If you're familiar with Holy Scripture, you know that the Bible contains several accounts where people are forced to make a choice. One of the great examples of this is Joshua leading the people of God out of the wilderness into the promised land, turns to them and says to them, choose this day whom you will serve. whether the gods of the fathers served in the region beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Another great, in a sense, epic example, of course, is Elijah and his confrontation with the prophets of Baal. And as he looked around and seeing all these terrified Israelites, not sure who to worship because it could your life could depend upon it. He looks at them and says, how long will you be limping between two different options? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. Well, those are big, epic decision points of salvation, aren't they? Pretty, pretty important. But most of our decisions have to do with the small, little things that we encounter in our day-to-day life. So once we've decided to follow God, following the example of Joshua and of Elijah, our daily choices seem less extreme, but they're still very, very important. And I think what we're going to find out today in our account in Luke chapter 10 is we're going to be introduced to two godly women who made two choices, not on whether or not to believe, but on how best to behave. And it's the kind of choice that they make that is the kind of choice that we have to make multiple times during the day. And I think we will find ourselves benefiting from both the account here of both Mary and Martha, two distinct ways of serving God. Mary served with her hands. I'm sorry, Martha served with their hands while Mary served with her mind and with their heart. And Jesus commends one of them and in a sense rebukes the other one, not because of their lack of service, but because of their attitude. So many things come down to the point of attitude, don't they? Let's go to the Lord in prayer and see what He might do with us in this text this morning. God, we pray that You would bless us as we look at this really tender, intimate account of Jesus in a home, surrounded by people who love Him and who are trying to listen to Him and who are trying to serve Him. I pray, Lord God, that as we look at these two women, that You would help us to choose the good portion Make the right choice, have the right attitude in everything that we come across, not only this day, but for the rest of our lives. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Please do turn to Luke chapter 10 and we're going to be looking at verses 38 through 42 this morning. This wonderful account here of Mary and Martha. Luke alone gives us this account, this very intimate account, gives us insight into what it was like to have Jesus in your house. So I think we will all benefit from it. I'm going to read it in its entirety and then direct you to show you how we're going to break this text down this morning. Luke chapter 10, beginning verse 38, God says, and Luke writes, 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, Martha, Martha, you're 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. you'll find your home group helps insert of assistance to you as you follow along with our text this morning. We're going to see here that this account with Mary, she is the focus in verses 38 through 39, and then Martha in verse 40, and then the comments of the Messiah in verse 41 through 42, and then we're going to look more at Mary and Martha in John chapter 11 and John chapter 12 later on so we can see sort of the rest of the story, how this confrontation and affirmation worked out for folks here. So first of all we're going to look at Mary here. It starts off here even though Martha is the one who's, you know, kind of mentioned here and she is the one whose house they're in. Mary seems to be the focus in terms of what it is that she did. So this is a good account to follow up after the story of the of the Good Samaritan, stressing the importance of loving one's neighbor is evidence of loving God. So here you got both women are expressing their love to Christ, which is a reflection on their love that they have for God. And again, Luke is the only one who mentions this account, and he probably placed this thematically This isn't a good chronological account of the events, perhaps, here, which is perfectly appropriate in ancient history accounts here. But Jesus, again, he is on his road towards Jerusalem. It's going to take him several months to get here. So this may or may not have happened at that particular time here, because he says here, they went on their way to a certain village. Luke doesn't actually mention the village, but we know by the parallel accounts and the other accounts in John that Mary and Martha lived with their brother Lazarus in the village of Bethany. It's only two miles from Jerusalem. That's one reason why we think it may not have actually been in this particular order here in Luke. It's on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. So it's right there. It would be a very good place to stay as you were making your pilgrimage to Passover or whatever it might be. And there's a woman named Martha here. So this actually may be the first meeting of Jesus and people who will be his close friends of Mary and Martha. Lazarus is not actually mentioned, but we know that he is their brother. So they provide a lovely home. And this kind of gives you a little insight in Jesus to him. And Jesus, remember, he's God. He's also human. And as human, he enjoys the comfort of a comfortable home. He loves a good meal. He loves to laugh and to have fellowship with others. And I love this account because it shows this, the kind of things that we love, being with one another, enjoying a good meal together, kind of gives you some insight that even the Son of God enjoyed this very human activity here. Martha is always mentioned first as she's likely the older of the two sisters. Her name actually is an Aramaic name which means mistress. So she is mistress over this household here. And it says she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to His teaching here. So even though Martha is mentioned, the count really, Mary, kind of ends up being the central figure here. And this is kind of a shocking situation. Again, if you understood the way Judaism at the time treated or how they addressed women, in a sense, this would be sort of radical right here. A rabbi would never take a female student under them. They would never go to the intentionally disciple of female student. And they certainly would never allow a woman to sit at their feet while they are teaching. A little bit later on, we have some of the writings of some of the rabbis who showed their attitude towards women. One said this, May the words of the Torah be burned. They should not be handed over to a woman. Then you see another one says this, the man who teaches his daughter the Torah teaches her extravagance. We don't teach our daughters extravagance, right? So they really would look down on someone who would take the time to teach a woman. But this is exactly what Jesus was doing. And Luke loves to point out the role of women in the church. He was very sympathetic. to the cause of women here. So what is she doing? She is sitting. You can almost just see this beautiful picture of her just sitting there right at his feet, looking up at him as he is sitting down as he is teaching. And she's just taking in absolutely every single word. I'm reminded of what we looked at in Luke chapter 6 and verse 47. Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like. He's like a man building a house. He dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it because it had been built well. This household of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, this household has built its foundation on the very word of God. And Mary's just taking time to savor that truth now that the wonder of the word of God coming from the son of God himself. So her priority at the moment is listening to the word of God. She wanted to know what was going on. And she might have had a sense that Jesus's ministry wasn't going to be lasting, that there was an urgency about gathering up all that you can. But she is the model of attention here. This implies not only attention, but also submission to the word of God. It's just a beautiful picture. It's a beautiful picture of a godly woman. Godliness, embracing the word of God just makes a woman beautiful and attractive. There's there's something just beautifully clean and pure about a woman who worships the Lord, who sits at the feet of the Lord, listening to his word. But as Philip Rikens summarizes, while Martha was busy preparing a banquet, Mary was already having one. She was feasting on the word of Christ. I love that comparison here. And then we are introduced to Martha and it's less tender. And yet, can we be honest? Have we not sympathized with Martha? Have we not read this passage multiple times and thought Jesus might have been a little harsh to Martha? Has your pastor not read this passage and thought, if we didn't have the Martha's, we wouldn't have a church. So we want to look here at what was going on. Why did you say this? But there's a contrast here. But Martha, Martha was not sitting at the feet of the Lord, listening to his word. She was she was distracted with much serving. And that's the key that the key is distraction there. There was nothing wrong with what Martha was doing, but there was something wrong with her attitude, folks. When it comes down to it, 90 percent of your sins have to do with attitude. heart matters. This was something that was lost in most of Judaism at the time. They always saw outward actions as being whether you broke or you kept the Ten Commandments, but it's heart attitude, which is something the Lord reveals to us, of course, in the Sermon on the Mount. Serving is an important ministry. And this is so funny. Some of it has to do with just the character and the personality too. But when here they are, think about Mary and Martha, maybe Lazarus, sitting in their house and everything. A knock comes on the door and they said, the Lord is coming. The Lord is coming to your house. The first thing Mary thought was, oh, I get to sit at his feet and listen. The first thing Martha says, I got to get ready. Right. I got to get ready. Oh, my goodness. We haven't cleaned up and I have no kill a sheep. I don't know what she said, you know, whatever she says, you know, get that sheep out quick, you know. So so you can just see the two different. But both of them are desiring. Both of them are desiring to serve Jesus just in different ways. Right. But Martha probably had the gift of hospitality. If not the gift, she understood just how essential was that practice in the church of Jesus Christ. She would have agreed to it with Peter in first Peter chapter four. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another. How? Without grumbling. Hebrews 13, let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. This is an example of Abraham entertained angels before they went and smote Sodom. I love that word smote. I think I need to incorporate it more often. Romans 12, rejoice and hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer, contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. And 1st Timothy, this is actually the mark. They had these widows and there was a, and Paul's trying to help Timothy know which widows are deserving of some help from the church. This was actually something that the widows had to demonstrate for them to actually receive help from the church when they got later on in life here. He says, let a widow be enrolled if she's not less than 60 years of age, having been a wife of one husband and having a reputation for good works, if she's brought up children and has shown hospitality. Now folks, if hospitality is a ministry, it is a virtue, and it is largely ignored in the Church of Jesus Christ. And you know one, I think one reason why is because we get this attitude that Martha has. We get uptight. We get secular in our thinking. We think it's about the meal and about the aura. And we think about the scent of the candles and are the flowers fresh and are the children clean and all these things. People are going to come in and judge. And God did not tell us to be Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart. He did tell us to practice hospitality, whatever that might mean. I love this example of an old ARP pastor. He's up, he's retired in Bonn-Clarkon now. His wife is out of town and some visitors came to church and he talked like, he was just an old southern gentleman. He says, my wife is out of town, but come on over to the house and we'll have some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a big glass of milk. Well, they came over to the house and you know what they ate? A peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a big glass of milk. And they ended up joining the church. He didn't have any pretense. He wasn't trying to impress them. It wasn't a 12 layer lasagna. It was peanut butter. It was jelly. It was milk. And it was given in love. We are missing out because we think our reputation is more important than service to God. And we've been blessed with opportunities to open up our houses and to serve others, but we just we get all uptight. We get all worried about it. When I leave here, I'm going to go back to my house that will have somewhere between 60 and 70 people in it. And I had to learn the hard way. I have to kind of gear up before I get into that mayhem. And I think, God, I want to enjoy this. I want to savor this opportunity. I want to have interactions with people. And I have to do that because if I get there and I'm like, is there enough drink? Do they have enough? Are we going to run out of food? I have to take the garbage out. And I'm just I'm in the flesh and I'm all uptight. And instead of welcoming people, I get to be resenting people. And then I'm also trying to play Holy Spirit. Has God not already blessed us? Is he not going to bless it? Is he not going to take care of all these details? Let's enjoy this together. As Aslan looked to Lucy and says, you're not enjoying life nearly as much as I intend for you to be. That's because we we get the Martha mode and we get all uptight and we get all worked up. She her problem was not with much serving. That's exactly what we should do. That's commendable. Her problem was that she was distracted. The sin is this. This is the sin of believers, right? Especially responsible people. We are distracted with our responsibilities and we often are sinning, even though we're trying to camouflage that sin with words like faithfulness, hard work or diligence. But Christ declared, He knows her heart, He declared her to be distracted. That idea of distraction literally means to be pulled away or dragged away from. What is she being pulled away from or dragged away from? The Word of God. The Word of God. Now she's, that house is probably small enough she can still hear Him teaching. She doesn't necessarily have to be there, but she's all worked up. She's not listening to these words of eternal life that are coming from a Messiah who's about to be killed for her. She's worried about the salad dressing. She's uptight about the pedophores. She's consumed with these things and she's distracted. Can we relate to this? Can we relate to this? She got her priorities twisted. She's fussing and fretting and she's getting all worked up and you can just kind of, if you've ever been through this before, I haven't, but I read a book about a guy who did and you get all worked up and it's hard to kind of settle back down. Right. And she's missing the point of ministry. She's ministering, but there's no ministry because all of a sudden what happened and you know what this is, what happens, she starts she starts thinking about herself. She's in the kitchen. Boy, I wish somebody could help me. You know, I wish someone would come help me. Oh, it sure is hot in this kitchen all by myself. Can you see it? She's becoming a self-proclaimed martyr. And she starts to stew and she starts to get bitter and she starts going into self-pity. Do you know what this is like? I know you do. She's getting all worked out rather than being self-aware. She's enough to realize she's got a budding rage here. She blows up. And as often as the case is, when we're angry, angry towards somebody else, we start becoming angry towards God. Why did you put me in this situation? See, Martha is a Calvinist. Calvin ain't even being born yet. She's already there. It's just the gospel. Martha's sitting there thinking, all right, God's in my dining room, and my sister's in there listening to his words, and I'm in there. Why has God treated me this way? Aren't I trying to do something good? Y'all, we often suffer when we try to do something good. But we make it worse on ourselves and others, by the way, when we allow ourselves to be distracted by what really, really matters. And then she blows up, y'all, she rebukes Jesus. Martha is an alpha female. She comes in, you can almost see her holding a spoon, right? You know, she went, it says, I'm not making this up, she went up to him. I mean, the room's full. She walks in, looks, goes up to, this is the son of God, right? Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? God, do you not care? How many times have we been like Martha and we've lost our perspective and we with anxiety and bitterness and fault finding everything else, we end up calling out to heaven, do you not care? And then she's assuming that he knows he's in the wrong. Y'all know Jesus never sinned, right? Then tell her to help me. I mean, just like she's making it so much worse. But how awkward was that? How awkward was that? She comes storming, she's all red, she comes storming in from the kitchen, you know, Matthew's sitting there, oh, you know, and then she goes, don't you care? Oh, she told you, you know, it's just, I mean, it's just awkward, it's thick, you can feel the atmosphere. And Martha just looks like, I'm sorry, did you say something? I was listening to the words of God. Now she's giving orders to Jesus. is my household, I'm in charge." Now, this is often the case with the folks that have this personality type. They assume what's important to them is important to everybody else. And that's part of being dragged away from the things that really matter. So Martha's beginning to stew, they're likely thinking, you know, why, you know, she's thinking, why isn't anybody here to help me? And she's measuring her ministry by success. All of a sudden, and folks, we do this. I'll be tempted to do this an hour from now. All of a sudden, the quality of the meal is the measure of ministry. Was the meal successful? That becomes the measure, instead of, instead of, was love shown? Was fellowship shown? Was I able to have a conversation? Was God glorified through all of this? And then we see poor Jesus is so she's trying, she's trying to back him up. She thinks he's going to take her side. She's assuming she's something. And then Jesus just looks at and says, we see this in verses 41 through 42. Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. By the way, my mother's name is Martha. I've learned not to quote that verse to her. And she's probably watching right now, but she, you know, I think I did it once. Martha, Martha. Bad idea. Jesus tenderly but directly rebukes Martha for her self-righteous attitude and the sin of her impatience. We know this because that double personal name, Martha, Martha, is a term of endearment. It's a Jewish idiom of personal affection. It would be like if he were to look to her and say, Martha, my dear, dear, precious one that I love. Martha, Martha. So he's affirming her. You were anxious and troubled about so many things. Wow. Spurgeon says this. Her fault was not that she served the condition of a servant well becomes every Christian. Her fault was that she grew cumbered with so much serving so that she forgot him and only remembered the service. This happens in ministry all the time. It happens. You forget your calling. You get caught up in the activity and you get burned out. He says he says only one thing is necessary. What is that one thing? I mean, people have argued this point, but it seems to me that that one thing that that he's affirming Mary for is the being observed, just being absorbed, I'm sorry, in the word of God. Worship, she's worshiping the Lord. Now, some other older translations include something that came from some of the older manuscripts, only a few things are necessarily really only one. And then he goes on to say, Mary has chosen the good portion. In other words, Mary has Mary is pursuing the appropriate priorities. You've lost the priorities here. You've lost the holy motivations that should be driving you in this ministry right now. Mary's got it right. Mary's got it right. Deuteronomy 8 says this man does not live by bread alone, but by But man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. All Martha could think about is the bread. All Mary could think about is the the word of God. What's interesting, too, is this this kind of playing with words here, this idea of portion. When he says she's chosen the good portion, that idea of portion usually is used for food, a portion of food. So he says Martha's consumed with the portions of food while Mary's consumed with the word of God. Now, Jesus doesn't say Mary did the good thing and you did the bad thing. We need Martha's. They were hungry. She's just showing hospitality right here. It always has to do, though, with attitude. There was a self-righteousness that took control of Martha, where she assumed that she was on the right and her sister was in the wrong. And Jesus corrects that. Notice that Jesus doesn't get roped into picking sides. Very, very wise here. Martha had her priorities wrong. Going back, I remember thinking about what David said in terms of his focus when he was in the Spirit and how the Spirit inspired the writing of Psalm 27. One thing I've asked, O Lord, that I may seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire of the temple. When it comes down to it, that's really all that matters. Everything else is secondary. Everything else, your job, your family, your house, your lawn, your everything is secondary to worshiping the Lord. And the wise, mature, godly Christian takes those other things and lays them before the Lord as well and makes it part of that worship. I think Martha probably started that way. But as many of us know, it didn't last that way. That's what Mary was doing. She was gazing upon the beauty of the Lord, taking the words of David here. Martha forgot what she was gazing upon. And then she was started to gaze upon her carefully prepared table. So she lost her focus of her priorities, and then she has this portion, too, which is interesting, which will not be taken away from her. There's eternal value to what Mary was doing here. Think about Isaiah 55, for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goes out of my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing which I sent it. Martha realized that she she might have had a sense that Jesus isn't going to be around forever. I need to take advantage of that. I'm sorry, Mary says that Martha could have done the same thing. And she was, in a sense, doing that. But I think she started well, but she ended up kind of falling apart. Kent Hughes warns, we ruin our service when we overestimate our importance. Martha attempted to force Mary to serve Christ her way. She wanted Mary away from Jesus' feet and in the kitchen with her because, in her estimation, what she was doing was so much more important. Decades ago, we had somebody in a home group who was big on protesting abortion clinics. They loved being out in front of abortion clinics. And they kept trying to get everybody in the home group to do that. And it kind of got to be this, if you don't do that, you don't care. If you don't protest abortion clinics, you're not really serving the Lord. And there got to be kind of an arrogance, because this was my calling in my ministry. I expect you to do that too. And it was dangerous. I think those folks ended up dropping out of the home group because they were so zealous for that one issue that they didn't respect the other issues that everybody else was equally zealous over. We've got to be careful of this. So Jesus didn't get trapped into taking sides here. He just points out that the problem was not the circumstances. The problem was attitude. Boy, it's attitude, isn't it? It's always attitude. One commentator says this, behind every unattractive attitude in the distracted heart, there is an ungodly anxiety for every anxiety God has promised in the gospel. I'm sorry, for every promise God has promised in the gospel. So in other words, Martha thinks she's being faithful. And she's getting worked up and she's being anxious and she's thinking, here's a situation that God's not promised to relieve me in. I need to find my own solution. How many times do we do that? Oh, just I think God is so patient with us, isn't he? Paul reminds us no matter what our circumstances are like, Romans chapter eight, that neither death nor life nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present or things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor any else. in all creation, we'll be able to separate from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing can separate us. So serve, but just don't get uptight about it. Don't become a little martyr over the whole thing, right? But then there's more on Mary and Martha. And this is one of the things that encourages me because sometimes we get so flustered with the slow rate of our sanctification, how we slip back into sin. So here's the rest of the story. Give it a little bit of time. And both of them did listen to the word of Christ and both of them grew in their faith. And I want to look at Mary first. I'm going to kind of get in the getting them a little backwards here. But Mary in John chapter 12, this is right before Jesus is crucified. Mary took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples who was intending to betray him, said, Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor people? Therefore, Jesus said, let her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. So here's another situation where somebody else thought Mary ought to serve in a different way. But Mary was just expressing her love for Christ, which is exactly what all service ought to do in the end. She took this probably a family heirloom. Some people estimate it might have been worth thirty five thousand dollars and broke it. and poured it on his feet. This is such a merry thing to do, right? So she stayed focused at the feet of Jesus. Then we see Martha in John chapter 12. I'm sorry, John chapter 11. So the sisters sent to him saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill. Lazarus has gotten sick. Jesus is far away. So they've sent a message to Jesus. Please come and heal Lazarus. He's sick. But Jesus heard it and said the illness does not lead to death. It's for the glory of God. So the son of God may be glorified through it. Now, Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus. So don't get confused by his delay. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. So he didn't he didn't react immediately. He's got something better planned. That's how God deals with us, too. We're going to start talking about prayer and how we need to persevere in prayer. A lot of the reason why he hadn't answered your prayer immediately is because he's got something better planned. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remains seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, she's so direct, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. She's been listening to the word of God. Jesus said to him, her, I am the resurrection, the life. Whoever believes in me, though he died, yet he shall live. And everyone who believes and believe in me. shall never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, who is coming into the world. Her statement there is one of the two grandest statements in all of New Testament. It's up there with Peter's confession. You are the Christ, the son of God, a confession. Jesus says upon this truth, I'm going to build my church upon this rock. I'm a bit among my church. So this busy, anxious Martha, who we seem to think is not getting the best deal here and everything, she learned to sit at Jesus' feet. She learned to listen to His words. She learned to settle down and minister in an appropriate way with the right attitude. And God used her to give us one of the greatest theological truths in the entire New Testament. So there's hope for us Marthas, and there's hope for us Marys. And may we be may we serve the Lord the way he's called us, but always with the right attitude. So if I can borrow a thought from Joshua and modify it a little bit, choose you this day how you will serve and may you choose the good portion. Father, we thank you for the the real life lessons from just common folks like us. These were not theologians. They were not the rich and famous. They're just people trying to show love for Jesus and his church in their house. And I pray, God, that you would help us to go to school on the failings and the successes of others so that we might see success ourselves. Let this be a church known for its love. For its hospitality, for its service, but as much as anything, let's be a church known to be ones that sit at the feet of Jesus, adoring him and serving him in Christ's name. Amen.