Our Gospel reading this morning is from Matthew chapter 5 verses 8, 9 and 10. This is God's Word. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted, for righteousness sick, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Here is the reading of God's Holy Word. Let's pray. Father, it is time to consider Your words from this great sermon on the Mount delivered by Jesus hundreds and hundreds of years ago. We pray that we would recognize that it is for us today. In Jesus' name, Amen. What does it mean to be pure in heart? This commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, Ken Hughes points out that in the Old Testament the word pure is used in reference to an internal cleansing. In Psalm 24 that was part of our call to worship, verse 3, who will ascend the hill of the Lord and who shall stand in His holy place? He has a clean hands and a pure heart. Throughout the Old Testament, God is emphasizing the need for a pure heart and internal cleanness. He does this in part through outward cleanness. Many of the laws in the first five books of the Bible called the Pentateuch, the books of Moses, are related to being physically clean before God. On Wednesday night, we're studying Leviticus and there's a lot of these laws in Leviticus that seem strange to us today, but they're about God's desire, demand, command for us to be holy. The laws were for health reasons, some of them, but they were also mainly to distinguish God's people from those around them who worshiped false gods and from whom they had been liberated. Paul emphasizes something else as well. He emphasizes internal cleanness. In 1 Timothy chapter 1, he says, as I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, not to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. In 1 Timothy 2, he says, flee youthful passions. What in the world was that? I'll say it again. Maybe that was the youthful passions that were fleeing. Reuseful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. It's the door. Are we okay? Leave it to an engineer to fix things. So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies. You know that they breed quarrels. So a pure heart is an undivided heart. We can't serve God and money. Why do we need a pure heart? Tracy and I lived for quite some time in the city of Indianapolis and down the main road in Indianapolis where we lived, there was a dry cleaning business. It was called McBeth Cleaners. Why would anyone name their dry cleaner McBeth? Maybe some of you know, or maybe even most of you know, there's a Shakespearean play named Beth. In this play there's a famous scene where Lady McBeth is, or at least seems to be walking in her sleep. She's tormented by a guilty conscience. She's guilty of conspiring to commit murder. Now the deed is done, she can't rid her conscience of the blight. So in act five, scene one, the doctor says, what is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands. It is an accustomed action with her to be seen washing her hands. I known her to continue this for a quarter of an hour. Lady McBeth says, yet there's a spot. Dr. Hark, she speaks. I will sit down what comes from her to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. Out damn spot. Out I say. One, two, why then is this time to do it? Hell is murky, my lord, a soldier and a feared. What need we fear who knows it when none can call our power to account? And who would have thought the old man would have so much blood in him? Here's the smell of blood. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. She wants to get the spot out. The stain of blood on her hands. But nothing will remove it in the smell that accompanies it. So now you know why there's a cleaner named McBeth because they're going to get the spot out. Only we can presume that they have more success than Lady McBeth. But it's a universal desire to be clean. To have a clean conscience. Or at least, at least a conscience that doesn't bother us. I remember a movie, a really good movie from the early 90s. It was a Civil War movie starring Matthew Broderick and Denzel Washington. It's called Glory. Broderick plays the part of a captain who's leading a regiment of black soldiers that are either freed or escaped slaves. They prepare to attack the fort at Charleston. The captain approaches one of the soldiers, the Denzel Washington character. The captain asks the soldier to carry the flag in the battle, but he declines. And after a few moments of conversation, the captain asks him, what would you like? He thinks a minute and he says, I would like to get clean though, but it's hard because we're all covered up in it. The it, which he's referring to as the stain of slavery, the it that we're covered up in is our sin. The soldiers say we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Somehow the sense is that attacking the fort in the morning will get them clean. What is it that will get your conscience clean? What is it that will make your heart pure? The scriptures tell us, blessed or happy are those who are pure in heart, for they shall see God. That's quite a promise. No one is seeing God at any time. First John chapter one tells us. But look again at the structure of the Beatitudes. The first three are inward, poor in spirit, mourning, and meek. The center, the prize, the goal, the satisfaction is righteousness. It is righteousness not our own. The last three are what we become, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers. What we get for that is persecution. We'll get to that in a couple of weeks. What I want you to see here is the last three correspond to the first three. If you're poor in spirit, you'll be merciful to others. Knowing your own poverty will make you be a peacemaker. If you're meek, it's because you're mourning for your own sin. You're recognizing the blackness of your own heart and your hatred and sorrow for sin is the thing necessary to make your heart pure. So what does it mean to have a pure heart? Carries the idea of being cleansed, as we've seen, to having the spot removed, of not being dirty any longer. Now there are three ways to get clean. The most common way is the way of the Pharisees. Peter says, for you know that it was in chapter 1, verse Peter, that it was not with perishable things such as gold and silver that you are redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers. The Pharisees emphasized the outward cleanliness. But Peter said it's not the outward things. It's not the perishable things. Isaiah said these people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, with their hearts, are far from me. Their worship of me is made up of rules taught by men. This is what the Gospel of Mark quotes in chapter 7. I'll read it to you, the first nine verses. The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus as some of the disciples eating food with hands that were unclean. That is, unwashed. Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands of ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they came from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash, and they observe many other traditions such as washing of cups, pitchers, and kettles. So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating food with unclean hands? He replied. Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, you hypocrites. As it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is in vain. Their teachings are rules taught by men. You have let go of the commandments of God and holding onto the traditions of men. And he said to them, you have a fine way of setting aside the commandment of God in order to observe your own traditions. It's the appearance of purity, but it leaves the heart even blacker than it was. Jesus refers to the Pharisees as hypocrites. He says, you were like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanliness. So you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. I don't know where all of you are this morning, but some of you may be or may have spent a lot of time making yourself look clean on the outside. Some of you tend to boast about your spiritual accomplishments. The question is, are you clean on the inside? Are you pure on the inside? The second way to get clean is the way of Lady Macbeth. She attempts to remove the stand on her soul. Peter Otshevsky and the brothers Karmatsov says, if there is no God, then all things are permissible. She reasons with herself that the victim will not recover, that she won't be found out. And even if she is found out, so what? She's the queen. And yet her conscience, even with that reasoning, even with that justification, will not allow it because she knows she's guilty. The question is, what are you telling yourself? How are you justifying yourself? How are you cleansing yourself from guilt, but the stain still remains? Shakespeare is saying that the disease that afflicts the guilty, Lady Macbeth, is not a disease of her body, but an ailment of the soul. No amount of ignoring it or rationalizing it away will cleanse the spot or remove the guilt. We cannot cover it or remove it, either with rationalizing or legalism. The third way to remove the stain is what Peter refers to in verses 19 to 21 of chapter one. For you know that it is not with perishable things, such as gold or silver, that you are redeemed from the empty way of life handed down from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. What Peter is teaching is that the way the stain or the blemish or the spot is removed from our souls is by the sacrifice on our behalf of one who is not stained himself. Our souls are stained, and no amount of secular rationalization or religious legalism can remove the stain. Jesus is the sacrifice, he is the lamb without stain. He lived the life we should have lived, died the death we should have died, and he took him on himself all the sin and the stain of sin, even at the point of entering the tomb for us, and conquering death on our behalf. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God who raised him from the dead and glorified him, so that your faith and hope are in God. Not in your rationalization, not in your legalism, only if you have thrown yourself completely on the mercy and love of Christ. That's what this table is about that we'll partake of shortly. So what does it look like to throw yourself on the mercy and love of Christ? In two different letters Paul calls himself the chief of sinners and the least of all saints. But then in Acts 23 he says, brethren I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day. Those two don't seem to go together. You're the chief of sinners and least of all saints, how is it that you lived your life with a perfectly good conscience up to this day? It goes on to say therefore I testify to you that I am innocent of the blood of all men for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. How can he be at once the chief of sinners and have a perfectly good conscience? I think the answer is that he realizes that he is at the same time more sinful than he ever dared think and yet more loved than he ever dared hope. His conscience is cleansed by the blood of Christ. Now that you've purified yourself by obeying the truth and the truth is the gospel. The first miracle that Jesus did was to provide wine for a couple at a wedding. And it would seem like he did this miracle as one minister put it to avoid this young couple experiencing a social embarrassment. Because to run out of wine at a wedding feast, they often lasted two or three days, was a major no-no. And yet that wasn't what Jesus was doing. He provided the wine by taking the jars that were filled with the water for the cleansing of people in the ceremonial worship in the temple. And he took those jars and he turned them into wine. The best wine. The steward, the master of ceremony said most people serve the best wine first and save the worst for last, but you've given us the best wine last, paraphrasing. That's because Jesus took the symbol of purification, which was the water, and changed it to the wine, which is the symbol of our sharing in his sacrifice and the sacrament. Not that we're sacrificed, but we are cleansed by the blood and body of Jesus. Having purified your souls by the obedience to the truth for sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from the heart. Once you have been born again, not a perishable seed, but imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. So what does that result in? What does it mean to be pure in heart? It means to be single-minded. Single-minded devotion, unwavering sincerity. Paul says, but the one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God and Christ Jesus. He's single-minded. He says this one thing I do, not these 40 things I dabble in. Purity of heart is single-minded, not double-minded. Not two wives, not two favorite teams, not two gods. You can't serve God and money. How did we become pure? Ephesians 5 says, verse 25, husbands loved your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Now listen to this. He said he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, said he might present the church to himself and splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. Without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. That's what it means to be pure. How is that related to peace? We'll talk more about peace next week, but briefly, God shows his love to us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore he had not been justified by his blood, much more shall he be saved by him from the wrath of God. The peace that he's talking about is peace between us and God. For if while we're enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we're reconciled shall he be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Paul in Ephesians chapter 2 says, but now in Christ you who are once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ for he himself is our peace. He abolished the law of commandments expressing ordinances that he might create for himself, one man in place of the two. So making peace, he might reconcile us both to God and one body through the cross thereby killing hostility. And he came and he preached peace to you who are far off and peace to you who are near. So what do you do if you are a person with a pure heart and you're a person who wants to be a peacemaker, who are you making peace with? Primarily it should be you're trying to convince people to be reconciled to God to make peace with God while they still have the opportunity. It's called evangelism. In all of us, if we're pure in heart and want to be a peacemaker, this is what we do. We tell others about Christ. We bring others to church with us. We invite them to our Bible studies. To be at peace with God and to have a pure heart. It will cause you to not be able to be sidetracked by anything the world has to offer, no matter how bad it may seem at the moment. Blessed are those who are pure in heart, for they shall see God. That's great.