Jacob Creighton: What's up? Welcome back to the Formed Podcast, Episode 3 of the Happy Life series. ⁓ How we doing today, Chris? Chris: You know, all things considered, doing really well. We had the end, we survived the NFL draft. We survived three days of virtual school with the kids. We were back to a regular Monday morning. Jacob Creighton: Doing great. Yeah, it's crazy how that many people are here for the weekend and then you wake up Monday and it's Monday. Also, we got the Pittsburgh Marathon this weekend. They're just like resetting. It's crazy to me how fast things move. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Everybody else has left. We're just. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Pitt graduation is going on down at Acre Shurf Stadium. Acre Shurf. Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Acresure. Hines. Hines. Yeah, it seemed like for the most part the draft stuff didn't disappoint, which is pretty cool. So, ton of people. Ton of people. Beautiful moments for the city. So, yeah. It did. That's right. Even better in real life. You can't even see all the views on TV, but you can in person. So come and visit us. Chris: Yeah, no, it was really cool. I wish I could have gone. I wanted to go. Yeah, the city looked great. It great on TV for sure. It's even better in real life for those of you that are listening out of town. Come and join us in the Steel City at Steel City Church. How about that? Jacob Creighton: That's right. That's right. I got a little bit more light in my studio today. A little less gloomy. I'm trying to be a little more happier for this series. Yeah. Today we're talking about... Yeah, I do. I do. Today we're talking about the happy life episode three. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the humble for they will inherit the earth. ⁓ Chris: need a yellow backdrop. Jacob Creighton: Chris, why don't you kick us off? We, it was funny. We kind of ran through your sermon. I was like, Chris, I'll be honest. We don't know at all what the word meek means. ⁓ I think we associate the word meek to the closest thing that it sounds like. And that's weak, but that's not really what it means. talk us through a little bit. What meek means and, and, ⁓ yeah, what, does the word meek mean? Chris: No, no idea. Yep. Not at all. Not at all. Yeah, mean, you we're using for this series, we're using the CSB translation. So it translates it humble, but the Greek word, I guess, is translated. There's three ways. I'm sure there's more, but gentle, humble, meek. So it's like, well, what are really any of those is kind of the question that we have to ask. What does it mean to be gentle and not be, I guess, run over? What does it mean to be humble and not? beat down, what does it mean to be meek? Because we have no idea what meek means. And so, you know, it took me a little bit to kind of, kind of build into it, but, you know, just to give you another reference where the same Greek word is used in, in Matthew 11 is where Jesus reveals his heart. And he says, I am come to me and you'll find rest for your weary souls. And he says, I am gentle or I am meek or I am humble and lowly. at heart. And so if we think of meekness as weakness because it rhymes with it and that's about all we got or passive or, ⁓ you know, push over or whatever it may be. It's like, well, wait a minute. If Jesus is this, then can it be weakness? Can it be underperforming? Can it be, ⁓ like pretending you don't matter? You know, what, what is it? And so we, gave this like long dictionary definition, I guess, from some of my resources for sermon prep, but I kind of like nailed it down to like at its core, meekness is a settled trust in God that frees us from obsessing over ourselves. So it's like we're like opening our hands and trusting the work of God, this thing that is the same yesterday and today and forever in all circumstances, we can actually. Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Chris: have this settled trust in who he is that then frees us up from having to be self-focused, worried about ourselves. I think Keller calls it self-forgetfulness. I like the way that he says that. ⁓ So sometimes people say, I like the phrase that like not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less, you know, that kind of play right there. Jacob Creighton: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting looking at this word and kind of looking at even what it kind of meant for all of scripture even. Like, I think part of in our study, it talked about some like Old Testament references where like the people of Israel, the people of God are like oppressed by something or someone and instead of like ⁓ fighting back and like getting aggressive, they have a confidence that like they are who they are in God. I think we see that play out obviously in the Sermon on the Mount and then even today if we were to kind of take that like it's like quiet confidence in who God says that we are. ⁓ You know that whatever opposition you want to insert there ⁓ We don't have to like fight back and fend for ourselves. We actually take a different posture and it's not like you were saying, not weakness and passivity, but it's like a settled, yeah, I know who God says that I am because of what he's done. yeah. Chris: And again, I think we have to consider the original audience here in the sense, I Jesus is gathering this like least of these crowds almost with almost edges like scattered these religious elites and maybe just some Roman like governmental influence just to kind of be like, okay, what's going on here kind of thing. And then he stands up there and he says, blessed are the meek. Well, the ones that are kind of like leaning into what Jesus is saying, Jacob Creighton: Right. Right. Chris: They really have no posture to take other than meekness. They can't assert themselves. They can't like raise themselves up to get influence or dominance or be important. You know, they're the lame, they're the lowly, they're the losers of society. And here he's saying, it's like, hey, all of you that are in this position, blessed are you that are meek. Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Chris: that have this settled trust in God, so you don't have to obsess over your position, your lot in life or whatnot. You can trust in me. And then he says, of course, for you will inherit the earth. And so even considering the context of the audience here is like, whoa. And I can imagine, like, what were the Pharisees and scribes that were probably on the outside just kind of listening in, or even maybe some Roman government officials that were like, Meek. Okay. We're not worried about this guy. Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's funny the to kind of fast forward to today, you could probably list out all of the different examples of opposition that a person could experience. But I think I kind of liked where you were honing in on is this like opposition that kind of rises within myself. that I can't even necessarily identify where the pressure comes from. Or I might be able to like say, ⁓ it's this person or it's my boss or it's Chris. I'm just kidding. It's somebody out there or it's the cultural narrative. there's there you were kind of identifying a self rising opposition that feels like we've got to achieve or overcome constantly. ⁓ Maybe talk a little bit more about that. Chris: Yeah, I think it's, there was a lot of directions I could go. So I mean, it's always like, okay, I can't hit everything, you know, in a, to keep it down to 30 or under as best I possibly can. But, you know, one of the things I kind of hit up in our people, you know, just talking to them and caring for them. I just love our congregation so much, but there's this, like our congregation is so capable. They're so... Jacob Creighton: Right. Yeah, right. Obviously. Yeah. Chris: They're so ⁓ engaging, they're so charismatic, they're so ⁓ intellectual. Like they just, check all these just beautiful boxes. And even within them checking these boxes, there's this like drive, either external drive from maybe parental influence or, you know, demand from the careers that they have or, you know, whatever rung of the ladder they're aiming for. But then also internally, there's this drive within them that like, even, even as our people check so many boxes, it's still not good enough. I still can be more important or more influential or more successful or more loving or more, you know, whatever, whatever the next step is. And so I kind of seeing in them, I was like, man, we really want to hit, I think for me, this importance piece. Um, because of, you know, essentially this way we wanna become more more important. And you say that and you're like, well, I don't really wanna be more important. Like, no, I think you do. I think it's okay for you to say that. And I think the cool thing about it is what I'm finding in meekness is meekness actually allows for importance. It doesn't like diminish it. It actually says, yeah, you're right. Like you're a doctor or you're a... Jacob Creighton: Yeah. does. Chris: you're a teacher or you're a father or you're a mother or you're a brother in Christ, whatever it is, that's very important. That's important position to be in. You know, Jacob, you being a worship record here at church, you have an incredibly important job to our congregation. I can't diminish that job, nor would God diminish that job. Jacob Creighton: Right. Yeah. Chris: and that role that you play, but you're also a father and a husband and a son and a friend and all of those things are very important. Meekness allows for importance, but what meekness doesn't do is fall into faulty standards of importance. Like you must be moving up the ladder. You must be constantly, you know, growing or going to the next level or whatnot. I guess I use the illustration in the sermon about Jacob Creighton: All right. Yeah. Right. Chris: that permanent forever performance review. For me being a former educator, our performance review was always the state testing for the students. And I worked in a low income environment. Like, listen, we, my kids, the test was not made for my kids to do well on. And I got tons of external pressure, but those kids have to do well, your kids have to do well. And I'm like, great. Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Chris: I want my kids to be successful and we're going to teach them up and we love them. We care when we create a safe environment. We did all these things. But the crazy thing was, it, if they did well on the test, guess what they did? Well, those kids can do well on the test. I guess the test isn't hard enough. We're going to, we're going to move the benchmark. Yeah. Because if those kids can do well, then I guess it's not good. And it's like, come on y'all really? Jacob Creighton: Yeah. All right. Make it harder. Raise the bar. Yeah. Well, they can do better. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and this is, yeah, this is great. The other side of it too, which is funny, like you bring up me being a worship director. I'm a worship director in Pittsburgh, which there's not many of us, and so when I moved here on my street, there was somebody that was like, saw my wife, and they're like, ⁓ are you the organist at the church that just moved in? Chris: But how often do we do that to ourselves? Jacob Creighton: It's funny on that side of things, like, there isn't like a frame of reference. If I were to base my being and existence on worldly standards, you know, there's so much more to be achieved. And what the heck is the point in being a worship director from, ⁓ from an outsider's perspective? It's easy to, like, I say that and not saying like, well, that's stupid. It's easy to kind of fall in that pit for myself is to say, well, like, I kind of have no worth. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Jacob Creighton: from a worldly standpoint in what my job is, like it doesn't really benefit. I'm not like a doctor or a lawyer or like really making the world a better place from a worldly standard. And so it's easy to fall in that pit and say, well, like I kind of have no importance if I'm not like finding my identity in who God says I am, which is. Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jacob Creighton: the other side of the pit that's like the self-loathing pit that's not meekness. ⁓ yeah, anyway. Right. Yeah. Chris: Yeah. And how often does that happen? I mean, that's what I look at our people and I say is like, even though they are this in a worldly standard, whatever that job is, they're still like, want more. And so it's never conclusive, it's always faulty, there's always this trap door. And that's just external. mean, another thing that I look at our people and see is like, Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Chris: They don't need any critics. They don't need help criticizing themselves. They beat themselves up so much. And even for themselves, they can't even live up to their own standards. And so do you wanna, and the thing that I had to kinda wrestle with too with this is, so do you just lower the standard? We just wanna have low standards? Jacob Creighton: Yeah. No. Yeah. Chris: Like, no? So like the standard piece here is like, it's like, okay, so the importance or the standard or the verdict or whatever word we gonna use here, like, it's just so convoluted. What is gonna clear all this up? And I think that's where this like phraseology of blessed or the meek clears a lot of this stuff up. And Jesus in his infinite wisdom, know, Rachel and I laugh all the time. Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Chris: It's like God knows what he's doing. Yeah, like really. He only created the universe. Like it's like, knows what he's doing. ⁓ yeah. but he like, he, he like untangles all these wires and, and it was, it's really cool to kind of sit in this word, meek, a settled trust in God. So we're not obsessing over ourselves, over our parents, over our product, over whatever else. Jacob Creighton: Yeah, right, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Chris: We're having to settle trust in him. Jacob Creighton: Yeah. As a wise, ⁓ legendary coach in Pittsburgh once said, once said often, say it with me, the standard is the standard. The standard is the standard. And it's, mean, it's funny, but kind of true. And to your point, yeah, we don't need to like, we can't really move the standard, but we can. Chris: is the stand. I missed that yesterday. I should have used that. ⁓ Yeah. Jacob Creighton: understand our expectations within them. So, yeah, so if you haven't listened to the sermon from yesterday, I encourage you to go back and listen to it. Chris unpacked just another example in Scripture where Paul kind of exemplifies this type of humility and meekness. So go back and listen to that. It's from 1 Corinthians 4, but kind of where I want to hit as we kind of land the plane Chris: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Jacob Creighton: You know, and packed a statement at the end that I feel like we could just talk for probably four hours about on this podcast, but ⁓ it was kind of an application step for us. If we were to live out meekness, you know, if we were to take the sermon, take the words of, man. Chris: Yeah. Jacob Creighton: You can stop the achieving and you can stop the self-loathing. Okay, so what do we do? Why don't you go ahead and give that to us? Chris: Yeah, so the kind of like final piece in all this is that, you know, we said that meekness, it's okay with importance. Like it acknowledges importance, it creates space for importance. And even how important you are, I mean, if you're made in God's image, think you're pretty important. I think God thinks you're pretty important. ⁓ And so if it denies all these faulty standards of importance, then where does it put it? Because it's not external importance or internal importment. it's gotta be somewhere else, well, meekness reminds us constantly, meekness is a posture where we rest our importance in Christ. And so one of the things I said to kind of challenge the congregation to run the play is, first thing I want you to do is I want you to like posture yourself, whatever that is, even if it's just staring in the mirror or if it's just laying in your bed, whatever it is, and I want you to say the statement. because of Jesus, because of the completed work of Christ, because of his death, burial, resurrection to give me life, abundant life, life for eternity, life now, life forever. You can say because of Jesus, I am already fully accepted. I'm already fully loved. I'm already fully approved. and You know, I told him, said, I want you to run this play and I want us to see what happens. ⁓ I think the key here is this is where we can teeter on that line or seemingly almost teeter on that line of like, positive psychology, you know, or positivity psychology. it's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, pastor, like, hold on. Like you got to, and I'm like, okay, I understand that. But, but what we're doing here, and this is what the reality is with the, with, with all of the Beatitudes is Jacob Creighton: And yeah. Chris: These aren't our work. Like this ⁓ is a thing that is being done within us. This is something that the people that were before Christ, they didn't even knew that they were doing. They were just in their circumstantial places. And he's saying, blessed are those who mourn, you'll be comforted. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are, blessed are. And all these things are present in front of him. Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chris: And I think as we look at it on the back end, we realize all of these things, especially meekness is not our efforts. It's actually the Holy Spirit's work within us. Because the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to us, it's the power of God. Because of the cross, I am fully loved. Not because of what I did, but because of what Christ did. Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sorry. Yeah. Chris: And the Holy Spirit is constantly beckoning that within us. Hey, remember the cross, remember the cross, remember the cross. Because of the cross, I'm fully accepted. Because of the cross, I'm fully approved. Because of the cross, I am important. Because of the cross, I am someone. And so I think that's kind of where we, like that was the challenge I wanna give our people to kind of lay that out there for them to say, let's practice this as followers of Jesus. Let's let the Holy Spirit speak into us and then live from that. Jacob Creighton: Mm-hmm. through. Right. Chris: not go to create our own importance, our own approval, our own acceptance, but to like live from the truth that we already are and we can move forward from there. Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Yeah. I like, I like what you said. It's not, how I like to say it is it's not just wishful thinking. It's not their, yeah, positive psychology or like, ⁓ man, I think this is, no, this is actually, this is the reality that we exist and live in. It's the truth that Jesus said. It's good news for the listeners on the Mount. It's good, it's good news for Chris: Yeah. No. Yeah. Jacob Creighton: us today. ⁓ Chris: Yeah, we're not having to manifest anything here. We're not manifesting the working of Christ on the cross. It's like a historical benchmark. It was done in a place at a time, it's done. We live from the power of the cross. And here in our meekness and our solid trust in who God is, we don't have to obsess over ourselves anymore. because Christ stamps us, when he says it is finished, it's paid in full, know, all those things, he gives us his righteousness. He's like, go, wear my righteousness. He already took my shame, so I don't carry my shame with me forward. He took my guilt, he took my fear, I don't carry that with me. I carry his righteousness, his love, his acceptance, his approval forward. And it's way more, that's way more powerful than anything I could conjure up within myself. Jacob Creighton: I think to close our time on the podcast this morning, why don't you read that statement nice and slow? Maybe if you're listening today, just take a moment. You might have to repeat this section of the podcast or play it on half speed, listen to Chris slowly speak it. why don't you just say that ⁓ Chris: already speak slow enough. Jacob Creighton: just kind of over us this morning. Chris: I So we sit and we posture ourselves and we say, because of Jesus, I am already fully accepted. I am already fully loved and I am already fully approved. Jacob Creighton: So good. ⁓ That's some good truth for us today. ⁓ Chris: Yeah. Jacob Creighton: That's all we got. That's really, I don't know what else we got for you other than that. ⁓ Chris: I mean, I would say the only thing, and it's nothing long, but he says, the meek will inherit the earth. That was an Old Testament way to say, you will receive peace. And so, because of Jesus. Jacob Creighton: Right. Chris: I receive peace. Jacob Creighton: Listeners of the forums podcast receive peace this morning receive the the work of Jesus on your behalf ⁓ As always thanks for listening ⁓ Drop us a comment. Leave us a like share this with your friends and your family and your neighbors ⁓ Yeah, we would love to see you if you're if you're a listener around the city or ⁓ Not connected to steel city church, we would love for you to stop by at some point and visit us Chris: That's That's right. Jacob Creighton: on Sunday and worship with us. ⁓ But yeah, leave us a comment and thanks for listening. We'll see you later. Chris: We'll see you soon.