Purity - PPP Series - Heart

Purity of the Heart

Last sunday I started a new series entitled the P’s of Purity

and we laid out the foundation that purity is essential for our christian faith, as we need to be pure of heart to see God.

Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.”

Then we established that the apostle Paul guides us to the neceseity of purity because now our bodies do not belong to us, but they are new and they are the temple of the holy spirit.

So from there we now know we have to be pure both in the spiritual and physical sense.

Meaning tonight we can continue with the series by exploring the 3 p’s in purity. the purpose, the power, and the practical application of purity concerning the heart.

All throughout the bible we can read so many verses that talk about the heart.

So many times we hear people from the pulpit say - invite jesus into your heart.

but, what is the heart?

in the physical world, the heart is a muscle. The main organ of the cardiovascular system. its main job is to pump oxygenated blood and nutrients throughout your body and carry away the waste, or carbon dioxide back to the lungs to exchange it.

the leading cause of death this year, and almost every year going back for many decades is heart disease.

now, for young people. a heart attack is not really anything we want to think about because its rare.

instead when we are young we can suffer from heart break. You get dumped and sometimes it feels like the world is crashing around you.

as you get older, you realize the puppy love heart break you had in your youth was just a tickle in time.

but outside of the emotional heart break, and it being a physical reaction - we can look to the bible to see what the bible says the heart is.

and once you summarize all of the bible verses regarding the heart, you find out that the heart is who you are when no one is around you. when you are all alone with your thoughts and feelings and emotions, when its just you and you can summarize your being - that can be called your heart. your heart is you.

1 Samuel 16:7“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.””

Matthew 15:18–19 “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.”

Matthew 12:33–34 ““Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Amen - all these amazing verses show us that the heart is the inner person. The essence of who you are.

now for those of you who are broken hearted - get exercising and start eating more fiber. amen. but if you have been dumped, or you had to break up - there is hope.

Psalm 34:18 “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.”

Psalms 147:3 “He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds.”

but going back to the heart of the matter - we as christians are called and demanded to have a pure heart.

the purpose of a pure heart is pretty easy to understand once you read the previous verses again.

in the verses we read from matthew 12 - we now know that out of the abudnace of the heart the mouth speaks - and a good tree makes good fruit. A bad tree makes bad fruit.

The heart and the mouth work together.

You’d think the mouth and the stomach would make sense - but Jesus tells us that its not what goes into the mouth that spoils but what comes out of it.

in james - the bible also tells us that the tongue is the most dangerous of all muscles in the body. because with the tongue you speak - and you can either tear up or break down. you can bless or you can curse. Control the tongue, control the body.

So the main purpose of having a pure heart - is

we started off last week and we learned that

1. we get to see God. amen.

2. we can also control our tongue - control the tongue, control the body (remember that, super important)

For those that know me, you know im a salesmen. And one of the best skills i have as a salesmen is that my mouth goes on and on. I can talk for hours.

If there’s one thing I love to do its to talk.

But as Christians we know that is a very very very dangerous hobby. Proverbs 10:19 “In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, But he who restrains his lips is wise.”

There’s a cure for that - get married - no matter how much man talks woman talks more.

All kidding aside here - this is a very serious topic. There’s more purposes to a pure heart - and especially young adults when we talk about dating.

Going around and having 100 girlfriends or boyfriends cannot be done with a pure heart. It doesN’t. The good new is young men, when we have bible study this is going to be another topic we will address.

purity of the heart starts with purity of the eyes - and if we read our bible we find that the eyes are a window to the heart. And we must be prudent and wise to protect our hearts by making a covenant with our eyes.

As i said we dont have time to get into those details tonight because we are focusing on the heart. and tonight, specifically the purpose of a pure heart is to help control our tongues and in turn the whole body.

now what is the power in that. because we are talking about the purpose, the power, and the practical aspects Of purity.

At first glance I know it doesnt seem to make a lot of sense - but go back to the words we just read at the beginning. clear as day.

And again - Proverbs 10:19 “In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, But he who restrains his lips is wise.”

Proverbs 21:23 “Whoever guards his mouth and tongue Keeps his soul from troubles.”

James 1:26 “If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.”

and then all of James ch 3: we will get into that in a second.

All throughout the Bible we see the dangers of excessive talking - and i promise you that if we as Christians would meet with one another - and spend all that time talking about psalms, and hymns, and wonderful teachings of scripture, we wouldn’t have a problem!

But the heart of the matter is that our hearts are not always pure.

We absorb and assimilate to the things around us. The shiny pleasurable objects that temptation dangles in front of us. And unfortunately, the like a hook or a trap, it snags and speckles our hearts.

The power of purity for our hearts is that we can control our tongue and as a result our entire bodies. The power is then our Perfection (we’ll see that in a minute).

And as we mentioned last week - it lends power to our preaching so our spreading of the gospel will produce fruit.

Now in closing we can approach the most important of the p’s - what are the practical aspects and how can we apply this to our daily living.

again this morning we heard such a wonderful message about checking ourselves every day - not just the week before communion. thats so important. Regularly looking into the mirror of our lives and seeing if we reflect Christ or the world.

In leviticus we had the Law that made animal sacrifices essential to purity:

Echoed in Hebrews 9:22 “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.”

The good news is we have the power of Jesus blood that purifies us into salvation. Making us new creations with freedom to actually practice what we preach.

Thank you Jesus for the blood applied,

thank you Jesus it has washed me white.

Thank you Jesus, You have saved my life Brought me from the darkness into glorious light

We must strive all day, every single day, to live out this new life we have been given in fear and trembling of the lord. Pursuing him with a pure heart.

Now some of you might be saying - it’s too hard. We cannot possibly be holy. It’s impossible.

And again I am going to echo the same message we heard this morning. God demands holiness in our lives. And I promise you it is possible to live our this purity all the days of yours life. And I am even going to bring the receipts.

You see, when the Israelites sinned, they had to trek miles and sacrafice an animal on the altar - the law demanded it so that they would be purified. Again we just read that in Hebrews 9:22 “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.”

Jesus comes, he lives the most perfect and pure life, and his blood is the price Paid for salvation, or purity, to purify us once and for all to everyone who believes and follows his teachings amen.

He comes back from the dead on that glorious 3rd day, and then goes up to heaven to prepare a place for us before coming back again.

and heres the best part - i am going to tie all of this up in closing - before he departs he tells the apostles to wait in Jerusalem so they can receive a power.

The power of the Holy Spirit. The comforter. God with us always.

Amen. hold that thought for just a second. We are gonna get into some pretty amazing theology here.

When you go to the doctor or dentist - they always ask you to stick out your tongue. Ahhh.

right, and they look at it and they can tell so much about your health just from looking at your tongue.

I’m going somewhere with this.

And now, in the Bible, New Testament we have the book of James - this is probably the most practical book in all of the NT on holy living. One particular aspect that James talks to us about is chapter 3 which we mentioned earlier - the passage is entitled the untamable tongue.

James 3:2 “For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.”

and again, all throughout chapter 3 we see the dangers of having an uncontrollable tongue. How in the world can we keep ourselves pure When the tongue gets us in so much trouble?

The tongue is a litmus test to see how the whole BoDy is doing - when the doctor or dentist looks at the tongue he can get a sense about your health - same applies spiritually.

Let’s go back to the book of acts. Jesus is ready to depart and tells the disciples not to leave until they get the power. The apostles and all their disciples hang out in Jerusalem, they have prayer and the day of Pentecost arrives. Theyre all in one room..

Acts 2:1–4 “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Brothers and sisters, we are a Pentecostal church amen. We have all learned this from the pulpit but here’s a friendly reminder. Whenever the Holy Spirit came upon and baptized anywhere in the new testatment what was the one clear sign?

The Holy Spirit baptized them, and took over their tongues. Hallelujah.

If you can control the tongue - you can control the whole

Young brothers and sisters. fathers and mothers. Grandmothers and grandfathers.

It is absolutely possible to Live a holy life here on this earth while we wait for his return.

IF we try to do it on our own. Yes. It’s hard. It’s going to be very hard.

But Jesus didn’t just leave us empty handed. He left us the power that can take control of our tongues and in turn control of our bodies.

Matthew 12:33–34 ““Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

brothers and sisters - Jesus died on the cRoss to purify my heart and your heart. He set us free from the sin that once held us captive and now allows us to live in holiness.

Tonight in closing we see The purpose of a pure heart is to help live out our life a faith in holiness. And one of the ways that is reflected is in the way we talk. the power of a pure heart is that we can live lives reflecting that

not only did God purify us with his blood, he showed us the way to live, and then he gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit to empower us to live out that purity And control our tongue. And in turn as we read in James, if we can tame the tongue - we can get close to perfect.

Galatians 5:22–23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”

All of these fruits are qualities in the life of the believer that reflect purity - the purity of heart that will one day allow us to see God and be with him in heaven. The practical aspect - a Christian walk empowered by the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

I pray that Elim church will be full of the Holy Spirit and have a pure heart until Christ returns.

Amen.