Distracted

Key Elements

In Luke 10:38-40, Jesus visited the home of Martha and Mary, and while Martha was distracted by preparing and serving, Mary sat at His feet learning. Martha expressed her frustration and Jesus pointed out that Mary had made the better choice.

Main Idea: Freedom from distraction comes not through doing more, but through being still—choosing intentional times with Jesus that create rhythms in our lives that shape and transform us.

I want my audience to break free from the pattern of distraction in their lives by intentionally sitting at the feet of Jesus daily.

Intro

So, last week we began a new sermon series that we are calling Mind Games and we are spending the next few weeks talking about how we deal with the mind games that the enemy, the devil, plays with us. And we began by talking about being transformed. We looked at Romans 12:1-2, and we said to be truly transformed into the people God has created us to be, we must surrender our thoughts to God and allow Him to renew our minds daily. And when it comes to this transformation, we have a choice: we can choose to conform to the patterns of the culture around us or we can choose to allow God to transform us. And I really believe that one of the major things that keeps us from experiencing the transformed life God wants for us is our constant distraction. In this day and time, we are constantly distracted now more than ever. Like right now, some of us are fighting distraction. In fact, it would be fun, maybe not fun, I would probably get discouraged pretty quickly, it would be interesting to be able to learn what some of you are distracted by right now in this worship service. Maybe some of you are hungry and you’re thinking “how long is he going to preach today?” Maybe you’re tired and you’re thinking “maybe he’ll tell a joke or a funny story so I don’t nod off during the sermon.” Maybe the sermon notes in your worship guide are distracting you because you’re jumping ahead and trying to figure out what word goes in what blank before we get there in the sermon this morning (and some of you have told me that’s a game you play every Sunday). I don’t know what it is that’s distracting you, all I know is that we are constantly distracted. And I’ll admit, this is a major struggle for me. I have to fight my mind thinking about all the thousand things I have to do when I’m in a conversation with someone so I can be present in that moment with them.

Think about it, there’s so much that is competing for our attention. There’s over 6,000 movies and shows on Netflix alone and that’s just one of multiple streaming services available. There’s around 5 million video games waiting to be conquered. There’s 9 million apps you can download. There are so many opportunities for distraction in our lives.

In fact, the average person will spend over 6 hours on their screens every day. And so this morning I thought it would be interesting to look at that for a moment. So every Sunday morning, I get a notification on my Iphone that tells me how much time I spent on my phone the past week. And I’m going to show you mine here in a minute, but I thought it would be fun to pick random people out of the congregation this morning and show everyone what you spent time looking at on your phone, I’m just kidding. No, I had some people this week screen shot their screen time report and send it to me and with their permission, of course, I just wanted to put it up on the screen today to give us some examples. Not going to tell you who they are but here we go: (show slides of screen time).

When we really begin to look at it, what we discover is that most of us battle constantly being distracted by something. And it may not be your phone. There may be other things, my guess multiple things, in your life that keep you living in a pattern of distraction. And for us to live the transformed life God has called us to live, we have to learn how to break the pattern of distraction. We have to have more space in our lives to listen to what the Holy Spirit of God is saying to us.

Message

So, every week, when I’m studying and preparing the message for the next Sunday there’s a process I go through. Different pastors have different processes, some are similar, some are different. This is how I was taught to do it. Every week, I take the text of scripture we are going to be looking at and at the top of my sermon I have 3 sentences. The first one is a one sentence summary of what is going on in the text. The second sentence is the main idea that I believe God is trying to communicate from the text. This is what you see most every Sunday in your notes. The third is what I believe God wants us to walk away with. And as we talk about being distracted this morning, this is what I’ve been praying for us this week: That we will be able to break free from the pattern of distraction in our lives by intentionally sitting at the feet of Jesus daily. Now, I’ve just given away part of the sermon, because that’s how we do it. If we want to live the transformed life God has called us to live, if we want to defeat the enemy and his mind games, if we want to live less distracted by the culture around us and live transformed by God, then here’s what we have to realize-Freedom from distraction does not come through doing more, it comes through being still—it comes through choosing intentional times with Jesus that create rhythms in our lives that shape and transform us.

And this morning, you hear that and you’re automatically thinking, I don’t have time to be still. But the truth is we really do. And if we will, then we will learn how to break free from the pattern of distraction in our lives that so many of us have fallen into.

So, this morning I want us to look together at a story from Luke 10:38-42. Let’s read it together, beginning in vs. 38...

Luke 10 gives us an all too familiar scene. Jesus and His disciples are making their way to Jerusalem and they enter a village called Bethany, which is right outside of Jerusalem, and they stop at the home of some friends-Martha, her sister Mary, and their brother Lazarus. Now this visit isn’t planned. They haven’t had time to prepare for Jesus and His disciples so you can imagine the stress and anxiety that comes upon them when Jesus shows up because they want to do their best to host Jesus and His disciples. Nothing about this moment is sinful or wrong, but Jesus uses this moment to expose a quiet danger that still exists in all of us, even as followers of Jesus, it’s living a distracted life.

So, looking at this story in Luke 10 today, we see three realities Jesus reveals that help us recognize—and break free from—the distracted life. First, we notice...

1. Distraction begins when doing becomes more important that dwelling. (vs. 38-40)

So, we have a tendency to read this story and automatically place Martha in a category of wrong here. But that’s really not the case. I want you to notice something from the very outset of this story-Martha welcomed Jesus and His disciples into her home. So, from the very beginning here, we notice that Martha wanted Jesus and His disciples present in her home. She wanted to host them. Both Martha and Mary loved Jesus, they had a special relationship with Him. It’s likely that this wasn’t the first time that Jesus and His disciples had visited their home. How did she know that they were coming to their home? Well, she didn’t. Jesus is probably stopping by unannounced with at least 12 disciples. And Martha, having a friendship and a love for Jesus, kindly invites them to her home. And with that invitation comes the need to host them well-which of course involves preparing a meal. And in the midst of the preparation, Martha gets overwhelmed because all of a sudden all of these things are coming at her. So, let’s start there. Martha loves Jesus and I would go as far to say is a believer in Jesus. She’s not doing anything wrong. She’s serving Jesus-she’s preparing a meal, she’s doing her best to make He and His disciples comfortable, she’s serving. Yet, Jesus points out that she’s distracted. That word in vs. 40 “distracted” used to describe Martha, literally means “to be pulled away; to be over-occupied.” So, let’s pause there before we go any further, don’t you feel that way most of the time? I do. Doesn’t the very definition of that word perfectly describe most of us even as followers of Jesus? You see, distraction begins when doing becomes more important than dwelling.

So, here’s what we need to realize...

a. Good intentions can often lead to great distraction.

Martha’s problem wasn’t that she was doing things for Jesus. Her problem wasn’t that she was serving. It was that her doing had replaced dwelling. She was so busy doing things for Jesus that she forgot to first pause and dwell in His presence. She had good intentions. She was showing hospitality to her Savior. She was expressing love to Jesus by serving Him but in the midst of doing all of that, she was missing out on what was better-being in the presence of Jesus Christ. Think about this, The Messiah was in the next room and she was preoccupied by all that had to be done. And some times that’s our story as followers of Jesus as well. You may be here today and you’re a follower of Jesus, you’ve surrendered your heart and life to Him as Savior and Lord. And you’re serving Him all that you can but you’re living a distracted life. You’re so busy serving, that you haven’t taken the time to sit in the presence of Jesus.

I love what Warren Wiersbe says about this, “what we do with Jesus is far more important than what we do for Jesus.”

And this is the danger we all face.

Pastor Kyle Idleman puts it this way, “Often, it’s not bad things that fragment our attention but good things that keep us from the best thing.”

And I find myself in that situation sometimes as well. We teach, we lead, we serve-all good things and all Godly things, but we get to the point that we are so busy serving that we find ourselves not doing anything well. And before long we become like Martha-distracted by our many tasks, so busy serving God that there’s no room for time with God. And the truth is this, when we spend time with God first, we serve Him more effectively-we are at our best. Good intentions can often lead to great distraction, and...

b. When distraction happens, frustration follows.

Martha is distracted and look at the result, it says in vs. 40...

While Martha is serving, her sister Mary is doing just the opposite. Vs. 39 says that “Mary sat at the Lord’s feet and was listening to what He said.” While Martha is distracted, Mary is dwelling in the presence of Jesus. And the way Luke describes Mary’s state is key here, he says that she was “listening” to Jesus. Literally, she was so focused in, that nothing was taking her attention off of His teaching. This word doesn’t just characterize Mary as a casual observer, it implies understanding what Jesus is saying to the point of obedience. Mary is undistracted by anything going on around her. Jesus has her full attention.

And Martha gets upset. She is serving and Mary is sitting. And this leads to frustration, so much so that she questions Jesus on it. And notice what she says “Lord, don’t you care?” “Jesus, don’t you care about what I’m doing? Does what I’m doing for You matter and that I’m the only one doing it?” And then, she gets a little bossy and commands Jesus to tell her sister to help her. You see, distraction keeps us from dwelling with Jesus, and eventually it causes our hearts to get bitter. When we’re not dwelling with Jesus because we’re doing so much for Jesus, it causes frustration to mount up inside of us. And before long, it becomes all about us. We begin to resent others who we think are not doing as much for Jesus as we are. We begin to see ourselves and our ministries as superior to everyone else around us and if we’re not careful, it leads us to question if God even sees or cares about what we’re doing for Him.

Distraction doesn’t just exhaust us, it changes us. It turns servants of Jesus into critics and joy into resentment.

Man, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been there. Even as a pastor, I’ve gotten so busy preparing sermons and doing all the things that ministry brings your way that I find myself not spending time at the feet of Jesus. And before long, I find myself frustrated and irritable and not doing anything well. And it’s all because of the distraction I allow into my life. Distraction begins for us when doing becomes more important than dwelling.

A second reality Jesus reveals is...

2. Distraction reveals a divided and anxious heart. (vs. 41-42)

I truly believe that I have undiagnosed ADHD. I’m not trying to be funny when I say that. I truly believe that is the case. My attention always seems divided. I can be doing something and one little thing that is happening in the room will distract me. And it happens all the time when I’m up here preaching. Like last week, I was preaching and one of our security team members came in the back door and just stood there. And I thought, “What is going on? Is something wrong? Why is he standing there?” Then, he walked out and came in the doors on the other side. And it got worse.

If I’m in a conversation with you. I have to really work hard at paying attention to what you’re saying because if something is going on around me or other conversations are happening, I find myself getting distracted. It’s not that I’m not interested in what you’re saying. I just get distracted easily. It’s easy for my attention to get divided.

And that’s what distraction reveals about our hearts. Distraction reveals that our hearts are sometimes divided and anxious. In vs. 41, notice how Jesus responds to what Martha says...

Jesus responds to her frustration with grace and compassion. And He identifies what’s really going on-she’s worried and upset about “many things.” There it is “many things.” Distractions, things that are dividing our hearts attention and affection. And when that happens it creates in us, just like it did in Martha, an anxiety that leads to frustration.

You see...

a. Anxiety grows when life pulls us in multiple directions.

And that’s what’s happening here with Martha. Life has all of a sudden gotten really complicated for her. There are unexpected guests and so much has to be done. And she’s doing her best to get it all done but there’s too much to do. And her solution is not to do less, her solution is to get help. She thinks “If she wasn’t the only one doing everything, she wouldn’t be so frustrated.”

And that’s what life does to us as well. It pulls us in this direction and that direction. We have multiple things that pile up on our list week after week. Think about all the distractions that life brings-our families, church, kid’s activities, hobbies-all the things we have committed to. And what happens is we get pulled in this direction and that direction and before long anxiety sets in; and the more we have to get done, the more distracted we get; and the more distracted we get, the more anxious we get; and before long we find that our soul feels fragmented because we are physically present but we feel spiritually scattered.

It’s because we’ve lost sight of what truly matters. Because...

b. Distraction divides our loyalty to what matters.

Martha had become too concerned about earthly things. She had lost sight of what truly mattered. She was so focused on meeting the wrong expectations, that her loyalty had become divided. And this is what Jesus points out to her. He says in vs. 42, “but one thing is necessary.”

“Only one thing matters,” Jesus says. “And that is sitting at My feet.” In a world that celebrates busyness and doing, Jesus makes a radical statement here: there’s only one thing that matters in this life, one thing/person worth giving our loyalty to and it’s Jesus. He is what matters above all.

You see, when our loyalty is divided by the things of this life, when we’ve lost sight of what truly matters, everything seems urgent, everything feels like it deserves first priority. While Martha’s loyalty was divided by distraction, Mary was seeking the only One who mattered, she was sitting at the feet of Jesus her Savior.

And that’s, ultimately what Jesus was pointing Martha back to. He continues and says, “Mary has made the right choice,...” Mary had chosen to sit at the feet of Jesus. She had chosen to take it all in. While Martha had chosen good, Godly things; Mary had made the right or the better choice. She chosen time with Jesus first.

Choosing to be loyal to what matters means choosing to sit at the feet of Jesus first. It means choosing what’s best over what might seem good. Because here’s the truth about the division that distraction brings to our hearts and our minds-our scattered focus becomes not just a habit or a pattern but it develops into a shield against deeper engagement with God.

But here’s the good news, we can break free from the pattern of distraction in our lives. And it happens through this third reality...

3. Breaking free from distraction comes through intentional time with Jesus. (vs. 42)

Now, the key word here is “intentional.” Going back to Mary’s example in this story, we have to choose to spend time at Jesus’ feet. That is an intentional choice that we have to make. You see, breaking free from distraction isn’t about a single moment of insight. If you go home today and go “God, I know I need to spend time with you every day, so tomorrow morning, I’m going to do it. I’m going to get up and get coffee and read a devotion or read some chapters in Your Word.” That’s good and you may do that tomorrow. That’s a good start. But that has to be an intentional choice every day. And some days, it’s going to be easier than others to do that. You see, to break free from the pattern of distraction in our lives, we have to establish regular rhythms of daily spending time with God. And part of doing that means making time with God a priority. The truth is this, we are never going to find time for sitting at Jesus’ feet, we have to make time. And that is going to require sacrifice-maybe putting down our phones, or turning off that show we love to stream, or picking up our Bibles first in the mornings instead of checking email and social media first. If we want to break free from the pattern of distraction in our lives, it requires an intentional choice. And when we make that choice, here’s what that means...

a. Choosing Jesus first realigns us with what’s most important.

Look at what Jesus says in vs. 42, “Mary has made the right choice,...” Some translations say, “Mary has chosen what is better,...” It’s a question of priorities. Yes, there were things that had to be done. Yes, preparations needed to be made for Jesus and His disciples. But what was most important was not making sure those things got done. What was most important was sitting at the feet of Jesus and spending time listening to Him teach. That was what was most important. Martha had chosen to do good things but Mary had chosen what was better. Mary had chosen what was most important. Something interesting about Mary of Bethany, she’s mentioned three times in the Gospels. And what’s interesting is this, every time we see her in the Gospels, she’s in the same spot-at the feet of Jesus. What an incredible legacy and what an incredible example for us.

You see, when we choose Jesus first every day, when we choose to sit at His feet first, it realigns us with what’s most important. And there are so many other things we can choose to give our attention to first, but when we choose time with Jesus first, it gets easier and easier the more we make that choice. The more we choose to focus our fragmented attention on what really matters, the more our brains will help us do that the next time. Every time we choose to sit at the feet of Jesus and give Him our undivided attention, we are reinforcing a new way of thinking.

I’m not saying that all the other things you have going on in your life are not important or real or pressing. I’m asking you to consider that when you’re running on empty, when you’re exhausted and irritable, when you seem to have lost your joy and peace-is all the busyness of your life really serving you and your family well? All those good things in our lives that we need to do will be done better when we choose to sit at the feet of Jesus first.

Choosing Jesus first realigns us with what’s most important and...

b. Choosing Jesus first changes every area of our lives. (“it will not be taken away from her”) (John 11- the raising of Lazarus; Martha is able to have faith Jesus will raise Lazarus possibly because earlier in Luke 10, Jesus taught her to sit at His feet.)

When we slow down and make the intentional choice to spend time with Jesus first, we become more effective in every other area of our lives. Jesus says this at the end of vs. 42...

Mary had chosen to sit at Jesus’ feet and Jesus says to Martha that that opportunity will not be taken away. Now, in the context this a response to Martha’s demand that Jesus ask Mary to help her. Jesus was not going to allow Mary to miss out on the blessing of spending time with Him. But beyond that moment, it shows us that the choice Mary had made would have lasting impact on her life.

You see, when we choose to sit at the feet of Jesus first, it changes every area of our lives. The time we spend at Jesus’ feet doesn’t subtract from our productivity-it multiplies our impact. Because it allows us to operate from fullness rather than emptiness. We become less reactive and more responsive. We operate from a place of peace rather than anxiety. Choosing to sit at the feet of Jesus doesn’t just affect our Sundays but the rest of the week as well and before long, what we begin to see is that we are breaking free from the patter of distraction because stillness with Jesus has become the default of our lives and not the exception.

Something interesting I discovered this week is this. I began to think about Martha, her sister Mary, and their brother Lazarus. One of the most famous stories in the Bible is found in John 11 and it’s the event where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. In John 11, Jesus and His disciples are across the Jordan river ministering and word comes to Him that His friend Lazarus has died. So, after a certain amount of time they make their way to Bethany on the way to Jerusalem and as they approach Bethany, the Bible tells us that Lazarus has been dead for four days. Martha, the same lady in our story today, comes to meet Jesus and she says, “If you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” And what she says next is key, “I believe that you are the Messiah and I know that my brother will rise again.” And Jesus calls Lazarus forth from the tomb.

Could it be, and I believe it is, that Martha learning to surrender her worries to Jesus and sit at the feet of Jesus in Luke 10 is what gave her the faith to proclaim in John 11 that Jesus is the Messiah and has the power to bring her brother, Lazarus, back to life?

When we choose to sit at the feet of Jesus first, it changes every area of our lives.

Closing

So, I want to give us some practical strategies for breaking free from the pattern of distraction: (from Taking Every Thought Captive by Kyle Idleman)

1. Practice the sacred pause: Before reaching for our phones or turning on the tv or checking email or social media, ask yourself, is this drawing me closer to or further away from God’s purpose and presence in my life.

2. Create pattern interrupt moments: planning strategic times in our day where we shut down the distractions and refocus on God.

3. Implement attention training: start with five minutes of undistracted prayer and Bible reading and gradually increase that time every day.

4. Find a friend to hold you accountable.

5. Measure what matters: Journal your moments when you stay focused on God.

The pattern of distraction is broken not by adding more to our lives, but by subtracting everything that keeps us from the One who matters most. And here's what Jesus promises: what you receive in those moments will not be taken away from you. It will transform everything else. You'll move through your days with less anxiety and more peace, less resentment and more joy, less distraction and more purpose.

Let’s commit to live a life focused on Jesus for this is the key to breaking free from the distracted life.