Introduction:
Congratulations to Pure in Heart! (Matthew 5:8)
Who Are the "Pure in Heart"?
Jeremiah 17:9 - The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
Matthew 15:19 - For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
Ezekiel 36:26-27 - And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
Psalm 24:3-4 - Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.
Why Are We Congratulating the Pure in Heart?
John 1:18 - No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
Hebrews 11:27 - (Moses) endured as seeing him who is invisible.
How Do I Become Pure in Heart So I Can See God?
James 4:8 - ...purify your hearts, you double-minded.
1 John 3:3 - ...everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
1 Peter 1:22 - Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth…
How to Purify Yourself (Philippians 4:8):
Philippians 4:8 - Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
- Think True thoughts.
- Think Honorable thoughts.
- Think Just thoughts.
- Think Pure thoughts.
- Think Lovely thoughts.
- Think Commendable thoughts.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-01:20
Amen. Open your Bibles with me please to Matthew chapter five. Matthew chapter five as we continue our congratulations party. You ready to party? Pastor Taylor's ready party, the rest of you overly affected by that hour change. I think we'd be used to that by now, right? Matthew chapter 5, are you there? This is Jesus' first sermon, and I still contend it's the greatest sermon ever preached. And this is the introduction to Jesus sermon. He says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
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"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
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"Blessed are the peacemakers, "for they shall be called sons of God.
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"Blessed are those who are persecuted "for righteousness' sake, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." And in these statements commonly called the Beatitudes, we have a spiritually logical flow.
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You have to see the Beatitudes like a ladder or a staircase.
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This is a progressive journey Jesus is talking about here.
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And over and over and over and over, he says, "Blessed, blessed, blessed." You grab a Bible commentary, And most people say, "Well, that means happy." But it means a lot more than happy.
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What Jesus is saying is, if this describes you, He's saying, "Congratulations, "because God has something awesome in store for you." This, this is what Christ followers, are meant to be.
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So I'd like you to bow your heads for a second, and I'm gonna ask that you would please pray for me.
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I am keenly aware that I am inadequate.
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It's just that sometimes I feel a lot more than other times.
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And I get to tell you today's one of those days. With the verse that's before us today, I feel so grossly inadequate to capture the grandness of this verse. The Bible says our sufficiency is from Christ. It's not about me. It's about the truth of His Word. It's about the power of His Holy Spirit. So I'm going to ask that you would please pray for me to that end.
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And I will pray for you as we get into God's word together.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we're always completely dependent on you for everything.
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And I don't know if we'll ever feel that more than we will over these next few minutes.
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God, I pray that your light shine in the dark places.
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that we're not so concerned with what other people think we should be.
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Father, let us be concerned with what You say we should be.
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Father, we thank You for Your commitment into making us those people.
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Father, exalt your name.
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Let your word be greatly exalted in our hearts.
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We pray in Jesus' name.
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And all of God's people said, amen.
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So the party continues today as we say congratulations to the pure in heart.
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(congregation applauding)
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Let's look at the verse again.
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I can't think of any verse in the Bible that's more majestic and more awe-inspiring than this verse.
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when Jesus, in describing our spiritual journey, says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Where do you start with a verse like that?
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Well, let's talk about, first of all, who are the pure in heart?
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Let's start there.
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Who are we congratulating?
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Who are the pure in heart?
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Well, I guess let's do a little Bible study here, shall we?
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Let's talk about the heart.
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When we talk about the heart, we're not talking about the muscle that pumps the blood here, okay?
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Biblically, the heart is the center of your personality.
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Your heart is the part of you that you don't see in the mirror.
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It's who you really are.
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It has to do with your will and your emotions and your intellect.
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That's your heart.
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And biblically, there's a big problem.
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Your heart is bent to sin.
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We inherited that from Adam.
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Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick." Who can understand it?
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We are born with a heart that is not pure.
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And according to Jeremiah, your heart is a sick liar.
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What did Jesus say about the heart?
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Matthew 15, 19, "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, "murder, adultery, sexual immorality, "theft, false witness, slander." Look, mankind is evil.
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And sociologists try to pin that on environment.
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And yes, yes, how you were raised and where you were raised does have a bearing on who you are, absolutely true, but that's not the root problem.
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And some people wanna put the problem on education.
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Well, you know what the problem is.
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People just need more education.
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I am not against education.
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That's not the root of the problem either.
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You know what the root of the problem is according to God's word?
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Your heart is evil.
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My heart, by birth, inherited from Adam, is evil.
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That's the problem.
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So that's what the heart is, but Jesus says, "Blessed are the pure in heart." Well, what do we mean by pure?
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Pure means to be cleansed from the filth of sin.
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Because we are, as we said in the first part of our party here, because we are poor in spirit, we are not naturally pure in heart.
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We need God to cleanse us.
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We've been talking about that, right?
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Actually, you know, God does something better than cleanse your heart.
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Ezekiel 36, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you.
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And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
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And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
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So you see, God does something so much better take our old nasty sinful heart and clean it up.
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He takes that out and he gives us a new heart.
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A heart that loves him and a heart that wants to obey him.
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That's what it means to be pure in heart.
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You're like, okay, alright, alright, I got the concept.
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But what does the pure in heart look like?
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What does that, okay, I get you're hitting this with these theological concepts here, but just brass tacks.
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What does it look like to be pure in heart?
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Well, we don't have to guess that either because God tells us that in Psalm 24.
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I love it, look at this.
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It says, "Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
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"And who shall stand in his holy place?" It's like, who can stand before God?
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Look, he who has clean hands and a pure heart.
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Like, well, what is that?
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He tells us, "Who does not lift up his soul "to what is false and does not swear deceitfully." Did you see that?
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The psalmist says, "How am I going to be worthy "to step into the presence of God?" He says, "You gotta be pure in heart." That means, first of all, you don't lift up your soul to what is false.
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That means you are 100% dedicated to the glory of God in every area of your life.
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Not just an hour on Sunday morning, every area of my life is holy ground for the Lord.
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It is all dedicated to God.
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And he says, no deceit.
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There's nothing hidden.
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There's no hypocrisy.
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There's no, I put on a face for church, but they don't know who I really am.
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You're pure in heart, everywhere.
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To sum it up, the pure in heart is someone who has been transformed from the inside out.
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It's evidenced by a manner of life motivated solely by a desire to make every aspect of their lives an act of worship.
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That is the pure in heart.
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So, why are we congratulating them?
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You know, there's something in us right now.
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They're like, this is so hokey and nerdy.
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Like we're celebrating somebody that's pure.
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There's something in us that rails against that.
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And that's an indicator that we have a problem.
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We should be celebrating the pure, not making fun of the pure.
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Because Jesus celebrated the pure.
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Why, why?
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Why are we celebrating the pure in heart?
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Well, he says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, "for they shall see God." Again, the word they, in all of these beatitudes, is emphasized in the Greek.
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And Jesus is pointing out it's exclusive.
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Like who sees God?
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Jesus says, "The pure in heart, they, they shall see God." And the verb tense is continuous.
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Not you see God once or twice in your life.
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It's I'm constantly seeing God.
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And I gotta tell you, it's just, it is so hard for me to capture this verse in the way that it needs.
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Because this statement, this should fill us with awe.
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People who are pure in heart get to see God.
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What does that mean?
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What does it mean to see God?
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Well, it's impossible in the physical sense to see God, right?
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John 1:18 says, "No one has ever seen God.
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God, the only son who is at the father's side, he has made him known." So you see, John says, "Nobody's seen God, but when we saw Jesus, we saw God, but no one has ever seen God." Well, you're like, "Well, what about Moses?" Well, Moses in Exodus 33 asked to see God's glory.
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But do you remember what God said to Moses?
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He said, "No one can see me and live." But that takes us to a very peculiar verse in the book of Hebrews about Moses, where it says, "Moses endured as seeing him who is invisible." What?
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Moses endured as, you see this?
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As seeing him who is invisible.
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You're like, how do you see someone who's invisible?
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The answer is faith.
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You see, every one of these beatitudes, every single one of them, have both a now and a later fulfillment.
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Yes, will we see God later?
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Yes, we will.
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Eventually, yes, in heaven, we are going to see God, right?
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Revelation 22, four tells us that.
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Absolutely, someday we are going to see God, but now, like Moses, we do get to literally see God with eyes of faith.
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I'm like, how in the world can I explain that?
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And it occurred to me that to the people that get it, I don't really have to explain it.
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And to the people that don't get it, there's not a thing that I can say that'll make it make sense.
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But the people who get it, get it.
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The pure in heart see God like no one else can.
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The pure in heart see God in a way that you just can't, you can't describe it.
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Like, well, what do you mean?
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Well, the pure in heart, you know, we see God in nature.
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We see God's hand in everything that he created.
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We're just like, wow, look at the design of this.
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Wow, look at the glory of God reflected in what He made.
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We see God in history.
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We see God at work in world events, especially through His people Israel.
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We're like, well, look, that's obviously God.
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We see God in His word, His wisdom on every page, promises fulfilled.
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Oh, and not just like reading it in the book, but we see God when we apply His word.
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and watch his hand at work fulfilling the promises that he made to us.
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And that's, look, that's the objective stuff.
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And I could go on and on and on, but there's a subjective sense of this that we cannot deny, that we see God personally.
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We see God in His sovereignty and the events in my life, that I look back, I can't deny God actively at work every step of this journey.
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I can't deny that, because I couldn't explain this any other way.
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We see God personally through the peace that he gives.
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We were just singing about that, weren't we?
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Like the whole world is crumbling around us, and we're like, God's got this.
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Yeah, it's a rough patch, but God's got this.
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Where does that peace come from?
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That's seeing God.
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You see, you'll never convince the pure in heart that God is absent.
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Because the pure in heart are constantly seeing God everywhere.
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So, that really leaves us with one question.
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As we've been asking, and all of these, let's ask it again.
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How do I become pure in heart so I can see God?
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You know, you might be sitting here saying, you know, that sounds pretty magnificent able to see the Creator, the sovereign of the universe?
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Like, how, how can I become pure in heart so I can see God?
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You know, maybe there's a better question to ask.
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Do you really want to see God?
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Do you really want to?
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Because here's the truth.
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Not everybody really does.
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You're like, "What do you mean?" Do you want to see the police?
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You're like, yeah, why not?
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What if you're speeding?
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You get it?
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It's the same with God.
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If you're living in sin, if your life is lived in such a way that you know you're dishonoring God, you sure don't want to run into Him.
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So do you really want to?
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Would you rather just explain this away, make this some silly, flowery, poetic concept, Sort of dismiss the impact of the truth of the words of Jesus Christ.
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Just go about your day and live however you want to live.
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Would you rather just do that?
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I think most of us would.
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Because you got to admit there's a real scary sense in which we say we will see God.
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If you wanna see God according to Jesus, you gotta be pure in heart.
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Like, how does that happen?
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Well, we've already talked about that.
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Only God can change you.
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Only God can do that work.
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But you know, I do a lot of reading.
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I do a lot of reading.
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And I read so many times this week and study in this verse, so many people said, "You can't make yourself pure.
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You can't make yourself pure.
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Listen, you can't make yourself pure.
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You can't make yourself, I read that so many times.
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And I had, I kind of had a little problem with that.
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Do you know why I had a problem with that?
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Do you realize how many times the Bible tells you to purify yourself?
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There is a real sense in which you carry some responsibility for your purity.
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Yes, God changes your heart.
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100%.
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But over and over and over, God says, "Purify yourself." What do we mean?
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Well, James 4/8.
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We studied this one a few weeks ago.
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James says, "Purify your hearts, you double-minded." That's a command.
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Well, you're like, well, James is kind of a hard guy, right?
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Well, what about John, right?
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1 John 3, 3.
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"Everyone who thus hopes in him," I'm like, there it is again.
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You see that?
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"Purifies himself as he is pure." Do you see the responsibility put it, it's on us in a sense, isn't it?
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You're like, well, yeah, that was John, but you know, Peter wouldn't say something like that, would he?
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Well, look at first Peter.
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"having purified your souls "by your obedience to the truth." Oh, and there's more.
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Well, like 2 Corinthians 7, 1, Paul says it.
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So there we have James, John, Peter, and Paul all giving a command.
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Look, you have a responsibility here.
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Because every New Testament writer tells us here that we have to purify ourselves.
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Like, well, how does that happen?
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The battle for purity is waged between your ears.
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It's in your mind.
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Listen, what goes in your car affects its performance, doesn't it?
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What goes in your body affects your health, doesn't it?
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What goes in your computer affects the kinds of programs that it runs, doesn't it?
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What goes in your mind affects your purity.
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Because what goes in your mind, we're not only talking about your thoughts, but we're also talking about from there comes your words.
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From there come your actions.
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What goes in your mind affects your purity.
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And I gotta tell you, America, we have such a problem there.
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Because we fill our minds with so much sewage, from the TV and the internet, Everything is sexual images and crude jokes and violence and hatred and...
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We're pumping that stuff into our heads and then we wonder why we don't really feel or act in a pure way.
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It's because you're allowing too much impurity in here.
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Well, what do we do about that?
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One verse, how to purify yourself.
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Let's just look at one verse.
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That if you're willing to commit yourself to this verse, you are going to see exponential growth in this area in your life.
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How to purify yourself.
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This is from Philippians 4, eight.
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Oh, and it's a loaded verse.
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Well, let's look at it.
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Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
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So how to purify yourself?
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This is not complicated.
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Just look at the list.
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We're gonna go through these very, very quickly.
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All right?
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How to purify yourself, first of all, number one, think true thoughts.
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Like what are true thoughts?
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Jesus said in John 17, "Thy word is truth." God gave us, he gave us a book.
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Do you know why God gave us a book?
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He didn't give us a digital download or a Blu-ray.
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Why did God give us a book?
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Because a book engages our minds.
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Get into it.
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Do you have a Bible reading plan?
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Get one.
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And that doesn't have to be complicated either.
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You know what my Bible reading plan is?
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Open it.
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Read it.
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Repeat.
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but you need to be reading this.
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You need to be praying this back to God as we talked about in the youth group last couple of weeks.
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You need to be meditating on it.
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You need to be memorizing verses.
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You need to get this in your head and in your hearts.
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And you're going to find it so much easier to catch thoughts that don't line up with God's word.
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And you're gonna be able to replace those thoughts accordingly.
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So think true thoughts.
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That's what should be swirling around your head.
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Is this what God said?
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Does this line up with God's word?
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And the second one flows straight from that.
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Think honorable thoughts.
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Think honorable thoughts.
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Like, well, what does that mean?
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Well, any scenario you face, something you should immediately be considering is this.
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How would Jesus think about this?
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Remember the WWJD bracelets, remember that?
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Some of you do.
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What was that, 90s?
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We're bringing them back.
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How about WWJD armband tattoos?
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Too cultish?
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I got to admit though, I like the concept, constantly asking, how would Jesus think about this?
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You see an attractive opposite sex person, where does your mind immediately go?
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Like, well, what would Jesus think about this?
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What would Jesus think about her?
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You've been sinned against, and you're tempted to retaliate or one up Or what would Jesus think about this?
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Or you heard that juicy rumor.
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What would Jesus think about that if somebody went up and said that to him?
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You see, that's why the Bible says, think honorable thoughts, right?
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Number three, think just thoughts.
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Think just thoughts.
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You're like, just what?
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Not just as in only, just as in what's right, what's fair, what's proper.
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And that's so important because you know where our minds, because of our bent to sin, because of our sinful flesh, our thoughts oftentimes immediately go to what's best for me, what's going to be to my advantage.
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Instead of that, we need to be saying, what's the just thing?
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How can I do what is impartial?
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That's the kind of stuff that needs to be swirling around your head.
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Number four, think pure thoughts.
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Think pure thoughts.
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It's a little embarrassing that I have to say this to the church.
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Get your minds out of the gutters, okay?
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Not everything has to turn into an anatomy joke.
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It's not funny.
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It is so not funny.
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But for some people, that's immediately where their mind goes.
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That tells you where their heart is.
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It's not funny, it's not appropriate, and it's certainly not pure.
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Look, are you interested in seeing God or not?
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You have to ask yourself, does this thought that I have line up with God's design for sex?
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And that's why pornography is the biggest purity killer, men, and sad to say, even for many women.
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We put images in our minds that have no business being in there.
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Pure thinking is my affection, physical attraction, thoughts, all of the stuff in that area, those are all reserved for my spouse.
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Like, well, I'm not married.
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Okay, your future spouse.
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You're like, well, I'm not planning on getting married.
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Okay, well then think about something else.
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But get your mind out of the gutter.
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So dishonoring, so impure.
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Number five is think lovely thoughts.
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Lovely.
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That word's right up there with chili.
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Here's what it literally means though.
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I know it sounds very flowery, but literally the word means friendly towards.
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It's just talking about, well, you know what should be in your mind?
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Things that are pleasing and attractive and positive.
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There's so many ugly things that we think about and we dwell on them and that leads to impurity.
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Things like envy.
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Why does he have something I don't have?
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I deserve that, he doesn't deserve that, I deserve that.
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We get that stuff in our minds, that leads to impurity.
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Another ugly thing that swirls around our head is being critical, just critical.
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Some people just like, they're ready to slap down a Yelp review on everything, everything.
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Like, wow, look at her coat, three stars.
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Wow, look at Pastor Taylor's shoes, one star.
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Do not recommend.
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(congregation laughing)
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There's nothing wrong with his shoes.
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But you get my point.
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Some people are just in that constant, harshly critical mode.
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Constantly turning their nose up at everything.
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Think lovely thoughts, whatever's lovely.
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Another ugly thing that goes into our head is hatred.
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Some people just have something against everybody.
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That's how you look, how you talk, where you're from, how you dress, the kind of car, whatever.
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It's just hatred.
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But you know, the Bible tells us we need to purify ourselves.
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That when those thoughts come into your head, you say, "No, no, no, that's going down a dark and negative place.
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I don't need to go there.
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My mind isn't going to go there." And then finally, number six, think commendable thoughts.
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Incommendable thoughts.
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Have you ever been around that guy?
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You know who I mean.
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You know that guy?
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The guy that,
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(laughs)
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not that guy, that guy.
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The guy that constantly has to rip on everything.
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Oh, look, I love a good yuck as much as the next person.
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But some people are just constantly looking at everything through the lens of how can I make fun of this?
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It gets old.
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It gets old.
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So instead of thinking, how can I make fun of this?
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Thinking commendable thoughts means Instead you're thinking, how can I be an encouragement?
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Are you constantly looking to tear people down because you think you're so hilarious?
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Or instead, are you looking to build people up as God commands us to do?
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Okay, that's a lot.
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Can you sum it up?
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Sure.
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He says, "If there's any excellence, "if there's anything worthy of praise," that sums it up, doesn't it?
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Your mind should be on what's excellent and praiseworthy.
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Here's a good sentence to, a good question to ask yourself to sum it up.
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When you have these thoughts going through your head, ask yourself, is this something that people think about in heaven?
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If not, then I should be thinking about something different.
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And Paul says, "Think about these things.
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You know there's very little that you can control in your life." And that is a glaring truth that has become more and more obvious to me with every passing year.
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so little that I can control in my life, but there is one thing, there is one thing that I and only I can control, and same for you, one thing that only you can control.
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And that is what you choose to think about.
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So God's given you a new heart.
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You're commanded to keep it clean.
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So, are you pure in heart?
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Are you pursuing and growing and being pure from the inside out?
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Is that your desire?
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Is that what you're after?
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that on behalf of our Lord, on the authority of His Word, and speaking on behalf of the leadership of Harvest Bible Chapel, I would like to wish you a congratulations.
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I would like to congratulate you because if that is you, you are going to see God.
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Let's pray.
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Our Father in heaven, I don't even know what to say.
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And Father, it just seems so hard to preach a concept that seems so foreign to our culture.
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But you have called us to be a different culture.
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You have called us out of the world and into your glorious kingdom.
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You have called us to live as citizens of heaven now while we're making our way through our short time on earth.
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Father, we thank you for the glorious promise of regeneration that comes through faith in Jesus Christ.
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But Father, we sometimes are just too content to ignore the very clear commands of your Word that we are to purify ourselves.
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Father, I pray for all of us here at Harvest Bible Chapel, those who are watching this and listening to this all over the world.
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Father, give us a desire to pursue you that includes eliminating everything in our lives that is fighting against purity.
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Father, we want nothing more than to glorify you.
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We want nothing more than to know you and we have this glorious promise from your Son that we will get to actually see you.
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here and now, and I can't think of a better promise that you would give us.
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Thank you, Father. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Matthew 5:8 & Philippians 4:8
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What did Jesus mean when He said the pure in heart will “see God”? How would you explain “seeing God” to a brand new believer?
What does controlling your thoughts have to do with purifying yourself? How are these connected?
Which of the “things to think about” from Philippians 4:8 do you personally find the hardest to dwell on? Why?
Breakout
Pray for one another.