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The
Beatitudes: The Pure in Heart
Matthew 5:1-12: Seeing
the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples
came to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: 3
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. 4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be
comforted. 5 "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
the earth. 6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. 7 "Blessed are
the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. 8 "Blessed are
the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 9 "Blessed are the
peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 10 "Blessed
are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when others revile
you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my
account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in
heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
The sixth beatitude, or characteristic of Christ and His
people, is being those who are pure in heart.
We live in a very compromising world. As
Christians, we want to live uncompromising lives to our Lord because of all
he has done on our behalf in Christ. We want to be pure in
heart. Being pure in heart means to live with undivided loyalties.
It means to serve and love only
God by His grace and His power that works within us.
As Jesus says: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God." Remember, as Psalm 24:3-5 says: "Who shall
ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4
He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to
what is false and does not swear deceitfully. 5 He will receive
blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his
salvation."
We know that the One who ultimately ascended the hill of
the LORD and stands in God's holy place is Jesus Christ our Savior
from sin, He is the only one who
has perfectly clean hands and a pure heart!
I.
Purity
of heart
A.
An
undivided and loyal love from the heart dedicated to God alone!
Illustration: Our
daily walk with God is a like a walk through a hall of advertisements:
everyone selling to us what we “truly need”; it’s like a
walk in vanity fair, where Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress is being
tempted by everything to keep him happy and healthy rather than seeking
after God; it is like a visit to a country with street salesmen, everyone
trying to sell you something – Our lives can be great distractions
from the one thing needful, as Jesus puts it!
In our world of compromise, we
can have literally “everything we want, when we want it” and
not have the very thing we need the most: an undivided and loyal love from the heart to the Lord
and His Kingdom!
B. Purity of Heart in the OT: Israel was
taught to approach God/High Priest approached the presence of God in the
Holy of Holies only once yearly on the Day of Atonement. Jesus is our High Priest who has shed his
precious blood to make us pure and holy so that we might approach the
Living God and all come into his presence.
C. The
first of the commandments: “Thou shall have not other gods before
me!”
In 1993, 76% of Americans
“consider themselves completely true to the first commandment”.
Perhaps you don’t have
idols as in the Orient or other countries, but what does your heart desire
and want so much that your heart clamors: “Give me this, or else I’ll
die!” What must you have for
life to be meaningful or happy- - money, reputation, position,
respect?”
If you answer with anything
other than God Himself that “other” serves functionally as an idol or god to you.
Listen to the brilliant insight of those
120 godly men who wrote the Westminster Larger Catechism. This answer is in response to the
question: “What are the duties required in the first
commandment?”
“The duties required in
the first commandment are, the knowing and acknowledging of God to be the
only true God, and our God; and to worship and glorify him accordingly, by
thinking, meditating, remembering, highly esteeming, honoring, adoring, choosing,
loving, desiring, fearing of him; believing him; trusting, hoping,
delighting, rejoicing in him; being zealous for him; calling upon him,
giving all praise and thanks, and yielding all obedience and submission to
him with the whole man; being careful in all things to please him, and
sorrowful when in anything he is offended; and walking humbly with
him.”
D. The
“heart” is the seat of all of our affections – we must
guard our hearts.
a. Soren Kierkegaard expressed it this
way: Purity of heart is to will one thing.
b. Jesus
teaches us what this means in Matthew 6 concerning serving two masters:
Matthew 6:24 "No
one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the
other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot
serve God and money. 25 …33 But seek first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
E.
Sin no
longer reigns, but yet remains in the believer!
F. The
Christian is a “struggler with sin”.
G. Yet a
promise to cleanse us from the power and the corruption of sin! (Eph.
5:28).
I.
We
Desire to Be Pure and Clean Like Our God
A. …and
we can be! Ezekiel 36:25ff-Promise of the Spirit of God to transform
our hearts and cause us to love God and His Law.
B. After
Moses had given the People of God in the OT the Law, he went up on Mt. Sinai to be
with God to get the tablets of the Covenant. As he turned his back, the people of God
turned to idols through their High Priest!
24 I will take you from the nations
and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all
your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I
will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new
spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from
your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my
Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to
obey my rules. …33 "Thus says the Lord GOD: On the
day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause
the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt.
Jeremiah 31:31 "Behold, the days
are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant
that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to
bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I
was their husband, declares the LORD. 33 But this is the
covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after
those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will
write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my
people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and
each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from
the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive
their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."
C. A
dying to sin daily because of the Spirit who lives in us!
D. A
reminder of Jesus who ascended the hill of the LORD on our behalf with
clean hands and a pure heart
II.
What
does it mean that they shall see God?
A. Exodus
33-34-
Exodus 33:18 Moses said,
"Please show me your glory." 19 And he said, "I will
make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name
'The LORD.' And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will
show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But," he said,
"you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live." 21
And the LORD said, "Behold, there is a place by me where you
shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will
put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I
have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall
see my back, but my face shall not be seen."
34:1 The
LORD said to Moses, "Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the
first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first
tablets, which you broke. 2 Be ready by the morning, and come up
in the morning to Mount Sinai, and
present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. 3 No
one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite
that mountain." 4 So Moses cut two tablets of stone like
the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount
Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his
hand two tablets of stone. 5 The LORD descended in the cloud and
stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6 The
LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God
merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and
faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the
guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the
children's children, to the third and the fourth generation." 8 And
Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
B. See
Him with Eyes of Faith
C. See
Him as He Sees Us on the Last Day
a. The
“Beatific Vision”: The final vision of God’s glory and
truth given to the blessed of the
Sermon on the Mount!
b. From
Augustine’s Confessions:
“Alas! Alas! Tell me of your compassion, O Lord my God, what you are
to me. Say to my soul, “I am
your salvation”. When I hear,
may I run and lay hold of you. Hide
not your face from me. Let me die,
lest I die, if only I may see your face…”
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