Luke 10:38-42

Discussion Questions

• How do you relate to Martha’s focus on service vs Mary’s choice to listen at Jesus’ feet? Which approach do you naturally lean toward in your spiritual life and daily responsibilities?
• Can you think of a time when you had to choose between doing & listening?
• What can we do to avoid distraction and prioritize what Jesus called “the good part”?

Transcript

We study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel, and we have some extra copies. If you didn’t bring one and you’d like one to follow along, raise your hand up real high, and someone will drop one off at your row, your aisle. We also have up on the screen there the QR code. If you would like to grab the notes and quotes in advance, you can do that. I also want to thank the folks who joined us online over the last week, folks from San Pedro, Laguna, the Philippines; from Windsor, Ontario, Canada; from Singapore; from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada as well. So glad you folks could join us over the last week, and I hope you are with us this week, and we’re so, so grateful to the Lord for the opportunity to be able to be online with TVC worship services and Bible teaching content, as well as some of our small groups. So, for those of you who may be watching from around the world, explore all of that. Enter in as best you can in any way.

In a world that’s crippled by busyness, muchness, manyness, hurry, noise and distraction, I wonder how often we are missing what matters most. When Jesus visited the home of Martha and Mary, while we don’t know who else may have been in the room, if it was crowded or not, we do know that as Jesus began to teach, Martha became distracted. We’ll read that in just a second. She was worried and bothered that her preparations and her hospitality were going to be hindered, but even more so with the fact that Mary was not helping her with the preparations. Mary on the other hand was sitting quietly at Jesus’ feet listening to His word. It didn’t take long for a little family/sister conflict to arise.

So, let’s turn our Bibles to Luke, Chapter 10, verses 38 to 42 and we’ll read that. You’re familiar with this, a lot of you are, anyway. It’s the only one of the four gospels that gives us this account. So, if you’re familiar with it, it’s because you’ve read Luke before, or heard it preached before. This is a really amazing five verses. And fear not, though it only be five verses, we can turn it into a 30-minute sermon. So, I know you’ll be excited about that. Yeah, that’s right. We were talking about that in our sermon prep meeting. “It’s only five verses. How are you going to do that?” Hey, that’s like six minutes per verse, as far as I’m concerned. That’s really good.

Before I read though, let me pray for illumination from the Holy Spirit: Father, stir within each one of us that delight for You and Your Word that will make us read it with open hearts, mine its depths for wisdom, believe its timeless truths, receive its comfort, grace, and guidance, trust its counsels, obey its commands and hope in its promises. Increase our longing, and our love for spending time in Your Presence, and in Your Word, because it is as You speak to us through Your Word that we come to know You, that we come to know Your wisdom, Your Will, and Your ways. Holy Spirit, give us a clearer vision of Your truth, a greater faith in Your power and a more confident assurance of Your love for us. This we pray in Jesus’ Name, for His sake. Amen and amen.

Let’s look at those five verses together real quick, and then I’ve got a few things I want to highlight for us. Verse 38, remember we’re in Chapter 10, and we’re closing that out. It’s fascinating to me, and I’ll mention it and just a little bit more about it in a second, but there is a continuity of theme throughout this entire chapter, all the way back out to the sending out of the 70 on mission. And you’ll see this wraps up real beautifully this way, what we call Chapter 10. “As they were traveling along, [this is Jesus and the disciples, they’re headed toward Jerusalem] He entered a certain village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home.” It seems that perhaps this is Luke recording possibly the first time Jesus had met Martha and Mary, even though we know in John, Chapter 11 and 12, we hear about Mary and Martha both, and we hear about Lazarus, their brother, and all of that.

But it might be that this is the first time, because he says, “traveling to a certain village” as if it hadn’t been talked about before, and “met a certain woman” some of your English translations will say, as if she hadn’t been talked about before. So, it’s possible, it’s the first-time meeting of Martha and Mary. “She had a sister called Mary,” Luke writes, “Who moreover was listening to the Lord’s word, seated at His feet. But Martha was distracted.” The word could literally be “torn apart.” Her priorities and all that was kind of mixed up, and she’s torn apart by the fact that certain things aren’t being done. “…with all of her preparations; and she came to Him, [meaning Jesus] and said, ‘Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.’” Now, that verse is chock-full of all kinds of goodies, and we’ll come back and grab some of them in just a minute.

Well, “The Lord answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha,'” and by the way, if the Lord mentions your name twice, it could be comforting. I mean, tone is everything, isn’t it? “Martha, Martha,” or it could be, “Martha, Martha.” We’re not given that. We don’t know which it is, but I tend to lean in the sort of, knowing Jesus and His character, that He’s gracing her too. Look what He says to her: “You are worried and bothered about so many things; but only a few things are necessary, really only one.” And the word “only” is in italics in a lot of our English translations. That means it’s implied. Really there’s one thing that really matters most. That first thing first. “’Mary has chosen the good part.’” Good in the Greek is agathos. It is “excellent.” She’s chosen the excellent thing, the thing of high value in Jesus’ eyes, and that’s really important for us. I won’t come back to this, so I’ve got to hang on this for a second.

We, for a couple of decades, wrestled with whether or not truth existed. And so, epistemology, I thought, was the most important branch of philosophy. What can we know? How can we know it, and with how much certainty can we know it? And then we kind of moved into really a time where we started creating our own realities, artificial realities, augmented realities, and I really thought reality became sort of the most important branch of philosophy that we could talk about. It is what is real. Now, I actually think it’s value. Now I actually think we’re in a place where there’s so many people that actually think they can create their own reality, that now the question’s become, “Well, what is good? What is beautiful?” Because if it’s up to each individual, then we’re sort of all running around with our own version of what we think is good. And you can kind of see how that could decay a society.

You can also kind of see those folks that you know, and I know, who have fallen into let’s say a slide of deconstruction with their faith. They don’t know what’s good anymore. They’re trying to define it themselves all on their own. And I posit the notion this morning that right here, we have Jesus saying, “No good isn’t just up to the individual.” Because Jesus is making it very clear right here that there’s one thing that is really excellent, that is really good. He hasn’t left us alone in a cold, dark, and silent universe to try and figure that out for ourselves. I’m no good at it. My definition of good undulates, yours does too, whether or not you would even know it or admit it. If I’m in a certain mood, one thing is really good, and really of high value. And if I’m in a different mood, something else is of high value to me.

And so, Jesus says, “Martha, Martha, you’re worried and bothered about so many things; but only a few things are necessary, really only one, for Mary has chosen the excellent part.” The good part. Axiology is the branch of philosophy that studies what is of value, what is good, and it’s an important subject to be thinking about, in our day and time. Jesus says this last phrase, do not miss the last phrase; it’s so important. Underline it. “Which shall not be taken away from her.” That’s so beautiful, so wonderful. I have, as I said, six minutes for each of these verses, and as I was preparing the sermon, Kim is always a great sounding board for me, and I talk to her all week long. I say, “Is it okay? What do you think about this? Am I being gracious enough? Am I staying faithful to the text?” – all those sorts of things. And she said, “What you need is a good opening anecdotal personal story in this sermon.”

And I thought, “Well, that’s great.” I’m not really good at doing that very much. And then she offered up what I consider to be a very unusual offering on her part. So, before I tell you this, I want you to know this was her idea. Okay? So, this wasn’t me doing this. When we were newly married, Kim would sometimes prepare dinner, and before we even had a chance to eat together, she would move into cleaning mode, washing up the pots and pans, cooking utensils, putting them away, even, or setting the ones that need to air dry on the counter, on a towel, and all that sort of thing. All the while, I’m sitting at the table, and guess what’s happening to the food? It’s getting cold. And so, then I’d complain, as all husbands that are newlyweds do, trying to get her to sit down, and enjoy the meal with me. Notice I’m reading this by the way, I want to make sure I get this right. But Kim would speed herself up, maybe bang, even, a few pots and pans, a little irritated that I brought it up, and then she would reply, “I’m doing this for you,” whereupon there would be a loud clang of something. “I’m doing this for you.” Until one day, and I’m so glad to get through this part of the story, it dawned on her that she wasn’t really doing it for me. It dawned on her that she was doing it for her.

So, while I’m sitting there wanting to eat the meal together, she had become more concerned with doing things a certain way, in a specific order, and enjoyment of the meal with me wasn’t really possible for her until she had finished the project, including every aspect of the process. After all that had been completed, then she could sit down and relax. Did I do it okay?

Kim: It’s close.

Pastor Jim: That was close? What else do I need to add? She said we can talk later. No, no. That was amazing to me. That kind of self-awareness, self-knowledge, and everyone in the room that’s married understands and knows what it’s like to miscommunicate with each other, and to learn a little bit about yourself, what’s important to you, the way you do things. We’ve all taken personality tests. Matter of fact, our staff just took another one of those series of working genius tests. It was really, really fun. We learned how we work together, how we work things out together.

So, Luke 10, whew. I’m going back to the text now. Luke 10 presents us with narratives about alternating themes. The whole chapter is about doing and being – both. Verses 1 to 24 that we studied, I think Pastor Matt led us through that. Jesus sends out the 70 to do, and then they returned with news of how things went. Jesus reminds them to be, with a directive to rejoice over their names being recorded in Heaven. People were believing the Gospel. They were born again, and saved, their names written with indelible ink in the Book of Life. And it all begins and ends when Jesus Christ offers Himself in our place by living the life we could not live, by dying on the cross, which we will celebrate, and give thanks for today, dying in our place, paying a debt that we could not pay ourselves.

We respond in faith to receive His gift of salvation in His Name, and the Holy Spirit makes us new creations in Christ, and baptizes us into the Body of Christ, and we are never, ever alone again for eternity, no matter who we are – married, single, whatever, no matter what age we are, stage we are, no matter how far we’ve run away from God, we are brought back to Him in a beautiful union with Christ. Doing flows from being. Verses 25 through 37 of Luke chapter 10, Pastor Tommy let us through this. A lawyer confronted Jesus asking, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answers with a story of good Samaritan, to drive home the point that you can’t do anything to inherit something, you have to be something. You have to have that kind of heart that would go across, and out of your way, and even run against all of the sort of cultural norms of racism, and religious bigotry that might exist. You have to be able to have that kind of heart that motivates you to do courageous things, different things, if you will. Selfless things, if you will. Biography flows from ontology. Ontology is this study of what kind of being you are. Biography is your story. Your story flows from who you are, what you do. My life story flows from out of the kind of being I am.

And if I am a true Child of God, I will love Christ, and I will want to please God with my life. If I’m truly born again, I will begin to see and love my neighbor as God sees and loves my neighbor. And He even gives His life for them, no matter who they are, no matter what lifestyle they’re in the midst of, no matter which way they vote, no matter what they may believe, or not believe. My job, and beyond that my privilege and joy and delight because of who Christ has now made me, is to love as Christ would love, to do as Christ would do, including the annoying ones, including those that we might otherwise think of as unlovable. Now we have come here to this story, and I want you to know this is not some kind of version of an ancient personality test. It’s not a personality test at all. It’s a priorities test.

So, whether you think of yourself as a Martha or a Mary, and I know we’ve all heard this passage before, and usually the preacher will go, “All right, how many of you are Marthas? Raise your hand.” And a couple brave folks raise their hands, and then they say, “How many of you are Marys?” And that’s even less, because nobody wants to say, “Yeah, I’m really holy. I got a real burden, love and passion for serving Christ, listening to Him and all of that sort of thing.” But first things first reminds us that each of these two women at this particular moment had a priority that was ruling their hearts, and their minds, and their actions. All of that flowing from something inside of them, what they were doing outside just flowed from that. So, first things first, let’s beware the dangers of distraction. I think disciples of Jesus who want to put first things first, which is what we really learn here, will want to beware the dangers of distraction. Look there again at verse 40. Martha was what? Distracted with all her preparations. She was torn apart. She had a divided heart in this particular moment.

Now, I believe it’s true that most of us organize our lives around three different kind of categories of things, the things that we must do, the things that we should do, and the things that we want to do. All right, let me spell those out just a little bit. The things that we must do. I must breathe. There’s something incumbent upon me, also, to work, because I must eat, and I must have water, or something to drink or whatever. So, I must work, eat, and feed my family. These are some of the must things. I must get a good night’s sleep, and then I must repeat each and every day some of those very same things. So, you know there are some things that you must do. They’re essential for even being alive at all. Secondly, the things that we should do: We should exercise. We should watch our diet. We should desire more wisdom. We should serve others. We should spend time in prayer, and reading our Bible, et cetera, et cetera. We can think of a lot of things we should do. The things that we want to do: We want to eat more. We want to shop more. Man, that should have gotten a little hallelujah out of somebody. We want to travel more. Yeah, there you go. We want to play more. Yeah, we need to do more of that.

So, there’s so much that we must, that we should, and that we want to do. This passage is not really a contrast of one personality over and against the other personality. It’s really about priorities. The lesson we’re given is that we can get so busy serving Jesus that we forget to be with Jesus. In the context of the chapter, we can become so obsessed with doing, and doing a certain way, and in a certain order, that we forget to be with Jesus. This was a special moment, of course. I mean, you still have to have what Martha does, to be able to eat a meal. Her gifts are really important. It’s not like Martha is in the back room doing something really heinous, telling lies, planning the overthrow of the government, or the overthrow of the disciples or anything like that. It’s not that she’s committing some gross sin, some kind of moral failure back there in the kitchen.

No, it’s just that her priorities at the moment are getting this serving thing together. That is a good thing in and of itself. It’s just in the moment she actually had Jesus in her house, and she could be sitting at the feet of Jesus. So, this isn’t the sermon about, you should never serve, and you should always find yourself cloistering yourself away, removing yourself from all of life, and reading your Bible, and memorizing verses and singing songs that we sing here at the church. That’s not what this is about. This is about Jesus in this house, in this moment, simply saying, “There are real priorities in life, and the really highest value thing is this one thing. You’ve got to keep first things first.”

I suspect some of you have done much like the earlier story I told with Kim’s consent. Most of you have done some heavy sighing to communicate something to someone else. You got a heavy sigher in your household? Anybody? How about eye rolling? Anybody do that? Who’s a good eye roller? Anybody got some good eye rollers? Okay, I can see, yeah. We do a lot of that kind of communicating where we’re sort of, “You’re not getting this right, and I’m going to let you know,” even though I don’t even have to say a word to do it. I can communicate like this. And with Martha, there just came this point where there’s this explosion of her frustration. Again, I don’t think it was just that things weren’t going well in the kitchen. It was more that there was some inequity in her mind’s eye, that Mary should be not sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to Jesus. Mary should be joining her, and preparing the meal, and maybe even, let’s give Martha some room here. Maybe it was so that we could do that quicker, and both get to sitting in front. There’s all kinds of ways you could go with this.

But the way Jesus went with it is the lesson for us, and what Jesus decided to do with this moment is say, “Don’t fret, Martha, Martha. Don’t fret over all of that. There’s one thing that’s really important. It’s the first thing, and first things need to be first.” So, we see with Martha, she was duty bound. That is bound to a duty that she had thought she should do. Perform this action; get it done in a certain way. When you get distracted, the dangers of distraction are that you’ll think that the process is more important than the people, or that the process, and the project is more important than the purpose of the project, and all of that. See? And so, we just get mixed up, don’t we? When we get distracted from Jesus. I’m going to say it that way. That’s what happened there. She’s in the other room. Jesus is right there in this living room, or whatever room of that house, and there may have been a room full of people. I don’t know. We are just told about Mary and Martha.

Mary, interestingly, in these five verses, doesn’t say a word. The only two people that talk are Martha and Jesus, and He’s observant. He sees what’s going on, how she’s churning, and I think He is being gracious to her. But she, in the distraction mode, got disgruntled with her sister. And so, her distraction from Jesus, that led to an obsession with some project that she was doing, then got in the way of her relationship with her sister. You see? And you can kind of see how the dominoes fall, don’t they? And maybe that’s happened in your own life as well in some way. So, she got disgruntled. Then she got disruptive. How so? She comes, after banging a few pots in the kitchen, I imagine. And if they had a swinging door, it flies open. She comes into the living room, the crowd parts, if there’s a crowd, and she walks right up to Jesus and she goes, “Don’t you care?”

And we’ve all asked that question of God, “Don’t you care?” Matter of fact, the disciples asked that question on the stormy sea. “Jesus, don’t you care? The boat’s going down.” Right? You’ve asked the question, “God, where are you? Don’t you see what’s going on in my life? Don’t you care about what’s going on in my life?” She puts that right up in Jesus’ face, in front of whoever was in the room. And even if it was just Martha and Mary, I don’t think it was, but even if it was, that’s still sort of a really disgruntled person who’s coming and being disruptive. What was He doing? He was teaching in the room. Mary was listening, we’re told that. What if He was right at the point where He was going to explain God’s sovereignty and the tension with human responsibility? Just about to release the truth, and here comes Martha with a rolling pin, and a couple of pans, banging on it, and everybody misses Jesus’ version of the resolution of that tension.

But she’s disruptive, and then she’s demanding. She moves from disrupting, and sort of accusing Him of not caring. And this happens to us. We move from all of that to demanding, “If you really love me, you’ll do it this way, and in this time.” And she says to Jesus, “Don’t you care? I’m doing all this work.” And then she commands Jesus. Not a good idea. Commands Jesus. “Tell her to help me.” When we get to bossing Jesus, and I’m not… This is just male and female, this is… Bossing is not pretty on anybody. I love our previous next-door neighbor. They don’t live there anymore, but our previous next-door neighbors, we pulled up in front of their house. They were both out in the front yard working. There was tension in the front yard, lots of tension, and we could tell. We pull up, and the wife comes over to us, and I said, “What are y’all doing? What’s going on? You guys okay? Have anything you need? You want to borrow a tool or something?” Like, “No.” Miss Bossypants, and Mr. Know-it-all just aren’t getting along. And that’s this sort of tension. At least she was quite aware of what was going on.

But Martha comes out and she’s demanding; she’s bossing Jesus to tell Mary what to do. We’ve got to be careful ourselves that we don’t prioritize, the way we want something done in our relationship with God, in our relationship, even with others as well. We have to learn to be humble enough to be gracious with others, and to be always watching for the Lord to reveal what His will might be and the way that He would want things done. There was division in her relationship with Jesus because of her coming out so disgruntled, and then there became division in her life as well, as she was disruptive and demanding. How long did that take to smooth over? I don’t know. It’s interesting that it just stops right there with Jesus saying to Martha, “This is the right thing, and this won’t be taken away from her,” and that’s where He ends it. So, we don’t really know what may have happened after that, other than in John, Chapter 11 and 12, it will seem that their relationship, and their relationship with Him, has smoothed over quite a bit.

Mary, it’s interesting, every time she’s mentioned in the New Testament, which I think is definitely two, but possibly three times, every single time she’s at the feet of Jesus, we’re told. What an amazing resume item, for someone’s spiritual life to be marked by sitting at the feet of Jesus. Or, in the case of John, Chapter 11, falling at His feet, because Lazarus is dead, and she’s weeping at His feet. That’s quite, quite amazing to me. So, we then learn about the enjoyment of the delights of devotion here, don’t we? And this is a two-point sermon, so again, I’ll still make sure you get your 30 minutes’ worth out of it. But enjoying the delights of devotion – we see this at least illustrated or exemplified in Mary’s life.

Not a personality test. It’s just here’s a person that is devoted to Jesus. She’s sitting at His feet and what is she doing? She’s listening to Him teach. Really important, really illustrative of delighting in and of being devoted to Jesus. I think that’s really important as well. Then you recognize that life is full of lots of opportunities to serve, but there comes a point where you need to sit with the Savior. There is a time, there is a priority of being with Him before you are running out there, just doing for Him. If you’re just doing for Him, you will quickly run out of your own resources and your own ability to do things with His glory in mind. What happens is if you go out on your own steam, you start to get upset that others aren’t doing it the way you’re doing it, or that others aren’t doing it when you’re doing it.

And you need to not be looking around worrying about what somebody else is doing or not doing. Your doing needs to flow from your being. It’s so important. Priority determines trajectory. Priority determines capacity. Priority determines your destiny actually. Am I destined to continue to grow in Christ? Or am I destined to continue to just be mad all the time, at the way other Christians aren’t doing something? You separate yourself from Christ in that sort of performance mode. But if you delight in devotion to Jesus, things are completely different, aren’t they? It’s like this ancient psalmist said, “My flesh and my heart may fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73 says. Psalm 27, “One thing I have asked of the Lord; that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord.”

And see, this is so important to us. We need to think beyond… I don’t know how many of you do the One Year Bible. I’ve been doing the One Year Bible for a number of years. I really, really enjoy it; it helps me stay focused in the Word and read something, not just because I’m preparing a sermon or a Bible study for it, but read something because I still want to get to know the Author of that book and the one that inspired all of that. And it’s really important for all of us to stay in the Word and to prioritize being in God’s Word, as I think we see here in Mary’s life. But you’ve got to feed on it daily. You’ve got to feed on it on a regular basis. Do I do it every single day? Do I get it right every single day? Is the bookmark in my One Year Bible ever two weeks behind? Yes. Yes, it is.

And if I asked you to raise your hand, and you have tried to read through the One Year Bible, if I asked you to raise your hand if you’ve ever fallen behind, a lot of you would probably raise your hand if you’ve tried to read the One Year Bible. And you know what? It’s okay. What’s the next best thing you should do? Pick it up today. Start again. It’s never too late to start right now and pick up and move forward in His Word and be devoted to Him as you do that. Mary chose good proximity, Jesus’ feet, and the right priority, hearing the Word. Like Mary, I think we should regularly sit at the feet of Jesus, delighting, not just reading it as a ritual, or as a rule, but actually reading it, and delighting in it, like the psalmist said. You ought to read Psalm 119, longest chapter in the Bible, and you just read how he loves God’s Word. It’s like honey, it’s sweet. It tastes sweet to him. He describes it in so many different ways, how it’s a delight to him. And I think it’s so important for us to get past just the duty of reading it, but to delight in reading God’s Word.

Just as with so many other habits, we can train our hearts to desire being in the Presence of the Lord, but it will be the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our hearts that will stir up a delight and a joy in reading His Word. I mean, in my One Year Bible reading plan right now, I’m in Leviticus, for my Old Testament reading, and it’s arduous. It’s not easy to get through it all. But when I start to think about how all of those laws, all of those meticulous rules, even down to the kind of bugs you can eat, or not eat, and evidently, you’re allowed, by the way, to eat the locust and the bald locust. How do you tell them apart? I do not know, but they’re apart. But when you see all of those details in the Old Testament law, and then you kind of think through the fact that, here in the New Testament, we have Jesus saying, “I’m the fulfillment of the law and the prophets,” and you just find yourself going, “Whew, don’t have to eat bald locusts.”

Jesus is my all in all. He’s the one that has paid the price in every way, and lived the life I couldn’t live, and He’s the one, I want to sit at His feet and rejoice in the beautiful Word of God as it rolls from Him. So, delighting in devotion, we have proximity to Jesus, priority of the Word, pleasing to God, choosing what is the better part. And we have the promises of God, trusting His faithfulness, that it will, as Jesus says here to Martha about Mary, Mary’s chosen the better part. That’s Jesus saying, “This is what is of value. Here’s my axiology,” Jesus says, “You want to know what’s of high value, what should be your first thing? The Word of God. Spending time getting to know the God of the Word through the Word of God.” And then He promises that it will never be taken away from her. And that’s a beautiful promise, as well. All right, a few quotes, and then I’ll let you go.

Richard Foster, “Distraction is the primary spiritual problem in contemporary culture. Frankly, when we are perpetually distracted, we are unable to discern the “kol Yahweh,” the voice of God.” And I think he’s right there. What steps can you and I take this week, each day, to carve out some time to be with God, and to spend time in His Word? What then, for you, what then for me, is our kitchen? Because I got a little bit of Martha in me. I’m not the most organized guy. I’m not the aggressive, I have got to finish it across the finish line guy, but I still have a kitchen. I still have some stuff that I put first. What about you? What’s at the center? What do you find all kinds of time for? And I was just thinking, and praying that the Holy Spirit would speak to me this week, and I heard Him say things like, “What’s the first thing you reach for when you wake up, Jim? Is it to check your cell phone?” Or, like my 92-year-old mama, is it to recite the Lord’s Prayer, and Psalm 23, before my feet hit the ground? Again, this isn’t about legalism, it’s just about priorities. What is in my heart… Your heart will make a convert of your head. What you desire will always distract you from what you thought was really true that Sunday morning you heard this passage taught.

So, we have to pray that the Lord, by His power and by His grace, will redirect our affections, and that we’ll set aside the distractions that we need to set aside. Lewis, “You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.” This is from his essay, “First and Second Things.” You can find it. There was a collection put together called God in the Dock, and it’s put together by Walter Hooper. You can find that essay, if you would like the rest of the essay. It’s a really, really wonderful essay. But he says it so beautifully and succinctly there as well. Here’s Tozer as well. “God wants worshipers before workers; the only acceptable workers, indeed, are those who have learned the lost art of worship.”

Martha: and to the Martha in me and to the Martha in you, it’s really okay if everything isn’t done exactly right in that procedure. If you’re missing out on time with Christ, if you’re missing out on time in His Word, something needs to change. Something needs to be set aside. You’re being distracted away from Jesus by other things that you, in your axiology, have decided are more important than Jesus, whether you did that consciously or not. But if I wake up, the first thing I do is reach for the phone to see who’s texting me, or see what emails come in, or whatever, that means I think that’s the most valuable thing. I’m making that my decisive validator, not Jesus. And this, right here, if I did that, I can tell you, that is a never-ending pursuit. It’s like you’ve all of a sudden become the gerbil on the wheel, just making a whole lot of noise annoying everybody around you, and you’re never getting anywhere.

And that’s what happens when we try to make things like that our decisive validator. Rebecca McLaughlin says, “Martha thinks she’s serving Jesus by giving him a meal. But Jesus clarifies that He’s the one serving the real food – and Mary is right to sit at His table.” Oh yeah, I love the way she said that. A great book, by the way, Jesus Through the Eyes of Women. And she goes through a number of women in Old and New Testament and talks a bit about the way they would see Jesus, and the offer of the Gospel, the Gospel of grace. So, I think she’s got it right there. Let’s sit at the table of Jesus, and feast on the Word. He’s the Bread of Life. I mean, think about the way this all kind of connects, right? He’s the Bread of Life. He’s the meal that will last you eternity. Not just the meal that will satisfy your body for the next 30 minutes, until you get hungry again.

And then I want to close with this quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones. It’s really powerful. It’s a little bit lengthy, so I put it up here, but it’s on two slides. “The whole art of life, I sometimes think, is the art of knowing what to leave out, what to ignore, what to put on one side. How prone we are to dissipate our energies, and to waste our time by forgetting what is vital and giving ourselves to second and third rate issues.” Does that resonate with you? Please don’t think about the person next to you. Please don’t think about, “My roommate needs to hear this. My spouse needs to hear this.” Ask how you need to hear this. “Now, says Paul…” And this is in one of his sermons from Philippians, “Now, says Paul, here you are in the Christian life, you are concerned about difficulties, about oppositions and about the contradictions of life. What you need is just this: the power to concentrate on that which is vital, to leave out everything else, and to keep steadily to the one thing that matters.” And Jesus said to Martha, “She, Mary, has chosen the one thing, the first thing that really matters, and it won’t be taken away from her.”

I think Lloyd-Jones is right here as well. I don’t have a slide for this, but I do want to read a short little paragraph from Phil Yancey, here. He’s talking about Mary and Martha a little bit, and I think you’ll appreciate this. “A hypothetical scene enters my mind of Mary and Martha gathering around their brother’s bedside some 30 years after their encounter with Jesus,” and you remember that if this is the first one, the second encounter with Jesus, John chapter 11 and 12 is when Lazarus gets sick, they send for Jesus. He doesn’t come. He delays actually, on purpose. When he shows up, Lazarus is already dead, mummified, and laid in a tomb, and they come running out. ‘If only you had come, he wouldn’t have died,’ and all that sort of thing. And that’s where he says that famous line, “I’m the resurrection and the life.” This, I mean, it’s just really an amazing moment in John 11 and 12. Read it on your own if you’d like to, but 30 years later, Yancey posits this idea, it is another encounter with them.

“Lazarus is dying again, and their old grief returns. It’s different this time, though. They have no lingering bitterness against Jesus. They watched in agony what He Himself went through as part of the mystery of healing the planet.” It was finished upon the cross. You just read it. You just sang it. That’s what Jesus went through in the mystery of healing the planet. “No, they’ve had three bonus decades. They’re not mad now. They’ve had three bonus decades with their brother, and not since he [Lazarus] strolled out like a mummy out of the cave, have they ever doubted Jesus’ promise to return to the Father and prepare a place for all of them, and for all of us, at the table, that we shall feast at forever and ever.” Amen? Amen.

First things first: Jesus. The Word of God. It’s why we study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel, not because we worship the Word of God, but because we worship the God of the Word, and He does speak. It’s really important for each and every one of us. Let’s pray: Lord, we thank You that the Gospel is an invitation. It offers us a seat at the table of the Lord, and I can’t think of a better response for us this morning than to believe, to receive, and to give thanks as we come to Your table. I pray for each and every heart here in the room, Lord, that you’ll draw us to Yourself. Remind us that yes, indeed, at the cross, You paid the price for all our sins, past, present, and future. Help us now to believe, receive and to give thanks as we come to the table together. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen, and amen.

Songs, Readings & Prayer

Songs

“And Can It Be” by Thomas Campbell, Dan Galbraith and Charles Wesley
“King Forevermore (God The Uncreated One)” by Aaron Keyes and Pete James
“It Was Finished Upon That Cross” by Jonny Robinson, Nigel Hendroff, and Rich Thompson
“Here Is Love Vast as the Ocean (Everlasting Praise)” Music: Robert Lowry, Words: William Rees, tr. William Edwards, Add. Words, Music and Arrangement by Matt Boswell and Kristyn Getty, Orch. by John Langley and Paul Campbell
“The Lord Almighty Reigns” by Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty, Matt Boswell, and Matt Papa
 “Doxology” by Thomas Ken and Louis Bourgeois

All songs are used by Permission. CCLI License #2003690

Call To Worship: At The Cross

Most merciful God, thank You for sending to us Your Son, Jesus. We remember this day His redeeming death, that we might stand forgiven at the cross. Thank You for sending to us Your Son, Jesus, to whom we belong, in life and in death. He bore our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Most holy God, thank You for sending to us Your Son, Jesus, who became sin for us and suffered the punishment due to us, that we might stand forgiven at the cross. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.

Confession:

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against You this day, in thought, word, and deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved You with our whole hearts; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of Your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us, that we may delight in Your will, and walk in Your ways, to the glory of Your Name. Grant to Your people pardon and peace, that in Your great mercy, we may be forgiven all our sins, and serve You with a quiet and contrite heart. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

Classic Prayer: John Wesley, 1703-1791

O LORD God Almighty, Father of angels and men, We praise and bless your holy name for all your goodness and loving kindness to humanity. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and for your unceasing generosity to us throughout our lives; But above all, we bless you for your great love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ. We bless you for bringing us safe to the beginning of a new day. Grant that this day we fall into no sin, Neither run into any kind of danger. Keep us, we pray, from all things hurtful to body or soul, and grant us your pardon and peace, So that, being cleansed from all our sins, We might serve you with quiet hearts and minds, and continue in the same until our life’s end, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer. Amen.

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