Pure In Heart
The Beautiful Attitudes of Jesus
CCCAG October 8th, 2017
Scripture-Matt 5:8
I want to begin our talk today with this thought-
We live in a society that has become solely focused on image.
Remember the advertising slogan for Canon cameras? The slogan was “image is everything.” We live in a culture that embraces that idea. We go to great lengths to project a certain image to those around us.
For example the word “makeover” has become a standard term in our vocabulary. Cosmetic surgery has become big business with both the very young and very old taking advantage of the ability to shape their look in all kinds of unique and even some cases grotesque fashion.
Social media
I heard about a product last week that took the idea of image in a direction I never expected.
Imagine you’re a guy who lives in city, but you want to project an image of an outdoors kind of guy. The type of guy that goes hunting, rides ATV’s, or takes his pickup truck out on the weekends on the backroads for some mudding.
I have the product for you- The product is called Spray On Mud. It is a can of pressurized mud which can be sprayed on your Truck or SUV to give the appearance that you’ve been off road. According to the company's website, spray-on mud can help give your friends, family and neighbors the impression you've just come back from a day's shooting, fishing or visiting friends who live on a farm.
You know, manly stuff where you don’t have to admit that you actually were driving around in town all day or visiting the mall with your wife and kids.
We will do strange things to make the outsides of our lives project a certain image even though the reality is something much different.
One of the images that many people flee from today is the idea and image of purity. The idea of purity in our culture is mocked, laughed at, and it’s ridiculed as showing that anyone that tries to live a pure life is out of touch, a nerd, or a wimp for not living life to its fullest.
I haven’t seen this movie, but I know that there is one titled, “40-Year Old Virgin”. The title is supposed to be funny in of itself because it speaks of a man in his 40’s that has never been with a woman. After all, anyone who is a virgin at 40 is to be at least pitied and not a true man with a lot of notches in his headboard.
Not surprisingly, the bible has a different viewpoint- purity is the condition we need to see God. The ability to see and fellowship with God is the whole point of human existence.
That’s why all of the beatitudes have been leading to this one- the idea of being pure in heart. If it was a musical number or a symphony, this 6th beautiful attitude that Jesus wants us to have would be the crescendo because of it’s goal- to see God.
Mat 5:3-8 “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 satisfied.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Prayer
Big idea- Every story has some type of conflict that needs to be resolved. If you were to summarize the bible’s chief conflict that has existed since Adam and Eve into a one word description, you would boil it down to the one word-
Purity
Consider with me-
The loss of purity is what made Adam and Eve make coverings for themselves.
The loss of purity is the chief aim of every sin the devil has ever devised
The loss of purity is what Jesus went to the cross to restore in us so we can be born again.
But this word has suffered some violence in our world, and even those of us who should know better probably have a tarnished view of what it means to be pure in God’s eyes, so let’s define it as Jesus meant it.
I. What is purity
The word Purity in Greek carries with it significant meaning that helps us understand the breath of what Jesus is saying here.
The Greek word Jesus uses for pure in this case is katharos. It’s the root word of the English word cathartic. In medicine, a cathartic medication is one that purges and cleans. In psychology, it means to have purged the negative emotions and obtained a clearness or peace about what was troubling you.
Let me illustrate this with something everyone has probably experienced.
How many people here have a home coffee maker?
After you have used a home coffee maker daily for about 6 months, it seems to take longer and longer to brew a pot of coffee. That is because lime and other minerals in our tap water react to being heated to near boiling temperatures and adhere themselves to the inner plumbing of the coffee maker. That clogs it up and slows it down. Over time, the coffee it produces becomes more bitter and strong and even metallic tasting if it’s left unchecked.
The purity of that coffee, what flows out of the coffee maker is affected by what is accumulating on the inside.
So every few months, you need to do a descaling of your coffee maker. You can buy a product to run through it, or just use simple vinegar, let it sit, and then run through a few flushes and your coffee maker is brand new.
You and I are like that coffee maker.
In our case, what clogs our system and makes us taste bad to those around us is through what enters our minds
Every single day, information passes through our eyes and ears and is processed by our brains. Most information is processed and discarded.
For example, when we are driving we notice the cars around us, the children playing by the side of the road, or at night the beady flashes of light that indicate a possible deer on the side of the road.
Now if I asked you how many cars did you see on your drive here this morning, could you answer that question? How about the make and model of just 4 of them? Most people won’t be able to answer that question- it was information we needed to perform the task of driving here that was immediately discarded.
Now consider the information that gets put into our heads by living in this constantly visually stimulating world
Billboards, advertising on TV or computer/phone. Supermarket checkout gossip magazines
We think it doesn’t affect us, but it does (work gossip Brad/Angelina)
How about information that we purposefully look at-
newspapers, TV, Radio, work related information.
All of that is like the tap water that deposits junk into our coffee makers, but in this case it effects the purity of our hearts and our minds, and left unchecked will produce within us a bitter spirit.
That’s why the definition of purity is important to us this morning.
The biblical definition of purity has to do with having a catharsis, or purging ourselves of all of that junk so that we can see God.
1 Cor 13 says we see as through a mirror darkly. We see an imperfect vision of God and that image of God is darkened by the impure things in our lives.
That’s why Jesus is calling us to purity, and asking us to purge that which is not pure from our lives.
Because once we see God with clear vision, God’s manifest presence can flow unimpeded through our lives.
Over the last 20 years the American church has been struggling with this question-
“Why isn’t God raising the dead through us?” Why does the church have so little influence? Why can’t God even fix what is broken in people’s lives.
Because we have lost the drive to be pure before HIM.
Where did that desire for purity go?
It got sacrificed on the altar of the convenient and the comfortable. We traded in holiness for church growth. We exchanged discipleship for programs. We allowed children’s sports to compete on Sunday mornings, showing our kids that church doesn’t really matter.
I have to be honest with you- I had tears in my eyes writing that last statement…because I know it to be true in my own life, and I suspect it is true in most of our lives.
We ALL need a revival of purity in our lives.
To do that, we will have to be willing to be uncomfortable, inconvenienced, and stretched to new limits with Jesus.
Because-
Those who chose to be pure in God’s eyes will or have gone through a cleansing or a catharsis at some point in their lives.
To be clear- positionally, we are completely clean upon giving our lives and hearts to Jesus in becoming his disciple. The blood of Jesus pays for our sins and gives us a good scrubbing so that when God looks at us, all HE sees is Jesus and HIS purity.
Practically (down to where we live day by day), this cleansing is called progressive sanctification. In English, it means the desire to allow the process of being made holy or pure.
When we surrender to Jesus and become His disciple, the Holy Spirit takes up residence, rolls up His sleeves and starts scrubbing to change us from the inside out. This cathartic cleansing is done so that we are made into the likeness of Jesus, and then can show HIM to the world.
Like the Christmas Carol says-
Adam's likeness now efface, Stamp Thine image in its place
And it starts with a heart that desires and is willing to be made pure.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they WILL see God
That is why the condition of our heart is key to having purity before God.
II. Our heart direction affects our purity
Some of you have noticed that the shed and some of the exterior of the church has been painted and repaired over the last few weeks.
Conrad and Keith have been working hard to make the outside of our building looks good. To do that, they needed the correct materials.
For example, if they had used untreated wood to repair some of the shed- it would have rotted out quickly and would have to be replaced again in a few years.
Or, if they had not prepared the wood they painted, or used interior paint versus exterior, it would not have lasted long against the extremes in temperature, moisture, and wind that we experience here in the Coulee Region.
The same principles apply to how we guard and to guide our heart. We are going to focus on that for the next few minutes as it is the crux of living a pure life before God.
Show of hands-
How many people have heard the following words right before someone makes a huge mistake and ruins their life?
“I need to follow my heart” or “My heart is telling me (Blank)”
Or to take the same idea and apply it to our immediate world-
How many appeals from the talking heads either on radio, TV, or in politics deal with emotional impact of a subject versus logical or objective truth of the matter?
None- it’s all emotional appeal. You don’t hear much objective truth in the news anymore- it’s all emotion and entertainment no matter which network, newspaper, magazine, or website you get it from.
A week ago Saturday, as a country we experienced the worse mass shooting in modern history. It’s horrible and my heart aches for what we have become as a society. 59 people shot and killed while attending a country music concert and hundreds wounded.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle are screaming for gun control as a solution to the problem. One late night host even said as he was sobbing on the air that if we don’t believe in gun control, then we are okay with the mass killings of people.
As I watched a video of his alligator tears, which I have no doubt are sincere to a point, I wondered if he cries over the 3k deaths caused by abortion per day. We lose as many people per day to selfishness and irresponsibility in this country as we did in the Sept 11th attacks- we went to war over that, but the secular progressives are silent about abortion.
They would say they are following what their hearts tell them is true.
? Let me give you God’s view of the human heart.
Jeremiah says that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick (Jer 17:9)
Biblically speaking, The heart is the seat of your emotions, your will, and your desires. It is by nature wicked because of the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden.
That’s why the undercurrent, or the implied message of what Jesus is telling us here by saying blessed are the pure in heart is-
“You cannot follow your heart. You must lead your heart.”
Prov 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
That is why Purity in heart is only found in a person that gives the reigns of that heart to the Holy Spirit to guide it.
What are some practical steps to get there?
III. (state this) Our desire to see God determines the direction of our hearts
Let’s ask a man who the bible says was a man after God’s own heart about what it takes to enter into God’s presence and favor.
David writes in
Ps 24
Psa 24:3-6 Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. (That Person) will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah (pause and meditate on this)
4 things listed here in this Psalm that helps us lead our heart
1. Clean Hands
Let me illustrate-
We just went through a semiannual training in the hospital about how and when to wash our hands.
Why is that important? Because we don’t want to spread illness.
Most people have heard that bacterial infections are a huge problem in the health care setting. But as far as infectious diseases are concerned, what is even more scary are virus’. A bacteria enters your body and tries to find an spot to reproduce itself. It can only do that by dividing itself.
A virus enters your cell and reprograms it, turning that cell into a virus manufacturing plant, until it can’t hold the viral particles anymore and blows up, spreading thousands more into your body to repeat the process.
That’s why we are very attentive to how clean our hands are in a practical setting like health care
Why does the bible focus on this idea of clean hands? For the same reason- clean and pure hands will not spread sin. Sin is like that viral particle. It enters into us and starts changing us from the inside out until it blows us up to spread it’s disease to others.
This is why the idea of “secret sin” is a lie.
Sin always spreads.
Sin always affects other people.
Sin always will lead to death if not dealt with.
The sin our lives is like a terrorist cell- You don’t reason with it, you don’t negotiate with it, and you don’t pay it off. You terminate it with extreme prejudice.
This is the heart cry that should be a part of all of our daily prayer-
Give us clean hands again o God!
2. Pure Heart
WE have spent a lot of time here but it bears repeating- a clean heart is one that has no trace of self attached to it. In other words, you have truly been born again, meaning you have died to your old ways and old life, and are now living for Jesus, and Jesus alone.
Col 3:5 TLB
So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don't be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.
Give us a pure heart
3. Not lifted up his soul to what is false
This idea of lifting up refers to what we worship. Worship is simply ascribing worth to something, or placing value on something. For the Christian, there should only be one thing of value in your life, and that is Jesus. When we yield to the Holy Spirit, HE will continue to make that a reality as we follow the way of the cross.
4. Does not lie
The idea of having no lies is both verbal and behavioral. Obviously, lying is never ok.
When you are married, that gets tricky when you wife asks you a question like, “Does this make me look fat?”
There is no good answer men. I can’t help you with that. That’s why you need a prayer life.
In all seriousness, our words and how we live our lives are the proof to ourselves, the world, and to God the question of “who do you serve?”
Those are a few of the practical ways from David of how we can lead our heart into a pursuit of purity before God.
We will finish our talk with-
IV. The reward of purity-
The reward is simple- you will (emphatic tense of Greek) see God.
That should be all we need, but as people who haven’t quite made it to the pinnacle of faith let me give you two practical rewards you will see in life.
1. You will see God in knowing who you are in HIM-
If found a great quote from Mark Twain concerning this topic
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” —Mark Twain.
That is a powerful statement because most people spend their entire lives chasing after this false dream of fulfillment and happiness. They might have been a Christian, but they kept grasping at the things of this world, only to find out upon death that it was all found in the pursuit of Jesus and His Righteousness.
Don’t be that person that discovers the meaning of life when it’s too late to change.
2. You will see God and HIS power flow again in your life, and in your church.
A few minutes ago, we asked why we don’t see the miracles, why the church has lost its influence, and why it seems like we are living defeated in our Christianity.
Because we lost the desire for purity.
The bible and the AG talk a lot about holiness.
Holiness is purity in practice, and the bible says that without holiness, no one will see the LORD.
But Blessed are the pure in heart, for they WILL see God.
Ushers/musicians/communion
Attitude of prayer
Purity restored through the broken body of Jesus
Hearts restored through the blood of Jesus
