Pure in Heart — Don McClure

The Beatitudes and the Secret of Happiness

Tonight Matthew chapter 5. As we continue on here and the secret of happiness the reason we all get up every day and the driving influence in our life it isn't for most people I think to be richer to be famous or to be great.

In other people's eyes so much is that that is merely the superficial reasons that people think if I accomplish certain objectives and goals I assume I will be happy. Tragically though we don't seem to be very wise because most of the people that have those very things that we wish that would make that we thought would make us happy it hasn't worked for them.

But we think well I'll defy the odds and it just doesn't work here. Jesus says here is real happiness. And once again as we're looking at the Beatitudes just to bring us up to date here because actually I remember I wasn't here last week and Raul Reese was here.

I was so wonderful that Raul would come. I had promised him also that I would be back to give an interpretation of what he had to say. So we'll do that tonight. But anyway the but anyway back here to the Beatitudes tonight though they all work collectively as a whole they all work together.

None of these in and of themselves constitute happiness. The truly happy person is the one that all of these things are assembled together within one heart with one life. And hopefully as we look at this our cry of our heart our desires Lord I want to know this joy.

I want to know this happiness in my life. And here is just to you know back us up a little. Jesus said oh how happy are the poor in spirit. Oh how happy are they who mourn. Oh how happy are the meek here as he looks there that person there that there's an utter poverty of strickenness of his own spirit that he has come to a realization I was created in the image of God and I have been robbed.

Something has stolen my identity. It's gone. I was made in his image made in his glory made to share his love and his life and his majesty and his power. And it's gone. And here is we find ourselves. Jesus said the person is ever truly going to be happy.

They are going to get the very fundamental root of their being. There's going to be a poverty of stricken spiritual poverty stricken state. They realize they're in without God. And that gives them a longing for God it gives them a heart for God a need of God.

But then as they begin to move there he says oh how happy are they who mourn. It's not just enough to realize there that I have fallen and I have lost my identity. But there is a genuine grief. There is a genuine mourning as at the death of a loved one and in our in this case it's our ourselves the one that we love most in all the world ourselves is the one that we that we ought to be mourning over God.

Mourning Over Sin and Becoming Meek

What has happened to me here the standard of life that you created me to know and I've lost it and God I grieve I mourn. I have carried a tremendous sorrow over it. And then he says oh how happy of the meek you take that poverty stricken spiritual condition that produces a mourning in a heart of sorrow for sin and that produces a meekness before God somebody that now doesn't come in their arrogance and their pride and their you owe me and I want this.

But rather than that they're coming before God in a meekness and say no God be merciful to me a sinner I it isn't you. You've done nothing wrong. I've done it all wrong. I failed. And they cry out to God that God would forgive them.

And then they're humbled. And there at that point God begins to open up heaven to them. For then Jesus said oh how happy are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. They'll be filled here. Jesus could look he says now if a person can get there and it produces this tremendous insatiable hunger within their heart for God for the righteousness of God the right nature and the right living the right power the right glory that only comes from God.

And they hunger for it. They thirst for it they long for it they desire for it. As David said as the deer paneth after the water brook so pan it my soul after thee. That somebody now there's there's this there's this failure and this weakness and this sinfulness as produced a wonderful compulsion for God a wonderful longing for him a hunger for him and a thirst for God.

David in Psalm 63 said Oh God thou art my God early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth in my heart paneth after thee or longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land. So I look toward thee in thy sanctuary to see thy power and thy glory.

And because thy loving kindness is better than life. Thus while I live while I praise thee I lift up my hands to thy name. That the sign of absolute yielding and surrender. David said God you're it. I hunger for you I long for you I thirst for you as the deer paneth for you.

And when somebody Jesus said this is the person that's gonna know a joy like anybody that pants after anything else that hungers and thirst and longs and pushes their heart for anything else. It'll all like like Solomon one day vanity vanity all is vanity.

But to the person that longs for God there won't be vanity. There'll be an unbelievably wonderful happiness. He then goes on. And then after he says they who hunger and thirst after righteous he's blessed of the merciful.

And that's the one that we looked at last time. And tonight we want to look at blessed of the pure in heart. But a person there that is indeed you know being filled with God they shall be filled. And in being filled with God the deepest attributes of God will become theirs.

And the deepest is supposed of all attributes perhaps of God is his mercy. In a sense thereof God is graceful. But even grace is motivated by mercy. Grace is unmerited favor. God has chosen to favor us.

But the reason he has chosen to favor us is because he's had mercy upon us. There is something deeply longing within his heart. He looks at us in our sorrowful state in our lost condition. And and there that produces their God.

Now this grace is being poured out this love is being made known. It's such a wonderful attribute of God. And now God wants to put it within us. And there he says when a human being begins to be filled with love be filled with God be filled with his spirit they'll be filled.

The great evidence of it is that they will be merciful. And and then he goes on as we look at tonight and oh how happy or blessed are the pure in heart they shall see God. And here I suppose on one hand to see God and of course is the the object of all religion.

Seeing God and the Failure of Human Religion

It's the it's the object. The whole purpose for which religion seems to exist and is is to see God. The word religion English word religion comes from the Latin word reeling. Gary that means to relink by definition the word religion.

It is a confession of a broken link between God and man the very word itself religion. The the differences of course between you know Christianity and all other religions is that basically all other attempts to relink start with man require their founded upon man's efforts his promises his commitments is something which is the most ridiculous futile thing in all the world.

Bible says the wages in his death what good is a dead man going to do. Try to figure that one out. You go by a cemetery. I think you can sit there for a week on on end and wait for one good thing to come out of the ground.

And you're not gonna find anything. Dead men can't do good things. They can't raise themselves. They can't redeem themselves. There's nothing left in them. But the wonderful thing about Christianity is a Christianity.

It's all of God. He's the one there you know that he that he raises us he regenerates he restores he resurrects. It's his power and it's his work. But here to the person there that has been poor in spirit they've been they mourned over their sinful state they become meek.

They're hungry and thirst for God. Then God does raise them and he raises them in the most powerful way pouring his love in his life in his spirit into them. And there is a merciful heart and there's a pure heart.

There's a heart there. Now for the first time in our life there's a sense and a concept of of what purity is all about what it what what it is made and designed by God to be. It's interesting as I look at the Beatitudes I think that the first three which lead us to blessed are they who hunger and thirst are followed by three others that correspond to the first three in the sense that blessed of the poor in spirit and blessed are they who mourn and blessed of the meek.

Then in between there's this the being hunger and thirst for God and then you're. But then after that blessed are the merciful the pure in heart and the peacemakers. Now I believe that the second three actually work in direct relation to the degree that the first three have worked out.

What I mean by that is that a person that is poor in spirit the grade the one that is as the greater realization of a poverty stricken can spiritual condition I believe also ends up to be a person that will be the degree that they will know mercy.

The person there that mourns over their sin the most is also going to be the person is going to end up having the purest of hearts. And the person there to the degree that they know what it is to become meek before God is going to be one that's going to be the greatest of peacemakers.

And these are things that all through our life that's never just happens once and it's over the I believe the Beatitudes are continuous unending cycle of growth and that we're poor in spirited one time but was constantly learning more and more of our spiritual state and and we only become more poverty stricken as we go in Christ we only become a greater greater is the awareness of God's mercy in his grace goodness to us.

Growing in Awareness of Sin

When I first became a Christian I thought you know I almost thought I'd done God a favor by becoming a Christian in a sense that I don't know how you think that but almost you know God wants you he's looking for you.

God need you haven't made you. I was almost recruited in the sixties into a great campus ministry to go for the work for the kingdom of heaven. And if I would give my life to Christ God would use me to build the kingdom.

And he was he was short on workers and so I could help have an out by giving my life to Christ and I didn't want poor God to go without the needed help and so I gave him my life figure. Well I'll throw in with him and see what I can do to help the kingdom as if I was ever gonna do a thing at all.

But that's I honestly thought and I was actually involved with a campus ministry at the time. They'll never get one time the leader speaking to a group of us on staff and telling us I'll never forget this is in the 60s he said there isn't a one of you that isn't a $20 ,000 a year man on the 60s that was a lot of money today I think welfare gets that I'm not sure but it's something to wear but at the time I mean that was like we've got the cream of the crop when we've got our leaders and you're one of them and with them.

Yes sir you know or whatever else whatever you say. And there's this and I when I was first a Christian I also thought sin was essentially you know things that you did it's just you. And I did I did a bunch of sin I ride I trained heavily at it and I was pretty good at sinning.

But I just thought so you stop sinning. And then one day you begin to realize that no it isn't the things that you that you simply do it some of the stuff you say and so no I got to clean up the vocabulary and you got to work at that.

And then sin gets a little deeper and then I find out that sin is the stuff you're thinking. No no now we're now we're opening up a whole new world here. Oh god I don't think we want to get into this one sort of a thing is it gets more revealing.

And then one day you come across Romans 14 23 that says whatsoever is not of faith is sin. I mean now anytime I'm not trusting you I've sinned oh man. And you only get the longer you become again. The longer you've been a Christian the more you sin in a sense even though you think you sin less.

Now you realize man I'm doing it all the time and and but but that's the person that opens the door for a greater sense of poverty stricken state God. I just thought it was kind of a sinner when it was stuff I did.

But then when I realized it was what I said is what I thought. And there was what I wasn't thinking that I should have been thinking. You know whatever all the other stuff is you keep on going and I ought to be doing that.

I'm not doing the realization of God's love and his mercy and his grace. Then one day you come across the realization I was made in his image. I was to reflect his nature and his character and his glory.

And at that point anybody can look and say I don't see that. You know you may have brushed your teeth comb your hair but I do not see his glory when I look at you you know or something. But it's something to where when we realize that is what it ought to be that is the design and the desire of God.

And I believe that's what God longs for us. I'll tell you there's some people that I do look at one of which happens to be my own mother. I look at her and I see God's glory. She just shines she radiates it.

She's one of the most awesome women to me on the planet and of which personally by the way I take great credit for under my ministry she became that because there she was a Christian a long long time before I was.

Don't get me wrong. I didn't lead her to Christ. But I did the next best thing any child could do. I drove my mother to a deep relationship. But the but now but the reflection of Christ just sitting there that God longs for somebody to know in that poverty stricken spirit there that happens with one there that it begins to mourn over its sin and it's meek before God and it's hungry and thirsty for God and God fills them and it begins to flood their heart begins to flood their soul.

And then out of that there is a merciful spirit. And then there is somebody that there is a heart that is just becomes pure. It's one there that we long you know God give me a pure heart. And to the degree that as I said somebody mourns over sins is the degree that they find themselves with the purity of heart.

Purity in Everyday Life

The degree that I look at maybe today and say you know there's a lot of stuff that I do. I don't think it's sin. I just say alright maybe I shouldn't do it. You know maybe other people think it's not best but it's not really.

Maybe there's stuff I can you know watch on TV that maybe I suppose if if you know Chuck and Kay came over for dinner I wouldn't say hey what do you think. Or if Billy was there saying hey and you may you may sit there and think well maybe I wouldn't watch that if somebody you know like that was there and you know and Jesus came by and said hey let's watch a little TV or hey let's you got any good videos.

No no got videos. Oh venture of faith. I do have that it's back there somewhere you know or whatever else. And sir something where we're scrounging through looking for something that would suggest we have a purity.

But until I mourn over things until there is something that there is a sorrow to the degree that there's sorrow. And the degree there's a mourning over sin is the degree that there will be emerge a purity of heart that there'll be something there that if somebody says well I can do things and I can talk this way.

And I can you know have this kind of humor in this kind of vocabulary. And after all I mean I don't think God expects us to be perfect or whatever else. And the issue isn't so much of what God expects.

It ought to be what I long for. The isn't an issue shouldn't be so much the law which ought to lead me to Christ that tells me I failed. But it ought to be something one now that I've come to Christ through the awareness of my sins.

It ought to create a hunger to say I can't believe. I meant can't believe I have an opportunity to spend the day with can't believe. Who wants to come along and spend his time in his heart with me. And when somebody finds there within their heart that longing and here Jesus says he says they're blessed are the pure in heart now the heart.

The Heart as the True Self

Therefore what is it. If he says you got to have a pure one. What is it. Well first of all the heart is is essentially the place that God looks at tonight is God looks across this room. You know we you know brush your teeth and comb our hair and do all the things we do to walk in here.

But God didn't see that. And God sees the heart. It's the seat essentially of all of life. It's the reality of who I am in the first Samuel 16 7. You know the story when God sent Samuel there to anoint one of the sons of Jesse and he came there and he saw the eldest and there he is just about to do this.

And God tapped Samuel on the shoulder and he says wait a minute Sam you man looks at the outward countenance. God looks at the heart. I don't see the outward. I don't know what you think. You see when you see the biggest or the oldest or the strongest as you perceive them.

And God looks upon the heart Jesus as well as Proverbs 23. But both say as a man thinketh in his heart so is he. God looks. And that's what he sees tonight. He sees the heart because as far as God's concerned the heart is where behavior really takes place in first John.

John tells us that if we hate our brother we've committed murder. Jesus in this later on the Sermon the Mount he says if a man look at that a woman with lust after in his heart he's committed adultery there as far as the mechanism of the soul the heart there when that when something happens in the heart where somebody were hate happens now all that the fundamental internal ingredient for murder has happened now it just needs time and opportunity.

But the place you deal with it isn't when when now I have the opportunity now you do. You look there at the at the with the root cause within the heart and say that is where it starts in the heart. And therefore you know that when somebody begins to lust and they open up that door of lusting they may think well it's okay to do this and that.

But they're embedding things within their heart. They're now just waiting for the opportunity to destroy them. But it's already destroyed their heart their life their relationship with God because God's sitting there with somebody watching them in their heart to where they're committing adultery or they're hating.

And it's something there as far as in fact as far as the Bible is concerned our exterior behavior may be entirely different than a heart. And you know we so often we we work on the external behavior the vocabulary and things like that.

David one time and saw him 55 at 21 evaluating somebody he's dealing with. He says the words of his mouth were smoother than butter yet war was in his heart. They were softer than oil. Yet they were as drawn swords there David he's talking to somebody and he says oh the words of his mouth smoother than butter softer than oil yet war was in his heart.

They were as drawn swords while he's sitting there smiling carrying on with me behind himself he's pulling the sword out he's ready to implant it in me. The guy you know on the hip the hypocrisy the capacity we have we can be doing something with our body we can be behaving in a way that suggests everything's fine.

But yet our heart can be you know totally different than that. And tonight you may feel like you're getting points. You're in church you know something. This is real good here I am in church and yet at the same time your heart might be in San Francisco back Bell Park where the angels and the Giants are playing game three you know or whatever.

And you're sitting here in church meantime and you're sitting there singing I love in kindness or whatever. But God's also looking at your heart while you're. We're doing all the spiritual stuff on the outside.

But heaven looks there says why don't you just sing. I left my heart in San Francisco. You know something. If you're not here you're there. Real behavior. You know you can be anywhere on the planet right now as far as heaven's concerned you can be doing anything.

But when we find ourself asking God to bring every thought into captivity to bring it before him. And there with my heart because you see as far as God's concerned heart is everything. Heart is everything.

That's the true you the true me. And when we find herself there in a matter of heart again because man looks at the outwards God looks at the heart. You see as far as God's concerned you know wherever man's treasure is there his heart is.

I'm thinking I want this or I got to have that. You know we can be sitting there in an entirely different world because you know when when we treasure God though when we and we treasure a pure heart we treasure to be in his presence.

That's what God longs for with us and it's what he desires for us. You see Christianity is not a behavior real Christianity. It's a condition of human experience. Unfortunately of course with Pharisees they were around.

They didn't get this. Did they. They didn't understand this at all. I mean they oftentimes seem to be very good in their conduct in their behavior in their ethics. And yet as far as the Bible is concerned and Jesus was concerned their hearts were internally rotten.

He looked at them. And in Matthew 23 Jesus said well when do you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites. For you are like I likened to whited sepulchers which indeed appear beautiful outward but they are within full of dead men's bones.

They've all unclean this he looks at them. He says you've got it down pat the religious behavior and values and structure of life. But God does not have your heart. There isn't something within you longing to be with him and to be in his presence and to share his righteousness in his life in his love.

Matthew 15 8 Jesus said this people draws nigh into me with their mouth. They honor me with their lips. But their heart is far from me. He looks here and say you got the words down they got the song down.

There's all seen on cue. But they're not here. And the reason is because the heart is where we live. It's a it's the center of our being of our identity of our personality. It is the well essentially out of which everything else proceeds.

Jesus said Matthew 15 18 he says those things that proceed forth in the heart. And he says they are they that defile a man. He said you know out of the heart proceeded the evil thoughts and murders and adulteries and fornications and thefts and false witness and blasphemies.

These are the things that defile a man. And Jesus looks at. He says this is the heart. I don't know about you. But I'm grateful that on one hand Jesus tells me that he he says I'm gonna tell you who you are.

I'm gonna tell you what kind of heart you got as a natural human being. And it's it is somewhat comforting to tell me the truth that he doesn't say. You know that I was a pretty good guy. Because if he did I think I don't think he knows me very well.

I'm so grateful that he looks. He says no. I know what's going on in your heart. I know you've hated. I know you murdered. I know you've committed adultery. I know you've done blasphemies. I know that you've treasured other things more than me use you.

You've murdered yourself. You cut yourself for off from God. You've committed adultery. You've given your heart to others than me. I love you. I can fix all those things. That's not the problem. The problem is that do you want it fixed.

The problem is do you want to deal with it. The problem is there. Are you. Are you. Do you mourn over it. Is there a hunger and thirst for what is right. Is there a longing for a purity of heart that would come through fellowship and communion with me.

And when we begin to realize that Jeremiah said he says the heart the human heart all of ours. Every one of us didn't say some. You know Jeremiah didn't say you know I've run into a few people that have a heart that's deceitful above all things desperately wicked nasty nasty thing.

You know he looked at it. This is the human heart all of us. We can dress up and we can look nice. Paul says if I've sinned in one I've sinned in all. If I failed in one thing I have failed in everything.

And my heart is no different than anybody else's. We look around and we think everybody else. We look at all these wonderful spiritual people here my oh my look at him. And while we sit here under our own skin and think what am I doing here in the meantime they're all looking at us thinking the same thing.

We're all lying you know about it in a sense because we're all senior as far as the Bible is concerned we're all out all made in the same mold. Some of us might be a little moldier than others but we're all in the same mold.

We all came out of the same thing. Nobody had to train us. It was there in birth it was there naturally within us. I remember just a little kid realizing I look back what a what a wicked heart this is.

Jeremiah said the human arts wicked. It's deceitful. All the things there that I remember doing this is a kid and yet realizing now at the time it was just being a kid it was fun stuff stuff everybody ought to do just a little kid we used to go out.

The Natural Impurity of the Human Heart

We get these thimbles. You know the wood thimbles is big. They're different sizes. We get the biggest ones we could. We get a thimble. We get a knife and we'd actually cut it out or you know notch all the way around the thing.

Then we get a coat hanger so we and stick it through so we could and then we put thread all the way through the thing and so the coat hanger with a wire we can put it against somebody's window and their house and with thread on it.

And if you put do you put take that thimble. And then you get three or four kids together and you go around somebody's house and here's some sweet little lady and they're reading her paper quiet little evening and you go pull that thread and that thing starts going around inside the house against the glass.

Then that thing and it magnifies through and it's coming through every window. We watched little old ladies we thought it was the funnest thing jump to the floor think the ruffs coming in on him and we go.

Did you see how fast he went down. Boy I didn't know she was gonna get up you know or something. And here's somebody frightening them to death now who taught us to be like that. I mean from the littlest things you could do.

I got a little. You get bored with that for a little while. So there was down the street from us at mrs. Tisdale's house at the corner this huge oak tree. Gigantic oak tree that went way out over the tree and over the street.

And we didn't have streetlights in our neighborhood. And so we'd go and we would get every we live also our house. We lived in you the tract area used to be an orange grove so everybody had six eight ten orange trees in their yard and we'd get all these old rotten oranges.

And then we'd get tomatoes and we'd get anything. We could sneak out of our parents you know refrigerators. And we'd go climb out in this oak tree. Us and there's three boys across the street. Three boys in our family all the year part.

We'd sit up there in this oak tree. You couldn't see a thing. It's pitch dark. We'd see a car coming down there and we would just wait for it to come and we would drop an entire grocery store on the car coming down and they would is this thing would hit.

It was the funnest thing as a kid you know. And then they'd slam on the brakes and people come out. You don't jump there. We just be nobody say a word. They go running and jumping and they never saw what hit him.

And we did you have your their entire car. It was the greatest evening you could ever have as a kid unless you're the person in the car. One night we did it we could. There's a convertible coming. We didn't know it was a convertible.

We did it and we let that thing go and we heard a blood-curdling scream like you've never heard. We didn't know but the couples just unfortunately they're just coming from and not going to a wedding.

But they've just come from. She had on this whole outfit you know. And he's in a tux and he's about he's in college age or something. And when we hear this scream one of us we'd always just sit there never utter a word but one when they heard that scream dropped out of the tree and started running.

Well then we all jumped and we're all running scurry. Next thing we know he gets one of us just get it. He's. And then I'm under the car. I'm under the Tisdale's car. I'm laying there just my heart just beat like crazy.

All of a sudden a hand grabs onto my ankle and I go out and I'm hanging up and this guy wanted blood. This guy in his gal there she's crying and she's screaming and she looked pretty bad but the but face it most of those gowns look pretty bad to start with.

But anyway the thing but this guy was so mad he wanted us dead and he was so upset that we were too little to kill you know sort of anything that's all I mean. And he said where'd you. Finally where do you live.

I turned to him I said 84 15 Clarence who because the kids were with their parents were out that night now was their address. And so he's going down there and he's hauling us there and he's there. I'm telling him.

And by the time we get there they're not. We said well they're out. They all went out to dinner and there you know and we're there just we're dead. Meantime they look right across the street at 84 22 where I lived and there is a light on the front door and he says you know maybe your parents aren't home but maybe the people across the street will be nice enough neighbors to take care of you and tell your parents.

But the things that we would do that seem to be. And then they just get worse with time get older go to work for Jack in the box. What the course shift do they give you to start. You got to 10 till 2 in the morning.

You know Friday and Saturday night worst job in the world. About midnight these guys had come driving through half drunk after a party and there's that big ugly Jack in the box. They're talking into you remember those things.

If you run a jack anybody in there. And of course yes we're right here. And we were so bored. I hated that job but that you had to be nice to him and the good Jack I wanted to be good and we'd sit there inside we'd say no problem.

Would you like a little extra secret sauce. Jack give me some. I will not tell you what we did to those burgers. I will tell you to this very day anytime I go through a Jack a drive-in by always some nice.

I'm the nicest. Take your time. How are you. Nice day. I said burger not booger you know. Or whatever. The things we would do when you're on one side of it it seems fun. Until now you're older and now people are doing stuff to you.

But you're a sinner. The only time we build a car help my cousins with it. Believe it or not remember the Austin Healy Sprite a little this genius thing. We got a 426 in that thing. How we got in there.

We had to cut everything out you ever saw. But we've decided we wanted the fastest car in the world. But then the big problem was that so much power in this teeny little Austin Healy that the wheels you could never get him to stay down.

So one night we get an idea where could he get a lot of weight in a small area and we realize manhole covers those things are heavy and we start driving around town pulling off all these manhole covers putting them in seeing if we can get this thing to work.