July 30, 2025 • 24 mins
What if you could stop struggling to feel “spiritual enough” and start experiencing God through simple, honest connection? In this transformative session on Matthew 5:8—“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”—Brian Durfee unpacks Jesus’s radical redefinition of spiritual blessing and shows how purity of heart is rooted not in perfection, but in relationship.
When Jesus spoke the Beatitudes, He wasn’t addressing the religious elite. He was speaking to the common, overlooked people of Galilee—those who had been dismissed as spiritually unqualified. By calling them blessed, Jesus shattered conventional religious thinking. He revealed that God’s favor isn’t reserved for those with external success or spiritual credentials, but for those whose hearts are open and aligned with Him.
The key revelation in this teaching is liberating: purity is not something we achieve by religious effort, but something we receive through relational abiding. Drawing from Jesus’s words in John 15 about the vine and the branches, Brian reminds us that branches don’t struggle to produce fruit—they simply stay connected to the source. In the same way, “we become pure by staying close, not by trying harder.”
This insight changes how we view spiritual disciplines. Reading Scripture becomes less about fulfilling a checklist and more about encountering God in His Word. Prayer becomes less formal and more honest—an ongoing conversation with the One who already knows what’s in our hearts. Even small prayers like “God, give me the want to”—prayed in moments of dryness—can spark real transformation and renew our desire for His presence.
This session invites you to stop pretending with God and start being present with Him. It’s in those real, unguarded moments that we begin to see Him more clearly. As Brother Lawrence observed in Practicing the Presence of God, acknowledging Christ’s presence in the ordinary moments of life can reshape our entire spiritual experience.
Through this class, you’ll discover that a purified heart comes not from striving, but from abiding—and that the promise of “seeing God” is not only about eternity but about recognizing His nearness in the present. The door to experiencing Him is not locked by your past or your performance; it is opened through your presence with Him.
We are Trinity Community Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian Durfee (00:06):
Tonight we're talking on verse Matthew 5.8,
that we've been in this seriescalled Blessed.
So we've been going through theBeatitudes, each one so Matthew
5.8 is blessed are the pure inheart for they will see God.
And over the past weeks we'vebeen in this series called
Blessed and so we've beenhearing about being blessed.
(00:27):
This kind of person is blessedand that kind of person is
blessed, and so you know, it'sreally easy to get into our
churchish, religious kind ofthing doing.
Well, this person is blessedand we get all religious about
it.
So I want to get very real andI want to ask you a very real
question tonight have you everfelt like you just weren't
(00:49):
spiritual enough to be blessed?
I mean, if you just forgeteverybody else around you and
just ask yourself do I reallyfeel like I'm spiritual enough
to be blessed?
It's kind of like you're tryingto have all the attitudes and
the beatitudes and you justdon't measure up.
You know what I'm talking about.
Am I the only one here thatever feels that way?
(01:10):
Well, we're going to talk aboutthat a little bit tonight from
the perspective of oneparticular attitude, and that's
in Matthew 5.8.
And so let me kind of set thestage for this verse.
The book of Matthew starts outwith the genealogy of Jesus and
(01:32):
then the birth, and then he justkind of leaves out a whole
chunk of Jesus growing up, andthe next time we hear about him
in Matthew is he's beingbaptized by John the Baptist,
and then he goes from there tothe wilderness and he goes 40
days of fasting with temptation,and it's then that Jesus
launches his ministry and hegoes from down in the southern
(01:53):
part of Israel up to thenorthern part, and the northern
part was Galilee.
And so Galilee was kind of likethe other side of the tracks
for Israel.
It was this you know, that waswhere you found the poor, you
found the working class, thepeople who were overlooked, the
people who everybody else lookeddown on.
(02:14):
You know, you might remember averse where one of the Pharisees
says does anything good evercome out of Nazareth?
Well, nazareth was in Galilee.
That's that kind of attitude.
Nazareth Well, nazareth was inGalilee.
That's that kind of attitude.
So that's where Jesus begins.
His ministry is in this areacalled Galilee, up in north
Israel.
And the people who are hearinghim, they're the common people,
(02:37):
like I said, they're the workingclass, they're the disregard,
they are not the religious elite, and Jesus has one central
message that he's declaring toeverybody, and you need to get
this.
This is Jesus' central messageRepent, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand.
But to elaborate on that just alittle bit repent, change your
(03:00):
mind, because the kingdom ofheaven is at hand, it's here and
now, it's not just in thefuture.
Now, these people were notexpecting to be included in
anything that God was doing.
These are the down and out.
These are the one thateverybody looks down on, and
they know that they're notblessed.
But Jesus turns to them andbegins declaring who really is
(03:22):
truly blessed.
And so then he begins talkingabout the Beatitudes, and each
Beatitude has three primaryparts.
So there's the declarationblessed are.
There's the type of person thepure in heart.
And then there's the promise orresult, for they will see God.
And so tonight we're focusingon blessed are the pure in heart
(03:47):
, for they will see God.
Now, before we look at pure inheart or they will see God, we
need to understand why Jesus'use of the word blessed probably
shocked everybody.
In the Jewish culture, blessingwas tied to outward, visible
signs, things like materialwealth, good health, power and
(04:10):
status, public righteousness,religious role, like Pharisees,
sadducees, scribes, those typeof people.
If somebody looked successfulor they looked very religiously
successful, you know they weredoing it right.
The people assumed that God wasclearly with them.
God wasn't with anybody else.
Those were the people who wereblessed.
(04:30):
Jesus was redefining whatblessing was.
Now the Greek word for blessingand I'm sure you've heard this
in every other teaching to putit simply means happy.
But you know you can have somenuances, some additional
(04:52):
understanding to the word.
So the reason that it's happyis because you're deeply favored
by God, you're spirituallyflourishing, you're possessing
joy and peace, regardless ofcircumstances.
Those are the kinds of thingsthat are inherent in that word
blessed, happy.
(05:13):
And so Jesus is just flippingthe script.
He's saying blessing isn'tbased on what you have or how
good you look externally.
It's about who you're inrelationship with and what's
happening internally.
Now, jesus wasn't just beingkind.
He wasn't just like okay, guys,you don't feel.
I know you think bad about you.
(05:34):
Let me just encourage you alittle bit more.
He wasn't just being kind.
He was actually announcing thetrue values of the kingdom.
In fact, that's what the wholeSermon on the Mount is about.
What does it mean to be acitizen in the kingdom of God.
That's the entire Sermon on theMount, and this is just one
little piece of it.
And so the people who arehearing this, they're the ones
(05:55):
who are down and out,spiritually overlooked.
And Jesus is confronting thatidea that blessing is earned or
proven by success and insteadthe kingdom, in his kingdom, the
poor in spirit are blessed,those who mourn are blessed, the
pure in heart are blessed.
Jesus was saying you thinkyou're far from God, but you're
(06:16):
the very ones that he callsblessed.
And so that's the first part ofthe verse Blessed are the pure
in heart, for they will see God.
Jesus is describing the pure inheart as the people who are
blessed.
So what is this blessing thatthe pure in heart are going to
get, that they're going toreceive?
Well, it says they will see God.
(06:36):
Now there's a lot of differentwords in Greek that can be
translated as see, and the mostliteral definition for it is to
see with the eyes, the physicalact of seeing.
But there's also a figurativedefinition to perceive and to
understand.
It's kind of like what we do inEnglish.
You know, I can explainsomething and I say do you see
(06:59):
I'm not talking about.
Can you see the words that haveno form in front of you?
It's not about do youunderstand and it's no different
in Greek and there's even aspiritual connotation to it to
recognize relationally, as inknowing, or experientially to
experience.
So in the context of this versefor they will see, god is not
(07:23):
about literally, physicallyseeing, it's about understanding
, knowing and experiencing.
So that kind of changes thatpart around too.
It's about understanding,knowing and experiencing it in
the here and now.
Remember Jesus' central messagerepent, for the kingdom of God
is at hand.
It's here and now, for thekingdom of God is at hand, it's
(07:44):
here and now.
So Jesus is talking about arelational, spiritual and
experientially knowing God,something that begins now and
continues on forever.
You know, in Revelation 22.4,it says we're going to see him
face to face.
But what does it mean for thehere and now?
Well, we get to experience hispresence.
We get to experience hisguidance through situations
(08:06):
sometimes and that can happen ina lot of different ways.
We get to experience hisconviction to keep us morally on
the right path.
We receive comfort from him andhonestly, we can know him in
prayer and in the word and inworship and obedience.
There's so many different wayswe get to encounter God and he's
(08:28):
basically saying that we walkin intimate relationship with
him.
So this whole thing, they shallsee God.
Blessed are the pure in heart,for they will see God.
The pure in heart get to knowand experience God and have God
as your companion and as yourguide and as your God and as
(08:51):
your servant.
And because these are allcharacteristics, when you start
looking through the Bible andyou look at all the names of God
that come out of his character,he was humble.
He humbled himself even to thepoint of the cross.
That's in Philippians.
Jehovah Jireh, our provider,jehovah Rapha, our healer, all
of these different names of Godthat we see through the Bible.
(09:13):
They are descriptions of who weget to walk with.
So now here's the key question.
This is where I go fromteaching to meddling a little
bit.
Do you really feel like you'reexperiencing God this way?
Maybe you're thinking like I'vedone for or did for a long time
(09:35):
.
I keep being obedient, but I'mjust not feeling it.
I must not be blessed, I'm notdoing something right.
You know, there's some kind ofstandard that I'm not meeting
because I'm not really sensingGod in my life, so blessed are
the pure in heart.
What does that really mean?
If pure in heart means I get toknow and experience God in my
(10:01):
everyday life in a very real way, then what does it mean to be
pure in heart?
Well, heart in this verse Imean, we know heart is the thing
that pumps our blood, but inthis context, the heart is
talking about the center of ourbeing.
It's who we are, at our core,how we think, how we feel about
(10:24):
things.
It's our moral center, theplace that we make our decisions
from.
It's how we decide whetherwe're going to choose right or
choose wrong.
You could say it's our mind,our will and our emotions all
rolled up.
That's the heart.
(10:44):
So the word for pure, kotharosthat's the Greek word.
I'm probably mispronouncing it,but that's what it looks like
to me.
Kotharos means clean, unmixedor innocent.
Blessed are the clean in heartwhich we would expect.
It's translated pure, right.
Pure means there's nothing,there's no bad stuff mixed in it
, it's all expect.
It's translated pure, right.
(11:04):
Pure means there's no bad stuffmixed in it, it's all clean,
it's all pure.
And that's what the word pure,so clean in our very soul, clean
down to the core of our being,and that is kind of a hard
standard to measure up to andour temptation is to say, well,
I get to experience as much ofGod as that bit.
(11:28):
The level of pureness that Ihave is the level of how much I
get to experience God.
And one of the things thatpeople that I am guilty of and
people that I know are guilty ofis we is, even though we give
really good lip service to, oh,jesus has made me righteous, his
blood has made me clean.
(11:49):
I'm sinless In real, practical,down-to-earth life.
We live this life thinking, oh,I've got to be better.
I've got to be better because Iwant to experience God and man.
I'm just not experiencing God,so I must not be measuring up.
I got to do more.
And it's this works mentalitythat holds us in this bondage of
trying to always measure up andwe lose our freedom in Christ
(12:12):
to it.
So I want to talk a little moreabout what pure means.
It's not about reaching astandard, and there's some
really good verses over in thebook of John that help us to
understand.
In John 15, verse 3, I'll giveyou a little more about this.
(12:36):
In John 15, jesus is talking tothe disciples right before he
goes to the cross, and the wholefirst half of John 15 is about
abiding in Christ.
He says Abide in me and I inyou, for without me you can't do
anything.
And so the whole thing is aboutabiding in Christ.
(12:56):
John 15, 3, he tells thedisciples Now you are clean
through the word that I'vespoken to you, that word clean,
katharos it's that same wordthat's used over pure in heart.
So now you're clean, now you'repure through the word that I've
spoken to you.
Well, what word is he talkingabout?
What is this magic word thatmakes them clean?
(13:18):
It wasn't a snap, remember thisis right before Jesus goes to
the cross.
That means there's three yearsprior that the disciples have
been living with Jesus.
They had been eating with Jesus, they had been talking with
Jesus, they had heard Jesusteaching them personally,
teaching the crowds, and Jesuswas demonstrating the teaching.
(13:41):
He was showing how to live itout.
That's the word that he hadbeen.
And where did Jesus' teachingscome from?
Neil, you talk about this.
Where did Jesus' teachings comefrom the Father?
Via the Old Testament.
Right, that was the scripturesthat he always referred to, and
even the structure of theBeatitudes is shown forth in the
(14:07):
Psalms, that whole structure.
And when you start looking atit it's pretty amazing, and I
don't have time to chase thatrabbit.
Jesus is teaching out of theOld Testament, but he's not just
teaching law out of the OldTestament.
He's showing what life in thekingdom means.
And in his teaching thedisciples are being cleaned up.
(14:31):
That's the word.
So now, how does this apply tous?
How did it do its cleaning?
Well, john 15, 1 and 2 says I'mthe true vine and my father is
the vinedresser.
Every branch in me that doesnot bear fruit he takes away,
and every branch that does bearfruit, he prunes that it may
(14:56):
bear more fruit.
Guess what the word for prunesis Kothros.
It's the verb form of the sameword for pure or clean.
Basically, you say every branchthat does bear fruit, he cleans
it up, he cuts it back, he doeswhat's necessary to make it
(15:17):
even more fruitful, to increasethe life in and through that
branch.
That's pure.
It's not about whether thebranch measures up to whether it
can connect to the vine or not.
No, it's connected to the vineand it just in being connected,
(15:38):
then he is part of the vine thatthe Father takes care of and
tends to.
All the branch has to do is beconnected and all the life from
the vine flows into that branch.
All the life that flows intothe branch bears the fruit.
It's not work, it's life.
(16:00):
Do you hear the difference?
Purity is not achieved througheffort, it's achieved through
abiding in Christ.
We become pure by staying close, not by trying harder.
So the real question is how dowe abide in Christ?
(16:20):
Well, we spend time in the Word, but you know what I was told
from.
I grew up on the cradle roll, ifyou have ever heard that term.
From the time that I was born,as soon as I was old enough to
be in church, I was in churchEvery Sunday morning, sunday
night, wednesday night, all thetime.
You know my life, you know Iwas in the church youth group
(16:40):
and I was told all through thattime got to read your Bible
every day, got to read yourBible every day, got to read
your Bible and I would read myBible and nothing.
Okay, I'm doing what I'msupposed to do.
I'm doing what I'm supposed todo.
There is a type of duty that weseem to think that we have to
do to read the Bible.
We need to read the Bible.
That's very true.
(17:01):
But we're not reading the Bibleto fulfill and check a box,
saying, okay, I did this, so nowI measured up.
No, the Bible is one of the waysthat we encounter Jesus.
That's why it's part of abiding.
In fact, it's one of thefoundational ways that we abide
in Christ.
But it's not about checking offa box.
It's about when we read thescripture.
(17:24):
You know, oh God, let meencounter you today.
In fact, I'll challenge youEvery time you sit down to read
your Bible.
Don't try to make it happen,don't put any work into this at
all, just pray this prayer God.
Let me encounter you today,jesus, let me encounter you and
don't elaborate.
Make it simple and then don'ttry to do it.
(17:50):
Let God do it.
Okay.
And prayer you know I grew uphearing.
You got to pray.
You need to pray If you'regoing to be close to Jesus.
You got to pray.
But prayer is not aboutchecking off a box and measuring
up.
Prayer is about conversationwith God.
(18:11):
You know we don't.
I grew up in, you know, and mygrandparents were Christians too
, and my grandfather, you know.
In time we had a familyget-together.
He had a way of praying and ithad these and thous in it and
that's okay, and he was veryreal.
(18:36):
That was just the language thathe used.
That's what he grew up with.
It's not about how you say it,it's about what's in your heart.
So many of us are so scaredthat God's going to strike us
down if we actually admit what'sin our heart, in our heart.
When's the last time that youfelt mad at God and you actually
(18:58):
had a knockdown, drag out,fight, screaming at him, you
know, hopefully away fromeverybody else, so they don't
think you're crazy.
But I mean, you really got realwith God.
You know, back in it's beenabout eight or nine years ago
now.
You know I was leading the men'sministry.
I was doing things here atTrinity.
(19:18):
I had for years and I finallygot real with God.
I said you know God, I'm doingall these things.
I'm doing everything I want todo, everything I need to do, but
I really don't feel likeseeking after you.
I enjoy all the stuff that'shappening at church and my life,
but I just don't feel likeanything.
(19:41):
And so I'm going to pray this.
God, give me the want to.
I stopped reading my Bible, Istopped praying otherwise, but I
purposed in my heart every day.
I was going to pray that oneprayer God give me the want to.
That was it.
I was going to pray that oneprayer God give me the want to.
That was it.
And somewhere along the line,not too much later, things
(20:07):
started changing and I didn'teven see it, and within a I
don't know, it was a year and ahalf, two years.
All of a sudden, it's like, wow, I got this want to.
I had just been praying asimple prayer.
I got real with God.
We really have to stoppretending and get real with God
.
He already knows what's in ourheart.
The only thing that's stoppingthings between us and God is us,
(20:29):
because we won't be real withHim.
And so it's the same thing withprayer and with reading the
Scripture.
God, let me encounter you.
Show me your glory, show meyour healing, show me your
provision.
Lord, show me who you are, showme your character.
(20:49):
Lord, just take this verse andjust show me what this verse
means.
It's that simple, like be real.
You know, another part ofabiding is obeying.
You can't If I say that I'mTyler's friend but I don't ever
(21:11):
do anything that he wants to do,am I really his friend?
You know what I'm saying.
It's the same thing with Jesus.
He gives us what to do, hetells us, actually, what's going
to be best for us.
It's just a matter of obedience.
That's part of abiding.
All of these things are anattitude of staying in close
(21:33):
relationship.
You know, there's a monk I thinkit was a monk, brother Andrew
who wrote a book calledPracticing the Presence of God.
Because as a monk, you thinkabout this.
A monk is a guy who goes off ina monastery for the purpose of
knowing God and learning aboutGod and all.
And here's this monk and hesays I don't think I really
experienced the presence of Godvery much.
(21:53):
And so he wrote this book aboutthis, called Practicing the
Presence of God.
And here's what he did.
He began reminding himself thatGod is with him every moment of
the day.
So when he'd sit down and he'dwork in the garden, then he'd
remind himself I'm pickingcarrots with Jesus, and if he's
washing dishes, I'm washingdishes with Jesus.
(22:15):
And as he went through his day,he just reminded himself I'm
doing this with Jesus.
It's not I will be with Jesusor I will know Jesus.
I am with Jesus now, here.
And it wasn't too long that hebegan to experience God in new
ways.
That's what abiding is.
(22:36):
It's seeking relationship withjesus.
And all the things we do is notbecause we're checking off
boxes, it's not because we'remeasuring up, it's because we're
seeking to know him.
And if you want your lifetransformed, that's how it
happens, because in the processof doing that, you know you.
(22:58):
Oh, I struggle with this sin,oh, I can't overcome this.
Oh, man, I screwed up again Inthe process.
If you are seeking Jesus, thenthe Father will clean those
things up.
The Father will take care ofthat.
He's the vine dresser.
Literally, from that verse,he's the farmer, but we're
talking about vines, so he's thevine dresser.
(23:18):
Literally from that verse, he'sthe farmer, but we're talking
about vines, so he's the vinedresser.
He's the one who'll take careof the pruning and everything
that's needed there.
The more we walk with Jesus, themore our hearts are purified
and our vision and ourexperience of knowing God
becomes clearer.
So now, how do we put all thistogether and how do we sum it up
(23:41):
in a quick and easy way toremember this?
So the verse was Blessed arethe pure in heart, for they will
see God.
But we can paraphrase that andsay Blessed are those who are
abiding in Christ, for they willknow and experience God both
now, in His kingdom and alsoforever in eternity.
Say it again, for they willknow and experience God both now
(24:17):
and in His kingdom, and foreverand eternity.
The kingdom of God is now.
Tonight we're talking on verse Matthew 5.8,
that we've been in this seriescalled Blessed.
So we've been going through theBeatitudes, each one so Matthew
5.8 is blessed are the pure inheart for they will see God.
And over the past weeks we'vebeen in this series called
Blessed and so we've beenhearing about being blessed.
(00:27):
This kind of person is blessedand that kind of person is
blessed, and so you know, it'sreally easy to get into our
churchish, religious kind ofthing doing.
Well, this person is blessedand we get all religious about
it.
So I want to get very real andI want to ask you a very real
question tonight have you everfelt like you just weren't
(00:49):
spiritual enough to be blessed?
I mean, if you just forgeteverybody else around you and
just ask yourself do I reallyfeel like I'm spiritual enough
to be blessed?
It's kind of like you're tryingto have all the attitudes and
the beatitudes and you justdon't measure up.
You know what I'm talking about.
Am I the only one here thatever feels that way?
(01:10):
Well, we're going to talk aboutthat a little bit tonight from
the perspective of oneparticular attitude, and that's
in Matthew 5.8.
And so let me kind of set thestage for this verse.
The book of Matthew starts outwith the genealogy of Jesus and
(01:32):
then the birth, and then he justkind of leaves out a whole
chunk of Jesus growing up, andthe next time we hear about him
in Matthew is he's beingbaptized by John the Baptist,
and then he goes from there tothe wilderness and he goes 40
days of fasting with temptation,and it's then that Jesus
launches his ministry and hegoes from down in the southern
(01:53):
part of Israel up to thenorthern part, and the northern
part was Galilee.
And so Galilee was kind of likethe other side of the tracks
for Israel.
It was this you know, that waswhere you found the poor, you
found the working class, thepeople who were overlooked, the
people who everybody else lookeddown on.
(02:14):
You know, you might remember averse where one of the Pharisees
says does anything good evercome out of Nazareth?
Well, nazareth was in Galilee.
That's that kind of attitude.
Nazareth Well, nazareth was inGalilee.
That's that kind of attitude.
So that's where Jesus begins.
His ministry is in this areacalled Galilee, up in north
Israel.
And the people who are hearinghim, they're the common people,
(02:37):
like I said, they're the workingclass, they're the disregard,
they are not the religious elite, and Jesus has one central
message that he's declaring toeverybody, and you need to get
this.
This is Jesus' central messageRepent, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand.
But to elaborate on that just alittle bit repent, change your
(03:00):
mind, because the kingdom ofheaven is at hand, it's here and
now, it's not just in thefuture.
Now, these people were notexpecting to be included in
anything that God was doing.
These are the down and out.
These are the one thateverybody looks down on, and
they know that they're notblessed.
But Jesus turns to them andbegins declaring who really is
(03:22):
truly blessed.
And so then he begins talkingabout the Beatitudes, and each
Beatitude has three primaryparts.
So there's the declarationblessed are.
There's the type of person thepure in heart.
And then there's the promise orresult, for they will see God.
And so tonight we're focusingon blessed are the pure in heart
(03:47):
, for they will see God.
Now, before we look at pure inheart or they will see God, we
need to understand why Jesus'use of the word blessed probably
shocked everybody.
In the Jewish culture, blessingwas tied to outward, visible
signs, things like materialwealth, good health, power and
(04:10):
status, public righteousness,religious role, like Pharisees,
sadducees, scribes, those typeof people.
If somebody looked successfulor they looked very religiously
successful, you know they weredoing it right.
The people assumed that God wasclearly with them.
God wasn't with anybody else.
Those were the people who wereblessed.
(04:30):
Jesus was redefining whatblessing was.
Now the Greek word for blessingand I'm sure you've heard this
in every other teaching to putit simply means happy.
But you know you can have somenuances, some additional
(04:52):
understanding to the word.
So the reason that it's happyis because you're deeply favored
by God, you're spirituallyflourishing, you're possessing
joy and peace, regardless ofcircumstances.
Those are the kinds of thingsthat are inherent in that word
blessed, happy.
(05:13):
And so Jesus is just flippingthe script.
He's saying blessing isn'tbased on what you have or how
good you look externally.
It's about who you're inrelationship with and what's
happening internally.
Now, jesus wasn't just beingkind.
He wasn't just like okay, guys,you don't feel.
I know you think bad about you.
(05:34):
Let me just encourage you alittle bit more.
He wasn't just being kind.
He was actually announcing thetrue values of the kingdom.
In fact, that's what the wholeSermon on the Mount is about.
What does it mean to be acitizen in the kingdom of God.
That's the entire Sermon on theMount, and this is just one
little piece of it.
And so the people who arehearing this, they're the ones
(05:55):
who are down and out,spiritually overlooked.
And Jesus is confronting thatidea that blessing is earned or
proven by success and insteadthe kingdom, in his kingdom, the
poor in spirit are blessed,those who mourn are blessed, the
pure in heart are blessed.
Jesus was saying you thinkyou're far from God, but you're
(06:16):
the very ones that he callsblessed.
And so that's the first part ofthe verse Blessed are the pure
in heart, for they will see God.
Jesus is describing the pure inheart as the people who are
blessed.
So what is this blessing thatthe pure in heart are going to
get, that they're going toreceive?
Well, it says they will see God.
(06:36):
Now there's a lot of differentwords in Greek that can be
translated as see, and the mostliteral definition for it is to
see with the eyes, the physicalact of seeing.
But there's also a figurativedefinition to perceive and to
understand.
It's kind of like what we do inEnglish.
You know, I can explainsomething and I say do you see
(06:59):
I'm not talking about.
Can you see the words that haveno form in front of you?
It's not about do youunderstand and it's no different
in Greek and there's even aspiritual connotation to it to
recognize relationally, as inknowing, or experientially to
experience.
So in the context of this versefor they will see, god is not
(07:23):
about literally, physicallyseeing, it's about understanding
, knowing and experiencing.
So that kind of changes thatpart around too.
It's about understanding,knowing and experiencing it in
the here and now.
Remember Jesus' central messagerepent, for the kingdom of God
is at hand.
It's here and now, for thekingdom of God is at hand, it's
(07:44):
here and now.
So Jesus is talking about arelational, spiritual and
experientially knowing God,something that begins now and
continues on forever.
You know, in Revelation 22.4,it says we're going to see him
face to face.
But what does it mean for thehere and now?
Well, we get to experience hispresence.
We get to experience hisguidance through situations
(08:06):
sometimes and that can happen ina lot of different ways.
We get to experience hisconviction to keep us morally on
the right path.
We receive comfort from him andhonestly, we can know him in
prayer and in the word and inworship and obedience.
There's so many different wayswe get to encounter God and he's
(08:28):
basically saying that we walkin intimate relationship with
him.
So this whole thing, they shallsee God.
Blessed are the pure in heart,for they will see God.
The pure in heart get to knowand experience God and have God
as your companion and as yourguide and as your God and as
(08:51):
your servant.
And because these are allcharacteristics, when you start
looking through the Bible andyou look at all the names of God
that come out of his character,he was humble.
He humbled himself even to thepoint of the cross.
That's in Philippians.
Jehovah Jireh, our provider,jehovah Rapha, our healer, all
of these different names of Godthat we see through the Bible.
(09:13):
They are descriptions of who weget to walk with.
So now here's the key question.
This is where I go fromteaching to meddling a little
bit.
Do you really feel like you'reexperiencing God this way?
Maybe you're thinking like I'vedone for or did for a long time
(09:35):
.
I keep being obedient, but I'mjust not feeling it.
I must not be blessed, I'm notdoing something right.
You know, there's some kind ofstandard that I'm not meeting
because I'm not really sensingGod in my life, so blessed are
the pure in heart.
What does that really mean?
If pure in heart means I get toknow and experience God in my
(10:01):
everyday life in a very real way, then what does it mean to be
pure in heart?
Well, heart in this verse Imean, we know heart is the thing
that pumps our blood, but inthis context, the heart is
talking about the center of ourbeing.
It's who we are, at our core,how we think, how we feel about
(10:24):
things.
It's our moral center, theplace that we make our decisions
from.
It's how we decide whetherwe're going to choose right or
choose wrong.
You could say it's our mind,our will and our emotions all
rolled up.
That's the heart.
(10:44):
So the word for pure, kotharosthat's the Greek word.
I'm probably mispronouncing it,but that's what it looks like
to me.
Kotharos means clean, unmixedor innocent.
Blessed are the clean in heartwhich we would expect.
It's translated pure, right.
Pure means there's nothing,there's no bad stuff mixed in it
, it's all expect.
It's translated pure, right.
(11:04):
Pure means there's no bad stuffmixed in it, it's all clean,
it's all pure.
And that's what the word pure,so clean in our very soul, clean
down to the core of our being,and that is kind of a hard
standard to measure up to andour temptation is to say, well,
I get to experience as much ofGod as that bit.
(11:28):
The level of pureness that Ihave is the level of how much I
get to experience God.
And one of the things thatpeople that I am guilty of and
people that I know are guilty ofis we is, even though we give
really good lip service to, oh,jesus has made me righteous, his
blood has made me clean.
(11:49):
I'm sinless In real, practical,down-to-earth life.
We live this life thinking, oh,I've got to be better.
I've got to be better because Iwant to experience God and man.
I'm just not experiencing God,so I must not be measuring up.
I got to do more.
And it's this works mentalitythat holds us in this bondage of
trying to always measure up andwe lose our freedom in Christ
(12:12):
to it.
So I want to talk a little moreabout what pure means.
It's not about reaching astandard, and there's some
really good verses over in thebook of John that help us to
understand.
In John 15, verse 3, I'll giveyou a little more about this.
(12:36):
In John 15, jesus is talking tothe disciples right before he
goes to the cross, and the wholefirst half of John 15 is about
abiding in Christ.
He says Abide in me and I inyou, for without me you can't do
anything.
And so the whole thing is aboutabiding in Christ.
(12:56):
John 15, 3, he tells thedisciples Now you are clean
through the word that I'vespoken to you, that word clean,
katharos it's that same wordthat's used over pure in heart.
So now you're clean, now you'repure through the word that I've
spoken to you.
Well, what word is he talkingabout?
What is this magic word thatmakes them clean?
(13:18):
It wasn't a snap, remember thisis right before Jesus goes to
the cross.
That means there's three yearsprior that the disciples have
been living with Jesus.
They had been eating with Jesus, they had been talking with
Jesus, they had heard Jesusteaching them personally,
teaching the crowds, and Jesuswas demonstrating the teaching.
(13:41):
He was showing how to live itout.
That's the word that he hadbeen.
And where did Jesus' teachingscome from?
Neil, you talk about this.
Where did Jesus' teachings comefrom the Father?
Via the Old Testament.
Right, that was the scripturesthat he always referred to, and
even the structure of theBeatitudes is shown forth in the
(14:07):
Psalms, that whole structure.
And when you start looking atit it's pretty amazing, and I
don't have time to chase thatrabbit.
Jesus is teaching out of theOld Testament, but he's not just
teaching law out of the OldTestament.
He's showing what life in thekingdom means.
And in his teaching thedisciples are being cleaned up.
(14:31):
That's the word.
So now, how does this apply tous?
How did it do its cleaning?
Well, john 15, 1 and 2 says I'mthe true vine and my father is
the vinedresser.
Every branch in me that doesnot bear fruit he takes away,
and every branch that does bearfruit, he prunes that it may
(14:56):
bear more fruit.
Guess what the word for prunesis Kothros.
It's the verb form of the sameword for pure or clean.
Basically, you say every branchthat does bear fruit, he cleans
it up, he cuts it back, he doeswhat's necessary to make it
(15:17):
even more fruitful, to increasethe life in and through that
branch.
That's pure.
It's not about whether thebranch measures up to whether it
can connect to the vine or not.
No, it's connected to the vineand it just in being connected,
(15:38):
then he is part of the vine thatthe Father takes care of and
tends to.
All the branch has to do is beconnected and all the life from
the vine flows into that branch.
All the life that flows intothe branch bears the fruit.
It's not work, it's life.
(16:00):
Do you hear the difference?
Purity is not achieved througheffort, it's achieved through
abiding in Christ.
We become pure by staying close, not by trying harder.
So the real question is how dowe abide in Christ?
(16:20):
Well, we spend time in the Word, but you know what I was told
from.
I grew up on the cradle roll, ifyou have ever heard that term.
From the time that I was born,as soon as I was old enough to
be in church, I was in churchEvery Sunday morning, sunday
night, wednesday night, all thetime.
You know my life, you know Iwas in the church youth group
(16:40):
and I was told all through thattime got to read your Bible
every day, got to read yourBible every day, got to read
your Bible and I would read myBible and nothing.
Okay, I'm doing what I'msupposed to do.
I'm doing what I'm supposed todo.
There is a type of duty that weseem to think that we have to
do to read the Bible.
We need to read the Bible.
That's very true.
(17:01):
But we're not reading the Bibleto fulfill and check a box,
saying, okay, I did this, so nowI measured up.
No, the Bible is one of the waysthat we encounter Jesus.
That's why it's part of abiding.
In fact, it's one of thefoundational ways that we abide
in Christ.
But it's not about checking offa box.
It's about when we read thescripture.
(17:24):
You know, oh God, let meencounter you today.
In fact, I'll challenge youEvery time you sit down to read
your Bible.
Don't try to make it happen,don't put any work into this at
all, just pray this prayer God.
Let me encounter you today,jesus, let me encounter you and
don't elaborate.
Make it simple and then don'ttry to do it.
(17:50):
Let God do it.
Okay.
And prayer you know I grew uphearing.
You got to pray.
You need to pray If you'regoing to be close to Jesus.
You got to pray.
But prayer is not aboutchecking off a box and measuring
up.
Prayer is about conversationwith God.
(18:11):
You know we don't.
I grew up in, you know, and mygrandparents were Christians too
, and my grandfather, you know.
In time we had a familyget-together.
He had a way of praying and ithad these and thous in it and
that's okay, and he was veryreal.
(18:36):
That was just the language thathe used.
That's what he grew up with.
It's not about how you say it,it's about what's in your heart.
So many of us are so scaredthat God's going to strike us
down if we actually admit what'sin our heart, in our heart.
When's the last time that youfelt mad at God and you actually
(18:58):
had a knockdown, drag out,fight, screaming at him, you
know, hopefully away fromeverybody else, so they don't
think you're crazy.
But I mean, you really got realwith God.
You know, back in it's beenabout eight or nine years ago
now.
You know I was leading the men'sministry.
I was doing things here atTrinity.
(19:18):
I had for years and I finallygot real with God.
I said you know God, I'm doingall these things.
I'm doing everything I want todo, everything I need to do, but
I really don't feel likeseeking after you.
I enjoy all the stuff that'shappening at church and my life,
but I just don't feel likeanything.
(19:41):
And so I'm going to pray this.
God, give me the want to.
I stopped reading my Bible, Istopped praying otherwise, but I
purposed in my heart every day.
I was going to pray that oneprayer God give me the want to.
That was it.
I was going to pray that oneprayer God give me the want to.
That was it.
And somewhere along the line,not too much later, things
(20:07):
started changing and I didn'teven see it, and within a I
don't know, it was a year and ahalf, two years.
All of a sudden, it's like, wow, I got this want to.
I had just been praying asimple prayer.
I got real with God.
We really have to stoppretending and get real with God
.
He already knows what's in ourheart.
The only thing that's stoppingthings between us and God is us,
(20:29):
because we won't be real withHim.
And so it's the same thing withprayer and with reading the
Scripture.
God, let me encounter you.
Show me your glory, show meyour healing, show me your
provision.
Lord, show me who you are, showme your character.
(20:49):
Lord, just take this verse andjust show me what this verse
means.
It's that simple, like be real.
You know, another part ofabiding is obeying.
You can't If I say that I'mTyler's friend but I don't ever
(21:11):
do anything that he wants to do,am I really his friend?
You know what I'm saying.
It's the same thing with Jesus.
He gives us what to do, hetells us, actually, what's going
to be best for us.
It's just a matter of obedience.
That's part of abiding.
All of these things are anattitude of staying in close
(21:33):
relationship.
You know, there's a monk I thinkit was a monk, brother Andrew
who wrote a book calledPracticing the Presence of God.
Because as a monk, you thinkabout this.
A monk is a guy who goes off ina monastery for the purpose of
knowing God and learning aboutGod and all.
And here's this monk and hesays I don't think I really
experienced the presence of Godvery much.
(21:53):
And so he wrote this book aboutthis, called Practicing the
Presence of God.
And here's what he did.
He began reminding himself thatGod is with him every moment of
the day.
So when he'd sit down and he'dwork in the garden, then he'd
remind himself I'm pickingcarrots with Jesus, and if he's
washing dishes, I'm washingdishes with Jesus.
(22:15):
And as he went through his day,he just reminded himself I'm
doing this with Jesus.
It's not I will be with Jesusor I will know Jesus.
I am with Jesus now, here.
And it wasn't too long that hebegan to experience God in new
ways.
That's what abiding is.
(22:36):
It's seeking relationship withjesus.
And all the things we do is notbecause we're checking off
boxes, it's not because we'remeasuring up, it's because we're
seeking to know him.
And if you want your lifetransformed, that's how it
happens, because in the processof doing that, you know you.
(22:58):
Oh, I struggle with this sin,oh, I can't overcome this.
Oh, man, I screwed up again Inthe process.
If you are seeking Jesus, thenthe Father will clean those
things up.
The Father will take care ofthat.
He's the vine dresser.
Literally, from that verse,he's the farmer, but we're
talking about vines, so he's thevine dresser.
(23:18):
Literally from that verse, he'sthe farmer, but we're talking
about vines, so he's the vinedresser.
He's the one who'll take careof the pruning and everything
that's needed there.
The more we walk with Jesus, themore our hearts are purified
and our vision and ourexperience of knowing God
becomes clearer.
So now, how do we put all thistogether and how do we sum it up
(23:41):
in a quick and easy way toremember this?
So the verse was Blessed arethe pure in heart, for they will
see God.
But we can paraphrase that andsay Blessed are those who are
abiding in Christ, for they willknow and experience God both
now, in His kingdom and alsoforever in eternity.
Say it again, for they willknow and experience God both now
(24:17):
and in His kingdom, and foreverand eternity.
The kingdom of God is now.
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