meek passivity, but no, His active action in that moment was a committing Himself to the sovereign Lord, the one who judges righteously, the one who sees everything that is happening, the one who's hearing all the reproach of my enemies, and He commits Himself to the Lord, to His Father.
So we need a right view of God if we want to ever obtain this grace of meekness. But also, we need a right view of ourselves, and the view that we need of ourselves is that we are not rulers; we are stewards, and we are stewards of that which belongs to God. You see, Moses understood that the people that God had called him to shepherd, if we could say, all the people that God had called him to lead, were the Lord's people; they weren't Moses's people. And so what happened was when they spoke against Moses, when things got sticky in the relationship, Moses went to their Father, the Father of those people, and his own Father, to talk with them, to help them. "Look, these are Your people. You asked me to do this; this is what's happening. Lord, take care of the situation." You see that there, he's trusting in the Lord, his God, and he realizes and recognizes that he is not the one that is to exercise lordship but to serve God's people.
Not only that, we have to get a right view of the world. You know, we get so angry so often because we place so much emphasis upon the things of this life. Get angry when we don't get our way with a good deal, perhaps, or things go wrong in the job or in a workplace, or whatever it is, and we don't get that land that we were bidding on for the house or for the auction, or whatever. Things don't work out as we planned. The bank comes back and tells you, "You can't get as much as you want," whatever it is, and we get enraged and frustrated and all these things, and it's because we place so much emphasis upon the fleeting.
See what happened with Abraham and Lot? So little emphasis on the fleeting, so much emphasis on the grace and goodness of God because he looked for a city which had foundations, whose builder and maker was God. And he was not so concerned about the scrap fight between him and Lot and their servants. He said, "You choose. God will give me what He wants to give me in His timing, and I will trust in Him," and not place an overemphasis on the fleeting things of this world. And as soon as we do that, we become angry and anxious and controlling and trying to secure the things that are just fleeting.
Lastly, we need a right view of government. What I mean by that is this: that authority, we need to learn to love authority. It's part of God's way of bringing peace, order to society, to homes, families, to churches, to workplaces, whatever it may be. Wherever there is relationships, there is authority, if we could say, in any given organization of sort. And we need to learn to love that which God loves. God's wisdom includes authority, and when we despise authority and despise any sort of rule, what ends up happening in our lives is that we end up ultimately despising God, who is the ultimate source of authority. "The powers that be, the authorities that are now, they are ordained of God," the Bible teaches us. And the Bible teaches us that we are to honor authorities, we are to respect authorities, and sometimes we don't understand this, but if we don't learn to love authority, we will not cultivate submission in our lives, and it will start infiltrating in every area of our lives where we will not submit to authorities in our lives, and we will end up fracturing relationships time and time again, and we'll become angry and embittered because we will not submit ourselves to God's order.
So we need to learn to love government if we ever want to have this inward grace also. And you say, "Joshua, how can I know if I'm meek? These are all things that I need to get, yes, but how can I know if I'm meek?" Here is a litmus test, and it's challenging questions. Let me ask them, and you examine yourself this morning. How do you know if you are meek? Are you approachable? You see, with tamedness comes approachability. You know, you see a stray dog on the street, and it's not quite approachable, is it? Don't have them too much here, but we were in the Solomon Islands; there are a lot of stray dogs, and they're not the kind of dogs that you go up to and pat. They're wild; they're not tamed; you cannot be trusted. But you see one with an owner and a collar, straightaway we're a lot more open, aren't we, to come into that dog, and it's much more approachable, if we could say. And it's the same thing with the horse. When the horse is still wild, the one who's trying to break it in keeps a bit of a distance from the horse, and as it's starting to be broken in, it comes more closer to the horse and relates more closely and dearly to the horse.
And so the question is simply, are you approachable, or do people feel like they need to walk on eggshells when they're around you? Are you patient or short-fused? Do you trust that although your will is not fulfilled, God's will shall be fulfilled, and that's sufficient enough? Are you teachable, ready to learn and ready to listen? You see, the angry person is not teachable; they have made up their mind and are seeking to tell everybody else everything that they know and force them into their mold, as opposed to learning things that they perhaps have not considered. As James says, "Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God." And so we ought to be swift to hear; that's probably why God gave us two ears, slow to speak; it's probably why He gave us one mouth, alright? And the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God. It's simply saying that if we learn to be heeding when people speak to us and learning and humble, we will be regarded as meek.
Do you do that? Do you listen and desire to learn, or are you marked by frustration, and you feel like it's a waste of time to listen? And then, are you submissive? What I mean by that, are you ready to obey God? Are you ready to obey? You say, "Well, I'm ready to obey, but only if I agree." That's an interesting statement. If you know, if you agree before you obey, that means you're obeying your will, not the will of another. Of course, if there are matters that violate Scripture and violate conscience according to the Word of God, the Bible teaches that we are to uphold that. But if not, submission means not doing what we want to do necessarily but doing what we are expected to do. We expect that of our children, that they would obey us even though they don't want to obey us, and that's related to submission. The same goes in all relationships, even in the home, even in the church, within the jurisdiction that God has set up these authorities. There are limitations to that authority, we understand, but submission is the mark of the meek.
So are you submissive? And then lastly, are you regarded as a pleasant person? You know, meekness is attractive. The Bible teaches that a contentious wife is one that sends her husband to the rooftop and drives him out to the wilderness, and the thing can be applied not only to wives but also to husbands and to any relationship. People hate to be around contention and a contentious spirit, a spirit marked by anger, is a person that is not pleasant to be around. Are you pleasant to be around? Do people feel that they may come to you and enjoy your company and want to be around you, or are they afraid that the wildness of your spirit might burst forth at any moment and affect the tranquility of the enjoyment of that conversation? Are you pleasant? You know, it talks about a meek and quiet spirit, and I can only think about that tranquil scene of like a mountain range, and you just sit there, and it's nice and quiet and beautiful. You just don't want to leave. That's like the company of the meek. You just want to be around the meek.
And this is what the Bible teaches us. The meek are pleasant to be around. And so these qualities in you, I want to just look briefly at the last statement here that Jesus makes in this text. He says, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." What is the blessedness that God promises to the meek? Can I just say this? This is a very unusual statement that the meek shall inherit the earth. And what I mean by its unusual, it's so counter-cultural and contrary to what people think. Who are the possessors of the earth? The great and mighty warriors that go about conquering nations by their own power, by their own strength, and by their own wisdom. These are the ones that possess the earth. These are the ones that have the earth in their possession.
But Jesus goes on to say that the meek, the submissive, the one that resides upon God, they are the ones that will possess the earth. They are the ones that do inherit the earth. And this unusual statement has a word in there that helps us understand that the meek shall not conquer the earth, but listen to what it says: the meek shall inherit the earth. And the one thing that is true of an inheritance is that it is not gotten by our own power; it is not gotten by our own strength, but it is given to us by reason of our relationship to the one who has put it in his will.
And Jesus is telling His disciples here that you see these mighty conquerors like Herod and Caesar and all these people, like the Lords of the Gentiles that overpower the earth, but not so in My kingdom. You are united to Me by faith. I am your Savior. I am your Lord. He is My Father in heaven; therefore, He is your Father in heaven, and you are an heir with Me of the promises that God has made for all those who are united with Me. And He says the meek will inherit the earth.
You see, the earth comes to the people of God not by means of their force but by means of their submission to the one who owns the earth, who rules the earth, who has promised to give them one day rule over the earth. And I want us to see this very important connection because when we are not meek and we are angry and controlling, seeking to secure our own ends, we are acting as Lords and rulers over a kingdom which God has not yet given to us. And we set up a kingdom in our home, and we want to dominate people. We set up a kingdom in the church, and we seek to dominate people. We set up a kingdom in our workplace, and we want to dominate people. But Jesus tells us, no, no, you don't inherit any of those things by your strength but by the inheritance of God. He wills it so for you to have it, and He will give it to you in His time.
God has promised the earth to the meek. Let me just read a few scriptures that will help us get this in closing. Daniel 7:27: "Then the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him." Yes, they will serve and obey Him, but the kingdom will be given to the people, God's people.
In 2 Timothy 2:12, he says, "If we endure, we shall also reign with Him." Revelation repeatedly talks about the fact that we have been made kings and priests unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and we shall reign on the earth. Even at the end and the consummation of all things, when we see in the end of the book of Revelation, the Lord Jesus, and John writes of this, he says, "There shall be no night there; in heaven, they need no lamp nor light, nor no lights," it says, "for the Lord gives them light." And it's not, it says here, "and they shall reign forever and ever."
Do you understand what's happening here? That God has promised the kingdom to His Son, and we are co-heirs with Christ and shall co-reign with Him forevermore in His glorious kingdom. And who are the ones that reign with Him? Who are the ones that are given thrones to rule over the kingdom of God with our Lord Jesus Christ? It is those that are regarded as meek, those that are His people, those that are humble and subservient now in this life to His providences and also in this life to His Word.
So the challenges come to us this morning. Are we like Gentile Lords, like true disciples of Jesus? Our lives marked by anger, pride, arrogance, or by meekness of disposition that resides in the goodwill and pleasure of God, knowing that God is on the throne and He cares for us? Do we lord it over those that God has given us a measure of authority over, or do we serve them as our Lord Jesus Christ did? Do we seek to struggle out of the hardships of life, or do we understand that what God brings into our life is good for us? Or do we murmur and complain when we're tried in the wilderness, like the Jewish people there that cried out, "Oh, I want to go back to Egypt because it's just too hard here," not realizing that God was doing something very specific in their life to bring them into the land of His promise?
We, out of all people, are to be marked by meekness. We are the people of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are the people of the one who hung upon that cross, bearing our sins in His own body upon the tree, the one who was just suffering for the unjust. We are the people that should resemble Him in our relationships in the world. It is the world that is marked by anger, pride, and bitterness, and envy, and strife, to seek to establish their own kingdom. But it is the people of God that look to their Savior, and they receive the reproach that He received, and they trust in Him.
You see, we are not like the ungodly who do not have the true and living God that rules over all. You see, they think that they are gods, and they have to secure their own ends. No, we are the people of the everlasting God who trust in the living God and believe in Him that His ways are perfect and that He shall provide for all of our needs. But so often, we come down to the level of ungodliness and worldliness and behave like the unbelievers. We seek to secure our ends by corruption and anger and pride and bitterness, and we do not reside in God. We fracture our relationships; we hurt people; we destroy our lives and the lives of others, all because our way is not secured.
But if only we understood who our God is and believed on our Savior and followed in His steps, we would be like those that are meek, that depend upon the Lord, not marked by murmuring but submitted to the will of God. You like the disciples of Jesus that wanted to call fire down from heaven to destroy the Samaritans because they didn't receive Jesus well? You like the Lord Jesus who had the spirit of meekness, who said, "I came not into the world to destroy the world, but I've come to save men's souls."
Let us pray.