Rick Warren - What It Really Means to Be Pure in Heart

Jesus says, there are eight things that bring God's blessing

in your life. I want your life to be blessed.

I want my life to be blessed. And Jesus says,

these are the keys to being blessed by God. Now

you know, our culture is absolutely obsessed with appearance, how

you look.

We're all about image.

And if you're beautiful, then you're considered bright and you're

considered the best, which leaves most of us not in

the brightest and best. Now you could be sexy like me.

But the Bible says God couldn't care less how you look.

God is not into appearance. God couldn't care less about

your achievements, your accomplishments, or your acquisitions. God isn't interested

in how educated you.

Are or how wealthy you are.

God doesn't care about how popular or how famous you are.

What God cares about is not your image. But he

cares about your health and your heart and what's inside you,

the real you, the Bible says. In the Book of

First Samuel, chapter sixteen, it says this in verse seven.

Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks

at the heart. And so today we come to the

sixth of Jesus eight beatitudes of ways to be blessed,

And in Matthew chapter five, verse eight, talking about heart,

it says this, God blesses those whose hearts are pure,

for they will see God.

Now, what in the world does that mean.

God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will

see God.

First, what does it mean they will see God?

This verse says, the people whose hearts are pure, they're

the ones who get up close to God, get to

experience the presence of God. They get to feel the

power of God. They get to know the purpose of

God for their life. They get to live in the

peace of God. They experience the pardon of God. These

are the people who really have it, he says. God

blesses those who are pure in heart. They're the ones

that God says. This guy, he's my friend. This woman,

she's my friend. So what does it mean to be

pure in heart? That's not a term we use in

today's language. We don't talk about saying, oh, she's got

a pure heart. The word for pure in heart today

is the word integrity. Integrity. Now, the Bible uses the

word integrity a lot, but it actually even uses.

The word blameless.

More. Now, what does it mean to have integrity? Because

if God says I bless those who have integrity, what

does it mean to have integrity doesn't mean sinless, and

it doesn't mean perfect, Then it doesn't mean you don't

make any mistakes. If you have to be sinless to

have integrity, nobody's got integrity.

Because we all blow it.

It doesn't mean perfect because if you have to be

perfect and never do anything wrong to have integrity, then

none of us will ever have integrity. It doesn't mean

you never make any mistakes. If that were true, none

of us would ever have integrity. So it's not talking

about being perfect being sinless. What does it mean to

be pure in heart? Let me explain something to you.

God is more interested in the direction of your heart

than he is in the sins you commit. He's more

interested in your attitude even than your actions. He's more

interested in why you do what you do than what

you do. In the Bible, there are many examples of

people who did the right thing for the wrong motivation,

and God says doesn't count. It doesn't count at all.

On the other hand, the Bible tells us about a

number of leaders different kings of Israel who actually didn't

always do the right thing and actually did some sin,

and yet God.

Said they're okay, They're okay.

They didn't remove all of the idols that were in

the thing, but they were a good king. And so

God is actually more interested in your heart the direction

of your heart, than he is in your actual sins

and what you do and don't. So what is integrity.

The Bible says that Noah had integrity. The Bible says

that Abraham had integrity, that David had integrity, that Moses

had integrity, that Paul had integrity. Yeah, none of these

guys were perfect. I mean, let's just take David an example.

God says about King David, there is a man who

has a heart like mine.

He's a man after my own heart. You read that.

You know what.

This is a guy who committed adultery and murdered the

girl's husband one time. He pretended he was mentally insane

to get out of a thing.

He did all kinds of weird things.

He was not perfect in any sense, and yet God

says that guy over there, yeah he's really messed up,

but he's got a heart like mine. I want you

to have a heart like God's. I want to have

a heart like God. I want us to be people

of integrity. So excuse me. Wow, that felt good and

you didn't even have to say God, bless you. Oh

you did, Thank you, God bless you too. You have integrity.

Thank you? All right?

Write down three words, three words that define what it

means to be a man of integrity, what it means

to be a woman of integrity. The first meaning of

integrity is wholeness, whole. It means your life isn't divided

up in the compartments.

It's not divided into segments.

You don't have your life all divided up in little,

little categories. Your life is one large hole. We get

the word integrity from the word integer or integer. You

remember in math, an integer is a whole number. It's

not a fraction, it's not a part of a number,

it's not a decimal.

It's a whole number.

And integer means whole, and integrity means your life is

a whole. We get the word integration from the word

integer or integrity. Integration is the opposite of segregation. Segregation

means you you divide things up, or divide people up,

or whatever into different categories. Integration means no, no, we're

all part of the same family. We don't think the same,

look the same, smell, the same, act the same, don't

have the same background, don't have the same skin.

Color, don't have but we are all in.

The same family. We are integrated. That's part of integrity.

When you segregate your life, you don't have integrity. You see,

it's like this. A lot of people they think of

their life as like a pie, and the different things

in their lives are the different parts of the pie.

And I see, this slice of the pie is my career.

That's my work life. And then this slice of the

pie this is church. This is my spiritual life. And

then this is my family life. That's the slice. And

then over here this is my social life, my sports life.

And then here is my sex life. That's a part

of my pie. And then over here is my secret life,

my compulsions, my addictions are the things that nobody else

knows about my secret life.

And then over here this is my my friendship life.

If you segment your life like that, you lack integrity

because it's the exact opposite of your life being a whole.

Integrity is not the parts of the pie, it's the

filling in the whole pie. And it means you're exactly

the same with everybody you talk to. You no matter

which part of your life you're dealing with, you don't change,

You don't wear a mask, you don't pretend. And that's

the second word I want you to write down. Integrity

means authenticity. Authenticity. It means you keep it real. It

means you're the real deal. You're not a fake, you're

not a phony. You're not blowing people off with some scam.

You're not faking it till you make it. You're not pretending,

you're not copying anybody else. You're not trying to be

somebody you're not. You are exactly who you appear to be.

And if you have integrity, you act the same no

matter where you are. That is, I act the same

way with my grandkids as I do with you, as

I would with the Prime Minister of England. It's what

you see is what you get. It's warts and all.

It's not like I'm trying to be one way here

and one way there in one way here.

Now, you're just who you are, for good or for bad.

Thousands of years ago, during the great Greek culture, when

Plato and Socrates and Aristotle and Euripides and Aristophanes and

all these guys are writing these plays, these classic plays,

Homer and the Iliad and the Odyssey, all of these things. Well,

they used to have in Greek plays multiple roles.

By one actor.

And what is a guy would come from backstage out

into the forum to play a part, and he would

hold up a mask, and he'd wear a mask, and

he would say certain things and play that role. Then

he'd walk backstage, get another mask, come back out, and

he'd play another role wearing another mask. Then he'd walk backstage,

change it, get another mask, and come back out. And

in Greek plays, one guy could have multiple roles in

many masks, and he was called in Greek the hohopocretos,

the hip. We get the word hypocrite from it. What

does it mean to be a hypocrite. It means you're

not the same with everybody. It means you talk one

way with this group, and you talk another way with

this group, and you use this kind of language over there,

that kind of language over there, and you actually are

wearing masks. That is the exact opposite of integrity. You

lack authenticity. You're not the same with everybody. Integrity means

you don't pretend to be something you're not, so it's

wholeness and authenticity. The third thing that antigrity is write

this down is it means unmixed motivation. It means you

do the right thing, but you do it for the

right reason. Unmixed motivation, it means you're sincere. It means

you're straightforward. It means you are pure in heart.

Pure in heart.

Means you don't have a mixed motive. In other words,

you're doing it for the right reason. You can pray

to talk to God, or you can pray to impress

other people. One has integrity and one doesn't. Integrity is

what you are when nobody else is looking. Integrity is

what you are in the dark. Integrity is what you

really think, act and do when nobody else will ever

find out. That's the real you. Integrity. You see, we're

more interested in image, but God's interested in integrity. We're

interested in reputation. God is interested in character. Reputation is

what everybody thinks you are. Image, I mean, integrity is

what you really are. Reputation is what you are in public.

Integrity is what you are when you're all alone with God.

It's just you and God. And God says, God blesses

those who have integrity. They get to be the friends

of God. Now what does God say about this this

verse up here on the screen Proverbs chapter three. The

Lord hates people with twisted hearts. What's a twisted heart,

a perverse heart, a perverted heart, a deceitful heart, a

demeaning heart, a fake, a phony heart. It's not you know,

you don't really, you're not the real you. The Lord

hates people with twisted hearts, but he delights. He delights

in those who have integrity. I want God to delight

in you. So what we're gonna do this weekend is

two things. First, I want us to look at some

of the benefits of being a man of integrity or

a woman of integrity. And Tom is gonna come and

share in just a minute two or three benefits. There

are many, many benefits in scripture. We just don't have

time to cover them all, so we'll only look at

three of the promises that God says, if you live

with integrity, then this is what's going to happen in

your life, and then I'm gonna come back and we're

going to look at a little checklist on how to

get started and how even this week you could start

working on becoming a woman of integrity or a man

of integrity. Hi, everybody, I'm Pastor Rick Warren. You know,

when I started Saddlebacked Church over forty years ago, just

a handful of people in our living room. I also

began writing a simple devotional just for the people in

our church to help them start each day with hope

and with truth and with peace that comes from Jesus Christ. Well,

you know that little devotional grew and grew and grew

in today, Daily Hope is one of the largest email

devotions in the whole world, and each day people all

around the globe are reconnecting with God's promises and finding

fresh strength in his word to face whatever comes their way.

Here's the best part. It's absolutely free. Okay, we don't

have any charge for this. Every day you'll get a

quick devotional read and a podcast that you can listen.

To on the go.

Now, you know, in a world it's more distracted and

uncertain than ever, I want to help you start your

day centered on what never changes. And what never changes

is a God's love is unconditional love for you and

his promises to you. You know, if you'll just spend

just a few minutes a day in the morning with

the Lord, it can bring so much more clarity, more purpose,

more peace to everything that happens in your day. Particularly,

a psychologist has said that what you do with the

first five minutes of your day pretty much sets the tone. So, friend,

you were never meant to go through life alone. I

want to personally invite you to just sign up for

the Daily Hope devotional. Do it today. I think it's

going to bring fresh encouragement to your walk in God,

God bless you.

Would you like to sign up for Pastor Rick's email devotional.

You can just scan the QR code or go to

dailyhopetv dot com.

So let's have Tom come and talk about some of

the blessings that happen when I get this quality in

my life.

One of the great blessings, one of the great blessings

that comes when we have integrity is the blessing of

personal confidence. You just live with a different kind of

confidence because you're not trying to be a phony all

the time. You're not trying to make sure that you're

putting the right front with the right person all the time,

so you're able to have a different kind of confidence.

When you have integrity, you become the kind of person

that other people like to be around because you know

who you are, you know where you're going. You're even

able to be upfront about your faults. You're not to

be a phony. And there's just something about that kind

of confidence that not only is it attractive in others,

it's relaxing, it's strengthening in our own lives. I've always

loved this picture Proverbs ten to nine, of the kind

of confidence that integrity brings. It says here, people with

integrity have a firm footing, but those who follow crooked

paths will slip and fall. So when I have integrity,

I'm standing on solid ground. But when I don't have integrity,

it's like back east in a snowstorm. That path is

all icy, and you're trying with all your might not

the fall, and every bit of energy is making sure

you don't slip and fall.

That's what it feels like not to have integrity.

You're putting too much energy into making sure that you

put the right fault.

Front when you could just be honest, just be yourself.

I'll never forget talking to a business guy years ago

and I asked him, what's the number one thing that

changed in your life now that you've become a follower

of Jesus. He just started following Jesus a few months before,

and he said, the number one thing that's changed, said

it right away is the way I answer the phone.

He said.

I used to answer the phone and I would tell

a different lie to everybody in my business, and I'd

have to look at their name and realize what lie

did I tell this guy? And before I answer the phone,

know what lie in my mind. But now I can

just answer because I tell them the truth. I can

just answer and they not even have to look at

the name. That's what integrity does for you. It gives

you this different kind of confidence. The Bible says in

Problems eleven three, let's read this one together. The integrity

of the honest keeps them on track. So integrity shows

you the right way to go. It also shows you

what to do next. Sometimes you start to wander through

life you're not sure what to do next, maybe in

a transition, maybe when your kids, is going off to college.

Maybe you just change jobs. What do you do next?

Well, the Bible says that when you have purity of heart,

when you have integrity, you see God better. When you

see God, you know what to do next. Because God

has a purpose. God has a plan for your life.

Integrity helps you to see God's plan and purpose for

your life better. That's one of the things that gives

you a greater confidence to live with. One of the

great blessings of integrity, a second blessing of integrity is

a lasting legacy.

You get this lasting legacy.

In fact, if you think about your life, your greatest

legacy is in your integrity, because it's a legacy that

will last from generation to generation to generation. Everything else

that we do, it gets lost. The money that you

earn in the end, it's going to get divided amongst

your kids. If you have any money left, and it's

going to get spent the work that you do, it's

going to be given to somebody else, and then you're

going to be forgotten. All the trophies that you've earned.

It's going to be thrown in the trash someday and

taken to the dump. Isn't this encouraging about our lives.

But the integrity that you have, the character that you have,

it's going to be translated into the lives of the

people that are around you, and then into the lives

of the next generation and the next generation. It is

a lasting legacy. Next verson you're outlined. Proverbs twenty seven

is especially encouraging for parents. It says a righteous person

lives on the basis of his integrity. Blessed are his

children after he is gone. It's the blessing, moms and

dads of the character that you've given. I know there's

no such thing as a perfect parent here, but you've

made some good choices, and in those good choices, you're

passing them on. And you might think, not me, I

haven't made any good choices. I mean, I messed up

on this one. I did not show integrity in my relationships,

and because of that, I guess I don't get this blessing. Well,

I just want to say to you, the story is

not over. You can still have integrity in your life,

and sometimes the greatest integrity you show is in a

time when it seems like there's no blessings. A lot

of us know the story of job if you're brand

new in church, you might even know that story the

guy who lost it all and he decided to have integrity.

Even though he lost it all.

He didn't know why he lost it, but he decided,

I'm going to have integrity through this and the next

verse in your outline, Job eight five to seven, one

of his friends gives him this advice, I pay to

God and seek the favor of the Almighty. If you're

pure and you live with complete integrity, God will rise

up and restore your happy home. And though you started

with little, you will end with much. And that is

exactly what happened. Job decided to have integrity even through

a difficult time, and because of that, in the end

he was doubly blessed.

He was blessed even more in the end.

Some of you, you've gone through a tough time, maybe

even a loss of integrity, and because of a loss,

you start to think, what does it matter? I already

messed up, so I may as well just keep messing up,

because what does it matter now? But I just want

to say to you, the story is not over, and

the truth of the matter is your greatest integrity might

be what you do after a loss of integrity.

You can still.

Respond with integrity then, and somebody's watching, and you know what,

They're going to have a loss of integrity someday in

their life, and you can show them even now what

to do. You can still leave a lasting legacy. It's

never too late. The story's not over. It's one of

the blessings of integrity, a lasting legacy, a personal confidence.

And then there's this third.

Blessing amidst all the others that we're looking at today,

and that is the.

Blessing of rewards in eternity.

Now, this, in one sense is the greatest blessing because

it's the one that lasts forever, the rewards that we

get in eternity. Look what the Bible says about this

in Matthew twenty five twenty one, God will say, one day,

well done. You are a good and trusted servant. Because

you were faithful with small things. I will now put

you in charge of much greater things. So come and

share your master's happiness. Now, would you circle for me

two words in that verse? Would you circle the words

small things? That's where the rewards are. We think that

the rewards, the real integrity is in the big moments

of life. It's easy to have integrity, easier because you

know everybody's watching.

You can build yourself up for it.

But it's in the small moments that you show real integrity.

As Rick said earlier, integrity is who you are when

no one's watching, no one's noticing. So what kind of

integrity do I have in the small things of life?

Now?

When it comes to integrity in the small things, when

no one else is watching, we can all list the

areas we've failed there. No one would want all of

the small choices we made in our lives this last

week even put up on the screen, because there'd be

some things we did not want people to see. It's

easy to make a list of your sins and failures

in the small things.

But let's put those.

Let's take those and put them on the forgiven in

Christ's side of the ledger, because he forgives those things.

But I want to remind you, and this verse reminds us,

there is another side of the ledger, and that is

when you choose to have faith, when you choose to

have integrity in the small things, that is on the

rewarded side of the ledger. Every small thing you do

every small word of encouragement you give this next week,

it is rewarded eternally. Every small kindness active kindness that

you give towards someone else rewarded in eternity.

Every time you reject a temptation, rewarded in eternity.

Every time you pray a small prayer of faith, just

a quick prayer of faith in a moment, that is

rewarded in eternity. That's the power of integrity. And when

you make these small choices, when you make these small

choices for eternity, it changes not all your life now,

but also your life forever.

Now, if you're talking about what Tom just talked about,

I don't know about you, but I'm interested in these benefits.

I'm interested in personal stability, I'm interested in leaving a legacy,

and I'm interested in rewards for eternity. And God says

all three of these are wrapped up in having integrity.

So how do you get it? How do you get integrity?

What does it even look like?

Well?

In Psalm Chapter fifteen, the fifteenth Psalm, David gives us

eight characteristics of what it means to walk or live

with integrity.

Let me read it to you. So I'm fifteen one

to five.

Lord, who may stand in your sanctuary? And who may

live on your holy mountain? And what's he talking about here?

This is a metaphor, he said, God, who gets to

be close to you? That's what he's saying. Who gets

to be your friend? All that thing stuff I just

was talking about earlier. Who gets to live in your presence?

Who gets to experience your power? Who gets to understand

your peace? Who gets to live your purpose?

God?

Who gets to be your friend? That's what he's saying.

Who may stay in your sanctuary and.

Live on your holy mountain? Here's the answer.

The one who walks with integrity, circle that walks with integrity.

And then he gives us eight characteristics of a man

who has integrity or a woman who has integrity. Here's

what they are. At number one, he speaks the truth

from his heart. You don't lie when you have integrity,

he refu he uses to slander others with his tongue.

WHOA anytime you put down anybody else, you've just lost integrity.

Anytime you slander anybody else for their politics, or their religion,

or their lifestyle or any other difference, cultural difference, whatever.

He says, you've just lost your integrity. He refuses to

slander others with his tongue. He won't listen to gossip. Oh,

now we're meddling. He will not cast a slur on

his fellow man. Instead, he honors those who fear the Lord,

and he keeps his promises even when it hurts. He

lends his money freely without charging interest. In other words,

he's very, very generous. That's a mark of integrity. And

he cannot be bribed by money. Whoever does these things,

these things will ever be shaken. You want to have

security in your life. You want to get rid of

all the insecurity in your life. Get integrity in your life.

You want to have stability in your life, Get integered

in your life. You want to have the confidence Tom

was talking about. Then you've got to get integered in

your life. When you lack integrity, you go through life insecure.

The Bible says, the man of integrity walks securely. And

the whole reason you don't have security, the whole reason

you feel insecure so much of time, is because you

lack integrity, wholeness, authenticity, and an unmixed motivation.