1 John 4:16b-21 | Matthew 5:43-48
What does it mean to be perfect? In this sermon, we discover that the perfection Jesus calls us to in the Sermon on the Mount is not the flawless, error-free standard our culture imagines — it is something far more beautiful and far more attainable. Drawing on the Greek word teleos, meaning complete, whole, or ripe, we explore the Wesleyan vision of Christian perfection not as a destination arrived at in a single moment, but as a journey toward being fully formed in love — like a grape slowly ripened on the vine, or a graduate ready to live out everything they have learned.
At the heart of this vision is the simple, stunning claim of 1 John: we love because God first loved us. John Wesley believed this verse to be the central sum of the gospel, and it anchors everything the Wesleys taught about holiness and perfection. To be perfected in love is not to create something new in ourselves — it is to be reconnected to the love that made us, redeemed us, and sustains us in every moment. It is to let the love of God work through us so completely that even our most distorted reflections begin, slowly, to look more like the love of God.
But make no mistake: this kind of love is demanding. Jesus does not call us to love only those who love us back. He calls us to love our enemies — the very people we find hardest to name, let alone embrace. Inspired by John Wesley's small group practice of asking "Who is your enemy?", and by Dietrich Bonhoeffer's distinction between cheap grace and costly grace, this sermon challenges us to receive God's free grace not as a pass to stay the same, but as a call to be transformed.
This message concludes our series on holiness by tracing a four-part Wesleyan framework of love: from prevenient grace (God loved us first), through justification (we begin to love one another), into sanctification (we learn to love as God loves, even loving our enemies), and finally toward Christian perfection — being teleos in love, whole and complete, fully satisfied in reflecting the love of God to the world.
Notes:
- John Wesley's sermon on Christian Perfection can be read here. There is no evidence that he ever delivered this sermon, but it was published and shared widely during his life and after.
- Charles Wesley's poem The Promise of Sanctification can be read here.
- You can learn more about the Greek word telios that is often translated as perfect, here.
- Wesley's comments on 1 John can be found in the Preface to the 2nd series of Sermons on Several Occasions. It can be read here.
