The Balance Of Worship And Service Series

Worship and Service

Out theme this month is the Supernatural Spring of Worship.

And my question for you is this:

Are you faithful in your worship and service?

Perhaps I need to clarify the question a little.

What really brought you here this morning?

Was it your desire to fill your heart with more of Jesus?

Was it the thought of what God might give you?

Did you pause to think of what you might give back to God?

Is it the thought of worshipping God or the possibility of serving God that is your priority this morning?

As we meet together as church this morning is there a real eagerness in your heart to worship the Lord and also the desire to give yourself fully to Him in service?

There are times when all we want to do is worship.

There are times when all of us want the opportunity to just worship God,

to spend time in his presence, to draw near to Him, to sense His grace, his mercy, his love.

To sit at His feet.

But, we should also willingly desire to spend time worshipping him by serving Him too.

Serving Him not out of obligation, but as an expression of worship, as an expression of our love for Him.

The passage I want us to consider this morning is found in LUKE 10:38-42.

Let me put these verses into context - Jesus has just given the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate how we are supposed to love our neighbour, and then he uses a situation with two sisters Mary and Martha to show how we can demonstrate our love of God.

LUKE 10:38-42. As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught.

40 But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.”

41 But the Lord said to her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! 42 There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Martha’s home was located in the small village of Bethany, which was just outside Jerusalem.

Some bible scholars say that the way the bible describes this place as her home, would suggest that perhaps Martha was a widow and, was now the head of the household.

Martha was Mary and Lazarus’ sister and they lived with her.

These people were friends of Jesus, and He had been probably visited them many times before.

I think its fair to say that the people in this house had a great love for the Lord, yet the sisters expressed their love for Him in very different ways.

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I’m sure you have noticed that different people have different temperaments.

Some people are active, some people always want to be busy, some people never want to sit still.

Some people are thoughtful, some people prefer to sit down and think things through.

Martha seems to be a very activity-oriented person and her sister Mary, seems to have a more thoughtful nature.

I have heard some preachers say we should seek to be more like Mary and less busy than Martha.

And I have heard other preachers say we should be more like Martha; always being productive with no idleness in our lives.

I believe the Lord wants us to be like Mary in our worship, and like Martha in our service.

We should keep a good balance of both worship and service in our lives.

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In this passage, Mary is content to sit at Jesus’ feet soaking up the Word, worshipping while not doing anything else.

But her big sister, Martha, looked around at all the guests and saw the need to prepare food so they could have something to eat.

Martha was probably the type of person who would see the situation and say, ‘What a privilege it is for me to serve and prepare a meal for the Master!’

Mary on the other hand would have said, ‘What a privilege it is for me to worship and sit at the feet of the Master.’

Is one right and the other wrong? No.

Duty and devotion are both necessary but there must be a balance.

A balance where neither one would hinder us from exhibiting the other.

Everything we do and every relationship we have demands focus.

When we focus properly, we succeed.

When we lose our focus, we begin to fail,