With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love. Ephesians 4:2
Being meek is the exact opposite of being proud. The meekest man who ever lived, apart from the Lord Jesus, was Moses (Numbers 12:3). Are we referring to the Moses who fearlessly challenged to the face the greatest monarch in the world at that time? Yes, that Moses. Are we referring to the Moses who marched in the lead of hundreds of thousands of people through a desert wilderness toward the promised land? Yes, that Moses. Are we referring to the Moses who acted in righteous indignation against those who defied and rejected God’s commandments to Israel? Yes, that Moses. If those don’t sound like acts of meekness, consider another occasion, when the Israelites had gone after golden idols, when God proposed to wipe out the rebels and to turn His attention and apply His promises to Moses’ family alone (Exodus 32). What an opportunity for Moses! But Moses, in his great meekness (his total lack of pride), pleaded with God to not reject Israel, even offering himself and his family to take God’s wrath in Israel’s stead. Moses saw the Israelites as God’s people. And no sacrifice on his part was too great to bring blessing to those people. Is that our attitude toward God’s people today?
Oh, you might say, but you don’t know about the Christians that I have to put up with. You don’t know about the awful things they said about me, about the way they behave when they think nobody is watching, about their selfish and unkind attitudes. Is that so? And you think they are worse than the stiffnecked and rebellious people who Moses had to deal with? I’m talking about people who Moses had led out of Egyptian captivity and into liberty through the Red Sea, but who staged a big pity party for all the cucumbers and melons, the leeks and onions and garlic that they were missing in Egypt. I’m talking about a people who had heard God’s voice in thunderings at Sinai, but who Moses found dancing and feasting around a golden calf when he came down from communing with God. I’m talking about a people who heard about the glorious land of promise that awaited them, but who turned around in rejection of God’s promise to give them the land. But they were God’s people, and Moses would sacrifice anything and everything to see them blessed. Would we?
Our text speaks of longsuffering and forbearing one another in love. Now, that might be hard to do, especially for those Christians who are as hard to get along with as the person you saw looking back at you from your bathroom mirror just then. But the Lord’s people are precious to the Lord. And He knows their faults and failings far better than we do. And He hasn’t given up on them or withdrawn even one of His rich and precious promises to them. Christ has sacrificed infinitely for His people. Pride would prevent us from following His example, but meekness would not. – Jim MacIntosh