Take your Bibles with me and turn to Luke 10. Luke 10. We have a very short, and very timely passage to look at this morning.

I love VBS week. I love it so much. The reason I love it isn't the kids. (Although I love seeing the kids.) The reason I love it is seeing the workers.

And this year, you guys all stepped up in a big way. VBS week is normally one of my busiest weeks and it is definitely one of Amanda's busiest weeks - but this week, because of what happened to Noah, Amanda and I just had to watch.

And you guys crushed it. You did such an amazing job this year. From Brother Adam leading the services to Brother Daniel doing the songs and Matt's zippy and every single teacher and helper and snack person and everyone - you did an awesome job.

Do you know why I really love VBS? Because there is joy in serving Jesus. I love the ministry. I love serving the Lord. And I love seeing other people catch on to that too. Seeing other people share the joy of serving the Lord.

It just so happens that, in the providence of God, our text this morning is all about serving Jesus. So are you in Luke 10? Let's read verses 38-42.

[!bible] Luke 10:38-42 - KJV 38. Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. 39. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word. 40. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. 41. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: 42. But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

Jesus is traveling to Jerusalem. This is near the end for Him. He's in the last phase of His ministry.

If you remember, He has just sent out people into all of the villages in Judea to preach the gospel and He has given them instructions about receiving hospitality. Well, in this text, we see Jesus himself going to a village - the village of Bethany which was about 2 miles from Jerusalem - and receiving hospitality there.

There were three siblings that lived together in Bethany that were close friends of Jesus and dear followers of Him: Mary, Martha and Lazarus.

They welcome Jesus into their house - and that sets the setting for this story.

I grew up in a house that was big on hospitality. My Mother loved to have people over. She loved to cook. We had a decent sized house for it, and so we always had people over - people from church, visiting missionaries, family members. It was pretty constant.

And it was also really stressful. Mom would get stressed out about making sure that the house was perfect. Everything had to be “white glove” clean. The food had to be prepared, and she always made about 6x as much as anyone needed.

I spent a lot of days frantically peeling potatoes or cutting onions because someone was coming over.

And that is Martha in this story. She’s franticly trying to give Jesus a good experience. I imagine she rushed off to the market to pick the best meat, to make sure there was enough to drink, to get figs and grapes for a fruit tray. She probably had a to do list that was a mile long and growing every second as she ran around in a frenzy trying to serve this meal for Jesus.

And then Jesus came, and her frenzy didn’t stop. She’s still serving. Still trying to make it perfect. As Jesus is entertaining people in the courtyard and teaching, she’s in the kitchen, ensuring that everything is perfect.

But would you believe what Mary is doing? She’s just sitting there. On her rump. Listening to Jesus. She’s acting like a guest - doesn’t she know there is work to do? Doesn’t she know that the charcuterie board needs to be rearranged and the floor swept again and that we might need to have a second kind of dessert in case one of the disciples has a gluten allergy?

Can you feel for Martha in this story? I sure can. I’ve been Martha many, many times.

But actually, Martha isn’t the hero here. She certainly isn’t a villain, but she isn’t the hero. Jesus tells us it is Mary we should be learning from. Mary was right to be sitting at Jesus’ feet, and Martha was wrong to be smoldering and banging pots and pans, and shooting dirty looks from the kitchen.

And so this passage teaches us an important lesson about what it means to serve the Lord. It shows us the balance between being a doer and being a disciple that we all have to maintain.

If I were going to summarize my message this morning with one phrase, it would be:

There is a great danger for disciples to become so obsessed with serving Jesus, that we do not stop to listen to Jesus and personally follow Him.

And so let’s look at what Martha did wrong here, what Mary did right, and what we need to learn from it. Before we do, let’s pray.

Pray

Let’s start by looking at...

1. The doer (or what Martha did wrong)

I really sympathize with Martha here. I come from a long line of anxious type-A people. Growing up, I didn’t know what stress was in the same way fish in the ocean don’t know what water is. Stress and anxiety were just the only context I understood.

And so I have been Martha, many, many, many times.

There are four dangers I think Martha did here that we can all fall into as we serve Jesus.

The first danger is...

The danger of self-imposed burdens.

I have a feeling that Jesus did not expect Martha’s level of hospitality. I have a feeling that no one told Martha that she had to have such a big spread, and that no one would have been offended by the extra speck of dust in the corner.

We all have this tendency to get anxious about burdens that we put on ourselves. We expect things of ourselves in our service that no one else expects of us. We worry about things that are not real.

Jesus understood Martha’s psyche here. “Martha, Martha, you are careful and troubled about many things.”

God wants us to serve Him, and sometimes that service will have some hardships. But many of our hardships are self-imposed by our own unrealistic anxiety.

Remember what Jesus said about serving Him?

[!bible] Matthew 11:28-30 - KJV 28. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

If you are anxious in your service of Jesus, that doesn’t come from Christ. You don’t get any extra points for working yourself into a tizzy.

There is a danger in self-imposed burdens.

There is a second danger Martha shows us, and that is...

The danger of missing our part in the story.

I think if we know anything about Jesus, we know that He was likely teaching them something AMAZING. Jesus was in the other room giving everyone there a spiritual feast.

And Martha missed it, because she thought the feast was her job. She thought she was providing the main course, when Jesus was providing the main course.

One of the things that anxiety does to us, is it makes us the hero of the story. That inner dialogue in our head - that “being careful and troubled about many things” it is never Christ focused - it is always us focused. We want to feel good about ourselves, and so we work and work and worry and worry.

But remember, being a Christian isn’t about what you do, it is about what you do with Christ and His word.

Very often, we just need to stop and remind ourselves that He is the hero, and we are the one being rescued. We get to have a part in His story - but we don’t have the main part. Our working anxiety can blind us of that fact.

And Martha shows us a third danger in being a doer. That is...

The danger of judging others.

Martha in this story didn’t just work herself up, she also worked Mary down. She didn’t just stress, she smoldered. It quickly went from “I have too much to do” to “why isn’t she helping, she should do more” to “how is Jesus ok with this?”

She went from a wrong perspective of her own work, to a judgmental attitude toward her sister (who didn’t share her wrong perspective) to being judging and angry at Christ.

You know, there is an important lesson here, sometimes people who give their lives to Jesus can turn into judgmental jerks. They think “I’m doing all of this, I’m over here killing myself. What are you doing for Christ?”

Then they see God blessing people and they think “God isn’t being fair to me.”

No, maybe you missed the plot a long time ago. Maybe the stuff you are frenzied about is self-imposed, and not God imposed. Maybe you need to remind yourself not to judge another man’s servant.

Listen, Martha condemned Mary. But Jesus didn’t. Jesus gently condemned Martha. She was in the wrong - not Mary.

And so we’ve talked about

• The danger of self-imposed burdens.
• The danger of missing our part in the story.
• The danger of judging others

There is one more danger I want you to think about here and that is...

The danger of forgetting to eat.

There have been a few times in my life when I got so frantic about what I was doing, that I didn’t remember to eat. I’ve literally been working on something and gotten to four pm and thought “I did’t eat breakfast, or lunch” What time is it?

And if that has happened a few times times with eating physically, it’s happened hundreds of times with spiritual eating. That’s what Mary was doing that Martha wasn’t doing. Mary was just remembering to eat.

Martha was so busy preparing the meal that she forgot to eat the meal. She was so focused on serving Jesus that she missed being served by Jesus. The irony is incredible - she's in the kitchen making food while the Bread of Life is in the next room offering spiritual nourishment.

When we get so caught up in doing things for God that we forget to spend time with God, we're starving ourselves spiritually. We're like a chef who's so busy cooking that they collapse from hunger.

So we’ve talked about the doer - what Martha did wrong. Let’s talk about...

2. The disciple (What Mary did right.)

While Martha was cumbered about with much serving, Mary was at Jesus feet.

It’s interesting that whenever we see Mary of Bethany in the scripture, she’s always at Jesus feet. She’s either listening at Jesus feet, or worshipping at Jesus feet. But that is where she was at.

In jewish times, women didn’t sit at the feet of the Rabbi. In fact, it was kind of frowned on for women to be taught at all.

But that didn’t matter to Mary and it didn’t matter to Jesus. She was there, listening.

Mary understood something Martha missed: the most important thing she could do in that moment was receive from Jesus. She chose to be a student rather than a server. She chose to be fed rather than to feed.

This wasn't laziness - this was wisdom. Mary recognized that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn from the Son of God. The dishes could wait. The food prep could wait. But this moment with Jesus was irreplaceable.

This isn’t a passage about how it is bad to work. God wants all of us to work. When Jesus said “Take my yoke upon you” - the yoke is a farm implement, you put on a yoke because you are about to pull a plow.

Jesus isn’t anti-work and anti-service. And if what you take from this passage is that you shouldn’t work for Jesus, but that you should just kind of live in this monk like state of worship and contemplation - you’ve missed the point.

The point is that we have to be both a doer and a disciple, and if we can only choose one - it’s more important that we be a disciple.

I had this wonderful mentor - Dr. Jack Scallions. God used him in a great way in training pastors and in leading in Christian education and he built a great church in Athens, TN. He pastored the same church for over forty years.

But do you know what I heard him say over and over, he said “I’ve spent most of my life being a doer for Jesus, and I want to focus on being a disciple of Jesus. I’ve spent so much time being a worker, I need to learn again how to be a worshipper.” In personal reflection, he said that sometimes he said that he often got so busy doing good things he forgot to to do the most important thing - personally being a disciple of Christ.

That’s the lesson in this passage.

So we’ve talked about the doer, and the disciple. But there is one more thing I want us to think about and that is...

3. The one thing.

Jesus said in verse 42:

[!bible] Luke 10:42 - KJV 42. But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

What is this "one thing"? It's hearing Jesus. It's spending time with Jesus. It's being a disciple before you're a doer.

Notice Jesus didn't say "many things are needful" or "these things are needful." He said "ONE thing is needful." In a world that tells us we need to multitask, Jesus says we need to focus.

And what Mary chose - that "good part" - it can't be taken away. Martha's meal would be eaten and forgotten. Her perfect house would get dirty again. But what Mary received from Jesus that day? That was eternal.

The lesson for us is clear: before we serve Jesus, we need to sit with Jesus. Before we work for Him, we need to worship Him. Before we do ministry, we need to receive ministry.

This is the priority Jesus wants us to understand. Yes, serve Him. Yes, work for Him. But never get so busy doing things FOR Jesus that you forget to spend time WITH Jesus.

The most important thing you can do today is not clean your house, or volunteer for another ministry, or check another item off your spiritual to-do list. The most important thing you can do is sit at Jesus' feet and listen to His word.

That's the one thing that's needful. That's the good part. And when you choose it, no one can take it away from you.