Culture Flip: Week 5, June 9, 2019

Baseball is a game of statistics.  Baseball fans love them.  They chart everything—batting percentage, home runs, strike outs, and the list goes on. 

 

From this mountain of statistics, we learn that certain achievements are rare.  For example, it is rare when a team executes a triple play (718).  It is rare when a batter hits for the cycle in a game (325).  Those feats are roundly celebrated.  But among the rarest of achievements in America’s pastime is when a pitcher throws a “perfect game.”   This is when a pitcher is able to get every batter out in a nine-inning game.  He faces 27 batters and sits them all down with no hits, no walks, and no errors. 

 

Baseball has been played professionally for about 145 seasons.  There have been over 217,000 games contested.  Of those, only 23 have been “perfect.”  If my calculations are correct, that is 0.0001 percent of the time. 

 

“Perfection” in baseball is rare.  Perfection in life is rarer still.  Of the billions of people who’ve lived on earth, only one has been perfect. 

 

The amazing thing is that the Perfect One—the Lord Jesus—sees all our errors and loves us still.  He is willing to go to the record books and blot out our errors and credit his stats to us.  Now that is something to celebrate!

 

Join us Sunday at Istrouma to do just that as we continue our walk through the Sermon on the Mount!

 

Culture Flip

“Perfect”

Matthew 5:33-48

 

1. Jesus insistson perfection
   1. He gives us a command
   2. He gives us a comparison
2. Jesus illustratesperfection
   1. In our communications
   2. In our conflicts
   3. In our compassion
3. Jesus isperfection
   1. He incarnates it
   2. He imputes it