Faith is as Faith Does

Let's find our place in God's Word. Luke chapter 10 is our place this morning, specifically verses 25 through 37.

And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

And he said to him, What is written in the law? What is your reading of it? So he answered and said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

And he said to him, You have answered rightly. Do this, and you will live. But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor?

Then Jesus answered and said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, departed, leaving him half dead.

Now by chance, a certain priest came down that road, and when he saw him, he passed on by the other side. Likewise, a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked and passed by on the other side.

But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. For he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.

So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves? And he said, He who showed mercy on him. Then Jesus said to him, Go and do likewise.

Now it happened as they went that he entered a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word.

But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore, tell her to help me.

And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed. And Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.

Right, now, there is a saying, an idiom, a saying that still I think today is somewhat familiar, though it is all but dropped out of our usage today.

In fact, it has its origin all the way back to the 14th century, and the saying goes like this, Handsome is as handsome does. How many of you have ever heard that?

A few. I would say probably if you're over 50 or more, maybe you've heard that. Handsome is as handsome does. Well, what does it mean? It means good deeds are more important than good looks.

That's how we would say it today. That is, you know, just because you're good looking doesn't mean that you're a good person. I believe Forrest Gump... Who said that?

Got a witness over here. I believe it was Forrest Gump who made a little different variation of that. If you might remember, he said, stupid is as stupid does.

Where's my witness over there? Now, this is an axiom. I'm not talking about Forrest Gump's, but I'm talking about handsome is as handsome does.

It's an axiom of life. An axiom is just a self-evident, universally accepted principle or truth. Handsome is as handsome does.

Well, let me give you the Christian version of it. Faith is as faith does. Isn't that true? Faith is as faith does.

And that is going to be my subject for this morning because I believe that is the subject from this particular passage of Scripture in the Gospel of Luke. James, and I'll just turn to James real quick.

James put it this way. In James chapter 2 verse 14, he said, What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?

Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is what? Dead. It's dead. James went on to say, Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? You want to know that for sure? He says, For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

So you see, faith is as faith does. And that is our subject for this morning from this passage of Scripture. Now, in this passage that I read a moment ago, we have three elements of the narration, or we might call them movements in Luke's narration.

The first being this lawyer who stands up and asks the question. He poses a question of Jesus. That's the first part of the story, first movement in the narration.

And then second, we have the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is familiar to all of us. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone, even in the unsaved world that has not heard about the parable of the Good Samaritan.

And so you have that second part of the story, or the narration, which is really Jesus' answer to the lawyer's question. And then finally, and I've added this to it because I believe it goes with it, the third movement in the narration is this excerpt about Mary and Martha.

Specifically, Jesus' dialogue with Martha, her question, his answer, and so forth. Now, you might think that this would be a separate thing, but really, all three of these movements in this portion of Luke's narrative go together, and they do so so that Luke can teach us, really the Holy Spirit, can teach us a vital truth about faith, about what true faith is, true biblical faith.

And I would suggest to you that this truth is first identified to us by the lawyer in his question. It is then illustrated for us in this parable of the Good Samaritan.

And then finally, it is demonstrated for us by Mary and Martha. And that's what we're going to see in this passage this morning. Let me break it down just a little bit further.

There are a number of questions, I'm sure you noticed, a number of questions posed by the principal characters in this particular passage of Scripture. And though there are more than three, we can identify three key questions that are asked.

In fact, the three movements in the story are really introduced to us or defined to us by these three key questions.

That's how we can divide this into three parts. Three key questions. Now, the first question is pretty obvious. The first key question, and I would submit, is the key question of this entire passage.

And it is the one that was posed by the lawyer there in verse 25 when he asked, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? That's the key question of the passage.

But there is a second question, a key question, and it comes to us in verse 29. And again, it is asked by the lawyer and asked of Jesus. And it is simply this, And who is my neighbor?

All right, that's a key question in this passage. And then third and finally, in verse 40, we have Martha asking this key question.

And she asked, Lord, Do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Now, it might be difficult here at the outset to see how these three questions come together to present really not only the key question of the passage, but also answers to that key question.

It may be difficult to see that here at the outset, but I think you will as we go along. Now, of course, Jesus answers each of these questions. He doesn't leave any of these questions just out there hanging.

He may not answer them in the way that you would expect. He certainly is going to answer a couple of these questions by asking questions, which was a favorite way of the Lord Jesus.

But He's not going to leave the questions unanswered. And He's going to answer them. And in His answer, He's going to reveal to us what true biblical faith is.

And that's the whole point of this passage. Now, a number of other applications, of course, and specifically I'm talking about the parable of the Good Samaritan. There have been a number of applications, and we can make a number of social kind of applications from that parable.

But understand here at the outset that this parable of the Good Samaritan is designed to answer the original question, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

All right, let's get to it. Three questions, three points to my message this morning. The first question, which is asked by the lawyer, that first question reveals faith's authority.

That's number one. Faith's authority. That is the authority for true biblical faith. Look at verse 25 again.

Behold, a certain lawyer. Now, surely you understand that this is not a lawyer in the contemporary use of the word or sense of the word.

This is a scribe. In fact, some of the versions, I believe, use the word scribe. And that is, this was one of these leaders of the Jews who was a, quote, and I say, quote, expert on the law, on the scripture.

He was an expert in interpreting and applying the holy scriptures, the Hebrew scriptures, the Torah as well, as well as other rabbinical writings.

And so he was the, quote, expert on the word of God. That's this lawyer. And then in verse 25, he says, he came, he stood up and did what?

Tested him. That is, he put Jesus to the test, or at least that was his desire. Now, that may mean that he wanted to trap Jesus in order to somehow discredit Jesus, trip him up on something.

That was probably his intent. Or it could have been as innocent as he just simply wanted the answer to a question that he had. So he was either malicious in his intent, or he was just simply curious.

Either way, here's the question, and it's a good one. Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? That's his question. Now, regardless of his motive, and honestly, we cannot say anything definitively about his motive, whether it was malicious or just curious.

But it doesn't really matter. Regardless of his motive, this is an excellent question. What must I do to inherit eternal life? As a matter of fact, you're going to find this question asked a number of places in the New Testament.

Let me just give you a few examples. For example, a little bit later in the Gospel of Luke, in Luke chapter 18 and verse 18, we have the rich young ruler, remember? And this ruler comes to Jesus, and he says, Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

It's the same question, isn't it? I mean, word for word, same question. Then you look at Acts chapter 2 and verse 37, for another example, after Peter finished his great sermon on the day of Pentecost, you remember?

And the Bible says, Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, that is, they were deeply convicted of the Holy Spirit, and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?

Now, not the same words, but it is the same question, essentially. What must we do? What shall we do? That is, what shall we do to be saved from God's wrath?

Specifically in that context there in Acts chapter 2. But it's the same question. And then in Acts chapter 16, verse 30, the Roman jailer posed this question to Paul and Silas.

Sirs, what must I do to be saved? That is essentially the same question. Now, listen, here's the point. This is the most important question anyone could ever ask or should ask.

How can I inherit eternal life? How can I be accepted of God? How can I enter the kingdom of God? How can I receive the eternal promises of God?

Or to put it in the negative, how can I have my sins forgiven? How can I escape God's wrath, God's judgment? That's at the heart of this question.

And it is an important question. It is the most important question anyone could and should ask. It is a question for which the right answer is absolutely vital.

It is the difference, would mark the difference between heaven and hell. All right, so it's a good question. How does Jesus answer the question? Well, he answers the question with two questions of his own, which was very typical of Jesus.

Two counter questions, one right after the other. Two short little questions. Verse 26, And he said to him, What is written in the law? That's his answer.

He answers with a question. And then, very similarly, he says, What is your reading of it? Now, this is not the same question just said two different ways. There's a slight difference between these two questions.

But this is basically how Jesus answers. And essentially he's saying, You're the Bible expert. What does the Bible say? And not only that, but how do you read it?

What do you think the meaning of it is? And so Jesus counters with two questions. What is written in the law? And how does it read to you?

And as a preacher, as an expositor of Scripture, I would say to you that I know full well what Jesus is asking here. And we all should know this. Did you know that every sermon that I preach is the result of a, really basically, a three-step process?

And the technical terms for this process would be exegesis. You've heard that word before, haven't you? That's the beginning point when you approach Scripture.

It's exegesis. And it's basically answering the question, What does this Scripture passage say? What does it say? I mean, you look at the words, you look at the phrases, you look at the grammar, you look at the historical context, you look at all those things, and you discover, What does it say?

That's exegesis. And then the second step is this big word, hermeneutics. Hermeneutics, and that answers the question, What does this Scripture passage mean?

All right, here's what it says. Now, what does it mean? Now, by the way, this is not just for preachers. This is for all of us as we approach the Scripture. We want to come to the Scripture and approach it with this honest question, searching question, What does it say?

And then answer the question, What does it mean? And then the final step, of course, is what I'm doing here this morning. And that's homiletics. And that is to discover the best way to communicate and apply the meaning of the passage to the hearers, to you, to the people.

Now, that's just preaching 101. But now, Jesus, in His questions, He really is asking two of those three questions, the first two.

He is asking, first of all, What is written in the law? That's exegesis. All right, so He's asking this expert, quote, expert, on the Bible, the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, He's asking, What does the passage, what does the Bible say?

That's exegesis. And then the second question, How does it read to you? That's hermeneutics. What does the Bible mean? So He asks those two questions of this lawyer, this scribe, and do you see what Jesus is doing here?

Jesus is pointing the lawyer not to tradition, not to cultural acceptance or cultural norms or the wisdom of the day.

He is pointing this lawyer to the only source from which He could hope to get His answer. And that would be God's Word. The Scriptures.

You see, that's faith's authority. And it's interesting, the lawyer gets it, doesn't he? He gets it. And he basically answers his own question, but he doesn't answer it from tradition.

He doesn't answer it from other rabbinical writings. He answers it directly from the Word of God. Verse 27, So He answered and said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself, as you love your neighbor as yourself.

All right, so the lawyer answer comes from the Bible. Comes from the Word of God. And, in fact, it comes from two Old Testament passages. The first part of his answer comes from Deuteronomy 6, and verse 5, which is from the Shema.

Shema means to hear. And it was a portion of Scripture in Deuteronomy 6, really starting with verse 4, that the Jews were memorized, and they quoted, and they taught their children to memorize.

And it's called the Shema because it begins with the word hear. In Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words, which I command you today, shall be in your heart.

That's the Shema. The Shema. The hearing. And so this is part of his answer. It's a direct quote from Scripture. Deuteronomy 6, verse 5. This lawyer, this scribe, knew these words quite well.

He had memorized them from his youth. The second part of his answer, though, comes from Leviticus 19, verse 18, where the Bible says, God says, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

So there it is. His answer to Jesus' question, which is an answer to the scribe's question, is Scripture. And it comes straight from Scripture, Deuteronomy chapter 6, and Leviticus chapter 19.

All right, so here is the lawyer's answer from Scripture. Love God with everything you are and have, and love your neighbor just exactly the way you love yourself.

That's his answer. Now, how does Jesus respond? Well, he responds in the affirmative, doesn't he? In a strong affirmative. He says, You're right.

Look at verse 28. And he said to him, You have answered rightly. All right, you can't be confused about that. There's nothing vague about that.

Jesus said, Your answer is correct. And then he said what? Do this. Do this, and you will live. All right, so what do we have?

We have the answer to this man's question. The question being, What must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus asked, What does the Bible say, and what does that mean to you?

And he answered correctly, Love God, love your neighbor. And Jesus said, You're right. Do this, and you will live. You will live.

The implication, eternal life. And we know that this is the right answer because Jesus said these very same things in Matthew chapter 22 and verse 37 where Jesus said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself on these two commandments. Hang all the law and the prophets straight from Jesus' mouth.

All right, so the lawyer answered his own question. And he answered it from Scripture. Faith's authority. And Jesus said, You have answered rightly.

Do this, and you will live. By the way, do this is the translation of one single verb in the Greek text. And it is an imperative.

It means it's a command. So Jesus is commanding this man to do this. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus commanded him, Do this, but it's also a verb in what we call the present tense, which means that it is a continuous action.

And so he's literally saying, Do this, and keep on doing it. This is the pattern, should be the pattern of your life. And if this is the pattern of your life, then you have true biblical faith and therefore have eternal life.

See, don't misunderstand. Jesus is not teaching a works kind of salvation. Some of you might be thinking that right now. Is this some kind of works salvation? That if I will love my fellow man, give the shirt off my back, that that will accomplish for me, gain for me, merit for me, eternal life, God's salvation?

Absolutely not. That doesn't fit with Scripture at all. No, Jesus is talking about true faith here. He is, the implication is, that the answer to the question is biblical faith.

It's true faith. True faith. And true faith looks like this. Love God with everything and love your neighbor as yourself.

Paul wrote in Galatians 5, verse 6, that this true faith is faith working through love. You see, that is loving God with all your heart, soul, strength, mind and loving your neighbor as yourself because a faith that does not produce a love of one's neighbor is dead.

It's a dead faith. Meaning, it's not faith. It never was faith. So the answer is faith. James chapter 2, verse 15, if a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food and one of you says to them, depart in peace, be warm, be filled, but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?

Thus, that's used as an illustration, in the same way, faith by itself, he says. If it does not have works, is dead.

Faith is as faith does. And so then faith's authority is the word of God. It's God's word. Faith is the way to eternal life.

There's only one way, by grace, through faith. You cannot work your way there. But works are the result of this true biblical faith. Faith is what faith does. And according to the authority of Scripture, faith is loving God and loving your fellow man as well.

But then this lawyer followed up with a second question. The first question reveals faith's authority. The second question reveals faith's validity.

Faith's validity. Faith's validity. That is, how do you know it's true faith? How do you know it's true faith? What validates your faith in Christ?

Well, let's look at this lawyer's second question. Verse 29, But he, wanting to justify himself, that's interesting, isn't it?

This is how he's about to frame the question he's going to ask. He's wanting to justify himself. That is, he's saying basically, it says basically that he wants to own his own salvation, his own way of salvation, that he wants to justify himself.

That is, you know, he's proud of his own self-righteousness. So this is how he approaches his question. And really, we need to understand at this point about the lawyer, though I'm not really so much focusing upon this lawyer as I am focusing upon the question and Jesus' answer to the question.

But we do need to understand about something about this lawyer. It is at this point in his dialogue with Jesus that he should have done the right thing and he should have owned up to his absolute, utter need for salvation.

Because what Jesus said, or really the lawyer said from Scripture, what it says to go and do, this man was completely unable to do. And he did not love God in the way that Scripture prescribed.

Now he knew the truth, didn't he? He could quote Scripture, so he knew the Word, but he was absolutely void of any works that validate the Word.

And so he should have at that very moment said, you know, I am not saved. I don't love God the way the Scripture prescribes. And I do not love my neighbor either. And he should have responded just like the tax collector did in Luke chapter 18 of verse 13, remember?

The tax collector standing far off. He would not so much as even raise his eyes to heaven, but he beat on his breast, his chest, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

I'm thinking that this lawyer, that should have been his response right after Jesus posed those two questions and the lawyer quoted Scripture. He should have said, you know, my heart is convicted.

I don't love God. And the proof I don't love God is I don't really love my neighbor. But he didn't do that. Instead, he asked a question. I think a rather pompous question, rather self-prideful question.

He asked in verse 20 to 26 or 29, who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor?

That's his question. Now, I think you can read behind the question and understand that this man thought he was fulfilling all of the law. And so, therefore, he was pretty convinced that he had eternal life.

I don't think he even asked the original question because he had some doubts about that. I think he thought he already had eternal life, that he was self-righteous, really, in and of himself. And so, he just wants to clarify here, see what Jesus has to say, which is, who is my neighbor?

And so, Jesus responds with a parable, a parable that ends with, guess what? Another question. Jesus asks another question.

And with this parable, Jesus strikes at the very heart of this man's real problem. And the problem was that he knew the word of God, but he did not have true faith because he did not have works, works to validate his faith.

Here's the parable, verse 30. Then Jesus answered and said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

Now, by chance, a certain priest came down that road and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Or so, a priest has come by and he passed by on the other side of the road.

Likewise, a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked and passed by on the other side. Now, priests and Levites, these were leaders, these were people who were primarily up in the high muckety-muck of Jewish leadership.

A priest, certainly, and a Levite also. Both of these men served the Lord in the temple and they had their role and they were highly revered and highly respected. And this lawyer would have highly respected these two men in the parable.

But Jesus shows the lawyer that these two men, the priest and the Levite, did not obey the commandments.

They did not love their neighbor. Therefore, therefore, they could not necessarily then love God and so they did not have eternal life. That's the point of that part of the parable.

But then Jesus mentions a Samaritan and then the Samaritan becomes the hero of the story, doesn't he? But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was.

Now, you have to understand, and probably most of you do, that the Jews hated the Samaritans. We won't go into the history of that. They hated them. They would not so much as give the time of day to a Samaritan.

Wouldn't walk across their land. They would walk all around Samaria just to get to the other side. They would never walk through, never enter into a conversation with a Samaritan. They thought they were lower than dogs, all right?

And so Jesus introduces this Samaritan and he becomes the hero of the story. And so what does this Samaritan do? And when he saw him, he had compassion, so he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, took care of him, and on the next day when he departed, he took out two denarii, that would be two days' wages, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, take care of him, that is, meet all of his needs, and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.

He's going to take care of all this guy's needs. And he's a Samaritan. So it's a very familiar story. Now, please understand something here.

Not to diminish the many applications of the parable in terms of social consciousness, being conscious of the poor, and the needy, and the hurting.

As a church, we ought to lead the way in that. We ought to be good Samaritans in that sense. But the primary intent of this parable is not to create a social conscience for poor and needy people.

The primary intent of this parable is to answer the lawyer's original question about eternal life. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Now, notice how Jesus concluded the parable with a question.

Verse 36, So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves? There's the question. And it is intended with the parable to answer the lawyer's original question, what must I do to inherit eternal life, but also to answer the question, who is my neighbor?

Because the answer to the question, who is my neighbor, will help him understand the answer to the original question. And so, he asks the question, which one of these three was a neighbor to this one that fell among the thieves?

I want you to notice something here, something that might be easy to miss. Did you notice the difference between the lawyer's question and Jesus' question?

question? The lawyer's question in verse 29, and who is my neighbor? Jesus' question in verse 36, so which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?

See a difference between those two questions? the right question is not who is my neighbor? Because, essentially, everyone is my neighbor.

The right question, the crucial question, is, am I a neighbor? What kind of neighbor am I? Or to put it another way, you should worry less about who a neighbor is and more about being a neighbor.

being a neighbor. And so Jesus asked, verse 36, so which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves? And the lawyer responded in verse 37, he who showed mercy to him or on him.

And what does Jesus say in response? You're right. Now, he didn't use that word, but that's basically what he's saying. He said, go and do likewise. That is, right again.

Do that, is what Jesus said to him. Do you see how this is all coming together? The key question throughout the passage is, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus is answering that question, and the one who will inherit eternal life is the one who through faith will love God supremely and love people sacrificially and being and being a good neighbor, especially to those who are hard to love, and there are some who are hard to love, to be a good neighbor, that validates the truth of your faith.

And don't tell me, don't tell yourself, don't have any confidence that you have eternal life if you have no desire whatsoever to love your fellow man.

This is what Jesus is saying, it validates true biblical faith. Jesus said in John 13, 34, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Couldn't be any clearer than that. Let me give you another passage. Romans 13, verse 8, he who loves another has fulfilled the law.

Let me give you another. 1 John 3, verse 23. And this is his commandment, that we shall believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he gave us commandment.

And how about 1 John 4, 7? Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God. And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. It couldn't be any clearer than that.

Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. And let me give you one more. 1 John 4, 12. No man has seen God at any time.

If we love one another, God abides in us and his love has been perfected in us. You see, faith's authority is the word of God, God's word. Faith's validity, what validates faith, true faith, is works.

Works. Not works unto salvation, but works from our salvation as a result of our salvation. Works as a result of our faith. Validates our faith.

The third and final question reveals, kind of puts it all together, reveals faith's priority. Faith's priority. And I'm going to call it God's way.

So faith's authority is God's word. Faith's validity is God's works that we're to be about. And faith's priority is God's way. The way of the faithful, the way we ought to be living our lives and it is demonstrated for us in these final verses about Mary and Martha here in chapter 10.

Now, it's not the way to eternal life we're talking about here, but again, the way of eternal life. Here's the key question. Verse 40.

Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Don't you even care about that, Lord? All right, now, understand the authority of faith, what is it?

It's God's word. The validity of our faith is godly works. It validates our faith. And these come together here in the final verses of chapter 10.

Martha is the one asking the question this time. Mary, where is she? Mary, she's where you always find Mary in Scripture.

She's sitting at Jesus' feet taking in every word he speaks. She just can't get enough of it. Martha, where is she? She's where she usually is in the biblical record of Mary and Martha.

Martha is up about working, busy, serving her guests. the Bible does say she's distracted.

And she's doing all the work. And so, it seems, I think, at least on the face of it, quite natural that she would be a little bit upset. We might all be upset a little bit.

I mean, she's doing all the work and she's getting no help from her sister, Mary. And so, she asked Jesus, do you not care that I have to do all the work around here and Mary, my sister, just sits there?

Don't you even care about that? In fact, she goes a step further, doesn't she? Command her to get up. Get up and give me some help. Now, does that seem reasonable?

Why? Yeah, that's not a trick question. That's reasonable. We might all, all of us feel that way. But, we have to hear what Jesus says about that.

Verse 41, and Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you're worried and troubled about many things. One thing is needed, literally the most needed, most important.

And Mary has chosen that most important thing, the good part. which will not be taken away from her. Really, right now, I'm not going to take that away from her.

The implication is, it's a matter of priorities. We've talked about the authority of faith, that's God's word.

We've talked about the validity of faith, that's our works. Word and works. When they come together, what is the priority?

The word. We could even, by extension, say our worship, which is all, always, produced, generated by the revelation of God, His word.

word. And so, it's not word only, no works. That is, in the sense that Mary's doing the right thing, Martha, you're not doing the right thing. You're not supposed to be working.

Don't come away from scripture with that. There's always this tension, see, in the word of God, between word and works. One has the priority, and that is the word.

But it is not to be void of works, because faith without works is worthless. It's dead faith. In fact, it's the works that validate what you believe about the word.

And so, Mary and Martha kind of serve to put this all together and kind of help us with this tension. The priority must be the word. Mary has chosen that good part, the best part, communion with Jesus, listening to His word.

And that always takes precedence. In fact, we don't even have, what we need within us to work if we leave off the most important part, and that is to sit at Jesus' feet and hear and listen to His word.

But both are important. One takes precedence. The other is very important as well. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? The answer is true biblical faith.

True biblical faith. Faith's authority is God's word identified by the lawyer. Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

That's identified by the lawyer. That's faith's authority. Faith's validity is God's works, godly works, as illustrated by the parable of the Good Samaritan.

And then faith's priority, when you put this all together, God's way, the way we are to live our lives, the way truly faithful people live, that's demonstrated by Mary and Martha.

And it's loving God supremely, and serving God sacrificially. That is the way of those who have inherited eternal life.

Faith is as faith does. does.