Sunday Sermon Matthew 5:8

Announcements

Are there any announcements?

Please pray for Ernie as He has Covid.

We are currently looking for someone to create our weekly bulletin.

Have a great 4th of July!

Thanks to all who haves served and fought for our freedom!

Introduction

Good morning and welcome to FCC where we worship God in Spirit and in Truth, one verse at a time, one book at a time.

If you are new to FCC, we give you a special welcome and wanted you to know that we are a Bible teaching church that teaches exposition.

Exposition simply means to explain the Biblical text at hand.

TODAY, is communion Sunday and we have a special treat.

Sister Vickie Knowles made fresh unleavened bread:)

Here at FCC, we welcome all to take communion with us provided you have accepted Jesus as you Lord and Savior.

I will open us with prayer and during my prayer I will pause so we can allow the Lord to search our hearts. Because we always want to take communion in a worthy manner.

Then after I pray, please come forward as the Spirit leads to get the cup and bread and return to your seat as we like to take as a family.

Prayer

Lord God, as we come to the table this morning we come with grateful hearts, hearts that are grateful for the freedom that we have in Christ, grateful for the Cross and it implications that will carry us to eternity, as we take of the elements today, may the gospel become more real to us and may you grow us in grace evermore. Please search our hearts and help us to confess anything that would stop us from taking communion in a worthy manner.

PAUSE

Lord, thank you for your generous Holy Spirit and his promptings. Be with us now as we remember your sacrifice.

In Jesus Name, We Love You! Amen!!!

Communion

1 Corinthians 11:23–26 NKJV

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

We have come as far as Matthew 5:8, so let us open are Bibles there:

Read Matthew 5:1-8

Matthew 5:1–8 NKJV

And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then 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 filled. Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.

Prayer

Lord Heavenly Father, we thank you for the freedom that we have in Jesus and for the men and women that have laid their lives down for this great nation. Our hearts are heavy this morning Lord because of the news of sickness that we received this past week. Lord, Laura Stubbs has stage 4 cancer, Franca and Craig recieved news that Craigs condition will not get better, but worse. We recieved news that brother Ronnie Scroggin’s cancer treatments have stopped and that he has been given 6 months to a year to live. Bill Sagger fell and hit his head and is waiting to hear from the neurologist. And Richard and Janice Young’s son fell after having a seizure and Ernie has Covid Father. Lord this is much to bear, but your Word says that you will never ever give us too much, so we trust you with the outcomes and we trust you with our lives. We cry out to you for everyone who has recieved difficult news and ask for healing, for hope, and for salvation. God we ask that you would show up today in a special way, that you would fill us with your spirit and that you would give us mercy and grace in our time of need. Please comfort the faint in heart and lift up the downcast and broken.

In Jesus Name, We Lobe You, amen!!!

Review

Wow! That is a lot of nuggets for us to grasp.

But thanks be to God who gives us everything that pertains to life and godliness.

Over that past few weeks, we have been in the beatitudes and what Jesus is teaching us and his listeners that are willing to listen is how to enter his Kingdom and not only how to enter, but how to stay in His Kingdom, but also how to live the Kingdom out in our daily lives.

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 filled.

Jesus said, I am the bread of life church! If you eat this bread you will never hunger.

Jesus said to the woman at the well, if you drink of the water that I have you will never thirst again.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Grace begotten, is grace bestowed.

God gives to us church freely, so we can give to others the very thing that He has given to us like: mercy, grace, forgiveness, love, patience and longsuffering which means to suffer long.

When we look at the beatitudes what we see is aa natural progression that leads to a person becoming a mature disciple of Jesus Christ.

Church, you cannot chose which beatitudes you want to be true in your life, and leave the others to one side. The beatitudes come as a whole, not as a series of options. Every Christina is intended to show every grace. one beatitude flows into the next, as we already have seen; the poor in spirit mourn for their sins, and as a result are marked by meekness of those who know the truth about themselves in the presence of God. Such men and women hunger and thirst for righteousness and receive it. Since they have been filled only because of the Lord’s mercy, they become merciful to others.

Therefore, mercy begotten is mercy bestowed !

Did the Lord give you an opportunity to be merciful this past week?

So we come to our text and it seems to be a little uncomfortable, because how can we be pure in heart?

Matthew 5:8 NKJV

Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.

It is important for us to remember what the word blessed means in the Greek as we continue our study:

Blessed- makarios- (mak-ar'-ee-os) — characterized by happiness and being highly favored (as by divine grace). Fortunate, or well-off.

So then what jesus is teaching is that if you want to be happy and highly favored by divine grace, fortunate and well-off in this life, then you must have these beatitudes operating in your life.

The world system try’s to convince us that those who have an abundance of wealth and materialism will make you happy, but we all know that this is not true, right?

Look around church, read and watch the news and you will quickly find out that true happiness is not found in people, places, and things, it is not found in wealth or materialism, but only in the living God.

Jesus is giving us the prescription for happiness if you may.

But we must remember:

Isaiah 55:8–11 NKJV

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

God’s ways are opposite to the worlds ways church for he uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

Blessed are the poor in spirit?

Blessed are those who mourn?

Blessed are the meek?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness?

Blessed are the pure in heart?

Really , Jesus???

We try to fix the human dilemma with everything under the sun, only to end up high and dry, empty and unsatisfied seeking for our next fix that will never ever fill us full like Jesus church!

Matthew 5:8 NKJV

Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.

So what does it mean to be pure in heart?

Well, the first thing we need to look at would be the word pure in the original language.

Pure- kath-a-ros- (guiltless) adj. — in a state of ritual cleanliness or free of guilt and sin. Spotless, clear of debt, without blemish, to purify with fire.

What come your mind when you hear this definition?

I will never be pure in this life!

There is no way I can ever measure up to this!

Man, have I missed the mark on this one!

Let’s look a little closer at this word:

The term “pure” is the Greek word from which we get “catharsis,” which means a cleansing of the mind or emotions.

Scholars suggest that the word basically has two meanings.

First, it means “to make pure by cleansing from dirt, filth, or contamination” and was most often used to describe metals that had been refined by fire until they were free from impurities.

It was also used for soiled clothes that had been washed clean, and of grain that had been carefully sifted to remove all impurities.

Second, it refers to being “unmixed, as having no double allegiance.”

In his commentary on this passage, Warren Weirsbe writes that the “basic idea is that of integrity, singleness of heart, as opposed to duplicity, or a divided heart.”

Jesus said it this way:

Matthew 6:24 NKJV

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

James said it this way:

James 1:5–8 NKJV

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Church, Jesus wants us to be single-minded in the depth of our being.

Let’s put these two definitions together. A person with a passion for purity is one who has been cleansed in character so that the way he or she looks in public is the way he or she is in private.

“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. “ -Coach John Wooden-

Someone else has said, “character is what you are when no one is looking.”

The one who is single-minded in his commitment to Christ will also be inwardly pure. We see this in:

Psalm 24:3–4 NKJV

Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully.

Going bak to our text, it seems like Jesus was thinking about Ezekiel when he spoke, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God:

Ezekiel 36:25–26 NKJV

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

When we look at Psalm 24:3-4 and this text form Ezekiel, what we see is the impurity of compromise and accommodation.

The opposite of pure is impure, right?

Impure- mixed with foreign matter, adulterated, dirty, defiled, contaminated, or morally wrong.

THEREFORE, THE IMPRE HEART IS NOT SIMPLY UNCLEAN CHURCH, IT IS UNDECIDED AND DIVIDED.

A heart that is undecided and divided will not get free from sin and contamination church.

For it is simply not possible, because as Jesus said we cannot serve two masters.

The Danish theologian Soren Kierkgarrd said:

“Purity of heart is to will one thing!”

Not two or three, but one church.

To be pure in heart is to be uncompromisingly dedicated to Jesus Christ!

This the way to truly see (or know) God.

Being pure in heart means letting nothing stand in your way of your relationship with Jesus Christ.

The real issue at hand is not how important something is in itself, but how closely we fix our gaze upon it.

Hebrews 12:1–2 NKJV

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Looking- aphoraō - (af-or-ah'-o)-to turn the eyes away from other things and fix them on something, to look and consider attentively.

Church, when we realize that there is nothing absolutely nothing that this world has to has to offer us can compare to Jesus and what he offers us, it is then that we have a singleness of heart and mind .

It is then that we become stable mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

It is then that we become steadfast immovable always abounding in the work of the Lord.

It is then that we have order instead of chaos in our lives and in everything that we do.

But the opposite is true. If we hold this world and its contents too near, we will no longer see Jesus and his glory.

Guess whats to follow?

We will compromise...

We will stumble...

And we will fall.

Paul wrote this to the Church at Corinth that was double-minded and unstable

They had one foot in the church and one foot out and wondered why they were struggling. They did not have a singleness of heart and mind and become immoral and focused on the wrong things:

2 Corinthians 3:18 KJV 1900

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

By beholding we become changed

We become what we hang out with.

If we hang out with the world, we become like the world.

If we hang out with Jesus, we become like Him.

The Jews had a divided heart to the legalistic system that had evolved and held people hostage.

Purity of heart church, must never be confused with conformity to rules.

Because only the pure in heart will see God.

I close with a text from John the beloved:

1 John 3:3 NKJV

And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

In other words, according the John the beloved, the Christian purifies himself now because pure is what he will ultimately be.

His present efforts are consistent with his future hope.

We experience God’s mercy when we trust Christ (Eph. 2:4–7), and He gives us a clean heart (Acts 15:9) and peace within (Rom. 5:1).

But having received His mercy, we then share His mercy with others. We seek to keep our hearts pure that we might see God in our lives today.

We become peacemakers in a troubled world and channels for God’s mercy, purity, and peace.

How are you doing? Is your heart single or is it divided and you wonder why you can’t get free or walk in the fullness of what God has for you?

Prayer

Lord God, thank you for todays teaching and for the convictions and admonitions that came as a gift from You. Please empower us in the Spirit to have an undivided heart that is fixed and focused on you. For the person or the people that are struggling with this Father God, we ask that you would grant them surrender and repentance like you did the Gentiles in the book of Acts and that you would infuse us all with enabling grace to keep our eyes on you! Because blessed our the pure in heart, for they shall see YOU!

In Jesus Name, We Love You! Amen and Amen

2 Thessalonians 3:16 NKJV

Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always in every way. The Lord be with you all.

THE LORD BLESS YOU!

YOUR MISSION STARTS NOW!