Priorities

Luke 10 is where we’re going to be this morning. Luke 10, verse 38 is where we’re going to start. Herein is a wonderful little story that appears in no other gospel but in the Gospel of Luke. It does, however, occupy, in my opinion, a very important place in the flow of the gospel. And even more importantly should occupy a very important place in your own heart and in your mind. Today, the discussion is going to circle around a single word which is the word priority. If this thing works, that would be dope. Yes. Priority. It’s our theme this morning and has become a very popular point of conversation in modern times. It seems like our society has become more and more frantic. Do you agree with this, that we’ve become a little bit disjointed, a little bit disconnected? It seems like we’re going at a million miles an hour. If you ever ride a skateboard or a scooter, there’s a point in time where the skateboard or the scooter, if it’s going really fast, gets the wiggles. Do you know that? You’ve seen this before. You’re just like, Whoa, it’s so fast. It’s totally out of control.

And a lot of times it feels like that’s the way our lives are headed. So much going on, so mobile, so disconnected, so sped up. We’re moving at a lightning pace. And it’s no coincidence that the word priority seems to be on the lips of many, many, many people who are trying to just sort out their lives. There are popular books on the subject of priorities. You can hire someone to come and help you prioritize. You have life coaches and organizational coaches, and there are apps that can help you prioritize and set up a good to-do list and set up your events so that you know exactly what you’re supposed to do at the right time. And priorities seem to be, again, on the lips of everyone. But when we say the word priority, what we are typically saying is what’s most important and what’s the main thing or what’s the necessary thing? But if you dig a little bit deeper into the etymology of this word, what you find out is that the word priority is just a form of the word prior. Now, we all know what the word prior means. It means before.

It means ahead of, preceding. Priority is something that comes before other things. And so when we ask what’s our priority, really what we’re asking is, what should come first? What comes first? What precedes everything? What is foundational to everything else you want to build your life on? What is the antithesis? This is the idea, what comes first? Now, if you ask the average person who’s just walking around on the street, you would do some survey and ask them, Hey, what comes first in your life? You would get a lot of answers. Some people would say family, friends, work, comfort. Some people would say vacations. That’s what I want. Love, joy. But if you were to ask that same question to a Christian audience, there really should be one singular answer. Because when it comes to our faith, there is one priority, one thing that comes before everything, one thing that comes before service, one thing that comes before our mission, and one thing that comes before our community. There is something that Jesus elevates as the first thing in the Christian life.

Here in this text, we’re going to study this morning, Jesus is going to tell us what that priority is. With one simple sentence coming from the lips of our Lord, we’re going to hear the words this. This is what it’s going to say. But only a few things are really necessary and really only one. That’s what Jesus is going to say. Only a few things are really necessary, really only one. In a few moments, we’re going to discover what that is. By the way, do you enjoy simplification? I love simplifying things. If you could take complicated ideas and put them into one thought, I’m your friend. That’s what I’m about. Jesus is just so good at this. Jesus always was able to take complicated ideas and synthesize them into one or two ideas. You remember when Jesus says, Hey, what’s the greatest commandment? He says, All the law and all the prophets are summed up in these two commandments. Jesus is so good at this. Jesus helped simplify things, and that’s what he’s going to do for us today. I just have to confess, I love simplicity.

I’m a simple guy. I love when you can take an email that’s 70 pages long and just say, disregard all that, just these two words, these two ideas. This is what you have to do. I like when you can reduce things. I like when restaurants have one or two menu items. I like that. I’m a fan of that. It’s like, what am I going to order? Chicken strips or hamburger? Done. That’s my only option. The cheesecake factory gives me anxiety. It’s like a novel. I was talking to Mary Haddoway this week, and we were talking about our health care in the church, and we just realized how complicated it was. I thought I was a halfway intelligent human being, but I couldn’t even figure out how I should find out how much I spent on something. It’s all complicated. The word is it’s complication after complication. You ask a question, you didn’t even know the question you were supposed to ask in order to get the answer that you actually needed. It’s nuts. I like Ikea manuals. It’s like a picture. It’s like this goes here. It’s like, Good, I can do that. No words to confuse me.

More and more pictures. I like things simplified, the simpler, the better. I’m not saying a biblical approach like you need to. You can be simple. Some things are complicated. But what I’m saying is when you can reduce some thoughts down to one or two ideas, they are just so helpful for me. Of course, biblical interpretation is demanding. Of course, the application of scriptures is supposed to be demanding. Of course, to take on the full counsel of what all the Spirit has put on men’s hearts is challenging. But, man, I just love when I get to simplify ideas, and Jesus, in this text, does this for us. He gives us what the simple priority is for every human being and specifically for every person who wishes to be a Christian. Here’s where we’re going to find it. Are you ready for it? It’s in Luke 10, verse 38. As we’re approaching it, let me just mention one other thing. The good news is it’s simple. The bad news is if you miss it, you miss everything else that follows. Whatever you build your foundation on is going to be the thing that determines how high or how well you can build.

Whatever is primary, whatever is first is actually the foundation on what you build the rest of your life. And so you got to get it. If you’re going to get it, rather, if you’re going to build a spiritual life, you have to get this. So here we go. Luke 10, verse 38. A simple little story. As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She had come to him and asked, Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me. Martha, Martha, the Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed, or indeed, only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. Simple enough story to make a very simple point. Before we dive into the details of it, let’s talk a little bit about the context.

Where are we? This is the launching point of the first six months of Jesus’s Ministry or the last six months of Jesus’s Ministry. Well, eventually Jesus’s Ministry will end as he heads on the road to Jerusalem and dies on the cross. Jesus is headed that way and he’s going from town to town to town. He’s on the road from now for the next six months. He’ll be on the road, proclaiming from town to town to town who he really is. You might remember this, but earlier on, Jesus had sent out the 72 ahead of him. These 35 teams of two go from town to town and village to village, and they arrive there and they explain who Jesus is. These 35 evangelistic partnerships have hit up every single town in Jerusalem, or rather in Israel, and they say, Hey, look, I want you to know that there’s a man who’s coming on behind me, who heals the sick, who gives sight to the blind, who raises the dead. No one’s ever spoken like this guy. He is the Messiah, the son of heaven. These men have gone ahead of Jesus, and now Jesus is coming behind them to go into those towns and villages.

Again, these towns are places the disciples have already gone. When it says, Verse 38, as Jesus and his disciples were on their way, what’s happening along the way is that Jesus is number one, teaching the disciples, but he’s also heading into the towns and villages that those disciples have already come from. What is he teaching on the road? Well, we learn a lot of things on the road. Jesus teaches about prayer. He teaches about Satan. He teaches about divine judgment. He talks about hypocrisy and persecution and suffering and the Holy Spirit and greed. And we’re going to cover all these things in the upcoming weeks. He talks about contentment and unity and righteousness and humility and pride and the cost of loyalty to Christ. These are the things he’s teaching, and he’s going to be teaching them on the road for the next six months. By the way, what wouldn’t I give to be a part of one of those classes? To just be walking with Jesus as he is teaching his disciples. So Jesus is on the road and he’s heading to one particular town. As Jesus went and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.

We know what the village is called. This is a little spot where Jerusalem is. We’re going to zoom in really fast. This is Jerusalem and this is a place called Bethany. Bethany, that’s the name of the town. We know that from later in the story because Jesus is going to return to this town in John 11 and in John 12. Jesus is traveling from Jerusalem to Bethany. It’s about a two-mile journey, not that much, just over the Mount of Olives and down the backside. This is likely the first time Jesus has ever visited Bethany. And so it’s likely this is the first time Jesus has ever met Martha and Mary. Martha and Mary are people who were likely taught by that evangelistic crusade. And they shared about Christ. They said Christ was coming. And when they hear that Christ is coming, Martha, the older sister, decides to open up her home to Jesus. Martha. Martha is her name. It’s the Aramaic word meaning mistress. Like the master of a house, but not the master of the house. This is the mistress of the house. This is her house. She’s the oldest in the family and she welcomed him.

She welcomed Jesus with joy. She’s excited to have him there. She believes the man coming is the savior of the world. Now they’re with him in the house. It’s pretty amazing. In the house, they’re not alone, though. Martha has a brother. His name is Lazarus. Martha also has a sister. Her name is Mary. It doesn’t tell us a lot about Mary, and yet she becomes the central figure in the story. She becomes the example for all of us that we’re supposed to follow. It tells us one thing about Mary, and this is what we know about Mary. Her sister named Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, put listening to what he said. I want you to do a little setup of the house. Here it is. They’re walking inside. You can see Martha on the side of the road saying, Hey, Jesus, son of Nazareth, come and stay with me. Jesus says, Okay. She’s been preparing all week, maybe all month to have Jesus, to have Jesus from Nazareth, visit her home. She’s made preparation. She’s continuing to prepare, and she pulls him into the home.

When she gets there, all of the village is there to listen. In the very front row is Mary. Mary is sitting there. By the way, this is remarkable for a woman. Women didn’t sit at the feet of a Rabbi. Rabbis didn’t allow women to sit at their feet of them. And yet Jesus is so countercultural, so amazing that he says, Everyone can come to me. She’s sitting there. She’s humble. She’s listening. She’s attentive. The Messiah is in her house and she’s not going to miss a single word that he says. Jesus is there. He’s teaching. The whole village is there. And in the very front row, there is Mary. By the way, shout out to the front-row crew. You’re awesome. Thanks for sitting up there. Nobody wants to be in that front row. Maybe you’ll get a shout-out if you sit there next week. She’s listening. People in the front row, they’re attentive. People in the back row, you’re attentive too. But the front row, they’re ready. They’re paying attention. They’re right in. This is what’s happening. She’s there. Where’s her sister? But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.

Now, I have to admit something before we get to the main point. In this passage, my favorite character is the person that Jesus rebukes. I like Martha. I can relate to Martha. I feel like sometimes I’d rather hire a Martha than a Mary. Do you know what I’m saying? You want the person who’s going to get to work, not the person who’s like, I’m just sitting with the Lord. I just want to be close to Jesus. Maybe you get up and get some work done, move some chairs. I know I’m not supposed to. I get it. I know Jesus uses Mary as the hero for the story, but I’m just saying I just sometimes need a little work to get done. I actually really appreciate Martha. Don’t you appreciate Martha? Martha is cooking. Martha is preparing the house. She’s cleaning, she’s setting out all the chairs. She’s lit the candles to make sure the place doesn’t smell bad. She sets up the feet washing station. And there was more work to be done. And she’s there baking the bread and making the beds because Jesus is going to sleep there with his 12 disciples. I know Mary’s the hero of the story, but sometimes I just feel like I’d prefer a little bit of Martha in my life.

I like people who do stuff, who get stuff done. Notice what it says. It says Martha opened up her home. This is her house. She’s paying the mortgage. What is she distracted by? What does it say? The preparations that had to be done. They’re the ones that had to be made. Jesus is correcting her, and it feels a little bit insensitive to correct her for cooking some food for him. It feels a little bit insensitive. It seems a little bit strange to me that the story, you correct the responsible one in the story. Maybe because when I read this so many times, I related to Martha and I often don’t relate to Mary. I want to get something done. I don’t necessarily want to just sit at the feet of Jesus. Are you like this at all? A gain, I just want to make a little note here. You need to catch this. There’s nothing wrong with Martha’s actions. The issue here is all about what comes first. Again, it’s about priority. Jesus talks a lot about this idea of what comes first throughout the Gospels, but Remember what he said? Hey, before you give your offering, go make amends with your brother or sister.

I don’t want you coming here giving a sacrifice without you having a good relationship. There is an order to things. There is an order to things. And if you’re a brand new convert, this is a perfect, perfect, perfect passage for you. Before you get to the work, make sure you put first things first. The work is right to do, but Martha has missed the order. She’s eating before she’s praying. Do you know what I’m saying? And Jesus isn’t mad at Martha because of what she was doing, she’s mad because she was distracted by what was less important. By the way, this is literally what the word means. Distracted means to be pulled away, pulled apart from. It’s a great picture. In each of our minds and our hearts, I would say that there are a set of things trying to distract you, trying to literally pull you away from what’s most important. Even as you’re listening right now, there are things on your brain. There are conversations that you have to have. There’s lunch that you know you really want to eat. There’s something in the oven that you have to make sure about.

There’s a relationship that’s maybe in tatters. There are bills that need to be paid. There are some things that are pulling you away from what should be most important. Let me just say this, this is a reason why I encourage you if you don’t have to use your phone to take notes in church, don’t use your phone. Maybe it’s like one time in your life when you can be away from the thing that constantly dings you and pings you. There’s no swiping, there’s no liking, there’s no need to do any of that stuff. If you don’t have to, get a physical Bible, get a physical notebook. Maybe it’ll help you be not distracted for just a little bit of time. Anyway, she’s distracted, she’s pulled away, she’s dragged away. She’s concerned about all the arrangements that need to be made, all the arrangements that need to be done. She’s distracted from what? From her priority. What should her priority be? Well, exactly what Mary is doing. What should the priority of a Christian life be? What comes first? Well, it’s being close to Jesus. It’s so simple. It’s not complicated.

I can’t make this into some spiffy sentence. It’s a really simple thought. In the priority of the Christian life, what comes first? Your own relationship with Jesus, learning from Jesus, listening to Jesus, focusing on Jesus. Yes, you need to work, but you need to be close to Jesus first. Yes, Martha, you need to make the bed. Yes, you need to cook the meal. For all of us, yes, we need to share our faith. Yes, we need to serve Kingdom Kids. Yes, we need to honor Jesus with the gifts that we’ve been given. Yes, we need to learn how to be great parents and great spouses, and great roommates. Yes, we need to learn how to budget well and be generous. Yes, of course, we need to be on a mission with the cause of Christ. But before we do any of that, we need to learn to sit at the feet of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Martha is dragged away, literally, with her serving, dragged away by her serving. I mean, it’s such a powerful, winsome, insightful, and yet deep and clear thought. Her busyness has made her miss her priority. She missed it because she was so busy, the simple idea of being close to Jesus.

Here’s a question for you. Are you too busy to be close to Jesus? I know you have work, I know you have kids, I know you have other things to do, vacations to go on and things to manage, and dishes to wash and laundry to do. But are you so busy that you’ve missed the priority of your Christian faith, just being with Jesus? See, it wasn’t just bad enough that Martha’s priorities were messed up, but I’ve learned this, maybe you did too. Once your priorities get messed up, your attitude gets messed up. If you miss what comes first, then you become resentful. If you start serving without loving Jesus, you become resentful for your service. If you start serving, if you start giving, if you start trying really hard and trying to serve the church before you actually have a rooted foundational relationship with Jesus Christ, everything gets all messed up. This is why we encourage people, hey, to sit here for a while before you go serve somewhere else because you need your relationship with Jesus to be deep and meaningful. Her attitude goes, and she loses the joy of working. She becomes agitated, frustrated, she gets mad, and all the idea about hospitality goes out of the window.

Now she’s just frustrated, exasperated because her sister is not helping. What does she do? Here’s what’s happening. The setup, it looks like this. There’s the crowd. There are 50 people in the home, 20 people in the home. They’re all sitting intently listening to Jesus. The very front row is Mary. And she’s just at his feet. She’s soaking up every single word. She wants a relationship with Christ. Martha’s in the background. She’s cooking, she’s cleaning, she’s fixing the beds. And every time she walks into the room, she sees her little sister. How dare you? And then she goes back, does some more serving, and then walks back in and she just sees it. I wish I could be there, but I would be there if you would just help me. And so all of a sudden the attitude grows and it grows and it grows and it grows and it grows. And so it says that she came to him and asked, I just want you to picture this. Martha comes to Jesus and interrupts his teaching. She interrupts. Hey, hold on. I know you’re talking about eternal life, but let me just say this.

Let me just say this, Jesus. I got one thing to say, and then I’ll let you get back to talking about heaven. Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Don’t you care? Tell her to help me. This is crazy to me. This is like her saying, Well, are you just going to sit there and just keep talking about life-changing soul transforming, sin-shattering, heavy blessing, peace-giving, glorious truth? Are you going to just keep talking about all that stuff while the beds are not made and the bread is burning? I know you have the secret to eternity, and I know you know about righteousness and iniquities and the glories of heaven, but there are biscuits in the oven that are burning. Mary is sitting there not doing a single thing about it, you go tell her to help me. Now, before you condemn Martha, we’re all tempted to do this. We’re all tempted, even in service in the church. Here I am serving in the lawn team and no one in this church cares about me or whatever. We all get tempted to miss Jesus in the work of the church.

We’re all tempted to get caught up in other things and then get frustrated when God doesn’t take care of the priorities that were never really priorities. Even in our lives, we have things like, okay, we set a wrong priority, and then we get frustrated when Jesus doesn’t help us with the wrong priority. My priority is a husband. Jesus, give me a husband. Jesus, give me a husband. How dare you not give me a husband? Jesus is like, That was never supposed to be your priority, to begin with. Jesus, take care of my children. Jesus, fix this marriage. Jesus, give me a better work environment. We make that the priority. And then we get frustrated when Jesus doesn’t do the thing that we think he should do for us, for a priority he never told us to make. In our distraction, we’ve pulled away from what really matters. Our relationship with Jesus doesn’t come first, doesn’t come second. It just is lost in the minutiae of our life. Now, Jesus could have said to Martha, back off, Martha. Stop it. You’re wrong. You have wrong priorities, you’re wrong. Back up. But that’s not what he says.

Instead, he is so gracious. Man, he’s so gracious. Martha, Martha. By the way, this repeat, this little thing is a way of just being like, honey, I love you. Come on. It’s a way of being compassionate and gracious. Martha, Martha, the Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things. That’s me. But few things are needed, or indeed, only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. Martha, Martha, you’re worried and troubled by many things. This is corrective, but it’s also sympathetic. It was good to do what she did. It was good to work. It’s a wonderful thing. But man, there’s only one thing that’s actually prioritized poverty that actually comes first. It’s what Mary’s doing, and it’s what Mary’s doing. This is me, this is you. Our lives are filled with the unnecessary. In many ways, the unnecessary control over us. They ruin our attitudes, they hurt our relationships, and they make our service to God become something that we are frustrated by and irritated by. We get caught up in all sorts of things that make us frustrated and worried and anxious. Really, there’s one thing that actually matters.

I want to encourage you to commit your life to one thing, being close to Jesus Christ. I can’t make it any more simple. Commit to one thing. Being close to Jesus Christ from sitting and learning from him, whether that be in a setting like this or on a Wednesday night with your small group, or whether in your quiet, personal reflections with Jesus, but make that your priority. Nothing in life should go before your time with Jesus Christ. Nothing is better than time with Christ. Nothing is better than hearing his word. Nothing is more important. Nothing compares to it. When you get an opportunity to be close to Christ, grasp it, take hold of it. I want you to picture this. Martha, this is her first interaction with Jesus. Mary’s first interaction with Jesus. At the end of the day, what could Martha have said about her time with Jesus? Martha could say, Hey, look, I had the Messiah visit and the house was clean. And the food was made and the beds were perfectly laid out. And man, their biscuits were delicious. That’s what Martha could have said. But what could Mary have said?

She was committed to worship, and so she could say, I met the Lord. I heard the person who had the greatest words, whoever spoke. I heard a man who no one has ever spoken like, who knew everything about me. I met a man who touched me in my heart and in my head and in my soul and changed everything about me. Martha missed an opportunity to meet Jesus. For Mary, that beautiful blessing was never going to be taken from her. I want to close by saying, I thought a lot about why this story is important. What is this story? This story is e Jesus goes to visit two sisters who get into a fight. I thought a lot about why it’s important. I feel like this story is important because this is a story you and I can relate to. I can’t really relate to Jesus healing a blind man. I don’t get I’ve never seen a blind man healed. I’m not a blind man. I can’t really relate to that story as well, but I can relate to having misplaced priorities. I can relate to having a family rivalry. I can relate to those things, and I feel like that’s why God put it here.

And so I do want it to impress in your heart. And I want to leave you with an illustration. I have a great friend named Matt Newberg, who told me about this illustration, years and years and years ago. But I want you to think about your priorities this way. You can imagine a rainstorm. This is what the anxiety of life feels like when you have too many things viding for your attention. This is a lake or a pond and there’s a rainstorm on it. You can see how from the surface of the water it looks quite chaotic. There are droplets everywhere. And if you think about the rippling effect, if you think about each droplet as something else wanting your attention, you could think of it like this. This is the way a lot of our lives are. Everything is just wanting our attention. We get notifications and text messages and friends call and people ask us things. The boss has a list of 70 things to do and there are 80 things to focus on in our faith and there’s work to do in the church, etc.

We find out our lives become this anxiety-ridden madhouse. I want you to picture instead of this, imagine just a calming Lake, a similar Lake, but here’s the major difference. Instead of having a bunch of different priorities, imagine a stone is tossed at the very center of this glass-looking Lake. What you’re going to see is that that stone makes an indent in the water and then everything else is affected by that singular stone. It’s a single idea that affects every other idea. I want to encourage you guys, don’t have a rainstorm-type of priority faith. Have the idea where you throw one singular idea, I want to be close to Jesus, and let that then ripple out and affect every other area of your life. If you find that, I bet you’ll find a little bit more like what Mary found, which is less anxiety, less trouble, and you’ll find a lot more peace at the feet of Jesus Christ. Father, we just want to say thank you for loving us. God, thank you for giving us this great little story that tells us just about so much of the anxiety in our own hearts.

Man, I have been personally so convicted by this. I feel like I get up in the morning and I just want to get right to work and I want to solve all the issues and I want to read my emails and reply to all the text messages and see what’s going on in the world. In many ways, that beginning of my life feels a lot like that chaotic lake where then I’m trying to manage for the rest of the day just trying to get caught up. I just pray, God, that I will have a better priority system in place, that I will find peace, and that I can throw just being close to you at the center of my life and let that affect everything else. God, be with us as we try to do that. Be with us as we try to repent from our distraction, from being pulled away, God. Thank you for the mercy you had on Martha and the mercy you have with us. Lord, every Sunday we take communion. We take a little bit of bread and a little bit of juice. It represents the body and the blood poured out for us.

I pray, God, that as we take that Communion, we’ll just think about seeking you first, making you the very first priority of our lives so that everything will come after it. We love you, Lord, and thank you. In Christ’s name, Amen.