Perfect Like Our Heavenly Father

This chapter, Matthew chapter five, ends with what I think is one of the most
astonishing declarations in all of Scripture. Be perfect therefore as your
heavenly Father is perfect. The word perfect there is the Greek word tele-Aus. It
can also be translated as mature or complete and so it can be translated be
mature or be complete as your Father in heaven is mature and complete. The
context of course is that of loving your neighbor. Your neighbor not
narrowly defined the way the Pharisees did it, your own type, the people that you
can naturally get along with, but neighbors defined broadly as God does in
Scripture including not only the stranger in your midst but also even your
enemy which is why Jesus of course goes on to say but I tell you love your
enemies pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your
Father in heaven. He causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends
rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. One of the characteristics of God the
Father is that he is unconditional in his love towards his creation. It
isn't just a good people that get blessed and it isn't just a bad people that
get cursed. Now he makes his son rise on the evil and on the just and his
rain to fall on the righteous and on the unrighteous and all through Scripture to
be a child of God is to be a reflection of his character and so when Jesus tells
us here be perfect, be mature, be complete as your Father who is in heaven is
perfect and mature and complete. He is challenging us, he is inviting us through
faith in Christ to grow up to be like God our Heavenly Father, complete and
mature in love. In the time that we have today what I want to do with you is
talk just a little bit then about what that love might look like. What does it
mean to be perfect in love as God our Heavenly Father is perfected in love?
Well it means first of all that our love is supernatural in nature. The word
super means above, above nature supernatural is something above and beyond our
natural ability. You don't have to be a Christian of course to love your
neighbor. There are many non-Christians who sometimes put Christians to shame in
terms of their relationship. There are non-Christian husbands who love their wives
deeply and vice versa. Non-Christian parents who are deeply devoted to their
children and vice versa. Non-Christian movements and organizations where people
are totally sold out to each other and the reason for that is that even in a
fallen world there remain vestiges of the image of God. Theologians often talk
about a thing called common grace that is to say the grace that God pours out
over all of humanity enabling them to live lives of love and relationships and
generally speaking unless a person has been very deeply wounded or otherwise
invaded by satanic power most people grow up with a natural capacity to love
and a natural capacity to do relationships. But there are limitations of course
to that love and to those relationships. Typically that kind of love is
limited to your own kind and that kind of love is limited in terms of what you
get back. You look at the average person's relationships and the average
person's life then you discover that those relationships are defined by I
scratch you and you scratch me. There is a natural love whereby we love our
own kind and that's why Jesus goes on to say in this passage, "If you love
those who love you, what reward will you get?" Are not even the text collectors
doing that and if you greet only your brothers what are you doing more than
others do not even pagans do that. Now notice very interestingly the two
categories of people that he identifies here the first is the text collectors
and the second are the pagans. Now you know enough about the New Testament and
about Scripture to know that on the social ladder of righteousness in the days
of Israel the text collectors and the pagans are at the bottom of the scale. What
is Jesus saying? Well he is saying that even the worst of the worst of humanity
loves their own kind and by extension he says to you and to me if asked the
disciples of Jesus I only love those who are like me who think like me who have
my background who share my culture who share my values who share my you know my
life then I don't need to pat myself on the back and say you know you're really
doing pretty well know every pagan can do that the kind of love that God is
looking for in your life and in my life is a supernatural love I love that is
inspired by the power of God's Holy Spirit that enables us not only to love
our own kind but also the stranger and even our enemy practically speaking
that means this it means when you come to church and you hang out you don't
just hang out with your own friends you especially hang out with those whom
you don't know some churches have what they call a two-minute rule where after a
service you're not allowed so to speak to talk to your own friends or to the
people you know you got to find people you don't know to facilitate bridging
that gap between those of us and all each other and those who are new to
community means to that when you throw a party and you invite people over to
your house you don't just invite those who will make you look good or that you
enjoy being around or that will help you climb the social ladder now you
invite especially those who are strangers you invite even your enemy Jesus
talks about that you will recall in Luke chapter 14 when he says when you give a
banquet invite to pour the cripple the lame the blind and you will be blessed
although they cannot repay you you will be repaid at the resurrection of the
righteous you see what is getting at anybody can hang around and be in a loving
relationship with those who are like them or who can give you something back but
the kind of love that Jesus talks about as being characteristic of God our
father and the kind of love then that he wants to reproduce in your life it in
my life is the kind of love that is much more inclusive than that it's the
kind of love that is supernatural because it's the love of Jesus Christ living in
us very important for us to understand because most of the time we're you know
likely to pat ourselves on the back if things are good at home and we get along
with our friends and we get along with each other in church and Jesus says
that's wonderful thing but you know even the pagans can do that even the
text collectors the real test of your faith in my faith is how do we respond in
the face of accusation blame when an enemy is trying to take us down what
leaves in our heart do you understand why we need Jesus this don't come
naturally to you or to me so that's one characteristic of God's love then
another characteristic of God's love of course is that it's not only
supernatural in nature but it's also sacrificial in nature and you've often heard
me talk about this but it bears repeating why did God the father decide to
create the world when he knew that we would turn against him in rebellion and
that ultimately it would cost him his son well I trust you know the answer
it's because God wanted to demonstrate the fullness of his love and the
example that I often use is think of a cup all they're well to do they have
vast estates they have hundreds of servants they manage multi-million dollar
corporations they they just are filled with everything that anybody in the
world could ever want but they're childless and they have nobody to share it
with and so what do they do they decide to be get a child not just so that they
can draw life from the child or live through the child but because they want an
avenue for their love to come to expression and so they get pregnant and they
have a child and they they raise this child and and they pour their love into
that child that's what God did in creating Adam and Eve originally and that
is an expression of God's love at the core of his being and under those
circumstances that's as much love as God can show him because that's the
giving of himself but now suppose that child goes astray and that child turns
against its parents squanders everything the father has given and has
accomplished and spits in his face you'll recognize the story of the
prodigal son you'll recognize the story of our fallen to see in what's the
father going to do throw the kid away trample on him when nothing more to do with
you I'll I'll be get another child or does he say my heart cries out for my
estranged son and I want to do everything that I can to bring him back to
myself and so now at great expense and at the cost of his own well-being he
makes it possible for his child to return home and to again be restored to a
position of splendor and glory that's redemption in the Bible and it's that
demonstration of love I got allowed sin to take place so that the full depths of
his love could be revealed to all of humanity and to all of the
principalities and the powers the Apostle Paul put it this way writing to the
Romans he says God demonstrates his own love to us in this while we were still
sinners Christ died for us and John and one John 49 says the same thing in this
the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into
the world so that we might live through him and you'll notice in both of those
passages the emphasis is on manifesting the love of God demonstrating the love
of God God could not demonstrate the full nature of his sacrificial love without
having to lay down his life and in laying down his life he has demonstrated to
the nth degree how great his love is because this Paul says earlier in that
passage perhaps for a good man you would want to die but he says Christ died for
us while we were yet sinners and so the love of God demonstrated in the
person of Jesus Christ is always a self sacrificial love in New Testament
language they coined a special word for it agape love the kind of love that
lays down its life and that seeks to well-being of the person who is being
loved over against one's own well-being it stands in opposition to Eros which
is romantic or sexual love it stands over against Falea which is brotherly
love and again most of us think we're doing pretty good if we have you know
some sexual attraction towards our spouse or to a very special friend or if we
share brotherly love with one another and those are wonderfully great gifts that
God gives us but Jesus says what more are you than the Gentiles don't even the
tax collectors do the same thing now he says you want to be like me then learn
to lay down your life not only for your friends but especially for strangers and
even for your enemy practically speaking that means this you invest yourself
in somebody's life you share your time talent or your treasure out of obedience
to the Holy Spirit and you do it not because it makes you feel good or because
you're going to get a reward no you do it even to the point of laying down your
life for each other expecting nothing in return sometimes when I launch into
walking with people over the years and we enter sort of into a covenant
relationship we always make it very clear up front I'll demand or expect
nothing from you in return but such as you are willing to freely give out of
your own heart out of a commitment to this relationship because you see the
world's full of takers and the temptation and tendency in all of our lives is to
enter into relationships with the question why do I get out of it and there's
nothing wrong in having relationships which are mutually satisfactory there's
nothing wrong in entering into relationships where we truly bless each other but
that's not the kind of love that God is talking about in this passage the
Jesus is talking about when he says I want you to be perfect like your father in
heaven is perfect that's the kind of love whereby you pour yourself into
somebody's life not because you're getting anything back but simply because
you are led and inspired by the power of the Holy Spirit means to when
somebody treats you ill and everything inside you wants to cut off the
relationship and and you want to lash out and and take your vengeance it means
you not only restrain that desire but what you do more especially as you
continue to pour out your soul and your life into that relationship not because
it makes you feel good but because you're motivated by God's Holy Spirit to lay
down your life Scripture says do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with
good and you can think of story upon story and illustration upon illustration
of how that works in the real world I I'll never forget Richard Wormbront
who was a martyr for Christ and Romania for many years under the communist
regime there tells the story of a young boy whose mother had been in prison
and killed under the communist authorities and on the day of her birthday he
walked into the common dance office with flour and he said you know every year
when her birthday would come around I would present this flower to my mother but
she's not here any longer to receive it and so I thought I would give it to
you instead that's returning good for evil that's laying down your life and
that's what has characterized God's people throughout the course of history
that's not to say we're gonna feel that way always doesn't mean we're gonna live
like that in every situation but there will be those moments when inspired by
the power of the Holy Spirit we overcome evil with good and the reason for
that just for the record is that violence begets violence and the temptation is
to say well you know the way of Jesus is nonsense if you lay down your life
for your enemy you're just going to empower him and and humanly speaking
that's true and then always the temptation is to say well we need violence and
we need force to keep evil and check it there is a place when there is a time
when when those who represent God's authority must exercise that power and
that authority but you know just as readily as I do that evil usually
begets more evil and the way to break the power of evil is to demonstrate the
Spirit of Jesus so that ultimately we pile heaping colds on somebody's head
as Paul says in Romans chapter 12 because we're not taking vengeance but
we're leaving it in the hand of the Lord and I was gonna remind you to that
cycle this past week you've all heard that story in England of all these
doctors that have been captured after planting these bombs you've heard that
story shook them up pretty badly but did you know that the ringleader of this
one of the guys that was in that Jeep that tried to drive into the airport his
companion got very badly burned but the guy that survives and has not been
injured is the ringleader of this whole movement and you know what's
propelling him to try to build these car bombs and to blow people to smithereens
his family lost everything in the invasion in Iraq and filled with vengeance and
anger and rebellion he not only wants to die but he wants to take as many with
him as he can God's love in Christ is not only supernatural in nature it's also
sacrificial in nature and then of course it always seeks redemption wonder if
you've ever asked yourself the question why is God so hept up unloving
even his enemies why doesn't God just use his power to destroy all of his
enemies and to establish his kingdom well the reason is that God doesn't wish
that any should perish that all should reach repentance and the Bible says in
Romans 2 verse 4 do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to
repentance so why is God holding off on judgment why is God not you know don't
you sometimes wish that God would get on with the program a little bit and
where there is evil and where there's injustice that he would just step into the
picture and clear it all up and punish all the evil doers until you begin to
realize that you know if God were to call us all to account then we'd all
fry and we'd all be in difficulty and so the Bible says God doesn't wish that
any should perish that all should reach repentance he's not slowed towards his
promises he wants salvation to come to as many people as possible and so the love
that God has for his creation is always a love that reaches down into our
lives and into our world with a view of lifting us up and bringing us into
relationship with him and while it's true there comes a time in God's
dealings with us individually and corporately where his patience runs out and
his judgment comes judgment always comes in Scripture as a final resort
because people have rejected the amazing grace of God in Christ and so to be
perfected in love to be like our father who is in heaven in our relationships with
one another and with all the world is to love redemptively it's to believe
that even the worst of the worst sinner by God's grace in Christ can be
restored I've been reading in my own devotions just lately through the book of
Second Kings the story of Menace a king who reigned for what 55 years or
something like that was wicked in the sight of God and yet if you go on and
read in the book of Chronicles you discover that towards the end of his life
God's grace never let's caught up with him and brought him to repentance let
me ask you the people you don't like the people that have hurt you or that you
feel defrauded by or that of otherwise caused you pain how would you feel if
they come to faith in Christ repent of their sin and become part of the
community of believers I've often talked about this with people that have been
abused and you know what a stretch of grace it is to come to a point where you
say if God forgives you then I forgive you and instead of secretly hoping that
you know God will get you and that you'll get what's coming to you really in my
heart of hearts I'm hoping that even you could come to repentance and experience
redemption and the faith of Jesus can you understand why the disciples were
shaking their head when Jesus says if you love those who love you what more are
you than the Gentiles what more are you than text collectors if you're gonna be
like your father who is in heaven then here's the kind of love that I'm
inviting you to you I love that supernatural in nature poured in our hearts by
God's Holy Spirit I love that reaches out and that in every way learns how to lay
down its wife even for its enemies and I love that ultimately seeks not
people's destruction not people's come up ends but that takes great joy in God
reaching into somebody's life and bringing them to repentance and bringing them
to faith that's what it means to be perfect as our father who is in heaven is
perfect and that kind of love I think you'll agree with me well I don't know
about you but it sure does not grow in my heart by nature I don't have trouble
loving those who love me although sometimes that's a stretch and that's
probably true for you too but my enemy I mean people who sometimes have a
determined agenda whose hearts are not motivated in governed by love but but
who just launch out there and shoot their mouths off without regard to
accuracy or factuality but in Christ that's God's love that is poured out in our
hearts and tonight is we celebrate communion want us to just lay hold of his
grace confess those places where our love is just a natural love confess those
places where we are limited by our own hurts and pains and likes and dislikes
and where we invite him to pour his love into our hearts for the stranger
intermids for those whom we don't naturally like those who don't speak our
language those who are just messy and they cost us dearly because we're pouring
ourselves into their lives again and again and again Jesus says by this all
men will know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another
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