Sermon Transcript — May 20, 2006
Hebrews 10:24, 25 says, Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
The day of Christ approaching is obviously going to bring difficulties that will demand a strength of God's people, and the implication here is that we can through the Spirit of God in us help others, and promote the well-being spiritually of others. But I would say that this is a delicate art. It is a spiritual art. And it is one that does bind and tie us together.
How does this literally play out in everyday life, though? When you read Hebrews 10:24, what is required of us to consider one another? What is it that we are considering, and how can we figure out when we consider someone how to stir up love and good works in their lives? That is a big challenge. It is easy to read this, but to figure out how is this actually done, it oftentimes requires a certain delicacy, a certain tact, a lot of wisdom, a lot of discretion on how to go about doing this. We have to be together. There has to be a fellowship, which the not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together implies. We often use this as demonstrating the need to be together on the Sabbath, and it certainly would apply to that, but it also would apply to other fellowship as well. There is a need to be together. Once we are together, how do we exhort one another? This truly is not an easy assignment to fulfill in God's word here. It does require, as I said earlier, wisdom, tact, humility, knowledge in general.
Sometimes in some situations it truly is an assignment that is better suited for men dealing with men, and women dealing with women, in some situations, because it is a type of relational issue on certain planes in life and the Bible addresses that. Now spiritual needs are essentially the same whether we are male or female. Because spiritual issues are issues of human nature versus Godly nature, and we all have these spiritual things in common. So we should not presume that we are very different when it comes to spiritual areas of life, but we should not presume to think that the gap between males and females is all that different in other areas of life as well. We are far more alike than we are different.
For instance, some years ago I was at a marriage seminar and the presenter was explaining some experiments that were done by some marriage researchers in groups of husbands and wives. What they did in these research activities, they took the men and the women and they divided them into groups of three to five, small groups, men in one area, women in another area, and they gave them an assignment to write as fast as they could all of their emotional needs. And they asked them to try to use one-word descriptors. So here are the women writing down their emotional needs, and here are the men writing down their emotional needs. In this exercise they then came back after five minutes and they put them all collectively on the black board, men on one side and women on the other side. In these exercises the women averaged 47 words describing their emotional needs. Guess how many the men averaged? Did I hear two? You know how many the men averaged? 44. Yes, your reaction is the reaction of most people. Because we have this idea that women are full of emotions and men are...ugh...we get emotional over fishing, things like that. But no, we are humans. And they put the same things on the board. They essentially put the same things on the board because as humans we have the same emotions. God made us all in his image, and we all have those. So usually that is a shock to both sexes, but it really shouldn't be.
What is different is the way we react sometimes, the way we express our emotions, sometimes the way we handle them, and that tends to create the perceived differences. And it is in these areas that we often lack understanding between the opposite sexes. And it is in these areas that sometimes it is those of the same sex that can relate to others of the same sex when it comes to influencing them how to grow closer to God, make them better Christians, fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, in general just make them more godly.
I think it was to that that Titus was instructed by Paul to tell the older women to teach the younger. In some areas of life there is a certain connection. There is a connection that men have to men. There is a connection that women have to women. And he said in Titus 2, he told Titus to speak things that are proper for sound doctrine . And in verse 3 he said, the older women likewise that they be reverent in behavior, not slanders, given to much wine, teachers of good things. They should be teachers of good things, especially that they should admonish the young women... the word admonish here in the Greek means to make sound minded. To make sound minded. To take a sound mind, and what is in one person's sound mind to fulfill what we read there in Hebrews 10, to stir up one another to love and good works. But there is a learning curve for every person in life. There are things we have to learn how to do. And he said one of the roles of older women is to admonish the younger to love their husbands, love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.
The sense of it is it takes the whole aspect, the whole gamut of life, to pass on the knowledge, to teach effectively. Teaching takes many forms. Right at this very moment it is taking a certain form. Right now we have a formal church service. And there is a role fathers play, maybe even this morning as you sat with your children. There is a role that mothers play. There is a role that older men play in teaching younger men, and that older women play in teaching younger women. We all play different roles in life in teaching and passing on the ways of God. Leadership, in other words, takes many forms. And this describes a type of leadership within a certain sphere of influence that is very important. Paul said this is a part where some people mold and shape other people's lives, especially young lives. And how valuable that can be.
We have talked a lot in recent years about godly leadership, examining various aspects of it. We have husbands and wives come in here on Labor Day weekend from various parts of the United States and Canada and we spend several hours on the heart of a leader. It is talking about that very thing. Because so much of it goes back to heart. The heart is where we have the motivation. So when we read something like this about the older teaching younger, there has to be an examination of the heart, the motives, the drive, the reasons, the purposes, the rationale for doing what we do.
So I want to examine one of these heart issues today. It is very important. It applies to both men and women, because it explains one of the core elements of what we must be tied to in order to exercise Godly leadership. It is one of the most important ties that bind people. As we will see, if we don't have this principle firmly in place, sooner or later we will act in such a way, or we will say something in such a way that it will unravel, will untie relationships, rather than tying them. By doing so we can undo our effectiveness. If anything, if we don't have this core principle down, our relationship with God, and with one another, our ability to fulfill Hebrews 10 and Titus 2 will just end up in a massive knot rather than a tie that draws people together. So as we will see, this is a simple but it is a profound lesson. I think most lessons in the Bible are rather simple, but they are profound.
We could choose several illustrations of this principle, but since it is a women's weekend I want to choose one about women, involving women, that is very instructive. Now let me ask you to begin with, have you ever been in a situation where you saw something entirely different from the next person? Obviously. Did you find yourself in a situation where you saw yourself entirely differently and you had strong feelings about the way you saw it, only to find later that your feelings were wrong? Anybody ever experience that? Where you just knew you were right, only to find later, I was wrong. And then did you ever take it to the next level after everything was over and you were back to your meditation and debriefing over what just occurred, and you sit there and think, okay, what led me to my original assumption? Why did I think the way I thought to begin with, which actually turned out to be the wrong way to think? How did I get there? When you go through that exercise, then maybe you can identify with this one.
It involves a couple of ladies whose names will be familiar, Mary and Martha. Before you turn there, though, let's make sure we have a correct perspective. Mary and Martha are often lumped together based on one story in particular, and they are because of this story compared, and Mary often comes out to be the pious one and Martha is usually several rungs down the spiritual ladder. But we should not judge them that way. They were sisters. They grew up the same way. A generalized conclusion is seldom healthy. And Martha had many strong qualities.
For example, let's go to John 11 first, just to get a little background here. In John 11, maybe this is what you thought of first, rather than the other story we are going to go to, but this one illustrates something about Martha. In John 11:17 When Jesus came he found that he had already been in the tomb four days. This was their brother Lazarus. By the way, maybe we should look at verse 5 at this point. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So let's not jump to conclusions before we go to this other story, that well Martha, she's the one who is somehow quite a bit spiritually inferior to Mary. Jesus loved Martha, it says, and her sister, she is not even named here, and her brother Lazarus. So we come back to verse 17. Lazarus has been dead. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away, and many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him, but Mary was sitting in the house. Then Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died. If this was the only story you had about Martha, you might think this is a woman of faith. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you. This is not a statement made by a spiritually weak person, necessarily, is it? This is a statement, I know whatever you ask of God he will give it to you. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. She was knowledgeable. She understood the plan. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, yes Lord. I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who has come into the world.
Here is a lady who had belief. She had faith. She had strength in this area. So we see something like this and you think, okay we should not dismiss Martha when we come to this other story as someone who is spiritually inferior.
In fact, when we are first introduced to Martha and Mary in Luke 10, it says that she welcomed Jesus into her house. The occasion was that she was a very hospitable person. But as with any one of us, we can all go off on the wrong track occasionally. The story we are going to read in Luke 10 serves to teach us a very important lesson.
Let's go to Luke 10 and we will begin in verse 38. Now it happened as they went that he entered a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. But she had a sister called Mary who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. Let's read through this entirely and then come back and dissect it. 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 to serve alone? Therefore, tell her to help me. Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. One thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part which will not be taken away from her.
Now there's a lot contained in this story for us to consider. Let's go back to verse 39. She had a sister called Mary. Now Jesus enters the home, comes into her house at her welcome, and her sister is there, and Mary sits at Jesus' feet, as was the common way of instructors. You find in the New Testament that Paul sat at Gamaliel's feet. It was the way of instructors with students. She sat at his feet and heard his word. So apparently he came into the house, he sits down, and he begins talking. Now what was he talking about? We don't know. We're not told here. Knowing Jesus, what would you suspect he was talking about? What the fishing report was on the Sea of Galilee lately? What's for dessert? I doubt it. Especially when you consider the rest of the story. The issue for Martha and Mary here is that there was a point of choice to be made. They were at a point of choice. In fact, in verse 42, Jesus used the statement, Mary has chosen that good part. They came to the same situation, and they both had choices to make. Mary chose one thing, Martha chose another.
If you are the kind who likes titles for your sermons, you can title your notes, Choosing That Good Part, because that is what this is about.
They both reached the point where they had to choose from a couple of options. Sit and talk with Christ, or be involved with taking care of things. It is not to say that there aren't things that had to be taken care of. They were human beings. There were things that needed to be done. But the choice was dealing with what we see as priorities and why we set our priorities the way we do.
Why do we make choices the way we do? I am sure neither of them had time to sit down and think about this. When they walked in the house Jesus didn't say, okay ladies, you have a choice. Now here it is. You get caught up in life. You are just going through everyday life, and you make choices. You choose to do this and choose to do that. They didn't have a lot of time. They didn't take a half hour to mull over what they should do. They just went ahead and gravitated in certain directions. There were needs. Why do we set our priorities the way we do? What does that have to do with the ties that bind us together, or ways of life that get things in a knotty mess? What happened?
Verse 40. But Martha was distracted with much serving. Now brethren, isn't serving the whole point of being a Christian? Aren't we supposed to serve? Isn't that part and parcel of character development, of love, of giving, tending to others, looking outwardly? Isn't that the way life is supposed to be? Isn't that the aim? No it isn't. It really isn't. The aim is much deeper. The issue for a Christian is to be a servant, to be a servant. It is not simply a matter of saying, what's the difference? Serving, servant...there's a big difference. Because becoming a servant, developing the type of leadership of a servant and serving, that is what God is looking for.
I won't turn there, but I will digress here. You can read I Kings 12, the story of Jereboam and Rehoboam, where the elder advisors told the king if you will be a servant and serve them, and speak good things to them, they will be your servants forever. They drew a distinction between serving them and being a servant. They said, if you will be a servant and serve them. A servant, a true servant of God, will be serving. He will be serving. But not all people who are serving are servants of God. Not necessarily, not always, not always from the right perspective and the right motive. It all goes back to the heart, getting the heart right. If the heart is right, the right type of serving will follow. So whatever is being done must come from a servant's heart, and that is a big difference.
A servant of God will have a tie, they will have a way of going about life that will bind people, that will tie people together, that will bring them together. But a true servant of God will be tied into something greater than just the act of serving. And here we are beginning to get to the essence of Martha's issue. Martha did not have the tie that bound her to a higher, more important priority. And in this some trouble is going to develop. She was generous, she was hospitable, she was a caring person to be sure, but given a choice she made the choice that should have been secondary. Her first choice should have been secondary. And because of that it led to something worse. She became distracted, or as the King James says, encumbered. She became weighted down, she became encumbered. The Greek word for encumbered means literally, to be dragged all around. Or to be distracted with cares. To be drawn off. She was drawn away from something. On the one hand she was taking care of something that really needed to be done. But on the other hand it took her away from something else that really needed to be done. And it led her mind to go in many different directions.
Now there were probably all sorts of things. It doesn't tell us here if the disciples were all with him in the house. If they were there she had a lot of people to take care of. If she had servants in the house she was probably busy ordering them around, getting a really nice meal together. You could say, wouldn't that be appropriate to honor Jesus Christ? Putting out the best you could do. Of course it would. Wouldn't it be appropriate to do things in a proper order, respectful? Of course it would. But it made her distracted. What caused her to be distracted? What was going on in her mind? Can serving come from a wrong motive? Can serving come from a wrong purpose? Well, yes, it can. If we serve out of competition, if we serve to...I want to serve better than that other person, for whatever reason. Sometimes serving can be out of fear. We may be afraid not to serve when we are asked to because we are afraid of how it might look. We can be shamed into serving. We can have what we can call bandwagon service. I have seen this at teen activities before. You are going to organize a service project to raise some money of some sort. Or just to do something kind. The teens are going to paint one of the widow's houses, and you have a meeting in church and somebody says, this is going to take all day Sunday from 6 in the morning to about 6 at night, it is going to be hot, and it is going to be hard work. But we are going to help paint this widow's home. How many of you want to come? The truth be known, there may be one sitting there thinking, I'm really not looking forward to this, but he sees four or five others raising their hands, and he looks around and sort of gets pressured into it. So he sticks his hand up. He will be out there and will be serving, but you might not say it is from the pure heart. Maybe he is there from peer pressure, the bandwagon. Sometimes people serve to get something in return. Or sometimes there is service to be seen. There are all sorts of things like that. But I can guarantee you one thing, anything that comes from something less than pure will become a distraction. And Martha was distracted by something, something that was less than pure. She was drawn away. And not only did it draw her away from something that was pure, it took her toward something that was really going to knot up her relationship between her and Christ, possibly between her and her sister, potentially. It led her into some dangerous territory.
So it said she was distracted with much serving. And finally, it doesn't say how long it took, but there were Jesus and Mary sitting in one room talking, and here is Martha busy getting everything ready, and you can almost see it. Something is starting to boil. The mind is turning, the wheels are clicking. Every time she looks to the floor and sees her out there, she scurries more to get it better. She is beginning to burn. Something is burning.
It is interesting how it eventually played out. Because you would think the issue would be, in fact she sort of makes it the issue, of my sister is not helping. But guess where she directs her anger? She finally is fed up, goes into the room and decides to deal with this issue that is obviously wrong. She is looking at it and saying, something is wrong here and I know what it is. Remember the question originally? Have you ever known you were right? She knew she was right. She knew she was right so much that the first one she took issue with was Jesus. She goes in and she approaches him. It's very interesting. I've often thought of that. She didn't stand at the doorway and say, psst, Mary, come here, why don't you come help me? The one she had the issue with is not the one she took it to. She took it to Jesus, and notice what she said. Lord, don't you care? Whoa! Now she was going inside his mind, his motives. She was questioning him. You know it can really take you down a wrong road if you get distracted and you are doing things for the wrong reason, the wrong purpose, and you get untied from God. If you get untied from God and a godly way of thinking, it takes us right into a carnal way of thinking. And that takes us down a wrong path. The first thing she did was basically accuse Jesus of not caring. Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? That's a backhanded way of getting at your sister, isn't it? She wiped both of them out in one fell swoop here, one sentence. My sister has left me, and you don't care! We have a problem!
So she turned this into a rebuke of Jesus. Furthermore, she instructs him, tell her to help me! She is sitting right there, but she talks to him. You tell her to help me! For people who specialize in communications, it's a real interesting case study of the way humans tend to go about doing things.
I have had this happen in marriage counseling before, as has every minister. You are sitting there with two people, and one of them is telling you about them as though they are not even in the room. They are talking to you, and you say, why don't you just turn around and tell them what you are telling me? Well, she was playing this same game. You tell her to come help me. But you know, until she spoke no one would have known what was going on in the mind. There was something boiling in the heart before the words came pouring out. Who knows how long it was beginning to boil up, but her words eventually betrayed where her attitude was. And so, there she is back in the kitchen thinking about, I'm doing this all by myself. She left me here to do this all alone, and then it eventually migrated to...he doesn't even care.
See how the progression of thoughts can take you down the wrong track? What was it? Was she not being recognized? I don't know. We can't judge that. But something was there. Something was building up in the mind. And the phrase "help me" is very interesting. One commentary says that comes from two Greek words that mean "together" and "support". Support together. The word is taken from a description of how you have in architecture two columns, two pillars that meet at the top. They meet at the top exactly over the center of the distance between their bases. They meet there and they mutually support each other, and they bear a lot of weight. Mr. Evans could probably explain how that works in architectural design. But it was a term that was used that way. Basically she was saying, you need to tell her to come and support me so that both of us can get this job done. We have things to do. There is a lot of service that needs to be done. And you need to tell her to join me so that together we can get it done and tend to the necessity of the importance of what is at hand.
And Jesus was going to go on and basically tell her, you know you have got a good analogy there. And you need to be mutually supporting one another like those two columns. The problem is, you are talking about one thing, and there is another thing that is more important. And Mary chose the more important thing. You don't have the most important business in mind. So it's very important to understand these things, that when we talk about guarding the thinking, guarding the mind, bringing into captivity every thought, it is very important. Because spiritually these two things that can take us in a wrong direction, if vanity starts snipping around in our minds, seeking recognition or feeling slighted, or getting offended or hurt, those things come from wrong priorities. They all come from wrong priorities. How often do these things cause disturbances in families and strife between people, among relationships? It is when we get caught up in worldly values that we are apt to compare, or to blame, or to judge, or to take on a different attitude toward those who are not of the same mind, or to justify, or even blame God. Worldly thinking, anything short of spiritual thinking, is really dangerous. So here, when you are looking at a situation that had the potential to make the two pillars of sisterhood fall apart, not come together, it doesn't tell us what Mary's thinking was, and we don't know. I don't suspect this would have made Mary really happy, to be sitting there and hear your sister come in and talk this way about you. You know, all siblings have their flares and get mad at each other. They say things that cause some hurts. But this probably would have done a little damage to the relationship depending on Mary's frame of mind, who knows? But I suspect Mary was like all of us. Sometimes we are a little sharper in the game, and sometimes we are not as sharp in the game of life spiritually. Catch somebody at the wrong time and we can go the wrong direction in our thinking. But the potential was here to unravel their relationship.
The ties that bind us together as Christians come from the ties that bind us to God. We have to be bound to God first in order to be bound to one another. And Martha slipped into a time of being bound to certain human values and not God's. And again, it's not an either/or case where this was the way she was all the time. I don't think that is the way she was all the time. That's just what happened to her here at this point. It can happen to anybody. And so she gravitated in a certain direction. The one who was doing all of the visible serving was the one who got distracted, irritated, maybe took on the martyr complex, got competitive with her sister. Her view was skewed, all in the name of serving. And she knew she was right and she got stressed over it. Godly service is not designed to stress us out. Godly service from a godly heart, from a true servant's heart, does not create this kind of stress for a person. This kind of stress is brought on by different values. But it is what a misguided view will result in.
Well, once she revealed her thoughts and she addressed Jesus, he was simply going to call for her view to change. As he does all of us. This walk as a Christian is one where God calls upon us to change our views of life. And so in verse 41, he did so in a very gentle way. Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha... that is an expression of emphasis and earnestness and concern. He was deeply concerned for her welfare. He found himself now in a Hebrews 10:24 situation where he had to stir someone else up to love and to good works. He had to consider her. And what would be the best way to help her? And I suspect at the throne of God Jesus often to this day looks down and says, Martha, Martha, except he calls our names. Right? He thinks, okay, how can I redirect your steps? But he did so in a wise, loving way, but he had to help her understand that those who get entangled in the cares of this life find it is not easy to get disentangled. It is hard to get disentangled, but it is imperative that we do.
He went right to the core. He reproved her. It is interesting what he reproved her for. He reproved her for the intensity of her feelings and how extensive it was. She was very intense. He said, you are worried and troubled. Worried and troubled. One commentary has an interesting observation. Anxious is another word, anxious and troubled. It says in the Greek, anxious denotes an inward uneasiness, troubled denotes the outward confusion and bustle. He said, you are so inwardly worried it is just making you get so caught up in all of these things. You are worried and troubled inwardly about many things, many things. The more that came into her mind the more confusing it got. And that is the way wrong thinking goes. It is hard to get disentangled from that. Was service needed? Of course it was. Probably the more she got flustered by it the more she saw needed to be done. Probably needed to get a meal together for him, maybe get the guest room ready so he could sleep there that night, pack him a lunch for his trip, wash his dirty clothes. There were probably all sorts of things she was seeing, and got more and more...led the mind to get so worried, anxious, and troubled, and it took her away from a simplicity that he was trying to stress. These were things that needed to be done, but she needed something else first. So he said, you are worried and troubled about many things. You have gotten yourself to a point here that you need to extract yourself from. He said, one thing is needed. Let's simplify it. One thing is needed. Mary has chosen that good part.
What is needed? What is that good part? He goes on to say, She has chosen that good part which will not be taken away from her. What was the implication that he was saying here? He was saying, Martha you made a choice and what you chose will be taken away. It will go. It will be gone. Because she had chosen to do a lot of things that will be very temporary. As soon as the meal was over, as soon as he was on his way, the clothes were washed, that would be it. Whatever it was, that high value would be only a temporary value. It is like going to the Feast and eating a great steak. It's there as long as it's on your tongue. Once it goes down the hatch, it is gone. It is enjoyable, and it is great, but that is not the priority for going to the Feast. That will be taken away from us. There are things like that in life that we look at and say, this is important but it is only of relative importance, and I have got to put number one first.
So what is that good part that will not be taken away? The verse ends. Luke does not tell us if he said anything more, or what they said, or what they talked about. It stops right there and doesn't tell us the rest of the story. It doesn't tell us if she went back to the kitchen and said, hey, let's just shut it down. We will worry about the meal later. We can eat some cereal. We can eat some beans and weenies later. It doesn't matter. We don't have to have a great meal. I really need to get back in here and do the thing that won't be taken away.
It doesn't tell us what happened. Because the story is really not about them. It is put in here as a lesson for us. The end of the story is really about what will we do? That's where the question is. The lesson for this, and the reason why it was recorded, the reason why Mary and Martha are held up here for thousands of years for examples for millions of people is not to tell us about them. It is to help us learn a lesson. And so the rest of the chapter where we are concerned is yet unwritten. What will we do? What is that good part that will not be taken away?
Mary chose what was spiritual, and what is spiritual is eternal. What was Christ talking about? We don't know. And again, it's not what we need to know. He was talking about this. He was talking about the things of God. This will never be taken away from us. Both of them were truehearted disciples. But one was absorbed in something a lot higher. Martha's choice was temporary. She was troubled about many things. Mary wasn't. Godliness unites people. Godliness unites the heart of a human with the heart of God. Worldliness divides it. The many things she had on her platter were relatively needless compared to the one thing Mary had on her platter that was essential. Martha's work and her care had their time, they had their place, but it wasn't number one.
Now what do we learn here? There are some things that tie us, and there are some things that unravel us in life. In other words, the cares of this life are dangerous, even if they are lawful or commendable. The cares of this life that we get so caught up in, doing things that we don't have time for priorities, we cannot therefore be tied to God and to one another. Nothing, you might say, of a physical nature would be better than to serve Christ, and take care of his needs. But Martha got too engrossed in that.
A second lesson is that it is of much more importance to attend to the instruction of Christ than to be engaged in the affairs of life. Being tied to his instructions will last forever. Cares of this life are temporary. I submit there are times when it is important and profitable to suspend things going on around us and attend to the affairs of the heart, the affairs that are spiritual. That is what Mary chose. What that does, that becomes the strength of a person, the chief ornament of a person.
That is why in 1 Peter 3 we read that Peter said, true beauty is not the outward adornment. It is not that outward adornment is wrong. But never lose sight of what is of the greatest value. Outward adornment is temporary and it will change. But he said, true beauty is that of the inward person, the hidden person of the heart. He said, the incorruptible adornment of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. It is not always precious in the sight of humans. But in the sight of God this is precious. It is interesting here when you look at the gentle and quiet spirit in this account, Martha temporarily lost her gentle and quiet spirit. Whatever she had before, when she got her dander up, got to thinking in a wrong way, it took her down a wrong path. And it's hard to say that going in and saying, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? You tell her to help me... that doesn't sound like a gentle and quiet spirit.
Another Martha had an interesting observation. There is another Martha who said one time, "I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition and not our circumstance." That was Martha Washington.
I suspect the Martha in Luke 10 came to the same conclusion. I really suspect that she learned from this. I suspect she listened to what Christ said and went off and thought about that, got disentangled from the values of the world, and that her disposition became spiritual, and that she saw service in a different way. Because I will submit to you that even though it is not spoken of here, Mary was also concerned about serving. Her priority was to learn everything she could about the way of God, and the more she learned about the way of God that would position her to more effectively fulfill what we just read in the introduction in Titus 2. Because what Titus 2 talks about are a lot of spiritual issues, teach the younger women how to love, how to have discretion. Teach them about the principles of life, how life works, and everything from making a family function right, to modesty, any number of things, the whole gamut. And those become spiritual issues in which we have to have an understanding of the heart. And Mary was seeking an understanding of the heart, and that teaching, that sitting at the feet of Jesus and not being distracted by anything, but drinking in everything he had, was going to position her to serve later in a much more powerful way. That is service as well. Mary wanted the mind of Christ. Christ came as a servant, to serve God, and serve humanity. He was never distracted by serving. He was serving all the time. But he was serving in a way that tied people together with the mind of God. It did not lead to knotting people up like Martha was knotted up, both inside and in her relations with others. This is where serving God really comes into play, with the right heart, the right mind, the right focus, the right motives. That is why Christ said, if you want to be great, become a servant. But he is really talking about, don't just go out and do things to be serving, become a servant. With the right heart, seeking to serve God first, learning of God and then seeking to consider one another. Consider one another to provoke others to love and good works. I would say Martha was just provoking. She wasn't provoking others to love and good works. But the mind of God takes you to that direction.
For all of you ladies here, I hope this is a weekend that helps you think in terms of greatness. Jesus did not say it was wrong to want to be great. He said if you want to be great, become a servant. What do you want to be great at? Should you want to become great? Should you want to become great leaders in the Church of God? I hope so. Let me start you off. If you are a mother, do you want to be a great mother? Why? I think every mother here would want to be a great mom, right? Why? We can go into different directions. If you want to be a great mom like James and John's mother who came and said to Christ, can my boys sit on your right and left? If that greatness has to do with that kind of thing, no. But I think most moms in this room would want to be a great mom for one reason, for the sake of their children, for a pure heart so your children would benefit. Right? There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a great mom, wanting to be a great wife. How about being a great encourager? Would you like to be great at encouraging people? Isn't that a tremendous quality? You've been around people who were just such encouraging people, they just had a gift from God at being able to encourage you. How effective service that is? That is great service. How about being a great friend? How about being a great example of the ability to maintain a peaceful mind? How about being great in faith? Great in love? Great in patience? Great in self control? The list could go on and on. There are all sorts of things to be great in. And to strive for greatness in that which is derived from God's Spirit. We should want to pursue greatness, and the fruits of God's Spirit tie and bind people together. But they come from being tied and bound first to God. They bind us to God. They bind us to one another. They bind us to the right principles of life.
So if we want to be a servant of God, great at serving God in these ways, you will exercise the type of leadership, the kind of leadership that God expects from every person he calls. The kind of leadership that he wants us to rise to through overcoming, through capturing the real values of life, through having the right priorities on the things that really count, through every day setting aside the time to sit at the feet of Christ, and to not be encumbered by so much service that we don't have time to have our priorities right. To be really locked in to understanding what a servant really is, and understanding that if you have a heart of a servant that you will be serving. You will be serving in the right way and doing the right things from a right heart. You will be teaching. You will be teaching by example, and sometimes you will be teaching by mentoring, by helping someone else, by taking them under your wing. This is what Jesus was talking about. This is where he enjoins everyone to be leaders in the great things of life, things that really count, things that take us toward the kingdom of God. We are all, every one of us, in this position of Luke 10:38-42. It talks about two ladies, two sisters. But men, it talks about us too. It talks about all of us. It talks about humans. It is really about humans. We are all in a continual process of developing a Godly view of life, of being transformed from this world. Martha went through it. I can guarantee you, Mary had to go through it in her own issues as well. James and John's mother went through it as well. Everyone, everyone who wants to follow God, will go through it. The church is going through it. It is part of growth. It is part of taking on the mind and heart of Christ. It is choosing the better part. It is choosing the better part that will not be taken away.
So ladies, you are going to have some excellent presentations this weekend on fellowship. Just make sure that you choose that good part first. If you choose the good part first, that will tie you to God, and if we are tied to God, we will have the ties that bind all of us together.