Who Can Be Perfect? Series

Mozart was only 25 years old when he settled in Vienna in 1781.

Ten years later he was dead, but his commitment to perfection made

his mark live on and crown him as one of the princes of music.

Those ten years were years of struggle for survival. He lived in

poverty with little food, and often even without heat in the winter.

His publisher threatened to stop giving him any payment at all if he

did not write in a more popular style. Mozart replied, "Then, my

good sir, I have only to resign and die of starvation. I cannot write

as you demand." He refused to dedicate his gift to the trivial, and he

went on writing his matchless music which made him so famous

after his death. He aimed for perfection, not because it paid well,

but because he do no other. The love for quality was in his blood.

James is informing us that this should be the goal of every Christian,

for God is perfect, and we are to be partakers of the divine nature.

Facing life's trials with joy and patience is not just to prove we

can do it, but that we might be perfect and complete, and lacking in

nothing. Someone will immediately take issue with James and ask,

"Who can be perfect?" We said James was a very practical writer,

but how can he be practical and so soon jump off the deep end, and

write of being perfect?

If there is one thing that almost everyone agrees on, it is the

realistic truth that nobody is perfect. Jesus Christ is the only

candidate for the office of perfection, and James, of all people,

should know that, and not introduce such a concept in his letter. Is

it possible that James was just expressing a sense of humor, for that

is usually the only realm in which we deal with perfection. The poet

writing from a doctor's perspective put it this way,

The perfect patient let us praise:

He's never sick on Saturdays,

In waiting rooms he does not burn.

But gladly sits and waits his turn.

And even, I have heard it said,

Begs other, please go on ahead.

He takes advice, he does as told;

He had a heart of solid gold.

He pays his bills, without a fail,

In cash, or by the same day's mail.

He has but one small fault I'd list:

He doesn't (what a shame!) exist.

This seems to be the major defect in all perfect people-they are

conspicuous by their absence, and just do not exist. Spurgeon wrote,

"He who boasts of being perfect is perfect in folly. I never saw a

perfect man. Every rose has its thorn and everyday its night."

Shakespeare summed it up, "No perfection is so absolute, that some

impurity doth not pollute." But what are we to do with James? Are

we to write off his words as humor, and say he must have been

joking, or should we just skip over such things, and not ask so many

questions? This is often the approach to things we do not

understand, but it is folly and sin. If you do not understand what

the Bible is saying, then you need to search until you do. Bible

reading is not enough. We need to study the Bible until we do

understand what God is saying. So we are going to study the

biblical concept of perfection so that we know what God expects of

us. First let's consider-

I. THE EXPECTATION OF PERFECTION.

James is not alone in expecting Christians to be perfect. Both the

Old Testament and the New Testament have many text that make it

clear that believers are expected to press on to perfection. This

expectation is not hidden away in some obscure corner of the Bible

where scholars have to dig to find it. It is written so often, and so

clearly, that he who runs may read.

James did not set up the standard of perfection. He only echo's

his Lord and brother, who in the Sermon on the Mount, made the

most absolute statement on perfection to be found anywhere. In

Matt. 5:48 Jesus said, "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your

heavenly Father is perfect." Jesus expected His followers to be

perfect. That may sound impossible; especially to be perfect like

God, but the point is, that is what is expected. Why should Jesus

expect less than the best? The Old Testament saints attained

perfection, and so why not New Testament saints? Listen to these texts:

Gen. 6:9, "Noah was a righteous man and perfect in his generation."

Job 1:8, "A perfect and an upright man..."

I Kings 11:4, "The heart of David was perfect with the Lord his

God."

I Kings 15:14, "Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days."