Well, good morning. It's good to be here with you all this morning. My family is sad to not be here. My wife sends her love and her regards. I realized that since being from Nashville, there's at least one person in this church that gets Bo's obscure Southern references and jokes. So, Well, this morning we have the privilege of considering God's Word from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5. If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn there or tap your way there on your device. We'll be looking at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. what has come to be known as the Beatitudes. It's a well-known, maybe the most famous sermon in the history of the world. Of course, the word beatitude comes from the Latin word for blessing, so these are pronouncements of blessedness, promises of blessedness that Christ gives to his disciples. Before we read, and I will be reading the first 10 verses of Matthew chapter 5, though our sermon will be on the 8th verse and the 6th beatitude. I'd like to set the stage for us just a little bit as we parachute our way into Matthew, where we find ourselves this morning. So those of you familiar with the Gospel of Matthew will know that Matthew is divvied up into five sections. There's a teaching section and a narrative section. As Matthew presents Jesus to us, Jesus teaches things and then he does things. Well here, the Sermon on the Mount, it's Jesus' first teaching ministry. It's right when Jesus' teaching ministry begins, and it's the teaching that he brings according to the gospel of the kingdom. That's a very important phrase in the gospel of Matthew, and he uses it just a few verses prior to our text in Matthew chapter four, near the end, when it says that Jesus comes proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. John the Baptist was the preacher who came announcing the coming of the kingdom. And now Jesus comes actually preaching the kingdom and what it entails. And it's this sermon on the Mount that makes up at its essence, the kingdom preaching of Jesus, what it means that the kingdom has come in power. And that's important to note because as we consider the Beatitudes, there's really two temptations and how to read these. and two equally erroneous interpretations. The first interpretation is to look at these Beatitudes and to see them as a list of entry requirements, as possibly like a list of job qualifications to get the position. And what this does is it causes us to turn inward and to make sure that we check all the boxes and that we've made it the right amount and that we're meek enough and hungry enough for righteousness and that we're peaceable enough. But what that leads to is legalism. And that's the wrong way to view these, but there's an equal and opposite interpretation. And that's to view these beatitudes as simply unattainable standards. goals that can't be reached and we should therefore just relax, chill, keep on reading, don't worry about it too much. That's not right either. It is neither entry requirements nor is it idealism. What Jesus gives us here is really a picture of what it means for someone to be brought into the kingdom. It gives a picture of the person on whom the kingdom has come, in whom the kingdom has come, and who lives in light of Christ's reign. So with that in mind, I would invite you to stand for the reading of God's word. Again, we'll be reading the first 10 verses. Hear now the word of the Lord as it's found in Matthew chapter five, verses one through 10. Seeing the crowds, he that is Jesus went up on the mountain. And when he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, 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. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. And blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you have given us in these pages an opportunity to see you and to see Christ placarded before us. We pray Lord that as we come to your word that you would search us and try our hearts to see if there'd be any evil way in us and Lord to lead us from here on out in the way everlasting. And we pray all of this in the good name of Jesus. Amen. You may be seated. I mentioned that one of the mistaken approaches of interpretation to the Beatitudes was that it's this unrealistic, unattainable standard. And for the Beatitude that concerns us today, I think that this is almost instinctual. When we consider it, when we look at it, we read, blessed are the pure in heart. for they shall see God. And as soon as you and I read that, we realize what the problem is. At least I hope you realize what the problem is, because if you don't, then you should probably be reading the passage. All the other beatitudes seem at least somewhat manageable, right? You can be generally meek. You hungered and thirsted for righteousness last Wednesday, and you're going to come back to it. But when you talk about purity of heart, that's an all or nothing statement. It's like the word unique. You cannot be very unique. You cannot be a little unique. You either are or you aren't. Same with the word pure. You cannot be very pure. You cannot be a little pure. You cannot be more or less pure. You either are or you aren't. We say things all the time that resemble purity of heart. If someone is generally affable, if they're kind, we say that that person has a heart of gold. If someone is magnanimous, virtuous, then we say that term, that person is good-hearted, he's good-natured. But we never, he says, I've never heard it, use the phrase pure-hearted. And we certainly never ascribe it to ourselves. And the reason for that is, is because on a fundamental level, we know that it's simply, however we carve it, however we try to slice it, it's just not true of us. Because we know that if other people are like us, and they are, and there are things in their hearts and our hearts that if they were displayed, would disturb us. And each one of us, at the very core of our being, not just our emotions, not just in the unexpected thoughts that flit through our mind, undesired, but in the very soul level, there's something wrong with us. And we know that, it doesn't take too long to realize that. There's something that makes us impure, and we can't get rid of it. The great Russian writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn said it this way, if only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us, and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? If only the problem were out there, if only the impurity was out there and we and our good pretty church building could come together and isolate ourselves from them, maybe that would fix the problem. but it doesn't, does it? It's all too obvious to you. It's all too obvious to me that the problem is actually in here, in here, not out there. So we come to this beatitude, I think, perhaps a little unsure of how, if at all, We can approach this as applying to our lives here and now. Remember I said that this is a picture of what it looks like for someone to live in the kingdom, to live under the reign of Jesus. If so, how? Because we know that's impossible, at least on our own strength. So how do we read this beatitude? How do we learn to become pure hearted people? I want to answer that question by talking about three things. First, I want us to see the heart and its purity. And then I want us to see the pure heart that will see God. And I want us to see the pure heart that has seen God. So the heart and what makes it pure? The pure heart that will see God and the pure heart that has seen God. First, what is the heart, biblically speaking, and what makes it pure? Well, in today's pop psychology parlance and just cultural in general, in all of our songs and all of our poems, the heart is pictured. And maybe the first thing you think of when you think of the heart is emotion. It's feeling it's whatever can be non-quantified in you. And that we just sort of push aside to the heart. It's that squishy feely stuff. When we use a bunch of phrases like this, when someone leaves it all in the field, we say that person has a lot of heart. When you break up with your significant other, you're heartbroken. In the South, it's actually an insult, right? Bless your heart. The romantic urge in us, as moderns, we want to separate feeling from intellect, from will. We want to parcel these out very cleanly and our heart's over here in the feeling category. So maybe the impurity of heart then would be unexpected anger or out of control lust. But in the Bible, the heart is much more basic. than just feelings or emotions. The heart does a number of things in scripture. It covets, it desires, it chooses, it loves, it hates. It does a number of things and this has led scholars generally to agree that the heart, biblically speaking, is your most basic self. It's who you are when everything's stripped away, when you're alone, what you think about, what you choose, what you desire. That's what your heart is. It's the ground of your being from which you choose, from which you think, from which you feel. The heart is that thing that's navigating all three aspects of you. If you want to think about it in terms of science fiction, if you're a Star Trek fan, you can picture Captain Kirk or Picard sitting in his command chair, telling everyone what to do. That's the heart. That's the heart in the Bible. It's much bigger, much more capacious than what we normally think about as the heart. So if that's the heart, if that's what we think about, if it's our most basic self, and the self is sort of a modern concept, but it can be used. Of course, culture today wants to tell us to be true to our authentic self. And the Bible does not want us to be true to our authentic hearts. It is deceitful and above all sick, as Jeremiah tells us. So if that's the heart, What is it that makes it pure? What makes us pure in the Bible? The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard famously said that purity of heart is to will one thing. To will one thing. Whatever that thing may be, purity of heart is to will it and to want it with everything you have to devote your entire life towards that one thing. Kierkegaard was almost right. Almost right. But it's not just myopia in the Bible. Purity of heart is not just having a one-track mind. There are plenty of ways to be impure and have a one-track mind. To go after various gods, various pleasures, various devices, and still to be impure. So in the Bible, the pure heart, this phrase is not used very often. But when it is, it seems to refer to a mix of things. There is the question of integrity. There's the question of the inner self and the outer man aligning what you want, what you think, and what you feel aligning with what you do. But we can be more specific than that. We can get, I think we can get exactly on what the Bible means by purity of heart. So the clearest reference to it is Psalm 24, the Psalm that we just read for the responsive reading. So if you have your Bible or your bullets and I'd invite you to turn there, Psalm 24. We're going to look at the first, excuse me, verses three through six. Here's where we get a picture of what it means to have a pure heart. Most commentators note that this is likely what Jesus is alluding to when he mentions a pure heart. So let's read it and find out. Starting in verse three, who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully, he will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. For the sake of brevity, I just want to highlight a couple things that tell us a bit about what the Bible means by pure in heart. First, notice what all these verses have to do with. They have to do with one thing, worship. What's described as a pure heart, it's the one who does not lift up his soul to what is false, who does not swear deceitfully, and then at the end, it's the generation of those who seek the face of the God of Jacob. So implicitly or explicitly, these are actually referring to the religious practices of the Old Covenant people. What makes a pure heart, at least in this Psalm, is a concern, at least for worship. That's the first thing I want you to notice. The second thing too, notice where it is. Notice where the pure-hearted person is. He's on the holy hill in God's holy place. He's in the temple. Not only is he desiring to worship God in purity, he is in the place of worship. So very specifically, I think, when the Bible's talking about purity of heart, it is speaking about something that has to do with our disposition towards worship. Our inclination towards worship. Where the worship and glory of God stands in our lives. So with that in mind, I want to offer just a very brief definition of what the purity of heart is, scripturally speaking. And it alliterates, so you're in luck. So purity of heart is this, it is the controlling, comprehensive, and constant desire for the true worship of God. Okay, I'm gonna say it one more time. It's the controlling, constant, and comprehensive desire for the true worship of God. I'm gonna break that down really quickly for y'all. First, it's the controlling desire for the true worship of God. Meaning this, that a concern for God's worship is the thing that controls everything you do in life. Like a GPS system, it tells you when to turn left, when to turn right, when to go straight ahead, when to stop. That is your chief end, as the Westminster divines said. Man's chief end is to what? Glorify God and to enjoy him forever. That end, that's the thing that's controlling you, that's navigating you through life, that's dominating your decisions. Not just here on Sunday morning, but in your professional lives, in your parenting, what you eat, what you watch, what you read, all of it is geared towards the worship and the glory of God. It controls you. But it's also this, it's not just controlling, it's comprehensive. Meaning this, that purity of heart, a pure hearted person, the concern for God's worship and his glory covers every aspect of their lives. Have you ever put tincture in water and see it cover the entire glass? Just a couple drops. That's what the pure hearted person desires in every aspect of his life. It's the glory of God. It's his worship. And third, finally, the purity of heart is constant, meaning it never ceases. Meaning that the one thing in your mind all the time is this, how can I glorify God today? How can I worship him? It's the difference between a fair weather fan and a true fan. That's what David says in Psalm 27, one thing have I asked of the Lord and that will I seek after. And I gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and inquire into his temple. So purity of heart, it's the controlling, comprehensive and constant desire for the true worship of God. And as I said these things, perhaps you were going through your mind cataloging what it is that controls you, what it is that is the constant for you, what it is that comprehensively covers your life. So what is it? What is it that controls you? Is it professional ambition? Is it the accrual of money? Is it intellectual respectability? Or is it simply the tyranny of the urgent? What is the thing that touches everything about your life? Is it anxiety about finances? Is it the crushing insecurity that maybe somehow someone is going to find out what kind of fraud you are and what's the constant for you? What's always in the back of your mind nagging you? Is it fear of the future? Is it bitterness at those who have failed you? Is it the thought that you deserve more than what you're getting? And if you're able to see that, if you're able to find in your life what controls you, what covers everything that you do and what it is that is the constant, then you begin to see what it is that you really worship and you begin to see where your heart actually lies. So that's the heart and its purity. But what about the pure heart that will see God? This is my second point, the pure heart that will see God. Why does Jesus add this here? What does it have to say to us in our lives today? When Jesus pronounces his beatitude, he doesn't just say blessed are the pure in heart, he gives a reason, he gives a promise that accompanies that blessing. It's the because statement. Blessed are the pure in heart because they shall see God. It's both a promise in the sense that this will happen and it's a blessing. It's the thing that makes the pure hearted person blessed. Now remember my definition, this is the controlling, comprehensive, and constant desire for the true worship of God. The reason it's a blessing, the reason that the pure-hearted person is blessed with this particular blessing is because these people are the ones whose basic disposition is bent towards God and His glory. They are blessed because they are given the desires of their hearts. They're blessed because the very thing that they have sought after, the thing that they have prayed for, is the very thing that they receive as their reward. And this sort of sentiment isn't brand new to the New Testament. In fact, it's all over the Old Testament, the desire to see God. Psalm 17, as for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness. When I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. Or Psalm 11, the Lord is righteous. He loves righteous deeds and the upright shall behold his face. And Job of course declared, I will look upon the Lord and the land of the living. What Jesus is offering right here is this culmination of everything that the old Testament saints have been looking forward to. Now going back to my introduction, remember my two pitfalls, the equal and opposite errors of legalism and idealism. Now I'm going to assert that the blessedness that Jesus awards the pure hearted person is the very reason we know that this isn't some unattainable standard. Why? Because This is not something that people are awarded even if they don't want it. Jesus does not say that purity of heart occurs when we see God. Oh, there's some truth in that. It's those who see God who already love him, who already desire him, who already want to worship him in spirit and truth. And if they didn't want those things, then an eternity in his presence, looking at his face would not be a blessing. It would be the opposite of a blessing. It'd be a curse. It's the purity of heart that believers display here. That is the training and the preparation that they receive for being in the presence of the one whom their soul loves. It's the desire that controls the saints that's the desire that will be satisfied. So here's a simpler way for me to say that. If you do not love worshiping God, obeying his commands and glorifying his name here, what makes you think that you will enjoy it in the next life? If you are not striving for true worship and obedience right now, What makes you think that you'll want to do it when you come face to face with him? That's not the natural reaction that we see in the Bible when sinners come before the face of a living God. Do you make God's glory, honor, and praise your heart's desire? Or do you expect those things to just happen overnight? that you'll wake up one day and be this holy person who loves Jesus, who loves his word. That's not how it happens. The desires that we've set ourselves towards, the things that we incline our heart towards now will be the things that we worship 10 years from now. So are we putting to death the old man and putting on the Lord Jesus Christ? Are we putting aside the flesh and its desires and taking up the spirit and its desires? Well, that's the way that we begin to cultivate purity of heart. Do we think on what is excellent, what is commendable, what is lovely, what is worthy of praise, or do we think, you know, the new season of Better Call Saul is out? And I'd rather watch that. I'll get to it next week. I'll inquire into the Lord's temple and gaze upon his beauty next week. So this, I suggest to you is the first way that this beatitude speaks to us. It makes very real and escapable demands, demands that are very clearly not the natural habits of our heart. That's not the only thing we should take away from this beatitude. Because if it is, then you and I are out of luck. We know what a pure hearted person is. We know what they're supposed to do and we don't do it. But remember, this is the gospel that Jesus is preaching. It's the gospel of the kingdom. So to understand what Jesus is saying here, we have to look at it through the lens of the gospel. And this is my last point where I want to leave us today. Here, I want us to see the pure heart that has seen God, the pure heart that has seen God. Jesus promises that the pure heart person will see God referring to a future state, specifically the presence of God when he comes to make his reign on earth. but we're missing something fundamental if that's all we see. And here's where I want us to take us, because when Jesus comes preaching the kingdom, he's not just the herald of the kingdom. He's not just John the Baptist. If you look at Luke 17, you don't have to turn there if you don't want to, but Luke 17 verses 20 through 21, we get a greater insight into what Jesus's relationship is to the kingdom of heaven. And it's there as the Pharisees ask Jesus when the kingdom is coming, that Jesus responds this way. He says this, the kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, look, here it is or there. For behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. The kingdom of God is in the midst of you. When Jesus said that, he didn't mean that the kingdom was in their very hearts already, that each one of us resides the kingdom of God. That's not what he was getting at. That's how some have tried to take him. But he was saying something much more profound. He was saying that the kingdom of God is standing right here in your midst. And he was pointing all of his fingers at himself, saying this, I am the kingdom itself. I am the reign of God itself. Of course, we know that Jesus is also God himself. When Jesus comes preaching the kingdom, when he comes preaching the gospel of the kingdom, he comes as the herald, he comes as the kingdom itself, and he comes as the king of that kingdom. So how does that apply to our beatitude today? Now here's how I want you to see this. Here's what I want you to see here. We get God himself telling his disciples, blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God while they see God. Not that everyone who looked at Jesus saw God, but Jesus' very mission was to come and to reveal the Father to those who looked upon him. So that when his disciples looked at him, they saw the very fullness of God dwelling bodily. Do you get what's happening here? Jesus says, blessed are you the pure in heart because you will see God and they're already seeing God. They're already looking upon him in his glory. So here's where the gospel comes into play for us, brothers and sisters. It's this that by nature, you and I were children of wrath, hating one another and hated by others. and suppressing the truth and unrighteousness, as Paul says. Our hearts were not pure. In fact, we said in our hearts that God didn't even exist, about as impure as you can possibly be, biblically speaking. But before we repented, before we decided to do anything, before we even knew that there was a problem, Jesus came to us. God came to us and he let us see him even though there is nothing in us that desired him, nothing in us that wanted him, nothing in us that inclined us to his worship. It was simply grace. It was the kingdom of God coming in and beginning in us its reign. And he not only showed his love for us by forgiving us, but he showed his love for us by giving us the ability actually to do what he commands. As Hebrews says, that your hearts have been sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. Not because it's pure or clean on its own. So if you felt oppressed by the demands of this attitude, if you read this and you're like, well, it's not me. that I want you to feel the freedom that it offers as well because God came to your impurity, he forgave it, and then he enabled you by the spirit to pursue a pure heart. This is what Calvin called the double gift that we have in Christ. We have justification, the forgiveness of sins, the purification of our hearts, and we have sanctification, the ability actually to pursue a pure heart. Not in ourselves, not because we're holy, not because we on our own desire, but because Christ in his mercy has united us to himself and allowed us to live as members of his body. If you are in Christ, because you have been united to him by faith, the promise of the gospel is not only a righteousness that is not yours, It's not only a spirit that is not yours, it's a heart that is not yours as well. What's the promise of the new covenant? It's a new heart. Not your old hearts. A new heart. Given to you straight from God. You were given a new heart, you were transferred from the kingdom of darkness into his marvelous light. You died to sin and you live to righteousness. Do you believe that? Do you know that? Do you know that even as you read this list, that it's not a legalistic job qualifications, it's not an unattainable standard, something that you can, by the power of the Spirit, live right now? Not because you're perfect. Not because you have it all figured out. But because, brothers and sisters, it is no longer you who live. It's no longer you who live, it's Christ who lives in you. And the life that you now live by faith in the Son of God, you live by the Spirit. It's the side of Christ that turned Saul into Paul. It made the man who murdered Christians count it all as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus. To suffer the loss of all things and count them as rubbish so that he might gain Christ. The gospel, it makes martyrs out of murderers. It makes saints out of sinners. And the best news of all, it makes pure hearted worshipers out of people like you and me. So our hearts in this world, they're far from perfect, but Christ's words offer both a significant challenge and overwhelming comfort. The significant challenge is this, it's the call to purity of heart. It's the call to be a people so radically oriented towards God and his glory that nothing else can get in our way. There's no other thing in our hearts and our minds than the worship and the glory of God. But right where that challenge ends is where the promise comes in. that in Christ Jesus, you are already considered pure hearted, and by his spirit, you can be pure hearted. And that is good news indeed. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the gospel of the kingdom, that it comes to us in our sin and in our misery, and even now allows us to love you to love your son, to live lives from a pure heart. We pray, Lord, that as we go out from here, that you would write upon our hearts the gospel itself, that we would know ourselves to be people far from perfect, justly deserving your displeasure and yet by your grace counted pure and sinless in Christ himself. We pray all of this for the sake of the name of Christ himself. Amen.