Merritt, Ashcroft, Cawston Title: Perfection
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:18, So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
The Pope had just finished a tour of the East Coast and was taking a limousine to the airport. Having never driven a limo, he asked the chauffeur if he could drive for awhile. It seemed the chauffeur didn't have much choice. So chauffeur climbs in the back of the limo and the Pope takes the wheel. Pope gets on freeway and starts accelerating to see what this limo can do. He exceeds 90 miles an hour when suddenly there’s flashing lights of Police in his mirror. The Pope pulls over and the trooper comes to his window.
Seeing who it is, the cop says, “Just a moment please, I need to call in." The police radios in and asks for the chief. He tells the chief, "I've got a REALLY important person pulled over and I need to know what to do." The chief replies, "Who is it, not the Mayor again?" The trooper says, “No, even more important." The chief replies, "It's the Governor, is it?" The trooper hesitates, "No, even more important." "It's isn't the President is it?" "No, more important", replies the cop. "Well, WHO is it?" screams the chief. "I don't know," says the policeman. "But he's got the Pope as HIS chauffeur!"
How do you get to be important in God’s eyes? How perfect do you have to be? “They say nobody is perfect, then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds!” said Wilt Chamberlain. A diamond with a flaw is better than a common stone that is perfect, is a Chinese proverb. No one is perfect; that’s why pencils have erasers, says a teacher. Ephesians 1:1, Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. How perfect were the people in Ephesus? Were they sinless examples of godliness?
1Corinthians 1:2, Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and theirs. Bible Commentary says: To them that ARE sanctified, those who ARE made holy. This does not refer to profession of holiness, but implies they were in fact holy, devoted to God. Paul says it was not by any tendency in themselves to holiness, but because God called them to it. 2Timothy 1:9, Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
SONG: THROUGH THE EYES OF LOVE
Acts 9:15, But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go your way: for Saul IS a chosen vessel to Me, to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and children of Israel.” At the very time God said Saul IS a chosen vessel, Saul was still blind from the road to Damascus. He still had to go to Arabia about 3 years preparing for ministry, Galatians 1:17. Yet God said Saul was already His chosen vessel.
When Abram was 99, the Lord said Genesis 17:5, No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. God changes his name to Abraham which means father of many nations. Picture this. It is suppertime and Sarah calls, “Father of many nations, Father of many nations, supper is ready!” But Sarah is not even pregnant. How does God name someone Father of many nations, when he isn’t even father of Isaac? How can God say that, when that doesn’t occur for hundreds of years?
Does God see something you and I cannot see? Romans 4:17, As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations, before Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead, and calls those things which are not as though they were. Did Abraham live to see those nations? Hebrews 11:13, All these people died having faith. They didn't receive things God promised them, but they saw these things coming in the distant future and rejoiced. From sound of it, faith embraces it as if it is already here. All we see is our reality. What reality does God see?
John 17:23, I in them and You in Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You loved Me. How does God love us? Jesus said, “You love them in the same way You love Me.” Jesus says the Father loves us as He loves Jesus. In order to sacrifice your son for another person, you would have to love that other person as much as you love your son, or you couldn’t give your son, right? God looks at us with same love He has for His Son. How incredible is that?!
I cannot honestly say I have same love for my enemy that I have for my children. When someone violates, betrays or injures my children, I could through grace of God forgive, but love them as I love my children? I don’t think so. Yet the Father loves enemies who killed His only Son, even though Jesus was killed because of OUR sins. It’s beyond our human sight. God says many things are true which we find hard to grasp through our puny, hardened eyes.
1Peter 1:3-4, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you.” Our security is Jesus Who gives us inheritance that cannot spoil. Jesus has gone to keep a place reserved in heaven for you. Yet we’re always doubting if Jesus saved us. Because we do not see as God sees. Our view is earthly and God’s view is heavenly. Our view is short sighted but God’s view is eternal. John 5:24, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears My word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but IS passed from death unto life. Jesus said it, we must believe it.
SONG: GOD’S ALREADY THERE
A leading cause of depression is having standards so high we can’t live up to them. One tape that plays over and over in our minds is we must “be perfect.” My husband says he has an allergic reaction to the word perfection. Maybe cause I was such a perfectionist. My sisters would come over and say, “How come your bathroom taps shine?” It’s difficult for us to separate identity from behavior. If you vomit, you are not vomit. We feel if we don’t measure up, it’s who we are. "Perfectionism is self-abuse at the highest order," said Anne Wilson Schaef. We place unreasonable expectations on ourselves and other people.
A dog walks into a butcher shop, looks at meat on display, and indicates with a nod of his head and a bark that he would like lamb chops. The butcher, thinking the dog would know no better, picks up the lowest quality chops. The dog barks furiously until the butcher selects finest chops from the display counter. Butcher weighs the meat and asks the dog for $5.90. Again the dog barks furiously until the butcher reduces the bill to correct price of $3.60. The dog hands over a five dollar note and the butcher gives him 40 cents change. The dog barks until the butcher gives correct change. The dog drops the money in the pouch hanging at his neck, picks up his package by mouth and leaves the shop. Now the butcher is so impressed, he decides he would like to own such a clever dog. He closes shop and follows the dog. He sees the dog climb steps to a house. When it gets to the door, it shakes its head in frustration, places the package on a bench, standing on hind legs, rings the doorbell. A man opens the door and starts to yell at the dog.
The horrified butcher leaps up the stairs, "It's such an intelligent dog. Surely it doesn't deserve this treatment." He explains how the dog bought best lamb chops in the shop, insisted on advertised sale price and quibbled over incorrect change! The man looked at the butcher and said, "Intelligent he may be, but this is the third time this week he's forgotten his keys!”
We need to line our thinking up with the way God SEES us. Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.” God will complete the good work He began in you because He will continue working in you until Jesus returns. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities and new beauty waiting to be born. “I say to you today, my friends, in spite of difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream,” said Dr. Martin Luther King. What we see depends mainly on what we look for, said John Lubbock.
The artist Michelangelo passed by a block of marble. He stopped transfixed, “I see an angel in there. Quick, bring me my chisel.” His story shows how God sees His children. They asked the artist how he could sculpt such a fabulous angel. Michelangelo replied, “I take away everything that isn’t the angel.” We can’t break out of the marble ourselves, we need God. Yet we believe we struggle to get out of marble ourselves! Without Jesus, we’d just be clay with hearts of stone.
Many believers see unfinished parts of our lives, and focus on unfulfilled areas.We see marble not the sculpture. Looking through the wrong end of binoculars, everything we want to be seems really far away. God looks at us through proper side of the scope. He sees our future today, everything we deeply want to be, all God desires for us. He sees that NOW. Men see things the way they are and ask, "Why?" Michelangelo dreamed things that never were and asked, "Why not?"
SONG: HE DIDN’T THROW THE CLAY AWAY
God sees our future today. He’s chiseling away all that stuff that’s not us. Chisel may hurt a bit. Help me see people as unfinished sculptures in His loving hands. God’s truth is reality. God said, “Abraham never wavered in his faith,” Romans 4:20. Yet Abraham fled to Egypt; lies to Pharaoh about his wife Sarah; tried to fulfill it through the maid Hagar. Yet God says Abraham never wavered. He believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
Hebrews 11:1, Faith brings to reality those things which are not seen. We don’t see God, heaven, angels, or streets of gold, but faith acts as if we see them. Faith accepts as real fact what is not revealed to the senses, believes despite all that seems to contradict it. 2 Corinthians 4:18, So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary; what is unseen is eternal. Paul is saying, All things of sense shall pass away, Caesar's greatness, strength of man, glory of Corinth, even the visible earth. The unseen is eternal.
Gideon was scared of Midianites and cowers in a cave. Angel says, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor,” Judges 6:12. God saw a courageous warrior in a block of cowardly marble. What does God see that we do not see? We’d call a man insane who’d go against a huge army with just 300 men holding pitchers. We wouldn’t see a man of valor, but a lunatic who needs a serious dose of reality!
Master sculptor is chipping away the false, unveiling the real us, creating work of art. Even though we struggle to believe it. As we meet people, we never know what God is up to in their lives. Instead of seeing all ways others fail to live up to what we think, we begin to see the person inside the block of marble. Instead of seeing where people are not what we like them to be, we need to let God’s view be all that matters. We think one day there’ll be judgment, God will look at us and say, “You were good enough, you can go in. You there were not good enough, so you can’t go in.” Parable of the wedding teaches only the guest who refused the wedding robe didn’t enter. He who thinks his robe is BETTER than wedding robe refuses to wear it. We think it’s by our goodness we’ll enter heaven; only by God’s goodness! Trials of life take on a new perspective; God’s way of bringing us freedom from stone that weighs us down. We believe the real us is what we see today, like one of our unfinished projects we started and never finished OR we believe our Master Sculptor.
2 Corinthians 1:21-22, Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set His seal of ownership on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. When you put a deposit down, that’s your seal of ownership. We have the deposit, the Holy Spirit, working in our lives. Therefore when Jesus comes to collect His own, He brings us in perfection. God sees us as the end product.
1John 3:2, “Dear friends, we are already God's children, but He has NOT YET shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we DO KNOW that we WILL be like Him, for we will SEE HIM as He really is.” We WILL be LIKE HIM when we see Him, but we’re so hard on ourselves because we’re not already perfect like Him now. Let us throw off shackles of not feeling good enough, and remember our lives are hid in Christ. We need to trust what God sees, and His view is the one that is real.
SONG: YOU RAISE ME UP