Series: The Sermon on the Mount
Title: Purity of Heart
Text: Matthew 5:8
INTRODUCTION: When we began our study of the beatitudes some weeks ago, we addressed the question of what it means to be “Blessed”.
We noted that blessedness is not just a synonym for “happiness” even though some translators have chosen to translate the word as Happy.
Makarios (Greek for Blessed) means supremely blessed or extremely fortunate.
Happiness, of course, is a part of this - but because in our modern vernacular “happy” is such a trite word, it does not justly describe the benefit which is here being described.
In our early study, we talked about the highest blessing of the believer which theologians called “THE BEATIFIC VISION”.
The beatific vision is when the believer reaches the culmination of his/her faith, and sees the Lord as He is.
1 John 3:2 “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”
This is the greatest of all blessings which is expected by the Christian: that one day we will see the Lord as He is, and we will be like Him in a glorified and eternal body.
I mention this because we have arrived today at the Beatitude which actually describes the beatific vision within its blessing.
All of the beatitudes have a congruent blessing associated with them.
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
And today’s beatitude is no different.
There is the description of the blessed person, and the resultant blessing is that they will indeed, see God.
READ: Matthew 5:8
Each week, I have sought to help us understand the progression of the beatitudes.
As I have said, when you read them together a natural pattern emerges.
We begin to see that Jesus is not here describing various individuals with various character traits (i.e. some are poor in spirit, some mourn, some are meek, etc.)
Instead, he is talking about the natural blessing of the person who is converted by God to faith in Christ.
He begins poor in spirit.
He mourns over his poverty.
He is humbled before God.
He is desperate for righteousness.
And his behavior is affected, as he becomes an agent of mercy.
This is the picture of the blessed man.
But it does not end there... it continues on with another, even deeper description...
The blessed man is PURE IN HEART.
This is probably the most difficult of the beatitudes so far.
I say difficult, because it is probably hard to find ourselves in this beatitude.
We might rightly see ourselves as poor in spirit and mourning over our sin.
We might rightly see ourselves as humbled before God and desperate for the righteousness which we do not have.
We might even rightly see ourselves as ones who’s affection have been changed, and we have become agents of God’s love and mercy.
But pure in heart?
Most of us know ourselves too well to ever consider ourselves to be such.
We know our own hearts.
We know the sins which we battle, and the darkness which is within.
We know that if the thoughts of our minds were translated to video tape, and played before our friends and family, that we would probably be utterly mortified.
So when we see “blessed are the pure in heart” and we know this is the natural progression of the conversion experience, some of us FREEZE in fear.
Perhaps this is the place wherein we will see that we are not what we think we are.
As I said, for many believers this is frightening indeed.
Well, this morning I want to help you understand this term, and the entire beatitude, and show how PURENESS OF HEART is the natural progression of a person who has been regenerated by the holy spirit.
I want us to understand three things about this beatitude:
1. Pure of Heart DOES NOT mean Sinless Perfection
2. Pure of Heart is a RESPONSE to the External Purity of the Pharisees
3. Pure of Heart is a RESULT of Regeneration
Pure of Heart DOES NOT mean Sinless Perfection
There are a number of heretical groups which teach that it is possible to totally comply with all of God’s commands in thought, word and deed by adhering to a process of strict spiritual discipline.
Some of these groups include:
Pelagians
Quakers
Finneyites
Weslyans
Charles Wesley taught the doctrine of perfectionism, believing that a person could eradicate all of the carnal nature and be completely pure in spirit.
NOTE: This is often a hallmark of the theological systems which teach that you can “lose” your salvation.
They teach that a person gets saved, and is completely pure.
But each time they sin, they become impure and must be “resaved” through some process.
Some say you must simply repent of your sins.
Others, like the Roman Catholic church, have a very intricate process of confession and absolution.
In any case, a person is only saved when they are completely free from sin - i.e. totally pure in thought, word and deed.
Illustration: “Are You Saved? I am Right Now!” Years ago I was in a conversation with a man from the Congregational Methodist (also known as the “Holiness” movement). He was challenging my position on eternal security - that a person cannot lose his salvation. He was arguing that a person COULD lose his salvation. I asked him, “How does a person lose his salvation?” and he said, “By sinning”. And I said, “Are you saved?” and he said, “I am right now!” And I asked, “Could you lose your salvation tomorrow?” and he said, “Absolutely!”
This is what makes the doctrine of sinless perfection so seriously flawed.
A person believes that he can be perfect... AND that his perfection is somehow linked to his salvation.
So long as he is pure, he is saved... but is he falters, his sins drag him right back down into hell.
NOTE: Some faiths see this differently, where only certain sins make you lose your salvation.
Roman Catholics break sins down into “mortal” sins and “venial” sins, with only mortal sins causing you to lose your salvation completely.
But, beloved, all of these are faulty!
They all misunderstand PURITY OF HEART because they have confused it with the erroneous doctrine of SINLESS PERFECTION.
Sinless perfection is not a biblical doctrine.
Consider these words of Scripture:
Proverbs 20:9 “Who can say, “I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin”?”
1 John 1:8 “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
Paul talks about the struggle which exists between the flesh and the spirit both in Romans and in Galatians.
And even of himself, toward the end of his career as an apostle, he says that he is still “pressing on toward the goal” (Galatians 3:14) indicating that he did not believe he had achieved perfection.
Probably the most compelling, at least to me, is the way Jesus taught us to pray.
In the model prayer, he tells us to pray thus:
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
A “debt” can be something owed, but in this context speaks of a “fault”.
In Luke’s version of the Lord’s model prayer, he actually uses the Greek word “hamartia” which is the word for SIN.
So, Jesus commends us to pray daily “forgive us our sins”
WHY?????
Why would this be necessary if we are able to obtain some sort of sinless perfection?
It most certainly would not be.
Sinless perfection is not seen in any of the saints of God in Scripture, and thus it is not considered to be a prerequisite for entrance into the kingdom.
Noah had a bout with drunkenness.
Abraham had a propensity to misrepresent the truth (lie!).
David committed adultery and had a man killed.
Peter denied Christ three times, and later was rebuked by Paul for showing favoritism to the Jews.
The list goes on and on...
The only one who was sinless, and perfect was Jesus - and the Scripture makes the point that He is the SINGULAR EXCEPTION to the rule that every single person sins.
NOTE: During the Reformation, a phrase was coined by Martin Luther which sums up the bible’s understanding of the believer’s condition:
SIMUL IUSTUS ET PECCATOR
“At the same time righteous and sinner.”
We are made righteous because of the work of Christ, yet we still live in a battle with the flesh, the world and the devil.
Sin is not something which will be completely eradicated while we are in the flesh, so the teaching of sinless perfection is a false doctrine - and it is NOT the definition of “pure of heart”.
Pure of Heart is a RESPONSE to the External Purity of the Pharisees
It is always important to remember that context is key when interpreting Scripture, and the beatitudes fit into the context of Jesus’s preaching to his apostles.
Knowing this, it is important to remember who were the enemies of Christ’s ministry and teaching.
The most prominent opponents of Christ were the Pharisees.
They were the religious elite, and they could not stand this itinerate minister from Nazareth who challenged their rules.
And they were expert rule makers!
They had rules about everything.
They even had rules about how many steps a person could take on the Sabbath before it was considered to be “work”.
Jesus comes along and He challenges their rules, their traditions and their misunderstandings of Scripture.
And what was His most notable rebuke against them?
That they were HYPOCRITES!
They were all about the outward demonstrations of righteousness.
But inwardly, they were corrupt and evil.
Consider this one interaction:
Matthew 23:27-28 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
This is actually at the end of a very long section of Jesus’ teaching wherein He derides the Pharisees for their hypocrisy.
And here He provides the most powerful visual for what the Pharisees were: WHITE WASHED TOMBS.
What does he mean?
Everything on the outside of the pharisees looked great.
They had every outward appearance of religiosity.
They looked like pure men, through and through.
But inside, they were dead spiritually.
With all of their outward acts of religious adherence, their hearts were still evil.
They were the epitome of hypocrisy!
QUOTE: D. M. Lloyd Jones “Looked at externally, they were without spot. But their inward parts were full of ravening and wickedness. They were most concerned about the external injunctions of religion; but they forgot the weightier matters of the law, namely love to God and the love of one’s neighbor.”
Thus, when Jesus calls his followers to purity of heart, this is in contradistinction to the religion of the Pharisees.
The Pharisees had an outward religion.
But Christ calls us to an experience which begins on the inside!
Throughout His ministry, Christ refers over and over to the fact that true and genuine spirituality begins with an inward change.
Outward changes are not enough, we must experience an inward conversion.
This hearkens back to a principle from the Old Testament wherein we are told, “For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
For the Christian, faith is MORE than the outward expression of religion.
It is a change on the inside!
It is a change of heart.
This leads us to how we are to understand Pure of Heart:
Pure of Heart is a RESULT of Regeneration
Regeneration is another term for our being “born again”
This is when God removes from us our heart of stone, and replaces it with a heart of flesh.
Jesus said unless we are born again, we will not see nor enter the kingdom of God.
The picture of this change is seen in Ephesians 2, wherein Paul makes the point that we were all “dead in our trespasses and sins”
We were dead... but now we have been made alive.
Not physically...but spiritually!
Not in the flesh... but in the heart.
Remember: When Jesus says pure in heart, he is NOT talking about our blood pumping muscle. He is talking about our inward being, the real us, our spiritual self.
Prior to conversion, our hearts are filled with wickedness.
Mark 7:21-23 “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
But when we are truly converted Christ, our desires change.
We begin to desire inwardly for righteousness.
We begin to desire purity.
WHY???
Because our hearts have been converted.
NOTE: This change in man’s heart has two aspects— purification and renewal.
Titus 3:5 “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit”.
Ezekiel presented regeneration as a spiritual cleansing.
Ezekiel 36:25 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols”.
Similarly, Jesus told Nicodemus:
John 3:5 “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God”
Paul represented purification as a circumcision of the heart:
Colossians 2:11 “In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ”
Paul made the point in Romans 2:29 that this circumcision is of the “heart”
This again points us back to Ezekiel who says:
Ezekiel 36:26 “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Those who are truly in Christ possess hearts which have been converted, and purified by God’s Spirit.
These hearts yearn for righteousness.
And they are at odds with the flesh, which still has a desire for sin.
This is why we are called to spiritual discipline.
1 Corinthians 9:27 “But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”
NOTE: Paul is not talking about being disqualified from salvation, but rather from preaching. A pastor/preacher can be disqualified if his life becomes marred by a sin.
When we are born again, our old hearts are removed and God replaces them with a heart which desires Him... a heart which is not captive to sin, but rather is captive to Him... in essence, a pure heart.
CONCLUSION: It could be rightly said that the most serious issue which is raised with this beatitude is the issue of HYPOCRISY.
As I have noted, Jesus condemned the Pharisees because their outward expression did not match their inward hearts.
Their hearts were wicked, and their outward religion was a facade.
The biblical teaching on purity of heart raises some important questions.
1 - Are we living a divided or hypocritical life before God?
2 - Do we act one way in private and then another completely different manner in public?
3 - Do we cater our behavior ethically to suit those around us, acting one way with Christians and then another with unbelievers?
The person who is truly pure in heart can have a transparency to their life that a hypocrite cannot.
This is the reality of what this beatitude calls us to: A heart which matches our confession.
Because unless our heart is changed... unless we be born again... all our religious actions are in vain.
So the question of today is NOT are you sinlessly pure, for you cannot be while in the flesh.
The question of today IS has your heart been converted to Christ, or is your religion just an exercise in hypocrisy ... an act that is not from the heart?
