Sermon Central
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The Pure In Heart
Contributed by Stephen Belokur on Jun 18, 2021 (message contributor)
Summary: As we continue in the Beatitudes we come to the Pure in Heart. Can a person be pure in heart while on this earth? Will ONLY the pure in heart see God and if so how can we come to the point where we have a pure heart?
The Pure In Heart
Please stand with me as we go over our current memory Scripture:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
And our memory Scripture “refresher” verse is:
“Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Today we will be reading from Matthew 5:1-12
Pure …
Unmixed with any other matter
Containing nothing that does not properly belong
Free from moral fault or guilt
How pure do you want your drinking water to be?
What if you were thinking about buying a house and you found out that the well was only ten feet from the septic leach field?
You probably wouldn’t be running to the faucet to get a drink of water. You would probably want to get the water tested first. Or you might want to get the septic system moved away from the well.
Why would you do that? Because, you want the water to be pure.
Impure water could cause all sorts of health problems.
What about if you were going into the hospital for surgery and when they wheeled you into the room you could see that the bed you are about to be placed into is dirty; they haven’t changed the sheets from the last patient. There is blood on the sheets and food that has dropped from the food tray and other substances that you can’t or don’t want to identify.
Naturally, you would refuse to be placed into that bed. Who knows what disease you might pick up from those impure sheets!
Today we will be looking at the sixth Beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
With that in mind let’s go ahead and read Matthew 5:1-12
(Prayer for help)
OK. So, let’s briefly review the previous Beatitudes that have brought us to the verse about mercy.
First of all, the word blessed does not mean “happy”. In order for a person to be “blessed” there must be Someone who is bestowing a blessing and someone who is being blessed. In return the one who is being blessed blesses or praises the One who is bestowing the blessing in a perpetual cycle of relationship.
Another thing we need to remember is that we are looking at the Beatitudes as if they are a path from the person who becomes aware that they are unsaved (poor in spirit) and journeying to maturity in Christ.
So, we need to keep these things in mind as we go through the Beatitudes.
In Matthew 5:3 it says,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.”
When it says “poor in spirit” it is not talking about someone who is always depressed; someone who always finds the worst in any situation. Instead, it is talking about a person who realizes their true spiritual condition of helplessness outside of Christ.
In Matthew 5:4 it says,
“Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.”
Here the mourner is mourning for the state of their soul. They may be born again and yet still constantly struggling with sin and struggling with the attraction that the world had on them before they were saved. They are mourning because they know they are not living a life that is pleasing in the sight of the Lord.
In Matthew 5:5 it says,
“Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”
They are meek because they know that every single step of spiritual growth they take is fully dependent on the Holy Spirit for help.
And, this dependence leads us to Matthew 5:6 where the “poor in spirit”, “mournful” and “meek” Christian can start to find help when it says …
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”
As a born again person grows in their relationship with the Lord they realize that the righteousness the Lord desires from them is something that is missing from their life. When that realization takes place the serious disciple of Christ will hunger and thirst for righteousness with the same fervor that a person dying of thirst runs to water.
This brings us to one of the elements of righteousness which is the characteristic of mercy.
Matthew 5:7 says,
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.”
The truly merciful person will not desire mercy in order to be shown mercy but as a person hungers and thirsts after righteousness they will desire to be merciful because their Lord Jesus Christ IS merciful and their driving passion is to be like Him.
