The Pure In Heart
Please stand with me as we go over our current memory Scripture:
Matthew 5:6-8
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
And our memory Scripture “refresher” verse is:
Matthew 6:31-33
“Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Today we will be reading from Matthew 5:1-12
Pure …
Unmixed with any other matter
Containing nothing that does not properly belong
Free from moral fault or guilt
How pure do you want your drinking water to be?
What if you were thinking about buying a house and you found out that the well was only ten feet from the septic leach field?
You probably wouldn’t be running to the faucet to get a drink of water. You would probably want to get the water tested first. Or you might want to get the septic system moved away from the well.
Why would you do that? Because, you want the water to be pure.
Impure water could cause all sorts of health problems.
What about if you were going into the hospital for surgery and when they wheeled you into the room you could see that the bed you are about to be placed into is dirty; they haven’t changed the sheets from the last patient. There is blood on the sheets and food that has dropped from the food tray and other substances that you can’t or don’t want to identify.
Naturally, you would refuse to be placed into that bed. Who knows what disease you might pick up from those impure sheets!
Today we will be looking at the sixth Beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
With that in mind let’s go ahead and read Matthew 5:1-12
(Prayer for help)
OK. So, let’s briefly review the previous Beatitudes that have brought us to the verse about mercy.
First of all, the word blessed does not mean “happy”. In order for a person to be “blessed” there must be Someone who is bestowing a blessing and someone who is being blessed. In return the one who is being blessed blesses or praises the One who is bestowing the blessing in a perpetual cycle of relationship.
Another thing we need to remember is that we are looking at the Beatitudes as if they are a path from the person who becomes aware that they are unsaved (poor in spirit) and journeying to maturity in Christ.
So, we need to keep these things in mind as we go through the Beatitudes.
In Matthew 5:3 it says,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.”
When it says “poor in spirit” it is not talking about someone who is always depressed; someone who always finds the worst in any situation. Instead, it is talking about a person who realizes their true spiritual condition of helplessness outside of Christ.
In Matthew 5:4 it says,
“Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.”
Here the mourner is mourning for the state of their soul. They may be born again and yet still constantly struggling with sin and struggling with the attraction that the world had on them before they were saved. They are mourning because they know they are not living a life that is pleasing in the sight of the Lord.
In Matthew 5:5 it says,
“Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”
They are meek because they know that every single step of spiritual growth they take is fully dependent on the Holy Spirit for help.
And, this dependence leads us to Matthew 5:6 where the “poor in spirit”, “mournful” and “meek” Christian can start to find help when it says …
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”
As a born again person grows in their relationship with the Lord they realize that the righteousness the Lord desires from them is something that is missing from their life. When that realization takes place the serious disciple of Christ will hunger and thirst for righteousness with the same fervor that a person dying of thirst runs to water.
This brings us to one of the elements of righteousness which is the characteristic of mercy.
Matthew 5:7 says,
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.”
The truly merciful person will not desire mercy in order to be shown mercy but as a person hungers and thirsts after righteousness they will desire to be merciful because their Lord Jesus Christ IS merciful and their driving passion is to be like Him.
And the Beatitude for today is found in Matthew 5:8 where it says,
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
Now, we have already talked about the meaning of blessed, and, living in a blessed relationship with our Lord is an absolute treasure! Amen?
But, what is this pure in heart? Can we have a pure heart?
I know that on several (or many) occasions we have looked at holiness and the different viewpoints that are held regarding this matter.
For instance, I was recently watching a video from a large seminary and the professor was talking about Noah. In this video the professor stated that Noah was not chosen because of his righteousness but only because God decided to choose him.
The professor also maintained that Noah was just as wicked as every other person on the face of the earth.
This got me to thinking because that is not how I remembered it but I know that my memory is NOT perfect to say the least.
So … I looked it up and here’s what I found in Genesis 6:5-9 …
“(Yahweh) the LORD (God of Israel) saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and His heart was deeply troubled. So the LORD said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created - and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground - for I regret that I have made them.’
“But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
“This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.”
Does that sound like someone whose, “every inclination of the thoughts of (his) heart was only evil all the time”? Was Noah really just as wicked as everyone else on earth at that time?
Now, we know full well that Noah was not a perfect man. But, neither was he a man in full rebellion against God! We know this because the Holy Scriptures say that “he walked faithfully with God.”
So, when the Bible says that, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.” I tend to believe it!
Is this an example of a person with a pure heart? Yes, I believe it is!
Who else can we look at? What about Job?
Job 1:1-2 and 4-5 says,
“In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters.
“His sons used to hold feasts in their homes on their birthdays, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.
“When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, ‘Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.’
“This was Job’s regular custom.”
Is Job another example of a person with a pure heart? When the Bible states that Job “was blameless and upright” and that “he feared God and shunned evil.” I believe it. Don’t you?
Now, we need to stress that pure does not mean perfect.
So, how could a person possibly have a pure heart and yet imperfect?
We have often defined sin as the willful disobedience of the known law of God by a morally responsible person.
For instance James 4:17 says,
“Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”
In this verse it says that the morally responsible person knows the good thing he should do and the action he chooses is to refuse to do it.
By the same token, if a person knows a command of God that tells him NOT to do something and he does it anyway THAT is sin.
Both of these instances are intentional sin.
And, there is unintentional sin as well. These could actually be called mistakes but it is better to define them as unintentional sin as they too require a response once you are aware of them.
At one time my father worked as a driver for a cattle feed company making deliveries to farms. One day he was pulled over for speeding. The officer said that he was going 70 mph but my father insisted that he was only going 55 mph. As it turned out, feed company had put tires on the truck that were much too large and so the speed indicated on the speedometer and the actual speed of the truck did not match.
If this were a moral issue it would be one of unintentional sin.
Even the person with the purest heart can commit unintentional sin.
Sometimes I sin against Karenlee when I have to repeat myself several times because of her hearing loss. It is not her fault, it is my fault.
Sometimes I speak to softly or I am facing away from her and she can’t understand what I am saying. Then I am apt to get a “tone” to my voice that she does not deserve. It is not intentional, it just pops out and as soon as I hear it, I realize that is a sin in need of confession, repentance and asking forgiveness.
Now, why are we looking at the definitions of intentional and unintentional sins again? It is because the response to those sins will let you know if you have a pure heart or not.
As Christians who are hungering and thirsting for God and growing into Christlike maturity, intentional sin should be few and far between. And when it does happen, the conviction of the Holy Spirit will be swift and will have a deep impact on the soul of a person who strives to have a pure heart.
That person will be quick to confess the sin, repent and ask the offended person, and the Lord, for forgiveness. The pure in heart will never want the impurity of sin to adulterate the relationship between him and the Lord.
The same holds true for the unintentional sin as well once the person becomes aware of it.
2 Corinthians 13:5 says,
“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you - unless, of course, you fail the test?”
This is a good test to see if you are in the faith or not.
Imagine a person who one day discovered that he was spiritually dead, that he was poor in spirit. And imagine that he started to be mournful about his lost spiritual condition but knew that he was powerless to do anything about it and that his only hope was to call on Jesus for salvation.
Afterward he started hungering and thirsting for righteousness so that he would have a right standing with God and out of that hunger and thirst he learned that he should be a merciful person because God is merciful.
And, as he continued to hunger and thirst for righteousness he learned that he should have a pure heart; that his intentions should always be to please the Lord in everything he did.
And through all of this he developed a relationship with God Who would bless him and in return he would bless the name of the Lord and it became a wonderful relationship. Imagine that!
Now, imagine that one day he sins. Let’s say it was an intentional sin. Let’s say that he came across a situation where he should be merciful to a person but he refused to do so.
Soon afterward he realized that he no longer had a pure heart and he felt the absence of the Lord’s blessing and this burdened him so much that he went back to the person, showed him mercy, confessed his sin to the man and to God and asked for forgiveness because he could not stand the loss of intimacy with the Lord.
What do you thing about that? Does that describe you?
Or could you just go on without even another thought.
What does 2 Corinthians 13:5 say?
“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you - unless, of course, you fail the test?”
Would you pass the test?
(Talk about salvation - the separation caused by sin - the rescue plan of Jesus - confession and repentance - the relationship with Jesus)
Do you have that relationship? Are you pursuing God so that you can have a pure heart?
Many people will ask, “Do I REALLY NEED to have a pure heart?”
In Revelation 21:22-27 it is describing the New Jerusalem and it says,
“I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.
“On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
Now, don’t miss what it says in verse 27 …
“Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful …”
When Matthew 5:8 says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” It means what it says …
There are millions of people with impure, wicked hearts, who will sit in churches today thinking that they are headed for an eternity with Jesus but are actually headed to hell.
It doesn’t matter what self-righteous things you have done intending to earn your way into heaven. They are worthless.
The Bible says if you have a pure heart, THEN you will see God.
And the inverse is true as well, if you have an impure heart, if your heart is NOT PURE, then you will NOT see God.
Check your heart. You may find out that you have never even gotten to the place where you hunger and thirst for righteousness let alone having a pure heart.
If you have never know the relationship with God that can be called “blessed” you are missing out on the greatest relationship a person can ever have. Don’t let the evil one lure you with false “blessings” that are the temporal things of this world.
Final thoughts and invitation if the Spirit leads.
