The Movie In My Mind

We all play movies in our minds, but is our imagination getting in the way of our reality?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
I wanted to thank you for joining us today.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope
it gives your perspective to see God is moving.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
In your life. Enjoy the message.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
We're studying from Luke chapter ten, verses thirty eight through
forty two. Today we're gonna talk a little bit about Well,
it's going to be a very practical message. I think
it would be a lot of fun too. If you participate.
Sometimes you can help the preacher preach better and you
don't even know it. So I just invite you to

(00:38):
whatever you want to do. But I'm gonna tell you this.
The sooner you look like you get it, the sooner
I can let you go. So you can speed this
along today just by looking interested, to shake your head
like this, we get it, We get it, we get it.
This is one of those little Bible messages that you

(01:00):
can't quite figure out why this part got included in
the Bible, because it seems pretty small, little insignificant in
the scope of the whole narrative of Jesus going to
the Cross and rising from the dead, and then little
things like this get told in the Bible. And I
want to use this for the third installment of trigger

(01:21):
taking back your mind in the age of anxiety. Look
at somebody and say, you look less stressed than the
last time I saw you. You know, it's always awkward
because I tell people to say things to their neighbors
and there's always one person who's like independently minded and

(01:42):
they're like ah ah, But then the person next to
them is like totally a rule follower, and they'll turn
to the other person and start to say it and
then like, oh, you're not actually doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
You're a rebel and you're going to hell.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
So this little passage is going to give a some
practical insight today and help us get our minds focused
and help us get, you know, a concentration on what matters.
At least that's our prayer. Luke, Chapter ten, verse thirty eight.
And even the first line has a little message in
it as Jesus and his disciples were on their way,
So something is about to happen while they're on the
way somewhere else, and some of God's greatest invitations will

(02:21):
happen through life's interruptions. It will be places that we
didn't plan on going, and it will be through conversations
that we didn't plan on having. That sometimes God will
give his greatest blessings. How many can testify to that.
Maybe you met your wife not even trying to meet
a woman. You were at the club trying to look
like somebody who was worthy of a date, and you

(02:44):
just you your dance moves proved otherwise, and then you
just happened to I've met people here who signed up
to serve on the parking team and ended up on
a honeymoon in Turks and Keikos, And so it happens, right,
did that happen? Yeah, Yeah, it happens. I'm telling you
just happened on the way. And I pointed out because
since we're talking about distractions today and that's our central

(03:06):
subject matter, we need to understand that not everything that
you didn't plan on is a distraction. Sometimes the distraction
is the thing you planned to do that God didn't
even want you to do. But you made up your
mind what you were going to do before even asked
God what you.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Were supposed to do. Amen, I am I'm gonna preach this,
she said preach that, well, hey, I'm already halfway there,
So study sometime in the Bible all the things that
happened on the way or along the way. You'd be surprised.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
As they were on their way to Jerusalem for a festival. Ultimately,
Jesus was going to Jerusalem later in order to pay
for our sins and die on the cross.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
That's what he came for. And since he knew what
he came for.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
He could not be distracted by the preferences of people
or the plans of others.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
And that's why when Peter said you can't.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Go die, Jesus was able to say, get behind me, Satan.
What you represent right now is in opposition to the
will of my father. So I got to keep moving
toward Jerusalem. I got to keep moving toward Jerusalem. I
got to keep moving toward Jerusalem. That's for somebody. You're
on the right road, and there are a lot of
things trying to get you off of it.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
But here's what happens in this passage.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
In a little village called Bethany, two miles from Jerusalem,
Jesus came to a village where a woman named Martha
opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary,
who listen how spiritual this.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
House sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Oh, but Martha was distracted by all the preparations that
had to be made, and she came to him and asked, Lord,
don't you care that my sister has left me to
do all the work by myself.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Tell her to help me. This is funny to me.
I've read it many many times.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
And then I laughed because he says their name twice, Martha, Martha.
Look at your neighbors, say their first name twice, Martha, Martha.
The Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things,
but few things are needed, or indeed, only one. Mary

(05:26):
has chosen what is better, and it will not be
taken away from her. And the scene ends with this.
We don't get to see how Martha responds. I'd love
to know, but it doesn't say. It just ends right there.
The movie just goes to the credits right there. And
I want to talk to you today about the movie
in my mind. That's my title for this message, is

(05:49):
the movie in my mind. I wonder do you have
a similar movie? Have you ever bought a ticket to
the theater of your own imagination, only to the and
your money back, because that plot sucked seeing the same
old things and the same old hurts and the same
old memories.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
You know.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Sometimes the movie in my mind I edit together scenes
that should have been deleted, and yet they're on repeat
in my mind. One time, Finding Nemo got stuck in
our DVD player in Holly's Yukon, and so we know
every scene from Nemo because just every time we got
in the car. I feel like certain things in my

(06:31):
life are like that. Just you know, I'm like Dory,
swimming around, just barely remembering Wallaby Way and just swimming
around the same memories the movie in my mind. Now,
I need to tell you, the movie in my mind
is rated R for ridiculous and redundant. And I don't
know about your taste in movies. Usually when I get

(06:52):
to know somebody the way that I get to know
them quickly, I'll say what kind of music do you like?

Speaker 1 (06:58):
And what's your favorite movie?

Speaker 2 (07:00):
And I can tell whether they're worth talking to by
the answer to that, because if they go, well, I
don't really like.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Music, I'm done with you. You have no soul. And
then I'd rather you're not believe in God, but at
least I can convert you. But when we.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Talk about movies, people act real funny. If they know
I'm a pastor, they'll always say this Christian answer.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
You know been her the Ten Commandments start listing every
Christian movie, and I want to stop them.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
They're facing the giants fireproof, and I don't have the
heart to tell them. I don't usually even like Christian movies.
I appreciate good messages and wholesome family entertainment.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
It's just as sometimes I gritty movies. I don't know why.
Maybe I like.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Comparing my life to somebody else's worst life. Maybe it's
a maybe it's a relief to me that at least
it's not that my idea of a good movie. Okay,
if everybody in the movie doesn't end up dead, I'm
disappointing by the end of it. I want the villain dead,
the hero dead, the dog dead, the fish. I want

(08:27):
the fish.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
They're on the counter cassmin for bread, blood everywhere, Blood
of the Lamb.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Of course, for the church people, it's just a different
kind of movie. In one of our campus pastor wives,
she was telling me, you know when I go to
the movies, I don't want anything that resembles my real life.
I want happy endings. I want everything to go well.
I get enough of the drama in my real life.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
I'm a third grade teacher. I don't need drama. I
need escape.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
And yet the worst movie I ever saw was in
my own mind the movies that I make. I made
one this week. I had something to do, and when
I actually did it, I enjoyed it. But I had
made a movie about it, what it was going to
be like, and how inconvenient it would be, and I probably
didn't able to find parking space, and I was probably done.

(09:23):
And by the time I got to the event, I
was tired from the movie.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
You ever done? This movie? In my mind?

Speaker 2 (09:34):
And so here comes a scene in the Bible we
just heard about the good Samaritan who stopped in this
kind of unexpected fashion to help someone in need. In
Jesus teaching, and the next little inclusion here from Luke
is about the Lord's prayer father who are in heaven.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
There's this weird little.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Little movie, this little scene, at least with a really
weak plot. You know, Jesus came into a house and
two women had a fight. But I'm kind of glad
it's in here because this is more like everyday life
for most of us.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Like most of us, our life is not epic all
the time.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Most of us don't claim the Promised Land every Monday morning.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
Most of us sit in traffic.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
My Monday morning usually isn't you know this miraculous good
versus it's just snooze, snooze, snooze, snooze.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Okay, if I get up right now, maybe I won't
be late.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
You know, the most epic thing that might happen to
me on any given week.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Maybe I'll be.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Able to bench press ten more pounds than I did
last week, but probably not because I'm almost forty of
my shoulders messed up. And so I'm kind of glad
that they include these little everyday life things in the Bible,
where it's like Jesus came to a house and one
woman and another woman got in a fight because one
of them wasn't doing what the other one wanted him
to do, and they tried to get.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
Jesus to help, and he wouldn't. I like this story.
And I got to tell you one more thing, and
you probably really won't like this because you already don't
like that I don't like Christian movies, and you're already
considering leaving the church and going to a real church
with a real man of God. And I wouldn't blame
you for it.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
But my favorite character in this little scene is not
the one that Jesus commended, because Mary is the one
that Jesus took up for. But Martha is the one that.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
I relate to. I don't know if I should say
this on YouTube and Facebook, And just like.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
I like Martha a lot more than I like Mary.
One person and he's dressed for work. You can tell
why he likes Martha because Martha is the one that
pays the mortgage. Did you read the verse? Oh, I've
heard I've heard preachers. I've heard preachers annihilate Martha in

(12:09):
the pulpit. And Martha was too busy, and Martha was
running around and Mark, you know what, Martha is the
one who pays the taxes and Mary is the one
with a gofund me. And Mary is the one who
gets fired, and Martha is the one who pays the
Like Bill, let's have a south from Martha.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
She's not so bad Martha's and he kids.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Mary was twenty minutes late and complaining because she's an overflow.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
I like Martha. I like her. She gets crapped on.
I want her on my staff.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
I told my assistant with a hired her, I said,
she's been with me like eight and a half years now.
I said, I need you to be kind of saved,
but I'm not hiring you to extend the love and
compassion of Jesus Christ. Everybody who wants to meet with me,
I need you to keep a little bit of flesh,
a little bit.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
Come on, we need a little bit of Martha. It's
Martha's house.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
The Bible said a woman named Martha opened her home.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
If it was just Mary in.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
The passage, Jesus would I had to eat at the
soup kitchen.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Mary doesn't pay bills.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
It made my job harder to get this sermon ready
because I kind.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Of wanted to take Martha's side. That's right, get Mary
off the floor. In there is Jesus and twelve dudes
just rolled up in the house, and Mary's over in
the corner.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
Talking about here to sh Hereah, I am to praise ribbons,
bow down here right to you marn't just said I
am in the kid, Send kid in here and help me.

(14:21):
This meal isn't cold cook care South.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
I like that one actor I saw him on Twitter.
He said something. He said, if you're not yelling at
your kids regularly, you're not with them enough. Because you
know how Mary can be. She's so sweet. I never
yell at my kids. I never yell at my kids.
You're not paying attention, sweetheart. You're gonna be visiting them

(14:52):
in prison. Sweetheart. If you never yell at your kids,
you notice the people who never complain. I don't complain.
I bless the Lord at all times. You're not paying attention.
You're not engaged. That's why you're not complaining.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Now that I totally messed up the sermon, let's make
five points. What the Lord showed me for my own
heart and my own life is that it wasn't what
Martha was doing, it's how she was doing it. It
wasn't her actions that he found fault with and corrected.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
It was her attitude. It was the movie in her mind.
And I'll show you these five components, and I hope
you'll write them down so you can throw them in
your husband's face. When he starts acting like Martha this week,
Come on, don't you want some ammunition? Write this down.
Martha is operating in a spirit of number one manipulation.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
And when Jesus said you're distracted or worried and upset,
the Hebrew word for anxious is split.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
Or divided, And so there seems to be some sense of.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
Divide happening in my mind all the time where I
am distracted. The literal meaning of the word distracted, by
the way is pulled apart. And it's not always being
pulled in a good direction in a bad direction.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
It's not always the decision to whether should I, you know,
cook meth or read my bible? What is wrong with
y'all today? It's like it has to be done. It

(16:53):
had to be done.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Jesus came to mark this house because it had excellent
ratings on Airbnb, and he liked this place in Beth,
and he probably liked it because it was clean and orderly.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
And that was Martha's gift in operation. She was good
at that, and we praise God for her. But the
fault in her logic is this that what is important
to me ought to be important to everybody else, and
It wasn't operating in her calling or functioning in her
ability that Jesus corrected. It was that she expected others

(17:26):
to function according to her priorities. And so then she
crosses the line from management to manipulation, managing the situation
which God wants you to do, stewarding what God has
put in your life, which is your responsibility. Your hands

(17:49):
need to be on the wheel. Jesus will not take it.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
If you wait for Jesus to take the wheel, you
will see him real soon. But now Martha is Now
she's trying to get She's trying to steer somebody else's car.
I wonder, are you trying to control someone else's priorities

(18:23):
as a cover up to the fact that you don't
really have yours straight? Because sometimes in my life I
cross over and it's subtle, and I don't do it intentionally,
and it's almost subconscious, but I find myself moving from
something that I care about and I'm concerned about, and
then without even knowing it, I start trying to control
it because I care about it, and I care about

(18:44):
it so much that I begin to.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Try to control it, and then I ruin the thing
that I love. I ruin the relationship that I love
because I get confused about where my responsibility ends and
God's sovereignty begins.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
And then I start manipulating. And it's my nature to
manipulate because I'm Martha.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
Martha means master. It's her house.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
She's the one making the payments, and sometimes when you're
making the payments, you want to set the priorities.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
And to a degree it's right. But what's what she does.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
You can hear it in her language, and often our
language is an indicator of the leaky places in our life.
We can see where we're losing our energy, our focus,
and our peace through evaluating our language. She says, what
verse was it? Forty Lord? Tell her to help me.
That's called passive aggressive.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Tell her she's not even saying Mary's name. She's that mad.
This is like Holly, tell your children your children, and.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
They'll do this to us. They'll try to manipulate us.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
Dad, could you please tell mom that we need more
time on fortnite?

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Well, no, as a matter of fact, I can't tell
mom that, and I won't tell mom that because we
are united, whether it's fortnite or whether it's homework, or
whether it's vegetables.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
You are not going to play me against your mom
because I was with her first, and I get more
pleasure out of my relationship with her than I do
out of my I can French kiss her and I'm
not about to lose points with her.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Tell her to help me.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Jesus is manipulative. It's manipulative. It's trying to get you
to do it's trying. Here's what she's doing.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
She's saying, Jesus, I wrote a script for how this
visit is supposed to go.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
And in my script, Mary is here in the kitchen
with me.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
In my script, my husband comes home at five point thirty.
In my script, my wife acts like his wife acts.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
In my script, my kids are like their kids. In
my script, I'm married at age twenty three. In my script, say.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
You got your script, but Jesus didn't come to read
the lines off of your script.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
He's the author.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
And he will not be manipulated. And he's like, no, Mary,
don't move. I think there's a Marry and a Martha
living inside every heart. The more I reflect on this passage,
I see a contrast not just of two women, but

(21:48):
two tendencies in me not only do Mary and Martha
live in.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
The same house, they live in the same heart.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
And part of me is Martha, and thank God because
that puts food on the table, and part of me
is Mary and needs to know what's important. I'm really sorry,
by the way, for all of the manipulative, manipulative preaching
that I sometimes, I'm sure quite often have been guilty of,

(22:17):
and others who stand here because we try to make
we try to make you do the right thing, but
we sometimes go about it in the wrong way, and
we need to do better. And in the same breath,
a preacher will think the tither's in the church, but
then get mad if the tither has to miss a

(22:38):
week for a trip to work so he could go
make some money and feed the family and tithe, and
so it's kind of confused him. And there's always cliches
that we can use about priorities, like I heard this
one one time.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Nobody ever said this is a voice I go into
when I'm nobody they ever said on their deathbed, I
wish I'd spend more time at work. That's fine.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
I'm not on my deathbed right now, and right now
my kids need braces and for my kids to get braces.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
I'm gonna have to bring home some money.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
So before i get to my deathbed, I've got different
things pulling on me. I got different things pulling on me.
Notice Martha was distracted.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
Not by candy crush.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
She was distracted by something that was important, just.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Not important in that moment.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
So it says that she got into a manipulative state
of mind. Tell her to help me, And the reason
she did is because she herself was being manipulated. She
herself was being pulled. There was something guilty in her.
There was some perfectionist tendency. Any of Graham one, Holly's
doing this new personality thing. Well, it's not a personality,

(24:00):
it's a witchcraft or horoscope or something.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
No, it's really actually good.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
And she said that the tendency of my personality is
it could always be better, It could always be better.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Perfectionists, perfectionist.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
And so I feel Martha because there's something pulling on
her to make it nice, because she respects her guests,
and somebody has to do it. But it gets out
of order because you can see it in her language,
you can see on any tell her to help me,
and then you can see it in the language of
the text, even it says she was distracted.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
Give me that same verse again. I think it's the
same one.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
By all the preparations that had to be made, here's
the phrase that had to be made. And now she's
operating not out of a sense of privilege to get
to do it, but out of a spirit of obligation.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
I've got to do it.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
The preparations that have to be made obligation. Sometimes you
will pray and ask God to give you an opportunity,
and then you will praise God when he does it,
and then give it a year, and your prayer request
will be the same thing that was a praise report
a year ago. Because what starts out as an opportunity, Hey,

(25:12):
let's have Jesus over, now becomes an obligation. So you
find yourself like me. I was walking out the door
a few years ago to preach on a Saturday night,
and I guess I wasn't in the.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Best frame of mind. The movie, in my mind was
probably really busy, lots going on. The kids are pulling me,
and this is pulling me, and maybe I didn't have
my message right like I wanted to.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Saturday Night is interesting because a lot of times, I'm
still trying to get it exactly right. So I'm just
I'm divided, and I'm thinking about this and the kids
are doing that, And the kids were the distraction, even
though they're the priority, because in that moment, I had
somewhere to be that I needed to be. And I
looked at him and I said something We've all said

(25:55):
thousands of times and I still say it all the time,
but it was.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
The way I said it. Get off me. I gotta
go preach.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Spirit of God spoke so clearly in my heart. No,
you don't gotta. I know it's bad grammar and God
probably uses correct English, but this is how he spoke
to me. You don't gotta do any of it. It
kind of stopped me on my tracks and I start
playing it out.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Well, if I don't show up, who's gonna preach somebody?

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Hmm.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
That's true, isn't it. And if I don't want to
do it, somebody else does.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Huh? Okay, kids, not right now, I.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Get to go preach for the glory of God to
shepherd the flock over. I didn't say that. I wish
I was as spiritual. It takes me longer than that.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
You know, here's a good exercise to do.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
If you've been distracted, pulled apart, go home if you
got time tonight, Martha. I know you're busy, but before,
before the day is over, sit down and make a
list of all the things in your life that you've
got to do every I mean detail, dishes and phone
calls and bills and appointments and messages and all of it.

(27:10):
And then go back through the list and cross every
one of them out because you don't got to do
any of it. That is horrible grammar and great theology.
Tell somebody, I don't gotta do none of it, none
of it, none of it. Well, I gotta go to work, No,
you don't, don't go, but I gotta pay the bill.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
No, you know.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
You don't have to live indoors either. You don't have
to do any of it.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
Hold on, let me a quick announcement. This is probably
really bad for church growth.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
You don't have to come to church now.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
Don't come here because you have to come here because
I owe him the glory.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
And God has been so good to me. I can't
wait to give.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
Him the praise in my life. Let everything that hot
breakfrays the Lord. High five of your neighbors, say.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
You don't have to.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
And if they don't, high five you back, say you
don't have to.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
You don't have to. You don't have to do any
of it. You don't have to study for your test
this year. You don't have to pass your class.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
You don't have to.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Get a job or ever be employed, or have any money.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
With which to enjoy your life.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
You don't have to. I get to. I want to.
I want to get a want to back in our worship.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
You know what I'm saying, where the worship leaders don't
have to work so hard and play your song and
that's my jam and I just.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
Love that song. I want you to be able to
throw up your.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Hands to anything they sing that.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
Mentions the name of the one who sets you free.
And if you're singing about Jesus, I don't care if
I'm watching on a screen on an iPhone or in
rock Hill. I'm not praising him because the preacher told
me to. I want to give him praise. I want
to give him glory. I want to if you want to,

(29:20):
if you want to.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
There was a girl who came here from church from Danville.
Whereas Danville I don't know. They said it was like
an eight hour drive. She drove eight hours. Somebody else
wouldn't drive eight minutes. But that's all right, because God
will always.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
Have somebody who wants to.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
Waiting to take the place of somebody who wants to complain.
This is starting to hurt about what I gotta do.
I want to raise my kids. I don't always.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Feel like it. But what does feeling like it have.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
To do with it? I want to kill this lion.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
I want to kill this pair. I want to sonic
a liar. I want to sit on his beak.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
A privilege, it's a privilege. You gotta fight Martha. Martha
will make you miserable. Yeah, I gotta you gotta go,
You gotta gotta got it. No, no, no, no no,
I'm going, and I want to go. I want to.
I want to.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Man, It's nothing worse than having somebody doing something for
you because they ought to.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
It doesn't feel right. It makes me nervous when somebody's
doing something because they should. I don't want your should,
love should. I don't think God does either. And the
worst word we use is ought. I ought to.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
That's worse than I've got to because now you're obligated
and you're not even doing it. So now you got
all the burden of obligation with none of the efficiency
of commitment. Buck is so funny. Now you never heard
him make jokes, but he is hilarious. You just gotta

(31:20):
give him the right thing. We were working out one
day a few years ago and he made me a
workout and I went in away. I looked at the workout.
It was some legs, some burpies. I said, he said something.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
You know, he respects me in and I pay his salary.
But he said it. He said it so cool. He said,
what kind of workout do you like? I heard him.
I heard what he was saying.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
You make that same noise every time you walk in here,
no matter what I write on the board.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Do you hear Martha in the kitchen?

Speaker 2 (32:00):
You know she's making all kinds of noise in the
kitchen j' makings from Mary and Jesus can hear banging
pots together.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
And what's really weird.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
About the passage is Martha is simultaneously the judge who
is telling Mary what she needs to do, and the victim.
Because this is the third attitude that causes us to
be distracted. Remember, distracted is not an action, it's an
attitude to state to mind. So now she's in the

(32:37):
third element that makes a really bad movie in your mind,
stresses you, out keeps you, keeps you from really entering
into the joy of the Lord. And that is victimization,
is taking on the victim mentality.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
Lord. She left me to do all the work by myself.
On the surface, this is sensible, but being mad at
Mary doesn't make your life any easier. You know, like
maybe Mary should help, but that's not your place. You

(33:13):
can't make Mary do anything. And so she's she's judging
one minute, and she's a victim the next. And that's
why the Bible says that you don't want to get
in this habit of judging, because you too will be judged.
You will become the victim of your own judgments.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
When you don't let other people operate in their grace,
you will find very little grace for yourself when you
need it.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
You know, you start scrolling.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
And you know, for a few pictures you're okay, Ah,
their baby is kind of cute. The real stuff that
you don't say to them, you know, kind of cute. No,
they're on vacation again. You may know they can't afford
to be on too vacations. Sixty Martha's getting mad, madder

(34:06):
and madder and madder with every flick of the finger.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Huh, must be nice. Does she think she looks good
in that?

Speaker 4 (34:18):
Somebody needs to tell her, Tell her Jesus, tell her
that's too tight, Tell her that dress fit her in
a previous lifetime with someone.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Y'all should come to the nine thirty. That's when I'm fresh,
alert and guarded. So Martha is mad, and in a
sense she has a right to be.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
But remember something now, he said in verse thirty eight,
where it says, not only was it Martha's home, her
name was under deed, but it was Martha's idea to
begin with.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he
came to a village where a woman named Martha opened
her home to him. Now, touch the person next to
you and say this was your idea.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
Come on, now, you're the.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
One who wanted to have Peter and Bartholomew and Judas.
It was your idea to let all these former fishermen
up in our house.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Don't get mad at me because you wanted to have
a party, but now you want me to panic because
you over committed.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Don't move Mary.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Don't let people who over commit drag down your priorities
into the chaos of their urgency because they made bad decisions.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
And don't do it to yourself either.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
Don't make yourself the victim.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
Everything that I'm stressed about today is.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Something that I committed to yesterday. Man about a schedule
that I made.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
I'm gonna take these kids to the game. No you don't.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
You do not have parents.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Since when did we get in this prison of having
to be at everything?

Speaker 1 (36:18):
I'm okay this side.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
Holy Spirit just left that part of the church. Some
of y'all need to drop your kids off at soccer
and go out on a date with your wife because
your kid is an average soccer player and they're not
gonna score anyway.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
So go to bowl fish.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Not every game, go to some games, but God, my god,
every once in a while, it's good for our kids
to get the message the world does not revolve around
you and your dance recital. If you want to dance,
baby girl, I'll be there is one and I'll show
up when I can.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
But I might not be there every.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Time, and I'm not going to be many places at once,
so i.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
Gotta be where I am and be okay with that.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
I feel freedom breaking out in the church right now.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Now, go to the next game. Don't let Martha, who
comes to every game, make you feel bad because you
couldn't make that one. It's okay. This is therapeutic.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
This is one hundred and fifty dollars an hour work
right here, trying to keep you off that expensive couch
and just give you this, this teaching from the Word
of God. Because when you live in that place of manipulation, obligation, victimization,
the next thing that happens is interpretation.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
And the skill of interpretation is so important. It's like
your life is a.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
Is a foreign film, and what God has planned for you,
the events that happened to you, you don't always know
what it really means. And when you're under pressure and
when you play the movie in your mind where you
remember different ways you were offended, which I do so often,

(38:20):
and what I've got to do, and how it's not
fair and how others don't and how others should, and
all these things that I can tend to dwell on,
like Martha that Martha, in all of our minds will
start to come to this conclusion.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
This is the interpretation.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Jesus will not do what Martha wants him to do,
and Mary won't do what Martha wants Martha Mary to do,
and nobody is saying their lines like Martha wrote them
in her mind.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
So here's what she says next. Lord, all this is
in verse forty. Lord, don't you care? You see it?
Since she can't control everyding, she thinks that nobody cares
about her. Since she can't control the situation, she interprets

(39:09):
the situation, Lord, don't you care? And Jesus is like, no,
not really.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
I care about you, but I don't care about what
you're cooking in there right now. I came to be
with you, And since I can't accept the fact that
God loves me more than he loves what I can
do for him, I interpret the fact that he's not
doing exactly what I want him to do and others
aren't doing exactly what.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
I want him to do. I interpret that to me
that they don't care about me. I imagined it so
many different ways, Martha, Martha. Because he said it twice, Martha,
she didn't listen the first time, Martha, or like this Martha, Martha,

(40:00):
and hearing it more tenderly lately, Martha Martha.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
So I always thought that this passage was about work
in worship. I thought that Martha was working and Mary
was worshiping, and that worshiping.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Was better than working.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
But really you can't make that case if you read
the Bible in context, because Paul said that to live
your life as a sacrifice is your spiritual act of worship,
and that has nothing to do with a song that
has nothing to do with Sunday morning.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
So if he's not contrasting work.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
In worship, maybe he's advocating that the two should become one,
that there should be a way that I try to
live my life by the grace of God and move
into that is more like Mary.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Not to kick Martha out of the house because it's
her house, and not.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
To stop being busy or start feeling bad about how
you've been spread so thin, but to blur the line
between work and worship. A few weeks ago, we were
having a staff event and our interns were serving our
staff on this particular day, and they.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Had put in a very long day, but at the
end of the day. We're having a worship service with
our staff, and it was so strong what was happening
in the auditorium that the interns on their way to
tear down chairs and tables and clean the floors and
do the work, got caught up in a spirit of worship.

(41:39):
There was a TV in a room.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
One of our interns, Ellie, pulled out her phone and
she caught this moment when they stopped working for a
moment and started worshiping. And see how Martha can become
merry and Mary needs smarta because you see that girl

(42:04):
on her knees right there, and that you see that,
see that girl head banging right there.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
See that white guy clapping all rhythm right there. All
that is worshiped.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
But then what they did in video is when they
stopped singing and started serving, and they took that same spirit.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
With a mop and a broom.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
And my goal in worship today is not just that
we have a moment in the presence of God, but
that when we leave and we grab our mop and
our job and our kids and our responsibilities and yes,
our tests and yes, our books and yes the things
that we have to do, that we work like we worship,
and we worship like we work, and we find ourselves

(42:52):
with extraordinary joy in the congregation, and extraordinary joy in
the kitchen, and extraordinary joy that spills over and overflows,
and this becomes a way of life.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
I know you got to go. I'm almost done, because
the fifth thing that I want to discuss with you
is the most important of all, and its expectation. More
than anything else. This movie in my mind is about
my expectation. And when the movie in my mind doesn't.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
Match the scene in my life, there is a tendency
for me to begin to think that maybe God is
not the author of my story. Bring my chair real quick.
This is the way I saw the movie.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
In my mind. I saw Martha who saw herself as
a director, and I saw how Jesus wanted her to
be an extra. And now she's acting extra.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Because she's trying to direct a movie in her mind
that was not hers descript And I wonder if you've
been sitting in the wrong seat, and God gave me
this message so you could switch positions and sit like

(44:32):
Mary for a little while at his feet and say, God,
this is your movie, these are your gifts, this is
your temple.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
My body. This is your assignment. God. You know why
Mary was so good at interpreting what Jesus was doing
because she did something Martha didn't do. She listened, She listened,
and Martha, Martha's too busy giving directions. She took a

(45:09):
while learness. It took a little while of learness. It
takes a while to learn that this is not your place.
Everybody that said amen, just now is over fifty. It
takes that long. I'm telling you you don't want this

(45:30):
seat because you get it one way in your mind,
how it needs to be, how it should be. And
now you're miserable, like Martha. Didn't the universe get my script?
Didn't my future husband get my script? Where is he
future wife? Whatever? Everybody said, why you always put it

(45:51):
on the women. You're such a sexist. I'm not a sexist.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
I'm an equal opportunity offender. I'm trying to make everybody
he mad in the sermon, but this is not my place.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
And see, it makes sense that this scene, this little,
weird little scene. Now that we've spelled movie, we spelled movie,
we got we understand how this works. Yeah, but to
really understand the scene, you have to put it in
context of the whole story. Don't you don't you? You
can't understand the movie just by one scene. The reason

(46:31):
this simple little introduction to Mary and Martha is made
here in Luke ten is because of what the Bible
records in John eleven.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
That's where their brother Lazarus gets sick unexpectedly, and they
send for Jesus to come heal him. So go get
that rabbi that stayed at our house, that rabbi who
ate my Brussels sprouts, and tell him to come heal
my brother.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
Jesus doesn't show up for his casting call. He misses,
you know, Martha. Martha's got it all scripted out. Oh,
Lazarus is sick and and and Jesus is gonna come
heal him. Lights camera, Jesus.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
Jesus don't show up until after Lazarus died, and Mary,
the director of the movie, now has to reconcile what
happened in her.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
Life with the way she planned it in the movie
in her mind, and she's frustrated and angry. In fact,
you're gonna laugh at this verse in John eleven, after
Lazarus died and Jesus shows up late. Mary, this is funny.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
I read you this. You got a few more seconds,
Martha said, Uh. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
this is twenty no. Yeah, there she went out to
meet him. She's waiting at the road when he arrives.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
She's got her hand on her hip and Mary stayed home.
Mary's got her head on her pillow. They're both playing
their role. Mary's like dead, there's nothing to do. Martha's like,
it's about time. Did you not get the script? Did
you not get the missed You missed them. You didn't
say you were supposed to say, be healed, and he
was supposed to be well, and you did it. Jesus

(48:30):
didn't come to read your script. He came to flip
the script and to show you something that you never
could have expected, a movie you didn't know to write,
immeasurably more than you ask her.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Imagine. I feel the spirit of God on this message
right now. I know you wanted me to show up
and heal him. I didn't come to heal him. I
came to show you something greater. And one time God
showed me that the reason he can't meet all of
our expectations is because if he always met my expectations.

(49:01):
He would never have the opportunity to exceed my expectations.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
He's making this movie, not you. He's written this script,
not me. And so Martha's like, you should have been here.
This is not the way I wrote the movie. This
is not the way I imagined it. And she's waiting
at the rod verse twenty one. But even if you
you would have.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Been here, my brother wouldn't have died Verse twenty two.
But I know that even now God will give you
whatever you ask. You see, you're getting out of the
director's chair a little bit. She's still working. Jesus, by
the way, I know you can still do it. Come on,
women do this to men all the time.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
How do you carry all those groceries, you big strong man?
I know you still do it. It didn't go the
way I wanted. And she said your brother will rise again?
What she still got her script? I know he'll rise
again on the red at the last day. I know,
JESSI no, no, no, I came.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Not just to read my lines in the script that
you wrote for your life, but I came to change
your expectation for something greater than you even knew to
ask for. And Jesus said to her watch, I am
the Resurrection and the Life, and the one who believes

(50:30):
in me will live even though they die next verse,
and whoever lives by believing in Me will never die.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
Do you believe this? That's the question. Do you believe this?
Do you believe that you are not the one making
this movie? That this is not my place? This is
this is my place. So let's take a moment in

(51:04):
God's presence today and just consider that maybe it's not
our life that's making us anxious. Maybe it's the movie
in our mind, what we wanted it to be, what
we always imagined it would be, what we think we
have to be.

Speaker 5 (51:24):
The saddest thing about Martha is that she's frustrated trying
to meet an expectation that Jesus did not even have
of her.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Jesus never even asked her for all this. Jesus came
into her house to be with her. Are you frustrated
with yourself because you're expecting something of yourself that God
never even put on you to begin with. I came
to day to break the spirit of manipulation, to break

(51:57):
the spirit of obligation, to break the victim mentality, to
let you know that just because God isn't doing it
like you want him to do, it doesn't mean he
stopped caring about you.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
I'm really thankful for one thing.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Says that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, which Mary
never would have put in her movie.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
She didn't know it was possible when you let him
sit in this seat.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
What he has for you is so much better than
what you.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Have for you.

Speaker 3 (52:43):
I'm telling you by faith what I know by experience.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Wat's just stand up like you're in a hurry because
it'll pressure me to finish this.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
I could talk to you all day. I love this.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
In John chapter twelve, verse one, it says that a
little bit later, on six days before the Passover, Jesus
came to bethany where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised
from the dead. Now watch verse two. This is gonna
bless you here. At dinner was given in Jesus'.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Honor, Martha served. See, she finally got it.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
She's not talking, she's not manipulating, she's not serving out
of obligation and guilt anymore. She's serving because she has
seen God do what only God could do.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
And I am here at your.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Service, God, what you want me to be. I'm ready
to be.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
That now, and so I throw off the expectations of others,
and I throw off the expectations of self.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
Do what you wanted to God.

Speaker 6 (53:59):
This is your this is your movie, and I am
your child, and I am at your feet and I
trust you in this season.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
Of my life. Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
You can click the link in the description to give
now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more
information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
You can share it with your friends.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.