Sunday, March 17, 2013 am
PURER IN HEART (4)
God’s Part in Purifying the Heart
a.
Because an impure heart will keep us from God’s presence or even
approaching Him.
In our last lesson, as we began to make application to the pure
heart we noted that a pure heart lives to serve God.
That is a fundamental motivation behind a true heart.
But why is that so?
That is the focus of this lesson.
b.
Because sin separates us
from God
– Rom. 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
We know that we are sinners.
To deny this is to deceive ourselves and to make God a liar (1
John 1:8, 10).
Rom. 3:9 says, “For we have
previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.”
One of Paul’s points in Romans 3 was to show that all are sinners and
how mankind continually sins.
He actually quotes a number of Old Testament passages that
demonstrate the depth of sin in our lives.
Galatians 3:22 says, “But the
scripture has confined all under sin..”
Gen. 8:21, after the world was destroyed by flood God promised to never
again destroy the world in that manner, “…although
the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth…”
(Notice how in this text it does NOT say, he is born that way.)
Isaiah 59:2 says, “But your
iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden
His face from you, so that He will not hear.”
c.
“The glory of God” - WE have established the purity (holiness) of God)
-
Notice the consequence of man’s sin in Rom. 3:23 – we fall short of the
glory of God.
Previously we have discussed Psalms 15 & 24:3-5 which both describe the
quality of one who dwells in the presence of God.
It involves “clean hands and a pure heart.”
Consider Habakkuk 1:13, “You are
of purer eyes than to behold evil, And cannot look on wickedness…”
Prov. 15:29 says, “The Lord is far
from the wicked, but He hears the prayer of the righteous.”
Ps 5:4-5, “For You are not a God
who takes pleasure in wickedness, Nor shall evil dwell with You.
The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers
of iniquity.” The idea
of dwelling with God and standing in His sight indicates that the wicked
will NOT appear in His presence.
God’s holiness is demonstrated throughout scripture – He always knows
what is right, does what is right, acts consistently. Isa. 6:1-6 records
the call of Isaiah. He sees
a vision of the throne of the Lord and beings crying out, “Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of his glory.”
Isaiah was fearful of this vision because he had seen the Lord as
one of unclean lips among an unclean people.
THEN in vs. 6, a seraphim takes a live coal and touches Isaiah’s
mouth with it saying, “Behold,
this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin
purged.” NOW, Isaiah is
ready to stand before God.
AS you read the prophets (including Revelation) and the psalms you
frequently find language like this describing the grandeur of God in
heaven.
It behooves us to seek to understand the holiness of God.
That is where purity begins.
As we have noted earlier in this study, God does not just
demonstrate purity, He IS pure (1 John 3:3, 1 Pet. 1:16 – “Be
holy, for I am holy.”
IT IS BECAUSE OF HIS PURITY that He cannot allow sin in His presence!
Therefore…
d.
Before we can approach
God our sins need to be taken care of – Romans 7:24 says, “O
wretched man that I am! Who
will deliver me from the law of sin which is in my members?”
Paul’s dilemma in this text is a realization that he has sin and
he cannot take care of it.
Even the Old Law under which he was raised was inadequate to fully atone
for sins. IT leads to a
state of despair.
Paul realizes that there are things we cannot do for ourselves to
take care of the problem of sin so that we can approach God “with clean hands and a pure heart”.
a.
Thankfully, God reached
out to us and did what we cannot do for ourselves.
Romans 7:25 says in
reference to “who will deliver me from this body of death, “I
thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
b.
He sent His son
–
i.
John 3:16 says, “God
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…”
Rom. 5:6-9 says, “For when we
were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly. For scarcely for a
righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would
even dare to die. But
God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be
saved from wrath through Him.”
ii.
In Hebrews 9-10 as the
writer (probably Paul) discusses the sacrifices of the Old Law he
addressed the problem of sin.
Heb. 9:22 said, “And
according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and
without the shedding of blood there is no remission.”
But then he discusses the sacrifices God commanded and notes that
“It is not possible that the blood
of bulls and goats could take away sins.” (Heb. 10:4)
At best they were a temporary solution that God accepted, but
after a length of time they EXPIRED and more sacrifices were necessary.
Because of that a better sacrifice was necessary.
iii.
Jesus provided that sacrifice – Heb. 10:10-14 describes the “once for all” sacrifice of
Jesus that satisfied the demands of God.
IN vs. 14 we read, “For by
one offering He has perfected
forever those who are being sanctified.”
The idea of perfection in this text is that the sacrifice
accomplished permanently what God demands for us to be able to approach
Him.
iv.
His blood PURIFIES us – Heb. 9:14 in speaking of those Old Law sacrifices says, “For
if the blood of bulls and goats…sanctifies
for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of
Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to
God, cleanse your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God?”
Eph. 2:13, “But now in Christ
Jesus you who once were far off
have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
NOTICE how we have been discussing what is necessary to be in the
presence of God!
Rev. 1:5 describing Jesus says that He, “loved
us and washed us from our sins
in His own blood.”
v.
HOW do we come in contact with His blood
– Acts 22:16 says, “Arise
and be baptized and wash away your sins.”
Rom. 6:3-4 – when we are baptized into Christ we are baptized into His
death, raised to walk in newness of life.
1 Pet. 3:20-21 where Peter discusses how Noah and his family were saved
through water he then says, “There
is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the
filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God),
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
In discussing baptism, Peter contrasts it with taking a bath
which cleanses the body. He
talks about how baptism is “the answer of a good conscience toward God”
– i.e. THE HEART!
vi.
OF COURSE we
understand that obeying the gospel requires faith.
Rom. 10:10 says, “For with the heart one believes
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation.” Also Acts
15:9, “purifying their hearts by faith.”
c.
He sent His word
–
i.
The word of God (i.e.
whatever He speaks and delivers to man) IS pure
Psa. 12:6, “The
words of the Lord are pure words.
Like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.”
Psa. 119:140, “Your
word is very pure; Therefore Your servant loves it.”
Prov. 30:5, “EVERY
word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him.”
2 Tim. 3:16-17 speaks of how the writings of God (i.e. His word –
cf. 1 Pet. 4:11) is profitable to make us complete.
Psa. 19:8, “The
statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the
heart. The commandments of
the Lord are pure
enlightening the eyes.”
ii.
It can purify us when we
keep it.
Psalm 119:9, “How can a young man
cleanse his way?
By taking heed according to Your word.”
Psa. 119:11, “Your word I have
hidden in my heart, that I
might not sin against You.”
1 Pet. 2:2, “as newborn babes,
desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby.”
James 1:21-25 calls for us to lay aside filthiness and overflow of
wickedness (impurities) and “receive
with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.”
John 17:17, Jesus prayed, “Sanctify
them by Your truth. Your
word is truth.”
iii.
It is through His word
that we learn HOW to be saved and how to STAY saved.
d.
He has given us a
conscience –
i.
It is no secret that man
is different than all other living things.
What makes us different is that we are created in His image (Gen.
1:26). Furthermore, we have
a soul that will live eternally whereas all other creatures will die and
perish (Eccl. 3:21, 12:7).
ii.
Being in the image of
God we have superior intelligence (though certainly not as great as that
of God) but much greater than the animals.
We can think, reason, communicate exact thoughts, and feel guilt
and hope. We have a
conscience.
iii.
The conscience works –
we speak of training the conscience (which is true in a sense), but
actually it just works!
Therein is how it helps us.
However, it must be guided in the right direction with truth!
iv.
Too much of the world
see guilt as a bad thing. It is not!
While, like other things, we might fail to manage it properly the
truth is guilt brings us to God, helps us change and can purify our
hearts.
v.
God gave us our
conscience – Romans 2:13 speaks of Gentiles who are pleasing to God “because
of the law written on their hearts, their conscience also bearing
witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing
themselves.” While we
will not discuss the text of this passage (which deals with hope of the
Gentiles while the Law of Moses applied to the Jews) it identifies the
working of the conscience.
vi.
Rom. 13:5 tells us to be
subject to governing authorities “for conscience sake.”
vii.
1 Timothy 1:5, “Now the
purpose of the command is love from a pure heart, from a good
conscience, and from a sincere faith.”
viii.
The conscience works.
It is a gift from God that will help us purify our hearts.
More on this at a later time in
our study.
e.
Continually needed purification –
i.
Even after we have been
purified by God through obeying the gospel, we get soiled again from
time to time with sin. 1
John 1:8 & 10 is speaking to believers.
WE all know that we are going to sin over and over.
ii.
We again need to be
purified. 1 John 1:7 tells
us that if we are walking in the light, His blood will cleanse us of all
sin. Of course we need to
repent (Acts 8:22) and pray (1 John 1:9) about it, but the point is we
have a source to turn to even after we become children of God.
f.
Ephesians 1:3-10 is a
good summary of what God has done to purify us – to make us holy and
without blame before Him in love.
a.
We can have hope – there is a solution to the problem of sin in our lives.
God took care of all the things we cannot!
Rom. 3:24-25 speaks of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, “whom
God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to
demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed
over the sins that were previously committed.”
Ephesians 2:8 tells us it is by the grace of God that we are saved.
That grace is God doing His part – cf. vs. 4-5).
As Isaiah said, “Come let
us reason together’, says the Lord, ‘Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow.
Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
(Isa. 1:18)
b.
Our life can be lived
with real purpose
– serving Him in hope of our eternal reward in heaven
c.
We OWE Him!
Considering what God has done for us, it is not too much to serve
Him with purity of heart.
Heb. 5:9 says that Jesus, “having
been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who
obey Him.”
1 Pet. 1:15-16 – as He is holy,
you also be holy. His
holiness is our goal!
God has done His part in our purification.
It is now up to us to reciprocate by take steps to purify our
hearts so that we can live for Him.
The purpose of this entire study is to show us what we need to do
both to purify ourselves and to stay pure.
2 Pet.3:14, “Therefore,
beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found in Him
without spot and blemish.”
Is your heart pure?