At His Feet, Part 1

Welcome, friends and new listeners. I'm Sharon Otz, thanking you for joining us today on The Sound of Faith, because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Today's message at the feet of Jesus is an intimate word for His disciples who desire to draw nearer to Him, who have discovered in the midst of this topsy-turvy, even chaotic world we live in, where we are often pulled in many directions and face situations that can break our hearts and drain our spirits. There is one thing that is needful and one place that is safe at the feet of Jesus. Amen.

Want to give a big God bless you to all the mothers and grandmothers and godmothers. Amen. Thank the Lord for Holy Ghost filled godmothers who look for after us when we're younger.

Amen. To mentor us in the ways of the Lord. That's what God told the women to do. So you older women, I don't mean you're old, you're just older, that you are to exhort and encourage the young ones. And this morning, my message is not a Mother's Day message per se.

However, it is a message that really appeals to women, but it's still it's still guy friendly. OK, so the word of God is parallel. So everything we read in His word is for all of us. And I was going through my Mother's Day file, but the Lord brought me back to this message. It's been a long time since I preached it.

And I felt that that's what He wanted me to bring forth this morning. And if you have your Bibles, turn with me in Luke, the 10th chapter. And we're going to read about two women who were sisters. And, you know, I'm sure you've heard of them, Mary and Martha.

They were the sisters of Lazarus. And they lived in Bethany, which was very close to Jerusalem. It would be like that you worked in Baltimore City, but you lived in Glen Burnie. And so you would go back and forth.

That's kind of how it was. Jesus went to Jerusalem to preach every day in the temple. But in the evenings, He would go and often to their home in Bethany and stay there with His disciples.

Amen. So we're reading in Luke, the 10th chapter and verse 38. Now it came to pass as they went that He entered into a certain village and that is Bethany. 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 words. I want to direct your attention to the fact that the writer is saying that one sister was named Martha and the other sister was called Mary. Now, it's very possible that there is no distinction between named and called.

In fact, they were used interchangeably. But we have to consider the fact that this particular gospel is written by Luke. And Luke was a Gentile.

He was a physician and he was skillful in the Greek language. That means we should pay attention to his wording. And if he said that one was named Martha and the other was called Mary, he may have been trying to draw our attention to something. Because, you know, Luke is the one that of all the four gospels, he wrote certain things the other three did not write about the emotions that a person was feeling. For instance, when he talked about Mary being visited by Gabriel and after having the baby and all, he talked about her emotional state. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. When we go to Gethsemane and Jesus is in his greatest agony that he ever endured as a human on this planet. And we know that he was in great agony and we know all the things that were going on.

But only Luke bothers to tell us that it being in such agony that his sweat came as drops of blood falling to the ground because that was a medical condition. So I'm just pointing these things out to maybe allow us to consider that maybe Luke was telling us something here about Martha being named Martha and Mary being called Mary. Now let's talk about Martha for a minute. Folks, Martha was the proverbial Martha Stewart of Bethany. Amen. Her house was immaculate.

The laundry was all clean, folded up and put away. Everything was shiny and nice. Her house, the aroma was coming out of the kitchen of freshly baked bread and wonderful stews. Amen. She was named Martha and she lived up to her name.

Amen. But Mary was so different from her sister. She was quiet. She was pensive. She was reflective. And whenever Jesus came to their house, she wanted to be at Jesus feet. That's where Mary wanted to be is at the feet of Jesus. Amen. Do not assume that that means that she was lazy. Let's see what is being told here. She suspended her natural activities when Jesus came to their house.

Amen. She was called Mary. Now let me tell you that Mary is the Greek form of her name, but she was Jewish as were Jesus and all the other people that we read about in the New Testament. And the Hebrew form for Mary is Mariam. Remember Moses' sister? Her name was Mariam. That's really what this Mary's name was. That's really the name of the mother of Jesus, Mariam and all the other Marys, Mary Magdalene.

They were all really Mariam. If you buy yourself a Jewish New Testament, they do exist. If you buy a Jewish New Testament, they've changed all the names to the Hebrew.

And you will find that you will not see Mary in there. You'll see Mariam. And so her name was really Mariam. So let's go back to the Hebrew root. Where did the word or the name Mariam come from? It comes from the word Mara, M-A-R-A, Mara.

And the word Mara means bitter. The first time we're introduced to this word is in the book of Exodus. The children of Israel had just come out of Egypt and they had traveled for three days and they had not found water. So you can imagine being in the Sinai desert for three days with no water. They're very thirsty. And on the third day they came up to a stream and they got all excited, water, water. And I'm sure you begin to filter back through all, you know, that huge number of people, at least 2 million.

We all can agree 2 million, some say as much as 3 million people. There's water, there's water. But when the first ones ran down there to get a drink, they're nasty, awful. The Bible says they begin to say Mara, Mara, Mara, it's bitter, it's bitter. It was undrinkable.

It was bitter. Amen. And so I just got to throw this little aside in there. I have to, they all begin to complain. This is number one complaint on the road to many more to come. This is the number one time. And so Moses is like, Lord, what am I going to do?

These people have a legitimate right to be upset. They are three days with no water, but you see God does everything for a purpose. Nothing is accidental or coincidental in God's word. He said, Moses, get a tree and dip it in the water. And when he did the waters were made sweet.

Now, how did that happen? God was setting a prototype because one day Jesus was going to hang on the tree and all your bitterness that you brought out of the world, out of Egypt, all the bitterness and the junk and the bad stuff that happened to you when you were in the world, when you have the cross, when you come to that tree, he's going to turn the bitterness into sweet. And the Bible says that the waters were made sweet and they were able to drink them. So that's where the word Miriam comes from. So the name Miriam, i.e.

Mary, means bitter. Hold your place in Luke because we're going to read again there. But if you want to, you can follow me real quickly. Go to the Book of Ruth. It's a little book.

It's only four chapters. It's only four pages, but it's sandwiched in between Judges and First Samuel. If you find First Samuel, then you want to make a left turn.

If you find Judges, make a right turn. And there's the Book of Ruth. I only want to read a couple scriptures, but I want to show you about this name Miriam and the word Mara, meaning bitter. Now, Naomi and her husband with their two sons had left where their hometown in Israel of Bethlehem. And Bethlehem in Hebrew means house of bread. Beit means house and lechem means bread. They left the house of bread because the famine had come to Israel.

Guess where they went? They went to Moab. Moab was under a curse of God. The Moabites were under a curse of God because when Israel came out of Egypt, they wouldn't help them. They wouldn't let them pass through the land. And God had cursed them. How can a Christian go to the land of cursings and expect to be blessed?

Amen. So they went there and guess what happened? Within 10 years, her husband died and her two sons died. She had two daughters in law. You all know about them, Ruth and Orpah, hence the Book of Ruth. And Naomi says, I'm going back home to my people. And of course, I'm not teaching on Ruth, so we won't go into all of the elaborate on the details.

One daughter in law said, I'm staying. And Ruth went with her. Now they're traveling back to Bethlehem and they finally get there. That's where we're going to take up the story in Chapter one, verse 19.

So they too went until they came to Bethlehem and it came to pass that when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them. And they said, Is this Naomi? And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.

I went out full and the Lord hath brought me home again empty. Why then call you Naomi? Let me tell you what Naomi means.

It means pleasant. Why call you me pleasant, seeing the Lord hath testified against me and the Almighty hath afflicted me. So this is what happened because they had gone where they shouldn't have gone and they had gotten out from under the blessings of God.

We see people do it all the time. We see people, they for whatever reason, they get down, they get discouraged, they get carnals that someone hurts their feelings. They have a bad taste in their mouth because something went wrong in church. Someone did them wrong. Maybe the preacher offended them.

Maybe the preacher ran away with the secretary. Whatever the reason. It happens, folks.

It happens. They said, That's it. I'm leaving. I'm leaving.

I'm not, I'm not going to church anymore. And they go out into the world and they think that once that everything is going to be wonderful. Amen. And you know, things come to us in different ways.

You may be prospering financially and everything be fine financially, but you may not have that inward joy and peace and satisfaction. Amen. And so she came back and she was bitter and imagine they haven't seen her for 10 years. Now I understand what 10 years can do to your face when you're in your middle ages. Believe me, you don't think so. If you're 50 look at your picture when you were 40.

Amen. I know that 10 years can do stuff to your face, but I don't think it wasn't because they didn't recognize her. There was something about her. There was something about her demeanor. There was something about her confidence. She, this was Naomi who was pleasant and happy and joyful.

But now she says, don't call me that name, Naomi. Call me Mara. I am bitter. I'm back, but I'm broken. I'm a childless widow.

I've lost it all. Now we're not teaching on this story so I won't tell you anymore, but just let me say this. Folks, it has a good outcome.

It turns out really good. You can read that later on your own, but let's go back to Luke. I wanted you to see how that Luke could be referencing something like this. One sister was named Martha, but the other sister was called Miriam or was called bitter.

Amen. So maybe that was not the name that she was born with. You know, like my dad, brother Hardy, his name is Robert. If you would go into Walmart and you'd say, Hey Robert, about 25 guys would probably turn around, but not one of them would be my father. He doesn't answer to Robert.

He would have no idea you met him. But if you said, Hey Peck, Peck, P E C K, he'd probably be the only one who would turn around. He was named Robert, but he's been called Peck. His mama named him Robert George Hardy, but since he was a little boy, he's been called Peck.

And the story behind that is, is he was such a mean rascal of a kid. And there was a cartoon out called Peck's bad boy. And that's why they, because you know, he predates Dennis the menace.

My dad predates Dennis the menace. Otherwise he might be called Dennis. But because that cartoon or that story was out about Peck's bad boy, and he was such a bad boy that they called him Peck and it stuck and everybody called him Peck. Even today, my mom calls him Peck. All of their personal friends call him Peck. Um, my cousins all call him uncle Peck.

Amen. So he was named Robert, but he was called Peck. And isn't it possible that Mary here was named something else, but she was called Mary because something in her life had taken her joy. Something had broken her heart. Something had wounded her spirit.

Something had left her bitter. Amen. And that is why possibly that every time that Jesus came to their house, she suspended all activity to sit at the feet of Jesus because there was something in his words that could heal a broken heart.

Amen. Because let me tell you something. Broken people are desperate people. When a person is broken and wounded, they are desperate. And if they have the wonderful blessing to know the Lord, they know where they can go for healing.

They know where they can run. That's why if you have unsaved loved ones, husband, wife, children, whatever, whoever they may be, and you see that something comes in their life to wound them, to break them, to cause them to be bitter, if they know how to call on Jesus, they are so much more blessed than the sinner out there who doesn't know. And you need to just keep praying. And sometimes you cannot deliver them out of their situation because God is using it to bring them to himself. So Mary was drawn to Jesus. Mary, this Mary is mentioned three times in the Bible and all three times. Guess where she is? She's sitting at the feet of Jesus. Now let's read the next two verses here in Luke, verse 40. But Martha was cumbered about much serving and she came to him and said, Lord, does thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?

Bid her therefore that she help me. That tone makes me uncomfortable. I can't see saying, Lord, don't you care? But how many know we've all done it? Have you ever put your hands on your spiritual hips and said, Lord, I don't get what's going on here? The devil's getting away with this.

And you're letting him. We've all been there and done that. Amen. And so Martha says, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me here all alone to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she helped me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, everybody say it together on three, two, three.

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. You see, Martha complained that she was doing all the serving and she wanted Jesus to make Mary get up from his feet and come in that kitchen and help her. Notice, notice Martha didn't want to trade places with Mary. She didn't say it's not fair. I never get a chance to sit at your feet and hear your words.

I think it's only fair if we take turns. No, she didn't ask to switch places. She wanted Mary to come and help her. And this word in the Greek where it says help her is only found one other place in the whole New Testament. And that's in Romans 826.

Don't turn there. I'll tell you what it says. It's the scripture we all know. And the spirit itself helpeth our infirmities, our weaknesses, for we know not what to pray for as we ought, but he makes intercession for the saints with groanings which cannot be uttered. It's a real long Greek word.

I'm not even going to try to say it. It's made up of three different words, but basically it means to come alongside somebody and help them. And that's what the Holy Spirit does for us. When we are weak and sometimes we don't even know how to put the words and to verbalize what to say to the Lord, but the Holy Spirit comes alongside of us.

Amen. He doesn't do all our praying for us. He prays and intercedes with us. He, we open our mouth and sometimes all that comes out are groanings and moanings. And we have no idea what we're saying, but when we're done, it feels so good. It's medicine for the soul. It heals our spirits.

Amen. And so when she said come alongside me, she wanted her to serve next to her. She wanted her to share the burden of the cooking and the preparation. But Jesus said, Martha, Martha, and you see the doubling of the name is significant. The doubling of the name could mean frustration. Has your mama ever looked at you and said your name twice?

Amen. Has your husband or wife ever looked at you and said your name twice? Don't raise your hand. I'm going to pick a name and I hope nobody here is named. I'll pick the name that my mother said when I was a little girl. The first time I heard this name, I fell out laughing and embarrassed my mother so much in front of the kid's mother. His name was Sylvester.

Sylvester, Sylvester. You can't even say that thing without laughing. When someone doubles your name, they're either very frustrated and listen to me or they're trying to gently scold you. They're trying to scold you, but in a gentle way, but either way you want to look at it.

They're trying to get your attention. You don't get it. And instead of grabbing you by your shoulders and shaking you to death, they say, Sharon, Sharon.

Amen. So that's what Jesus did. He said, Martha, Martha. And he goes on to tell her, he told her the three things. He said, you are careful and you are troubled. And we already read that she was cumbered.

Remember, we read that in verse 40. So Martha had three things going on. She was cumbered, she was careful, and she was troubled. So the word cumbered means, and you know, I'd like to say it the way we would say it, encumbered.

How many recognize it now? Encumbered. You know, they call that thing men put about their waste a cumberbund. So what does the word mean? It means to distract someone, you know, to surround them with distractions and then to draw them away, to overoccupy them with cares.

We heard that in verse 40. Now Jesus out of his own mouth said, you're careful and you're troubled. And the word careful means to be anxious, to have anxiety. You know, I never heard of such a thing when I was growing up, but now you hear it all the time. People having anxiety attacks and panic attacks. There was no such thing that I know of growing up, but now it's very common.

Amen. Anxiety attacks and panic attacks. He said, you were anxious. You were so distracted that she would get herself worked up. And then when she would get worked up, she would be aggravated at her sister because she wanted her sister to be in there helping her and not marry.

She's sitting there relaxed and quiet and happy and content while Martha is about to pull out her hair. He said, you're troubled. The word in Greek is turbolizo and we get the word turbid to make turbid. That means to be in disorder, to be jumbled together. And it especially speaks of the mind for the mind to be disordered for the mind to be jumbled together. Literally it refers to turbid waters refer to if you would stir the water up and all the mud and the sediment on the bottom would begin to come up and mix with the waters. And what happens?

They become muddy and murky. And think of that as a condition of the mind of the state of mind. And that's what Jesus said about Martha. He said, you are distracted and you are in disorder.

Now to me, I've got to tell you, it sounds like an oxymoron. How can Martha be the proverbial Martha Stewart of Bethany with the orderly house with matching towels in the bathroom and matching comforter and drapes in the bedroom and the China and the cloth napkins and the proper silverware and all of that, a perfectly orderly house and yet have disorder in her mind. Amen. But that's what Jesus said. He said, Martha, you're out of order.

That's what he said. You're out of order because she put more emphasis on the natural than the spiritual. She was so distracted. And here's the thing. Distractions lead to distortions because when you get distracted, you get a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

You don't get the whole picture on this, nor do you get the whole picture on that. You know how it is. Maybe you're, you're listening to something on the radio or you're watching something important on television. Maybe it's a documentary or news report and you really want to hear the details. It's piqued your interest and you're listening, but somebody walks in the room and starts talking to you. You really want to say, shut up, I'm listening to this.

I'll talk to you in a minute, but you figure if you do that, you'll probably have an argument on your hands. So what do you do? You try to listen to the report and listen to them so you at least have an idea what they're saying. And when they finish, they'll say, so do you think we should do that? And you're like, uh, what was that again? We were saying we should do, you know, tell me that at one part again. So you only got a little bit of this and now you've got the news report all messed up and you'll go tell somebody and start a big rumor that's not even true.

I saw it on the news, but you were distracted. So you got distorted messages. Amen.

You got distorted messages and the problems with distortions left unchecked. They can turn into false perceptions. Amen. And you know how it is if somebody has a perception of something though it's false, it's real to them.

And if it's real to them, they will have whatever the consequences are because that's the way they see it and that's the way they think it and they'll proceed accordingly. Amen. And so Jesus, he was scolding her, but he was doing it in a gentle and kind way. Martha, Martha, maybe you don't get it.

You don't understand it. You don't see why your sister is sitting here the way she is, but she has chosen the good part. I believe that for Mary, this was absolutely essential for the healing of her mind and soul. Amen.

It was absolutely essential that she spend this time with Jesus and Mary and Martha did not understand it. Amen. Now it's the same way with you and I. We have got to make choices like Mary made a choice what we want to do. Amen. We are so bombarded with so many distractions. I mean, you don't have to be bound by alcohol or drugs. You don't have to be caught up in some kind of perversion like pornography.

I mean, yes, they are huge distractions. Amen. Doesn't mean that that's your problem, but maybe you just tend more to the carnal things. You are more into, like Martha, you are more into serving the pleasures of the flesh than you are at sitting at Jesus feet and being served the treasures of the spirit.

And so he said, no, Martha, I'm not going to tell Mary to come in here and help you. She understands that one thing is needful and she's chosen that one good thing and it's not going to be taken away from her. And you have to choose and I have to choose and we can choose the good things that will feed our spirits, build up our inner man, give us joy and happiness and hope, even in the midst of all kinds of distractions and troubles. Or we can choose the utter frustration and the utter futility of trying to appease and satisfy your flesh because that is one possibility. The flesh is never satisfied. Never. The more that you cater to its desires and whims, the more it demands your flesh is bossy.

It's bossy and it's domineering. And when you think, well, I'll just do this. No, then the next thing you'll be doing that. Amen.

That's how it works. Amen. But he said, no, Mary thinks it's more important. I know Martha, nobody in Bethany, Martha, nobody in Jerusalem bakes bread like you bake bread.

You're the best. But Mary would rather sit and get fresh manna from heaven. Amen.

Because she knows that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And folks, once you have tasted heavenly manna, you are spoiled. I said you are spoiled. Amen. Once you have tasted the good word of God, once you have tasted of the Holy Spirit and the powers of the world to come, Paul said in Hebrews, you are spoiled.

Nothing else will satisfy you again. Amen. And you know, I found out you cannot shame people. You cannot scold people. You cannot berate people into becoming more spiritual to get them to come to church, to get them to pay their tithes, to get them to join the choir, to get them to go on to street meetings, to participate in things.

You can't berate them to do that. You've got to inspire them to do that. Amen.

You say, well, how do you do that? Well, if you can feed them some fresh manna from heaven, if you can serve them some real good spiritual beef steak and they get a taste of that, they're not going to want McDonald's hamburgers anymore. They're going to say, I want to go get some prime rib. Amen. If you can do what God said through the prophet Jose, when that is a parallel of the backslidden nature and condition of Israel. And you know that Jose's wife was a prostitute and you know that after they were married and had kids, she backslidden, went back out there on the streets. And you know what God said?

And it's a parallel. He's speaking about Gomer, but he's also speaking about Israel. He said, I know what I'll do. I will lower them into the wilderness. I will allure them into the wilderness. And when I get them in the wilderness, I'm going to take the Bible and I'm going to beat them over the head till they straighten up.

That's not what he said. He said, when I get her out in the wilderness, I'm going to speak kindly to her. I'm going to speak gently to her.

I'm not going to rub it in her face that look what you did. You went back to the pigsty. You will backslidden heifer you know, she knew that she didn't need nobody to tell her that.

He said, I'm going to tell her I missed you. I've been waiting for you. I've been waiting for you to come back to me. And when you come back to me, I'm going to restore to you the years of the canker worm. And I'm going to restore to you the years of the Palmer worm and the caterpillar, which are all devourers.

I'm going to restore to you. Amen. Amen. I trust you are encouraged by our message at the feet of Jesus. You may be familiar with the story of Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. You may remember Martha was the proverbial Martha steward of Bethany, who loved to cook and host dinners for Jesus and his disciples. But when her sister Mary chose to sit at Jesus feet and hear his words, Martha wanted him to rebuke her and tell her to help her in the kitchen. Martha didn't want to trade places with Mary.

She didn't ask to have a turn at Jesus feet. Of course, Jesus replied, you are anxious and distracted by many things. But one thing is needful. One thing is important and paramount. And Mary has chosen that one thing, and I will not take it away from her. Every time Mary is mentioned in the scripture, she is sitting at Jesus feet. It was her choice to sit and be served by her Lord. And he said she has chosen the best part. It is our choice to we can choose the good part and feed our spirits. Or we can choose the frustration and futility of trying to please our fleshly desires. There's an unusual twist to Mary's story.

Why did Luke say that Martha was named, but Mary was called? Find out by ordering at his feet on CD for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request SK123.

That's SK123. Mail to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Or go online to soundoffaith.org and order on MP3 as well. But to order by mail, send your minimum love gift of $10 to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203 and request SK123. Till next time, this is Sharon Ott singing, Maranatha.