What Does It Mean To Be Perfect?
Illustration:
(There was a young boy who had been writing God a note on how good he had been throughout the past year. He began by writing, “Dear God, I have been good for six months now and I think I deserve a good gift for Christmas.” Upon thinking about it he then scribbled out six months and replaced it with three months. Looking at the paper in frustration, after thinking about it some more, he scribbled out three months and changed it to two weeks. Upon further thought, he scribbled out two weeks. Staring blankly at the paper, he got an idea. He jumped up from where he had been writing the message and went to the family’s Nativity scene and grabbed the Virgin Mary. After sitting back down to write the message, its contents had now changed entirely. He wrote, “Dear God, if you ever want to see your mother again you’ll give me what I want.”)
Sometimes we can become a little like the young child in the illustration when it comes to our relationship with God. We can get a little selfish in our prayers and absorbed in our own little world. We sometimes say to God, “If you do this I’ll pray more…give more…stop my bad habits.” We barter with God as if by doing something in exchange we can earn a special treat from Him. God gifts are not earned; otherwise they would cease to be gifts. Yet we seem to think God operates on the same level we do. The scripture states that “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
We do not need to, nor should we ever, barter for things with God. He knows what we need and he supplies them “according to His riches in glory.” The key point, though, that God demands from us as His children is that we “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and THEN all these things shall be added to us.” Matthew 6:33 We need to first get our eyes off of seeking our kingdom and humble ourselves to understand what His kingdom needs and requires from us. St. Benedict of Nursia stated, “We descend by self-exaltation and ascend by humility.”
The first thing His kingdom requires from us is perfection in our attitudes towards God and our fellow man. This is a hard saying but I want to build upon the foundation of perfection in the sermon and then progress deeper into this truth. I want to say first and foremost, WE WILL NEVER ACHIEVE PERFECTION IN THIS BODY. That being said, how do you become perfect if you can never become perfect? Ultimately it boils down to the choices we make in our lives. We choose to be holy, we choose to be perfect, and when we fail, we must repent and change our lives and let God’s grace restore us to that place of perfection in Christ.
The Venerable Bede once said, “No one is suddenly made perfect.” This is a truth that is seldom explored in some churches. In some churches the current thought is that once you accept Christ, you immediately get rid of old habits, poor choices and bad lifestyles, and those who don’t meet the standards of the lifelong church-goer are shunned and kept outside the “saved” churchmen. These standards can be anything from clothing to appearance to “churchy” words.
We all start from scratch in salvation and through God’s grace we are propelled forward into perfection and righteousness through following God’s Word. So what choices should we make in our walk of salvation? I have found a quote that I think nails it on the head. St. Frances De Sales once said, “We can never attain to perfection while we have an affection for any imperfection.” In other words, we need to keep our thoughts and affections on the things of God and not on the things of this world if we can even hope to attain perfection in our lives. It is a goal that we all should be struggling towards. We can progress on our journey to perfection but we will only reach the destination once we are in the presence of Christ.
Perfection also tends to boil down to one thing, Love. Love perfects our faith if we choose to show our love to each other and to God. If we are constantly coming down on each other for this or that, how can we show love while we also show contempt? The two are mutually exclusive. There are many things that people do that I do not agree with, but I try to love them regardless of the sins they commit in the hopes of restoring them to right relationship with God. Yet, if all I do is condemn them, ridicule them, and push them aside, how will I ever show the love that Christ commands me to show so that they may see Christ within me? This does not include excusing sin, for a true Christian can never allow a poison to be introduced to God’s pure bread. It does, however, include gently persuading them to rectify their behavior and choices. I am reminded of Galatians 2:20 which states, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” He has given us grace to help us into perfection, but we must amend our lives or we will never achieve it in this life or the next, for Christ proclaims that it is possible for your name to be blotted out of the Book of Life.
Revelation 3:5 states, “He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.” We must overcome our predisposition to sin by making good choices daily. When we fail we must understand he is willing to forgive us 70x7 for our repetitive sins as he commanded His Apostles to do, but we must first be willing to change our ways even if we tend to succumb to those choices again and again. This does not excuse the sin, for we know that when we sin terribly we put him to open shame again upon the cross (Heb. 6:6).
The thought of Christ being put to shame on the cross again because we have chosen evil should drive any good Christian to their knees in repentance and persuade them to stop sinning and make correct choices. St. Augustine once said, “In the long run there will be two kinds of men: those who love God and those who love something else.” I am usually not a big fan of St. Augustine for various reasons, but on this he hit the nail on the head. In this life, we must choose daily who we’ll serve. Will we serve our interests or God’s? Will we love Him and our fellow man? Or will we wrap ourselves in self-absorption and deny the gift of God’s love through us to everyone around?
This comes to my next point on the journey of perfection. What if I told you that Christ sees you 24/7? There is not a thing that you think or do that he doesn’t know about. That means when you sleep he watches over you. When you brush your teeth in the mornings he patiently awaits His morning conversation with you. It also means that when you go into places that are dubious at best and utterly evil at worst he is also there. The point I am making here is that each of us need to ask ourselves, when we go somewhere or do something, “Would Christ be pleased with this?” Imagine what Christ would think if you did something before you do it? Would he say this is good or bad? Would you receive praise or condemnation for the acts? St. Thomas More once said, “Give me, good Lord, such a love for you that I will love nothing in a way that displeases you, and I will love everything for Your sake.” Scripture even states he judges our thoughts much less our actions. In Psalm 139:2 it states, “You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.” Prov. 15:26, “The LORD detests the thoughts of the wicked, but those of the pure are pleasing to him.” Isa. 55:7 – “Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.” Jeremiah 12:3 – “Yet you know me, O LORD; you see me and test my thoughts about you. Drag them off like sheep to be butchered! Set them apart for the day of slaughter!” Matthew 15:19 – “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” Hebrews 4:12 – “For the Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” It is without question God knows us inside out and if He knows our hearts and thoughts, then he surely knows the places we tend to visit and the sins we associate ourselves with. Next time you go into a place that may be questionable ask yourself, “If Christ was standing in front of me, would I be ashamed to be here?” If the answer is, “Yes I’d be ashamed.” Then leave. Don’t look back.
The next aspect of perfection God seeks within us is humility. There’s an old saying that states, “It’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect.” I say, rather, “It’s hard to be perfect when you’re not humble.” Our Lord is the greatest example of humility. He is the Incarnate Word of the Living God and yet he humbled himself to be born in a feeding trough lying in hay which was in a stinky stable, with cramped conditions and animals surrounding Him. Pope Clement I once said, “It is to the humble that Christ belongs, not to those who exalt themselves above His flock. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Scepter of God’s majesty, did not come in the pomp of pride or arrogance-though He could have done so-but rather in humility.” It’s refreshing to hear that coming from a pope, but it is also very true as well. St. Chrysostom said, “Let us with great diligence implant in our souls the mother of all things that are good-I mean humility.” Scripture reflects these as well:
2 Chron. 12:7a, “When the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, this word of the LORD came to Shemaiah: "Since they have humbled themselves, I will not destroy them but will soon give them deliverance.”
Psalm 18:27 – “You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.”
Psalm 25:9 – “He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.”
Psalm 147:6 – “The LORD sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.”
Psalm 149:4 – “For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation.”
Zephaniah 2:3 – “Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD’s anger.”
Our Lord’s Example and Admonition:
Matthew 11:29 – “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Matthew 23:12 – “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
Apostle’s Decree:
Ephesians 4:2 – “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”
James 4:10 – “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”
1 Peter 5:6 – “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”
Humility is essential to any Christian’s walk of faith and it compels us to be more Christ-like in all things. Think if the world didn’t have selfish corporate moguls who acquire and horde oil, cash, or other needed items at the expense of the people’s backs. What if the world thought of others before themselves and graciously gave freely of whatever they had. Of course this will never happen until Christ’s millennial kingdom comes, yet it is something we should strive for in our own lives because Christ says we must give and love. The opposite of these precepts is greed and hate. I am reminded of the story of Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus (not Jesus’ friend) was a humble leper who begged at the gates of the rich man’s home. The rich man would pass him by on a daily basis because he was too “above” Lazarus. When they died, we saw a glimpse of what the reward was for each. One received comfort and peace, the other received fire and torment.
This ties into yet another aspect of the Christian’s walk of perfection: Almsgiving. St. Basil the Great stated, “The bread you store up belongs to the hungry, the cloak belongs to the naked, the gold you have hidden in the ground belongs to the poor.” Giving tangible remedies to those who are afflicted with poverty, nakedness, hunger, illness, suffering, etc., are what Christ demands of us. I want to look at some scriptural references for this study.
Luke 6:38 – “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
Malachi 3:8 – “"Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, ’How do we rob you?’ "In tithes and offerings.”
Malachi 3:10 – “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”
Acts 10:5a – “The angel answered, "Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God.”
The gifts we bring to the Body of Christ are a necessary part of what God commands us to do in our walk into perfection. Many of us cannot afford to give cash, but that does not lessen our obligation to God. If you cannot give cash, you could donate clothing to the Rescue Mission, donate time to a charity or the church, and/or donate food to those who feed the hungry. There are many ways to fulfill this obligation but the obligation must be fulfilled in our lives in order for us to attain the perfection that God is seeking from us. He calls us to be more like Him and He has given us more than we could ever repay in this lifetime or thousands after. He has given us Jesus Christ to be our Redeemer and Christ has taken our place upon the cross. Suffering a death we all richly deserved for our transgressions against a holy God. Yet, in God’s goodness, He provided a way for us to become righteous, pure, holy, and perfect: the shed blood of Jesus Christ. God’s grace is His greatest gift to us. Without it, we would all be destined to eternal separation from God. Yet, God loved us so much that He gave His only Son, so that we may have eternal life.
If we are fulfilling our obligation to give to the church and others we are complying with the directives God has given us and in tangible ways we give something back to the Father for His gracious gift to us.
Closing:
I have covered several topics that coincide with spiritual perfection. Are you seeking to be like Christ everyday? Do you love God with every fiber of your being? Do you love you neighbor as yourself? Are you a humble person or do you seek glory and praise for yourself? Do you give back, in tangible ways, to the church and to those who are in need? If you cannot answer the affirmative to these questions and say yes I do those things well, you should then take a personal inventory of your walk with Jesus Christ. Ask Him to help you as you try to be like Him. Seek His will for your life and submit yourself to that will once it is found. Do not defame and hurt our Lord by evil activities and poor choices. Wake up everyday and say, “Thank you for your grace and help me live in that grace today.” May the God of all grace give you the strength to fight the good fight, run the race patiently and, finally, give you eternal life. Amen.
