What Do I Love? • Michael Sciarra

Introduction

We're going to be looking at Matthew chapter 5, verses 6-8. If you grab one of the church's Bibles on the way in, that is on page 809.

We'll be studying verses 6-8 this morning and I'll read for us verses 1-12.

Matthew chapter 5, starting in verse 1 says this:

Seeing the crowds, he 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. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

This is God's word for us this morning. Would you please join me in another word of prayer?

Lord, we come before your word and we ask that you would work mightily in it to draw our eyes to Christ. To help us be drawn up into something of his glory. To understanding you in greater depths. An understanding your will for our lives in more clarity. Many of us who have walked in this morning and we might feel distracted, perhaps even distraught because of our circumstances, we pray that Christ and his word would be a comfort to us, would refocus us in our lives and our hearts in what is most important. Pray that through your word this morning, you would encourage the faint-hearted, that you would help the weak, that you would build up all. That you would even help those who feel spiritually strong and vibrant, to continue to see their need for Christ and revel in his grace and mercy and kindness. Most of all, Lord, we pray that the glory of Christ would increase in our church as we come to your word. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Human Heart is like Wax

It's been rightly said that the human heart is like wax. Or for some of you with small children, perhaps you'd prefer the illustration of Play-Doh, which might even reflect things a bit more clearly because Play-Doh is especially malleable, isn't it? Our hearts are like wax or Play-Doh. They take the shape of whatever they're fit into or whatever warms them. They're able to be molded.

It's true because we know well when we examine our hearts that what we love, what we desire, what we long for shapes us. What is within us shapes us and shapes our lives more than anything else. Our inward lives, what happens in your mind and your heart, set a trajectory for you more than your actions do. Because your lives, your inward lives define your outward acts, where you're going, what you do, how you do it. We make plans and pursue things based on the priorities of our hearts.

So it's vastly important that you and I continually have a finger on the pulse of our hearts, of our spiritual well-being, and ask ourselves what is it that I love most? Where do my strongest desires, my most continual desires lead me? If I take what I love and what's within my heart and I draw it out and tease it out to its fullest extent, if I really got all that I wanted, if you had everything that was in your heart and prized there, where would it take you? What kind of picture would your life begin to paint? What would you have? What would your life be defined by and consumed with? If you could have everything you wanted today, what would you have?

And maybe a more important question, if your heart was extremely and so well conformed to the Word of God, then what would the outcome be?

The Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes

Last week, we started this series in the Sermon on the Mount. We'll spend roughly probably the next 14 or 15 weeks in Matthew chapters 5-7, which is all about Jesus telling us how to live kingdom lives in a fallen world. What does it look like for someone who's been forgiven and redeemed by Christ and transformed, someone who's been brought from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God's beloved Son, the kingdom of light, and had that glorious transfer? How does that kind of person live in a world that is still dark and still crumbling, that still looks tainted and broken all around us? And if we're honest, we're so often ready to fall back into it. How do we stay faithful?

This sermon that defines what it looks like to be a kingdom citizen, a follower of Jesus the King, starts with the Beatitudes, this section we're continuing in this morning. They all say, "Blessed are..." fill in the blank. The poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those even who are persecuted. Blessed are they. They describe those who are truly blessed, who have divine happiness, who have come into contact with God through his Son, who have fellowship with God. These aren't necessarily descriptions of how you and I earn blessedness, as much as they are descriptions of what it looks like to be one who has been made blessed, who has come to Christ the Savior and as Lord. They don't describe how we receive blessing from God, but they do describe the what. The reality of our new and blessed state. The blessings that you and I have, the grace and joy that we get to experience. It tells us what a life marked by belonging to the kingdom feels like, looks like, what that experience is at its core. Not every facet of it, but the most fundamental realities of it. And like I said last week, therefore, these Beatitudes, these defining marks of a kingdom citizen are not just for special Christians, they're for every Christian of every stripe, of every level of maturity. Christians embody these characteristics.

Jesus Confronts Dead Faith

There's something interesting about Jesus's preaching here in the Sermon on the Mount, especially in the Beatitudes. Jesus sits down, which is interesting. You see me standing up here. Back in the day, they used to sit. It was honor for the teacher, who probably contrary to our context today, would have been much older than most of their listeners, and the people would stand. People in the early church even sat as they taught. So perhaps if we wanted to be biblical, I should take a chair and sit right here. But in reality, as time went on and sermons got longer, especially after the Reformation, you all decided, "I'd rather not stand so long." And so we sit today.

But Jesus sits on a hillside, what is here called a mountain, and he begins to teach his disciples. And if you know anything of biblical history, as Jesus issues these blessings, it should remind you of when Moses in Deuteronomy 28 is before all the people of Israel. He has been a leader for them and led them out in an Exodus from Egypt and bondage and slavery. He's brought them forth. And after some period of disobedience, he renews the covenant with them and he begins with blessings and defining marks of those who belong truly to the covenant community and those who are truly followers of Yahweh. And here Jesus comes. But he's not Moses, he's a greater Moses. He's not led his people through a physical Exodus from bondage. But here he leads a spiritual Exodus. He's leads those who trust in him for salvation. That blood of the Passover was pointing to Christ. And here now, for these new covenant people, he sets a trajectory and he tells us, what does it look like to be the people of God?

And the Sermon on the Mount here, as Jesus takes up this image and he begins these blessings, explains the heart of our salvation. It echoes Romans 4 where you and I learn that it's not physical descendants of Abraham who can trace their lineage back to him, who are his true children. But it is those who are his children by faith and share that heritage of trusting in Christ, him looking forward to the promise and us holding on to that sure promise that we see. Justification by faith and faith alone. Those are the true children of Abraham. We learn here that our salvation is not based so much on an ethnic standing as it is our ethic. We learn that it's not for those who have a particular DNA, but again, share Abraham's faith. It's not about race, it's about grace. Jesus is confronting the dead faith of the people who claim to be the people of God in this day. You can think of his many woes later on and his corrections here even in the Sermon on the Mount to the scribes and the Pharisees. The elite in the Jewish class, in the people of Israel and God's day, who had distorted what it meant to follow God and thought that it meant more about their lineage and their external actions than it did about the reality of their faith in their hearts.

He goes directly against them. Calls them hypocrites. And shows them that those who inherit the kingdom and all of its blessings are marked by true faith and they are divinely happy as the Beatitudes show. The Beatitudes, more than anything, are about your heart. Jesus is describing the character of kingdom citizens. The inward character, inward realizations and realities and loves and longings that define us. The attitudes even within that mark us out. There's no kingdom living without hearts that first bear these marks.

A Linked Chain of Thought

As you read through these Beatitudes, just a quick note. You might think that they're all independent statements and they could live on their own. So at one moment you could say, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." And then just skip through and say, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God," and they probably mean something completely separate and different and they're not connected. It's tempting to take these individual statements that way. But as you read through them and I hope you study them for yourselves, take note that they're not individual statements, but these are what you could probably describe as a linked chain of thought, where we begin with one thought and they build on the next. Less like a rocket where it launches and one stage is left behind and more like a wedding cake, where you start with one layer and then you add the next and then you keep going up the ladder. And it's all sweet and it's all blessed and it's all good and it's a celebration.

Blessed are Those who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

So, how does Jesus address our hearts? How does what's come before even in the first Beatitudes help us understand what's coming next? As we come to our fourth Beatitude in verse 6, Blessed are the meek, we'll begin to under, sorry, in verse 6, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, we'll begin to see how these continue to build on each other. As we look through these this morning, we're just going to look at each Beatitude and I'll try to mark out what they're addressing. And so in this first verse, in verse 6, in this Beatitude, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness," Jesus addresses our longings. Our longings.

The one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, you should understand to mean the one who wants righteousness, uprightness, justice, and especially from the hand of God, but also from their living, to characterize their lives. We want our lives and the world around us to be marked by righteousness. But it starts inwardly first. There's a greater reality that this Beatitude points to. For mostly, this describes the one who has come to the recognition of the first three Beatitudes. Where we read, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." The ones who are bankrupt and understand their spiritual bankruptcy before God. That they're bereft of any goodness in and of themselves. They're needy and they're helpless. But for God's mercy. And so the poor are the ones who continually cast themselves upon the Lord and his kindness and his provision, ultimately for salvation. Knowing that frailty, understanding the holiness of God and our own sinfulness, the poor in spirit are those who are blessed because they mourn. This this describing godly sorrow for sin. Being truly penitent. Not performative in repentance, but having true repentance of heart that leads to changed living. True hatred of sin, not just the consequence or the knowledge of my sin out there in the open.

And from there, the blessed are meek. They have the joy that comes from having an honest assessment of oneself before the Lord that enables us to live free of self-referential entrapment. Instead, because we know our own hearts and we know our position before God, our relationships and our relationship with the Lord, both with God and man, are defined by humility. Not seeking self, but as Philippians 2 would tell us, seeking the interest of others. And so, acknowledging our humility and that we have nothing in and of ourselves, we come to verse 6. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness," and a righteousness not our own.

Hungering and thirsting is strong language, describing a deep desire for that which is necessary to live. If you go without food or you go without water, you will cease at some point. Your existence will not carry on. Most of us wouldn't last more than a few days, maybe even just because the turmoil would be too much for us. These are desires that you and I know well. Every few hours we experience them, probably at minimum. We know that to be hungry and thirsty is to experience a need for quenching of that longing right away. Quenching of that thirst. And salt won't cure your thirst. Water won't tone down your hunger. When you hunger and thirst, you need the right thing to quench your thirst. And those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will not be satisfied with the righteousness that is their own. We look to the only one who can satisfy our deepest spiritual need and our deepest spiritual longing. We look to the one who provides a righteousness that we could never possess in and of ourselves. We have nothing. No righteousness, no life, no merit, no standing before God on our own. And so we look to him, the giver of life. Where do we run but to Christ, who is our righteousness, the righteousness of God put forth on our behalf?

And so to hunger and thirst for righteousness is to echo the words of the psalmist when he says, Psalm 42:3, "My soul thirsts for God." That is all it desires and that is all it needs. Psalm 42:1, "As a deer pants for water, so my soul thirsts for you." We long for God because he is the only one who can remedy our brokenness and our sin. The righteousness that is first longed for here, and most importantly longed for here and hungered and thirsted after, is right standing before God. We call that justification. Fellowship therefore as a fruit of that, with God, Father, Son, and Spirit. We cannot come by this on our own.

The one who hungers and thirsts for God cannot get along without this righteousness. They've come to the end of themselves. They've come to the end of their rope. They've probably, as many of you know experientially, done everything we thought we could to be right before God. We thought we could do it our own way and avoid all of this fuss of coming to Christ. And yet we know this righteousness is found in God alone. Do you remember when you came to recognize the true depths of your sin and your depravity? And you saw it and you despaired and you realized my only hope is Christ. The gospel shown forth by the power of God's word and his Spirit and it made your heart alive. Do you remember the joy? Do you remember the freedom of coming to Christ and realizing, "Yes, he makes me white as snow. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus." He alone is our righteousness, our peace, our hope, our joy.

Christ becomes so clear to us. There he is. John 1:29. The spotless lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. There he is, the suffering servant, who takes upon the sin and guilt of many, who is humbled before God and at God's hand bears the punishment for our sin. The one who knew no sin became sin on our behalf. Why? So that we might become the righteousness of God. The righteousness of God.

There might be some of you here today who have that deep spiritual desire, that old and longing ache. And you have realized, there is nothing in and of myself, there is nothing in this life or in this world that could possibly satisfy this hunger and this thirst. Because what you were made for is to know God and have fellowship with him, to experience his goodness, his glory, the joy of being wrapped up into it. Don't look anywhere else. If you have come to the end of yourself, look to Christ and Christ alone. He alone can save you. He alone can cleanse you. He alone through his righteousness can satisfy your soul. Jesus is the one who satisfies the supreme longing of being made right with God and therefore being with God. This is why Jesus says in John 4:14, "Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life." And in John 6:35, he says, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet you do not believe." It is for those who trust in Christ to be satisfied.

Perhaps the greatest statement is in Revelation 21:6. At the end of all things, as Jesus made all things new and he's established his heaven, his new heavens and his new earth, and his perfect kingdom rule and reign over everything, he says, "To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment." Because we add nothing to this righteousness. It is all of Christ and it is all of grace. In Christ, thirsty are offered water and hungry are offered food and our needs and our desires are completely satisfied. And there is nothing here that could satisfy you so greatly or make you so whole. There is nothing left to add. It's all Christ. All he is and all he offers.

Blessed are the Merciful

And yet from this, there are further desires that arise. Growing up for many of us, probably not just myself, there were different foods you and I didn't like. I never liked mushrooms. Couldn't understand it. Like still, Terri says, "No mushrooms." But some of us have grown up and we like mushrooms now, right? Or you can think of different foods your parents would eat. My dad eats sardines. I still don't like those. But you can think of a variety of things that you thought, "There's no way that I'm, I don't even want to smell that food." And yet something happens within you and you get new tastebuds and you grow and you start to like bitter things or savory things, rather than just sweet and bland things. And you form a new appetite. And you begin to want new food and you begin to want maybe nicer food or differently prepared food. And some of your old favorites may now are back in the distance and you have a new appetite.

When we come to Christ and our hunger is satisfied in him, and our greatest need is satisfied in him, it doesn't stop the fact that we're hungry. Our greatest need is satisfied. That void is filled. And yet, it sparks within us a new appetite. Because in the past, temporarily, what did you and I desire? We desired that which satisfied our sinful longings. We walked in the brokenness of the world and chased after many different things to satisfy ourselves. And we enjoyed our sin. Even when we knew it was wrong, there was joy and we longed for more. And we probably found new ways to pursue it and do it. But now being in Christ, as he has satisfied our most basic need, a new appetite arises. We've been made new creations in Christ. And new desires awaken within us. Christ gives us a righteousness not our own. And he sanctifies us. He sets us apart for himself and his purposes to be further sanctified and grow in holiness.

And so now we're not longing for that righteousness that secures us right standing before God. But we do long for righteousness in our lives and in our bodies, and in our families, and in our world. And so the one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness continues hungering and thirsting, looking for righteousness, aiming to embody God's righteousness in their lives. Isaiah 61, we read last week, and in the opening verses, it talks about Christ who is the comforting king. But then it says that those who are his, who he comforts, and he gives them not mourning but gladness, they will be called oaks of righteousness. They will embody righteousness steadfastly and securely in their lives. They'll be called the oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. And so our new aim becomes, not ourselves or our past longings, but a new longing to satisfy Christ, to honor him. And so we have completely new desires.

Today, we have experienced the abundance of the riches of Christ poured out in our lives. We have the forgiveness of trespasses according to the riches of his grace, Ephesians 1:7 says. And he's lavished them upon us. And as God pours out that abundance in our lives through Christ, the riches of his righteousness become ours and they're obtained and our lives gives evidence of that righteousness that he's worked within us. It is true to type. It is natural then for us as new creatures to say, "I long for righteousness." I no longer be want to be the one who lies and bolsters myself, but tells the truth even to my own hurt. I no longer want to be the thief who steals, but I want to work hard with my hands and even provide for others. I no longer want to be the idolater, the one who commits spiritual adultery. I want to be the one who whole-heartedly pursues the Lord and is devoted to him in everything. I no longer want to be the one who is angry and lets the sun go down on my anger. But rather I'll be the one who pursues peace and righteousness and who bites their tongue even when I'm tempted to speak the wrong way.

Christ transforms every aspect of our lives and wants to continue transforming us more into his image. We ought to continually hunger and thirst for righteousness. So we turn back to that previous question. What is it that you long for? What is it that you want? If our lives are filled with the things we desire most, what will we have? What characterizes you if all the longings of your heart are satisfied?

Well, there is one thing that characterizes us. We find it in the next verse. If you want to know what it looks like to be one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness and what that looks like embodied, here we find number two, "Blessed are the merciful." Where our longings were addressed in verse 6, here our attitude, even our heart attitude, is addressed. "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy." This is one of the three Beatitudes, and all nine of them, that are more characteristic and action-oriented. Like being meek, like being merciful, and later on, being peacemakers.

This is not a statement of earning God's mercy. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." If you're merciful enough, God will be merciful to you. That's not the picture this paints. You twist Christ's words if you desire to say that. Rather, this is the reality that those who are recipients of God's mercy show God's mercy to others. We embody the kindness of our Lord to us. This is where it's probably helpful to identify two different words we often use interchangeably, but they are different: mercy and grace. Mercy, think of mercy as compassion. You see pain, misery, distress, hardship. You see the misery that sin produces and you have compassion. There's a sympathetic side to mercy, a concern for those in need. And so God's mercy relieves, it gives, it helps, it aids. And then there's grace. Grace deals with sin and guilt, and the guilt of sin itself. Grace pardons, grace reinstates. Those are two sides of the same coin of God's kindness to us, but they are a bit different. And here we talk about mercy. And we should understand again that these Beatitudes flow together. The meek are the merciful. When you've come to the end of yourself and you've mourned, when you've seen your spiritual poverty, it makes you merciful because you have had to cast yourself on the mercy of God. And hope that he would look down on you a pitiable sinner and have grace, that he would have compassion for you.

And so, mercy is an expression for us of repentance, repentance, which itself first requires divine mercy given to us. The merciful attitude toward others is an expression of this and how do you consider yourself and others? When you encounter someone who's pitiable, who's low, who's in need, who in your sight, maybe temporarily is much more lower than you are. What's your response? How does your heart feel toward that person? What do you do with that? Whether someone has found themselves in need because of their sin or just hard circumstances, do you have true kindness and pity towards them? Can you honestly say, "But for the grace of God, there go I?" And that is what my life would look like. Is there compassion in you that arises in your hearts as you drive around our city or the cities surrounding it or basically anywhere in Southern California and you see the brokenness that's present on the streets? You see the torn apart lives. You see the devastation that sin causes. You see the effect of poor choices stacked upon each other over and over and over again. Do you have mercy? Do you have compassion or are you quick and ready to condemn?

Jesus says, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy." Not, "Blessed are the ones who are right." Not, "Blessed are the ones who have done better than them." Not, "Blessed are the ones who have buttoned things up so I don't look like that even if I'm the same inside." No, "Blessed are the merciful." Blessed are the ones who show compassion and pity, even on the lowest. This is why James told us, what does true religion look like? Helping orphans and widows in their distress and keeping oneself unstained from the world. The greatest example of mercy that you and I can think of in Scripture, or probably one of the best examples of mercy pictured for us, is the good Samaritan found in Luke 10. Here is a man. He's beaten, he's bruised, he's battered. He's naked. He's stripped of all possessions. He's left for dead. And those who were his kinsmen, and whom might you have thought would show him compassion and mercy and embodying the law of God, pass right by him and avoid him. Woe to us if we are them and we condemn him and try and keep ourselves clean rather than entering into the mess. But his ethnic enemy, the Samaritan. The two who should have had no friendship or kindness in any way, he stops. And in summary of his actions, Jesus says in Luke 10:37, that this Samaritan is the one who proved to be that man's neighbor. And is described as the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus says, "You go and do likewise."

The good Samaritan displayed a generous attitude toward the beaten man. Do we embody such generous attitudes at cost to self when we encounter this? There's obvious examples of brokenness around us. But consider even how you react when a brother or sister is downcast, or struggling in sin. When another Christian finds themselves wayward and wandering, or just broken down by some of the realities of life. Is your thought, "Wow, they must be really struggling. Their faith must be weak. Their faith must be weak." "They must be less than me." "I that kind of hardship is not something people like me, I'm so strong, we just don't endure those kinds of things. We just get through them. We make it out the other side." What about our brother or sister who you've seen sink into a deep spiritual depression? Did your compassion go to the extent to walk with them until they found their way out? Condemnation versus compassion. One of these embodies the mercy that Christ calls for.

Mercy and meekness, true humility will help us see others and also be slow to take offense. When someone sins against you. [Exasperated sigh] Parents, when your children disobey, for the tenth time, maybe on the way to church this morning, or maybe during the singing, or any other kind of environment. What's your response? Is your heart pity and compassion towards them? When a brother or sister sins against you and it feels egregious, what's your response? Do you have mercy and compassion and pity on the one caught in sin? How does that reorient your response to them and your actions to them and your restoration of them? And parents, even your discipline of your children. How does it shape the way you speak to them? How does it shape the way that you lovingly confront them? Would you be quieter? Would you change your words? Would the look on your countenance and your face change if we really had mercy and compassion in those settings? Mercy makes us forgiving. Because like that tax collector, rather than the Pharisee on the street corner, we bend down, we get in the dirt and we say, "God, be merciful to me a sinner." And shame on us if we do not show mercy to others.

We want to have ready goodwill to offer to our fellow men. Mercy helps us embody the love of our Lord, who in Hebrews 4 is described as a great high priest who sympathizes with us in our weaknesses. All of them. Christ is compassionate. Christ is merciful. If you struggle to be merciful towards others in the smallest ways and in the largest ways, if your heart reels back at those who need mercy, rather than breaking for them, remember the last time that you felt broken, or you felt stuck in sin, or you weren't sure where to turn. And remember the mercy of Christ that met you there. The compassion of your great high priest who has not stopped interceding for you and continues ever to pray for you. If Christ can do that for me, a sinner unworthy, who is once his enemy, then he can empower me to do the same. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." This is not a reward we earn, but is one that is given freely to us and it's displayed by God. God both grants us mercy, mercy that is undeserving, and is part of his steadfast love for us. It is what drives Christ to humble himself, mercy and compassion, to take on humanity that he might save us. When we understand ourselves to be needy of mercy, to be bankrupt, to be lost in sin, we encounter the mercy of God and it satisfies our truest needs. Then how does that shape our hearts?

Blessed are the Pure in Heart

Oh, verse 8 tells us that it gives them a singular focus. Jesus addresses here, yes, our attitudes, yes, our longings, but also our devotion. Verse 8, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." And this is a clear allusion here to Psalm 24, "Who can ascend?" Psalm 24:3 says, "the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart." And what would it mean to have a pure heart? Continue reading. "Who does not lift up his soul to what is false." To resist idolatry in your hearts and positioning things up and above God and Christ and his plan for you. It's like spiritual adultery that we talked about in James 4. To be pure in heart is to have a sole focus, a sole worship of Christ, a devotion to him. To not have a pure heart is to lower the pedestal that Christ deserves and be devoted to lesser things.

The one who is pure in heart has a singular affection and a singular aim and undivided heart. It is unstained. It is not mixed. It is single-souled as James would have talked about, not double-souled. It is single-minded conviction. And here we read it's purity of heart. The heart is the seat of our affections, our desires, our wills. It's the driver of our lives, inward and outward, as J.C. Ryle put it, "The heart is the person." And so our call is to love God and be devoted to him with all we are as Deuteronomy 6:5 would call us and Jesus reiterated. "Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." Every facet of your being. To be pure in heart is to have everything devoted to worship, everything devoted to God, no matter what sphere of life and responsibility you find yourself in. Nothing left out. To be pure in heart is to be all in towards the Lord. And yet we know that our hearts are like wax. That so often and so easily, we bring things into them and up next to them that misshape them and they become misformed and they take on a different form. Whatever we hold close becomes dear and shapes us. And we begin to love. And so it's really vitally important that you and I see the connection here between the pure in heart and seeing God.

The blessings of the pure in heart is both temporal and eternal. Temporally, you and I have purity in heart and therefore will see God more clearly. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." When you have purity of heart and you have clear devotion to Christ, the rest does not stand in the way. There's no more screen or veil or there's nothing that's obfuscating your sight and you're having to peer around it. Like Hebrews tells us, we're laying aside every sin and weight which entangles us and we're looking to Christ, the author and perfector of our faith. And so, as we are pure in heart, we have a clearer sight of God because there's less sin, there's less competing desires that stand in the way. But this is a two-sided coin. We must also understand that when our view is closed off and sin entangles us, when things are clouded, when our hearts are wandering and they need that pure devotion, we need to return to Christ and soul devotion to him. What's the remedy? How do I combat sin? You pursue a sight of God. You yearn for it. You long for it. You do everything you can to get anything else out of the way. And whenever you can, you say, "Lord, I'm just going to go catch a glimpse. I'm going to look to you." So that he again becomes a greater love so that greater loves will cast out lesser loves. Our sin is present because we do not pursue a clear sight of God.

Notice here, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Purity of life is not the goal. Purity of heart in and of itself isn't the goal. Seeing God is the goal. That's the blessing here. That's the outcome here. Your life is not about sin management. Stopping sinning is not the goal. Managing sin and getting it all neat and tidy is not the aim of your Christian walk and your sanctification. God is the goal of your sanctification. God is the goal of your growth in holiness. Seeing him, longing for him, having a sweet experience unhindered of union with Christ and of sweet fellowship with God. A greater understanding of his glory.

Seeing God is also so much predominantly the glory of heaven. The glory of the eternal state. And this blessing is therefore not just a temporal blessing. This blessing really points us further and beyond this life. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." See God should be a bit of a jarring statement to you. "Behold God with my eyes?" We're not talking about a spiritual sight, we're talking about a physical sight of God. How will that happen? Well, Revelation 21:3 says, as God has made a new heavens and new earth, that now the dwelling place of God is with man. And in Revelation 22:4, as John peers into the future glory, he he reads this. He states this, "The angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also, on either side of the river, the tree of life, with its 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month." Wow, the tree of life back in our possession for the people of God dwelling with God. Is that the goal? "The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." "No longer will there be anything accursed." Is freedom from sin the goal and the great joy of heaven? "But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him." Is unhindered worship of God the goal of heaven? Listen to this. "They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads." Seeing the face of God. Perhaps you remember Moses. Moses gets such a clear experience of the glory of God. No one else had yet experienced something of the glory of God. Israel was down on the mountain and they saw the thunder and the lightning and they saw the glory of God in a certain manifestation. But Moses begs the Lord, "Would you show me something of your glory?" The Lord says, "Yes, but you cannot see my face and live." In Exodus 34, he passes before him and for anthropomorphically, the the hand of God closes him in the cleft. And from that experience where it seems that Moses just sees the feet of God or the train of his robe, he comes down the mountain and he's beaming. He has to put a veil over his face so people can be around him. We will see not just a piece of the glory of God, but the face of God. All that God is and ever has been and who he is for us.

How to Pursue a Clear Sight of God

First John 3:1-3, maybe we'll close there and you can turn there. First John 3, verses 1-3 tells us how this will be possible. "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are." What a privilege. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. "Beloved, we are God's children now." So you've been adopted. "And what we will be has not yet appeared." So there's more for you waiting. "But we know that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is." "We shall be like him," is the phrase you should latch onto there. When Christ returns and he brings his saints home, and when then soon after he creates new heavens and new earth and we are in the eternal state together forever, we will have glorified bodies. Bodies that are like Christ's resurrection body. No longer bodies stained with sin. No longer bodies that like Paul rightly says in Romans 7 are bodies of death, but bodies of glory, who can perfectly now, as we were made, reflect the glory of God and experience unhindered union and fellowship with God in all of its effects, in all of its experiences and it's all of its joy. That sight will be like nothing we have ever seen. You have seen great majesty here on earth. You can behold the Grand Canyon, or Niagara Falls, or even just the beauty of a sunrise or sunset over the ocean. None of it compares. It's all a drop in the bucket to the beautiful sight of the face of God. The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ will be ours forever to behold, unhindered, nothing in the way. The glory of heaven is the glory of God. "They shall see God" is the most glorious promise you will receive.

And yet John 1 even tells us that Jesus shows us God's glory, full of grace and truth. We have beheld his glory. So even today, you and I have an experience unlike other saints in the past in the Old Testament, where we can know and experience and grow in the glory of Christ. It is yours for the taking. It is yours to possess and have and hold on to with more coming. Friends, drink deeply now. Think of the reality of heaven. A perfect body then, yes, will enable it, but there will be no more sin or anything else to distract you. Get rid of those distractions today so you can experience some of the glory of the future. It is inherent and intense for you today. More is coming, but you have so much for you today. And then as we are enraptured in the glory of God and we have the greatest joy we have ever known, unending knowledge, unending growth in the knowledge of God, we will be satisfied. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness," and then pure satisfaction. Full knowledge of his mercy towards us and his grace, looking upon our Savior with scars in his hands and we say, "What love! What mercy! What grace! What I didn't understand then, I know even more now." And we will see God then in perfect purity, with undivided hearts, with nothing standing in the way. And because of that, we will have the most full joy, the greatest happiness, the true divine happiness of the blessed state of those who are in Christ. That is what we long for. That is what we look for. And that is what you and I are called in some piece and parcel to live out today.

Let's pray together.

Conclusion

Oh Lord, we praise you that you are a God who is kind, merciful, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. We ask that you would help us to know more of you. And that in knowing more of you, our souls would be satisfied and everything else on this earth would pale in comparison. Lord, show us your glory. Help us to have a sweeter and more clear vision of Christ. And by it, we pray that you would sanctify us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.