Meek: Releasing Expectations to God – Humbly You Came
Meek: Releasing Expectations to God
Pastor Brandon Werner | Together Church OKC |
December 15, 2024 | Series: Humbly You Came
INTRODUCTION
We are back in this series, “Humbly You Came.”
Last week, we defined humility and discovered how we can develop a mindset of humility. In Philippians 2, that mindset is defined by the mindset of Jesus. Do you remember the phrase we learned to help us develop a mindset of humility?
“I am not more significant than others. Because Jesus served me, I will serve them.”
How did you do with that mindset this week? Growing in humility doesn’t happen by accident. We must work to develop a mindset like Jesus.
Let’s continue that theme of humility this morning. We will do it by looking at a concept that branches out of humility: meekness.
Meekness is yielding all my rights and expectations completely to God.
This morning, we will continue to develop a mindset of humility by considering the example of Jesus and what it means to be like Him.
Dismiss children to Bible Zone.
INTRODUCTION
Christmastime can be so conflicting.
It’s the season filled with good tidings, hope, and joy.
At the same time, Christmas has this way of causing our pains and disappointments to rise to the surface. This season makes us hyper aware of the ways our lives didn’t turn out the way we expected.
- Perhaps your family didn’t turn out the way you hoped.
The gatherings at Christmas can cause the pain of loss to feel so heavy. You didn’t think you would have to say goodbye so soon. Or you never imagined it possible to be estranged from a person you love so much. Maybe being married or having kids isn’t what you thought it would be. Or you are reminded of conflict with loved ones in your life.
Christmas has a way of reminding us of how our families didn’t turn out the way we expected.
- Christmas can remind us of how our finances aren’t where we thought they’d be.
You really believed your career would be in a different place; that you’d have more means than you currently have; that you wouldn’t still be struggling so much. During this ultimate consumer season, Christmas can cause our unmet financial dreams to rise to the surface.
- Maybe your unmet expectations are related to your health.
You can remember a time when your health or the health of someone you love wasn’t the constant burden that it is now. You think about how things used to be, or how things might change, and then you experience grief.
It’s not that we’re unaware of these things at other times throughout the year; but Christmastime can create hypersensitivity to anything that hasn’t turned out the way we planned.
Why is that?
One reason is the beast we call American commerce.
The first rule of any good marketing campaign is to create in the consumer a desire for something they don’t have. Every ad, every commercial, is designed to make us aware of things we don’t have.
And because the best marketing always attaches itself to human emotions, we see pictures and scenes of people and families that remind us of what we are missing.
Another reason the Christmas season can cause our pains and unmet expectations to rise to the surface is all the festivities and gatherings.
- If you’ve ever had an overwhelming financial burden in your life, you understand how every outing, every party, and every gathering is so conflicting and adds significantly to your burden.
- If a loved one is not present in your life anymore, you understand how the festivities invite coinciding joy and pain.
Christmastime is a modern world paradox. While more money is spent on gifts, parties, and food this time of year than any other; simultaneously, this season contains the most anxiety, fear, depression, and grief.
While the holidays can be wonderful, they can also remind us of the many ways our lives haven’t lived up to our expectations.
Enter meekness. Meekness is a branch of humility. Meekness is…
“Yielding my rights and expectations completely to God.”
Notice that I didn’t just say, “yielding my expectations to God.” If I stopped at just expectations, we could argue about possible rights you felt God was entitled to honor. But genuine meekness is not just yielding my expectations to God, it’s yielding everything to God.
Meekness is…
- Yielding my family & relationship expectations to God.
- Yielding my financial expectations to God.
- Yielding my health expectations to God.
- Yielding my expectations of others to God.
- Yielding my expectations of myself to God.
- Yielding my plans and how I think Christmas should look this year to God.
That’s what meekness is, but how do you do it? How do we become meek? As the old saying goes… “If you think meekness is weakness, try being meek for a week.”
Training in meekness is training our minds. Like humility, we must learn to develop a mindset of meekness.
I want to help you with your thinking this morning. Specifically, I want us to work on the lens you use when you are evaluating your life, your relationships, and your circumstances. To cultivate a mindset of meekness, there are three things you must believe about God…
To become meek, we must believe…
- God is the owner of everything.
- God is in complete control.
- God is always good.
Establishing and rehearsing these three beliefs about God will change the lens you use to view your life and circumstances. If you really believe and rehearse these things about God, you will become meek.
BODY
To cultivate a mindset of meekness, you must first believe…
- God is the owner of everything.
It is easy for us to claim ownership over our own lives.
“It’s my life.”
“It’s my body.”
“It’s my schedule.”
“It’s my money.”
“It’s my family.”
“It’s my house.”
“It’s my car.”
“It’s my future.”
This is how we feel, but is it true?
The Bible is clear that we are not the owners… God is.
Psalm 24:1
The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
God is the owner of everything. He owns the whole earth and everything in it. To leave no room for doubt, the scripture says that even the people who dwell on the earth belong to Him.
Paul makes this point especially clear for those who call themselves believers and followers of Jesus…
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
You are not your own. You belong to God. None of us in this room would have anything if God had not created it and entrusted it to us. We are not owners; we are stewards of God’s stuff.
But isn’t it easy to forget that we belong to God and to act like our lives belong to us?
Can you imagine what would happen if someone else claimed ownership rights over your property?
- Imagine if someone took your keys without asking and just started driving your car!
- Imagine if they entered your home without permission, ate your food, used your stuff, and slept in your bed.
If someone did this, there would be consequences! Why? Because they are not the owner and they violated your rights of ownership.
And this is what God says,
Hebrews 3:4
For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.
Your ownership of your home is just an analogy for God’s ownership over all things. None of us really own anything; God owns everything.
And as the owner, God is the only one who has the right to determine what happens to what belongs to Him. He’s in charge, not us. To call God the “owner” of all things is just another way to describe what it means for Him to be Lord.
To become meek, we have to stop claiming ownership rights that don’t belong to us. We must train our hearts and minds to believe that God is the rightful owner of everything, not us.
That’s the first thing we must believe about God to develop a mindset of meekness. But there’s more. To cultivate a mindset of meekness, we must also believe…
- God is in control.
To believe God is in control means believing nothing is outside the scope of His power. It means trusting that His abilities know no limits. Believing God is in control means having an assurance that God never tries to do something and fails.
Jeremiah 32:17
Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.
To become meek, we must believe that God is all-powerful… that He is always in complete control.
Could you imagine trying to trust a God that was limited in His abilities? Perhaps he is well intended, but sometimes he just can’t pull through. Sometimes he just falls a little short and fails to do what he purposed to do.
But our God never fails. In Romans 1, Paul says God has “eternal power” according to His “divine nature.” Paul’s saying God’s power is without limit. It won’t expire; it is not vulnerable; it can’t be threatened; it has no weakness; it cannot be lost or taken. God is in complete control.
To develop a mindset of meekness, we must believe that God is in complete control of everything – including the details of our lives. Nothing can happen to us without God’s permission. So, whatever we are facing, whatever circumstances are unfolding, God is aware of it, and He is in complete control.
Cultivating a mindset of meekness means believing God is in complete control regardless of our circumstances. We will never yield our rights and expectations to God if we do not believe He is all-powerful and capable of controlling every aspect of our lives.
That’s the second things we must believe… but there’s one more thing we must believe to cultivate a mindset of meekness. Believing these first things alone will never be enough to make us meek. To grow in meekness, we must believe that…
- God is always good.
This one might be the hardest of the three for some of us to believe. Why? Well, the reasoning goes like this…
- If God is the owner of my life…
- And if God is all-powerful and in complete control…
- Why doesn’t He stop bad things from happening to me?
I feel that. Because we belong to God, and because He has power to control all things, we think that He should do things a certain way.
The Bible calls us God’s children. There’s no question that our God is a good Father who loves to give good gifts to His children. But it is so easy for us to take that verse and create expectations of God based on what we think His goodness should look like in our lives.
I get that. As a father to my children, I think if I suddenly had the power to control all things, my children would quickly have expectations of me to use that power to give them what they wanted.
- They would expect me to heal their infirmities.
- They would expect me to give them lots of stuff.
- They would expect me to prevent their suffering.
It’s only natural for us to want God to use His power to do what we want Him to do.
But when we do that, do you know what we are doing?
We are claiming the right to define what is good.
“God, if you are good…”
- You would stop me from suffering.
- You would spare me this pain.
- You would do what I think you should do.
Then we say things like, “God isn’t answering my prayers.” What we really mean is God isn’t giving me what I want or doing for me what I expect Him to do.
By taking this position, we are claiming the right to define what is good.
Isn’t that ridiculous?
- We, who have sinned and done what is not good, are claiming the right to define what is good.
- And we are expecting God, who is always good, to adjust His definition of goodness to our expectations.
- We, who are not all-powerful and all-knowing, are claiming we know what is best.
- And we are expecting God, who is all-powerful and all knowing, to adjust His will to our will.
- We, who have no rights to ownership, are expecting God, who has all rights to ownership, to do what we want Him to do with what belongs to Him.
When we do this, we are allowing our emotions and experiences to define what is good instead of allowing God to define what is good.
And our feelings can be so strong! We really believe we are right! We really believe God should do things our way. If you’ve ever experienced significant loss, you know how strong your feelings can be about wanting things to turn out according to your expectations.
But we have to learn to flip the script. How can we learn to believe that God is always good despite our feelings and our circumstances?
Once again, we look at Jesus.
I’ve got a serious question for you… a tough one…
What was God’s good for Jesus?
God’s goodness for Jesus was to crush Him.
Isaiah 53:4-5
4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
It was good for God to crush Jesus.
Now, were the wicked acts of men crushing Jesus good? No!
But it was good for God to crush Jesus. Why? Because the best thing that could happen to Jesus was for the Father’s purposes to be carried out through Him.
God’s good plans for Jesus would not have happened unless Jesus was meek and yielded all His rights and expectations to God.
Do you know what Jesus did? He was meek. He yielded everything to God. If anyone ever had any rights to claim, it was Jesus!
But Jesus set all those rights aside and yielded His rights and expectations completely to the will of the Father. He did this because He loved the Father, and because He trusted the Father, and because He believed the Father was good.
We can hear the mindset of meekness in Jesus in the way He prayed to His Father on the night He was to be handed over and crucified…
Mark 14:36
36 And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Can you hear the meekness of Jesus?
- Jesus believed God owns everything (He called Him Father)
- Jesus believed God is in control (all things are possible for You)
- Jesus believed God is good (yet not what I will, but what You will)
Why? Because the best thing that could happen to me is God’s good purposes be accomplished through me.
The Apostle Paul expresses it this way in Romans 8:28…
Romans 8:28
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Jesus loved His Father. Jesus was called according to His purposes. Did God work all things together for Jesus’ good?
He did! Beyond our comprehension…
- Through Jesus’ suffering, God atoned for our sins.
- Through Jesus’ death, God made a way for us to be forgiven.
- Through Jesus’ resurrection, God gave us new nature a & life.
- Through Jesus’ ascension, God exalted Him over all.
- When Jesus returns, He will rule and reign as King of kings and Lord of lords!
The goodness of God is all over the story of Jesus. The best thing that could have happened to Jesus is for God’s plan to be fulfilled. Because of this, not one moment of Jesus’ suffering was wasted.
In the same way, the goodness of God is all over your story if you love God and are called according to His purposes. There is nothing you are facing that is bigger than God. God is faithful, and He will work things together for your good. You can trust Him!
CONCLUSION
When will we stop allowing our emotions and experiences to determine our view of God?
Our emotions and experiences are real, but they are terrible indicators of what is true. And yet, somehow, it is so easy for us to let our emotions get into the driver’s seat and determine where we will go.
We’ve got to stop believing our emotions and start believing what is true about God. And this is what is true…
- God is the owner.
- God is in control.
- God is always good.
Instead of trusting how you feel will you believe these truths about God? Pray with me.
We all need meekness.
- Who is dealing with a painful disappointment in your life?
- With your family, finances, health, or something else?
- Who would be honest and say you tend to constantly be frustrated by the disappointments that happen in everyday life?
- Perhaps you even find yourself getting angry at God, at others, or at your situations because it seems your expectations constantly go unmet?
Are you ready to let go?
To let go, you must be meek; you must completely yield all your rights and expectations to God. To do that, you must believe that your life belongs to God, that He is in control, and He is good.
INVITATION
We are going to conclude our service with a time of invitation (ask our response team to come forward). During this time, we are opening this alter and these leaders are here to pray for you.
Who is this invitation for?
- If you are battling unmet expectations in your family, this invitation is for you.
- If you are dealing with disappointments in your finances, this invitation is for you.
- If you are experiencing grief because of your health condition or the condition of someone you love, this invitation is for you.
- Or if you find yourself frustrated constantly because you feel your expectations are never met, this invitation is for you.
Will you come this morning to receive prayer and to pray? Come to one of these leaders or come kneel at the alter. As you come, Pastor Seth is going to lead us in a song of response. We all need to become meek. Today, right now, will you choose to believe these truths about God and yield all your rights and expectations completely to Him?