How to Be Pure in Heart and Develop Godly Character

This summary, optimized for SEO, outlines Dr. Adrian Rogers’ sermon on the Sixth Beatitude from Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Rogers asserts that the root of all national and personal chaos is an integrity crisis, which can only be solved by addressing the heart, the true source of character. The message details the Principle of Integrity (singleness of heart), the Problem of the Heart (its deceitful nature), and the Promise of Integrity (seeing God).

I. The Principle of Integrity: Singleness of Heart

Rogers defines integrity as purity of heart. This purity is the opposite of being divided or double-minded.

1. Purity Defined: Unmixed and Single-Minded

The Greek word for “pure” is related to the word catharsis, meaning a purifying, whether physical or emotional. However, the word’s primary meaning in this context is unmixed or singleness of heart and mind.

• Examples of Impurity: Something is impure if it is diluted (like milk), mixed with alloy (like metal), contains chaff (like grain), or has defectors (like an army).
• Unity of Purpose: Purity means a person is not double-minded. This single-mindedness aligns with Jesus’ teaching that “No man can serve two masters” (God and Mammon); one cannot hold the world with one hand and Jesus Christ with the other. Serving God requires doing so without duplicity and without hypocrisy.

2. David as the Example of Integrity

King David is the biblical illustration of integrity, famously called “a man after God’s own heart”. God did not measure David by his height or physique, but by his heart.

• David’s Confession: David’s prayers reflect his core value of integrity. He prayed, “Judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity” (Psalm 7:8, 14, 15). He believed that his integrity was his great resource when he waited on God.
• Single Heart, Not Sinless Heart: Rogers clarifies that while David sinned horribly and failed God, he was not a hypocrite. David may have had a sinful heart, but he always had a single heart. When David sinned, he offered a confession—not an alibi—and his sin broke his heart as well as God’s.

Rogers advises young preachers seeking advice to prioritize one thing: “Integrity, integrity. Just have integrity!”.

II. The Place of Integrity: The Corrupt Human Heart

Integrity must begin in the heart, which the Bible uses to describe the core of the individual—the seat of emotions, master control, and total commitment. The heart dictates character, directs the will, and dominates the affections.

1. The Disease and Deceitfulness of the Heart

The great problem is that the human heart is naturally corrupt. Jeremiah 17:9 is the “classic verse” on the heart: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”.

• Incurably Sick (Diseased): The phrase “desperately wicked” literally means incurably sick or diseased, resisting all medication. All spiritual diet or exercise cannot cure this internal ailment; what is needed is a heart transplant (regeneration), not mere reformation.
• The Problem of the Sawmill: Reformation only changes the outside. A log can be cut perfectly square on the outside, but if you look at the end, the heart is still crooked. An outward reformed drunkard who quits drinking without being saved will merely “go to Hell sober”.
• Deceitful (The Jacob Factor): The word “deceitful” is the same as the name Jacob (meaning supplanter or con-artist). The heart is a “Jacob” that will deceive to get what it wants, making it the most deceitful thing in the world, surpassing Hollywood or the media.
• Foolish Trust: The Bible warns, “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool”. Sincerity is not enough, because if the heart is deceitful, one can be sincerely wrong.

2. The Potential for Evil (The Worm Hole)

All evil in the world originates in the heart. Jesus listed the catalogue of evils that proceed from the heart, including evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, wickedness, deceit, blasphemy, and pride. Rogers affirms that all these things are residual and potential in every human heart.

Using the analogy of an apple: the hole in an apple is not there to let the worm in, but to let the worm out; the worm was already hatched in the blossom. Similarly, sin is inbred in human nature.

3. God’s Diagnosis and Review

Since the heart is deceitful and incurable, the individual cannot diagnose their own heart. It must be God Himself who searches the heart.

• Reviewing: God performs an intensive review of the heart, seeing past the outward appearance with His X-ray eyes.
• Revealing: God reveals the heart by “trying the reins” (the control center). God allows circumstances to come into a person’s life to see how they react, because actions don’t prove what you are, but your reactions do. Rudeness or anger is already in a person; circumstances just push the “hot button”.
• Rewarding: When God judges, He looks not primarily at what was done, but what the person is (the motives and nature of the heart). God will “bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the councils of the hearts”.

III. The Promise of Integrity: They Shall See God

The ultimate reward for the pure in heart is the Promise of Integrity: “for they shall see God”.

1. The Barrier of Sin and the Blindness of the Age

Sin blinds the mind, preventing people from seeing God. The “god of this age hath blinded the minds of them that believe not”. People attempt every conceivable human effort—pilgrimages, fasting, piercings—to try to see God, but the true path is simply getting the heart pure.

2. Seeing the Invisible

The purity of heart enables the spiritual eye to see. This is seeing God, not with the physical eye, but with the eye of faith. Just as Moses “endured as seeing him who is invisible,” the pure in heart will perceive God.

• Everywhere: When the heart is pure, God becomes a “bright, living reality,” visible in circumstances, nature, the face of a grandchild, and the Scriptures. The Bible will “burst aflame” in the believer’s hands.
• Single Eye: When the “eye is single,” the whole body is full of light. Rogers describes the necessity of continually yielding his possessions, family, and ministry back to God to maintain that single eye.