Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Blessed Are The Pure In Heart: The PROMISE God Makes to the Pure | Matthew 5:8

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

What does it mean to be "pure in heart" and why does Jesus promise that those who pursue purity will see God? In this powerful message on Matthew 5:8, we explore the radical promise of spiritual intimacy that comes through purity of heart.In This Episode:Understanding what "blessed are the pure in heart" really meansWhy purity isn't restriction—it's the path to seeing GodHow singularity of heart leads to deeper intimacy with ChristThe difference between positional and progressive purityPractical steps to pursue purity in your daily walkWhy resisting sin shouldn't feel like holding your breathKey Timestamps:The Nature of Purity (10:54)The Promise: They Shall See God (16:57)The Pursuit: 5 Practical Steps (24:20)The world says purity is restrictive, but Jesus says it's the doorway to experiencing the nearness of God. This isn't just about sexual purity—it's about unmixed devotion, singularity of affection, and positioning your heart to truly know and see God.Bible Verses Referenced: Matthew 5:8, Psalm 119, James 4:8, 1 Thessalonians 4:3, Ezekiel 18:31, 1 John 3, Psalm 86, Proverbs 23:7, John 14:1Practical Applications:Draw near to God's WordWalk with the wiseMake no provision for the fleshPray for purityThink with total commitment to ChristThis episode is brought to you by our ministry partner Accountable2You. To join thousands living in Freedom with nothing to hide visit https://accountable2you.com/dialin. **Use our unique code: DIALIN to get 25% off your first year of an Accountable2You Personal or Family Plan**

How many times has a father or a man in your life came up and grabbed you by the literal or proverbial caller and said, there is a rich, rich promise to those who live a life of purity. They shall see God. The world believes that thou shalt not is written across every single pleasure and thou shall is written across every single misery.

But the Bible says, no, no, no, if you want to be blessed, if you want to live the good life, blessed are you, congratulations from God to you if you're pure and heart. If you don't see God, the moments that you spend resisting temptation will feel like a fish out of water. Navy SEALs can hold a breath for up to four minutes, but suppressing sin, denying sin, running from sin, shouldn't feel like holding your breath. It should feel like life because the more you pursue God, the more you see him, and the more you see him the more you want to be like him. Hank, how we doing?

Doing fantastic, Johnny. Well, I'm going to be honest. So this is a little peek behind the curtain. But today I didn't bring my Bible, so I'm borrowing a Bible today. And I've been overwhelmed by the amount of highlights. Well, specifically, it's the person whose Bible this is, which is not Johnny's, uses a ruler to underline things. Oh, that's for sure me.

which no absolutely not i've seen your bible this is this is borderline no i mean that's not my bible but i used to do that with like an old credit card no this person literally uses a rule a ruler and it's like borderline anti-social behavior yeah i maybe very fair hop into the uh hop into the comments give me your favorite writing utensil in scripts are you do are there different color highlighter this has actually been a point that i've been embarrassed of my entire life my dad used to do immaculate lines freehand when he'd be underwriting. And I'm like squiggly, it looks like my four-year-old son is doing it. We're going to do an episode maybe just on how to highlight and underline in the Bible in the future.

Do you read the newspaper? No. Well, speaking of newspapers, Dr. Hughes tells the story. In 1982, the L.A. Times carried the story of Anime Penaica. She was a 62-year-old woman who had been blind from... birth at the age of 47 she married a guy in her braille class and for 15 years he did the scene for both of them until he totally lost his vision as well to retinitis pigmatosa now both of them at this point are totally blind anime panica a real woman in 1982 had never seen the faces

of the people that she loved she had never seen ice cream i was going to go sunset Yes, I said. Ice cream. No colors, no clouds. Then in 1981, right before this, Dr. Thomas Pettit of the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA, he performed a surgery to remove the rare condition that she had of congenital cataracts from her eyes. And for the first time, someone make a movie about this woman, she could see. She was 62 years old. And the article says that she was amazed at how much bigger and brighter things were when she saw people. for the first time in her life, she said, some were taller, some were skinnier, some were fatter, some were shorter than she expected. And she says in the article, I can hardly wait to wake up in the morning, to splash water on my face, to put on my glasses, enjoy the changing morning light. And at the time of the article, it says that her vision is now 2030, good enough to pass a driver's test. This is, you know, just one of those things that you think about, man, I can't imagine

type of moment, going your entire life in total darkness, and then receiving the gift of sight, the eyes, and I've told you this before with me even getting my glasses in first grade, they're so fundamental to seeing how we perceive, our relationships, how we communicate. It can hardly be described. But today, as we look to God's Word, the Bible speaks of a more wonderful type of sight than even that which Anime Pinnika experienced. And we read of it in Matthew 5A. for us. Yeah, absolutely happy to. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Now this is an important question, even as you're watching or listening today, are you pure in heart and do you want to see God? The verse that Hank just read is in the most famous sermon given by the most famous preacher in human history. And in this sermon, Jesus is addressing his followers that have been drenched in the context of pharisaical externalism. It's all about what they do. It's all about the accoutrements of religion. Jesus says in Matthew 158, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, which means that according to Jesus, it's very possible to appear extremely religious and fastidious in observance, but have a heart that is miles and miles and miles away from God.

Now, this is known as the beatitudes, this section in verses 3 through 8, and in this section, these beatitudes, Jesus is giving, I refer to them as, and commentators have before, as spiritual birthmarks of someone who is born again. So when Jesus is saying, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the gentle, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, that's not what you do to become a Christian. It's a birthmark of someone who has already been changed by God. And over and over again throughout this opening of Matthew 5, you see that word blessed. And I think it's important to understand that word because you've maybe grown up hearing blessed are the blessed or the blessed are the. And it's one of those verses that I think it's easier

read past. But I think if I'm actually, it's like almost like Psalm 23. Like I know this so well. I totally do it. And I was actually sitting down during a family worship recently. We're going through a psalm. And to my four-year-old, it was like, hey, what does blessed mean? And it was one of these questions he like kind of eyes glass over. But what would you say, you know, to the Christian who's maybe heard this a bunch of times? What actually is like another way to maybe read the word blessed? Well, I think to a degree it means happy. Like as in Psalm 1, you know, how blessed is the man? and how happy is the man. And when we say that, we typically think of an internal subjective state

rather than an objective perspective of how God views us. So like a fleeting emotion. Yeah, but to be blessed in the scripture, when God says, how blessed is this individual? It's a covenantal word. It means to be counted amongst the promises of God. And I think it was Kevin DeYoung who says that this word blessed in this context is almost as if God is giving you a divine congratulations.

So when we read, Blessed are the Pure and Heart, we're going to talk about purity over the next several weeks. It's as if God is saying, good on you, congratulations from God's perspective to man. These are the ones that God considers to be living the high life. I call it life with a capital L. And these one-liners here, and the beatitudes are radically different from the beatitudes of the world. We say blessed or the ambitious or the hungry or the zealous, the wealthy, the sexually rampant. God says, blessed in verse 8, blessed are the pure in heart.

For they shall see God. Now, this is ironic to the world in which we live, because if you said, oh, that man is pure, I remember when I worked at a restaurant in college, and it was almost a joke of what I didn't indulge in, I was, you're not living life. To live a life of purity in this context, and our world today is viewed as a restrictive straight jacket

and to forfeit true pleasure, true joy, true happiness. but Jesus says here, no, no, no. If you're pure in heart, you're going to see God. Congratulations to you. Hey, folks, I want to take a moment and talk to you about one of our ministry partners accountable to you. It says in 1st, Thessalonians 4.3, this is the will of God, your sanctification.

What is sanctification? Well, it's the lifelong process by which you become more like Christ. And then it explains it in the text. This is the will of God, your sanctification. That is that you abstain from sexual immorality. God's will for your life is so bell clear, so unambiguous. It's stated there explicitly in the Word of God.

It's that you walk in sexual purity. And yet, sadly, we live in a world that is drenched and saturated with pornography and impurity of every kind. The Psalm says in Psalm 119, how can a young man keep his way pure? And he says, by keeping it according to your word, that's true. We have to be committed to the Word of God. But furthermore, we need to have accountability in our life. My friend Harry always says accountability is the friend of integrity. And one of the things in my own life that I want and desire as I seek the Lord in this way

is to eliminate any access to anonymity, meaning I don't want to look at anything in which I can say, no one will know or I can delete my search history. This is why accountability is so helpful. I've been using accountable to you as a software as a resource and a tool for the last year and our whole team is getting on it because this is so important. Everything that I look at personally gets sent to my accountability partner in a business, to my wife. And this is one of the things being used in addition to the renewing of our minds as we seek the Lord. But this is something that I just can't imagine not having. And so I'd highly

commend you to look at this software. It's a tremendous tool for both you and your family, your team. You can go to accountable to you.com forward slash dial in to start your free trial. And you can use dial in our code to get 25% off your first year for both your personal and family plan. I would highly encourage you to do this. It's so important. The battle for purity is real, but the resources are there, and I'm so thankful for the partnership with accountable to you. I think it's absolutely right. Like, the world would look from the outside in, and there's many virtues that Jesus would call out in his ministry that I feel like are easier from kind of a blind worldly perspective to be like, oh, yeah, I can understand how that makes sense. Purity is not one today that's held up as a virtue, if anything.

I feel like, to your point, you get called a prude or something else. But your broader point, it just strikes me in listening that, like, actually, there would be elements of my faith things. when I was a younger believer in high school where it's like, I truly did believe in Jesus. I would call him my Lord and Savior and it placed my faith and my trust in him. But also I'd be lying if I didn't say like that worldview had creeped in to my perspective.

Like you think in many ways the Christian world is kind of just a big divine, don't do the things that are super fun. The world believes that thou shalt not is written across every single pleasure and thou shall is written across every single misery. But the Bible says, no, no, no, if you want to be blessed, if you want to live the good life, blessed are you? Congratulations from God to you if you're pure in heart.

In this episode, I want to look at three observations regarding purity and heart. One, its nature, two, its promise, and three, its pursuit. It's nature, number one. Jesus doesn't say, blessed are those who are pure in head. He says, blessed are those who are pure in heart. Jesus is a big idea here. He's always going after the heart. He's not looking for a rinsed behavior or renovated externals or rinsed manners.

He's going after the heart because Jesus knows that the heart is the real you. Even when you look at what's happening in the world and the sin that abounds, the problem with the world is the problem of the human heart. I remember my dad instructing me on this when I was a boy, that your heart involves four things. First of all, involves your mind. Proverbs 23-7 says, as a man thinks within his heart, meaning you don't think with your heart. But in the Bible, it's the seed of emotions and thought. So it involves your mind.

As a man thinks within his heart, so he is. This is the center of thought. It involves your emotions. Jesus says in John 14, 1, do not let your hearts be troubled. It involves third, your will. It says in Daniel 1A, that Daniel purposed in his heart. He was determined. And it also involves number four, your conscience, your mind, your emotions, your will, and your conscience.

It says in Hebrews 412, the Word of God is living and active, if sharper than any two-edged sword, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Bottom line, you are not what the world believes you to be or sees you to be or thinks you are. You are your heart. And one of the things that we see in scripture fundamentally outside of Christ is that the natural heart is impure. Outside of a miracle of God, that's why Jesus says to Nicodemus and John 3, can an Ethiopian change of skin? Can his leopard change his spots? and no, no, and neither can you, by your own effort or willpower, change your heart?

Maybe just to look at it from a different perspective, again, I feel like I'm repeating, but you can fool the people you work with. To some extent, you can fool your family, your church, it happens all the time. Absolutely. The people who are closest to you, and often a lot of pain comes from when... That's exposed. Yeah, absolutely. But to your point, like, the Lord is after the heart, and you are never fooling

the Lord of your heart condition. And this, again, is a truth that's throughout Scripture. I mean, if we just think about last week looking at wisdom in James 3, the verse is preceding that, or talking all about the tongue and this reality that the tongue is a powerful member because it's flowing and revealing that which is coming up from the heart. Well, that's why even the psalma says, who can ascend the hill of the Lord, he who has clean hands and a pure heart. This is what God is looking at. Now, where does this purity of heart begin? Well, positionally, it begins at the moment of salvation. God takes your heart of stone, and he gives you a new heart.

That happens at a moment in time. He gives you a new heart. But then that's positionally. But progressively, we become increasingly pure until we meet Christ face to face. This is why David was known as a man after God's own what? Heart. Because it was the pursuit of his life. He still had sin.

So to be pure in heart means to be cleansed positionally. But then secondly, it means to be one of the thing. And the Greek word, when we, was separated from Shaft, it was Catharizo, which means to be unmixed, singularity of heart. Now, I had a little panic attack last night, Josh

knows. This is my gold necklace. This is off script, but someone gave this to me in ninth grade. All the Greeks in my family, Artivannis, you know, that's Greek. The Greeks. We're very proud of it. Love gold. We love gold. My grandpa, Papa Ardo, he had three things.

First of all, Greg Popovich is the greatest coach in the NBA, the Antonio Spurs, hated Kobe. Unassailable truth. Secondly, he put Tabasco on everything. This was a lesson he gave me, and still to this day. And three, he said Greeks were gold. Now, gold, like any other precious metals, goes through a refining process, and when you

go through that process, you get slag. Anything that is not gold is removed. So it's cleansed. But what makes gold pure? Well, it's not just when all of the impurities are removed. It's when you only have one substance remaining. gold. And the idea of purity here, meaning unmixed, details for us that God's blessing, his congratulations, is towards the individual whose heart has not just been positionally rinsed

and cleansed, but progressively there is singularity of affection and devotion. No deviations, no divisions. Sorin Kierkegaard, who says some weird stuff, but has a good point here. He says purity and heart means to will one thing. This is Psalm 86. You know, give me an undivided heart that fears your name because you said it already like there are moments in our life where we have uh you know i want to honor the lord and then ah but this world in many ways that i feel like that characterizes a lot of christian living like the the lived experience of um just being faced with temptation yeah totally i have four questions here to just to know is the nature of my heart uh how do i know if my nature is pure in heart well four questions do you truly hate sin do you

depore your sin and see the foulness of it? Does it make you nauseous? Because there's a real element where if your heart is not, if it's not singular, you make provision for your sin. We're going to talk about this next week. There's provision and you make allowance. It's almost like you keep a jar of it. You know it's accessible when you want it.

Do you delight in holiness? Meaning you don't begrudgingly comply with the truth of God's word. You delight to obey it. Do you have a large spiritual appetite? If you have a singularity of affection and devotion, you're going to want to consume like a newborn baby for Peter 2, the Word of God. And this is a big idea. Are the smiles and frowns of God of greater significance to you than the smiles and frowns of this world?

Do you grieve by what grieves God? Do you rejoice in what God rejoices in, namely the salvation of the lost and the transformation of his redeem? So that's what it means to be pure in heart. But I want to look at this promise because this is really the bulk of it. It says, blessed are the pure and heart. We've talked about what that means. And then what's the promise? For they shall see God.

See God. In the future, in the upcoming weeks, I want to look at some of the damaging effects of living in impurity. Proverbs 5, 6, 7, many are her slain. My son, you're going to come to the end of your life, and you're going to groan and say how I have hated an instruction in spur and reproof. I did not listen to the voice of my counselors. And an arrow is going to pierce your liver.

You know, you're going to be caught in this net. But I like beginning here. Because how many times has a father or a man in your life came up and grabbed you by the literal or proverbial caller and said, there is a rich, rich promise to those who live a life of purity, they shall see God. And then you've been so captivated by that

that the world has lost its luster. Does that make sense? Totally, absolutely. And just, again, what are you longing for? I don't want to jump ahead, but this is another reality that's going to be held out for us in multiple different points from Scripture, but maybe keep compounding on that thought. Well, I just, you know, there's a lot more to say here. Jonathan Edwards says there is a more perfect way of perception than the eyes of our body.

And here, Jesus is revealing to us the eye of the soul is vastly more perfect than the eye of the body. You and I are made in the image of God, and the greatest delights that God extends to us who are made in his image are not physical. being made in the image of God means that we share with in God's image the ability for supreme pleasure and that is the ability to see God. Now what does it mean to see God? Well you know this I have you know something breaks on my body every month and when you go to the doctor they'll come into the foyer not the lobby don't say lobby say foyer or uh waiting room

is what I was going to go up okay Arthex what's the thing we use is Northex that's the Chicago I was Like, I lost it for a second. But Narthex, what happened to Narthex? Bro, it's still there. No, no. But they'll come in and we'll say, hey, the doctor will. See you now.

Which means what? It doesn't mean I'm just going to go lay my eyes on the doctor. It means that I'm going to be admitted into his presence or her presence. In this sense, to see God means that you are going to be admitted into his presence. Obviously, we affirm the nearness of God, right? Psalm 139, oh, Lord, do you have searched me and you know me? You know when I sit when I rise. I'm always with God.

but there is an experiential nearness that is the derivative of a heart, a focus and purity on God. Sin is a robber. I don't think people understand this. Sin is a robber, not just because it has direct consequences. Sin is a robber because it prevents your ability. No sin takes away your salvation, but you know what it can definitely disrupt your fellowship with God, your sense of intimacy with him. So it means to be admitted into his presence.

And this, it's just coming to mind in James, the flee the devil and draw, and the inverse of that, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. I mean, that's a, it's a promise. Yeah, it's a promise to hold on to. It's a promise to return to. It's a promise that, like, it's just such a lift to the broken spirit. Yeah, yeah. And secondly, here, it just means to apprehend his awesomeness and beauty.

I've touched on this already in regards to nearness, but to see God means that you begin to fathom to taste and see. Psalm 34Aid says, taste and see that the Lord is good. The promise to those who are pure and heart is not just that they're going to believe and affirm that God is good, but they're going to taste and see that God is good. God's goodness and his love are not boxes to be theologically affirmed.

They are realities to taste. And those realities are extended to those who are pure in heart. This is why this is a promise. And there's a difference between a first. me something to be true and believing something, seeing God is the difference. I like what Spurgeon says. He says, many have been granted access into the sea of all that is Christ, but some are content to wade and waddle ankle deep and never plunge into the sea of all that he extends and affords, meaning there are a lot of people that positionally made right with God, but they're never going to

burst forth with, oh man, let me tell you of what God is teaching me in his word. That is the promise extended to those who are pure in heart. And there's an element here we're almost like a default to logic sometimes. And there's an element of like when you begin that by saying they apprehend the awesomeness of God. There's an element I'm like, well, no one's going to apprehend fully the awesomeness of God. I mean, he's God. And there's an element of like obviously no, but that's not to say that some people don't

experience different levels and different depths of that reality. This is actually Paul's prayer. It's the same thing with God's word. I think J. I Packer says it's a knowing God, not exhaustively, but truly. This is Paul's prayer, right? In Ephesians 1, he says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, that you may know the hope you have, this glory and its inheritance we have, this tremendous power. He's saying, I want you to see more of this.

He's saying the eyes of your heart. He said, I want you to know more and more and more of God's power. This is why Paul says in Philippians, I press on towards this prize. Now, this is, you know, what's the fruit of seeing God? Well, the fruit of seeing God, William Perkins says this is the most basic mark of grace is that you long for more of God. The fruit that comes of seeing God, that intimacy, that apprehension, that nearness, is the fuel of the continued pursuit of purity, meaning what motivates you to purity is that

you're going, man, I'm near Christ than I've ever been. So this is a vicious cycle, basically, of motivation, that the more I'm pure in heart, the more I'm removing any sort of external pollutant or anything that would deviate me in my affections, the more I see God. And the more I see God, the more I want them. So the more vicious in the way I am of weaning away from the things of this world. And I don't, are we going to go to 1st John 3 later? Because that's what jump to my. We're studying this in community group, just I guess not ironically, but divinely, that it surprised me in studying 1st John 3. It's that set. letting our eyes on the hope of Christ, everything that he's done,

everything that he's accomplished, is what purifies us. And it's one of those that we'll look at this in coming weeks, I'm sure, but it's worth calling out explicitly, even quickly here, that when we're talking about purity, we're not just talking about what your eyes are beholding. I think so many men are instantly going to go to your internet history, but there's so much more here in what purity of heart looks like. Yeah, if your goal in regards to purity isn't to see God more clearly,

then even your attempts to resist sin will feel more like refusing to engage in sin and to violate a principle rather than refusing to grieve a person, the God that you loved. If you don't see God, the moments that you spend resisting temptation will feel like a fish out of water.

Navy SEALs can hold a breath for up to four minutes, but suppressing sin, denying sin, running from sin shouldn't feel like holding your breath. It should feel like life because the more you pursue God, the more you see him, and the more you see him, the more you want to be like him. So that's what it means to be pure and heart,

that the promise, but I just want to talk about the pursuit, and we're going to talk about this more in the weeks to come. How do we become more pure in heart? You already mentioned it, James 4.8, we resist the devil, and he'll flee from us. Everything that God has given to us as a command, he works through us by grace. This is why Margaret Clarkson says that God's commandments are his enablings,

meaning that, yes, we are our purity and heart positionally, that's something that God does, right? We talked about that that's a miracle of God. But it also says in Ezekiel 1831, cast away from you all transgression whereby you have transgressed and make yourself a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die? So God's gracious provision is never an excuse for our passivity,

but rather our confidence in our pursuit that, okay, this is something God has given to me positionally. but progressively I seek him more and more. And we've mentioned this on multiple episodes, but shout out to your wife, Katie, for early on in a Bible study, I remember someone asking something to the extent of like, yeah, and what's the will for God's life?

And she just blurted out, well, First Thessalonians is it for? Yeah, and that are sanctification, specifically in Christ. But maybe then the question I'd ask is, if we're pursuing purity, can you, as we kind of land the plane here, what does that look like practically?

Like in someone's listening to this, their day-to-day life. Yeah, I think I've got five things that are just, how can I pursue purity and consequently a greater vision of God? Number one, you have to draw near to God's word. God's word being pure purifies the impure who read it. Psalm 119, how can a young man keep sway pure by keeping it according to your word? The word of God is both the MRI that reveals our impurities, but it's also the means by which God's Holy Spirit transforms us into the image of the pure one who is Jesus Christ. we will never possess deep thoughts about God's love or his goodness or his grace if we do not possess a deep commitment to his word.

Secondly, we need the walk with the wise. The great Puritan Thomas Watson once said, association begets assimilation. I love that line. You become not only like what you behold, but whom you befriend. If you want to be pure, but you hang out with impure people, Paul says in First Corinthians, that bad company corrupts, right? So it's going to be hard to strive for purity if you're constantly being badgered by the impure.

of the world in which you live. And that's true in today's social media age, not just who you're geographically close to, but also what are you choosing to wire into your life? Yeah, I mean, we're going to talk about this third one more next week, but you've got to make no provision for the flesh. Edwards has a great line. Edwards says many professing Christians tempt the devil to tempt them

by making provision for the flesh they claim to hate. I mean, you say, God help me to be pure, and then you saturate and marinate your life in the very things that cause... Defile you. Yeah, defile you. You got to pray for purity number four. God make me like Enoch,

a man who walked with God and who was no more. David says, let the words in my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable. Five, you've got to think. This idea here is a total commitment to Christ. You already mentioned it in First John, but we got to think and we've got to pursue this. Tomorrow's purity is today's impurity.

You've got to start now. Think about the cloud. of unrighteousness that prevents you from seeing God and think about the promises that God extends to you here that you're going to see God. You know what? You think about it. Anime Pena, whom we started this episode talking about, she found out that the surgery that she had received in 1981

was available in the early 1940s and could have corrected her problem. So she lived for 40 years in total blindness unnecessarily. And you go, man, she missed out. and yet sometimes people live like that spiritually speaking that there is a vision of God available to you and it's a promise from a God who cannot lie blessed are the pure and heart

for you will see God and so this is what I want we're going to talk in the future about making no provision for the flesh maybe some elements of accountability the renewing of the mind but before a marathon on, you know, before you train for anything, you have to have the end in sight.

And the end is not just the absence of sin. It's the presence of the nearness of Christ in your life. Absolutely. And just to that last point, maybe real quickly, there's a temptation to hear that and think like, I've wasted 40 years. I'd imagine part of our audience is sitting there thinking, like, oh my goodness, what a wasted time. And the encouragement, again, we always talk about

two different ditches on either side of the road. There's nothing you can do to go past. But at whatever point, listening to this. You're given a divine opportunity and I'll make a change from this point going forward, whether you're 15 or 85 or anything in between or on either end. And so just an encouragement to those listeners, but not dulling the challenge of lean in, pursue purity, walk with others. And maybe, I don't know, this is off script, but would you mind considering any final words and then maybe praying us out? Yeah, I think that the promise of seeing God ought to be everyone's goal in

Christ, right? So we're going to talk about sexual purity, but this could also be purity of motive. It could be purity of desire. You could be a big time covetor, you know, like whatever. Ambition. Yeah, it could be, obviously, sexual impurity is a specific cultural sin, right? Because you live in a world of rampant impurity. But I think that the promise is, listen, yeah, whether you are 15 or you are 85, this is the kindest thing God does. is extend to us the privilege of knowing him. That's what J.I. Packer says, right? Knowing God, what higher, more compelling, more lofty goal

than could you have than knowing the God that you're unable to call Father who created the world and that level of, I know him. And you can sing, he's an awesome God with the fullness of heart and not just with your voice. That's something experienced by those who are pure and heart. So let me pray. Lord, Jesus, we do thank you.

We pray, Lord, that we would pursue the purity of heart, the singularity of heart. We pray even, you know, think about in first kings the question is asked to solomon i'll give you whatever you want just just name what you want and solomon prays for wisdom but i pray lord that if you were to say hey i'll even you know i'll give you whatever you want up to half the kingdom we would say oh oh god just give me purity and heart singularity of heart because i want to see you we want to know you we want to sense your nearness this is not just a truth to affirm uh but a reality and so god we we long for that day

when our faith will be sight but this seeing of god is not just for that one day. We sing that at Lord Haste today, but we also know that that is an opportunity and a privilege afforded to us now through the person and work of the Holy Spirit. We pray this in your name. Amen. Amen.