Perfect

Text: Hebrews 7:23-28
Title: Perfect 10/25/09 Clarksville

Start with video clips - Hanna Montana, ‘Nobody’s Perfect’; Simple Plan, ‘Perfect’

Nobody’s perfect. In the words of the great theologian Hannah Montana: Everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days….
If I'm not doin' too well
Why be so hard on myself?... Nobody’s perfect.

The other video you just saw was from the group Simple Plan. Their song "Perfect” is about a young man’s futile attempts to please his impossible to please father. He sings “just want to make you proud, never gonna be good enough for you… Sorry I’m not perfect.” He would agree with Hannah Montana - he’s not perfect.

Nobody’s perfect. We hear the same message in songs secular and sacred. It comes through loud and clear in Christian music in whatever style you prefer. If you like R &B Gospel there’s J Moss’s “I’m Not Perfect”. (play clip)
If you’re a southern gospel fan you’re not left out either. You might hear this song on your favorite station: Joel Hemphill titled, “I’m not perfect, just forgiven”. (play clip)
And if you listen to WAY FM, I know you’ve heard this one by Franscesca Battistelli ‘Free To Be Me’. (play clip) She takes it one step further than nobody’s perfect and says “perfection is my enemy.”

“Nobody’s perfect. That’s not just a message we sing, it’s one we can wear too - on our cars and our clothes. (Show line of “I’m not perfect, just forgiven” products). Books, blogs, bumper stickers, secular and sacred songs- the message is the same - nobody’s perfect.

But there is an exception. There is One who is perfect. Jesus was the perfect Son of God, perfect picture of what humanity was meant to be, the perfect representation of God to us. He is the perfect priest and example, the perfect intercessor, the perfect friend, the perfect strength, the perfect sacrifice. He is the perfect forgiver, the perfect Savior, the perfect Sanctifier. Jesus is perfect in purpose and in performance. And if you don’t know it already, He’s perfect for you!

Read Hebrews 7:23-28: The preacher describes Jesus as the perfect priest. His role as our priest is not temporary, it’s forever. He is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners and exalted. He is not only the priest, He became the once-for-all sacrifice for sins and He is perfect.

Perfect. This word we use to describe what Jesus is, and what we are not is actually in the Bible a lot. 138 times. We read about perfect love ( I John), perfect unity (Col. 3:14), and of course, about Jesus being perfect. But there’s a curious thing about how this word perfect is used in the Bible. It is also used to describe Jesus, but to describe us!

Matt. 5:48 “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This is not an overstatement to make a point like “if your right eye causes you to sin gouge it out.” It’s not a figure of speech. It’s a straightforward word in the context of a conversation on love that means what it says. Be perfect.

Now we have a problem. We have signs and songs, bumper stickers, blogs and books that announce “I’m not perfect” and a God who says to us “be perfect.”

The dilemma is at least partially a problem with definitions. Our idea of perfection primarily has to do with being flawless, without error. It’s a perfect score where every judge gives a 10. A world class gymnast might get a perfect score every once in a while, but it doesn’t happen every day, and it’s certainly not a way of life. It’s what Lexus relentlessly pursues - perfection.

Often ‘perfect’ is just another word for impossible. It can be pursued but not achieved, aimed at but never hit, striven for but never attained. It’s the carrot dangled just out of reach that persevering people will continue to reach for but others will lose heart and stop trying to grab. It’s what drives some people to have plastic surgery and causes others to have a poor self-image.
Nobody’s perfect. We give our hearty “amen’s” when the message of perfection being an impossible is proclaimed. If we’re good Christians we always throw in the exception to the rule: “except Jesus.” But the truth is, the Bible uses this word in talking about us too. It’s just not the same definition we usually work with.

Be perfect. When we see it in the Bible, what does this word mean? Let me start by what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean a perfect performance of the Christian life where the Judge gives us a 10 every moment of every day. The word we translate ‘perfect,’ or in some cases ‘mature,’ means complete. Be complete, be whole, be mature. It’s not about performance as much as it is about purpose. Our purpose is to be so wholly, entirely devoted to God that nothing is before Him. Our purpose is to love Him and love each other, to be perfect in love.

Here’s an image that might help us. There is a difference between complete(perfect) and finished. A few years ago we built a house. When we moved in, it had walls, a roof, paint, plumbing, doors, lights, windows - it was all there. One day it wasn’t. Another day it was and when it passed all the inspections, it was officially complete. But we weren’t there any time at all until we were doing more to it. Pictures, blinds on the windows, furniture. We stained the deck and worked on the landscaping. It was complete, but we weren’t finished. We never finished tinkering with it. As all of you who have a house know, there is always something to do. Complete doesn’t mean finished. We didn’t move in and say “It’s complete,” and never touch it again. The same is true with love. We can love completely and still be growing in love. i.e. marriage to Michelle - soon be 18 years… I love her completely, but I’m not finished, haven’t reached some static state of permanence where it’s set in stone - still growing.

This house image, rather than the perfect 10 with the gymnast is more along the lines of how the Bible uses this word ‘perfect.’ It has more to do with being complete, whole, wholly devoted to God, loving God and others, than it does being flawless in our performance. It doesn’t mean God is finished with us as if we are made into some trophy Christian to set in stone and put on display. That’s why God say of us what we said of our house “He’s complete, she’s complete, made whole and entirely devoted to me, filled up with a heart of love for God and other people, but I’m not finished with Him yet.” Hebrews 10 helps us with this when it says of Jesus: “He makes perfect forever those who are being sanctified.” We can be made perfect, and still be being made holy because just like our house, complete doesn’t mean finished.

This is one place we’ve allowed a cultural image to steal a Scriptural truth, so much so that well meaning people print t-shirts and sing songs about how we’ll never be able to be what God says He expects us to be.

Here’s what I believe about God. He would never command us to be something that is impossible for us to be. He’s not a carrot-dangling God. God is not the impossible-to-please-father in Simple Plan’s song. He’s the One who says “I will perfect you, complete you.” The one who gave Himself as a sacrifice for us “has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”

Why on earth would we spend so much time on a word like this? I know we’re not going to correct an entire culture in a 20 minute sermon. Good, well meaning, humble Christians are still going to wear t-shirts and buy bumper stickers. Songs about our inability to be perfect will still be written, that’s true . I just want you to know what the Bible says, and what it means. It says Jesus is our perfect priest. It says we are to be perfect. And it says that Jesus, who is our perfect priest and Savior, is the One who makes us perfect. It means that we can, here and now, in this life, be complete, whole, wholly devoted to Him and totally given over to a life of loving God and loving others.
We spend the day talking about this word “perfect” because the danger with “I’m not perfect” theology is that it tends to cause us to live below what we are capable of living in the power of the Spirit. The times we fail but were capable of doing better can be easily excused with the “I’m not perfect” mentality. Does that mean we will have a flawless performance of Christ-like living? Not in this lifetime. Sinless perfection? Not unless we’re Jesus. One trip to the altar and done? No way, because there is a big difference between being complete and being finished - He makes us perfect, whole, complete. He continues to make us holy. The house is complete, the love is wholehearted, but it continues to grow.

“True faith requires that we believe everything that God has said about Himself, but also that we believe everything He has said about us!” — A. W. Tozer

You know what He says about us? That Jesus not only makes us forgiven - he makes us complete, whole, wholly devoted to God - and the Biblical for that is ‘perfect.’

Communion - Read Heb 10:11-14 . It all goes back to the Cross. Jesus’ sacrifice not only accomplished all that was needed for our forgiveness, it accomplished all that was needed for us to be made complete, to be made perfect. As we come to the table some of us may need to pray “make me complete, give me a whole-hearted, uncompromised love for you, or for others” Other’s of us may need to pray “I know you have made me complete, but you’re not finished…. I want you to keep working on me and in me as you see fit.

Benediction: I Thess. 5:23-24