Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message
Speaker 1: we're studying from Luke chapter ten, verses thirty eight through
Speaker 1: forty two. Today we're gonna talk a little bit about Well,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a very practical message. I think
Speaker 1: would be a lot of fun too. If you participate,
Speaker 1: sometimes you can help the preacher preach better and you
Speaker 1: don't even know it. So I just invite you to
Speaker 1: whatever you want to do. But I'm gonna tell you this.
Speaker 1: The sooner you look like you get it, the sooner
Speaker 1: I can let you go. So you can speed this
Speaker 1: along today just by looking interested, to shake your head
Speaker 1: like this, we get it, we get it, we get it.
Speaker 1: This is one of those little Bible passages just that
Speaker 1: you can't quite figure out why this part got included
Speaker 1: in the Bible, because it seems pretty small, little insignificant
Speaker 1: in the scope of the whole narrative of Jesus going
Speaker 1: to the Cross and rising from the dead, and then
Speaker 1: little things like this get told in the Bible. And
Speaker 1: I want to use this for the third installment of
Speaker 1: trigger taking back your mind in the age of anxiety,
Speaker 1: look at somebody and say, you look less stressed than
Speaker 1: the last time I saw you. You know, it's always
Speaker 1: awkward because I tell people to say things to their
Speaker 1: neighbors and there's always one person who's like independently minded
Speaker 1: and they're like ah ah, But then the person next
Speaker 1: to them is like totally a rule follower, and they'll
Speaker 1: turn to the other person and start to say it
Speaker 1: and then like, oh, you're not actually doing it. You're
Speaker 1: a rebel and you're going to hell. So this little
Speaker 1: passage is going to give us some practical insight today
Speaker 1: and help us get our minds focused and help us get,
Speaker 1: you know, a concentration on what matters. At least that's
Speaker 1: our prayer. Luke, Chapter ten, verse thirty eight. And even
Speaker 1: the first line has a little message in it as
Speaker 1: Jesus and his disciples were on their way, So something
Speaker 1: is about to happen while they're on the way somewhere else,
Speaker 1: and some of God's greatest invitations will happen through life's interruptions.
Speaker 1: It will be places that we didn't plan on going,
Speaker 1: and it will be through conversations that we didn't plan
Speaker 1: on having that sometimes God will give his greatest blessings.
Speaker 1: How many can testify to that? Maybe you met your
Speaker 1: wife not even trying to meet a woman. You were
Speaker 1: at the club trying to look like somebody who was
Speaker 1: worthy of a date, and you just you your dance
Speaker 1: moves proved otherwise, and then you just happened to I've
Speaker 1: met people here who signed up to serve on the
Speaker 1: parking team and ended up on a honeymoon in Turks
Speaker 1: and Caicos, And so it happens, right, did that happen? Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it happens. I'm telling you just on the way, And
Speaker 1: I pointed out because since we're talking about distractions today
Speaker 1: and that's our central subject matter, we need to understand
Speaker 1: that not everything that you didn't plan on is a distraction.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the distraction is the thing you planned to do
Speaker 1: that God didn't even want you to do. But you
Speaker 1: made up your mind what you were going to do
Speaker 1: before you even asked God what you were supposed to do. Amen,
Speaker 1: I am I'm gonna preach this. She said preach that, well, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm already halfway there. So study sometime in the Bible
Speaker 1: all the things that happened on the way or along
Speaker 1: the way. You'd be surprised, as they were on their
Speaker 1: way to Jerusalem for a festival. Ultimately, Jesus was going
Speaker 1: to Jerusalem later in order to pay for our sins
Speaker 1: and die on the cross. That's what he came for.
Speaker 1: And since he knew what he came for, he could
Speaker 1: not be distracted by the preferences of people or the
Speaker 1: plans of others. And that's why when Peter said you
Speaker 1: can't go die, Jesus was able to say, get behind me, Satan.
Speaker 1: What you represent right now is in opposition to the
Speaker 1: will of my father. So I got to keep moving
Speaker 1: toward Jerusalem. I got to keep moving toward Jerusalem. I
Speaker 1: got to keep moving toward Jerusalem. That's for somebody. You're
Speaker 1: on the right road, and there are a lot of
Speaker 1: things trying to get you off of it. But here's
Speaker 1: what happens in this passage. In a little village called Bethany,
Speaker 1: two miles from Jerusalem, Jesus came to a village where
Speaker 1: a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She
Speaker 1: had a sister called Mary, who listened how spiritual this
Speaker 1: house sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. Oh,
Speaker 1: but Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had
Speaker 1: to be made, and she came to him and asked, Lord,
Speaker 1: don't you care that my sister has left me to
Speaker 1: do all the work by myself. Tell her to help me.
Speaker 1: This is funny to me, and I've read it many
Speaker 1: many times. And then I laugh because he says their
Speaker 1: name twice, Martha, Martha. Look at your neighbors, say their
Speaker 1: first name twice, Martha, Martha. The Lord answered, you are
Speaker 1: worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed,
Speaker 1: or indeed, only one. Mary has chosen what is better,
Speaker 1: and it will not be taken away from her. And
Speaker 1: the scene ends with this. We don't get to see
Speaker 1: how Martha responds. I'd love to know, but it doesn't say.
Speaker 1: It just ends right there. The movie just goes to
Speaker 1: the credits right there. And I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you today about the movie in my mind. That's my
Speaker 1: title for this message, is the movie in my mind.
Speaker 1: I wonder do you have a similar movie? Have you
Speaker 1: ever bought a ticket to the theater of your own imagination,
Speaker 1: only to demand money back because that plot sucked. Seeing
Speaker 1: the same old things and the same old hurts and
Speaker 1: the same old memories. You know, Sometimes the movie in
Speaker 1: my mind, I edit together scenes that should have been deleted,
Speaker 1: and yet they're on repeat in my mind. One time,
Speaker 1: Finding Nemo got stuck in our DVD player in the
Speaker 1: in Holly's Yukon, and so we know every scene from
Speaker 1: Nemo because just every time we got in the car.
Speaker 1: I feel like certain things in my life are like that.
Speaker 1: Just you know, I'm like Dory, swimming around, just barely
Speaker 1: remembering Wallaby Way and just swimming around the same memories.
Speaker 1: The movie in my mind. Now, I need to tell you,
Speaker 1: the movie in my mind is rated R for ridiculous
Speaker 1: and redundant. And I don't know about your taste in movies.
Speaker 1: Usually when I get to know somebody the way that
Speaker 1: I get to know them quickly, I'll say what kind
Speaker 1: of music do you like? And what's your favorite movie?
Speaker 1: And I can tell whether they're worth talking to by
Speaker 1: the answer to that, because if they go, well, I
Speaker 1: don't really like music, I'm done with you. You You have
Speaker 1: no soul. And then I'd rather, you're not believe in God,
Speaker 1: but at least I can convert you. But when we
Speaker 1: talk about movies, people act real funny. If they know
Speaker 1: I'm a pastor, they'll always say this Christian answer. You know,
Speaker 1: been her the Ten Commandments start listing every Christian movie,
Speaker 1: and I want to stop them. They're facing the giants fireproof,
Speaker 1: and I don't have the heart to tell them. I
Speaker 1: don't usually even like Christian movies. I appreciate good messages
Speaker 1: and wholesome family entertainment. It's just as sometimes I like
Speaker 1: gritty movies. I don't know why. Maybe I like comparing
Speaker 1: my life to somebody else's worst life. Maybe it's a
Speaker 1: maybe it's a relief to me that at least it's
Speaker 1: not my idea of a good movie. Okay, if everybody
Speaker 1: in the movie doesn't end up dead, I'm disappointing by
Speaker 1: the end of it. I want the villain dead, the
Speaker 1: hero dead, the dog dead, the fish. I want the
Speaker 1: fish during the counter Caspin for Breath, blood everywhere, Blood
Speaker 1: of the Lamb. Of course, for the church people, it's
Speaker 1: just a different kind of movie. In one of our
Speaker 1: campus Faster Wives, she was telling me, you know, when
Speaker 1: I go to the movies. I don't want anything that
Speaker 1: resembles my real life. I want happy endings. I want
Speaker 1: everything to go well. I get enough of the drama
Speaker 1: in my real life. I'm a third grade teacher. I
Speaker 1: don't need drama, need escape. And yet the worst movie
Speaker 1: I ever saw was in my own mind the movies
Speaker 1: that I make. I made one this week. I had
Speaker 1: something to do, and when I actually did it, I
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. But I had made a movie about it,
Speaker 1: what it was going to be like, and how inconvenient
Speaker 1: it would be, and I probably wudn't be able to
Speaker 1: find parking space, and I was probably done. And by
Speaker 1: the time I got to the event, I was tired
Speaker 1: from the movie. You ever done? This movie in my mind?
Speaker 1: And so here comes a scene in the Bible we
Speaker 1: just heard about the good Samaritan who stopped in this
Speaker 1: kind of unexpected fashion to help someone in need. In
Speaker 1: Jesus teaching, and the next little inclusion here from Luke
Speaker 1: is about the Lord's prayer father who are in heaven.
Speaker 1: There's this weird little little movie, this little scene, at
Speaker 1: least with a really weak plot. You know, Jesus came
Speaker 1: to a house and two women had a fight. But
Speaker 1: I'm kind of glad it's in here, because this is
Speaker 1: more like everyday life for most of us. Like most
Speaker 1: of us, our life is not epic all the time.
Speaker 1: Most of us don't claim the Promised Land every Monday morning.
Speaker 1: Most of us sit in traffic. My Monday morning usually
Speaker 1: isn't you know this miraculous good versus it's just snooze, snooze, snooze, snooze. Okay,
Speaker 1: if I get up right now, maybe I won't be late.
Speaker 1: You know, the most epic thing that might happen to
Speaker 1: me on any given week. Maybe I'll be able to
Speaker 1: bench press ten more pounds than I did last week,
Speaker 1: but probably not because I'm almost forty of my shoulders
Speaker 1: messed up. And so I'm kind of glad that they
Speaker 1: include these little everyday life things in the Bible, where
Speaker 1: it's like Jesus came to a house and one woman
Speaker 1: and another woman got in a fight because one of
Speaker 1: them wasn't doing what the other one wanted him to do,
Speaker 1: and they tried to get Jesus to help, and he wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I like this story. And I got to tell you
Speaker 1: one more thing, and you probably really won't like this
Speaker 1: because you already don't like that I don't like Christian movies,
Speaker 1: and you're already considering leaving the church and going to
Speaker 1: a real church with a real man of God. And
Speaker 1: I wouldn't blame you for it. But my favorite character
Speaker 1: in this little scene is not the one that Jesus commended,
Speaker 1: because Mary is the one that Jesus took up for.
Speaker 1: But Martha is the one that I relate to. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I should say this on YouTube and Facebook,
Speaker 1: And just like I like Martha a lot more than
Speaker 1: I like Mary. One person and he's dressed for work.
Speaker 1: You can tell why he likes Martha because Martha is
Speaker 1: the one that pays the mortgage. Did you read the verse? Oh,
Speaker 1: I've heard I've heard preachers. I've heard preachers annihilate Martha
Speaker 1: in the pulpit. And Martha was too busy, and Martha
Speaker 1: was running around and Mark, you know what, Martha is
Speaker 1: the one who pays the taxes and Mary is the
Speaker 1: one with a gofund me. And Mary is the one
Speaker 1: who gets fired, and Martha is the one who pays
Speaker 1: the Like Bill, let's have a south for Martha. She's
Speaker 1: not so bad. Martha's and e kids. Mary was twenty
Speaker 1: minutes late and complaining because she's an overflow. I like Martha.
Speaker 1: I like her. She gets crapped on. I want her
Speaker 1: on my staff. I told my assistant with a hired her,
Speaker 1: I said, she's been with me like eight and a
Speaker 1: half years now. I said, I need you to be
Speaker 1: kind of saved, but I'm not hiring you to extend
Speaker 1: the love and compassion of Jesus Christ to everybody who
Speaker 1: wants to meet with me. I need you to keep
Speaker 1: a little bit of flesh a little bit. Come on,
Speaker 1: we need a little bit of Martha. It's Martha's house.
Speaker 1: The Bible said a woman named Martha opened her home.
Speaker 1: If it was just Mary in the passage, Jesus would
Speaker 1: I had to eat at the soup kitchen. Mary doesn't
Speaker 1: pay bills. It made my job harder to get this
Speaker 1: sermon ready because I kind of wanted to take Marc
Speaker 1: de side. That's right, get Mary off the floor. In
Speaker 1: there is Jesus and twelve dudes just rolled up in
Speaker 1: the house, and Mary's over in the corner talking about
Speaker 1: here right to here them to praise ribbons, bow down
Speaker 1: here right to Martha, said I am in the kid,
Speaker 1: and kid in here and help me. This meal isn't gold,
Speaker 1: cook it South. I like that one actor I saw
Speaker 1: him on Twitter. He said something. He said, if you're
Speaker 1: not yelling at your kids regularly, you're not with them enough.
Speaker 1: Because you know how Mary can be. She's so sweet.
Speaker 1: I never yell at my kids. I never yell at
Speaker 1: my kids. You're not paying attention, sweetheart. You're gonna be
Speaker 1: visiting them in prison, sweetheart. If you never yell at
Speaker 1: your kids, You notice the people who never complain. I
Speaker 1: don't complain. I bless the Lord at all times. You're
Speaker 1: not paying attention, you're not engaged. That's why you're not complaining.
Speaker 1: Now that I totally messed up the sermon, let's make
Speaker 1: five points. What the Lord showed me for my own
Speaker 1: heart and my own life is that it wasn't what
Speaker 1: Martha was doing, it's how she was doing it. It
Speaker 1: wasn't her actions that he found fault with and corrected.
Speaker 1: It was her attitude. It was the movie in her mind.
Speaker 1: And I'll show you these five components, and I hope
Speaker 1: you write them down so you can throw them in
Speaker 1: your husband's face when he starts acting like Martha. This week.
Speaker 1: Come on, don't you want some ammunition? Write this down.
Speaker 1: Martha is operating in a spirit of number one manipulation.
Speaker 1: And when Jesus said you're distracted or worried and upset,
Speaker 1: the Hebrew word for anxious is split or divided, And
Speaker 1: so there seems to be some sense of divide happening
Speaker 1: in my mind all the time where I am distracted.
Speaker 1: The literal meaning of the word distracted by the way
Speaker 1: is pulled apart. And it's not always being pulled in
Speaker 1: a good direction in a bad direction. It's not always
Speaker 1: the decision to whether should I, you know, cook math
Speaker 1: or read my Bible? What is wrong with y'all today?
Speaker 1: It's like it has to be done. It had to
Speaker 1: be done. Jesus came to mark this house because it
Speaker 1: had excellent ratings on Airbnb, and he liked this place
Speaker 1: in Beth, and he probably liked it because it was
Speaker 1: clean and orderly. And that was Martha's gift in operation.
Speaker 1: She was good at that, and we praise God for her.
Speaker 1: But the fault in her logic is this that what
Speaker 1: is important to me ought to be important to everybody else,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't operating in her calling or functioning in
Speaker 1: her ability. That Jesus corrected it was that she expected
Speaker 1: others to function according to her priorities. And so then
Speaker 1: she crosses the line from management to manipulation, managing the
Speaker 1: situation which God wants you to do, stewarding what God
Speaker 1: has put in your life, which is your responsibility. Your
Speaker 1: hands need to be on the wheel. Jesus will not
Speaker 1: take it. If you wait for Jesus to take the wheel,
Speaker 1: you will see him real soon. But now Martha is
Speaker 1: Now she's trying to get She's trying to steer somebody
Speaker 1: else's car. I wonder, are you trying to control someone
Speaker 1: else's priorities as a cover up to the fact that
Speaker 1: you don't really have yours straight? Because sometimes in my
Speaker 1: life I cross over and it's subtle, and I don't
Speaker 1: do it intentionally, and it's almost subconscious, but I find
Speaker 1: myself moving from something that I care about and I'm
Speaker 1: concerned about, and then without even knowing it, I start
Speaker 1: trying to control it because I care about it, and
Speaker 1: I care about it so much that I begin to
Speaker 1: try to control it, and then I ruin the thing
Speaker 1: that I love, I ruin the relationship that I love
Speaker 1: because I get confused about where my responsibility ends and
Speaker 1: God's sovereignty begins. And then I start manipulating. And it's
Speaker 1: my nature to manipulate because I'm Martha. Martha means master.
Speaker 1: It's her house. She's the one making the payments, and
Speaker 1: sometimes when you're making the payments, you want to set
Speaker 1: the priorities. And to a degree it's right. But what's
Speaker 1: what she does. You can hear it in her language,
Speaker 1: and often our language is an indicator of the leaky
Speaker 1: places in our life. We can see where we're losing
Speaker 1: our energy, our focus, and our peace through evaluating our language.
Speaker 1: She says, what verse was it? Forty Lord? Tell her
Speaker 1: to help me. That's called passive aggressive. Tell her she's
Speaker 1: not even saying Mary's name. She's that mad. This is
Speaker 1: like Holly, tell your children your children, and they'll do
Speaker 1: this to us. They'll try to manipulate us. Dad, could
Speaker 1: you please tell mom that we need more time on fortnite? Well, no,
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, I can't tell mom that,
Speaker 1: and I won't tell mom that because we are united.
Speaker 1: Whether it's fortnite or whether it's homework or whether it's vegetables,
Speaker 1: you are not going to play me against your mom
Speaker 1: because I was with her first, and I get more
Speaker 1: pleasure out of my relationship with her than I do
Speaker 1: out of my I can French kiss her and I'm
Speaker 1: not about to lose points with her. Tell her to
Speaker 1: help me. Jesus is manipulative. It's manipulative. It's trying to
Speaker 1: get you to do it's trying. Here's what she's doing.
Speaker 1: She's saying, Jesus, I wrote a script for how this
Speaker 1: visit is supposed to go. And in my script, Mary
Speaker 1: is here in the kitchen with me. In my script,
Speaker 1: my husband comes home at five point thirty. In my script,
Speaker 1: my wife acts like his wife acts. In my script.
Speaker 1: My kids are like their kids. In my script. I'm
Speaker 1: married at age twenty three. In my script, say you
Speaker 1: got your script, but Jesus didn't come to read the
Speaker 1: lines off of your script. He's the author and he
Speaker 1: will not be manipulated. And he's like, no, Mary, don't move.
Speaker 1: I think there's a Marry and a Martha living inside
Speaker 1: every heart. The more I reflect on this passage, I
Speaker 1: see a contrast not just of two women, but two
Speaker 1: tendencies in me. Not only do Mary and Martha live
Speaker 1: in the same house, they live in the same heart,
Speaker 1: and part of me is Martha, and thank God because
Speaker 1: that puts food on the table, and part of me
Speaker 1: is Mary and needs to know what's important. I'm really sorry,
Speaker 1: by the way, for all of the manipulative, manipulative preaching
Speaker 1: that I sometimes, I'm sure quite often have been guilty of,
Speaker 1: and others who stand here because we try to make
Speaker 1: we try to make you do the right thing, but
Speaker 1: we sometimes go about it in the wrong way, and
Speaker 1: we need to do better. And in the same breath,
Speaker 1: a preacher will think the tither's in the church, but
Speaker 1: then get mad if the tither has to miss a
Speaker 1: week for a trip to work so he could go
Speaker 1: make some money and feed the family in tithe. And
Speaker 1: so it's kind of confusing, and there's always cliches that
Speaker 1: we can use about priorities, like I heard this one
Speaker 1: one time. Nobody ever said this is a voice I
Speaker 1: go into when I'm were said on their deathbed, I
Speaker 1: wish I'd spend more time at work. That's fine. I'm
Speaker 1: not on my deathbed right now, and right now my
Speaker 1: kids need braces. And for my kids to get braces,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to bring home some money. So before
Speaker 1: I get to my deathbed, I've got different things pulling
Speaker 1: on me. I got different things pulling on me. Notice,
Speaker 1: Martha was distracted, not by candy crush. She was distracted
Speaker 1: by something that was important, just not important in that moment.
Speaker 1: So it says that she got into a manipulative state
Speaker 1: of mind. Tell her to help me. And the reason
Speaker 1: she did is because she herself was being manipulated. She
Speaker 1: herself was being pulled. There was something guilty in her,
Speaker 1: there was some perfectionist tendency. Any of Graham one, Holly's
Speaker 1: doing this new personality thing. Well, it's not a personality
Speaker 1: thing of witchcraft or horoscope or something. No, it's really
Speaker 1: actually good. And she said that the tendency of my
Speaker 1: personality is it could always be better, It could always
Speaker 1: be better. Perfectionists perfectionist. And so I feel Martha because
Speaker 1: there's something pulling on her to make it nice, because
Speaker 1: she respects her guests, and somebody has to do it.
Speaker 1: But it gets out of order because you can see
Speaker 1: it in in her langage. You can see an age and
Speaker 1: tell her to help me, and then you can see
Speaker 1: it in the language of the text. Even it says
Speaker 1: she was distracted give me that same verse again. I
Speaker 1: think it's the same one by all the preparations that
Speaker 1: had to be made, here's the phrase that had to
Speaker 1: be made. And now she's operating not out of a
Speaker 1: sense of privilege to get to do it, but out
Speaker 1: of a spirit of obligation. I've got to do it.
Speaker 1: The preparations that have to be made obligation. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: will pray and ask God to give you an opportunity,
Speaker 1: and then you will praise God when he does it,
Speaker 1: and then give it a year and your prayer request
Speaker 1: will be the same thing that was a praise report
Speaker 1: a year ago. Because what starts out as an opportunity, Hey,
Speaker 1: let's have Jesus over, now becomes an obligation. So you
Speaker 1: find yourself like me. I was walking out the door
Speaker 1: a few years ago to preach on a Saturday Night,
Speaker 1: and I guess I wasn't in the best frame of mind.
Speaker 1: The movie, in my mind was probably really busy, lots
Speaker 1: going on. The kids are pulling me, and this is
Speaker 1: pulling me, and maybe I didn't have my message right
Speaker 1: like I wanted to. Saturday Night is interesting because a
Speaker 1: lot of times I'm still trying to get it exactly right.
Speaker 1: So I'm just I'm divided and I'm thinking about this
Speaker 1: and the kids are doing that, and the kids were
Speaker 1: the distraction, even though they're the priority, because in that moment,
Speaker 1: I had somewhere to be that I needed to be.
Speaker 1: And I looked at him and I said something We've
Speaker 1: all said thousands of times and I still say it
Speaker 1: all the time, but it was the way I said it.
Speaker 1: I said, get off me, I gotta go preach. Spirit
Speaker 1: of God spoke so clearly in my heart. No, you
Speaker 1: don't gotta. I know it's bad grammar and God probably
Speaker 1: uses correct English, but this is how he spoke to me.
Speaker 1: You don't gotta do any of it. They kind of
Speaker 1: stop me on my tracks, and I start planning it out. Well,
Speaker 1: if I don't show up, who's gonna preach somebody? Hmm?
Speaker 1: That's true, isn't it. And if I don't want to
Speaker 1: do it, somebody else does. Huh? Okay, kids, not right now?
Speaker 1: I get to go preach for the glory of God
Speaker 1: to shepherd the flock over. I didn't say that. I
Speaker 1: wish I was as spiritual. It takes me longer than that.
Speaker 1: You know, here's a good exercise to do if you've
Speaker 1: been distracted, pulled apart, go home if you got time tonight, Martha.
Speaker 1: I know you're busy, but before, before the day is over,
Speaker 1: sit down and make a list of all the things
Speaker 1: in your life that you've got to do every I
Speaker 1: mean detail, dishes and phone calls and bills and appointments
Speaker 1: and messages and all of it. And then go back
Speaker 1: through the list and cross every one of them out
Speaker 1: because you don't got to do any of it. That
Speaker 1: is horrible grammar and great theology. Tell somebody, I don't
Speaker 1: gotta do none of it, none of it, none of it. Well,
Speaker 1: I gotta go to work, No, you don't, don't go,
Speaker 1: but I gotta pay the bill. No, you know you
Speaker 1: don't have to live indoors either. You don't have to
Speaker 1: do any of it. Hold on, let me make a
Speaker 1: quick announcement. This is probably really bad for church growth.
Speaker 1: You don't have to come to church now. Don't come
Speaker 1: here because you have to come here because I owe
Speaker 1: him the glory and God has been so good to me.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to give him the praise. O my life.
Speaker 1: Let everything that breadfrais the Lord. High five. Your neighbors
Speaker 1: say you don't have to. And if they don't, high
Speaker 1: five you back, say you don't have to. You don't
Speaker 1: have to. You don't have to do any of it.
Speaker 1: You don't have to study for your test this year.
Speaker 1: You don't have to pass your class. You don't have
Speaker 1: to get a job or ever be employed, or have
Speaker 1: any money with which to enjoy your life. You don't
Speaker 1: have to. I get to. I want to. I want
Speaker 1: to get a want to back in our worship. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, where the worship leaders don't have
Speaker 1: to work so hard and play your song and that's
Speaker 1: my jam and I just love that song. I want
Speaker 1: you to be able to throw up your hands to
Speaker 1: anything they sing that mentions the name of the one
Speaker 1: who sets you free. And if you're singing about Jesus,
Speaker 1: I don't care if I'm watching on a screen on
Speaker 1: an iPhone or at rock Hill. I'm not praising him
Speaker 1: because the preacher told me to. I want to give
Speaker 1: him praise. I want to give him glory. I want
Speaker 1: to if you want to, if you want to. There
Speaker 1: was a girl who came here from church from Danville.
Speaker 1: Whereas Danville I don't know. They said it was like
Speaker 1: an eight hour drive. She drove eight hours. Somebody else
Speaker 1: wouldn't drive eight minutes. But that's all right, does God
Speaker 1: will always have somebody who wants to waiting to take
Speaker 1: the place of somebody who wants to complain. This is
Speaker 1: starting to hurt about what I gotta do. I want
Speaker 1: to raise my kids. I don't always feel like it.
Speaker 1: But what does feeling like it have to do with it?
Speaker 1: I want to kill this lion. I want to kill despair.
Speaker 1: I want to sonic a liah. I want to sit
Speaker 1: it his me some privilege. It's a privilege. You gotta
Speaker 1: fight Martha. Martha will make you miserable. Yeah, I gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta go, you gotta gotta got it. No, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no no, I'm going, and I want to go.
Speaker 1: I want to. I want to. Man, there's nothing worse
Speaker 1: than having somebody doing something for you because they ought to.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel right. It makes me nervous when somebody's
Speaker 1: doing something because they should. I don't want your should,
Speaker 1: love should. I don't think God does either. And the
Speaker 1: worst word we use is ought. I ought to. That's worse.
Speaker 1: And I've got to because now you're obligated and you're
Speaker 1: not even doing it. So now you got all the
Speaker 1: burden of obligation with none of the efficiency of commitment.
Speaker 1: Buck is so funny. Now you never heard him make jokes,
Speaker 1: but he is hilarious. You just gotta give him the
Speaker 1: right thing. We were working out one day a few
Speaker 1: years ago and he made me a workout and I
Speaker 1: went in. I looked at the workout. It was some legs,
Speaker 1: some burpies. I said, he said something. You know, he
Speaker 1: respects me in and I pay his salary. But he
Speaker 1: said it. He said it so cool. He said, what
Speaker 1: kind of workout do you like? I heard him. I
Speaker 1: heard what he was saying. You make that same noise
Speaker 1: every time you walk in here, no matter what I
Speaker 1: write on the board. You hear Martha in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: You know she's making all kinds of noise in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: She makings from Mary and Jesus can hear banging pops together.
Speaker 1: And what's really weird about the passage is Martha is
Speaker 1: simultaneously the judge who is telling Mary what she needs
Speaker 1: to do, and the victim. Because this is the third
Speaker 1: attitude that causes us to be distracted. Remember, distracted is
Speaker 1: not an action, It's an attitude to a state of mind.
Speaker 1: So now she's in the third element that makes a
Speaker 1: really bad movie in your mind, stresses you, out keeps you,
Speaker 1: keeps you from really entering into the joy of the Lord.
Speaker 1: And that is victimization, is taking on the victim mentality Lord,
Speaker 1: she left me to do all the work by myself.
Speaker 1: On the surface, this has since, but being mad at
Speaker 1: Mary doesn't make your life any easier. You know, like
Speaker 1: maybe Mary should help, but that's not your place. You
Speaker 1: can't make Mary do anything. And so she's she's judging
Speaker 1: one minute, and she's a victim the next. And that's
Speaker 1: why the Bible says that you don't want to get
Speaker 1: in this habit of judging, because you too will be judged.
Speaker 1: You will become the victim of your own judgments. When
Speaker 1: you don't let other people operate in their grace, you
Speaker 1: will find very little grace for yourself when you need it.
Speaker 1: You know, you start scrolling, and you know, for a
Speaker 1: few pictures you're okay, Ah, their baby is kind of cute.
Speaker 1: The real stuff that you don't say to them, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of cute. No, they're on vacation again. May know
Speaker 1: they can't afford to be on two vacations. Martha's getting mad,
Speaker 1: madder and madder and madder with every flick of the finger. Huh,
Speaker 1: must be nice. Does she think she looks good in that?
Speaker 1: Somebody needs to tell her? Tell her Jesus, tell her
Speaker 1: that's too tight, Tell her that dress fit her in
Speaker 1: a previous lifetime. Was someone y'all should come to the
Speaker 1: nine thirty. That's when I'm fresh, alert and guarded. So
Speaker 1: Martha is mad, and in a sense she has a
Speaker 1: right to be. But remember something now, he said in
Speaker 1: verse thirty eight, where it says, not only was it
Speaker 1: Martha's home, her name was under deed, but it was
Speaker 1: Martha's idea to begin with. As Jesus and his disciples
Speaker 1: were on their way into a village where a woman
Speaker 1: named Martha opened her home to him, Now touch the
Speaker 1: person next to you and say this was your idea.
Speaker 1: Come on, now, you're the one who wanted to have
Speaker 1: Peter and Bartholomew and Judas. It was your idea to
Speaker 1: let all these former fishermen up in our house. Don't
Speaker 1: get mad at me because you wanted to have a party.
Speaker 1: But now you want me to panic because you over committed.
Speaker 1: Don't move Mary. Don't let people who over commit drag
Speaker 1: down your priorities into the chaos of their urgency because
Speaker 1: they made bad decisions. And don't do it to yourself either.
Speaker 1: Don't make yourself the victim. Everything that I'm stressed about
Speaker 1: today is something that I committed to yesterday, about a
Speaker 1: schedule that I made. I'm gonna take these kids to
Speaker 1: the game. No you don't. You do not have what parents?
Speaker 1: Since when did we get in this prison of having
Speaker 1: to be at everything? I'm okay this side. Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: just left that part of the church. Some of y'all
Speaker 1: need to drop your kids off at soccer and go
Speaker 1: out on a date with your wife because your kid
Speaker 1: is an average soccer player and they're not gonna score anyway.
Speaker 1: So go to Bonefish. Not every game, go to some games,
Speaker 1: but god, my god, every once in a while, it's
Speaker 1: good for our kids to get the message the world
Speaker 1: does not revolve around you and your dance recital. If
Speaker 1: you want to dance, baby girl, I'll be there. It's wonderful,
Speaker 1: and I'll saw up when I can. But I might
Speaker 1: not be there every time, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be many places at once, so i gotta be where
Speaker 1: I am and be okay with that. I feel freedom
Speaker 1: breaking out in the church right now. Now go to
Speaker 1: the next game. Don't let Martha, who comes to every game,
Speaker 1: make you feel bad because you couldn't make that one.
Speaker 1: It's okay. This is therapeutic. This is one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars an hour work right here, trying to keep
Speaker 1: you off that expensive couch and just give you this,
Speaker 1: this teaching from the Word of God. Because when you
Speaker 1: live in that place of manipulation, obligation, victimization, the next
Speaker 1: thing that happens is interpretation, and the skill of interpretation
Speaker 1: is so important. It's like your life is a is
Speaker 1: a foreign film, and what God has planned for you,
Speaker 1: the events that happened to you, you don't always know
Speaker 1: what it really means. And when you're under pressure, and
Speaker 1: when you play the movie in your mind where you
Speaker 1: remember different ways you were offended, which I do so often,
Speaker 1: and what I've got to do, and how it's not
Speaker 1: fair and how others don't and how others should, and
Speaker 1: all these things that I can tend to dwell on
Speaker 1: like Martha, that Martha in all of our minds will
Speaker 1: start to come to this conclusion This is the interpretation.
Speaker 1: Jesus will not do what Martha wants him to do,
Speaker 1: and Mary won't do what Martha wants Martha Mary to do,
Speaker 1: and nobody is saying their lines like Martha wrote them
Speaker 1: in her mind. So here's what she says next. Lord,
Speaker 1: all this is in verse forty. Lord, don't you care?
Speaker 1: You see it? Since she can't control everybody, she thinks
Speaker 1: that nobody cares about her. Since she can't control the situation,
Speaker 1: she interprets the situation, Lord, don't you care? And Jesus
Speaker 1: is like, no, not really. I care about you, but
Speaker 1: I don't care about what you're cooking in there right now.
Speaker 1: I came to be with you. And since I can't
Speaker 1: accept the fact that God loves me more than he
Speaker 1: loves what I can do for him, I interpret the
Speaker 1: fact that he's not doing exactly what I want him
Speaker 1: to do, and others aren't doing exactly what I want
Speaker 1: him to do. I interpret that to me that they
Speaker 1: don't care about me. I imagined it so many different ways, Martha, Martha.
Speaker 1: Because he said it twice, Martha, she didn't listen first time, Martha,
Speaker 1: or like this, Martha, Martha. I've been here in it
Speaker 1: more tenderly lately Martha Martha. So I always thought that
Speaker 1: this passage was about work in worship. I thought that
Speaker 1: Martha was working, Mary was worshiping, and that worshiping was
Speaker 1: better than working. But really you can't make that case
Speaker 1: if you read the Bible in context, because Paul said
Speaker 1: that to live your life as a sacrifice is your
Speaker 1: spiritual act of worship, and that has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with a song that has nothing to do with Sunday morning.
Speaker 1: So if he's not contrasting work in worship, maybe he's
Speaker 1: advocating that the two should become one. That there should
Speaker 1: be a way that I try to live my life
Speaker 1: by the grace of God and move into that is
Speaker 1: more like Mary. Not to kick Martha out of the
Speaker 1: house because it's her house, and not to stop being
Speaker 1: busy or start feeling bad about how you've been spread
Speaker 1: so thin, but to blur the line between work and worship.
Speaker 1: A few weeks ago, we were having a staff event
Speaker 1: and our interns were serving our staff on this particular day,
Speaker 1: and they had put in a very long day. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, we're having a worship
Speaker 1: service with our staff, and it was so strong what
Speaker 1: was happening in the auditorium that the interns on their
Speaker 1: way to tear down chairs and tables and clean the
Speaker 1: floors and do the work, got caught up in a
Speaker 1: spirit of worship. There was a TV in a room.
Speaker 1: One of our interns, Ellie, pulled out her phone and
Speaker 1: she caught this moment when they stopped working for a
Speaker 1: moment and started worshiping. And see how Martha can become
Speaker 1: merry and Mary needs Martha because you see that girl
Speaker 1: on her knees right there, and that you see that,
Speaker 1: see that girl head banging right there. See that white
Speaker 1: guy clapping off rhythm right there. All that is worshiped.
Speaker 1: But then what they did in video is when they
Speaker 1: stopped singing and started serving, and they took that same
Speaker 1: spirit with a mop and a broom. And my goal
Speaker 1: in worship today is not just that we have a
Speaker 1: moment in the presence of God, but that when we
Speaker 1: leave and we grab our mop and our job and
Speaker 1: our kids and our responsibilities and yes, our tests and yes,
Speaker 1: our books and yes the things that we have to do,
Speaker 1: that we work like we worship, and we worship like
Speaker 1: we work, and we find ourselves with extraordinary joy in
Speaker 1: the congregation, and extraordinary joy in the kitchen, and extraordinary
Speaker 1: joy that spills over and overflows, and this becomes a
Speaker 1: way of life. I know you got to go. I'm
Speaker 1: almost done because the fifth thing that I want to
Speaker 1: discuss with you is the most important of all, and
Speaker 1: it's expectation. More than anything else. This movie in my
Speaker 1: mind is about my expectation. And when the movie in
Speaker 1: my mind doesn't match the scene in my life, there
Speaker 1: is a tendency for me to begin to think that
Speaker 1: maybe God is not the author of my story. Bring
Speaker 1: my chair real quick. This is the way I saw
Speaker 1: the movie. In my mind. I saw Martha who saw
Speaker 1: herself as a director, and I saw how Jesus wanted
Speaker 1: her to be an extra. And now she's acting extra
Speaker 1: because she's trying to direct a movie in her mind
Speaker 1: that was not hers script. And I wonder if you've
Speaker 1: been sitting in the wrong seat, and God gave me
Speaker 1: this message so you could switch positions and sit like
Speaker 1: Mary for a little while at his feet and say, God,
Speaker 1: this is your movie, These are your gifts, this is
Speaker 1: your temple my body, this is your assignment. God. You
Speaker 1: know why Mary was so good at interpreting what Jesus
Speaker 1: was doing because she did something Martha didn't do. She listened,
Speaker 1: She listened, and Martha, Martha's too busy giving directions. She
Speaker 1: took a while to learn this. It took a little
Speaker 1: while of learn this. It takes a while to learn
Speaker 1: that this is not your place. Everybody that said amen,
Speaker 1: just now is over fifty. It takes that long. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, you don't want this seat because you get
Speaker 1: it one way in your mind, how it needs to be,
Speaker 1: how it should be. And now you're miserable, like Martha.
Speaker 1: Didn't the universe get my script? Didn't my future husband
Speaker 1: get my script? Where is he future wife? Whatever? Everybody said,
Speaker 1: why you always put it on the women. You're such
Speaker 1: a sexist. I'm not a sexist. I'm an equal opportunity offender.
Speaker 1: I'll try to make everybody in the sermon, but this
Speaker 1: is not mine place. And see, it makes sense that
Speaker 1: this scene, this little, weird little scene. Now that we've
Speaker 1: spelled movie, we spelled movie, we got we understand how
Speaker 1: this works. Yeah, but to really understand the scene, you
Speaker 1: have to put it in context of the whole story,
Speaker 1: don't you don't you you can't understand the movie just
Speaker 1: by one scene. The reason this simple little introduction to
Speaker 1: Mary and Martha is made here in Luke ten is
Speaker 1: because of what the Bible records in John eleven. That's
Speaker 1: where their brother Lazarus gets sick unexpectedly and they send
Speaker 1: for Jesus to come heal him. So go get that
Speaker 1: rabbi that stayed at our house, that rabbi who ate
Speaker 1: my Brussels sprouts and tell him to come heal my brother.
Speaker 1: And Jesus doesn't show up for his casting call. He misses,
Speaker 1: you know, Martha. Martha's got it all scripted out. Oh,
Speaker 1: Lazarus is sick and and and Jesus is gonna come
Speaker 1: heal him. Lights camera, Jesus. Jesus don't show up until
Speaker 1: after Lazarus died, and Mary, the director of the movie,
Speaker 1: now has to reconcile what happened in her life with
Speaker 1: the way she planned it in the movie in her mind,
Speaker 1: and she's frustrated and angry. In fact, you're gonna laugh
Speaker 1: at this verse in John eleven, after Lazarus died and
Speaker 1: Jesus shows up late. Mary, this is funny. Can I
Speaker 1: read you this? You got a few more seconds, Martha said, Uh.
Speaker 1: When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, this is twenty Yeah.
Speaker 1: There she went out to meet him. She's waiting at
Speaker 1: the road when he arrives. She's got her hand on
Speaker 1: her hip and Mary stayed home. Mary's got her head
Speaker 1: on her pillow. They're both playing their role. Mary's like dead,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to do. Martha's like, it's about time. Did
Speaker 1: you not get the script? Did you not get the
Speaker 1: missed You missed them. You didn't say you were supposed
Speaker 1: to say, be healed, and he was supposed to be well,
Speaker 1: and you did it. Jesus didn't come to read your script.
Speaker 1: He came to flip the script and to show you
Speaker 1: something that you never could have expected, a movie you
Speaker 1: didn't know to write, immeasurably more than you ask her. Imagine,
Speaker 1: I feel the spirit of God on this message right now.
Speaker 1: I know you wanted me to show up and heal him.
Speaker 1: I didn't come to heal him. I came to show
Speaker 1: you something greater. And one time God showed me that
Speaker 1: the reason he can't meet all of our expectations is
Speaker 1: because if he always met my expects, he would never
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to exceed my expectations. He's making this movie,
Speaker 1: not you. He's written this script, not me. And so
Speaker 1: Martha's like, you should have been here. This is not
Speaker 1: the way I wrote the movie. This is not the
Speaker 1: way I imagined it. And she's waiting at the rod
Speaker 1: verse twenty one. But even if you you would have
Speaker 1: been here, my brother wouldn't have died Verse twenty two.
Speaker 1: But I know that even now, God will give you
Speaker 1: whatever you ask. You see, you're getting out of the
Speaker 1: director's chair a little bit. She's still working. Jesus, by
Speaker 1: the way, I know you can still do it. Come on,
Speaker 1: women do this to men all the time. How do
Speaker 1: you carry all those groceries, you big strong man. I
Speaker 1: know you still do it. It didn't go the way
Speaker 1: I wanted. And she said, your brother will rise again?
Speaker 1: What she still got her script? I know he'll rise
Speaker 1: again on the resurrection the last day. I know, JESSI no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I came not just to read my lines in the
Speaker 1: script that you wrote for your life. But I came
Speaker 1: to change your expectation for something greater than you even
Speaker 1: knew to ask for. And Jesus said to her, watch,
Speaker 1: I am the resurrection and the life and the one
Speaker 1: who believes in Me will live even though they die
Speaker 1: next verse, and whoever lives by believing in Me will
Speaker 1: never die. Do you believe this, that's the question. Do
Speaker 1: you believe this? Do you believe that you are not
Speaker 1: the one making this movie? That this is not my place?
Speaker 1: This is this is my place. So let's take a
Speaker 1: moment in God's presence today and just consider that maybe
Speaker 1: it's not our life that's making us anxious. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: the movie in our mind, what we wanted it to be,
Speaker 1: what we always imagined it would be, what we think
Speaker 1: we have to be. The saddest thing about Martha is
Speaker 1: that she's frustrated trying to meet an expectation that Jesus
Speaker 1: did not even have of her. Jesus never even asked
Speaker 1: her for all this. Jesus came into her house to
Speaker 1: be with her. Are you frustrated with yourself because you're
Speaker 1: expecting something of yourself that God never even put on
Speaker 1: you to begin with? I came to day to break
Speaker 1: the spirit of manipulation, to break the spirit of obligation,
Speaker 1: to break the the victim mentality, to let you know
Speaker 1: that just because God isn't doing it like you want
Speaker 1: him to do. It doesn't mean he stopped caring about you.
Speaker 1: I'm really thankful for one thing says that Jesus raised
Speaker 1: Lazarus from the dead, which Mary never would have put
Speaker 1: in her movie. She didn't know it was possible when
Speaker 1: you let him sit in this seat. What he has
Speaker 1: for you is so much better than what you have
Speaker 1: for you. I'm telling you by faith what I know
Speaker 1: by experience. Let's just stand up like you're in a hurry,
Speaker 1: because it'll pressure me to finish this. I could talk
Speaker 1: to you all day. I love this stuff. In John
Speaker 1: chapter twelve, verse one, it says that a little bit later,
Speaker 1: on six days before the Passover, Jesus came to bethany
Speaker 1: where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
Speaker 1: Now watch verse two. This is gonna bless you here
Speaker 1: at dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served. See,
Speaker 1: she finally got it. She's not talking, she's not manipulating,
Speaker 1: she's not serving out of obligation and guilty anymore. She's
Speaker 1: serving because she has seen God do what only God
Speaker 1: could do. And I am here at your service God.
Speaker 1: What you want me to be, I'm ready to be
Speaker 1: that now, and so I throw off the expectations of others,
Speaker 1: and I throw off the expectations of self. Do what
Speaker 1: you wanted do God, this is your story, this is
Speaker 1: your movie, and I am your child, and I am
Speaker 1: at your feet and I trust you in this season
Speaker 1: of my life. Well, I hope you enjoyed the podcast today.
Speaker 1: If you did, there are just a couple things I'd
Speaker 1: love for you to do. Number One, subscribe to our show.
Speaker 1: That way, the most recent episode will always be in
Speaker 1: your feed, waiting for you, ready when you are. And Secondly,
Speaker 1: if this ministry has impacted you and you'd like to
Speaker 1: help us continue to reach others, you can click the
Speaker 1: link in the description and you can give now and
Speaker 1: I'll see you next time on the Elevation Podcast