Sermon Archive

During his time on earth, Jesus shared many meals, with a wide variety of dinner guests-tax collectors, religious leaders, skeptics, prostitutes, fishermen... Just as Jesus reveals his character through the words he spoke and the miracles he performed, he shows himself through the meals he shared and the people he sat across from. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hey church family great to welcome everybody who's watching online as well as everyone joining us here on campus in person at 11:00 AM live service. Wherever you are, or however you might be watching it’s great to have you with us today. I also want to invite you to grab your message notes that look like this in the middle of your bulletins. You can also download them on the ERBCLA app, or on our website if you're watching online.

 

Today we continue our series Meals With Jesus. If this is your first time with us, let me give you a little bit of background as to WHY we’re looking at these meals. If you read through the gospels, you’ll find three times where we encounter the phrase “THE SON OF MAN CAME…”. Each of those statements is followed by another phrase that explains them.

 

The first two are about his MISSION. In Luke 19:10 it tells us . . .

 

“For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”

           

That’s telling us about his MISSION. The SECOND STATEMENT is like it, it says . . .

 

“The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” - Mark 10:45

 

That’s also talking about his MISSION. But the third talks about his METHOD…

 

“The Son of Man came eating and drinking…with sinners” - Luke 7:34

 

That’s telling us HOW Jesus DID what he came to do. He spent time, with people, who were nothing like Him, and yet desperately needed Him, and in this series, we’re looking at what it was like, to be at the table with Jesus… What did he SAY? What did he DO? And we’re doing that so that we MIGHT GET TO KNOW HIM and OURSELVES better.

 

This series is about some of the meals with Jesus that are recorded for us in the Gospel of Luke, and today we're looking at a meal that’s recorded for us in Luke 10:38-42. It’s a dinner in the home of Mary and Martha, and their brother Lazarus, although Lazarus isn’t mentioned here. The focus is on his sisters, Mary and Martha.

 

In Luke 10 beginning in verse 38, we find these words . . .

 

“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. Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught.” -  Luke 10:38-39

 

“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.’” -  Luke 10:40  

 

“But the Lord said to her, ‘My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.’”  - Luke 10:41-42

 

            As we look at this story, I want us to see What We Can Learn About Martha, What We Can Learn About Mary, and What We Can Learn About The “One Thing” that Jesus says that is worth being concerned about for Martha, and for us. As you read this story, more likely than not, you can identify with ONE of these two sisters.

           

SOME OF YOU, because of the way that God has wired you, YOU CAN IDENTIFY, WITH MARY. MARY - - THE SISTER WHO SAT, AND LISTENED, AND LEARNED, at the feet of Jesus.

           

Many More Of Us, I Believe identify with Martha. The sister who was busy. If I Were To Share My Personal Bias With You, I’d tell you that this story in Luke has always kind of bugged me. I feel like the PROBLEM WITH THE WORLD, is that WE NEED MORE MARTHA'S. We already have enough Mary’s. We need people who don’t just sit and think, but people who GET UP, and GET BUSY, and GET THINGS DONE. I look at this story, and I look at Jesus words to Martha, and I’m tempted to feel like MAYBE, just MAYBE, this was the only time when Jesus got something wrong.

           

You look at Martha, and you look at her Work-Ethic and you realize that she is the Model American Worker. In preparing for this weekend’s message, I was reading and I learned that when it comes to hard work. There are 134 countries around the world have LAWS, to set the Maximum Length That A Work Week Can Be. Laws to limit, how many hours in a week, a worker can work. The United States is NOT one of those countries.

 

In the U.S. 86% of MALES, and 67% of FEMALES work more than 40 hours a week. Among Americans - - - for the most part - - - the 40-hour work week is a thing of the past. AMERICANS ON AVERAGE work 137 hours per year more than JAPANESE workers, 260 hours per year more than BRITISH workers, 500 hours per year more than FRENCH workers, and I know many of you hear that and your response is “God bless the USA”, but is it a blessing?

 

The Chinese “Word” - - Character - - for busyness is a combination of two other

characters, and those two characters are the characters that represent “Heart” and “Murder”. The Chinese character for BUSYNESS depicts the fact that BUSYNESS murders the heart, and that may be what Jesus is warning us against here.

           

The story of Mary & Martha is NOT GIVEN in order to tell us don’t exercise hospitality, or don’t serve. Jesus never said to Martha, “Hey Martha. . . chill out - - kick back. . . .take it easy.” He never said, “Martha, me and the twelve guys who are traveling with me who have just dropped in for dinner. . . we don’t need to eat, so don’t worry about it.” I’m glad he didn’t say that, because if he did, we wouldn’t have this “Meal with Jesus” to look at today. It would just be a story of a time when Jesus and his posse showed up at Mary and Martha’s home, and then left the same way they arrived – Hungry.

           

Jesus didn’t condemn Martha’s PREPARATIONS just her PRIORITIES.

 

This story is NOT GIVEN as a warning against serving. It IS GIVEN TO WARN US not to GET SO BUSY in DOING THINGS FOR JESUS, that you SACRIFICE SPENDING TIME WITH JESUS. In this story Jesus talks about “The one thing worth being concerned about.” So, what is that one thing?

           

            To answer that question, I want to look at  two passages that give us a pretty clear picture Of What Our Priority, Of What Our “ONE THING” as followers of Jesus, should be.

           

            The FIRST PASSAGE is in Matthew 22:34-38, and it’s there that we read of a time. . . .

           

            “When the Pharisees heard that JESUS had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met  together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap JESUS with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?’”

           

            Jesus responded to their question, about which commandment was most important, with this answer.                  

           

            “Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.” - Matthew 22:37-38

           

            When it came to the question of which commandment was greatest, Jesus told them that it is . . . to Love God with your whole being – with you heart, with your soul, with your mind, with all that you are. He said, that’s the most important thing. More important than anything else. The first thing - - the ONE THING is to love God.

           

            Now the other passage I want you to look at is Matthew 6 beginning at verse 25. In this passage Jesus addresses many of the issues which preoccupied the minds of His listeners. Questions like . . .

 

• What are we going to eat?
• What are we going to drink?
• What are we going to wear?

 

            Questions which still occupy the minds of a lot of people today. Jesus points out that God knows our needs and He will provide for us, in the same way that He provides for the flowers and the birds. Jesus tells us that Instead of worrying about these things what we should give our time and our energy and our attention to… Is what he tells us to see after in Matthew 6:33 which was our memory verse from last week. There he says . . .

           

            “But SEEK FIRST his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” - Matthew 6:33   

           

            If we place our focus on “His kingdom and His righteousness.” Which, by the way, goes hand-in-hand with loving God with all of our being. He says that if we have that love, then we will be concerned with the things that concern God, the things of His kingdom, and we will have a desire to please Him in our lives which means we will cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He works to conform our character to the character of Christ.

           

            The “ONE THING” that Mary had chosen WASN’T JUST SITTING, it WASN’T JUST LISTENING, it certainly WASN’T AVOIDING SERVING. . . WHAT IT WAS – WAS HER RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS.

           

            That’s the “One Thing” that can’t be taken away

           

            The one thing is . . .  Christ and His kingdom. If That is our number one priority – then everything else will flow from that. What was it that caused Martha to MISS the one thing? Well. . .

 

1. Martha Was Distracted

           

We see that in verse 40 where we read that in the midst of her BUSYNESS…

 

“. . . Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing”

           

She allowed a “Good Thing” - - - serving Jesus - - -  to distract her from the “Best Thing”, spending time with Jesus. We need to remember that in Jesus’ gentle and loving rebuke of Martha, he never said that what she was doing was “Bad”. He simply let her know that what she was doing was less than the “Best”. I mean think about it. . .

           

Martha had Jesus, who was God incarnate, sitting in her living room. I believe she loved Him, and truly wanted to serve Him, but in the midst of her serving she became distracted by the details. This is a time-tested strategy that Satan uses, someone once said, “If the devil can’t make us really bad, then he’ll try to make us really busy.”

           

If he can’t deter us from following Christ then he will make every effort to distract us along the journey. When our focus is on Christ and His kingdom we are able to keep a big picture perspective and not get distracted by lesser things. When we take our focus off of Him, we can easily become distracted. Another problem that Martha had is that she was . . .

 

Comparing

 

I really don’t think Martha really minded all the hard work she was doing for Jesus UNTIL she looked at Mary, and then began to think – “What about her?” Martha made the mistake of COMPARING everything that SHE WAS DOING for Jesus, with WHAT HER SISTER MARY, from Martha's point of view WAS NOT DOING, for Jesus, snd then asking the Lord to act as referee.

           

            A lot of us can fall into the trap of doing the exact same thing that Martha did, and that is ASSUMING that The Way That We Are Serving The Lord is the way that Everyone Who Calls Themselves A Christian Ought To Be Serving, and that If They're Not Doing What We're Doing - - -  They're Just Slackers.

           

            The Problem With Comparing is that it takes our focus off of Christ and instead puts that focus on others.

 

            There is a great example of this in John 21. This is the story of Jesus’ appearance to his disciples after His resurrection. The disciples had gone out fishing, they had fished all night and caught nothing – when Jesus appears to them. He gives them instructions about where to let down their nets in order to catch a boatload of fish and then following that he prepares a breakfast for them on the beach. Then Jesus has a conversation with Peter in which He questions Peter about his love for Him. Three times, Jesus asked Peter, “Peter, do you love me?” And Three times Peter affirms his love for Jesus. . .

           

            Finally appealing to Jesus’ omniscience, saying “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus then gives Peter’s a glimpse into Peter’s future, and that future doesn’t look pretty. Jesus says to Peter . . .

           

            “I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked; you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you don’t want to go.’ Jesus said this to let him know by what kind of death he would glorify God. Then Jesus told him, ‘Follow me.’”  - John 21:18-19

 

            Peter, probably a little stunned by what Jesus had just said, looks around, and sees another disciple. Peter sees John, standing nearby and Peter says, “What about that guy? What about John? If I have to suffer in the way that you’ve just described, then shouldn’t John have to suffer too? Don’t you have something equally hard planned for his future?” Jesus replies to Peter and tells him…

 

            “‘If I want John to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? As for you, follow me.’” -  John 21:22

 

            In other words, Jesus said, “Peter, You worry about you, and your walk with me. His walk with me is different, and not your concern.”

 

            Those words from Jesus to Peter are an example of the fact that the Christian life may not always seem fair. Some of us will struggle and suffer while others will seem to be immune . . . seem to skate through life with no suffering at all. Some of us seem to give and give and give, and serve and serve and serve, while others seem to take and take and take. Some of us are barely making ends meet, while others live with abundance. Nevertheless, our calling is not to compare, it is to follow with whole-hearted devotion.

 

            Martha was DISTRACTED

 

            Martha was Comparing

           

            And as a result, Martha became. . .

 

            Resentful

           

            Martha looked at Mary and THEN she began to complain. It probably began as just a quiet grumbling in her heart, but it soon escalated into outright verbal complaining to Jesus. Do you remember Paul’s command to the believers at Philippi? He told them to . . .

           

            “Do everything without complaining or arguing.”

           

            When we look at everything through the filter of Christ and His kingdom it is easier to obey this command. One of the dangers in not having our relationship with Christ as “the one thing” . . .  is that our circumstances can actually cause us to begin to question God’s character. At this “Meal With Jesus”. . . Because Martha lost sight of the “One Thing” she Accused Jesus Of “Not Caring” about her. She accused THE GOD OF LOVE of BEING UNLOVING, she accused THE ONE WHOSE COMPASSIONS ARE NEW EVERY MORNING of LACKING COMPASSION. MARTHA THEN DECIDES TO GIVE JESUS SOME ADVICE. She says to Him to do what she would do if she were Him… She says. . .

           

            “Tell her to help me!”

           

            She is basically saying “Jesus, we’ve got a situation here and it would really be great if you could fix this situation my way. When we get distracted . . . When we begin comparing . . . When we get resentful . . . And as a result we lose sight of the fact that Jesus is Lord, and we’re not, and he really doesn’t need our advice when it comes to running the world.

           

            How Can You And I Keep The One Thing The One Thing?

           

            How we can keep what happened Martha from happening to us? The short answer is by doing what Mary did. The only thing that is needed in order to turn distracted busyness into devoted discipleship is . . . TIME SPENT SITTING at the feet of Jesus. SITTING AND LISTENING to Jesus.

           

            The word that is used in Luke 10:39 where it says that Martha “sat at the Lord’s feet” is the same word that’s used by the Apostle Paul in Acts 22:3 when he describing his whole education by the Rabbi Gamaliel as “sitting at Gamaliel’s feet”. It means that as he learned, he was really listening. He didn’t just show up for class, check the box next to his name on the attendance sheet, and then mentally check-out. . . He drank in all that was taught to him.

           

            We look at these two sisters, Mary and Martha, and we look at them as if it’s an EITHER/OR I can either sit or I can serve. And if that’s the message we take away, then I think we’re taking away the wrong message. Because OFFERING HOSPITALITY LIKE MARTHA DID is a good thing, and SERVING LIKE MARTHA DID is a good thing. . . What this story is warning us against is much more subtle thing, and that is the danger of DISTRACTED SERVICE. The danger of becoming so busy in WHAT we’re doing, that in the process we actually lose sight of WHO we’re doing it for.

           

            How do you avoid falling into that trap? I think it begins with prayer. . . Assuming that you have even the beginning of an understanding of what the “One Thing” is here that Jesus is praising Mary for. . . Ask God to help you make that “One Thing” a priority for you. I think that a starting point toward moving in that direction is to pray. . . And a good prayer for all of us would the one that you’ll find in our MEMORY VERSE for this week. It comes from Psalm 86:11 and it says . . .

           

            “Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” Psalm 86:11b       

           

            An undivided heart. A heart that is committed to keeping the MAIN THING, the MAIN THING. It’s tempting to look at the story we’ve looked at today, the story of Mary and Martha and to see Mary as the “SPIRITUAL” one; the sister who had her act together. But we need to be careful about judging Martha too harshly.

            Jesus never said to her. “Martha, we don’t need to eat, so don’t worry about it.” He didn’t condemn her PREPARATIONS just her PRIORITIES. You read through the gospels and you’ll find that we meet Martha again in John 11. You’ll remember Lazarus got sick and his sisters Mary and Martha sent for Jesus but Jesus delayed in coming and the result was that Lazarus died. When Jesus finally arrived Martha went out to meet Him and at that meeting she made some remarkable declarations of faith.

           

            She said that she knew God would do whatever Jesus asked of Him. She confirmed her belief in the resurrection of the dead. And she proclaimed Jesus as the Christ (the Messiah,) the Son of God who came into the world. And then she went and found her sister Mary. . . And she didn’t find her for the purpose of telling her to set the table – but to tell her that she should go and meet with Jesus.

           

            At that point she had her eyes on that “ONE THING.” But that didn’t mean that she changed who she was, or stopped serving. In fact, in the very next chapter, in John 12. . . Jesus comes to her house again, this was just a few days before His crucifixion. John records it this way,

           

            “Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they made Him a supper there. . .

           

            And what was Martha doing? Martha was doing what Marth did best. . .

           

             . . . Martha was serving…”

           

            Only this time she was not DISTRACTED or COMPARING or COMPLAINING or GIVING JESUS ADVICE. She was using her gifts and her resources for Christ and His kingdom. I pray that God might use her example to teach us a lesson in priorities as we seek to keep the “one thing” the “one thing.”

           

            Let’s pray.

More Messages from Dr. Rick Mandl

From Series: "Meals With Jesus"

During his time on earth, Jesus shared many meals, with a wide variety of dinner guests-tax collectors, religious leaders, skeptics, prostitutes, fishermen... Just as Jesus reveals his character through the words he spoke and the miracles he performed, he shows himself through the meals he shared and the people he sat across from.

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