10 Fruit of the Spirit: Gentleness

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know it. Today is the tenth talk in my series on the fruit of the spirit. I am glad you joined me today. In this series, we are searching for an understanding of the nouns on Paul's list of the fruit of the spirit. Today we'll be talking about gentleness. We're exploring scripture to see what the Bible says about these concepts and therefore what Paul was thinking when he wrote the list. I have been arguing that the items on this list are not feelings. Rather, they are a lifestyle that results from a profound worldview shift. As the Spirit of God teaches us truth, our perspective changes, and that changes how we choose to act, respond, and treat each other. As always, we'll start by remembering the context in Galatians where we find the list. Paul spends most of his time in Galatians refuting the teaching of the Judaizers and arguing that faith in Jesus is sufficient for salvation. At this point in the letter, he's arguing that freedom from the law does not mean that we are free to pursue sin. Paul argues that lawkeeping only changes us on the outside, producing a fake moral transformation. But once we have faith in Jesus, God gives us his spirit, and his spirit changes us from the inside out, producing genuine moral change. The qualities on this list are the result of that change and are examples of the kind of thing that the Spirit produces in us. We have come to the fruit of the Spirit that both the English Standard Version of the Bible and the New American Standard Version translate as gentleness. This word is also translated as meek or meekness or lowly or lowliness. We don't have an English word that exactly captures the meaning of this Greek word. Because we don't have a one-to-one translation equivalent, this word is often misunderstood. If you've heard my teaching on the Beatitudes from the Gospel of Matthew, this concept of meekness or gentleness is going to be familiar to you. In the Beatitudes, Jesus says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, and that word meek is the same word as the one in our list. In fact, it was studying the Beatitudes that first challenged me to try to understand what this word means. To start us off, we're going to look at two passages from the Old Testament. And let me remind you, I'm not going to cover all the complexities of a word study. Paul and Jesus use this Greek word, but we have a Greek version of the Old Testament, and it is often useful to study the Hebrew word that this Greek word translates, and that's where we're going to start. We're going to start with Numbers 12. We'll be looking at a story about Moses, and let me first place this story in biblical history. God called Abraham, and that started the history of the Jewish people. God made certain promises to Abraham, which his son Isaac inherited. Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob inherited the promises, and he is later renamed Israel. Jacob had twelve sons, and those sons became the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the children of Israel become what we think of as the Jewish people. So after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through a series of complicated events, the children of Israel ended up as slaves in the land of Egypt. Eventually they cried out to God to rescue them from the slavery. God heard them and sent the prophet Moses to rescue them from Egypt. Moses was aided by his brother Aaron, who was a priest, and his sister Miriam, who was a prophetess. After they have left Egypt, at one point in their journey, Miriam and Aaron grow jealous of their brother, and that's the story we're going to read. This is Numbers chapter twelve, verses one through sixteen. Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. And they said, Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also? And the Lord heard it. Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all the people who were on the face of the earth. And suddenly the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, Come out, you three to the tent of meeting, and the three of them came out. And the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward. And he said, Hear my words, if there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision. I speak with him in a dream, not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed. When the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, like snow, and Aaron turned toward Miriam, and behold she was leprous. And Aaron said to Moses, O my Lord, do not punish us because we have done foolishly and have sinned. Let her not be as one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes out of his mother's womb. And Moses cried to the Lord, O God, please heal her, please. But the Lord said to Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be shamed for seven days? Let her be shut outside the camp seven days, and after that she may be brought in again. So Miriam was shut outside the camp seven days, and the people did not set out on the march till Miriam was brought in again. After that the people sent out from Hazarith and camped in the wilderness of Peron. I'm not going to cover what's happening with Miriam in the story. I do have a podcast on that passage that looks at the story from Miriam's perspective, and I'll put a link to that in the blog post version of the podcast if you're interested. For our purposes today, I want to look at Moses. Moses is unique among all the prophets of Israel. If you remember the story, Moses encountered God in the form of a burning bush. God took a visual form in front of Moses and spoke to him on several occasions. After they escaped from Egypt, Moses regularly entered the tent of meeting, which you could think of as an early version of the temple. He would go into the tent and then inside the Holy of Holies, the glory of God would settle on the tent of meeting and Moses would speak with God. Then Moses would come out and report to the people what God had said. Later, when they were camped at Mount Sinai, Moses would ascend the mountain and speak with God on top of the mountain. When Moses returned from speaking with God, his face would shine, because he had been in the presence of the glory of the Lord. And when he returned, that shining light remained on his face for a while, and people were afraid of him. Moses was called by God to lead the children of Israel. His siblings, Miriam and Aaron, were also leaders of the people, but God did not speak to them in the same way. He did not speak to them face to face like he did with Moses. So at this point, Miriam decides, God's not being fair. After all, they're all prophets, just like Moses. Miriam and Aaron are called by God. They lead the people too. They're just like Moses, maybe even a little better than their baby brother, because after all, Moses had this skeleton in his closet. He had married a non-Jewish woman. They didn't have any closet skeletons, and they want to be seen as equal to Moses. In other words, they're jealous and they're ambitious. They think they deserve an equal share of the respect and the honor that Moses has. Well, God responds promptly. God makes it very clear that Moses had a unique role. He asks Miriam and Aaron, what makes you think you can set yourself up as equal to Moses? Moses has a job to do, and it's not your job. He is unique among all the prophets because God chose to talk to him directly. In fact, there's no other prophet like Moses until the Messiah comes. When God wants to talk to Moses, he doesn't give Moses a dream or a vision that Moses must write down and interpret. When God wants to talk to Moses, Moses can talk back. They have a conversation, and this is unique. God did not have conversations with Miriam or Aaron, he only had conversations with Moses. Now I'm telling this story because of the comment in the middle of it, Numbers 12, 3. Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth. This word meek is the one we're concerned with. It's sometimes translated humble, sometimes it's translated gentle, sometimes it's lowly. But our English word gentle can be very misleading. It sort of implies somebody who's all soft and squishy, someone who wouldn't dare raise their voice or raise their eyes off the floor to make eye contact, that sort of thing. But that's not the idea behind this Hebrew word or this Greek word. Moses is a big deal. He is a prophet among prophets. There is no other prophet like him. He has a personal relationship with God that no other prophet or person has until the Messiah comes. If anyone on the planet could claim to be a big deal, it was Moses. He could have flaunted his position, and yet he does not push himself forward. In fact, if you go back in Exodus, you'll learn that when God first called Moses and told him that he was giving Moses this leadership role, Moses declined. He says, You know, no thanks. Why don't you choose Aaron instead? I think he's better qualified than I am. God says, No, you're the man for the job, and Moses keeps protesting until finally he provokes God to anger, and then he accepts the role. Moses was not in an exalted or important position because he sought it. He was in that position because God put him there, even though he didn't seek it. That attitude is what we're getting at by this word meek. Meekness is that quality of accepting what God has given you and not asking for more. Meekness is that quality of not putting yourself forward, not being presumptuous. That's the quality Moses had. He had this attitude of, I am not going to exalt myself, I'm not going to push myself forward, I will accept whatever God gives me. Now let's look at Psalm 37. And this is the Psalm that Jesus quotes in the Beatitudes when he says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. And again, this word meek is the one we're concerned with. Psalm 37, 1 and 2 starts like this fret not yourself because of evildoers. Be not envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. These opening verses give us the theme of the psalm. Don't fret about the evildoers in this world. The people who reject God, don't worry about them, don't be jealous of them. Evildoers reject God and grab and take for what they want. They trample over those who trust in the Lord and take advantage of them. It may look like they're winning in the short term because they're taking advantage of those who trust God, but don't be fooled. When God's judgment comes, they will wither like the grass. And this psalm explores the difference between where we are now and where we will end up. Right now, it may look like the wicked are getting the better end of the deal, but those who trust God are the real winners. In the end, the wicked are going to disappear, and the righteous who trust God will be vindicated and live forever. Let's go on with the Psalm. This is verses three through six. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday. So here's the flip side from the first two verses. Don't worry about the wicked who seem to be prospering. Instead, trust in the Lord. And notice the emphasis here is on how this story is going to turn out. Trust in the Lord. The time is coming when God will change the way things are. The Lord's going to bring justice, and those who trust him will be raised up, and those who have opposed him will be brought low. This theme that God will bring about this ironic inversion one day runs through both the Old and New Testaments, but it is especially common in the Psalms. We see this idea over and over again. Those who think they have everything the world has to offer are going to lose it. Those who seem to have little because they trust God are going to be given everything worth having. The truly important thing is where you're going to end up, not where you are right now. Let's look at seven through nine. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices. Refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Fret not yourself, it tends only the evil. For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. In just a little while the wicked will be no more, though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace. So you can see this theme emerging. The evildoers, those people who reject God and are selfishly ambitious, they are going to vanish. Right now they're stealing, pushing, shoving, and trampling others to get what they want. They resort to evil devices to get their way. They grab and take what is not theirs. But by contrast, the people of God rest and wait on the Lord. Now this rest is not sleeping. This rest is acknowledging God is in control. This rest is refusing to break God's rules or to resort to evil to take something you want. It's saying, I refuse to trample you to get what I want. I refuse to steal or take something God has withheld from me because I am confident that God knows what I truly need. God has promised to bless me and treat me well, and ultimately I'm looking to the promise of his kingdom. Of course, the irony is the evildoers are going to vanish, they're going to be cut off. The ones who seem to be prospering, indulging in these wicked schemes are going to vanish and lose everything. But the one who waits for the Lord will find rest in the land. The guy who's scheming right now and is trying to grab up all the land around you on your left and right, he's not going to keep it. That land's not going to be his, it's not his inheritance, but it will be your inheritance if you trust in God. Now the reason I brought us to the Psalm is these verses ten and eleven. Let me read those again. In just a little while, the wicked will be no more, though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. And then verse eleven, but the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace. And here's that word we're looking at again. The humble, the meek, the gentle, those who are not high because they are ambitious and because they've exalted themselves, but those who are waiting on God. The meek do not presumptuously grab or take or steal to get what they want, they don't trample others to get what they want, they don't demand that God give them more or a higher place like Miriam and Aaron did. Instead, they seek only that which God gives them. They put their trust in Him and wait for His promises to be fulfilled, content with whatever He gives them. Those who are meek trust God and strive to be content with whatever He gives them. They do not presumptuously demand what God has withheld. I think Jesus had this idea of meekness in mind when he told the little parable of the wedding feast. Jesus was at a banquet and he saw people jockeying for which table they were going to sit at. This is Luke fourteen, verses seven through eleven. Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, give up your place to this person, and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, Friend, move up higher. Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Now this situation may be familiar to you. You've probably been to a wedding recently. The best table is the one where the bride and groom and their families sit. Then there's the honored tables for extended family members and the bridal party, and the least desirable tables are usually the ones in the back or in the corners by the kitchen doors where you can't see or hear anything. We all consider some tables better than others. Well, the same kind of thing must have been happening in Jesus' day. He saw some of the Pharisees and the guests working to get themselves seated at the better tables, and he told this little parable in response. And his point was if you grab a seat at the high table, what's likely to happen? The host is going to consult his guest list and say, Oh no, no, excuse me, you're not supposed to be at that table, you're supposed to be back here at this other table, and then you will have to move and be embarrassed in front of everybody. What should you do instead? Sit in the back. Then when the host consults his list, he'll say, Oh no, you're not supposed to be back there. Come on up here. And instead of being embarrassed and humiliated, you will be honored. And he uses that as a picture of the two kinds of attitudes we can take toward life and toward God. We can grab for it, trying to get the best seat for ourselves, in which case God may come along and say, sorry, that's not for you. Or we can sit in the back, trusting that the host will bring us forward at the proper time. And then, of course, we get one of those classic inversion statements: he who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. The lowly person, the humble, the gentle, the meek person will be exalted. The aggressive, ambitious taker will be humiliated. So the person who has gentleness or meekness is this person who's willing to wait and trust God and see what comes his way. Jesus himself is an interesting model of this quality of gentleness or meekness. This is a story from when he entered Jerusalem right before the crucifixion. This is Matthew 21, verses 1 through 9. Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Beth Page, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say the Lord needs them, and he will send them at once. This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophets, saying, Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a cold the foal of a beast of burden. The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowds spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. Picture what's going on here. This is the king, this is the Messiah. He should be riding in on a war horse, with his sword gleaming in the sunlight and his hair streaming in the wind, on a white horse with all his army of soldiers behind him. But how is he entering Jerusalem? He's riding a beast of burden. He's not coming in a blaze of glory. He's riding a lowly donkey. Jesus is often held up as a model of meekness, of this kind of gentleness we're talking about. But think about what he's doing in this situation. He is entering Jerusalem as the king, the long awaited Messiah. He's not coming in humbly in the sense of people call out Hosanna and he says, Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm just a regular. Guy. You don't need to make a big deal out of me. The people cry out, Hosanna to the son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, and he acknowledges their praise. In fact, Luke tells us that some of the Pharisees were outraged by the people shouting this, and they say to Jesus, Tell your disciples to be quiet. Listen to what they're shouting, listen to what they're saying to you. Tell them to stop. This is Luke 19, 39 and 40. And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. He answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out. Jesus responds, Look, it won't do any good for me to tell them to be quiet, because if they shut up, the very stones would cry out, Hosanna in the highest. That's how confident he is that he is the king. He is the long-awaited Messiah. He knows it, he acknowledges it. The crowds are right to shout his praise and proclaim him as the king of the world. Yet Jesus doesn't take this role before God gives it to him. He doesn't try to grab it in his timing. He doesn't try to shortcut the path that God asked him to walk. He doesn't shrink from the cross because he knows the cross is the path to his coronation. So in that sense, he is coming as a king who is meek, gentle, and humble. He doesn't deny that he's king. He's not making a big deal of himself. He doesn't put himself down. He doesn't hide from his role. He accepts everything God has given him in the timing God gives it. He humbly accepts and follows the plan of God. He waits and acts, trusting God, accepting what God gives him. I think we see this even more clearly in another passage from Matthew. This is Matthew 11, 28 through 30. Jesus is speaking here, and he says, Come to me all 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, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And this word gentle is the word we're looking at again. He talks about becoming his disciple, and he says, Take my yoke upon you, learn from me, for I am gentle. Take my yoke upon you is the language of discipleship. He's making a really bold statement here. He says, Make me your teacher, make me your master, your lord. That's the image of the yoke. The farmer puts a yoke on the oxen because he is their master. The yoke limits their freedom. The farmer puts on the yoke to keep the oxen together, to make it so they work together and they work for him and follow his commands. They are his servants. With the yoke on them, they must do the will of the farmer. The imagery of the yoke is the imagery of submission to a master. When Jesus says, take my yoke upon yourself, he's saying, Submit to me. He's acknowledging it is right for you to submit to me. I am your teacher, I am your king, I'm your master, you should take my yoke upon you. But why should you take his yoke and what will you learn from him? Why can you trust him and submit yourself like that? Because he is lowly and humble of heart. He is not lowly in the sense that he's reluctant to call us to obey him. He's not lowly in the sense that he puts himself down and shrinks into a corner and refuses the kingship, but he is gentle and lowly in the way he handles his authority and power. He does not exercise his authority for his own benefit. He does not let his position of power corrupt him or go to his head. Now how rare is that? By definition, having power means that we have the ability to get what we want, and we very easily confuse authority and power. Whenever we human beings get power, we start using it very selfishly for our own benefit and often at the expense of others. Just look at any politician and you'll see this is true. But we can take the yoke of Jesus because he is meek, he is gentle, he will not take advantage of us, he will not use his kingship to abuse us, he will not harm us or enslave us for selfish purposes. Jesus will not use his power and authority for his own benefit. Instead, he says he is gentle. He does only what God has called him to do. He tells us simply and truthfully, I am the Messiah, the King of kings, who will rule on David's throne forever. I am your master. If you submit to me, you will find life. I'm not doing this for my sake, I'm doing it for your sake. If you take my yoke upon you, you will find rest for your souls. My yoke will not become a burden, it won't be a wearying task that ends up benefiting me and draining you. No, when you take my yoke upon you, I'm working for you, I'm doing this for you. I think that's what's going on in this section. By saying he is gentle and meek, he's saying he is not personally ambitious. He himself submitted to the plans and purposes of his heavenly father. He waited for God to exalt him, he did not exalt himself. Yes, he was king of kings and lord of lords, but he waited until God made him king. And he did not use his kingship for his own benefit. Let's look at another passage. This is James 3. James is writing to the leaders in the churches. He describes those leaders as being jealous and selfishly ambitious. They are engaged in a battle for authority and power in the church. Apparently, everyone is trying to push themselves forward to gain the upper hand and get their way. James looks at the situation and says, you know, I don't think very many of you should become teachers because look at your attitudes. Look at what's coming out of your mouths. Look at the ambition, the selfishness that's driving you. And then he says this, this is 3, 13, and 14. Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. James is essentially asking, who should be in the positions of leadership among you? It's the one who shows himself to be a good leader by his behavior. He leads in the gentleness of wisdom. And this is the same idea we've been talking about. It's the humility, the meekness of accepting whatever God has for you and not trying to lord it over others. Some are battling for power and trying to build their own little fiefdoms in the church. The very fact that they're selfishly ambitious marks them as people who shouldn't be leading anybody. By contrast, those who are wise demonstrate that wisdom in meekness. They are willing to let God fight their battles. They are willing to sit in the back row. They don't seek their own gain at the expense of the people that they're teaching or leading. Instead, they trust God, they wait on the Lord, just as they're asking you to wait on the Lord. So loneliness is not just an attitude that we have towards God, it is also an attitude that we have toward each other. And I think that's the quality Paul is talking about in Galatians as a fruit of the Spirit. How do we demonstrate this gentleness, this meekness as a fruit of the Spirit? We show it in the way we treat each other. At the end of the section where he talks about the fruit of the Spirit, Paul says this, this is Galatians 5, verses 25 through chapter 6, verse 1. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. In 6.1 he uses the same word that we find on the list of the fruit of the Spirit, restore him in a spirit of gentleness. In Galatians, Paul is arguing against legalists. In their legalism, they are fighting over who is keeping the law best. They are in contention, they are judging and battling each other. And legalism leads to this kind of conceit and provoking each other, envying one another, and this contentiousness over who's keeping the law right and who isn't. Paul says, look, stop all that. Line up with the Spirit. What is it the Spirit's calling us to? He's calling us to be humble. He's not calling us to demonstrate how superior we are in our religious life. He's calling us to be gentle, to be lowly. Even if your brother is caught red-handed in a trespass. Paul moves the discussion beyond some difference of opinion over how kosher is kosher. Paul says, even if your brother is caught in a flat-out sin, there's no debate, there's no question about it, what he did was sin, it's evil. Even in that case, what attitude ought you to take toward him? You restore him in a spirit of gentleness or lowliness, looking to yourself lest you too be tempted. We love to compare ourselves. We like to think we're doing better by comparing ourselves to someone else. And the temptation is great to use other people's problems as a lever to make ourselves look better. Paul's saying that doesn't work. What you're called to is gentleness, lowliness, meekness, to see yourself as the same kind of sinner who needs the same grace and mercy from God. And you approach that person seeking to restore him from that position of gentleness and lowliness. This is the same kind of humility we've been talking about through this series. We're to see our neighbors as equals. We are no better than them. We are all sinners in need of the same grace of God. The aspect of that we're looking at this week is resting in God, trusting Him. And then because we trust Him, being willing to take the lower place, to wait, not to grab and fight for what we think we're due, but to wait and trust that God will give us whatever He wants to give us. He is in control. We don't have to fight for our share. We are no better than anyone else, and God will work it all out. And because we stand firmly on those truths, we deal with each other from a position of gentleness or lowliness, not trying to put ourselves forward at someone else's expense, not trampling others to get what we want. Now again, we could look around and say, okay, if this kind of gentleness or lowliness is a fruit of the spirit, it seems to be in short supply in the church. It's not hard to find people who use religion as a platform for raw ambition. All of us like to be the one in power. All of us like to be the one up front on the stage. We all like to be respected, and we all like to be seen as the most spiritual person in the room. There are many people who use the name of Christianity to amass power, prestige, money, and control, and it's recognizable. The world around us recognizes it and we recognize it. It's not really hard to see, and it's a terrible thing when it happens. And I would argue it's the exact opposite of what Paul is calling us to here with this idea of gentleness. But on the other hand, we want to be careful in judging and condemning each other. We want to take the warning of Galatians 6 1 seriously. If anyone is caught in a transgression, you who are spiritual restore him in a spirit of gentleness, keeping watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. It can be tricky. Jesus is the meekest and humblest of men, and yet he is king. He gives commands. He does not ask for my opinion about the plans of God. He has a message and he's not going to change it because I'm unhappy about it. In one sense, then he is a rock. He is unchangeable, he is unmoving, he is powerful and he has authority. And sometimes we followers of Jesus must be like him and be solid and unmoving. When it comes to the truth of the gospel, we dare not compromise or back down. There are times when we must stand firm and call evil evil and name lies as lies. On the other hand, we should learn to be lowly, to be gentle or humble, not to make more of ourselves than we are, but to trust in God. Perhaps the best picture of this kind of unmoving meekness is in the upper room where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. This is John 13, twelve through seventeen. When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me teacher and lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet, for I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is the messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. Jesus takes the very humble job of one of the lowest household servants and washes the feet of his disciples. Then he says, Do you know what I have done? Do you understand this? You call me teacher, and you're right. I am your teacher and I am your Lord. I think what he's saying is, if we want to start measuring by position, power, and authority, I am the most exalted person in this room. I am your Lord and Master, and what have I done? I washed the dirt off your feet. What does that teach you? When you step into the role of apostle, how are you going to treat others? When I go to my Father and you become my apostles and hold the highest position of authority among my people, how are you going to handle that authority? Are you going to lord it over my followers, or are you going to take this attitude of the place of a servant, serving, teaching, and leading the church, understanding that you are to use what authority you have as a servant? And that's the line we all have to learn to walk. On the one hand, the Spirit of God teaches us to be meek, gentle people who are willing to trust God and serve others. And at the same time, we are followers of a great king who has taught us truth, and that truth is not negotiable. In one sense, we want to be among the lowliest of people, yet in another sense, we want to be prepared to stand up for what is right and true. We want to, metaphorically speaking, be prepared to cast the money changers out of the temple. We want to stand up for the truth, stand on the rock of the gospel and not be knocked off, and yet while we're standing on that rock, we know who we are. We know we are sinners in need of mercy. We know that even our master served others, and that we are called to serve, not lord it over others. This seems to me to be an intrinsic implication of saving faith, and I think that's why it's one of the fruits of the Spirit. The Spirit of God teaches us what we believe and how to live like it's true. And one of the things he teaches us is we do not have to ambitiously put ourselves forward. We do not need to seek honor because God is going to exalt us. We are free to serve others because we have a master whose burden is gentle and easy, and we know God will take care of us. We can take the low road because we know the God that we follow. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how we figure it out. The blog post version of this podcast is at WednesdayInTheWord.com slash fruit dash spirit dash gentleness. I don't accept any advertising on my website, nor do I ask for donations. Your subscriptions, ratings, and reviews are advertising for this show. But it really encourages me to hear from you. Please leave me a positive rating on your favorite podcast platform and drop me an email. But more importantly, tell a friend what you learned, and if you can, tell them where you learned it. My theme music is graciously provided by my friend and favorite musician Reggie Coates. You can find his music on heartfeltmusic.org. If you want to find out more and hear previous episodes in this series, please go to Wednesdayintheword.com. Thanks so much for listening today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.