Luke 10:38-42; Distracted Devotion

Robert Cunningham January 11, 2026 Faith Presbyterian Church Birmingham, AL Bulletin

Thank you for listening! Please visit us at www.faith-pca.org.

Chapters

• 0:47 Scripture Reading: Mary And Martha
• 1:42 Opening Prayer And Intent
• 3:07 A Son’s Burden And Our Control
• 6:05 Technology And The Illusion Of Sovereignty
• 8:34 Martha’s Service: Good vs Greater
• 11:38 Distraction’s Cost On Community
• 13:47 Anxiety, Identity, And False Worth
• 16:35 When Service Breeds Resentment Toward Jesus
• 19:48 Mary’s Posture: Sit And Listen
• 22:29 Pride, Control, And True Submission
• 25:38 Remembering Need Over Performance
• 28:30 Sabbath As Counterculture Rhythm
• 31:53 Closing Prayer For Rest

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:24

A passage I thought would be a fitting conclusion to our discussion this weekend on technology and its impact on our life comes to us from Luke chapter ten, verses thirty-eight through forty-two. Let me read that for us. Now, as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house, and she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. Amen. This is God's word. Let me pray. So, Lord, now we submit ourselves to the preaching of your word. Obviously, I don't know the ones you have uh gathered here this morning personally, uh, but the the good news is you do. You know them intimately, and you have them here for a reason. And I pray that your reasons would be accomplished. I confess before you and them that um the power over the next uh 30 minutes is not found in my skills or ability, but in your word and your spirit working in and through your word. So we surrender ourselves. I, as the preacher, surrender myself and um my friends surrender themselves to you and to your work and pray that we would be changed because uh we got up this morning and came to church. Um, that a seemingly mundane uh Sunday morning in January would be felt for years and even generations to come. And so we pray big prayers of what you are about to do, and we trust you with that work. Through Christ, we offer this. Amen. So that that that uh oldest son I just mentioned, he is your stereotypical firstborn rule follower, even rule enforcer in our family toward his brothers. Uh kind of has always viewed himself as the third parent of the family, which means um his whole life, um, he has had this proclivity that we've had to disciple him through and walk with him through. He's had this proclivity to take upon himself so many cares and concerns that a kid just shouldn't be worried about or even thinking about. Uh the story that kind of encapsulates all of this in my memory is when uh he was younger and we were in the car driving, and I could tell he was distraught over something. And uh, you know, seeing the rearview mirror is upset. And I said, Hey, but what's what's bothering you? And he said, It's our car. I said, our car? He said, Yeah, it's just such a mess. And and I don't understand it. I'm trying so hard to keep it clean, it just keeps getting messier and messier. It's just so frustrating. I said, buddy, why are you worried about our car? You're a kid. Be a kid, don't worry about it. And then uh very telling statement. He said, Well, if I don't, who will? Actually, pretty good point with the way we treat our cars. But I said, um, I said, Well, me, your mom, God has called us to be concerned with the family and all the family demands. And then in an even more telling statement, he said, But dad, you're not doing your job. Again, fair enough. But is that not a perfect picture of the delusional way we live our lives? Running around with the weight of the world upon us, killing ourselves with cares and concerns that are far greater than our capacity, overwhelmed, anxious, this incessant need for control and control of those we love. This is the American way. What happens when a culture idolizes productivity, success, achievement, advancement, excellence, significance, self-importance? What happens is it breeds a society of people who think they are way more significant than they truly are. Millions upon millions of people all running around thinking that this world is going to fall apart unless they are able to hold it together. And something has transpired over the past 20, 30 years that has exponentially intensified all of this pressure and performance anxiety. And it is the theme of our conference this weekend. The proliferation of technology has added fuel to the fire of our performance anxiety because technology gives the user an illusion of godlike ability and status. We want to be sovereign, and the power of technology convinces us that this is possible. Meaning we already tend towards self-reliance and self-sufficiency, the weight of the world on our shoulders. And now technology comes onto the scene to aid us in this unsustainable quest by convincing us that it actually is sustainable via the power of modern ingenuity and technology. And my fear is that Christians are no different. We may confess that God is sovereign, but we functionally live as though we must be sovereign. Unlike the rest of the world, we believe in a God who is in charge. But like my son, though we would never say the words, our lives are one big confession. But God, you're not doing your job. We act as though He needs us to fill in as sovereigns of our surrounding. And then technology deceives us into thinking it's actually possible for us to maintain the demands of that sovereignty. Therefore, Christians are exhausted while following a savior who promises rest for our souls. We are anxious while following a savior who promises peace that surpasses understanding. We are miserable in life while following a savior who promises life and life to the fullest. We are burdened and we are heavy laden while following a savior whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. Something is off, friends, and that is what our passage is going to confront this morning. It's really simple. We're going to care compare and contrast Martha and Mary. Just two points this sermon. We're going to look at the service of Martha and then the submission of Mary. Let's start with Martha, verse 38. Now, as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. Most of us are familiar enough with this passage to know that Martha is the bad example to follow here. And so, because of this, we are conditioned to kind of approach the passage knowing that and to kind of demonize her from the start, but that is not how you are supposed to see it. You are supposed to view her as the admirable one because that's what she appears to be in the passage. She eagerly welcomes Jesus into her home and she immediately begins serving him. Meaning she is doing everything we would do if Jesus were to come to our house for dinner tonight. Scrambling around to get everything in order. After all, the Lord Himself is coming over. And yes, if this were a modern setting, I'm picturing Martha with her phone out, Google, Chat GPT searching for the perfect recipe to cook for Jesus. Maybe a quick idea off of YouTube or Pinterest to beautify the house for Jesus, maybe air pods in, listening to a podcast about Jesus while she's running around serving Jesus, perhaps even returning texts or emails while serving Jesus because she can always multitask and impress Jesus, how she can be productive while she's serving him. You get the picture. But why is all of this a bad thing? She's being productive, busy, getting things done, working hard for Jesus. How can serving Jesus possibly be a bad thing? Well, the answer is that it's not necessarily a bad thing. It could be a good thing. The problem, however, is that the good thing has replaced the greater thing. Look at the wording of verse 40. But Martha was distracted with much serving. What is so interesting about the passage is that Jesus views Martha as the distracted one. But to us, Martha looks like the focused one, doesn't she? Working hard, getting done what needs to be done. So why does Jesus call this focused work distraction? Because Jesus views himself as the focal point. She's distracted not from her work, but from her worship. In her sincere desire to serve Jesus, she is ironically distracted from Jesus. And herein we find a vivid illustration of our lives as followers of Jesus. I don't know about you, but the biggest threats to my devotion to Jesus tend to be good things, not bad things. Yes, I am tempted by more obvious sins. And yes, at times I give in to those temptations. But the biggest reason I tend to neglect Jesus are the very things in my life that Jesus calls good and worthy of my devotion. My calling, my work, my family, my responsibilities, the endless needs of people that God has placed in my life. These good things that I could give you a verse for each that clearly states that God wants me to prioritize them as important, but not ultimately important. That alone belongs to Jesus. We typically think of obvious immorality as that which comes between us and Jesus, our relationship with Jesus. And absolutely that can be true. But for many of us, it's not the obscene content on our phones that is the problem. It's the endless information and demands on our phone that happens to be the problem. Most often, it's not the quote, bad sins standing in the way of Jesus. It's good things, noble things, things we were made to do for Jesus distracting us from Jesus. And what we need to see is that these more subtle distractions can be just as harmful and destructive as those big bad transgressions that we think of. And that actually shows up in the text. I want us to notice here how things quickly unravel for Martha. Her distracted devotion harms her. It harms her relationship with others, her relationship with herself, and her relationship with Jesus. Let me briefly show you each of those. Relationship with others. Continue on in verse 40. And she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me alone to serve? Tell her then to help me. Do you sense the resentment? Martha is busy serving, and Mary's just sitting there. And Martha becomes indignant. How dare you let me do all the work around here? Jesus, tell her to help me. Sounds like my children bickering over their chores. Sounds like my marriage bickering. Any other marriages here do the tit for tat dance of reward and retaliation of who's doing more around here? The point is simple. A distracted, performance-addicted, performance anxiety community will inevitably become a fractured community. Why? Because you're not in community, you are in competition. You place upon yourself and you place upon others unobtainable demands that Jesus Himself has not placed upon you and others. And thus, you become bitter that others, your spouse, your children, your peers, your coworkers, other church members, whoever it may be, you become bitter that others are not meeting your demands. Or you become envious and jealous and resentful that others are better at meeting these demands than you are. A community in bondage to performance anxiety does not feel like a community following the Lord whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. But it's not just relationship with others that is affected by her distracted devotion, also relationship with self. Continue on with verse 41. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but only one thing is necessary. Wow. How perfectly does Jesus describe so many of us in this room? He certainly nails the preacher in this room. Robert, Robert, you are anxious and troubled about so many things. I was in the hotel room uh yesterday. I was catching up with my wife. And she asked me how it was going. And I said, I just feel like I don't know. Um maybe it's just because, you know, I had the long Christmas break and all that, and I'm just now getting back into doing this stuff. But I just, I was like, babe, I just feel like my heart, my heart is just not there. Like I just hate doing this when it's not an overflow of my love for Jesus. And I just, I just feel like I'm I'm getting into that mode that I just, it's just gift reliance. And um, and then I just started going through the list of you know, all the stuff at home and all the stuff going on with kids, and she, like a good wife, stopped me and said, Robert, like stop, stop, be there, get on your knees in the hotel room, re-center your heart on Jesus, and then go serve the people that he's called you to serve. Brothers and sisters, when many things replace the one thing, we come undone. If you define yourself, your worth and value upon anything other than Jesus, even good things that have to do with Jesus. If we are consumed with anything other than Jesus, we will collapse. Now, why is this? Jesus gives us a clue. He says, Mary has chosen the good portion, namely me, and it will not be taken from her. Implication: everything else can and will be taken from us. Tell me why. Tell me why America is so miserable. Why? There is nothing we can't have, there is nothing we can't enjoy, there is no limit to opportunities, there is no limit to achievement, there is no limit to potential prosperity, and yet we are one of the most anxious and troubled societies on the planet, statistically speaking. How is it that the most prosperous culture in history is simultaneously the most miserable culture in history? I'll tell you why. We are the busiest, overachieving, distracted, performance addicted, technology addicted, anxious culture as well. We are all a bunch of Martha's. In fact, we celebrate it, don't we? She is the hero of American society. If you're not running around like Martha, there's something deficient within you. Even when we are not like Martha, we pretend we are so that others will be impressed. A mentor of mine said it best. I have two sins to confess. One, I'm a workaholic. Two, I love telling you that I'm a workaholic. But Jesus says to Martha and to us, What are you doing? You're killing yourself. You are one big anxious mess of expectations that I didn't give to you. You gave them to yourself. Brothers and sisters, it's you that's killing you, not Jesus. Jesus leads to abundant life. Our distracted devotion leads to abundant anxieties. But it doesn't end there. This doesn't just affect relationship with others and self, obviously, and most importantly, it hurts her relationship with Jesus. Ultimately, it's not Mary who is not Mary who is so troubling to Martha. It's actually the Lord. Listen to her words. Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me. Did you catch the irony in those words? Lord, okay, you can't address someone as Lord and then question their character and tell them what to do. And that is exactly what Martha does. Lord, do you not care? Tell her. Whenever either of those are the dispositions of our heart, Lord, don't you care? Or Lord, you should be doing this. When this is the dispositions of our heart, you know something is off in the soul. Whenever you look at the Lord Jesus and question his goodness, whenever you look at the Lord Jesus and tell him what he ought to be doing in your life, something is off. Here's what I think. I don't think Martha could articulate this, but here's what's going on. It's her pride that is standing in the way. She wants to be in control of this moment. Jesus is in her house. It's her time to shine. She wants to be needed. She wants to feel important. She wants to be impressive. Jesus is not the star of the show here. She is. But his glory he will not give to another. This moment is not about Martha and her southern hospitality. It is about Jesus. But it's so easy to miss because on the surface it looks like Martha is all about Jesus. After all, she's killing herself in service to him. And I don't think she's some deceitful hypocrite either. She genuinely loves Jesus, just like you genuinely love Jesus, but she's distracted just like we tend to be distracted. And serving Jesus has replaced being with Jesus. And that exchange bears fruit in resentment towards Jesus. He is no longer a joy, he becomes a burden. He isn't freeing, he is enslaving. And in so doing, we turn Jesus into what every other religion views of God a depersonalized duty rather than a personal delight. So when we like Martha forget Jesus and our distracted devotion to Jesus, we like Martha create this performance anxiety mess toward others, toward ourselves, and ultimately towards Jesus. Now let's turn to Mary for a better way forward. So we've seen the service of Martha. Let's consider now the submission of Mary. Verse 39. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. There it is. That is the posture that Jesus wants from every single one of us. Two verbs, not that difficult to pull off. Sit and listen. Christianity is a sit and listen religion. We may pervert it into a walk and talk religion, but truly, God calls us to two actions sit and listen. That is to say, He doesn't want your service. He wants your submission. Now, you are going to discover that as both freeing and challenging. Its freedom is found in this. All Jesus wants from you is you. Not what you can give him, not what you can produce for him, just you, beloved. I know we feel pressure, guilt, shame, burdens. I'm not good enough. I'm not doing enough, more, more, more, more, more for Jesus to be a good Christian. But please understand that these are all expectations that we heap upon our own souls. Jesus is shouting to us in this text: stop it. Would you just settle down? Lay it down, put the phone down so that I can see your face and you can see mine. Relax, sit, and listen. I literally just want to be with you. Doesn't that feel good? So in this way, the application is very freeing. But if it is so freeing and seems so simple, then why are we so bad at living it out? Well, that gets to why this is a challenge. Return again to verse 39. And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. Here's the point. This isn't any kind of sitting and listening. This is sitting at the Lord's feet and listening to his teaching. If you are anything like me and every Christian I know, that type of sitting and listening is hard. This isn't sitting listen to Netflix. This isn't sitting listen to your social media feed. This isn't sitting listen to the latest podcasts. This isn't sit and listening to doom scrolling through an endless feed of advertisements and content and promoting the idols of the world. I don't know about you, but that type of sitting and listening comes very natural to me. What doesn't come natural and what I struggle with is to sit at the Lord's feet and listen to his teaching. My literal job is to stand up and talk about Jesus, but ironically, I find it hard to sit down and listen to Jesus. And I'm assuming I'm not alone. So what this means is that we are going to have to work really hard, harder than Martha is working in our passage, to emulate Mary in our passage. Or as Hebrews 4 tells us, we must strive to enter the rest that is ours in Jesus. Somehow, in this neurotic, busy, distracted, performance-addicted, technology-addicted, anxious culture of ours, where Martha is a hero to emulate rather than an idol to repudiate, somehow we are going to have to be a counter-cultural people in our work to sit and listen and find rest for our souls. And not only this, but we're going to have to humble ourselves. Like I said, the deeper reason behind the Martha-ness inside of us is our pride. At the end of the day, this text is all about submission. That is why I labeled Martha as service and Mary as submission. The problem with Martha is that she is up running around as though Jesus needs her to serve him. But Jesus doesn't need Martha's efforts at all. This is so subtle but important to see in the passage. Nowhere else does this happen in the Gospel of Luke. Look closely at verse 41. But the Lord answered her. Everywhere else in Luke, when Jesus responds to someone, it says, He answered or Jesus answered. But here and only here, Luke says, but the Lord answered her, as if to say, Who do you think you are? I am Lord, not the other way around. You need me. I don't need you. Again, Martha couldn't articulate this, but in reality, her actions are a self-righteous power play on Jesus. Her busyness is a form of control rather than surrender. And you know that's true of your busyness as well, right? You know it's a pride thing. You know it's a control thing. You know you can't sit still because your pride won't let you. But Jesus will have it no other way. We need him. He does not need us. He comes to serve, he works for us, he suffers for us. He rose for us. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. So let's make one thing clear. Jesus does not need you. You need Jesus. Jesus does not need your service. You need his service. And when you recognize that change in position, it will free you from the performance anxiety of your distracted devotion. You know, my uh firstborn son would stop acting like the third parent in our family growing up when he was in need, when he was sick, or he was hurt, or when he was struggling, or you know, bad day at school, drama with friends, when he had a bad sports game or something like that, when it was just too much, and he just needed his parents. When he was the one in need, all the burdens that he carried were forgotten, and it was just him in need of his dad. You know what I think you need? I think you need to remember your need. As in the hour you first believed this lovely gospel that is big enough to handle your desperate needs, you need to remember your need. It's an amazing thing that we do. We are converted by the good news that we desperately need Jesus, and Jesus will meet every need, and then we grow as Christians, whatever that means. And this is Christian growth. I should be needing him less by now. Who told you that? The Bible did not. You are still that childlike, needy center, trusting in a sufficient savior. But how do we get there? This all sounds great, but I might just be adding more burdens here, right? Oh, great. Another area where I'm failing. I'm so terrible at sitting and listening to Jesus. Gotta get better. Uh, what book should I read? Podcast, listen to. Is there an app to tell me how to sit and listen really well? And in this way, a sermon on sitting and listening becomes another heavy burden to add to your list. I'm gonna make application really, really easy for all of us this morning because I think it is the spirit of our passage. Um, an application um that uh I failed to to to to mention in the Q ⁇ A that I wanted to, but I but I will hear in closing in the sermon. A great application of the conference um is this there is a God ordained blueprint to escape our crazy, anxious, performance-addicted, technologically efficient society of ours. Jesus already told us long ago how to sit and listen at his feet. Six days you shall work on the seventh, you shall rest. Friends, honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. The biggest part of that you are doing right now as we speak. Jesus has ordained a weekly event where we gather together to sit and listen at his feet. Don't you think? Let's put it this way. Aren't you glad you came to church this morning? Don't you think that you're gonna leave here a little freer, lighter, a little more at peace, at rest, ready to flourish this week? You know why that is? Because you set your distractions aside, you turned your phones off, and you have sat at the feet of Jesus through the preaching of his word and the singing of hymns and the confession of sins and assurance of pardon and reciting the creeds and the prayers of the people and soon partaking of the holy sacrament, this is where Jesus is found. So enjoy him here every single week. Combat your distracted devotion to Jesus Christ with a singular devotion to Sabbath worship of Jesus Christ. And then my suggestion, now more than ever, I say you make the rest of Sunday the best day of your week. Screens off, rich fellowship with family and friends, life-giving activities that you love so much but never have time for, creative fun, laughter, and feasting. The best meals of your week ought to be Sabbath meals. Take a nap. Go for a prayer walk in God's creation. Plan fun and silly events with your friends and family. Make love to your spouse, play with your kids, turn your phones off and enjoy God's gift of the Sabbath. Six days you shall work. On the seventh day, you shall sit and listen at the feet of Jesus. It really is that simple. In our crazy world of distraction, practice the Sabbath and rest in Jesus, who is our ultimate Sabbath rest. Let me pray. Lord, help us to do that. It sounds so good in these sacred walls of corporate worship, but we know what is waiting. We know what is waiting when we leave church and we check our phones. We know the bombardment of responsibilities and anxieties that is waiting for us after the benediction is pronounced. I pray that you would give us the grace, the courage, the humility to say that can wait. Today, I sit and listen at the feet of Jesus with my family, with my roommates, with my friends. Help us to practice the Sabbath and give us the ability by your spirit throughout the week to create rhythms, to sit and listen at your feet. Let this church be a protesting community to the craziness that has become of our world. Let this church be a space where the surrounding community sees them and says they're flourishing and they're full of life and laughter and peace and joy. And Lord, may their doors be open wide to welcome in the weary, to find rest for their souls. Jesus, we don't have what it takes. We're going to want to return to our control and our performance. Help us to rest in you and in you alone. For your glory and the good of your people who have gathered, we pray. Amen.