Becoming Complete

Hebrews 13:20-21

Introduction

One of the things that really bothers me is when something important is missing. This could be putting together a complex puzzle and after dedicating all that time, you get to the end and find that there are one or two pieces missing. I still enjoying making model airplanes and it is a legitimate fear that a piece was missing from the box all along or that I have lost it along the way. For you it may be a tool or a book or a decoration. Without it, things do not seem complete.

This can be true in other areas of life as well. Have you ever encountered something or someone and realized that this is what was missing all along? You suddenly feel complete. It could be starting a career that you love, discovering a hobby that makes you happy or meeting that special someone. There was a popular movie many years ago where in an expression of love, the one character said to the other: “You complete me.”

As Christians, we believe that the one who completes us is God. The Church Father, Augustine, famously said: “Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.” This is found in his Confessions, his spiritual memoir in which he describes attempts to find fulfillment in many other things until finally bowing the knee to Christ.

There is a sense in which this completion happens when we become followers of Jesus. But there is another sense in which completion is a gradual process. In the passage we are looking at, the author of Hebrews prays that his audience, who are already Christians, may be made complete by God. What is meant by that and how does that impact us?

The Nature of God

The author tells us that this completing is something that is done by God. But notice how God is described here. The author could have just said “God” but instead God is described in terms of what he has done through Jesus. Yes Jesus was Emmanuel, God with us, the presence of God in human flesh. But Jesus was more than that. He was the Shepherd of the sheep, he went to the cross and he rose from the dead. God was at work through Jesus. 

We would say that Jesus as God incarnate was complete. That makes sense. But what if Jesus had decided to not start his ministry, not go to Jerusalem, not go to the cross? Would Jesus still have been complete? He would still be complete as the Son of God but not complete in that he would not have been fulfilling the Father’s will for his life. God was actively at work in the life of Jesus and as we read the Gospels, we see a desire of Jesus to fulfill the Father’s will. While Jesus was already perfect, by embracing what the Father had for him, Jesus was becoming more complete.

The Nature of the Church

What does God want for the Church? By the Church, I simply mean all those who follow Jesus. Last week, we looked at Paul’s letter to the Romans. We looked carefully at the concept of grace. The point was that our reconciliation to God has nothing to do with our performance. We receive God’s salvation by faith and because of that we have no reason to boast of any superiority. We are adopted into God’s family based on no merit of our own. Three of our children are adopted and none of them can boast to the others that they were more deserving of the adoption.

This is good news, in fact you could say, this is the Good News. But are we complete in our salvation and adoption as children of God. The answer is yes and no. You cannot get any better than a child and so that would seem to be complete. But it is not the end of the story.

The author of Hebrews prays that his audience would be made complete by God, even though they are already Christians. How can this be?

We often have too small of a picture of God. We think that God only wants to give us a ticket to heaven and that is it. What is interesting is that when Jesus came preaching the gospel, his message was not believe in him and you go to heaven. According to the New Testament, the gospel that Jesus preached was the coming of the kingdom of God. Some have equated the kingdom with heaven but that is not quite accurate. God’s kingdom is in heaven but with Jesus, the kingdom had arrived on earth. Remember how Jesus taught his disciples how to pray: “Thy kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus wanted us to pray that God’s will on earth would be accomplished just as it is already reality in heaven. 

This brings us to the prayer from Hebrews, that God completing us means us doing God’s will. I have sometimes received push back on this. As soon as we say we are supposed to do something, people begin to think in terms of performance and trying to earn God’s love. That is not what is being described here.

I think Paul in Ephesians helps to bring how grace and following God’s will fits together.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” (Ephesians 2:8-10)

None of this means that we have to earn God’s love. What it does mean is that God has a plan for us as individuals and as a church. To make things completely fair, the Father had a plan for Jesus. Jesus followed the Father’s will and completed his mission. What is God’s will for us? Loving God and loving people is a great place to start. Anything more specific is revealed over time. We really need to focus on the basics before getting caught up on anything else.

Here is the great news for us. It is not just that we do enough to please God. It is that God is pleased to work through us. 

Conclusion

Let’s bring this to a conclusion with what this means for us. We are adopted into God’s family. This is a wonderful thing that is worth celebrating. That is what we do in worship. But that act of adoption is not the end of the story, in some ways it is only the beginning.

God wants to complete us as Christians and as a church. What is missing? Nothing that would affect his love for us. But God does have a will for us, just as the Father had a will for Jesus. The God who worked through his only begotten Son is the same God who wants to work in us. God wants to complete us. What will that look like? God has a plan for us and our quest is to discover that. We begin with what we know and let God reveal the rest over the course of our life. And we will not get to an age where God no longer has a will for us. It may change over time but we are all in the process of being completed. I will conclude with these words of Paul: “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6)