If you’ll remember from the last time we studied beatitudes, I said that they now take a turn from what appears to be grace to works. To start with, it seemed as though Jesus’s announcement of the kingdom of God would be for those who were broken and oppressed. We saw that the kingdom comes for those who are poor in spirit, who are broken over the sin, who are humble and confess their need for God, and who thirst to be made right with God. But, with verse 7, it seems that Jesus begins to place conditions on these blessings – “blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” But, there is a truth that we’ve held to time and again: the beatitudes are not independent qualities that a saved person will have. In other words, these characteristics are not behaviors and attitudes that you collect in order to make yourself acceptable to God. Rather, they are like rungs on the ladder of salvation. We start at the bottom, with simple confession and repentance. As we confess and repent of our sin, we come humbly to God and receive comfort through his grace. This grace causes us to desire righteousness above all else, and we receive satisfaction of that hunger in the righteousness of Christ. Now, we can be merciful to others because we’ve received mercy from Jesus.
We must again hold on to this concept of the ladder of salvation as we come to our text today. Let’s read Matt. 5:8 together. This morning, I want to answer two questions about this beatitude: What does it mean to have a pure heart? And, what does it mean to see God?
First, we need to ask, what does it mean to have a pure heart? In asking this question, we have to start by dispelling some myths. There is a popular belief in our day that God will save everyone who has a “good heart.” You might hear someone at a funeral make the excuse: “He lived a hard life, but he had a good heart.” By that, I think we mean to say that the person, at his core, was kind and thoughtful. He may have been mean as a snake at work, but if people could have just seen him with his kids, they would have liked him a lot better. Well, in reality, we could probably say this about anyone. After all, I’m sure that Eva Braun would likely have said that Adolf Hitler had a good heart.
But, understand that niceness will not save you. Niceness is not the same as purity. When Jesus speaks of the “pure in heart”, he is drawing upon the Levitical laws regarding cleanness. The ceremonial laws of the OT had strict rules regarding cleanness or purity. These laws bore down on the most minute details of daily life, from how we wash our hands to sexual relations, and everything in between. To fail in one of these prescriptions would mark you as “unclean”. In some cases, one could be purified by going through certain sacrificial rituals in the temple, but in other cases (such as when someone contracted leprosy), there was nothing you could do to make yourself clean again.
That brings me to the second myth that I’d like to dispel. Some hold the belief that one can purify himself through ritual – that if we just go through the right motions, then our heart will follow. Or, better yet, there are some that think that right behavior is all that matters. It doesn’t matter what you think, as long as you don’t act on those thoughts. Dennis Praeger, the popular conservative commentator, has suggested this very thing as it relates to pornography and pedophilia, saying that it doesn’t matter what you think in terms of lust, but only what you do. This was the view of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. In Matt. 15:10, Jesus makes a bold statement: “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” The disciples shush him, saying, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” Of course, Jesus, being who he was, doubled down. He explains that nothing we take into our body can defile us because it is just simply food. But, he says in verse 18, “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” What Jesus says here is revolutionary to the Jewish mind! Murder doesn’t start with the hands but in a heart full of hate. Adultery doesn’t start in the bedroom, but with a heart full of lust. Theft doesn’t start with a broken window, but with a heart full of greed. Gossip and slander don’t start with a wagging tongue but with a heart full of jealousy.
But, while Jesus’s teaching was revolutionary for his day, it was not new. The OT had testified from the beginning that there was a serious problem with the heart of man. The first time we read of the heart in the Bible is in Genesis 6:5, where God says of man, “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Something obviously broke with the fall of Adam. Brothers hate and kill. Warlords rape and pillage. Every boundary of God’s good creation is violated.
We could make the mistake of reading God’s recue of Israel and his giving of the Law as a sort of reset. We might think, “OK, now a nation has the Law of God directly from God’s mouth, so surely things will get better.” At first, this seems to be the intention. After all, in Deut. 6:5, Moses calls the Israelites to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might.” Numerous times in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses calls the people to guard or circumcise their hearts. Yet, the later we get in the book, we find that the tone changes. Moses warns them of setting up a king. He warns them of following after other nations and the consequences of God’s judgment. He prophesizes of all the things that would eventually come upon the nation of Israel for its idolatry. And then, in Deut. 30:6, he promises, “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”
Here is the grand message of the OT, and the answer to our first question. No amount of law keeping or behavior modification or ritualistic cleansing can give you a pure heart. If you are to have a pure heart, God must give it to you. This brings me to my second question: what does it mean to see God? To answer that, flip with me to John 3:1-8. Here we have the famous meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes with an obvious burden on his heart. We don’t know exactly what that burden is because Jesus answers him before he ever asks his question. But, based on Jesus’ answer, I think we can guess it. Nicodemus wants to know the very same thing that we are dealing with in the Beatitudes – Who has the kingdom of God come for, and how can I be a part of that elect people? We can guess that if we consider what Jesus tells him in verse 3 – “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” I want to suggest that this statement is an expansion of what Jesus says in Matt. 5:8 – “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” How does one see God? He must have a clean heart. How does one see the kingdom of God? He must be born again. Now, Nicodemus is a Pharisee, and as is their want, he asks what he must do to be born again. Again, notice Jesus’ answer in verse 6: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again.” In other words, new birth is not something that a man or woman can do. I hate to disagree with the late, great Billy Graham, who wrote a book titled How to be Born Again, but there is no how-to manual on the new birth. There is no five-step program for it. It is only the work of God that causes new birth in the heart.
And, catch this – it is only those who have been born of the Spirit who will see the kingdom of God. The law-keeper will not see it. The traditionalist will not see it. The conservative will not see it. The progressive will not see it. Only those who have been changed by the power of God through the work of the Spirit and the power of the Gospel will see it.
So friend, do you have a sense of your unworthiness before God? Does the weight of your guilt burden you? Do you long to be righteous? Do you long to see God? That sense of unworthiness and that longing for God is not something natural in you. It is a work of the Spirit that is giving you new birth. If you sense that yearning for the things of God, won’t you come forward today and confess it to this church? Won’t you follow the Lord in baptism?
Brothers and sisters, a pure heart is not attainable apart from the work of God’s Spirit. That truth should inform our understanding of our lost friends and family and our own actions. With our lost friends and family, understand that we will not save them by giving them more law. In saying that, I am not suggesting that we cannot speak the truth about the evils of this world, but if you think you are going to save your friend by correcting his bad behavior, you are starting in the wrong place. They need to hear the Gospel. It is the only way their heart will be changed. With our own actions, we have to acknowledge daily that we need the purity of God’s Spirit to make us pure. Yes, obedience is important. Yes, ritual and tradition are important. But those things are important, not because they create a pure heart, but because they should be done with a pure heart. May we leave this place and live in the purity of heart that God has created in us through his Gospel.
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