The Pure in Heart

Sermon on the Mount  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  34:25
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Those who live as citizens of the kingdom have a single-minded devotion to God that leads them to do the right thing at the right time.

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Did you all have fun celebrating Valentine’s Day on Friday?
I know some of you are bitter about it being just another excuse to sell Hallmark cards and marked up flowers, but there isn’t anything wrong with setting aside a special day to celebrate love, is there?
After all, isn’t that our goal?
For some friends of ours in Florida, Friday night was an extra special Valentine’s, because they actually got engaged.
Guys, do you remember that time? I remember studying up on the 4 C’s of diamonds, the different metals you could set the stone in, and all those things.
For me, before God provided in a unique way with a generous gift from my grandmother, I remember wrestling through the balance of trying to find the purest diamond I could afford.
When it came down to buying an engagement ring, purity mattered.
Come to think of it, looking at the Sermon on the Mount this morning, we are going to see that exact truth: purity matters.
Go ahead and open back up to Matthew 5 again today.
As we pick back up in our study of the Beatitudes, this first section of the Sermon on the Mount, we are seeing a subtle shift.
The first several that Jesus listed have dealt largely with the heart: recognizing our own spiritual poverty, mourning over our sin, adopting an attitude that submits to God in meekness, and developing a hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness.
Last week, we shifted to somewhat more of an external focus.
Those who are citizens of his kingdom look outward, extending the mercy God has shown us to people who need it and don’t deserve it.
This week is somewhat of a combination. There is a dual focus, both on what we do and why we do it, so it gets at both of the areas: our actions and our motives.
In fact, what we see is that this week builds explicitly on another Beatitude.
Look back at 5:6 - hungering and thirsting for righteousness.
If you remember, we talked about developing a hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness, both to receive it and to live it out in the world.
Here in Matthew 5:8, we see the outcome of that hunger and thirst.
Read it with me...
Those who are citizens of God’s kingdom, those who have been adopted into his family, those who know the blessing of a life lived for him, are those who are pure in heart.
For a working definition this morning, let’s define purity of heart this way: doing the right thing with the right motive.
If you were with us a few weeks ago when we talked about hungering for righteousness, that may sound somewhat familiar.
That’s part of the way we defined God as righteous: he always does the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right motives.
Today, I want to boil this down to these two phrases, though: do the right thing with the right motive.
Let’s dive into this first part, because I think this is a good place to remind us that citizens of God’s kingdom are required to...

1) Do the right thing...

Although this is not all that Jesus is referring to here, let’s remember that purity involves the way we act.
In our study of the Sermon on the Mount so far, we have often brought up the Pharisees.
They were the religious leaders who were some of the most influential figures in Jesus’ day.
As we have talked about them, we have highlighted that one of their greatest mistakes was getting so caught up in looking right to everyone else that they neglected to make sure their hearts were right with God.
The first several Beatitudes have focused on the heart, and this one does as well.
Some of us do wrestle with the same thing the Pharisees did.
We want to try to be good enough to get to God on our own terms. We want to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and muscle our way into heaven, and we have seen time and time again that Jesus says that is impossible.
If that is you, go back and listen to what we have said in our previous messages and allow God to draw you to himself through his word.
However, I am afraid that there is somewhat of a danger here.
Many in our society have set aside the idea of absolute right and wrong.
In some ways, this has worked its way into the church.
We have rightly pushed back against the idea of Pharisaical legalism, but it is possible that we have gone to far.
Let’s be crystal clear this morning: the pure in heart live lives that are noticeably different than the world around us.
We are not talking about being weird, but we are talking about being pure.
When we talked about mourning over sin, we looked at a bunch of different things the Bible calls sin.
They are things that the Bible calls out as wrong, as contrary to God’s character and nature, and as things that we shouldn’t do as Christians.
Remember, though, that the list doesn’t stop with what we shouldn’t do; it also includes what we should!
Listen to the contrast that Paul gives us between the old life and the new:
Ephesians 4:25–32 CSB
Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, and don’t give the devil an opportunity. Let the thief no longer steal. Instead, he is to do honest work with his own hands, so that he has something to share with anyone in need. No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear. And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.
Do you see how they are balanced? There is an attitude or action to put off, and one to replace it with.
Follow me here: No, you are not saved by doing this or not doing that. In fact, two chapters before that list is one of the clearest sections in the Bible on the fact that you and I didn’t do anything to save ourselves; it was a gift of God.
However, if you are saved, if you have a relationship with God, your life cannot be the same.
A pure heart is going to show in right actions.
So, let’s think back over your week: Just based off your actions alone, would I be able to look at your life and say, “He gives clear evidence of a pure heart?”
Go back over the list in Ephesians 4:
Lying vs truth in love
Anger, rightly controlled and quickly resolved
Stealing, perhaps through laziness, or was your week marked by working diligently
Were your words foul, or did they build up those who heard them?
Bitterness or compassion?
Those who are citizens of God’s kingdom should live lives that are marked by purity.
We won’t ever be perfect in this life, but our lives should be growing to look more like the way Jesus would live all the time.
Now, with an idea of what pure actions look like, let’s put those actions back into context with what Jesus is saying here.
The Pharisees could have checked off a lot of those boxes, but again, their hearts were not truly pure.
In fact, you and I can do the same.
This, by the way, is part of why there are so many good people who do good things who are separated from God.
Although their outward actions may look right, they aren’t doing them...

2) With the right motive.

That is really what this Beatitude boils down to: what is the motivation behind those actions.
You see, for actions to really and truly be pure, they must come from a right motivation.
There are really two main wrong motives that we have for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Although they have several different expressions, it basically boils down to this:

To feel better about ourselves.

Often, our main motivation is to do the right thing so we will feel better about ourselves.
It is true that the greatest joy and happiness in life is found in walking in right relationship with God, but we aren’t talking about that.
We are talking about doing good things to try to make ourselves feel like we are better than other people.
We may not be perfect, but at least we’re not as bad as that guy.
Perhaps we feel like being good is a competition, so I always need to be one step better than the next guy.
If I just pray more or give more or do more, then I will feel good.
Maybe it isn’t to compare ourselves and make us feel like we are better than someone else.
Sometimes we do good because we just want to shut up that nagging ache we sense in our souls.
We hope that we can do enough good to outweigh the bad we have done, but you see, that will never work.
Some seem to think that the bad things they do are like a poison in a glass of water. If you keep adding more and more water, you would eventually dilute the poison enough that it wouldn’t kill you.
However, the standard Jesus lays out is that you and I must be perfect, as we will see at the end of this chapter in Matthew.
Think of it like an electrical circuit. If you have a long run of wire, and you break that wire at some point in the middle of it, the circuit is now broken and the electricity won’t work anymore.
You could add miles and miles of wire to the end of that run, and no matter how much you add, it won’t work because there is a break in the line.
The pure in heart aren’t motivated by a desire to make themselves feel better, because that will never work.
They also don’t live pure lives...

Tao look better to others.

Jesus gives many examples throughout the gospels of people who just did what they did so others would notice.
He talks about people who would stand out in public and pray long, loud prayers so everyone would hear how spiritual they were.
He talked about how people made a show of their good deeds, but throughout the Sermon on the Mount, he makes it clear that his kingdom isn’t about obeying to be seen by others.
Okay, so if those are wrong motives, then what is the right one?
Right Motive:

To honor the God who makes us clean.

The reason the pure in heart live lives that look pure is because they are pure.
In acknowledging their sinfulness and their need for God to save them, their hearts have been made clean.
Now, everything that we do is to honor the God who makes us clean.
Here’s how one commentator said it:
The New American Commentary: Matthew 2. Paradigmatic Preaching: The Sermon on the Mount (5:1–7:29)

The “pure in heart” exhibit a single-minded devotion to God that stems from the internal cleansing created by following Jesus

That is part of the key behind this idea of “pure”: single-minded devotion.
The pure in heart are marked by a motivation that says, “I am doing the right thing because that’s what my God deserves.”
God deserves that we would honor him because he is God!
That alone should cause us to want to do whatever he tells us to.
However, it gets even better!
Just like the other beatitudes, we still haven’t fully experienced all this means.
However, here’s what we do know: Jesus died on the cross to cleanse me from my sin! He offers forgiveness through his death.
God has always offered that forgiveness to those who would trust in him:

Come, let us settle this,”

says the LORD.

“Though your sins are scarlet,

they will be as white as snow;

though they are crimson red,

they will be like wool

I love the beautiful paradox: God takes our sin-stained souls, washes them in the blood of Christ, and they come out clean!
1 John 1:7 CSB
If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
He makes us pure, which then gives us the motivation to live out of a pure heart.
So, if you did good things this week, what motivated you to do them?
Guys, let me ask you: why did you get your wife what you did on Valentine’s Day? Was it because you wanted to love her like Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, or was it because you were hoping for something in return?
Why did you work hard this week? Was it because you hope that someday you will work hard enough that you will finally feel good about yourself and show all the people who doubted you, or was it because you wanted to honor the God who cleanses you and gave you the strength to do what he called you to do?
Did you see the promise God makes us?
Jesus promised that the pure in heart would see God.
Again, here is that “already/not yet” kind of promise.
One day, you and I will actually see God. We won’t just have to trust that we will, we will actually see him.
Do you realize that, if your heart has been made pure by trusting in Christ (which is shown by the way you live), then there will be a morning where you wake up, and before you fall back asleep, you will be in the manifest presence of God?
We have hints of that now, and we experience his presence and recognize his hand at work around us, but the promise is that one day, you and I will see him.
By the way, the more we strive to live pure lives through the strength he supplies, the more glimpses we see of him in this life.
What greater motivation could we have than to live our lives with a single-minded devotion to honor the God who makes us clean with our every thought, action, or deed?
Shouldn’t you want to do everything you can to be ready for the moment when you will fully realize what it is to be clean of sin, once and for all, and to see the radiant glory of the God who died to make you pure?
Where do your motives need to change? What actions do you need to trade out in your life to live out the purity God has placed in you?
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
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