Purity of Heart
Matt 5: 1 – 12 (Deut 22: 9 – 12)
Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 09 Aug, 2003

WHAT IS purity? To understand Jesus’ teaching, we have to understand his meaning. The famous theologian, Søren Kierkegaard, said, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.”
  Jesus tells us,

WE NEED FOCUS
  I have been thinking lately about how hard it is for many people to make a success of their lives. And it struck me that it is often the smarter people who get criticised the most for incompetence. And if you have been to university, you will be a particular target of criticism, because that’s a bit like wearing a badge saying, “Aren't I smart?”

  There was a kid at school whom we used to avoid, because he was as thick as a brick, didn't listen, and thought he was very clever.
  When I met him on a train one night, he was finishing his degree, and what he told me about the course he was doing was nonsense. He still wasn’t listening and still didn’t have a clue.
  About four years later, I met him again, and now he was doing a doctorate. I didn't ask him the details, because a few words of general conversation told me he still hadn’t learned to listen and still was as thick as a brick.
  But he knew how to slog on and achieve his academic aims. I just felt sorry for anyone working with him in the real world!

  Not everyone is like him. But I realised that the problem is that many people who go to university are smart, but unfocused. I certainly was when I started. And that was what this bloke had going for him: he was dumb, but he was focused. He knew what he wanted, and was going for it.

  I have two sons, Luke and Joshua. From about the age of eight, Luke was focused. He wanted to be a musician. He wanted to be a baroque musician. He went to university, certainly; but it was all geared to being a good, knowledgeable baroque musician.
  Joshua, on the other hand, could do just about anything he tried. He made things, he studied things, he designed things, and he did it all pretty well. After school, he started three or four different courses and never finished one of them. He was about the best–educated and most competent shop assistant in the Metropolitan Area.
  Then he got a job selling software, and he got to know the product so well that they put him onto the Help Desk, and he just went ahead from there. He learned networking, and all kinds of technical support stuff. He found what he really liked, and he went after it, and he is in pretty high demand, because people know he knows what he is doing.

  Years ago, I knew a rich man. One day I was going to the Baptist Assembly meetings, and this man asked me and our pastor to call over to collect something on our way.
  It was a check for $100 000 for the Cooperative Budget. It was his giving over and above his tithe.
  He knew how to sell meat. He began by offering a mobile meat service for pensioners in his home town, pedalling his bike from house to house with people's meat orders. And from there he went on until he owned abbatoirs all around Australia.
  Meat was what he knew. He did what e could do, and did it well, with a minimum of distraction into other areas.

  Jesus said,

  If you want to get to know God, you need focus.

AN UNMIXED HEART
  And that’s a common thread through the Bible. It’s a thread of purity. God isn’t looking for people who are good at attending church or at praying or at reading the Bible, because each of these things is less than what he wants. God is looking for purity, purity of heart.
  Maybe you wonder why I had that reading from Deuteronomy. It’s really another passage about the same concept.

•   A field with two kinds of crops in it is impure, it is mixed, and that isn’t God’s plan for us. He wants purity.
•   An ox and a donkey on the same plough is impure, it is mixed, and that isn’t God‘s plan for us. He wants purity.
•   Wool and linen in the same garment is impure, it is mixed, and that isn’t God‘s plan for us. He wants purity.

  If you think about it, God doesn’t really care all that much about what we plant in our gardens; after all, he plants a riot of plants in his own gardens. He doesn’t care all that much if we use two kinds of animals on a plough — unless it will harm the animals. He doesn’t even care about your polyester and cotton shirt. But he cares about purity. And that’s the point.

  God wanted the Israelites to think every year at planting time, “Don’t mix what doesn’t belong together.” He wanted them to think when they get the plough out, “Don’t mix what doesn’t belong together.” He wanted them to think every time they got dressed, “Don’t mix what doesn’t belong together.” Jewish life was full of reminders about God’s plan for purity.
  If you are pure in heart, you will attend church because you want to see God; you will read the Bible because you want to see God; and you will pray because you want to see God.
  That’s what God seeks: purity of heart.

  In a later chapter, Jesus says,

  Once again, a focused life gains great blessing.
  Maybe I should just stop and point something out here. In The Beatitudes, we know that Jesus calls those who are pure in heart, oi makarioi, the blessed ones. And we have heard that this is a kind of blessedness that comes from God himself, not a good word from God, but a share in God’s own blessedness.
  And here, in Matthew 6, Jesus is talking about the other kind of blessedness, where God provides well for us, where he speaks good to our souls.

  In other words, when we have the right focus, we get God’s kind of blessedness and our own, two compatible things, mixed together! I guess that that has to be what happens when you see God and live!

  An unmixed heart is a pure heart, and that’s the key to seeing God.

A HOLY HEART
  I often emphasise what Kirkegaard said, because I think we Christians often misunderstand what Jesus is saying here.

  I remember having a disagreement with a former Treasurer once. He wanted everyone to give more to missions, which was certainly a good idea, but he said we should deny ourselves and take up the cross and give more as part of our self–denial. I disagreed, because I felt that that was a misunderstanding of self-denial. The Lord wants us to go to the heart of our self–centredness and deal with that, not feel proud of ourselves because we put a bit more in the offering–plate.

  And, in the same way, he doesn’t want us to wear the trappings of holiness, yet remain self-centred in our attitudes. He wants us to be single in our devotion to himself.

  If we understand holiness in this way, we will understand better what it means to be pure in heart. The pure heart is a holy heart, but the person who seeks holiness apart from an unmixed heart must always fail.

  In the earliest days of records of the Hebrew language, the word qadosh, meaning holy, could be used in ways that we wouldn’t imagine today.
  For example, the pots and meat forks in the Temple, were called qadosh, because they were holy to the Temple purposes. They had no heart, no will, yet they were holy.
  But an even more strange use of the word was to call prostitutes qadosh, even male prostitutes in some instances. Does that seem strange to you?
  The reason is that qadosh originally meant “separated for the exclusive use of God or a god.” So a male homosexual prostitute or a female prostitute working in a temple, was holy to the god or gods of that temple. The money he or she made was given to the upkeep of the temple, and worshippers felt that they were supporting their god by having sex with a temple prostitute. That woman or that man belonged to the god of that temple! And that made her or him qadosh.

  In the same way, the pots and pans and utensils used in the Temple of Yahweh were qadosh l'adonai, Holy to the Lord, because they were separated from all other pots and pans and utensils. They could only be used for the Temple’s worship purposes.

  So, if you are holy of heart, once again, it is not a question of certain behaviours, but a question of where your focus is. The holy heart is a heart given over to the Lord for his own holy purposes.

  People always want to codify holiness. They want a set of holiness rules that will work everywhere. So a holy person doesn’t drink, smoke or gamble. Now I don’t encourage you to do those things, but not because they are unholy, but because they are unhealthy. Or a holy person doesn’t wear tight jeans or makeup. Or a holy woman wears a scarf over her head or wears buttons, but not hooks and eyes, or a holy man doesn’t ever think about sex, not even once.

  People make up strange and even impossible rules in the hope that they will make them holy.

  But do you know what happens? They fall victim to the “Green–eyed monkey syndrome.”
  Do you remember about green–eyed monkeys?
  The knight was on a quest, and, to reach his goal and gain the treasure and kill the dragon and marry the princess, he had to take a long, difficult and dangerous journey.
  Along the way, he met bandits and wild beasts, he crossed flooded rivers and steep ravines, and finally he had only one more hurdle to overcome.
  Before him lay the deepest, most dangerous and mist–shrouded valley he had ever seen. Far out in the distance was the peak he had to reach. To get there, he had to cross a narrow, rotting, broken rope bridge.
  The closer he came, the more dangerous it seemed. People saw him coming and recoiled from him in horror, because they knew where he was going. Soothsayers met him and foretold his doom, just like the many who had come before him.
  Then one, kinder than the rest, said, “Great dangers lie before you, and many have died attempting what you are about to attempt. But there is one who knows the secret to a safe passage. Living in a hermit’s hut is an old man —the hermit couldn’t make him leave. That man knows the secret, and will gladly tell you.”
  So the knight went and found the hut as he had been told, and he asked the old man for the secret of crossing safely to the other side.
  The man gave the knight a toothless grin. “It’s simple,” he said. “There are three rules. Tread carefully, hold the hand ropes tightly and, whatever you do, never, ever think of green–eyed monkeys!”

  Do you understand what I mean by the  “Green–eyed monkey syndrome” now?
  Those rules for holiness become our entire focus. Instead of seeking God with all our hearts, we seek to follow the rules with all our hearts, and the very act of pursuing holiness undoes us.
  Purity of heart certainly means holiness, but that holiness is always defined by a focus on God and his will, and never by a focus on what rules we can follow to become more holy.

SUMMARY & CONCLUSIONS
  Purity of heart is the way to see God as he really is. But, as Jeremiah says,

  There is a constant tension in our hearts. It’s a tension between a single vision that leads us to the throne of God, and a mixed outlook which ultimately paralyses us.
  There is always an inner conflict between wanting the many things which our hearts desire and wanting the one thing which is above all other things — close fellowship with Jesus, and, through him, with God himself.

  I have been a Christian for 41 years. On Tuesday 8 July, I had my 41st birthday in the Lord. I have had a few major victories, a lot of minor victories, and, sad to say, many defeats in that time.

  The paradox I have discovered is that my greatest victories have been at times of desperation, when I have felt I couldn’t go on.
  I once was guest speaker at a special weekend at another church. Saturday night and Sunday morning went well without being spectacular. Sunday night, a couple of hours before I had to speak again, something happened which so unsettled me that I was on the brink of apologising to everyone and going home. In desperation, I handed the entire situation over to the Holy Spirit. I said I deserved no favours, that I was a failure before God and man, and all I could do was let the Spirit do whatever he wanted with the situation and glorify Christ.

  I came to the pulpit with only one idea, which was to deliver the truth and get home.

  And the Holy Spirit took control. He took the words and coached me on how to speak. He took everything and glorified Christ in not just the words, but the timing, the actions, the whole communication process. At the end, there was silence. And then the entire congregation stood and applauded. It’s the only time it has ever happened to me.

  The secret?

  I have probably never been so focused on God and his glory in my life, either before or since. The crisis stripped every non-essential away, and focused my heart on Christ.
  Learn to be focused, and God will use you mightily!

  Let’s pray: