One Thing

, let's go ahead and, open up the, the book of Luke. As We look at God's word this morning. I'm gonna read from Luke chapter 10 verses 38 to 42. 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. And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed. And Mary has chosen that good portion. Which will not be taken away from her.

These are the words of Almighty God delivered to us by His Holy Spirit. Let's pray. Oh Lord, where else can we go? You have the words of eternal life.

We dare not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of your mouth. We ask that you would meet with us today as your word is preached. That you would fill us with your Spirit and open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, and our hearts to trust and believe your word. Forgive us for hardness of heart, for our pride and inattentive, inattentiveness to your word.

Humble us and mold us. Change us more and more into your image today that your son may be exalted. Amen. I was reading this week, I know we're in football season.

I noticed we have some Norsemen over here. Various tribes I think are represented in our audience. But I was reading a quote from a basketball player, this week, Kobe Bryant, who said this. I focus on one thing and one thing only, that's trying to win as many championships as I can.

And like Kobe Bryant, there's a lot of talk amongst the various disciplines about the importance of singularity of focus. About pursuing one thing above all other things. take, Renzo Piano, he's an Italian archi architect. Has anybody ever heard of him?

I'm not an architect. Any architects in here? OK. He says this, there is some, something that about giving everything to your profession.

In Italian, an obsession is not necessarily negative. It's the art of putting all your energy into one thing. It's the art of transforming even what you eat for lunch into architecture. Joseph Stalin said, I believe in only one thing.

The power of the human will. There's an author, and entrepreneur that I've been reading lately, a guy named Gary Keller, who says this, Until my one thing is done, everything else is a distraction. Until my one thing is done, everything else is a distraction. And if you talk to any of my family members or some people that hang around me, they'll tell you that I've been on this kick lately about the one thing.

And my wife wanted to buy me a, actually, she did buy me a t-shirt that said the one thing on it. And I've just been interested in, in not just what people in the secular world and various disciplines say, but how many times in the Bible, the Bible mentions one thing. Even as we've been looking at the total devotion series, you'll notice that a number of the passages that Pastor Milton brought up and preached deal with this concept of giving everything for, for one. Yeah, consider Psalm 27:4 where Jesus says, or Paul or David says, one thing I have desired, right?

That I may dwell in the house of the Lord. Paul says in Philippians, I count all things lost for implied, the one thing, the knowledge of Christ that is a shared life with him. he speaks of the, he says, one thing I do, I press for the goal, the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus speaks of the in his parable of the pearl of great price of the merchant who went and sold all to buy the one thing, this pearl.

Jesus says to the rich young ruler, one thing you lack, go sell everything you have and do this. What, follow me. And in this passage, we see Jesus speaking of the one thing. What is the one thing in our passage?

And I want to propose to you and we'll try to see if this is true from the text that who we are in our relationship to Christ takes precedent over what we do. Who we are in our relationship to Christ takes precedence over what we do. We live in a world where we can be pulled away from a myriad of important activities, tasks, and goals. All of these, many of the things we do in our lives are important, they have to get done.

And yet they vie for our attention in such a way that they can take us away from the one thing that is indispensable according to our text, and that is sitting at the feet of Jesus. In hearing his word. I want to propose to you this morning that listening to the Word of God is foundational to a life of active Service. We're gonna see that this text is not about quietism versus activism.

It's not, the life of the mystics is better than the life of the activist. I think what we're gonna find is that it's life at the feet of Jesus that comes first, that then gives us the fuel for properly motivated activity. But what does this look like? What does it really look like to sit at the feet of Jesus?

And how are we to know when we have really heard His word? So let's Let's look at this text together. It's interesting to note that Luke probably is not putting this particular narrative in chronological order. He places it in this chapter, probably for a theological purpose and it's also interesting to note that Luke, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit leaves out a lot of details that we pick up from other chapters in the Bible.

For instance, he doesn't tell us that this is in the city of Bethany. He doesn't tell us that Mary and Martha are also are sisters of Lazarus. We don't know if the disciples are in the house or not. He really boils it down to just 3 characters.

And so it seems that Luke by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he's not just giving us some piece of history so that we know that Jesus went into the home and had a meal. He's actually giving us a narrative that is meant to teach us a lesson from the life of Christ. And so we have 3 characters in this particular narrative and only 2 of the characters speak. We have Martha, Mary, and Jesus.

We're gonna look at these characters in order. Let's look first of all at Martha's service. Martha's service. Verse 38 says now it happened as they went that he entered a certain village.

Notice he doesn't say anything about the fact that it's Bethany. And a certain woman named Martha welcomed him. Into. Her house This is a good thing.

This is a good hospitable woman. She welcomed Jesus into her house. Let's make some preliminary observations as, as we begin to digest this narrative that, she welcomes Jesus into the house and then we look over at Mary and Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus and hearing his word. And, in one sense, on one level, there's nothing all that unusual about the first pass.

This is a division of labor, the way that you might divide labor when you have guests over, right? if we have guests over into our home. we don't have everybody in the kitchen serving. There needs to be somebody out that's what?

Entertaining the guests, so theoretically my wife might be in the kitchen finishing up some of the details and I might be in the living room having conversation with our guests. We don't wanna leave them alone to feel alone, right? at the same time, somebody's got to take care of the details, so we don't really know what the arrangement was exactly, but this is not unusual to see this division of labor. And then also, let's just note that this is not a, a question of good and bad people.

We know that Jesus loved Martha and Mary both. If you look over at John chapter 11, another time that later that Jesus visits with them, it says in 11 chapter 4 that Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And so there's a love that Christ has for this whole family, and by virtue of the fact that we see Jesus visiting with this family, at least on 3 different occasions, it seems like these were familiar friends. So it's, there's division of labor here.

This isn't good and bad people. There's nothing wrong with Martha serving. But then notice In verse 40, But Martha was distracted with much serving and she approached him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me? Alone to serve, therefore tell her to help me.

There's no indication from the terms that are being used here in the Greek that there's necessarily so much work that it's overwhelming. It's just that she's distracted by the work itself. There is some expectation perhaps that she has had that has caused a distraction. So the problem wasn't Martha's service, but her expectations.

She seems distracted and then we find that she is disgruntled. she's not just dissatisfied with Mary, she's dissatisfied with Christ. Who does she go to? You, you would almost expect her to take Mary aside privately and to say, hey, I need some help over here.

But she goes directly to Christ and says, Jesus, do you not care? Do you not care that my sister has left me alone? Would, won't you tell her to come over and help me? So she, she basically, she asked a question of Christ, do you not care?

And then she gives him a command. Tell her to come help me, which on the one hand, it, it speaks of the familiarity that this family has with Christ. and at the same time, I think in this particular moment, a little bit of a, a misstep in understanding who Christ is, that he is the Lord, He is the teacher. And so we see, don't we see a scene here that I think most of us have experienced.

I'm sure, haven't you experienced or maybe you've seen your kids experience this, that everybody's supposed to get together and, and do chores or do this or that. We see it here at church, we're supposed to be doing a, a chair stack, right? You have a bunch of people that are working very hard doing the chair stack and you have other people over here that are talking to each other. And there can be a temptation on one side or the other to To judge or to to get disgruntled or to get dissatisfied.

Consider, yourself, many of, we have many wonderful ministry leaders in our church and many times we make announcements and we have signups over here for various ministries and if you talk to, our ministry leaders, it's, it's often the case that we're looking for more help in our various ministries, and we all, we all feel like our ministries are the important ministry. I know when I'm teaching Sunday school here on, Sunday mornings at 9 o'clock I feel like. This is where people ought to be.

This is the place, this is the happening place.

Why don't more people come to the Sunday school class? and that can be a temptation. for all of us to take something that's really good. And then to become distracted by it and make it the end all.

A good thing can actually turn into idolatry for us. How do we know when a good thing is turned into idolatry? perhaps the Lord has called you to, to serve in some way here in this church. And that's, that's a good thing, just like it was a good thing for Martha to serve, but how do we know if it's turned into sin?

Well, I think we see on the on just this page right here where Martha has become disgruntled and distracted. But you can ask yourself, do you sin when you don't get your expectations met? Do you sin or get angry or frustrated when you don't get what you, what you want? Or do you sin in order to get what you want?

Those would be two ways that we could determine whether something that's a good thing can turn into idolatry. Because we know that sin of its nature is really selfishness, right? If you think about what sin is, it's lawlessness, it's a desire to do what I want when I want to do it. And when we sin, then other people become a distraction or they get in the way of what we want.

Now people, instead of becoming people to serve, they become vehicles or obstacles to our, our sin. And so, Martha, as we just review her, her point in this narrative, she's doing something that is good. There's nothing wrong with division of labor. It's wonderful that she's showing hospitality, but at some point, she begins to get distracted and lose focus of the bigger picture.

And the bigger picture leads her to judgmentalism, disgruntlement with her sister, complaining and even commanding of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's consider the second character who does not speak at all in this narrative, and that is Mary. Mary is sitting. So Martha has a sister called Mary who sat at Jesus' feet.

And heard the idea here is she was continually paying attention to his Word. Let's to a couple of things about this particular verse, verse 9. Mary's posture of sitting at the Lord's feet. This would be the posture of a disciple, somebody that was sitting at the, at the feet of their teacher.

And while this may not seem unusual to us, there's a sense in which this would be unusual in the early church and in Judaism because women just did not sit at the feet of instructors. They were not normally allowed to learn at, at the hand of a teacher or a disciple. And yet Jesus has no issues with Mary being there. And, and Mary is excited to be at his feet learning.

But also her, her posture seems to portray an, an attitude of submission. And of attentive listening. You can just see Mary just gazing up at the Lord as he is teaching. We don't really know what he was, what he was talking about.

Perhaps he was talking about the resurrection. It seems that Martha had overheard some teaching of the Lord on this subject as we see in John chapter 11. We're not really sure, but she's sitting and giving full attention is the idea to the teaching of the word of God. This pictures Mary is listening expectantly.

She's not disinterested. She's not like checking her Facebook feed or her Instagram while Jesus is talking. She's not just chewing gum, looking bored. The idea here is that she's, she's sitting up and she's attentive.

Her eyes are on the Lord. And I would just ask all of us, how are we postured when we come to hear from the word of God? When your father at home or your mother is leading Bible time at home, how are you postured before your parents? when Pastor Milton is up here preaching on any given Sunday, how do we posture ourselves and to hear, the Word of God?

Well, Mary provides a great example for us. She's sitting attentively at the Lord's feet. This would have been no doubt encouraging to the Lord Jesus Christ, as it would be encouraging to any one of our teachers. those of you who have taught, how it feels when you get up to teach and you look at your class.

And you see people who are falling asleep or you see people who are whispering to one another and you're wondering what they're whispering about or they're showing each other their cellphones and you're just wondering, what am I doing up here? Well, Mary is, is giving her attention to, to Christ because she knows there seems to be something within her where she knows this is, this is good. This is good stuff and this is what I need. Jesus says in another place in John 10, my sheep hear my voice.

When Jesus is speaking through His word, his sheep sit up and, and they take notice. I would just encourage all of us to really think about that as we prepare our hearts for any, for a Sunday, for the Lord's day, that we do the very best that we can to show up and ready to hear God's word and, and to give as few distractions as possible to the people of God. that it, I, I don't wanna make anybody feel bad or, or we're not here to judge you. but I know that my own Flock in my own family, I try to encourage that once the preaching of the word starts, we want you to stay seated and listen to the preaching of the word.

So just giving ourselves attentively to the word of God and, and, and setting that time aside, even just our personal devotions. Pastor Mo was talking a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was just great word of wisdom, just keeping our phones off or away from us or setting ourselves up to where we're having our time with the Lord and, and that we're, we're avoiding as many distractions as possible. pray for our, our pastors, our elders, pray for myself on this.

There is a danger for those of us that, that teach on a regular basis that this can become a professional exercise. This is just what I do for work as part of my job. I need to ask myself, am I a professional preacher teacher who's working in the kitchen all week, as it were, preparing a meal for others while starving myself? No, I need to be eating of the food I'm preparing.

I need to be snacking, cheating, while I am preparing, feeding myself. I need to hear a word of Christ. I need Christ's word. I find myself more and more desperate, and I, I, I, I feel like that the Lord has actually been doing a renewal in my heart in the last several months of just reminding me how much I just need the word of God for myself.

I have a confession to make. I'm preaching this sermon more for me than for you. I need God's word in me. And, and not only do I need to preach God's word, but I need to hear God's word being preached.

And so during the week, I, I, I read God's word. I listen to God's word. I've just this week in preparing for this message, I've, I've listened to RC Sproul, Al Mohler, and Alistair Begg all preach on this text. Why?

Because I need God's word. I need to be feeding on him. first, pray for Pastor Milton, pray for our elders and pastors. we are called according, I believe, to Acts 6:4 to be given ourselves continually to the word and prayer.

But there's so many tasks that tug at us and drag us away from sitting at the feet of Jesus. And so pray for us that as Paul instructed Timothy that we would be able to give attention to ourselves first and to the doctrine. Pray for me that I would take heed to myself and to the doctrine. Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:16, for if we continue for in doing this, we will save ourselves and those who hear you.

As pastors, as, and as dads, as parents, there needs to be a sense in which you think about your own sanctification first before you think about those that are hearing you. That seems selfish or contradictory, but in the Bible, there is this sense of healthy self-interest that I need to give attention to myself before I can give to anybody else. it's kinda like that, when you go fly an airplane. And how it goes.

You sit and you're waiting for those instructions from the flight attendant, right? What they always tell you to do, here's, you gotta put on your seatbelt and so on and so forth. And then there's like this oxygen and air pressure are always being monitored in the event of decompression. An oxygen mask will automatically appear in front of you to start the flow of oxygen.

Pull the mask to you, place it firmly over your nose and mouth. Secure the elastic band behind your head and breathe normally. Although the bag does not inflate, oxygen is flowing to the mask. If you are traveling with a child or someone who requires assistance, what are you supposed to do?

Put yours on first and then. Why do you do that? Yeah, because like a mom's instinct, right? All of a sudden, what, what's, what's the mom wanna do?

I can help my child. I'm, I'm gonna put the mask on my child and then they pass out. No doubt, sadly, this message has been put together by experience, right? and so the mom and the dad have to put the mask on themselves first and then they can assist their children.

In the same way, we need to feed ourselves first as individuals, as parents, as pastors. We must sit at the feet of Christ, follow the example of Mary. Tim Keller says this. Sitting at Jesus' feet in the mundane busyness of life is the key to being great.

I'm sure Jim and Promise could probably verify this, but, when you, when you grow up in the church and you hear the various messages from missionaries, I know for me as a young person, I just grew up with this idea that I wanna be great in God's kingdom. I wanna be like Brother Andrew and smuggle Bibles into Russia. I want to be like some of these people. I, I, I'll be, I really had this concept that I was gonna get kicked out of high school for being so radical for Christ.

That Christian colleges would flock to my door and say please come to our university. I just had these visions of grandeur of what I was going to do. What I knew I wasn't gonna do was to be a pastor in the United States and have anything to do with facilities. I knew that was not gonna happen.

But smuggle Bibles into Russia and all that stuff, that's That's for me And yet, It's, how does, how does service for Christ really begin? Where do we have the right attitude? I still struggle with this, but I can remember times as a younger Christian, the Lord moving upon my heart in various ways. I remember getting really into street evangelism and then going out and preaching, and then it wasn't too long before I'm looking around at other people in our church.

I'm like, why isn't anybody sharing their faith? How come nobody's out evangelizing like me? We need to all share, like I, I'm just indispensable to the body of Christ. What, how do I get, how does my heart get to that place where I begin to complain about my other brothers and sisters?

It's because I'm not starting with the one thing, starting with sitting at the feet of Jesus. What does he want? I need to feed myself on him first, and then that gives me the proper fuel and humility and God breaks me down so that I can then go out and serve my brothers and sisters in Christ. Well, lastly, let's look at Jesus' assessment.

We've already hinted at some of it here. Let's make a couple of observations. First of all, is Jesus against service? No, there's no indication here that Jesus is against service.

He loves to commend diligent servants. That's what we see in the Good Samaritan story that comes right before this passage. So what we see in Matthew chapter 24, when Jesus says, who then is a faithful and wise servant whom his master has set over his household to give them their food at the proper time. Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.

Jesus loves service and people who serve him. Even as I'm up here preaching, there are people who are watching our kids. There are people preparing for the missionary presentations later. There are people who have put in time to get food ready and set up PowerPoints and things like that.

Jesus obviously cares about service. And we know that Jesus loved Mary and Martha. Again, John 11 says, now Jesus loved Martha and her sister, and Lazarus, by the way. But notice the kindness of Christ's tone and what he says.

Here to Martha in verse 41, Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, let's just stop right there. can you just hear the way Jesus is saying, saying this? Martha, Martha And he says to Peter, Simon, Simon. When Peter says, I'll die for you, Simon, Simon.

Jesus appears to Paul and says, Saul, Saul, this repetition of a name seems to come out of the gentleness of a savior, and aren't you so glad that Jesus treats us differently from the way that we treat him? Mary comes up, she's disgruntled. she commands the Lord, Lord, why don't, you don't care? Why don't you tell her to help me?

And Jesus treats Mary with great gentleness. And yet gives truth to Martha. She did need correcting. And so he says, Worried, you are worried and troubled about many things, Martha, but one thing is needed and Mary has chosen that good portion which will not be taken away.

He's not rebuking her for her activity. It's what? It's your attitude. It's the attitude Not the activity.

Think about that. sometimes, some of us, we have various gifts that the Lord gives us and, and, we can ask ourselves, why aren't my gifts being used in a, in a greater way? Why am I getting left out of the equation? Well, one of the places that you might want to start is attitude.

Are you sitting before the feet of Jesus and, and asking him to search my heart, oh God, see if there's any wicked way in me, lead me in the way everlasting. Attitude can be. A hamper to our service. But then Jesus goes on and he says, there's one thing, Mary, that is needed.

One thing It's interesting, there's a textual issue in this section. I question whether I should bring it up, but I'm going to, that there's a minority of texts. That actually say there are a few things, but the vast majority of your translations say one thing. And even the NIV says includes one thing in its translation.

There's a reason why the majority of the translations go with one thing as opposed to a few things, and that's what we call it a textual principle called take the hardest reading. In textual criticism, there's various principles that textual critics use and you realize we're not talking about the originals, we're talking about copies of copies of copies. The vast majority of the copies say one thing, but there's a few manuscripts that say a few things. And the reason that the majority of the translations go with the one thing is because it's the harder reading.

What do we mean by it's the harder reading? What in the world does Jesus mean by one thing? Jesus, there are more, there's much more than one thing to do. Seems to be are feeling when we first see the text, right?

Martha, you're worried about many things. But there's only one thing that's needed. This is very typical of Jesus' teaching. Many times throughout the gospels, he'll say something that just seems contradictory, it seems too hard.

What are you talking about Christ? It seems like what Christ is talking about here is There is one thing needed in order to produce the attitude necessary. For all of the other things. He's not rebuking her for her service.

He's rebuking her for her attitude. So how is she gonna get to the right attitude in service? There's one thing. There's one thing you need to do, Martha, and that's sit at my feet.

Mary's doing that. Mary has chosen the best portion. That idea of portion, it goes back to this Old Testament idea of the Aaronic priesthood. They did not get any portion of the land.

They did not get an inheritance, but the Lord was their portion. The Lord Himself was considered their portion. Mary has chosen the best portion. She has chosen me.

I am her portion, and it will not be taken away from her. The idea here being that probably Jesus is implying that my word being imparted to her is not gonna be something that is ever taken away. God's word will not return to him void. So what's the bottom line here?

I think Jesus would say to Mary, I want your company more than your service. I want a relationship with you. And as I give a relationship, as we have this relationship, these other things are gonna take care of themselves. In another place in John chapter 6, Jesus says, do not work for the food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.

The real food that we need is Jesus Christ himself. David seems to express this in Psalm 27 when he says one thing have I desired of the Lord, what that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. Why does he want to be in the house of the Lord? Because that's where the presence of God is.

So Jesus is very kind in his rebuke, and yet he gives great truth here. there's a Russian proverb that says, if you try to catch two rabbits, you won't catch either. I like that. I don't know about you, but I, for me, I so easily get thrown into many different directions.

It, it used to be, and I'd like to say this was a long time ago, but I'll tell you, it was probably about 4 or 5 months ago. I would wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is like pick up my phone, check my text, check my emails. OK, here's what I'm gonna do. Yeah, I do need to spend some time with the Lord.

And then it's 1112, 1 in the afternoon. I've gone in a 10 different directions on all the tasks I have to accomplish and then I'm like, yes, I know I gotta get into the word and spend time with Christ. And then the whole day will go by and I've done lots and lots of stuff, and I come home. Yeah, honey, how was your day?.

Yeah, I got, I got some things done, to get other things done. But what is the Lord calling upon us to do? sit at his feet first. Learn from Christ first.

And then he pours out his grace upon us. 2 Corinthians 5:14 is a passage I've been thinking a lot about lately. 2 Corinthians 5:14, it says this in, in 15, it is the love of Christ that compels us. The love of Christ compels us.

Because we judge this, that if one died for all, then all died, and he died for all. Why did Christ die for me? Why did he express his love for me in his death? That those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

What is it that the love of Christ results in? It results in a life where we no longer want to live for ourselves, but we want to live for Him. When I find myself just getting caught up in the grind of the day and fun and suddenly, now it's all about my expectations and who's meeting my expectations and is the Lord meeting my expectations? And is this day going the way I had designed and I had foreseen.

My, I'll tell you what, my day does not very often go exactly as I had foreseen. But when I wake up and sit at the feet of Jesus, it goes as he had foreseen. And then I have the fuel to then say, Lord, I'm happy in you, how you want this day to go. I'm here to serve you.

I want you to turn quickly over to John chapter 12, because this isn't the end of Martha's story. It's the end of, we don't really see in this particular text how Martha responds or even how Mary responds. To Jesus' instruction. What we do see You're gonna stay in John 11.

I'm gonna talk about John 12 for a second. In John 12, we see that Jesus, the disciple whom Jesus loved, here is called Lazarus, or the one whom you love has died. And then, Martha and Mary find out that Jesus has come close to Bethany. Martha, as Martha does, runs out to meet him.

And says, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died, but she didn't stop there. Then she says, but nevertheless, and then she gets into this theological conversation with Jesus, like she's been listening to him and, and sitting at his feet. And she comes at him with, with much faith about how things are going to transpire. And then Mary runs out and as Mary does, she falls at the feet of Jesus and she says, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died and then Jesus weeps.

He has compassion upon these dear sisters he loves. But I, what I want to point out is In chapter 12, we have the same Mary and Martha. We know from comparing the other texts, they're in the house of Simon the Leper, but look at verse 1. Then 6 days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, that's their town, where Lazarus was and who had been dead and whom he had raised from the dead.

There they made a supper for him and Martha, what? Martha was serving She's still serving. She hasn't stopped serving. She didn't feel like, oh, the Lord rebuked me, I'm not gonna ever serve again.

No, she's there serving. But Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with him. When Mary took 1 pound, and then Mary took 1 pound of very costly oil of spikenard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with fragrance and oil. What is Mary doing?

She's still sitting at the feet of Jesus. And she's spending oil that's a year's wages upon Christ's feet. What do you not see anywhere in these verses? You don't see a complaint from Martha?

She's just happily serving. The implication would be Mary's doing what Mary does, she's at the feet of Jesus. But Mary, she just can't seem to do anything without getting complaints. Look at verse 7.

Then Jesus, no, I'm sorry. Verse 4, but one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, who would betray him, said, Why was this fragrant oil not sold for 300 denari and given to the poor? This he said and look down at verse 7, but Jesus said, Let her alone, she has kept this for the day of my burial. for the poor you have with you always, but me you do not always have.

And then, in the comparative text, Jesus says, as long as this gospel goes out throughout the world, the story of what Mary has done will be told, which is fulfilled for us today. So what do we have here? We have Mary and Martha in a similar situation. Martha's still serving, Mary is still sitting at the feet of Christ.

And yet there's harmony. There's, there, there appears to be harmony. Now here the detractor is Judas. And so we see a progress in Martha's life, and we see Mary sitting at the feet, feet of Jesus moves her to worship, and to want to give up something of very great cost.

So let's just ask a couple of final questions. What exactly then is the one thing for Christians? Kobe Bryant says it's to win championships. It's to give yourself completely to your profession.

It's, Solon says it's the human will that people can do anything they set their mind to. Here's what I want to suggest from our text this morning, and you can evaluate this in your care groups. I believe the one thing is not just doing the task of Bible reading or the task of prayer. It is meeting with God Himself through the Word and prayer, and experiencing the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Our religion should be, as the old Puritans used to say, an experimental religion that is an experiential. religion, through the word, through prayer and the power of the Spirit. We need to meet with Christ through His Spirit. We are intended to meet with Christ individually and corporately.

And it is necessary, it is needed. Man shall not live by bread alone, the Bible says, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. It's not just the task of Bible reading and Bible prayer, it's meeting with Christ himself. It's having an experience with Christ through the word in prayer, and he wants to meet with us.

The whole Bible drives towards the idea that God wants to be a God that meets with his people, right? And that they would meet with him. It's the equivalent to abiding in Christ as a branch is connected to the vine. Remember in John 15, Jesus says, you must abide in me.

If you pull a branch off from the tree, what fruit are you gonna get? You're not gonna get any good fruit. But if we're connected to Christ, if we're staying at the feet of Jesus, if we're experiencing his love that he imparts to us a sense of being beloved, now we can begin to walk in humility and have the proper attitudes to go out and do works of service that produce worship. Rather than personal kingdom building.

How are we going to reach the lost here at Cornerstone? It starts with, do the one thing. How are you gonna help the homeless, the hungry, the abused, do the one thing. How are we going to fix our marriages and reach our children with a passion for Christ, do the one thing.

How are we gonna raise up more missionaries to go out to not just Peru and Papua New Guinea, but to the Philippines? To Iraq To Canada Do the one thing. Let's talk about some improper improper uses usages of this passage. Let me first say that this passage is never meant and should not be used as a dig against those who have gifts of service.

Every Sunday, we have people who are serving in various ways, just as we have right now people getting ready for our mission's reception. This is not a passage about quietism versus activism. This is not a passage about personality types, introverts or extroverts. It seems that this passage is in our text by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to teach us that we need to realize that your greatest service to the Lord is sitting at his feet and receiving from Him.

There's nobody in this room that has anything of eternal value to offer anyone else in the world other than what? What you have in Christ. And so we must not cut ourselves off from the vine. We must stay connected to the vine on a daily, even hourly basis.

We also need to beware of performance driven Christian Christianity. And in our circles, evangelical circles, evangelicalism is rife with performance-driven Christianity. We just have activity after activity after activity. We have presentation after presentation that can sometimes guilt us into things that move us away from the one thing.

I'll tell you one action point, I, I feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot and saying this, but one of the action points of this morning's message is to look at your calendar and determine whether you're too busy with ministry. Are you so busy with various ministries that you don't have the time to sit down at the feet of Christ and receive from Him? And if so, you may need to cut some things out. And that's OK Notice also in this text that Jesus is not a religious pluralist.

He doesn't say, yeah, Mary's got her way and Martha's got her way, that's all right. No, the bottom line of this text is as loving as Jesus is and compassionate he is, he says, Mary has chosen the right portion. Martha, you need to be corrected. And by what we see in John 11 and 12, she did make the corrections.

Commitment to Christ is more than achievement for Christ, attitude first, activity second, Quality of relationships first rather than quantity of things you do for Christ. Let me give you just a a sad example from my own life. I always thought for the longest time I, I was convinced I was gonna go to Mexico as a missionary and when my wife and I were courting, one of the big questions in our marriage was, can you go to Mexico? And she says, your God will be my God and I will follow you wherever you go.

And I'm like, that's what I wanna hear. Let's get married. And so our first year of marriage, we got married and then that summer, we went down to Mexico. And I dragged my wife from city to city and berated her for not being as excited about Mexico as I thought she should be.

And I have no idea. I, I, as, as far as I know, she actually was excited about being there. It was just we're newly married, right? We've only been married for a few months.

She's got this really strong-willed husband who's like in his, he's 25 years old and he's like, why aren't you excited? Don't you want to move down here next year? What's going on? And I just made, I made her feel I was Martha to her.

How, how could that have gone differently if I had been sitting at the feet of Christ? And really what was in my heart is what was in Christ's heart, and that is, Jesus, what do you want us to do? I'm married and we think you're calling us to Mexico, but we don't really know. And Lord, show us as a couple.

but I was 25 years old, right? You don't figure some of these things out. I'm, I'm, how old am I now? I'm 49.

I think I'm I'm just, I don't, I'm starting to figure a few things out. Ask Katie. yeah, he's figuring a few things out now. And But sitting at the feet of Jesus.

is where it's at. Think of just how this would apply just to your relationships in general. Think of your marriage, what, what is your, what does your partner really want out of your relationship? Does, does your wife or does my wife or your husband?

If you want me just coming home and, and saying, well, this is what I've accomplished for you today. Here's all of the things that I did, here's all the money that I earned, here's the, the things that I checked off today for you and And here's the list, please survey it and hope you have a good evening. No, I'll tell you what I hear from my wife. She's been banging it over my head for 20 years or so now.

It's like, hug me. I don't need a theological lesson right now. And And that's what that's what we can do to the Lord. we can come to the Lord.

And sorry. Lord, I've done 2 of these and 4 of those, and here's all the things that I've done for you this week. I'm really disgusted with my church and people in my care group. Lord, I, if you really cared, I wish you would tell the rest of the people in my church to get off their rears and start doing the real work of the ministry, but here's all of the things I've done for you this week.

Is that what the Lord is really wanting from us? No, I think many times the Lord is just saying, come and meet with me. Meet with me. It's not wrong to serve, but one thing is needed.

Listen to me and then go, no, no, no, I, I don't have time, Lord. I'll listen to you later So ask yourself, does your service start with the one thing? And is your ministry bringing unity or division? Are you keeping your daily appointments with Christ?

this is not work salvation. We're not saying, hey, you gotta work. Do all this, this work to sit at Christ's feet. No, you got saved in order to do this.

God saved you so you can meet with him. That is your salvation, to have a friendship relationship with God. That's not work salvation. You were saved in order to be rightly related with God and be able to have time with Him.

One of the things I've been trying to do this year and these last couple of things I'll say just by practical encouragement. And that is, remember last year, My wife started this thing where she was doing this ninety-day Bible challenge and every time I got up, she'd be reading the Bible and then I'd come home, she'd be reading the Bible and like, it'd be kinda irritating. And Like every time I turn around, you're like reading the Bible, can't we just sit down and watch a movie?

Come on.

Now I'm exaggerating, but Anyway, I, I kinda like, hey, this, this is a good plan, let's, let me try this out. And so I bought the ninety-day Bible, Zonderri Bible, and then I've been listening to it online when I drive around instead of just listening to sports or this or that, just trying to And I'll tell you what, it's just been a, a tremendous blessing and it, and it really hasn't been all that hard. It's like 12 pages a day. It's like about 45 minutes of reading.

And I'm just like reading and listening to the Bible. And I'll get up and I'll actually have my cell phone on this ledge in the shower so it doesn't fall off. And then I'm listening to it while I'm in the shower. As long as I'm paying attention, that counts, right?

And I get out and then eventually I get down, I open up my Bible and I'm reading through it. And if there's one or two things that stick out to me, then I'll go back later and look it up in my MacArthur study Bible or my ESB study Bible and, and that's part of my time with the Lord. And And I've just been really, really blessed by that and I'm amazed. we're, this is like January 20th and I'm like, 1, 21st, I'm like 1/4 of the way through the Bible, and it didn't feel that hard.

And I, and I really feel like I've been meeting with Christ. so anyway, that's just, I don't want to be guilt you, you don't have to do the 90 day Bible challenge. That's not the point. But do something where you're meeting with Christ and keeping that appointment.

If your boss comes to you and says, I need to see you at 8 o'clock in the morning, we need an appointment, we need to talk about your job. What are you gonna do? Are you gonna be there at 8:30? Are you gonna say, sorry, I got better things to do.

No, you're gonna show up, right? The Lord says, hey, meet me. Meet me daily. It's needed.

It's necessary. It's for your good. Let's go ahead and pray and we'll have the folks come down for the offering. We'll have the team come up to lead us in a song.

And I really encourage you. I know that there's a baptism this afternoon, so some people can't go and there's other things happening, but if you're able to stick around for our missionary presentation, we'd love to have you in 103. Lord, we just thank you so much for just, what a wonderful body this is filled with so many people that love you and are such great examples. I know that myself, my kids, the rest of our staff.

Lord, thank you for giving us a church with so many wonderful servants. that care about you and so many people that love you and, and sit at your feet. I know so many folks that daily sit at your feet and pray, for this congregation, and I just pray, Father, that You would help us to take the instructions that we see in your word to put it into practice. Help us to be corrected where we need to be corrected, encouraged where we need to be encouraged.

Lord, may we see the one thing that is needed to sit at your feet. On an ongoing basis, because where else shall we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life. There's one thing that we desire, and that is your presence in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.