Word of Salvation – Vol.52 No.39 – October 2007

 

Blessed Are The Pure In Heart

 

Sermon by Rev. G Vanderkolk on Matthew 5:8

Suggested Scripture: Matthew 23:13-28.

Suggested Hymn: BOW 453 “Rejoice O pure in heart”

 

Introduction: (Can also be used as a children’s address – use a bucket, soap and towel.)

One of the punishments that parents in the not-so-distant-past administered was something that really tasted foul. If a child swore or spoke rudely to their parent or someone else, the parent might get a cake of soap and rinse out the mouth of the child. I haven’t heard of this punishment being carried out for a few decades now but the point was somehow made that the bad language needed to be washed out of your mouth.

Of course you can’t really wash bad language out of a mouth, because the bad language comes from another place and that is from your hearts. Jesus tells us that out of the heart come evil thoughts and words. What the parents were telling us however, when we were young, is that we needed to be washed clean. Soap won’t wash away the filth in our hearts but the blood of Christ can wash away the muck from our lives. One of the prayers that King David prayed was, “Create in me a pure heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

Jesus tells us something about our hearts this morning. He says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Have you ever thought about that? Children always want tickets to various things that sound exciting. They might want to go to a circus or the Easter show or the movies. They want to see something exciting and the ones who are well off are the ones with tickets. The greatest person is God. Jesus here is promising tickets to see God, to those who are pure in heart. The sermon this morning is about that particular truth.

Introduction/Point One: The Outside is not always an indication of the Inside.

There is a story about the famous painter Leonardo de Vinci. One of his well known paintings is called the ‘Last Supper’. To make paintings as life-like as possible he chose various models to pose as Christ and the disciples.

The first figure was Jesus. Leonardo interviewed hundreds of people. The face had to represent, purity, contentment, gentleness, compassion and mercy. He eventually found a man and for over 6 months he carefully painted the details of the Christ-figure. Over the next 7 years he painted each of the disciples until he came to the last figure who was Judas. He had a problem! He needed a man so twisted and distorted in mind and body that he would truly portray the agony, pain and torture of a man that was wrestling with his very soul. He searched long and hard, and one day he heard of a criminal in jail, committed for multiple murders, scheduled for execution.

He went to prison convinced this was the man he was after. The man on death row received a temporary reprieve from the king. Day after day, chained to guards he was brought to the studio where Leonardo attempted to paint him. He wasn’t allowed to speak. He often screamed and yanked at his chains and then was taken back to prison. The painting was eventually finished, which meant at the same time, that the prisoner was now to be executed. Just before he was led away for the final time, the prisoner broke away – ran up – and clutched Leonardo de Vinci’s leg – ‘Leonardo don’t you know who I am?‘ Leonardo said, ‘Sir, I have never seen you before that day I came into the prison and chose you to model‘. The man groaned, ‘How far I have fallen. You don’t recognise me. I was the one who sat for you 7 years ago while you were painting the face of Jesus Christ.’

Doesn’t it just reveal how the outside of a person is no accurate gauge to the heart of a person. A man might look like Christ on the outside but underneath he might be a multiple murderer. It wasn’t so long ago (March, 2005) that a drummer from the band, Crowded House, Paul Hester, took his own life. His friends talked of him as the life of a party. Yet, what people saw wasn’t the real Paul Hester. The impression he gave was no indication of the depression this man was suffering. The Bible warns us to be wary of putting too much stock on the outside appearance for God looks at the heart. Our text today is ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God…‘

In Christian circles it is also difficult! We can be religious and yet full of pride and deceit. We can sing the hymns, pray the prayers, obey the right laws and it looks good and yet we might still be full of hypocrisy.

Around Jesus at this time, along with the disciples, stood Pharisees. Jesus said of them,

Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like white washed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead men‘s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you are righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.’

We might be able to stand up to the scrutiny of others but how will we go under the scrutiny of God,

The lamp of the Lord searches the spirit of a man, it searches out his inmost being.’ (Prov. 20:27).

Point Two: Our Heart Problem

‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.‘ The Pharisees were concerned about outward behaviour – about ethics and conduct. Jesus is concerned about the heart. Jesus said, ‘For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man unclean but eating with unwashed hands does not make a man unclean.’ The Pharisees looked good, they looked pious, they were concerned about appearance, they were concerned about being ceremonially clean, but Jesus is concerned with the heart. Thus the Pharisees would go to great length to keep up appearances but as for weightier matters of loving God and one’s neighbours they were found wanting.

If anyone here has ever watched the program ‘Keeping up appearances‘ one knows that Hyacinth displays wonderful Pharisaic qualities. She was very concerned about how she looks and she was always suggesting to Richard her husband that he wear this or that, drive this or that car, anything at all to keep up appearances. Some early Christians, in Ananias and Sapphira’s church, wanted to look good before the other early Christians. They had noticed that Barnabas looked good when he sold his house and donated a large amount to the poor Christians in Jerusalem. They too wanted that sort of praise. Yet, their heart was divided! They held back something and yet gave the impression that they had given all. For that they were found wanting and suffered death.

The heart is the centre of our being. What is in the heart affects the personality, the mind, our emotions and actions. The term “heart” means the centre of our personality: the seat of the emotions. If we have a great love for God and neighbour, then this will bubble up to the surface. The heart will eventually reveal itself. It is fountain of our existence! Many people think that the world’s problems are caused by factors around us, environmental factors. We can think the reason there is any evil in today’s world is because of others and not ourselves. It is never essentially our fault! Some people want to sue for damages over things that might rightly be laid at their own feet. Being responsible for our own actions is something that modern man refuses to accept. Yet, the first cause of our problems is the heart. Jeremiah 17:9, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.’

The word ‘pure‘ can mean single minded! Seeking only to do God’s will. Later on in Matthew (6:24) will come Jesus’ words about serving two masters. ‘Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money’. Single minded devotion is extraordinarily difficult!

The word “pure” can also mean: ‘Without fold; nothing hidden; no tricks up your sleeves.” Remember the words of the apostle John, ‘Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.’ (Rev. 22:15).

Ultimately, to be pure in heart means to be like Jesus! He was single minded in his devotion and pure in his attitude, without sin. His love for God and neighbour are without parallel. There was no deceit within Jesus, no lies on his lips, no evil thoughts in his heart, no selfishness in his attitude.

Who of us here in this building has a pure heart and who of us will see God? Would anyone dare raise their hands? Humanly speaking none of us qualify – yet God is gracious.

Martyn Lloyd Jones has an interesting scheme for the beatitudes. He sees that various beatitudes correspond with others. Those who are peace makers are those who are poor in Spirit. Those who are merciful are also the meek. Those who are pure in heart are those who mourn for they will be comforted.

He wrote this,

“The only way to have a pure heart is to realise you have an impure heart, and to mourn about it to such an extent that you do which alone can lead to cleansing or purity.”

If this is true, then those who mourn are those who know how corrupt their hearts are. They know their sin and their sin is always before them. They mourn their inability to please God. They mourn their divided hearts, their split loyalties. The pure in heart are those who have repented of their split loyalties, their fickle nature, their weaknesses, their inability to please God. But such a realisation can only come by the power of the Spirit. The pure in heart are those in whom God has been at work! God in his grace has been good to them.

David mourned his sin of adultery and cried out in Psalm 51, ‘Create in me a clean heart.‘

David was confronted with his sins by Nathan the prophet and he was humbled. He saw himself truly and didn’t like what he saw. He saw his heart, as if in the mirror and he saw that he was corrupt, through and through. To be a Christian is to have a real understanding of your heart. It is to mourn your own corrupt nature, your diseased heart.

Charles Colson, former aide to the disgraced President of the United States, Richard Nixon, who himself was convicted and sent to jail, eventually became a Christian. He founded Prison Fellowship, and became a well known international speaker, often addressing prisoners. When he was in Norway, at a clinically clean prison, he preached the gospel and had absolutely no response. You see, those who ran the prison believed that you only ended up a prisoner, if you were mentally unbalanced. Thus the governor of the prison was a psychiatrist and saw every prisoner as a patient, needing therapy. For the governor of that prison, the prisoners were not responsible for their actions because they were victims of a mental disease that saw them do antisocial things.

Likewise there are those in our society who are always wanting to excuse crime and poor behaviour. They say, “It isn’t a matter of a bad heart, but a matter of a poor upbringing“. Human beings are basically good, if only they have the right conditioning. How different from the Biblical view of man, that sees mankind as corrupt and needing to repent and be cleansed! King David saw himself for what he was. He was a man who lusted, a man who committed adultery, a man who deceived, a man who murdered and he was a man that eventually recognised himself for what he was. A sinner in the eyes of God! True repentance means recognising yourself for who you are. Truly repentant people cry out to the living God to recreate them and to wash them and make them whole again.

A Christian recognises that truth!

The writer to the Hebrews wrote,

‘Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.’

The beginning to a pure heart is to mourn the fact that we have hearts that are divided, that our hearts are deceitful above all things and beyond cure. In that light God’s grace comes to us and we are cleansed through the blood of Christ. Our corrupt hearts are changed and continue to be changed so that we become more and more like Christ.

That cleansing of our hearts then gives way to a change in our actions – to a new holiness. The Holy Spirit begins his job of transformation, and still we have so much to continue to mourn and to continue to pray for. These beatitudes present the ideal and we know that we have a long way to go. We look forward to the day when the Lord will finally make us perfect.

Point Three: The promise – that we shall see God.

The result of this change of heart, this purity of heart is that we will see God. This promise is difficult to grasp. The apostle John says,

‘No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.’ (John 1:18).

Jesus said,

‘If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.’

(John 14:7).

It would seem from these two texts that to see God physically is beyond our human ability. The very being of God cannot be grasped by the human mind and therefore He cannot be seen in a physical sense.

Yet, in seeing the glory of Christ we begin to know God and to see him. The gospel writer John says, ‘We have seen the glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.’

Paul writing to the Colossians wrote,

‘He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation…’ (Col. 1:15).

Conclusion.

Already now we see God in creation. Behind the beauty of this world we see the hand of the Creator. We see God in history through the eyes of faith – how he works everything out for his own good purposes. We, through the Holy Spirit see Christ and through his Word we too have seen his glory the glory of the One and Only. We also see God at work in our own lives, cleansing us from sin, taking the terrible burden of guilt away, and nailing it with Christ to the cross. What a blessing to see God at work, cleansing our hearts! We see God in our experience and we know we are not alone.

Yet, one day we shall see him in a fuller sense. We shall see him face to face. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians,

“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.”

Jesus Christ holds before us a wonderful future. As the Psalmist says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his fingers.” Now we see, but then we shall see and experience something far more glorious.

The promise is there for the non-Christian. Repent and have your hearts washed by the Lamb of God and you will see God. The promise is there for the Christian. Continue to ask God to cleanse and wash you and you will see more and more of God and you will eventually see him as he is, face to face. What a glorious day that will be!

Amen.