Announcements
🪧New Sign
Thank you Elder Curtis for organizing our new signage outside Frannie’s Vegan Cafe. We hope and pray that this will help to guide more people to CRC!
🛡️Redemption Warriors
RW is our support group for hurts, habits, and hang-ups. If you have lived experience with mental health, addition, or looking to learn then come check out this small group ministry!
⏰ Saturday (4/4/2026) at 5 pm
📍Frannie’s Vegan Cafe, Johnson City, TN
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✝️ Easter Service
Join us for our Resurrection Celebration! We will be honoring Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ) who sacrificed himself and rose again for the Salvation of all.
⏰ Saturday (Sabbath) 4/4/2026
📍Frannie’s Vegan Cafe, Johnson City, TN
📚Redemption Seekers
Every month this small group ministry gathers to study the Bible. They are currently in the Book of Revelation. At RS all view points are valid. No one is wrong or right. We share our perspectives. We look at all the data. Context matters. Come check it out the second Wednesday of each month.
⏰ 4 pm (4/8/2026)
📍Blue’s Brews, Johnson City, TN
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🏈 Football Snack Sponsorship
We will be donating snacks to the Valkyries football team. We will also be attending their Bristol game in lieu of service. Let’s have a ball!
⏰ Saturday (5/30/2026)
More will be announced the closer we get.
🤝 Volunteer Day
We will be helping out at the Habitat For Humanity’s ReStore. We will be helping with stocking, cleaning, etc. Please see their reminders for us below:
”When you arrive at the store, located at 3201 Kimberly Court, ask for a manager and they will get you started on your task.
Casual clothes (jeans, t-shirt/sweater, jacket) and closed-toe shoes are acceptable apparel. (No tank tops, sandals, flip-flops or Crocs.)
There is a kitchen with refrigerator and microwave if you would like to bring a drink or snack.”
⏰ 1 pm (6/27/2026) prior to church, Saturday
📍ReStore: 3201 Kimberly Court, Johnson City, TN
🏊♂️ Pool Party
In lieu of service, we will be having a potluck pool party at Brother John’s. Please bring a finger food and drink to share.
⏰ 12 pm (7/4/2026)
📍Contact us for the address
Sermon
Perfection. That’s what tonight’s message is about. That is a weighted word. The Oxford Dictionary defines perfection as “the condition, state, or quality of being free or as free as possible from all flaws or defects.”
Being free from flaws or defects. Free. That’s ironic because most of my childhood and into my adult life I felt the flaws of myself weighing me down. I had glasses. I was fat. I had undiagnosed ADD, anxiety, and OCD. Something that wasn’t treated until a few years ago. Why couldn’t I understand math like my peers? Why did I struggle with directions? Why did I take things so literally? This all made me feel isolated from my classmates. From having friends. I tried to hide these “defects”. It wasn’t until I acknowledged. Accepted. My shortcomings. As I saw them anyway. Then, I became free.
““You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
-Matthew 5:43-48
Be perfect…as God (Yahweh) is perfect. What does that mean? How?! How can we as mere humans possibly be perfect?
In the Bible, there are specific words that our modern translations use for the word “perfect”. But as we have seen in past sermons, the English language is very limiting.
The word for “perfect” when applied to humans in the Bible is the Koine Greek “teleios”. Or in the Mazorectic Hebrew “tamiym”. These mean “being complete, mature, or upright rather than being flawless.”
Ok, but how can we become complete? How do we become mature? How do we become upright? We as humans will always stumble. We will always make mistakes. So how can we become flawless in light of our very nature?
A question some of us may ask, “If biblical perfection means wholeness, how can that be if I fill so stained?” Stained by our past. Our choices. Our weakness?
Our next passage may give some guidance to these questions.
“But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, “he sat down at the right hand of God,” and since then has been waiting “until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.” For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds,” and he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.””
-Hebrews 10:12-17
The connective tissue in Hebrews 10:12-17 is verse 14. “Perfected/Being Perfected” is a paradox. Paradox in the Oxford Dictionary is defined as “a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or position that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.”
Verse 14 says, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.”
The word “perfected” here is a completed action and yet it has ongoing effects. Meaning Yeshua (Jesus) fulfilled his purpose on the cross, however, it does NOT mean the effects stop. It is ongoing. Continuous. Never ending. Over 2,000 years later!
”Those who are sanctified.” Some Bibles translate this piece of verse 14 as “being made holy”. This too is a continuous, ongoing process. Verses 16 and 17 explain how this perfection works. These are “guidance statements”. It tells us that while Yahweh (God) has guide posts, maps for us. He isn’t looking for “perfect” behavior. Verse 17 tells us that in fact, because of all this, our “missing the mark” aka “sin” will be remembered no more! What! Yahweh isn’t developing some sort of amnesia. No. This is Adonai making a choice. He is choosing to tell us that our supposed “defects” do not and will not define our relationship with Him.
Hebrews 10 tells us that perfections isn’t something we achieve, it’s something we receive! We can’t make ourselves perfect. And that isn’t our fault. We were never meant to in this world. Be perfect. We can’t. It’s impossible. Yet, Yeshua told us that with Yahweh all things are possible. Through our faith we are perfected. And we will be celebrating the event that held that perfecting in action next week. Easter.
So, what does that mean for all of our questions? It means we can finally stop. Let go. Stop performing. Stop trying to “self-help” our way to sanctification. We keep trying to hide our stumbles but we are doing so redundantly. It has already been washed away.
Think about how this could look in our everyday lives: if you walked into a mechanic’s shop and were told that a Good Samaritan had already paid your bill, would you still try and negotiate with the clerk on setting up a payment plan?
Then why do we hold onto our past? Why do we allow our perceptions of our “flaws” be the lens to see ourselves through? Shouldn’t the view be Yahweh’s? Shouldn’t we see ourselves in His light? His perception? Why are we fighting so hard to make the cross meaningless?!
Our works are the fruit of our faith. Not our way to salvation. To sanctification. To holiness.
I’ll leave ya’ll with this: Stop trying to take Jesus’ job!
Amen.
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Resources
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Further Study
