Today we continue our study in the teaching of the Lord Jesus. And you will recall that last week we were looking at the last verse of Luke chapter 9, verse 62. And Jesus said to this man, this would-be disciple, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." And we saw what this means. We saw that only those persons who put their hand to the plow of God's kingdom, who make their lives count for Jesus and for God in this world, by plowing a deep furrow in the field which is this world, only such people who are committed to God's work without looking back are fit for the kingdom of God.
Now we did not dwell very much about fitness. What does fitness for the kingdom of God mean? And this is what we shall attend to today. What does it mean to be fit for the kingdom of God? To be fit means, very basically, to have that kind of quality which is required for entering the kingdom of God. For example, you say that you are fit means that you have that quality of health. You are strong. You are physically fit. You have that quality which is described as well-being, as health. If you are not fit means you are not healthy. You are sick. You are diseased. You are ill. You are below par. To be fit for a task means that you have the necessary qualifications to do that task. To be not fit for that task means you don't have those qualifications. You are not equipped to do that job. You are unable to handle that job. So the basic meaning of fit is quite clear.
The Lord Jesus uses this word elsewhere in His teaching to say that salt which has lost its taste is not fit for anything but to be thrown out and to be trodden under foot of men. Salt that has lost its taste—and here you have the same Greek word—is no longer fit. That's the same word in the Greek as here. It has lost its quality of saltiness. The required quality which was once there is no more there. The salt doesn't function as salt anymore because it has lost the quality of salt. Namely, the taste and the effectiveness of salt. And because it is no longer functioning as salt, it has lost the character of salt, it is no longer fit for anything. It now still has the appearance of salt, it still looks like salt, but it is in fact salt no more. And so what can you do with it? You can't do anything with it. You throw it out. You throw it out on the garbage heap. And the garbage place in those days was the street. Like some places still in this world, what you don't want is flung out of the front door. And everybody passerby trampled over it. The front is the general garbage area. So it's trampled underfoot of men.
Are you fit for the kingdom of God? That was the question the Lord was raising. Are you fit for the kingdom of God? Do you have the kind of quality? Now if you don't have that quality, it doesn't mean that you have to attach a handle somewhere to the side of you and crank the handle hoping that it will produce this kind of quality, that you can work it up in yourself. If you don't have this quality, you turn to God for that quality. As James says in James chapter 1, "He who lacks wisdom," who lacks the kind of quality that the Christian life needs, what does he do? "Ask of God who gives generously." Ask of Him. You don't have because you didn't ask. It's no use to say, "Well, I don't have this quality. I'm in a pitiful state so I should just bury my head in the sand. Maybe I should just go in a corner and moan and weep." God is there to supply it. The question is, do you desire to have it? Can you face the cost of having it? Because once this quality comes into your life, it does certain things to you as we shall see.
Now in the message before that, I mentioned the three vital principles of the Christian life. Three vital principles. The first of this, we used the word justification, the theological term, which simply means God's grace in forgiving us. That was the first and fundamental principle. The second one, we spoke of as sanctification, which means the quality of life which must come from having received God's forgiving grace. That we therefore deal with others in the same gracious manner in which God has dealt with us. And the third principle we saw was the principle of judgment. That God will then deal with us in the same way as we have been dealing with others or in the same way as we are now dealing with others. That is the principle of judgment. You will be your own judge. The way you deal with others will be the way God deals with you. If you are unforgiving to others, God will be unforgiving to you. If you are gracious and forgiving to others, God will therefore be gracious and forgiving to you. Why are we forgiving? Because God has forgiven us. Therefore, the relationship of these three elements are very clear.
But the point we must get at is this. The Lord Jesus stresses very strongly the connection between the second and third points. He puts a lot of stress on the second point. Namely, our sanctification. The kind of life we should have as Christians. The kind of quality of life that should be expressed in us as Christians. Now, the church likes to concentrate on the first point. They spend all the time talking about justification as though there were no other principles in the Gospel except justification. Now, of course, justification is the foundational principle. It is the most basic principle. It is the most precious principle as being the foundation of the Christian life. But if we concentrate only on the first and neglect the second and the third, we have neglected the fullness of the Gospel. As Paul said in Acts chapter 20 to the Ephesian elders, "I have preached to you the whole counsel of God." Not just one aspect of it, but the whole of it. The church today is in great danger of concentrating on only one aspect to the neglect of the other aspects. Therefore, not the whole Gospel is preached, but only some part of it. And you cannot omit any part of the Gospel without the most serious consequences following.
But by contrast, we find that the Lord Jesus stresses the second element in relation to the third. Namely, your conduct and the qualities that should be in your life is something constantly stressed in the Lord's teaching. And so when I am systematically expounding the Lord's teaching, I can do nothing else but to follow His own emphasis. And this is what we shall notice here today. Because today we shall look at the next chapter, Luke chapter 10, verses 38 to 42, to gain a clearer insight into what being fit for the kingdom means. And you can see a wonderful internal connection in the Lord's teaching. There is a certain order, a certain sequence in the Lord's teaching that you can notice. He speaks of one thing, and then the next time He is developing this point that He has made earlier in some way or other. And making that point ever more clear, so that we have no excuse that we didn't understand what He said.
What does it mean to be fit for the kingdom? Well, He is going to explain this to us very clearly. And if we say to be fit for the kingdom is not looking back, it means to be totally committed, then what does totally committed mean? What quality of life does that describe? Well, this is what the Lord Jesus deals with right here in Luke chapter 10, verses 38 to 42. Let us look at this passage. Luke 10:38. "Now as they went on their way"—that is, the Lord Jesus and His disciples went on their way—"He entered a village, and a woman named Martha received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to His teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went to Him and said, 'Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.' But the Lord answered her, 'Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. One thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.'"
So here we have the Lord's teaching to Martha and to all of us. You are anxious and troubled about many things. One thing is needful. Mary has got that one thing. She has got the good portion. And that shall not be taken away from her. Now clearly there is something of great importance in these words that we must understand. What is the one thing that is needful, that is necessary? Now either you are going to be on the one hand anxious about many things, distracted by much serving, doing this and that, and doing it for the Lord—because Martha was preparing a meal for the Lord. And so she was preparing this, and she was very busy about this and that, doing this and that for the Lord, that she neglected to be with the Lord. That happens to all of us, doesn't it? You are so busy doing this and that for the Lord, it's all for Him, and you feel because it's for Him, it's justifiable, that you have neglected to be with Him. But more seriously than that, or as a consequence of that, one should say, you have lost a certain quality of life. And it is this quality of life which is essential for being fit for the kingdom.
Now in the Scripture, you will notice that with remarkable consistency, throughout the Old and the New Testaments, there is this stress on being one, oneness, in contrast to being occupied, diversified with this and that, and so many things, so that it gets very confusing. Now which are you? Are you a concentrated person? Or to use the words of the Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter 6, verse 22, is your eye single? Or are you having your whole being scattered? Diversified, maybe is the nice word for it, but in fact, you are just scattered. Unable to concentrate. You don't focus at one point. You are just all over the place. Or putting it another way, that is the reason why you are falling apart. Falling apart at the seams. You can't get yourself together.
Let's look at the Lord's teaching, and His constant stress on this one thing. To know what is this one thing. A little further along in Luke, in Luke chapter 18, verse 22, we find this one thing appearing again. In Luke 18:22, here we find the rich young ruler coming to the Lord Jesus and asking Him, in verse 18 of Luke chapter 18, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Now he is talking about eternal life. He is talking about salvation. He is talking about something important. And the Lord Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? And you know the commandments." And this rich young ruler, who is a very religious man, a nice person, he says, "Well, I have kept the commandments, as best I know how. I have been keeping the commandments. I go to the synagogue, I go to the temple to worship, I keep the commandments." He is a good and moral man. And then notice what the Lord Jesus says to him, in verse 22. "And when Jesus heard it, He said to him, 'One thing you still lack.'" He has got everything else. He has got money, he has got religion, he has got a nice character, he keeps the commandments, he is a decent sort of guy. And we know the world has lots of these decent people who are so nice and they keep the commandments, they do all these things. But one thing you still lack. That one thing. He has got everything except the one thing that matters. What a tragedy that is. What a tragedy it is to have everything but the one thing that you need. What's the use of that? The person who has the one thing but doesn't have everything else is the person who has the one thing that's necessary. He is truly rich. Spiritually, he is truly rich. But many people have all kinds of things, but they have not got the one thing. "One thing you still lack. How are you going to get it? Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me."
So what then is the one thing? The one thing here is to follow Christ. To put your hand to the plow and move forward. And cut away all the other excess. Cut away all the fat. Cut away all these other things that give you spiritual atherosclerosis. Throw it all away. You have one thing. Follow me. The call to discipleship is the call to the one thing. To the concentration. The unification of the entire person in this one thing. The disease of the church today, the tragedy of the church today, is that there are very few people, very few people, who have the one thing that matters. They have religion. And they don't lack religion. They may even keep the commandments. And they may have even the extra blessing of riches, like this rich young ruler. Nice house, and nice car, and nice this and that and the other thing. Nice education. Nice family. They've got it all. Except the one thing. And often the good, all those good things, like wealth and education, become the enemy of the best. It is not to say that it's sinful to have riches, it's sinful to have a good education. These are good. But the good becomes the enemy of the best. It prevents us from that concentration.
Let's look again at the same thing about the one thing. In Philippians chapter 3, verse 13, we find the same scriptural teaching about the one thing again. What does Paul say in Philippians chapter 3, verse 13? There he speaks of his singleness of purpose. Chapter 3, verse 13: "Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own." That is, this resurrection life, this perfection. "But one thing I do." There we come to the one thing again. "But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind." Remember, putting your hand to the plow and not looking back. "Forgetting what is behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on towards the goal." I press on towards the goal. His total commitment is seen in his single concentration upon the kingdom of God. "One thing I do."
He had lots of things, he tells us early in the chapter. Hebrew of the Hebrews. He had a wonderful education. He sat at the feet of Gamaliel, the greatest teacher of his generation. He says, "I did everything right as far as the law is concerned. I was perfect," just like the rich young ruler. "All these things I have done from my youth." But unlike the rich young ruler, he forgot about all the things. "One thing I do, forgetting what's behind, I concentrate to press towards the mark, the goal that is before me." Where do you find this kind of Christians today? All we find is Christians who are non-focused. Who don't have that powerful concentration. When you talk to them, you get the impression that they are scattered. They don't know where they are going. They don't have clear direction. They appear confused, compromised. You don't get the impression that they have become focused. When we say that a person is devoted, what do we mean? We mean that he is concentrated on one thing, or rather one person, namely Christ Himself. What else does devotion mean? It means that you have cut away all excess and you are focused. You are a sharply focused person. His conversation, his thinking, his conduct, is all focused towards the mark. He is like an arrow that has been pulled back, strained in the bow, and moving sharp to the mark, turning neither to the left nor to the right. Or if you use the picture of the plow, he doesn't turn left or right, he moves in a straight line to the objective on the other side.
The church is deeply lacking in such persons. They want this and they want that. Their hands are so busy grasping here and there and in all directions that they lack a central focus. You talk to a Christian, you can very easily, very quickly detect whether there is a concentration or not. Whether they have a single, concentrated point of light in their hearts and in their minds. Whether their whole being is focused in on the target, or whether they are scattered. You detect that within a few moments of conversation with them. Very easy to see, you know what kind of Christian it is. And you begin to wonder whether they are fit for the kingdom. Now that is the question, whether they are fit. It is not that they have not put their hand to the plow. The Lord is talking about those who have already committed themselves to put their hand to the plow. It is that, having put their hand to the plow, they are not focused on the goal. They are still looking back, looking forward, looking up, every direction. But where is their view? They are not concentrated.
There is an interesting verse in the Old Testament that I have often pondered and meditated upon. It is the verse that every Jew recites every day. As though the Lord wanted to drive this point of oneness into their minds. This verse is the verse that they were told never to forget, but to think about, to meditate upon. And indeed, they repeated to this day—the Jews, the Orthodox Jews—repeat this, which is called the Shema, every day. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4. We read like this. What does it mean? Deuteronomy 6, verse 4. And it starts with these words in verse 3: "Hear, therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them"—the commandments, that is, that God has given—"that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey." This is then the condition of blessing. What is it? Verse 4: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." The Lord your God is one Lord. What does that mean? Did they ever think of Him as anything other than one? When did the Jews ever think of God as any other but one? What does one mean? And I have often, even as a young Christian, pondered what this might mean. That He is one. That He is not two, and not five. He is one. The Jews never thought of the Trinity. So that would not be a problem. To tell them that He was one is telling them what? Because they never ever suggested that He was anything other but one person, if you like, or one being. So what is this supposed to convey to the Jews? What is it supposed to mean?
Well, the oneness, for one thing, can indicate His uniqueness. He is the one. He is unique in Himself. "Hear, O Israel, and remember this, that your God is the one." He is unique, above all the gods of this world. All the things that would claim your devotion and your attention. God is unique. He is incomparable. He is the one. The one that stands out from the multitude. Yes, that could certainly have this meaning. And it's certainly part of the meaning. What else does it mean? The word "one," in fact, means united. Concentrated. United. Your God is united. What does that mean? Well, maybe the meaning of this will become clearer to us, to understand what is the quality of God. But if we turn to Psalm 86, verse 11. Psalm 86, verse 11. And this is what we read here, with the same kind of expression. Here we find the verb form of "one" in the Hebrew. Psalm 86, verse 11: "Teach me thy way, O Lord, that I may walk in thy truth. Unite my heart to fear thy name." What does it mean, "unite my heart"? Isn't that a remarkable statement? "Unite my heart." Make my heart one. That's what the Hebrew is saying. Make my heart one. Make it so that it becomes concentrated, focused, not scattered about, but centered. Make my heart one. Unite my heart to honor Your name. Make my heart focus upon You. Because the implication is that my heart is not focused upon You. It's scattered a bit here, it's distracted a bit there. But unite my heart. Make my heart one.
God, then, is a person who is truly united. What does that mean? Well, we noticed these expressions a bit earlier on. The expression that we use to say, "Pull yourself together." When we think of a person who is emotionally falling apart, we say, "Pull yourself together." Unite yourself. Get yourself together. So the expression to be united means a person who is fully united, in control of his faculties. A person who is fully focused, fully centered, on target, is a person who has full control of his faculties. When we lose control of our faculties, we say that we are falling apart. We become disunited inwardly. In fact, this becomes a clinical kind of disease, called schizophrenia. A person who quite literally doesn't know what he really is anymore. He is completely fallen apart, and becomes a pathological case of having fallen apart. "Unite" is the exact opposite of a person who has fallen apart. That is very important, the sense of a concentrated person. Or if you say of another person who loses his temper, he explodes—he literally falls apart. He rather blows apart. He is completely disintegrated. A person who loses his temper quite literally has disintegrated, at least for that moment. He is completely gone to pieces. He has blown his top. He has quite become flung apart.
The concentrated, united person doesn't fly apart. Therefore, this statement about God being one tells us the quality of God. He is concentrated, He is united. That is, He is in total control. Certainly of Himself, as well as all other things. He is in complete concentration and possession of His faculties. Which is what holiness is about. The person who is holy is so totally concentrated. He doesn't blow up. He doesn't lose his temper. He doesn't fall apart at the seams, and all these kind of things. That's what holiness is about. A person who keeps blowing up, losing his temper, falling apart, is clearly a person who does not live in consistent holiness. This gives me quite a picture about God. A person—if we can speak of God in this way—who is in total command of Himself, of His faculties, and of all that is around. So that we don't speak about holiness as a vague, rather indefinable quality. But we can understand it, almost as it were, psychologically. That is, how the mind of God works, how God is like. He is in total possession of His faculties. How wonderful to meet a person who is not always falling apart under pressure. Every time somebody provokes him, he blows up. Every time things go wrong, he falls apart. There are so many Christians that a pastor has to be all the time trying to put together again, because like Humpty Dumpty, he has fallen apart all the time. And a large part of the counseling work a pastor has to do is to try to stick people together who are falling apart. And when they fall apart, their marriages fall apart, their relationships with brothers and sisters fall apart. Everything is falling apart all the time. "Unite. Fix my heart upon You. Give me the clarity of direction." Good to God that we have Christians like that, who are clearly, finely concentrated.
Now, so many Christians are ineffectual. Ineffectual at the best. But dishonoring to God at the worst, because they are not concentrated. They do not stay on target. They are like missiles which can be easily distracted from their goal. And they blow up in the wrong places, destroying the wrong people. They do not remain on target.
Let's take an example, to bring it down to concrete facts. You start the day, and you say to the Lord, "Lord, today I'm going to glorify Your name. I'm going to go out there, and wherever I go, I'm going to spread the sweet fragrance of Your name with all those I come into contact." Ah, what a beautiful idea. What a nice resolution. And so you go out through your door, with a spring in your step, a smile on your face, and somebody gives you a bang on the shoulder that you nearly fall over, and then your face expression changes. "Don't you look where you're going? If you have a sore shoulder, don't take it out on me. Okay? I mean, if you feel like getting nasty, go and do it to somebody else. What have I done to you?" Aha! What happened to your purpose of glorifying the Lord? Immediately, you're off target. Immediately, you have been distracted. Satan needs to give you just one bump, and you are completely changed, off the tracks. You've completely changed your direction. You don't know where you're going anymore. And then after a while, you say to yourself, "Oh, oh, oh, what happened to my good intention this morning?" You see, there is the difference between a focused person and a person who just has some kind of good intention. He knows it's nice to be glorifying to the Lord, but he can never do it. He can't. Because he is not centered, he is not focused. You can get him off course as easily as anything.
You hear a message about loving brothers and sisters. "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, love brother and sister, yes, that's what we've got to do. What a nice idea, what a church would be if we all love one another." And then some brother or sister comes along and drops his tea on your shoe. "Why don't you look what you're doing? Why are you so careless? Christians should be careful, you know? And you are so careless." Ah, and all this about loving brothers and sisters, all down the drain. It's all gone again? It's all gone? You see? Because we cannot stay on target. The slightest distraction gets us off course.
You determine that as a Christian, you're going to have the peace of Christ in your heart. Because without this peace, you cannot glorify God. But the bus conductor is rude to you when you got on the bus, or somebody slammed the door and hit you on the nose, and now you're all full of cheese. All blowing up, and the pressure is building up inside, the wrong kind, of course. You see? So much air in you that it's enough to make you die—which is a literal translation. You're going to blow up. You're so angry. And what happened to the peace? Oh, the peace is gone, of course. That was blown out long ago.
There is the difference between the concentrated person and the non-concentrated person. If I can get it down to brass tacks of daily living. The concentrated person allows nothing to get him off course. You may tug at him, you may bang at him, you may throw your tea at him, but it's awful hard to get him off the tracks. He is concentrated on course. He is determined he is going to glorify God, and you can keep on doing what you like. Or like the Lord Jesus, what He had to experience—you can spit in His face, and He will still go on talking. You can spit on His face, and He will not change His course. He will not react to you. As we saw the other day, the true Christian—his actions are governed only by God. He doesn't allow other people to govern his actions. He is so focused on target that you cannot drag him off that target. You can try, but you won't succeed. Because he is focused. He will not budge from that direction. He is like a missile that is fixed on target, and you can try what you like to distract it. It will move towards the target steadily and without swerving to the left or to the right. That's what it means. That is the quality that we are talking about when we talk about total commitment. Total means total. That means you can try whatever you like, but he is committed to moving in this direction, and nothing will get him off the track. That is total. You want to know what's total commitment? There it is. In brass tacks, in daily living, that's what it's like. A totally committed Christian is somebody who moves in this way, and you can do what you like, and you will not cause him to swerve in any direction. That is the quality of being fit for the kingdom. What is fit for the kingdom? Fit means to have that one thing. What is the one thing? To be concentrated towards the kingdom of God. To be focused on Christ, for the kingdom of God.
# One Thing Is Needful (Part 2) — Luke 10:38-42
You see then, and now immediately you can ask yourself: have you got the one thing? Are you focused upon this one thing? When you put your hand to the plow, are you still looking back? The non-focused person, of course, is the one who is always looking back. The past is governing his conduct, not the future. It's not the goal in front that is drawing him forward. It's what's behind that is dragging him back. Have you got this focused quality?
Now I have met so many Christians, and they are sincere Christians, and they are good people in themselves, but they are so lacking in focus—which is the problem with the majority of Christians—that every time something goes wrong, they are immediately off target again. They are completely off somewhere else. They become bad-tempered, they become miserable. Their moods go up and down. That's another characteristic of the unfocused Christian. Are you a moody Christian? Are you happy today, sad tomorrow, and then again happy the day after, and sad? It all depends on the weather or any other factors that are there. You go up and down the whole time. If that's the case, you are a non-focused Christian. A focused Christian, a Christian who has one thing before him, is not one who is going to allow his emotions to govern the day, who is up and down like a yo-yo. No, no. He is on target. He doesn't care what his emotions are. He doesn't care what anybody else has to say. He doesn't care what the weather is like. He doesn't care what the circumstances are like. He homes in on the target. Day after day after day, he is on course. How we need this kind of Christians in the church. How we desperately need such persons.
Now, let us say another thing. A Christian who is not one, not united in himself, can achieve nothing. Can do nothing. These Christians never get anywhere. They don't know where they are going, so how can they get anywhere? They haven't got their target in sight, and they are not fixed onto that target. This principle is so true, even in secular life. I wonder if you have ever looked at the face of an athlete in competition. If you have seen sometimes the TV cameras close up on the face of an athlete in competition, have you ever noticed the concentration and the determination in that face of a winning athlete? Look at the athletes who lose in comparison to the ones that win. Just look at his face. His face will tell you the whole story. The concentration that is in that face is most expressive.
I recently just studied the picture of an athlete's face. A famous winning athlete who won many gold medals. I just looked at that face, and you could see that that person was entirely focused. All excess weight, all excess thoughts, all excess purposes were discarded. The one goal is focused in front of him. That mark in front is all he's got in his mind. The face is a picture of concentration well worth studying. Remarkable picture to look at. Just the expression of that face tells you the whole story. Why that person wins is told on that face. He is totally concentrated. Focused to a sharp point, like the point of an arrow flying to its mark. Beautiful to behold in its intensity.
Now intensity doesn't mean nervous anxiety. It doesn't mean nervous stress. An athlete, and every good athlete knows, that stress and tension work against you. Concentration means not stress and tension, but a relaxed and focused concentration, in which by relaxed means all unnecessary strain, all unrelated things are discarded. And stress can become like bricks, breaking you down, slowing you down.
What kind of Christian are you? The church today reminds me of the words of Elijah as he spoke to the Israelites. In 1 Kings 18, verse 21, Elijah said to the Israelites, "How long will you go on limping with two different opinions?" How long will you go on limping? You know, there is a whole generation of Christians in the church today who have never made up their minds. Not really, they haven't. They are all like the Jews who are God's chosen people, yes. But, as Elijah said to them, they have been limping all along with two opinions. Christians. In other words, they have been always trying to ride two horses. They have always tried to make a compromise. "I will not become an all-out Christian, but I will be a Christian. But I will still live in the world and for the world. I will serve God, yes, but I will also serve mammon." They try to serve two masters. They halt between two opinions. They want to love God and they also want to love the world. They want to hold on to this and they want to hold on to that. And the majority of Christians are just like this. They go through life incapable of having yes or no. It's always "yes, but" — "no, but" — "yes, but" — "no, but" — always but here, but there. And there's never yes or no. There's no clear decision on anything. They live in the twilight land of compromise through their whole lives.
Ask yourself whether you are not one of these. Whether you are sharply focused or whether you have made so many compromises, by the way, that you will be unfit for the kingdom. This is the point. We are not just talking about moral qualities. We are talking about the fitness for the kingdom of God. The kind of people that God will admit to His kingdom. He is telling us what kind of people will be admitted. Not the kind of person that halts between two opinions, who puts his hand to the plow and keeps looking back. The kind of person who can't make up his mind whether he is going forward or going backwards or staying where he is. Whose yes can never be yes, whose no can never be no, because they can never decide what is yes and what is no.
This kind of Christians are also always wretched and always miserable. They can never have the fullness of joy because they are never focused. They are now torn this way, now torn that way. They are now blown in this direction, they are now blown in that direction. What's the use of being a Christian like that? I say to people like that, just quit it. Go and concentrate on the world. At least you concentrate on something. But like this, you are concentrated on nothing. You are neither here nor there. And like the Israelites that Elijah rebuked, he said to them, "How long will you go on like this?" Never being able to make up your mind. Elijah said to them very clear-cut: if God is God, serve Him. If these idols are God, then go and serve the idols. But just make up your mind sometime what you intend to do. If you want to serve the world, go and serve the world. If you want to serve God, then make up your mind to serve God. But don't try to serve God and mammon at the same time, because you then disgrace God and you live in spiritual wretchedness. You just do not have that focus.
When you look at the life of the Lord Jesus, what a different story it is. You notice His concentration, His powerful concentration. If you had met the Lord Jesus in those days in His earthly ministry, or when you will meet the Lord Jesus again, you will notice immediately by talking to Him how concentrated—the Lord your God is one. A unified person whose heart, His whole being is united. He set His face towards Jerusalem, even though He knew that this is the place where He would die. And no one, but no one, could dissuade Him from going in that direction. That's what we read in Luke chapter 9, verse 51. He set His face steadfastly towards Jerusalem. His purpose was there written in His face. He set His face towards Jerusalem. The Lord was entirely concentrated in fulfilling the task that the Father had entrusted to Him, and no one would distract Him from one direction or another. He moved on towards the target with consummate purpose, with absolute determination. His face was set in that direction to offer Himself up as a sacrifice. No easy goal.
What a beauty it is. We just now looked at Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4, and I hope you also noticed verse 5. "You shall love the Lord your God with your heart, your soul, with your strength." The whole being, all these factors of heart and soul and might are completely concentrated, united into one objective: to love God with the whole being. That's a concentrated person. A devoted person. A person that is on target. A person whose eye is single. And you remember in Matthew 6 the Lord Jesus said, "If your eye is single, what will happen? You will be full of light. But if your eye is not single, you will be full of darkness." Are you full of darkness or are you full of light? Which should it be? Which is it?
And again it comes back to this entire question: are you fit for the kingdom of God? Do you have this quality of being united in your being? Does it find expression in the determination that every person can see in you? A determined Christian? Or are you simply a distracted kind of person? Are you the kind of person who says, "Oh, there's so many problems."
Recently I had to take the car for repairs. And there's someone I always talk to, the manager there, who's always the person who takes charge of all repairs. And there's something I like about this manager. When I tell him the things that need to be done, his reply is always, "No problem, no problem." Now that is a very fine mark. What is the mark? It's this. There are people who always say, "Oh, it's problematic." There are always people who say, "No problem." It shows you a tremendous difference of character. The person who says it's problematic is a person who says there are problems. Even when there aren't any problems, he sees problems. That's the kind of person. Even if there are no problems, he can invent a few problems to think about. He lives in the anxiety of his own creation. He's a nervous wreck when there's nothing even eating him. It says, "The wicked flees when no one is pursuing." He is running for his life and there's nobody behind him. He is frightened by every shadow. He is worried by every imaginary problem there is.
The person who says "no problem" doesn't mean that there are no problems existing. But it means that whatever problem there is, I will solve it. That's what he means. The person who says "no problem" is the person who is most conscious of the problems there are. Because he knows all the problems there are and can arise in a car. But when he says "no problem," he simply means whatever the problem is, I'll take care of it. That's what he means. Just leave it to me. It's okay. I'll take care of it. Oh, that's good. There are some people you give them a job to do and you're very sorry you ever gave them the job to do. Because if you gave them a problem to solve, they bring you ten problems back. You thought to yourself, if I had taken care of this, it would have been solved long ago. I give it to him, I got ten more problems to take care of. There's another kind of person. You give him ten problems, he solves them all. He takes care of it. "Just leave it with me."
Why? That's the difference between the focused person and the non-focused person. The non-focused person is the person who sees problems everywhere. "Oh yeah, but if I went in this way it would be like this, and if I did that, oh, I can't make up my mind, oh, I give up, I don't know what to do." Always this kind of person, you know the kind of person I talk about. Ask yourself whether you're one of these. And the other kind of person, he is so on target that no matter what comes in his way, no matter what problem will arise—"I will, by the grace of God, take care of it." He will take care. He will run down every situation. He will run over every problem, every obstacle that seeks to hinder him. Nothing will stop him. You notice Paul is exactly that kind of person. Paul also set his face towards Jerusalem, and the tears of other people, the complaints, the pleas—no use. Paul is moving to Jerusalem, and that's where he goes. Decisive. Purposeful person. No one ever achieved anything spiritually without that kind of concentration.
Now why is so little accomplished through the churches today? Why is so little achieved? Because for this very reason, brothers and sisters, we don't have people who have this kind of devotion, this kind of concentration, and hence the church accomplishes nothing. God is looking today for a person whose eye is single, who God can set on a target, and he will move towards that target—rain or shine, cold or hot, opposition or no opposition—he moves in on the target and accomplishes what needs to be done.
Do we now understand what it means to be fit for the kingdom? Do we have this kind of quality in our lives? If you don't have this kind of quality, it's because you haven't made up your mind. There are some people who will say, "I'll serve the Lord, oh yes, I'll serve the Lord," and then say, "No, no, I don't think I'll serve the Lord right now, but one day I'll serve the Lord. I will do this, yes, yes." And they can never make up their minds. They're going to serve the Lord and they're not going to serve the Lord, and it's going to be this and this and this and this. They can't make up their minds. They go through all of life wasting all of their life. "How long?" Elijah said. "How long?" Well, all their life they're doing this. What a waste of time. What a waste of energy to be beating around the bush, going around in circles.
But that God will make you and me the kind of person of whom it can be said, "His heart is united to glorify God." He moves in on the target. He knows what is right and he doesn't allow any problems to distract him from it. "This is right, and I shall do it. By the grace of God it will be done. Today I'm going out there to glorify God, and nobody but nobody will stop me, because the grace of God is sufficient for me." As Paul says, and this is the characteristic talk of a person who is that concentrated. Paul says in Philippians 4, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." I can do all things. There is no problem I cannot solve. There is no enemy I cannot overcome, because Christ is sufficient for me. Where are people like that today? Where are they? Do you see them? Would to God that God will deal with us each one that we may be fit for His kingdom, because that's the kind of person God is looking for in this generation. Not those who are forever halting between two opinions. May God speak to our hearts. Let us be quiet before God in prayer.