One Thing Is Necessary

We’re going to be reading the last section of that text this morning and focusing our attention there. We’re in the middle of a series, talking about the idea of seeking first, seeking first the kingdom of God, which comes from Jesus sermon on the mount in Matthew chapter 6. Uh but we’re kind of branching out from there to look at other uh texts that fit the same concept or the same theme and kind of subtly hitting back to some of what Jesus has to say in the sermon on the mount.

As all of this kind of comes together in these ideas, Jesus is not necessarily bringing out all kinds of new concepts or new ideas. He’s sort of consolidating the mind of God into what he want his he wants his kingdom to be in ways that uh in scripture in the past and old testament as we’re going to see in the new are present in other places as well. And so that’s the idea of looking at these other texts, seeing Jesus words in Matthew 5 through7 as kind of a hub, but then seeing these truths and principles other places.

So if you will begin reading with me in Luke 10 and verse 38. Luke 10:38, it says, “Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went up to him and said,”Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”

But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you were anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Now, I know the ladies are nervous this morning because we’re talking about Martha and her service, but I assure you the applications go far beyond uh this one example, and that’s going to be true in a variety of ways. Uh we’re going to pinpoint some of what she’s struggling with, but I want to broaden it beyond just what’s happening to her on the kind of the concept of what’s taking place in a way that really applies to me and to you and to everyone.

And I think there’s a variety of ways we need to go about doing that. The first is seeing the context of what’s happening here in the text. And then I I want to just break down the text with some key words. Uh they’re not necessarily going to align with the major points I want to make in terms of that’s not going to be the word on the screen, but I I do want you to see I’m I’m getting it from the text itself and then kind of branch from there to talk about how this affects me and how it affects you and how we should be thinking about this.

The first of these, and I think I’ve made this point before when I’ve looked at this text, is just the general context of what’s happening here in what I think Luke through inspiration is trying to help us see. And that is we have the story just before this, a very famous story, a story, you know, the story of the Good Samaritan. One of the most famous stories in all of scripture that even non-religious people know. You could probably go talk to somebody on the street and ask them what the good Samaritan is and they could probably give you some sort of a rundown, some kind of idea, even if they didn’t know all the details.

We’ve just come off of that story. Jesus had this interaction and he’s now responding to them and telling them what is the most important thing to do and the guy wants to justify himself. And so Jesus has quoted you should love your neighbor as yourself is given this passage from Leviticus and he says, “Well, who is my neighbor?” And one of the key things I want us to see here is the desire for self-justification because we’re going to find that in the next story as well. This man rather than seeing his own wrong, rather than seeing that the the problem in his heart, he would rather justify himself.

And he throws out this dismissive line that then leads to Jesus story of the good Samaritan. Now, what’s interesting in that story is of course what’s praised, what is honored in that story is the Samaritan’s service. He takes this man and and puts him on his animal and takes him to an inn and make sure he’s provided for. And he’s doing all of this good service for this man while the others neglected that. Now, they may have had various reasons for doing so, much like what we’re going to see with Martha.

Maybe they had some service they were supposed to be going and participating in. There was a priest and there was a Levite. And certainly like all of us in the lives that we have, we have responsibilities and we have things that we’re trying to do and things that we think are important. And so in that moment, rather than help this half-dead man on the side of the street, they have some important place to be or they just don’t want to mess with it.

We don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but the good Samaritan is praised because he stops and he serves. He helps take care of this person. which then ends the story with Jesus saying, “Go and do likewise.” In verse 37, directly before where we just read. So go and do likewise. Be like this servant Samaritan who helped this person in need. And then ironically enough, the very next thing we see is someone painted in a not so positive light for their service.

She is serving. Now, there’s some good elements to that that we need to talk about. And but one thing I also want to clear up before we go much further is I want to draw a distinction between what’s happening here with Martha and what took place last week. Last week we were talking from Hagi one about considering your ways. And the issue last week in Haggi 1 and their need to be seeking first the things of God was the fact that they were chasing after their own things.

They were building their own homes, taking care of themselves, neglecting the things of God. the temple of God. Martha is not doing that. Martha is not the kind of person who’s just neglecting the things of God, not interested in the things of God. In fact, she’s doing just the opposite. Notice in the very beginning of the text, she welcomed him into her home. I I can’t think of a much better thing than to welcome the son of God into your home. This is the kind of person Martha is. So before we go too much further in looking at some of the problems she’s facing here in this text which I think for Martha are relatively limited from what we’ve seen from her in her life uh in scripture.

Remember in John 11 she’s the one who gives the great confession. It’s not Peter. She’s the one who recognizes that Jesus Christ is the son of God that he has power over life and death. It’s a Martha is a faithful godly good woman. And the point of this text is not to paint her in a negative light and we think, well, Martha’s just not the kind of person I want to be. She has a moment that’s worth considering. That’s important for us to think about in terms of priority in our life and what matters most.

But this is all in the context, remember, of her actually welcoming Jesus into her home and making sure, as I think she had done many times, that he was taken care of and that his disciples were taken care of. The problem here is not her service per se. What she’s doing is good. The problem is what is revealed to us in the text. That is what becomes primary. What becomes first in her life. The distraction that then takes place which is the wording that’s used here by Luke. Jesus uses some slightly different wording which we’ll get to in a minute.

And so what we had to understand is service is important. Service is good. But service becomes a distraction. And it becomes a problem when it’s actually taking us away from the Lord himself. And that’s where Martha’s finding herself, at least in this moment, despite the many good moments I think she has in scripture. Here’s one where she has allowed the priorities in her life to slip just a little and she is putting something in first place that should not be there.

But in the context of all of this, we need need to understand that Martha is doing good work. This is not her doing things just for herself. This is not her doing some worldly secular things and those are her focus. She is actually trying to aid Jesus and his ministry. But at least for a moment, she loses sight of what is most vital. So that that’s essentially the disclaimer that I want to give. Martha is not a bad woman. She is a very good godly woman, but she just needed some refocusing.

And Jesus takes the time and the effort to make sure that happens. All of this then kind of raises an interesting question. How can we be doing something good for the Lord and still be missing what the Lord wants from us? Maybe even a troubling question to some of us. All of my effort and all the things I’m trying to do to do good and to work for the Lord, but I can miss it somehow. I can do the wrong thing in that moment. And of course, the answer to that is yes. That’s what Martha demonstrates to us here in this text. Sometimes we become overwhelmed with maybe good things that are not the most important thing in the moment.

And that’s what I see in this text overall that we’re looking at is something good or is it best? We have all kinds of decisions to make in life and they’re not always bad and good. It’s not always that we have this bad temptation and evil sin that we’re we’re tempted to go after and then there’s the other side of it which is the good thing to do. That would be nice if it was that simple. But as any of us who’ve lived any amount of time realize, life is way more complex than that.

And there are a lot of good things to choose from. And we have to in the wisdom that God has given us analyze those situations and make the best choice we can in the moment. what is actually best for my life what is best for the lives of the people around me not just is it good because there’s a lot of good things but is it what is necessary in the moment that’s what Jesus I think in a very tender and gentle way is trying to help Martha and all those who are listening and us today as we read the story to see good service must never become more important than the Lord himself good service may never become come about me more than it is about following Jesus.

And when we allow certain things to overcome us and to control us, despite our good intentions and motivations, the things that we’re doing can quickly become about myself and about me rather than the glory of God. So with that being said, I want us to to get kind of I think the the surface level point here and that is first of all even good things can become disordered. We’re talking about the orderly life. That’s what all of this is about seeking first the kingdom of God. And in that again there’s bad things we need to stay away from but also there’s just choices to be made along the way.

And choice is a big part of what we’re going to talk about this morning. Actually it underlies everything. And I want to come back to that a little bit later. But this is about realizing that even good things in our life can become out of order and we can begin to focus inordinate amount of time and effort and energy on something that really should receive less. Now I think this is very understandable to all of us. It’s very relatable to us in in a variety of ways in our life.

For example, I think we all understand that we need to work and we have to make money and we have homes to pay for or to rent and we have food to buy to take care of our families. All of these are necessities of life that God expects us men to be providers. We’re expected to do. It’s a good thing and he wants us to do that. Scripture talks about this. This is a really important thing. But we also can put too much emphasis and too much time into a good thing.

Right? I think we all we have a word for this being a workaholic. Right? We talk about someone who spends all of their time and all of their effort even at the expense of something like their family. You see how we we naturally understand family is good, work is good. We’re able to decipher this, to work through this. And and even in the midst of that, we understand sometimes there are sacrifices to be made and we understand that sometimes there’s things we miss because of work, but it shouldn’t be all the time.

And we have to balance that and work through that. And it’s never going to be something necessarily that’s perfect or that’s easy. But we understand there’s things that are good and there’s things that are better. And we have to work to make those choices along the way. And that’s essentially what’s happening here with Martha in this situation. The problem is not that she’s serving and doing this good thing. It’s that she’s lost sight of the highest priority.

The good that is in front of her is she’s being pulled away from that. And not only is she being pulled away from it, she’s wanting to pull others away from it. This is where it gets dangerous. This is where the mentality and and the struggle of what we’re seeing here happening and overcoming Martha. Now it’s affecting just as she has probably affected many people, numerous people in positive ways in her life and the good things that she did. Now there is the potential of influencing people in very negative ways by how she handles this situation.

This can surface in all kinds of ways in our life. One of the things I want to point out here and we’ll pro I hope we’ll hit on this again later. That’s my plan. But one of the things that just really hit me hard as I was reading through this again is that Martha 100% thinks she’s right. She is certain that she has the truth on this. She is 100% right. I mean, I can’t imagine coming to Jesus, the son of God, and talking to him like she did if you don’t think you’re 100% right about this.

And the reality is she is 100% wrong. One of the underlying aspects of this text that I think is vitally important as is true in many scripture uh scriptural texts is the importance of humility. And when we lose sight of humility and we we begin to think more of ourselves than we ought to, it leads us in all kinds of directions that are not good, that are unhealthy. And this is what we’re seeing here with Martha. And I I want to work through this a little bit slowly, just going through what she actually says to him.

The text tells us she’s distracted, right? She’s into her work. She’s serving. Serving is a good thing, but she just gets really into it. And this becomes really important to her. And this can happen. She’s doing this in her home. But as I already pointed out, this can be in work. This can be in hobbies. This can be in whatever where we get so focused and centered on something and maybe it’s a good thing, but it begins to overwhelm us and and take over our life and we’re not seeing clearly what is important around us, but we think we are.

We think we see what’s most vital. Uh but let’s slow down and look at how Martha handles this. And we’re going to do this a few different ways this morning. But the first is just notice the way she talks. Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Man, that is a uh that’s like the way you talk to your child, you know? Um or someone who is underneath you. Like if you are the boss at work and someone’s not doing their job right, do you not care about what you know what you’re supposed to be doing?

Like this is this is pretty strong language that Martha is using here. And all I can figure here again like I said already is she is certain she has analyzed this situation and knows what is right. She feels like she has the truth on this and everyone else needs to see it. She has allowed herself to be overcome with what Jesus talks about as being her anxiety. And so the second part of this story where I want to get into what she’s doing here and how she’s interacting with Jesus is just realizing that when emotions rule they distort our perspective.

So the first thing is good things if we overemphasize them they can become disordered. We we that’s like the surface level point here. We can go after things that are good things but they become too dominant in our life and we’re missing the more important things. I think that’s a pretty basic lesson from what’s happening here with Martha. But I think the deeper issue with what’s taking place, which Jesus is loving enough and caring enough to identify and point out to her, is that she is allowing her emotions to rule the situation.

And he’s not going to let it happen. Emotions can distort reality. They can warp our thinking. And this is what’s happening to Martha here. It’s it’s being pointed out to us in the text very clearly. First of all, we have the way she’s talking. But then this is how the Lord answers her. Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. Anxiety is controlling Martha. We live in a culture that is very controlled by things like anxiety.

And this sermon is not going to only be about anxiety. We’re going to branch out from this. But it is the point of this text. What’s troubling her? And I want us to admit and see what happens when anxiety runs the show. And it’s not good. Martha, this otherwise wonderful, godly, good woman, is now allowing her emotions to control what’s happening around her. At least she’s trying desperately. She’s unhappy with what’s taking place because it’s not what she wants.

And it matters so much to her that she’s willing to go to the son of God himself and say, “Hey, don’t you get it? Look, I’m working around here and nobody’s helping. I’m doing this all myself. Nobody else is willing to help me. Nobody else cares. Nobody else sees. Do something about it, Jesus.” Man, I think it’s pretty clear that her anxiety has brought her somewhere it never should have brought her. First of all, it turns her attention inward. Notice her description resol revolves around herself.

Everything that’s happening here, it’s it it’s troubling her. It’s a problem because it’s not what she wants. So, she’s upset about this, right? In in doing so, now she’s questioning Jesus’s character. her emotions, they move from feeling to interpretation to accusation to control. That’s what it looks like when emotions run the show. Facts don’t really matter that much. Observations, you’re you’re angry, you’re upset, you’re frustrated, whatever the emotion is.

And that is allowed to then take control and produce something that is not accurate, that is distorted and is warped. Because when emotions rule, they warp reality. And this happens not just with anxiety, right? That’s what we’re seeing here with with Martha, it can happen with things like anger or fear or jealousy or hurt or deep discouragement. Any of these emotions when we allow them to take first place in our life and obscure facts and truth and reality can create all sorts of bad things.

It it doesn’t matter what the details actually are. It’s just how I feel about it, how I see it. And of course, from there, when we allow emotions to control us, we begin telling ourselves all kinds of stories. I’m the only one who cares. I’m doing this all alone. Have you ever felt that way? I’ll just be honest. I have. I mean, there’s times we’re doing something and it feels like nobody else in the house cares what’s going on. You know, it’s just I’m having to figure this all out myself.

I’m pretty sure my wife has felt the same way, though. And there’s times when those feelings may be expressed or we feel and the other person’s like realize no I I’ve been doing these other thing. You’re not the only one who cares. You’re not the only one who but see what happens when emotions control us whatever they might be. We begin to see the world in a very distorted way. And it’s in a way that very much points inward and becomes very self-centered.

It’s about me and how I feel and what I want. And so my anger or my fear or the hurt that I’ve experienced or whatever it might be, everyone else should be catering to me and what I want. That’s what happens with that. I mean, consider the situation here. We we’re told in the text Mary is sitting at the Lord’s feet listening to his teaching. I mean, can you imagine? Well, let me set the scenario a couple different ways this morning. What if you got up this morning and we have to be here a little bit before 10:00 and at 8:30 um one of you tells the other, “Um, by the way, our group’s coming over after services this morning.

I just want to let you know what? Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you about it. Everyone’s coming over here. We’re going to have like 40 people here right after services. How would you feel about that? Maybe anxious, frustrated, angry. What if it was Jesus himself? Jesus is going to come over after worship this morning. I haven’t picked up anything. The house is a mess. I can’t go to worship this morning. I got to get all this clean. Very quickly, our priorities can become distorted when we allow emotions to control us.

Now, listen, don’t throw that on your spouse. I’m not encouraging that. Just for purposes of illustration, but you you know what that feeling would be like. there would be uh some pretty intense feelings, emotions tied to the reality that you were not told what was going to happen and now suddenly this thing is going to take place and you haven’t had time to prepare for it. So I don’t think Jesus is trying to dismiss Martha’s feelings. Uh she’s trying to do a good work and she’s trying to help him. Uh he’s not trying to discount that.

But it’s the distraction that’s taking place where she’s trying not just to pull herself away but even her sister from what is the most important thing Jesus is teaching. He is speaking words of truth. I mean this is I we would probably say someone doing like what I’m doing this morning opening the Bible and teaching the Bible. That’s important. Working through scripture. I mean that’s really really important. But this is the word himself. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

He is the word of God, and he is speaking. Could there ever be anything more important in life? I mean, there we understand this, don’t we? There’s things that matter to us and we would probably drop whatever it is we’re doing. And people would probably even understand if if someone this week, and if anybody out there wants to do this, I’m open to it. If someone said, “Hey, I have an opportunity for you to play Augusta National on Thursday. can you do it?

I would say yes before I even looked at my calendar. I will rearrange and reorder whatever I need to do to get there to do this once in a-lifetime experience. And you know what? My wife would understand. I can tell you right now because we know that things matter and when they matter, we will make room for them. And and that’s just even a a small little thing about life. That’s not even a spiritual or religious thing, but you get that there’s things in your life that matter to you.

You know, a person that you would want to meet or a concert you’d want to go see or or whatever it may be. Those things matter to you. And you would rearrange your schedule. Jesus is at Martha’s house teaching. Man, is there anything more important than that? And yet Martha through her emotions controlling her in the moment, she wants to pull Mary away from that. So she questions Jesus character. Do you not care? You know, don’t you see? Don’t you see how important all this stuff is I’m trying to do? And you don’t even notice. You don’t even care.

Do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? There’s a lot said in those few little words. I mean, there’s the essentially attack on Jesus and his lack of observation, but this is also an accusation against Mary, but she’s going to double down and make it worse. So, we’re not there yet. But don’t don’t you see I’ve been abandoned. My sister, look at what she did. She abandoned me. She left me here for me to do all this work and all this serving.

She just left. Don’t you see that Jesus? And then it is the attempt to take control. Tell her then to help me. man commanding the son of God about what he should do. This is what happens though when we allow emotions to rule our life. It doesn’t it doesn’t only just warp our perspective about what reality is. It causes us to look down on other people, to question other good people, to misjudge them, to mischaracterize them, to attempt to control the things around us, sometimes in ways that are just ungodly.

I mean, there’s no doubt in this situation that Martha is even if she was right, which she’s not, but even if she was right about the situation, telling the son of God what to do certainly cannot be right. Her attitude is completely off. And the most frightening thing to me about all of this, what I mentioned earlier, is that she thinks she’s right in all of it. I mean, you you couldn’t imagine it any other way. I mean, how could you talk to Jesus like this if you’re not assuming you’re right?

You know, this my sister, she always does this. She just doesn’t pay attention. She doesn’t see I’m trying to help. I mean, look at her again. Jesus, why don’t you tell her what to do to help me out here? She assumes she’s right. And the reality is our emotions, if we aren’t careful, can bring us to the same place. It enables delusion when we work from a place of emotion to the neglect of realities, facts. We’ve talked about this before at various times.

Uh there’s a book called Crucial Conversations. It’s really good. It talks about the nature of this. How when we start with emotions, we tell ourselves stories and we shape the facts to what we want them to be rather than starting with the facts, looking at the evidence, telling the person how it makes us feel, and then working through it. I mean, there’s a big difference between those two things. And what we’re seeing with Martha in this situation, and the context doesn’t really matter. Yes, she’s in the home and she’s serving here. But this context could be any number of contexts is she’s starting with her emotions and how she feels.

And the intensity of our feeling doesn’t make us right. That’s the reality here. Just because I’m the most afraid or I am the most angry doesn’t make me correct about how I feel. Emotions are real and God gave them to us for a reason, but they are not reliable. authorities. They alert us often to things that are happening within us that aren’t good or to things around us that aren’t good. Right? Fear is there for a good reason. Uh we sometimes need to be afraid. We want our children to be afraid in certain circumstances so that they react in the right way.

So the emotions themselves are not bad or wrong. It’s the need to submit them to reality, to truth, to facts that sometimes creates problems. And what I love about this story with Jesus is that he loves Martha enough to challenge her out of line behavior. And he does it in a way that I I think is very tender. We can’t always tell from what’s happening in a text and the way it’s written, but at least seems like he’s being very gentle with her. He knows she’s overwhelmed. He knows she’s trying to do good work.

She’s not trying to neglect good things. She’s just missing on what is most important. And so what he answers, he points out reality. He points out truth. But I think he does it in a gentle way, trying to help her pivot, trying to help her redirect what she’s doing. Right? Martha. Martha. This that it’s an endearing sort of statement to her. Clearly, he cares about Martha. We’ve seen this in other texts. And Martha cares about him. That’s why she’s so focused on serving him.

Isn’t that the way it happens sometimes? We care so much that it kind of gets disorderly at times and we miss the big picture. Jesus, I think, recognizes this here with Martha. He addresses her and he says, “Here’s the real issue. The issue is not all the serving that needs to get done. And the issue is not that your sister has abandoned you. The issue is that you are anxious and troubled about many things. He refuses to affirm the distorted conclusions produced by her anxiety.

Essentially, she’s in a place, as what happens with any of us when we allow emotions to take us over, that we can become irrational very quickly. Sometimes those things are helpful, right? If you think about like if you have fight or flight happening, um there’s probably some of us who would never sprint, okay? But if we were in danger, this feeling would overtake us and we would run even though from everything in our life that would sort of be irrational.

But that’s a good that’s what motion emotions are there for. They’re emot they’re there to produce some things that we need sometimes. But when we use them in an inordinate way, it creates problems. And so we must be wise enough to assess when emotions are warping our perspective, which admittedly is very hard when this is about me. This is why we need good friends to help us like Jesus is helping Martha. But there should still be the desire there to self-regulate.

This goes for myself. Why do I feel the way I do? Are my conclusions based on facts or feelings? Am I making assumptions based on my feelings? Why is it that I have this feeling, whatever it might be, anxiety or or fear or jealousy or whatever it is happening? Why do I feel this way? Am I willing to stop and to assess that? I think that’s really important. It’s equally important that we do this when we’re dealing with others, too. Jesus is unwilling here to let Martha’s emotions run the show.

He’s unwilling to to allow her to make demands. He’s unwilling to let her control how everything must go. And instead, he identifies the real problem, and that is that her emotions have taken her over and she’s not thinking straight. And the reality is to ignore this would be unhealthy for everyone, including Martha herself. to not point out these realities and of course he does it I think he’s Jesus he does it in the best way possible but to ignore this to neglect it would be unhealthy for everyone goal here is to point people back to what matters most that which that’s what Jesus is trying to accomplish he’s not trying to belittle somebody or act like I can’t believe you’d allow your emotions to overtake you no he understands what it is to be human and that we have emotions Jesus himself felt overwhelming emotions.

That’s why he cried at Lazarus’s tomb. So, emotions are not bad and wrong. It’s just making sure we’re regulating them in the right way. And Jesus wants to help Martha understand there there are things more important than serving right now. He’s speaking the words of life. This is it’s a great story. It’s a great illustration because in this situation, it is so simple in reality. Now, emotions make it not simple for her. Um, but I will admit upfront that serving, waiting on tables, getting people drinks is just less important than Jesus speaking to people.

That’s pretty clear. And often the things that we um are are dealing with are not necessarily going to be that cut and dry. That’s fair, I think. But the goal is to think what is most needed in the moment. what is most important? Not just is it good because there’s a lot of good things, but am I choosing what is best? And maybe more important for the story, am I directing other people toward what is best or am I potentially distracting them, pulling them away from the thing that actually matters most in a way that’s damaging?

So, we have her distraction, right? the good thing that’s leading her in the wrong direction. We have her anxiety in the early part of the story. She’s troubled and she’s anxious and that is causing that to control the way she’s acting, her behavior. And Jesus has to put that in check. But the last part of this text is the idea he says one thing is necessary. Now it’s interesting in the original um Greek text, the Alexandrian text, which is like second or third century, um there’s two major uh full manuscripts.

Codex Siaticus and Codex Vaticanis. It is actually a little bit different and some of the later Byzantine text types shorten this to what you’re finding probably right here in your text. One thing is necessary. But what it probably was originally was few things are necessary or indeed only one. And the only reason I point this out is because what Jesus is doing here, the whole point of this exchange is contrast. He’s wanting to show contrast between where Martha is and where her mind needs to be.

Right? And and you might be thinking, how do I know in the moment the one thing that is most important at this exact second? Well, that’d probably be a good thing to identify. But it’s likely what Jesus said is it there’s a few things that are really necessary and those are the things we need to focus on most. But notice the contrast in the text. All right. When he addresses Martha, he says, “You are anxious and troubled.” Right? Those are the problems. You are anxious anxious and troubled about many things.

You’ve allowed the many things to create whatever this mess is in your life right now. The the warped perspective, the delusion, what you think is right. And she really thinks it’s right. I I think we need to understand that she 100% thinks she’s right, but she’s delusional. She’s not seeing it for what it really is. He said, ‘You’ve allowed those many things to do this, but few things, indeed one. And the one thing here is pretty obvious. Mary chose to sit at Jesus feet and listen.

That is the action that matters most. I mentioned earlier that choice is a big part of this. We are not destined to be who we are. That’s a a very Freudian type thought that well that’s just who I am. No. Uh sometimes who I am is not good and I need to change who I am. And the gospel teaches that. The gospel says I can transform me through the power of Jesus Christ and the good news. I can be renewed in mind. Romans 12:1 says, “I’m not just destined to be who I am.”

And actually, what’s interesting is uh even in science, we understand this now. You know, science has come far enough to get to where the Bible has been for a long time and telling us that the mind can change through neuroplasticity. We can our brains can be transformed and changed. We are not just destined to be who we are. And so, essentially, this is a a modern way of thinking, an excuse. Well, that’s just who I am. this is just the nature of how I act and how I live.

No, that is just an excuse. It’s the way just like the lawyer who questions Jesus in the earlier part of Luke 10 and just like Martha and her uh it’s not even passive aggressive, just her aggressive actions to accuse Jesus and Mary and then tell him what to do, seeking to justify her own emotions and thoughts and feelings. this idea well that’s just no we have a choice and we can choose what is most important and what he says is that Mary has chosen the good portion am I choosing the good portion that’s the question I have to ask myself whatever the scenario or whatever the moment is can I reflect enough to think is this the good portion is this the good thing that can’t be taken away is this the best thing I can be doing right Now, with the choices I have available, I am not destined to be some kind of way.

And so, seeking first means allowing Jesus to correct our perspective. And that probably just involves a lot of sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to him. I I’m not going to tell you whatever your problems are that the answer to all of that is to read your Bible and pray. Um, that certainly should be part of it. That’s not necessarily going to fix it all. But I’ll say the key thing there uh is you do have to understand the words of Jesus. And we do have to listen to him.

We we got to spend some time sitting at the feet of Jesus himself. Not sitting at my feet, not sitting at the elers’s feet or the deacon’s feet or the feet of somebody who’s teaching a Bible class. Those things can be good, but we need to look at scripture and sit at the feet of Jesus himself. And everything should be checked by Jesus and what he says, including anything I’m saying. I mean, Paul himself had to have his words questioned according to scripture.

That’s the idea of sitting at the feet of Jesus. And Mary was not willing to do something else. That was what where she wanted to be and what she wanted to be doing. And Jesus is saying that choice is the good portion. The reality is, and this is so often the case, it was Martha who needed to be sitting at the feet of Jesus long enough to see that Jesus could change her, not Mary. It wasn’t Mary that needed to be changed. It was Martha. And this brings us back to the words of Jesus in the sermon on the mount in Matthew 7.

The human condition that it is just easier to see the speck in somebody else’s eye than to even see the log in our own. And as long as I’m looking for specks in other people’s eyes, it’s actually pretty easy to ignore the log in my own. Or maybe we could say it a little bit different way. As long as I can blame other people, that I don’t have to think long enough about how it might be my fault. Maybe it’s me that’s in the wrong, that I don’t have the right perspective.

I’m not seeing reality. But if I can blame and cast this on other people, I don’t have to worry about that. I can claim that Mary doesn’t see it right, that she’s in the wrong, that she’s not paying attention to the right things, and then that makes me feel better about where I’m at. And maybe the central point in all of this, because we know Martha from other places in scripture, is that Martha is a faithful, godly woman. And what that means is if you’re a faithfully, godly man or woman, the same thing can challenge us.

If I’m trying to be faithful, if I’m trying to be godly, I I can fall into the same trap that Martha fell into, and so can you. And that’s why we need the reminders about what is most important. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. and all these things will be added unto you. What Martha’s house looked like, what I accomplish in the world, and what you accomplish at your job, and all these kinds of things, they’re good, but in the end, it’s not going to matter at all.

What’s going to matter is who listened to the words of Jesus and who built on those words. That’s like building on a rock. And when the true things of life come and the storms rage, if we’ve sat at the feet of Jesus and we’ve listened to his words, then our house will stand. But if we’ve been distracted and we’ve allowed emotions to control us and pull us away and we’re building on things in life that aren’t vital and important, all of those things are going to be wiped away anyway and we’ll be left with a weakened house.

That’s the encouragement to see the things that are truly necessary, that truly matter in life and orient oursel toward those things in life. Maybe this morning you realize you need to do that by coming to Jesus. You haven’t done that yet. And I hope that you’re seeing that Jesus has the words of life as we’ve already talked about. He has the answers. He gives peace. You’re not going to find peace the way Martha was trying to get it her way and to control things. That’s not where peace comes from.

True peace comes from sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to him and not just saying Lord, Lord, but doing the will of the Lord. And the way you can begin that this morning is by giving your life to him. Sacrificing yourself just like he sacrificed himself for you. Being buried in baptism just as he was buried in the ground and being resurrected to newness of life just as Jesus himself was resurrected and now is at the right hand of God reigning as our advocate.

Can we help you do that this morning? Why don’t you come now as we