Title: Mat 5:8; The Heart Condition that Will Not Show Up On an Xray.

Class Outline:

April 21, 2024

 

Idea: Taking a sober look at what you treasure will show you the invisible center of your being.

 

Treasure is either in heaven or on earth. No middle.

 

The condition of your heart determines what you really treasure and if you soberly look at your treasure, you will see your heart.

 

Introduction: 

The heart is the center of man’s being and personality. The seat of physical, spiritual, and mental life. Center and source of the whole inner life with its thinking, feeling, and volition. 

 

The heart is the source of our love - DEU 6:5; MAR 12:30. 

 

It is this in pre-Christian and Christian experience. 

 

The heart is the source of anyone’s good or bad. 

The Lord says that His heart is meek (MAT 11:29). 

He also says that all badness flows from it (MAT 15:19).

 

Changing a heart is the only way to change a person. 

 

Faith in the gospel cleanses through the baptism of the Holy Spirit; death and resurrection (HEB 10:19-22). 

 

This is judicial. It is a real change that readies the heart for the supernatural. It leads through a door to the new and living way (HEB 10:19-20). 

 

The road of the cleansed that purifies their hearts 

 

The heart is the source of everything for us. 

 

Luke 6:36-45 states it as simple and pure as can be, “The good man” and “the evil man.” 

 

The reverse is stated in Luke 12:34 - where your treasure is there your heart will be. “Where” is heaven or earth.

 

Luke 12 is a chapter that helps us better understand the pure in heart. 

 

*Fear God (12:4).

*Confess Him and you will be rewarded (12:8). 

*Context is “beware of every form of greed” (12:15). 

*Don’t worry about life (12:22). 

*Sell your possessions and give alms (eleemonos) and make money belts that do not wear out and treasure in heaven, where your treasure is … (12:33-34). 

 

Without doing, the heart will not change - blessed are the merciful comes before blessed are the pure in heart.

 

*Blessed are the slaves who are ready (12:35). If you are caring for your own things, you cannot be. 

*Blessed is the faithful steward (12:41-48). 

*Because of the gifts given and that some would take hold of them and invest them, there would be a division caused by Christ (12:49-53). 

*Hypocrites: they know the way of the world well but they do not know Him (12:54-59)

*Judgment in vs. 59. 

 

Conclusion:

What you treasure is the condition of your heart. Heart of greed or giving? Heart of confessing God or self? Heart worried or trusting? Heart that is ready and faithful slaves or self-centered and uncaring of the Master’s will. Heart that knows the ways of the world well but does not know Christ. 

 

We are all taking steps towards the judgment seat of Christ, make an effort to settle accounts on the way.