“Some things are better left unsaid.” Have you ever heard that piece of advice? It’s a good one. Especially when it’s applied to other bits of advice we often hear. Phrases like “Follow your heart!” or “Speak your truth!” sound helpful on the surface. But when you actually apply this awful advice in your life, you’ll see the results are not what you hoped they’d be. The good news is, there’s a better way to a better life—far better than living by one-sentence slogans that don’t actually work. Behind every piece of awful advice we can find a timeless truth from God that, when lived out in practice, will change our lives for the better.

We can practice, we can train, we can work. But no matter how hard we try, we will never reach perfection. So, thank God perfection is not the goal! The sooner that we realize perfection is impossible, the better off our life will be. When we understand this, we are freed from a life of endlessly pursuing an unattainable goal. Instead, God calls us to a life of better—taking steps towards him and the future he has in mind for us.

 So that brings us to today and I want to say first off, happy Mother's Day to all of our mothers out there. Can we give you a round of applause? Fellas, if you have not gotten the lady in your life, the the mother and your life a gift yet, I have a recommendation, okay? You don't need to run to, you know to Target or anything for this one. In fact this this one is kind of more specifically for if you've got a mother in your life and have young children. So this this little tip, you want to give her something you haven't bought anything yet? And you're like, oh, man, how do I get out of hot water? This is what you can do. And this is something that my wife, Jessica constantly is like, hey, you want to give me a fantastic gift? Just do this. Essentially, let her disappear without a trace for a day. Just let her yeah, let her go into the witness protection program for 24 hours. A new name. New life somewhere else. Get away for a little bit. Costs you nothing and it means everything right means. 

But for real. We are we're so thankful for all the moms here, Cornerstone, you guys are incredible. You're amazing. Cornerstone, I feel like our church has some of the greatest women leaders that I know of just so thankful. I don't know how you guys balance everything. But you do it somehow. And it's incredible. It really, really is. 

So today we are finishing up our "Follow Your Heart and Other Awful Advice" series. Man, I hope this has been helpful to you. I hope that it's spoke to you in different ways. I know God's really been challenging me as I've been preparing these sermons. I know last week was fantastic. Pastor Brenda brought the word last week, it was so stinking good. So good. God's really been challenging me. Today is the one that I really got hit over the head with, like God was really hitting me or hitting me hard with. And I wanna let you know, if you've missed any of these weeks, you can always catch up on our website, you can check out our archives and watch any of these if you have missed any of the Sundays. 

But today, what we're going to be talking about actually lines up perfect with Mother's Day. I didn't even plan it this way. But as I was laying out the topics for each week and realize what would be falling on Mother's Day, I'm like man, this is going to be perfect for Mother's Day because what we're talking about today is perfection. Perfection. Now I know you're like oh how sweet. You think mothers are perfect? Yes, absolutely. That's not the angle we're going with it. But sure, why not? What we're talking about today is perfection in the sense that do you feel that perfection is expected of you? Do you feel that perfection is expected of you, maybe from culture, right? Maybe culture is giving you this idea of what you should be like as a woman, as a mother. This is applicable for everybody, dads, maybe you have an idea of what culture is saying it should be that you should be as a father, in your family, maybe it's an expectation of perfection that other people are putting on you. People in your family, people in your friends group. Or maybe, maybe this expectation of perfection that you're striving towards is something that you've put on yourself. Maybe you're the one expecting perfection out of you, wherever it is, whatever your thing is, don't, don't lie to yourself. You are striving for perfection, somewhere, you're either striving for perfection, or you've decided perfection is never going to be able to happen. So you've stopped striving at all. One of those two things, every single person in this room, everybody watching online, you will find yourself in one of those two camps. Perfection is just something that's out there. And it's a constant temptation for us to strive for it. 

My my wife, Jessica, we laugh every time the song comes on the radio, we we listen to country music. You can you can either be cool with that, or you can be praying for us. I don't know where you fall on on the spectrum of country music lover, right? But we listen to country music and there's a song on the radio right now. It's relatively new. I can't think who sings it for the life of me. But it's called "How to Be a Lady." Anybody know this song? Hallelujah. I see that one hand. Amen. I see one hand back there. All right. Well, this the song, what it is, is it's a man wrote the song and he wrote it for his wife. And essentially, the song is being sung. Like he's singing it to his daughter. And the whole point of the song is, sweetheart if you want to grow up to be a lady and you know, be a great person, a great woman, just watch your mom, watch her. She does. And it's a really sweet song. But there's a line in it that every single time it comes on me and Jessica laugh and Jessica is like you have right? Because every single time you get to this line, he's singing to his daughter. He said he's saying like honey, just watch your mom and he says this line "You'll see close to perfect patience if you watch her every move." Every time that part comes on Jessica's like yeah, right. His wife ain't buying that. She's like yeah, come on, dude. Like, really close to perfect. Like no, I lose my mind every now and then. Like, I am not perfectly patient in every situation. And this is like a standard being set.

Oh yeah, perfect patients handles everything perfectly, and you just can't live up to it. Like, there's no way anyone can live up to perfection. In fact, listen what to what the Apostle Paul says about perfection, we're going to be reading from the book of Philippians. This is a letter that the Apostle Paul, one of Jesus's earliest and most influential followers, in fact, the reason a lot of us are here today is because of the Apostle Paul in the way that he fulfilled God's call on his life. This is what the Apostle Paul says about perfection as he is writing to this church, in the city of Philippines. He says this in chapter 3, starting in verse 10, "I want to know Christ - yes, to know the power of his resurrection, and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him, and his death." You see, this is a goal that the Apostle Paul had. This is a goal, to know Christ, to know the power of his resurrection, and to become like him. This is his goal, I would wager, this sounds like a perfection goal, right? To be to become like Christ, and to become like Him not just on his mountaintop moments, but to become like him in his death. That's Paul's wish. Verse 11, "And so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead, 12 not that I have already obtained this." Not that I've already reached perfection, or I've already arrived at my goal. "But I press on, to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not," he just hammers the whole point home here. He's like, Look, "I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. I am not. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what's ahead, I press on, toward the goal to win the prize which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Amen." Amen. 

Hey, would you guys bow your heads with me real quick, wherever you're at. And let's pray together real quick. Father, God, we thank you for the power of your word. We know that wherever your word is spoken, it never returns void, it always accomplishes what it sets out to do. And we're believing that in this moment that your Word as we read it today, as we studied it today, as we meditate on it and allow it to speak to us, we believe that it will not return void, that it will accomplish in our lives, what it was set out to do. So God prepare us today clear our hearts and our minds of any distractions to hear from you so we can take what we hear today, apply it in our lives and see ourselves become more and more like Jesus. We love you. We pray all this in your name, amen. 

And then hey, why don't you turn to the person next to you and say, I'm not perfect. I'm not perfect, put it in the chat, I'm not perfect. And then you can say back to them. I know. I know. What else is new. I am not perfect today. If you're taking notes. The sermon title for today is "Practice Makes Perfect." Practice makes perfect. You ever hear this? Before this piece of advice that practice makes perfect, I particularly hate this piece of advice. Because I'm a recovering perfectionist. Man, my perfectionist tendencies, they run deep. Like I am a perfectionist not in every area. But in the areas that I am a perfectionist, I still to this day have to struggle to fight those tendencies and those feelings I have towards perfectionism. I know whenever I'm writing an email, this is ridiculous, a three sentence email could take 30 minutes for me, because I'm just obsessing over the right wording. And, you know, somehow it'll be a three sentence email, but I'll have seven exclamation points in there. And like, how did that work? Like how does that work? Right? Because I'm just obsessing over making sure it sounds just right. Because I'm a perfectionist. This, this will show you how deep my perfectionism goes, on my iPhone there are certain apps that people have recommended to me they're like, man, this thing is a game changer. It will change the way you organize your life. It'll change. It's It's so fun. It's great. It's all this awesome stuff. And I'll go I'll look it up on the App Store. And if the look of the app icon, if the aesthetic of it is not pleasing to my eye, I won't download it. Because I don't want it to jack up the way that my home screen looks. I don't want it to, I just I can't do it. I have a sickness, you need to be praying for your pastor. 

Man, my lawn, I went total dad the second that I got a house. Like I went from not caring about lawns at all and being like, what's this whole thing with dad's mowing and taking care of their lawn? As soon as I got a house. I'm like, I'm all about it. I'm about that lawn life. You know? Like I love it. I love making sure it looks really good and everything's nice. I'm a perfectionist about it. Like I was actually just talking with Owen in between services about it, we've got a big yard, it's like 10,000 square foot yard, it's a good size. And instead of a riding mower, I have a push mower. And I don't want a riding mower, because you can't get as precise with a riding mower as you can with a push. So I'll be out there for an hour pushing that thing that could be done in 20 minutes on a riding mower, right? Because I am a perfectionist. 

I see it a lot in whenever I prepare for my sermons, I see my perfectionist tendencies, the way I can obsess over how things are worded. The way I can obsess over, man, let me try to come up with as many points as I possibly can, hoping that I can find at least one or two that are perfect. I just really drive the point home that people really connect with and they remember today. And I do this with my iPhone, with my emails, with my lawn with my sermons because I believe that practice makes perfect. If I just keep working harder. If I just keep trying harder. If I just pour more sweat, and more blood and more tears into this thing, it's going to be perfect one of these days, it's going to be just exactly what I want it to be. I just need to try harder, and then perfection will be attainable, then my lawn will look exactly how I dreamed it would be, then that email will just be right. It'll just be perfect. The email will find them well, because it's so good, right? Like, I just put all this into it because I'm like man, perfection can happen. It's just right there. I just need to try harder. Right? 

Let's see what Paul says. Let's see what God says. Because as I've said before, as Pastor Brenda said before, we're not here to hear Pastor Jacobs opinion. Like I'm sure you all like me and I like you. But we're not here because we're hearing a self help seminar from Pastor Jacob on how to manage our life. No, we're here to see what life transformation can happen from God whenever he speaks. So let's see what he says about this, what he says about perfection. And we see from the Apostle Paul, he sets up this goal, right? We just run this goal of knowing Christ, that this is his goal. And to me, that's that's a perfectionist goal. To know Christ so well to know Jesus so much that you become like him in his death. That is perfection, if I've ever heard it described before, becoming exactly like Jesus. And whenever we look at the Apostle Paul, and we look at his life, what he did, my word, did anyone come closer to perfection than him? I mean, this is a man who wrote two thirds of the New Testament, are his letters that he wrote to churches that he started. This man went all over the Mediterranean rim, started planting churches, feeding into churches in an area that was completely and utterly hostile to the Gospel. They didn't want to hear about how they were sinners. They didn't want to hear about how there's one God, they didn't want to hear that. And Paul goes in these situations. And he starts churches here. And he he builds them up. And because of all this, because of his letters, because of his ministry, because of all the things he did, this man was shipwrecked multiple times. He was beaten with whips, he was stoned with rocks. He was beat to within an inch of his life more times than we can count, he suffered so much. 

And so whenever we look at his life, and we go, well, if anyone can say that they got their goal, if anyone could say I have achieved perfection, it would have to be the Apostle Paul. I mean, this dude was as untouchable as it gets. Yet, what did he say? Philippians 3:12, "Not that I have already obtained this, or have already arrived at my goal." I'm not there. I'm not there. And we know when Paul wrote this letter to the Philippians. He is towards the end of his life. Most scholars say this letter was written probably in about the year 62AD, which would have put this just a year, two or three before Paul's execution. So this is near the end of his life. This is after he's planted all these churches, after he's written all these letters, after he has suffered so much for the cause of Jesus. And still he is saying, Yeah, I'm not there. I'm still not there. This goal, this goal out here, I have not obtained it. I have not arrived at my goal. But I press on. "But I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." 

You see what Paul is saying, and what we can see here is that he didn't make it. Perfection is unattainable. It's unattainable if Paul couldn't get it, if Paul set out this perfection, this idea of hitting this goal that's just so perfect, and he couldn't hit it, man, what hope do you or I have? Like what hope do we have, if Paul wasn't able to hit this goal of being perfect? So whenever we talk about practice makes perfect, oh, practice makes perfect, man, that is awful advice. It does not, practice does not make perfect. Practice makes habits, right? Practice builds a foundation. But practice makes perfect, absolutely not. Nothing makes perfect, there is no perfect that we on our own can achieve. It cannot happen. It's awful advice. In fact, if you find yourself living for perfection, if you have some kind of goal out there of what you should physically look like, some idea out there of what kind of Mom, you should be some idea out there, what kind of Dad you should be, what kind of employer, what kind of student, what kind of boss, what kind of employee you, you have this idea out there of what perfection looks like, the sooner you stop living for that, the better off you'll be. Because you are never going to hit it. You're just, you're never going to hit it. 

And what's going to happen is one of two things, you're either going to kill yourself and break yourself trying to strive for it. Or you're going to settle for mediocrity because you're going to try for it realize you can't hit it and say why even bother? Why even bother? I'm never going to be a mom like she is so why invest all this time? Why try so hard if I'm never going to live up to that? My family's never gonna have family dinners like they do, where they sit around and they love on each other. And they talk about, you know, really tough issues and all this different stuff. We can't we can't do anything without fighting and screaming at each other. So why even bother? You'll either kill yourself, you'll break yourself or you'll settle for mediocrity thinking why bother at all? 

So again, I will say it one more time, the quicker we realize perfection is unattainable, the better off our life will be. The quicker we realize that those people on Instagram are not perfection that I think perfection is, that's Photoshop. That's what that is. That ain't perfection. That's Photoshop. That's called editing. It's cropping, like cropping the craziness of the rest of the house out of the picture. So it looks great, right? We're chasing something that's not real. We can never attain perfection, the quicker we realize that the better off we will be. 

We'll be less stressed, we'll be happier. Can I tell you that whenever you are striving for perfection, whenever you are working so hard and you're practicing because practice makes perfect, right? Whenever you do that, it will kill your joy in life. It just it will rob you of any joy that you have in life because you'll find yourself comparing where you're at to this perfect ideal of where you should be. You will constantly be looking at well here's where I am and that's where I should be. Oof. Like you will just be robbed of any joy you have. 

I think about that with my house. I already said earlier I'm big lawn guy, like I love our house looking good. I like the lawn looking good. And I remember whenever we first moved there, it took me about three to four mows before I got it down like I had then. I was like alright, this is how I mow now every time, I start circling the house and then I outline the house and then I go back and forth and it looks, it looks so good. It's just like the grass is nice and green looks awesome. Took me about three or four months to get it there. And then I had it down to a science and I love it and it takes the same amount of time and it just it looks so good. I'm so proud of it afterwards. But then one day, I can't even remember why, I got on Google and looked up our house on street view which I can't I can't even remember why I did this, but I looked at it on street view and the picture is from before we bought the house and the previous owners, the previous owners these people were no joke. Like they had an irrigation system installed, like they were all about that gardening life. Like they were all all about it, and so whenever you look at our house on street view like it's outrageous. It looks so good, how they did it, they like completely circle the house with like concentric circles, and it's like spilling out from the landscaping bed, it looks it looks amazing. You want to know how good I felt about my mowing job after I saw that picture? Like, man, it looks like the person who does Progressive Field did their house. And then here's me with a little push mower. Here we go. It looks it looks trash compared to it. 

And it's crazy because I saw this perfection and instantly lost my joy. And you want to know what happened? My two immediate reactions to seeing how good the house looked, I wanted to do one of two things. Spend way more time out there killing myself trying to make it look even remotely like that. Or why even bother? Why even bother? Why even, like goodness sakes, this is what our neighbors were accustomed to? People having a houset that looks like this? Well then I mean, I won't put as much time into it cause I'm obviously never going to hit that. 

Trying to live up to perfection will have you either killing yourself or having yourself settle for mediocrity, because why even bother? It's easy to also see, as we chase perfection, what it can do is it can make us not happy for other people's success. Have you seen that happen? I've experienced that, I can be vulnerable enough to admit I've experienced this, that as I'm striving for this idea of perfection, if I see other people seemingly get closer to it than I am, I'm not happy for him. I'm jealous. I want that. Can I be real? Whenever I see other churches right now who are going through building campaigns, it's easy for me to say, well, we probably be there too, if we had a few millionaires in our church. Yeah, we'd probably be there too if we had all of the resources and all of the stuff that you have going for you, it's so easy for me to go there rather than - That's amazing. God is advancing his kingdom. That's so great. I'm so happy for him. It's crazy how easy it is to go there, to not be happy for someone else's success. Because I'm comparing. Because they're getting a little too close to that perfection that I want for me. It's hard. And I have to fight that. I have to fight that urge to not be happy for other people's success because man striving for perfection. It robs joy. 

And another thing that it does, whenever you look to achieve perfection in your life, it will turn you into someone you hate. Not dislike, someone you hate. It will make your life something you hate. The Browns this last year, if you're a Browns fan, how stinking fun was that season? Like my word they go 11 and five, they win a playoff game against the Steelers. It's like amazing. It was so stinking good. And if you would ask 100 Brown fans how they felt about that season, 99 of them, probably 100 would say they're ecstatic. The season went way better they that they could have ever hoped for. But they went 11 and five. They didn't win the Super Bowl like they lost in the second round of the playoffs. And yet we're ecstatic. We're thrilled, we're happy. Compare that with the New England Patriots team that went 19. And one. They were 19-0, going into the Super Bowl, lose on a miracle catch that sustains this touchdown drive against the New York Giants and they lose. And you want to know after that game was over in the weeks that followed as more and more players were interviewed and asked about the season, and how they felt about it. You want to know what the majority of them said? They just felt a sense of relief that it was finally over. Because the season had stopped being fun for them. As they hit 8-0, 9-0, 10-0. And now suddenly, what was fun and what was easy, and what was, man we're just, we're on this winning streak suddenly became we got to keep this going. Like we have a chance for perfection. We have a chance to finish the season. Perfect. We can't have any miscues. We can't mess up. No one can drop the ball, no one can be offset, like we just we have got to be perfect. And so whenever they lost, of course, there was sadness and, you know, frustration, but there was a sigh of relief, like, well, thank God that's over. And we can just reset. 

When you chase perfection, it will turn things that you love into things that you hate. I loved mowing our lawn. It was fun. It was a stress reliever. After I see that picture? Suddenly, I'm like, I gotta mow the lawn again. Because this thing that I love doing suddenly had this idea of what perfect would look like, and I knew I could never live up to it. And it robbed me of my joy and that robbed the patriots of their joy, and in the areas of your life where you are chasing this ideal of perfection or you have stopped chasing at all, it is robbing you of your joy in life. Don't allow that to happen. Don't allow that to happen. Don't allow this ideal of perfect to ruin you. 

You see perfect is a problem. Can we just admit that? Tell the person next to you, perfect is a problem. Can we just admit that? Put it in the chat today, perfect is a problem. I feel like we need to actually vocalize that and say that because we may be like oh yeah, I would agree with that perfect problem, but we still live for perfection. We still compare ourselves to perfection. We need to declare this and internalize this and truly believe that you know what? I can't attain perfection. And that's okay. That's okay, because thank God, he never asked for us to be perfect. He never asked for you to be perfect. Perfect has never been the goal, it's always been better. The goal has never been, I expect perfection out of you, I expect you to be perfect. That has never been the goal, the goal has always been, be better. Just be better. No, don't be perfect. Just be better, just be better than you were the day before. Since the Garden of Eden, perfect has been off of the table. So we can just put to death, this idea that we need to be the perfect husband, the perfect wife, the perfect spouse, the perfect employer, it's not going to happen. Perfect is off the table. And God doesn't ask for perfect, he asks for better. 

My daughter Evelyn, she's playing t-ball right now, she's five years old. And if there's ever two words that don't belong together, it's perfection and five-year-old t-ball, they don't belong in the same vocabulary. It's shocking, we can use the same words to describe both things. Because let me tell you it is, it's difficult to watch if your kids not in it, right? So Evelyn's playing t-ball. And whenever, when she was first starting to learn how to play, we would go outside. And, you know, just try to teach her some stuff. And one of the things I was trying to show her is fielding, because in t-ball, none of these kids are hitting pop ups. They're barely getting the ball off the ground. So it's all dribblers. And so I'm teaching her how to get in front of the ball, so it doesn't get past you. So the first couple of times rolling the ball towards her. If the balls coming in alignment here, Evelyn standing as far off to the side as she can, and putting her mitt down right, she's she's afraid the balls gonna pop up and hit her or something. But if you've played baseball, watch baseball, anything you know, you need to get in front of the ball, you want to stop the ball either with your mitt or with your body, you don't want to get past him. So I kept telling her no honey, you want to get right in front of it, get your body center of gravity right in front of the ball and get hunched down so you can feel it. And man, it would take forever right? She started to do it good for a little bit, but then would revert right back to this. But gradually, as she's had practices as we played outside, as she's had games, she's starting to get her center in front of the ball. It's amazing seeing it happen every single day. She's getting a little better. She's not perfect. But that was never what I asked her to be. I never asked and I never expected perfection out of her. I just want her to be better. Just every single time we go out, then we roll the ball just do a little bit better, honey, just do a little bit better. If you start to backtrack, hey, we'll get you back on track. But just do better. Just do better. That's all I have ever asked of her. Not perfection, just better. 

Like Paul says in Philippians 3:13, he is straining towards what's ahead. He's straining towards it. He's taken step by step. He has not achieved that goal of knowing Christ perfectly. He has not attained that goal of knowing Christ exactly how he should. But he is straining towards it a little better, every single day. A little better, a little better. Just the next step. So I want to ask you, what's your next step? What is that area of your life that you are either killing yourself or you're settling for mediocrity? Because you know, you can't live up to perfection? What's that area? Because whatever that area is for you, you can put to death, this notion that you need to be perfect and start living for better. Perfect was never asked of you. It was never expected of you. Better is all that God has ever asked. We see that so clearly from the Apostle Paul, this man who in almost every area of his life to us, it looks like he was perfect in his walk with Christ. And even he's saying no, I wasn't there. But I was trying to get better. Every day I was straining towards what is ahead. We just need to remind ourselves that it's better, not perfect. Better, not perfect. Tell the person next to you better, not perfect. Declare it to yourself. We need, man, we've got to break ourselves of this. We've got to break ourselves of this idea that God is just sitting up there expecting perfection from us. That is never been the case since Eden that has been off the table. God is not expect that. He just wants us to be better. Don't allow yourself to get bogged down by perfectionism because that's exactly what will happen if you chase perfection if you live for perfection. It will bog you down. 

Perfection is the enemy of progress. It will keep you stalled out in your life. If you keep chasing after perfection. I know that in my own life. I'm not just a perfectionist. I'm a procrastinating perfectionist, right? You see what that means is I don't procrastinate because I'm lazy. I don't procrastinate because I have better things to do. I procrastinate because I am waiting for the perfect moment. I'm waiting for whenever I'm in the perfect state of mind, I'm waiting for all of these other variables to be perfect to get started. And so I pump this thing that I know I need to do for myself, for my family, for my house, I just keep kicking that can down the road into some infinite tomorrow, which is never going to come. Because there is no perfect time. It's never going to happen. There's no moment where I'm going to be the perfect version of myself, to take on what I know I need to do. Perfection is the enemy of progress. It just stalls us out. 

My daughter, Eden, she's my oldest, she is a perfectionist, she comes across it honestly. She really does. So much comes natural to her cuz she's a very gifted little girl she just is. She's got a little singing voice. She loves reading and it came very naturally to her. She's reading. But the other day, she opened up the New York Times I'm like, well, let's, let's close that I don't want you reading about like conflict in the Middle East right now. Like you're seven. Let's enjoy seven right now before we get to global politics, right? She reads so easily that it just comes natural to her. But if something doesn't come natural to her, she takes about five minutes with it. And she's done. She's done. So she'll drop and go, this is the worst. This is just this is the worst. Like watch. Like, I just don't get it like, we have a Nintendo Switch. We got it for Christmas. One of the games that we got was Luigi's Mansion 3, just a really fun game. But man, you don't learn how to play it naturally. Like it doesn't just come to you, like you need to, you need to practice for a little bit need to figure out all the combo moves and everything like that. But it's a fun game. Man Eden, she started playing that for a few minutes and then just dropped those moans like I'm done with this. And it's because her little perfectionist tendencies. If it doesn't come natural to her, she can be so frustrated and feel so down on herself and feel like I'm never going to get this, I'm not good enough to understand how to play it. 

And you and I can do the exact same thing. We procrastinate, we push off what we know we should do because we're waiting until we're perfect or the situation is perfect. And that day is never going to come. Perfection is the enemy of progress. Perfect kills our progress. So that person that you need to talk to about Jesus that you you know, you want to talk to them about their walk with God, you're waiting for the perfect time. That time is never going to come. It's just not. You're that person who you're bouncing from relationship to relationship, looking for the perfect guy like he ain't coming, he ain't out there. You're gonna be you're gonna be bouncing for a while. No, nope, nope, nope, nope. Like, there is no perfect guy. There is no perfect girl. There is no perfect time for that conversation. Right? If you keep waiting for perfect, it will never come. If you're looking at following Jesus in your life, but you're waiting for that perfect time. Because right now you've got a lot going on and you're busier right now. You're so young that you're just gonna live it up for a little bit and then you'll follow Jesus whenever you're ready. There is no perfect time to start following Jesus except right now. In fact, the only thing that's going to happen if you keep procrastinating that is later on in life, you're going to look back and say, man, I wish I wouldn't have put it off. Man, I wish I would have started when I was young. I wish I would have had that talk months ago, I wish I would have realized that I can't look for perfection in another person, I'm putting an expectation they'll never be able to live up to. Like you're going to get years down the road and realize man, perfection was such an enemy of my progress. I'm not at all where I should be in life because I was looking for something perfect rather than looking for something better. 

Perfect, is the enemy of progress, it will waste our time when the fact is everything, and hear me on this, everything that you need to do in your life, everything you need to do that God has called you to do, you don't have to wait for it. You have it now. Like you don't need to wait for some perfect day out in the future that will never come, you have everything that you need at this exact moment right now. If God has called you to do it, he has equipped you to see it through. So essentially what we need to do is stop waiting for what we want. Stop waiting for perfect moments for perfect people, for us to be perfect. Stop waiting for what we want and start working with what we have. Just start. Absolutely just start working with what you have. Start working with what God has already given you in place in your hands. Stop waiting. Just stop waiting and start getting to work. You have what you need. I have what I need. I have everything to do what God has called me to do, to be the kind of husband I need to be, the kind of Dad I need to be, the kind of pastor, the kind of friend, I have everything I need to do all of those things right now. I don't need to wait. There's nothing that can add to it to make it perfect. I have everything I need to see that through right now. Work with what you have and just take that step towards better. 

Do you know the Apostle Paul, we wouldn't have gotten any letters, he wouldn't have started a single church, he wouldn't have done anything worth value if he waited for perfect. If he would have said, you know what, yes, Jesus, - Jesus appears to me on the road to Damascus changes my life, I see how things are now. And you know what, as soon as I get good resources, and as soon as I get a good team around me, and as soon as we plot out a perfect plan, and as soon as I understand the the doctrine behind Jesus, and what we are teaching, as soon as I get all of this perfect, then I'll go with it. We wouldn't have two-thirds of the New Testament, we wouldn't be here. Like we wouldn't have churches in the way that we have churches, we wouldn't have any of this stuff if he waited for the perfect moment. Instead, the apostle Paul worked with what he had. Jesus called him. And Paul believed you know what, if he is calling me to do this, to take his word forward, I'm just going to believe him that he's going to equip me, he's not going to call me towards something that I'm not qualified to handle. He is going to equip me as I go. And I'll be able to see this thing through. 

Paul worked with what he had and took steps towards better every single day, Paul never had a perfect situation, read his story, read about his life in Acts, read about, read his different letters. And you can see the trials and tribulations this man went through. It's incredible what he faced. Do you know what we're reading today, what we're looking at from Philippians, this was written from a jail cell. He was in chains when he wrote Philippians. We know that he probably wrote this letter in about 62AD, which means that he was within the last year or two of his life, which means all of these things had already been done, right? He's about to go to his execution, he is about to be beheaded by the Roman Empire for his faith in Jesus. And he's still just working with what he has. He's in this terrible situation. And he's not waiting for a release to write a letter. He's not waiting for, man, once once I get out of here, and I'm in a better circumstance, then I'll write them. No, he just he just does it. He just does. He just works with what he has moment by moment, taking steps towards better. 

That's what Jesus did. We see this theme repeat itself over and over again, throughout Scripture. God works with what we have. He just works with what we have whenever Jesus fed the 5,000. Did he scan the crowd and think, okay, well, we need that we need exactly 10,000. So everybody can have two and we need this much bread and this much fish. He did not do that. They found a young boy who had a lunch and Jesus just said, what do you got? What do you have? No, I'm not asking for perfection. I'm not asking for excellent saying, no, we need exactly this. I'm just saying, hey, in this situation, what do you have that I can work with? And are you going to trust me with it? Are you going to trust with that boy did, and that lunch ended up providing food for everybody? Because he was faithful with what he had. He wasn't waiting for perfect circumstance. He just came to God said yeah, this is what I have. And aren't you thankful we have a God that that's what he asks, is what do you have? Not, not how do you live up to my ideals? Not how do you live up and fulfill every letter of the law? No, he just says what do you have? Where are you at? Where are you at? And how can I meet you there? And how can I take where you're at and redeem it? That's the kind of God that we serve. A God who asks what do you have. A God that doesn't ask for perfect, but asks for better. 

Cornerstone, we know what it looks like to be in the middle of better because we are sitting in better like this building. Right? Yeah, absolutely. This building, this building, is it is it perfect? Nah, like it's it's really not. It's really not. It's a great building. But man it needs paint. It needs it needs updates. It needs stuff done all over the place and flooring and paint on the walls and you know, new lights too. It needs a lot. Needs a lot of work. Not perfect. But it's better. You know where we were before this? Nowhere. We existed one day a week as a church at Coventry elementary school where you could find us as a church one day a week. This is better. It's not perfect. And if we would have waited for perfect, we would still not have a church home. Because we would be sitting out here looking for some 35,000 square foot building that's all ready to go. And somehow it barely costs any money. And we're able to meet in it from day one. Like that's what perfect looks like and it's not real. It doesn't exist. We would be waiting forever. 

But instead, we decided, you know what, this is better. And we can make this better. Right? I want to tell you we just in the last two weeks, we had a couple come stop by the office, drop off a $20,000, check $20,000 check for the building campaign. Isn't that amazing? $20,000. And because of that, because of faithful people like that, who were saying, hey, I'm just giving what I have. We're taking steps towards better. We just had the construction crew on site yesterday, they were here taking a few more measurements to help them with their drawings and their renderings for for the proposed addition and renovation. I mean, we're taking steps, like we are taking steps towards better and it's because we knew perfection isn't real, that it is it's a myth. And if we live for that, we will watch life pass us by. We're not going to do it. We as a church are going to continually take steps towards better just making things better, we're going to stop waiting, and start working. 

And as we do that, not just collectively as a church, but as we do that, as individuals, whenever we realize you know what I'm going to stop waiting for perfect. I'm just going to start working for better today. When we do that, we realize something that is a game changer. We realize that perfect is a destination. But better is a decision. You see the Apostle Paul, when he talked about perfect? What kind of language did he use? I haven't arrived yet. I haven't obtained it yet. Right? That's what he's hearing. He's, he's, he's saying it's this thing out here. It's this place that I get to. But being better? Him straining and striving towards that, that is a daily decision that he made. And that is the truth with us. Perfection man, it is a destination that we will get to one day, we'll get to one day, one day Jesus is going to redeem us, not just our souls that he's already done, whenever we put our faith, our trust in him, he's going to redeem us in our desires, in our wills, in such a way where all that we want is what he wants. Where all we desire is what he desires. That is coming one day. It's coming one day, and that is the destination that Paul talked about. To know, Jesus, that is perfection. But we're not there yet. We're not there yet. Perfect is a destination, better is a consistent, daily steadfast choice to pick up our cross and be better than we were the day before. 

The word sin, the word sin. It's a tricky word for a lot of Christians, right? A lot of us are man, we don't talk enough about sin in church, and other ones, oh, we talk too much about sin. Right? And we all have our own idea of what sin is. And it's this and this is what sin is. If you look up in Scripture, if you look at the actual Greek that that was written, that was the language that all of the New Testament texts were written in whenever you look up the word sin, what the word sin literally means it's a Greek word, harmatia. And it means to miss the mark. To miss the mark. It's actually a word that they would use an archery meaning that you have missed the bullseye. This is the mark you're supposed to hit. Anything outside of a dead center shot is sin, Harmatia is missing the mark. And I mean, I really want I really want you, if you're in here, watching online, to be paying attention because this might help some of you who feel like, man, I'm constantly circling the same sins. Like I've been following Jesus for a while. And there's just different areas where I just I habitually struggle. I'm just habitually here and it just feels like man, I'm not hitting where I'm supposed to be. I want to let you know, you will never hit the bull's eye. I think Jesus wants to set some people free this morning to let you hear you will never hit the bull's eye. You can't do it. You can't do it. Ever since the Garden of Eden, no one has hit that bullseye. Not a single person. The apostle Paul, the most godly man who we know who has ever lived, says hey, I haven't achieved that. You think I have attained that? No. No, no, no, no. I'm still straining towards it. As he's sitting in prison for starting churches for preaching the gospel. He's saying I'm not even close. We have all missed the mark.

Thank God, it's not about perfection. Thank God, it's not about perfection. You see, you may still be missing the mark. But as you grow in Jesus as you like Paul said, as you strain towards the goal he has for you. You may still miss the mark, but you're missing it at a different level than you used to. Maybe when you first started following Jesus, you're missing the mark way out here. But as years go by, yeah, I'm still missing it. But man, I'm getting closer. I'm getting closer. And thank God, he does not expect or ask for me to be perfect. He just asks for me to be faithful and to just be better than I was the day before, straining and pressing towards the goal of knowing Jesus. That's what God asks. He does not ask for you to be perfect. That's him. He just asked that we have faith in the one who is perfect. But that's not on you. It is on you and it is on me to just be better.

Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes better. Practice makes better. So don't give up. Don't give up. Because you're aiming at the wrong goal. Aim at the right goal, being better than you were the day before, following Jesus more faithfully than you did the day before. Being a better husband, being a better mother than you were the day before. Not striving for perfection that you could never hit. It will break you. Allow Jesus to set you free by being better. Pray with me, would you? 

Heavenly Father, I, I don't know if this is just me feeling this way. But I feel like there's a little bit of freedom happening here today. I feel like people are starting to realize for the first time, wow, God does not expect perfection out of me. My family, they can't expect perfection on me. I can't expect perfection out of me. I can't be perfect, but I can be better. And that's what you ask. And that's, that's good enough. So, God, help us today as we strive for better. As we put a death to this drive of perfectionism that will never satisfy. All it will lead to is comparison and self hatred in a life that is completely and utterly robbed of joy. Perfection is the enemy of progress in our walk with you. And today God we put it to death. Help us to start working with what we have rather than waiting for something that will never come. Help us to see you at work in our lives. In the areas where it can be so hard, that we feel like we're not making any progress, to see no, you know what I'm getting closer than I was last year. I'm closer to the mark than I used to be. Help us to see that better is what you asked for and to strive for that every single day so that every day we wake up, we look more and more like Jesus, because that's what it's all about. Thank you for being good on your word. Father, we know that you hear us today, we know that you, through the power of your Holy Spirit will be at work in us, conforming us more into the image of your Son. We're so thankful for that and thankful for you, Father, and we pray all this in your name, Amen.