Saints, this is God's holy word. Let's give our full attention to it. Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. 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. 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. Heavenly Fathers, we open your word. May you keep us from distractions. May we hear you speak. May you open our minds and our hearts and our ears to listen to you. May it change our lives, not just for today, but for every day going forward. We ask and pray these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. You can be seated. I know it's really hard right now to do this, considering the mountains of snow plowed outside the church. But imagine with me, for a moment, using your best mental powers, a beautiful, warm summer morning. The sun is just beginning to peek its head out The birds are sweetly chirping in the trees. The sky is crystal blue, and everyone knows it is going to be an absolutely perfect day. A wife rolls over excitedly and says to her husband, I know what we're going to do today. Let's have the best picnic ever. Her husband quickly agrees. They head to the kitchen to start the preparations, but they realize they don't have all they need. These are just paper plates, the wife complained. How are we supposed to have the best picnic ever with these? So they wake up the kids, they rush out to the store, they find the fine china that obviously makes a best picnic, and it's all that they require. So when they get back, they begin making food. Only the best will do, the husband says as he grabs the sauté pan. The children are grating ingredients at the counter while the wife makes fine sauces. She smiles and agrees. Gourmet is the best way. Eventually, they finally get this majestic meal ready and pack it into the hand-woven wicker basket they found. And after a frantic search high and low for the only blanket that qualifies for this fine endeavor, They load up the car to go to the best picnic the world has ever seen. But right as the car door shuts and they finally get a moment to stop, they realize that the sun that had peaked its head out in the morning is beginning to set below the mountains. In their urgency to have the best picnic ever, they spent their time getting ready and missed the time to actually enjoy the picnic. Granted, this is an over-the-top story I made up. But in our story today, a similar situation happens. While it may not be shooting for the best and glorious, it is a story about two people, one who chose the best, the one thing necessary, and the other who did not. Last week, we talked about God giving us an eternal perspective and satisfaction, and how we ought to live for him. This week, we're going to look at that concept from a different angle. This story is perhaps well known to you, but I hope that we see it with fresh eyes this morning. So let's first begin with the welcome, the welcome. Look at verse 38. Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. The story begins with Jesus and his disciples traveling on their way and stopping in a certain village and being welcomed into the home of Martha and Mary. We know from John 11 and 12 that these women and their brother Lazarus, who isn't mentioned in this story, are dear to him. Welcoming Jesus into the house speaks of providing for his needs and caring for his wants. It's good hospitality. It's not just like, hello, good to see you, now go on your way. It's more of a come on in, make yourself at home. So right from the start, Martha, we see, is acting as an official hostess as she welcomes him into her house. and she's set to fulfill the responsibilities that all good hostesses would have as regards hospitality. Martha welcomes Jesus, and then we see Mary. Look at verse 39. She had a sister called Mary, and what is Mary doing? She sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. So the story is preparing the upcoming tension, but at this point, we just have pure facts. Jesus comes, Martha welcomes, Mary listens. Martha invites Jesus into her home, and Mary is sitting at his feet. And then we move to verse 40. Suddenly, we have a change. In Sunday School with the Youth, we're learning to notice words that give us indications on the way the text is turning. And right here, we have a contrasting conjunction, that word but. Martha welcomes, Mary listens, but, yet, however, the welcome introduces tension. So we move from the welcome to the tension. The camera pans, if you will, from the feet of Jesus, where Mary is, to Martha. And what does Martha do? Look at verse 40. Martha was distracted with much serving. So almost as we're listening, if you will, you can imagine just sitting there with Mary, listening quietly at the feet of Jesus, and then we're distracted by a pan crash. What's going on? In contrast to the tranquility of Mary listening to the feet of Jesus, we have Martha, the bustling hostess, hurrying to and fro. And if you've heard stories or listened to sermons or read books and articles about this passage, Martha sometimes gets a really bad rap. for missing out on being with Jesus. We read this story and we're like, gosh, Marty, get yourself together. This is obvious. Jesus is right there. You're over here with the kitchen and you have Jesus sitting there and you're not wanting to talk to him at all? The famed teacher is in your house. And I think if we were to hear Martha in that moment, I can almost imagine, while the text doesn't necessarily explicitly say this, she gets that. I mean, imagine if Jesus comes knocking on your door. You're like, well, Jesus, welcome to dinner. Have a TV dinner here. Or we have some leftovers from yesterday, if that works for ya. Like, are you really gonna, Jesus is standing here, the famed teacher, the king of kings is in your living room. I think, not unlike Martha, we want to give Jesus the very possible best. We're cleaning the house, we're clearing the table, we're kicking the toys under the bed, we're clearing stuff out. Martha has an honored guest and wants to serve nothing but the best, the very best. We get that. Notice the word distracted in verse 40. She's distracted with much serving. It almost seems to imply that Martha wants to listen to Jesus. She wanted to listen and hear what he had to say, but she got distracted by much serving. The serving wasn't the issue, the distraction was. And that leads to the second problem, the much. serving. It gives a sense of abundance or excess over the top. Some scholars would go so far as to say she was preparing a multi-course meal and that's what the much means. I don't know if we want to go that far. All we know is that it's just a lot. The text doesn't say. We just know she seems to be doing more than necessary, a much great deal of serving. Again, the emphasis is on the distraction. And one of the biggest misconceptions about the devil's schemes, I've noticed, is that we tend to think he wants us to be incredibly immoral, just the worst possible sinner. But the reality is the Bible describes the devil as a deceiver, a father of lies. He's not consumed with overt darkness, though he does do that. We're aware that he's wicked. But he's not just consumed with getting you to commit the darkest, unimaginable wickedness. He just wants you to keep you from being consumed with Jesus. He doesn't need you thinking immoral thoughts, just distracted ones. He doesn't need you diving into heresy, just distract it from the truth. Because he gets what we ought to get, that any thought that is not mindful towards God is not a good thought. He knows that the reality that any sin is sin. To God, it's not a lesser truth or like a white lie versus a really bad lie to your grandma. It's holy or unholy. There's no such thing as a respectable or lesser sin. A distracted Christian is just as dangerous as a decaying one. Distracted, all-consuming service that neglects to know and adore God is just as bad as other sins. So Martha's distracted with dinner prep and serving, and what is Mary contributing to the dinner? Seems like nothing. How much is Martha doing? A lot, much, all of it. And you can almost imagine Martha bustling in the background, perhaps trying to drop Mary little cues. We don't see this in the text, but you can see from the verse that follows a tinge of fretting. And maybe Martha is dropping little cues to her sister, like, man, it'd be really nice if we could get some help in this kitchen. And out of the corner of her eye, she notices while she's bustling trying to get everything ready, Mary is sitting. at the feet of Jesus. Can you believe that? She thinks to herself, my sister won't even raise a finger, like she sees me and she's, I'm breaking my back to serve Jesus this wonderful dinner and she can't even be bothered. And imagine she is trying to get her attention and gets nothing, like Mary doesn't respond and Martha keeps dropping hints, but at last it just becomes too much to bear. Eventually Martha can't take it anymore. Or as my mother so often said to me growing up, I've had it up to here. So she appeals her case to the Supreme Judge Jesus. Lord, she says, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. While Martha is working hard and worried about the dinner being prepared, Mary seems to be shooting the breeze with Jesus, completely unbothered by the needs of the kitchen. So Martha appeals to Jesus. Notice how Martha makes her request. Lord, do you not care? Such a pungent question. For Martha, it's not just that she feels absolutely alone in her labor, but even more than that, in some sense, implicit in her question is not just the frustration that Mary isn't doing anything, it's that Jesus isn't intervening. If he did care, obviously he would do something. That is the same question the disciples asked Jesus in the boat in the middle of the storm. Lord, do you not care that we are perishing? but implicit in both the disciples and Martha's question is the answer. When Martha asks, do you not care? She's expecting the answer to be yes. Jesus does care. To her question, he will stand up, applaud Martha for her efforts, and do the right thing by adding an authoritative command from the famed teacher to Martha's request. Because Jesus cares, he will go and tell Mary to go help her sister. Martha has laid out the problem, and she is so very conveniently and graciously giving him the solution. She says, Lord, don't you care that my sister's left me? Tell her to help me. It's almost as if she's saying, Jesus, shouldn't Mary be doing something? Perhaps helping me in the kitchen. In her question is the plea that follows, Lord, do something. But not just do something, do what I have determined is best. She says, tell my sister to help me. Have you ever made a similar conclusion? If God cares, then he will fill in the blank. But Martha is starting from misplaced priorities. So it is no wonder that her solution to the weariness of serving and anxiousness, that she feels misguided. And in our own service to the Lord, we often find ourselves just like Martha. But either from desperation or frustration, out of her distractedness, she appeals to the Lord with a pre-made solution she feels will rectify the situation, expecting him to respond with applause and aid. But instead, something else happens. Again, we have a contrasting conjunction, another use of the word but. This shows that in contrast to Martha's challenge, Jesus has a different response. Jesus takes a gentle approach and endeavors to reorient Martha's priorities. So we move from the tension to the admonition, the admonition. This is gonna be different. What Martha expected, Jesus says, look at verse 41. 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. There's a word repeated in verse 41. Specifically, Martha's name. And he repeats her name twice. And this is for two reasons. The first is that Jesus is getting her attention, it seems, almost like waving a hand in her face. When the Bible repeats things, you want to pay attention. When the teacher repeats your name, it's almost like Mom saying, hey, Silas. Silas? Oh, no. Am I the only one that's had that happen? Okay, good to know. As Martha is bustling about trying to get everything ready, Jesus says her name, not just to help her pause and pay attention though, even more I think it's a repetition to show affection. It's not just the harsh tone, but it's a gentle beckoning. Martha. Martha. Even as Martha asked if Jesus cares, the first words out of his mouth show that he does. Then Jesus tells her, 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. You're anxious and troubled by many things. She's worried about so much, and she's focused when she should be focused on what's important. It's like she's balancing the plates, the spinning plates on sticks, when she should just be holding one. And he makes that explicit when he says, only one thing, one thing is necessary. He says, Martha, you're anxious and troubled about many things, but I have a solution for you. There's really only one thing you need to be concerned about. When we're worried about all of the things going on in our life, the same words that Jesus says to Martha apply here. I think so often when we come to the Lord, we have our cares and we should bring our cares, but a reminder here is There's really only one thing necessary. As important as everything else is, as deep as our cares are, the one thing is gonna be most important. The point is this. Martha's distracted by good things, and in the concern about good things, she's lost the sight of the one that is necessary. She's anxious about secondary things to the point that she forgot about the primary ones. We so often spend our time worrying about secondary issues that we forget the primary ones. This is the same thing that Jesus says in Luke chapter 12. Look with me at Luke chapter 12, starting in verse 22. And he said to his disciples, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens. They neither sow nor reap. They have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. How much more value are you than the birds? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to a span of life? If then you are not able to do a smaller thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith? Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. What did Jesus rebuke Martha for? Was it the serving? No, serving wasn't the problem. He says, you are what? Anxious, troubled by many things. Jesus wasn't saying, Martha, stop serving. Don't ever do that again. Don't ever serve. And he's also not saying, Martha, don't bother Mary. Just do it all yourself. You need to be a bigger, better woman, stronger, Hear you roar. The serving wasn't the problem. It was the important secondary things becoming primary things in the chaos of worry and anxiety. And that's the thing. Serving is good. At the end of chapter nine, Jesus says, talks about the cost of discipleship, and then he sends out the 72 to evangelize, to serve, to work, And then, after that, they come back, and a lawyer asks and says, what are the most important commandments? And he says, what is written, and the lawyer says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Those are the two. And Jesus then explains what it means to love your neighbor and who your neighbor is by telling the story of the Good Samaritan. And then we get to the story of Martha and Mary, and we begin to see that the story of the Good Samaritan is further explained by the story of Martha and Mary. What I mean is this. We should love our neighbor. We love God by loving our neighbor. That's clear from the story of the Good Samaritan. From our story today, we learn that the order is what's important. It's not our love of neighbor that informs and transforms our love of God. It's the other way around. Loving God is first and foremost, and out of that flows the love for our neighbors. Serving is usually a good thing, commanded and commended by God, but serving with wrong priorities and wrong motives is not. There's an intentional order in the two great commandments. First, love the Lord your God. Second, love your neighbor from that love of God. At the same time, we shouldn't take the approach of the early church fathers. Many of the early church fathers thought the point of this passage was that we ought to avoid active serving and elevate the life of contemplation. If you want to love and serve God, the best way to do that is go be a monk. Spend your time every single day and moment just filling up on the word of God and meditating and sitting at the feet of Jesus. But the word is God is not meant to fill you up like a reservoir of personal knowledge and growth. You're meant to be a river, a conduit of that knowledge to, as you love God and build your love and knowledge of God, flow out into your love of others. However, as we grow in the knowledge of God, we also don't want to become consumed with serving. So serving is important, but we don't want to become consumed with serving to the point we forget why, or rather who, we are serving. It's amazing how easy it is to forget the important in the midst of the mundane. I get caught up in missing the necessary because of the next. And the tyranny of the urgent stares me down until I get blinded and my vision is blocked by what is right in front of me. And I think our tendency, at least mine is, is to assume that I'm close to Mary. I'm going to be like Mary, not like that silly Martha who got her priorities all out of whack. I'm going to listen at the feet of Jesus. And then life happens. My schedule gets full. Just my thoughts driving home are full. Our lives are teeming with time-takers. So many things demand our precious little time, like greedy little birds chirping for their worm. And those are just the scheduled demands. It becomes even more difficult when the unscheduled things come shoving their way into my nice schedule. And every day is filled with the unexpected. And now I'm working even harder to try and make things work, and ends meet, and time to stretch further. But I had to show up late for that meeting. My wrong turn took extra time. I didn't expect to find my alarm clock not ringing when I wanted it to. I stay up later to make up for that, and then the cycle just continues. And suddenly, I'm stressed. I'm anxious and troubled by many things. I'll just give you a real example from this week. I started preparing my sermon this week, looking at the original language, making notes, observations, looking at the text and consulting commentaries. And Friday comes, and hours have gone by in my study, but I start to, just in the back of my mind, the bottom of my heart, get a sense that I'm a little behind schedule. It's taking me a little longer than I was hoping to. So I just decide I'm gonna buckle down. This is just one of those situations where you just need to work harder. And so I work for like three hours and get maybe just a couple more sentences further in my observation and notes. So just a little more frustration than I want to admit as I pour over the word of God, I just decide to clear my head for a few minutes, go out quickly, just be out in nature for a moment, come back and get back to working on the sermon. And I get no more than 100 feet from my door when I just stop, because I've been praying, like, Lord, help me understand this text. Help me understand it and live it and explain it well. And the Spirit convicted me of the ironic hypocrisy of my own heart. In preparing a message about prioritizing listening to Jesus, I neglected to actually spend time with Jesus in the passage. I spent time reading the Bible to preach to you that I forgot to let God's words speak to me. Loved ones, it is so easy to slip into service-minded priorities that we forget the reason we're serving at all. That was the problem with the Ephesian church in Revelation 2. Here's what it says. I know your works, this is God speaking to the church, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. And then verse four says, but I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. The Ephesian church was doing good things. They're toiling, they're patiently enduring, they're standing against evil and lies, they're not growing weary despite the persecution. But they forgot their first love. They did all these good things, but it abandoned their loyalty and affections to their King and their Redeemer. It was just service without adoration, work without worship. Like them, like Martha, We need to reorient our priorities and remember our first love, the love for God and joy of God that we have when we first became a Christian. You remember that, that excitement, that exploring that yet this Christ died for me? It changes everything. The words of Jesus are for us today. You're anxious and troubled by many things, but only one thing is necessary. Some activities can wait. There is a time for work, there's a time for service, and a time to listen. It's not that we shouldn't serve, it's that we so easily elevate service over knowing God. When things get busy, even if it's busy with good things, often the first thing to go is time with the Lord. We tell ourselves we'll get to it later, when things are less busy. But the reality is if we don't make time for it, we'll never get time for it. It exposes that sitting at the feet of Jesus is not often my biggest priority. Where my time is is where I find my biggest priority. And if we're honest, weeks and even months go by before we even subtly notice that we have missed that time. Now let me pause here. I'm not saying that you need to pull yourself up and fight harder, work harder, try and crank out that time to spend with Jesus. If that's what you get from what I've said up to this point, you're missing it. The whole point of the gospel is that we can't do anything that scripture calls us to on our own. If it's up to you and me to even open up our Bibles, we're hopelessly lost. I can't even wake up in the morning without needing God's grace to beckon me towards his word, to fill my heart with affection for him. So if we think, well, I need to spend time with Jesus, so I'm going to fill in the blank, and we make it all about our own efforts, we become like Martha in an attempt to be like Mary. In an effort to calmly listen to Jesus, we will become anxious and troubled about how we aren't doing that, and then it becomes this vicious cycle. We need his grace to do anything he calls us to. Do you struggle to make time for the Lord? Do you struggle to get the time undistracted and unfilled with chaos, even for just five minutes? Are you anxious about your schedule and the things you'll get done? What should we do? Jesus tells us. Look at that last part of what Christ says in verse 42. One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. What did Mary choose? What is that good portion? Well, we know what the portion is not. It's not all the service that we do for God. The Pharisee in Luke 18 thought that. God, he said, I thank you that I'm not like all those other men, those horrible, poor little men. I fast twice a week, I give tithes, and I do all these good things. I thank you, Lord. That's not the gospel. That's works-based righteousness, and it makes a mockery of the cross of Christ. The Christian's portion isn't our service to God. Rather, it's Christ himself. Psalm 73 says, my heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. This is what Mary's good portion is. She's sitting at the feet of Jesus. The irony is that as Martha is trying to make portions, Mary already has her portion in Christ. She chose the good portion by partaking of the bread of life and eating her fill of his word. She's spending her time knowing her God. This is the one thing that is necessary, knowing Jesus. David says in Psalm 27, four and eight, one thing have I asked 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 gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. You have said, seek my face. My heart says to you, your face, Lord, do I seek. Paul says in Philippians 3, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. God calls us to seek his kingdom, to seek him and his righteousness, and then promises us that he will give us what we desire. He tells us to seek him, and our response ought to be like David's, Lord, your face I seek. We should be like the Greeks in John 12. Sirs, we want to see Jesus. Is that what your heart longs for? More than the serving, more than any of the things that plague our thoughts is to see and know and adore your God? When the 72 disciples came back rejoicing, they said, just look up at the page. Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. And what does Jesus say in response? Look at his response, verse 18. He said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Our names are written in heaven. Heaven where no moth or rust destroy, where thieves cannot break in and steal. This is the good portion that will not be taken away from Mary or any who call on the name of the Lord. Or to put it another way, he is the good portion who will not be taken away. This is the joy of every Christian. This is the rock that we anchor our hope in, the salvation we have in Christ. It's Christ himself. We choose Jesus. Give me Jesus, only Jesus. This world can have it all. Give me Jesus. All these things, the serving, the tithing, our good works, our care for the poor and our brothers and sisters, these are good and commanded in scripture. We ought to do these and be passionate about them, but our serving and victory is not our shining point. It's not what matters for life, it's that our names are written in heaven. If you've missed everything I've said up to this point, hear this. While God calls us to serve, the one thing that is necessary is to know our Savior and listen at His feet. I'll say that again. While God calls us to serve, the one thing that is necessary is to know our Savior by listening at His feet. At the end of the day, our ultimate joy is that our names are written in heaven, and our ultimate focus and purpose in life is to know God and enjoy him forever. That is the whole point of this entire story, indeed, of our entire lives. There's an old hymn with a chorus that sums up this thought wonderfully well. Listen to these words. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace." Christian, are you tired? Are you weary, struggling in your service to our King? Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Fix your gaze on the King. Go back to your first love and do not stray too far from the cross that has brought your great salvation and satisfaction. Come, all you who are weary and burdened, our Lord says, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Be still and know that I am God. Loved ones, in all our faithful serving the Lord, may we be a people that constantly turns our gaze back to our faithful Savior. He is our supreme joy, our primary focus, and the purpose of our lives. May we always choose the one thing that is necessary, and for all our days, choose to sit at the feet of Jesus, listening to his word, to know our God and Savior. Would you pray with me for a moment? Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you have called us by name, that our names are written in heaven. Lord, we ask that you would help us with our distractions. Help us to realign our priorities. Help us to make sitting at your feet the one thing that we value as necessary. Help us to turn our eyes upon you. to look full in your wonderful face and watch the things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of your glory and grace. By the power of your spirit and your great grace, we pray, help us, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.