Sermon: “Be Thou My Vision”

Matthew 5:1-2, 8
Rev. Mike Werkheiser

Outline:

1. The kind of purity that enables godly sight.
   (a) A mind that is resolved (Psalm 119:14-16)
   (b) A will that is conformed. (Psalm 119:30-31, 97-98)
2. The kind of seeing that invites godly blessing.
   (a) Eyes acclimated to God’s truth. (Psalm 119:6, 15, 18)
   (b) Eyes attuned to God’s goodness. (Psalm 119:37; Ephesians 1:17-18)

Quotes:

Whoever tells a lie is not pure of heart, and such a person cannot cook a clean soup. — Ludwig van Beethoven

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

Who is pure in heart? Only those who have surrendered their hearts completely to Jesus that he may reign in them alone. Only those whose hearts are undefiled by their own evil – and by their own virtues too. The pure in heart have a child-like simplicity like Adam before the fall, innocent alike of good and evil: their hearts are not ruled by their conscience, but by the will of Jesus. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What is meant by a “pure heart” is this: one that is watching and pondering what God says and replacing his own ideas with the Word of God. — Martin Luther

Purity of heart (without which we are lost) is to will only one thing – doing the good. And the reward of the good man is to be allowed to worship in truth. — Søren Kierkegaard

This is a sign of a new nature: when a man hates what he once loved! And because he hates sin, therefore he fights against it with the “sword of the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:17), as a man who hates a serpent seeks the destruction of it. — Thomas Watson