COMPLETELY (part two)
Last week we talked about having complete joy, complete unity and completing the task. There's joy and then there's complete joy-the joy that is constant and not temporary; the joy that is there despite my circumstances.
In John 15, Jesus communicated his love for the disciples. Then he told them to remain in his love. That means we are to stay in his love and operate in his love; part of which is loving one another. Jesus said if you love me you will obey what I command. Love is an action word so we show our love when we are obedient to his will.
Vs. 11 says that Jesus told them this so their joy would be complete. The word complete means to make full. Jesus wanted us to have the fullness of his joy. And that would come through deepening our relationship with him and obeying him. We experience joy when we know we have pleased God. Our complete joy in found in Christ.
Then there's complete unity. In John 17 Jesus prayed that we would be one as he and the Father are one. Jesus wants our unity to be like his and the Fathers-complete. Here, the word for complete means to perfect. It makes sense-Jesus' unity with the Father is perfect and he wants us to strive for that perfect unity.
There's unity and then there's complete unity; the unity that is throughout all areas of Christian living. Complete unity doesn't allow bitterness or anger to continue. That doesn't mean we'll always agree but being completely unified will cause us to resolve issues and reconcile with any fellow Christian with whom we've had a problem with wherever possible.
Then we looked at the importance of completing the task. In Acts 20 we learn that although Paul suffered hardships and imprisonment for the faith, his focus didn't change. His purpose was to carry on the work of the Lord and complete his task.
That's what we need to be focused on. It needs to be our top priority. Not that nothing else is important, but we can focus on doing the Lord's work in other things that are important to us-our families, jobs, friends, hobbies, etc.
Today we continue looking at completeness.
1) God's love made complete in us.
In John 15 Jesus talked about his love for his disciples and to remain in his love. He told them these things so their joy would be complete. In 1st John 2, John talks about God's love being made complete in us.
1st John 2:1-6, "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did."
We see that what John is writing them in this letter was to help them abstain from sin. In chapter one he writes about having fellowship with him, the Father and with Jesus. In vs. four it says that we write this to make our/your joy complete. This goes with what Paul wrote in Phil. 2 about how unity in the Philippian church would make his joy complete.
In the remainder of chapt. 1, John talked about walking in the light and that if we walk in the light as Jesus is in the light we will have true fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin. He goes on to say in vs. 9 that if we confess our sins, God forgives us and purifies us from all unrighteousness. Twice in chapt. one John states that if we claim to have no sin we deceive ourselves and we make God out to be a liar. And then we have our opening vss. in chapt. two.
So the church John was writing to was having a problem with sin. Perhaps now having been born again they thought it was no longer something they needed to be concerned about since Jesus had already dealt with it on the cross. But they were wrong. Jesus may have forgiven us but that doesn't mean sin is no longer an issue.
Our fellowship with God and each other is at stake when sin is taken lightly. Our joy is at stake when sin goes unaddressed. We deceive ourselves if we claim to be close with Christ yet walk in darkness, as John pointed out in chapt. one. We have a duty now to walk in the light so we can be cleansed from all unrighteousness.
Then he presents a litmus test to determine who truly knows God-obedience. If we say, 'I know Jesus' but we don't obey him then we're not being truthful; mainly with ourselves.
In Mt. 7:21-23 Jesus said there would be people on Judgment Day who would bring their resume of things they did, thinking they were good to go and Jesus is going to tell them, "I never knew you". They were doing things but they weren't doing God's will.
The same might be true with the ones who needed to hear this warning from John. Claiming something doesn't mean it's true. We might think we know Jesus but the more important question is, does Jesus know you?
John says in vs. five that if we are obedient to his word, God's love is truly made complete in us. How does obedience make God's love complete in us? The next verse helps us with that-because we're walking as Jesus did-in love and obedience. We can tell that we are in Christ when we begin to pattern our lives after him.
When we operate in love and truth and exhibit the compassion and kindness that he did then we are living as he did, showing ourselves to be children of God. To have God's love made complete in us is to live in such a way as to have the light of Christ shine through our words and actions.
And it's not that the more we're obedient the more God loves us; it's that the more we operate in accordance with the Spirit the more we will be cleansed from all unrighteousness which will result in the love of God having more control over us.
Two chapters later we see John mention something else about God's love being made complete in us.
1st John 4:10-12, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."
First, John wants us to understand that we didn't love God first; we couldn't. But maybe we thought we did. It's interesting how we might think we loved God and then we come to Christ and we realize that we had no idea what it meant to love God.
Our idea of what it meant to love God was more about what was comfortable for us; what was acceptable for us. We concluded that we were good with God and everything was ok. Thank God for the light of Christ that shines in the darkness of our understanding of love! Now, since we have a better understanding of God's love for us, we don't keep it to ourselves, we share it with others.
How does loving one another cause God's love to be made complete in us? We can be obedient in many areas. I can read my bible, pray, go to church. I can serving God in certain ways. But, if I don't love people, love is incomplete.
In Matt. 22, Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. Then he said, 'and the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself'. He said all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. Can we say the love of God is in us if we don't love one another? 1 John 4:20 says, "If anyone says, 'I love God' but hates his brother, he's a liar'. The love of God is made complete in us when we love and obey.
2) Complete faith.
In James 2, James is making an argument concerning genuine faith. In vs. 14 he asks, 'if someone claims to have faith but no deeds can such faith save him'? He gives the answer in vs. 17 when he says faith without action is dead. Then he uses the example of Abraham.
James 2:18-22, "But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did."
One might say that since we're saved by grace, not by works, as Paul said in Eph. 2:8-9, then we can have genuine faith regardless of anything we do to show it. But then people would be disregarding vs. 10 where Paul said that we were created in Christ Jesus to do good works. So, although we are not saved by our works, we are saved to do good works.
But people would wrestle with the connection between faith and deeds. One of them was Martin Luther. He had taken issue with the book of James due to its apparent contradiction between the Pauline epistles that focused on salvation by grace alone through faith and James’ declaration that faith needed to be accompanied by works.
It makes sense that Luther would have an issue with this since he had come from a church that focused heavily on works and paying penance and all that. But later Luther came to a better understanding. He is credited with saying that man is saved by faith alone but not by a faith that is alone.
James would say if there aren't any deeds to accompany your faith then your faith is not genuine. People would be putting too much emphasis on simple belief. All you need to do to be saved and stay saved is believe; works play no part in it. But we have James saying, 'you believe there is one God? Good! Even the demons believe that-and shudder'. Why do they shudder? Because their belief isn't going to translate into salvation.
It's the same for us. I can believe in God and Jesus but if it's just intellectual faith then it won't amount to anything. That kind of faith is an incomplete faith. James would be saying the true test to see if your faith is complete is if there's action to accompany it. That's where the example of Abraham comes in.
At first glance, it appears that vs. 21 contradicts Gen. 15:6, that says Abraham believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness. But James goes there in the next two verses.
Vss. 23-24, "And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone."
The complete faith is belief coupled with action. But that's challenging to hear. We want to be convinced that all we have to do is believe and we'll be ok. How many people say, 'I believe in God'? But the follow up to that is to ask what have they done as a result of that belief? Has that belief impacted their lives?
Many people have a belief in a god of their own choosing; a god that fits with how they want God to be. In reality, these people are saying, 'I believe in a god who accepts me as I am, doesn't expect me to change, will let me live my life however I please and usher me into heaven when I die'. That's not only an incomplete faith; it's a deadly faith.
We know about Abraham's faith because we read about what he did as a result of his faith. The same holds true for us. We will know how solid our faith is based on how we handle the testing of it. We'll know the level of our faith based on how we are living.
Do we face challenges believing we can be successful? Do we proceed through trials with the belief that nothing is too great for God? Do we believe that God is greater than my problems? We might struggle with this sometimes but what do we truly believe? Faith demands action in order for it to be proved genuine. "Faith with works is a force; faith without works is a farce."
When people were confessing their sins and coming to John to be baptized he said in Matt. 3:8, " Produce fruit in keeping with repentance". How do we show that we have truly repented? By our fruit. How do we show that we have genuine, saving faith? By our deeds. Complete faith is joined with works of righteousness.
3) Complete Christians.
Before James talked about faith and deeds in chapter two, he said this in James 1:2-4, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
Our faith needs to be tested in order to prove it's genuine. When we go through a trial and hold onto the faith we show it to be the real deal. Persevering through trials and hardships reveals our complete faith. James mentions that perseverance must finish its work. What work is that? The shaping and molding of us into the image of Christ.
Each time we persevere through something we come out changed. There is a negative way we can be changed-we could become bitter and angry. We can become depressed and feel hopeless. I'm not saying if we feel negative we don't have genuine faith. But the reality is we won't stay there. The goal is that we would be changed for the better in the sense of strengthened faith and a closer relationship with Jesus. The goal is maturity; the goal is to be more complete Christians.
Now, this won't fully happen until we persevere through to the end. But our goal is to use every circumstance we find ourselves in to see how we can benefit from it. What can we learn from our mistakes? What can the situations in our lives teach us regarding being a better Christian? How can what I go through in life make me more complete?
Paul said, 'mature and complete-not lacking anything'. The Greek word here for complete can mean whole. So, when we're lacking something, we're not yet whole. Maybe we're strong in wisdom but we're lacking in patience. Maybe we're strong in works but we're lacking in compassion. So we should pray about and work on the areas where we are lacking.
What can happen is we can focus on our strengths to the point of disregarding our weaknesses. "It's not a big deal that I'm not very kind because I'm a good preacher". The irony is that when our weaknesses come out it can diminish the effectiveness of our stronger areas.
We may not realize that the fruit of the spirit and the acts of righteousness all work in conjunction with each other to produce a whole saint. There are no unimportant areas of the faith. It's natural to be weaker in some areas and stronger in others. The point is are we working on it? Are we striving to become mature and complete and not lacking anything?
There's something interesting in Rom. 15:13-14, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another."
Did you notice something interesting between these two verses? In verse 14 Paul speaks quite highly of what he was convinced of with them-full of goodness, complete in knowledge, competent to teach; what a commendation! They were quite the example. But what do we see in the previous verse?
Paul prayed that they would be full of joy and peace. They needed to be filled in these areas but they were already full in others. They were full in some areas but lacking in others. That's the way we all are. But we need to be like Paul and pray for the areas we're lacking in so we can overflow by the power of the Holy Spirit and be complete.
