The Presence Driven Church
Responding to God’s Presence
Fourth in a series about “The Presence Driven Church”, lessons from Martha and Mary and their different responses to God’s Presence with their resulting experiences.
Luke 10:38-40 Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.”
It is interesting to note in this scripture that Martha welcomed Jesus into her house; there are many of us that welcome Jesus into our lives and corporate gatherings but fail to respond in worship to Him. We must ask ourselves what is the most important thing to do when God shows up? Time after time in scripture we read about those who respond in a right way to God’s Presence and those who respond in a wrong way. There is no doubt that God wants to be with us but what do we do when He comes? This where we have to shift from acknowledging the “manifest” presence of God and leaving it at that or pursuing Him in order to enter into a “personal” presence of intimacy.
Note Moses experience: Exodus 33:11 Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.
In our text the story of Martha and Mary we see that Mary draws near but Martha is distracted in her service.
Culturally speaking when a guest would come to a home in the days of Martha and Mary it would be incumbent upon the women to prepare and serve a meal while the men would converse so Martha in fact would seem from a natural standpoint to be doing the right thing. Let us ask ourselves this question. What is more important in our lives, being seen to be doing what is expected from people, or going “outside the camp” and encountering God? Today we are so consumed by doing we have forgotten about being. Did God save us for service or relationship?
How do we know whether living our lives for God is true worship or simply what we think is expected? How do we know whether we are Martha’s or Mary’s for we are all required to give of ourselves. In examining these characteristics there is no attempt to be critical of Martha just to emphasize the importance of our response to Jesus. Notice these great qualities in Martha’s life as pointed out in Dake’s Bible:
1. She received Jesus (Luke 10:38).
2. She served Jesus (Luke 10:40; John 12:2).
3. She was the first to go to Him when in need (John 11:20,30).
4. She had faith in Him (John 11:21-22).
5. She believed in physical resurrection and eternal life (John 11:23-27).
6. She confessed Jesus to be the Christ and God’s Son (John 11:27).
7. She carried Christ’s message to Mary (John 11:28).
The Martha Believer
• Welcomes the manifest visitation of Jesus but does not pursue a more personal relationship
• Becomes distracted by a self imposed form of service or worship which is fleshly in its origin and expectation
• This leads to an attitude of anxiety and worry about performance, measuring up to some standard, or perfection that is not required by God Martha was cumbered—perplexed, She was harassed with different cares and employments at the same time; one drawing one way, and another, another: a proper description of a worldly mind.
• Next comes anger and frustration because of the feeling I am the only one doing anything around here
• Then comes a critical or judgmental spirit of what are they doing, how come no one helps etc
• This leads to rebuking others
• Finally blaming God for our situation
The result is a wrong response to God’s presence instead of worship there is strife!
The Mary Believer
• Recognizes that when God is present there is more benefit to spending time with Him than in any other response
• Understands that whatever God speaks is the most important thing to hear so desires “to listen”
• Positions themselves to receive, “sat at His feet” This was the posture of the Jewish scholars, while listening to the instructions of the rabbis. It is in this sense that St. Paul says he was brought up at the FEET of Gamaliel, Acts 22:3.
• Is drawn into a greater intimacy with God
• Is so changed that their ultimate service will be total sacrifice that results from love not imposition
The result is doing the better thing which God says will not be taken from her which results in rest. To conclude lets examine Mary’s intimacy with the Lord in the context of the Hebrew word Çôwdh as quoted from ’Hebrew Thoughts’ Jonathan Went, www.biblicalhebrew.com
Çôwdh ’secret intimate friendship’
(Strong’s #05475)
"Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His intimate secret counsels to His servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7)
Cushions and Counsels
Amos 3:7 must be one of the most beautiful pictures of the early relationship between the prophet and God. A proper understanding of the picture language that Hebrew is able to portray enhances the full meaning of this verse. The word swd çôwdh , usually rendered ’secret’ in this passage is not done justice to unless the whole canvas is painted. It is properly a ’cushion, couch or pillow’, something on which one ’reclines’. But this seems a world away from most translations.
Face to face with God
• Adam, Enoch and Noah walked with God (Genesis 3:8; 5:22,24; 6:9)
• Abraham was a friend of God (Isaiah 41:8; James 2:23)
• Moses knew God face to face (Numbers 12:6-8; Exodus 33:11)
Under the Old Covenant Moses knew God more intimately than those under the New! And his desire was that we might all be prophets (Numbers 11:17,29), how much more should we want to be face to face friends of God. çôwdh describes a face to face encounter between God and the prophet, a sitting down together, if you like, as a circle of friends.
Reclining in God’s presence
Çôwdh derives from a root verb yâçadh Strong’s #03245) which means ’a setting down, to found or establish’ and ’to support oneself whilst leaning or reclining’. ’Reclining’ was the favorite position of John, Jesus’ disciple (John 13:23), the one who gave us the prophetic book: Revelation.
Confidential Conversation
Çôwdh is used elsewhere in Scripture to describe friends conversing (Jeremiah 6:11; 15:17), judges, heavenly powers and prophets consulting with God (Jeremiah 23:18,22), counsel and friendly conversation (Psalm 55:14), secret knowledge (Psalm 25:14; Proverbs 25:9).
The idea of secrets is not so much that of heavenly knowledge to which only the elite have access but more with respect to counsel and confidential plans which God opens up to His friend the prophet. The best way of imagining it is to think of the prophet and God sitting down together on adjacent cushions in a nomad’s tent in the desert to discuss matters, in intimacy, not needing to shout. It is the side-by-side, still, quiet intimate voice of God that is heard here, not the voice of the earthquake, thunder or fire.
Job
Job’s usage of the word is especially instructive and illuminating as his is probably the oldest Hebrew book of Scripture, perhaps dating back to 2000 B.C./B.C.E., contemporary with Abraham and the age of nomadic tents and caravans. In Job 15:8 it is paired in Hebrew parallelism with the word for wisdom, xkmh chokh’mâh (Strong’s #02451) and Eliphaz asks if Job was a party to God’s secret plans:
"Have you heard the secret counsel of God?
And do you limit wisdom to yourself?"
Job 19:19 is rendered "all of my close friends abhor me" in the New King James Bible and the word translated as ’close friends’ is again çôwdh.
Job 29:4 is part of a beautiful passage which begins in verse 1 as a m#l mâshâl (the Hebrew for ’parable’, usually translated here as ’discourse’, Strong’s #04912) describing Job’s longing for his youthful maturity when he had the respect of his elders and sat amongst them as their chief because of his wisdom and counsel (Job 29:7,21-27). His wisdom was derived from God’s presence in his tent:
"as I was in the days of my harvest (ripe maturity),
when the friendly counsel of God was on my tent;" (NKJV)
"... when God was secretly in my tabernacle" (Latin Vulgate)
"... When the friendship of God was upon my tent" (ASV)
"... when God was the friend of my tent" (Noyes)
"... when God remained cordially in my tent" (Umbreit)
"... when God took counsel with me in my tent" (Herder)
This is a perfect example of the tent imagery mentioned above. Job describes God’s presence with him as a lamp and a light, a place where oil and butter/cream flowed, but most specifically used the word çôwdh to describe the intimate friendship of God visiting his tent.
Abraham - God’s friend
This was more than just imagery for Abraham when God visited his tent in Genesis 18. If you remember God appeared with two others before Abraham who was sitting in the door or flap of his tent. Although Abraham is described as standing before the Lord (v.22) it was God who had come down (v.21) to visit Abraham, called elsewhere His friend.
Furthermore, the significance of the Genesis passage is in its teaching that God does not hide His plans from His friends (v.17; cf. John 15:15), just as in Amos 3:7’s use of çôwdh above. To have had the animated bartering discussion over the lives of Sodom that Abraham had you would have had to have been God’s friend!
