Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Mozart was only 25 years old when he settled in Vienna in 1781.

Ten years later he was dead, but his commitment to perfection made his mark live on and crown him as one of the princes of music.

Those ten years were years of struggle for survival.

He lived in poverty with little food, and often even without heat in the winter.

His publisher threatened to stop giving him any payment at all if he did not write in a more popular style.

Mozart replied, "Then, my good sir, I have only to resign and die of starvation.

I cannot write as you demand."

He refused to dedicate his gift to the trivial, and he went on writing his matchless music which made him so famous after his death.

He aimed for perfection, not because it paid well, but because he do no other.

The love for quality was in his blood.

James is informing us that this should be the goal of every Christian, for God is perfect, and we are to be partakers of the divine nature.

Facing life's trials with joy and patience is not just to prove we can do it, but that we might be perfect and complete, and lacking in nothing.

Someone will immediately take issue with James and ask, "Who can be perfect?"

We said James was a very practical writer, but how can he be practical and so soon jump off the deep end, and write of being perfect?

If there is one thing that almost everyone agrees on, it is the realistic truth that nobody is perfect.

Jesus Christ is the only candidate for the office of perfection, and James, of all people, should know that, and not introduce such a concept in his letter.

Is it possible that James was just expressing a sense of humor, for that is usually the only realm in which we deal with perfection.

The poet writing from a doctor's perspective put it this way,

The perfect patient let us praise: He's never sick on Saturdays,

In waiting rooms he does not burn.

But gladly sits and waits his turn.

And even, I have heard it said, Begs other, please go on ahead.

He takes advice, he does as told; He had a heart of solid gold.

He pays his bills, without a fail, In cash, or by the same day's mail.

He has but one small fault I'd list: He doesn't (what a shame!) exist.

This seems to be the major defect in all perfect people-they are conspicuous by their absence, and just do not exist.

Spurgeon wrote, "He who boasts of being perfect is perfect in folly.

I never saw a perfect man.

Every rose has its thorn and everyday its night."

Shakespeare summed it up, "No perfection is so absolute, that some impurity doth not pollute."

But what are we to do with James?

Are we to write off his words as humor, and say he must have been joking, or should we just skip over such things, and not ask so many questions?

This is often the approach to things we do not understand, but it is folly and sin.

If you do not understand what the Bible is saying, then you need to search until you do.

Bible reading is not enough.

We need to study the Bible until we do understand what God is saying.

So we are going to study the biblical concept of perfection so that we know what God expects of us.

First let's consider-

I. THE EXPECTATION OF PERFECTION.

James is not alone in expecting Christians to be perfect.

Both the Old Testament and the New Testament have many text that make it clear that believers are expected to press on to perfection.

This expectation is not hidden away in some obscure corner of the Bible where scholars have to dig to find it.

It is written so often, and so clearly, that he who runs may read.

James did not set up the standard of perfection.

He only echo's his Lord and brother, who in the Sermon on the Mount, made the most absolute statement on perfection to be found anywhere.

In Matt.

5:48 Jesus said, "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

Jesus expected His followers to be perfect.

That may sound impossible; especially to be perfect like God, but the point is, that is what is expected.

Why should Jesus expect less than the best?

The Old Testament saints attained perfection, and so why not New Testament saints?

Listen to these texts:

Gen. 6:9, "Noah was a righteous man and perfect in his generation."

Job 1:8, "A perfect and an upright man..."

I Kings 11:4, "The heart of David was perfect with the Lord his God."

I Kings 15:14, "Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days."

If these men of God of old could be perfect in some sense in spite of their sins and blunders, how can we expect God to expect less from us who have his best in Jesus Christ?

Anything less than perfection is not only sub-Christian, it is sub-Judaism.

It is below the ideal of the entire Bible.

There are many other references in the Old Testament, but we must move on to look at the exalted expectation of the New Testament.

Eph.

4:11-13 says, "And he gave some Apostles, and some prophets; and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

Paul believed it could be done, for he wrote even to the sinful saints of Corinth and said in II Cor.

13:11, "Be perfect."

In 7:1 he urges them to be cleansed from sin and perfected in holiness.

Some did attain it, for in I Cor.

2:6 he wrote, "We speak wisdom among them that are perfect."

In Heb. 5 the Christians are being rebuked for being on milk when they should be eating the meat of the Word.

They are forever on the bottle of the simple Gospel, and they never go on to the profound heights to which God is calling.

After this rebuke he says in 6:1, "Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrines of Christ and go on to perfection...." God does not want His children in elementary school forever, anymore than we want our children to remain on that level.

One of the most wide spread heresies among Christians is the idea that all God cares about is getting people saved.

The Bible, however, makes it clear that God is not satisfied until His children are perfected, and made complete and mature in Christ.

We cannot begin to quote all the evidence, for the entire New Testament was written for this purpose.

The whole concept of Bible study is based on this assumption that by studying the Word of God we can become Christlike in character and conduct.

God is concerned about quality.

He wants justified sinners, but He wants them to become sanctified saints.

Calvin Coolidge refused to run for a second term as president of the United States.

He said it was because there was no room for advancement.

This is never the case for the Christian, for there is always room for progress.

The expectation of perfection can be burdensome.

It is like the new bank president being introduced to the employees.

One of the tellers said, "I have worked here for 40 years, and in all that time I have only made one mistake."

"Good," said the new president, "but hereafter be more careful."

He expected perfection, and that is too much to expect.

Sydney Harris wrote, "Nothing is perfect is what we say when we want to justify our current state of imperfection; the statement is made not because it is true (which it is) but because it offers us a plausible defense against improvements, and this is more dangerous and misleading than a lie."

We do not want anyone to expect perfection from us, but we cannot escape the fact that that is what is expected of us in Scripture.

Let us look next at-

II.

THE EXPLANATION OF PERFECTION.

Now that we know that it is expected, we need to know what it is that is expected.

How can we be expected to be what we know that no one but Christ has ever been?

Who can be perfect?

Christians who try and face up to the biblical expectation without an biblical explanation often make the Scripture a stumbling block, and a basis for a nervous breakdown.

A Christian perfectionist who does not understand what the Bible means often become a neurotic, guilt-ridden, self-hating Christian.

If they do manage to maintain some stability, they are a plague to others with their cursed perfectionism.

They become the Felix Ungers of the religious world.

They are tormented in trying to be as spotless as those in heaven.

There is much written on the dangers of perfectionism by both secular and Christian counselors, but our purpose is not to try and understand what biblical perfection isn't.

Our task is to try and understand what it is.