The Chronology of Perfection

The title of my sermon today is The Chronology of Perfection. The Chronology of Perfection. Are you perfect yet? I'm waiting for a hand, looking to decide. Looking back at Maria, no. Pick up. There's Julie. Okay. Her sister says not. Norm, not yet. Not yet. What do you think about when you hear the word perfection? Maybe something physical. Have you seen some perfect people before? No. I thought I did when I was younger. I saw a woman that I thought was perfect when I was younger. Can't know if I see her yet there. Oh, I get that one over there. Okay. Anybody know the woman? What's her name? Raquel Welch.

When I was growing up, I looked at her when I was a child, looked at her in movies and TV, and thought, now that's the perfect woman. No, he's a lot richer and better looking than I am. The other specimen, the male specimen, is Tom Brady. I asked David to put his picture up there because I heard a talk show while driving the other day, and the man said he had a meeting with a group of sports celebrities, and one of those was Tom Brady. He said, I'd been around stars before, but when he sat at the table, he was such a good-looking man, I just kept staring. Pretty soon, I was worried he would think there's something wrong with me. But he said he was just about as perfect of a man as you could think of. That's physically what some people would call perfection. Spiritually, who do you think of? Who would come to your mind? I know who would come to most people in the world's mind.

Mother Teresa? Yes, people. Well, she's actually a saint now, isn't she? She's a saint made by the Catholic Church. And of course, there's Pope John Paul, who is also a saint now. I was in Rome a dozen years ago or better, and watched Pope Benedict come out and give his weekly address from St. Peter's Square. And I found it amazing because in the catacombs, the tombs down there, they had still the tomb of Pope John Paul. And women, he had been dead for quite a few years at that time, they were crying and laying over the tomb and just sobbing and falling on their knees and and recognized him as holy, holy, holy, as one guide told us as I was going through part of the Vatican. Is this what God thinks of when he thinks of perfection? Well, I want to read you a definition. I have two. I'll read the first one and then David will put the second one up. Both come from the Oxford dictionary of defining perfection. And the first is the condition, state, or quality of being free or free as possible from all flaws. The second one, which I like better, the action or process of improving something until it is faultless. That's us. Think about that. That's us. That is that clay that we heard and saw on the special music. He's molding and shaping us into we were made in his image, but spiritually he's shaping us to be in his image. We're not there yet in case you've never seen anyone work with clay. I had a few customers that did. There's a lot of work. There's a lot of work. And right when I'm thinking there, okay, it's ready now. Guess what? More water went to it. More working and working and working. And just like the canvas, we are that canvas, and he is the artist. And God is trying to perfect us. It's the whole reason for Pentecost in 31 A.D. was that the Holy Spirit could be given so that the final touches, the final ingredient, maybe is a better word, could be put into the clay so that it could become more like Jesus Christ, who was the ultimate model of play. I guess that's God's plan in a nutshell, isn't it? That's God's plan in a nutshell, if I can read that again. The action or process he is taking to improve something until it is faultless. I haven't achieved that yet. I look across this room and only Julie has achieved that, according to her. She looks at me like, no, I don't think not yet. But it is something we all strive for. Julie strives for it. Right? John, you strive for it. We need his help, though, don't we? Even with the gift of the Holy Spirit, we still need his help because there's some stuff Phil and I can't do on our own. We may try, but when we call out to him. So I want to look at that today because it is his purpose and his goal for us is perfection. He mentions it many times in the Bible. Have you ever noticed those times? And does it kind of go over your head like it's done me so many times that it talks about perfection but I'm going, well, I'm not there. I don't know if I'll ever be there. Well, he didn't call me to not be there. He didn't call you to not be there. It just takes a lot longer for some of us. So I wanted to make sure we understood what is expected of us and then ask the question, if God is doing that, how's he doing in your life? Do we need to ask him for a little more help? Are we 30-year-old Christians in the same grade? Are we still in the same grade for 30 years in school? God's school?

The first use of the word perfect in the Bible, I'd like you to go there with me, is Genesis 6. Very first time you can imagine who he's talking about, right? I don't know if I gave you that or not. No, I did? Okay, wasn't sure. Let's go to Genesis 6. Two weeks have been a blur for me, but it's getting better. Let's go to Genesis 6 in verse 9. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, and I'm reading from the New King James Version. Perfect! Perfect! Wow. My margin says blameless or having integrity. A lot different than we might think. But he said, a just man, perfect in his generation, Noah walked with God. How's your walk been? Has it been a close walk? Has it been a nice conversation with your walk? Or is it more like, you hear me? Because he feels distant to you. Or maybe you feel you're not close enough to God. It's interesting because the Hebrew word for perfect is tamim. And it's not talking like you would think about it, because it means to have integrity, my margin had just given me. So, Noah wasn't the perfect man. He didn't do everything perfect, did he? As we might look at it. But in God's eyes, this is what he's looking for. Tami, tamiim, to have integrity, to have truth, we can do that. We can do that and just not tell a lie. And all of us can do that. And sure many of us do that.

Complete, upright. But are you a Noah type? Because he stood out. He was called a preacher of righteousness. Except right here, we don't see him preaching, do we? Are you preaching? I've never heard of you. Somebody says, I have one of your people preaching down here on the street. No, it's not what we've really been called to do. But we've been called to be perfect. Are we working towards that? Or is it just, that's a lofty goal. Because when you work to be perfect, you're tied up with God. They just showed a picture earlier of Tom Brady. Tom Brady was drafted in later rounds. He was far from perfect when he played for Michigan. When he was drafted, he was a backup. He had to work at it. He was far from the best athlete. As a matter of fact, his evaluation said slow, not mentally sharp, and physically limited. But he took all that, and he became the best he could become, winning, what, six or seven Super Bowls? He had to work at it, and he stayed long in the film room. He worked harder than anyone else, just to be the best he could be. And that's all God asked us to be, the best Christian we can be. No, we're going to have flaws. But he wants us to work at it. Obviously, Noah worked at it.

I look at Noah, and I wonder, after 500 years, God then revealed a plan to him. After 500 years, he said, you're going to build a boat? Then it took over 100 years, almost 100 years, to build a boat. Noah, he had to go, what, what, what are you, I'm 500 years old.

And I've got to build a boat, and then you're going to flood the entire world.

Was he perfect at 500 years of age? No. We know, after 600 years, after the flood, and the boat came to rest, that he liked Hawaiian a little too much, didn't he? We found out, so he wasn't perfect. He wasn't perfect and righteous without sin, and we are not going to be that. And we don't have to. Now that doesn't mean, oh, that means I don't have to try. No. We don't have to be perfect because we have one that perfects us by calling on his name, by calling on his sacrifice, so we can be cleansed, just like a shower.

So I want to refer to a spiritual shower every day, multiple times if we need it. And if you've ever worked out in the garden or worked outside, you realize, I really just feel new. Mary, when she came from the hospital, it had been a week. Finally, she got a shower, and she felt so much better.

I said, we all do. Well, God wants us to call upon the shower maker, the shower giver, Jesus Christ, when we need to take one. And we present his sacrifice to Christ, to God, to cover our sins. So let's move on down because we looked at the very first time that the word perfect was used, and it was with Noah.

But in the New Testament, the very first time, even though it's in the Greek, it's a different word, in Matthew 5, verse 48, Christ tells his disciples to, what? Be you perfect. Be you perfect. Whoa! How do we do that? Five, in verse 48. Get over there. He said, therefore, he makes a statement on the Sermon on the Mount.

Therefore, you, singular, not plural, talking to each one of us, you shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect. Now, we know if you read the Greek, we'll understand the verb form. It says, become you perfect. It's a process. Become you perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. So it's something that he wants us to do. But the word perfect in the Greek is telios, telilos. And it means growth in mental and moral character, similar to the same thing he talked about perfection in Greek in Hebrew is how it's described in the Greek.

It talks about moral character, completeness, and I like the other one, of full age. You know, we don't get anywhere near perfection overnight. Now, I was probably dumber than most of you. I don't know. Not judging you. But I know how dumb I was because I was very young when I was baptized.

I thought I was young. I really wasn't. I was in my 20s, 22, 23. But I thought that I knew somewhat about the Bible. I knew some of the truth. But I really thought I was mature. No, I wasn't. I was that dumb that I thought, just because I'd read some scriptures, that I was now a Christian ready for the kingdom of God.

Do you know it took decades before I could look back and go, boy, was I ever dumb? Was I ever not of age? Was I ever immature? Thinking, because I knew a little truth that I knew a lot of truth. No. God doesn't spring everything on you at one time. You begin to learn. It took me a decade to truly understand about God's Holy Days. Yeah, that was that slow for me to grasp why they were in the Old Testament and how they related in the New Testament.

It took me a decade. And it really took me until I opened up a Bible and had to stand in front of people giving a sermon at before I dug down. Hopefully none of you are that slow, but God does do miracles. You're looking at one. We need to strive for that type of perfection. Not beating ourselves up because we sin. I'm sorry. You're in flesh and blood. God knew it. That's why He had a plan for that. But just like the football player Tom Brady didn't complete every pass, he completed enough to win. God wants you to complete enough tests to win, to become a person of integrity, to become of full age, so that you can not only know what you know, but if someone comes and asks you, you can tell them why you know what you know.

And then you can turn them to only one source. The only source of the truth is God's Word. That is the truth.

I'll ask you a question I want you to be honest with because this deals with the Bible study this afternoon. And you will probably say, I don't know if I want to do that Bible study.

Because it puts responsibility on you. No, you're not going to come up here and confess all your sins over the internet. Can we do that? We can do that, Dave, couldn't we? Maybe next Bible study. But no. So I'm going to ask you a question. Have you ever known anyone that had the perfect marriage? Oops, no arm over here. You notice she didn't raise her hand. You guys are going to be perfect for the Bible study. Perfect. Anyone that's ever been married, I don't care how great your marriage is. It's not perfect in that way because you are going to have arguments. You're going to have differences of opinion. If you don't, it's probably going to be a very boring marriage. Right, Ampe? You look kind of like, okay. He's not here, so I don't know if it's watching. But 51 years. Yes. Think about that. Perfect marriage. How about perfect character? You ever met someone with perfect character? It's one of the reasons if you've ever studied history. It's one of the reasons they elected, chose. They didn't really elect the first time. They chose George Washington to be the president. The first because of his character, they said.

Because he would strive to do what's right, and even if he was wrong but told he was wrong, he would accept it. That's kind of our growth pattern, isn't it? Because God kind of reveals to us when we're not perfect. Because he's striving for us to have that kind of character. Let's take a five scripture chronological journey through the Word of God. There are so many more. And let's take that journey so we can enhance our ability to become perfect. And God dies. Now, you may never be perfect in your mate's eyes. It doesn't matter. What matters is this type of perfect. Tamim. Telelus. Perfect in God's eyes. Of that righteous character. That being right, because that's what's important. Having perfection in God's eyes. Is that important to you? It's important to God. Well, I even think it's important for Frank back there. Right, Frank? Yeah, okay. Yes, we all care what Frank says.

Why is it so important? If you were building a team, not a football team, but a team to run the world, you'd want them all on the same page, wouldn't you? You'd want them all to guide people by the same rules, the same laws, that you know inside and out. And that's what God's doing. Still training for most of us. I would say all of us. So let's go. Let me get this done here, because I need to go to, not the first time, we looked at the first time perfection, but let's go to someone we all know from Scripture. Go to Genesis 17 and verse 1. 17, Genesis 17 and verse 1. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him, appeared to Abram, and said to him, I am Almighty God. Walk before me and become, what's the Scripture say? That's a translation. You know what the word is? Tawmim. Tawmim. Tawmim. It's perfect. It's perfect. And you'll see that in different translations, because that's the word. That's the Hebrew word. Walk before... He was asking him to walk before me and be perfect. Was Abraham perfect? Not as we would look at it, but was he with God? Yes. Yes. Even the mistakes. And he had quite a few. Would you like your life written out? Say, well, let me show everything, every flaw that you did. No, I think most of us would go, let's move on. Nothing to see here. But this was important. Walk with me. Are you ready to walk? And be perfect? But Abraham could be. Look at the picture, if you will. Just look at this picture and put yourself there. We've got a long way to go, is Maria said. Some of us do. Is this man alone? He looks that way. And sometimes we may feel alone, but we're not alone, are we? Because God wants us, as I mentioned this morning in my sermon, God wants us to walk down that road. He wants us going down the road with him. He's going to take us... If we will follow, he's going to take us the same road, the same walk as his son Jesus Christ. Oh, we're almost 2,000 years later. And we may have different issues, but same walk. Same walk as Abraham. Same rules in which to live by. You can read in Genesis 25, if you want to go there, but we won't. You can see he asked him to keep his statutes, his laws, and his commandments, just like he does us. It's a part, part of being perfect.

You know, when I was baptized, and many of you, and I don't... when I baptized Christi, I don't think I told you you had to be perfect, did I? You know, that was my mistake. That was my mistake. I wish somebody had told me, because I've read this for all these years, and I really thought, well, I'm just short of it. I just come up short. It's important that we understand it's important for new people, for young people to understand, because many people will give up when you're just not good at something. I don't like doing what I'm not good at. My wife tried to get me to go to ballroom dancing. Man, I like playing sports I was good at. This was something I was not good at, and it seemed like the longest night of my life. And that's kind of how I thought about this, is, well, I guess I'm not perfect, so I'll only try to a certain part. I know I'm never going to be perfect, so why give it everything? No, that's not what this means. It means doing your best, being the best you can be. And don't, that's why Christ said, don't compare yourselves among yourselves through His word, because we're not graded at the same level. None of us are. That is what is important. Let's go to the next one. Let's go to the next one. Let's go to Deuteronomy 18. That's very first. Now we get to go back in time. Deuteronomy 18. Back here, I usually have these marked. I do. Deuteronomy 18. Where's 13? God is asking the nation of Israel. Wait a minute. You're talking about the children of Israel, right? Those who left Egypt, He's asking them to be perfect. Wrong. You're wrong. That's not who these words are written to. These words are not written to the people who left Egypt. It's written to the children of the people who left Egypt, because the people who left Egypt, they couldn't do it. And God finally said, I'm done with you, because you wouldn't even try. How many made it over into the Promised Land?

Two.

God says, try. Try for perfection. You ever met anyone at work that you worked with, maybe for quite a few years, and you knew their best was average? You ever had those? I hired those people. Okay. I also had to fire those people when I had my business.

We have to give our best and let God do the rest. That's my phrase. If we don't do our best, God's not going to do the rest. It's common sense. It's also written in the Word. See the examples of those who quit trying. We'll look at that in just a second. Let's read that in verse 13. He's telling those as they're about to go into the Promised Land, these children of the children of Israel, came out of Egypt. You shall be Tameem. It says blameless, but it means Tameem. Perfect. He's telling them, you shall be perfect before the Lord your God. What? You're asking me to do what my parents couldn't do? But look what it looks like. Look to context. He just says, don't burn your children. When you come into the land, don't act like the heathens, the pagans, the barbarians. Don't act like that. And then don't get into witchcraft. Don't do any of this stuff. Then he says, perfect. I don't think anyone here has any problem with saying, I'm not burning my children. I'm not. I don't have a Ouija board out tonight to see what's going to happen tomorrow. No. Why? That's part of perfection. But he was having to tell them, don't do it. Because he knew. What did some of them do later? They did it. So this is part of that perfection, being complete. Complete in his eyes. Being the best you can be.

There's some do's and don't do's. He just says, do this and don't do that. He tells us, eat this and don't eat this. And yet the world's kind of messed up because, oh, no, I'd rather eat this. I'd rather eat what you say, don't eat. Is that hard for most of us? No. No. But obviously it was for some, he had to lay it out for everybody. Thankfully he did. We have no problem with that. That's part of the perfection. We may be light over here, but there's a lot of areas where we're pretty strong. And he wants us to become stronger. You work on your weaknesses, don't we? That's what he wants us to do. Work on some weaknesses. You've got some stuff down. Boy, I do like this lectern here. Feels like I got a hold of something. Okay, let's move on. The third one, as we take this chronological journey through the Old Testament and into the new, where we talked about Deuteronomy in the Promised Land, and then once they're in the Promised Land, go with me to one example in 1 Chronicles. 1 Chronicles 29. This is what David is about to ask God for his son. He knows he's going to die, and so he talks to God. And then in verse 19, he says, and give my son Solomon a... what's the word? It says loyal, doesn't it? That's what that translation said. Well, you know what the word is? Tamim. Tamim. A perfect, a perfect heart. How do you have a perfect heart? Well, let's look. To keep your commandments. And your testimonies and your statutes. To do all the things and to build the temple for which I have made provisions. Perfect. Tamim. When's the last time you asked for a perfect heart? The kind God wants you to have. David knew because he was called what? A man after God's own heart. And he knew when he had that heart that he should have had, everything went well. But all of a sudden when he became David's heart. Like watching one of his mighty men's wife take a bath up on top of her house. When he decided he would number. Let's see how big my army is.

No. He knew how important it was because of his failings. He didn't want to see his son fail. And he knew that was so very, very important. And you know what's interesting? When you studied Life of Solomon, which I have, and I really love studying that for six months, one time, and I tried to find everything I could out about him through historical sources, everything. It's so interesting because the first 20 years of his reign, let me use this word, was perfect. Tomi. Tomi. The last, he lost that loyal heart, that perfect heart, and started turning his own ways. That's why it can happen to us. We need to make sure that we protect that perfect heart that God has given us. Let's go to Psalm. Another time David is trying to tell us, tell his son, I'm sure, because he wrote this before he died. Psalm 18. Psalm 18, verse 32. It is God who arms me. This is David speaking. It is God who arms me. He armed him against who? Goliath. Whenever he came up against men, he armed him. Means he gave him, God gave him, as he talks about many times, the right arm, because the right arm is pictured as the strongest arm, and God isn't going to give you his left arm. He's not going to give you a week, he's going to give you his strongest. That's what he says here. So, David knew that. It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way to him perfect. Perfect. See, David knew the only way to be perfect in his way is to go through God. Just have God directing him, because every time he didn't have God directing him, guess what? Didn't turn out good. Do you know most of you could say the same thing when I got away from God or I just, you know, yes, it happens. That's what he's trying to work with us. That's why I bring this up, because we need to do one thing, and I'm reminded of this, and hope you will be reminded of this every day for the rest of your life. I learned it out on the farm in Tennessee in a little town village called Milton, Tennessee, where all there was farmland. I learned at a very young age to look up. Look up. Look up at the sky. That's where the answers are. The answers aren't here on earth. The answers are up above the clouds. When I need help, the answer is up there. Maybe that's why in the millennium it's going to be an agrarian society, where there's going to be farm after farm after farm after everybody. There's not going to be house to house. It's a different lifestyle. Farming, being out in touch. But we don't have to be out of touch because we don't farm. We just have to be in touch when we look up and know that he's up there and know that everything around he's in control of and his requests to us become you perfect. And you can't get there from here. You get there from there. Rely on him. He even says, test me! Try me and see if I won't do this. How many people really say, well, God, I'm going to test you.

Look up. Look up. Let's go over to Hebrews as I wrap this up. Hebrews. Pull one from the New Testament. Hebrews 6, verse 1. Hebrews 6 and verse 1 from the New King James Version. Therefore, leaving the discussions of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, telilos, telilos, that moral character, moral uprightness. So he says, let's leave the elementary principles of Christ. Do you know those? Not laying again the foundations of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God and the doctrines of baptism laying on of hands. These, they knew. What was he trying to take the Hebrews to?

That it was Christ. Do a study of Hebrews and realize how much the writer just tries to tell them that Christ is the way. That he was Melchizedek. Then he was Christ. Then you killed him. Now he's up there for you. That's all there. He said, laying aside, let us go on to perfection. What do you need? Have you asked him? Do anybody remember that TV show, The Beverly Heelbillies? Does anybody remember that one? You know who the smartest on that show was? Jethro! Why was he the smartest? Because he graduated from sixth grade. Okay? When he moved to Beverly Hills, he had completed, he was 17 or 18 on the show, and he had completed the fifth grade. But he had to take it multiple times. And so when he moved to Beverly Hills, he went to school and he got a sixth, he graduated from the sixth grade. Jethro Bodine. How many times in the truth of God have we been stuck in the same grade? How many years? Have we wanted to lay aside the element and move on up? Graduate? I've known some ministers in the past that were over me that basically wanted to keep everybody in the eighth grade. And I thought, how sad. God wants us to, what? Be perfect. God wants us to understand, what is it? 1 Corinthians 2 verse 10 says, the deep things of God. He wants us to have those things. And you know the sad part about it? I realize now 65, which is young to some of you, old to others. Well, no, I look around here. There's only a few that I put. The sad part is that your mind, the older you get, you can't remember what you used to remember. Remember, I could just quote off scripture like this. Now I have to study more. I'm losing it! And God is telling me that I need to be perfect. Perfect for who I am. Not perfect in your eyes. Not perfect in Mary's eyes. But perfect in his eyes, using exactly. My mother has had a few strokes, and her memory, short-term memory is not very good. She's had three or four strokes. And she can't remember, and she worries about that. I said, Mom, you don't have to worry about that. God knows that. It's what you've done with what you have, and what you have now, and what you're doing with it. That's it. That's all he requires. And that is perfect to God. I have one more that I didn't give you. I just couldn't help it. I had it this morning. So if you will join me, you will not have it up there. I hate to leave this one off, and then I will wrap this message up. 1 John 4 and verse 12. This is part of perfection. 1 John 4, verse 12, says, No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. You can keep all the commandments in the world. You can have all this stuff. But you want to be perfect, and God dies. It goes back to this, and showing agape. Agape in there for us. So God, perfect. Christ, perfect. His family, He wants you to be perfect. Perfect in His eyes. Tamim, Tellelos.

It is a family trait that is going to be required to be in His kingdom to live forever. I hope you understand now that each and every one of us can achieve that. But we can't do it on our own. We need Him. And when we use Him, when we believe in Him and believe He is the one that can get us through any hard times, and the good times, and the test, we will be perfect. Let us go on to perfection.