Well, we are going to take just a few weeks off of our study from Romans. We got to a great ending point, we kind of summed up the world understand and Paul is about to turn in one of the most important and central passages of the Bible to the cross, and we will return to that the week after Easter. But for now, we're going to turn our attention to Easter, we're going to turn our attention to the life of Christ, and this week the entry into Jerusalem next week, and of course, the crucifixion on the Friday, following good Friday, and then on Easter Sunday with our sunrise service. We will be sharing stories, I'm going to be looking for testimonies from you, I actually want four people to come and give us testimonies during our sunrise service of what it means to you that Jesus is alive. What does that mean to you practically today? The death has been defeated, that Jesus is alive, and I would love, I think we would all be blessed by hearing those stories. And then on Sunday morning, Easter day, Easter Sunday, March 31st, we're actually going to have two services, and partially that's to facilitate the seating, and partially that's going to be to get everybody a chance to worship. Easter, we have a lot of visitors, and so our nurseries are packed, and people in the nursery can always feel like to kind of miss out on one of the better worship services of the year, and I don't like that. And so we're going to worship at nine that morning, and then again at 10.45, and if you would all be gracious enough to volunteer to work in the nursery one of those two times, then that would make sure that everybody gets to come and enjoy Easter worship together. And then about 1230, I plan to go into a coma, and eat a lot of candy. So that's kind of the plan for Easter, looking forward to celebrating that to you. It's always a great, great time in our church. But for now, we're going to turn to the book of Luke, chapter 10, and while you're turning there, I'm going to tell you a story from Roman history. There was a great Roman patritional landowner and a citizen with a lot of wealth, and he was throwing this huge feast for the entire community, and there were people coming from all around to it, and before the feast, he called his son in, and he looked at his son, who frankly had been irresponsible and lazy his entire life. And he said to his son, Julien, he said, son, I haven't told you the truth. It's true reason why we're having this feast, and I want you to know. He said, son, I love you, because you're my son, but honestly, you have been an enormous disappointment. And while I love you, I know that if I were to give you our estate when I die, you would handle it badly, and not only would you soon be plunged into poverty, but all the people who depend upon this estate would be plunged into poverty, and I just can't do that to them. And so what I have done is I have, or I'm in the process of doing, is I'm adopting our slave patricious, and he will be my son after tonight's feast, and everything that I own is going to him. But I love you, Julien, and I do not want you to be in poverty, so I'm going to give you this one opportunity. You may choose one thing. You can choose any of the farms, you can choose any of the parcels of land, you can choose the animals, you can choose any of the houses, you get to choose one thing. Choose wisely. And patricious, I mean, Julien just said, no, wait a minute. You're giving everything to patricious, yes. And you're giving me one thing, yes. But I can choose anything I want, yes, thought about it and looked and said, father, I want patricious. He made a wise choice, right? Not in life. Did you all get it? Did you all see that coming? I don't understand. Spring break, kind of gray, stayed up a little late last night, he chose patricious, he got everything. You just didn't think it was funny. Okay, make your life. Jesus is here looking at us and I'm really, I'm glad I'm thankful for a Sunday when it's kind of just family because I've got something for you and I want to talk about this together and intimate gathering. Jesus is looking at us, saying, you've been busy, you've done a lot in the last 12 months this entire congregation has changed, you've changed names, you've changed locations, you've worked just tireless hours, you've put in an enormous amount of work. But I want to remind you in the midst of all of that, I want to speak to you still words in the midst of the storm, choose wisely, choose the one thing that cannot be taken away from you. Please hear the word of the Lord from Luke, chapter 10. Now as they were 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 she 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 were 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, thus far the reading of God's Word. This is a familiar story and whenever we look at familiar stories in the Bible, you always have to have to disabuse and take some things out and it's a little bit of a challenge to encourage you to see it freshly. So let's just look at the people here and get a sense. What's the usual application of this story? Usually we think of this, Mary is quiet and contemplative and reads the Bible a lot and she's good. And Martha is a busy body and she's never satisfied and she's always just kind of going around and she's judgmental and she's harsh and she's bad, we hate her. Don't be like Martha, be like Mary, right? And so our applications are usually because we live when we live and we think the way we think and we just can't fathom life without this kind of ladder that you have to climb to get to Jesus, the applications of these texts are like, therefore you need to have a quiet time, therefore you need to add fasting into your life, you need to add prayer, you need to add time for contemplation. And let's just be honest here, do you see anything in this story that would lead you to say, yeah, Jesus is trying to tell me I don't do enough. That's what's going on here. Martha's problem is she doesn't do enough. She needs to add quiet time into her life. Pretty sure that's kind of the opposite of what's going on here. But that's our problem. We're always trying to add things. People always kind of have their pictures of Christianity and we want to talk about, you know, what all does it involve to be Christian? There's a book called Between Walden and the World Wind and the author is trying to describe the struggle of finding the quiet and the contemplative life within the maelstrom of life. And she says this, in the 20 years, I've been a Christian, I have received instruction on and been challenged to read my Bible daily, pray without ceasing, do in-depth Bible study regularly, memorize scripture, meditate on that and memorize scripture day and night, fellowship with other believers, always be ready to give an answer to the questioning unbeliever, give to missions into the poor, work as unto the Lord, but use my time judiciously, give thanks in all circumstances, serve the body using my gifts to edify others, keep a clean house as a testimony, practice gracious hospitality, submit to my husband, love and train my children, disciple other women, manage my finances well as a good steward, involve myself in school and community activities, develop and maintain non-Christian friendships, stimulate my mind with careful reading, improve my health through diet and exercise, color coordinate my wardrobe, watch my posture and simplify my life by baking my own bread. I think that list makes a point and I think we all get it. If you just kind of keep your ears open, if you have a sensitive spirit, you get this sense that there's an unending, never ceasing list of everything that a Christian must do, and we would all kind of look at that and check our head and go, yeah, but really the only thing you have to worry about is X. Problem is, everybody's got a different X. Really the thing you have to worry about is discipleship. Really the thing you have to worry about is missions. That's what Jesus came on as a mission. Really you have to worry about evangelism. That's what Jesus was an evangelist. Really you have to worry about discipleship. You better go find your Timothy and they all have Bible verses to prove that their thing is the thing that you must be doing or you are nothing. And I think we have to ask Jesus, what is the one thing that you say we ought to do? And as we spend this next two weeks getting ready for Easter, which is going to be Easter weekend, which would be another flurry of activity. I just gave you seven worship services in four days. As we enter into that flurry, Jesus, which one do you want me to go to? Jesus, what's really important to you? I think he tells us that he has defeated death. And he asks, is this, do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus was raised from the dead? And therefore, do you believe that you will be raised from the dead? And do you believe that you have glory in front of you? Do you believe that your best days are yet to come? If so, then because of Easter, you have calm. You have a rest that you can enter into and you can rest in Christ alone. My message for you is that because Christ alone is defeated death, resting in Him is the only necessary thing. Resting in Him, receiving and resting in Him alone is the only thing necessary. Let's go back and look at the story. All right, what's happening? A rabbi has come to town. He's taught in the synagogue and he's been invited over someone's home. We've seen this happen several times in the Bible. And so it falls on Martha, right? This was very typical of the time. It falls on Martha to prepare the meal. Now, from what we know of Martha, it seems that she lived with her sister Mary and her brother, Lazarus. Lazarus doesn't end to show up in this story. He's probably just listening to Jesus being a typical man. And that's what they did in this time. The men and the women of very separate lives. They still do. I don't know if you remember several years ago when Hillary Clinton visited Jerusalem. She went to the wailing wall of Jerusalem and they had to make special walls and special dispensations to let her visit the part of this wall where only men were allowed to come. It's a culture that absolutely separates men and women. And the men were supposed to be in the living room listening to Jesus. And the women were supposed to be, as you would guess, in the kitchen, preparing the meal. And Martha was doing it right. And, you know, she's not a bad person. Martha is very orthodox. Jesus loves her. He's gentle with her. He uses their name Martha. Martha. He's very kind and gracious. When Jesus comes to her and John chapter 11 and her brother is fallen dead, he says to her, you know, do you believe all the devil rise? Do you believe this? And she says, yes, I believe all the devil rise in the final day. And Jesus says, I'm the resurrection. And Martha says, I know you are Christ, the son of the living God. Okay, now you say that because you live 2000 years after Jesus was raised from the dead and everybody says that and you have churches all over the world and you know, you know, billions of Christians. Okay, Martha said it to a human. She looked at a person dead in the eye that dirt on his feet and said, you are Christ, the son of the living God. I mean, that's a strong faith. She was orthodox. She was faithful. She's a good guy. She's doing what culture expects of her. And Mary is being bad. Mary is ignoring all the work that needs to be done. Mary is not helping her sister. Mary is being naughty. She is in the room where women weren't supposed to be. She's sitting at Jesus's feet with the men. She's not supposed to be in there. So what's Martha doing? Well, I know what Martha's doing. I can take exactly what Martha's doing. She's being passive aggressive. She's banging pots and pans. She's sighing loudly. She's saying to herself, doing everything she can possibly do. Well, I guess I'll go prepare the meal. I know this because I do that. Right. I mean, if I do the dishes at home is like an announcement. I guess I'll do the dishes. Yeah, that's if that's calls for celebration. And she can't get Mary's attention. Mary won't stop being naughty. She won't stop being selfish. She won't stop being rude. Don't you know, I want to listen to Jesus too. Why don't you hurry up and help me get the meal done so we can do it together and we can listen to Jesus together. And Martha does what we all do when we're stressed and we're unranked anxiety. She doesn't go talk to the person who's annoying her. She goes and talk to somebody else about her and she storms into the room and she says, Jesus. She had a southern accent in a wine. Don't you care? Mary isn't helping. That's how I was at it. That's how I said it now. I'll pray it. Don't you care? Mary and Jesus is Martha. There's a lot to do. There's a lot to do. But only one thing has to be done. And Mary is chosen wisely. She's chosen the one thing that must be done. She's Martha on the life. And because I am the life. Receiving and resting in May is all you have to do. What does it mean that something is necessary? Jesus said Martha Mary has chosen the only thing necessary. What does it necessary mean? Something is necessary if it is something I must have for my existence. Something is necessary if we look for it by nature, if we are at unrest and unease until we have it. Oxygen is necessary. You don't believe it. Put a plastic bag over your head. You will be at unease until you get that bag out from over your head, right? Just kidding kids. Don't do that. Don't try this at home. It's something we must have by nature. And it becomes this internal struggle. And Martha is trying to justify herself. She's trying to find the necessary thing in what she is doing. And Mary is receiving it from Jesus. We all have this desire to find the necessary. At some point it becomes this internal struggle to justify our existence. If you were with us a few years ago, we opened the worship service but watching this video was Tom Brady quarterback of the New England Patriots. And he was on 60 minutes with Mike Wallace. And it was when Brady was in the middle of the season that he would end up winning 18 out of 19 games. More wins than any team has ever gotten in a single season. He had already won two or three Super Bowls. He's already had two NFL MVPs, two Superbowl MVPs. He's already dating a Zell Munchen who some people think is the prettiest woman in the world. They haven't seen Bianca. But he's got it all. And he's describing this hunger within him. And he says, I know. I know people look at me and say you've already got the Superbowl rings. You've already got the MVP. You've got everything. And I'm telling you, I don't have it. And people ask me what it would take to be satisfied. And Mike Wallace said, well, what is it? What is it that you need? And Brady kind of gets staggered. And he says, I wish I knew. I wish I knew. I don't have it. I don't know what it means to be at peace. I don't have my justification. I don't have my identity. I'm not at rest. A few years ago in London, England, kind of a working class part of town, somebody bought a billboard and on that billboard, they put Romans 1412, which simply says this, each of us will give an account of himself before God. And this man had to walk by it every day and he went home and wrote in his journals. He says, I'm not religious. I don't believe in God. I don't go to church. But the older I get, the more convinced I am that I will never have peace until I can justify my years of existence on this earth. The necessary thing is to find the thing that is enough that gives us rest. And Jesus tells us that we will only find rest in him. Well, if we are supposed to find rest in him, if he is enough, if he is the necessary thing, then how come those of us who are in church don't enjoy it? Why didn't Martha, if she was orthodox, why didn't she enjoy it? And I think we'll see the answer here is in her cultural expectations. She was doing what she grew up expecting a woman to do. She was doing what everybody in her culture expected the woman to do. She was preparing the meal and she would be respected and appreciated as a good host if she could prepare the meal well. And it became for her at that moment more important than the fact that Jesus was in her living room. I mean, it's kind of obvious to us, right? We just want to go, Jesus is in your living room. Why are you in the kitchen? What she was doing with her culture expected. And she was a slave to her culture's expectations. And we understand that because many of us, most of us, if not all of us, are slaves to somebody's expectations. Maybe it's the culture telling us you have to look good and you have to feel good and you have to be good and you have to make good money or you aren't worthwhile as a human. Maybe it's your parents telling you you have to be both the star athlete and the star scholar or you're not worthy of all the time and attention I've given to you. Maybe you're just trying to spend all your time rebelling against your parents. But either way, you're a slave to their expectations whether trying to meet them or baffle them. Most of us are slaves to somebody.
Maybe we've made ourselves slaves to good things. It is a good thing to make a nice meal for Jesus. It's a good thing to make a nice meal for Ricky. It's a good thing to have good meals with their not ultimate things. And if the meal isn't good, we can find rest. When good things become ultimate things, they destroy us. You know that. Bianca and I drove by this kind of little horse farm the other day and has a picture. You know it says birthday parties in the front of a horse had a birthday party at 14 kids come to this birthday party out there. There was one horse that was shaped like a you. You know horse's name was glue stick and the woman hated children. You know get in line. Be quiet. The children are all you know the mom that dreamed that this was going to be the birthday party or so. It was never going to have another eight year old birthday party. And it was not everything she wanted to be. And she was so sad. And the kids had a blast chasing kittens. But she missed that.
She missed it. Good things become ultimate things where bad person Disney is trying to tell you that you are running your children's childhood if you don't take them to Disney. And we would never believe something that's stupid. Or maybe we do. We're slaves or our culture's expectations. We're slaves to good things. We're slaves to our own opinion of ourselves. At the end of the day, we are slaves to I'm a slave to what I think about me. And you're a slave to what you think about you. And Martha would not be able to live with herself if she did not get this meal made. And you will not be able to live with yourself if you don't what the standard gets higher and higher and higher. Not when I was growing up in the 70s. We had a famous commercial for Angelie. Angelie said no you don't because I'm the only one here old enough to remember that. The commercial was this woman. They showed her kind of changing clothes you know. And she would bring home the bacon. She could fry it up in a pan. And she would never, ever let you forget you're a man. And she never get tired. Never. She was the working woman. She was the perfect mom, the perfect cook. And she was the perfect hot wife. Just like all of you.
Bernet Brown, the expert in shame says she's not sure how much perfume that commercial sold. But she's pretty sure it sold a lot of Prozac. It moved a lot of antidepressants. And we have to die to that opinion. You know, the man's version of that is wearing the Iron Man watch to work. Every time I look at my watch, I just think of what I'm not. I may run into Iron Man. I'm never going to run it. I'm not going to memorize scripture to encourage me to finish it. And it's just this continual message of what I'm not. Now look at my watch. I see what I ought to be. I look in the mirror and I go, they're a famous pastor who was known for his prayer life and his ministry to Orphan said, was asked was the key to his success. And his name is George Mueller. And he said, what I have to do every day is I have to die to what George Mueller thinks about George Mueller. And when I die to that, I can enjoy Jesus. And I can do good. How do we get over these obstacles and receive the one thing that is necessary? Well, we do what Mary is doing. What is she doing? She shut up. She's receiving God's love. What do you need to do? You need to stop doing. You need to lay down your filthy doing. And you need to receive God's smile. Tony Morrison, the author says, was asked what was the key to her success. And she said, the key to my success is that my father smiled every time I entered the room. My father's face lit up whenever I entered the room. You need to believe that it is true. Every time your father in heaven is so delighted that you're here. He is just absolutely delighted that you're here. He's so thankful that you're here.
And you think, but I didn't do what I was supposed to do this week. No. That's why we sing songs about grace. He did not start smiling upon you when you started being righteous. He started smiling upon you when you were dead in your transgressions and sins. And he's smiling now. And if you won't ever lift your head up, if all you're ever doing is being busy and working and working and working, then all you're going to do is mess his smile, receive it and be quiet. Mary was listening, which means she was not talking. She was listening. Believe that Jesus loves the real you, not the you that you think you ought to be one day. He loves the real you, the actual you and be quiet and listen.
Quentin Tarantino has wrote this dialogue where he says, he has his, as Uma Thurman say, don't you hate awkward pauses? I don't know why we always feel the need to fill up awkward pauses with our stupid words. I think you've really found the person that you love when you can just shut up. C.S. Lewis describes the voice of the dawn treader people entering into the kingdom of God. And he says they stopped talking because there was nothing that needs to be said in the presence of his love. Now I think we would all agree that when Quentin Tarantino and C.S. Lewis have the same sentiment, it must be true that to enjoy the love of God quiet you. You stop making excuses. You stop telling him everything that needs to be done. You stop justifying yourself. You stop beating yourself up and you just shut up and you enjoy Christ's smile and you live with that smile. It doesn't mean you go into a life of inactivity. You can never go into a life of inactivity. But it means you work under the smile. It means yes you make plans for the holidays but when they get here you actually enjoy them. It means you enjoy being with each other and you enjoy the moment and you enjoy Christ's smile. It means you work but you work enjoying it. It's thankful that God is there with you. It means you don't make something that's supposed to be fun and to work. And it means we live with a mission. Well what was the alarm that went off? That told us all that what Martha was doing was not for Jesus. It was her dissension. When she starts pointing the finger at Mary saying why aren't you working as hard as I am? Then we know Martha is not doing this work for Jesus. She's doing it for her and she's mad that everybody else isn't on her train. When your work for the Lord starts making you point fingers that everybody else who's not working as hard as you. Not for the Lord anymore. It's for you. And it's an alarm. It's not an alarm to go beat yourself up. It isn't an alarm to enjoy the smile of Jesus. He's done the work for you. And there's a reason why I chose this text on an intimate Sunday when it's just family and that's this. We've done an enormous amount of work in last year. 12 months ago we had no idea that we were going to be in this building. We have least property. We have raised an extreme amount of money. We have moved. We have renovated. We have ripped out bleachers. We have painted. We have built. We have cleaned. Some of you have given upwards to 20 Saturdays last year to this year. Some of you have given absolutely everything. I know at least one family they gave absolutely every penny of their savings to get us into this building and went into debt for it. That's wonderful. When I hope that you are enjoying the smile of the Lord because guys we did not build this church to divide our body. We built this to be a place where we could all come together. And if the work that you have done has enabled you to enjoy the smile of God, praise the Lord. But if the work that you have done has made you angry at the people who haven't worked as hard as you
and lay that down, then stop holding up your work as the one thing necessary and take the deep breath of Jesus and enjoy his smile and remember that you're doing it for him. And some of you have done a tremendous amount of work that nobody knows about. Nobody knows how much you've given. Nobody knows what's going on in your life. Nobody knows how many times you've visited the hospital. Nobody knows how many hours of prayer you've put in, which is exactly how Jesus says you're supposed to do it. But you're worried and you're insecure that people haven't seen your work. Lay that down and just enjoy the smile of Jesus. And some of you really wanted to do more and you wanted to give more but you just couldn't and you feel bad and you feel like you're kind of in the shadows of people who worked harder and you wish you were more like them and you're dying for me to thank you from the stage. But you know that I'm never going to thank you from the stage because you haven't done as much as you should have done. Lay that down.
Jesus is so glad that you're here. Enjoy the smile of your father. Some of you couldn't have done more. Some of you could have done more but you just chose not to. Your time's coming. That's okay.
Lay that down. Don't bring your guilt in here. This building is not built to make you feel guilty. It's a place to take it away. The work's not done. If you're feeling guilty that you didn't do enough to thrive, somebody's got to move the yard and more. We'll find you something to do. You let me now lay it down. Don't let it become a source of division. Jesus will bring us together at his feet. If it's really Jesus, he'll bring us together. He won't separate us. Receive and rest in him alone. Receive and rest in him alone because he cannot be taken away from you because he has defeated death and not even death can separate you from him. Receive the one thing that is necessary and rest in him. Amen. Please pray with me.