The Sermon on the Mount begins with a series of statements that we call the “beatitudes.” This comes from the Latin word that means “blessed.” First, we saw that a mark of the work of God’s grace in a person’s life was being poor in spirit- realizing that spiritually, they have nothing to offer. That leads us to mourning. This mourning will then lead us to true meekness. There is a progression here. We also sense an increasing level of difficulty. Jesus is describing something that only happens by the working of His saving grace.
Meekness is not just being a pushover. Shakespeare said, “They can be meek who have no other cause.” That is the cultural idea of meekness. If you don’t care about anything, you can be meek. It has been referred to as “power under control” and “a willingness to be taught.” It is a wholesale letting go of our self-deception so that we see ourselves as God sees us.
Most often, God develops meekness in the life of the believer by hardships. Numbers 12:3 says that Moses was the meekest man on the earth. He went from being a prince in Egypt to a man on the run. He went from trying to establish himself as the self-proclaimed deliverer of the Hebrews to telling the Lord that he was not able to go and tell Pharaoh to let the people go. God changed him by breaking him. Being spiritually broken is not easy. Blessed are the poor in spirit. We realize that spiritually, we are broken with nothing to offer. Blessed are those who mourn. When we come face to face with our spiritual brokenness, we mourn. Through these two gates, we come to meekness.
There is a promised blessing for the meek. The meek will inherit the earth. An inheritance is something that is earned by another and granted to you. The believer can say with David in Psalm 23:1, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” I am satisfied because I know that the Lord gives me what I need. I am complete in Him. We inherit the earth now because our heavenly Father owns it all, and He gives us what is good for us. We will enjoy eternal blessing and glory in heaven to come.
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