Seeing The Captain's Face

Matthew 5:8  Blessed are the pure in heart

for they shall see God

Although God is the “cleanser” we do have our part. James 4:8  … Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Or “you mixed minded”.  Notice – not, you evil minded, but you mixed-minded.

So, what’s our part in purifying our hearts? I think Ezekiel 18:31 says it well.      Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit…

James takes it a step further.  He speaks of this mix mindedness or mixed- heartedness in the first chapter of his letter.  James 1:5-8  If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. [6] But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. [7] For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; [8] he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Mix-mindedness misses out on what God desires to reveal.

The criteria of being pure in heart is this:  coming to God and allowing Him to do the cleansing that only He can do – and often.  Psalm 119:2 Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with the whole heart!  A pure heart is one that seeks God wholly. 

The result – we will see God.  Now, what does that mean? Let’s look at just two things.

1.  To see God is to be awestruck by His glory – by a direct experience of His holiness.  Seeing God is not about physically seeing Him.  Yes, all who are believers will one day see Him face to face – but, it’s about experiencing Him.  After God spoke to Job in the whirlwind (Job didn’t physically see God), remember what Job said?  Job 42:5   "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,   But now my eye sees You.

2.  To experience His grace.  And remember a good  definition of grace is the acronym – God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.  So, what we are saying here is that seeing God is experiencing what Christ died for us to experience - knowing Him, His comfort His peace, His presence, His mercy, His forgiveness….. I could go on and on – maybe some of you could do that by posting a comment J

In Psalm 27 David declared the goodness of the Lord.  And then in verse 8, he wrote:  When You said, seek My face, my heart said to You, Your face Lord will I seek.

Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his stories, wrote of an interesting incident in which some people were out in a boat, in the midst of a storm.  It was a rather small boat.  And in the midst of the storm they became very fearful about what was happening, and one of them said he would creep up to the deck and take a look and see how things were.  So he crept up to the deck, and he came back not long afterward and said, “It’s alright.  I’ve just seen the captain’s face.”  James tells us that we don’t get the captain’s wisdom if we are double minded.  Really, we don’t experience any of His graces.  But, the pure in heart do – because we want it more than anything else.

Blessed Are The Cleansed of Heart

Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they shall see God.

Blessed are the pure in heart.  What’s you initial response as you read those words?   We’ve read the other beatitudes – difficult, but not impossible with the Lord.  As believers we have all experienced being poor in spirit, mourning over our sin, and meekness.  We have all wanted more of Jesus and so, hungered and thirsted after righteousness.  And we’ve all showed mercy to someone – at least once.  But, this one.  Pure in heart.  I’ve never been that – and I know you haven’t either.  Not even once has my heart been pure.  So, you, like me, might read this one and say, well, that leaves me out – and it does – it eliminates everybody that has ever lived out.     Jeremiah 17:9  "The heart is deceitful above all things,   And desperately wicked;…   Above all things my heart, your heart is deceitful and it’s desperately, desperately wicked.  Who can know it?  You can’t.  I can’t.  Our heart all too often surprises us, doesn’t it?  And so we say things like “I can’t believe I said that” or “did that.”

Some of us have tried.  We’ve tried to be pure.  But no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, we find our hearts to be just as corrupt as when we started.

The  word used to remind us that we can’t know our hearts, is the same Hebrew word that is used in other verses to describe the fact that God knows our hearts.  And yet, we can’t discount this beatitude, because look at the blessing of being pure in heart – they shall see God.  Oh, how I want that – not just in heaven, but in this life – right here and right now.  And if I’ve got to be pure in heart to see God, I want to know how that can happen.  Remember to the unsaved, Jesus is putting forth impossibilities in this sermon. But to the saved, He is putting forth a way of living that is possible and blessed.

Just what does Jesus mean when He speaks of the pure in heart?  Let’s consider the opposite – we might think it to be evil in heart.  But the true opposite of pure is “mixed”.  A good definition of pure is “unmixed”.  Before we came to the Lord, our hearts were just evil – selfish – out for ourselves.  Even when we did something seemingly good, there was a selfish motive behind it.  So, what did God say to us? Isaiah 1:18  "Come now, and let us reason together," Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow;…

So, how does this happen?  David overwhelmed with his sin with Bathsheba wrote psalm 51.  What was his cry?  Have mercy on me, O God.  Then what did He tell God?  I’m going to get it together.  I’m going to be good from here on out?  No, David knew better than that.  David knew he couldn’t cleanse his heart and an uncleansed heart is prone to sin. 

So, what was David’s prayer?

v.1 blot out my transgressions

v. 2 wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

v. 7 purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow

v.10  create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit in me

Wash me, cleanse me.  This word translated as "pure" has often been translated as “clean” in the Bible.  Once it was translated as "clear" – again, unmixed. God is the cleanser of hearts.  I love looking at this beatitude this way : Blessed are the cleansed of heart.

Consider the steps taken in David's prayer.  What do you see?

Mercy Stands Against Deserved Judgment

Matthew 5:7 Blessed are the merciful,

for they shall obtain mercy.

Consider this quote:  mercy stands against deserved judgment.  Does that grate against you?  I mean, if we are going to be merciful, probably the first people we feel mercy towards are those whom are struggling through no real fault of their own.  That’s the kind of misery we tend to want to alleviate. But, those who are suffering as a result of their own actions?  They made their bed – let them lie in it – right? That makes sense.  But probably there is this uneasiness in your soul.  The blessed don’t dismiss or ignore that uneasiness.

Yes, we are not to circumvent consequences that God has put in place; but, yes, we are to be merciful, by attempting to do something to alleviate the pain of those who have put themselves in it.  Sometimes, that is so very hard to determine.  That’s why Biblical mercy is motivated by the Holy Spirit and not our own sense of rescuing or compassion towards those in pain.  Biblical mercy involves prayer – seeking Him so that we don’t get in the way of what He is doing, or allowing in a person’s life.

James 2:13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

The merciful get mercy; the judgers – (get this definition of judgment – “an opinion formed or expressed”) – those that do that, or those that withhold mercy get mercy withheld.  Oh, how very desperate I am for God’s mercy, aren’t you?

Then there is this absolutely glorious statement – Mercy triumphs over judgment or mercy rejoices over judgment.  I like thinking of it this way, in terms of playing cards – mercy trumps judgment.  Just picturing Satan playing his cards against us - judgment coming down  - and suddenly Jesus plays His mercy card. We should be doing the same towards others.

As you read the following account of a man who fell into a pit, consider which of the “responders” you tend to be.  What has God taught you about showing mercy to others?

A man fell into a pit and couldn’t get himself out

An empathetic person came along and said, “I feel for you down there”

A Pharisee said “Only bad people fall into pits”

A gossip wanted to know all the details

A self-pitying person said “You should see my pit”

A fire and brimstone preacher said – you deserve your pit

A psychologist noted - your parents are to blame for your pit

A self-esteem therapist said – believe in yourself and you can get out of the pit

An optimist said – things could be worse – at least the pit isn’t full of quicksand

A pessimist said – there’s nothing worse than this

But, Jesus, seeing the man, took him by the hand and lifted him out of the pit.

The blessed are meek – they know who they are (poor, but precious) and they let God take care of them.  The blessed hunger and thirst after righteousness (hungry but know they are fillable).  And the blessed are merciful (sinners deserving judgment but getting mercy instead and passing it on to fellow failures).

May this day, be a “mercy” day for you and through you to others.

   

Living in the Mercy Cycle

Matthew 5:7 Blessed are the merciful,

for they shall obtain mercy.

Consider another reference to mercy -  Luke 6:36 Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. In what ways has God been merciful to you?  If your list of God’s mercy is scant, so will be your mercy towards others.  Our beatitude here says that the merciful shall obtain mercy – but that’s put in a way that it would be easy to misunderstand – kind of puts the cart before the horse.  

This phrase obtain mercy is in the same verb tense (future passive) as the phrase will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him in John 14:21.  The entire verse says:    He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."

What came first?  This verse might make us think that we loved God first.  And, because of our love for Him, God then loved us. So, which came first - our love for God or His love for us?  John gives us the answer 1 John 4:19  We love Him because He first loved us. It’s kind of circular.  God loved us, so we responded by loving Him, who responded to that by manifesting Himself, revealing Himself more to us, by causing us to know more of His love, which makes us love Him more, and on and on it goes.

Romans 5:8  But God demonstrates (proves) His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Now, that’s mercy.  And God started the expression of mercy, we didn’t. 

When we read this beatitude, we must understand that the merciful are only merciful because they have received and appreciate God’s mercy towards them.  It’s then that they pass it on, as the Holy Spirit prompts them.  In doing that, they receive more mercy and a greater appreciation of His mercy – and on and on it goes.

What have you learned about God’s mercy that provokes you to be merciful?

This Morning's Message from Pastor Dale

Then Mary said, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! 

 Let it be to me according to your word....Luke 1:38

Hi girl's (oops - I stand corrected.  Thanks to Tim's announcement this morning). Hi ladies and guys.  Really, guys, we would love to read some comments from you too!
Let's take today and reflect on this morning's message.  I encourage you to post a comment.  I love the way the Lord is using the comments.  Please keep posting - and thank you to those of you who are obeying God's "nudging".  Your comments have been a blessing. 

Love in Jesus,

cathy

Blessed Experiences or Blessed Life?

Matthew 5:7 Blessed are the merciful,

for they shall obtain mercy.

God certainly knows what we need.  When I taught a study on fear many years ago, I discovered that God has provided enough verses on fear, that if we read one a day, it would take a whole year to read them all.  Recently, I discovered that the same is true about mercy.

Now, what is mercy?  Awhile back, I heard someone jokingly say about ladies of the Southern states, it doesn’t matter what you say to a person as long as you end with saying something like “Well, bless your heart”.  Sometimes, we view that statement as an expression of one who has mercy – someone who sort of feels our pain.  Just as God does not express mercy that way, He expects something different from us.

Biblical mercy is different from secular mercy in at least three ways.

1. It is primarily a compassion or a pity towards someone who is suffering as a consequence of sin.  But, I’ve got to add here – isn’t that what all suffering is about?  It’s the result of either our sin or someone else’s sin at some time, even if we go all the way back to Adam and Eve.

2.  Secondly, Biblical mercy does not just feel compassion or pity; Biblical mercy involves both thought and action. It is a seeking to, in some way, relieve a person of their pain.

Psalm 37:21 … the righteous shows mercy and gives.

3.  Thirdly, Biblical mercy is not the expression of acts of mercifulness, but it is having this attribute as a result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  In other words, Biblical mercy is not a compassion or pity motivated by the flesh, but by the Spirit and is a response to His prompting. Psalm 62:12  …to You, O Lord, belongs mercy;…

So, again, we can’t conjure up this mercy – it’s got to be a response to the Holy Spirit’s prompting and only kingdom livers get that.  Let me pause here to remind you of this side effect of this Sermon – the assurance it gives us if we are believers – when we see these things evident in our lives, it’s assurance that we belong to God’s kingdom. 

It’s not that these beatitudes are foreign or unfamiliar to us, if we are believers, we have experienced all of them, and thus, we have blessed experiences – Jesus is calling us to blessed lives. 

What changes occurred in your life that brought you to hunger and thirst after a blessed life rather than settling for blessed experiences?

Righteousness - A Devotion to the Sinless One

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst 

after righteousness, 

for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6

Here’s a good description of those who do not hunger and thirst after righteousness:

Jeremiah 2:13 "For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,    And hewn themselves cisterns--broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Remember what Jesus cried out in John 7:37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.

Verse 39 tells us He was speaking of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.

So, the opposite of hungering and thirsting after righteousness is not looking to God for what we need and looking to other sources – which can’t hold water – which leak.  Our souls were made to hold the Holy Spirit, not anything else.

Remember my secular dictionary’s definition of righteousness? – a devotion to a sinless life.  As I said, that’s a good Pharisee definition.  But, that’s not good enough – Jesus said so in Matthew 5:20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Then Jesus goes on after that statement to give us examples of God’s expectation of righteousness, that includes not just our actions but our thought life. Seems like any sane person would declare after that – why try?  Who then can be righteous?  The disciples asked that question once – Who then can be saved?  Jesus’ answer?  With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible. So, somehow, righteousness is possible even though this perfection that Jesus teaches, that could be construed as righteousness, is not.

Can’t do it.  Can’t be it – but we are to hunger and thirst for it. 

Righteousness is the recognition and acceptance of God's claim upon man. God’s claim is that He is holy and has the right to demand adherence to His standards.  Now, those who do not believe, look to themselves, to their own righteousness to meet God’s standards.  Those who believe, look to Jesus to meet those standards for them.  The result of that is the placing of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to work in us and through us that righteousness that only He can do. We (you and I) control how much of that righteousness we have.  As the saying goes, you have just as much of God as you want to have.  He has not chosen to take that control; He has chosen to give that control to us.

Here, in this one verse in Matthew 5, we have a guarantee of satisfaction.  A guarantee.  If you want to be soul satisfied.  Not soul thirsty?  I’ve got an answer for you – expose yourself to the things that feed the soul rather than the things that feed the flesh.  Sometimes we can be so busy and tied up in the business of a day, in the demands of the flesh, that our souls become so starved we don’t even recognize our soul hunger anymore.  That’s what happens when someone fasts – starves their body to the point that they no longer hunger.

Feed your soul again and you will have that hunger – and somehow hungering after righteousness, God’s work in and through your life, makes you more hungry, but the hungrier you get, the more filled you are.  I can’t explain that one – But, God has proved it to be true. 

Righteousness is not devotion to a sinless life; it is devotion to the sinless One – Jesus.