Pure Hearts: Seeing God in a Welcoming Church

Before you just go through the motions, before you step up and say you'll volunteer or you'll serve, make sure your heart's in the right place. Make sure you're ready to encounter people in the right way. See, God is after a pure heart, not pure actions. It's not just about saying the right words or even doing the right things, but it's about the posture of our hearts. The prophet Jeremiah, which Mary read from this morning, is very big on our hearts as a prophet. He talks a lot about our hearts. He says that our heart should be cleaned, that our heart should be made pure, that our heart should be washed. [00:33:08] (46 seconds)  #PureHeartNotActions

And those people are gonna say, what do you mean, Jesus? We were there. Weren't we? We were serving with you. We were healing the sick in your name. We were loving people. And Jesus says, but I will turn them away and say you never knew me. We didn't have a relationship. In other words, you didn't see me in what I was trying to do. There's something about the pure heart that can be within each of us that gives us the understanding to see God. And that doesn't mean seeing visions in the clouds and seeing angels appear before our eyes, but it means seeing people as they were created in God's image. [00:37:33] (46 seconds)  #SeePeopleGodsImage

But I'm saying before you do all the right things, check-in with your heart and make sure your heart is in the right place. Before you just go through the motions, before you step up and say you'll volunteer or you'll serve, make sure your heart's in the right place. Make sure you're ready to encounter people in the right way. See, God is after a pure heart, not pure actions. It's not just about saying the right words or even doing the right things, but it's about the posture of our hearts. [00:33:03] (34 seconds)  #HeartPostureMatters

What we learned from Jesus is that through our thoughts, through who we think we are, who are through our identities, we like to create borders. We like to say, well, I'm this way and that person's that way, and that separates us. But as we think about an ever expanding circle, as we think about the purity of heart that Jesus is calling us to, there's no borders, there's no walls in that, but there's an openness. There's a way in which our heart becomes a welcoming space for other people. [00:40:42] (39 seconds)  #WelcomingOpenHearts