So just like we began the last
hour, we're going to begin this hour the same way, with a question. So I look across the crowd, and
I see faces that returned. And my question to you is why. And I look at, and I see faces
that weren't here for the first hour. And I ask why you're here. I hope, my hope is that the reason
is because you love him, because you desire to know more
of him, to know and to grow in him. Jesus said in John 6, 29
that it is the work of God that you believe on him whom he has
sent. I know that the Lord as he fills
this place, those who he brings here with that faith, They desire
him. They desire to hear more of him. I was asked one time when I was
in a conversation, I was asked what I preach. And I said, well,
I hope I preach Christ. And the person said to me, well,
don't they get tired of hearing that? Well, I'm sure there are some
who do. but for the people of God because
of his love, because of that reciprocating love, because he
loved me, I love him, and because I love him, I wanna know more
about him. Because when I walk out of those
doors, my nature is to forget. My nature is to take in everything
when I walk out of those doors, and then to go about my life,
whatever the Lord has called me to be. worker, husband, grandpa,
father. And so this morning, I'd like
you to turn with me to Luke 10. We find a very, very familiar
passage. I'm sure you've heard many sermons
on this passage. At the end of Luke 10, we're only gonna cover four verses
this morning, or five, sorry, 38 through 42. And verse 38 starts this way.
Now it came to pass as they went, that's he and his disciples,
that he'd entered into a certain village and a certain woman named
Martha received him into her house. Now we know that this
village is Bethany because in John 11 five it said that Jesus
loved this family from Bethany. He loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. And he often visited their home.
And as I said, you've probably heard a lot of messages from
this passage. And I find myself saying this
a lot from back here. I find myself saying, this is
one of my favorite passages. And I say that to almost all
of them that I'm up here preaching. But truly, this one's very meaningful
to me. because it's something that somewhere
in almost every one of my days, the Lord is impressing this truth
upon me, what he's teaching in this small little passage here. So they entered into this village
and there was a certain woman named Martha and she had a home
and she asked him and received him, Jesus, and the disciples
into her home. And she had a sister called Mary,
which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. So the first
thing we're told about Mary is that she's at Jesus' feet. Mary, her desire was to be at
Jesus' feet. And the Holy Spirit wants us
to know that her place was at Jesus' feet. And we find her
here a lot. If you turn with me over to John
11, look at John 11 and look at verse
2. Well, we'll just back up to one. It
says, Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus of Bethany, the
town of Mary and her sister Martha. Look at verse 2. It was that
Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment. and wiped his
feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick." So we see
this one, Mary, was at the feet of Christ because she anointed
his feet and washed his feet with ointment. So she had to
be at his feet to do that. Turn with me over a page, just
a page, to verse, well it is in my Bible, to verse 32. Then when Mary was come where
Jesus was and she saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying
unto him, Lord, if thou had been here, my brother had not died. Now, the last time I was with
you, I preached a message from this passage about all the unbelief
that was here. And in the midst of her unbelief,
She still prostrates herself and falls to the feet of Christ. Once again, at His feet. As she
sees Him coming, that's what it says, she saw Him, she threw
down herself at His feet. Now look at chapter 12. Look
at verse 3. The Holy Spirit now is going
to repeat this situation. Then took Mary a pound of ointment
of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and
wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with
the odor of the ointment." You see what we have over and over. The scriptures, the Holy Spirit
says, I'm going to mention that Mary found her place at the feet
of Christ. She hurried to get to the feet
of Christ. I desire to be in that place.
You know, sometimes we get in conversations with people and
people who know enough about the Bible will say things like,
I wish I had the patience of Job. Oh, I wish I had the meekness
of Moses. I wish I had the strength of
Samson. But I tell you, dear ones, for
all of those things, I wish I had Mary's place. I wish I had the
desire that Mary had every time to be at the feet of Christ.
To be at the feet of Christ, so then when I look, when I look,
I have to look up to see Christ. When I'm at his feet, I know
my place. I know where I, this is what
we spoke about in the first message. Where was I brought from? Am
I a debtor to grace? Do I owe my life to him? Do I
owe everything to him? For the life of me, I do not
understand this co-pilot relationship with God that the religious world
has. You see it on bumper stickers
all the time. God is my co-pilot. That's an
offense to me. He's my pilot. If I get involved,
I'm gonna ruin things. I'm gonna crash the plane. I'm
gonna lose, I'm gonna end up flying to the Bermuda Triangle.
I don't know where I'm going. My place is right here at the
feet. And notice what it says, she
sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. Her desire, her soul's
desire was to be fed. She's living on the words that
proceed out of the mouth of the Son of God. That's all she desires. She loves Martha. She loves her
brother, Lazarus. She has familial relationships
here on earth, just like you and I. But she has to be at his feet. She has to be. And I hate to
admit it, But I'm found more in Martha's place than I'm found
in Mary's place. And dear ones, these things ought
not to be that way. Because truly, if I am a debtor
to grace and I owe it all to Him, I need to be at His feet. And when I get in my truck to
go to work every morning, I need to be at His feet. And when I
walk into those doors to the place that I work, I need to
be at His feet. And when I leave that place and
I come home to my family, I need to be at his feet. And all day
long when I'm there at that job, I need to be at his feet. I need
to hear the words of my shepherd. But we see in verse 40, we see
a problem. Martha was cumbered about much
serving and came to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my
sister has left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help
me. Tell her to get up and get in
here and help me. She's cumbered about with much
serving. Dear ones, who is she serving?
She's serving Jesus. And she's cumbered. She's over
occupied with serving God. Does that sound strange to you?
We're going to table that a minute. We're going to come back to it.
But Martha is anxious and she's over occupied with serving the
Lord. She invited the Lord into her
house and now the things that need to be readied and to be
done are overwhelming to her. So she reaches out to the Lord
and says to him, do you not care? Have you had those moments? Sometimes when we lose, as I
just heard a dear sister or one has passed, sometimes we just
want to say, Lord, do you not care? When that job we're at
seems to be a dead end and it becomes just so stressful to
us, we say, Lord, do you not care? I found myself in this
situation last week. I had a simple night one night
where my wife told me after she took a bath that the water drained
slow. Okay. Well, we had spent some
time together that night. We came back into the bathroom
later. I walked in there and there was
an inch of water on the floor. So me, instead of going to the
plumber I usually go to, I saw an ad for get anything unclogged
for $149. I said, well, that's a lot less
than what I usually pay. So I proceeded to call that plumber.
To make a long story short, I'm still not fixed as of this day.
It wasn't a clog. It was a bigger septic issue.
So now I've got plumbing issues. I've got septic issues. And in
the middle of that, I said, Lord, do you not care? Do you not care? Not only do I have to take off
work for this, but from $149, I'm at $8,000. Lord, do you not
care? Seriously. I may not have said
those words, but I thought them. One thing after another, and
this is after it just had a couple other things fixed. My AC went
out. Lord, do you not care? I'm cumbered about with a lot
of things, and I just sat done telling you. My plumbing and
my house is not fixed. But you know what? I don't care. I don't. I don't. Because he's the one thing needful. And when you're brought to His
feet, and you look up and see Him, you don't have a care about
anything. But I know you've been brought
there. I know you've had those days. Lord, do you not care?
Martha loved the Lord. The Lord loved Martha. But at this moment, the love
of Mary for the Lord, it's unquenchable. She's got to have him. She's
got to hear his words. She's got to sit there at his
feet. She's got to take in everything that Christ is and all the abilities
she has. Anything, just, Lord, feed me.
Give me, Lord, this daily bread of you. But as I said, there's two ways
that we can become over-cumbered. I gave you the worldly way. We
get caught up in the things of this world. Sometimes it's just
as simple as politics. We get cumbered and anxious about
the political scene, the economic scene, the things that go on
in our house, our jobs, our families. But I want you to understand,
she's not cumbered about that. She's not anxious about that.
She's not over-occupied with that. She's serving God. She is serving the Lord Jesus
Christ and she's cumbered. What? Can we over-serve God? Yes, we can. I'll give you an example. Sometimes
in these preaching engagements, I get nervous, especially when
the Lord doesn't drop a text to me in the time that it'd be
better for me to have a text so I'd have longer to study it.
And I get very anxious about that. Well, I'm serving God. I want to serve God, but my focus
is on the service. It's not on the worship. And
those of us that have duties in the church, whether it's the
song leader, whether it's the one doing the recording, whether
it's the one who's cleaning up afterwards, These things get
into our mind. Maybe it's a luncheon we're having
afterwards. Maybe it's a conference. We get
comfort. We get over-occupied within our
mind. What's in our mind is serving
God. You see? What are we neglecting? The one thing that's needful.
The Christ that's preached at that conference. the Christ that's
preached from this pulpit. We lose sight. Martha's no different. She loves the Lord, we love the
Lord, and we lose sight. And we need Him. We need Him
to say, be still and know that I am God. We can get very busy
serving. and we miss the one whom we serve. So that's a warning. That's encouragement,
too, to seek him. So let's hear what the master
has to say. What is his answer? Jesus answered
and said unto her, Martha, Martha. Two times. Just like, verily,
verily. See, when I hear that, when I
hear someone reading that, or I see that in the word of God,
verily, verily, my ears perk up. It's like I have this extra
sense, uh-oh, this is very important. Not that the whole word's not
important, but Jesus said, verily, verily, this is very important.
But can you not hear the love in those words? Can you not hear
the love, the love that Christ had for Martha too? He would
say to her, Martha, Martha, here's the situation. You're careful
and you're troubled about many things. Can we put our name in there?
I can put my name in there. Sean, Sean, you're troubled about
many things. You're careful and you're anxious
about those things. But there's only one thing that's
needful. You know, what is he talking
about? I need to eat. I need to have
a functioning house. Do I? If I'm riddled with cancer and
only have a day or two left to live, what do I need? I need the one thing. The one
person. The person of Christ. And now here's the beautiful
thing. He says there's only one thing that's needful and Mary's
chosen that good part. And then I love this, which shall
not be taken away from her. He doesn't withdraw himself.
She's brought to him and he feeds her. He opens the storehouses.
He loves her. He rewards his work, his faith. He doesn't bring us to him and
then leave us empty. And he never will. Because he's
the faithful one. Turn with me over to Matthew
11 real quick. We know how Matthew 11 ends,
but listen to these words now. I want you to listen. Remember what he said, it will
not be taken from you. She has chosen the one thing
needful. Remember what he said to Martha,
you're cumbered, you're troubled, you're careful about many things. Now listen to these words of
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. and may the Holy Spirit bring
them to your soul. Verse 28, come unto me. We just talked
about that in the last message. Live, and the power is given
to live. Come unto me. And when the Lord
says to his people and his sheep, come unto me, they come. always willing in the day of
His power. That's His faithfulness. Come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. Did that sound
like Martha? Laboring, heavy laden with the
situation in front of her. What is our situation? Are we
heavy laden? Are we cumbered? And I, I will give you rest. When I was young in the church
that I was brought up in, I remember this passage vividly because
the one teaching me this passage said to me, that whatever the
need was, let's say I came unto the Lord because I was fearful,
I was young, so I was scared at night of the boogeyman or
whatever it was. Then when the Lord comes to you,
he'll kill the boogeyman or he'll put the, you know, in this case,
I'll come to you, Martha, and I'll give you a servant to help
you. You see where I'm going with this? So I was taught, at
a young age that the way the Lord met you was fixing your
problem. So in my case he's gonna send
me a septic tank guy that's the best one in the world and it's
gonna fix my problem. That's what this meant. I hope
that's not in our understanding here. That as the Lord designs
our trials for our souls that the end of that trial, the way
to escape is not the physical thing. It's not the plumber and
it's not the, it's Christ. That way that he has made for
us to escape is himself. Come unto me all you that labor
heaven and I will give you rest. And when the Lord revealed that
to me, that that's him. My rest isn't in the situation,
that's why I said to you, I'm standing here to you today, I'm
not even worried about the situation. Because the Lord has impressed
upon me now the one thing needful. And that's out of love. Because
I certainly don't deserve that. I'm too quick to not believe.
I'm too quick to run to the situation. I'm too quick to Google how I'm
going to get it fixed. But I'm neglecting the one thing
needful. And the one thing that's needful doesn't withdraw himself
from me. He gently pulls me back to him. With that crook that's in that
rod and that staff that comforts me, he just pulls me right back
over. And what does he give me? Come unto me, all you that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you. This yoke is his way, his life. Take my life upon you. This is
not an offer, it's a command. This is how we take his life
upon us. He is our life. And it's the
only way that we know it is He commands us and performs the
power to take that life. The life of Christ. Take my life
upon you. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me. That's how Mary's there at His
feet. That's why Mary's always at His feet. The desire is to
learn. I need to know more of my Savior. I need to know more of the one
who is the one thing needful. Do you have that burning desire?
As I said, I hope that's why you're here. It's not a religious
duty. It's not something you do because
my parents brought me. Oh Lord, come to our soul. Give us of that birth and that
new heart to love you. to need you, to desire you above
all else. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me for I am meek and lowly. Where is Mary? At his feet, the
meekest and lowest position. You know, We learn in this life
sometimes that we have to ascend to get a better view. We went out to Pikes Peak many
years ago and driving up that area, oh, going all the way up
to the top, scariest time in my life because I'm afraid of
heights, but when you got up there, the view, the beauty of
the view, so we believe that we must ascend But that's not
what the scriptures teach us. To get a view of His love, we
need to be at His feet. He must increase, we must decrease. To get the proper view of His
faith, we need to be at His feet. To know His mercies and His grace,
we need to be brought to His feet. I am meek and lowly in
heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls. That's where
our rest is. He is our rest. That is the rest
that remains for the people of God. It's Him. For my yoke is easy. And we don't
find that it's hard. We don't. Living in Christ and
unto Christ and by Christ, it's simple. You say, oh, you don't
have trials? Of course I do. Of course I have
a struggle. But living by him, it's all of
him. He's done it all. I can't stay there on my own.
I know I'm dependent. My yoke is easy and my burden
is light. And when the Lord says, take
up your cross daily and follow me, I remember how in the day
of his power, by and through and in him, that's how we live
and we consist by him daily. And the cross that we bear here,
we all bear the same cross every day. You know that, right? That's
that struggle we have inside of us. We all are still sinners. We bear that too. And we all share in the same
thing. We need the one thing needful. Turn me back over there. One thing is needful, the Lord
said. And Mary has chosen that good part. You know how she chose
it? By grace. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. Mary has chosen that good part
which shall not be taken away from her. Do you have a need? Do you have
this desire to learn of Him, to learn of Him through His Word?
You know, don't ever, how do I put this, don't ever shy away
from doctrine. I know sometimes we run into
people who are all doctrine, and it turns us off, because
we need Christ. And sometimes somebody wants
to talk to you about the threefold sanctification, and you just
sit there and you just, okay, I need Him. But doctrinally speaking,
don't hate it, because that's how we learn Him first. We have
to learn Him through the Word. So don't hate doctrine, don't
hate His teaching through the Word. We must know who He is.
We must know what he's done. We must know, what is that? That's
his word, that's his doctrine. So we learn him that way first. And there's a need for that.
But it has to be personal. It must be personal. Paul said,
I know whom I have believed. And he reveals to us that we're
washed in his blood, that his salvation is past, present, and
future, that he is that presence in our soul. He is the life of
our soul. It's personal. Mary has chosen
that one thing needful, and it won't be taken from her. Sean
has chosen that. That's why I said, I want to
be found in that place. By his grace, I will be. But
it is personal. You know, many people in here
sitting next to ones they love and you can't live off their
faith. It's personal to you if you're his child. You learn him
in the word, you learn him through personal dealing with him. And
dear ones, you have to learn him experientially or experimentally. That means experiencing him. We don't go and hole ourselves
up in a monastery somewhere and just say, okay, this is where
I'm gonna learn the Lord at his feet in scriptures. Didn't work
for Luther, it's not gonna work for us. We learn him in our life,
the journey, the pilgrimage that he has put before each and every
one of us, and they're all different paths that lead to the same path. Every one of our walks, if we're
all in here, are in Christ, they lead to him. And we must experience
every bit of it. Every trial he's designed for
your soul, you're not gonna get out of it. You're gonna bear
his burden because his yoke is light. He is our rest. So we must learn him in the scriptures,
doctrinally. We must learn him personally.
We must learn him experientially. And we love him and we learn in submission. We learn at his
feet. And that's what Mary is showing
us. And I'm not here to deify Mary. She's a sinner. I'm here
to lift up the one who brought her there. I'm here to lift up the one who
opened her heart to feed her. I'm here to lift up the one who
in love and mercy fed her. He is the one thing needful.
You know, as Mary sat at his feet, and you saw it over and
over, she kept throwing herself to learn. And I told you, I know a little bit about His love.
But that one about loving your enemies? You know, if I was there when they crucified
my Lord, and I was there and I beheld
Him hanging on that tree, There's no way that the thought
would even come into my mind, Lord forgive them for they know
not what they do. If I loved the Lord and I was
there, I would want all of them judged, all of them killed. And I'm here on this side of
the cross. And I find that thought hard. How can Paul say I wish
myself accursed for my brethren? How can Jesus stand over Jerusalem
and weep? How? I can't do that. Because I have not learned at
His feet what His love truly is. The depth of His love. The singleness of His love to
love Him and His will and His purpose supremely. To be emptied
of myself for the one thing deep. It's amazing to me. But one thing is needful, the
Lord said, and Mary has chosen that good part which shall not
be taken away from her. I want to leave you with the
words of David, kind of similar to this. Turn with me over to
Psalm 27. We'll read down to the verse I want to cover. We'll
just start at the beginning. I love the psalmist. I've said this many times, I'm
just so thankful that the word of God is filled with sinners.
what the Lord has done in their life, what he's taught them,
what he's brought them from. The Lord is my light and my salvation,
whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my
life, of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even mine enemies
and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled
and fell. Though a host should encamp against
me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against
me, in this will I be confident. And this is where I've been wanting
to get. One thing. It's one thing needful. This
is David's way of saying that. It's one thing I've desired of
the Lord. And that I will seek after. That
I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. Lord, I just want to dwell in
you. I want to be needy. I want you,
Lord, to cast me at thy feet. Make me to lie down in that green
pasture. Lead me beside the still waters. Lord, be my everything. Cause me to be emptied of self,
Lord, that all I desire is to be with you all of my days. to
behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple,
to ask of him, to seek him, to know him. That's where Mary was brought.
And praise God, it'll never be taken from her. And that's a
promise to you and I too, if we be in Christ. No man can ever
pluck us out of his hand or out of the Father's hand. We're safe
and secure in the art that is Christ Jesus. But that word, that word needful,
you realize the first part of that is need. You have to have
a need. What good is a Savior without
the need of a Savior being shown you're a sinner? He is the one
thing needful. May He give you the desire for
Him. May He give you the love for
Him. And may He fill that desire and that love with Himself. Dear Heavenly Father, bless the
words. Bless these people with Thyself. Bring us, Lord, to Thy feet.
Show us the one thing needful. For this, I ask in Jesus' name,
amen. Let's close with hymn number
318 in your hardbacked hymnal. Let's all stand together, 318.