Blessed are the Pure in Heart: Sermon on the Mount Part 5

(upbeat music) Today on The To Win The Many Podcast, we continue in the Sermon of the Mount with the Beatitudes. We pick up with verse eight of Matthew chapter five, blessed are the pure and heart for they will see God. Blessed are the pure and heart for they will see God. Just a quick recap. We reminded that the kingdom of God is the rule and the reign of God. We are his kingdom's citizens. God's kingdom is in us. It has been initiated in us. The kingdom hasn't been fulfilled. It hasn't been completed yet. We haven't seen the full harvest, but we have definitely seen the first fruits. And God is calling us to a life of fulfillment. It is happiness, oh, but it's so much more than mere happiness. It's not temporary and fleeting like happiness. There's this true fulfillment, this true joy that is found in a proper relationship with God and only God can bring that kind of joy. We're reminded that the focus here in the Beatitudes is not as much on conduct, more so on character. It's not as much on the outward display. It's more on the inner disposition. It's not as though the conduct won't be there. The outward display won't be there, but it's the inner disposition before the outward display. As we said previously, it's not about God's rules, but enjoying the rule of God in our life and living that blessed and fulfilled life that only God offers. In his commentary on this particular passage, France said not, it's not restricted to moral purity when we talk about purity here as blessed are the pure and heart for they will see God. It's not restricted to moral purity, meaning don't do this or do this. It's one who loves God with an undivided heart and an undivided loyalty, taking us back to Deuteronomy six. France says that it's an inward nature and this inward nature corresponds with this outward profession. I go back to a previously cited Lloyd Jones quote, Christians aren't only to act a certain way, but to be a certain type. So what France and Lloyd Jones are reminding us again, is this inner disposition, the character prior to the conduct. And of course, we know from the circle of the mount and we know throughout the gospels that people tended to practice their religion without the inner reality of a relationship with God. You can go back to Isaiah chapter one and verses 10 through 20 and God is inditing his people because they're going through the proper sacrifices and they're going to the festivals and they're doing all of the practices of the religious cultists there, but they are disconnected from God. Their hearts are far from it. He says, and he says that also in Isaiah 29 13, these people approach me with their speeches to honor me with their lips, yet their hearts are far from me and human rules direct their worship of me. So they were focusing on that outward display, they were missing the inner disposition. The Pharisees were continually indicted by Jesus for these religious presentations without the pursuit of God. Matthew 6 talks about that and they're giving and they're praying and they're fasting, they were being deceptive because the inner reality didn't match their outward works. And for us, it's important to remember they weren't irreligious, they weren't irreligious, they were insincere and they were insincere because they weren't pursuing God. They were very religious, they were incredibly religious. It was a religiosity, but they were very religious, meaning you would look at their life and say these guys are doing the right kinds of things. So when we look at pure and heart, it takes us beyond the conduct. Now the conduct should still be there. It takes us beyond the outward display. Now the outward display should still be there, but the focus is on the inward, the inner disposition that flows outward into the proper works in the proper display. So who is being misled? When we think about this, who is being misled by the outward display? Who is being misled by this conduct that is divorced from the character when Jesus indicts the Pharisees in Matthew 6 or when they're indicted in Isaiah 1 and Isaiah 29 and you could say many of the prophets, who's being misled by this outward expression? Is it possibly God? Is God being misled when we do these good works but our inner disposition doesn't match it? Of course, it's not God. Well, is the emphasis on others? Well, you could say partly 'cause in Matthew 6, Jesus says they have their reward, meaning other people are acknowledging in the Pharisees that they have these religious works and because they're so religious, other people are respecting them and doing for them ways that would honor them or things that would honor them and they're treating them in ways that would honor them because of their religious works. So yeah, others are fooled, but the greatest, the greatest deception of all is that these people are deceiving themselves. They are misled by themselves. They are misleading themselves. And this sense of Phariseism that's emphasizing religious or ritual purity is deceiving them into thinking they're right with God. And Jesus comes along and he's emphasizing this inner spiritual purity. Now, Psalm 24 possibly could be the basis because it gives the requirement for worshiping God in his holy place. It talks about having clean hands and having a pure heart. The Septuagint actually translates it pure in heart as choral notes in his work, his great work on the summer of the mountain. So again, we are reminded that the outward expressions of religion can possibly be misleading. So we need to be careful with that. It's not that we remove or reject the outward expressions. It's that we prioritize the inward disposition and what we would say is let's take it one step further, the inner presence of God, the presence of God in our hearts, the presence of God in our lives. That is the treasure, that is the prize. So the problem that Jesus is pointing us to is an impurity in the heart, which is far more than behavioral change. We can't fix people by fixing the outward environment. If that were true, then Adam and Eve would have never sinned in the Garden of Eden. They were in a place of perfection. But they did sin. So we can't fix people by changing this outward environment or changing their minds or emotions. What must be changed is the heart because the heart is the center of all of these. And we're reminded in Genesis 6 and Genesis 8 from the beginning, the heart was shown to be impure. Proverbs 29. You can say, I've kept my heart pure. I'm cleansed from my sin. Nobody can say that. Jesus notes the impurity of the heart. In Matthew 1234, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, Matthew 528. He says the problem is lust in the heart or that's the issue. Matthew 15 verses 19 through 20, from the heart flow, evil thoughts, murders, adultery, sexual immorality, steves, false testimony, slander. These are the things that defile a person. But eating with unwashed hands does not defile a person. Deuteronomy 30 verse 6 reminds us that only God can circumcise the heart. It says the Lord, your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants. And you will love him with all your heart and all your soul so that you will live. Think of it as David in Psalm 51 when he prays for God to create the word that's used in Genesis chapter 1. This is a word that's only used of God because only God creates. And what is David pray for? For God to create a pure heart within him and to renew a steadfast spirit within him. Of course we go to Jeremiah 31 verse 33. The change of heart is associated with the institution of the new covenant. Then the gospels, we come back to the gospels. The gospels emphasize the inner reality, the presence of Emmanuel God with us. God is dwelling with his people but God is dwelling in his people in the person of Christ. Colossians 127 Christ in you, the hope of glory. Second Corinthians 517, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. So the epistles are reflecting that man's inclination is to put the emphasis on the outward expressions. We must fight to keep the emphasis on the inner reality, the inner reality being the presence of God in our lives. Brothers and sisters, that is the good news today is that Christ is in us. The hope of glory is in us. So when we're talking about being pure in heart, we are reminded that Christ is in us. And the inner presence of God will naturally produce outward expressions of purity. The inner presence of God will naturally produce outward expressions of purity. inner purity, inner purity will be reflected in outer purity. I'll go back to quarrels. He helps us with this. He says, "Thus purity in heart is a sincere authentic disposition that moves the disciple to pursue righteousness and compels him to live obediently." So we seek God, not with an undivided heart, not with an undivided heart, not with the divided heart, but an undivided heart. We seek God with undivided loyalty. There's no hypocrisy in us because we're not divided in our loyalty. Matthew 6, verse 19, and following refers to this sense of materialism as idolatry. We're chasing the things of this world. Why? Because we're chasing idols. We're chasing false gods. We have a divided loyalty. We have a divided heart and in light of the conditions of the sermon on the mount. The one who is pure in heart will have these outward expressions of purity like, for example, in chapter 5, verses 27 through 30, abandoning lust. In chapter 6, abandoning materialism. In chapter 6, verse 1 through 18, practicing religion to impress others. I have often been invited or asked to talk, especially to young men about issues of pornography and lust. And my response is generally the same. I say, I'm not going to talk to these young men about pornography. I'm going to talk to these young men about purity. And we've gotten into this really bad habit where we're simply calling people to stop doing certain things. The problem is not that they don't know they should stop doing certain things. The problem is not that they don't know they should stop looking at things. The problem is that they're not pure in heart. They're not pure in heart. And because they're not pure in heart, guess what? They're distracted and they're not focusing on God. They have a divided heart, a divided loyalty. They're chasing lust because they're chasing something to fulfill them because they've forgotten that Christ is in him and Christ is in them and Christ is their hope and Christ is their life. So we don't chase after the things of the world because we are citizens not of this world. We're of a different kind of world and this world doesn't hold us so we don't want to be bound to the things of this world. And we don't chase lust because we have found one who is so much better. We found one who loves our soul and one that we can love. And there is a depth of the relationship that lust and the satisfaction of our lust could never offer. And we don't practice these religious expressions just because we must. We get to walk with God. We get to pray to God. We get to talk to Him. And so we want to. We get to give back to God. And so we do. And we get to fast and remember in our fasting that there are things that are that are more substantive and more filling and more lasting than physical food. So brothers and sisters, we need to stop putting the emphasis on the things that we shouldn't do. We should put the emphasis on the things that we should pursue or the one we should pursue, which is God. The fact that He lives in us will produce this desire to be pure because we recognize that sin only distracts us from genuinely seeing God, from genuinely experiencing God. We don't want that. We want to walk with God. And we see the promise here, the pure in heart will see God. Psalm 24 describes the pure in heart as those who seek the face of the God of Jacob. That's a powerful picture. It connects. It connects. Jesus promised that the pure in heart will see God going back to Jacob seeing the face of God, which by the way, he does at pineal. Jacob experiences God there in in Genesis at pineal, which literally means the face. That's what the word means. There is this powerful picture. So Jacob wrestles with God there in Genesis 32. We know that passage. And Jacob is wrestling with God because when he leaves that which would become the promised land as the place that God had promised to his people, the Abraham Isaac and Jacob, when Jacob abandons that land, he's fleeing from Esau because Esau wants to kill him. And he has this moment with God. And we know the ladder comes out of heaven and all that. But Jacob says to God, he makes this vow to God, which is an interesting vow. He says, God, if you bring me back to this place, then I will worship you, which is very strange because we look at it and think, okay, what does that mean? You haven't been worshipping God or you're not going to worship God. And we know that Jacob goes and he lives with Laban and he's there. And he's working for 14 years so that he can have Leah and Rachel as his wife. So he's there at least 14 years. He's made, he makes his way back. Has he not been worshipping God the whole time? But he comes back and he's now there at the jabic river and he's getting ready to cross over. He's been told Esau is coming and he's at the head of 400 men. And Jacob thinks about the last time he saw Esau. And Esau said, the next time I see you, I'm going to going to kill you. So here's Jacob. He's wrestling because God has pretty much given him a guarantee that he's going to bring him back into this land. But all Jacob knows, all Jacob knows is that Esau is bearing down on him to take his life. And so Jacob has that moment where he wrestles with God. He wrestles with God. But he comes through on the other side. And then the next day, he sends those waves of of livestock trying to to get into Esau's good graces. And then we have the encounter where Esau rides up on him. Jacob and Esau meet Esau gets down and he runs to Jacob and they embrace and Esau gives him that loving hug, that compassionate hug. And then Jacob responds to Esau and he says seeing you is like seeing the face of God, seeing you as like seeing the face of God. Meaning, Esau in this moment, I realize that God is true. He's right and he's faithful. And I can trust him. I can trust him with my life. I can trust him with his promises. I can trust him with the guarantees that he's made. We're reminded of that in this sense of pure and heart, seeing God, seeking God. We can trust this God. He is faithful to us and praise God. He doesn't dwell in a cloud and he hasn't put his law on stone. He dwells in us and he's put his law on our hearts. He's put his desires in our hearts. And so we value the presence of God and all that that means in our life, his faithfulness, his love, his mercy for us. We value God's presence more than we value anything else in life because we can face this life without anything else. But please, God, don't take your presence from us. Going back to Psalm 51. Please, God, don't, don't remove who you are in our life from us. We don't want to walk through this life without you and brothers and sisters. If in this moment, you're thinking, wait a minute, are you talking about losing your salvation? No, no, we're beyond that. We're talking about in our sanctification. We're talking about in our fellowship with God, brothers and sisters, are you fellowshiping with God? I mean, when you read the word of God, is it coming alive, is God speaking to you? When you're praying, do you know that God is poised and ready to answer you? See, if we're only thinking in terms of losing our salvation, we are missing so much of the inner reality of God in our life. The pure and heart will see God. I mean, really see, we'll see that his promises are true and he is faithful, no matter what. In the most difficult of times, he is the faithful God. And he is our ultimate prize. He's our ultimate goal. So we pursue him passionately. We long to be in his presence like Psalm 27. One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I see, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. Meaning, I can't get enough of you, God, I just want more. I want to be in your presence and I want you to demonstrate your faithfulness in my life. So we pursue him with all of our hearts, all of our souls, all of our minds, all of our strength and consequently, our lives are different. Our lives are different. We pursue different things, we pursue God. We look different. We live differently. When we continue to pursue God, we continue to pursue his presence until we see him not as a poor reflection, but in actuality. When we are in his presence for eternity. But in the meantime, we join with Paul and we we almost crave death because death brings us face to face for an eternity with our God. Some have said about Paul that he had a craving face toward death. I would submit to all of us that the pure and heart lives like that, that there is within us a bursting desire to be with God, to have all of the sinful distractions of this world removed once and for all. where all we are doing all the time is simply worshipping God. And we know that death brings us the sweet release into eternity, where we will be with God for eternity. We will see Him there. We know that we will see God there. We will be with Him for eternity. And this changes everything in life, changes everything. It gives us a different perspective. But in the meantime, we've tasted and seen that He's good and we can't get enough of it and we just won't more. We pursue Him. We don't have a divided heart. We don't have a divided loyalty. Brothers and sisters, this is not just about not doing some things that we shouldn't do. This is about pursuing God and loving God more than we would ever enjoy any kind of sin, whatever that sin might be. So you pursue God, be pure in heart, undivided loyalty, undivided heart, pursue God and you will experience Him. You will experience Him today. You will experience Him daily in your one-on-one time with Him, your individual worship and your corporate worship. We will experience God. The pure in heart, we'll see God, brothers and sisters, let's live with a purity in our hearts before God. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)