The Good Portion

Many things trouble. One thing matters.

[00:00:00] This morning, the Lord has one of those lessons for us that is simple to understand, but really hard to carry out consistently. There’s no difficult theology involved. Most of us will quickly affirm what we hear this morning as true. And we will say, absolutely, we give it a big amen, and then we will leave here and jump right back into the way we do life that all but ignores what Jesus has for us. It’s one of those passages. I’m going to ask you this morning to take a good long look at yourself and you say, Kyle, can’t we just have one week where we don’t have to take a good long look at ourselves? Can’t there be just one non-challenging sermon wedged in there every once in a while? I don’t know of a non-challenging Bible passage, do you? I don’t know of one. The Bible itself says that the Bible’s job is teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. In other words, the Bible is meant to change our minds, to change our steps, and to make us like Jesus. It shows us who we are. It bathes us in God’s grace, and then it propels us to walk in step with the spirit. So, we should be challenged every time we open up the Bible and read it. And our passage today is easy to understand, but it’s challenging to apply because it has to do with our priorities. What it is that we value. What it is that we do with our time.

[00:01:45] And I’m going to tell you right now, if you are a high-capacity individual, a person who can get a lot done and you love checklists and you love order and you can’t understand why anybody else doesn’t feel the same way, on first reading of our story this morning, you are going to feel singled out. You’re going to feel like this is aimed right at me. You’re going to feel like Jesus doesn’t understand you and that the lazy people have won. I’ll make you this promise, though. If you will see this thing all the way to the end, you will find that Jesus understands you very well and that he does not endorse laziness, and that what he really wants is for all of us to orient our minds and our hearts around the one thing that really matters. I have one short motto for you this morning. I don’t usually use mottos, but I have one short one, and you’ll see that this snappy, memorable little phrase comes straight from Scripture, and I hope what it does is that it sticks in your mind and comes up for you again and again when you find yourself burdened with anxiety and you’re too busy with unimportant things. So, are you ready for it? Here it is. Here’s the motto. Many things trouble.

[00:03:09] One thing matters. Many things trouble. One thing matters. I know it sounds too simple, I get it. It is not the whole gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s not that this little message from this little passage that we’re looking at, we’re going to be in Luke 10 this morning. You want to turn there this little passage we’re going to look at, it’s intended to quickly reorient your heart and your mind back to the one thing that matters when the troubles come, when the anxiety comes, and that’s all it does. That’s all this phrase does. First, I’m going to show you this teaching, this little motto in our passage. And then we’re going to unpack many things and the one thing. And then we’re going to have some fun considering the problems and exceptions that people have with this teaching. So, let’s start right at the end of chapter ten. In Luke, we’ll start with the story of Martha and Mary. “Now, as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” So here we have two sisters. These are the sisters of the very famous Lazarus who Jesus raises from the dead.

[00:04:44] And they are equal in their friendship with Jesus. Martha receives Jesus into her home. Clearly, she has a very high view of him, high view of his teaching. She calls him Lord. Martha’s sister Mary also clearly has a high view of Jesus. She’s sitting, it says, at the Lord’s feet and listening to his teaching. Now, these references to Jesus as Lord are very significant. If you trace the use of the word Lord throughout the book of Luke, you find something pretty remarkable. It’s used interchangeably to refer to the God of Israel and to the person of Jesus. And it’s amazing how seamless this alternating use of Lord is. For example, John the Baptist’s parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, are described as walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. Zechariah is said to be working in the temple of the Lord. He’s visited by an angel of the Lord. These are all references to the one true God of Israel. And yet, when a very pregnant Elizabeth hears the greeting from Jesus’ newly pregnant mother, the baby in her womb leaps with joy. And she says to her, why is it granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? The Lord is the way Jewish people would refer to the name given to them of God. So, Yahweh, they would say, when they wanted to say Yahweh, they would say the Lord.

[00:06:30] And yet here Elizabeth is referring to an unborn Jesus as her Lord. See, they knew they were waiting for their Messiah to come, who’s referred to in Isaiah as Emmanuel, God with us. God was coming to be with the people. They knew that the Messiah would come someday, that God would enter into the world. They knew the Lord was coming to be with them here on earth. And so they recognized Jesus as the Lord who came into the world. And that’s why Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet. She’s listening to God speak to her. This is why Jesus was invited into Martha’s home. She wanted to serve her God. So, when we sit at Jesus feet and we use our effort and our resources to serve Jesus’ Kingdom and his mission, we are not doing this simply because we like Jesus, okay? This is not a preferential thing. We’re not saying we prefer Jesus, we like him, so we want to serve him. That’s not the reason. We serve him because of who he is. He is the Lord God. We listen and serve because he is the one true living God. Okay, so Jesus is in the house and these two ladies are doing very different activities in light of the Lord’s visit. And I’m sure as soon as I read that passage, just those few verses this morning, everybody in this room picked a team, didn’t you? You all picked a team.

[00:08:08] You’re either Team Martha or you are Team Mary. Where are my Martha’s at? Where are my team Martha’s at? Go ahead and raise your hand for Team Martha real quick. Go ahead and raise ’em high. You’re proud. Be proud of that team, Martha. See, there’s a few of you out there. You’re absolutely Team Martha. Team Martha has their checklist at home right now. They felt bad leaving it behind to come to church this morning. They are really excited to get back to that checklist. I talked to a woman here recently who makes a list of things to do so that she can check them off, and she just makes a list of all that so that she can go back and check them off. And as she’s doing things, if she does something that is not on the list, she will write it onto the list just so she can check it off. Oh, head nods. Oh, this is an activity lots of you do, isn’t it? Yeah. You love checking things off. Now listen. Listen to me. There is nothing wrong with you. I mean, there’s probably something slightly wrong with you, actually. But it’s good. It’s a good wrong. If that is such a thing. Right. You are a high-capacity servant. You are a person who. Who gets things done for the Lord. That’s team Martha. Team Mary. They have a very different game plan in approaching the Lord. Where my team Mary’s that.

[00:09:21] Go ahead and raise your hand if you’re Team Mary. Okay. There’s a few of you. Yeah, team Mary. Team Mary has their quiet time all planned out. Favorite mug. Favorite spot on the couch. You know where you’re going to be. There’s probably a candle involved, right? Team Mary has three Bible studies planned for this week. Two of them here at Calvary. One with a random group of friends. Just because. Right? You love getting into the Word. You love reading. You love praying. Praying God’s word back to him. You love being in conversation with the Lord. That’s Team Mary. Now, it’s not fair to say that anybody cleanly fits into one of these two categories, okay? It’s not a dichotomy. I myself find bits of both of these in me, and I’m sure you do too. There’s a combination that’s going on there, and it’s not even fair to say that Mary and Martha fit cleanly into these contrasting profiles, because we really only have this one story. I’m sure Martha wanted to hear from the Lord Jesus. She probably wanted to hear his teaching, and I’m sure Mary helped out around the house at times. But as he often did, Jesus takes advantage of this occasion to teach us about how to prioritize being with him. Martha welcomes Jesus into her home. This is a big honor. So, she gets right to work. She’s cleaning the house.

[00:10:47] She’s cooking the food. We’re not told exactly what she’s doing, but these are the things you would do to prepare for a visit. Mary, on the other hand, sits down at Jesus feet like a disciple would. So, Jesus starts teaching. She’s at his feet. She’s listening to his teaching. Now, culturally speaking, this is not how things generally would have been done at that time. The men would have been the learners and the disciples while the women served. And yet we have seen that that is not how it works in the kingdom of God. That’s not how it works at all. Jesus’ kingdom is different. Jesus welcomed everyone. There was no class or profile of a disciple. Everyone was welcome. Paul would later write that God’s people are comprised of Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female which means there is no ethnic, socioeconomic, or gender division of who can be a disciple of Jesus. Everybody is welcome to come and be at Jesus’ feet. And here’s a good example of that. Jesus welcomes Mary into his presence to be a student. However, Martha is not having it. She sees her sister sitting there taking it all in from Jesus, and she realizes that she’s the only one that’s getting anything done around here. And so she goes to Jesus and apparently interrupts him and says something that’s frankly a little bit confrontational. “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?” Don’t you care? She doesn’t go to Mary.

[00:12:28] She doesn’t say, hey, Mary, come on. Get over here and help me. She doesn’t do that. She goes to Jesus and challenges him about not caring that Mary isn’t helping her. It’s a bold move, insinuating that God doesn’t care. But I can see why she does it. I can see where she’s coming from here. See, her priority is on getting things done. Good things. Things for Jesus. Getting things done. And when her own sister isn’t helping her with those chores, it seems like she doesn’t have her priorities straight. And when Jesus allows it to happen, it seems like Jesus doesn’t care whether or not his own people have their priorities straight. See, from her perspective, the importance is on making sure that all the tasks get done and what she has done is she projects that out to Jesus and assumes that because that’s where her priorities lie, that must be where God’s priorities lie. Right? I think it should be done a certain way. So, God must think it should be done a certain way, too. But that’s not at all how God prioritizes. But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her.” See there again the Lord answered her. The Lord once again. The repetition of Martha’s name here is probably a way of showing gentleness.

[00:14:05] He’s being kind. He’s being gentle in response to the accusation against him. He’s going to be gentle with her. Why? Because Jesus knows that Martha means well. He knows that her heart is in the right place. She means well in what she’s doing, but she can’t see how her priorities are in the wrong order. Her heart’s in the right spot. Her priorities aren’t. The cooking matters. The cleaning matters. But what matters more? What has eternal significance? Jesus is here. It’s interesting that Jesus doesn’t say, Martha, you’re troubled about housework. That would have been very specific. That would have addressed the actual things she was troubled about. But he doesn’t say you’re troubled about housework. Instead, he says she’s troubled and even anxious about many things. He broadens it out to encapsulate a whole host of items. See, Jesus is still teaching here. He’s still teaching. This isn’t an interruption. This is a teachable moment that matters. Notice we don’t have any of his other teaching in that time. We don’t have what he was saying to Mary before. We don’t have what he resumed saying after. We only have this moment recorded for us in Scripture. Martha’s anxiety provides the occasion for Jesus to teach the highest priority in discipleship. He teaches the good portion. The one thing that matters when it comes to being a disciple of Jesus is sitting at his feet, listening and ingesting the Word of God like a meal.

[00:15:50] That’s what the good portion is. That’s the reference there. It’s like eating a really good meal. All the other things in the world, even the good things, even the important things, important tasks, they are secondary to this one important thing. Now, why is that? Why is that? Why must the highest priority of our lives be to sit at the feet of Jesus, hearing God’s Word and having our hearts and minds shaped by it? Let’s think about the relationship between the many things and the one thing. And there’s a cycle to this. Jesus points out that Martha is troubled about many things, and that’s keeping her from concentrating on the one thing that matters. So first of all, she’s distracted. Have you ever noticed how much the things of secondary importance in this world, things that are going on in your life, things of secondary, maybe even tertiary importance take up your time? Have you noticed it? And yet, as a Christian, you find yourself constantly feeling convicted over that. And you feel constantly convicted that you don’t have the time to grow in Christ by studying and meditating and praying and applying God’s Word to your life in real ways. What we have church is a faulty priority list. That’s the problem. There are too many things at the top of that priority list that should be near the bottom.

[00:17:24] But those things have pushed time with God’s Word and time with God’s people down into the list, toward the – I hope I can find time for that category. It shoves it down there. The truth is none of us lack time. You have precisely the time you need. None of us lack time. What we lack is desire. If you can binge a show, you can become a Bible scholar. I mean, think about all that time. You could become a Bible scholar with that time. We don’t lack time. We lack discipline. We can faithfully get up every morning on time to be to work, to make money. But statistics are showing even committed followers of Jesus are not consistently attending church services. We’re calling at this point most writers call 1 or 2 times a month at a church service, they’re calling that regular attendance now. Now, I’m not saying that to shame you. You’re here! I’m saying it to shame people watching this on YouTube, actually. No, I’m just kidding. Kind of. I only point this out because our society is adjusting itself. It’s adjusting itself away from the spiritual disciplines that put us at the feet of Jesus, and Christians to some degree are following in that trend. We’re taking on the same priority list. We’re making lesser matters into priorities, and we’re placing the practices that would lead us to Jesus somewhere further down the list. And I said that this is a cycle. Martha was distracted by household chores that could have waited, but because she was distracted by them, and then she could see that Mary didn’t feel the same way, what happened? She became troubled. She became anxious. And so, here’s the cycle. These lesser matters become troublesome. They build anxiety in us that would be prevented by seeing them through the lens of the gospel. But we don’t see them through the lens of the gospel because we’re not in the gospel enough. We’re not feeding ourselves the good portion and the cycle continues. Without a regular diet of God’s Word, we become spiritually unhealthy and therefore we’re unprepared to handle those secondary matters when they become troublesome and anxious. Do you see the cycle? It perpetuates. If I minimize my time with Jesus, I won’t be prepared to handle worldly matters with the proper amount of hope and confidence and peace and rest. There’s an old hymn. There’s an old hymn that goes: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim. In the light of his glory and grace.” So, it’s a song about how the truth of Jesus and His kingdom calibrates our minds and our hearts properly to see the rest of the world as we should. Those worldly matters get outshined by the glory of Jesus and the concerns that we have for his Kingdom. It’s really easy to understand what Jesus is saying here, isn’t it? It’s not hard.

[00:20:51] This is easy teaching. If you’re anxious in your heart, what’s happened is you have allowed lesser things to trouble you, and you’ve neglected the one thing that matters. It’s easy, but it’s hard. It’s easy to follow that argument. It is hard to change the pattern of life and discipline to get yourself at Jesus feet. If your marriage is causing you a lot of trouble, you think, well, I’ve got to concentrate on the troubles. I’ve got to concentrate on the problems. I’ve got to fix these issues. But here’s the thing. The only solution is bringing God’s design for your marriage into focus. And for that, you need God’s Word. How many people in the church were troubled by the presidential race before Election Day? How many people were troubled by it and anxious? Every four years, the church is in this terrible habit of grabbing hold of the message of trouble and fear that politicians use to get votes. Why aren’t the things of the earth strangely dim then? Why aren’t they dim then? They should be. Church, when we sit at the feet of Jesus, when we consume the good portion of God’s Word, worldly troubles with their attendant anxieties find their proper place. There are tasks we have to do. There are things that we have to accomplish. We need to get things done. There’s no question about that. Getting stuff done in the house matters. Just ask my wife.

[00:22:19] She will tell you. It matters. These things do matter. But if we’re not taking the time to know and love and listen to the Lord, how will we ever know how the Lord would have us accomplish those tasks and solve those problems? We won’t be properly calibrated. Jesus is our good portion. His word to us is the one thing that is necessary. Do you see the word necessary there in verse 42? Many things trouble. One thing matters. Now I’m going to close our time today with another round of a game that has become one of my favorites over the years as a pastor. I don’t play it a lot, but every once in a while it makes a lot of sense to break it out. And it’s a game called, but what about. This is a game for the naysayers? This is a game for the doubters, those who can always see the other side. In this case, it’s probably for the Marthas in the room who really resonate with her, and they feel like Jesus probably should have listened to her argument just a little bit better, because then he would have understood where she was coming from. You love Jesus, right? But you feel like Martha. You are Martha. By the way, if your name is Martha this morning, I am really sorry about that. You could be a complete Mary and have the name Martha. It’s just coincidence.

[00:23:43] Okay. Let’s play. But what about all the stuff that needs to get done? This is the classic, right? This is the first thing that comes to mind. What about all that stuff that needs to get done? I get it, you’re busy. Pretty much everybody I know is crazy busy all the time, right? Do you know anybody that’s not just crazy busy all the time? Many of you know that I am a girls’ basketball assistant coach. Should I be? No. Am I? Somehow, I’m not sure how that happened. I’ve got something like 30 basketball games scheduled across three states over the next three months, and that doesn’t even include all the basketball games my son will be playing that I’m going to want to get to. I will never not be in the car. If you need me, I’ll be in the car. I say that out loud and you’re like, oh, but there are about 100 parents in this room right now who want to see me afterward to tell me how they have it worse. And I believe you. You probably do have it worse. But think about this with me. Think about it. Those of you who love Jesus. Do you want to get to the end of your life? Do you want to pass on into eternity and stand before Jesus and say, Jesus, I would have spent time praying and praising and digging into your word.

[00:24:58] But there was that whole season where the kids’ activities just didn’t make that possible. Is that what you want to say? Now, look, I’m not saying don’t do those things. I’m not saying don’t do stuff. But reshape your life so that the priority remains on knowing the Lord Jesus at greater depth. It’s the one thing that’s necessary. It’s the one thing. And if you’re too busy for Jesus, you’re too busy. Okay, let’s try another one. But what about lazy people? What about them? What about lazy people? Won’t they use this as an excuse to not get things done. Maybe. Truth is, maybe. There are a lot of times when Christians do use their desire to grow in Christ, to forego serving Christ. I know it sounds weird, but there are plenty of people who do not have a proper balance of growing in Christ and serving in Christ’s mission. But I want you to notice that Jesus doesn’t correct Martha for her service. Did you notice? He doesn’t correct her for her service. He corrects her for being troubled and anxious about her service. See, serving is a good thing. Being consumed with serving isn’t. That’s where the problem is. Some people will use serving as a surrogate for growing in Christ. So, when others aren’t doing as much as they do, those other people look lazy by comparison. The fact is, if you want to be a healthy disciple of Jesus,

[00:26:38] you need to sit at Jesus’ feet, and you need to serve in Jesus’ kingdom and get things done. But the service has to be an overflow of the love that you have for Jesus. So, when you cultivate that relationship with Jesus in his wisdom, and you’re in His Word, then you’re prepared for the very effective service that is properly balanced. Okay, one last one. And this is probably the most vital one to address. But what about the lesser matters that are still important? What about those who say marriages have got to be saved. Public policy needs to be formed. My job needs attention. My kids need my focus. I’ve got to pass these classes. All of this stuff is so important, and it’s not really Bible stuff. Well, I’ll grant you this. This is your argument. I’ll grant you this. Just like Jesus’ teaching that day wasn’t going to get the house cleaned or the food cooked for Martha, Bible study is not going to help you pass your algebra test. Okay, it’s not, but it will show you why you need to study algebra. It’ll show you the beauty and design of the created order that can be measured and quantified through mathematics. Sitting at Jesus’ feet won’t get your dishes washed, but it will show you how to wash your dishes for the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10 says that we can do everything, everything in our life, every task we have, everything we need to accomplish, we can do for the glory of God, in fact, that we’re called to do it for the glory of God.

[00:28:20] Sitting at Jesus’ feet means that when you get up to work and you need to get up to work, when you get up to work, you will do so with a joyous heart of one who is serving Jesus. There’s a very striking passage of Scripture that comes right near the end of the sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter seven. There’s some people that are standing before Jesus, listing off all the ways they served God throughout their lifetime. They say, Lord, didn’t we do all of this and all of that for you? Didn’t we cast out all these demons and didn’t we heal people in your name? They see their service as a proof of their devotion to the Lord. But Jesus says to them, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. I never knew you. He didn’t know them. Yeah, they did that stuff, but he didn’t know them. They missed the good portion. They did the activities, but they didn’t know Jesus. They didn’t sit at his feet. They didn’t fall in love with Jesus. They didn’t serve out of an overflow of their heart love for Jesus. That’s the caution to Martha. And that’s the caution to all of us who follow Jesus. Let’s pray.