The One Thing

Beginning at verse 1:

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
 whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
 of whom shall I be afraid?

When evildoers assail me
 to eat up my flesh,
my adversaries and foes,
 it is they who stumble and fall.

Though an army encamp against me,
 my heart shall not fear;
though war arise against me,
 yet I will be confident.

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 gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
 and to inquire in his temple.

And then, just breaking into John chapter 9: the story of the man who was born blind. And, if you recall, Jesus put mud on his eyes, and it led to a great controversy involving the Pharisees and involving his mom and dad. (That’s the man’s mom and dad.) And at verse 18:

“The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?’ His parents answered, ‘We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he[’s] of age. He will speak for himself.’ (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, ‘He is of age; ask him.’)

“So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, ‘Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.’ He answered, ‘Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’”

And then in Philippians chapter 3, where Paul is explaining the wonder of God’s grace to him, his background as a member of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and so on, he makes this amazing statement:

“I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

“Not that I[’ve] already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

And before we just think about those things for a moment, we pause and pray—an old Anglican prayer:

Father, what we know not, teach us. What we have not, give us. What we are not, make us. For your Son’s sake. Amen.

Now, those of you who are perceptive—which may actually limit the numbers a little; I don’t know—but you will have picked up a recurring phrase from each of those brief Scriptures.

Let me lead into it by saying that when I landed in America, in Cleveland, in 1983 to begin ministry there, a kindly gentleman who was also a minister invited me out to play golf. And while we were out on the golf course, he paused at one point, and he said to me, “Alistair, what is your thing?”—which completely caught me off guard. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. And I said, “Well, what is your thing?” And he said, “Well, my thing is responsible freedom”—which didn’t help me at all either. I was completely bemused by it. I can’t remember what I said. I said… Yeah. I said, “I don’t have a thing,” I said. “No. I have no thing.” But it got me thinking. I thought, “Well, maybe you’re supposed to have a thing.” And it would be terrible to go through life, you know, without having a thing—at least just one thing, you know? You don’t have to have a lot of things, just one thing.

And actually, you know, people who are able to articulate in short order a real clear statement of what they are aiming at in life—and advertising understands this perfectly as well—are usually able to make people understand. For example, in the company of so many people from Ireland here, I’m reminded of someone who was a big influence on me many years ago: a little bank manager from Londonderry called T. S. Mooney. And T. S. Mooney was the master of the one-lines. And he died, I think, about ’83. We were at a conference in Strathpeffer, further north, here in Scotland. And I said to him, I said, “T. S., why have you never married? Why have you never married?” And he said, “Well, put it like this.” He said, “I would rather go through life wanting what I don’t have than having what I don’t want.” So I said to him, I said, “That’s the best answer to that question that I’ve ever heard. And now I know why you’re not married.” But he was quick to follow it up. He said—you know, he said, “Honestly, Alistair, in my case, the desirable has been unattainable, and the attainable has been undesirable.” So we’ll just leave it at that. But it did get me thinking. Very, very good.

“One Thing I Know”

So, the phrase, you know: “One thing I know.” “One thing I know” in each of the texts, first of all in the circumstances concerning the transformation of this man: “One thing I know: Once I was blind; now I can see.”

So, at the very heart of a devotional life—and these are the devotions for this morning—is our devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, a devotion which is not natural to us by birth, by background, or even by inclination. And somewhere along the journey of life, we may not have had an experience akin to this, but whether it was a parent, a Sunday school teacher, someone who gave us a C. S. Lewis book, somebody along the way, a minister making the gospel clear, we were able to say as well that we understood what Paul was saying when he wrote to the Ephesians and to the Colossians—in fact, when he wrote in general: that we were spiritually blind; that we were proud in our hearts; we thought we could see everything, but we actually couldn’t; and then, one day, God turned the lights on.

And when Calvin was preaching and making that very, very clear, he said to his congregation with regularity, “You know, all that we know of what Christ has done for us is of no value to us so long as we remain outside of Christ.”[1]

At the present time, if you listen to people as I do, as folks apply for membership in a church or whatever it might be, there’s all kind of statements being made: “Well, I just decided to be a little more spiritual,” or “I’m trying to hook into a higher power,” or whatever it might be. And the longer you listen to that kind of terminology, you realize that the clarity of the gospel has not penetrated their souls.

The bishop of Durham at one stage in life was Westcott, the very able New Testament scholar. And it’s recorded that on one occasion he was going to the induction of a minister or something, that he was on a train, and he was sitting there ready for business, as it were, dressed in his robes and with his special hat up on the rack above him. And into the compartment came a young Salvation Army girl. And seeing this fellow dressed like that, she assumed he was an obvious person for the possibilities of evangelism—because she said, “Nobody that dressed like that could possibly have any knowledge of the gospel at all.” And so she said to him, “’Scuse me, Bishop. Is you saved? Is you saved?” And he said to her, “Young lady, do you mean: Was I saved? Am I being saved? Or will I be saved?”[2] And there’s no answer from the part of the lady. I think she just probably sunk down in her chair. But what he was pointing out was that the work of grace within us that has begun at a point in time continues throughout life and eventually ends when we see him and are made like him.[3]

When we think in these terms, the clarity of that man’s statement is matched, actually, again and again. And people will often say to me when I talk in these terms—they say, “Well, you’re not expecting me to have a kind of Saul of Tarsus conversion, are you?” Well, no. And what would it matter what I was expecting? But I would say this: that although there were unique aspects to the dramatic transformation in the life of one Saul of Tarsus, who became the apostle Paul, there were three things that marked what happened in that transformation—three things that are true of people in whatever context they come to Christ. And they are these.

Number one: He had a brand-new view of Jesus. He hated Jesus. He believed Jesus to be an imposter. He wanted nothing to do with him. And suddenly, he is calling him Lord.

He had a terrifically new view of the followers of Jesus. His approach to those who were his followers was to harass them, imprison them, and do whatever he could to stamp out this ridiculous sect. Now he wants to be joined to them. And Barnabas took him and joined him to the disciples.[4]

A new view of Jesus, a new view of church, and a new view of God’s mercy. He was once proud, and suddenly he realized, as we read there, that he had nothing particular to talk about.

“One Thing I Seek”

Now, “one thing”: “One thing I know,” and “One thing I seek.” That was from the statement by the psalmist that we read: “I want to make sure that I dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Now, clearly, he’s not saying that he wants to live in the temple forever. But he is affirming the fact that he longs to be in the company of those who love the Lord Jesus. And so, when we think about our devotion to Christ, we think also in terms of our devotion to the Lord’s people. And one of the great benefits of being here just now is to be introduced to many whom we have never met before, and the unifying feature of our lives is that we have been included in Christ, united to him and therefore united with one another.

I think it’s important—and you would expect this from someone who is a pastor—to reinforce in these days the importance of the gathering of God’s people. No matter how good your small group is, no matter how well you’re able to tune in to various things online, nothing can take the place of being together amongst the people of God in the worship of God and in the study of his Word.

Steve Turner, a poet, journalist from London, whom some of you will know, has written a number of books. And in one of them, commenting on the church, this is what he says: “The church”—that’s the gathering of God’s people—

humbles us. It is one of the few places in our societies today where we sit with rich and poor, young and old, black and white, educated and uneducated, and are focused on the same object. It is one of the few places where we share the problems and hopes of our lives with people we may not know. It is one of the few places where we sing as a crowd. Although the church needs its outsiders to prevent it from drifting into dull conformity, the outsiders need the church to stop them from drifting into individualized religion.[5]

“Individualized religion”—the new COVID religion, where all you need is an iPad or a laptop or a phone and a coffee and your pajamas, and you’re not going to need to sit next to Mrs. Jones and her miserable children. (Sorry for anybody by the name of Jones. It is my wife’s maiden name, so there must be something Freudian about that, I’m sure. You should never speak disparagingly of your mother-in-law. But anyway, yeah.)

Nothing can take the place of being together amongst the people of God in the worship of God and in the study of his Word.

Well, I don’t really need to do that—to say more than that, do I? “One thing I seek”—the gathering of God’s people. “Don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together,”[6] and so on. Because it is there that, as we sit under the Word of God, we are reminded of what it is that God is doing with us. And what God is doing with us he’s doing with all of us. You say, “Well, that seems a little strange.” Well, no, he is actually doing the same thing for every single one of us. He’s doing different things in each of our lives, but this one thing he is definitely doing: Those he has predestined, he has called, and he has called us to be conformed to the image of his Son.[7] In other words, he is making us more like Jesus. That is his, if you like, eternal plan.

He is also—in Paul to the Corinthians, he says we are being transformed into the likeness of Jesus.[8] So that which is God’s eternal purpose is his existential reality for us. What’s happening here in these few days? Oh, we’re learning about the Bible. We’re learning about the nations. We’re learning all these things. But actually, in and through it all, God is at work to seek to make us more like his Son.

And, of course, John in his letter tells us that although we may not grasp everything now, when we see him, we will be made like him. And that is, if you like, his eschatological purpose.

Spurgeon, the great Victorian preacher, who was able to use Victorian language with great effect, says, you know, when we come to reverently hear the Word of God, it “exercises our humility”; it “instructs our faith”; it “irradiates us with joy”; it “inflames us with love”; it “inspires us with zeal”; it “lifts us up towards heaven.”[9]

I wonder: Do we say, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’”?[10] I don’t know how it is now in Britain. I’m not here. But I know in America, it’s very, very easy for people to think they’re going to sustain a meaningful devotional and Christian life as a result of spending perhaps thirty minutes in an entire week under the instruction of God’s Word by those whom God has given as pastors and teachers for the edification of the saints so that they might in turn do the works of ministry.[11] How vastly different things are even from, for example, many of us in our early days as youngsters here in this country! And how vastly different, certainly, from Calvin’s Geneva!

In and through it all, God is at work to seek to make us more like his Son.

In the sixteenth century in Geneva, it’s recorded that each Sunday, Calvin preached at St. Pierre and St. Gervais. He preached at break of day and then at the usual hour of 9 a.m. At midday there was catechism and at three o’clock the second sermon of the day. And that which happened routinely on a Sunday there happened also Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during the week.

Now, do you think there is a direct correlation between the ability of the people in the sixteenth century to face the onslaught of everything that came against them and to stand for the truth of the gospel—do you think there’s a direct correlation between that intake and that output? Do you think there is a direct correlation between the absence of intake and the anemic state of contemporary Christianity? Do you think there is a reason why our children and grandchildren are adrift in so many places, when we who to our gray hair and our old days are supposed to be entrusting them so that generations that come behind us will be the people seeing the end product of this, will be enjoying the benefits of it all?

“One Thing I Do”

“One thing I know,” “One thing I seek,” and “One thing I do”—that is, I stop. Philippians 3: “Forgetting what lies behind…”

You know, it’s interesting that we understand that the Scriptures are—there’s a joint authorship of Scripture. The Scriptures are given to us by the Holy Spirit, but God worked in the life of Paul in order that we might have such a large chunk of the New Testament. And however you imagine Paul writing—whether he himself was with pen in hand, as it were, or whether he had a secretary or an amanuensis… I like to think he probably did, at least in some occasions. And so you imagine Paul perhaps, in the context of his writing, has somebody beside him, and they’re scribbling away. And as he unfolds, he says to them, “You know, I used to be in the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews,” and so on, “and I count everything as loss,” and so on, and so on, and so on. And perhaps he’d turn to his secretary and say, “What do you think of it so far?”

And he or she might say, “You know, you’re coming on a little bit strong there, Paul. I mean, ‘that I might know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection of the dead.’ You might want to just put another—maybe a caveat in there or something. Just whatever.”

He says, “Well, listen, let’s try this. Let’s try this: ‘Not that I’ve already obtained all this.’”

“Oh, that’s good. Now, that’s good. That’s what I’m talking about.”

“‘Or I’m already perfect.’”

“Even better!”

“‘But I press on…’”

“That’s good.”

“‘… to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.’”

“Good!”

“‘Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: Forgetting…’”

Forgetting. Do you have a good memory? I’ve had a good memory all my life until I started not to be able to find my car keys and remember anybody’s name. But I’ve also been given an amazing ability to forget. You can’t be in pastoral ministry for forty-five years without being wounded, without being offended, without being disappointed, without having been brought into people’s lives that have introduced you to affairs and to difficulties and to disappointments that would perhaps simply flavor the rest of your relationship with those people forever. And I can’t fully explain it, except the grace of God, that I’m able to meet people all along the way. I can meet them in the grocery store, and I know that something was going on in their lives, but I can’t remember what it was. I’ve learned not only to work hard at remembering, but I’ve learned also to work hard at forgetting.

He says, “I forget those things which are behind.” To what is he referring? Well, it would be surprising if he wasn’t referring to the day he became the cloakroom attendant—when he says, “Listen, when you throw the stones at that fellow, Stephen, just put your coats down here. I’m not going to be throwing stones. But you can put your coats here.”[12] Forgetting those things which are behind.

Perhaps forgetting success on the other side. Two Corinthians 12: “I know a man who was caught up into the third heaven to see things and to speak of things I cannot even speak to.”[13] Learning to step away from the things that the Evil One would use to hinder us, to hamper us, to prevent us from progress. And at the same time, learning not to build monuments to our apparent successes—constantly using that as the jumping-off point for our introductions in conversations: “I am Miss So-and-So, and I have… And I did… And I know… And I so… And I do…” There’s something about humility that appeals to our ego,[14] as Augustine said. And we have to be careful with it.

“I press on toward[s] the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”[15] I was in my watch box the other day, and I found a medal. A medal. It wasn’t from the Second World War; I’m not that old. It was actually a medal with a little bit of string, when I played for Carolside Primary School in the cup final. And my father came to see me, and it was horrible by any standards. We lost 5–1. But a few days later, my father gave me this medal. Inscribed on the back: “Carolside FC,” such-and-such a date—you know, 1969 or something. Who knows? And I picked it up the other day, and I thought, “Well, I’ve never really won very many medals. But that was really nice of my dad to do that.”

And you know, it really is those tiny little influences along the way that often encourage us to say, “You know, one thing I’m going to do: I’m going to keep running.” It’s a crown that was promised to Paul, and Paul very graciously says, “And that crown will be awarded on that day to all those who long for his appearing.”[16]

I began with T. S. Mooney; I can end with T. S. Mooney. He was the Crusader leader in Londonderry for the boys’ class there for fifty years. On his tombstone—which I haven’t been able to visit—but on his tombstone it simply says, “T. S. Mooney, Crusader Class Leader, from x until y.” And one day I said to him, “What was it that you were doing with all of those boys? What was your emphasis?” Quick as a flash he said, “I wanted every boy to have a Bible in his hand, a Savior in his heart, and a purpose in his life.”

“One thing I know.” “One thing I seek.” “One thing I do.”

A brief prayer:

Father, thank you for your grace and goodness that brings us to this morning. Thank you for the wonderful love of the Lord Jesus. Thank you for those who have stepped out before us and in whose track we now follow and on whose shoulders we now stand. Bless to us all that follows in this morning hour, we pray. For Christ’s sake. Amen.

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[1] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 3.1.1. Paraphrased.

[2] Joseph Clayton, Bishop Westcott, Leaders of the Church 1800–1900, ed. George W. E. Russell (London: Mowbray, 1906), 110–11. Paraphrased.

[3] See 1 John 3:2.

[4] See Acts 9:27.

[5] Steve Turner, Imagine: A Vision for Christians and the Arts (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity, 2001), 122.

[6] Hebrews 10:25 (paraphrased).

[7] See Romans 8:29–30.

[8] See 2 Corinthians 3:18.

[9] Charles H. Spurgeon, “Our Public Prayer,” in Lectures to My Students (1875–94; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2008), 55.

[10] Psalm 122:1 (ESV).

[11] See Ephesians 4:11–12.

[12] See Acts 7:58.

[13] 2 Corinthians 12:2, 4 (paraphrased).

[14] Augustine, The City of God, bk. 14, chap. 13.

[15] Philippians 3:14 (NIV).

[16] 2 Timothy 4:8 (paraphrased).