[SPEAKER_00]: Christian parenting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello two seekers and welcome back to our summer series.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to believe that we are already on our sixth Beatitude.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been learning so much about what it means to follow Jesus and be an influencer for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next Beatitude Jesus gave us says, Blessed are the pure and heart for they will seek God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever thought about what it means to be pure and heart?
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's start with the word pure.
[SPEAKER_00]: If something is pure, it is without stain or blemish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pure water is clean water without chemicals or dirt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something that is pure is holy.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no evil or sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: To be pure is to be like Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is absolutely 100% pure with no sin, no evil, no wickedness.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is pure.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is holy.
[SPEAKER_00]: But who can say that they have a pure heart?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you say you have a pure heart?
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that we all have sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can anyone say that their heart is pure?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are in Jesus, if you have put your faith in Him, and you believe that He has washed you clean of your sins, then you can have His purity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is absolutely pure and He offers His purity to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even though we know we've sinned, and fallen short, and made mistakes, when we put our faith in Jesus, Jesus is here, let me give you my purity, let me give you my righteousness, it's like a robe, a robe that he puts on us, a robe of his purity, that when God the Father looks at us, when we are in Jesus, he sees Jesus purity upon us, that's such a beautiful gift.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, to be pure in heart, to have a pure heart is also to have a heart that strives to please God, that does not hold lies or deceit or envy or jealousy or pride, a pure heart is a heart that is soft and longs to do what is right until the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone with a pure heart is honest and truthful.
[SPEAKER_00]: The life they live is the life they say they live, their actions follow their words.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you about a girl in the Bible who had a pure heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: This girl that I am talking about, we don't even know what her name was.
[SPEAKER_00]: We only know that she was a simple servant girl and she had been taken captive from her home in Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the only home she had ever known.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had been taken captive and brought to live in the
[SPEAKER_00]: The Army Commander of the enemies of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: This servant girl lived in the home of the commander, Neiman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now something happened to Neiman that was very distressing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Neiman found that he had leprosy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leprosy was an awful disease.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was contagious.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was painful.
[SPEAKER_00]: It meant that you had to live apart from your family outside of the city.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no cure.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Neiman found out he had leprosy, I'm sure he was devastated.
[SPEAKER_00]: He thought, what am I going to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the commander of an army.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot lead an army and have leprosy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was very important.
[SPEAKER_00]: What would he do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, when the sermon girl heard that her master had leprosy, she immediately thought of Alisha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you know anything about Elijah, then you know that Elijah was a student of Elijah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Elijah was also a prophet of God who performed many miracles.
[SPEAKER_00]: This servant girl who had been raised in Israel knew about Yahweh, the one true and living God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she also knew that there was a man of God named Elijah that could help her master,
[SPEAKER_00]: This servant girl who had been taking captive could have allowed her heart to become bitter and angry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let her heart get hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: She could have kept that information all to herself and said he doesn't deserve to know about Yahweh, the one true and living God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't deserve to know about healing, let him have leprosy, look what they've done to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would have been a very bitter, nasty, ugly heart, but this servant girl knew the love of God so deeply, so well that she had protected her heart from becoming cold and bitter, so much so that even though she had been taking captive, she wanted to share the love of God with this man who did not know Yahweh.
[SPEAKER_00]: She couldn't keep it to herself, instead of keeping the knowledge of her one-trune living God to herself.
[SPEAKER_00]: She shared it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She shared the truth with the commander of the army who had taken her captive.
[SPEAKER_00]: She chose to let the Lord use her in that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: She remained pure and heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: And do you know what happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: Neiman.
[SPEAKER_00]: went to Elijah and Elijah told him to go to the Jordan River and to dip in the Jordan River seven times and after the seventh time he would be healed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well when name and heard this he was
[SPEAKER_00]: He thought, I am a commander, I am not going to get in that dirty Jordan River, but one of Naman's men said to him, sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: If Alisha had told you to do anything else, would you not have done it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely just bathing in the Jordan River is an easy thing to do, but to have deluce.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Naman decided he would go and bathe in the Jordan River as Alisha had instructed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so name and went to that river, that Jordan River, and he stepped his foot into that water, and he walked deeper into that water, and he took his first step, one dip into the water, two dip into the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: three dips four dips five six on his seventh dip down into the water he came back up and do you know what happened through seekers?
[SPEAKER_00]: Naming looked at his arms and his legs and his skin and there was no leprosy to be found.
[SPEAKER_00]: His skin was perfectly clean and pure.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, the one true in living God, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had healed
[SPEAKER_00]: All because a servant girl kept her heart pure and was able to minister and share the good news that there was a god who was alive and well and ready to heal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dear true seekers, let's be careful not to let our hearts become hardened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life will sometimes be hard, but we should not let the hardness of this life harden our hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will go through difficult times.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just is a matter of how are you going to choose to walk through those difficult times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you going to let the hard times of this earth make you hard?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or will you keep your heart soft?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the servant girl did, even when you walk through hard times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rather than letting our hearts fill with anger or selfishness or pride, let our heart stay pure so we can show others what Jesus is like.
[SPEAKER_00]: The servant girl chose to stay pure.
[SPEAKER_00]: She chose to remain humble and assurment of the Lord and the Lord used her in a powerful way.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will use you to be an influencer for others as you keep your heart pure.
[SPEAKER_00]: The servant girl did not have a lot of people to influence around her.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can say she was not famous at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she influenced someone who was famous.
[SPEAKER_00]: She influenced a man who had the ability to influence thousands of his soldiers.
[SPEAKER_00]: That one girl could have thought, man, I'm just a servant living in this house, cooking food, cleaning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't influence anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet she did.
[SPEAKER_00]: She influenced the commander, the leader, the man in charge of thousands of thousands of soldiers.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is influence.
[SPEAKER_00]: You never know how your faithfulness to God is going to influence others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's guard our hearts and guard our minds so we can be influencers for Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that you would help to guard our hearts to keep our hearts pure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ask that when we are tempted to sin or to become angry or to disobey you, to become scornful or hard, that instead of allowing those thoughts to grow, I ask that you would help us to replace those thoughts with the truth from your word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help us to think about the goodness of your word and who you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we're tempted to be angry or upset,
[SPEAKER_00]: hurt that we would give those thoughts to you and Holy Spirit that you would replace those thoughts with truth, truth that you work all things together for good to them that love you and who are called according to your purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help us that we would be like the servant girl when we go through hard times that we would choose to keep our eyes on you and keep our hearts soft so that we can share the good news of you with others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for sending Jesus your son to forgive us of our sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: To wash his clean, to place his purity upon us and to live in us through your Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you, Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, we thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The You promise that those who have a pure heart will see you, what a wonderful promise.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, I can't wait to see you on that day you return.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep my heart pure that I might see you in your name, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, two seekers, we have two more days.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm looking forward to the last two days that we have together in this summer series.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll talk to you tomorrow.