Be Perfect

KiDZ MESSAGE

SLIDE - KiDZ Message

prop - Tree seedling in a pot

ONRAMP

Show the tree and ask: what is this?

Is it a good plant? Is it broken? Is it done?

what does it need to become what it was made to be?

Let them answer — water, sunlight, soil, time

Nobody looks at this little plant and says "good enough, we're done here"

We expect it to keep growing — because that's what it was made to do

Preview: Today we're going to talk about how God thinks about you the same way

LESSON

Read Matt 5:48 — "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect"

Explain: God is fully grown. Completely good, completely loving — nothing in him is still a sapling

And when he made you, he made you to grow up to be like him

KiDZ Big Idea

God wants to grow you all the way up.

Ask: does being grown up mean never making mistakes? No.

It means fully grown. Fully what God made you to be.

Just like this plant — it's not broken when it's small. It's just not finished yet.

But would it be good if this tree never became grown up? No

Just like this tree, God doesn’t plan to leave you as a sapling forever. he wants you to be all grown up.

APPLICATION

What kinds of things do you think a grown-up Christian does?

Let them answer — take a few responses

Give some examples:

someone who is kind no matter how other people treat them.

Someone who tells the truth even when it's hard.

Someone who says sorry even when they don't want to.

These aren't just rules — they're what a fully grown person does

Ask: what's one way you could grow this week? One thing you could practice that a grown-up Christian does?

Not because you have to — but because that's what you're becoming

PRAYER

Thank God that he isn't done with us yet

Ask him to show us one place where we can grow this week

Ask for his help to actually do it — because we can't grow ourselves, we need him

MAIN SERMON

SLIDE - Title

ONRAMP

"We feel comfortable saying 'I am a work in progress' — but what if God intends to finish the job?"

I suspect that many of us have made peace with being a "work in progress"

It's the spiritual equivalent of "I'm not a morning person" — Like it's just who we are.

For the longest time I just didn't think of myself as a language person. Memorization comes hard to me, I took some Spanish and some French and both didn’t click.

Pero con algo de práctica y constancia, he aprendido bastante español. But with some practice and consistency, I have learned quite a bit of Spanish.

The phrase isn't wrong — we are works in progress. The problem is what we've done with it. It's become a ceiling instead of a description.

over time "work in progress" or “I’m only human” stops being humble and starts being an excuse for not expecting much to change.

We confuse God's patience with us and his plan for us.

I believe this is true, not just for our skills, but for our Maturity as Christians and as humans.

It is true for our holiness.

SLIDE - Be Perfect

Jesus told us in our reading this morning to Matthew 5:48 “48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

and Paul taught us in Philippians 1:6 “6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

What if Jesus’ command to be perfect (and I will unpack what he meant by perfect later), is backed up, not by our own ability, but by God’s power?

And what if the only ceiling to our obedience is the ceiling we place on what we believe he is able to do in us?

It’s an important question because there are real consequences for creating this ceiling.

in our own lives, and in the world around us

Our world thinks it has a clear idea of what goodness look like.

it’s partly being kind and helpful. but...

It looks like Scar, in the lion King, plummeting to the same death he sent Mufasa to.

It looks like the person who hurt your child getting beaten to a pulp.

Heroes destroy their enemies, Bullies getting publicly humiliated.

And yet the problems only get worse. The cycles continue. In giving someone what we think they deserve, we create yet another injustice.

And we say “this is just the way things are” and we criticize those looking for a different way as naive.

Yet, Jesus looked at all of that and said: there is a better way

But that better way depends entirely on what you and I are willing to let God do in us.

Let me show you.

EXPOSITION

Matthew 5

SLIDE - Jesus’ Examples

Don’t bother following the scriptures on screen for this part.

Let’s turn over to Matthew 5:38-48

Briefly orient: Jesus is in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount

Six times he says "you have heard it said… but I say to you"

He's not abolishing the law — he's going past the surface into motive, heart, and imagination

Before we look at the examples Jesus gives — notice what he's doing. He's not simply telling us how to do conflict resolution.

He's painting a picture of someone who has let God form them wholly.

When we let God do his entire work in us, it shows up everywhere.

It shows up in how we handle money,

how we talk about people who aren't in the room,

whether we show up for someone who can't pay us back,

what we actually do with the anger or jealousy or resentment that lives in our hearts.

A fully grown Christian isn't just someone who handles conflict well

They're someone whose whole life reflects God's character.

But I believe Jesus chose conflict situations to illustrate maturity for a reason — because conflict is where immaturity is hardest to hide.

You can fake generosity, kindness, patience and the like when nobody is pushing your buttons.

But the moment someone humiliates you, wrongs you, or betrays you — whatever is actually inside you comes out.

So watch what Jesus shows us here.

Example 1 — The Cheek Slap (v.39)

Jesus says if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. Most people hear: be a doormat. That's not what he means.

In the first century, a backhanded slap to the right cheek was a deliberate act of social humiliation — not a violent assault, a status move. The aggressor asserting dominance. Putting you beneath them.

Turning the left cheek forces them into a choice — back down entirely, or strike you as an equal. You have just refused to accept the terms of the humiliation. You've reset the encounter on your own terms.

This isn't passive. This is a power move that says: your opinion of me is not what defines me. You don't have the power over my dignity that you think you do.

📌 Example: Like a teenager who knows that God calls them “created in his own image” and “beautifully and wonderfully made” and therefore refuses to believe that they are unlovable when some bully says they are disgusting and weird.

You can only do this if you know who you are. You can only refuse the terms of humiliation if your identity doesn't depend on human approval.

Example 2 — The Coat (v.40)

Jesus says if someone sues you for your shirt, give them your coat too.

Read the scenario plainly — a poor person being sued for their shirt, a greedy creditor using the legal system to take what little they have

This isn't a fair dispute. This is power being used against someone who has no recourse.

They voluntarily give the coat too. Everything. Publicly.

The creditor now has to stand in front of everyone holding the clothes off this person's back.

The generosity of the response exposes the greed of the system in a way no argument could have.

Land the point: "You can't take from someone who is already giving. The creditor had power over what could be taken — but he had no power over what could be freely offered. The debtor stepped outside the system entirely."

Payload: that move is only possible from someone who isn't controlled by what they're losing. Someone whose security doesn't come from what they have or what they're owed back.

Only Someone who deeply understands their identity as a steward and understands God’s provision can do that.

Example 3 — The Extra Mile (v.41)

Jesus says if a Roman soldier compels you to carry his pack one mile, carry it two.

Roman soldiers had the legal right to conscript Jewish civilians for one mile of forced labor.

This was a daily humiliation for occupied people — you are reduced to a pack animal, an object. You carry the load of the empire that oppresses you.

Going a second mile — voluntarily — completely shifts the terms. You are no longer being used. You chose this.

The soldier now has to deal with the fact that you are treating him like a friend, not an oppressor.

You've asserted your dignity by choosing something you could not be forced into.

Think about what it takes to go the second mile for someone who has treated you as less than human. That's not weakness. That's a person who is so rooted — so complete — that the oppressor's power to humiliate them has simply run out.

📌 Example: "And in case you're wondering if this is actually possible — Jesus didn't just teach it. He lived it.

He turned his cheek at the arrest.

He gave everything at the cross.

And he carried his cross — the extra mile — for people who were putting him on it.

That's what perfection looks like. And that's who is inviting you to become like him."

In every one of these examples Jesus is not describing a doormat. He's describing someone the world has no category for.

Someone who can't be baited into retaliation, can't be reduced by humiliation, can't be controlled by what they're owed.

That person is dangerous to every broken system that relies on cycles of harm.

He is describing what someone behaves like when they are “being perfect”

Perfect

SLIDE - Be Perfect

Land on v.48

Read it slowly: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

The word therefore is doing real work — this is the conclusion of everything Jesus just showed you

Those three people — the one who turned the cheek, gave the coat, walked the second mile — that's what perfect looks like

Not flawless. Not sinless. Complete.

Unpack teleios

SLIDE - teleios

The Greek word is teleios meaning end, goal, completion. Fully what you were made to be.

Tree image: A mature oak isn't flawless — broken branches, asymmetry, decades of weather. But it's fully a tree. It's doing everything a tree was made to be doing. A sapling isn't a failed oak — it's an unfinished one. Nobody looks at a sapling and says "good enough." You water it, tend it, expect it to become what it was made to be. That's teleios.

This isn't a finish line. The oak keeps growing — but it's fully an oak. Completeness and growth aren't opposites.

SLIDE - BIG IDEA

To be perfect is to let Jesus grow you all the way up

and to stay grown up, in ways that the world around us cannot change.

Because our “maturity, perfection, teleios” is to be like God’s. God who...(v. 45)

makes his sun rise on evil and good, sends rain on just and unjust

God's own perfection is independent of the way people respond to it.

He will do what is consistent with his character, no matter what you do in response.

So be perfect as your Father is perfect means to interact with this world as God does.

Independent of the ways this world will try to redefine you or control your hand.

Now — Jesus chose conflict situations to illustrate maturity because that's where immaturity is hardest to hide. But don't let that narrow your vision of what he's talking about.

The fully grown person isn't just someone who handles their enemies well. They're someone whose whole life — their wallet, their words, their inner world, their treatment of people who can't do anything for them — reflects the character of God.

Leviticus

This isn't new. God said the same thing to Israel thousands of years before the Sermon on the Mount — "Be holy because I the Lord your God am holy." (Leviticus 19:1–4, 9–18)

Then immediately he tells them what holy looks like — leave food at the edges of your field for the poor (9-10), pay your workers before sundown (13), don't exploit the vulnerable (15), don't hold grudges (18), love your neighbor as yourself (18).

Holiness in Leviticus is not a ritual checklist. It's a life shaped like God's own character, and this kind of life is impossible to generate on your own.

Note the refrain — sixteen times in this one chapter: "I am the Lord." Every command is grounded in who God is. His identity is the foundation. His character is the target.

Read down the list in Leviticus 19 and you're reading a description of a mature human, and also the character and practices of God himself.

That's the point. Holiness has always been the shape of a life that reflects God's own character into the world around it.

Brief Wesleyan note

Other Christian traditions tend to say we remain simultaneously saint and sinner — that's as good as it gets in this life.

SLIDE - Wesleyan Holiness

Wesley pushed back hard on that: if God calls us to holiness, his grace must be capable of actually getting us there. This isn't arrogance — it's an upgraded expectation of what grace can do.

We are not a tradition that believes God leaves the job half done. Calling that humility is a mistake. It's low expectations dressed up as theology.

APPLICATION

What if the thing holding back change in our lives and community isn't the wickedness of the culture, but the ceiling created by us as followers of Jesus?

Jesus seems to believe that the world will actually start to change is we would simply let him make us perfect, whole, grown up.

Our free will is the actual variable here — not God's power. His grace is sufficient. His ability is not the question. our willingness is the question.

You are not invisible or ineffectual when you stop short of what God intends. That has consequences — in your life, your relationships, your community.

The Ask

Before we come to the table — I want to invite you to reflect on one thing.

Think of one area where you've quietly decided "that's just how I am."

Maybe it's how you respond when someone humiliates you — you've accepted that you always either blow up or shut down, and you've called it your personality

Maybe it's a specific relationship where you've stopped believing anything could change — a family member, an old wound, someone who wronged you years ago

Maybe it's a pattern of self-protection that has kept you small and you've dressed it up as wisdom

Maybe it's a short fuse, a sharp tongue, a tendency to disappear when things get hard

Name it. Just one. Don't perform anything.

As you come to the table and give God permission to work there. Not a vow to fix it yourself. Not a commitment to try harder. Permission. Let him.

CONCLUSION

This is week one. We're laying the floor.

We will look at just how much maturity he has in store for us, and how God does this work in and through the people around us.

But none of that works if we don't get this first thing right

The problem Jesus is naming

Every broken cycle we talked about — the retaliation, the humiliation, the enemy who stays an enemy — it all continues for one reason

Not because God can't fix it

Not because the world is too far gone

But because the people who carry his name haven't been willing to let him finish what he started in us

The ceiling isn't his power. It's our permission.

The invitation

So here's what I want to leave you with — not a challenge, not a to-do list

An invitation. Two words.

Let. Him.

Let him into the place you've been protecting

Let him redefine the relationship you've written off

Let him grow you past the point where other people's behavior determines yours

Let him make you the kind of person the world has no category for

Land the bottom line — slowly

To be perfect is not to be flawless

It's not a finish line you'll never reach

It's not a standard designed to crush you

It is an invitation from the one who is himself perfect — who turned his cheek, gave everything, and carried his cross the extra mile — saying to you:

I know what you were made to be. And I'm not going to stop until you’re all grown up.

SLIDE - BIG IDEA

To be perfect is to let Jesus grow you all the way up

Don't settle for staying a sapling.

He want’s to make you fully grown

Let him

PRAYER

God, we come to you right now not with a performance — not trying to impress you or prove we're serious

You already know the place we've been protecting.

You know what we've called our personality. Our wound. Our limit. Our 'that's just how I am.’

Pause

Today we're choosing to call it something different.

We're calling it immaturity. imperfection

And we're giving you permission to work there.

Pause

Not because we have the strength to change it ourselves — we've already proven we don't.

But because you do. And we're done putting a ceiling on what you can do in us.

Pause

Do what you want to do here, Lord.

Grow us all the way up.

We're ready.

Brief pause — shift tone gently for the gospel invitation:

And if there's someone here today who realizes that the work hasn't started yet —

That you've been watching from the outside, wondering if this is real —

Jesus is not asking you to clean yourself up first.

He is himself the finished work. The one who turned his cheek, gave everything, and carried his cross the extra mile — for you.

You can receive him right now. Right here.

Just tell him — I want what you're offering. I want to start.

Pause

He'll take it from there.

Close the prayer simply:

"Amen."