The Bible is with me to Matthew
chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6. Verse 22. The light of the body
is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single that whole body shall be full
of light." That just means that if you're
looking to Christ alone for all your righteousness and all of
your salvation, all of your satisfaction, in Christ you'll have the fullness
of the light of truth. If thy eye be single. Now if
your eye be evil, you're going to be divided. That's what religion's
all about. Man-made religion is very convoluted. It's Christ plus something else,
isn't it? And what we're just saying is
that Christ is everything. If thine eye be single, thy whole
body shall be full of light. But if thy eye be evil, if you
look into Christ plus yourself, plus the law, plus your will,
plus something else, anything else, then thy whole body shall
be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is
in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness." In other words,
if you think you can see when you can't, the blindest person
in the world, the blindest person in the world is the person who
thinks he can see when he can't. The Lord told the Pharisees,
sorry, they asked, they said, are you saying we're blind? The
Lord said, if you were, then your sins will be forgiven. But
the fact that you can see means that your sins remain. Lord, I need for you to open
the eyes of my understanding. I need for you to give me the
grace to give a single eye to Christ. Look to Him and Him alone
for all my salvation. Lord, would you do that? Would
you do that? Let's stand together. Tom's going
to come and lead us in the hymn on the back of your bulletin. Thy free and sovereign grace. It's unfortunate that we have
to add those adjectives to a word that already means free and sovereign.
But we do, because the word grace is so loosely used in the world
today that we have to say, oh no, we're not talking about your
kind of grace, we're talking about free grace. We're talking about
grace that didn't cost us anything. That's a redundancy, but it's
free. And we're talking about a grace that's from God. It's
sovereign. He has mercy on whom He will
have mercy, and whom He will, He hardeneth. It's up to Him
as to who gets grace and who doesn't get grace. Our hope and
prayer is that we would be found in His sight of having grace,
Lord. You still have your Bibles open
to Matthew chapter 6. Verse 24, No man can serve two
masters, a single eye. Don't look anywhere other than
Christ for all your salvation. You can't serve two masters. You can't have it both ways.
For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he
will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God
and Mammon. You can't have your hope and
your security The world puts all their security in material
wealth. You can't have your security
there and in Christ at the same time. Therefore I say unto you,
take no thought for your life, what you shall eat or what you
shall drink, nor yet for your body, what you shall put on.
Is not the life more than meat and the body more than raiment?
In another place the Lord tells us to labor not for that meat
which perishes. labor rather for the meat which
leadeth to everlasting life. For my body is your meat indeed."
Our labor is to enter into his rest, isn't it? It's to find
our rest in Christ. Behold the fowls of the air.
Just look. Look what God does for the birds
of the air. For they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather
into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are you
not much better than they? Oh, how absurd it would be to
think that God has more concern for the birds of the air than
for his own children. Which of you, taking thought,
can add one cubit unto its statue? Be ye careful for nothing. Isn't
that what we read? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider
the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither
do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even
Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Just observe the beauty of a
flower and see how God's fashioned it and put it together. Is he not able to clothe thee?
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field which today
is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more
clothe you, O ye of little faith? I'm so glad the Lord said little
faith. In another place it said, if
you have the faith of a mustard seed, it can stay under this
mountain and be removed and cast into the sea. Our faith has everything
to do with its object. Its object. And if the object
of our faith is the Lord Jesus Christ, then it only takes a
little faith to save. Therefore, take no thought, saying,
What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or whither shall we
be clothed? For after these things do the Gentiles seek. This is
what the world seeks after. You're not of this world. You're
in the world, but you're not of the world. That's what the
world's seeking after. For your Heavenly Father knoweth
that you have need of these things. But seek ye first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be
added unto you. Take, therefore, no thought for tomorrow." We fret over the possibilities
of tomorrow, most of which never come to pass. We regret over
the experiences of yesterday. Paul said, I forget those things
which are behind. What we do is we paralyze ourselves
in the only moment of life that we have, which is right now.
Because we're living in the past and in the future. Isn't that
what we do? Take no thought for tomorrow,
for the morrow shall take thought of itself, things of itself,
sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. You got plenty
on your plate right now. Right now. And right now, as we gather for
worship, is the time when we need God's presence and God's
grace and God's power most of all in our lives right now. My God, give us the grace to
put aside all those things that would distract us and worship
him in the power of his spirit and according to the truth of
his gospel right now. Let's let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we are comforted in knowing that you remember that we're made
of dust. You remember our frail frame,
and you have pity upon us even when we are of little faith.
We ask, Father, that you would send your Holy Spirit and power
to increase our faith and cause us to find our hope in Christ
and in Christ alone. We pray for our friends and for
our loved ones and for our children who have yet to receive the gift
of faith and we ask Lord that you'd be pleased to give it. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing hymn number 168. from the hardback teminal number
168, Even Me. Are you amazed at the thought
that God might be pleased to bless you? Are you amazed at
that? That's what we're just saying.
Even me. The religious world's not amazed
at that. The religious world sees a God
who is anxiously waiting for man to let Him bless them. That's the view that most people
have of God. And so they're not at least bit
surprised that God would be pleased to bless them. God wants to bless
me, He's just waiting for me to let Him have His way. That's
not what we just sang and that's not what we believe. God, would
you be pleased to bless me? Of all people? Would you open
the windows of heaven and be pleased to bless me? I'd be amazed
if you would do that. For everybody I know, I'm the
most unworthy person of your blessing. You believe that about
yourself? Will you open your Bibles with
me to John chapter 1? Our Lord asks the disciples of
John the Baptist a question. that I hope the Holy Spirit will
put in your heart and in my heart and never let it depart from
us. That we will hear the voice of
God often asking us this question. Verse 35 of John chapter 1, again
the next day after John stood and two of his disciples And
looking upon Jesus as He walked, He saith, John said, Behold the
Lamb of God. There He is. The Lord had revealed
to John that this Jesus of Nazareth was none other than the long-awaited
Messiah, the Christ, the Lamb of God, which should take away
the sins of the world. And the disciples of John believed
what John said. For John wasn't just saying,
look at him. John was saying, follow him.
In another one of the Gospels, we read where John says, I must
decrease, he must increase. Follow after him, not me. And so these disciples followed
the Lord and verse 38, then Jesus turned and saw them following
and said unto them, What seek ye? What seek ye? What seek ye? Most people are like the guy
that spent his whole life looking for loose change that somebody
had dropped. And they come to the end of their life and they
pride themselves on how much they found. The problem is all
they can do is describe the refuse of the gutters and the spacing
in the cracks of the sidewalks. For this guy in his whole life
Never saw the beauty of a sunrise or a sunset. He never was awed
by the wonders of the stars or the endless formation of the
clouds. He never saw an eagle in flight.
The light of the full moon was only used to get a better look
at the ground. He was looking in the wrong place,
seeking after the wrong thing. What seek ye? A fleeting moment of happiness?
An unsatisfying feeling of pleasure? Success as the world defines
it? Possession of a new toy? Popularity of people that are
just as lost and unfulfilled as you are? What seek ye? The affection of a person that
you think will fulfill all your desires only to be left disappointed
when you finally realize that they are on the same futile and
fruitless journey that you're on, seeking all the wrong things. Perhaps you're saying, I'm just
trying to survive another day. The masses of humanity are going
through life picking up loose change while all along the windows
of heaven have been opened by God for those who are able to
receive the blessings that he pours out from heaven. Our Lord asked these disciples
of John, what seek ye? And I ask you and I pray the
Spirit of God will make this true to your heart not just now
but for every day of your life. What seek ye? What seek ye? What are your ambitions? What
are your own hopes? What are your desires? What is
the most important thing to you? Isaiah chapter 55 at verse 6
tells us whom we are to seek. For in fact all true peace and
all true happiness and all true salvation and all true righteousness come from seeking after Him. We just read in Matthew chapter
7. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness
and all these other things that be added unto you, all that God
would give us a heart to seek after Him. In Isaiah chapter
55 verse 6 we read, Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call ye upon Him while He is
near. Old blind Bartimaeus knew he
had one chance to seek after Christ. He knew that the Lord
was only going to pass by that way one time. And he cried, O
son of David, have mercy upon me. And he wouldn't stop crying.
Why? Because God had put it in his
heart to seek Christ. The blessing of God for his people. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself
is the one we are to seek. He told Abraham I am thine exceeding
great reward." What is the reward that you're looking for in that
which you seek after? The Lord said, I'll be your reward.
I am your reward. All that you need, all that you
need is to be found in me. All of your righteousness is
to be found in me. That's the kingdom of God. We
have no righteousness outside of Christ. Our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags before God. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one that can successfully represent us before a holy God
so that we are without condemnation. All the forgiveness of our sin
is not found in the depth of our sorrow or the sincerity of
our faith, it's found in the accomplished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who bore in His body all the sins of all of God's
people of every generation and suffered the full wrath of God's
justice to put those sins away once and for all. What seek ye? when Paul went to Athens in Acts
chapter 17, he took a couple of days to walk
around the city and to observe their statues. And he said that,
I perceive that you are too superstitious, too religious, for I have beheld
your devotions And I've noticed that you have a statue labeled
to the unknown God, the one that you ignorantly worship. You're right that you don't know
him. I'm going to preach him to you. And Paul preached Christ to the
people of Athens. And God raised up a church to
those that he had put into the heart to seek after him. In that message that Paul preaches
in Acts chapter 17, he says that you should seek the Lord if happily
you might find after Him, though He not be far from any
one of you. Did you hear that? Seek the Lord is what Paul told
those Athenians. He told them about the Lord Jesus
Christ, the one they didn't know, the one they ignorantly worshiped.
And he said, seek him. He's not far from you. He's not
far from you. And Paul tells us in the book
of Romans, he says, he's as close to you as is your mouth, your
mouth. That's how close he is. to confess
with your mouth and to believe in your heart that Jesus Christ
is the Lord. He is the Lord. You don't make
Him Lord. People talk about making Jesus
Christ Lord. No, He is Lord. God's made Him
Lord. You can't do something God's
already done. And He's Lord over the living
and over the dead. Paul said, oh, that I might know
Him. He's the one I want to seek,
that I might know Him. He said, I've not yet apprehended
the one who has apprehended me, but this one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind, I press towards the mark for
the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. that I might
know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship
of His suffering, that I could believe more fully. that when
the Lord Jesus Christ suffered on Calvary's cross that I was
in Christ and that God is satisfied with the suffering of the Lord
Jesus Christ for all my sins. That's the fellowship of the
suffering. When Paul said that I want to know more about the
fellowship of the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ, he wasn't
saying I want to suffer more for Jesus. He'd done plenty of
that. And you can be sure he's doing
everything he could to avoid as much of that as he could.
He said, I want to identify in my heart through faith in the
sufferings that the Lord Jesus Christ experienced on Calvary's
cross. Because His suffering is the
hope of my salvation. And I want to identify more fully
in my heart the power of His resurrection. He wasn't talking
about living some life where you're walking above the ground
and you're just living in the power of God. He was talking
about the power that God demonstrated when He raised the Lord Jesus
Christ from the dead, proving once and for all that God Almighty
was satisfied with what He had accomplished. That's what I want
to know. I want to know that when Christ
died, I died. When He suffered, I suffered.
When He was raised from the dead, I was raised from the dead. That's
what baptism is. Baptism is confessing that Christ
is my hope. Buried with Christ in baptism
and raised to walk a new life in Christ Jesus. I'm identifying
with His death, burial and resurrection as the hope of all my salvation.
It's not even more complicated than that. Our Lord asked these disciples,
what seek thee? What seek thee? He asked Mary
at the tomb the same question. You remember when Mary went broken
hearted to the tomb that resurrection morning and she saw a man there
that she presumed was the gardener? And he spoke to her, and he said,
Whom seek thee? Why seek ye the living among
the dead? And she presumed him to be the
gardener, and she said, Oh sir, if you know where they've taken
his body, please tell me, I'll go get it. She was seeking Christ. And we know she was seeking Christ
because as soon as he said to her, Mary, she fell at his feet
and said, O Rabboni, that is to say, Master, and she worshipped
him. She worshipped him. Why? Because
he was the one she was seeking. Whom seek ye? Oh, don't be like the people
of this world that live their whole lives looking into the
gutter of the streets trying to find loose change. Look up. God's opened the windows
of heaven. He has. He's poured out His blessing. When the Lord Jesus Christ left
glory and came into this world and lived out a perfect righteousness
on behalf of His people, when He went willingly to the cross
and laid down His life for His sheep, and when God raised Him
from the dead and He ascended back into glory, there He is. There He is. Set your affections
on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of
God. Seek Him. And in seeking Him,
you'll find everything else. Everything else. And in not seeking
Him, you won't find anything. You won't find anything. Oh,
if the eye is single, the whole body is full of light. But if
I be evil, how dark is the darkness thereof? If we're looking, well,
I've got to have this and I've got to have that and I've got
to pursue these things. Lord, would You be pleased, would
You be pleased to reveal Yourself to me? Me? Even me? We just sang that. Even me? God,
would You open the eyes of my understanding? Would You unstop
my ears? Would You be pleased to put faith
in my heart? Would You cause me, of all people,
Lord, the least likely person and the most unworthy person
of Your salvation? And if your heart expresses that
kind of prayer, He has revealed Himself to you. He is revealing Himself to you. Lord, reveal more to me. Seek His return. Do you seek
the return of the Lord Jesus Christ? I mean really. You just delight in the thought
of it. That's what he said. He's coming for those who are
watching and waiting. You see, if you've got your roots
put down in this world, if all your hope, if you're trying to
serve God and mammon, no man can serve two masters. If your
security is in the material, temporal things of this world,
then you can't get excited about the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ. But our Lord said, comfort ye one another with these words. Why? Why? Because believers have
their affections set on Christ. And the things of this world
are not their comfort. The things of this world are
not the comfort for believers. They are the conflict. They're
the conflict. And their hope is knowing. that
when the Lord Jesus Christ comes, conflict's over. The conflict is over and they
have nothing left but comfort, nothing left but glory. If you seek Him, if He is the one you're
seeking, He asked these disciples, Whom seek ye? What seek ye? When are we to seek Him? When
are we to seek Him? Well, we've seen already from
Matthew chapter 6 that we're to seek Him first. We're to seek
Him first. Seek ye first the Kingdom of
God. After all these things do the
Gentiles seek? Your Heavenly Father knows that
you have need of them. He took care of the flowers of
the field. They don't worry about what they're
going to wear. The birds of the air, they don't worry about what
they're going to eat. Does He not love you and care for you
much more? The worldly men seek after those
things. That's their passion. That's
their goal. That's their delight. That's
their security. It's not yours. You seek first
the kingdom of God, the rule and reign of the Lord Jesus Christ
as the sovereign God on His throne. And all these things will be
added unto you. You'll take care of those other
things. David said in Psalm 63 verse
1, O God, Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee. My soul thirsteth
for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee, in a day of a land that
is dry and thirsty where there is no water. Lord, I've tried
satisfying my thirst with the things of this world. I've tried
the mammon of this world, and I just end up with a mouthful
of sand. It doesn't quench my thirst at
all. It doesn't quench my thirst at all. I've tried the pleasure
of sin. There's pleasure in it for a
season, but in the end it leads to death. And Lord, it's just
corruption. There's no hope there. And the popularity of men? The
approval of men? How vain and how... What's that? What's that? They're just like
me. Fear God. Fear God and you won't
fear men. Fear God. Be approved of Him. And the opinions of men won't
matter. They won't matter. Oh, to seek Him first, to seek
Him early, to seek Him first thing in the morning, to seek
Him last thing in the evening. Oh, Lord, put it in my heart
to seek Thee. Cause me, Lord, to seek you early. Cause me to seek you. Cause me
to realize that you're the only one that can satisfy the thirst
of my soul. You're the only one that can
put away my sin. You're the only one that can make my conscience
clear and make me guiltless before God. You're the only one that
can give to me the peace of God in my heart. It passes human
understanding and it can't be given by this world. and seek Him continually. This
isn't a one-time thing. Don't misunderstand me now. We're
not talking like men in religion talk. Men in religion make this
sort of appeal for people to make a decision and get saved. We're not talking like that.
So that you can nail that down and then move on to bigger and
better things. No, this seeking of the Lord
is something we do continually. Listen to what the Scripture
says in 1 Chronicles 16, verse 11. Seek the Lord and His strength. Seek His face continually. Continually. The prophet said
that we're like perpetual backsliders. We seek Him and then we get distracted,
don't we? We look at Him. And then our
gaze wanders away from Him and we have to keep coming back.
And Peter said, to whom coming? We're just always continually
seeking Him. We're always being saved. Do
you need to be saved right now? Right now. If you do, you'll seek Him. Because He's
the only one that can do that. Don't you love the story about
the woman the Lord tells about that goes before the judge and
presents her case, and the judge just sort of discounts her, but
she keeps coming back. And the Lord said, because of
her importunity, the judge finally listened to her and gave her
what she wanted. Now what's the root to the word importunity?
Important. Important. That's the question
that God's asked. How important is it to you for
me to make myself known in your heart? Are you going to be like this
woman? Not going to settle until the judge of the universe is
pleased to answer your prayer and make himself known to you?
He will. Sometimes he'll let you do that
seeking for a while. to prove you to prove for you
to prove to yourself how important is this how important is this keep knocking keep asking keep
seeking that's that's what really what that verse says it's it's
put in a in a past tense, but it's a continual sense actually
in the original language. It's knock, keep knocking. Ask, keep asking. Seek, keep
seeking. And if you keep knocking, the
door will be opened unto you. And if you keep asking, it will
be given unto you. If you keep seeking, you'll find.
God has to put it into our heart. Lord, I'm not admonishing you
to do something in the power of your flesh. I'm telling you
what God has to do in your heart and what He has to do in my heart
to cause us to seek Him. Lord, if I know anything about
this life and this world, I know that what this preacher is saying
is true. I know what He's saying is true.
I know that there's nothing in this dry and thirsty land in
which I live. I know, Lord, that You've got
to open the windows of heaven, and You've got to put it in my
heart to seek You early, to seek You first, to seek You continually,
and for You to make Yourself known to me. by your free and
sovereign grace. Lord, that's my greatest need.
Lord, would you keep asking me, Whom seek ye? Would you do that
for me? Would you remind me every day
to ask me the question, Who am I seeking? What do I really want? What do we seek? We seek peace
with God. Mark the perfect man, for the
end of that man is peace. Peace. Oh, that all my sin would
be put away. I need to know that. Seek Christ. He's the sin bearer. He's the
sacrifice. That's what John said. Behold
what? The Lamb of God, He's the only
one that can take away your sins. He's the one that was slain,
the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.
Before Adam was ever created, God, in the covenant of grace,
ordained the Lord Jesus Christ as the sacrificial Lamb for the
sins of His people. And God has always seen His elect
in Christ for all eternity. That's why salvation is called
everlasting life. That's why it's called eternal
life in the Scriptures. It's not just talking about,
well, you get it now and it lasts for eternity. No! The life that
God has ordained in Christ is eternal, meaning that it had
no beginning and has no end. God has never seen His people
outside of Christ. The only way for us to be accepted
in the presence of God is to be found in Him. And you don't
get yourself in Him. God put His people in Christ
before the foundation of the world. There's my whole point.
What that does is it strips me of anything that I can do. It robs me of all glory. It puts me on the ground. It
puts my face in the dirt. It turns me into a mercy beggar. A sinner that's crying out to
God to have mercy on me. Lord, have mercy on me. A gospel that believes that somehow
God wants everybody to be saved and He's doing His best to get
it done. It's not going to humble you.
It's not going to humble you. You get involved in a religious
persuasion that believes that God's like that and all you're
going to do is go through, all you're going to do is just go
through religious rituals and traditions and feigned worship
and sing some songs and memorize some verses and that's it. Worship. Worship. We are the true circumcision. which worship God in the Spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus. Our joy is in His accomplished
work. And we have no confidence in
the flesh. All of our hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
my peace before God. Seek Him. Seek Him. If you find Him, you'll find
Him in the precepts of God's Word. In the precepts of God's Word,
God has revealed Himself through His Word. Faith comes by hearing,
and hearing comes by the Word of God. By His own will begat
He us with the Word of Truth. after you heard the gospel of
your salvation, after you heard the word of truth. That's the
means that God uses. So we just go to the scriptures
and ask the Lord to make himself known to our hearts from his
word. Lord, speak to me through your word. Cause Your Word to
be living and effectual and sharper than any two-edged sword. Cause
it to divide us under the thoughts and the intents of my heart.
Lord, reveal Yourself. And as He does, He reveals us
to ourselves, doesn't He? He shows us what sinners we are.
And then He shows us what great Savior He is. You can't have
one without the other. Two sides of the same coin. How are we to seek? How are we to seek? God says
in Deuteronomy 4, verse 29, Seek ye the Lord thy God, and thou
shalt find Him, if thou seek Him with all thine heart. With all thine heart. How are
we going to do that? God's going to have to do a work
of grace in our heart, isn't He? Lord, give me a heart, a living,
beating, breathing heart. God told the Pharisees when they
said, we have Abraham as our father, and the Lord said, God
can raise up children of Abraham from those stones. And you know
that's exactly what He does? That's exactly what He does.
He raises up spiritual children to Abraham from stones. and he takes out the heart of
stone and he puts in a heart of flesh. Faith just clings to
Christ. Faith just says with Mary, O
Rabboni. Without faith it's impossible
to please God. He that cometh to God must believe
that he is and that he is the rewarder of those that do what?
That diligently seek him. Lord give me faith to diligently
seek thee with all my heart. Why would you seek God? We'll answer that question with
one verse. Psalm 37 verse 10. They that
seek the Lord shall not be in want of any good thing. They that seek the Lord. That's
God's promise. Do you believe that? Do you believe that? I
mean really believe. They that seek the Lord shall
not be in want of any good thing. That's what God says. Faith just
believes that. Lord, would you give me the faith
to seek Thee with all my heart, to set my affections on Thee, to believe You that You are able
You're able to take away my sin. You're able to make me righteous
before God. You're able to supply all my
needs in this temporal life that I'm living that's going to be
over sooner than I think. And you're able to present me
perfect before the throne of God. Righteous and holy. Faultless with great joy. Lord, You said that if I would
seek Thee, that You would not hold anything good from me. And
that's what I need. I need, Lord, for You to open
the windows of heaven. Lord, don't let me be like the
man that spends his whole life picking up loose change. Lord,
open the windows of heaven. Help me to look up and to believe
that seeking Thee is life eternal, that I might know Thee the only
true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we are completely dependent upon
Your Holy Spirit to set our hearts in motion to seek Thee. We're dependent upon you to haunt
us daily with that question. What seek thee? Whom seek thee? Lord, would you do that? Would
you cause us to hear thy voice asking us that question often,
even especially as we are prone to wander into the things of
this world? and cause us, Lord, to seek Thee
first, to seek Thee early, and to seek Thee continually, to
seek Thee in faith. For Thy name's sake, we ask, Lord, that You'd bless
this table. We pray that You'd take these elements of bread
and wine and put into our hearts the desire and the belief that
they represent the sinless sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's
cross, the one that you have given us to seek. But we ask
it in His name. Amen. All right, if the men would
come, please. We're going to sing number one
on the sawback temple, and you can remain seated. See