Having a Mary Spirit in a Martha World, God's Love Languages Part 1 | Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley

0:00 Beloved, grace and peace be unto you from God who loves us as a mother and a father and Jesus Christ who alone is our resurrected, our risen, our reigning and our returning redeemer. As you get ready to get into the word today, I want to share with you how excited I am to kick off this new series. This series is going to carry us through August and at the same time bring back to this space some of our most beloved guest pastors and preachers like John Adolph, Janae Pitts Murdoch, Charles Goodman, and our new assistant to the pastor, the Reverend Dr. Zina Jacques. Let me show you a little bit about how this series came to be so that you can understand why we're going in this direction. Over the past few weeks, God's been doing some absolutely amazing things in my life that have left me humbled and speechless. And the other day while I was out jogging, I found myself in a place that hopefully you and I all land at in some moment of life.

1:01 And that's the place where you are absolutely overwhelmed with the love of God. I was out jogging, listening to some of my favorite gospel music. Kurt Carr came on with Blessing After Blessing. And then Stephen Hurd with Revelation 19.1. And I felt myself uncontrollably crying and falling down on my knees, lifting up hands outside in the air, just amazed with how good God really is. Have you ever been in that place where you are just overwhelmed with the magnanimity of God's mercy? When you realize that they are new every morning. Have you ever been in a place where you're just overwhelmed with the grandeur of God's grace? And know that when you prayed, God did go exceedingly and abundantly above what you asked for.

2:00 Have you ever been in a place where you're just overwhelmed with the power of God's presence and you found out that if God be for you, he's more than the world against you? Have you ever been overwhelmed with the opulence of God's omnipotence, where you found out he's a God that can take what was meant for evil and use it for your good? I have been overwhelmed with how much God loves us. This limitless, unconditional love. That Jeremiah was right when God speaks to that prophet and says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. That Jesus was right when he said, God's love can't be compared to anything else because no greater love has anyone than this than that they would lay down a life for a friend. And Paul hit the nail on the head when he said that I am persuaded that nothing can separate us from the love of God.

3:04 God shows his love to us every single day. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans chapter 8 that God demonstrates his love to us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. God has demonstrated his love to us. He shows us his love. He proves his love day in and day out. And while I was on my knees, overwhelmed with the love of God, knowing how much God has proven his love to me, the question I began to ask myself is, does God know how much I love him? God proves God's love to me every day but I wonder does God really know how much I love him how do we show our love to God anybody grown and mature who's been through some relationships knows that it's a horrible thing to feel like you're in love by yourself it's a horrible thing to have some unrequited love to give to someone who's incapable of giving back to you. It's a sad thing to show your love to someone who lacks the ability to share that love back to you. They say it, but they can't show it. And it made me wonder, is God in love with us by himself?

4:39 How do we show God, Lord, I love you as much as you love me? How do I return to God what God has shown me in the limitless love that he pours out for me every day? Do you really love the Lord? Jesus commanded us and said that here's the greatest commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind and your soul. But the question I ask is, how do we do that? How do we show God that we love God? Let me tell you why that's so critical for me and hopefully why it's a pressing question for you. Because the Apostle Paul reminds us that eyes haven't seen and ears haven't heard the things God has in store for them that love him. And so I want God to know I love you because I want to see what eyes haven't seen.

5:39 I want to walk in what only God has planned for me. I want to do the unprecedented with the Lord. I want to have everything God has in store for me. And in order for me to inherit that, I've got to make certain God knows I love him. How do we show God our love? while contemplating that I was reminded of a popular book that came out in 1992 by Gary Chapman called the five love languages many of you have read that it's a book about establishing love in a romantic sense and in that book Gary Chapman makes the following arguments for those who haven't read it. Number one, that any loving relationship is dependent upon communication. Being able to communicate is critical to maintaining a relationship. He says, secondly, that the most important thing to be able to communicate is love, that you must be able to communicate the love you have for someone to them. Here's the challenge though. People express and experience love in different ways. So how I think I'm expressing love may not be how you experience love.

7:00 And relationships wind up in tense moments because someone is expressing love in a way that the other person does not experience love and they both wind up being frustrated. Chapman argues that there are five love languages that most people speak. Quality time, words of affirmation, affection, acts of service, and gifts. And the challenge in relationship is to learn how the one you love experiences love so that you can then learn to express love in the way that they experience. In a real sense, you learn their love language. Because if you're just speaking your love language, but you're not speaking their love language, you're going to be frustrated because you think you're expressing love, but they're not experiencing love. Okay, let me give an example.

7:59 So let's say I express love through buying gifts. That every now and then I pick you up a little something, something, or spend some money to let you know that you're on my mind and I love you. And the issue is that you speak quality time. That what lets you know I love you is not what I purchase, but how much time I spend with you. And so now you're going to come to me saying, why don't you love me? And I'm going to be mad. I'm going to say, what do you mean I don't love you? Look at that coach bag I bought you. Look at them red bottom shoes I bought you. Look at that trip I took you on. I spent money on you, but you don't experience love through gifts. You experience love through quality time, and you don't think I love you because I don't spend time with you, and I'm frustrated because I buy stuff for you, and we're not speaking the same love language. Okay, you don't get it? So you think affection expresses love, and so you give yourself intimately to someone and not realize that that is not love to them.

8:57 What's love to them are words of affirmation. And here you are frustrated because you've been giving yourself to someone who doesn't receive that gift as love. What they need are words of affirmation. We've got to learn to speak the love language of the one we love. So what love language does God receive? How does God experience our love? that's the question we're going to seek to answer today and over the next four weekends Dr. John Adolph is going to share with us how God experiences our love through the intimate act of worship Reverend Dr. Janae Pitts Murdoch is going to share with us how God experiences our love through our acts of service and mission the Reverend Dr. Charles Goodman is going to share with us how God experiences our love through our gifts and our giving. And the Reverend Dr. Zina Jacques is going to share with us how God experiences our love through words of affirmation and our praise. But today as we start off, I want to share with you how God experiences love through the quality time of daily devotion that we render to the Lord. I would argue with you that God's primary love language is quality devotional time.

10:23 To set that in context, I want you to hear again a reading that you're familiar with from the Gospel of Luke chapter 10. Very familiar account of something that happens in the house of Mary and Martha. Luke chapter 10, beginning in verse 38. And listen for the word of the Lord as I read out of the New International Version of the Bible. Luke 10, verse 38. As Jesus and the disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened up her home to him. She had a sister called Mary. And Mary sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to Jesus and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister's left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me.

11:22 Martha, Martha, the Lord answered. You are worried and upset about many things, but only a few things are needed, or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her. As we meditate and listen to the word of the Lord from Luke chapter 10 and get into this first segment of God's love languages, I want to put a title on this sermon and talk to you about having a Mary spirit in a Martha world. Having a Mary spirit in a Martha world. I think I can say without fear of contradiction that one of the things God desires from each and every one of us is to set aside some time every day to be in devotion with the Lord. As a matter of fact, you see it in the very first miracle that God does on behalf of a people when God brings the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt.

12:30 Go back to the beginning of the book of Exodus and listen at why God delivers them out of bondage. God says, I'm bringing you out of bondage for two reasons. Number one, because I've heard your cries and you being oppressed is not God's will for your life. God did not birth you to be oppressed by anything or anyone. So God says, I'm going to deliver you because oppression is not my will. But keep reading. and God says, but the other reason I'm bringing you out of bondage is because I want you to be able to worship me. And while you are in bondage, you cannot worship. One of the reasons I'm bringing you out is to break the oppression. And I bring you out because I want you to give me some time in worship. I'm delivering you so that you can give me some of your time back to me.

13:29 And I would argue with you, my brother and my sister on this day, that it could be that just about everything God does for you, God does it with the expectation that on the other side, you will grant God some of your time back. God answered your prayer and went above what you asked for in hope that in response you'd give God some more time. God made a way out of no way so you could have more time. God promoted you on your job that you might give him some more time. God handled enemies in your life that you might give him some more time. God healed a loved one that you prayed for that you might give him some more time. Everything God does, God does with the expectation that in response and in gratitude, we would give God some more time. When the psalmist sat back in Psalm 116 and said, what shall I render to the Lord for all of his benefits unto me?

14:29 Here's what you give back to God, some of your time, some of your daily devotion, a prayer life, a fasting life, a listening to the Lord life. What God desires is time. And maybe, beloved, that's why we see this subtle rebuke that Jesus gives to Martha in Luke chapter 10. You know the context. You graduated Sister Johnson's Sunday school class. Jesus comes into the house of Mary and Martha, and Mary is concerned about hospitality codes and mores and the laws of hosting someone like Jesus, and she begins to get busy with preparing everything for Jesus. Getting the house clean and preparing the meal, and preparing meals were not easy. They didn't just go to the refrigerator and pop something in the microwave. It took hours to get a meal together. And while Martha's doing all of that, Mary, her sister, is sitting down at Jesus' feet, listening to what the Lord is saying. Martha pauses all of her hustle and bustle, and she gets mad. She goes to Jesus and says, Jesus, you don't care that she's sitting down there and ain't helping me do a daggone thing. Tell her to help me. And Jesus calls her name, not once, but twice. In preparation for verses 2022, make certain you know this, that when the Lord calls a name twice, he's giving you a slap on the hand. When the Lord calls a name twice, he's trying to get your attention. When the Lord calls a name twice, he's trying to break you from what you're doing to focus on him. Martha, Martha, you're distracted by too many things.

16:24 Now, beloved, I want you to see that what Martha is doing is not bad. What Martha is doing is living up to ancient Palestinian code of what a woman's role and responsibility was. Hey, hey, hey, hey, woke woman, feminist, womanist, hey, listen, I'm on your side, but I'm just trying to tell you how was back then. Back then, the expectation that when a guest came into the house, the men would sit with the guests and the women would get the house ready. The women would prepare the meal. The women would be busy. Martha is trying to live up to what her society says she ought to be doing, what culture demanded of her, what that day and time said a woman ought to be about, and she ought to be busy. The culture said the woman should be busy. And sadly, not much has changed in our culture in 2021 because we still live in a world that tries to convince us that we ought to be busy.

17:32 that busy has become synonymous with importance. That the busier you are, the more successful you are. And if you're not busy, if you're not checking boxes, if you're not about an agenda, then you ain't about nothing. Busy has become synonymous with importance. You want to see it? Ask someone how they're doing. and nine out of ten times that conversation is going to wind up with them giving you this long list of everything they have to do. I didn't ask you what you had to do I asked you how you're doing and we've made how we're doing synonymous with what we're doing and if we're not doing enough then we don't feel important. Think about how many times we wake up in the morning and the first thought on our mind is how many things we've got to get done today.

18:38 Jump out the bed and start checking boxes, not realizing that the most important box to check is having some devotional time with the Lord. And I believe that when you begin to mature in God, one of the greatest temptations of the enemy to keep you out of God's will, watch this, is not sin. Listen, when you're a babe in Christ, sin is tempting. But when you grow in Christ, some things ought not tempt you anymore. Some evil ought not even cross your mind. Some lustful thoughts ought not even be there. That's not how the devil attacks the mature saint of God. The devil attacks us with the temptation of busyness. Not evil, busyness. Because if I can keep you busy, I can keep you from spending time with God and speaking God's love language.

19:38 So listen at what Jesus says. Martha, Mary has chosen the better thing. She's chosen to sit and spend time with me, and that's better than being busy. Martha, what you're doing is not evil. What you're doing is not wrong. What you're doing is not best. and Satan always wants to tempt us to sacrifice the best for the good. It's good to be busy. It's good to take care of family. It's good to handle business. It's good to pay bills. It's good to go to work. But what's best is to make certain you're sitting with the Lord. Can I push it?

20:32 And when Jesus says this to Martha, notice it's not the Sabbath day. It's not the day of worship. It's not the time you're supposed to be in church. So listen to what Jesus is saying to Martha. Listen, I expect you to give me some time and not just on the Sabbath, not just on the weekend, not just on worship. You are not growing in your walk with God if the only time you give to God is on Sunday at 10 o'clock when you're supposed to be in church. There's no growth in that. I am not advocating an Etta James gospel with a Sunday kind of love. I know that's too old for some of y'all. This is not a Sunday relationship. I don't just want you in worship days. I don't just want you in the sanctuary. I don't just want you on Sunday morning. I want you to give me time every single day.

21:29 You know what God wants from us? To have a merry heart while we live in a Martha world. To have a heart that says, I want to spend time with God, even though the world tells me I need to be busy. That I want to make spending time with God a priority every day. that I want to choose spending time with God over the temptation of being busy. God wants us to have a merry heart in a Martha world. Come on back to Mary and Martha's house and look at what happens, and I want to show you what it means to have a merry heart in a Martha world. Jesus comes in the house, and there are two different responses. Mary sits down at his feet, and Martha gets busy. Martha makes the decision that there's some things I've got to do that are more important than sitting at the feet of Jesus.

22:33 And maybe one of the reasons Jesus subtly chastises her is to ask her the question that I'm going to ask you. What's more important than spending time with the Lord? what could have a greater priority on your agenda than spending time with the God you love Martha what is so important that you would sacrifice God in order to check another box and I believe beloved that one of the reasons God demands quality time from me and from you is that that is the way we prove how important God is to us. You can't say God is important to you and you don't spend time with the Lord.

23:27 It's a way of proving we are not guilty of idolatry. Let me expand your understanding of idolatry. Idolatry is not building some little statue in your house that you bow down and pray to. Idolatry in its purest sense is when you put anything and anyone above your relationship with God. Anything that's more important than daily devotion has become an idol. Anything you're more committed to than you are to spending time with the Lord has become an idol. So that relationship you're in can become an idol. That job you're on can become an idol. Your children can become idols.

24:23 Going to the gym, great thing, but it can be an idol because some of us are more committed to Gold's Gym than we are to our Bibles. Social media, an idol. I was joking with our interns, you know, they're millennials. And I read a report about millennials that shocked me because I think it really hits more than millennials. And it said this, Tamisha, the report said that millennials, on average, check their phone 262 times a day. Millennials check their phone 262 times a day. And you may not be millennial, but you ain't far behind 262. And you know what that means?

25:17 That some of us are more connected to our phones than we are to God. Some of us are more committed to seeing who wrote a response to our post than we are to discerning what God is saying about our lives.

25:39 262 times. what's more important to you than God? And I believe that one of the reasons people speak quality time as a love language is that they really want to know that they can have some alone time with you. People who speak quality time as a love language, they don't mind cookouts, they don't mind reunions, They like friend gatherings. But every now and then, all they want is to be alone with you. You know why God desires quality devotional time? Because we're too guilty of multitasking God. That we try to do God while doing other things at the same time. We try to pray while listening to other people. We try to worship while we're still busy checking other things on our phone.

26:39 And God says, when do I get some alone time with you? If you love me, I need to have you all by myself. And I don't know if you've ever experienced it, but I have. Have you ever been in that place where God woke you up at three or four o'clock in the morning and you were wide awake? You could not go back to sleep. Why does God do that? To get some alone time. And God says, if the only way I can get you alone with me is to wake you up in the middle of the night, that's what I'm going to do. If the only way I can get you alone with me is to disturb your peace, that's what I'm going to do. If the only way to get you alone with me is to isolate you in a hospital room, that's what I'm going to do. Because God wants some alone time with us.

27:30 Martha, what's more important? Now, here's the tripped out thing, y'all. Martha is not the only woman in the house. Mary is. And the same code, the same mores, the same expectation that's on Martha is also on Mary. Mary should be doing some housework. But Mary has decided to sit at Jesus' feet. Just so you can have a little Bible background, sitting at someone's feet is the posture of a disciple. So watch this. Mary decides, I'm going to be a disciple. And in order to be a disciple, she realizes I can't be distracted like Martha is trying to do all this stuff. Mary models something I really want to press on you, and that is that discipleship demands discrimination.

28:31 Discipleship demands discrimination. Discipleship demands that the moment when you decide, there's some things I cannot do, there's some things I will not do so that I can prioritize sitting at the feet of the Lord, being in the presence of God. Let me tell you why that's a word, because I've been in church long enough to know that one of the ways the enemy tricks us is to have us believe that the more we're doing for the Lord, the more God is pleased with us. The more ministries I join, the more I volunteer, the more I serve, that God is smiling at me. Beloved, hear me and I want to say this in a way that I hope is not offensive, but is convicting.

29:24 And that is work can never replace worship. And duty can never replace devotion. I believe that God would rather have 30 minutes of my morning than 30 hours of my volunteerism. God would prefer to have 30 minutes of devotion with me than I served in 15 ministries at church. And if the truth be told, church ministries would be better if the people who volunteered and served spent more time in devotion than they did in working and trying to get titles and being president and chairperson and have the solo. If you spent more time with the Lord, the church would be better. God would rather have your devotion than your duty. People who spend their life seeking for quality time, one of the reasons they do it is they want to know you have enough discrimination to say no to that so you could say yes to them.

30:32 One of the reasons people search for quality time is that when you give me quality time, proving that I am more important than that. That you'll turn down that invitation to hang out with your friends to spend some time with me. That I'm more important than your girl's trip. That I'm more important than cigar night. That I'm more important than golf. That I'm more important than your vehicle. That I'm more important than the things you want to do. Are you able to share with me that I'm important enough for you to say no to all these other things. That's why God wants quality time. So you can prove how important the Lord is to you. Let me ask you a question. How important is God to you? And before you tell me your answer, I can show you your answer by the first thing you do in the morning.

31:31 You can tell me God is important, but the only way you prove it is by what you do first thing in the morning. What you do first thing in the morning tells me what's important to you. That's why the psalmist said in Psalm 63, early will I seek you, Lord, because my soul thirsts for you and I can't get my day started without searching for the Lord. God is not important to you if God is not first on your agenda when you wake up in the morning. Shame on you to open your eyes and see the dawning of a new day and there's no thank you, Lord, in your bosom. Shame on you to put your feet on the floor and feel the motion of your limbs and not declare it is of the Lord's mercies. We are not consumed. Shame on you to turn on some hot water to take a shower and not tell the Lord how much you love him. Shame on you to go about the agenda of a day and not ask God to help you make it through the day. God is not important to you if God is not the first thing on your mind.

32:32 So God says, I want some quality time because I want you to share with me that I'm important enough for you to say no to other things so you can say yes to me. Can I push this? This blew my mind. And so Jesus is in the house. Mary is sitting listening to him tell her what to do. Don't miss this. Mary is sitting with Jesus, listening to Jesus teach her what to do. Martha is busy. And the only time Martha talks to the Lord is when she wants the Lord to tell Mary to help her. Come here. Martha's only communication with the Lord is when she's telling Jesus what to do for her.

33:27 Don't miss. Martha tells Jesus what to do. Mary is listening to Jesus tell her what to do. And there's a Martha watching this sermon right now who you become so busy that the extent of your prayer life is simply telling God what you want God to do.

33:51 Beloved, I know there's power in prayer, and I'm grateful that we serve a God who answers our prayer, but there's something wrong when the totality of your prayer life sounds a little something like this. God, fix this, do this, heal this, move this, make this happen, amen. There's something wrong with a prayer life that tells God what to do, but never listens to the Lord telling you what to do.

34:23 Who really wants to be in a relationship with someone who only comes to them when they need something? How abusive is it to use someone for your convenience and your need, but never sit and spend time to hear them talk to you. How lopsided a relationship when you get to talk but you never listen. When you tell the Lord what you want and God do this and God make this happen but you're never sitting letting the Lord talk back to you.

35:00 People who speak quality time as a love language and experience love through quality time, one of the reasons they want it is because there are things they want to share with you. And they want quality time to be able to tell you what's on their heart. So let me ask you this question. When's the last time you heard from the Lord? I know you've told God what you wanted. But when's the last time you fasted and slowed down so you could hear the voice of God? When's the last time you stayed in your Bible until you learned God's voice?

35:42 When's the last time you got a good devotional book to hear God minister to your needs? When's the last time you turned on gospel music and just sat until you felt the Holy Spirit sweep over you? Or is your relationship a Martha one where all you're doing is telling God what you want? and here's the tripped out part and I'm done Martha tells the Lord what she wants him to do and watch watch watch what she says Lord tell Mary to help me okay you missed it uh Lord tell Mary to help me I'm not asking you to help me I'm telling you to tell her to help me And beloved, there is something wrong in your life if you can start your day without asking the Lord to help you. How much do you think you really can get done without God?

36:45 How long can you live your life without feeling the power of the Holy Spirit? How many projects will you attempt to handle with your own might? How long can you go without opening up your Bible? How many wrong decisions are you going to make without prayer? How many voices do you listen to before you even search for the voice of the Lord? How much do you think you can get done without the Lord's help? And I don't know about you, but I need God too much not to seek him in the morning. I need the help of God too much not to pray to him. I need God to help me too much not to sit until God talks back to me. I need the Lord to do too many things in my life for me not to try and spend more time with him every day. There's something wrong with the life that is not searching for the help and the aid and the assistance of God. And people who experience love through quality time, they don't like asking for it.

37:48 They don't like begging for it. They want you to volunteer it. Who wants to have your time when they had to pull your teeth to get it? Why? Because they want to know how much you need them. And one of the reasons God speaks love through quality time, because God wants to know, how much do you really need me? How deeply do you desire me? How dependent is your life upon me?

38:20 So, beloved, I'm going to challenge you to schedule some quality time with God every day. Show the Lord how much you love the Lord. Prove to God how important God is for your life. Let the Lord see how much you need the Lord to make it through whatever your day is going to look like. Prove to God that you're willing to sacrifice anything to spend time with the Lord.

38:52 And sit with God and listen while God speaks back to you. Lord, we love you. And one of the ways we prove our love to you is our devotional time. Right now, God, I repent of the idolatry in my life, of the things that stood before you, the things I let interfere with my devotional time, the things I let challenge and change my seeking and searching for your face and your voice. God convict us now that we might not leave this word without recommitting ourselves to speaking your love language of quality, devotional, daily time with you. Martha, Martha, you're too busy. in Jesus name we pray