Perfecting Me

Character and the Pursuit of Perfection

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Whitley Phipps (Host), Adly Campos, Dr E T Stoddart, Ruthie Jacobson

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Series Code: PFM

Program Code: PFM000004A


00:27 Hi, I'm Wintley Phipps,
00:28 and welcome to our program
00:30 Perfecting Me, Becoming More Like Jesus.
00:34 I'm so glad you joined us.
00:36 My guests today on our program are Ruthie Jacobsen,
00:39 Head of Prayer Ministry of the North American division
00:41 of Seventh-day Adventist, Pastor Errol Stoddart,
00:44 Senior Pastor of The Church of the Oranges
00:46 of Seventh-day Adventist in Orange, New Jersey,
00:50 and Mrs. Adly Campos, Speaker and President
00:53 of Family Well-Being International.
00:55 You'll hear from them a little later.
00:59 When I look back at my ministry,
01:00 there have been three or four major epiphanies
01:03 that I will always cherish.
01:06 To me an epiphany is a personal supernatural revelation
01:09 given by God that illuminates your understanding
01:13 in a profound way.
01:15 They are God anointed perspectives
01:18 that have enriched my Christian life
01:20 more than words could ever explain.
01:22 The first epiphany I remember is the day I first realized
01:25 that God hears and answers prayer.
01:28 I was 16 years old
01:29 when I experienced my first answered prayer.
01:32 In my prayer I said, "Lord,
01:33 whatever You want me to do I'll do.
01:35 If you want me to be a garbage man,
01:37 I'm willing to be a garbage man."
01:38 And then I prayed, "Lord, You know I like to travel
01:41 and use my talents for You and if that's Your will for me,
01:45 open the doors, let me see in some way.
01:47 A day went by and two men came to me on the campus and said,
01:50 "Are you Wintley Phipps?"
01:52 I said, "Yes."
01:53 They said, "We've been hearing about you
01:55 and we want you to travel with us
01:57 and do singing evangelism."
01:58 I was dumbfounded, it was my first epiphany.
02:02 God answers prayer.
02:04 The second epiphany concerns the presence of God,
02:07 the understanding that we've been blessed by God
02:10 with the ability to feel and sense the presence of God.
02:14 The third epiphany was the understanding
02:17 that loving God is my life's greatest romance.
02:20 I'm in love with God, God is in love with me,
02:23 and loving God is my greatest romance.
02:26 Now when I bow my head and pray,
02:27 I feel like a blind woman
02:29 waiting on the arrival of her lover.
02:31 I can't see his face but I can sense his presence
02:34 and I can hear his voice.
02:36 Well, the epiphany we're gonna be talking about today
02:39 is the centrality and preeminence
02:42 of Christ likeness and the character of God.
02:45 Nothing in Christianity works without Christ likeness.
02:50 Christianity is a faith that will lose its way
02:55 without the central purpose of Christ likeness.
02:59 We'll be right back.
03:05 I feel blessed to be able to say
03:08 I have been in only one plane crash in my life
03:12 and more blessed
03:13 because I'm here to tell about it.
03:15 I was flying from Seattle to Spokane
03:17 on the small private plane
03:19 and as we came over the Cascade Mountains,
03:21 it was dark and raining,
03:23 suddenly we crashed on the tarmac.
03:26 You see the pilot had forgotten to put the wheels down.
03:31 Thankfully, we all survived.
03:34 But this miracle is a constant reminder to me
03:36 that in many cases,
03:38 we all really do want those
03:41 who serve us to strive for perfection.
03:46 It may be a physician who is caring for our diseases,
03:50 or the mechanic who is trying to make sure
03:53 that our car is in tip-top shape,
03:55 or even the athlete we pay money
03:58 to watch on game day,
04:00 or the teacher, we count on to educate our children.
04:04 We want those who serve us,
04:07 especially the pilots who fly our planes
04:11 to strive for perfection at all times.
04:16 We don't want anything less from them
04:19 than the pursuit of perfection all day,
04:23 everyday, and in the case of pilots,
04:26 every flight, every flight.
04:28 Why? Because too much is at stake.
04:32 How is it then that when it comes to serving God,
04:36 we see the pursuit of perfection as optional.
04:41 We see the pursuit of perfection as elective,
04:46 something left entirely up to our own discretion.
04:50 We even believe, we can cherry pick
04:52 where and how and when we want to put
04:55 our best foot forward to resemble,
04:58 reflect and reveal the character of God.
05:01 We invite God to come into our lives
05:03 and then tell Him what rooms are off limits.
05:06 We tell Him what habits and attitudes
05:09 we are serious about addressing,
05:11 and then we tell Him which ones we expect Him
05:14 to overlook.
05:17 Too often, this has crippled the advance
05:20 and effectiveness of God's kingdom
05:23 and it has stained its witness.
05:27 That is why we have professed followers of Jesus,
05:29 who fall anywhere it seems
05:31 along the continuum of dysfunctional human behavior
05:36 from showing contempt to strangers,
05:40 to holding a Bible in one hand
05:42 and the chains of slaves in the other.
05:46 If there's anyone who knows that we are not perfect
05:49 and cannot be perfect on our own,
05:52 it is God Himself.
05:55 Why then would He say to us, "Strive for perfection."
06:01 Matthew 5:48, He says, "Be ye therefore perfect,
06:07 even as Your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
06:10 Now it is true, none of us is perfect,
06:15 yet God has instructed us to pursue,
06:20 to pursue perfection.
06:22 And we've grown so used to living with our imperfections
06:27 that to us pursuing God's standard of perfection
06:31 seems like reaching for the stars.
06:33 You know, possible but highly unlikely.
06:38 Perhaps you've heard the name Vince Lombardi,
06:40 the coach of the Green Bay Packers,
06:43 who in a remarkable run let his team
06:46 to five NFL championships during the 1960's.
06:51 One day as he was motivating his team,
06:54 Lombardi said these words,
06:56 "Gentlemen, we will chase perfection
07:00 and we will chase it relentlessly,
07:03 knowing all along, we can never attain it."
07:08 But along the way, he said, "We shall catch excellence."
07:15 To reassure, be ye therefore perfect
07:17 is more than a motivational pep talk
07:20 on the football field of life.
07:23 It is fundamental
07:25 to living lives of blessing and victory.
07:27 For as we strive for perfection all day,
07:31 everyday, we may not attain it,
07:35 but we might just hit Christian maturity
07:39 along the way.
07:41 To say you know Jesus and love Him,
07:45 means you have committed yourself
07:47 to the relentless pursuit of resembling
07:51 and reflecting His character
07:54 all day, everyday, no excuses.
07:59 You commit yourself to this life journey
08:01 not when you feel like it
08:04 or when it is convenient, but all day,
08:08 everyday, no excuses.
08:11 You commit to it not so you can earn a ticket to heaven
08:16 but so you can do your best
08:18 to live up to your highest calling
08:20 and your supreme destiny,
08:22 which is to be a reflection
08:26 of His perfection.
08:29 As the moon reflects the light of the sun,
08:32 each one of us was made
08:34 to reflect the light of God's perfect character.
08:39 In our own way we must remember,
08:42 it was Jesus Himself who said, "Be ye therefore perfect."
08:47 He would have never said that to us,
08:49 if He didn't want us to try,
08:52 and if He didn't know that in His power we could succeed.
08:58 One writer said, they are those
09:00 who have known the pardoning love of Christ.
09:03 And who really desired to be children of God,
09:06 yet they realize that their character isn't perfect.
09:09 Their life faulty and they are ready to doubt
09:12 whether their hearts have been renewed
09:15 by the Holy Spirit.
09:16 To such I would say, do not draw back in despair,
09:20 we shall often have to bow down and weep at the feet of Jesus
09:24 because of our shortcomings and mistakes.
09:27 But we are not to be discouraged
09:29 even if we are overcome by the enemy.
09:33 We are not cast of, we are not rejected of God.
09:37 Jesus is at the right hand of God
09:40 making intercession for us.
09:48 At this point, when the pot is quite thin,
09:51 it's really easy to make adjustments to the form,
09:56 it's very responsive,
09:59 just a slightest touch, not a lot of force.
10:04 I think about that in terms of those of you
10:06 who have just been so in love with Jesus
10:09 for such a long time, you trust Him so much.
10:13 With just the slice nuance,
10:15 the slightest concept that He gives,
10:18 puts into your hearts and minds, and you're like,
10:20 "You bet, I want to do that, let's go.
10:23 Let's go do it."
10:25 We don't question Him so much anymore.
10:29 We're ready.
10:31 You know, I think of, think of Peter for example in the boat,
10:35 in the storm,
10:37 and he'd been around Jesus long enough
10:40 that he was ready to try new things
10:43 if Jesus would say to do it.
10:45 You see that's the key, in being formed by God.
10:50 You need to listen, you need to be open
10:53 to what He's doing and trust Him.
10:57 Hear and obey, He's a great God.
11:06 I'm gonna allow this pot to stiffen up a little bit,
11:12 get ready for the next step of its life,
11:15 very vital step.
11:20 When I'm finishing up a pot that I have thrown
11:22 while it's still wet, I will often choose to remove
11:27 by trimming a portion of the clay
11:31 so that it's not heavy.
11:35 At the end of making a pot, when it's still somewhat soft,
11:39 I flip it over upside down on the wheel
11:42 and I trim away the excess clay
11:45 that's there and I refine the form
11:47 in that process.
11:56 When you pick up a pot of mine and you examine it,
11:59 you look at the bottom of it and my name is written on it.
12:03 And that signifies the fact
12:05 that this pot was not made in a factory,
12:08 was not made by machinery
12:10 but it was made by a person,
12:11 it's an individually uniquely created thing.
12:16 In nature God has created seasons of life,
12:21 there's spring, there's summer, there's fall, there's winter.
12:24 In our own lives
12:26 and in the action of making pottery,
12:29 there are also seasons,
12:30 there are times of tremendous growth
12:32 and excitement.
12:34 There are times when everything seems to be dormant and still,
12:38 almost like a winter time in our lives.
12:41 There's a time when I make pot
12:43 in which I let it dry little bit
12:45 before I attach a handle, before I decorate it,
12:48 before I alter the shape a little bit
12:51 and that pot might feel like, "He's forgotten me."
12:55 But I've not, I'm just waiting for the perfect moment
12:59 and I'm watching for that time and He does the same with us.
13:05 Well, this pitcher is been shaped on the wheel
13:12 and it now has a handle,
13:16 from its perspective it's a complete pot.
13:20 But reality is that its story is not finished.
13:26 Even though it's a pitcher and its form is complete,
13:31 if I were to pour ice tea into it
13:33 or water and put flowers in,
13:36 in its raw state of clay, it would totally disintegrate,
13:41 and so it has to go through another stage,
13:45 actually several stages yet to come
13:48 before the story of this pitcher could be complete.
13:56 Joining us again are my guests, Ruthie Jacobsen,
13:59 Adly Campos and Pastor Errol Stoddart.
14:03 We were talking about having epiphanies and,
14:06 you know, one came to my mind, my wife said that
14:09 when we were recording,
14:12 we bumped into each other on the campus
14:14 and she was looking down at me and I was looking at her,
14:17 and she said the Lord spoke to her
14:20 and said there he is, he's gonna be your husband.
14:25 And she said she looked down at my platform shoes
14:27 and then looked up with my bell,
14:29 my bellbottom pants and said, "Okay, Lord.
14:32 Yeah, I suppose.
14:34 We've been together 41 years but it took an epiphany,
14:36 that's my point.
14:38 Amen.
14:39 But, Ruthie, you've had an epiphanies in your life
14:42 where God spoke to you in just incredible ways at just,
14:46 it was a majestic revelation that is stuck with you.
14:50 Maybe you can share one of those?
14:53 Well, one was an experience in London,
14:55 we took over a 100 teenagers over there
14:58 in European Prayer Conference at Glenbrook Park Academy,
15:01 and here we thought we were going to be
15:04 a blessing to them,
15:05 and I think the Lord used the kids
15:07 with Barry Peters over there.
15:09 But the most exciting that happened,
15:11 the most thrilling thing was that,
15:13 I think we had a plan from the enemy,
15:16 we had a kid who came with pornography
15:19 and all kinds of things from the wrong side.
15:23 And he was disruptive,
15:25 so we talked to him and we said,
15:27 "No, we can send you home
15:29 or we can give you another chance."
15:33 He said, "Don't send me home and so the kids prayed over him
15:38 and we just saw a miracle, we saw a miracle
15:43 and that it was the power of salvation working right there,
15:47 he was baptized,
15:49 and so we had thrilling things happened
15:51 with the kids that we took
15:53 than the kids that we were working with over there
15:55 that we could see the test of power of the gospel,
15:59 that's the power of the blood of Jesus.
16:01 Amen. Amazing.
16:03 Pastor Stoddart, tell us about an epiphany
16:05 that you would recall?
16:08 Well, every year for the first 40 days of the year,
16:11 I invite my church to fast and pray for 40 days,
16:14 first 40 days of the new year,
16:16 and this year around in the week number four,
16:19 we were fasting and praying, and in the first service,
16:21 I was on my knees in church and just crying out to God,
16:24 and the Spirit of the Lord just spoke to me
16:27 and almost is if I heard God say,
16:30 "Pine Forge app, the Pine Forge app."
16:33 And I got up of my knees
16:35 and I said to one of the elders,
16:36 remember Pine Forge.
16:38 And I never went to Pine Forge, it was never my academy.
16:43 Pine Forge is an academy in Pennsylvania,
16:45 beautiful place, the campus where our conference,
16:48 our office is stationed.
16:51 And so I got up off my knees,
16:53 said to the elder men, remember Pine Forge Academy.
16:56 And the Lord just kept that thing on my mind.
17:00 I called the principal, the vice principal, I said,
17:02 "The Lord told me to tell you the Pine Forge app."
17:06 And I called them, we worked on the Pine Forge app.
17:09 Now, Pine Forge Academy has an app.
17:11 This is one of the most,
17:13 one of the most enlightening moments
17:15 that God just spoke this thing to me
17:18 about a way to help Christian education,
17:20 to help our young people to be able to go to school,
17:24 to be able to afford Christian education.
17:27 So we launched the Pine Forge app at camp meeting
17:30 and it's just exciting to see people on board
17:33 downloading the Pine Forge app, watching sermons,
17:35 listening to the young people give their devotionals,
17:37 and giving to Pine Forge Academy.
17:39 Praise God. How about you, Sister Campos?
17:44 The one that I just, I'm amazed that is
17:48 when I was invited for the first time
17:51 to hold a week of prayer in the state of New York.
17:54 I have never done that before,
17:56 so I was a little afraid of accepting the invitation,
18:01 nevertheless, I accepted the challenge in God's name.
18:06 The church had 20 members
18:08 and I was to speak to the young people.
18:11 When I began speaking to the young people,
18:14 I began preaching in English,
18:17 because I knew they understood better the English
18:19 than the Spanish.
18:21 But then the parents wanted to understand
18:23 what I was saying to the young people
18:25 so I had to speak half English,
18:28 half Spanish back and forth
18:30 in order for everyone to understand
18:33 what I was saying.
18:34 I began to visit the young people in their homes.
18:38 And as I visited them,
18:39 I discovered that a lot of them were not baptized.
18:42 They have never been asked to be baptized,
18:44 so I invited each and every one of them
18:47 to give their lives to the Lord.
18:49 At the end of that week of prayer,
18:52 we had 20 baptisms for the glory of God.
18:55 Amen.
18:56 It was then that I understood that something has,
18:59 something for me to do in His work.
19:02 Not just as a mother of four,
19:05 or a wife of the pastor but now I,
19:07 it was my time to do something for the Lord
19:10 and He has done amazing things.
19:13 When I never dreamt that I could do anything like that,
19:18 He has used me and for His all around glory,
19:21 I continue to minister.
19:23 You know there is a scripture that says that,
19:25 "By one offering,
19:27 He has perfected those that are being sanctified."
19:33 Which is one of the greatest epiphanies of my life,
19:37 that God sees us as perfected,
19:42 while we're being sanctified.
19:45 God sees us as perfect while He is perfecting us.
19:51 Now, I wanted to ask you, Pastor Stoddart.
19:54 If we are perfect and God sees us as perfect,
19:58 while we're being sanctified,
20:02 is it possible that He sees us as perfect,
20:07 even though we may stumble,
20:09 even though we may make mistakes?
20:12 Oh, absolutely, absolutely and I love the fact,
20:16 you know, one of the epiphanies that I had many years ago
20:21 was coming in contact with the word,
20:24 the original word or perfection.
20:27 One of the words uses the word tamim.
20:29 And it means to walk with God.
20:33 And really, it is in the walking with God
20:37 that perfection happened.
20:38 Yes.
20:40 Most of the times we have been afraid of the word perfection
20:42 because we are thinking absolute behavioral conformity
20:47 with no possibility for failure.
20:49 Yes.
20:51 But it is about the walk, that daily walk.
20:56 As the Apostle Paul says, "Walk in the spirit
20:59 and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh."
21:02 And the idea is, that if I'm walking with God,
21:06 He's constantly grooming me
21:08 and moving me on this continuum,
21:11 the Lord's reflecting His character.
21:13 Yes, I want to share a thought and then have you react to it.
21:19 You know, when we get to heaven,
21:21 we will still be growing in character.
21:26 Absolutely.
21:27 So even, I mean even when we get to heaven,
21:32 we're still not as perfect as we're going to be.
21:39 And react to that, tell me what comes to your mind
21:42 when you hear that, that when we get to heaven,
21:45 we're still going to be growing,
21:47 we're still gonna be learning
21:49 more about the character of God.
21:51 As a matter of fact,
21:52 the sermon of the Lord says that,
21:55 the principles
22:00 of the character of God
22:03 form the foundation of the continuing education
22:09 of the angels in heaven.
22:12 So even the angels in heaven are still learning more
22:17 and more throughout eternity about the character of God.
22:21 And so I say, what is so deep, what is so vast,
22:26 that you can spend eternities studying it
22:30 and still not exhaust it.
22:32 So the perfection that God,
22:35 when God made us in His character,
22:37 He also made us to continue to grow,
22:40 just like plants grow,
22:41 just growth is a part of their process.
22:44 Sister Campos, as I see
22:45 and maybe the Lord has put in your heart
22:46 something you can share about that?
22:50 Well, it is amazing, amazing
22:54 to be able to study the character of God.
22:57 We have only but just a little tinsy bit of the light
23:01 about God's character.
23:04 So yes, I can understand that,
23:06 it will take all eternity to be able to understand
23:11 totally, completely.
23:13 He's beautiful, the perfection,
23:16 the sacredness of His character.
23:20 How would, Ruthie, what do you think about that?
23:23 Well, I agree with that.
23:27 And, you know,
23:28 it says something about God's love for us,
23:31 that He wants us to grow,
23:33 He wants us to become more and more fulfilled,
23:37 more and more able to minister and to be used and I...
23:43 It's overwhelming thought and I think we're gonna take,
23:47 it's gonna take eternity for us to try to thank Him...
23:51 Yes, absolutely. For being that kind of.
23:55 You know, I...
23:56 People often ask, you know,
23:58 "How do I know God's character?"
24:02 And I often tell them, study the word,
24:06 and by the way this is another epiphany for me.
24:09 This is a key God gave me that just blew my mind.
24:13 God said, "Go back and study the word."
24:16 And whatever God asked you to be in His word,
24:21 He already is.
24:24 Whatever He asked you to be in His word, He already is.
24:29 And He is so in perfection.
24:33 Absolutely.
24:35 So, you know, just think of that.
24:36 Go ahead, go ahead, Pastor.
24:38 You know, the thing that jumped out at me
24:40 as you were talking about it when He is at.
24:43 As a pastor, I'm doing a series on 1 Corinthians 13,
24:47 the love chapter and you know,
24:49 you talk about love suffers long,
24:51 it's kind, doesn't envy and you go down the lift,
24:54 you go, you look at Galatians,
24:56 Paul talks about fruit of the spirit,
24:59 and you look at all of that.
25:00 And each one of those individual subject matters
25:04 is a sermon.
25:05 Kindness is a sermon. Yes, right.
25:07 So imagine, if we are saying the character of God is loving,
25:12 kind, generous, merciful, good, great,
25:16 you talk about a subject matter
25:19 that you can study into infinity
25:22 and still not complete it.
25:23 Yes.
25:25 Because even when I finish writing a sermon
25:26 and I look at it and I listen to it, if I do,
25:29 I see how many things I missed in the sermon.
25:32 Yes.
25:33 How many things I didn't cover in that subject matter.
25:36 And so, you know, many authors have written on these subjects
25:40 and they still have not exhausted it
25:43 and so it is with God.
25:45 We will have eternity and still not exhaust
25:47 the study of His character.
25:48 Absolutely, and we'll have eternity to grow more,
25:52 to become more like the character of God.
25:54 Thank you so much for being with me today.
26:00 Many years ago, in the 1950s,
26:03 a pastor was traveling on a Greyhound bus.
26:05 He was seated next to a college student,
26:08 who noticed when the pastor pulled out his Bible
26:10 and began to read.
26:12 When they came to a rough stretch in the road,
26:15 the ride became really rough and bumpy.
26:18 As the bus started to jostle them around,
26:20 the pastor asked the young man,
26:21 "Are you ready for the temptations
26:23 you will face in college?"
26:25 The young man said to the pastor,
26:27 "I don't have a problem with temptation,
26:30 I've strong willpower.
26:31 And the minister quietly took a pencil
26:33 out of his pocket and said,
26:34 "Would you like to see me make this pencil stand up
26:37 on the cover of this Bible,
26:39 even though our bus is going down a very bumpy road?"
26:42 The young man said, "I'll believe it when I see it,
26:45 I don't think you can do that."
26:46 "See there" said the pastor, "I'm doing it."
26:49 The young man laughed and said, "But you didn't tell me,
26:52 you would hold up the pencil with your hand."
26:55 "I didn't have to tell you,"
26:56 the pastor said.
26:58 "Have you ever seen a pencil stand up on its own
27:00 without someone holding it?"
27:02 The pastor then let go of the pencil,
27:04 it shuttered and fell over.
27:06 "The only reason you stand"
27:08 the pastor said to the young man,
27:10 "is because God is holding you up with His hand.
27:13 If God were to remove His hand of protecting grace,
27:17 you like all of us would immediately fall into sin."
27:22 And so whatever perfection
27:24 we attain along the way belongs to Jesus.
27:28 While God Himself uses that word liberally,
27:31 with great hope and optimism,
27:34 many today have begun to see it as offensive.
27:37 God has made Himself crystal clear.
27:41 He wants His people to strive for perfection.
27:48 I'm Wintley Phipps.
27:50 Thank you for being with us today
27:52 and, remember,
27:53 to be a Christian means to be Christ like.


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Revised 2018-01-18