Luke 10:38-42
Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to Luke’s Gospel chapter 10. Today we end chapter 10 with
a reading from verses 38 to 42. Beginning next week, we’ll look
at the Lord’s Prayer. Luke has a version of the Lord’s
Prayer that’s a bit different than the others. But what we’ll
do is, over the next many weeks, break up the Lord’s Prayer petition
by petition. You can get a sneak peek of that
as you look into what the shorter catechism teaches about each
petition. But we’ll look a bit more in
depth about how Jesus teaches us to pray. But today we want
to consider this passage about how a disciple should manage
their time. We can be unmeaningfully busy. or we can be meaningfully busy. And that’s what Jesus wants to
teach us. Let us hear God’s word beginning
in the 38th verse of Luke chapter 10. 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. 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. You
are troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary
has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away
from her. Amen. This is God’s word. Let
us pray together. Lord, give us ears that hear,
eyes that see, hearts that perceive, and most of all, give us hands
and feet that run to do the will of Almighty God. We ask and pray
this in Jesus’ strong name. Amen. Some of you know from your
upbringing that your body language is everything. When a person
wants to be heard, they want you looking with your eyes, right? Body language is everything.
We listen with our eyes. We don’t look down, look away.
We look directly at the one who is speaking to us. You no doubt
have heard from your mother or father, look at me when I’m talking
to you, right? It doesn’t make a lick of sense.
You would think you would stick your ear their way, but probably
if you did that, you might have the thing yanked off. because
of what is perceived as disrespect. But body language is everything,
isn’t it? We also speak sometimes about
non-verbal cues, things that aren’t said expressly or explicitly. Well, in this passage of scripture,
There arrives one of my family’s favorite non-verbal pieces of
body language or communication. We have a little saying in our
house that you’re huffing, right? Y’all know what I’m talking about.
You’re huffing. We get upset and we don’t want to say, I’m
upset. And so we, right? We communicate that way. We all
do it, don’t we? We don’t want to be honest. We
don’t want to say. And so we let steam out of our ears. Well, in this passage of scripture,
we have that body language. We have that form of nonverbal
communication, as it were. Jesus and his disciples, as we
know, are making their way from the Galilean regions up to Jerusalem,
where Jesus will suffer and die. They’re making their way through
Samaritan territory. Jesus and his disciples in this
passage have landed in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus.
Jesus will come to know and love and receive hospitality from
this family often. In fact, later when Jesus is
called to the tomb of Lazarus, we get that wonderful passage
of scripture that all of you love to memorize, John 11, 35,
Jesus wept. Easiest passage of scripture
to memorize. Jesus loved Mary and Martha and
Lazarus. But in this encounter, Jesus
enters their home with his disciples, with his traveling entourage. And the word of God tells us
that Mary sat at his feet listening while Martha was busy, busy,
busy. Martha was distracted, as the
passage tells us, with much serving. Visions of grand hospitality
in this passage invoke the name not only of Martha, the hardworking
Bible character, but Martha Stewart, the modern day wonder of hostessing
and hospitality. And here in this passage, we
have maybe a picture of this was no hot dog supper. This was
no microwave meal. This was no go in the kitchen
and get it yourself. This was Martha putting on a
spread. After all, the teacher of Israel,
Jesus Christ himself, had entered her home. And as time goes by
in this story, you can imagine she feels neglected. As time
goes by in this passage, you can feel her rise of impatience. She’s upset. There’s self-pity. Nothing is said verbally, but
the body language is there. You can imagine as each pot is
placed, it’s got to add a bit of weight to it. The frustration,
there’s the body language and there’s the, what my family loves
to call it, right? We let people know our disgust. We don’t say it, but we let them
know. And each trip with service to
Jesus and his disciples were thoughts of how many beds must
be made. Each trip of service to Jesus
and his disciples was, is there still water to wash feet of the
guests who enter the house? Jesus must be served well, and
as each pot boiled on the fire, Martha’s anger began to boil
over in her heart. And can you imagine at the sight
of a very spiritual thing, a group of people listening to the master,
to the teacher, spiritual growth, spiritual health, her temperature
inside was reaching a boiling point. She was going to blow
her top. Now, There are ways we can communicate. There are ways we can express
our disgust. And there are ways we can solve
problems. You know, on the playground, we double dare somebody. I double
dare you to do it. And then if you are a big fan
of the Christmas story, there’s the double dog dare you. Then
there’s the triple dare you. Then there’s the triple dog dare,
right? The big one. Well, there’s a
big one here in this story. I’m going to tell Jesus on you.
Right. That’s what Martha does. She
blows up. She loses her cool. She skips
over the I’m telling mom or I’m telling sister or you’re going
to get it one of these days. I’m telling Jesus. What does
she say to Jesus? It says in verse 40, Martha was
distracted with much serving. She went up to Jesus. She said,
Lord, do you not care? that my sister has left me to
serve alone. Tell her then to Help me. This is a tale of two women,
isn’t it? Mary and Martha. This is a tale
of two temperaments, one who sits and listens and one who
does and does and does. And does not Jesus call both
temperaments into his kingdom? Does he not want busy bees and
worker bees? Does he not also want disciples
who sit at his feet? Somewhere in the balance of this,
we must find that God wants both. But here in this passage, he
gives a priority, a priority to what we ought to be and what
we ought to do as Christians. So I want us to consider a couple
of things from this passage, a couple of things this story
teaches us, and not really about Mary and Martha, but about ourselves
as disciples of the Lord Jesus. The first thing I want us to
consider is this. First things first and second things second. First things first and second
things second. You’ve heard the saying before
that there are good things to do. There are better things to
do and there are the best things to do. Which one was right, Mary
or Martha? Well, neither were wrong. One
of them just overemphasized one over the other. And for sure,
there is a balance placed to land. But there are good things
that we can all do with our time. There are better things that
we can all do with our time. But there are the best things. And Jesus is teaching us that
we should want the best. If you were to look back at your
calendar, look back at your daytimer, look back at just this past week,
how many wasted opportunities did you have? Because you found
something on your phone to flip through. Maybe you got lost in
the Facebook frenzy of kittens doing cute things. You flipped
the channels endlessly. There was nothing on television
you wanted to watch, but you thought maybe if you scrolled
through all 1,400 channels, you might for sure find something,
which you probably didn’t. Or how did you fritter away your
time? We all can feel guilty if we did a review. What is your
day timer? What is your browsing history?
What does your to-do list reveal? Do you have fruit to show? Did you choose second things
first and first things second, or did you choose first things
first and second things second? That was the second thing this
passage teaches us. One good thing can lead to other
good things. Sometimes we’re overwhelmed with
our to-do list. You know, you look at the chores you have,
the shopping list. You’ve got to get gas in the
car. You’ve got to run by the bank. You’ve got to pay the bills.
The pantry is getting empty. The fridge shelves are running
dry. And on and on and on, we can
become overwhelmed. We don’t know where to start.
Well, friends, that’s the way it is often with our spiritual
life, isn’t it? Our Christian life. We say, I
don’t pray enough. I don’t read the Bible enough. I’m not in
church as often as I know I ought to be. And we get overwhelmed
and just the same with our grocery list, with our spiritual to-do
list. We say, I just can’t even start. Let me encourage you in
this way. If God is calling us to put first
things first and second things second, start somewhere and one
good thing can lead to other good things. And a good rule
of thumb is this, before you start your day, start with Jesus. Before all else, sit at the feet
of Jesus as Mary has done so in our passage of scripture today.
Some of you have a good rule of thumb, coffee and Jesus before
people. You want to be less grumpy and
more holy. That’s the saying, right? Coffee
and Jesus before all others or before the news or before the
paper or before we scroll through our iPhone and all its endless
possibilities and places where it may take us. Friends, if you
start with the basics, if you start with the word of God every
day, if you sit at the feet of Jesus every day at the start,
at the outset, at the beginning, it will pay dividends. And if
you do one good thing, it will lead to other good things. You
know, before you know it, if you say, I’m going to go to bed
early so I can get up and read my Bible, you’ll get more rest.
simply because you wanted to go to bed early and get up and
read your Bible. You have a prayer life because you’re reading the
word. You feel more free to know and
love God. You feel more freedom from your
sins because you’ve confessed them. You’ve prayed over the
things in your life that need God’s attention. And so one good
thing, which is starting the day with God, can lead to many
other good things. And it can pay great dividends
in our lives. There’s a third thing this passage
teaches us. It teaches our tendencies. God is calling us to do first
things first and second things second. He’s calling us to do
one good thing, which can lead to other good things. But what
of our tendencies? What about our own natures? What
about our track record tells us who we are? We’re distracted,
aren’t we? When you read about Martha in
this passage, she is distracted with much serving. She is busy. She is anxious. In fact, when
Jesus chides her and encourages her, he says, you are You are
troubled. You are shaking with your priorities. You are so desirous
to accomplish these things that you are distracted. You are eclipsing
many of the other good things in your life. So much that we
do in our life, I think, is really unnecessary. I mean, how much
of the news can we watch? Just in my generation, we’ve
come up with a cable news channels. It used to be when I was a little
kid, if you wanted to watch the evening news national, six o’clock,
Dan Rather. And if you wanted to watch the
local news, you tuned in about 30 minutes before. That was that,
30 minutes over and done. And if you wanted a little more
news, you took up the morning paper. That was that. We have
these constant news feeds, but we have these television channels
that just, they play the same news over and over and over. And guess what? We sit there
and we stare at it like we’ve never heard before. And we’ve
heard the same cycle over and over. And we get into all the
details of it and we get our hearts worked up and we just
can’t believe this world we live in. And before long, we begin
to believe that all that exists is America. All that exists is
our political problems and all that exists is what takes over
and consumes our lives. Our tendencies are to be distracted.
Our tendencies are to be busy. Our tendencies are to be anxious
and troubled. And it’s unnecessary. It’s meaningless. It accomplishes nothing. It bears
no fruit in this life. I want to give you an example
from my own life of doing second things first. When I was early
in my ministry, every day I used to get up. I used to read my
Bible, pray, and then I would take a walk. Something changed
about seven or eight years ago. I got a dog. Dog’s a wonderful
thing. I love the dog. And the purpose
of the dog was to get me out walking. But you know what I
do now? I bypass reading the Bible because
guess what? Dog’s got to go. I bypass praying
because guess what? The dog’s got to walk. And you’re
distracted. Wonderful things can come from
having a dog and taking the walk. But I realize over time that
the dog took priority. He’s got to get out. He’s got
to go, he’s got to be walked. And so there’s no time to read
the Bible and to pray and then to take a walk and let the things
I’ve read in my Bible and prayed about in my prayer time sort
of marinate and saturate into my life. Now on a walk, you can
listen to the podcast, you can listen to preaching and sermons.
And so there’s some trade-offs, yes. But dear friends, you know
how it is when you change something in your life. And one little
thing leads to another, and it can be a change for the better.
It can be a change for the worse. Just think about in the last
few months, what significant change happened in your life?
Maybe the time you’re to arrive at work changed, and so it’s
shaken up your whole routine. Or maybe the doctors told you
to change your diet, and so your whole lifestyle has had to change
in a certain way. as our neighbors have done at
our house, in our neighborhood, they put up a fence for their
animals to stay in. They put up a gate in their driveway.
And guess where they park now? They don’t park in the back anymore,
because they’d have to get up and open the gate, drive in and
get out and shut the gate and then park the car. So where do
they park? They park out on the street. Their lifestyle is changed
by some seemingly insignificant thing. And think about how often
something bumps What was once a priority in our
life? What was once a first thing first to now second things first? It’s easy. It happens. These
are our tendencies. The lesser gets the greater attention
in our lives. And we are looking back now and
maybe we find some areas of being unfruitful. This passage is teaching
us about our tendencies. We love to be busy, busy, busy,
busy. We look at our watches, we look
at our phones, we look at our tablets, we look at our computers.
They’re dinging and they’re buzzing and they’re yelling at us for
this, that and the other. And our attention is all over
the place. We’re busy, busy, busy at home.
We’re busy in our lives, but we get busy in church, don’t
we? Somehow we have become in America under the spell of if
we’re busy in church, then we’re better Christians. And so we
come to these churches now that are like mega shopping malls.
There’s every amenity under the sun, but it eclipses preaching. It eclipses singing to God. It
eclipses confessing our sin. And so we say to somebody, where
do you go to church? Oh, okay. Why do you go there?
Well, I like the coffee machine. I’m making that up. But we, We
love the amenities. We love the busyness. And it
eclipses if we’re not careful, Almighty God and his goodness
to us. We get church busy. We get people
busy. We get kitchen busy. We get shopping
busy. And you know, these are our tendencies,
but there’s someone who knows it. And that one is Satan. He knows that he does not have
to send in a false preacher to tear up a church. He’ll just
get you busy. He knows that he doesn’t have to get you to convert
to paganism. He just has to get you out the
door to work before you’ve read your Bible. And if he does that
for a number of weeks, a number of months, a number of years,
guess what? Your heart, your Christian heart is dried up.
But what once looked like a grape is now a raisin. And Satan knows
our tendencies and it’s easy for him. It’s easy pickings.
It’s low hanging fruit. His work is done for him. And
so in our passage today, Jesus encourages, He chides, if you
will, Martha. Martha, Martha, he says in verse
41, you are anxious. You are troubled about many things. You are busy, busy, busy, busy. And you’re not meaningfully busy.
You’re meaninglessly busy. But one thing is necessary. Mary
has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away. Maybe you could insert your name
into this passage. Fill in your name instead of Martha. Martha,
fill in your name. You are anxious and troubled
about many things. This leads us to our last lesson
from this passage. And this last lesson is simply
this, our good portion. Jesus is teaching us to have
first things first in our lives. He’s teaching us to start with
one good thing, which can lead to another. He’s showing us our
tendencies, but finally he gives us our good portion. And our
good portion is simply this, sitting at the feet of Jesus.
No one can take that away from you. You may be the next Martha
Stewart. You may be known for your seven
course meals or your hospital corners when you make your beds.
You may be known for keeping everything ironed and fresh and
vacuumed and smelling good and looking good and all the rest.
But if you haven’t sat at the feet of Jesus, it doesn’t matter
the starch. It doesn’t matter the cleanliness.
It doesn’t matter all the labor you have done. Jesus says, this
is the good portion. Christian living is what’s important. Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
having a word centered, less busy, more kingdom minded life
is what Jesus is calling us to do. Yes, change the sheets. Yes,
feed your family. Yes, keep the lawn cut. Yes,
keep the bills paid. Yes, do the things that, well,
sometimes they make you busy, busy. But our good portion comes. And our good portion that lasts
forever is this, sitting at the feet of Jesus Christ, sitting
at the feet of Jesus in our private worship, in our public worship,
in our church life, choosing the good portion, which Jesus
says can never be taken away from you. Let us pray. Our Lord,
we know our own hearts. We’d rather be busy because busy
covers up so much in our lives. It keeps us from thinking, it
keeps us from feeling, it keeps us from assessing and evaluating. But from time to time, you zero
right in on our hearts and you say, this story is not about
Mary, it’s about us, it’s about you. So Lord, help us to take
some time today to think about where we’re busy. We’re unmeaningfully
busy and to examine our day timers, lives are to do list to make
the first priority to sit at the feet of Jesus and let the
rest as we seek first your kingdom be added to us. Hear us and help
us as we pray in Jesus name. Amen.