Seated to Serve - Kingdom Worship

Thanks for checking out the anchor faith message podcast

from St. Augustine, Florida. Now

enjoy this message. So any Ephesians chapter four

to verse four Ephesians two, four, let's read this

together says this, but God being rich in mercy because

of his great love of which he loved us. Even

when we were dead and our trans, transgression made us

alive together with Christ by grace. You

have been saved and raised us up with him and seated

us, right? And seated us with him in

heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the ages

to come, not just this age only in the ages to come,

he might show the surpassing riches of his

grace in kindness towards us. In

Christ Jesus four by grace, you have been saved through

faith. It is not of yourself. It

is a gift of God, not as a result of works so that

no one may boast for we are his what workmanship.

All right. Created

in Christ for good works. So

again, you couldn't independently do something

and say, God, you have to accept me. I've

done it good enough. You couldn't do that because

your nature was ungodly. We've

all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

However, once we are born again by

grace, but how through faith, faith activates the

grace. Now we have the ability because

our spirit man is alive to God to do works that are

pleasing to him because our nature is like his. Cause

God himself works. I'm going to say that again.

God himself works. Work

is not a bad word. Hallelujah.

Amen. So we should all be working.

Now our working did not make

us right with God. Our working proves we're already

right with God. Hallelujah. Jesus came down on the

earth. Why? To do a work. He

said, I've come to destroy the works of the devil.

Well, the devil has works. Jesus

had works. He said, if you see me doing

something, it's only cause I've heard from the father.

He said, if you don't even

believe that I am Jesus and I'm the son of God,

I'm the Messiah. He said, believe the works.

Well, who was doing those works?

He was. And

how was he doing them under grace? Cause

Jesus was full of grace. Hallelujah.

So there's an aspect of grace, not the first grace

that we introduced, God introduced us to, which was

a unmerited favor. We did not deserve what Jesus

did based upon our own merit. We

deserve to be judged and cast into the lake of

fire, which is the second death, but God wanting to

fulfill his word, let man have dominion and being our

likeness that after Adam fell out of dominion, he

said, well, I'll send another man, my son in the

form of a man to get back what Adam lost. So

man would have the opportunity again. Now,

if man don't want to accept it, he didn't have

to, but he won't be able to look at me and say,

well, Adam fell. And then all of a sudden, all

of us were made in his image now, the fallen

state. There's no way I could have gotten

right to sitting right. Why am I being, you know,

because of his first failure? You're

Jesus like, I'll take care of that. I'm

going to fix it, but you'll still have to

confess me. You'll still have to choose that.

So a finished work of Jesus

doesn't even come to your account until you do

something. It's called a work of faith.

And that is you believe that

Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the

grave, right? That he was, you know, born of

a virgin and he paid the price for our sin and you

proclaim him Lord of your life, which is supreme in

authority. And now he has the right to

tell you what to do. Hallelujah.

Amen. So with that being said, we

are created for good works that God prepared beforehand

so that we could walk in them. And

notice verse six said, we're seated with him. Now,

this position of being seated with him means that

we are in his authority. We

have his authority. Are you hearing me? But

again, you cannot function in his authority correctly

if you're not hearing from him. The

authority we have is called delegated power. If

it's delegated, that means it comes from a different

source. You can abuse power. You

can walk in authority abusively, but you can't

abuse God's power if you're always listening to him on

how to appropriate it. In order for you to

appropriate it correctly, you have to do what Jesus

did. Be seated, meaning you got to

come at the feet of Jesus and listen in order for

you to then act. Jesus himself, all the miracles

that we read about him, all the miracle signs and

wonders that he did, they are a result of a seated

position, meaning he would go to the mountain or he

would go out by himself and what pray? He

would spend time with the Father. In

essence, he would be at his Father's feet, receive

an instruction by the Holy Ghost on things to do.

That way, then, when he went

out and got into service and began to serve, he was

only serving what he heard while he was seated. So

Jesus knew when it's time to be seated and listen,

I'm going to listen, and then when it's time to

act, I'm going to go act and serve. Now

my serving has power because I've listened first.

So Jesus didn't just go around

doing a bunch of work without listening. In

fact, he could have not done the works he did if

he was not connected to the Father. Or

at least he couldn't have done them righteously. I

mean, Jesus is making statements like this, we've

got to do this so that scripture can be fulfilled.

That's because he heard scripture.

That's because it's been revealed

to him. That's because he listened. I

mean, he doesn't overcome the temptation of the devil

if he's not first listening to the Holy Spirit. Who's

leading him? So Jesus was a great listener.

He would be able to sit and

hear before he acted. In essence, he could turn off

when it was necessary, doing for the sake of

listening. And both are necessary. You

can't just listen and not do. James

says, okay, you're going to hear the word and not be

a doer of it? Well, you're deceived. So

if Jesus only would have sat at the feet of the

Father, oh, I miss heaven. Oh,

I miss you Lord, I miss being in your presence. I'm

just going to stay on this mountain forever. The

Father been like, well, then why did I send you?

You're not just sitting here, son.

You're not just going to sit

here. I mean, could you imagine

Jesus when he gets transfigured? You

know, when Peter, James and John's with him and he's

like, man, he's shining bright. That

is like, isn't this amazing the presence of God? It

is so amazing. I just love being in his

presence. I'm right here at his feet.

I'm listening to him. He's

talking to me. I'm not going back down. If

all he wanted to do is listen to his Father, then

his life on earth would have been a deceptive life.

James said, if you're here of

the word and not a doer of the word, you live

deceived. So we were never supposed to

just sit and listen. Right. We listen so we can do,

James says, be a doer of the word. Not

just a hearer, only. There's

a time to listen or sit at the feet of Jesus, so

to speak, so that we can receive instruction and then

there's a time to go and serve. But

then some get over and start doing without

listening, which means then they're doing stuff that

God's not even authorizing. And

then they stay so busy doing, they quit listening.

Then they just become a busy

body, but saying they're serving the Lord. And

they serve so much that they get aggravated when

other people are not serving. Now

everybody should serve, but everybody should equally

listen, which brings us to Luke chapter 10. In

Luke 10 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 10 starting verse 38, it says, now as

Luke 10 · chapter mention

they were traveling along, he entered a village and a

woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She

had a sister called Mary who was seated at the

Lord's feet. Where was she at? Seated

at the Lord's feet. What was she doing? Listening

to his word. But Martha was distracted with

all her preparations. She came up to him that she's

and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has

left me to do all the serving alone? Then

tell her to help me. But the Lord answered and said

to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered

about so many things, but only one thing is necessary

for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not

be taken away from her. Okay?

Now I'm gonna break some things down so we don't

get ditched in this message. All

right? But let me read out the

passion translation first. Passion

translation says it this way, and as Jesus and his

disciples continued on their journey, they came to a

village where a woman welcomed Jesus into her

home. Her name was Martha and she

had a sister named Mary. Mary

sat down attentively before the master, absorbing every

revelation he shared. But Martha became exasperated by

finishing the numerous household chores in

preparation for her guest. So

she interrupted Jesus and said, Lord, don't you think

it's unfair that my sister left me to do all the

work by myself? You should tell her to get up

and help me. The Lord answered, Martha, my

beloved Martha, why are you upset and troubled? Pulled

away by all these many distractions. Are

they really that important? Mary

has discovered the one thing most important by

choosing to sit at my feet. She

is undistracted. I won't take this privilege

from her. Now the first thing I want you

to know is that serving is a requirement. Number

one, so we are not gonna take this out of context

and say we should, see that's the problem, Martha

just was serving, she should just be listening.

Well, Jesus said I'm the servant.

So you can't go there, that's

why we read the whole Bible. Right,

so you can't just go to this one thing and go to

your pastor and say, you know what, I'm not gonna

serve anymore. I just need to be in

service. Well, you need to be in service.

And if the church does right,

which we do, we schedule you, right? Now

ushers may be on every service, but they're sitting

listening. I mean, you're in the

service. That's not a hard task. You

wear a different shirt, you got a different, fewer

response, but you get to listen to the message.

You're not in the children's,

where you're not in the service. And

you have to pick it up later on, on our podcast

or YouTube, whatever, wherever we're at, which

actually, and we're gonna start filming all of our

services, just let y 'all know. Okay,

anyway, with that being said, people, well, I just

need to sit. Well, if you just need to sit,

it's because you have failed somewhere. Now

I'm not saying you failed in sin, I'm just saying if

you're ready to get out of serving, this is a problem.

So this is not saying just

listen. Because Jesus said, if you wanna

be great, you're gonna have to be the servant of all.

Hallelujah. But what does this mean?

Well, the first thing we wanna

look at is this, and I'm break it down, receiving

Jesus does not mean you're hearing Him. Because

Martha received Him into her home, but she was not

listening to Him. So here's Jesus present in her

house, but she's busy doing something else while he's

talking. The next thing we learn is

serving Jesus does not mean you're hearing Him. This

is why a lot of times when people join the

church, they wanna get involved here and here and

here and here and well, this involvement in this

area and this involvement in this area and this

involvement in this area means there's additional

meetings there, and that at the end of the day, we

can get you so involved that you're always out

serving that you're in the church, but you're not even

listening to Jesus anymore. And

in fact, we monitor, we watch the congregation, if

they only show up when they're scheduled to serve,

and we do not see them in service when they're not

scheduled, this is a problem. That

means we're having a conversation because all of

a sudden, why do you not wanna hear from Jesus?

Amen? Because when you're not

scheduled, it's your time to come be at His feet.

Now, I'm not Jesus and I'm not

implying that, so please don't take it that way,

but this is where we communicate the heart of

God, the things of God, the spirit of God moves,

the gifts of the spirit of getting operation, the

ministering of the word, the spirit of God does

revealing. So at this point, this is

your time to sit and listen and receive in order

to go do and serve. And serving is not just

connected with the church and I'll break that down

here in a minute anyway. Now,

I ministered, I spoke this message to our staff

because they have a bigger challenge than you do. And

that is they must not confuse their work with

their worship, because unlike you who does not

work here full time or part time, you don't see

these walls as often as they do, which means then

it can get kinda clouded where I'm always there. And

all of a sudden, the time they wanna take off is

when they should be at His feet. That's

good. So they begin to think, well,

I'm employed, I do this because I serve God, so

I'm here all the time, but while you're working, you're

not listening. You're focused on your assignment.

And that in and of itself is

not the only way that we're serving God, okay? It

can become work so much that we're like, I don't

even wanna be here. And the time you don't wanna

be here is when you're supposed to come and

worship Him, participate in singing praises to Him, and

then receiving the word where you're just not

thinking about what's going on. And

here's the thing, and our staff, what I have to

watch and monitor them is that are they thinking

about what they're supposed to be doing or are they

in areas somewhere? While service is going on, cause

they're trying to get ahead for the week. I'm

not asking you to get ahead of the week. In

fact, your week could be better if you'll come sit

at His feet. Cause you're seated to serve.

Because if you just try to serve,

serve, serve, you're no longer connected to the

listening part of the church you're assigned to,

and then the things you're serving will be of your

own opinion and your own direction, and then they'll

become conflict. Because you're taking God in a

direction He's not even going. You're

trying to take Him on a path He's not going. It

seems right to you, but it's not what He's saying.

So serving Him, Jesus, doesn't

mean that you're hearing Him. And

a lot of people like to go to churches and just

get involved, but they don't actually wanna apply

anything they hear. Hallelujah.

That becomes a problem. So you yourself have to

understand, don't confuse work with worship. Because

here's the thing, you have the same challenge. Many,

and if I ask you to show me hands, I'd probably get

quite a few of you, that you've sat in the service

and thought about work. Cause

you just came off of something, something was

going on, and you're sitting there, and you're

taking notes about what you need to do. You're

in the service, but you're not listening because you're

thinking about tomorrow, or you're still thinking about

the problem that you had would work. So

at the end of the day, you are Martha when you

should be married. Because you're distracted. Now

I get it, apparently Martha at the end of the day

wanted her house to be in a certain way since she

received her guest in. I understand that, my wife's

that way. My wife has the standard, she

wants that house to look when people come, and in

my mind I'm like, well it's a big deal. Now

on some sides, yes, but on others I'm like, you know,

like when my kids come over, I'm like, you need

to blow off the front entrance. I'm

like, why? They're my kids. I

mean, if they get all upset about a little bit

of leaves, I mean, come on, right? But

I'm like, I'll do it in the morning cause I'm not

gonna do it tonight. I'll do it before service then.

Can't guarantee something won't

blow up on them before. Right?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not acting like that's

a problem. I mean, I want my stuff to

look good and I'm thankful that my wife has a very

high standard. You know, but in the whole

grand scheme of things. But the kids come over because

you know, we're all eating and I'm like, oh, I forgot

to blow off the front, I better go do that. I

mean, it's a little irrelevant now. For

principles sake, but here's how people get locked in.

I've got to finish, I got to

do this, I got to finish this, I got to do this.

And they get so locked in that

they don't, they miss the moment they're in. And

a lot of times we have a hard time turning Martha

off when we should be married. Right?

And here's the thing, again, you work somewhere

else. So coming to the building

isn't as often as our employees, you know, so I

have to remind our employees, look, the

building is not a substitute and your work

schedule is not a substitute for you coming

to church and serving as a church member. It's

not a substitute. And you can't say, well, I do

more than anyone else. You know, you're paid by God

to be a part of the vision this way, but

there's still a whole church side that's totally

different. And if you're confused into

two, that's a problem. And then if you want me to

pay you because you're doing like stuff, that's

even a bigger problem. Because

now you've reduced me to a paycheck and you've

forgotten your relationship with God. You

know, there's many churches now that have paid

musicians. Honestly, we have paid musicians.

What do I mean by that? Some

of our musicians work for us full time that I pay

them to do that, something else, but yet they also

play. And because I pay them to do

something else, if I wanted to use them during the

week or something, I could technically because they're

employed here, but they don't get extra money just

to play here. Because at the end of the day, I

don't want an entertainer. I

don't want an entertainer. I

don't want to pay for perfection and miss the

anointing. At the end of the day. So

there are certain things that's like, well, just

show me your heart. Because if we've reduced everything

to the church, and here's another thing that happens.

Well, you know, this is where

you would have a challenge. Well,

you know what? They have staff, they can do

it. That's what they're paid to do.

Well, there's still a church

that's outside of the staff. And

there's things to do beyond that. Because

again, if you reduce the church to the paid staff,

then again, you can't come unless you're paid. Well,

then who are you actually serving? Which

brings us back to Martha. Because

Jesus said, you can't serve two masters for your loved

one and hate the other. And

you can find yourself coming to church, being in

church, because you know you should be, but you're

not actually listening to Jesus while you're here,

because you're still thinking about what's been

going on at your work. So who are you actually

serving? Because you're not disconnecting and

saying, I'm not even gonna think about it. You

know, for some of you, you should probably go to a

paper Bible, because the electronic one is such a

distraction during service. Because

it's keeping you from being a Mary, because you're

checking in on all your social activity, or other

things for that matter, which is a distraction when

you should be a Mary. Mary in the past, she says she

was attentively listening to the revelation. Again,

at the end of the day, we have to be intentional in

these moments. Because again, I'm not here to

waste your time. You shouldn't waste your time.

God's definitely not here to

waste your time. God is to empower you and

release your gift. But in order for you to

release your gift, you have to be willing to sit and

listen, and then know that he's empowering you with

information, or really revelation, of who he is

and who you are, so that you can serve better. Amen.

So God's not rebuking Martha because she's a

server. What he's saying to her is that

you've put your serving over listening, and that's

what time it is now. Are you hearing me? All

right. So one must learn how to

engage the worship, and forget about all they need

to do for work the next day. You've

got to learn how to do that.

If you're always thinking about

work, this is how I know you are. You

get offended at those who come in freely worship.

Because Martha was offended at Mary

just sitting there. You've got a lot going on, trial

and tribulation, you're bringing them into church,

and instead of having an ear to hear, you're

watching people freely just engage God, and you're not

engaging, so you get offended. Look

at that. Especially if you have people that

are part of your business that attend church too,

because you have influenced them to come and they did.

And then they worship and

you're like, well, they have no idea what it

takes. Guess what? You're

distracted by your work, and you're upset that your

employee has become a Mary when you should be a Mary

too. As far as the employees of

Anchorage Church, they have no idea. And

then let me go over to the congregation. You

have no idea of things that we deal with, because

you're not supposed to. But at the end of the day, in

fact, something just happened tonight before I

came on the platform. And I said, if that's true,

then this is what's gonna happen. But

it didn't stop me from being Mary. Because

at the end of the day, that will be taken care

of. I'm not gonna be concerned

about it. That's take care of itself, I've

called why the head of the church is taking care of

it. At the end of the day, he's

awesome. Yeah, so I can engage him. Cause

again, my worship to him can give me insight to

situations that are going on when I need to get

them. Because listening is what serves

better. In essence, he's saying, look,

Martha, if you would quit being distracted by your

stuff and come listen to me, then when you go back,

when it's time, then you're gonna be better at, you

gotta have a better attitude. You're

gonna be better equipped. I mean, how could you go

back to work frustrated if you came to church on

Sunday? Because if you came to church on

a Sunday and went to work Monday and was mad, but

something that was last week, then you didn't

listen when you came to church. Same

in anyway. I mean, if you've got

something going on, you know what, your job now,

we could go, let's get out of jobs. Let's

just go to home life. Distractions

are you allowing things to go through your mind that

you're trying to figure certain things out, how to

take care of certain things when you should just be

listening. And a lot of times we want to

get an answer about what we're in right now in the

Lord's life. That's irrelevant. Because

at the end of the day, he already has the answer. He

already knows what to do. He

already knows when he can release it to you and when

he wants to release it to you. Because

you know, some situations, God has no problem with it

going on because it proves your character. Okay,

no, nobody will apparently hear this now. I

don't know what's happening. Jesus

said you'll have trials and tribulations. He

didn't say I will remove the trial immediately. He

never says that. I'm with you in it because you

being in it lets me know that you still trust me.

It's not my issue. I

got it. And you just need to stay

solid in it. Because he's a lamp into your

feet, a light into your path. He

will walk with you through the valley of the shadow

of. A valley is not one step,

people. Wow, that was the quickest

valley I've ever been. And no, valleys are long.

They're mountain ranges on each

side. It takes time to get through

a valley. But God's with you the whole

time, which means you can walk through a valley. It

seemed like everything's falling apart. But

for you, it seemed like it's been awesome. Even

though the environment is there, but because you know

how to listen, sit at his feet, hear what he's

saying, and then serve into the next step. So

during services, we must learn how to turn Martha's

off. Must learn how to turn it off.

I'm not gonna say that there

isn't the occasional interruptions. Can

that happen? Sure, I understand that. We're

not looking for, it's perfect. You

never miss out on a moment, that there's never

an emergency or something happened that pulls you,

that can happen, no problem. But

if it's constant, next thing you know, you're more

concerned, well, I, you know, we got this going on

and it's going on so much that you can't even sit

and listen anymore. That's when it becomes a problem.

Now as far as the church in

the realm of church, we monitor this. We

look at your serving, we look at what's going on.

We're asking those questions, you

know? And in some aspects, we're even

seeing your engagement. Now at the end of the day, I

can't tell your heart other than the Holy Ghost telling

me what's in your heart and how you're responding,

you know? Cause the person can shout and

scream and be just as disconnected. I

get that, someone can run and be disconnected. I

understand that. However, you know your heart. And

you know if you're fully engaged and you've let

everything else about today, tomorrow, next month, not

be a problem right now. I'm

not sure. Although God's not obligated to

answer your problem right out the gate, although he

will answer it. Sometimes he just says, well, how

much are you just attentive to me? Cause

again, Jesus said in the realm of serving. The

greatest is the servant of all. Jesus

did that. He laid down his life for

you. Now he's Lord, so who should

be doing the serving? Obviously

us, and it was always been us. And

you'll never stop Jesus from serving you cause he's

gonna do that. However, you should be just as

adamant about serving him. And

one sway of serving, it's kind of like ironic, is

you listen. You listen. Because

the king's saying, at this point, stop doing, just

come and sit here. Now being at his feet, you

can't pick what that moment is. What

do I mean by that? Obviously

you can't say, well, I wish this worship, I mean,

I wish the singing would get done so we can get to

the preaching. Well, singing is a foot moment.

You should participate in that.

You should lift your hands. You

should sing with your mouth. You

should be engaged. It's your worship to God. And

he's worthy of it. Not, you know, I need him to

say something to me. I wish he'd get to the word.

I wish I, no, you need to

just, cause you could get a word in the midst. Of

you just worshiping him. I'm

just in your presence right now. Corporately

speaking, you understand. Cause

I mean, God goes with us everywhere we go cause he

lives in us, right? Okay, so when one does not turn,

does not know how to turn off Martha, then they will

fail to discern being at the feet of Jesus is

better. I heard a guy a long time

ago, and that's when I first started moving into

the Pentecostal church that was, it was the assembly

God that I went to. And this guy just hated this

story, be honest with you, cause he was just, he was

a serving junkie. He just wanted to serve. And

he was so adamant that, you know, this issue here

in this story makes it look like, you know, God

doesn't want people to serve. And

that is not a true statement. God

wants us to serve, but he equally wants us to listen

when he says, hey, I'm talking, you need to stop.

The New Testament actually

describes another group that is under the guise of

serving, but he calls it a different term. He

says they're busy bodies. They're

busy bodies. So they're always given the

appearance, they're doing something, but they're

actually not doing anything. And

whatever what they're doing is they're avoiding

listening. Cause here's the thing about

being at his feet. Jesus is going to talk to you.

And he's going to tell you

what you need. He's going to tell you what's

best for you. And some of those conversations,

we don't always like to hear. So

sometimes it's easier to be a Martha because it avoids

us from hearing. Cause every time I go to

service, it's, you know, have you ever heard

someone, every time I go to service seem like

they're always talking about, well, it's cause you

finally showed up again and we are still pounding on

the one thing you're not dealing with. Cause

obviously it's only happening when you're in.

So it must be for you. Every

time I go to that church, all they do is talk about

money. Well, it must be about you. You

must have a money problem. And

God always makes me go there because I can give

you plenty of services. We don't even talk about

money. Right? Cause it's easy to get

busy cause busy will allow you not to listen. Again,

my wife made the statement here during prayer. She

says, you know, when you're talking to your children or

you're either giving them instruction or correcting

them, one or the other and you see them in the room,

but they're not intently engaged in you and you

make the statement. Are you listening to me? So

you know they're hearing you, but they're not

attentive to understand what you're saying. Right.

And you understand, we can get in here and get busy

under the guys we're doing something or just out and

about in our own work. We want to go to work. We

want to get there. We want to get there because

why? I really don't want to get

here. And a lot of times it is true

you're working, but why are you working so much? Is

it to avoid hearing? Because

when you become Martha only, it's easy for you to

see your accomplishments. It's

easy. Martha can say, okay, I've done

this, I've done that, got this done. I

mean, she had a list. She goes to Jesus and says,

you should tell Mary to get up and come help me

with my list. Cause we can't stop till the

list is done. And the thing about hearing

from God is God will mess up your routine. Yes?

He'll mess up your routine because at the end of the

day there's only one routine we should have.

His. When he's Lord, if he's

like, hey, I want you to go do this today. Okay.

Well, who you serving? Who are we listening to? So,

you know, for, so a lot of congregation members, the

challenge you have is that you can get so involved in

work, which is serving that capacity that you pull

yourself out of church, serving the body, but then

also, but more importantly, you're not listening. Cause

I can tell you right now, having something on the

radio doesn't mean you're listening to it. Cause

I know what you're all doing. I

know what you're all doing when it comes to your

Bible reading. You're for the ones that have the

audio, you're listening to it. Cause

in your Bible reading, you're like, man, I'm, you

know what I'm gonna do? I'm

gonna play that. Now, hearing is awesome cause

faith comes by. So there's nothing wrong with

you listening unless you're not listening. It's

there, but it became background noise to your

project or whatever you're doing that's keeping you

from stopping and either going through your

electronic device or flipping your pages. Right,

right. So for me, if I'm going to

listen to the Bible, number one, I'm gonna put it

right here in my ears. So there is nothing else that

is out there to hear. Number

one, number two, then I have to be conscious, and

I am conscious of whether or not I got something

like I'm aware of where I'm at in the guy talking

to me. Now there are some places that

are easier for me to be very attentive, driving in

the vehicle is that cause I'm not locked in, but I'm

not so locked into traffic that I can't be locked

into what I'm hearing. We've

kind of conditioned ourselves to hear that way

in one sense. So it's a good place for me

to do it. But to have it at the house

just open where you can hear, man, we could be

five chapters in, I'm like, what? Well,

that was a waste of time because I'm gonna have to

go back and read it anyway now. Right,

because my busyness has kept me from being married.

Married, you know, and I realized

there's a lot of believers out there that genuinely,

they do love God. I'm not questioning someone

loving God in the general sense, okay? I'm

not getting in the biblical sense of loving him, just

in the general sense, you know, they're not there to

not to just be anti -God. I

don't want nothing to do with you. I

understand that's not their attitude. However,

some of the ways they're trying to act like they're

being closer, they're actually not being closer

at all because they're not being attentive at his

feet. In essence, they're not being

seated to hear so that it makes a change so that I

can be somewhere else. Are you hearing me? And

I'm gonna tell you, hear from God when you learn

how to sit at his feet, opens up a lot. I'll

give you a case in point tonight. Pastor

Marci, we did our prayer and Pastor Marci's, you

know, praying, giving some discourse and we moved into

prayer and then she came back and then she started

talking about the relationship with the

father. And then God downloaded me a

bunch of stuff for the marriage conference. I'm

like, I had one thought, I'm like, dude, so now I'm

on my phone because now I'm just, and it has

nothing to do with prayer. It

has to do with a conference that's coming up

at the end of this month. And

I wasn't even talking to him about it. I

didn't ask him about it. It

wasn't part of my prayer walk, Lord, what are we

gonna do with the marriage conference? I'm

not even thinking about the marriage conference other

than telling you what date it is and you need to

register, you know, in an announcement tonight. Other

than that, I'm not thinking about it, but because I've

learned that I'm in his feet, he has permission to

talk to me about anything. You

know what he decided? Hey, I'm gonna give you

something to start chewing on. Cause

he didn't give me an answer. He

just gave me a what? Which means this is gonna require

some more seconds on. I'm like, that's good, I need

this. So I'm writing it down. Now

I've got, I'm all locked in to something. I

don't know what anybody else is gonna talk about

at the marriage conference, but I'm locked into a

thought process now that me and the Lord is gonna have

further discourse. And it came through the

simplicity of being in prayer, not thinking about

what I have to do at work tomorrow, what I have to

do at my house, what I have to do here, this at

the other, I learned how to turn Martha off. And

I'm just married now. Cause you know, even in this

moment with you today, I have to learn how to be

married in the midst of Martha, turn it on and

off. I'm serving you as a pastor,

this is what I do, but at the same time, I gotta be

still sitting at his feet at the same time. When

one does not know how to turn off Martha, you'll

fail to discern being at his feet is better. Because

I've come to find that those who genuinely love

church and love to be in church, to hear from the

Lord and to grow every aspect of their life

becomes better. I mean, how would it not?

You're talking to God. You're

allowing Him to talk to you. You're

giving Him access. This is not religious training.

I mean, religious exercise

where you're just showed up and you're checking a box.

You're attentive, you're like

intentional. Cause if you cannot attend

service due to work, it's gonna move you to anxiety

about things related to work. Because

she couldn't recognize, I mean, I invited Jesus in.

I mean, it's not like she

doesn't know who Jesus is. And

then he's gonna start revealing stuff. And

we're gonna be like, I wish I could listen, but I

got too much to do. And that's why Jesus prompts

the response he does to Martha. Because

basically what she did is she prioritized what she

needed to do as more important than what he was

saying, even though she invited him. She's

in the same room with him, but she's decided that what

she has to do actually has priority over what he's

saying. And since what she has to do

has more priority, it actually takes more than

one person, or at least it would be accomplished

quicker. And since Mary lives here too,

by all rights, she should abandon what she's hearing

from him and come and serve her. And

work with her to accomplish her priority first, then

when we're done, if Jesus isn't finished, we'll catch

the end. Instead of saying, I've walked you

in, I got this, but he starts talking. It

seemed like he ain't worried about that we

hadn't finished the dishes. Okay,

well, you might find that Jesus had come cook with

you after he finished his talking. Cause

that's just kind of how he is. He's

not like, I'm gonna talk, now serve me, go do the

rest of your chores. I mean, he's like, I'll come

into the kitchen and help you out. Right?

And I have found that if I will take the time with

him, then in my serving, he's like, I'm right here.

Why? Cause he's a co -laborer.

So in essence, the Lord's

like, I know what you gotta do. That's

okay. I'm gonna help you after I get

done talking to you. And most of us miss that

moment of him helping us in whatever we're doing in

life. Same thing with the church

staff. You're gonna miss out the

challenges that you have just with the different

things that they do, especially the preschool and

the private school, the different challenges they

have with students and parents that don't attend

our church at all. And some students that don't

attend our church either. And

those challenges they have, you understand you'll be

able to navigate them better because you come and

sit and hear instead of just going home and

sleeping. So you can be ready for the

next day when the Lord's like, I'll download in you.

I'll quicken your mortal body.

I'll give you then sweet rest

that you, you know, never would have been able to

get on your own. And then I'll make peace about

that situation the minute you walk in the room or

deal with them on my own. You

might show up and they'd be like, I'm sorry. Oh,

they're actually sorry. Wow, how did this happen? Well,

cause an angel showed up and said, you better tell

your teacher. I saw an angel. I

got to go tell you I'm sorry. You

know, Jesus, the Lord knows how to put his finger here

on a wall and write things out. He

can do stuff and he still does stuff today and wants

to get involved with us, but he wants us to be

attentive to him. Amen. That bless you. So

when we come to service, let's be passionate that

when we're here, cause again, like the ushers,

they have to turn stuff off to be Mary right now.

But in a minute, they're fixing

to jump in to their Martha role. Okay.

But then there's those that are being Martha's right

now. They're serving the church, but I

pray they're disciplined enough that they'll go

online to listen to this message. And

when they're listening, they won't be doing it while

they're working at the house. Now,

when it comes to preaching, when I do watch preaching,

I do nothing cause that's a waste of my time. I've

put a couple of ministers on at times. And

next thing you know, you're starting, you're like, I

don't even know where they're at. I

mean, it's just, wha, wha, wha, wha. That's

what it's become. My spirit's not getting it.

Nothing's getting it. I

mean, honestly, at that point, it's kind of like

the sea thrown to the wayside. Cause

you have no understanding. I

mean, you're no, there's no attentiveness to it at all.

It's in the background, but

you've given yourself this appearance that you're being

holy cause you're listening to preaching all day. But

you're not even receiving anything you're hearing

cause it's not a merry time. It's

a Martha while Jesus is in the room, right? So

again, for me, I don't do that. I

can't. I mean, that's, but that's my

limitation. All right. You

may not have that. You can do it and obtain and

do the other things. And that's awesome. As

long as you're can be at the feet, then that's good.

You're seated. And

then at once you receive, and you know what it is

that God gave you, then you can go serve. Amen.

Let's pray. Father, we love you. We

honor you. Thank you so much for listening

to this message. If you want more, subscribe to

our message podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify

and SoundCloud. Rating and leaving a comment will

go a long way with helping our messages get better

circulation. If you'd enjoy watching our

weekend messages, visit youtube .com forward slash

anchor faith. We'd love it if you'd subscribe,

leave a comment or a like on the messages. If

you'd like to find out more information about us

and how we're influencing the world and help support

the work we're doing by giving, just visit

anchorfaith .com.