Luke The Orderly Account of Truth - Where's Your Head At - Luke 10:38-42

We are continuing our series called Luke The Orderly Account

of Truth, where we've been looking at Luke's careful examination

of eyewitness testimony into the life and ministry and resurrection

of our Lord Jesus. Last week, we saw Jesus tell

a brilliant parable to a teacher of the law that

brought that lawyer face to face with his own self

justification of who his neighbors are. Jesus showed this lawyer

and us that we don't get to choose who our

neighbors are, nor do we get to choose to show

them mercy. And like last week where Jesus shows us

that we don't get to choose who our neighbors are,

we don't get to choose to show them mercy or not,

this week we'll see that we have the daily choice

to make of what we focus on. We have the

daily choice to make of what we focus on. I'm

going to talk about many different things that pull our

attention and our focus away from the things of God

and God himself and instead place that focus on things

that don't last, things that in the end don't matter.

What we'll see is that it falls on us to

choose every day what or whom we place our focus on.

So if you have a bible, turn with me to

Luke Chapter ten, verse thirty eight. If you need a bible,

we have some on the connect table out past the

doors as yours to keep. Let's read through the text first.

Then I'll pray and we'll get into it. Verse thirty eight.

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he

came to a village where a woman named Martha opened

her home to him. She had a sister called Mary,

who at the Lord's feet listening to what he said,

But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had

to be made. She came to him and asked, Lord,

don't you care that my sister has left me to

do the work by myself. Tell her to help me

Martha Martha. The Lord answered, you are worried and upset

about many things, but few things are needed or indeed,

only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it

will not be taken away from her. Let's pray, Lord,

to thank you for your holy scriptures. I thank you

for this lesson we're going to look at from the

teaching that you gave to Martha. I thank you for

the example that Mary set on setting her focus on

you and your teachings on things that are eternal. I

pray Lord that you would help us all examine where

we set our focuses, where we set our priorities, and

you would help us to submit to your order of things.

May you get the glory in your name. Amen. So

on Monday, as I was writing this sermon, I was

sitting at my desk and thinking for what felt like forever,

trying to think of a good illustration I could use

to draw your attention to the point of today's text.

And I'm sitting at my desk and I'm listening to

this interview that caught my attention, and I'm reading and

I'm rereading through the text, and I'm thinking about how

Jesus is telling Martha that her focus is on all

the wrong things. Her focus was on her anxieties and

her work, and it's distracting her from what's really important.

Her focus is distracting her from the Lord Jesus sitting

in her very house. And then I realized, as I

was trying to prepare a sermon to teach from God's

Word to you, I've had this interview playing in the

background the entire time, drawing my own attention away, my

focus for the most important task for me. In that moment,

I was focusing my attention on something fleeting and temporary

instead of on something blasting and eternal. It was one

of those moments where you stop and reflect. You're like, Wow, God,

your grace is so great because for me being the

dingis that I am. I was living the exact illustration

I was looking for. His grace is so good, and

so is his sense of humor. I just couldn't help

but laughing myself. My very next thought was, Man, where

is my head at? Why is my focus so torn up?

Right now? Where's my head at? And that inspired the

title of my sermon today, where's your head at? Where's

your head at? Let's read through the first couple of

verses again and then I'll talk about him. Eight. As

Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came

to a village where a woman named Martha opened her

home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who

sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.

But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had

to be made. She came to him and asked, Lord,

don't you care that my sister has left me to

do the work by myself. Tell her to help me.

According to John's Gospel, Jesus and his disciples traveled from

Jerusalem to the village of Bethany, and they were invited

into the home of Martha and Mary, and the first

two things that become a parent in this story is

the focus of the two sisters. Two different focuses of

these sisters. Martha is focused on all the preparations for

having Jesus in her home. She's likely preparing food, she's cleaning.

Maybe she's making sure there's adequate space seeding for Jesus

and any of his disciples that came into the house

with them. Maybe she's preparing for the ine inevitable sleepover

because there's a lot of walking involved. They're probably tired.

She's focused on a lot of things. Mary's focus, however,

is one hundred percent on Jesus, and Martha becomes frustrated.

Have you ever worked with a coworker or served alongside

someone that doesn't pull their weight, or, like in Martha's case,

maybe you have a sibling that didn't do as much

as you did getting the daily chores done, or maybe

you were that sibling Cardi. Most of us have experienced

that at one point. Martha's frustration with her sister Mary

and telling Jesus to make her help, while a good thing,

is understandable. We can all relate to that, because having

a good work ethic is a good thing. Being a

good worker is the Christian thing to do. Likewise, slacking

off is a bad thing to do. Being a slacker

is not the Christian thing to do. But Martha's work

ethic and Mary's lack of helping isn't what we're really

looking at here. It's not really the point here. What

we're looking at is Martha's focus on what she sees

as important and Mary's focus on what is truly important.

Because there's certainly nothing wrong with Martha's attention to having

her house in order. You'll notice in the scriptures that

it said Martha was paying attention and distracted by the

things that she had to do. There were things that

had to be done, but Mary knew where the priorities lie.

She knew that her focus needed to be on Jesus.

There's nothing wrong with Martha's attention to preparing for Jesus' visit.

It's not the real issue. The problem and the issue

that we're seeing is that. And what Jesus points out

to Martha later is where her priorities lie, where her

focus is. As Arcie's Froll put it in his commentary

on Luke, Martha's readiness to serve is commendable, but her

distraction and anxiety signals an inner struggle arising from misplaced priorities.

Her distraction and anxiety signals an inner struggle arising from

misplaced priorities. So the point of this text is not

to point out one sister's work ethic compared to another

sister's lack of ethic. Well, we're seeing from these two

sisters are very two different priorities, very two different focuses.

Write this down for yourself if you're taking notes. My

focus orders, my priorities, and my priorities reveal my heart.

My focus orders, my priorities, and my priorities reveal my heart.

Think about this. Martha is focused on what she sees

as a priority, and Mary is focused on what is

truly a priority. We see Martha's priority being on the

task at hand, revealing her priority to prepare for Jesus

being in her home. But Mary's focus is on Jesus

right in front of her, revealing her priority to present,

to be present in the moment, sitting at his feet

and absorbing every word he says. As believers, it's important

to live a life worthy of Christ, to be diligent

in our work, to be humble in our serving, and

to be good stewards of everything God has given us.

But what we must always consider is how we prioritize

all that. What is your focus? What are you prioritizing?

Because for the believer, we have a clear imperative for

where our focus must be. Where our focus must be

is on God himself, on his kingdom, on his order,

on what he sees and says is a priority. Write

this down. My focus must be on God, who orders

my priorities and corrects my heart. While our focus orders

or structures our priorities and reveals our hearts. When our

focus is on God, He's the one who orders those

priorities and reveals our hearts or corrects our hearts. Excuse me,

our focus must be on God who orders our priorities

and corrects our hearts. You with me, I can't even

hear you breathe in here. You're also quiet as a

while I was thinking about this text, I was thinking

about how when we're children, we grow up thinking that

we are the center of everyone's world, especially our parents.

We are the most important thing that will ever grace

their lives. We are the center of their universe. Right,

we are the sun to their world? Or did I

say that? Right? Son? Yeah, we are the son to

their world. You can flip it if you're a flatter, fair,

I suppose. But we grow up thinking their world revolves

around us, that we are at the center, nothing else.

And I was blessed to have grown up in a

home where I was constantly told how much my siblings

and I were loved. And I remember one time when

I was maybe ten or eleven, I was asking my dad,

Remember I was ten or eleven, I'm thinking your world

revolves around me, right, I'm the most important? And I

asked him, why do you love us more than mom?

Just so confident in that being the case, Why do

you love us more than Mom? And he said I don't.

It sounds harsh, I know, but you got to hear

what he said next. He said, I love you, Jordan,

I love you more than you will ever know. But

I must love God first, then your mother's second, and

my children third. I must love God first, my wife's second,

my children third. And after the initial shock and just

feeling my whorl crumble around me, I asked him why

that doesn't make sense. I thought I was the center.

I thought I was first? Why why that order? Why God?

Then your wife? Then your children? Make it personal to you?

Why God? Then X? Then Y? And Here's what he

taught me in that moment. God must come first, because

it was God that created him, it was God that

saved him. It was God that gave him his wife

and his children. God was sovereign over all of that.

It's because of his order, his choice, his created order,

his sovereign choice that allowed him to have any of

that in the first place. It was the word of

God that showed my dad he was now united to

his wife and they had become one flesh. It was

the word of God that told him to let no

one separate them and to love his wife as Christ

loved the Church by laying his life down for her.

And it was the word of God that told my

dad to love his children by training them in the

way they should go Proverbs twenty two, to give them

good gifts Matthew seven, to love and discipline them for

their own sake Proverbs thirteen. And to provide for their

needs for Timothy five. In that conversation, my father taught

me that God's order is what's best for us. God's

order is what's best for us. If God is not

the head, it's not at the head of your marriage.

If He isn't the focus, then your marriage suffers and

your children suffer along with it. It all trickles down.

If your spouse is your focus instead of God, then

God becomes an afterthought, and your children suffer because of it,

because they're left looking to their flawed parents for everything

that only God can provide. They're not raised knowing it's

God that they must place their hope in, that it's

God that loves them more than their parents ever could,

that it's God that provides for everything they will ever need.

And if your children are your focus, if your children

come first before your spouse, before God, then your marriage

suffers because the love for your wife's needs, the honor

and respect your husband needs is forfeited for the needs

of your child. The family falls into disorder because the

children are being forced into between the husband and the wife,

and that disordered structure begins to tear at the union

that God tells us to let no one separate. That

includes your children. In either case, whether it's our spouse

that we place first or our kids, when we order

them before God, they become idols. I'll say that again,

whether it's our spouse that we place first or kids

that we place first, when we order them before God,

they become idols. God's order is what is best for us,

and it's only when we disorder God's order that everything

falls apart. Can y'all relate to that anytime you've tried

to do your own thing, follow your own order, follow

your own wisdom, your own understanding, and at all, no,

it all falls apart. Write this down. To avoid disorder,

we must follow God's order. To avoid disorder, we must

follow God's order because when we disorder God's order, all

we're left with is our own broken order. You following me,

when we disorder God's order the best order for us,

all we're left with is our own broken order. Because

we are broken people and we are dumb. Amen, man

that there's a sermon right there. How dumb we are

write that down. We're not just getting bult right there.

We have a lot of important things to do every day,

a lot of important things. We have all kinds of

responsibilities and goals and desires. We have all kinds of

distractions and anxieties and worries that pull our focus away

from what's important, just like Martha in today's text. But

look at what Jesus says to Martha in response to

her frustration. Martha, Martha, he probably didn't say it like that,

but that's how I read it. The Lord answered, you

are worried and upset about many things, but few things

are needed or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what

is better, and it will not be taken away from her. Wow.

Like I mentioned earlier, Martha doesn't focused on anything necessarily wrong,

but in this moment, her focus wasn't on what truly mattered.

What she was doing wasn't wrong, Her priorities were wrong,

her focus was off. Jesus shows Martha that while she's

not focused on anything wrong, her priorities are disordered. You

are worried and upset about many things, Jesus tells her,

but few things are needed, or indeed only one, and

her sister Mary chose to focus on what is better.

But why was Mary's focus better? Because Mary's focus is

on what will not be taken away from her. Mary's

focus is on Jesus. Mary's focus is on what's eternal.

Like Martha, we are constantly getting distracted by things that

pull our focus away from what's eternal and instead puts

that focus on things that simply don't last. I don't last.

Look what the preacher wrote in Ecclesiastes. I denied myself

nothing my eyes desired. I refused my heart no pleasure.

My heart took delight in all my labor, and this

was the reward for all my toil. Yet when pervade

all that my hands had done and what I had

toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Nothing was gained under the sun. Whether we're seeking pleasure, fulfillment,

success or we simply just get distracted, we will always

come to the same conclusion the Preacher and Ecclesiastes came to.

It's all meaningless. It's all a chasing after the wind. Now,

don't get me wrong, It's okay to enjoy the good

things in this life God has given us. Please hear me.

It's okay to enjoy the good things that God has

given us in this life. It's okay to be successful

in your endeavors. It's good to work hard and be

the best employee or employer or business owner you can be.

But remember that it's all temporary. When your focus is

on the things that are temporary, for that fulfillment or security,

or that enjoyment or that distraction, you'll find yourself chasing

after the wind. Nothing is gained from it that truly lasts.

Nothing is gained from it that truly lasts. But when

you focus on the things of God and you place

him at the head of your life, when you focus

on God's eternal order for things, everything else becomes properly prioritized.

You obviously didn't hear me. I'll say it again. When

you focus on God's eternal order for things, for all things,

everything else becomes properly prioritized. When you focus on God's

eternal order for your marriage, you and your spouse can

love each other the way God intended lookod Ephesians five

twenty one. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives submit to your own husbands as you do to

the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife,

as Christ is the head of the Church, his body,

of which he is the Savior. Now as the Church

submits Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands

and everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved

the Church and gave himself up for her to make

her holy, cleansing her body by the washing with water

through the word, and to present her to himself as

a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish,

but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought

to love their wives as their own bodies. He who

loves his wife loves himself. When your focus is on

God's eternal order for things, everything else becomes properly prioritized.

When you focus on trusting in the eternal God for

the things you need, you'll see him change your heart

for the things you want the Philippines four nineteen. And

my God will meet all your needs according to the

riches of His glory in Christ Jesus. That's a truth

we can trust in. When you focus on God's eternal

order for things, everything else becomes properly prioritized. When you

focus on God's eternal teachings instead of what the world teaches.

That's where you find true and lasting, eternal wisdom the

Romans twelve. Do not conform to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then

you will be able to test and approve what God's

will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will. When you

focus on God's eternal order for things, everything else becomes

properly prioritized. You're gonna leave repeating that for yourself by

the end of this Well, let's talk about anxiety and worry.

When you lay your anxieties and worries on Jesus, instead

of trying to distract yourself from them or solve them yourself,

you find His eternal peace that surpasses your own understanding.

Filippings four. Do not be anxious about anything, but in

every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your

requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends

all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds. In

Christ Jesus. When you focus on God's eternal order, everything

else becomes properly prioritized write this down. We need to

be less like Martha and more like Mary. I'm sure

all of us here are relating to Martha pretty hard

right now. I could have written, don't be a Martha,

but no, I'm not going to focus on what I

didn't do. Be less like Martha, be more like Mary.

We need to be less like Martha and more like Mary,

and stop prioritizing our work, our worries, our rest, our

distraction on all the things of this world, and turn

our focus to Jesus. We need to be less like

Martha and more like Mary by finding the joy in

our work, by serving humbly to please Him to his glory,

instead of achieving worldly success that doesn't last. We need

to be less like Martha and more like Mary and

find our rest in Jesus instead of watching television that

two fades away. We need to be less like Martha

and more like Mary and cast our worries on him

who gives us eternal peace instead of going to our

vices or distractions that just end up hurting us more.

We need to be less like Martha and more like

Mary by sitting at the feet of the King eagerly

listening to every word he teaches. Life is short. Everyone.

You should go read Ecclesiastes after this. It doesn't take

that long. That puts everything in a perspective. Life is short.

We need to properly prioritize the life God has given

us according to the order that He sets for us.

The apostle Paul teaches us that if anyone is in Christ,

the new creation has come, the old has gone, the

new is here. Being made a new creation or being

born again, means that we don't live our lives the

same way we used to. It means we now serve

a loving God, and we seek after him with everything

we have, with everything we are. Our number one job

is to follow him. Our number one job is to

follow him, to follow his eternal plans and his eternal commands,

To follow his eternal plans and his eternal commands, To

give up your own order for your life and follow

his good and eternal order. Because by following him, by

prioritizing him, we find everything we truly need. Everything else

falls into its proper order, and that's where we find

true joy. That's where we find eternal joy. Because he

is eternal. Nothing else is. He is eternal. Not the

television show, not your job, not the car you want,

not the car you have, not the video games. I'm

still twelve, so that's a big one for me. Think

about how much better your life is when you're following

God's order, How much more at peace you are, how

much more secure your spouse is, how much more secure

and happy your children are. God's order brings us so

much peace, and we can avoid so much hurt if

we just follow it. My next point should have been

stopped being dumb. I keep going back to that because

we're so dumb. In Him, we find true in eternal peace,

we find true in eternal rest, we find true in

eternal focus. Paul demonstrates this for us in the Philippians

chapter three. But whatever orgains to me, I now consider

loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I

consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of

knowing Christ, Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have

lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may

gain Christ and be found in Him. Not having a

righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but

that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that

comes from God, on the basis of faith. I want

to know Christ, yes, to know the power of his resurrection,

and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have

already arrived at my goal. But I pressed on to

take hold of that to which Christ Jesus took hold

of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself

yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing

I do. Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what

is a head, I pressed on toward the goal to

win the prize for which God has called me heavenward

in Christ Jesus. This is a man who knows where

his focus is. Paul knew what his priorities were because

he made his focus all about Jesus. After Paul encountered Jesus,

after Jesus stopped him on the road and blinded him,

his life became all about Jesus. Everything he did he

now did for the sake of Christ and his eternal kingdom.

He put off his old self, He gave up his

old way of living, his old way of thinking, and

lived his life in devotion to his savior. Even before

Jesus' birth, King David understood that his chief end was

to seek after the Lord God. So I'm twenty seven.

One thing I asked from the Lord, This only do

I seek, that I might dwell in the house of

the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze

on the beauty of the Lord, and to seek him

in his temple. One thing I ask of the Lord,

this only do I seek. I get the band and

come up. These are just a couple examples of people

in the Bible who submitted their lives to the Lord,

usually after they had been following their own order and

their lives fell into disorder. When they submit to God,

you see their lives radically change because their focus is

set on the most high. Their focus is set on

God's order. That order corrects their hearts because their priorities

are in line with what God has told them to do.

Don't wait till the next time you disorder your life

to turn it around. Start right now, Start right now.

Don't wait till the next time. The Westminster Confession of

Faith tells us that man's chief end is to glorify

God and to enjoy him. Forever. Man's chief end is

to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. This is what

Paul and David and many others in the Bible understood

and taught and modeled for us. We were put on

this earth for God's glory, for his purposes, out of

the over abundance of his love, so that we could

one day seek after Him with everything we have, to

give him the glory that only he deserves, and to

enjoy him forever because of His grace towards us. So

it's not just a question of what we focus on.

It's a question of who we focus on. It's not

a question of what we focus on, it's a question

of who we focus on. Are you focused on the what?

Or are you focused on the whoe? Our minds, our thoughts,

our attention is constantly being pulled away from the who

Jesus to whatever the what is in our lives, Our focus,

our a tension is constantly pulling us away from Jesus

to the what fill in the blank in our lives.

But that pulling away, that fight for our attention, our focus.

It's a forever battle, but we're not powerless against it.

The questions we have to always ask ourselves is where's

my head at, where's my heart at? What is my

focus on? How is that focus ordering my life? But

don't rely on your own self examination. Don't rely on

your own self examination of those questions, bring them to

God in prayer, compare or the order for your life

to His order. Also, have someone that's discipling you answer

those questions. Let them look at how you've ordered your

life and what you're prioritizing. Let them speak into your life.

And if you don't have a disciple yet, get disciple.

Come to the Women's Ministry nights on Fridays, third Fridays.

Thank you, the Men's minister nights Tuesdays, second Tuesdays. Thank you.

Start in Septemver, Thank you. Duncan come and be disciple.

Let someone who you trust, who follows God look at

your order for your life and tell them or allow

them to tell you there's some correct thing you need

to be that needs to be done, because because God's

order is what's best for us, and it's only when

we disorder God's order that everything falls apart. We have

the choice of what we direct our focus on and

more importantly, who we focus on. Do we choose to

place our focus on the what that fades away or

the one that never does. Ask yourself that question, do

I place my focus on the what that fades away

or the one that never does? Remember to be less

like Martha and more like Mary. And when you find

yourself anxious and worrying, and your focus and priorities are shifting,

and you're having trouble focusing on Jesus on his kingdom,

I want you to remember these two teachings from Jesus.

The first is what we read today Martha. Martha, the

Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things,

but few things are needed, or indeed only one. Mary

has chosen what is better, and it will not be

taken away from her. Jesus, in his ways, are always

better for us. Focus on the one that is eternal.

Focus on Him and his kingdom that will never be

taken away from you. The second teaching from Jesus, I

want you to remember it's from Matthew six. But seek

first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things

will be given to you as well. When you find

yourself anxious and worrying and your focus and priorities are shifting,

and there's disorder, and you're having trouble focusing on Jesus

and his kingdom. We can trust in him. We can

trust in this promise that when you focus first on

His kingdom and his righteousness, all of those things will

be given to you as well. But God my money,

but God, my security, but God, and my family, but

God my job. All of those things will be added

to you as well. Seek His kingdom and his righteousness first.

He takes care of what we need. He takes care

of his children, sometimes through discipline, because he's a good

father that loves us and wants us to be more

like him. He takes care of what we need, but

we have to follow his order, the order that prioritizes

everything else, the order that corrects our hearts, corrects our focuses.

If we disorder that order and forsake it for our

own order, that's when you fall into disorder. He takes

care of what we need, and his order is what's

best for us.