We're in the middle of a series on the Beatitudes.
I'm looking really at what Jesus means by happiness.
! His definition is pretty different from the worlds around us.
! And tonight we come to number six in the Beatitudes.
We're really looking at the Beatitudes as a grid to view the Christian life.
And so tonight it is, blessed are they and only they, blessed are the pure in heart.
For they shall see God.
There's three boys talking together and arguing about their fathers.
First boy said, my dad is a teacher.
And so he makes me clever for nothing.
Second boy said, my dad is a doctor.
And so he makes me healthy for nothing.
Third boy said, my dad's a minister.
He makes me good for nothing.
Terrible joke. You're very kind to laugh.
Third boy got it right, didn't he?
We've seen that in Romans.
Those dark passages in Romans.
There's none righteous.
No, not one.
No one understands.
No one seeks for God.
All have turned aside.
Together they become worthless.
No one does good, not even for one.
Not even one.
That's God's view.
Jesus said, didn't he?
Out of the heart, out of your heart and out of my heart.
Out of the heart of man comes all the things that spoil our lives and ruin our relationships.
Evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander, blasphemy.
Where do those things come from?
Jesus says those things which we find so difficult, they don't come from our background or our upbringing.
They don't come from our environment, but from our hearts.
And so we know that a person's background or a person's environment or their circumstances,
it might act as a magnet to draw out those things.
But if they weren't in our hearts already, they wouldn't come out.
And of course, Jesus is the great example of that, isn't he?
He's the proof of that.
He came from a pretty bad background.
He came from a pretty tough environment.
Our people used to say, can anything good come out of Nazareth?
It wasn't a salubrious place to live.
Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
And so out of Nazareth comes the sinless, spotless son of God.
And so it's a Christian cliche, isn't it?
But the heart of your problem and my problem is the problem of our hearts.
The heart of our problem is the problem of our hearts.
And you and I, unlike Jesus, do not have a heart for God.
You and I naturally have hearts that are divided and defiled.
And that is why we don't know God and we don't see him.
And Jesus says, can you see it?
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they are the ones who see God.
They and they alone will see God, the pure in heart.
And so that's what I want to kind of think around tonight and kind of view the Christian life through.
Only two points.
First of all, this.
A pure heart is a clean heart.
Let me illustrate what I mean.
If you go to Exodus 15, you'll see there's a little incident there in the history of God's people.
And it's an illustration, I think, of the state of your heart and my heart by nature.
So let me read to you Acts 15, verse 23.
They came to Marah and they couldn't drink the water because the waters were bitter.
It was bitter.
That's why it was called Marah.
And the people grumbled against Moses saying, what should we drink?
He cried to the Lord and the Lord showed him a log, a tree.
And Moses threw it into the water and the water became sweet.
It's a really strange incident.
I'm not completely sure what the significance of the incident is in the context of Exodus.
But I think it helps us as an illustration of what our hearts are like.
By nature, they are like Marah.
They are bitter.
They're like a stagnant pond.
That's the way our hearts are naturally.
Romans teaches us that, doesn't it?
Bitter, poisonous, polluted.
But in Exodus, there is a tree, isn't there?
There is a log that is thrown into the water and it is made sweet.
There's a certain tree that can sweeten the waters of Marah.
The great news of the Bible is that there is a certain tree that can purify your heart.
And my heart.
It's the tree upon which Jesus died.
It's the tree on which Jesus bore away the sins of the world.
It's the cross.
Of course, a pure heart is not a perfect heart.
Don't think of that.
You will never get a perfect heart, will you, until you get to heaven?
A pure heart is not a perfect heart.
But a pure heart is one that has the cross at the center of it.
A pure heart, to quote the hymn writer, is one that always feels the blood so freely shared for me.
It's a heart that's looking to Jesus for cleansing from sin and defilement.
Do you remember how the apostle John puts it in chapter 1, verse 7?
You know this verse.
The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
The death of Jesus upon the cross.
The blood being shed by the Lord Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for sins.
That is what cleanses our heart.
And so John goes on and says,
If you will confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
Notice that.
He's faithful and just.
We would automatically put, wouldn't we, he's loving and merciful.
That's what we naturally put.
He's loving and merciful to forgive our sins.
But that isn't what John puts there.
He says God is faithful and just.
Because of the cross, God cannot do anything other than forgive those who come to him, confessing their sins.
He's faithful and he's just.
And so tonight, if you will come and confess your sin to God, he will cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
He's faithful and just to what his son has done.
And so he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And so let me ask you, is there a tree in your heart?
Do you know what it is to confess your sin?
To trust in a savior who has been slain for you?
It's a young lad who's brought up in a Christian home.
He'd known the truths of Christianity ever since he could remember.
He understood the gospel, but he had real difficulty in making it his own.
He'd been brought up since his early day, earliest days.
He believed every bit of it.
But he couldn't believe that it was true for him.
Maybe that's where some of you are tonight.
You've been brought up in this church.
You've been baptized.
You know the gospel.
You can recite it.
You can even maybe explain it to someone else.
But you don't know, is it for me?
Has it got anything much to do with me?
Well, that's to say it this young man is in.
And this is what he did about it.
One day he wrote down on a piece of paper all the sins that he was conscious of.
He wrote them all down.
Every sin that he was aware of.
He wrote it all down on a piece of paper.
And as he wrote those sins down on a piece of paper, he confessed them to God.
And he confessed them all to the Lord.
And then he took out a box of matches.
Never play with matches.
But he took out a box of matches.
And he set fire to the paper.
And as the paper burned in front of him, he said, Christ died for my sins.
And as the breeze blew the ashes into the air, he added, and he's carried my sins far away.
You see, that lad had understood the significance of the tree.
He'd understood the significance of Calvary.
He'd understood why Jesus had died upon the cross.
He could say, Jesus was slain for me at Calvary.
Pardoned is all my sin.
At Calvary.
Cleansed is my heart within at Calvary.
You see, a pure heart is a clean heart.
What can clean your heart?
What can cleanse me of my sin?
And so if I was to say to you, what can wash away my sin?
You would say to me, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
The second thing I want to say to you is that purity of heart is not only a matter of cleanliness, but a matter of commitment.
A matter of commitment.
A pure heart is an undivided heart.
Let's change the picture for a moment.
Instead of thinking of that stagnant pool in the waters of Mara.
Instead of thinking like that, it's defiled.
Let's think of a lump of metal.
A lump of metal.
So what makes metal impure?
What makes metal impure?
Well, it's when other things are mixed into it.
And that's what our hearts are like.
Our hearts are not only defiled.
They're not only like those bitter waters.
Our hearts are divided.
And so Psalm 86 has a great prayer in it, doesn't it?
Doesn't it?
It says this.
Give me an undivided heart to fear your name.
It's a great prayer for us this week as a church family.
Give me an undivided heart to fear your name.
And so I think as we read this verse,
blessed are the pure in heart,
one of the problems that I have is my heart is divided.
And our hearts have divided loyalties.
A pure heart is not a sinless heart.
But it is a heart that is united,
that is undivided upon God.
James, in his letter, in James 4, verse 8,
we often quote this verse.
He says, draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Do you notice that?
What does it mean to have a pure heart?
James says, purify your hearts.
What does he mean?
In what way am I to purify my heart?
What is an impure heart?
It is to be, double-minded is,
to be two-faced when it comes to God.
Purify your hearts, you double-minded,
says James.
Stop being two-faced with God.
It is as simple as that.
Stop being a person that faces both ways.
You know what happens when a person faces both ways.
He trips over himself.
And so James says,
the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.
And so do we know what it is to have that integrity of heart?
To be single-minded in our Christianity,
to be devoted to God,
to have your heart set upon him.
Jesus said,
blessed are the pure in heart,
for they and they only will see God.
A woman was once exercised about this.
She was concerned about it.
Whether or not she had a pure heart or not.
She was concerned,
am I really a Christian or not?
She was concerned whether or not the Lord
was actually Lord of her life.
She wondered whether or not there were other Lords,
other loyalties.
And so she was concerned.
She went to see a minister.
And the minister took her to Acts 10.
Where Peter says,
there's extraordinary words in Acts 10.
He says,
no, Lord.
It's one of the stupidest things you can say, isn't it?
Say, no, Lord.
So this preacher says to this woman,
well, you can say no,
and you can say Lord,
but it's impossible to say no, Lord.
I'm going to leave you with your Bible
and I'm going to give you a pen.
And I want you to cross out
either no
or Lord.
Whichever you really mean.
Minister leaves the room,
gives her a few moments to think about it.
And when he comes back,
he finds out that she has crossed out the word no.
And weeping,
she was saying over and over and over again to herself,
Lord,
yes,
Lord,
yes,
Lord.
And it's very simple tonight.
Have you said that?
Is Jesus Lord of your life?
Because if he is not Lord of all,
he is not Lord at all.
And if he's not Lord of all your life,
he's not Lord at all in your life.
Because you cannot serve him with a divided heart.
Blessed are the pure in heart.
Blessed are those who are single-minded in their devotion.
They are the ones who will see God
and no one else will see God.
And so putting it all together,
what does it mean to be pure in heart?
It means to know,
isn't it,
Jesus of Nazareth,
Jesus Christ as your Lord
and as your Savior.
It means having a heart that has been made clean
and a heart that is committed to the Lord Jesus.
And Jesus says,
it is they and they alone
shall see God.
And of course,
that ultimately will be true
when Jesus comes again.
John tells us in his epistle,
we shall see him
as he is
and everyone that has that hope
of seeing Jesus as he is
purifies themselves.
even as he is purer.
It says to the Christian,
doesn't it,
we have got something wonderful
to look forward to,
that Jesus is coming back
and when he comes back
we will see him as he is.
Not as it were
through a glass darkly.
Not with sunglasses on.
We won't see him
through the means of grace.
We won't see him then
through the preaching of the word
or
not through the Lord's table,
not through the means of grace,
but we will see him
as he is
in his glory
when he returns.
That's something
to look forward to.
The psalmist says
in Psalm 17,
as for me,
I will see your face
in righteousness.
I will be satisfied
when I awake
in your likeness.
And he compares himself
to the men of the world
and in Psalm 17,
verse 14,
he says,
they are men of the world
whose portion
is in this life.
And so,
the person of this world,
they are satisfied
with the things of this world
in this life
with the things
that they can see
and touch around them.
But as for me,
he says,
I will be satisfied
when I awake
in your likeness
when I see your face.
and that's the Christian.
And so,
a Christian is a person
in whom there's been
awakened a desire
that nothing less
than a sight
of the glory of God
will satisfy.
That nothing less
than the sight of God
in glory
will satisfy
the longings of your heart.
The psalmist says,
as for me,
that is what is going
to satisfy me.
And nothing else
will satisfy me.
Robert Murray McShane
looks forward to that day
and he says,
when I see thee
as thou art,
love thee
with unsinning heart.
And that ultimately
is the Lord's fulfillment
of these words,
aren't they?
Isn't it?
One day,
the pure in heart
will see God.
But I also want to say to you,
it's true now.
Blessed are the pure in heart.
Blessed are those
whose hearts are cleansed
by the blood of Jesus.
And blessed are those
who are committed
to the lordship of Jesus,
that's the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.
Ultimately,
they'll see him face to face.
But it's also true now.
It's true now.
Let me try and show you that.
Moses saw God.
We're told in Hebrews chapter 11.
In fact,
the author of the Hebrews
says that's the only explanation
of how Moses lived.
Of his life and his career.
He endured
as seeing him
who is invisible.
Moses saw
the invisible God
in this life.
Now,
how is such a thing possible?
You can't see the wind,
can you?
We can't see the wind
because the wind is invisible.
But you can see
the effects of the wind,
can't you,
if you're standing
in the right place
and looking in the right direction.
You can feel its force.
You can see its effects.
And in the same way,
right here,
right now,
we cannot see God
with these eyes.
God is invisible to us.
But if our heart
is fixed in the right place
and set in the right direction,
you will see God.
Jesus saw God
when a sparrow
fell to the ground.
He saw the providence of God,
didn't he?
The person who's not a Christian
doesn't see that.
The person who's not a Christian
doesn't even notice
if a sparrow
falls to the ground.
So what?
But when Jesus saw
a tiny little bird
fall to the ground,
he saw in it
the providence of God
and the plan of God.
Jesus saw
the lily,
the flower,
the beauty of the lily
and in it,
he saw the generosity of God.
Jesus,
when he got up
first thing in the morning
before it was light
and he sees the sun
rising in the sky,
he saw the grace of God.
He saw the God
who causes
that sun
to shine upon
evil and good alike.
Jesus saw God everywhere.
Because his heart
was pure and clean
and undivided.
David in the Old Testament,
David didn't have
a sinless heart.
But he did have
a single heart.
He was a man
after God's own heart.
And there's a lovely
description
in Psalm 29.
Come with me to Psalm 29
if you're still awake.
Come with me to Psalm 29
and let me read to you
some verses.
They're amazing verses.
Psalm 29.
And so look at verse 3.
It's a description
of a storm.
And so David
is looking at a storm.
And he says this,
the voice of the Lord
is over the waters.
The God of glory
thunders.
The Lord
over many waters.
The voice of the Lord
is powerful.
The voice of the Lord
is full of majesty.
The voice of the Lord
breaks the cedars.
That's huge trees.
The Lord breaks
the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon
to skip like a calf
and Syrian
like a wild ox.
The voice of the Lord
flashes forth
flames of fire.
Can't you see it?
The trees snapping
in the storm.
The bows breaking off.
The lightning flashing
in the sky.
The gigantic waves.
Can't you hear
the voice of God
in that?
That's how David
sees it.
The voice of the Lord
shakes the wilderness.
The Lord shakes
the wilderness
of Kadesh.
The voice of the Lord
makes the deer
give birth
and strips the forest
bare
and in his temple
all cry glory.
The Lord sits
enthroned over the flood
and the Lord sits
enthroned as king
forever.
May the Lord
give strength
to his people.
May the Lord
bless his people
with peace.
He's watching a storm
and as it swept
over the mountains
he didn't simply
see a storm
he saw God.
He saw the thunder
as the voice
of the Lord.
The rushing waters
were the throne
of the Lord
and instead of
showing fear
as he saw
the trees
breaking in the wind
and the rivers rising
David shouts
with confidence
the Lord sits
upon the flood.
He is king
forever.
And blessed
are the poor
for they shall
see God.
And so you think
I think this
beatitude changes
life doesn't it?
Changes tomorrow.
Changes tonight.
It changes
how you view
the world.
Because moment
by moment
as we live
consciously
dependent upon
God
by his Holy Spirit
cleansed
by the blood
of the Lord
Jesus Christ
committed
to his lordship
it's very exciting.
It's very very
exciting isn't it
when you see
God like that.
Something lives
in every hue
Christless eyes
have never seen
and so for the
Christian
our eyes are
open
so we see
this is God's
world.
And life is
very exciting
when you see
God like that
in creation
in your own
home
in your own
family
and wherever
you look
life is exciting
when you see
God
the invisible
God
I had a story
this week
of a little
boy
said to his
mother
is
God everywhere
I'm excited
that he'd
asked that
and said
yes of
course
is God
in this
home
I said
well
yes God
is in this
home
God
in this
kitchen
I said
well
God is
everywhere
he's only
present
he's in
this
kitchen
he's
God
in the
fridge
it's
difficult
isn't it
well
God
is everywhere
present
God
is in
the fridge
little boy
goes in
the fridge
gets the
marmalade
jar
opens the
marmalade
jar
is God
in the
marmalade
jar
yes
little boy
puts the lid
on
says
got him
it's a
ridiculous
story
isn't it
it's a
daft
story
there's
something
in that
isn't
there
of
actually
living
consciously
knowing
that
the
invisible
God
this is
his
world
you can
know him
do you
know God
have you
found God
side
where will
you find
God
the only
place you
can find
God
is Jesus
Christ
there's
no other
place
Jesus
said I
am the
true and
the
living
way
no one
comes to
the
father
except
through
me
so if
you want
to know
God
Jesus
says you've
got to
come
through
me
there is
no other
way
have you
found
God in
Jesus
Christ
that's
where he
used to
be
found
there's
nowhere
else
you find
him
God
it's
not
restricting
at all
it's
absolutely
marvelous
that there
is one
place
and there
is only
one
place
that you
can
find
God
it's
like when
you lose
something
it's
now I'm
forever losing
my keys
you lose
your keys
and you think
where have I
left them
and you trace
your steps
and you go
back over
things and I
think oh
right I
know they're
in my
study I
know they
were there
in my
pocket when
I went
to the
study and
they weren't
there when
I came
back in
and what
happens you
go into the
study and
you tear up
the sofa you
look everywhere
and you
don't leave
the study
until you
found the
keys
and you
don't give
up until
you found
them
because you
know that
they're
there
and you
can know
for certain
tonight that
God can
be found
in Jesus
Christ
and that's
where he
is for you
tonight
in Jesus
Christ
and God
says to you
through Jeremiah
you will seek
for me and
you will find
me when you
seek for me
with all your
heart
and so let
me urge you
tonight
to come
looking for
God in
Jesus Christ
with an
undivided
heart
with a heart
that trusts
in a
saviour
slain for
you
Bible
talks about
the Lord
Jesus
Christ
as an
indescribable
gift
Jesus
is God's
unspeakable
gift
and so if I
come to you
tonight and I
offer you
something
indescribably
valuable as a
gift
and I've got
something in my
hand and
I want to
give it to
you
what have you
got to do
well you've
got to put
down what's
in your
hands in
order to
receive that
gift
if you've
got any
sense to
receive this
indescribable
gift you'll
put down what's
in your
hands in
order to
receive that
gift
and if you
had any
sense
you would
put down
what's in
your hands
to receive
the free
gift of
God in
Jesus
Christ
and whatever
is in your
hands you
let it go
because what
God offers
you in
Jesus Christ
is of
infinite
value
and so
tonight
whatever you
know in
your life
is wrong
whatever you
know in
your life
is not
pure
whatever it
is that
is in
your life
that's on
your conscience
put it
down
let it
go
and receive
Jesus Christ
as your
Lord and
your
Savior
let's
pray