At the Feet of Jesus
“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.
Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.”
Isaiah 26:3-4
Last Sunday I referred to the above verse and its relation to Isaiah 30:15, “In returning and rest you will be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” I would like to connect these verses to a scene and teaching in the ministry of Jesus to help us better understand what is being taught and how we can apply these teachings to our lives.
In Luke 10:38 Jesus enters a village and is welcomed into the home of two sisters – Mary and Martha. These two sisters were opposites. When Jesus came into their home the audience of disciples came in as well, and Jesus began to teach. Mary sat at the feet of Jesus listening to and considering the precious words of the Son of God. However, Martha saw many people in her home and a need to serve them all. As Jesus taught, Martha was hustling to make sure the “needs” of the people were met. It was her perception that the priority of the moment was to physically serve the people. The crowd of people created a significant amount of work. As she hustled back and forth doing what she felt was important, with each pass she saw her sister sitting there doing “nothing.”
At some point in her frustration, Martha actually goes up to Jesus, interrupts His teaching, rebukes Jesus, and works to publicly shame her sister. Martha starts with Jesus. She’s so exasperated that everyone is listening to Jesus, and no one is helping her – especially not her sister – that she accuses Jesus of being hard-hearted. She then appeals to Jesus to make Mary help her with her work of hospitality. Martha expects Jesus to back her and to be vindicated in front of the crowd as the righteous and industrious sister.
Jesus in His perfect love and patience turns the situation around completely. With compassion Jesus overlooks Martha’s rudeness and pride, and He directly points out that her value system is all out of order. Jesus points out that she is anxious and troubled in her soul about many things. This lack of rest in her soul drives her to “work more for Jesus,” but Jesus doesn’t want or need her to work for Him. Martha is not really doing her work for Jesus – she is doing the work to satisfy her own felt needs and her own contrived ideas of what is best in this situation. Her wrong mindset creates a busyness that shuts out the voice of Jesus and creates a sinful frustrated attitude.
Jesus tells Martha that all her hustling around is not necessary and that her sister Mary has chosen the better option. In fact, Mary has chosen the necessary course of action. Whatever service Martha was rendering was not necessary. Mary intently listening to and hearing Jesus was necessary. Mary chose wisely and Jesus would not send her away to do lesser things, and so robbing her of the privilege of hearing Him teach. It’s a shocking turn around and a passage of major importance to modern America.
Isaiah is teaching us that our salvation will be found in trust, rest, quietness, and staying our mind on the Lord. This has everything to do with Mary’s example to us. Mary’s example is choosing to take advantage of an opportunity to quiet her heart and “sit at the feet of Jesus.” She is choosing to set her mind on Jesus, that she might trust Him more. This quietness before Jesus, listening to and hearing His word is absolutely necessary to godliness. Today we come into the teaching presence of Jesus by prayerfully and quietly reading God’s word, the Bible. It is by personally studying the Bible and being under the preaching of God’s word that we “sit at the feet of Jesus.”
We must make time and actual life choices to put ourselves in this quiet place before Jesus. There have always been endless possible distractions to prevent us from making time to listen to Jesus. For Judah in the time of Isaiah, the people were rebellious – intentionally turning away from the Lord. But we must realize that choosing to turn away from the Lord can have many forms. Martha is one of those forms. She chooses “good” service over necessary personal devotion to Jesus. Americans love to pride themselves in busy service, but often neglect necessary personal devotion to Jesus.
I urge you to hear the words of Isaiah and of Jesus. Quiet your heart, make time by cutting out lesser things. Pray and ask God to speak to your heart. Open the Bible and begin to carefully read for understanding what is before you in Scripture. In this, your mind will be stayed on the love of Jesus and peace will guard your heart.
Trust in the Lord forever,
Pastor Vic