The Importance Of One Thing

Pick your Bibles up.

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, glad to be here tonight.

I've got my receiver turned on.

I receive revelation, revelation.

Knowledge is the rock upon which the church is built.

It's the revelation.

Knowledge is my foundation.

I shall never fail in Jesus' name, Amen.

Let's turn in our Bibles to Philippians, chapter three, verse eight.

Paul is speaking.

He said yeah, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them, but refuse that I may win Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God, by faith that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death.

If by any means I might attain under the resurrection of the dead not as though I had already attained either, were already perfect, but I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended, of Christ Jesus, brethren, I count myself.

I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do.

Everybody shout one thing, this one thing I do for getting those things which are behind and reaching forth under those things which are before I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

And so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled the importance of one thing.

The importance of one thing, one thing God leads us along the way to know Him in increasing measure, or in other words, spiritual growth.

If you'll follow Him, he will follow you in the way of growth, or you know Him better and better.

That's the whole point.

Of course, you can't know Him apart from the Word.

And you've got to have the Holy Ghost, you've got the Spirit to help you.

With the Word, I mean the Word and the Spirit working together.

And so Paul did not consider himself to have arrived, you know, even though he was a highly educated man, sat at the feet of Gamaliel, he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.

He goes into all this in earlier chapters.

But you know, he set aside his earthly learning, his sense knowledge, in other words his sense knowledge.

He had a lot of sense knowledge.

He set that aside.

He told the Corinthians.

He said you know, I didn't come to you with fancy, preaching hermeneutics, you know hermelletics and hermeneutics and all this Bible school kind of stuff.

He said I came to you in weakness and in trembling and in fear.

What was that all about?

Because his fear of God was that he had a great responsibility to share with them truth.

It wasn't about being afraid of them, he wasn't afraid of God, but he just had a godly fear in his ministry and in his life to always share the whole counsel of the Word of God.

I have not shunned to share with you the whole counsel he told the 12 elders of Ephesus.

I haven't shunned to share with you the whole counsel.

Why would he do that?

Because he you know he was he had the fear of God upon him.

It's lacking in the church.

Major, major hole in the church is the fear of God.

Now, I don't mean the cold starch fear of God like being afraid of His presence.

I'm talking about reverencing Him, wanting to please Him more than man.

Fear of man brings a snare, but the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

So anyway, one thing he said one thing, or you know when you see the Word one thing or the phrase one thing, it's his focus, it's his priority.

You know a lot of people.

You know there's a big thing about multitasking.

Nowadays Multitasking people have, you know, all these things going on at one time, you know, and they're cubicle.

You know, if you got a cubicle you work in, you probably are multitasking.

They probably got you on all kind of stuff all at one time.

The first multitasker I ever saw was on the Ed Sullivan show and he had these pool cues and he had these plates and he would spin the plates.

Remember that Now y'all are too young to know that.

But he would spin the plates and they'd have the music going da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and he'd spin the plates and the plates would spin at the top of the pool cue, like this, and it would just go like that, you know, and he'd just go around down the line and then over here on the other side of the stage it's getting weaker and then he'd run over there and the music is going da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

That was the first multitasker I ever saw.

There Broke a lot of dishes, all right.

So one thing his focus or priority, which actually included three things, is one thing, turned into three things.

And what?

Forget the past, reach to the future, press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling.

So his one thing was really three things and really the imagery here of pressing toward the mark, of the pride, pressing toward the mark.

He used the imagery of the games a lot in his letters and the games, you know, were originated by the Greeks, which we call the Olympics now, but they had, you know, all of the games.

And so he's talking about a runner.

He's talking about a runner leaning toward the tape to break the tape or the string or whatever they had across there.

And that imagery was I'm straining to like I'm in a race.

Is he racing against someone else?

No, he's just, it's his race to win.

He talks about that in Hebrews, chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

He runs the race that is set before him, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of his faith.

So the sprinter reaching the to break the tape, the finish at the finish line.

We're just about at the finish line, aren't we?

Just about at the finish line?

What?

What would be the finish line?

The end of this age, the end of the church age, in the beginning of the next age?

Where are you going to see the book of Revelation fulfilled?

I like what brother wise when was talking about.

You know where our job is to stop the acceleration of the antichrist timing.

We can't stop what he's going to do because it's in the book.

So some people you know they're so simple that they just don't think much People don't have any.

You know, god gave us a brain to think.

We ought to be able to critically think and think logically and critically, and you can be.

If you've got the mind of Christ, you can think like God thinks.

But our job is to not allow him to do something ahead of time.

Why?

Because if he did something ahead of time, everything is thrown off.

Oh, that can't happen.

God is in control.

See, I, you know, quit saying that.

Don't ever put that on Facebook again.

You hear me If I catch any of you.

No, I'm just joking.

It's on my Facebook page all the time what God is in control.

God, he's an ultimate control, but he's not in control.

You're that's.

When you say that, you're, you're.

You're causing people to stumble because they say, yeah, if God, god is in control, he's the.

He's the author of all this death and destruction, lies and everything.

No, he's not.

He's not in control.

The church should be.

The church should be stopping the spirit of antichrist and its tracks, but we've let the antichrist progress and he, of course, will progress.

I mean, he's going to get stuff done.

He did.

He did in in John's day.

He said there's many antichrists in the world so they weren't able to stop all of it.

But the main thing is what we're going to stop his timing.

So let's look at Psalm 27.

David knew something about the one thing.

I'm talking about, the importance of one thing, and that is to know God and increasing measure.

We always.

We need to have that as a main priority in our life.

It's a single focus to know him better.

We want to know a lot of things, we want to study a lot of things, we want to be expert in a lot of things.

Well, let's know him.

Psalm 27,.

David wrote about one thing, one of my favorite Psalms, verse four One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that.

I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord.

Well then he added on to it.

Now it's two things.

And to inquire his temple.

So one thing.

It really turned into three things.

But as far as he was concerned, the main thing was God in knowing him.

Y'all with me now?

Is that our main thing?

I'm preaching to the Sunday night crowd, so it must be pretty high on your list, or you wouldn't be here on a Sunday night.

Amen.

And he wrote this all the whole time.

He was running from Saul.

Saul is running to kill him.

And what was he doing?

He was running partially to know God with all of his heart and soul, to know him the best way he could know him.

He didn't talk too much about Saul chasing him.

He just talked about how much he wanted to know God, to dwell in the house of the Lord forever, to behold the beauty of the Lord inquiring his temple.

You can't blame God and seek him at the same time.

He didn't complain about Saul.

It was unjust.

Can you just think about it?

Just think about this young man.

I mean it was so unjust the way he was treated.

You know, I don't know why he didn't get a lawyer in Seussal.

Rascal Cheated him out of his girl.

You know the whole thing.

I mean, just, he was just mistreated, something fierce.

But you know his focus was on the God who always was good.

It's faithful, god was faithful.

So you know, just, I know this group here is more mature than to blame God.

You don't blame God, do you?

You don't blame him for the trouble.

You know who the troublemaker is.

It's not God.

He's not the troublemaker, he's the deliverer.

All right, let's look at another example here Mark, chapter 10, the rich, young ruler.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

Jesus is talking about this.

One thing Must be pretty important here.

It is, you know, the prophetic anointing just looks for, looks for patterns.

So I love to hear Brother Wiseman because he just identifies all these patterns in the Bible.

He's a seer and I got so tickled because he shared that dream with me Thursday night.

He shared a dream that he had a few months ago and he woke up at 316 in the morning and there he was and he had this urgency to pray and you know, and he had Kenneth Copeland on his heart.

He didn't want to mention his name, but I will.

I don't no big deal, we're partners with Kenneth Copeland and he had Kenneth Copeland on his heart.

So he started praying fervently for Kenneth Copeland in the middle of the night, I mean early in the morning, 316 in the morning, and then at 419, one hour and three minutes later, you know, he just had kind of a release.

And he looked at the clock it was 419.

I said, yeah, you started with John 3, 16.

God so loved the world and you ended with God.

You know, god shall supply all our need according to his riches and glory.

The word he had for brother Copeland was what was it?

It was Blessings which cannot be contained.

Blessings which cannot be contained, it that's that, was it?

What well he?

That was the verse Philippians, you know, philippians 419, and he never.

He didn't catch that.

He didn't catch the clock being the scripture and I mean I laughed and laughed and I laughed and I laughed because I got to contribute to his prophetic dream, you know.

And so he got really blessed about that, about the verses and and, of course, john 3, 16.

God so loved the world, so love was the motivation of his prayer and that gave him the urgency that ought to be.

All our motivation of prayer was love.

We need to love the sinner.

You know they're hard to love.

It's hard to love these people dressing up in Drag.

It's hard to love them, but God loves everyone of me, died for them and I do believe what brother, wife and said there's, there's gonna be some of them get saved.

The light is gonna hit the seed, just like it did Paul saw of Tarsus I mean saw God saved me was he was persecuting the church.

Anyway, all right, have you found mark chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

So he texted brother Copeland in the middle of the night, mean four o'clock in the morning, text, brother Copeland.

Brother Copeland answered him right back that this is God.

This means I know exactly what this means.

You have heard from God.

Thank you, brother Wiseman.

I'll tell you.

Thank God for prophets having fellowship one with another.

All right, mark chapter 10, verse 17.

Mark 10:17

And when he was gone fourth into the way, there came one running and kneel to him and asked him good master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?

And Jesus said unto him why call us, thou me, good?

There's none good but one, that is God.

Thou know us the commandments do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, defraud, not honor thy father and mother.

And he answered and said unto him master, all these have I observed from my youth.

Then, jesus, beholding him, he took a second look.

How many of you know he had his spiritual antenna up Now?

How many of you know he talked about it's fit.

He's fixed his gaze on him.

See, he was in, he encountered him and he Lived and he answered him.

But now he's really looking at him, beholding him, said unto him one thing thou lackest.

Everybody shout one thing.

Wouldn't you like it if it was just one thing, you like, I Mean, wouldn't you kind of count it like a trophy?

You know, I only like one thing, man.

I mean, I've got all this on my side, except just one thing.

Jesus said this is one thing that you lack Another.

I think Luke it says.

Jesus looked at him, loving him, loved him and said One thing thou lackest Go by way, sell whatsoever you have and give it to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.

And come, take up your cross and follow me.

Now Let me ask you something.

Did he say that he had to give away all of his money?

It didn't say that.

It said Sell what you have, he's got money.

Didn't say give all your money way.

He said tell you, sell what you have, get all your earthly attachments, because I'm calling you, sell what you have, you shall have treasure in heaven.

You're not gonna be destitute, you're gonna sow a seed for your ministry and come, take up your cross and follow me.

He had every bit as much of an apostolic call it's Peter James and John.

He was every bit as called you, you as the 12, he would have been the 13.

They wouldn't have had to cast lots in the upper room.

He would have, you know, he'd have been hanging around there if he'd obeyed the call.

Jesus called him.

Everybody say apostolic call, Verse 22,.

And he was sad at that saying and went away, grieved, for he had great possessions, or you could say his possessions had him.

I mean, he just did not wanna get rid of his leather couch, hand-tooled leather, didn't wanna do it, didn't wanna get rid of his Duncan Fife chair or whatever it was that he had.

He still had money.

He got money.

You're gonna sow a seed, that's all it is.

You sow a seed.

You can sell what you have, give it to the poor.

So you see, see if he knew what Jesus was saying.

Jesus was saying you're gonna sow a seed for your ministry.

You're gonna get all these entanglements off of you so you can travel with me.

And he went away sad.

He measured it wrong.

His one thing.

See what was his one thing Riches and all the stuff that went with it His Tesla, his Bugatti.

I'll go higher.

Bugatti is four million.

Did you know?

They're still making Bugatti's 1600 horsepower four million dollars, if you can get one.

He had one.

Right, he had one.

No, he didn't have, I know, I'm just.

He probably had a rare donkey.

I wonder if his donkey had those eyelashes that I see all the time, those eyelashes that are like that.

I mean you just stand in front of that girl and she could keep you cool man and just bat those eyelashes.

His one thing see, look, his one thing had nothing to do here.

He had a call.

Jesus loved him and Jesus was not in the.

He didn't really mean what he said.

What do I have to do?

He knew he was lacking something.

He knew he was lacking something because he kept all the commandments.

He's God fearing after a fashion, but yet the one thing he had was not the one thing he needed.

Amen, all right, let's one more here.

Mark 10 to Luke 10,.

Talk about one thing tonight, and I think, in the context of where we are right now and the way things are with the world and the temptations that we have, the distractions that we have, it'd be good for us to keep that one thing in mind all the time, because there's all kinds of things trying to compete with that one thing and turn it into one of the things and hopefully take it out of first place and put it somewhere along the lower echelon.

So here we have Luke 10, verse 38.

Luke 10:38

Now it came to pass, as they went, that he, jesus, entered into a certain village and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house and she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word.

But Martha was comfort about much serving and came to him and said "'Lord, does thou not care that my sister "'had left me to serve alone?

"'bid her, therefore, that she helped me'".

These 25 pound blocks of ice are heavy and I need some help.

I've got to break up the ice for the iced tea and I've been having to do it all by myself.

And then all the rest of the chicken, fried steak, the gravy, I've got it all on me.

Jesus, get my sister to do something besides set around here, martha, bid her, therefore, that she helped me.

And Jesus answered and said under her Martha, martha, that's what I tell Gladys every now.

And I said oh, martha, martha, would you please empty the wastebasket there.

Oh, martha, martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things.

Everybody say many things, but one thing is needed.

Oh, where did that come from?

See the many things?

There's many, many things, many things.

We can be involved with many things, but one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken from away from her".

So the contrast of sisters.

You got Martha distracted, anxious, troubled over many things, jealous, snippy, controlling.

I mean she'd got trying to get Jesus to do something.

Why don't you tell your sister to get off of her blessed assurance and get up here and get something done?

Why do you want Jesus to do your job?

You know, when you open your home to Jesus, you had to open your home to His entourage.

I mean it's not just Jesus, everybody's coming with Him.

I mean it's a cruise kind of like last Sunday.

I mean you go to the birthday party and it's a big deal.

So how about?

Mary is seating at Jesus' feet and she heard the Word.

She heard the Word.

So one thing, say one thing.

Sometimes.

We won't sit there in our prayer closet.

We won't sit there at our favorite Bible reading chair, we won't sit there, and on sofa or wherever it is that you read your Bible and pray, we won't sit there very long because of many things, but one thing is needful.

Jesus said one thing is needful.

Number one.

Number two it must be chosen.

You have to choose it.

She chose it, mary chose it, she knew what was going on.

She chose to sit there and hear the Word and perhaps be persecuted, perhaps be on the outs with nervous nilly I mean Martha, amen, it has to be chosen.

Number three it's better, it's better.

Everybody say the one thing is better, it's better and it shall not be revoked.

When you make your commitment to make that one thing, I'm telling you God won't leave you.

While you're there, he will stay with you, he will reveal himself to you.

He'll give you something to listen to, hallelujah.

One thing focus priority to know Him in increasing measure.

Amen.

Come on, lift your hands and receive tonight.

It's going to be just a simple little thing, but so important, especially right now.

Glory to God, you get anything out of this tonight.

Thank you.