We're going to be back in Psalm chapter 37 this morning. For those of you that have been here, we've been here for almost two months out of my teaching, but it has not gotten old to me. It feels like every section has something new to say about what we've talked about previously, and the clarification has really helped me through this. Last week, we talked about the wicked watching you and their ways of how they watch you, how they, one would say, infiltrate your life, for no other reason other than to watch you fall or to make you stumble. Those are really the only two ways that the wicked will enter your life and for the reasons. They're obviously not going to be terribly obvious about how they watch you, but they're more sneaky and deceptive as to how they do it. And today we're going to be talking about the exact opposite, or the contrast rather, to that. We're going to jump right into it today because the scripture has obviously everything we're doing to talk about it today. So in Psalm 37 verses 37-38, it reads, So first thing, right off the bat, what do you see in these verses right here? Ignoring the obvious word perfect in there, which most people hate, we see that there is the word mark on there. So it says, mark the perfect man. What does it mean when it says mark? Mark. Yeah. Notice, pay attention. Exactly. To point out, more prominently, the definition of mark is something such as a line, notch, or fixed object designed to record a position. And so not only, just like the wicked watch you for the reason of watching you fall or finding something wrong or something to blame God or blaspheme God with, you are to mark the perfect man and where he's at right now. Mark his position. And this is a notch, it could be a fixed object, it's anything in your mind. It's much like we talk about often where they put up a monument to do what? Put in to remember and to remember where they were to show where they're at now. It's the same concept being conveyed to everyone now when it says mark the perfect man. Remember the context that we're coming off of right now. We're talking about waiting on the Lord and why the wicked watch you and what your mouth should speak. All this context comes into play here when talking about marking the perfect man. It says mark the perfect man. Look where he's at. Watch that person. mark that person put that person prominent in your life and here's why it says and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace so you're not looking at this person for where they're at right now this in particular says to mark them not only to watch them but to show where they were when you started watching them And so you can watch the progress as it goes. And then it says also to behold the upright man. What does it mean to behold? To watch. Which gives further clarification to the first part of the verse. Because what's the difference between a perfect man and an upright man? They're both good. It's both upright. There is no real separate definition for upright between righteousness and perfect and we're going to see more of that from the Bible so this again he uses a lot of poetry style writing to where he uses a different term to clarify the previous term and to give more meaning to what he said prior it says to mark the perfect man and behold the upright man to watch him and mark where he's at right now so now he's told us both to watch and to mark him and keep that in your head as we go on Secondly, we're going to cover the concept of perfection. It says mark the perfect man. I'm going to just throw this out there, and we're going to get a million different answers, but what does it mean to be perfect? That's a very good definition, and that's the definition the Bible lays out for us as well. So it says to mark the perfect man. So the first thing we're going to see is that perfect is a biblical concept. Perfect is not some unreachable unicorn in the Christian faith. It is a biblical concept for those that walk with Christ. It says in Matthew chapter 5 in verse number 48, it says, Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. In Philippians it also reads, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded. Be how minded? Minded to press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God. And if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal this even unto you. And that's in Philippians chapter 3 verses 14 and 15. So perfection is not something to be mocked or sought after as some mystery item that will never be achieved. The few scriptures I read here does one simple thing. It commands perfection out of the believer. But how do you achieve perfection? Perfection, as reflected in the previous verses, are only achieved by pursuing God and His righteousness always. As the Lord says in the Gospels, where it says, to seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and these things shall be added unto you. Perfection, I believe, is one of those things. Perfection is not simply given to the believer, but must be the result of high training in the will and the want to be as our Father in heaven. In 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, there's a lot of scripture this morning for those of you taking notes. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. That the man of God, what? May be perfect. May be perfect. And entire. Thoroughly furnished unto all good works. What does it mean to be furnished? It means to be equipped or groomed for the completing of a specific task. When you furnish a house, what are you doing? You're giving somebody everything it needs, that house, to be a home. Quote unquote. You're giving it furniture, oven, washer and dryer, all the necessities needed to operate the home as it ought to be operated with cleanliness and comfort and everything that everyone loves in this world. That's what it means to furnish a house. So when he says he's furnished unto all good works, he is prepared. He has been given everything he needs to be given unto good works, to operate in no other system except for working good towards all men. But how? Through the inspiration of God and the instruction in righteousness, which is the only way that that's going to be accomplished. And in Colossians chapter 1 verse 28, in the previous verses it's speaking of Christ, it says, Whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, in the mouth of the righteous speaketh what? Wisdom, that's right, whoever said it. and says that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. In Ephesians 4 chapter 13 it says, till we all come in the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man. What is the perfect man? It just goes right into it, we quote this all the time, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The message is clear throughout the Bible. Perfection is only attained through the pursuit of God through His Son, Jesus. And you can do a couple things with these verses. You can decide for yourself how far you want to go with Jesus, or you can decide that only a total sellout will result in the state of perfection. The Lord commands perfection from the scriptures. But the only message you're going to find in most churches today is that perfection is an unattainable goal. It's almost mocked in there where it says, oh, but you think you're so perfect, don't you? Oh, and people come up to your desk, oh, everything's just gotta be perfect to you, doesn't it? Oh, nobody's perfect. All these are mockery that's come down through the generations, not through the church, but through the world, and is now adopted by the church. In fact, yeah, exactly. Not perfect, just forgiven. Saintly sinners. Not perfect, but I'm still good with God. There is no way that we can live our lives willing to be imperfect and serve the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't have it both ways. Just like it says you can't hold hands with God and mammon, it's the same concept through the churches today. They want to be imperfect people for a perfect church. And you can't have it that way. God's coming for a perfect church. Would you say that? Would you agree that all the purging and the lies and the truth that are all out there and that everyone just jumbles up together, mixes it and throws it all in a ball, that that's what God's coming for? How does that make sense? We're all caught up in the hero mentality where God's just gonna show up and take everybody and say, no, you were wrong here and you were wrong there, but you were right here and that's good enough. That's not the way it goes. You must strive to know the precepts and law of God in order to be perfect. Because perfect ought to be what you strive to be. Am I saying that sinless perfection is where I'm going? That is absolutely untrue. But let me tell you where I am going and that holiness is perfection. There is a process of sanctification that makes you more holy, which makes you more perfect, which is our Lord Jesus Christ perfect in who he is, in what he is, and it's what we ought to be. I just read the scripture, we ought to go for the measure, the stature, the fullness of Christ, which is what? The perfect man. So you can't tell me that as a Christian, That it's okay to be imperfect, just forgiven. That it's okay to be only a sinner saved by grace. That is not what we are to be. That is a very shallow call after salvation. That we ought to fight in the Lord's army, ought to work in His church, ought to be an example to people, but be totally okay with being not okay. To be complacent in imperfection is to be okay with sin. To be completely settled that you are going to be imperfect for the rest of your life is to absolutely quit on the striving for perfection that we are, which stunts your growth. And if you're not growing, then you're not getting watered. If you're not getting watered, it's because you reject the water and you're not even planted. It's like that seed that fell on bad ground and sprouted out was quickly died off because there was nothing to grow on. Because if you sit in the church and you don't ever read your Bible and all you ever hear is that you're once saved, always saved, throw away your Bible, burn your suit, and never darken the doors of a church again. But you're okay because it's okay to be imperfect. Because we're an imperfect people for a perfect God. Let me tell you that the Israelites only went into captivity because they turned God's perfection into absolute imperfection and were totally okay with it because it fit their lifestyle. So to absolutely throw away the concept of perfection for the sake of our own comfort sitting in churches is blasphemous and absolutely sinful and you can't live like that and be pleasing to God. So what does it mean to mark the perfect man but throw away imperfection? You can't have it both ways. You can't do that. What does the church do with just a few verses out of the thousands in the Bible with perfection? What do we do with those? Obviously we avoid them and we keep our bad answers. But you can't have it that way. We are to mark the perfect man for us, for our children, and for our church, to show that there is still progress, that there is still ability to grow in this world, and that we still can have perfect people in an imperfect world. See, that's where we've taken our concept, is we live in an imperfect world, but we are not an imperfect people through Jesus Christ. We've taken away His imperfection by reapplying it to us somehow. We want to take His grace and apply it to imperfection, but we don't want to take His perfection and apply it to us. It's a total two-way street there. Because we are saved through Jesus Christ, we can live as Christ lived, which is a perfect life. Jesus only influenced people because He was perfect. because he thought about what he said. He spoke wisdom. He acted in faith, in grace, in love, but did nothing in anger outside of righteous anger. How many times do we act out in anger, frustration, in fear, in worry? How many times does that influence what we do in our everyday life? And how many times in the Bible is it said to root that out of your life? Why are we to root that out of our life? Because anything not rooted in Jesus Christ should not be rooted in our life. Jesus never feared. Jesus never worried. There they were, boat about to sink, and what was he doing? He was sleeping. I'm about to tell that to my children. I don't care what's going on. You can sleep through it, I promise. He didn't have a care in the world because he knew that God knew when his time was come. I mean, what are we going to do? Can we, with any thought, add one cubic to our stature? Or one minute to our lives? One second? One extra breath? Can we do that? No. Because life in and of itself, whether it's conception or death, is in the hands of God. unless you throw out this idea of perfection, because we'll never be like God. We can never be like Christ. We can show out His love, but there's nothing else we can do. That's just absolutely hopeless. The church has become a hopeless people because we've thrown out perfection. Because our hope isn't in that one day we're going to go to heaven. That's part of our hope. But the real belief and the reason for being here is that we are rooted and grounded in God's truth, which is we can be like Him. He came into this world and proved that it can be done. Because He was 100% God, but He was 100% man. were a hundred percent man and through Jesus Christ we have the Holy Spirit in us which is something they never had before the New Testament let me read you something from the Old Testament before the Holy Spirit was available if you will It says in Job chapter 1 verse 8, it says, And the Lord saith unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil. In Genesis chapter 6 and verse 9, these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. The establishing of perfection in the Bible is always followed up with the precepts and the following of God, which has not changed today. What has changed is the attitude towards perfection. Have you ever heard a good word said about perfection? Certainly not in the church, and certainly not in the workplace. Tomorrow, I will walk into the workplace, and the first thing someone will say to me is, I'll say, good morning, how are you? And they'll say, it's Monday. And I will usually reply, and what a wonderful Monday it is. And they will not reply at all. Usually just respond with a little, you know, OK. Crazy. Yeah. Somebody slept good last night, ate his Wheaties, and come into work. But how many are gonna go into work tomorrow and just hear that exact same thing everywhere? Nobody's happy because they gotta come to work again on a Monday early in the morning at 8 a.m. You're right. I was sitting there looking at Mike, I'm like, he's gonna be at work three hours before I even step into work. But how many people, why is the attitude out there? Well, let's say there's no hope in the church anymore because we've thrown out perfection. There's nothing to strive for. There's no hope in that. You can get there. You mark the perfect man where he's at and you measure against where you're at now, you're probably going to find yourself way behind him, but you're going to have hope because he is there. It is possible. You can know God that much. Yes. You see we've thrown out and have all these different versions of the Bible and all these different versions of doctrine and versions of all these different denominations. You can't even have one kind of Baptist anymore. There's a smorgasbord of Baptists, depends on what you want to believe. And just all, and every religion is like that. They got a different sect of their denomination and it's so mixed up to where nobody knows what they believe because they all believe different versions, different doctrines, different gods, just whatever. And you're not pursuing what you should be pursuing, which is the one true God found in the King James Bible. And if you can't find that, you will not find perfection. So there is no hope in the church, no hope in the world, and no hope for Monday. What are you to do? You'll hear it often said, oh, it's impossible to be perfect. But when it comes to any other walk of life, if it's a career you want, if you want to start your own business, if you want to do anything, they're going to say, the very word says I'm possible. And all of a sudden, nothing's impossible. They want to say, even in the church, that perfection is totally impossible, but they want to read, through God, all things are possible. Except for perfection. They throw it in there because it's impossibly perfect but you can sure try but you're not going to make it so don't even try. They just keep contradicting themselves and let me tell you about a doctrine that contradicts itself, it will not stand. And that's from the Bible because a house divided against itself won't stand. And that's certainly divided against itself. A perfect God with imperfect people serving Him is an impossible doctrine. And that's not going to turn around. There's no possibility with that. You often get called several names, including holier than thou, if you bring up the ability to have perfection in your life. This curve is followed directly with the unholy Christianity that has no more than encouraging quotes and pep rallies. These conscience soothers are not an example of perfection, but instead are the way to live wrong and feel right, which is the way of transgressors, which Proverbs says is extremely hard, and Psalms says they will be destroyed. We propagated this idea of imperfection for a perfect doctrine, this different idea of what we could be against what we are now to the point where nobody wants to be perfect because it sounds a lot better to try and be what we are now and just live our best life now And we don't even strive for perfection. We don't strive to do better. The only place the average American strives to do better is how much money he makes. So is his love for God or his love for money? Where have you put your love? I mean, where do you strive to do better at? What do you prioritize? You could make better money here, but look at what it will cost you. Perfection is not impossible. In fact, it is a command of the Christian life. It ought to be the result of your walk with God. It ought to be the result of what you do every day. Do you get closer to perfection every day or do you find yourself at the end of every day saying, I need to work on this more? Which is great until it's the same thing every day that you need to work on. So why does it say to mark this perfect man? While it's rare, I don't believe that this is the reason for marking the perfect man. The mark there is specifically for progress. Progress that will no doubt be seen and will be an encouragement to fellow believers and to challenge the younger ones to grow further. The mark is there just like the marks of the wicked, to show the very end of what they do. There is a distinct way to discern both kinds of people. That mark is there to both, again like I said, encourage the younger ones to see that's where they're at, this is where you're at, it's not impossible. The commands of God are never impossible. They are extremely hard, but they are not impossible. The end of that man is going to be peace. So every time you mark somebody and their end is destruction, you can generally see that their way was, at the core of their way, was not the way of God. But how many people do we have that mark these people that they perceive as perfect and they fall and they turn away because of the way that person was going? The way I grew up, there was a lot taught to me. And there was a lot shown to me. And there was a lot true of it in the Bible. But when everybody that taught me that departed from it and was ultimately destroyed, does not mean that the way they were going is why they were destroyed. The way of God does not destroy people. When you depart from the way of God is when you get destroyed. And it's up to you to see where. You can always tell where they break off and take that exit and go off the way. That was their choice. Your choice has to be whether to stay there or follow their path, which will also lead to destruction. And just because in your mind you can justify since they left, you can leave, that doesn't stop the reason for destruction, which is ultimately was your choice. The choice for perfection Just like those verses I read at the beginning is your choice. You can watch everyone and follow this one person to the ends of the earth and whatever they want to do, but if their way isn't God's way, then the way isn't perfect. The way isn't what will stop you from running into destruction. What made these people like Noah and Job perfect was not that they had a great life. In fact, Noah built an ark, took everyone with him, and still had several ruins along the way. But in Hebrews, he's still called perfect. Job is still called perfect after he lost everything and his wife was not that helpful. She said to curse God and die. And he's sitting there scraping these sores, and he didn't think it once. Most people would be like, you know what? It's probably not a bad idea right about now. He never thought that. He immediately said that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. He was perfect, not because of what he went through, but because what he did to prepare what he went through. We've got some rough times coming. And you can prepare all you want. I mean, you can stock all your pantries. You can draw all this other stuff. You can buy up cows so you can slaughter them later. I mean, just whatever you want to do. You can dig a hole in the ground, put a storage container like most people have done for years. But how you prepare your heart for what's coming is ultimately what's gonna be what carries you through. Because he wasn't perfect because, oh, he made it through and blessed God's name. He made it through because he was already establishing perfection in his heart through God, following his way, learning his precepts, and writing on the table of his heart the laws of God, which governed his life, which carried him through those hard times. This isn't something you do where you go through, you know, you've got all these people out there that get on these church stages and tell these amazing stories about what happened to them to turn them to God. And you sit there, especially me as a little 10-year-old Baptist boy, that I just sit there and I'm like, I would love to have an amazing story too to tell and to help people. What completely is lost when you get those kind of people in there is the fact that you have an amazing story to tell already. of the one who saved you in the first place. But you get so wrapped up in that I was stuck in drugs and alcohol and all this other stuff and it's a 30 minute story and finally the amazing point where the light shines and the guy comes out of sin and just starts preaching and goes around the country and that's amazing but that does not have to be your story. Your story can be is that you've already seen what could have been and that God saved you from it because you stay on the way of God. You've strove for perfection the whole way. You haven't totally forsaken it. You can have that and have this amazing story, not of self, but of God. Because what usually happens in all of that is that everyone hears this and says, boy, that man is amazing. I could never be like that. because they fail to bring out the fact that without God, none of that would have ever happened. And they furthermore never bring out the fact that you too could have God in your life and do this amazing work without having to go through all that. It is your choice to come to God. Furthermore, your choice to stay with God. to learn His ways, His precepts, His laws, His word, and to lead you in the way of perfection. So don't read the Bible simply to memorize scripture. Don't read the Bible simply to say, I've read my Bible today. Check your little box. Read the Bible for the purpose of perfecting your heart. and perfecting your way, your thoughts, your actions, your attitude. Maybe tomorrow you read the Bible and you really, that was a really good chapter, and you go in the work and it's like the seed that was sown and they snatch it up out of there with their Monday blues. Don't let that happen. You've got the word of perfection, they don't. Don't let their word of poison and sin and depression and hopelessness steal away the word that you read that morning. That's part of perfection, is growing. Sanctification, holiness, you must live it out. And that's your top priority. That's your mindset. That's what you're living your day for. Not letting those Monday blues influence you. Most people will. Monday blues are severely contagious, that's what I found out. But let me tell you, people without hope are always grasping for something else hopeless to hold on to. How many people on Facebook, and this has happened, it's like a wildfire, get hacked and they put on there, if you guess the correct number in this picture, then I will cash after you $6,500. And there's a big old picture, and it's like all these lines, and you do have to hold it. I think it's kind of funny. You've got to hold it, and there's different numbers. It depends on how you hold it. So everyone sees this different number, you know, because everyone's got to be right. And so they comment on there this number, and the guy says, inbox me your cash tag. I'll send you that money. It doesn't even look real. But because it's one of your friends on Facebook who wrote this post, they've got $6,500 to give me, I'm sure. I looked at one person and I said, I know this guy's broke. So y'all are just really silly for even thinking about this. But there was 469 comments on this guy's post. A couple of them were the scammer guy's other fake profile saying, wow, this is totally real. Thanks for the money, dude. And I'm like, really? Someone's got a savings account. But see, that's how silly this world has gotten. that maybe, just maybe, they do have $6,500. And I've got something that I really want to buy, or bills I really need to pay on some people's account. We've lost the hope of God, which is perfection in our hearts, which is salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. And because we've lost it, we buy into these other hopeless prospects, this hopeless gospel that's been created in the past 35, 40 years and further propagated. has ruined what Christianity is all about, which is that there is hope. There is no stop. You never stop growing. Eternal life starts now. You don't have to wait until you die to worship God and strive for perfection and know His ways. You don't have to die. You don't have to wait until you die and get to heaven to know God. And that's what's truly amazing about salvation. You don't have to wait till you're dead to serve Him, know Him, hear Him, please Him. You don't have to do that. But if you choose to, then what are you here for? What point is this life? We mark the perfect man, just like he says here, watch growth, give us further hope, and strive for excellence. Because he's not done it through his own power, it'll be painfully evident that he's done it through striving to know God more in his life. And if some decisions have to be made to do that, are you willing to make that decision? Are you willing to cut that out? Are you willing to stop doing whatever it is you're doing that's not allowing you to strive for perfection? Noah and Job, before the scriptures were given, were marked as perfect men by God. Could the same be said for you?