Word of Salvation – Vol. 43 No. 26 – July 1998

 

Blessed are then pure in heart...!

 

Sermon by Rev. J. W. Westendorp on Matthew 5:8

Scripture Readings: Exodus 33:12-23; 34:29-35; Mark 7:1-5, 14-23

Suggested Hymns: BoW 337; 300; 453; 388

 

Introduction

 

Congregation, When we reflect on the Beatitudes we notice an interesting thing.

That if you turn these sayings of Jesus around to mean the exact opposite…
then you end up with a fairly accurate description of the human race at its worst.
            Or probably more accurately – you get a picture of us humans as we are by nature.

We’re not inclined to be poor in spirit... instead there’s a lot of pride and arrogance in us.

Rather than hungering and thirsting for righteousness...
            there’s a tendency to always want evil.

Instead of being merciful... cruelty is often inflicted by merciless people.
Think only of (Zimbabwe/Bosnia/Ukraine...)!

Turn the beatitudes back to front...
and we have a description of humanity as it is by nature...
            apart from the grace of God.

We are going to see that too as we deal with the sixth beatitude.

When Jesus pronounces a special blessing on the pure in heart...
            then He is not speaking about anything we find naturally in us human beings.
Jesus is talking about something that is the very opposite to what we are by nature.

 

A]        BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART.

1.         Jesus may have spoken these words especially with the Pharisees in mind.

The Pharisees were a Jewish religious sect that was preoccupied with the idea of purity.

They took purity to ridiculous extremes... as we saw in that reading from Mark’s gospel.
A simple walk through the market place... and you’d be obliged to wash your hands.
That was to make absolutely sure that nothing unclean happened to cling to them.
A fanatical religious and ceremonial purity to wash away the world’s contamination!
So they had invented a whole host of ritual and ceremonial cleansings.

When Jesus' disciples once dared to eat without first washing the Pharisees were horrified.
Didn't Jesus care about purity?
Blessed are the pure... but how can you be pure without scrubbing and washing?

Those Pharisees also pronounced a blessing for the pure and for purity.
The trouble is that it was all an outward show... and a concern about outward purity.
Jesus, in disgust, accused them of hypocrisy.
            Whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones.

Today that perverted concern with outward purity is all around us.
Our culture has immense concerns about outward purity and cleanliness.
There are whole industries geared just to those concerns.
            Soaps... that guarantee to leave your skill cleaner and smoother and softer.
            Cosmetics... skin lotions... that promise you you’ll look 20 years younger.

This is the generation of the ‘body beautiful’ that goes to extremes for outward beauty.
            Girls try to look like the latest Hollywood star touted by the media.
                        Even if it leads to anorexia and bulimia.
            Guys try to be like their sporting heroes or the Terminator.
                        Even if it costs you hours of torture at the gym, pumping iron.
            And of course when the inevitable happens there is always plastic surgery.
                        Nips and tucks to make sure not a wrinkle gives away our true age.

Outward health and beauty – while underneath there can beat a heart rotten to the core.
We don’t worry too much what’s under the layers of make up... or the bulging muscles.
We live in a culture where a pimple or a zit... is a bigger problem than uncontrolled anger.
            A macho male image is more important than faithfulness to the wife and kids.
            As long as she’s curvaceous and pretty who cares if she’s known for being bitchy?

Here in this beatitude Jesus has a radically different outlook on things.
He’s not worried if you're a plain-Jane... with freckles and pimples.  Who cares...?
For the Lord beauty and purity are not just skin deep.
For Jesus it’s the heart that matters.  He goes to the very core of our being.
            And He asks:  What is it like on the inside... where the soap and make-up don't reach?

Dad and Mum can't see what goes on in your heart or mind, can they boys and girls?
Although sometimes they might have a good idea...!

What we as adults think about... and long for... and dream about doesn't show outwardly either.
It won't even show up on an X-ray.  But God knows it... He looks into our hearts.

Are you pure in heart young people?

 

2.         The pure in heart?  Who are these people?

Are these perhaps men and women who are a little better than most others in society?

All around us are people with huge moral issues.
People who are crude and corrupt... angry and violent people...!

But there are also decent citizens, good people like us.
We do the right thing by others and we take our responsibilities seriously.

So... is Jesus giving a special blessing on those who are a little more pure in heart than others?

No!  Jesus puts this in absolute terms.
Many years ago we had a white car... at least we spoke of it as “our white Kingswood”...!
But we went once to the snow as a family and we took some photos of us in the snow.
In those photos the car looked positively grey against the bright whiteness of the snow.

And now Jesus is saying that our heart needs to be absolutely pure.

      A heart that is a clean and white as new fallen snow – and that makes this a scary beatitude.
It’s scary, congregation, that Jesus goes deeper than the outward purity of the world.
God looks into the very depths of our personality.
Into the very core of our minds and hearts... where we think... and wish... and desire.

And now what is even more frightening is that God is looking for absolute purity there.
That’s frightening because underneath our skin and muscle... and under the make-up...
            we know that things aren't always the way they should be.

Jesus said that out of the heart come evil thoughts, envy, murder, adultery, greed.
            And some of that stuff has come out of our hearts again this past week.
Doesn’t that then make this beatitude an impossible dream?

Some have suggested that this is really just a special benediction for little children.
Especially for little children who die young.  They are still the pure in heart.
They haven’t become corrupted yet by our world.  There is no blackness in their heart.
            But we know better than that, don't we?
                        Our children are born with sinful hearts... we all were.
                        David cries out in Psalm 51: In sin did my mother conceive me...!

It isn't as though we once were pure in heart but that now we’ve lost it.
            We human beings never, ever had it in the first place...
            At least, not since Adam and Eve first walked in that lovely Garden of Eden.
            The hymn writer got it right:  Guilty, vile and helpless we...!

 

3.         King David too shared this dilemma that we find ourselves in.

He knew that God only blesses the pure in heart.

But David also knew only too well what his own heart was like before God.

David claimed to be a child of God... he was a servant of God.
Yet out of his heart there came adultery and murder.
Adultery with Bathsheba... and then murder of her husband Uriah.

David faced up to his own condition squarely and to the fact that a pure heart is impossible.
So in Psalm 51, in which David confessed His sin, he also cried out:
            Create in me a clean heart O God.

And that's just where we find the answer to our impossible dream....!

God does the impossible through a miracle that is worked by His Holy Spirit.
God solves our problem.
            Thru the renewing work of the Holy Spirit He creates in us a new heart.
            In Ezek.36:26 God is the great heart transplant surgeon...
                        not of physical hearts....
            Spiritual hearts... taking out the hard and impure... and replacing it with the pure.
            Or in N.T. terms: our hearts are washed clean by the blood and Spirit of Jesus Christ.
            We now have a new heart that has a rich inner beauty... that seeks God’s will.

However, that doesn’t quite solve all the problems we have with this beatitude.
It’s true; God creates in the believer a renewed heart by the power of Jesus.
That’s the Bible’s imagery of the big change God brings about deep within us.

Yet we’ve admitted that also as believers, sin still comes out of that core of our being.
            We saw it in the prayer of David... and David was a child of God.
            And, yes, we are children of God... born again by the Holy Spirit.
            But there is still so much impurity in the depths of our being... in our thoughts and minds.

Here I want to remind you of two things in relation to this new heart that God gives us.
First, rather than being perfectly SINLESS it has a new attitude towards God...
            An attitude that is honest and open before God... that truly seeks to be obedient.
Second, there also needs to be an ongoing renewal... involving us in lifelong process...
            As we keep praying those words of David: “Create in me a clean heart O God!”

 

B]        FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD.

1.         In many ways this is the most difficult of all the beatitudes.

Not only is there that big problem of our own impurity... that just keeps catching up with us.

There is also a problem with the special blessing Jesus pronounces: “...for they shall see God.”

As we hear Jesus saying that we have to reconcile that with other texts of the Bible.
Texts that tell us that God cannot be seen by human beings.
Think of that story from Exodus 33.
            It’s a story about one of the greatest saints of God who ever lived... Moses.
            He wanted to see God but he was told that he couldn’t... that no one could.
                        You cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live.

So the result...?  Well, Moses only saw the back of God.
But because of that Moses’ face shone so bright that people couldn't look at it.
Can you imagine what would have happened if Moses had looked God full in the face...?
But Moses couldn't... and we can’t.

Or think of Isaiah 6 where Isaiah sees the angels standing around the throne of God.
And even those sinless angels cover their faces in the presence of God.
There is a blinding brightness in His glory and holiness.
            He is dazzling in majesty and greatness.
            So it’s not surprising that we read in John 1:18:  “No one has ever seen God”.

There’s a story of a missionary, speaking with a South American Indian Chief.
The Indian wanted to see God... he said he couldn't believe in a God he couldn't see.
“Show me your God... so that I can believe in Him!” he asked.
The missionary took him outside and said to him, “Look at the Sun”.
            The Indian said he couldn’t.
            The missionary then responded:
                        If you can’t even look at the sun God made how can you look at God Himself?
                        He is so much greater than the sun that He created.

So if being pure of heart seemed an impossible dream... seeing God seems an impossible blessing.
What are we to do then with this blessing that Jesus pronounces?
What did He mean when He said: “They shall see God”?

Is Jesus maybe talking about when we die... that then we will see God.
In that case is our longing to see God then really not the same as longing to die?
Will we then at death... just manage to get a distant, vague glimpse of God?
            That maybe you and I will get to see even less of God than Moses saw?
            Because ...of course ...we don't quite measure up to Moses?

Or is it so that we are supposed to treat this as something figurative?
We will see God... but of course we mustn’t take that too literally.
            Perhaps it just means we’ll be close to God... that we’ll have fellowship with Him.
            But if we say that aren’t we then watering down this blessing?

 

2.         Let me also remind you that ‘seeing God’ is not – in itself – necessarily a blessing.

The Book of Revelation tells of Jesus coming again.
And we read there of people who oppose God and who hate Him.
And they cry out for the rocks to fall on them to hide them from His awesome presence.
For evil people it will not be a blessing to see God... it will be a most dreadful experience.
So I believe Jesus means more than seeing God the way Moses’ saw God’s back.

Perhaps we should indeed see this first of all in terms of having fellowship with God.
Seeing God means knowing God.
By faith we see invisible realities.
            We see with our spiritual eyes what we cannot see with our physical eyes.
            While others see only outward things... we see far more than external realities.

God has given us a new heart....!
            Pure hearts... that are now directed to God... and that see God.
            Blessed are the pure in heart for they see God... they know Him...!

Roman 1 gives us a good example of this.
Paul says that unbelievers don’t see God even though He made Himself visible in His creation.
He has left His fingerprints all over the place.... but the unbeliever is blind to it.

But we, we Christians see God in nature... in the world around us.  We call it general revelation.
            We see God... in the beauty of the sunset... in the magnificence of the mountains.
            God is there... showing Himself in nature to the pure in heart.
            In the endless expanse of the heavens... in the miracle of the birth of a child.
                        Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

We could add that the believers see God also in history... in the affairs of life.

And we see Him in the circumstances of everyday life... in the events that happen.

Let me give you a simple example:
The unbeliever gets a bonus in his pay packet and he says:  Aren’t I lucky!
            He doesn’t see God in his pay packet.
Those whose hearts God has renewed see God’s blessing in that bonus pay.
            And they say:  Thanks Lord for your provision.
                        Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

Of course we especially see God in His Word.
And then more particularly in the Word made flesh... the Lord Jesus.
On one occasion one of the disciples asked Jesus to show them the Father (John 14)
Jesus replied: He who has seen me... has seen the Father.

We see God in and thru Jesus Christ... the Christ of the Scriptures.
So we then realise that the expression ‘seeing God’ also has the idea of SALVATION.
We see God in all His grace and mercy and forgiveness... we see Him at work in our lives.

 

3.         But that still leaves us with one question:  What then about in the life hereafter?

Doesn't this text also have the idea of some sort of future seeing of God?

In fact, isn't this the great goal of the Christian faith...?
To look forward to that day when we shall see God...?
Isn’t that also the longing of the true child of God?

Okay, we may shudder now in our sinfulness and in our remaining impurity of heart.
So, yes!  There is a kind of holy terror about it.
Imagine: To stand before God and to actually look at Him?
Some of us already find it a formidable thing to come to His table, let alone stand before Him.

And yet... isn’t there also a kind of longing... a deep seated desire for just that?
            Just as there was in the life of Moses...?
            Surely it is perfectly natural for the child of God to want to see his Father.
            And if that longing is not there... deep down....does that tell us something?
                        That perhaps we are not really among the pure of heart?
                        Then we ought to pray more earnestly: Create in me a pure hearts O God.

And yet those other questions do keep coming back too.
Will we ever really be able to see God in His full glory and majesty?
There are differences of opinion on this matter:

    Some say: No! No creatures can ever see the Creator in His full glory?
            They point to the angels who cover their face in God’s presence.
            And even in heaven... we are still creatures.

    Others say: Yes!  Yes, we will be able to see God in full splendour when we die.
            They remind us that then our purity of heart will be perfected.
            Completely pure in heart... no more sin... then we shall see God.

Let me conclude with two Bible verses that I have found helpful.

The first is from I John 3.
Here we have a very positive promise that in some way we will see God in the life to come.
IJohn 3:2... where it speaks of us as Sons of God, John adds: “... for we shall see Him as he is.”
Paul had the same thing in mind when he said that one day we will see ‘face to face’.

The other verse is from Hebrews 12
And again the context is that we whose hearts God has changed are children of God.
Hebrews 12:14... where there is another strong hint that we will see God.
            “... without holiness no one will see the Lord”.
One day we will... somehow... see God...!
  But notice please... not without holiness.
Only if you know yourself to be one whom God has made the ‘pure in heart’ thru His Son.
Then you will... you will see God.

Amen.