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Campbell Chapel
Free Will Baptist Church
1709 Campbell Drive
Ironton, Ohio 45638

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Jesus wants to speak to you:
Are you ready to listen?

 June 3, 2007

Bob Bradley

_________________________ 

Luke 10:38-42

 

38 Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.

39 And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word.

40 But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.

41 And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:

42 But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

 

Jesus is going to come to a certain village.  He is going to come to a certain house that is in this village.  When He arrives, He is there.  He did not get there ten minutes before He got there, but when He arrived there, then He is there.  That might not make sense, but it will in a minute.  He did not get there ten minutes after He arrived, but when He arrived there, He was there. 

 

When He gets there, He comes to a certain village and a certain house.  There was woman here whose name was Martha and she receives Jesus into her house.  He was not there the day before.  He was not there later on.  He comes to this certain house in this certain village, at this certain time, for a reason. 

 

Some things will be happening here.  He is here, Martha has a sister, and her name is Mary.  Martha invites Jesus in. 

 

Martha is a woman that loves to work.  She is a woman that cleaned, swept, mopped, and cooked everyday.  As she invites Jesus in, I can see her in her dress.  She may have had sweat on her face, but when she invites Jesus in, she could have said, "Jesus, come on in and sit down.  I have some laundry in the washer.  I have a cake in the oven.  I am doing a little cleaning over here.  I need to go outside and do a few things outside, but I will be with you when I can.”

 

The Bible says that Jesus comes in; He goes in and He is sitting there.  Martha's sister, Mary, is not worrying about the laundry.  She is not worrying about the cake in the oven.  She is not worrying about whether the table is clean or not.  She is not worrying about vacuuming the carpet.  She is not worrying about none of those things.  She is just simply sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to His Word.  That is all that she is doing. 

 

Martha is running around, and I can picture in my mind that she may have had flour on her face, where she had been cooking.  Her hair might have been a little bit stringy from where she had been running around and it may have fell down from the little bonnet that she had on her head.  Her clothes may not have been clean.  She may have been running around doing all kinds of things, but here was an opportunity that she had to sit down right at the feet of Jesus, and listen to the Words of Almighty God. 

 

However, she is worrying about cooking, cleaning, sweeping, washing and doing all kinds of things when the greatest opportunity that anyone could ever have; she had the opportunity to sit right beside of Him and listen to His Word.  However, she was cumbered about, troubled, the Bible says.  She was anxious and worried about many things.

 

We fall into the same category many times. 

 

Jesus comes and He is coming at a specific time, maybe a different time every day, but He wants to come and meet with us.  He wants to come to our house.  He wants to come into this house.  He wants to come inside and sit down.  He wants come inside and sit down upon our hearts.  He wants us to listen to Him.  He wants us to pay attention to what He has to say. 

 

Do you know what we do? 

 

We get so concerned sometimes about all kinds of things, about washing our car, going to Wal-Mart, about all kinds of things that really do not mean anything.  We miss the opportunity about sitting and listening to what God has to say just to us.  When God comes and wants to talk to us, He is going to talk to us about some things that we need to hear.  He is going to tell us about some things that are going to change our lives for the better.  He is not going to come and just chitchat.  When God speaks to us, He is speaking to us about things that we need to hear.  Things that we need to do, things that we might need to do to change our life for the better.  He speaks to us about things like that. 

 

The best way to know about how many weeds we have in our garden is just listen to the voice of Jesus and He will point them out.  He will show us where the weeds are. 

 

However, the problem is that He wants to come and does come sometimes, but we are so busy doing all kinds of things in life.  We are running here and we are going there.  We think that we have this to do, or that to do.  We also feel sorry for ourselves. 

 

Sometimes we think that we are the only one doing anything.  Nobody else is doing anything but me.  I have the whole responsibility.  I have the whole load.  Lord, why don't you send somebody to help me?  That is a pity party.  Sometimes we think that we have it so bad that we have to work for a living.  Some people hate that.  That is what God ordained.  We have pity parties because we have to get up and go to work.  We have pity parties for ourselves because we can see John Doe down the street driving a car that he financed and he in a mortgage up to his eyeballs and he will never get out of debt and we see him driving down the road and we wonder why we don't have one like that.  We have a pity party.  We go down the street, we see kids wearing $100 tennis shoes, and we wonder why our kids cannot wear those things.  We have a pity party. 

 

All along, God simply wants to speak to us.  God wants to talk to us.  God wants to reveal His truth unto us.  When God speaks, if we will just listen, life will be a whole lot better.  When God speaks and when we listen then we will not be cumbered about.  We will not be doing a lot of things that have no meaning.  We will not worry about things that have nothing to do with nothing.  Many times, we think that the grass must be mowed right now.  Times when God wants to speak to us and when God wants us to get His Word out and read His Word, God wants to speak to us and we know that He wants to speak to us.  Lord, just as soon as I get the grass mowed we will sit down and read this and we will have prayer.  Before long, that day is gone and you never do what you promised God that you were going to do.  Sometimes we think that the laundry has to be done, and sometimes it has to be done.  God speaks and God wants to meet with us and we think that things have to be done now and we miss the opportunities that God grants unto us.  God is here.  He is in this house at this particular time.  He was not here an hour before and He is not going to be here an hour after He leaves, but He is here now and He wants to speak now.  Why don't we stop and simply listen to His voice and do what He asks us to do?  Quit worrying.  Quit being troubled about cooking and cleaning, jobs, homes, cars and monies.  Those things are fine in there place.  We need to clean and we need to wash clothes, but not at the expense at not listening to Jesus Christ. 

 

If I do all these other things and if I never listened to His voice then I lose and I have a pity party.  If I am not listening to His voice then I am having a pity party.  I am feeling sorry for myself.  Lord, I am doing it all.  That is what Martha said.  Lord, I am doing it all. I am laboring, cooking, cleaning and my sister is sitting at your feet doing nothing.  Don't you even care?  We think that way sometimes.  I do not think that anybody here at Campbell Chapel is going to die from being overworked.  I do not think that you are going to pray yourself to death.  I do not think you are going to die because you read your Bible too much.  I do not think it is going happen because we cumbered about many times with things that really do not matter.  God is here.  God wants to speak.  God wants us to sit down, be quiet, and listen to what He has to say.  However, we are in a hurry.

 

I know that there are times when things have to be done.  However, if I take the time when God comes and wants to meet with me and I take that time and do other things then I lose and you lose.  This time is gone. The time that Jesus was spending here with Mary and Martha in her house, in just a few hours that time was going to be gone.  Time is not like milk or bread.  You cannot buy more of it.  When time is gone and we cannot get it back.  The opportunity that Martha had here to sit at the feet of Jesus, as Mary was, and listen to Him.  That time was going to be gone and it was never going to come back again.  The lesson, the Word and the instruction that Jesus Christ was going to give and was giving, she was not going to hear and she was not going get because she was troubled, she was anxious, she was worried about many things.  Her mind was filled with everything except listening to the voice of Jesus. 

 

Jesus said Martha, Martha you are anxious about many things.  Jesus could look right into her mind and her heart.  He knew what she was thinking.  He knew the turmoil that was going on inside of her.  How many times in your life you get so many irons in the fire that, we are not doing any of them any justice.  We are running from here, to here, to here and we are not accomplishing anything.  We are just wringing our hands and we are just ready to blow up because we are troubled about everything.  We are anxious, worried about many things and we are not accomplishing anything.  So many times, we are just like Martha.  So many times Jesus comes to our house and tells us that we need to straighten up.  He tells us we do not need to be feeling so sorry for ourselves.  All we need to do is look around a little bit and see that there are many people in worse shape than we are.  He wants to talk to us and instruct us.  He wants to tell us how much He cares about us.  There is nothing like when Jesus comes to your house and whispers in your ear that He loves you.  There is not anything like that.  There is nothing like Him coming and meeting with you when your heart is tore out of your chest.  When it feels like that life cannot go on.  He says son or daughter everything is going to be fine.  It may not look like it today.  It may not look like life can go on.  It may not look like it could ever work out but everything is going to be just fine.  There is nothing like those comforting words that Jesus brings when we just simply listen to Him.

 

We are cumbered.  We get busy.  We are troubled about many things, we forget to sit, and listen to Him speak to us. 

 

In the next two weeks, we have a great opportunity to listen to the voice of Jesus Christ.  He will instruct us about things that we need to do if we will just listen to Him.  Sometimes, we want to tell God what needs to be done.  We want to tell God that this needs to be done today, this is the plan and we want God to bless it.  It does not work that way. 

 

Listen to His voice.  Put things aside.  Take time to listen to His voice.  Put the pressures that we bring on ourselves, aside.  Listen to what He has to say.  God has some great things that He is going to do.  God is going to bless.  God is going to do some great things.

 

I want you to be a part of it.  I do not want you just sitting in the bleachers.  I do not want you sitting on the sidelines.  I want you to be a part of what God is about to do.  If you will put some of these other things aside and take time everyday to listen to what God has to say to you, these next two weeks will be great weeks for you. 

 

Are you going to allow them to be a good week for you? 

 

You that may be unsaved, God simply wants to speak to us.  If you are unsaved, God wants to speak to you.  God is telling you that He loves you and He wants you to repent.  He wants you to ask for forgiveness and He is saying that He will forgive you.  When we are unsaved, we get involved in so many things like those that Martha did.  We know that God wants to speak to us but we are so busy with so many other things that we just shove that aside. 

 

As God speaks to your heart, you know it is Him.  When He asks you and bids you to an altar of prayer, you know that it is Him.  If you will just do that, come and spend some time with Him, you will never be the same.  You can leave a brand new creature in Christ and never be the same again.

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