Pure in Heart in a Distracted World (Dr. Ken Castor)*

In this timeless message Dr. Ken Castor unpacks Matthew 5:8 and shows how to stay focused on God in a noisy and distracted world. He reminds us that the blessed life is not found in comfort or possessions but in a heart fully devoted to Jesus. When we seek God above everything else, He purifies our hearts and helps us see Him clearly in every part of life. (Recorded 11.10.19)

Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/18111930

Key Points:

1. The Cost of a Blessed Life – True blessing is not about ease or success but surrender. The Beatitudes invite us to humility, dependence, and obedience that lead to real fulfillment. Matthew 5:3–12.
2. The Distractions of the Heart – Many of us have what Ken calls spiritual ADD, constantly pulled away by comfort, entertainment, or busyness. Purity begins by naming and removing those distractions. Hebrews 12:1–2.
3. Focus on What Is Pure – Philippians 4:8 calls us to fix our thoughts on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. The more we focus on Jesus, the more our hearts are centered on Him.
4. Pursue God, Not Blessing – The pure in heart do not chase after blessings. They seek God Himself. When we make Him our focus, we discover joy, peace, and purpose. Matthew 6:33, Mark 10:46–52.

Personal Stories from Pastor Chris:
 Ken shares practical and humorous moments such as stepping on a dog toy in the dark and finding muddy pawprints in his car. These everyday distractions become reminders that purity is not perfection but a heart continually refocused on Jesus.

Notable Quotes:
 "People think they want to be blessed until they realize how much a blessed life costs."
 "We have an attention deficit of the heart."
 "Do not pursue blessing. Pursue God, and you will be blessed."

Actionable Takeaways:
 Heart-level reflection: Ask God to reveal what distracts you from wholehearted devotion to Him.
 Daily-life application: Choose one distraction to set aside this week and replace it with prayer, Scripture, or quiet reflection.
 Spiritual step: Pray Psalm 51:10 each day and ask God to renew your heart.
 Practical next step: Meditate daily on Philippians 4:8 and Hebrews 12:1–2 to refocus your thoughts on what honors God.

Scripture References:
 Matthew 5:3–12; Philippians 4:8; Hebrews 12:1–2; Psalm 51:10; Matthew 6:33; Mark 10:46–52; James 4:8.

Keywords:
 pure heart, Beatitudes, focus, distraction, holiness, grace, surrender, blessing, spiritual growth, seeing God.

Challenge:
 Set aside one major distraction this week. Ask Jesus to give you a clear and undivided heart so you can see God at work in your everyday life.

19.1110de

The WELL Faith Podcast offers encouraging, Bible-based messages from Pastor Chris Teien and guests. New sermons are released every Sunday. Replay episodes are marked with an asterisk. Find us online at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.Church in Virginia, MN. Email comments to wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

You're listening to a replay message from my friend Ken Castor, Bible College Professor, Youth Ministry Trainer, and author of many books, including the Make a Difference Youth Bible and Grow Down Discipleship. This timeless message was shared in 2019.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

It's good to be with you guys this morning. I just gotta say, I really appreciate Chris over the years. I don't know if he realizes it, but he's been an encouragement to me. He'll send me notes here and there all the time, just out of the blue. He's an encouraging guy. And yeah, I just want to say thank you, Chris. You you've done that a lot over the years. And I've been in this area, and so thank you. I've been praying for you on a regular basis. I'm just thankful for you. And I've been wanting to get to come and see you, and so I'm just honored to be here with you today. Well, I I want to just spend some good time with you today talking about how distracted our world is and how we can have a pure heart in the middle of a really distracted world. It's it's a big concern of mine. And before I lose my focus, could we pray real quick? That'd be okay. Lord, thank you for this morning. Thank you that we can be here together. Thank you, Jesus, for being the focus of our lives. I pray, Lord, that that would be true. You you are the one we need to gaze upon. You're the one our heart needs to be zeroing in on. We wonder, Lord, why we get so disturbed or so lost in the middle of our hectic lives. And it's because you're supposed to be the focus. So, Lord, help us today to be reminded of that and to do something about it. In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, one of the reasons why this has been on my mind is that I work with Next Generation. I'm the youth ministry professor, and I go around and I talk about what's happening among our younger generation in the country. And there's there's all kinds of things that are being written about our younger generation, only about half of them are true. But but some of the concerns are true, that there's a lot of anxiety, there's a lot of hecticness, there's a lot of busyness, there's a lot going on with our next generation. They have more things at their disposal at their fingertips than any generation has ever had. They have more things to go in front of their eyes than any generation has ever had. And this is all supposed to make their lives better. And what we're finding now is across the nation, the incoming college class, so the class that's graduated from high school and going off to college, that over two-thirds of them are diagnosable with some sort of an anxiety disorder. And part of the reason we think that is, is because they're being inundated their entire life with all kinds of distractions. And they know that life is supposed to be filled with a peacefulness, a contentedness, a fulfillment. And so they're searching for it, but they've been told by everybody, oh, here, this will give you fulfillment, this will give you fulfillment, here, focus your attention on this for a little while. Hey, binge watch on this thing. Hey, here's some Netflix, here's Disney Plus, here's Amazon, here's what else is there? There's just here's your phone. Oh, everything you'll ever need is right here at your fingertips, and you end up being addicted, not fulfilled. And we have we have a whole generation that is is beginning to learn that what a prior generation has provided to them is not bringing them fulfillment. And yet they need it, they need fulfillment, but they're very distracted. And my concern is a wonderful concern that I think we all share, and we're all searching for ourselves, no matter what generation we're in. We're all searching for this blessed life, a contentment, you know, a fulfillment, a satisfaction. I don't know if you're relating to this at all right now. Raise your hand if you have felt distracted in your life over the last week. How about this morning? How about this morning? Have any of you felt like, oh man, I'm just scattered. I've got so many things on my head, I've got all this going on. I think every mom probably has her hand up and every, yes. It's just the world we live in. We're very distracted. And yet we want to bless life. So this is how we often pray. Lord, I've got so much going on. Would you just would you just bless me? Lord, I've got this thing I want to do. Would you, would you bless me? Lord, I've got a test I forgot to study for. Would you bless me today on this test? Would you just, Lord, would you bless so and so? They're sick. And I'm sorry I haven't thought about them for a while. Lord, I've got a lot going on. Would you bless this? Would you bless this? Would you we often pray for blessing because we know that we need to have a good relationship with God to have contentment. But I don't think we always know what we're asking for when we're praying for blessing. At Crown right now, on every Wednesday, we're going through the Beatitudes, these famous sayings of Jesus: blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are, and it goes on with this list, great list of blessed people. This is, if you want to be blessed, like this is how you should be. And so every Wednesday we've been taking another one. This Wednesday, Chris asked me to come speak, and we arranged this day, and it just so happens this Wednesday I'm going to be talking about this. So I thought maybe I'll try it out on you and see what you think. But blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. This idea of blessing. This idea of being blessed. It sounds great at first, but yeah, that's a picture of a unicorn. Do you know what a flock of geese? Oh, you know what a group of geese is called? It's a flock, right? What is a group of cows called? A herd. Let's see, what else do I have here? What is a group of giraffes called? Do you know that one? A tower. Do you know what a group of buzzards is called? A committee. That's why you hate committees. So it just feels like you're waiting for something to die, so you can swoop down there and and just do you know what a group of lions is called? A pride? Yeah? How about this? What's a group of unicorns? A group of unicorns is called a blessing. A blessing. And this is what we're often praying for, kind of a magical wish. Lord, would you just bless me today? Would you just give me my magical wish? But but what are we actually asking for? I mean, have you ever seen a unicorn? I don't know if you have, but but unicorns are like huge. They're like horses. Yeah? But they're not just like horses that you can just go up to. Horses actually, if you go up to them in the wrong way, they're quite dangerous, aren't they? Yeah? I mean, you could get kicked and killed. Add to a horse, a huge old horse, muscular, strong horse. Add to them the sharpest, pointiest, horniest little thing going sticking out of their head. And you want to ask God to send you a blessing. And I'm I'm thinking in my mind, Lord, yeah, would you just like magically bless me? But what am I actually asking for? It seems nice at first, but a blessing is this group of unicorns with sharp horns sticking out of their heads. They could come charging at you. And I don't know that it's as pleasant as maybe it sounds. I don't know if if having God's blessing is as magically escaping my turmoil as I temporarily want it to be. I think sometimes when we pray for blessing from God, we're actually praying for that quick, distracted avoidance of being right with God, focused on God, living our patterns for God. Do you remember that time when there was the rich man and he approached Jesus and he said, Teacher, what do I need to do to have eternal life? And then they have this discussion about following God's commands, like living according to God's patterns. And the rich young man said, Well, I've done all that, Lord. So, and he's so this is a guy who's got wealth, he's got youthfulness on his side, he's he's lived really well with God, but something's lacking in him. He's not fulfilled, he's got all these things, and he's done all these things right, and he's still not content. And he's like, So, Jesus, I've followed all these commands. What else am I lacking? What else do I need? And Jesus said, Go and sell everything and give it to the poor. And the passage says that the rich young man went away sad because he was very wealthy. People think they want to be blessed until they realize how much a blessed life costs. It's similar to what we've just just identified with our veterans. We want a blessed life, but have we stopped to appreciate what a blessed life costs? We have a blessed life in the United States of freedom because it had it has costs to it. And so I kind of see the Sermon on the Mount. Maybe I I've been letting it sink in in a different way than than I used to. These are famous sayings of Jesus, and we get used to them, and we we focus on the blessed part. But it's almost like Jesus wants us to focus on the cost of the blessed life. The cost of contentment, the cost of having fulfillment. The word blessed is a mercurias, and it means to be fortunate, to be fulfilled, to be satisfied. This is what everybody wants. Every young person I know, every old person I know, they want contentment and peacefulness in their life. They want fulfillment. But we we usually want to cut the corners and just grab onto distractions in order to try to find that. So I see the Sermon on the Mount. I'm trying to see it like this. Imagine having. Let me read to you the words of the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew chapter 5, but I want you to focus on a different word set up here on the screen. Okay? So blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. These words are tough. They're challenging. They're countercultural. I don't even like them if I stop and think about them. Are you following me? Jesus, will you just bless me and let me keep on going about my life the way I want? Well, blessed are those who mourn. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, they're not. Imagine the conversation this way. Hey, Jesus, what do I need to do to be blessed? Well, blessed are the poor in spirit. No, no, no, no, no, Jesus. No, I I don't want to be impoverished. You know what I mean? I I've got a good life going on already. I've got things I'm trying to do. Is there any other way than being poor in spirit? All right. Blessed are those who mourn. No, I'd rather not do that. Okay, blessed are the meek. Nope. Nope. I tried that once. It doesn't feel very good. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for right. Come on, Jesus. There must be something more fulfilling on the front end. I'm starved for attention here. I don't want to starve for good things. I'm starved for attention. Like that's why I'm praying to you. Focus on me. Can't you help a guy out, Jesus? What else you got? Blessed are the merciful. Nope. Nope. People have wronged me. They deserve what's coming to them. Oh, blessed are the pure in heart. Yeah, right. Sure they are. Blessed are the peacemakers? Nope, they get shot in the back. Okay, then. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who said anything about the kingdom of heaven here? I want it now, Jesus. I just want to be blessed now. I think being blessed sounds like a good idea until we realize there's a cost. In our really distracted society with so many things, so often our prayer is, Lord, would you give me that one more thing that will fill me up? Can I have one more thing that will make my life content? And this is what we've taught the next generation. Older generation, I'm speaking to you. Right? This is what we've taught. This is what our culture has taught. Hey, next generation, if you want to be happy, just get this, get this, get this, get this, get this, get this, get this, get this, get this, get this, get this. And then every single thing that they get, they have in front of them, and they're like, this doesn't quite do it for me. And they get done with binge watching another series, and they're like, oh man, now I need to find a new series. They get done with whatever, and it's this is the world we've given to them. There's books that describe the next generation as being alone together. We have a whole generation of people who are alone, and they're alone right next to somebody. And my heart breaks. So today I want to focus on how do we have a focused heart? How do we have a pure heart in the middle of distraction, in the middle of a disrupted, corrupted world, in a world that's really hard to see God. We're wondering, where are you, God? We don't see you. Well, I I think we don't see God, you guys, because we're not looking, because we're distracted. We have so much going on, we're distracted. We're a very distracted people. But blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Think of your three main distractions in life. Facebook message messages? Yeah. The telephone, the phone, the the the iPhone, the Android or whatever it is. Okay. Work? Yeah. What else? Children. Is that what I heard? Money? Yeah. Say that again?

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Clash of clans.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Clash of clans. The ad clash of clans. Doesn't it make you mad that in order to really get ahead in that game, you gotta buy all the extra things, right? Otherwise, it takes forever. There anything else? Politics. Oh my goodness. When is it gonna stop? The distractions of all of that. We're very distracted people. I I think we are distracted in two ways. I think we have distraction of disruptions in our life. Like we're just going about our business and then we're disrupted. And we have disruptions all the time. Some of them we bring upon ourselves, like a phone. We bring this about on ourselves. And very rarely are people eating together undisrupted anymore. So if you still are a family that has meals together, you're in the minority because most families no longer have meals together. Most high school students do not eat a meal with their family. They don't have breakfast at all, most of them. They eat lunch at school, and then they don't eat dinner with their family because everybody's running around and busy. Those patterns of life are gone and everything's been disrupted. So very rarely does a high school student in the United States of America have an eye contact conversation with an adult. Very rarely. If you are doing that, you're in the minority and you are, that's fantastic. Keep pushing for that, keep doing that, keep going for that. It is worth it in the long run. It's worth it. But it can be tough because the patterns of this world aren't encouraging that right now. Very disrupted. We also have distractions of corruption. So we have distractions of disruption and we have distractions of corruption. And corruption is just all the nasty stuff that's everywhere, and it just infiltrates our lives. And sometimes we become, we think we become immune to it. And no, this doesn't really bother me, but it does. It plants seeds and it reconstructs our hearts and it changes the way we look at things. It changes what we think is right and wrong, and it just confuses us. These disruptions and these corruptions distract us and we wonder why we don't see God clearly and what God wants us to do in life and what we're supposed to be all about. Ironically, one of the reasons why we add all these distractions of disruption or corruption to our lives is because we're actually seeking a blessed life. Why did I spend 20 some hours last weekend upgrading my phone and changing phone providers? Because I'm like, oh, I need this. This will improve my life. So we changed from Sprint to Verizon because Sprint was driving us nuts. So no offense if you work for Sprint. We were just going crazy. Why do I think Verizon's gonna save the day? Guess what I'll probably do in a few years when my contract's up? I'll start searching around for the next provider who will provide for me what I need. Right? Well, I you know what I've done? I've made additives in my life. I've got addictions in my life. I've adulterated my life. When you adulterate something, you've got something that's pure, something that's true, and you're like, eh, I'm gonna add this to it. I'm gonna add this, I'm gonna add this, I'm gonna add this. And so I think last week you guys had a sermon on childlike faith, right? Is that right? That's what we're supposed to have. But we've taken a childlike faith and we've said, eh, you should be adult. You should add another, ad alt, add other, adultery, adulterated. And we take something that's pure and we add other things to it, thinking, oh, this will give me fulfillment. And it doesn't. It shatters us, it breaks our soul, it makes it so we cannot see God. Because God is pure, and we're disrupted and corrupted in our hearts. I see it kind of like this. I call it the pH scale, so the pure heart scale, the pH scale. And we we're we're worried about our corrupt hearts. We don't want to have disrupted hearts. We we're so distracted. We want to fix that. We want to be right with God, we we want to have fulfillment. So we try to get centered on Jesus, but we have a pH scale, and sometimes we're not always where we should be. And so some of us are like, ah, I can't be good enough. I can't, I can't get rid of everything here, so I might as well just give in to the flow of the stream of culture and just go for it. And then every now and then, when I'm in trouble, I'll reach out to God and maybe God will bless me. That's kind of a sense of entitlement. It's like I can just keep. Living this way, and God, yeah, He'll forgive me, He'll put up with it, and He'll make me right just long enough that I'll be okay. Or maybe if I'm just good enough and attend enough Christmas messages, then I'll be alright and I'll get to heaven, or whatever it is that we're thinking. This is kind of a lazy approach to trying to seek out what's blessed. You know, I'll just sit around, I'll do my thing, I'll do what fulfills me right here and now, and when that doesn't work, then maybe I'll reach out to God. The other extreme is just as bad. Instead of being lazy, we're worky. So we we go into a faith with God that is like, hey, I'm gonna earn a blessed life. I'm gonna work really hard and I'm gonna prove to God that I'm worthy of being blessed. And we we get tempted by this. We're like, God, don't you see all the stuff I'm doing for you? God, didn't you hear all these prayers I've given you? Can't you see how earnest I am? Can't you see my how how much good things I've done? Lord, I did not do that bad thing I was tempted to do last week. You should bless me. Lord, I don't cuss the way everybody else cusses. Lord, I don't do this bad stuff the way everybody else does. Why don't you bless me, God? Look at me, look at me, look at me. The Old Testament is filled with both of these examples. And they set up a religious system that was based on helping Israel remember. Hey, don't be lazy. Come on back, come on back. We'll set up this Ebenezer monument, we'll we'll have this feast, this festival to remind you of where we need to be. We need to have pure hearts focused on God. That's where we need to be. Let's remind you. And so the Old Testament, all these all these religious activities were meant to remind the people whose lives were being disrupted and corrupted. The Old Testament practices would provide sacrifices, and people could could, in a way, go through the rhythms and, hey, here's a sacrifice, here's a sacrifice. Lord, look, here's a sacrifice. Like, like forgive me and set me right, Lord. Here's another one, here's another one, here's another one. And if they relied upon that system, they were relying upon earning, trying to earn salvation or earn what was right with God. And trying to earn kind of like, hey, God, I can be at your right hand because of how good I am. Or, hey, God, I can be really bad, but but I know you'll come around and I'll be okay. Neither one of those, though, is a relationship. Neither one of those is a heart that is free. Neither one of those is a heart that's content. This is where we're supposed to be. The pH scale. We're supposed to be pure in relationship with Jesus. There's no shortcutting or false filling that accomplishes the blessed life that we all are seeking. There's no shortcuts. There's nothing we can do if we work hard enough to actually achieve it. We can't earn it. And we just realize that by our religious activity or religious inactivity, that there's nothing we can do to see God. He's holy. So the question then is how do we get a pure heart? How do we get purity? How do we get this blessed life? How do we live in an undistracted way? Well, I think it could be said that we have ADD of the heart. Some of us have ADD probably in this room. The odds are pretty good that we have an attention deficit disorder. I'm sure there's several of us. So I've never been officially diagnosed, but my dad was a pediatrician who diagnosed others, and he always would say to me, Oh, you've got it. He goes, Ah, you've got it. And he would he would always kind of kid me about it, but where was I going with that? Let's see. No, I'm just joking. But I not only I think do I have kind of an attention deficit of my mind where I get easily distracted by things. Squirrel, right? I get distracted in my mind, but I think I get distracted in my heart. I have an ADD of my heart, an attention deficit disorder of my soul. How do we get that focused? You know, it's like I can't hold a consistent desire for God. I keep desiring other things. How can we do it? And the Bible talks, like gives us great templates for how to do it. Stuff like this, verses in Philippians 4, verse 8. Whatever is true, whatever's noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever's lovely, whatever's admirable. If anything's excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. And I'm like, yes, okay, that's what I need to do. The problem is like I struggle to do this, do you? All through the week, I get distracted and I think of things that aren't that. All throughout the week I get corrupted and I think about things that aren't this. This morning, the dog, the stupid dog, left his toy on the stairs. And as I was walking downstairs in the dark, oh man, my heart got distracted by disruption and corruption quickly when I stepped on that toy and almost fell down the stairs. And the things that came to my mind about that dumb dog, I'm like, dang, I've got a really impure heart. Where did that come from? And then my my awesome middle son, he's 17. He is yeah, he is he is the one who tests the depth of my purity. And he took the dogs, bless his heart. I really do mean that. Lord bless his heart. He took the dogs to a dog park yesterday, and I was so proud of him. What I didn't know is that he took the car to do it. And when he took the car to do it, he didn't have any towels laid down. And so when the dogs got back in the car, guess what the back of the car looked like? The backseat of the car was a mess. Dog prints everywhere. Our dogs haven't had their nails filed for a while, so they are scratches all over the little, you know, side of the doors. I know! That was my thought. Like, what? And so do you want to see? I'll show you pictures of it. Because with this awesome distraction device, I took pictures of evidence to prove to him that he needs to clean up my car today. And the thoughts that went into my head, that was as I was getting in here to preach. I'm looking in the back of my car, I'm going, oh, that kid is, oh no. Uh-uh. And I'm this this does not reflect me. So I'm like, okay, great. Thanks, Bible. This I know I'm supposed to do this, but I'm really struggling to do it. What do I need to do? Well, check this out. So think on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy. Think about such things. In other words, think on Jesus. Think on Jesus. There is no greater demonstration of a pure heart than the heart of Jesus. The Bible talks about moments when Jesus set his, you know, it keeps falling, doesn't it? It's a little distraction. The Bible talks about how Jesus set his focus to the cross. The Bible talks about how Jesus would focus on people who were living distracted lives but crying out to him, and he would stop everything, even crowds of people, to focus on a woman who was bleeding, or to focus on a tax collector that everybody hated, who had climbed a tree, like a child might have. To focus on somebody who couldn't see. And Jesus would bring them focus through his focus. Jesus' heart was purely focused on what God the Father wanted for him. And Satan would even go, hey, how about this? Hey, how about this? Hey, have this iPhone. And Jesus was like, No. And I think he wants to set us free from all of the distractions of this world. He's in the business of helping people to see. I was going to count up all the blind people that Jesus healed that we know of. And I couldn't because there's a certain number of people we know of, and then there's all of these references to all of the blind people that he heals. Just general crowds of people. In one circumstance, he heals multiples of people who cannot see. He gave sight to the blind. And I think that includes giving sight to our clogged hearts, to the focus of our hearts. If we have an unhealthy heart, it impacts our circulation system. It impacts our oxygen to our brain. It impacts our ability to do things. It impacts a lot. And if we have an unhealthy heart in terms of our faith, our circulation doesn't work. We can't do the things we were created to do. And we end up reaching out for additives just to try to make it through. But Jesus, he's the great physician. You know, purity doesn't mean like what we think it means, which is often like this this it can mean this, it can mean an innocence. But in our world today, it doesn't mean ignorance. It doesn't mean that you're naive to what's going on out there. It doesn't mean that you don't know about the bad things. It doesn't mean that you're not aware. Purity now, when I look at Jesus, is that you see the distractions, but because your focus is more on God, you say no to living a distracted life. Purity doesn't have to be naivety, it doesn't have to be inexperienced or ignorant. The world will mock purity because it doesn't understand it, though. Because impurity is power, impurity is weakness. Impurity it contradicts and conflicts with who you are supposed to be. But purity of heart makes you strong and confident and filled with integrity and rightness with God. And we all know this is true. God wants us to live a life that's pure. Would you guys do this real quick? Just write down some verses and then go back to them throughout the week. You have six days in between next Sunday. And I would love for you to just take one of these verses every day in the week ahead. And the first verse is Hebrews 12.14. The step here is that we're supposed to confess that God is holy, and so we can't see God unless we are holy. The next verse is Deuteronomy 6.5. This is just a simple foundational verse about how we're supposed to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and our mind and our strength. But all of our heart should be given to Him. So this would be your Tuesday verse. Your Wednesday verse would be 2 Timothy 2.22. Going to the Lord purely with no distractions. Just try it on Wednesday. Just try crying out to the Lord. Set everything aside and cry out to Him. Psalm 51 will be your Thursday voice verse. Cry out to the Lord and ask him to recreate in you a clean heart. Friday's verse will be 1 John 1 9. Confess your sins. He's faithful and just to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness. All disruptions and corruptions that have distracted our hearts. Jesus will cleanse us from that. James 4, 8 would be your Saturday verse before coming back on Sunday. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. He'll give you a new heart. This is what Jesus does. Do you want that slide again? Do you want that back up there? This is what Jesus does. He's in the business of helping people see with their hearts God. The book of Ezekiel, this is what the whole book of Ezekiel is about. The entire book. It's hard to read, it's hard to get through, but if you think of it in the frame of, God just wants to give us a new heart. It makes sense. Ezekiel 11, Ezekiel 18, Ezekiel 36, 26, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Nicodemus, the teacher of the law, who is kind of workspace, I've done all these things. What do I need to do to inherit eternal life? You're a good teacher. Jesus, tell me something. And Jesus says, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they're born again. Which tells me we need Jesus. The only way we can have our heart purified is if we're given a new heart from Jesus, if we're given his heart. So the the question for us is, and for every generation, and the question that I ask often is, do you want to see? Because if you want to see, because you know that there's a blessed life out there, but if you want to see, there's going to be a cost. And in this case, in this beatitude, the cost is a purified heart. And this is a hard world to have a pure heart in. This is a tough world to have a pure heart. So the question is, do you want to see? I'm going to wrap up. In Mark 10, there's a guy named Bartimaeus. He's blind. And Jesus asks him, What do you want me to do for you? And the man says, I want to see. I think this is what we need to do if we're to live with pure hearts and discover the blessed life that the Lord has for us. I think we need to rid ourselves of our distractions. And I'm speaking to myself here because as I've been preparing for this today, I hope you can hear the rawness in me. I've just, this is, I told Chris, this has been one of the most distracted weeks I've had. I think because I've begun to look for my distractions. I am so frustrated with myself and how distracted of a life I have. I've been ashamed of how many things throughout the day just get in the way of me seeing what God is doing in my own life. I found myself going, God, where are you? What are you doing? And now I'm starting to hear him say, I'm over here. Weren't you looking? And I was like, no, I was looking at something else. I was distracted. I'm sorry. And I'm trying to realign myself with him. The Bible talks often about ridding ourselves of those things that so easily entangle us, Hebrews chapter 12. So we rid ourselves of distraction, and then I think when you abstain from those things that are bad, you engage in the things that are of God. And so take those things out of your life and then engage in those things that are from God. That would be the second step this week. Rid yourself of the distractions, figure out what they are, cut them out, and then engage with the things that God is doing. Look for what God is doing and then do that. Look for what God is doing in your own life and do that. Engage with Him step by step, hand in hand, side by side, walk with God. And then the third and final thing I want to say is that if you want to bless life, don't pursue blessing. Pursue God. Your heart will be purified, and you will be blessed. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. And I think the irony of that verse is that if you seek something else before you seek God, your heart isn't pure. The way to have a pure heart is to seek God. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Let's pray. Lord, I pray for every generation. Thank you for this community. Thank you, Lord, that you have a good word that we don't have to be enslaved to the distractions of this world. But we can live without the burden of being disrupted and corrupted. Why is that person so free? I want them to ask. Why is that person so content in the midst of this disrupted world? What does that person have that I don't? Lord, I want people to ask those questions about us, but when we are as distracted as everybody else, then where's the gospel in us? Help us to be rid of our distractions and just focus solely upon you. You and you alone. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.