Sit at His Feet: Choosing What Truly Matters

What does Jesus want or most want from us? And how does God want us to speak to him?

Those are the questions which the next two conversations that Luke sets before

us today addresses from this passage we read earlier.

And in both cases, we ought not to let familiarity with famous passages just

dilute in any way the surprises that are here, the excitements that are here.

You know, Jesus had previously, as we studied, sent his disciples ahead of him, right?

In preparation for his arrival. We saw that in the same chapter,

Luke chapter 10, verses 1 through 7.

Luke 10:1–7

And now Luke tells us the story of two women who actually extend a warm welcome to Jesus in verse 38.

And Jesus, as was his custom, y'all, would have sat down and began to teach.

And Mary, if you look back in verse 39, sat where?

At the Lord's feet, right? At Jesus' feet. While her sister,

Martha, was what? According to verse 40.

Yeah, she was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made in verse 40.

How many of you can relate to Martha?

I mean, it's like, you know, what if you, I mean, Jesus came to your house, right?

Wow. I think about it too. How many can relate to Mary?

I mean, Mary was understandably, I mean, Martha, I should say,

was understandably upset about the, you could say it was not fair distribution

of chores possibly here.

And so she appealed to Jesus to intervene and actually order to make her sister

to do her fair share of the work.

I mean, she was like, you're just leading me to do all the work, right?

And so, but one of these sisters has invested all of her energies,

as we notice in this passage, in making sure that she can actually hear Jesus teach at his feet.

Well, the other one has actually invested all of her energies into serving Jesus and meeting his needs.

I mean, which one has her priorities in the right place.

That's a tough question sometimes looking at it from the outside, right?

Jesus answered, though, my surprise is because Martha, again,

had opened up her home to Jesus, had busied herself with, it says in verse 40,

much serving, much serving.

I mean, she wanted it done exactly right to the T, right?

Mary, on the other hand, is merely sitting there listening to Jesus,

sitting at his feet. And it seems that Martha should be the one in line for

Jesus's commendation, doesn't it?

I mean, look at all the work she's doing. But she certainly thought so too.

But instead, Jesus does something that is so amazing.

He actually corrects her very gently in verses 41 and 42.

What does he say again? So you're worried.

First, I was like Martha, Martha, right? You are worried and upset about many

things. but few things are needed or indeed only one thing is necessary or needed.

Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her.

These are Jesus's words.

Martha's confused about who is the one truly spreading the feast in her home. She thinks it's her.

If she would only stop for just a moment, she would see that Jesus really wants

to serve her with his teaching.

He's the one that's bringing the feast, right? And I think a lot of Christians,

many Christians, in fact, spend their days running around anxious and troubled,

consumed with things that have to get done.

I bet there's some people out here that can relate to this, right?

I mean, we got to get it done. You got the checklist, right?

The spreadsheet, whatever it is, it's got to happen.

And after all, life presents a seemingly unlimited array, right?

Total unlimited of opportunities to be busy. I mean, we don't have to work hard

to fill our calendars up, do we?

So many opportunities to be busied, hurried with the stresses of daily life.

But as we see in this next slide here, the one thing most necessary in our lives

is to invest our time in listening to Jesus's teaching.

Y'all, I don't know if you realize the gravity of this.

How many of us get busy with so much things, whether they are good things or

not, that are not the best thing or the one thing that's needed, right?

And what is the one thing again? Help me again. What does Jesus say is the one thing that's needed?

Yeah. Listening to him, listening to his teachings, being at his feet in his word, right?

And how many, I think today, y'all, and I'm just observing as we think about

our whole world, how many people being at church and listening to the teaching

of God's word, that's the last thing on their mind.

That's the first thing that'll get X'd off the calendar in favor of all the other busyness.

And as with any other relationship, our relationship with Jesus is actually

based on spending time with Him.

You know, we do that not to primarily be serving Him, but by actually getting

to know Him through His Word.

I mean, clean houses and full bank accounts, they're not going to endure or they pass the grave.

But our relationship with Jesus through his words now and face to face one day

can never be taken away from us, as he says in verse 42.

So where do our priorities lie, church?

I mean, the short story here, this short story of Mary and Martha help us to

be prepared for what's about to come in Luke's gospel here.

I mean, the disciples actually request in verse 1 of the next chapter,

in chapter 11, it illustrates what we might call from this story, the Mary principle.

They actually want more of his teaching, right?

I mean, they want more of his teaching. How many of us, again,

I have to say today, how many of us want more of Jesus and less of me, right?

How many of us want to spend more time in his word? How many of us want to spend

more time listening to Jesus' word being proclaimed.

You know, specifically, they asked Jesus to instruct them here on the topic of prayer.

And it seems that John the Baptist here had given his followers some instruction

about the mechanics of prayer.

And here, Jesus's disciples actually want access to the secrets of their master's prayer life.

And in response, Jesus gives them a model for prayer.

You're very familiar with this and

i want you to know just first off as we transition here it's a holy name,

god has a holy name when we look carefully at prayer we see that it's broken

down into five requests made to god we're going to go through those quickly

this morning first in verse 2 of chapter 11 of luke jesus teaches the disciples

to pray that god the father's name would be what,

hallowed. It simply means holy. That request is that the name of God would be

recognized and considered holy.

In the Bible, a person's name actually includes his reputation and all that's said about him.

God's name stands for all that he is, and so Jesus teaches us to pray that it would be hallowed.

And it's important to recognize, I think, this morning that Jesus is not teaching

us to tell God in prayer that his name is holy.

This is a request, not a statement about what is already true.

When we pray, Eastwood, hallowed be your name, we are actually asking God to

make the world honor his name as holy.

It's a way of making God's glory and fame our highest priority.

When we're asking him to do, we're asking him to do whatever is necessary to

make his holiness known and cherished throughout the entire world.

There's a temptation, I think, sometimes to actually think of prayer as,

you know, fundamentally our going to God for the stuff that we want and we need.

And Jesus does make it clear in verse 3 that it is appropriate to ask God for our material needs.

But this first petition here shows us that the highest priority of prayer is

the glory of God, the glory of God.

Have you ever wondered why we need to pray? Why do we need to pray?

I mean, after all, God doesn't need to be informed of our needs,

does he? He knows them far better than we do.

Instead, I want you all to get this today. Prayer is most basically about God's glory.

Everything else that Jesus will teach us about prayer has to be understood in that context.

When we pray, we're asking God to make himself known and glorious by providing

for his people, by forgiving their sins, delivering them from temptation.

Make yourself glorious, right? And then we see a coming kingdom,

a coming kingdom in this next slide. In fact, the second petition is simply

this, verse 2, what does it say?

Your kingdom come.

A prayer for what theologian Bach actually calls the full realization and the

culmination of God's promised rule.

You see, when we ask God to make his kingdom come,

we're actually imploring him

to actually rule over us so that

his kingdom purposes are accomplished in everything great and small what greater

request could there be right i mean it's essentially the prayer that jesus prayed

even right your will be done on earth as it is in heaven matthew 6 10 talks about that, right?

This is a prayer that Jesus's disciples will come to pray, actually,

until he returns and fully establishes his kingdom.

That's us. That's what we're praying, right? Your kingdom come,

your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And then what's next? Our daily bread. Our daily bread, as we see here in the next slide.

The next request is that God would, in verse 3 of Luke chapter 11,

Luke 11 · chapter mention

give us each day our daily bread.

Jesus actually, I don't know if you noticed it, but he switches to the present tense in this verse.

We're to ask God, y'all, for the things that we require on a regular basis because

we are in need of God's provision, aren't we?

Daily. Sometimes I think here in the good old USA, we forget that sometimes

because that phrase actually calls to mind though here to the experience of

Israel in the wilderness, where the Lord, if you remember,

he miraculously provided what each morning? Remember?

Manna or b'manna bread, as Keith Green used to say, right?

Every morning. I mean, God has proven that he can and will care for his people's

practical needs. And so Jesus is encouraging us here to ask him for it.

But how often do we need to depend on him?

Daily, daily. I mean, how easy is it for us today, though, in the flesh sometimes

to think that when we've been blessed in some way or something happens,

that somehow we don't need to go to Jesus every day.

We got it all under control.

And it just seems like sometimes, though, when the world falls apart or a teeny

little something happens or a teeny little thing in the body goes wrong,

then we think, oh, I need God, right?

He's saying here, no, we need him every day. We need him every day.

Everything, all of our needs. In fact, in an economic environment like that

of first century Palestine here, many people didn't have vast stores of food to count on.

It's not like they had the pantry full, right? They quite literally we're in

need of bread every day and an experience that I think is foreign to many people

in the USA today I'm not saying to everybody but I think many people don't have

to worry about what you're going to eat tonight.

But our stocked pantries, they don't mean that we are somehow less dependent on every day on God.

Don't miss that, Eastwood, than people were in this day.

Instead, it's likely that we're simply less aware of our need than people were in Jesus' day.

You see, supermarkets full of food, large houses, and the developments of modern

society and medicine, And I think sometimes they can serve to dull our sense of dependence on God.

The truth of the matter is, church, if it were not for him, like I said to open

up this morning, you wouldn't have woke up breathing this morning.

That's how dependent we are on God. Our every breath, everything that goes on

in your body, every system that God designed is dependent upon him.

So if we think about this, oftentimes it's only when a crisis hits that we feel

acutely aware of how dependent we are on him.

And only then do we think, you know, we're kind of prodded to pray,

but it shouldn't be that way, should it?

Jesus encourages us to go to God how often? Daily.

Acknowledging, church, our dependence on him, asking for his provision in everything.

And you know what else? This is really awesome. Our sins are forgiven. Amen. In Christ.

The fourth request there, verse four, is that God would what?

Forgive our sins, basically.

I mean, Jesus' followers here are acutely aware of their failures,

their shortcomings. We saw that back in chapter six, verse 41.

And so they know that they must appeal to God for forgiveness.

And it may be a more subtle need, maybe here that we require this daily mercy

from God every bit as much as we need him to give us our daily bread.

I want y'all to get that today.

If we hope, church, to experience God's forgiveness, we should be willing to

extend forgiveness to everyone who sins against us.

Got to say that again. If we hope to experience God's forgiveness,

we should be willing to extend forgiveness to everyone, scripture says, who sins against us.

Jesus isn't suggesting that God should be expected to forgive us only to the

extent that we've forgiven other people who've sinned against us,

none of us are so forgiving that we can merit God's patience and grace.

Instead, Jesus is making an argument here for the lesser to the greater.

Since even sinful people like you and me forgive others, we can confidently

ask a merciful God for forgiveness.

But equally, as we see in this next slide, if we do not forgive others,

we show that we have not really received forgiveness from God.

For if we've experienced the greater forgiveness, we will display the lesser

forgiveness, however hard or costly that may be to those around us.

Don't you forget that. This is Bible. This is the Word of God.

If we don't forgive others, we show we have not really received forgiveness from God.

We don't understand God's forgiveness.

Y'all, I know some of this is hard teaching. There may be some of you here that

are thinking about, well, you know, I thought about forgiving somebody or you

just don't understand the situation.

You haven't understood the gospel. You haven't understood your situation before

God, filthy, dirty sinner in need of saving.

You haven't understood the mercy and grace of God that it took to forgive you of your sin.

If you had, you would forgive others freely because you would realize that you

are naked and undone spiritually at the foot of the cross.

As D.L. Moody said, the ground is level at the foot of the cross.

And then we also have help and temptation, don't we? The final request here

in Jesus's prayer is a petition for spiritual protection that God would what in verse 4 of chapter 11?

He would lead us not into temptation.

The wording there might make it seem that we're supposed to ask God to kindly

refrain from trying to trip us up with temptation to sin.

But we know, in fact, according to God's word, James 1.13 actually tells us

that God never tempts anyone.

Instead, here in this passage, Jesus is actually encouraging us to express an

attitude that acknowledges that we need God's help and we need his protection in times of temptation.

It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 10, 13, right?

In fact, we see a user's guide really here.

A question that Christians have asked is this, how should we use this prayer?

You know, is it meant to be something that we repeat verbatim?

That just means, you know, word for word as the substance of our prayers?

Or should we just understand it as simply a model for prayer,

showing us what kind of things that we should be taking to the Lord in prayer?

Get ready. I think the answer is most likely both.

Jesus seems here to have expected that the disciples would have repeated this prayer verbatim.

How do I know that? because he introduces his teaching with these instructions

in verse 2. He said, when you pray, say.

So it's certainly appropriate for all of us to pray these exact words,

especially in the worship of the local church.

Notice, though, this is a corporate prayer, right?

Forgive us our sins. In fact, in Matthew's gospel, the prayer comes in the context

of a warning about the mindlessly repetitive prayers of the pagans. Remember that?

And there Jesus actually frames his teaching in terms of the manner in which

his followers ought to pray.

He says in Matthew 6, 9, this then is how you should pray.

But we can also use Jesus's teaching here to actually inform about the priorities,

right? That should shape our prayers.

Godly prayer, Eastwood, is not merely a grown-up version of a child's Christmas list for Santa,

but it's a plea for God's glory to be spread and for his grace and mercy to

be made manifest in our lives, the lives of others, right?

So what's the motivation for prayer? I mean, it's one thing to know how to pray,

but having the motivation to pray is another thing altogether.

If I were to ask this question today, how much time do you spend in prayer every day?

I think probably some of us here would be ashamed to say the answer.

So what should be our motivation to pray? Many Christians have been taught how to pray,

but for some reason they just don't do it all that often, except in times of

crisis, as we were talking about earlier, or when they want something really

bad and they're just trying to get God to somehow make it happen, right?

And so Jesus follows up his teaching on how to pray here by helping us to see

why we ought to pray in the first place.

And I just want to say this today, beginning with this one fact.

You know why you should be motivated to pray?

Because God is your Father.

God is our Father. God is our Father. Did you get that today?

If you know Jesus Christ, you're a child of Almighty God.

God is your Father. What greater motivation?

I mean, the centuries, I think, have diluted the shock of Jesus's address here in the Lord's Prayer.

But in John 15, actually chapter 5, I think, verse 18, it was not at all normal

for a first century Jew to call God Father.

But not only does Jesus call God his Father, in Luke 11, verse 2 here,

Luke 11:2

he instructs us to do it as well.

Wow. I mean, we ought to be motivated to pray, Eastwood, by the fact that God is our loving Father.

The importance of that fact for our prayer life, I think it's immediately apparent, right?

I mean, as we see in this passage even, For human fathers want the best for their kids, right?

I mean, fathers don't withhold good things from their children.

No dad would respond to a request for food with something harmful or dangerous

like it talks about verses 11 and 12 of this passage.

If that's the case among human fathers who are prone to sin,

who are prone to weakness.

How much more, church, can we be certain that God will give us every good thing

that we need when we ask him for it.

After all, he is our father.

That's the greatest gift of all. And it's one of the many of God's children,

I think here, that we aren't even aware sometimes that we should be asking for.

The greatest gift of all, it says in verse 13 here, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The gift of the Holy Spirit. And like I said, it's one that we should be asking

for from our Father and walking in His ways, walking in the Spirit.

We might say that when God's children ask Him for help or ask for the wrong

motives sometimes or even things,

He gives them the very best gifts or perhaps the very best gift, singular, right?

We want His will done in everything. He knows what's best for his kids, right?

So if you just get that concept today about why should I pray?

If you're a Christian, God is your father.

How could your heavenly father who is perfect and holy and just ever give you

or answer prayer in any way that would harm you?

How could his answer in any way not be for his glory and your good?

You see, look quickly in verse five through eight though, the story about the

friend who arrives at midnight.

I got to ask just real quick. Anybody ever had somebody rap on your door after

midnight? Did you like it?

All right. I mean, it illustrates the way this works, though.

The story is a bit strange, but to our modern ears, I think,

but the point is simple, right?

Imagine if your neighbor woke you up at midnight to borrow a cup of sugar.

How many would be happy about that one, right? And you probably would be fairly

annoyed, but you would probably also give them the sugar that they asked for.

The sheer audacity of the request here is what causes it to succeed.

In the same way, the friend doesn't give his neighbor the bread that he seeks

out of the goodness of his heart, does he?

But rather, what does it say in verse 8? Because he has been asked with impudence. So.

Right? I mean, and if audacious asking brings results in the realm of human

friendship, how much more so when it comes to our heavenly Father?

You see, God is never annoyed or impatient when we come to him with our needs, right?

I mean, so when we knock on the door of heaven, church, church in prayer, guess what?

We find it opened for us. When we seek the help of our Heavenly Father, we find it.

When we ask in prayer for the help that we need, we're sure to receive it,

it says in verses 9 and 10.

If we don't pray much, if you do not pray much, maybe you don't take seriously

the fact that God is your Heavenly Father.

Maybe you hadn't wrapped your mind around that maybe he

isn't possibly maybe you're going through the motions and you've never surrendered

to christ god knows your heart but i can tell you today one thing for sure if

he's not your father his your heavenly father he can be today if you know we

stop and we think about this,

maybe we think that god's not willing to hear our prayers.

Maybe deep down, we believe that it doesn't matter whether we ask or not even.

But I want y'all to let Jesus's words here in this passage, let it encourage you.

Let it encourage us as a church here at Eastwood right now to pray.

Your Father, get this today, your Father is ready to hear you and to bless you.

And you can trust him with the answer to your request.

How many of us today need to pray? Maybe there's something you've been holding back on.

Maybe there's something that maybe you've let things in your busy schedule crowd

out your dependence upon holy God.

Maybe there's things that you thought, hey, man, I've got it all under control.

I'm going to handle this. And it's kind of like you're in that fight.

Anybody ever watch wrestling before, right?

You're in that fight, and it's almost like it's you and Jesus.

He's your tag team partner. That's how we view it sometimes, right?

Lord, I got it. I got it. You know, and we start fighting and wrestling and

we start trying to conquer all the problems and all the things.

And it's like, oh, when I really can't do it anymore, when I get to the end

of my rope, then I'll reach out as far as I can and tag Jesus to come in.

But what we don't realize, y'all, the scripture says it's Christ in me.

Not Christ in me is the hope of glory is Christ

in me that's the hope of glory he's the

one that fights the fight the battle belongs to the Lord right he's the one

that does that in and through us at times but he's the one who does it I want

you to know today don't view your relationship like I'm tagging Jesus it's me

and Jesus because I'm gonna tell you according to this passage like I said.

It's Jesus. It's Christ in you, the hope of glory.

And when you realize that, when we all realize that today, boy,

what a motivation to pray.

What a motivation to sit at the feet of the one who loves us that way.

He would never give his children anything that would harm them.

How many of us believe that today?

God's not going to, if you're his child, he's not going to give you something

that's going to hurt you.

He's not going to allow you to go through something that is not necessary to

benefit you for your good and his glory.

I'm not saying everything's pain-free. I'm just telling you,

God has your best at heart.

He is there with you. And when he allows us to go through the troubled waters,

through the deep waters, he is there with us. He upholds us.

We have a God who is with us. Hallelujah. Emmanuel.

Don't try to fight the fight alone. Don't try to live this life that God has

called you to live alone.

Don't forget. If you don't remember anything else as we head out these doors

today, remember this. God is your Father.

Ask Him. Seek Him. He wants what's best for you.

Father God, right now, I just ask in our midst, Lord, that you would move mightily,

Lord, that, God, you would challenge each of our hearts in your spirit. God, help us to pray.

Help us to seek your face. Help us to sit at your feet, Lord,

listening to your word, spending time in your word, realizing,

Lord, really, of all the stuff we get distracted by, there's really only one thing that's needed.