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THE TWO-MINUTE DRILL

One of my favorite preacher stories goes back to the year 1937 and a place called Bostwick Baptist Church in Florida. An 18-year-old kid attending Florida Bible Institute got drafted to preach one evening there at the church. He hadn't preached a formal sermon yet, just practice sessions in front of the other guys. But he did have four borrowed sermons tucked into the front of his Bible, so he spent the night before practicing and rehearsing and getting himself ready.
Well, the big night came. There were about 40 people sitting around the big potbellied stove: ranchers, cowboys in their overalls, country women in their cotton wash dresses. And this nervous, perspiring young man went up to the pulpit, his knees shaking like he had palsy. He pulled out sermon #1 and launched into it like a house afire, but was so nervous that it seemed like just a blink before he was already done. So, instead of sitting down, he careened into sermon #2, then #3, and even #4. I don't know if the four talks were thematically connected at all, but he lurched topically from one to the next, to the amazement of the 40 goggle-eyed people sitting in the pews.
Here's the punchline. He was done with all four sermons in exactly eight minutes. That's right: eight minutes total to finish four sermons. And that . . . is the preaching debut of a North Carolina boy named . . . Rev. Billy Graham. True story.
Now friend, why do I tell a story like that one here in a week where we're studying the issue of perfection? Billy Graham would be the first to admit that his debut at Bostwick Baptist Church was anything but perfect. In fact, all the way through this marvelous autobiography, Just As I Am, he freely owns up to some of his personal mistakes and errors in judgment through the years. Times when he unwisely allowed himself to get overly involved in politics. Misunderstandings that slowed down the worldwide outreach of the BGEA - Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
But here's my question. Today, March 13, 2001, some 64 years later, would you be willing to concede that Billy Graham, in his own sincere, faithful way, has been faithful to God in the same league as, oh, let's say, Noah? Noah preached on behalf of the God of heaven for 120 years, and Billy is well over halfway there! And here's why I make the comparison. Do you know how the Word of God describes Noah? Listen to these King James words from Genesis 6:9:

"Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God."

Notice: the Bible describes Noah as perfect. "Righteous and blameless," says the New International Version. "A good man, one who had total confidence in God," says the Clear Word, which is a very loose paraphrase.

Now, if you've studied Bible trivia at all, I know your mind is already fast-forwarding ahead to Genesis chapter nine, a story on the muddy back side of the flood and the ark. And you're thinking of a sad little soap opera where Noah got drunk in his tent and made a fool of himself. True story, and it happens AFTER the verse where he's described by God as being perfect.
Over in First King, chapter 15, we find a king of Israel described this way in the King James:

"Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days."

Ironically, speaking of less-than-wonderful sermons and getting drunk in the tent, this same King Asa failed in a political campaign to get all of the heathen shrines torn down in the kingdom. He got the pagan prostitutes out of there, but not the shrines. And yet he had a perfect heart, a "fully committed" heart, we read in another version.
Yesterday we tried to make two points here on the program - and I imagine we should make the same two points every single day. First of all, perfection is NOT the BASIS of my salvation and yours in the kingdom of heaven. We are not going to be saved because we're perfect, or close to perfect, or two-thirds of the way to perfection. I've read books by Christian writers, and perhaps you have too, which suggested that character perfection was a requirement for God's redeemed family, but friend, I don't find that in the Bible. The prerequisite for a home in the Holy City is not perfection or spotlessness; on the contrary, the cross of Jesus Christ is our passport to heaven. HIS perfection. "Not by works," we always quote from Ephesians 2, "so that no man can boast." There won't be a single person in heaven who can truthfully say, "I'm here because of how well I did in life." Instead we're going to testify through all eternity, "I'm here because of how well Jesus did on the cross."
Having said that, we went on yesterday to discover that the Bible, over and over, tells us to AIM for perfection. Perfection is not a requirement, but an invitation. We should try to be perfect, not IMperfect. Our goal is a four point, not a ONE point. Perfection is a goal to strive for, not a negative thing to shun. Jesus, in His wonderful prayer found in John 17, says this:

"I in them, and Thou [God the Father] in Me, that they may be made perfect in one."

At the very tail end of Paul's second letter to his Christian friends in Corinth, he gives them this challenge:

"Finally, brethren, farewell. Be PERFECT, be of good comfort, be of one mind."

The NIV here says it this way: "AIM for perfection." And does that make us nervous? No! What else would we aim for? IMperfection? In golf, do you aim for the water or aim for the pin? If your home in heaven depended on your golf score, on never going into the water, that would be a serious worry. But we get into heaven based on Jesus' golf score, not ours.
It's interesting to notice that the word "perfect" most often crops up in the King James Version. Which doesn't mean that we should reject the concept as being archaic, or not try to obey God's law because we find a friendlier version of the Bible down at our neighborhood Christian bookstore. But let's pay attention to how this concept of "be ye perfect" comes through in some of the newer versions. Ephesians 4:13 has Paul exhorting us toward this goal:

"Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a PERFECT man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Then it adds: "That we henceforth be no more children."

Here's the same verse in the NIV:
"Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become MATURE, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants."

And you know, friend, over and over we find this very heartening discovery: when the Bible challenges us to be perfect, it's essentially talking about growing up. Becoming mature in Jesus. Going from immature, babbling, bumbling two-minute sermons to full, thoughtful, life-changing messages in Madison Square Garden. That would be for Billy Graham. And for you and me, going from two minutes of "milk" in our devotions, a quick Bible verse with our hand on the doorknob in the morning, and following with toddler steps, to maturity in our walk with Jesus. Becoming, day by day, a Christian man. A Christian woman.
Philippians 3:15 is a beautiful verse which comes right after a confession where Paul writes about "I press toward the mark. Forgetting those things that are behind," etc. And he admits:

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect."

That's verse 12. But then he goes right on to say this:
"Let us therefore, as many as BE perfect, be thus minded."

And again, the NIV adds this beautiful nuance:
"All of us who are MATURE should take such a view of things." In the Clear Word: "Those who are spiritually MATURE should all participate in this race."

Listen, friend, we can rejoice in what the Bible teaches about perfection. It's always speaking about unity, about an increasing knowledge of Jesus. And about growing up: going from immature to mature, from shallow devotions to deep, from first love to steady love.
Speaking of first love, Billy Graham got a letter one happy day from a girl named Ruth Bell. It was postmarked July 6, 1941, and Billy was quite pleased with the first three words of the letter. "I'll marry you," the pretty missionary girl told him. He read that letter with a huge grin on his face, and then had to rush over to the church to preach a sermon. He was a bit better in the pulpit by now, but when this particular sermon was over, Dr. Minder, his mentor, pulled him over. "Billy," he asked, "do you know what you just said?" Graham, his heart still fluttering, with stars in his eyes, shook his head. "No." The older man laughed. "I'm not sure the people did either."
But friend, that was a perfect sermon. Perfect love between a man and his beloved . . . a love still going strong now six decades later. Because perfection simply involves the process of growing up.