(upbeat music) - Happy New Year's everyone. On this final day of 2021, we end our ninth full year of podcasting and we end it talking about holiness and the pursuit of perfection. Here's the email. Pastor John, hello, my name is Christopher and I live in Louisville, Kentucky. I've been listening to APJ for a little over a year now.

First, thank you so much for the incredible wealth of knowledge you've given to me and to all your listeners through this podcast over the years. I've heard you on many occasions mention the danger of perfectionism as a Christian. I am guilty of this. After thinking a great deal about sanctification and listening to APJ 1663 about pursuing holiness, it only gets worse.

I recognize that we are not justified by works, but also that the pursuit to live holy lives is the evidence that we are saved. I feel like this makes it very hard for me to come to terms with my own failure and instead of running back to Christ when I sin, I spiral down into thoughts like, well, maybe I was never truly saved.

It's almost as though I condemn myself into depression, even though Christ brings no condemnation and it often takes days to work through it. How do I find the balance between pursuing holiness and moving past my failure to be holy? Is pursuing holiness the same as pursuing perfection? Well, that last couple of sentences really is two questions, isn't it?

He says, how do I find the balance between pursuing holiness and moving past my failure to be holy, that's one. And then the last one was, is pursuing holiness the same as pursuing perfection? So let me answer both of those as best I can and start with the second one first.

Is pursuing holiness the same as pursuing perfection? It's an ambiguous question because it switches categories on me from a quality holiness to a quantity perfect holiness. You can see the ambiguity if you ask the question like this, rephrase it like this. Is pursuing partial holiness the same as pursuing complete holiness?

And the answer is, well, there is a difference between partial and complete. So when it comes to holiness, the question becomes, which are you pursuing, partial holiness or complete holiness? And what makes that question psychologically complicated is that the New Testament teaches that in this life, Christians will not attain sinless perfection.

And yet we are commanded to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. Not perfect just by human standards, perfect by divine standards, God's standards. So Matthew 5:48, you shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, which I think is just another way of saying, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

That's Matthew 22, 37, the great commandment. Or what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7, 1, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. Or what James says in James 1, 4, let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

And yet, in spite of these repeated commands to pursue perfection, we are taught in the Bible that our victory over the power of sin will be incomplete until we're in the presence of Christ. For example, James 3, verse two, we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's a perfect man able to bridle his own body, including the tongue.

And then he says in verse eight, nobody can tame the tongue. Or Philippians 3, 12, not that I have already obtained the resurrection or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Paul never claimed, he explicitly said, I haven't attained perfection yet.

Or the Lord's Prayer, we're told right after we're told to pray every day for our daily bread, we're to pray, forgive us our sins or our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. Now that's not a command to pray one time at the beginning of your Christian life that your debts be forgiven.

That is the same kind of prayer as give us this day, our daily bread. He's talking to disciples. This is a command to avail ourselves of regular repeated forgiveness. So on the one hand, we have the command to be perfect, repeated. And on the other hand, we have the teaching that we will not in this life be perfect.

So back to our question, what should we pursue? Is it even meaningful to say that we are pursuing perfection? Would it be like an athlete saying, I am pursuing a high jump record of 20 feet, that's my goal, or a long jump record of 100 feet, or a one mile running time of one minute?

Now, none of those are ever going to happen while human beings are the kind of human beings they are now. - Yeah. - But as long as God is God, his standard cannot be less than perfection. And when he calls us to perfection, he is not naive. He knows that in this life we will fall short, but he also knows that he intends to give us success in the pursuit of perfection when we see him face to face.

The quest is not in vain. We will attain perfection. And the pursuit of holiness now is essential to attain the final perfecting work of God. So it's never wrong, it's never wrong to say we are pursuing perfection in that sense. As we pursue holiness here, we are pursuing the perfection that God will grant us through the pursuit of holiness someday.

But in the pursuit of perfection, which we will only attain in the presence of God, there is this brief period of time on earth when our pursuit is so embattled, indwelling sin is so strong, satanic opposition is so great that even though counted righteous in Christ by faith, we are not yet completely righteous in our conduct and will not be completely righteous in our conduct till we see Christ face to face.

So perhaps we should say it like this. In our pursuit of perfect holiness in the presence of Christ, let us seek now to be as holy as a justified sinner can be. And we don't know what the limits are on that imperfect holiness. And there are always more victories to be attained.

Now, back to Christopher's other question. How do I find the balance between pursuing holiness that way, I hope, and moving past my failure to be holy? How do we not let our failures to be holy as we ought to be, indeed, as we could be, we all fall short not only of what we ought to be, but could be, how do we not let those failures depress us and so discourage us that we are paralyzed with hopelessness in the pursuit of holiness, especially when we realize that our lives must bear witness that we truly are born again and have saving faith and are justified?

We know that we're not justified by works, but we also know that our works confirm our justification. So how do we enjoy the assurance of our salvation when our holiness remains imperfect? Let me just point to one passage of Scripture that is so important, and I pray that we will all linger over it long enough to let it have its good assurance-giving effect.

Here's 1 John 6-9. If we say we have fellowship with God while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. So, in other words, how we walk testifies to whether we really have a relationship with God. He goes on. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

So he's saying walking in the light is essential to show that we are being cleansed from our sins by the blood of Jesus. Now, verse 8. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. So he says walking in the light cannot mean sinlessness.

Let that sink in. Walking in the light cannot mean sinlessness because he just said, "You gotta walk in the light," and he just said, "If you say you're sinless, "you're dead wrong." Well, what then does walking in the light mean? So he goes on, one more verse. Verse 9.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So here is John's description of the imperfect Christian. He does not claim perfection, but he does claim to walk in the light because if you don't walk in the light, you don't have fellowship with God, and the blood of Jesus doesn't cleanse you from sin.

It doesn't cover your sin. Well, what then does walk in the light mean if it doesn't mean sinlessness? And his answer is it means a pattern of obedience that involves regular, sincere confession of sin. The person who walks in the light has enough light to see sin for what it is and to hate it and confess it and to receive forgiveness for it with thankfulness and humility and to press on with fresh resolve to love God and people better.

I think that's the apostle's answer to Christopher's question, and now we need to pray. We need to pray that God would work this miracle of this biblical pattern into our lives. Yeah, amen. It's one thing to talk about holiness. It's another thing to actually live it out. Thank you, Pastor John.

Well, this being New Year's Eve, our year-end fundraising campaign ends tonight. If you'd like to become a monthly ministry partner with us, today is a great day to join. You can set up monthly giving online at give.desiringgod.org. That's a web address, give.desiringgod.org. We're back next year on Monday. We begin 2022 with a great question, what are idols?

Both the little carved trinkets that we read about in the Old Testament, and what are the heart idols that we read about in the New Testament? And how are these two different idols linked? Are they? It's a great question to inaugurate our 10th year of this podcast. 10 years, amazing.

Thanks for being a part of our podcast over these years. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Have a great New Year's Eve. Have a great New Year's Day. And Pastor John and I will see you next year. Take care. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)