I. Introduction
--
turn in Bibles to Matthew 5:1-12
Matthew 5:1 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up
on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to
teach them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of
righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute
you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and
be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they
persecuted the prophets who were before you.
-- as everyone knows, the state of Texas was hit with an
unprecedented natural disaster this week -- for the first time ever, the entire
state of Texas was under a winter weather warning, as temperatures dropped into
the single digits or even below zero for the majority of the state
-- snow fell as far south as San Antonio and Houston and
Galveston -- in fact, every single county in the state experienced some snow
last week, as well as ice accumulations on roadways and bridges
-- the disaster became even worse as the power grid
failed and millions of people were left in the extreme cold without power or
any way to heat their homes -- over 30 people died from cold exposure, as a
result -- but the disaster is far from over
-- with the power and the heat off, the pipes in many
homes froze and burst -- and as the temperatures have finally risen above
freezing, a lot of people are experiencing significant water damage -- and, to
make things worse, more than 1,100 public water supply systems reported
weather-related disruptions, which means the water that is now flowing to homes
has not been properly decontaminated -- about 15 million people have been
advised to boil their water because it is tainted and contaminated and is unfit
for drinking or showering without purification
II. Pure in Heart
-- but, as hard as it is to find pure water in Texas
today, it is even harder to find someone on planet Earth with a pure heart
-- that’s what makes this sixth Beatitude here in verse 8
so difficult to consider -- “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? -- if you’re like me, when you try to imagine someone who is pure in
heart, you probably start thinking about those heroes of the faith -- those super-Christians
that we all know -- who lived lives of integrity and moral purity and holiness
-- people like Mother Teresa and Billy Graham and the Pope
-- what about the people in Jesus’ day? -- who did they
think of?
-- for the people who were gathered around Jesus when He
gave this sermon on the mount, there is no doubt who came to mind -- when it
came to holiness -- when it came to moral purity and spiritual uprightness --
their first thought would have been 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
-- and the Pharisees believed that to be pure and holy,
you had to keep all three parts of the law perfectly, 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 and
they could be pure and holy in all they did
-- when it came to religion, it seems like 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
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, starting in verse 25 and
let’s read a few verses there
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’ purity
and 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, their hearts were still dirty -- their hearts were still contaminated
-- their hearts were 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, and I would
encourage you to go and read that passage later today -- in Acts 15, 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 -- as the
discussion went on, Peter stood up in the congregation and told everyone of his
experience in preaching to the Gentiles
-- he told them the conversion of the Gentiles is real,
because he had seen that God had accepted them and sent the Holy Spirit to
indwell them after salvation -- and he goes on to say in Acts 15:9, “[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 turn to Jesus -- when we first approach the
throne of grace and stand before the cross poor in spirit and mourning of our
sins, God gives us a new heart and a new life through His justifying grace -- when
we put our faith in Christ Jesus, the Bible tells us God purifies us on the
inside so that we might truly be pure and holy as He is pure and holy -- not
just on the outside like the Pharisees -- but pure and holy from the inside out
because of the change in our life brought about by faith in Jesus
-- because of Jesus, our hearts are katharos -- clean from sin and guilt -- pure and spotless and
without blemish -- not of our own doing -- but simply by God’s grace through
faith
III. Being Holy
-- but, what about the fact that we don’t seem to be able
to 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 -- let’s just say, all of us, go through
life disobeying God every single day and doing things we shouldn’t do -- and,
as a result, our sin contaminates our hearts
-- it’s just like what happens when I add coke to this
clear glass of water -- it contaminates it -- it makes it dirty -- unclean --
impure
-- so, 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 won’t
occasionally fall -- it doesn’t mean that you won’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 -- the direction of your
heart is always towards Him
-- 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 -- firmly in their hearts -- 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 don’t give up -- 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 -- He’s talking about seeing God relationally
-- 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 with the eyes of our heart -- 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 in their
midst and 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 -- actually, he was a Pooka, but that’s a different
discussion
-- regardless, everyone thought Elwood P. Dowd was crazy
-- no one believed that Harvey existed -- and they all thought that Dowd should
be committed to an institution -- in the movie, 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 looks up and actually sees
Harvey standing there before him
-- as Dowd explains, all it takes is faith and belief in
the impossible and great things will happen and you will see what is truly
there
-- 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 be pure in heart today -- may you see God
today and every moment of every day of your life -- may you know Him and follow
Him as He touches your life and changes you into the pure and holy person you
are called to be
-- let us pray
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