James Meehan - The Problem With Perfectionism

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Well, today, we are talking about the problem of perfectionism. But more importantly than just talking about the problem, we were talking about how the grace of God takes that crushing weight off of our shoulders and place it it gently onto His. Now, before we get into all that, I wanna tell you three big reasons why I'm really, really honored to be preaching this message this weekend. The first reason is because 17 years ago, when I was a wee little middle schooler, I unfollowed Jesus, partially because of just how brutal being a middle schooler, always has been and maybe always will be until Jesus returns. But even more so, just because of the messiness that was happening in my family.

My parents were on the brink of divorce. My older sister was in the wrong crowd, doing the wrong things. I was so overwhelmed by all of the messiness that I didn't know what to do with my emotions except for to get into fights at school and be suspended regularly. And I remember during that time crying out to God night after night, begging him to fix my family and turn things around. And night after night, feeling like nothing was changing. And what's wild is things did change. It just took longer than I wanted. So I stopped believing in God. And so because of that, it is not lost on me.

The irony that now here I am, 17 years later, preaching the final week of a series called Almost True. And my job is literally to teach teenagers that the gospel of Jesus is good. It is true. It is beautiful. It is better than anything else this world can offer. That's what I do now because reason number two, it was through this church that my life was changed and my family was transformed. It was 10 years ago, this very same month that my entire family, mom, dad, five kids got into a pool in Life.Church Midtown Tulsa to get baptized, telling the world that we had been changed by Jesus. And then reason number three, it was in this church at an event that same summer, 10 years ago, that I met the woman who would become my wife.

Now, at this event. I saw her, and I was immediately captivated. I talked to her and my breath left my lungs because she was amazing. She was kind. She was crazy about Jesus. If you ask me, absolutely gorgeous. And so I started talking to her. And I felt like things were going really well. But if you ask her, I came on a little bit too strong or maybe way too strong. And so it took a little bit for things to get smoothed over. But literally that day, I got back to church, my Life.Church in Midtown Tulsa, told my youth pastor, "Hey, today I met the girl I'm going to marry". And cautiously, excitedly, he said, "Oh man, that's awesome. Who is it"? I said, "It's Mandy Groeschel". And he said, "Oh yeah, no, you're not gonna marry her. Bro, she's way out of your league".

And let's be clear, he was kind of right. Way out of my league, still is, But the joke's on him 'cause 10 years later, we have been married for eight years. We got two amazing kids, Jace and Micah Rose, because by the grace of God, anything is possible, even me marrying her. So all that being said, it's really a privilege to be here on this stage sharing with you because my life has been changed through this church. My life has been changed by the faithful ministry of Pastor Craig and Amy, or as my son calls them, Gigi and Pops. And throughout this series, Pops, AKA Pastor Craig, has been teaching us to replace the almost truths that culture preaches with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth that Jesus teaches.

And the problem with almost truths is that they almost work until they don't. They sound good at first, and they maybe give you a little bit of what you are looking for. But when you reach the end of the almost truth, you're always left looking for more. And the almost truth that we're talking about today is no exception. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna talk about an almost truth that some of you might actually think is a total truth. And so bear with me because I believe by the end of this, we will see how God wants to show us a better way forward.

So the almost truth we're talking about today is this, that nobody expects you to be perfect because nobody is perfect. We are all human. We make mistakes. And because of that, we shouldn't expect anybody to be perfect except for that one guy who was actually perfect, and He doesn't just expect us to be perfect. He goes further than that, and He actually commands it. In Matthew 5, Jesus says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect".

Now, some of you read that, as you see that, as you hear that, maybe what you are feeling is this like overwhelming weight being placed on your shoulders that you know you can never live up to. Maybe what you are feeling is the sense that I may never be perfect, but at least I'm better than those jokers over there. Or maybe you are one of those rare individuals with all the confidence within you. You're thinking, "Everybody else, sit back and take notes. I'm gonna show you how it's done". Whatever it is that you might be feeling right now, my hope is that by the end of this message, you will know and believe that perfection is not a prize to achieve. It is a promise we receive.

Perfection is not a prize to achieve. It is a promise that we receive. Now, how does that work? The thing about Jesus is every time He speaks, something always happens. Something always happens because His words are never empty. They're filled with the power to inform us about what is good and true and the power to transform us into more than we could ever be on our own. There's this Pastor Daryl Johnson who writes about how when Jesus says, "Be clean," the leper becomes clean. When Jesus says, "Be still," the storm grows calm. When Jesus says, "Be gone," demons go running. When He says, "Lazarus, come out," a dead man starts walking because every time Jesus speaks, something always happens.

And so might it be the case that when Jesus says be perfect, He's gonna do again what He has done before, not by our own efforts, but by His power at work in us. But what does it mean to be perfect in the eyes of God? I think the most helpful definition for us and the one that is most faithful to God's Word is to simply look at Jesus who was perfect in every single way. He loved God fully. He loved other people so deeply that He went all the way to the cross for us. So I would say being made perfect is the process of us becoming like Jesus so that we can love God and love others the same way that He does fully, truly, deeply, sacrificially. This is what Jesus is inviting us into. Because when we place our faith in Jesus, He places us on the path to perfection.

Now, the most inspiring and the most meaningful example of Jesus doing this in the life of a human being is absolutely what He did with my dad. My dad was not perfect, but he tried His best. And God continually worked in him to make him more and more like Jesus. And it was a little over two months ago that my dad passed away after an eight-month battle of cancer. And my family is grieving because we love him, we miss him, but we are also so grateful because he knew Jesus. And in the last decade of my dad's life, more than ever before, we saw the power of God at work in a person to transform them from the inside out. All throughout my dad's life, he tried really, really hard to be the best that he could.

And in many areas of his life, he was super successful. Like legitimately, he was a world class eye surgeon. He was a fifth degree black belt in Taekwondo. He got inducted into the Masters Martial Arts Hall of Fame. He was chosen as the head of his freshman class at West Point. Like almost everything he did, he was exceptional at, except for the areas that actually mattered most to him. Because more than anything, what my dad wanted was to be a great husband and a great father. And for the first 50 years of his life, he tried so hard, but he kept coming up short. But thanks be to God that with Jesus, our failures are never final because it was in the last decade of my dad's life that he fully committed himself to Jesus.

It was in the last decade of my dad's life that he didn't just be successful, but he became fruitful because he learned what it means to be faithful. And so on that Thursday, two months ago, when me and my siblings got a call from our mom that he was about to go into an emergency surgery that he most likely wouldn't make it through, every single one of us dropped what we were doing, hopped on a plane, flew down to Mexico so that we could be with them. And because God is good and my dad is a fighter, he made it through the surgery. But because the world has fallen and because cancer sucks, we only had another 36 hours left with him.

But because God is good and my dad is a fighter, for those 36 hours we were together, the thing that my dad spent his entire life trying and failing to build, there it was more visible than it ever had been before because we are a family that loves each other and shows up for each other. And more than anything at the end, I know that my dad did not want my mom to be alone. And so there we were on that last day, my mom, my dad, and all five kids standing around his hospital bed, praying, crying, sharing stories and celebrating all that God had done in the last 10 years because God is good and my dad is a fighter.

And over and over again in his last hours, I said over him that we are who we are because of who you are. We are who we are because of who you are. And my family, who we are today is because of who my dad was. And my dad became the man that he was because of who Jesus is and because of what Jesus had done in his life. Proverbs 24 says that the righteous may fall seven times but they rise again. My dad wasn't being made perfect simply because he never got it wrong or he was better than everybody else. It was because every time he fell, he allowed Jesus to pick him back up.

And so even though on that day, two months ago, my dad fell asleep here on earth, we know he woke up in heaven. And there will come a day when Jesus returns and my dad who fell will rise again because though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again. And the work that Jesus did to make my dad who he was at the end is the same thing that he wants to do for all of us, to make us perfect, to become like Him so that we can love God and love others the same way that He does. And so what I wanna do for the rest of this message is actually jump ahead to another passage in Matthew's Gospel where Matthew lays out the process that Jesus gives to us. But even more than that, in this passage of scripture, we actually get the heart of Jesus revealed more clearly than anywhere else.

So in Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus speaking, says, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened". Whatever burden is bearing down on you, Jesus is inviting you to bring it to Him because when you do, He will give you rest. He says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart". In all four gospels, 89 chapters, 3,800 verses, this is the one place where Jesus describes His own heart. And what He tells us is that He's gentle and humble. He says that you will find rest for your souls, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light. So how do we partner with God in His plans to make us perfect?

The first thing that we have to do is to remove our pride. We have to remove our pride. That verse begins, "Come to me," Jesus says, "all you who are weary and burdened," because pride is a heavy weight that will bear down on us until we are willing to lay it down at the feet of Jesus. And pride is the thing that will actually prevent us from coming to Jesus because it convinces us that we can handle it all on our own. And that's just like not only true for people who aren't following Jesus; this is true for us as Christians too. When I first became a Christian, I was very confident in my ability to get it totally right, to be the best dadgum Christian there ever was. And very quickly, I fell into this thing that is called legalism.

There's these people in the Bible called Pharisees and Jesus had many words for them. And they were loving, but also very true. And it didn't take long for me to realize that pursuing perfection in my own strength always leads to performance. And eventually, I got so tired of keeping up the act that I just stopped trying altogether because I'm the kind of person where it's like if I can't win, I don't want to play. And so after perfectionism stopped working, I drifted into complacency. And I just started to settle for the fact that there are some sins in my life that I don't like, but I tried to overcome them, so I'm just going to ignore them. And maybe you can relate because for all of us, as we go on this journey of following Jesus, there will be a temptation to try to do it in our own strength.

And if we do that, we will fail every single time. And when that happens, the temptation then is to drift into complacency because we start thinking I can and I will do it all, but we can't and we don't. So oftentimes we start thinking, "Well, if I don't want to, I shouldn't have to". Either way, it's still rooted in pride because it's all about me and what I want. And the thing that's so dangerous about pride is it's not just the thing that drives this almost truth. It is the thing that drives every almost truth we've talked about in this series.

If you're here in week one, we talked about the almost truth that I decide what is true. In week two, the almost truth that I deserve to put my needs first. Week three, the almost truth that I am enough. Week four, my happiness matters most. Every single one of them is driven by pride, pride that keeps us from coming to Jesus and prevents us from experiencing the work that He wants to do in our lives. And the thing that is so dangerous and tempting about pride is that it takes our eyes off of God and puts it onto ourselves. And so when we fall short, we start to feel like we are the problem.

You see, pride always leads to shame. And maybe you felt the crippling weight of shame at some point in your life. Maybe you've tried really, really hard to overcome an addiction to pornography, but its hooks are so deep in you that even if you make it a few days without going back to that habit, it only ever lasts a few days and you eventually fall back into it. And after you do, you feel disgusted with yourself. Or maybe you've been trying so hard to be the best parent or spouse that you can be.

But when you're home with your family, the people that you say you love the most, your temper keeps running out and you lose it on them, and you're left feeling worthless. Or maybe for you, you have this tendency to exaggerate your strengths and hide your weaknesses because you so desperately want all the people around you to see you as the person that you wish you were. But keeping the lie up is getting to the point that it's so exhausting and it is so confusing that you've lost sight of who you even are. This is the problem with pride. It keeps us from coming to Jesus and it always leads to shame and shame will bleed you dry.

So then what do we do? Well, the thing that a lot of people in culture will tell you is to give yourself grace. But there's a problem because if the solution to my pride is giving myself the grace that I need, then it's still all about me. And more pride will never actually solve the problem. What we need is the grace of Jesus. That's why step one to being made perfect is to remove your pride. Step two is to receive His grace. He says, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest".

You see the process of being made perfect, it begins with grace. It ends with grace. And every step of the way, it is fueled by grace, the grace of Jesus that is always more than enough. In 2 Corinthians 12, Jesus says, "My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness". You don't have to give yourself something that Jesus has already offered. And His grace and His grace alone is sufficient. Now, the thing that's tricky about receiving grace is it requires us to admit weakness because grace is only actually needed when you fall short. And so if you don't ever do step one, you'll never experience step two.

And it's hard enough to admit our weaknesses to God, but it can be even more difficult to admit our weaknesses to another person. But it is in the receiving of grace from God through His people that oftentimes the greatest healing takes place. For me, I think back to whenever I confessed to my now wife Mandy about my sexual past because we were dating, and I knew eventually I was gonna have to tell her, that I had not lived with sexual integrity. And that's scary, but it's even more scary because she had been serving Jesus faithfully her entire life. She had made a decision early on and she stuck to it that she would honor God with her body, that she would choose sexual purity even when she was tempted not to.

And so when I'm coming to her to confess my mess, the choices she had made to pursue holiness made my sinfulness feel even more dramatic. And so I was terrified. But I told her, "This is what I've done. I'm so sorry. Will you forgive me"? And she looked me in the eyes and said, "Of course, I forgive you. I love you. Thank you for telling me". And that was the end of the conversation. After that, the slate was wiped clean. She didn't hold it over my head. She didn't ask a bunch of questions digging into the nitty gritty details 'cause she knew how painful that would be. She simply wiped the slate clean.

And there are some of you who need to know that that is exactly what God wants to do with you. When you come to Him and you confess all the things that you have done wrong, He will respond with so much more grace than you could ever imagine, more grace than you have ever experienced. Because even though all of us are flawed, He is perfect in every single way. His grace is without limits. His love is unconditional. And He's inviting all of us to receive the gift that He offers.

So how do we become the people that God has made us to be? First, we remove our pride. Second, we receive His grace. And then the third thing that we do is we respond with obedience. We respond with obedience. Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls. A yoke is an instrument for work, for getting things done. Now, this is super important because Jesus doesn't just fix us up and then send us on our way and forget about us. He didn't die on the cross so that we could just kick up our feet and chill on the couch. He died on the cross to make us who we were meant to be so that we could join Him in His good plans for the world.

So what Jesus is inviting us to do is to walk with Him step by step, side by side, strapped in next to Him, doing the work that He is doing. And so after you remove your pride, after you receive His grace, then you gotta walk with Him in obedience. So what step of obedience do you need to take? Maybe for you, it was what we talked about all the way back in week one. It is dying to your truth so that you can live by God's truth. Maybe it's what we talked about in week two, choosing to sacrifice yourself to serve others. Week three, admitting that you are not enough, but turning to the one who is always more than enough. Or last week, if you were here, prioritizing your growth in holiness over doing all the stuff that just makes you happy.

Whatever that thing might be for you, I believe God wants all of us to remove our pride, to receive His grace, and to respond with obedience. So this week, whenever you are in your LifeGroups, when you are driving home from church, sitting around the dinner table, I want you to ask and answer these three questions. The first one, what pride do you need to remove? The second one, what grace do you need to receive? And the last one, what step of obedience do you need to take? For me, the pride that I need to remove is the pride that thinks I can do it all for my wife and kids. That I can be the perfect husband and father who carries this weight so well that nobody ever notices anything is wrong and I never complain.

But then there's always more dishes, and laundry, and poopy diapers than I can keep up with. And I feel so much pressure to get it all right, a pressure that God has not put on me, a pressure that I have put on myself that I need to remove by receiving His grace, the grace that meets me in my weakness, that reminds me that my value is not based on what I do or I don't do. My value is based in who He says that I am. The grace that actually gives me power in my weakness, the power to be attentive when I am distracted, the power to be patient when I am stressed, the power to be loving when I am tired. I got a 3-year-old and a four-month-old. There are lots of times when I am tired, and I need His grace.

And so the step of obedience that I am trying my best to take is whenever I'm feeling that pressure to be perfect in my own strength to perform, to not ask for help or admit when I am struggling, is to come back to Jesus and ask Him for grace, ask Him for strength, ask Him for wisdom, and to admit to the people close to me that I'm having a hard time right now. Will you pray for me? Because I am so confident that God can and will use all of that us removing our pride, receiving His grace, and responding with obedience to make us who we're meant to be, to make us people who look and who love like Jesus.

So whenever you feel shame rearing its ugly head, whenever you feel like perfectionism or complacency is trying to set in, remember that His grace is more than enough. The final verse in that passage, verse 30, Jesus tells us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. How is that possible? Well, it's possible because perfection is not a prize that we achieve. It is a promise that we receive. And Jesus always keeps His promises. So therefore, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

So Lord Jesus, we come before You right now, so grateful for who You are and all that You have done in our lives. So grateful for the unlimited grace that You offer to us. I pray that all of us would recognize the areas of our lives where we are tempted to do it without You, and that You would speak to us so that we could respond with obedience.

For those of you who are hearing this message, and you find yourself weighed down by your pride, by some form of perfectionism or complacency, or even worse, you feel so ashamed about all of the times you've fallen short, that you just want a little break from it all, Jesus is inviting you to find rest in Him. And so if that is you and you just want His help to remove the burden, to move forward in His grace, in His love to be who He's created you to be, would you just lift your hand right now?

Lord Jesus, I pray for all of these people. I ask that You would help us, me included, trust that Your grace is more than enough, that when we feel ourselves tired, worn out at the end of ourselves, we would recognize that you are always there to meet us. So help us to trust You, to love You, and to follow You.

Others of you that are here and you're hearing this message, and you're hearing about this love that Jesus offers, this grace that is more than enough, maybe for you, the idea of that just seems so out of reach because for your entire life, you have tried and you have tried, and you have failed over and over again to find the stuff that you're looking for, that at this point you have lost all hope. I need you to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. That God created every single one of us as human beings to be in relationship with Him. But because of our choices, because of our sins, our relationship with God was fractured and in its place, shame settled in.

But the goodness of God is that He would not be okay with leaving us in that place. So He left heaven, He entered history in the person of Jesus, the only person who was ever perfect. He lived a perfect life. He sacrificed Himself on the cross so that anybody who puts their faith in Him would be saved, they would be forgiven, they would be made new.

And then on the third day, Jesus walked out of His own grave victorious, leaving death in the dirt behind Him. And what Jesus is offering to you is life with Him, life that never ends. He's offering grace, and freedom, and forgiveness. And maybe that's why you are here to receive His grace for the first time to be made brand new, to be placed on the path to perfection. If that's you and you want a fresh start, you want the love of God to enter your life, simply lift your hand right now. Wherever you are, if that's who I see right here, my man, welcome to the family of God.

Who else is saying, "Jesus, I give you my life. I need a relationship with you. I'm turning from my sin. I'm removing my pride. I'm here to receive Your grace"? If you are watching online, click below me right now. Anybody who wants to say yes to Jesus, to receive His grace and find new life in return, simply lift your hand right now, wherever you might be, or click below me. As those people are making that decision, what we're gonna do is pray together as a church family. Because even though you had to make that choice on your own, here as a family, you don't have to pray alone. So altogether, repeating after me:

Lord Jesus, forgive me. I have sinned. I need Your grace. I need Your mercy. I need Your love. I give You my life. Make me new. It's in Your name. We all pray. Amen and amen and amen.