Dismissing Jesus (Part 5) - One Thing You Need

Happy Mother's Day.

It's great to be together.

Happy Mother's Day to those of you in the strip as well.

I remember years ago on a Mother's Day after a service had been done, this is uh probably 20 years ago when I was first kind of involved in pastoral ministry.

I had a guy come up to me and he said, I hate Mother's Day.

And I wanted to say, you should get some counseling.

Um I didn't say that, but that was my first thought.

And he said, I hate Mother's Day in church, and he said, I hate it because in church it seems like we always make such a big deal about moms.

Like, moms are so great, moms are awesome, moms deserve appreciation.

And then Mother's Day comes and it's always like, Come on, dads, you need to do better, work harder, be better as dads.

And he said, So I hate Mother's Day.

Now, now, when I first heard that, I first my reaction was, uh, maybe you're a little over the top.

But I also, before I had kids, remembered coming to church on Mother's Day and and having it be all about moms and feeling like, this is so about moms.

It's like it's more about moms than Easter is about the resurrection in some ways when you go to church.

And then as I've had a chance to shape services over the years, what I've come to realize is that for everyone, Mother's Day isn't necessarily the same experience.

For some of us, we come to a day like this, and there's a little pain inside of us because maybe we've wanted to have a family and we haven't been able to for whatever reason.

Or maybe our experience with our own mom wasn't as great as some other people's experiences of their own moms.

I remember talking to a friend of mine not long ago and he was talking about trying to buy a card for his mom.

And he told me about just standing in the in the store looking at card after card after card, saying, This doesn't work because it's so flowery, and any of these things wouldn't be true.

And he said he just found himself in the card store tearing up a little bit.

And then he said, I just bought a generic card, wrote Happy Mother's Day, and signed his name and said that was the best I could do.

And then there are some probably who come here today and you've experienced a recent loss.

Maybe this is the first year without your mom, or with the prospect of your mom not being here in future years, and so there's a variety of experiences that we come here with today.

And so one of my goals is to not necessarily make this all about moms, but to say something that will hopefully encourage moms wherever you are, but also will be applicable to all of us.

And so we've been in this little series we've called dismissing Jesus.

And what we've been doing is we've been looking at some things that Jesus has said that are easy for us to dismiss.

And today we're going to look at this story, this account of Mary and Martha.

And in Luke chapter 10, you heard it read, Jesus says, listen, there's one thing that you really need.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

There's just one.

And this is something that I think it's really easy to dismiss.

And it doesn't matter whether you're a busy mom with lots going on with toddlers, whether you're a mom of teenagers, whether you're you're a single person who says, you know, I don't have kids, I haven't even thought about kids, but but my life is full.

Whether you find yourself in a phase of life where there isn't enough going on, and so you're a little bored, I think this really can apply to any of us.

And the story's simple.

Jesus goes to the home of Martha.

And we know from studying kind of the context and things that Martha lived in a little town called Bethany, and when Jesus gets to her home, she starts to work to prepare a killer meal.

And so she spends her time just taking care of all of the details to make this a great event.

And her sister, Mary, sits down and listens to Jesus.

At this time, Jesus was known as being a rabbi with wisdom who could travel and teach, and so she's like, forget the meal.

I'm gonna fixate on the words of Jesus here.

And so what we see in Luke chapter 10, verse 38 through 42 is this account, and this is where Jesus comes and he says, Listen, there's one thing you need.

Luke 10:38–42

Now there are a couple things right at the beginning here that are interesting to note.

First, notice that that Martha tries to enlist Jesus to get Mary to work.

And so she says this.

She says, basically, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?

Tell her to help me.

Can't you see the scene?

She's like, I can't believe that she's just sitting there at your feet.

But I'm the one doing all the work.

And one of the things that will happen for you spiritually and just in life in general is if you try to disconnect from some of the responsibilities and ideas that other people think you should have, other people will not like it.

And sometimes if you're one of the people who says, No, I'm going to be the responsible one, other people will, or you will maybe try to enlist kind of God or Jesus in a way to make others live at your pace.

And here Jesus says, Listen, there's only one thing that's needed.

By the way, I think we give Martha a bit of a bad rap here.

You've probably heard this story before.

And the reason I say that is the truth is, you'd rather go to Martha's house for a meal than Mary's.

It would be clean, the meal will be better.

You'd rather have Martha on a committee than Mary, because Martha will show up and do the work.

And I don't say that to belittle anything here, but just to say we actually celebrate Martha more than Mary in our world.

And here's where the challenge is.

We don't actually believe that the one thing that Mary does here is the one thing that's most needed.

And this is why we dismiss Jesus.

Now, what was it that Mary was really doing?

In the NIV, it obliterates this just a little bit, but what we see is that when Mary basically sat down, she was sitting at the Lord's feet and listening to what he said.

And so it says that right there.

And the reason I say it obliterates it a little bit is there are some other references, like in Luke 8, 35, Acts 2, 22, 3, where we see that to sit at somebody's feet, and you have to look at an ESV or original language to see this, because the NIV, again, sometimes in just stylistic translation, doesn't talk about sitting at the feet, but to sit at the feet of somebody was to give careful attention to their words, to give focus, complete attention to what that person was saying, so that you could take it in and let that shape your life in some way.

That's what it meant to sit at somebody's feet.

So when I say that that we're prone to dismiss Jesus' words here because we don't really see ourselves as having this one thing that we need.

What we think a lot of times is I need to do everything else in this world and be okay.

Now notice this also.

Here's what we see in this text.

It says, But Martha was distracted.

And the word distracted means to be pulled about or dragged away in a bunch of different directions, the original language here.

And then a little later, Jesus talks to her and he says, You're worried and upset about many things.

So three words describe Martha.

She was distracted, pulled in a lot of directions.

She's worried.

Same word, by the way, that we looked at last week when Jesus said, Don't be anxious, don't be worried.

So she's agitated about everything that has to be taken care of and done, and she's upset.

Now, we're not told what Mary's demeanor is here, but if you just take the opposite of those words, instead of distracted, you could say that she's focused, that she's calm, and that she's really at peace.

So let me ask you a question.

How would you rather live?

It doesn't matter if you're a mom, a dad, a person who's in college in grad school, somebody who has no thought or desire to get married, somebody who's been married and is divorced, somebody who's who's running hard at all kinds of things or not, how would you rather live?

Would you rather live a life where you say, I'm distracted, I'm worried or anxious, I'm upset all the time or often, or a life where you're saying, I'm calm, I'm at peace, I'm focused.

And so what I want to do is just using this text, look at this text, and talk about three perils of neglecting to sit at the feet of Jesus.

So what happens in your life, in my life, if we don't actually spend time to sit at the feet of Jesus and let Jesus' words become the focus of our attention.

And the first thing I'm going to say is this, and that is that the pressing can crowd out the needed.

And we see this in verse 41.

It says this, Martha, Martha, the Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things.

And what he's doing here is he's saying that you have let the things that are pressing, that the things that are immediate, become so significant to you that you have not been able to see what's really most needed in your life.

There's a little book, that uh booklet really that is used in our CLC men's groups around here.

I think it's also used in the joy groups.

It's called The Tyranny of the Urgent.

So, for many of you who've been through one of those great two-year discipleship programs around here, what what you've seen when you read that little book is that so many of us will put urgent things at the center of our lives and will let the urgent things drive our schedules and our lives so that we never do the truly important things.

And it's interesting for a lot of people, after they go through uh two years, all the books, all the curriculum, they often come back and say, that message was so important to me.

So, how do we kind of think about that?

Or how do we help ourselves maybe not be dominated by the pressing instead of the needed?

I remember years ago there was a book that came out by Stephen Covey, and I was just a young adult when this came out.

I was just kind of starting my way in life.

And it's called Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and there's a there's a section in there where he talks about the this quadrant idea.

Now it'll show up up here on the screen.

You can see it here for a second.

Go ahead and throw that up on the screen.

Not this, the the slide if you have it, um, for a second.

Or forget the slide.

Um we'll we'll we'll do it.

There it is.

Important and urgent goes in quadrant one, and then important but not urgent goes in quadrant two, urgent not important in quadrant three, and then not urgent, not important in quadrant four.

And what Covey was doing was basically saying that in each of these quadrants, we make decisions about our lives.

So here in quadrant one, what we'll basically have is this idea that says, in this quadrant are the things that are pressing but also critically important in my life.

So if you're uh, say a student and you have final exams, you know, that's probably pressing and it's important.

You actually need to do well on the exams, you have like everything in front of you.

If you have a big project at work, you can't just say, well, it's not something I need to do.

So there are some things, because they're both urgent and important, you say, you know what, these are just something that I have to attend to, have to do right now.

Down here in quadrant three, we get the things that are urgent, but they're not necessarily important in our lives.

So these are things that that usually form our to-do list.

Things like, hey, I need to run to the post office and get more stamps.

You know, I need to take care of grocery shopping.

Now, if you all of a sudden hit a point where you have no food in the house, it becomes urgent and important.

But but but this is the kind of thing that just sits down here.

Now, what Covey had argued, this over here, these are just things that are nice to do, but you don't want to spend a lot of time here.

What Covey argued is that the most directional things that you can do in your life are pay attention to the things that are important but aren't necessarily urgent.

And here's what what was behind this is he said, these are the things that when it comes time to do them, it really doesn't matter whether you do them today or tomorrow or next week, but if you don't attend to them over time, then you'll have a really bad effect in your life in some way.

So just thinking about this quickly, here's a couple things that would fit.

You would have to say your or my health would fit in this category.

And the reason I say that is if you decide today to say, you know what, I'm going to eat poorly, I'm not going to exercise, it does not impact you tomorrow.

It doesn't impact you next week.

It can go sometimes for weeks and weeks, maybe months, maybe even years if you're young enough, without that affecting you.

But somewhere down the line, the choice not to attend to your health will actually impede your ability to do some of the things that you want to do.

So this is an important area of our lives, but it's not really urgent because it doesn't matter today.

Here's another one.

Your key relationships usually fit into this category.

And the reason that I say this is if you're in a great friendship, you're married, you have have kids, you have siblings, you're probably in a place with some of those relationships where you can say, you know what, I don't have time to invest quality time with you right now, and you and I are gonna be okay because we're we're really good friends.

We've lived together, we're roommates, we're whatever for a long season of time, so we're going to be okay.

But what happens over time is if you don't invest in those relationships, is all of a sudden you wake up one day and you say, I don't know what happened here.

And then the other piece of this, and there are several others that we could talk about, but this is what I think Jesus was driving at, and this is our relationship with God fits into this category.

And the reason that I say that is again, if you say, you know what, I'm not going to pay attention to spiritual things right now.

I'm not going to pray, I'm not going to read the Bible, I'm not going to attend worship services, I'm not going to be in a life group, I'm not going to serve.

You can go through weeks, months, maybe even an extended season of your life and say, you know what, there's no real big difference here.

But somewhere down the line, what will happen is you will wake up and you'll say, you know what, that thing that seems so important to me was really crowded out by all of the pressing things of my life.

One philosopher put it this way: he said, the things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.

The things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.

And here's what Jesus is doing.

Jesus is just basically saying, I want you to know, I want you to think about that sitting at my feet is one of these really important things.

If you don't do this, if you let the pressing keep you from this, you're not going to have a depth of relationship with me that you really think is possible or necessary.

What's going to happen instead is you're just going to go from thing to thing to thing throughout your life, and you'll say, you know what, I don't I don't know, kind of how I lost my way.

And what we'll do is we'll we'll spend our time taking care of our to-do list, and we won't attend to our relationship with God.

So so, for example, where does mulch fit on this kind of quadrant thing?

Mulch.

It depends.

Yeah, I heard some threes, some fours.

It depends, right?

For for some of you, mulch is over here.

Uh for me, mulch was over here.

I hear that applause, thank you.

So here's the question: Do you really want mulch to keep you from spending time with the creator of the universe?

Or investing in key relationships or taking care of your body?

I mean, really, but that's what we do.

Now, obviously, I'm being a little facetious.

I did my mulch.

And the point of this is not to say that you never take care of anything.

Mary, by the way, was not an irresponsible person.

In fact, we know from other places in Scripture that she was responsible, but here's what Jesus was saying.

Even in the midst of her responsibility, she didn't lose track of what was most important.

And here's probably the bigger challenge.

And that is probably for many of us.

Even, especially those who've been around church a long time, there's a tendency to think this isn't really the one thing that's needed.

Spending time with Jesus sitting at his feet, taking in his word.

I mean, I read the Bible once already.

Sat through a bunch of messages.

You know, I've been to worship.

It's the same thing every week.

Three songs and a message.

I mean, you know, what could be different about it?

And what happens is you can become, in a way, a person who says, Yeah, I don't really believe that this is the one thing that I really need.

But but what happens when you're shaped by the Word of God, by sitting at his feet over and over and over again, wherever you're coming from spiritually, is it is it shapes what you say is most important.

It helps clarify this whole thing for you so that you start to say, I'm putting what's most important into my day-to-day life.

That's what happens.

So so the first peril of not sitting at the feet of Jesus is that the pressing can crowd out the needed.

Here's a second thing.

And that is the good can crowd out the best.

And we see this in verse 42.

Jesus again said, but few things are needed.

Indeed, only one.

Mary has chosen what is better.

See, Martha was doing a lot of good things.

There was nothing that she was doing that wasn't good.

But what she was doing, Jesus said, wasn't the better thing.

In fact, in the ESV, it says that Mary has chosen the better portion, and that's actually a better rendition of the original language.

Again, the NIV for stylistic reasons drops the word portion here.

But portion actually is not an inane word because the portion, the idea of a portion was an Old Testament word.

And we're told several times in the Old Testament that God is the portion of his people.

Just a few examples.

Psalm 16, 5, Psalm 73, 26, Psalm 119, 57.

And I'm not going to take the time to look at these, but what's going on is that is that over and over we're told that the reward of seeking God is getting God.

And so what happens for for many of us, again, is that we'll go through life and we'll choose good things, really good things, genuinely good things.

But we'll miss the best things.

Especially being in a place where the God of the universe shapes our soul.

And what some of us will have to do if we're going to really sit at the feet of Jesus is we're going to have to choose to give up some good things in our lives in order to have what's better.

In order to really choose the best.

Now, if you've been here for a while, you've probably heard me talk about this.

But but I'm going to go down a track here again.

And I'm especially want to talk to those of you with young kids right now.

Because right now you're in a season where like having kids at home is exhausting in its own way and you can't wait to like they start playing soccer and you can go to the soccer field and talk to other parents and stuff.

But as somebody who's gone through it, I just want to caution you with the whole student youth activity level of our culture.

Because here's what our culture tells us, more or less, and that is if you want your kid to succeed, they have to be in every activity from the time they're three, or they will never get into the community college of Allegheny County.

And so what you need to do is you need to get them into soccer when they're three, into virtuoso piano lessons when they're two, or they won't make it.

And what happens very quickly is you start running from thing to thing to thing, and all you're doing is running your kids to stop.

Now, don't misunderstand.

We've done that completely.

Our kids played travel sports, they've been in every activity.

I'm not saying that you give it up, but what I'm saying is you have to be really careful that a good thing, getting your kids in activities that they love and thrive at doesn't replace the better thing, which is letting God be at the center of your family.

I know there are times when I'm driving my kids all over the city to different stuff, and I'm thinking, you know, I've spent four or five hours here tonight, and all I've done is drive my kids from one thing to another thing where they're playing some sport with somebody else or some lesson, somebody else and get giving them time, and by the time we all get home, we're too tired to even have a conversation.

And I think, is that really the best way to spend the few years that we all have together?

Here's another one, as long as I've gone down this road a little bit.

How do you expect your kids to grow up and value church community if you can't even consistently prioritize a single hour a week to worship as a family?

I mean, I meet people all the time who basically are like, oh, I don't know what happened with my kids.

And all through their growing up years, what happened was they would say, Well, you know, it's it's church, it's uh it's not gonna hurt us.

It's it's important to us, but it's not urgent, it's not pressing.

This week, you know, we're gonna get the mulch in.

This week we've got kids' activities, this week we've got that.

And the next thing we know, what happens is church has been negotiable all the way through for our kids, and then we say, I don't know why they don't seem to care.

And what Jesus is doing in this moment is he's saying, be very careful that you continue to make the choices of what is best, not just what is good.

And that if you really want God to be at the center of your house, at the center of your family, at the center of your personal life, that that needs some priority.

Now, again, I when I say this, I am talking to myself.

Because our family runs.

And I realize that we're in a phase where we run from thing to thing, and I realize that some of you may not be, and if you're not in that phase, you can still let good things replace the best things in your life.

Somebody invited us to dinner recently, and my wife and I sat down, we looked at our calendar, and we had one date that matched in all of May and June.

One.

And I don't say that to say, oh, we're so busy.

I mean, a lot of that's again just activities that we've chosen.

And we said yes to the dinner invite because we really saw that as wanting to spend time with that person and and and important to us.

So I'm not saying that you say no, but but what I'm saying is we have to understand what Jesus was saying here.

You can choose good things and miss the best things.

So be cautious.

One more thing.

And this is the last phrase of verse 42.

Says this Mary's chosen what is better, and then he says, it will not be taken from her.

And I think that that's basically pointing to this idea that the temporal can crowd out the eternal in our lives.

In other words, we can let things that are here today and gone tomorrow drive our lives rather than the things that will last.

And when Jesus says, it won't be taken from her, what he's saying is, is Martha, you're creating this great meal, this great moment.

But what she's doing right now has a longer lasting impact really than what you're doing.

I've heard somebody say that what we need to do is we need to give things the hundred-year test to say, will this matter in a hundred years?

And if you don't answer yes, then it isn't really important enough to give a lot of your time to.

I don't know about that because I can't really wrap my head around a hundred years.

I think we'd do well though to give things the hundred-day test and just say, a hundred days from now, will this matter?

Will this be how I really want to spend part of my precious time?

And if we don't answer that question, yes, then in some ways what we're doing is we're letting the the temporal, the things that are just here today, gone tomorrow, impact the eternal things, the things that will ultimately live on.

And when that becomes true, then what we're doing is we're basically saying, now everything in my life is somehow so pressed in that I can't do what's most important.

Now, a couple things about all of this.

First, when it comes to spending time with Jesus, what that really is not, is it's not simply sitting and saying, whatever word comes to mind just as I sit quietly is Jesus' word.

To focus intently on the teachings, the word of somebody, means that you actually interact with what God has said through his word.

And I realize that not all of us are wired the same way.

Some of us are wired to study and to learn and to read.

And so it's really easy to do that.

Some of us are more wired to worship, to sing.

Some of us are more wired to action.

Some of us are more wired to community, and what we really need are some spiritual friendships in our lives.

But what I'm driving at here is that it's important that what we do is that we find the way that it helps us to connect with God, but we make sure that his word is at the center of it.

Because even with worship music, what you can find is that is that the worship music, you may say that really helps me, and that's great, and lean into that, but but it's still a step removed from actually encountering the word of God.

Even listening to messages is a step removed because there's a person and a filter that that's kind of serving as a bridge between you and the word of God.

So make sure that in some ways you're getting to the actual word of God and letting that speak to you.

Now, again, that doesn't mean that we don't lean into our own kind of places of growth and expression, but it means that we understand that the point of sitting at Jesus' feet is to actually let Jesus reshape our thinking.

Now, some of you may hear this and you may say, well, really, Kurt, what you're talking about here is taking this relationship with God, whatever this is, and moving it into this urgent category in such a way that now it's just another to-do in my life.

It's another should.

And what I'm trying to do right now is have fewer shoulds in my life.

So that I have more time for the things that are most important.

In fact, some of us may even feel when we hear that that it's a little hypocritical to do something that we don't feel like doing.

And I actually think that we do more of this with spiritual life than we do with anything else.

And what I mean by that is for many of us, what we'll do is when it comes to spiritual life, if we don't want to do something immediately in the moment, we don't see doing it as being authentic.

But you and I don't do that in any other area of our life.

And what I mean, and the way I know this, is because we all do things that we don't want to do today because we want what's on the other side of it.

Let me give you an example.

Have you wanted to go to work every time you've woken up and had to go to work?

Chances are the answer is no.

In fact, I know that's true.

I love what I get to do here, but there are days that I wake up and think, I don't want to go to work.

And when I wake up and say, I don't want to go to work, what do I do?

I go to work.

Why do I go to work?

Because I want what's on the other side of work.

I want the life that comes from work.

And I'm not being inauthentic by going to work.

And yet, when it comes to spiritual life, sometimes we say, well, hell, if I don't feel like it, then it's somehow inauthentic for me to drive into this and to do this and to experience this in some way.

But what it really is, is it's you saying, you know what?

I know that this important part of my life can easily be neglected because it doesn't show any immediate effect.

When Jesus says, Listen, there's one thing, one thing that you really need, and that is to sit at my feet.

Paul David Tripp writes about the reaction of sitting at Jesus' feet.

He doesn't call it that, he calls it getting a sense of the awe of God.

And he says, what happens if we don't have a sense of the awe of God is that there are negative impacts into our lives.

Here's what he writes.

He writes about self-centeredness.

He said, You see, in the crankiness of the baby, the rebellion of the little boy, the entitlement of the teenager, the demands of the young bride, and the grumbling of an old man.

If you're not living in awe of God, you're left with no higher agenda than to live for yourself.

Life really does get reduced to your wants, your needs, your feelings.

You really do become obsessed with your own happiness.

You really will see other people as standing in your way.

Dysfunction will color every aspect of your life because you are in the place where you were never created to be, at the center of it all.

When you tend to get angry, when do you tend to get angry because life hasn't worked out according to your plan?

And what he's saying is that what happens in our lives is when we don't sit at the feet of Jesus, then everything in our world becomes about us.

And we don't see the awe of God in life, but but we get annoyed with people who stand in our way, we get frustrated that God hasn't come through in some way.

And then he says that that leads to entitlement.

He says this if life has ceased to be about God and therefore has become all about you, then you will tend to live a lifestyle driven by the language of I deserve or I have a right to.

To live in awe of God means that you are motivated by his will and his honor.

What that awe is missing, when that awe is missing, you will live in pursuit of what you think you need, you deserve, or you have a right to.

And here's how this operates.

Once you think you're entitled to it, you will think that you have a right to it and you'll demand it, and you will judge the love of God and the people in your life by their willingness to deliver it.

You see, this is a is a really practical thing.

The sitting at the feet of Jesus.

It's not like you just sit and say, Oh, you know, I'm gonna have some hope of it, but it takes you to the awe of who God is and what he's about.

Now, notice in this story that the actual point of Mary and Martha is that Mary, by merely sitting, has a real encounter with God while Martha works and misses it.

See, this kind of foreshadows the whole message of the gospel.

Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9, say that it's not by works that we're saved, but it's by faith.

Ephesians 2:8

It's by grace through faith that we're saved.

In other words, the way that we come to God is not by showing all of the good things we do, but by resting in what He has done, what Jesus Christ has done on our behalf.

And what sitting at the feet of Jesus does is it causes us to stop for a moment and say, I am not about producing something, but I'm about receiving things from the goodness of God's hand.

Psalm 46, 10 says, Be still and know that I am God.

Sometimes you won't know that God is God when we're so busy running from thing to thing to thing.

Now I know that not all of us have lives that are that demanding.

Some of us are in a phase where we have time on our hands.

But we can still let the things that end up on our to-do list, our sense of what's urgent, keep us from what's most important.

So let me just for a moment, and then we'll be done.

Just tell you a little bit about how I try to live this out for myself.

And I, as I said, read that book years ago, and I have tried over the course of my life to always prioritize the things that are kind of in that quadrant, too, to say, I want to not neglect kind of my health, the key relationships in my life, and the relationship that I have with God.

And so here's here's what I try to do, and my point in telling you this is not to say do what I do, as much as it is to say, have a plan, start somewhere.

If you really believe that sitting at the feet of Jesus is important, then do something that actually gets you to do this.

And the way that we actually change in our lives is we make a decision, and then we basically say, I'm going to work on some things that I can control that are small enough for me to make a change.

So, for example, again, if you want to change something in your health, you can decide, you know what, I'm going to do four workouts a day for the next seven weeks, and you know, I'm going to drink nothing but you know protein shakes and all of that for a season.

But what happens usually if you start that way is you end up not actually achieving change.

But if you say, I'm going to start with 30, 40 minutes a day, I'm going to have some accountability, I'm going to keep track of it, then you start to change.

Experts call those lead measures.

You don't focus on the result, you focus on the process.

And that happens spiritually.

Sometimes people will hear something like this and they'll say, you know what?

I need to spend an hour a day, you know, at the feet of Jesus.

And they'll get up at five the next morning.

And they'll start with Genesis.

And by the end of the week, they're like, five's a little early, maybe six.

You've been there, you know what I'm talking about.

So here's what I have learned for me helps me to sit at the feet of Jesus on a consistent basis.

I've started to journal.

And I've been doing this for years now.

And it's really very simple.

All I do is I is I date the page, and on the page, I will say, I'm either going to record some kind of scripture, some kind of prayer, some kind of insight, maybe I'll take message notes from a message I hear.

Maybe it'll be a song lyric, but something where I have had a moment to connect with God.

And I'll simply write it down.

I don't have to take extensive notes, I don't have to do anything.

For years I didn't journal because I always thought I had to do something that was profound, like I wanted to write something that like someday if my kids found them, they'd be like, wow, what a wise dad.

I got over that.

And uh and now all I try to do is record something for me.

But but here's the key.

Before I go to bed, if I haven't done this, what I do is I simply put the date and then I say, Today I did not seek God.

Period.

And I write it down.

Now you may say, well, that seems kind of stark.

But here's what I found.

A lot of days before I write this down, I say, I should probably try to actually seek God.

Maybe I'll try to find a verse or something that gives me just a moment to sit at his feet.

Now I know how hard this is.

I mean, I'm a pastor.

I spend a good chunk of my time studying the Bible.

And this isn't the easiest thing.

But what this does is it tells me, okay, either I have spent some time and I've sat at Jesus' feet or I have not.

And you know what happens when I write this down for several days in a row?

And by the way, I start small, and what I mean by that is don't tell yourself, and you don't need to do what I do, find your own system.

But I don't tell myself this needs to be huge, that this can be just something simple.

But when I start to write this for too many days in a row, I start to say, you know what?

There's something deeper going on here, and I have my priorities out of whack.

And I want to make sure, especially doing what I do, that I'm not living on past experience, but I'm actually encountering the God of the universe by sitting at his feet.

So what that means for you, maybe, is just that you can find whatever your method is, but but somehow build in accountability to say, I am going to sit at the feet of Jesus.

Maybe for you, the idea of daily seeking is too much.

Maybe for you it's just simply saying, I'm going to be at church every weekend that I can, and I'm going to be part of a life group where we can talk and discuss these things.

We're going to be beginning some new open life groups this summer.

And maybe for you, just sitting with some other people and having just two times a week where you say, you know what, I'm going to hear a message and I'm going to discuss a message, would be the thing.

Maybe you're able to do it more frequently.

Maybe you can do it three, four times a week.

You can do that and a message and a group, and then two other times you just say, you know what, I'm going to seek God.

But if you don't have a plan, if you just kind of go about it, it's like going to the gym again with no exercise plan and just saying, Oh, I think I'll do a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of this.

And you'll never achieve the results that you want.

Now, some of you may be saying, Well, well, this is all good, but but I'm not even sure kind of where God fits in my own life.

Can I just say to you that I think if you would spend some time actually reading the words of the Bible, especially Jesus words found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that you might find that the God that you struggle to believe in is not the God of the Bible.

That the actual words of Jesus are revolutionary.

And that they can change your life.

And maybe if you'll just spend some time saying, I'm gonna sit at the feet of somebody whose teachings have changed the world and who claims to be the savior of people who will give faith, place their faith in him.

If you will do that, that then maybe you'll begin to see why so many people all around the world have come to say, This is a God that I'm going to follow and commit my life to.

And then our hope is just that as a community of people who call Orchard Hill their church home here in Wexford and in the strip district, Butler County, that that we would be people who, having sat at the feet of Jesus, demonstrated different kinds of life in the world.

One that maybe isn't as hurried and obsessed with the urgent, but can really see what's most important.

I'm gonna pray and then we're going to receive communion today.

And what we'll do is we'll open the communion tables here at front and the balcony to the back.

And if you're a follower of Jesus, we invite you to come.

And today you can just take the bread, dunk it in the wine, and take it and just say, God, I thank you that you have made it so that I don't have to work to receive from you.

And today, even in just taking communion, I'm I'm sitting at your feet, so to speak.

And letting your words define me, not the words of the world that say, I am a love child of yours because of what Jesus Christ has done.

The prayer rails will be open and the team will lead us in worship.

Father, we ask today that you would help all of us to prioritize what's most important, especially sitting at your feet.

And God, that that we would know that that is really what changes our priorities, our passions, our perspective on everything in our life and gives us the ability to live in a way that honors you.

And I pray that that would be true for all of us, and I pray it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Would you stand and respond with the team?