Missing Precious Opportunities

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Open your Bibles, Luke chapter 10.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

We're about to get serious, and I'm going to take this jacket off.

Do you know what that means?

I'm about to go James Spann on y'all.

James Spann.

By the way, I was in Alaska, and while I was in Alaska, I was in an area called Talkeetna.

Went into this little shop in Talkeetna.

The ladies heard our accent.

She knew we weren't from around there.

And she said, Where are you from?

We said, Alabama.

She said, Oh, hang on.

She ran to the back, came out.

She had a James Spann bobblehead.

So I said, I can't pass this up.

I took a picture of it and I emailed it to James Spann, and within just a few minutes he replied, ha ha ha, very cool.

He thought that was great.

You know what?

God connects us in so many ways.

We're going to connect in the scripture this morning, and I'm going to invite you to open that scripture up, keep it open because we're going to look at it.

You've already been told the title of the message, and you may have some handouts there, is Missing Precious Opportunities.

You know, one of my wife and I, Lisa, and she wanted to be here this morning, but she has developed a head cold, a lot of coughing, and she and I was afraid that you would think she had the Rona, so I said, just stay home.

Okay?

Don't scare people.

But what we look at, and our our dream has always been we want to retire one day, 10 years or whenever that might be, to live on the lake because we love to be out on the water.

Our kids love to be out on the water.

And we were hoped to one day retire to Lake Martin.

But have you seen the price of houses on Lake Martin?

You have to have, you know, you have to be, well, I'm not going to use those words, but he said something about there about, you know what.

But you have to have a lot of cash to do that.

And I don't know if that's going to happen.

And it made me start thinking.

Years ago, I was serving a church in Pell City, and I saw a piece of property on Logan Martin Lake.

It was a an empty lot that was in a beautiful slough that had a beautiful picture of the sunset, and it was just an amazing lot.

And they wanted an I thought at the time, astronomical price.

And I said, I'm not paying that for that kind of a block.

Number one, I couldn't afford it.

Number two, I thought that was too high.

Now I look at it and I'm like, missed opportunity.

Hello.

You know, we've all been there.

We've all got our stories of shoulda, woulda's, and I know that happens, but in our passage this morning, we find a description of a missed opportunity that's far more devastating than missing out on a late front piece of property.

It has to do with being distracted by something that was a good thing instead of something and giving in, going for something that was the best thing.

So I invite you to stand as we read from God's Word this morning.

I'm going to be reading from the ESV translation, and I'm going to begin in verse 38, and we'll go through verse 42.

You might want to stand if you can.

If you can't, then stand with your heart.

And let's read this passage.

It begins like this.

Now, as they went on their way, Jesus and his disciples, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.

And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.

And here's one of those butts in the Bible.

But Martha.

You might want to underline that part.

But Martha was distracted with much serving.

And here's the funny part.

And she went up to him, him being Jesus, and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me alone to serve?

Tell her then to help me.

I can just sit now.

Tell her to help me, Jesus.

That's to me, that is probably the funniest thing in this passage.

But the Lord answered her, and this is the part that many of us have heard over and over.

Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things.

But one thing is necessary.

And then look, it says, Mary has chosen the good portion.

That's an interesting choice of words.

And then he goes on and says, which will not be taken away from her.

Would you join me as we pray?

Father, as we open up your word and we dive in, Lord, help us to understand the depth of this passage.

But Father, I also pray that your Holy Spirit would bring conviction to our hearts of how closely akin we are to Martha.

In the name of Jesus we pray.

Amen.

Go ahead and take a seat.

I encourage you to grab your paper or notes, a pen, follow along, take notes.

It helps you remember so much.

It helps you to stay focused.

It keeps you away from your phone.

And it helps you to let you know how much farther along I've got to go.

All right.

So let's dig in.

Martha was so distracted with her agenda.

You know, as I look at that, she was distracted with her agenda, and she missed that intimate fellowship with the one who held her eternity in the palm of his hands.

Now she was saved.

I truly believe that.

But what she was missing was that relationship, that fellowship, those blessings.

She was choosing something that was good instead of the best.

She was choosing something that she desired and she preferred and she was good at instead of that which God wanted to bless and to build on her and build in her.

This morning, before we can start to condemn Martha, though, I want you to consider how much you in your own daily lives are acting just like her.

Maybe you're involved in church.

And maybe you're involved in serving, and everything is about serving.

You know what?

I've watched as men want to be on a serve or security team so they don't have to sit through the sermon.

Boy, that didn't get much.

Must be convicting.

I've watched as people have taken positions to work in the nursery so they can be around the children and not have to sit through a long sermon, but you have to sit through those kids.

That's tough.

You see, sometimes we we want to encounter and do the things that we love and we enjoy rather than sitting at the master's feet for that intimate time of worship.

You've just wrapped up a series on family matters.

How does this relate to the family?

So often I see families that are so engaged in making sure that their children are going to be on the starting team, on the best team, on the travel team that's going to take them away from church.

To make sure that their kids get all of the accolades in school, to make sure that their kids get into the right university, to get on the right path, and yet they never sit down and say, Let me teach you what a godly husband is all about.

Let me teach you what a godly young lady looks and acts like.

See, we choose the good things instead of the best things.

So as we dig into this, I want us to look at this from an idea of missed opportunities.

And it begins in this passage of Scripture with my first point.

Martha, Mary and Martha disagree.

Now, I know you guys have never had a disagreement.

Relationships, husbands and wives, amen.

That's a good part for you to go, oh me.

Some of you had those on the way to church this morning.

Some of you are still mad at your husband because he honked the horn because you were running late.

Personal experience, we'll just move on.

To give you a background of this passage of Scripture, this particular section falls right after Jesus has sent out the 70.

And right after the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The first two, they address us being ambassadors to our world and being good neighbors to all those we encounter.

The last one comes in here and it talks about how we are to be worshipers of God in all we do.

The emphasis of this passage is you cannot do the first two until you have settled the last one.

And that you've come in and worshiped with God and done all he's asked you to do.

John Piper puts it this way: he says that unless for the passion of God is central in our lives, we cannot be effective in fulfilling the mandate of Jesus to make disciples.

In other words, we cannot do the first two until we've done the third one.

How's the third one?

Why were they disagreeing?

Well, because Martha was distracted.

That's the main thing.

And if you look in verse 40, we have that word distracted.

It comes from cumbered or hindered, and it literally means to draw around.

And what was taking place is that Mary's attention was drawn away from the most important thing.

And don't miss this.

Mary's preoccupation, listen, was what mattered most to her.

She was the host.

It was her house.

She felt an obligation to make sure everyone was taken care of.

She felt an obligation that she had to put the best foot forward so that Jesus and all the disciples could see how good she was at being a good host.

However, she missed the urgent, that worship and intimate time.

Listening intently to every word of Jesus.

She was busy doing the good things, but not the best thing.

Be cautious that we do not do the same and that our good doesn't displace our best.

Second reason that Mary and Martha were disagreeing, because Mary was determined.

You see, they had two different visions.

Martha was distracted by what she felt was the best, and Mary looked and said, You know what?

I may only have this one opportunity.

I will sit at the master's feet.

I will listen to him.

And if we look at this passage in verse 39, you go and you look at it in the King James Translation, and there's an interesting word that most manuscripts of our translations don't have.

It says, Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet.

That word also, it gives insight into that there were more than Mary sitting at the master's feet.

It lends the word to Martha and possibly the other disciples, saying, Look, you're not doing the right thing, but these are.

Mary was determined that she would sit at the feet of Jesus.

She would soak up his teachings because she saw that the time with Jesus was paramount.

Now, when it says she sat at his feet, that's a descriptor.

It doesn't necessarily mean that she was sitting down at his feet with this kind of look.

It means that she was a disciple of Jesus, that she was intently focused on him, and nothing else mattered.

She valued the time with her master.

Have you ever been talking with someone and you feel like you're engaged with them and then all of a sudden they do this?

Uh-huh.

I gotcha.

Yeah, I hear what you're saying.

Okay.

Yeah, okay.

How do you feel?

Ladies, do not look at your husbands right now.

Don't go there.

You feel they are, what's the word?

Distracted.

She sat at his feet.

She listened.

She wanted to soak it up.

I've got a question.

Think about this.

Mary had determined to not allow anything to hinder her time with God.

When was your last intimate, precious time alone with God?

I don't mean when did you uh have it on your phone or or listen to it or opened up your Bible and then skimmed through some scripture.

When was the last time that you intimately had a conversation with God and God spoke to you?

And you said, yes, Lord, your servant is listening.

You see, Martha was distracted.

But Mary was determined.

But then it gets serious.

Because the master was direct.

He didn't hold anything back.

He didn't pull any punches.

You see, Martha came to Jesus and she had that attitude.

I could just see her.

Jesus.

Mary is not helping me.

And you need to do something about it.

We've been there.

We've been, we've gone to Jesus and said, I'm the only one serving you, God.

Pastor, I have to confess, there have been times that I've been putting things away at church, and everyone else is gone to get coffee, dinner, pie, go home, sleep, and rest.

And I'm like, Lord, do you see this?

Right there's a shoulder.

Go ahead and pat it.

That's what Martha was doing.

And she says, Tell Mary to help me.

But Jesus just says, hey, look.

Martha, the problem is not with Mary, it's with you.

Ow.

That's not what we want to hear, is it?

How many times have we prayed to God?

God, you need to change my husband, my wife, my children.

And God looks at us and says, the problem's not with them, the problem's with you.

You got an attitude.

He gives two phrases in verses 41 through 42, and he says, You are anxious and troubled about many things.

You see, on the outside, she was greatly agitated.

But it swelled up from the inside, where her pride and her agenda were brewing.

And Jesus gives a slight jab to get Martha's attention.

He literally looked at her and said, Martha, you're distracted by so many things.

And then he comes and says, But one thing is necessary.

One thing.

Martha, there's one thing that is best.

And you're missing it.

There is one thing.

He literally looked at her and says, You are worked up over preparing a great meal, many dishes.

However, I don't need that.

What I really want, only one thing is necessary.

I want your undivided attention and affection.

Instead, you're devoted to your desires.

I want you to plug in to my mission, not your mission.

Then he goes on in verse 42 and he says, Mary has chosen, and there it was, the good portion.

Are you with me?

What is Martha doing?

She's preparing a meal.

And she's thinking she's giving Jesus her very best.

And he says, You're giving me the byproduct, the leftovers, the waste.

And Mary has chosen the best choice meat to give me herself.

And once again, this is not a reference to salvation, because I, from scripture, we firmly believe that Mary and Martha are both saved, but it's that you're not giving me your complete affection.

As I look at this, Jesus comes in here and he's goes right to the heart of the matter.

And it deals with personal worship, complete surrender of our lives to an absolute obedience to Jesus Christ.

Jesus sent out the 77, said, Be my ambassador.

Jesus talked about the good Samaritan and said, be the good neighbor.

Then he corrects Martha and says, be a devoted worshiper.

Of all three, the greatest is a worshiper.

However, you cannot be a worshiper and not do the other two.

So let me pull this together.

I asked Pastor Rick how long I had, and he said, Well, they don't have to go to work till Monday morning, so take all the time you need.

I'm teasing.

I literally forgot to ask a pastor one time, and I'm preaching along, and I looked at him and said, Pastor, I forgot to ask how long and when do I need to quit?

And he looked at me, and I promise you, these were his words right now.

Hello.

Let me pull.

This together though.

And this is the part of application.

Majoring on the major determines.

You're like, what are you talking about?

Major is complete surrender to God.

And when we major on completely surrendering to Jesus, then some things in our lives are going to change.

And several things we can determine from when we come have complete surrender unto God.

You ready for this first part?

It determines who we are.

When we start majoring on Jesus, when we start majoring on loving him and sitting at his feet and soaking in our time with him, then it begins to say to Jesus, you're the most important thing in my life.

The most important.

Who are we?

Well, we are supposed to be, and this is the next thing in your handout or notes, we are to be Theos concentric.

Theos concentric.

You're like, what in the world are you?

Have you gone nuts?

You've been in Alaska?

Bump your head or something?

Theosconcentric means this.

God centered.

He is the center of everything, every relationship, every decision.

He is the very center of our entire life.

Without God in our primary position, all other things in our lives are completely chaos.

They're out of order, and they will fail.

They will fail to align us where we need to be.

They will fail to help us function as God designed us to function.

They will fail to bring sanity into our lives, and they will fail to satisfy our lives.

Often our families are busy with many things.

My calendar is completely just booked almost day in and day out.

And people often say, say, Rick, I you've got to have a busy schedule trying to go to all these churches.

Yes, I do.

But so do you.

You've got busy schedules.

And even the retired group, the Amen corner, right back over here in the very back.

Okay?

I've got friends that retired, and you know what they always tell me?

I don't know how I got anything done before I got retired because I got so much to do.

Can I get an Amen?

But we must never allow these things to distract our devotion to God.

I was pastoring a church several years ago, and I had a couple in the church, a young couple.

I say young couple, they were about my age at the time, they were young.

And they were huge fans of their team.

I will not say which team.

One of their relatives, their nephew, was a starting lineman on their team.

And it was hilarious because every weekend they were gone to watch their team play football.

Every fall.

And it was hilarious because I'd come to church on Sunday morning.

You know what I'd see parked in the parking lot?

A motor home.

They had packed up early that morning and driven in straight to the church, changed clothes in their motorhome, and then came in to worship.

They said, We will not allow college football to be a distraction from our worship with God.

Some of the people went, oh me, those are online because they didn't show up this morning.

I'm just kidding online.

Come in next week if you've got problems, Rick at CCW.something.

You know what that was?

That was Rick sighing and saying, he'll never get ass back again.

So there we go.

We are also to be tightly cohesive.

As a family unit, we must be on the same page.

We must be united.

And it starts with mom and dad.

If you're not united, the kids feel it, the kids know it, the kids worry about it, the kids are all uptight as well.

But we've got to be together.

You know, it's no problem for us to talk about our spouse.

We do it.

It's no problem to knock on our kids.

But when someone else starts doing it, we suddenly get tighter, don't we?

Why don't we stay tight?

Why don't we stay connected?

Paul said in Ephesians 4.27, give no opportunity to the devil.

Don't let him have a foothold.

And it starts in the family.

Maybe it starts in the family by you saying, Dad, stepping up and saying, hey, we're going to change some things around here.

And we're going to start putting Jesus as a center.

Now it doesn't just have to be biological families.

Maybe as a church family, too.

We come together and we say, you know what, Pastor?

You're our shepherd, you're our leader.

We're going to follow you, and we're going to be united under your leadership.

You're like, well, what if he goes somewhere I don't?

If he's going where God's leading him, you don't have to worry about whether it's where you want to or not.

He's taking you where God said go.

And if God said go and you don't want to go, that's your problem, not his problem.

That didn't get anything.

It also determines what we do.

Okay?

Here's what we need to be doing.

We need to be passionately encouraging one another.

Truett Kathy.

Anybody know who Truett Cathy is?

Founder of the Baptist Bird.

Amen.

Truett Kathy said this.

How do you know someone needs encouraging if they are breathing?

Oftentimes our words can be anything but encouraging.

Oftentimes our tweets, our text, our photos, whatever it might be, can be anything but encouraging to others.

One of my favorite passages in Ephesians is chapter 4, verse 29.

It says, let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth.

Secondly, provide education.

It determines what we do, providing education.

I heard him talk about community groups, connect groups.

Are you in a connect group?

Are you in a connect group?

If you're not in a connect group, why aren't you in a connect group?

I don't want an answer, but I want you to answer.

Some of you might say, Well, I haven't found one, but try one.

Someone say I don't like the one I'm in.

Try a different one.

I did and I didn't like it either.

Maybe the problem's not the group.

It also allows us to pursue engagement.

I was talking with uh a friend and he was talking about a situation in his family.

And see, when we're theocentered, when we're centered on God, that situation in the family suddenly start goes up to God.

And we don't try to fix it.

We let God fix it.

And God is a whole lot better at fixing problems than we are.

You know what my prayer is most days?

Lord, don't let me mess anything up today.

Some of you need to pray that same prayer.

You're with me.

Amen.

Are you building relationships so that you can have the opportunity to share with them the gospel?

Many of us are gospel hoarders.

And we've been called to be gospel sharers.

Have you put into practice, guys?

Listen to me, have you put into practice to date your wife?

Don't be like the old guy that says his wife was complaining because he never said he loved her.

He said, Well, I told her when we got married, if it changes, I'll let her know.

He better sleep with one eye open.

Why don't you do this?

Why don't you try having a time where the family comes together for dinner and everyone puts their phones in a pile and you don't touch them?

My family did that for a while.

We need to get back to it.

Most of the time we're texting each other.

Hey, you see this?

Y'all know what CPR is.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Okay?

What are the cabs of CPR?

You're like, cabs?

I don't know.

We use Uber.

Some of you will get that later tonight.

Circulation, airway, breathing.

When you come up on someone that is is in need of assistance because they passed out, you check circulation till they have blood pressure.

You check their airways to see if it's clear.

You check their breathing to make sure they're breathing.

Those are the essentials that you've got to take care of.

If you don't, the person could die.

Getting them to sit up, getting them to take a sip of water, getting them to give you your phone number if they're cute and you're single is not necessary.

It's time that some families determine that it's time to do CPR on our family.

I'm going to quit missing opportunities.

I'm going to take every opportunity to invest in my kids.

To love on my wife.

And to raise them in a godly home so that they see that we are serious about not missing the precious opportunities of spending time with the Heavenly Father.

We will be Theos-centered.

You do not know how long you've got left.

This was not in my notes, but I will share this very quickly.

I got a phone call on a Thursday morning from my mom and said, Your dad, who was in the hospital at the time, just coded, you need to get to the hospital.

He was supposed to be released that day.

I go racing to the hospital.

When I get there, I'm looking for my mom, and the surgeon, I mean, one of the attendants says, Your mom, when your dad coded, she suddenly had a brain bleed.

She's in the ER right now.

They take me to the ER, and my mom grasped my hand.

She had had a stroke and a brain bleed, and she said, Help me, help me.

We sent her into surgery to take care of the brain bleed.

Then we went and started trying to check on Dad.

He never came out of the code.

The next morning we had to make a decision about what we were going to do with dad because he was on that do not resuscitate thing, and we were trying to figure out my dad died on Friday morning.

In the night on Thursday night after the surgery, my mom's brain bled again.

One hour after my dad died, we were supposed to meet with the surgeons to make a decision about whether to send dad or mom into surgery again.

We met with them and said we don't need to put her at that risk.

So we said we would monitor her.

She never recovered.

One week later, my mom passed away.

In a span of seven, eight days, my dad went from being able to come home to going home.

And my mom, who was caring for my dad, said, I might want to let him go by himself.

I'm going to.

It hurt thinking of the missed opportunities.

But it also gave me reassurance knowing that both of my parents had God first.

You know the joy?

Dad gets to heaven.

He didn't know that mom had a brain bleed.

He's walking around, checking out, worshiping God, and all of a sudden there's mom.

He's like, she's like, what are you doing here?

Well, what are you doing here?

Because neither one knew the other one had died.

What a way to go.

My question: What are you allowing to distract you from loving your father the way you should?

I'm going to ask Joe and the worship team to come and get in place.

As they're coming to get in place, I'm going to ask you, close everything up temporarily, because you've got some more notes here in just a moment.

But I'm going to begin asking you, and here's what I'm going to do.

Dads, and if dad's not here, mom, if mom's not here, someone in the family, would you bring your family to this altar?

And say, you know what?

Things are going to change, and we're going to not miss opportunities.

We're not going to be distracted.

We're going to come to the Father.

And we're going to come and worship Him as a family, and we're going to make a commitment that we as a family are going to center on God first and our family next.

And we're going to make this the day that we said we will not miss the opportunities.

I'm going to pray.

I'm going to ask you to stand right now where you are, and then I'm going to ask you to come on.

Flood this altar.

Then the worship team will be playing softly behind me.

What is God asking you to do?

Father, right now, do not let us be distracted.

Let us come and worship you.

Let us come as families and say, God, we want to give you our undivided attention.

And then, Father, I pray that you would begin to show each of us ways that we need to do that.

Things that we need to move from first chair to maybe second, third, fourth, or fifth or farther down the line, or even get rid of.

God, would you do a work in this church this morning?

Would you do a work in each family this morning?

Would you do a work in my life this morning?

In the name of Jesus, we pray.

Would you come on?

Dads, lead out.

If dad's not here, mom, you bring them.

Even if dad's here and he's not and you feel like you need to come, you come on right now.

Let's flood this place.

Don't wait.

Missed opportunities can take you where you don't want to, need to, should go.

As families coming together, someone in that family, Dad, you be first, or someone in that family, lead them together, bring them together and pray and say, God, I'm getting rid of this distraction.

I'm pulling our family together.

We will be united because family matters.

Pray right now.

If you need to speak with Pastor Rick, he'll be right here at the center by the podium in just a moment.

And he'll be glad to pray with you.

Pray over you.

Would you come?

Those that are still in the place.

Maybe you're here by yourself this morning.

And you're gonna say, you know what?

God's not the center of my life, and I need to change that.

Maybe you need to come and talk with Pastor Rick about having that personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

And say, you know what, he's gonna be first and foremost.

Some of you maybe have never given your heart to Jesus, and today is the day you need to come speak to Pastor Rick.

Would you pray?

Would you come?

Maybe you are walking with Jesus and you just want to solidify it, make it deeper.

Come on.

Pray.

You're like, why do I have to come to the altar?

Number one is it tells God, I'm serious about this.

Number two, it tells you, you know what?

I'm gonna make this work because I'm gonna commit to Jesus.

And he's gonna take me through.

God is saying to you this morning, why are you anxious and troubled?

Distracted by many things.

One thing is necessary.

Father, I thank you for those that are here this morning.

I thank you for the many that are encircling this altar, that are praying and offering unto you and saying, God, I don't want to be distracted anymore.

I pray, Father, for protection over them because it's Father, that immediately the moment that they walk out of this door, the enemy is going to come and attack.

Protect them.

Father, I pray that you would stay centered on them.

They would stay centered on you.

And God, that you do an amazing work in these families.

Father, thank you for this time this morning.

And I pray this in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Look at me.

Everybody, look at me.

Can we bring the house lights up just a little bit?

Just again?

Maybe, maybe not.

Here's there we go.

I want to tell you four things really to think about.

It's completely printed out in your handout.

If not, email me.

See me afterwards, and I'll give them to you.

Determine what distractions are currently in your life.

Figure them out.

Say what distractions do I have?

Alright?

Secondly, devise a strategy to say, you know what?

These are going away.

Maybe it's the phone.

Maybe you need to have that bucket when you sit down together or when you come in the house, you put it in there.

Maybe you put it on do not disturb airplane mode.

I did that yesterday during the third quarter of the Alabama game.

Thirdly, share your distractions with your family.

Say, this is distracting me.

I need you to hold me accountable.

I need you to be praying with me over this.

And then finally, commit to God to say, you know what?

My family, my spiritual development, our family, our spiritual development is going to take priority.

I'm not going to miss opportunities.

Amen.

We're excited you joined us for today's message.

Our heart is to connect with others in our community to grow with one another and build a bigger kingdom.

If you accepted Jesus today, we want to hear about it.

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