One Thing is Needed AM

00:02 He does. He does care. And He is there. He is a very present help in time of trouble. And He is our refuge, our rock, our fortress. All that we need can be found in our Lord. Invite you this morning to turn in your copies of the Scriptures to Luke 10. I was given an assignment yesterday. 00:22 I was not able to get to Men of Valor because there was a local minister's day of encouragement that had been scheduled for January, and then it had been postponed because of weather. And it happened to land on the same day as the Men of Valor. So we were having another meeting, Living Hope, yesterday with about 30, 00:43 35, 40 local pastors and Anabaptist leaders. So it was a really good time. And I was given an assignment for that day to preach from this text from Luke 10:38-42. 00:57 And I've entitled the message "One Thing Is Needful." And this comes to us in a day and age where we don't really have to spend a lot of time defining the struggles and the temptations and the pressures of life that are upon us. 01:17 Pressures of a culture that's gone nuts, of a world that's falling apart, and of just the pressures of life and ministry and church life and all of the things, and family life and all the things that we find ourselves experiencing. 01:35 And the text this morning from verses 38-42 say this: "Now it happened as they went, He entered a certain village, He being Jesus and His disciples, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. 01:52 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, 02:13 '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.'" One thing. One thing is needed. A lot of things are necessary, but one thing is needed. 02:35 And that good part was what Mary chose and would not be taken from her. And began to ask the question, what is this one thing that Jesus talked about? What is the one thing that is needed? If you could strip everything else away from our lives and still have that, you would still have the one thing that's needed. 02:55 And you could go a number of different directions with this passage, ending up with the thing saying it was worship. Worship is the one thing. Sitting at the feet of Jesus is the one thing. Hearing the word of the Lord is the one thing. What is that one thing? And it may be all of those. 03:14 But I'd like to share with you this morning towards the end of the message what I think the one thing is. And in the process of unpacking this passage to give you some biblical priorities. Now, I'm not going to tell you how to arrange your calendar. 03:30 But I would like to challenge us with some priorities of thought and spiritual insights that we can have that will help us navigate the pressures of life and especially the pressures of serving and see what priorities we may be able to embrace. 03:51 So you have the setting here. It's a fairly simple narrative. You have Jesus passing through, coming to Bethany and to the home of Mary and Martha. This is where we're introduced to them. And to Lazarus. We don't read much about Lazarus until Jesus commences to raise him from the dead. 04:11 And so there's not a lot said about Lazarus. So Lazarus is a busy man, I'm sure. And so we're talking here about Mary and Martha. And in this simple narrative, not a lot of profound exegetical unpacking here. Not a lot of Greek words to figure out, although there are some. 04:30 And not a lot of deep theological truths here to dip into. But nevertheless, a picture into what our Lord considers important. Just a simple story about two sisters relating to each other and relating to Jesus. We know this took place in the town of Bethany. 04:50 Bethany is a village on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives, about two miles east of Jerusalem. And so Jesus would also often do His work in Jerusalem. And then He'd do that two-mile walk debriefing His disciples and ending up in the home of Mary and Martha. And it's a beautiful little town. 05:12 It's named because of the number of palm trees which grew there. And it frequently mentioned in connection with some memorable life experiences that Jesus had. It is now called the place of Lazarus. 05:27 And it is seen from a distance that it is a village that's described as remarkably beautiful, the perfection of retirement and repose of seclusion and lovely peace. So you get the kind of picture that Bethany is kind of a special place, kind of a secluded place, 05:46 kind of a place of rest, kind of taking a step back and reflecting on the ministry of Jesus. It's also, incidentally, the place where Jesus made His final departure. Luke tells us this in the end of Luke. I believe it is. And I hadn't realized this. 06:05 I hadn't caught that before, that Jesus took His disciples to Bethany. And from there, they went to a hill and He ascended into heaven. And so this is a special place. It also is a special place for Mary and Martha because it's their house. Now, notice here, it says that Martha welcomed Him into her house. 06:26 Then say they welcomed them into their house. This is probably Martha's house. How she got this house, we don't really know. But she definitely is in charge of the house. She's probably the oldest sister. 06:41 And she has sometimes the older sister syndrome, which can be a good thing because the older sister kind of tends to keep things in line after mom and dad are gone. And there's no record of mom and dad here. It's just Mary and Martha and Lazarus and living together and serving the Lord. 07:01 And so welcomed them into her house, which may have been why she responded some of the ways that she did. She was responsible. She was responsible. And boy, we want to take our responsibilities seriously, do we not? 07:15 But how many of you know that taking responsibilities seriously can get you into a trap of feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders? And I think probably Martha, in addition to her gifting, she obviously had the gift of serving. And in addition to her being kind of the matriarch of the family, 07:37 she feels the weight of this responsibility. And Mary is probably the younger sister, a bit more sensitive-natured, a bit more hesitant, more melancholy. She's sitting here at Jesus' feet. She's the one that's weeping so hard when Jesus comes to mourn Lazarus and to raise him then, 07:59 which she didn't know what was going to happen when she was weeping and mourning. And she was the one who just kind of held back. And then when she went to Jesus, it was just kind of a brokenness, kind of a... She's the kind of person who would kind of cry a pile of tears and end up a mess on the floor, you know? Kind of that kind of personality. Different personality from one sister to the next. 08:20 Neither right, neither wrong, just different. And so here you have Mary and Martha in a bit of a conflict, a bit of a conflict. Because Mary here is sitting and listening. It says she sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. 08:40 She was listening. And the Greek tense of this verb has the idea that this was indicating a continuous action. So probably not the first time that Jesus had been in their home. And probably not the first time that Mary was sitting at His feet. 08:59 And probably not the first time that Martha was frustrated. Because it goes on to identify this conflict for us. And part of the conflict revolved around the fact that in the King James version, it says she was encumbered or cumbered about serving. Verse 40, the New King says that she was distracted with much serving. 09:21 And the word cumbered there or distracted has the idea to draw different ways at the same time, hence to distract with cares and responsibilities. So she's coming at it from this angle and this angle. And she's juggling plates for this and plates for that. She's washing the dishes. 09:40 She's cleaning the table. She's setting the table. She's making the food. She's sweeping the floor. She's doing all those household duties. And she's frustrated. I told the group yesterday, I love my sister-in-law and they're wonderful people. But I was a little frustrated when I was dating my wife. 09:59 And I'd come from Oregon to see her. And the younger sister, bless her heart, I love her, love her husband. They have a wonderful family. And she's not this way anymore. But the younger sister was always there just kind of hanging around, just kind of playing with the nieces. 10:20 And my wife's in the kitchen serving. I mean, she's just doing, washing the dishes, helping her mom. I came all the way to spend time with her. She's in the kitchen. I was a little frustrated with the younger sister because my expectations weren't being met. 10:39 I guess I could have gone out in the kitchen too. But actually, it was her mother's kitchen. So you better be careful when you go into the mother-in-law's kitchen or the prospective mother-in-law. But at any rate, we can understand this frustration. She's busy. She's distracted. And she's continually serving. This word serve. She was distracted with much serving. 11:00 Again, in the Greek is the idea of a continuation. It is a continuous repeated action. And serving, that's the word from which we get our word for deacon, diakonel, which means to wait on tables and to serve tables. That's what it literally means. 11:19 And so she is the 11:22 beautiful picture here of a deacon deaconing and has all this responsibility. But she's frustrated. And it probably kind of came out there. She served alone again. And so she appeals to Jesus. And how often we do this? 11:40 Lord, I want to appeal to You to influence somebody to do what I think they ought to do. You ever pray like that? Amen? Sometimes? Lord, I want to pray for this person. But I want to pray that You would do this because I can't get them to do that. So You do it. And that may not be all bad. 12:01 But it'd probably be better to say, Lord, Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in this person's life rather than my will be done. And here you have her calling for help. And this word for help, don't you care that I'm serving alone? Therefore, tell her, tell her to help me. 12:22 I can't get any help out of this girl. Tell her to help me. And the word help there is a simple undefined action as opposed to the repeated continuous action. The repeated continuous action is what Martha's doing and has been doing and what Mary's been doing sitting at the feet of Jesus. 12:41 And finally, Martha says, would she come and help me just once? I mean, could you do it just once? Well, Jesus doesn't scold her. And Jesus doesn't... I mean, He admonishes her mildly. 12:58 But Jesus' response is interesting because you would think there's nothing wrong with serving. And there would be nothing wrong with helping. And Mary, maybe you ought to kick it into gear. And Martha, maybe you ought to shift down a little bit. Remember hearing a preacher preach on this when I was a boy? 13:18 And my dad commented afterwards after the message. He said, really, what I see in that passage is that Mary ought to have been a little bit more like Martha. And Martha ought to have been a little bit more like Mary. Well, we can learn from each other. Amen? 13:30 But here we have the frustration spilling over and Jesus giving us a window into the priorities of life. What do our priorities look like? What should they look like? Well, number one, I want to give these to you fairly quickly here this morning. 13:51 It won't take as much time as what I did yesterday to develop them. But number one, Jesus prioritized inclusion over some prejudice. 14:03 Now, when I say the word inclusion, when I hear the word inclusion, it makes me nervous because we think about inclusion as the world defines it today in our culture where that everybody and every idea and every lifestyle is just equally valid. And we need to be inclusive. That's the buzzword for today. But Jesus was the right kind of inclusive. 14:25 In other words, men, women, children, the aged, the infirm, the maimed, the halt, the blind, everybody was invited to His feet. Everybody was invited into His life. When they wanted to come, they could come. 14:45 Peter fell at His feet and said, I'm a sinful man. Jairus pled for his daughter's life. My daughter is sickened to death. Where did he do it? He's at the feet of Jesus. Here you have sinful man Peter coming. You have Jairus, the synagogue leader, coming. You have the sorrowing mother of the demonized girl coming, 15:05 falling at the feet of Jesus. Her girl was bound by demons. Lord, I'm hopeless. I'm helpless. I don't know what else to do. And falling at the feet of Jesus. You have the former harlot in a parallel, probably another time when Jesus was anointed on His feet. And the feet were washed with the woman's hair. 15:26 And Simon said, this woman, if you knew what she was like, you wouldn't be doing this, Jesus. You would not include her in your as a disciple. No way, Lord, if You only knew. But Jesus... And why I say this is because Mary is a woman. And back then in those days, women just were not disciples of an important figure. 15:46 That was just not the way it was. I mean, you need to have powerful men around you back in those days. And so Jesus is including a woman to touch Him, to sit at His feet where the blind and the mute and the maimed and many others were placed at the feet of Jesus, 16:07 where the Gadarene demoniac was sitting clothed and in his right mind when Jesus healed him, sitting there transformed. You see, the feet of Jesus is a place of transformation. It's the place of dedication. It's the place of learning. It's the place of a disciple. And Jesus included a woman in this. 16:29 These all joined the Apostle John, who saw the glorified Christ in the book of Revelation and fell at His feet as dead. You have the sinner, the maimed, the lame, the blind, the halt, the apostle, the friends, all invited to the feet of Jesus. 16:48 We live in a day with all kinds of racial 16:53 tension and all kinds of class warfare and all kinds of racism and critical theory and critical race theory and all those things have our heads swimming and say, how did we get where we are as a world? I don't even recognize the country that I live in anymore. I don't even recognize. And yet, 17:14 so much would be solved. So much would be solved if we just followed the first two commandments. Thou shalt love thy neighbor... Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On this hangs all the law and the prophets. And you can pass laws and laws and more laws. 17:33 You get those two, all the laws fall into place. But Jesus was a place where anybody could come at any time and lay out their burdens to hear Him teach, to hear Him pray for them, to hear His marvelous words. Notice here the emphasis on the word. She heard His word, 17:55 which brings us to another point about priorities. And that is that in the priority level of the Christian life, the spiritual must prioritize over the temporal. Now, there's nothing wrong with the temporal in its proper place. We have a building. We have chairs. 18:14 We have clothes. We comb our hair. We brush our teeth. We maintain our vehicles. We have a job. And yet, all those things are, we would say, are temporal and spiritual. But they're kind of temporal. I mean, we talked Wednesday night about where to put some furniture around here. 18:33 And that's all temporal. It's all temporal. What is spiritual? And sometimes we get frustrated if our temporal values exceed our spiritual values. What must happen is the spiritual must always be over the temporal. C.S. Lewis, his spiritual advisor, said this at one time. 18:55 It's not a direct quote. But he said, we can advance along the road to perfection only by walking closely with Jesus. And as we watch His way of dealing with the countless problems and troubles that beset His life, we achieve wisdom as to how to meet our own. But to walk with Jesus is to walk with a slow, 19:18 unhurried pace. You know, spiritual values, spiritual things are not found in the hustle and bustle. They are found in walking with Jesus, sitting at His feet. So he went on to say, hurry is the death of prayer. And only impedes and soils our work. It never advances it. 19:38 What are some of the ways? In fact, this would be something for you to talk about over the dinner table today. How in our lives do we tend to allow the the temporal to snuff out the spiritual? Are there ways that we do that? I think about exercise, for instance. I'm trying to exercise more. 19:59 A cardiologist said, you got to exercise. He told me a year ago, he said, when you come back next year, he said, I don't want to hear that you're not exercising as much as you should. That's what I had told him. I said, I'm exercising, but not as much as I should. But I don't want to hear that anymore. He said, I want you to exercise every day, every day. Oh, yes, sir. 20:20 You know, the Bible says that bodily exercise profits a little. But finish the verse. Godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and that which is to come. So yeah, take care of your vessel. 20:42 Take care of your car. Take care of your job. Take care of your church. Take care of your home, your house. But always doing with the priority that my spiritual vision must prioritize over my temporal vision. Sometimes we prioritize our earthly dwellings over our heavenly dwelling. 21:03 The Bible says there's a heavenly dwelling. We're not to lay up treasures down here on this earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through or steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal. But where your treasure is there, will your heart be. 21:19 And so what he's saying is the temporal riches that we may be blessed with are not even to be compared with the spiritual riches. And there's going to be some people that go to heaven. And rest, they would have laid up more in the bank of glory instead of in terror. Wrong to have a bank account? 21:41 No. But just let's keep in the proper perspective. Serving the spiritual, not the other way. Lord's Day observance was another area that I thought of. 21:52 You know, if I find myself needing to mow my yard on Sunday afternoon instead of continuing and focusing on Christ and on others and on ministry and on worship, 22:07 then what does that say about my priority of my yard or my this or that or whatever? If my temporal priorities supersede my spiritual priorities, it says something about my values. Amen? 22:29 It's a little weak. You can either say amen or ouch. Church attendance. Church attendance. We have church morning, Sunday morning, every once or every twice a month, Sunday evening. What does it say if my pursuits are more valuable than the public worship and fellowship of God? 22:50 What I'm just saying is the spiritual must take precedent over the temporal. Gehazi, being a good example, who saved us not the things of God, but the things of man. Third, what I see in this passage of scripture is that obedience is better than sacrifice. 23:10 Now you see, where do you see obedience in here? Well, I think it's there. Mary was sitting at His feet, not so that she could just learn knowledge, but so that she could follow Jesus. She could know how to follow Jesus. She could know how to obey Jesus. And Martha's serving. Nothing wrong with serving. But Martha, shift down. Slow it down. 23:31 Remember, it's not about all the stuff. It's about me. It's about learning to obey. It's about learning to... But Lord, I'm sacrificing. I am sacrificing all my time and my energy. And Lord, I'm really using my gifts here. Really using my gifts. Yes, Martha, you are. 23:51 But Mary has found that one thing, that good thing. See, our problem is not in finding and differentiating between the bad and the good in the church and as Christians. Our problem is determining between the good, the better, and the best. 24:11 That's where it gets really frustrating or really hard. The good, better, and best of our walk. And so Mary found that one thing, that good part. Nobody can take it away from you. 24:25 Obedience over sacrifice. The Bible says of Jesus... Well, we're acquainted with what Samuel told Saul. To obey is better than sacrifice. And the fruit of obedience... How does it go? I forget it. To obey is better than sacrifice. And to hearken better than the fat of rams. 24:48 So we know that all of the sacrifices of the Old Testament were subservient to Jesus doing the will of His Father. Listen to what Hebrews says about Jesus. Sacrifice and offering, you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sins, you had no pleasure. 25:08 Then I said, behold, I have come. In the volume of the book, it is written of me to do thy will, O God. Previously saying, sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings and offerings for sin, you did not desire, nor had pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law. Then He said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God. 25:28 That was the priority of Jesus Christ, who never did anything, said anything, went anywhere, or anything in His life that was outside of the will and the direction of the Father. And when He was done at three and a half years, said, Father, I did everything you told me to do. 25:51 Not more, not less. Wow. How did He do it? By obedience. Some of us have the elder brother syndrome. I'm an elder brother, oldest in the family. 26:06 My brother goes out and commits immorality, squanders the family inheritance and tarnishes the family name. And and and and he comes home and gets the welcome mat and and and the fatted calf. And quite honestly, in my flesh, I'd be a little upset too. Amen? Some of you need to go like this. 26:28 We would be. Lord, I have sacrificed. I have sacrificed my time. I sacrificed my life. I sacrificed my agenda for the sake of this family farm and for the family name. And here comes this rebel. And he just can waltz right in here and have the golden scepter extended to him. 26:48 What's with that, Dad? Well, obedience over sacrifice. When the prodigal came back, he was more obedient to the Father than the son who had been serving, whose heart was far from the Father and filled with anger and hostility. How many of us? 27:11 You can kind of tell where we're at. Again, I'm on the wrong side. When you see that line lined up, Jesus hired some of the workers in the morning. Said, I'll give you this much. Some workers at noon, I'll give you the same amount. Some in the afternoon, I'll give you the same amount. Some at almost quitting time, I'll give you the same amount. And He lines them up. 27:30 And He starts with those who worked the shortest. And He gives them that amount, that amount, that amount. And these guys over here are thinking, wow, this is going to be good. This is going to be real good. Because they got what? No, wait a minute. This is not good. How many would be a little upset about that? That the people who worked for one hour got the same amount as what I did working all day. 27:51 It's the elder brother syndrome. It's the long-term worker syndrome. But Jesus is saying there is sacrifice that is okay. It's good. It's good to sacrifice for Him and to lay down our lives, but not divorced from the intimacy that we have of our heart's relationship with Christ. 28:14 So a lot of the things that we have to choose between are not between good and bad, but between good, better, and best. Then the next thing that I see is the word distraction here. She was distracted with many things, with much serving. And this leads me to know that we need to choose discipleship over distraction. 28:37 The first was inclusion over prejudice, spirituality over the temporal, obedience over sacrifice, and discipleship over distraction. And my oh my, there is much to distract us. One thing to distract us, this little gadget right here. 29:00 We have a conversation tonight. I'm looking forward to it. Conversation on social media. Maybe we should have a conversation, Brother Dustin, on just media and technology also. I was getting ready to preach yesterday morning. And this thing was in my pocket. Had it on vibrate. Had it on vibrate. 29:19 I was being a good boy. I didn't leave it on. All of a sudden, I felt it. Oh man. Wonder what it is. Felt it again. Distraction. Studies have been done on this. Wall Street Journal reports a man by the name of Adrian Ward was a cognitive psychologist and marketing professor at the University of Texas at Austin. 29:41 He's been studying the way smartphones and internet affect our thoughts and judgments for a decade. In his work, as well as that of others, he has seen mounting evidence that using a smartphone or even hearing one ring or vibrate produces a welter of distractions that makes it harder to concentrate on a difficult problem or job. 30:03 The division of attention impedes reasoning and performance. Just hearing the buzz. A 2015 study involved 166 subjects. They found that when people's phones beep or buzz while they're in the middle of a challenging task, their focus wavers. And their work gets sloppier. 30:25 Whether they check the phone or not, here's the case. He said, just by hearing their phone ring, but being unable to answer it causes people's blood pressure to spike, their pulse quickens, and their problem-solving skills decline. Scientific study. Cell phone. 30:45 What about the discipline of silence? That is a discipline, is it not? There might have been times when there was a lull in the conversation. And Mary was just thinking, thinking about what Jesus said. Thinking. Wonder what that meant. Wonder what He means. 31:05 She's probably introspective. She's probably one who processed things internally quietly, just thinking, hey, do we have a discipline of silence? Do you have a discipline of silence? I was made aware that there is an app or is on iTunes. I don't know if it's still there, but a number of years ago, there was a song. 31:27 See, what was the exact name of it? It was called Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah. Very good song. And people were spending 99 cents to download this on their devices. Hundreds, thousands of people became one of the iTunes bestsellers. Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah. 31:46 Very good song. And the reason people wanted it, because in the middle of it was a 10-minute section of silence. And on the new cars, when you get in the car and it hooks up your phone to Bluetooth and it starts playing your music. 32:03 So the reason it had five A's was so that it would be the first one on the playlist. I kid you not. First one on the playlist had 10 minutes of silence. 32:14 People could then drive to work in silence. We're actually paying for silence. Imagine that. We're paying for silence. 32:29 Mary has chosen those things that are needful. I remember I used to get so frustrated when we lived in town. When we moved to County Road 40, it wasn't that way. But when we lived in town, we lived right where the... Some of you don't know this, but at the end of Wilkinson Street, right next to the El Camino restaurant. 32:51 They built El Camino and built that all up. And Bob Evans and that whole area back there was in our backyard, the parking lot. Their backyard parking lot was our backyard parking lot. And I remember, okay, Saturday night, I need some silence just to get my thoughts before preaching Sunday morning, before church Sunday morning. 33:13 And what we didn't know when we went and moved there was that they were going to put in this boom, boom nightclub behind us. And Saturday nights, Friday nights and Saturday nights, the place would just boom, boom, boom, boom. The only thing you could hear through the walls was the boom, boom, boom of the bass and the bass bin. Thinking, man, Lord, Lord. 33:33 That was one of the times I wanted to pray that God would do what I couldn't in somebody else's life. Boom, boom, boom. One o'clock in the morning. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Two o'clock in the morning. Boom, boom, boom. Three o'clock in the morning. I said, Lord, I need some silence. Even went to the police department and said, 33:51 isn't there a noise ordinance or something in this city that would... that you guys could do something about this? Went and talked to the owner. And anyway, it didn't change. So we moved after the drive-by shooting, which I can tell you about sometime. Obedience over sacrifice. Discipleship over distraction. 34:13 Next, the word of the Lord over programs. And even over our word. You may have noticed, but in our opening services, in our service openings here, we have kind of switched from doing a devotional where we read a verse or two and then comment, 34:33 make some comments. But just to strictly reading the word of God. 34:40 In addition to the fact that that's biblical, give attention to the public reading of Scripture. It also says something about how we prioritize the word of God over the word of Todd, or the word of Duane, or the word of Marv, or the word of Trevor, or anybody else. To just simply listen to the word of God, 35:01 the preaching of the word of God, the reading of the word of God. 35:05 And then when it comes to the time of the message, we are trying to emphasize expository preaching where we take the text and let the text speak to us, that our focus is on the word of God and on what God has to say as we unpack that Scripture and then make applications. Yes. 35:25 But the focus is on the word of God. 35:27 In our quietness, in our silence, in our priorities in life, we must make time and effort and priority to the word of God sitting at the feet of Jesus, not just because we don't have anything else to do, but because we want to hear His word so that we can obey it. 35:46 The next one, and I'm just going over these quickly because I want to get to the one thing quickly. Christ over relationships. Sometimes we make relationships an idol. They're more important to us than Jesus is. Mary, Martha, your sisters, you love each other. But Martha, Mary's priority is her relationship with Jesus. 36:08 She loves you as a sister. But if you had to choose between Jesus and the sister, she's going with Jesus. That's the way it would be for us too. Being consistent in our trust in the word of God regardless of what family does or does not do. They're precious to us. Yes, they are. I would never want to minimize that. 36:28 But family must be secondary to the priority of Christ and hearing His word. Devotion over duty. Oh, Martha's doing her duty. But Mary is living in devotion, loving Jesus, loving Him deeply, wholeheartedly, loving Him devotionally with her time, 36:49 loving Him unconditionally through the trials of life and maneuvering through relationships. She's loving Jesus, loving Him passionately, loving Him practically, loving Him extravagantly. You see her in the book of John, chapter 12, taking this expensive perfume and anointing His feet. How much waste is this? 37:10 Us good Anabaptist entrepreneurs and stewards say, how, what a waste to pour that expensive thing on Jesus. But oh, she was loving Him devotionally. She was loving Him extravagantly. She was loving Him over all else. 37:30 So what is the one thing? What's the one thing? 37:38 Pondered on that. Is the one thing worship? Well, I think it involves worship. Is the one thing devotional life? It involves devotional life. 37:49 Is the one thing listening to Scripture? It involves listening to Scripture. Is the one thing prayer? It involves that. Is the one thing intimacy with the Lord? It involves that. I'd like to just think about this one thing of something that is unblockable. You see, 38:08 there are some goals in life that we have that are blockable. Somebody gets in the way. And then we get frustrated. Martha's frustration was because she had a goal of a well-served meal, serving the Lord. Yes, Lord, I want you to have this meal. 38:28 I want you to have this. Anything that I can get you. Lord, can I get you anything? Do you need anything? Do you need a glass of water? Do you need a... Can I do anything for you? She'd do anything but sit. 38:40 And so then she was frustrated when she wasn't getting help because she had a goal. And Mary was blocking it. 38:50 We have goals. What do you do when your goal is a clean house, ladies? Oh man, I got a goal. I'm going to get my house cleaned up on Friday so I can... On Saturday, so I can go to be with the family on Saturday and with my husband. We can do whatever. And Sunday we're... Oh, and then these children keep messing up my house. 39:12 It's a blocked goal. Blocked goal. What do you do when you have a goal for study time? Pastors? Sunday school teachers? Teachers? Bible students? I'm going to study now. 39:32 I've got this time carved out. And something happens to interrupt my study time. And my goal of having my message completed before Saturday is blocked. And it shoots my plans. It frustrates. It's a blockable goal. 39:52 What do you do if your goal is to have well-behaved children? Children can really mess that one up at times. 40:03 And then somebody feeds them sugar. And my goal is blocked. What do you do if your goal is to be loved? And so everything you do is sort of the purpose of being loved or respected. Your goal is to be respected. That's my goal. But somebody stands in the way of me being respected. Maybe it's my wife. Maybe it's my child. 40:23 Maybe it's my parent. Maybe it's somebody in the church. Maybe it's my boss. I just love... I want to be loved. I want to be respected. And somebody keeps blocking that. So I get frustrated. What are our goals? And are they blockable or not? 40:39 I would like to suggest to you that the one thing that is needful, it's the good part that can never be taken away from us. Nobody can block it. 40:54 And that is to faithfully learn how to be faithful from the faithful one. To learn faithfulness from the faithful one. Habakkuk said it like this. He had an unblockable goal. Though the fig tree may not blossom, 41:16 nor the fruit be on the vines, though the labor of the olive may fail and the fields yield no fruit, though the flock may be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls. Let me tell you, if your goal is to have herd in the stalls, something can block it. If it's to have a flock in the field, somebody can block it. 41:35 If it's to have a good harvest, or if it's to have plenty to eat and plenty in the bank, that can all be blocked except one thing: faithfulness. Faithfulness to the faithful one. He goes on to say, "Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. 41:56 I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength. He will make my feet like deer's feet. And He will make me walk on my high hills." This is a faithful saying, Paul told Timothy. For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. 42:17 If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful. He cannot deny Himself. We do not always remain faithful. 42:28 So what should be our goal is to faithfully learn from the faithful one how to be faithful to that word. One thing. Nobody can take away your faithfulness. Nobody. You go to the faithful one. 42:50 He cannot be unfaithful. So where do we learn faithfulness? Where are we infused with faithfulness? Where are we given the strength to be faithful? Is by the communion with the faithful one, which cannot be taken away from us. Cancer cannot take away your faithfulness. War cannot take away your faithfulness. 43:12 Inflation cannot take away your faithfulness. Disease, poverty, sickness cannot take away one's faithfulness. It can block every other goal. 43:26 But it cannot block that one: to faithfully learn and be in communion with the faithful one. A songwriter says it like this: "Sitting at the feet of Jesus, oh, what words I hear Him say. Happy place, so near, so precious. 43:45 May it find me there each day. Sitting at the feet of Jesus, I would look upon the past. For His love has been so gracious. It has won my heart at last. Sitting at the feet of Jesus, where can mortals be more blessed? There I lay my sins and sorrows. And when weary, find sweet rest. 44:04 Sitting at the feet of Jesus, there I love to weep and pray while I from His fullness gather grace and comfort every day. Bless me, O my Savior. Bless me as I sit low at Thy feet. Oh, look down and love upon me. Let me see Thy face so sweet. Give me, Lord, the mind of Jesus. 44:26 Make me holy as He is. May I prove I've been with Jesus, who is all my righteousness." What beautiful words to summarize what Jesus said so wonderfully. One thing is needed. Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her. 44:46 Thank You, Lord, for this body this morning of brothers and sisters who have said, "Of all the things that we could do on a Sunday, we are prioritizing the meeting together of public worship with the brothers and sisters of faith." Help us, Lord, to prioritize, 45:07 to ask the hard questions as we were admonished this morning, exhorted this morning, to ask the hard questions about our lives, about what we believe, what we think, how we respond, how we prioritize our lives. It seems like we never get done doing that, Lord. So keep us on this journey faithfully, 45:28 faithfully, faithfully, day after day after day after day, following, sitting, prioritizing our walk with You while we take care of the other things in life that we're responsible for. 45:44 May we prioritize spiritual values over the temporal. In Jesus' name. Amen.