BEING COMPLETE IN CHRIST

Col. 2:10a ... "In Him you have been made complete."

      When we enter this world at birth, we come with gross deficiences of many kinds and then spend the rest of our lives trying to fill them in and become complete in our constitution. In the first moment of life an infant must learn to breathe, or else it will die. During the first day he must learn to take nourishment. As more time passes, the developing person must learn to sit up, crawl, walk, talk, feed himself, etc. When the child reaches the age of about five, his formal education begins. For the next dozen years, and then perhaps for another four to eight past that, he will invest great amounts of time, energy, and money in the effort to progress through grade school, college and maybe graduate school so that his education will be complete enough for him to enter the profession of his choice.

      One of the most serious human deficiences, however, involves the soul. Because man is a fallen creature, his soul has been greatly weakened from what God originally intended it to be. It is inclined to sin, which impairs, pollutes and fully brings about its destruction. We are emphatically told in Rom. 3: 23 that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." When Isaiah had the vision of God in the Temple and beheld His resplendent glory, he could not help but cry out, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips." (Isa. 6:5). All people are in the same position that Isaiah was, no matter how "good" we, or others, might think ourselves to be. And in our weak and seriously deficient condition we have no means within ourselves to heal the disease that afflicts our souls, or to repair the breaches in our characters, or to lift ourselves up into a complete state for acceptable presentation to our Creator. When Paul contemplated where he stood. he proclaimed, "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7:24). But there is no need for despair, for God has provided the necessary means by which our souls can be perfected.

      Because God loves us, He has given His Son to lift us up and reclaim us. We are told in Rom. 5:8-9 that "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him." By the power of Jesus' blood shed on Calvary our sin can be removed from our souls, which are then healed and restored to the power and capacity that our Father designed them to possess. This is accomplished when we submit to baptism into Christ, for it is there that our former sinful nature is put to death and "newness of life" is granted, (Rom. 6:3-4). The Lord then admits the new convert into His church (Acts 2:47), which is the assembly of all who have been "rescued from the domain of darkness (sin)," (Col. 1:13). And within the church God has set up various offices "for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature [complete] man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ." (Eph. 4:12-13). In other words, in Christ we have the removal of the sins that make us incomplete; and in the church, which is the body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23), we have necessary assistance for growing into a complete person in Christ.

      By diligent effort in education a person might be able to approach close to mental perfection. By arduous training one might manage to come close to physical perfection. But unless a person comes to Christ and submits his life to that superior Teacher-Physician, he will continue spiritually in a state of waste and impotency bound for eternal ruin.

WALK IN A MANNER WORTHY OF THE LORD

Col. 1:10 ... "So that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God."

      The ultimate goal in the life of a Christian is to conduct himself from day to day in such a manner that the Lord will be fully pleased as He looks down upon him. The standard for such noble, acceptable conduct is the one God Himself has given us in the Holy Scriptures. So, as a person increases in the knowledge of the divine word through diligent study and exercise in the application of its precepts to his life, he is enabled to progress toward that ultimate goal. When Paul addressed the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, he referred to this supreme standard which he called "the word of His grace" and proclaimed to be sufficiently powerful to reconstruct a human life to meet the requirements of God. In v.32 he declared, "And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified." It is therefore a matter of the greatest importance for a Christian to progress constantly in gaining the knowledge which God has revealed and in submitting his life to its holy precepts.

      It is also important to take notice that God's word imposes the doing of good works of many kinds upon those who seek His favor and acceptance. A "good work" is specifically any deed that God requires of us, either through a direct command, an approved example, or a necessary inference. Generally speaking, it is any deed which honors God, blesses men, or perfects the soul of the one who performs it. Good works are not defined by men, and their identification is not the prerogative of men. Works of human description are the products of pride, self-trust, and self-direction. They do not honor God, but rather the one who formulates and then enacts them. They might to a certain extent bless people, but to a far greater extent they increase the pride of their performer. We are informed in Eph. 2:9 that our salvation is not "a result of works, so that no one may boast." It is part of our weakened human nature to take pride in what we accomplish, and the greater the deed the greater the pride. Such deeds do not therefore perfect the soul of the one who does them, for "pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before stumbling" (Pro. 16:18).

      The individual who submits himself to the standard of God's will in the sincere desire to glorify and please God will learn the good works it teaches and undertake them to the limit of his ability and opportunity. He will not be doing them to attract attention, elicit praise, or advance his position in society. To the contrary, his motivation will be to conform to the divine purpose stated in Eph. 2:10, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." Every good deed performed by a Christian is actually a fruit offering to the Lord. Its purpose is to glorify God who blesses us with the life, the energy, the resources, and the opportunity to do it. If someone could generate for himself these prerequisites to a deed, then he would be justified in claiming the glory that follows. Since that is impossible, no one has the right to strut and preen when he has performed a virtuous deed. Much the rather, a discerning Christian will lay the deed at the feet of God with thanksgiving that he has been enable to offer it. Since the fulfillment of a good deed is a fruit offering to God, every Christian should pray for himself and for his brethren that "the God of peace, who brought up from the dead ... Jesus our Lord [to] equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ," (Heb.13:20-21).

BEING CONTENT IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCE

Php. 4:11b ... "I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am." 

      The breeding ground of sin is discontent with one's situation in relation to worldly goods and also to one's place in society. This is not to say that such discontent MUST lead one into sin, but only that it gives sin an opportunity to enter the person's life. There is no sin in being discontented with poverty, for it may serve as the motivation to work one's way out of its misery and humiliation. But there is sin in being discontented with one's possessions to the point that the desire for greater becomes insatiable and takes control of the person's life. In ancient Israel King Ahab owned abundant and highly favored lands, but he was dissatisfied. He coveted the small tract owned by Naboth that adjoined the royal gardens. When the humble farmer refused to part with his ancestral inheritance, Ahab became deeply depressed. When his wicked and unscrupulous wife Jezebel seized the land, after having Naboth framed as a blasphemer and executed, Ahab was delighted to add the land to his possessions.

      Often a person's lust is not so much for wealth as for a higher place in society. When this burning desire drives him to rise to the higher position where he can better serve others, it is worthy and good. For example, someone may not be content to spend his life in an assembly plant where his work benefits a limited number of people. So he invests ten or twelve years and a small fortune in training to become a physician so that during the rest of his life he can cure diseases, alleviate suffering, and even save the lives of hundreds of people. But more often there are those like Abimelech, son of Gideon, whose story is related in Judges 9. He was not content to be one of the seventy honored sons of one of Israel's most illustrious judges who had turned down the popular appeal to make him king. In his lust for power, Abimelech put all his brothers to death, except Jotham who was able to hide. Abimelech then persuaded the people of Shechem to proclaim him king. From this base he tried to extend his rule over the rest of the country, until he was killed in the attempt to seize the small town of Thebez.

      We are warned in Jas. 1:14 that a person "is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust." Temptation begins within a person, not from without, when he develops a desire for that which is not good for him to have. Controlling desire so that it leads in pathways that are good and towards ends that are righteous requires divine assistance. This is pointed out in Php. 4:5-6, "Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." He knows our real needs and will guide us toward their fulfillment if we ask Him for them and then trust Him to respond. More commonly, however, people do not choose to look to God for help. Gathering together whatever resources are available at the moment, they seek the quickest and shortest track from their place of discontentment to the object of their desire. All too often this course passes through the field of sin, which gladly supplies its energy and encouragement to the venture.

      Evaluating desire to distinguish what is legitimate from what is corrupt also requires God's help, which is available to all who seek it through prayer in faith, (Jas. 1:2-5). Our featured text does not forbid discontent and desire so much as it emphasizes our need to identify what it is that we desire, what it is that makes us discontented, and why these mental constructions have been formed within us. At the same time, it urges self-restraint as we attempt to satisfy our desires. As we undertake this introspective examination, it is important to remember the words of Jesus in Mat. 6:34, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."