PURSUING HAPPINESS: Beholding God’s Face
Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God”
John 1: 1-5; 9-14
1. “The White Pearl Hotel sits on the beautiful Venetian Harbour of Kyrenia on the island of Cyprus. From its balconies and stunning rooftop terrace, you will enjoy some of the finest views in the whole of the Mediterranean. From sunrise to sunset, you will be absorbed by the wonderful panorama, featuring the crystal blue sea, the yachts and fishing boats twinkling in the marina and the Five Finger mountain range behind. Combined with the majesty of the Crusader castle of Kyrenia, the sights will take your breath away.” That’s a quote from the website for the White Pearl Hotel.
• Sights that take your breath away
• We’ve all experienced them in one place or another – Niagra Falls, Yellowstone National Park, Table Mountain in Cape Town, Morton, WA from a few thousand feet up in a hang glider – right Pat? The beautiful baby deer roaming freely through Vivian’s yard.
• We’ve all been lost for words over stunning sunrises and sunsets, the exquisite and intricate beauty of blossoms in our gardens, and the mind boggling miracle of holding in our arms our newborn child or grandchild.
• Beholding these beautiful and precious sights lifts our spirits, purifies our thought life, and floods our innermost selves with a deep sense of joy and well-being. We are blessed.
2. In the verses we read from Psalm 27 at the start of the service, David writes: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that I will seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple”. And then a few verses further on, “My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’ Your face, LORD, I will seek.”
• The chief passion of David’s heart was to behold God’s face – to gaze upon his beauty and his glory. What a passion to have! What singleness of heart and mind and purpose!
• David knew the truth that who and what we spend our time focusing on and gazing upon is a major determining factor in who we become and what flows from our lives.
• David certainly knew the joy and blessedness that comes from beholding the beauty of God.
• Have you been in that same place – where focusing on God’s glory and God’s beauty was your number one passion and desire?
3. But dear old David - at another time in his life - also knew the pain and the heartache and devastation that we bring on ourselves from fixing our gaze elsewhere than the glory of God.
• Late one spring afternoon, when his army was off fighting the Ammonites and instead of being on the battlefield with them, David was lazing on his couch and gazing from the top balcony and his eyes caught sight of the naked and beautiful Bathsheba, taking a bath.
• And instead of immediately getting out of there, he continued to gaze. And the longer he gazed, the stronger became his desire until it overpowered him and he gave orders for her to be sent to his bedroom.
• And the outcome of that act of beholding was Bathsheba’s pregnancy, the attempts to get Uriah drunk and go have a night with his wife, then the arranged death of Uriah to cover up his sin, and the eventual sickness and death of the child born out of that unholy union.
• Psalm 51 is David’s prayer of brokenness, contrition, and repentance, asking God to have mercy on him, purge him, wash him, and create within him a clean heart and that he might once again be restored to the joy of God’s presence.
• If we’ve known the joy of David’s experience in Psalm 27 – we’ve also surely known the heartache and sorrow resulting from our various sinful and lustful passions such as David describes in Psalm 51.
4. How would you describe the overriding passion of your life at this time? Where? On What? On whom are you directing your gaze?
5. We come this morning to the sixth Be-Attitude in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount – His Operation Manual for the Christian Life – how we enter into God’s Kingdom and live a life that pleases and honors Him.
• We enter acknowledging our spiritual bankruptcy, mourning our sinfulness, humbly placing the strength of our lives in God’s hands, hungering and thirsting for His goodness and righteousness, extending to others the same mercy we have sought from God.
• And now we hear Jesus say, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”.
6. So what does it mean to be “pure in heart”? Well, the first thing it most definitely does NOT mean is to “be religious”.
• Now that may come as a shocker to many of you – and that from the pastor of all people!
• My reason for saying that is because it is altogether possible to be very religious without being pure in heart.
• Because religion largely has to do with all the external and outward rituals and visible trappings of the faith – bowing, kneeling, making the sign of the cross, singing hymns and praise songs, reciting prayers, taking Holy Communion, baptism, tithing, giving to the poor and needy, lighting candles, etc. and etc.
• And we can do all of these things and be considered extremely devout by others and yet have hearts that are far away from God.
• That was what the prophet Isaiah had to say about the people of his day – Isaiah 1: 11-16 “The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?" says the LORD. "I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations— I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean.”
• The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were guilty of the very same thing – making outward observance of religious rules and rituals the essentials of the faith – certainly gaining them the applause and admiration of the people for their religiosity – but leading Jesus to say to them, “You honor God with your lips, but your hearts are far from Him”. He said it was not what went into people’s mouths - what they ate or drank - or their eating with unwashed hands that defiled them – but what came out of the heart. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.” (Matthew 15:19).
• In Matthew 23:25 as He said to them: "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 (Gk: KATHAROS = pure, unmixed) the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.”
7. A pure heart is an undivided heart – a heart that is no longer struggling to decide where it will give its loyalty – that is not here with God during church on Sunday’s and then off doing its own thing after the service is over. A pure heart is one that…
• Has chosen to love, honor and serve God without reserve
• Is on fire for God and the purposes of God and flies and other pesky bugs don’t easily settle on anything hot – they wait for it to cool off
• Focuses on those things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and worthy of praise
• Recognizes the need for constant vigilance and watchfulness and that we will never get to the point in this life where we can just coast in neutral
• Seeks to stay in constant communion and communication with the Father – through private and public worship, through prayer and the study of God’s Word and through the fellowship of the church where we watch out for one another, encourage one another, and lift one another up and dust each other off when we fall
• Agrees with God about what He says is good and evil and refuses to argue with Him or water down His word with human definitions
• Allows the Holy Spirit to immediately alert our conscience to any acts of sinfulness and be quick to confess and repent of any and all evil
• Recognizes that the work of purifying our heart is an ongoing requirement. It is not something we can do on our own, and neither is it something God will just automatically do in us without our cooperation. It is a cooperative venture between us and God. Paul describes this process in his letter to the Philippians 2:12-13 “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure”.
8. Jesus promises those who so purify their hearts, that they will see God.
• Back in Exodus 33 Moses asked God to show him His glory and the Lord replied: “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."
• God did however allow His goodness and mercy and steadfast love to pass before Moses while He hid him in the cleft of a rock and covered him with His hand. Even with that covering, Moses hastily bowed his head toward the earth.
9. So, how do we square God’s word to Moses with this promise of Jesus?
• What makes all the difference is the sacrificial death of Jesus on the Cross. At the moment of His death, the veil in the temple that kept the Holy of Holies separated from ordinary people and into which the High Priest could only go once a year on the Day of Atonement with the blood of a sacrificed animal for the sins of the people – that veil was torn in half from top to bottom and we now have access into the very presence of God through the shed blood of God’s Holy and sinless Lamb, our Lord Jesus Christ.
• He is both our Great High Priest and also the sin offering that blots out our sin and guilt once and for all.
• As we allow the blood of Christ to wash and cleanse us and the fire of the Holy Spirit to burn up and consume the junk in our thoughts and speech and behavior – to purify our hearts and minds so our spiritual vision is sharpened and tuned like the reception of a TV – going from snow to HDTV
• His will and His ways become increasingly clear to us and we start seeing increasing evidence of His presence and activity in the lives of others around us.
10. At the end of time Jesus turns and says to those at His right hand, “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me”
• And while we may not have immediately known it was Him, we felt prompted to respond in compassion by His love within us.
11. As we take seriously God’s Word that describes the Church – us – you and me - as Christ’s Body and helps us understand that we truly are members of one another with Him as the head – in spite of all the blemishes and scars and troublesome, aching and arthritic joints we still experience – the aggravation and annoyance we still inflict on one another and have to put up with in one another – we believe that He has promised that there is a day coming when we will be the pure, unblemished and spotless Bride of Christ that will ascend into His glorious presence and shine with all His heavenly splendor.
• John said in his Gospel that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father”.
• That living Word continues to take on human form and dwell among us full of grace and truth and glory wherever we love and accept and forgive one another and yield to Him in purity of heart.
• And so, in closing, as we stand to sing our closing hymn, I urge each one of us to take a fresh look around this congregation – now and again in just a moment as we stand in our benediction circle – and as you gaze into each other’s eyes, start to see the glory of God in a way you never have before.
AMEN
