Matthew 5.5

Matthew 5:5 God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth.

We left off in this series a few weeks ago with Matthew 5:7:

1. We should—be merciful (predetermine our forgiveness of others whether they deserve it or not)

2. God blesses—those who are merciful

3. Those who—are merciful will be shown mercy (i.e. to them, He extends mercy)

This week is, in a way, a bit of an extension of our last lesson:

1. We should—be humble

2. God blesses—those who are humble

3. Those who—are humble will inherit the earth (i.e. allow yourself to be ruled and you will rule)

The first four weeks of this were pretty challenging for me (and I hope for you). I found myself actually examining many of the things I do every day more carefully—holding them up to the light of these scriptures. Asking myself, as we said we would in the beginning: if this is what Jesus looks like, do I look like Jesus? Turns out I don’t. It seems in fact that there are many elements of my personality that I used to associate with my faith in Jesus that appear to be completely unchristian at a second glance. I bring all of this up now because I have separated this series into two sets of four lessons. The first four (those we’ve already discussed) are blessed are those who: mourn, work for peace, hunger and thirst for righteousness, and are merciful. And these four represent, at least for our purposes, actual life changes that we are capable of making. We can consciously and definitively take on the hurt of others and mourn with them. We can do the awkward work of leveling the playing field in order to work for peace when those around us are quarreling. We can set aside time in our lives to seek (hunger and thirst for) righteousness. And we can predetermine forgiveness and live mercifully. But the four beatitudes that remain don’t fit exactly the same mold. The four that remain are Jesus’ instructions to us to be what we cannot be. I’m sure your understanding of this truth will grow as we get into the weeks that lie ahead but for this lesson we’re focusing simply on Jesus instruction to us to be humble.

The pursuit of humility for humility’s sake, unfortunately, is futile. Humility is unlike the other beatitudes we’ve discussed thus far in that it does not involve a simple change in actions (or reactions) but it entails a change in attitude—in personality. I don’t know how many times in your life you have set out to change your personality but I’ve tried a time or two and it does not come easily. My personality, it seems, is what it is and though I can pretend to change certain elements of it, actually changing is a whole different beast. For example, if I were to decide that I am far too delicate a being and I should become a little tougher around the edges, the very best I could do in terms of making this change would be to pretend to be tougher than I actually am (in hopes that I will become tougher over time). After all, if I’ve spent 24 years being delicate and then I simply decide one day that I’ll be tough it’s very unlikely that I will spit back at the next person who spits at me no matter how much I say I want to. The same principle is true of humility. You are not humble. Your culture has not encouraged humility in you. You have not been taught “the last will be first and the first will be last.” You have been taught, “if you ain’t first you’re last.” You’ve been taught self-esteem and self-respect and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with any of those things. We should have confidence and respect for ourselves. We should think we’re important at least to some degree or we could never get anything done. Humility comes into play when we start to determine why we think we’re important. To what aspect of you do you attribute value? To get an idea of what Jesus is communicating to us through this beatitude—what Jesus means when he calls us to humility—I’d like for us to take a look at an event in Jesus’ life when he personified humility.

John 13:1a Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. And so here we are in the final days of Jesus’ life before he’ll be crucified and he has gathered his disciples together and we’ve all probably heard the story of what happens here. Before we move on into the story I want to point out how painfully awkward all of this is even for me to just talk about so imagine what it would’ve been like to have been there. Jesus is about to start washing his disciples’ feet and most of us cringe at the thought of it. It’s clear to us that this is a perfect (though terribly uncomfortable) picture of humility. There are two verses in particular in this chapter that stand out to me as humility defined and I want to spend the remainder of our time together discussing what these 2 verses have to say to us where we are. Verses 3 and 4 read as follows: Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. So he got up from the table, took off his robe, [and] wrapped a towel around his waist. If you’ve ever read this before it would be easy to see how you could read verse 3 as simply another reminder that Jesus is the Messiah. But look closer. The statements about Jesus in verse 3 are actually nothing that couldn’t be said of you or me. This is not John saying once more who Jesus actually was in the grand scheme of our redemption. This was John saying these things are, of course, true of Jesus but they are also true of anyone who follows him. So, in essence, what Jesus actually does in verse 3 is he reminds himself of the value he has because of his relationship with his Father. He remembered that his value was found in his connection to the creator of all things and as a result of remembering this truth he did the dirty work of verses 4 and 5.

If we take the time to consider the humility of Jesus we’ll find over and over again that his humble actions and reactions to those around him are always actions and reactions that come as the result of his confidence in his Father. Humility for Christians is not a self-hating lack of confidence or an overall victim mentality. It’s remembering that we only truly have value because of who our Father is. No action or mistreatment or judgment from anyone can take that away. I think if we could really get our heads around this idea, humility would could naturally. We would remember that “the Father [has] given[us] authority over everything and that [we have] come from God and [will] return to God. So… it only seems natural for us to serve the people that God loves who are all around us.

In the Kingdom of God value is in God alone and because of that value we will inherit all things.