I started this sermon before saying this was the peak of all ethical consideration, and indeed, it is. I want to help us think about and shape our ethics for a moment. What is right and wrong, or rather good and evil? Who determines morality and where does it come from? How can the church be the arbiter for morality when there are so many pastors around the nation who are suffering complete moral failure?

Before diving into those questions, I want to travel back to paradise before mankind was so consumed with knowing right and wrong or good and evil. Before I mentioned that the ancients were wanting to “know thyself” in light of reality and conform themselves to reality around them. Before the fall, life was different. Adam and Eve were not consumed with knowing self but with knowing God and living life in unity with God. Life before the Fall, life in paradise was God-dependent. God was the sole determiner of good and evil, beauty and disaster, welfare and destruction, value and worthlessness.

Listen to Adam and Eve sing from Milton’s Paradise Lost, “”These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty! thine this universal frame, Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then! Unspeakable, who sittest above these heavens, To us invisible, or dimly seen In these thy lowest works; yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.”

You see in Genesis 1, a number of times, God is the determiner of what is good and what is not good. Mankind lives in paradise with God as the determiner of good and evil. They don’t live to know themselves but to know God. But this paradise is lost when mankind tries to determine goodness for themselves apart from God.

Although mankind attempted to knock God off his judgment seat, he’s still on his throne. And there are still shimmers of his judgments in reality: in nature, in philosophy, in our conscience. And yet, Western culture has now drifted further than ever from reality. We have built our Towers of Babel to remove ourselves further and further from God’s domain to enter into a kingdom of our own making

So now, man functions for himself as the determiner of good, for good or ill. The passing down of the knowledge of good and evil in the past was relegated almost exclusively to the family. Where did the next generation’s value system come from? Their parents. And even that resulted disastrously in the flood. But when families came together to form societies, society at large also became a force to determine the good. The enter the philosopher, and the education system, and entertainment (classically, we would say, the poet). The two trees in the garden are long gone yet ever sought. Everyone wants to determine the good and live forever. And everyone wants what the good to be what they want it to be.

And this is how we live in a society today where parents are fighting against school systems to prevent them from changing the gender of their very own child. Who knows best? Does child know best? Does father know best? Do the “experts” know best? This is indicative to our nature. We’ve partaken of the fruit and now want to determine what is best. The who knows best battle continues to wage, yet we know the answer. It is not the culture, not the church, not the pastor, but God who knows best. We are not the determiner of what is good. Only God can truly determine that. And that is what we desperately need: for God to proclaim over our life: good. Or perhaps, “Well done, good and faithful servant”

The only way to get that proclamation, we know, is not by our actions, not by our determination of the good and conformity to it, but rather gaining a new nature; becoming good by reconciliation, reuniting with the true determiner of the good. We don’t need new habits or behaviors we need a new nature. We need a new nature that is free from the curse, free from the idolatry of the knowledge of good and evil. What Christ gives us in the beatitudes is this curse-free nature.

Look now at Matthew 5:8 Matthew 5:8 ESV

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

During the time that Jesus was alive, among the Jews, the Pharisees were the symbol of absolute purity. They were masters of the knowledge of good and evil. They had the “good” parsed down to the littlest part. They stood in the street and prayed aloud with their hands raised. They tithed everything, every crop, even down to the small herbs like mint and dill. They would travel over the sea to share their righteousness with other people. They used the knowledge of good and evil and a bludgeoning tool to build up themselves and cut down all others beneath them. They were pure in the eyes of the people but well did Jesus say of them, Matthew 23:25 ESV

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

Jesus says the one who is blessed is not the one who is pure in the eye of the people or meticulous in law keeping, but the pure in heart.

The phrase “pure in heart” and promise to see God is linked to Psalm 24.Psalm 24:3–6 ESV

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. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah

Purity of heart is more than just a morally upright person who like the Pharisees can follow every letter of the law. Following legal codes is no indicator of godliness. People can jump through any hoop you give them for any motivation. Purity of heart refers to that inward motivation—our inner self.

The word heart in the Bible has to do with our mind—what we believe, our feelings—what we want, and our will—what we do. Purity of heart is what can be seen in Psalm 24:4: who does not lift up his soul to what is false. This is not the Pharisaical pursuit of the knowledge of good and evil, this is the pursuit of God: “Who seek the face of the God of Jacob!”

Purity of heart means the outward acts of righteousness matches the inward yearning of God.

“But let me briefly make my purpose plain;

I preach for nothing but for greed of gain

And use the same old text, as bold as brass,

Radix malorum est cupiditas.

5 And thus I preach against the very vice

I make my living out of—avarice.

And yet however guilty of that sin

Myself, with others I have power to win

Them from it, I can bring them to repent;

10 But that is not my principal intent.

Covetousness is both the root and stuff

Of all I preach. That ought to be enough.

“Well, then I give examples thick and fast

From bygone times, old stories from the past.

15 A yokel mind loves stories from of old,

Being the kind it can repeat and hold.

What! Do you think, as long as I can preach

And get their silver for the things I teach,

That I will live in poverty, from choice?

20 That’s not the counsel of my inner voice!

No! Let me preach and beg from kirk to kirk

And never do an honest job of work,

No, nor make baskets, like St. Paul, to gain

A livelihood. I do not preach in vain.

25 There’s no apostle I would counterfeit;

I mean to have money, wool and cheese and wheat

Though it were given me by the poorest lad

Or poorest village widow, though she had

A string of starving children, all agape.

30 No, let me drink the liquor of the grape

And keep a jolly wench in every town!

“But listen, gentlemen; to bring things down

To a conclusion, would you like a tale?

Now as I’ve drunk a draft of corn-ripe ale,

The Pardoner of Canterbury Tales is an example of someone who is the opposite of the pure in heart. A person who peddles religion to get what he selfishly wants. This is the impure heart, one that does not truly seek the face of God, but has some other motive.

We have modern people who adapt Christ’s name to get to something other than God: maybe it’s notoriety, fame, money, success, popularity. But there is a subtler mixture and impurity that can reside in the heart.

The higher rank demon advises his lesser in how to tempt his “patient” in Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters , “Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility.”

You know our hearts can pursue virtue more than Christ and become impure in the process? We live in therapeutic age where the greatest goal for most people is high quality of life, to be encouraged, uplifted. You know there’s a great many people who come to Christ to feel better about their lost life.

We’re talking about a pure heart which yearns for God, unmixed by any other ultimate desire. God is not a stepping stone in this person’s life. What will this person get? What else but the very thing his heart desires: “They shall see God.”

This is the mark of a new nature. You know it is like if you can feel your hearts burning within you as I’m saying these things: a heart with unmixed devotion to God.Matthew 5:9 ESV

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Peacemaking is defined succinctly by one commentator, “Peacemaking is the work of reconciling two alienated parties, of taking two enemies and bringing them into a relationship of unity and harmony”

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Charles L. Quarles, Sermon on the Mount: Restoring Christ’s Message to the Modern Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2011), 68.

The peacemaker, as we will see more later in this chapter, is the one who is the first to apologize, does not seek revenge, and serves his enemies.

Peacemaking is hardwork. It is not merely avoiding conflict, but running headlong into it to bring reconiliation.

Two men who lived in a small village got into a terrible dispute that they could not resolve. So they decided to talk to the town sage. The first man went to the sage’s home and told his version of what happened. When he finished, the sage said, “You’re absolutely right.” The next night, the second man called on the sage and told his side of the story. The sage responded, “You’re absolutely right.” Afterward, the sage’s wife scolded her husband. “Those men told you two different stories and you told them they were absolutely right. That’s impossible — they can’t both be absolutely right.” The sage turned to his wife and said, “You’re absolutely right.”

This sage was not peacemaking, but conflict avoiding. The easy life avoids conflict, the godly life resolves it. Peacemaking involves doing away with selfish ambition and envy. James 4:1–2 ESV

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.

The fighting we have with other people is a result of the fighting passions in our own souls. We know that those warring passions can only be settled with a new nature, a curse-free nature.

The greatest peacemaker of all time was the Lord Jesus Christ. We were at war with God. We dethroned God, so to speak, to make us the determiner of good for our own lives. This led us to ruin in misery, but we would rather reign over our hell we made for ourselves rather than let God back in the picture. Even when God’s law was given, people twisted it and used it for their own advantage. Even when prophets were given to tell people to return to God, they stopped up their ears and killed the prophets.

What we needed was a new nature. We needed reconciliation with God. And the only way that is possible is because Christ lived the life we could never live and died the death we deserved. Colossians 1:21–22 ESV

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,

This gospel, this act, is what makes it possible for us to be radical peacemakers. When our culture sows division, when it seems impossible to befriend someone because of how different they are, the Christian can look past all that and see the image of God and inherit value in every person and make peace; thereby, becoming “sons of God.”

The phrase “sons of God” refers to someone who is like God in his character. God is the peacemaker at great cost to himself. So we, likewise, are sons of God if we practice this same sacrificial peacemaking.

So, what marks your life and interaction with others? Is it revenge? Is it getting ahead and taking advantage? Are you number one in your life, causing division every place you walk? Then you do not have this new nature. But there is time for you today to trust Christ.

Consider now the radical call of living these beatitudes have laid out for us:

poor in Spirit – utterly dependent upon God for any spiritual good

mourn – the terrible feeling towards our own sin

meek – those who submit to God when everyone else turns away

hunger and thirst for righteousness – An intense longing to live a life pleasing to God

Merciful – those who are willing to forgive

pure in heart – one with unmixed motivation

Peacemakers – those who reconcile enemies

If you take these seven things seriously, if they mark your nature in Christ, then you will face something inevitable because we do not live in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:10–12 ESV

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Notice that this persecution is inevitable. v. 11 says, “When” and not “if.” 2 Timothy 3:12 ESV

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

Notice in the beatitude of v. 10 that it is those who are persecuted “for righteousness sake” and in v. 11 when Christ says, “On my account.” I think it’s important to note that Christ links himself and his cause with that of righteousness.

We live in a culture where people have determined for themselves what is good and what is evil. When we live according to what Christ has said is good and evil, it stirs the pot, even though one of those things mentioned is peacemaking. The irony is that living to make peace starts battles. One commentator writes, “The godly character of Jesus’ followers and the righteous conduct that the Sermon on the Mount describes serve as a silent indictment of the sinful lifestyles of others”

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Charles L. Quarles, Sermon on the Mount: Restoring Christ’s Message to the Modern Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2011), 71.

But this is more than just a call to those out there it is a call to us in here! Are you willing to suffer for righteousness? The beatitude is “blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” Not “blessed are those who pretend to be righteous but at the slightest inconvenience choose not to be.” Willing to compromise on righteousness in the face of persecution is evidence that there is truly no new nature in your heart. And if there is no nature then “yours is not the kingdom of heaven.”

You know the great evangelism explosion question, right? If you were to die today, why would God let you into his heaven? These beatitudes that we have explored over the last three sermons are qualities, markers, if you will, of a new nature. Do you possess this new nature? Do you see that you are poor in spirit? Pure in heart? Hungering for righteousness? Notice these indicators are not external. It is not how often you attend church, whether you have been dunked in water, or how good you are at keeping the law. These beatitudes are speaking to an internal reality. The goal is not moral perfection. Rather, do these qualities genuinely reflect the condition of your heart? Do you have this new nature, freed from the curse?

If so, yours is the Kingdom of heaven. You can rejoice and be glad in the face of persecution. 2 Corinthians 4:17–18 “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

But if this new nature does not describe you, if you still sit on the throne of your life, if you still determine what’s good for you, still biting into that forbidden fruit; then I implore you: repent! Turn from your wicked ways and throw yourself at the mercy of Christ. Trust in his life, in his death, in his resurrection. Matthew 11:28–30 ESV

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Trust him as your savior and let him be Lord over your life. Certainly then, in that pure unmixed trust of Christ, you will find yourself to be pure in heart with a curse-free nature.