The Pure in Heart Discipleship Bible Studies October 24, 2007 Bethel MBC DWS Lesson text: Matthew 5:7 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Five Prerequisites a. Luke 14:33 _________________________________ b. Luke 14:27 _________________________________ c. John 8:31 _________________________________ d. John 15:8 _________________________________ e. John 13:35 _________________________________ Review: The poor in spirit The mournful The gentle and meek Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness The merciful The beginning of faith: poor in spirit; mourners; meek The growth of faith: hunger and thirst after righteousness The maturation of faith: the merciful and the pure in heart At some point in life, each of us must what is our highest joy; for thing that delights us directs us. What we are determines how much we enjoy what we have and what we do. Often we have heard or given the advice, “Just follow your heart” or “Go with your gut.” The idea is to do what is “natural” or what just feels like the right thing to do. Is this a wise thing to do? In reality, we are asking our inner self to make a decision that may or not be of significance. We want to discuss tonight that our “hearts” are exceedingly evil by nature, but can be and MUST be cultivated into holiness if we are to continue on this ladder to true discipleship. When Jesus refers to the pure in heart HE is: 1. Speaking to disciples (saved sinners); therefore He is NOT referencing salvation. 2. Referring to our inner self or who we really are. Our behavior comes from our inward nature and is indeed a matter of “heart”. So, our first question… I. What is our “heart” that Jesus is referring to? a. It includes our emotions John 14:1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me.” Nehemiah 2:2 “Wherefore the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid.” b. It sometimes includes our intellect or mind Mark 2:8 “And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?” Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thought and intents of the heart.” c. Often it includes our will as individuals Daniel 1:8 “But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.” d. In essence, the biblical picture of the heart is the crux of the inner man Proverbs 4:23 “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Matthew 15:8 “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” Ephesians 6:6 “Not with eyeservice, as men pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” e. It is the source of many of man’s troubles Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Genesis 6:5 “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Mark 7:21-23 “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.” II. Why is it important that we keep our hearts before God? I Samuel 16:6-7 “And it came to pass when they were come, that he looked on Eliab and said, Surely the Lord’s anointed is before him. But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” Proverbs 21:2 “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord pondereth the hearts.” God desires for us to be “pure” of all iniquity that we might see him. III. What does it mean to be “pure in heart?” The word “pure” in the Greek is “KATHAROS”. It means clean and unmixed. (We get our words catharsis and cathartic from this word). This word is used in scripture several places by Jesus including these two: a. Matthew 23:25-26 “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.” b. John 15:3 “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” The idea is that of INTEGRITY and singleness of heart as opposed to duplicity, a double or divided heart. a. Psalm 25:21 “Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on thee.” b. Psalm 41:12 “And as for me, thou upholdest me in mine integrity, and settest me before thy face for ever.” Again, the word “KATHAROS” means to make pure by cleansing. It means unmixed, unadulterated, unalloyed. This Beatitude may be read more accurately and definitively: “Blessed is the man whose motive is ALWAYS, ENTIRELY, UNMIXED; for that man shall see God.” (The bold words are the words we need to remember tonight to cue our thoughts, later, back to this lesson) IV. The Process of Purifying our Hearts The answer to this question lies in our previous study in this chapter. The first four Beatitudes lay the foundation for the second four. The second four Beatitudes are the RESULT of the first four. In order to become pure in heart, we must see our need and respond to that need. We must walk through the progression we have observed in the first four Beatitudes. As we see our sinfulness, we become poor in spirit and are led to mourn as a result. Our hearts are broken and contrited before God, which leads us to become gentle and tender before God. Humility marks those who are dealt with by God. We then come to the place where we “hunger and thirst after righteousness” because we have seen that only the righteousness of God satisfies. This is the foundation we must lay if we ever are to become pure in heart. This is really the process of sanctification. It is what Jesus meant when he told us that we were to take up our crosses daily. It is seeking God with all our heart. It is coming to God like David and praying, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” See Psalm 51:10. It is desiring God more than anything else. Let’s look again at our progression to this point: 1. The spiritually impoverished person is the one without the prideful heart and is the one willing to acknowledge he is nothing without God. 2. The mourner is the one who realizes and admits to the true condition of his heart, damaged and wrecked by sin. 3. The meek person is gentle, having lost any need or desire to take vengeance on the world, knowing his own need instead. 4. The person hungry and thirsty for righteousness is the one whose heart has yearned to be fed with godliness. 5. The merciful is the person filled with the pity and compassion in his heart for others. 6. Now we see that the pure in heart is the person who has begun to reflect the presence of the Lord in his/her life. 7. At every point, it is not the outward behavior but the inner man that has become something new, something better. One of the greatest fallacies of modern day thinking is that all we need to do to change the way people behave is to change their environment. I.E. drug treatment centers, neighborhood cleanup efforts, police substations on campus, shipping Jimmy to Cleveland to live with Aunt Josie, etc.) If our original parents fell (sinned) in PARADISE…then a perfect environment was not sufficient. I find this encouraging to think that Jesus has promised that we can change who we are!! The ability to change bad to good, evil to pure, all lies within us and can be manipulated with the Lord’s help. We ALL can change our hearts (inner beings) because God has promised to help us! The promise attached to this Beatitude is that the pure in heart “shall see God.” Now, we know this doesn’t mean we will see the person of Jesus literally. It is referring to the here and now! V. How may we “see God” as a result of a heart made pure by cleansing? 1. In Nature Once we get our hearts right, God can be seen everywhere. I remember after I was first saved, I saw God and his ways in everything outdoors. We should take more time to study the majestic magnificence of natural wonders as well as the amazing perfection of the miniature world. 2. In Scripture As we strive to know “more about Jesus”, Jesus will begin to reveal Himself to us in the Scriptures. I have learned that the more beautiful pictures of God are not plainly in view. Often they lie in “hiding” in a picture drawn from multiple scriptures from both testaments. As in a crossword puzzle, often the more pieces you have, the better clarity and detail your final product will have. 3. In the Church Do you see the good in your church family? To the impure of heart, the church of God is nothing but a conglomeration of divided sects. Looking at these groups, they can see nothing but faults, failures, and imperfections. It should always be remembered that every man sees that which is according to his own nature. 4. In History I love history and am amazed at how God has shaped history. Seemingly, people live their own way and yet it works just like God willed it. Look at how He prepared the world for the birth of His Son. Is God shaping the world today? Jesus spoke of how the world would be “shaped” (as the days of Noah) when He would send His Son to get his children. 5. In our own lives We all can look and see in hindsight that God’s providence is present in our lives, heavier at some times than at others. I believe that this scripture teaches us that we can see God work in our lives EVERYDAY!!! Now wouldn’t that be wonderful to know that God himself was going to work with and grow us every day. 6. In the lives of others Jesus has a perfectly pure heart and this allowed Him to be full of compassion and mercy. His heart broke when He saw others suffering in sin or with life. He performed miracles and other good deeds after being first moved by compassion which came from His pure heart. We may “see God” by watching how He, in the flesh, worked among mankind. That leads us to the last one that I will list… 7. In Jesus As mentioned above, Jesus is the perfect example of how a person with a pure heart will act and react in a sinful world. All of us will have to admit that we fall pitifully short of acting as Jesus did on Earth. Some will say, “Yeah, but He was the Son of God!!!’ Yes, but he was fully a man and tempted just like us. It is possible to live LIKE Jesus, but impossible to do so without a pure heart. A pure heart must be cultivated. The pure in heart are a rare breed in our churches today and are virtually extinct in the world. I do, strongly, believe that God is calling us back to that single-minded, unmixed, devotion to Him which characterizes those upon whom He pours out His Spirit. Next week will be the pinnacle of our study. (The 7th Beatitude) Seven being a Biblically perfect number, our climb towards discipleship will end with a perfect (mature) man.
(printer friendly version)
