Sugar Plain Friends Chruch: Today's sermon is gonna be one that's practical, be a conversation between you and I, and we're going through something that is a very common question that people have. Today's topic is on Christian perfection. What is it not? What are some misconceptions about Christian perfection? Scripture says in Matthew chapter five, Jesus gives the command, be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect. The perfection is a scriptural term. It is something that is expected of Christians. Christian perfection is that term is often popularized by Wesleyan groups. Quakerism did have a form of Christian perfection, but they didn't, they didn't often use the same terms as Wesley did, but they had a very similar ideas of perfection of love, perfection of intention. That the Holy Spirit is work as distinctive from Christ's work. George Fox was wrote one time and said, If you love the light, you love Christ. See him which makes an end of sin and destroys the devil which brought it in and his works, that he destroys and brings in everlasting righteousness in you. Though he didn't use the terminology that we would use now, you can see the concepts of entire sanctification in that quote. The love of Christ ends sin, eradicates it. destroys the devil and his works and brings everlasting righteousness. There's a perfection that happens that is involved with becoming in love with Christ and continuing in the love of Christ. There's a lot of teachings about it about Christian perfection or some other terms, maybe entire sanctification or other things like that, that can make it difficult to understand what this imperfection is. When we say perfection, what do you think of? You think of Christ, right? You think of something that is perfect. It's absolutely flawless. Maybe there's something that people call perfect in this world and we know we can always point to and say, Well, God's more perfect than that. How can we ever be as perfect as God? We can't. That kind of flawless perfection is for God alone. So then why would Jesus give us a command that we will never, ever, ever be able to achieve? And we understand what scripture means by perfection. Perfection, of course, is an English word, but what did what was the word that was used there? The word that was that Jesus was used is telos, which implies perfection of function. It implies a perfection of motive. So when Jesus says, be perfect, be perfect in your function. What are you meant to do? What is God meaning for you to do? And if you fulfill that, then God calls you perfect in that. And it's through Christ's perfection that we're able to do it. It's not our perfection. We didn't work at it and get it. As we look today at some misconceptions about perfection, we see that the first one, as we said, when you think about perfection, you think flawless perfection, absolute perfection. The first misconception is that perfection goes above what scripture intends it to be. Perfection, as we said, it's perfection of function. This one is absolute perfection. You think that it's the highest that we could possibly, maybe we can't reach God, but it's the highest that we could ever do in this life. That's not necessarily true either. Because that also includes what if I'm physically unable to do it? If I'm missing a part of my body, does that make me less than absolute, the perfect human? I don't think scripture's teaching that. Scripture doesn't teach that. It's not talking about absolute perfection, it's not talking about angelic perfection. That we are as good as angels. Why would you do why why is that different? Angels are in scripture higher than humanity and they sit in holiness higher than we we have mostly 'cause they're with God right now. But if we look at the scriptural definition of perfection, we see perfection of function. We're not meant to perform how angels are to perform. So when you understand the perfection of function, it makes sense why it's not angelic perfection. We're different creatures, different parts of creation, meant for different things. To give an illustration of this perfection of function. The child that creates something will say, Wesley makes me something. He makes me something that the best he can do, the perfect love that he can give me in a gift right now, is probably just picking something off the ground and giving it to me. That's the best he can do right now. Am I to say that, well, gift that could have been better? There could have been something better. You could have gone out and maybe done more. Of course not. perfectly functioning in what he is meant to do right now. So that is perfection in that. He's not doing more than he's able to, but he's doing the most that he can. The perfection of function, and also what is the intention behind it? His intention is pure as well. He gives the gift because he loves, or maybe because he likes it and he wants to share it, whatever it may be. But the intention is pure. So there can't be perfection of intention. So perfection of function and perfection of intention are two parts of Christian perfection. He is not endomic perfection. Now, this is something that I disagree with George Fox on. George Fox was very well known for believing that entire sanctification, or his equivalent of it, would bring us back to the innocence of Eden. Would bring us back to that perfection. I don't necessarily agree with that, because we still have the effects of sin. And that is my point on that. But it is not an endomic perfection, because we still suffer from the infirmities of sin. We still suffer from the effects of sin of other people and their choices. And even after we're entirely sanctified, we can still wrestle with sin. We can still have issues. We can still have anger. We can still have maybe some greediness. How's that possible? We'll get to that later. It is not sinless perfection. It does it does not mean that we can never sin again. Does not mean we can never sin again. Those of you who come from backgrounds that from reformed backgrounds or from traditions, maybe Baptist or Lutheran or others, they would say that you would sin in word, thought, and deed every day. You can never get away from sin. Sin is just a condition of this life. Now that's true in the sense that they're using the word sin. They're using the word sin to mean any deviation from absolute perfection. And that's true. We can never get away from deviating from absolute perfection in this life. But if that is the sin that we are the standard we're held to. Then that's not a moral understanding. Scripture many times would if we a very easy test of this, if you're wanting to know, should it be a deviation from absolute perfection or the more moral standpoint, which is a willful transgression against a known law of God. Take open your Bible and find passages that talk about sin and put in each definition. So instead of saying the word sin, put in the definition. And first John chapter one, a very common passage on sin, it talks about it, it says, If you're a Christian if you have sin, you are of the devil. Now let's put that in there, put that definition in there. If you deviate from the absolute will of God, from absolute perfection, you are of the devil. Or if you transgress a known law of God, you are of the devil. Which one makes more sense? Scripture saying that by very nature we are of the devil. That doesn't make sense with the story of the Bible. We are created for God. We are not created for the devil. So we cannot say by very nature that we are sinned. is we have the Genesis account, which says that we are created in perfection, that sin was a perversion of our nature, not our core nature. So we cannot say that sin is something that we naturally have. You can find other passages as well. There's many of examples of this. Just put in those definitions. Sometimes the absolute perfection works, especially when it applies to God's holiness. But when it applies, when it talks about sin to humanity, absolute perfection does not fit. And we can see also with how God deals with sin in the Bible. This is not a sermon on sin, but it goes hand in hand with perfection. It has to. But God gives allowances for things in ignorance. The child is not condemned because they are in ignorance, because they did not choose to sin. But to be fair, under the other definition, even an infant that hasn't been born yet could have transgressed the absolute will of God in some way. It is not sinless perfection. A Christian perfection doesn't mean that we can't sin anymore. Because when we understand that sin is a willful transgression. It doesn't take away our will. To be unable to sin anymore would be to take away free will. It is not resurrection perfection, so it's not the gr it's not the perfection we will have in glorification. It's not that kind. Not the perfection of Christ. We won't be exactly like Christ. We won't be the fullness that Christ is. Christ was sinless. Christ was perfect. Christ is God. We won't achieve that in this life. We can have the nature of Christ, that doesn't mean we'll have the perfection, the absoluteness of Christ, as something that is ours. Christ does impute his perfection to us, and that is how we are saved, because we're by the merits of Christ we are saved, but that doesn't mean they become ours. But Christ does impart his nature, which which enables us to be able to live a perfect life in this sense. But that doesn't mean that we have righteousness of the righteousness of Christ and the perfection that He is in everything that's ours. And of course, not neglecting the Holy Spirit's work to create perfection in us. It is not perfection of personality. It doesn't mean you're gonna have a perfect personality. It doesn't mean that God will cure narcissists of it. That's something I struggle with. How can God sanctify someone with personality disorders? When something is so blatantly wrong. Be honest, how can God save any of us that have infirmities in the body? Yet by grace alone And Christian perfection, how can perfection be done for them? It's as far as they're able. And it is up to God to determine in the heart whether that person is in rebellion or if it is a condition of their infirmity. And I have a hard time with that because I can't just give a clear answer to people on that. I pray for God to have wisdom to know, to give me the wisdom to be able to counsel, but also God will judge mercifully and j God will judge rightly. That doesn't mean that we have to have them in our life. So it doesn't mean that we have to be abused because they claim to be a Christian. And that doesn't mean that it excuses wrongdoing just because they have maybe be entirely sanctified. It doesn't excuse it. It's not perfection of ability. We'll talk more about that later, but it doesn't make you perfect at doing things. It doesn't make you a perfect interpreter. You don't just suddenly be able to read the Bible better. You can't just open the Bible. That's part of Christian maturity. Someone can be entirely sanctified at the moment of conversion. But that doesn't automatically make them all knowledgeable about the Bible and be able to read it and understand it the first time they see it, or understand it before they read it. I say these things, they almost seem like, why would anyone think that? But these have been issues that have gone through the church past and they sweep through in like times that they'll maybe these issues will come up and they can confuse people about it. So I want to give this. Christian perfection will go on to a different type. Instead of perfection, we'll talk about it doesn't exempt you from certain things. You say this, it doesn't exempt you from condemnation. If you sin, you are still under the same condemnation as before. It's not special privilege. If anything, it's it it's nothing more special than being a Christian. But it's a change in yourself, it's a change of humility. We'll talk about that. Maybe next week we'll talk about that. It doesn't make you exempt from ignorance, error, or infirmities. No, that's a wide range of things, we'll break that down. It doesn't take it doesn't give you new knowledge. So it doesn't make you free from ignorance. You can still make mistakes in ignorance. You can still not know things. You can still fail and not know why you failed. We trust the Holy Spirit to direct us in spiritual things, but He certainly doesn't exempt us from all ignorance. Doesn't exempt us from error. We can still make unintentional accidents. A sanctified Christian can get into a car accident, and it may be their fault. Does un make us free from infirmities. What are infirmities? Infirmities are the effects of sin on the body, mind, and soul. Infirmities could be, say you have a limp. You're not able to run. It's a physical infirmity. An emotional infirmity, maybe you have depression or anxiety that limit you in some way. Those are infirmities as well. Those are the effects of sin. So it's just living in a sinful world has done that to you. But that doesn't reduce perfection in that, because God's grace is there. Spiritual infirmity could be something like. My family has a history of alcoholism. Can be a spiritual infirmity for my family, myself, and my children. Now they're prone to addiction. That can be a spiritual infirmity to be easily bound by something. So I have to be extra vigilant in my own life to keep myself away from addiction. Because I know that my family has history of addiction and overconsumption and other things. So I have to be careful. But that limits me from doing certain things. I don't minister at the bar. That's not something I'm able to do. Am I judged for that? Does that make me less than perfect because I can't do that? No. It's a spiritual infirmity. It doesn't make you exempt from personality flaws. I talked about that, but maybe I'm introverted, but God's calling me to do altar work. I don't want to talk to people. I don't want to pray with them out loud. It doesn't make me exempt from personality flaws. I can still have those. Introversion is not a personality flaw. But when it when God calls you to extrovert a thing, it can feel like it sometimes. I remember reading a book in college that was talking about altar work and it was an old book. And I was trying to get some help with altar work because I felt like I wasn't very good at it. And so I was reading the book and it's like those that suffer from introversion need to overcome it by choosing to go do it anyway. It's like the whole book just framed introversion as a harmful condition for the someone to have to do alt work. And I was like, well. I was coming for help. But he told me just to go do it anyway, but it was an old book, but It doesn't make us exempt from doubts. Being sanctified means you can still have doubts. It's another thing too, having doubts doesn't mean that you're not a Christian anymore either. There are some people who get stuck in that. The devil tries to tempt you with that. To turn your doubts into you're not saved anymore. Don't let that happen. Bring those doubts to God. The Holy Spirit gives assurance. Ask, is this true? Do not to God, and don't let those doubts define you. I can give you an assurance right now the Holy Spirit's never gonna make you doubt. The Holy Spirit's gonna convict. There's no wishy washiness with the Holy Spirit. There's assurance and conviction. I don't see in scripture and in between. Exempt from being offended or hurt. Being sanctified doesn't mean you won't be offended anymore. You won't be hurt anymore. And that goes along with another thing. It doesn't mean you're gonna be in a constant state of ecstasy. You're gonna be happy all the time. You're gonna have hard times. You're gonna be sad. You might be angry sometimes. Doesn't mean you're exempt from suffering or death. That one seems obvious. There are groups in the church that would say that a certain point in your faith you will be exempt from suffering. And that's not true. Not true at all. Scripture very many times, Jesus even says, You will have difficult you'll have difficulties in this life. First Peter says, The joy in trials means we're gonna have trials. We're not exempt from sin. We can still fall into temptation. We're not exempt from temptation. Being tempted is not sin. Giving in to temptation is sin. And what is giving in to temptation? Giving in to temptation is when your will ascends to it. Entertains the desire the that you know is wrong. When you know that it's wrong and you give into it, even before you do the action. But once your mind chooses to do it, that's when it becomes sin for you. If you choose to murder someone but you don't actually complete it. Scripture says that if you're angry with a brother or sister. We can interpret that as anger to the point of I'm gonna kill this person. God says that that's murder because he've already chosen to do it. We talk about that it's not a higher state of being. We already talked about this already. It doesn't make you better at things. It doesn't make you happy all the time. It doesn't mean that you're eternally secure. Being entire sanctified entirely sanctified does not mean that your salvation is absolutely assured, that you cannot fall from grace at all. You can still sin. You can still put your salvation in jeopardy with choosing to go against God. Just Christian perfection doesn't give you any more allowances for that. And it doesn't make you mature. I think that's the biggest misconception about Christian perfection out there is that it'll make you mature. It'll make you a mature Christian. Or maybe that only mature Christians are entirely sanctified, put that another way. And why is that such a big issue? Because oftentimes when we talk about Christian perfection, people will think the people who testify to it, and they may have a true testimony, I don't know exactly for that for everyone's case. But then they see, well, but you did this wrong. You did this wrong. You're not the best Christian out there. And that's falling into this, where you conflate Christian perfection with maturity. Someone can be entirely sanctified and still be a relatively new Christian. There may be room to grow. There may be things that they still have to learn. And God is continuing to sanctify them even after even after that moment. Part of Christian maturity is all of the things that we have while we're growing. You can think back on your own life of when you were first initially saved, how many times did you mess up and maybe someone else or the Holy Spirit had to tell you what you did wrong? And every time you had to make a correction. Think about all those mistakes. How they get less and less over time because we're growing, but we're still prone to those mistakes, and God is still leading. God is still sanctifying. And that's part of Christian maturity. You think of it's called Christian maturity because it's both a process leading to something it's a process leading to something. Now when does a Christian become mature? Now that's a topic for another day right now. But the point is, just because you're entirely sanctified doesn't mean you immediately reach maturity. It doesn't mean you reach a state of enlightenment. You're able to understand God better. You're able to somehow connect with the Holy Spirit better. You're somehow able to pray better. Now those things can be effects of the change that God does in your life your entire sanctification. But it doesn't give you a new ability, some sort of special power, some sort of opening of your mind to something. Now scripture does say that there is a renewing of your mind. But it doesn't give you something like enlightenment, like an Eastern philosophy kind of thing. It doesn't give you a new ability. You don't get new authority. It's not like you can now drive out a demon you couldn't have before. It doesn't give you the ability to walk on water, to go out there and go to wherever you want and you won't be touched by anything, that you're free from all harm, from all danger. There are churches in the Bible belt that would preach that it would save you from the bites of vipers. Snake handler churches. It doesn't give you new ability. There are probably many more things that we could list that it's not, but I just listed some of the most common things that have swept through the churches and come and gone over time. But I wanted to cover this today so that when we talk about it next week, about what Christian perfection is, we can understand some of the misconceptions before we get into it. Christian perfection will give a little teaser, I guess. Christian perfection or entire sanctification is when the heart is emptied of all sin, filled with the perfect love of Christ, looking towards others and to God. John Wesley was quoted s is quoted saying that Christian perfection is nothing higher and nothing lower than this, than a heart emptied of all sin and filled with the perfect love of God. That's all it is. And what that mean? What does that mean practically? Think about how much the Christian life would change if your desire for sin is reduced, even removed. That doesn't mean you're not prone to sin anymore, that you're not unable to sin. But now your desires are not, I want to go get away with things. It's I want to go serve God. Your desire changes. Your desire is to love. Now the removal of sin we could almost just say is just another part of love. It's another action of love. If we're so filled with love, how can we have space for anything else? You want to serve and love Christ. Jesus says that if you love me, keep my commandments. When you're filled with the love of God, you want to obey. Jesus also says a greater love has none of this to lay down one's life. We become selfless in a way. God removes that selfishness because we're filled with the perfect love of God. And another time he says that the greatest of two commandments is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Perfect love looks to God and looks to others. And we'll talk about that more next week. But these misconceptions are ones that can easily lead you astray when we start talking about it. But it's nothing it's not complicated. It's simply the next step in Christ becoming more in you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, We thank you for your word. We thank you for how you have enabled us to love you. That we can be perfect, that we can function the way that you intended us to function, which is to be without sin, to love you wholeheartedly, and to love each other as we love ourselves. Lord Jesus, we're praying that as we go from this place, that these misconceptions cannot hinder us from going into the fullness that you want us to have. That these misconceptions don't make us think that we're any less Christian or any more Christian than we are. But Father, that these Things that we can rightly understand who we are in you and what we are to do. May your Holy Spirit help us to grow in wisdom and grow in understanding. In your precious and holy name we pray. Amen.