Choosing the Good Portion
Lord's Day Exhortation
One of the extraordinary things about the Gospel accounts is that they record for eternity the very ordinary moments in the lives of those who encountered Jesus, as a way to instruct God’s people throughout the ages.
In Luke 10, we have one of those episodes, the story of Mary and Martha, which presents two very different approaches to the Lord’s presence in their home. For we read that while Mary sat devotedly at the feet of Jesus to hear His word, Luke writes that Martha was “distracted with much serving.” This left Martha overwhelmed and upset with Mary, and she said to Jesus, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me.” And in doing so, she not only accused Mary of wrongdoing but also accused Jesus of not caring.
In response, Jesus did not rebuke Martha for her hospitality but instead revealed the sin beneath the surface of her service. He replied with affection, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
Now, while this passage is instructive for all, I think it especially speaks to the lives of wives and mothers. Do you know what this is like? Being anxious or troubled about “many things” while caring for the needs of your household? I’m sure you do. Like Martha, at times you are prone to be outwardly busy with very good and necessary things—real duties—while neglecting the most necessary thing—doing it all with humble and happy hearts in the presence of the Lord.
And so the question to ask yourselves is this: When the laundry pile seems impossible to dig out of, when the dishes are about to fall on you, when your children have you surrounded like a nest of hungry chicks, when guests have overstayed their welcome—are you laboring in faith, motivated by love for God? Or are you so preoccupied and anxious that you have completely lost the plot and forgotten what all of this is for?
In those moments, the Lord is speaking to you, as He did to Martha, saying, “One thing is needful.” And it is the one thing that makes all of your labors count for eternity—fellowship with Christ, from which all your service must flow.
“The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth” (Ps. 34).
Merciful Father,
We confess to you and to one another that we have sinned against You by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.
In particular, we confess the many times we have become angry or frustrated while serving others. The times in which we have let our hearts wander, forgetting that all we do is to be done heartily for Your glory. We know that Scripture calls us to practice hospitality without grumbling, and the reason we are prone to do so is that we forget that Jesus ought to be the most welcome guest in our hearts and home.
Please forgive us of these sins and those like them, and by Your Spirit make our devotion to Christ stronger, and wider, and deeper—that we may imitate Mary by choosing the good portion at His feet, that which will never be taken away.
Father, we also lift up our nation to You this morning. We are a very busy and distracted people, who have so crowded our hearts with various vices, numbing us to eternal things. And we ask that You would be pleased to pour out Your Spirit, that the hard hearts of our neighbors and countrymen would be broken, and filled with love for Christ. For without this, we will surely perish underneath the weight of our sin.
We know that if we regard any iniquity in our hearts, this prayer will be ineffectual. And so we silently confess our individual sins to you now, and Selah.
This exhortation was given on April 19, AD 2026, at King’s Cross Church in Moscow, Idaho.