In the chapter we have read, we are reminded by our blessed Lord that we are not always going to stay here. Things are not always going to run on as they are now, from day to day. There is a great crisis in the offing. We are going to be taken out of this scene one of these days, and ushered into new surroundings. We are not there yet. We are on the way.
In this chapter we have certain exhortations and admonitions that are to be for our profit while we are waiting for the translation. This paragraph opens with the word, "Rather seek ye the kingdom of God." Everyone here is a seeker. I take it that I am not speaking to an audience composed of aimless people. A tramp is someone who is going, but he is going nowhere. He leads an aimless life; one place is as good as another, and one day is as good as another; so he lives from day to day with no object. Not so with you. You are a seeker. You have an object before you.
Perhaps it would be well to stop and let the Lord ask us a question that He asked those in the 1st chapter of John's Gospel: "What seek ye?" I believe that is a question we need to ask often. Remember, He was the One who asked it. "What seek ye?" The exhortation here is, "Seek ye the kingdom of God." Is that what we are seeking?
We have entered a new year. Yes, the old is in the past. The sands have all run through the glass. Now we are starting over again. 'What is the object before our souls? Shall we take inventory? What would you like this year to bring forth in your life? "What seek ye?" Those two in the 1st chapter of John's Gospel gave a lovely answer. They said, "Master, where dwellest Thou?" What were they seeking? Companionship with Christ. And He said to them, "Come and see," and they went and saw where He dwelt and they abode with Him that same hour. Oh, they found the end of the quest, didn't they? They found Christ as the object of their souls, and they dwelt with Him. We are not in heaven yet; we are beset with the perplexities and problems that have to do with the necessities of life. We are fathers and mothers and husbands and wives and children and employers and servants. We have our various relationships here in life. We cannot ignore the fact, but at the same time, what is the overall object that is giving color to all these relationships? What is the gripping motive of the heart? the driving power in the life that is carrying us on through all these various human relationships? The exhortation here is, "Seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you."
That term, "kingdom of God," is a very wide one in Luke's Gospel. I take it that the kingdom of God takes in all those moral questions of every relationship of life, in responsibility to the One who placed us here in this world. You and I came not into this world by any choosing of our own. We did not ask to come here. We find ourselves here, and when we come to years of intelligence, we gain the knowledge of the One who placed us here. (I trust that those to whom I am speaking this afternoon have made the acquaintance of that One, not only as the One that spread the heavens, but as the One that died for sinners—have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, and have become a part of the family of God.) You now have a heavenly relationship, so you start all over again and you bring every relationship of life to Him, and say, Now, Lord, I am going to be a father, I am going to be a mother, a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister, a child, a master, a servant, in a new way. I am going to seek to be a father that walks before God. I am going to seek to be a mother that has the consciousness all the time that I am responsible to bring up my little family to the glory of my beloved Lord; and if you are a master, you seek in that position of yours to carry the spirit of Christ; and if you are a servant, you are not one with eye-service, as men pleasers, but you realize that solemn word, "Thou God seest me." Every relationship of life assumes a new dignity now. You bring it to Him, and you ask Him to bless it. Ah, what a happy service that is. What a transformation of life that is. Every day becomes a day when you and I can use every relationship of life to the glory of God.
"What seek ye?" What is our object?—and one wonders sometimes if we get our eyes off the true Object. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." This room is well filled with young people. I have always had a warm spot in my heart for them. I was young once myself. Young folks, what are you seeking? You are laying your plans; what do you have ahead? I trust that you have bowed the knee many a time, as you are making decisions in life, regarding the kind of home you are going to buy, where you are going to locate, the kind of position you are going to accept. and asked the Lord if this is His will. Is it for the glory of God? "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
We are living in strange days. Man seems to have a sense of insecurity as perhaps he has never had in the history of the world, and there is a desperate effort on the part of those in this world to reach a measure of security. They are seeking it nationally and internationally, but not only so; the man of the world seeks individually to make himself secure in a temporal way. He takes out insurance against that catastrophe and against this and that possibility, so that the ramifications of insurance have become exceedingly complex—all in an effort to establish a sense of security in this world. What does our verse say? "Seek ye first the kingdom of God,... and all these things shall be added unto you." Are you willing to step out on that promise? By way of illustration: In the old "Traveler's Guide," there was a picture of a man standing at the edge of a frozen river and testing the ice with his cane. He wondered if it would hold him, yet in the middle of the river was a huge sled load of logs drawn by a yoke of oxen! How foolish we are! Is not the God that built the sky able to take you and me safely through this journey if we make first things first? "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
Luke 12:3232Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32): "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Here we have one of those sweet and precious "Fear nots" of the Bible. I have never counted them; perhaps you have, but their number is legion. "Fear not, fear not, fear not!" Who says it? Oh, it is our God who says it to us. We mentioned a moment ago that we are on the threshold of a new year. Are you apprehensive? Do you tremble? Do you wonder what lies ahead? Do you shrink back? Listen. "Fear not." Who says it? The blessed Lord. "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
"Little flock." We are living in the days of bigness. People love to talk in superlatives, and everything is bigger and better. Sad to say, that spirit has invaded the spiritual realm. It has gotten in among God's people, and they are trying to run competition and keep up with the activity and pace of the world, so we draw our pattern of spiritual progress after the pattern of the great men of this world. Oh, beloved, when our Lord spoke these words, He was addressing a little flock, a precious little flock. They were not numbered by the thousands and tens of thousands. No, they were numbered by the two's and three's.
"Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." After our Lord had served here for a matter of 31/2 years of intense ministry, how many were there in that great city—Jerusalem—waiting in the upper room for the promise? One hundred and twenty. After 31/2 years of labor and toil and tears, a little group of 120 waiting in the upper room for the promise. Oh, beloved, when we deal in the things of God, we must remember that we are dealing with what He can own as real. "Little flock." We cannot look out over this world, so apostate from God, and think for a moment that that is the little flock about which He is talking. But in the midst of a great, sinful, apostate world, God marks out here and there a precious soul that is washed in the blood of the Lamb, and numbers them among the little flock.
"Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not."
God is not looking for mammoth programs. He is not looking for vast amphitheaters. He is seeking precious souls. He is seeking them where they are to be found, and you and I from day to day can seek grace from Him to speak faithfully of Christ as we have opportunity. I sometimes wonder, as I behold the methods that have become so popular about us today in the proclamation of the gospel, what the dear Apostle Paul would think if he came back into this world. My heart is grieved and burdened as I think that we have reached a place where the servants of God have become too big for the little flock. They must have their thousands and tens of thousands; they can boast in their hundred thousands. Oh, beloved, that is not the language of Scripture. "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
In the verses that follow, we have an exhortation to be, as a dear servant of Christ used to put it, "distributors rather than accumulators." We need to have a bank account up there, so He says here, "Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupt eth." There is some heavenly bookkeeping going on, and you and I are making deposits, day by day. I wonder how the account stands at the end of this year. If we were to turn to the 16th chapter of Luke, we would find this verse: "Make to yourselves friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, that when it fails ye may be received into the eternal tabernacles" (J.N.D. Trans.). That is the transmutation of the vain mammon of this life into the coin of heaven. You and I have the privilege, as we go through this world, of seeking to use our time, our talents, our strength, our means, our homes, in such a way that by-and-by, when we change worlds, there will be something on the other side. Brethren, sisters, how does the account stand?
We hear a lot about bankruptcy. Well, it is a bad thing to go bankrupt; but oh, heavenly bankruptcy would be a lot worse, would it not? God has given us a means whereby we can send on ahead to meet us in that coining day those things that He has entrusted to us down here. I trust that we know something about stewardship. Let us not confine it to terms of dollars and cents, for I judge that it includes all the powers with which we have been endowed by God—our time, our strength, our means, our gifts, our abilities, whatever it is. Are we using them in view of the coming day?
Luke 12:3535Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; (Luke 12:35): "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning." Girded loins means that we realize life is serious. That is the opposite of rocking chair Christianity. "Loins girt about with truth"—the Word of God guarding and guiding us day by day. Ah, how we need it! There is a lot of loose living among Christians today, sad to say. If we have a piece of work before us, we gird our loins to get ready for it. So the Lord Jesus here is exhorting you and me to gird up those loins. "And your lights burning." That light was not given to be put under the bed. No, that is not the place for it, nor under the bushel. In other words, that light can be darkened either by taking it easy in the pleasures of this life, or by the treacherous bushel—the business that occupies us so thoroughly. The things of this life can obscure that light. But it is to be put on a candlestick, and it gives its light to all in the house.