I. Laboring and Learning Out of Balance (verses 38-40a)
II. Laboring and Learning Out of Balance Result in Complaining (v. 40b)
A. Martha complains about Jesus (v. 40c)
You have to say Martha is no respecter of persons: “Don’t you care, Jesus?” Of course He cares, Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51) to die for the sins of all sinners.
B. Martha criticizes Mary (v. 40d)
After Martha criticizes Jesus, she bosses Mary. Martha not only had her own To Do List, which was like the law of the Medes and Persians that alters not, she had a To Do List for every one else. Have mercy on you if you did not live up to her To Do List for you.
Warren Wiersbe, “If serving Christ makes us difficult to live with or work with, then something is terribly wrong with our service.”
III. Laboring and Learning Out of Balance Corrected (vv. 41-42)
A. Martha is Corrected (v. 41)
1. Martha is corrected for anxiously spending time on the wrong priorities, “You are worried about many things.” Jesus is not rebuking service for Him. In Luke 10:25-29, Jesus asked a seeker, “What is written in the Law?” The seeker answered correctly: “Love God and Love People.”
a. In 10:30-37, Jesus gives an example of loving people in the good Samaritan incident.
b. In 10:38-42, Jesus gives an example of loving God with the Mary and Martha event.
Jesus is correcting service at the expense of worship.
2. Martha is corrected for criticizing Mary for correctly worshipping before service. Martha is so busy trying to run other people’s lives, she is blind to her own faults.
B. Mary is Praised (v. 42)
1. Mary chose “one thing” that was spiritually and eternally important: Time alone with the Word. Mary knows time in the Word is more important than the approval of the Marthas.
In John 12, Mary publically worships Christ, when she pours out a year’s worth of offerings on Jesus. Private worship feeds public worship.
A. W. Tozer: “If you will not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him one day a week.”
Geoffery Thomas, a Welsh Baptist, “There is no way that those who neglect secret worship can know communion with God in the public services of the Lord’s Day.”
2. Mary chose the better meal. “Mary has chosen that good part or portion.” While Martha was frantically preparing a meal for the outward man that is perishing, Mary was relaxed enjoying a spiritual meal that was renewing the inward man. Jesus said earlier, “Man does not live by bread alone but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”
Mary is calm, focused, relaxed and quiet. I hear someone say, “I wish I could sit at Jesus’ feet like Mary.” We can meet at Jesus’ feet just like Mary by spending serious time in His Word. We don’t know how many times Mary got to sit at Jesus’ feet in His three year public ministry of traveling and preaching. Probably not that many times. We can in essence sit at His feet daily when we open His Word and read, study, and meditate.
C. Martha learns and grows.
In John 12:1-2, Martha is serving but with a totally different demeanor. She is focused on one thing, calm not worried, relaxed not trouble and quiet not fretting about others.
Apparently, Martha learned that private worship precedes public service. If you worship alone with God you can worship when you work for God.
Old Brother Lawrence who wrote The Practice of the Presence of God said, “If I’m washing dishes I do it to the glory of God and if I pick up a straw from the ground I do it to the glory of God. I’m in communion with God all the time.”
