Transcript

Shelby Abbott [00:00:00]: Welcome to The Connecting Podcast with Paul Tripp. My name is Shelby Abbott and this podcast exists to connect the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life, right here, right now. Here we are.

Paul Tripp [00:00:13]: Yes.

Shelby [00:00:15]: Episode 8.

Paul [00:00:15]: I found our conversation so far both deeply encouraging and deeply convicting. It is a reminder to me that, you know, people who don't spend much time in the Bible look at the Bible as this weird ancient religious book that... Why would you read and study that? It has nothing to do with the life I'm living? And we're just realizing that this...

Shelby [00:00:44]: It's got everything to do with it.

Paul [00:00:44]: That this is like it's written for the moment we're in right now and this year, we're dedicating these podcasts to this "how do I live well as a believer with hope and courage and joy in a world that's just so incredibly messed up".

[00:01:12]: Luella and I have talked about this many times and just gotten angry about it that we'll find a series we really enjoy on Netflix or Hulu or something and then in the middle of it, something comes on that just is not necessary for the plot, but just totally assaults your morals.

[00:01:37]: And then we think, "Well, do we continue to watch this or should we just turn it off?" And so, it really does speak to this next thing we're talking about is "blessed are the pure in heart". I would entitle this "Clean Where It Counts".

[00:02:02]: Now, why? Because if you would study the over 900 passages in scripture that talk about the heart, you will quickly conclude that the heart is the control center of the human being. It's the place of my thoughts, my emotions, my desires, maybe a street-level way of saying it's the steering wheel of your life and so, whatever the condition of your heart will then determine the condition of your decisions, your choices, your actions, your words.

[00:02:53]: So this is a prayer, because none of these are natural for us, to be pure where it actually really counts and maybe we should say this. A lot of us spend an awful lot of time making sure we're physically clean. Some of [us] are obsessive about clean hands or we shower more than once a day. We just want to be clean while paying not so much attention to the cleanliness that will really determine the direction of your life.

[00:03:51]: Now, let's take this a step further. There's a haunting proverb, Proverbs 20:9, that asks the ultimate rhetorical question. ⁹Who can say, “I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin”? If purity of heart is the name of the game because the heart is the control center, so that's the logic of what we're talking about — that this form of cleanness is more important than any other form of cleanness because this is the control center of humanity, the heart — then it's deeply scary and humbling to say none of us have the ability to make our hearts pure.

Shelby [00:04:50]: Yes, that is terrifying because we want to have a control element, which is what when people want to be clean, you talked about physical cleanness, there's an element of control there, like I have a control over my life. I have a control over my body. I have a control over my environment and when we recognize that we don't have the ability to clean our own hearts, it's kind of terrifying for a lot of people, myself included.

Paul [00:05:12]: See, we're not afraid generally of physical cleanness because we have products and plumbing, and we understand physical cleanness in our generation more than we ever had, but this is haunting.

[00:05:31]: If the most important thing for a human being is to be clean where it counts, to be a pure in heart, if that is number one because of the dominance of the heart over everything else in your life, that the members of your body only go where your heart has already gone and I have no ability whatsoever to produce that in myself, this is big stuff. And let me say one other. Let's make this current. It's even more important when your life is surrounded by an impure world.

Shelby [00:06:20]: Yes, what do you mean by that?

Paul [00:06:21]: Well, it's just dirty.

Shelby [00:06:23]: Like everything around you?

Paul [00:06:24]: Everything and now, that impurity is in our pockets. I mean, it's almost impossible to separate yourself from the impurity that's everywhere in you. It's almost impossible for that not to creep into your thoughts and creep into your desires because it's just pushed at you all the time.

[00:06:53]: Our very means of communication now is dirt-ified, made impure and you could argue, go back generations and those generations struggled with impurity of heart, but they did not have external impurity pushed at them all the time in the way it is for us now. Again, this is so incredibly current.

Shelby [00:07:22]: Yes, it really is.

Paul [00:07:24]: And so, you stand in the middle of this. I feel like standing in the middle of this screaming, "Then, how do I stay pure?" It's so hard. I can't even read a newspaper. It just seems like you throw your hands up and it's a hopeless battle. Purity just seems so incredibly distant, let alone being able to say I've made my heart pure.

[00:08:00]: So let's begin to talk about purity and then, I want to go to a passage of scripture. Just in case you're a Christian and you think this is not your problem because you think, "Well, I'm on the pure team. I'm good," I want to give a gross illustration.

[00:08:33]: Let's pretend you asked me for a glass of water. It's 16 ounces. I'm going to fill the glass of water for you, but I put a drop of my spit in the glass before I pour it for you. You're going to drink that water?

Shelby [00:08:58]: No.

Paul [00:08:59]: Why wouldn't you drink it?

Shelby [00:09:00]: Because there's your spit in there. It's gross. Even though there's mostly water, there is your spit in there.

Paul [00:09:07]: Well, what you're saying is because it's impure. That's my struggle, that purity doesn't have degrees. It's pure or it's not.Shelby [00:09:25]: Yes, it's either impure or it's pure.

Paul [00:09:26]: You wouldn't say, "Well, there's only a drop of spit in there and there's 16 ounces of water. It's okay for me to drink." You would never say that and so, you can't say that about your heart. Your heart is pure or it's not and so, the Bible says one little infraction of the law, you're guilty of it all.

[00:09:49]: That's the way it works. So the way to start for us is to submit to the utter impossibility of what is being laid out here to us. If purity of heart is the blessed, best way of living, I'm cooked because I have no ability whatsoever to get myself there and I'm surely not there now.

[00:10:25]: With all of my biblical literacy, with all of my theological knowledge, with all of the beautiful ministry of the church to me, with all of my personal ministry experience, with all the things that I've written, I can't stand before God and say I've made my heart pure. Wow.

Shelby [00:10:47]: Yes, and it's important, I think, to recognize that because it creates a humility in you in a way that cries out for God. It's a neediness of God. It helps you to approach God of — we've talked about this before — the daily bread of going back to Him everyday, not storing it up for yourself and being like, "I'm good now." No, it makes you go back to engage in that relationship that you need to be in in order to see purity in your life.

Paul [00:11:12]: So let's turn, if you would do this, Shelby, let's turn to Psalm 51.

Shelby [00:11:26]: Yes, Psalm 51:1-10. This is David right after he sinned with Bathsheba.

¹Have mercy on me, O God,
according to Your steadfast love;
according to Your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions. [By the way, there's the gospel.]
²Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!

[00:11:48]: ³For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me.
⁴Against You, You only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in Your sight,
so that You may be justified in Your words
and blameless in Your judgment.
⁵Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
⁶Behold, You delight in truth in the inward being,
and You teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

[00:12:11]: ⁷Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. [You should also write a book about that at some point.]

⁸Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that You have broken rejoice.
⁹Hide Your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.

Paul [00:12:31]: Read the last bit again.

Shelby [00:12:33]: ¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a right spirit within me.

Paul [00:12:42]: There it is. Think of David's mentality. He has committed adultery and murder. He's not looking outside of himself and say, "God, if you just remove beautiful women from me and if those beautiful women could be single and not married, so we don't have to deal with a husband."

[00:13:14]: That external thing that's in us that says, "Well, you don't know who I'm married to," or, "You don't know what my kids are like," or, "You're not working for my boss," or, "You don't know how hard it is to have the lack of money that I have, or all the or's we could put there is not a pathway to purity. It's not a solution.

[00:13:48]: David goes where you have to go. He says, "What I need is a new heart." In fact, he uses the word, "I need to be cleansed." Well, whenever anything in life needs to be cleansed, it needs to be cleansed because it's impure. Now, that impurity is described by three words: trespass, iniquity, and sin. Let's just talk about those words.

Shelby [00:14:31]: Yes, because it seems like they're interchangeable, but they're not.

Paul [00:14:34]: We'll start with iniquity. Iniquity is moral uncleanness. That's what it is. That's not an action. That's a state of being. I'm born into the world morally unclean. If that's the case, I'm not going to solve that by running from a situation or running from a relationship because it's me. I can't run from me.

[00:15:03]: Second word, "trespass". Because I'm morally unclean, transgression is like a trespass. It's like seeing the no-parking sign and parking there anyway. It's a knowing breaking of God's law. For example, I know that I should always be loving, gracious, patient with Luella. I should love her as Jesus loved the church, so anytime I'm nasty with her, that's a transgression. It's sin in the face of knowledge. Transgression is rebellion.

[00:15:44]: And then, the third word is "sin". Sin is falling short of God's standard. It's not pulling the arrow and missing the target. It's pulling the arrow with the best of ability, it always falls short of the target. So because I'm morally impure, I will transgress and I will sin.

[00:16:09]: So my only hope — that's why these three distinct words are important — my only hope is that my moral impurity can be dealt with, that it would be replaced by purity, that there's such a thing as cleansing, and there is because of the cleansing grace of Jesus. So purity is humanly impossible, but it's divinely promised.

Shelby [00:16:50]: Yes, it seems to be a resounding theme as we're going through these things in The Beatitudes, of Jesus calling people to live in a specific way and it's impossible to do, but it should drive us to the goodness of the gospel, to the goodness of God's grace and mercy in our lives because the truth is "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God", we're only able to see God because of Jesus. Well, Jesus is the One who is pure in heart and His purity is given to us when we are chosen by Him and as a result, we're able to see God.

Paul [00:17:27]: And that's exactly right. I want to make one more final observation, that the Bible says to the pure, all things are pure. My susceptibility to temptation is not because temptation exists. It's because impurity exists inside of me. It's always the impurity inside you that hooks you to the impurity outside of you and so, my only hope is that I would be pure because to the pure, all things are pure.

[00:18:08]: The reason I can stand against temptation is because I don't have a hook inside of me because I'm pure and not impure in whatever area that is. And so again, our battle with temptation drives us right back to the necessity for purity of heart because to the pure, all things are pure. Now, shouldn't we all confess then we still are susceptible and so, a cry to be pure is so important in this world where impurity is everywhere. It's projected at us all the time and I want to be pure.

Shelby [00:19:02]: Yes, and asking God, "Create me a clean heart, oh, God. You're going to have to do this work because I can't do it myself."

Paul [00:19:08]: You pray with David for a heart that's clean and that's a gift of His grace. Wouldn't it be wonderful to stand in the midst of all the spit and dirt of this evil world, and be pure? God, may that be.