WWUTT 2382 Jesus in the House of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42)

Jesus in the House of Martha and Mary

Jesus came into the house of Martha and Mary, and Martha was busy with all sorts of stuff in the house. Mary was at the feet of the master as he taught, which one was doing the right thing, when we understand the text.

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Hey, once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel of Luke, we're finishing up chapter 10 today with the account of Jesus in the home of Martha and Mary. You're surely familiar with this story. I'm reading here, Luke 10, verses 38 to 42.

Hear the word of the Lord. Now, as they went on their way, 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.

But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.

Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. Now, as providence would have it, as I was preparing this particular devotional for today, I was on social media and came across this video that features a woman who claims to be a priest.

She's probably Episcopalian by the look of her, but I don't know that for sure. Anyway, she gives her commentary on this particular account, and she goes as far as saying, hold onto your seats, that Jesus sinned when he rebuked Martha in front of everyone else.

Listen to this.

Mary sat at the feet of Jesus.

While Martha did all the work.

Finally, Martha spoke up and said, Jesus, why don't you tell her to help me? And Jesus rebukes her and says that Mary's chosen the right thing. People don't like when I point out that Jesus messed up too, but this is a moment that I feel Jesus seriously grieved the Holy Spirit because, of course, hindsight is always 20 -20, and you always realize your sin in reflection.

He should have told everyone to get up and help, and then everyone would have gotten up and helped. Everyone would have completed the work, and then everyone could have sat down and been present to the teachings, but instead he rebuked her in front of everyone.

That was a very serious mistake, and I will hold him accountable for it. I don't think that this disqualifies him from divinity. He chose to become human because he wanted the human experience, that he would sin.

Now, I didn't realize until I just played it right there, listening to it in my headphones, that there's a lot of white noise in the background there, a lot of outside noise, so I hope you were able to hear that.

Well, yeah, maybe you didn't need to hear that. But among some of the things that she said there was because Jesus rebuked Martha in front of everybody else that he grieved the Holy Spirit, and this priestess, this wolf in shepherd's clothing, went as far as saying, I will hold him accountable for that, the arrogance of this woman.

Then she says, I don't think this disqualifies him from divinity, though, because he chose to become human and get the whole human experience, including sin, she said. But what does Hebrews tell us? Though he was made like his brothers in every way, he was tempted and yet was without sin.

Jesus is the only sinless one. He never sinned. Everything that the Lord did was right. Everything the Lord does is right. So even here, his rebuke of Martha has to be the right thing and it was done in love.

Martha was not in the right. Now, this woman, I thought of this too when I was watching that video. She actually did the same thing that Martha did in that she goes up to Jesus and says, hey, tell my sister that she should be helping me, and this woman agreed, yeah.

Jesus should have told Mary and then everybody in the house to help Martha, and then when all the work was done, then they could all sit down and sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to him teach. But this woman went the extra mile, the extra heretical step of accusing Jesus of even sin because he rebuked Martha and saying that she would hold him accountable.

So she went way worse than Martha. When the video first started and she was saying this, I was like, well, that's the same error that Martha made, but then she turned into a flaming heretic. What can you expect from a woman who calls herself a priest?

But Jesus says of Mary that she has chosen the good portion. This one thing is necessary, that we would sit at the feet of the master and be taught by him, and that's certainly the lesson, the exhortation that we must draw from this as well.

Martha and Mary in Luke and John

So let's come back to verse 38. Now, as they went on their way, this is Jesus along with the rest of his disciples, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. Now, Mary and Martha, who also have a brother named Lazarus, are also talked about in the gospel of John.

So they're mentioned in Luke's gospel and in John's gospel. Mary likely also mentioned in a previous gospel as well, but Martha and Mary and Lazarus, those three only appear in these two gospels. Well, Lazarus doesn't come up in Luke.

Lazarus actually is only mentioned in John. There is a Lazarus in Luke, but it's not the brother of Mary and Martha. Anyway, so how Jesus came into their company, we don't know for sure. This is about the closest we get to knowing how closely acquainted with these three Jesus was.

It just simply says that as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. So somewhere in coming into this village, then he came into the company of Martha and Mary, Martha likely hearing him teach or something to that effect.

Maybe Jesus was healing somebody and Martha invites him to come to her home and he accepts. And that's where Jesus goes with his disciple and dines and teaches. He was ready to teach to anyone who would listen.

And Martha's sister, who's there in the home, whose name is Mary, is anxious to sit at the Savior's feet and listen to him teach. Now, the village that they went into, we know from John's gospel that it's Bethany.

So Bethany is where they are, which is just right on the other side of the Mount of Olives. You have Jerusalem over the Mount of Olives, then is Bethany. And in that last week of Jesus' ministry, when he was teaching in the temple, just the days before he was to be arrested and then crucified, he would go back and forth between Jerusalem and Bethany.

So he was likely staying at Mary and Martha's house and then would come back into Jerusalem and teach and then go back over. And that was the way things went for that last week before Jesus' death. So he was very closely acquainted with this particular family and they cared for him quite a bit as well.

This is how he first comes into their company. So he goes into Martha's home and she has a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. By the way, Mary, a very common name around Judah.

Martha, though, is a very unusual name. That one is likely an Aramaic name and its origins are not really known because Martha does not appear as a name in the Old Testament. Mary does, though. Mary is the short form of Mariam, who was the sister of Moses.

So that was a pretty common name among Hebrews. Martha, not so much. So Martha is likely an Aramaic name. But anyway, Mary is the one who sits at the Lord's feet and listens to him teach. Verse 40 says, "'But Martha was distracted with much serving.'".

The One Thing Is Necessary: Listening to Jesus

Now the word therefore distracted is an unusual word. It only appears here and doesn't appear anywhere else in the New Testament, in the original language of Greek. And it means to be, I think the best definition that I could give to it would be high strung.

So she's very much anxious and careful and troubled and she's disturbed and she's like, I got people in the house. I gotta get all this stuff done. Surely you know somebody who's like this. Maybe you've been like this.

If anybody's ever in the house, you're just constantly occupied with the things that have to be right to care for everybody who's there. Maybe you got a big meal coming up or something like that. So you're doing everything that you can to prepare the meals so that everybody will be taken care of.

You may have great intentions in your heart, but part of being that frazzled is to actually be wrapped up in yourself. So you're that high strung over all of this because you're worried about everybody else's opinions.

I mean, it could be that you genuinely care for the people that are in your home. As far as your thinking goes with regards to everybody else in the house, you just want them to be taken care of. But there's still something self-centered about this.

And the use of that word seems to indicate that regarding Martha. She's distracted with much serving. So she's not paying attention to the master. She's got the savior in the house, but she's not listening to his teaching.

And serving him is not what's gonna save her. It's listening to the teaching and believing. And she's missing the teaching of the kingdom of heaven that's going on right there under her roof. So she's distracted with much serving that she's not listening to the teaching of the savior.

And she finally goes up to Jesus and says, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. She has that same reaction as the woman in the video. Everybody else needs to get up, help me, which is very selfish.

Take care of all this stuff first. And then we all can sit down and listen to the master teach us, sit at his feet and listen to him. But the Lord answers her, verse 41. Martha, Martha. It's like Martha, Martha, Martha.

You are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. What is that one necessary thing? But to listen to the teaching of Jesus, that we might know and believe and so be saved. Now there is certainly service that we are to do for our Lord, now being transformed in Christ, now having a new heart and a new mind by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit that has come upon us.

Now we are able to serve the Lord in the right way. But first comes the believing. We don't even know what we are to do for God and in the way that pleases him unless we listen to him first. That comes first.

Listening to the Savior and coming to believe in him and his word, knowing who he is, knowing something about our sin, and then through what he has done for us and by believing and trusting in Jesus, our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting life.

It is through Jesus Christ that we enter the kingdom of God. And it's through his word that we come to understand how, but Martha's not listening to any of that. She's working. And we kind of have a little bit of type and shadow going on here with Mary listening eagerly and Martha is working anxiously, but Martha's work is not gonna get her into the kingdom of God.

Martha's work will ultimately not even be good enough for her, even by her own standard, she will not have accomplished everything in the way that she wishes to accomplish it. That seems to be caught up in that word of how distracted she is and how Jesus describes her as being anxious and troubled about many things.

So once she has all the things done on her checklist that she thinks she needs to get done, then she's just gonna be standing there ringing her hands going, what else do I need to do? What isn't done right here?

What needs to be set in the right place? She will never even meet her own standard of work. Works are not gonna get us to the Savior. She needs to stop her work and go and sit and listen at the feet of Jesus.

This is the thing that Jesus says is necessary. One thing is necessary, that we would come to Christ. Mary has chosen the good portion, Jesus says. Which will not be taken away from her. Now, there are certainly things that we must do for our Savior, but that comes later.

We don't even know what we should do and the way in which we should do it unless we first listen to him. But Mary listens to the teaching of Christ and this is the one necessary thing that Jesus says.

Learning to Choose the Better Portion

You know, years ago, I was at a Michael W. Smith concert. As a matter of fact, I opened for him in concert. I was a big Michael W. Smith fan when I was a kid and it was in the summer of 2000. So this is 25 years ago now.

I was 19 years old, but in the summer of 2000, I opened for Michael W. Smith in concert, sang with my brother and sister and then I did a couple of songs at the piano, Michael W. Smith's piano. I got to play it and sing.

Well, he did two concerts that day because the shows that we did, it was part of the Christian radio station that I worked for. They're the ones that brought him in and put on this concert. It was gonna be a matinee show on a Saturday, like two o 'clock, but that concert sold out in less than 12 hours.

2 ,700 seats or something like that were in this auditorium and they sold out in less than 12 hours. So Michael W. Smith agreed to do a second concert in the evening and that one sold 1 ,800 or something like that.

That one didn't quite sell out, but it was still two big shows. You're talking 5 ,000 people or something that were there that day for a great concert. It was just a tremendous show. In the second concert though, the first concert, I sat and listened to the whole thing.

The second show actually was a little bit different than the first. He threw in some different songs in there. It wasn't the same lineup all the way through. But in the second show, I got to a point where I was thinking, I've got work I've gotta do.

Now, the radio station had told me, you can sit and listen to the show. They knew that I was a big Smitty fan. So I got everything done ahead of time that I needed to get done so that I could sit and enjoy the show.

But even I got to a point where I felt like, I need to be working. There are things that I need to do here. I need to do something to impress Michael W. Smith. That had even gotten into my head. So I got to working and it was actually my mom.

My mom was the caterer for the whole thing. She catered the band. And at one point she stopped me and she said, Gabe, you're never gonna get another opportunity to listen to a show like this. A show that you opened for.

You need to go sit and listen to the concert. And she was right and I did. I went back into the auditorium and I listened to him sing. And to this day, I regret that I didn't do that. It's like, man, I could have sat through two great shows with my favorite artist.

And I decided that I needed to get up and work. I missed an opportunity there. I think about that every time I read this account of Martha and Mary. And Martha's busy at work and misses an opportunity to be there at the feet of Jesus.

Now, the words of Jesus are so much greater than a Christian pop song. But Jesus, who has the words of eternal life, is there in the home of Martha and Mary teaching and Martha's getting distracted with all this other stuff.

And we do the same. And sometimes I think that as Christians, we take for granted the fact that we've got Bibles all over the place in our house. We've got a church just down the street that we love to attend.

We've got so many Christian friends. And so we kind of get into a place where everything becomes routine and we're not in our hearts actually sitting at the feet of the master to be taught by him. Or we can have a Bible, you know, let's go more extreme.

We have a Bible in our home. We're not even pulling off the shelf and reading. You've got the word of God, the creator of the universe who has condescended himself to give you his word through the prophets and apostles that wrote this down.

But you're too busy to open it up and read it. I remember it being said at one point that one thing that social media is gonna be used for in the judgment is to show us just how much time we had on our hands to either read the Bible or pray.

And we chose to goof around on the computer instead. Many of us do just as poorly as Martha and find ways to busy ourselves and distract ourselves. That's the word there in verse 40. Martha was distracted with much serving.

She was distracted by many things. Jesus saying to her, Martha, Martha, you're anxious and troubled about many things. We let that stuff take us away from what is most important. The one necessary thing, Jesus said.

And that's time with the savior. Not just reading the word and hearing from him but even time in prayer for he wants to hear from us. As said in 1 Peter 5, I think it's verse 7, cast your anxieties upon him because he cares for you.

In fact, right before that, it says, humble yourself before the Lord, casting your anxieties upon him. We would withhold casting our anxieties upon Christ because we're full of ourselves. We're too self-absorbed.

But we need to humble ourselves before God and remember that he wants to hear from us. And indeed he is speaking to us as well through his spirit, through his word, that we may hear the voice of the savior and spend time with God.

And so let's remember that. Putting away those distractions. Not just fitting God in where it's convenient. Like for example, when somebody tells me, oh, I pray when I'm driving because that's the time that I spend with God.

You know what?

That's great. That's good. That's good that you pray while you're driving. But don't let that be your time of prayer because then you're just passing the time as you drive instead of removing all distractions from yourself.

Driving is a big distraction. Removing all distractions from yourself and just focusing on God. Just spending time with the Lord in his word and in prayer. And let us be disciplined to do so. Let me complete one more thought here because I can't remember if I actually finished this thought earlier.

We'll close with this. But again, this is a type and a shadow of how Martha was just work, work, work. And Mary was right there at the feet listening. We cannot be saved by our works. We're saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read here. This account between Martha and Mary. And I pray that we too would not find ourselves too busy, frazzled, high strung, distracted by many things.

But we would come to that one thing that is necessary. And that is to be with our Savior. To be taught by you from your word, whether we're listening to the preaching of your word on a Sunday morning or the devotionals that we do, opening up the Bible and reading.

Listening to a podcast like this or something like that. We desire to be taught by you. And may your spirit work through our hearts away from all other distractions that we may focus upon Christ, doing all things to the glory of the God who loves us.

Forgive us for those times that we've been so distracted by everything else. Help us to keep Christ as our focus. It's in Jesus name we pray, amen.

Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com.

Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word, when we understand the text.