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TRYING TO BE IMPERFECT #6
FREE RIDES TO HAWAII
Here in Southern California, when you get into a plane
and take off from LAX — Los Angeles International Airport — just about
every flight begins by lifting off over the ocean. You climb higher and
higher over those beautiful beaches and the first few miles of the surging
Pacific. Then, unless you’re lucky enough to be heading toward Hawaii,
the plane circles back, heads into the smog and out to the less glamorous
destinations in the mainland of the U.S.A.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have flown to Oahu or Maui enough times
that, even when my plane does the usual U-turn and heads for Oklahoma
instead, I have it flash through my mind: Sure would be nice to be going
to Hawaii. And I’ve also thought a few times, when I was going to Hawaii:
“Sure is nice to be in a plane . . . and not swimming all the way to Waikiki!”
Which brings me to an old parable I’ve used quite a few times over the
years. The premise of the story is that Hawaii equals perfection. If a
Christian wants to improve his life and get all the way to perfection
. . . well, that’s Hawaii. In the equation of the parable, Hawaii equals
perfection. So now we REALLY want to go there!
But you know, it’s a very long swim from Venice Beach or Pt. Mugu or the
Santa Monica pier . . . clear to Hawaii. Now, sincere Christians do get
into the water and they swim out a ways. But not very far. They usually
turn around many, many miles before the hula girls and palm trees of Honolulu
come into view. And so, in the parable, the idea begins to spread over
Southern California that it’s impossible to get to Hawaii. Perfection
simply isn’t something that a Christian can hope to ever accomplish.
And yet the Bible — or swimmers’ manual, we might say — talks about Hawaii.
You ought to get there, it says on page after page. “Be ye perfect,” it
says in Matthew. Or “Be ye a swimmer who gets clear to Hawaii.” And so
real discouragement sets in at the beach where most swimmers are still
very near the California shoreline.
I mentioned last week a familiar story in Matthew, which tells us about
a rich young man who asks Jesus what he has to do to get into heaven.
And Christ says: “Keep the commandments.”
“Hey, I’m already doing that,” the millionaire says, adjusting his swimsuit
and putting on some more sunscreen. “I’ve swum practically the whole way
to Hawaii already.” And then Jesus says: “Well, just one thing more. Sell
everything you’ve got and give it all away.” In fact, notice the verbatim
transcript from chapter 19, verse 21:
“If you want to be perfect” — and get to Hawaii — “go,
sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure
in heaven. Then come, follow Me.”
And you know, that is a terrible story! That really
is on a par with “swim clear to Hawaii.” And we say: “It can’t be done!”
The disciples all gaped at Jesus and said, “Lord, it can’t be done!” Verse
25. “Who then can be saved?” Jesus, nobody can swim that far!
So Jesus Himself addresses the question: Can we get to be perfect? Can
we focus on getting rid of this sin, then that one, then the other one
— in other words, swimming, swimming, swimming — and finally drag ourselves
up on the front porch of the Honolulu Hilton? I had a bit of a problem
with Matthew 19 for a long time because I wondered, How can a person be
perfect, and then come and follow Jesus? That’s an impossibility. You
have to come to Jesus FIRST, before you could ever hope to be perfect.
But as you take a second look at this text, you’ll discover that Jesus
is actually telling us HOW to be perfect. There are deep spiritual lessons
in this passage of Scripture.
Well, what are they? What does Jesus say to this rich young man? “Go and
sell all that you have.” That’s talking about more than just money. Get
rid of what you have. You might be rich in talent. Stop DEPENDING on your
talent. You might be rich in good looks — you’re overcome every time you
look in the mirror. Get rid of your DEPENDANCE on your good looks. You
might be rich in brains. Sell it, in terms of DEPENDING on it. Sell all
that you have. Get rid of all the things that you depend on in any way
as a SUBSTITUTE for dependance upon Jesus. Give up, not only on your money
or talents or abilities, but on yourSELF. This is the essence of Jesus’
teachings — self-surrender, giving up on SELF.
Friend, is that heavy, or what? Notice that the Bible doesn’t say that
every single one of us should get RID of our money. But we need to give
up on DEPENDING on money. Or on our brains. Or our plans. Or our talents
and abilities. And yes, if our money is so much in the way that it keeps
us from depending on Jesus, then we need to actually get rid of it.
But really, what does this have to do with perfection and Hawaii? I’ll
tell you the connection. We’re never going to become perfect by dwelling
upon perfection. It will only come by dwelling upon JESUS.
Right here is a powerful principle of the Gospel. Listen, neighbor. The
Bible invites us to aim toward perfection. But we don’t aim for perfection
by aiming for perfection. By that I mean this: we don’t succeed by making
a list of the things to DO, and NOT do, and each day try to drag ourselves
down that list. This approach has never worked, and never WILL work. First
of all, you can’t make a list long enough and accurate enough. I mean,
what really IS perfection? Secondly, by the time you get rid of sin #1,
and #2, and #3, and #4, you’ll usually find that sin #1 has returned with
a vengeance. I’ve proved that in my own life a hundred times. Let me say
it again: We don’t get to be perfect by focusing on perfection; we get
to be perfect by focusing on JESUS. Because HE is perfect. And you and
I will always become like the things we look at and admire, whether it’s
the Jesus we see in the Bible, or the Tom Cruise we see on the screen
down at the mall.
Well, let’s get back to the Honolulu Project and those discouraged people
on the California beach. One day a wonderful rumor begins to pass its
way from one swimmer to the next. There’s an airplane parked at the airport,
and it’s heading to Hawaii. If you get to know the Pilot of the plane,
He will TAKE you to Hawaii Himself. You don’t have to swim; you simply
have to get acquainted with this generous Pilot. And while some swimmers
keep insisting, “No, we must swim! We must strive! We must work!”, the
others say, “No, we must head for the airport.”
There’s a beautiful story in the book of Genesis . . . and you know, it’s
amazing how quickly in the sordid history of the human race people walked
away from a relationship with that friendly Pilot and began building their
own towers into the heavens. But there was a man named Enoch who loved
God. And the Bible doesn’t say that he worked real hard to be perfect.
He didn’t keep a list; he didn’t try to swim farther out to sea than the
other early patriarchs. But he must have been perfect in God’s eyes, because
there’s a quiet little report — Genesis 5:24 — that tells us Enoch was
suddenly gone.
“Then he was no more, because God took him away.”
Isn’t that beautiful? And Enoch reached perfection,
not by trying so hard, but by walking with GOD. The Bible explicitly says
so in the same verse. In the great old King James:
“And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God
took him.”
Friend, would you like to grow in grace, and become
perfect in the way God invites you to? Then walk with God. Spend time
with Jesus. Spend a thoughtful hour each day thinking about Him and fellowshiping
with Him. “Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face.”
C. S. Lewis has a quiet, reflective close to an essay he once wrote on
perfection and faith. Let’s finish with this:
“I think all Christians would agree with me if I said
that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all
about duties and rules and guilt and virtue” — that sounds like “swim
to Hawaii,” doesn’t it? — “yet it leads you on, out of all that, into
something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk
of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Every one there is filled full
of what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But
they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not
thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it
comes. But this is near the stage where the road passes over the rim of
our world.”
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