Happy Are The Harnessed - Part 1

Christian within the required weakness weakness character for those who lick assertiveness but originally does not want because middle of the records of the Jeremiah considers what the Bryson good through the advertisement request is essential for life of happiness happy happy. According to Jesus to introduce his message happy harness well were never more at odds with the world system than when we try to understand and live by the sayings of Jesus: Beatitudes we read the message.

True words but wonder if anybody besides Jesus ever live that way of really practical given really work and today when I talk about one of those characteristic one of the Beatitudes. Blessed are the meek.

Let's admit it, we don't like the word but when we understand it will will know how blessedness comes from going to spend two days on this. I hope you'll join us today and tomorrow as we talk about happy are the hardest. Blessed are the meek, this is Matthew chapter 5 verse five.

Well let's get started with this discussion is according to Jesus, everything we've ever been told about getting ahead in this world is wrong. The world says believe in yourself. Jesus says, believe in me the world to strive to be number one. Jesus says the last shall be first and the first shall be last words is winning is everything. It's the only thing Jesus says he who finds his life will lose it, and he loses his life for my sake will find it… Don't get mad, get even Jesus says love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you world says stand up for your rights. Jesus says lay down your life the world teaches us to assert ourselves. Jesus teaches us to deny ourselves the world teaches us how to get ahead. Jesus teaches us how to give ourselves away. The world says the one with the most toys wins. Jesus says you can gain the whole world and lose your own soul. And what of your God never, ever, are we more at odds with the world and its system than when we try to understand and implement the sayings of Jesus we know as the Beatitudes. Somehow, when we read them we know that his words are true but we wonder in our hearts.

If anyone anywhere has ever lived by the we've already talked about two of them.

Happy are the humble, for they shall be filled. Happy are the hurting, for they shall be comforted.

If you think you ran up against everything you ever believed in those two wait to you get a handle on the one were to talk about today. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. I think Don McCullough speaks for all of us when he writes meekness. Let's admit it, we don't like the word it tastes insipid. It smells like morning mouth.

It looks like Casper milquetoast. It has the strength of a cooked noodles.

Coaches don't rally teams with meekness executives don't send salespeople into the field and politicians don't promise to lead by meekness. Parents don't counsel children to develop it in their lives and generals don't embolden troops with the speech on meekness. You won't find anyone offering seminars on meekness training probably should be examined. He said by the House committee on un-American activities in the Christian realm. I'm sure there are some of you who believe that this beatitude approves of passive dependent personality that is somehow holier to feel in adequate and inferior, that the Christians cross in life is to be a doormat for the world one modern critic of the Bible says it this way okay you want to believe that going and believing. And if you do, the beatitude will come true for you. If you are making your life you will inherit the earth. 6 feet up. Barclay says to modern ears.

The word meekness describes a week flabby milk and water, spineless creature lacking in all the virility, submissive and subservient to a fault, unable to stand up for himself or for anyone else but that is very far from the original meaning of the word, the meaning of the words that Barclay is so great and so comprehensive that it almost defies translation Blessed are the meek.

Now, in order to understand this word will have to look in the Old Testament. First, and then back to the New Testament for the use of the Old Testament is different than its use in the New Testament, but it's only as we combine the two that we really get an understanding of what it means to us today. I suppose some of you wonder where Jesus got all the sayings we know as the Beatitudes.

I'm sure since he was the Lord he could've originated the ball immediately on that moment.

But if you study them, you will discover that some of them came from Jesus knowledge of the Old Testament and here is one when Jesus said blessed are the meek.

He quoted the 37th Psalm turn in your Bibles there. We Psalm 37 this some of David is one of my favorite and if you will notice there are at least five different places in Psalm 37 where David gets close to saying exactly what Jesus said in fact in one place he says exactly what Jesus said and this is where Jesus quoted this beatitude from. Look at verse nine and Psalm 37 and notice it says those who wait on the Lord. They shall inherit the earth. Verse 11. The meek shall inherit the earth. There is that's where Jesus took this beatitude from verse 22 says it this way, those blessed by him, shall inherit the earth. Verse 29 the righteous shall inherit the land. Verse 34 wait on the Lord and keep his way, and he shall exalt you to inherit the land. Now if you followed in your Bibles and read those verses with me, you will discover that two of them speak of waiting on the Lord and perhaps nothing is as close to the understanding of meekness in the Old Testament is that truth right there meekness in Hebrew thought is the man who obediently accepts God's guidance, who humbly accepts whatever God sends who is dear to God, whose life is strengthened and beautified by the gifts which only God can give to such a man is a man who was compliant to the will of God. According to David this attitude of life is the only way to be happy. It's the only way to live above the difficulties and the despairs of normal living. I don't know about you but I often turn to the Psalms and I type something I've learned about the Psalms. There's a Psalm for every mood you ever had. If you just read through the Psalms you will find it. First of all, the Psalms were written by human beings like David.

David was a melancholy in many ways, and a man who was very deep in his feelings and often express them in the Psalms that he wrote whenever I get discouraged, I turned to Psalm 37. Have you ever noticed how discouragement sneaks up on you how you can take the big things in stride and be like a man and then the little things that you never thought of sneak up on your blindside all the sudden you're asking yourself why my feeling so bad today and you realize you been ruminating on something that's gotten in your heart.

Well, I want to show you how. David says were to deal with that. First of all read verse one and the 37th Psalm and read the first phrase it says do not fret. You see that anybody know what it means to fret, said out loud worry. Don't worry, I looked on in verses seven and eight and you will see that phrase twice more.

Do not fret verse seven do not fret verse eight. Now watch this. Do not fret verse one do not fret verse eight and in between. I want you to go back and read the verbs in the verses that I've underlined my Bible verse three trust in the Lord.

Verse four delight in the Lord.

Verse 5 Commit Your Way to the Lord. Verse seven. Rest in the Lord. Now watch this. Don't fret Don Fred in between rest trust. Commit delight in the Lord you not to keep from worrying Stuart Davidson be a meek person. You know what meekness is meekness is accepting God's will in your life and leaving it up to him it's giving it up to God.

God, this is yours. This is your thing.

I'm not going to worry about it I'm gonna rest in you. I'm going to trust in you. I'm going to delight in you. I want to commit myself to you and I'm not going to fret single passenger might anybody ever do that yes they did in the Old Testament and in the new there's some illustrations of people who lived in meekness. Do you remember old Job. I like to call him old Job is just read about his troubles makes them seem old I've ever heard of anybody who ever went through anything like what that poor man went through and lost everything in his life and one day he lost his whole family. All quite the one that he should've lost hung around terrorized them through all this trouble was the worst thing that ever happened to Joe. He lost his possessions. He lost everything and I'm sure there were times when Job was thinking in the midst of all of this, Lord why is this happening to me Joe when Job was pressured to fret. Here's what he said Lord gives and the Lord takes away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. Job 121 while later on in the 13th chapter of his book chapter 13 verse 15 when pressure was at its intensity. Job cried out of the midst of his pressures though he slay me, yet I will trust him when Job done given it up to God. You know why God brings us to the end of ourselves because that's the only way some of us will ever get to him.

He lets problems come into our lives and pressure us and pushes back against the wall because what he wants us to do every day of our life is to give it up to him to live in his will and sometimes the only way will do.

That is when we don't have any options left.

There's no place to look up there's another one that I think of who live like that. This is a woman by the name of Mary. It was the Lord's mother, we often underestimate what she faced as the mother of our Lord. But think of it for a moment, a young teenage girl discovering that she is pregnant and then being told by someone from another world that that which was within her womb, was of God that she was being chosen to be the mother of the Lord and that she was with child of the Holy Ghost you know what Mary said. Mary said, behold, the handmaid of the Lord be unto me according to thy word. Lord I just I don't understand this, you know you have lots of problems in your life. But most of the problems you had other people have had.

I've had lots problems in my life, but there's a commonality Mary had a problem in her life. Nobody had ever had before.

Whatever happened after that she did set gave the guy she gave it up to God's you see in the strength of our human personality with an get out God's wants to work it out. He wants us to give it up. Perhaps the one who did this more than anyone who ever walked on this earth was our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane when the pressure of carrying the sin of the whole world finally was beginning to rest upon his shoulders began to feel the pressure of that weight, he said, Lord, for some other way, let this cup pass from me but nevertheless not my will but thine be done. Lord I give it up to you if we think of this term in the Old Testament than what Jesus was saying was this older blessedness of the man who has so committed himself to God that he is entirely God controlled for such a man will be right with God and he will be right with self and he will be right with other men, and he will enter into eternal life and inherit the earth in the process. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Now that's the Old Testament sense God controlled, not trying to do your own thing, but living under the control of the Almighty when you come to the New Testament, the word seems to change and you do know that were exchanged on you if you know any words that have changed. I don't believe in evolution, except with words. Words go through a process their meanings change.

That's why when you're reading the King James version and you come across the phrase superfluity of naughtiness.

You do not know what that means. Those words have changed the word meekness when it comes to the New Testament context takes on a different sense and listen watch carefully in the Old Testament. It's being under the control of God in the New Testament. It's kind of brought down into a smaller circle and it means to be self-controlled to have yourself under control. Obviously the words are not mutually exclusive because if you're controlled by God then in the sense when people observe you. That will say that man is self-controlled, but in the New Testament. The word means power under control, meekness when polishing the fruit of the spirit. The eighth in the cluster of nine fruits is meekness fruit of the spirit is what it's meekness now in the Bible. There are two people who embody this concept. One is Moses in the Old Testament, but the other is Jesus Christ and the new and in the book of Matthew chapter 11 verse 29. We hear Jesus say this about himself, and to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest on yourselves.

Jesus said about himself.

I am meek, the best definition I ever heard of New Testament meekness is this power under control in the New Testament sense of the word, a man who is meek feels anger on the right. Grounds against the right people in the right manner at the right moment for the right length of time. He does not become angry with those he ought not to become angry with any does not become angry with those he should be angry with it is power under control. It is the virtue of the man who acts with gentleness when it is in his power to act with severity.

If ever there was a man who did that was Jesus Christ. I was given exasperated when I hear in usually other liberal preachers and they talk about Jesus in terms that would let you think he was and if eminent week. Mandy Pammy kind of a person and I have never understood where they have gotten that from the Bible. It's no wonder a lot of men reject Jesus they don't reject the real Jesus. They rejected Jesus we created by her own inability to read the Bible, but I want to tell you something, Jesus was a man's man. And even though the Bible says he was meek and Paul writes in second Corinthians 10 about the meekness of Jesus. There are times when Jesus got angry that I went to the New Testament and reminded myself of some of them do remember the time when Jesus was healing a man with a withered hand and the Pharisees and the scribes got all over his case because they said, Lord, you're doing this healing thing on the Sabbath and you shouldn't be doing this in Mark 35 says Jesus looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts. Jesus, God angry on another occasion was the disciples were try to keep the little kids from getting next to Jesus to remember that story and the Bible says in Mark chapter 10 in verse 14 that when that happened. Jesus was greatly displeased are two very intense words, which means he was angry. On one occasion Jesus was giving a little speech about people who cause little children to stumble. Everyone who's tempted to be involved in anything like that today should read Jesus words and these are the words of Jesus. Listen to this. Jesus said it would be better for somebody like that if they put a millstone around his neck and they drown him in the deepest sea, the words of Jesus sequestering sure you got the right version now.

Jesus said that but my all-time favorite story of his manhood took place one day when he walked into the temple we don't often understand the legitimacy of what he did but let me tell you what he did in the temple there was a court that circumvented the temple proper called the Gentile court and into that court alone. Gentiles were allowed to come when allowed in any of the other temple proper, but they could come there and often they would come there and they would hear about God. Well, in the process of time, the priest who cared for the temple got greedy and here's what they did in order to come to offer a sacrifice in the temple you had to bring an animal man.

Why because you had to be blessed and to be right.

The priests would disallow any of the animals that were brought to sacrifice and they would tell the people you have to buy your sacrifice at one of our shops which we have set up in the Gentile court so they had absolute monopoly on the business people would bring their sacrificial animals a walk-in not accepted, not accepted, you have to go there by one and if they were in worship.

They go online so extortion was going on.

It was from hard to believe that was happening in the church whose record is in the Bible. I don't know that I know anything quite that that awful that I'm aware of in churches today but I'm sure a lot of stuff like that may go on. And the Lord Jesus was not very happy about that.

As you know I will have more of this tomorrow as we open our Bibles together again were talking about the Beatitudes. The series is called how to be happy.

According to Jesus from the fifth chapter of the book of Matthew going through every one of the Beatitudes and discussing them explaining them and applying them to our lives. Thanks for listening.

More information on Dr. Jeremiah series how to be happy. According to Jesus, visit our website to help you stay connected magazine Turning Points and now devotional sign up today@davidjeremiah.org/radio when you do ask for your company Bible study John divinity of Christ is not of the Jeremiah Bible study series will individually study manager was for a gift of any amount you can also purchase Jeremiah studies on the English standard and internationalization as well as in standard or large print in the new King James, your choice of several attractive, options, visit Jeremiah.org/radio 50 times to join us tomorrow as we continue to be happy. According to Jesus, that's here on Turning Point for taking time to listen to and from these in question