Enjoying Jesus in Sexual Purity

My session is “Enjoying Jesus in Purity.” I wonder how a title like that lands on you.

I love that title and assignment, and I love it for two main reasons. First, because personal, blood-bought, grace-filled purity is a proven path to enjoying Jesus more. The pursuit of purity really does increase our spiritual, intellectual, emotional capacity to know and enjoy Jesus.

But, second, I also think that enjoying Jesus is the single greatest weapon in our fight for purity. There are other weapons — lots of other weapons, precious and indispensable weapons (we might get to those in the Q&A) — but I think our greatest weapon in the war against sexual temptation really is our genuine and increasing joy in Jesus Christ. When I hear “Enjoying Jesus in Purity,” I immediately think of purity as a means of joy — and of joy as a means of purity.

God’s Precious Promises

This talk’s not simply about the joy of denying illicit impulses — the joy of victory over temptation. There’s some modest joy in defeating temptation, for sure, but that won’t get you far in the battle (and you won’t experience much joy, either). No, the joy of purity is the joy of seeing and enjoying more of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

I want to show you that in one verse from the mouth of Jesus. It’s a promise (one you’ve likely heard), and it’s my whole talk — purity as a means of joy, and joy as a means of purity — but in just eleven words. The verse is Matthew 5:8:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Why would I do a talk on sexual purity that focuses on a single promise like Matthew 5:8? Again, I think our greatest weapon in the war against sexual temptation is a stronger, fuller joy in Jesus Christ. John Piper has taught me a lot over decades now, but one of the most important lessons he ever taught me was that we sever the root of sin’s promise by the power of a superior promise. We don’t just say that sin is lying to us. (It is, and we should tell each other that.) That’s a pistol when it comes to sexual temptation, and if we’re going to win this war, we need missiles. We need F-15 fighter jets. Here’s how Pastor John says it:

When the body is about to be led into a sinful action by some fear or craving, we are to take the sword of the Spirit and kill that fear and that craving. In my experience, that means mainly severing the root of sin’s promise by the power of a superior promise.

For example, when I begin to crave some illicit sexual pleasure, the sword-swing that has often severed the root of this promised pleasure is, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). I recall the pleasures I have tasted of seeing God more clearly from an undefiled conscience; and I recall the brevity and superficiality and oppressive aftertaste of sin’s pleasures, and with that, God has killed the conquering power of sin.

Having promises at hand that suit the temptation of the hour is one key to successful warfare against sin.

So, I want you to have weaponized promises at hand — or at least one promise. I could have spent these thirty minutes multiplying promises (and I will mention a few others), but I decided instead to go deeper with just one. I’ve prayed that you might have it memorized, whether you want to or not, by the end of these few minutes together.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Why I Am Passionate About Purity

Before we dig into Matthew 5:8, why fly to Dallas to talk about “Enjoying Jesus in Purity”?

I’m passionate about purity in Christ for several big reasons. First, I have my own history of sexual failure, and by God’s grace I have now tasted real, enduring victory in this battle.

“Purity isn’t only about the absence of sin. Purity is mainly about a single-minded, undivided seeking of God.”

I had my first “girlfriend” in the sixth grade, my first kiss that summer (different girl), and then several more relationships through high school and college. From far too young, I was looking for affection, safety, and intimacy from girls instead of from God. And because of that idolatry, I committed sexual immorality in relationships. I also viewed pornography at a young age (a classmate thought it was funny to send me a link as part of a school project). I then battled that sin for years, often losing and failing. I hate my sexual past. I hate that I treated women that way.

I hate that I didn’t do more sooner to cut off my hand and gouge out my eye. I hate that I hurt my future wife — that she had to bear the consequences of my sinful choices. More than anything, I hate what my persistent sin said about the Jesus I claimed to know and love and follow.

And I’m so thankful that God sent his Son to die for sexual sins like mine. Micah 7:8–9 has been a refuge when I have felt the waves of guilt and regret over this sin or other sins:

Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;
     when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
     the Lord will be a light to me.
I will bear the indignation of the Lord
     because I have sinned against him,
until he pleads my cause
     and executes judgment for me.
He will bring me out to the light;
     I shall look upon his vindication.

I’m passionate about purity because I was a sexual failure, bearing the indignation of the Lord — until he pled my cause and executed judgment for me, not against me, on the cross. He has brought me into the light — and I want to bring as many of you with me as possible.

I’m also passionate about purity because I’ve known and discipled dozens of men, over decades now, who have struggled with sexual sin. Some of these men my wife and I count as sons. And that’s a third reason: We have actual sons (and a daughter) of our own whom we want to prepare for sexual temptation.

I’m here because sexual sin ruins lives and souls (left unchecked, it could have ruined mine) — and I’m here because God rescues sexual sinners, arms us with his word, and empowers us by his Spirit so that we really can pursue, experience, and enjoy greater purity in Christ.

Blessed Are the Pure in Heart

If I could give you just eleven words on the pursuit of joy in the pursuit of Christian purity, I would give you Matthew 5:8:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

This is one of eight beatitudes — statements of supreme blessedness — in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. Most of these promises are stated in the future tense:

• “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (verse 4).
• “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (verse 5).
• “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (verse 6).

These promises are in the future to emphasize that they’ll be fully fulfilled one day, but they’re not meant to exclude real fulfillment today. Those who mourn don’t have to wait until glory to experience real comfort. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness don’t have to starve until they get to heaven. They’re waiting for the fullness of the promise to come, yes — but God is already fulfilling his promises to his children even now. I’m going to focus on one of those promises, verse 8:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

You shall and you do, I’m going to argue. You shall see him one day, face to face, but you’re already seeing him. Through the eyes of faith, you have the treasure in the field, the pearl of great price — you have him, you know him, you see him, even today.

No promise in the Bible has been more compelling and propelling in my pursuit of sexual purity. I could probably do a breakout on every one of the eleven words — this verse is that full of power — but I’m going to focus on four in particular: pure, see, God, and blessed. I really want you to see what Jesus is saying here.

1. Pure

First, pure. What does it mean to be pure in heart? The heart in Scripture is the center of who you are. This isn’t about external performance or looking a certain way in front of others; Jesus wants an inner, fuller purity. The Greek word for pure is katharoi, and Jesus uses it again in Matthew 23:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. (Matthew 23:25–26)

You purify the outside of the cup, but inside you’re full of impurity. You’re blind! You’re lying to yourselves! First purify the inside of the cup, and then you’ll be the right kind of pure on the outside. Outside purity without inside purity is no purity at all.

So, what does it mean to be pure in heart? It obviously means more than a clean browser history. No, this is talking about something much deeper and wider and more beautiful. Psalm 24:3–6 gives us a fuller picture:

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
     And who shall stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
     who does not lift up his soul to what is false
     and does not swear deceitfully. [That’s the negative side.]
He will receive blessing from the Lord
     and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Such is the generation of those who seek him,
     who seek the face of the God of Jacob. [That’s the positive side.]

Purity in the Bible isn’t only about the absence of sin. (It is about that — he “does not lift up his soul to what is false” — but it’s not only or mainly about what we don’t look at or do in secret.) No, purity is mainly about a single-minded, undivided seeking of God: a focused pursuit of God, his glory, and his worth.

So, how do we become pure in heart? Is it something God does for us, or is it something we do for God? Yes. This is the good news of the gospel, the good news that pulled me out of the pit of sexual failure and set me on a rock of freedom, power, and joy. Do you know the good news — the whole good news?

Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9–11)

You were sexually immoral people, but you’re not that anymore. You were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified. It’s already done. In Christ, in the eyes of God, you are already pure. And you never could have done that. There was no amount of washing or working or weeping that you could do to make yourself pure before God. But God sent his Son to die for your impurity, and he sent his Spirit to raise your cold, lifeless, lust-filled life from the dead, and now you are forgiven, washed, and pure. By grace alone, through faith alone, you are pure.

And yet, notice, he still calls those he has made pure in Christ to pursue purity in Christ. Just a few verses later in the same chapter, verses 18–20:

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Why would he tell them to be pure if they’re already pure? Because while God declares us pure in Christ, and sees us as pure in Christ, he hasn’t made us fully pure yet. He will, but he hasn’t yet. We’re all still impure this side of heaven. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). We are pure in Christ, but still not yet pure, and so by grace and through faith we must relentlessly pursue purity.

None of us is fully pure in this age, not yet, but all of us can be purer in this age, because through faith God has given us his grace, his word, and his power: his Spirit.

2. See

That’s the first of our four words. To be pure in heart is to have a heart that increasingly seeks God with an undivided, undefiled devotion. Now, see. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). What would it mean to see God?

Can we really see God? Well, no. But also, very much yes.

Why do I say no, when the verse so clearly says we will see God? Because God himself says, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). And then even in the New Testament, the apostle Paul says,

He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. (1 Timothy 6:15–16)

We couldn’t see him and live, because his glory would be so bright, so intense, so satisfying, so holy, that it would overwhelm our senses and kill us. And that’s not only about our sin. It’s true that our sin separates us from God, but that’s not why we can’t see him and live. I say that because this was true even in Genesis 1 and 2. God wasn’t visible before the fall.

He “walked” with man, and spoke with man, but Adam and Eve didn’t see him. “No one has ever seen God” (John 1:18). They couldn’t. Even their sinless eyes and minds and hearts couldn’t bear it. So, can we actually see God? No. But also, very much yes.

And this is almost too hard to grasp or believe. Listen to 1 John 3:2. This is what eyes were really made for: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

You have eyes so that one day you would see God. I don’t even have good eyes — I think I’m legally blind — but I have eyes (dysfunctional, blurry eyes) so that one day God could give me 20/20 eyes and I could see him. Revelation 22:4, one of the very last promises in the Bible, says, “They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.”

Wait, but we can’t see his face and live. That was true in Genesis 1 and 2, but it won’t be true by Revelation 22. Why? Because God came down and took on flesh, and mankind has seen his glory, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. (Hebrews 1:3–4)

You’ll see God when you see Jesus. Before he died for you, he actually prayed that for you. “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

“Purity is a means of seeing and enjoying Jesus more. And enjoying Jesus more is a means of pursuing greater purity.”

The pure in heart are going to see God. But I don’t think this promise is only a future promise (purity now, seeing later). The fullness of seeing is yet to come, of course — but again, I think all of the beatitudes are coming true even now. “For now we see in a mirror dimly” — we really see — “but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). I think the pure in heart see him even now, through faith. And where do we see him? We see him where he reveals himself. We see him in his world, we see him in each other (his people), but we see him best and most clearly in his word.

In the Bible, we see the unseen Jesus — in every book, on every page, under every verse. And I think Matthew 5:8 means that the purer we are in heart, the more we get to see and enjoy him here. And I believe the more we see and enjoy him, the better equipped we are to reject lesser, sinful pleasures. Purity is a means of greater joy in Jesus, and joy in Jesus is a means of greater purity.

3. God

Two words down and two to go. (These will be shorter.) Third, God. Whom will we get to see? “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). I’ve already said some about how dangerously holy this God is — so holy that no human could look at him and live (not before Jesus).

He’s just, sovereign, wise, merciful — infinitely captivating, eternally fascinating. We will study him for thousands and thousands of years, and never get tired or bored. Here, though, I just want to pull back the eternal curtain for a moment on a side of God that I think often gets overlooked, and because it gets overlooked, it might be hard to get too excited about seeing him. I want to remind you of the happiness of God. First Timothy 1:11 calls the gospel “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.”

“The gospel of the glory of the blessed God” — the happy God. Is that how you think about God? When you think about the promise that the pure in heart shall see God, do you imagine seeing infinite happiness?

And this isn’t the only place God talks about his happiness.

• Matthew 25:21: The master says to the faithful servant who doubled his five talents, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”
• Psalm 36:7–8: “How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.”
• Psalm 115:3: “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” How could he be anything but happy?

And it pleases this God to please you in him. It makes the happy God happy to make you as happy as humanly possible.

And so, King David sings, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). And that brings me to the last of our four words.

4. Blessed

Blessed — fortunate, happy. “Happy are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). I don’t know what comes to mind when you hear happy or blessed, but this promise is almost certainly fuller and richer than whatever you’re imagining. This blessedness is more than circumstantial comfort or pleasure. This is a full-soul satisfaction that touches every part of us. The blessed, happy God has called you blessed, and there’s nowhere better to be in all the universe.

And, tragically, we’re experiencing in Christ what so many are desperately, pitifully trying to find in sexual sin. They’ll never find it there. God — through his prophet — says,

My people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
     the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
     broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13)

That’s what it’s like to live in sexual sin. They’re never going to find blessedness there. You’re never going to find blessedness there.

You’ll find it by running as hard as possible away from there and into fellowship with Jesus. Purity is a means of seeing and enjoying Jesus more. And enjoying Jesus more is a means of pursuing greater purity. Or, in Jesus’s words, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).

What Clears Your Eyes?

So, what should you do? Do whatever clears your eyes to see and enjoy Jesus. What habits or relationships in your life make him look trustworthy, powerful, glorious, satisfying? Do whatever clears your eyes to see and enjoy Jesus. And avoid whatever blurs your eyes and divides your heart against him. What’s blinding you to his glory and devouring your passion for him?

I vividly remember getting glasses for the first time. Giving in to sexual sin is like throwing away those glasses. It’s forfeiting the opportunity to see. And we’re not looking at trees and basketball players and Big Lots. We’re looking at God. Do whatever clears your eyes to see and enjoy Jesus. And avoid whatever blurs your eyes and divides your heart against him.