Sermon Tone Analysis

Living with Imperfection

December 27, 1998                 Psalm 20 & 21

 

          Regarding the importance of history, you have heard it said that, “We need to know where we have been if we want to know where we are going.”

I’ve said it many times myself.

This acknowledgement may be important as we chart the unknown waters of the New Year.

The idea is that history charts where we have come from, and if we don’t want to make the same mistakes twice, or many times, we must pay heed to the lessons of the past.

Indeed, there is ‘nothing new under the sun’.

Our best intuition tells us that the times ahead are perilous.

It may be that the lessons(?) of history haunt us more that they help us.

So often we realize that the sins of man just recycle in varying forms.

They have more technological sophistication but the same root problem.

It may be that the place we are going is the same place we have been.

But before you lose hope, let me tell you another statement that, “We don’t need to know where we are going if we are going with God.”

You know what the Bible says, “That the righteous shall live by faith.”

We believe that God has a plan in the world and that it is progressing toward completion no matter how slow it seems to our time-bound mentality, or how repetitious the world’s problems seem to get.

We also believe that we, as believers, have a personal part in God’s plan.

Even though many feel that they themselves are hopelessly bound in the same old besetting problems, it is eminently true that if you are walking with God and continually seeking him, that you, as well as his plan for the world, are indeed progressing beyond what you may consciously feel or understand.

Another statement that haunts us is that, “Our true character comes out in our unguarded moments.”

Has your true character been displayed lately?

Have you been proud of it?

Have there been a few of those unguarded moments where you have disappointed yourself – or others?

Do those moments make us wonder if our true character has made any progress on the scale of redemption?

Is there a line across which our true character resides, or is life more of a matter of process?

I believe it is process, and especially so if you know and walk with Christ.

We should ask ourselves where we would be or what we would be like today if we had not known Christ.

Even if you experience personal problems that haunt you in those unguarded moments, they are perhaps not as bad as they could be.

You see, those unguarded moments are, if you are in Christ, not your true character but remnants of your past without the character of Christ.

Those unguarded moments are when you inadvertently forget him.

But your true character is he himself who lives in you.

The Bible says that, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

Our heart does remind us sometimes of where we have come from.

It comes out in unguarded moments and we are ashamed.

But when we concentrate on Christ, it is then that our true character shines.

It is because we are then consciously in him, and he shines all over the place.

I want this message to give us hope as we continue to struggle with our own imperfections and the imperfections of those around us.

They will consume us if we let them.

We must see ourselves and each other as Christ sees us, and them.

This is not an excuse for those unguarded moments, but a challenge to continually be on guard against those moments in the real hope that Christ enables us to continually overcome by coming over to him.

And as long as we are still alive, we are still learning.

We will not reach perfection in this life, but we can keep walking toward it.

Christ told us to do this when he said, “You must be perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

He meant, of course, that perfection is in him by faith.

And as long as we are walking in that direction that began with faith in his righteousness, that is how God sees us.

God sees the end result.

In the mean time, we must not become discouraged about living with imperfection as he lovingly submits it to his grace.

If you have faced irreverence and injustice in the imperfect relationships people have with you and each other, and you with them, remember that you can trust God for the greater outcome.

It is in the slow process of living with imperfection that imperfection is overcome.

Slow cookers make the tenderest meals – the kind that melt in your mouth and satisfy your hunger.

We can live with imperfection because we have the hope of perfection.

At Christmastime we remember the greatest gift of all in God’s gift of love to the world through Christ.

In struggling to describe the essence of this gift, we must realize that essentially it is that God gave the world an object of faith.

Christ is the object of our faith.

He is the one in whom we can visualize God and thereby have faith in God.

Sure there was faith in God before Christ.

It was a faith that he would come.

But now that he has come, our faith is realized.

Our faith is easier.

The world has seen God.

God is real.

God is alive.

God is eternal.

And God is love.

God gave us the gift of faith, but we must receive it in order to have it.

And once we have it, it transforms us.

We have been talking about spiritual gifts in our Sunday evening sessions over the last two months.

God has given us passions, talents, personalities and personal style.

Even non-believers accomplish great and mighty things in the flesh – even though they won’t last.

But God transforms believers with spiritual gifts.

He takes what is ordinary and through our faith in Christ gives it a divine anointing.

He takes the same old person and puts a bit of God inside that can accomplish things that the old person never dreamed of, and in a way that we never dreamed of.

But we must apply ourselves to the tasks and opportunities he gives us in order to discover this.

Just as God’s gift of faith in Jesus eternally transforms our lives, he also transforms whatever we return to him by that same faith.

He transforms our fleshly personality into godly accomplishment.

He transforms whatever we undertake by faith for him.

What was once ordinary is now divine.

Imperfection begins to fade as we advance in the knowledge  and practice of his spiritual gifts – like faith.

We are on our way as the sons and daughters of God.

We can live with the imperfection for now because we are certain of the destination.

Inconvenient – yes.

Insufferable – no.

Inconsequential – hardly.

It may well be the personal knowledge and pain of our imperfections that keep us on the journey.

It helps to remember this sequence:

 

          Before salvation – not able not to sin.

After salvation – able not to sin.

After glorification – not able to sin.

We are on a journey that takes us from the clutch of death and will deliver us to the embrace of glory.

If we don’t get it all at once, maybe it is because we couldn’t handle it.

Dead people don’t know how to handle life.

It takes time to get resuscitated.

Then you can start breathing easier, even if you are still coughing up a little water.

You’ve been given the gift of life.

Even though it hasn’t all come to you yet, you can live with it.

Many visitors to Ireland bring home some of the famous Waterford crystal.

It's very expensive.

Every piece is perfect.

Often a person may buy fine china or crystal at bargain prices if that person is willing to accept an imperfect piece, "a second."

But there are no "seconds" in Waterford crystal.

If a piece has the slightest imperfection, it is crushed, melted, and made over entirely.

The church, however, is completely made up of "seconds."