How important is Jesus in your life? QUITE important? VERY important? One of several things that are essential? Or, the ONE THING that is truly essential?
Over the period to Christmas we’re mainly looking at Revelation. But we’re also having some talks about people in the Bible. In each case, the people we’re looking at have something in common. Today, the people we’re looking at believed that God, or Jesus, was the ONE THING that was essential. The people are Mary, David, Paul and Margaret.
Is there a Margaret in the Bible? No, there isn’t. I made that up. But the story IS in the Bible.
As I said, these four people believed that God, or Jesus, was the ONE THING that was essential.
MARY
Let’s start with Mary. Mary lived in a village called Bethany. She had a brother called Lazarus and a sister called Martha. The three of them were good friends of Jesus’. One day, Jesus came to visit Mary, Martha and Lazarus. But he didn’t come on his own. He came with his 12 disciples. They’d had a good walk by the time they reached Bethany I imagine they were hungry. Mary, Martha and Lazarus had 13 hungry young men to feed!
Martha knew what to do. She bustled here and there, getting food ready. But Mary didn’t. The Bible says that Martha ‘had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.’
There was Jesus with his 12 disciples. They needed a meal. But Mary didn’t do any work. Instead, she went and sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to him! She didn’t go to Jesus because she wanted him to help her with something. She simply wanted to be with him and she wanted to learn from him.
Mary didn’t mind if the work didn’t get done. She didn’t mind if Martha was angry with her. She didn’t mind if people saw her and said to themselves, Mary shouldn’t be there with all the men. She said to herself, ‘Being with Jesus is more important than any of those things. That is the ONE THING I want.’
Martha didn’t like what Mary had done. She went up to Jesus and said, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone?’
Q: Whose side would YOU take if you were Jesus? Mary’s? Or Martha’s?
This is what Jesus said: ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but ONE THING is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her’ [Luke 10:41-42].
Mary had chosen ONE THING – being with Jesus – instead of the many other things she could have done. And Jesus told her that she’d made the right choice.
DAVID
Let’s go on to David. David lived many hundreds of years before Jesus. He was the most famous king of Israel. As a king, he must have been very busy. David loved to write songs and poems. In one of them he wrote this. This is from The Message Bible.
'I’m asking God for ONE THING,
only ONE THING:
To live with him in his house
my whole life long.
I’ll contemplate his beauty;
I’ll study at his feet' [Psalm 27:4].
David wanted to live with God, in his house, his whole life long. He wanted to contemplate God’s beauty and to study at his feet. That’s very like Mary, isn’t it?
David was saying: ‘You can forget everything else. I don’t need anything else. There’s just ONE THING I want: to be in God’s presence, to contemplate his beauty, to study at his feet.’
PAUL
Let’s go on to our third character, Paul. Paul wrote a lot of letters. One letter he wrote was a to a church in a place in Greece called Philippi.
Paul wanted to know Jesus more than anything else. He wrote: ‘I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord’ [Philippians 3:7-14]. For Paul, knowing Jesus was worth more than anything else. He continued, ‘For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ .’ Paul wasn't just WILLING to part with everything in order to gain Christ. He really had parted with everything!
Paul then gives us a practical application. Christ was the ONE THING he wanted. What was he going to do about it? Paul writes:
‘…ONE THING I do: FORGETTING what lies behind and straining FORWARD to what lies ahead, I PRESS ON towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.’
Paul says there’s ONE THING he does. But he then tells us THREE THINGS he does! Actually, they are all joined together. He FORGETS what is behind. He STRAINS FORWARD to what lies ahead. He PRESSES ON towards the goal.
Let me give you an example. Last month, we went on a walking holiday in the French Alps. Quite often, we could see where we were trying to get to. It might be an arête – a ridge between two valleys. Or it might be the terminus of a ski lift which we could see in the distance. How would we reach our goal? We didn't look backwards. We didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about where we’d come from. We didn't look sideways. We saw sign posts pointing to other places. But we didn’t take those paths. We looked forwards. We were focused on where we were going. We kept our goal in sight. And we pressed on. We trudged on up the steep mountain path.
That is what Paul says we need to do in the Christian life. We don’t literally forget the past but it doesn’t occupy our thoughts. Our focus is on what lies ahead. It might be a tricky path but we press on.
MARGARET
Our final character comes in a story Jesus told. Jesus didn’t give the people in this story names but I’ve given them names and I’ve reimagined the story a little. This time, we will tell the story with a little sketch.
NARRATOR: Once upon a time there was a woman called Margaret. Margaret was VEEERRRY wealthy. She owned a business. She had a lovely house. She had some nice cars. And she had a fair bit stashed away in the bank. She was a millionaire many times over.
Margaret loved jewellery. She especially loved pearls. She had a pearl necklace and a pearl choker. She had pearl earrings and pearl studs. She had a pearl bracelet. Margaret knew about pearls. She knew a good pearl when she saw one and she knew how much pearls were worth.
One day, she paid a visit to her favourite jewellery store.
MARGARET: Morning, Simon!
NARRATOR: The jeweller’s name was Simon.
MARGARET: Have you got anything new in? Anything with pearls?
SIMON: Actually, I do! But I’m afraid it will be out of even your means.
MARGARET: Hmm… [growling]
NARRATOR: Margaret did not think that anything could be outside her price range.
MARGARET: Let me see it.
NARRATOR: Simon took out a pendant. It had the biggest, most beautiful pearl Margaret had ever seen.
MARGARET: [Gasps]
SIMON: It’s amazing, isn’t it? Unique!
MARGARET: [Nods, mouth open.] And the price?
SIMON: Thirty million dollars.
MARGARET: [Faints]
SIMON: [Delivers smelling salts and revives Margaret] I’ll call you a taxi.
NARRATOR: That evening, Margaret considered. She had money in the bank. [Margaret writes numbers on a whiteboard as the narrator is speaking] Perhaps a million dollars. She owned a business. She could sell that. It might raise 25 million dollars. Still not enough. Then there was the house. She could get three million dollars from that. But she was still a million dollars short. [Narrator addresses the audience] How could Margaret come up with another million dollars? Do YOU have any ideas…? [Sell the children did you say?]
NARRATOR: Margaret sold everything she had. She sold her business. She sold her house. She sold her furniture. She sold her three cars. She sold her pearl jewellery. She sold all her clothes except what she was wearing. At the end, she had 30 million dollars. She went back to Simon the jeweller [Margaret goes back] and gave him the thirty million dollars [gives suitcase]. And Simon gave her the most amazing pearl pendant in the world.
I said I reimagined Jesus’ story. Let me tell it as Jesus told it. Jesus said:
‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.’
The merchant was willing to sell all he had to buy that pearl because he knew how valuable it was. Jesus is saying that the kingdom of heaven is like that. A person who wants to enter the kingdom of heaven needs to understand that it's worth more than anything else. It’s worth giving up everything for. We need to be willing to do that, and God may ask us to do that.
So, are we willing? Can we place ourselves alongside David and Mary and Paul and the merchant in Jesus’ story and say, ‘The kingdom of heaven is the ONE THING I want. I don’t want anything else’?
If we decide the kingdom of heaven is that valuable, how will we reach it? Let’s go back to Paul’s advice.
DON’T GAZE BACKWARDS. It means, don’t dwell in the past. Many of us like to do that. We like to reflect on our past achievements. Therapists and counsellors may encourage patients to dig into past events. I don’t know if this is helpful. Perhaps it is. But it isn’t what Paul does. He says that he forgets what lies behind. He isn’t going to be dwell in the past. The past is past.
DON'T GAZE SIDEWAYS. Actually, Paul doesn't say ‘Don’t gaze sideways.’ But I think if you're gazing forwards, you can't gaze sideways. Most days, most of us have lots to do. Do you do a ‘jobs-to-do’ list? There’s a lot to be said for them. If you have a list, you don’t forget things you should do. And knowing what you should do reduces stress. You don’t worry so much that you’ve forgotten something. But the busyness of life can easily squeeze God out. There’s a poem that starts:
‘I got up early one morning and rushed right into the day!
I had so much to accomplish that I didn’t take time to pray…’
Often, our first priority is the tasks we have to do. But at the end of the day we may find that we hadn’t made any time for God. God was squeezed out. ‘Too busy to pray’ is a common condition. Like Mary, we need to reverse things. We need to make our first priority God. If the other tasks don’t get done, well, the tasks don’t get done. There’s only ONE THING that’s essential.
GAZE FORWARDS. The kingdom of God is like a pearl of great value. There’s a prize to be had. David, Mary and Paul’s desire to be with God will be realized. God will dwell with man. So, let’s look FORWARD and be as focused as Margaret was.
FINALLY, PRESS ON. Sometimes, it will be a trudge up a hill. But that is what's needed to get the pearl.
PRAYER:
Lord Jesus, Heavenly Father, thank you for what we have looked at today.
We pray that like the merchant seeing the pearl, we may recognize that you and your kingdom are worth more than anything this world can offer.
We pray that like Mary, David and Paul, our deepest desire may be to be in your presence, to sit at your feet and learn from you; to gain you.
We pray that we would not look backwards, not look sideways, but look forwards, keeping our eyes on the prize.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK, a.m. service, 11th September 2022.
