The same malady is found in all of the Lord's people. So often, although we trust the Lord, although we have known his salvation, although we have tasted his goodness, we are found for various reasons with quite small faith. That surely is the most characteristic feature of all of us throughout the land as evangelical people: the smallness of our faith. That is why no great mighty works are done in these days of salvation, and that is why causes grow so slowly, and why so little is accomplished. Churches so often consist of just a handful of members who are really engaged in the work, engaged in the battle and in the task. The majority, though they may be godly in a sense and true believers, are not so committed, not so active, not so applied to the things of God, because basically there is no deep and real belief that if the whole fellowship were to be totally committed in the work, praying and striving, it would make any difference. Somehow there is this idea that the situation which we are in, the state of affairs which prevails in our day, cannot be much affected by anything: by what we do, by what God does. We choose to believe that this is the state of affairs that must be, whatever the Scripture teaches.
This is addressed first and foremost addressed to people who are putting the affairs of this life before spiritual things. They are believers, yes, but those who put the affairs of this life before the spiritual battle, because they have so little faith that God will help and empower them to cope with the ordinary affairs of life. Put it another way. So often you find people thinking – men will actually teach this – that what this passage is that there is no need to be concerned with striving and serving the Lord; there is no need for churches to be rushing round their neighbourhoods and doing this and doing that, because if we have faith and we look to God, God will give us the increase. God will do all these things. Yes there should be a measure of Christian service, the gospel should be preached, a certain amount of effort should be made to make known the means of grace to the neighbourhood, but anything beyond that, is actually an exhibition, they claim, of lack of faith. Real faith will trust God to do it.
But actually the Saviour is saying the very opposite. What he has in mind is people who are completely bound up with the things of this life even as Christians. A husband and wife may be saved, and yet all their considerations are devoted to their earthly life and its worries and concerns. They may have everything in perfect and apple pie order at home and all the domestic arrangements in place. A tremendous amount of mental energy is spent on the decorations and feeding and clothing the family. The trouble is that when so much energy and effort and planning are put into these things, they are exhibiting a marked lack of faith because the standard for the Christian is to have quite different priorities. First of all we are to seek the things of the kingdom of God, to serve the Lord, to do his bidding.
This is about faith and faith starts with our priorities. We trust the Lord first, we do his bidding first, we obey his commands first, and we don't let our minds become completely swamped and preoccupied with fussing about the things we should be leaving to God. He has called us to this scale of priorities.