Please open your Bibles if you have a copy. Open it to Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10, we're gonna be in verses 38 through 42. Hear now the word of the living God. Now, as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed 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 up 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, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her. Please be seated. As we say, grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever. Let me pray for us. Father in heaven, we thank you for this time. We thank you for the gathering we can have today on the Lord's day. Would it be useful to the praising of your name and the sanctifying of your saints and the saving of the lost? That's all we wanna be about. That's all we want to be after, Lord. We want to be about right worship, right proclamation of the gospel and the right discipleship of the saints. Help us to stay focused on these simple tasks but excel still more in them. Lord, use this whole morning that we spend together towards those ends and expand the sea of love in our hearts for the Lord Jesus Christ. Would we see Him clearer and love Him more fervently because we've spent some time in a handful of verses at the end of Luke 10. or we know you will use this time, and so we pray according to your will, that that would be true. And it's in Christ's name we pray, amen. Well, we get back into Luke today after having last week, we had Dr. Conrad Mbewe here with us, which was a great blessing. But we're gonna finish up chapter 10 today with a very familiar story to many of us. At least it's one that gets tossed around and it gets oversimplified, not unlike what we looked at a couple of weeks ago with the good Samaritan. What happens often with this story about Mary and Martha and Jesus is we have the exaltation of a certain personality and the deprecation of another kind of personality. We're gonna condemn personality types and we're gonna exalt other personality types. We need to say at the outset that that is not what this text is about. It's not about labeling superior and inferior personality types, particularly condemning workers and praising thinkers. condemning the diligent and exalting the leisurely. That's not what this is about. Let me just give you a handful of verses to make sure we set ourselves right according to scripture from Proverbs about hard work. Proverbs 10, four and five. A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame. Proverbs 13, four. The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied. Proverbs 14, 23. In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. And then 2 Thessalonians 3, 10. If anyone is not willing to work, let that man also not eat. So what we can't say here in Luke 10 is a definitive working hard is bad, sitting leisurely is good. That's not what's happening in this text at all. This is not a diagnostic text for church potlucks. Let me tell you something, that the people who are really holy are the ones that sit around in here and keep singing and doing other things, but the bad people are the ones out there setting up and getting the food ready and turning on the crock pots. And that's not what's happening, that the bad guys do meal prep and the good people sit around and just feel Jesus. This happened all the time in college, maybe not at your college, but at Texas A&M, it was super conservative. And so there's always that guy who has the acoustic guitar. You know that guy I'm talking about, not James. He plays electric guitar mainly in his free time. But I'm talking about the guy who's always walking around with his guitar, he knows four chords, and then at any moment, he can make everybody sit down and you have to sing along with him. And he's gonna sing kumbaya, and I love Jesus, and I wanna nuzzle in his beard and all that. And you're like, man, I gotta go to class, but you're making me feel like I'm a pagan because I won't sit here and do that. And I can't honor Christ. You can't bind my conscience like that. So this sermon is against that guy. We're gonna take him down today. Now, we need to remember the obvious reality that gets overlooked in this text. And often what gets overlooked in a lot of the gospels as we study and teach them is there's something unique about these four gospels. And you know what that is? Jesus is walking on the planet. That's different than what you and I go through every day. So we need to contextually understand that and not lose that because what does Jesus say in Matthew 26, 11? He says, the poor you always have with you, but me you don't have with me very long. Now, is that a perpetual condemnation of doing anything for the poor? Well, no, he's making it clear. It's different a little bit if you live in this time period in the first century AD when I'm actually on the planet. in a way that he's not in between the two advents. So make sure we have that and carry that around in our brains. Because here's the crux of this text. What it's about is that working for Jesus at the expense of being with Jesus is a problem. Because when you do that, you're prone to self-pity, joylessness, and bitterness. When you work for Jesus at the expense of being with Jesus, you get prone to self-pity, joylessness, and bitterness. That's what we're gonna be looking at. Service can be done at times to avoid the conviction of the Word. that you'd rather serve, you'd rather always be out from where the communion is happening, whether it's Lord's Day worship, Bible study, family worship, any other kind of connection, it could be happening, you're gonna go, I'm gonna go serve, just because you don't wanna be around the Bible, and you don't want that word to convict you, and you can still look kind of holy and look kind of good because you were with the six-year-olds during the service. It could telegraph, whoa, there's a demon in here. Hope we didn't break that mic. There it is. It could be like last week, or what we need to think about it is in the context of last week, the Good Samaritan was about love your neighbor in that very easy, obvious way, because the ask, what's my neighbor? It's about getting into heaven, but love your neighbor as a part of the second table of the law. This week is about love the Lord your God as the first table of the law. So let's get into the text, verse 38. Now, as they went on their way, they meaning the disciples, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. Let's see this as it is. She is eagerly, readily, and taking initiative to show hospitality to Jesus. That's the right thing to do. You should do that. If he's walking around in your town, you should invite him over. You should want him to be a part of it. You should want to host him and show hospitality. That's a good and right thing. Now, Martha is typically listed first. When it comes to the sisters, you have here, Luke 10, you have John 11, another big scene with both of them in it, when it's their brother Lazarus being brought back from the dead. Martha's always labeled first. That could connote that she's the oldest. We don't know that for sure, but it seems to be that she's probably the oldest. But she's showing an eagerness for Christ to show hospitality. There is a biblical importance to showing hospitality. Romans 12, 13 says, seek to show hospitality. You should be finding ways to be hospitable. 1 Timothy 3, 2, you can't be an elder at a church if you are not hospitable. It's a demand, you must be hospitable to be an elder of the church. Hebrews 13, two says, do not neglect to show hospitality because some have entertained angels without knowing it. Well, that's a hard text to understand, but we can understand, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. So we know that this is a good and a right thing that Martha's about to do. We need to step into that story knowing that. This is a biblically right thing for her to do, to show hospitality, certainly to the Lord of the universe. Now, a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. That also could connote too that she's probably widowed, because it's her house. Verse 39, she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. Now, she sits and listens. She doesn't speak this whole time. In John 11, she doesn't really say that much either, but she's just sitting and listening. Is that not obeying the command of the Father at the Mount of Transfiguration in Luke 9 35? This is my son, my chosen one, listen to him. So she's doing what God said to do. She's listening to Jesus. She's not speaking, she's giving her attention, submission to Christ. She's hungry for the word and Jesus is letting her do that. Now, as a rabbi in the first century Judaism world, it's not forbidden to teach a woman, but it's not profitable. So if you're a rabbi and you're gonna gather some students for yourself, you investing in a woman is not really gonna have any ROI for you, return on investment, because she is never gonna own any land. She's never gonna have a bunch of money. She's never going to have any influence in culture and the circular realms of society. So why would you invest in her? She can't do anything for you after you invest in her. You're just investing in her with the Bible just for its own sake. So they wouldn't do it. It's not against the rules of the Talmud, which is an extra biblical commentary on the Old Testament, but they would just never do it. Like, what's the point of that? She can't do anything for me. That's what Judaism does. We gotta remember this too. We often forget Judaism is not Christianity. It is a different religion to Christianity. It is not Old Testament faithfulness. It is a perversion of that. So Jesus is just being Old Testament faithful by investing in a woman who can't probably sociologically do anything for him afterwards. He just wants her to know the word because she bears the image of God, regardless of what she can give him back. So she is showing humility and in context, remember what Jesus prayed in Luke 10, 21? Just a few weeks ago, we looked at it. He said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. Who was the wise and understanding that just had the gospel hidden from him? the lawyer in the story with the Good Samaritan. Who is childlike and foolish in the eyes of the world that's having the word of God opened to her? Mary. Jesus' prayer back earlier in the same chapter is being fulfilled in time. that the gospel's hid from that proud lawyer who thinks himself wise, thinks himself to have understanding, but Mary, who knows she doesn't know anything, is having it all expounded at the very feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's happening out, playing out in real time for her. So up to this point, nothing is going wrong. Everything is going right. This is exactly what should be happening. Showing hospitality, soaking in the words of Christ, and it all being this joyous, wonderful, blessed occasion. But sin always finds a way in. Look at verse 40. But Martha was distracted with much serving. That word distracted literally means drawn away or dragged away. You need to see Martha here as in her serving, she's being dragged away by herself, not the service, dragged away from Jesus. So often, what gets in the way of us and Jesus is self-appointed responsibilities. doing things that nobody told you to do that the Bible doesn't tell you to do. If you're feeling overwhelmed by just trying to live the Christian life, like it's so heavy, it's so burdensome, then what you're living is not the Christian life. 1 John 5.3 says, this is the love of God that you keep my commandments, you keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. That's a biblical fact. They are not burdensome. If you're feeling burdened, then something is wrong. Either one, you are not converted and you are trying to muscle your way into heaven by doing everything good that you can possibly do, and it's killing you. And it will kill you until you give up and call out for grace and forgiveness from the Lord Jesus Christ. Then you will have it. Then you will be set free from that burden. You could be feeling that burden too because you're just wrongly understanding the Bible. You've got bad teaching and you think that I'm gonna lose my salvation if I don't do all of these good things. I'm keeping myself saved. That's also a lie. You didn't make it happen and you're not gonna keep it happening. You could also be feeling burdened just because you're maturing and growing in faith and you just need to grow. You need to mature. You need to press on towards love and good deeds and understanding what that really means. Because what she's doing is being smothered by self-appointed responsibilities that are not being forced upon her. James and I have both worked in and been around tons of guys who work at megachurches. And all of those guys are burnt out. I mean, that's why the, you know, that after graduation date from seminary for a pastor, the average tenure in the ministry is like five years, and then they quit. And why? And the guys that we talked to, we still know and that we knew and we experienced before we came to these biblical convictions was you're just smothered and you're distracted. You're dragged away from Jesus because of your service. And you're doing a ton of things that nobody said you need to do. I've never talked to a burnt out pastor, a burnt out just staff member at a church who was like, oh, I'm just so bedraggled by evangelizing to so many people. or I've just been praying for so many people in the church, or I've just been teaching the Bible, I've been discipling these guys, and I'm just so burnt out by that. What are they burnt out by? I've been decorating for Christmas for 48 straight hours. I've been building a confetti cannon out of spare parts from the snow machine at Christmas so we can have confetti at Easter, and I'm losing my mind. Or I'm decorating for this youth event on no salary, no sleep, and no food, and no money to buy stuff, so I'm stealing Christmas lights out of trash cans to tape them up on the ceiling so we can pretend to have the Oscars. That's why they're burnt out. It's not because they're doing things that the Bible says you need to be doing, it's because you're doing a whole bunch of stuff that people say you need to do. And the same can be true in your personal life, the same can be true in your family life, that you're burnt out because you're doing things that you've self-appointed. Nobody said you need to do this. Spurgeon said about this scenario of her state of mind, he said, she allowed service to override communion and presented one duty stained with the blood of another. I'm serving you, Jesus, but I had to kill communing with you in order to be able to do it. So here's your service, but you don't get any communion. That's a dichotomy the Bible doesn't recognize. That you can either serve Christ or you can be with Christ, but you can't do both. That's insane. That's non-biblical from the jump. Many times, it's not open sin that drags us away from Christ. It's excessive attention to good things. She's not wrong for hospitality. She's not doing the ridiculous stuff like setting up the Easter bunny photo booth for the megachurch. She's feeding Jesus. And a lot of scholars think that what's happening right here is the meal's actually over. And this is cleanup time. So she's just being responsible with the goods and services that she's been given, at least in action. But what she's doing is a sense, I'm having to kill communing with Jesus in order to present alive to Jesus service to him. That's a dichotomy that the Bible doesn't recognize. It's an over-attention, excessive attention to good things. It's like a distorted version of the Good Samaritan. I can either take care of this person and meet their needs as a desperate person, or I can love Jesus, but I can't do both. That's not true. It is communing with Jesus to serve others if we're in the right headspace. What, in the parable of the sower back in chapter eight, verse 14, what are the thorns that choke out the plant? They're the cares of this world. And the cares of this world are, you can be ridiculous cares of the world, but it could just be paying rent. It could just be making sure my kids feel loved and appreciated. It could just be making sure my spouse is physically taken care of and going to the doctor and things like that. Those things can choke out. I have the unwelcome knowledge of many people who were on church staffs who end up divorced. Children's ministry director and her husband end up divorced, and they never were in church. They were always outside of church watching somebody else's kids, never in worship, never in communion, always busy doing other things, and then marriage falls apart. Another way this can happen is a good thing, excessive attention to a good thing. Men, you're supposed to be providing for your families, that's a good thing. You're supposed to be out there working hard, taking the beatings of a fallen world so your wife and children do not have to, And that's a good thing. But let me tell you something, husbands and fathers, only you know if that meeting is actually mandatory. And only you know if you really needed to be at that retreat that lasted all day Saturday. Only you know if you really needed to show up that early and stay that late. Your wife is never gonna actually know. I'm never gonna actually know. If you say I'm working hard so my job requires, then we're just gonna have to take you at your word, but you'll know that I'm becoming obsessive with my job and an excessive attention to a good thing is pulling me away from Christ, pulling me away from primary duties of discipling my wife, discipling my children, being a faithful member of church. Only you'll know. We'll never be able to say, ah, you really have to do that? We don't know, we're not there. But it can happen and it does happen all the time. Martha can be all of us. But let's not overly condemn her right here. We need to make sure we balance this the whole way through. It is entirely possible to work hard and not forsake communing with Christ. that's entirely possible, otherwise these commands in the New Testament are just rubbish. Ephesians 6, 5 through 7, bond servants obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart as you would Christ. Not by the way of eye service as people pleasers, but as bond servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a goodwill as to the Lord and not to man. You can work hard as a slave for a master and communion with Christ. It's possible right here. Colossians 3 verse 17. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. That is wedding together your service and communing with Christ. Whatever you do, do it for the glory of Christ. It's a combined action. It's together. 1 Thessalonians 4, 11 and 12. and aspire, aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and work with your hands as we instructed you so that you may walk properly before outsiders and to be dependent upon no one. You walk properly when you work with your hands. So it is possible to be doing what Martha's doing and it not be at the forsaking of commuting with Christ. Now, that's her state of mind, which is one level of sin, but it gets worse when it comes out. Look at verse 40. And she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. You almost just. When you read that, you're like. Clearly she forgot who she was. Clearly she forgot who she was talking to. Clearly, self-pity clouds your judgment, and it distorts your words. When you get self-pity, like Martha is, woe is me, I'm the only one serving, I'm the only one that's faithful, then you do what Ecclesiastes 5 says you shouldn't do, and you offer the sacrifice of fools, and you open your mouth. She clearly forgot what was happening. Because she doesn't come to God. You think about that and you go, well, we can read Psalms where there's a direct, Lord, do this. But Martha's not asking for help from God, depending upon Christ for help. She's saying, my sister is in the wrong and you're in the wrong for letting my sister be in the wrong. That's correcting God, not desperately seeking help from God. If she was drowning in a mountain of dishes that are all over the place and rats are coming for her, she's not crying out for help, save me from this burdensome task. She's saying, I'm doing what's right, she's doing what's wrong, and you're an accomplice because you won't correct her. That's the problem. Ecclesiastes 5 makes that real clear. when it says in verse one, guard your steps when you go to the house of God. That means tread lightly. Your mom ever say to you, you are on thin ice. I got told that about every other week. That's what this is said in the New Living Translation. You walk on thin ice when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few. Martha marches right into the throne room and offers the sacrifice of fools, is harsh and rash with her words. And then, did you notice the beginning of what she says? Lord, master, king of my life, do what I say. Wait a minute, that's not how that goes. You talk to servants like that, you talk to slaves like that. But she goes, Lord, and then talks to him like a slave. And that's what happens. When you get self-pity and you're drowning in your self-appointed responsibilities, then you start barking orders to God. That's what she's doing. And what is she, in a sense, I mean, she's clearly put herself up as the standard. Is that called justifying yourself? Is that not what the lawyer tried to do when he was talking to Jesus about who was my neighbor? Verse 29, but he desiring to justify himself said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? She's justifying herself saying, and Mary needs to be justified too, and you're the only one that can do it, so force her to do it. That's what she stepped into. Mary should serve how I serve, and Jesus, you're wrong to not enforce that. Now that is the power of the tongue, is it not? James 2 verse 5, see how great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire. See how the bit in the mouth of the horse is small, but it turns a huge animal. See how the rudder on the back of a ship is about that big, but it directs exactly where that massive boat's supposed to go. So too is the tongue, a very world of evil, says James 2. And she has stepped in it. Now listen to Jesus's response. We know that Jesus can respond curtly and righteously, cuttingly, piercingly. Notice that's not what he does. Look at verse 41. The Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. Martha, Martha. That, it doesn't translate as much into English, but the repeating of her name there is tenderness. It's not a Martha, Martha. It's a Martha, Martha. It's a tenderness. I love you, Martha. This woman is godly. All you need to do is go read John 11. When we get this story, your picture in your head, I know what it is, it's that same cartoony kid's Bible that we all get, that somebody's aunt gives everybody when you have a baby, right? It's like six colors, and it's just those same people, and Martha's like, stirring in the pot. She looks really mad, but you never get John 11 in those kid's Bibles. John 11, Martha's the first one to sprint to Jesus, and Mary stays back in the house. She's the one who is just spouting off pristine theology to Jesus. She says, Lord, if you were here, you could have raised him from the dead, or you could have kept him from dying, but even now I know you can raise him from the dead. And then she goes on to say that you are the resurrection and the life. She knows theology about the resurrection of the physical body. This is a godly woman. So Jesus is not harsh with her because grace corrects sin in love. He knows her heart. He knows that he like, what does the Psalmist say? He remembers our frame. He knows we are but dust. and he condescends down to us, grace corrects sin in love. He's not going to let this go unaddressed, but he doesn't hammer her. Martha, Martha, you're anxious about many things, but verse 42, but one thing is necessary. Many things versus one thing. There's always plenty to do for Jesus. I mean, if you wanna train seeing eye dogs for Jesus, there's a ministry, just Google it right now. Don't do it right now, do it after church. But you Google it right now, and I guarantee you, there's already a 501c3 nonprofit doing that. There's a million things you can always be doing for Jesus. To the nth degree, we tie shoes for Jesus for the blind. We do everything. There's a thousand things. A lot of them are really, really good. There's a thousand things you could be doing in the church, in your family that are really good. There's always many things. but there's one thing that's necessary. Many things that are good options, but one thing is a non-negotiable necessity, and that is communing with your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Serving Him is wonderful, but communing with Him is essential. Her anxiety, that's the sinful part. Like Dr. Mbawe talked about last week from Matthew 6, When Jesus says in Matthew 6, 25, be not anxious. Philippians 4, 6, do not be anxious. When the Bible says do not do something and you do it, what is that? That's sin. So anxiety, and we hate to hear that, certainly in the day and age in which we live where everybody hates anxiety, everybody's dog has anxiety. You can get a sweater and wrap him up in it so it makes him feel better and give him 40 pills every time it thunders. But anxiety, if the Bible says do not do it, then it is sin if you do it. Now let's get at the core of anxiety. We look at people who never are worried and we either think they're bums or we think that they're like, oh, they just have like this Zen mentality. We have to attribute it to Eastern paganism. The non-anxious person is the person who just believes the Bible all the time, always. The non-anxious person is the person who believes that God is sovereign and when he means he says he's sovereign, he actually is. So they're not anxious. When I'm anxious, it's because I don't think whoever's supposed to be in control is in control. And I'm anxious whenever I think that the support, the best outcome that I know is the best outcome may not happen. So that means then God is either not good or he's not sovereign. Both of those are direct assault on the character and the characteristics of God. To be anxious is to deny that God is in control and that He is there, that He has your best in mind. It's to assault the very character and the heart of God. This kind of anxiety, I mean, this is what, we build this into our lives. I already talked about the way churches get weird about that with volunteers and all that kind of stuff and the extra hours and the no pay and all that, but we do that as families. We're anxious because... If we don't have our kid in this volleyball league or soccer team, then they won't be on the high school one, and then they won't get to play in college, and then they won't get to go pro. So we gotta be spending thousands and thousands of dollars, never at home, never eating meals together, never doing anything, and we gotta be going, going, going, going, going, going all the time. When does the scripture say that that's what you should do? That that's what they're gonna need? Because what are we doing with our time? Or that we need to be scheduling just a thousand different things. We're going to the garden, we're going to the botanical garden here, then we're going to the zoo there, then we're gonna go to this, then we're gonna go to this vacation, then we're gonna do that. You do all of these things, many, many things, but one thing is essential. One thing is necessary. You can neglect everything but this one thing, and that's communing with Jesus. You can fill your schedule with good things. Good is always the enemy of the best. and you can fill your schedule with good things and skip the best. When was the last time that you sat with nothing coming off the back end and just had the Bible open in front of you and just prayed as much as you could think about to pray for, wrote down everything you think about to pray for, just read the Bible until your eyes got tired and you had nothing else to do? When was the last time you did that? That's the essential. Coming to church, communing with saints who are communing with God. This is corporate communion as we commune with Christ. That's why we call that communion. because we're with Christ, communion, unified with Christ. That is essential. Martha's effort isn't the problem. Her heart is the problem. That's the issue. She's not living according to Jeremiah 9, verse 23. Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the mighty man boast in his might, "'Let not the rich man boast in his riches.'" Because you know a lot of Bible, you don't get to boast in that. You have a lot of influence, you know, might, you don't get to boast in that for the kingdom. Riches to be able to give to the church and give to missionaries, things like that, you don't get to boast in that. Those are all good things. What do we boast in then? Verse 24, "'But let him who boasts boast in this, "'that he understands and knows me.'" If you're gonna boast, it's because you know God. You understand and you know him. You don't know about him, you know him. You haven't read his Wikipedia page, you know him. That's what you boast about, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, declares the Lord. That's what we boast in. Martha's sin is not the service, it's the mindset in the service. He addresses it, but then he gives some instruction. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. See that chosen? The caricature, the poor teaching of this text is you can choose between leisure and hard work. And godliness is really leisureliness, just lazily sitting around and feeling the vibes of the spirit. That's not the choice here. The choice is not between leisure and hard work. The choice is between being drawn away from or drawn into Christ. That's the choice. The word distracted means to be drawn or dragged away. So is what you're doing drawing you into Christ or drawing you away from Christ? Or is how you're doing that thing drawing you away from Christ or drawing you into Christ? That's the choice that Mary made. And she has chosen, what does it say? The good portion. The word portion, so we had Tim read Psalm 16 verse five, the Lord is my portion. But Psalms also says in Psalm 73, Verse 25 and 26, whom have I in heaven but you, and there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, and here it is, my portion forever. Mary has chosen the good portion. She has chosen Christ. It's not a choice between leisure and hard work. It's being drawn in or drawn away from. Now, there may be things that are indeed good that you need to just let it go. I mean, some commentators think that what Martha's problem was, was she made such a massively elaborate dinner when pancakes would have sufficed. You went over and top beyond, or you couldn't let those dishes be dirty for an extra hour while Jesus was awakened with you. but you had to clean them right then. You may have to choose between the good and the best. That may be a choice you have to make. But I doubt that that's really what's happening here. It's just her heart issue. What portion is she fixated on? Martha's actions were distracting her from Jesus, even though you can serve, you can do the dishes and put out food for the glory of Christ and community of Christ. Mary's actions are fixating her on Jesus. And then it says in verse 42, Jesus says, which will not be taken away from her. Kings, every single king that's ever had a crown lost it. At least when he died, lost it. Every single mogul that's existed in the economic realm has, all their money is somebody else's now. And then the moguls who exist today, all their monies will be somebody else's at some point. But the poorest saint will never lose Christ and will never lose his word. The poorest saint will never lose. It will not be taken away from her. She will not lose that. You will not lose that. We don't have to have the greatest meal of all time, but we do have to have the word of God. Deuteronomy 8.3, Man does not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Jesus himself says that when he's being tempted by Satan. This is what Spurgeon said about the same topic. He said, the first thing for our soul's health, the first thing for his glory, and the first thing for our own usefulness is to keep ourselves in perpetual communion with the Lord Jesus. and to see that the vital spirituality of our religion is maintained over and above everything else in the world. Your walk with Christ, communing with Christ, understanding, knowing, intimacy with Christ, Spurgeon says, has to be maintained over everything else in the whole world. because that is what is first for your soul's health, that's first for the glory of God, and it's first for your usefulness to God every single time. I mean, you see it in preaching. Some of you guys, I know y'all like to listen to Paul Washer. Have you ever followed his preaching with an outline? No, it's impossible to find an outline for him. And he says that, like I'd failed every preaching class, but he gets up there and just bleeds Bible out. And he gets up there and just bleeds communion. You know that he came from the mountain with God, not from a study with dusty books. You can't present perfectly outlined sermons and it'd be lifeless. You're not useful. You can have the most ordered mudroom and homeschool room in your house as a mother and your kids know nothing of Christ. But people walk in your house and like, she loves Jesus. Look how clean this is. Everything, all the shoes even. I mean, but do you know Christ go into a mess, but those kids know Jesus because their mom just pours it all over them. Whatever it is that we call to do, that's what we keep ourselves at the front of ourselves. Serving others can never distract us from communing with Christ through his word. You ever think about what that would mean? Part of it's our mishandling of our own schedule, right? That we don't have time to read and pray, we don't have time to make sure that we're at church, but particularly the personal aspect of devotional, you call it quiet time sometimes. That we don't have time for that because we don't schedule it very well. But then other times what we don't do is we don't say, hey, I would love to be there, but I'm gonna be there a little bit late because I got to make sure I get my time with Christ today and I haven't gotten it yet. Or we say, you know what kids, I'm gonna come play with you guys in about an hour. but I'm gonna go in this closet and I'm gonna pray and I'm gonna read, I'm gonna confess my sin, I'm gonna experience the nearness of Christ, then I'll come be with you. Reading the story or the autobiography of John Payton, the missionary to the New Hebrides, I talk about him all the time, I know you guys know that. He's from Scotland in the 1830s, 40s, and he goes all the way to the east coast of Australia, the islands out in the Pacific. He would talk about his dad. If you buy the book, just read the first part about his dad. His dad would go, they had like seven, eight kids and they live in basically a one room stone hut in rural Scotland. There was a closet in the middle of the house that everything was around and they would know that when dad's in there, you better be quiet because he's praying and he's reading and he's communing. He would come out of that room and they would have family worship. I mean, you're in tears by page 15 because of his dad. making that time. And you can't say like, well, I was ignoring my kids. No, no, I was communing with Christ so that I can give something to my kids. I was communing with Christ so I could give something to my unbelieving parents or my struggling nephew or my friend at church or my neighbor that I'm gonna commune with Christ because everything flows out of that. The way that the Bible, the biblical truth needs to be going through you is not like water through a pipe, but water through a root. It sticks and it grows and it expands. Water through a pipe just means you're a performer. You can get lines and just give it. But water through a root is growing and it's vibrant and it expands. That's what we do in our service. So the answer isn't, as we conclude, The answer isn't to become worthless mystics who sit around and just think or contemplate or never really get their hands dirty, their sleeves rolled up and get to work for Christ. That's not the answer. Titus 3.14 says that you need to teach, Titus, you need to teach your people in church to devote themselves to good works. They need to get busy. So the answer is not sit around and just think and feel and let your mind wander, that's not it. But what we don't do is we don't sacrifice sanctification for service. That me doing a whole lot means I'm maturing. You ever met somebody who's taught the kindergarten Sunday school class for 40 years and they don't even know where to find Habakkuk in their Bible? They don't even know how many books are in the Bible. but they've been at church, teaching Sunday school for 40 years. I know people like that. Serving doesn't mean that you're maturing. So we don't sacrifice sanctification, growing in Christ's likeness for service. This is what Spurgeon said. We ought to be Mary and Martha in one. You ought to be them together. We should do much service and have much communion at the same time. That's what he said. He's dead on. James 1, 19 through 20, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Martha was slow to listen, quick to speak, quick to become angry, and then her anger did not achieve the righteousness of God. She got a loving rebuke from her savior. Martha's actions in serving is not what Jesus rebuked. It was her heart pouring out through her words. That's what he rebuked because he never said anything about Martha, quit it, put down the towel, take off the apron and come sit at my feet. He just said, your assessment of Mary is wrong. She's doing what is right and I'm not gonna take that from her. That communion, that's her problem. So serve Christ by serving others and fight for your time to sit at Jesus' feet. Do both. Serve Christ, expend yourself. Paul says, I'm willing to spend and be spent for you. Spurgeon said, I'd rather rust out or I'd rather burn out than flame out or rust out. Butchered that, here we go, we're gonna get it right, right here. He said, I would rather burn out. They said, Spurgeon, you're gonna burn yourself out. He was like, I'd rather burn out than rust out. Rust comes from age and disuse. Burning out comes from being used and being useful. So do that and commune much with Christ all the way along the way. Don't make, Don't make your quiet time, your time alone with Christ, your devotional time to pray and read and to reflect and meditate on the word. Don't make it another duty to frantically accomplish, but make it something that you do go after doing. It's a joy and a privilege to do that. Why? Because you were a sinner dead at the bottom of the ocean from your sins. And he dove down and picked you up, puts you on the beach, breathed new life into you, and you're a new creature. with new desires, with new impulses, I want to do this, I must know who Christ is. And when you get distracted and dragged away, like we all will, like Martha, be quick to hear those words, put your name in there twice, Martha, Martha, you're anxious about many things, but one thing is necessary and go, yes, Lord, I need to do that one necessary thing. And that'll help me see the many things rightly and in proportion. Let me pray for us. Father in heaven, we look at these two women and we just marvel at the ways that you can instruct and teach us from the behavior of two women, two women that we don't know. We don't know their last names. We know that they lived in Bethany and had a brother named Lazarus and that's it. But two women, you teach us so much about living the Christian life. Lord, we thank you for just giving us a picture, a first person picture of how you graciously correct sin and love. So many of us, Lord, we walk around and we're afraid when we sin. We know the severity of it. We know what it really is to defy you and to rebel against you and to reject the truth and spit upon your word and upon your essence when we sin. And so we feel like you're just looming over us to destroy us, to shatter us into pieces. but you didn't do that to Martha, who came up and rebuked you and said that you were being wrong and were acting incorrectly, even foolishly. Or may we hear those soft words of Martha, Martha, when we sin, or that we would come to you, that even in our high-handed defiance, You have grace to forgive us. Thank you for that grace and mercy upon all who call upon your name and faith. Lord, we thank you for this example scene because we wanna be an active people, Lord. We don't wanna waste our lives. We know that in all toil, there is profit, but mere talk leads to poverty. Or we know that to sit around and talk about doing things for you ends up nothing and it just starves us and starves the church. And we wanna be busy about our father's work, about his business. But we wanna do it rightly. Lord, we wanna commune with you, be with you, be changed by you, that be fully participating in the positional reality of being in union with you. You have made us one with Christ and we wanna live according to that. And we need help to do that. We need help. This is how weak we are, Lord, and you know. We need help to do what we're made to do. We're reborn to do. We thank you for giving us your spirit that mightily works within us towards that end, that it's not even according to our own strength that we do that, that you provide the strength and the direction. or we just wanna be willing and eager and cooperative, leaning into the energy of your spirit, pushing us towards Christ-likeness, that we would work out our salvation with fear and trembling because you are at work within us. Or we want to do that and we want to be faithful in being the best of Martha's service and the best of Mary's service. sitting at your feet, intake, communion. We wanna be the best of both of those, Lord. May we be a people that are marked by that. May we be husbands and fathers that are marked by that. May we be wives and mothers that are marked like that. May we be grandfathers and grandmothers. May we be parents to adult children who are not believers like that. May we be witnesses in our community like that. May we be caretakers for our ill family members like that. Lord, may we be brothers and sisters to those who are grieving and in the deep pain of loss of a loved one like that. or when we make meals for those who have had a death in the family or have had a birth in the family, would we do so with full communion service with you? When we sit in front of our open Bibles, would we do it with the same diligence that we made the meal to commune with you intentionally and eagerly? Let us be a people that are marked by that. And may it come from gratitude. May it not be a mixture of legalism, of us trying to earn your favor, but may it be out of gratitude and joy that we have gained your favor, not by us, but by Christ, through whom we have been justified, declared righteous before you, the holy judge. May it come from a place of just joyful gratitude that we are so thankful to be born again, so thankful to be adopted into your family. We can't help but be with you and serve you. May that be true for us, Lord. And may we not be discouraged when we fall short of that, but get up and help our brothers and sisters get up when they fall. May we be connected to each other in a meaningful way like that, Lord, at our church. We ask this all in Christ's name, amen.