In his sermon 'Conquest Through Meekness,' Paul Carrington delves into the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, emphasizing the transformative power of Jesus' teachings. He contrasts the bleak state of affairs during the end of the Old Testament and the dawn of the New Testament, highlighting the faithful few amidst widespread apostasy. Carrington stresses that Jesus' message focuses on the inner transformation of the soul, which is foundational for Christian living. He reads from Matthew 5:1-10, emphasizing that the Beatitudes outline the characteristics of a renewed heart. Carrington explores the connections between being poor in spirit, mourning over sin, and developing meekness, underlining the importance of heart work. He criticizes modern efforts to medicate away guilt and sin, advocating instead for a true sense of sin and righteousness as the pathway to genuine joy and comfort. The sermon also addresses the paradox of finding happiness in mourning and the power of meekness, which is not weakness but strength under control, exemplified by Jesus. Lastly, Carrington discusses the hunger and thirst for righteousness as a crucial aspect of the Christian life, promising that those who seek righteousness will be filled by God.

Good afternoon. It's a blessing to be here again to preach the Word of God to you. Today we're going to be back in the Sermon on the Mount. So I'd ask that if you have your Bibles, please open to the fifth chapter of Matthew. And we're going to be spending time in the Beatitudes.

And just as a quick quick refresher, here we have the greatest preacher that has ever walked the earth and he's delivering a message on the kingdom of God. And if you remember the Old Testament, it really it closed with apostasy didn't it? It was a pretty sad state of affairs when you get to Malachi. But as the New Testament dawns, you somehow you have some faithful men and women that still know the Lord. Men like Zechariah and Elizabeth, you have Mary and Joseph, you've got Anna and Simeon that are named.

But overall the the state of affairs is a pretty bleak one. It was dominated by the Sadducees and by the Pharisees who ran the Sanhedrin. Even the high priest was a politician and King Herod was no more than a vassal of Rome appointed by the Senate and into this darkness we have the Lord Jesus coming on the scene. And you know what makes Christ so different in terms of his message is that it's something that men hadn't been accustomed to. He addresses that the subterranean work that must take place in the soul first.

And here is his inaugural address in the Sermon on the Mount. So I'm gonna read to us the first 10 verses here of Matthew chapter 5 and then we'll pray. And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain and when he was seated his disciples came to him then he opened his mouth and taught them saying blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Lord, we come to you this afternoon, Lord, with these blessed words that came from our very Savior. Lord, even as the soldiers testified, Never man spake like this man. Lord, we are so glad that we have these words recorded for us.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to understand them, to derive comfort and strength and help for the battle from them. Oh Lord, we pray that you would fortify us and give us good understanding that we might live before you. Lord, fill us with a hunger and thirst even now as we go through these few verses. Lord, I pray especially for help that you would help me and help your people Lord to grasp what is here before us. Lord we pray these things in Christ's name, amen.

Amen. You know much of scripture, it reminds us what we must be oftentimes, those of us who name the name of Christ. It's fascinating not live like this and you'll become a Christian, but because you are a Christian, live like this. If you go, for example, to the book of Ephesians, Paul spends the first three chapters and he tells them because of what God has done, then he gets to chapter four, therefore live like this. And that's kind of what we had before us here in the Sermon on the Mount.

Being is the fountain and the headwaters from which flow the issues of life, how we ought to live as a result of that. But these Beatitudes really are dealing with the whole being of what it means to be a Christian. And you know, I couldn't help but be reminded of Pilgrim's Progress as I was going over these verses. There's an account of two men, one named Formalist and the other named Hypocrisy. And what had happened is Christian had just newly been converted, he had passed through the Wicked Gate, and not too long after that, as he's on the narrow way, he sees these two men clambering over the wall, one named formalist and the other named hypocrisy, and they entered into a bit of a dialogue and Christian says, why came you not in at the gate which stands at the beginning of the way?

And their argument was, if we are in, we are in. You are but in the way, who as we perceive, came in at the gate. And we are also in the way that came tumbling over the wall. Wherein now is your condition better than ours? Well, the lesson of these two men is they wish to avoid the costly path of conversion and repentance of true heart work.

They they spurn the power of the gospel to humble the pride of man. Of course if you continue reading it wasn't too long after that these two men perish in the way. And what I want to really drive home today is is heart work. Heart work is hard work. And it's really the the work that the Lord Jesus he came to do in each and every one of us.

You know I was reading John Flavel years ago and he made a statement on that book, Keeping the Heart. He says there are some people who have lived 40 or 50 years on this earth and have had scarce one hour's communion with their own heart. He says, it is a hard thing to bring a man and his heart together on such business. And so you know we as we go through this Sermon on the Mount we have this opportunity to really understand what it is to have our hearts worked upon and what Jesus came to do. As I mentioned at the beginning there's a subterranean work that he's doing below the surface that is so critical.

You know, on the one side, as Christians, there's always this danger, isn't there? You've got kind of the pietist who is only concerned with his individual holiness and it often leads to this kind of agonizing, am I saved, am I not saved, is my inward experience enough? Almost as false perfectionism that can take place. He's kind of the kind of person that's never really happy unless there's some sort of crisis or problem going on in his life or around him. Someone whose house is just never clean enough.

And then On the other side, you've got those of us who are rightly zealous to see God's dominion take more ground in the culture. And it's a good desire, you know, politics and so on, all of these different things. But we can be tempted to kind of grow, I would say careless, and forget about the dominion that he seeks to take in our own lives. Our appetites, what we watch, where we go and so on. It's like the boy who wants to change the world but doesn't listen when his mom suggests he should maybe start by cleaning his room and brushing his teeth.

Basic, basic stuff. And so the Beatitudes, they deal with both dangers, the pietistic inclination, just to only be narrowly focused on our own life, but also the other side of it, to just be outward focus and forget about the inner man. And so in terms of the Beatitudes, I heard Steve Lawson, he said it very, very beautifully, very simply. You've got eight Beatitudes, And the first four, the way to think of it, it's very helpful, is to think of them as being kind of the root. Blessed are the poor in spirit, down to where we're going to go today, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

And then the final four are the fruit, what happens as a result of the root taking place in our lives. And so here we've got really the fountain or the foundation of the Christian life. And as I mentioned the last time we spoke or the last time I preached is that these aren't just random or scattered characteristics that are laid out for us, but there's an actual flow before us here. Each of them actually flow into each other. And so this is what the renewed heart looks like as Christ begins to take more and more ground in our life.

And so the first thing that we saw last time was blessed are the poor in spirit, but the poor in spirit also becomes a mourner. And we're going to talk about that today in verse four. We have this verse before us, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. And the question is as we look at this one verse here, the happy mourner, is there a greater contradiction in the whole Bible. How can someone be happy, which is what it means to be blessed, and also be a mourner?

Well this really has to do with our view of sin. It's that personal sin, even lamenting even the condition of the world all around us. Just this weight of sin that we see in ourself, and then as we look out into the wider world around us. And you know, we live in a world that seeks to medicate guilt away. There's a, if you go on YouTube, you can't help but notice these ads called Better Help.

I don't know if you've ever seen them. They keep coming up every time. This is an organization, a little company that's come on the scene that's grown from $100 million in revenue to $1 billion in revenue in three years. It's one of the most startling success stories in business. And what they do is they offer you these, I would call them fake therapists, it's kind of like the Uber for therapy, you know, you just sign up, become a therapist, and then people start picking you and you can give them counsel, it's kind of that idea.

But if it's not drugs and fake therapists, it's a It's a diet of levity and entertainment that we seek to medicate ourselves with. But in our day it's almost like coming face to face with Sin is seen as the great enemy of joy But the Lord says the opposite isn't that amazing he says that unless you come face to face with the sinfulness of sin the holiness of God You will never see joy It's an amazing paradox. You'll never know true comfort unless this happens. And so how can this be? Well, the idea is that A true sense of sin means that you're seeing things in the way that God sees them, and you're agreeing with God that this is true, and that in fact, you are guilty.

And what I want you to do today is really to see the connection here, that a defective sense of sin will lead to a defective sense of joy. And if anything describes the age in which we're living in today, it's that. But even in the church, that can happen, where we don't really see sin in the in the right light And so we don't it means that we don't see God in his proper light And so the poor in spirit he becomes this person who is mourning over his sin over the state that he finds himself in. And so what will be the inevitable result of someone who catches a glimpse kind of of himself and sees the state of things as they really are? You know oftentimes you if you examine yourself kind of in the light of God, you will ask yourself certain questions like, why am I attracted to that?

You know, why am I so irritable? Or quick to anger could be another thing you might ask yourself, why am I so afraid of man? What about those unkind thoughts that I harbor about other people? See this is the heart of a man who's being worked on by God, and he doesn't stay there. That's the beauty of what we see before us because he's now realizing his sickness and he's going to apply for a remedy.

That man will be comforted. But if you thought the happy mourner was a paradox, wait till you see verse five. Look what we have here before us. It says, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Here we have world conquest through meekness.

Isn't that amazing? You know, a man, as again, seeing the connection between all these things, a man will never be meek who has not been made poor in spirit first and brought to mourn over his sin. So again you see this this train, this pattern here. And what does what does the world say? The world says that the more you assert yourself and fight for your rights, the better it will be.

We live in the day of self-assertion. You know, the age of the girl boss, if you pay attention to what's going on, of whom Kamala Harris might claim to be the chief. Even the whole aspect of abortion, what does it rest on? What is it predicated on at root? It's predicated on self-assertion.

Who are you to tell me what to do with my body? That's the whole idea. And so you could look around this world and you could say, well, is this beatitude maybe a little bit outdated or maybe out of touch with reality? How can we be meek in a world that is filled with conflict, strife, difficulty, and expect to survive? Doesn't it require that we jettison this beatitude?

Well let's first talk about, well what does it even mean to be meek? What is meekness at the end of the day? Well what it doesn't mean, meekness doesn't mean weakness. You know, in fact, meekness always, true meekness always walks together with great strength. This is how Christ is modeled.

This is how he describes himself in Matthew chapter 11, isn't it? He says, of all the things he could have said about himself, he says, I am meek and lowly in heart. And who is stronger than Christ? Who has overcome more than Christ, who conquered death itself. Well, it's because of this meekness that Christ had that he it's on that basis that he says because I'm like this those who are heavy-laden or burdened can come to me and they will find rest for their souls.

It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. You know, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, he says what meekness isn't as well. So it's not weakness, but he says meekness also does not mean indolence or laziness. There are some people who appear to be meek in a natural sense, but they are not meek at all, they are just indolent. Just kind of take everything as it comes and it can be cloaked as though it's meekness.

That's not what he says. Also, meekness is not just being nice or niceness. It does not include a spirit of compromise. In fact, some of the most meek men are the men who have stood the firmest down through history. They're not the men who say peace at any price.

That's not meekness. Neither does it mean self-pity. So what does it mean? Well, think of the power of meekness. It's so strong that Peter, when he's writing his letter, he says that meekness in a wife, not nagging, but meekness in a wife, it can even prevail upon an unbelieving husband.

That's how powerful it is. It's someone who can endure injury without resentment. That's supernatural, to endure injury without resentment. And this is so critical to local church life and just overall human relations as we interact with one another. Don't be easily offended.

That's the beauty of this here. And you won't be so easily offended if you're mindful of your offense against a holy God and yet His mercy in receiving you. Do you see how meekness it conditions how you live in the world? Because of what God has done for you, it conditions you to be meek and not be so easily offended when someone ignores you or steps on your toes or you hear someone said something about you that you didn't like, whatever it is, some of these things can be absorbed by the spirit of meekness. You recognize, wait, God has wiped the slate clean?

Me? How can it be? It totally transforms that the way we view others and our place in the world, that's the whole purpose of what this happens. There's a sense of amazement that should overtake us. And so the meek person is like Jesus in that sense.

He's not easily provoked. He can bear up under insult. There's so much here. He's not censorious when you see somebody slip or who's not exactly like you. They're a stranger to long harbored vengeance and ill will.

There's not that desire to kind of get back or see somebody get their just deserts, that kind of thing. It's the opposite of fits of anger and rage. It has this kindness of disposition that he's talking about here. That's what it means. It's this character that is increasingly marked with patience and humility.

That's what he's aiming for. They're not sullen but can return a soft answer when somebody rebukes them. Martin Lloyd-Jones again he says, the man who is truly meek is the one who is amazed that God can think of him, amazed that God and man can think of him as well as they do and treat him as they do. I think it was Charles Spurgeon when he was caught up in that great downgrade, that war that took place at the end of the 19th century. And I remember reading a sermon, and I'll paraphrase, but he says, if only my enemies knew the half of what I really am.

How much more merciless would they be? It's that kind of spirit that he possessed and that we have extended to us, not because we drum it up, but because Christ forms it in us over time, little by little. And I want you to just look at what happens. Is this true? Do the meek really inherit the earth?

As you look around us, even in our world, you know, what does history show us? You know, Jesus himself, he's actually quoting when he says, the meek shall inherit the earth. He's quoting from Psalm 37. In verse 11, we read, but the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. And so what is the tenor of Psalm 37?

It's this idea of the wicked who seem to be prevailing at every turn and the righteous. You've got these two different groups of people And it seems to be answering the question, how in the world is it that the wicked seem to prosper and the meek seem to suffer? In our temptation, when we live in a world like we're the one we're living in, where people mock God or make light of the things that we hold so dear, it's to be frustrated. It's a temptation to be discouraged. Everything we cherish is being undermined.

We could throw up our hands in frustration. But what does Psalm 37 teach us? Don't be fretful. Don't be anxious. Look with a historical lens at how God orders the world.

Psalm 37, I love this verse, probably my favorite verse in Psalm 37. He says, I have seen the wicked in great power and spreading himself like a green bay tree yet he passed away and lo he was not. Yea, I sought him but he could not be found. I couldn't even find the stump. Here he was taking up the whole field, but over the course of time you go and you can't even find the trace that he ever even existed.

See, This is the historical lens. And so I want you to just look at what God is doing. This is so important for us to have this, especially in the days that we're living in. You know, many cities have nicknames, don't they? If I say the Big Apple or Windy City or the City of Brotherly Love, You'll recognize what those cities represent.

Well, there was a city in antiquity called Rome, and Rome's nickname was the Eternal City. This prideful attitude toward the city, it was believed to have come from the citizens who looking back in their history, right, they looked back, they felt that even if empires rose and fell, this city would last forever. Of course, it declined until it unraveled and ultimately fell in 476 when the Germanic tribes basically came over the Alps and almost just flicked it over. It becomes so rotten Within that it didn't even take much almost waltz in through the gates it had rotted to the core So much, you know men's kingdoms. They don't seem to last even if you go online you can look at a Videos of Europe and if you just type in I want to see a video of Europe over the last thousand years in an encapsulated time-lapse, maybe five, ten minutes of video.

One of the most staggering things, you won't even be able to keep up with how rapidly the borders are changing. Countries come, then they go off the scene again. It shows so clearly man's desire to inherit the earth by force, right? But only to have it slip away in the next generation, it just doesn't seem to last at all. Even in our last century, there was a man by the name of Edward Smith, you know, on May 31st, 1911.

He was an employee of a company called White Star Line, the company that commissioned the Titanic. And he's famous for these words, not even God himself could sink this ship. Probably not a good idea to tempt God with such foolishness. And by the way, funny, you haven't never heard of the company, have you? White Star Line.

It was one of the most prominent shipping companies in the world at that time. But companies don't even last, not only just countries, but even companies don't last. You know, and did you know that the lifespan of corporations is getting shorter and shorter? In fact, the average lifespan of a company on the S&P 500 has declined 80% in the last 80 years from 67 years lasting 67 years and now the average company only lasts 15 years. So countries don't last.

Corporations don't last. But it's not even just proud countries or companies. You know, earlier this month we had President Joe Biden, when he was being interviewed, he said only the Lord Almighty could convince him to end his bid for reelection and within a week he's mercilessly put down like a dog by his own friends. Pride doesn't work. It's not good to put God to the test.

But while all of this is happening on the big stage, this is what I want you to see. Meanwhile, the meek inherit the land. They inherit the earth. This is a natural fulfillment that actually takes place now. That little stone that we read about in Daniel that was cut out without hands, if you see the same map of Europe and you superimpose the expansion of the kingdom of God, it's one of the most beautiful things that you see.

And all of a sudden it leaps over the Atlantic and it then starts taking ground in North America. Then it explodes across from the east to the west, north and south, goes down to other parts of the world like China and Africa. You see God's kingdom is an ever-expanding kingdom. But remember at the time that Jesus spoke these very words, spiritual darkness was upon the face of the deep. There wasn't very many people who understood the truth.

But think of again that that impact of the gospel just these last 2, 000 years. There's whole books written about what the gospel has brought. Think about where we are today globally, in that there's not a single second in a day where the sun is not shining upon a place on earth, where God does not have his own worshippers and men calling upon God in truth. You see how the meek will inherit the earth? The greatest war against Christianity, You know when that took place?

In the last century, in the 20th century, our century still, we yet to see what happens. But it also happened to be the century that Christianity flourished the most than in any other time in the history of the world. Fascinating. And of course what the Lord has said has actually come true in the earth as the gospel. It marches forth and it will be then consummated with a new earth when Christ finally returns.

This is the beauty and the power of the gospel. And so we've seen the happy mourner, we've also seen world conquering meekness, but now we come to the hinge point of the Beatitudes. This is the nature of spiritual hunger here in verse six. He says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. And I don't, this is what Martin Lloyd-Jones says, I love some of the things he says about the Beatitudes, and he says this, I do not know of a better test that anyone can apply to himself in this whole matter of Christian profession than a verse like this.

Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? Now none of us hunger and thirst as we wish. I know I don't. I wish I did more. But you know up until now what we've done is we've lamented, right?

We've lamented the great problem found in self. It's driven us to be poor in spirit and to mourn and develop that spirit of meekness. But now it's kind of been summarized like how you would find in Romans chapter seven, for what I will to do, that I do not practice, but what I do, what I hate that I do. But now in verse 6 we've, we're kind of being driven out of ourselves. This is the hinge point where even Paul says it encapsulates it well.

He says, oh wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death." He says, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And so the man who is poor in spirit, who mourns, he becomes truly happy because though his sin has pulled him under the waves, he finds himself thrown upon the rock of Christ, and that's where he finds his comfort. That's what it means to hunger and to thirst for righteousness. He stands up after being cast upon Christ, and now he's hungry, he's thirsty for something. And so as a son of God, what does he do?

He seeks to imitate his father. It's very, very simple. He wants to imitate his father in being righteous. Now a lot of times this people say well this is justification right that this is the fruit and that that might be maybe partially true but I think there's something more that he's driving it not just that he wants to be justified but he's there's something about righteous living impurity of living impurity of life this desire to follow after God I was talking to a young man just after service this morning, and that's exactly what he said. I found myself, I just wanted to serve God and be pleasing to God.

What a beautiful desire to have. And what else does hunger tell us? Well hunger, hunger depicts something really important, right? Above all else, hunger involves pursuit. Think about how much of this world involves people just wanting to get food or to satisfy this craving.

I mean the whole world turns pretty much on this whole concept. You pursue what you hunger and thirst for. Well in this case the renewed heart, it desires righteousness. The man of the world, he's a stranger to this pursuit of righteousness. He also hungers and thirsts, everyone does, but he spends his life trying to satisfy these impulses of his soul.

He goes off to different fountains to try to find something that will sate his soul, but comes up empty, empty again. And the great paradox is found right here and this is so important that the person who seeks after happiness, the person who seeks after blessedness, will actually never be happy. But the person who seeks and hungers for righteousness, that person will be happy. It's the byproduct of righteousness. Another dopamine hit will never do.

The soul has to go out for for righteousness. There's a sense of desperation and a hunger. There's something there that I want. You feel it and hunger, if you've ever been hungry, it doesn't go away on its own. There's been stories of prisoners of war who have been starving to death and all of the games they play to try to sate their hunger.

The things that they do, the mental games they do, but it just never goes away. It's this gnawing thing until it's actually filled. The soul, the hungry soul, it needs substance. This is the beauty of the gospel, and this is exactly what God provides. They shall be filled.

Is there anything more substantial than Christ himself? And so I'll end with this quote here from Thomas Watson as he talks about this verse. He says, give me Christ or I die. What? Though I have parts wealth, honor, and esteem in this world, all is nothing without Christ.

Show me the Lord and it will suffice me. Let me have Christ to clothe me, Christ to feed me, Christ to intercede for me. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you here this afternoon, Lord.

We thank you for again your word. We pray, Lord, that you would make these things realities, remind us, oh Lord, of the beauties of the renewed heart Lord and our place in you. You're not even here telling us what to do but Lord you're reminding us of what we ought to be. Oh Lord Make us those that are happy mourners and meek at heart like our Savior. Oh Lord, renew our appetites.

I know for me, Lord, oftentimes I get so distracted and hunger and thirst for things that don't satisfy. But I pray, Lord, that we would hunger as a people that we would thirst for righteousness. Come Lord fill us send us off into the weak encouraged and strengthened to live for you Lord we need you and ask you to go with us now in Christ's name Amen. Amen.