Living Your Blest Life Now - Part Four

Encountering Jesus 

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

May 17, 2026

Living Your Blest Life Now Part Four

If you have your Bible turn with me to Matt. 5.

⁸ “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. ⁹ “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Matt. 5:8-9

The fact that the first and last beatitude – those who are poor in spirit and those are persecuted for righteousness’ sake – bracket all the in-between beatitudes with the promise of receiving the kingdom of heaven helps us understand that all the beatitudes are about the kingdom of heaven. The mercy the merciful receive, the comfort that mourners receive, the inheritance the meek receive, the sight of God the pure in heart receive, and the privilege of being called sons of God – it’s all from the kingdom of heaven. These are the rewards that the kingdom of heaven bestows on kingdom people.

1. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God (vs. 8)

In 1895 Harley Proctor son of Proctor and Gamble co-founder William Proctor, knew that he could sell more of his new soap called Ivory Soap if it had an impressively scientific testimonial tag line. So he hired an independent lab to run tests on it and they determined that it was 99 44/100% pure. That sounds pretty pure! We don’t ask “pure what?” We figure it’s pure Ivory soap, whatever soap is! And who cares what the .56% is.The public figured once you get to 99 44/100 % pure, it’s close enough!

And when it comes to soap, it is pure enough. But when it comes to our hearts, 99%+ pure isn’t close enough for God. And none of us have a heart that is 99% pure. Not even close!

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and^]desperately wicked; Who can know it? Jer. 17:9 (NKJV)

Jeremiah is saying that there are depths and levels of sin and wickedness in our hearts that we can’t even see! But God sees it all. So like with all the requirements of the kingdom, this beatitude is beyond our reach. It’s not hard, it’s impossible. For man, but not for God.When we come to Jesus poor, we leave Jesus rich. Listen to this amazing promise God makes to His people in Ezekiel:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. Ezek. 36:25-28

Notice the progression here. First God cleanses us from all our impurities. Not 99 44/100%...ALL! Then He gives us a new heart and puts His Spirit in us so that we don’t do His will because the law says we have to, we do His will because we want to from the heart!

The result is a restored relationship with God: you will be my people and I will be your God. (vs. 28) We

will see God. Not as an enemy, not as an angry Judge, not as a distant deity, but as our God. As our Father.

How Not To Be A Hypocrite

When the Spirit comes into our lives and gives us a new heart, one characteristic of a pure heart is that it’s the opposite of a hypocritical heart. It’s a sincere heart. Jesus in his seven woes condemns the religious leaders as hypocrites and he quotes Isaiah regarding their hypocrisy: These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Matt. 15:8

God never just listens to our lips. He listens to our hearts. So we should seek to be honest and sincere. Sincere Christians should take pains not to be hypocrites. Sometimes when people say “I don’t want to go to church, it’s full of hypocrites” some believers answer with the response, there’s always room for one more. I hate that response. Yes, the church is full of sinners who have been washed in Jesus’ blood, and forgiven of our sins. We are all imperfect and flawed people living out our faith in imperfect and flawed ways.

But hypocrisy is different than that. Hypocrisy is pretending to be one thing and being another. Let’s not be hypocrites! Let’s honestly be imperfect and flawed sinners who are washed and forgiven by the precious blood of Jesus who are sincerely but imperfectly trying to live out our faith with the grace and love of Jesus Christ. A pure heart means what you see is pretty much what you get. No head games. No pretending to be better than we are. We can be honest about the truth that we are a work in progress. We stumble and fall and fail but God’s grace is really at work in us – to Jesus be the glory!

This is what it means to walk in the light. Not being perfect, being honest with God and others. And a big part of walking in the light is that when we sin we confess our sins to God and He cleanses us of all unrighteousness, resetting our hearts to pure again.

2. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (vs 9)

Peacemakers are the opposite of peacebreakers. Some people love to stir up dissent. Love to see division and discord infiltrate relationships. Proverbs 6:19 lists things God hates and the seventh is someone who sows discord between brethren.

If a pure heart restores our relationship with God, a peace-making heart helps strengthen our relationships with one another. There are so many opportunities to light fires to burn down friendships and relationships.

But blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. Jesus is saying when we have the character of a peacemaker we resemble our heavenly Father, because He is a peacemaker. The Bible calls Him the God of peace - where God rules and reigns, there is peace. God sent His Son in order to break down the walls of hostility between us and Him that we may have peace with God. As believers,

we are bound together in the bond of peace.

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:1-3 ESV)

Paul warned the Galatian church, if you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. Those who enjoy devouring others will one day find themselves on someone else’s menu.

Jesus tells his followers, be different. Be like your heavenly Father. Sow peace when and where you can. Kingdom character will make us peacemakers not peace breakers.This is about our character, not necessarily the results. We can't always make peace but we should always be doing as much as we can to be peacemakers. Rom. 12:18 gives us this advice, If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. (NIV)

One of my favorite quotes from SuperBowl 46 when the Patriots lost to the Giants 21-17 came from quarterback Tom Brady's wife at the time, Gisele Bundchen who in frustration said "you have to catch the ball when you're supposed to catch the ball. My husband cannot throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time."

We're only ever one half of a relationship - we can't throw the ball and catch it at the same time in our relationships. But to the degree that it depends on us, Jesus calls us to do what we can to be peacemakers, rather than peacebreakers.

Practical steps to being a peacemaker

1. Walk in humility - pride is the biggest relationship killer. If you have a string of broken relationships in your wake, especially if you think, "the problem is with everyone else, I did nothing wrong." you might have a pride problem. Paul encourages us in Eph. 4 to walk in peace-making humility.
2. Treat people with respect - a peacemaker values relationships enough to treat others with respect and consideration. Phil 2 says we should consider others more important than ourselves (humility) and Jesus says do to others what you’d have them do to you.
3. When you have a problem with someone, go to them about it - the implication in the word "peacemakers" is that there is conflict to work through. There's no need for peacemakers where there is no conflict to work through. Jesus says that when we have an offense against someone, or they have an offense against us, we are to go and tell it to them. Not tell it to a friend. Not tell it to everyone in the church but them. And when we go, we don’t go to win an argument, we go to win a brother or sister.
4. Be careful about what you say and how you say it - there are words that can help defuse a potential conflict and words that can detonate it. Sometimes when we’re angry we feel justified to give someone a piece of our mind. The problem is, when we give someone a piece of our mind we never get it back!

Prov. 15:1 A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

If you're writing a post or an email and your heart is pounding from the emotion of what you want to say, it's probably better to sit on it for 24 hours. Words can be powerful things - for good or for evil. Jesus calls us to speak in such a way that we promote peace between brothers and sisters, and peace with those who don't know Christ, except when a loving and bold witness breaks the peace.

5. Walk in the Holy Spirit - let's end where we began. Jesus never intended for us to walk this all out in our own strength and we will fail if we try. The Holy Spirit can empower us to be and act differently. Let's ask for the Spirit of God to pour out His power on us that we might walk as peacemakers in a world of strife and broken relationships. And if you're thinking of a broken relationship right now, ask the Lord if there's a way for you to promote peace in it. Maybe soft words spoken with humility can bring healing. At the very least we can pray for God to work and leave it in His loving hands.

Let’s pray.