The Heart
Pastor Rod Thompson
Midland SDA Church
August 10, 2019
Read Matthew 5:8 blessed are the pure in Heart, for they shall see God.
That sounds great doesn’t it? But if you’re like me, it raises a question. That question is, what does it mean to be pure in heart?
Well, we know what pure means, don’t we? It means clean, unsoiled, unmixed, not adulterated, and free from guilt or defilement, chaste, modest, or untainted.
So we are to have a clean heart, an undefiled heart, a heart that is free from stain –guilt - or corruption
But what is the heart that Jesus is talking about? We all have a heart don’t we? It is an organ in our body, a muscle that pumps blood to other organs of our body. The heart has a function, a purpose, and that purpose is to keep us alive. It has no other function. It cannot think for itself, it cannot reason, it has no feelings or desires. But if it stops functioning, we are in big trouble aren’t we?
Years ago I owned a home in Alpena. It was a beautiful home on 10 acres. But it was right in the middle of a swamp. So every year, in the spring, we had water problems in the basement. And after living there for a couple of years I discovered that if the water level in the front yard got to a certain point then I knew that I was about to have water in the basement. So I thought if I could just keep the water level down in the yard that would keep my basement dry. So I dug a hole in my front yard. The whole property was nothing but shale, so you couldn’t dig down more than 4 inches. Because that’s how much topsoil there was. But with some jackhammers and drills I managed to dig a hole about 4 feet deep and all of a sudden water started gushing into the hole. So I put a submersible pump in the hole and I started pumping the water out of the hole and about 500 feet behind my house. And I noticed that after running the pump for a few days that the water level in the woods was going down. And sure enough it kept the water out of the basement. So I built a well housing and placed it around it and I just left the pump in the hole year around. I covered it up and insulated it in the winter so it wouldn’t freeze and every spring when the snow began to melt it would pump the water away. Some times that pump would run for a week without ever shutting off. Based on the capacity of the pump I estimated that when it was running continuously I was pumping about 100,000 gallons of water a day away from my house. Until one day I came home and there was water in my front yard and there was water in the basement. I went out and discovered that the pump had stopped working and now I was in trouble because my basement had about an inch of water in it. Everything was great until the pump stopped working.
And the same is true of your heart. Everything is great until it stops pumping.
But is this the heart that Jesus is talking about? If I’m going to have a pure heart Do I have to have pure blood so that it can pump correctly? Do I have to have the right amount of pressure? Or is Jesus talking about something else?
I don’t know if you realize it or not but the word heart is used 826 times in the Bible. Look at a few examples
Genesis 6:5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually
Exodus 7:14 So the Lord said to Moses: “Pharaoh’s heart is hard; he refuses to let the people go
Deuteronomy 10:16 Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer
Now, I ask you again, is Jesus talking about our physical heart that is an organ in our body designed by Him to pump blood?
Genesis 6:5 said the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. So, can your heart (Which pumps your blood throughout your body) think thoughts evil or otherwise?
Exodus 7:14 said that Pharaoh’s heart was hard. So did he have a heart that was rigid and hard like a stone?
Ezekiel 36:26 God said, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
So what do you think, Was Pharaoh’s heart literally hard like stone? In Deuteronomy 10: 16 was God saying that we are to circumcise the literal flesh on the literal heart
I hope that we can say to each other – it’s obvious that Jesus is not talking about the physical heart when He says, Blessed are the pure in heart.
Read Matthew 15:19
As we already said, the physical heart cannot think – it has no thoughts
In the days of Jesus (and I would add – even today) the heart was considered the center of the higher powers of the mind, the conscience and the will
Read Matthew 13:15
Jesus says Lest they understand with their heart. Brothers and sisters what part of our body do we think with, reason with, understand with? It’s the brain right? It is our mind that we use to get understanding. So here Jesus is telling us that the heart that is being referred to is the mind. I like the way Patricia A. used to tell the kids (In the children’s story) it’s your heart brain. We’re talking about the mind and our ability to reason, comprehend, to think through logically
1 Samuel 24:5 Now it happened afterward that David’s heart troubled him because he had cut Saul’s robe
Was David having a heart attack? Here we see that David was pricked in his conscience that he had acted inappropriately. In other words he reasoned in his mind or intellect that he should not have done what he did. Therefore the Bible says that his heart troubled him. His conscience it is what is referred to as his heart
2 Corinthians 3:15 But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart
Here we see Paul telling us that when the children of Israel today read the first five books of the Bible that they are blinded to God’s plan of salvation. Why? He tells us in the next verse.
2 Corinthians 3:16 Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away
In other words our understanding or our reasoning ability is blinded until we accept Jesus as the Messiah. When we accept Him as Lord and Savior now all of a sudden we can see the plan of salvation. So here we see that Paul, when he is talking about the heart, is not talking so much about the intellect but rather he is talking about the will. In other words he is saying that they (Israel) could have believed that Jesus was the Messiah (they had the scriptures they had the knowledge, prophecies), but they refused to believe. And since they refused they cannot see.
Have you ever heard the phrase seeing is believing?
Story of Dad. I won’t believe it unless I see it.
Paul is really telling us that it’s the opposite. He is saying that believing is seeing. If we truly believe that Jesus is the Messiah than we will see the true plan of God’s salvation.
So when the word heart is used in the Bible it is often talking about the mind, the conscience and the will of man. Well what else does the Bible say about the heart?
Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived. Notice what he says about the heart.
Ecclesiastes 7:3 Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better
Now when we talk about sorrow and sadness what are we talking about? We’re talking about emotions aren’t we? So when we talk about the heart we’re talking about the mind or intellect, the conscience, the will and our emotions play into it as well. Grief is often a blessing in disguise – because God is able to use our sorrow to soften our minds, conscience, will and our emotions.
Joshua 14:7 Notice what Caleb said, “I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me to Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart.”
What is Caleb saying? I spied out the land, I saw that it was truly a land flowing with milk and honey and I came back I gave a report that denotes my sincerity. My intellect agrees with what I expected to see, my conscience is clear that I am giving an accurate report, I see that there are obstacles that need to be overcome but I have faith in the power of God and I am willing to go up and take the land that God has promised us. And my emotions support it all.
Daniel 4:16 Talking about King Nebuchadnezzar – “Let his heart be changed from that of a man, let him be given the heart of the beasts.”
Notice what Gill’s Bible Commentary says
Let his heart be changed from man's,.... Not as to the substance, but as to the quality:
and let a beast's heart be given unto him; from a human heart, let it be changed into a brutal one; let him be deprived of the use of reason, and have no more exercise of it than a brute has; let him be wholly governed by the animal senses, and behave and act as a beast does; be as senseless, stupid, and savage, as that: and such a heart Nebuchadnezzar had; his human powers were sadly vitiated and depraved; his understanding, his judgment, his memory of things past utterly failed; he forgot what he had been, and was; his will, inclination, and fancy, were towards brutal things, and ran upon deserts, fields, and grass; and he shunned the society of men:
So when we‘re talking about a heart like that of the beasts or man we really see that the heart is talking about our nature. Now we are born with a carnal nature. But if we are filled with the Holy Spirit than we can also have a spirit nature. So our heart can be our natural tendencies that we are born with or they can be God breathed if we are born a second time ( born of the spirit).
1 Peter 3: 3-4 Do not let your adornment be merely outward – arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel - rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.
Notice here that Peter is talking about the hidden person of the heart. In other words he is talking about the inner man. So he is talking about our reasoning ability, our conscience, our will, our emotions, our nature.
Jesus said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Pure in heart does not mean that someone is absolutely sinless, but it does mean that their motives are right, that by the grace of God they have turned their back on past mistakes, and they are pressing toward the mark of perfection in Christ.
Deuteronomy 4:29 But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul
Friends, if we seek God with all of our intellect, if we follow our conscience when God convicts us, If we surrender our will to His, if our emotions lead us to never stop search Him out. If we follow that Spirit nature we will find God.
And what do we call this?
Read Ephesians 4: 17-24
How do you describe to someone our thought processes, our conscience being pricked, our will being surrendered to God, our emotions and nature all working in one direction? What do you call that? What is it that all of these things combined are referred to as?
I love the fact that all scripture is inspired by God. Because that means that it all has to be in agreement. So what do we call our mind, conscience, will, emotions, and nature all working together?
You call it the heart
Read 1 John 3: 16-22
I think that what john is telling us here is that when I examine my thinking processes, my conscience, my will, my emotions, my carnal nature – when I look at all of those things (when I look at the condition of my heart – I am still a sinner
That brothers and sisters is my true condition, it is your condition
But God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. And even if my heart condemns me – I can have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him.
Why?
Because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.