Blessed Are the Pure in Heart

"A Christian is something before he does anything; and we have to be Christian before we can act as Christians. Now that is a fundamental point [of the Beatitudes]. Being is more important than doing, attitude is more significant than action. Primarily it is our essential character that matters. Or let me put it like this. We are not called upon as Christians to be, or to try to be, Christian in various respects. To be Christian, is to possess a certain character and therefore to be a certain type of person. So often that is misinterpreted and people think that what the New Testament exhorts us to do is to try to be Christian in this and that respect, and to try to live as a Christian here and there. Not at all: we are Christians and our actions are the outcome of that."

D. Martin Lloyd-Jones

Introduction

Let's read together Matthew 5:1-12 as we continue our study through the Beatitudes which introduce the Sermon on the Mount.

1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: 2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

We are moving along in our study through the Beatitudes, and we have looked at most of them. We have looked at how the matter that is dealt with here in the Beatitudes is this BLESSEDNESS. It means to be truly happy. To have a happiness that is not based upon circumstance or surrounding, but on having God develop certain characteristics in you that, in all honesty, seem totally contradictory to what would bring true happiness.

I'd like to share an illustration with you that will hopefully allow you to see how the Beatitudes build upon one another and how they relate to each other.

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Here we can see that we start off with the POOR IN SPIRIT. This is the essential Beatitude for all the rest. But we do not stay there. Being poor in spirit, understanding that we bring nothing to the table and that within us there dwells no good thing leads us to MOURN for the sin that we struggle with. This grief we feel for the sin that plagues our lives and the world then leads us to be MEEK and humble.

The poorness of spirit, the mourning over sin, and the meek understanding that we do not have the power to live right on our own drives us to HUNGER and Thirst after Righteousness that can only be had in Jesus Christ, as he is our righteousness.

Then, out of that hunger and thirst for righteousness, which is a hunger and thirst for a close relationship with Jesus flow the next three Beatitudes. Mercy flows out of being Christ-like.

and today's Beatitude flows out of it as well, being pure in heart.

Again, one of the most important things that we must remember in all of this is that these Beatitudes are not character traits that are naturally found in people. Imperfectly, we will at times find those who are more merciful than others and some who have a meek disposition, but these Beatitudes as we have studied them, are so complete and perfect that we must understand that they can only be brought about by the Holy Spirit in supernatural fashion.

I say that, because these Beatitudes do not describe different types of Christians, but they are a list of characteristics which ALL Christians have and are supposed to be living because we all have the Holy Spirit. I cannot stress this enough: we do not have the willpower sufficient enough to live out these Beatitudes on our own. They are developed in us and we are empowered to walk in them via the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

It is therefore understandable that we cannot expect the world to conform to the Beatitudes, or to any of the sermon on the mount, for that matter. This was a sermon addressed to Christians, disciples, followers of Jesus, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.

And Jesus spoke these Beatitudes in a specific order. We have seen how the first three build on each other and flow into the Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness. We have seen that it is out of this hunger and thirst for righteousness that the following three flow out of.

But there is something that is really interesting here also. Not only do the Beatitudes flow into each other and build upon one another, they also relate to each other in special ways.

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Last session we studied about the Merciful. The merciful is only able to show mercy to others because he has first seen himself as utterly poor in spirit. Today, as we study the Pure in Heart, keep in mind that this relates directly to the mourning we experience over sin, and I hope this becomes clearer as we dive into this next Beatitude.

In today's sermon and in the covering of this next Beatitude, we come to the essence of Christianity, in fact, to the essence of almost every religion - to see God.

Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Let's break this Beatitude down in similar fashion as the previous ones.

We will begin with the word "heart." This is, after all, the matter about which Jesus is most concerned. We have mentioned it before, and we will continue to see it over and over again - the heart matters. On Wednesday nights as we study through the Experiencing God book, we are also seeing that the heart is incredibly important. Obedience to the Lord, obedience to his commands and his guidance must come from the heart if it is actually going to affect any change in us. Jesus places emphasis on the heart and not on the head. He doesn't say, "Blessed are the pure in intellect," but, "Blessed are the pure in heart."

The Christian faith is not primarily a matter of intellectual understanding of teachings and doctrines; Christianity is ultimately a matter of the heart. Now, don't misunderstand. Proper doctrine and teaching is absolutely essential. Understanding is vital to the Christian faith, but it is not knowledge and understanding that saves a person, it is how the heart accepts that knowledge and those teachings.

The Pharisees had a great deal of knowledge when it came to doctrine. They had an intellectual understanding of the Scriptures. But in their mechanical approach to these doctrines, and in their primarily, intellectual approach to the Scriptures, they had reduced life and righteousness to merely a matter of conduct and ethics - a matter of behavior.

So Jesus aims to set this false viewpoint right by saying, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

So what do we mean by the heart? Well, I hope that it is obvious that we are not speaking of the physical heart. Though that is important to keep healthy, the heart referred to here in this passage is metaphorical. Much like the physical heart, out of which pumps life sustaining blood for the rest of the body, the Bible tells us that out of our metaphorical heart issues out life.

When we talk about the heart, what we are talking about is the center of your inner self. The totality of your innermost being. It is the seat of your will, your mind (philosophies), and your emotions. The heart is, as Martin Lloyd-Jones would put it, the total man. It is described by the Bible as the fountain out of which everything proceeds.

Our emotions proceed out of the heart. This is why Jesus said in John 14:1 Let not your hearts be troubled...

The heart involves the mind, our philosophies and intellect. You'll remember that as we studied Jesus' return to Capernaum after his first trip to Judea, that he was in a house surrounded by scribes and Pharisees from all over Galilee and Judea eager and curious to listen to his teachings. It is at this time that four men bring a friend that is paralyzed to Jesus so that he will heal him, but they find their way to inside of the house blocked by the multitude that has gathered. So they open up a hole in the ceiling and lower the man down on his bed. There, Jesus sees the faith of the men and says, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Immediately, the Pharisees started to think within themselves, Who does this man think he is? Only God can forgive sins. So, Mark 2:8 tells us that Jesus looks at them and says, "Why do you reason these things within your hearts?" "Why are you wondering about what I have just said? So you will believe that I have the power to forgive sins [he turns to the paralyzed man], I say unto you, 'rise up, take up your bed, and go to your house." Notice that these Pharisees "reasoned within their hearts." So we see that the heart also refers to man's intellect, his thinking, his philosophies.

But the heart also deals with our will. Back in the book of Daniel, we find the story of Daniel and three of his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These four young men along with hundreds of other Jewish boys of royal descent were taken from their homes in and around Jerusalem to the capital of the Babylonian Empire. They were to be indoctrinated in their pagan ways and used to influence the rest of the Jews that were now under the Babylonian Empire. Part of their indoctrination was learning how to render worship to the false, demonic gods of the Babylonians. Part of the worship to these gods involved animal sacrifices, and after the sacrifice was offered, the worshippers would then eat the meat of these animals. Daniel and his friends, the Bible tells us in Daniel 1:8, "purposed in their hearts not to defile themselves with the portion of the king's meat" which had been sacrificed to false gods."

So when we talk of the heart, we are not talking about just the emotions, or just the mind/intellect, or just the will; we are talking of all three. The totality of a person.

Next, we must understand what the word pure means. It means clean, free from corruption, unmixed. When we think of pure gold or silver, we think of silver or gold that has been refined. All impurities and all other metal alloys have been taken away and all that is left is pure gold or pure silver. It is unmixed.

Pure also means sincere, without duplicity. It is not pretending to be something that it is not.

So, who is pure in heart? Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor in Germany at the onset of WW2. He was one of the few pastors that refused to compromise the teachings of the Bible by inserting Nazi propaganda into the sermons as they had been ordered to do by the government. Bonhoeffer was dedicated disciple of Christ and was so outspoken about the Lord and held such an influence over other Christians he discipled that he was arrested and imprisoned by the Nazis. He was put to death at the orders of Adolf Hitler himself. In fact, it is believed that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was the last person executed by Hitler's direct commands before Hitler went into hiding and subsequently took his own life.

This is what this faithful pastor wrote in his book titled The Cost of Discipleship on the topic of being pure in heart:

"Who is pure in heart? Only those who have surrendered their hearts completely to Jesus that he may reign in them alone. Only those whose hearts are undefiled by their own evil--and by their own virtues too. The pure in heart have a child-like simplicity like Adam before the fall, innocent alike of good and evil: their hearts are not ruled by their conscience, but by the will of Jesus."

And it is in this description that we probably see best how the characteristic of being pure in heart flows out of the Beatitude of hungering and thirsting after righteousness, hungering and thirsting after Christ.

So...

HOW TO DEVELOP A PURE HEART

We must understand what the Bible says about the heart. Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

WOW! That is a pretty serious diagnosis! The most deceitful thing is the heart. Not only is it deceitful, it is desperately wicked. It is so wicked and deceitful that it even is unknowable by its owner. When we look at this, how hopeless does it seem for us to be able to obtain a pure heart? Pretty hopeless! And this is where we can see how the beatitudes build upon each other, and even though they all go together and are all to be experienced at the same time by every Christian, we can see how this particular Beatitude directly relates the second one - "Blessed are they that mourn" for their sin.

If the all consuming aspect of Christianity is to see God, and the only way to see God is to have a pure heart, then when we look at the reality of our hearts, it will cause us to mourn because we are sinful and not pure.

Since we cannot fully discern our own hearts many times, we must ask God to search our hearts. Jeremiah 17:10a I the LORD search the heart...

David understood this when he wrote Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart:

try me, and know my thoughts:

24 And see if there be any wicked way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

Not only should we ask him to search our hearts, we should allow Him to pronounce judgment on what he finds there. Jeremiah 17:10 I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

We should ask God to change our heart. It is not enough for God to search the heart and to pronounce judgment on what is wrong with our hearts. We must ask Him to change our hearts. The way our hearts are changed is by the working of the Holy Spirit within us.

Romans 12:1-2 talks about how we are transformed by the renewing of our mind. This directly relates to Proverbs 23:7 that tells us that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. And this is why David again writes in Psalm 19:14 Let the words of my mouth,

and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight,

O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

God has prescribed a way in which he will transform our hearts, and that is focusing our hearts and minds on Him as we seek Him.

Once we understand the heart and its capability for wickedness and we ask God to search it judge it; once we have focused our heart on Him, we must then GUARD our hearts. Proverbs 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

How do we guard the heart? V.24-27

24 Put away from thee a froward [perverse] mouth,

and perverse lips put far from thee.

25 Let thine eyes look right on, [focus on who you are supposed to be focused on-Jesus]

and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.

26 Ponder [be thoughtful and intentional with your life as you follow the path-Jesus] the path of thy feet, [Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life...]

and let all thy ways be established.

27 Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: [don't lose focus]

remove thy foot from evil. [stay away from sin]

We must guard our hearts against against ourselves.

We must guard our hearts against the world (the system of the world)

1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE OF A PURE HEART?

They will see God.

Those of a pure heart will see God in different places.

In nature. We will enjoy it much more fully when we are focused on God and have allowed him full control over our hearts. Psalm 19 is a psalm concerned with God's manifestation in nature as it declares, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork." It was written by David, a man after God's own heart. A man whose life goal was to know God's heart more.

In our circumstances. Roman 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Those that love God and are focused on Him and are concerned with God being the purifier of their hearts will readily see God at work in their circumstances around them. They may not fully understand it all, but they will see Him at work.

In the Scriptures. John 5:39 Jesus is directing himself at the Jewish religious leaders intent on killing him because he has broken the sabbath and because he has made statements that imply he is equal with God and he says to these religious leaders: "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Face to face. 1 John 3:2-3 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

We purify ourselves, that last verse says. This does not mean that we wash away our sins, but that we deal with them the way we are supposed to. How are we cleansed? Just 2 chapters back, 1 John 1:9 tells us that it is when we confess our sins that we are forgiven and cleansed, purified, from all unrighteousness.

Psalm 24:3-5 Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD?

or who shall stand in his holy place?

4 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart;

who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity,

nor sworn deceitfully.

5 He shall receive the blessing from the LORD,

and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

Where does our righteousness come from according to v.5? God, not us. Purity of soul comes from the Lord.

But friend, this message, in fact the whole message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), is written to those who already have a personal, faith-based relationship with Jesus Christ.

The Bible says that if you do not have Jesus as your personal savior, you are dead in your trespasses and sins. Mankind is unrighteous and and his heart is full of sin.

The wages, the just payment for that sin is a lake of fire that burns for all eternity.

God, however, does not want that for anyone. He desires most absolutely that all men be saved from that condemnation. The Bible tells us that God loved the world so much that He sent his only Son, Jesus, to die on a cross for our sins.

Jesus, God in the flesh, came to earth to live as a man. But because he is God, Jesus never sinned. What he did do, however, is took that wage of sin that is death, upon himself. The wrath of the Father was poured out on Him so that no one else would ever have to suffer that. Jesus died, nailed to a cross, and then he was buried. But just like the prophets of the Old Testament had foretold, on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, defeating both death and sin.

And because he had no sin-debt of his own to pay, he remitted the payment for all mankind.

Jesus, however, is a God who created us with a will. And though he calls all men to repentance and to a relationship with him, it is something that He will never force upon you. You must believe in him and accept the gift of eternal life, the gift of salvation that he freely offers you.

INVITATION

IF you are here today and are not saved, today, you can become pure in heart. Not because of anything you could do to purify your own heart, but by accepting Jesus as your savior who will gladly come in and wash away your sin.

If you are here this morning and are saved, are you guarding your heart? Have you lost sight of God because you have lost focus on Him? Can you still see God at work around you in nature, in your circumstances, in the Bible as you study it? Or has sin caused you to lose sight of him?

If your saved, you don't have to get saved again, but be like David and go before God saying, "God, search my heart. Judge my heart. Point out the things that are wrong. Cleanse my heart, and make me right with you."

Home Groups

Of the sermon, what stood out to you the most?

How do the Beatitudes challenge the conventional view of obtaining happiness?

Why does Jesus make so much emphasis on the heart over actions? Because the heart has the much greater ability to change our actions.

How does being pure in heart help us to see God?

Where have you seen God actively in your life?

Where do you hope to see God more life?

What are personal practices or strategies you have or that you could implement to help you guard your heart?

10MAR2024@GNBC