SERMON: THE MEASURE OF A CHRISTIAN: BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART

THE MEASURE OF A CHRISTIAN: BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART
(The Beatitude Series)
3 July 2011

I. Introduction
-- turn in Bibles to Matthew 5:8

8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.


-- as part of my ongoing midlife crisis, I have come up with the idea that I’m going to hike the Appalachian Trail, all 2,181 miles of it -- when I announced this exciting quest to Kim, she did just like any good wife -- she just shook her head and rolled her eyes and didn’t say a word -- she probably knows that it is just a passing fancy and I’ll end up dropping this idea in a few weeks anyway
-- but it is something that I have been thinking about for some time now -- I had a friend who completed a thru-hike of the trail a couple of years ago -- a thru-hike is when you hike the entire 2,000 miles all at one time -- it took him 5 months to do it, but what an amazing accomplishment -- there’s only a few hundred people who manage to do this every year
-- I’m not going to attempt that, but I am going to try to hike it in sections -- just a few miles here and there over the years until I have successfully covered the entire distance from Georgia all the way to Katahdin, Maine -- I have actually already hiked the entire Appalachian Trail in Georgia in this way -- I did it when I was a kid -- but for this quest, I’m going to start over so I can keep a journal and really appreciate the effort more than I did then
-- I’ve started my quest by trying to get back into shape and by reading books about hiking the trail -- and already I’ve learned something that I didn’t know -- when I was a kid hiking the trail, if we needed water in our canteen, we would just find a clear mountain stream and we put some water in our pots and bring it to a boil and it would be good to drink
-- but it’s not like that anymore -- all of these mountain streams have been heavily contaminated -- years ago, we would worry about the protozoan giardia, but now you have to be concerned about all kinds of other bacteria and viruses in addition to chemicals and fertilizers and other toxins -- and I found out that boiling water just doesn’t make it safe any longer
-- I was reading an article in Zen Backpacking on water purification and it said that even if you find the clearest, most beautiful stream on the top of a mountain and you’re sure that the water in this stream has to be pure and clean, don’t drink it unless you first purify it by running it through a filter or treating it with chemical purification tablets
-- the message that I have picked up reading these books is that pure water just doesn’t exist on this planet any longer -- it’s all been tainted and contaminated and is generally unfit for drinking without purification

II. Pure in Heart
-- but, as hard as it is to find pure water nowadays, it is even harder to find a pure heart
-- that’s what makes this sixth Beatitude so hard to take -- “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God”
-- if you go back to the original Greek and look at the phrase, “For they will see God,” you’ll realize that the real meaning of this Beatitude as Jesus gave it to us is “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they are the only ones who will ever see God”
-- out of all the Beatitudes that we have looked at, this is one of the most sobering and convicting -- it tells us that if we are not pure of heart, then we won’t see God -- and who among us can say that they are pure in heart?
-- just walking through this world -- just living in our world today -- contaminates our hearts and makes them dirty -- so who can ever live up to the goal that Christ presents in this Beatitude? -- who can ever hope to see God?
-- well, let’s talk about that for a few moments

-- I guess the best place to start is to find out what Jesus means by that phrase “pure in heart”
-- the Greek word for “pure” that Jesus uses here is “katharos” -- it’s the word that we get our English word “catharsis” from -- which we use to describe a cleansing of one's mind or emotions
-- the word katharos actually has two meanings
-- first, it means exactly what you’d think a word translated as pure in the Bible would mean -- it means free from corrupt desire or wrongdoing -- free from sin and guilt -- moral purity
-- this is the first thing that probably came to mind when we read that phrase, “pure in heart” -- a clean heart -- uncontaminated -- spotless -- without blemish

-- who comes to mind when you think of a person like this? -- Mother Teresa? -- Billy Graham? -- the Pope? -- when you think of someone who is pure in heart, don’t you really think of those super-Christians who live lives of integrity and moral purity and holiness
-- for the people who were gathered around Jesus that day as He gave this sermon on the mount, there was no doubt who they thought of -- when it came to holiness -- when it came to moral purity and spiritual uprightness -- they thought of the Pharisees
-- when it came to religion -- when it came to following God’s laws and being obedient to what God said -- the Pharisees were the cream of the crop -- they were very careful about what they said and what they did and who they hung out with
-- God had originally given Moses the law for the Israelites to follow -- the law had three parts -- first, you had the moral law -- the 10 Commandments -- then you had the civil law, which dealt with civil life of the Jews -- and finally, you had the ceremonial law -- the law that governed the religious life of Israel
-- and the Pharisees believed that to be pure and holy, you had to keep all three parts of the law, especially the 10 Commandments -- so, to be sure that they didn’t miss anything, they added their own special interpretations to the law -- this amounted to over 600 new rules that they applied to make sure that they did everything that God wanted them to do
-- when it came to religion, these guys had their act together -- and I’m sure, when the people heard Jesus say that only the pure in heart were going to see God, they immediately thought of the Pharisees
-- look down at verse 20 -- that’s exactly what Jesus says right there, isn’t it

Matthew 5:20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

-- if anyone was pure in heart, it was the Pharisees, right? -- well, maybe not -- flip over to Matthew 23 real quick -- verse 25

Matthew 23:25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

-- so here we see the truth about the Pharisees’ holiness -- they were only good on the outside -- they only put forth an appearance of being pure -- to everyone around them, they looked good and holy and religious, but Jesus said all that they had done was wash the outside of the cup -- all they had done was paint the outside of the tomb -- while on the inside, the heart was still dirty -- the heart was still contaminated -- the heart was not pure
-- if the Pharisees -- the epitome of righteousness in Jesus’ day -- could not meet the criteria of being “pure in heart” -- then who had any hope of ever seeing God?

-- we actually find the answer in Acts 15 -- as the church leaders met in Jerusalem to discuss what should be done about the Gentiles who were responding to the good news of Jesus and His salvation, Peter stood up in the congregation and told of his experience in preaching to the Gentiles
-- he tells the church that he believes the conversion of the Gentiles is real, because God has accepted them and sent the Holy Spirit to indwell them after salvation -- and he goes on to say in verse 9, “[God] made no distinction between us and them, for He purified their hearts by faith.”
-- there’s our answer -- it goes along with what God told Ezekiel in Ezekiel 36:26 -- God said, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
-- when we came to Christ in faith -- when we approached the throne of grace and stood before the cross poor in spirit and mourning of our sins -- God’s grace gave us a new heart and a new life -- because of our faith in Christ, God purified us from the inside so that we might truly be pure -- not just on the outside like the Pharisees -- but pure from the inside out
-- because of Jesus, our hearts are katharos -- clean from sin and guilt -- pure and spotless and without blemish

III. Being Holy
-- but, what about the fact that we don’t live pure and holy lives? -- even though the Bible tells us that we can choose to live lives free of sin, we know that most of us don’t -- most of us go through life disobeying God and doing wrong things from time to time and we know that this has to contaminate our hearts -- what do we do about that?
-- well, that brings us to the second meaning of the word katharos -- in this definition, katharos describes a heart which is pure in motive -- a heart that exhibits single mindedness, undivided devotion and spiritual integrity -- the idea here is a heart that is set apart or separated from the world
-- to be set apart or separated from the world is the biblical definition of holiness -- it describes a person or a thing that has been taken out of the world and dedicated for service or relationship with God
-- it is this ongoing relationship with God that keeps us katharos -- that keeps us pure in heart and mind and soul
-- with this understanding of katharos, we think of a person who is striving for perfection -- who is trying to follow God -- to do His will -- to be obedient to His commands -- someone who is single-mindedly doing everything they can to live for Jesus and to be morally pure in their lives
-- to be pure in this way doesn’t mean that you don’t occasionally fall -- it doesn’t mean that you don’t occasionally miss the mark -- but what it does mean is that when you do fall, you pick yourself back up, and look back towards God, and start walking again

-- several years ago, I read a story about mountain climbers -- a psychology student was studying them to find out what made the difference between those who were successful in their quests versus those who failed and quit half-way up the mountain
-- and what she found was that when the sun was shining and the climbers could look up the hill and see the top of the mountain before them, they were filled with vigor and strength and could keep going, no matter how hard the obstacles before them
-- but, when it was overcast and cloudy and when a fog settled over the mountain and the climbers couldn’t see the top, they didn’t make progress and many of them turned back and quit
-- the difference between those who made it and those who didn’t was that the ones who finally succeeded were the ones who kept that image of the top in their hearts and in their minds -- even when the clouds covered the mountain peak -- even when it was overcast and the rain fell -- they had their goal firmly in their mind’s eyes -- they knew where they were going and nothing would dissuade them
-- that’s what Jesus means here by katharos of heart -- people who have before them the image of God -- they know Who they have believed -- they know Who they have trusted -- and when the clouds come and they can’t see the top and they find themselves falling and failing and giving into sin -- they get back up and confess and repent of their sins and they start moving again
-- these are the people that Jesus calls “pure in heart” -- pure in heart because they have been given a new heart through faith -- and pure in heart because they keep on keeping on this path that leads to Jesus and to Heaven
-- these, and only these, are the ones who will see God -- because without faith, you cannot be saved -- without faith, your heart cannot be purified -- without faith, you can’t keep going and becoming more like Jesus everyday

IV. Seeing God
-- now, before we close, I wanted to touch on the phrase, “for they will see God” just real briefly
-- what does Jesus mean when He says that the pure in heart will see God? -- what does it mean to see God?

-- probably not many of us remember the name Yuri Gagarin -- but he was the first person to travel into space -- it was back before our own space program began to really develop -- the space race was going on and the Russians were beating us at every turn -- first, there was Sputnik and then, in 1961, Yuri Gagarin went into space and circled the earth
-- when he landed, he made much of the fact that while he was in space, he looked outside the capsule window and didn’t see God anywhere
-- Dr. W.A Criswell, a well-known pastor and speaker and the two-time President of the Southern Baptist Convention, responded to Gagarin’s declaration by saying, “If he would have stepped out of his space suit for just one second, he would have seen God quick enough”

-- the Bible tells us that all of us are going to see God in the end -- that all of us are going to appear before the judgment seat of Christ -- so, why does Jesus say that only those who are pure in heart are going to see God?
-- obviously, He’s talking about something different than just seeing God at the judgment seat or seeing God in heaven -- in fact, He’s talking about seeing God now
-- the Greek word that we translate as “see” doesn’t just mean to see physically -- it also means to perceive that which can be seen -- it means to comprehend -- to gain awareness or understanding of something that others can’t see or perceive

-- an easy way to think of this is the radio -- right now in this room we are being bombarded with radio waves -- in Valdosta, there are over 20 different radio stations -- and right now, every single one of them is blasting their signal and their message to us right here in this room
-- however, we’re not aware of it -- we don’t perceive it because we have no way of picking up and translating the radio waves into something that we can understand -- even though there are over 20 different signals coming through here, we don’t see them
-- but, if I were to get a radio and turn it on and set it to the right station, we would hear the message that is being broadcast -- our ears would perceive that which others outside cannot

-- that’s the way it is with seeing God -- purity of heart cleanses the eyes of the soul so that God is "visible" -- purity of heart makes it possible for us to see God here and now
-- not see Him in a physical form, of course -- but to see His Spirit -- to see His presence -- to be aware of God in us and through us and around us
-- those who are pure in heart have the ability to see God’s fingerprints on all of His creation -- and they can see Him working even when others don’t
-- when you are pure in heart -- when you have that katharos -- that single-minded pursuit of God that makes you holy and keeps you running after Him -- then you will see Him in every moment of every day
-- that is what Jesus means when He says that the pure in heart are the only ones who will see God -- it’s not that God isn’t there for the others -- but only the pure in heart are able to perceive Him and see Him

V. Closing
-- some of you will remember the movie, “Harvey,” that starred Jimmy Stewart -- in that movie, Jimmy Stewart’s character, Elwood P. Dowd, had a friend named Harvey -- an invisible giant white rabbit that no one could see but him
-- everyone thought he was crazy -- no one believed that Harvey existed -- and they all thought that Dowd should be committed to an institution -- Dowd’s sister calls a local institution, and they come out and take Dowd to their facility to have him committed because he is seeing things that no one else can see
-- as the movie moves into its final scenes, Dowd explains to the psychiatrist how he came to first meet Harvey and what an impact Harvey has had on his life and those around him -- as Dowd explains, the eyes of the head psychiatrist are opened, and he sees Harvey standing there before him
-- as Dowd explains, all it takes is faith and belief in the impossible and great things will happen

-- many people in our world today think Christians are absolutely nuts -- they think that we gather together on a Sunday to worship an imaginary friend -- they think we are just as loony as Elwood P. Dowd
-- but, the reason they think that is because their eyes have not been opened and their hearts have not been purified and they can’t perceive the God that we see and that we know and love
-- Jesus tells us in this Beatitude, “Blessed are those who are pure in heart for they will see God”
-- may you see God today and every moment of everyday of your life
-- let us pray