In the sermon 'Martha, Martha' by Peter Allison, the speaker explores the account of Martha and Mary in the Gospel of Luke, highlighting its thematic connection with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Both narratives emphasize service and mercy, but the account of Martha and Mary underscores the importance of prioritizing spiritual communion with Jesus over mere acts of service. Martha, characterized as a proactive and hospitable individual, becomes distracted by her service and loses sight of the primary purpose—fellowship with Christ. Jesus gently corrects her, teaching that while service is valuable, it should not overshadow the need for spiritual connection and learning from Him. The sermon encourages believers to maintain a balance between active service and spiritual devotion, reminding them that true service is done unto the Lord and not for human recognition. It calls for a focus on enjoying God's presence and prioritizing communion with Him above all else.

Luke chapter 10 We are in the middle of a section of the Gospel of Luke. This and the next six or so chapters contain accounts that are not in any of the other Gospels. And so we are Having read last week of the peril the account of the Good Samaritan and of the 70 that were sent out to preach the gospel and to proclaim the kingdom we now have this little account that Luke adds right after this count of the Good Samaritan regarding a little, seemingly minor incident in the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Hear God's word. Now it happened as they went that he entered a certain village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.

And she had a sister called Mary who also sat at Jesus feet and heard his word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone, therefore tell her to help me." And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good heart, which will not be taken away from her." The Word of The Lord is very pure. May we, His servants, love it. Gracious Father in heaven, please speak to us now through Your Word and by Your Holy Spirit and Grant to us faith to believe, to obey, to lay up in our hearts your word. And I ask that you would do this through a vessel of clay that the glory may belong to you and not to any man.

And so we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we have no indication how closely related in time these two events are of the account given that we just read of Jesus coming to Mary's and Martha's house and the parable of the Good Samaritan that it immediately follows. But they are closely connected thematically. The exhortation that Jesus gave in the account we saw last week of the Good Samaritan is to go and do likewise.

Go and do like this Samaritan did in showing mercy, in ministering, in putting yourself out for the benefit and the well-being of others who need it. Maybe somebody that we don't even know. Samaritan found somebody on the side of the road. It was not only somebody he probably didn't know, a stranger, it was somebody who belonged to a class of people that there was long-standing enmity against. They didn't like each other and it was mutual.

And Martha here is an example of someone who is ministering. She is loving in not just words, but in deeds and in truth. She didn't see a wounded man on the side of the road, but she did see a man who had nowhere to lay his head. She did see a man who was being rejected by the scribes and the Pharisees. She did see somebody whom they were plotting to put to death, whom they despised, whom they tried to trip up at every opportunity.

They tried to embarrass. They tried to catch him and make him look foolish every chance they could. She invited this man to her house. And from the accounts that we have in the other gospels, This was probably not the only time that Jesus ate at Mary's house. It wasn't the only time.

It may have even been a very frequent occurrence. Jesus loved this family. He loved Mary, He loved Martha, He loved Lazarus. It doesn't say that about all the people that he visited and went to. But it does say that about this family.

And so this may very well have been a place that he frequented. But this account is put here, I believe, by Luke, juxtaposed with the account of the Good Samaritan, because it is a corollary. It's a very important corollary to Jesus' previous instruction in the Good Samaritan account. Service, acts of service, deeds of mercy are important, especially when these deeds, these acts of mercy are urgently needed, such as when people are wounded, such as when they're sick, such as when they're unable to help themselves. But service isn't everything.

And as Jesus points out to Martha, it isn't the most important thing. So let's look then at this account, this very short account. And to see this corollary that Jesus gives, that Luke adds, puts right next to this account of the Good Samaritan, that tells us that service isn't the most important thing, As important as it is. Martha is a server. She is a doer.

She's in our words today, we might say a go-getter. She acts. And she's quick to act. Martha invites Jesus to her house. She welcomes Him into her house.

Others, like the Pharisees, have invited Jesus to their house for a meal, but they've done it so that they can more easily trap him. They've done it so they can catch him. They've done it and then haven't been very considerate, right? They invite him over and then forget to wash his feet, which would be like, you know, inviting somebody to your house and then not bothering to answer the front door when they knock and just letting them have to come in themselves. Sort of rude, right?

Well, These people that invited Jesus would treat him that way. But Martha had a genuine desire to serve. She welcomed Jesus into her home. And Jesus became very close to that house, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Their home was in Bethany, about two miles from Jerusalem.

And even in that last week of Jesus' life on earth, He may well have spent one or more nights at their house. This was, as I alluded to earlier, a time when Jesus was being rejected, when he was being criticized. This is after the account in John 9 of Jesus healing, that man who was born blind. He was a middle-aged man when Jesus healed him. And the Pharisees heard that Jesus had healed them, And they were jealous, they were angry that there would be somebody running around in their church saying, Jesus healed me.

And you remember in that account how they ask and interrogate people. They even hauled this man's parents in front of them and demanded to know how he had been healed. And the parents say, well, they're very political. They say, well, we know that this is our son. Yes, obviously.

And we know that he was born blind, yes, everybody knew that for 30, 40 years. But how he was healed, we have no idea. He is of age, go ask him. And then John inserts, They said that because the Pharisees had made it known that anyone that professed Christ would be excommunicated, cast out of the synagogue. And they didn't want to be cast out of the synagogue.

They didn't want to be publicly humiliated. So they said, well, we don't know who healed him. This is the man that Martha invited to her home. She wasn't afraid of what the Jews might do. It may have been courageous for her to invite Christ to stay with them.

Martha's, in any event, Martha's invitation and service was a mark of her love of Christ. There's a little word here. She had a sister, Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet. Some commentators say they don't know why that word is there. That word also.

I think it's there because Luke is telling us that Mary sat there but also Martha was the one that sat there as well. And being that she is the go-getter, she may have been the first one to sit there. Mary also sat there. But Martha had an interest in learning from Jesus. She also sat at His feet.

When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha both had the exact same things to say. Exactly. Almost word for word. Lord, if you had been here, he wouldn't have died. But Martha also had a very strong profession.

She said of Lazarus that I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day And she also when Jesus pressed her more she also professed that Jesus was the Christ the Son of God who had come into the world. Jesus was the Christ. Jesus was the Messiah is what she was saying. Jesus was the anointed one. Remember when Peter gave that confession, Jesus said, Simon, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you.

This has been given to you of God. And so Martha was a dear child of Christ, who loved to sit at Jesus' feet and learn as well. And so this account brings that out. She also, Mary also, sat at Jesus' feet along with Martha. But Martha gets distracted with the details of putting a meal on the table.

She had invited Christ over. She loved Christ. She had invited Him into her house, and she wanted to show hospitality to Him. That was a good thing. That was a good thing that she was concerned about, getting the food ready.

Eating is important. Even Jesus is concerned to feed those who listened to His teaching. Even Jesus had a concern for the physical needs of the people to whom He ministered. So Martha's desire here to serve, to prepare the food, to spread a meal before Jesus is not a bad thing. It's a good thing.

She is serving just as Jesus called us to do in the account of the Good Samaritan. She is working. When she could, she could be taking a break. She could be at ease. But in the course of her preparations, she becomes distracted.

Martha, in the course of doing well, in the course of doing something that is edifying the body that is important. Remember, there's a whole class of officers that have been created in the church initially for the service like this. So this is very important. But in the course of doing this, she becomes distracted. And she forgot about the primary purpose of having Christ to her house.

And she becomes discontent. Because she has forgotten what is most important. She has forgotten to keep in proper perspective her work in serving, in preparing a meal. And she has forgotten to keep that in proper perspective and to keep the bigger picture in mind. What is the purpose of this meal?

What is the purpose of this service? And the text says that she became distracted. She elevated this service to being the most important thing. And she forgot the context in which that service ought to be rendered. That of the greater context of serving Christ.

That of the greater context of serving Christ. That of the greater context of living for Him. And when she forgot this greater purpose for her work, which is so easy to do. Any of you that have worked at something like preparing a feast, you know how easy it is to get caught up in those labors and forget the greater context. She became discontent with her sister Mary just sitting there, just sitting there listening.

She's not doing anything. She's not busy. She's leaving to Martha to do all this work. And so Martha feels like I'm just running around doing all this work and nobody's noticing it. Nobody's appreciating all this work that I'm doing.

And she sees her sister sitting there just listening to Jesus' teaching, and she becomes irritated with her. The more she thought on herself, and her sacrifice, and her putting herself out, and the fact that nobody else is appreciating her and nobody is apparently helping her, The more filled with self-pity she becomes, the more she forgets the primary purpose of her service in the first place, the more irritated she becomes with her sister. See, and eventually this bad relationship, even though it's only within her own heart at this point, this bad relationship toward her sister, and the text doesn't say what overtures she made to her sister, she may have made some, she may not have made any, we don't know. But eventually this bad relationship that she has fostered in her own heart at least, at a minimum, poisons her relationship with her Savior Christ. And she goes to Christ and accuses Christ of not caring for her.

Of not caring for her. Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? See, love doesn't assume evil of people. Love hopes all things, believes all things, rejoices in the truth and doesn't assume evil. And she has imputed evil motives to Christ.

Don't you care? That's an ungodly question. It's a rhetorical question. The answer is yes. The question is asked under the assumption that Jesus doesn't care.

Don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work? She has impugned Jesus now, and His love for her. And she's assumed that He doesn't care for her. You see, that's so easy for us to fall into similar thinking that Jesus doesn't care for us, He doesn't love us, or that other people don't care for us and don't love us. And so then she goes to Christ and she orders Him, yes, she orders Christ to tell her sister what to do.

This is the ultimate attempt at manipulation. This is just like little children. Have you ever seen little children tell their parents what to do, especially with regard to their siblings. I see some of you smiling, so you probably have seen it like I have. It never occurred to her That if she had authority over Christ to command him to do what she wanted, that she certainly would have had authority over Mary to command her to do what she wanted.

Now this is a manipulative question, sinfully manipulative. She orders, it's an imperative. In the Greek it's the imperative, and it is in the English as well. But the Greek has a different form of the imperative from the indicative, whereas we don't. We have to infer an imperative from the way it's translated, but in the Greek it's very obvious.

This is an imperative, this is a command. Tell her, tell her to help me. You can almost hear the indignation in her voice. You see, Martha's Improper relationship to her sister influences her relationship to Jesus. Human relations are three-way affairs.

If your relationship with God is not right, you won't be able to sustain a good relationship with your family. And likewise, if your relationship with the family is improper, you won't be able to sustain your relationship with God. It will also be affected. Husbands are commanded to love their wives so that their prayers are not hindered. Husbands, if your prayers seem dry and ineffectual, The first thing to check is are you properly loving your wife?

If there are problems in your relationship, in your family, the first thing to check is how is your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? Martha has allowed this breakdown in her relationship to Mary to affect even her relationship with Christ. Let's look at Jesus' response. Martha, Martha, he says. Martha, Martha.

This is a tender, gentle response. She's just accused him of not caring about her. She's just ordered him, tried to order him around. Some people when you do that to them, they get angry. They get frustrated.

And they respond in anger and frustration. That's what sinners do. But that's not what Jesus does. This is not the indignant address of anger, such as Jesus had toward the Pharisees, a righteous anger, righteous indignation at their wickedness. This is a tender, gentle response.

Martha, Martha. He never talked to the Pharisees like that. He didn't say, Simon, to the Pharisee, to the lawyers, to Herod. He never talked like that to them. He responded to them with words that trapped them, with words that turned the tables on them, with words that were suited to them.

But he responds here to Martha with great gentleness, responding to one of his lambs who has stumbled. It's almost a reluctant address of one who loves her. Martha is irritated. And Jesus displays a very high emotional intelligence in reading her frustration and in adapting his address to her. He's not sharp with her, although he certainly has reason to be.

He simply says, Martha, Martha, Martha, Martha. And then he teaches her where she has gone astray. True biblical change, you see, is a matter of putting off the wrong thoughts and desires, emotions, words, actions, and habits, and putting on the right thoughts and desires and emotions and words and actions and habits. And this has to begin with identifying the wrong thoughts and desires and emotions and words and actions and habits. Identifying those with biblical language.

Because we can't apply the biblical remedy for change if we are ignorant of the biblical diagnosis. So Jesus begins right off, Martha, Martha, and He tells her what her problem is according to the Word of God. You are worried or anxious about many things. He uses the exact same word that Paul uses when he wrote to the Philippians, be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, make your request known to God. He uses the exact same word.

That word isn't used all that many times in the New Testament. But Jesus uses it here. Martha, he said, you are anxious. You are anxious. You're anxious and he says that she is troubled.

And the word that Luke uses, I think is the only time it's used in the New Testament, that word is turbotzo. Maybe you recognize that as our English word, turbulent. Turbulent. Turbidity. In the Navy we used to do turbidity tests on water to see what all the stuff in the water was.

It's agitation. She was agitated in her mind. She was troubled. She was stirred up. There was a lot of junk in her mind.

She was not at peace. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication make your requests known to God and and the Lord and the peace of God which passes understanding will guard your hearts and minds." She did not have that peace. She had a troubled heart, a troubled mind. You will keep Him in perfect peace whose mind has stayed on you because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever for in Yah, Jehovah is everlasting strength, Isaiah says.

You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you." Martha's mind, that's in Isaiah, that's a passage that Martha would have known. But her mind wasn't stayed on Christ. She wasn't in perfect peace. Jesus tells her, You are anxious and your mind is troubled about many things." She was no longer trusting the Lord to provide the strength and the resources that were needed to do the work that He calls us to do. There were a lot of details to do, undoubtedly.

There was a lot of work, and she probably felt stretched. She probably felt unable to get everything done the way she wanted to do. Being a go-getter, She probably wanted things to be good. She wanted things to be nice. And it was getting to be difficult.

She wasn't getting there. And in the midst of her busyness and distraction, She forgot to trust the Lord for the strength, and she thought that it all depended on her, and it wasn't getting done. So Jesus then calls her to do what she should do in this circumstance, to set her priorities correctly. See, setting priorities correctly means we have to say no to something that may be good. Like the apostles in Acts 6, they were called to the ministry of word and prayer.

And when they found that they were getting pulled away from that to other things, they had to set their priorities and say no to good things. No to, no, we're not able to take care of all these widows they need cared for. That's important. But we're not able to do that because to us there is another priority. So there was a whole class of officers that were raised up in the church.

Martha's not wrong for wanting to prepare food. Feeding people is important. It is an act of service, but it's not the most important. The most important. Our first priority is to enjoy God.

To enjoy God. Martha was a true disciple of Christ. The Lord was her portion. But at this moment, at this moment in the midst of her anxiety and trouble about not being able to get everything done that she wanted done, she wasn't enjoying God. She was not enjoying His providence.

And so the question for us this morning is not, do you know Christ as your Savior and portion, But are you enjoying Him? Are you enjoying Him? Are you living in constant communion with Him? Are you praying without ceasing? Do you think often of Him?

We can't depend upon Him for our strength if we're not remembering Him, if we're not thinking of Him. Christ thinks of us. David said of God's thoughts of us, how great is the sum of them. If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand. That's God's thoughts for us.

Yes, He does care about us, Martha. Yes, He does care about us. Jesus didn't tell her that though. Jesus does know us personally. He died for us personally.

He intercedes for you personally by name. He knows you personally. He knows every hair on your head. He gives His angels charge over you. He rejoices over you with joy and thanksgiving.

He never doesn't care about what's happening in your life like Martha thought. Never. Because there's never a moment that he's distracted or troubled. Jesus' mind is always in perfect peace. He always remembers those who are His.

But we can lose our enjoyment of Christ when we hold the things of this world too tightly, when our priorities are not in order. Good things, needful things, can keep us from what is most important. Needful things, important things, good things can shorten our prayers. They can draw us away from full enjoyment of God. See it is in His presence that there is fullness of joy.

It's at His right hand that there are pleasures forevermore. And see, this is not asceticism. Jesus is not calling Martha to live the life of an ascetic and to forget any preparation of food, to forget all those needful things about life. He's not calling her to take orders to a monastery and spend all day just praying, or all day just reading the Bible. That's not what he's calling her to do.

Remember this whole account comes in the immediate context of the account of the good Samaritan and Jesus said of his service, go and do likewise. Jesus is calling Martha to remember her most important priority and the purpose of the service. The service that we do is to be done unto the Lord, is to be done for His glory, It's to be done out of love to Him. It's not done for its own sake. And see, that's why it doesn't matter what happens, whether anybody remembers the service that we render or not.

It doesn't matter if anybody thanks us for the meal that we cooked or the paycheck that we provided, or the love that we gave, it doesn't matter if anybody remembers it. Because we're not doing it for their thanks, we're not doing it for them. Oh yes, it's wonderful when they give it to us. And certainly those who receive have a duty to give thanks. But that's not why we render this service.

We're doing it to the Lord. And our reward and our thanks and Our consideration is from Christ. And that's what Martha had forgotten. The psalmist, Asaph, in Psalm 73, falls into a very similar pattern. He talks about in Psalm 73 that his feet had nearly slipped.

He had stumbled. Almost stumbled. Because he was envious of the boastful, when he saw the prosperity of the wicked, he said they seemed to live lives of ease and prosperity. They're not troubled. They're not plagued.

They don't seem to have any problems. They do all these wicked things and nothing bad seems to happen to them. And he said, I almost stumbled because of that. I almost stumbled. Just like Martha.

And then he went into the sanctuary of God. Then he went to worship God with God's people. And then, then he understood. Then he saw their latter end. Then he realized that he was foolish and ignorant.

His heart was grieved at what he was thinking earlier. He said, I was so foolish and ignorant. I was like a beast before you. Nevertheless, now, I am continually with you. You hold me by your right hand." There is a sense of that continual communion with the Lord, continual fellowship, continual walking hand in hand with Christ.

"...You will guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside you. Whom have I in heaven but you and there is none on earth that I desire beside you. My flesh and my heart fail but God, I might be weak and can't do things, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Those who are far from God, He will destroy, Asaph acknowledges. But it is good for me to draw near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all of your works." He desires God before anything else that is actually in heaven. He's not thinking of heaven because of the perfect body that He will have there. And we will have a perfect body there.

Without any of the faults and ailments that plague us today. There will be no sin. We'll have perfect peace. But the psalmist here is not thinking about those things. He says he desires God.

He desires God himself before anything else that is actually in heaven. And secondly, he desires God before anything else that is on earth. What is it that makes you want to go to heaven? Is the main reason because you don't want to suffer in hell? Or is it so that you may have communion with God to fully, to fully enjoy Him?

To me, you may perfectly bless in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. Is your spirit stirred by His Spirit? When we have a choice in our practice, what do we choose to do? You see, Asaph is pointing us to the Sabbath day as a help to us in this. Because it's a day that God sets apart for us to take our temperature, to take our spiritual temperature every week.

It's a day that the Lord challenges in us a special ownership. Who do you desire to be with? I'm giving you a day to be with me. A day that you can set aside all the other earthly enjoyments and recreations that are good on other days. And a day to spend in worship, privately, fellowshiping, communing with the Lord, publicly worshiping with Him.

You see, it's a day to take our temperature because it's a day for us to evaluate, do we really want to do these things? And so often we might find that we don't, that it becomes a work for us. And then we need to be reminded that our most, like Martha, that our most important priority is to be with Jesus, to sit at His feet, to be in fellowship and communion with Him, to delight in his presence to delight in his words To delight ourselves in him Mary Jesus said had chosen that good part which will not be taken away from her. May the Lord give us that love of Him, that grace that we, like Mary, can choose the important thing that won't be taken away from us. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for this little account.

We thank you that you do love us, that you do care for us, that you do feed us, that you have given to us your word to teach us, to remind us, to tell us about you. And yes, to even show us what it is to live in communion and fellowship with you. So Lord, we ask that you might apply these words that you spoke to Mary to us as well. We ask that this morning we might be instructed by your mouth that we might receive your gracious and gentle admonition. Martha, Martha.

And that we might not forget that You do love us, that You do care for us, that You do know us, and that Your thoughts toward us are vast, as numerous as the sand. And so Lord, may you encourage us, may you equip us, may you draw us into deeper and fuller communion and fellowship with you, to greater love of you, that we may serve, not out of a burden, out of a desire to receive the thanks of men, but out of our love for you, to serve you. For when we do these things unto the least of people, we do them unto you. In Jesus' name we ask, Amen.