======================================================================== A PURE HEART SEES ONLY GOD IN ALL SITUATIONS by Zac Poonen ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of faith as helpless dependence upon God, likening it to a branch in a tree that can do nothing apart from Jesus. It highlights the principle that God waits for us to come to a zero point before working in us, emphasizing the need for true humility and complete surrender to God. The ultimate goal discussed is to have love from a pure heart, which involves seeing God in every situation and being able to love others unconditionally. Duration: 52:18 Topics: "Faith and Dependence on God", "Humility and Surrender" Scripture References: 1 Timothy 1:5, Matthew 5:8, Genesis 50:20, John 18:11, 1 Peter 2:23 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the importance of faith as helpless dependence upon God, likening it to a branch in a tree that can do nothing apart from Jesus. It highlights the principle that God waits for us to come to a zero point before working in us, emphasizing the need for true humility and complete surrender to God. The ultimate goal discussed is to have love from a pure heart, which involves seeing God in every situation and being able to love others unconditionally. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let's turn to a verse that you've been looking at in the last couple of days. It's in 1 Timothy and chapter 1. We saw in our last session, let me just revise briefly, faith is helpless dependence upon God like the branch in the tree. The branch can do nothing and Jesus said, apart from me, you can do nothing. And I explained that that is the secret of an overcoming life. When as long as Lazarus was struggling to live, Jesus did not come. But once Lazarus had died, then Jesus came. That's the principle of God waits till we come to zero and then he works in us. True humility is to come to a zero point in our life and God gives his grace to the humble. It's like water, water always flows to the lowest place first. So remember this, if you're not overcoming sin, there's only one reason you're not getting grace and there's only one reason you're not getting grace, even though you may think you're humble, God does not think so. You're not helplessly dependent on him. You have some confidence in yourself. So here Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1.5, the goal of our instruction, that means all the teaching that we are giving has got a final goal. Just like in soccer, the aim is to put the ball through the goal. So that's the meaning of goal. The goal of all our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. So you heard already in the previous session something about a good conscience and a sincere faith. I want to speak about this phrase, love from a pure heart. What does it mean to have a pure heart? A pure heart and a good conscience. Now if someone were to ask you on the basis of that verse, what is the difference between a pure heart and a good conscience? Can you tell me? If someone were to ask you that question and say you are a Christian, you say you know the Lord, you read the Bible and he asks you, can you please explain to me 1 Timothy 1.5, what is the difference between a pure heart and a good conscience? I'll tell you something about Bible study. If you come across a verse that you cannot understand and you just go around it and go to the next verse, God will see that. What will he see? That you have no interest in knowing the truth. There's a truth there, but you don't understand it as you go to the next verse. It's like a farmer who is plowing the field and he comes across a rock in the middle. Instead of digging it out, he goes around the rock and he comes across another rock and he leaves that, and he comes across another rock and he leaves that. His field will be full of rocks. And that is how it is with many, many believers. They read the Bible, they come to a verse they don't understand, okay, leave it, they go to the next verse. And like that, even after 20, 30 years, there are so many things in the New Testament, they're just not, they haven't understood it all and they're not bothered about it. They're not interested in understanding. Now you tell me, if God sees that you're not really interested in understanding his word, do you think he's going to bring you into a life of victory and overcoming and give you a very blessed personal life and blessed family life? No. He sees that I've got to give him my word when you read something, he doesn't understand it, he just leaves it and goes to the next verse. That's a policy I followed. I started studying the Bible more than 60 years ago, soon after I was born again. And if I didn't understand something, I would read this book and that book and the other book and say, most of those books couldn't tell me much, but sometimes they got an answer, but I was determined to find out. So, you know, today in CFC India, we have so many resources to study the Bible. I don't know whether you know that. Let me begin with just mentioning something about what we have in the CFC India website. We have 72 12-minute studies called Basic Christian Teachings. It's like the kindergarten lesson. It's only 10-12 minutes. And if you spend just 12 minutes a day, in less than three months, you've gone through it and you've got a good foundation. And then we have, you know, foundational biblical truths, which is about 28 half an hour studies, which is video. Another one is audio, which if you go through, you again get a good foundation. And then to study the Bible itself, we have a number of studies called All That Jesus Taught, 80 studies about half an hour each, which goes through the whole gospel of Matthew. And then we have Through the Bible, which is 70 hours of video, which goes from Genesis to Revelation to give you a picture of the whole Bible. And then we have another study called Verse by Verse through the New Testament, which takes every verse, starting with Matthew chapter one, verse one, and goes right up to the last verse in Revelation. And that'll take you a few, maybe a few years to finish listening to it. But if some of you had started and spent just 15 minutes a day three years ago, you'd have probably finished it by now. 15 minutes of Bible study. It could have changed your life. The Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So if you neglect the word of God, you're not going to have faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ, Romans 10, verse 17. So that is why I emphasize studying the scriptures. That's how faith came in my heart. The more I studied the scriptures, that's God's word. Faith comes by hearing God saying, this is what God has said. And you know, right in the first chapter of the Bible, you see the power of God's word. God said, let there be light. There was light. And God said, let the stars appear. The stars appear. Let the sun and moon appear. It appeared. The lesson you learn in the Genesis chapter one is the tremendous power in God's word. When the earth submitted to that word, something happened. Let the trees come out. The trees came out. Now apply that to your life. When you read God's word and you allow it to come into your heart, it'll produce something. That is a message of Genesis chapter one. So I want to encourage all of you, at least from today onwards, spend 15 minutes a day on pure Bible study, listening to some of those studies that are in CFC India. It's all free. You can go there and you can even get a CFC app on your phone and you can listen to it wherever you go. You go for a walk, you can listen to it. And over a period of time, you'll find that not only you get enriched, faith comes in your heart more and more and problems that you have. I'll tell you another experience I've had in listening to God's word like this. Sometimes I'm reading a word and that has an answer for a particular problem I'm facing in my life or in my work. So what I want to say is there's a word in the Psalms which I don't know whether you've read it. Many times at the end of a Psalm it says Selah. S-E-L-A-H. Have you ever thought that's a Hebrew word which means stop and think about it. So that's what happened just now. Selah. Just stop and think about what you heard all this time. That is, you're speaking about a very important subject called anger. And I think God put a Selah there saying stop and think about it and don't take it lightly. Because Matthew 5 20, the Lord said your righteousness must be more than the righteousness of the Pharisees. And the righteousness of the Pharisees will don't commit murder. But I say to you don't get angry. Verse 22. That's new covenant equivalent of don't murder. Otherwise he said you can go to hell. And then now listen to this. We are talking about a good conscience. Verse 23. What is the context? Please read the Bible in context. What is the subject? Verse 22. The subject is getting angry. And usually anger is mostly found in our home first. So think about getting angry in your home. And then you go to God in prayer. Verse 23. You come to the altar, present your offering, means you're offering prayer to God. And then you remember while you're praying, you hurt your brother or your husband or your wife with what? Verse 22. Anger. Always read the Bible in its context. You got angry with someone and you did not apologize. You did not set it right. You poked somebody in some way and you come to God in prayer. You know what the Lord says? Verse 24. Leave your offering there. Jesus says stop praying. Can you imagine Jesus says stop praying? He told us to pray all the time, but he says stop praying. Don't pray because your prayer is not going to be heard. A lot of believers prayers are not heard. And the answer is here. Leave your offering there. Go to your brother or to your husband or your wife or X, Y, Z, whoever it is. And verse 24, be reconciled with that person. Apologizing for what you did wrong. Then come and offer your prayer. I want to ask all of you a straight question. How many of you do that? I'm sure all of us who are married have hurt our husbands or wives sometime or the other. Did you apologize? When did you apologize? Next day or one week later? Or keep a grudge for a few days and then settle it? You're a Pharisee. I'll tell you to your face you're a Pharisee. And I would also say to you, my dear brother, sister, let me say this lovingly. You do not fear God. You have no respect for the words of Jesus Christ. And say that again. You have no respect for the words of Jesus Christ who said, don't pray. Go and settle that matter with your brother, husband, wife, whoever it is, then come and pray. But you ignore that. And you say, I'm going to pray. Well, you can pray as much as you like. God's not going to hear you. A lot of your prayers were never heard by God, just went to the roof and came down. What is the difference then between you and all those other Hindus or non-Christians who also pray? Nothing happens. People pray to an idol, nothing happens. Your prayer also, they may not be an idol, but it just goes up to the roof and comes back. You say, but God answered some prayers of mine. Sure. God is merciful. The Bible says God sends his rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. He makes the sun to rise upon the good and the evil. So there are certain blessings God gives to everybody, whether you're righteous or unrighteous, good or evil, but you'll never have God's best if you don't settle those things immediately. Good conscience means as soon as you feel a prick, you settle it. To use an example, if you're walking barefoot in the grass and a thorn gets into your foot, let's say you're walking barefoot somewhere and a thorn gets into your foot. You feel it immediately. My question is, when will you remove that thorn? Tomorrow, next day, after a week. We will remove it immediately, not only because it's paining, but because we know it'll get infected. And when it gets infected, the problem will be much worse. That's exactly how it is when you have done something wrong to somebody else, spoke in a rude way or something, and you have not said it right. It gets infected. There is a spiritual fuss that comes there that hinders your fellowship with God. So I want you to take this very seriously. When you come to God in prayer, you suddenly remember that, hey, I didn't set that matter right with that other person, somebody in your home, somebody in your office, whoever it is, even if it's a beggar, a homeless person. In India, we have beggars that come to the gate and knock at the gate and knock at the gate, and you can get easily irritated with them. I've told people, if you are rude to a beggar, you tell him, get away, I don't want to see you, or something like that. You know what you should do? Follow him, go after him and say, I'm sorry, sir. Please forgive me for speaking to you like that. That beggar may be poorer than you, but he's made in the image of God, child of Adam, and you have been rude to someone who was made in the image of God. Go and set it right. James says that. You read James chapter three. He says, you speak blessed words to God, and in the same mouth, you speak a rude word to people who are made in the image of God. You read that in James chapter three. Settle it, settle it. That is how we must keep our conscience clear, immediately, immediately. It has changed my life from the time I decided to follow it, immediately. Set it right, and if someone far away, make a phone call or write a letter, set it right, set it right. I've sought to live with a good conscience for many years, and the advantage is you can hear God clearly. Many people say, I can't hear God. I'll tell you why. The ear is blocked with a dead conscience. Do you think God doesn't want to speak to his children? You tell me, many of you are fathers and mothers. Don't you like to speak to your children? Is there any father or mother who has no interest in speaking to the children? And the Lord says, if you being evil are eager to speak to your children, how much more your heavenly father is eager to speak to you? Then why do you say you don't hear him? You don't hear him because your ears are blocked, and the ears are blocked with a bad conscience. Then God can, John said in Revelation chapter one, John the apostle says, I heard the voice of the Lord like a trumpet. Oh, like a trumpet, and you can't hear it at all? Yeah, a deaf man can't even hear a trumpet. How is it that John the apostle heard the Lord's voice like a trumpet? Because his conscience was clear. Faith and a good conscience, very, very, very important. Please keep this in mind, dear brothers and sisters. And don't forget it, please. Some of the things that you hear today, I would encourage you to go and listen to the message again. When you tend to forget it, listen to it again. Thank God for recorded messages that we can hear again and again. And if you find that a particular message challenged you and blessed you, make a note of that link somewhere and go back to it. See, we have about 2,000 messages on different subjects on YouTube, and the purpose of all those messages is to help you to have a good conscience in different areas, to help you to have faith in God, to help you to be helpless in your dependence upon God. So keep a good conscience. Leave your offering there. Stop praying. First be reconciled to that person, and then come and present your offering. So that is one part of a good conscience, where you have hurt somebody, and you must go and ask his forgiveness. Let it be a habit in your life that you're quick to humble yourself, to ask forgiveness. I'll tell you, there is only one reason, only one reason why you are slow in asking forgiveness from your husband or your wife, or it could be a maidservant in the house, it could be anybody. Pride, P-R-I-D-E. That's the only reason why you don't go immediately and ask forgiveness, and that is why God resists you. The Bible says God resists the proud. You'll never make progress in your life if God resists you, and one mark of pride is an unwillingness to go and ask forgiveness from somebody. God will resist you until you set that right. Think of the number of days in your life that you're wasted like this, keeping a thorn, one thorn, two thorns, three thorns in your foot, never pulling them out till they get infected. Make sure that from now on it doesn't happen like that, that you stop praying, leave your offering, go and settle it and come back. Very, very important. It's a simple thing. Pull out a thorn, confess, say, Lord, say, brother, I'm sorry. Don't tell your husband or wife, darling, I'm sorry for what I said. Please forgive me. I want to be more careful in what I say. Keep a good relationship. If it's somebody in the church, you hurt and set it right. Okay. The other aspect is this, good conscience. Turn to Matthew chapter six. Here, there is a prayer. We are taught to pray, and this is a prayer. Even if you don't repeat it every day, all our prayers, you must pray. You must have a spirit of prayer every day. Definitely. Even if you don't spend hours in prayer, this prayer takes less than five minutes, but we know it is an attitude of prayer we must have every day because one sentence, it says in verse 11, give us this, Matthew 6, 11, give us this day our daily food. So that talks about this day, daily. So the whole prayer, even if you don't repeat it, should be the spirit of your daily praying. Jesus expects us to pray daily, and that's why you read that, give us today our daily bread. That means all that prayer, that spirit of that prayer, must be every day in our prayers. And one of the things we pray for every day is verse 12, forgive us our debts or our sins as we have forgiven others the sins they have committed against us. This is the opposite of what we read in Matthew chapter five, that it was where you sinned against somebody, and you go and ask his forgiveness. This is where somebody sins against you, and you have to forgive him. What is the prayer? Let me paraphrase it, verse 12, it's a daily prayer, Lord today, please forgive. We may not consciously sin every day, but unconsciously we are sinning every single day. Until you become 100% like Christ, there is some type of unconscious thing coming out of you, which you may not be aware of. It's like this body odor, you know, if you perspire a lot or you haven't had a shower for a long time, there is a smell, a bad smell that comes out of your body. Everybody else can smell it, but you yourself cannot. There's a problem with body odor. The person who has it doesn't smell it, he thinks he's smelling nice, and everybody's feeling like holding their noses. But it's like that, you know, the things that come out from us, un- Christlike behavior, conversation, gossip, backbiting, so many things which we are not even aware of, that there's something wrong in that, a certain attitude or the way you say something, and you don't realize that's un-Christlike. So even if you don't consciously sin in any day, unconsciously you're sinning. That's why we need to pray every day, Lord, please forgive my sins. Forgive my sins, and it says here, not just forgive my sins, forgive my sins in the same way as I have forgiven others their sins against me. See the connection? How should we ask the Lord for forgiveness? Forgive me, Lord, in exactly the same way, verse 12, as I have forgiven that person who did something wrong to me. Okay, question is, how did you forgive that person? First of all, have you forgiven him at all? Have you forgiven everybody who did wrong to you? I want to ask you a straight question. Think of all the people who have done wrong to you. Anybody who's older than five years old, people have done wrong to them, even children. There are many people who have done wrong to you throughout your life. It's true of every single one of you. It's true of every human being. My question is, have you forgiven all of them? Not 99% of them, all of them. All the people who did wrong to you, some of them have died. They did wrong to you. Maybe your parents brought you up badly, or some uncle, or aunt, or mother-in-law, or somebody cheated you of the property, perhaps, which you deserve, family wealth, or something. Have you forgiven them? That's my question. Why do I ask that question? Because you're telling God, God, my Father, please forgive me in exactly the same way I have forgiven this person. And if you have not forgiven this person, your prayer is, Lord, don't forgive me. Did you know that? You're telling God not to forgive you? Yes. If there is one person on earth, listen carefully, if there's one person on earth today, almost dead and gone, whom you have not forgiven for something that person did against you, or said against you, or harmed you, or cheated you, or whatever it is, and you have not forgiven, you're saying, Lord, forgive me in the same way I forgave that person. The Lord says you didn't forgive him. So you're actually asking me not to forgive you. Do you understand that? Forgive me in the same way I have forgiven that person, but you're not forgiving that person. So you're praying to God, Lord, don't forgive me. Actually, many Christians are praying to God, don't forgive me. Lord, don't forgive me, because I haven't forgiven that person, and I haven't forgiven that other person. Do you know that many people, when they stand before the Lord, the Lord will say, I answered your prayer. I never forgave you. I answered your prayer by never forgiving you, because you asked me to forgive you like you forgive others, and you never forgave all those other people. So you were asking me not to forgive you, and I answered your prayer. I did not forgive you. And you stand before God in the final day, unforgiven. Where will you go? After you die, there's no hope for forgiveness after that. If you want God's forgiveness, you must do it now. And if you want to forgive other people, you must do it now. Then Jesus amplified. You know, there are many requests in this prayer. Our Lord be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. Give us our daily bread. Forgive us our debts. Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us. And out of all these six, seven requests, Jesus takes out one request and repeats it. Now all these requests are important, but one request he repeats it, that is forgiving others. Verse 14. If you forgive others their sins, your father will forgive you. If you do not forgive others, your father will not forgive you. Do you believe that? My dear brother and sister, I don't mind stopping here for half an hour, because I want all of you in the kingdom of God, not only in the kingdom of God, I want all of you to have a very effective life for Christ here on the earth. And you will not have it. If there is one person you're not forgiven. I've been a servant of the Lord, full time servant of the Lord for 56 years. And I've tried my best to speak the truth without compromise. All these years, especially after CFC started. And because of that, I know the devil hates me. He hates me more than other people because I'm exposing his lies and preaching the full gospel. And how do you think the devil attacks me? Not directly. He gave up that long ago. Through people. Attack me in various ways with words and this and that and the other and take me to court that the religious people did that to me. Okay. But I want to stand before God today and tell all of you, I have forgiven every one of them. There's not a single human being dead or alive whom I have not forgiven. I say that before God, even people who did great harm to me, deliberately troubled me. Because of that, I have the absolute confidence to know my heavenly father forgives me. I want all of you to have that same confidence every single day of your life. I live under a clear, open heaven. You know, prayer is like making a phone call. Have you had this experience where you make a phone call to some person and that person sees his phone and says, oh, this is from that person. I'm not going to pick it up because he doesn't want to listen to you or she doesn't want to talk to you. They see your name on that phone and say, no, I won't pick it up. Let it ring. That shows that that person and you don't have a good relationship, but that is what God does. When you make a phone call to him, when you pray, God says, oh, that person, I'm not going to listen to him because he hasn't forgiven somebody. I'm not going to listen to her because she hasn't forgiven someone. She hasn't forgiven her husband. He hasn't forgiven his wife. She hasn't forgiven her mother-in-law and he hasn't forgiven those relatives of us from who cheated in the property. Why should I listen to him? I will not pick up the phone. It's a terrible thing when God does not pick up the phone, does not answer your prayer, does not even pick up the calls. And then there are other people. You know how it is, people who love you, love greatly. As soon as you hear the phone, you pick it up because you have such a good relationship with that person. I want it to be like that with me and my heavenly father. Then when he sees, oh, that woman is calling, let me respond immediately. Don't you want that relationship with God? Dear brother, sister, forgive everyone, everyone, no matter what harm they did to you. Let me tell you this, whatever harm anybody has done to you is less than one millionth of the harm you did to God. The sins you committed against God is one million times more than what that person did to you. Forgive, and your heavenly father will forgive you. Because going back to 1 Timothy chapter 1, you heard a lot about that during the last couple of days, faith and a good conscience. And it says here in 1 Timothy 1.5, a good conscience goes along with sincere faith. The two go together, a good conscience and sincere faith. So you won't have faith, a sincere faith if you don't have a good conscience. Okay, so much for that. Now, I want to go on to the other thing mentioned here, a pure heart. That is the ultimate goal. The good conscience and sincere faith are preparing the way to come to have a pure heart. Now, what is the difference between a pure heart and a good conscience? Let me explain to you. You probably never thought about it till now. A good conscience is where you're convicted of sin and you immediately confess it and set it right and ask the Lord to cleanse you. Whether it's a sin against God or dirty thought or some wrong attitude towards someone, they're only between you and God, or between you and somebody else, you ask forgiveness and you give forgiveness, and your conscience is clear, good. But a pure heart is more than that. Because Jesus said, turn with me to Matthew chapter 5, please. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 8, Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. What do the pure in heart see in their heart? God. They always see God. They don't see that evil person doing something evil to them. No, they see God. Some difficult circumstances, oh, that's God allowing that thing to happen to me. So they don't get upset with that person. They say, God has allowed that to happen to me. Let me give you a classic example of that. Turn with me to Genesis in chapter 50. You remember the story of Joseph. When he was 17 years old, his 10 older brothers were jealous of him because the father loved him especially, and sold him as a slave. Can you imagine hating your younger brother so much that you sell him off as a slave? That's what they did to him. But God had a plan for that young Joseph. And when he went to Egypt, there he was falsely accused and he had more trouble. He went to prison for another at least 10 years to the age of 30. Falsely accused by some evil woman, hated by his 10 brothers. And finally, God arranges things in such a way that this young 30 year old man becomes next to Pharaoh in Egypt. The most powerful man in Egypt next to Pharaoh. And then there's famine all over and his 10 brothers come for food, for grain. What an opportunity to take revenge. Now I can teach them a lesson. But he doesn't do that. He gives them the grain, doesn't even charge them. He gives them their money back. And remember, he was not a Christian. He didn't even have the Old Testament Bible. He never heard about Jesus Christ. He never heard about Calvary's cross. He did not receive the Holy Spirit. He feared God, that's all. That's what he told Potiphar's wife. How can I do this thing? I fear God. Potiphar's wife says, there's nobody here, Joseph, come. Joseph tells Potiphar's wife, there is somebody here. God is here. Imagine an Old Testament person tempted to commit a sin. And the woman says, come, nobody's here. And he says, no, God is here. What an example for all young people to follow. You think nobody's watching you, just God is here. And then when that's his fear of God, but see another part of his character, when these people come to him and they say, please forgive us, Joseph. It says here in Genesis 50 verse 17, the father told him, go to Joseph and say, please forgive, I beg you, the transgression of your brothers. They did you wrong. Please forgive the transgression of the servants of God, your father. And you know what Joseph said? What does Joseph reply to these people who did such evil things that he suffered for 13 years? Verse 20, this is an amazing verse. All of you must remember this verse. This is the Romans 828 of the Old Testament. You know, Romans 828, God works everything together for good to those who love him. This is the same verse in the Old Testament written by Joseph who didn't have a Bible. You meant evil against me, but God turned it around for good. To bless and preserve many people. What an attitude to have. When somebody does evil to you, my brother, sister, remember Genesis 50, 20. Somebody did some terrible evil to you. Can you at least have the faith of Joseph who had no Bible, no Holy Spirit, knew nothing about Christ? We know about Christ. We have the Bible. We have the Holy Spirit. Surely we can at least come to this standard. You meant, he meant evil to me, but God turned it out for good. What an example. Joseph will rise up in the day of judgment and accuse Christians who do not have that attitude, saying, you people had a Bible. You knew about Jesus. You received the Holy Spirit. You had meetings. You had conferences. I never had any of those things, but God gave me grace to, or mercy and help to forgive my brothers. Forgive. Love from a pure heart. Why was this? Because Joseph saw God. Blessed are the pure in heart. What do they see? What did Jesus say? Blessed are the pure in heart. They'll see God. Everywhere they'll see God. When Potiphar's wife came to Joseph and said, come, let's sin. He saw God. When the pure in heart will see God. They don't see Potiphar's wife. They see God. When his evil brothers come, he doesn't see the evil brothers. He sees God. That's how you know whether your heart is pure or not. That's the difference between a good conscience and a pure heart. Good conscience is as soon as you're convicted, you confess it. Good. A pure heart is beyond that. A pure heart is one which sees God in every situation. Blessed are the pure in heart. They will see God in every situation. They will only see God. They won't see the evil people. They will not look at the evil circumstances and be in panic or in fear. They'll see God. For example, some very difficult situation you face. If your heart is pure, you'll see God there. If your heart is not pure, you'll see that circumstance and you'll be in a panic and you won't be able to sleep at night and you'll have fearful dreams and all types of things. And when you're in a difficult situation, the devil will tell you many, many ways to tell lies and get out of that situation. You know the number of Christians who tell lies to get a visa, just to get a visa. What a lot of false things they'll sign and you think they see God there? When you fill up a form, see God. Your heart is pure. You will never lose anything by speaking the truth. Never, never, never. You'll never gain anything by telling a lie. Be pure in heart. How do you know you're pure in heart? The pure in heart will see God. Jesus said that. In every situation, in every circumstance, everywhere. And that's how God wants us to live on this earth. And like Joseph to be a testimony, much more in the New Testament. You know, when the disciples, when the Garden of Gethsemane, we read that they, and you know how Peter took out a sword and wanted to hit those people who came to capture Jesus. Jesus replied to him was, the cup, see that's in John chapter 18 and verse 10 and 11. Very good verse to remember. John 18, verse 10 and 11. All the soldiers had come in Gethsemane to capture Jesus. And Simon Peter, the great defender of Jesus, took out his sword and struck the high priest slave and cut off his ear. And Jesus said, put your sword back. The cup which my father has given me. John 18, 11. Shall I not drink it? Peter saw the Roman soldiers. Who did Jesus see? God, the father. That is an example of how same people are there, but Peter sees the Roman soldiers. Jesus sees God. So two people can look at the same circumstance. One person sees God there and the other person sees the difficult circumstance. And that person gets into a panic. But the person who sees God is at rest. Somebody comes to do evil to you. The person whose heart is pure, he sees God there. The person whose heart is not pure, he sees that evil person and gets into a fight. It's a wonderful thing to have a pure heart. And the way you know you have a pure heart is that you only see God in every single circumstance you face in life. So let's turn back to 1 Timothy chapter 1. We talked about faith, helpless dependence upon God. We talked about a good conscience. That means forgive everyone. Ask forgiveness from everyone. Immediately take out the thorns that prick your conscience. And 1 Timothy 1.5 says, a good conscience and a sincere faith. But that's not all. The ultimate goal is love from a pure heart. How can you love people from a pure heart if you see God in every situation? How could Joseph love his brothers who had done so much evil against him that made him suffer in jail for 10 years? I tell you, even though he didn't have a Bible, he didn't have the Holy Spirit, he saw God. How is it he refused to yield to the temptations of that evil woman, the 41st wife? He saw God. Blessed are the pure in heart. They will see God in every situation. That difficult situation they are facing, where the devil wants to bring panic in their mind. When you see God, the panic goes. Maybe you're concerned about the future of your children, about their education. Maybe some of you are concerned about getting a job somewhere or getting a visa or whatever it is. I don't care what the problem is. I'll tell you one thing. If you're pure in heart, you will see God and you will never be in a panic. And you will never sign a false statement and you will never tell a lie to get anything in the world. And then God will give you the best. He will give you the very best. I have experienced that for half a century, for 50 years, particularly the last 47 years since God filled me with the Holy Spirit. I have always got the very best in everything, everything. I say, Lord, I want to see you. In every situation, even when other people troubled me or tried to harm me, God make it work for the very best. I remember once I got a phone call from somebody. I had to discipline somebody in a particular situation. As an elder in a church, sometimes we have to discipline people. It's not something I like to do, but you have to do it like a father. A good father will discipline his children, also love them. So I had to discipline somebody and somebody else in another town who did not know the full story, and was a very close friend of that person, got very upset with me when he heard it. And without knowing the full story, he called me up. He was a believer. And he started yelling at me on the phone for many, many minutes. This is many years ago. Now, I could have easily put the phone down. One advantage of having a phone, you can disconnect the call. But I said, I don't want to insult him. Let him speak whatever he wants. He kept on speaking, speaking, speaking, speaking. I never said a word. I never said one word. Then finally he stopped. So I said, Brother, have you finished? He said, yes. I said, okay. God bless you. Thank you. And I put the phone down. Two or three months later, he called me again. He said, Brother Zak, I'm really sorry. I discovered the facts of the case only later. What you did was absolutely right. That discipline was necessary. I did not know when I yelled at you and got angry with you. Please forgive me. I said, there's nothing to forgive. That day itself, I forgave you. It's perfectly all right. What would I have gained either by putting the phone down and being rude to him or by yelling back at him and explaining everything? No. It says when people accuse Jesus, he committed his cause. 1 Peter chapter 2. Read it sometime. He committed his cause to the one who judges righteously. He said, Father, these people are saying, I said I will tear down this building and you tear it down. I'll build up this temple in three days. You know what I meant. I was talking about the body, but they are saying that I have built this earthly temple. I'm not going to explain to them. No. Let them believe what they like. I commit my cause to the one who judges righteously. Follow Jesus' example in everything in life. You'll have a wonderful life on this earth. The goal of our instruction. Remember this verse all your life. One Timothy, one fire. Memorize it. The ultimate goal, the goal of all the teaching is that you might have a good conscience, a sincere, helpless dependence upon God, which we call faith, and a pure heart which sees only God in every situation so that you can love everyone. That is the meaning of one Timothy, one fire, and that is the purpose of all that we taught in this conference and always. May God bless you all. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, please help us to live with so much of knowledge we have now. Help us to put it all into practice and make it real in our lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/UPppSW6_e64.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/zac-poonen/a-pure-heart-sees-only-god-in-all-situations/ ========================================================================