“Heart-Pure Blessings”
Matthew 5:1-8 (5:8) – August 14, 2022
Our modern society today is noisy, that’s for sure! So many noisy people, so many competing advertisements, all kinds of sound and visual media vying for our attention. How can we manage if we want to step away from all of this clutter and clatter and cacophony filling our ears? And what about the overwhelming smorgasbord of visual media overloading our eyes?
I want to do as Jesus suggests in this Beatitude and strive to be pure of heart. You may want to do this, too! I know that seeing God is something that many Christians really desire. But, how can we be pure of heart when we have all of these competing audio and visual noises, sounds and media constantly in our faces?
When Jesus mentions those who are pure in heart, I think of those who have integrity. Can you think of someone you know who is truly a person of integrity? How do they live their lives? Do they watch eight, ten, twelve hours of television or other kinds of media each day? Do they have their ears and eyes filled with all kinds of extraneous noise and clutter and cacophony? Do they bicker and argue with family and friends, ignoring what God finds important?
Jesus spent time regularly being quiet, peaceful, allowing Himself to listen to God as well as to His inner thoughts and feelings. Do you take the time to listen to your own heart, as well as listen to others expressing their deep thoughts and feelings?
If we look at Jesus and His message throughout the Gospels, it’s all about the heart, and the inner person. As preacher and theologian D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, says, the observant Jews of Jesus’s day were so concerned about external behavior. It was the Rabbi Jesus’s “great charge against them always that they were interested in the outside of the pots and platters and ignored the inside. Looked at externally, they were without spot…they were most concerned about the external injunctions of religion; but they forgot the weightier matters of the law.” [1]
Instead of the outside of a person, again and again throughout the Gospels our Lord Jesus reminds His disciples (and us!) that all along He is talking about the heart. Those weighty matters of God’s Law include love to God and the love of one’s neighbor. Again and again, the commands of Jesus to love God and to love neighbor trump any other command.
I am reminded about the prophet Samuel in the Hebrew Scriptures. When God sent the prophet Samuel to Jesse and his sons, Samuel looked at the outward appearance of Jesse’s sons. “Surely the Lord wants to choose one of these fine, upstanding young men!”
How do people today judge leaders, or kings, politicians, or CEOs? Most people “tend to judge others on how they look, what they do, how they act, and what they say.” In other words, all of the external stuff, all the stuff on the outside. But, what about the Lord? “God goes much deeper in relationship than that; God goes right into our hearts. God knows the secrets that we don’t tell anyone, and knows our greatest fears and what embarrasses us the most…God knows us better than we know ourselves.” [2]
Think about it. Seven of Jesse’s sons were considered by the prophet Samuel, and none of them were chosen by God. I can’t help but remember 1 Samuel 16:7 – “Do not look on his appearance or the height of his stature. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” God encouraged Samuel to find David, Jesse’s youngest son, the one with the least amount of honor and standing in his family, who was indeed anointed king of Israel.
God wanted to find someone after God’s own heart!
“We have to remind ourselves again that the Christian faith is ultimately not only a matter of doctrine or understanding or of intellect, it is a condition of the heart.” [3] It does not matter whether we are considering the Hebrew Scriptures or the New Testament. Here in this Beatitude is the concentration on the heart. Your heart, and mine, too!
If we take the time to read through these Topsy-Turvy Teachings from Matthew 5, and read them slowly, savoring each one, this collection of traits of followers of God honestly makes me take a step back. I am serious. This list is daunting. And, this week, the idea that if someone is pure in heart then they will see God? That makes me hold my breath and hesitate again.
I guess I am still tentative, agreeing with many people in the Hebrew Scriptures who are hesitant at actually seeing God. If God is making Godself available so that the run of the mill pew-sitting Christian can have a deep friendship and an intimate relationship with God, that is something very serious indeed! Am I really ready to see God? Are you?
“Jesus reminded us that when our actions align with our thoughts and feelings, we can see God around us and in our world. But it is difficult to see God around us if we do not quiet ourselves and listen to our hearts.” [4]
The thoughts and ideas we carry in our hearts have a big impact on the actions we take and the choices we make. Our insides – our hearts – guide and direct the words we speak and the actions we take. This is why the heart – the inside of us – is so important to Jesus.
One big way to be pure in heart is to show love for God, your neighbor, and yourself in how you act, speak, and think. God wants to find someone after God’s own heart!
What a way to be a blessing to others! Remember, this is how Jesus said the “pure in heart” will be blessed. Amen, alleluia!
(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!
(Thanks to illustratedministries.com for their excellent family Sunday school curriculum on the Beatitudes. I will be using this curriculum all summer as source material for a summer sermon series on the Topsy-Turvy Teachings of Jesus!)
[1] Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Wm. Eerdmans Pub. Co., Grand Rapids MI, 1971), 108.
[2] https://ministry-to-children.com/beatitudes-lesson-7/
[3] https://ministry-to-children.com/beatitudes-lesson-7/
[4] Illustrated Ministries, Curriculum for Summer Sunday school family series, “The Beatitudes.” Summer 2022.
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