Perfect Love
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4 The Rock—his work is perfect; all his ways are just. A faithful God, without bias, he is righteous and true.
Have you ever watched a professional athlete practice? The amount of discipline they have is astounding. They will do the same thing over, over, and over again until they get it as near perfect as humanly possible. It has been said what makes an athlete a professional verses an amateur is how they practice. One practices until he gets it right the other practices until he can’t mess up. Yet even an athlete that continues working this way has to continue practicing as long as he or she is in the sport. In oder for that athlete to compete on the professional level he/she will have to practice the entire time or they will lose the skill.
Did it ever occur to you that Yahweh doesn’t have to work at being perfect? He is perfect. It His nature. He doesn’t have to practice at being perfect to remain perfect. Their is literally not even a shadow or possibility of imperfection in Him.
Since he is perfect, there is a command that we should be perfect.
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Well that’s a little overwhelming....I mean really isnt it? Be perfect....
We know that God is perfect but can a person ever truly be made perfect as God is perfect?
Or is this simply an unrealistic expectation? Is the standard really perfection? If it is then how can I ever obey it. How can I live up to this?
.The word perfect here is the Greek word “telios”. It has the idea of being complete. As sinners we are incomplete by nature. There is something deep within our very being that has gone askew. Often people ask how can the world be so cruel? How can one knowing his deeds are harming himself and others practice them with such indifference. The news is filled with horrific suffering at the the hands of evil people. But then there are our own evil hearts that we have to contend with. Each and every day we have to fight the same temptation as yesterday. The temptation to be selfish and do what we want despite the consequences of how it affects others. Even when we do what is right our hearts had to choose. There is nothing perfect about us. In fact, There is something incomplete about us.
Gen. 2:16-17
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden,
17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”
Adam and Eve went on to do exactly what God had told them not to do. So from that day forward death began to have its work. It is more than just a physical death but also a spiritual death. A spiritual death and darkness has taken hold of each of us. In each of us there is the capacity for the most heinous of sin. This is evidence of the death working in us. This is evidence that something is missing in us. Something that once was beautiful has died. We are now an incomplete picture of all that God created us to be. Yet we have an unchanging perfect God. Who’s unchanging standard requires perfection in every way.
7 Nothing is required of man that is not first in God. It is because God is perfect that we are required to be perfect.
George MacDonald
“The Child in the Midst” sermon (19th century)
George Macdonald (Scottish Novelist and Poet)
Why we understand this to be true, How does this understanding help us. His perfection is the reason why mankind by himself is doomed to the eternal lake of fire. His perfection is the reason why God cannot ignore the breaking of His laws. How does the perfection of God benefit man?
Today I want us to see how God’s perfection is both the problem and the solution for us. His perfection is our only hope.
4 reasons why we should be thankful for the perfection of Christ.
#1 His Perfection Ensures that I am Loved and I am able to love.
#1 His Perfection Ensures that I am Loved and I am able to love.
16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
17 In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love.
19 We love because he first loved us.
20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
So we just got through saying how bad mankind is. We just saw how the standard is perfection. A standard that we could never meet. Yet the scriptures say that God loves us? But why?
8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God didn’t just say that he loves us and move on. He proved his love for us by taking on flesh. For enduring a sin-cursed earth. Dying on the cross for our sins and then raising again. This is no ordinary love this is a perfect love.
God’s perfection ensures that I am loved with a perfect love. But did you know that the Gospel is a personal decision it doesn’t just affect you personally?
Look at I John 4:19-21
19 We love because he first loved us.
20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
If we are loved with a perfect love, and the love that was once missing resides in us, then it makes sense that their would be a visible expression of his love coming from us. (repeat). Granted, our expression is incomplete because we are not perfect but God gives every person who claims to know him, a test to see if the perfect love of Christ resides in him/her. Do I love others? You see just like Christ love reconciles us to God. His love should reconcile us to others.
If I say that I have the perfect love of Christ in me, yet I do not love those around me. If I have hatred in my heart, It is not I who is calling you out about your salvation, but God himself.
His perfect love makes a difference not just for eternity but also for the everyday. So if your sitting here today with hatred in your heart for those that have wronged you. You are unable to forgive those who have sinned against you. Then there is a question of Does the perfect love of Christ reside in men? Does this cause you to fear?
**What this short video**
#2 His Perfection Removes Fear.
#2 His Perfection Removes Fear.
18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love.
Those who are in Christ live free from the fear of God’s wraith. I don’t have to wake up each morning wondering if today is going to be the day I day and face God’s wraith. I no longer fear the punishment for my sin because Christ has taken it for me. I am free to live my life in love toward those who would do me harm because the perfect love of God drives out fear. There is no pain In Christ that cannot be healed through his love. There is no fear of death because death means that I will finally be made whole and complete. This perfect love of Christ not only changes how I respond to God and others. It changes how I live everyday. I do not have to fear. I am secure in the hands of a God who loves me despite my circumstances.
But how does this work? how does his love cover my sin?
#3 His Perfection Covers my Imperfection.
#3 His Perfection Covers my Imperfection.
Because he his perfect his perfection covers my imperfection.
8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith.
Notice verse 9 with me. Not having a righteousness of my own, but one that is through faith in Christ - the righteousness from God based on faith. Do you see if Christ was not perfect/righteous we would have no perfect covering. We would have no place to run to in our sin. We would be doomed without any hope of redemption. We would be forced to live in the prison of the fear of death.
It is his perfection that will declare whomever rejects the gospel as eternally condemned in hell. However, It is with the same perfection that you and I can run too the perfection of Christ and find shelter from the wrath to come because he has taken your place. Jesus Christ in his perfect love, lived a perfect life, and was the perfect sacrifice for your sin. He perfectly satisfied the requirements for the punishment of sin.
You see sin was man’s problem and by a man it had to be paid for. So Christ became man. Lived a perfect life and through his perfect love he took your place on the cross. God poured out his perfect wraith on sin. So that you could by made perfect in Him. Do you see why it is essential that God be perfect? As I mentioned earlier
His perfection is the reason why mankind by himself is doomed to the eternal lake of fire. His perfection is the reason why God cannot ignore the breaking of His laws. But it is also his perfection that provides us a way to be forgiven and set free from sin and the fear of death.
But pastor Brett, what if I do not have perfect faith?
Let me answer that for you. You don’t. You don’t have perfect faith. But there is one who is perfect.
Lastly,
#4 His Perfection Completes our faith.
#4 His Perfection Completes our faith.
Our faith is small. It is imperfect. In fact, look at what Jesus said,
20 “Because of your little faith,” he told them. “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
God recognizes that our faith is often small. But faith is faith. Small faith is still faith. When we put our faith in trust in Jesus Christ. It is Jesus himself that will perfect your faith.
look at Hebrews 12 with me
2 keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
You see Jesus is the pioneer of your faith, It is because of what he has done for you that you are able to have faith and it is because of what he has done for you that he will continue to perfect your faith.
In any audience there are only two groups of people. There are those who have accepted the perfect love of Christ and those who have not.
If you haven’t why not? Why do you resist so great a love for you? Why do you choose to go in life living in fear and bondage to sin? The perfect love of Christ has paid for your sin? Why do you reject it? I will tell you this. No sin or pleasure of this world will be worth the wraith of God to come. Every person who has entered eternity rejecting the love of Christ is now cursing themselves in hell.
But if you are in Christ this morning.
I want to remind you that you do not have fear. Let the perfect love of Christ flow through you this morning. Let tomorrow be a day of Joy because you know that you are loved and even in death there is coming a better day.
two emotions...Love of fear. You have been given love. Let love cast our fear. Aren’t you thankful for the perfect love of Christ!
