So if you wanted a title for this evening sermon, it would be
this. It's a sermon for busy people.
Now you're all busy. I've got about half an hour of
your time. So I want to preach to busy
people right now and what you'll notice in Luke 10 there's a ton
of activity that goes on. There's loads of activity that's
going on at the beginning of the passage.
Jesus sends out the 72 and they go out and they heal the sick.
They cast out demons. They they preach the gospel.
And then after what we just read is the the parable of the Good
Samaritan who sees this man who's who's wounded on the side
and and he looks after him and he he closed him and he he puts
him on the back of his animal and he he pays him in this
hotel. And then after all this
activity, Luke chapter 10 closes with Mary sitting at the feet of
Jesus. Isn't that interesting?
Isn't that very interesting? And I think the Lord's trying to
say something to us there, that that that's not an accident,
that that it finishes with Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus.
Because I think what the Lord's saying to us is if we miss the
one thing which energizes us, if we miss the one thing which is
spending much time with Jesus Christ, we can't do all of these
activities. We can't do all of our work.
We need to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to what he's
got to say to us. So let's get busy with this
sermon then. I've got 4 headings for you like
this morning 4 headings for you. My first heading is Martha was
welcoming. My second heading is Martha was
busy, my third heading is Martha was anxious and my 4th and final
heading is Mary was better. OK firstly Martha was welcoming.
March over to verse 38 with me. Now what happened as they went
that he entered a certain village and a certain woman
named Martha welcomed him into her house.
Now, I'm guessing many of you in this room, you've heard this
passage preach before, haven't you?
And, and we sort of look at this and we've heard the story and we
often we sort of look at Martha and we sort of frown and we say,
oh, Martha, what are you doing? Here's the Lord Jesus is this
man has done all these miracles and you're busy in the kitchen
and you're anxious and you're loaded with lots of care.
And we sort of frown on Martha and we looked down on her a
little bit. But we need to remember about
Martha is he was a woman who deeply loved Jesus.
He was a woman who cared so much about Jesus and showed
hospitality to him and welcomed him into her home.
I'm going to tell you a bit of an embarrassing story, a bit of
an embarrassing story about myself.
Many of you know every year I go down to Saint Ives to do beach
missions to share the gospel with children and to share the
gospel on the Piers. And all around St.
Times and one year I was on the team and you sort of get to know
each team member and there was a Northern Irish man who was on
the team. And I am going to do the accent.
I'm going to be brave and I'll do an impression of him knowing
that there is a number of Northern Irish people in the
room, but my dad's Northern Irish, so I think I can get away
with it. But he said to me, he looked at
me and he said, how old are you, Joe?
And I said, well, I'm, I'm 24, so it's three years ago, I'm 24.
And he said no way, are you 24? I thought you were 34.
And I thought, OK, well, thanks for your fellowship, brother.
You know, OK, the accent wasn't that great, I appreciate that.
But we all led to believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, he
actually looked older than he was.
Do you remember that time when when the Pharisees are heckling
him, OK, and they're throwing out all of these things?
And then that famous verse Jesus said before Abraham was I am.
And then they say, what were you doing talking about Abraham?
You cannot yet be a man who is older than 50.
And here's a man in his 30s and they're putting Jesus at the age
of 50. They didn't say, you know, you
look about 35, You can't yet be 35.
You can't yet be 40. They said he looked 50.
You can't yet be 50. Now, I don't know about you, but
if you were 30 years older and someone said you were 50, you'd
be quite offended, wouldn't you? But perhaps, our Lord, perhaps
he did look haggard. Perhaps the cares of his
ministry had taken a toll on his face.
Perhaps he did look worn out, and everyone could see how tired
Jesus looked. And Martha also saw that, and
she looked at him and that motherly care which dwells
within all mothers. She.
She, maybe she looked and thought, I just want to give
Jesus one afternoon, just one afternoon to to give him an
Oasis. To just let him put his feet up
one afternoon and I'll look after him.
And then he can go back into his ministry and work hard.
It's essential that we remember the Lord deserves your best.
We should be like Martha, careful in all of our Christian
activities. I can confess at times, You
know, when I do some activities, at times I've been I I do wing
it. You sort of think I'll be okay.
I think I can do this. But we should take a leaf out of
Martha's book. And we should be careful.
Now. I can promise you this.
We need Martha's, don't we? We need Martha's in the church.
Someone has to do the dishes, Someone has to brew the tea,
Someone has to stack the chair, Someone has to go up the ladder,
Someone has to change the light bulb.
We can't all listen to sermons all day, can we?
Someone has to play the servant while the Marys of this world
get their spiritual foods. I remember a number of years
ago, and there's a few people who also were there for this.
And a number of years ago, when I was a sweaty student, we used
to go to a Bible study in Ormskirk in a Christian family,
and here we are. So Vinnie Commons is involved in
it and Food's involved with it. So it's the same same
illustration as this morning. But what would happen is Vinnie
Commons would do it, would go through John's Gospel with us
every, every single week. And there was a lady and she'd
open up a home and she would just do one meal.
She'd do three choices. She'd do like lasagna.
She'd do chili con carne, She'd do fajitas.
And all these 20 sweaty students, young people, they go
in and they eat all this food and we have the word of God and
it was wonderful. And while we were listening to
the word of God, this lady was in the kitchen doing the dishes.
Now there's a Martha, there's a servant heart.
Do you think it's amazing that in every church we have the
Martha? Do you not think that's amazing
that every church we have Martha's.
Do you think it's amazing that in every church we have a
peonist, someone with a musical gift?
Suppose we go out on the streets of Liverpool tomorrow and we
pull aside at 100 people and we say, how many of you can play
the piano? How many do you think would say,
yeah, I can play it, I think there'd be just a handful of
people. And yet in every church, you
know, I go to different churches, some there's only 20,
less than 20. And in every single church,
there's someone who can play the piano.
There's someone who can play the organ who has a musical gift.
Johnny, it's interested in every church to someone with an
administrative gift who can do the the sort of admin of the
church. Every church has a techie.
It's wonderful that God saves the right people to serve in his
church. So we need to praise God that
that we've got Martha's who serve like mothers who put their
needs last. And I do just want to say
something. Now you might be serving the
church a great deal and you might feel like it goes
unnoticed and people don't see what you do and you might feel
at times, you know, I feel like people are taking me for
granted. But I just want to say this.
The Lord sees. It doesn't go unnoticed.
The Lord sees everything that you do, and He's pleased and
He's delighted when we as the body of believers are working
together as his workmanship to advance his Kingdom.
So just know that He sees it. And after all, he's the real one
we want to please, isn't he? But I do believe now there is a
a critical spirit which has swept through the church.
So we judge the Martha that we read in the pages of Luke 10.
But we also judge the Martha who sits on row 10.
It's easy to pick floors with one another, isn't it?
It's easy to pick floors with other Christians, about how they
raise their children, about how they spend their Saturdays,
about how they they they they spend their money, about how
they do this, how they serve at this part or or even how they
tie their tie. You know, we look at that
sometimes. But my question to you is, do
you see the positive things about your brothers and sisters
in Christ? Now, I wouldn't do this because
I'd probably get arrested for doing it.
But suppose I snuck into your house and I hid behind your sofa
for a week, and I just listened to to everything that went on in
your family home. What would I hear?
What would I see in your home? I think I would see a completely
different person to the person in front of me.
Now, we do sort of have our church closed, don't we?
We do sort of have a front that we sort of put up at church.
But why is it different in our home?
Because when we're at home, when I'm with Emma, I can be totally
relaxed because I know Emma isn't going to judge me.
I can be a place where there's a fear of no judgment.
I can be totally myself. Wouldn't it be beautiful if the
church could be like that? A place where we know we're
coming here, where there's a fear of no judgment whatsoever
will accept me for who I am. I'm going to quote someone
famous now, and I want you to fill in the blank of what this
famous person said, Oliver Cromwell once said.
Paint me what? And all.
Hate me, warts and all. That's right.
And I don't know about you, but I've got warts.
You've got warts. We've all got problems, haven't
we? And wouldn't it be a wonderful
place if it's in the church? We could say, you know, I'm not
perfect. I've got these problems, I share
it here with you of 1 body of believers, and I want you to
help me with this. That would be a wonderful thing,
wouldn't it? And another reason why I do
think that we can sort of look at Martha and say, you know, she
was a good godly lady. One thing we can notice is if
you look at verse 40, she took her quarrel straight to Jesus.
She went straight to Jesus with her problem.
She didn't say Mary. Excuse me, Mary, could you step
outside for a minute? I'd like to have a word with
you. And then they go out and have an
argument on the grass. No, she she took her problem
straight to Jesus. That's a good way to live, isn't
it, Friends? How often do do we tell our
friends? We tell our family members.
We go to the Leeds of the church, we tell everyone, but
then we forget to tell the one person who can make a
difference, and that's Jesus. By all means tell these people
we need to to tell other people we need that help.
But we must not forget to take our quarrels, our problems to
the Lord Jesus. OK, Secondly, Martha was busy.
Bounce over to verse 40 with me. 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. Now I think that the words which
sums up all of these 4 verses is that keyword distracted,
distracted. And in the Greek, it's the word
distracted means every direction.
So in other words, Martha feels like she's being pulled in every
direction. I wonder if there's anyone in
this room tonight who feels like they're being pulled in every
direction. It's like you've got your work
commitments and you've got to meet this deadline here.
You've got to do this and you've got to please your boss and
you've being pulled in that direction.
And then you've got all of your church commitments and you've
being pulled in this direction. You've got to do this activity,
help here and all of your service there.
And then you've got your family commitments, husband, wife,
fathers, daughters. You know, you've got all these
commitments and you've been pulled in this direction.
And do you remember those toys that we used to have when we
were kids? Well, our age group sort of did
called Mr. Stretch, and you know, I could give it to Emma
and we could stretch them all that way.
And we stretched all the way like that.
Really elastic. That's what we can feel like at
times. We feel like Mr. Stretch, like
we're being pulled so, so far. And you think I can't be pulled
anymore? I can't be stretched anymore.
Am I speaking to anyone here today?
You see, Martha wasn't doing anything inherently evil, but
she was distracted with many good things.
She was distracted from keeping the main thing, the main thing.
And what's the main thing? Jesus.
Spending time with him, worshipping him, giving our
lives to him and some of you. Yes, we are busy with good
things. We're busy looking after
grandchildren, elderly relatives.
But my question to you is, are you like Martha?
Are you so busy with dinner that you're giving Jesus the
spiritual leftovers? In 2017 and 2018, they were the
two busiest years of my life. I was working for four churches.
I was doing two days a week for young life.
I had all the responsibilities as a husband.
And at points, you know, I've got to say, the home often
suffers when we get very busy, doesn't it?
We had our own youth theater, me and Emma.
We were in a business. I had this YouTube channel and I
just became so, so busy. Do you know what happened in all
this busyness? I began complaining.
I started thinking, am I the only one who cares about these
people? Am I the only one who has a
heart for the Lost? I became arrogant, I became
proud, and I got so so busy that I've started to become
self-centered. Isn't that interesting that the
more busy we become serving, the more self-centered we become?
And here Martha's complaining that Mary has left me to serve
alone. You know, it's nice to be
appreciated, isn't it? It's nice when someone notices
you've done something well. But on the flip side, when it
goes unnoticed, often we can feel abused, don't we?
We sort of get a bitter spirit where it's us versus them and we
get frustrated with other Christians who don't have the
same priorities as we. We say why do they not see that?
Why are they not pulling the weight?
Why? But let me just put this out
there. I could be wrong about this, but
let me just say this. Perhaps actually the the
Christians that we judge in our minds and we shouldn't.
And we we look at them and say why do they not have the same
priorities? Perhaps they're the ones that
have chosen that which is better and you need to take a step back
and you need to take a leaf out of their book.
Now I kind of assure you of one thing.
The devil loves it when you're crazy busy.
The devil loves it when you're crazy, mad busy.
He wants you always to be in a hurry.
The devil wants to get you into a position where you're too busy
to pray. He knows the power of silence.
He knows how many revivals have started from a little old woman
just locked away in a in a room and she just kept praying for a
nation. And she knows that God answered
the prayers. He knows the power of of a group
of men sat in a room and and like Rachel they cried.
Give us children or we die. Give us spiritual children or
else we die. Like John Knox cried, Give me
Scotland or else I die. He knows the power of men and
women who cried out to God. And he wants to get you into a
position where you don't have time to pray.
So come on now. Talk to me.
What have your quiet times look like this week?
Have you been doing the most dangerous thing in the world as
a Christian? Have you been spending time in
prayer this week? Have I been doing the most
dangerous thing in the world? Have I been spending time in
prayer? Am I giving God the very best
hours of my day, the very creme de la creme?
Or am I giving him the the cigarette books of the day as
Spurgeon would put it, Just slotting him in here where where
it fits and and just making it all small and easy.
Are we cheating the Lord Jesus of our devotion, Dear precious
brother and sister in Christ? Are you keeping everyone else's
garden in order? But your own is a mess?
Now for those of you who are writing notes down, would you
just write this down? Write this.
Minutes are better than sporadic hours.
It's better to pray for 5-10 minutes every single day and do
it consistently than to do a three hour quiet time on the 8th
of June and then not open your Bible again till July.
If I say to you tomorrow I'm going to run a marathon, what do
you what are you going to think of me?
You've not really got much chance there Joe.
You've not done any training. And likewise if we think that we
can just go into, we'll open our Bibles and we'll do 2 hour quiet
times and that'll be it forever. It doesn't work like that.
We have to build ourselves up to that.
But I'm saying do something which is realistic and minutes
are better than sporadic hours. A wiser man than me once said of
what use is it to have many irons in the fire if the fire is
going out? Of what use is it to have many
irons in the fire if the fire is going out OK.
Thirdly, Martha was anxious dive into verse 41 with me, and Jesus
answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried
and troubled about many things. And again in the Greek, do you
know what that word anxious means?
It means peace or pieces. So in other words, Martha is
falling to pieces. I don't know if there's anyone
in the room tonight who is a fan of the game Jenga.
Do you like that game, Jenga? We all know how to play it,
don't we? And you know, you, you've got an
opponent and you've got all of these blocks and and one of you
has to just push one of the blocks out and you place it on
the top. And then your opponent goes and
they they put one out and they're just so careful not to
do it. And.
And when it's there turn, you sort of blow in it and you sort
of go 1015 times, don't you? Until just that one final block,
just that last block, it goes on the top.
And then what happens? The whole thing falls to pieces.
When I was a kid, me and my friends used to talk about our
parents and the way our parents used to discipline us.
So letting you into a bit of a secret now and what we said that
our moms were quite similar. Our moms sort of consistently
nagged us. You know, they were consistently
like go to your room, do your homework, make sure you do your
tie. Don't answer back, don't be
cheeky. It's just this constant source
of nagging, if you like. But we found is that our fathers
were also exactly the same, same in a lot of ways.
Our fathers, you know, you could get away with a lot of cheeky
behavior. You could get away with a lot of
stuff over a period of time. And then it would just seem like
just one thing, just one tiny minor thing and and you just do
one thing wrong. And then suddenly Montserrat and
he just explode and he, you know, he'd be very crossing.
And you think, where did that come from?
And what happened is it was just that final thing, that one final
thing, and the whole thing had fallen to pieces.
And here Martha has fallen to pieces.
Why? Perhaps the pan boiled over.
Perhaps she dropped a plate. But that one extra thing has
just caused everything to to collapse.
I wonder how many of you in the room are overthinkers.
Is there anyone in the room? I'm an overthinker, I'll be
honest. I'm.
I'm an. And some of you are
overthinkers. And you're thinking, I'm
overthinking this now and I don't want to think about that,
but I think Martha was an overthinker.
I also think Martha was a perfectionist.
And I don't want to take away from what I said earlier, but it
is interesting how it says my sister has left me.
So in other words, that leads us to think that that Mary and
Martha, they knew Jesus was coming this afternoon and they
were working together as as a as a unit, if you like, working
together to get everything ready and then suddenly knock on the
door and Jesus and perhaps the disciples came in and Mary
thought, you know, I've done enough.
Now we've got everything ready. I think we'll be okay.
And she goes and sits at the feet of Jesus.
But Martha lingers. Martha stays back.
And the question does need to be asked about Martha.
Is was such an elaborate meal really necessary?
You know, one day I would like to do a study of the diets of
Jesus Christ. Wouldn't that be an interesting
study to do one day? You see, we noticed at times
Jesus was called a glutton, wasn't he?
But then at other times we noticed that that what did Jesus
eat? He was he was totally contented
with with five loaves and and two pieces of fish.
After he rose from the dead, what was his?
We we read about it stays in the sort of divider in the passage.
Breakfast by the sea. What was his breakfast that
morning? A piece of fish.
Our Lord was contented with something simple, and he would
have been contented that that afternoon with with something
simple. Now I wonder what I'm going to
say next. I think gets to the the very
heart of the matter, and I think This is why we often say yes,
when we've got a plate full of food, when everything's so busy.
I think This is why we say yes. I think there is a danger in all
of our service to put on a show, whether it's our secular work or
our Christian work. There is a danger for us to put
on a show. And that's why we become worried
about every single detail. That praise might be associated
with our with our name, with our home.
Oh, you know, if you go to to that Lady Martha's house, she
does the best pee and ham suit in all of town.
You need to try that sometime. You know, if I ring my work
colleague Tim, if I ring him at 3:00 in the morning, he will be
there. He'll come straight away.
Now, there's the man who's dedicated to our business.
And the question needs to be asked, why is it we're the first
to volunteer for things? Why are we the first to do our
activities? Are we meticulous that Christ's
name might be lifted up? Or are we meticulous and careful
that our name might be lifted up?
It's all about our motive. You know, the former pastor of
our church, a man called Alan White, who I know many of you
know very well, blessed me a lot.
I really learned a lot from that man.
And Alan White said something once very profound when he was
preaching. I've never forgot it.
And this is a younger man before I've done any ministry.
He said this. He said a lot of men go into the
ministry in hopes of making a name for themselves.
Isn't that interesting? Now, whether you're thinking
about going into the ministry or whether it's any service in your
secular work, are you doing it That you might make a name for
yourself or are you doing it that you might exalt Christ's
name? We must all check our motives
very sincerely. OK, Fourthly.
And finally, Mary was better took into verse 42 with me.
But one thing is needed and Mary has chosen that good part which
will not be taken away from her. So what was Jesus cure for?
For busy, broken, anxious people.
What was this cure for these kind of people?
Him. He was the cure, Charles Virgin
said. You might rise up early and sit
up late and eat the bread of sorrows, but unless you trust
the Lord your God, you shall not prosper.
And we've chatted a lot about Martha's strengths.
But let's not forget, Mary did choose that which was better,
didn't she? What do you think that the woman
of Samaria, Nicodemus, the rich young ruler, and Martha all have
in common? What do you think those four
people all have in common? Let me tell you, Jesus dealt
with them all the same. They came with sort of an issue,
a sort of a problem, and he ignored it and he went straight
to the heart of the matter. Martha, Martha, what do you care
more about this meal or me? You see, the only thing which is
necessary for the soul of man is for us to worship Christ.
Family is important, and I'm excited about being a father
soon. I'm so excited about that.
Family is important, but family is not the most important thing.
Career, work. You've got to.
It's important to love your work and to work hard for the Lord.
But your work is not the most important thing at your very
epicenter, at your very core, you were designed to worship
Christ Jesus. You were designed to lift up,
honor and praise to him. And if you do anything apart
from that, if you live for anything else, apart from
worshiping Christ, apart from absorbing him, apart from
saturating yourself with him, you're going to be miserable.
And it's not going to be God's will for your life.
That is his will for your life. People say, what's the will for
God, for me in God's? What's God's will for my life?
And it's to worship Christ. He wants you to, to worship him.
And that's why Mary chose that which was better.
Here she is that that same woman who's in that same position she
was when she entered that day as a broken woman, And that broken
alabaster jar represented her heart and the blessing filled
the room. And we know the story.
She she was weeping, she was crying, and she washed Jesus
feet with her hair. And here she is again, in that
same position, sitting at Jesus feet.
Except for this time, it's not Mary who's doing the washing.
It's Jesus who's doing the washing.
He's washing her with the sanctifying word of God.
If you leave with one thought tonight, I want you to leave
with this. In all of our work, in all of
our busyness, in this rat race we like to call life, we must
remember our inner life must not be forgotten.
Because as Jesus bluntly said in the last word in verse 41, what
is it all look at? Look at the last word in verse
41. What is it all?
They're just things. They're just things that they
don't matter. They're just things.
And there is only one thing which is needful.
There's only one thing that matters, and that's our devotion
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me leave you with one final
thoughts. There is one final reason why I
think we can commend Martha. There is one final strength I
think Martha has. You'll notice that there's no
verse 43 Can anyone see in their Bibles?
A verse 43, There isn't, is there?
You see? Why is that?
Because Martha didn't question Jesus.
She didn't say. But Jesus.
That's not fair. Jesus, you don't understand.
I've been doing this. There was no ifs, no buts.
She accepted Jesus answer right away.
Total obedience. So let me ask you a question
now. Have you accepted Jesus?
Answer right away when he says I am the way, the truth in the
life. No man can come to the Father
except through me. Friends, it's only through the
foolishness of the cross by which we can be saved.
And you might say, but Joe, I'm a good person.
I've done this. The only way to be saved is
through Jesus Christ, is through that those feet which Mary sat
at. Those same feet were pierced.
His hands were pierced. He had a crown of thorns in his
skull. He was clothed with nothing but
spittle and blood. And there on that cross he bore
in his body the sins of you and me, so that you and I could be
forgiven. The Bible puts it like this.
It says he is the propitiation for our sins and not just for
our sins, but for the sins of the whole world.
No, I'm not an engineer, but I've been told that if you go
out and you look at the Concorde, you know that plane
that could travel at the speed of sound that that's such fast
plane. And when we were kids that
because they stopped running it now.
But I remember it was like an 8 year old kid just looking at the
sky and go seeing it at the sky and you look at it, you remember
the Concorde. Well, I've been told that if you
look at the Concorde, on the end of its nose is something called
the propisiator. I wonder if it was a Christian
who invented that. But do you know what the
propitiator does on the Concorde?
As the Concorde's going so, so fast, it picks up all of this
speed. It picks up all of this heat and
all of this friction on the plane.
And the propitiator, It absorbs all of the heat, all of the
friction, to protect the rest of the plane from the damaging
effects of that heat. And friends, my dear friends,
Jesus Christ on the cross, absorb the heat of God's wrath
for your sin so that you could be forgiven, so that your you
can be reconciled with God. And know that if you come to
him, you bow the knee, you obey him and repent and turn from
your sins. You know that you have eternal
life because Jesus dealt with your sin that day on the cross.
I just want to say one more thing.
I guess what I'm trying to say in all of this message is to the
Christians, I'm trying to say this sorry to the non
Christians. I'm trying to say this.
Have you fallen in love with Jesus yet?
Have you fallen in love with Jesus Christ?
And then to the to the Christians in the room.
I've been told you might have heard it before.
The key to a successful marriage is to fall in love many
different times, but not with different people, always with
the same person. And perhaps, as some of us in
this room tonight as Christians, we need to fall in love with
Jesus Christ once again.