One Thing Is Necessary
First B Jackson
2023-01-29

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Amen. Yeah. Oh, we've been having a congregational meeting if you didn't recognize that fact. So we had budget approval and new elder approval and a few other, things going on, but we're about to start the second service here. So that's why everybody's filing out if you're wondering.

A lot of folks came for the early service and hung around for the business meeting. And we're getting our act together here. So here we go. I do know a pretty good reliable source that the sermon went short in the first service anyway. So...

Alright. Here we are leaning on the everlasting arms. Would you stand with me and we're gonna sing some folks in and sing some folks out. Judy is going to take her mittens off and then we're going to get going. What

a fellowship. What a joy divine leaning on the everlasting arms. What a blessedness. What a peace is mine. Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all our lords leaning leaning on the everlasting arms. Oh, how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way, beaming on the everlasting arms. Oh, how sweet the brats pose from day to day, beaming on the everlasting arms, leaning, leaning, leaning leaning on the everlasting arms on the last. What have I to dread? What have I to feel leaning on the everlasting arms?

Amen.

Amen. But it is well with my soul. And number 705.

It is well with my soul. It is well with my soul. My sin, oh, the bliss of this glory aston. My Praise the Lord. Praise the the Lord.

Oh, my soul. It is well. With my soul. It is well. It is well with my soul.

And Lord, haste the day It is well with my soul. It is well with

Y'all can have a seat. Have a few announcements. A lot of them have to do with having, retreats. There are retreats that are going on, these days. It's a good time for them.

Monday Nights at first b is in a way kind of a retreat. It's good to get separated along with folks that are looking to Jesus and to God's word. And so Carl is gonna be preaching tomorrow night. There's meal, music, and a message. And so meal first, and then we gather around music, and then he's got a message from God.

He had kind of a teaser for it, a trailer this morning that I I cannot replicate, and he's not in the room. But it's going to be good. And he says, come and see, I guess it's the best way to put it. If you'd like to prepare a meal for the connect hour or breakfast, finger foods kind of stuff, it was really, really thorough this morning, so good. Or if you'd like to prepare a meal for a Monday night, we're offering you that opportunity.

If you want that blessing, you could take it. You can sign up in the fellowship hall. There are a few retreats. One of them is called the Word Retreat. It's coming up February twenty third to twenty sixth.

I'm planning on going on this one, men's retreat. It's $200. But if... Excuse me. If you would like to go, don't let the cost of it stop you.

There are scholarships available. The info and registration for that is online. I just told everybody I was going, but I have not registered yet, so I'm going to do that later on this afternoon. But if you want to contact somebody about it, Matt Litzelman is the guy. We know a little about it in the office.

You can call here, and we'll put you in touch with him. There's also a ladies fellowship that meets Thursday nights down the hall. Sisters Saved by Grace is kinda one of the names they go by, but it's a ladies fellowship on Thursday evening, 6PM in the fellowship hall. They eat together and pray together and study God's word together. It's a fun group.

There's a women's retreat coming up. It's actually at the same place, but not at the same time as men's retreat, March 16 through the nineteenth. And you can come for any portion of that if you'd like. The Moss Avery Lodge over in Idaho, it's 150, and you can bring a dish to share. Says, If you'd like to know more about that, talk to Nancy Terraziano, and there's a sign up in the back for that.

The youth group, the high school youth group is meeting again on Thursday evening starting this Thursday at Tribes Ministry Center. We... If you were here for the business meeting, you heard Mike after the business meeting talking about youth ministry. And this is one of the most exciting things that's going on in the Valley right now for youth ministry, high school age. It's about four or five churches gathering together for student ascent.

It'll be Thursday night starting at 06:30PM. There's a young adult Bible study that happens on Sunday evenings. This one changes location, but it's, usually housed at some church, church member or attenders house, And the young folks go and gather for a meal and study the word together. Usually, they're studying books together. But that's Erin Anderson's number if you're a young person and would like to get involved in a study, (208) 200-3746 is how to going to And doing of work.

Lot doing of to And the new the budget new and all of the new offices for elders and board of trustees. And I think that's the last one. Am I missing anything in this group? Y'all are making supper tomorrow night. That's one of the things.

Okay. And it's gumbo? Is that right? That was one of the things. I was like, ah, saw your faces and remembered.

That's good. Would you stand with us, and we're gonna continue praising the Lord together. What a song. Rather have Jesus.

I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold. I'd rather be his than have riches untold. I'd rather have Jesus than houses or lands. I'd rather be led by his nail pierced hand than to be the king of the vast domain and be held in sins dread sway. I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world I'd rather be faithful to his dear cause.

I'd rather have Jesus than worldwide fame. I'd rather be true to his holy name than to be the king of the vast

What a beautiful song that is. There is a redeemer. Is a redeemer. Keith Green. We're going to sing verses and chorus.

You might only know the chorus to this one. Last verse, would you like to play one more verse and I'll sing it? Y'all can have a seat.

I will see his face. There I'll serve my king forever in that holy place. The work is done.

Lord God almighty, we thank you and we come to you now at this operatory time. Lord, just to say thank you for one thing. Thank you for all that you have done. Thank you, oh my father, for giving us your son. But, Lord, also to to let you know we are open to do whatever it is that you would lead us to do.

We come before you humbly and submit, Lord, our will to yours collectively and ask you that you would use us to do your will, Lord, and your way, and bless those around us and to the very uttermost parts. Would you do, Lord, what only you can with us laying this down before you, lord. Do what you will with it. Multiply it. Bless it.

Do your work. In Jesus name, amen.

In him complete. Jesus died my soul to save. My lips shall still repeat.

Amen. Thank you. Beautiful. Wow. Purity of that voice and that piano.

Thank you. We're up to Luke ten thirty eight through 42. If you remember last week, we got to verse 37, which is, what we call the story of the good Samaritan. Right? And I had given you all a bunch of cards during the announcement time, and I asked you to list a trustworthy person in our office and then a wider group of trustworthy folks.

And then the one that was the big question was, who do you think is the group that is the most antithetical to the gospel's advance? And y'all answered those, and I told you I'd look through them, and I would see what they said. I read some of them sort of selectively last week because what I was looking for is the other, right? We tend to find ourselves, us and them. And so as we're looking at that, some of you all said the woke agenda, this, that, and the other thing from the left.

Others of you said Christian nationalist and other things towards the right. There was antifa and fascism both in there. But as I looked and I counted the numbers, some of the ones that I skipped some of last week were probably the strongest. It was hypocritical Christians or Christians in name only was one of them. Christians that don't act like it.

That's the hardest thing for the gospel's advances, Christians that don't act like it. And I think that's actually a good... It it to me was helpful because I knew that we'd get right and left stuff. I knew we would get that. And government or politicians on both sides, we got a lot of that too.

But... And media, social media, we got a lot of that. But I think that way back when, when GK Chesterton was still alive, I think it was a Chicago Tribune. It was a big major newspaper. And they put out, what is wrong with the world?

They asked for submissions from authors, and he sent back a two word response and just said, I am. Reflection, self reflection is really important. I say that because of this passage. I have always considered myself a Mary in a Martha world. I'm not a type a.

I'm a motivated type b. That's what I've always considered myself. I was listening years ago to the radio. I used to have a job doing safety training. Some of y'all, you've been here before, you've heard me talk about the job a little bit.

In the ninth grade, I passed out in an English class standing in front of people because I'm more mortified of standing up and speaking in front of people than anything else. And now I do this for a job. And so I used to ride along, when I had this job teaching safety meetings. I'd go to, say drive three hours, and I'd go to a sawmill or a factory or a nursing home, and I would look over their facility and do the safety inspection, and I would write down any notes, turn that over to the boss, need to fix these things, And then I'd consult with them about what they saw as being necessary, accident rates and that sort of thing. And then I would teach the employees safety classes that minimal stuff that OSHA says you have to have.

So as I was doing that job, I really enjoyed it. I'm sort of a workaholic. And I didn't take a vacation for four years. I didn't I mean, we'd go somewhere for the weekend, but we would not miss time off work. And so I'm working hard.

Tanya is a workaholic too. She's working hard at a vet clinic as a tech. And I was riding along. I liked to listen to the radio. I drove three or four hours a day almost every day.

And so baseball games are the best. They pass the time like nothing else. It's not, you know, right wing radio was really popular at the time in the mid nineties. And so I'd listen to that. And I tell you what, when you listen to that, it makes a difference.

It makes a difference in how you think. I'd listen to that. I'd listen to NPRs for a little while. That makes a difference too. And all of the stuff that I'm listening to, occasionally I'd flip it over to Christian radio and something sorta like K Love had an interview with the lady Debbie Stack, this lady.

She wrote a book called Martha to the Max. And the interview was hilarious. She was really funny. And it's Martha to the Max. And I thought, Tanya really needs to hear this.

Oh my goodness. Martha to the max, balanced living for a perfectionist. I've never considered myself a perfectionist. You know, never considered that I was probably just because I was looking at other people, but Martha to the max. She was...

So I stopped at a Christian bookstore. You can do that in the South. I just stopped by, picked a cup... Picked up a copy, laid it out in a prominent position in the home, took... Mentioned it to Tanya.

I said, is really funny. I heard her interview. I'm... It's gonna be good. You ought to read this.

And so she passed by and didn't read it and didn't read it and didn't read it. And one day while she was cleaning up the house, I just decided I'm going to read it out loud. I read this book out loud to my wife because she needed to hear it, doggone it. And I read it out loud to her and she did like it. And she did say even the first test and it was like a 50 question test to see whether you needed this book.

I read all 50 of those and did not think I needed this book. Get through the whole thing and she said, my mama needs to hear that. And so I called her mama and said, Tanya says you need to hear this. I read it out loud over the phone to her. The whole book.

Yeah. I am afraid that I am a Martha, and I had no idea. For the last three weeks, I've been looking at this passage, and I've been thinking about it. And it starts off like this. Now as they were traveling along, that's nonspecific.

That's about as nonspecific as Luke gets. He doesn't mention where they were. They entered into a village. John tells us the village is Bethany where these people live. Later on in the story, we'll hear from John in John 11.

It says, now as they were traveling along, he entered into a village, that's pretty nonspecific for Luke, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. Now they're mentioned here and they're mentioned in John and both places Martha's personality comes out and Mary's personality comes out in both places. And I've always considered myself a Mary just sitting at Jesus' feet. And I, confessional preaching here, have been really challenged by this this week, in the past few weeks. Now as they were traveling along, he entered into a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him in.

What a gracious hostess she is. Welcomed him him into her home, and she had a sister called Mary. It's only, like, five verses we're covering today. Right? It's short, but, man, it hit me hard.

She had a sister called Mary. Okay. Mary. John eleven, again, if you're remembering that, they are the sisters of Lazarus who Jesus raises from the dead in Bethany two miles from the temple. We hear about that at Easter, most Easters.

But if you wanna know where that is, it's in John 11. You can read that. We'll get to it eventually. We're about four and a half months out from the cross right now in our chronological study. She had a sister called Mary.

Mary, who was also seated at the Lord's feet and was listening to his word. The seated at the Lord's feet. Now for us, something that Judy said during... Between services, she talked about a country that was really oppressive to women. For us, we hear that.

We go, that's just horrible. For them to hear that there was Mary who was seated at the Lord's feet, they would have gotten a probably a different message than we do. I think that we probably read this as Mary's cup... Sort of a fangirl for Jesus, and she just wants to be there like Beatlemania or something. She just wants to be close to him.

But it's the same as when Paul in Acts 22 is talking about his religious heritage, his upbringing. I am a Jew. I was born in Tarsus Of Cilicia, but I was brought up in this very city, and I was educated under Gamaliel. When he says that, what he literally says is, I was educated at the feet of Gamaliel. It's the same verbiage because that's what it means.

At the feet of is putting yourself in a position of humility, but also of study strictly according to the law of our forefathers. Being zealous for God just as you all are here today, Paul says. Mary, who was also... She was seated at the Lord's feet. First of all, I mean, Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman and having just told the story in Luke of the good Samaritan.

Those things are like, wow, that's countercultural. That's really not what we're expecting. This really is not what we're expecting either. The placement of this story right here could be strategic for a couple of reasons, but I'll I'll get to that more at the end. Mary, who is also seated at the Lord's feet, who is learning from as a disciple, listening to his word.

But Martha was distracted with all of her preparations. We're gonna have Jesus in the house. Gotta get out. Everything's gotta get ready. We've gotta be completely clean, absolutely clean.

But we also have to have everything just so. She was distracted with all of her preparations. The word that is used right there is perispato. Perispato is the imperfect indicative middle or passive third person singular form You grammar nerds, if you know or care what that means, I mention it because imperfect means... It's an imperfect past tense, meaning it's something that just happens over and over and over again.

This is the way that this person is. That's one thing. But also indicative, it happened. It's not theoretical. It really happened.

Middle or passive. Now, perispao in that form means either or. If it's passive, she was being distracted. There were outside forces that were working on her, and she was being distracted by many things. Or she was being troubled greatly.

That's within the range of what this verb means. If you are distracted, it's greatly troubling. Right? She was being distracted or she was being troubled greatly. That's one way of looking at it.

That's passive. But I think that you can also look at it as this. She was middle voice. She was distracting herself with many things. Or she was troubling herself greatly.

And I think that you can be doing both at the same time. There are outside influences that you can distract yourself with. And the major thrust of this passage is there are some things that are more important than other things. There's actually one thing that's way more important than everything else. That's where the text goes next.

Martha was distracted, pulled with all of her preparations, and she came up to him, to Jesus, and said, Lord... She was a believer. She believed him. She was honored, I'm sure, to have him in the home. Lord, do you not care that my sisters left me to do the serving by myself?

Y'all are not laughing at this. Jesus is in the home there. Mary's at his feet. Martha's running around doing everything, and she's like, Lord, do you not care? The last time we heard this verbiage was in the boat.

Remember in the boat when the... When Jesus is asleep and and they're bailing water and they're scared to death of the lightning and the thunder and the waves. And they said, do you not care that we're dying? It's the same urgency. Right?

Same verbiage. Lord, do you not care that my sisters left me to do the serpent all by myself? Jesus, tell her to help me. Oh my goodness. Have you ever listened to a sermon or listened to the radio or read a book and thought so and so needs to hear this?

Jesus, tell them. That's what she just said. Jesus, tell her what she ought to be doing. All the things that are distracting me ought to be distracting her too. Oh, Lord, do you not care that my sisters left me to do all this serving by myself?

Tell her to help me. But... Oh, but the Lord answered, and how did he answer? The Lord answered and he said to her... This reply is actually very sweet.

Martha, Martha. It's Martha, Martha, not Martha, Martha. It's not that. It's an endearing, loving, compassionate way of saying, Martha, Martha, you're worried and you're distracted by many things. You've got a lot on your mind.

You got a lot going. You're doing a lot of things. You're worried, and you're distracted by many things. Actually, Jesus uses a different word for worry or being distracted, anxiety. It's mirimnos.

I think he uses a different one because he's setting up a punch line just a minute with some wordplay. He's very careful with his words. Properly, means to be drawn in opposite direction, to be divided up into parts. A. T.

Robertson, great theologian, says, it's being going to pieces. I fall to pieces. It's going to pieces because one is being pulled apart in different directions. It's an old, old verb for worry or for anxiety. Your mind is so occupied, you can't stop thinking about things, And it's just one thing builds on another.

Literally, it's pulling you apart, dividing you, or distracting you. It's closely related to James' idea of a double minded person is unstable in all of their ways. So Jesus, marimna says that word. Martha, Martha, I love you Martha. You're worried and you're pulled apart by a lot of different things.

But only one thing is necessary. Actually, this is a new American standard. If you see an italics in the new American standard, that's added in English. It's not representative of something in the Greek, but it helps the flow in English. Really it says, But one thing is necessary.

One thing is necessary. For Mary, in this case, has chosen the good part. That word is merida, which is related to that merimnas earlier that I mentioned. It's kind of a pun almost. Merida means a portion or a share.

I like to think of it that first term. It's an assigned portion. It's something that we have been, as believers, assigned. And Mary has chosen to concentrate her effort on this assignment. She understood the assignment.

An assigned part. But one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her. That's really, really good. It's not ever going to be taken away from her. There are a lot of things that can pull us in different directions.

I know that working in the office and listening to what Nick just had to say about the benevolence fund, there are a lot of good things that this church endeavors to do and we work at doing that can pull us in a lot of different direction. And if I'm being completely honest, I'll say I'm an orgaholic. And I've been hearing a lot of people say, you ought to take a break. You ought to take a sabbatical. You ought to take some time off.

You ought not be busy as you are. I know you're busy so I didn't call. Oh, that stabs me in the heart so hard. When I know you're busy so I didn't call. I'm not that busy is what my first answer is.

Call, please. I want the call. I want the call. And I do. I've had a couple of conversations recently though that have been telling.

So my brother calls regularly. I call him regularly. And he says, Hey, Ray. What you doing? And I say, Well, I'm fixing a such and such for so and so.

I'm fixing a car, working on an alternator for this car. Finishing an art project for the school. I'm hanging something in the downstairs at the church. I'm moving. I'm helping somebody move.

I'm loading the truck. And he goes, I knew you're going to be doing something. He doesn't say how are you? He says, what you doing? So then I talked to

my

dad. And daddy, we'll talk and I'll talk to him until time to go into the hospital or after I've gotten out when I'm on the way to somewhere else. He'll say, Ray, you know that you're pretty close to being a human doing instead of a human being. Oh, that was a stab to the heart too. And I have to step back and not think about how Martha Tanya is or how Martha other people are.

I actually did Martha Humphrey's funeral this year. And when I first arrived, the very first day I came in, I went down to the kitchen, and I looked... Nobody else was in the building. I looked around, I saw that Martha Humphrey was in charge of the kitchen, and it cracked me up. Martha.

Martha. Of course, Martha is in charge of the kitchen. I didn't know anybody in this church. I've never really considered that I am that. I'm working through that, and I'm asking for you all to help me to be praying, not just for me, but to be praying for you too to see what is it that's distracting you.

And there may be many things that are distracting us, but I think that we together ought to be considering this. Now I hope to be always faithful to sharing the word of God with you here on Sunday morning, and I wanna be faithful in that task. And I do think that I'm studying it in there. That's sitting at the feet of Jesus. If I'm bringing it in here, maybe it's my job, but it's also giving you an opportunity to hear the words of Jesus.

I love what I do. I'm not saying that I don't, but at the same time, I I have to take every passage seriously and go, lord, help me to understand. And this week, he did. This week, he really did. And so it snuck up on me.

Would you pray with me? And then I'm gonna ask you if you'll just come forward. We're gonna sing, wherever he leads, I'll go. But I think it's important the order of that song, wherever he leads, I'll go. If you're not paying attention to what he's saying, you're not gonna know where to go.

Okay? Wherever he leads, I'll go. God almighty, through Christ, we ask you, lord, to help us, to help us to see where it is that we are to be going, what it is that we are to be doing. But, Lord, may we savor each moment with you in your word and in prayer. In Jesus' name, we pray.

Amen. I've got one more thing to say. So I think that's the last slide. It'll go black when I hit it. Yeah.

But the Lord's prayer is next. The Lord's Prayer is next in this passage. There are three pericopes, and I wanna read something to close. This is Darrell Bock's great commentary on Luke nine fifty one all the way to the end. And it says, this pericope, this little short story, is part of a three unit section that deals with each disciple's responsibilities before God.

So the previous passage, is what we did last week, is the Good Samaritan. It gives the first point. Disciples are to be loving their neighbor, which involves service to the one that is in need. Loving one's neighbor means being a neighbor. That's a great point.

This account, the one today, shows that attention to Jesus is a key element in the disciple's life. In fact, this account also develops the lawyer's response. Last week, the lawyer said to Jesus, what is it that I must do to inherit... What what do I need to do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said, you're reading of it.

What is it? He says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. His question immediately went to who is my neighbor? But Jesus... Well, Luke, through this...

Putting this passage next is saying that in order to love your neighbor well, you have to be paying attention to what God is saying first. So loving the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength is paying attention to him. So wholehearted, it develops the lawyer's response about wholehearted devotion to God. While love of neighbor is illustrated by the Samaritan, Mary pictures devotion to God and his teaching through faithful attention to Jesus. The next passage is the Lord's Prayer, and it will stress being dependent on a good and gracious God through an active prayer life.

To serve others like the Samaritan does not mean that we should be so distracted by service to them that we ignore God. Our service to others is best set in the context of being in contact with God. It might be a good time to advertise those retreats again. Because if you haven't taken time lately to just step back from whatever it is that you're doing and check-in with God to see what he's saying, I read that book myself, and then I read it out loud to Tanya, and then I read it out loud to her mother. I read it out loud to one other person too.

And I never thought it was for me. We can miss that. God Almighty, help us to go wherever it is that you lead, but help us pay attention to where you're leading. Would you stand with me, We're going to sing wherever he leads, I'll go.

I can hear my savior savior calling. I can hear my savior calling. I can hear my savior calling. Take thy cross and follow. Follow me.

Where he leads me, I will follow. Where he leads me, I will follow. Where he leads me, I will follow. I'll go with him, with him all the way. I'll go with him through the judgment.

I'll go with him through the judgment. I'll go with him through the judgment. I'll go with him with him all the way. Where he leads me, I will follow. Where he he leads me, I will follow.

Where he leads me, I will follow. I'll go with him, with him all the way. He will give me grace and glory. He will give me grace and glory. He will give me grace and glory.

And go with me with me all the way. Where he leads me, I will follow. Where he leads I follow.

Amen. And for the benediction today, we're gonna go to Colossians three, the first couple of verses. It says, since then you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on the things above. Where Christ is, where you're seated at the right hand of God, set your mind on things above, not on earthly things.

Don't be so distracted and concerned with those things that you can't set your mind on the things that are above that. In Jesus' name, Lord, we pray that you would bless us to be a blessing, but that we would hear your words, take them to heart individually so that we might be a blessing. Amen.