In this sermon, the speaker focuses on the story of Martha and Mary from Luke 10:38-42. The speaker emphasizes the importance of finding time to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to his teachings, just as Mary did. While Martha was busy serving and being anxious, Mary chose to prioritize her relationship with Jesus. The speaker highlights the need for believers to have a balance between serving and spending time with God, emphasizing that there is one thing that is necessary - to be at the feet of Jesus and let ourselves be loved by him.

I think I'm probably realizing something, maybe more so all the time, more now than I probably did a few years ago. And that is, that as exciting as it is to see your church growth, it also takes a toll on people. And it takes a toll on us in different ways. And, you know, everything from, if you haven't been to church for a couple weeks, you can come and go, oh my goodness, do I recognize anybody there? There can be as many unfamiliar faces as familiar. And your pastors are having to be spread a lot thinner. And some of you may not feel like you've seen them as much as you used to. Sometimes it's like having, obviously, new children added to your family. The newest additions seem to receive a lot of the attention. And so I know, I guess I'm beginning to see more that amidst all the excitement, it can also have a toll on people. And so we have a number of kind of, I guess, steps to help ameliorate that. And, yeah, they're kind of outlined in this letter. And so I kind of hope that will help a lot, both if you're new, that you'll feel like, well, there's some real steps being made in my direction. If you're here for a long time and you're feeling that you're a little displaced by all the new people, you'd feel like, wow, some steps are being made in my direction too. And so take some time to read that letter. It'll let you know some of the things that you can expect in the next months. Well, I'd like to turn my attention to the Scriptures this morning. If you're new here this morning, we're taking a couple months to talk about discipleship. Talk about something called the spiritual disciplines, which I know sounds a little bit medieval, but we're not a little bit monastic. We're not meaning to cover it in that sense. So if you're new here this morning, let me just say that on the information desk at the back, we've got several documents that might be of interest to you. There's a letter outlining our direction for these couple months so that you can kind of understand what we've been covering and where we're going. And we've also been putting every week the notes from that week together with some supplementary material that's at the back. And so if you've just come, you think, I've only been here for a Sunday or two, and it's obvious that you feel like you've come in the middle of something, midstream, and you'd like to kind of catch up a little bit of ground, then we've put all that stuff out there for you that you can just get that. If you find you missed a Sunday, you're just away for ill or you're away on a trip, we continue to put the notes out there so that you can have them. For 23 years, I guess I've done a lot of different kinds of things and a lot of different kinds of ministries, but the one that has probably captivated my heart most, the one that I've probably felt most rewarding, in many ways, has been mentoring, which is just a form of discipleship. And so I think that I come at the subject of discipleship from that perspective. And 23 years into this, one of the very elementary conclusions I've drawn is this, that for people who are serious-minded about Jesus, who would like to really know Him and to follow Him earnestly and to receive from Him everything that He has, I'm convinced that the only way to ever get to that place is to have certain fundamental spiritual disciplines in place. So if you're here today and you're an employer, what marks a really profitable employee from a less profitable employee is probably the fact that they've got some basic fundamental disciplines in place. They show up for work, more or less, at a time. They put in a good hard day of work when they are there. If they go for a little bit of time and there's no instructions of what to do, they're the kind of people that kind of know how to look around and find something to do. And, I mean, Nathan could do better than I could do. What are the... And explaining what are the just fundamental building blocks, the basic disciplines in someone's character that help distinguish them as employee and help them to kind of move ahead in that field. Maybe you're in another realm. Maybe you're in the employment. And you've noticed a difference between productive students and less productive students. So what makes a productive student? A productive student is probably the fact that they've got some basic disciplines in place. There's a little bit of planning. In other words, they don't think of the big assignment tomorrow, the night before. Some basic... The fact that they're going to have to research this out and they're going to have to do some work. The basic discipline, if they don't know what they're doing, they're going to find someone and ask. And some of those other kind of basic disciplines in place, and you can see it in their life. You can see it in their writing. You can see it in their learning style. They've got some basic disciplines in place. And so it helps to distinguish them as a student. But I also think in other... For people to be... Have a Christianity which is enjoyable. To have a Christianity which pushes them into the presence of Jesus and a kind of Christianity that's, I guess, a little bit what they hope their Christian faith would look like. Similarly, there are basic disciplines or spiritual form of disciplines that are in place that help to mark that off. And that's what we're giving these months to. And we're really talking about disciplines of the heart. We could also be talking about disciplines of the life. Some of them I wouldn't mention because the fact that you're here means you've already got numbers of those disciplines in place. But at your simplest level, if someone wants to grow spiritually and doesn't go to church, that's like the first spiritual discipline. It's like one of the easiest ones. I'm not asking people to 40-day fast. So literally, one of the reasons... Why do you hope people go to church taught? Well, because if they don't do the most elementary spiritual disciplines, I can absolutely promise you they are not moving on to the more complex ones. If someone can't even go out of bed and go to church on a Sunday, I promise you they're not reading their Bible through their week. I can promise you they're not praying through their week. I can promise you they're not fasting. I can promise you that some of the more advanced spiritual disciplines they're not even getting close to because just getting out of bed is a tough one for them. And so that's the perspective that I come at. You know, it's like... I'm not about church attendance. It's about people are better. Their Christianity is better. It was some basic spiritual disciplines in place. And so that's why we're giving ourselves to this subject for these couple of months. I'd like to take a reading from the gospel according to St. Luke. The latter part of chapter 10, the first part of chapter 11. I just feel like the Lord directed me here this week. And man, has it ever hit me. This is where I'm at. Hadn't intended it, didn't see this as being such a part of this series. But I'm just very thankful. It just sits well with me. So just before we take this reading, let's just pray together. There's a right heart posture to take in coming to God's Word, just like there is to coming into worship. So Heavenly Father, we realize that the words that we're about to read are the words of God, the very words of God. The words that we're about to read were penned by a man, but inspired by the Holy Spirit. And Lord, this is one of our basic disciplines, is going here for our spiritual nourishment and food and direction. We ask that the Holy Spirit, who brings wisdom and revelation, would be richly amongst us this morning. Come Holy Spirit. You're the one that illuminates truth to us. You're the one that tears back the veil and lets revelation dawn upon us. You're the one who is able not simply to speak to our head, but to speak to the deepest places of our heart. You're the one whose voice changes us not only for a moment, but transforms us for a lifetime. So on you we lean. We ask that the Spirit and the Word may work in conjunction this morning to extend your kingdom. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Luke chapter 10, verse 38. Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha... I'm sorry, would someone mind just getting me a drink of water? I apologize. 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, the better thing, and it will not be taken away from her. Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. May God add His blessing to this public reading of the Scriptures. You know, you could probably put lots of, maybe keep that first slide up there if you wouldn't mind, probably call this story by lots of other names, I thought maybe of calling it the Tale of Two Sisters, or maybe the Tale of Two Servants, you'll see in a while, or even better, the Tale of Two Kinds of Servants, or the Tale of Two Kinds of Service. First of all, Mary. The Scripture says that she sat at the Lord's feet, and she listened to Him. And there is an amazing picture there of a woman who is captivated by the person of Jesus Christ. She can't believe her fortune that of all the places that He could land that day, He's landed at her house, and she is not about to miss this advantage. She's not about to miss this opportunity, and so she just plants herself there at the feet of Jesus, and she is just captivated by Him. She just loves the sound of His voice. It's not even just the content, as rich as the content is, even just the sound of His voice. The warmth and the life in His voice, and looking up and gazing into His face. Remember, we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus. Everything you could ever want to know about the nature of God displayed radiantly in the face of Jesus. And there she is, gazing into the face of God. Remember Moses in the Old Testament, he feared that he might... Is it possible to look upon God and live? That's the question he asked. Well, here's Mary just gazing on the face of God. It says that she loved His company. We would say she loved His presence. It wasn't just a matter of what was said or what was done, it was just being with Him, being in the same room with Him, enjoying His company, drinking in His presence. And it was in that place of presence, she felt something that she never felt anywhere else. And she felt a very, very deep sense of rest. Even her body language, she sat at His feet. She sat and listened and rested. It's just that she never known that kind of rest. Just to be with Him, put rest in her soul. How many of us could say that we have a deep sense of inner rest? So that's Mary. The other sister, it's a tale of two sisters, is Martha. And this is what Jesus said about Martha. She's distracted with much serving. Well, the truth is I have a lot of sympathy for this dear woman. I don't spend a lot of time, as you might imagine, in food preparation. I spend a lot of time in food consumption. But not in preparation. So here's this dear woman, who has 13 grown men, show up on her doorstep unannounced. And there's no local Sobeys to go and get a bag of Caesar salad from. There's no Panago pizza to phone up. There's nothing instant in this day. She sees 12, 13 grown men at her door, and she just thinks one word, work. This is going to be a lot of work. Mary thinks, I'm just going to sit at the feet of Jesus. And she thinks, rest. And her sister thinks, work. But I actually appreciate her willingness to serve. She just, off she goes, beetles off to the kitchen and begins preparations. I appreciate her willingness to serve, because Jesus had a lot of complimentary things to say about serving. He had a lot of complimentary things to say about servants. In fact, he said that the greatest in the kingdom of God, the greatest amongst you, is the one who would choose to be the servant. So there's some really complimentary things about this dear woman. What she hasn't yet understood though, and it's the meaning of this entire story, is that there are two kinds of serving. There is a serving that is the result of sitting at Jesus' feet, having rested there, having gazed up into His face, having drunk in His presence, generates into your heart a desire to go do anything for Him. It generates this sense that nothing's too hard, anything you want me to do, Lord? So there's a type of serving that comes out of sitting at Jesus' feet. And there's an altogether different kind of serving that takes the place of sitting at Jesus' feet. We do it instead of sitting at His feet. We think, I don't have the time to sit at His feet, because I'm doing too many important things. It acts as a substitute for His presence. We don't have the time to be with Him, so I'll just do things for Him. And that is a different kind of service altogether, which is why Jesus says to her, you are distracted with much serving. In other words, a lot of good things. But you are still distracted with much serving. That's an interesting word, distracted. In other words, when you have your attention on something, something else comes across your line of vision and takes your attention elsewhere. That's what's happened to this dear woman. Jesus came in and just captivated the room. All eyes were on Him. But now through the back of her mind is floated this thought, oh, I guess I better go do something. Jesus never actually asked for a meal. Nobody had expressed that type of expectation. But through the back of her mind is, quickly, who's going to feed all these people? And it takes her attention away from Him. It's a distraction. Sometimes even good things are distractions. Sometimes we fear bad distractions. Unwholesome distractions. And so we should. But do we fear enough good distractions? Things that in themselves there's nothing wrong with. They're good things. Until they distract us from Him. Particularly when they replace Him. Lord, I don't even know how to spend time with You anymore. I've lost that discipline. I don't know how to enjoy Your presence. I don't know how to drink You anymore. So I'll just go do something for You. I'll just go do something noble. That form of serving is a distraction. There is a type of service that rests in His love. There is another type of service that is restless. And it works to gain His love. And that's the type of service Martha had engaged in. Hear her words. Lord, do You not care? Do You not care that my sister has left me to serve? Don't You care? She feels uncared for. She's back in the kitchen. Preparing a meal. Working hard. But she is all knotted inside. She is not serving out of joy. She is resentful. She's thinking they're out there. And my sister of all people is just enjoying Jesus. What does she think this is? A bless me club? And she should really be here with me. What's wrong with me? Am I not so important? Doesn't He love me too? And in those words, Don't You love me? Don't You care? The real heart of the issue is revealed. That this is a story of a very, very dear person. Who just wants to be loved. This is a story of a very, very dear person who just wants to feel valued like the rest of us. A very dear lady who just wants to be noticed. Like the rest of us. And she thinks if she works hard enough. If she serves well enough. If she can do enough. If she can produce enough. In this case, food. Then Jesus will just come flashing into the back of the kitchen. And just go, I love you. Look what you've done. You're amazing. And she'll feel all warm inside. And yet she doesn't understand. That's the very merry-go-round that Jesus Christ is trying to deliver her from. He's not going to play that game with her. He's not going to feed the dysfunction. He's going to try to set her free from it. Because what's going to happen the next day? You're going to outdo today? You're going to work even harder? In my prayer time, I came here last night to spend time with the Lord. And the Lord showed me someone who is representative of us all. But it's someone who came from another church. I didn't see the person or the name or the face or the name. Just the Lord told me there would be a person. I don't think He wants me knowing. And they've come from another church. And they just did so much. So much serving and so much good. But left that church because they just felt largely unappreciated and overlooked and unnoticed. And as good as it is to notice, and as good as it is and important as it is to appreciate, in fact, as important as it is to engender a culture of deep appreciation, the Lord wants to say to you in all the love and the care in the world that it says as much about you as it does about that church. Because you're just like Martha. Now, we're all like Martha. I'm taking notes from this. In fact, you should have seen my week. You know me well enough to know Todd doesn't preach out of a vacuum. Whatever he's preaching on, we just know what his last two weeks have been like. But the Lord wants to, in the most loving, gentle way, says it says as much about you as it does about your church that you left. That there is something craving in you, the love of Jesus. And you've wanted to gain it through just outdoing people and just acts of service. And all that you really needed to do was just come and sit at his feet to be loved. All you had to really do was come and be with Jesus. And that what he's offering to you, he is offering so freely. Her entire self-worth had come from giving. And he was inviting her to leave the soup ladle behind and just come and receive from him. To rest in him and to enjoy him. And I think that this is a timely message for our church. I was speaking with a dear friend this week. Helped me to realize again there is a lot of tiredness around. A lot of tiredness around. We're doing a lot of good things. Most of us aren't tired from doing the wrong things. We're doing a lot of good things but are we doing them from a place of rest? When I was at the Bible college, I was pretty young. I was 29 and a lot of responsibility. And a lot of, well, almost every problem I faced was new to me and above my head. So sometimes I find when I was working my stomach is so knotted. So knotted that it was actually hurting me. And so I gained a discipline of saying to myself, if you keep this up for long, you'll be in ulcers by the time you're 35. And I gained the discipline of pushing myself away from my desk and saying, I love you Lord and I love ministering but I'm not going to minister like this. You did not call me to this. And I'd push myself away and I would just spend time in the presence of Jesus and I'd spend time regaining his sense of peace and rest on the inside. And when I'd rediscovered that, I said, now I'll go back to my desk. And I'd find that always I could get three times more done out of a place of rest. My head was clear. I was more open to hear his creativity and his ideas and his prompting. I could get way more done out of a place of rest than I could ever get done out of a place of anxiety. So it was a discipline. I just pushed myself away and said, I'll go back to that desk when I'm ready because I don't want to work like this. So we do a lot of good things but are we doing them out of a place of rest? We're doing a lot of good things but are you doing too many good things? Jesus said you are troubled by many things. You've got too many things on your plate. None of them are bad. But the fact we have to take so much on often says more about us than the world in which we live. Have we taken too many things on? We're doing a lot of good things but are we doing what the Lord has asked of us? Or do we find that in the case of this woman who was never even asked to prepare a meal that we have taken on things upon ourselves because it's our obligation. So she there's nothing wrong with her serving but she lost the joy of serving altogether. She didn't think this is such a pleasure to prepare this meal for these people. She had lost the joy of serving altogether. We're doing a lot of good things but have we remembered can we go to the next slide Look at verse 41. Martha, Martha you're anxious and troubled. She wasn't back in the kitchen serving out of happiness and she's knotted. She's anxious she's troubled. But he says this but one thing is necessary. We do a lot of good things but have we remembered this there's one thing that is necessary. In other words if every other ball we drop there's one thing that we shouldn't drop. If everything else we don't do well there's one thing we should do well. There's one thing we should be great at. If there's one more pot of soup we don't have time to make then there's one thing that is absolutely necessary and Mary knows which one that is that we find ourselves again at the feet of Jesus remembering why we loved him in the first place absolutely letting ourselves be loved by him letting his gaze just burn into us and penetrate us again and stirring in us all the things that it stirred the first time those eyes met ours and just sitting there listening to him regaining a sense of listening sitting regaining a sense of rest again. He says that's what's necessary and when you regain that place you will go back to the kitchen with a different outlook you can go back to serving and you'll serve in a totally different way but there's one thing that is necessary that you spend some time at his feet in prayer I have to continually tell myself this prayer is not a luxury it is a necessity because when you sit and your desk is full of things or whatever you work your workstation looks like it's hard to tear yourself away because you think oh come on this is just you know for me and what should I do what right do I have to do this when I have this many phone calls to make and this many things to do for my children and this many alterations and revisions to make on my house and listen spending time with Jesus is not a luxury it is a necessity as long as it's a luxury you'll always think I can do without it. Isn't that what you do in your house? You pay your necessities first and then you think do I have anything left over for luxury so if you think that spending time with Jesus is only a luxury it's luxurious but if you think it is only a luxury you will always give it up for a necessity listen to his words this is the words of your Lord and mine this is a necessity for a healthy child of God that they go and they sit at the feet of Jesus and that they rest and listen so I tell myself prayer is not a luxury it is a necessity I am going to pray whatever other balls I'm going to drop today I'm not going to drop that one I got to be with my Lord or I have nothing to give to people anyways in the springtime the Lord is so good we were receiving some real beautiful prophetic messages from the Lord in many forms numbers of them came from you send them to me in forms of dreams a lot of them were dreams actually so I keep those as you should when people give you words because you'll watch when you get two or three or four of them and they start to form a pattern and you realize the Lord is saying something here everything is confirmed in the mouth of the two or three witnesses that's good prophetic protocol right from the time of Abraham up so I began to notice hey this is saying the same thing and in these dreams the Lord was giving there was two things that were common in all of them one of them is that there was lots of growth there were tons of people the building was always in a renovation it was always expanding which I don't think meant our building meant our body but the other thing that was always true in these two or three dreams was that people were tired because they were tired they were acting out of character people who would normally have tons of time for other people had no time for us um some people who were normally extremely patient people were very impatient and the Lord was sending a message that says be careful not to become so busied that we neglect the very things that distinguish us don't make sure that the growth doesn't make you so busy that you neglect the very things that made you grow the very things that attracted people that we got time for people that we actually like people we treat people as individuals and not just as a crowd we actually got we love Jesus it's not just a machine we're running we like time with him and we like his presence we even like to linger in his presence sometimes things even go a little longer than we plan because sometimes he's got a little extra grace to give and a little extra thing to say and and on and on these are the things that we love and the Lord was sending a prophetic warning so I had a staff meeting the very next day I know how to receive warnings I've been trained by the Lord I said team from this point on we will have to get better at two things than we have ever been before our self care is not an option and as a team the care that we show for one another that we watch out for one another's health those two things will have to become more important to us than they have ever been before and so as an operational team as a staff constantly can I help you out with that? can I take some weight off your shoulders? is there anything that I can do? it's just a beautiful spirit there self care and our care for one another I realized last two weeks it's not just a message for our staff guys guess what it's a message for our body how's your body? how's your self care doing? are you distracted with much serving? how's your personal life doing? are you driven by I just gotta do one more thing Ryan has been so I just love some of the things he's said this week he's just always so honest we were talking about this this week because the Lord spoke to me one morning kept speaking to me about Ryan I said Ryan how are you doing? he said why do you ask? I said answer the question he said I'm snowed on now I said alright we'll do this together I'll come we'll do young adults together tonight beautiful he does the exact same for me but he said this I'm fighting against some tendency that comes from probably past church experiences this weird thing inside of me that I feel like this and my response is I just want to do all the more work you can't work yourself out of that he's saying that because it's ironic he knows it's not but we're shedding some old stuff even some old ways of doing Christianity some old ways of understanding Jesus and his expectations on us hear the word of the Lord come unto me all ye that are weary anybody feeling a bit weary? are you coming to him? or are you trying to work yourself out of a hole? come unto me all ye that are weary and are heavy laden and I will give you rest this is the discipline of receiving it could just as well be called the discipline of rest and if you come unto me you will find rest where do you find rest? it says in your soul down here on the inside you ever been away on a holiday and you come back and think I'm as tired as when I went? because you didn't get rest for your soul that's why I'm trying to always rest different and holiday different because I've come off of so many holidays with such high expectations and I've come back feeling like that's a rest that's a rest where sometimes I've come out of one night one prayer time in God's presence you all know what I'm talking about and you just feel like I could run out of I could bound out of the place because you've got some soul rest deep down in here rest take burdens off your shoulder rest and boy it feels good come unto me all ye that are weary and are heavy laden and I will give you rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and light there's all kinds of questions that that raises why in the name of a Jesus who told me my yoke is easy and light why are Christians seem to be the most weighted down and restless people like we're trying to prove something like we're trying to gain something that's freely given to us it doesn't just say something about our context it does lots but have you noticed that it says something about me and it says something about you that we have not yet learned the true nature of rest next question do you notice where Luke positions this story in the gospel of Luke, where did he position it look at the very next verse now remember you've got to take away chapter divisions they're not in the original gospel little verses, numbers Luke didn't number his gospel so sometimes it can give you this impression that now we're going to go on to a different subject those are artificial this is not a different subject the very next verse is a verse on prayer the very next verse is a verse on prayer it says this now Jesus was praying in other words Jesus wants you to know that he did not practice something different than he expected of Martha don't miss that point the next verse is Jesus went to prayer as busy as he was you want to talk about having the weight of the world on your shoulders try to be the savior of the world Jesus went to prayer guess what his disciples caught it Jesus was praying in a certain place when he had finished his disciples come and said Lord can you teach us to do that too they caught it they saw it in him that even the Son of God would go and have times to rest and receive and bask in the love of his Father I love this last phrase teach us to pray as John taught his disciples do you know what they absolutely knew that teaching people to pray like this is fundamental to discipleship John knew that that's John the Baptist called the greatest of all the prophets absolutely knew that fundamental to discipleship is to teach people to pray and teach them to pray rightly to rest in God and receive from him Jesus taught his disciples to pray and to pray rightly and now the Lord teaches us all these years later so we're going to take a few minutes now and we're going to do exactly that and I ask that the worship leader come back and play that last song come Lord Jesus come you can't preach a message on come unto me and not come unto me so we're going to pray and we're also going to pray that the Lord would show us what this should mean to our week you could have the most wonderful time of rest right now in God's presence but if it does not become part of your practice it is not a discipline a discipline means it's something that you do habitually and you do something to do when there's a cost to be paid for doing it in other words where it's tough to do that's a discipline guys who only show up to work on time when there's nothing else to do that's not a discipline, that's a coincidence a discipline is something you do habitually and you do something when all of life is screaming at you to do otherwise and you say no this is a deep part of who I am so Lord we would you would you just come may your presence just come just like your presence entered Mary and Martha's house the very presence of Jesus Christ be washed away in the ways of his mercy as deep rise unto deep we sing come Lord Jesus Lord Jesus come Lord Jesus we're learning a discipline now it's okay that some of you think sheesh I don't even know what to do with such a time it just underscores the fact so you say Lord teach me this you taught your disciples it didn't come naturally to those people so this is for everybody not just for people that find prayer easy or almost like it's natural not for people who find receiving easy but for those of you that find it hard so if you think I don't even know what I'd do with such a time take encouragement then this is just for you disciple means we don't know how to do it so would you teach us a disciple is a pupil it's a student so Lord by your spirit speak now we ask that the voice of the Lord would be here this morning the Lord wants to deliver some of your hearts of the things that make rest hard deliver your hearts of yearning suffering anxiety I'm not good enough we are worthy by the sacrificial death of Jesus to come and receive he has made us absolutely 100% worthy come come Lord Jesus come Lord Jesus come Lord Jesus come as deep cries unto thee as deep cries unto thee as deep cries unto thee just going to ask the Lord now to speak to you show some of you the deeper sense of rest and tell you what you need to rest from for some of you the Lord is going to say how would you take a rest from your feelings of unworthiness rest from them lay them down just take a rest from your striving rest from your not feeling good enough so Lord we are really dependent on you in this would you by the voice of your Holy Spirit speak to our hearts even now what it is that we really need to rest from that gets in the way of your love Lord show me what do I need to rest from and also inversely what do I need to rest in give some of the Holy Spirit just come speak what do I need to rest from what do I need to rest in