Kingdom Living - The Pure at Heart

I enjoyed those songs about the cross, about Christ our Lord. I don't know if you heard it, there was a strong theme of God's grace. That one song, that first song, grace that is greater than our sin. I like that and then oh the grace that saves. I like that theme of grace. We will pick back up on that theme as we go on through this beatitude in chapter 5 verse 8. So take your Bible turn back with me to Matthew chapter 5 verse 8. Matthew chapter 5 verse 8. I think most everyone here knows that we are in our study through the Sermon on the Mount and that great sermon. I've called it the sermon.

We see it here in chapter 5, chapter 6 and chapter 7 and I promise you we will get to chapter 6 and chapter 7. We're just taking our time verse by verse, sometimes phrase by phrase. Now I'm calling this series in the Sermon on the Mount the extraordinary Christian life and we are really waist deep, really chest deep in this first section which is the the attitudes. Now I want to make a comment or two about the series title. This series title, the extraordinary Christian life, with that series title I am not implying that there are two types of Christian lives.

I am not saying there is an ordinary Christian life and then there's this extra a cut above Christian life. That's not what I'm saying. In the Sermon on the Mount we are seeing that the true Christian life is anything but ordinary. Really and truly if we look at it, it's out of this world. You've heard that type of language before. What we're learning here is out of this world. We as born-again Christians we are in the world but we do not live like everybody else in this world. We live in God's Kingdom. We're learning with God's people and we're doing Kingdom work and Jesus is our King.

The extraordinary Christian life is really being explained to us within the Sermon on the Mount within these beatitudes just verse by verse word by word. Listen, anything other than what we're seeing here is just a dime store substitute. It's just a joke. I'll be honest with you as I was studying and praying this week this reminded me of my own personal spiritual journey. You've heard many times how I came to faith in Christ. I remember vividly on February the 9th of 1989 it was a culmination of a lot of things that God was doing in my life and God saved me when I was 20 years old and He put me in the church and He immediately gave me a love.

It came from Him. It did not come out of me. I had a love for His people. I had a love for His work and I had a love for Christ the Lord who had saved me. Now I've had hills and valleys throughout these years. I've had difficult times. I've had easier times but listen I have been loving and been in love with this extraordinary Christian life since day one. That's what we're looking at here, the extraordinary Christian life. Now last week in verse seven I pointed out that we are in a big transition in the Beatitudes. We've moved from the first section of the Beatitudes and all of these Beatitudes flow out of one another.

They're closely related and I said last week that the first four Beatitudes primarily deal with with the internal part of a man. They deal with how we relate to God internally. In the next four Beatitudes we begin to see how we relate to others. It begins to be external. Now we do need to see that there is some overlap here. There is some overlap. I'll give you an example. If we back up a little to verse five, "Blessed are the me," it first speaks how we relate to God. We are humble. We are meat before God. But then it does relate to how we relate to other people, how we present ourselves before man.

So there is more than one application with some of these Beatitudes. But we must start with how man relates to God. We must start with how we as individuals relate to God first. And then that determines how we relate to man. Now before us this morning we have the sixth Beatitude. It's rather short. Look back at verse eight, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." Now before we jump into this verse, I want to remind you of the key that I gave you last Sunday. I called it the key, not a key because it is a singular key. There's one key in my mind and in my heart and in my understanding.

I stated that verse six, "This hungering and thirsting for his righteousness, this hungering and thirsting for Christ, it is the key that unlocks everything here in the Beatitudes." Living out these Beatitudes, it's relational. "The springhead must be knowing Jesus. The beginning of it all must be knowing Jesus. The source of everything here must be knowing Jesus. Otherwise, inadvertently, it becomes a list of rules." This is not a list of rules. This is not a pattern for life. We must seek after Christ and his righteousness like a perishing man wanting more and more and more and more.

And from that work, that internal work, we approach the verses and then with Christ working in our lives, then we can live out the teaching. So it starts on the inside as we relate to Christ our Lord. Again, I go back to a quotation that I gave us last week. It came from the Bible commentator Jim Boyce or James Montgomery Boyce. And it's real short. I'm quoting.

"Christian doctrine must always express itself in a new outlook on life," and get this, "and a changed behavior," and I'm quoting, "what you believe must always affect your conduct." And see, if we want our conduct changed, then we must see that our conduct must flow out of a changed heart, a changed mind, a changed nature. And that's what we're seeing here. That's why I say verse 6 is the key. Now, in approaching our verse for this morning, verse 8, "I will do what I have been doing all along. This has become my habit." I'm going to be asking a whole lot of what questions.

I have just worn that phrase out, "what, what, what," and that's what we will be doing this morning. And these what questions will all be all around, they will all be all around this word heart right here in the middle of the verse. And then I will explain this phrase, "they shall see God." And then, as always, I'm reassembling the verse. This might seem random. It's not necessarily in a particular order, but we will assemble the verse, see the meaning all together, and then make application. So let's start off with these what questions. We have several here this morning, truthfully five.

Number one, we must ask our question, "What is this word heart?" What is this word heart? Go back to the verse, "Blessed are the pure in heart." Now, believe it or not, a lot of people can be really confused concerning the human heart. Now, I'm not talking about the physical organ. Now, we cannot rely on what the world says about the human heart. We cannot rely on a country music song, or what William Shakespeare says, or what modern psychology may say about the human heart. God's word must show us what the human heart is. So we go to God's word and let God tell us what the human heart is.

Now, in God's word, the human heart is primarily seen as the center of one's being, but that's really not enough. It's more. It also involves the man's personality, especially his thinking, not first and foremost the man's emotions. Now, the emotions are a part of the human heart. Now, I want us to look at some scriptures, and within these scriptures we see three specific verses, and these three specific verses speak to what the human heart is. These verses speak to that inner being that I spoke of earlier, and in these verses we will see the heart being divided in what I call three parts.

We're going to look at the mind, we're going to look at the will, and then we will look at the emotions. So three parts of this human heart right out of the verses, the scriptures, the mind, the will, and then the emotions. So first, I want us to see, we have the human mind, our man's thinking. Romans chapter 21 speaks to the man's mind, speaks to man's thinking.

In Romans 1 21, that verse reads, "Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him." But here it comes, "But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened." Here the Apostle Paul explains that certain men see the creation of God all around them, yet they do not honor God in that creation. They do not acknowledge God as their creator and give him thanks. They in turn become futile in their mind and in their thinking. Now the King James uses the word vain. And this word vain and this word futile, this speaks to their meaningless thinking.

They make their thinking about self and for self. They come to meaningless and sinful conclusions about the creation and about human life and even about death. So right here in this verse, Paul is referring to the man's mind. He is referring to the man's thinking. This is a part of the inner being of man. This is the part of the human heart. And then second, we have the human will. We have second, the human will. Again from Romans. Romans 2 verse 5 speaks of a man's will and I'm reading the verse.

"But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you were storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed." Now the New American Standard reads stubbornness and unrepentant heart. Here Paul is explaining the stubborn, hard-hearted will of the lost man. The lost man refuses to repent. This lost man, he has fixed his will against God and God's will. There is no surrender to God. This is only rebellion against God. So Paul is showing us man's will. It is either bent towards God or it is bent against God. This will of man is a part of that inner being. This is a part of that human heart.

And then third, we have the human emotions. We do have the human emotions. Again from the book of Romans. Romans 5 5 speaks of a man's emotions. And that verse reads, "And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Here Paul is speaking about the center of a man's emotions. He is saying that as born again Christians, God's love has been poured out where? Into the heart of a man. So Paul here is speaking to the emotions of a man. This is a part of that inner man. This is a part of that human heart.

So in summary, what have we seen here with this first question? What does this word heart mean here? Three parts. We have three parts to the human heart. We have the mind, we have the will, and we have the emotions. And there are many other verses in God's word which speak to the three parts of the human heart. Then this is the center of the man. This is the heart of the man. And when I say this phrase, the heart of a man, most of you would think of the center of a man. But the problem lies with seeing it only of maybe the emotions. Now we've solved any of the problems or errors that we might have.

This is simple, but yet it's biblically accurate. The center of a man consists of his mind, his will, and his emotions. That's the heart of a man. Now this leads me to the second question. We see what the heart is biblically, but the second question is, what is this pure at heart? Go back to the verse. Verse 8. "Blessed are the pure in heart." Now this word pure here in the original language, it had a wide range of uses. And looking at how a word is used in the culture and in that day and time, it brings meaning to the verse. The way a word is used is kind of like painting a picture.

It's just more and more brush strokes that help us see the meaning. Now I want to go back through some of the cultural uses of the word, and this will tie it all together for us. This word pure here, it had a simple meaning. It meant clean. I'll give you an example. The word was used often to describe dirty clothes which were washed, so the dirty clothes were cleaned. The dirty clothes were made clean, they were made pure. That's a common use of the word in that day. But it was also used in agricultural circumstances. I'll give you a couple of examples. Corn was a very common crop in that day, common for food.

After they would harvest the corn, they would winnow or sift the corn. This would separate the corn from the chaff or that which was not edible. We see this picture with wheat as well. Wheat was a common agricultural product, and when it was harvested it was dried, and then after it was dried it was winnowed, it was sifted, and it was separating the wheat from the chaff. So the corn or the wheat, it was cleaned, it was made pure. Another usage that could surprise you speaks of a military. When an army was being trained, when it was being prepared, it was purified.

Those who were unwilling to fight because maybe they turned out to be cowards, or those who were not good enough to be soldiers, they were culled from the ranks. So the fighting force was purged, it was purified, it was cleaned, it became pure. The meaning here can also be seen in a common trait of the day. Those in Jesus' day who work with metals, they would refine that metal by heating it, and when that metal was liquefied, the impurities would rise to the surface, and the impurities could be discarded. So that metal, whatever it was, it could be purged of impurities. It was purified.

So here, just with those simple illustrations, we see the meaning of the word pure. It means unadulterated, it means unmixed, it means clean, and it doesn't mean just clean, it means unmixed, it means pure. Now with all of that said, we need to step back, and we need to examine where we are here. Truthfully, for some of you, you already see a problem. This verse says, "The man with a pure heart is blessed." But some of you know the rest of the scriptures. The scriptures tell us from Genesis to Revelation that man's heart is not pure. And see, for some, this could seem like a contradiction.

And so we must examine the problem that is posed here, because the scriptures plainly teach that man does not have a pure heart. So this leads us to our third question. What is the problem? What is the problem? Go back to the verse, verse 8. "Blessed are the pure in heart." But the scriptures do not say that man has a pure heart. I said it earlier, but I say it again. All throughout the scriptures, we see the opposite. The scriptures say that man has an impure heart, a sinful heart, an evil heart. And so we need to examine the problem that is posed here. And I want us to examine this in two ways.

I want us to see the condition of man's heart, and then I want us to see a commandment, or the commandment, from God here. So first, the condition of a man's heart. Now, God's assessment of the human heart is truthfully not very encouraging. From Old Testament to New, God's assessment of the heart is really bad. And I want to give us a few passages of scripture. I'll go back to the Old Testament first, the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah plainly tells us that man's heart is corrupt. Specifically, in Jeremiah 17.9, he says the heart of a man is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. He goes on to pose a question.

Who can understand the heart? In the remaining verses, he explains that it is God who can understand the heart, and he has said the heart is desperately wicked above all things. But then moving into the New Testament, specifically with our Lord. Jesus himself tells us the sinfulness of man's heart. In Matthew 1519, Jesus says that out of the human heart comes evil. He goes on to say that out of a man's human heart comes evil thoughts, comes murder, comes adultery, comes sexual immorality, comes thieving, and comes lying, and comes slander. So Jesus is giving us much more detail than Jeremiah.

Jesus plainly tells us that the human heart is evil, it is sinful, it is not pure. Then we move on to the Apostle Paul. If we get into what the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans chapter 1, verse 21, we see much of the same. Paul says that the natural man or the lost man, he has rejected God as his creator. Man has refused to honor God as their God. He says that man's heart has become corrupted by his futile thinking, his futile mind. So Paul shows us the corruption of the human heart, it's not pure. Paul even gives more. In Romans 2.5, he says that the natural man has a stubborn unrepentant heart.

Because of that unrepentant heart, man is storing up God's wrath against himself. So Paul again shows us the sinfulness of the natural man's unrepentant heart. It's not pure, it's impure. And Paul gives us even more. He gives us New Testament and Old Testament. Let me explain what I mean. In Romans 3, Paul clearly states that the man is not righteous. He says that man does not seek God, but is turned from God and to sin. Paul never uses the word "heart" here in Romans 3, but he is clearly describing the condition of the inner man. He is saying by his sinful nature, and by his sinful nature, he is sinful and impure at the core.

And notice how powerful this is in Romans chapter 3. Paul was inspired by God to pin the words of Romans 3. So everything that he says in Romans 3 is authoritative and it is from God. But in Romans 3, Paul is quoting the Old Testament. In Romans 3, he is quoting Psalm chapter 14. In Romans 3, he is quoting Psalm 53. He is quoting Psalm 5, Psalm 140. Psalm 10. And then Isaiah 59. And then back in Psalm chapter 36. And all of these Old Testament passages tell us of the evil human heart, the nature of a man. It is impure. So what am I showing you here? God's word from Old Testament to New thoroughly shows us that man's heart is totally sinful.

So that's the condition of the man's heart. And still we're dealing with the question of what is this problem. So second, we see the commandment from God. We've looked at the condition. Notice the commandment from God. Now there are two commandments that I want to share with you. Two commandments. Of course we know that any commandment from the scripture is of God, but I want to show you two. One from Jesus our Lord, and then the second from the Apostle Peter. Now if we fast forward in chapter 5 of Matthew, we see that Jesus gives a very plain commandment. Now this is part of the Sermon on the Mount.

In verse 48, Jesus commands that man be perfect. It's right there in front of you. Look at Matthew chapter 5 verse 48. What does he say? You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Now this is not my man's standard. This is God's standard that he gives. And notice what he says. You be perfect as God is perfect. In other words, you be holy as God is holy. Now basically the same thing from Peter, the Apostle Peter. In 1st Peter chapter 1 verses 15 to 16, Peter says that we are called to be holy in all of our conduct. He goes on to say you be holy as God is holy. Now this commandment is not original to Peter.

He is quoting the Old Testament. Specifically he is quoting the book of Leviticus chapter 11 verse 44. And that verse says, "For I am the Lord your God, consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy." So what am I showing you here? Jesus and the Apostle Peter and the Old Testament, specifically the book of Leviticus, calls us to be holy. God commands that we be perfect. We be holy. God commands us to be as God. So what am I showing you here with a problem? God commands that mankind be perfect. God expects man to be holy as he is holy. God expects man to be perfect as he is perfect. There is no other way.

But man's heart is fully corrupt. Man's heart is totally sinful. Man's heart is completely evil. From Old Testament to New, God tells us that he has assessed man and man's heart and he always comes back to the truth and that is man is evil and sinful to the core. He is impure. So here is our problem. Right here Jesus says the man with a pure heart is blessed. That inner joy. They have an inner joy, a blissfulness, an inner happiness, an inner satisfaction. But if what I have given us is true, then there is a whole lot of miserable people out there. Why? They are miserable. They are unhappy. They are not blessed of God. They don't have peace.

They don't have joy because they do not have pure hearts. They're everywhere. But here's where verses like Romans 5.8 show us. That God himself breaks into situation. He steps into the problem. What does the verse say? "While we were sinners, God." What do we see? God steps in. Man has a problem. God has said be holy and be perfect but man is corrupt to the core. He cannot be pure. But God, while we were sinners. And then John 3 verse 16. We know this verse. "For God so loved the world." So people with evil and sinful and impure hearts, God himself provided the solution. So that moves us to the fourth question.

And that is what is the solution? What is this solution that I have referred to? Now the solution is not in the hands of man. The solution is not coming out of a man. Man needs a pure heart. He is sinful. He's evil to the core. And man must be made clean, unmixed, unadulterated, pure. But man on his own cannot make his heart pure. Now let me give you a warning here. Listen to your posture. "When a man tries to make his heart pure through his own efforts, it always ends up in some type of system of works." Religion. Listen folks, you can boil it all down. You only have two types of religion in the world. There are only two. Only two.

First, Christianity. Bible Christianity. Which is the religion of grace. Grace. Man is made right with God by grace through faith. And then the second division is all of the other religions in the world. And all of them are nothing more than systems of works. And listen. That was the number one problem of the Jews. When we get to the end of the Beatitudes, we're going to revisit the Jews and everybody sitting there. That was the number one problem of every one of those men who were listening to Jesus. They had contrived for themselves nothing more than a system of works.

They were trying to purify their hearts and their lives through their own efforts. I'll give you two examples. One comes out of church history and one's biblical. Most of you have heard of the great Martin Luther used of God during the Protestant Reformation. And if you go study his life, you will see it was nothing more than works. He goes into the monastery. He becomes a monk. And it was nothing but works. He is studying the scriptures. He's seeing the perfection of God. And what does he do? He rushes to the confessional, rushes to the confessional. And he is so overwhelmed by his guilt.

He is so overwhelmed by his sin, he cannot confess enough and confess enough. And finally, those over him are tired of him confessing over and over, hour after hour after hour. No peace, no security, no inner joy, no blessedness, no happiness, only condemnation. And if you read his biography, he grew to the place where he even hated God because he never could get that inner joy, that peace, that satisfaction. His works would not do it. His works religion could not give him a pure heart. And finally, he came to the place where he got grace through faith. Finally, he came to the place where he was rescued from his works.

Oh, that's the same story with Nicodemus in John chapter 3. He was doing nothing but working for his own religion. And he comes to Jesus at night, and Jesus shoves aside all of what he was trying to do. And he said, "You need to be born from above." He was trying to be sanctified before he was saved. Now, what's the solution? We need to see the solution, and then we need to see the source of this solution. Now, the solution to the problem is this. Man's solution is a new heart. First, man needs a new heart. Oh, in John chapter 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he needed to be born again, born from above.

And this completely overturned the apple cart of Nicodemus his life. Jesus instructs Nicodemus that he needed to be born of the Spirit, born of God. His heart could only be made pure by and through the new birth. Paul talks about this work in 2 Corinthians 5, 17. He says that any person who is a true Christian, who is in Christ, they are a new creation. They have been born again. They have a new heart. This act is seen in the Old Testament as well. In Ezekiel chapter 36, we have the teaching of the new birth. In verse 26, God says that he would give them a new heart and a new spirit. So the solution is the new birth.

The solution is a new heart. The solution is a pure and new and clean heart that can only come from God. But we don't need to just see the solution. We need to see the source of the solution. Simply man cannot do it for himself. Ephesians 2, 1 says that man is dead in his trespasses and sin. So a question, how can man get this new heart? He can't. He can't. He cannot get it on his own. This comes from God. Ephesians 2, 8 says that the new heart is a gift from God. It is a work of God's grace, not a work from man. So this new pure clean heart, it comes from God. He is the source. So what is the meaning here with this solution?

The problem of man's heart is solved in the new birth. A pure heart comes from God when man is born of the Spirit of God. This new birth and this pure heart is from God and by God and for God. Now I need to repeat that. This new heart, this pure heart, it is from God. It comes by God, a work of God, and it is for God. The new birth and a pure heart can be summed up in one word, grace. Now can we look at this last phrase? You see? Now we get to the place where we can look at this phrase, this last phrase. Go back to the verse.

"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." Before we solve the solution to man's problem here, this verse couldn't make sense. Again, go back to the verse. "Blessed are the pure in heart." Wait a minute. We can't have a pure heart. We're sinful. We're evil. We can never see God. But now we can look at the second part. Now that we've seen God's solution, which is grace, we can truthfully finish up. So that leads me to the fifth question. What is this phrase? "They shall see God." This is very simple, folks. There are two ways. There are two ways in which this phrase can be applied.

Now all the commentators and resources that I consult, they most definitely mention one and a few mention the other. First, we see that we as born-again Christians with a new heart, a pure heart, we can see God in the future. After this life on earth is over, those who have been born again shall see God. The apostle John speaks to this in 1 John 3.2. He says that when Christ Jesus appears, we will be like Him and we will see Him. There's a little phrase that the Bible commentator D.A. Carson uses. I've latched on to it. He says that this is our long-range expectation. This is our hope. This is what we look at in the future after this life.

We shall see God because we have been born again. We have a new heart. We've been given a pure heart. And then second, we shall see God in the here and now, in this life. As born-again Christians, we shall see God working in our lives. We learn in our study of the Gospel of John, specifically chapter 14 and 15 and 16, that the Holy Spirit of God comes to live within the heart of the believer. That believer walks with God and the Spirit of God dwells within us. And in our life on earth, we see God work in us. And through us, we testify that we see God working in our hearts and in our minds and in our families and in our jobs and in our lives.

I like how Brother Keith summarizes it. He calls it testimony living. We have a testimony about how we see God working in our life. So what do we see here? Those who have a pure heart, they shall see God here in this life and in the eternity future. They have an assurance from seeing God in their life and the here and now. And they have a hope for eternity tomorrow that they shall see God. Now, as my habit is, I want to reassemble the verse. Now, when I say reassemble, we've broken it down. We've looked at this word heart. We've looked at this word pure. We've examined this great problem to me that this verse poses or creates.

And then this phrase, "They shall see God." And as always, I say this is a little bit of me. My understanding of the verses, the words, the phrases, and I'm sure a lot of some other minds and hearts that I've read throughout the weeks. So here's my reassembly of the verse. "O the blessing, O that inner joy, that happiness, O the blessing of those who are pure in heart." Their hearts are made pure because they have been born of the Spirit of God. They have received a new heart, God's heart, a pure heart. They have experienced the grace of God. They will know God and walk with God and they will see God in life and in the life to come.

And they live in the kingdom and they possess kingdom work, which is the work of the church here on earth. And oh, I conclude that by saying they are a blessed people. Now as I do often, I want to conclude the message by making application. And I want to do this in the form of a few questions. One thing that I do and the way I teach and preach God's Word is as I ask questions, I want you to engage your mind and your heart and I'm trusting that the Spirit of God is taking what's been taught and my efforts and the Spirit of God is taking these questions and exposing you for who you are, calling you to be who God wants you to be.

And I trust and I pray that the Spirit is asking these questions and then some. Not the first question. Do you have a pure heart because you because you have experienced a new birth? Do you sit here this morning possessing a pure heart, all of grace, because you have experienced the new birth? And that immediately leads me to a second question. Are you still in your sin? Oh, are you still in your sin? Are you still in your rebellion against God? You do not have peace. You do not have an inner joy. You do not have a happiness or a blissfulness. Are you the one who is not blessed of God? You see yourself on the outside.

I've used this example before. I'll never forget counseling a young person and this young person was telling me how that when they were lost, they were watching other Christians and they were seeing the joy and the peace and how they lived the Christian life and they always saw themselves on the outside. No peace, no joy. On the outside looking in, is that you? Are you in your sin? Have you never been born of God, born of the Spirit? Listen, let me show you how this works. This all comes through a work of the Word of God. God's Word is taught. God's Word is explained. Word after word, phrase after phrase, message after message.

God takes the the Word of God and He empowers it with the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God reveals to you who you are. The Spirit of God is drawing you to Himself, drawing you to the truth. He is revealing your sinfulness and your rebellion and He draws and He draws and He works and He works and ultimately there is a day when He calls you to Himself and you respond, you get onto your feet, you leave your sin and you come to Christ. Listen, those two questions. Do you have a pure heart? Have you experienced a new birth or are you still in your sin? There's only one or two people here. There's only one or two.

I was explaining something and some counseling here a while back that there is a line that we maintain here properly. There is a line that we work hard to keep right down the middle and let me explain what I mean. We must keep a firm line between those that are born again and those that are not. We cannot give anyone a false assurance because of their religious efforts or because of the words that they say. We must always have a firm line between those who are lost and those who are saved and the Spirit of God will take that effort and keep you on that side. We'll not let you reason your way out.

Always show you who you are because the flesh and your sinful nature will try to reason it away. Will try to make excuses. So those two questions. Do you have this pure heart because of the new birth or are you still in your sin and in your rebellion against God? And listen, I use that word rebellion on purpose because if you are not born of God you are continuously rebelling against God. And then the third question. Are you relying on an external pattern of life? Do you have this this external facade of religion? Are you trying to adhere to a list of do's and don'ts?

Have you constructed for yourself this big charade of a religious life and religious works and do's and don'ts? The scriptures were full of people just like that. I'll give you an example. Once there was a day a lawyer came to Jesus. He's called the rich young ruler. He came to Jesus and he asked the right question. Oh but if you look at that exchange between Jesus and the rich young ruler. He said one thing that clued us in to what he was doing. He said what is the one thing that I need to do? See his problem was he had constructed a system of works and that was what the Jews had done. He was looking for one more thing to do.

And listen there's nothing that you can do to get the peace of God, to get a new heart, to be purified. It is all of grace. It starts with grace. That was his problem. He was looking for something to do. That was the problem with Nicodemus. Jesus looked at him and he said you were Israel's teacher. You should know the scriptures. But the problem was he had erected this whole world of religion all around what? An impure heart. And Jesus cut right to the core and said you need a new heart. Do you have an external pattern of religion? Do you have a list of do's and don'ts? Are you trying to do it in the flesh?

Listen you will always try to do this thing in the flesh. You will always try to do what you can do. And you never can do it. You must have a new heart from God. And like I said there's a firm line. You're either born of God, born of the Spirit, or you're not. And look folks the sermon on the mount is not a list of do's and don'ts. It's not a pattern for life. Those of us who are born of God, born of the Spirit, we have a new heart. We have a pure heart and then we can live that out. Why? Because it's relational. He lives within us. It's kingdom living. Kingdom living. He is our king. We live in the kingdom.

We possess the kingdom and we're doing kingdom work. That leads me to the title of the message. Always kingdom living. Always kingdom living. But what we have this morning is this. Kingdom living. The pure at heart. Let me go back to the verse. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."