PRECEPTS FOR LIFE
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The following is an actual transcript of the PRECEPTS FOR LIFE Broadcast. For the purpose of filling transcript requests quickly, they have received only light editing. If you have questions concerning the material covered in this broadcast, Kay has published a number of books explaining the Scripture in depth. These books may be ordered by contacting the telephone number or address printed above.
SERIES: Sermon On The Mount
TITLE: Program 3 – Submit Your Power Under God’s Control
WEDNESDAY (1/20/10)
OPEN
How do you gain power and what will it get you when you gain it? That‟s something you need to ask yourself because I‟m about to share with you a teaching that is contrary to what you think about power and it‟s source. You know, so many times we think about meekness as weakness and we think, “You know, if I‟m meek how could I ever, ever inherit the earth?” We‟re gonna find that out today and you‟re gonna know where real power is.
PART ONE
As I stand on this Mount of Beatitudes my breath is taken away at the beauty that is here. And I imagine that that same beauty was present on that day when Jesus sat down on the Mount of Beatitudes and He began to teach the people. He sat down and He began to teach them what it was to belong to the kingdom of heaven. He‟s not telling them how to attain righteousness. He‟s not telling them how to become holy but He‟s giving them a description of what the citizens of heaven are like. And the citizens of heaven get into
heaven because they recognize their poverty of spirit.
And when they recognize their poverty of spirit, then God realizes that they have seen their sin and He can bestow upon them His total grace and give them the kingdom of heaven. Once they see their poverty of spirit they mourn. They mourn because they‟ve seen the holiness of God and they see how their lives have been empty and how they have grieved God. And so He says to them, “Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)
I just want you to know, Precious One, that if you are mourning, if you are grieving, if you are grieving over your sin, if you are grieving over the sin of others, if you look at this world and I look at it and I think, “Where have we gone? What have we done? What has happened to us as a nation? What has happened to us as a people?” We‟re a people that live in total and complete absolute immorality. We have no sense of wrong and no sense of right and the things that used to be considered wrong are no longer considered wrong.
Something has changed but God hasn‟t.
And when we see this and we come into the kingdom of God we get the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God then causes our hearts to break with the things that break God‟s heart. But you can know this, dear one, that there is a day coming when the kingdom of heaven will be ruling here on earth. And then when there‟s that new heaven and that new earth, God will take away all of our sorrows. There will be no more sorrow, no more pain, no more tears and no more death because the former things will have been passed away. And you and I will be comforted with the comfort that God alone can give.
Well when we see that and when we understand our poverty of spirit and when we mourn over our sin then what happens is we become meek, and what is meekness? When you read the King James Version it says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” When you read the New American Standard or other translations they say, “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.”
Or some will say, “Blessed are the humble, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5) So I want to give you a definition of meekness and I would suggest that you write it down. Meekness is that attitude of heart that prostrates itself before the throne of God‟s sovereignty in faith‟s submission to the will of God. Meekness is a pliability. Meekness is not resisting God, not fighting against the circumstances. It doesn‟t mean that you allow those
circumstances to overwhelm you because meekness is not weakness. Meekness is power.
It is power under control. It is power that doesn‟t retaliate and doesn‟t react and doesn‟t fight against God and doesn‟t fight against man. But it‟s a meekness that stops and realizes, “God, You‟re in the heavens. God, You rule over the face of this earth. Your throne is in heaven and Your sovereignty, as Psalm 103 says, rules over all and God because I know that I can rest in You and I can trust in You. And I won‟t fight and I won‟t retaliate but I will let You govern me rather than the circumstances or the situations or the people that are around me.”
You say, “How do I know all that?” Well you realize, once you study the Word of God and if you did your homework. If you got the book and you‟re studying along with me, you realize that there were two men that were described as being meek. The first of those is Moses. I want you to go to Numbers and I want us to look at Numbers chapter 12, verse 3. And when we come to Numbers chapter 12, I want you to understand what‟s happening. Moses has married a Cushite woman. And his brother and his sister, Miriam and Aaron, are upset with him, very upset with him. In fact, it‟s Miriam that‟s leading the charge and Aaron is going along just following him.
And it says and, “Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman); and they said, „Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?...‟” Now listen. “… And the LORD heard it.” (Numbers 12:1-2) You see meekness does not retaliate. Meekness does not fight back. It doesn‟t mean that weakness lays down and becomes a carpet under your feet but it means that there‟s a strength and a power so that I don‟t have to react. So that I can trust the Lord. And it says, “Now the man Moses was very humble….” and that word for humble is the word that we would translate meek. “
(Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.)” (12:3) And yet did Moses start out that way? No. If you and I would go back to the beginning of the book of Exodus and we would go back to the birth of Moses, we would see that he was reared in Pharaoh‟s household. That Pharaoh‟s sister had found him in the bulrushes and taken him home and adopted him. And we know from Acts that Moses was learned in all the learning of the Egyptians and he had attained and I mean, he walked with
favor because Miriam‟s son, Moses, had the favor and the protection of Pharaoh.
But one day he saw an Egyptian hurting an Israelite and Moses took things into his own hands and Moses said, “This will not be!” And Moses rose up in his own strength and he slayed the Egyptian and then he was frightened and he buried the Egyptian. And when he did that then the word got back to Pharaoh. And when the word got back to Pharaoh then Moses fled and he fled into the wilderness and there in the wilderness he lived for forty years.
He lived in all he was. He went from the palace to simply a pasture where he pastured sheep. The dumbest of all the animals. The sheep that need total and absolute care. And there God reduced Moses so that Moses saw his poverty of spirit.
And not only did he see his poverty of spirit but Moses also mourned and grieved and so when God calls Moses and says to Moses, “You‟re My man and you‟re going to deliver the children of Israel.” Moses said, “Now wait a minute.” I‟m incapable of doing this. I can‟t talk.” What had God done? God had reduced Moses to the point where he saw his poverty of spirit. Where he saw his total inability to do what was in his heart, what God had put in his heart. And He saw Moses meekness and in this situation in Numbers chapter 12, the Lord comes down in a cloud, and He stands at the doorway of the tent and he calls Aaron and Miriam.
And when they come forward He says, “Now hear My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, shall make Myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream. But not so, with My servant Moses, He is faithful in all My household; With him I will speak mouth to mouth, Even openly, not in dark sayings, for he beholds the form of God. Why then are you not afraid…?”
And so what happens? He says, “Miriam, because you did this to My servant, then you‟re going to have leprosy.” (12:6-10) And Miriam looks at herself and she‟s got that whiteness of leprosy and He says, she has to be put away. And what does Moses do? This is meekness. Moses says, “No, Lord. No, Lord, don‟t do that to her.” I want to ask you a question. Is that a typical response today? No, it‟s not a typical response. We want to exert our power. We want to put that person down. We want to make them suffer. But you see meekness, is submission of our thoughts, our ways, our evaluations of a situation. It‟s submitting to God. Meekness is a submission of our will saying, “God, I‟m like a horse and
You‟ve got me in a bridle and God, You direct my way. And You just say, „Go this way,‟ and I will go that way. I will not turn to my own thoughts. I will not turn to my own reasoning.” Meekness is a submission of our evaluation and our rights to the will of God. It is a gentleness as we saw that Moses had with Miriam. And remember I told you that two men in the Bible are definitely referred to as being meek and the other one is Jesus Christ. And I want you to go to Matthew chapter 11 in your Bible.
In Matthew chapter 11, Jesus says in verse 28, “Come to Me, all you that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” You know, if you‟re trying to be strong in your own might, if you‟re trying to take care of the situations, if you‟re trying to manipulate them, if you‟re trying to make things work out the way you think they ought to work out, then you‟re not walking in meekness and it‟s wearying, isn‟t it? It just wears you out because you think, “What did I do wrong? How can I do this? How can I handle this?” Meekness walks in such a way that meekness brings you rest when you‟re weary. Listen to what He says. “Come to Me, all you that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and You shall find rest for your souls.” “Learn of Me, He says, for I am gentle. I am meek and I am humble, He says, in heart.” That is what meekness is. And then He says, “…You shall find rest for your souls.” He says, “For My yoke is easy, and My load is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) We‟ll talk about it more when I come back in just a minute.
PART TWO
You know, as you think about sitting here on the Mount of Beatitudes and you think about the farming that was going on. In all probability He could look right down there and those that were with Him, would see two animals and a yoke. It wouldn‟t be a donkey and a cow or a bull and a horse. It would be two animals of the same strength. What is meekness? Meekness is putting yourself in a yoke with God and knowing that God is stronger than you and He‟s able to pull the load so the load comes off of your shoulders because what are you doing? You‟re resting in the Lord. You‟re not fretting,
you‟re not fighting it.
To be meek is to be pliable in the hands of the Potter. Remember, God says in Jeremiah that, “I‟m the potter and you‟re the clay….” and He can shape you and mold you and make you. And you say, “But, but I‟m scarred.” He puts you back on the potter‟s wheel. And that meekness that you have, that submission to Him, He takes you and He wets His hands and He puts it on the clay and He takes care of the scars. He redoes you. That‟s why the meek inherit the earth. Well when you look at it I want you to put this down.
Meekness is a willingness, a submission and this is so important without resistance, without complaining. A submission to be molded and shaped by the Sovereign‟s hand in every circumstance of life. So the meek do not fret but the meek wait upon the Lord. I want to take you to Psalm 37. In Psalm 37 we see the word meek used in this Psalm in humbleness, in gentleness but we also see that there‟s a promise to those that are meek because what they do is they inherit the land. They inherit the land because the earth is the Lord‟s and the fullness thereof and He gives it to whomever He wishes.
We look at these men and these kingdoms and power and we see one government trying to overthrow another. We see one business trying to overthrow another. But blessed is the man, blessed is the woman, blessed are the people that put themselves in the hands of God and say, “You are sovereign.” Listen to what He says. He says, “Do not fret because of evildoers, Be not envious toward wrongdoers, For they will wither quickly like the grass….” Like the grass of the field, it‟s here today and it‟s gone tomorrow. But if we belong to God, if we are poor in spirit, if we mourn, if we are meek, the kingdom of heaven is ours.
He‟s describing what the citizens of heaven are like in the Beatitudes. He says, “Trust in the LORD….” Not in yourself. Not in your own power. He says, “…and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate…,” what, “… faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.” (Psalm 37:1-5) That‟s what meekness is. Meekness is saying, “God, I‟m Yours and I‟m committing my way to You and I will trust in You and You will do it.” It says, “…He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your judgment as the noonday.” (37:6) As I sit here the sun is going down over on the mountains that provide a wind tunnel that comes up on the
Sea of Galilee.
And the sun‟s going down and He says, but listen, your righteousness will continue to shine. And then He says, “And your judgment as noonday. Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him;” That‟s what the meek do. They rest in the Lord and they wait patiently for him. “Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way….” (37:7) You see, if you and I, Precious One, will live in meekness, then we will not be fretting because we know that God‟s in control.
He says, “Don‟t fret because of the man who carries out wicked schemes. Cease from anger, forsake wrath; Do not fret, it only leads to evil doing.” That‟s power. Do you realize what power that is that comes with meekness? When I say, “You‟re God and I submit to You. You lead me. You guide me.” Then what happens? Listen to what He says,“…the humble,” the meek, verse 11, “will inherit the land, And they will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.” (37:8-11)
He goes on to say, (Psalm 37:18) “The LORD knows the days of the blameless; and their inheritance will be forever.” He goes on down to say in verse 22, “For those blessed by Him will inherit the land; But those cursed by Him will be cut off.” Here in this Psalm you see that the meek are the ones that gain the inheritance because they know who is the guaranteer of that inheritance. Who is the one that bestows that inheritance? It‟s God. The sovereign ruler of all the universe. Remember Paul? Remember how God gave him a thorn in the flesh so that he would not exalt himself? And Paul went to God and he cried out to God three times asking God to take away that thorn in the flesh. What did God say to him?
In verse 9 it says, “And He has said to me….” Has said is in the perfect tense. It‟s a past completed action with a present and continuous result. So in other words, I‟m telling you, don‟t ever ask Me again. This is My final answer and My answer is this. “My grace is sufficient for you…,” He says, “… for power is perfected in weakness.” And He says, “Most gladly, therefore, well, I rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” He says, “Therefore I‟m content with weakness, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ‟s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (II Corinthians 12:9-10)
Weakness in this sense that He‟s talking about is meekness. He‟s saying I realize that I can‟t handle it myself and I‟m coming to God and I‟m not going to ask again and I‟m not going to fight it and I‟m
not going to get mad at God and I‟m not going to walk away.
I‟m going to submit to God and in submitting to God, he found his strength. He found his power. He rested in God. And, Precious Friend, someday you‟re going to step into eternity and I want you to know that when you do it‟s not the end because if you‟ve received Christ, if you have mourned over sin, if you are meek then you‟re going to inherit the earth.
What does that mean? Someday you and I are going to come back down here to this very earth, this terra firma, the whole world is going to be under the rule, under the authority, under the kingdom of heaven and Jesus Christ will rule.
He‟ll rule from Israel and His nation Israel will rule with Him and you and I will rule with Him. We are going to inherit the earth. And the reason, my friend that we‟re going to inherit the earth is because “… the earth is the Lord‟s and the fullness thereof.” And He can give it to anyone that He wants to give it to. Now listen, the kings of this earth are vying for rule and authority. They‟re going to come together in a conglomerate and they‟re going to seek to take over this land.
They‟re going to seek to get rid of the Jews but you know what?
It isn‟t gonna work. It isn‟t going to work because the Book tells us, not only the beginning and not only the middle but the Book tells us the end and the end of the Book tells us this: Blessed are the meek, those that submit to God, those that become pliable in His hands, those that recognize that he is God‟s because they will inherit the earth. How do you do that? You become poor in spirit. You see your abject poverty. You cry out to God. You mourn over sin and God says, “You trust Me and I‟ll give you the earth.”
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