The Necessary and the Good — Don Wilkerson

The Necessary and the Good in Luke 10

While you're turning to Luke chapter 10 I just want to say that if in the past any of you've been spiritually speaking eating at McDonald's you're never going to want to go back there again. And I had noted when these conferences started that there were some people that had a hard time sitting for the length of time and under the word and I didn't understand it till I realized that they had been eating so much fast food.

Spiritually speaking you you know if you go out to a nice restaurant or you're gonna go out to eat and you want to go to a nice restaurant. You know where your kids want to go where children want to go where babes want to go fast food but those who want meat.

And thank God for the meat. And I was so blessed as I was listening to Bob speak about that place and I was sitting there Lord should I share what what's on my heart when I'd come here this morning to share.

And the Lord said yes because some people need to know where they're at before they can realize where they need to go. And so that place that Bob is talking about I want to contrast it today. And so I read to you from Luke chapter 10 it says verse 38.

Luke 10 38. And now as they were traveling along he entered a certain village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home and she had a sister called Mary who moreover was listening to the Lord's Word seated at his feet seated at his feet.

I was wondering for the Bob when you were reading from Ephesians chapter 1 about all things being into subjection under his feet. I wonder if Mary knew that Ephesians because that's what she was doing seated at his feet.

But Martha was distracted with all her preparations and she came to him 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 but only a few things are necessary really only one.

For Mary has chosen the good part which shall not be taken away from her. I want to speak to you out of this on what I call a message. I call the necessary and the good the necessary and the good. Let's bow and ask the Lord to to bless these words.

Lord we pray praise you for the seed the rich pure seed that you are sowing in our hearts. Lord we have been so challenged we have been so convicted we have been so blessed we have been so moved. But let us not coast from here on out the rest of this day because we believe that the that maybe in some hearts the seed is still planted upon thorny ground.

And Lord you want to take out some more thorns and you want to have a pure ground. Lord we and we also ask you that there would not go people from this conference who would lose this in a few days or a few weeks and everything would be back to where it was before.

But let it be so rich and so penetrating that it would be yes life changing not to us just to say that as a cliche but let it be let it have happened as we sense it happening in our hearts. But oh God we want it to be a deep work.

Three Classes of Believers and Their Priorities

But Lord clear out some more ground show us some other areas anoint this word we pray in Jesus name amen. The truth I'm going to share with you is very a very basic in respect to what should our priorities be in the approach to Christian ministry.

And in spite of the fact that it is very basic yet I am the first to admit that this truth is yet in its infancy in my own life when it ought to have been a part of me all of my ministry. I think it was there.

I know it was there in the beginning but I lost it somewhere along the way. And therefore this message is as much a revelation of my own heart as it is an attempt to reveal yours and in respect to the truth that I want to share.

I believe there are three classes of people that are here today. First some of you are spiritual fathers. You could just as well be my teacher because you learned the importance of the place Bob was talking about and the importance of the necessary in relationship to the good.

Your priorities are in the right place. You hunger for God more than you desire to perform works of ministry. And I remember when I began in the ministry I always wanted to hang out with men who had that hunger for God because they made me hungry and they made me want to see God.

But as I got into the ministry I started to want to hang out with people who were doing great had great visions and doing great deeds for the Lord. And because I wanted to be like that. And now I find myself back at that place where I want to hang around men who make me hungry for God and and make me feel even unholy that I need to go and draw closer to the Lord and deal with the things in my life.

And some of you are those type of people. But there's a second group that are here those who are still babes when it comes to doing the necessary things of ministry as compared to the better part that Jesus refers to and like me there is too much of the spirit of Martha in you and not enough of Mary.

And there's a third category I fear that may be in this room or you came to this conference this way. I pray to God you'll not leave it this way. And it's those in whom the truth is has not yet been born or it's just it's just being born.

It's part of what he's doing at this time. You have not and do not choose to spend the time you ought to to be with the Lord because you are so busy doing things for the Lord or what you perceive to be for him.

In fact some are obsessed with a necessary at the exclusion of the good part and worse is to be involved in more non essentials than essentials. And so let me explore this truth with you. When I read this account of Mary and Martha there's hardly been a time in my ministry when I didn't read that or heard preached that I wasn't convicted as Jesus taught showing us the two different types of ministries represented in Mary and Martha.

These is two beloved friends the home of the sisters that he visited. It was a nearest place that he could call home. And it was there in the house and Bethany that Jesus draws our attention to. Two expressions of ministry.

Two expressions of devotion. One is the waiter. One is waiting. One stands and the other sits. The one is in a hurry. The other is not. Jesus calls the one necessary. He calls the other good. And good is translated also in others translations as the better part or the best part of all.

And I would have you know that Jesus is not setting one sister's actions against the other. In referring to Martha's domestic concerns Jesus is not denigrating her. He is not putting her down. He says what you have done is necessary.

This is not a comparison but it is a contrast. It was a contrast between a service that was necessary but in relationship to how Mary reacted to our Lord's visit in her home it was not the better part of one's expression of love.

You see Martha had found a place but Mary had found a better place. Now most things done in the ministry and for the cause of Christ falls into this category of the necessary. This is borne out in in the scriptures.

Ministry as Necessary Service

For example Paul in 2nd Corinthians 1210 says. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses with insults with distresses with persecutions with difficulties also translated necessities for Christ's sake.

For when I am weak then I am strong. And Paul frequently wrote to his younger ministers and he prepared them for the ministry by telling them listen you're going to go through a lot of necessities in the form of tasks and roles and responsibilities inconveniences pressures tests and trials.

Yes you're going to go even through the fire. Things that they never taught you if you like me went to Bible school. Things they never prepared me for they never told me that was going to be like this necessities first.

Peter 410 says. Each of you should use whatever gift he has to serve others faithfully administering God's grace in various forms. Titus 3 for 14 says. And let our people also learn in good deeds to meet pressing needs.

How many of you know about that. How many of you know about meeting pressing needs that they may not be unfruitful. And this is exactly what Martha did in being hospitable to Jesus and her other guests.

And she is to be commended for such charity. And one of the qualifications of a pastor or bishop is that he'd be hospitable. And I believe this falls into the area of the necessary. Apostle Paul was a model servant.

He worked with his own hands as a part of what he felt was necessary so that he would not have to depend upon sending out newsletters or sending out appeals so they would not have to depend on anyone else financially for his support and night and day.

He was the example of servanthood acts 2031. He said in everything I showed you that working hard in this manner you must keep. You must help the weak. And remember the words of Jesus that he himself said it is more blessed to give than to receive.

And not even he's not only talking about money he's talking about your time your talents giving of yourself. He even said this in Philippians 124. He said I want to go and be with the Lord because that's the better place.

That's where I want to be he said. Yet to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. Paul said if he had his way he'd rather be with the Lord. That's the better part. But for necessity's sake at that particular time he he knew he had to remain to minister to them.

But his heart was in heaven. He was sitting in heavenly place all the time he was down here he was still sitting in heavenly places with Christ Jesus hallelujah. And so the ministry is a constant challenge and commitment to fulfill the call of and to the necessary.

And if there's one outstanding teaching drilled into me in my early preparation for the ministry it was to have a servant's heart and to be ready and willing to accept the smallest task in service for the Lord and for others.

Learning Faithfulness Through Small Tasks

However with some of those tasks I had to be provoked to action in the very early beginning of my involvement in teen challenge in the founding days the Holy Spirit taught me something very important about the necessary and I learned the most practical lesson on what ministry means now.

I've just recently moved here to Texas and I am involved with world challenge and our missions outreach around the world. But prior to that I've lived in New York for 25 years and been a part of our ministry there.

And people who have read the cross and switchblade and they meet me and find out I'm working there as well. They asked me well how did you get your call. How did you get your call to New York. Well mine came very simply.

Mine came on the telephone. I was a student in Bible school saw what was going on had visited New York and my brother called me and asked if I wanted to join his fledgling organization and I said yes.

I prayed about it and said yes. And so the call was a Macedonian call come over and help. And some people's call is very dramatic. Some people's are very simple it's simply out of obedience. And when I arrived in New York I had the usual mixture of emotions fear excitement anticipation especially about going on the streets and ministering to the gangs.

Because while student Bible school I happened to have gone to New York one weekend my sister and my brother-in-law said hey let's go to New York. Dave is preaching to some gangs in a boxing arena and I didn't know really anything was going on but I got in the car and went just so happened.

I went to two times with the second time I went just so happened went two different weekends just so happened. The second weekend that I went it was a night that Nikki Cruz was converted and so I had a preview.

I had a taste of what would be in the future and having no idea at that time that God would have me be a part of it. And so when I did physically arrive in New York with my Bible school diploma in hand my theology books my ministerial credentials and my sermons brother David preached started preaching was 12.

I've started when I was 16 at his church in fact preached my first message when I when I went to Bible school I had a hard time with Bible school because I thought Bible school needed me and I thought I could preach better than anyone on the faculty except one man the principal.

And so I had sermons I used to sell them I my outlines I sold my outlines and father was a pastor and taught me how to outline it and I was going to tell you when I preach another sermon when I was 12 and preach for 15 minutes and 3 ,000 people some there and about 300 came forward but I was preaching in my room and my imagination greatest results I ever had my ministry.

But I knew I was called to the ministry and so I arrived to begin my ministry needless to say I also had a romantic and adventurous glamorous and unrealistic expectation of what a ministry especially this type of a ministry what it should be a ministry to troubled youth.

At the time of my arrival brother Dave had written some evangelism literature for street kids and and even to this day evangelism literature is very important to our outreach effort and at that time he had been challenging church youth to get out of the four walls of the church building and get involved in what he called frontline evangelism.

Today we called it street evangelism. And the orders for this literature began to pour into this little office in Staten Island New York brother Frank Reynolds who is a national representative of teen challenges here today he was our pastor of the church.

We went and in Staten Island we had was the first headquarters of what was called in those days teenage evangelism. And there was one track in particular that brother Dave wrote that was just catching on.

It was called chicken and it spoke to the generation of the late 50s and early 60s and many people saw this track and began to order them. And so my brother had to set up a little shipping and mailing department in that office to handle those orders that were coming in and guess who got the job.

Yours truly. Now please understand that there is no task too small for a true servant of the Lord. But I was no servant at that point just coming out of Bible school. I was called to the ministry preaching and evangelizing and winning the world for Jesus all those other important things in the ministry.

David put me in an office and day after day I counted fifty a hundred a thousand tracks. I wrapped them I labeled them I prepared them for shipment and I kept waiting for him to come in and say Don let's go on the streets.

Occasionally we did. But my biggest venture out on the streets however was when I went to take the packages to the post office so somebody else could have the literature and they go out on the street and do it.

And I complained to the Lord I said is this the ministry. Is this necessary for me. And the more I complain not to my brother but to the Lord the more the orders poured in. By the way I'm I'm writing a book and I'm not kidding you either.

I'm writing a book called gaining weight w-a-i-t the power of positive patience and it's taken me 25 years to be ready to to write it. But God was preparing back then and I wanted to go but I could.

I wasn't out there yet into my minister. I could only dream of going to minister in places like Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant and gangland turfs where the hellburners and Roman Lords and the Mao Mao's waited for me.

And I remember weeks past there was no change in my ministerial status and I went to prayer again about it and I said Lord I'm willing to do what is necessary but I'm also called to preach and to begin my ministry.

And what I was really saying to the Lord was how can you do this to me. How can you do this to me Lord with all you know all that I thought that I was at that point of time but again the Lord was not impressed.

In fact I I got so desperate. I said Lord you can't do this to me. I'm Dave Wilkerson's brother. But the Lord wasn't impressed. I don't know if if he wasn't impressed who I was or who my brother was or both.

Yes. But in the midst of this struggle and prayer the Spirit the Holy Spirit spoke distinctly to me and he said I have not called you to be successful as you count success but I've called you to be faithful unto me.

And to be faithful to me is to be successful. And what the Lord was trying to do was to see if I was willing to accept the call of the necessary and to develop a servant's heart. Was I willing to let him choose my ministry or was I trying to choose it for myself.

And with this willing heart the Lord promised me according to Colossians 3 23 and 24 that in whatever you do do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than for men for the Lord rather than for men.

And we've had ministers who've come to this conference they've gotten delivered from a ministry to men and to other people knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of inheritance. It is the Lord Jesus Christ whom you serve.

You've heard it over and again from this pulpit the headship of Jesus Christ whether it be in our devotion to him our communion with him or it be our ministry it's the headship of Jesus. And finally I settled the matter in my heart.

I said yes Lord I'll do whatever is necessary. Now in time the rewards of faithfulness came to pass. God gave me more and more necessities. David gave me more and more necessities not only the things difficult but the things more enjoyable.

I went from counting tracks to passing them out to seeing souls saved from reading them and eventually into a leadership role in a growing successful outreach and rehabilitation ministry that is spread around the world.

And many of you are here today because of that vision as well that you picked it up as I picked it up as it was deposited from the Holy Spirit into brother Dave's heart. And others of us have caught the vision of it.

The Good Part: Abiding at Jesus' Feet

But as the work grew the workload my workload grew heavier. But I can tell you this that with all the reward of meeting necessities I began more and more to neglect the most important thing and the better part of service unto the Lord.

And I'd read about Mary. And what the Lord showed me is that I had a heart to be that I had a desire to be that. But I wasn't being that. Oh yes I was to a certain degree yes I was and other people would say would maybe even say that of me.

But I knew in my heart I was not at the place that I wanted to be. You see we are called not only to make choices between the sacred and the profane between righteousness and unrighteousness. But Christ condemns another thing those who are too absorbed in external service meeting legitimate necessities at the expense of choosing the good and better part of ministry.

And that is sitting at the feet of Jesus at his place to know his heart and his mind and to minister unto him. Martha busied herself setting tables for the Lord. Mary chose a good part of setting at the table of the Lord.

It's not a choice between one or the other it's simply a contrast between them and all how much time I've spent setting up gospel tables. Tables that meet important needs. Tables that physically and spiritually feed the hungry.

And I believe the Lord was in his pleas with our willingness to set up and operate and invite the needy to such tables. It is his clear command that we do so yet at the same time the Lord was displeased because I did not participate in the good part of ministry with the same zeal the same energy the same time the same desires I kept giving God the leftovers of my time and energy the necessities I should have done but not left the other undone.

You see all the good works that were involved in whatever they might be and we could turn this into a testimony meeting of many mighty works that you're involved in that God's doing through your ministries and churches and programs.

And yet they do not constitute the better part of ministry. I do not mean and Jesus did not mean that necessities are not in other than themselves good things. But what is the first thing that God calls us to.

It is to him. And before anything and everything we are called to abide in him. It is not it is even before lost souls. It is before preaching. It is before church planting. It is before ministry to addicts.

And what brother Dave said on the first night is it because he was praying and ministering to the heart of God that the ministry of the Holy Spirit was birthed through him to troubled youth and came as a result of that.

And God is calling us in this conference to come back to that point. And perhaps only the difference between us and you is that maybe we have arrived at it a little bit sooner than you. But God's giving you an opportunity at this conference to come to that place hallelujah.

And I believe I'm speaking to the hunger of some of your hearts when I say that. And what I've learned is that all my joy all my satisfaction all of my motivation came out and from the ministry. And that leads to death and disappointment.

If we do not like Mary make our way to that special place to hear the voice of the Lord and sit in his presence. Necessities are not the bread of life in the water of life. They cannot and should not completely satisfy our expressions of service.

That's why when we gathered for prayer yesterday afternoon brother Dave came in. He said between lunchtime he said God just put it so heavy on my heart that there are people in this conference who are lost in service.

Oh I don't do. We don't mean lost for eternity but they could lead to that but lost in service in respect to your relationship to the Lord. And these can become distractions leading to worry. And even prayer such as Martha when she says Lord do you not care that my brothers and sisters in Christ have left me alone to do all this serving.

And in turn this can lead to bitterness and burnout and being bothered about many things my brother Reynolds tells me he said when he travels around he knows that a man has reached burnout when he starts talking about my ministry my ministry my ministry and some of you.

If God doesn't deliver you from your ministry you will burn out in it. Believe me Jesus says that when all of our service and ministry is said and done there is really only one good thing and few there be that choose it.

For Mary it was listening to divine truth as it came to her in the person in words of Jesus. She drank in that immortal truth as she sat at his feet and heard the word. This is a better part the intrinsically precious the invaluable thing that cannot be calculated as to value.

That's what Jesus meant. It is the only part of ministry which shall not be taken away. There is no power on earth that can touch it or harm it. And the prophecy has gone forth from here that we may lose if there's an economic crisis in our land we'll lose all of our programs and our buildings.

And so forth our buildings decay our programs may fall. The denomination may even take away what you have established. But what you get in Christ what you get in the closet and in the inner court. And it's a place in that place that brother Bob was talking about.

Shall not hallelujah be taken away from you. Glory to God. Nobody can take it away from you. Let them have your ministry. Let him have your ministry. If it's a choice between that and having him in that place in him.

When Ministry Becomes an Idol

As I look back over my ministry I see too much of the character of Martha not enough of Mary. And yet there was ample opportunity as I heard his call again and again come to me come on to me turn with me to John the sixth chapter.

And as you're turning there there was a particular occasion in my leadership that the Lord wanted me in our ministry me in particular to give up to let go of a certain department or phase of our ministry.

It consisted of a lot of staff and effective outreach. I thought it was doing a good work for the Lord. I was happy to have it a part of our organization. And I was deeply disturbed and offended when I'd been asked to let it go let it become a separate ministry apart from my leadership and oversight.

And so I set aside time to pray and fast for three days. And during that time I received a word from the Lord out of John the sixth chapter very simple word again verse 35 Jesus of course is contrasting that the bread in the wilderness verse 31 our fathers ate the man in the wilderness as it is written.

He gave them bread out of heaven to eat. But Jesus said to them verse 35 I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger and he will who believes on me shall never thirst. And then verse 50 this is the bread which came down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread that comes down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he shall live forever. And the bread which also I give I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. And over and over again God just that word I am the bread of life came to me and yet to show you what the condition of my heart at the same time I prayed I said now Lord thank you for that word.

But what does that have to do with the decision I have to make. I did not understand what this had to do and I concluded that that program should contain should should remain. And so it did at that time.

And now some years later it was this year ago this January we were having a little conference out near our office out at Lindale some ministers that workers had come together and it was not planned this way but it turned out to be a call to repent a type of a call to repentance a little gathering at least it especially was for me God begin to do a number of things in my heart at that time and one in particular the Holy Spirit brought me back to that three-day prayer retreat and he brought me back to that word and he said now he said I'll show you what I was trying to tell you.

And when I saw I when I saw it I was so shocked and I was so humbled and still am and overwhelmed by my years of blindness and I have been in an era a period of ongoing repentance as a result of it. And what the Holy Spirit was trying to show me is that my ministry had become my bread.

The reason that I was unable to let go of a necessity is that it had become an idol to me my satisfaction my identity my ego was centered in a thing a good thing no less but it was not centered in Christ and in the cross.

And the Lord was just simply saying to me son you can let that go that's not where you stand you don't stand on that you don't eat off of that I am the bread of life. But now when I think of the blindness of my eyes to it you know I pray and you know what's happened to me since then.

I days after that weeks after that I would think about what the Holy Spirit had shown me about myself and I'd ride in the car and I would weep or I would be in a motel room one time and it just began to.

I didn't know why I was weeping but then and the Holy Spirit the sin that has been before me is that the Holy Spirit showed me that even some of that motivation there was flesh in my service and I thank God and I humbly say this that he is changing me and I'm still involved I'm involved in missions and we're we're brother Davis said we're going to Poland and we're going to Hungary and now Africa is open up and we have requests coming from Africa.

We just opened a center in Guatemala and I thank God for all that. But I don't know what happened to you but somewhere I crossed over somewhere something happened so that now those things don't matter to me as much.

Oh I get excited about them but I have put them in their proper place and now they flow out of having found a place in him. The better part of ministry the better part of ministry. Galatians 524 says they that our Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lust.

We must not only have nothing to do with sin we need to discern whether our desires and the spiritual arena our works of the flesh either prompted by our flesh or somebody else's flesh. And most of all we need to discern whether our virtues and visions and ventures for Christ are preventing our surrender to God.

And to do so is to bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Now some may have little empathy for a minister who battles sword evil lust or who has fallen into immorality but lest any of us feel self-righteous.

Remember that the flesh can be in the sanctuary it can be in the pew it can be in the study it can be in a rehabilitation center. It can be out on the streets even witnessing to lost souls. If the motivation is wrong this is flesh cloaked in the good works of a pastor or evangelist or lay person or a street worker.

You see it's the good that hates the best. And the higher you want to go in God the more intense will be the opposition opposition to Jesus Christ. The more you want to minister for him the more the devil will come against you.

Front-Sliding and the Danger of Misplaced Strength

And all the Lord showed me this one time. Let me let me just share this with you. I was riding in a car one time with a young man who was all caught up in doctrine his his was not. His was a service through doctrine and he was in heavy into the prophecies and so forth.

And as we were riding he asked me this was some years ago. And he asked me he said what do you think of your brother's book the vision. Well at that time so many things that already come to pass. I said well all you got to do is read the newspaper and see it's being fulfilled every day.

And he said yeah I agree. And he was. He was so caught up in in in prophecies but for some reason I didn't know why. I just turned to the young man we had just come back from a jail service and and when he said that to me I said young man you got to be careful if the devil can't get you to backslide he'll get you to front slide.

And he looked at me he said I've never heard that term before. Would you please tell me what you're talking about. And I thought to myself this is going to be interesting because I've never heard the term myself before either.

And then of course the interpretation came. I said look if the devil sees. And I didn't know I found out later he'd been a drug addict and he had lived a pure life and he was clean from the Lord. And I said if the devil can't get you to go he's gonna get you to turn back away from him one direction or the other.

If he can't get you to go back he'll get you to go front. He'll get you to go into a truth and a teaching and you'll go so deep in it as some people have today. They get so lost in a certain segment of the truth and they're cut off from the rest of the pie and the rest of the whole counsel of God that they are front sliding or even in my case with ministry if the devil can't get you at your weak spot he showed me that he'll get you at your strength and turn your strength into a weakness.

And my strength had become necessities and a servanthood and wanting to serve the Lord. And he attacked me at the point of my strength and he turned it into a weakness. That's how slick he is. It is a good that hates the best and the higher we go in the Lord the more intense is the opposition to Jesus Christ.

I say that again. Let me close. Let me take you to brother. Bob talked about the good place. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time. But let's just let me end up here in Psalms 84. Let me talk to you about the good part.

Longing for the House of God

Here it is again. Here it is again. You see we all these messages. We don't sit down and say who you're gonna preach or what are you gonna preach. The Holy Spirit just brings them together. How lovely are thy dwelling places.

Oh Lord of hosts. My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord. Now this he's not talking about the fact that he has not been in the courts of the Lord. He's talking about the fact he said my soul and even longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord.