If you have your Bibles, I'd love to encourage you to join me in Luke chapter 10. Luke is going to share with us a private moment with Jesus that otherwise we would have no access to. And in doing so, he is going to allow Jesus to teach us an invaluable lesson concerning our priorities. making certain that even our good actions do not become distractions. This message this morning, and I believe this passage of Scripture, is for good people who are trying really hard to do good things. I think perhaps by your presence here, I could lump you into that category. Jesus is going to work to help a good person find their resource in him. As I was studying this, I came across one who wrote something that struck me. Here's what was written. God is too easily forgotten in all the madness of our busy lives. After all, who has time to pay attention to spiritual things? We can sometimes be too busy, too tired, too entertained, too overwhelmed to care about spiritual matters. On the one hand, we have all of these tasks, all of these duties, all of these responsibilities weighing us down. And yet, on the other hand, we have God, the very living God, who says this in Psalm 46.10, and know that I am God. I think every one of us would agree being still sounds really nice, but we have the squeeze of all of these pressing demands. Can it be that God really expects of us that we would be still? The reality and the answer to that question is so simply and clearly articulated by Jesus in this moment in time this morning, that yes, He does expect that we would, in the midst of all the madness that surrounds us, be still. He's going to teach us something. We are constantly and consistently making a choice. And He is going to coerce us by His teaching to be careful and disciplined to make the right choice. In fact, wrapped up in the verbiage of this passage this morning, we cannot help but see it in verse 41 and the beginning of verse 42, Jesus will say this to Martha, Thou art careful and troubled about many things. And then makes it so clear, but one thing is needful. Many things will draw on you. Many things will make you anxious. Many things will fill you with care and many responsibilities will press on you. But one thing is needful. Then he'll clarify this in verse 42. One thing is needful and Mary, your sister, hath chosen that good part. All of life presses you. Madness completely surrounds you. Internally, there can be unrest. There can be care and anxiousness, even a storm at times, and Jesus breaks it down so simply, and He says to us, of all those many things that fill you with care, recognize there's one necessary part, and you have a choice to make. It's not always about choosing the good over the bad. In fact, it's sometimes about choosing the best even over the good. About choosing the important over that which is immediate. Maybe we are living distracted lives and perhaps we are making the wrong choice and Jesus is about to confront that and listen, it's not as easy as it may seem. Because we're going to recognize something right at the onset of this short passage of scripture that we will study. The presence of Jesus creates a crisis. In verse 38 of Luke chapter 10, listen to what Luke writes. Now it came to pass as they went that he, that is Jesus, entered into a certain village and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. Luke's writing and he's being intentional under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit about how he is painting this picture. At the beginning of Luke chapter 10, in fact, Jesus has commissioned 70 to go out and to begin to communicate the gospel. We know for a fact that Jesus has 12 disciples that are close to him and traveling with him. At this moment in time, we don't know if Jesus has arrived at the home of Martha and Mary with the 70 in tow, with the 12 that are regularly with him, or if he is by himself. But linguistically, within the language, Luke is telling us this was an unexpected stop on Jesus' journey to Jerusalem. Which means, as Martha and Mary are in the house, all of the sudden, unannounced and unexpectedly, Jesus pays a visit. Now, I don't know about you, that would create a little bit of a crisis in our home. You say, dude, if Jesus visited anyone's house, it would be a crisis. I know, and I said this in the early service, Jesus isn't gonna come to your house today. He may come in the rapture, but he's not gonna come to your house. If he does, write a book, sell it, you'll be a millionaire. But it's not gonna happen. But in this moment, in this story, in this context, Jesus makes an unexpected visit to the home of Mary and Martha. We don't know how many he has with us, but we do know that Martha meets Jesus and she invites him into her home as the guest of honor. Now if you're somewhat conscious of scripture and familiar with this story, you know that we tend to make a little bit of a bad decider out of Martha and a good decider out of Mary, but I want to be very careful and say Martha's not doing wrong here. She is gravely concerned about this immediate situation. Her mind is racing. She's got a thousand things to do. And in the moment, she took on what she deemed to be the most necessary task, and that was hosting and preparing food for Jesus. Her actions we cannot call into question by way of motivation. In fact, long before the apostle Paul was even inspired to write it, she was already carrying out the Christian principle of being given to hospitality as we read in Romans 12. She received Jesus and she said about serving, which was rooted in her love for him, verse 39. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. Understand something. Again, within the context and within this period of time and culture, a master teacher or a rabbi, when they began to teach, it was customary that the listeners, the disciples, the students, would sit at his feet. This action by Mary in this moment indicates to us that Jesus is preparing to teach. So Mary is seated at his feet. Just stay with the story as it unpacks. Jesus arrives in Bethany, a certain village. He comes to the home of a certain woman named Martha. It's an unexpected visit. The presence of Jesus has created a mini crisis. Two sisters, Martha and Mary, are reacting to the presence of Jesus very practically, but in different ways. Martha sets about hosting Jesus, and Mary seats herself there at the feet of Jesus. Jesus is beginning to teach. Now I want to be very careful to articulate that personality does show through in Bible stories. Sometimes we relegate it to just black and white on a page, and it's an antiquated story from a bygone era. But these are human beings who have personalities and thoughts. And we can actually see a bit of personality in this. In fact, we read of Mary of Bethany three times in the gospel account. Every time that we see her, she is at the feet of Jesus. We just read here that she was at the feet of Jesus. Very shortly in John 11, 32, we'll read this. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet. In John chapter 12 in verse three, Jesus will be back in their home for a meal. Mary took a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. This is a remarkable example. of activity towards Jesus in this setting and some personality showing through. I have to take the time to articulate this so that the lesson is viable and relevant for you. Their hearts are responding to Jesus somewhat according to their gift set. Somewhat according to their personality. In fact, when Lazarus, who is their brother, has died. Jesus arrives, and according to the context of scripture, he's a little bit late on the scene. And again, note the personality that comes through in John 11, 20. When Jesus gets to Bethany, then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him, but Mary sat still in the house. See what I'm getting at? Personality is there. Jesus arrives in the village, Martha gets up, she runs out to Jesus, Mary stays in the house. Three times we see Mary in the gospel at the feet of Jesus. We're gonna meet Martha again in John chapter 12, serving personality and individual skill set and gifting is important to understand within scripture. We can ascertain from the Bible that Martha was a little bit more fix-it and Mary was a little bit more sit-it. How many of you are fix-its? How many of you are a little more sit-it? Yes. Nobody admits to being a sit-it. Everybody wants to be a fix-it. Those two things don't mix, do they? Fix-its and sit-its. Personalities clash. Every once in a while you'll have somebody who is way too active and way too busy and you just want to say to them, sit down. You're bothering me. And every once in a while you'll be busy and you'll want to look at somebody and say, stand up and help me. You are always sitting there. And what I have just defined for you is marriage. Two lives intersecting. Grasp something important that scripture is teaching us. Human personality, skill set, and gifting is not lost in the pages of the Bible. These are real people responding to Jesus. They're both doing it from a pure heart. The Christian life as we see it, listen, it isn't really an either or situation. I'm not gonna present to you and say you have to either choose to serve like Martha or to worship like Mary. You don't have to choose. In effect, what Jesus is gonna convey is this, do both. In fact, you can do both. The presence of Jesus, the mandate of an opportunity for service, which all of us face, creates a crisis. It pushes us into the pressure of the moment. Notice verse 40. Martha was cumbered about much serving. Cumbered about is a weird word, isn't it? Doesn't seem like it makes sense. Don't misunderstand. She wasn't wrong for serving. The problem was not Martha's action. The problem was her distraction. And the word that Luke uses here for her being cumbered about literally means she was dragged away. She was mentally and emotionally not there. How many of you have ever been somewhere but not really been somewhere? Like right now, how many of you just mentally checked out, floating with the current of whatever this guy's saying? You're there, but you're not really there. Martha was in the presence of Jesus, but she was not really present with Jesus. She was in the moment, but she was actually out of the moment. What's amazing about Martha's problem, is that she was distracted from Jesus by serving Jesus. Amid a whirlwind of good things, her attention was pulled from the one thing that mattered. One pastor said this, I think this is so vital for us to understand. There is always pressure to make it about something other than Jesus, even if that other thing is serving Jesus. Martha's attitude was wrong, not her actions. In the pressure of the moment, we actually get to see a little bit of Martha's personality and fire come out. Notice what she says in verse 40, the second part of the verse. She comes to Jesus and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me. Martha is so wrapped up in her cause that she actually interrupts Jesus to seek his help. Now, Mary is seated at the feet of Jesus, which indicates that Jesus is beginning to teach. Martha is busy about hosting this unexpected arrival of Jesus. She walks in and she taps Jesus and says, I know you're getting ready to teach, and I know you probably have something important to say, and maybe even it's a message from heaven, but if you could tell my sister to get off. of her feet, let's be careful, it's church, get off of her feet and get into that kitchen and help me with my cause, I would be forever thankful to you, Jesus, my Lord and master, who I live to do bidding, but if you could do this for me now, I would greatly appreciate it. That little word alone in the second part of the verse tells us everything. Why? It tells us that Martha's frustrated. Not only because she wants to join Mary at Jesus' feet, but because she wants Mary to join her in her busyness. Note this, because Martha was not attending to Jesus, she assumed that his priorities were her priorities. Because she was too busy to hear what he said, she actually perceives that she knows what he wants and misses the boat entirely. One said this, Martha's allowing her flesh to govern her gift. She's pressing full steam ahead and missing this signature moment of learning at the feet of the one who had come to finally and fully deliver them. There's another problem hidden in the language of Martha's complaint. It surfaces in my life and it surfaces in your life. He hears from her, bid her, tell her to get into the kitchen with me. In effect, what Martha is doing has been the disease of the church since the dawn of the church. In effect, what she's doing is not as important as what I'm doing. Jesus, you need to make her serve like I serve. You need to make her think like I think. You need to make her see like I see. You need to make her cause and my cause unite. I want you to do what I want you to do and I want everybody to do it like I do it. Church takes a lot of work. It's a crowded room, chairs had to be moved around, we get that. Church takes a lot of money, gotta build a building. Not cheap, takes a lot of money. Even now, people have been here for probably almost four hours with connection groups and everything else going on. In fact, people have prepared, they've taught, chairs have been set up, baptistry was filled, water was cleaned up and wiped down, coffee has been served, the nursery is at work. I had a lady last week in the 11 o'clock service say to me, hey, you need to shorten your message. There were 25 four and five year olds down there. I said, hey, it's only 11.51. Maybe you need to have a better heart for serving Jesus' little ones. It takes work. And the disease of the church, the disease of good people is to become discontented. Because what they're doing is actually the one thing that matters, and what everybody else is doing, they just kind of miss the boat. And if everybody would just do what I do, and how I do it, and see it like I see it, it would be so much better. In fact, I know there's a little resentment in their thinking and their hearts. If we could just get Pastor to zip his mouth and work the nursery one week, oh, he'd see. Oh, he'd see. And then I could say back, oh, if you could just prepare a message and preach one time to people who don't care to listen. Oh, you'd see. Oh, you'd see. Because what I'm doing counts and what you're doing is so fringe. And you don't think like I think and I don't think like you think and the danger of the church is we create this caste system where we have the real special elites and those that are kind of on the fringe because they just don't do what we do. Look, we're gonna build a brand new building. It's gonna be a beautiful building, and you're gonna be the only ones that really get it, because you were here now. You were here when we had to use choir chairs, and you were here when the building was so small that if there was a bad diaper down there, we smelled it in here. And we're gonna get over there, and those people that come, they're not gonna get it. They're gonna be on another level. We're gonna be able to look at them and say, oh no, we knew when. We really love Jesus. You kind of love Jesus. You don't really love Jesus like I love Jesus because after all, I'm a servant. Get over yourself and recognize the priorities of Jesus don't align with your priorities all the time. In fact, we have been created uniquely, gifted uniquely by the Holy Spirit. We need to be careful that when we're asking the Lord for others to help us, we're not complaining that the Lord needs to get people to think like we think and see the need as we see it. Because whatever and wherever you are in the world, and whatever you're passionate about, you might think, Lord, why don't other people see it like I see it? We're effectively complaining to the Lord in the spirit of Martha, that he isn't making others just like us, and Jesus has intentionally made the church different. He's created us to see it differently. He's created us to take it on from different angles. Peter wrote this, as every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another. As good stewards of the manifold, literally the multifaceted gifts, the grace of God. We see things differently because God made us that way. And then he moves us into multifaceted service that he prepared for us. Get it, our service to others and to Christ can be spoiled if we have a wrong spirit. The end of fleshly service is discontent. The presence of Jesus creates a crisis moment. We find ourselves always and ever giving in to the madness or being still. The pressure of the moment is real and Jesus is gonna respond to Martha and teach this lesson that we need, the preciousness of worship. Jesus, please stop teaching and tell my sister to come in the kitchen with me and work. Verse 41. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her. Jesus said only one thing is necessary. I love what one wrote, he said, if this were a suggestion from a friend or even an idea from a great book, I might be able to dismiss it as simplistic, but this is Jesus, and he's not simplistic. He's speaking to a woman's heart and he's cutting right through her every defense. In effect, what Jesus says is one thing matters over many things, and the one thing that matters over many things is hearing what I have to say. It's not an activity problem, it's a priority problem. In the presence of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, she's actually filled with care. That's the antithesis of what should be happening. In effect, Jesus brings peace. Martha, while you were focused on feeding everybody, actually Mary chose to eat the important portion. That's what it is. The good part... is linguistically she chose the good portion of the meal to eat. She chose that which was important. Jesus said in John 6.35, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Let me ask a probing question for good people. A probing question for try-hard people. Are you satisfied in Jesus? Or are you satisfied in your activity and service for Jesus? Because so much empty service happens within the Lord's work. So many empty people trying to keep busy because that's where they find their satisfaction. When the Lord wants us to find it in Him, the highest priority for those who would be activists for God is listening to His Word. And I don't mean sitting here and listening to me preach. I mean being in the presence of His Word, taking that time, serving and working and doing is no substitute for being still and knowing God. For without worship and without His word, work is empty, and your attempts at navigating life is futile without Him. Now, Martha doesn't stop working, but she sets her priorities. She gets control of the situation. In John chapter 12, I've already referenced, Jesus is back in their house. Notice what we read in John 12. Then Jesus, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany. He's back. Where Lazarus, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead, is now in the house seated with his sisters. Notice this phrase. And Martha served. But Lazarus was one who sat at the table with him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. Again, personality comes through. Individual skill set and gifting comes through. Martha is still serving, but what John leaves out is this time she doesn't complain. Mary is still at the feet of Jesus, and this time she's anointing his feet with spikenard. And Lazarus, who had been dead, is sitting at the table and eating with Jesus. And in this account, Martha is serving, yet she is contented. We don't read this and hear her come and tap Jesus and say, Jesus, listen, if you could tell Mary to get up off the floor and clean up the spikenard and join me in the kitchen, it would be great. And Jesus, if you could tell my brother who was dead, came back and could be dead again real soon, if he doesn't get up from the table and help me in my cause. No, she's still serving, it's who she is. And Mary is still at the feet of Jesus, it's who she is. And Lazarus is raised from the dead and seated near Jesus, it's who he is. But the spirit is right. Different, yeah. Unique, certainly. Both of them lovingly serve. Both of them make gracious contribution to the ministry of Jesus. But Martha's no longer complaining, why? because when work and worship are balanced, a joyful spirit will be the result. We will serve him with gladness, that's Psalm 102, in the way he created you, with the gifts he's given you, for the needs you see and want to solve, serve him with gladness. That used to seem like an impossible assignment, serve him with gladness, serve him because I have to. Serving with gladness, serving because it's my turn. When work and worship are aligned, we serve him with gladness. I'm talking to good people who are trying really hard to live a righteous life in a sinful world. Talking to moms and dads who are working hard to raise good kids and hold a marriage together. Talking to people who want to love and serve their neighbor as we just read of the Good Samaritan and be merciful and do good deeds and be bright lights in a dark world so that people will glorify their Father which is in heaven. And if you're honest at times, you're just out of gas. You just don't have it. You're just pressing ahead because you have to. You're trying to hand out something and you've got nothing to give and you're discontented and Jesus would look at you and say, you are care filled and troubled about a whole lot of things, but one thing is necessary. Worship me. Draw on me. Abide in me. Hear from me and serve. Life's short. We need to choose very deliberately. Life does not nor will it ever arrange itself automatically into proper priorities. There will always be a thousand other duties that press us and overtake us sitting at the feet of Jesus, the one thing, the better thing, the primary focus of our hearts and lives. Frantic, cared for. Our way or the highway service is not God honoring, but we can become people who make the choice to be still. To sit at the Lord's feet, to listen to His voice. Busyness is no substitute for worship, for all the good things you're trying. Don't be too busy to hear from Jesus. Would you please for just a moment bow your heads with me? Thanks for listening this week to the Graceway Baptist Church podcast. For more information about our church and our ministries, head on over to our website at gracewaycharlotte.org. We are a church located in South Charlotte. We are growing and our ministries are doing big things for Christ. If you're looking for a way to get plugged into what we're doing, email us at info at gracewaycharlotte.org. Also, stay in the loop with everything happening by following us on Facebook and Instagram. Our handle is GracewayCharlotte. Thanks again for listening to the Graceway Charlotte Podcast. We'll see you next week.