Be Still

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Folks, we do that as a bit of a fun thing, but I really, really, really want us to be able to say all of us that this is our theme verse, and this is what it is, it's coming up next on the screen, Psalm 46-10, be still and know that I am God. Okay, so let's say that together on three, we're going to say the reference and the verse, so on three, one, two, three, Psalm 46-10, be still and know that I am God. I just think that's so important for us to be aware of, and we're considering all of this in the context of discipleship, which is so important to us as a church. So I've got these discipleship statements, which I do the leaders connect, and some of these statements come up, every leaders connect. Always remember that as followers of Jesus, discipleship is at the heart or the core of everything we do. Another statement is authentic discipleship that leads to intentional disciple making. And then there's this quote from a book, which I've lost the author, I'll find it again one day, it's a quote which says, the word disciple occurs 269 times in the New Testament. Christian three times, leader one time, a bit of Greek there, Kubernetesus literally translates as captain of the ship, which we translate as leader or minister. What's the biggest problem of the church today? It's filled with Christians and leaders and not disciples. You get something of the picture here as to why discipleship is so important to us. And so last year Dylan preached on Psalm 4610, and the two guys asked me whether I'd refresh everybody for the beginning of the year. Last week we spoke about it, I gave two case studies, Elijah in the Old Testament, and Jesus coming the seas or coming the storm in the New Testament. And today we're going to look at a third case study, as we consider this, and it's talking about priorities. So if you've got your Bibles there, would you like to turn with me to Luke chapter 10, and we're going to read from verses 38 to 42. We've got the title of the message that there's the living a merry life in a Martha world. And we've just heard this morning and rightly say about how everything is gearing up. School, work, church, busy, busy, busy, that's a Martha world. And the priority is this, is living a merry life in a Martha world. So let me read these five verses to you. As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet, listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left to me, left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me. Martha, Martha, the Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. And we know that God always blesses the reading of his word. This chapter, by the way, there's a number of discipleship lessons in this chapter in Luke chapter 10. Beginning of Luke chapter 10 is Jesus sending out the 70 or 72 people to go out as evangelists out to go out proclaiming the kingdom of God. And when they come back, and that's Jesus' method, is this action-reflection, go and do something, come back and we'll reflect on what happened. And so that's what happened. The disciples came back just full of rejoicing about all the things that they saw and heard and happened. But then this is the key message here in verse 20 of this chapter. However, do not rejoice that the Spirit submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. So there's a discipleship lesson there. A key thing is not what we observe of the spectacular in ministry, but our key thing is our relationship with God. Then it goes on, the parable of the Good Samaritan, ex-boot in the law coming to Jesus. What's the greatest command? Jesus says to love God and then love your neighbour. The man trying to justify himself says, well, who is my neighbour? And there's this almost a dual discipleship lesson here about what is the greatest commandment. But it seems to me that probably a key thing here is, in verse 36, which of these three do you think was the neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? The expert in the law replied, the one who had mercy on him, Jesus told him, go and do likewise. And so there's another discipleship lesson here, is that what's important for us to be the Good Samaritan, to show mercy to those around about us. And then there is this discipleship lesson in this encounter with Mary, Jesus' encounter with Mary and Martha, which we'll be spending a bit of time looking at this morning. So this is the setting of what's happened. Jesus and his disciples, wherever they've been, outministering all of these things, they come into town and as they come into town, so Jesus and his disciples, probably a few other Hagaronaras, who don't really know exactly how many were here. But as they come into town, they go to Martha's place and Martha offers hospitality to Jesus and his disciples. And so offering hospitality has come on end and I'll provide a meal and maybe accommodation as well. And so considering that there's Jesus and his disciples, there may be a few other Hagaronaras, but 12 disciples plus Jesus, plus Mary, plus Martha, maybe their brother Lazarus is there as well. So probably Martha is busy preparing a meal for 15 or more people. Some of you understand what doing a meal like that is, what preparation is required in all of that. We have all our family together, daughters, sons-in-law, grandchildren on Christmas and that's 19. And I tell you what a lot of preparation goes into, having a meal for that many people, some of them kids, which give them lollies, whatever it's all they need. But for adults, of course, it's a bit more and caramelo koalas for some others as well. But there's a lot going on here and Martha is left preparing this meal for all of these people and Mary seems to be slumming it, as it were, at Jesus' feet. So you imagine how Martha is feeling, so she's busily running around doing everything in all of this and Mary's just sitting chatting with Jesus. And so the question is this, I really wonder what Jesus was communicating to Mary. Whatever it was, it was more important for Mary to stay there listening to Jesus than it was for her to be up helping Martha, because I don't think they would have just been talking about the whether you have a good journey, see any interesting sights on the way. It was obviously a conversation, a discipleship moment, if you would, a discipleship moment which was so intense that it preoccupied Mary at that time to the extent where Martha is left, but Martha's not fully aware of all of this. She comes to Jesus, she doesn't address Mary, her sister, she addresses Jesus, tries to put things onto Jesus, tell Jesus what to do. It sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it? Are you a bit like that sometimes, telling Jesus what to do? Telling Jesus what to do, Jesus, don't you care about all that I'm doing? Get Mary up and tender out to the kitchen to give me a hand. And Jesus doesn't do that, but instead there's another discipleship moment where Martha and Jesus now enter into a discipleship discussion, which we'll be looking at in a bit more detail. Now the situation is this, is that often in our mind, especially when we're reading the Bible, we tend to divide everything up into two groups, good and bad and right and wrong and so on. And so when we look at Mary and Martha here, our initial tendency may well be to say, well one of these sisters is in the right and the other is in the wrong. And to hone in on this is the right thing to do and this is the wrong thing to do. But I just want to put a stop to that sort of thinking and for us to realise that both Mary and Martha had responsible things to do. Imagine if they're both sitting at Jesus' feet, who's going to get the food ready? He's good of course in a miraculous way, but that's not the way that he normally operated. And I want to say today that Martha, and there's a lot of Martha's here, Martha, we need you. We need Martha, we need Martha's in our lives, we need Martha's in our church and we find for a couple of good reasons. We find of course that in verse 38 that when Jesus and the disciples came to town, that Martha is out there welcoming them. And so we need the Martha's out there doing the welcoming. Not only do we need Martha's out there welcoming, but we need the Martha's out there working as well. So we need Martha's welcoming and working, however there's this downside to it as well, is that what we see here is that, see what's not only a person's strength can also be their weakness and often the workers are the ones who want everything under control. And when things aren't under control is when they start to threaten to worry someone. And so when Martha's left out there trying to look after this meal preparation for however many people, things are running out of control as sausages are burning, whatever. And so needs help, she's losing control and so she starts to fret. And so Jesus says to her, Martha, the Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things. And so Martha's who are welcoming and working, just be aware that while your strength is there, that can have a downside as well. That if everything's not going into plan or going to plan, if everything's not under control, your tendency may well be to start worrying and fretting. And Martha goes to Jesus telling Jesus what to do, which is not unlike Martha. Do you remember in another setting where their brother Lazarus died, sent word to Jesus, Jesus come because our brother Lazarus is sick, Jesus delays his coming. Because he delays his coming, Lazarus dies in the meantime. When Jesus arrived, they go to Jesus and say, Jesus, Lazarus is already dead and what does Martha say? Jesus, if you had been here, this would not have happened. So see, we're not just talking about an isolated incident here with Martha in saying Jesus tell Mary to come and help, but also Jesus, if you had been here, and see that can be sometimes all of our tendencies for all of us, a tendency for all of us, to try to control God, to try to control Jesus in doing things our way in our time at our place, rather than entrusting ourselves to him. But just put that as a caveat there, but just to recognize this, that Martha, we need you. But there's this disciple lesson which Jesus gives to Martha in these verses, and we see a number of priorities being spoken about here. I've listed six, you might be able to identify more, and you'll immediately notice that these priorities are not separate, but they are very similar, they overlap, and sometimes they're saying, almost saying the same thing in a different way. But here are the priorities that I see in these verses. Number one is about possibilities, is that we're always faced with a number of possibilities. Very rarely is there no choice, is that we often have a number of choices before us, and the choice is facing these two women, with the kitchen or kneeling. In the kitchen, getting a meal ready, or kneeling at Jesus' feet. And so often we are faced with possibilities, and we need to recognize the multiple choices that we make, and hence because there are so many possibilities for us, the importance of having a clear set of priorities. This is what my number one priority is, how do all of these things fit in? And it's important for us to do that in the whole of life. But there's also not only a priority of possibilities, but a priority of preference. There are too many peas here who did this, of preference, administration or ministry. Which is important to be there, serving and helping, or to be involved in ministry. In my previous role periodically, I'd have to be involved in trying to calm down administration people and ministry people. The administration people would say, I need to get these receipts, I need to have these things done in this particular time. Who's organizing this ministry? People are saying, why is he always bothering me? I'm just out there ministering for Jesus. And so there's often this tendency, or this not a tendency, this conflict as it were, between administration, between ministry and administer. The way that I understand it is this is that ministry is a trying, and administration is the rails on which the train runs. Both are essential and the rails give direction, support and whatever to ministry. We need both. And administration people do whatever you can to support ministry. Ministry people salute, support and encourage those involved in administration. So it's a priority of possibilities, priorities of preference, priorities of perception, which is more important, things or people. The priority of preoccupation, time for Jesus, or time with Jesus. Is it more important for me to be out there doing things in the name of Jesus, or is it more important for me to be spending time with Jesus? But there's also a priority of position, duty, I've got to do this out of a sense of duty, or I do this out of a sense, out of a sense of devotion, devotion to God, and the priority of performance, activity, they've always got to be doing things, or the performance of surrender, the surrender to the will and purposes of God. Now you see that there are those two lists there, of priorities. Kitchen, administration, things, time for Jesus, duty, or activity. I want to say nothing is wrong with any of those, they're all important. But on the other side, there are these other things there as well, kneeling, ministry, people, time with Jesus, devotion, or surrender. And folk, if it comes down to it, if it comes down to it, the priority is that those on the right hand are always going to take precedence, are always more important, have a higher priority than the other. Yes, we need both, but the ones on the left, they're just there to support to enable those on the right to participate and to come about. You see, priorities are so important to us, and priorities come about time and time again in the Word of God. Jesus has said here in Luke 10.42, he says to Martha, he said, look, there's a lot of things to be done here, but there is only one thing which is absolutely essential right here, right now for Mary. A lot of things to do, but there is one thing which stands above in priority order. If we go back to the Old Testament, to Psalm 27, we have the Psalm here of David, where in Psalm 27 we read these words, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? And then down in verse 4 it says this, one thing I ask of the Lord, that is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. A lot of things happening in the first three verses, but then he gets to verse 4 and he says, but one thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek, above everything else that I may dwell in the house or in the presence of the Lord. Paul also had similar thoughts in Philippians 3 that's reflected there. Go back to verse 7 about, I can see everything lost compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ. Verse 10, I want to know Christ in the power of His resurrection, fellowship is sharing and He's suffering. And then from verse 12 it says, not that I've already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining forward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the price for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. See a lot of things happen in life, but it's important that we have some sense of priority and the number one priority is this, is that we're going to be spending time with Jesus and that we are going to be listening to Him. Last Sunday morning after the servers, one of the young guys lined me up and asked me a question. And he said this, the question he asked was this, David, how do I know that it is God speaking to me? What a brilliant question that is. I wonder how you would have answered that. I wonder what your experience is in that. How do you know that it's God who is speaking to you? You see the quality of people sometimes is seen not in the answers they give, but the quality is sometimes seen in the questions that people ask. And that is just a brilliant, outstanding question to ask. How do I know that it is God speaking to me? See, it's OK for Mary. Mary is sitting at Jesus' feet. She can see Jesus there physically. Jesus is communicating to her and Jesus is talking to her. But how do you and I know that this is God speaking to us? Last Sunday, we had a bit of a discussion about it and I thought, well, because we're looking at this, if we were to be sitting at Jesus' feet, what does this mean for you and for me today? How do we know that it's God speaking to us? Well, I've got 11 points here. You can memorize them. I'll line you up next week and ask you what number five was or something like that. No, these are just my thoughts. There's a lot more to it and no doubt you'll be sitting there thinking. There are more points than just this and what you're saying is correct. Here are some things which I have, which I've come to understand the importance of sitting at Jesus' feet, listening to him. Number one is this. It's a God honours those who honour him. That is, if you were truly seeking after God, then he's not going to let you stray too far away from him. God is not the sort of a person who is going to hide or going to put baby traps or seek to lead you astray. But God is one who is seeking as a person who is seeking to help, to lead and to guide and to draw you closer to himself. And so the most important thing is, is that we are seeking to honour God. And if we are honouring God, the Bible tells us once Samuel 230 uses those words, but also in the Bible it says these things. If we're seeking to honour God, God will honour us and seek to help us in our journey with him. This question was asked of me last week. When I hear a voice and I'm listening, what are the options? The options, how do I know whether it is God who is speaking, whether it's Satan who is speaking to me, or whether it's just my thoughts? Good question. And it's an important question for us to understand, particularly if it's our own thoughts. Because sometimes we can become so convinced of our own thinking that we somehow soon start thinking, this is God's voice to us. It's us who start saying, Jesus, tell Mary to come and help. Or Jesus, had you been here, because that's the way that I've been thinking that way. So it's dangerous for us to be putting our thoughts or imposing our thoughts onto God. Of course, if it's Satan, Satan seeks to destroy, to kill, to drag us down, God's voice is going to do otherwise. Number three, God can and will speak at any time in any way. So God can and speak through sermons, through people speaking, through dreams, through circumstances. The list goes on and on. God can and will speak at any time in any way. But number four, the most important way is through the Bible. So if you really want to know what God is saying to you, the best place to start is by reading the Word of God, by reading the Bible. Number five is the more important the message, the clearer the communication is my experience. As if God had something very definite that's very important, He will communicate it very, very clearly to you. And often in more ways than one, it will come in multiple ways. If God, this is God speaking, saying something to us. Number six, is that God may say yes or no, or He may say this way or that way, or in some circumstances God may even say your choice, you choose. I say a sort of few and far between those, but it can and it will happen, but it's more important that we are hearing from God very clearly before we start saying, well, this is what I want to do. Whenever God speaks to us, it's always going to be consistent with God's nature as revealed through His Word. God's not going to tell you to do something that is contrary to His Word. Number eight is that we might want to seek confirmation, seek confirmation from the Bible or from others. To say to someone else, this is what I'm sensing God is saying to me, what do you think God might be saying? Do you sense this might be God or do you think it might not be? I've tried that with people, and I've had people say, no, I don't think that's God speaking. Or other times, yes, I think that is God. Probably the most important person who you're going to seek confirmation from if you're married is from your spouse, is that if God is calling you, He will also be calling your spouse. It will only be in exceptional circumstances if your spouse is disobedient to God where God will be calling you to do something different from what your spouse is sensing. So often, we have in our own, for Anna and me, if we sense God is saying something to us about a move or about anything else, we say, this is what we sense God, what I sense God is saying, what do you think? And we talk about it and share that way. And move forward when we have agreement on it. What are the consequences? What medium, long term is the outcome of this something that's going to glorify God? Generally speaking, if we're looking for guidance from God, we need to stay put where we are until God tells us to move. There is an exception to that, because you've probably heard people say, God guides us when we're on the move, not sitting in the lounge chair. Well, if we're sitting back doing nothing, we need to do something. It's easier to turn a ship that's moving than that's still. You understand that. But as a general principle, if we're doing something, to stay there, keep doing it until God tells us to do different. And finally, what I've put there is this term which I introduced last week, sacred trust. Be ready to obey, no matter what. Because there will be times when God may tell you to do something that you don't want to do. There will be times when God will tell you to do something which those around you don't want you to do. There will be times when God will get you to do something which seems so far out of the ordinary. But if we're trusting God, be ready to obey Him, no matter what. So we come back to our key verse. If we're going to be a Mary in a Martha world, we need to be still, to stop and to listen, to be still and know that I am God. Pastors, I want to say something to you guys, but in everybody else's hearing, I will give you guys the freedom to ask any of us in the church at any time, what's our theme verse for this year? And for all of us to be ready to say Psalm 46 verse 10, be still and know that I am God. However, Pastors, this is a key thing for you, don't leave it there. Ask the follow-up question, so what? What difference is it making in your life? What are you doing about it? What are you hearing or sensing God saying to you? Because you see, it's one thing to take on this theme verse, be still and know that I am God. It's another thing for us all, individually, as families as a church, to be still, to know that He is God, to hear what He's saying and to act in response to that. Let's pray. A sense of rightness is just being still in your presence to allow you to speak to us if you so desire, right here, right now. So in the quietness of this moment, we turn our eyes on Jesus.