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Exodus 33:17-23 17 The LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” 18 Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The LORD’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” 21 And the LORD continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; 23 then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”
Matthew 5:1-10 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them, saying: 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed Are the Pure in Heart
As we continue in our series on the beatitudes today’s beatitude is, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
Martin Lloyd-Jones, speaking about the beatitudes said, “We come now to what is undoubtedly one of the greatest utterances to be found anywhere in the whole realm of Holy Scripture. Anyone who realizes even something of the meaning of the words, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”, can approach them only with a sense of awe and complete inadequacy. William Barclay called this the most demanding beatitude of all.
The first three beatitudes involved discovering the truth about ourselves. When we see ourselves as we really are we become poor in spirit, we mourn our sinfulness and we become meek as a result of this. They all lead us to a deep awareness of our need of God. We realized our need in the first three and we learn that God fills that need. God alone can fill the hole in our hearts. That place that tells us we were made for God and only God can fully satisfy us. That is the central statement of the beatitudes. The rest show us what will result in our lives when we become fully dependant on God.
Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. What would it be like to see God? There is a Christian song by Mercy Me called “I Can Only Imagine.” In it the author is imagining what it will be like to be in heaven and stand before Jesus. He wonders what he will feel and do, will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still, will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall, will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all, I can only imagine. I agree with the songwriter. I can only imagine what it will be like but it is something I long for, to be in the presence of God.
If we want to see God though we need to be pure in heart. So what does it mean to be pure in heart? Let’s start with what is pure? When something is pure it is free from anything of a different or contaminating kind. Remember the old ads for Ivory soap? They always said it was 99.44/100 pure. Think about maple syrup. There is quite a difference between maple-flavored syrup and pure Vermont maple syrup which is not mixed with added sugar or cane syrup.
We also see purity in metals. We refine metals, which means we remove all the impurities from it. Something that is pure gold has nothing mixed into it, only gold. So pure means unmixed, without additions.
Now let’s consider the heart. Biblically, we are not talking about the muscle in our chest that circulates our blood; we are talking about the emotions and the will. The heart is our ability to think, feel and decide. Here in this beatitude pure in heart means not having mixed motives or divided loyalties in our relationship to God. We could phrase it, “Blessed are those with undivided loyalties.” It is a heart completely devoted to God, pure, unmixed devotion. Psalm 24 asks the question, “Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?” It answers it with, “Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully.” Old Testament prophets looked forward to a time when God would give people clean hearts. Ezekiel chapter 36 says, “25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.” 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Jeremiah chapter 31 says, “31 “The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 33 “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
In other words, those with a pure heart are those who are focused on God alone. Blessed are the pure in heart can be a challenge to 21st century Christians because it can be very difficult to concentrate on any one thing amid the busyness and noise of everyday life. It is so easy to lose our focus on God, our devotion to Jesus.
Jesus knows our hearts are not pure, He said, “19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.” (Mat 15:19) All we have to do is look into our own hearts, observing the mixed motives, the distractions, and the divided loyalties inside to know this is perfectly true.
Jesus says several times, “No one can serve two masters.” He also says, “Not everyone who says to Me “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father in heaven.” Purity of heart is to will one thing: it is a call for unmixed motives that seek only the will of God. We need to examine our motives in religious practices more than anywhere else. How easy it is to cover selfish ambition with the cloak of religious service. Jesus raises the issue of motive throughout the gospels and condemns the Pharisees for theirs. We are not to serve so others will praise us nor are we to serve for conventional respectability but with integrity of heart, with pure hearts.
The Old Testament had much to say about purity and cleanliness. Internal cleansing. There are many strict laws governing purity. The Pharisees sought to follow every law perfectly. The Pharisees could well be characterized as saying, “Blessed are the outwardly clean, for they shall see God.” But Jesus does not say blessed are those who follow the law, who obey every commandment perfectly. Jesus is not nearly as interested in conduct as He is in our hearts because He knows that out of a pure heart will flow perfect conduct but perfect conduct will never change a heart. He is more interested in why we do what we do. Blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are those who are pure not merely on the surface but in the very center of their being. Listen to what Jesus said to the Pharisees in Matthew 23:25-28 25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean. 27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. 28 So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” Jesus uses very strong language here in condemning the Pharisees. Purity of heart is on the inside, in our hearts, not on the outside in our conduct. If our hearts are pure than our conduct will be pure.
Now let’s turn to the promise that goes with being pure in heart. Personally I think this beatitude has the best blessing attached to it. Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. Wow! Isn’t that amazing? If we are pure in heart we will actually see God!
Now we can think of seeing God in various ways. We can see God as in perceiving Him in nature and in the events of history. The non-Christian looks at the world and sees evolution, random chance leading to our world. The Christian looks at the world and sees the patterns in it, the beauty and variety and gives thanks to God who created it all.
When I became a Christian, color took on an entirely different meaning. I had been taught in science class that we perceived various wavelengths of light as color. That was a fact. When I became a Christian I realized God gave us not only the ability to see color but put a love of it inside us, colors give us pleasure. I now see God’s hand everywhere around me and I feel His love because of it. This is what we sometimes mean when we speak of seeing God. We don’t mean actually, physically seeing God but seeing the effects of God in our world. This is good. To see God through nature and other people is good but I don’t believe this is what our beatitude this morning is talking about though. I think it means actually seeing God face to face with our hearts. This is what blind and deaf Helen Keller meant when someone bluntly said to her, “Isn’t it terrible to be blind?” To which she responded, “Better to be blind and see with your heart, than to have two good eyes and see nothing” Throughout scripture seeing God has always been considered the ultimate goal of every endeavor, it is the whole purpose of all religious experience. Seeing God face to face is the greatest joy possible. When we pass from this world to the next and see the face of Jesus the joy of that moment will transcend all the accumulated joys of our lives.
Our first reading from Exodus told of when Moses asked to see God and God allowed His glory to pass before Moses. What strikes me about this story is God’s care for Moses. He fulfills his wish but protects Moses by shielding him in a cleft in the rock and only takes His hand away at the end so Moses can see His back. To look full upon the face of God would have killed Moses. Not as a punishment, but simply because fallen human beings cannot survive the full sight of God’s glory.
In order to see God we need pure hearts, we need to be focused completely on God. It is difficult to focus totally on God. One part of us wants to know God and worship God and please God; but another part wants to go its own way, put ourselves before God, pleasure before God. How can we ever be pure? On our own it is impossible. We must cast ourselves on the grace of God and ask Him to radically renew us. We must ask God for heart transplants. The great penitential psalm 51 says, “10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” We must ask God to remove our hearts of stone and give us kingdom hearts, hearts focused on God and God’s kingdom here on earth. Then, and only then, with God’s help, can we change and grow into the people God would have us be. God demands a humanly impossible character but then gives us that character by His grace.
This involves us opening our hearts to God, because only God can change our hearts, we can’t do it ourselves. Deuteronomy 30:6 says Moreover, the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live.” The only way we can be pure in heart is if the Holy Spirit enters us and purifies us. Only the Spirit’s indwelling and working within us can create this change In the second chapter of Philippians verse 12, Paul said, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” If he stopped there it would sound like we do the work but wait for the next verse. “13 for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Phi 2:12-13) It is a both/and condition we work while God works. Paul also promised the work would be finished when he said, “6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. (Phi 1:6)
Yes, to be pure in heart requires God to change us but there are things we can do to help the process, we are not passive. In the book of James the author says, (4:8) “8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” We need to draw near to God through prayer, worship and time in God’s word. We need to fill ourselves, saturate ourselves in God’s Word. All of this will help purify us.
We can all be assured that we will see God. Hold on to that hope. Agree with the apostle John who said, 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. (1John 3:2-3) One day we are going to see God and bask in His eternal glory for ever and ever. Our one confidence is that even now, at this very moment, God is working in us and preparing us for that. Let us all work with God and purify ourselves as he is pure.