The Problem With Perfectionism | Almost True | Part 5

Welcome to Life.Church. We're so glad you're here.

Be sure to stick around until the end because we have some great resources for you.

Now, here's this week's message.

Well, today we are talking about the problem of perfectionism.

But more importantly than just talking about the problem,

we're talking about how the grace of God

takes that crushing weight off of our shoulders

and places it gently onto his.

Now, before we get into all that, I want to 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 today.

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 me,

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,

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 tell you,

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, Texas,

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,

she was absolutely gorgeous.

And so I started talking to her and I felt like,

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 my church,

my Life Church in Midtown, Tulsa, told my youth pastor,

hey, today I met the girl I'm going to marry.

And like, cautiously, excitedly, he said,

oh man, that's awesome.

I'm like, who is it?

I said, it's Mandy Groeschel.

And he said, oh yeah, no, you're not going to 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, because 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.

Like they sound good at first, and they maybe

give you a little bit of what you're 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 going to do is we're

going to 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're 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 chapter 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're feeling is this overwhelming weight

being placed on your shoulders that you're

feeling is that you know you can never live up to.

Maybe what you're feeling is the sense

that I may never be perfect, but at least I'm better

than those jokers over there.

Or maybe you're one of those rare individuals

with all the confidence within you.

You're thinking, everybody else sit back and take notes.

I'm going to 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 are 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.

Amen.

And so, might it be the case that when Jesus says, be perfect,

he's going to do again what he has done before?

Not by our own efforts, but by his power at work in us.

Like, 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 with cancer.

And my family is grieving

because we love him, we miss him,

but we're 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.

Like 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

Master's 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 he was exceptional at.

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,

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,

dad, 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 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 chapter 11, verses 28 through 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 let me give you rest.

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 is 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 can be a burden to us.

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.

Like 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,

and they were like 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 like 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.

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 this almost truth.

It is the thing that drives every almost truth

we've talked about in this series.

Like 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 felt the crippling weight of shame

at some point in your life.

Maybe you felt the crippling weight of shame

at some point in your life.

Like 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,

when you're at 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 like 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 second 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 like, 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 when I think about it.

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,

my head. She didn't ask a bunch of questions, digging into the nitty gritty details because

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 will 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, right? Like 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 got to 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 life groups, 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.

Because anything is wrong and I never complain.

But then there's like 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 three-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. 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

speak to us.

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 the one who would not be the

one who 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 that you are

is life with him life that never ends he's offering grace and freedom and forgiveness and

maybe that's why you're 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 you i see you 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 going to 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

also on your own but it's not about the church family you have to be grateful for what the church

family has to get you to be tight yeah you wanna feel good about the church family if your React

help you feel notagers messes you up because that's why you shouldn't be praying

when you're dying saved awesome

holy einer

guys can I tell you something

we're celebrating with those of you who are in church

it's going to be hard to be your I don't want to work all the time

we're not möglich

who just made the decision to follow Jesus.

Make sure you check out the show notes

for helpful resources and next steps.

No matter what you're facing,

we'd love to pray with you.

To submit a prayer request,

go to life.church slash getprayer

or you can find the link in the show notes.

We'll see you back here next week

for another encouraging message.