When I was growing up, I had a bizarre theory about
the television. I figured if I could
see them, then they could see me. And
this created a huge problem when it came to the Brady Bunch. For those who remember it, the Brady Bunch
told the story of this blended family, where the house was always put together,
the parents never got angry, and the kids had nothing but the nicest
problems. I loved that show, but I was
terrified of what the Brady’s might think of my family, the McGowan’s. So before the show, I’d clean up the area
around the TV. I’d ask my siblings to
dress nice and behave well. I wanted the
Brady’s to see us at our best. But something
always went wrong. My dad would come in
his t-shirt on the way to his workshop or my sisters would get in a fight. Somehow, some way my family would find a way
to embarrass me in front of the Brady’s.
Now you may never had any desire to impress the
Brady Bunch, but somewhere along the way, you’ve been worried about impressing
somebody. Have you ever had someone
come over to clean your house, but before they came over, you cleaned it
first? Now, I’m not talking a full
clean, but you pick up things, maybe do the dishes; stuff like that. You
realize that the house will still be dirty, but at least they won’t think
you’re a total slob. Or maybe it wasn’t
a house cleaner, but a neighbor or some worker who came to fix something. Maybe you said something like, “I apologize
for the house. It’s normally not this
way at all (when you knew it was this way all the time).”
Now, is that so bad?
Who doesn’t want to make a good first impression? But the deeper question is. Why do you do that? Why does it matter so much? Underneath that drive to impress lies a
deeper problem. And that problem painfully
limits your life, your relationships, your sense of joy and peace. But in these words, Jesus offers a way out,
a way that frees you to become who God created you to be. And in these words, Jesus points to that way. Let’s listen and hear what Jesus has to
say.
What’s wrong with wanting to make a good first
impression? Shouldn’t that be a worthy
goal? It all depends on why you are doing it.
Too often what drives the desire to impress has to do with a deeper problem,
one that leads you away from the fullness that God yearns to give. What is the problem? You are striving for the appearance of
perfection, when what you need is the real thing. And the real thing, real perfection is
something very different from what you might think. And once you’ve experienced it, it frees
you as only true perfection can. But
first, you need to understand the problem that binds you up.
Here’s the problem.
People mistake perfectionism for perfection. But the two could not be any more
different. Perfectionism has nothing to
do with being perfect, and everything to do with looking perfect. When you are in perfectionist mode, you know
two things. You know deep inside that you
are far from perfect. And you also know
that you can’t let anyone see that. Why?
You fear that if anyone did see it, what would they think? What would they think of you? How would they react? And a voice tells you that they would react
badly. So to avoid that condemnation
and disapproval, to avoid the shame of that exposure, you cover it up with the appearance
of perfection. And then you tell
yourself, this is what perfection looks like.
If I look perfect, then I must be perfect, right?
But in the words that came before the ones we just
read, Jesus destroys that false belief.
In example after example, Jesus punctures the illusion of perfectionism,
one that the religious leaders of his day were promoting. Jesus said; so you say, you shall not murder,
but I say to you if you cherish anger in your heart, then you’ve murdered. You say, don’t commit adultery, but I say
to you if you look at someone with lust in your heart, then you’ve done the
deed. Do you see what Jesus is
doing? He is laying out a painful truth.
Perfectionism is not perfection. Looking
perfect ain’t perfect. It’s just a lie
you tell yourself to help you feel better about the mess you know you are. And that lie destroys the life that God wants
you to live. Why?
In that lie, you can’t spend your life growing into
the person God created you to be.
Instead you spend your life constructing an image of the life you think others
want to see. And that life isn’t a
life. It’s a lie, a lie that eats you
up from the inside, and wounds you and often others in devastating ways.
When I first came to South Florida, I got to know
the pastor of a large church nearby. We
went to lunch pretty regularly. I began
to believe that we had developed a solid relationship. After the last lunch I ever had with him, he
told me that he would email some information I was looking for. And I waited, and I waited, and the email
never came. So after two weeks or so, I
called his assistant to ask her about it.
After a long pause, she said, “Kennedy, you don’t know? David doesn’t work here anymore.” It turned out as we shot the breeze at that
last lunch his life was falling apart by his own hand. The ugly truth about a long affair had just
come out, and at that lunch, he was only days away from leaving ministry,
losing his marriage, and devastating a church that had placed their trust in
his leadership and integrity. But as we
sat there at that table, you would never have known it. Even there, as his life blew up around him,
he was still trying to cover, trying to look perfect when he was anything
but.
Now you may not be hiding an affair, but when you
get caught in the lie of perfectionism, you are hiding something. And let’s be honest, aren’t we all hiding a
bit like that? But when you do, you aren’t
just hiding some little flaw, you are hiding you. And
that hiding binds you, and it binds others, because we’re all living lies with
each other, lies from which we can’t break free. And nothing
good will ever come from that hiding. It
will just bring more hiding, more lies.
It will spawn a life that is so far from what God intended our life to
be.
Yet here’s the question. How do you break free of the compulsion to
cover? How do you gain the freedom and
courage not to hide just how imperfect you are?
You gain that freedom by knowing what true perfection actually is.
In these words, Jesus shows you. And he begins by describing it in an
unexpected way. He talks about how God showers
rain and sun on everybody from the worst to the best. Then he says.
That’s the way you need to be. If
you are only nice to the people who are nice to you, then what’s the big
deal? Pretty much, everybody does that. If you want to be perfect like God, be good
to everybody. Don’t hate your
enemies. Pray for them.
Now how does that help? It doesn’t if you think Jesus is just giving
you something new to do. If you think Jesus is telling you to smile and be
sweet to people who have done you wrong, you’re still stuck. Because, then you’ll just be living another
lie. You’ll be smiling at folks on the
outside, when inside you are not smiling at them at all.
To get what Jesus is actually telling you, you need
to understand what this word translated as perfect here really means. When we think of perfect, we usually think
of something that’s absent of flaws. But
for Jesus perfection didn’t mean an absence of flaws but a fullness, a completeness. You could actually
translate the words that Jesus says more accurately as; be complete, therefore,
as your heavenly Father is complete.
Jesus is saying what makes God perfect is not an
absence but a fullness. God has no lack,
nothing missing. And God showers that
completeness on everyone. Yes, God sees
injustice and wrong. God works to make it right. But as God does that, he still showers rain and
sun on everyone, the just and unjust alike.
Why? In God’s completeness, God’s
fullness, God can offer love to everyone.
God sees no one as unworthy of that love. And
that is the fullness that frees you from the lie of perfectionism.
You see, with all those examples about adultery and
murder, Jesus was making it clear. You
are not perfect. You are not complete. And to try to live a life that denies that
is to live a lie, a lie that will ultimately destroy you. But if you instead acknowledge your
incompleteness then you open the door for the very completion you need. You can’t cause the sun to rise, so God
raises it for you, no matter how good or bad you are. You can’t bring the rain, so God brings it
for you, despite anything you’ve done or not done. And on your own, you can’t become complete,
become whole, so God brings that completion and wholeness to you.
That’s why God came in Jesus. That’s why in that agony on the cross, he
didn’t hate his enemies. He prayed for
them. Don’t you see? In Jesus, God came to make you complete. He emptied himself so he could fill you. He became utterly broken to make you whole. So, yes, you are incomplete. But in Jesus, all your incompletes are
gone. He, in that ultimate gift, that
infinite sacrifice, made you complete, whole, even perfect. And as you know that, you will find the
freedom to be who you really are, warts and all. Why? Even in your incompleteness, you will
know in God’s eyes, you are already complete.
And in that freedom, you will grow.
You will grow past your warts more and more into the perfect creation
God made you to be. So, forget
perfectionism. Forget those lies. Live
into the truth of your incompletion because can you rest in the truth that in
God’s eyes you are already complete.
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