A Disciple’s Proper Place

I’ll say “bless the Lord” if you say “oh my soul.”

“Bless the Lord…”

[Oh my soul]

Oh Bless His holy name.

Good morning, friends my name is Eric Warren and I have the honor of serving on staff as your student pastor and I’ll invite you all to open to Luke 10 this morning and as you find your way there, I’ll invite you all to stand as we read this morning.

Luke 10:38-42 (Slide, page number), Hear the Word of the Lord,

38 While they were traveling, he entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who also sat at the Lord’s feet and was listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and she came up and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand.”,

41 The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary., Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.”

May God bless the reading of His Word. Be seated.

It’s a scene that we all know too well. Many of us likely found ourselves here over the past few weeks. Preparing for guests, cleaning the house, pots on the stove many of you felt this weight personally and many of you recognized it in your spouse or mother and you wisely opted to move out of the path of the hurricane.

If you’re a child you have to clean your room when you’re expecting company. Doesn’t matter if they’ll find their way into your room or not but your room better be clean. And do not even think about neglecting those baseboards. – During the summers, I had two working parents so to make sure that my siblings and myself didn’t just loaf around all day, mom would leave us each a list to chores that better be done by the time she gets home. And I distinctly remember the day that I learned what a baseboard was.

I read my list… got it. Scrub baseboards, okay. And as any uber-responsible child would do. I waited until about thirty minutes before my mother got home to start on my day’s chores. So I get on my hands and knees and start scrubbing the baseboards, realizing that this chore, and only this chore would be an all-day affair.

Becca and I, knowing all the family gatherings that we had lying ahead on top of our own family traditions even crafted a cooking schedule.

Pork butt goes on at this time.

Let the cinnamon rolls rise overnight

Pull the barbecue

Cook the sausage

Prep the green beans.

And it all seemed to get a bit hectic, very quick.

Over and over again Becca and I told each other… Josiah’s at such a fun age for this season… we really want him to experience the magic of Christmas. And very quickly we found ourselves clinging to and grasping at that magic for ourselves before we got overrun.

Many of you had it much worse than we did. You traveled both near and far. You hosted. You cleaned. You bought gifts and did so much more.

But here we are a week removed and on the cusp of a new year and I ask… did you miss it?

Did you miss what God was trying to tell you over the course of the past few days? Did you miss Him this advent?

I’m not disparaging all that you had to get done, but much like our friend Martha here did you wrap yourself up in good things and miss the best thing?

Friends, as we pour over this account you see a couple of main actors at play and you’ll likely see yourself in a couple of them.

We look at Mary and we are reminded of those moments with God that feel so near and intimate. And we look at Martha and we immediately associate because that’s just instinctual.

You know… “The to-do list ain’t gonna take care of itself.”

But friends I hope that when you see this episode play out that you are reminded of this beautiful truth…

Thesis: Don’t ever let your doing for God ever trump your being with God (Slide). (repeat)

Right? We can so easily get swept up in all the doing that we forget the part about the being.

Why? Why is that so often our default..?

Because it’s easy. Even when we make it so hard on ourselves, letting the task list run roughshod over our days, so often whether explicitly or implicitly we tell ourselves if I can just quantify my faith in God, then… then I’ll be happy. Then I’ll know where I stand with God.

So you wrap yourself up in this paper-thin, tattered blanket that is your works, convincing yourself that it will keep you warm but it doesn’t, right, it’s one of those blankets that’s just too short and it leaves your feet uncovered.

You drive yourself mad prepping a 7-course meal for Jesus when in reality he turns to you and says… “I just wanted a PB&J and to be with you.”

So don’t let your doing for God ever trump your being with God. So that brings to mind a couple of points

Firstly that…

Our Service to God must be rightly motivated (Slide). (Repeat)

The lesson for us all certainly lies within Martha’s correction, but what we would do well to recognize is that this family, Martha included, is a family who is beloved by Jesus and it was a love that was reciprocated.

We see here at the beginning that Martha opened her home to Jesus and this meant something profound. In this part of the world, we pride ourselves in Southern Hospitality. We take pride in the warmth and compassion we can show in our homes when we welcome guests. But even still hospitality meant so much more in this day and age in this part of the world.

It meant that you were under the host’s protection and that there was a certain kinship and closeness that could not be broken.

An example of this, for any other movie buff in the room, was shown in the book and then movie Lone Survivor where Navy SEAL, Marcus Luttrell, found himself behind enemy lines, being pursued by many who wished him harm but a villager brought him into his home and protected him because hospitality in this part of the world meant… “I’m responsible for you.”

These are things that Martha felt. It wasn’t only… “I gotta get the house picked up.” Or “I gotta get dinner ready.” In many ways, it was the weight of cultural expectations on top of the fact, that the rabbi is coming to my house…

Many commentators peg Martha to be the eldest sibling and there’s a lot of you in the room with older siblings saying, “That checks out.”

I got an older sibling, they boss me around, they snap at me, and they think that they’re a third parent in the household.

So, in this episode we have our three actors, so to speak.

Martha, Mary, and Jesus.

Martha, with everything that she needs to get done, finds herself in a frenzy, dominated by the tyranny of the urgent.

And Mary, who finds herself humbly at the feet of Jesus like a child listening to her teacher.

And there in v.40, it says that Martha was “distracted, by her many tasks”

And immediately we say, “hold up…” that doesn’t sound right… certainly not in today’s day and age.

Martha’s productive. Martha’s getting it done. Martha’s killing it.

Mary’s being a bum. Mary’s lazy. Mary left her sister to shoulder all the work.

And many of us sympathize with Martha when she storms up to Jesus and asks him, “don’t you even care? Don’t you even care that I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off? I’ve been abandoned to serve alone!

And while that might seem like a normal airing of a grievance, there is a bit more for us to peel apart.

Martha’s not just complaining about having to work hard… She goes to Jesus… God’s Son, and says, “look at all I’m doing for you. Look at how hard I’m working for you… (sit here for a second)

That hits home. How many of you have prayed that prayer? How many of you have cried out to God… “Are you there God? Don’t you even care? Look at all the good I’ve done for you God! How about you throw me a bone God?”

When Martha says there in v.40, don’t you care that I’ve been left to serve alone, she uses the same word that we unpacked in our series through 1 Timothy where Paul outlines the qualifications for a deacon, διακονέω, to serve, to minister. And that’s the purpose of a deacon body, they are a service team who cares for the needs of the church. So Martha goes up and tries to Jesus-juke Jesus.

In so many ways she is saying, “look at all the ways that I am serving–ministering! Help me out Lord! Tell my sister to lend me a hand!”

And what does Jesus say if not, “Martha, you’re missing out. You’re missing the forest for the trees! You’re worried about your many things but you missed the main thing! The one thing! Mary has chosen rightly!”

Martha wanted the affirmation. Martha wanted the assurance, for Jesus to look at her works and say, “wow! You’ve really outdone yourself.”

And it’s not a bad thing to want to please God, but it is a question of motivations…

Application: How do I know if I’m like Martha? (Slide, bullet list, reveal one at a time)

Do you let the tyranny of the urgent squeeze Jesus out of your day?

How many of you are off and rolling with your day as soon as your feet hit the floor? You slug through your day. You grind. You get after it. And before you know it your head’s back on the pillow at the end of the night thinking, “what the heck just happened?”

Martin Luther the reformer once quipped, “I have so much to do that I’ll spend the first three hours in prayer.”

Do not let the tyranny of the urgent keep you from being with Jesus. I assure you, you don’t have anything more important on your calendar than that appointment.

Do you tend to be short with others?

Martha was hospitable. Type A. Hard-working. But despite all those things she chastised her sister and presumed to know better than Jesus. Does your Christianness cause you to look at others with contempt?

Do your circumstances cause you to be sour towards God?

Martha cried out… do you even care, Lord? (pause) How many of us have done the same and how many of us know the obvious answer to that question?

Look at the sparrows… look at the flowers, they neither labor nor toil Yet not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these. 30 If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t he do much more for you—you of little faith?n 31 So don’t worry…

To say it kindly… we often think too much of ourselves. It causes our motivations to fall out of whack. It causes us to forget our greatest commandment to love God and love people. And before you know it, we find ourselves exactly like this sweet, but severely mistaken Martha.

We fall into the trap of thinking that we can do enough, that surely God will take note of our actions and He will give us the eternal reward that we think we deserve…

But beloved, hear me now when I say, your to-do list does not impress God. There is nothing that you can do that he cannot do infinitely better. He’s not after your to-do list… He’s after your heart!

Illustration

We just came out of a season of gift-giving and I think that we oftentimes think that we can heap up a gift to God thinking that it will win us His affection.

Our motivations are out of sorts… just like Martha’s motivations are out of sorts…

Becca is infinitely more thoughtful than I am. And she had the extremely kind idea of taking our three-year-old to the dollar store to pick out gifts for different family members.

He bought one grandparent a hat. He bought his uncle a little football. And he bought my father a bag of peanuts.

It might sound silly, but do you know why he picked out a bag of peanuts for my dad? Because Josiah remembered that his dubby loved eating peanuts at the Sounds game this past summer.

He wasn’t trying to maneuver or manipulate his grandfather, but he truly and genuinely gave him a gift straight from his heart.

That’s what God wants from you, beloved.

Not your works, but your heart.

Not your merit, but your love.

Which leads us right into our next point.

Not only should our service to God be rightly motivated… but…

Our Relationship with God must be rightly ordered (Slide).

It’s an issue of priority, right? Martha wasn’t plunging headlong into debauchery. She wasn’t volitionally sinning against anyone, but she traded a wonderful thing – closeness, nearness, fellowship with God the Son – for a whole bunch of little good things.

Don’t trade God’s best for you for just a whole bunch of little goods.

Right?

What Martha was doing was good. Rightly stewarding your household, your hospitality, your resources, those are good things… but do not let all these little good things get in the way of your sitting before Jesus.

That was his counsel, right?

V.41, He says, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice and it will not be taken away from her.”

Again, what we shouldn’t do is pick on Martha, especially since this is the default for many of us. But again, Martha is beloved by Jesus, and there’s something beautiful tucked away in the text that points to exactly that.

Tim Keller commented on this passage pointing out the repetitive use of Martha’s name. You and I read it and if you’re like me you read it with a sort of sullen tone…

“Martha… Martha…”

Or if you were raised on TV Land like I was you read Jan Brady into this text… Martha, Martha, Martha!

Kids, ask your parents about the Brady Bunch…

But in Semitic languages, like Hebrew, Aramaic, languages spoken by Jesus, there is something deeper is happening when you repeat yourself.

Repeating yourself, like Jesus does here, it’s called the double vocative, and its meant to communicate intensity and passion

Like when Jesus says,

Jn 5:24 “Truly, truly, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me will have eternal life.”

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings”

Or most probably most notable, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me…”

So where you and I breeze by and think nothing of it… hear Jesus’ voice here not chastising Martha but in His desire for her, He is telling her… “There’s a better way! You were made for so much more! You were made for me! To be with me… look at Mary! Join her! Join me!

And beloved here those words echo forward to you today…

Something that I believe in my heart of hearts is that the preaching event on the Lord’s Day is a supernatural event…

I believe that the Holy Spirit uses the reading and right division of His Word to prick the heart of stone and to replace it with a feeling heart of flesh… so know that this message has been anguished over in prayer… praying that God Almighty would reach through time and space… even possibly through the words that I speak today to reach into your heart and your mind and you would hear him calling out to you…

So instead of Martha, Martha! Beloved, read your own name in there because just as Jesus desired Martha, He absolutely desires you too. He loves you!

He’s not a distant God, He’s close.

He’s not an unfeeling God, but intimate.

And just as He lovingly provides correction to, and is patient with Martha – He draws near to you in the same way.

Hear His voice, beloved, all of you, everyone here.

Whether you’ve been living good and long in a personal relationship with Jesus, amazing, praise God, keep running the faithful race.

But if you are here and you are far from God… you’ve been trying to make sense of this life but no matter what you try you feel like you’re still coming up empty… beloved… to you I say, come and find your seat in the presence of the King.

There is something for all of us here. Because all of us are called to this place.

To sit at the feet of someone, like Mary is here in v.39 is a bit of a euphemism. To sit at someone’s feet meant that you were their disciple… you sat under their teaching, their guidance, and their authority.

So friends, hear me again when I say, your service must be rightly motivated, your relationship it must be rightly ordered because when we talk about being a disciple of the one true king it is first an issue of being a disciple rather than doing discipleship.

Right?

Don’t let your doing trump your being.

Mary chose rightly. She chose what Jesus himself said was the one necessary thing. She found herself at Jesus’ feet because that is a disciple’s proper place.

So spiritual check-in, beloved.

We find ourselves here now, at the brink of a new year. And it’s always fun to sit and dream about all that we might do and accomplish in the upcoming months. Goals, planning, good stewardship of time, talent, and resources, but don’t let the cart get in front of the horse, right?

I stood here in front of you all exactly one year ago and asked you,

“Do you want your 2023 to count?” And I’ll echo that question today… do you want your next year to count… really count? And what will that require of you?

You may respond, “well I really should read my Bible more…”

Yes, you should! And guess what, we’ll come alongside and help you with that!

“Well, I really should serve more.”

Good, serving is a good thing!

But beloved, all of those things will be for naught if you don’t first find yourself at Jesus’ feet.

In a world that prompts you to go, go, go… do, do, do… look at what Mary did that was so right… she sat, and she listened.

Weeks ago I walked students through a little exercise at the tail end of a Sunday School lesson. We read about Jesus retreating into silence and solitude so we practiced those things together. I asked students to keep their phones away, to find a spot in the room to get quiet and be alone with the Lord and that I’d start a 5-minute clock. And many students took advantage. They sat. They prayed. And I’m confident that they felt the Spirit’s nearness in that moment.

But there were several who giggled with their neighbor. They sneakily got their phone out of their pocket. And it became clear that many of us, and I’ll say its not just students, are uncomfortable with being alone with God…

We don’t like the undefined space.

We like the list. Do x, y, z, 1, 2, 3 and then, then I know where I stand with God because look at how much I am doing for him!

Sitting, listening, being. I’ll do that some other time but right now something else needs my attention.

For Martha, the doing choked out the being, and may that not be true of you beloved.

So again, here we are, 2024. Do you want your life to count?

Resolutions are great. Goals and aspirations are great. But do not let the doing choke out the being. (Pause)