Sunday message · Beatitudes series
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Message Summary
In the third message of the Beatitudes series, Pastor Phillip Santillan reads Matthew 5:1–5 and focuses on verse 5: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Success, he says, often depends on counterintuitive truths: to get more energy, spend energy; to hit a golf ball farther, relax your grip. We learn them the hard way or from a master, and Jesus is that master: last is first, giving is receiving, dying is living, the least is the greatest.
Meek does not mean weak. Strong’s Concordance describes the Greek word as accepting God’s dealings with us as good and relying on him rather than our own strength to defend against injustice. “Meek is the strength to be selfless,” Phil says, and no one was more selfless than Jesus, who though he was God took the humble position of a slave and died on a cross, so God raised him to the highest honor (Philippians 2:5–11).
At the heart of meekness is also an engaged commitment to forgiveness and restoration. The same word appears when Paul tells believers to gently and humbly help someone overcome by sin back onto the right path (Galatians 6:1), to be patient and make allowance for each other’s faults, to gently instruct those who oppose the truth (2 Timothy 2:25), and to avoid quarreling and be gentle instead (Titus 3:2). Meekness is not rolling over; it can stand firm in the truth.
Luke 7:36–50 shows meekness in action. At a Pharisee’s dinner, a woman known as a sinner weeps at Jesus’ feet, wipes them with her hair and anoints them with perfume. Jesus tells his host a parable of two forgiven debtors, declares that her many sins have been forgiven, so she has shown much love, and tells her that her faith has saved her. Poor in spirit and mourning her sin, she defied her culture to come to Jesus, which Phil calls not weakness but meekness. Inheriting the land, which Israel longed for, means belonging to Jesus’ kingdom.
On our own we cannot be meek. Children do not naturally forgive, and our culture prizes assertiveness and payback. Paul lists the works of the sinful nature and warns that those who live that way will not inherit the kingdom of God, but the Spirit produces fruit that includes gentleness, the same word (Galatians 5). We grow in meekness as we turn to Jesus and live by his Spirit. In his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, Kent Hughes lists warning signs that meekness is missing: harshness, grasping, vengefulness and uncontrolled anger.
Phil closes with Jesus’ invitation to come to him for rest, take his yoke and learn from him, for he is gentle and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:28–29). A master would often yoke a young ox to an experienced one so it could learn to follow his direction. We learn meekness the same way, yoked to Christ and following his lead, which means reading the Bible, because “if you don’t read the manual, you can’t complain when things don’t go right.”
