The Heart That Sees
Caleb Hyers | The Resting Place Apostolic Family | Matthew 5:8
COMING TO THE END OF OUR SEVENTH YEAR
Welcome to the end of our seventh year. If you have not been with us the whole time, we have just been obedient to the Lord to take one year of not starting anything new, not adjusting what exists, and letting things grow organically. It has been a powerful time, and we have stayed in the Sermon on the Mount. It has been so rich. We are coming to the end of it, though, and our work day is going to mark that transition. Then we are going to celebrate our eighth birthday on the second Sunday in August. You are all invited. It is going to be fun. Eight years old. Here we are.
I want to give a couple of notes before we start the message. Last week, Deanna mentioned one hundred percent participation in giving. The real point of that is the establishment matter. We believe in one hundred percent first fruits participation. It is not about the amount, it is about the heart, and it only counts if it is from the first. You give whatever God says to give from the first, and as soon as you get your income, that is the first thing you do with it. Then you trust God for the rest of the month based on the remainder.
So it only counts when it is first, and we are going for one hundred percent. I said one day I will have Deanna run a report, and I will get a notification that says good news, one hundred percent of The Resting Place regular attenders are giving regularly. Deanna did run a report, and right now it is actually pretty amazing. I am pretty happy about this. It is not one hundred percent, but right now we have sixty eight percent of our regular attenders giving. That is amazing. So for the thirty two percent who are being disobedient, come on in and join the crowd.
I will be a little funny, but the scriptures say each one of you must give according to what he has decided in his heart, not under compulsion. So I am inviting you into that. It is a discipleship thing.
Our twenty four hour prayer is exciting. We are pioneering some things with it, and we are really excited. We have the highest registration numbers ever for our twenty four hour prayer event this Thursday. Go to the Church Center app. The three a.m., two p.m., and five p.m. slots need prayer support. If you are available, or you just want to wake up in the middle of the night, you only have to turn your camera on, stay in your pajamas, and get on Zoom. It is all over Zoom. We want two or three people praying every hour, and we have that for every hour except those three. So get in there and join in.
Those are some of the important things I wanted to highlight. I am excited to preach this message a second time, because the first time was very difficult, and I feel like I got it all out of my system. So I have run through it once, and now I am going to try again. I pray it will not be difficult this time. It will make sense.
I always like to pray for the word, because I want to hear God today. Lord, we ask you to speak. We thank you for your word. We treasure your word. We thank you, Lord, that it divides between soul and spirit, joint and marrow. It is sharper than any double edged sword. We thank you that your word is living and active, because it is the person of the Word, Jesus Christ. We ask you, as the person of the Word, to reveal the word to our ears today. We need your truth, Lord. We do not need a silly person’s opinion. We need your thoughts. We need God’s thoughts. So, Lord, we ask you to use this silly man, with his flaws and his imperfections and his quirkiness, and use it. This is for you. This is a perfect decision to use the Lord. I do not want to play church. I want to be transformed. So, Lord, please, would you speak right now through this guy? Help us hear what you are saying. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
THE HEART THAT SEES
My title today for the message is The Heart That Sees. Did you know that your heart has eyes? The heart sees. Paul said in the book of Ephesians that he was praying for their heart, specifically the eyes of their heart, to be enlightened. He prayed that the eyes of their heart would be enlightened to know the love of God and all the attributes of Jesus. We have eyes on our heart that see, and sometimes they can be darkened. They need to be enlightened. If Paul was praying that for the church then, maybe we should pray that for the church now. Your heart is going to see something. The question is, what does your heart see?
In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:8, Jesus said:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
I like this other translation. Young’s Literal Translation says:
Happy the clean in heart, because they shall see God.
I am just going to give you my bottom line, and then I am going to try to prove it for the next half hour. Ready? The purity of our heart directly corresponds to our spiritual sight.
We sometimes approach this as though we can understand it with our mind, cerebrally, academically, in order to try to see it for what it is. But Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The purity of our heart directly corresponds to our spiritual sight.
TWO WORDS WORTH STUDYING: PURE AND SEE
I do word studies for fun. I like reading Bible dictionaries. I want to go through the language here, because how do you know the Bible was not written in English? It was written in Greek, Hebrew, and some Aramaic. As English speakers, we would be deceived to think we just need a plain literal reading of the English. You need a plain understanding of the actual content, the actual intent of the author, and what those words meant in that day. That is why I do this. I want to bring the full meaning of the word to bear, not just hear it through our Western lens, because you can hear that blessing and miss a whole depth of what is in there, just within two words. I want to prove it to you.
The first word is pure, and in the Greek it is catharos. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance defines catharos as clean, clear, or pure. The Helps Word Studies goes a little deeper. It says properly, without admixture, what is separated or purged, hence clean, pure because it is unmixed, without undesirable elements. Figuratively, it can mean spiritually clean because it has been purged, purified by God. It means this word pure is free from the contaminating, soiling influences of sin.
Another dictionary summary says the New Testament presents purity, in all of its instances throughout the New Testament, as God wrought. That means God starts it. It is Christ centered, Spirit empowered, ethically manifested, communally sustained, and ultimately perfected in glory.
I could spend all day on that. Any impurity you have is because of God, not because of you. It is Christ centered, meaning it comes from who he is on the inside, not from who we are on the inside. It is liberating you from the lie that you think you earned brownie points with heaven. Not a chance. It is Spirit empowered, meaning it is the Holy Spirit behind it. It is ethically manifested, meaning there are actual actions to it that are good for the people around you and consider others. It is community sustained, meaning you actually keep purity by staying with one another. You do not keep it in isolation. You need one another. How do you know somebody else is going to see your blind spots? I do not have eyes in the back of my head. I need somebody watching my blind spots. I need somebody discerning where I am messed up in the head. My wife does that for me beautifully. She is great at it. It is a gift. I do not always receive it as a gift, but it always is a gift. And ultimately perfected in glory, meaning there is a purity now and there is going to be a purity then.
Here is my definition of the word pure in the sense of being pure in heart in this context. To be pure in heart is to have only Christlike intentions. That is what pure in heart means in this context.
So what does it mean to see God? It is the Greek word horao. It means to behold, perceive, or see, probably to stare at. By implication it means to discern clearly, either physically or mentally. By extension, it means to attend to, to actually give your attention to it. By Hebraism, the Hebraic cultural understanding, it means to experience. Seeing is experiencing. And it also means to appear, behold, perceive, see, or take heed. The Helps Word Study says, properly, it means to see with the mind, often with metaphorical meaning, to spiritually see or perceive with inward spiritual perception.
How many of you know your imagination is not evil? You just often use it for evil. Our imagination itself is a tool. It is not evil or good. It is just a tool you use to think, to picture in your mind. We use our imagination for all kinds of things, but the imagination itself is neutral. The Bible says we cast down imaginations that set themselves up against the knowledge of God. It does not mean our imagination is evil. This seeing actually requires imagining God, imagining God’s characteristics. You can use it for evil, thinking about things that are wrong, or you can think about heaven all day. You can actually perceive God all day. What would that change? I think it would change some things.
So the summary here: to see, in biblical terms, is to ultimately know, to worship, and to proclaim. It is attending to. It is experiential. It is not just staying on the inside, it is flowing to the outside. So to see God in this passage means to understand who Christ is so that you can honor and represent him to those around you.
If I put it all together, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God means this: when we only have Christlike intentions, we grasp the truth of God and how to honor him as we go about our lives. It is not just, oh, I saw that, oh, I saw you walk in the room, oh, I saw you stand up. No, you actually grasp the truth of his being, and you are able to actually represent him to others. That seeing, and the only way you get to see on that level, is your heart has to be pure. Only Christlike intentions.
HOW DO WE KNOW IF OUR HEART IS NOT PURE
How do we know if our heart is not pure? If we want to see God, we need a pure heart. I will tell you how. It is when all we see is everything that is wrong. You know your heart is not pure when the only thing you see is everything that is wrong. We see everything but what is right. We are seeing everything but God, because he is right.
Titus 1:15 says:
To the pure, all things are pure. But to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But both their minds and their consciences are defiled.
This verse speaks of an all or nothing, and it is actually speaking of unbelievers who have not had the renewed mind. They are debased in their thinking. It is not talking about believers there. But the principle carries, that to the pure, all things are pure. What I would say is many believers are not at nothing is pure, they just have a mixed lens. There is mixture. Our perception of the truth of God gets mixed as well.
That does not mean we turn a blind eye to wickedness. It does not mean we say, oh yes, that is evil, let’s not mention it. It does not mean we refuse to judge with righteous judgment. I spoke on this earlier this year. I rendered a judgment in this room. We turned off the livestream, and I said some hard things about ministries that had lost my trust, ministries I had communicated trust for. No one can take from me that I am willing to judge with righteous judgment. I have done it in front of you, with great pain and tears. I am not saying we never judge. I am saying, if you have a pure heart, you are always able to see the truth of God no matter what the situation is. You are always able to see God because your heart is without mixed motives.
Here is something that is scientifically proven. You are going to see whatever you are looking for. There is a part of your brain, I do not remember what it is called, where if you believe something is not there, you will not see it. How many of you have looked for your keys while carrying them in your hand? You did not see the keys because you did not believe they were there. But once you believe your keys may be in your hand, you find them. You see whatever you are looking for. If you are looking for God, you are going to see him. If you are only looking for evil, that is all you are going to see.
I will say it very plainly. If the only thing you see is all the wrong around you, there are impure motives within you. We are going to talk about how that happens, and we are going to make sure it does not happen, but I have to say something I do not want to say.
When I am preparing my notes, there are times where I write a bunch of stuff, and then I read it back, and I delete it completely. That happened this week. I came back and found myself writing the same thing again in different words. I erased it. Then it happened a third time, and I thought, God, you might be saying something I do not want to say. I had a little fight with Jesus, and he won. I had to ask the question, is my heart pure? Do I have mixed motives? I really deep dove into my own heart, and I still get nervous about this, so here we go.
Christian cancel culture needs to end. There is a whole section of the internet made for calling out Christians for their mistakes. Truth spoken in love is always appropriate, on YouTube or otherwise. That is not always what is going on, though. Correction with godly order is always good. Protecting victims is always good. But looking for everything that is wrong reveals an impure heart. The Bible says the measure you use will be measured against you. I live with that every time I speak, because whatever I lay at people’s feet is going to be laid at mine.
There are some, and I would say very few, who have been raised up by God to call out wickedness in the global body of Christ. There are some, but they are very few. And then there are those who are just making a lot of money, gaining a lot of followers, building their street cred so they can sell their book. They have an axe to grind with a certain ministry because they do not like them in some way, and they find what they have done wrong, and what they have done wrong is wrong, but that is not why they are seeking it out. It is mixed motives. They are jumping on the wave of attention, because that is how the internet works. When there is tension, the algorithm pushes it, and that gets views, and that gets money.
They need to check their heart. We need to discern some of these things. I did not have any person in mind while preparing this. I promise, by my witness, but the church needs to be better at discerning these things. If you shared or repeated any of that, I would say you need to go take it down, unless you are sure you should share it. You will be judged for every idle word. Do you know that slander is one of the things God detests? We have repackaged slander as standing for righteousness and made money off of it online. God hates that. I have half a mind to call out certain names and publications, but I am not going to do that.
The point is, we need to discern the intention of the speakers. Consider the source. I would say, consider the theology of the sources. Ninety five percent of the people talking like that believe that their own heart is deceitfully wicked. This is a nailing point. Those people shouting out believe that they are deceitfully wicked on the inside, that they are wretched sinners. That is the position of ninety five percent of those speaking this way. Do you want to trust somebody who believes they are deceitfully wicked all the time, that their heart is wicked to the core, and yet we are ingesting their content because it gets our attention and we are watching it?
Some will say, Caleb, the Bible says rebuke an elder in the presence of all, the one who persists in sin. I agree. Do you know what the all was when they wrote that? About thirty people, in a house church. It was not the internet, live forever, for millions of people. And it was not for the sake of a book deal.
I checked myself. You can judge me. I want you to judge this, to cast judgment on me, whether my motives are pure or not. Please judge me, and if they are not pure, tell me, I want to repent. I hate saying what I am saying. I would rather not have to do this again. Those who write those articles, they should be lamenting and weeping over every single one, because they see him grieved. It should break their hearts, not build their bank account. Operating from an impure heart becomes obvious eventually. Just give it time.
JESUS GAVE YOU A NEW HEART
So how do we make sure our heart is pure? How do we get a pure heart? Here is the good news. Jesus gave you one at salvation. That is how it happens. That is how easy it is. You get saved, and you actually change. When you actually get saved, you actually change. If you never change, you never met Jesus. It happens on the inside. It starts as a seed, but then it grows into a mature tree that feeds others. This is the beauty of the truth of this: the pure heart is a gift from God that you do not have to earn. You just get to receive it.
Have you believed a lie that your heart is equally as wicked as it once was? Jeremiah said that under the old covenant, and he was lamenting it, not prescribing it. He was describing a problem. He was not saying we will always be that way. He was saying, please, come help us. The human race without God is helpless. We need God to do the work.
That is the Old Testament, and this is the Old Testament too. Ezekiel 36:25 through 27 says:
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols I will cleanse you, 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. I will put my Spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
That word flesh in the Hebrew carries the idea of responsiveness, like the way you can touch your cheek and it moves. That is the word flesh in Hebrew, not the Greek word sarkinos. This is the Old Testament, majority written in Hebrew. That is why he says, I will take away the heart of stone, hard as a rock, that does not respond, and give you a new one, one that I can mold, one that is responsive.
Did you know your obedience was God caused? That is why you cannot take any credit for it. Did you know the default for the believer is obedience? The default nature of the believer is good. You actually have to fight your new nature to do bad. That is why you cannot sin and just get away with it anymore. That is why you stay up at night thinking about it when you hurt somebody, whereas before, when you sinned, you just did not care.
Now, if you sin, what happens? Your heart aches. Why? Because it is pure. You just put something in there that does not belong. It is a contaminant. God is the one who purifies us, not us. We are made holy by Christ and his sacrifice, not by our efforts. Our heart was deceitfully wicked, but now that Christ has given us a new heart, it is devoted and pure. This happens when we are born again.
You are going to hear this verse in a whole new way. John 3:3, Jesus said:
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
What is the prerequisite to seeing? A pure heart. It stands to reason that this is a conclusive statement of the pattern of Ezekiel and the fulfillment of Christ. When you are born again, you get a pure heart, or else you would not have a chance to see. Being born again as the new man gives us heart eyes that can see God, perceive God, understand God, experience God.
2 Corinthians 5:17 through 21 says:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Since we are a new creation, we are called to the ministry of reconciliation. A pure hearted believer is looking to see others reconciled, not separated.
Someone might ask, what about Paul? He said to hand someone over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. Yes, and then he welcomed the man back in his second letter. You have to keep reading. Why? Because he learned the lesson. God is always on a restoration path. Even Galatians 6 says, if anyone is caught in a trespass, you who are spiritual, insightful in the Spirit, can see, with a pure heart, should restore such a one with a spirit of gentleness, watching yourselves, lest you too be tempted. How far have we departed from this? We want to see others receive the purity that Christ has given to us.
CAN WE DEFILE OUR NEW HEART?
Can we defile our new heart? Absolutely. Yes, you can. You choose what is in your heart. I will even say it this way. You have a new heart, but it carries old heartache. You might think, well, that is not fair. If I get a new heart, I should not have old heartache. No. The new heart is here to heal the old heartache. The new heart is the tool God uses to heal your yesterday. He gives you sanctified emotions to process the pain that you went through, instead of unsanctified emotions that are just pain. He gives you real joy so that you can have strength to endure even the process of inner healing.
There are two kinds of people on the planet, those who are healing and those who are not, but everybody has pain. The new heart is here to help you manage that pain. So can we defile that new heart? Yes, by continuing in sin and by keeping the wrong company.
Proverbs 4:23 says:
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
We are commanded to guard our heart because it is possible for it to be intruded upon by an enemy. If there was no chance for it to be contaminated, we would not need to protect it.
First Corinthians 15:33 says:
Bad company corrupts good character. He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.
It is not actually you, it is your friends. If you have a bunch of fools around you, go get some new friends. Come to The Resting Place. Well, we have foolishness too, but we are trying to walk out of it. Bold authenticity is our way. Being honest, I am foolish, and I am intent on trying to get out of it.
When you are around fools, you would not even know they are fools. You are the one who gets hurt. The company you keep can corrupt your heart. Spend time thinking about who you are spending time with. Remember, purity is community sustained. Some of you are not spending enough time with anyone. You come here and leave and isolate the rest of the week. Even when you are in crowded rooms, you do not let anybody in. That means your pure heart cannot fully manifest. It is communally manifested. You need people, with all their flaws, with all their imperfections.
It is our job to keep our new heart pure. Bottom line, it is your job to keep your new heart pure. I cannot keep it pure, no matter how good this message is. You have to actually put the work in. You have to ask the question, what is in there?
One more verse to prove that seeing God and a pure heart are intrinsically linked. First John 3:2 through 3 says:
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is, and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
Seeing him allows us to be pure like him, and being pure like him allows us to see him. It is a circle.
This does not mean we work for the new heart. It means we work from it to keep it pure. We do not work for the new heart, we work from it to keep it pure. Because we have a new heart, we are able to keep it pure, by the power of the Holy Spirit, not by our own effort. The only reason we can purify ourselves is because he gave us a new, pure heart as a starting point. All we are doing is going back to our original design as the new creation.
If you go out and sin, First John 2:1 says, if anyone does sin, you need to come back to the Lord and say, I want to see, show me who you are and show me who I am. And that is when we see him, he shall be like him, and those who hope in him purify themselves as he is pure. That does not make you the originator of your pure heart. It is just your participation in the process.
WHAT DOES YOUR HEART SEE?
Purity is not a performance. It is a new heart God already gave you, and that new heart is what lets you perceive him rightly. If all we see is the wrong around us, it speaks to our impure motives more than it speaks to the dangers from others. By giving us a new heart at salvation, God made a way for us to perceive his glory and beauty, as well as walk rightly toward others in every situation. The Holy Spirit gives us grace, so our heart is kept pure and we live with Christlike intentions.
So I want to leave you with a question. What does your heart see?
In just a moment, Jake is going to come up, but I want to leave you with that question one more time. What does your heart see? Let’s stand. Bless you.
Transcript of a message delivered at The Resting Place Apostolic Family — Tampa Bay, FL — trpfamily.org