***The following is an unedited auto-generated transcript and may contain serious errors and speakers other than Dallas Willard. It is included here to assist your study. Please check the original audio for an authentic record of the event.
Dallas: You can say amen to that. Thank you, Kim. And I want to put you completely at ease. I will not be delivering my customary hour address this morning. Andy has told me I can go 10 minutes over the hour of 12, and I’m glad to do so. We’ve had a rich service already this morning. And the wisdom which God gave Dr. Camp, he said a moment ago, that this was the most important part of the service. I wonder if you understand fully why that is. It is simply because, as Jesus says in the sixth chapter of John, and the 63rd verse, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, they are life. The saving words of Christ by which he imparted himself to the disciples and that select group called the apostles long ago, those saving words come to us still today. And in the elements of communion, they are brought, and that fact of his saving relationship to us is brought especially before our minds, that by the merits of Christ and by the person of Christ poured out even unto death, we are saved.
And so this morning I want to give you simply some of the words of Christ and a little bit of reflection and weaving together of other passages in the scriptures that may help us better to understand and to appropriate the life which was in him and which he imparts to us through his word.
And if you will turn with me to the fifth chapter of Matthew, we will be reading the last 11 verses. And my text for the few moments that I have will be Matthew 5, 48, be ye perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. But in order to establish the context and see the content of that perfection, we will read from verse 38.
And Jesus here says, ye have heard that it hath been said, and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would borrow thee, turn not away.
Ye have heard it said, thou shall love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies and bless them that curse you and do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans do the same? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others? Do not even the publican so?
Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
We may rightly say to this, as the disciples said when Jesus told them that they were to forgive their brother seven times, seventy times seven, we may rightly say, Lord increase our faith.
When we hear that the way of Christ, the word of Christ is to give unto him that asketh of thee to love those who hate us, pray for those who persecute us. And it may in fact throw us into a tailspin of bondage as we see this coming at us as a great law which Christ has laid upon us. And we may be hearing him say, now if you don’t do that, you’re hopeless. If you don’t do that, you can’t be right before God, you cannot come to me. And then we may ask, what is all of this about your yoke being easy and your burden light?
But you see, we have to learn how to read and how to hear the word of God. We have to understand that what Jesus is presenting us with here is not a vision of what we must do primarily, but is a vision of what life can be as we surrender ourselves to him and through him to God.
What is he saying? He’s saying that it is possible to have a life without revenge. He’s saying that it is possible to have a life without that grudgingness which engages in remorse almost over giving away, painfully looks at what he’s done that cost me something. He’s saying it is possible to have a life without hate. He’s saying it is a life in him which is without that constant merchandising which says, well, she did something for me, now what must I do for her? Or I did something for him, now what has he done for me lately? You know that has even passed into our language, hasn’t it? What have you done for me lately? And that constant merchandising that goes on.
Jesus is saying there is a way of life which is free of that. He is saying there is a life with generosity lived. Do you know how good generosity feels? It’s one of the best feelings in the heart of a human being of generosity. It is a kind of outward expansive joy in taking another in and supporting them and upholding them and giving. He’s saying there is a life of blessing. How wonderful it is to bless another person. You all and all of us have had those experiences, not unmixed with generosity because blessing and generosity closely combine. That blessing is an invocation of God with a sense of generosity which is so big that we cannot give adequately back and we invoke and we say, God bless you. You know how that feels? Isn’t it wonderful to live with that in your heart? And that’s what Jesus is saying is possible with reference to those who curse us. You’ve been cussed lately? Now I’ll tell you I don’t take curses very easily. In fact, if someone just looks cross-eyed at you, you may feel bad all day. Isn’t that true? Now Jesus is saying that there is a way of living before God which is such that the response to a curse is that wonderful, generous love which says, God bless you. Doesn’t that just wipe you out? Can you believe that? It’s true. When Jesus hung on the cross and looked at those poor dummies who had to do the dirty work and nail him on that cross, he said, Father, forgive them. How do you feel he was feeling in his heart? I want to tell you, he was feeling good in his heart towards those people. He wasn’t hanging there and just barely managing to say because he thought he ought to, Father, forgive them. Lord, see how pious I am? Father, forgive them. He wasn’t, not at all. He was generous in his heart towards them. He understood their condition and he was saying, oh, God bless these people. That’s what Jesus is saying when he says bless them that curse you. He’s saying there is a way of living before God in which this comes to you as a gift and you find that when a person curses you, you’re not led to give them back double what they gave. You find when a person hurts you, you are not led to try to hurt them one better. But rather out of the depths of your faith and love, you give good to them. You bless them. You pray for them.
Many times we find it hard to pray at all, but you see the blessing, God bless you. The prayer is just an extension of the blessing as the blessing is an extension of the generosity. It all goes together. And as we’re led to bless, we are led then to pray for them.
It is a life of love. I want to just take a moment to tell you what love is. That word gets thrown around so much and I want to just try to say what it is. The Bible never defines love. It never says now love is such and such. But I want to tell you what it is and I’m very happy for you to test what I say and I hope you will test what I say against what the Bible does say about love. That love, very simply put, is an enlightened and light-seeking concern for the well-being of another person. It is an enlightened and light-seeking concern for the well-being of another person.
Love is a set of will. It is a general attitude in which one acts. It is not reducible to any particular action and you can never prove or disprove your love simply by looking at the level of action simply because love is not at that level.
But love is a general spirit, an attitude which informs and pervades action. In that regard, you see, love is simply the general word for the fruit of the spirit. It takes in all of those good things which are not actions but attitudes which pervade the level of the soul. Joy is not an action. Peace is not an action. Long suffering and gentleness, these are not actions. They are spirits in which one acts. And love takes in all of those things that I’ve described and much more as you see if you look at the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians with which all of you are familiar.
And Jesus is saying that it is possible to live with love. And all of the bad things, the hate, the grudgingness, the revenge, that merchandising tendency, all of those negative and bad things are replaced and in comes generosity and blessing and prayer and then love as the word which takes in and completes all of those good things which Jesus says it is possible to live. It is possible to have and experience as we share His life poured out for us.
You see there at the end of the passage I read to you, love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you. Then again in the 46th verse, if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same? If you salute your brethren only, what more do ye than others? Do not even the publicans the same?
Be ye therefore perfect, be ye therefore complete. The word here and the common word though not always the word which is translated perfect or its derivatives in the English Bible is teleos, teleos and it refers to the fulfillment of a certain line in the nature of the thing. Many times I’ve heard ministers who say now this doesn’t mean perfection, this means completeness and they are bothered as many of us are by hearing sometimes people claim a certain type of sinless perfection. But let me turn you around and say simply this, that to be complete is to be perfect. It is to be perfect along a specific line which is designated by the nature of the thing. For example, all of us have for example we have all I’m sure eaten incomplete biscuits. When someone left out the baking powder or the salt or when someone the oven didn’t work just right and we know what an imperfect biscuit is, it is an incomplete biscuit.
All of us have heard incomplete sentences and imperfect sentences, we know what an imperfect letter is, we know what an imperfect tire is on an automobile. And you see in all of these areas you have a pre-existing nature which is developing towards something and it’s not there yet and that’s imperfection.
Now when Jesus says be ye perfect, he gives us the line of development in which we are exhorted to perfection and told that it is possible and that is the character of God. Be ye perfect along the line in which your Father in heaven is perfect.
You recall that John the old apostle when he wrote his first letter said, he that loveth not knoweth not God because God is love. God is love.
And the old Wesleyan Methodist, John Wesley before them, used to speak of perfection in love in order to bring out the difference between the kind of perfection which Christ says to us is possible and that sort of hopelessly impossible perfection where there just ain’t nothing wrong with you.
What Christ calls us to and offers us is perfection in love and then as that perfection in love, perfection of that attitude of generous blessing, prayer, desire for the well-being of those with whom we are in touch. As that comes into perfection, the confidence of our heart in love enables ourselves to go out in all of the areas of our lives and bring more and more of his righteousness by grace into every area.
Let me just read you a brief passage from 1 Thessalonians. Paul was constantly caught up in his love for those with whom he had suffered and whom he had ministered to and those whom he had brought into the kingdom of God. You will notice that he almost becomes ecstatic at times as he talks about his delight in these Thessalonians. At the end of the second chapter, he says in the 19th verse, for what is our hope, our joy or crown of rejoicing are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming, for ye are our glory and our joy.
And then again, speaking of the temptations into which they had fallen and how he had sent Timothy to strengthen them and to hear how they were doing in the sixth verse of the third chapter. He talks about Timothy coming from them back to us and he says and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity or agape and that you have a good remembrance of us always desiring greatly to see us as we also to see you.
Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you in all of our affliction and distress by your faith. Look at this eighth verse. For now we live if you stand fast. For what thanks can we render to God again for you for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before God night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith.
You see the kind of bond of love and delight and generosity and blessing and prayerfulness that is present between these people. But look what it does. Paul talks about how he prays for them.
And I’m especially concerned that you see the connection between verses 12 and 13 in this third chapter. He’s praying now, okay? And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another and toward all men even as we do toward you.
Look how love is just going in every direction from God to you, from us to you, from you to us. It is the bond of love, as Paul elsewhere says, the bond of love that binds together the great sweep and expanse of the kingdom of God. And yet Paul says not to keep it in because he says towards all. This love breaks out and goes over the bounds and proceeds towards all. And we find it’s such a good thing that we can’t just say, well, I love you but I won’t love you. I mean, I find it is so good to love you that why should I take something less towards you? Since love is so good, how can I turn to hate and indifferent toward all men?
Now watch what it does, verse 13, to the end for the purpose that he, God, may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.
Love perfects holiness. It is the work of love to do so. We don’t pursue holiness, we pursue love. And much that has been wrong in the holiness movements of the past stems simply from the fact that they pursued holiness and did not pursue love. And because of that mistake they were led to do very ridiculous things like try to determine whether or not you’re holy by whether or not you went swimming in places where members of the opposite sex did or wore lipstick.
We don’t pursue holiness because holiness is a gift to us from God as we open our hearts to the power of love where we are and where we live. And as we do so we learn how to live in that great first act of love which is to attend to people, to pay attention to them. We learn that it comes to those who are around us, not those whom we might see once in a lifetime but the place to love is with those with whom we’re in constant contact and we learn there how to bless and how to pray and how to be generous. And in that experience we are led towards holiness, we learn how to wait upon God, we learn how to listen because we love.
I’m going to give you a couple of verses out of the Old Testament just to sort of hang that on. In Isaiah the 26th chapter there is a very well known verse, when we come to trust God who is love we find here the words, thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee. You see when we come to understand the power of love in our lives we can be at peace and we can trust. We can avoid that zeal which eats up the house of God and does not go according to knowledge because it doesn’t have God in the right place in the life.
And again in chapter 28 of Isaiah and the 16th verse, here we find the prophet saying therefore thus saith the Lord God, behold I lay in Zion. Now that’s the part to underline, I lay, I am doing the work. It is love which is at work in us that does the work. I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation he that believeth shall not make haste. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run. Have you ever asked yourself what can you mean waiting when he’s running? They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint because they have a source of strength in which they rest and their confidence in that casts out all fear and they are at rest.
One final verse, 1st John, the 4th chapter and the 18th verse, and I trust that having said what I have said, this verse will now make very clear sense to you. For here we read the apostle saying, there is no fear in love. But perfect love casteth out fear. Love that has been perfected removes all basis of fear. It understands that everything it has comes from God and that the supply is abundant. So there’s no fear towards God. It understands that every provision for justification and life lies in the abundant merits, plentifully supplied through the death of Christ. It understands towards men that it has nothing to fear because its only motive is love. On the other hand, this person says with the scriptures, I shall not fear what man shall do unto me because I’m in the hands of God.
So love as it is perfected simply removes all basis for fear. And the back effect of that, you see, is to make revenge and smallness and hatred seem so incredibly small and uninteresting that it makes no sense to engage in it.
That’s why Jesus said, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. But my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
Let us pray. Lord, we are thankful for the saving words of Christ. Expand them until they possess our minds and our souls entirely with the reality to which they point. Order our minds and our hearts by the order of your teachings so that we can rest on that firm foundation and stand when the storms of life beat so that you can be our Lord because we walk confidently in your words for your glory, we pray.