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[0:00] So join me in John chapter number 10. And if y'all wouldn't mind, I'd love us to end today's service with that song once again. I'd love to hear it one more time today. Many of you enjoyed that song.

[0:11] Say amen. And I hope you're loving our Jesus. And that we are never in a place where his mercy cannot reach us. Some of you might say as me that you are, in this story, you're just a Mary that cannot stay seated, right?

[0:26] As that you know where you're supposed to be in loving Jesus and worshiping him. But sometimes you just find yourself getting up too quickly from that place. And as in the contrast with Martha and Mary that we will look at.

[0:40] So Martha is there. She is troubled with many things going on. And Mary is doing the needful thing. So Martha here is dealing with trouble.

[0:50] She's cumbered. She's dealing with anxiety. And anxiety over what? We don't exactly know. Other than there's many things that need to be done. But if she is like me and maybe like many of you in here, it's probably rooted in a pride in how she thought others might perceive her.

[1:08] That she just had many things that she just had to get done before she could do the needful thing. So as we look at this story, those last four verses of John chapter number 10, I want you to see five things in the condition of Martha and where she's at.

[1:22] And we'll walk through those. But I'll just read them to you first. She accuses Jesus of not caring. She just comes out. Don't miss that in the passage. Do you not care? She says that to Jesus, the one that she loves.

[1:35] Not only that, she desires to control the actions of Jesus. Jesus, do this. Also, her belief that Jesus had what he had to provide was not enough.

[1:47] She needed Jesus in the living room plus something else. Then it creates a problem in her relationship with others. This response to anxiety and the false way of thinking that she was thinking, she acted upon and it caused problems between her and her sister.

[2:04] And then lastly, is that she lost sight of what was needful. And that's what Jesus calls her back to. So let's look at those five things in that story. First of all, she accuses Jesus of not caring.

[2:14] That's in verse number 40 of Luke 10. And Martha was cumbered about, but serving and came to him and said, Lord, does thou not care that my sister had left me to serve alone?

[2:26] Lord, do you not consider the condition that I am in? I'm all alone in this other room working by myself. Why would you cause me to be in this? The same Jesus that she had welcomed into her home with warm hospitality.

[2:41] She had called him Lord and now she is living differently. And as we all know, a life without, with fear, without faith in the fact that God cares for us will always lead to being very troubled.

[2:57] When you're dealing with something and you're just not confident that God cares, then you ought to be anxious. You ought to be troubled because if you are the greatest person in the story, then you have a lot of things to be worried about today.

[3:09] But that is not the case. And so her anxiety is coming from the fact that she just wonders, Lord, do you not care? Are you missing something about this? And she's not alone.

[3:20] It wasn't many weeks ago that we looked at the disciples and they were seeing the storm, but Jesus is sleeping. And the question basically was, Jesus, are you not aware of the storm that I'm in?

[3:31] Do you not care? And you're always going to be troubled when you're not certain that Jesus cares about the situation or the circumstances that you're in?

[3:41] And Martha just comes out and says it. She's having a bad day because she is allowing bad thinking, bad philosophy to affect the way that she is acting. And she says, do you not care?

[3:53] You'll notice that Jesus doesn't rebuke her for working. There's other portions in the Bible where we're going to see that Mary does one thing and it says Martha is serving, but there's not the confrontation with her and Jesus.

[4:04] Because Jesus isn't confronting the fact that she's working, but she's confronting her way of thinking and the attitude that she has. There's not a separation here between service and worship.

[4:16] That's not what's happening in this passage. It's a separation for a person recognizing Jesus for all that he is and sitting at his feet, and another person questioning, does he care about them?

[4:28] It isn't saying that there's a competition between loving God and loving our neighbor. We just saw that a couple weeks ago, that we're told to do both, and they're not in conflict with one another.

[4:39] There's enough time in life to do that all that God had commanded us to do while demonstrating our love towards him and sitting at his feet. God's will does not compete in our lives.

[4:51] So here she is accusing Jesus of not caring. Have you been in Martha's place before? Have you ever wondered that Jesus didn't care enough about the situation and that it was all on you?

[5:05] Secondly, we see that her not caring leads her to want to control God. And here in Luke 10, 40, Does I not care that my sister left me to serve? Bid her, therefore, that she help me.

[5:17] Pretty audacious, isn't it? Jesus, tell my sister to get up and to come in here and to help me. My kids do this all the time to me and Stephanie. Like, Mom, they're not helping me.

[5:29] Mom, they said to do this. They told us to do this. And they're not carrying their load. And we hear this all the time. But to get to a point where you would tell Jesus, Tell her to get up and come help me.

[5:40] Much like the Pharisees who didn't think that Jesus knew who was at his feet. As somebody came and washed the feet of Jesus. And the Pharisees says, They don't even know. Jesus doesn't even know who this woman is.

[5:53] That's what Martha is saying. Like, you don't even know what Mary is doing and why it's wrong. Or maybe like the older brother in the prodigal story. When the older brother comes to dad and says, You know, he's upset because he's killing the fatty calf.

[6:06] It is to criticize that the one in charge, Jesus here, or the prodigal father, doesn't have the big picture of everything that's going on.

[6:17] And he needs to act differently. Don't you find it hard to trust anything that you cannot control? If you cannot control it, it's very difficult to want to put your trust into it.

[6:30] Because in trusting someone, it's opening yourselves to be hurt or be disappointed. Or to be let down. Or to simply act in a way that is different than the way that you wanted them to do.

[6:42] Parents of older kids, do you find it harder to let go of some trust? Because why? They're just going to do it different than how you would do it, right? They're going to do it differently than the maybe you want to.

[6:53] So to make yourself vulnerable is what's necessary if you're going to trust somebody. Martha's having a hard time trusting God. Because Martha's having a hard time not controlling everything that's going on at that time.

[7:07] And Jesus is someone that she would like to control. But he's not someone that we should control. He's somebody that we trust. But he's not moving at your timing. He's not doing what you want. We'd say, God, we trust you.

[7:19] We don't want to control you. We trust you. And then a demonstration of the belief that Jesus is not enough. And that just comes here from looking at the fact that she is cumbered about and much serving.

[7:31] That Mary, who's sitting at the feet of Jesus, is not being rebuked at Jesus because she's not getting things done. That Jesus in the room... We know we have Jesus in the room, but we also need.

[7:42] And that's what Martha was feeling. She needed these other things to be done. Not that they were bad things, but they were things that were keeping her from having this opportunity to sit at the feet of Jesus as Mary was there.

[7:56] And so the demonstration of that belief that Jesus is not enough. God's love and grace being enough is primarily a truth that is to be believed.

[8:09] It's not an emotion or a circumstance to be felt. Let me read that to you again. That God's love and grace being enough is primarily a truth to be believed.

[8:20] It's not an emotion or a circumstance to be felt. Here's some lies that we believe. That if we do not believe that Jesus is enough, that He's not enough. But He's still enough if you recognize it or not.

[8:31] Two, that if the circumstances aren't right, then Jesus is not enough. Circumstances aren't right, Jesus doesn't understand what's going on. Circumstances aren't right, Jesus needs to do something different.

[8:41] If I'm in pain, then Jesus is not enough. Apparently, if I'm in pain, something has gone wrong and that I cannot trust Him because He is not enough.

[8:55] Thursday, Mitch and Jackie, missionaries in Peru, as you know, shortly after their child was born, their child Kylie went to be with the Lord.

[9:06] Yesterday, they had a funeral service in the afternoon for Kylie. Mitch wrote something. Many of you might have read it. I won't read all of it to you. But just to let you see what it means that the truth that Jesus is enough or that God's love and grace is enough is primarily a truth to believe and it's not an emotion to be felt.

[9:25] This is what our brother in Christ said. Our brother believed something that he didn't feel.

[9:45] He knew that God was enough, even when the circumstances and the feelings said that it wasn't enough. What a wonderful testimony of faith.

[9:56] I'm thankful to get to say about Martha, she's a quick student. If you look in John chapter number 11, verses 26 and 27, these are the words of Martha which are wonderful as we see the great testimony that Peter has about who Christ is.

[10:10] We also hear it in our dear sister, Luke John 11, 26 and 27. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Jesus unto Martha, believest thou this? She, Martha, said unto him, Yea, Lord, I believe.

[10:25] Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which shall come into the world. She is a woman of a strong belief. There was a day where she was just pushed to and fro by her emotions, her feelings, and her circumstances.

[10:40] And her belief was not where it should have been. But I'm thankful that is not where she stays at. Then we see this difference. It creates a problem in her relationship. How many of you ladies in here have a sister?

[10:52] Would you raise your hand? All right. One row has a lot of sisters, right? All of it. How many of you wives in here have sisters, have ever fought with your sister? Would you raise your hand? The same amount of hands for the most part in here.

[11:06] Jennifer and Joy, y'all really can't believe it. How could you fight with your sister, Joy? So precious, right? But I'm sure y'all found the way. And so even in the Bible here, there's a problem between these two sisters, Martha and Mary.

[11:19] My sister has left me to serve alone. She just went and left me, and she just left. She walked out. So here's Martha. Her hands might have been filled with meal preparation.

[11:31] But her mind had become filled with a preoccupation with her sister. So there she's in the other room, and she might have been tossing the bread. I don't even know how to pretend like you cook, okay?

[11:42] I'm not even going to say a bunch of things that aren't even going to make sense, all right? Well, I'll take the modern times. Let's give them an oven and a toaster and a microwave, all right? So there she is moving the pizza roast from the microwave, and she's setting out Doritos and the Mountain Dew.

[11:55] A very nice meal that I can prepare. And as she's doing these things and her hands are busy, her mind is set on Mary. Where is Mary at?

[12:05] What is Mary doing? She was preoccupied with it. And her false understanding of the problem that created anxiety has now changed her view of her sister.

[12:16] It ought to be, hey, I'm glad that I'm serving right now. Hey, Mary, don't worry about it. I got this. You have a good time in there. I'll get this finished, and I'll be in there with you guys as well.

[12:27] And that could have been how the story could have went. And at other times, Martha will be seen serving, but that's not the case. You can see that it changes her view upon her sister, and it creates this problem in the relationship here.

[12:41] Her disappointments in others is the fruit of her meditation of her mind. Have you ever put a filter on somebody? Have you ever put a filter on me? Have you ever put a filter on you?

[12:52] Have you ever got to a place, and sometimes we do this in parenting, where all we see is catching our kids wrong? All they do is wrong, so even when they do the good thing, all you do is see the bad thing.

[13:05] Have you ever done that in your marriage, where your spouse or your wife is trying to do something nice for you, but you've had this filter, and so all you can see is the negative things? That's the fruit of the meditation of your mind.

[13:17] Here, Martha is allowing the troubles of this world to not focus upon her devotion to Christ, and if her relationship with Jesus is correct, then all other relationships will come from that.

[13:28] But Martha can never expect to get along with Mary if Martha doesn't recognize her relationship and where she should be with Christ. And so measuring Mary against herself doesn't see Mary as different or even deeper love for God.

[13:42] She measures what she is doing in comparison to what her sister is doing. She becomes the standard in that moment, not Jesus or His Word, but she becomes the standard.

[13:54] When we become the standard, everybody is going to disappoint us, because not everybody is called to live the life that you're called to live. Not everybody is going to see things the same way that you're doing. Not everybody is even supposed to be doing the same thing at the same time that you're doing it.

[14:08] So if you become the standard in life, then everybody else is only going to be a disappointment. And then lastly here, she lost sight of what was needful. Even in service, there is a temptation to be distracted.

[14:22] And Satan is willing to try to make everything feel more urgent than sitting down to be with Jesus. Everything is going to be more urgent than that.

[14:32] Jesus says that the only thing necessary that's happening in the house that day is what Mary was doing. And what Mary was doing would never be taken away from her. And so Jesus rebukes Martha, but lovingly.

[14:46] Martha, Martha, he says his name twice. I know you, Martha. Martha, Martha. And then recognize that what Mary is doing is eternal.

[14:57] Martha says, but what I'm doing is important. Yes, it's important. But what Mary is doing is eternal. And in our lives and in this story, there's only one thing that is necessary.

[15:08] Today, tomorrow, next Tuesday, every day afterwards. It's to know and obey and enjoy Jesus. That is the necessary thing.

[15:20] That is the eternal thing. That is the thing that causes us to procrastinate doing everything else and put it off if we need to. Because our relationship with Jesus is always going to be the needful thing and the most important thing.

[15:36] In December 19, 1972, Eastern Airlines jumbo jet crashed into the Florida Everglades. Filled with holiday travelers, Flight 401 was bound for Miami from New York City.

[15:48] But as the plane approached the Miami airport for its landing, the light that indicates proper deployment of the landing gear failed to light. The plane flew in large, looping circles over the swamps below while the cockpit crew checked to see if the gear had not been deployed or if the bulb was defective.

[16:07] When the flight engineer tried to remove the bulb, it wouldn't budge. The other crew members tried to help. As they struggled with the bulb, no one noticed the aircraft was losing altitude and the plane simply flew into the swamp.

[16:19] Dozens of people were killed in the crash. While an experienced crew of pilots fiddled with the 75-cent light bulb, the plane with its passengers flew right into the Everglades.

[16:31] Have you ever got so preoccupied with something that you didn't realize that you were losing altitude? That while you were doing this, you were going down. While you were focusing on this 75-cent light bulb, your family was losing altitude and going down.

[16:46] And it was catastrophic what happened today. Devotion to Jesus is the ultimate priority. Don't let distractions of secondary things keep you from sitting at the feet of Jesus who wants to teach you.

[16:59] Be a one thing person. Be a one thing Christian. David testifies, Psalm 27 to 4, Yes, you can live that life.

[17:20] Regardless of your occupation and regardless of your life, you can find time to live this. We do not all have to become monks. I'm actually going to suggest that none of us become monks.

[17:31] Now, I'm picturing you as monks. You're picturing me as a monk. All right, let's get that out of our head, okay? None of you have to become monks. In the life that God has called you to live, you can live being mindful of this one thing.

[17:44] When Jesus healed the blind man, the religious leaders tried to distract him from glorifying God by calling Jesus a sinner. And this blind man answered in John 9, 25. And he said, Whether he be a sinner or not, I know not.

[17:54] One thing I know that whereas I was blind and now I see. I know this one thing. Paul professes in Philippians 3, 13. Brother, and I count not myself that apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth into those things which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of a high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

[18:18] Let's be a one thing Christian. What is needful? In your life, the secondary things that would take you away from him. In this ministry, if I would ever try to put things on you that would take you away from that one thing, then you must fight against it.

[18:34] Because even service to the Lord can cause you a distraction when it comes to your devotion to him. So there's three big stories I'm putting together. There's a series of passages as Luke is giving.

[18:47] These stories are told longer in other passages. When I was reading the Lord's Prayer, how many of you thought, that sounds different than the way that I memorized it? Because many of you probably memorized it from, I believe, in Matthew.

[18:59] The story is told again in a longer reading, and these stories are told. But Luke groups stories together as he's building the case, inspired by God, but he's building a case here.

[19:10] And here there's three stories. One is, we've looked at, is how do you relate to your neighbor? Which is that you decide who is your neighbor is the question. And then now we see here, how do you view one another and your time with the Lord?

[19:23] And then 11, 1 through 13 is, how do you engage in a dialogue? How do you pray to God? And so all three of those together, they talk about our devotion and discipleship to the Lord.

[19:34] So now we look here at this model prayer briefly. And I want you to see some categories that are fixed in your mind and have them readily available. You've seen, if you played football, you've seen it in movies, it's a very common thing for people to recite the Lord's Prayer.

[19:51] And then as you, as good Baptists, you know, my prayer life ought to be more than just quoting a prayer back. It ought to be more. But could I encourage you to not forget that memorizing that would be a wonderful thing to do?

[20:06] Not only memorizing that, but not even saying that together as a family. Nor would it even be wrong for you when you're in a position and you just say, I don't have words to say. Is this to say, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be your name.

[20:20] Because we will see in that prayer, we find the categories of things that are needed to help us live with a merry heart in an anxious world as we live as Martha so many times.

[20:31] So, first part, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. How shocking. Lord, teach us to pray, not just me. Teach us to pray. And he says, call him Father.

[20:43] Not only did Jesus get to call him Father, but they said, you can call him Father. And no matter how bad of an example you had as a father, you have the loving heavenly Father as an example.

[20:53] And you have no bad history with him. You have nothing between. He's never done you wrong. And even if you had a great father, it's small in comparison to our heavenly Father.

[21:05] And so, there's no reason. There's no. It makes sense. While one of the things that Satan attacks so much in our society is the understanding of a father.

[21:15] Wayne Noggle on Sunday night said that. What's the connection between the widow and the orphan? Is that they're both unprotected. They're both without somebody to care and a father or a husband to care for them.

[21:28] Satan attacks that word father because he wants it not to mean what it should when we say, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Reverent. Thursday night, we looked at the reverence and the holiness of God.

[21:39] Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Your kingdom come. This is a prayer that would say, God, I pray for the destruction of Satan's kingdom. I pray for the building up of your kingdom.

[21:50] I pray for conversion, Lord. I pray for those that aren't in the kingdom and are lost to be saved. And I pray for the completion, Lord. I pray for the day. The last prayer in the Bible is, Come, Lord Jesus.

[22:02] Thy kingdom come. God, I am tired of the world in which I live in that is not ruled and reigned by you. Where people are fighting against you. And I can't wait till the day that you rule and reign, thy will be done.

[22:13] Which reminds us that our life is headed in a definite direction. There is a day that is coming where his kingdom here on earth will rule and reign. So even in the order of our prayer, it turns our priorities upside down.

[22:27] Which is to say, Give us our day, our daily bread. We need to be humbled. God, I am not self-sufficient. I need to remember that what I need for this day will come for you and only from you.

[22:38] That there's nothing that I have in the kitchen that is more important than what you will provide for me in prayer. That my anxiety and what I can provide and my self-sufficiency, I need you.

[22:49] So we would pray and say, Lord, give us our daily bread. You are the giver. We're coming to you. We're never, ever going to want our daily bread more than we want you. We're coming to you acknowledging you're the giver of life and of bread.

[23:02] And we choose you before we choose the bread. And I'd rather give up my daily bread than to give up you. Because what you provide is what I need. And what you don't provide, I don't need to be anxious about because I don't need.

[23:15] And then forgive us our debts as we forgive those that are indebted to us. Immediately relating our sin to the cross and recognizing that we needed forgiveness. And then looking at the cross and then looking at those that are indebted to us.

[23:28] And then if what they're indebted to us seems so large, then we look back to the cross. And just keep looking at the cross until you look at other people and say, what they owe me is nothing. You know, we have a parable of that in the story.

[23:41] That the debt would be so great. They have forgiven us. Looking at the cross and we look at that. It changes that. And lead us not into temptation. We need the Holy Spirit to help guide us so we don't lose sight of the needful thing.

[23:52] Christianity is not devotion to work or to a cause or a doctrine. But devotion to a person. The Lord Jesus Christ. And so any sin on some level is idolatry.

[24:05] Because it's going to something other than Jesus to meet our needs. And that's what creates this anxiety here. Let me show you a slide, Brother Brett, if you wouldn't mind helping me with that.

[24:16] So we've seen in Martha's anxiety. And now we see a framework in which we have prayer. It's a little hard to see. But in Martha, accuses Jesus of not caring. And then in our prayer, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

[24:30] Martha has a desire to control things. But we say, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. She believes that Jesus is not enough. But we say, give us this day our daily bread. She has a problem with the relationship with others.

[24:41] And we say, Lord, forgive us our sins as we forgive others. She loses sight of what's needful. But we say, Lord, deliver us from temptation. Lord, lead us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil.

[24:53] Do you see the contrast between an anxious life and then one that would say the Lord's prayer and say, God, I am going to. This is my belief. You are the one that gives the bread.

[25:04] You are the Father which art in heaven. It's your will that needs to be done. That as we would submit ourselves to the Lord, as we would pray this prayer, in these words or in our own words, it would reset our heart to a place that would change our circumstances and where we're at and how we would see everything that is around us.

[25:24] And so only the Father knows what to give. And so we come to our Father with our troubles. Luke 11, 7. And him from within shall answer and say, trouble me not.

[25:38] And so as a story, and I remind you quickly, it's time, it's late at night. You have some neighbors that have come over. You have some friends that have come over, but you're not ready to serve them.

[25:49] You don't have anything in the deep freeze that you can get out. You have nothing for them. And so you go to your neighbor's house and you knock on the door and say, you've got to help me. Hospitality is so important in our society.

[26:00] I've got to feed these people something. They've traveled so long. Can you please help me out? And then they would say, trouble me not. Now the door is shut. But the neighbor would come to you because of the fact that you're willing to go outside of the social norm.

[26:15] Not just because of your neighbor, but they're like, this must be serious. And so we are told that we can come to our Father in this relentless matter. You see, in here we are needy.

[26:28] And you're more needy than you may be aware of. You are certainly needy. This hospitality is needed. But the hospitality they wanted to provide could not be provided unless they were helped.

[26:40] You and I in here, we must realize like the friend in the story, that we have nothing to give unless God gives it to us.

[26:52] So there's no bread in the house. Neighbor, if you don't give me bread, I can't give these people bread. I need to give these people bread. There's an urgency. Would you give me bread so that I could give them bread and they come?

[27:04] Do you know that if you're going to give anything to this world, if you're going to help minister to any needs, your home has no bread. You are out of bread. It is late at night. And so you come to the Father and say, Father, I need bread because I need to minister the people.

[27:20] And so we can come to Him in this same manner. Our Father does not mind your requests or inconvenient. He doesn't matter what time of the day it is. But He tells us, ask and it shall be given.

[27:31] Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be open to you. Come at any time of the night. I am here for you. That's important because the anxiety that you feel comes at all kinds of times during the day.

[27:47] It doesn't work nine to five, does it? It comes at the worst possible times. And when we talk about asking things of the Lord, you know what the most common thing that I ask of the Lord is? It was, I'll say, Father, would you give me rest?

[28:02] Father, would you give me sleep? I need the sleep, Lord. I can't get it unless you give me sleep. And so I cry out to my Father at any time of the day.

[28:13] And I'll say, Father, I don't have what I need in this home right now. I need rest. And your Father and my Father, who only knows how to give good things, says, Yes, Son, I will give you rest.

[28:26] He only knows how to give good gifts. Jesus once says, Expect that God will answer our prayers. Our Father does not give his child a scorpion if he asks for an egg.

[28:37] But here's also good news. If you're a child and you ask for a scorpion, he doesn't give you a scorpion either, right? And so God answering your prayers, he doesn't give you a bad thing when you're asking for a good thing.

[28:48] But he doesn't give you a bad thing when you ask for a bad thing. Because he's loving and he's all-knowing. So God does not answer our prayers as we pray them, but as we would pray them if we were wiser and knew what we needed for our lives.

[29:04] So he gives us what we need. He gives good things. So we come to the Father by listening to his word. The word is what is needful. Luke 10, 39. She had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word.

[29:20] That's what she was doing that day. She wasn't getting out of service. She most certainly wasn't being lazy. She was sitting there, a disciple, a woman disciple that used to sit at the feet of Jesus, which would have been so different than the other rabbis of the day.

[29:35] People wouldn't have known that. She got to walk in and sit down. The word was available to our sister in Christ. And she sat there and she received it. And at Jesus' feet, she was able to trade her sorrows for the joy of the Lord.

[29:48] We have a friend who adopted a child. And the child grew up with a lot of bitterness towards the adoption. And he went on his first mission trip. He was 19 years old. He goes on a mission trip.

[29:59] He's underneath the tent. He's hearing the word. He sits at the feet and he hears the word. He paid attention to the message. It was coming through a translator. He had to pay extra hard to hear about what God was teaching them and that God was saying that I love you and that these circumstances that you're mad about, I love you and I wouldn't give you what is bad.

[30:18] And he heard that. And this young man, he went out into a field and as he knelt down in the dirt, they began to sing a song that says, I'm trading my sorrows for the joy of the Lord.

[30:30] And this young man cried out to the God. He says, God, I want to trade my sorrows in for the joy of the Lord. He started a foster and adoption agency and helped hundreds of people since that day.

[30:43] But would you go to the feet of Jesus and say, I want to trade my sorrows in for the joy of the Lord? See, this is a good day for you to trade your sorrows in for the joy of the Lord. And it's a good time for you to stay seated, Mary, and not to hop up, but to stay seated and to listen.

[30:57] I hope that Martha goes and turns off the stove and returns to the room and sits down. We don't know how the story ends, but you and I get to decide what is next for us in this story and recognizing that.

[31:11] I love that. This is not the last time that they will have a meal at Martha's house and Mary will need to be defended. Do you know that they come in John chapter number 12 and there they made a supper and Martha served and Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table that Mary had a pound of ointment and a spikenard very costly and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet.

[31:31] And then one of the disciples, Judah, said, we could have done something better with this. But she was defended there again that day. And I just wonder, how did Mary have such insight when other people didn't seem to have the insight?

[31:44] How did Mary even have the spikenard that would be given to Jesus showing that he's headed to the cross? Because Mary was given some wisdom because Mary slowed down her life enough to sit at the feet of Jesus.

[31:57] And so I don't know where she decided or when she decided, no, the connection. But I see Mary acting differently in the story than other people are acting because I see a Mary who's willing to sit down at the feet of Jesus and find that he is all sufficient.

[32:11] So our anxious lives have caused us to miss out on the needful thing far too many times. One thing is necessary today, tomorrow, next Wednesday, and every day after. It's to know, obey, and to enjoy Jesus.

[32:26] In a world that is frantic, we make the choice. Will we make the choice that Mary made? Let us choose the needful thing with the eternal value that no one can take from us. Though we cannot sit at his feet today, we most certainly can be still and listen to his word.

[32:42] Psalm 4610, be still and know that I am God. See, we try to put ourselves in those Bible stories and you ask yourself, am I Martha or would I be Mary or who would I have been in that story?

[32:54] Because we're most certainly not the hero. The hero is set aside. It's always the hero. It's Jesus in the story. And we're not the hero of the story. But can I tell you, we're answering that question just every day. We can go to our Heavenly Father, which art in heaven, and hallowed be His name.

[33:09] And we can pray for our daily bread. And we can spend that time with Him. But maybe we're like Martha. We're just troubled on every side with too many things to ever think that our time would be best spent with the Lord and stopping.

[33:23] Max Lucado tells a story. He's teaching his daughter to ride a bicycle. And he's at the bottom of a hill. And she's coming. He lets, she's at the top of the hill. And she's coming down. He had showed her how to use her brakes.

[33:35] And when he was at the bottom of the hill, she comes flying past him. And she doesn't use her brakes. And he yells. She says, stop, stop. And she yells to her dad. And she says, I forgot how to stop pedaling.

[33:47] That's how she said it, all right? She forgot how to stop pedaling. She forgot how to apply the brakes. Maybe in here, you just have forgot how to stop pedaling. You've just been pedaling and pedaling and pedaling.

[33:59] And you feel like you're going to brake. You're troubled on every side. And you're anxious. I want to remind you, you have a father that you can come to in the middle of the night. And he's only going to give you what is good.

[34:09] You have a father that loves you and wants to hear from you. And so there's no reason to be troubled on every side when you have the ability to sit at his feet and to hear his word and to pray to him.

[34:23] What a wonderful opportunity that we have. Well, it's something that we have so often forfeited in our lives. And as a result, what does it affect? It affects our peace.

[34:34] It affects our relationship with other people. It affects the way that we live out our lives. And so would you have your belief in this today? Not just in feeling, not in circumstances. But would you say and make that decision?

[34:46] Maybe you're like Mitch in here today. We pray for them. But Mitch says, my belief in you, Lord, that is greater than what I feel right now. Because I know that you are good even when I don't feel it the way that I would want to feel it at this time.

[34:59] He was able to do that. And in here you can learn today to stop pedaling and be like Mary and to sit at the feet of Jesus and to hear his word and pray to him. Would you close your eyes and bow your heads as we'll take a moment to pray?

[35:11]  Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.