One Thing

Introduction

Well, good morning. It is wonderful to be here. So great to see all these familiar faces. I’m honored with the opportunity today to be able to speak in Ken’s place. Thankful for the elders asking me to come. As I look across this audience, all of you who who were here when my family was here eight years ago, I just want to tell you you really encouraged us. You helped my family a lot. You made a big difference to us, big impact on us at a very important time in my family’s life. And I love you all. And I’m thankful. I give thanks to God for you and for this congregation that is faithful to the Lord and in your sincere love for Him. Pray that you may excel still more in that love.

I want to start out asking you a question. Do you feel overwhelmed in life? Maybe overwhelmed because we just have so many things going on all the time. And we’re like human pizzas. We’re just cut up into so many pieces. Trying to do, trying to accomplish so many things. Or maybe you feel overwhelmed because you have difficulty going on in your life and you don’t know how to handle that. Maybe you feel overwhelmed because of sin that you’re dealing with.

Have a family. Try to keep the Lord first and balance all of those things. But I tell you what happens is when we get so overwhelmed, it can pull our attention away from the one thing that really matters. And that’s what I want to talk to you about today is the one thing. It’s a lesson on priorities. The one thing is the Lord and serving him, the Lord and pleasing him, the Lord and being with him one day. And the main takeaway that we’re going to emphasize is super simple. Live for the one thing that truly matters. We’re going to examine three passages that have the phrase one thing in them. We’re going to look at those texts and we’re going to exegete those passages. And as we look at that, we’re going to see that these passages really have to do with three different kinds of situations of life that we find ourselves in where we really have to remember to live for the one thing that truly matters.

1. Live for the One Thing When Life Is Busy

And so we’re going to begin in Luke, the 10th chapter. If you want to turn your Bibles to Luke chapter 10.

Luke chapter 10, beginning verse 38. Now, as they were traveling along and they were going toward Jerusalem, he entered a village. And we know that this village is Bethany, because we know where Mary and Martha and Lazarus lived. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. Now, this is our first introduction to Martha, and as we’re going to meet Mary in a moment. We don’t know if this is the first time Jesus met them. It appears that they already had an established relationship as we go forward here. But she’s inviting Jesus into her home. What a wonderful thing. She had a sister called Mary, who is seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to his word. Now I just want you to just picture that.

I want you to see Jesus, and he’s teaching, and she is sitting at his feet, and he’s teaching the word of God, and she’s hanging on, Mary is hanging on to every word. Want you to see that picture. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations. I mean, she’s in there in the kitchen, she’s slaving away. Can you see that? Can you picture that? Ladies, can you recall how that feels? And she came up and said to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me. She’s rebuking Jesus and she’s bossing Jesus around. You don’t do that with Jesus. She’s upset. She’s seeing things one way, but she’s seeing it the wrong way.

Verse 41. But the Lord answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things. But only one thing, look at that. One thing is necessary. For Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her. One thing. Now, before we give Martha a bad rap, she gets a bad rap. I want us to see the big picture. Martha was a devout servant of the Lord. We look in other passages. We know that she was devoted to the Lord. She’s a wonderful servant of the Lord. And by the way, she’s doing something really great. She’s invited Jesus into her home. And if you had the Lord of heaven in your home, wouldn’t you want to prepare the best meal that you possibly could?

Absolutely. But she’s doing what is good to the exclusion of what is best. She should have been at Jesus’ feet, too. Even if the meal didn’t turn out as great, or get ready on time, or the food was cold by the time they got to it. Sometimes the challenge is choosing what is best over what is good. And that was the challenge here. And she was failing that test. Jesus said, Martha. He repeats her name twice. Martha. Martha. You are worried and bothered. So he says those two things. You are worried and bothered. What was she worried about? Well, how am I going to do this all alone? How on earth am I going to get this meal together if I’m doing it all by myself?

And she’s bothered. Bothered by the fact that Mary is just sitting there at Jesus’ feet. She’s not helping me, bothered by the fact that Jesus keeps holding her up, doing all this talking. Sometimes we just get bothered about things. Something somebody did at work. Something you read on Facebook, you disagree with. How dare they say that? And men, it just stirs us up, and that can occupy your mind and your energy for hours or days or weeks or months. Distractions. Brethren, we ought not to be worried and bothered about so many things. It can pull us away from the one thing. He said, only one thing is necessary. Now other things are good, but when it comes to our spiritual vitality, there’s only one thing that’s necessary.

And Mary knew what that was, and she was sitting at Jesus’ feet. She knew what was important. And so, even if that means we don’t prepare that meal just how we want it, and everything’s not just how we want in this world. If we have the one thing that truly matters, that’s it. That’s that’s at the end, that’s all that matters. He says, Mary has chosen the good part, which shall be taken away from her. Food doesn’t last long. And sometimes we go out to eat.

They eat a lot more than they did, you know, years ago. And as soon as we get in the car, Dad, I’m hungry. We just ate. Well, yeah, but that was like 30 minutes ago when we actually finished eating. Food doesn’t last long. Sometimes the things that we work so hard towards and put so much emphasis on, they don’t last any more than a few hours or sometimes a few minutes. What’s the most important thing?

Never allow your worries, frustrations, responsibilities, or distractions to take priority over Jesus. And there’s a lot of those. We live in possibly the most distracted, busy time and culture that there’s ever been. You know what B U S Y stands for? Being under Satan’s yoke. If he can take devout Christians and just distract us with stuff that’s good, then we have pulled our attention away from the one thing that actually matters. I think of the parable of the sower. I think of the seed that was sown among thorns. Jesus explained that that represents the cares and the worries and the riches of this world. Nothing inherently wrong with cares or worries or riches, but it’s when those things choke out the word that now there’s a problem.

And we have so many responsibilities. We’re so busy with work, myself included. We have so many activities that we do, we have so many hobbies, we have so much entertainment. Our kids are involved in every single activity because they can’t grow up to be normal, healthy children unless they do every single thing every other kid is doing. And we end up being so busy, pardon the phrase, uh, we’re like chickens with our heads cut off. We’re just running around in all these different directions that we’re just distracted. Distracted. So many things can be a distraction. Disney can be a distraction. We love Disney. We we lived here and went to Disney a lot. Can it become a distraction? Anything can become a distraction. What’s about digital distractions?

Let me give you a few stats. Internet users are spending two hours and 22 minutes per day on social networking and messaging platforms. Nothing inherently wrong with that. But do we need to be spending over two hours a day doing that? Could we be spending our time in better ways? Redeeming the time because the days are evil. American adults spend more than 11 hours per day listening to, reading, watching, or otherwise engaging with media. That’s nearly every waking hour. Nothing inherently wrong with media. Some of that’s even helpful spiritually. Some of that’s necessary for work. I get it. But 11 hours per day? The average American pulls out his phone once every six minutes. 120 times per day. Guilty as charged. I’m getting better. The average American by age 21 practices 10,000 hours of video games.

2. Live for the One Thing When Trials Abound

It takes 10,000 hours of diligent practice to master something. We have a lot of 21-year-olds in America that are masters at video games. Nothing inherently wrong with video games. But what are their priorities? And what are ours as their parents? So live for the one thing when life is busy. Secondly, live for the one thing when trials abound. What if you had a genie in the bottle? What if that was a real thing? And what if you were actually given the opportunity to ask for one thing? Now we think of Solomon, and what he asked for is wisdom. But I love what David said in the 27th Psalm. If you want to turn your Bibles to Psalm 27. David said in verse 4, one thing I have asked from the Lord that I shall seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in his temple.

David said, there’s one thing that I’m asking for. There’s one thing that I want. I want to worship God, I want to be with him. Is there any other place you’d rather be than where you are right now? You could be at Disney.

But you chose to be here because this is a priority to you. This is the most important thing to you. And if we’re really convinced of that, then won’t we be here as much as we can? David wanted to worship, and he wanted to look at what he says, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. He’s like, if I could just worship all the time and be there at the tabernacle, he calls it the temple, but the temple wasn’t built till Solomon, so that the word temple is being used accommodatively to refer to the tabernacle. If he could be there all the time all the time, David is saying, I just love that.

To behold the beauty of the Lord as we worship him, we are beholding his beauty in his wonderful invisible attributes. The radiance of his glory. And to meditate in his in his temple. That’s the one thing that David wanted. And we learn a little bit more about the context of what was happening in his life when we read the next few verses. These aren’t on the screen, but look at verse 5. Psalm 27, verse 5. For in the day of trouble, David says, He will conceal me in his tabernacle. In the secret place of his tent, he will hide me. He will lift me up on a rock. Well, David, why do you need to be lifted up on a rock? What’s going on, David? And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me.

And I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy. I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord. David is surrounded by his enemies. He’s in danger. And it appears that he is being prevented from having access to go and worship at the temple like he longs to do. And he longs for the peace and the safety of worshiping with God. Our single greatest desire should be to dwell in God’s presence, the only place where we will find true peace and safety. We all understand this. Even right now. Don’t you feel a warmth from being around your brethren? The wonderful singing that we’ve had, the prayers, the Bible classes, and here we are worshiping God at the same time. We all feel a little escape from the temptations and trials of this life.

Don’t you feel that? And the ultimate application of this, of course, is heaven. Where is there more peace and safety than dwelling in the very presence of the Lord? Dwelling all of our days in eternity and beholding the Lord’s beauty, seeing him face to face and meditating, not in his temple. There’s no temple there. The Lord is there. We’ll be in his light, and we’ll get to worship in his very presence. That’s the ultimate goal. And I want to tell you something. That I try to tell at every congregation I go to and preach. I try to do appointment preaching. I don’t full-time preach anymore. But as I have opportunity, like today, I like to go and encourage God’s people in different places. This is the one thing I try to tell every congregation.

I want to encourage you to take time to meditate on heaven every day. Even if it’s just five minutes, can you take five minutes a day and think about heaven? I try to do that every single morning as my very first thoughts. As soon as I open my eyes, before I check my email, before I start thinking about my list of things to do. My first thoughts are on heaven. And I just imagine seeing God, seeing Jesus. I just imagine being with my brethren. I imagine what it will feel like to be surrounded by God’s love. And then I just picture this path. It’s the straight and narrow road, and heaven is at the end of it. And I remind myself all these other things happening don’t matter.

Ultimately, heaven is what matters, and it sets my day on the right path from the very first moments I wake up. I want to encourage you to do that. Take two minutes, even. First thing in the morning, try it tomorrow. See if it doesn’t make a difference. It’s made a difference in my life. It’s made a difference in my children’s life. I saw it on June’s schedule. She makes a schedule and she wrote down the first thing is meditate on heaven.

I look back over the years since I’ve started that habit. And I see that there are times in my life that I did not. There are periods where I would go for days or weeks without thinking about heaven. And I look back and I say, why didn’t I do it? It’s because I had challenges. It’s because I had struggles. It’s because I had trials going on. I’m pointing up there, you aren’t seeing that one. It’s because I had trials going on. I’m sorry, it’s not in the screen. I didn’t realize that. And what happens when those trials are happening is I would take my my eyes off of heaven and I would put my attention on my struggles. And whatever we give attention to is what’s going to direct our life.

3. Live for the One Thing When Complacency Creeps In

And if there’s any time you need to be focusing on heaven and focusing on the one thing that truly matters, it’s when we’re struggling. It’s when we’re suffering. It’s when we have trials. I’d like to encourage us to all remember that. Live for the one thing when trials abound. And thirdly, live for the one thing when complacency creeps in. Philippians 3. Philippians, the third chapter. In uh verses 13 and 14, Paul says, Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. One of my favorite verses or passages in the entire Bible.

I think part of what Paul is doing is trying to prevent the Philippians from becoming complacent. The letter to Philippians is very unique. There’s really no rebuke in it. It’s so positive. But anytime we’re doing well spiritually, there’s a temptation to grow complacent. And so Paul says, I want you to know I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. You say, well, laid hold of what, Paul? What are you referring to? Well, if we look back in the earlier verses, he starts talking earlier in this chapter about all the things he gave up when he became a Christian. And how he counts those things as loss for Christ. In fact, he counts them as rubbish. The Greek word means dung. That he may gain Christ, that he may know Christ and the fellowship of his sufferings.

And look what he says in verse 11. Philippians 3, verse 11. It’s not on the screen. It says, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Salvation in the end. Heaven is what he’s talking about there. He says, verse 12, not that I have already obtained it, obtained to the resurrection of the dead. I’m not to heaven yet. This life is not over yet. He says, or have already become perfect. The Greek word there is a word that means mature or complete. It’s the idea, Paul is saying, I haven’t reached complete spiritual maturity. And if Paul hadn’t reached it, I know I haven’t reached it. Paul says, I’m a work in progress. I’m not done yet. He says, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.

Christ laid hold of me first, and now I’m laying hold of him, Paul says. Brethren, he says in verse 13, our passage again. He says, I do not regard myself as laying hold of it yet, it being the resurrection from the dead.

We are a work in progress, and we’re not done until it’s over. Some of you may have known or heard of Harry Pickup Jr., the father of one of my professors at Florida College. His name is Marty Pickup. Harry lived to be 91 years old. And he died in 2016. I didn’t know him personally. I heard him preach at lectures one time. It was like nothing I’d ever heard. Very renowned preacher of his era. Knew the Bible like the back of his hand. And Holly’s, my wife, her father, Mike, used to be involved in a Bible study with Harry. And during the last months of Harry’s life, Mike would go and minister to Harry. He would go and check on him and make sure everything’s going okay with him as his health was declining.

And Mike told me more than once how impressed he was that every time he would go over there to check on Harry. This one 91-year-old man had his Bible out, commentaries, all these books. Probably some of Mr. Hawk writers. Why? He already knew the Bible so well. He wasn’t done yet. He’s going to keep growing until he’s done. What a wonderful attitude. A wonderful example. That’s an inspiration to me. Paul says, one thing I do. Now, brethren, this is the one thing for Paul. Forget what lies behind, reach forward to what lies ahead. That’s the one thing. If you don’t do that, you’ve missed it. You’ve missed the mark. Forget what lies behind, reach forward to what lies ahead. And as we look at some of the uh the words that Paul is using in the Greek, it becomes, I think, apparent he’s using a racing metaphor.

Then he’s talking about you’re running this race. It doesn’t matter where you are in that race. Don’t worry about where you are. You just keep going forward wherever you are. I remember hearing someone talk about they went to uh track meet and they started watching this long distance run, long distance race. And as it started, one of the runners sprinted. I mean, just tore out running way ahead of everybody else. You don’t do that on a long distance race. And he even started throwing his hands up and looking at the crowd like I’ve already won. And then he tired out and he ended up losing that race miserably. Maybe that’s how you started your Christian race. Maybe you started it running. You did great. Doesn’t matter how you start, it matters how you finish.

Maybe you didn’t start this Christian race so well. Maybe you started kind of going slow or just standing still. That doesn’t matter either. Doesn’t matter where on the track you are. All that matters is you keep moving forward on that track. So Paul says, forgetting what lies behind. Paul had successes and he had failures. And it’s both. It’s not just the failures we have to forget. It’s the successes too. So we don’t rest on our laurels. So we don’t rest. It’s a race. You don’t rest in a race. You run. So we got to forget what lies behind. I have so many regrets. I’m terrible about that. I’m terrible about reliving my past. And oh, I tell Holly, oh, I wish I had done this. I wish I had done that.

There are things I wish I had done here different. I can’t change the past. I can change now forward. And that’s all we can do.

Forgetting what lies behind, reaching forward to what lies ahead. When he said reaching forward, the Greek word that he used there is a word that has special application and it’s used only there in the entire Bible to runners, trying to make every ounce of progress they can in the race. It’s not unlike when you see Usain Bolt lunging across the finish line or stretching his chest out. You say, well, why does he do that? Does that really help? It maybe gives him a couple of centimeters of extra distance. Maybe it shaves off a millisecond of time. That’s the word that Paul is using here is that we strain every nerve as we are reaching forward. Isn’t that what Paul did? Isn’t that what our Savior did?

That’s what we need to be doing. Do we do that so that we can earn heaven? You’re never going to run your way fast enough into heaven. Can’t do it. Can’t earn it. We do it so that we may reach our spiritual potential. We do that so that we can imitate our Savior. We do it so that through the grace of our Lord we may attain to the resurrection of the dead. Paul says I press on. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Is your goal the prize? Or is your goal this earth? What is your goal? And what is that prize he’s talking about? Talked about in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, this imperishable crown.

Not the one made out of basically branches that they would give in the first century to victors of a race, but an imperishable crown. That’s what we are shooting for. In uh in Hebrews, the writer said, Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus. You know, in the first century, at the end of the track, there was the judge. There was a post, a post, and the judge was there with the crown in his hand. The writer is saying, I’m looking to the end of the track, I see Jesus there, he’s got the crown, and I’m not taking my eyes off of him. I’m not going to get distracted. I’m going to stay focused on the one thing that matters.

And that’s what we must do. The only way to combat spiritual complacency is to constantly reach forward to heaven. I want to look back on this life. And I really want to be able to say, I may not have accomplished a lot in this world. But I did the one thing that matters.

But I didn’t do the one thing that matters. Do you? I want to be able to say, like Paul said in 2 Timothy 4. He said, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I’ve kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have loved his appearance. Live for the one thing when complacency creeps in. Live for the one thing that truly matters. And you know how we do that, brethren? I got one last illustration for you. Do that one moment at a time. You live for the one thing, one moment at a time. Not even one day at a time.

We say, well, I’ll take it one day at a time. Sometimes I have to take it one moment at a time. Navy SEALs have maybe the most incredible mental toughness in all the military. In their basic training, which is insane, they go through 96 hours of sleep deprivation. They have to do exercises such as link arms with their buddies and lay down in the Coronado Bay and force themselves to get hypothermia. They do moving push-ups. They pick up 300 pound logs with their team. And they’re timed on these different exercises, competing with other of their own. And if they do well, they might be awarded a standing up nap. You say, how do they have that mental toughness? Well, I’ve learned that one of the secrets that gives Navy SEALs this kind of focus is they they only focus on one task at a time.

I mean, if they’re laying there getting hypothermia in the Coronado Bay, and they’re thinking to themselves, man, after this I’ve got to go do moving push-ups. Then after that, I’ve got to crawl through the mud. Then after that, I’ve got to lift a 300-pound log with my team, and then I might not sleep for six more or for three more days. Then forget about them succeeding in that challenge they’re undergoing. And certainly they’re not going to get through the training. And that’s what we have to do as Christians. Live for the one thing one moment at a time. Listen, I’m not telling you anything great or grandiose. When you go to work, live for the one thing. There are challenges at work, but shine as a light.

Conclusion

Keep God first in that moment, in that situation, whatever that looks like for you. You go home, are there going to be challenges at home? Probably. Live for the one thing in that moment. You go to some event, whatever that event is, live for the one thing in that moment. And if we keep putting the Lord first from moment to moment to moment, we’re going to live a life of putting the Lord first and living for the one thing that truly matters. And that’s my goal and my hope for you. So, in conclusion, just really quickly, this is really basically a review of what we’ve been talking about. How do we live for the one thing? Let me give you just three things. Number one, long for the Lord above all else.

This is a heart thing. This is David saying one thing I have asked from the Lord that I may dwell in his presence. This looks like meditating on heaven every morning, for example. Secondly, make time for him.

Turn off Netflix. Log out of Facebook and TikTok if you’ve ever used that. I haven’t. Put the PS5 controller down. And make time for the Lord. Sit at his feet and focus on the one thing that will never be taken away from you. Do you realize that 1% of our time is about 15 minutes a day? Do you give the Lord even one percent of your time? Make time for him. And thirdly, put great effort into serving him. That’s kind of a catch all, but reach forward, strain every nerve. Not so that you can earn heaven, but so that you can reach your spiritual potential, so that you become like your Savior, and so that through the grace of our Lord, we may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

And I believe that if we do those things, then we will please the Lord. And we’ll make it.

Preached our little church. I asked that question. You believe you’re going to heaven? And one guy shouted, Yes. And I was so encouraged. I would hope that we can all, without hesitation, answer that question. Do you believe you’re going to heaven with a resounding yes? If you have any doubt in your heart about that, then it’s holding you back. How are we going to live like we’re going if we don’t believe we’re going? How are we going to live for the one thing if we don’t believe we’ll ever reach the one thing? We’ve got to trust in the promises of our Lord and the grace and savior of our mercy of our Savior. And we just keep running this race.

On your priorities. What changes do you maybe need to make in your life? And what changes are you going to make starting today? Hope that we will all resolve to do just a little bit better than we’ve been doing. That’s my resolve. Thank you all so much. If we can help you to draw closer to the Lord, if you don’t have a relationship with the Lord and you’d like to begin that relationship, we’d love to help you if you’d come. Let us know your needs as we stand and sing this song.