Northside Church - Sydney
Impact…Making Your Life Count // Week 3: What are my Priorities?
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Friends, I never cease to be amazed at how quickly priorities can change. You've got a certain list of priorities. You're going in a certain direction. And all of a sudden, circumstances can totally change and throw those out the window. Give an example. It was a very fine, lovely day as I remember back in Adelaide many years ago. I had a long list of things to get through that day. It was a busy day I was facing. And I went out to our, as in my custom, I'd worked out my day the night before. I had my priorities and lists of people to visit and meetings to attend phone calls to make all that kind of thing. And I went out to our family room to collect the breakfast things of my father. My mum and dad were staying with us from Melbourne, as they used to do occasionally. They were both in retirement at that time. I went into the family room. I could just sense there was something wrong with my dad. My mum was somewhere else. Dad was still on his dressing gown. I said, "Guys, Daddy, are you okay? This is a shocking colour." And my dad said something I never thought I'd hear him say. He was a very strong man, very resilient man, very independent man. Because of past illnesses, he'd shown incredible levels of, like a pain threshold. And as he clutched his, his pajama top, he said, "Gram, I think you'd better get an ambulance." And my dad, in his mid-60s, was having a massive heart attack. And I won't give you all the details, of course, but here's the thing. Within a very short time, my mother and I found ourselves in a little waiting room outside the cardiac section of the Flinders Medical Center there in Adelaide. And here's the irony. I'd been ministering in that city for about 17 years at that time in two churches. And I sat in that little room many times with families waiting on word from their, of their loved ones who suffered heart attacks. I'd been there many times. And I'd tried to show as much empathy and support as I could. And looking back, I thought I'd done a pretty good job. But I realised in that moment, I had not really understood what they were facing. Because you've really got to be in that situation to know exactly what goes through your mind and what you think about when you're waiting on use of a loved one who suffered a massive heart attack. I do know one thing. I know one thing. Every other activity I'd planned for that day went out the window. I thought that was such an important day for me. It was kind of further my ministry effectiveness and further the church, it all went. And I concentrated on one thing. Supporting my mother, comforting my family, and praying for my father. And that just, like, time just seemed to stand still. And many of you have been there. You just focus on the one thing. My dad did recover from that heart attack. He lived with us for another, lived for another nine years. But that was the day I shall never forget. Like I said, it's amazing, it's scary. How, when you consider how quickly priorities can change so rapidly. You see, priority is a form of the word prior. And prior, of course, means before, ahead of, preceding. A priority then is something that comes before everything else. A priority is the really important things. The really important thing. That which we place ahead of all other things. And at the very heart of this familiar incident from Luke chapter 10, involving Mary and Martha. At the very heart of this passage is the theme of priorities. Now, there's a certain quaintness. A certain homeliness about this particular incident, which I really love. I love the way that Luke introduces it. In chapter 38, Jesus came to a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. Wow. What an honor. What a privilege to host the Son of God, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Gosh, you want everything right, wouldn't you? You want the house right. You want everything neat and tidy up and get rid of some of those magazines. You want everything just looking really, really great. You want the meal you're preparing to be the very best you could provide. We're talking Jesus here. At the same time, you want to spend some quality time with him. I mean, you want to listen to him. You want to learn from him. Here's the opportunity, very unique one-on-one with the master himself. That would be a priority for sure. So, friends, you can see that in a very real sense, both Mary and Martha appear to be involved in important activities. It's not one or the other. They're both important activities given that Jesus was coming. True, Martha has a more down-of-earth, practical approach to the occasion. While Mary is in a more contemplative mood, a more reflective mood, she's wanting to just simply sit at Jesus' feet. She's approaching it differently to her sister. But then comes the path that's kind of hard to deal with. If you know this passage, this is the hard part. It would seem Jesus is more impressed with Mary's actions than those of Martha. Here's his gentle rebuke to Martha. It comes in verse 41. "Martha, Martha, you're worried and troubled over so many things, but just one thing is needed." Now, remember, this is our Lord's response to Martha's plea for him to get her sister back into the kitchen. This comes in verse 40. Listen to this. "Martha was upset over all the work she had to do." So she came and said, "Lord, she has left me. My sister has left me to do all the work by my soul. Tell her to come and help me." That's an indication of the level of her frustrations. She's kind of putting a pretty strong request onto Jesus at that point. And look, I think we can all resonate with the justice of Martha's complaint against Mary. I think that strikes a chord within all of us. And I'm sure we'd be much happier if Jesus' response had been something like, "You know what, Mary, Martha's got a point. Look at out there. This is a piling up. Look, why don't you go out there and help her and we can continue this discussion over dinner?" I think that would be the ending we'd all think, "Yeah, that's good. That's a win-win. Everybody wins out there." But no, Jesus' response to Martha in a way that basically says, "Well, Martha, you have missed the point of what's happening here. You're just not getting it." And that's what's hard for Martha to hear. And I think it'll agree it's pretty hard for us to hear as well. Because our hearts sort of go out to this Martha. We will be there. We will be sort of getting ready for something and in terms of somebody else's dreaming and not getting with it. I mean, you'd think Jesus may have instantly spotted the beautiful expression here. It's a beautiful expression of his understanding of what the greatest commandment is. And his understanding of the greatest commandment comes earlier in this very chapter. Luke chapter 10, look at verse 25. A teacher of the law came up and tried to trap Jesus. Teacher, he asked, "What must I do to receive eternal life?" Jesus answered him, "What do the scriptures say? How do you read them?" The man answered, "Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind. Love your neighbor as you love yourself." "You're right," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." And in another part of the gospel, this Jesus' understanding of the greatest commandment. So, I mean, you think Jesus may have instantly spotted this. I mean, come on, Jesus, here in the actions of Martha and Mary, we have a classic example of what you're talking about. I mean, Mary is a great example of love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, strength and mind. Martha is a great example of love your neighbor as you love yourself. They complement each other beautifully. Isn't this the perfect balance that we're all looking for in the Christian life, an orientation toward the practical, toward others-centered ministry, born out of a deep and close relationship with Jesus Christ? I mean, isn't this the one thing you're talking about? Lord, it's all here, Mary, Martha. They're each bringing their own little contribution. Let's have a closer look at this notion of the one thing that Jesus talks about, the one thing that's needed in the very funny movie City Slickers. And some of you are thinking, "Oh, I saw that 10 or 12 years ago." Well, no, that was released in 1991. If you saw that, you saw that 22 years ago. How's that for the passage of time? Well, if you know the movie, it's about three city guys, executive types, who go out to the prairie in America, in some part of America, to match up with some cowboys to do a cattle drive. And the head of the cowboys is a craggy, rough sort of guy called Curly, and he's played by that famous actor, Jack Palance. Now, this little excursion by these three guys, by the way, it's the head off the onset of a midlife crisis. That's not unusual in men. We've all been through one of those. And so they're sort of like trying to find themselves and wondering what it's all about. And at one point, one of these guys being played by Billy Crystal says to this very rough and tough Curly played by Jack Palance, he says, "Your life, your life seems to make sense to you." In other words, you seem so together out here on the prairie. And Curly says, "You city folk, you worry a lot. You spend 50 weeks getting knots in your rope, and you think two weeks out here will untie those knots for you. None of you get it." And it was at this point you realize that whilst Curly is a really rough sort of guy, he also has an understanding of humanity, and he's got some innate wisdom here that he's about to share with Billy Crystal. And he then asks Crystal, "You know what the secret of life is?" "No, what?" says Billy Crystal. Curly replies, "One thing, just one thing. You stick to that, and everything else means nothing." "That's great. That's great," says Billy Crystal, and now showing signs of desperation. "What is the one thing?" And after long pause, this tough old cowboy in his craggy voice says, "That's what you've got to figure out." So he's done the wiser, you know. Well, you know, in the Bible, a number of people talk about the one thing, the one thing they've discovered. The first one is David. And David way back in Psalm 27, verse 4, listen to this. "I've asked the Lord for..." what? One thing. "I've asked the Lord for one thing. One thing only do I want," he says it again. "To live in the Lord's house all my life, to marvel there at his goodness." And then over in the New Testament, Paul, Philippians, you're probably one step ahead of me, you're already thinking of this verse, some of you. He says, "Of course, I don't think I've already won it. The one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead." And then in the previous verse, just up in the same chapter, in verse 10, he says, "All..." and this is his passion in life. "All I want to know," like my main driving ambition. "All I want to know," the one thing I want to know is Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection, to share any sufferings, and become like him in his death in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life. Now, these guys, all of these guys are talking about priorities. They're all talking about priorities as they seek to make an impact with their life for God. And just as an aside, remember Jesus said to the rich young ruler, "One thing, you lack." So there it is again. This is one, it is elusive, one thing. Well, back to our story in Jesus' words to Martha. Martha, you're worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed. And then he adds, "Mary has chosen," that's very important. "Mary has chosen that one thing and it will not be taken from her." Now, look, I know how you, at this point, some of you are thinking, those of us among us who are oriented more to the practical, more inclined to serve in tangible ways. That's your expression of the faith. You're becoming a little uneasy thinking that this one elusive thing is, in fact, the more spiritual, the more contemplative approach to the faith. And you're asking, "Well, what happened to the balance that you talked about a moment ago?" "What if my gift things aren't in intense reading and study of the word?" "What if I don't pray publicly, this is not my thing?" "What if I'd rather live out my faith and show people my faith rather than talk about my faith?" Because I find that so hard. Where does that lead me? I'm more of a practical kind of Christian, you know. Well, in response to these sort of questions, I've got good news. There is a need for both. There is a need for balance that I mentioned earlier. There is overwhelming evidence in this scripture that following Jesus is a combination of practical ministry on the one hand and, like Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening, learning, praying, worshiping. It's a combination of balance Christian life has both components. And these are the components, of course, of the great commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your hearts on one's face. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. So why does Jesus talk about the one thing? If it's a combination of a couple of things. Well, I'm essentially a simple man. I think most of you know that. And my approach to the Christian faith is fairly simple. Not simplistic, but it's fairly down to earth. I'd like to think so anyway. And look, I believe the one thing Jesus is talking about is clearly it's our relationship with him. That's not rocket science. That's the number one thing is our relationship with him. But wait a minute. If somebody says, hang on, hang on. You're being a bit judgmental, aren't you, Graham? Because you're saying that Mary had a closer relationship with Jesus than Martha did. That Mary was more pious, more devout because she's the one who gets all the good girl Mary. Martha, sorry, is that it? No, I don't believe so. There's absolutely no evidence to suggest there was any difference in the level of their allegiance and their devotion to Jesus. There's no evidence whatsoever to suggest that. But there was something that distinguished them from each other in this incident, in this particular incident. You see, the one thing is our relationship with Jesus, but there's something else. And our ability in his strength to discern priorities. I think that's it, this is what went wrong here. Our relationship with Jesus combined with and our ability to discern priorities. That's what made the difference on this occasion. Mary chose the Bible says, or Jesus says, Mary, she made a choice. She made a choice. What was that choice in? It was in the area of priorities. You see, both Mary and Martha were engaged in important activity. We've established that. They're both expressing an aspect of the Christian life, we've established that. But only one was showing spiritual discernment, getting their priorities right, and that was Mary. Is there any evidence to suggest that Mary never picked up a tea towel? That she never cooked a meal? That she never held a broom? In other words, is this her ongoing pattern? See, we tend to think, oh, Mary, yeah, a bit of a slack, a bit of a shirk, a yeah. There's no evidence at all to suggest that she was anything like that. None whatsoever. But on this day, on this particular day, when Jesus came to her home in person, she was spiritually aware to the point where she realized that listening to him, learning from him, she had to take priority over everything else that was happening. Amazing how priorities can be very, very dramatically shifted when needed. And these are the decisions. These are the other decisions we're required to make all the time when you think about it. I mean, we make these decisions in relation to worship. There are times when our decision to forego a social event in preference for worship should be the priority. Not every time because we're involved in lots of things. But in a city like Sydney where there are so many things happening, sometimes it comes down to, you know what? I'm going to be in church that day. Sometimes when it comes to prayer, rather than watch more television, in these moments, I really should devote this time to prayer. We've got to pray about certain things faster told us that. I'm going to devote this time. It's a decision. It's a question of relating to priorities. It relates also to Bible reading. We're going to continue reading our favorite book or magazines or am I going to reserve this time to read the Scriptures? These are choices. These are decisions. These arise out of priorities. What about when giving? He's going to go whole as bowlers into a new expenditure at the personal level. Wait a minute. Maybe that could be used. Yeah. Maybe channel that to that particular need because that's got a greater priority at the moment. But these are the tough decisions at times showing kindness and empathy. Wow. Somebody else will be doing that. They announce to the church. Surely somebody else will be visiting that. Maybe that's me. Maybe I've got to forego a bit of time and I've got to do that email. I've got to make that phone call. I've got to make that visit. These are the kind of things we're doing. What about, you know, it's a rough night. It's cold. It's wet. Connection group. I don't think so. No, not tonight. The voice is on. Get me out of here. Let's go to, can it? No disrespect. You know, no, I'll get there. I'm going to just dig a little deeper. I'm going to be there. These are some of the critical times when the spiritually aware person, the mature person in Christ attempts in His strength to get their priorities right. These are the moments when critical decisions are made. And we either choose the one thing or in that moment we miss that one thing. And that makes a difference to how we impact others. That makes a difference to the extent to which we make our lives count. Guys, I wrestle with this stuff all the time. Life's all about priorities. And I get it wrong a lot of the time. And in our lives in Sydney, this is the kind of stuff we're facing all the time. So my prayer is that we'll have the strength and the courage and the faith to make some of those tough decisions. Knowing deep down, that's the priority we should be observing. Read this passage again. Look at it from that perspective. It's all about priorities. That's what these two girls both love the Lord. Don't get the idea that Mary is sort of some drifting backslider. Absolutely not. You check out what she says in relation to Lazarus. She knew her word and she loved the Lord. And don't get the impression that Mary was this sort of ongoing, lazy, dreamy kind of person who nothing to suggest that. It was on this day she adjusted her priorities. That's it.