The 'One Thing' That is Needful

Well, good morning to you all. Blessings. How many of you use a calendar at home to schedule your coming days and weeks and months, a list to do, and you schedule your life? Raise your hand if you use a calendar for that. Yeah, a bulk of you do that.

And I'm thinking about if you're like I am, there's times where you just sort of secretly wish the calendar would have another day or two in a week or in a month to add more things to do. How many of you have so many things going on and you're so busy that there are times when you look at your schedule that you feel a little bit anxious and overwhelmed? Raise your hand.

I'm speaking to myself this morning. I have a burden on my heart. I keep asking my wife, "Why are we so busy?" And I ask myself the question, "Why do I do what I do? What is behind it? What's the motivation?" This morning I want to look at two sisters, Luke 10, Mary and Martha, familiar passage that Jesus teaches, and we want to unpack those couple verses.

Luke 10:38-42. I'll read the passage. "Now it came to pass as they went that he entered into a city," a certain city, that's Jesus. He was traveling. If we back up into a chapter previous, it tells us that he had his mind set to go toward Jerusalem. So Jesus was on a journey. He's traveling with possibly some of his disciples and so on. They come to a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.

And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. "But Martha was comforted about, much serving, and came to him and said, 'Lord, doest thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?

Bid her therefore that she help me.' And Jesus answered and said unto her, 'Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away.'" So let's look at verse 38. Jesus is traveling here. He comes to a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha who had a sister named Mary. Now, we're not given a lot of details as to who this family is.

We can just assume that the certain city could be Bethany because these names come up in the Gospel of John, John 10 or 11, I believe, and 12, where we have a family who were sisters, Mary and Martha, and they had a brother, Lazarus. You remember the story, the Lazarus that was raised from the dead?

And John 12 tells us that this family lived in Bethany. So we're assuming we just assume here. We read into this that this might be the same family. And the certain city, village, the certain village might be Bethany, two miles or so outside of Jerusalem.

Before we get too hard on Martha and I know there's ministries out there, and I know these short verses have been very impactful in many ways. You can buy books on it. There are songs written about these two people. And often it's a little bit critical about Martha, and we get pretty hard on her. Before we get too hard on her, let's just do a little bit of research and just assume again that this is the Martha that was in John 11 and 12.

Let's look at Martha's servant heart. So first of all, in our text here, verse 38, as Jesus is coming along, it was Martha that received him to her house. I sort of like that. It wasn't Mary. It was Martha that went out. She must have been the outgoing woman. And that's very attractive. She goes out and says, "Come on, Jesus. We have a house for you. We have a meal prepared for you. We're going to serve you." That was Martha. We go to John 11, assuming again this is the same Martha of the same family.

Remember when Lazarus died, of course, Martha and Mary were grieving in their house, but somehow they got word that Jesus was coming. Who went out to meet him? It was this Martha. She went out and met him, and it must have been a little distance because they had time to get back. And then Martha turns around and goes back and tells her sister Mary, who was still sitting in the house, grieving over the death of their brother, which was in place. But I sort of like Martha there, don't you? She's out there. She heard about Jesus coming, and she goes there and goes ahead of him and invites him there again to come.

And then in John well, no, in John yes, John 11, it was Martha that went back to her sister to the house and said, "Mary, my sister, you know the Master is here."

And then in John 12, we have another incident where Jesus and we get the picture there were more traveling with him, and they were traveling through this village of Bethany. And who went out? Martha again made a supper. "There they made him a supper," it says, "and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Then took Mary a pound of costly ointment and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair." So there we have the typical scene. We have again this servant, hospitable Martha that was serving her brother Lazarus who was sitting at the table with Jesus.

And there's Mary, that other sister that's down at the feet of Jesus with this expensive ointment, anointing his feet.

I sort of like this Martha so far, don't you?

I think there's something going on here in the heart of Martha that we many times overlook. Very outgoing, very hospitable, and servant by heart. She's making the food. Jesus is sitting there with Lazarus. And maybe others. We don't know how many was in that.

Martha was serving them. Martha also had a deep faith. Oftentimes we say, "Well, it was Mary that had the deep faith and the devotion to Jesus," and she did. We'll talk about that later. But I believe Martha did too because Martha made a testimony, a statement in John 11:22. After her brother had died, she said this to Jesus, "I know whatsoever thou would ask of God, he would give it thee." That is an expression of a deep faith that Martha had in Jesus. Here's another thing she said, "I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world." So here we have Martha sort of painted as a hospitable, serving woman, a busy woman, a hard worker.

And then she had this deep faith in Jesus Christ, and she called him the Christ, the Son of God. I believe Martha truly cared and took responsibility of the things that mattered.

I believe Martha would have been a great Proverbs 31 woman, seeing well after the needs of her house. And after all, this little story here sandwiched right in between being the Good Samaritan, the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the model prayer. And I think that's no mistake. If you notice that, if Martha at all heard the parable that Jesus just got done telling and told that Good Samaritan, "Now I want you to go out," no, told the Jewish person that he was the Pharisee, "I want you to go and do likewise." Well, the Samaritan, we know what he did in the story. He took care of the poor one, the stripped one. He was detailed about it.

He reached into his own pocket. He invested his energy and his resources. And then he came back yet and did follow-up work. And Mary is only being I mean, Martha's only being that Good Samaritan here, isn't she? She's serving. She's doing what her Lord taught her.

I believe if one took the verse in James 1:27 seriously, it was Martha. To visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, I could see Martha doing that. Coming to the rescue in the needs of those around her.

I believe if Martha was in our midst today, she would be at every clothes sorting there is. I think she'd serve in the soup kitchen every time they're serving there. I think Martha would be signed up on the food committee every term.

I think it would sort of be neat to have a Martha in our midst. You see, I'm saying this to say we're looking at the heart of Martha and the obedience that she was living out in her servant, her big heart, and so on.

But then why does Jesus come in verse 41 and says, "Martha, Martha"? Now, is she scolding Martha for something she's doing wrong? No. Remember when Abraham offered his son Isaac in Genesis 22? And he did everything God asked him to do. He went to the mountain. He took the wood. He took the offering. He took the servant. He took the son. They went to the mountain. He went all the way. He lifted his arm to bring down the knife.

What did God say? The voice of God came and said, "Abraham, Abraham." He wasn't scolding Abraham. He was intervening. He said, "Abraham, stop." And I believe what he was saying to Abraham, "There's a bigger picture here. There's something more beautiful coming out of this than you see at this point." Remember when Moses was called by God? Moses was only doing what he was supposed to do. He's out there in the desert keeping the sheep. And the voice of the Lord came and met him in a flame of fire in the burning bush. If you remember the story, Moses was so sidetracked by that bush that was on fire and never consumed that he turned to the bush.

And remember what God did? He said, "Moses, Moses, don't look at the bush." Well, most of us would want to look at the bush. Why was the bush on fire and it wasn't burned? Moses was just being a man. He was just being human.

Remember what God said, "Don't look at the bush, but rather take off your shoes because you walk on holy ground." And that is what Jesus is doing to Martha. He is not scolding Martha for her service. He's drawing her attention that there's a bigger picture. He said to Abraham, "There's a bigger picture." And Martha, "There's a bigger picture here." What is the bigger picture?

The bigger picture is that your sister has chosen something that is bigger than you have just fallen into by default. See, I don't think Mary ever Martha ever chose to walk away from her Lord. I don't think that was her intention. She just got so wrapped up in the things of this life that she lost sight of the big picture.

One trouble was she was conquered about with much serving, and that word just simply means she was distracted. She was drawn away. She became so occupied with the things she was doing, good things. It consumed her. It affected her attitude.

It affected her love. It affected her devotion.

And he turns and he says, "The one thing is needful," in verse 42. And that's the title of the message this morning, "The one thing that is needful." If you notice, Martha had many things that she was careful about.

There were many I believe her calendar probably was full too, just knowing her personality. She had a busy lifestyle of good things, of serving, and so on. The point that I believe Jesus is teaching us by this short passage, this short text is that one thing that is needful and we use that term. We might say, "Well, we need a new carpet for this church building," or, "We need a better sound system in our church." We use those terms. But this term is much stronger. When Jesus says that one thing that is needful, it is more equivalent to have you ever been driving the highway and you see a car sitting in the ditch, and then you see a person walking with a can, an empty gas can or a full gas can, and you just read into the picture something just happened.

They ran out of gas. And the only way to get that car up and moving is they need gas. It more has that idea, this term, the one needful thing. And Jesus is saying there is one thing that is needful for us to survive and get up going and keep going in our Christian life. And Mary has chosen that. And what was that needful thing?

Verse 39.

It says, "Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet." I read that in a way that I believe Martha knew what that meant because I believe Martha knew what it meant to sit at the feet of Jesus and hear His word.

The also that's mentioned. Well, Martha's there at the feet of Jesus and hearing His word, taking it in. And Jesus says that is the one thing that is needful. That is the one thing, folks, this morning that I want to stress. I want to stress it for my life. I want to stress it for your life. If we miss out on everything else in life, it doesn't really matter in the end. But if we miss out on that one thing that is needful, we're not going anywhere with God. Paul says, "If you give your body to be burned, if you give all your resources" how's that word there? "I bestow all my goods to feed the poor."

That goes back to Sunday school. We can give everything away, including our house, including whatever we have. And if we do that with the wrong motivation, it doesn't come from the flow with sitting at the feet of Jesus. It's all in vain.

That's the point that Jesus is stressing this morning, that one thing that is needful.

Remember when the disciples once this was after Jesus was resurrected. We read it in John 21. Jesus appeared to His disciples several times, and this was one of them. He comes out there one day, and they're out there by the seashore.

And Jesus just appears to them. Now, you would think the disciples would say, "Wow, we're so glad to see you again after the resurrection." But instead, Peter says, "I'm going to go fishing." I just read that count recently. I'm like, "How in the world could Peter do that?"

Jesus just comes up and appears to them. No dialogue, no discussion. Peter just says, "I'm going to go fishing." And the disciples said, "Well, I'm going to go with you." And they all went fishing. Well, you know what happened that night?

Remember the story? They fished all night. Now, have you ever fished all night? I've fished for an hour or two, and I'm like, "I'm out of here. Fish aren't biting. If I don't catch a fish within an hour, I'm out of there." But they stuck with it all night long, and there was no fish. And in the morning, they saw this person on the seashore. It was Jesus.

Jesus, how was fishing? They said, "None." I admire Peter for his honesty. We catch anything. And Jesus just says, "Try the other side of the ship." And they did. And you know how immediately they caught fish. What was Jesus doing there? He was doing what He's doing with Martha here.

If we don't make our interests and our daily life and our daily choices line up with what Jesus has for us, we can fish and labor all night long, and we're not going to get a fish. And that's what Martha was doing here. She was busy about she was, so to speak, fishing all night. She's sweating. I can just imagine Martha in the kitchen, and the cupboards are slamming. The cupboard doors are slamming, and the kettles are rattling. And she's getting short with everybody around us, as we do sometimes. We get cranky, and we get impatient. I can see that happening in Martha's kitchen.

And then she finally comes over and expresses her frustration to Jesus Himself.

Let's turn our Bibles to Revelation 2.

Revelation 2:1. We have the church in Ephesus, and I'll read a few verses here of this church. "Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write these things, saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden sticks: I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst bear them which are evil. And thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not, and hast found them liars, and hast borne and hast patienced, and for my name's sake hast labored and hast not fainted."

So far, I would think that's just a beautiful church, people. That's just a beautiful picture of a busy church. They have labors. They have works. They have discernment. They can pick out the false ones from the true ones.

And that's a gift that's beautiful in the church. Jesus is highlighting all of that. Then He says, "Nevertheless, I have something against you because you have left your first love."

That one thing that Mary had chosen, the church at Ephesus, was walking away from. Do you see that? But He can't help. Jesus can't help but go on and say and still highlight some of the beauty in this church. They weren't doing anything wrong. If you notice, there is no negative thing about what they're doing. He keeps highlighting the beauty of them. He says, "But thou hast had that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans which I also hate." So they loved the things God loved, and they hated the things God hated. They were keeping order in the church. They had structure. They had service. They had beauty, and they didn't quit. You notice that?

But their departure was so drastic. Their air was so drastic that Jesus said, "The only way that you're going to keep your candlestick with me is if you repent." They left their first love. They've left what Jesus is teaching us this morning in the account of Mary and Martha, what Mary hung onto with all her life.

Remember Daniel? He was a young man that was very outstanding in the kingdom, that he served in that pagan nation. They tried to find fault with him. They looked up and down. They could find no fault with him. They could find no waywardness. All they found was faithfulness and beauty because he had an excellent spirit in him. Do you know where Daniel's secret of that excellent spirit was?

It was that one thing. It was at the feet of his God. And finally, the pagan officials said, "There's only one thing we can find wrong with this man, and that has to do with the law of his God."

Do you know what the law of his God was? It was sitting at the feet of his God and hearing from Him and communicating with Him.

Daniel knew that the testimony of that excellent spirit all had to do with the law of his God. Now, it says when Daniel knew that the writing of the writing was signed, and that was to be thrown in the lion's den when he got into what did he do? What was the first thing he did after that?

If you read a signature about yourself and what's going to happen to you if you do not deny the law of your God, what would you do? That's a challenge. That's a question we need to ask ourselves. Well, Daniel did just what he always did. The Bible says that he went into his house, and he went into his room, and he opened the window toward Jerusalem, and he knelt down, and he prayed toward Jerusalem. Now, back in that time, he didn't have Jesus like Mary did to go to His feet. All he had was to look toward Jerusalem because he believed that is where God was. That was the place of worship. And folks, today, we don't have Jesus right here in person.

We can't go to His feet. But my question is, do we have a chamber? Do we have a little room that we go in? As Jesus said, "When you pray, you go into your closet, and when you have the door shut, then you pray to your Father which is in secret. And your Father which is in secret will reward you openly." I love that picture, folks. And I believe it's a call for us to go to that place, to go to that chamber, or to go to that closet and exercise that daily devotion. Daniel did it three times a day, and he was very deliberate about it. And I find in my life, if I'm not deliberate about prayer and devotion and Bible reading, it doesn't happen.

And Jesus taught us to do that. You know, the pagan officials of Daniel's time, they didn't care about his excellent spirit. They didn't care about his service. In fact, they appreciated Daniel in so many ways. But they did care about his prayer life. And I'm telling you here today and all of us, the devil doesn't care about our service. He doesn't care how many poor people we feed. He doesn't care how fat our calendar list is. But he does care about our prayer life. He's trying to stop us from praying because he knows that when we stop praying to God and having that deliberate, intentional choices, as Daniel and as Jesus taught, if he can somehow distract us from that, he can distract our entire life.

He can distract all our choices going forward. And that's what was happening with Martha.

I remember when Jim and Martha wanted to join our church here, we met with them, and they said, "Well, we have television in our house, and we've had that ever since. Do we have to give that up to join your church?" I said, "Yes."

Well, see, we don't watch bad movies. We don't do any frivolous things with our TV. We only use it for the news and for the weather and a few things. We've done it our life. We're so adjusted to it, and we're old, and we just feel we need this. Could your church make an exception for that?

I'm like, "Well, if we make an exception here, then we have to make an exception over here to stay consistent." We can't really make that exception. "Wow, we want to trust you." Well, you know, they did get rid of that TV. And you know what they told me about a year after that? "We have found that was one of the best things we have ever done in our Christian life."

They didn't realize the distraction that thing had. First thing in the morning, what's the news? First thing in the morning, what's the weather? Folks, we might not have TV, but we have other things. We have other devices today that are probably just as threatening or more than the TV. And I'm going to put a challenge out to you. What does your morning look like? What does my morning look like? When I get up in the morning, do I find my room as Daniel did, and I make it a deliberate choice to talk to my God? Because out of that, Mary knew. Daniel knew. The Apostle Paul knew. In fact, Paul, after 30 years in ministry, after 30 years being a Christian, a very devoted Christian, in Philippians, he says that I might know him and the power of his resurrection and the benefits.

Can you finish the verse?

Here was a man that was walking with God through thick and thin, and he is still crying out, "I want to know that God. I want to know the power of his resurrection." Paul knew that his ministry was flowing out of that knowing his God.

That's where he got his strength and his energy and his vision because he knew God, and he wanted to keep knowing him in even a deeper way. And I just want to challenge us today, folks. We have a lot of distractions. We really do. And if we don't become deliberate about our prayer life and our devotion to God, that one thing that is necessary to keep us going, we're going to become Marthas, and we're going to get stressed out. The kettles are going to rattle. Our marriages are going to hurt. We're going to get cranky with each other. We're going to become worldly-minded. We talk about churches losing their way.

You know, at the bottom of every church, losing their way is because there's individual members that have lost and left that one thing. That's at the root of it. When we try to make people holy from the back in, from the outside in, it never works.

Paul said, "A true Jew is one that is circumcised in his heart." That's where it happens. Mary knew that. Daniel knew that. Paul knew that. And every man and woman of God must know that. It's when I become my relationships are strained. I become vain. I become materialistic-minded. What is happening? It's because I'm walking away from that one thing that really matters.

We see that Martha became very selfish. She questioned God in verse 40. She came to Jesus and said in her frustration, "Don't you care?" Do you ever do that to God? I've done that already. God, do you see what's happening?

God, do you see what's happening in our church? God, do you see what's happening in my family? Do you care? God, do you care? You know, when we find ourselves slipping away from that one thing, we're going to be overburdened, and we're going to stop trusting the care of God. And that's what's happening with Martha.

She became very selfish in verse 40. "Don't you care that Mary left me to serve alone? It's about me. She left me. I'm serving alone. Lord, can you tell my sister to come and help me? It's all about myself." Is because she left that one thing, and she became frustrated in service.

When I become frustrated in my busyness, in my big schedule, it's often, if not always, it's when I take my focus. When I become snappy at those telemarketers that call me daily, and I tell them to go get a real job with an attitude.

When I'm impatient on the road with the guy that just pulled in front of me, I find in my own life that when I begin my day off with God, those things are much easier to face. I do not exercise my patience on the busy highway.

I exercise the character of patience in that prayer room before God. That's where it happens. I do not deal with my materialistic or selfish motive wherever it might be in a busy, busy world. I shape that character at the feet of Jesus.

Recently, a man sort of challenged me. He was from a different church group. He was with the church group that made the decision to not have any kind of devices like technology. They have no internet. They have no smartphones.

And he just looked at me, and he said, "So if you have that kind of stuff, even if you have an umbrella from the church over every device to keep it protected and keep it locked or accountability to each device, what keeps your members from having another device that's out from underneath that program?"

In fact, he said, "I taught with another church group," and he said, "Well, that happens in our church all the time. We have the devices that are locked down and filtered and censored and so on. And then there's dishonest brothers or sisters and sisters maybe that have another device that looks just like it, and that's their own device. And they can go on there and look at what they want to look at."

And I'm like, "You know what? It makes me tired. It just makes me weary. We can't win. We just can't win, folks."

Where I really become holy and godly is at the feet of Jesus. That's where it happens. And there again, I'm going to stress the fact that if we have a church group of people that have a relationship with their Maker, they're not going to be coming, having another extra device, and be a hypocrite about it. They're not going to be dishonesty. Dishonesty and ungodliness and that one thing, they don't mix.

If you have some secret things in your life, folks, and you go to that prayer closet, and you bow, and you open the window toward Jerusalem, your prayer isn't going to go anywhere. You're going to have to deal with that thing.

It's just that simple, folks. I think we make it too complicated. Jesus simply reduces it down to one thing.

Look at our choices. Our Anabaptist forefathers have made some radical choices in the past. You know where they made that choice? At the feet of Jesus. That's so beautiful. When I look at their history and I read the martyrs' mirror, and I see those people that were faced with persecution, and they kept right on going, that didn't just happen, folks. It happened at doing and playing that one thing as Mary did.

That one thing does not produce children and grandchildren. It just will not. Every generation and every person has to make the choice. As Jesus said, "Mary hath chosen that one thing." We're creatures of choice. We can choose the right thing.

David said, "One thing have I desired of the Lord that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. For in the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion." Psalm 27, I believe that is. He goes on to say that pavilion became a hiding place when he's in trouble. And I'm here to say that if we exercise and we make that one thing, the one thing, as David did, he had the faith and the confidence and the experience that when he's in trouble, that God has a pavilion.

He has a place of rest. He has a place of joy. He has a place of protection that nobody and nothing will take away from him.

Our much serving is going to be taken away. Our families are going to be taken away. Our health is going to be taken away. But that one thing will never be taken from Mary, Jesus said. It's going to go with her to the grave. It's going to meet her on the other side of the grave.

It's just going to be with her forever. And I believe that's where we can establish that eternal beginning is here in this life. I want to challenge myself, this message just for me as much as anybody else. I'm with John. Sometimes I just feel so lukewarm. Sometimes I just feel the passion and the desire and the inspiration. I know what's happening.

It's hard work to pray. For me, I find it's hard work.

And you know, I'm not up against I say, "Well, I'm sleepy. I'm exhausted. I come home. I had a busy day. We served something good even. And it's bedtime, and I'm so tired." And we just get we just fudge with our prayer life.

You know what's happening? It's not that we're up against our tiredness only. We're up against principalities and powers and rulers of darkness that don't want us to pray. That's what we're up against. And folks, I want to challenge all of us. Let's plow through that. And when we sense that heaviness or that pressure or that power of darkness cribbling our prayer life, let's plow through it and say, "I know exactly where that's coming from. It's not because I'm sick. It's not because I'm tired. It's not because of this or the other thing. It's simply because I'm up against the powers of darkness, and they don't want me to pray." Because that is where the source of our energy comes from.

It's the gas that runs our Christian life. Does that make sense? Isaiah says Isaiah 40:31, "But they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mound up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary."

Now, Martha was weary. And I just leave us with this challenge. When we have a heart of Mary and we exercise the heart of Mary, then we can have the hands of Martha. But it's got to flow out of the heart of Mary into the hands of Martha. We don't get tired. We don't wear out. Our calendars don't get too big with schedules if we, first of all, make that one thing the necessity.

Don't you ever feel guilty when you look at your calendar and you say, "Jesus said, 'Take no thought for your life for tomorrow. Today and its evil thereof is sufficient.'" I'm like, "We're doing that wrong." I look at my calendar.

You might look at your calendar. We're doing this wrong. Today, give me the strength, Lord, for what I face today. May God bless you. Any comments before we pray?