The Only Way to Happiness - Be Holy
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
Introduction:
The verse that is before us, is one that has massive implications for our lives.
This is immeasurable and whose breadth is impossible to encompass.
This is, perhaps, the greatest utterance of Jesus Christ in all of the Bible.
The subject is holiness, being pure in heart.
“Holiness” and the adjective “holy” is a subject that occurs more than 900 time the Bible.
This subject is vast and touches on virtually every other biblical truth.
Just little background on this passage is probably helpful at this point.
When Jesus Christ began His public ministry, Israel was in desperate condition; politically, economically, and most important, spiritually.
For hundreds of years, with only brief respites, she had been under the oppression of foreign conquerors.
The country had limited freedom to develop its economy, and a large part of income and profit was paid to Rome in taxes.
These were problems that every person saw and felt.
However, the less obvious problem was, in fact, the most severe problem.
For longer than she suffered political and economic oppression, Israel had suffered spiritual weakness and faithlessness.
However, that problem had not been recognized by the majority of the Jewish people.
Jewish leaders were under the misconception that their religion was in fine shape, and believed the Messiah would soon solve the political and economic problems.
But when He came, His only concern was for their spiritual problem, the problem of the heart.
At the time of Christ the most influential religious force in Judaism was the Pharisees.
They were the chief mangers and promoters of the pervasive legalistic and ritualistic system that dominated the Jewish society.
Over the centuries various rabbis had interpreted and reinterpreted the Jewish Scriptures, especially the law, until those interpretations, known as the traditions of the elders, became more authoritative than the Scripture itself.
The essence of the traditions was a system of dos and don’ts that gradually expanded to cover almost every aspect of Jewish life.
To conscientious and honest Jews it had become obvious that total observance to all of the religious system was absolutely impossible.
Because they could not keep all of the law, they doubtlessly developed terrible feelings of guilt, frustration, and anxiety.
Because their religion was their life, but they could not keep all that the law demanded.
Therefore, some of the religious leaders devised the idea that, if a person could perfectly keep just a few of the laws, God would understand.
And when that proved to be impossible, they began to narrow the requirement to one law so that it was “perfectly” kept.
That may have been in the mind of the lawyer who asked Jesus;
Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Perhaps he wanted Jesus to tell which, of the many hundreds of laws, He believed was the most important one to keep; the one that would satisfy God even if he disobeyed all of the others.
This is probably led to the initial popularity of John the Baptist.
He was radically different than the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and priests.
And it was obvious that he did not observe most of the religious traditions.
He was a breath of fresh air in a stifling religious system of never ending demands and prohibitions.
They did not want another rabbi with another set of laws, but someone that could show them how to be forgiven for those laws they had already broken.
They wanted to know the real way of salvation, the real way to please God, the true way of peace and relief from sin.
The people knew form the prophet Ezekial that someday God was going to come and sprinkle their souls with water, cleanse them from sin, and replace their hearts of stone with hearts of flesh.
Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
They knew of the truth of David and they had longed to experience that reality.
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
Nicodemus was such a person that would have known these truths.
He was a ruler of the Jews that came to see Jesus Christ during the night.
He was a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court.
We are not told why he came to Jesus in the night, perhaps he was afraid of what would be the blow back if he had been seen speaking with Jesus.
Whatever his reason, we cannot deny the sincerity of his words.
The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
Whatever else he may have believed, he believed that Jesus was a teacher that was sent from God.
You can read that conversation that took place between Nicodemus and Jesus and realize that what was on the mind of Nicodemus was, “how can I be forgiven?”
“How can I be right with God?”
After Jesus had fed the great multitude neat the Sea of Galilee, some of the people who had seen the miracle asked Jesus.
Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
The same question that troubled Nicodemus, troubled them: “How can a person get right with God? What must we do to truly please Him?”
Like Nicodemus, they had been through all the ceremonies and rituals and had found, not a forgiving God, but a judge that required so much that forgiveness seemed to be impossible.
It was to answer the need that Jesus came to earth.
It was for that answer that He gave the Beatitudes.
He shows in these Beatitudes how a man can be right with God.
One might think that “holiness” may need to be at the beginning of the list; however, this is the perfect spot.
Because this Beatitude is where the previous 5 lead and out of which the last two flow.
Poverty in spirit, mourning over sin, yielding of our wills to God, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, being merciful will cause and are clearly Beatitude attitudes that are the result of Holiness.
And being a peacemaker and being persecuted is certainly an inevitable result of being holy.
Jesus said:
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
I want us to gain better of understanding of the message of Christ by breaking the passage down in three ways: The Message, The Method, and The Manner.
I. The Message
I. The Message
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
As we have been understanding, the word “blessed” is “μακάριος” which means, “happy or fortunate.”
The word “heart” is the Greek word “καρδία” and it is from where we get our English word “cardiac” and similar other terms.
Throughout Scripture and in many other languages and cultures throughout the world, the heart is used metaphorically to represent the inner person, the set of emotions, motives, and attitudes.
It is center of the personality.
However, in the Scripture, it represents more than emotions, feelings.
It also includes the thinking process and particularly the will.
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.
Jesus asked a group of Scribes:
And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
Listen, the heart is the control center of the mind and will as well as emotion.
The total contrast of the hypocritical religion of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus said that it is in the inner man, in the core of his very being, that God requires the purity.
This was not a new truth, but a long forgotten truth.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
This was the very issue that caused God to destroy the world by flood.
And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
David acknowledged:
Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Asaph wrote:
Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.
Jeremiah declared:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
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.
The fact is the evil thoughts and deeds begin in the heart and the mind.
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
God has always been concerned above all else with the inside of man. with the condition of the heart.
Before Saul could be the first king of Israel, God had to do a work.
And it was so, that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart: and all those signs came to pass that day.
It was said of David’s leadership over Israel.
So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.
God gave the kingdom to David because:
But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the LORD commanded thee.
David deepest concern was:
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.
David prayed:
Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.
Once when David was fleeing for his life from Saul he went into Gath, a Philistine city for help.
When he realized that his life was also in danger there, the Scripture says:
And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.
The Philistines, thinking that he was mad let him go, and he went into the cave of Adullum.
He came to his senses and realized how foolish and unfaithful he had been to trust the Philistines for help instead of the Lord.
It was there that he wrote Psalm 57.
My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.
David often failed, but in reality, his heart was fixed on God.
O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise, even with my glory.
“Pure” is from the Greek word “καθαρός” and the basic meaning to to make pure by cleansing from dirt, filth, and contamination.
It is where we get our English word catharsis; which is a term used in psychology and counseling for a cleansing of the mind or emotions.
The Greek word is often used of metals that had been refined until all impurities were removed, only leaving pure metal.
And it is in that sense that the word means unmixed, unalloyed, unadulterated.
When it is applied to the heart, the idea is that of pure motives - of single mindedness, undivided devotion, spiritual integrity, and true righteousness.
Listen, double mindedness has always been a plague to the Church.
People want to follow the Lord and follow the world at the same time.
But Jesus said that was impossible.
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
James put it this way:
Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
Christs’ point in the Beatitudes is that true believers have a right heart attitude towards God.
Even though we often fail to be single-minded, it is our deep desire to be so.
We can often confess with the Apostle Paul:
For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.
I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
Paul’s deepest desire in his heart was to be pure, although the sin dwelling in his flesh sometimes overrode those desires.
Listen, those that truly belong to God will be motivated by purity.
The deepest desire for the redeemed is for holiness, even when sin halts the fulfillment of that desire.
Listen, purity of heart is more than sincerity.
A motive can be sincere, yet to worthless and sinful things.
The pagan priests in 1 Kings 18 who opposed Elijah demonstrated great sincerity when they lacerated their bodies in order to induce Baal to send fire down to consume the sacrifice.
However, their desire did not produce the desired result, and it did not enable them to see the wrongness of their paganism, because their sincere trust was in that very paganism.
Sincere devotion that is sincerely wrong is completely worthless to God.
The Scribes and the Pharisees believed that they could please God by superficial practices, of which they were completely sincere.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
Even genuinely good deeds that do not come from a genuinely good heart are of no spiritual value.
Thomas Watson said:
“Morality can drown a man as fast as vice,”
And:
“A vessel may sink with gold or with dung.”
Listen, we may be extremely religious and constantly engaged in doing good things, we cannot please God unless our hearts are right with him.
The ultimate standard for purity of heart is the perfection of the heart.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
100% purity is God’s standard for the heart.
Man’s tendency is to set the opposite standard.
We are inclined to judge ourselves by the worst instead of the best.
That is illustrated by the Pharisee who hypocritically went to the temple to pray and compared his right standing before God by comparing himself with someone that he thought was worse then himself.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
We all seem to feel better about ourselves when we compare ourselves with other people that we believe to be worse than us.
God’s standard for men, however, is Himself.
We cannot be fully pleasing to God until we are as pure as He is pure.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place?
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
In fact, it is the impurity of the heart that separates man from God.
Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
And as impurity separates man from God, only purity of heart through Jesus Christ will reconcile men to God.
There are basically two kinds of religion; the religion of human achievement and the religion of divine accomplishment.
The only true religion; however, is the religion of the heart, which is based on God’s implanted purity.
Only true believers have the purity of heart that has been implanted and imputed by God by faith alone in Jesus Christ.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Truly happy are those who are truly pure in heart and have shown that in the fulfillment of the first five Beatitudes in their lives.
The Message is: in the inner being of man there must be cleanliness, and purity.
II. The Method
II. The Method
Throughout the centuries people have suggested many ways in order to obtain holiness or spiritual purity.
Some have suggested monasticism, getting away from the normal cares and distractions of the world and devoting oneself entirely to meditation and prayer.
Other claim that holiness is a second work of grace, by which God miraculously eradicates not only sins but the sin nature, allowing a sinless earthly life from that point onward.
The problem is that neither Scripture or experience support either of those views.
Listen, the problem of sin is not primarily the world around us but the worldliness within us, which we cannot escape by living in isolation from other people.
But the Father always provides what He demands, and He has provided ways for is to live with a pure heart.
A. We Must Realize our Inability
A. We Must Realize our Inability
We must realize that we are unable to live one single moment without the Lord’s guidance and power.
Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?
The obvious answer is, “no one.”
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.
Cleansing begins with a recognition of weakness.,
Weakness then reaches out for strength from God.
B. We Must Read the Word
B. We Must Read the Word
Listen, it is impossible to stay in God’s will apart from a steady diet of God’s Word.
Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
C. We Must be Regulated by the Spirit
C. We Must be Regulated by the Spirit
If we are ever going to live with a pure heart is going to be as we are walking in the will and way of the Holy Spirit.
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
D. We Must Request from God
D. We Must Request from God
We cannot stay in God’s will or understand and obey His Word unless we stay near Him.
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
III. The Manner
III. The Manner
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
A great blessing of those that are pure in heart is that they shall see God.
The future indicative tense and the middle voice tells us that more literal transition is, “They shall be continuously seeing God for themselves.”
Again this is emphatic in the Greek, “Happy are the Pure in heart for they and only they shall see God.”
The more intimate knowledge of and fellowship with God is reserved for the pure in heart.
When our hearts are purified at salvation, we begin to live in the presence of God.
We begin to see and comprehend Him with our new spiritual eyes.
Like Moses, we will see the glory of God and will beg God to allow us to see more.
Purity of heart cleanses the eyes of the soul so that God becomes visible.
One sign of an impure heart is ignorance, because sin obscures the truth.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
Evil and ignorance come in a package.
Other signs of an impure heart are self-centeredness (Rev. 3:17), pleasure in sin (2 Timothy 3:4), unbelief (Heb. 3:12), and hatred of purity (Micah 3:2).
Those that belong to God exchange all of those things for integrity and purity.
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
Who are the people that will see God?
Those and only those who are Pure in Heart.
They have personal desires, goals, and actions of holiness.
They still fight remaining sin, but the goals, ambitions, and actions of life are those of purity.
Signs of the Pure in heart?
First, Sincerity.
One in whose spirit there is no deceit, there is a real longing for righteousness, a real love for Christ and for God.
Second, a hunger for greater purity.
If you have a pure heart it is dissatisfied with present sin because it is against the grain of your new nature.
Third, A hatred for sin.
Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.
Fourth, a love for others who know the Lord.
A love for other believers.
You love out of a pure heart.
Fifth, being preoccupied with God.
Living in awe of God, living a worshipping life, longing for His will to be fulfilled, for His glory to come.
That is it, that is what it means to be pure in heart; sincerity, hunger for greater purity, a hatred of sin, a living a worshipping life, longing for His will to be fulfilled, for His glory and honor to be on display.
That is what it means to be Pure in Heart and they and only will see God.