S.O.T.M. Happy are the Pure in Heart [Matthew 5:8]

Stand for the reading of the word of God [Matthew 5:8]

We come to the sixth beatitude today which is undoubtedly one of the greatest utterances found in scripture. To realize the meaning of these words, even in the slightest sense, is to leave us in awe and with a sense of complete inadequacy as we approach them. This statement grabbed the attention of those in Jesus day, just as it grabs our attention today. Many great minds have expounded upon this text to great lengths, yet it has never been exhausted. No one can exhaust this verse, so we come to it today with a plan to just try to grasp something of its central meaning and emphasis.

Once again we should remember this beatitude and its relationship with the others. We looked last week that the first four beatitudes dealt with the inner person, the last four, while still inner principles, are the fruit of the first four…or the working out of the first four. As we noted last week those who are poor in spirit are the ones who are merciful…this week those who mourn over their sin are the ones who are pure in heart. As one commentator put it about the beatitudes in relation to one another… “the first three we’re going up one side of the mountain, we reach the summit in the fourth, and then we come down the other side.”

As we examine this verse today essentially we will see that those who are morning about the impurity of their hearts are those who are pure in heart. Because the only way to have a pure heart is to realize you have an impure heart, and to mourn about it to such an extent that you do that which alone can lead to cleansing and purity. Because what we learn from the bible is… [M.I.] Only those who have a pure heart will see God.

Before we get into this beatitude deeper we need to keep in mind that this amazing and glorious statement, ‘blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ has it’s main emphasis upon the purity of heart, not the promise of seeing God. We will discuss the promise later, but the main emphasis for the Christian is upon the purity of heart…that is the heart of the matter.

So today we approach this text by asking some questions…essentially they are the same questions I asked when I studied the text. We’ll ask the questions and seek to find answers, at least some answers from this amazing text. First question...

What is meant by this term, “heart”?

This is something which is very characteristic of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ is concerned about the heart: all its emphasis is upon the heart. Read the accounts which we have in the Gospels of the teaching of our Lord, and you will find that all along He is talking about the heart. The same is true in the Old Testament.

Our Lord undoubtedly put this emphasis here because of the Pharisees. It was His great charge against them always that they were interested in the outside of the pots and platters and ignored the inside. Looked at externally, they were without spot, the Pharisees looked good religiously on the outside, but their inward parts were full of evil and wickedness. They were most concerned about the external acts of religion; but they forgot the weightier matters of the law, namely, to love God and to love one’s neighbour. So here our Lord puts this great emphasis upon it again. The heart is the whole centre of His teaching.

Our Lord puts emphasis upon the heart and not upon the head. We have to remind ourselves again that the Christian faith is ultimately not only a matter of intellect, it’s a condition of the heart. But I must add that doctrine is absolutely essential; the intellectual apprehension is absolutely essential; understanding is vital. But it’s not only that. We must never stop at an intellectual faith alone, only matters of understanding…there has been many poor decisions made in the life of the church when intellectual assent was the only focus.

When people become only concerned with the intellect they can often become very mechanical, they may be able to quote scripture, explain right doctrine, and even look good from a moral stand point externally. The Pharisees are the prime example of this. These men were very religious and looked spotless to those around them…but Jesus saw right through them. He looked into their…hearts. The Pharisees reduced life and righteousness to mere conduct of ethics and behavior…but the gospel exposes all that. Christianity is not primarily a matter of conduct and external behavior…it’s the matter of the heart.

According to scripture, the heart means the center of a person. This beatitude is a statement to the effect of what the whole Christian faith encompasses. It’s not just intellect, it’s not just emotions, it’s not just actions or the will…it’s all of them. And the heart, biblically, is understood to represent all of them. The heart includes the intellect, the emotions, and the will [or our actions.]. i.e. it’s the whole of a man or the total of a man which our Lord emphasizes. Blessed are the pure in heart, blessed or happy are those who are pure, not merely on the surface or appear to be pure…but blessed are those who are pure at their very center of being.

I’ve said it multiple times in this series, Christ is more concerned about who we are than what we do. Because the actions that come out of a person who’s heart is pure, who has been changed by the amazing grace of God and through the working of the Holy Spirit within, that persons actions reflect that which is within. This is where things can get difficult…because we can’t tell if when a person does something good in the world if it’s out of a heart that has been changed by God or if it’s just something surface level?

Many good and helpful things have been done for humanity by the most vial and self-centered people…and we can’t really tell a persons heart…oh we may think we can, but only God can do that. This is why self-examination is so important…why am I doing such and such? Is it out of a heart changed by God or is it out of selfish gain in some sense or receive praise. You see while the bible tells us that God is concerned with a man’s heart, it also tells us that the heart is the center of man’s troubles as well.

Jesus said, “out of the heart of man proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.’ One of the tragic fallacies of the last 100 years has been to think that all man’s troubles are due to his environment, this is wrong, a man’s environment may make him worse but it’s not the problem. This fallacy overlooks the fact that it was in paradise that man fell in to sin. It was in the perfect environment that man first went wrong, so put a man in a perfect environment won’t solve his problems.

No the problem with man is at his heart. Take a look at any problem in the world and you’ll discover it comes from somewhere in the heart…from any unworthy desire from an individual, group, or nation…all man’s troubles arise out of the heart of man, which Jeremiah tells us is ‘deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”

So, the gospel not only tells us that all these problems arise out of the heart, but that they do so because the heart of man, as the result of the fall and as the result of sin, is, as Scripture puts it, desperately wicked and deceitful. Man’s troubles, in other words, are at the very centre of his being, so that merely to develop his intellect is not going to solve his problems…to simply change his environment is not going to solve his problems…we need a heart change!

In light of that, that the only way to see God is to have a pure heart, and the heart is what is the problem with man and they don’t see God…what do we do with that??? This is the beauty of the gospel, the gospel proposes to lift man out of the terrible pit he is in and raise him to the very presence of God…it’s supernatural… so then

What does it mean to be pure in heart?

One, it means to have a heart that is without hypocrisy. It means, if you like, ‘single-hearted.’ Later in the sermon on the mount our Lord talks about the evil eye. He says, “if your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.” It’s one or the other, This purity of heart then corresponds to singleness, hypocrisy is not single, it’s saying one thing and doing another. So you could describe this purity of heart as meaning single-minded or single devotion.

One of the best definitions of purity is given in Psalm 86:11, ‘Unite my heart to fear thy name’. The trouble with us is our divided heart. Is not that my whole problem face to face with God? One part of me wants to know God and worship God and please God; but another part wants something else. You remember the way Paul expresses it in Romans 7; ‘For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.’ Now the pure heart is the heart that is no longer divided, and that is why the Psalmist, having understood his, trouble, prayed the Lord to ‘unite my heart to fear thy name’. ‘Make it one’, he seems to say; ‘make it single, take out the pleats and the folds, let it be whole, let it be one, let it be sincere, let it be entirely free from any hypocrisy.’ [that should be our prayer as well]

It also means to have a heart that is cleansed or without defilement. In Revelation 21:27, John tells us concerning the people who are admitted into heaven… that “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.” The same is echoed in Revelation 22:14, that nothing unclean or defiled shall enter the kingdom of heaven.

Perhaps the best explanation is being pure in heart means to be like the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, ‘who did no sin, neither was any guile found in his mouth’ Jesus was perfect and spotless and pure. If we think on it a little we could say it means to have an undivided love which regards God as our highest good, and is concerned with loving God. To be pure in heart is to obey the first and greatest commandment, ‘to love the Lord with all you heart, soul, mind, and strength.”

Reducing it even farther, it means we should live for the glory of God in every respect and that should be our desire in life. As a Christian our chief desire in life should be to desire God Himself, to know Him, to love Him, to fellowship with Him, and to serve Him. Yet many treat their faith as some sort of duty or drudgery when our chief desire should be God Himself! That’s why I said this statement is perhaps one of the more astounding statements in all of scripture, it encompasses so much of our Christian life, purity of heart as well as the objective of the Christian to see God, isn’t that what we want? To see God?

What is meant by ‘for they shall see God?”

Jesus said, ‘no man has see God at any time...” So how then can we see God??? Well perhaps the better question is…what is necessary before I can see God? Here’s the answer…Holiness…Holiness is necessary before I can see God…a pure heart, an unmixed condition of being. Yet people will reduce this matter to a little bit of decency, or morality, or intellectual interest in the doctrines of the Christian faith. But nothing less than perfection can see God. God is light, and in him is no darkness…so what does light have with darkness? You can’t mix them…only those who are like Him can see Him…that is what it means to be pure in heart before we can see God.

So we see the problem then right, if man’s heart is desperately wicked, yet to see God we must have a pure heart then we need some sort of transaction to take place so as where we have a new heart....and that’s where the atonement comes in. Christ became, the bible tells us, our propitiation [wrath absorbing substitute] upon the cross, satisfying God’s full wrath upon sin, died, was buried, and three days later rose from the grave conquering sin and death and hell and all those who repent and believe on the Lord Jesus shall be saved.

This amazing transaction took place where by the perfect Jesus, 2 Cor. 5:21 tells us, “became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” So when the sinner repents and turns to Christ, this transaction takes place where Christ imputes His righteousness upon the repentant sinner and God now looks upon the repentant sinner as having the righteousness of Christ…i.e. pure. This is a glorious and remarkable truth…this is the good news of the bible and the remarkable promise is as a Christ follower we can see God.

The Christian, now, can ‘see’ God in a sense that nobody else can. The Christian can see God in nature, where the non-Christian can’t. The Christian can see God in human history, where the non-Christian can’t. There is a certain vision made possible through the eye of faith that no one but the Christian can see. But seeing also includes knowing Him, a sense of feeling He is near, and enjoying His presence. That is a part of seeing God as well, knowing, feeling, and enjoying His presence. When was the last time you spent quality time with God???

You remember that first Sunday when we gathered back together after two months of separation? I remember a phrase that was said by many of you, “it’s so good to SEE you.” Now the reality was it wasn’t so much about physically seeing each other with our eyes, it was more about not being with each other in fellowship. Yes one day Christians will see God and spend eternity in His glorious presence.

But we can see God, in a sense, right now, by spending time in His word, in prayer, seeking to know Him, fellowship with Him, and worshiping together with the saints. I know some people may not read the book of Revelation because it confuses them…but when I read that book in particular I listen in amazement to the glory ascribed to God, and even as descriptive as that book is, my mind fails to fully comprehend the glory and majesty due our awesome God…friends when I come to God’s word…I see God!

Do you see God in His word? Do you spend time meditating upon His words? If you do, then your greatest concern in life will be the last question...

How can I become pure in heart?

I repeat, you can’t purify your own heart. This was one of the follies of monasticism. The idea that one could make themselves pure by removing themselves from society and becoming a monk and living segregated from the world…that’s nonsense. We already established that in the perfect environment man originally fell into sin. So how do we get to the point of David who said in Psalm 51, “create in me a clean heart of God and renew a right spirit within me.”?

It has to be done by God alone. The only way to have a pure heart is for the Holy Spirit to enter into us and cleanse it for us. Only His indwelling and working within can purify the heart, and He does it by working in us ‘both to will and to do of his good pleasure’. Paul’s confidence was this, that ‘he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ’. That is my only hope. I am in His hands, and the process is going on. God is dealing with me, and my heart is being cleansed. God has set His hand to this task, and I know, because of that, that a day is coming when I shall be faultless and blameless, without spot or wrinkle, without any defilement. I shall be able to enter into the gate of the holy city, leaving everything that is unclean outside, solely because He is doing it.

That doesn’t mean though we remain passive in the matter. I believe it is God’s work in us, but I also believe what the bible tells us in James “Draw near to God and God will draw near to you.” I want God to draw near to me, because, if He does not, my heart will remain black. How is God going to draw near to me? You ‘draw near to God, and he will draw near to you’, says James. ‘Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.’

The fact that I know that I cannot ultimately purify and cleanse my heart in an absolute sense does not mean that I should walk in the gutters of life waiting for God to cleanse me. I must do everything I can to draw near to God and still know it is not enough, and that He must do it finally. Or listen again to what Paul says: ‘It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.’ Yes, but ‘mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth’. Strangle them, get rid of them, get rid of everything that stands between you and God. ‘Mortify’, put it to death. ‘If ye through the Spirit’, he says again to the Romans, ‘do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.’

If you’re here today without Christ, you know your heart is impure.  You know your transgression separates you from God.  But something inside says, “I want to know God.  I want the purity of heart that’ll free me to see the living God.  I want the repentance and the forgiveness that can free me from the bondage of guilt.  I want to know what it is to be pure.  I want to know what it is to be forgiven.  I want to know what it is to be out from under the burden of all the pain and the anguish and the frustration that my sin and guilt brought.” 

If that’s your desire right now in your heart, why don’t you just say, “Lord Jesus, I believe that Your blood was shed for me and can cleanse my sin.  I believe that You rose from the dead for me.  I give you my life, to be my Lord and my Savior.”  Can you pray that prayer?  I hope so.  I hope you’ll give your life to Christ, to know the purity that only He can give. 

If you’re a Christian and you know there have been things in your life that have been impure – and you know what happens when you’re impure?  All of a sudden, you can’t see God anymore.  He sort of fades away.  He becomes fuzzy and foggy.  The joy is gone, the vision of God is gone.  Emptiness takes the place of fullness.  Sorrow takes the place of joy.  Meaninglessness replaces purpose and you become miserable.  Purify your heart this morning by confession and repentance. pray

Lord Jesus, meet us right where we are, and we’ll thank You for doing that work in us that purifies us for your glory, thank You, gracious God, that we can go on seeing God for ourselves.  What a fabulous and wonderful reward for the purity given to us in Christ Jesus.  In Jesus’ name, amen.