James chapter one and verse number two,
James chapter one and verse number two.
As I was thinking about what to preach today,
I just, I was kind of thinking about,
you know, how we want,
how do we want to build this church?
You know, the first year we'll focus very,
very strongly on the foundations,
foundational doctrines,
making sure we're, we're,
we're on the same page,
we're of the one mind,
we know the kind of works that God
wants us to accomplish in the church.
And then on the second year,
I really wanted to check the integrity of our church,
start pulling a little bit,
pushing a little bit,
you know, self-examination,
you know, it's easy to point fingers,
it's easy to preach against false prophets
and all these things,
but it's hard sometimes to look at the Word of God
and reflect upon it in ourselves
and say, where am I faulty?
You know, where am I falling short?
You know, how can I be a better service to the church
and better service to the brethren?
And I was thinking about,
what do I want to accomplish now in this third year
as we come into this third year?
And I just thought, you know what?
I want to build,
and it's not me that's building,
it's Jesus Christ,
but through Jesus Christ,
and as Christ uses us as a vessel,
I want to build a perfect church,
a perfect church.
And you're probably saying right now,
Pastor Kevin, there's no such thing as a perfect church.
And there's a truth to that, okay?
Because of course we think of perfection,
when we think of perfection,
we think of something without fault,
you know, something that is 100%,
you know, without error,
something without fault.
But here's the thing,
every church is made up of imperfect people.
Every church is made up of people that are not perfect.
So how do we have a perfect church?
Well, you know, here's the thing,
we can have a perfect church.
Biblically speaking,
we can have a perfect church.
And James chapter one, verse two,
gives us the definition for perfection.
And it's not the same way,
when the Bible uses the word perfect,
it's not exactly the same way
we tend to think about it in our modern vernacular.
But look at verse number two,
James chapter one, verse two,
the Bible says,
my brethren, count in all joy,
when you fall into diverse temptations,
knowing this, that the trying of your faith
worketh patience.
Now look at verse number four,
verse number four talks about a perfect work,
and it defines what the word perfect is in the Bible.
Verse number four,
but let patience have her perfect work,
that ye may be perfect,
an entire wanting nothing, okay?
So here's the definition of perfect,
something that is entire wanting nothing.
Now we're gonna have pizzas for lunch
after this sermon, okay?
We're gonna have pizzas,
and by the way, they're getting delivered
at two o'clock, so if I'm not done,
and they come, can a couple of men
just go out there and help out?
But I'm thinking about a pizza.
If you say, I've eaten an entire pizza.
It says there, perfect and entire.
I've eaten an entire pizza.
What are you saying?
I've eaten the whole thing, okay?
The whole thing, and when I think about this,
you know, it's undivided, it's whole, it's united,
and I want this church to be entire.
I want this church to be whole.
I don't want this church to be divided.
I want us to have one mind, one purpose,
one work that we can work together.
You know, we may not see eye to eye on everything,
every little point in the Bible,
every little point in life,
but one thing we can be is a united church,
an entire, wanting nothing.
So once you eat that entire pizza,
you're gonna be a pretty fool.
You're gonna be like, I want nothing.
What does that mean?
You're satisfied, you're full, right?
You're full, you're satisfied,
and what I want from New Life Baptist Church
is to be a perfect church.
When you come here, you want nothing else, okay?
Wanting nothing else, you say, man, I came to church,
I was spiritually fed, I've been edified in the faith,
I can serve the Lord now for the rest of my week,
and I want nothing more, I'm done.
All right, that's what I want.
That's how we can be a perfect church,
biblically speaking, entire, wanting nothing, okay?
We need to make sure that this church
is doing everything that God has commanded us to do,
and there's nothing left behind that God has asked us to do.
That's how we strive to be a perfect church.
I want people to say, hey, New Life Baptist Church,
come here, because it's a perfect church,
and by perfect, again, not that we're perfect people,
but we're doing the works that God has left us to do, okay?
So I've got nine points,
nine points as to how we can be a perfect church.
Please go to John chapter 17, John chapter 17, verse 20.
John chapter 17, verse 20.
Jesus, John chapter 17 is such a great chapter.
I really encourage you, if you have time this week,
to go home and read it, okay?
It's Jesus Christ, you know, speaking to God the Father,
thanking the Father for giving him,
the work he's given to do, the mission he's given him to do,
the glory, the successes, and then he says,
but now I'm passing this on to my disciples.
We can say, Jesus Christ is now passing this on to us.
Look at verse number 20.
Jesus says to the Father,
neither pray I for these alone,
but for them also which shall believe on me
through their word that they all may be one
as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee
that they also may be one in us
that the world may believe that thou has sent me.
What is the desire of Jesus Christ?
We said something that's entire,
something that's all perfect.
Jesus says, look, I am one with the Father
and the Father is one with me, but I want my believers,
I want my churches to be one with us.
That's a desire to be perfect.
You know, to be one with God.
Point number one, to be a perfect church,
we have to be one with God.
We have to be in touch with God.
We've got to allow the Lord God to work through us.
We need to be clean vessels and ask God,
God, please have a work in us.
In each one of us in our church, we wanna be one with you.
And if you look at the end of verse number 21,
it says that the world may believe that thou has sent me.
You see, if this church is united,
if we're grounded, we've got the one mind,
the one love for one another, we're one with God,
the rest of the world will look at our church
and say, wow, look at that church.
They believe what Jesus Christ said.
They believe Jesus Christ.
We can see through this church
that the Father has sent the Son.
Let's keep reading, verse number 22.
And the glory which thou gavest me,
the glory that the Father gave to Jesus,
I have given them that they may be one even as we are one.
So it's not just about being a perfect church.
Jesus says, I want the same glory you've given me, Father,
to be with my church.
Man, not only can we be a perfect church,
we can be a glorious church, full of the glory of God.
Verse number 23, I in them and thou in me.
Look at this, that they may be made perfect in one.
There it is, made perfect in one
that the world may know that thou has sent me
and has loved them as thou has loved me.
If we can be a united church, if we can be a perfect church,
the world will look at us and say, God loves these people.
What an amazing thing that the world can look at us
if we're perfect and for them to say,
God loves New Life Baptist Church.
Ah, man, I will want nothing more
for that to be our reputation here on the Sunshine Coast.
What do you know about New Life Baptist Church?
Oh, it's the rock band, no.
You know, it's all the smokes and the lights, no.
And it's all the children ministries that are going on, no.
When people say, hey, what's this New Life Baptist Church?
Oh, that's the church that God loves.
That's what I want to be known for.
Okay, that's how we can be perfect in the Lord God.
Now I'm gonna quickly read to you from Revelation 3.9.
You don't need to turn there.
We've gone through the seven churches of Revelation.
But one thing that was said here was,
behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan,
which say they are Jews and are not, but do lie.
Behold, I will make them to come and worship
before thy feet, look at this,
and to know that I have loved thee
and to know that I have loved thee.
Now, when it came to the synagogue of Satan
here in this church, they were persecuting the believers.
They were persecuting the church of God.
And so if we take this as an application,
everybody that wants to hurt us,
everybody that hates our church,
everybody that hates the preaching from God's word,
will be one day will realize that Jesus Christ loved us,
that Jesus Christ and the Father loved us.
That's how we strive to be perfect.
Point number one is that we need to be a church
that is one with God, one with God, all right?
So our enemies can know that God has loved us.
Point number two, please go to Colossians chapter one.
Colossians chapter one.
Point number two, Colossians chapter one, verse 27.
Colossians chapter one, verse 27.
The Bible says, to whom God would make known
what is the riches of the glory of this mystery
among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you,
the hope of glory, look at this,
whom we preach, who do we preach?
We preach Jesus Christ, warning every man
and teaching every man in all wisdom, look at this,
that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
My desire for this church is that every man,
woman and child that's sitting here
would be made perfect in Christ Jesus.
And how do we do that?
Back in verse number 28, whom we preach warning every man
and teaching every man.
Point number two for us to be a perfect church
is that we need to be a church that warns and that teaches,
that warns and that teaches.
The two things have to come together.
What do we warn against?
What are the things that we need to preach
behind this pulpit?
We need to warn our brethren against sin, okay?
We need to warn the consequences of sin.
You know, if you commit sin, it's going to hurt your life.
It's going to hurt those that you love.
It's going to hurt those around you.
We need to warn people against wickedness,
the wickedness of this world, the temptations,
the lust of the flesh.
We need to warn this church against false teachers,
false teachers.
We need to be careful about the men
we allow to stand behind this pulpit.
You know, and I'm thankful for everyone that's come,
you know, and taught behind this pulpit.
We need to warn against false doctrines,
warn against false teachings.
Again, just be mindful.
You know, we have visitors,
we have people that come into the church.
We may not see eye to eye on doctrines,
but there's a big difference between someone
that's striving to learn and someone that wants to come here
and corrupt our church.
But we need to warn against those
that are trying to come to hurt our church,
corrupt this church,
and defile the teaching of God's word.
That's what we warn against.
But is it just warning?
Is it just, hey, be careful?
No, we need to teach.
We need to teach in every man in all wisdom,
all wisdom, all of it here, right?
All 66 books, the wisdom of God,
we've got to teach it all.
What are we teaching?
To build you, the teaching ought to be
to help you build you in the faith,
build you in the faith that God has given us.
To teach you to love God with all your heart,
mind, soul, and strength.
To love your neighbor as yourself.
To fill your hearts and minds
with the wisdom of God's word.
That's what we need to teach,
to encourage you, to make you more knowledgeable, okay?
To increase your wisdom
and to teach you to trust God, to trust God.
That's always my, you know, just trusting God,
you can make entire sermons on this,
but that's what gets me through life.
That's my little secret.
I'm just gonna trust God.
If I'm doing His will, I'm doing what God expects from me,
and it's just not working out,
I'm just gonna trust God.
He's asked me to do this, it's going to work out.
Trusting God, teaching people to trust God.
Point number two is that for us to be a perfect church,
entire wanting nothing,
is that we're a church that warns and teaches.
Let's go to point number three.
You guys are in Colossians, go to chapter four.
Colossians chapter four, verse 12.
Colossians 4, 12.
How else can we be a perfect church?
The Bible says here, Epaphras,
which is one of you, a servant of Christ, salute of you.
Now what's this Epaphras doing?
Always, always, laboring fervently for you in prayers.
Why?
That you may stand perfect and complete
in all the will of God.
Man, this Epaphras, I want Epaphrases in our church.
I want each one of us to be praying for this church.
Not just praying, but praying, laboring fervently.
Prayer is being considered a work.
And I shared with some of the men here on Friday
that I find prayer difficult.
It's not that I don't pray,
but it's just one of these challenges to do it
because it is labor, it is work.
But if all of us, if every family,
if every member of this church
would be laboring in prayer for this church,
I know God would be able to do great things in his church.
That we would be perfect and complete in the will of God
that's been referred to here.
And it says laboring fervently, what's fervently?
It means with passion, full of zeal.
Now it's not like just your two-second prayer,
Dear Lord, please look after me like Baptist Church
and that's it, amen.
No, fervently, with zeal, do you love this church?
Do you love, I'm not saying do you love Pastor Kevin,
I hope you love me, I love you, okay?
But do you love this body?
Do you love this group of people?
You know what God is establishing?
If you do, you're going to be driven
to pray for this church.
We need to be a prayer.
Point number three was a church that prays.
That's what's gonna make us a perfect church,
a complete church, entire,
wanting nothing that we're praying for one another.
We're praying for the body, okay?
We're praying for this whole body
but also that we stop and break it down a little bit,
that we would pray for each family unit.
You know, each family here is going
through different struggles, different trials, okay?
Sometimes it's easy to become self-centered
or self-focused on our own trials.
And all of us, I can't think of a single family
that doesn't have some difficulty that they're going through
and you need to bring every family,
every family unit that belongs to this church in prayer.
But then you break it down even further,
not just the family but the individuals within the family.
Are you praying for the fathers?
Are you praying for the mothers?
Are you praying for the children?
Are you praying them by name, by name?
And again, we're going to continue having
our prayer meetings, midweek service.
That's going to be something, a staple diet
that's part of our church forever, okay?
We continue praying as a church but when you get home,
please be praying for one another, for the families,
for each individual person.
That's gonna help us be that perfect,
complete church that we need to be.
Go to Hebrews chapter 13 now, Hebrews chapter 13.
Point number four, Hebrews chapter 13, verse 20.
Hebrews chapter 13, verse 20.
Hebrews 13, verse 20, the Bible reads,
now the God of peace that brought again from the dead,
our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the everlasting covenant.
Look at this, verse 21.
Make you perfect in what, in what?
In every good work to do His will.
The full point that I have here
is for us to be a perfect church,
we need to be a church that performs good works, right?
Perfect in every good work, every good work.
But the thing is, you know, there's a lot of churches
out there on the Sunshine Coast,
a lot of churches doing works, okay?
Now we can become very busy.
We can create a lot of ministries if we want to, okay?
But what kind of work do we do?
Verse 21, make you perfect in every good work
to do His will, the will of God.
You know, there's a lot of churches busy,
a lot of churches doing a lot of works,
but they're not works according to the will of God.
We need to seek God's will.
God, what do you want New Life Baptist Church to be doing?
And I know immediately, it's in our statement,
it's on our website.
I don't know, did I call it a mission statement
or a vision, I don't know.
The great commission, all right?
I mean, that's straightforward.
I don't need to spell that out.
The great commission, preaching the gospel,
baptizing believers and teaching all the things
in the council of God that we have available to us, okay?
That is the great work we need to do.
You know, and any idea you might get,
you might say, you know, Pastor Kevin,
I've got this great idea for the church.
My first question to you will be,
does it tie into the great commission?
If it doesn't tie into the great commission,
know immediately.
In fact, you don't need to bring it to my attention.
If you can work it out, man, it's really such a great idea.
Actually, how does this tie into the great commission?
Don't even come to me about it, okay?
It's got to tie in to preaching the gospel,
baptizing believers, teaching the entire word of God.
That's our work.
We keep to the will of God.
We will be made perfect unto every good work.
Let's keep reading verse number 21.
To do his will, working in you,
that which is well pleasing in his sight
through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.
So my fourth point there was, guys,
that we, if we want to be a perfect church,
and I'm striving for perfection now, all right?
Year number three, a perfect church.
If we apply these principles that we see here
in this, through this sermon,
a church that performs good works,
but not just good works,
good works according to God's will
and through the power and the glory of Jesus Christ.
Let's go to point number five.
Go to first Peter chapter five,
first Peter chapter five, verse 10.
First Peter chapter five, verse 10.
Because what I don't want you to misunderstand
with this sermon,
when we think about what a perfect church is,
I mean, if you said, man,
this is my idea of a perfect church,
you're probably thinking of a church without any problems,
without any trials, without any conflicts, all right?
Without any suffering.
First Peter chapter five, verse 10.
My fifth point is that we need to be a church
which endures suffering.
First Peter chapter five, verse 10.
But the God of all grace,
who have called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus,
look at this, after that you have suffered a while,
make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.
Wow, you know what?
If we're going to be striving to be a perfect church,
guess what's gonna come?
Suffering.
That says suffered a while, all right?
All right, it's suffering forever.
It's not suffering till Christ comes back,
it's suffering a while.
God's going to put us through trials.
If this is our goal, okay?
And I want you to understand, third year,
if this is my goal to make a perfect church,
there's going to be suffering in this church, okay?
And you're gonna be like, oh, why is there suffering?
I thought we were going for the perfect church.
Well, that's what we need to go through.
That's what God's going to use for us to be perfect.
And not just perfect, it says here,
that he will not just make you perfect, establish.
What does it mean to establish?
To make you unmovable, right?
You're established, you're unmovable,
you're uncompromising.
Uncompromising as a preacher, as a pastor,
uncompromising as a whole church.
That's what I want, yeah?
That we would just stand on God's word
and not be afraid of what it says.
And you might say, well, I already feel that way.
Well, we don't know.
We may need to go through the suffering,
the trying of our faith to really test that out a little bit
to strengthen us, right?
To make us to establish, then it says there,
strengthen, establish, strengthen.
God wants us to be stronger
than what we were in year one and year two.
Year three, as a church, we need to be a stronger church.
How do we get stronger?
By suffering a while.
Okay, by going through the suffering,
by going through the hardships.
And then it says here, settle you.
Once you've been established and strengthened,
God wants to settle you, right?
He wants to give you peace, all right?
Peace, and that's a process.
If we want to be a church of peace,
you know, our hearts are settled.
You know, we trusted the Lord.
Even though we go through the hardships,
we can still have peace
because we know the Lord is leading us through those trials.
We know the Lord is leading us through that suffering.
But point number five, to be a perfect church,
we need to be a church that endures suffering.
That's the bad news.
But out of that bad news comes the good work,
the good news, the work that God will do
in each one of us and within this church.
Please now go to 1 John, 1 John chapter four.
1 John chapter four, verse 16.
We spoke about God loving us, right?
God loving us.
But point number six is that we need to be a church
with the love of God, okay?
So it's not just God loving us,
but we need to have the love of God in us.
1 John chapter four, verse 16.
The Bible says,
We've seen that before, how God wants us to be in Him,
you know, and one within.
Verse number 17.
Herein is our love made what?
Perfect.
Our love can be made perfect.
But it's not gonna come from the love
from within our own hearts.
It's going to come from the love of God working in us, right?
The love of God made perfect
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment
because as He is, so are we in this world.
I'm gonna put a question mark there
because as He is, so are we in this world, are we?
Hmm.
You know what?
If we allow God to give us His love,
we can share the love of God through us.
We can be here as He is, as God is.
What an amazing truth in this world.
All right, now, you don't need to turn,
oh, actually, no, you're right in 1 John.
Just keep your finger there in 1 John four.
We'll come back, but go to chapter two.
1 John chapter two, verse 15.
Because if we're gonna be perfect,
once again, we need the love of God flowing through us.
Okay, if I love the brethren here,
I need to love you with the love of God.
If I'm gonna love my wife the way I ought to love my wife,
I need to love her with the love of God, okay?
And here it says in 1 John chapter two, verse 15.
Love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world,
the love of the Father is not in him.
Okay, now think about this.
This is not saying the Father doesn't love you
if you love the world.
That's not what it's saying.
It's saying if you love the world,
the love of the Father is not in you.
That's how you can test whether the love you have
is from God or not.
If you're loving the things of this world, okay,
you're loving the Hollywood and the lust of the eyes
and the lust of the flesh and the pride of life,
you're loving all those things that comes from the world,
that's not the love of God flowing through you, okay?
That's the sinful nature.
That's your black heart that you have.
That's your sinful heart.
When you start realizing that you don't love the world
as much as you used to,
that means the love of the Father
is now flowing through you.
The love of the Father is in you.
When you can start loving new life back to this church,
loving the works of God,
loving faithful men of God,
loving the brethren, these kinds of things,
now you're pouring out the love of God in you.
Have you noticed as you matured in the Lord,
the things that wants to detain you,
the things he wants to love,
you may not really love her anymore.
You know, I remember in my teenage years, early 20s,
I used to watch, I wouldn't say a lot of movies,
but I watched a few movies, you know?
And then as I got into the Bible,
as I got maturing and growing in the Lord,
I thought I wanted to watch that movie.
I put it on, and like half an hour into,
I'm like falling asleep.
Half an hour into, I'm like, why am I watching this?
I kind of feel like this would entertain me,
but I'm not enjoying it.
You know what the reason why that was?
The love of the Father did not love that, right?
And I was growing immature in the Lord.
You're gonna start noticing,
the more love the Father is able to put inside of you
and you pour out,
you're gonna stop loving the things that you once loved
that were part of this world, okay?
We need to replace the love of the world
with the love of the Father.
Did we read verse 16?
I didn't read it, but I did kind of summarize it.
Let's just read verse 16, 1 John 2 16.
For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes
and the pride of life is not of the Father,
but is of the world.
Reverend, what love do you have in you?
The love of the Father or the love of the world?
You know, and we wanna be a perfect church,
a perfect church,
we must aim to have the love of the Father.
You must stop loving the things of this world,
the corrupt things that are in this world.
Please go back to 1 John 4, 1 John 4.
Let's keep reading.
1 John 4.
As brother Richard was preaching earlier,
he made a list of things that, you know,
believers or Christians often fear about, okay?
You know, we can have a lot of fears,
a lot of things that concern us.
And how do we overcome that fear though?
It's actually answered for us in verse number 18.
Verse number 18, 1 John 4, verse 18.
There is no fear in love,
but perfect love casts without fear.
That's how we overcome the fears that we have.
You know, are you afraid that people are gonna find out
what you believe, the doctrines you hold to,
what this church teaches?
Are you afraid of the persecutions?
I don't wanna repeat brother Richard's sermon,
but he had a list of fears, you know?
And there were some things in that list
that if I'm honest with you, yeah,
I may have some fears about those things,
but how do we cast out those fears?
We go with a perfect love.
There is no fear in love, verse 18,
but perfect love casts without fear.
What's the perfect love?
It's the love of the Father.
That's how we get the fear out of our lives
because fear have torment.
Here that feareth is not made perfect in love.
You're afraid of the things of this world.
You haven't been made perfect
through the love of the Father.
And we need to go through that process as a church.
We need to overcome the fears that we have
by having the fear of the Father.
Verse number 19, if we love him,
sorry, we love him because he first loved us.
I love those words, verse number 20.
If a man say I love God and hateth his brother,
he is a liar.
For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen,
how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
There's the challenge for you.
You know, when you look around this room
and you look at the believers, each one of us,
husbands, mothers, children,
can you look at one another and say, I love that brother.
I love that sister.
Or do you say, I wish they weren't in church today.
You know, they frustrate me.
What is your attitude?
Can you say with all honesty, you don't need to tell me.
This is just for yourself, your self-examination.
Can you truly say you love every brother
or sister in this church?
And if you say, no, I don't,
then we're not gonna be that perfect church.
If we wanna be the perfect church,
we must love one another.
Again, we may not always get along.
We may not always see eye to eye with things, okay?
I mean, you know, I see my children,
they don't always get along, okay?
But do they love one another?
Absolutely, okay?
And we may not always get along.
We may not always see eye to eye,
but one thing we can do is love one another.
And that's the greater love.
When you don't get along with them and you still love them,
you still bring it to God in prayer.
You still want them blessed.
You still want to do good work to them.
Love in the brethren.
How do we do it?
We need, again, the love of God in us, in our church.
Verse 21, it says,
And this commandment have we from him,
that he who loveth God loved his brother also.
Don't tell me you love God
if you cannot love the people in this church.
Don't tell me that, okay?
And we wanna be a perfect church.
I want this church to be perfect.
And I can say with all honesty
that I love each one of you.
Honestly, that I love each one of you.
Do I sometimes get frustrated?
Yeah, okay.
But does that mean I don't love you?
No, okay.
That means I just gotta take you to God in prayer, right?
Please bless brother so-and-so.
Please help sister so-and-so, you know?
That's love in your brethren, okay?
Love in your brethren.
We want to be a perfect church.
I mean, do you wanna be a perfect church?
I hope so.
I hope you want new life of this church
to be a perfect church.
Point number six was to be a perfect church,
we must have the love of God,
the love of the Father in us.
Please go to Psalm 19.
Psalm 19 verse seven.
And some of you guys know this one off by heart, of course.
Psalm 19 verse seven.
Point number seven is that we must be a church
which wins souls to be a perfect church, okay?
A church which wins souls.
I'm not gonna go too long on this point
because it's something we preach about very often
in this church, but Psalm 19 verse seven says this.
The law of the Lord is perfect.
What's perfect?
I wanna be a perfect church.
What do we need?
We need the law of the Lord.
We need the scriptures.
Why?
Because with it says they convert in the soul.
How do we win souls?
How do we get them converted to Jesus Christ?
We must use the perfect law of God, right?
The perfect law of the Lord.
When we can show them that they're sinners,
we show them they've broken God's laws,
then they understand they have a need of a savior.
We can open up the perfect law once again
and show them how God has provided their savior
in Jesus Christ.
The death, fear, and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
that by grace through faith, by believing in Christ,
they can be saved, they can be converted, okay?
If we don't have soul winning,
we're not a perfect church.
We're failing in an area.
There's an area in our church that's not up to speed
or up to scratch.
We're not perfect, okay?
We need to be an entire church wanting nothing.
And thank God for the four souls that were saved so far.
Well, any salvations today?
Any salvations today?
Didn't ask you guys.
Still, four souls saved this week because of this church.
Praise God.
We need to keep it up.
We need to keep getting out there winning souls.
Let's not become slack in that area.
And we haven't been.
We've been consistently doing it.
Praise God.
But that's point number seven.
Now, point number eight.
Please go to Matthew five.
Matthew chapter five, verse 43.
Point number eight.
I've spoken a lot about love.
You know, God loving us,
us having the love of the father,
loving the brethren, okay?
But point number eight, to be a perfect church,
we must be a church that loves our enemies.
Our personal enemies, okay?
God has given us a love to love even our personal enemies.
Matthew chapter five, verse 43.
You have heard that it had been said,
thou shall love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you, love your enemies.
Bless them that curse you,
and do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them which despitefully use you
and persecute you.
Why?
Verse number 45.
That ye may be the children of your father
which is in heaven.
What does the father in heaven do?
For he maketh his son to rise on the evil and on the good,
and send the rain on the just and on the unjust.
That's the love of God the Father,
is that he blesses not just his believers,
not just his children, not just the just,
but even blesses the unjust, the ungodly, the unsaved
by giving them the son, by sending them the rain.
That's what we need to measure up to.
Verse number 46.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have you?
Do not even the publicans the same?
Verse number 47.
And if ye salute your brethren only,
what do ye more than others?
Do not even the publican so?
Now look at verse 48.
Be ye therefore perfect,
even as your father which is in heaven is perfect.
That's the standard.
That's how much we need to love our enemies,
the way that God loves the unjust.
We need to be perfect as our father in heaven is perfect.
And again, none of us can truly say we're perfect, okay?
This is why we need the love of the father.
I'm focusing a lot on the love today, you know?
We need it in our hearts.
We need it for one another.
We need it even for the personal enemies that we can have.
Pray for them, do good unto them,
do good unto those that despitefully use you and hate you.
And if we're doing right as a church,
we're gonna have personal enemies, okay?
And I'm gonna preach against them.
But at the same time, we have to show them love, okay?
We have to show them love.
That's what God has requested from us
if we wanna be a perfect church, okay?
Now please go to Psalm 139.
Psalm 139.
Because I don't want you guys to say,
hold on, this is feeling like a Joel Osteen sermon.
Love everything, all right?
Hey, that's not, yes, that's a big part of it,
a huge part of it to be a perfect church.
But we need to be balanced.
We need to be balanced.
And the ninth point,
well, let's read Psalm 139 verse 21 first.
Psalm 139 verse 21.
The Psalmist says,
do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee?
And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
Look at verse number 22.
I hate them.
Whoa, hold on.
Didn't you just say we gotta love everyone?
I hate them with what?
With perfect hatred, I count them mine enemies.
You know there's perfect love?
But if we're gonna be a perfect church,
we must also have perfect hatred.
Perfect hatred.
I'm not saying hatred for the sake of hatred.
I can hate a lot of things.
It's not always perfect hatred.
What is perfect hatred?
It's knowing what God hates
and hating the things that God hates.
What's perfect love?
Loving the things that God loves, okay?
Knowing what God loves,
loving the things that God loves.
Perfect hatred.
He are the enemies of God.
Those that hate God,
the Bible says we ought to hate them.
We ought to hate sin.
We ought to hate wickedness.
You say, I've never heard this in a church.
I just read to you from the perfect law of God.
Okay, if we're gonna be a perfect church,
we need to be well-balanced,
love the things that God loves,
hate the things that God hates.
That's how we're gonna be a perfect church.
Now, one day we may have a visitor walk into this church
and it's happened
and I've shared the hatred of God
and they've left the church.
It's happened.
It's already happened.
It may happen again.
And as that visitor leaves the church,
you know what they're thinking?
This is not a perfect church.
Man, this is a bad church.
It's not perfect.
But what I'm telling you,
it is a perfect church.
It is perfect if we can stand on God's word.
Okay, if we can be balanced as a church,
balanced with great love,
balanced with perfect hatred,
the hatred that comes from God,
knowing the things that God hates.
How do you know the things that God hates?
You've got to start reading this book.
You start reading the Bible.
How do you know the things I'm preaching are right?
You've got to first dig into the scriptures
and if I'm preaching something wrong,
you come and challenge me.
You show me not by your opinion,
you show me by the word of God
if I preach something wrong
and I make the promise to this church,
if you show me where I've been wrong,
I will come and correct it.
Okay, because I want to be a perfect church.
Okay, can we do it?
Can in year three,
can we say new life after church will be a perfect church?
Maybe we've been perfect already in some areas.
Not some of these things we're doing.
Many of these things we're doing.
But I need to make sure we maintain these things.
If we're lacking in some of these areas,
we need to make sure we're up to standard.
We're up to scratch with what God expects
from New Life Baptist Church.
This church needs to keep building.
This church needs to keep moving forward, okay?
This church needs to aim for perfection, okay?
And we've seen how God allows us to be perfect
by being entire, by being whole,
by being united, by wanting nothing.
I want you to leave New Life Baptist Church
after the second service on Sunday
and say, man, that was a perfect service.
That was a perfect church, you know?
But it's about what you put in.
You know, what do you want to get out of this church?
Well, if you want to get something out of this church,
you've got to put in what you want to get out.
You can't just be, I'm going to turn up and sit down
and let everyone serve me.
And if people haven't said hello to me,
if people haven't been friendly to me,
I don't like this church.
Well, you need to be friendly.
You need to serve one another.
You need to love one another.
If that's what you want from this church,
you need to put it in.
Computers are known as garbage in, garbage out computers.
Whatever you put in is going to come out.
This can be a garbage in, garbage out church.
If we put garbage in, what are we going to get?
We're going to get a garbage church.
Hey, but if we strive for perfection,
we put in perfection,
guess what this church is going to be?
A perfect church, okay?
So what are these nine points?
Let me repeat them once again to you.
Were they nine points?
I'll just repeat them here.
Number one was, we need to be a church
that is one with God, united with God.
Number two, we need to be a church that warns and teaches.
Number three, we need to be a church that prays.
Number four, we need to be a church
that performs good works.
Number five, we need to be a church that endures suffering,
that we allow suffering to come.
Verse number six, that we're a church with the love of God,
with the love of the Father.
Number seven, a church that wins souls.
Number eight, a church which loves its enemies.
And number nine, a church which has perfect hatred.
Let's aim for the third year to be a perfect church.
Let's pray.