One Thing

Introduction

Good morning everyone - haven’t spoken here in a while.

How blessed were we by Pastor Joel last week, thought it was an amazing message - and what a prophecy over our church.

But I want to talk about something that our very own Nick said from the stage last week because he asked a very important question to us.

He said why is it that we generally seem to lose the fire as we mature in faith? Why is it that as we grow older it’s like the fire seems to almost dim?

And during the week I really sat on this question and it almost started to bother me because of just how much it spoke into a reality that we all experience.

That as we grow older and more mature in the faith - it’s almost like we reach a point where it becomes routine, it becomes tiring, it becomes too costly to maintain.

We look at fire and passion as being more a young person’s thing - they have the time, they have the energy, they have the resources to be able to express faith to a greater extent.

Why does the work of ministry wear us down so much? Why does faith seem to wear us down the longer we stay in it?

Should’nt it be the longer we walk with Jesus the more on fire we are?

During the week this question really sat with me and almost tormented me - and as I prayed over it God brought me to a familiar story in scripture that’s close to my heart and it’s something that I want to share with you today - which I believe speaks into the heart of this issue. A simple message.

But before we start, let’s pray.

Segment 1: From Devotion To Distraction

Luke 10:38–42 ESV

38 Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. 40 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.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

This is a very well known passage in Scripture that I’m sure many of you have heard preached many times and in many ways over the years.

It’s about Jesus and his encounter with two sisters - Mary and Martha in their house. And it’s a very short, but very profound passage.

However one of the things that I’ve noticed is that when this passage is preached - there’s often an angle preached that I feel isn’t actually the MAIN point of the passage.

Alot of the times when this passage is preached, it’s preached from the angle of SERVING too much.

Like the point of the passage is don’t serve too much because it burns you out, it wears you down, it makes you a bit of a Martha.

But the thing is that nowhere in this passage does Jesus actually say that - or even imply it either.

You see the focus of the passage in v40 was that Martha was distracted with much serving. The focus is not on the fact that she was serving - the focus is on the fact that she was DISTRACTED WITH serving.

It is not about the serving - it’s about what the serving has BECOME. It’s what the serving has turned INTO for Martha.

It reveals a painful truth that every Christian needs to be aware of: Activity isn’t the same thing as Intimacy

It IS possible for us to be SERVING God while drawing further away from Him.

And this is such an important place to start - because sometimes I think that we can come into a place where we assume that just because we are serving God, or doing holy, set apart things - we are immediately drawing closer to God.

Like I’m serving God, I’m IN church, I’m GIVING offering, I’m DOING Christian things

And we sometimes say or think that as if it’s same thing as being close to God - as if it’s the same thing as being NEAR God. But if there’s anything we need to catch from this story it’s that this is simply not the case.

Segment 2: The Complaint

You know so much is revealed in Martha’s complaint to the Lord in v40 “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”

Pay special attention to this complaint that Martha raises - because at first we can be tempted to treat it like any other reasonable frustration that is raised. “Sure it may be wrong, but at least it’s understandable, we can see where Martha’s coming from.”

But actually - what it reveals is a subtle but crucial shift in Martha’s heart. She has gone from serving Jesus to expecting Jesus to serve her. The last part of the complaint is a command levelled at Jesus. “Tell her then to help me.”

This is what faith becomes when we have Activity WITHOUT Intimacy

The focus has shifted from Jesus to her. God’s no longer the centre - He’s now a support.

It’s no longer following God, it’s now trying to fit Him in

It’s the difference between praying “God, what’s your plan?” and “God, here’s my plan”.

And the REAL danger with this is that - it still looks right on the outside, even though it is becoming more and more barren on the inside. It has an appearance of godliness but with no power.

Activity without Intimacy. Practise without Proximity. It looks like faith - but it’s missing the fire.

And I just know that the enemy has blinded us in this area - “as long as you’re serving God, that’s enough. As long as you live a vaguely Christian life, that’s enough. As long as you have Christian practise in your life - it’s enough.”

And “it’s enough” becomes the anthem of our faith - so much so that we stop PURSUING the presence, we stop PURSUING the encounters. We lose our desire to sit at the feet of Jesus and just soak in His presence which is how so many of us started off.

And THAT’S how we lose the fire - THAT’S how the passion ends up going. The passion and fire will leave the moment we step out of encounter, the moment we’ve had enough of sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Do you know one of the things that I find saddest about this passage? It was actually Martha was the one that welcomed Jesus into the house! You’d think from this passage and Martha’s response that it would have been Mary that invited Jesus into the house.

But no, in v38 it says that “A woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.”

And I think this is important to note because it shows that Martha had the best of intentions. It was not like she was just grumbling from the start because MARY invited Jesus in and now she had to do all the work - nono, this was MARTHA’S idea.

And this is heartbreaking for me - because it really paints this image of a person who starts off with the best of intentions, starts off with a pure heart and pure devotion to God; and then just somewhere along the way gets distracted (by serving nonetheless) - and loses that encounter, steps out of that presence, loses sight of the main thing.

And I do wonder how many Christians started off with that burning passion, with a bright fire, that desire to serve, with a desperation for the encounter, and a desire for the presence; and who now are almost in a place where faith is no more than a routine, a faith that’s “just enough”.

ILLUSTRATION: Fuel Prices and Electric Cars

You know just a fun fact about me - a couple of weeks ago I would be caught dead driving an electric car. In my mind, that’s basically just a glorified golf cart. But this recent fuel price conundrum has made me realise just how much money I’ve been spending on fuel.

And so I was chatting to my friend about potentially buying an electric car one day - and he’s the biggest sucker for electric cars so he was all gushing on about how not lame they are and all this other nonsense which I was basically tuning out.

And then I asked the question “well what’s the worst experience that you’ve ever had with your tesla?” And I must have triggered him because he launched into a full on rampage about this one time that him and his family were set to go on a trip down to margaret river - and so before they went down they parked at one of the big shopping centres with those fast chargers. They figured that they’d charge the car up to 100% while they went in to go shopping. And so that’s exactly what they did.

So they finished their shopping packed into the car and were driving down to margaret river, everyone sleeping peacefully in the car - they were halfway in the middle of nowhere when he got a low battery indicator on his car. And he was like what on earth? Didn’t I charge it at the shops? And he came to the realisation that in the rush to get into the shops - he must have not securely attached the plug and so the charging never started. The battery never filled up.

So long story short - he’s in the middle of nowhere and had to end up borrowing power from the closest house that they could find which took hours to charge from a normal power point.

And this is what I mean, this is what I’m talking about the moment that we step out of encounter, the moment that we leave the presence of God - we unplug from the source of our spiritual power - we can’t be surprised when sometime through our journey of faith the battery begins to run flat - things start to feel way tougher than they should, service starts to get more taxing and heavy than it should, sacrifice becomes more burdensome than it should be.

Because - hear me out. We can’t run on empty and expect power.

The term may change over the generations - Fatigue, Weariness, Burn out - but the heart of the issue remains the same, Christians unplugging from their power source, stepping out of encounter, stepping out of the presence.

Segment 3: One Thing

But that’s what this passage is all about - and Jesus addresses it in the crux of this passage when he responds to Martha in Luke 10:41–42 “41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.””

Listen to the point that Jesus makes because it’s so easy to miss this one if we have the wrong reading of the passage.

Jesus is drawing a contrast - Martha you are anxious and troubled about MANY things, but ONE thing is necessary. Did you catch that? MANY things to ONE thing.

It’s not about serving too much, it’s not about resting too little - it’s as simple as understanding that there is ONE irreplacable thing in our faith, ONE irrevocable priority, ONE THING that is necessary in our faith.

That ONE THING is keeping our connection to the power source, the ONE THING is staying in encounter, the ONE THING is abiding, soaking in the Presence of God.

Above all other things - this is the ONE thing that is necessary.

In other words - it is entirely possible to be serving like Martha, busy around the house, preparing food for the Lord - while being focused on the ONE THING that matters.

And STILL have a thriving, passionate, fiery faith. Why? Because you are serving out of a place of encounter, you’re serving out of The Presence.

Because you are holding fast to the ONE THING that is necessary.

Pastor Joel spoke powerfuly about this last week when he talked about the anointing and said that if we want to see transformation in our families, if we want to see movement in our workplaces, if we want to see the people around us experience a touch of God - then the most important thing for us to do is to make sure that WE are spending time obtaining the anointing.

Because it flows out from US - it comes from OUR connection with the Lord, it comes out of OUR place of Encounter, it comes straight out of the secret place that we have with the Lord.

If you are wondering why your life hasn’t been transformed by the power of God - it’s time to first seek the Presence of God.

The ONE THING that is necessary.

Segment 4: The enemy’s plan

You know the way the enemy works is that he will do anything to pull us out of that presence - he will do anything to take us out of encounter, to pull us out from under the anointing. That’s his goal - that will ALWAYS be his goal.

We have to realise that in order to do that - he doesn’t need to destroy our faith, he just needs to distract us. He just needs to take us away from that ONE thing.

Instead of Presence - make it about performance.

Instead of Listening - let’s make it about labour.

Instead of Being - let’s make it about doing.

Honestly - what I’ve noticed is that the devil never comes after your activity first. He comes after your intimacy.

He never just outright cripples you from serving, or from DOING Christian things - he comes after your source of joy in service. Comes after your source of power in faith. He comes for your secret place with God - he does everything he can to pull you out of it.

Because by doing that not only does he render any ministry you’re doing ineffective - he removes your power to witness, he removes the miraculous, he removes the spark from your walk with Christ.

And we know this from John 15:5 “5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

And that’s always going to be the enemy’s plan - to part you from the source. Performance without Presence, Labour without Listening, Doing without Being - a form of godliness yet with no power.

Segment 5: The Good Portion

And that’s why the way that Jesus ends this encounter is important - “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

The word portion is the word meris - it’s inheritance language. And so what Jesus is saying is that Mary has chosen the right inheritance

And the reason is his next sentence - because it is something that will not be taken away from her - in other words, what Mary has chosen lasts. Sitting in encounter, Soaking in the presence - this is something that LASTS, it’s something that has ENDURING value.

It’s not temporal - it can’t be taken away from her.

The circumstances and the trials of life, the difficulties and the valleys, they can’t shake the profound effect that an encounter with God has with a person, they can’t remove a person from the presence of God. It’s something that cannot be taken away.

Mary has chosen something that cannot be dimished, cannot be interrutped, cannot be removed by what’s happening around her - or by what’s happening TO her.

There is a PERMANENCE to encounter, there is a PERMANENCE to the effect of the presence of God on a person’s life.

That joy, that peace, that passion that one receives from sitting with God - from soaking in His presence, the world simply cannot take that away.

And this is the call that I want to place over the church today. You know one of the things I truly love about this church is that this is a home - it’s not a show. And you hear me talk about it so much from the stage.

And one of the beautiful things about that is so many of us are serving the Lord. Service teams, worship teams, media production, cafe, pastoral zones, teaching, Helpers- and so many more ministries. This is truly a place where all of us serve and give so much to the house. I think more than 60-70% of the house is serving God - a number that we want to see grow.

And that’s what gives this message even more weight for me. That’s what makes this message even more urgent to me.

See Martha is not a biblical character to be demonised - she welcomed Jesus in, she had the best of intentions, she served with all her heart, she gave everything she had. And she had great faith as well - when her brother Lazarus died as recorded in John 11 - it was Martha who had great faith in Jesus to resurrect him “I believe you are Jesus, the messiah, the son of God” This is a great woman of God.

But just in this one instance - she became distracted, she lost sight of the important thing, she stepped out of the encounter, her mind drifted to the temporary over the eternal.

She saw the performance over the presence, the labour over the listening, the doing over the being.

And I want us, as a church, to have a moment where we examine our hearts - whether we are serving actively or not. To ask ourselves if we have stepped out of a place of encounter, whether we have stopped desiring the presence.

Have we wandered from the altar?

And I don’t think it’s hard to discern whether or not we’ve left that place of encounter, that place of the presence. I think it’s as simple as being honest with ourselves in a few simple questions:

Have we started to grow weary in our service? Has the fire been growing dimmer lately?

Do we find ourselves saying that we “HAVE to” more than we “GET to.”

Is there still a joy that fills us as we love and serve his church, this church?

Are we too busy to seek Him, and sit at His feet? Have the worries and busyness of life taken us away from Him?

You know here at HFTC we want to build what we call - the sweetest smelling church. A place where the love of God is evident as it should be, where people walk into our home and just feel enveloped by the love and kindness of God expressed through us, the church. A place where God’s presence can be felt because nobody is here because they HAVE to be, but everybody is here because they GET to be.

Where people serve one another with a willingness and with a fervency that comes from the LOVE that God provides to us.

And my friends - the only way we are going to build a home like this - is if we sit first - then serve.

ILLUSTRATION: Amy

You know, for many ministers, they can remember the sort of instance or time that God called them. Some have it in a dream, vision, some get prophesied over. Mine was a bit different - mine was because of a person.

It was when I was in high school and just a member in a small youth group that I belonged to at the time. And there was a girl in the youth group - let’s just call her Jess for privacy sake. Jess was always an incredibly bubbly girl, filled with life, filled with laughter. Everywhere she went she was just this sort of bright light. She was loud, sure, but it was life - and she was a Christian, she loved God, she was serving, involved in this small youth group. We were good friends - I loved having her around.

Unfortunately there were some older christian leaders in the youth group that didn’t like her. She was too loud, too noisy, too happy. They didn’t like the way she created a scene, thought that she was brash and annoying. And so they started to talk about her - calling her names, gossiping about her, demeaning her efforts, refusing to talk to her, eventually isolating her.

And eventually they succeeded in their task. Her light dimmed, her smile faded, she became less bright, I saw the life drain out of her. She stopped serving, then she stopped attending - and eventually she left the faith completely. And despite me and a few others trying to encourage her to stay on - she had made her mind up.

All because she met some Christians who were not serving out of a place of encounter, she met some Christians who were not soaked in the presence - whos hands were working for God, but whos hearts were far from Him.

You know that was a key moment in my life. God placed a conviction in my heart from that day on - He said - build a church that would have loved her as I do.

And you know, church, from the bottom of my heart - the only way that we can do that is if we sit before we serve.

Is if we have our eyes set on the Presence, over Performance.

Is if our hearts are for encounter, not for busyness.

Altar Call

It’s not just about service - it’s about faith, it’s about life, it’s about family, it’s about workplace.

Ps Joel talked about operating out of that anointing - well this is how we obtain it.

Call up anyone who knows that they may have wandered out of the presence, out of encounter - and needs to come back for a fresh touch of God. A fresh encounter.

Salvo Altar Call?