Good morning. Welcome to The Edge. My name is Brandi, and I'm so glad that you’ve joined us today as we continue our series called Blessed. We are together taking a journey and we are exploring what Jesus meant, in his own words, during his most famous sermon called, The Sermon on the Mount, when he described the blessed or favored life.
Jesus had just begun preaching this message that was very thematic with salvation and repentance and though the message would be for everyone, all were welcome. He was explaining that only some would choose this path and be able to assume the posture of the beatitudes in order to receive it. So we have been looking each and every week at all of the beatitudes and if you haven’t had the chance to follow along, I hope that you’ll go back to some of the previous messages and catch up because they really do build upon each other.
But I have to say, I think that we’ve been through a crazy time this week. What can we say? It’s been an unsettling, very tense, emotions are high week in our nation and I was blown away when I noticed what beatitude we’re going to be looking at today because it just shows me God’s care and concern for where he knew that we would be as a country today. Because today we’re going to be talking about the heart. This was basically the pinnacle of his message. The heart is the center of the message. It’s the center of who we are and you’ll find it right there in the center of the beatitudes as well.
And I think it’s so appropriate because with everything that we’ve been through, particularly with the ups and downs and the uncertainty and watching our nation seem to just split literally right down the middle. I think it’s safe to say that many of us have experienced a week where our hearts may have been troubled. Maybe our thoughts have been anxious. But I want us to remember that God has not changed. That he is just a sovereign today and in the future, as he always has, as he always will be. His care, his presence and his consistency and sovereignty is still and always will be true. And it’s so fitting that today, we’re going to be dealing directly with the heart and where our devotion lies. I think that’s so cool because the two of them, as you’re going to see, go hand in hand.
Right out of Matthew 5:8, Jesus says:
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
To see God — can you just really imagine this? Imagine what it must’ve been like to hear Jesus say the words that blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
I was just looking at that phrase thinking, couldn’t we really use some more God sightings right now? I want to see God as much as I can and sometimes it feels harder than others but Jesus says there is a way to see God. And trust me, that would have really blown the crowd’s mind because at that time they knew there was an understanding that a human being could not see God. He couldn’t see God and actually live through it. Even Moses, his face had to be hidden when God passed by and then he could only glimpse the back.
Think about this. Here’s Jesus, and he’s sitting — I just love that posture, that posture of humility. He’s sitting on the mountain side with this crowd, who he had just healed most of them and he's letting them know that there is a way to see God. And think about this, Jesus — is God in the flesh. This is the God man and he’s telling this crowd, there’s a way to see God. When I just picture that scene, I just wonder how many of those people were looking at Jesus’ face, staring right at him and didn’t realize they were seeing him or maybe some did. I don’t know about you, but when God is present with me, I want to see it. I want to know it. And here’s the key. Who is that for? Who can see God? Well, he says it’s the pure in heart.
Can I just time out and say that I am really, really glad that Jesus didn’t start the beatitudes with “pure in heart” because if you’re like me, that one seems a little hard to attain — a little hard to get to. Let’s face it, I don’t consider myself pure in heart and I don’t really consider anyone I’ve ever met really pure in heart. But we have to remember that these beatitudes are comprehensive and they’re cumulative. They’re not meant to be attained in isolation.
So we start in a place that we can identify and that very, most basic beatitude goes all the way back to the beginning, was our spiritual poverty — the knowledge that we would not be able to stand righteous before God on our own. It starts there. So when you think about it, the person who’s pure in heart has already acknowledged that he’s not pure in heart, on his own. He’s spiritually impoverished and he’s repenting and he’s meek. He’s obedient to God, he hungers and he thirsts for righteousness. It’s this person who is also pure in heart. But it’s so important that we understand — maybe you’ve heard this quote before, “The matter of the heart, is the heart of the matter.” This was Jesus’ life message because God created us in the beginning for this relationship. It’s all about the heart. But what had happened was God’s people abandoned that devotion, that relationship with God, and they traded it in for a set of standards — a set of rules and outward practices — that actually, they became a people that they got their hope from their own acts of righteousness and they believed that that’s what made them righteous. But the truth is outward acts can never fix our inward hearts.
We, the Bible says, man looks at the outward appearances but God looks at the heart and he is not interested in our acts, he’s interested in our heart. And then our heart affects our actions. In fact, the word that Jesus used for heart, not surprisingly, it’s defined cardia and cardia describes much more than what we may think of when we think of heart. A lot of times when we think of heart, we’re imagining emotions or how we feel about something, and that is certainly part of it but the word heart when Jesus was talking, is about so much more than that. It encompasses our intellect, our thought life, our feelings and our emotions — our motives.
This is the steering wheel of who you are. This is who you are when no one else is looking. In fact, to me that makes it even more impossible to imagine that you could be pure in heart. Who has a pure thought life, really? But you know, even the Bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick or some versions say wicked. But what was impossible for man was made possible with God. Because God knows it’s impossible he sent his son Jesus, and listen to this, a heart cannot be purified by outer works. That’s religion. That’s what outer works is. But only the inner working of the Holy Spirit, in the man who is rightly related to God through faith in Jesus Christ.
So how can we have a pure heart? (Acts 15:9) God purified their hearts by faith. (1 John 3:3) All who have this hope or faith in Jesus purify themselves. That’s just a couple of verses, I could go on and on but what does this “pure” really mean? Well, the good news is it doesn’t mean sinless. It doesn’t mean that we’re never going to send again or have another bad thought again but the purity that it’s referring to is talking about something that’s single or unmixed. It’s talking about a pure devotion. When you think of something unmixed or pure, think of like pure gold, it’s not mixed with anything else or maybe pure olive oil. It’s not mixed with anything else. It’s about one thing. So to be pure in heart means to have a heart, a thought life, feelings and emotions that are purely devoted to one thing. And that one thing is Jesus.
Even James 4:8 says:
8 Come near [draw near] to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
In others words, we can’t worship him and something else and expect to have a pure heart. We have to be about one thing. Think about King David who, not so coincidentally, was known as the man after God’s own heart. Think about his request. Think about his prayer in Psalm 51:10, and most of us are familiar with this but think about what he’s asking. He says: this one thing I ask and I would seek or pursue is to be in the house of the Lord forever and gaze upon his beauty.
Psalm 51:10 -
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
{ Psalm 27:4 -
One thing I ask from the Lord,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.}
Gaze upon his beauty — he's talking about seeing God in his fullness. Blessed are the pure, the wholly devoted in heart, for they will see God. You know, to some degree, all of us get glimpses of God here and there just living our normal, average, everyday lives. And in Romans 1:20, it says:
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. [NIV]
We can see evidence of God’s glory or his nature or his essence everywhere. Maybe we see it in nature. Maybe we see it in a baby smile or a grandfather’s laugh or a new place you’ve never seen or great architecture or great food. We can experience glimpses of God in all these different ways. But have you ever noticed that there are some people who just seem to see God more? They just seem to see God in everything. I actually have some people like that in my life. My own grandma she’s like that. Everything good that happens, she’s instantly giving God credit — like she knows that he is who it came from. When we do that it increases our ability to see him because when we give him credit for these things, we are in worship with him. We are in right relationship with him and then we will begin to see him more. So there’s this correlation between how devoted we are to God and how often we see him.
I want you to think about this. Imagine when you’ve had to be on the hunt for a new car. I only remember being on the hunt for one new car because it was the first new car I ever got and it was when we were first newly married and it was a gray Mitsubishi Galant. Before we bought that car, I didn’t even really know what a Mitsubishi Galant was, but as soon as I got that car, everywhere I went, I saw that car everywhere.
Or when I first had my first baby, I noticed babies and pregnant moms everywhere. What you’re devoted to is what you’re going to see. And this could be good news or this could be bad news, depending on how much you want to be devoted to your worship, devoted to obedience and devoted to this life that Jesus has laid before us because we get to participate in our own devotion to the Lord. But it will directly correlate with how often we get to see him.
I don’t know about you but I want to see God’s goodness. I want to see expressions of his glory. And one of the reasons why quite frankly is because this life is hard. There’s grief, there’s loss, there’s tension, there’s broken relationships, things die, things are diseased. This life is hard. It’s not where we’re meant to be forever. No one gets to stay here forever but we have this hope and when we see glimpses of God on this earth, it reminds us of the hope that we have because one day this life will pass away and we have the hope in the next life.
If our faith is in Jesus Christ, that we will get to see God fully, no more little glimpses that we have the option to pass by and not give credit for. No, it says in 1 Corinthians 13:12:
12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. [NIV]
Can you just imagine? Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. I just want to take a second here as we’re closing to remind you that if you never have really placed your faith and your trust in Jesus, you can do it now. You can do it today simply by letting him know, “Hey Lord, I know I am a sinner and I need a savior and I trust you and I’m placing my faith in you.” And one day this hope and this promise will be yours and until then, if you have already received Christ, then rejoice because Christ in us is the hope of the glory and now he is taking us from glory to glory to glory until that day that we see him face to face.
Now as we come to an end, I want to give you just a few questions that we’ve been doing so that you can discuss this right there in your house churches or with your family or for your own personal contemplation. The first question is a good one to ask in any message you listen to or anything devotional you do.
And it’s this: what is your biggest takeaway from today’s message?
The second question is this, how do you most naturally see God? There’s a way that he just catches your eye differently than he might catch someone else’s, and I just want to challenge you to think about how do you just most naturally see him?
And then that will lead right into the third question. How will you choose to put yourself in places and spaces where you’re going to see him more? Because you know what, when you see things and you recognize that’s God — that’s, God’s handprint right there — and you acknowledge that in your heart or outwardly, that is worship and you know what, we were made to worship. So how do you see God?
And now plan your week and design it so that you can make sure that you are seeing him and catching glimpses of him more and more and more this week. Church, I hope you have a blessed day and a blessed week, and we’ll see you next time.