Transcript

Shelby Abbott [00:00:00]: Welcome to The Connecting Podcast with Paul Tripp. My name is Shelby Abbott and this podcast exists to connect the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life, right here, right now. Paul, what are we talking about today?

Paul Tripp [00:00:15]: Well, I first want to say I love doing this with you.

SA [00:00:17]: Yes, thanks. I love doing it with you, too.

PT [00:00:18]: This is so much gospel fun. Well, we're spending our podcast year focusing on how to live a vibrant, hopeful, courageous, joyful Christian life in the middle of a world that's gone absolutely insane and we are rooting our conversation in The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' longest recorded teaching and it just has all the things you need to think about as you think about, "How am I supposed to live in this world?" The more I read and study The Sermon on the Mount, the more current it feels to me, like it's just...

SA [00:01:04]: Yes, it really does, yes.

PT [00:01:05]: It's just form-fit for what we're dealing with right here, right now. So, why don't we start by just reading it again and then, we'll jump into our conversation.

SA [00:01:17]: All right, so this is Matthew 5:1–12, right?

PT [00:01:19]: Yes.

SA [00:01:20]: Okay.

¹ Seeing the crowds, He went up on the mountain, and when He sat down, His disciples came to Him.
The Beatitudes
² And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:
³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
⁵ “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
⁶ “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
⁷ “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
⁸ “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
⁹ “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
¹⁰ “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
¹¹ “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

[00:02:12] All right, that's the first twelve verses.

PT [00:02:15]: Yes, as you were reading, I was just thinking, "Man, it would be a great thing to everyday just pray The Beatitudes into our lives," because these are not natural for us. This life of blessing is only ours by means of God's empowering grace.

[00:02:37] Remember, God's grace isn't just "forgiving grace" and, finally, "destiny grace", but it's grace for everything we face right now. Well, we're looking at "blessed are the meek". I would entitle this episode "Stay Small".

SA [00:02:57]: "Stay small". I'm great at that.

PT [00:02:59]: Because it is by far, for me, the most counterintuitive, unnatural of all The Beatitudes. Meekness is this stature of humility that just recognizes I'm not in the center of the world, life is not about me, I've been born into a glory story that's not my glory, it's the glory of God. And in order to really talk about meekness, we got to do the theological background.

[00:03:50] In 2 Corinthians 5, around verse 15, Paul says that Jesus came so that those who live would no longer live — here's the words — for themselves. So this is the Apostle Paul arguing something that's very important to grasp and it's really helpful to use it as a way of examining yourself.

[00:04:22] He's arguing that the DNA of sin is selfishness. In the true sense of what that means, it's making life all about me and in saying that, Paul is warning us for the danger of what I call "center of the world" living, where I get up in the morning and what floods into my mind is my wants, my needs, my feelings. And I want my needs addressed, my wants fulfilled, and my needs affirmed. That's it. You know, if you're a parent, you know exactly what that's about.

SA [00:05:20]: Yes, you see it all the time in your kids.

PT [00:05:22]: A child isn't born longing for somebody to rule them. "Mom and dad, if you love me, just give me some more commands." It's just not what happens and those fights against your rules, safety rules in the home, what to eat, what to go to bed, they're not actually about the issue.

[00:05:49] They're about the child not wanting to be ruled because they are born wanting to be at the center of the world. That's what sin does to us. Another observation is if you go back to Genesis 3, the temptation and disobedience of Adam and Eve, what's the issue? You can answer that. What's the issue? What are they after?

SA [00:06:22]: They want to be their own gods.

PT [00:06:24]: That's exactly, they want to be God. It's not about fruit. In fact, one of the hooks for them is that this fruit was desirable for gaining wisdom. That's very important to understand because they were already connected to the ultimate source of wisdom. What is being promised?

[00:06:50] Independent wisdom that doesn't depend on God. So from the moment of the fall, every human being born is born with this godlike quest. That godlike quest is the exact opposite of meekness. You could argue that the idol of idols is not some physical created thing. The idol of idols is the idol of self.

[00:07:34] So the prayer for meekness is really a prayer to be rescued from me because as long as sin still lives inside of me, that desire to be in the center still exists inside of me. "Blessed are the meek", the blessing is that God is ready and willing and able to rescue you from you.

SA [00:08:11]: Yes, I think it's helpful to even have you kind of give definition to the word "meek" because it's not a word that we use very often in our culture right now. It's not something that gets tossed around even in church circles and so, helping to give some legs to the fact that this is what meekness is helps us to see what meekness is not, which actually helps us to examine ourselves.

PT [00:08:36]: And meekness is the willingness not to be first, not to be in the center, not to rule, not to have your wants always indulged. I was watching a three-year-old being said no to and I watched this little guy clench his fists, stiffen up his body, and scream. Now, it wasn't a cry. It was a scream and I thought... well, it sort of broke my heart, but I thought there it is. That's us. That's the struggle of meekness.

[00:09:31] There's a really great example of what the lack of meekness creates, that "center of the world" living creates. It's in James 4. You know that we very seldom live a day in our lives without observing conflict or being part of conflict. We surely don't live in conflict-free families and except you, I know that you and Rachael have never had a conflict in your entire marriage and I think if we called Rachael, she would affirm that, right?

SA [00:10:14]: She totally would. Twenty years, twenty years, no conflict whatsoever.

PT [00:10:19]: And we don't live in a conflict-less world. And so, James 4 asks the ultimate question. It's such a current question. It's "what causes quarrels and fights among you". It's a great question.

SA [00:10:39]: Yes, it really is.

PT [00:10:40]: Because you think, "Oh, man." I know with Luella and me, it's just, "Oh, we've been doing this for 54 years. Can't we be on the same page? Can't we not irritate one another?"

SA [00:10:54]: I remember when we recorded the interview about your 50th year anniversary, we were sitting right in this room and you guys had a little spat, and you looked over me and you're like, "Fifty years, we're still working on it."

PT [00:11:08]: Yes, when we celebrate our anniversary, you know, last one was 54 years, we celebrate about 30 good years of marriage. So, "¹ What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not... that your passions [a passion is a ruling desire] are at war within you?"

[00:11:30] There it is. ² You desire and [you] do not have, so you murder. You covet and [you] cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. I mean, there it is. Now, if you ask the average child, teenager, or adult, "Why were you angry," they won't talk about themselves.

SA [00:11:57]: Yes, and they'll point at someone else.

PT [00:11:58]: They'll talk about a situation or they'll talk about a person and James says, "No, no, no. If you ever want to understand your anger, you have to look at yourself." That's very humbling and then, he says something that you think, "What is he talking about?" He says, "^4a You adulterous people!" You think maybe James has had a senior moment and changed the topic.

SA [00:12:25]: It's like, when did we turn left here?

PT [00:12:28]: Well, what he's saying is — and this is really eloquent to me — that human conflict is rooted in spiritual adultery. It's when the love for God that's supposed to rule me where I'm willing not to be first and not to be in the center and to live for a glory that's not my own, when that's replaced by love for me, that's adultery. That's spiritual adultery.

[00:12:59] There's a whole book of the Bible that's about that. It's Hosea. The whole story of Hosea is that. And then, so what is the solution for James? This is so important to understand what Jesus says back in Matthew 5. The solution is not conflict resolution. It's not anger management. It's worship realignment.

SA [00:13:34]: Okay, what does that mean?

PT [00:13:36]: Well, it means my problem isn't that I have anger that I can't control. My problem isn't the relations in my life. My problem is my worship. I worship me than I worship God and so, there needs to be a change in worship if I'm ever going to live at peace with the people around me. Guess what that change in worship is called? Meekness.

SA [00:14:01]: Really good.

PT [00:14:04]: It's when God is in His rightful place, I'm in my small place, God is big, I am small, there's a solution. It's so incredible, but I want to say one other thing from James 4 because without this, James would be very discouraging.

[00:14:26] Right in the middle of this conversation, he says, "⁶ But He gives us more grace." James gets it. He understands this conversation is going to be tough, and he turns and says, "Oh, by the way, there's plenty of grace available for this conversation."

[00:14:48] Now, I just want to say to all the people that are watching or listening that you just know you're not always meek. If you begin to examine the places where you're irritated or angry, it's just there. I don't want to be disagreed with. I don't want somebody driving slow in front of me in traffic. I want to be the first person in line. I want to be right. I want people to affirm that I'm right and the arguments are not initiated by the thing, but about my position in the thing. Does that make sense?

SA [00:15:46]: Yes, and what you're bringing into it.

PT [00:15:47]: So I'm bringing the "center of the world" thing to something that... I mean, you know most of the arguments we have are picky and dumb things that are embarrassing to look back at, but they become arguments because I approach them with a "center of the world" mentality.

SA [00:16:09]: Yes, asking yourself that question, why am I irked right now, why am I frustrated right now, it helps you to get behind the reason why there's his inner turmoil that's happening when a circumstance goes wrong or a disagreement happens between two people.

PT [00:16:28]: Absolutely, that's absolutely true and I've got to just look at this and say I need help. I need help and help is available, and if we go back to James 4, you see clearly that "center of the world" living is not a happy life.

[00:16:55] As much as you may get a momentary buzz out of winning, you have harmed a relationship, you're going to harvest that fruit somewhere down the road. Maybe that's living in a marriage with a couple days of creepy silence or knowing that you have to go ask forgiveness from your child because you've responded to them in a way you should never respond, because they interrupted you watching Netflix.

[00:17:31] There's always a negative harvest with putting yourself in the center world because as God designed His world, that was never meant to work. God's world is designed with Him at the center and everything existing for His glory.

[00:17:56] That's where peace reigns and sin is rooted in idolatry. Sin is our pursuit of self-glory. The easiest definition of sin is the quest and the desire to be God, and the actions that follow. And what's the main action that follows? Setting your own rules.

SA [00:18:30]: Yes, self-centeredness.

PT [00:18:32]: And so for me, this may be the most convicting of all the beatitudes because it just exposes that the idol self isn't yet totally defeated in me and I need to be met by God's grace.

SA [00:18:52]: Yes, when you discover that you're not meek, that should point you in a direction that says, "I need to throw myself on the mercy of God. You've got to do something here because if You don't show up, I'll never be the type of person that You've called me to be," which is a meek person.

PT [00:19:08]: And know the freedom, the joy of living for a glory that's bigger than my own. That is the best, most joyous way of living. Well, God help us.

SA [00:19:28]: God help us.

PT [00:19:30]: I want to say: pray daily for grace to stay small.