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Part 6 of 7
The Fruit of the Spirit: Meekness
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We begin with Galatians 5:22-23, where Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit: "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."
Look at Numbers 12:3: "Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all the people who were on the face of the earth."
This raises a profound question: What do you do when God calls you to do something, ordains you to do something, and refuses to back you up? What do you do when you are convinced God told you to do something, but then it's as if he's not there to support you?
The answer is simple but challenging: It's okay to lose yourself.
Moses was born in ancient Egypt during a time when Pharaoh had decreed that every male child should be killed. His parents hid him for three months, then released him in a basket on the river. By divine providence, Pharaoh's daughter found him and—remarkably—paid his natural mother to care for him.
When Moses came of age, he was raised as a prince of Egypt. He received the best education, the best food, every advantage imaginable. At age 40, Moses felt a stirring in his heart. God's call was activated within him. He knew he was born to deliver the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage.
He was trained in the best schools of the greatest civilization of his time. He was strong, a leader, connected in the corridors of power. What else could you need to fulfill God's call?
So Moses went down to execute what God had given him. But it backfired. Acts 7:23-28 records what happened. Moses expected the people to recognize him as their deliverer—the answer to their prayers. But they didn't recognize him. Worse, they weren't grateful. He killed an Egyptian to save an Israelite, and they didn't thank him. When Pharaoh heard what Moses had done, he was angry, and Moses ran away to Midian.
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Exodus 2:21 says: "Moses was content to dwell with this man." He was comfortable. He gave up.
But here's the problem: Didn't God call him? Wasn't that a call from God—a burden from God that he felt? Wasn't that his prophetic destiny—something pre-ordained before he was born? Yet at 40 years old, despite all his qualifications, his education, his strength, his connections, God hit the reset button on his life.
Moses made no attempt to return to his calling until he was 80 years old. Something was missing—something so serious that God required 40 years to transform him.
When God appeared to him at 80—in a burning bush that was not consumed—everything had changed. At 40, Moses could not wait to get going. At 80, he was fighting God every step of the way.
God said to him: "Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt."
But Moses replied: "Who am I that you should send me on this errand?"
Forty years ago, he could not wait to get busy doing what he was born to do. Now, at 80, he was reluctant. He did not want to do it. Something had shifted.
He had the right qualifications, but none of the confidence. He had relevant experience, but none of the presumption that God would back him up. He had the necessary background but none of the backbone.
How do we know he was different? Hebrews 11:25 tells us: "By faith, Moses, when he was grown, refused the privilege of the Egyptian royal house. He chose a hard life with God's people rather than an opportunistic soft life of sin with the oppressors. He valued suffering in the Messiah's camp far greater than Egyptian wealth because he was looking ahead."
Moses had emptied himself of what defined him. He gave up the privileges of a prince to become a shepherd in the wilderness. He gave up wealth for poverty. He gave up status for obscurity.
Moses patterned his life after one man who did exactly the same thing: Jesus.
Philippians 2:5-8 shows us Christ's example: "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave and was born a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on the cross."
The dictionary defines meekness as the opposite of self-assertiveness and self-interest. It is not occupied with self at all. Meekness empties us of self-interest, selfishness, self-absorption, self-centeredness, ego, and pride.
Meekness is centered on selflessness. It is the antidote to selfishness—the preoccupation with ourselves to the detriment of paying attention to other people. It challenges the source of our self-worth and our identity. It challenges what we think we are owed because of who we are. It challenges how we think we should be treated because of what we have achieved.
For Moses to answer God's call, he had to empty himself of the first 40 years.
For Jesus to answer the call to save humanity, he had to empty himself of everything that made him God. Philippians 2:7 says: "He emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born a human being."
Think about it: the earth is God's footstool. Imagine how big you are compared to your footstool in your home. That's how big God is. And then he squeezed himself into a fallen nature. He emptied himself. He did not think being equal with God was something to hold on to.
Meekness is the humility of the soul that is willing to give up personal preferences and convenience for a higher form of living. Humility is the evidence of selflessness.
When I say humility, I don't mean low self-esteem. Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less. Meekness challenges our ego and shapes the way we posture ourselves in relationship with other people.
Humility means I don't take myself too seriously. Humility means that even though I'm in a place of authority, having achieved all these things, I'm still approachable.
Jesus was the most powerful man in his time, the most prolific teacher of his time. He was still approachable. Children ran to him. Sinners invited him for lunch. He did dinner with religious leaders. He was approachable.
Paul says in Philippians 2:5: "Let this attitude, this mind that was in Christ also be in you." The fruit of meekness makes us as humble as Jesus. It empties us.
One of the hallmarks of humility is the capacity to be taught new things.
When Moses finally said yes to God's call, God laid out a plan: "I'm going to use 10 plagues, 10 miracles to break down the strength of Egypt."
Every single plague started the same way:
It's almost as if Moses was open to being taught how to do the next one. He never became an expert in plague deployment. He never assumed he should do it the same way twice. He was constantly asking, "Are we raising the rod? Are we stretching our hand? Are we throwing dust? What are we doing now?"
But here's the challenge for most of us: We do something God calls us to do. We're successful at it. Then when it's time to do it again, we assume we're supposed to do it exactly the same way.
Later, when God wanted water from a rock, He said, "Speak to it." But Moses struck the rock instead, the way he had done before. He got in trouble because meekness assumes nothing. It is open to being taught new things, new ways.
When you move to a new church, don't bring the same mindset you had in your old church. You're waiting for this church to become the old church that you left. That would be wickedness. Why would I want you to leave this church doing what your church was doing when you left them?
How open are we to new things? New revelation? New instruction? New direction? How open are we to things that challenge our experience, things that challenge our tradition?
When I say tradition, I don't mean ancient cultural practices of your forefathers. I mean a set of personal preferences, professions, and perceptions that we live by and pass down to others. I mean the things that guide your life.
My wife and I live about an hour away from the church office. Monday through Thursday, we drive our separate cars. One day, I put an address into my GPS, and it gave me my wife's route—a route I had always rejected because I preferred my own way.
You know what I did? I ignored it. I kept driving my route. When the GPS was done rerouting, it had added 25 minutes to my commute.
That's what pride will do. Pride will have you wasting time because you're not meek enough to learn new things.
"Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word of God, which is able to save your souls." — James 1:21
Without meekness, we cannot receive from God. Without meekness, we cannot remain teachable by God. Without meekness and humility, we become unresponsive to God.
So meekness keeps us responsive to God and receptive of new things.
There are people in this room who believe certain things about the Bible. No matter what is preached, you believe what you believe. "Pastor Vic, I can worship online. It's still the word of God. It's still the praise." But the Bible categorically says, "Do not forsake the gathering of believers."
Or: "Pastor Vic, tithing is an Old Testament thing. The New Testament thing is not tithing. I don't believe in those things." I don't even trust you with my own money, by the way. But the Bible explicitly says otherwise.
Tradition is the kryptonite of teachability and transformation. How you're used to doing things, how you're used to being, how you're used to engaging—these are traditions that block your growth.
God only trusts people he can teach. If God cannot teach you, he cannot trust you. If God cannot change your mind, he cannot trust you.
Think about it: Who wrote Genesis 1:1? Moses. Moses was not there. Do you know how open you have to be to revelation from God to write, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," when you were not even there? Do you know how meek you have to be for God to trust you with the Ten Commandments? You're going to write everything I say just like I say it. You're going to transmit it without your own personal preference. That's meekness.
Meekness makes us teachable. It makes us pliable. God can mold us into what he wants us to be.
Now, when I say pliable, I don't mean gullible. The Bible says in Ephesians 4:14, "Don't be moved by every wind of doctrine." We have the responsibility to fact-check whatever anyone is saying to us. Acts 17:11 says the Berean Christians fact-checked Paul. If they can fact-check Paul, you better go home and fact-check what I'm saying.
Open your Bibles for yourself and read it, because it's there that the wisdom is. If God can teach you, you can have wisdom. Why? He's giving you real-time updates, real-time instruction. That's wisdom. That's where the blessing is.
The blessing I desire is in my teachability.
Humility is the evidence of selflessness. And let me be clear: when I say humility, I don't mean low self-esteem. Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less.
Humility challenges our ego and shapes the way we posture ourselves in relationship with other people. It means I don't take myself too seriously. It means that even though I'm in a place of authority, having achieved things, I'm still approachable.
It's not enough to be teachable. Teachability is evidenced by obedience, especially to new instructions and directions.
Why is this possible? Because meekness first empties me of self. So there's no ego or pride when God is telling me to do something I don't want to do.
Philippians 2:7-8 tells us: "He [Jesus] emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross."
God became man. As a man, he humbled himself to be obedient to death—and then he died the worst possible way. That's obedience.
Jesus knew it was going to be tough. The Bible records that he said, "If there's another way, we can do this. Sign me up." But then he said something powerful: "Not my will, but your will be done." That's teachability. He humbled himself and followed through and obeyed.
If meekness does not lead to obedience, it is not meekness. That you can be taught does not mean that's the end of meekness. That you can sit in the room while something new is being said does not mean you are meek. It's only meekness if you obey what is being said to you.
An intercessor is a person who intervenes on behalf of another person, especially in prayer. An intercessor is a go-between who stands in the gap.
We learned that humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. But meekness goes further: it's not just about dialing down the volume on yourself. The completion of meekness is that you dial up the volume on other people.
Philippians 2:3 says: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition."
Don't post. Don't argue. Don't work. Don't date. Don't marry. Don't give. Don't serve. Don't preach. Don't teach. Don't start the business.
If your motivation is self—if it's about you and what might come to you—the Bible says do nothing. Don't pray harder. Because the way you pray in church is not the way you pray at home. At home, you're yourself. Then you come to church, and suddenly you're shouting. You don't shout like that at home.
Do nothing out of selfish motivation. Rather, in humility, value others above yourself.
Romans 12:10 says: "Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor."
Meekness does not end in humility. It extends to honor. It's not about dialing down yourself. It's about holding people in higher esteem than you hold yourself.
If you think you deserve respect, imagine what the other person must deserve. That means what you think you deserve is the least of what the other person deserves. Hold other people in higher esteem. This changes the dynamic of our relationships. It changes even the way we handle conflict.
Forgiveness is easier when I'm empty, when there's no ego. Most of your refusals to forgive hold on to a sense of "me." You think, "Me? You have the right? Who do you think you are? Do you know who I am?" No. That's the problem. It's pride and ego. Where there is strife, there is still self. There's still a part of you that needs to die.
Consider Jesus. He was being crucified, killed by the people he was dying for. It's not like he went to Mars and died for people on Earth. He had to walk through it. He had to endure every lash—39 times—looking at the guy nailing him.
And yet you cannot stay in your office for three weeks and just ignore the person. Somebody was being killed by who you were dying for.
Paul says: "Let this mind be in you. Have the same attitude."
Meekness helps us resist the urge to clap back, to take revenge, to retaliate. It refrains us from self-defense.
One of the easiest ways to exercise this fruit is to pray for the people that hurt you.
Matthew 5:43 says: "You have heard it said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I'm challenging that. I'm telling you, love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond not with an email. Respond with supple moves of prayer."
Prayer is one of the easiest ways to forgive. Anybody you can pray for, you can forgive. Meekness chooses prayer over pride. Meekness chooses intercession over insults.
Let's look at Numbers 12:1-4. Moses was leading the people through the wilderness toward the promised land. Verse one says: "Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses."
Now, Miriam was Moses' elder sister, and Aaron was his elder brother. When the hurt and attack come from family, it cuts deep. But why did they speak against him? Because of the Cushite—the Ethiopian woman, the Black woman whom he had married.
They said: "Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us?"
The Bible says, "And the Lord heard it." They were just talking among themselves, but God heard it.
Verse 3 says: "Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all the people who were on the face of the earth."
Notice something: In the King James Version, verse 3 is in parentheses. A parenthesis is a word, clause, or sentence inserted for explanation into the passage that can be grammatically correct without it. But verse 3 is not unnecessary—it explains what's about to happen. Before we get to verse 4, God is explaining why what's about to happen is about to happen.
What's the reason? Verse three: Moses is meek. Very meek. In fact, the meekest man on the face of the earth in his time.
Look at verse 4: "And suddenly the Lord went off."
Moses is attacked. God speaks up. Moses is insulted. God speaks up. Moses is persecuted. God speaks up. Moses is wrongfully accused. God speaks up.
One of the benefits of meekness is that it triggers God to act on our behalf. Verse 4 cannot happen if you're not a verse 3 kind of person.
So most of us are facing verses 1 and 2 in our lives—attacks on you, persecution. And you're asking God to respond in a verse 4 kind of way. But he's looking at you to live a verse 3 kind of life, because verse 4 only happens if verse 3 is present.
When God is done with Miriam and Aaron, Miriam has leprosy. Most of us when you finish insulting people, all that's left is saliva on their face. That's the most we can do. A black eye if you're violent. But when God is done, Miriam is leprous.
Why wasn't Aaron struck the same way? Aaron was wearing his priestly robe. That's the problem with joining people. Aaron was not the same as Miriam. God could not strike him wearing that robe.
Now look at this: We don't see Moses saying anything until verse 11, when Aaron is begging him, "Please pray for Miriam." And the first words that come out of his mouth are: "Oh Lord, please heal her."
That's the only time we see Moses, the meekest man on the planet, saying anything.
If we clap back, God pulls back. If we pull back and pray, God claps back for us.
But if you want to clap back, only one of us is going to clap back. If we choose retaliation, God withdraws. If we choose trusting him to avenge us, then he steps up.
Moses did not have to fight. He just had to be meek. He did not have to respond. He just had to be meek. He did not have to answer. He just had to be meek.
Meekness kills the self-assertion that leads us to try to fight others or have our way. Moses did not say a word. God spoke up for him.
Meekness doesn't just make forgiveness easier. It gives us the responsibility to trust God to stand up for us as we stand in the gap for other people.
Notice: Moses doesn't tell God what to do. He doesn't say, "Leprosy!" Or, "Tuberculosis!" or "Leprous!" He's not even involved in it. God chooses what he's going to do. And when he finally engages God, there's no "I told you so." No self-vindication. No, he's actually praying for the person.
Because there's no ego. He is unoffendable. He cannot be offended.
I'm going to end with one word: Yield.
When I say yield, it's not so much something you do, but something that we are not. Meekness is the absence of resistance. When God is asking you to do something and you don't resist—if there's an iota of resistance in you, there is still meekness to be done.
Meekness is about yielding. Yielding is the absence of resistance.
But absence of resistance does not mean the absence of power. Meekness is not weakness. Meekness is strength of the highest caliber under total submission to the highest authority.
I could punch you out right now. But God said to chill. I've already typed the email. I'm right. You're wrong. But God says, "Let me handle this."
For some of you who are married: How many of you have arguments that are unproductive? If you could just take a step back and let God have the conversation, they'd be more productive than whatever you've been doing for the past 18 years.
**Meekness is knowing in your mind that you're right and not saying, "I told you so." You should not have begun. I told you this was..."
Or they do something to really hurt you. They betray your trust. You have receipts. You're ready to show them. And then God is like, "Relax. Let me have the conversation."
Meekness is yielding to that. And sometimes God will not even do it the way you want it done. You're thinking, "Show them how terrible they are. Show them not goodness. Forget goodness. Show them I serve a God who rains down fire."
But Jesus—dying on the cross—said, "I could call more than 12 legions of angels, but that's not what God wants done. That's not his will. His will is that I suffer."
So he went through it.
The fruit of meekness flows when we yield to God. When it's painful. When it hurts. When it doesn't make sense. When we could inflict harm on the person and we'd be justified, and nobody would blame us. But meekness yields to God.
Here's the thing: When we don't yield to God easily, we suffer collateral loss. What should have just been a sacrifice you make—which has a reward—becomes a traumatic experience for you.
God said, "Don't date that lady. Don't date that guy." But no, you're trying to pray them into the will of God. Now your heart is broken. Your body is scarred. You've deleted all the dating apps, not knowing the very next picture was the one. You're broken and scarred.
Sometimes when we don't yield, we suffer collateral damage. God said, "Don't start the business." But no, no, no. "This is my season." You started it. Now because you weren't paying attention in your job, you've lost your job. The money that was supposed to sustain you as you started the business before you scaled it—it's gone. All because we did not follow the leading of God in our hearts.
The more meek we are, the more yielded we are. The more yielded we are, the more of God's power we experience. The more meek we are, the more God can trust us.
Listen to me. Some of you are here, and you're at the precipice of something incredible. Something you're already doing well, but God has more for you. And he's waiting to see how meek you're going to be. He's waiting to see how much of yourself you're willing to lose to get into what he has.
When I say yourself, I don't mean lose your God-ordained identity. No, I'm not saying be a punk. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying be humble. Be teachable. Lose the ego that makes us proud and offended. Lose our personal preferences and the demands for how we must be treated.
You don't have meekness if you're easily irritable. You're not meek if people are not doing it your way and then you withdraw because that's not how you function. "I cannot work like this. Do you know who I am? That's not how I operate."
You're not meek because God will have you doing things you don't like doing to do what he wants. He will have you associating with people you're not comfortable with.
For me, the most difficult word is my name. I can say big words—"relinquish," "prolific." Ask me what my name is and I'm like, dying out of breath. Then I go to green rooms with these pastors, and you know the most common question? "What's your name? Give me a name tag."
I've done all the tricks. I've stuck my mouth with food so I don't have to talk. I've filled my mouth with water or drink. I've done all the tricks. But now it's awkward if I don't introduce myself.
My point is: He will put you in things that will kill you because of what you want. Because if there is more of you, there can only be space for less of him. The more there is of you, the less there is of him. The less there is of you, the more there is of him.
So the question is: How does God reward this?
The Bible says that after Jesus humbled himself as God, he came down as man. Even as a man, he humbled himself to obedience to dying on the cross like a criminal.
Philippians 2:9 says: "Because he did this, therefore God has highly exalted him and given him a name that is above all names. That at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow—in heaven, on earth, and beneath the earth."
God's response to meekness is honor.
Now, I know how most of us think: "Let me just be meek real quick so that God can honor me." Right there is self that needs to die. God will delay that honoring for 10 years just to make sure that's not your motivation.
Matthew 5:5 says: "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."
God trusts us with more. The more meek we are, the more meek we are, the emptier of ourselves we are, the more he can give us—the inheritance of good things.
The things you're striving for. The things you're breaking your head for. God is saying: If you could just lose yourself, lose your preferences, lose your likes, lose how you want to be and how it has to be—if you can lose that, then I can do something really special with you.
God is calling us to a higher place. And guess what? He did not just give us this higher place and this promise of greatness and leave us to our will to climb. He says, "I'm working on your inside."
As you obey the Holy Spirit on your inside, as you yield to him, he begins to produce this fruit of meekness that empties you of self and gives me room to pour in everything that I want to pour into you.
