Ashton Earwood - "One Thing Is Needed" - Luke 10:38-42

To be a church.

I'm super grateful this morning to stand up here with another opportunity just to open God's word with all of you.

And if you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn with me to Luke chapter 10.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 10.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

And as you're turning there, I want you to think about something that I think almost everybody in this room has experienced.

Have you ever had one of those days where you were busy all day long?

But somehow at the end of the day, you still feel like you didn't get anything done.

You never really stopped.

You went to work, you answered phone calls, you responded to text, you ran errands, you took care of the kids, you cleaned something, you went somewhere you had to go, you handled one problem.

And as soon as you got that problem taken care of, something else came up.

And eventually you get to the end of the day.

You sit down for the first time and you start thinking about everything you did.

And somehow all you can think about is everything that you still did not get done.

And I don't know if life has actually gotten busier or if we just get better at filling every second of the day with something to do, but it seems like there's always something that demands our attention.

There's always another notification, there's always another email, another appointment, another practice, another meeting, a project or bills or another problem that has to be solved, another person who needs something from you.

And here's what's interesting about all of this a lot of those things are not bad things.

Going to work is not a bad thing.

Taking care of your family is not a bad thing.

Being involved in your children's life is not a bad thing.

Serving people isn't a bad thing.

And being involved in church is certainly not a bad thing.

A lot of the things that keep us really busy are actually really good things.

They're fun, they're family bonding, they're working to pay bills, all good things.

But I've learned something about good things, and that's if we're not careful, even good things can distract us from what matters most.

And that's what makes this passage we're going to look at so interesting because we're going to meet a woman who wasn't doing something terrible.

She wasn't living in rebellion against God, she wasn't running away from Jesus.

In fact, she was actually serving Jesus.

And somehow, while she was busy serving Jesus, she became distracted from Jesus.

And I think that's something that we can all be guilty of at some time.

So I really like this passage because I really think it's something that all of us need to hear.

So when we look into Luke chapter 10 in a moment, we're going to start in verse 38.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

But Jesus is traveling with his disciples.

And towards the end of the chapter, uh we see that Jesus enters a village and he's welcomed into the home of a woman named Martha.

Martha has a sister named Mary.

And if those names sound familiar, it's because we see them a decent amount of times in the Gospels, and we see them in John chapter 11 when their brother Lazarus dies and Jesus raises him from the dead.

John 11 · chapter mention

But here in Luke chapter 10, what we're looking at is a little less dramatic than that.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

So Jesus comes into their home, and these two sisters they respond to his presence in very different ways.

Mary positions herself at the feet of Jesus.

She listens to him teach.

Martha gets to work.

And I understand what Martha's doing here because if you think about it from her perspective, Jesus is in her house.

If you knew Jesus was coming over to your house this afternoon, some of y'all would probably not go home and sit on the couch and watch football in your pajamas till we got there, right?

You would clean, you would have started vacuuming yesterday, you would have put things away, you would have figured out what kind of food you're gonna make.

You would have made sure everything looks right.

And while you're doing all that, if somebody is just sitting in the living room watching you work while you're doing all of that, it's probably gonna start bothering you a little bit.

So I don't want us to read this and immediately make Martha the villain of this story because what she's doing makes sense.

She's cleaning, she's preparing, she's showing hospitality, she's serving Jesus, she's trying to take care of her guest.

So what Martha is doing is a good thing.

But somewhere along the way, the good thing that she's doing actually becomes a distraction from the better thing.

And that's where I want us to pick up this morning.

So we're gonna start reading in verse 38, and we're gonna read to verse 42.

So starting in 38.

Now it happened as they went that he entered a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house, and she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word.

But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?

Therefore tell her to help me.

And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.

So in those verses we read, there's really two phrases that I want us to pay attention to and keep in the back of our mind throughout this whole message.

Jesus looks at Martha and he says, You are worried and troubled about many things.

And then immediately after that he says, But one thing is needed.

So I want us to pay attention to those two phrases.

Many things and then one thing.

And somewhere in between the many things that's demanding Martha's attention and the one thing that Jesus said that she needs, Martha became distracted.

And if we're not careful, so can we.

And what I love about this passage once again is that Martha's not doing something bad.

She's actually doing something good.

She is serving Jesus.

But this story kind of shows us that even good things can become dangerous when they begin distracting us from what matters most.

And that brings us to the first point I want to look at this morning, and that is good things can still become distractions.

So I'm going to read this a little bit in verse 40 again.

It says, But Martha was distracted with much serving.

So I think those words are very important because Luke does not say that Martha was distracted by some terrible sin.

It doesn't say that she was distracted because she doesn't care about Jesus.

He says that she was distracted with much serving.

She's literally doing something for Jesus.

And yet, what she's doing for Jesus has started distracting her from being with Jesus.

So the problem is not that Martha was serving Jesus.

That's not the problem.

The problem was that her service had begun to distract her from Jesus.

And I think that's a danger that is incredibly easy for us to miss because we when we think about things that can pull us away from God, we normally think about obvious sin.

And yes, sin does pull us away from God, but not every distraction in our spiritual life is going to look sinful.

Sometimes it looks like work, sometimes it looks like your schedule or your children's activities, or sometimes it looks like school or taking care of everybody else.

And believe it or not, sometimes it can even look like church.

You can come to church every week, you can sing, you can teach, you can serve, you can volunteer, you can study your Bible because you're preparing to teach something.

You can be surrounded by the things of God, and you can still neglect your own time with God.

And I know that because I've done that.

There's a season in my life where I was at Liberty University.

I was taking Bible classes.

And at the same time I was doing that, I was on staff here and I was teaching to the students every Wednesday night.

Me and Kyle would go lead worship at different events throughout the week.

And occasionally I would go speak at an FCA or a Bible study outside of our own church.

So during that season, I was constantly in the Bible.

I was reading scripture for school.

I was studying because I had an assignment.

I was studying scripture because I needed to teach on Wednesday nights.

I was studying because somebody asked me to go and speak somewhere.

I was doing music and sitting in church.

And if you had looked at my life from the outside, you probably would have thought he's spending a ton of time in God's Word.

And I was.

But eventually I had to realize something that wasn't easy for me to admit.

And that is I was spending a lot of time in God's Word for everybody else except for me.

So I would study because I needed a sermon.

I would study because I was teaching on Wednesday night.

I would study because I needed a good grade.

But that time where it wasn't about school anymore, or the time that there wasn't a sermon attached, or the time that there wasn't anybody wanting me to teach on something, and it was just simply me and God, me opening his word because I needed to hear from him, me praying because I needed to spend time with him, that's where I was lacking.

I was so busy reading the Bible and studying God's word for everybody else that my personal connection was actually declining.

So it was hard for me to understand at the time because I was literally surrounded by God's word, surrounded by godly people, going to godly events, but none of that was alone and personal time between me and God.

And that was so easy to miss because everything I was doing was seemingly good things.

But I had allowed those good things to start replacing something that I desperately need.

And your version of that may look different than mine.

You may not teach a Bible study, you may not go to the same college I did, but maybe you're raising children, maybe you're building a career, or maybe you're taking care of aging parents, or maybe you're in school, or maybe you're serving somebody around you, or maybe your calendar is just full of just genuinely good and necessary things.

And I don't think Jesus is telling us that none of that matters.

I think he's showing us that none of that can replace me.

And that's what he's telling Martha.

He's not telling Martha that serving doesn't matter.

He's saying that serving me doesn't actually replace spending time with me.

And there's a difference.

Yes, your family matters, your job matters, your responsibilities, they matter.

Serving matters, but none of those things should replace your relationship with Jesus.

Because once they do, you slowly start to drift away from him.

And that's dangerous because we never expect a good thing to cause us to drift away from him.

And maybe that's the first thing some of us might need to recognize this morning.

Something doesn't have to be sinful to become spiritually distracting.

And I want to make something clear here because I don't want anybody to hear this point and walk away with the wrong idea.

The answer is not to stop doing good things.

The answer is not to stop serving.

The answer is not to stop volunteering.

The answer is not to care less about your family, your job, your school, or the responsibilities God has given you.

Because remember, Martha's serving was not the problem.

The problem is that her service had taken priority over her time with Jesus.

And that's a big difference between those two.

So Jesus is not calling us to abandon our responsibilities, he's showing us the proper order of them.

Because serving Jesus should just flow out of our relationship with Jesus, not replace the relationship with Jesus.

And here's something that I've heard Brother Logan say before, and I really love this quote, and I think it applies perfectly to this.

It is, we as followers in Christ need to find our identity in Christ and what he did for us, not in what we do for Christ.

We as followers in Christ need to find our identity in Christ and what he did for us, not in what we do for Christ.

So let me say this carefully because I don't want us to get confused.

This doesn't mean that I should stop doing things for Christ.

I should want to serve people.

I should want to help people.

I should want to use the gifts that God has given me.

I should want to be faithful to the responsibilities to the job that he's placed in my life.

But I can't give everybody else what I'm no longer receiving from Jesus.

What does that mean?

It means that if I'm not getting poured into by Jesus, then I'm not pouring anything out.

And when I say that, I don't mean that when I'm no longer receiving anything from Jesus, that's not his fault.

He didn't stop giving me anything.

I just stopped giving him the opportunity because I've let distractions get in the way.

So eventually, if all I'm doing is pouring out and I'm never sitting at the feet of Jesus for myself, I'm gonna start running empty.

And maybe that's where this personal challenge is for some of us this morning.

I want us to look at the good things that's filling our life right now, our family, career, hobbies, children's schedules, responsibilities, even the ways that you're serving God.

And then I just want us to ask ourselves, how many of those good things started taking the place of my personal time with Jesus?

I'm not asking, am I busy?

Most of us are busy.

I'm not asking, are these good things that I'm doing?

I hope we're doing good things.

But in the middle of all of that, am I still making time to sit at the feet of Jesus for myself?

Am I still spending many meaningful time with God, personally opening his word, praying, spending time where it's just me and him?

Because here's what we're gonna see next.

Martha's distraction, it did not just affect her schedule.

It didn't just make her busy.

Eventually it started to affect her heart.

So look what happens next in verse 40.

Verse 40 says, But Martha was distracted with much serving.

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

Therefore, tell her to help me.

And I think that's where our second point comes into play perfectly, and that is what distracts your attention can eventually affect your heart.

What distracts your attention can eventually affect your heart.

So now look at what happens to Martha.

Her distraction did not stay on the outside.

I'm gonna read verse 40 again.

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

Therefore, tell her to help me.

So Martha started out by serving Jesus, and that's a good thing.

But now we see that she's getting frustrated with Mary, and she's asking Jesus following this, Martha says, Lord, do you not care?

So think about that for a second.

Jesus Christ is sitting in her house, and Martha is so overwhelmed by everything that she thinks needs to be done that she is now asking whether Jesus cares about her.

And listen to what Jesus says in his response in verse 41.

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

So look at what Jesus does here.

He doesn't just address what Martha is doing, he actually addresses what is happening inside of Martha.

What does that mean?

He says, You're worried.

You're troubled.

And the serving that was happening on the outside, but now something is happening to her heart on the inside.

And that's why this passage is about more than just having a busy schedule.

Because you could clear your entire calendar tomorrow and still have a distracted heart.

The problem is not how busy you are, the problem is not about your schedule, the problem is your distracted heart.

That's why I want us to stress that it really has nothing to do with how busy we think we are.

It's about our priorities.

So Martha, her distraction has now affected the way that she sees everybody in the room.

At this moment, Martha does not see Mary as just her sister anymore.

Mary is now the person who is no longer helping me.

She's not doing anything.

She's not helping at all.

And Jesus is no longer just simply the Lord sitting in her home.

Now he's the one who isn't doing anything about my problem.

Martha says, I have a problem, and Jesus is just sitting there.

He's doing nothing to help me.

He's doing nothing about my problem.

That's what distraction can do to us.

When our hearts become consumed by all the things that we have to do, all the things that are not going right, all the things that other people aren't doing, all the things that we have to carry day to day, eventually we can start seeing everything through the lens of our own frustration.

We get angry, we get mad, and that changes how we look at things.

And I don't think we need 20 questions here.

I think we need one, and that is has something started out as a good thing and slowly begun pulling your heart away from the one who gave it to you?

What does that mean?

Has God placed something in my life that is a genuinely good thing?

Maybe it's a family or your job or your opportunity, and he put it there, and it is a great thing, but somehow over time that good thing is suddenly pulling my heart away from the same God who gave it to me.

And maybe nobody else notices it.

Maybe from the outside everything looks fine, but you know, how do you know?

You're tired, you're frustrated, you're worried, you're troubled about many things.

And the words that Jesus tells Martha are very important for us to hear too.

One thing is needed.

And we know how easily this can happen because we've probably all experienced this in some way.

I want you to think about those days when you already have 10 things on your mind.

You show up to work and there's so much to do.

Nothing's going right.

You're running behind.

There's traffic on the way to work, you're worried about that.

Something when you get to work does not go right.

You've got something that you have to take care of when you get home from a busy day at work.

Your phone keeps going off.

You're thinking about what you're going to do tomorrow before you've even made it through today.

And then somebody says something that normally does not bother you at all, but today it does.

Maybe somebody asks you to do something, or they ask you for one more thing, and suddenly that one little thing feels like the biggest problem in the world.

And the truth is, is that person may not be the problem.

The one who said something to you is not the problem.

The one who's asking you for something, they're not the problem.

Maybe they just happen to walk into a heart that was already overwhelmed.

That's what I see happening with Martha.

Mary did not suddenly become her enemy.

Jesus had not just stopped caring about Martha, but Martha's heart had become so consumed with everything around her that it started changing the way that she would see everything around her.

And that's why we have to pay attention to what's happening on the inside of us, not just what's happening around us.

Because sometimes we blame our frustration on our schedule.

We're too busy.

It's just overwhelming me.

Or we blame it on another person.

They just don't understand what I'm going through.

Or we blame it on our circumstances that we're going through.

We may even begin to wonder why God is not doing anything about it.

But sometimes the issue is not that everything around us needs to change.

Sometimes we need to just let Jesus deal with what's happening inside of us.

So maybe this personal reflection is simple here.

What has been getting the most of my heart lately?

Not just my time, not just my effort, but what has been getting the most of my heart?

What am I constantly thinking about?

What am I carrying everywhere I go?

What has been making me worried or frustrated or bitter or anxious or constantly on edge?

Because if I'm not careful, I can get s I can become so consumed by the many things that I deal with that I lose sight of the one that matters.

So I love what Jesus does with Martha here.

He doesn't just point out the problem, he actually calls her back to what she actually needs.

Look at verse 41 again.

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

Then immediately after in verse 42, but one thing is needed.

So that's where everything in this story starts to turn.

Martha is focused on the many things.

She has a lot to do.

Jesus is sitting in her house.

She wants to be a great host.

She wants to serve, she wants to do all these things.

Once again, those aren't bad things to do.

But Martha is focused on many things.

And Jesus brings her back to the one thing.

And that brings us to the third point, which is Jesus calls us back to what matters most.

Jesus calls us back to what matters most.

So I'm going to read verse 41 and 42 again.

And Jesus answered to her and said, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed.

And Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her.

So I love the contrast that Jesus gives us.

Many things.

That's where Martha's attention is at.

Everything that needs to happen.

Everything that's not done.

Everything that Mary is not doing.

Everything that Martha thinks Jesus needs to fix.

Many things.

But then Jesus said, one thing is needed.

And what is that one thing?

What's the one thing he's talking about?

Verse 39.

Look at what Mary did.

She sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word.

So she stopped.

She sat down at the feet of Jesus and she listened to Jesus.

And I want to be careful here because I don't think the application is quit your job, ignore your responsibilities, stop serving, and sit around and read your Bible all day.

That's not what Jesus is telling us.

Tomorrow morning, we still got to go to work.

Children still need parents.

Responsibilities still need to be handled.

People still need to be served.

So Jesus is not teaching us that responsibility is bad.

He's teaching us that responsibility can never replace a relationship with him.

And I think that's a very, very important order here.

We don't spend time with Jesus because serving doesn't matter.

We spend time with Jesus so that everything else in our lives flows out of that relationship with him.

So just looking at my own personal life.

If I'm just looking at my own personal schedule, what does this mean?

Before I'm a staff member at church, before I'm a student leader on Wednesday nights, before I'm a leader in my relationship, before I'm a coach on a football team, before I'm whatever title somebody wants to put beside my name, I am a follower of Jesus who desperately needs Jesus.

And whatever title belongs beside your name this morning, before you're a parent, before you're a spouse, before you're an employee, before you're a boss or a student or a volunteer or a caregiver, whatever it is that you may be, before you're any of those things, you need Jesus.

And I've learned that no matter how long we followed Jesus or how close we may feel to Jesus right now, there's always room to know him more deeply.

There's no such thing as being too close to Jesus.

And before we are anything else, we are followers of Christ who need him.

And maybe some of us have spent so much time trying to keep up with the many things in our lives, our busy schedule, we're just trying to get it under control that Jesus is actually calling our attention back to the one thing.

And maybe some of us have spent so much time just trying to be the problem solver in our families or trying to be the best worker and put out all the fires we can find.

And Jesus is actually saying, What's important first is this one thing.

Jesus is calling us back to the one thing.

And notice something else about Jesus' words in verse 42.

He says, Mary has chosen the good part which will not be taken away from her.

So looking closely at the text, we can see that Mary chose that one thing.

She chose it.

There were other things that Mary could have done.

I'm sure there were other things that Martha needed help with that Mary could have got up and helped her with.

But in that moment, Mary recognized what mattered most, and she chose to sit down at the feet of Jesus.

And I think that's really important for us because spending time with Jesus usually does not happen by accident.

What do I mean by that?

Life is never going to stop being busy.

Your responsibilities, they're not going to disappear.

Your phone isn't going to stop ringing.

Your family isn't going to stop needing you.

Your job isn't going to stop demanding things from you.

There's always going to be many things to do, which means we have to intentionally choose the one thing.

So, yeah, we're going to be busy, but are we intentionally choosing the one thing?

We have to choose to open his word.

We have to choose to pray.

We have to choose to slow down long enough to listen to Jesus.

Not because we're trying to check another box, not because we're trying to earn anything from God, but because we need him.

As simple as that.

We spend time with God because we need him.

And that's really where I want to bring all of this together this morning is basically what Jesus is telling us to do is come back to Jesus.

The one thing.

So I don't want us to leave here this morning and turn the scripture into one more item on our checklist.

What does that mean?

We've spent the whole morning talking about all the things we have to do.

And we can't treat this like one more thing we had to do.

I can't wake up in the morning and say, okay, from 7 a.m.

till 8 a.m., I have to spend time in God's Word, and I have to pray for 15 minutes, and I have to do that's just one more thing to do.

Because if we did that, we missed the entire point of this.

I don't want you walking out thinking, okay, I need three chapters every morning, I need to pray for 30 minutes, I need to get up earlier, because then suddenly what happens is we spend time with Jesus, but it becomes just one more task that we end up getting worried about getting done.

And if we miss it, then we feel bad about it, so then we try to double it.

That's not what this is.

This is not about checking another box.

This is about a relationship.

It's about recognizing that in the middle of everything else that is demanding our attention, I still need Jesus.

No matter what's going on in my life, I still need Jesus.

And ultimately, that is why Jesus came.

Because if I'm if I'm being honest, the greatest problem in our life is not that our schedules are too busy.

The greatest problem in our life is that our sin has separated us from a holy God.

That is our problem.

And no amount of serving, no amount of church attendance, no amount of religious activity could ever fix that problem.

So Jesus did what he could, that Jesus did what we can never do for ourselves.

He went to the cross, he took the punishment for our sin.

He died in our flesh, but then he rose again.

So our relationship with God does not begin because we finally got our schedule down and it's no longer burdening us and we just are completely free to spend time with him.

It doesn't start when we become more disciplined to read his word.

It begins with what Jesus has already done for us.

No matter how busy we think we are, our relationship begins with Jesus and what he has already done for us.

And if you're here this morning and you've never trusted Christ, you don't need to clean yourself up and get your schedule under control before you come to him.

You just need to come to faith in Jesus.

Let him handle the rest.

And as Christians, maybe we belong to him.

Maybe we follow Jesus for years.

And maybe we've been serving him faithfully.

Maybe we do a lot of good things, but somewhere along the way we got distracted.

And that's so easy to do.

Your Bible has become something that you hear preached instead of something that you actually open up for yourself and read throughout the week.

Prayer has become something that you just do before meals or when something bad happens instead of spending time every day with your father.

You've been doing things for Jesus, but it's been a while since you've simply just spent time with Jesus alone.

Then maybe Jesus' words to Martha are the words that we need this morning.

You are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed.

There's always gonna be many things.

We're always gonna be busy.

There's always gonna be something else to do.

Something is always going to demand your attention.

Something always feels urgent.

And many of those things could be good things, but don't become so busy doing good things that you neglect the one that you need the most.

Don't trick yourself into thinking you're doing so many good things that I'm just perfectly in tune with God.

Because if you're not spending time with God intentionally, it doesn't matter how many good things you're doing.

I had to learn that the hard way.

And I think it's very easy to do.

So don't get so busy building your life that you neglect Jesus.

Don't get so busy taking care of everybody else that you neglect Jesus.

Don't become so busy serving that you neglect being with Jesus.

Because after everything that Martha thought needed to be done, Jesus brought her back to something much simpler.

One thing is needed.

And maybe this morning it's time for us to sit back down at his feet and just listen.

Maybe it's time for us to recognize that, yeah, we've been doing good things, but we haven't intentionally been spending time with God.

Maybe it's time for us to realize that we didn't even know we were doing this.

In my case, I went months without knowing I was drifting from God in the middle of doing good things.

All I'm saying is at the end of the day, as Christians, I think we need to spend time at the feet of Jesus just listening, just praying, talking to God, letting him pour into us so we can continue doing those good things that matter and continue to share his word through those things.

So we can continue to show other people the goodness of God.

So with all of that, just remember to never neglect the one thing.

Would you pray with me this morning?

Dear Lord, we just we thank you for this day.

We thank you for the opportunity that you've allowed us just to come together as a congregation, as a church family, as a group of believers, and just worship you.

And I just pray that the reading of your scripture this morning would not be wasted.

I just pray that we would actually look into your word and that we would even go home and study your word and just see where it is you're calling us back to.

I pray that if there's something in our life that has been distracting us, if there's something in our life that is a genuinely good thing, but we've got it out of order, I just pray that you would show that to us this morning.

I pray that you would allow us to look on the inside of ourselves and see what problem it is that is keeping us from you.

I just pray that if somebody's here this morning that does not have a relationship with you, that you would give them the courage and the boldness to have that conversation with somebody, either with myself or with somebody else.

But I would just pray that you would show them the importance of what that is and then give them the boldness to speak up and have that conversation.

I pray that if there's somebody here that is following you that needs to do work this morning at the altar and just get back in tune with you, that you would give them just the courage to do that.

That you would make them feel safe in having a conversation with you.

I pray that you would humble us, that you would help us to realize whatever it is in our life that needs to be fixed, and then allow you to fix it and allow us to step back and let you handle it.

I pray all these things are your most precious in the holy name this morning.

Amen.