Take Time to be Holy

Rev. Deacon Allen Batchelder

Trinity Church
Waltham, Massachusetts
July 21, 2013, Pentecost IX

Amos 8:1-12; Psalm 52; Colossians 1:15-28, Luke 10:38-42

From the Old Testament:
Thus the Lord God showed me, behold, a basket of summer fruit.

From St. Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians:
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ.

And from the Gospel of St. Luke:
Now as they went on their way he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.

Let us pray:
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer, our Strength and our Salvation.
Amen!

We live in very busy, complex and exciting times. Our technology is expanding constantly. If we were to look at just the cell phone and what it can do; it’s just amazing. How can anyone exist without a cell phone? Today, you can call someone, text, email, and go on the internet; all from your cell phone. The cell phone has become the new addiction. Perhaps the new Messiah!

We quite often get caught up in the material things of this world; the “busy things” that stimulate us and bring us enjoyment and makes life easier. The television is another technology wonder; we have the ability via cable or satellite, to choose from hundreds of channels.

So then Sunday morning comes along and we have a decision to make: should we take one hour out of our busy schedule to attend a worship service? Should we take one hour or even 15 minutes a day to read and meditate on God’s Holy Word? What are our priorities? What would God want us to do?
Worship is at the heart of all that we are and all that we do in the Christian life. It is important that we are busy ambassadors, taking the message of the Gospel to lost souls. It is also essential to be merciful Samaritans, seeking to help exploited and hurting people who need God’s mercy. But before we can represent Christ as we should, or imitate Him in our caring ministry, we must spend time with Him and learn from Him. We must “take time to be holy.”

In our Old Testament reading, Amos proclaimed to the Jews that their deception included the desecration of the Sabbath and the religious holy days. The worship of God interrupted their business, and they didn’t like it. It was not surprising that the Gentile merchants would ignore the holy days (Neh. 13:15-22), but certainly not the Jewish merchants. Have we not done the same thing ourselves with the elimination of the Sunday blue laws? Are not stores opened for shopping on Sundays and holy days? Are not athletic events or practices scheduled on Sundays?

In the Old Testament, God’s people had an earthly inheritance, the land of Canaan. Christians today have a spiritual inheritance in Christ. Canaan is not a picture of heaven, for there will be no battles or defeats in heaven. Canaan is a picture of our present inheritance in Christ. We must claim our inheritance by faith as we step out on the promises of God. Day by day, we claim our blessings; talk with our Lord, and this makes us even more thankful to God.

God called the nation of Israel to be His people, He gave them His Law (including the priesthood and sacrifices), and He gave them a wonderful land. He promised them a King who would one day establish a glorious kingdom and fulfill the many promises made to Abraham and David.

We need spiritual intelligence if we are going to live to please God. We also need practical obedience in our walk and work. But the result of all this must be spiritual power in the inner man, power that leads to joyful patience and long-suffering, with thanksgiving.

God often used common objects to teach important spiritual truths, objects like pottery (Jer. 18-19), seed (Luke 8:11), yeast (Matt. 16:6, 11), and in our Old Testament reading, a basket of summer (ripe) fruit. Just as this fruit was ripe for eating, the nation of Israel was ripe for judgment. It was the end of the harvest for the farmers, and it would be the end for Israel when the harvest judgment came.

There comes a time when God’s long-suffering runs out (Isa. 55:6-7) and judgment is decreed. The songs at the temple would become funeral dirges with weeping and wailing, and corpses would be thrown everywhere and not given proper burial. It would be a bitter harvest for Israel as the nation reaped what it sowed.

The reason was simple: Israel had broken God’s law and failed to live by His covenant. The first table of the Law has to do with our relationship to God and the second table with our relationship to others, and Israel had rebelled against both. They did not love God, and they did not love their neighbors (Matt. 22:36-40).

Jesus Christ came to earth, was rejected by His people, and was crucified. He arose again and returned to heaven. Did this mean that God’s promised kingdom for Israel was now abandoned? No, because God had initiated a new program – His mystery – that was not explained by the Old Testament prophets. The mystery is that today God is uniting Jews and Gentiles in the church (Eph. 2:11-22). When the church is completed, then Jesus Christ will return and take His people to heaven (1 Thes. 4:13-18).

Imagine what this message meant to the Gentiles. They were no longer excluded from the glory and riches of God’s grace!

We who have grown up in Christian surroundings have a tendency to take all of this for granted. But think of the excitement this message must have generated in the Colossae church composed of new believers who had no background in the church. Once they were outside the covenants of God, but now they were members of His family. Once they were living in spiritual ignorance and death, but now they were alive and sharing in the riches of God’s wisdom in Christ. Once they had no hope, but now they had a glorious hope because Christ now lived within!

Man’s greatest problem is sin – a problem that can never be solved by a philosopher or a religious teacher. Sinners need a Saviour. Jesus Christ did not release us from bondage, only to have us wander aimlessly. He moved us into His own kingdom of light and made us victors over Satan’s kingdom of darkness.

In recent years, the church has rediscovered the freedom of forgiveness. God’s forgiveness of sinners is an act of His grace. We did not deserve to be forgiven, nor can we earn forgiveness. Knowing that we are forgiven makes it possible for us to fellowship with God, enjoy His grace, and seek to do His will. Forgiveness is not an excuse for sin; rather, it is an encouragement for obedience. And, because we have been forgiven, we can forgive others (Col. 3:13).

Paul wrote that Christ solved the sin problem on the cross once and for all. This means that one day God can bring together in Christ all people that belong to Him (Eph. 1:9-10). He will be able to glorify believers and punish unbelievers, and do it justly, because of Christ’s death on the cross.

Jesus made it clear that the Son is to be worshiped as well as the Father “that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent Him” (John 5:23-24).

The purpose of reconciliation between God and man is personal holiness. God does not make peace (Col. 1:20) so that we can continue to rebel against Him. He has reconciled us to Himself so that we may share His life and His holiness. We are presented to God “holy and unblamable (without blemish) and unreproveable (free from accusation)” (Col. 1:22).

Mary of Bethany is seen three times in the Gospel record, and on each occasion, she is in the same place: at the feet of Jesus. She sat at His feet and listened to His word (Luke 10:39), fell at His feet and shared her woe when Lazarus died (John 11:32), and came to His feet and poured out her worship and anointed Jesus’ feet (John 12:3). It is interesting to note that in each of these instances, there is some kind of fragrance: In Luke 10, it is food; in John 11, it is death; and in John 12, it is perfume.

Mary and Martha are often contrasted as though each believer must make a choice; be a worker like Martha or a worshiper like Mary. Certainly our personalities and gifts are different, but that does not mean that the Christian life is an either/or situation. Charles Wesley, the founder of Methodism said it perfectly in one of his hymns:

Faithful to my Lord’s commands,
I still would choose the better part;
Serve with careful Martha’s hands,
And loving Mary’s heart.

It seems evident that the Lord wants each of us to imitate Mary in our worship and Martha in our work. It would be great if we could balance both.

Consider Martha’s situation. She received Jesus into her home and then neglected Him as she prepared an elaborate meal that He did not need! Certainly a meal was in order, but what we do with Christ is far more important than what we do for Christ. Again, it is not an either/or situation; it is a matter of balance. Mary had done her share of the work in the kitchen and then had gone to “feed” on the Lord’s teachings. Martha felt neglected after Mary left the kitchen, perhaps a little jealous and she began to complain and to suggest that neither the Lord nor Mary really cared about her!

Few things are as damaging to the Christian life as trying to work for Christ without taking time to commune with Christ. “For without Me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). Mary chose the better part, the part that could not be taken from her. She knew that she could not live “by bread alone” (Matt. 4:4).

One of my concerns since coming to Trinity Church is that our Sunday school meets at the same time as our worship service. Now, many churches are like that, so this doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. When I was a boy at a Methodist Church, we had Sunday school from 9:15 am to 10:15 am and then worship service at 10:45 am. This was so the Sunday school teachers were able to attend the worship service. I should also point out that most of the teachers were not parents.
There were also a number of parents that dropped off their children at 9:15 am and picked them up at the end of school. Even though we made the worship service available to all, that didn’t mean people would choose to come.

Since our worship service and Sunday school are at the same time, are we preventing our teachers and our children from communing with God? Teaching is a very important ministry and they do it well; but it is also important to teach our children the importance of worship. For if our children only experience Sunday school, they may think that that’s all there is to church. When they grow up, they may not value church or the worship service, because they have not experienced it or taught the importance of it.

Whenever we criticize others and pity ourselves because we feel overworked, we had better take time to examine our lives. Perhaps in all our busyness, we have been ignoring the Lord. Martha’s problem was not that she had too much work to do, but that she allowed her work to distract her and pull her apart. She was trying to serve two masters!
We can actually do that in the church. We fill up our days with “good works” by helping people, and then we don’t leave time to be with God. If serving Christ makes us difficult to live with, then something is terribly wrong with our service!

The key is to have the right priorities or the right balance: Jesus Christ first, then our neighbors, then ourselves. It is vitally important that we spend time “at the feet of Jesus” every single day, letting Him share His Word with us. The most important part of the Christian life is the part that only God sees. Unless we meet Christ personally and privately each day, we will soon end up like Martha: busy but not blessed.

On another occasion, after Lazarus was raised from the dead, Martha prepared a feast for Jesus, the Twelve, and her brother and sister – that’s fifteen people – and she did not utter one word of complaint! She had God’s peace in her heart because she had learned to sit at the feet of Jesus. She learned what it meant to “take time to be holy.”

If you were asked the question, “Tell me about your devotional life.” Would you be able to say that you read God’s Word every day? Do you pray daily? Would you be embarrassed because you don’t? Would you say something like, “I used to read the Bible, but I just can’t seem to find the time anymore.” We need make time. We need to “take time to be holy.”

Let us pray:
O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and forever.

AMEN!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>