Word of Salvation – Vol. 36 No. 28 – July 1991

 

The Pure In Heart

 

Sermon by Rev. S. Voorwinde on Matthew 5:8

Reading: Psalm 24; Matthew 5:1-12

Singing: BoW 361, 15, 1a, 186, 331

Introduction

It’s a while since the last sermon on the Beatitudes, so this is probably a good time for a little revision; a good opportunity to go over the ground we have already covered.

You will remember that these Beatitudes of Jesus are not just pious statements thrown together higgledy-piggledy.  They are sayings that have order and structure, and there’s a devastating sense of spiritual logic to the way Jesus puts his thoughts together.  You will remember that The Beatitudes begin with our need and our awareness of that need.  But once that need has been met, once that hunger and thirst for righteousness has been satisfied, then Jesus turns his attention to the disposition that results.

Once again let me summarize his teaching:

You are poor in spirit when you know that in God’s sight you are a miserable sinner.

You mourn because you know in your heart that you are a miserable sinner.

You are meek when you can take other people telling you that you are a miserable sinner.

But of course you don’t want to stay a miserable sinner and so you hunger and thirst for righteousness.

And this brings us to a turning point, or if you like, a watershed in these Beatitudes.  When this hunger and thirst for righteousness begins to be satisfied then it leads to at least three things or three ways in which this righteousness is expressed in mercy, in purity of heart and in peace making.  They are all aspects of the same thing, they are all fruits of righteousness.

So with this background let’s zero in on our text which is undoubtedly one of the greatest utterances to be found anywhere in Holy Scripture: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”

And as I seek to bring this truth to you this evening then once again I would like to do three things:

(i)         To begin with the term ‘heart’.

(ii)        To determine what it means to be pure.

(iii)       To ask what it means to see God.

I.  So we notice first of all that Jesus is speaking about the ‘pure in heart.’

Why heart?  Because the Gospel of Jesus Christ is concerned about the heart.  All its emphasis is upon the heart.  Read the accounts that we have in the Gospels about the teaching of Christ and you will find that all along He is talking about the heart.  Our Lord obviously put the emphasis here because of the Pharisees.  His great charge against them was that they were interested in the outside but ignored the inside.  They were like red rosy apples that were rotten at the core.  Jesus compared them to white-washed tombs that look nice on the outside, but which house maggots and dead men’s bones in the inside.  Looked at externally, they were without spot but their inward parts were full of rot and wickedness.

So you will notice that Jesus is not talking about outward behaviour, but about the heart.  The Pharisees were impeccable in their outward behaviour, but they were not pure in heart.  And alas, it is possible to have an understanding of Christian doctrine, to be a student of the Bible as they were (at least in a mechanical sense) and still not be pure in heart.

But what is the heart?  In general throughout Scripture the heart means the centre of the personality.  It does not merely mean the seat of the affections or the emotions.  When we talk of the heart we usually contrast it to the head.  The head has to do with our mind and our thinking, and so the heart has to do with our feelings and our emotions.  But that’s not what the Bible means by the heart.  The heart is not just the emotions; it is also the will and the mind.  It is all three of these things.  It is the centre of a man’s being and personality.  It is the fountain out of which everything else flows.  It includes the mind.  It includes the will.  It includes the emotions.  It includes the conscience.  It is the total man.  And that’s what Jesus is emphasizing: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart.’  Blessed are those who are pure, not merely on the surface but in the centre of their being and at the source of their every activity.  It is as deep as that.  That is the first thing.  That’s where the Gospel begins.  It starts with the heart.

As John Flavel said in the opening words of his classic ‘Keeping the Heart’:

“The heart of man is his worst part before it is regenerated, and the best afterwards; it is the seat of principles and the fountain of actions.  The greatest difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion is to keep the heart with God.’

II.  So then what exactly does Jesus mean by a ‘pure heart’?

The word ‘pure’ here has two overlapping meanings: (i) it means ‘without hypocrisy’, (ii) it means ‘cleansed’.

The pure heart, then, is a heart without hypocrisy.  It is open, nothing is hidden.  You can describe it as sincerity, honesty, single-mindedness.  The pure in heart are the utterly sincere.  Their whole life, public or private, is transparent before God and man.  Their very heart – including their thoughts and motives – is pure.  It is unmixed with anything that is devious, base or ulterior.  Hypocrisy and deceit are abhorrent to them.  They are without guile.

And brothers and sisters, what challenge this is for us!  As one author has said:

‘How few of us live one life and live it in the open!  We are tempted to wear a different mask and play a different role according to each occasion.  This is not reality but play-acting, which is the essence of hypocrisy.  Some people weave around themselves such a tissue of lies that they can no longer tell which part of them is real and which is make-believe.  Alone among men Jesus Christ was absolutely pure in heart, being entirely guileless.’ (Stott, p.49)

But that is not the only meaning of this term ‘purity’.  It also carries the further meaning of ‘cleansed’, ‘without defilement’.  And here I would like to quote Martin Luther who illustrated this in a very earthy way as only he could do.  He contrasts purity of heart with actual physical dirt and this is how he says it:

‘Christ wants to have the heart pure, though outwardly the person may be a drudge in the kitchen, black, sooty and grimy, and doing all sorts of dirty work.  Though a common labourer, a shoemaker or a blacksmith may be dirty and sooty or may smell because he is covered with dirt and pitch… and though he stinks outwardly, inwardly he is pure incense before God because he ponders the word of God in his heart and obeys it.’ (Stott, p.49)

So the question is: How pure are you?  You may not smell like some of these people that Luther describes.  You may have even overcome the horror of body odour and the curse of bad breath.  Since Luther’s day, modern technology has given us the marvels of deodorant and blessed us with toothpaste that guarantees you that ring of confidence, but still the question remains: How pure are you?  It’s a searching question that you alone can answer.  It’s between you and God.  I can see you on the outside, but God sees the inside.  It’s a matter that you must sort out with no one less than God Himself.

How pure are your thoughts?  What do you fill your mind with?

How pure are your feelings?  Do you harbor malice or grudges?

How pure are your desires?  With regard to the opposite sex or when it comes to your ambitions in life?

How pure are your motives?  Why do you do things that will look good in the eyes of other people?

There’s only one honest answer that you can give to these questions and that is that you’re not really that pure.  So how can you become pure?  Can you do it by trying your hardest and giving it your all?  That would really be pathetic, wouldn’t it?  It would be like a boy who fell in the mud and then tried to please his mother by helping her clean the house.  She had to wash him first.  And likewise Christ must wash us first.  As the mother washes the boy’s body with soap, so Christ must wash our hearts with His precious blood.  We must come to the cross, fall on our knees and ask for purity again and again and again and again.  Every time we detect an impurity we must ask him to wash it away.  And when He washes our sins away, then more and more we will find that promise coming true:

‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.’

III.  And this brings us then to the third part of the sermon which is about this whole glorious matter of seeing God.

And this is a truth, and a promise that is also taught elsewhere in Scripture.  In his first letter John says:

‘Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.  But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’ (3:2)

The ‘him’ obviously refers to God which means that we shall see God just as He is.

And also in the last chapter of the Bible we have a description of the New Jerusalem and it says:

“The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His bond-servants shall serve Him; and they shall see His face and His name shall be on their foreheads.’ (Rev.22:3,4)

And so the teaching of these verses is patently obvious: all true believers shall see God!  What a glorious thought!  What a marvellous experience to look forward to!

But, of course, the question must now be asked: How shall we see God?  Will we see Him with the naked eye or will we see Him only with the eye of the spirit?  Will we see Him in reality or only by faith?

These questions intrigued the early church fathers and they have held a fascination for theologians down the ages.  Very broadly speaking their answers can be divided into three schools of thought:

The Medieval Catholic Church taught that man would be deified, that human nature would become God-like, and that in this glorified state men would be able to see God in His very being.  They would be able to know Him in His essence and in His fullness.

During the Reformation the Lutherans reasoned in the opposite direction.  Again glorified believers would be able to see God in His very essence.  But God would reveal Himself to them in such a way that they could even see Him with their physical eyes. (Bavinck II, p.180).

Then there were the Reformed theologians who largely rejected the idea of being able to see God in His essence.  If we are limited in the way we know God then we will also be limited in the way we see God.  Even in glory we remain finite, whereas God is infinite.  Now we see God as in an unclear mirror – through Scripture and through nature.  Then we will see Him face to face.  What is vague now, will be clear then.  What is dim now, will be bright then.  Yet even in glory He is the Creator and we are the creatures and we will have our limitations, and this will also affect the way we see God.  We will see Him – brightly, beautifully, clearly, but never completely.

And so we must always have a certain degree of modesty and reserve when we try to answer these questions.  We don’t know exactly how we will see God.  The Bible doesn’t tell us, and where it doesn’t give any details we had better be careful.

As small and finite as we are we can never hope to see all that there is to be seen of our infinite Creator-God.  But in a very real way we can already begin to see God in this life.

In a sense there is a vision of God even while we are in this world.  Christian people can see God in a sense that nobody else can.  The Christian can see God in nature, whereas the non-Christian cannot.  The Christian sees God in the events of history.  Then there is also seeing God in the sense of knowing Him, a sense of feeling He is near and enjoying His presence.  Even in this life we can see Him who is invisible.  Another way we see Him is in our experience, in His gracious dealings with us.  When we say that the hand of God is on us, then that too is part of seeing God.

But of course all of this is nothing compared to what is yet to be.  Now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face.  We are going to see Him as He is.  This is surely the most amazing thing that has ever been said to man; that you and I are going to see God face to face.  If only we would grasp this it would revolutionize our lives.  You and I are meant for the audience chamber of God.  You and I are being prepared to enter into the presence of the King of kings.  Do you believe it, do you know it to be true for you?

Surely the moment we grasp this everything else pales into insignificance.  You and I are going to enjoy God and to spend eternity in His glorious presence.  Brothers and sisters, may this thought grip us and inspire us as we live for Him.  But how may we know that we shall see God?  The answer is simple: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.’

Are you pure in heart?  Are you pure at the very core of your being?  By nature our hearts are black.  You can start trying to clean your heart, but at the end of your life it will be as black as it was at the beginning, perhaps blacker.

So many people try to clean their lives by being decent, moral, nice people.  But no matter how hard they scrub, no matter how thoroughly they polish, they cannot remove the blackness of the human heart.

Again let me say that can only happen when you come to Christ.  His blood is the only cleansing agent that can reach the depths of our hearts.  And only His Holy Spirit can apply it effectively to our lives.  Have you come to God and asked for a clean heart?  Is your heart being purified by the power of God?

Will you see God?

AMEN