Well in our series on women of faith we've come up to the life of Martha and Mary. I'm going to read from Luke chapter 10 and verses 38 through 42. Now what happened as they went that he entered a certain village and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore, tell her to help me. And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part which will not be taken away from her. Father, I pray as we look at the lives of these two exemplary women, I pray that we would grow. We would grow in grace, grow in our appreciation for each other and the differences within the body, and that you would enable me to preach faithfully your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, two weeks ago, we looked at the life of Rahab, a woman whom God snatched out of the fires of Jericho, basically, and out of the fires of hell. And then last week we looked at the life of Eve, a woman whom Satan snatched out of the glories of paradise. And today we're going to look at the life of two women who I think are for the most part exemplary. Martha had a brief lapse here, but they're both exemplary. They were two single women who lived with their single brother, Lazarus, and all three of them were dearly loved by the Lord Jesus. Like the apostle Paul, they were considered to be his very close friends. In John 11, verse 11, Jesus called Lazarus, our friend Lazarus. John 11, 5 says, now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Doesn't just say that He loved Mary, you might maybe get that idea from the passage we read in Luke 10, but He loved all three of them. There was something special about all three of these singles that drew His heart out to them. They showed themselves friendly to him. He showed himself to be a friend to them. And so before I even look at their personalities and strengths and weaknesses, some of their unique ministries, I want to deal with two things that most books overlook. And the first one is that Jesus, as a human, needed friends. And while he showed great propriety in how he related to these women, he was friends with them. There is a tendency in our circles to completely shy away from friendships with the opposite sex, and I think it really is short-sighted. Having a mix of males and females in our circles and in our friendships, I think, adds hugely to the richness of our Christianity. We saw last week that Eve was not a clone of Adam. She supplemented Adam and was absolutely essential for the carrying out of the dominion mandate, not just for marriage, but for the carrying out of the dominion mandate. And so we saw that Eve was different than Adam emotionally, physically, socially, sexually, relationally, and economically. And those differences do mean that we have to be careful to some degree. We have to be proper and modest in how we relate to the opposite sex, show extra caution. But the fact of the matter is that Jesus had a very close friendship, not just with Lazarus, but also with Martha and Mary. And even though we're going to look at some pretty major differences between Martha and Mary, those very differences added richness to all of their relationships. Those differences, even though they sometimes brought frustrations and irritation, really made their friendships deeper, richer, and fuller. And especially within our family-integrated churches, I think there shouldn't be as much segregation between the marrieds and the singles, and young and old as there sometimes is. Yes, we should show propriety and caution But we ought not to exclude from our circles those who are different from us, whether those are age differences, or personality differences, or male and female differences. I would really like to see us emphasizing the integrated portion of our family integrated churches concept. In any case, I think all three of these siblings can teach us something about friendships. What's appropriate, what is not, And I think it's worth a little bit more study than what I'm even going to be giving this morning. What makes for a good friendship? It's probably an assignment you ought to look into. I think they illustrate what makes for good friendships. The second thing I want to point out is that all three of these siblings were singles. And Jesus opened the door wide open for the ministry of singles within his kingdom. Sometimes singles feel out of place in our family-integrated churches, and that ought not to be. We ought to bend over backwards, just like Jesus did, to make sure that they do not feel out of place. How do we know and how do commentators explain why they believe that all three of them were unmarried? Well, it's five logical extrapolations that all link together. First, Luke 10 verse 38 calls the home they were eating in Martha's home. Martha's home. For it to be Martha's home rather than a man's home in that culture either meant that her husband had died or divorced her or that she had never married yet. And so there really are no other realistic options than those three. And so even if she was married at a previous time, she is now single. This may also indicate that Lazarus was underage, though that is debated as well. Second, Mary and Lazarus lived in Martha's home. If they themselves were married, it is unlikely, and again, given that culture, extremely unlikely that they would be living in her home. They would have had their own home. Third, there is no mention of parents or spouses for any of them, even though they all three hung out with Jesus and had Jesus over their place. Now, I will admit, I'm not going to get into it, there are at least a couple of scholars that think that Martha was married to Simon the former leper in Matthew chapter 26. I've got slam-dunk arguments to prove that's absolutely impossible, but I don't have the time to get into that this morning. A fourth, from the birth order implied in John 11 verse 5, we can assume that Mary and Lazarus were younger than Martha. Some, like John MacArthur, think they were so young they were both under the age of 20. I'm not sure that we can go that far, be dogmatic on how young they were. But the birth order seems to be Martha, then Mary, and then Lazarus. And then last, we know from this text and a number of others that Christ lodged at Martha's house along with his apostles, which would seem to indicate that is a rather large home, and they were probably rather wealthy. And we'll see even in Matthew 21, 17, the last example of them, along with their wives and children, lodging at her home. And so it appears to be that their parents passed away, and they inherited a rather sizable inheritance, and Martha inherited the home as the oldest. Now other than a brief reference in Matthew 21, we basically only have three snapshots that we can look at to try to derive some information about their lives. The Luke 10 passage I just read, the funeral of Lazarus in John chapter 11, and then Mary's anointing of Jesus in John chapter 12 with parallels in Matthew 26 and Mark 14. though some debate that, whether that really is a parallel. Some people think that the anointing of Jesus in Luke chapter 7 was the same anointing. John MacArthur takes that position. Well, I'll just say, William Hendrickson and a number of other conservative commentators give numerous arguments why that is absolutely impossible. why it's in a totally different context much, much earlier in his ministry in Luke chapter 7, and why it would make Martha, excuse me, Mary out to be a prostitute, a former prostitute, well even presently a prostitute. It just does not work. And so they point out that it's a different woman in a totally different home, different owners of the home mentioned on totally different occasions, with Luke 7 being earlier, totally different conversations, and some other major differences to the two accounts. So if you do take that as parallel, it completely changes the story that we're going to be telling. Back to my thesis, there is overwhelming evidence that Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were all singles. What difference does that make? I think it makes a lot of difference. We don't see Jesus pressuring them to get married as the rabbis were accustomed to doing and as some matchmakers in our circles love to do. You need to get married. Here's somebody we can hook you up with. There seemed to be no pressure on his part. We don't see Jesus treating them as lesser people as some of the rabbis of that day did. For example, one rabbi said, happy is he whose children are male And woe to him whose children are female. And you ought to see their scathing remarks about older singles. That was just not proper, they thought. In contrast, Jesus valued these women as they were, as they were. Third, contrary to the dictates of several rabbis of Christ's day, Jesus encouraged women to be a part of his theological studies. That was something, and we'll look at that a little bit more later on, Most importantly, Jesus clearly valued the ministry of single women and reserved a place in His kingdom for them. And the Apostle Paul will make exactly the same point in 1 Corinthians 7 that singles really do have an ability during their time of singleness to have undistracted ministry to the Lord. And so singles, while they are waiting for the Lord to bring along Mr. Wright or Mrs. Wright, really ought to be devoting themselves to ministry. They are freed up and they can use that. But in any case, it's important that we have a theology that fully includes and embraces singles and there is absolutely no indication that Jesus demeaned their status. Now let's dig into the first of the three snapshots of these two remarkable women and try to draw out some other applications. And I'll start by reading Luke 10, 38 through 42 again. Now what happened, as they went, that he entered a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. I want you to notice, it doesn't mention Mary welcoming Jesus, Martha welcomed him. She extended her own warm welcome, and a lot of people miss this side of Martha in their discussions of her. Yes, she had a different personality, but she was able to put out a warm welcome mat for Jesus as well. Verse 39, And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me. And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part which will not be taken away from her. Now this text has had a very interesting history of interpretation, I would say of misinterpretation, and I'll just give you a few examples of interpretations on this. Two early Greek fathers thought that Jesus was teaching against gluttony, and that Mary had chosen to just eat one dish of food. That's the one good thing. Listening in on Jesus rather than eating some more was the thing that she had chosen. Another slight variation is that Mary has the right to eat the good piece of food. Now both of those are reading something into the text that is not there. Roman Catholic scholars have frequently cited this verse to try to prove that the secluded contemplative life of the monastery or the convent is much to be preferred to secular life. And so they use this to undermine the idea of Well, well, I shouldn't say undermine. They want to provoke, because they say it's okay to be a secular Martha, but it's much, much preferable to be a person who goes off to the convent and really devotes her life to Christ. Now, I want to point out Mary's not in a convent here, and she's certainly not separated from men, which is what they are trying to encourage. Now, on the other hand, some feminists argue that Christ wants to liberate women from the shackles of the home and to break down the traditional division of labor, not so that they can go to a convent, but so that they can be involved in the things that men are involved in. And so they'd be opposed to the role relationships that we looked at last week. Mary is the liberated feminist. So one woman said, this passage liberates women from the shackles of the kitchen into the pursuit of a career. I don't see any career happening here with Mary, but another feminist said that she sees in these words a call to women being able to be pastors in the church. I don't know if you can see that in the text there, but what I want to do is I want to first of all give you just a hint of where we're going to be heading, where I think this text is telling us to go. First, this passage does not say that Mary was liberated from the kitchen. She was liberated from serving her job rather than serving the Lord with her job. And there's a big difference between the two. Many of us have the same problem. Verse 39 says that Mary also sat at Jesus' feet, implying by that word also that she had done two things, okay? She was involved in hospitality and she also was involved at sitting at his feet. And what Jesus did in this passage is to show us how to steward both service and devotion, okay? So that's just a little bit of a hint. We'll get into it a little bit more detail. But I want to first of all give a bit of context so that we can understand why Martha had a temporary lapse. Martha and Mary were very, very, very different sisters, and we should not look down on either one. While Martha temporarily lost sight of her stewardship in this passage, I think it's super, super clear that she loved the Lord. and the Lord loved her. In fact, in John chapter 11, I think Martha gives the clearest testimony about the person and work of Christ anywhere in the Gospels. It's better than even Peter's declaration that he believed that he was the Messiah. It's remarkable. So don't tell me that she did not study and understand theology. She really did. Likewise, they both were devoted to the Lord, but each one was a very, very unique Christian. Before we look at what went wrong in Martha's flare-up, I think it would be helpful to do a little bit of study on their personalities. Mary appears to be the aesthetic and emotionally sensitive person, very sensitive to where people are at, where their emotions are at. Whereas Martha was much more outgoing, managerial, not one to waste time, she was the practical one. She could very easily fall into the rat race syndrome of modern society where we're way too busy with the hustle and bustle of life to stop and smell the roses and take some time to enjoy fellowship. And almost every book that I have looked at would probably agree with the following description of Martha by Francis Vandervelde. She said, Martha was a good manager and a hard worker, and her home was always spotlessly clean and attractive. Martha was the kind of woman we would make chairman of an important committee or president of a ladies group. Not a project would fail. No committee would lag with managing Martha as chairman. No other banquets were held like the kind Martha supervised. All of Bethany knew how capable she was. And when they needed advice or help with a supper or village project, They called on her, and she spared neither time nor energy, for she was a generous, able woman." And her reference to the village banquet is taken straight out of John chapter 12, where Simon the former leper had her managing his massive banquet. Those skills were recognized by others. She was hired by others. If you look at my chronology of the linking of all of the different passages, there is a little section in Luke that links this to a banquet. I think it's exactly the same banquet, and if it is, this was a massive banquet that she was managing. Probably all of Bethany was there. She was a great manager. She also had no problem speaking her mind and shooting straight from the hip. We see that here. We see that in John chapter 11 where she reproaches Christ for not having come sooner. Later she's quick to stop Christ when Christ wants to move the stone from the from the tomb, you know, that's blocking the tomb, she knows what a stink there's going to be, and she's not about to let Christ find out for himself. You know, she wants to prevent bad things from happening. So she has the strength of being transparent and telling you exactly what she thinks, but she also has the weakness of being a bit too blunt and controlling sometimes. And so there were differences of personality that we need to factor in. And Christ was not saying in this passage that He wants Martha to have the personality of Mary. Not at all. I think he values her personality. Yes, she needs to sanctify her personality, but not deny it. And yes, her personality needs to come under the control and the leading of the Holy Spirit. And I'm sure there were some rough edges that she needed to work off. Her kind of personality lent itself to that. But that was really not the issue. We'll be looking at the issue later. But we need to recognize God uses all sorts of personalities, and He doesn't make us all fit into the same mold. And there is a tendency of some people want everybody to be in a cookie-cutter sameness, and God avoids that. There's a richness in all of these personalities. They also had different resources. It was, after all, Martha's house, which might have lent itself to a different approach to what their responsibility is. I mean, if it's my house, you know, I'm feeling more responsible for the hospitality. And since Mary's living there, it probably affected her thinking, Mary owes me a little bit here. And so they had different resources, and she probably had skills and gifts that Mary did not have. They also had differing views of responsibility, and I want to emphasize as strongly as I can that both Martha and Mary can appeal to the Scripture, to the law of God, for what they were doing. Both of them can. Nowhere does Christ condemn her for being involved in hospitality, and there's way too many books, I think, that miss this point. It was her attitude that he addresses. In fact, hospitality is commanded in Scripture. Let's take a look at some of that so we can be clear on what Christ is not doing here. To fail to extend hospitality would have been biblically unthinkable, and so it's not just Martha who serves. As I've already mentioned, verse 39 implies Mary's been serving as well. It uses the word also. So Martha gave hospitality. Mary also sat at his feet. She did what Martha did, and she also did something in addition to what Martha did. and that Martha should have been doing but got distracted from. That's the meaning of the text there. It's a total misconception to say that housework or managing the house was not Mary's thing. In fact, in John chapter 12, we'll see next week that Mary actually was serving, giving hospitality, serving supper in John chapter 12. The Old Testament law commands hospitality several times. New Testament does the same. Hebrews 13.2 says, do not forget to extend hospitality. And he's talking to everybody when he says that. Mary is not an exception. In Luke 14, Christ told the crowds not just to extend hospitality to friends and to relatives, but to do so to those who will not be able to pay you back. So Christ expected hospitality as a part of Christianity. Titus 1.8 indicates an elder's wife should love hospitality as a role model. 1 Peter 4 verse 9 tells all Christians, be hospitable to one another without grumbling. Romans 12, 13 includes the phrase, given to hospitality is one of the characteristics of every believer. And so Martha was fulfilling the law, and I would dare say if Mary was being lazy, Christ would have rebuked her for that. If she was breaking the law, he would have rebuked her. So hospitality of both was very biblical. Don't neglect that word also. And what about sitting at Jesus' feet? It is true that many Jews of Christ's day would have been shocked at Mary's action. Their attitude very literally would have been, why isn't she in the kitchen where she belongs? Women are to be seen and not heard. That really was. I don't know if that was a minority or a majority view, but I have seen a ton of quotes from the first century that indicate this was at least a view that was very, very significant, and it was probably a bucking of tradition. So let me give you a few quotes. The famous Jewish writer Philo said, all public life with its discussions and deeds is proper for men. It is only suitable for women to live indoors and to live in retirement. Now he was a fairly popular writer of that period, very, very influential, and he would have strongly disapproved of Mary sitting here and partaking in these discussions. Rabbi Yosef Ben-Yohanan, 150 years before Christ said, talk not much with women. So he would have disapproved of Christ, not just of Mary. The Mishnah, which was the oral teachings of the Pharisees of Christ's day, said this. He that talks much with women brings evil upon himself and neglects the study of the law. Rabbi Eliezer said, if a man gives his daughter a knowledge of the law, it is as though he taught her lechery. Not a very positive view of what Mary was doing or what Jesus was encouraging her to do. In another place, Rabbi Eliezer said, it is better that the words of the law should be burned than that they should be given to a woman. Okay, so you can see Jesus is definitely bucking at least some people in that culture, probably the Pharisees. They thought women were to be in the kitchen, not with the teachers. And though Martha, no doubt, had been taught differently by Christ, I see a little bit of that prevailing attitude at least seeping into her consciousness and making her feel guilty. It's so easy for any of us to be affected by our culture. We've got to always be on guard. Is this biblical thought or is this the culture transferring over into my thinking? So what did the Old Testament say? It justified marrying. Deuteronomy 31, 12 says, gather the people together, men and women and little ones and the stranger who was within your gate that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God and carefully observe all the words of this law. So you'll see that. I won't multiply those. Over and over in the Old Testament, women learned and they taught the scriptures to their servants and to their children. Proverbs 31 woman. Wow. She is a Martha par excellence. There is no doubt about that. But she's also a Mary who has studied the word so carefully that she's able to have the word of wisdom on her lips ready to instruct her children and her servants in the home. And so both Mary and Martha were doing things prescribed by the law of God for women. The question was how and when these things have been done. Balance. And I want to look at one last difference between the two of them. Martha and Mary also had differing views on devotion to Christ. Another way of saying it is they emphasized different languages of love. Some people feel love the most when they are served, and they then tend to express their language of love of service the most. Other languages of love are physical affection, talking, giving gifts, and I think we probably need to learn how to express love with all of the languages of love, but there is a natural tendency to emphasize one over the other, and I think we see this with Martha and Mary. In John 12 it speaks of Martha's devotion to Christ by serving Him with that banquet. That was an expression of devotion. And Matthew 25 says it's a great expression of devotion. Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you've done it to me, right? So Jesus is saying we love hospitality, the hospitality of Matthew 25. Mary, on the other hand, expresses her devotion by pouring perfume on Christ's feet and wiping His feet with her hair. Now, Mary didn't spend the whole banquet doing that. I can pretty much guarantee you it wouldn't take that long to be doing that. She no doubt served too, and that's probably implied in the plural they in John 12, verse 2. They made Him supper, it says. But it shows very, very graphically the difference between these two women. Martha appears to be more practical, Mary more emotional and aesthetic, and when you've got differences like that, it's very easy to be set up for conflict, for irritation when the other person's not doing what you think is their priority to be doing. And so I wanna take a look at this minor conflict in Luke 10 so that we can learn from it. Let's focus on verse 40 right now. But Martha was distracted with much serving And she approached him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore, tell her to help me. The text says she was distracted. It's very important to remember the scriptures we gave earlier and to realize her weakness was not her desire to give Christ hospitality. Far from it. She was distracted while she gave that hospitality. That's the key to understanding the whole passage. She was distracted while she gave her hospitality, and her distraction was because she was caught up in much serving, emphasis on the word much. She was intent on putting on a big production, and so her focus became more and more on the act of ministering, and less and less on the person to whom she was ministering. Notice the word but at the beginning of verse 40. That's setting up an intentional contrast. Verse 39 says, Mary sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word, but Martha was distracted. We need to ask ourselves, distracted from what? She was distracted with much serving. Now, if you look up in the dictionary, the meaning of that word distracted, peris pao means, quote, to be pulled away from a reference point, to be pulled or dragged away. That's the BDAG dictionary. So what reference point was she being pulled or dragged away from? She was dragged away from Christ's presence. So basically, she had switched from serving Jesus to serving her job, and the implication is that Jesus really wanted Martha doing exactly the same thing that Mary was doing here. He was not expecting Martha to do all of the dishes by herself. He was saying, Martha, whatever you're fussing with, it can wait. Take some time to sit with me like Mary is sitting with me. I think that's in essence what he's saying. Martha was putting on a big production, was so hard at work that she was distracted from the one that she was putting it on for. And I think that can happen to every one of us in every one of our jobs, our times of relaxation, our entertainment. Whatever it is, we can be so caught up in that we lose touch with the one who has authorized us to do those things and enabled us to do those things. We can end up serving the job as an end in itself rather than serving the Savior with the job. And you might say, but there is so much work to be done. And my answer is yes, and there will always be far more work available to be done than you're ever going to have time to do anyway. So don't make it your goal to finish all of the work. By the way, God doesn't need your work, does he? snap of a finger, he could have everything done by himself. The reason that he has us do the job is not because he needs us. No, he's doing this for our benefit. He gives us work to do so that we will have opportunities to grow in grace, opportunities to have integrity checks such as, are you really gonna take the Sabbath or are you gonna just keep working because there's more work to be done? opportunities of testing for character, opportunities to serve Him with pleasure, grow in your relationship with Him, grow in holiness. Absolutely everything that we do needs to have Romans 8, 28 through 29 as our reference point where it says that it's being conformed to the image of His Son. That's why He gives us these opportunities to relax, to work, to do all of these things. That's exactly what the text says. We tend to focus on the first words, all things work together for good. But what is the good that all of those things are working towards is to be conformed to the image of His Son. So we need to see our work and all of the rest of our life in light of that truth. And I myself have to learn and relearn the wisdom of not getting distracted from the Lord by my ministry. And yes, ministers get distracted from the Lord by their work. A little confession here, I tend to be a Martha. There's always more work for a pastor to do than there are hours in the day to handle it. And you know what? Christ had far more opportunities for ministry than he had hours in the day to do. So there were some ministries he left for apostles to do later on. He didn't heal everybody that he walked past. And so we need to ask, why did he take up certain things even when he was exhausted? And on other times, why did he drop ministries that he could have done? I say it's because God did not want him doing those at that time. Satan loves to bring ministry cases into our lives that God has not sent. It could be an opportunity to counsel. And you're only doing it because you're an obliger and you're just going along. God knows that person's not going to follow your counsel anyway. You're just spinning wheels with that person. Or it may be the extra work that the boss is dumping into your schedule. It's a wisdom issue of trying to apply the Bible by the Spirit's leading to decide, you know, when do we engage in things, when do we not engage in ministry? There are even times when God calls us to quit our jobs, and other times where God says, no, I want you to work overtime, putting in tons of hours on this job. How you spend your time is an economic decision, and if I do not sit at Jesus' feet to receive guidance from Him, I lack the discernment to be able to make those judgment calls. And you as mothers will lack the discernment to know which of the many things that are tugging at your apron strings that you should handle first without communion with Jesus. Satan will tempt you to think you don't have time to sit at Jesus' feet. And Jesus is saying, look, you don't have time not to sit at my feet. You're so busy at home and at work that you are set up for Satan's rat race syndrome. You must take time or you will suffer and the people that you're ministering to will suffer. Your ministry itself will suffer. Now, interestingly, when we neglect Christ, we will begin to neglect those who are united to Christ. For example, we'll spend so much time trying to serve our children that we don't spend time with our children. We'll spend so much time earning money for our wife that we don't sit down and talk with our wife. Martha's personality made it very easy for her to get distracted by the rat race, but I think any one of us can fall into that. We cannot excuse it based on personality. Christ later tells her that there's really only one thing that is needed, and Martha lost sight of that one thing, taking her cues from Christ. Her devotion had ever so subtly shifted into devotion to her job, and I think we need to be careful that we don't do that ourselves. Now, I've applied this passage in another sermon to hospitality. I'm not going to do that today. But it's very easy to do the same thing in our hospitality, where we're so caught up in the hospitality, we don't spend any time talking to the people we're doing hospitality for, right? Men can be this way as well. This past week, I read a couple of paragraphs about Iowa's contributions to space science. I had no idea that Iowa had a scientist at the University of Iowa who is so famous in his space science contributions that there are several things in space that are named after him. His name is James Van Allen. Well, in this little article it said that he was a, well I didn't call him a Martha, I just said he was busy ever since he was a little kid. all kinds of experiments that he was doing. One time he scared the daylights out of his wife by using a Tesla coil. How in the world he got hold of a Tesla coil, I don't know. But he said his hair stood on end and sparks were coming out of his body. She thought he was dead. And then he went on to another project. But even when he was teaching at the university, he was always behind. because of his Martha-type personality. So when teaching at the University of Iowa, he got rid of the provided in and out boxes for male, and he substituted his own four, which he labeled frantic, urgent, pressing, and overdue. I think I can relate. If you read between the lines on Martha, she was focused mainly on the categories of frantic, urgent, pressing, and overdue. She had a real hard time slowing down. Well, I believe Jesus wanted Martha to not worry about being a perfectionist in the kitchen and to just stop and spend a little bit of time with her. Dishes can wait. Now, there's another problem at work here. Martha was a take-charge type of a person. Now, this is actually one of her strengths. We need those kind of people to be able to do certain kinds of jobs, but here's the problem. Our strengths can also be our points of vulnerability if we're not careful. We let down our guards there, and so ironically, those become the weak chinks in our armor. Martha allowed her take charge personality not only to determine what was best for Mary, but what was best for Christ. She rebuked Christ. Do you not care, she asked. She was in effect saying neither of them had their priorities right, when really what she was doing is she's imposing her sense of priorities, which amounted to the tyranny, the urgent, upon Christ and upon Mary, little realizing these are not coming from the Bible, they're not biblical priorities. And I think there's a real danger when Christians insist that everyone must do things their way. What happens is it makes resentment on the part of the controller, when people refuse to be controlled, and it makes for resentment on the part of the people being controlled that they are being controlled and molded. We need to learn to chill over differences of personality in others and not get so bent out of shape. And then speaking of the expectations of others, I tend to be what one personality study calls an obliger. I've told just a handful of you this. I might as well confess it to everybody. I'm an obliger, and I'm a recovering obliger. I'm getting over this, but I'll hasten to say, you know, personality types, typing, can be problematic, because it tends to be reductionistic, simplistic, but I think there is some area of wisdom to what they were saying, that people could be divided up into upholders, obligers, questioners, and rebels, and they certainly nailed me. as an obliger who has a hard time saying no. Kathy will tell you testimonies of this. In the past, when the telemarketers would call me on the phone, I'm trying to say no, trying to talk them down, explaining why I don't need what they do. Kathy just hangs up, and she's done with it, right? And as an obliger, I just feel so rude doing that. It just does not seem like the thing to do. Kathy says, Phil, you're doing them a favor. If you just keep dragging this no out, you're wasting their time. You're doing them a favor by hanging up, and they're being rude anyway. But anyway, just when I realized that I'm an obliger, this turmoil inside of me began to be eased a little bit, and I had an easier time hanging up, easier time saying no. Now, I probably shouldn't have gotten into all of that, Wouldn't surprise me if at least a couple of you, knowing your personalities, are the rebels who have fun stringing these people out for ten minutes. But regardless, if this study was right, the majority of Americans tend to be obligers Which means that a majority of Americans probably take on too much simply because they are doing the expectations of everybody else. And they don't get done what they want to get done because they have barely enough time to please everyone else. Some of you parents are frazzled with the amount of work that you do because you've allowed some Marthas to tell you what to do. And when you run out of hours in the day to do all of the work that 20 Marthas and the pastor have been telling you to do, you get really frustrated and you get stressed out. Marsha Hornick wrote a little poem that probably describes your problem. She said, the clock is my dictator. I shall not rest. It makes me lie down only when exhausted. It leads me to deep depression. It hounds my soul. It leads me in circles of frenzy for activity's sake. Even though I run frantically from task to task, I will never get it all done, for my ideal is with me. Deadlines and my need for approval, they drive me. They demand performance from me beyond the limits of my schedule. They anoint my head with migraines. My ill basket overflows. Surely fatigue and time pressure shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the bonds of frustration forever. Now my point is that Christ doesn't want us, there's no need to dwell in the bonds of frustration forever if you daily sit at the feet of Jesus as your reference point. Now let me remind you the dictionary definition, it's quote, to be pulled away from a reference point. That's the definition of distraction. Christ daily needs to be your reference point in all of your planning. And if you're an incredibly busy person, here's what I recommend that you do. First thing in the morning after you've had devotions, brief devotions, long devotions, whatever. But after you've had your devotions, have a five-minute PEP time. PEP stands for Prayer Evaluation Planning, PEP, okay? So you just quickly ask the Lord to give you wisdom and bless your day. You evaluate the previous day, what's left over that needs to be done, any mistakes that I made, any things I could improve on. then you make a general plan for the day. Now, God in this province could change your plan, but at least you're getting some direction for your day. Now, there's one last factor in this passage that I want to pull out, and I'm addressing it because I have tendencies to be a workaholic. I don't know for sure if Martha was a workaholic, but she obviously thought Mary needed to serve rather than to be ministered to by Christ. It did not even enter her head at this time that she could let her servants carry on and she could sit with Mary for a time. She may have felt guilty receiving ministry when there is so much work to do. I can't be ministered to, I can't relax. Some people have an awful hard time being served. And they were thinking, after all, didn't Christ come to serve? Yes, he did. And he served so hard. He was sometimes exhausted. I sometimes think of that time. He was in that boat with water spraying all over him, the waves washing over the boat, and he doesn't wake up. He must have been unbelievably exhausted. So yes, he worked hard. But I will also point out that Jesus also took vacations. Christ went to homes to refresh himself and to be ministered to. Though he was God, he was also fully man and had the needs of man. He had social needs, physical needs, financial needs, emotional needs, and so Martha is ministering to his physical needs here, and Mary is ministering to his emotional needs in John chapter 12, and we'll look at that next week, Lord willing. But think of this, if Christ needed to be ministered to, how much more so do we? I believe Martha was refusing to be ministered to, which meant she did not have the biblical balance. I would encourage those of you who are workaholics, don't be like Peter who told Jesus, you will never wash my feet. And Jesus said, look, if you're part of me, you have to be ministered to as well as minister. You have to receive it. And he not only ministers to us his grace, but he does it through other people. And so we cannot neglect the ministry of others. There's a few of you, I probably just ought to tell you, let your husbands take you out once in a while, okay? Let me wrap this whole sermon up with a few final thoughts that will tie everything together with the main theme. If Jesus should be our reference point for all that we do and all that we stop doing, then let's review everything that I've just gone through with regard to Jesus. Is Jesus your reference point on friendships? That was the first point, right? Proverbs 18, 24 says, a man who has friends must himself be friendly. But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. So Jesus is that friend who sticks closer than a brother. And the more we minister to Jesus as our friend, the more we're going to learn these skills of ministering to others, being friends in our relationship with others. So here's some questions. Are your friendships Christ-centered? Do they glorify God? Do they conform to Christ's instructions about conversation, building one another up, serving, being served? Let me point out, Scripture says that there are some friends that you ought to drop like a hot potato, a divisive person. you know, an angry person. Proverbs says, do not be a friend to an angry person. Read what Proverbs says about good and bad friendships. And if you're one of the people out there whom everybody has dropped you and you don't have any more friends, well, talk to the elders about why. and learn what it means from Proverbs to be a good friend to other people, or learn from Martha and Mary. So here's the question, does he approve of your friendships? Jesus needs to be the constant reference point for your friendships. Second, do you relate to singles as Jesus would? Do you honor them, bless them, and receive their blessing and ministry? If Christ is your reference point, you will begin to notice singles more and value them more. And to you singles, I would ask, do you stick with singles or do you mix it up with all of the age groups and social groups in the church the way that Jesus did, and the way actually that Martha and Mary did? After all, Martha and Mary didn't just minister to Jesus, They ministered to the apostles and their wives and their children. We know that they were with them. He ministered to Simon the leper and a host of other people. Luke, it indicates, almost the whole village was there. I believe Jesus would have you avoid cliques and to make broader friendships than some of you are doing. Fourth, whether you own a home or you do not own a home, are you hospitable in a way that focuses on people, or do you just see this as a duty that must be done? If Jesus is your reference point on hospitality, I think you'll be more and more focused on people. Fifth, do you value all of the languages of love like Jesus did? Jesus valued service, and he gave service. He valued quality time, and he gave quality time. Jesus valued touch, and he gave touch. Jesus valued meaningful words of love, and he gave them. He valued and practiced all of the languages of love. Sixth, evaluate the times you have felt flustered and frustrated and ready to lash out with your tongue and overcome by the tyranny of the urgent or anxiously on a rat race. So just think in your mind right now about a few of those times in the past weeks and ask yourself, is it because your priorities were wrong? And if so, let Christ correct you just like He corrected Martha, so that you can be restored in your joy of service, and you can regain balance in your life. I find my service takes on new meaning, and much of the frustrations are resolved when I do it as unto the Lord. Even if I'm serving a person, seeing Christ in that person helps me to say, yes, Lord, it's kind of rough, but this makes my gift of love all the more important to you. So it's good to evaluate how frequently we get distracted from that, and as a result, get cross and upset. And then finally, evaluate ways in which your strongest points can also be your weak points of trusting yourself rather than trusting Jesus. A take charge personality should always evaluate what Jesus is doing in and through the lives of others and make sure we're not smothering and ignoring God's call upon their lives. And to those of you who tend to get discouraged by sermons like this, realize none of us is going to arrive in this life, okay? But if you grow throughout your lives, you'll be the better for it. May we imitate Jesus, a friend of sinners, a man who walked in the spirit and thus had balance. Amen. Father, I thank you for the testimony of Martha and Mary, both of them. Martha's willingness to learn from her mistakes, and I pray, Father, that each one of us would grow in you as a result of reading the Scriptures and hearing the admonitions and the challenges that we give to each other as iron sharpening iron. Help us to grow as a church, to value each other and all of the diversity that you have put into the body of Jesus Christ. And may we look first and foremost to Jesus, who is our model in all of this. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.