Pure in Heart
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Matthew 5:8
Matthew 5:8
Good morning, church!
We are here now to read God’s Word and allow it to sink into our thoughts and hearts. To allow it to change the way we live, think and pray.
For us to see God more accurately and understand who we are and what we have in Him better.
I pray that you are coming to His Word this morning with confessed hearts in right standing with the Lord. So that you can receive what the Lord has for you this morning.
We are working our way through the Beatitudes and I’m honestly done apologizing for how long this has taken. This is the intentional words of our Lord and Savior and they had meaning when He said them and they have meaning this morning.
The honor and calling on my life is to do my best to study, interpret and explain God’s Word to the best of my ability.
But just like the first Beatitude taught us, apart from the Vine, I can do nothing. I, Brian, am spiritually poor and have nothing to offer you, church. But the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit within me has the power to change your life.
So, this morning, I offer to you to the best of my ability to surrender to His Spirit, for the building up of you, church. For us to be sanctified by His Word, because His Word is truth.
So, I’m not going to apologize for being right where the Lord wants us to be taking as long as the Spirit wants us to go.
Can I get an amen for that truth?
I have said it before and I’ll say it again, this study on the Beatitudes have changed how I pray.
I plan on writing out this prayer that the Spirit is having me pray almost daily based off of these verses and giving them to you church.
I hope that it will become apart of your daily thoughts and prayers.
Because the first Beatitude taught us that apart from the Holy Spirit, we can not accomplish any of these attitudes in our own lives. It starts with the understanding that we are poor in spirit and asking Him to do these works in our lives and then getting out of His way for Him to produce this fruit in our hearts and minds.
These are progressive verses. One does lead right into the next one. So, if you have missed a week, go to our YouTube page and check out the past sermons in this series.
But this morning, we are looking into Matthew 5:1-8
Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
I have reminded us as we have gone through this that these are conditional promises in Scripture. Meaning, there is an “if you or if you are this” then I, God, will do this in response”.
And this week, I want to start by looking at the promise.
Because this should absolutely floor us!
5 simple words that have to be one of the top 3 promises of Scripture!
Are we so Biblically familiar that this verse, that this truth has lost its meaning, its weight and its scope????
Do we read something like this and not believe it?
Or do we believe it only in the eternal sense? Like one day, when I get to heaven sense.
Well, every other promise of the beatitudes have had both eternal meanings and present meanings! So, why would this verse be solely eternal??
Its not!
God, Yahweh, the eternal Creator, the Alpha and the Omega, the from everlasting to everlasting Jehova,
WANTS YOU TO SEE HIM!!
(long pause)
Really think about that. Let that set in for the first time or allow it to set in again, fresh.
God wants to show Himself to you, believer.
Look, I’m going to be honest here. I am not strictly talking about spiritually or circumstantially. I will not put a limit on God and what He can or wants to do. Ask a man named Saul who was walking down a road. Ask the thousands of Muslims across the world who are hearing the Gospel from Jesus in dreams.
I will not put a limit on how God wants for us to see Him and I’m not here to tell you exactly how He want to show Himself to your personally, but this morning, can you simply stop and understand that God wants you to see Him.
Can you grasp the weight of this truth?
Can you see and understand that this might be one of the greatest promises of Scripture?
The God of the universe, the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob want you to see Him!!
Want more proof?
Fine.
Psalm 27:7–8 (ESV)
Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud;
be gracious to me and answer me!
You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you,
“Your face, Lord, do I seek.”
God says, seek me! Seek my face!! Are you looking for me, David? Seek me!
Want more?
Jeremiah 29:12–14 (ESV)
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord,
If you seek me with your whole heart, which we will talk about in a minute, God says, “I WILL be found by you!”
Another one? NT??
And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Do you have faith and believe that God wants you to seek His face? To be able to see God? Do you believe that He exist? That He wants to rewards those who seek after Him?
He is not talking about financial rewards! He is saying that He will rewards those who seek Him, with HIM!! The most valuable reward ever!
He will show Himself to you!
Honestly church, can we wrap our little human minds around this?
God wants you to see Him. No matter your past. No matter your present. God wants you to seek Him and you will find Him.
Honestly, is there any greater calling or purpose in life?
God wants to show you the depths of His love, the might of His power, the width of His grace and to show you His heart is for you.
He wants you to see His glory, to see Him more spiritually, to see Him answer prayers, to see Him heal your heart, soul, mind and body, to see Him bring restoration in your life and relationships,
to see His greatness without limits.
But this promise of God is conditional. But its not always conditional, I’m not going to limit God.
Sometimes God will show Himself to you when you are not seeking Him to try and grasp your attention and draw your eyes towards Him.
But we should not be sitting around idle, waiting for Him to show Himself.
Even though we are not capable or congering or manufacturing God. There is no recipe or equation to see God. He must be the one who move towards us and allow us to see Him.
Even with those points being true, we are not called to be passive and idle.
Turn with me to James 4:7-10.
See if you can stop the Beatitudes in this passage!
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Here is the command for us, draw near to God and He will respond my drawing near to you!
Brings a whole new motivation for spending a quiet time with the Lord doesn’t it?
If you are intentional to draw near to Him, He will draw near to you.
But look at what else. Look at these Beatitudes.
Submit yourself to God, become poor in spirit.
Mourn your sins, weep. Repent. Resist the devil, cleanse your hands. and He will exalt you or comfort you.
Humble yourself before God. become meek.
Hunger and thirst for righteousness, draw near to Him.
So, many Beatitudes!
And then there is “purify your hearts”.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. He will draw near to you.
A great hymn was brought to mind that says.
Nearer, still nearer, close to my Lord;
I will seek Jesus in prayer and the Word.
As I draw near to my precious Lord:
His Word has promised His Spirit outpoured!
Each day I’ll follow His blest commands,
Each day I’ll praise Him and cling to His hand.
Walking with Jesus I’ll surely find
All my desires in Jesus are mine!
Nearer to Jesus are those who are pure in heart.
This word pure means pure or clean but it is used a couple of different ways.
Let’s look at two of them.
First, this word first means free from corrupt desires.
Meaning this, the desires of the heart, the things that we desire solely in our hearts is not corruption or sin or temporary things of this Earth that are passing away.
But the desires of our heart are pure without contamination. Singular.
The Lord said, “Seek my face!”. He said “Seek me and you will find me. When you seek my with your WHOLE heart.” A singularly focus heart without contamination or split.
Jesus says it again in Matthew 6:22
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
Jesus is the light and if our eyes and heart are singularly focused on seeking His face, then our whole body will be full of Jesus!
Jesus taught this again in the sermon on the mount.
Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
But seek first, the kingdom of God.
What did we say the definition of the Kingdom of Heaven was?
The Kingdom of Heaven is a time and place where the power, will and authority of God is manifested on Earth.
Does that sounds like seeing God?!
Can we grasp this, church???
Can we have this kind of faith that God exist and rewards those who seek after Him?
That if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us?
Some of you here will walk out of here, not affected and will continue to walk the way you walked when you walked in here.
That’s between you and God. He is inviting you to see Him! Will you draw near to Him? Will you pray that these beatitudes will purify the desires of your heart, so that you can see Him?
Will you seek Him with your whole heart?
My prayer is that someone in this room or listening online will be stirred with passion and faith that pursuing God and seeking Him first and singularly is one of the greatest promises in God’s Word and is worth taking up your cross daily and dying to self in order to see the great God that we worship!
I would remind you, its not able “doing”, its about being. Its not about controlling your Christianity, its about letting who you are in Christ control you.
Seek Him first and pray the Beatitudes and have faith that God will fulfill this promise to show Himself to you.
The second meaning of the word pure is clean or righteous, innocent or without sin.
Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
Without holiness, no one will see the Lord!
One of these days, we will depart this Earth and step into eternity.
We will all stand before a judgement seat and our lives will be weighed and measured.
How will your life measure up?
What is the standard? You may ask?
Is it that your good out weight your sin?
Well in light of James 2:10, that's not the standard.
For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
Sin point! Just one and you are a law breakers.
Salvation can not come through the law. It cannot come by enough good deeds!
You want to know what the standard is?
But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
No one unclean. No one who does what is detestable or does what is sinful will ever enter!
See righteousness, sinlessness, holiness, purity of heart is the requirement to see God!
And then to top it off, we read that the cost or payment that is required for our one single sin is death! Sin not only excludes you from seeing God but the payment that you now owe is death!
This news should cause your heart to cry out, O God! How can I see you then? How can I come into your presence and eternal life?! How can I be saved from this death?!
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus! Jesus lived the righteous life and paid the debt that you owned! He did that for you! And then, He places His righteousness, His perfection, His holiness on you. You become something new! The righteousness of God!
Yes, you! You will become the righteousness of Jesus Christ!
Washed clean. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God!
Revelation puts it another way.
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.
A pure, righteous clean heart happens at the moment that you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord, meaning He is now the King and lord of your life, and Savior, meaning that His blood poured out for you paid the penalty for your sins.
And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
You have to have faith and believe before you can see.
If you seek Him with your whole heart, you will find Him.
If you put your faith and trust in Him and believe that He exist and He rewards those who seek Him, then you will be saved from the penalty of death. You will be allowed into His presence and see Him face to face.
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
We shall see Him as He is.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
Church, believers and unbelievers, THIS should be the greatest motivator of our lives! To see this promise of God come true now and throughout eternity.
God promises that the pure in heart will see God!
Without the righteousness of Jesus Christ in your heart, you will not see Him face-to-face in eternity.
Without seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness, without a singular focused heart on seeking God, its going to be really hard to see Him on this side of eternity.
I pray that this morning if you know Him, that you will be stirred to know Him more. That you will passionately pursue seeking God for who He really is like never before! His word says that you will see God in your life.
I also pray this morning, if you do not know Him and you are still walking with the weight and burden of still owing the payment for your sins. That this morning, you would put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
Would you seek Him this morning? Come down here and talk to me if you want to know more.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.