Harry Foster
"One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after;
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord."
Acts 15:38
THE psalmist did not mean that for him life consisted of just one thing. It was rather a question of priorities. Nor do his words signify that he was asking to go to heaven, for what he wanted belonged to this life in which he still needed help from his enemies. The true import of his words, as they come down to us through the Scriptures, is that here on earth there is an experience in "the house of the Lord" in which we can enjoy some real appreciation of the loveliness of Christ.
Note carefully that such an experience, though truly personal, is described as being in close association with the rest of God's people. Which Tent was David referring to? Or was he looking forward to the Temple which was yet to be built? It does not matter for, all through the Scriptures, from Jacob's vision at Bethel (Genesis 28:17), through Tents and Temples, through the spiritual temple of the Church and into the eternal glory of Revelation, the essential feature of God's house is that it consists of the spiritual enjoyment of fellowship with God -- not "A Fellowship" that men have set up, but the fellowship in which God's sovereignty appoints us all a place.
Now it so happens that from time to time in a Christian gathering, we may be caught up in an overwhelming sense of the great beauty of Christ. Such a glimpse of glory may be rare but it is very real, as I myself can testify, and it is by no means necessarily associated with eloquent preaching. What I would like to suggest here, though, is that the "one thing" which is to be sought is not so much an inward vision of the Lord as an inward transformation into His likeness. As Paul wrote: "We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory" (2 Corinthians 3:18) and as we used to sing:
In the home and in the throng;
Be like Jesus, all day long:
I would be like Jesus.
This was the prayer of Moses -- truly a Christlike man -- "Let the beauty of our God be upon us" (Psalm 90:17). This is the feature which must have absolute priority for all of us at all times. Above all else it must be "the one thing".
In the New Testament there are at least three references which take up this theme of the "one thing". They are Luke 18:22, "One thing thou lackest", Luke 10:42, "Only one thing is needed", and Philippians 3:13, "But one thing I do ...". These are all the same thing. It seems to cover all age groups, the young ruler, the mature housewife and the ageing apostle. What is this one thing? What is the absolute priority above all else from the first step of faith in Christ to the final stages of service for Him? Surely it is Christlikeness, the beauty of the Lord in the human soul.
1. The Rich Young Ruler
Seeing that the Evangelist's subject matter was carefully chosen under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, how came it that all three synoptic Gospels record the sad story of the great refusal? What can we Christians learn from it? No-one will suggest that the Bible teaches us that a person must give up all his possessions if he wishes to experience eternal life. Why was the noble enquirer so challenged? And what is the "treasure in heaven" which might have been his?
Some have suggested that in this way the Lord Jesus was reminding the ruler of the commandment which had not been included in the list, namely, "Thou shalt not covet". But can it seriously be thought that if the man had answered that challenge by giving away all his possessions, he would then be able to claim that he was keeping the whole law and therefore eligible for eternal life? That cannot be. That is not the gospel. It was not just that he had kept nine of the commandments and lacked just this one to be "perfect", but the thrust of what the Lord said was that the young man was missing the whole point. [61/62]
It is a reasonable explanation that the significance of these words could have been to destroy the enquirer's self-confidence and bring home to him the fact that after all he was a sinner. The Lord deals with each one of us as individuals and perhaps this drastic demand was necessary to make the point. But what does it mean to us? And again I ask, what is the "treasure in heaven" which we all do well to covet? Can it be that the Spirit's purpose in thrice recording this incident was to alert all of us to this issue of the one thing! And is not that one thing, likeness to Christ? That is the one item of value that we can take with us to heaven.
Would I be regarded as fanciful if I suggested that the affluent young man would have liked nothing better than to share his riches with Jesus? It was obvious to him that this "Good Master" whom he greatly respected was a very poor man. He might well have felt that if only Jesus could put him right about this matter of his having a place in God's kingdom, he would make it his business to see that the Lord was well provided for. In other words, he wanted Jesus to be more like himself. Before we criticise him for this, let us ask ourselves if it is not our own tendency to try to bring the Lord down to our level, to expect Him to accommodate Himself to our way of life. "No", says Jesus. "The one thing of supreme importance, the only thing which really matters, is that you should become like Me." For this young man it seems that the cost was too great, and so, for the time being at any rate, he turned his back on eternal life, for what is eternal life but likeness to Jesus?
Some people like to think that this young ruler was Saul of Tarsus. If that were so, it would be the happiest of sequels to a very sad story, but we have no evidence to support this idea. In any case, though, Saul did grasp what this man rejected and what, alas, we often ignore, that at all times and in every circumstance, the good deeds we do, even for God, can have no value if Christlikeness is not our number one priority. For him it was well worthwhile to forego values on earth in order to carry into eternity a genuine inward knowledge of Christ.
2. Martha of Bethany
Before we consider Paul further, however, we need to ask what we can learn from the Lord's reminder to Martha that there is one thing needful. Matthew and Mark tell us nothing of this incident at Bethany, for it was a private occasion at which they were not present. John does not describe it either, but he permits himself the illuminating information that "Jesus loved Martha ..." (John 11:5). Luke was the man who made his own enquiries and seemingly enjoyed the confidence of godly women-folk, including Mary the mother of Jesus. We may therefore presume that it was Martha who told him the story against herself. It is most unlikely that Mary would have exposed her sister in such a bad light.
It all came to the surface because of Martha's impatient remonstrance with the Lord. No doubt before her outburst she had already given hints of her grievance by loud sighs and clashing dishes. At last, however, she could bear it no longer and impulsively tried to tell the Lord what He ought to do: "Bid her therefore that she help me" (Luke 10:40). Mary could quite reasonably have spoken before this saying, "Lord, bid my sister that she stop creating such an atmosphere and comes and sits down at Your feet with me", but that would also have been telling the Lord what to do, and those who truly sit at His feet do not do that.
"Tell her what to do," demanded Martha. "Tell me what to do" requested Mary, choosing that "better part" which is the one thing needful. Alas, so many of us become preoccupied with the weaknesses of others and so ready to pray that the Lord will tell them what to do, that we are in danger of failing to give priority to the state of our own hearts; we can be hot with zeal for the Lord but sadly lukewarm in our personal love to Him. How often in a tense situation we pray, "Tell her, Lord" or "Tell him, Lord", whereas our better part would have been to pray, "Please tell me, Lord!" One of the outstanding features of Christlikeness is the listening ear: "He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as they that are taught. The Lord hath opened mine ear ..." (Isaiah 50:4-5) said the great Servant of the Lord. "I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught me, I speak these things" (John 8:28) was how the Lord Jesus described this experience.
In any case the Lord did indicate to Martha what she ought to do and He did so with a mild rebuke and this stress on the "one thing". One thing, notice! Only one thing! That was when it was contrasted with the relatively good things about which Martha was so troubled but were now exposed as being of lesser value. So once [62/63]again it was a question of priorities. To us it comes with startling impact, especially if we are sincerely active in our service for the Christ. Are we in danger of ignoring the supreme background for all service, which is likeness to Christ? The last word on this subject is found in eternity where it is said: "His servants shall do him service; and they shall see his face; and his name shall be on their foreheads" (Revelation 22:4). The essential joy of our future service in eternity will be the fact that it is based on true conformity to His likeness. It was with this destiny in view that the Holy Spirit prompted Luke to record this homely story of service and the spirit in which it is done. None of us needs to enquire why it was written, for the thrust of its message comes readily home to our own consciences.
No doubt at the time Martha had felt sure that she was in the right. When there are differences or clashes in our fellowship relationships, we may well feel that our opinions or actions are right. The real question, though, is whether we are showing a Christlike spirit. If not, we are wrong even when we are right!
3. The Imprisoned Apostle
The governing purpose of Paul's life is declared in what he wrote to his friends in Philippi: "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings ... Brethren, I count not myself yet to have apprehended; but one thing I do ... I press on towards the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:10-14). The apostle knew that the end which God had in view for him was complete conformity to His Son:
This is the "treasure in heaven" of which Jesus spoke, this is the one thing that matters -- to be conformed to the image of Christ. The "one thing" which mattered to Paul was not relief from suffering or deliverance from prison but a growing realisation of the beauty of Jesus.
His words may be specially relevant to those of us who are growing old for, when he wrote them, he realised that for him the end of earth's labours might be near (Philippians 2:17) and indeed he truly wished that he might be taken Home to glory (1:23). As a matter of fact he still had to be willing to live on both because God still had a work to do through him and also a work to do in him. And he would learn while he worked, as we should all do.
I believe that this may partly explain why God's servants, like Paul himself, can be reduced to seeming inactivity when they would so love to go on doing some work for God which had long been of great importance to them.
It may also explain why some who -- like the apostle -- would much rather depart to be with Christ have to go on into their eighties and nineties. There are still more lessons to be learned, more treasure in heaven to be acquired. My dear friend and colleague, George Taylor, who himself suffered long months of ill health before going to be with Christ, used to correct my occasional impetuous wishes that the Lord would take some ailing saint Home to heaven with the rebuke, "Remember, Harry, that God is always working with eternity in view". How right he was, and how important it is for all of us, especially as we grow older, still to concentrate on the one thing which we will take with us into eternity, namely, Christian character.
But the apostle was not only speaking to the elderly. He was not merely describing a proper terminal spiritual attitude, but setting forth what had long been his principle of life and what should be the governing concern of every Christian. From the first step of faith (which the rich young ruler refused to take) until the last period of our life and ministry, the psalmist's concern about the beauty of the Lord should be given absolute priority.
This is more than a matter of mere meditation or passive contemplation, as Paul shows by his energetic statement: "This one thing I do ...". We have got to work at it and realise that it requires close association with the house of the Lord. Made impatient by the imperfections in our assembly, we may at times be tempted to withdraw from active fellowship, but we must beware lest in doing so we virtually opt out of the pursuit of Christlikeness. We look forward, and rightly so, to the moment when we shall see the Lord and then be like Him, but the man who has this hope is called to keep working away at positive conformity to Christ until that day comes (1 John 3:3).
The connection between this priority and the house of the Lord has a double significance. Firstly, that the discipline and costliness of practising fellowship in the place where God has located us is the very means by which we can learn to grow more Christlike. Within this realm of corporate church life we may encounter provocations [63/64] which will produce unexpected ugliness in ourselves. Painful as this may be, it will be very valuable if we only stick at it, for we will be forced to turn afresh to the Lord Jesus so that we may learn of Him who is meek and lowly in heart. We must not run away from such disclosures. The psalmist speaks not of just visiting the house of the Lord occasionally, but of dwelling there. Like the Lord's command that we should abide in the true Vine, this is not always easy, put it is most rewarding.
The second point is that in the house of the Lord we are meant to see more of the beauty of the Lord in our fellow worshippers. We must not miss this, but we will do so if we allow our attention to be wrongly focused upon some natural trait in them rather than what is the grace of Christ. Not that we are asked to pretend blindness to the failings of others, though incidentally we rather tend to expect them to overlook our faults. No, it is not a question of unreality or artificiality, but rather of making constant efforts to catch a glimpse of the Lord's beauty in our fellow Christians. If we look for it, it is usually there. When we do that, and truly appreciate what we see of the grace of Christ in others, our desire to identify with the psalmist will constantly grow and, all unknown to ourselves, we will be "transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18).
No comments:
Post a Comment