The Sermon on the Mount Part 7

[HKHaugan]

The Sermon on the Mount Part 7

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Mt.5:8).”

The sixth blessing has to do with the condition of our heart.

So far in the Blesseds we will have, hopefully, felt the first one most deeply, spiritual poverty and our constant need for the Holy Spirit. That's especially true in this one. If we haven’t then we need to start with the first one all over again because this sixth one gets to the heart of the matter, the heart.

The key word in this blessing is obviously 'pure.' It is derived from the Greek word, pyr---fire---from which comes the word 'pyre,' the wooden pile upon which a body is burned. Jesus bore the sins of the world and the fire of the Holy Spirit purged, purified Him for us on the Cross. The Cross then was, in one sense, His funeral pyre, the 'fire' of the Spirit purging sin through His sacrifice, through His 'pure' perfect faith. Mal.3:2 images the Lord Himself as a refining fire.

The Lord has given us the gift of faith in Him to be the purifier when we repent and receive forgiveness. He wants our hearts to be pure and He has given us the way to be pure in heart,---faith. Jesus knew Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things.” Jesus knows our hearts when He says, “Out of men's hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.” Wherever our hearts fall in that list is what needs purging. Purity of heart is having a faithful heart that is conscious of the Lord's calling while we are on our way in the world. There is no question that sin will pluck all those strings from one moment to the next as the music of the nightwalker, the devil, throws his net in our path. This is precisely why He followed the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. There He exposed the devil as the dark knight behind sin and evil.

That is exactly what Jesus demonstrated on the Cross, the purging of the power of sin which is death. He did this through faith. His resurrection the proof He was pure in mind, heart and Spirit. “God made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2Cor.5:21).” Even though we are sinners it is by His death and Resurrection that He has made the gift of faith the purifier and the motivator for our every next moment. This is why Paul was so strong on living by faith because faith justifies us, makes us right with God and one another.

What we can say after reading all the blessings is that we are, in mind, heart and spirit, a project under construction. Just the thought that we can achieve any of these by ourselves is both prideful and fruitless. Yet the Lord sets the bar high because he is the bar and the Holy Spirit is the power through Him. When we see Jesus we see all the Blesseds in free flow. But here especially, the heart is the key to the rest. It takes a heart confronted by the Spirit to be humble, meek, repentant and open for direction. That's why 'pyr' (fire) really gets to the point. Both Mt.3:11 and Lk.3:16 tell us when Jesus comes He will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Holy Spirit fire purifies.

The sixth blessing says that after showing mercy we are ready to grow by opening our hearts to the Spirit's purifying work. We can face the fear-based strongholds that we use for security to protect ourselves from past pain and its possible recurrences. We can continue being cleansed through repentance and forgiveness. It's not about being 'gooder' but about being humble before God, not about feeling better about ourselves and our faith, not internalizing how good we are becoming and concentrating on how changed we are from our old life. Rather, it is listening to His counsel in prayer and Scripture and making ourselves available to the secular world around us in every next moment. The more we are in the Word, and believe, the more the mind is cleansed. The more we trust Jesus wherever we are with what we learn in the Word, the more the heart is opened to trust. The more we step out in faith toward others, the more the Lord is shared and glorified. It's no longer about where we are but where we are going in our every next moment, event, occasion and circumstance.