All too often my Christian life has been marked by settling for less than what God wants. When I say settling for less I am referring to the standards that God desires for His followers to be characterized by. “
You shall be holy as I am holy”. Is this just a statement that God says or is it something that He wants us to strive for? If I am honest with myself I must confess that too often I have looked at this as something that I can never attain in my own strength so why even try.
I meet once a week with two Ugandan teenagers (Erasmus & Junior) to simply read the Bible together. We started in the Gospel of Matthew because we wanted to read about Jesus. As we read Matthew 5-7 (the Sermon on the Mount) we were all struck by the piercing words that Jesus spoke. As we read how Jesus took the Old Testament commandments such as ‘
you shall not murder’, and ‘
you shall not commit adultery’ and raised them to the level of ‘
if you have anger against your brother you are guilty of murder’ and ‘
if you look at a woman with lust you have already committed adultery with her in your heart’, we were all cut to the heart. The response that both Junior and Erasmus gave was a gasp and a “WOW!” I’m not a scholar by any means on the issue but I don’t think that these were simple statements that Jesus spoke and had no real intention of desiring His followers to achieve. I know that we, in our strength, cannot achieve perfection and that we won’t truly have perfection this side of heaven but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t strive for it. Being holy is also not something that we can do to earn our salvation because ultimately, it is through God’s grace alone that we can be saved from our sin, not any amount of good works or holiness. God’s standards are higher and we will always fall short in striving for them on our own. But all too often I have allowed my thinking of not being able to attain God’s standards to hinder my striving for perfection. I have been angry with my brother and I have looked with lustful intent. Should I then allow this to be the norm, because being holy as He is holy is just too hard?
Matthew 5:48 says, “
You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. As I read these words with Erasmus and Junior and later meditated upon them, I began thinking about the movie “Remember the Titans”. “Remember the Titans” has long been in the top 5 of my favorite movies but I think that it has moved up to my all-time favorite. As I was thinking and meditating on the statement “You must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” I was brought to two scenes in the movie. (Is it true that God can speak to me about holiness through a movie?)
If you have not seen the movie you must go out and watch it right now. But here’s a little background for you...
Coach Herman Boone, played by Denzel Washington, takes over the head coaching job of the football program at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, VA in 1971. It is a tumultuous time of race relations and T.C. Williams High School is beginning to integrate blacks and whites. The football program begins riddled with division and hostility. Coach Boone takes his team, the Titans, to Gettysburg, PA for a preseason training camp. After a fight between a white player and a black player Coach Boone goes over his rules for the type of football he wants played and the standards that he expects from his players. He says this:
“Football is about controlling that anger, harnessing that aggression into a team effort to achieve PERFECTION...
…When you put that uniform on, that Titan uniform, you better come to work. We will be PERFECT in every aspect of the game. You drop a pass, you run a mile. You miss a blocking assignment, you run a mile. You fumble the football, and I will break my foot off in your John Brown hindparts, and then you will run a mile…
PERFECTION. Let’s go to work.”
The movie progresses and the Titans come together as a team, unifying themselves and making it all the way to the State Championship game undefeated. During the first half of the Championship the Titans are overmatched by their opponents and they don’t look like they will have the ability to win. The next scene that came to my mind is the one during the halftime of that Championship game.
In the locker room during halftime Coach Boone is speaking to his players and says:
“We are in a fight. You boys are doing all that you can do. Anybody can see that. Win or lose, we are going to walk out of this stadium tonight with our heads held high. Do your best. That’s all anyone can ask for.”
Julius Campbell, the defensive end and co-captain of the team stands up and replies,
“No it ain’t coach, with all due respect, you demanded more of us. You demanded PERFECTION…
Now, I ain’t saying that I’m perfect, because I am not, and I ain’t gonna never be, none of us are…
but we have won every single game we have played until now, so this team is perfect. We stepped out on that field that way tonight, and if it’s all the same to you Coach Boone, that’s how we want to leave it.” These two scenes spoke volumes to me as I was meditating on the words of Jesus in Matthew 5-7. His standard is “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”. As I go through life and the going gets tough, and I feel like I can’t do it, I resort to settling for less. I resort to feeling like if I just try my best, or if I only have a little hint of anger and only a hint of lust in my heart then it will be okay, because after all, I cannot be perfect, that standard is just too high. These things all too often pervade my thinking and the way I live and my prayer is that I will become like Julius Campbell. That when the world, or even the church says that if I just lower the standards and simply try my best, that is all anyone can ask for, I will stand up and say, “
No it ain’t”.
God demands Perfection.
O God, give me grace.
