Perfection Friday

Teddy Ray mentioned that he saw a bumper sticker for a church that said something like "the place where nobody is perfect."

He wasn't sure if we Methodists needed a bumper sticker to counter that, or if it's just the weakness of bumperstickers.

Our bumpersticker would be too long. We'd have to define sin, then love, then the work of the Holy Spirit, then perfection...

And that's both the glory and problem for Christian theology. In a bumper sticker world, theology tries to make sense out of stuff that won't fit on a 2 inch by 8 inch sticker.

But somehow, the church mentioned above doesn't need to define not being perfect...


"Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:1-2).

So, after salvation, there is still something to be done in us? In sermons this summer and fall, I was at pains to describe the idea of mind in the New Testament, that a transformed mind, a mind like Christ's is not a matter of changed opinions, or intentions for better behavior, but rather, it is a mind-transplant, effected by the Holy Spirit. You can not get the New Testament "mind" on your own. It is a gift from the Lord through the Holy Spirit.

It is a mind controlled by love. And again, not human love, but the Holy Spirit love, that allows us to love God, and to love neighbor.

But I do not know of anyone who had that love at the instant of conversion. Neither does the Word expect that. What we see instead is a continuing work of God, making us holy, cleaning us out of our self-will.

This passage from Romans is one of my favorites, in the sense that it has been with me a long time. when I was a new Christian, how badly did I want its promise, that I could be transformed to the point of no longer conforming to the world.

But how? It wasn't when I stopped smoking or stopped drinking, although those were demonstrably good things. I still battled with sin no matter how hard I tried. When I learned that it was the Holy Spirit who must do this work in me, I was set free to let it happen.

But how? That question crops up at every stage. It's one thing to hear that the Holy Spirit will do this if you seek it. But how do I seek it?

Verse 1 of Romans 12 tells us: offer our bodies as living sacrifices. It means that we place our selves on the altar. We lay it down there, consecrate it to God and we keep doing it (thus the living, on-going sacrifice). This can be a sacrifice of praise, in that we rejoice for what God has done and is doing in us. But it has to start with a repentance, laying aside sinful ways, leaving them at the altar and rising up to newness of life.

It is one thing for God to forgive our sins. We can scarce believe He would do that while we are still in our sins. It is yet another thing for Him to make us holy. And being made holy will come on the same condition as salvation: we confess our need for yet more of God. We trust that Jesus will do what He says, that He is as able to make us perfect through His death and resurrection as He was to save us from our sins. That is to say, we will be made perfect by nothing short of faith in Jesus.