Introduction
Let me begin with a discipleship question: will we trust and obey Jesus in the real decisions of everyday life? Christ forms us through truth received, repentance practiced, and obedience lived out.
Main Points
Grace and Justification
if you have a bible turn to matthew chapter five i want to get right into it matthew chapter five is the sermon on the mount it starts in matthew chapter five it goes all the way through matthew chapter seven it is our goal to study the whole sermon on the mount this summer and that's why we're calling this series the summer on the mount and this morning we're in the third week of that and the goal of this week is to take what is often called the beatitudes and to finish the final blessing of what it means to be a disciple of christ those beatitudes or blessings or what we studied the first two weeks and i'll remind you for those of you who are here week one these are things that progressively grow one from another until you get to the very end of the blessings where jesus says you will be so close to following him you'll be such a sincere disciple of christ that no matter what the world throws at you your blessing will not be taken it will be a rejoicing moment even in persecution but i want to read the entirety of the beatitudes with the goal of ending in verse 10 this morning just to remember where we came from it says blessed are the poor in spirit verse 3 for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled and blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy and now we come this morning to these three blessings that we're going to study and really talk about i do believe that each one of these could not only be an independent sermon but an independent series so give me grace as we work through these because the beatitudes do grow in intensity starting with a blessed state when you have a poor spirit before the lord recalling that lesson which was lord i now realize in light of your glory in light of your holiness and light of your power and goodness i am nothing compared to you and if you have not come to that place yet then the rest of the beatitudes will probably not be evident in your life but i remind you of that because we now come to more intense versions of what it means to be a disciple of christ and should you listen to these as an entry point in discipleship without going through the entry point of a poor spirit a hunger and thirst to know god in his righteousness then you may feel burdened by the idea that you yourself as it says in verse 8 would be pure in heart blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god you may be burdened by the blessing or the promise that you could be joy and content in your life as it says in verse 9 blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of god living in the day and age we live in we know how challenging it is to make peace but we're going to look at that blessing this morning and then it says verse 10 blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are you when you are persecuted he goes on to say in verse 11 blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven they persecuted the prophets who were before you so this morning we look at pure heart we look at the blessing of peacemaking and we look at rejoicing in persecution all in one sermon but they all go together and before we look at the pure heart i want to re-emphasize who jesus is speaking to the sermon on the mount comes after a full day and in season of ministry where jesus was reaching the multitudes remember he was doing miracles he was confounding the wise with teaching many people were coming him to be healed and it says in the very beginning of matthew 5 to set up the context it says and the multitudes seen the multitudes he went up on a mountain and when he was seated his disciples came to him this is a message for those who have a desire to follow christ this is not a message to teach you how to follow christ but what happens when you follow christ and there is a small but great distinction in those two statements this week which often happens by the way in the life of a preacher and also in the life of someone who's just devoted to god's word and really trying to meditate and understand it you'll often find it playing out in your real life whatever the lord is teaching you through his word he's also teaching you through living parables of your life preparing you for a season when they will be activated or encouraging you for a season when you need it right now and for me as i try to understand the weight of the beatitudes but separating them from this sometimes this tendency to think that i need to do those things to somehow meet with jesus i ran across a number of people this week who i would consider enthusiasts you guys are probably all enthusiasts in something enthusiasts are people who have for whatever reason been really excited about a particular object or hobby or matter of conversation and they're people who just know it so well so some of you are probably coffee enthusiasts that's a popular one nowadays it's like i know dark roast for sliced roast i know you know the blend that this comes from and when you know it you know how to find those distinctions i uh ran across a very interesting enthusiast and i hope maybe some of you are here who have this enthusiasm for rocks did you know that rock collecting was the thing maybe some of you were like finally you're going to mention it i've been looking for the rock collecting group at calvary yeah people go out and they're walking in the foothills and they're going on the trails and they can spot a rock that is set apart and you can go home and polish it and make it nice and it will bring out colors i went over to someone's house last night and it was filled with rocks from the from just from our little valley picked them up knew what they were took them home polished them and made them shine for me when i see the foothills i just see regular rocks i don't see polish and potential but that's what an enthusiast does that same thing happened my wife and i were out with some friends a very nice car comes out in front of us my wife lies look at that what kind of car is that someone from the friend group goes that is a 1957 chevy bel air it's a nice car yeah you can clap for that too i guess she says how did you know that he goes well you got the you got the body work in the back the fin you have the very specific wheels and the sound you can see by the sound and he's like also it says bel air on the back took a minute now that is what's happening here what's happening here is we are given almost a mirror for a disciple this is what a disciple looks like and you've probably in your following of jesus over the course of the time you've done that you've noticed at times where you can say there's one they've got that thing about them that sets them apart as a disciple of christ and what's very important about making this distinction now is that most of the times when enthusiasts are looking for the marks they're looking at the outside of the thing the contour they're looking for the sound they're looking for what we can pick up with our senses the rock looks a certain way the coin has a certain shine to it a certain year the cards that you're collecting they all have something that you can visibly see and make note of and jesus is saying it's going to be different for what makes you a distinctive disciple of him is not necessarily what you can see and that's a very big lesson to learn in our lives it's a lesson that he brought all the time in his day to say it's not what it looks like on the outside that's why the sermon on mount will continue to drive home this point matthew chapter 6 when he says take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them doesn't mean anything what jesus is saying is blessed are the pure in heart there's something that is in your heart in your mind that god is actually looking at that will be a mark of disciple and so we've got to talk about purity of heart this morning in a way that i have to leave you and exhort you with to hold the mirror up to say not just there's a disciple and there's the disciple i'll know one when i see one but how does this look in my life and that has been one of the great joys and burdens of studying this to prepare a message for it is that the sermon on the mount will cause you to say am i that am i a disciple that looks merciful to the world and does that mercy live in my heart or is it just an action that i project in my disciple that has a hunger and a thirst for my heart to know righteousness that's why we'll talk about the lust of the heart that's why we're going to talk about the way god judges things very differently than us a very important lesson that is emphasized throughout the sermon on the mount that will be a full sermon once we get to matthew 7 when so many people in that day meaning the day they meet the lord face to face to get an account of their life were they the thing that was set apart distinguished for god and some of them will say i had the markings because i preached and i did miracles and i did mighty wonders in your name all of these things that you can visibly look at and say well there must be a disciple and jesus will say but i didn't know you or in other words your heart was far from me so a healthy reminder for a congregation from a pastor this doesn't tell you anything about me my preaching if i could say a scripture without referencing the reading it because it comes from memory and this doesn't tell me anything about you are here i'm so glad and you look wonderful but i have no idea the condition of your heart and so with that in mind when we talk about what it means to be pure in heart and to be peacemakers and to be people who rejoice in persecution for the purposes of this morning because of that theme i thought it might be good to look at all of this not through the lens of theology and teaching or trying to understand purity through the law but through stories because the bible actually gives us better pictures of what this looks like through stories of jesus interacting with people than we find in reading the book of leviticus sometimes we wish it was that simple don't we when we think about purity in the church how often are we attaching it to behaviors very often in fact now one of the bad marks on the church for people have left the church is something called the purity culture whereas like you could understand someone's purity by their behavior and that is true as an outflow there is wisdom in the way that we want boundaries to our relationships and there's wisdom in the way that we want to have healthy response to what god has prescribed for marriage there's wisdom in the way that we want to do well by the things that we can do outwardly to make our bodies pure and to make our relationships pure but what jesus is getting at time and time again is he's looking at the heart lest we think that purity is simply pre-marital sex and avoiding that or purity is simply having the right diet or purity is something that we can somehow wash from the outside because jesus says it's not what goes into a man that defiles him but what comes out of his life what comes out of you so for this reason for the first story we'll look at three one for each topic of conversation one for each beatitude this morning we'll look at three stories the first we'll find in the gospel of john a surprising story to look at for the lesson of a pure heart because we're going to find a lot of clues into this story from the gospel writer and even from the interaction that jesus will have with this woman that purity was not something on display john chapter 4 is often called the woman of woman at the well and there are so many sermons that could say now turn to john chapter four and look let's look at the woman of the well this morning we're gonna look at it through the lens of a pure heart john chapter four this story starts in verse seven a woman of samaria came to draw water and jesus said to her give me a drink for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food listen to this then the woman of samaria said to him how is it that you being a jew ask a drink from me a samaritan woman for jews have no dealings with samaritans in those two verses we are packed full of the table being set to say this is not a pure person twice the gospel writer says a samaritan woman double emphasis in the bible is never by mistake it's always to say pay attention to this detail samaritans were considered pardon the expression but for the time that they were in they were considered half breeds they were considered half jew and half defiled they were not pure jew women of the day by god's grace and by the gospel infiltrating our world and bringing it up to the heart of god women are now elevated to not have this view in culture where christians where christendom is landed women have had elevated seat at the table but in this day a woman did not have an elevated seat so this woman says to jesus i don't know if you're aware but i'm a samaritan and i'm a woman and you're a jew so we shouldn't be talking now if you read the law and if you understand jewish culture one of the biggest emphasis of their religion was purity was to find a way to cleanse yourself outwardly with boundaries with relationships to make sure that you are not violating the holiness of god the purity of god's holiness and if you read the gospels you'll find that jesus was always doing something to cross the line how does this man that so many people think is the messiah eat with tax collectors and sinners otherwise impure people jesus says to her in verse 10 then jesus said to her if you knew the gift of god and who it was to say to you give me a drink you would have asked him and he would give you living water well i'm so grateful for the metaphor that jesus is using for living water that is something that is so important when we think about a pure heart because what jesus is going to get at and he's about to tell her this she's going to say you don't have anything to get this drink from she's thinking with the eyes that she can see you don't have anything to pull the you don't have a bucket to get the water out and jesus says whoever drinks of this water pointing to the well will thirst again but whoever drinks of the water that i give him will never thirst again what jesus is saying is there is a thirst to your life that is physical but it is pointing you to a deeper thirst that is spiritual and we all have a spiritual thirst and this does in fact have to do with what it means to be pure-hearted in fact saurian kierkegaard the great danish theologian and philosopher wrote an entire book on this 1b attitude again grace for a 15-minute sermonette on it's called purity of heart and the subtitle is to will one thing that's what he defines as purity of heart to say purity of heart is a heart undivided and now we start to understand more why this would point us to a visible image of god in your life because throughout the challenges of god calling people to himself choosing to use them and bless them and keep them and protect them and then proclaim his glory through them there is always this thing built into human nature as we are both flesh and spirit which creates in us a divided mission it creates in us hearts that long for god but also try to be filled by other things and this is why if i took the poll this morning and why i preface all of this which this is not the starting point of the disciple but it is the maturity of a disciple to have a pure heart if i had you raise your hand and say how many of you over the course of the last week 48 hours 24 hours even this morning feel like your heart has been pure very few of us because we add things to our heart all the time and one of the ways our heart becomes pure before god as we become poor in spirit and then as we become comforted in our mourning because we are rejecting sin we no longer want it a part of our life and then we become merciful reflecting the image that we were made to reflect and then we hunger for righteousness when all of these things begin to happen we now have what kierkegaard has or says is to will one thing our heart is becoming a line for the mission to know god and make him known and that is what jesus is going to get at now he has a thirst that will not leave you dry and this is why so many things fill up our heart is because the physical thirst you have is a great picture of how often we get our spiritual thirst wrong jesus says look at this well you drink it this well you're gonna thirst again true enough in fact as i'm preaching right now i wish i would drink in more water before i got up to preach because the more you talk the more you need water and my i'm parched right now don't no one needs to give me water right now please but it's a reality you just get thirsty in life it's like i need water and then you get thirsty for things that go beyond your physical quenching but they're part of who you are you thought for sure you were going to do this major in college and it's like i'm going to be a nursing student and that's what i want to do until i don't because now i want to try something else and then you thought for sure you're called to a certain job and you couldn't believe you got it you were so hungry and thirsty for a way to provide for your life and you get the job and you're like i hate this job next this is not what i want and then deeper still you get the relationship you were built for a relationship you're made in the image of a triune god who is relationship and you long for it and you write songs in poetry to make it happen and then you get it and you're like i had no idea that you ate so loudly and you're so annoyed i'm thirsty for something else now jesus says i have something for your soul that will make you never thirst again and that is in fact what it means to have a pure heart is that we are people who long for or as the psalmist say thirst for pant for like the deer pants for water we are now that for god and as your heart becomes pure for god your heart becomes satisfied in god and now there's a second element to this that will play out in our story because jesus says she says to jesus or jesus says to her whoever drinks it this will never thirst again she says sir give me the water that i might not thirst nor come here to draw it i accept the invitation this thirst that i have that would somehow be quenched by what you have to offer i would gladly receive so now what does jesus say and this is the part the second part of the pure heart he says go call your husband and come here she's representing a heart that wills one thing to be quenched of her thirst and she's also representing someone that jesus is going to cleanse and that is why i love the metaphor of water it is something that we both consume to be quenched and is something that we both stand under to be cleansed and because you are all products probably of the richest country in the world no doubt most of you woke up this morning and we're cleansed by the gift of pure water flowing from the walls of your house and that is our culture that is a gift of our culture and it is also if you think about it something strange that we do you all probably took a shower after a night of pretty peaceful sleep i doubt any of you were trudging around the streets or had you know irrigation boots on in the middle of the night or had to go through the dust bowl of our country you went to bed everything was fine he woke up he said well i better clean up and that is something that we need to hold on to when we consider the pure heart that christ calls us to one theologian says that he calls us to a pure heart with gospel purity what does that mean the gospel is always doing something now that will be completed then the gospel is always overlapping our two conditions it gives us something in present tense that we have and we hold and we are that we really won't be until we get to the presence of god once and for all so you think about salvation david says return unto me the joy of my salvation it's a day in your life that you were made new by christ you went from far off dead in your sin to alive in christ because he died on the cross for your sin and you accepted the free gift you are saved and yet we send our kids on mission trips and we pray for provisions and hope the van doesn't break down because vans still break down and salvation on them that day might mean that someone pulls over when they see the hood in the air and they say do you need saving today and they say yes because we are saved and we are being saved we're still working out our salvation and the day of salvation is nearer than it was yesterday it's the same in the new creation jesus says you're a new creation anyone who's in christ is a new creation the old has passed away behold all things are present tense new you've put your faith in christ you're new you no longer have to listen to the whispers of the enemy of your doubt or flesh of all the stuff that you did because god cast it into the sea and he said no fishing you're new and yet you're still old you live in the old creation with the new creation it's the gospel it's the gospel overlap you still had to wake up and start the engine of your heart with a little bit of coffee because you're in the old creation still not that there won't be coffee in the new creation i'm sure there will be and that is a pure heart we are cleansed by the washing of the word ephesians chapter five husbands love your wives like christ loves the church cleansing her adoring her preparing her as a bride with the washing present tense continual washing of the word you come here this morning to worship god he draw you in by he drew you in by his kindness you came here to experience the joy of his presence you came here to be blessed by his word and you came here by the power of the holy spirit to be cleansed to be washed by his word because we live in a new creation in the fallen creation and you leave this place and you go from the sanctity of his presence and the power of his spirit into a world that is fallen and it happens all the time so we preach this i hope to those who are listening to this message maybe as a visitor and you think entry point into the church is a pure heart because i don't have it well welcome to the club all of us are being cleansed and more and more and more our heart is being aligned to the single focus of following god and we're being cleansed of all of that other stuff jesus says that's right you have five husbands previous and the person you're living with is not your husband now this is who jesus comes to this is a picture of gospel pure heart she is pursuing the lord and she is willing to listen to the lord and say what do i do about it and we're going to get messy through this all the time lest we become pharisees and legalistic people who think that pure purity of heart is something that you're supposed to just have and you never mess up i am in about 45 minutes if all plans go well i'm packing up my car which is parked right over there and i'm driving from boise to new york with four kids and my wife i don't know how old all of them are i know the youngest one is one and so it should be a wild ride i was joking with somebody that i wish gps had an option to allow you to put in where you're coming from where you're going get the estimated time and then also put in how many kids you have and their ages to get the realistic time that's an app for someone to develop i don't know if i will
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.