Purity of Body and Soul

A believer is a clean person. First of all faith cleanses his soul. Consequently his appearance becomes
pure as well. His religious thinking makes him a person who loves cleanliness. A believer performs
his ablutions before praying five times a day by washing his face, hands and feet. He takes a bath
daily to purify his body. His clothes may be simple, but he always likes to wear well laundered
clothes. Along with this he likes to keep his home clean. Therefore, he cleans his home daily and
keeps all his things in their proper places. All these duties become part of his daily life. A believer
does not rest content until he has set all things right, from his body to his home. This taste for
cleanliness is not limited only to his home and body. It also extends outside his home to his
neighbours. He begins to want his whole environment to be clean, wherever he stays. So he takes
special care to see that he and his family members do not defile their surroundings. This training he
gives to others as well. Thus he is not satisfied until and unless he has succeeded in bringing into
existence a clean atmosphere all around. For a common person cleanliness is only cleanliness. But
for a believer, cleanliness, besides being simply cleanliness is also an act of worship, for he knows
that God likes clean and pure persons. Furthermore, the faith of the believer is a guarantee that
when he has cleaned his body his soul is likewise cleaned. That is why at the moment of washing
himself clean, he utters these words in prayer: Oh God, purify my inner self along with my outer
body. In this way, the earnest prayer makes his soul clean too, like his body.

Purity

The Greek word employed in our text today carries with it the idea of cleanliness or purity, in the
sense that we would commonly understand it. It means to be genuine, free from things that would
adulterate something and make it impure; as in the purity of gold. It is similar to the concept of
holiness.

When we think of purity of heart, perhaps we think of someone whose motives are pure, who
possess no guile or malice. Someone who is good natured and may even be somewhat naive. But
that is not exactly what our Lord is talking about here.

Within the context of what our Lord is saying, He is speaking about the heart of someone whose sins
have been forgiven and whose heart has been made new, whose purity comes, not from
themselves, but from the presence of Jesus in their lives.

Whenever I think of purity, I always think of milk. Just think about it, a tall cool glass of clean, white
tasty milk; its color testifies to its purity. Now you let some foreign object falls into milk, say, like a fly
and it becomes readily noticeable that this impurity has contaminated the entire container of milk.
Nobody I know wants to drink milk that has had a fly in it. But let someone remove the fly and once
again the milk appears to be pure, although there are now things in it you cannot see, unseen
contaminants that make it impure.

That was the problem of the Pharisees in Jesus' day, and it's the problem with many people today.
Their hearts have been contaminated by sins no one else can see, and thus they give the external
impression of purity. But within them there is sin that remains uncleansed and continues to
contaminate their lives.

Jesus spoke of this in Matthew 23:27-28 when He said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside
they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. 28"So you, too, outwardly appear righteous
to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."
The standards for citizenship in the kingdom of God are extremely high. External, outward, human
righteousness might lead people to think you are pure, but that won't cut it with God who sees the
heart. God says there has to be an internal work, a transformation at the most basic level, not only
of what we do, but of who we are. The sins which stain our hearts need to be washed away and only
the blood of Jesus can do that.

Isaiah 1:18 says, "Come now and let us reason together, Says the Lord, though your sins are as
scarlet, they will be white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

You see, within the course of His sermon here, Jesus is saying that the pure in heart are those who
are saved, those who have been washed in the fountain filled with blood drawn from Emanuel's
veins. As the song says, Sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.

Now we need differentiate between positional and conditional purity.

Positional purity is what happens when I am saved. When I am saved, God declares that I am a saint,
I am positionally holy. He has written my name in the Lamb's book of life and declared that I am His.
He has made me positionally pure.

Now, conditional purity is another matter. The truth is that sometimes the condition of a Christian's
walk can be so bad, they can be out of step with God that there are impurities in their lives. That
does not change their position before Christ, but it does affect their fellowship because they are
allowing things in their lives that are contrary to the new, nature of purity they have in Jesus.

So to be pure in heart speaks to my position as a Christian before God and also to the condition of
my walk with God. It does not mean that you and I must be perfect, it does, however mean that we
have come to that point where Jesus is firmly established as Lord of our lives.

Are you walking in purity before the Lord?

Is there anything in your life which is keeping you from being sensitive to and discerning God as He
reveals Himself all around you? To determine this you and I need to allow the Lord to do a thorough
search of the heart.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God.”

I. Purity Beyond Our Reach

Three of the ways we can stumble in purity is with impure words, impure emotions and impure
thoughts

a. Impure Words James 3:9-10 says, “With it (the tongue) we bless our God and Father, and with it
we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing
and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.”

b. Impure Emotions Matthew 5:21-22 says, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You
shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you that
whoever is angry without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment...”

c. Impure Thoughts Matthew 5:27-28 says, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You
shall not commit adultery’. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has
already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
You say these standards are too hard to obtain. They are meant to be hard (and impossible) unless
we have God living in our heart. Even though we may try to say or do the right things that appear to
be upright to others, this effort is in vain without a pure heart. As we seek to obey the will of God we
understand that it is impossible to have a pure heart on our own strength. But with God’s help a
pure heart is something all of us can have.

II. Purity of the Heart

But what is a pure heart? In 1 Timothy 1:5 , a pure heart is linked with a good conscience and a
sincere faith. A pure heart is when God has your heart. Now the heart is the center of our emotions
and will, and spiritually the heart controls our entire being. If God has your heart, he has everything
else of you too. If God doesn’t have your heart, he really has nothing of you.

How do we obtain a pure heart? We must repent and ask God to forgive our sin and to forgive our
lukewarm attitude toward purity. And we must invite God to take control of all of our heart. Asking
God for a pure heart should be done on a daily basis as we renew our relationship with God every
new day.

This is what God wants more than anything else for you and me. That’s why he said that the greatest
commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart...

Furthermore, only God can make our heart pure and only God can judge our heart to be pure. You
see it’s possible to fool all the people all the time, but you can’t fool God any of the time.

Illustration: A father and son were driving down a country road and saw a watermelon patch a little
way off the highway. The father said to the boy, "Keep a lookout here while I go get a melon." He
snuck into the patch, lifted a choice melon from the vine, and then called to the boy, "Is anyone
coming? Look both ways." The little fellow wisely responded, "But Daddy, shouldn’t we look up
too?"

Having a pure heart is to be so close to God that we don’t have to look up to see if he’s watching. It
means we have a personal relationship with God and we only have to look within our heart to see
Him.

If you look at the beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-10, you will find that each blessing comes as an answer
to the person’s needs. For example, if you mourn, you shall be comforted. If you hunger and thirst
for righteousness, you shall be filled.

It’s amazing to note that the need of the pure in heart is to see God. The pure in heart maintain their
purity by making a point to visit with God on a regular basis through personal prayer and Bible Study,
and through fellowship and worship. The pure in heart also have heaven as their goal. Although the
pure in heart know they can be in tune with the Holy Spirit in this life, they also know that someday
they will see God face to face in the kingdom of heaven.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart
want to.”

III. Purity Needed for Christians

Did you know that it is possible to be a Christian and not be pure in heart. Many Christians have
asked God to forgive them of their sins and they are trying unsuccessfully to live a pure life, but
something is missing. If you are in that boat, you will find that no matter how hard you try you are
overcome routinely by some sin and disobedience in your life. You need a pure heart.
How do you know you are ready to receive a pure heart? The thought of sin disgusts you so much
that you want power from God to overcome impurity in every area of your life. If you have this
disgust for sin and you know the power is not in your human strength, God is ready and willing to
help you.

Now having a pure heart does not mean that you won’t have personality characteristics that get on
other people’s nerves. It doesn’t mean you won’t make mistakes. It does mean that you can have
freedom from sin by having pure motives and the power of the blood of Jesus Christ keeping you
safe in times of temptation.

John Wesley’s main Scripture passage for his understanding of the truth of entire sanctification
was Matthew 5:8. John Wesley said, "The pure in heart" are they whose hearts God hath "purified
even as he is pure;" who are purified, through faith in the blood of Jesus, from every unholy
affection; who, being "cleansed from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfect holiness in the" loving
"fear of God." They are, through the power of his grace, purified from pride, by the deepest poverty
of spirit; from anger, from every unkind or turbulent passion, by meekness and gentleness; from
every desire but to please and enjoy God, to know and love him more and more, by that hunger and
thirst after righteousness which now engrosses their whole soul: So that now they love the Lord
their God with all their heart, and with all their soul, and mind, and strength.

IV. Call to Purity

There’s an animal found in some spots in our state of Minnesota as well as other places of similar
climate that is called the ermine. The ermine is a short-tailed weasel that has the unique feature of
having its fur change to a snow-white color in the winter. God created this animal with this feature
to protect it from others. The ermine instinctively protects his white coat against anything that
would soil it.

Fur hunters in northern Europe and Asia take advantage of this unusual trait of the ermine. They
don’t set a snare to catch him, but instead they find his home, which is usually a cleft in a rock or a
hollow in an old tree. They smear the entrance and interior with grime. Then the hunters set their
dogs loose to find and chase the ermine. The frightened animal flees toward home but doesn’t enter
because of the filth. Rather than soil his white coat, he is trapped by the dogs and captured while
preserving his purity. For the ermine, purity is more precious than life.

For the Christian purity ought to be more precious than life, for without purity we can never really
have life.

Do you want a pure heart? If you do, God stands ready and willing to give you one on this very day.
[Be sensitive to the Spirit in closing]