P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

GOD THE MECHANIC

Have you ever had a $79 pain turn into a $1300 nightmare? I’ll bet you have, and I certainly have as well. You get it when you find a hole in your car’s muffler. So you look in the Yellow Pages and see a big ad from Melvin’s Discount Muffler House: $79. While You Wait! All major credit cards accepted.

So you drive down to Melvin’s, thinking that this is going to hurt to the tune of $79. Well, the man is very nice. He puts your car up on the hoist, then gives a little cluck with his tongue, and points out that, really, the muffler and the pipe and the extender and the joints all have to be replaced. The muffler’s $79, like the ad says, but all those other things come to $232 out the door.

Well, can’t you get by with just the muffler, you ask, your heart sinking. No, he replies, the other parts come with it. $232 — take it or leave it. Then, before you can even begin to think about which items of furniture in the house you should sell, he points out that your brakes are obviously bad too, and your struts are thrashed, and your universal joint is within five miles of killing your whole family in an eight-car pileup, and we’re really talking $1300. Maybe a bit more if he replaces the windshield wipers and the seats and the engine.

And what you thought was going to be a quick $79 detour on your way to the post office now has escalated to the point where you have to sell your home just to keep your car going long enough to drive yourself to the poorhouse.

In the book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis has a chapter entitled “Counting the Cost.” He’s writing about the subject of perfection — which is our topic as well this week — and he tells a similar story, only this time about a toothache. As a boy, he confesses, he would sometimes lay in bed at night with a bad tooth just throbbing away like crazy. And he knew that if he went to his mother, she could give him an aspirin or some ointment which would take the pain away.

So — why didn’t he do it?

“I did not go to my mother,” he writes, “at least, not till the pain became very bad. And the reason I did not go was this. I did not doubt she would give me the aspirin; but I knew she would also do something else. I knew she would take me to the dentist next morning. I could not get what I wanted out of her without getting something more, which I did not want. I wanted immediate relief from pain: but I could not get it without having my teeth set permanently right. And I knew those dentists; I knew they started fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache. They would not let sleeping dogs lie; if you gave them an inch they took an ell.” Which is old British for “yard.”

Well, I don’t know about dentists, but I’m sure that the mechanic at Melvin’s Muffler Shop has 1300 reasons why he wants to help me with my car. Actually 1301 reasons — I suppose he does want me to be safe on the road. The dentist really wants Jack Lewis’ teeth to not only stop hurting but to be healthy, long-term. But friend, how should we relate to a God who tells us in His Word: “I expect you to get all the way up to perfect. Every single rattle and squeak in the car has got to go; every cavity has got to be filled; Be ye therefore perfect”?

Christians love to rejoice over a hallmark verse in I John 1:9, which talks about forgiveness. But notice:

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins . . . AND purify us from all unrighteousness.”

You see, this isn’t just forgiveness, it’s also fixing time. Repairs. Cleansing. Purifying. And we find here a key Bible truth: when God speaks to His children about obedience and perfection, He then makes it clear that HE intends to take us to that destination.

Let me share with you the lead-in paragraph from C. S. Lewis’ chapter here. He begins like this:

“I find a good many people have been bothered by what I said in the last chapter about Our Lord’s words, ‘Be ye perfect.’” That’s from Matthew 5:48. “Some people seem to think this means ‘Unless you are perfect, I will not help you’; and as we cannot be perfect, then, if He meant that, our position is hopeless. But I do not think He did mean that. I think He meant ‘The only help I will give is help to become perfect. You may WANT something less: but I will give you nothing less.’”

What do you think about that? And really, what we read about God purifying us, or cleansing us, in I John, is repeated in a powerful promise found in Hebrews 13. Here are verses 20 and 21:

“Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, MAKE you perfect in every good work to do His will, working IN you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ.”

We discovered yesterday that it seems to be the King James Version which usually talks about “make you perfect.” The NIV puts it this way:

“. . . EQUIP you with everything good for doing His will.”

That corroborates the concept — again from yesterday — about perfection really meaning that we grow up, becoming more mature in Jesus. And it’s good to notice that perfection, however the Bible describes it for us, is always for the purpose of honoring God, doing His will. Not to earn a place in His kingdom.

Let me ask you a question. Let’s go back to Melvin’s Discount Muffler House. But this time let’s make it Uncle Melvin’s Muffler House. Or even your dad, Melvin Venden. And he looks at your car and says: “Son, that whole muffler is bad. Let’s take it out. And you know, the brakes are shot. I think we should put new ones on there. Plus I’d like to help by replacing these worn-out belts.” Would you gulp and worry about the cost? Not when it’s Dad! Not when it’s your friendly Father who has already paid the repair bill in full.

Let me say it again, neighbor; our perfection is God’s business, because HE’S the one who promises to take us there. Back to C. S. Lewis, who was so worried about the dentist. On the very next page of Mere Christianity, he writes this:

“The practical upshot is this. On the one hand, God’s demand for perfection need not discourage you in the least in your present attempts to be good, or even in your present failures. Each time you fall He will pick you up again. And He knows perfectly well that your OWN efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection. On the other hand, you must realize from the outset that the goal towards which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent HIM from taking you to that goal. That is what you are in for.”

Isn’t that a marvelous promise? Listen, I want you to picture something with me . . . and it’s not cars or straight shiny teeth. But you — the perfect, holy you who is someday going to be dwelling in God’s kingdom. You are. If you’ve given your life to Christ, friend, you’re going to be there. And you’re going to be a perfect person there. Not just perfect in body: healthy and strong, vibrant, alive. And not just perfect because you’ve stopped doing a list of bad things. You’re going to be perfect because you’ll be everything God always wanted you to be. You’ll be all the way back to the Eden model: completely holy, completely living up to your divine potential.

Can you picture that you? It’s rather impossible, isn’t it? But the Bible tells us that this is where God is going to take us. He’s going to make you perfect — and by His definition, which is infinitely greater and grander than the most well-behaved church saint you know here on Planet Earth.

C. S. Lewis just can’t help but add one line to his little essay about sore teeth and a determined God. Here it is:

“We have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us.”