The Fruit of the Spirit”
“Gentle On My Mind”
(Gentleness)
Galatians 5:23
I don’t know of anyone that disputes the fact that John Wooden is the greatest basketball coach who has ever lived. His UCLA basketball teams won ten NCAA national championships in twelve years, including seven in a row. In his book entitled “Wooden”, he begins with this story:
“My dad, Joshua Wooden, was a strong man in one sense, but a gentle man. While he could lift heavy things men half his age couldn’t lift, he would also read poetry to us each night after a day working in the fields raising corn, hay, wheat, tomatoes, and watermelons.
We had a team of mules named Jack and Kate on our farm. Kate would often get stubborn and lie down on me when I was plowing. I couldn’t get her up no matter how roughly I treated her. Dad would see my predicament and walk across the field until he was close enough to say, “Kate.” Then she would get up and start working again. He never touched her in anger.
It took me a long time to understand that even a stubborn mule responds to gentleness.”
I can assure you what is true of a mule, is true with people. Paul says the fruit of the spirit is “gentleness.” It is a word that is more commonly translated “meekness.”
It is the same word that is used in Matthew, chapter five, where Jesus said, “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
Incidentally, it’s too bad that the meek have not already inherited the earth, because the un-meek are making a real mess of it.
Now Jesus said if you want to be blessed by God, you must be meek and you must be gentle. Now meekness is simply surrendering your will to God’s will. You’re going to find in this study that the mark of a mighty man is meekness.
What Jesus said concerning the meek is totally opposite of what the world says about the meek. The world says blessed are the men with money, or blessed are the men with muscles, blessed are the men with might, blessed are the men with missiles. But Jesus said, “Blessed are the men with meekness.”
Now why is there might in meekness? Why is there greatness in gentleness? When George Bush was inaugurated as president of the United States, he said he wanted America to become a “kinder, gentler nation.” Someone has said that “nothing is as strong as gentleness; nothing so gentle as real strength.”
We can learn much from gentleness and meekness, especially as we see what the word of God says about it.
1. Meekness is an Attribute we should Imitate
Jesus was a man of meekness. The single most powerful individual who ever lived, and ever will walk the face of this earth, was a man of meekness. The man who could call down ten legions of angels; the man who could turn water into wine; the man who could simply say a word and an angry mob would fall on their faces; a man who could feed thousands with a few loaves and a few fish was a giant of gentleness.
Do you remember the words of Jesus in Matthew
11:28-29? “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Now the word for learn is the word that gives us our word disciple. One of the marks of discipleship is meekness. If you look at Jesus, learn from Jesus, and live for Jesus, you will be gentle, meek, and lowly in heart.
Now when you study the life of Jesus, you discover a lot about what meekness is, and what meekness is not.
For instance, Jesus teaches us that
- Meekness is not Weakness
Jesus was meek, but he was anything but weak. In weakness he was a man of strength; in hypocrisy he was a man of integrity; in sorrow he was a man of comfort; in despair he was a man of hope; in death he was a man of life.
He was not afraid to stand up against anyone, whether it was the religious establishment, the civil establishment, or the business establishment. He went into the temple on a certain day with a whip of nine cords, and chased the moneychangers out of the temple when no one else would.
When everyone else would turn their head and pretend the house of God was not being desecrated, Jesus stood up and said Church Street is not going to become Wall Street.
Sometimes I am afraid that we get the idea that a meek person never gets angry. That is simply not true. Meekness is the ability to get angry at the right time, and never be angry at the wrong time.
I’ll tell you something else Jesus teaches us:
- Meekness is not Wimpishness
Numbers 12:3 tells us that Moses was the meekest man on the face of the earth. But he was anything but a wimp. He stood before the most powerful ruler on earth, with nothing but a stick and a stammering tongue, and said, “Let my people go.”
Meekness is not wimpishness. Meekness is not being mild mannered. We sometimes think of a meek man as someone who “never gets his feathers ruffled.”
When I speak of meekness I don’t want you to think of somebody who is short, skinny, has coca cola bottles for glasses, sings soprano in the church choir, and looks like a toothpick at both ends. That is not what meekness is.
Put it down big and write it down plain. Jesus was not weak. Jesus was not a coward. Jesus was not afraid to stand up for what is right; to stand against that which is wrong. He was not afraid to speak up against the establishment. But he did it in a spirit of gentleness and humility. That is why I say that meekness is an attribute we should imitate.
2. Meekness is an Attitude We Should Cultivate
Keep in mind that this quality I am talking about, meekness or gentleness, is a fruit of the spirit. You see, it is not natural to be meek. We are living in a society that says it is a negative to be meek.
Did you know that the very opposite of meekness is “demanding your rights.” You can’t turn right without running into someone’s rights. There are rights for children, the elderly, the disabled, workers under twenty-five, workers over forty, alcoholics, the addicted, the homeless, spotted owls, snail darters; for everybody except the unborn and middle-class white men.
Rights are considered as American as apple pie. This is a country known for citizen’s rights. The best known part of the constitution is the “bill of rights.”
Now I want to emphasize that rights are the bedrock of our society, something we should give our lives to defend. They are synonymous with freedom and it is because of our rights that we are not run by an autocratic government (or at least we are not supposed to be).
But as Phillip K. Howard says in his great book, The Death of Common Sense,
“Rights have taken on a new role in America. Whenever there is a perceived injustice, new rights are created to help the victims. These rights are different. While the rights-bearers may see them as “protection” they don’t protect so much as provide. These rights are intended as a new, and often invisible, form of subsidy. They are provided at everyone else’s expense, but the amount of the check is left blank.”
Howard then goes on to make this conclusion:
“Rights, however, leave no room for balance, or for looking at it from everybody’s point of view as well.
Rights, as the legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin has noted, are a trump card. Rights give open-ended power to one group and it comes out of everybody else’s hide.”
So what has the rights movement fostered? A spirit of anything except the spirit of meekness. Now we find best-sellers in America like , “Looking Out for Number One” and “Winning Through Intimidation”.
This is the kind of counsel that is exactly opposite to having a spirit of gentleness and meekness. Even in Jesus’ day that was the prevailing attitude.
When Jesus preached about meekness he didn’t win a lot of friends or influence a lot of people. When He preached to the Pharisees they wanted a miraculous kingdom. When he preached to the Sadducees they wanted a materialistic kingdom.
When he preached to the Essenes they wanted a monastic kingdom. When he preached to the Zealots they wanted a military kingdom. But Jesus was preaching a meek kingdom.
That is why we have become a society out of control. The word that is used in Galatians 5 for gentleness, or in other places meekness, is a word that basically means mild or soft. Sometimes it was used to describe a soothing medicine or a soft breeze.
It was also used of wild animals, specifically wild horses that would be broken by a trainer so that they could be useful in work.
Meekness simply means power under control. An unbroken horse is useless; medicine that is too strong kills rather than cures, and a wind out of control destroys everything in its path. You see, the key is control.
Do you know what meekness is? I’m going to make this as simple as I can. It is simply letting God control every area of your life. Meekness is giving God your wallet and saying, “Lord, how much do you want me to give?” It is giving God your time and saying, “Lord, how do you want me to spend it?” It is giving God your life and saying, “Lord, how do you want to use me?”
I am afraid that the vast majority of Christians are what I call “Frank Sinatra Christians.” Their attitude is: “I’m going to call the shots. I will determine how my Christian life is lived. I will decide how much I put in the offering plate. I will decide how often I will come to church.
I’m going to live the Christian life the way I want to,” and when they die they think they are going to strut into heaven saying, “I did it my way.”
I want to tell you, the true Christian and the God-blessed Christian is the one who simply says, “Lord, I surrender all. All to you I give. Every day for you I live. Take me, cleanse me, fill me, use me, for your glory and honor.” Now you only say that when you are bearing the fruit of gentleness and meekness.
3. Meekness is an Action we should Demonstrate
A meek person is not passive, he is proactive. Gentleness and meekness do not affect so much what you do, as they affect how you do it. You see, we are to carry out certain duties of the Christian life in the spirit of meekness and gentleness.
For instance,
- We are to defend the faith with meekness
“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. (1 Peter 3:15-16)
You see, we are not only to declare our faith, we are to defend our faith, but we are to defend it with meekness; that is, with gentleness.
It is so easy to get impatient with lost people, and especially when you try to share the lord Jesus with someone who is recalcitrant, argumentative, stubborn, even ridiculing.
We must always remember we are not trying to win arguments. We are trying to win souls. Why fuss with a blind man who cannot see or argue with a deaf man who cannot hear?
We need to all remember that there was a time we were blind and deaf. We need to defend our faith, yes, but do it in a spirit of meekness.
- We are to deliver the fallen with meekness
“Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:1-2)
Now this is not referring to an unbeliever, but a believer who has been broken by sin. The Bible says we are to restore these in a spirit of gentleness. The word “restored” is a surgeon’s term that referred to the setting of a broken bone or a dislocated joint. When a doctor sets a broken bone, he does it gently, tenderly, and softly.
Do you know what our first response ought to be to a backslidden believer or a broken brother? The first thing we ought to say to ourselves is “except for the grace of God that would be me.” That’s why Paul goes on to say “consider yourself lest you also be tempted.”
We don’t need to be shooting our own soldiers and killing our own wounded. We need to be helping those who are hurting, and especially those who have fallen into the pit of sin, and do all that we can in a spirit of gentleness to help pull them out.
- We are to defer to the Father with meekness
The Apostle James said, “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”(James 1:21)
Now let me make this very practical. If you are not going to come to church and hear the preacher with a spirit of meekness, you’re just wasting your time.
You see, medicine is only good for you if you take it, and this book is only useful if you hear it and heed it. Now there are some of you here at this very moment; you’re listening to what I am saying, but you are not really hearing me. Well, this book will do you no good.
Then there are many who often hear the Word, but do not heed the Word. But if you leave here without heeding the word, it won’t do you any good either.
That’s why he goes on to say in v.22, “but be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Now let me tell you why meekness is so important. God can do anything with a man who is meek, but he can’t do anything with a man who is not.
You’ve probably never heard of Henry Moorhouse. He lived was an English evangelist who lived back in the 1800’s. He preached from the time he was 16 until his death at 33.
When he was a young man, he heard Dwight L. Moody preaching in England and got acquainted with him. Listen to how Moody tells the story: “In 1867, when I was preaching in Dublin, at the close of the service a young man, who did not look over seventeen, though he was older, came up to me and said he would like to go back to America with me, and preach the Gospel.
I thought he could not preach it, and I said I was undecided when I could go back. He asked me if I would write to him, as I did not know whether I wanted him or not. After I arrived at Chicago I got a letter saying he had just arrived in New York, and he would come and preach. I wrote him a cold letter, asking him to call on me if he came West.
A few days after I got a letter stating he would be in Chicago next Thursday. I didn’t know what to do with him. I said to the officers of the Church, ‘There is a man coming from England, and he wants to preach. I am going to be absent Thursday and Friday. If you will let him preach on those days I will be back on Saturday and take him off your hands.’ They did not care about his preaching, being a stranger; but at my request they let him preach.
On my return on Saturday I was anxious to hear how the people liked him, and I asked my wife how that young Englishman got along. How did they like him? She said they liked him very much.
He preaches a little different from what you do. He tells the people God loves them. He had actually preached not two nights, but six and every message from John 3:16.I think you will like him.’
I said he was wrong. I thought I could not like a man who preached contrary to what I was preaching. I went down on Saturday night to hear him, but I had made up my mind not to like him, because he preached different from me.”
After graphically describing the six nights on John 3. 16, Moody concludes: “In closing up that seventh sermon, he said, ‘For seven nights I have been trying to tell you how much God loves you, but this poor stammering tongue of mine will not let me. If I could ascend Jacob’s ladder and ask Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Almighty, to tell me how much love God the Father has for this poor lost world, all that Gabriel could say would be, that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. “ I have never forgotten those nights. I have preached a different Gospel since, and I have had more power with God and man since then.”
One night, he was preaching in a Welsh mining town among some of the roughest, toughest, meanest men in all of Wales and God was moving in a mighty way.
There was a man named Ike Miller who lived in that town. Ike Miller was a drunkard, a blasphemer, a brawler, and a bully. He was the toughest of the tough; the meanest of the mean, and, in a town that feared no one, everyone feared Ike Miller.
Ike Miller hated preachers, and he hated church more than he hated anything else. When he got wind of the revival that was going on in the little tabernacle at the end of town, he sent word to Henry Moorhead that if he preached that night, he was personally going to come to the church and pistol whip him, and then run him out of town. Now Ike Miller was not a man of talk, he was a man of action, and if he said it he meant it.
Some of the Christian men went to Henry Moorhead out of love and concern, and tried to dissuade him from preaching that night. They begged him to simply call the meeting off. But Henry Moorhead refused and said, “I am going to preach the gospel and trust God.”
Well, that night the little tabernacle was packed. Miller was nowhere to be seen and the crowd was kind of relieved, but as Moorhead got up to preach, the door burst open and big burley Ike Miller came walking in. He sat down with his arms folded, glaring at the preacher with a killer look that said, “You say one word, and I’m going to beat you within an inch of your life.”
Henry Moorhead, unruffled, simply began by reading John 3:16. Then he began to preach on the love of God, the life of Jesus and the joy of eternal life.
When he finished, Ike Miller hit his feet. Everyone just stared in awe and fear, wondering if he was going to carry out his threat. But instead, he simply walked out of the building. As Ike walked back toward his home, some of his old friends called out from the bar to join them for a drink.
But to their surprise, this time Ike did not join them; he just kept right on walking.
He walked down a little dirt road; came to a little one room cottage surrounded by a little rickety fence. He walked through that fence gate and then opened the door to his house and stepped in.
There he met his frail wife and two children. Those two children ran like frightened mice and hid under the bed. His little wife cowered down waiting for another beating from a drunken profane husband.
But there was to be no beating this time. Ike miller looked at his wife and said, “Woman, you have nothing to fear. Get the kids and bring them here. We are going to pray.” She said, “What did you say?”
He said, “Bring the kids here right now, we’re going to pray.” Well, she went, got the kids out from under the bed; they came in there trembling, hiding behind her skirt. He looked at those kids and barked, “Kneel down.” They knelt.
He looked at his wife and said, “You too!” She knelt. Then for the first time in their life, they saw their daddy do something they thought they would ever see him do. He knelt down and tried to pray. He said, “Oh God. . .”And then there was dead silence because Ike Miller didn’t know how to pray. He didn’t know what to say.
He knew how to curse; he knew how to yell and scream, but he didn’t know how to pray. He tried again. He said, “Oh Lord. . .”
But again there was dead silence. He was so embarrassed, and then he remembered a prayer his mother taught him when he was just a little boy, and this is what that big, giant of a man prayed:
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild
look upon a little child;
Forgive me my simplicity
and suffer me to come to thee.
At that moment Ike Miller, the drunkard, the brawler, the blasphemer, the wife abuser, the womanizer, was born again.
Just like Ike Miller, if you will get gentle on your mind, and in that spirit of meekness come to the gentle Lord Jesus Christ and give him your life, you too will be saved.
Let’s pray
