It’s Okay If I Say It! Series

Beatitudes Sermon Series: “It’s okay if I Say It!” (4 of 9)

Matt 5.5

July 12, 2015 CFBC, Chester, IL Dr. Mike Fogerson, Speaker

A Over the last several weeks the Beatitudes have challenged us to develop the attitude that Jesus demands for His disciples to posses.

1 The Beatitudes are the gateway to the Sermon on the Mount.

a "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 gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. ”- Matthew 5:3-6NASB)

aa “poor in spirit” is acknowledging that we are poor beggars who cannot bring or do anything to take care of our own spiritual brokeness: at which point Jesus receives us and makes us apart of His Kingdom.

bb “those who mourn” are those who have been redeemed by Jesus, but realize that sin is still sin and it is still heartbreaking. We feel bad/mourn that we still do things that angers God, God brings us comfort when we mourn/grieve over our sin.

b “Blessed are the gentle for they shall inherit the earth.”

aa “meek”, KJV; “humble”, NLT

bb This beatitude comes between “mourning over sin” and “hunger & thirst for righteousness.”

cc I think the sequence that Jesus put the beatitudes in is significant. (We can’t move to the next the one unless we’ve got a good handle on the one previous to it. Like a video game in this way.)

c Being poor of spirit focuses on our sin, being gentle in spirit focuses on God’s holiness.

aa I’m poor in spirit because I’m a sinner, & meek because God is so holy by comparison.

bb Being poor in spirit is negative and results in mourning; meekness is positive and results in seeking righteousness.

2 Meekness is a hard nut to crack because we tend to think that being a bully is the opposite of being meek, and nobody wants to bullied. (No one wants to be bullies so why do want to be meek?)

a Dr. Loyd-Jones, “This meekness denotes a humble & gentle attitude to others which is determined by a true estimate of ourselves.”

aa It’s easy, albeit uncomfortable, to be honest about ourselves in the eyes of God but it’s hard to allow other people to say things about us, to us, that we’ve already confessed to God that we are.

bb IL. We sing “Amazing Grace, How Sweet Thou Sound” and call ourselves a wretch (detestable or contemptible person, very unhappy, very bad, very unpleasant person), lost, blind . . . but when someone else says, “you’re detestable/contemptible/lost/blind” we want to hit him/her in the snoot.

cc In other words, we’re not prepared to allow other people to think/speak of us what we just acknowledged before God that we are. (There is a hypocrisy there & there always is when meekness is absent.)

b This is the fulcrum that meekness hinges upon, It’s the trigger that brings meekness in the game.

aa IL. Bicycle to mid-sized sedan

bb We’ll learn what lies at the heart of being gentle.

B A meek person knows who they really are. (Broken, poor, wretch, wreck, prone to wandering: this is not low self-esteem, it’s having no esteem of self at all.)

1 We truly are poor in spirit, mourn we get that we are already dead to self.

a You can hit, slap, kick, punch a dead person 100 times in a row and the corpse will block zero punches.

aa "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” -Galatians 2:20 (NASB)

bb A dead person doesn’t: defend his/her self, worries about their injuries, never gets angry about what is done to them.

cc A dead person does not run around trying to get their due. (They’re already broken in sin, mourning/weeping over the consequences of it, in humility the dead person stands before a holy God and has nothing to commend themselves on.)

b Choosing not defend yourself is not cowardice, wishy washing lack of conviction, not being nice/polite.

aa Meekness says, “In myself, nothing is possible, but in God everything is possible.”

bb For me, I offer no defense. For God, I’ll give my life.

2 Meekness is NOT about never getting angry, it’s about never getting angry about what is done against us!

a Jesus never did anything wrong, what He was accused of was false; Whatever anybody punished Him for was wrong; when they abused Him they were out of line; any slander done to Him was not factual, when they mocked Him, it was a lie.