Galatians 5:22-23
Let’s give our attention now
to God’s holy and inspired word. Galatians 5 verse 22 says, but
the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And those against
such things, there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus
have crucified the flesh with its passions. and with its desires. Amen. The word of the living
God for us. A question that many people will
ask this day and time is who is who is the strongest? Perhaps
on the basketball court, people might say it’s LeBron James.
In the world of boxing, it formerly was Muhammad Ali. I am the greatest.
And we go on and on. We watch television shows. We
read stats, get magazines. We look at apps. We want to know
who is the strongest, who is the best. We read it in the financial
world. Who’s the richest? Who’s the
wealthiest? Fortune, whatever company, is
doing the best. There’s an age-old question.
that pops up in Aesop’s fables. Who is the strongest? The wind
and the sun competed against one another. The wind and the
sun said, which of us is the strongest? We’ll see. We’ll find
a traveler and we’ll see which of us can remove his cloak. Well, the wind whipped up and
got strong. It blew a mighty wind, a cold wind. And the more
he blew and the colder it got, the man just wrapped himself
up tighter in his cloak. But then along came the sun and
he rose slowly. And as the heat of the day began
to slowly be realized by this traveler, he eventually sat down
and took his cloak off. We like to say the moral of this
story is, do we win by force or by slow and gentle persuasion? Strength. Strength is something
we look for in our culture, something we like to see. We like to see
might and strength and success. But what about gentleness? What
about meekness? We often say meekness rhymes
with weakness, but that’s actually not the case in the scriptures.
So today, as we think of the fruit of the spirit as gentleness,
we think more of the sun, than the wind. We think more of subtle
and slow and gentle. We think of Jesus who says, I
am meek, I am humble, I am lowly. We think of gentleness, how the
strong are to deal with the weak. Jesus had said of him in Isaiah,
a bruised reed he will not break, a candle, a wick he will not
snuff out. And so what does it mean to be
meek or gentle? It’s to be humble, to have self restraint under
great strength. It’s an inward disposition. It’s
a behavior we, we hold towards others. And so who is the strongest? Well, between the wind and the
sun, it was, it was the sun. The sun was able. Who is the
strongest? Well, it’s not the sun. It’s
not the wind. Those are created things. Who
is the mightiest? It is God almighty. He is the
maker. He speaks and that which does
not exist comes to be. He is the one who speaks and
what he made is upheld and exist because all things are held together
in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in him we live and move
and have our being. And so when the wind blows or
the sun shines, or perhaps in a day or two when the sun doesn’t
shine because of a solar eclipse, it’s because God is the mighty
one behind all these things. We sing a little song when we’re
children. My God is so big, so strong and
so mighty. There’s nothing my God cannot
do. And you read through the scriptures
and you see that that’s so. When Moses has a showdown with
Pharaoh, it’s really God versus the gods. And just like the contest
between the sun and the wind, there really is no contest. The
gods of Pharaoh, the gods of Egypt are impotent, they’re weak,
they’re nothing. Yet God Almighty, the great God
who is, I am, shows over and over and over through the 10
plagues and the extra ones, the bonus ones, like the parting
of the sea and the washing over of the sea of the army of Pharaoh,
the manna from heaven, the water from the rock, the bitter water
made sweet. Over and over and over, we see
our God is big, strong and mighty, and there’s not a thing that
he cannot do. We go on to read in the scriptures
that he can put mighty armies to flight, armies that Israelites
never could have beaten, armies that Israelites never could have
met on the battlefield and even had a fighting chance. It was
David and Goliath, if you will. We see also in the scripture,
God is a God who can bring terrifying, awe-inspiring judgments like
Sodom and Gomorrah or the entire worldwide flood where he flooded
creation and destroyed everything that he made, save those who
found safety in his ark. But this God who is mighty and
strong, who is terrible and terrifying as we say, He also knows our
frame. Psalm 103 says, He knows our
frame. He remembers that we are dust.
And so our God does not treat us as our sins deserve. He’s
merciful. He’s loving, He’s kind, He’s
gracious. He’s also gentle. I flipped through
my systematic theology books this week and I never really
found anything that said one of the attributes of God is gentle.
but you find it, you find it in one of the great stories of
King David, you know, well, King David, who is the, he was the
shepherd boy. Uh, when Saul, uh, had been a
wicked King and God deposed him, he sent Samuel to Jesse’s house.
And Jesse lined up all his boys, probably in the order that he
thought they should be arranged for King, perhaps youngest to
oldest, but maybe biggest, strongest, mightiest, smartest, highest
SAT score, you know, most advanced degrees, whatever. And God went
through them with Samuel and nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Are there any others? Well, there’s the there’s the runt of the litter. There’s David, the shepherd boy,
and he had been out in the fields. He’d been fighting off bears
and wolves and whatever else with his sling and his stick.
And when he came in, God confirmed that it was David who was to
be anointed king. He was the shepherd boy, the
chosen one, the anointed one. He was the one who would give
us a little picture of Jesus, of Messiah, of our eternal king. He is the one who would be hunted. hated by King Saul. And you know
from reading your Old Testament scriptures that David was a long
time in becoming king. Yes, Samuel poured the oil on
him. Yes, God had selected him. And
yes, some of the people knew and held him as king, but it
was a long time before God took Saul’s life. It was a long time
before David could really and safely and legitimately become
king. And so David is an old man is
reflecting in, in Psalm 18 and you read the exact Psalm in second
Samuel. He’s reflecting on how God throughout
his whole life, God, throughout his whole life, took him from
the fields, took him as the runt of the litter, took him as the
one that nobody thought would be king. And he took him and
though it came through, through hell and high water and all kinds
of hard things, where he fled from Saul, he escaped his spear
and his anger. He eventually sat on the throne.
And when he sat on the throne, God established that throne.
Israel dwelled in safety. There was peace within the land. The borders of Israel increased
north and south and east and west as far as the sea and as
far as Egypt, as far as the desert. And David now in his old age,
a man who’s been sanctified by his hardships, a man who’s been
humbled by his great sin, and a man who God brought by the
work of his spirit to have a contrite heart. He says these words, he
says, Lord, you have given me the shield of your salvation.
Lord, you have upheld me and supported me by your right hand.
But catch this last statement he makes. It’s a beautiful, wonderful
statement. He says, your gentleness, has
made me great. David says something that we
ought to think on very well. Your gentleness has made me great. I wonder if you perhaps go to
Savannah or Charleston or these old places and you walk through
a churchyard, a graveyard, do you ever see an epitaph that
says your gentleness has made me great? You know, if you’re
thinking about getting your tombstone and thinking, I want to be so
original, I think this is it. I really do, because God, who
is big and mighty and righteous, he should never have put up with
King David. He should never have put up with all his antics. And
you think about the two things that David did that were really
bad. One was towards the end of his career, Satan incited
in him to take a census of his fighting men. Some men trust
in chariots, some trust in horses. But we trust in the name of the
Lord, our God. Well, David wasn’t trusting in the name of the Lord,
his God. He was trusting in how many men can I muster up? And
this is the God who had routed Sihon, the king of the Amorites
and Og, the king of Bashan and Pharaoh, the king or emperor
or whatever, the sun god, whatever, all the things he said he was
over Israel. God had routed all these enemies. And David dares
to count his fighting men and think that he is in good standing
because of the number. because of the census. And then
of course, there’s the account of David with Bathsheba. He coveted,
he committed adultery, he covered it up, he murdered, he lied,
he stole all the rest. But here in his old age, he realizes
that under the almighty hand of God, under the almighty hand
of God who works out his perfect purposes, God who is big, mighty
and righteous has been gentle with him. And can’t you say the
same thing? You’re not the king of Israel.
You’re not the king of any land, but, but you can say with David,
I’ve done so much against this great God. And he has, he has
been gentle with me. And in spite of my sin, because
of the righteousness of Jesus, he has yet made me great. God
is patient, isn’t he? God puts up with us. I think
of Adam and Eve in the garden when God had threatened. You
know, you eat from the tree, you’ll die. In the day you eat
of it, you will surely die. Yet God went looking for them,
found them. He took the fig leaves and gave them instead. Clothes
that came from an animal whose blood would shed. God was merciful. He was gentle. In fact, with
Adam and Eve, he puts up with us and he uses us for his glory
and for others good. I think of King David, how In
many of his Psalms, especially the penitential ones, where he
confesses his sin, he goes before God, he usually says something
like this, Lord, if you’ll put me back on my feet, I’ll tell
others. I’ll tell others how not to live. I’ll tell others
how not to screw it up. I’ll tell others how not to mess
up the Christian life. And God uses people like David,
your gentleness, has made me great. It’s a condescension on
God’s part, isn’t it? He stoops down. You know, you
think of a big, muscular person holding a tiny little baby. What
a contrast between power and strength and might and even size. And yet a tiny, sweet little
baby can lay trustingly in that person’s arms because their temperament
is one of meekness. Their inner disposition, one
of gentleness. And that’s exactly how God comes
down. The mighty creator, the powerful
sustainer comes down to his creatures. And he tells us in the scriptures
to this one, I will look. If you want God to look on you,
then this. He looks on him who is humble.
He looks on him who is contrite in spirit. And he looks on him
who trembles. at God’s word. You know, it took
David a whole lifetime to realize that. And I imagine it’s taken
many of us our lifetimes to figure out we’re not who we think we
are. We’re not as big and bad as we once thought. You know,
we’ve been taken down a few pegs, we say. God shows us the reality
of our creatureliness. God shows us the reality of our
remnant sin. God shows us the reality of the
wickedness and the weakness that’s in every one of our hearts. But
to this one I will look, God says, to him who is humble, him
who is contrite in spirit, and he who trembles at my word. Many of the theologians throughout
the ages have said, we got to know two things. We got to know
who God is and who we are. And if we exalt God and make
him big and we ourselves are small, maybe much like Isaiah,
who we’ll look at next Sunday evening in chapter six, he was
before the majesty of God. And he said, whoa, unto me, I’m
a man of unclean lips. He was abased. He was humbled.
He was brought low before God. Or how about John, the apostle
in his old age on the Isle of Patmos when Christ Takes him
up into the heavenlies to see what will take place in the last
days. John fell on his face as though dead. And then there’s
the Pharisee and the tax collector. In Jesus’ story, the Pharisee
walks right up to the altar, right up to the presence of God
and says, God, you’re so lucky to have me. Isn’t that the attitude
of our world? God, you should be so lucky to
have me. I’m this, I’m that, I’m this, I’m that. And your
kingdom wouldn’t be the same without me. That’s not who God
looks for. But then there’s the publican,
the tax collector. He gets as far away from the
altar as he can, far away from God. He beats his chest and he
says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Which are you? Who is the strongest in this
world? Is it the one that thinks he’s strong or the one who knows
he’s weak, who’s been brought low before God? Do you know God? Do you know yourself? Do you
tremble before God? Or do you think people tremble
before you? Are you a sinner saved by grace? You see, King
David could say in his old age, God has taken me down a notch.
Yes, I’m king of Israel. Yes, the borders are stretched
as far as they ever will be. He’ll be one of the greatest
kings in that nation. Perhaps one of the greatest kings
in the world. But he was sober minded. He gave a self assessment. It isn’t that so opposite of
the world we live in. We’re jealous for our own glory.
We’re jealous for how many likes we get, how many friends we have,
how many looks we have. We’re jealous for people to feed
our self-absorbed valuing of ourselves. We look today in our
culture to the strong and to the proud, the powerful, the
winners. We look for those who are fighters, who are crushers,
who can put their feet on the neck of their competitor. Whether
in the business world, the social strata, or the sports venue,
that’s what we look for. But it’s not the fruit of the
Holy Spirit. It’s not the fruit of Jesus Christ in us. It’s not
the fruit that Jesus bled and suffered and died for. And so
we must look to Jesus. To see how it is we ought to
live in meekness and gentleness. Think of an example. We’ve thought
about David. Now think of Moses. Remember
Moses, you know, there was the edict. Hebrew women don’t have
any more babies. And then Pharaoh said, if you
have a boy, they need to be killed, drowned. So what did Moses’ mother
do? She put him in a basket. She
put him in an ark of safety. She hid him in the promises of
God. And so Pharaoh’s daughter was
bathing in the river. She took him home. And Moses
grew up in the palace, a grandson of Pharaoh. I mean, you can imagine
he went to the best schools. You know, he had a credit card.
He had an iPhone. You know, he had a Jeep. He had all the things
a good prince would have. You know, the tabloids always
talked about him. You know, who’s he going to marry?
All the rest. And I love what the book of Hebrews says about
Moses. Hebrews 11 says this of Moses,
and I think you can see it of Jesus in a bigger way. He was
Pharaoh’s grandson, yet he said no to the riches. and yes to
being a Hebrew. He said no to the being a son
of Pharaoh and yes to being mistreated with the people of God. He said
no to the fleeting pleasures of this life, the fleeting pleasures
of sin. And instead he considered the
reproach of Christ greater than the wealth of Egypt. The wealth of Egypt would have
been his. If you were with us on Wednesday night, I believe
last fall, we looked at what Moses likely was in the sight
of the world. He was, he was well-educated,
well-trained, and he probably led Egypt into some battles where
Egypt captured more land for its great empire. Moses was no
small potatoes kid. He was, he was big and bad, we
say, but he was looking not for the rewards of this life, He
was not looking to have a pyramid built in which he would someday
be entombed. He was not looking forward to
gold and silver. He was looking for the people of God to be led
out of slavery and out of sin and death and darkness and tyranny
and into a land that flowed with milk and honey. What a horrible
task that was. And yet in the Holy Spirit, he
saw who he was at the burning bush before God, he was contrite
in heart, he was lowly in spirit, he was useful to God and not
useful to this world. He was looking for the reward
and the same with the Lord Jesus Christ. We speak of Jesus’ humiliation,
his leaving the riches of heaven. We say in our catechism, he was
born and that in a low condition, he was born to Mary and Joseph
who were poor. He was born among the animals. He was made under
the law. Uh, he suffered many indecencies
in this life. Uh, he was not like Moses who
had a credit card and an iPhone and a Jeep and best schools and
all the rest. You, you know, we’re making all
that up, but you, you get the idea a little more. Moses had
everything. Jesus had nothing. Well, he had
everything in heaven, didn’t he? He was equal with the father. He was equal with the son. There
was glory that we won’t be able to imagine till we see it when
we get there. He was one with the father and
he lived in the highest of heavens where the angels and the creatures
day and night worshiped him. And yet he came into the womb
of Mary and into the crib of a stable. And he came into the
dust of Judea and he suffered under all the indignities of
this life, even more because he was the suffering servant.
You know, Isaiah speaks of the servant of the Lord. And it doesn’t
say he’s going to come on a gold chariot. No, the king of kings
came on a borrowed donkey. We read of the suffering servant
and he’s not wearing, you know, fluffy coats with furry collars
and crowns of gold and jewels on his head. He wears a crown
of thorns. In fact, they take his clothes,
they bet over them. And they strip him down and they
beat him and he hangs unclothed, naked on the cross as he bears
our sins. And the suffering servant says
he’s nothing to look at. He’s not the handsome prince
we read of in People magazine as we’re standing in the grocery
line, or if you secretly have a subscription to it. He’s the
suffering servant. Right. He’s the one who was despised.
He was rejected. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted
with grief. And it was the will of the Lord
to send him from heaven. And it was the will of the Lord
to lay on him our sins. And it was the will of the Lord
for him to go to that sorrowful death on the cross. And so as
our priest, he didn’t wear all the fancy linen ephods we’ve
been reading about on Wednesday night. He didn’t. have all the
fancy clothes and the prestige that came with being the high
priest. No, in our place, he was taken outside the camp. And
as the priest, he was both the offerer and the offering. He
was the lamb, the spotless lamb slain before the foundation of
the world. He was the scapegoat on whom the sins of the people
were placed. Your sins, my sins, the sins
of all God’s children throughout the ages. And he was sent outside
the camp to suffer and die for our sins. But there’s something
more about Jesus’ humility, Jesus’ gentleness, Jesus’ meekness that
ought to capture us and give us energy and fuel and desire
and zeal for living in this life.
And it’s this. Jesus has been made like us in
every way. He took on human flesh. He took
on human suffering. He took on our infirmities. He
took on our indignities. And so when we think of Jesus
now risen and exalted and sitting next to God, the father at his
right hand, he will come again one day to judge the living and
the dead and all righteousness. But we sing a little song. We
read of it in Hebrews. He ever lives above for me. to intercede. We have one on
the throne of grace, one who has been touched with our infirmities
in every way. This gentle God, his son, the
gentle lamb can sympathize with us. And Hebrew says he can deal
gently with us. You think about your sin. You
think about every day, your remaining sin and your sinful desires that
creep up and pop up. As we quench the spirit or don’t
read our word or we harbor things that ought to be put away and
perhaps we’re under God’s hand of chastisement or whatever our
spiritual situation is. We think of all those things
and haven’t we lost sight that they’re an affront to a holy
God. But when we see our sin and we
define it as God defines it and we realize how wretched we are.
And then we think we have a lamb, a savior, a high priest who can
sympathize with us and deal gently. You know, our culture deals gently
with criminals, don’t they? We just let them go. We just
don’t hold them to account. How does God deal gently? He
put our sin that would crush us. on the savior. And you and I could not bear
up under his wrath just for our sin. And yet Jesus bore the wrath
for all the sin of his loved ones. That’s why we say in our
theology, why was it necessary for Jesus to be man? Well, a
man had to pay for man’s sins. Why was it necessary for the
Jesus to be God? Because the divine nature had
to uphold the human nature under the wrath of God, because it
would have consumed him. In a sense, you can see how gentle
God is by not giving us what we could never undergo. What a sweet and wonderful thing
that is. Can’t we say with King David, your gentleness has made
me great? How has it made us great? Well,
when we put our faith, our hope, our trust in the Lamb of God,
God takes our filthy rags and he gives us his righteous robes.
We’re wearing the king’s garments. We carry the king’s righteousness.
We carry the king’s obedience. When God looks at us, he sees
us as if we’ve never sinned. He sees us as if we have always
obeyed, but as we’re bumping through life and its hardships.
It’s knocks and it’s bumps and it’s sucker punches and it’s
gut wrenching things, it’s losses and crosses. We can say this. He does know. He does understand
and he does care. Well, how can he? Because he’s been there and as
you are united to him in faith, he in a sense is a co-sufferer
with you. As you hurt, it hurts him in
the heavenly places. His human nature has compassion
for you. His gut feels what you suffer
under. And so as we are united to Jesus,
our co-sufferer, we have a God who doesn’t say, well, that’s
it. I said one more strike and there you go. No. All of that
was placed on Jesus at the cross. And he’s a priest who can deal
gently with this. And the book of Hebrews says
we’re ignorant and we’re wayward. That’s kind of sheep sounding,
isn’t it? Sheep aren’t the smartest of
animals. In fact, we say they’re pretty dumb. Well, God calls
us sheep. We’re ignorant. We’re wayward.
What do sheep always do? They always wander off. They
find the hole in the fence. They find the escape route. And so what is a shepherd constantly
doing? He’s feeding his lambs because
they’re ignorant and he’s bringing them back home because they wander.
And isn’t that our lives? You know, a shepherd could get
really tired of the one sheep that just gives them a bunch
of trouble. You know, always getting out,
always wandering off, always doing dumb things. And that’s
not God. He’s gentle. He’s meek. He’s humble and he’s
lowly. With transgressors, with sheep,
with wanderers. And the severity of God was placed
on Jesus. The gentleness of God comes to
us by faith. Yes, he disciplines. us as children. It hurts. It’s painful as he
burns or consumes our dross and refines our gold. Yes, that’s
painful. And yes, the cuts from the chisel of the sculptor. Yes,
they hurt blow by blow. But our God who is sufficient,
our God who is gentle, he helps and he heals. And so the challenge,
the The task for us as believers is to look to God in faith, to
look to him in his gentle and lowly and kindness in Jesus and
to bring everything to him. You know, this day and age, you
know, you get arrested. You know, you be quiet, right?
Until you get your lawyer. You don’t say a word and you
definitely don’t give anything that could be used against you. Well, it’s just the opposite
with God, isn’t it? There’s nothing that you can’t tell him. And if you hide it, he already
knows it. And if you tell him, he’s not surprised. And how wonderful
it is to bring everything to him. There’s another way to think
of the gentleness of God and our call to be gentle and the
fruit of the spirit. And it’s when we are perhaps
in a position over someone. Maybe you’re a parent, you’re
a leader, you’re a boss, you’re a school teacher, you work in
law enforcement, you own a business and have people that work for
you. You’re strong and they’re weak. You are superior, they
are inferior. And then perhaps there’s the
person around you who’s always maybe sick or obnoxious or they’re
less fortunate. Or they’re unlearned or uncultured
or unmannered. And perhaps we should understand
the louder someone is, the more they need gentleness. The more
they need the kindness of God that has been shown to us in
Jesus. Because all those things, we’ve been to God. And he could
have just flicked us off the map, off the globe. But that’s
not what he does. Every human lives in the following
condition. And Jesus has experienced it.
He knows it. And so who is the strongest?
Is it the wind or is it the sun? Is it the loudest or perhaps
the quietest? Is it the muscles or the meekness?
Perhaps we’ve been dealt with in an unkind way. Someone has
overpowered us, been unkind to us. Or we’ve done the same. We’ve forgotten what it’s like.
And maybe we’ve had these self-aggrandizing thoughts of ourselves. And like
David in old age, we need to be brought to reality, who we
are in light of sin, who we are in light of God, who we are in
light of Jesus Christ. Maybe your heart’s grown cold
to those who are lesser or weaker or to someone who sinned against
you. But we remember what God allows
us in Jesus. We can bring our mess. We can
bring it all. And I remind us of the words
of the Lord Jesus. He says, come to me, all you
who are weary and heavy laden, all you who are burdened with
your sin, he says, and I will give you rest. That’s one of
the key words of the Bible, isn’t it? Is rest. We rest at the end of our lives
when we when we die, but we rest on Sundays in the Sabbath, a
picture of eternal rest. We rest from our enemies. We
rest from our strivings. Jesus says, take my yoke. And
importantly, he says, learn from me. As we submit to God and he’s
kind to us. He also says, learn from me so
that you can be kind to others. This is the fruit of the spirit.
I am gentle, Jesus says, I am lowly in heart. And in him, you
will find rest for your souls. I wonder when people are around
you, do they feel your gentleness? Do they feel your meekness? Is
your yoke easy and is your burden light? You know, we’re to imitate
God, we’re to imitate Christ, we’re to learn from Jesus. And
I think maybe like David in our old age or in his old age, we
should begin to learn to say, Lord, it’s your gentleness that’s
made me great. And then it’s therefore our gentleness.
that can help make others great by bringing them, leading them
to the cross of Jesus where they find rest, where they find true
gentleness. May it be so. Let’s do pray together. Lord, help us to think on what
we are and what we have been and what we ought to be. And
remember that, uh, that you’ve been so kind and
gentle and gracious to us in Jesus. And help us by your spirit
to be kind and gentle and gracious to others, remembering that Jesus
did it not for deserving people, but undeserving. And so help
us to be Christ-like. We do pray, work it in us by
your word and by your spirit. We pray in Jesus’ mighty name,
amen. As we prepare to come to the Lord’s table for communion,
we want to sing together the hymn from your insert, Till He
Come.