Message Information
- Key Scriptures: Luke 10:38-42, NASB
- Series: Luke (2025-2027), no. 36
- Date: Sunday, October 26, 2025 (Morning)
- Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
- Speaker: Jared Byrns
- Audio File: Open/Download
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Sharpening the Chain
Charla and I have been trying to hire someone to do some tree work at our house. We have several massive elm trees in the pasture. Some have grown old enough that I feel uneasy walking underneath them because they look as though they could come down at any time.
We scheduled someone to come and give us an estimate. After we heard the price, I was not sure I had ever spent that much money on a car, so I was not inclined to accept it.
I told Charla, “I could buy a longer chainsaw for a whole lot less than that.”
She asked, “When are you going to have time to take down those trees, cut them apart, and dispose of them?”
I said, “I am not paying that.”
I told her that I could buy a chainsaw the next week if she wanted to call the company we had used in the past. I had tried to save money by calling a company that had done work at the church, but their estimate for our house was extremely high. I gave her a few days to call the previous company before I went out and invested in another chainsaw.
Those elm trees have hard wood. They are huge—about three stories tall. Some men from the church and I once managed to cut one down. Then I spent nearly two years trying to make a dent in disassembling it after it was on the ground.
The professionals came, hauled that tree away, cut down another one, and had everything removed by lunchtime on the first day.
I asked the owner, “How do you do that? I assume you have better chainsaws than I do.”
He said, “That is part of it. But we also set aside time to keep our chains sharp. If we do not have a job going on, we sit down and sharpen the chains. If it is raining and we cannot go cut trees, we sharpen the chains.”
That was part of my problem. When I moved from a little postage-stamp lot in town to living on land, I did not know chainsaws had to be sharpened. I thought, “It is a chainsaw. It is sharp. If I put it against my leg, it will cut, right?” I assumed that meant it was sharp enough.
So I spent weeks hacking away at a tree, trying to brute-force the work, without ever stopping to sharpen the chain.
As we continue through Luke chapter 10, the story before us reminds me of someone pushing ahead with the work but never taking the time to stop and sharpen the chain.
What I am going to say may sound strange coming from me because I have never served in a church with enough volunteers and workers. Rodney, have you ever pastored a church with enough volunteers and workers? We have more people volunteering here than I have seen in any church. We have more workers and more ministries happening.
I am not telling you that we should not work, serve, or volunteer. I am telling you that in order to do those things well, we cannot do them all the time.
That is why I have called this message “Before You Serve, Sit.” I thought about calling it “Don’t Just Do Something—Stand There.”
Luke tells us:
“Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, ‘Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.’ But the Lord answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.’”
Usually, in church, we focus on the need for more people to work and serve. But sometimes we need to stop and recognize that before we work and serve, it is even more important that we worship.
I do not want you to hear something I am not saying. I am not saying that our work for the Lord is unimportant. I am not saying we should not serve. I am not saying that those who are serving should stop.
This is a matter of priority.
We can go too far in either direction. We can become so consumed with our work for the Lord that we forget the Lord Himself. At the same time, we can grow so comfortable with sitting and worshiping that we become indifferent to the work.
Both are problems.
But if we are truly worshiping Him and focusing on His goodness and greatness, that worship will drive us to work. If one must receive priority, this passage teaches us that worship comes first. If we approach Him correctly from that direction, the work will follow.
Mary did something unusual. She sat at the feet of Jesus.
That is our highest privilege.
The Privilege of Sitting at His Feet
The Bible describes us as sinners, estranged from God, and undeserving of His kindness. The fact that He loves, forgives, and saves us is incredible enough. Yet Jesus invites us to sit at His feet, learn from Him, and draw near to Him.
That is not something we earn or deserve. It is a privilege He gives because He is good and because He desires closeness with His people. We should never take it for granted.
Jesus entered Martha’s house and was welcomed as an honored guest. It was not unusual for a student to sit at the feet of a rabbi or religious teacher and learn from him.
What was unusual was that Mary was a woman. It is not unusual that Mary was a woman; it was unusual in that culture for a woman to sit at a rabbi’s feet as a disciple.
Many rabbis would not have allowed it because women were regarded as inferior and unworthy of the teacher’s time. They were assumed incapable of understanding what a man could understand. The same attitude was often applied to children.
No self-respecting rabbi in that culture would have welcomed this arrangement. No conventionally respectable woman would have placed herself in that position.
But Jesus was different. His love for His followers was so great that He welcomed what other rabbis would have rejected. Mary’s devotion was so great that she did not care whether others considered it proper. She did not care whether she might be embarrassed, criticized, or anger her sister.
She sat at the feet of Jesus.
Verse 39 says she was “seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word.” Jesus not only allowed it; He commended it. In verse 42, He said she had chosen “the good part”—the right thing, the best thing.
Both work and worship are good. There is nothing wrong with either. But worship is better, and true worship will drive the work.
By sitting at Jesus’ feet, Mary showed devotion to her Master and Teacher. She placed herself under His authority. The word subjection can sound harsh to us, but her posture said, “He is above me. I am beneath Him. I have much to learn. My responsibility is to follow.”
She did not approach Him as an equal, and neither do we.
Yet we have the incredible privilege of sitting at His feet, spending time with Him, learning from Him, and being changed by Him.
We do not have the opportunity to sit physically at Jesus’ feet as Mary did. Would that not be amazing? It would be an incredible experience, though I suspect I might become like Martha in that moment—jumping up to make sure everything was right.
“Did we start lunch? Did we tell everyone He is here? Is the thermostat set correctly? Is He comfortable?”
We would begin thinking about everything we needed to do.
So what does sitting at Jesus’ feet mean for us?
Mary was showing devotion to Jesus and learning from Him. We can do the same. We cannot sit at His feet physically at present, but we sit there spiritually by expressing our devotion in worship and prayer and by learning His Word.
She communed with Him. We commune with Him through worship and prayer. She listened to His Word. We listen as we study Scripture.
This story reminds us that we need not merely to take time but to make time to sit at His feet. We must slow down and spend time with Him—not worrying about what we are going to do, not even worrying about what we are going to do for Him, but abiding in His presence.
That can be difficult.
I am not sure there has ever been a time in history when people were busier. That sounds strange when we compare our lives with those of people three hundred years ago. They had to perform countless tasks simply to survive that technology and modern supply chains now accomplish for us.
In a material sense—not a moral sense—the world is more comfortable than it has ever been. We have more leisure time than our ancestors and perhaps more than any previous generation.
And we fill it with things that may or may not matter.
Sometimes we add work “for the Lord” that He never asked us to do. I am guilty of that. We stay so busy that we no longer have time to slow down and sit at the Master’s feet.
Then we wonder why we are burned out. We wonder why we no longer want to serve Him. We wonder why the thing He called us to do has become drudgery.
A few weeks ago, we studied the reasons Jesus gave us to rejoice while carrying out the mission. Serving the Lord is hard work, but He never intended it to be drudgery. Even while working hard, we find joy and rest by being with Him in His presence.
Martha is the poster child for forgetting that. I do not want to be too harsh with her. I do not want to meet her in heaven and be confronted for throwing shade at her.
She is often treated as uniquely schedule-driven and task-oriented, as though none of us should ever be like her. In reality, she represents many of us. She was not uniquely uncaring. She did what we do every day.
Do you ever become burned out by the ordinary responsibilities of life and the work God has called you to do in ministry? I do.
Sometimes I wonder, “Why do I have such a bad attitude about this? Why do I dread it? Why is it so difficult to become motivated?”
I am slower than I would like to be at recognizing the answer, but eventually I realize that burnout is a warning sign. It tells me I have not been abiding in Christ as I should.
I have to ask, “Did you rush through your time with Him today? Were you so consumed with everything you had to do, fix, and manage that you made only a perfunctory effort to spend time with Him? Or did you truly sit at His feet?”
Without exception, when I reach a moment of burnout—and thank the Lord these are moments, not the settled pattern of life—I find that I have not been sitting at His feet as I should.
When I return and deal with that, everything else falls into place.
When Busyness Distracts Us
We cannot allow busyness to distract us from sitting at Jesus’ feet.
We all know how busy we are. Yet sitting at His feet should be the most important part of our day—the part around which we build everything else.
That does not mean it must happen first thing in the morning. I have heard preachers insist that the first activity of the day must be a quiet time with the Lord. If the Lord wants me fully awake during quiet time, that is not going to work well for me.
I am not naturally alert first thing in the morning, so a later time often works better for me. The important thing is that time with Him becomes a priority rather than something we hope to fit in if a spare moment appears.
If we wait to find the time, we will chase it throughout the day and never catch it. We must build the day—and the life—around it.
You may have seen the illustration involving a jar, sand, pebbles, and large rocks. If you pour in the sand first, everything will not fit. The large rock goes in first, then the pebbles, and then the sand fills the remaining spaces.
Sitting at Jesus’ feet must be the large rock around which we arrange everything else.
Martha’s distraction did more than make her busy. It changed and poisoned her perspective. It altered how she viewed Mary and how she viewed Jesus.
Her misplaced focus caused her to think and act wrongly.
Busyness Made Martha Self-Centered
Martha became so focused on her own preparations that she grew self-centered and unconcerned about Mary’s spiritual growth.
This is deeply convicting to me because I need the reminder constantly: many of the things we regard as interruptions in ministry are the ministry.
I hesitate to say that because now someone may become afraid to call or stop by the office. Do not be. That is why I am there.
There are certain projects that become like an itch in my brain. I have difficulty focusing on anything else until that itch is scratched. Naturally, that is when the phone rings.
But sometimes figuring out the meaning of a Greek word is not the immediate ministry. The interruption is the ministry.
Martha reached the point where she did not care that Mary was learning from Jesus. She barged in and said:
“My sister has left me to do all the serving alone.”
That sounds reasonable: “I need help.”
But consider what was happening in the room. Mary was sitting at the feet of the Creator of the universe, who had left the splendor of heaven, taken on human flesh, come among us, and would die for our sins.
The Creator was sitting in her living room. Mary was taking advantage of the astonishing opportunity to sit at His feet and abide in His presence.
Martha’s complaint was essentially, “I do not care that you are doing that. I need help getting the salad out.”
When we look at it that way, her request sounds less reasonable.
Busyness can make us view people as interruptions and obstacles.
Busyness Made Martha Bitter
Her focus on her work also made her bitter and convinced that Jesus did not care.
She asked:
“Lord, do You not care?”
Let me give you one answer on the test: Does Jesus care? Yes. The answer is always yes.
Every time someone in the Gospels asks whether Jesus cares, the answer is yes. He is aware of what is happening, and He cares more than we do. His priorities are simply in the right order.
But when we focus on the task, something goes wrong, someone interrupts us, and we become angry. We may become angry at the person and then angry at the Lord.
“Why did You put me here to do this if You are not going to let me finish? Why is this not working?”
We become bitter because our attention is fixed on completing the task rather than being with Him.
Busyness Made Martha Arrogant
Martha’s focus on her preparations also made her arrogant enough to order Jesus around.
If we reach the point where we are willing to give God instructions, something has gone deeply wrong in our minds, probably because something has gone deeply wrong in our hearts.
She told Him:
“Then tell her to help me.”
We might hear that as a plea, but the Greek phrasing is a command. “Tell her to help me.”
“Would You please ask her to help?” would have sounded different. We understand the distinction. If someone asks me to do something, I will often bend over backward to help. If someone orders me to do it, I have to fight the flesh not to refuse out of spite.
Jesus did not share that sinful struggle. But imagine the thought process that brings a person to say, “God, here is what You need to do.”
“My agenda is at stake. My plans are at stake. What I am trying to accomplish is at stake. You need to do this.”
When we presume to command the God of the universe, something has gone terribly wrong.
It began with a little distraction.
Again, I do not want to be too harsh with Martha. Her motives were probably good. The Master was in her house, and she wanted everything to be perfect for Him.
But the Master could speak a word and make a banquet appear. She had the opportunity to sit at His feet.
She was trying to do a good thing, but she became so focused on the task that she forgot the Lord Himself.
What We Do with Jesus Comes First
The central point of this passage is that what we do with Jesus takes priority over what we do for Jesus.
That sounds backward because we are always trying to find more people to volunteer and serve. We think of all that could be accomplished if everyone did what God called them to do.
We want people to serve and work. There is nothing wrong with that.
Our work can be part of worship. What I am doing in preaching is part of my job, but through the preparation and delivery, I try to remain prayerful so that it is not merely a task. I want to worship the Lord through what I study, receive, and proclaim.
You can worship through your work. But your work cannot be all your worship.
What we do with Jesus takes priority over what we do for Him.
If all we ever say is, “You have to do this for Him. Step out and do this for Him,” we can produce a church full of exhausted people who no longer want to serve because they are not abiding in the Lord’s presence or finding joy in Him.
That is tragic because Jesus came that we might have life and have it abundantly.
Work is not wrong. Much of Luke chapters 9 and 10 concerns preparation for the work. The problem is priority.
In verse 41, Jesus says:
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things.”
Repeating her name was a cultural expression of love and tenderness. Jesus cared about her.
The two words He used point to mental anxiety and emotional distress. Martha was a wreck. That sounds harsh, so let us say our poor sister was a wreck.
Was a meal needed? Yes. These people had been traveling and would be hungry.
But the Master could make food appear. He had done it before. He had provided food so He could continue teaching.
Did Jesus need an elaborate spread? Did He need everything Martha was preparing? No.
According to verse 42, only one thing was truly necessary: what Jesus had come to do—to teach His people and be with them.
When Jesus entered their house, both sisters had a choice in that moment: work or worship. Mary, not Martha, chose correctly.
Martha criticized Mary for not helping, but Mary was doing what she was supposed to do.
That convicts me because sitting still is difficult. You may see me sitting, but my mind may still be working on three projects.
I am a perfectionist about certain things. You could look at my truck or office and never think, “There goes a perfectionist.” But there is a reason I asked Marilyn to take over the bulletin.
If something is going into print, I can spend eleven hours making sure every detail is laid out correctly and every typo is removed. Then, when I fill in, I may still put the wrong date on it and think about the mistake for days.
There are things I am perfectionistic about that do not matter nearly as much as I imagine. We can focus on things that somewhat matter while neglecting the things that ultimately matter.
Mary chose what ultimately mattered.
We are supposed to work for the Lord, but our priorities determine the difference. If we worship Him and spend time in His presence every day, work will naturally flow from that relationship.
We will be closely connected to Him, recognize where He leads, obey Him, and love serving Him. That does not mean every moment will be easy, but the service will be rooted in love.
If we prioritize work instead, we will keep saying, “I will spend time with Him later,” while being drawn deeper into the work until there is never time to sit at His feet.
The difference is priority.
We can work for the Lord without giving our relationship with Him a second thought. But if we focus on the relationship and worship Him with everything we have, work will naturally result.
The lesson of Mary and Martha is not merely, “Slow down and smell the roses.” The lesson is: make Jesus the priority, and the work will follow.
If you are burned out, return and make Jesus the priority. You may discover that you are no longer as worried about the things you thought you could not live without.
Make Jesus the priority.
How We Come to Sit at His Feet
Some may ask, “How can I have that kind of relationship with Him? How can I sit at His feet? I do not even know Him.”
Jesus came so that we could know Him.
We were separated from God by our sin, and there was nothing you or I could do to repair that separation. God is a just Judge, and sin had to be punished.
Jesus took responsibility for our sin and was punished in our place. That is why He went to the cross, shed His blood, and died. He paid for our sin so that the record could be wiped clean.
God can credit the righteousness of Christ to us. When He looks at those who are in Christ, instead of seeing sinners under condemnation, He sees beloved children clothed in Christ’s righteousness.
You can have that today. You can have your sins forgiven. You can be counted righteous before God—not because of any good thing you have done, but because Jesus paid for your sin.
Believe that He did this and ask God for forgiveness. He has promised to give it.
