Priorities

INTRODUCTION

Busyness is not just about put in too many hours on the job.

Just as people struggle with overworking, so they can also struggle with staying busy when they are not working their “day job.”

There is a constant state of busyness between work and everything else that fills our “leisure” time.

Think of your to-do list for the weekend: kids’ soccer games, baseball travel teams, fixing the car, going to the grandparents’ house, lunch with friends to plan for, and volunteering at church.

Our calendars fill up with good things, goals we want to achieve, and experiences we want to cherish.

But we can become stressed and overwhelmed with our good things.

The rest that God desires for us is not just from our employment, but sometimes, from the good things in life that crowd our schedules, hearts, and minds.

We need rest from our days off!

One scene in the Gospels describes the struggle with staying busy and missing out on what God desires.

In our passage today, Luke 10:38-42Jesus and his disciples enter the home of two sisters.

One sister, Martha, is the hostess striving to take care of her guests while Jesus teaches.

Martha’s sister is Mary, and she is sitting in front of Jesus and taking in every word he says.

I love this event because when we read it, depending on how we are wired, we will relate to either Martha or Mary.

In this story, you will either think that Mary is a lazy bum who, if she helped her sister, things would get done much faster; or you will believe that Mary is doing the right thing by paying attention to their house guest.

On the other side of the coin, you will look at Martha in one of two ways.

First, you will think she is a whiner who is so focused on everything being PERFECT that she cannot possibly enjoy having company and that her real job is to make everyone as miserable as she is.

Or you will admire Martha’s hard work and meticulous attention to every detail of the home, along with her commitment to making her home an astounding picture that belongs in Southern Living Magazine!

The story of Martha and Mary is much deeper than one sister being an uptight workaholic freak and one sister a lazy bum.

From this encounter, we will see what can happen when busyness is a priority in our lives.

Big Idea of the Message: Our world is obsessed with being busy. It can be hard to slow down and take time to prioritize Jesus.

Let’s begin with Luke 10:38-40.

Luke 10:38–40 (CSB)

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.”

SERMON

Busyness can lead to..

I. Missed opportunities

What an exciting day!

Jesus and His disciples were in town.

Bethany, where this event takes place, is just over the Mt of Olives, about 2 miles east of Jerusalem.

Jesus and His entourage had been doing a lot of traveling; they were coming from Jerusalem, probably in December as the Feast of Dedication for this short visit with Martha and Mary.

Martha sees Jesus and His disciples and invites them into her home.

This has to be an exciting time!

Later in John 11:1-ff we find that Mary and Martha are sisters of Lazarus, whom Jesus would later raise from the dead, and from John 12:2, we will find that Mary washed the feet of Jesus with expensive perfume while wiping them dry with her hair.

This day is a story of two philosophies of life; one seems to be task-oriented.

The task at hand is the most critical priority.

In defense of Martha, she was doing what was culturally expected and accepted; she would be serving the men.

In their culture, women were considered by many to be inferior to men intellectually, physically, and spiritually.

By the way, it was Jesus who corrected that false thinking!

Martha wants everything to be just right, and she wants to be a good hostess and make sure they have something to eat.

This is a hard choice because you want Jesus to see that you are neat because, after all, cleanliness is next to godliness according to...

Oh wait, never mind, that is not in the Bible. 😂

Anyway, I can see the dilemma. Martha is doing what any good Jewish woman would do by working hard to serve the men in her presence.

The other philosophy, which is exhibited by Mary, was to be more focused on the opportunities of life.

Mary’s focus was on prioritizing the opportunity over being task-oriented.

Mary was doing what was not culturally proper; she was sitting at the feet of a teacher learning instead of working in the kitchen!

Let me ask you a question.

For those of us who can be more focused on the task than on the opportunities, how many opportunities have you missed, and how many opportunities have you missed that you never knew that you had?

When I was at Square D, one day, I came home from work a bit discouraged because I did not seem to have many opportunities to tell folks about Jesus.

My wife asked if I prayed about it, and of course, being a good Christian man, I HAD NOT!

I started praying for God to give me opportunities to talk to others about Jesus.

Guess what? The opportunities started to come.

Do you know what is funny? I realized they were there all the time; I was just so focused on other things that I did not see them!

When we allow busyness to take over our lives, we will miss so many opportunities.

One because we are too distracted to see them, and two, because we are too busy to care.

If you are sympathetic toward Martha, you can feel the anger building in Martha as she rushes by Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus.

I wonder if Martha was doing little things to get Mary’s attention!

I bet Mary got the stare of death.

DO you feel the tension building?

Let’s move to verse 40 as we reach the breaking point.

Luke 10:40 (CSB)

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.”

Busyness can lead to a...

II. Bad attitude

This is where it gets funny and probably awkward.

Martha is fuming.

I wonder if other folks were paying attention to her angst?

We are told that Martha was DISTRACTED by her many tasks.

The verb translated DISTRACTED implies that her attention was drawn away by the burden of her duties.

We can understand why she is a little upset; she is doing what she was supposed to be doing, she is working to serve Jesus, while in Martha’s eyes, Mary is sitting there like a lazy bum.

Martha reaches her breaking point.

Have you ever allowed your anger to slow burn until you finally had enough?

When you were in that state, were you enjoying the moment?

Were you happy?

Martha finally approached Jesus and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand.”

I find this to be funny.

Martha goes to her house guest Jesus and asks Him to tell Mary to get with it!

Martha expects Jesus to side with her on this matter because, culturally speaking, she has the high moral ground.

When our priorities are out of alignment, a bad attitude will develop, which, if left unchecked, will lead to hostility!

Here is the issue.

Martha is so preoccupied with her tasks that she is missing time with the Lord.

When we get busy, what is usually the first thing to go? Our time with Jesus.

Martha has allowed the situation to take the joy of serving the Lord from her.

Martha’s issues were that she was worried too much about what Mary was not doing, that the joy of serving Jesus was gone.

Martha was doing valuable work, but she should worry less about Mary and focus on what she was doing for the Lord.

We can spend too much time evaluating the way others serve the Lord.

We look at what we perceive others are NOT doing, and we then get upset and wonder why we are the only ones doing anything.

Can you imagine how joyful it would have been to be able to fix a meal for Jesus and His disciples?

Martha spent her time evaluating and worrying about Mary, that what should be a joyful service opportunity turned into something that made her mad.

Think about how effective the church can be when we all find joy in serving the Lord, and we do not allow what others do or do not do to steal our joy.

The church loses its effectiveness, joy, and energy when we spend our time assessing others in the kingdom.

Instead of being so busy that we lose our joy, let each of us focus on the task we have been called to do instead of worrying about what others are not doing.

On the one hand, it is true that had Mary helped, the work would have been completed more quickly; however, maybe Martha should have simplified what she was doing so she too could enjoy the presence of the Lord!

When we are so busy that our priorities are messed up, we will eventually find ourselves amid a lousy attitude.

Let’s look at a final thought in verses 41-42.

Luke 10:41–42 (CSB)

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.”

Busyness can lead to...

III. The need to re-examine our priorities.

Test

When Martha confronts Jesus, you will notice that Jesus offers a gentle rebuke to Martha.

Jesus does not blame Martha for being concerned about the preparations, but He wants her to see that she needs to re-examine her priorities.

He told her that she was worried and upset about MANY things, and in the process of being anxious and upset, she was missing the boat concerning what was important.

Jesus was trying to shift her focus from busy to better.

Jesus tells Martha that LAZY Mary made the right choice.

The right choice, the proper order of priorities, is to put Jesus first!

We have to maintain a balance.

In fairness to Martha, Mary could have spent a little time helping Martha, but who would have spent time with the guests.

Martha could have simplified so that she could have spent more time with Jesus.

Martha was showing love to Jesus through serving, Mary through discipleship.

In life, we need a balance.

WE cannot be so busy serving as Martha was that we miss the opportunities to grow in our faith and learn more about and from Jesus.

On the other hand, we cannot spend all our time learning and not serving. So there needs to be a balance of learning and serving.

It is easy to be so busy with all the bible studies, worship services, events, and everything the church has to offer, then not have the time to be with Jesus or serve the Lord.

CONCLUSION

The situation that Martha faced is a situation that we all face.

Everyone has obligations, responsibilities, and goals.

Whether it’s our work or our schedule on weekends, there are choices and priorities.

When it comes to finding rest in our lives, we must decide what is a priority in our schedule and what isn’t.

We might have to let some good things go.

But ultimately, if we give God our schedules, He will give us rest.

Our challenge from this message is that we will work on not being so busy that we crowd out the one we say we live for, Jesus!