GETTING FREE
Sermon Five: On Being Perfect
Wildwind Community Church
David K. Flowers
March 16, 2008
Matthew 5:48 (NIV)
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
As we close out our series on making a full commitment of our lives to God – a series I’ve titled Getting Free – I figured what better time to drop this bomb on you.
Matthew 5:48 (NIV)
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
I don’t think there’s anything in the Bible more unsettling than this for those of us who desire to live God-honoring lives. Now wouldn’t it be great if we could just skip this? I mean, both in church and in our personal lives? We could just read the Gospel of Matthew and skip over that verse so we didn’t have to give serious consideration to what it means. And maybe as a pastor I could just neglect to ever teach on it. After all, the Bible is huge – there’s so much to talk about – other than this! I could preach sermons at this church the rest of my life and never touch on it. It’s only one verse, why does it matter?
My friends, I think it matters precisely because of how much we’d rather not look at it. It matters because of how impossible it seems. It matters because Jesus said it. It matters because it can’t be done.
Or can it? I ask you, would Jesus tell us to do something that simply could not be done? Let’s think about this:
Matthew 5:28 (NIV)
28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Matthew 5:32 (NIV)
32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress…
Matthew 5:39 (NIV)
39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Matthew 5:44 (NIV)
44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Matthew 6:14-15 (NIV)
14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matthew 6:34 (NIV)
34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 5:21-22 (NLT)
21 “You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’
22 But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.
Matthew 7:5 (NLT)
5 …get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.
It’s time we do some reckoning here this morning. Let’s start with the fact that a lot of what Jesus told us to do is, in a sense, impossible. Don’t lust? Don’t divorce? Don’t resist people who are hurting you? Love your enemies? Forgive? Don’t worry? Don’t be angry? Don’t point out the shortcomings of others?
C’mon. How much of this can be done? Let’s get more personal. Let’s make a checklist… Mentally mark off which ones you regularly do, struggle not to do, or have done.
• Lust
• Divorce
• Hurt people who are hurting you
(physically or emotionally)
• Wish harm/bad things for enemies
• Harbor grudges/refuse to forgive
• Worry
• Get angry
• Find fault in others
And that’s not even an exhaustive list! These are just a few of the things Jesus said. So as we first pull out our chairs and sit down at the table to have this discussion about perfection, we realize that this seemingly impossible command of Jesus to be perfect fits perfectly well into the other commands he gave. I have made this point before when preaching on this topic.
So what do we do with this? I mean, if the things Jesus said really are impossible, then what are we doing here? I’m serious about that. If there’s no way that the things Jesus said can be done, why do we come to church? Why do we pray? Why do we follow Jesus at all? If Jesus is the kind of person who gave us impossible commands to follow, then why would we have any interest in following him, wherever he may be going?
It’s no wonder the church has so little power in our country today. We don’t worship a God who can deliver on his promises. We don’t worship a God who can empower us to do what he asks us to do. Instead we worship a God who has given us lists of ridiculously hard things to do, recruited us into his cause, and now simply watches us as we struggle and bumble along.
Now it’s a popular teaching in American churches today that Jesus did not intend you to actually become the kind of person who does not lust, who is faithful in relationships to the end, who does not hurt those who hurt you, who does not wish harm on their enemies, who forgives easily, who does not worry, or get angry, or find fault in others. When he said to do it, he said it because it would be nice to be that kind of person, but he didn’t seriously intend for us to do it. It’s impossible to be like this, we think. Therefore, it’s good enough that we simply try our hardest, have good intentions, and feel appropriately guilty for not being able to live this way. As long as we’re “on the journey,” we’re okay. Of course if we really stopped to define “the journey,” we’d have to admit it is actually just a long cycle of trying and failing, trying and failing, trying and failing, that never ends. We can live as Christians for 40 years with very little life change but as long as we’re “on the journey” (in this case meaning “still professing Christianity and still having a pulse”), we’re okay.
Can God empower us to live the way he asked us to live? I’m here this morning to tell you that the answer is yes. Jesus did intend for us to do what he asked us to do, and not only did he intend it, he promised that he would provide the power to get it done!
See, there’s only two things we can do with Jesus. Trust him completely and give him our whole lives, or write him off as a loon because he told us a lot of stuff that, from the perspective we have as human beings, don’t make the slightest sense. How could it possibly be to my advantage to wish well the person who is harming me? I’m going to give you the answer to that, and the answer to it is the exact reason why you must worship Jesus as God and commit your all to him as the creator of the universe and the creator of YOU. Jesus knew it would be to your advantage to wish well the person who harms you because Jesus takes your soul seriously. Jesus takes your soul seriously. He created your soul. He knows how it works. He knows what causes it to thrive and what makes it shrivel up and die. He knows that the capacity to wish others well, even when they wish us ill, is a capacity of the soul that is healthy. The inability to wish well to others who are harming us springs from the tragedy of sin in the ruined soul.
See, Jesus has commanded us to do those things which build a healthy soul capable of responding to the stirrings of God in the heart. And he has warned us away from those things that lead to soul-sickness – a cycle of sin that perpetuates itself, where one sin leads to guilt, which we alleviate by committing another sin that makes us feel better, then we crash eventually, then commit more sin to get over it, etc. Jesus knows that sin, that evil in the human heart, works very much like cancer. Its nature is to take over, to spread, to infect and, given enough time, it will always kill. Like some cancers kill the body more slowly than others, so some sins kill the soul more slowly. But it’s safe to say that as a general rule, all cancer kills the body eventually. All sin kills the soul eventually, and Jesus knows it. Paul knew it too.
Romans 7:18 (NIV)
18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.
It is with this understanding, in this context, that we look again at Jesus’ command:
Matthew 5:48 (NIV)
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
What can this possibly mean? How can I, or you, or anyone, be perfect? Well, we begin by taking seriously what Jesus says. We don’t try to explain it away or act like he didn’t say it, or attach so much qualification and baggage to it that it doesn’t mean anything.
Second, is that we understand that what Jesus says can only make sense in light of the kind of life he is describing. Jesus is not describing a life where you grit your teeth and try real hard and hope to maybe get close to sometimes doing some of this stuff in some way somehow. Jesus is describing what will come naturally and easily to the person who has fully turned their back on sin, set their eyes fully on him, and is living moment by moment in his Spirit power. This is huge. See, these things Jesus told us to do are not even so much commands as they are descriptions of the kind of life that proceeds naturally, logically, and easily from the Holy Spirit. They are things we cannot ever hope to do on our own strength. We will be doomed to a lifetime of failure (and how many of us experience that failure on a regular basis now!) if we approach it that way. But we cannot help but see effectiveness and success if we live the life from above, the life in the Kingdom, the moment-to-moment life that flows from God’s power, that Jesus came to tell us about. In the Bible, we are given this assurance:
Philippians 2:9-11 (MSG)
9 Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, 10 so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, 11 and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.
The Bible says a day is coming when everyone will follow God. As Dallas Willard writes:
A time will come in human history when human beings will follow the Ten Commandments and so on as regularly as they now fall to the ground when they step off a roof. They will then be more astonished that someone would lie or steal or covet than they now are when someone will not.
Now here’s where this gets very, very cool. Jesus said that this kind of life is available to his followers NOW!
John 5:39-40 (MSG)
39 "You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you’ll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me!
40 And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren’t willing to receive from me the life you say you want.
Jesus did not speak of eternal life as something that begins when we die. Jesus spoke of eternal life as a KIND of life that we can have now! All those who are depending moment by moment on the Son of God as their source of life and power ALREADY have a new kind of life – it’s an eternal kind of life – one that never ends, but also one that has already begun!
That’s the life I’ve been talking to you about today and for the past four weeks. A life lived in God, depending moment by moment on his life and his power, is an eternal kind of life – one that leads to ever-increasing joy, one in which it is natural and logical and simple to live the way Jesus described, and the only way of living that will not double back on itself eventually and produce the kind of pain and frustration and regret and guilt we are all so used to living with day to day. Everybody WANTS to be a good person, right? We don’t lie because we WANT to be bad, we just lie because unfortunately it seems necessary. In the eternal kind of life, we reject this – we stop lying and begin speaking the truth. Unlike lying, truth will not come back to haunt us. In the eternal kind of life, we reject putting others down and judging them – cases in which we claim status for ourselves by robbing others of theirs – and we rest in the eternal love and acceptance of God. In the eternal kind of life, we stop striving to make our lives work out (which leads to disaster at least as often as to success), and we trust God to take care of us – and when we do that we will never “need” to compromise our values, or to step on others.
This, my friends, is wholeness. This is the wholeness that God has, that reflects his character. When Jesus says, “Be perfect,” he’s saying, “Live the same kind of life that God lives. Pursue those things that carry wholeness and completeness in themselves – not the things that carry brokenness and incompleteness.”
What Jesus does not mean is “never make another mistake again as long as you live.” In the Bible the word “perfect” is the Greek “teleios.” Teleios describes a kind of life that is complete, that is mature, that is whole, that does not require you to compromise and live at odds with yourself, that allows you to live completely and fully with a clear conscience and a pure heart. That’s why Jesus could tell us something that sounds really, really difficult like “be perfect’ and yet still say with a straight face:
Matthew 11:30 (MSG)
30 Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly."
In God’s kingdom there’s no contradiction there! The life Jesus calls us to is impossible in our power (as long as we keep going back to grab another donut), but simple and natural and logical in His, because it’s a life that springs from the life of God himself, and that’s what’s perfect about it.
Think of perfection in this way. Say you take your 2-year-old to the doctor and he does a check up. He checks her fingers and toes, ears, weight and skin tone, reflexes, etc. After the checkup he says, “She’s perfect.” What does that mean, that she never screams NO to you? That she has never made a mistake and never will? That she is as fully formed physically, mentally, and emotionally as any human being will ever be? Of course not. She’s only two! But she’s perfect, and perfect here means she’s as fully mature as she could possibly be given the stage of her life. She whole – she fits together perfectly. She does not lack anything, given where she is in life.”
James 1:4 (NIV)
4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature (teleios) and complete, not lacking anything.
The word translated “mature” here is again that word “teleios”!
So perfection does not mean you never again make a mistake. It does not mean you are done growing. After all, that perfect 2 year old baby is just starting her life, right? But she’s perfect where she is now! She’s not lacking anything! She’s teleios!
This is not perfection of performance, but perfection of love and intentions. When you commit your life to God in the way I’ve described, when you decide to be permanently, fully, and completely done with sin, you are no longer of two minds. You are of one mind for the first time. In that sense, you are made perfect. You are no longer divided over whom you will serve, and so you are able to love God and serve him in a way with your whole heart in a way you never could have before.
Now maybe your whole heart isn’t much right now! Maybe even when you commit everything to God, God still has a lot of work to do in creating his kind of life in you. But he’s not fighting with you over it anymore. You have completely stepped aside and are now letting him have his way with you – and that’s all you desire. It is now your highest aspiration to be who God wants you to be – not one bit more or one bit less. You are WHOLLY, in other words, COMPLETELY, in other words, PERFECTLY his! You are teleios! You have no intention but to do his will, even though you still won’t always know what that is. You will DESIRE his will wholly, fully, completely – in other words, perfectly! Love for him has surpassed and replaced your love for your reputation and everything else you used to worry about. In this way you love God fully, or completely, or perfectly. Your love is teleios.
Matthew 5:48 (NIV)
48 Be perfect, (teleios) therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (teleios).
Jesus told us to be perfect. That is his goal for me, for you, for every person on this planet. An eternal kind of life that has abandoned self and seeks now only to please God and do his will – one that is fully, completely, wholly, perfectly (in the sense of completeness) God’s and is living moment by moment in his power. A life that has permanently abandoned the donut table, has left sin behind, and now seeks nothing more than the full life of God to come to life in them. A life that is teleios.
I pray you will seek to know that life this morning.
