The Perfect Life
Isaiah 6:1-8
June 18, 2000
David Beckett, D. Min.

Let me tell you a Perfect Story: There was a perfect man who met a perfect woman. After a perfect courtship, they had a perfect wedding. Their life together was, of course, perfect. One snowy, stormy Christmas Eve this perfect couple was driving along a winding road when they noticed someone at the roadside in distress. Being the perfect couple, they stopped to help. There stood Santa Claus with a huge bundle of toys. Not wanting to disappoint any children on the eve of Christmas, the perfect couple loaded Santa and his toys into their vehicle. Soon they were driving along delivering the toys. Unfortunately, the driving conditions deteriorated and the perfect couple and Santa Claus had an accident. Only one of them survived the accident. Who was the survivor?
If you are a woman you might be tempted to say The perfect woman. She's the only one that really existed in the first place. Everyone knows there is no Santa Claus and there is no such thing as a perfect man.
The men might think along these lines. So, if there is no perfect man and no Santa Claus, the perfect woman must have been driving. This explains why there was a car accident.

All joking aside, do you struggle with perfectionism? Are there some areas in your life where you give 110% effort, receive countless accolades for your work, yet you are plagued with a feeling that it wasn’t good enough?

John Quincy Adams held more important offices than anyone else in the history of the U.S. He served with distinction as president, senator, congressman, minister to major European powers, and participated in various capacities in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and events leading to the Civil War. Yet, at age 70, with much of that behind him, he wrote, "My whole life has been a succession of disappointments. I can scarcely recollect a single instance of success in anything that I ever undertook."

Is this how you want to live…with the feeling that most of what you have done...much of who you are…is not good enough?

David Simmons, a former cornerback for the Dallas Cowboys, tells about his father, a military man, who was extremely demanding, rarely saying a kind word, always pushing him with harsh criticism to do better. The father had decided that he would never permit his son to feel any satisfaction from his accomplishments, reminding him there were always new goals ahead. When Dave was a little boy, his dad gave him a bicycle, unassembled, with the command that he put it together. After Dave struggled to the point of tears with the difficult instructions and many parts, his father said, "I knew you couldn't do it." Then he assembled it for him.

When Dave played football in high school, his father was unrelenting in his criticisms. In the backyard of his home, after every game, his dad would go over every play and point out Dave's errors. "Most boys got butterflies in the stomach before the game; I got them afterwards. Facing my father was more stressful than facing any opposing team." By the time he entered college, Dave hated his father and his harsh discipline. He chose to play football at the University of Georgia because its campus was further from home than any school that offered him a scholarship. After college, he became the second round draft pick of the St. Louis Cardinal's professional football club. Joe Namath (who later signed with the New York Jets), was the club's first round pick that year. "Excited, "I telephoned my father to tell him the good news. He said, 'How does it feel to be second?'"

Despite the hateful feelings he had for his father, Dave began to build a bridge to his dad. Christ had come into his life during college years, and it was God's love that made him turn to his father. During visits home he stimulated conversation with him and listened with interest to what his father had to say. He learned for the first time what his grandfather had been like--a tough lumberjack known for his quick temper. Once he destroyed a pickup truck with a sledgehammer because it wouldn't start, and he often beat his son. This new awareness affected Dave dramatically. "Knowing about my father's upbringing not only made me more sympathetic for him, but it helped me see that, under the circumstances, he might have done much worse. By the time he died, I can honestly say we were friends."

Isaiah was a prophet of God who had a vision of the temple of God. At the center of the temple is the throne of God. The "train," representing God’s glory, fills the temple where the Lord is high and exalted. Seraphs were flying angelic beings who focus upon the holiness of God in their song, noting that the earth is filled with God’s glory. This proclamation shakes the temple foundation and fills it with smoke.

What we have here is a vision of God untouched by human sin or frailty. This is a picture of God in all glory and holiness that only heavenly creatures can endure. Isaiah realizes this and is suddenly made aware of the huge difference between God’s glory and his humanity. He laments, "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man on unclean lips." This is not poor self-esteem but a perspective of viewing oneself as in need of something beyond ourselves.

The heavenly beings, recognizing the task to which Isaiah will be called, prepare him by curing his ailment of unclean lips. Taking a hot coal from the fire of the altar of sacrifice, one of the seraphs presses it to the prophet’s lips and declares atonement and sanctification. The altar represents sacrifice and something totally outside of the realm of the prophet’s accomplishments. It is, in short, a profound "God-moment." The only way to be adequately prepared for a sacred purpose is to be sanctified through a touch or encounter with the holy presence of God.

The good news today is that you and I have been chosen for a sacred purpose. God has given us special gifts to be used for God’s glory. God has called us and will continue to call us to serve others in the name of Christ. Do you know your sacred purpose for your life?

What often happens for people is that they confuse serving a holy and perfect God with being perfect. Somehow we begin to believe that God accepts us only when we are good or pretty close to perfect. This is understandable because this is our experience. This is how the world operates. In general people will accept you if you do good, and reject you if you do bad.

I remember my first year in Little League Baseball. I was the youngest player on the team, maybe 8 years old and I wasn’t very good. It was our first exhibition game and we were playing at night under the glare of the park lights. I sat the bench for most of the game until the last inning or two. Eventually it was time for my first at bat. I was nervous but tried hard not to show it. I was shocked at the speed of that first pitch. Strike one! This was going to be hard. Second pitch…strike two! I could hear my teammates yelling at me to swing. The third pitch was delivered. All I remember was closing my eyes and swinging as hard as I could. There was a loud crack as the ball went sailing into centerfield darkness. Shocked that I actually hit the ball I began to run to first base. The centerfielder ran all the way back to the fence and caught the ball.

But it was not a cause for sadness. Instead the entire team came out to me and slapped me on the back and congratulated me for hitting that ball so far. I didn’t tell them that it was an act of pure luck. I didn’t tell them that I had closed my eyes. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I was accepted by my teammates and coaches. But this attitude of acceptance changed during the season when I could no longer hit like that first time. It became clear to me that my acceptance was based upon my performance on the field.

I am sure that you all have had similar experiences. The sad thing is that these kinds of experiences are not relegated to our childhood. They happen all too often in the adult world. We become so addicted to the feeling of being accepted by others that we are tempted to sacrifice up our Christian values to get that feeling. We want to be accepted so badly that it sometimes doesn’t matter who likes us, as long as someone does.

We would do well to remember that Isaiah’s unclean lips were touched by a fiery coal from the altar of God. The seraph said to him, "Your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out." We cannot erase our guilt. We cannot save ourselves. We need God. We need to have a personal encounter with the living God. The central issue here is our dependency on God. When we stray away from this dependency and begin to feel that we are in control of our lives, it is then that we often engage in perfectionistic behavior. And somehow we come to that point where our acceptance by God and others is solely determined by how good we are and how well we perform.

At the Pan American Games, Greg Louganis was asked how he coped with the stress of international diving competition. He replied that he climbs to the board, takes a deep breath, and thinks, "Even if I blow this dive, my mother will still love me." Then he goes for excellence. At the beginning of each day, how good it would be for each of us to take a deep breath, say, "Even if I blow this dive, my mother will still love me", and then, assured of grace, go into the day seeking a perfect 10!