Purity

Exeter Temple Bible Message Notes:  Sunday 26^th April 2015

Theme:  Understanding holiness - Purity

Bible Reading:  1 John 1:5-7

Purity is a word that has lost some of its edge in a society that is so impure. God desires a pure life, heart and mind within in.

 “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (James 4:8)

 “Jesus did not come into the world simply because we had some bad habits that needed to be broken. He came into the world because we have dirty hearts that need to be purified.”  John Piper

1. Design of God

‘If we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9)

The verse needs to be read in its entirety. The message we proclaim is not just about forgiveness of sins but is about restoration and transformation of God’s design for our lives. 

God loves us too much to rescue us from sin and leave us contaminated by it, so that it still has power over us. He also wants to purify us so that He can restore us to what He intended us to be. He loves us too much to leave us as we are.

We are told in Genesis that God made us in His image. And by that I mean He has made us to be holy and loving like Him and have relationships just like He has.  It is like our lives are supposed to be like a mirror. We were made to reflect our creator. However just like the mirror in the bathroom gets clouded with steam, covered in finger marks, and smudges so sin has put marks on the mirror of our lives. When a mirror is clouded or smeared with dirt it no longer reflects an image properly and man because of sin no longer is a true reflection of His creator.

 2. The Depth of Purity

The Bible continually reminds us that purity was more than skin deep. Jesus reserved some of His harshest words for those involved in religious “mask management.”

 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”  (Matthew 23:25-28)

They mistakenly thought their religious acts made them pure but it was really just a show.  Purity has to reach the hearts of men and women. When the Bible speaks about the heart it means the centre of the human personality. 

“The heart is the point at which thought, will and feeling meet.” 

(Frederick Coutts)

A person with a passion for purity is one who has been cleansed in character so that the way he or she looks in public is the way he or she is in private.

 “Character is what you are when no one is looking.” (Anon)

After David had sinned with Bathsheba he asked God not only to remove the specific thing he had done wrong but also allowed God to deal with the crookedness that had led to them and he prayed, “Create in me a pure heart O God.” (Psalm 51:10)

“The whole point of what we’re urging is simply love- love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God.” 

(1 Timothy 1:5 The Message)

The essence of sin is a life turned in upon self-interest. This is the fundamental barrier to purity.  Not only does our mirror need to cleansed, it needs to be repositioned.  We’ve turned it around so that we reflect our ego, our interests. We need to turn back to focus the whole of our life on God where Paul says we have a life open to God.

Now we have all met people whose diaries are so chock full that you have Our lives are taken up with so much else, other than God.

Another meaning of the word pure in the Bible is single-mindedness.  “Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double minded.”  James 4:8

 “Purity is to will one thing.”  (Soren Kierkgaard)  

3. The durability purity brings

Jesus was strong, not just physically but in that he never swayed from his purpose, even under immense temptation and suffering.   

In John 14:30 there is a link between His purity and His strength. Jesus is speaking to His disciples preparing them for His death.  “I will not speak with you much longer for the prince of this world is coming He has no hold on me but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what the Father has commanded me”

Jesus was incredibly strong because he was pure. Jesus said about the devil, “he has no hold on me”

There were no strongholds of sin in His life, no wrong attitudes, no faulty thinking processes in Christ’s mind. 

Purity always breeds strength, impurity always breeds weakness. When disloyalty steals into our souls the energy begins to leak from our determination. The way to make our character more steadfast is by making it more pure. It becomes stable as it becomes clean.

“We are washed into strength.” Anon

“People have no idea what one saint can do for sanctity is stronger than the whole of hell.”  Thomas MertonThe strongest people in the world are people who have nothing to keep quiet about and nothing to hide.

Many times the Church cannot get on with the business of winning the world because all their energies have been expended on maintaining the elaborate systems we have developed to prevent people seeing the real us.

If we want to begin to be strong we must be clean. If we want to be clean we must be honest.

“If we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His son cleanses us from all sin.”

The call to purity can appear very daunting and impossible.  We can feel  like the writer of Proverbs 20:9 "Who can say, 'I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin?'"

It is important that we remember that every command of God is accompanied by the promise of God. Jesus also said this, “With men it is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26)

Holy living in human strength is unattainable as Paul found out and cried out in despair that he found himself doing what he knew he shouldn’t and not doing what he knew he should.  Even though he strived harder than probably anyone else in his generation to live a life free from sin he found he just kept on blotting his copy book as it were. 

If we are going to be pure then we need power beyond ourselves to clean us up.  And that is what we have through Christ.

 “For he gave himself for us all, that he might rescue us from all our evil ways and make for himself a people of his own, clean and pure, with our hearts set upon living a life that is good.”

(Titus 2:11 JB Phillips translation)

God bless

Carol