Meek not w-e-a-k, lowliness not a cliche

At the beginning of Ephesians 4, Paul beseeches the reader, [2] With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
[3] Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Jordan explains, “The hub of Christianity is not ‘do something for Jesus’; the hub is Jesus did something for US. That’s where the unity of the spirit is. The unity is in our identity in Christ. It’s already made and our endeavoring to keep the unity is not to say, ‘Look, I’ll do this and I’ll do that.’ It’s, ‘Here’s what Christ has done for me and that’s what I’m going to focus on and that’s what’s going to live in me.’

“The idea is to make a difference by BEING different. It’s the opposite of pride, independence, self-will, unbelief, which is where the flesh lives; where our old life in Adam was centered.

“The Bible doesn’t just use clichés. Paul says, ‘For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ Sometime that becomes a cliché. ‘I’m crucified with Christ nevertheless I live.’ We make clichés out of verses that are not clichés.

“So the Bible comes along and details for you, ‘Okay, here’s what it looks like in life.’ J. Vernon McGee used to say, ‘Here’s what it is in shoe leather.’

‘Lowliness and meekness are mental attitudes. The issue isn’t what I’m doing; it’s the attitude I have while I’m doing it, because life comes out of my thinking.

*****

“In Acts 20, Paul is describing his ministry to the Ephesian elders for whom he writes the Book of Ephesians. Verses 18-19 say, [18] And when they were come to him, he said unto them, Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons,
[19] Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews:

“The first thing they knew about Paul is that his life was about serving the Lord. Here’s a man whose life was about ‘walking worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called.’ Notice how he describes it: ‘Serving the Lord with all humility of mind.’

“There’s that lowliness that he just talked about. Lowliness is a thinking process out of humility, not a thinking process out of pride. He says, ‘With many tears and temptations.’ Paul understood his serving the Lord, his place with that humility of mind, and the persecutions that went along with it.

“He says to the Corinthians, ‘The things that befall me daily, the care of the churches.’ He understood what it was to have tears for people; to have a heart concern for people. Temptation is the stuff from without; the lying in wait of the Jews.

“There’s a point in the Book of Acts where a big group of guys got together and swore they wouldn’t eat until they killed Paul. Paul’s nephew heard about it. I mean, everywhere Paul went there were people trying to trick him, put him in jail, assassinate him. He tells you about his journeyings ‘in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren.’

“He was in peril ALL the time. With you, if somebody just says something cross-eyed about somebody you don’t even know, but you think it’s something about you, you get mad. You get all offended. Paul wasn’t doing this stuff long distance; they were aiming at HIM!

“He says in II Timothy, ‘Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds.’ The dude’s a jailbird. The people say, ‘Well, you know who they’re following down there at Ephesus? That guy’s got a record; a rap sheet.’ Oh, what he’d do? ‘He’s out there preaching this Jesus stuff about a resurrection.’ What happened? ‘Well, he caused a riot over there in Thessalonica and they had to come in and get a peace bond and run him out of town.’

“It was an open assault, and Paul did it with humility of mind rather than it being, ‘Hey, wait a minute, I’m the Apostle of the Gentiles; I’m God’s man.’ You know, ‘Touch not the Lord’s anointed.’ You’ve heard preachers say that but do they have any idea where that verse is? You ought to ask one sometime.

“There’s no outbreak of pride; no religion, trying to make a fair show in the flesh in that. Instead there’s that thing in Philippians 3 about, [3] Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

“There’s that thing about ‘don’t think of yourself above that which ye ought.’ So Paul would say, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am. It was only His grace that saved me from where I was going.’

“Paul knew that little poem, ‘In evil long I took delight, unawed by shame or fear, until a new object caught my sight, and stopped my wild career.’ That was Paul. By the way, that was you and me, if you remember.

“Paul understood who he was and that’s the opposite of pride. So in your life and ministry, it starts out with this lowliness of mind. This consciousness of who we really are and the issue isn’t us; it’s Him.

“The tricky thing about pride is that we usually don’t recognize it until it’s grown into full-blown arrogance. It starts out with self-justification and winds up in arrogance. We say, ‘Oh, well we’re just assertive.’ Where did that come from? It didn’t come from lowliness of mind.

*****

“Now, that word meekness is interesting because people say, ‘Well, I’m not weak.’ Meek and weak aren’t spelled the same. He didn’t say mousy.

“Go to Numbers 12: [1] And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.
[2] And they said, Hath the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the LORD heard it.
[3] (Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)

“Here’s the problem there: ‘And the Lord heard it.’ Uh-oh. You know what they were doing? They were dead wrong. The Lord’s going to tell them, ‘The only person I stood face to face and talked to was Mo. Not you two; it was Moses.’ So they were wrong. They were trying to ASSUME a position God didn’t give them.

“Notice what he says about Moses: ‘He was very meek.’ Now, do you think Moses was a Milquetoast? Do you think he was a back-bencher who didn’t do anything? Listen, a guy who could walk into Mr. Big, Pharaoh, and say, ‘Jehovah says to let my people go,’ and Pharaoh responds, ‘Well, who is Jehovah?! I’ve got all these gods over here; who’s that?!’ and Moses stood there. That’s not a guy trembling in his boots and weak. That’s not a mousy guy. There’s a guy who has a characteristic of meekness that tells you meekness is not weakness.

“Jesus says in Matthew 11:29, ‘[29] Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

“Do you think the Lord Jesus Christ was weak? Caspar Milquetoast? Listen, people have the idea, and I’ve heard this all my life, ‘Oh, that religious crowd; it’s for women and children. Real men don’t go there!’

“Listen, if you want to find men wearing lace britches, go out on the tennis court or the golf course in the business world. You want to find men who know how to wear the armor, you get involved in the work of the ministry. It’s no place for weakness.

*****

“Meekness is the issue of power, but it’s under control. You’ve got the power but you’re not using it independently on your own. It’s under control, and meekness is the opposite of independence.

“When Jesus said, ‘I’m meek and lowly,’ His voice was the voice that thundered on Mt. Sinai. His voice was the voice that said, ‘And let there be,’ and spoke a universe into existence. What is that? That’s power! The world came into existence by the word of His power.

“But when He said, ‘I’m meek and lowly,’ He was saying, ‘I’ve got that power under control and I’m not using it just to demonstrate power. I got a plan and, by the way, the plan is the plan of my Father.’

“Rather than being independent, meekness is the idea of being dependent. Look at the passage in John 4: [31] In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat.
[32] But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.
[33] Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat?
[34] Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.

“The disciples don’t get it; they think He’s talking about bringing in some McDonald’s hamburgers. When Jesus says, ‘My meat is to do His will,’ He’s saying, ‘The thing that feeds my soul, that satisfies and nourishes me, is to do the will of my Father.’

“Now, Jesus is God. He’s as much God as the Father and the Holy Spirit are God. Philippians 2 says, [6] Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
[7] But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: that it was not robbery.

“He made Himself of no reputation because in the counsel of the godhead they had a plan and Jesus Christ said, ‘I’ll go execute the plan of my Father.’ He chose to take this power, put it under control, and submit it to the plan of His Father.

“In the shadow of the Cross, He says, ‘Not my will but thy will be done.’ As the man Christ Jesus, He says, ‘The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. The flesh has got a problem but I’ll take my flesh and submit it by faith to the Father’s plan.’ That’s why Paul talks seven times about ‘the faith of Christ.’

“That’s why Zachariah talks about His meek and lowly coming and His coming in power and glory. That’s two sides of the same Messiah.

*****

“Paul said, ‘You know what the unity of the spirit is going to look like? You know what walking worthy of the Lord is going to look like for you? It’s going to be a life of humility of mind.’

“You’re not going to be strutting your stuff. It’s going to be the opposite of pride. It’s going to be a walk where the power that is yours--the identity that is yours--is going to be dependent on the Father’s will. It’s going to be a life of longsuffering where you put up with it for a long time. That’s the opposite of self-will.

“When something is longsuffering, what happens to it is that you don’t quit. If you want another term for longsuffering, in my mind it would be the idea of endurance.

“To me, one of the most powerful passages on longsuffering anywhere in the Bible is in Colossians 1:9-11:

[9] For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
[10] That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
[11] Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;

“That’s just a shorthand version of the prayer at the end of Ephesians 3. It’s that your life would be under the control of the knowledge of His will. It’s that the wisdom and spiritual understanding that comes to you, when you understand what God’s doing today, would grip your life and your life would be under the control of the love and grace of God revealed through the Word of God rightly divided. Why? That you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. There’s Ephesians 4:1: ‘I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.’ ” 

(to be continued tomorrow)