Meekness Isn’t Weakness - Pastor Kristin Mockler Young

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, guys, this is Naim and you've reached the Mosaic Church podcast. So excited that you're part of our listening community and love for you to be even more connected. [00:00:10] Speaker B: So check out our website. [00:00:11] Speaker A: There's more content there and there's more opportunities for you get connected in our ministries and events as well. Also, love for you to share this content if this is blessed to you. I know that God wants to use you to bless other people with it, so share this podcast if you will. Lastly, would you consider supporting this ministry? This is made possible by other people's generosity, and I'd love for you to pay it forward. Join us to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus together. So would you consider giving to this ministry? I know that God is able to do immeasurably more through us when we come together. Thank you so much. God bless you and enjoy. [00:00:57] Speaker B: God bless you. That's a lot of sneezes. That's a lot of sneezes. Did y' all notice our all female worship team that we had up here this morning? Listen, our Denny, who's our producer this, this morning, he texted and he was like, hey, instead of the K Pop Demon hunters, we have like the MPOP Praise Hunters up in here. So that's all we've got, our all female worship team today. Well, good morning. Glad that you guys are here. My name is Kristen. I'm one of the pastors here. And this week I actually got to do something that was kind of fun and special for me. I got to go speak to a group of Girl Scouts. Any scouts in the house? Maybe not now, but were you a Girl Scout? Boy Scout? We've got a couple. Okay, so I got to go in and talk to this group of girls who have made it all the way into their teen years. And it was fun because I was actually a Girl Scout when I was younger. And I was explaining this to someone earlier this week who was very shocked that I said I had been a Girl Scout. And so I brought proof. I have receipts. Okay. Put up that picture. That's me right there. The only one wearing the daisy apron. It seems like I am at an event that is dressed very different than the event that everyone else is at. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it was like the first meeting or I just really wanted to wear it. I have no idea. But that was me when I was a Daisy Scout. I did actually graduate into Brownies, which is where you wear the brown sash. You can go ahead and pull that down. The Brown sash. And that's when we started to collect badges. And so I'm talking to this group of girls, these teenagers, who have been in the same Girl Scout troop together for years. And they were very honest with me. And so it was really a pleasure to get to talk to them about this specific stage of their lives that they're in right now, where they are really in a hard but special era of trying to figure out what who they want to be and who they want to become in the world. And so as we were talking about things, they were super honest about the things that they struggle with, and they talked about how they find themselves comparing themselves to other girls or to other people. They talked about being jealous. They talked about finding, like, bitterness and resentment and anger and holding on to all of these things. And they wanted to know from me, the expert, apparently, what to do and how to stop these behaviors. So while I did try to encourage them and I gave them strategies for their emotional toolbox, I also went ahead and just assured them that there are adults who still struggle with all of these same things today. And the thing is, the Girl Scouts were not there because they were not trying to strive and earn badges for pride. Right? They're not trying to earn badges for anxiety. Nobody walks around like, my insecurity is so good. Like, I badged twice. I got two of them. Just wear them around on our sash. But I will be honest and tell you, I do feel like sometimes I live my life where I am trying to collect badges for the wrong thing. I try to collect badges of compliments. I try to collect badges of accolades and attention. Sometimes I try to collect badges of praise or opportunities or invitation of success so that I can take all of these things and put them on and wear them around to make sure that everybody in the world knows how important and valuable I am. Anybody else resonate with that? That sometimes we walk around doing this. And so what happens is when we start to collect these things and we start striving and proving ourselves for the things that we think will make us feel better, so somehow it doesn't. Somehow it doesn't make us feel the way that we think it's gonna feel. And instead, it often just kicks up our insecurities again. It almost makes us, like, double down and really then trying to feel like we need to prove ourselves and strive to overcome those feelings when it doesn't make us feel better about who we are. So what do we do? Right? What did I tell the Girl Scouts? What am I gonna be able to tell you today when I'm telling you that I also struggle with these same things. Luckily, when we find ourselves doing things that don't necessarily represent who we want to be, we can look to who we do want to be like. And so in our week three of our series, God Bless you, we're gonna look at the words of Jesus again. Today. We're in a series talking about the Beatitudes, which are not so much instructions on how to get and receive blessings, but how we can show up in the world to be a blessing to other people. So we'll go ahead and pull up Matthew 5:5, which really is our key verse for today, and I want you guys to help me read it. What's it say? Blessed are the meat. See, I did this on purpose today, and I let you read it first because here's what I realized in the first service. Some of you said blessed, and some of you said blessed. And that is how you can identify the churched people. Okay? Because that's how I read it. I say blessed every time I read this. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the poor in spirit. And Pastor Michael, as people, was like, why are you saying that? And I was like, because that's how it goes. Blessed are the ones. You know, blessed, right? No. So I will try to speak like a normal person. And if you read it like a normal person and you read blessed, but the person next to you said blessed, just know it's years of, like, having that church language kind of put into us and. But they both mean the same thing. We're not holier one way or the other. Okay? So blessed. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are the meek. This is one that, as we were going through and deciding, you know, Pastor Naim and I, who was gonna teach on which one? I was like, yeah, no, thank you with that one. Because blessed are the meek is not giving the energy that I wanna put off. Right? Meek is giving off, like, doormat energy, Powerless, a pushover. People that are easily taken advantage of. And that little girl scout that you saw up there has worked really, really hard in years of therapy to get strong and to find her voice and to stop being submissive. I was like, I would actually go back to last week. I'd rather go back and be one who is blessed for mourning than being blessed for being meek. But here I am. So I got to wrestle with this all week. And luckily, I can also explain to you that meekness, I have learned, isn't in fact, weakness. Meekness is not weakness. There is an element of submission to it. But meekness is really about gentleness. It's about humility. It's about being people who are teachable. Meekness is not weakness at all, but it's actually a confident, restrained strength. It is a different kind of strength. And what we are submitting when we do submit in weakness isn't our personality and it isn't our voice, and it isn't our agency. What we need to learn to submit is our independence from God when we try to remove ourselves from being dependent on him, because that leads to pride within ourselves. And so the first thing that we need to understand is that meek people have confidence when without ego. Confidence, without ego. Now, our ego is that thing, that voice inside of us that tells you one of two things. It either tells you that you are not good enough, so it leads you to act in insecurity. It leads you to act in a way where you feel like you have to strive and prove yourself, or your ego will tell you that you are better than everyone else. And so that will lead you to act in arrogance and to protect the power and the position and all of the things that you believe to be yours. But Jesus, when he came in and he announced his kingship, let's see how he declared it when he fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah 9. 9. It says, Rejoice, O people of Zion. Shout in triumph. O people of Jerusalem, look, your king is. Is coming to you. He is righteous and help me out. Victorious. Victorious. He's already coming in. He's already victorious. He is declaring that he is already going to win, yet he is also humble riding on a donkey. See, when Jesus came in to declare his kingship, he didn't shut down the entire city for a parade. He did not build for himself a spectacular throne room where he could just sit and reign from. He did not silence other people's voices to make sure that his was the loudest. Jesus did not even ride it on a horse, which would have been like the chosen animal at the time for communicating the reign of power and strength and conquest. No, Jesus came in humble, on a donkey, submitting any inkling of ego that he would have had, even though he is the one person who would have been able to justifiably walk in like, I am the guy. But that's because Jesus knew something that we sometimes forget, and that's that his identity is rooted in who he already was. Jesus knew that he was the Son of God. Jesus knew that he was King Jesus, and so he could come in with the confidence, knowing that that was his title and that was his power, no matter what recognition or title or position he was or was not given here on earth. And so for the Bible nerds like me, I really like to nerd out with the Bible sometimes. That word, that root word of humble is the word praas. Say praas. Praas, the word that was right there for humble to describe Jesus is the same word that they translated into meek, where it said, blessed are the meek. Jesus is saying, hey, this is a word to describe my character and who I am. And I'm going to use the same exact word to tell you how it is that you are to live in the world. That's what a confidence without ego looks like. Knowing and remembering that we are so loved by God, believing that we are so valued just in who we are as his kid, that we don't have to strive and prove how special we are to other people. We don't have to compare ourselves, who we are, the gifts that we have, the things that we've been given, and this, like, unfulfilling competition with other people. Confidence without ego means we don't have to control the narrative. So hard to try to protect our reputation or to get people to just understand where we're coming from all the time. See, it's natural, unfortunately, because we are human, for our egos to want to lead us. But as Jesus followers trying to live like he did, we cannot submit who we are while also trying to prove who we are. We have to submit our ego in order to live fully as who God created us to be. We have a podcast here at Mosaic called Becoming Church. If you've never listened to it, I highly recommend that you do. It is fantastic. And I'm not just saying that because I am the host of the podcast. Okay. But what makes it great is that I get to have conversations. I've had over 130 conversations with all kinds of different people. I talk to pastors and people that are in, like, vocational ministry. I also just got off this week. I had an interview with a working actor in Hollywood. I've talked to CEOs and business people and authors and all kinds of people in between. And last Sunday's episode that came out was with Nona Jones. And I was so excited and so honored to get to interview Nona. And I was so happy that she agreed to come on and talk with me because she is quite a big deal. And I have followed her for A long time. She is the former senior executive of Meta, which is the company that owns Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and a few other things. And she was also responsible and given the task of building the global faith partnership team. So she has worked on some of the biggest stages and with some of the biggest teams and in front of some of the largest audiences all over the world. And still when in our conversation she said that there were times that she found herself realizing that even with all the success, she felt unfulfilled because she was living out a false identity. And what the turning point was for her was finally being able to accept who she was in Christ, understanding that she was made on purpose and for a purpose, and that God actually liked her that way, that God did not want her to become someone else or be like someone else in order to find even more success or fulfillment. And Nona told me that it was actually, it felt like a superpower once she was able to reconcile and be rooted in who she was in Jesus. See, meek people can be so confident in who God made them to be that they can submit the need to feed their ego with all of the external validation that we're tempted to seek. Nona said that there was God within her, and I love that she used the word superpower because it really is something that we cannot do in our own strength. Remembering who we are and working with the power of God within us is a supernatural power. And the only way to tap into that is to rely on that one fruit of the Spirit, of the Holy Spirit, self control. We have to be able to use our self control to submit our egos in order to be reminded and to be confident enough in who we are. So meek people have confidence without ego. And also meek people can restrain their strength. They learn to restrain that strength within them. Before his crucifixion, Jesus actually was on trial because he was a threat to the people that were on power, in power because they were calling him the King of the Jews. And so he was standing with Pilate, who was the Roman governor at the time, and he was on trial. And basically he was like, hey, I'm giving you the chance to defend yourself. And here's what happened in Matthew 27 says, but when the leading priests and the elders made their accusations against him, Jesus remained silent. Silent like you guys almost did. Okay, good job. You got silent. Don't you hear all these charges they are bringing against you? Pilate demanded. He's like, hey, my guy, listen. Don't you hear the things that they're saying about you. Don't you get that your reputation is at stake? Don't you want to be understood, like, this is your chance to do and to say something? But Jesus had not only an inner strength, but he also had that strength, supernatural power within him. So Jesus could have done anything. Jesus could have called down an army of angels. Jesus could have just, like, poofed himself out of there, right? Like a magic trick. He could have downloaded information into their minds and made everybody understand. He could have fought back. Jesus was actually, in this moment, being mistreated and provoked. So he could have justified, really, almost any reaction that he chose. But what do we see Jesus do instead? The next verse tells us, but Jesus made help me out. No response to any of the charges, much to the governor's surprise, because the world expects us to react. When the world provokes us, it is to get us to react and to respond. But Jesus didn't need to respond. He didn't need to react because he was restrained. See, what he was able to do was remember that he had a goal in mind. He knew that there was something that he was supposed to do, and his mission was too important to let anything distract him from what it was. Jesus knew that his mission was to restore humanity back to God through his life. And so he chose to restrain himself so that he could stay focused on that mission. So what does it look like? What does restraining strength look like for us when we are tempted to respond or to react or to flex our power, right, and to show off all of the things that we can do? Choosing meekness means choosing restraint. It's understanding what our real power is and what we can do and the change that we can make with our words and with our actions, especially. Especially to other people. It's like this water bottle, right? I could crush this water bottle with my brute strength right here, or I can choose to restrain my strength and just hold it. And there are times that God will call us to use our strength, that God will call us to act because he does want to move through us to affect change. But there are other times that God calls us to wait and to restrain and to trust and to just let his plan play out. That is that submission aspect of meekness that is showing up again. And it's not submission to not do something that you can't do. It's not submission to say, well, I'm incapable of this thing, so I won't do it. Submission is choosing not to do the things that you are very capable, the things that Maybe you are very even good at. So I listed out a couple of different things of ways that that could look for us. If you're a parent, you might feel really respected or in control when you can get your kids to comply and to do whatever you're asking them to do by whatever means necessary. But we have to ask ourselves, are we doing it in a way that is creating lasting connection with your kids? Are you doing it in a way that shows your kids who God the Father is to them? How could your relationship with your kids or even the whole vibe and mood of your home change if you were able to show restraint with your family? Maybe you're a single adult and you're out there meeting people and trying to decide who you want to give your time and energy and attention to and who maybe you don't. And along the way, you probably experience heartbreak, people that have rejected you or broke your trust. And so you might feel validated and responding in kind. And cruelty. If that's what you experienced, then that's the way that you were treated. Or you might be tempted to just put up a wall and block people out so that you don't ever feel that heartbreak or that hurt again. But is that going to lead you to the future that you do actually want? Or if you're able to show restraint even when you're hurt, if you're able to show restraint even when maybe the other person doesn't deserve it, is it gonna help transform you into a healthier, more healed person at work? Right. For those of us that work with other people, you might feel like the boss, whether you are the boss or not, when your ideas get chosen and when you get to make the calls and do all of the things. But are you leading by the model of Jesus, where the first will be last and the last will be first? Or are you leading in more of an authoritarian dictatorship where it doesn't really matter how your calls make other people feel, as long as it's your calls that are the ones that are being made. How could your team benefit overall if you showed restraint in compromise or patience or empathy for women? I've got two more for women. I've really thought about this this week, and I think something that restraining our strength could look like is not only letting other women make the right choices for them, but then also submitting our right to want to be judgy about it. And there's a lot of things, there's a lot of ways, whatever is popping into your head, there's a lot of Ways that we like to judge other women based off the choices that they make when they're not. The choices that we think they should have made for themselves. And that could be their vocation, right? That could be. We are tempted to judge other women who either stay home with children in a more traditional role, or we want to judge women who don't do that and who go to work. We want to judge women based off of the way that they let themselves age and what they do or don't do with their bodies. But I think we have to submit that right to judge and find restrain for our strength so that we don't create this immoral hierarchy of value for other people based off of the decisions that we think they should or should not have made. Guys, I didn't forget about you. Don't worry. Men, submitting your strength and having restrain in strength could look like submitting to leadership from someone that maybe you have believed to be a minority, whether that is a female or another category of person that you were taught that you should have authority over as a male. Finding restraint and strength could be letting yourself submit to someone else's leadership, letting them have the last word in a conversation, finding compromise and understanding. There is. See, what happens is when we lose restraint, we crush everything. We crush it all. But the problem is that we're not crushing plastic water bottles, we're crushing the people around us. And as Jesus followers, we're also crushing our witness as the church, when this is the way we treat people and bulldoze our way through life. See, being meek is not about forcing or bullying our way through, but it's showing real strength in restraint. And it's not easy, right? It's not easy to hold back when we wanna flex and show off all of the things. It's not easy to use that power, all of the things that we have, especially when we've seen how effective it is to help us to get what we actually want. But that's why we have to operate not in our own strengths, which leads to pride, which is only concerned about our personal desires. Because what happens is it leads to manipulation and it leads to hurting people. Even in the name of Jesus, we have to make sure that we are not crushing people to only focus on what is good for us. So that is the superpower that we have to rely on. And there is a promise. There's a promise to the other part of that verse. Go ahead and put it back up there, Tammy, that if we can choose to operate like this and work in meekness one more time, it says, blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. They will inherit the earth. This is the lasting promise. What does that mean? What does it mean, inherit the earth? Maybe it means that in this life we'll find favor. Maybe it means that doors will open for us when we choose humility over arrogance and we choose kindness over cruelty. Maybe it means that when we work to be a blessing instead of hoarding blessings, then we will be able to actually inherit the things of this life that we do want and desire. But even more than that, I think that this is a lasting promise. Because this world that will one day be renewed when it is reunited back with heaven will be our inheritance. This world will be our inheritance. And Jesus is saying, it is the meek that God will call to be his heirs. It is the meek that will get to have the inheritance of God. Because I believe that God truly does care about this world and this life and the things of this earth. And sometimes it's hard to believe that, right? Sometimes it's a lot easier to look around and go, God, why don't you do something? Why doesn't God intervene when there is so much hurt and so much bad and so much brokenness? Why doesn't God come down here and do something? So let's look at the last time God did come down here and how he did it. God chose to come to earth in the most meek and, and gentle and teachable way possible. He came to this earth as a baby. He came as a baby who also rode in on a donkey. Because when God wants to move, he sends in the meek. When God wants to move, he sends in the meek. God is still moving right now. You know, Mr. Rogers is credited with saying, like his mom told him, to look for the helpers. I think we need to look for the meek because they are out there. God is moving right now through the teachers who are caring for kids and providing education for our kids regardless of their ability or their capability. God is moving through the people who are clearing teacher wish lists. Do you guys know about this? Teachers? Because public education, the funding of public education, and the salaries of teachers is not enough to cover all of the books and supplies and things that they need to best support their children, their students, and their class. So they create these wish lists and they put them online or on social media and absolute strangers will come in and buy those items and send them to kids they will never meet just to do the good work of caring for someone else and other people. That is the meek at Work behind the scenes. God is moving through the healthcare professionals, the doctors and the nurses who are caring for the sick and injured without asking where they came from or how they got to be this way. God is working through the volunteers who are driving people to strangers, driving strangers to their medical appointments so that they can get the medical care that they need and that they deserve. God is working through the foster parents and the social workers and the advocates and the activists and every single person who looks around and says, how can I make this world better for someone else. You are doing it. The meek are already doing it. God is working and moving through you. And you are doing it without recognition. You are doing it without fanfare. You are doing it without a title or without power. Because meekness isn't weakness. And meekness isn't sitting on the sidelines or being quiet or playing small. Meekness is choosing to be a blessing so that God can intervene, so that God can do something through your humility. Sometimes it feels like that promise is maybe not the promise that God thinks it is. And he and I had a lot of wrestling about that this week. He was like, you will inherit the earth. And I said, absolutely not. No, thank you. This does not sound like something that I want actually, when I look around at this place. But what's true is that that is actually a distraction from the enemy. That is actually the enemy coming in because he wants to distract us, disappoint us, and even depress us. If that will keep us from doing the work that that God has for us, if that will keep us from being meek and operating in our true strength of God's Holy Spirit within us. This is the hope that I have been holding onto all week. It's from Psalm 37, and it's actually what Jesus was referring to in the Beatitudes when he mentioned the meek. For those who are evil will be destroyed. But those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land. A little while and the wicked will be no more. Though you look for them, they will not be found. But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity. A little while, he says a little while and the evil will be gone and goodness will reign. And unfortunately, we don't know what God's timeline is. So a little while could be a little while, or a little while could really feel like a long while. But what we have to choose to believe, and people that choose to believe and hold onto the goodness of God, is that if goodness is not won and peace is hard to find, that it is not the end. And that God is still. And God is still moving. God is still moving through the meek, the teachable, the humble, the people who refuse to let go of hope. Even if you are clinging on with one hand and you are just white knuckling your way going, God is trying so hard to slip away. And I'm just gonna do everything I can to hold onto this hope because you trust that God's justice will prevail in, in the end, you trust in God's goodness. So when we look around and it's hard to find and it feels really heavy, we just have to remember that this is not the end. And what that means is that today is a new day. And every day is a new chance for us to reunite with God, for us to submit our ego and remember who we are rooted in Him. It's another day for us to restrain our strength and to trust in God's goodness. And for some of you, that's all you needed today. You just needed a little pep talk and just a reminder that like, good is still good and evil will not win. And that's all you needed to confidently now tap back into the power of the Holy Spirit that is already working within you. But for some of you, maybe you've never experienced that before. You've never experienced this kind of light in the darkness or hope when things seem really desperate. And so if that's you today, I want you to know that you right now can accept all that Jesus wants to offer you in a relationship with him. You can accept all that you were created to be. And you can stop running on that wheel of life that is exhausting where you're trying to strive and prove your worth and do everything in your own strength, even if you're doing it for other people. I would love to pray this peace and hope and light over you this morning, God, I pray that you would help us to know just how loved we are, God. Just how valued we are, Lord. Just because you're our Father and you love us, God, I pray that you would help us to see and to focus on the goodness in the world, Lord, that we would keep our eyes on you and not be distracted by things that want us to turn to the right or to the left, God. Not to navel gaze and not to look down, but God, that we would be able to stay rooted in who you created us to be, looking at you and looking to you, God, to know what our next move is, what our next move isn't, God. And to do everything that we can to live in in a way that brings heaven to earth to make this world better for the people around us. God, I pray for the person right now, Lord, who has never experienced your goodness like this, God, I pray that even in this moment they could feel you speaking to them, God, in a way that maybe they never have before, or a way maybe, God, that they've ignored in the past, God, because you've been speaking to them for their whole lives. So Lord, I pray in this moment that if they are ready to make a commitment to you, God, they would understand that it's not committing to a life of perfection. It's not committing to a life where all of a sudden they have to do everything perfectly and know all the right answers. But God, it's actually waking up every single day and choosing again to walk with you, choosing God sometimes every hour to resubmit to your ways church trusting that what you have for us is best. So God, I pray that they would acknowledge their need for you in their life, God, I pray that they would accept a relationship, God, all of the things that you have for them, Lord, and that you would guide them, Lord, and what it looks like to be in relationship with your son Jesus, who you sent solely to reconcile and reconnect yourself to us. It's in his name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to this message from Mosaic church in Charlotte, North Carolina. For more audio and video content, visit us at MosaicChurch TV.