Matthew 5:1-12: Blessed Are the Pure in Heart

[00:00:00] We're continuing this morning in our study of the Beatitudes with the verse blessed are the pure in heart. [00:00:13] Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. [00:00:20] Now, our last sermon on the Beatitudes. [00:00:26] We were in verse 7, Matthew 5:7, which says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive God. And in that verse we made a transition to outward relational elements of the progression that we see in the Beatitudes, the first verses. This progression is that the first verses are mostly about yourself and your relationship to God, but the latter verses are mostly about your relationship to others. [00:00:59] This is similar to the organization of the Ten Commandments, the Children's Catechism. [00:01:07] That's. What are the first four commandments basically about? [00:01:15] Is that the question. Is that how it goes? What are the first four commandments about how to love God? [00:01:23] What are the last six commandments about how to love other people? [00:01:32] We see that same progression in the Beatitudes. And this morning as we study blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. That might not sound very relational on the surface, but I think that by the end you will see how central purity of heart is in your relationships with other people. [00:02:01] We're going to read Matthew 5:1 12. Would you please stand for the reading of God's Word? [00:02:10] When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. [00:02:18] He opened his mouth and began to teach them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [00:02:27] Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. [00:02:33] Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. [00:02:39] Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. [00:02:47] Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. [00:02:52] Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. [00:02:58] Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. [00:03:03] Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [00:03:11] Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. [00:03:19] Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great. [00:03:25] For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. [00:03:42] So these are the Beatitudes. [00:03:47] I've explained briefly already the progression that we see in them. [00:03:55] I also want to reiterate one of the other things that we saw early on, because it's context that matters. As we study any one particular verse Blessed means happy. Fortunate. It's not just some purely spiritual word that has no meaning. [00:04:18] And so each of these verses is actually speaking only about those who are Christians. [00:04:28] I don't mean that there is no benefit to being a peacemaker as a non Christian. I don't mean that there is no blessing that comes with that. There certainly is. [00:04:45] But as Jesus is preaching this sermon, he is causing us to reevaluate what it means for us to be fortunate. [00:05:00] He's forcing us to recalculate our priorities. [00:05:10] He's expecting us to ask the question, what does it really mean to be fortunate? [00:05:16] And ultimately the only people who are truly fortunate in the way that he is speaking are those who have saving faith in Christ Jesus. [00:05:31] Therefore, poor in spirit is speaking of a spiritual reality in our hearts first and foremost. [00:05:40] It comes out in our actions. [00:05:46] But when we begin with that foundational element of being poor in spirit, something that the world would never expect to be, something that we would call blessed or happy to have it, or fortunate if you have it, we're flipping our whole view of the world and priorities upside down. [00:06:12] It is a shocking passage. [00:06:16] If it doesn't shock you, you haven't heard it yet. [00:06:26] Now when we come to verse 8, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. [00:06:31] It might not seem so shocking as some of the other verses, especially if you have become used to Christianese. And blessed and pure in heart are both as empty and devoid of meaning in your mind. They're just spiritual gobbledygook. They go together perfectly blessed, pure in heart. I don't know what either of those mean, but they both sound good. So yeah, I mean, everybody believes that, right? [00:06:59] What does it actually mean to be pure in heart? [00:07:07] It means you are a single person. [00:07:13] Not as in you are unmarried, but you are one. [00:07:22] You are wholly integrated with yourself. [00:07:28] That might sound very unspiritual. [00:07:35] Let me put it another way. [00:07:38] The pure in heart are those who have integrity. [00:07:48] Your beliefs, your desires, your speech, your actions, they are all one. [00:08:01] They're all of the same principle. [00:08:07] You have a pure heart. [00:08:10] You are single minded. [00:08:12] Can be a helpful way to think about it. In fact, it can help to understand what pure in heart means by understanding the opposite. [00:08:22] The opposite is to be double minded, to be hypocritical. [00:08:39] Psalm15 drives home the point as we read it and sang it earlier in this who may abide in the tent of the Lord? [00:08:56] Who may dwell on his holy hill? [00:08:59] He who walks with integrity. [00:09:04] Integrity. This is the start. [00:09:07] The pure hearted. [00:09:14] Verse 2 continues on and works righteousness. [00:09:21] Your actions flow out of your heart. And therefore when your heart is pure, when you have integrity, your actions match your thoughts, your actions match what you claim to believe because it is what you actually believe. And continues on. One more in the list. And says and speaks truth in his heart. [00:09:50] Speaks truth in his heart. [00:09:54] To abide in the tent of the Lord, to dwell on his holy hill, is to see the Lord. So I want you to see that Jesus as he's preaching. This is referring back to Old Testament themes. [00:10:08] Who will see the Lord? [00:10:11] Who will dwell with him? [00:10:16] Those who are pure in heart. [00:10:20] It's not a new idea, but it is shocking just the same for the Jews to hear blessed are the pure in heart. [00:10:31] It's shocking just the same for us. [00:10:34] As long as we're actually listening. [00:10:43] It's tempting for us to make pure hearted into something that is is, I think more concrete, but skips the most important part. [00:10:57] Who are the pure in heart in our day? [00:11:04] Those who do not look at pornography are pure in heart. [00:11:09] Right? [00:11:11] It's true, but it skips over the first and primary meaning and jumps straight into the outcome of being pure in heart. Remember, as I said in one of the previous sermons, being comes before doing. [00:11:29] In these verses, being is primary. [00:11:35] And when you come to pure in heart, you come to the essence of being first. [00:11:43] And the necessity of the actions matching is what it begins to describe. [00:11:54] So what is the reason that we can say being pure hearted means no porn? The reason we can say that is not because pornography is impure as opposed to pure. [00:12:10] The reason is because the pure hearted is not double minded, not seeking after two opposite things. [00:12:27] And this is the theme when Jesus asks elsewhere, can righteousness and sin be in the same heart? [00:12:43] Can fresh water and pure water flow from the same spring? [00:12:48] You have to be one, you have to have integrity or you don't have anything. [00:13:01] Pure hearted starts with the interior man, not the exterior, not what you do. [00:13:09] It is not a reference to things that are pure and things that are impure. This is not about the Old Testament purity and ceremonial laws of if you touch a dead body, you are now impure. [00:13:25] How can you tell that it is not talking about that? [00:13:28] Because it's not. Blessed are those who are ceremonially pure, it is blessed are those who are pure in heart. [00:13:42] Becoming ceremonially unclean did not mean that you had sinned. [00:13:50] It could be, but it did not mean that. [00:13:57] It did not mean that your heart was impure. [00:14:09] Pure hearted. [00:14:14] The pure part is the unified. [00:14:17] The One, the single, not many devoted to one thing. [00:14:30] It is a description of integrity at its core. [00:14:36] If what you want and what you think and what you are concerned about changes depending on who you're talking to. [00:14:53] You are not pure hearted. [00:14:58] Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm not talking about having your priors updated. That's good. [00:15:05] I'm not talking about never being willing to learn and change your mind. [00:15:11] I'm talking about your fears and your anxieties leading you to swing from one concern to another, from one priority to another, back and forth, depending on who you're talking about or who you're talking with, depending on what's going on in your life. [00:15:30] And so I'm talking about a lack of integrity. [00:15:37] When you have integrity, you say the same thing to everybody who talks to you. [00:15:46] Does that make sense? [00:15:51] Your concern is not pleasing them. [00:15:56] Your concern is what is in here. [00:16:03] Coming out and coming out with honesty. [00:16:10] Not hiding this part of your heart and hiding that part of your heart. But simply being pure hearted means single hearted. You don't have this part of your heart and that part of your heart and you can display this part to them and that part to the other person. [00:16:34] If what you want, what you think and what you are concerned about changes depending on who you're talking to. [00:16:43] You have no idea who you are. [00:16:50] You cannot have integrity when you do not know who you are. [00:16:56] Usually we think about hypocrisy as lying about our priorities and our beliefs. [00:17:06] Usually we think about hypocrisy as telling a lie. [00:17:12] On Sunday you pretend to be good and have holy desires by going to church and praying and giving. [00:17:19] And on Monday you admit who you really are and what you really want by living just like the rest of the world. [00:17:29] That certainly is hypocrisy. And of course hypocrisy is one of the primary complaints that the world has about the church, right? [00:17:41] They look and they see the same sins and they don't see a pure heart. [00:17:53] It does make you a hypocrite when you lie. But I'm convinced there is often something far more problematic afflicting us. [00:18:06] It's not lying about our priorities and our beliefs. [00:18:14] The hypocrisy that I'm speaking of this morning is having more than one set of them, more than one set of priorities, more than one set of beliefs. [00:18:33] On Sunday you really want to please God and live according to his commands. [00:18:43] And on Monday you really want something else completely. [00:18:55] You are not pure in heart, you're double minded. [00:19:00] This is the most deadly kind of hypocrisy, because there's no cure simply through repenting of the lie and acknowledging who you really are. You don't know who you are. You don't know what you want, you don't know what you believe. [00:19:19] You believe different things depending on the day, depending on the moment, depending on who you're talking to. [00:19:26] And so you will always be a hypocrite. [00:19:31] You can't help it. [00:19:37] And when you see, doesn't help to see the conflict because you can't simply repent of this or that. [00:19:54] You don't know what you want. [00:20:01] Perhaps you're even actually more single minded than you realize. Actually, perhaps what's driving you is that you care what other people think of you far too much. [00:20:23] So no matter where you go, you're trying to fit in. [00:20:30] No matter who you're with, you're trying to please man. [00:20:37] This is certainly a kind of purity in heart. [00:20:45] Certainly not the purity of heart that Jesus is talking about. [00:20:52] Just like there was a kind of poor in spirit that is not blessed that Jesus was not talking about, there is a kind of purity of heart that he's not speaking about. [00:21:05] And this is just the first example. [00:21:08] If you have purity of heart wholly devoted to the fear of man, to being a man pleaser, you will not see God. [00:21:26] This is fearing man rather than trusting God. [00:21:33] It is trusting man rather than fearing God. [00:21:41] It will get you nothing. [00:21:45] In order to be pure in heart, you have to know what you think. [00:21:55] And that's really hard. [00:21:59] And I don't mean about every single question that comes up in politics or in ethics or. There are many, many complicated questions. [00:22:11] I don't know what I think. [00:22:16] Not to hold myself up as a paragon of pure heartedness, because I'm not. [00:22:20] I simply mean that that's not what Jesus is talking about again. [00:22:26] But to know what you think is to know yourself. [00:22:32] It's to know your own commitments, it's to know your own desires. [00:22:40] And then to live them out is what flows out of that. And this is primarily in relationship with others. So even as I'm talking about living in fear of others, the contrast is this relational blessing. [00:23:02] Blessed are the pure in heart. [00:23:09] Why does pure in heart stay relational? [00:23:18] It's because you have to be willing to own who you are as you live among others. [00:23:29] What your commitments are and what your desires are come out. [00:23:35] And so if you are afraid of what other people think of you, you cannot be pure in heart. But if you are pure in heart, you can own Your desires. Even when you're afraid of what other people will think of you. [00:23:57] You can't give two different people different answers. [00:24:05] Now, at the most practical, living this out level, even you kids can understand that you don't say something about a friend behind their back that you wouldn't say to them to their face, right? [00:24:26] You. You know what I'm talking about. [00:24:30] You know how easy it is, how tempting it is to try to rise in the standing of the person you're talking to by putting down the person who's not present. [00:24:43] By laughing at and mocking those who cannot defend themselves. [00:24:54] But blessed are the pure in heart, where what you say about the other person never changes. [00:25:07] You say it to them, you say it to everybody. [00:25:18] The man who is pure in heart is sincere. [00:25:23] When he speaks, it's coming out of his heart. Out of the overflow of your heart, the mouth speaks. [00:25:30] And so what's coming out can't be lies. When you are pure in heart. And it can't be double minded and conflictual things, it's always going to be the same. This is a man who is, as one of the apostles has described, without guile. [00:25:49] What does without guile mean? What is guile? Do any of you kids know what guile means? [00:25:58] Not getting answers for this one, huh? Usually I get answers. [00:26:02] That's a tough one. Go ahead. Zeal is zealous. To give an answer. [00:26:08] Deception. Nailed it. That's guile. To deceive, to hide the truth, to hide what you think, to give a different picture to different people of what you think, of what you are. [00:26:32] I think it's been long enough since I've given you all this exhortation that I can bring it up again in this context. [00:26:42] When you are out at a restaurant, you know where I'm going. [00:26:50] Are you willing to pray and bless the food in such a way that other people can see and tell that that's what you're doing? [00:27:01] Or are you embarrassing? Do you understand what I'm saying? [00:27:08] If you are embarrassed by that, that demonstrates to yourself a lack of purity in heart. [00:27:21] This is very relational, isn't it? [00:27:25] It's thinking about what strangers think of you, or maybe there's somebody there you know, but generally just people that you don't know, that don't know you, that you'll probably never see again. You're still wor concerned about what other people think. Now if you don't like that example or it doesn't apply to you, God bless you, it applies to me. [00:27:54] What is it in your Life where you lack purity of heart and therefore you are tempted to give different pictures to different groups of people. Nobody's ashamed on Sunday morning after the service to bow their head as I offer up a public prayer. [00:28:15] Because it's all Christians around, right? [00:28:17] This is expected here. It's a church. [00:28:22] So then you go out into the world and you want to live a different way, you want to give a different picture, you want to have differing faces for different groups of people. [00:28:37] This is fearing man rather than trusting God. You see, it is a lack of purity of heart. [00:28:47] It's a lack of guile. [00:28:50] When you give the same face to everybody, you're showing your true heart. [00:28:56] You're pure in heart. And so everybody sees the same thing. [00:29:05] The man who is pure in heart is happy for other men to see his commitments, how he lives his life is guided by one aim, a pure heart. [00:29:22] His desires and his actions are in sync because he has integrity. [00:29:31] That's why I started by saying you are well integrated with yourself. [00:29:41] Everything about who you are is who you are. [00:29:46] How you're living out, what your emotions are, what your desires are, what your fears are. All of them are about who you are. And if you cut off parts of yourself and say, oh no, I'm going to pretend like that's not here. You have not made yourself pure hearted. It's not until you have put that to death that you've become pure hearted. [00:30:10] You cannot pretend to be pure in heart. [00:30:22] So this affects every relationship in your life, especially those who are closest to you. Now, I talked about the strangers and I hope that you see the temptation to fear man among strangers. [00:30:36] But I guarantee you that the temptation to fear man is much, much, much stronger. [00:30:46] Among those that you care about the most, Those that you respect, those that you desire to remain in relationship with, those who are important to you. [00:31:09] Those are the ones who are going to bring the strongest temptation into your life to show them what they want to see rather than a pure heart. [00:31:30] Now, there's a common self help curriculum. [00:31:34] I know I don't speak of any particular curriculum, but the whole category almost, that is trying to get you to be pure in heart. [00:31:47] Remember I said that there are multiple ways that we can be pure in heart. [00:31:55] Some of them don't lead you to seeing God. [00:32:04] I paid for a workout program and then I got a call and boy, was the upsell strong to get the next part of the program. [00:32:25] In fact, it was monthly consultation and the cost was, I don't know, like a third of my salary. [00:32:35] It was Ridiculous. It was not hard to say no. [00:32:43] But I paid attention to what they were saying, the questions they were asking. [00:32:55] Common sales tactics. Of course you can easily see the psychology and take it apart if you spend five minutes on it. [00:33:07] Okay? [00:33:09] If it's easy, what are they doing? [00:33:16] They are appealing to your desires. That's it, right? [00:33:22] What is more important in your life than health? [00:33:28] Is it not worth a great financial sacrifice in order to have health? Why wouldn't you make this commitment? [00:33:40] What will the impact be of being unhealthy in your life? [00:33:46] And on and on and on, right? [00:33:51] This is simply the common self help curriculum that is trying to get you to be pure in heart, to have a single minded devotion to the one thing that you are committed to accomplishing, to getting. [00:34:10] And this is why I say it's practically the entire category. [00:34:14] It doesn't matter what the one thing is. Sometimes it's physical health through exercise and other times it's entirely knowledge based. Right? [00:34:30] To become a better educated human. [00:34:35] Many people have many different desires. All of them have the same exact self help salespeople. [00:34:49] In fact, this is part of why people are helped by self help at times. [00:34:57] Because they are pushing you to decide what the single priority in your life is going to be. Are you going to have a single minded devotion to this or are you going to admit that that you don't and that you will not accomplish your desire? [00:35:22] It forces you to answer the question of what you really want. [00:35:26] But it also right there reveals there is a danger to me this morning pushing you to answer the question, what is it that you really want? [00:35:46] What is it that you are committed to? [00:35:50] Who are you actually? [00:35:58] Because the danger is that you'll say, well that's a good question, but I'm not a Christian. [00:36:10] Answering that question honestly, what is it that you want? [00:36:16] Might result in the answer not being God. [00:36:22] I don't care if I see God. [00:36:25] Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. [00:36:29] So what? [00:36:34] And so I think christians, We shy away from this question because we are afraid. [00:36:47] Afraid of what it will make us do when we answer it. What if I look into the abyss of my heart and I fall away from God? [00:37:02] Don't force me to answer this question, Pastor. [00:37:06] Be satisfied with me being double minded where one of my minds is. I want to please God. [00:37:18] But no, If you have no faith, if you look into the abyss of your heart and you find there's no faith there, there's only darkness and doubt and deception. [00:37:41] There's only wicked. [00:37:51] If you have no faith. [00:37:55] Answering that question honestly is the first step required to coming to faith. [00:38:05] Living with pretend faith, living with a lack of salvation. But assuming you have it is no benefit to you. [00:38:16] It is not blessed are the double minded. [00:38:21] It is only blessed are the pure in heart. [00:38:29] What can the double minded expect to receive from the Lord? James makes it clear. [00:38:34] Nothing. [00:38:36] Nothing. [00:38:38] So ask the question, what is it that you are committed to? [00:38:44] Don't be scared. [00:38:48] What is it you want? [00:38:54] What will you see if you look into your heart? [00:38:57] I'm pushing you back to the beginning of the Beatitudes. [00:39:03] Each one of the Beatitudes adds onto a strong base of the the previous ones. [00:39:12] Or it knocks you back to the beginning and you have to start over again. [00:39:22] What are you? [00:39:24] Are you poor in spirit? [00:39:29] If you're poor in spirit, it doesn't shock you when you run into blessed are the pure in heart. And you realize I'm not nearly as pure in heart as I need to be. [00:39:45] The poor in spirit know their great desperate poverty, spiritually, their constant need of the saving grace of Jesus Christ. [00:39:59] You know it deep in your heart already. And so for me then to point out the ways that you're a hypocrite, even, even without trying to be, doesn't knock you out of the faith. [00:40:18] It knocks you straight into relying once again on God. [00:40:30] Ask the question, are you pure in heart? [00:40:37] No, of course not. [00:40:42] Much sin remains in all of us. [00:40:47] But what is it that you really want? [00:40:56] The man who is pure in heart will see God because the man who is pure in heart is a Christian. [00:41:05] It's not enough to be single minded in your devotion to exercise and self improvement. [00:41:11] And certainly this is not about getting rich, nor even about passing on a legacy. [00:41:23] Let not that double minded man think that he will receive anything from the Lord. [00:41:30] But if you're pure in heart, you shall see God. [00:41:34] And that is the comfort that is offered to you in the gospel. [00:41:44] You shall see God and instead of resulting the way that you think it should. [00:41:54] Woe is me, for I have seen God. [00:41:59] I am undone. [00:42:01] No, instead it will be just like the saints in the Old Testament who thought the same thing. Woe is me, for I have seen God. And what? [00:42:12] Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God and be saved, be safe.