Matthew 20:28

Matthew 20:28

The Meekness of God.

Here is a text that speaks home at once and with ease. It runs on our levels; it speaks in a language understood of all.

I. Everyone knows the arrogance and the insolence of the kings of the Gentiles who exercise lordship over their fellows. And it is in delightful and enticing contrast to this that we turn to greet, with heart and soul, the sweet coming of Him, the human-hearted, the tender Master of all loving-kindness, and all patience, and all goodness, and all long-suffering the Son of Man. The Son of Man came to minister. He had seen an opportunity of giving, of helping, and so He came.

II. Of giving what? Himself. His service was to be utterly unstinted. He would go the whole length with it. He saw that we should demand from Him all that He had; that we should use up His very life; that we should never let Him stop, or stay, or rest, while we saw a chance of draining His succouring stores. And yet He came; even His life He would lay down for our profit. He came as the good Giver, as the Shepherd who giveth His life for the sheep.

III. And it is this, His character, which draws us under the sway of His gracious lordship. This is the allurement of Christ, by which His sheep are drawn after His feet; how can they resist the call of One who serves them so loyally? Every sound of His voice has in it the ring of that true-hearted devotion which would lay down life itself to save them from harm. And yet it is just this winning charm of which we miss often the true force. For do we not associate it entirely with what we call the humanity of the Lord? But that winning grace has in it the potency of God Himself. It is the manifestation of the Word, the revelation of what God is in Himself. If Jesus, the Man, is tender and meek, then God, the Word, is meek and tender; God, the Word, is sympathetic, and gentle, and humble, and forgiving, and loyal, and loving, and true. It is God, the Word, who cannot restrain Himself for love of us, and comes with overwhelming compassion to seek and save the lost; God, the Eternal Word, who longs to win the heart of publican and sinner. The Son of Man is the Son of God; and, therefore, we know and thank God for it, that it is the blessed nature of the Son Himself, in His eternal substance, which found its true and congenial delight in coming, not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

H. Scott Holland, Logic and Life,p. 227.

References: Matthew 20:28. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. iv., No. 181; J. Davies, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 317; W. G. Blaikie, Glimpses of the Inner Life of our Lord,p. 97; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 42, Clergyman's Magazine,vol. xix., p. 210; A. Scott, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvii., p. 339; Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament,p. 27; W. H. Murray, The Fruits of the Spirit,p. 441.