Sermon 2-27-11 blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God Mt 5:8
8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Again we are faced with the appearance that if we are good enough, they we will be rewarded.
It is unfair what our brains to with this
Lets take it apart….
Blessed if you are pure- who is pure? Who will be
Will see God- God is hiding?
If we understand that we live with faulty logic,
why do we keep trying to do it?
One author suggests that although we cant achieve purity,
we can certainly understand impurity and flee from it.
That jesus wasn’t expecting perfection, but neither did he stand 4 hypocrisy.
Mt 23:27 27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
We understand that The spirit wars against the flesh
The idea is that none of us are perfect, will ever be pure in heart enough to earn anything with God, but we should make every effort to flee hypocrisy
We flee from pretending
Live an honest authentic life- no pretending, be vulnerable, honest and real
Yet -Is there something else here?
8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Will see God
Will see God
Does he show up when you are good enough or is he always here?
God is always here. Period.
He is here to be seen. We just don’t see him
Why don’t we see him? Because our hearts are not pure, not clear
Not because we haven’t become good enough, but because we
Aren’t looking
We are looking at the wrong things
Our lives are conflicted and derailed and cluttered
Take the board out of your eye, then you will see
Mt 7:5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Clearly this is the job of the church.
God is all around us and we just don’t see him
The people who are floating in the life raft a mile off the coast of brazil. Dying of thirst.
Did not realize that a great river flowed out pushing fresh water a mile into the ocean
We are asleep
Walking by the daffodils
The fisherman who no longer sees the wonder of the ocean
Not being aware of the air that you breath
Where are my glasses
Shawn the stalker- driving from Arkansas to Kansas city
Something is in the way. Something is distracting us from seeing god
Trip to florida..spend weeks planning it. While there, spend time planning the trip home.
Cant set down the phone or the email…
Bought a bottle of wine – label or the contents?
The birds of the air and the lilies of the field are right in gods perfect plan
They are not deterred by the worries of life
Mt 6: 26 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[e]?
The birds of the air and the lilies of the field are right in gods perfect plan
They are not deterred by the worries of life
We are. And when we get deterred, we lose sight of God
We are worried and distracted- so we don’t see him
Are we trying harder, some new approach or are we just following Jesus
I cannot teach you in worship to love others. To forgive them and have mercy.
You cannot learn it in Sunday school or bible study.
You may get the principles there, but we only learn to apply them when we walk with the master
We have forgotten that all Christians are apprenticed to the master…
Are you walking with him?
Come follow me
The kingdom asks us To come as a child
Going back to a time in your life when you were like a child…open eager….taking it all in
Wonder and mystery is the prerogative of children. And so they slip easily into the kingdom. See the world again for the first time. And so we must become like a little child
Searching for your lost key……where di d you lose it? Why are you searching here? This is where I am now. Go to where you lost it.
We’ve lost the wow factor
We’ve lost the wow factor
Eccl 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Psalm 19
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. 3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. 4 Yet their voice[b] goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
Just as we need to see others differently, we need to learn to see life differently
So you see this person?
Someone you like or don’t like?
Some that you do or don’t like how they are dressed
Or do you see the miracle that they are
Its not about
Who the good ones and the bad ones are
Not about getting ahead, promotions, keeping up w the joneses
Its not about who is for me or against me
Its not about how I feel about myself
Its about what is- what god has done, what god has made
He has made all things beautiful in his time.
Blessed are the pure in heart, those who are not distracted. Those who know what life is really about. Those who see it all for what it is. Blessed are those, for they shall see God.
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