The Jesus Manifesto – A Passion for Purity
Matthew 5:8; Psalm 24
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
8-26-18
Your Tree Exploded
When we decided to move to Pontiac nearly twenty years ago, Maxine came up with her mother to look for houses. She called and told me that she had found a house with a Willow tree in the backyard. I was sold! I think Willow trees are one of the most beautiful trees God ever made.
We bought that house and made the long trek from Mississippi to the frozen tundra of Illinois. When we got to the new house, I couldn’t wait to go out in the backyard and sit under my majestic Willow tree. Except it wasn’t majestic, it was a sad tree with one willow branch hanging off the jagged top. It was dead tree. Maxine had sold me swampland in Montana.
Throughout the years, the tree was hit by lightening twice and that one branch fell off. It didn’t even look like a willow anymore.
One day, my neighbor sent me a text and said that I needed to get my tree out of the alley. The sad, ex-willow tree was behind my shed not in the alley. Except when I looked out the window the tree was everywhere. It looked like it had exploded. Upon closer inspection, it had actually imploded.
It looked like a tree but it was basically hollow. It was obvious from the remains of the tree that insects had eaten it from the inside out. That’s how they work. And that’s how God works – from the inside out.
Is it possible that we have concentrated on the outside of people (behavior modification) and we have really missed the point of Jesus’ words, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God?”
Review from Last Week
So far, we have studied the first five Beatitudes found in the fifth chapter of Matthew. The first three show us the condition of a Christ Follower’s heart - spiritually bankrupt and empty of pride, and of self. But when we are that kind of empty and hunger and thirst for His righteousness, He promises to fill us with the character of Christ – mercy, purity, and peace.
In fact, the first three correspond to these three virtues:
Once you understand that you are “poor in spirit,” and that you bring nothing to your salvation except the sin that nailed Jesus to the cross, then you show mercy to fellow sinners.
As you mourn of those sins, then you begin to understand the kind of purity that Jesus requires.
That produces a spirit of humility, authenticity, and grace that leads to a posture of heart that leans toward peacemaking.
The sixth beatitude may be the hardest to understand.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matt 5:8)
We know what mercy looks like and many of us have seen peacemaking in action. But what does being “pure in heart” look like and what does it mean that they will “see God?”
Let’s dive in by defining our terms. But before we do, let’s pray.
Pure as the Driven Snow
When I first moved to North Carolina, the students at the school I worked at took this city boy hiking. The destination was a spring on the side of a mountain. I had in my mind a picture of a gorgeous stream like this. [Show picture] But, after two hours of hiking in 90-degree weather, this is what I saw. [Show picture] Needless to say, I was disappointed.
That was until I drink the water. It was the coldest and most refreshing water I’ve ever drank in my life! Why? It was just water. There were no additives. It was simply 100% pure water.
We use this word all the time. We say that Steph Curry is a “pure three point shooter.” Willie Wonka invited us into a world of “pure imagination.” Shakespeare coined the term, “pure as the driven snow.” We try to help teenagers understand the blessings of remaining sexually pure until marriage and remember the time when baseball was pure.
The word that Matthew records Jesus using has multiple meanings. It can mean a river whose course is running clear and open. The Greek word is where we get the word “catharsis.” It’s the cleansing of the mind and emotions.
It can refer to metals refined by fire, soiled clothes that have been washed clean, and grain that has been sifted to remove impurities.
This word carries the idea of being “unmixed.” Bucky the Wonder Dog is a “pure-bred” which means that he is 100% cocker spaniel. Most dogs are a mix of several different breeds.
My father enjoys what he calls, “pure country music,” whereas I like a mix of country and rock.
We have segregated plates because Maxine doesn’t want her food mixing, or even touching!
The idea of having “double allegiances” is conveyed by this word.
James 4:8 gives us a picture of a “double minded man”:
Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (James 4:8)
The word picture is a man standing with one foot in one canoe and the other foot in another canoe. Soon the man must make a decision or end up getting wet.
The main meaning that it seems like Jesus used this term was “having a single focus.” We often describe athletes as having a laser focus.
Arnold Palmer was leading a tournament going into the 16th hole. He said that he was in a zone and was focused on finishing strong. Out of the gallery, a man shouted to get Arnold’s attention. It was an old friend that he hadn’t seen in a while. Arnold dropped his club and jogged over to say hello. As he walked back to the green he said that he knew we would lose the tournament because his concentration had been broken. The last two holes were a disaster.
The Heart of the Matter
So we have defined the term pure so let’s move on to the word “heart.” Again, we use this word in this culture as well. We describe someone who is generous as having a “big heart.” When we are in emotional pain, we say that our “heart hurts.” We try to get down to the “heart of the matter.” And we don’t want anyone hurting our “achy breaky heart.”
In the Bible, the word “heart” means much more than the organ pumping blood in your chest.
Max Lucado describes the biblical idea of the heart as “the totality of the inner man…the seat of character…a freeway clover where emotions converge.”
Your heart is who you are in the secrecy of your thoughts and feelings, which only God knows.
Solomon warned his son:
“Keep [or guard] your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)
Jesus pointed the teacher of the law back to the heart of the Old Testament:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matt 22:37)
The Hill of the Lord
So let’s put these two terms together. What does Jesus mean when He uses the term “pure in heart?”
Turn with me to Psalm 24 to discover the answer.
“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.” (Psalm 24:3-4)
David is going up to Jerusalem for a feast and as he gets out his journal and wonders how in the world He could ever approach a Holy and Righteous God.
What kind of posture of heart would make us acceptable to enter into God’s presence? David says it takes a “pure heart” – sincere, genuine, no guile, always loving what is true, always speaking what is true.
This describes a heart that is moral clean and free from the corruption of sin.
Someone with a pure heart has one passion, one focus, and one desire – God Himself.
Well that’s not that hard, right? Who’s ready to sign up?
Before you all rush the stage, I’ve got some really bad news.
There’s a problem though with our hearts.
Let’s look at Jeremiah 17:9 together:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jer 17:9)
John Ortberg writes, “We have fallen and we can’t get up. The consequences are horrific.”
Jeremiah describes our hearts as sick and there is no medicine than can cure it. Our hearts cannot be trusted because they will lie and mislead us.
Billy Graham said, “We are suffering from one disease. Our basic problem is not race, poverty, or war. Simply put, it’s a heart problem.”
This is actually really bad news. But stayed tuned folks, there’s even more bad news.
Perfection
What is God’s standard? What does He require of us to “see Him?”
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)
Let that sink in. God’s standard is perfection, or holiness. And we can’t hop high enough for God’s holiness.
David asked:
“Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin”? (Psalm 20:9)
And the writer of Hebrews gets more to the point:
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)
Dove soap sells itself as 99.44% pure. But that’s actually not pure, is it?
That’s why Jesus got so frustrated with the Pharisees. They thought that tried to be perfect on the outside, they could be pure enough to see God:
“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. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
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. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” (Matt 23:25-28)
The Pharisees were teaching behavior modification on the outside. Jesus turned that upside down and inside out – literally. We need to be changed from the inside out. We need a heart transplant!
Heart Transplant
Obviously, we cannot perform a heart transplant on ourselves. But Ezekiel prophesied that God Himself would perform the operation:
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 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. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27)
God is not interested in reforming our manners but in changing our hearts from the inside out.
The average cost for a heart transplant is 1.4 million dollars. But God gave something far more costly than that to give us new hearts – His Son, Jesus. How so?
Let’s look at three different types of purity that Jesus purchased for us on the cross.
New Robes
At the moment of salvation, when you place your faith and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, the Holy Spirit invades you and transforms your heart.
This is called positional purity. The big theological word for this is “justification.” You can remember it by “just as if I never sinned.”
Paul wrote these amazing words to the Christians in Corinth:
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21)
In a remarkable exchange, Jesus traded His righteousness for our sinfulness. So, once you are a Christian, God doesn’t see your sin. He sees His Son. We are covered by His righteousness.
[Trade dirty sheet for clean one]
But remember, it’s not just the outside that He is interested in. Just a few verses before, Paul describes the caterpillar becoming a butterfly:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor 5:17)
We call this the “new birth: or being “born again.”
A. W. Pink describes it this way:
“The birth is very, very much more than simply shedding a few tears due to a temporary remorse over sin…the new birth is no mere turning over a new leaf but is the inception and reception of a new life. It is no mere reformation but a complete transformation. In short, the new birth is a miracle, the result of the supernatural operation of God. It is radical, revolutionary, and lasting.” “
Luke says there is no difference between Gentiles and Jews:
“He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.” (Acts 15:9)
We are cleansed from the inside out. We are made new – new heart, new desires, and a new position before God – accepted and pure.
It’s a Process
The second type of purity we need to understand is process/practical purity.
Once the Holy Spirit has invaded us, given us new hearts and secured our salvation, He starts to work that out practically.
It’s been said that God loves you just the way you are, but loves you too much to leave you there.
He will begin the work of changing us. It is a process in which we participate:
“Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.” (2 Cor 7:1)
The theological term for this process is “sanctification.” This is a life long process in which God changes us from the inside out to make us look more and more like Jesus.
This process affects our decisions, our desires, and our dreams. God Spirit directs this process but we play an active part as well.
The ermine is a ferret-like creature that has beautiful snow-white fur. They are extremely fastidious and despise getting dirty. When hunters want to catch one, they find its den and pack it with mud. When the ermine gets there and realizes that he will get dirty, he turns and faces the hounds. He would rather die than get its coat dirty.
Paul wrote to the Roman church not to “be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” (Romans 12:1)
I want to invite Angel up here to eat a brownie that I made.
I couldn’t find any chocolate in the refrigerator but I did find some in the bottom of the rabbit cage. Or at least I thought they were chocolate chips.
What’s the matter? I just put a handful in the brownies.
How often do we do this with things of the world? A little sin won’t hurt. A little lie doesn’t do that much damage. I know that movie has nudity and 200 cuss words, but it’s funny.
Model Kylie Bisutti beat out 10,000 hopefuls to win the Victoria Secret Model Search. She was nineteen years old at the time and recently married. It had been her lifelong dream to be a Victoria Secret model but as she started reading her Bible she became more and more uncomfortable about what she was doing. She told a local news station, “I’m a Christian, and reading the Bible more, I became convicted about it.”
She finally decided to leave Victoria Secret because, “my body should be for my husband and it’s a scared thing…I really didn’t want to be that kind of role model for younger girls because I had a lot of younger Christian girls that were looking up to me…God graciously gave me this marriage and this life and I desire to live a Godly, faithful life…”
When she was accused of taking things a little too far she replied, “I want to go over the top because I don’t think enough people go over the top about how serious this all is. I just want people to see something different about me because I have that faith and I think I think it’s so important for everyone to have.” In a tweet, she summed her decision up this way, “I quit being a Victoria Secret model to be a Proverbs 31 wife.”
Ultimate Purity
What’s the promise of this beatitude?
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
Hold on. How can we “see God” if He’s a Spirit and “no one can look on Him and live?” (Ex 33:20)
We see Him through nature (Rom 1), through Scripture, and through the Church.
But the future promise is amazing. The theologians call this “glorification.”
John Piper explains the idea of seeing God:
* We will be admitted to His presence. People rarely saw kings because they were holed up in their castles. And if you were to go see the king or queen, they would decide if you could enter by holding up a scepter. To come into the presence of royalty could mean death. But God will welcome us into His Presence.
* We will be awestruck by His Glory. We can see God in nature, in the Scriptures, in others. But this is only partial. This is the “now” aspect of this promise.
“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (I Cor 13:12)
But the future aspect is that we will see God in all His glory.
When Bart Millard’s dad died, he wrote these words:
Surrounded by your glory / what will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you Jesus / or in awe of You be still?
Will I stand in Your presence / or to me knees will I fall?
Will I sing hallelujah? Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine / I can only imagine
* We will be comforted by His grace. This is the promise of ultimate purity. What theologians call, “glorification.”
Jesus’ best earthly friend, John, wrote:
“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears,[a] we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (I John 3:2)
After youth group one night, a student came to me and said that she didn’t want to go to heaven. When I asked her the reasons, she said, “It sounds boring. Sitting on clouds, strumming harps, singing songs all day. That’s just not my thing.”
First I had to explain to her that when we die we don’t become angels. Then I asked her, “Which is more fun? Diarrhea or throwing up? She just stared at me. I continued, “Feeling embarrassed or left out?” How about that anger you have toward your dad? Or the shame you feel about that thing you did last year? Or that lie you told the teacher?
What if I told you that heaven was a place where you would never experience any of that ever again? Would you like to live forever in a place where you would never worry about lust or greed, grief or anger? No sin. None. Ever. You never feel the need to hide ever. And you would get to meet Jesus face to face?
She said, “Sign me up!”
I love this verse:
“For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” (I Chronicles 16:9)
The great theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote a book called, “Distinguishing Marks of a True Work of the Spirit of God.” In it, he lists five signs that you are truly a born again Christian.
A Christian has:
1. A love for Jesus that is palpable and contagious.
2. A hatred for sin. Our eyes are open to see the dreadfulness of our condition. There are no more excuses to be made.
3. A Spirit-given hunger and thirst for God’s Word and a desire to obey it.
4. A heightened love for the truth and the things of God.
5. A love for fellow Christians and a desire to serve them.
