Address—D. Martin
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Could we look at some verses in Job had something of perfection in our readings and I'd just like to consider an aspect of perfection that I trust you'll understand in no way would conflict with anything that we've had in our reading meetings. I would just like to suggest a few thoughts on.
Perfections that we can perhaps enjoy even now, even though it's already been said in the in the reading meetings that perfection is something that we will only realize and appreciate when we see His face for the first time. Yet while we're here, may some of the perfections that we find in His word and in His person.
Overwhelm our hearts. And that's what I'd like to look at now in Job to introduce it in the 37th chapter of Job in verse 16. This is something that keeps coming back to me. Maybe few here have heard me say something about this before, but it it's the thought that's been overwhelming me for months and it just keeps coming back. And I'd like to just suggest some of these thoughts to to us this afternoon. And that is in the 16th verse.
Thou know the balancing of the clouds, the wondrous works of Him which is perfect in knowledge when we consider all around us in the vastness of the creation of of the universe and realize that we know the Creator.
How wondrous it is, as we consider his signature and his imprint in everything around us, that we consider that. Do we appreciate that? The one who?
Is the creator of it all as we now look over to the 36th chapter and read the fourth verse where it says he that isn't perfect in knowledge is with thee. And that's a thought that I don't know if I can convey properly. But we I, I guess I have to say we're so involved. I'm so involved in myself and in my own life and in everything that happens in my life, my family, my assembly, the things that.
I are so close to each one of us, we tend to.
See things through our own perspective, but when we consider the works of the one who is perfect in knowledge and then realize that the one who is responsible for creating all of this says, I am with you. How?
Insignificant are we in the light of all of that they thought of of the creator of the universe recognizing me, little me, a dust mite on a hot air balloon. And yet he says I who know everything. I'm with you. That thought just overwhelms me. What does it matter?
Who I am.
What my thoughts are, what my problems are, what my concerns are, what my exercises are, even when I realize that the one who spoke and it was so says I am with you. And in the light of that, I just like to read 5 references in the New Testament that speak of perfection. And again, it's not anything that would differ from anything that we've heard this morning, but just perhaps add another perspective to it and that is.
To look in Colossians chapter one and verse 28. Well, let's read 27 just to get the context. To whom we would make, to whom God would make known. What is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles? Which is Christ in you? The hope of glory whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present.
Man perfect in Christ Jesus. And we've had the real explanation of the teaching of the sense of that perfection this morning. But I would just also like to suggest perhaps that we realize that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. And I don't know if it's I'm the only one who perhaps has a tendency to think this way, but.
Sometimes we get so used to things growing old that we lose sight.
Of the newness and the perfection of who we are in Christ. Those of us who know what it means to be parents when we see the perfection of a new born child, the sentiments that overwhelm us, that sweep over us, will think of how God sees us when we're born again.
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Imagine the joy.
In the heart of God, the Creator, the one who is perfect in knowledge, as he looks on you, as he looks on me, as we're born again and sees that new life within us, does that new life ever become old? It doesn't. And we have perhaps a tendency to think, well, you know, back when I was saved, however many years ago. And then we start.
You know, looking at how things have progressed and how things have changed and certainly how we should have grown.
And realize we haven't grown nearly as much as we should, but the newness of who we are in Christ, I don't believe ever grows old with God. And may we see ourselves as God sees us perfect in Christ, in a newness and an eternal newness that never grows old and will find its fulfillment.
In for eternity in His presence. And now let's look.
In the first John chapter 4 and verse 17. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world perfect. There is No Fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear.
Hath torment He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
Perfect in love. I can't begin to tell you how afraid I can be, and I just began to realize that as I've read this verse over and over again. The fears that can come in and spoil the perfection. Fears of things in this world of things that threaten us in every way possible. Fears of things that threaten the assembly and those that we love in the Lord's people. How we can how many sleepless.
Night, perhaps some of us have spent in the past year, the fear, the torment, the anguish, the pain that has had a tendency to, well, overwhelm my own heart. And then I realized it's because I don't realize and appreciate and understand the perfection of His love, not just for me, but for each one of His people and for the assembly and for each one of His own, not just those that are gathered to His name or.
But each one of his own and I would just.
Say this, I would say, what are you afraid of? Are we afraid of not being gathered to the Lord's name when He comes? Is that something that causes us to act in certain ways that perhaps are not a showing out, a manifesting of the perfection of His love? What's more important to my own heart, that I be gathered to His name or that the Lord?
Before He comes, manifest His grace and mercy.
Power to His people in such a way that for eternity we will never, ever forget how the Lord was strong on behalf of those whose hearts were perfect towards Him. May we desire that the Lord would act, not that we would be faithful, as important as that is, but may our hearts desire be that the Lord would act and glorify His name in His people.
Before he comes.
Let's look over now in Two Corinthians.
Chapter 12 and verse nine. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ.
May rest upon me. I don't know if there's any time when we felt weaker. Perhaps when we realized how weak we are in ourselves.
But you know, there's a verse at the end of Psalm 78 that I've just enjoyed recently once again, and that is when Speaking of David, He guided them. He fed them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them by the skillfulness of His hand.
And you know, we tend to perhaps think of strength sometimes and as brute force.
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And if there was ever any strength or power, it's in the person of the God's head, the Lord Jesus, the Father, all that we know of his infinite glory and power, but the skillfulness of his hand, it's not brute strength, it's absolute power used with perfect discernment and balance in our lives. And may we value that.
In our weakness may we appreciate.
The perfections of the strength that he brings to bear in gentleness.
In our lives, in our lives as individuals and in our assembly lives together, and as we consider all the exercises, each one of us so deeply or should.
Now if we could look at another reference to perfection in Hebrews, the end in chapter 13, and it's at the.
20th verse that I'd like to start. Hebrews 13 and 20 Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ.
To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
There is such a thing as a perfect work. And why is it perfect? Because God has prepared it beforehand. The works that He's given us to do are just those which He's prepared, which He allows us to fulfill according to His perfect will. And so we can look at what He has given to us to do as perfection.
Because they're his and not ours. And so may we be encouraged to do.
That which he gives us to do because it's perfect, not because it's great or significant or noticed in any special way, but because it's a perfect work prepared by our loving and perfect Father for us to accomplish in his purposes for us. And now one last reference in John chapter 17. We know this chapter probably almost by heart. And I have to tell you, I struggle with this because.
The Lord's Prayer to his Father, and we know it will be ultimately answered in eternity. But what about now? What are we doing or not doing that would prevent that prayer from being answered to what, in whatever measure it might be? And so let's look at verse.
22 In John 17 And the glory which thou gave us me.
I have given them that they may be one even as we.
Are one I in them and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one and the world, that the world may know that Thou has sent me and has loved them as Thou hast loved me?
That is the Lord's desire for us, that we might be made perfect in one. And it's not just for eternity, because it's that the world might know. Certainly the world will know when we appear with Him. But what does the world see of it now?
May it exercise our hearts. May we have a desire, not that we would enjoy fellowship, or that certain things might be other than they are, but that the Lord's Prayer to his Father might be answered.