Luke chapter number 10. You know, it's often times that in the Christian life there are moments and times when we all get discouraged, and spending a little alone time with the Lord always helps those times. There's nothing that the Word of God cannot help you with. It's filled with truth, and nothing but truth. It's filled with no error. but only truth. And if we as Christians take the Word of God to heart, it can help us, not only tremendously, but it's the only thing that can really help us, because it's God speaking to us. And I want us to look here at a very, very familiar passage in Luke chapter number 10, but before I do, I'd like to read quickly Psalms 119 verse 165, very familiar verse, probably many of you have it memorized. Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. And then if we look at Luke chapter number 10 in verse number 38, it says, now it came to pass As they went, they entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bitter, therefore, that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. I want us to think about a very familiar subject, no doubt you've heard it before, but the most needful thing in all the world. Let's bow our heads in prayer as we begin this morning, please. Dear Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the time you've given us, Lord, to come to church this morning in the 9 a.m. service. Thank you for those that are here and those joining us online. I pray that you'd please help us, help our hearts to be open. Fill me with your Spirit. I pray that, Lord, we would be blessed and we'd be a blessing to other people. Lord, thank you so much for all you do in Jesus' name. Amen. Of course, a little simple background of the passage is that it kind of comes right after the very familiar parable of the Good Samaritan, probably the most well-known parable, or one of the most well-known parables in all the scripture. Of course, many say if it's not a parable, it's an actual story, which I believe that to be true, but it's referred to as the parable of the Good Samaritan. A certain man traveling and was wounded and hurt, and three men came by the side and only one helped. And of course, that man taking him in and caring for him, Jesus finishes this story and speaks to this man who inquired about it, and told him he should be as this man to one of his neighbors. And then it continues on, and in verse 38 we come, it says, Now it came to pass, as they went, he entered into a certain village. Anytime the Bible says a certain village, I do think and believe he's referring to a specific place, take the Bible literally, and it's very specific. And it says, And a certain woman named Martha. And so you have Jesus with his disciples, you notice it says, and it came to pass as they went. We have them traveling, and then of course Jesus comes to this house of Mary, or excuse me, of Martha. We do, from what the scripture says, it says that it was Martha's house, and Mary was there with Martha, and of course Lazarus. And you have Jesus coming in. And there's some interesting things I want us to think about, but of course keying in on the verse number 42 where it says, but one thing is needful. And as many times as I've read this passage and gone over these words, read them many, many times, verses 38 through 42, there's always something I can receive from this passage that always speaks to me about my worship. I didn't ask them to sing that song this morning. In fact, I heard them practicing it throughout the week, but I forgot completely what they were singing this morning. But it is, in fact, important how we worship the Lord. And it's not only important how, but that we worship the Lord. That we do it. One thing that's most needful in all the world, if you were to ask a secular person this question, you'd probably get all kinds of answers. Probably if you asked a politician, they'd probably say that we need to have peace above all things. Now, how they achieve that peace may be different to different ones, but peace. Some might say, like the psychiatrist or perhaps the sociologist, maybe perhaps in one day, I'm not sure exactly what they may think now, but they may say the family. It's the root problem, you know, society is built on the family. Of course, the Bible teaches that. This common man in the street might say, more jobs are something that we need. That would help the society, it'd help people to have better jobs, more jobs. If you ask the medical community, they'll probably say, we need a cure for all disease. That would probably help mankind the most. That's the most needful thing in all the world. Some might say starvation and hunger. Solving that problem might help the world the most. But the truth is, we know that Jesus is the person that people need the most. And it's worshiping God that is the most needful thing. But if we ask Jesus, that's what He would tell us. And I find it amazing that in a simple story like this, He drops this wonderful, I say He drops, that's probably not the best way to say it, He gives the best information about this very topic when this incident happens with Martha and Mary. And he implements the fact that it is the most needful thing. I find that interesting. You know, sometimes you can talk to people, and if you talk to a person, sometimes they say they drop some knowledge on me, you know. And you talk with them in casual conversation, and they say something that's really, really good. And you say, oh, I'll have to remember that. That's really, really good. Many times, if you've ever seen Andy Griffith, you have somebody comes into the barbershop and Floyd might say, Oh, that was very good. You know, he'll try to remember something that was really good in this set. I have to remember that. He'll probably forget it right afterwards. But people say, Oh, that's important. I need to remember that. Well, of course, Jesus mentions it. Then we ought to remember it because he's the most important speaker ever. So we have here Jesus coming into this home where Martha lets him in, and then of course dinner is being prepared, food, and then Mary of course is listening to Jesus, and Jesus makes this powerful statement. I'd like us to see a few things about this passage I think that will greatly help us. But you might say, you know, the most needful thing is that we sit at Jesus' feet as Martha did, that worship and reading the Word of God is the most important thing. You say, Brother McKeever, that sounds so simple, but yet oftentimes we don't always do it. Why is the Bible, or spending time with God, the most needful thing in our lives? It's the book of answers. It answers all of my circumstances. It answers all of my situations. It answers my burdens. It's an answer to my problems. I remember one of the most outstanding statements I've heard and had an impression upon me. We had Pastor Marvin Smith here years ago from out West who has a boys and girls home, helps those with troubled young people. And he made a statement that I'll never forget. And the fact that we always quote and say that the Bible has the answer for everything in life, all of our problems, all of our situations, all of our circumstances. And you know, there's many times pastors, preachers, when people come to them for help, there are many people whom they say, we just can't seem to help, and we might send them off to some secular. philosopher, or secular psychiatrist, or someone who gives them secular help, who's been trained in that specific area. But they're not going to give them what the Bible is going to give them. And we will often say that the Bible is the answer for all these problems. And of course, he started his ministry out there to help people with certain problems, finding out many times, a lot of times, people have a sin problem. And that takes care of a lot of the other problems. That Jesus can change a person's life. And that's truth, we believe that. So it's an answer for our circumstances, our situations, our burdens, our problems. The book can solve the world's problems. It's our 40th president, Ronald Reagan, once said, within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems that we face. You know, since the public school system by the Supreme Court in 1962 ruled out the school-sponsored prayers and Bible readings, you can clearly see there's a decline in a lot of other things since that's happened. It's not just a matter of the fact that children may not come to worship God, but the fact that God was there and things were being read from the Bible, that they had an opportunity to meet with God. But now that opportunity is not there like it once was. And I praise the Lord for the churches that have opportunities to go into schools and to share Bible programs with young people, because that's an implementation of allowing the Holy Spirit to do a work where it once wasn't able to do that. We could say, show me the statistics of the secular way of showing the decline of civilization without the Bible over the last 60 or so years. And it's very sad. I'm thankful for a place of a church that preaches the Bible, teaches and preaches the Bible. I'm thankful for a wonderful pastoral staff that teaches and preaches the Bible. I think if there's anything else we can be thankful for, we may not have heat this morning right away, but we have someone who preaches and teaches the Bible. And I think that's important. Jesus summed it all up for us. I'll mention several different illustrations here in the scripture. Matthew 4, 4. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. If you want the secret to living, you get into the Word of God. Colossians 3, 16. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. If you want to be able to have a song in your heart despite the difficult circumstances of your day, we sang this morning, there are rings within my heart of melody. Jesus whispers sweet and low. Those things encourage you because you know you've been with God and you can get in this book and get that encouragement. Jeremiah 15, 16, thy words were found and I did eat them and the word was unto me joy and rejoicing my heart. A lady I just was at in an evangelical Baptist church, I preached a message and she said this is her life verse. and how true and wonderful it was to her. If you want joy in every circumstance, get in the word of God. Acts 17.11, these were more noble than those of Thessalonica in that they received the word with readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. If you want the answers to life, you'll get in the word of God. Psalms 119.105, very familiar verse, the word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. It'll show you where to go. If you have trouble finding where God wants you to be, get into the word of God. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law doth he meditate day and night." If you want to prosper, if you want success in the Christian life, you allow the Holy Spirit to come in and you'll read the Word of God and He'll speak to you. And of course, Psalm 119, 165, God is telling us that this book has durability. It'll last forever. And if we trust it, it'll never let us down because it's His Word. I read a beautiful caption the other day about the Bible. It says, Regular use causes loss of anxiety. Regular use causes decreased appetite for lying, cheating, and stealing. These symptoms of Bible fever are increased sensations of love, peace, joy, and compassion. Boy, those are some great symptoms to have. They always mention all these different symptoms you might have when you take certain medication. Vomiting, fevers, headaches. That sounds wonderful. I'm going to have no problem there, but I'm going to have all these other problems. Well, the Bible doesn't have any of those side effects. They're all good. And so we can trust the Word of God. See, it's important that we let the Bible into our life because it changes us. I want you to notice very few things here, just three things of the actions of the people in this passage. Notice first of all, if you would, in verse 38. Notice that it says, the actions of Martha here, she received him into their house. Jesus was welcome there. Let me ask you this morning, is Jesus welcome at your home? Is Jesus welcome in your life? You say, well, of course, I know Christ is my Savior. He's welcome all the time. Is He really? You know, I know how people can be sometimes when people come to visit. You know, some people might say, when do you plan to come? Let me make sure things are all prepared and ready for you. Because they don't like unexpected guests. You know, when I was young growing up, it was normal for someone to come and stop by the preacher's home and give a knock on the door. We'd answer the door and maybe talk to someone for a little while. That was normal. Nowadays, you shouldn't do that. You gotta give them a call on the phone first, otherwise it could be awful. Some people say, well, I know how this person is, and I've gotta make sure I prepare my spirit before they come. When are you coming? I wanna plan a specific time. Let's not meet at my house. Let's meet down the street at a restaurant somewhere. We don't really want you to be at my house. They may not say that, but maybe that's how they feel. But we think about all these different circumstances, but is Jesus welcome all the time? Are we ready for Him to show up and receive His company? You know, He wants to commune with us, He wants to talk with us, but how often do we reject when God wants to be with us, which is all the time, and we get busy and do other things? We may even use good excuses. Is Jesus welcome in your home? Here we have Martha welcoming him in. And Martha here is going to, of course, be the key of the story of the person who did what she shouldn't have done, right? But yet she welcomed him in. And Mary, of course, I'm sure welcomed him in. Is Jesus welcome? Notice, secondly, Martha was cumbered about with much serving. It says, and she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word, but Martha, verse 40, was cumbered about much serving. And that word, cumbered, of course, carries the connotation of being worried, or wearied, excuse me, worn out, or distracted. And she was cumbered about with much serving, and came to him and said, When I was this last week, a week ago, helping Cornerstone Baptist Church in Massachusetts, I was helping install a sound system and some live streaming equipment. And I went down there for one trip and kind of assessed everything, saw what they needed, and thought pretty much the job could be done in a day. I underestimated the amount of work we needed to do. So I went down one day. Luke Vieira actually went with me. And he's been going a couple times to go to these places. And we went down there together. He helped me a lot. We got a lot of work done. We got a lot of things set up and equipped, but I realized I'm going to have to come back again because it was going to take more time than I expected. So I went back on a Tuesday real quick in the morning and ended up being a full day's work almost again, but we got them set up. They're having their missions conference this weekend, so I hope things are going well. But it ended up being a lot more work, and I spent probably, I don't know, about five hours a day soldering. Do you have any solderers in here? Anybody can solder? Wonderful. I need to take some lessons from you sometime. I'm not a very good one, but I've done a lot of stuff, and I spent about five or six hours. I'm a lot better now than I was before. But I did a lot of stuff and I got so busy. I mean I was trying to get done as fast as I possibly could try to get back home. It's about a two hour drive. And man it just took much longer than I expected. I got a little bit cumbersome. Cumbered during the day. It was like boom boom boom boom boom nonstop nonstop nonstop. And I stopped and realized when I was finished I said you know I didn't take a moment. Even my lunch was on the go. I was eating while I was doing all kinds of stuff. And I said I didn't take any just just time alone. just to stop and pause and maybe just spend a little time with the Lord, maybe. Talk a little bit. I took the opportunity, when you're driving, it's a wonderful time to spend some time with the Lord because you've got nothing else to do except for drive, right? And, you know, you have different kinds of drivers, some that, you know, they spend a lot of time not talking. My wife, she'll try to talk to me sometimes. I'm pretty concentrated. I tend to concentrate on the road a lot. And she'll, you know, she'll talk and then I'll listen. I'll do a lot of listening. But if there's something I need to talk about, I'll talk about it. And it's a great time to listen to the Bible. I listened to some Bible recording on my iPhone. It was wonderful. It was a great thing. I don't recommend you read your Bible while you drive, okay? You shouldn't read when you text, but you shouldn't read the Bible when you drive either, but it was wonderful to be able to listen to the Bible. And just spend a little time alone with the Lord. You know, there's times we need when we just spend a little time alone with the Lord. And I know we get busy. I know things get very hectic, and you might say, well, I was listening to the Bible while I was getting ready that morning, and I had my devotions. That's not really taking some time out to spend time with the Lord, as we'll see in just a moment. But it said that Martha was cumbered, being wearied, worn out, or distracted. You see, she was concentrating on all the minor details, but not the main thing. Now she was doing good things. You see, when you go over to someone's house and they're hosting the meal, they've got to do a lot of these little things. You know? Someone has to cook that fried chicken just right. They've got to get the green beans just the way that they need to be. Nice, plump, little crisp, but not mushy. They've got to get the butter melted just to the right temperature to put in those, you know? And you've got to make sure the dessert is perfectly made, right? You know? Whatever kind of dessert it is. Maybe the ice cream, ice cold on some hot apple pie, something like that, you know? It's pretty good preaching to this crowd because, you know, you're not as hungry. You probably just had breakfast not too long ago, right? You know, people have to prepare those things. I praise the Lord for my wife who's able to do a lot of that stuff. About two weeks ago I decided I'd help my wife and I cooked her dinner. It was stressful, let me tell you right now. Now she said it was really good, so it was a success, but I was worried then she might ask me to do it more, you know. But it was stressful, and I had to make sure everything's ready. And you know, when you're doing all that stuff, and you know, she's a much better multitasker than I am, I'm trying to get pots down, plan, I got everything timed out and planned. You know, you can't cook it. The package says 18 minutes, 18 minutes it is. My wife, she'll be in the living room, I said, how much longer does it have? Oh, you know, four, seven minutes, you know. How do you know, you know? Do it to the package, 18 minutes. Got it cooked, got it finished. But man, you drop something, oh, it's frustrating, you gotta get it all together. Man, cat's coming in, get out of here, I'm trying to cook. All kinds of things. Those are good things. Martha was no doubt someone who cared about the little things. I tell you what, if you clean the church, those are some little things. You take care of where the pews are clean, make sure all the hymn books are put in the right spot, make sure the bathrooms are clean, make sure things look straightened up. Running the sound system can be A big thing, but a minor thing. Little details. You know, if the sound isn't right, you can get tired and fall asleep. And if the sound is better, it's too loud, you hurt your ears. You know, it's not good. You gotta find that in-between spot. There's important things. And Martha was cumbered with those things. She was busy. But yet, she missed the most important thing. Don't concentrate on the minor details and miss the major point. She was cumbered about. Notice, Martha came to Jesus. Well, this sounds like it's appropriate. I think it is. It says that Martha came to him. It says, after she was cumbered and came to him and said, you know, when we have problems and troubles, we ought to go to the Lord. I don't blame or fault Martha for that. I think she did what she was supposed to. She came to Christ. How often do we come to the Lord when we have problems and struggles? We try to think of it ourselves. I've mentioned this before in College Chapel, but I'm the kind of person that likes to solve problems myself. It's very difficult sometimes for me to get out of the mode to say, you know what, I need help right away. I need to stop trying to figure it out. I need to ask God for help. But that's what we need to do. And Martha went to the Lord. I don't see any verse here or part where it says she grumbled for herself for a long time. Maybe she was grumbling while she was doing it. I don't know. But it sounded like, from what he's going to tell her, that this is the next thing. Martha came to him, but Martha complained. Martha complained. It says, You can tell that you're lacking in your worship when your activity for God causes you to complain. You can tell you have a lack in your worship when your activity for God causes you to complain. Serving God is not cumbersome. Serving God is rejuvenating. It's life-giving because when filled with the Holy Spirit, He is our strength. He is our peace. He is our joy. And when we have those things, we aren't cumbered with the things that God gives us to do. Now, we get wearied and we get tired physically. That's natural. That's normal. We have rest. And you ought to get rest. But we ought not to ever be cumbered with the things that God gives us to do. And if we are cumbered, then we need to check the fact of the worship that we give God. Is it where it ought to be? You see, Martha was going to the Lord as she should, but she was complaining. Lord, doth not not care? Asking the Lord something she should already know. Do you not care? Well, of course he cares. The Bible tells us he cares. That my sister hath left me alone, serve alone? She made it sound pretty good, didn't she? I'm working hard. I'm busy. I'm doing the things that I know I ought to do. Prepare you a good meal. Listen, Martha, you know, overall, we say Martha had a bad spirit, and that's true, but overall, what was Martha's intentions? She wants to please God. She wants to please Jesus. She wants to make sure that Jesus has a wonderful hot meal ready for him. She wants to make sure all the glasses are properly put down, or cups. She wants to make sure all the utensils are in the proper place, that his napkin is folded correctly. What's wrong with those things? None of those things are wrong. wonderful hostess. But she lost sight of the big picture and she complained for the fact that Mary had an opportunity to do something that she didn't think she was able to do. But you know what? She could have. She could have stopped. She could have taken the time to sit at Jesus' feet. And she complained. Serving the Lord is not cumbersome. It's a joy. It's a privilege. It's an opportunity that we get to serve the Lord. Notice, if you would, those are Martha's actions, look at Mary's actions. Of course, verse 39, and she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet. Notice, first of all, Mary sat at Jesus' feet. Mary sat at his feet. Notice, she was not only at his feet, but notice the word sat indicates that she put herself in a position of purpose. When you spend time alone with the Lord, are you doing it with purpose? The other night, I took my wife out on a date. It's the first one we've had in a little while. We try to do it once a week, but it doesn't always work out. We had a good time, and I purposely plan when I spend time with my wife, I don't want to look at my phone. That's just something I decide to do, because she deserves my undivided attention. It's time with her. Now, we won't mention if she does the same for me. No, I'm just kidding. But we spent some time together. We have a good time. We laugh. We carried on. We had a good time. That's the purpose. If I were to sit down and say, I'm gonna go on a date, but I'm gonna think of all these other things, and I gotta serve the Lord, I've got things to plan, sermons to preach, I've got places to be to serve, I've got lessons to read and to learn to memorize for my classes, I'm not gonna get a whole lot of enjoyment, or she won't especially, out of the time I'm gonna spend with her, am I? But if I sit with purpose and I say, this is the time that's purposely planned for me and her to be together. We're gonna get a lot more enjoyment out of that time together, aren't we? The truth is the same for you and I when we spend time with the Lord. If you take time aside and you say, this is the time that I'm gonna take to spend time alone with Jesus, whether it's 30 minutes, whether it's an hour, whether it's two hours, split up two times a day, whatever it may be, you're gonna take time and you're gonna concentrate on nothing else but just being alone with the Lord Jesus. I tell you, it would help our Christian life a lot better. She sat at His feet. You know what's amazing? I love how Jesus puts things in Scripture. Notice that Jesus did not change His posture for her. She changed her posture for Him. What did she do? She sat at His feet. What does that mean? She's looking. That means she's looking up. She's looking up to Jesus. Jesus didn't have to, He comes to us, but we still give Him reverence and put Him in His proper place. We serve best when we're on our knees and praying and asking God and spending time with Him. She sat with purpose. When was the last time you sat ready with purpose to spend time with the Lord Jesus? You know, it's kind of funny. They say that I was reading some stuff about music and learning a little bit about, of course, sound systems and things, but, you know, there's a whole community of audiophile people out there, you know, and they've got some expensive sound equipment, more money than I would ever spend. Some of them are crazy, you know, but some of them have some truth to them. And they say, have you ever listened to music like you would watch a movie? You sit down, and you just sit there, and you just listen to a concert. That's all you do. Maybe it's Beethoven's 7th. I don't know. And just listen to it for an hour and a half, like you would watch something. Man, people today would be all kinds of distracted. They're looking at everything, phone ringing, children playing around, stuff going on outside, lawnmower, who knows what. That'd be difficult. But yet, they take the time and they say, let's just concentrate. How many times do people listen to music? Most of the time it's when they're doing other things, right? Cleaning the house, driving, going here, going there, studying this, studying that, you know. But yet, if we just take some time alone and spend it with Jesus, it would be a lot better than just listening to music. Now, listening to godly music is important. But spend some time alone with Jesus. I saw a funny post the other day on social media. When I do go on and look, I saw something by Pastor Ian Brown and it kind of made me laugh out loud. I shared it with a few people. But it's oftentimes how Christians, I think, tend to try and spend time with God. And had a little Asian boy, he's there surrounded by other students, and they're all looking at their books. Looked like they were studying pretty intently. And you saw him, of course, looking at his book, but he was turning a page like this, and he was grabbing his hands and just doing this. And he would grab and turn the next page, and he would just kind of scoop up and he would do this. Sometimes I think we as Christians kind of take the Bible real quick. I don't have much time, but let me just take this and pour it all over me. Just give it to me real quick. But that's how oftentimes we do it, don't we? Try to, how much of that are you going to keep? Probably not very much. But the Bible calls it meditating. Spending time alone with the Lord. Mary sat with not only purpose, but she sat with desire. Martha was cumbered about. She was busy serving, doing good things. But Mary said, I'm gonna listen to this man, the son of God, and I wanna hear what he has to say. She had a desire to hear what he had to say. How many times you come into church and you got all kinds of things in your mind and you don't just sit down with a purpose to listen to the message that God has for you? I've been distracted before. The devil loves to put things in your mind, especially things going on in your life, and just put them in right when the message is going on. I tell you, that's distracting. If I'm not careful, I might actually speak out during the, that'd be really embarrassing. I better just keep just saying amen, right? But that's the way it happens. Mary sat with desire. When was the last time that you and I sat with desire to study the Bible and hear from God's Word? Notice, secondly, she sat at Jesus' feet, but notice it says also that she heard His Word. She heard His Word. She listened and she adhered. Listened and adhered. Boy, it'd do us a lot of good if we would just listen and adhere to what God has for us. It'd help understand, we'd help know more about what God has for us. To be more satisfied with what God's plan is for us. To know that God has things in control. You know, this pandemic, it's not fun. And there's a lot of things we wish we could change right now. But God knew all that before it was ever going to happen. It didn't surprise God one tiny bit. But yet, what is God gonna do through us because of it? What opportunities have you had? She listened and she adhered, listening to the still, small voice. Notice, thirdly, look at Jesus' responses, and I'll be through. Notice verse 41. And, of course, the words here are read in my Bible, if you have a red-letter edition Bible, Jesus speaking. Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha. I've heard so many ways people say that he probably said this, and it's probably if you study the passage and maybe the root word and the way that it's mentioned, but some say he said Martha, Martha. Some say Martha, Martha. Maybe he's trying to get her attention. But either way, he calls her name twice. If my name was ever called twice when I was a child, I better listen. And it was always not just Bobby, it was Robert. It was the proper name on the birth certificate and the social security card. And if it was repeated twice, I better have ears as sensitive as nothing else. Because I better be listening. Jesus calls her Martha, Martha. Thou art careful and troubled. Root meaning of these words when you look at them very carefully. Root words meaning feeling anxious or bothered or worried. Trouble meaning uneasy, distracted or caused trouble. Now it's possible that when she was getting ready and doing the things she was doing, perhaps maybe she didn't have the wrong spirit right away. We don't know. We just know she had a bad spirit. But she was busy doing things, perhaps maybe it was something that happened in the kitchen while she was getting ready that caused the frustration. I'm sure nobody here has ever had any outbursts before. But something happens. The pan of the hot water drops, bang, falls on the floor. It's just water, thank goodness. Well, that's frustrating. Who knows what might have happened? Maybe she grabbed a pan, grabbed the wrong one, put it back on the shelf. Maybe she hit her elbow. Who knows? But she had a bad spirit. Jesus rebukes her. He rebukes her. He says, Have you ever had a time when you're just caught up in all kinds of things and the Lord just kind of stops you and says, You're caught up in too much. How about you just spend some time with me? But how many times do we resist that time that Christ wants to spend? He says, take my yoke upon you. My burden is light. Give it to the Lord, let Him carry it. Give it to Christ. The rebuke is, you are troubled. He tells her what's wrong. And oftentimes, Christ will tell us what is wrong in our lives. But do we listen? Do we pay attention? And then notice, secondly, the statement. He says, but one thing is needful. He says, Martha, you're worried about too many things. Don't forget the most important thing of all. Mary has chosen that good thing, and it ought not be taken away from her. Spending time with God and His Word will help you. You say, well, I've got, I don't have time for this. I've got housework to do. I've got cleaning to do. I've got studying to do. I've got things to prepare. I've got doctor's appointments to go to. Whatever the case may be, do you realize that studying the Bible is gonna help you be a better houseworker? You know, studying the Bible and reading the Bible and spending time alone with the Lord is gonna help you teach your lesson better. Studying and reading the Bible is gonna help you going to church and love church more. It's going to help you love your family more. It's going to help you be a better patient for your doctor. All those things are true. If we just take time to let the Holy Spirit speak to us and spend time with Him. You see Mary chose that good part. Notice it says, and it shall not be taken away from her. How many times have we allowed the Holy Spirit because of frustrating things that we've overcome with living the Christian life and we've hindered other people from getting their time alone with the Lord. See, it's not just about us, it's about other people. And notice he says, it shall not be taken away from her. Martha comes in and he's saying, she's spending time with you, Lord. I'm working. Can't you tell her to help me? And she's taking the time to spend time alone with Jesus. He said, it shall not be taken away from her. Martha, don't discourage her from spending time alone with the Lord. No doubt, we ought not to discourage other people from spending time with the Lord. You know, there's things we can say and actions we can take, and it may cause someone to say, well, maybe I just don't need that today. It's amazing, but it's true. We ought not to discourage other people. Think about Martha's and Mary's actions and then Jesus, the way he handles the situation. If I had a challenge to think about, of course, the most needful thing, let's not be too busy as Christians to spend time alone with the Lord, to spend time with God, to spend time reading the Bible. We often sing the hymn 329, Sitting at the Feet of Jesus. How often do we take time to stop, just stop, and spend time alone with the Lord? How are we doing today? Do we take that serious time? The best known Christians that I know are people who are close to God because they spend time with God. Psalm 119 says, You see, Martha wouldn't have been so offended had she loved the law a little bit more. Loved the Lord a little bit more. Been caught up in her desire and her love for God a little bit more. It said about David that he was a man after God's own heart. Wasn't a perfect man. But what did it say? I recently preached in elementary chapel for the young people, and we talked about the passage where David first comes on the scene with Saul. Saul's overcome with an evil spirit, and that David comes in and plays as they find David. And there's things that they said about him, many different things, but the last thing they said is that, and the Lord was with him. Is the Lord with you this morning? Have you spent time with him? And someone can look at you and say, God is with that person. I can tell the Lord is all over them and God's working in their life. That's the way it ought to be. You know, the world today is offended by a lot of different things. But if they would just come to know Christ as their Savior and come to know what God has planned for them, boy, it would make them not so offended. It would help them know God and help us to help other people to know that truth. Let's bow our heads in prayer.