What is More Attractive? (4)

What is More Attractive than sitting at the feet of Jesus?

We often hear phrases thrown around the church. Particularly in the modern church, many have adopted the philosophy of Christian life that says Jesus is Savior, and that Christianity is not about rules, its about relationship. Or we hear, it is not a religion, it is a relationship. In a past sermon, I gave some dictionary definitions of religion, and we do indeed have a religion called Christianity. The problem, I believe, that people often have is that for some, the rules and regulations are what it is all about. 

Now, I perhaps would rephrase that common saying, “It’s not a religion, its a relationship”. Instead, I would say it is a religion based upon a relationship. Our relationship to God, His son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, is the basis of the religion we call Christianity. Now it can get a little tricky regarding the rules part. People do not want to think of Christian living as being about the rules, but about the relationship. Again, it is a religion based upon a relationship, and almost every relationship we have has rules. 

Some are written down, such as the relationship between employee and employer, or lawyer and client, or student and school. But many of the common rules of relationship are not written down. A rule of a relationship with a good friend may be that they have some strange greeting ritual when they see each other. There may be an unwritten rule in a marriage that you call when you are going to be late. It may not be written down, but it is a rule nevertheless, and if you don’t believe me, try not calling when you are running late and see what happens!

I think that because we have rules in all relationships, some written and many unwritten, we sometimes have difficulty in our relationship with God regarding the rules he would have us follow in order to keep the relationship. People have perceived rules that they think must be part of this faith because someone told them so, or because that is what their tradition dictates. But my premise this morning is that the only rules that we must learn and obey regarding Christian life and service are those found in the book. 

Believe me, we have enough of a task trying to follow the rules in the book that we could really do without many of the made up rules out there. Now, I’m going to list some of the “made up rules” that people often think are required parts of Christian service, but you could not point to a scripture proving it. I know this will rock some boats, but if I am wrong about these not being required by scripture, let me know. 

Here is the list: Things that individuals must do to be a good Christian (not all-inclusive):

Be in a visible ministry such as teaching

Be poor

Be rich

Put family after serving the church

Things that the church must do:

Have a Sunday school (has only been around 150 years or so)

Have Wednesday night program

Have a building (or pews)

Put on a carnival

Own a coffee pot

Have an altar call

And so on. Now, to be clear, I am not saying any of these things is bad. Especially the coffee pot. What I am saying is that our understanding of what the church is and what it should do are all too often shaped not by a good understanding of scripture, but by tradition or those unwritten rules that come not from God. You see, we do not find in scripture s sample bylaws for the church, or an activity roster of things we ought to be doing. You may be able to make a pragmatic argument why we should do any of those things, but you could not make a case from scripture that says we must do them. Now, even though none of those things are required of the church by scripture, people have left churches because the church was not doing something that was in that category of unwritten rules, and not only are they unwritten rules, they are man-made rules.

So how can we know, then, what rules we should be keeping, the rules that God has given us, and how can we know the difference between what God requires of us and what man insists we ought to do? I’m glad you asked! We study God’s Word, and we sit at the feet of the apostles’ and of Jesus, and of God himself, and we get into His word. And hopefully, we will take delight in studying His word, and like the Psalmist, we would praise him when we learn his righteous rules.

(running commentary on this)

Psalm 119:1–16 ESV

Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord! Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways! You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. Oh that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes! Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous rules. I will keep your statutes; do not utterly forsake me! How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes! With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.

There are many scriptures to go to that speak of our need to study God’s word, And I chose this one because of the joy the psalmist conveys in his desire to both know and keep God’s statutes or righteous rules. He says that it is a blessing to walk in the law of the Lord. Now if we could see, like the Psalmist, that God’s statues are for our good, and if we could learn to appreciate his ways, we would not seeing Christian life as some strict overbearing thing but instead see it as a joy. 

The lie of Satan has always been that God is keeping you from some happiness or joy by imposing rules for living. Satan wants you to think serving God is some drudgery. But when we learn the ways of God, by learning his word, by being taught about His ways, we enjoy great blessing, peace, and joy!

It is the great desire of most people to feel understood. We want people to understand where we are coming from, to know that someone is listening to not only what you were saying, but what you meant. This can only happen through dialogue and it takes hard work to get to know someone. And so it is with our relationship with God. We want to be understood, and God understands us better than anyone. But we also should desire to understand God! If we endeavor to get to know Him, our relationship with Him will improve, and so will our relationships with others. 

This is the great lesson we find Jesus teaching to Martha in Luke 10

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.”

Martha, in her hospitality mode, is not doing anything wrong in her actions of serving and showing hospitality was customary. As hostess, she was expected to so a certain amount of work. So in and of itself, there was nothing wrong with that. But she gets irritated that her sister Mary is just sitting at the feet of Jesus, soaking in the wisdom of his teaching. And this in and of itself was a bit unusual. Not only was Mary, in that culture, expected to be serving with the other women, but women were not taught by rabbis.  

In fact, some of the rabbis had written that it was a waste of time to teach a woman. But Jesus throws out that idea, clearly affirming God’s desire to have women learn his ways. I’m telling you, the greater women’s movement in history is the ministry of Jesus Christ. He demonstrated that women are valued by God and therefore should be taught his ways. 

Martha was probably keeping the custom of the time that when a guest was in the house, you gave them the best of what you had. Rather than hide the good stuff, they served the good stuff to the guest. So Martha probably has out her best spices and perhaps she ran to the market for some extras she normally would not have. But there was a guest, so Martha was doing her best to be a good hostess. So once again, I want to make something very clear: Just because something is good, it does not mean it is our best priority. We can have great intentions, put on a great show of hosting or serving and miss what was most important. 

So Martha takes her case to Jesus. She not only is reproving her sister, she is reproving Jesus, because she expects him to intervene in what concerns her. One person wrote of this account that Martha tells Jesus what he must say, while Mary listens to what Jesus wishes to say. There are many clear lessons in this passage, and one of those lessons is that sometimes we think we are doing the best thing for Jesus in our serving but what he really desires is for us to draw near to him. 

Now, Jesus does not chastise Martha. The language here shows a gentleness. Martha, Martha. Jesus is pleased that Mary is listening to Him. He is telling Martha that Mary has actually made the right choice. Many of you have a favorite preacher on the radio or TV, or a favorite author you love to read because they have a way that speaks clearly to you. Imagine they were coming to visit, they were going to be our guest speaker in the pulpit, and spend some precious time with us during a lunch after the service. 

I can imagine that to honor this special guest, many of our ladies would be in the kitchen, preparing the meal, getting the things set out. Doing so, they may turn on the speakers in the kitchen and hear parts of what is being said, but much it will be missed in the business of the food prep. And imagine some of those ladies got irritated because other ladies stayed in here to hear the message, and frustrated by this, they finally come in to grab a few women by the arm to pull them out. 

And imagine the speaker stops, and looks over to see what is going on, and asks, and one of the ladies said, well, we are working hard back there for the meal, and these other women are just sitting there! The speaker, very politely says, it’s ok. Just serve cold cuts, or don’t worry about food at all. I have some important things I am teaching here, and as much as there is kindness in your serving me, I would really just rather have you hear this important message. 

Now, I realize the illustration is not perfect, but I just want us to understand clearly what Jesus was saying to Martha. Sometimes we get so caught up in doing the things that people can see, that we forget that we also need to be. We are to be human beings, not human doings. Being with Jesus is the priority. And so, if someone were beautifully serving the church in some way, whether physical work, or whatever, but were not taking time to personally be taught by Christ, we ought to encourage that growth over and above that service. 

Some of you know I am a lawn guy. I used to mow my own, but now our HOA does it, and I have less control over it. When I mowed my own lawn, it would bug me if my lawn was not mowed, but sometimes, if my time was crunched, I would have to choose between mowing and my family time, or mowing and doing the study I need to do for a teaching, so sometimes I would have to let the lawn go. It was a hard choice, but I must choose what is more important. How much more so is it important to encourage each other to put our relationship with Jesus as a top priority. And that means we must spend time learning what God’s Word says. 

If we want to know Jesus better, we must be in God’s word. Unless we are in God’s word, our understanding of what we ought and ought not to do could be wrongly influenced by people who make up rules about what we are to do that are not found in God’s word. We may be subject to our understanding of what the church should do, not based upon what Scripture says we must do, but based upon what we have traditionally done in church.  

So we must be willing to sit at the feet of Jesus, learning the Word, so that we can rightly determine what is most important to God. We must do it so that we can know Him better, since knowing someone well is a key to a healthy relationship, and we must do it so that we can experience the joy of the Psalimst, who wrote so eloquently about how wonderful it is to know God’s ways and to follow them. 

One pastime of Christians is to read the Bible and think of how much better we would have done if we had been there. We could be hard on Martha because Jesus corrected her, but we had better realize that often we do much worse than she did. We very often put anything and everything in our lives before our study of God’s word. But Martha is a good example to us nevertheless. Why is that? Because Martha listened to what Jesus said and learned from it. Look at how Martha changed by the time Jesus came calling upon the death of her brother Lazarus:

John 11:17–27 ESV

Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 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.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

In this case, it was Mary who stayed at the house, and Martha who went out to Jesus. And Martha makes a great statement of faith here. Does this remind you of another great statement of faith? 

Matthew 16:13–17 ESV

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

How can we know Jesus better? By knowing the Word of God. And how can we discern what is the best things to give our attention to? By knowing the Word of God. How can we love Him better? By knowing the Word of God. And if we do this, we can rejoice with the Psalmist about the joy of keeping his righteous rules.