Thanks for checking out the anchor faith message podcast
from St. Augustine, Florida. Now
enjoy this message. So any Ephesians chapter four
to verse four Ephesians two, four, let's read this
together says this, but God being rich in mercy because
of his great love of which he loved us. Even
when we were dead and our trans, transgression made us
alive together with Christ by grace. You
have been saved and raised us up with him and seated
us, right? And seated us with him in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the ages
to come, not just this age only in the ages to come,
he might show the surpassing riches of his
grace in kindness towards us. In
Christ Jesus four by grace, you have been saved through
faith. It is not of yourself. It
is a gift of God, not as a result of works so that
no one may boast for we are his what workmanship.
All right. Created
in Christ for good works. So
again, you couldn't independently do something
and say, God, you have to accept me. I've
done it good enough. You couldn't do that because
your nature was ungodly. We've
all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
However, once we are born again by
grace, but how through faith, faith activates the
grace. Now we have the ability because
our spirit man is alive to God to do works that are
pleasing to him because our nature is like his. Cause
God himself works. I'm going to say that again.
God himself works. Work
is not a bad word. Hallelujah.
Amen. So we should all be working.
Now our working did not make
us right with God. Our working proves we're already
right with God. Hallelujah. Jesus came down on the
earth. Why? To do a work. He
said, I've come to destroy the works of the devil.
Well, the devil has works. Jesus
had works. He said, if you see me doing
something, it's only cause I've heard from the father.
He said, if you don't even
believe that I am Jesus and I'm the son of God,
I'm the Messiah. He said, believe the works.
Well, who was doing those works?
He was. And
how was he doing them under grace? Cause
Jesus was full of grace. Hallelujah.
So there's an aspect of grace, not the first grace
that we introduced, God introduced us to, which was
a unmerited favor. We did not deserve what Jesus
did based upon our own merit. We
deserve to be judged and cast into the lake of
fire, which is the second death, but God wanting to
fulfill his word, let man have dominion and being our
likeness that after Adam fell out of dominion, he
said, well, I'll send another man, my son in the
form of a man to get back what Adam lost. So
man would have the opportunity again. Now,
if man don't want to accept it, he didn't have
to, but he won't be able to look at me and say,
well, Adam fell. And then all of a sudden, all
of us were made in his image now, the fallen
state. There's no way I could have gotten
right to sitting right. Why am I being, you know,
because of his first failure? You're
Jesus like, I'll take care of that. I'm
going to fix it, but you'll still have to
confess me. You'll still have to choose that.
So a finished work of Jesus
doesn't even come to your account until you do
something. It's called a work of faith.
And that is you believe that
Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the
grave, right? That he was, you know, born of
a virgin and he paid the price for our sin and you
proclaim him Lord of your life, which is supreme in
authority. And now he has the right to
tell you what to do. Hallelujah.
Amen. So with that being said, we
are created for good works that God prepared beforehand
so that we could walk in them. And
notice verse six said, we're seated with him. Now,
this position of being seated with him means that
we are in his authority. We
have his authority. Are you hearing me? But
again, you cannot function in his authority correctly
if you're not hearing from him. The
authority we have is called delegated power. If
it's delegated, that means it comes from a different
source. You can abuse power. You
can walk in authority abusively, but you can't
abuse God's power if you're always listening to him on
how to appropriate it. In order for you to
appropriate it correctly, you have to do what Jesus
did. Be seated, meaning you got to
come at the feet of Jesus and listen in order for
you to then act. Jesus himself, all the miracles
that we read about him, all the miracle signs and
wonders that he did, they are a result of a seated
position, meaning he would go to the mountain or he
would go out by himself and what pray? He
would spend time with the Father. In
essence, he would be at his Father's feet, receive
an instruction by the Holy Ghost on things to do.
That way, then, when he went
out and got into service and began to serve, he was
only serving what he heard while he was seated. So
Jesus knew when it's time to be seated and listen,
I'm going to listen, and then when it's time to
act, I'm going to go act and serve. Now
my serving has power because I've listened first.
So Jesus didn't just go around
doing a bunch of work without listening. In
fact, he could have not done the works he did if
he was not connected to the Father. Or
at least he couldn't have done them righteously. I
mean, Jesus is making statements like this, we've
got to do this so that scripture can be fulfilled.
That's because he heard scripture.
That's because it's been revealed
to him. That's because he listened. I
mean, he doesn't overcome the temptation of the devil
if he's not first listening to the Holy Spirit. Who's
leading him? So Jesus was a great listener.
He would be able to sit and
hear before he acted. In essence, he could turn off
when it was necessary, doing for the sake of
listening. And both are necessary. You
can't just listen and not do. James
says, okay, you're going to hear the word and not be
a doer of it? Well, you're deceived. So
if Jesus only would have sat at the feet of the
Father, oh, I miss heaven. Oh,
I miss you Lord, I miss being in your presence. I'm
just going to stay on this mountain forever. The
Father been like, well, then why did I send you?
You're not just sitting here, son.
You're not just going to sit
here. I mean, could you imagine
Jesus when he gets transfigured? You
know, when Peter, James and John's with him and he's
like, man, he's shining bright. That
is like, isn't this amazing the presence of God? It
is so amazing. I just love being in his
presence. I'm right here at his feet.
I'm listening to him. He's
talking to me. I'm not going back down. If
all he wanted to do is listen to his Father, then
his life on earth would have been a deceptive life.
James said, if you're here of
the word and not a doer of the word, you live
deceived. So we were never supposed to
just sit and listen. Right. We listen so we can do,
James says, be a doer of the word. Not
just a hearer, only. There's
a time to listen or sit at the feet of Jesus, so
to speak, so that we can receive instruction and then
there's a time to go and serve. But
then some get over and start doing without
listening, which means then they're doing stuff that
God's not even authorizing. And
then they stay so busy doing, they quit listening.
Then they just become a busy
body, but saying they're serving the Lord. And
they serve so much that they get aggravated when
other people are not serving. Now
everybody should serve, but everybody should equally
listen, which brings us to Luke chapter 10. In
Luke chapter 10 starting verse 38, it says, now as
they were traveling along, he entered a village and a
woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She
had a sister called Mary who was seated at the
Lord's feet. Where was she at? Seated
at the Lord's feet. What was she doing? Listening
to his word. But Martha was distracted with
all her preparations. She came up to him that she's
and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has
left me to do all the serving alone? Then
tell her to help me. But the Lord answered and said
to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered
about so many things, but only one thing is necessary
for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not
be taken away from her. Okay?
Now I'm gonna break some things down so we don't
get ditched in this message. All
right? But let me read out the
passion translation first. Passion
translation says it this way, and as Jesus and his
disciples continued on their journey, they came to a
village where a woman welcomed Jesus into her
home. Her name was Martha and she
had a sister named Mary. Mary
sat down attentively before the master, absorbing every
revelation he shared. But Martha became exasperated by
finishing the numerous household chores in
preparation for her guest. So
she interrupted Jesus and said, Lord, don't you think
it's unfair that my sister left me to do all the
work by myself? You should tell her to get up
and help me. The Lord answered, Martha, my
beloved Martha, why are you upset and troubled? Pulled
away by all these many distractions. Are
they really that important? Mary
has discovered the one thing most important by
choosing to sit at my feet. She
is undistracted. I won't take this privilege
from her. Now the first thing I want you
to know is that serving is a requirement. Number
one, so we are not gonna take this out of context
and say we should, see that's the problem, Martha
just was serving, she should just be listening.
Well, Jesus said I'm the servant.
So you can't go there, that's
why we read the whole Bible. Right,
so you can't just go to this one thing and go to
your pastor and say, you know what, I'm not gonna
serve anymore. I just need to be in
service. Well, you need to be in service.
And if the church does right,
which we do, we schedule you, right? Now
ushers may be on every service, but they're sitting
listening. I mean, you're in the
service. That's not a hard task. You
wear a different shirt, you got a different, fewer
response, but you get to listen to the message.
You're not in the children's,
where you're not in the service. And
you have to pick it up later on, on our podcast
or YouTube, whatever, wherever we're at, which
actually, and we're gonna start filming all of our
services, just let y 'all know. Okay,
anyway, with that being said, people, well, I just
need to sit. Well, if you just need to sit,
it's because you have failed somewhere. Now
I'm not saying you failed in sin, I'm just saying if
you're ready to get out of serving, this is a problem.
So this is not saying just
listen. Because Jesus said, if you wanna
be great, you're gonna have to be the servant of all.
Hallelujah. But what does this mean?
Well, the first thing we wanna
look at is this, and I'm break it down, receiving
Jesus does not mean you're hearing Him. Because
Martha received Him into her home, but she was not
listening to Him. So here's Jesus present in her
house, but she's busy doing something else while he's
talking. The next thing we learn is
serving Jesus does not mean you're hearing Him. This
is why a lot of times when people join the
church, they wanna get involved here and here and
here and here and well, this involvement in this
area and this involvement in this area and this
involvement in this area means there's additional
meetings there, and that at the end of the day, we
can get you so involved that you're always out
serving that you're in the church, but you're not even
listening to Jesus anymore. And
in fact, we monitor, we watch the congregation, if
they only show up when they're scheduled to serve,
and we do not see them in service when they're not
scheduled, this is a problem. That
means we're having a conversation because all of
a sudden, why do you not wanna hear from Jesus?
Amen? Because when you're not
scheduled, it's your time to come be at His feet.
Now, I'm not Jesus and I'm not
implying that, so please don't take it that way,
but this is where we communicate the heart of
God, the things of God, the spirit of God moves,
the gifts of the spirit of getting operation, the
ministering of the word, the spirit of God does
revealing. So at this point, this is
your time to sit and listen and receive in order
to go do and serve. And serving is not just
connected with the church and I'll break that down
here in a minute anyway. Now,
I ministered, I spoke this message to our staff
because they have a bigger challenge than you do. And
that is they must not confuse their work with
their worship, because unlike you who does not
work here full time or part time, you don't see
these walls as often as they do, which means then
it can get kinda clouded where I'm always there. And
all of a sudden, the time they wanna take off is
when they should be at His feet. That's
good. So they begin to think, well,
I'm employed, I do this because I serve God, so
I'm here all the time, but while you're working, you're
not listening. You're focused on your assignment.
And that in and of itself is
not the only way that we're serving God, okay? It
can become work so much that we're like, I don't
even wanna be here. And the time you don't wanna
be here is when you're supposed to come and
worship Him, participate in singing praises to Him, and
then receiving the word where you're just not
thinking about what's going on. And
here's the thing, and our staff, what I have to
watch and monitor them is that are they thinking
about what they're supposed to be doing or are they
in areas somewhere? While service is going on, cause
they're trying to get ahead for the week. I'm
not asking you to get ahead of the week. In
fact, your week could be better if you'll come sit
at His feet. Cause you're seated to serve.
Because if you just try to serve,
serve, serve, you're no longer connected to the
listening part of the church you're assigned to,
and then the things you're serving will be of your
own opinion and your own direction, and then they'll
become conflict. Because you're taking God in a
direction He's not even going. You're
trying to take Him on a path He's not going. It
seems right to you, but it's not what He's saying.
So serving Him, Jesus, doesn't
mean that you're hearing Him. And
a lot of people like to go to churches and just
get involved, but they don't actually wanna apply
anything they hear. Hallelujah.
That becomes a problem. So you yourself have to
understand, don't confuse work with worship. Because
here's the thing, you have the same challenge. Many,
and if I ask you to show me hands, I'd probably get
quite a few of you, that you've sat in the service
and thought about work. Cause
you just came off of something, something was
going on, and you're sitting there, and you're
taking notes about what you need to do. You're
in the service, but you're not listening because you're
thinking about tomorrow, or you're still thinking about
the problem that you had would work. So
at the end of the day, you are Martha when you
should be married. Because you're distracted. Now
I get it, apparently Martha at the end of the day
wanted her house to be in a certain way since she
received her guest in. I understand that, my wife's
that way. My wife has the standard, she
wants that house to look when people come, and in
my mind I'm like, well it's a big deal. Now
on some sides, yes, but on others I'm like, you know,
like when my kids come over, I'm like, you need
to blow off the front entrance. I'm
like, why? They're my kids. I
mean, if they get all upset about a little bit
of leaves, I mean, come on, right? But
I'm like, I'll do it in the morning cause I'm not
gonna do it tonight. I'll do it before service then.
Can't guarantee something won't
blow up on them before. Right?
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not acting like that's
a problem. I mean, I want my stuff to
look good and I'm thankful that my wife has a very
high standard. You know, but in the whole
grand scheme of things. But the kids come over because
you know, we're all eating and I'm like, oh, I forgot
to blow off the front, I better go do that. I
mean, it's a little irrelevant now. For
principles sake, but here's how people get locked in.
I've got to finish, I got to
do this, I got to finish this, I got to do this.
And they get so locked in that
they don't, they miss the moment they're in. And
a lot of times we have a hard time turning Martha
off when we should be married. Right?
And here's the thing, again, you work somewhere
else. So coming to the building
isn't as often as our employees, you know, so I
have to remind our employees, look, the
building is not a substitute and your work
schedule is not a substitute for you coming
to church and serving as a church member. It's
not a substitute. And you can't say, well, I do
more than anyone else. You know, you're paid by God
to be a part of the vision this way, but
there's still a whole church side that's totally
different. And if you're confused into
two, that's a problem. And then if you want me to
pay you because you're doing like stuff, that's
even a bigger problem. Because
now you've reduced me to a paycheck and you've
forgotten your relationship with God. You
know, there's many churches now that have paid
musicians. Honestly, we have paid musicians.
What do I mean by that? Some
of our musicians work for us full time that I pay
them to do that, something else, but yet they also
play. And because I pay them to do
something else, if I wanted to use them during the
week or something, I could technically because they're
employed here, but they don't get extra money just
to play here. Because at the end of the day, I
don't want an entertainer. I
don't want to pay for perfection and miss the
anointing. At the end of the day. So
there are certain things that's like, well, just
show me your heart. Because if we've reduced everything
to the church, and here's another thing that happens.
Well, you know, this is where
you would have a challenge. Well,
you know what? They have staff, they can do
it. That's what they're paid to do.
Well, there's still a church
that's outside of the staff. And
there's things to do beyond that. Because
again, if you reduce the church to the paid staff,
then again, you can't come unless you're paid. Well,
then who are you actually serving? Which
brings us back to Martha. Because
Jesus said, you can't serve two masters for your loved
one and hate the other. And
you can find yourself coming to church, being in
church, because you know you should be, but you're
not actually listening to Jesus while you're here,
because you're still thinking about what's been
going on at your work. So who are you actually
serving? Because you're not disconnecting and
saying, I'm not even gonna think about it. You
know, for some of you, you should probably go to a
paper Bible, because the electronic one is such a
distraction during service. Because
it's keeping you from being a Mary, because you're
checking in on all your social activity, or other
things for that matter, which is a distraction when
you should be a Mary. Mary in the past, she says she
was attentively listening to the revelation. Again,
at the end of the day, we have to be intentional in
these moments. Because again, I'm not here to
waste your time. You shouldn't waste your time.
God's definitely not here to
waste your time. God is to empower you and
release your gift. But in order for you to
release your gift, you have to be willing to sit and
listen, and then know that he's empowering you with
information, or really revelation, of who he is
and who you are, so that you can serve better. Amen.
So God's not rebuking Martha because she's a
server. What he's saying to her is that
you've put your serving over listening, and that's
what time it is now. Are you hearing me? All
right. So one must learn how to
engage the worship, and forget about all they need
to do for work the next day. You've
got to learn how to do that.
If you're always thinking about
work, this is how I know you are. You
get offended at those who come in freely worship.
Because Martha was offended at Mary
just sitting there. You've got a lot going on, trial
and tribulation, you're bringing them into church,
and instead of having an ear to hear, you're
watching people freely just engage God, and you're not
engaging, so you get offended. Look
at that. Especially if you have people that
are part of your business that attend church too,
because you have influenced them to come and they did.
And then they worship and
you're like, well, they have no idea what it
takes. Guess what? You're
distracted by your work, and you're upset that your
employee has become a Mary when you should be a Mary
too. As far as the employees of
Anchorage Church, they have no idea. And
then let me go over to the congregation. You
have no idea of things that we deal with, because
you're not supposed to. But at the end of the day, in
fact, something just happened tonight before I
came on the platform. And I said, if that's true,
then this is what's gonna happen. But
it didn't stop me from being Mary. Because
at the end of the day, that will be taken care
of. I'm not gonna be concerned
about it. That's take care of itself, I've
called why the head of the church is taking care of
it. At the end of the day, he's
awesome. Yeah, so I can engage him. Cause
again, my worship to him can give me insight to
situations that are going on when I need to get
them. Because listening is what serves
better. In essence, he's saying, look,
Martha, if you would quit being distracted by your
stuff and come listen to me, then when you go back,
when it's time, then you're gonna be better at, you
gotta have a better attitude. You're
gonna be better equipped. I mean, how could you go
back to work frustrated if you came to church on
Sunday? Because if you came to church on
a Sunday and went to work Monday and was mad, but
something that was last week, then you didn't
listen when you came to church. Same
in anyway. I mean, if you've got
something going on, you know what, your job now,
we could go, let's get out of jobs. Let's
just go to home life. Distractions
are you allowing things to go through your mind that
you're trying to figure certain things out, how to
take care of certain things when you should just be
listening. And a lot of times we want to
get an answer about what we're in right now in the
Lord's life. That's irrelevant. Because
at the end of the day, he already has the answer. He
already knows what to do. He
already knows when he can release it to you and when
he wants to release it to you. Because
you know, some situations, God has no problem with it
going on because it proves your character. Okay,
no, nobody will apparently hear this now. I
don't know what's happening. Jesus
said you'll have trials and tribulations. He
didn't say I will remove the trial immediately. He
never says that. I'm with you in it because you
being in it lets me know that you still trust me.
It's not my issue. I
got it. And you just need to stay
solid in it. Because he's a lamp into your
feet, a light into your path. He
will walk with you through the valley of the shadow
of. A valley is not one step,
people. Wow, that was the quickest
valley I've ever been. And no, valleys are long.
They're mountain ranges on each
side. It takes time to get through
a valley. But God's with you the whole
time, which means you can walk through a valley. It
seemed like everything's falling apart. But
for you, it seemed like it's been awesome. Even
though the environment is there, but because you know
how to listen, sit at his feet, hear what he's
saying, and then serve into the next step. So
during services, we must learn how to turn Martha's
off. Must learn how to turn it off.
I'm not gonna say that there
isn't the occasional interruptions. Can
that happen? Sure, I understand that. We're
not looking for, it's perfect. You
never miss out on a moment, that there's never
an emergency or something happened that pulls you,
that can happen, no problem. But
if it's constant, next thing you know, you're more
concerned, well, I, you know, we got this going on
and it's going on so much that you can't even sit
and listen anymore. That's when it becomes a problem.
Now as far as the church in
the realm of church, we monitor this. We
look at your serving, we look at what's going on.
We're asking those questions, you
know? And in some aspects, we're even
seeing your engagement. Now at the end of the day, I
can't tell your heart other than the Holy Ghost telling
me what's in your heart and how you're responding,
you know? Cause the person can shout and
scream and be just as disconnected. I
get that, someone can run and be disconnected. I
understand that. However, you know your heart. And
you know if you're fully engaged and you've let
everything else about today, tomorrow, next month, not
be a problem right now. I'm
not sure. Although God's not obligated to
answer your problem right out the gate, although he
will answer it. Sometimes he just says, well, how
much are you just attentive to me? Cause
again, Jesus said in the realm of serving. The
greatest is the servant of all. Jesus
did that. He laid down his life for
you. Now he's Lord, so who should
be doing the serving? Obviously
us, and it was always been us. And
you'll never stop Jesus from serving you cause he's
gonna do that. However, you should be just as
adamant about serving him. And
one sway of serving, it's kind of like ironic, is
you listen. You listen. Because
the king's saying, at this point, stop doing, just
come and sit here. Now being at his feet, you
can't pick what that moment is. What
do I mean by that? Obviously
you can't say, well, I wish this worship, I mean,
I wish the singing would get done so we can get to
the preaching. Well, singing is a foot moment.
You should participate in that.
You should lift your hands. You
should sing with your mouth. You
should be engaged. It's your worship to God. And
he's worthy of it. Not, you know, I need him to
say something to me. I wish he'd get to the word.
I wish I, no, you need to
just, cause you could get a word in the midst. Of
you just worshiping him. I'm
just in your presence right now. Corporately
speaking, you understand. Cause
I mean, God goes with us everywhere we go cause he
lives in us, right? Okay, so when one does not turn,
does not know how to turn off Martha, then they will
fail to discern being at the feet of Jesus is
better. I heard a guy a long time
ago, and that's when I first started moving into
the Pentecostal church that was, it was the assembly
God that I went to. And this guy just hated this
story, be honest with you, cause he was just, he was
a serving junkie. He just wanted to serve. And
he was so adamant that, you know, this issue here
in this story makes it look like, you know, God
doesn't want people to serve. And
that is not a true statement. God
wants us to serve, but he equally wants us to listen
when he says, hey, I'm talking, you need to stop.
The New Testament actually
describes another group that is under the guise of
serving, but he calls it a different term. He
says they're busy bodies. They're
busy bodies. So they're always given the
appearance, they're doing something, but they're
actually not doing anything. And
whatever what they're doing is they're avoiding
listening. Cause here's the thing about
being at his feet. Jesus is going to talk to you.
And he's going to tell you
what you need. He's going to tell you what's
best for you. And some of those conversations,
we don't always like to hear. So
sometimes it's easier to be a Martha because it avoids
us from hearing. Cause every time I go to
service, it's, you know, have you ever heard
someone, every time I go to service seem like
they're always talking about, well, it's cause you
finally showed up again and we are still pounding on
the one thing you're not dealing with. Cause
obviously it's only happening when you're in.
So it must be for you. Every
time I go to that church, all they do is talk about
money. Well, it must be about you. You
must have a money problem. And
God always makes me go there because I can give
you plenty of services. We don't even talk about
money. Right? Cause it's easy to get
busy cause busy will allow you not to listen. Again,
my wife made the statement here during prayer. She
says, you know, when you're talking to your children or
you're either giving them instruction or correcting
them, one or the other and you see them in the room,
but they're not intently engaged in you and you
make the statement. Are you listening to me? So
you know they're hearing you, but they're not
attentive to understand what you're saying. Right.
And you understand, we can get in here and get busy
under the guys we're doing something or just out and
about in our own work. We want to go to work. We
want to get there. We want to get there because
why? I really don't want to get
here. And a lot of times it is true
you're working, but why are you working so much? Is
it to avoid hearing? Because
when you become Martha only, it's easy for you to
see your accomplishments. It's
easy. Martha can say, okay, I've done
this, I've done that, got this done. I
mean, she had a list. She goes to Jesus and says,
you should tell Mary to get up and come help me
with my list. Cause we can't stop till the
list is done. And the thing about hearing
from God is God will mess up your routine. Yes?
He'll mess up your routine because at the end of the
day there's only one routine we should have.
His. When he's Lord, if he's
like, hey, I want you to go do this today. Okay.
Well, who you serving? Who are we listening to? So,
you know, for, so a lot of congregation members, the
challenge you have is that you can get so involved in
work, which is serving that capacity that you pull
yourself out of church, serving the body, but then
also, but more importantly, you're not listening. Cause
I can tell you right now, having something on the
radio doesn't mean you're listening to it. Cause
I know what you're all doing. I
know what you're all doing when it comes to your
Bible reading. You're for the ones that have the
audio, you're listening to it. Cause
in your Bible reading, you're like, man, I'm, you
know what I'm gonna do? I'm
gonna play that. Now, hearing is awesome cause
faith comes by. So there's nothing wrong with
you listening unless you're not listening. It's
there, but it became background noise to your
project or whatever you're doing that's keeping you
from stopping and either going through your
electronic device or flipping your pages. Right,
right. So for me, if I'm going to
listen to the Bible, number one, I'm gonna put it
right here in my ears. So there is nothing else that
is out there to hear. Number
one, number two, then I have to be conscious, and
I am conscious of whether or not I got something
like I'm aware of where I'm at in the guy talking
to me. Now there are some places that
are easier for me to be very attentive, driving in
the vehicle is that cause I'm not locked in, but I'm
not so locked into traffic that I can't be locked
into what I'm hearing. We've
kind of conditioned ourselves to hear that way
in one sense. So it's a good place for me
to do it. But to have it at the house
just open where you can hear, man, we could be
five chapters in, I'm like, what? Well,
that was a waste of time because I'm gonna have to
go back and read it anyway now. Right,
because my busyness has kept me from being married.
Married, you know, and I realized
there's a lot of believers out there that genuinely,
they do love God. I'm not questioning someone
loving God in the general sense, okay? I'm
not getting in the biblical sense of loving him, just
in the general sense, you know, they're not there to
not to just be anti -God. I
don't want nothing to do with you. I
understand that's not their attitude. However,
some of the ways they're trying to act like they're
being closer, they're actually not being closer
at all because they're not being attentive at his
feet. In essence, they're not being
seated to hear so that it makes a change so that I
can be somewhere else. Are you hearing me? And
I'm gonna tell you, hear from God when you learn
how to sit at his feet, opens up a lot. I'll
give you a case in point tonight. Pastor
Marci, we did our prayer and Pastor Marci's, you
know, praying, giving some discourse and we moved into
prayer and then she came back and then she started
talking about the relationship with the
father. And then God downloaded me a
bunch of stuff for the marriage conference. I'm
like, I had one thought, I'm like, dude, so now I'm
on my phone because now I'm just, and it has
nothing to do with prayer. It
has to do with a conference that's coming up
at the end of this month. And
I wasn't even talking to him about it. I
didn't ask him about it. It
wasn't part of my prayer walk, Lord, what are we
gonna do with the marriage conference? I'm
not even thinking about the marriage conference other
than telling you what date it is and you need to
register, you know, in an announcement tonight. Other
than that, I'm not thinking about it, but because I've
learned that I'm in his feet, he has permission to
talk to me about anything. You
know what he decided? Hey, I'm gonna give you
something to start chewing on. Cause
he didn't give me an answer. He
just gave me a what? Which means this is gonna require
some more seconds on. I'm like, that's good, I need
this. So I'm writing it down. Now
I've got, I'm all locked in to something. I
don't know what anybody else is gonna talk about
at the marriage conference, but I'm locked into a
thought process now that me and the Lord is gonna have
further discourse. And it came through the
simplicity of being in prayer, not thinking about
what I have to do at work tomorrow, what I have to
do at my house, what I have to do here, this at
the other, I learned how to turn Martha off. And
I'm just married now. Cause you know, even in this
moment with you today, I have to learn how to be
married in the midst of Martha, turn it on and
off. I'm serving you as a pastor,
this is what I do, but at the same time, I gotta be
still sitting at his feet at the same time. When
one does not know how to turn off Martha, you'll
fail to discern being at his feet is better. Because
I've come to find that those who genuinely love
church and love to be in church, to hear from the
Lord and to grow every aspect of their life
becomes better. I mean, how would it not?
You're talking to God. You're
allowing Him to talk to you. You're
giving Him access. This is not religious training.
I mean, religious exercise
where you're just showed up and you're checking a box.
You're attentive, you're like
intentional. Cause if you cannot attend
service due to work, it's gonna move you to anxiety
about things related to work. Because
she couldn't recognize, I mean, I invited Jesus in.
I mean, it's not like she
doesn't know who Jesus is. And
then he's gonna start revealing stuff. And
we're gonna be like, I wish I could listen, but I
got too much to do. And that's why Jesus prompts
the response he does to Martha. Because
basically what she did is she prioritized what she
needed to do as more important than what he was
saying, even though she invited him. She's
in the same room with him, but she's decided that what
she has to do actually has priority over what he's
saying. And since what she has to do
has more priority, it actually takes more than
one person, or at least it would be accomplished
quicker. And since Mary lives here too,
by all rights, she should abandon what she's hearing
from him and come and serve her. And
work with her to accomplish her priority first, then
when we're done, if Jesus isn't finished, we'll catch
the end. Instead of saying, I've walked you
in, I got this, but he starts talking. It
seemed like he ain't worried about that we
hadn't finished the dishes. Okay,
well, you might find that Jesus had come cook with
you after he finished his talking. Cause
that's just kind of how he is. He's
not like, I'm gonna talk, now serve me, go do the
rest of your chores. I mean, he's like, I'll come
into the kitchen and help you out. Right?
And I have found that if I will take the time with
him, then in my serving, he's like, I'm right here.
Why? Cause he's a co -laborer.
So in essence, the Lord's
like, I know what you gotta do. That's
okay. I'm gonna help you after I get
done talking to you. And most of us miss that
moment of him helping us in whatever we're doing in
life. Same thing with the church
staff. You're gonna miss out the
challenges that you have just with the different
things that they do, especially the preschool and
the private school, the different challenges they
have with students and parents that don't attend
our church at all. And some students that don't
attend our church either. And
those challenges they have, you understand you'll be
able to navigate them better because you come and
sit and hear instead of just going home and
sleeping. So you can be ready for the
next day when the Lord's like, I'll download in you.
I'll quicken your mortal body.
I'll give you then sweet rest
that you, you know, never would have been able to
get on your own. And then I'll make peace about
that situation the minute you walk in the room or
deal with them on my own. You
might show up and they'd be like, I'm sorry. Oh,
they're actually sorry. Wow, how did this happen? Well,
cause an angel showed up and said, you better tell
your teacher. I saw an angel. I
got to go tell you I'm sorry. You
know, Jesus, the Lord knows how to put his finger here
on a wall and write things out. He
can do stuff and he still does stuff today and wants
to get involved with us, but he wants us to be
attentive to him. Amen. That bless you. So
when we come to service, let's be passionate that
when we're here, cause again, like the ushers,
they have to turn stuff off to be Mary right now.
But in a minute, they're fixing
to jump in to their Martha role. Okay.
But then there's those that are being Martha's right
now. They're serving the church, but I
pray they're disciplined enough that they'll go
online to listen to this message. And
when they're listening, they won't be doing it while
they're working at the house. Now,
when it comes to preaching, when I do watch preaching,
I do nothing cause that's a waste of my time. I've
put a couple of ministers on at times. And
next thing you know, you're starting, you're like, I
don't even know where they're at. I
mean, it's just, wha, wha, wha, wha. That's
what it's become. My spirit's not getting it.
Nothing's getting it. I
mean, honestly, at that point, it's kind of like
the sea thrown to the wayside. Cause
you have no understanding. I
mean, you're no, there's no attentiveness to it at all.
It's in the background, but
you've given yourself this appearance that you're being
holy cause you're listening to preaching all day. But
you're not even receiving anything you're hearing
cause it's not a merry time. It's
a Martha while Jesus is in the room, right? So
again, for me, I don't do that. I
can't. I mean, that's, but that's my
limitation. All right. You
may not have that. You can do it and obtain and
do the other things. And that's awesome. As
long as you're can be at the feet, then that's good.
You're seated. And
then at once you receive, and you know what it is
that God gave you, then you can go serve. Amen.
Let's pray. Father, we love you. We
honor you. Thank you so much for listening
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