Mat 5:3-5 “Here’s Your Personality Profile,” Says the Lord.

Class Outline:

Thursday April 4, 2024

 

Introduction: What kind of a person do we get when we put the first three Beatitudes together? 

 

A poor steward who is serious about his service and longs to be pleasing to his Lord, and who deeply cares for all others while never giving thought to himself. 

 

God sets up a world where being like this will be difficult, unpopular, mocked, and persecuted. [God is Sovereign]

 

Part of the reason it would be difficult for us is that we would all be born in Adam and we grow up in its environment and grow used to it. 

 

Our poverty leads to mourning and our mourning leads to meekness.

Poverty: 2CO 6:1-10; 8:7-9; LUK 12:42-44

 

Mourning: We see sin in ourselves (2CO 7:8-13) and others (MAT 5:44); PSA 51:17; LUK 19:41-42; PSA 69:20-21

 

The closer we get to God the more we see how far off we are, ROM 7:25; 8:23.

 

Meekness: The quality of not being overly impressed by a sense of one’s self-importance, gentleness, humility, courtesy, considerateness. 

 

Includes a response of love to all who accuse you (right or wrong), 1PE 2:21-25.  

 

Modeled together in Christ and in your life as you fix your eyes on Him. 

 

ISA 53:3

 

What about rejoicing? Joy is true to divine goodness and blessing given and received.

 

We do not neglect these three because we do not like them. 

 

Application characteristics - Meek:

 

Not lazy; not pacifist; not peace at any price; not being a weakling; does mean that you do not say and do what you feel like if it is not God’s will. 

 

Poor in spirit - see yourself as the sinner you are and the gifts you manage despite that. 

 

Does not glory in himself. Glory belongs to the Lord. Does not assert himself. Does not demand anything for himself. Does not guard his rights and claims. Does not make demands for his position, privileges, or possessions. Not sensitive about himself. Not watching out for his own interests. Not defensive. Not hypersensitive. Is finished with watching himself. Never pities himself. He is finished with himself altogether. The meek person is a humble student of God, of people, of life. He is always learning. 

 

“The man who is truly meek is the one who is amazed that God and man can think of him as well as they do and treat him as well as they do.” [Lloyd-Jones]

 

The meek person leaves everything - himself, his rights, his cause, and his whole future - in the hands of God, especially when we are suffering, and especially when we are suffering unjustly. 

 

If you don’t have the mind of Christ, looking to the eternal state, inheriting the kingdom of heaven and the new earth, what hope do you have?