Intro: “Earth is crammed with heaven, and every bush aflame with God, but only those who see take off their shoes.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How can anyone look at our world and believe this all happened by chance? With just a glance at the animal kingdom and I see overwhelming evidence of design. Take the polar bear for instance. A polar bear that is tranquilized trapped, and released 300 miles away can usually find its way home. Even across drift ice that changes constantly and holds no landmarks and few odors. For years it puzzled researchers that polar bears never showed up on the aerial infrared photographs used in animal censuses. Yet both species showed up very dark on ultraviolet photographs, even though white objects normally reflect, rather than absorb, ultraviolet light rays. In 1978 a U.S. Army researcher discovered the reason. Polar bear hairs are not white at all, but transparent. Under a scanning electron microscope they appear as hollow tubes, without pigment. They act like tiny fiber-optic tubes, trapping the warming ultraviolet rays and funneling them to the bear’s body. At the same time the fur provides such efficient insulation that the bears outer temperature stays virtually the same as the surrounding ice which explains why bears do not show up on infrared photos.
Transition: To see God is not necessarily seeing God in heaven, but it’s seeing God here and now. The pure in heart will see God in everything. Not just in nature, but also in their circumstances, good and bad, in their family, church, school, job and the list could go on forever.
Let us look to God’s Word to learn of our hearts condition.
Jer 17:9
9The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
We cannot even understand our own heart; it takes the power of God to reveal the truth of our heart condition.
Jer 17:10
10"I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve."
Sin, regardless of how large or small can get into our heart and slowly eat away at our spiritual life. All the while our outside life may seam healthy, but our inner spiritual life is rotting away.
Illustration: SLOW DEGRESSION - After a violent storm one night, a large tree, which over the years had become a stately giant, was found lying across the pathway in a park. Nothing but a splintered stump was left. Closer examination showed that is was rotten at the core because thousands of tiny insects had eaten away at its heart. The weakness of that tree was not brought on by the sudden storm; it began the very moment the first insect nested within its bark. With the Holy Spirit’s help, let’s be very careful to guard our purity. Our Daily Bread
The question of mankind has always been the same – what do I have to do for my heart to be right with God? It’s human nature to feel that we must do some type of work or deed to earn God’s pleasure. One day the crowds came to Jesus and asked Him point blank, without beating around the bush, what they HAD to do to please God.
28Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" (John 6:28)
In response Jesus made it clear that it wasn’t “works” that God required but it’s faith, and the faith we have in reality is the “work of God”.
29Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6:29)
Salvation begins and ends with God. It’s a gift from God that we simply receive by faith. The faith we have is not something we mustered up inside ourselves. Our faith is also a gift from God, but it’s our decision to use it by applying our trust in Jesus Christ.
The sixth beatitude, like every part of God’s Word, is in the right place. It is part of the beautiful and marvelous sequence of truths that are here laid out according to the mind of God. It is the climax of the Beatitudes, the central truth to which the previous five lead and from which the following two flow.
The HEART throughout Scripture, as well as in many languages and cultures throughout the world, is used metaphorically to represent the inner person, the seat of motives and attitudes, and the center of personality. But in Scripture it represents much more than emotion, feelings. It also includes the thinking process and particularly the will. In Proverbs we are told, “As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). Jesus asked a group of scribes, “Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?” (Matt. 2:8; 7:21). The heart is the control center of mind and will as well as emotion.
Matt 5:27-28 "You have heard that it was said, `Do not commit adultery.’ 28But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Looking at a woman lustfully does not cause a ma to commit adultery in his thoughts. He already has committed adultery in his heat. It is not lustful looking that causes the sin in the heart, but the sin in the heart that causes lustful looking. The lustful looking is but the expression of a heart that is already immoral and adulterous. The heart is the soil where the seeds of sin are imbedded and begin to grow.
Jesus is not speaking of unexpected and unavoidable exposure to sexual temptation. When a man happens to see a woman provocatively dressed, Satan will surely try to tempt that man with lustful thoughts. But there is no sin if the temptation is resisted and the gaze is turned elsewhere. It is continuing to look in order to satisfy lustful desires that Jesus condemns, because it evidences a vile, immoral heart.
David was not at fault for seeing Bathseba bathing. He could not have helped noticing her, because she was in plain view as he walked on the palace roof. His sin was in dwelling on the sight and in willingly succumbing to the temptation. He could have looked away and put the experience out of his mind. The fact that he had her brought to his chambers and committed adultery with her expressed the immoral desire that already existed in his heart.
“Sow a thought and reap an act. Sow an act and reap a habit. Sow a habit and reap a character. Sow a character and reap a destiny.”
Obviously getting rid of harmful influences will not change a corrupt heart into a pure heart. Outward acts cannot produce inner benefits. But just as the outward act of adultery reflects a heart that is already adulterous, the outward act of forsaking whatever is harmful reflects a heart that hungers and thirsts for righteousness. That outward act is effective protection, because it comes from a heart that seeks to do God’s will instead of its own.
Matt 15:16-20 "Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man `unclean.’ 19For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20These are what make a man `unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him `unclean.’"
The PURE IN HEART is not referring to sincerity of heart. A motive can be sincere, yet lead to worthless and sinful things. The pagan priest who opposed Elijah demonstrated great sincerity when they lacerated their bodies in order to induce Baal to send fire down to consume their sacrifices (1 Kings 18:28).
Even genuinely good deeds that do not come from a genuinely good heart are of no spiritual value. Thomas Watson said, “Morality can drown a man as fast as vice,” and, “A vessel may sink with gold or with dung.” Though we may be extremely religious and constantly engaged in doing good things, we cannot please God unless our hearts are right with Him.
Luke 18:9-14 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: `God, I thank you that I am not like other men-robbers, evildoers, adulterers-or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, `God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Man’s tendency is to set a standard of holiness based on the failures of others. We are inclined to judge ourselves b the worst instead of the best. The Pharisee who prayed in the Temple, thanking God that he was not like other men, considered himself to be righteous simply because he was not a swindler, an adulterer, or a tax-gatherer (Luke 18:11). We are all tempted to feel better about ourselves when we see someone doing a terrible thing that we have never done. The “good” person looks don on the one who seems to be less good than himself, and that person looks down on the one worse than he is. Carried to its extreme, that spiral of judgment would go down and down until it reached the most rotten person on earth – and that last person, the worst on earth, would be the standard by which the rest of the world judged itself!
Basically there are but two kinds of religion – the religion of human achievement and the religion of divine accomplishment. Within the religion of human accomplishment there are two basic approaches: head religion, which trusts in creeds and religious knowledge, and hand religion, which trusts in good deeds. The only true religion, however, is heart religion, which is based on God’s implanted purity. By faith in what God has done through His Son, Jesus Christ, “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7).
A pure heart is not a perfect heart it is a forgiven heart. It’s a heart that has been cleansed by the purifying blood of the Jesus Christ. It is not a religious heart because religion is what man does for God. We tend to be proud of the works of our hands; therefore we get proud when we get religious. A pure heart is one that is in a relationship with God. One that repents of sin and seeks inward holiness.
Purity of heart cleanses the eyes of the soul so that God becomes visible.
