BEATITUDES (8) Blessed Are the Pure in Heart

​“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” (Mt 5:8)
 
Review
Last Sunday, we talked about the fifth beatitude. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” (Mt 5:7)
 
In order to understand the meaning of being merciful, we discussed the biblical meaning of mercy by comparing it to a similar concept, grace. They are not the same concept, but they are very closely related to one another when it comes to God’s salvation of humankind.
 
We defined mercy as not receiving what we deserve and grace as receiving what we don’t deserve. As sinners, we deserve only God’s wrath and the result of our sin, death, but God is so merciful that He is patient with us and forgives our sins.
 
Rather than just allowing us to receive what we deserve, God has given us His great love which we don’t deserve at all. God sent to us His one and only Son and let Him bear our sins and die on the cross. Even when we were sinners and acted like enemies of God, God gave us His most precious one to save us out of His great love for us. We call this ‘grace.’
 
Grace is unmerited favor. We don’t deserve it and we could never get it on our own, but God freely gave it to us. In Christ Jesus, we received forgiveness of sins, unconditional love, and eternal salvation which we didn’t deserve, instead of the judgment, punishment, and condemnation that we did deserve.
 
And now, God wants us to be merciful as He is merciful. As Jesus said, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36)
 
For us to be merciful like our heavenly Father means that we show others the kindness and mercy that He has given us. It means that we have the same heart, mind, and attitude that God has for us. Moreover, it means that we do things for others.
 
Just as God’s mercy was clearly revealed in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, as Christians, we need to reflect His mercy in our words and actions in practical and sacrificial ways.
 
That’s how we continue to remain in God’s mercy. As those who’ve already experienced God’s great mercy and grace, we should continue to live mercifully in our relationships with others. That’s how we can be confident that we can stand righteously before the judgment seat of Christ.
 
The merciful will be shown mercy. However, “Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (Jms 2:13)
 
But I don’t think this verse implies that being merciful is the condition to enter the kingdom of God. No one can be saved by their own merits since salvation is given only by faith in Christ.
 
What I believe is that being merciful to others is one of the fruits we must bear as Christians out of our faith in Him. If we’re not saved, it’s not because we’re not merciful to others. If we’re not saved, it is only because we don’t believe in the Son of God.
 
But if we have true, genuine faith in Christ, we can’t help but show that faith by bearing the fruit of being merciful to others just as our heavenly Father is merciful to us. In other words, being merciful to others is one of clear signs that we have real, saving faith in Jesus.
 
The Pure in Heart
All right. Let’s move on to the sixth blessing now. Let’s read today’s verse one more time together.
 
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Mt 5:8).
 
Here, Jesus talks about the blessing for the pure in heart. Those whose hearts are pure are blessed because they will see God. To understand this verse, we need to be able to answer two questions. First, what does it mean to be pure in heart? Second, what does it mean to see God?
 
A lot of Bible passages emphasize the importance of our hearts. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Pr 4:23)
 
It’s important to guard our hearts because everything we do flows from them. This includes every aspect of our lives—what we think, what we value, what we say, what we do, our relationships with God and others, and more. Everything starts from our hearts.
 
Jesus also emphasizes the importance of storing good things in our hearts. Luke 6:45 says,
 
“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of” (Lk 6:45).
 
We normally think that what determines our actions is our will. That’s correct. It is important to have the right will to do the right thing. But as we know from our past experiences, there’s a clear limitation. There have been many times when we didn’t do what we had decided to do.
 
At the beginning of every year, many of us make new year’s resolutions. But oftentimes we find ourselves making the same mistakes that we did the year before. It’s not because we don’t have the will to change, but because our hearts are not ready to do it yet.
 
Even though we have the desire and will to do good to others, if our hearts are not filled with good things from God, we can’t really be good to others. That’s because we’re affected by not only our wills but also our emotions. We know the main factor in living a good life is not our will to do good, but what we store in our hearts in our daily lives.
 
An evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart no matter what he decides to do. That’s the reason we need to be very careful in guarding our hearts from evil things and storing good things from God in our hearts. That’s what really conforms us to the image of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
 
In order for us to live godly lives, it’s very important to keep our hearts pure before God. Our hearts must be spotless without being polluted by or mixed with other things.
 
Let’s think of our hearts as windows. The main function of a window is to allow people inside a building to see outside. If a window is dirty, we can’t see outside clearly. The same goes for our hearts.
 
Our hearts are often depicted as a place to meet God. It means that they serve as a window through which we see God. Then, what if our hearts are unclean or blurred? We can’t see God clearly, nor can we experience His presence deeply.
 
David wrote in Psalm 24,
“Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god” (Ps 24:3-4).
 
Here, the mountain of the Lord refers to the place where God’s presence is. It’s the place to meet God and experience Him. And David said that only those who have clean hands and pure hearts can ascend the mountain of the Lord.
 
To put it in another way, we can’t really experience God’s presence unless our hearts are pure and clean. So, it’s very important to keep them clean in order to maintain a close relationship with God. And to make them clean, we need to remove all the impurities from our hearts that prevent us from seeing God clearly. That’s how we keep working on our salvation.
 
So, if we think our hearts are not pure, but are tainted by sin or mixed with worldly things, we need to remember what the prophet Jeremiah proclaimed with tears: “wash the evil from your heart and be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts?” (Jr 4:14).
 
Keeping our hearts from evil things is important in our salvation. If we allow our hearts to be filled with evil things, how can we expect to be saved? But what we also know is that we can’t really make our hearts pure on our own. We were born in sin. Sin is our nature.
 
But the good news we find in the Scriptures is that Jesus came to the world to wash away all our sins, cleanse us, and purify us. Jesus died in our place on our behalf, bearing all our sins, and those who believe in Him experience true forgiveness of sins.  That’s the only way for us to keep our hearts pure before God—to believe in Him so that He can work in us and cleanse all our sins with His precious blood.
 
For us to have pure hearts doesn’t only mean that our hearts are not tainted by sin. While living on earth, we find many obstacles in our relationship with God, especially worldly things that we love and worries that prevent us from reaching out to God. We call these things idols. Idols can be defined as anything that we love more than God and put before Him.
 
If we have idols in our lives, we can’t be fully committed to the Lord, nor can we truly love Him. So James said,
 
“Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (Jms 4:8)
 
Like David, James also presents having clean hands and pure hearts as preparation for being drawn near to God. But in James 4:8, those who need to purify their hearts are described as “double-minded.” This means that they have two different things in their minds.
 
The impurity of double-mindedness is explained in James 4:4, which says,
 
“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” (Jms 4:4)
 
So, for us to have double minds means that our hearts are divided between the world and God. Those whose hearts are divided can’t really have a close relationship with God because what He wants is not a portion of our hearts but all of them. To those who are double-minded, Jesus said,
 
“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Rv 3:15-16)
 
We shouldn’t deceive ourselves. Being lukewarm is like being cold to Jesus. So, if you think you’re double-minded, if you think your heart is divided between the world and God, just go to the Lord, humbly asking Him to wash your hands and purify your heart.
 
In contrast, purity of heart is to have just one desire. The hearts and minds of the pure in heart are completely set on things above. They don’t wander between the world and God. They are so committed to the Lord that they seek His kingdom and His righteousness first above everything in their lives. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37)
 
What God wants us to do is to love Him with all our hearts, not just part of them, not with impure divided hearts, mixed with idols. If we want to be pure in heart, we must pursue God with sheer single-mindedness, leaving behind everything that hinders our relationship with Him. Then we’ll have pure hearts that please the Lord.
 
To See God
All right. Let’s move on to the next question. What does it mean to see God? What I want to make clear first is that no one has seen God with their physical eyes because God is spirit.
 
The apostle John said, “No one has ever seen God” (Jn 1:18) and Jesus said, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” (Jn 4:24)
 
So we know that it’s impossible for us to physically see God. Then what did Jesus mean when He said that those who are pure in heart will see God?
 
This expression is used in both the New and Old Testament, and it basically means experiencing His presence. Even though we can’t see Him physically through our eyes, we can experience His being with us spiritually. That’s why keeping our hearts clean from sin, desires of the flesh, and idols is very important.
 
But that’s not the only meaning of seeing God because there will come a time when we actually see Him face to face. The apostle Paul said,
 
“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1Co 13:12)
 
The apostle John also said, “We know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2)
 
What we believe as Christians is that Jesus Christ will return as the King of kings. When He returns, He will bring the perfectly completed kingdom of God with Him and on that day we’ll be transformed to be like Him. And, we shall see Him as He is. There won’t be any mystery or confusion anymore, and we shall know Him fully.
 
That’s the hope we have in Christ. We’ll see God. God’s glorious dwelling place will be among us and He will be with us forever. And God Himself will wipe every tear from our eyes. On that day, we’ll fully understand what David professed:
 
“As for me, I will be vindicated and will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.” (Ps 17:15)
 
If we really have this hope, if we really look forward to that day, then we need to prepare for it by purifying ourselves, especially our hearts. As John said,
 
“All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” (1Jn 3:3)
 
That’s how we continue to build our lives upon the firm foundation of Jesus Christ. He came to purify our hearts, to cleanse them from sin, and give us salvation. Then, as Christians, we also need to try to keep our hearts pure before God.
 
So, if there’s sin remaining in you that you haven’t yet repented of, today is the day to lift it up to Jesus. If there are any idols in your life that divide your heart, get rid of them today so that you can have a pure, clear heart through which you can deeply experience God’s presence in every aspect of your life until Jesus comes back.
 
Let’s pray.
 
[Closing Prayer]
Heavenly Father, thank You for giving us this great chance to know the great blessings that You give Your people through Your Son Jesus Christ.
 
No sinner can see You or stand before You, but You made a way for us to be forgiven through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. We thank You, Lord, for everything You’ve done in our lives.
 
Now, we humbly come to Your presence with recognition of our sins and limits. We give you authority over our hearts. Please come into our hearts and clean all the dirt and stains so that we can see You and experience Your presence more deeply.
 
Lord, we also confess that there are many idols in our lives. We’ve loved things in this world more than You. Please forgive our sins and give us strength to cast down all idols before You so that we can love You with all our hearts.
 
Let us set our hearts and minds on things above and fill them with every good thing and spiritual blessing from You.
 
We love you, Lord. We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
 
[Reflection Questions]
1. What do you think are some things that make our hearts impure in God’s sight? What are some obstacles in your life that prevent you from experiencing God’s presence deeply? How do you think you can keep your heart pure?