Living an Undivided Life | Matthew 5:8

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I'm excited about it. This is gonna be a good

day as you're looking through stuff. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, so.

You are Chris.

That had nothing to do with anything, but I'm excited

about it.

Yeah. So I can't quite seem to get my voice

in sync.

You're even raspier than normal.

I don't know why, but anyway, we want to go

ahead and say that we're in the middle of a

series called well, we're talking about the Beatitudes. I'm not

sure we have a title for it. But before we

get to that, we have a segment that really is

this is sort of the first time the desiree has

formulated this segment this way. Yes, we've had this premise,

but not in this way. So she's calling this segment

monkey rich, and she says, Chris will tell a story,

Jeff will interrupt every ten seconds with a random word

that the storyteller must immediately incorporate in the story. Yes,

so we've sort of done something like this, but not this.

What was what did we do last time? That was

like that? How did it go? It was?

I can't remember, but it wasn't this did I?

Yeah, I can't remember. It was I injected things into

your story. I just don't remember how how. But I

like this better because it's like these crazy random words

a sentence yes, yes, yes, and then you had to

finish it. That's it. This is better because it's gonna

go quicker because that was kind of the issue with

the other one. Is it kind of plodded along a

little bit? Okay?

So all right, So did I ever tell you here

comes the story? You ready? So you're still looking at stuff?

I got it?

Okay? Did I ever tell you the time when I

was a little boy, I was walking to the convenience

store and along the way I saw a guy with

a leaf blower in his front yard. But the strange

thing is the squeaky shoes blowing leaves. He was blowing

squeaky shoes, and every time he blew them, they squeaked.

And the closer he got the leaf blower to the

squeaky shoes, the louder the shoes squawked.

Yeah, walkie talkie, And so I.

Thought to myself, that sounds exactly like my dad's walkie talkie,

you know the kind that he has in the back shed.

Holy guacamole.

Every time that I would go in the back shed,

it would be so dirty. I would say, holy guacamole.

And I would look for different things.

And I came across these walkie talkies inflatable kayaks.

And I have to move the inflatable kayaks to the side,

and you know those ducks that they would float in

the water if all this hunting gear. But I would

get to these walky talkies and I would think, to myself,

this sounds just like these inflatable shoes. That's what I

thought in the moment as I was walking my dog

to the convenience store.

You see Grandpa's face Facebook post.

They didn't have Grandpa's fish back in those.

Days, but if he did, I thought.

I did, because as I was walking to the store,

I was actually getting something that my grandpa. My grandpa's

Facebook post talked about he actually posted the.

Fact unsupervised toddlers licorice? Did you say unsupervised toddlers?

He wanted licorice? And so I thought to myself, Okay,

I'm gonna go buy some liquorice because we ran out

because I gave my bag of licorice to a group

of unsupervised toddler. So because he posted about it and

he wanted it, I knew that we ran out. So

I thought to myself, I'm gonna go get it.

Emotional support lama.

So therefore I was turning the corner where this guy was,

you know, blowing leaves, and I came across this pen

and it was filled with believe it or not, emotional

support lamas. Oh wow, where they were just there? So

I stopped to say hi to them, and I realized

that they were very used to people. I was worried

at first they were going to spit on it clip

on tie, but they didn't. And the reason why they

didn't spit on me is because oh she whizz is

because they were trained. But I knew I was passing them,

so I purposefully wore a clip on tie just in case,

because I had they spit on me, I would have

protected my shirt with this car.

I see spaghetti.

But anyway, I walked all the way over to the store,

and as I was getting to the store, I realized

they had a sale on spaghetti newdles. And I thought

to myself, should I buy my licorice or should I

buy the spaghetti noodles? Because you know my mom is Italian, yes,

and she works very hard. And I thought to myself,

I could delight my mom with spaghetti noodles.

Instead suspicious castle.

So I decided to go ahead and buy the spaghetti

noodles instead, knowing that I might disappoint my grandpa because

of his Facebook post. So I brought them home and

I gave them to my mom and in hopes that

she would make my favorite disc spaghetti. But instead I

came home the next day after school, Jeff, and instead

of making spaghetti, I saw this suspicious looking castle role

on the table filled with noodles. I had no idea

what was underneath.

So the moral of the story, the moral.

Of the story is, Jeff, just go ahead and do

the good deed and buy your grandpa what he wants.

Because when you go shopping, just buy what you're wanting

to buy, no matter how many distractions of beaf blowers

and squeaky shoes and lamas, right, just buy what you're

gonna go there for. And it all ended up being

score and good, you know, and mixed.

Up glitter tornado. That's your last one.

I thought I was wrapping up, okay, okay, And I

remember that day very well because that was the day

that a tornado came through the the the barn in

the back. It actually hit the barn and one thing

that my mom was a was a huge craft maker,

you know, she used to knit and make crafts, and

I remember it hit the barn and glitter just got

sucked up in the tornado and it just spread. And

did you know that, for the next two years we

found glitter in the.

Gut, I believe you. Yeah, eactly.

So we refer to that event as the glitter tournail,

which is why I remember every detail of that day.

That's incredible, Chris, Thank you well. You know, I think

it's one of the things our listeners love is having

the opportunity to just learn more about your life and

you know, those kinds of things. Now that glitter tornado

thing gives me nightmares. Yeah, I hate glitter. Yeah, I

hate it. I think it should be outlawed. How do

you think that did? It was really good, Chris. I

enjoyed it.

Yeah, although you threw me some pretty tough.

One tough ones.

Yeah, I was like, wow, that's those are I mean glitter?

Well, Ted GPT helped me out with that because I

was I was struggling this a little bit coming up

with good ideas. But glitter tornado was from h and

spaghetti were from desire.

Oh were they?

Yeah?

All right, well oh she gave you suggestive words, yes,

h huh oh wow, well hey, I think I think

I jump made it make sense.

So you were telling me before we started that you

and your buddy used to make these stories. Yes, like

that right?

You used to be one of my favorite things to do. Uh.

Me and my buddy would sit in biology and we

would like write a sentence and then like start the

next sentence and then fold down the paper so so

they couldn't see the previous sentence and you would have

to just make another sentence based on just a few words,

and then then you would you know, do the same thing,

and we would full, full, full, for full, we do

the whole paper, and then at the end we would

literally unravel it and then read the story. And it

was one big run on sentence, you know, or sometimes

we would you know, start a new sentence, and we

used to cry laughing, and they were just outlandis stories

and we loved it, and it was something that passed

the time. When the teacher was being boring.

I was gonna say, you were doing this not in

English class, you were doing this in biology class. You

were doing a writing exercise in biology.

Just pay attention. So that's good man like biology. And

I certainly didn't like the lady who was teaching biology

at the time. You know, we didn't like her at all.

So the only thing I remember from college biology class

I had. I had a maybe he was a nice man,

but maybe the single most boring voice I've ever heard

in my life. It was a deep voice. He had

been a lawyer before he became a professor, and he

this very deep voice and completely monotone. So he go,

homogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Wow, And that's the only It was

one of the funnies things because I had just complained

about his voice. Bonnie my wife, now, she was my

girlfriend then we were sitting next to each other in

biology class and I had just told her, I said this,

this guy has the most boring voice I ever heard

in my life. And she was laughing about that. And

as soon as I said those words, he goes homogeny

recapitulates phylogyny, and I just lost it. I started laughing,

so I couldn't stop it. Yeah, so I remember that.

That's the only thing I remember from that biology class.

Wow, that's great.

Yep, it was great.

We are moving on to our segment, and she wiz,

I actually I would say this. You know what, it

takes a pure heart to be able to take words

and tell a very clean and innocence.

Does it? Does? It takes well? Good news for you then,

because about Jesus said blessed of the peer and heart,

because they're going to see God's.

Good for me.

Who would have thunk?

Yeah?

Yeah, So here's what Jesus says. We've been doing the

beatitudes in Matthew chapter five, and he gives us whole

list of things of what God promises to bless right

and when he talks about blessing he's talking about, you'll

be happy, you'll be fulfilled, you'll have God's favor on

your life, right, that all these things and so this

one phrase he says, God blesses those whose hearts are pure,

for they will see God. And that's it today, that's

what we're talking about. And it's not really just about

being pure enough to be able to tell a nice story. No,

so we probably should unt pack that.

Well, I mean, you said at the end of my story,

you made a comment and said, we just want to

get to know you better. I thought to myself, what

if somebody tuned in late or fast forwarded the YouTube

or hit fast forward and they actually think that was

a true story or me lying about my childhood.

Yeah, yes, it was so thank goodness, because I mean, yeah,

all those emotional support lamas running around it really would

make the thing confusing for people. So, uh, I just

thought I would jump into this. I looked up the

word pure, right, what does he mean pure in heart? Well,

I was curious because there's a lot of different Greek

words that get translated as pure. So this is Katharo's

is the word, and it means clean, It means unmixed,

and it means undivided. Isn't anything you ever you ever

hear the word cathartic. That was cathartic, and and usually

what that means it kind of cleansed my soul. When

when I did that, it kind of cleansed me clean.

It's it's where we get that word right, And so

it's not just the The general meaning behind katharos isn't

just moral cleanliness. It's right. It's a single hearted devotion

to right.

So a lot of times, like for flips too, when

it says be like minded, yes, and he's talking about

the church not being divided in their thinking right to

be of one accord, you think it's sort of.

That way when when you are dialed in all in

on God and God's ways, you are going to wind

up living a more pure life. You're going to have

a more pure heart.

Divided mind. Would be somebody who lives in the world

and then also lives in God's work, right, Yeah, somebody

who hasn't officially abandoned.

This is why Jesus said you can't serve both God

and money. You need to choose right. This is why

at the very end of this message he preaches in

Matthew Chapter seven. The very end, he goes, Listen, you

have a choice here. You can either build your life

on the sand, or you can build your life on

the rock. Yeah. Right, And and so if you're foolish,

you're just gonna keep building your life on the sand,

and when the storms comes, gonna fall. If you're wise

and you're going to do and you do what I say,

then you will build your life on a rock, and

then when the storms come, it'll stand. And so it's

the same. You can't build on the rock and the sand. Right,

That's what he's really with this whole message. He's kind

of driving a wedge between trying to have your cake

and eat it too, where you want God to answer

all your prayers and to be your good luck charm,

but you want to live like the rest of the

world lives all the time. And Jesus, through the whole message,

is separating that your religion is not checking all the

boxes so you can be right with God. So stop

thinking that. Instead, understand, be single minded, be all in

with God. But when you are, you're going to start

seeing the world from the perspective he sees it, and

you're going to have a different, a different mindset. I

remember I had a friend who watched a documentary about

food and suddenly couldn't go to McDonald's anymore. Well, yeah,

up right, because he had new new information the famous movie.

Yeah yeah, yeah, So he had new information and he's like,

I can never go and he said, you should watch

that movie. I said, I will never watch that documentary.

I don't want to be changed, right, but for him,

But for him, when he adopted the viewpoint of that

filmmaker and he genuinely believed the information he was given

been given, he built a different life. So we always

used to go to McDonald's together. Suddenly he's never going

to McDonald's again. And it changed him. Whereas for me,

I know about it, but I'm not embracing it, right,

And so I stopped McDonald's on the way to work today, right.

And And there is something to that when you really

genuinely believe what God has said and you're aligning with

his principles, it's not that you're still wanting He doesn't

want McDonald's anymore, right, It's not like, oh, dude, you

know what, level love to go get me a big

mac right now? He's like, do you know what a

big mac's gonna do to you? Right? Do you want

a large friend is gonna do to you that? That's

a he's horrified. Yeah, that I would go. And that's

that's what it means to be single minded with God

is once you align with God's thoughts. It's not that

now you're constantly fighting with Oh my gosh, it's so

hard not to keep doing those old things. It's, oh

my gosh, you know what that's gonna do to you?

Right?

Right?

Yeah, that's good. And that's a heck of an introduction.

Before we read the verse.

I did read the verse. I read it twice. Oh

you already read it twice.

Oh, I thought you were referring to it.

I read it twice.

Okay, read it.

But that's okay, let me let me do it again. Yeah,

Blessed are those whose hearts are pure, For they will

see God.

That's three times longer.

That's three times.

That's so funny. So, uh, that's three times.

That's good though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna drive this

one home.

Yeah yeah, well, you know, so when he says for

they will see God, that's a different promise, isn't it? Right?

Because the other ones where they will be satisfied, they

will be comforted. You know, the Kingdom of Heaven is

theirs that it talks about an inheritance, right, But this

one says for they will see God. That's interesting is that. Yeah,

the reward of that of being pure and hard or

like minded or going fully devoted to God's way, will

see God. So I don't literally take it as seeing God,

because we know that the Bible says that no man

can look upon God and live right, right, So Moses

couldn't look upon God.

And some people would say this must mean go to heaven.

But none of these verses mean go to heaven. No,

not a single one of them means go to heaven.

Because you can see God in you know people, you

can see God glorified, right, you can see God through

any Christian so so, but or you can see God

in a way that you haven't seen him before.

Have you ever heard the phrase we don't lose sight

of God because he's hiding from us. We lose sight

of God because our heart gets cloudy. You've ever heard that?

That was I've heard that multiple times. I heard a

whole message preached on that, And that's part of it

is in those moments. Okay, today we woke up and

it was foggy, really foggy. Right, Well, I couldn't see

to the end of my street. Yeah, right, So when

things get cloudy, you can't see very far when and

all that is is water vapor coming in from off

the lake that we live near. Right, the ice is melting,

and so there's all this water vapor, temperature and all

that kind of stuff, and it gets in the way

and it starts a cloud. You can't see normally. I

turned the corner and on the street leading out of

my sub it's a half mile long street, I see

all the way to the end, just about right. And

it's the same thing when you are really clear and

everything is blown out of the way, there's a nice breeze,

everything's blown out of the way, nothing is blocking your view.

You can see and you can see God moving. We

can't see God. It's because we've allowed things to creep

in that make that cloud up our view and we

get distracted. The Book of James says a double minded

man is unstable in all of his ways. Right, This

idea being double minded makes it very difficult for me

to focus on anything. I had a friend, This is funny.

I had a friend that had both of his eyes

went slightly opposite. Did you ever see somebody with one

lazy eye? Yeah, the new Superman, so he had that's true. Uh,

he had two lazy eyes, both of them went slightly

He had these special things that they were. They tried

to fix it, but it was always you were always

trying to figure out as he's looking at me, you know,

and somehow he could see, he could he could see,

but they weren't significant. It wasn't like they were, you know,

opposite directions, but they were just off from each other.

And anytime I think of this, a double minded man

is on the stable waist. If you're looking at two things,

you're not actually focusing on anything, right, And that's what

we want to do. We think we're good multitask and

there's a ton of research on it. We're not good multitaskers. Right.

Everything we do then it winds up being about seventy

percent of our very best that we could do. If

we just focused on one thing, we get way less

done when we're trying to do more things. But when

you have focused I was just talking with one of

our leaders here at Heritage Church. He's on staff. He's

got a big team and a big budget, has a

lot of pressure and a lot of deadlines. And so

I was talking with him that his entire team does

all the work, and I said, I really think what

you need he has two really good leaders. I said,

I think you need to divide it and have one

of your guys paying attention to this group of thoughts

and one of your guys in that team thinking of

this group of thoughts, because what they're doing is they're

going back and forth. I need to work on this

chord progression. I need to make sure that I got

volunteers scheduled. We've got to design this thing. We've got

to get this video out, we've got to write. And

when you're thinking about one hundred things, it's hard to focus.

But when you're thinking, Okay, I've got some volunteers, I've

got chord charts and vocals that I need to arrange.

I need to make sure that we get the songs

in place and that the graphics are right. That's a

very different thing from and I've got to do nine

million other things. And so when you bring focus, you

wind up also accomplishing way more.

So.

This is really what I think this peer and heart

means is when your focus is clear on God, everything

else begins to fall away, and you actually accelerate your

walk with God. You accelerate your growth when you're focused

on just Him. David said keep your eyes straight forward.

Solomon says the same thing, keep your eyes straightforward, don't

look to the right or the left.

Yeah.

Right.

And you know this also aligns with one of the

best and most famous prayers of all time. Do you

remember Ben Stiller and Meet the Parents, But he says, oh,

Lord of Hosts, three things we pray never he goes

to see THEE more clearly, to love THEE more dearly.

Remember I don't remember. It's hilarious.

So anyway, I was just thinking, obviously, yeah, I'd like

to think that.

It is.

It is symbolic of and it's also consistent with all

the different times in the scriptures when it does say

see God right like you'll you'll see God and people

will see God in you. I mean, there's multiple references

of that, and and and seeing God is is sometimes

it's seeing God in a whole different way, right, Like

for instance, remember when Moses you know, stood at the

end of the sea, and they all said, oh, no,

we're gonna die because Pharaoh's armies coming. And he says,

do not panic, right, because Moses saw God in a

way that they hadn't seen God. And then then he

raises his staff. They walk upon dry land, the waters

crashing on the on Pharaoh's army. And then it says,

and then on the other side, then they knew God,

right or or you know, or when Jesus calmed the storms,

it says, they got to the other side, and it says,

and then they said, what manner of man is this?

That that the wind and the waves should even obey him?

They saw God in a different way. But they saw

Jesus in a different way than they than they saw

him before. Right, And so blessed to the pure in heart,

for they will get to know God and to see God,

you know, in a different way. Because isn't it true

that when God asks us to, you know, go a

little bit further, It's like it's like Peter, Hey, Peter,

can you can you step into the boat and then Peter,

can you shove off, you know, shore just a little

bit further? And then hey, Peter, can you throw the

net over the side of the boat. It's like it's like,

the more we step out in faith, the more we

see God. Right, So we trust God in the little

things and we see him come through, so that when

God asks us for the bigger things in life, like,

we're like, ok, I see him in a whole different way.

So I think that I think it could be you

know some So this idea of undivided clear focus is

really at the core of this Catharsos, right, Catharos, which

is where we get the word pure from. So let

me go back to my driving analogy. Have you ever

driven for a long distance and suddenly realize your entire

windshield is just covered in bugs? Yeah? Right, it's just dirty. Yeah,

that's the difference. You can just see farther and clear

when the windshields clean. So I think that's what we're

talking about, is keep our windshield clean right as much

as possible. And and Ben Franklin said, I can't keep

a bird from landing on my head, but I can

keep him from building a nest in my hair, right,

And that's such a great phrase. That's the idea. So

temptation happens distractions happen. Just keep it clean, Just just

clean it off, clean it off. You keep cleaning it off,

and you'll be able to see God. You'll be able

to keep following him and keep drawing closer to Him.

It'll accelerate your spiritual growth. And I think that's what

it means when he says, blessed the pearent heart, because

they'll see God. You're gonna see God moving, you're gonna

see God working, you're gonna see where God's going, and

you're gonna be able to stay close.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, hey, that's our time, so hopefully

we'll see tomorrow on the Bible guys. Mhm hm h