Mat 5:48; Be Perfect ss Your Father in Heaven (Seriously).

Class Outline:

Tuesday July 16, 2024

 

Idea: Fulfilling the command to be perfect like God requires trust and complete obedience, and God tells us just how He is going to accomplish these in us.  

 

MAT 5:48 “be perfect” - telios = be whole, complete, mature.

 

Means living as a walk of intelligent fellowship in God’s presence.

 

You are in Him. Be alert to this and live in Him.

 

It is shalom - the way things ought to be (whole, fellowship with others, peace with God, prosperity, health, completeness, lacking nothing).

 

The way things ought to be in man / man to man / man to God (3+1, see Sunday 7/14/24 message).

 

The heart conditioned as complete or whole understands the heart of the law and the heart of God.

 

Apprentice to the world understands the heart of the law of God (MAT 5:21-48).

 

Apprentice to God understands the heart of God (Mat 6).

 

From a heart in this condition, the believer seeks love for others and seeks the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven, and finds both.

 

How to get a heart in the condition of wholeness, completeness (shalom).

 

Born again (COL 2:10).

 

Learn with intent (Manhattan Project - not only academic curiosity but

learning with a purpose) (COL 1:28).

 

Trust - the process of replacing the former reality of self and world with the reality of God and His purpose.

 

Obey - the direct result of trust. Its frequency and tenacity grows with trust (faith).

 

How to increase faith / trust.

 

Not by having things look more probable or increasing your own resources.

 

Faith applies to things that you cannot do but God promises to do (ROM 4:18).

 

Faith that endures beyond human ability is only learned by trial (JAM 1:2-8).

 

Trials emphasize the difference between human ability (good things we can do, and morally neutral things) and what only God can do.

Perfect (telios) and complete (holokleros = meeting all expectations, complete, sound, blameless).