Keith Battle - First Things First

The title I’m going to use is: First Things First. Things first: even if you don’t know what I’m about to talk about, just type it in the chat or look at somebody near you; they only have to know what you’re telling me. Just say, «First things first,» that’s what you do. First things first. This passage commences while Jesus and the disciples are on their way to Jerusalem. Traveling with Jesus is a very unpredictable thing. I’m preaching already! I said, «Traveling with Jesus is a very unpredictable thing,» not just then but now. You never know what you’re going to run into; you never know when somebody’s going to say, «Master, my daughter’s dying, can you come see about her?» You never know when, while he’s going to see about that, somebody’s pulling on the hem of his garment after twelve years of hemorrhaging. You just never know with Jesus. Traveling with him has a lot of unpredictable moments. It is also very interesting that even though Jesus had done a lot of miracles and helped a lot of people, providing love and support, a lot of what accompanied Jesus was unending envy and cynicism around his person. There were a lot of haters, and most of them were in the religious community. Many of the religious leaders did not like him, which made traveling very uncertain as well. So, there was a lot of risk involved in traveling with Jesus because, as the Bible says, he was despised and rejected by men, and we hid our faces from him. The Bible says, «He came unto his own, and his own received him not.» Let me pause right there: don’t be surprised when your own won’t receive you! The people in your own house often don’t really accept you anyway. But to as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the children of God, to as many as believe on his name. And, even though he had followers, he also had a lot of enemies. So, traveling with Jesus created these unpredictable and uncertain moments. But there was a little quiet, unassuming residence in a village called Bethany. There, in Bethany, was a family that loved him, accepted him, valued him, and appreciated him. We learn more about this family in John chapters 11 and 12, in addition to here in Luke chapter 10. We find out that the three residents in that house were siblings: Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. We learn, as we compile the data from the Gospels, that the three of them lived together, and Jesus would frequent this place because it was a place where he was welcome. I think he frequents places where he is welcome. He stands at the door and knocks; if any man hears his voice and opens the door, he will come in and sup with him, and he with me. But I just knock and ask if you’ve got the hearing to open. So now Jesus is coming up to this house, and this passage presents a proverbial fork in the road. There’s a fork in the road that happens in this passage because once Jesus is welcomed in the house, in verse 38, Martha opens the door and welcomes him. Now, before I get into this text, I need you to understand that there are some people who are mentioned briefly but then sort of disappear within the context of the text. Even though the disciples were with him, there’s no record that they were in the house; they’re never mentioned again after the Bible states that Jesus traveled with them. So, and we know Lazarus lived with them, but there’s no evidence that Lazarus was part of the story either because he’s not mentioned. For the sake of clarity, let’s zoom in on three people: we have Jesus, we have Mary, and we have Martha—three people, that’s it. So, no one else is mentioned, so no one else matters. That’s who we’re talking аbout: Jesus, Mary, and Martha. And when Jesus enters the house, the Bible says Martha welcomed him into the house. But at that moment is where the fork in the road happens because Mary and Martha handled his presence differently. Yeah, Mary, according to verse 39, her first move was to sit at his feet; she sat at his feet in verse 39 and listened to what he taught. The Bible says, but Martha was working on a big project. So, Mary is sitting, and Martha is serving, and the two choices that they both made create a tension in the text that only Jesus could actually solve. Yeah, one is serving, and one is sitting—that’s the difference. They both made a choice. You’ve got one guest, you’ve got two hosts, and you’ve got two choices. I’m going to say it again: you’ve got one guest, you’ve got two hosts, and you’ve got two choices, and the choices that they make—it doesn’t say that either choice was wrong; it just says that one of them made the right choice in the right priority. Neither of them did anything wrong, but one of them did something in the wrong order. Okay, let me see if I can clarify this, because at the end of the day, Martha starts off well. She welcomed him into her house; she was happy that he was there.