Mary, Martha, Upward and Discipleship

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INTRODUCTION

Tonight is a different sort of night.
First of all, I was supposed to be on vacation all this week.
I did stay-cation the last two days and I plan to stay-cation the rest of the week.
This is important enough that I needed to come here tonight and talk with you all as my family of the last 13 years.
Secondly, I am not leaving. That is NOT what tonight is about.
I realize my tone and my first few words might have alarmed you.
I hope that by the time I am done tonight, you are okay with the fact that I do not intend to leave anytime soon.
I love being your pastor.
I don’t want to start with a presentation tonight, though we will end with a little bit of one in our application.
Instead, I would like to just open the Bible together and look at a story that Luke tells us in the tenth chapter of his Gospel.
Luke 10:38–42 ESV
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 are 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.”

IDENTIFYING THE WHO AND WHERE (v. 38-39)

We are reminded that Jesus is on the road from Luke 9 until Luke 19 when He enters into Jerusalem to the waving palm branches and shouts of “Hosanna!” ○
Jesus and His band of believers are “travelling along.”
They enter a village and Jesus is welcomed into the home of a woman named Martha. You see in verse 39 that she has a sister named Mary.
As Jesus stretches out His legs and rests His head, some drama is stirred up by Martha. Let’s look at what is going on in verses 39 and 40...

SERVING BUT DISTRACTED (v. 39-40)

You can see that Martha’s sister Mary is seated at the feet of Jesus and listening to His teaching. We will get to that in a moment.
But Martha is not sitting at His feet listening because she is “distracted with much serving.”
What does that mean?
It means she is working hard to ensure that the practical parts of hospitality are taken care of. Probably something involving a meal for Jesus and His friends.
Now, there is nothing wrong with this, right? She is serving. She is using her energy to feed the Son of God and make a place for Him in His home.
But we get some clues in the rest of verse 40 that everything is not okay in her heart.
She goes to Jesus and says, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.”
Something has gone wrong in Martha’s heart.
What should be selfless service has turned into a sort of self-righteousness.
She is a bold woman and she has bold words for Jesus.
Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?
This is not the first time that Martha has spoken to Jesus in this way.
You also see it in John 11 when Martha’s brother Lazarus died.
John 11:21–22 ESV
Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
In the case of John 11, Jesus responded to Martha by telling her that He is the resurrection and the life and whoever believes in him, though he die, yet shall he live.
But here in Luke 10, His response carries more a rebuke.
And that makes sense—you talk different at the clean up of a dinner party than you do at a funeral.
Here is this passage, our Lord says, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and trouble about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken from her.
Jesus’ words truly give us insight into Martha’s heart that we would never have unless it were revealed to us by Christ.
Martha’s heart is anxious.
She is going from task-to-task, concerned about what must be done.
Martha’s heart is also troubled about many things.
The Greek word for troubled is thorybazo.
It literally means distracted
So her heart is not as focused on Jesus as it should be.
Instead, her heart is carrying the troubles that the distraction of much serving is bringing her
So she is anxious on one hand because of all that must done and the fact that her sister isn’t helping. .
But on the other hand, she was also distracted by the weight of trying to do everything.
It was too much for her to focus on the Lord Jesus, who was right there in her living room.

GETTING HER ATTENTION

So then, Jesus, who loves Martha perfectly, wants to change this.
He wants her cares to be cast away.
He wants her distractions to be removed.
And not just so she can relax, but so that she sit at His feet.
We know He is out to get her attention because He says, “Martha, Martha...”
Saying someone’s name twice meant you wanted to get their attention, but you are doing it with affection.
We see God deal with Abraham and Moses this way:
As Abraham is about to sacrifice Isaac, the Lord affectionately got his attention:
Genesis 22:11 ESV
But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”
As Moses is at the burning bush—a seminal moment in his life and ministry, the Lord once again spoke with this affection:
Exodus 3:4 ESV
When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”
Just as God wanted the attention of Abraham and Moses, God in the flesh—Jesus Christ—wants the attention of Martha.
He saying, “Stop being distracted Martha. Look at me.”

THE GOOD PORTION

The question is—to what end?
What does Jesus truly mean to convey to Martha?
Why does He want her attention?
I mean, I thought serving was good, right?
How can a woman who is serving Jesus actually be distracted and not be looking at Jesus?
To get to the root of that question, we have to understand the good portion Mary has chosen. The portion Jesus mentions in v. 42.
Understanding the good portion isn’t hard.
Verse 39 tells you what the good portion is—she was sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to His teaching.
This is the good portion.
It is like Mary is hanging on His every word. She is finding comfort in His counsel. She is hearing the only truth that can save her and sanctify her.
She is locked in before the promised Messiah, sitting at his feet, washing herself in the water of the Word.
Martha on the other hand is so consumed with serving, that she is missing out on this good portion.
She is literally serving at a dinner party for the Messiah, which seems like a good thing, and yet she is missing Him.
She is distracted. She is so distracted that the very words of Christ being spoken in her house is not enough to get her attention.
After all, she doesn’t come to Jesus with a question about teaching.
She approaches with a question about the fairness of her sister sitting at His feet.
Her distraction has left her spiritually sputtering.
She is dutiful, but drifting.
Jesus is in her home, and yet she can’t stop serving long enough to submissively sit in front of Him.
And there is a timeless truth that is being communicated to us through this text:
There is a way to be so busy with work for Jesus that you miss out on the word of Jesus.
There is a way to be so busy with the work of God, that you find yourself bereft of a proper knowledge of God.
There is a way to become so swallowed up by the busyness of ministry, that we forget about the schooling of the Master.
No Christian can afford to be in that place.
No church can afford to be in that place.
And sometimes, we have to stop and look around and come to grips with the reality that we may be Martha.
We have to look in the mirror and ask, “Are we distracted with much serving?”
And church—tonight is one of those times.

SEAFORD, EVANGELISM AND DISCIPLESHIP

We are a church that has a lot of programs.
And we are a church that puts on a lot of events.
Many of the events that we do are outward facing and that is a good thing.
They are like windows.
These events bless our community.
Upward Basketball
Easter Egg Dash
Vacation Bible School
Trunk or Treat
Christmas Lights Outreach
Not to mention opening our parking lot up twice a day throughout the week during the school year in order to save our neighborhood from dangerous and frustrating traffic.
Trust me—if you talk to the people at the school—they know how much of a blessing that is to them. It means a lot.
I had an administrative leader from York County Schools tell me on the first day of school in 2023, “Your neighborhood will never forget that you did this for them. This is a huge witness for Christ.”
But at the end of June, your pastors sat down and we looked across the table at each other and we saw a tiredness in each other’s eyes.
And we recognize that when we look at many of you, we see that same look.
There is a core of people at this church who give A LOT of time.
So Ben and I began to wrestle with this a bit, to pray about it and coming out of the other side, I have two concerns tonight.
1. I have a concern that I have led you to equate evangelism with programs.
I have been one of your pastors for 13 years. I have been your Senior Pastor for 11 years.
If we believe that evangelism = programs/events, I have to look in the mirror.
I love for us to reach our community and to have programs that serve as outward facing windows, where we can proclaim the love of Christ.
However, those programs are a small part of evangelism.
Truthfully, we do not really see a picture of the New Testament church in the Bible where you set yourselves up like a magnet and draw people in, but where you are sent out.
I believe the picture we get in the Bible is one where the pastors are equipping the saints for ministry inside and outside of the local church.
Ephesians 4:11–12 ESV
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
Instead of viewing the church like a magnet, it would be better to view it as a hospital with a medical college attached to it.
And in this view, we come here each week and we break ourselves open before the Lord.
He uses the ministry of the Word and prayer to root the sin out of our lives and to put more joy in our lives.
This is the hospital part.
Sometimes it feels like a small procedure after we have worshipped. Sometimes it feels like a surgery.
And yet, He is good to bind the wounds that He makes with His Word and help us heal and be restored and to look more Christ.
We are like Isaiah, cut open before the Word, crying out that we have unclean lips.
And He is good to take a coal from the brazen altar and touch to our lips and forgive us our sin.
And then, having repented and trusted in Him once more—having worshipped and adored Him again—the Spirit produces joy in us and we are filled with more knowledge of the Lord and then we go from here and evangelize.
This is the medical college part.
It is like you go straight from the hospital and into a training program.
Not only is the disease of your sin dealt with, you are equipped to then go and be a servant of Christ in the Church and an ambassador for Christ outside of the church.
Therefore, New Testament evangelism is not truly not going from program to program. Instead, it happens person to person.
It happens when sinners find grace and then they go as saints into the world telling of that grace.
Meaning—the church does not provide evangelism through programs.
Instead, the church empowers evangelism through people.
I was saved in a very programmatic church. I came here at 27 years old from a seminary that primarily taught program-driven, attractional ministry.
And so I showed up here with a lot of that in me.
And that is okay to an extent.
You need some programs. I am not anti-program.
But programs cannot be the answer to a church’s evangelistic call from the Lord.
The primary way it happens is though the saints being built up and sent out.
And so I fear that I have poorly taught you what evangelism should look like for a healthy New Testament church and that I have not led you into the best practices.
2. I have a concern that the programs we take on do not always hit the target of disciple-making.
Please allow me to read a very famous text that many of you have probably memorized just by hearing it so many times. Praise the Lord for that!
Matthew 28:18–20 ESV
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
So as the Apostles are about to build the church, what is their job?
DISCIPLE-MAKING!
The word evangelism is not even used.
Now, is evangelism involved in the Great Commission? Of course!
But ultimately we are not even told to make converts. We are told to make disciples.
A church knows they are hitting the target Jesus gave, when disciples are being made.
This means people are being baptized, they are being taught all that Christ has taught us in His Word and they are obeying Him as their King.
This is what we want to do as a church.
Not just get people in the door for an event or even for a Sunday morning.
Ultimately, everything must be bent toward disciple-making.
We spend A LOT of time, money and energy on the outward-facing windows—these outreach events that we hope will help us connect with new people who we can ultimately baptize and disciple when they repent and turn to Jesus.
But is this truly happening through these efforts?
Are we doing well at making new disciples and additionally—as you all are pouring out time, money and energy into these programs and events, are you becoming a more Christ-like disciple?
I am not asking if you hear enough Sunday and Wednesday sermons.
I am asking—are there new levels of obedience that are coming to pass in your life?
I am asking—are there addictions and habits and patterns that are ungodly that you are seeing broken?
I am asking—are you growing in your theological knowledge?
I am asking—are you equipped to proclaim Christ to your neighbor over burgers and dogs?
Does the current approach and calendared commitments hit these targets?
Are we getting enough of the good portion?
If you pull all of this together, here is my pastoral burden tonight.
And again—I have to look in the mirror as I say this.
I love you too much and I love this place too much to not say it.

I fear that we are distracted with much serving, but that serving is not hitting the target that Jesus gave us.

As pastors, Ben and I can’t maintain that.
Practically, we are struggling to maintain it.
Biblically, we simply cant.
We have to make sure that as we serve, we serve as those who have received the good portion and we are leading others to it as well.

SOLUTIONS AND APPLICATION

Now, if I know anything about you all after the last 13 years, I know that you don’t like problems that don’t have solutions.
I have had the joy of pastoring school teachers, military personnel, Shipyard employees and the Ferguson folks.
Seaford Baptist is a church that wants a plan if there is a problem.
We are wired that way.
And that has frankly been a joy to pastor.
It is not fun pastoring people who don’t like plans.
So I want to give you a plan tonight.
A plan to give us more time at the feet of Jesus.
And a plan to make sure that the serving we do is done with the Great Commission Target of disciple-making in mind.

We cannot keep doing everything we have been doing.

Our pastors cannot keep up this pace.
Not if we are going to preach faithfully. Not if we are going to pray for you faithfully. Not if we are going to actually counsel you. Not if we are going to come to your hospital bed.
Our staff cannot keep up this pace.
We have a wonderful staff, but it is often hard to be forward-thinking when we are constantly arrested by the urgency of the next big event or program.
Our church cannot keep up this pace.
Families need more time together.
Husbands and wives need more time together.
There must be time in the margins of our lives so that we can be obedient to the daily direction of the Spirit as He moves us to minister to people inside and outside of the church body.
You cannot just keep stuffing more things in a bag, right? At some point, it starts to tear.

We must evaluate every program we have and ask ourselves whether or not it is Gospel-first.

This doesn’t just mean that the Gospel is present at these events.
It means that we are intentional about it being primary and clear, to the best of our ability.
It means that we are doing everything we can at events/programs to get lost people connected to covenant members, being as intentional as we can be we each soul that steps on to our campus.
It means that we are always thinking of ways to sharpen what we do and not just running back what we have done before.
If a program or event is going to exist, we have to ask ourselves, “Are we truly aiming our efforts in such a way that we can be confident our arrow is headed for the target?”

We must recover more time with the good portion.

We want every member of this church to be sitting under weekly preaching and to be in a Sunday School class or some sort of discipleship group.
Not just our leaders.
Not just our deacons.
We want everyone to be engaged with God’s Word at the feet of Jesus in this way.
We know from Luke 10 tonight that a danger exists.
There is a way to be distracted with serving Jesus.
There is a way for the service of Jesus to become anxiousness in the heart.
There is a way in which we can keep so busy that we miss the good portion.
In early 2025, there will be discipleship groups starting that will meet at different times of the week.
These are not small groups. We are not a small group church. We are a Sunday School church.
These will be Bible Studies for men and women respectively, which you can go to in order to receive more of the good portion and grow as a disciple of Jesus.
They will be seasonal, meaning they won’t go on and on. They will last for 8-10 weeks.
So when you commit to one, you don’t do it with blood, but with ink.
It it something you commit to for a set period of time.
Our hope is that these studies will not only grow you a followers of Jesus, but also create new, organic friendships within the body which will provide an even deeper discipleship relationship for you.
Men—we want you walking closely with other men.
Women—we want you walking closely with other women.

THE IMMEDIATE CHANGE

Now, with all of that said, I want to reiterate—we cannot keep adding things to the bag.
If we are going to recover more of the good portion, then we will need to change our approach and that is going to need to happen in the immediate future, not the distant future.
I am a granular leader. There have been very few quick changes I have made here in 13 years. Typically, I like to point to the top of a mountain and say, “Let’s go there. We will get there in a couple of years.”
For example, I began talking about the Membership process we are going through in a sermon series in 2015. NINE YEARS AGO!
A pandemic slowed it down, but still—almost a decade.
But as I said, tonight is a different night.
And tonight is a night where we are needing to make a change that will not just impact our church body, but to an extent our neighborhood as well.
And for the rest of the time I am talking, I am going to ask you to be very careful to hear my words.
And even more, to hear my heart as a man that loves you as much as I love people named Howard and McCormick who have my actual blood in their veins.

UPWARD BASKETBALL

22 years ago, when I was a freshman at Virginia Commonwealth University, this church embarked on a new outreach effort called Upward Basketball.
With the exception of the COVID-riddled 2021, we have had season after season with hundreds of folks coming through the program since then.
Upward is a program that I have served in for 12 years.
I began as a referee.
Then I became the referee commissioner.
Then, when Randy and Tracee Vaught stepped away from the program, I began serving with other church members on a team that worked together to run all of the different facets of Upward.
Outside of preaching and counseling, there is nothing I have given more time to in this church than Upward Basketball.
So as I come to you with some news tonight, I do not come as an outsider.
I come as the pastor you know.
I come as the Upward leader and volunteer you know.
My blood, sweat and tears have been in this program, quite literally, for well over a decade.
So the words I am about to say do not necessarily come out of my mouth any easier than they come to your ears.
I’m going to let you know what has occurred and then I will give you explanation and then we will be done tonight because I know this has been a lot.

After much discussion, meeting together, observing the program from multiple angles and considering multiple solutions, Our Upward Leadership Team came to a decision together to no longer facilitate Upward Basketball at Seaford Baptist Church, which is effective immediately.

I know that statement brings a lot of sticker shock, so let me unpack the reasons why tonight.
There is no program that we have that takes as much time as Upward Basketball.
Our Practice Attendants are here for 4.5 hours per week for 12-14 weeks.
That means they spend 48 hours a season at the church for Upward Basketball.
Our Coaches give 20-25 hours per season when you factor in practices and games.
Our Kitchen team spends around 24 hours a season at the church for Upward Basketball.
Our scoreboard attendants similarly spend 20-24 hours a season at the church for Upward Basketball.
Our referees typically spend 24 hours a season, unless they are doing more than 2-3 games a Saturday, which has been often for some.
And keep in mind, when you hear how many hours a coach puts in or a referee puts in or a scoretable attendant puts in, we have many people wearing multiple hats throughout the season.
All in all, when I sat down an did the math:

From the time the first practice begins and the time the final whistle blows on the last Saturday of the season, it takes 1,783 man hours to execute an Upward Basketball season.

That is a conservative estimate that doesn’t even factor in the administrative legwork beforehand.
It doesn’t factor in evaluations, coach training, half-time devotions or the Award Ceremony.
That is just the basketball portion of the year.
This leads me to my second point.
2. We cannot sustain the program with our people.
There has not been a year since I came to our church that we have been able to sustain this program with our church members or even those one degree removed.
Inevitably, we end up relying on coaches—arguably the most important position in all of Upward Basketball—that we do not know well, if at all.
This has led to all sorts of friction year after year, which ends up harming the hopes we have of making disciples through the program.
The elephant in the room tonight that we have to acknowledge is that this program has been too big for us for some time.
Even in our efforts to shrink it down over the years, we found ourselves having to compromise on our desire to staff the program with Seaford people again and again.
We can honestly say this is not the case with other outreach programs in our church.
The Egg Dash, VBS, Trunk or Treat and the Christmas Lights Program have not run up against these same issues.
While we will still allow believers that we know well to help us with some of these endeavors, it isn’t necessary just to try and keep them afloat.
The reasons for why it is hard to staff might be many, but it is not for lack of effort.
This spring and summer, our Children’s Director tried to recruit our members early.
We really have not made any ground.
If we were to have this season, we would be headed for the same conundrum that we face every year.
3. This opens the door for a recovery of the good portion.
This starts from the top down.
Your pastors, for way too long—and we blame no one but ourselves—have given up the ministry of the Word and prayer, in order to referee basketball games and manage the personalities of difficult coaches.
Our job is to feed the sheep and to care for the sheep.
And we need more time to do it.
We have sheep caught in sin.
We have sheep who need help dying.
We have sheep who need help raising the dears ones God has placed in their care.
We have sheep who need help reaching their unbelieving adult child.
We have sheep who are battling cancer.
We have sheep who need counseling.
We have sheep who need to be raised up to be leaders in this church.
We have sheep leading now that need to be poured into.
And everything I said just now IS the ministry of prayer and Word.
It is the charge God has given us to help you all receive the good portion.
Peter and the apostles could not give up the ministry to serve widows.
We cannot do it to run a basketball league.
If the pastors are able to be more focused on feeding the sheep and equipping them for ministry, then the entire church is going to being to feel the effects in a good and healthy way.
For our members, we want to free you up in order to be able to receive the good portion.
Again—we want you to have time to attend Sunday School and/or a discipleship group.
We want you to come to Midweek.
We want you to be free to serve in the full array of ministries in the church.
But we also want you to have time with your kids and grand-kids.
We want husbands and wives to have time to be in love.
We want dads to have time to lead their home in family worship.
We want families to eat together and have a little preview of the Lamb’s Wedding Supper right there in their home as often as possible.
We want you to have time to read good books, and be convicted and work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
Church—letting go of this league does not provide a silver bullet for recovering the good portion.
But it does open a major door of opportunity.
It opens a door of opportunity that is 1783 man hours wide and three months long.

CONCLUSION

Basketball leagues come and go.
Programs come and go.
Seasons come and go.
But if we listen to Jesus tonight, He told Martha there is one thing that is not going to be taken away—and that is the good portion that Mary had chosen.
He did not just mean that He wasn’t going to make Mary get up and clean the kitchen.
He meant that she was receiving eternal things at His feet.
And those things will never be taken.
I hope you know how much I love you, church.
I hope you know how much this has weighed on your pastors and your Upward Leadership Team.
And I hope you know that I would not forsake my usual granular approach, unless I felt this was an absolutely imperative move for this church body.
I ask THREE BRIEF THINGS FROM YOU AS WE END
Pray to the Lord as often as you remember in the coming days and thank Him for all the fruit that has come from Upward over the years and pray for more fruit to come.
We saw some come to Christ and baptized.
We planted a lot of seeds.
Heaven will tell the stories of exactly what the last 22 years meant.
Pray for Christ to be glorified in all that has been done.
Pray for our community who will be sad about this.
I know we will have disappointed people in the community just like we probably have disappointed people in this room.
We will be sending out a message to all of them tomorrow and we already have gracious responses prepared for those with questions.
If people take to social media to say things about us, that’s okay. Don’t fight. Don’t try to defend.
The Lord is with us and He has us covered.
We don’t need to avenge ourselves in any way.
We can’t expect people who don’t go to our church—especially non-Christians—to understand our decision.
Please let me finish my vacation.
This summer has been pretty long for all of us.
I am very tired and my family has not seen nearly enough of me.
I am going to take my boy to Six Flags tomorrow for his birthday.
I am going to watch TV with my wife and drink tea.
We are going to eat some family dinner together.
We are going to worship at a friend’s local church on Sunday.
I will come back to the office Monday and I need to spend my day prepping a sermon on Acts 18:23-28.
I cannot talk about this on Monday.
Come Tuesday, if you want to being reaching out to myself or the other members of our team to try and understand the thought process more, I will be happy to have some conversation about it.
You can’t say everything in a sermon.
Thank you in advance for allowing me to go back on Stay-Cation.
That is all I have for tonight folks.
But I want my last words to be a reference to the words of our Lord.
“Seaford, Seaford—let us not be distracted with much serving. Let us remember the good portion at the feet for Christ. It will never be taken away.”
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