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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Luke Cloete

Mark Howard

Rachel Vence

Reed Webster

Perfection: A Conversation

We're going to do something a little different, and I want to explain a little bit about what that is.

Annalise, you did a fine job, but this afternoon's 4 30, which is the normal time, is actually being moved to 4.

So This afternoon's presentation, which I will be giving, is going to be at 4 o'clock.

The subject is doubtful things, and we're going to be talking about navigating as Seventh-day Adventists seeking to be faithful, how we navigate through those topics of dress and music and some of these lifestyle things that there are biblical principles for, and sometimes addendum rules that we've made to them.

And if you want to know what that's about, 4 o'clock.

Now this morning, I'm going to call Reid Webster if you'd come up, Luke if you'd come up, and Rachel if you'd come up, and let me tell you what we're doing this morning.

Last time I was out here, which I think was in April, we ate lunch in the same place and we, I don't even remember, you guys might open this up in a little bit, but we got into a discussion on perfection.

Now before I get a little further in that, how many of you here, this is gonna sound totally off the wall, but how many of you have ever seen the discipleship handbook?

The rest of you, you need to get this resource.

It's not just, I'm not just telling you that because I helped write it, and my brother Jim and Pastor Cameron DeVasier and some others.

It is especially for discipling new members, and so for people who've been in the church, they probably think, well, it's not for me.

I can't tell you how many members have, churches have used it for prayer meetings and Sabbath schools and you name it, because it's a very clearly and plainly and simply written book that lays out what the Adventist faith is about.

Now, in writing that book, it took us probably 2 years, and when we had these, we were working on these chapters, we were hashing this out, we'd have these discussions, and I can't tell you how many times that we in the room, the pastors in the room would say, I wish people could be here to hear the discussions.

Because sometimes we get the idea that leadership makes these hard rules on how we're supposed to be as Adventists, and they've never taken into consideration this or that or the other thing.

We take into consideration all of those things, but sometimes those discussions on the nuts and bolts can be helpful.

Well, we were having this discussion on perfection and as I was sitting there I told these guys, and there was somebody else, but I'll leave her nameless because I don't want Josie to be embarrassed but she said she's not an upfront person but what I said is we ought to sometime when I come out have a discussion where people can hear and sit in on the discussion and so we're trying that today.

But if it's not, you can just attribute it to early onset senility on my part, and I'll move on and we won't do it again.

But this morning, what we're going to do, this is not a panel because a panel is where we sit and we all like in a row at a table, and we talk to you.

We are discussing some of the different ideas of perfection and we didn't rehearse this.

This isn't like you're going to say this and I'm going to, this is an honest discussion picking up where we left off back in April.

I don't wanna take any more time from it, but that's what we're doing this morning.

I'm gonna start with a word of prayer and then I have some leading.

Now I'm going to moderate and for those Sabbath School, especially those Talking Points viewers, you know, Cameron and I tend to be deaf on the moderator, facilitator, but I'm going to be a facilitator for this kind of, so do that.

Okay, so we're gonna have a word of prayer, and then we're gonna get into our discussion.

Father in heaven, we are so thankful for the privilege we have of coming together on the Holy Sabbath day, opening your word, having the freedom to study and discuss your word and having the guidance of the Spirit of God.

And Lord, this morning we just asked that the Spirit of Truth would guide us in this discussion.

And Lord, that it would be not for strife and debate, but for our edification, that we would be able to meet the Lord in glory when he comes, we ask and pray all these things in Jesus' name and for his sake.

I did jot some guidelines so we would stay somewhat on track here.

Now, I want to, so I'm going to start the discussion this way.

When I came into the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and I heard about the idea of perfection, and I didn't have any deep theological ideas on it, I just, to me, it was exciting.

It was this idea that what I saw in it was that all my faults as a sinner could be cleansed by Jesus.

That's what it communicated to me and for whatever reason I was excited about that, but it didn't take me long in the church to find out that perfection is not a topic that people like, or that there's a lot of debate around it and things like that, and a lot of people were very down on it.

And so that was kind of interesting to me.

And so I was curious for you guys to maybe share what your first exposure was to the idea of perfection.

And why do you think there's so much negativity on this topic?

Not that everything is negative, but I don't think I'm surprising anybody to say there is a lot of negativity on it.

I would say my introduction was similar to yours as well.

When I was growing up, it was this idea that when you, as a little guy, praying, it's like, Oh, dear Jesus, please help me not to lie.

It seemed natural that Jesus would help us, you know, refine and sort of get these character flaws that we would have.

But as I got older, it seemed as if things got so murky with like definitions, okay, what perfection are we talking about?

You know, doesn't Christ forgive our sins when we ask for forgiveness?

Is our being like, are we meant to be perfect like right now, it's like no sin, it just got very murky the older I got.

But when I was younger it seemed perfectly natural, like God would help refine our characters.

I didn't grow up in the church, so I came into it as an adult, 25, and my expectation was to be like Jesus, but what that looked like was kind of a growth experience.

I talked about it with my dad, who was not Adventist, and his first question was, well, show me someone who hasn't sinned.

And I think that's a valid question, but it doesn't mean it's a good conclusion, because if you're looking to other people as the expectation of what God's going to do in your life, or what the expectation of God can do in your life, then you're going to fail.

And so I didn't really know what to make of these questions, so I kind of, like Luke said, had to work through that, and it forced me to study.

I'm sure we'll find our way back to that, because that, some form of that question, when he first told me that, I just laughed, because it's, I mean, I came into the church over 20 years ago, and it's just this same drumbeat.

You know, it's like, show me somebody who's never sinned.

It's funny how the same, you know, the same arguments come up.

So I grew up around some people that did not necessarily believe in this perfection of Christian character, sanctification, and so when I learned about sanctification I thought it was really great.

And you know, my take on it was, you know, instead of like, oh you need to be perfect, it's like, oh, just be more like Jesus every day.

And I think a lot of us attribute a lot of meaning to the word perfection, like outside of Christianity, based on like our family, our experiences, like we have a lot of meaning attached to perfection, the word, just the word, and so we kind of bring that in when we talk about developing a godly character.

And so it kind of colors what we think this perfection means.

Reid, you had brought up something when we were talking about just that same idea of misconceptions and ideas that were superimposed on perfection and the need for defining the terms.

And so maybe we should just spend a little bit of time, so let me read a dictionary definition of the word perfection.

Not that dictionary definitions are always a theological definition, but This is what the dictionary says, perfection.

The condition, state, or quality of being free or as free as possible from all flaws or defects.

Now coming in, what you might want to do, you're laughing.

Sorry, I'm just laughing at my phone number, sorry.

When you get perfect, you'll get past that.

I think it's fair to say that every 1 of us believes in Christian perfection, depending, we'll talk about our own, how we see it, what we define it as, but would that be a fair statement that we all believe in?

But I don't, I would think we'd also agree that none of us believes we're perfect.

Because there's a mindset that if you believe in perfection, you must think you're perfect.

Well I, again it's a discussion, so we're kind of working through the definitions.

And for me, the idea of perfection is still sometimes in the eye of the beholder.

For example, Rachel could, you know, you could make something and be like, it's perfect.

And I could come along and be like, I know how to make it better.

Because the degree of perfection is in the eye of the beholder.

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Perfection: A Conversation

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