Am I Pure of Heart?

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew 5.
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This morning we're going to be in verse 8.
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When we began our study of the Beatitudes a few weeks ago, we addressed the question of what it means to be blessed.
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We noted that some people think that blessedness is a synonym for happiness.
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And even some translators have gone as far as saying, instead of blessed are the merciful and blessed are those who mourn, it's happy are the merciful and happy are those who mourn.
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I think Charles has one of those because your daughter is teasing, saying you have a happy Bible.
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And that's fine as long as we understand happiness is a part of blessedness.
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But our modern vernacular has really made happy such a trite word.
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And thus, I think that because of the way we use it in modern language, it doesn't really express blessedness in the way the Bible expresses blessedness.
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Because the way the Bible expresses blessedness is a supreme blessing from God.
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It is a supreme action of God wherein He looks upon us with His favor.
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And it is most rightly expressed, at least in my estimation, in 1 John 3.2.
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What we call the blessed or the beatific vision.
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1 John 3.2 says, Beloved, we are God's children now.
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And what we will be has not yet appeared.
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But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is.
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That is what it means to be blessed.
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That we will see God as He is.
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We will see the Lord.
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We will see Him in His glorified body.
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And we will be like Him because we too will be glorified.
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We who are in Christ will receive new bodies in a new heaven and in a new earth.
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And there won't even need to be a son because God Himself will be the light of the new world.
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That's supreme blessedness.
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And I mention that this morning because this is the first beatitude that really describes the beatific vision within the beatitude.
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Because all of the beatitudes have blessings which are congruent with what they are saying.
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If you think of it, it says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall receive the kingdom of God.
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Theirs is the kingdom of God.
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Though you are poor, you are rich.
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Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
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Though you are mourning, God is going to comfort you.
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Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
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You know, you think about the meeks are the ones who never get anything because they are always being pushed by the prideful.
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No, the meek will inherit the earth.
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There is this congruity from what they are called to what their blessing is.
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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst, for they shall be satisfied.
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Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
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Thus, when we come to the beatitude of the day, it's important that we see not only who it is that's being blessed, but what they are receiving.
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For today, we talk about those who have the purity of heart.
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And what is the blessing of the pure in heart? They shall see God.
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It's the blessing of the beatific vision in the beatitude itself.
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So that being said, I'm not going to ask you to stand.
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Normally we stand, but I've already given you the verse.
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I'll read it again to you, and then we're going to pray.
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It says, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you for this opportunity to hear your word.
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I thank you for this opportunity to again be able to preach your word.
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I pray that you would keep me from error.
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I pray that you would help me to preach with clarity.
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And I pray that the minds and hearts of your people would understand it, be encouraged by it.
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And Lord, if there are those here who do not know Christ, that they would be convicted by it and called to righteousness, repentance, and faith.
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We thank you for all of your love and mercy.
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And we ask that you give us this time of study and that it would ultimately, Lord, glorify you.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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What we have seen so far in our study, at least what I have tried to help us understand, is the progression of the beatitudes.
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The fact that each one builds upon the one that came before it.
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There is a natural pattern that has emerged.
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I said before, some people see each beatitude as an individual.
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Well, there are some who mourn.
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There are some who are meek.
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And there are others who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
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But that is not right.
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To see it that way disjoins what Christ intended for us to understand as being a progression for an individual, not several individuals.
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The person begins poor in spirit, impoverished before God.
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I have nothing.
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I am a sinner before a holy God.
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I am broken before God.
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And what happens? He mourns over his brokenness.
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He is humbled before God.
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And as a result, he is desperate, hungering, thirsting for righteousness, which only God can provide.
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As a result, his behavior is affected because God gives him that righteousness.
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He gives him that thing which he hungers and thirsts for.
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And as a result, he becomes an agent of mercy.
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But it doesn't end there.
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It continues on to another beatitude.
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One with an even deeper description.
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The man who is pure in heart.
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And I must tell you, of all the ones that we have read, of all the ones that we have studied, this is the most difficult, at least for me.
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I say it is difficult because it is probably the hardest one to find yourself in.
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At least, again, it is for me.
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I rightly find myself in the poor of spirit because I know I have nothing to bring to God.
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I know my unrighteousness.
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I know my sin.
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I understand my impoverty.
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I try to see myself in the humbled one who mourns for his sin.
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And I can see myself in that.
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I try to see myself in the one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, who is desperate for that.
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Because I know I don't have it, so I desperately want it.
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And I hope to see myself as an agent of mercy.
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These are things I hope for.
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But pure in heart is hard.
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Because I know my heart.
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And most of us, if we were honest, know ourselves well enough to not consider ourselves as such.
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May I use you as an example, Ms.
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Hoffman, for something? I remember one time, back when Ms.
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Hoffman used to teach Sunday school to our young people, and there was a young man named Mike.
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And she said something about her sin.
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And Mike said, Ms.
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Hoffman, you know you don't sin.
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You can't sin.
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What kind of sins could you do? But she knew her sin.
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She knew her heart.
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I mean, she knew.
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And that's the thing.
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You know, all of us, when we know ourselves, we may look at each other and say, man, what a fine person here.
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We all know our own heart, right? If you took the pictures from just our brain and put it on a screen for everyone to see, who'd be the first in line? No one.
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We know that if the thoughts of our minds were translated to videotape, we would want to burn the tapes.
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So when we see, blessed are the pure in heart, and we know that that's the natural progression for the same person, it's the next step.
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Some of us freeze in fear because we think, well, perhaps this is where I fall off the train.
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Maybe this is where I stop.
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And maybe I haven't really progressed.
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And as I said, for many people, this is a frightening consideration indeed.
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Well, this morning, my goal is to help you to understand this term.
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To help you understand the entire beatitude.
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And to show that the pureness of heart that Jesus is referring to here is the natural progression of a person who has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
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It is the natural progression.
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And I want to show you how it's been misunderstood.
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Because I think sometimes the reason why we don't see ourselves in it is because we don't understand it.
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So let's begin.
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I'll give you the outline.
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I know some of you, that's important, so I want to give it right off.
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Three points.
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No poem, but I got three points.
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Number one, pure of heart does not mean sinless perfection.
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Pure of heart does not mean sinless perfection.
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Number two, this one's long.
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Pure of heart is a response to the external purity of the Pharisees.
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Pure of heart is a response to the external purity of the Pharisees.
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When we get there, you'll understand what I mean by that.
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And number three, pure of heart is a result of regeneration.
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Pure of heart is a result of regeneration.
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That's our three points.
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That's what we're going to go through today.
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I'm going to make haste because I've got a lot to say.
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So just remember, listen fast because I'm going to talk fast.
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But let's go to the first part.
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Pure of heart does not mean sinless perfection.
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There are a number of heretical groups, and I call them heretical groups, because they teach plain heresy on this subject.
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They teach that it is possible to totally comply with all of God's commands in thought, word, and deed by adhering to a process of strict spiritual discipline.
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They believe in the doctrine of sinless perfection, that you can reach sinless perfection in this life.
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Pelagians believe in sinless perfection.
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Quakers believe in a form of sinless perfection.
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Phineites believe in a form of sinless perfection.
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Wesleyans even believe in a form of sinless perfection.
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Charles Wesley taught the doctrine of perfectionism, believing that a person could eradicate all of the carnal nature and be completely pure in spirit, that he could eradicate all desire in thought, word, and deed for sin while in this life.
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And beloved, what resulted from that false teaching, and it is a false teaching, and I will demonstrate that it is, but what has resulted from that is a new hallmark on certain theological systems, and the hallmark is this, the idea that you can lose your salvation, because that's the natural progression.
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Sinless perfection, well, if you're not sinless and perfect, what happens? You lose it.
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You had it, but you lost it.
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You're on the yo-yo salvation plan.
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Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down.
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They teach that a person gets saved and they're absolutely pure at the time of salvation, but every time that they sin, they become impure, and they must be re-saved through some process.
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Sometimes it's going and telling a priest your sins.
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Other times it's individual repentance.
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Sometimes it's corporate repentance.
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Sometimes it's being re-baptized.
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I know people who have been baptized 20, 30, 40, 50 times in their life, because they believe every time they sin, they lose their salvation, thus they have to be re-baptized.
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One faith, one baptism, the Bible says.
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Now, I understand if you were baptized before you got saved, and you want to be re-baptized because it's really a first true baptism, that's different, but a person who thinks every time they get saved they've got to be baptized, it's a result of faulty theology.
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In any case, this theology teaches that a person is only saved when they're completely free from sin and thought, word, and deed, so that they're only saved for a moment's notice.
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They could go and be back to being unsaved.
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And you may think, well, there's nobody who believes that way.
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I have spent endless hours in conversations with people who believed much more than what I'm telling you about this.
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One man in particular was from the Congregational Methodist Movement, also known as the Holiness Movement.
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He called me a heretic because I said salvation is once for all.
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It is a completed act in Christ.
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I don't contribute a thing.
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How could I lose what I didn't buy? So we went back and forth.
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And in our conversation, he was arguing a person could lose their salvation.
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And I asked him the question, how does a person lose his salvation? He said, by sinning.
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And I said, are you saved? He said, I am right now.
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I said, could you be unsaved tomorrow? And he said, absolutely.
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Beloved, that's heresy.
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That is straight up unbiblical doctrine because it is this yo-yo salvation stuff.
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And that's what makes it so seriously flawed.
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A person believes he can be perfect and that perfection is somehow linked to his salvation.
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So long as he is pure, he is saved.
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But in the moment he becomes impure, he is damned.
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And it's right back to hell for him.
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The Roman Catholics came up with a different way.
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Well, they have some sins that will send you to hell and others that will just extend your time in purgatory.
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They've got the mortal and the venial sins.
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Mortal sins are things like murder and rape and those cause you to lose the justification of salvation and you go to hell.
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But things like little white lies and stealing, as long as it's not grand theft, I suppose, it's venial and those things only get you more years in purgatory.
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They're trying to create a system around bad theology.
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Once you start with bad theology, you've got to add all this stuff to it to make it make sense because it didn't make sense to begin with.
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So again, there are some who say every sin, you lose your salvation.
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Some say, well, certain sins will make you lose your salvation and on and on and on.
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But all of these are faulty.
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They all misunderstand the purity of heart, which Jesus is referring to, because they have confused purity of heart with sinless perfection.
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Sinless perfection is not a biblical doctrine.
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I want you to consider these words from Scripture.
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We'll start in the Old Testament.
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Proverbs 20, verse 9.
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Who can say, I have made my heart pure, I am clean from sin? And the answer, of course, is no one.
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That's the natural way.
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No one can say that.
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Only a fool would say he's completely clean, that he's no sin in thought, word, or deed.
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And the writer of Proverbs expresses that.
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Who can say it? No one.
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The New Testament.
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John is very clear.
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1 John 1, verse 8.
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If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
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I mean, it's just straight up.
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If you say you're not a sin, you're a liar.
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If you say you have no sin, you're not telling the truth.
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Paul talks about the struggle between the flesh and the spirit in Romans and in Galatians.
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And even of himself, toward the end of his career as an apostle, he says that he's pressing on towards the goal.
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Not that he'd reached it, but that he was pressing on toward it.
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That he himself was yet perfect.
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Probably the most compelling to me is the words of Jesus.
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Not because I think the red letters are more important than the black letters.
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My Bible doesn't even make a differentiation.
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But even in those that do, I don't think that the red letters are more important than the black.
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They're all written by apostles.
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Jesus never wrote anything except for his finger in the sand.
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That's all that we know of.
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So don't let that confuse you.
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Well, Jesus said it, so it's more important than what Paul said.
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No, it's all the Holy Spirit.
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So make that clear.
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But I do like to be able to point to what Jesus said in this instance because I think it makes something very clear.
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We have a prayer that we as a church practice.
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And it is the model prayer.
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Some people wonder why we do it every Sunday.
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I do it every Sunday because as a child, that's the way I learned it.
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Because I don't teach it in school.
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And a lot of people don't ever recite it or learn it.
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And it's my way of teaching Scripture to our children because we have children in this room.
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We are a family church and we bring children in.
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And I know most of you adults have memorized it, but some of our children haven't.
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And I hope that they, as I did, learn it from this pulpit.
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That they learn this text of Scripture.
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It's a text of Scripture that they're learning as a part of prayer.
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So there's value in it.
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But in that prayer, Jesus says something important.
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Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
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Thy kingdom come.
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Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
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Give us this day our daily bread.
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And forgive us our...
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Well, it depends on what translation.
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I hear different words.
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We say trespasses.
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The older versions say debts.
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And it's important.
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Because that word in the original language in Matthew means faults.
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Things owed.
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Debts, trespasses, things we've done that are wrong.
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But in Luke's gospel, it's even more clear.
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Because, you know, Jesus is recalled saying it in Matthew's gospel.
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It's also recorded in Luke's gospel.
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In Luke's gospel, Luke...
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Remember, Jesus didn't speak Greek.
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Jesus spoke Aramaic.
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So every one of his words is translated from Aramaic into Greek by the apostles.
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That's an important thing to remember.
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So Matthew chooses to translate the word as debts.
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Luke, however, translates the word as hamartia.
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In Greek, it is sin.
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Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
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Why would the Lord of Glory commend me, his servant, to make my daily prayer a prayer of repentance if I was expected to live in sinless perfection? Does that not make sense to you? That even Christ recognized that while in the flesh, the very concept of sinless perfection is not biblical.
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Sinless perfection is not seen in any saint of God anywhere in the Scripture.
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You could go all the way back to the beginning.
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Noah, a saint of God, preacher of righteousness, had a bout with drunkenness.
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Abraham, the man of God called the friend of God, couldn't help but tell a lie when it was his neck on the line.
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David, a man after God's own heart, but yet another man's wife.
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Peter, Caesarea Philippi, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
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Peter, flesh and blood has not given these things to you, but my Father in Heaven has revealed these things to you.
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You have expressed the great confession of faith that I am the Christ, the Son of the living God.
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And on this confession, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
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This great confession of faith.
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And not too long after, I've never met him.
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I don't know him.
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I don't know what you're saying about me, but I've never met the man.
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And later on, somebody says, well, that was before he received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
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After he received the Holy Spirit, he could live sinlessly perfect.
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Well, Paul didn't think so because Paul straight up rebuked Peter for favoritism.
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And it's in the text of the Bible that when the Jews would come around, Peter would separate from the Gentiles and give favoritism to the Jews.
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And Paul straight up told him that is wrong.
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And he rebuked him.
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Sinless perfection is false doctrine.
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It just is.
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It straight up is not biblical.
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So when we see the term pure in heart, we cannot equate that to sinless perfection because we can't equate it to a false doctrine.
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So that's number one.
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Let's move on.
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You know what? I want to mention one last thing before we move on.
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During the Reformation, there's a phrase, and I think this will help because the question that was asked me earlier about blamelessness, and I was going to mention it during my communion time.
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It's a Latin phrase.
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Simul justus et precatorum.
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At the same time, just and sinner.
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At the same time, just and sinner.
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How can we be that? How can we be at the same time, just and sinner? Because we were made righteous in Christ, but yet we live in the sinful flesh.
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That was the that was one of the Latin phrases that was coined by Martin Luther.
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And has been misunderstood, but it needs to be understood because it is very important.
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Now, moving on, we have already seen pure in heart does not mean sinlessly perfect.
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It can't.
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So what does it mean? What is the focus? Well, the second point is that pure of heart is a response to the external purity of the Pharisees.
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Always remember context.
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What is the context of Jesus's ministry? First and foremost, the context.
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The Pharisees is a band of hypocritical Jewish leaders who have set up and established a set of rules for the people of God that even themselves don't follow.
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But yet they tie these burdens on other men and say, this is what you have to do to be right with God.
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Jesus even said, they said, you tie up burdens and put them on other men's backs that you yourself are unwilling to carry.
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That was the whole issue with the Pharisees.
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They were the most prominent of Christ's opponents and they were expert rule makers.
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They had rules about everything.
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They had rules about how far you could walk on the Sabbath, how many steps you could take before it constituted work.
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So Jesus comes along and he challenges their rules.
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He challenges their traditions.
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He challenges their misunderstandings of Scripture.
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And what was his most powerful rebuke? He called them something, something none of us like to be called hypocrites.
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Right.
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Hypocrites.
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He said they were all about their outward demonstration of righteousness, but inwardly they were corrupt and evil.
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Matthew 23, 27, Matthew 23, verse 27.
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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanliness.
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So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
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That was the problem with the Pharisees, according to Jesus.
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They had a pure outside, but a wicked inside.
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He said they're like whitewashed tombs.
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And if you don't really understand what he's talking about, you know, they have these spectacular ornamental stones that they place over somebody who's been buried in the ground.
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We still do it today.
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We put up fancy headstones.
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But we understand no matter how fancy the headstone, the thing inside is still dead, right? No matter how fancy, no matter how tall, no matter how ornate the headstone, the person inside is still dead and becoming one with the ground.
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That's Jesus' point.
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He said you all are like whitewashed tombs.
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No matter how clean the outside gets, your inside is full of dead people's bones.
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It's full of deadness.
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It's not right on the inside.
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As a result, everything on the outside is fake.
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It's a show.
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It's not true righteousness.
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If it doesn't come from the heart, everything on the Pharisees looked great.
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Everything they had appeared religious.
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They look like pure men through and through, but inside they were dead.
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Martin Lloyd Jones says this.
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Look at externally.
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They were without spot, but their inward parts were full of ravening and wickedness.
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They were most concerned about the external injunctions of religion, but they forgot the weightier matters of the law, namely, love to God and love of their neighbors.
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Wasn't that Jesus' always challenge to them? You've got all these rules.
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You follow all these rules.
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You give a tithe of everything, but you don't love people.
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Thus, when Jesus calls his followers to purity of heart, I believe that the first thing that we need to consider is the reason why he is giving a blessing to the pure in heart.
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If this is in counter distinction to those who are pure on the outside, but on the inside are filled with wickedness.
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He's demonstrating where true goodness and holiness and righteousness comes from.
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It's from within, not on the outside.
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It's from the heart, not from the flesh.
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Beloved, for Christians, faith is more than just an outward expression of righteousness.
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And beloved, I know so much.
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I've seen so much over the years of whitewashed tombs, of people who have this external righteousness, but inside there is hatred, there is vileness, there is wickedness, but they hide it with a veneer of goodness on the outside.
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And Jesus' point to us is that is straight up hypocrisy.
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And where we need to be concerned about...
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I've heard it said this, and I bet many of you have heard it said this, character is not what we do in the light, but character is what we do in the dark.
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Character is what we do when people aren't watching.
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And that really shows where our heart is, too.
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And that's why I think that this whole idea of Jesus making the point of pure of heart is a counter distinction from the Pharisees who were pure on the outside, but inside were wicked in their hearts.
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So I really believe that there's a distinction being made.
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My followers have a different fountain for their righteousness.
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They have a heart that's been changed.
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And that's number three.
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That leads me to my third point.
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Because what is the fountain out of which the person who lives for Christ, what is the fountain that is supposed to flow out? It's the heart that's been changed by the Holy Spirit of God.
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Regeneration.
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Pure of heart is a result of regeneration.
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By the way, if you're not a person who uses those big theological words and you hear the word regeneration, it doesn't automatically jump to your mind what that means.
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It means being born again.
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It means going from a spiritually dead to a spiritually living individual.
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It means going from death to life.
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That's why we baptize the way we do.
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Buried with Christ.
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Dead and raised to new life.
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It's a picture.
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The prophets of old said that God takes out the heart of stone and He replaces it with a heart of flesh.
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That's the Old Testament picture of the New Testament reality of being born again, or regeneration.
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Jesus said, unless we are born again, we will not see the kingdom of God.
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He also said, blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see the kingdom of God.
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Thus, the born again, or the pure in heart, it's the same person.
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And we see this in Ephesians 2.
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We were dead, and now we're alive.
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We were dead in our trespasses and sins.
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Not physically, but spiritually.
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Not in the flesh, but in the heart.
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And when Jesus says, pure in heart, we must understand something else.
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And I know you probably understand this, but it's important to remember, He's not talking about the blood pumping muscle in our chest.
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When Jesus talks about the heart, He's talking about our inward being, the real us, the real spiritual self, the part that we'll live on forever.
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This flesh is going to die and go away.
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And I'm kind of thankful for that.
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But Keith will live on.
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Not just spiritually, or in the minds of others, or how the key to immortality is never forgetting somebody.
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No! Keith's spirit will live.
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And I will either live in heaven with my King, or in hell in rebellion to my King, but I will live.
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There's a part of me that will live on.
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Thankfully, because of the work of Christ, I believe that I will live with my King.
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But that's the point.
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That's the me.
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That's what's been washed.
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That's what's been cleansed.
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That's what's been made pure.
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The real me.
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Not the blood pumping muscle, but me.
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The inward me.
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And no matter how much I do to clean the outward, no matter how much I do on the outside to look religious, if the inward me has not been changed, if the inward heart of stone has not been replaced with a heart of flesh, I am still in my sins and impure.
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Titus 3.5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the spirit.
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Washing of regeneration.
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That's a picture of our purification.
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Ezekiel 36.25 The promise is, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean.
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I will cleanse you from all filthiness and from all your idols.
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I will wash you clean.
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Jesus said something similar to Nicodemus.
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He said, unless you are born of water and of the spirit, you will not enter the kingdom of God.
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A lot of people get confused on that because they think water is the water of baptism.
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This is a spiritual washing.
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I can take you back to Ezekiel and prove it.
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Because in Ezekiel it says, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will sprinkle clean water on you.
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Those who say baptism saves you won't accept sprinkling, so they can't do that.
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No, it's straight up water from heaven.
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It is the cleansing water of the spirit which washes us, cleanses us, regenerates us, and makes us pure.
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It's the circumcision without hands that Paul talks about.
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He says, you've been given a new circumcision.
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It's not the cutting away of the skin of the flesh.
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It is the washing.
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It's the new division.
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You see, circumcision in the Old Testament was division of the nation of Israel.
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But what's the division of the New Testament? Regeneration.
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It's how we're separated from the world.
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We are washed clean.
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Those who are truly in Christ, possess hearts which have been converted and they have been purified by God's Spirit.
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They have been made pure by God's Spirit.
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Their hearts yearn for righteousness.
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They are at odds with the flesh.
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There is a battle going on with the flesh, so much so that the Apostle Paul had to say this.
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He said, I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others, I myself might be disqualified.
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He's not talking about being disqualified from salvation.
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He's talking about being disqualified from ministry.
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Because there is a very real sense where a minister who has been charged with the preaching of the Gospel, if he allows himself to fall into habitual, unrepentant sin, can be disqualified from that ministry.
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So says the Scripture.
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1 Timothy 3 and Titus 2 and other places that there is a disqualification from ministry.
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So what does Paul say about himself? I beat myself in this objection so I would not be disqualified.
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Why would he have to beat himself if sinless perfection were possible? Why would he have to discipline himself? But I digress.
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When we are born again, our old hearts are removed, and God replaces them with a heart which desires Him.
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A heart which is not captive to sin, but rather a heart which is captive to Him.
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And in essence, it is a pure heart.
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It battles the flesh, but it is a pure heart.
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It can rightly be said that in this beatitude, the most serious question which is brought into our mind, the most serious issue which should raise in our minds is the issue of hypocrisy.
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As I have already noted, Jesus condemned the Pharisees because their outward expression did not match their inward hearts.
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Their hearts were wicked, and their religion was a facade.
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So, when we address today the concept of purity of heart, I think we need to ask ourselves some questions.
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And I want to leave us with these questions.
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Questions to ask ourselves.
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Number one, are we living a divided or hypocritical life before God? Do we act one way in private than another completely differently in public? Do we cater our behavior ethically to suit those around us acting one way with Christians and another way with non-Christians? The person who is pure of heart, the person whose heart has been converted, has a transparency to their life that a hypocrite cannot have.
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They can open their homes to others.
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They can open their lives to others.
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They can open their lives to others.
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This is why Christians are called to be hospitable.
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We can open our lives to one another and know that we are not perfect because we are not sinlessly perfect, but we are also not living lives of hypocrisy.
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That our lives at home match the confession that we make in the church.
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That's the call.
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That's the charge.
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Not that we are sinlessly pure, but is our heart converted to Christ or is it converted to simply useless religious activity? Let's pray.
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Father, we thank You for this opportunity to have heard Your Word.
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I pray, O Lord, that You would first and foremost just convict all of us to draw closer to You, to give up any senses of hypocrisy, put away evil, and follow after You with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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I pray, O Lord, for those among us who may not know Christ, Lord, that You would draw them to You and change their heart today.
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I pray, Lord, that there are those among us who feel a desire to take up fellowship here and to serve Christ here, that You would call them and draw them today.
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And Lord, that You would move us all toward a closer walk with You.
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In Jesus' name we pray and for His sake, Amen.