How would you feel if your car only started once out of every two or three tries, would you consider it to be a good car? What if the mailman only came to your house a couple times a week, would you consider him to be reliable? What if the electricity only worked occasionally when you flipped the light switch; would you call the electric company to complain?
We tend to set a high standard of expectation in the things we want, don’t we? What if we applied the same standards to church as we do other areas of our lives? If you fail to worship God one or two Sundays a month, would you expect to be called a faithful Christian? We expect loyalty and reliability from things and other people - isn’t it reasonable then that God just might expect that same level of reliability and loyalty from us when it comes to worshiping His Son?
What brought you here this morning? Was it your desire to fill your heart with more of Jesus? Was it an eagerness to be in the house of the Lord, giving Him all of you – all over again? Or was it a sense of obligation since you are involved in a ministry? Was it habit? Is coming to church something you do, or something you need?
One Sunday morning, a mother yelled upstairs to her son who just wouldn’t get out of bed. She said, ‘This is your last chance! You get up so you can get ready to go to church!’ The son yelled back down, ‘I don’t want to go to church today!’ The mother said he had to because he was the Pastor!
There are times when all of us might want to just stay home for one reason or another, but there should also be one underlying reason that keeps us coming back, and that one reason should be our desire to worship our Savior; having a feeling of closeness with Him that is so personal we could no longer stay away from church than we could keep from eating.
Turn with me to our main text today. It is found in LUKE 10:38-42.
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.
‘She came to him and asked, "Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" ‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’
Jesus had just given the parable of the Good Samaritan to show how we are supposed to love our neighbor, and now he is using this situation with the two sisters to show how we are supposed to love our God.
Martha’s home was located in the small village of Bethany, which was just outside Jerusalem. By the way Scripture says it was her home, it appears that Martha was a widow and, therefore, was the head of the household.
In verse 38, it says,
‘... Jesus came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to Him.’
Martha was Mary and Lazarus’ sister and they lived with her. These were friends of Jesus, and He had been here many times before. He found love here, but we are going to see that the sisters expressed their love for Him in very different ways.
People have different temperaments. Some are active and these people always need to be busy, never able to sit still. Others are thoughtful, willing to sit back and think things through. Martha is a very activity-oriented person; her sister Mary, however, appeared to have a more thoughtful nature.
I have heard some preachers say we should always be 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 work. If we were, we would receive a balance of both.
Mary is content to sit at Jesus’ feet soaking up the Word, 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 the type of worker who would see the situation and say, ‘What a privilege it is for me to prepare a meal for the Master!’ Mary on the other hand would have said, ‘What a privilege it is for me to 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, and the longer we go without focus, the worse our circumstances get. This morning, I want us to take a look at this story of Mary and Martha and see what it might teach us about the cost of losing one’s focus.
It was a loss of focus that made Martha start:
1. FEELING SORRY FOR HERSELF
LUKE 10:40 describes Martha’s preoccupation with her household duties.
‘Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’
You ladies who have had unexpected guests show up for dinner know what frustration is, don’t you? You can identify with what Martha felt. The verse I just read says that Martha was ‘distracted.’ I think it was more of a sense of being pulled away from something else she wanted to do. The implication is that she too, wanted to sit and listen to Jesus, but she felt compelled to put that off so she could take care of everyone else’s needs. Now we can begin to understand why she is a bit testy.
We should take our responsibilities seriously, but not to the point where we lose our proper perspective on other things going on around us. The problem was not what Martha was doing; it was the attitude she had while doing it She let herself become unbalanced. She wanted to sit and listen, but felt compelled to go and do.
How many of us have had the wrong attitude in our lives? Something may not go our way, or we think we have been slighted and we start carrying a grudge. The problem with this is; it is not a Christian behavior. It is sin. And we are told to not sin in our anger. But when we hold something against somebody, it only festers bigger and bigger. It becomes unforgiveness, and if we cannot forgive someone else, God said He will not forgive us.
Within the church, we find a very unique problem that most of society does not have. You want to be involved in some kind of ministry. So you find a ministry that you can serve in, and you throw all of yourself into it. But you still have jobs, families, and other obligations in your lives. This causes many to be overworked, or have too much on your plate.
But this tendency to constantly be busy causes us to lose our focus. We are trying to do too many things without having enough time to any of them properly. This was where Martha found herself; too busy to focus.
It was her loss of focus that made Martha feel sorry for herself, and it was that lack of focus that also caused her to be:
2. ANGRY AT HER SISTER MARY
Our world is full of distractions. And the more the pressure, the more tempting it is to focus on the distractions rather than the important. I think Martha wanted to honor Jesus, but she saw her priority as fixing a meal to make sure others were taken care of.
And most of you ladies can identify with that. You can also identify with what I am about to say in this regards, too: You begin the task of making a huge meal (like you would at Thanksgiving or Christmas). You start with the greatest of enthusiasm, but as day progresses, you begin to realize that you are running out of time and you cannot possibly finish everything that you planned to do.
When that happens, you get angry – angry with yourself for being in this situation, and angry with anyone else who might have hindered you in accomplishing your goal. Martha was like that, the harder she worked the more worked up she became. I am sure the old saying described her situation that day: It says, ‘The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.’
Some people ‘burn out’ in service to others, but that day, Martha was ‘burned up’ in hers. It is bad enough to feel as if everything rests on your shoulders. It is even worse when we see someone who doesn’t seem to be pulling their own weight and it puts that puts even more pressure on us. That is what I see happening to Martha.
We become tense and pressure increases when we try to perform wrong tasks, or when we try to do too many things in a short period of time. We end up developing a spirit of negativity, and that causes us to judge others and only see how they are hindering us from accomplishing our goals.
Our chore is to recognize that whenever we feel this unloving feeling towards others, that means we are out of line with God’s will and must immediately go to Him and ask forgiveness and strength.
In EPHESIANS 4:26, we are told to not sin in our anger. But if we lose our focus, we will end up sinning, just like Martha did. She started finding fault with her sister.
In second part of verse forty, Martha finally explodes and comes boiling out of the kitchen, probably in a huff, and says to Jesus, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.’
At this point, Martha is so upset she doesn’t even call Mary by name, but refers to her as ‘my sister.’ As much as Martha had a need to serve others, Mary had a need to worship Jesus. I think Martha represents all of us at different points in our lives. We begin to think only of what we need, or what we want, and we forget that other people may have different needs and wants.
And this is very important; to be good Christians, we must love them enough to let them have their priorities. And when a genuine problem comes up, conflicting their priorities and our priorities, a loving conversation must take place, not an upset commentary.
Martha’s loss of that Godly focus caused her to get upset, but it also caused her:
3. TO EVEN QUESTION WHETHER JESUS CARED FOR HER
As Mary goes in to talk to Jesus about her problem, there is a spirit of selfishness in her voice. It’s like she is saying, ‘Lord, make sure I get my way on this!’ And in so doing, she is accusing Jesus of not caring. Martha linked Jesus’ caring about her to His telling Mary to get in the kitchen and help her fix dinner for everyone. But that isn’t how Jesus shows we care, is it?
Do we ever accuse Jesus of not caring because He didn’t give us what we wanted at the time? Martha’s problem was that she expected Mary to serve and worship Christ in Martha’s way, not Mary’s way. And I think we sometimes expect others to love, honor, and worship Jesus just like we do, and if they don’t, we automatically consider what they do as wrong.
4. WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THIS LESSON?
In LUKE 10:41-42 Jesus responds to Martha by saying:
‘Martha, Martha, you are worried about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.’
Jesus responds with tenderness. He did not rebuke her for making the meal. Martha’s problem was not that she was preparing food for her guests, but that she gave too much importance to it. Today we still have to be careful that we do not let the things we do become more important to us than the One we serve.
Martha thought what she needed most right then was to have her sister help her in the kitchen. In reality, what she needed most was a new perspective. Jesus gave her what she needed, not what she thought she needed. And Jesus continues to do that for us today, too. He shows us, through the Holy Spirit, where we need to change; what attitudes we need to keep; and what attitudes we need to lose.
Every Christian must remember this truth: ‘If we forget Jesus while serving Him, we will end up quitting Him.’ Unless we take the time to worship Him personally, we will not really know how to serve Him properly.
···· Worshiping without serving is powerless
···· Serving without worshiping is directionless
···· Serving after worshiping produces power and balance
I don’t want to close our story of these two sister’s without understanding the part they play in Biblical history. There are two great confessions about who Jesus really was. One was given by Martha in:
JOHN 11:27
‘Yes, Lord,’ replied Martha, ‘I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.’
The other great confession was given is found in:
MATTHEW 16:16, when Jesus asked Peter who he thought Jesus was.
‘Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’
Mary is also found elsewhere in Scripture. Each time she is at the feet of Jesus. One of them is perhaps the most moving picture of sacrificial worship in the Bible.
JOHN 12:1-3
‘Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany. There they made Him a supper; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly perfume and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet dry with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of that oil.’
She was severely criticized by at least one disciple for her ‘wasteful’ action.
Did she quit because of the criticism? No. She was one of the women at the tomb on the morning of the resurrection. When you sit at the feet of Jesus you learn not to quit because other people criticize you. You learn to turn the other cheek and keep going.
In MATTHEW 26:13, Jesus honors Mary,
‘… wherever this gospel is preached in the world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.’
These two passages, concerning Martha’s confession and Mary’s worship, give evidence that both these sisters achieved the balance between duty and devotion. I sometimes wonder if today’s Christians have been able to accomplish the same.
Where is your focus this morning? Have you been more concerned with accomplishing your duties, without taking the time necessary to personally worship Jesus? Or have you been so involved in worshiping Him that you haven’t actually accomplished anything for Him? We are called to have balance in our relationship with Jesus.
JAMES 1:22 reminds us:
‘Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word, but does not do what it says, is like a man who looks in the mirror, and as soon as he walks away, forgets what he looks like. But the one who listens to the word, and then begins to do what it says, will be blessed in what he does.’
I have asked this question several times recently, but as I ask it again today, I want you to really think about it. Why are you here this morning? Are you here to worship Jesus? Are you here to serve Jesus? I would hope and pray that you are here to worship Him, and then take what you learn and put it to active use in your life to serve Him. Either one without the other is incomplete.
Worship does not satisfy our hunger for Jesus, it whets our appetite for more of Him. And our need for Jesus is not fulfilled by worshiping alone. But when we take what we receive in worship and put it to use in our daily lives, we become complete in Jesus.
We talk a lot about serving and worshiping Jesus. But to be able to serve Him, or worship Him, we must know exactly who He is and what He offers. Here is the Jesus I know:
···· Jesus is Christ. He is the living Son of the living God.
···· He is the First and Last, the Beginning and the End.
···· He always was, He still is, and He will always be
···· He cannot be moved – changed or defeated
···· He was hurt so He could bring about healing
···· He died so that He might give life
···· The world can’t understand him
···· The world can’t defeat Him
···· The world can’t explain Him
···· Although the world tries to, it cannot ignore Him
···· Hitler couldn’t silence Him
···· New Age religions try, but can’t replace Him
···· Oprah tries to dismiss Him but the majority of her audience dismisses her
···· Jesus is the fulfillment of God
···· His ways are right and His word is eternal
···· His will is unchanging, and His mind is on me.
···· He is my Redeemer,
···· He is my Savior
···· He is my guide,
···· and He is my peace!
···· He is my Joy,
···· He is my comfort,
···· He is my Lord,
···· and He rules my life!
···· I serve Him because His goal is having a relationship with ME!
···· He will never leave me, nor will He ever forsake me
···· Every time I fall,
···· He picks me up
···· And every time I ask
···· He gives me forgiveness
···· I am His, and He is mine!
···· The devil is stronger than I am
···· But He is no match for my Savior
···· He said it – I believe it – and that settles it.
···· I love Him - because He first loved me
That is who my Jesus is, and that is why I worship Him as best I can, and that is why I serve Him every way I can, whenever I can.
If you would like to know Him better, or if you would like to worship Him in more depth or serve Him with more focus, we are going to give you an opportunity right now to accomplish this. Please stand as we go into our time of:
INVITATION
