And if you'll open your Bibles to the book of Matthew chapter 5, we're in verse 5 today. Matthew chapter 5, verse 5. That's just the verse, that's the third beatitude that says, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Grew up in the Cold War where we actually every once in a while in school had drills and instructed us to hide under our desks if there was a nuclear missile launched at us from the Soviet Union. And, uh, there was just this sense of tension kind of that dominated our childhood. And there are all sorts of amazing stories that you kind of had to be there in some respects to remember the tension. But, um, 1983 was one of the worst years in the Cold War. It was one of the most tense years of that whole situation. It began by NATO doing some kind of weird things in terms of maneuvering and so forth. And NATO always makes the Soviet Union nervous. And so that was the first step. And then kind of associated with that nervousness in, in like early September of 1983, a US commercial flight was flying out of Anchorage, Alaska, headed toward Seoul, South Korea, made a slight navigational error, crossed into a little bit of Soviet airspace, was met by, I believe, two MiGs, and a 727 commercial airline with 300 people on it, was shot down by the Soviet Union. Initially, now one of the people on board of the plane at the time was a congressman. That made things even more tense. And initially, the Soviet Union sort of denied any responsibility. That didn't last very long. They acknowledged responsibility, but said that it was a spy plane and not a commercial airline. And so there's just this kind of fever-pitch tension developing. Around that time. I remember it was just on the news every day. And then about 20 days later, a Soviet soldier who's also an engineer manning the nuclear response bunker in Moscow, or one of them, his name was Stanislav Petrov. He was manning this bunker, I think kind of late at night, and the warning light on the computer triggered and The report on the computer said with absolute confidence that an intercontinental ballistic missile from the United States had been launched and was headed toward Moscow. And so Stanislav Petrov sees this printout or this message on his computer. The United States has launched an ICBM. Protocol, when that light flashes, is for for you to mash the retaliation button in the Soviet Union at the time. So the thing that he was supposed to do was essentially to trigger a nuclear retaliation of our own intercontinental ballistic missiles headed back toward the United States. He ignored the light. He's like, "Nope, I think that's an error." About an hour later, 5 missiles were reported on the computer as coming from the United States heading to Moscow. And once again, he ignored the lights, said, "I don't believe it," and refused to retaliate. It's one of the greatest non-events in the history of the world in many respects.
And it's a way of discussing what Jesus means when he talks about meekness. It's a sense of a refusal to retaliate.
This idea of meekness is so cluttered with the falsehoods that the world has produced, and even some well-meaning saints, that I think this is a challenging sermon— was a very challenging sermon to prepare. It just feels like the whole sermon is just about removing all of the clutter and misconceptions around the idea of meekness. But that's what we're going to do today.
And the intention all along was essentially to talk about meekness on Father's Day, because in many respects, the definition of meekness and the definition of masculinity line up remarkably well. Well, how would we define meekness? We would define meekness as strength in submission to God. Strength and submission to God. How would we define masculinity? Well, that's, that's a pretty good definition for masculinity as well, isn't it? Strength and submission to God. And so what's going to— what we're going to see today as we consider this subject is that these two ideas, meekness and masculinity, have a lot in common, and you really can't talk about one without commenting on the other, and so on and so forth.
I think this is one of the reasons why fathering feels so fulfilling. Fathering is sort of forced meekness training. You know, just remember those awkward days early on when you have an infant and it's like, I don't— I like you, I just don't know what to do with you. Like, I feel like any level of interaction with you is hazardous. I don't know how to— I don't know how to care for you at all. My strength feels like I just— I'm gonna hurt you. And then over time though, what, what What fathering sort of is, is sort of learning how to moderate your strength for the good of this person you love, right? And if you're a Christian, it's all kind of bound up in doing that for the Lord. I think that's one of the reasons fathering feels so fulfilling, is because it's sort of actually just teaching you how to be a man.
6 · The preacher transparently reflects on his own fathering regrets, categorizing them into two types: weakness disguised as meekness (passivity) and unrestrained strength (reactivity), applying the sermon's framework to lived pastoral experience
If masculinity is what I said it was, which is something like strength submitted to God, It's sort of like meekness and masculinity, it's just kind of line up. And I also think that now as a father, you know, with more in the rearview than in the foreground, really all of my regrets related to fathering are tied up in the issue of meekness and tied up in the issue of strength. You know, I think that all of our regrets as fathers fall into one of two categories. One is like a lack of strength, passivity when we should have acted, right? A lack of strength, a lack of engagement, a lack of involvement, and so forth. And then the other one is a lack of restraint. It's like being too reactive, going too hard. And so a lot of the damage that, you know, I would look back and say that I've done, or the sins that as a father that I've committed, they really are just sort of centered around this issue of strength, and they're centered around this issue of meekness. And sometimes it's been meekness— it's been weakness, not meekness. And sometimes it's been reactivity and over-engagement of strength.
7 · Direct address to older fathers, inviting them to recognize their own experience in the two categories of fathering failure, creating empathetic connection
And I think that, you know, if you're a man my age with, you know, your parenting done in some respects, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. You probably know exactly what I'm talking about, that somehow even in just talking about meekness and sort of like how to go wrong in meekness, you wind up kind of nailing all of the things you regret or wish you had done differently as parents.
8 · The pastor sets expectations for the sermon's structure, warning it will be less systematic than typical and using an analogy of clearing debris from a backyard to describe the deconstruction work required before positive construction
So there's a lot of things that are all connected, I guess, is my point today. And I say that as a bit of a warning. I don't think this is going to be an especially long message, but I don't think it's going to be an especially neat and orderly one either. There's a lot of messiness to this, and I think a lot of the damage that's been done related to meekness is is people oversimplifying a very complex thing. And so you wind up with cartoon versions of meekness. So this is how I'm picturing how this will go, probably about 35 minutes or so. It's sort of like if the thing I wanted to show you was in my backyard, but covering that is a bunch of leaves and scrap lumber and a bunch of other things. And so I kind of have to get rid of all this other stuff in the way to show you the thing I want to show you. I think that's what we've got with masculinity. I think that's what we've got with meekness. I think the world has thrown a bunch— sin, the world— I don't mean that in an acrimonious way. I just think there's a lot of noise and falsehood surrounding these two ideas. And some of them veer on the overly strong side, and some of them veer on the overly weak side. And that's true with meekness as well. So kind of one of the things we need to do when understanding meekness is like, we just need to clear some of this clutter away.
9 · Introduces the first major distortion of meekness: the "meekness mafia" or "coalition of the anxious" who weaponize vocabulary of gentleness as a power move to enforce conformity
And so my first point was just to point out this relationship between meekness and masculinity. That's point 1. Point 2 is an effort to redeem biblical meekness, and that means dealing with some of the problems. The first problem that I would describe is what I would call the meekness mafia, the meekness mafia, or the tone police. You have these people who seem to have been self-appointed meekness enforcers. And their whole understanding of meekness and gentleness is absurdly shortsighted and simplistic. This is what I would call the coalition of the anxious, and they use meekness and gentleness as ways of gaining moral high ground. Edwin Friedman, in his book Failure of Nerve, wrote, It has been my impression that at any gathering, whether it be public or private, those who are quickest to inject words like sympathy, empathy, consensus, trust, confidentiality, togetherness into their arguments have perverted those humanitarian words into power tools to get others to adapt to them.
10 · Reinforces that God, not anxious enforcers, is the standard for meekness
So I think one of the things that we should understand is, is that a lot of people who are sort of the tone police, the meekness enforcers, the meekness mafia types, have painted a picture of meekness that's simply not true. And my standard or expression of meekness isn't measured by them, it's measured by God. And so we have to deal with that. There's like a bit of clutter there. Spurgeon once said, "Oh my brethren, bold-hearted men are always called mean-spirited by cowards." So there's that contingency. There's that issue surrounding this use of this word meekness and gentleness and all this. And it's the very same sort of people typically, who are critical of masculinity in a forceful kind of expression. It's the same people. It's the coalition of the anxious. So that's one thing we've got.
11 · Introduces the second major distortion: weakness masquerading as meekness
And then the other thing we've got is we've got weak disguised as meek. Weak disguised as meek. See, meekness is strength submitted to God. It's basically strength planted in the ground to die. But you got to have strength in order to be meek. Being weak is not the same as being meek. The best thing I read over the last 2 weeks when I studied for this sermon was written in 1906, and I'm going to quote extensively from this man. I don't know a lot about him. His name is represented in the book as A.F. Findlay. He has this nailed, this problem nailed. He says There are those who by natural disposition are timid and compliant, and who have not manliness enough to resent injustice, who do not retaliate when they are wronged simply because they dare not. Similarly, there are those who when slighted show no sign of resentment because they are too dull to feel an affront, or because they are controlled by feelings of scorn, or by considerations of self-interest and policy. Of none of these can it be said that he is meek, nor does his conduct deserve our admiration. And so there's this other problem with meekness, and that is a lot of what's represented to us as meekness is just people who are weak and cowardly, and they actually just don't have any strength to submit. That's not the same as meekness. Meekness is strength in submission to God, not the lack of strength. You know, sort of cowering under a sort of biblical pretense of meekness.
12 · Signals movement from identifying problems (the meekness mafia and weakness disguised as meekness) to proposing a solution for navigating the complexity
So these are just two of the complications, and I could go on and spend a couple sermons talking about how cluttered and complicated just understanding what the word meek is. But let's, let's keep pressing on and say, okay, those are just two of the problems.
13 · Proposes examining motivations as the hermeneutical key to sorting true from false meekness
How do we sort through all this? Well, here's one of the most helpful, most broad biblical principles when it comes to sorting through something. You know, there are a lot of things that are presented as like morals and virtues, but then when you start getting under the hood, you realize, you know, the thing itself has some reasonable goodness to it, but really the thing that's good going on is the why. It's the motivation. Christianity is really a religion of motivations, right? It's really a religion of heart change and whys. As much as anything. And so it was like, well, maybe we can do something with that. How do we sort through all of these various kind of problems associated with meekness? How do we, how do we get rid of all the, the poison in that word, all the error in that word, and come to realize, well, what even is real meekness? It's like, well, let's look at the motivations behind meekness. And that's, that's helpful for us because our text actually gives us the motivation. Our text tells us why it would be blessed to be meek, right? It says, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." So we have a motivation. We see why— why should I submit my strength to God? What does that look like? And, you know, what's the motivation and so forth? Well, it has to do with what Jesus said. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Now we can start thinking about motivations here and, and get some clarity.
14 · Applies the motivational test to weakness disguised as meekness, exposing that the underlying motivation is immediate relief from discomfort rather than long-term obedience to God
So there's the person who sort of would maybe gladly accept the label as meek, but they really are just weak and passive and afraid. It's like, what's their motivation? Why are they weak, passive, and afraid? Well, they want sort of an immediate relief to the confrontation or the difficulty that's sort of presented to them in this particular moment that's difficult, right? So, so one, one way out of a being provoked, of being at a testing and a hardship, is to cower, concede, give the other person their way, and some kind of essentially attempt to keep the peace. And they— that's not meekness, that's weakness. And what's going on there is, is an attempt to sort of defuse and avoid difficulty and sort of have the win, have the victory, have the best experience right now. The best experience just being like, I just don't want to have a fight about this, I just don't want to be tested in this way, I just don't want to deal with this, and so forth. So there's sort of a view and one false version of meekness that is like, how do I get out of this awkwardness, this confrontation, and so forth, right? That's not meekness, that's weakness.
15 · Applies the motivational test to retaliation (the opposite extreme of weakness), revealing that it shares the same fundamental flaw: both weakness and retaliation are motivated by short-term relief or vindication
What's interesting though is that suppose instead of cowering away, you immediately retaliated. You just went with raw retaliation and you were just like, I'll tell you a thing or two, and you just engage hardcore. Well, that's obviously not meekness either. And what's the motivation there? The motivation there is the same. It's essentially to get the win right now. It's to get the cheap and easy victory. It's to win the exchange, not something much bigger than that. Okay, so this is why motivation sometimes really tells us, like, well, what's going on here? Weakness would simply be, I just want out of this super awkward situation. I want to feel better right now. Retaliation, which would also be stupid and a sin, is the exact same thing. It's just like, I'm gonna fight back so that I feel better right now. What's the motivation Jesus gives us? Is it a right-now motivation? It's a long-term motivation, right? It's, it's down the road.
16 · Explicitly links the long-term orientation required for meekness to the essence of masculinity, arguing that true manhood involves living for outcomes decades in the future rather than immediate gratification
Now, friends, this is exactly sort of the missing piece of what sort of makes masculinity masculinity. Again, it's funny, the overlap. It's like, how do I know I'm a masculine man? Here's the question, like, do you know how to live a life that is dependent on outcomes 20 years into the future? Are you living this dumb little cycle of some kind of substance or entertainment abuse? I'm feeling good right now, and tomorrow is what tomorrow is. True masculinity is very similar to meekness in this respect as well, in that it's motivated by a long future. You know, I said that being a father is like this kind of really fulfilling thing. I think I see— I wouldn't know myself, but I think I see that that's what being a grandfather is like, except that as a grandfather you have an even clearer sense of the long a picture of the fact that you're just a part of a long process and so forth. And that's all like, that's all bound up in what it means to be a man. Masculinity, sort of like, how do I know I've become a man? You're not a kid anymore. You're not being tossed to and fro by every wind and wave. You're not easily provoked. You're not easily afraid. You're not pursuing like immediate gratification, whether it be for food or drink or sex. Like, you're not a kid anymore. You're living for the long thing. And it's interesting that that's exactly the motivation for meekness here. You are blessed if you are meek because you will inherit the earth.
17 · Conducts word study on "inherit," unpacking its theological weight by identifying two essential components: inheritance follows death and presupposes family relationship
So that's an interesting thing. One of the elements to this that we can see in our text is the word inherit. It says, blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Well, in Christianity, the word inherit, it's just a very sacred word. It's a word loaded with meaning. In Christianity, the word inherit is like, there's a lot going on in that word. So there's two ideas that you would understand with inheriting. The one is that inheriting something happens when someone dies. And the other one is that inheriting something is usually an extension of a family relationship.
18 · Unpacks the gospel embedded in the word "inherit": Jesus died (death) to make us sons (family) who inherit everything
So right there, just in the word inherit, we have like the whole gospel. Jesus died to give us, well, everything. But the cool thing is, is that who are we now that Jesus has died? Well, Jesus, Hebrews says, has suffered to bring many sons to glory. And so we look at this one word inherit, and we also— again, you can hear I think you could probably perceive tones of masculinity even in that word. Righteous man leaves an inheritance for his children's children. Like, there's something about even that idea. I've heard people say that your father is the only person who wants you to be better than them. Now, masculinity has this sense about it that says, I want to get you further down the road. I want to leave something for you. Masculinity, true masculinity, is bound up in the ideas of legacy. And so this word inherit has all sorts of legacy masculinity kind of ideas.
19 · Brings the exposition of "inherit" to its christological climax: we inherit God's earth because Christ died to adopt us into the family
But the most important thing we wouldn't want to miss is that why are we inheriting the earth? Why would a meek person inherit the earth? Well, who owns the earth? The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Why would we inherit that? Because he died for us so that we could be sons and daughters. The gospel is this great adoption story. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm now in the family will, and the death that I benefit from isn't some kind of future, you know, one-way kind of death. The death I benefit from is the death of Jesus Christ.
20 · Extensive theological synthesis identifying two proper motivations for meekness: (1) the glory of Christ through missional witness when strength is restrained, and (2) inheriting the earth
Now I'm kind of tap dancing around why meekness, why, why, why, what's the motivation, what's the right motivation. Well, here's one way to say that. One proper motivation for meekness is the glory of Christ. You know, all of these kind of fake meeknesses, and also like anti-meekness, which is just straight-up retaliation, that's about the glory of you. If you are fleeing confrontation, if you're never standing up and like having the hard moments and so forth, You're not meek, you're just weak. And what are you doing there? You're seeking your own glory, you're seeking your own comfort, you're seeking to avoid slander, you're seeking to avoid people thinking badly of you. What if in every kind of hard moment you just retaliate and you just fire both barrels and you're just anti-meek? What's going on there? Same thing. You're seeking your glory, you're seeking your name, you're seeking your vindication, so forth. So the right motivation, one of the right motivations for meekness is I'm going to restrain and submit my strength to God so that in doing that, I might show Jesus Christ to the world. There's a missional motivation for meekness. I want people to see that something is controlling me that doesn't have an earthly explanation. And the more times people see that, the more likely they are to see Jesus behind that. Findlay writes, true meekness, which is worthy of all honor, is seen only in those who, with an acute sense of wrong, control the natural impulse to show anger and retaliate, not from fear or pride or policy or scorn of others, but because in obedience to the will of God they accept the provocation or wrong as discipline and as an opportunity for showing the divine spirit of patience, and love. So one motivation for meekness that's unique from all the counterfeits and anti-meekness is I want God to be glorified. And one of the best ways for God to be glorified is to be restrained when provoked. Submit your strength to God, and we'll see more of that in a moment. The second kind of motivation we see in this text for meekness is just to inherit the earth. Now, right away, this means that most people who are weak, most people who are weak are also Gnostic. And they think that the earth is full of ickiness. And they have no desire to rule the world. So most weak men are excluded from this right away. This is only something that's attractive to a man who has or somehow admires godly strength. He says, Jesus says, that if you are meek, you will inherit the earth. And a man who has meekness, that is, has strength to submit, says, "Well, that's cool. I'd like to rule the earth." And a man who is weak says, "Oh, not me." And the meekness mafia, the coalition of the anxious, says, "Why would you ever want to do that? That just sounds like a power play." Yeah, because you don't have any problems with power, little coalition of anxious. You are fully joy— you are a joyful submitter, obviously. It's like, nope. There's something about the invitation to rule the earth that inspires a man to get a hold of himself, simply for one reason if nothing else. How are you going to rule the earth if you can't even rule your own temper? How are you going to rule the earth if you can't even rule your own addictions? How are you going to rule the earth if you can't even rule your own appetites? How are you going to rule the earth if you can't even rule the snooze button, right? So there's this invitation to submit your strength to God And the motivation for that is you'll inherit the earth. Finley says, the Christian virtue of meekness has suffered the misfortune of being severely misunderstood. In the popular mind, it has been so conceived as to forfeit the right to be considered a virtue at all, being regarded as the equivalent of weak compliance, the temper of one devoid of manly vigor who tamely allows himself to be slighted and injured without protest or resistance. That this conception is a caricature of meekness. And this is one of the things that happens when, well, we let people who aren't qualified to preach preach, especially when they're disqualified by virtue of their gender. You will get sloppy exegesis on the character of Christ, and it will be a caricature of, amongst other things, meekness. It's the conception is a caricature of meekness is apparent in view of Christ's beatitude For not only is it incredible that our Lord should have pronounced a blessing on those of feeble character, but the nature of the promise attached to the beatitude implies that in some sense meekness is a strong and victorious quality. Whatever it be, we must presume it to be a virtue replete with energy, robust and manly, the very opposite of everything that is weak. Otherwise Christ's words are reduced to an absurdity. So he's basically saying by nature of the promise itself, you'll get the earth. He's excluding so many false forms of meekness that are out there.
21 · Signals major structural transition from examining motivations (the whys) to the necessity of an embodied standard (the who)
So those are two whys. One, bring glory to Jesus instead of yourself. That's a good why for meekness. Two, you'll inherit the earth. Those are two whys. Those are two pure motivations for meekness. But here's the deal, and I warned you this was going to be short because this is where we always wind up with something like this. The whys behind meekness are useful, but man, like, we are just— we are in desperate need of a who here.
22 · Establishes the epistemological necessity of Christ for understanding virtue
Here's the thing about— and this is something we need to learn just when we talk about virtues in general— whenever a virtue is put forward as being right, a kind of law has been imposed upon you. So I'm imposing a law on you right now. I'm like, be meek. Well, here's the problem. Laws need interpreters. Laws need examples. Laws need demonstration. And so here's where we always find ourselves. We're told to be humble. It's like, okay, what does that mean? There's a lot of different interpretations of what it means to be humble. We're told to be loving. Man, lots of people have seemed to got into the dictionary in the last, you know, 20 years and rewritten that word. It's like, What does that even mean? What does it mean to be loving? Or here we're told to be meek. And here's what we have every single time we engage with this level of discourse: Jesus Christ is essential to understanding virtue because he is the embodiment of those virtues. You cannot know meekness if you don't know Christ. You, you're going to— the only way you're going to learn what meekness is, men, is by knowing Jesus Christ. We can discuss all of the potential errors, we can try to get to the bottom of the motivations and the why, but in the end, our understanding of any virtue depends on looking at the life of Jesus and sorting out what he did that was loving or meek or so on.
23 · Argues that Jesus' embodiment of meekness reveals its complexity and situational nature, requiring Spirit-dependence
Now, when we look at Jesus, we will see— if we use Jesus as our source of like, I want to figure out what meekness is, I'm going to look at Jesus— when we look at Jesus, we will see that meekness is not simple. It is not simple. It is dependent on the Spirit. It is situational. It's not simple. That's why we must always let God measure our meekness and not someone else.
24 · Uses rhetorical questions to establish Jesus' perfect and constant meekness, simultaneously launching a polemic against those who demand a standard of meekness exceeding Jesus' own behavior
Is Jesus perfectly meek? Well, you'd be really in some dangerous theological waters, straight-up heresy, if you said no, there are times when Jesus isn't meek. Nope, Jesus is meek. Is Jesus the perfect embodiment of meekness? Is there someone else that's more— see, this is the one of the things that I just absolutely am furious about with the Coalition of the Anxious. They want men to be more meek than Jesus. Like, they have created their own standards that are above Jesus. It's like, no. Was Jesus always meek? Yes, he was always meek.
25 · Uses specific episodes from Jesus' life (temple cleansing, triumphal entry, woman at the well) to establish that biblical meekness includes forceful action, causes offense even at its gentlest, and involves direct confrontation of sin
And many things Jesus did would not pass the test of the tone police. We see that apparently— and again, I don't know, I can't explain this— we see apparently that meekness sometimes overturns tables. And we see that even in moments— this is the other really interesting thing— we see that even in moments of classic meekness, where Jesus, for instance, rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. He caused a controversy even in that. Many people were offended even when Jesus was at his most meek. This is another lesson to us about meekness. Meekness is not a pragmatic way of winsomely communicating the gospel. The day will come when Christians will be persecuted— it always happens— and some, as they're dragged to the gulags, will say, but I was so so winsome. It doesn't matter. It's like, like, we obey because we do these things because God told us to do them, not because they work, right? Meekness doesn't always keep us out of conflict. Meekness doesn't always keep people from hating us. Jesus rode in on the donkey and it made the Pharisees furious. So meekness apparently sometimes overturns tables. And I wouldn't know that if I didn't use Jesus as my standard of this virtue. And meekness sometimes rides into town on a donkey, and meekness sometimes calls out a woman for consistent adultery. I didn't know these things about meekness. I wouldn't know these things about meekness unless I use Jesus as my standard of meekness.
26 · Provides the positive definition of Jesus' meekness through a series of negations and affirmations: constant restraint, never reactive, never retaliatory, genuinely kind, submitted to the Father, oriented toward eternal rather than temporal victories
But on the other side, there's something that is very obvious about Jesus, and that is this: through his entire life, he never let his strength go full bore. Jesus never lost his temper. He never fired both barrels. He never used righteousness as an excuse for retaliation. He was genuinely kind. He was genuinely careful. He was essentially always in submission to the Father. And he never traded eternal victories for short-term ones.
27 · The preacher admits his inability to provide a neat systematic account of meekness, pivoting to pastoral exhortation that knowing Jesus directly produces masculinity because Jesus invented masculinity
I mean, the point is, is that meekness is masculinity in many respects. And men, I don't really know how to talk about this except to tell you the more we know Jesus and we shut out all these other voices trying to tell us what a man is, the more like men we will be. Because I think the one thing we can say about Jesus, among many, is he knew how to make men, right?
28 · Confessional acknowledgment of the inadequacy of systematic definition after intensive study, reiterating the core definition while admitting the complexity defies step-by-step formulation
So what is meekness, man? Two weeks of serious study. I don't know. It's strength in submission to God. What is meekness? Like, what are the six steps? I don't know, man. I just don't know. There seem to be as many exceptions as there are rules. All I can tell you sometimes is If, if you want to know what this is, you have to know Jesus.
29 · Makes the soteriological center explicit: salvation depends on Jesus' meekness (submission of strength to God), and Christian fruitfulness depends on imitating that pattern
Now, I know this: we are saved because Jesus submitted his strength to God. We are saved because Jesus submitted his strength to God. That is the only way any of us are saved, and it's also the only way any of us will build anything of meaning and value. Is when we submit our strength to God.
30 · Signals the final applicatory movement of the sermon, reconnecting to the Father's Day occasion
So, man, I feel like there's probably a couple points to think about this morning as we celebrate our dads.
31 · First of two major applications, addressing passive fathers
The first one is to understand that whatever your track record is, not only is there actual grace and forgiveness, but there's actually, I think, in everything said today, plenty of fodder for humble meek conversations that are like, hey, you know, I wish this was different, I wish that was different. Maybe those are necessary, maybe they're not. But for those of you that are fathering right now, I want you to ask yourself if there's any chance that you are actually overly passive and that your wife is actually leading the home, or even worse, that your children are actually leading the home, and that you're mistakenly calling that meekness. You're baptizing it under a made-up word like servant leadership, which really just means I do whatever my wife wants because I'm a servant leader. No, you're a servant who pretends to be a leader. So like there's one area which is weakness, that's sort of weakness that we call meekness. Like, no, like sometimes we're just weak. And friends, there are plenty of regrets that probably everybody who's raised kids has in that category. Of being overly passive, of failing to assert in particular moments, of failing to engage in particular moments. So there's plenty of regrets there. And I would just say to fathers that are still raising their kids, like, this is a category you need to be concerned about. It's a real thing. Don't let the, the meekness mafia tell you that your weakness is godly. It's probably not. There's a real problem that we all have in this area.
32 · Second major application, addressing reactive fathers
And then on the other side, there's sort of what you would call anti-meekness, which is basically strength unrestrained and overly reactive. And here I would say, like, do you have an anger problem? Is the real problem like a lack of self-rule? Is the real problem that you are reactive and that you are always going for the immediate win and you are always trying to win the exchange and you're not playing the long game and you're not playing the eternal game, you're not hoping in God, you're trying to vindicate yourself and you're trying to use the words and the logic and this and that to win. It's like, don't play that game. That game doesn't get you the earth, or as Kanye would say, the earth.
33 · Generalizes the two-sided temptation beyond fatherhood to all men
So you've got these problems, and honestly, like, I think if you're just even kind of a reasonably humble man, whether you're a father or not, I think you probably see these things in your life. The call to just being a wuss is very strong. The call to just go along to get along is very strong. It's a very attractive call, especially in moments like this where it just feels like, man, I am fighting hell with a water pistol. The call to just wuss out is extremely strong, but there's also this incredible temptation right now. To just retaliate and just get in the mix and bloody someone's lip verbally, if not physically. I'm just saying, like, meekness is definitely neither of those two. It is strength and submission to God.
34 · Returns to the Petrov illustration to frame Jesus' passion
Well, we started by talking about our friend Stanislav, who saved the world by basically doing nothing. That's a bit of a stretch to talk about that with Jesus, but it's not super far off. One of the most important things Jesus did was not fight back. We would not have eternity if Jesus fought back. He knew in a particular moment that it had come time to, as Hebrews 12:3 says, endure hostility from sinners. Endure hostility from sinners. There's this classic moment in the garden where he's about to get arrested and Peter freaks out and tries to kill somebody. I'm pretty confident that's what was going on there. He missed with his sword and cut off an ear. Instead. And Jesus said, put that away. And he says, don't you understand that I could say the word and 12 legions of angels— was saying 72,000 angels— would be with me right now? So one of the things that we see through the cross is Jesus just in total submission, his strength in total submission. The only reason any of us have hope to be forgiven for our various sins, the only reason we have hope for eternity, is that Jesus He did not fight back. He was tempted by people on the cross to not be a Savior. Ever thought about this? He is on the cross and people are telling Him— what are they telling Him? "If You're the Son of God, come down from there." That's a real temptation because He could have. He was tempted to prove all these scoffers wrong who said He saved others but He can't save Himself. The instrument of our salvation is the restraint of God demonstrated on the cross, which purchases the forgiveness of God, the forgiveness of God's wrath against our sins. Like, it's, it's an incredible thing that it all hinges in some way back in 1983. Like, the reason we're not like sitting in nuclear rubble right now is a guy did nothing. And it's like, yeah, I've got a better story that has the same basic idea. 1 Peter says that when he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. Continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. That's what a man is—continue to trust himself to the God who judges justly. Isaiah 53:7: He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
35 · Concludes by connecting the Lord's Supper to Jesus' meekness, calling the congregation to thank Jesus for his meekness as they partake and to ask for grace to imitate it for God's glory and missional witness
And so a table we have today which celebrates the body of our Lord Jesus offered for our sins, the blood of our Lord Jesus poured out for our sins— the table we celebrate today is an expression of the meekness of Jesus Christ. So as you come today, I want you to thank Jesus for his meekness and say, you know, whether you're a man or a woman, you know I would— I want to be that. I want to be that so that I can bring glory to you in the world and point people to you. This meekness that I'm tasting and seeing here with the table, would you help me to be that as well?
36 · Closing prayer thanking God for faithfulness, asking for saints to be drawn to Christ as the interpretive standard for virtue, celebrating Christ's imputed righteousness, praising God's meekness on the cross, and preparing the congregation for communion worship
Let me pray. Oh Father, thank you for being faithful. Thank you for loving us and being kind. Thank you for your word. Lord, please, God, encourage Encourage the saints to seek you. Whenever a virtue is elevated, let us run to Jesus and see what that virtue looks like on him, in him, through him. And first of all, boast and celebrate that that virtue has been appointed, has been imputed to me through the righteous sacrifice of Jesus. Father, we praise your name for being meek on our behalf, for being restrained, for not reviling when reviled, for not taking the bait and coming off that cross. Thank you that you endured such hostility from sinners for the joy set before you. Let us worship you as we partake. In Jesus' name, amen.