Moses was fearless in confronting Pharaoh. He was fearless in confronting the people of God in their sin. He was a bold, strong man. Yet the Bible says he was the meekest man that ever lived. Why?
Because his strength was always amassed in reaction to God's honor, never in defense of himself. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Phillips Brooks, a pastor in the 19th century, said this. He said, The true way to be humble is not to bend down until you're smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height and compare yourself to something taller.
That will show you just how small you are. That's good advice, and a reminder that when we compare ourselves with Christ, we never have reason to boast, and we have every reason to be humble. Of course, practicing true humility is difficult, to say the least, but it's worth a struggle, as you'll see in John MacArthur's series titled Walk Worthy. And here's John with today's lesson. In our current study of the book of Ephesians, we find ourselves in the fourth chapter.
The first three verses. Really, the first six verses are a unit. We could entitle the whole unit the lowly walk of our high position. The first three chapters of Ephesians dealing with our position. And now the last three with our walk, and Paul introduces that in the opening of this chapter.
Paul begins, I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation to which ye are called with all lowliness and meekness. With long suffering, forbearing one another in love. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit. in the bond of peace. This great text on the worthy walk.
Really deserves our diligent, faithful study. Because it reveals a basic truth that we need to consider. This is it. The Christian life. is not a matter.
of what you do. First, It is a matter of who you are. That's the heart of it all. And you'll notice here that Paul says, walk worthy. And walking, as we've been saying, is the idea of daily conduct.
It's the idea of daily living, it's the idea of daily life. What you do, how you live. But it's most interesting to me that when he says, walk worthy, here's how. He never discusses an action. He never discusses a work, and he never discusses a deed.
All he ever discusses is an attitude. Because the worthy walk is not so much a matter of what you do as it is of what you are. There are plenty of people who can do the deeds and not be the person. That's the hypocrisy that the Bible talks about. It is possible to have what I call action fruit.
The action fruit, the fruit of the lips, praise in Hebrews. The fruit of unselfishness, giving, Philippians 4. The fruit of Romans 1, winning someone to Christ. The fruit of Colossians, all good works. It's possible to have the action fruit.
Without the attitude fruit. You know what the attitude fruit is? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. That's attitude fruit.
Now, watch. If you have action fruit without attitude fruit, that's legalism. And so, when God talks about the worthy walk, it doesn't begin with the action. That's going to come later in the chapter. It begins with the attitude.
You understand that? Our Christian life works this way. It starts with the Holy Spirit. He works through the attitude, and the attitude produces the action.
So, what happens? Walk worthy. What does that mean, Paul? It means lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing love, and endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit. Those are all attitudes.
Those are all inner graces. You know, for many Christians, they miss this altogether. For many Christians, really walking the Christian walk, really living the Christian life means going to church or putting money in the offering or owning and even occasionally reading a Bible. The biblical issue is not what we do apart from what we are. It is what we are that results in what we do, and that's what God is after.
So Paul says, walk worthy, and he is speaking then immediately after that of the attitudes that make it possible.
Now to give you the outline that we started with here, the first verse we call the call to the worthy walk. In verse 1, Paul simply gives an exhortation based on the first three chapters calling us to walk worthy. Then in verses 2 and 3, we have the characteristics of the worthy walk. If we are to walk worthy, what are the characteristics? How does it manifest itself?
And here he gives five inner attitudes. Then he closes in verses 4 to 6, this opening session. With the cause of the worthy walk, the call, the characteristics, and the cause of the worthy walk.
Now what have we found? We've looked at the call of the worthy walk and seen that its urgency is based upon who we are. Therefore, in verse 1. We've then looked at the characteristics of the worthy walk, verses 2 and 3. And I told you there are five inner graces that will manifest a worthy life.
Five things that lead us to walk worthy. Verse 2, all lowliness. And we said that means total humility. The worthy walk begins with total humility. We said that total humility is the absence of self, the absence of selfishness.
It's the bottom line on Christian living. It's the bottom line on walking worthy.
So we talked about humility. Let's go to the second word here in verse 2. With all lowliness and meekness. Humility produces meekness. These five virtues are progressive.
One produces the other. You cannot have meekness without humility. There's no such combination as pride and meekness. Meekness does not go along with pride. They are mutually exclusive.
Meekness is a byproduct of humility. Where there is humility, there will inevitably be meekness. Where there is meekness, there will be longsuffering. Where there is long suffering, there will be forbearing one another in love. And where those occur, there will be the keeping of the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.
This is a progressive thing. This is a moving to the goal.
So we see then that he calls us to meekness. If we are to walk worthy as the exalted sons of the king, if we are to walk worthy as children of God, as heirs of the kingdom, as inheritors of all the spiritual blessings in the heavenlies forever, we are to do that in meekness. What is meekness? It's interesting how the world defines it because the world doesn't understand it. The dictionary said meekness is a deficiency in courage.
or a deficiency of spirit. And you see, humanly speaking, meekness comes out that way.
Now, if you look at Galatians 5, you see that meekness is the fruit of the Spirit. When true meekness is produced by the Spirit of God, it is a valuable virtue, it is a critical virtue. But the attitude of human meekness, apart from the energy the Holy Spirit, is seen by the world as cowardice. or timidity. or lack of strength.
But that's not the Bible term. Let's talk about what it means. If I am to be meek, listen, beloved, you can't even walk the worthy walk without humility, and you cannot walk the worthy walk without meekness.
So, you better learn what meekness is, so we're going to take the time to see. meekness, proud taste, From the the form praus. Krauss is the word meekness. It refers basically to something that is mild and gentle. It means to be gentle-hearted.
Mild. The opposite of um of a person who is vengeful. Who seeks revenge, or who seeks retaliation, or who seeks vindictiveness, or who harbors bitterness, or resentment, or reacts against others. In fact, it is the opposite of vengeance. It is often defined that way: the opposite of vengeance or the opposite of violence.
We might say it is a quiet, willing submission to God. A quiet, willing submission to others. Without the rebellion and the revenge and the retaliation and the self-assertion that characterizes a natural man. Let me get into the definition a little further. It is a mild, gentle, non-retaliating, non-vindictive, non-vengeful, non-violent spirit.
It is used in secular language in several ways. In some of the ancient Greek sources, it is used to speak of a soothing medicine like a tranquilizer. It is used to speak of something that calms and soothes the spirit. It is used also of a gentle breeze, the light, cool breeze that would waft across the warm hillside and cool the people there. It is used also to speak of a broken colt who is now tame and docile and whose power and energy can be channeled for purposes of benefit.
So it is a word that speaks of gentleness, of a soothing, of a calming kind of a thing. The secular Greeks used it for people who they said were friendly or tender-hearted or pleasant or mild or gentle as opposed to hard, rough, coarse, violent. It's a sense of quietness. It is a godly characteristic, in fact, in Zephaniah. Chapter 2, verse 3: The Holy Spirit says, Seek meekness, seek meekness.
Now the term is used at least 12 times in the New Testament. Protes. Meekness as a virtue is extolled in the New Testament. Uh, we could call your attention to Galatians 5:23, the fruit of the spirit, meekness. In 1 Timothy, we find a wonderful insight.
But thou, O man of God, If you're to be a real man of God, and here again, it's almost like the worthy walk. If you're to really live the life, it says, follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and meekness. But I think it's so important to add this. Meekness doesn't mean you're a coward because the very next sentence is: fight the good fight of faith. Listen, a meek person is anything but a coward.
A meek person will fight at the drop of a hat over the right cause. A meek person even gets mad, he gets angry, he gets hot, he gets indignant. over the right cause. Meekness is a mild, quiet, gentle, pleasant spirit. It is a soothing, non-vengeful, non-retaliating, non-vindictive, non-bitter, non-reacting, non-defensive, non-self-assertive spirit.
Except When it ought to get angry. And then meekness really gets hot. And I'll show you when that is. in a few moments. The word is also used in James.
Chapter 3 and verse 13. Who is a wise man? and endued with knowledge among you, who's really wise? You say the man with the PhD? No.
Or the man who's studied all the books. No. A wise man, a man with real knowledge, Let him show it out of a good life, his works with meekness. It's the meek man. He's the wise one.
The one who is meek.
So, meekness is a virtue extolled over and over and over in the New Testament. It is not the absence of anger. Not at all. Because he says in one time, meekness, and turns right around, the next phrase says, fight the good fight of faith. It fights.
Meekness fights. But watch this. Meekness, we could say. is power under control. Power under control.
When you have humility, now watch. Humility is self-emptying. True humility divests myself of myself. I'm not interested in my own causes. I'm not interested in my own successes.
I'm not interested in my own fame. I'm not interested in my own gain. I'm not interested in my own reputation. I have divested myself of myself. Then meekness is a byproduct.
It is a byproduct of a broken will, of a brokenness before God. But it is not the destruction of the lion, it is the taming of the lion. You understand that? It is not the destruction of the lion, but the taming of the lion. All of his strength is there.
All of his power is there. All of his energy is there. All of his potential is there, but it is at the control of the master. Quite a different thing to see a lion running free in the continent of Africa. Than to see a lion under the control of a lion tamer at the circus, that lion with all the same ferocity, the same energy, the same will, the same power, the same strength, but always under the control of the master.
And so it is with meekness. No longer does the lion in you and the lion in me seek its own gain. No longer does it seek its own prey. No longer does it seek its own causes. No longer does it run free to accomplish its own ends, but it is submissive to the control of the master.
It is not losing its power, it is harnessing its power. The same is true of the illustration in the secular Greek of the horse. As long as the colt runs wild and free, its power is out of control and it serves no ends. When its power is brought under control, it can be used for gainful purposes. When the wind blows in a hurricane force, it has no function but to destroy.
But when it blows in a quiet breeze, it catches the windmill, and the windmill pumps the water that causes the crop to be watered, that feeds the masses of humanity. And so it is that when power is under control, it is useful. There is within the heart of the believer a lion, and that lion has every right to roar, and that lion has every right to react, and that lion has every right to pounce, but not on those things at its own discretion, but only under the direction of the one who rules its will, the Master, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Don't you think for a moment that meekness is indifference, or cowardice, or weakness, or a fearfulness? It is not.
It is not impotent. It is not cowardly. Jesus was not impotent. And nor was he cowardly. But Jesus was meek.
Let me tell you something. Did you know that you have the right to get mad? That's right. You have every right to be angry. In fact, in Ephesians 4, 26, it says, be ye angry.
You ever know that?
Now be sure you quote the rest of the verse. And sin not. It's all right to be angry, but not to sin, which says there's a certain kind of anger that isn't sin, right? There is an anger that is not sin. You say, what anger is that?
It is the right kind of anger. Being angry for the right reason. You can be angry for the right reason or the wrong reason. In one case, it's power under control, in another case, it's power out of control. The Bible knows about these two options.
In fact, in Proverbs chapter 25, And verse 28. We read about power. Out of control. Proverbs 25, 28 says this: He that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls. Here is a totally out of control spirit, out of control and consequently vulnerable, falls into every pit, every temptation, every failure, every weakness.
He has no self-control. He has no rule over his own spirit. That's anger out of control, power out of control, not meekness. On the other hand, backing up in Proverbs to the 16th chapter. The 32nd verse, it says this: He who rules his spirit.
Is better than he that takes a city.
So, Proverbs 16 is a person who rules his spirit. In other words, the spirit is there, the power is there, the lion is there, the energy is there, the potential is there. But it's under control. On the other hand, the same power, the same energy, the same strength. Out of control creates nothing but chaos and sinfulness.
People who get angry at everything. Out of control. Know nothing of meekness. Meek people. Control their energies, control their strengths, they control the lion in them so that it only pounces when it should, it only roars when it should.
Now let me give you some further things before we get into biblical pictures. When Aristotle discussed these things, He gave us some very helpful definitions of the words in his day that help us to know what the Bible word means. In writing in Ethics, his work on ethics, he talked about this. For Aristotle, this is what he believed. The virtues of life, those are the good things, the virtues, the right attitudes of life, were defined as the middle between the excess and the deficiency.
On this side is the absence of something, over here is the excess of it, and the virtue is in the middle. And he went on to give many illustrations of that. For example, Aristotle said this: courage. Is the virtue in the middle between cowardice, which is the deficiency of courage, and foolhardiness. which is the excess of courage.
In other words, a person who is too courageous is going to get himself killed. It's foolishness. A person who has no courage is nothing but a sniveling coward. The virtue is in the middle. Aristotle said generosity, for example.
Is a virtue. It is the virtue between stingy selfishness and wastefulness. Generosity is the virtue in the middle. Then Aristotle said, meekness. Is the virtue in the middle between indifference Unconcerned.
Weakness. Cowardice. An excessive explosive anger. Meekness is in the middle. Aristotle said, and I quote, The meek man.
Is angry on the right occasion with the right people at the right moment and for the right length of time. End quote. Power under control. It's not a past. You say, oh, I'm meek.
So I I just I can't certainly get into that. I know it's an awful thing and those people have sinned and And there's many evil practices, but my meekness refrains me from speaking. That's not meekness, that's just stupidity. Meekness doesn't make you back away from sin. It doesn't make you cease to condemn evil.
Now watch. It is anger under control.
Now under the control of whom? God. Meekness is when I take the lion in me and submit it to God so that it only gets angry about that which offends God, not me. Do you see it? The lion roars in defense of God, not in defense of me.
If somebody wants to step on me, that's all right. If somebody offends me, that's all right. If somebody does something to me, that's all right. There is no retaliation, there is no revenge, there is no self-seeking. As John Bunyan said, he who is already lying down needs fear no fall, there's nowhere to fall.
I'm already there. I seek nothing for myself. But the lion roars in me when God is maligned. You see? That's holy indignation.
That's righteous indignation. And I want you to understand that meekness is that quiet spirit that is non-defensive, non-retaliating, non-vengeful, non-self-seeking. But when God is dishonored, that same spirit stands up and roars and exercises its power. It is a holy indignation under the control of God. It reacts when it ought to react at the right time for the right reasons and for the right length of time.
Jesus had it. Jesus, who said, I am meek and lowly at heart. Jesus of whom it was said he came riding on the colt the foal of an ass, meek and lowly, Zachariah 9:9. He would come so meek. Jesus, who seemed so quiet, who avoided the conflict so often, Jesus, of whom blessed Peter said, when he was reviled, he reviled not again.
And when he was persecuted, he did not retaliate or seek revenge. Jesus, that quiet and meek spirit, the same Jesus who, when God the Father was dishonored, walked into the temple, made a whip, and started whipping men in the back, and started throwing tables over and knocking over chairs and spilling money and chasing animals and said, Get out of here. You have turned my father's house into a den of thieves and it is to be a house of prayer. Jesus, meek and quiet spirited, dealing with people who, when he confronted the filthy hypocrisy of the Pharisees, blistered them from one side to the other and called them whited sepulchres, whitewashed on the outside and inside full of dead men's bones. Listen, this is the same meek and lowly Jesus.
Watch it. The key is this: Jesus never spoke a vengeful word or a retaliating word or a word of condemnation or judgment against anyone for something they had done to him. He spoke it only in reference to how they treated God. And he set an example. Peter says in In 1 Peter 2, Christ has suffered, setting an example for us.
And what is the example? That when he was reviled, he reviled not again. When he was condemned, he did not become vengeful.
Now you see him with a whip in the temple. And he's cleaning the temple because it is a defiling of the Father's house. But when his own temple was defiled, hanging on the cross, and the nails were driven through, and his body was dripping with blood, and spit, and sweat, and they were mocking him, all he had to say to them then was. Father, what? Forgive them.
They don't know what they do. See? That's meekness. That's power under control. It's total selflessness.
Jesus never reacted to that which came against him, only that which came against the Father. In the garden. They came to capture him in Matthew chapter 26. It would have been so easy for Jesus to have pulled off a wonder of all wonders. It says That he had the power If he wished.
to call the angels of heaven to his aid. Jesus said, Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? Conservatively speaking, nearly. Um 100,000, 75,000 angels. You know how powerful that is?
Well, look at the Old Testament. One angel slew 185,000 Assyrians. Listen, Jesus said, I could with one word of my Father have 12 legions of angels here in a snap. But not in defense of himself, he wouldn't do it. Not in defense of himself.
That's meekness. Meekness will take a whip and defend God against those who desecrate his name. It'll be angry. It'll be so angry that its eyes will be fire. But meekness will not as much as lift its own finger.
for vengeance against that which comes to itself. You know, it's so easy this to be tempted this way. When somebody says something About me, that's critical, or something, you know, you feel that inside temptation, boy. Yeah. I'll tell him.
Who do they think they are? touching God's anointing. You know. Hey, you get See? Or when somebody does something to you, you know, or...
People keep running into our cars lately. You know, your first reaction is, boy, I'm gonna get every penny out of that bird. See, that's what you start to feel inside. Then you need to say, that's not the thing to be angry about. Not what my neighbor does to me.
Not what happens to me doesn't matter. Meekness says, I only retaliate. The lion only roars when God is the issue. See? Boy, that's when you're living right.
You can't be offended. Meekness cannot be offended. Do you get that? There's nothing to defend. Because we're nothing.
You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. The title of John's current study is Walk Worthy.
Now, of course, with the time constraints of this broadcast, we were able only to hear part of John's lesson today, but even if we had heard all of it, we wouldn't say that the learning ends there. The fact is, we hope that by hearing a sermon on grace to you or in your own church, you'll develop a hunger to know God's Word in greater depth. That was always John MacArthur's aim in his decades of pulpit ministry. In fact, here is what John said about the goal of his preaching. I've always believed my whole ministry long that The goal was not only to explain the scripture, but to increase people's appetite for the scripture.
And I will say this: expository preaching is the proper way to preach, explaining the text of Scripture. But listening to expository preaching honestly is an acquired taste. There are People who want to be entertained by the preacher. They want to hear stories, they want drama, they want cleverness, and there are plenty of clever preachers and dramatic preachers that do that. And when, if you step into that kind of setting and you do exposition of scripture, people who are used to superficial preaching.
probably are going to respond by saying, well, he he wasn't very good because it is an acquired taste. But once you acquire the taste for the explanation of Scripture, when it comes to you in expository preaching. you're going to actually be unsatisfied until you can go deeper. And that's exactly right, friend. To help you go deeper in the Word of God, let me recommend the MacArthur Study Bible.
It has the tools you need to dig deep into every part of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. To order a copy, contact us today. Place your order from our website, gty.org, or you can call us at 80055 GRACE. The Study Bible comes in the New King James, New American Standard, English Standard, and Legacy Standard versions of Scripture, and there are softcover, hardcover, leather binding options. Again, to order the MacArthur Study Bible, go to gty.org or you can call us at 80055 GRACE.
Now, if John's teaching has encouraged you, maybe you've especially benefited from a lesson you heard on this radio broadcast, or if you're grateful for the thousands of resources available for free at our website, we'd love to hear from you. Email your note to letters at gty.org or you can mail a letter to Grace2UPO Box4000 Panorama City, California 91412. And remember to follow Grace2U on social media. You'll find us on Facebook, X, YouTube, and Instagram.
Now for the entire Grace DU staff, I'm Phil Johnson with a question. How should you respond when the world attacks you because of your beliefs? How can you honor Christ in a situation like that? Consider that when we return with another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time on grace to you.
