sermonette: Be Perfect
Mike Ford
Given 14-Jun-97; Sermon #293s; 18 minutes
Description: (show)
You know, there was this, this I may perhaps I'm guessing here that the guilt over a divorce or a broken home or whatever has caused her to go the other way and make sure that his self-esteem is never harmed in any way.
Well, I was thinking about this sermonette when I was sitting at Cody's last, my son's last Little League ballgame, and it dawned on me.
How pervasive this was as I listened to the parents in the bleachers.
Every move a child made brought applause.
I'm serious.
He threw the ball.
Oh, that's wonderful, yeah.
He adjusted his hat.
Oh, that's great, that's great.
It continued.
It was continuous.
It's uh, and of course, this was his last game.
So after the game, everyone gets a participation trophy.
Cody has two shelves lined with participation trophies.
There are no winners.
There are no losers.
There are no MVPs.
There are no most improved.
There are only participants so that we can all be average.
Dumbing down, I think, is a term that we hear a lot, and I think that's what this could be called dumbing down.
Kids grow up, they get jobs.
And they think mediocrity is a valued asset, and they do not understand why they can't make more money because they are only average.
In this nation instead of exemplifying hard work, and high standards we've gone the other way.
We've lowered the bar.
So that everyone can be the same.
Let me read you from a US news article.
About a Department of Education study from 3 years ago.
That showed that more than 50% of American college graduates can't read a bus schedule.
Now that in itself is appalling but I'm going to give you a small problem here.
A math problem, nothing to be afraid of.
Whoever has the answer can give it to me.
Makes no difference.
But I'll tell you in advance how tough this problem is.
56.3% of American college graduates could not come up with the answer.
You go into a restaurant and you put $3 on the counter.
And you order a 60 cents bowl of soup and $1.95 sandwich.
60 cents for the soup $1.95 for the sandwich.
Forget the tax.
$3 on the counter.
How much change do I have coming back?
Every one of you in here is smarter than 56.3% of American college graduates.
I am serious.
Is that not depressing?
OK, that point that I'm making here is the dumbing down process.
Now it is not confined to the physical.
It has invaded our spiritual lives as well.
A Rabbi named Harold Kushner wrote a book a few years ago, a few years ago called When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
You've probably heard of it.
Some of you may have read it.
He has a new book out called How Good Do We Have to Be.
Let me quote a couple of paragraphs.
This is from a rabbi.
The more I as a clergyman have dealt with people's problems, and the more I've looked at my own life honestly, the more convinced I am that a lot of misery can be traced to one mistaken notion.
We need to be perfect for people to love us.
We may have gotten this message of perfection from parents who genuinely loved us and demonstrated that by correcting our every trivial mistake.
And by constantly urging us to do better.
We may have gotten this message from teachers who praised only perfect papers and showed impatience when we did something wrong.
Saddest of all, we may have picked up this same kind of message from our religious leaders.
That God holds us to strict standards of right and wrong.
That He knows every nasty thing we do, even our secret thoughts.
And that every sin we commit separates us from God's love.
Yet why would God set us up for failure?
Establishing a standard that not one of us could possibly meet.
He knows us all too well to demand perfection of us.
Well, what about perfection?
Is it obtainable?
Should we strive for it at all?
If, as Rabbi Kushner says, it's beyond us.
Well, if we are to be first fruits, and I think that's why we are here.
Those, in other words, whose examples that others will follow, then we need to know the answers to these questions.
Now this attitude of Rabbi Kushner that God knows better than to expect perfection of us is one that I would more commonly associate with the Protestants, not with the rabbi.
Any of you who spent time in the, as I did, the Southern Baptist affiliation early on, all you need is Jesus in your heart.
That's all you have to have, and you know the worldwide felt for that too.
Teaching brethren to live a godly life is just too hard, is not it?
Just too hard.
The leadership wanted to make it easier on the people.
Of course now they are virtually indistinguishable from any other Protestant group, but let's see what God says about it.
Turn to Genesis.
And 17 verse 1.
And let's look at perfection.
Genesis 17.
And verse 1.
Genesis 17:1 When Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, I am the Almighty God. Walk before me and be you perfect.
Now it would seem to me that if Rabbi Kushner is right, God should have known better than to tell Abraham that he should be perfect.
Perhaps this was His first go at it.
Maybe He learned from this, and He doesn't require it later on.
We'll see about that in a minute.
Maybe Abraham's the only one He tried this with.
OK, notice that God makes a condition.
Before making this covenant with Abraham, He says, first of all, walk before me and be perfect.
Then verse 2, He makes His covenant with him.
He multiplies him exceedingly.
Verse 4, Father of many nations.
Verse 6, kings shall come out of you.
God did multiply as His descendants.
He did have kings come from Him.
He did make nations of him.
So God fulfilled His half.
Abraham, Abraham had to fulfill his part of the bargain.
Abraham had to be perfect.
And it looks like that is the case.
But as I said earlier, maybe Abraham was a special case.
I mean, father of the faithful.
Maybe God wouldn't hold the rest of us to that standard, you know, maybe the rest of us can just get a participation trophy.
Possible.
Let's see what God says to us in Matthew 5:48.
Matthew 5:48 Be you, therefore perfect. Even as your Father, which in heaven is perfect.
So it appears that God did not really learn from the dealings with Abraham because here He is with this perfect thing again.
And this time He wants all of us to become perfect.
Is this possible or is perfection really and truly beyond us?
We know we are very familiar with the verse in Romans 3 and 23.
Romans 3:23 We've all come short of the glory of God. We've all sinned.
Let's look at a similar verse in Ecclesiastes 7.
Ecclesiastes 7:20 For there is not a just man on earth. Not a just man on earth that does good and sends not.
So maybe Harold Kushner has a point, you think.
Well, I think what we do is we labor under a misconception.
We tend to think that perfect is synonymous with sinless.
And it's not.
As a human being walking this earth.
Christ was sinless and Christ was perfect.
Abraham was not sinless, but Abraham was perfect.
Let me show you how.
The Hebrew word translated in Genesis 17 means entire.
Full.
Without blemish, complete.
That's the Hebrew word we translated perfect.
That's what that means.
The Greek word translated perfect in Matthew 5 means finished.
Having reached its end, complete.
In a physical sense, that Greek word means fully grown, mature.
Now the English word perfect means lacking nothing essential to the whole without defect complete.
So if you notice the thread running through there, it was the word complete in all three definitions.
As in done finished.
My daughter Kelly is in a puzzle mood lately.
Actually, she's always been a puzzle to me, but she's in a mood where she likes to do puzzles lately, and I'll walk through the house and she's got these puzzles with 1000 pieces spread all over the floor in front of the hearth.
And in her free time she'll work on it a little bit and it'll be weeks.
It'll pass and I'll go through one day and it's finished.
It's done.
It's complete.
It's perfect.
It's not missing any of the pieces.
That's all God is telling us when He asks, when He tells us, commands us to become perfect.
That's what He's telling us.
Become spiritually mature in the character of God.
All the pieces in place.
Turn to I Corinthians 14.
You'll see this a little clearer.
I Corinthians 14:20 Brethren, do not be children and understanding. It's OK to be a child in in attitude with malice as far as that goes, but in understanding. The men. And that word man and the King James is the Greek perfect. Teleos, I think it is. In understanding be full grown. In understanding be complete.
Just as once we were little kids and we grew up.
The same thing here is happening spiritually.
We are to grow, not to continue on a diet of milk.
Ephesians 4 verses 11 through 16.
I want to, I want to read that from the Phillips translation.
The amplified Bible was good as well.
I did not want to carry a lot of books up here, so I'm going to stick with the Phillips just to get the tone of this.
Ephesians 4 verses 11 to 16, just follow along with your translation.
Ephesians 4:11-16 His gifts unto men were varied. Some He made His messengers, some prophets, some preachers of the gospel, to some He gave the power to guide and teach His people. His gifts were made that Christians might be properly equipped. The King James has perfecting of the saints. For their service that the whole body might be built up until the time comes when in the unity, common faith, and common knowledge of the Son of God we arrive at real maturity. King James has perfect man. That measure of development which is meant by the fullness of Christ. The Amplified Version has completeness found in Him. We are not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every chance wind of teaching and of the jockeying of men who are expert in the crafty presentation of lies, but we are meant to speak the truth in love. And to grow up in every way into Christ the head which from the head that the whole body has a harmonious structure knit together by the joints with which it's provided grows by the proper functioning of individual parts and so builds itself up in love.
It's a process.
This becoming perfect doesn't happen overnight.
It's a process.
Of growth.
Now let me repeat my original questions.
Should we strive for perfection.
Is it obtainable?
I think the answer has become a little more obvious if I rephrase these questions.
Should we strive for maturity.
Easy enough answered, of course.
Should we strive to grow into a complete Christian?
Can we become grown up spiritually?
Of course we can, and if you're waiting for that answer, I think it's obvious, and if we can't, we are in the wrong place.
I thought last week's sermon fit nicely with this subject.
By making the effort to grow, by working to become complete, we are not earning.
Our salvation.
We're doing our job.
However, and this is critical for us to become first fruits.
We do have to do this job.
And we can't do it in the manner.
Of the world back to that dumbing down again.
We have to do it in the manner of a Christian, and that means overcoming.
Growing, overcoming, striving for excellence in every part of our life, this is not easy.
And no one said that I recall.
That a Christian life would be easy.
But I'll tell you what, at Christ's return.
I do not want a participation trophy.
I want eternal life.
There is a difference.
A big difference.
Now mistakes are going to be made and sins are going to be committed.
Not going to tell you differently.
But even so, we can still become perfect.
James chapter one.
Verses 2 through 4.
And I'm going to again read this from Phillips.
Because I've already got it open.
James 1 verses 2 through 4.
James 1:2-4 When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my brothers. Don't resent them as intruders. But welcome them as friends. Realize that they come to test your faith. And to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed. And you will find that you have become a man of mature character. Men of integrity with no weak spots.
And then Colossians chapter 3.
Again, Phillips, Colossians 3.
Verses 12 to 14.
Colossians 3:12-14 As therefore God's picked representatives. That would be us. Purified and beloved, put on that nature. Which is merciful in action, kindly in heart, and humble in mind. Accept life and be most patient and tolerant with one another. Always ready to forgive if you have a difference with anyone. Forgive as freely as the Lord has forgiven you, and above everything else be truly loving. And this is a key point here. For love binds all the virtues together in perfection.
You see, the way it works is our love for one another.
Is the glue that holds the pieces of the puzzle together.
You go through life and you build character.
This trial, that trial, each one is another piece of the puzzle.
And to keep these pieces from being separated.
From being lost.
As this phrase here says, this true love binds all the virtues together in perfection.
So Rabbi Kushner's statement that God knows better.
But to ask perfection of us.
This society's attempts to dumb down and raise, I'm sorry, to lower the bar, to break everything down to strictly average.
This is nothing more than a tax on us by Satan.
And we do not want to be taken in.
We want to grow.
We want to mature.
We want to become complete.
We want to become perfect.
MRF/aws+/
Sermon Topics
The Gospel
