Good evening. Turn with me if
you would to Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10. And verse 38, we'll begin. And you'll, I'm sure, be familiar
with this story of Jesus coming to these two sisters and the
circumstances that transpired there. The Lord Jesus, in the
midst of really very important and significant events in his
ministry on the earth, comes into this small village and turns
aside into the home of Mary and Martha. And it may seem small
and unimportant, but It's not. It's full of the good part that
Jesus speaks about in this passage. So let's just read that and refresh
our memories, beginning in verse 38. Now it happened, as they
went, that he entered a certain village, and a certain woman
named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister
called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word.
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.
And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are
worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed,
and Mary has chosen that good part which will not be taken
from her. In considering this again, I'd
like us to think of what's the primary point of this story? Like any portion of scripture,
there's many things in this passage, in this short story, but what
I'd like to do tonight is really focus on what's the main point? What is it that the Lord would
teach us from this? And we see that we're presented
with a contrast between Martha and Mary and as a result the
Lord speaks these words to Martha, but one thing is needed and Mary
has chosen that good part. Now we might tend to think that
Mary is representative of some believers and Martha is representative
of other believers but That really isn't quite right, is it? Really,
Martha and Mary together are representative of the believer. Sometimes we listen to Jesus,
and sometimes we're distracted and worried about many things.
Isn't that true? Amen. we could say we listen to those
things that distract us. And the Lord says to Martha and
to you and to me, choose that good part. Well, what is that
good part? Well, I believe it's hearing
Jesus. That's the good part, to have
that great and glorious honor and privileged to be spoken to
by Christ and to hear his words, to sit at his feet and to listen
to what he says. I think that's the primary point
of this story. Mary chose that good part and
it will not be taken from her, the Lord says. This is the part
that is needed. This is the part that matters.
This is the part that's eternal. and will never be taken from
her. You know, to understand and fully
appreciate the teaching of a word in scripture, or a verse, or
a portion, it's always important to consider the context that
we find it. That's always so helpful to understand. And so I'd like us to look at
the circumstances leading up to this visit by Jesus to this
little insignificant household in this small village of Bethany.
Look back to the beginning of the chapter and let's consider
some of what has taken place. And as I said, these were momentous
events. Look just beginning in the first
verse. We read there that, here the
Lord appointed 70 others also and sent them out two by two
before his face into every sitting place where he himself was about
to go. And then he said to them, the
harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Therefore,
pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his
harvest. Now, this has always been true
in every age. And it's one of the, The harvest
is great, but the laborers are few. It's always been true in
every age. But this is one of the mysteries
of the gospel. The harvest is great, but it's always brought in. Doesn't
matter that the laborers are few. The harvest is always brought
in and not one is ever lost. And that'll always be the case. And two, look further down in verse 21. We know that everything which
God does is good, everything. And so it's particularly significant
when Jesus makes a point of speaking about his father as doing something
good. calling attention to this. This
is something that we see here that causes special joy to Jesus
and causes him to pray to the Father with thankfulness. Verse
21, in that hour, Jesus rejoiced in spirit. You know, I've marveled
over that statement so many times. You know, for Christ to rejoice
in spirit, it must be something wonderful. Wouldn't you say?
Well, Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank you, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things
from the wise and the prudent and revealed them to babes. Even
so, for so it seemed good in your sight. What is Jesus so
delighted with, so rejoicing about? He's rejoicing in the
sovereign electing purpose of God, isn't he? God chose a particular
people to himself from before the world ever began. Now, the
religion of man, it doesn't matter what religion it is, but the
religion of man hates this truth with a relentless hatred. But
the Father, it's good in his sight. And it's good in the sight
of Christ. And it's good in the sight of
his people, isn't it? It's a doctrine to rejoice in.
What assurance of salvation this truth gives us, doesn't it? Jesus
rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank you, Father of heaven
and earth. that you have hidden these things
from the wise and the prudent and revealed them to babes. And
then he continues in verse 22, all things have been delivered
to me by my father and no one knows who the son is except the
father and who the father is except the son and the one to
whom the son wills to reveal him. Now, Jesus has just made
the statement when one of the wise and prudent stand up. Have
you ever noticed this? Verse 25. Here's the wise and
the prudent. And behold, a certain lawyer
stood up and tested him, saying, teacher, what shall I do that
I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus responds. We won't
go through that now. You know it. Jesus responds.
And then after Jesus responds in verse 30, look down there,
What does he want to do? He, wanting to justify himself. He asked Jesus another question,
and Jesus responds with that well-known story of the good
Samaritan. Well, there we have the wise
and the prudent, but where are the babes? Where are the babes? Where are those whom the father
has willed to reveal his son? Well, right here in verse 38.
Now it happened as he went that he entered a certain village
and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary
who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. There they are. Isn't that right? Now when I consider this, think
of this, that here is Christ in the midst of great work. Isn't that so? The work of the
gospel is always a great work, but especially the work of Christ
and his ministry on the earth. And he's involved in all these
momentous things that are occurring, which will change the course
of history. And what does he do? He comes
to this little village and he goes into this home of two sisters. Isn't that marvelous? Who is this man? Let's think
about that for a minute. Who is this man who's come to
visit these two women, Mary and Martha? Why is he here? Why does
he care? Well, keep your place here, but
turn over just a moment. Keep your place here, but just
turn to Psalm 8 for a minute and let's look at something that David has considered. It's a question that David marvels
at. He begins in verse 1, Oh, Lord. Our Lord, how excellent is your
name in all the earth, who have set your glory above the heavens. And then look down in verse three.
Listen, when I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man
that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit
him? Think of the unfathomable grace
and love and mercy of the Lord Jesus for his particular people
demonstrated in this visit to Mary and Martha. He comes there
because they're his and he loves them and he cares for them and
they're in his heart and in his mind. David says, when I consider the
heavens, the work of your fingers and the moon and the stars, well,
why do these heavens exist? How is this universe sustained? Well, we've been hearing in the
messages from our pastor in Colossians 1, just think of The wonderful
truth after another there in that first chapter where we read
that he is the image of the invisible God, speaking of Christ. He's
the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation
for by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are
on earth, visible and invisible. Everything we see, everything
we touch, everything we can't see, created by Christ. Whether thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers, all things were created through
him and for him. And he is before all things and
in him all things consist. All things sustained by the word
of his power. And you know, every new thing,
you know that man is always in pursuit of knowledge, isn't he?
And every new thing that man learns about life, about this
world, and about the universe in which we exist, shows him
that it's greater and more glorious than anything we've ever imagined. And what does this tell us? This
tells us that the creator and the sustainer of this universe
is greater and more glorious than anything we can ever imagine. Just bear with me a minute. Just imagine, if you can, that
you could step back from the universe, a universe which they
say consists of billions of galaxies. If you could step back and look
at these billions of galaxies which exist and the wonders that our eye
has never seen and consider the incomprehensibility of that universe
and think that out of those billions of galaxies there's This one
galaxy, the Milky Way, which is what we call our galaxy. And
how could you even pick out that galaxy? And this galaxy in the Milky
Way consists of hundreds of billions of stars. And around just one
of those stars circles this tiny world that we call Earth. And
zoom in and come to this little village of Bethany, here in this
world that the Lord has created in which we live and move and
have our being. Here on this world, think now,
here on this world, the creator and sustainer of the whole universe,
the incarnate son of God comes to this small village and he
comes to visit Mary and Martha. Think, this pictures every one
of the Lord's people. He does the same to us. Why? What is man that thou art
mindful of him and the son of man that you would visit him? Why is the Lord there visiting
Mary and Martha? Well, we know it's because he's
loved them. He's loved them before he ever
created this glorious universe. The wonder that the Almighty
God would be mindful of us in any way, that he would love us
with an everlasting love and create an unimaginable universe
and the world in which we dwell with the express purpose of bringing
us into being. Do you see that? I believe that. Why is this marvelous creation
brought about? It's to bring into being those
whom God chose before the foundation of the world. Isn't that awesome? But the work of bringing us to
himself was so much greater than this, wasn't it? The work of
creating the universe was done. What does David say? This is wonderful. How did he
create this universe that I was just describing? By the work
of his fingers. By the work of his fingers. That's
all it took. for Christ to create this universe
that we live in. But the work of the new creation
is a work of such power and might and wisdom and strength, a work
so wonderful and full of glory that it took more than the work
of his fingers, didn't it? It took his blood and it took
his life to bring us to God. Now, think of this. He who inhabits
eternity, dwelling in unapproachable life, who strides among the stars,
he walks into the dwelling place of Mary and Martha. Now as we read this, turn back
there, as we read this, we see that Jesus didn't come to cast
out demons, to make the lame walk, or the deaf to hear or
to heal the sick as he did so many times. No, he didn't even
come to raise the dead to life. The Lord came with a purpose
of far greater importance. He came to speak to Mary and
Martha. Well, that doesn't seem very
important, does it? Well, it is. It is. Let me tell
you, he had a message for them. That's all we find in this story.
Do you realize that? He came, he entered the house,
he sat down and began to speak. And there's no reference. There
were no doubt disciples there. There were no doubt other people
possibly. No references made. Mary and
Martha begin sitting at his feet and he speaks to them. He has
a message for them. He came to give them words of
life, words which would be of the richest blessing to these
his people. After Martha welcomed Jesus into
his house, that's the first thing we find. We read that She had
a sister Mary who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. Now, what he spoke to them, we
don't know. Perhaps he spoke to them of his
coming death. He often did that with his disciples,
didn't he? Even though they didn't fully
understand. No doubt he spoke to them of things that would
increase their faith in him and give them great hope And it's
likely too, I think, that the Lord spoke to them truths which
would help them in that coming trial when their brother Lazarus
would die. Truths to strengthen them and
to comfort their hearts when these dark clouds of providence
rolled in. I mentioned how that's something
the Lord so greatly impressed upon my heart in the trial with
our daughter Claire, that I looked back and I saw how unknown to
me the Lord was bringing truth after truth before my mind and
my heart in that time beforehand. What was he doing? He was preparing,
he was preparing me as he prepares all of his people, whether we
realize it or not. Well, we don't know what this
message was, what his words were, but we can say that these words
were words which prophets and kings desired to look into. Look back at verse 23. This is what Jesus said to his
disciples just before that. These words spoken by Christ
were to Mary and Martha were words The prophets long to hear. These were wonderful words. Now
Martha is sitting and listening along with her sister Mary. That's
the picture we're given. Says she also sat with Mary. And consider this too. Again, whose feet do they sit
at? You know, we recently heard in the word in Samuel that there
were times in Israel when the word of the Lord was rare and there was no widespread revelation
and that had often been the case. But that will never be the case
again as long as the world exists. They sit at the feet of the entire
revelation of God to man. They sit at the feet of the word
made flesh. He's come to them and he's come
to them because he has something to reveal to Mary and Martha. This is the primary point, I
believe, of this passage. He's come because he cares for
them, he comes because he has a message for them and he begins
to speak to them. And we could say that this is
Christ. He's spread before them a gospel
feast. And what is Martha thinking about?
Not his words. Not his words. Why? Because she's
distracted and thinking about many things. At some point she gets up and
she leaves this gospel feast and goes about all that's involved
in preparing a meal for the Lord. How sad and how tragic that is,
isn't it? But you and I do that all the
time. We do. It's a grief to acknowledge that,
isn't it? But we do. Now consider too that Martha
was not distracted with something that was wrong or even with something
which is neutral. She's distracted by something
that in and of itself is good. Martha's serving others, but
not only is she serving others, she's serving the Lord. serving
Christ out of a desire to honor him. But this isn't what's needful
for Martha. It's not what's needful for you
and me. This is not the good part. This isn't what she needs.
She needs to hear Jesus. She needs to be taught of Christ.
She needs to feast upon him. And we see that Martha becomes
annoyed then and frustrated with her sister for not helping. And
she approaches Jesus and says there, Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore, tell
her to help me. And we know the Lord might have
responded to her, the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. but righteousness and peace and
joy in the Holy Spirit. But no, he responds so lovingly
and so kindly to Martha. And he rebukes her gently and
he says, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about
many things. But one thing is needed, and
Mary has chosen that good part which will not be taken away
from her. What is the one thing needed? What has Mary chosen? As I said, she's chosen to sit
at the feet of Christ and be taught by him. This is the good
part, and it won't be taken from her. How could it? Now the wonder of God's grace
is that he doesn't just come in to our home, into our physical
dwelling, but he dwells in our hearts. We're given that great
gift of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit enlightens our understanding,
enlightens our minds. that we see Christ and we know
Christ and above all, we hear Christ, don't we? When he speaks
to us, we hear Christ. And the Holy Spirit takes the
words of Christ and opens the word up to us and reveals them
to us. And these words, where are these
words found? They're found in the Holy Scriptures,
aren't they? And it's through these words,
these words that Christ speaks to his people. This is the living
word. Do you realize that we have so
much more than even the disciples? You know, I spoke of the disciples
seeing and hearing things that prophets and kings had longed
to look into, longed to hear. But we have so much more. We
have the entire revelation of God's redemption worked out through
the life and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ portrayed before
our eyes in these holy scriptures. And these New Testament scriptures.
shine a light, as it were, on that old, that whole Old Testament
revelation. And it lightens those scriptures
up like never before. And we see Christ revealed in
all those types and in all those pictures. We see things that even the disciples
had not seen, and we hear things that they hadn't heard at this
point in time I'm speaking about. Now, when do we hear Christ speak
to us? Let's just finish up with a few
thoughts there. When is it that we hear Christ
speak to us? Well, it's when we're reading
the word, isn't it? When we're reading the word,
meditating upon the word, and the spirit opens these truths
up to us. And there are words to teach
us, words to give us understanding, words to work in our hearts. At time, it's when we're praying,
isn't it? And we're praying and some word
of the Lord that we've heard, that we've read comes into our
mind. As we're speaking to the Lord,
well, he speaks to us, doesn't he? And you wish that could be
the case every time you prayed, but it's not. But you wish it
could be. We hear his voice. We hear Christ speak to us then.
We hear it, too, in the fellowship of the gospel that we share as
the Lord's people when we're speaking of spiritual things. fellowship one with another.
You know, just one thing that comes to mind is I remember when
we were up in Colorado, one time David was speaking to me on the
phone and mentioned how he'd read that verse where the Lord
says of Jacob, thou worm, Jacob. You know, and I thought about
that and that was such a blessing to me. to think that yes, that's
who I am, but think of God's grace to me, this word. And that's,
we hear the Lord's voice when we fellowship together. And when
we sing psalms, as the word says, when we sing psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs. Isn't that true? How often you're
singing a hymn that you've sung a thousand times, It's hymns
that are full of the word of God and then you sing the stanza
and the word speaks to you and you're so blessed. And above all, you know we hear
it in the preaching of the gospel. We hear the voice of Christ above
all in the preaching of the gospel. We know this is true from both
word the word and from experience. At times, it's at the moment
we're hearing the word. At that moment when we hear Christ
speak to us, and we're like those disciples on the road to Emmaus
who spoke later and said, you know, as we were walking along
and he was speaking to us, didn't our hearts burn within us? And
that's true, that's true. In the preaching of the word,
we hear the word and again, I wish it could be every time, every
time. But at least there are times
when our hearts burn within us and we know that Christ is speaking
to us. He's speaking to our hearts. At other times, it's the word, as
I said, that we've heard before, that the Spirit brings to our
minds and applies to our hearts and the Lord speaks to us. And
so many times Jesus told his disciples that this would be
the case. He said there were things that they could not receive
at that time and there were things that were hard for them to understand. But he said when speaking about
sending the Holy Spirit in John 16, remember he said, these things
I have told you that when the time comes, you may remember
that I told you of them. And how true that is. And I can't
think of a better example than Peter. Let's quickly turn there
and we'll turn over to Luke 22. And you know how Peter so grievously
betrayed his Lord. In verse 31, we read, the Lord
said, Simon, Simon, indeed, Satan has asked for you that he may
sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you that
your faith should not fail. And when you have returned to
me, strengthen your brethren. But he said to him, Lord, I am
ready to go with you both to prison and to death. Then he
said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day
before you will deny me three times that you know me. Now look
over to verse 60. And here is Peter, and it says
immediately, while he was still speaking the rooster crowed at
the end of verse 60 there. Immediately while he was still
speaking the rooster crowed and the Lord turned and looked at
Peter. Now listen, Peter remembered
the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, before the rooster
crows you will deny me three times. So Peter went out and
wept bitterly. Now think for a moment. If Peter
had not heard those words of the Lord, how could he remember
them? How could these words, if he
hadn't heard them, how could they be applied to his heart
where he would be brought to repentance with bitter tears? But that's not all that Jesus
said to Peter, is it? No, look back in verse 31. I'm certain these are the words
of Christ which sustained Peter through the dark days of sorrow
and the nights of despair until the day when Jesus met him again
beside the sea. Look at what had Jesus said to
Peter. Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has
asked for you that he may sift you. But I have prayed for you
that your faith should not fail, now listen, and when you have
returned to me, strengthen your brethren. Aren't those wonderful words
for Peter to have heard? For Peter to remember later?
I have no doubt. that Peter remembered these words. Now think, these words weren't
to any of the other disciples. They were words of Jesus to Peter
alone. And Peter would have remembered
these words. And I'm sure that he remembered these words for
the rest of his life. And that his heart burned within
him in all of his ministry in glorifying
the Lord. Well, what can we say? One thing is needful. Listen
to Jesus. That's the good part. And it
will never be taken from you. Amen.