DIVINE SEEKING
Luke 19:10; Matthew 6:25-34; Colossians 3:1-4;
I want to speak about seeking. The verse which particularly struck me was verse 33 of Matthew 6; “seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you”. A verse like this always brings before us the Lord Jesus. I read about Him in His own words; “the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost”. It is a wonderful fact that divine Persons are seeking. They have no need to seek for themselves exactly, but we read here that the Son of man had come to seek and to save that which is lost.
I wonder if all of us realise that we were lost, that we need a Saviour. We need a Saviour because of our sins, but we also need a Saviour because we are lost. I might ask anyone here, Have you done wrong things? You would agree, we would all agree; how could we do otherwise? But if I said to a sinner, Do you know that you are lost? they might not be quite so ready to receive that word. But it is a fact that without the intervention in love and grace of our Saviour God, and the One who is spoken of here as the Son of man, we are lost. It is our condition as children of Adam. The Lord Jesus has come to seek and to save that which is lost. He came to bear the sins of guilty sinners; I trust that each of us can say with conviction that the Lord Jesus bore my sins “in his body on the tree”, 1 Pet.2:24. We sang about His glory, His beauty, His fulness, the One who in His Person is over all, God blessed for ever (Rom.9:5); it is a wonderful thing that He should have come here as the Son of man on your behalf and on my behalf to save that which is lost. We have caused Him a lot of trouble. It was no easy matter for us to be found. How often we have hidden ourselves, tried to run away from the saving grace of the Lord Jesus, but still He sought us. If He has not yet found you, He is seeking you still.
What a picture it is in Luke chapter 15 of the man who went after the lost sheep until he finds it. There is no thought of him ever giving up. In the wonderful grace seen in Luke’s gospel, the Son of man seeks until He finds the lost sheep. Dear young person, is He still looking for you, still seeking you, wherever you might be? You might go to the other end of the earth, but He will find you. So do not hide. Come to it, as we have all needed to come to it, that you are in a lost condition. We need the Saviour on account of our sins, because we are guilty not only for what we have done but because of what we are. As has often been said, we sin because we are sinners, we are not sinners because we sin. Jesus came in order that man might be set up in a new way altogether under the eye of God, no longer lost but found. Think of the joy in the father’s house in the parable when he said, “this my son was dead” – that was you and me, away from God – “and has come to life, was lost and has been found”, Luke 15:24. I trust that that is the position of us all, that we have been found. No longer lost, but we are under the shelter of the precious blood of Jesus. It is all down to the grace of the Son of man who came to seek and to save that which is lost.
Another gospel says “and give his life a ransom for many”, Mark 10:45. Think of what a life it was. There was no sin with the Lord Jesus; no spot in that life. He offered Himself spotless (Heb.9:14). The whole of His life was pleasing to the Father. There was absolutely nothing of which his enemies could accuse Him. They accused Him falsely. There were many witnesses they could have brought forward to say good things about the Lord Jesus, but they were never called. They called false witnesses. He went that way in love for you and me, to seek and to save that which is lost. I hope that we are all in that condition, of lost sinners who have been saved. As such we can stand before God in all the worth of Christ. We sang:-
‘In sonship tells our hearts their wondrous place,
In Thee accepted by the Father’s grace’. (Hymn 293)
We are accepted in Him, through no merit of our own, but accepted in Christ. I am preaching the gospel because it is very necessary to bring the gospel in even in a meeting like this, in case there is someone here who does not know the Saviour, someone here who is still lost. If you do not know the Saviour, you are lost, and you will be lost eternally, unless you come to know Him for yourself. But if there is someone here who is still lost, you can come to Him now, find salvation from your sins, and salvation from your lost condition.
Now I want to speak about our seeking – “seek ye first”. I suppose the love and the grace of the Lord Jesus who has done so much for us would be a lever in our souls to seek first “the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you”. The Lord does not say what you are to seek for after the kingdom of God, but you do not need to, because if you seek God’s kingdom first, these material things will be added to you. You will not want for anything materially or practically, because the Father will look after you. The Lord says “Do not be careful about your life”. Notice that He does not say ‘Be careless’; we are not to be careless about our lives or our bodies, because they are given to us by God, and we glorify God in them. So we are not to be careless; we should not do anything that would put our lives or our bodies at risk. But the Lord Jesus says “Do not be careful about your life”; in other words, do not be over-occupied with the things of this life. Do not be like Martha who was careful and troubled about many things, and she missed the good part while Mary chose it. I do not suppose that Mary was careless about things in the home, but she chose the good part, which it says, “shall not be taken from her”, Luke 10:42.
So the Lord says “Be not therefore careful, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we put on? for all these things the nations seek after; for your heavenly Father knows that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you”. And then He says “Be not careful therefore for the morrow”. Well, there is a saying among men that ‘tomorrow never comes’. It may never come. The Lord is coming; how wonderful that will be. There will not be a tomorrow then, only in the sense that there will be a new day, the eternal day, for those that have been saved. So He says that “the morrow shall be careful about itself”. We do not need to worry about what might happen tomorrow. If we have faith, and have our confidence in God, acknowledging Him in our ways, we can have restfulness and confidence about tomorrow – “the morrow shall be careful about itself”. God has it in hand. “Sufficient to the day is its own evil”. We must be constantly before God in self-judgment that we might not stumble or slip. It is enough to keep ourselves right and acknowledge Him in all our ways every day, so “Sufficient to the day is its own evil”.
I wanted to speak about Colossians. The Lord Jesus gives us the laws of the kingdom, largely relating to Israel and what will be seen in the remnant in a day to come, but Paul in Colossians gives us the laws of the kingdom as they relate to the assembly. He writes “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ, seek the things which are above, where the Christ is”. The passage we read in Matthew was when the Lord Jesus was here. He is no longer here; He is above the heavens, sitting at the right hand of God. Paul writes “have your mind on the things that are above” – what a testing word that is – “not on the things that are on the earth”. A brother in the reading spoke about what is habitual. I wonder if I habitually have my mind on the things which are above, whether I am seeking the things that are above where the Christ is. If my affections are centred on Him, then that is where my mind will be. I will seek the things that He is interested in, the things that He is engaged with, the things that bring Him pleasure and joy, and not the things that are on the earth.
Speaking for myself, the greatest danger at the present time is earthly mindedness. We are not part of an earthly family; we know as an abstract truth that we are not morally of the world. But how soon we mind earthly things, how soon they become an object to us. Paul wrote very severely of those that mind earthly things (Phil.3:19); he says that they are enemies of the cross of Christ. None of us would like to be that. I read somewhere that Paul himself was a friend of the cross of Christ1. What he was as a natural man, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, had gone for ever at the cross of Christ. So he wrote that the Philippians were not to mind earthly things; those who did were enemies of the cross of Christ. After the Lord Jesus had spoken to Peter about the crucifixion, and Peter said to Him, “God be favourable to thee, Lord; this shall in no wise be unto thee” (Matt.16:22), how severe the Lord was with Peter. The disciples were full of sorrow when He spoke to them about the crucifixion. You might think that they were entering into His grief, but I think that they were full of sorrow because the crucifixion meant the end of their earthly hopes and aspirations. If the Lord Jesus was to die, there was no hope for Israel; the Messiah gone, what hope was there for them? They needed, as we all need, to have their sight lifted. We have been raised with the Christ. He died to finish the first order of man altogether, to put it out of the sight of God for ever. Not only did He die, but He has been raised, praise be His name, and we have been raised with Him. Colossians presents things as an accomplished fact; “ye have been raised with the Christ”. That is the Christian’s position, the Christian’s standing. Whether our state is up to it is another thing, but that is the standing which we have, “raised with the Christ”. So it is “for ye have died”; the old man has died, “and your life is hid with the Christ in God”.
Our lives are about more than material things. If Christ is our life, how much more that is than earthly things, material things. Paul writes “”When the Christ is manifested who is our life, then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory”. What a prospect the believer has! In that day, we will be occupied with nothing else but the Lord Jesus and His things, the things that are above. We will be above with Him. So may we have our minds more “on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth; for ye have died, and your life is hid with the Christ in God”. The cross is the end of any earthly ambition or earthly glory, and it is a wonderful thing to realise that we have something beyond the grave, that we have been raised with the Christ. It is a precious thought. What wonderful things we can seek; I wonder if we know much about them. We often speak about every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies (Eph.1:3), the things that are above in the heavenlies in Christ. All our blessings are in Him; we have nothing outside of Christ. God has placed everything in Him. All our blessings, our salvation, all that we have is in Him, and the assembly itself is in Him, in Christ Jesus. How precious these thoughts are. The Lord Jesus is so pleasing to God, and as we are in Him, we too can be pleasing to God, and can enjoy all that He has in mind for us.
And then, we shall be manifested with Christ in glory. What a day that will be; our bodies of humiliation will be changed into conformity to His body of glory (Phil.3:21), to be eternally with Him where He is, sitting at the right hand of God. What a place He has! We sang of that:-
‘Thy glory, Lord, at God’s right hand above,
Supreme of all in that blest scene of love’. (Hymn 293)
That is His rightful place; He is supreme there. Would that He was more supreme in my heart. He is not supreme in the world; there is no place for Him there, there never has been and never will be. It is a scene where man’s will and man’s glory predominates and prevails. But when Christ is manifested, we will be manifested with Him. We read recently the scripture in Habakkuk “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea”, Hab.2:14. That is this earth. You may wonder how that could be, but it will be so. We will observe it, that the earth will be full of the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea. The whole earth will be full of His praise; it will be regulated according to the laws that He set out in Matthew’s gospel. How precious these things are.
I wanted to draw attention to Timothy. We should be exercised to be more like him. He was like Paul; he was Paul’s true child. The apostle could say of him that, as a child a father, Timothy had served with him in the work of the glad tidings (Phil.2:22). Paul could also say in that passage “I have no one like-minded to care with genuine feeling how ye get on. For all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ”. What a challenge that is, beloved brethren, that they all sought their own things. But not Timothy; he was not included in the “all”, because he cared with genuine feeling how the saints got on. I wonder if I care in that way for the saints. Our brother spoke of love for the brethren, and the desire that all might be retained and preserved and kept. It has been said that if Christ is all to my soul, then it brings love for all the people of God – all of them. What a challenge that is, to care with genuine feeling how they get on. Not how they are getting on materially or in their jobs, but how they are getting on in relation to the Lord’s things, the things of Jesus Christ.
So Paul writes “For all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ”. What are the things of Jesus Christ? I wonder how much I know about them. They are the things that occupy Him. I suppose one of the things which occupies the Lord Jesus is the pleasure of God. The prophet says that the pleasure of Jehovah will prosper in His hand (Isa.53:10). Everything that the Lord Jesus does, all that He is occupied with, is in view of the pleasure of God. Might it be more with me, might it be more with you, to seek what is for the pleasure of God, to seek to please Him in all our walk and ways, and not to seek our own things. It must have been a grief to the apostle to write this, “all seek their own things”. No doubt there were others who were like Timothy; there were the Philippians themselves. It has often been said that the epistle to the Philippians is not doctrine, but it gives us the experience of a Christian, a man in Christ. It gives us the moral qualities, the moral desires that such a person would have; desires for the saints, and Paul’s own desires. He desired to depart, to be with Christ. I came across a remark of Mr Coates in which he said that we might make so much of the coming of the Lord, that it might diminish the blessedness of departing to be with Christ2. It is a blessed portion. The Thessalonians were in danger of that; they thought that persons who had died would miss out because they would not be here at the rapture. But Paul says that it is “very much better” (Phil.1:23); it was his desire. No doubt he was waiting for the Lord to come. Mr Coates went on to say that as the assembly, we are waiting for the coming of the Lord, but individually our desire would be to depart to be with Him.
Paul says “I am pressed by both”; he had nothing before him but what was for the pleasure of the Lord Jesus and for the good of the saints. He said that it was very much better for him to depart, “but remaining in the flesh is more necessary for your sakes”. How unselfish he was; he did not seek his own things but the things of Jesus Christ. There are many other things which Paul wrote about in the epistle; his desires for himself, the true, normal desires of a Christian. Paul desired to gain Christ; he counted all things loss if he might gain Christ, counting them to be filth (Phil.3:8). Do we count the things of this world, the things that we find to be so attractive, to be filth? If we did, we would not find them attractive – there is nothing attractive about filth. Mr Darby said that there is no great sacrifice in giving up dung3. That is how the apostle judged all his natural qualities, so that he might gain Christ.
May we be more like Timothy, who was like the apostle, who in turn was like his Master, the Lord Jesus. Paul could write “Be my imitators, even as I also am of Christ”, 1 Cor.11:1. There was no one else who could speak like that except the apostle Paul, one who could say “for me to live is Christ, and to die gain”, Phil.1:21.
I feel I have spoken feebly about the way in which the Lord Jesus has sought and, I trust, found each one of us when we were lost, far from God, helpless and hopeless. He has brought us back into the presence of God Himself, so that we might seek, not the material things of this world but the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the things that are above where the Christ is. May we be like Timothy, not seeking our own things, but the things of Jesus Christ, and caring with genuine feeling how one another gets on.
May God bless the word.
Address at Strood
1 March 2014
P.J. Walkinshaw