The Sermon on the Mount, Part 5
Welcome to Timeless Truth with Pastor Jim Thomas. This season, Pastor Jim is leading us in a study of The Sermon on the Mount.
The Sermon on the Mount is found in Matthew, chapters 5-7.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
The Beatitudes describe the lives of those whose faith, values, affections and allegiances have all been transferred to King Jesus and the kingdom of heaven. The Beatitudes offer a vision of the kind of life that is pleasing to God and the promised blessings for those who embody these qualities.
Three part pattern of the Beatitudes:
- Ascription of blessedness by Jesus
- Condition in life or of the soul
- God’s response of faithful and redeeming love
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Two ways we struggle with God’s mercy:
- We struggle to believe God would offer mercy to us.
- We struggle to believe God would or even should offer mercy to our “repugnant others.”
“Nothing moves us to forgive like the wondering knowledge that we ourselves have been forgiven. Nothing proves more clearly that we have been forgiven than our own readiness to forgive.”
John Stott
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God
To be pure in heart means to have hearts completely open to God. It means to surrender your entire being to God, to hold nothing back, to have an undivided loyalty to God, to willingly deny yourself and place your life in God’s hands, to lay before God all your dreams, all your desires, all your resources and all your time. To allow God to redirect all those things, to live out of the prayer: hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. It is to have that single purpose of heart that wants God to be God in your life. This is what it means to be pure in heart and to see God.
“It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.”
C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
How about you? Do you really want to see God? The more passionate your desire becomes for God, and for the love God has shown you, the more clearly you will see God.
