Matthew 5:3-8
Pure in Heart
August 28, 2022
We’re looking at the 6th of 8 beatitudes of Jesus. Remember, these are counter-intuitive, seemingly backwards and contrary thoughts about how to live life in a way which brings us closer to God and honors and glorifies Him.
The beatitudes are in the NT in Matthew 5. Jesus went onto a mountain and said - -
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.
What does it mean to be pure? How do we define pure? As I thought about pure and impure, I really struggled with what to say here. Because I don’t want to gross you out. But I’m going to, just for a moment.
For every 4 oz. can of mushrooms there can be an average of 20 or more maggots.
Oregano can contain 300 or more insect bits and 2 rodent hairs for every 3 ounces.
There can be 450 insect parts and nine rodent hairs in every 16 oz. box of spaghetti.
There's no way to get rid of all the creatures that might hitch a ride along the food processing chain, but the US Food and Drug Administration has set some food defects standards to keep them to a minimum. To show that I’m fair . . .
A candy bar can contain up to 30 or more insect parts and some rodent hair.
Coffee beans are allowed to have an average of 10 milligrams or more of animal poop per pound.
When we think of pure, it’s definitely not in the food, but the FDA has deemed all of this acceptable and honestly, it hasn’t killed us yet.
Well, we’re talking about this statement from Jesus that the pure in heart will see God. So, what does this mean and how do we get there?
To start with --- understand Jesus is talking about being pure in heart. Not pure in effort. Usually, we try to clean up our act by taking actions. We try to cut down on food, exercise, stop drinking, stop cussing, stay sober, read the Bible and pray and try to live a sinless life. These are all good, but they’re outward activities
But Jesus is talking about the pure in HEART. He’s referring to internal purity. Jesus is speaking directly about our hearts. He knows our hearts must be changed, which leads to the external changes. When our heart changes, our lives will change as well. Then our lives will reflect and produce results which are pleasing to God.
The Greek word for pure means “to be cleansed.” What has been cleansed was once dirty, but has now been purified and washed. So, the pure heart would be a heart that’s been emptied of what’s unclean, purged of what no longer belongs, cleansed and made clean.
But when we think about who’s getting ahead in the world - - - on the surface it doesn’t seem to be the pure in heart. It’s those who are devious, or wealthy, or well connected. Who seems to be happy and blessed? Not the pure, not the poor in spirit, or those who mourn, or the merciful or the meek? Not those Jesus is talking about. Which is exactly why the beatitudes seem awkward and backwards.
Take a look at Psalm 73. Asaph starts by revealing his heart - - -
1 Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
If we jump to verses 13 and 14, we continue to see his struggle in his heart - - -
13 Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.
Asaph has attempted to live life with a pure heart. Now he’s questioning, “where’s it gotten me? I look around and others are arrogant and mocking God. They think God is weak, helpless and harmless and they’re prospering. I feared God and look where it got me! In vain I kept my heart pure!!”
This guy was faithful, righteous and good, but where did it get him? His reward was suffering, pain and poverty. If God is good, isn’t He supposed to bless us? Especially if we attempt to be pure in heart!! We often feel that way too!!
Yet, as the psalm moves on, the psalmist sees the fiction behind the old belief in a retributional God, that the good will be rewarded and the wicked will be punished. He was tempted to give up as he said in verse 16 - - -
16 But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,
It was exhausting him to think about what was happening. But then what happened? And this is so cool - - -
17 Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I understood their end.
He “entered the sanctuary of God, and then he understood.” Somehow in the Temple he caught a glimpse of hope. The presence of God can change a person, if the person is willing. He isn’t miraculously healed. He’s still aging. He didn’t get wealthy. But now he affirms with a new certainty, “God is good to the pure in heart.” Listen to his closing words - - -
26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
28 As for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.
For Asaph, God is no longer the great cashier in the sky, who rings up your good deeds, with a big “thank you” and hands you a reward. God is the one whose love never fails, the one who is there, who is not trivialized by our grand schemes.
For Christians, that God has a face, and the contours of that face are compassion, wisdom, tenderness, love, grace and mercy; and it’s the great power, strength and courage that comes when we experience God.
And God is good. But the good that God gives us is no “thing.” It isn’t some arbitrary thing. What God gives to us is the miraculous, but we don’t recognize it because most of the time, we are too full of ourselves
You see, God’s great gift to us, is . . . God’s very own self.
Yet, if we’re to be really honest, it’s still a struggle to get love and purity to reside in our hearts. Jeremiah helps me make sense of it when he wrote - - -
9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? - Jeremiah 17:9
OUCH!!! That verse all by itself helped me better understand my boys. Not that they’re bad, but they had their moments. And it helped me to see me a little better too, because I’m no better. We don’t always understand our hearts, do we? We do things and say things which are amazingly hurtful, we tell stories when we don’t know the story. Jeremiah was correct, the heart is deceitful, but beyond cure?
Solomon added to this in Proverbs 20:9, writing - - -
9 Who can say, “I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin”?
We can’t say that because on our own, we can’t make our heart pure, only God can start that process, because we’re never totally cleansed from sin. We’ll only progress throughout this lifetime, but there’s great hope in the life to come, because we will be in the place where there is no sin.
So, how do we get there? We go back to Solomon. In Proverbs 4:23, he tells us -
23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
Oh, how true that is. You see, all of life flows through our heart. Not only is our heart, our life source, beating over 36 million times in just one year!
Our hearts are more than that. For those of the ancient world, and we forget how true this is, the heart is the center of who you are. It’s the belief and I agree, that all of life flows through your heart, whether you want to admit it or not. So we must guard and protect our hearts.
When we gossip, won’t forgive, say hurtful things ... and more, they’re coming from our hearts, not our brains, because our brain knows better, but in those instances our brain takes instruction from our heart.
And conversely, when we do good things. When we choose to help someone, we serve, we give, we submit ourselves to God, we’re doing these actions from our heart. So, we must guard what flows into our hearts, because what flows in - - - flows out. This leads us to make our life decisions.
For Jesus, as for all people in Bible times, the heart was not a pulsating organ inside your chest to be strengthened by exercise and a good diet; or to be cured by a cardiologist. The heart is your truest self. The heart is part of you that feels, delights, grieves, desires. And it’s the place where we hurt others.
The heart is the part of us where we meet God or avoid meeting God.
Thomas Merton wrote, “purity of heart . . . means the renunciation of all deluded images of ourselves, all exaggerated estimates of our own capacities, in order to obey God’s will as it comes to us in the difficult demands of life in its exacting truth. Purity of heart is then correlative to a new spiritual identity” (Contemplative Prayer, 68).
A new spiritual identity. You are now called a SON OR DAUGHTER OF GOD!
That’s a great new identity.
It’s the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:17 - - -
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
That becomes our new identity in Christ. A changed heart leads to a new life - - - a new way of living, thinking, believing, and feeling.
So, according to Jesus, what’s our reward for being pure in heart? They shall see God. So it must be impurity of heart that blinds us to God. The divided, scattered, busy, stressed person grows anxious: I cannot see God!
And we chase around, hoping to find God, but we don’t. We’re seeking God on our terms, not His. And that’s so much part of the key. We don’t find comfort, but we’re anxious about every moment.
So, what’s required? Perhaps some mourning, grief, sorrow for who we are and who we’ve been. It’s repentance. It’s an admission that we’re sinners in need of God. Without Him, we are totally powerless and helpless. And we hurt others too
So, we seek God, we draw near to God so we can find His grace and mercy. We accept His forgiveness for whatever it is we’ve done. He washes away the sins, the dirt and we’re cleansed - - - purified - - - washed - - - made whiter than snow. Given a new heart - - - a changed heart. We gain a new peace that we never had before. People see it in us. They recognize we’re a new creation.
And because our hearts are changed, we become a bit more pure . . . we now have a clearer picture of who God is in our lives.
Some of it comes in our actions . . . we pray a bit, we read the Bible a bit, we engage in worship, we use God’s power and strength to change us. As we now see God in the daily events of our lives.
As St. Augustine said in the 5th century in his famous book, The City of God . . .
“Now at best, because of our fallen nature, our impurity of heart, if we see God, we see through that “glass darkly”. But it will not always be so: when the body, freed from corruption, offers no hindrance to the soul, the saints will certainly need no bodily eyes to see what is there to be seen. The Lord’s Day . . . which is to last forever . . . There we shall be still and see; we shall see and we shall love; we shall love and we shall praise. Behold, what will be, in the end, without end!”
The pure in heart see, and they see in order to love, and they love to fulfill their eternal vocation of praise. Such is Jesus’ promise for our hearts.
The pure in heart love Jesus, and want nothing but to be near Him — and so they stick close to Jesus and because they do, they also see Him. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
This is what Jesus meant when he said the pure in heart will see God. As we become more pure in heart, we will see the world with new eyes, because we have a new heart. We will understand better. No longer do we see God as some mean ogre sitting on a cloud waiting to zap us when we get out of line. Nor do we see God as some kindly old grandfather willing to overlook all the things that we do that are wrong.
We begin to SEE GOD, to understand God, as God is - one who loves us and wants the absolute best for us and for this world as well.
So we turn again to the world. We see violence all around us, economic mess, wars, sexuality issues, climate change, Covid, school problems, and more. We sigh in despair. And we know God is not happy, either. So we do our best to make a difference as we SEE God, as God gives us guidance.
When we receive Jesus in our hearts and make the commitment to follow Him, He begins a transformation in our hearts. Our love for Him will translate into a hunger to know Him and a thirst to live like Him. This is a pure heart: a heart that desires nothing more than to be with God because that truly is all our life should be about!
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."
