Theological Status: Theologically Sound
Biblical Parallel(Archetype): Philadelphia
❓ What do these grades mean?
🔍 Biblical Discernment: The 7 Church Parallels
The Cold Orthodox Parallel
Ephesus
Teaching that upholds doctrinal precision yet parallels the loss of the "first love"—the vital, motivating power of the Gospel (Rev 2:4).
🧐 Overview
Sermon Summary: This sermon explores the profound question of what kind of gift God truly appreciates. Using the familiar story of Mary and Martha, it reveals that the greatest offerings are not about perfect performance, but about a heart of mercy that reflects God's own costly love for us in Jesus Christ.
Big Idea: What gifts does God appreciate? [00:34:07 ▶️ 📄]
Pastoral Analysis: A topical sermon on the Beatitude 'Blessed are the merciful,' using the narratives of Mary and Martha from Luke 10 and John 12 as its primary illustration. The sermon correctly defines mercy as 'love at a cost' and grounds the believer's call to mercy in the finished, substitutionary work of Christ. While the homiletical structure is topical rather than strictly expository, the core doctrine is sound and the application is faithful and pastorally encouraging.
Biblical Parallel(Archetype): Philadelphia — The sermon is doctrinally sound, grounded in the gospel, and delivered with warm pastoral affection, calling the church to faithful, merciful living in response to Christ's sacrifice.
🧭 Biblical Alignment Dashboard
Overall Verdict: Biblically Sound
| Category | Status | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Soteriology | ✅ PASS | The sermon correctly frames the believer's acts of mercy not as a means of salvation, but as a necessary and costly response to the ultimate mercy shown in Christ's atoning sacrifice. It upholds a monergistic framework by grounding our ability to give in the grace we have first received. |
| Bibliology | ✅ PASS | Scripture is consistently upheld as the source of authority and truth throughout the sermon. The pastor's arguments are derived from and supported by the biblical text. |
| Hermeneutic | ✅ PASS | The pastor employs a valid topical hermeneutic, comparing two related New Testament narratives to illustrate a central theme from the Sermon on the Mount. The connection to Christ is thematic and sound. |
| Theology Proper | ✅ PASS | God is presented as sovereign, infinitely merciful, and worthy of costly, sacrificial worship. His character is accurately portrayed in line with biblical revelation. |
| Sacramentology | ⚪ N/A | Neither Communion nor Baptism were observed in the provided transcript. |
📖 How they Handle Scripture & Jesus
Primary Text: Luke 10:38-42 (Topical)
Scripture Saturation: Verses Read: 13 | Referenced: 6 | Alluded: 2
Passages Read Aloud:
-
Luke 10:38-42
[00:15:23 ▶️ 📄]
"And she had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you were anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."
-
John 12:1-8
[00:47:56 ▶️ 📄]
"Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at the table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, he who was about to betray him, said, Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor? He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. And having charge of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. Jesus said, Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me."
-
John 12:1-3
[00:48:05 ▶️ 📄]
"Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they, Martha and Mary, gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of the ones reclining at the table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume."
-
John 12:4-8
[00:48:38 ▶️ 📄]
"But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, he who was about to betray him, said, Why was this ointment not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor? He said, That's not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief. And having charged the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. And Jesus said, leave her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you always have with you, but not always me."
Key References: Exodus 34:6, Deuteronomy 4:31, Psalm 145:9, Lamentations 3:22, Micah 6:8, Romans 12
Christological Connection: Thematic: The sermon connects the theme of mercy in the Beatitudes to the ultimate act of mercy in Christ's sacrificial death, which then becomes the model and motivation for the believer's life.
🧱 Sermon Outline
- Introduction: The Awkward Gift [00:31:22 ▶️ 📄] : The pastor introduces the topic of giving gifts and frames the story of Mary and Martha as an example of an 'awkward gift' given to Jesus, setting up the sermon's central questions.
- Point 1: What Gifts Does God Appreciate? [00:39:53 ▶️ 📄] : The pastor argues that God appreciates gifts that are both authentic (true to the giver) and personal (reflective of God's own heart), identifying mercy as the key characteristic of God's heart.
- Point 2: How Much Does a Good Gift Cost? [00:43:41 ▶️ 📄] : This section defines mercy as 'love at a cost' and uses the second Mary and Martha story in John 12 to illustrate the high cost and sacrificial nature of true, merciful worship.
- Conclusion: The Ultimate Mercy and Our Response [00:51:43 ▶️ 📄] : The pastor connects Mary's costly gift to Christ's infinitely costly sacrifice on the cross, calling the congregation to respond to God's mercy by offering their own lives as a living sacrifice.
🗝️ Key Topics & Themes
- Hospitality and Generosity [00:34:23 ▶️ 📄] : The pastor discusses the importance of hospitality and generosity in following Jesus.
- Mercy as a reflection of God's heart [00:42:41 ▶️ 📄] : Discussion on the importance of giving gifts that reflect mercy, which is central to God's character.
- Authentic and personal gifts [00:40:06 ▶️ 📄] : Exploration of the concept of giving gifts that are true to oneself and reflective of God's heart.
- Cost of Mercy [00:50:59 ▶️ 📄] : The pastor discusses the significant cost of following Jesus and giving mercy.
✅ Commendations
Theological Precision | Excellent Definition of Mercy
The definition of mercy as 'love at a cost' [00:43:41 ▶️ 📄] is exceptionally clear, biblically faithful, and pastorally helpful. It immediately moves the concept from a vague feeling to a concrete, sacrificial action, which is central to the gospel.
Gospel Application | Gospel-Centered Motivation
The sermon successfully avoids moralism by clearly grounding the call to be merciful in the mercy we have already received from God in Christ. The use of Romans 12 [00:53:06 ▶️ 📄] to frame our sacrifice as a response 'in view of God's mercy' was the correct and powerful anchor for the entire application.
Pastoral Tone | Gentle Encouragement
The application at [00:38:16 ▶️ 📄] for those who are struggling was pastorally wise and gentle. The assurance that 'If Jesus is in your home, no matter what state it's in, your gift has been received' is a beautiful expression of grace for the weary.
📝 Other Corrections & Notes
- this gift of perfume was probably around the price of $84,000. [00:51:12 ▶️ 📄] → Correction: The text states the perfume was worth 300 denarii, which was equivalent to about a year's wages for a common laborer. While translating this to a modern dollar amount is a valid illustrative technique, presenting a specific figure like '$84,000' as a probable fact can be misleading. A more precise statement would be, 'This was worth a full year's salary—imagine someone giving their entire annual income in a single act of worship.' (John 12:5)
🧠 Questions for Reflection
Use these questions for personal study or small group discussion:
- The pastor defined mercy as 'love at a cost.' Where have you seen this in your own life, and how does Jesus' death on the cross redefine the scale of that cost for you?
- The sermon contrasted Martha's active 'serving' with Mary's focused 'sitting.' Do you tend to be more of a Martha or a Mary in your approach to God? What did this sermon teach you about the value of both postures in worship?
📜 Full Sermon Transcript (Audit)
Use the 📄 icons next to quotes above to automatically jump to their location in this raw transcript.
[00:06:48] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:06:48] Good morning everybody. Martin Luther King weekend. Great to be together as a church family this morning. I'm Michael Flake. I'm part of our pastoral team here and whether you are cautious about Jesus, curious about Jesus, or committed to Jesus, there is room for you at Story Hill. So especially if you're newer, I would encourage you to find one of these small connect cards. They look like this. It has a QR code on it. You can find these connect
[00:07:19] the tables as you enter or exit the sanctuary and also out at the communications wall. But to use this little QR code at the very least to get signed up for our weekly newsletter so that you can find
[00:07:30] ways to get connected into the life of the church. We would love for you to get more connected into the life of the church. I'm going to open our service in prayer. Would you join me as we pray
[00:07:41] together lord on this weekend as we remember your prophet dr king we are thankful for how he points us to the words of your prophet amos who prayed that justice would roll down like waters
[00:08:03] righteousness like a mighty stream you are a just god you are a righteous god teach us to be more like you let us worship in this time in this room and then let us leave this room to worship you
[00:08:21] with how we live outside of this room.
[00:08:25] Teach us to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with you.
[00:08:31] You are the God of our weary years.
[00:08:34] You are the God of our silent tears.
[00:08:37] And by your might, you have brought us into the light.
[00:08:43] So may we walk on your path now and forevermore.
[00:08:48] In Jesus' name, amen.
[00:08:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:08:53] Amen.
[00:08:54] Will you stand with us and sing?
[00:09:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:09:50] Teach us your ways.
[00:09:52] Sing that again.
[00:09:57] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:09:57] Teach us your ways.
[00:10:01] Teach us.
[00:15:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:15:23] And she had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.
[00:15:28] But Martha was distracted with much serving.
[00:15:30] And she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left to serve alone?
[00:15:34] Tell her then to help me.
[00:15:36] But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you were anxious and troubled about many things.
[00:15:40] But one thing is necessary.
[00:15:41] Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.
[00:15:45] Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
[00:15:52] So they gave a dinner for him there.
[00:15:55] Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at the table.
[00:15:58] Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair.
[00:16:04] The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
[00:16:06] But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, he who was about to betray him, said, Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?
[00:16:15] He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief.
[00:16:18] And having charge of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
[00:16:22] Jesus said, Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.
[00:16:26] For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.
[00:17:31] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:17:31] We make that our prayer this morning, that as it is in your kingdom in heaven, it would be in our hearts here on earth.
[00:21:10] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:21:10] God, we know that you are with us and that you have made our hearts your home.
[00:21:18] I pray that this morning we would feel you, that we would glorify you with the position of our hearts and our minds, that we would be reminded of your great mercy.
[00:21:30] God, I bless these people in the name of Jesus to know your great mercy at heart level.
[00:21:35] Lord, we love you.
[00:21:39] We pray this in your name.
[00:21:41] Amen.
[00:21:42] You can have a seat.
[00:21:48] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:21:48] Amen.
[00:21:48] In case I missed you earlier, I'm Michael Flake, part of the pastoral team here.
[00:21:54] Happy Martin Luther King weekend to you.
[00:21:57] A wonderful reminder that, yes, we worship God in our time in this room, and we also worship God in how we live as we go outside of this room.
[00:22:07] On this weekend, I thought I'd give you a little bit of a by-faith update with our by-faith initiative.
[00:22:13] You may or may not know this is our 50th Sunday to be worshiping in this building.
[00:22:18] which is a wonderful thing and we also remember that the building is not the church the building is not the point of the church a building at its best is a tool for ministry it is an outpost for
[00:22:31] the ministry of jesus meaning you and everybody can come here and experience the hope and the mercy of jesus it's also a launching pad for the ministry of jesus that as people move as people
[00:22:43] graduate, as people become missionaries or start new congregations. We are sent, launched out of here, and we carry the hope and mercy of Jesus wherever we go. And so the By Faith Initiative is a hope that in our first few years in the building, we will continue to really solidify
[00:23:01] that vision of this being an outpost and a launching pad. And so as part of By Faith, there are three vision projects. This is not a quiz. I'll just remind you what they are.
[00:23:11] The three vision projects are one that we would buy the one piece of adjacent land to our current site.
[00:23:18] The second is that we would send out two church planters to start new congregations, whether close to home or near a college or university like Davidson.
[00:23:27] And the third is that we would pay down and ultimately pay off the mortgage so that we early so that we could put the interest payments towards things that would actually change people's lives.
[00:23:36] So I tell you this to say we are like four months into a three year initiative.
[00:23:42] We're like 10% of the way into the initiative, and we already have seen 20% of the Vision Project funding come in.
[00:23:51] And so where that leaves us is we are only about $200,000 away from being able to buy the adjacent property.
[00:23:58] And so if you'll keep giving towards your by-faith commitments, I anticipate in a handful of months we'll be able to come back to you and announce that we are now able, we have the cash to buy the adjacent property.
[00:24:11] And then the money from ByFaith will be split more and more between the other two vision projects that I told you about.
[00:24:18] So I just want to give you this update at the beginning of the year, an encouraging update.
[00:24:21] But I also want to say there's a big milestone on the horizon.
[00:24:24] And so we look forward to celebrating that together.
[00:24:28] If you are newer to Story Hill and you don't know anything about ByFaith, you can learn more about it going to the website and clicking on who we are.
[00:24:35] But here's the best way to engage the hope of ByFaith, if you're new, is to find a way to engage in the life of the church.
[00:24:43] Find some way to say yes to being engaged with what God is doing at Story Hill.
[00:24:48] Because the building is a tool for ministry, but the other hope of ByFaith is that you will be part of the ministry we do here as we join God's work.
[00:24:56] And so if you're looking for a great outpost opportunity, we have a number of Bible studies that are starting over the next week or two.
[00:25:03] you can learn more about those under the grow tab of the website if you're looking for a great launching pad opportunity we send out a number of mission trips every summer and we have an
[00:25:13] interest meeting about those next week and so you'd have the opportunity to learn about our partnership in Bolivia where we partner with our brothers and sisters there to care for orphans and widows you could learn about our partnership with young lives through which we care for teen
[00:25:30] moms and their kiddos. We're sending teams to Western North Carolina to help our neighbors continue to rebuild. There's a group of women going to Abaco in April, and I think there's still spots on that trip. And we have a group of men going to Abaco in about a week. That's too
[00:25:46] late to join that trip. But the other ones, you can learn more at this interest meeting next Sunday after both services. It's after both services, there's a little white house in front of the church building and that's where the interest meeting will be. All you need to attend is
[00:26:00] interest. You don't, you're not committing to go just by going to an interest meeting, but you can learn more there. It's beautiful. These trips, they let God sort of burst your bubble on these trips and you find that God is at work outside of our bubble and we get to join
[00:26:15] him in that. So I'd encourage you to consider that if you're looking for a way to say yes to something at Story Hill. So that's my update. Why don't you take a moment, stand up, turn to
[00:26:27] someone near you, and tell them good morning and how glad you are to see them. I told him he's good.
[00:27:38] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:27:38] Good morning, Story Hill. It's so good to be with you. So good to be here on this cold and rainy morning with you. Hopefully you were able to get out of your house and not forget your umbrella
[00:27:54] in your car. That's something I do pretty often. Hello, I'm Cesar Guerrero. I'm on staff here at Story Hill. I'm so glad to be with you this morning. I get to direct the fellows program,
[00:28:05] if you've heard of them or seen them. They're amazing young adults who are focusing on leadership, spiritual formation, and their discernment as they consider what vocation God is calling them in the marketplace. And so it's a lot of fun. I get to do that. But I also get to preach here
[00:28:21] at Story Hill, and so it's so good to be here with you all this morning. If it's your first time here, you might have just heard Michael just talk about all the things that are happening
[00:28:30] at Story Hill, and you're like, oh my goodness, where do I start? There seems like a lot of great opportunities, and we share all those opportunities because we totally understand that while you might need a place to receive from God on any given Sunday morning, you
[00:28:46] also have something to give. And a lot of us who follow Christ really do understand that we start to enjoy being at church when we're a part of church, when we're serving, when we're getting to know people, people are getting to hear our story, we're going to hear other people's
[00:29:03] story. And so I encourage you to take advantage of all those opportunities to contribute and also to be known here at Story Hill. And so it's a lot of fun to be here at Story Hill. And so I hope you
[00:29:15] take your next step and so one way that we take our next step is we gather every Sunday morning and we focus on scripture we look at the words of Jesus to inspire us to help cut through all
[00:29:27] the noise and distraction of our week and hear afresh what he's calling us to as followers of Christ or as people who are considering becoming followers of Christ and so we're in this series called blessed or blessed depending on how many biscuits and grits you've had this morning
[00:29:43] uh blessed is the series that we're in and we're looking at the words of jesus we're looking at the famous sayings of the beatitudes and asking ourselves what is it going to be like for us to
[00:29:55] be a part of his kingdom what does it look like for him to be at the center of our lives and so we listen to the words of jesus and every week we're going to read through the beatitudes and
[00:30:06] our hope is that as we continue to dive deeper into each of these that you might consider making one of these your kind of key beatitude for this season it's a middle of january and maybe you're
[00:30:16] like okay i'm here at church and i'm excited to be here maybe one of these beatitudes is going to be something that you're going to be clinging on to for the next couple months or maybe even
[00:30:24] the year so let's read them out loud together they'll be on the screen blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who mourn for they will be
[00:30:37] comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers,
[00:31:00] for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So there's all of our Beatitudes. And today we're going to be looking at blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. So I don't know about you,
[00:31:22] but I am one of those people who really enjoys gifts. I love presents, presents of all kinds too.
[00:31:29] I love presents. Yeah, we got another present person back here. Not just the big ones you get at Christmas, the fun ones, right? The expensive ones, but the little ones too. I like the little
[00:31:39] gift cards that you get. I love birthday cards. I love prank gifts. I love gifts of all kinds.
[00:31:47] But there is one gift that I do not like, that I do not appreciate. And that is a gift that comes with a receipt. I don't know what it is about me, but I find gifts that come with receipts really
[00:32:01] awkward. I find them uncomfortable and I totally understand why people give them, right? Because you know, you might get a gift that somebody already has and you're like, man, they deserve maybe another alternative gift but I find them awkward because I think at the end of the day
[00:32:15] it's filled with ambiguity and a little bit of confusion I think ultimately it says I love you so much but I fear you I'm scared you're not going to like this gift so if you don't like it
[00:32:25] get another one that you'll like and I just think it's super awkward I don't like gifts that come with receipts so please if you give to me any kind of thing please not put a receipt attached to it
[00:32:37] um but why do i bring this up why do i bring up awkward gifts well today we're going to be looking at two women two sisters who are friends of jesus and they have some parties for jesus they throw
[00:32:51] him some dinners and it gets a little awkward they're acting out of generosity and it gets a little weird and so today we're gonna be looking at the story of martha and marion what does it
[00:33:02] it look like when Jesus gets an awkward gift? So let's look at our first story. We read it this morning, and I want to read over us again. This is Luke 10, verses 38. Now, as they went on their
[00:33:17] way, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was
[00:33:29] distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha,
[00:33:40] you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. All right. So we have this awesome story.
[00:33:52] Maybe you've heard of it. And it's with these two sisters, Mary and Martha, and we're going to learn what it looks like to give God a good gift, a gift that he appreciates. And so for the note-takers,
[00:34:02] our two questions that we're going to be looking at this morning are, what gifts does God appreciate?
[00:34:07] We're going to answer that first question. And the second question is, how much does a good gift cost?
[00:34:13] Straightforward, those are the two questions that we're going to be looking at. And we're going to be looking at Martha and Mary to see what these answers might be. So when we first read the story
[00:34:23] of Martha and Mary, we might think this is a moment of sibling rivalry, right? We might look at this moment as like some tension, some awkwardness between two sisters, but I really do think that something else is happening here. I actually think Luke, who writes this story,
[00:34:36] sees Martha and Mary as a team, as a one-two punch to hospitality, as someone who is kind of part of a collaborative hosting kind of group. And so Mary and Martha are really a team here. And if you look
[00:34:49] at the narrative flow of what's happening in Luke up to this moment, he's really trying to focus on hospitality. He's trying to focus on generosity. In the chapters preceding this story, he talks about how Jesus sends out his first missionaries. He starts sending people into the countryside and
[00:35:06] says, hey, there's going to be people who aren't going to let you into their home, and that's okay, but there's going to be people who will let you into their home. And when that happens, blessings
[00:35:15] will flow. People will be healed. You will be speaking the good news to them, and my mission will be on the move. After this, he tells his teaching of the Good Samaritan, right? This is
[00:35:26] a famous story about how a man spends all that he can to help this person who has been beaten to death and needs that recovery and receives generosity from the Good Samaritan. So I think
[00:35:37] Luke actually is showing Martha and Mary in this moment as an example of what it looks like to be a part of Jesus's kingdom. I think he sets them up as a great example of what it looks like to
[00:35:49] be people who serve, people who give generously. But because this isn't a fairy tale, because this is just a cherry-picked example of what it looks like to follow Jesus, he includes the awkwardness of this moment. Because this is real life and things don't always go to plan, we see that Martha
[00:36:07] starts to run into some logistical issues, right? She says, hey, Jesus, I hate to interrupt. This never happens to me, but I actually need some help. Can you ask Martha, can you ask Mary to come
[00:36:19] help me? And that seems reasonable, right? You know, things come up and we need our teammates to pitch in. But what is Jesus' response here in this moment? He says, Martha, Martha, you are worried about so many things. You're worried about all the details, and I appreciate your gift,
[00:36:36] but Mary is in the middle of giving hers and I'm not going to take that from her. And so we read that and we're like, man, I guess Jesus isn't hungry. He came a little bit full. He might've
[00:36:48] had a snack before he came to this party. And so he's not in a rush. But I actually think something deeper is coming out of this story. Luke notices what is happening and he uses these, he captures
[00:37:01] Jesus' words here, and we notice this phrase that Jesus uses, and it's the good portion. Jesus said, Mary has chosen the good portion. You're like, why is he talking about this? One commenter says that
[00:37:16] this phrase, the good portion, is showing that Jesus really knows Martha. He says, hey, Martha, I know all this work that you do to host people for dinner, but Mary has chosen the good portion.
[00:37:29] she's chosen the good plate the good part of the meal he's referencing Mary's hospitality because he's wanting to see that the good dish is already being served and I love this because Jesus isn't being condescending to Martha in this moment he says hey I know you I know how you're wired
[00:37:47] and I just want to clarify one thing real quick the point of all his generosity all this serving is to make room for me. And look, Martha, I'm here. Martha, I'm in your house. And if I'm in your
[00:38:03] house, your gift has already been received. And so you can just imagine Martha in that moment. And I could just imagine her relief in that situation. I can imagine the sense of comfort that she felt
[00:38:16] in that moment. If I'm in your house, your gift has already been received. And I bet that was a gift to Martha, and I think it might be a gift to somebody in this room. Maybe you're doing
[00:38:29] your best to keep things together, right? January, you had all the motivation to get after things, and we're halfway through, and that motivation is long gone. If you're anything like me, you get so excited about something, and when it actually gets to happening and the rubber meets
[00:38:43] the road, discouragement, disillusion, all the dis words that we can associate with this kind of thing happens. And so maybe you're here this morning and it was raining and the kids were crying and you had a hard time getting out of bed. Your gift has been received this morning.
[00:39:02] Maybe you're untangling some things. Maybe you're moving out of unhealthy relationships and you're asking, how is anything going to be healed at the end of the day? Your gift has been received.
[00:39:14] If Jesus is in your home, no matter what state it's in, your gift has been received.
[00:39:21] And so here at Story Hill, we talk a lot about things, about how we say that everybody has something to receive and also something to give.
[00:39:30] And so maybe this morning, you just need to receive the words of Jesus.
[00:39:33] Your gift has been received.
[00:39:36] The state of your home is not a reflection of what it means to have me in it.
[00:39:43] And so if you're someone, though, who is ready to give, is ready to serve, ready to contribute, there are some things that you need to know about what kind of gift God expects from you.
[00:39:53] So if you're making that transition this morning, here are two things about what it means to give God a good gift. These things are God appreciates a gift that is authentic and a gift that is
[00:40:06] personal. God appreciates gifts that are authentic and are personal. This is the answer to our first question. What do I mean by an authentic gift? Well, this is a gift that reflects your heart as
[00:40:17] the giver. It's something that reflects the things that you are good at, something that really speaks to who you are as a person. Romans 12 says that all of us have different things in us that God would love for us to use, things that are different from the person next to us.
[00:40:32] And he says all of them have equal worth and value to God. So an authentic gift is one that reflects the heart of the person who is making that gift. And for Martha and Mary, it's the fact
[00:40:41] that they show hospitality in different ways. For Martha, she's someone who pays attention to all the details. She looks at the thermostat in the room. She's cooking the meal super perfectly.
[00:40:52] And it's the way she shows attention to somebody because she's paying attention to all the details.
[00:40:57] For Mary, it's the fact that she spends time with somebody.
[00:40:59] She's the relational presence of a good host.
[00:41:02] She lets you sit in the good chair.
[00:41:04] She listens to all of your conversations and your jokes.
[00:41:08] She laughs at all of them.
[00:41:09] And she just makes you feel so warm and like, wow, she's paying attention to me.
[00:41:13] And God wants a gift that's like Martha and Mary, something that's authentic to the heart of the person who's giving that gift.
[00:41:21] So the second thing that we need to keep in mind is that God also expects a personal gift.
[00:41:26] And this is a gift that reflects God's heart, a gift that reflects the heart of the person who receives that gift, right? The best gifts that we get are the ones that show us that, man,
[00:41:36] this person really knows who we are. This person knows something about us that maybe most people don't know about us. Maybe it's something we've said in passing that they just caught and they said, wow, I'm going to provide for them in this way. And then you get
[00:41:48] that gift. You're like, how did you even catch that? Right? These are personal gifts. They speak to the heart of the person who's receiving them. It reflects the heart of God when we give him a
[00:41:59] gift that speaks to his heart. And so God wants gifts that are authentic and personal. He wants gifts that are authentic to us and personal to him. So you might be thinking, well, dads are hard
[00:42:13] to shop for. So our heavenly father must be impossible to get a gift for, right? We can't just give an Amazon gift card to God. This is going to be a lot harder than it might seem.
[00:42:27] Dads are notoriously hard to shop for, but God is not that way. Turns out God is very clear to us what is at his heart and what's at the center of his heart. I'm not going to have these verses on
[00:42:41] the screen, so I want you to listen to them and hear for what is at the heart of God. Exodus 30, the Lord, the Lord, a merciful God. Deuteronomy 4, the Lord, your God, is a merciful God. Psalm 145,
[00:42:56] the Lord is good to all. His mercy is over all he has made. Lamentations 3, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. Micah 6, 8, what does the Lord require of
[00:43:09] you to act justly and love mercy. What is a gift that God appreciates? It's a gift that reflects his heart. And what reflects his heart? Mercy. Mercy reflects his heart. That is the gift that
[00:43:29] God requires of us. But what is mercy? What is mercy? It's a word that gets thrown around in church, but I'm not sure if we have ever spent some time to really define it. Well, mercy is this.
[00:43:41] it is love at a cost. Mercy is love at a cost. I saw an article recently. Well, actually, no, it wasn't an article. I saw a YouTube video recently. But there's some articles that talk
[00:43:56] about this YouTube video and this phenomena that gets seen in human psychology. And it's this phenomena that says that when you know how much something costs, you enjoy it more.
[00:44:10] There's an experiment that gets done pretty often in all kinds of different ways, and it's the experiment where there are different wines that are sold at different costs, and you have some people try them and rate them, knowing how much they cost,
[00:44:24] and another group that tries and rates them, not knowing how much each of the wines cost.
[00:44:29] And the results show that people tend to rate the more expensive wine as better-tasting wine when they know how much it costs.
[00:44:36] and you might be thinking to yourself, how does somebody become a test subject in one of these experiments? I never get these surveys. You know, these are, these are the things that I want to be
[00:44:46] getting in my email inbox. No, but seriously, what does this have to do with mercy? It matters because we tend to appreciate mercy when we know the cost is great. We value mercy more when the
[00:45:00] sacrifice is more. And this is why mercy becomes a very awkward gift. This is why mercy can be an awkward gift. So imagine you work at the local Krispy Kreme and you forget to turn on the hot
[00:45:16] now sign and your supervisor catches you and says, hey man, this is kind of our thing. But you know what? I turned it on. You're good. You're probably thinking, man, this guy is a great supervisor.
[00:45:31] He's super chill. He lets me get off with some important things because that hot now sign is kind of the beacon for Krispy Kreme. But he's a nice manager. You might be thinking, wow, that's
[00:45:42] a nice guy. Now, imagine you still work with that Krispy Kreme and you go live on your TikTok and you accidentally leak the recipe for the original glazed cream donut. And the CEO sees this because it's gone viral, right? The CEO notices that the original recipe is out there
[00:46:01] on the loose and Krispy Kreme is now in jeopardy. And so the CEO comes to you and says, hey man, you leaked the original recipe. This is a big deal, but you know what? It's okay. We'll fix this.
[00:46:13] you still have your job. Well, this is kind of a ridiculous story, but I think it points to the fact that some things are higher stakes than other things, right? When the stakes are higher,
[00:46:25] we feel the mercy even greater, right? That CEO is not just a nice guy. That CEO is maybe crazy.
[00:46:31] That CEO is maybe a ridiculous person who doesn't understand the cost of what he's doing.
[00:46:36] When the stakes are higher, when the failure is higher, mercy becomes harder for us to buy into, right? It becomes harder for us to understand. And this is the economic reality of the world that we live in now. We look at the world around us today and violence and corruption and your team
[00:46:52] is worse than my team. That is just expounding right now. It's exponential how much we are contributing to this collective debt that we all feel. And none of us want to stop putting into that pot, right? None of us want to stop saying, you know what, we'll just forgive. We'll just
[00:47:08] show mercy. None of us want to pay that cost of mercy to have that all go away. No one wants to be left paying that cost. And so we keep amplifying, we keep escalating. And that is the economics of
[00:47:22] what it means to be human in this world. But God has a heart of mercy and he requires a gift of all of us. And if God's heart is mercy, then the gift that is required of all of us is mercy.
[00:47:42] And so we need to know how much that gift is going to cost.
[00:47:47] Let's look back at Mary and Martha's home in John chapter 12.
[00:47:52] And let's look at what the cost of mercy is.
[00:47:56] Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
[00:48:05] So they, Martha and Mary, gave a dinner for him there.
[00:48:10] Martha served, and Lazarus was one of the ones reclining at the table.
[00:48:15] Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.
[00:48:23] The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
[00:48:26] But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, he who was about to betray him, said, Why was this ointment not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor?
[00:48:38] He said, That's not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief.
[00:48:41] And having charged the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
[00:48:45] And Jesus said, leave her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.
[00:48:51] For the poor you always have with you, but not always me.
[00:48:55] What's the context of this dinner?
[00:48:58] Well, the difference between this dinner and the first dinner that we read is that Jesus has been on mission for a long time now at this point.
[00:49:05] And Mary and Martha have been a part of it from the very beginning.
[00:49:08] Mary and Martha, before this dinner, have a moment with Jesus because their brother Lazarus is sick.
[00:49:13] and they ask Jesus to come heal him, but Jesus doesn't show up on time and Lazarus dies.
[00:49:20] And the passage says that Jesus has a lot of compassion for them.
[00:49:24] His love for them is great.
[00:49:26] And so he shows up to Lazarus' tomb, raises him from the dead, and it explodes Jesus' ministry, pretty literally, actually.
[00:49:35] John includes a note here that says Lazarus is just preaching the good news alongside all of Jesus' disciples.
[00:49:41] And the religious leaders are saying this is getting out of hand. Too many people are going away and following Jesus now. And so now to be involved with Jesus is very dangerous. To be involved with Jesus is putting your life at risk.
[00:49:56] But look at this dinner. Look at how much love Mary and Martha has grown since their first dinner.
[00:50:03] Mary isn't just sitting at the feet of Jesus, she's anointing them sacrificially.
[00:50:08] Martha isn't questioning what's happening, and her whole home is filled with the aroma of this costly and spiritual moment, but this moment is still very awkward. As we saw Judas, who's one of Jesus' closest disciples, someone who should know what Jesus is all about. He's
[00:50:25] responsible for the capital and the financial viability of Jesus' ministry, but he is compromised.
[00:50:30] He is seriously compromised. A couple of verses later, John notes that not only is Jesus in danger, but those around him are being targeted as well. John says the chief priests have made plans to put
[00:50:41] Lazarus to death as well. Because on account of many Jews who are going away and believing in Jesus, it is escalating. It has escalated to a high moment. And the cost of following Jesus is significant. For Martha and Mary to host Jesus in their home shows that they're willing
[00:50:59] to incur a cost to follow Jesus. And I just did a quick math little research on Mary's gift of this ointment, of this perfume. And if you look at the North Carolina, just kind of the median
[00:51:12] household income to like do some equating of what this gift was worth, this gift of perfume was probably around the price of $84,000. It was over a year's worth of an average salary. $84,000 is thrown out. This shows you the cost that they're willing to pay for Jesus. And this is
[00:51:36] where Jesus is saying, blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy, comes to life.
[00:51:43] Jesus leaves this room, he leaves this home, and he turns towards Jerusalem. He leaves Bethany, goes to Jerusalem to sacrifice his life, and not just to protect his friends, not just protect Lazarus, but to pay the eternal gift of mercy for you and for me. This is the good news of Jesus.
[00:52:06] The ultimate gift of mercy came at an infinitely high price.
[00:52:12] And it's the price only God will know.
[00:52:16] This is the gift that only Jesus can give.
[00:52:19] This is the highest gift of mercy anyone could have given.
[00:52:24] And it comes from the absolute center of God's heart.
[00:52:29] Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
[00:52:33] We now see the extent of God's mercy.
[00:52:37] we've been shown the full magnitude of God's heart and it comes at a cost and so where we turn from here is not to just look at Jesus as someone who pays that cost because Jesus did not
[00:52:53] give his life so that you never have to do it in return Jesus does not pay this cost so that you will never know what it's like to pay a cost of mercy what it looks like to never give a gift of
[00:53:06] mercy. That's not what Jesus is doing here. Paul says in Romans 12, he says, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing
[00:53:16] to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and prove what God's
[00:53:27] will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. Do you want to know what God wants? Do you want to know what God wants to do in this world? Look at his mercy. Look at his sacrifice and respond.
[00:53:43] Respond with your gift of mercy. You're not being asked to give the mercy that Jesus gives, but you're asked to give the mercy that is authentic to who you are and that reflects God's heart. And this is a sacrifice that God compels, has compelled generations of Christians
[00:54:01] to give their lives and respond likewise.
[00:54:05] And while the patterns of this world are to add to the debt, the patterns of this world are to add to the escalation, God's heart is to show mercy.
[00:54:17] And so for us today, if we're followers of Christ or we're considering becoming followers of Christ, we must consider what is that cost?
[00:54:25] What is going to be your response to Jesus' mercy?
[00:54:30] And so let us pray this morning and give ourselves a time to reflect on what that might be.
[00:54:36] I'm going to give us a moment to reflect and pray, asking God to reveal to us what act of mercy, what gift of mercy am I being asked to give this morning? Let's pray.
[00:55:29] You are so merciful. Lord, you understand the depth of our debt and you sacrifice your life to forgive it. Lord, out of all the things that we can look to, out of all the things that we can
[00:55:51] give our allegiance to, the things that we can worship, Lord. Only you are worth our gifts. Only you are worth our sacrifice. And so, Lord, lead us in that. Holy Spirit, guide us to see people.
[00:56:10] Have people come to our mind even now, Lord, who need to receive our mercy. Lord, you have shown us what mercy is. Lord, would you show us what mercy we are required to give to you? Thank you
[00:56:27] so much for what you've done for us. In your name we pray.
[00:56:36] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:56:36] Amen. Will you stand with us?
[01:06:03] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[01:06:03] If we could serve you in any way, we would love to hear your story. We'd love to pray for you. We have a prayer room up in the back if anything was stirred up.
[01:06:13] And so we're so glad you're here and we hope that you have a great rest of your week.
[00:06:48] Good morning everybody. Martin Luther King weekend. Great to be together as a church family this morning. I'm Michael Flake. I'm part of our pastoral team here and whether you are cautious about Jesus, curious about Jesus, or committed to Jesus, there is room for you at Story Hill. So especially if you're newer, I would encourage you to find one of these small connect cards. They look like this. It has a QR code on it. You can find these connect
[00:07:19] the tables as you enter or exit the sanctuary and also out at the communications wall. But to use this little QR code at the very least to get signed up for our weekly newsletter so that you can find
[00:07:30] ways to get connected into the life of the church. We would love for you to get more connected into the life of the church. I'm going to open our service in prayer. Would you join me as we pray
[00:07:41] together lord on this weekend as we remember your prophet dr king we are thankful for how he points us to the words of your prophet amos who prayed that justice would roll down like waters
[00:08:03] righteousness like a mighty stream you are a just god you are a righteous god teach us to be more like you let us worship in this time in this room and then let us leave this room to worship you
[00:08:21] with how we live outside of this room.
[00:08:25] Teach us to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with you.
[00:08:31] You are the God of our weary years.
[00:08:34] You are the God of our silent tears.
[00:08:37] And by your might, you have brought us into the light.
[00:08:43] So may we walk on your path now and forevermore.
[00:08:48] In Jesus' name, amen.
[00:08:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:08:53] Amen.
[00:08:54] Will you stand with us and sing?
[00:09:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:09:50] Teach us your ways.
[00:09:52] Sing that again.
[00:09:57] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:09:57] Teach us your ways.
[00:10:01] Teach us.
[00:15:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:15:23] And she had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.
[00:15:28] But Martha was distracted with much serving.
[00:15:30] And she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left to serve alone?
[00:15:34] Tell her then to help me.
[00:15:36] But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you were anxious and troubled about many things.
[00:15:40] But one thing is necessary.
[00:15:41] Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.
[00:15:45] Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
[00:15:52] So they gave a dinner for him there.
[00:15:55] Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at the table.
[00:15:58] Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair.
[00:16:04] The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
[00:16:06] But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, he who was about to betray him, said, Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?
[00:16:15] He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief.
[00:16:18] And having charge of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
[00:16:22] Jesus said, Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.
[00:16:26] For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.
[00:17:31] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:17:31] We make that our prayer this morning, that as it is in your kingdom in heaven, it would be in our hearts here on earth.
[00:21:10] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:21:10] God, we know that you are with us and that you have made our hearts your home.
[00:21:18] I pray that this morning we would feel you, that we would glorify you with the position of our hearts and our minds, that we would be reminded of your great mercy.
[00:21:30] God, I bless these people in the name of Jesus to know your great mercy at heart level.
[00:21:35] Lord, we love you.
[00:21:39] We pray this in your name.
[00:21:41] Amen.
[00:21:42] You can have a seat.
[00:21:48] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:21:48] Amen.
[00:21:48] In case I missed you earlier, I'm Michael Flake, part of the pastoral team here.
[00:21:54] Happy Martin Luther King weekend to you.
[00:21:57] A wonderful reminder that, yes, we worship God in our time in this room, and we also worship God in how we live as we go outside of this room.
[00:22:07] On this weekend, I thought I'd give you a little bit of a by-faith update with our by-faith initiative.
[00:22:13] You may or may not know this is our 50th Sunday to be worshiping in this building.
[00:22:18] which is a wonderful thing and we also remember that the building is not the church the building is not the point of the church a building at its best is a tool for ministry it is an outpost for
[00:22:31] the ministry of jesus meaning you and everybody can come here and experience the hope and the mercy of jesus it's also a launching pad for the ministry of jesus that as people move as people
[00:22:43] graduate, as people become missionaries or start new congregations. We are sent, launched out of here, and we carry the hope and mercy of Jesus wherever we go. And so the By Faith Initiative is a hope that in our first few years in the building, we will continue to really solidify
[00:23:01] that vision of this being an outpost and a launching pad. And so as part of By Faith, there are three vision projects. This is not a quiz. I'll just remind you what they are.
[00:23:11] The three vision projects are one that we would buy the one piece of adjacent land to our current site.
[00:23:18] The second is that we would send out two church planters to start new congregations, whether close to home or near a college or university like Davidson.
[00:23:27] And the third is that we would pay down and ultimately pay off the mortgage so that we early so that we could put the interest payments towards things that would actually change people's lives.
[00:23:36] So I tell you this to say we are like four months into a three year initiative.
[00:23:42] We're like 10% of the way into the initiative, and we already have seen 20% of the Vision Project funding come in.
[00:23:51] And so where that leaves us is we are only about $200,000 away from being able to buy the adjacent property.
[00:23:58] And so if you'll keep giving towards your by-faith commitments, I anticipate in a handful of months we'll be able to come back to you and announce that we are now able, we have the cash to buy the adjacent property.
[00:24:11] And then the money from ByFaith will be split more and more between the other two vision projects that I told you about.
[00:24:18] So I just want to give you this update at the beginning of the year, an encouraging update.
[00:24:21] But I also want to say there's a big milestone on the horizon.
[00:24:24] And so we look forward to celebrating that together.
[00:24:28] If you are newer to Story Hill and you don't know anything about ByFaith, you can learn more about it going to the website and clicking on who we are.
[00:24:35] But here's the best way to engage the hope of ByFaith, if you're new, is to find a way to engage in the life of the church.
[00:24:43] Find some way to say yes to being engaged with what God is doing at Story Hill.
[00:24:48] Because the building is a tool for ministry, but the other hope of ByFaith is that you will be part of the ministry we do here as we join God's work.
[00:24:56] And so if you're looking for a great outpost opportunity, we have a number of Bible studies that are starting over the next week or two.
[00:25:03] you can learn more about those under the grow tab of the website if you're looking for a great launching pad opportunity we send out a number of mission trips every summer and we have an
[00:25:13] interest meeting about those next week and so you'd have the opportunity to learn about our partnership in Bolivia where we partner with our brothers and sisters there to care for orphans and widows you could learn about our partnership with young lives through which we care for teen
[00:25:30] moms and their kiddos. We're sending teams to Western North Carolina to help our neighbors continue to rebuild. There's a group of women going to Abaco in April, and I think there's still spots on that trip. And we have a group of men going to Abaco in about a week. That's too
[00:25:46] late to join that trip. But the other ones, you can learn more at this interest meeting next Sunday after both services. It's after both services, there's a little white house in front of the church building and that's where the interest meeting will be. All you need to attend is
[00:26:00] interest. You don't, you're not committing to go just by going to an interest meeting, but you can learn more there. It's beautiful. These trips, they let God sort of burst your bubble on these trips and you find that God is at work outside of our bubble and we get to join
[00:26:15] him in that. So I'd encourage you to consider that if you're looking for a way to say yes to something at Story Hill. So that's my update. Why don't you take a moment, stand up, turn to
[00:26:27] someone near you, and tell them good morning and how glad you are to see them. I told him he's good.
[00:27:38] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:27:38] Good morning, Story Hill. It's so good to be with you. So good to be here on this cold and rainy morning with you. Hopefully you were able to get out of your house and not forget your umbrella
[00:27:54] in your car. That's something I do pretty often. Hello, I'm Cesar Guerrero. I'm on staff here at Story Hill. I'm so glad to be with you this morning. I get to direct the fellows program,
[00:28:05] if you've heard of them or seen them. They're amazing young adults who are focusing on leadership, spiritual formation, and their discernment as they consider what vocation God is calling them in the marketplace. And so it's a lot of fun. I get to do that. But I also get to preach here
[00:28:21] at Story Hill, and so it's so good to be here with you all this morning. If it's your first time here, you might have just heard Michael just talk about all the things that are happening
[00:28:30] at Story Hill, and you're like, oh my goodness, where do I start? There seems like a lot of great opportunities, and we share all those opportunities because we totally understand that while you might need a place to receive from God on any given Sunday morning, you
[00:28:46] also have something to give. And a lot of us who follow Christ really do understand that we start to enjoy being at church when we're a part of church, when we're serving, when we're getting to know people, people are getting to hear our story, we're going to hear other people's
[00:29:03] story. And so I encourage you to take advantage of all those opportunities to contribute and also to be known here at Story Hill. And so it's a lot of fun to be here at Story Hill. And so I hope you
[00:29:15] take your next step and so one way that we take our next step is we gather every Sunday morning and we focus on scripture we look at the words of Jesus to inspire us to help cut through all
[00:29:27] the noise and distraction of our week and hear afresh what he's calling us to as followers of Christ or as people who are considering becoming followers of Christ and so we're in this series called blessed or blessed depending on how many biscuits and grits you've had this morning
[00:29:43] uh blessed is the series that we're in and we're looking at the words of jesus we're looking at the famous sayings of the beatitudes and asking ourselves what is it going to be like for us to
[00:29:55] be a part of his kingdom what does it look like for him to be at the center of our lives and so we listen to the words of jesus and every week we're going to read through the beatitudes and
[00:30:06] our hope is that as we continue to dive deeper into each of these that you might consider making one of these your kind of key beatitude for this season it's a middle of january and maybe you're
[00:30:16] like okay i'm here at church and i'm excited to be here maybe one of these beatitudes is going to be something that you're going to be clinging on to for the next couple months or maybe even
[00:30:24] the year so let's read them out loud together they'll be on the screen blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who mourn for they will be
[00:30:37] comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers,
[00:31:00] for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So there's all of our Beatitudes. And today we're going to be looking at blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. So I don't know about you,
[00:31:22] but I am one of those people who really enjoys gifts. I love presents, presents of all kinds too.
[00:31:29] I love presents. Yeah, we got another present person back here. Not just the big ones you get at Christmas, the fun ones, right? The expensive ones, but the little ones too. I like the little
[00:31:39] gift cards that you get. I love birthday cards. I love prank gifts. I love gifts of all kinds.
[00:31:47] But there is one gift that I do not like, that I do not appreciate. And that is a gift that comes with a receipt. I don't know what it is about me, but I find gifts that come with receipts really
[00:32:01] awkward. I find them uncomfortable and I totally understand why people give them, right? Because you know, you might get a gift that somebody already has and you're like, man, they deserve maybe another alternative gift but I find them awkward because I think at the end of the day
[00:32:15] it's filled with ambiguity and a little bit of confusion I think ultimately it says I love you so much but I fear you I'm scared you're not going to like this gift so if you don't like it
[00:32:25] get another one that you'll like and I just think it's super awkward I don't like gifts that come with receipts so please if you give to me any kind of thing please not put a receipt attached to it
[00:32:37] um but why do i bring this up why do i bring up awkward gifts well today we're going to be looking at two women two sisters who are friends of jesus and they have some parties for jesus they throw
[00:32:51] him some dinners and it gets a little awkward they're acting out of generosity and it gets a little weird and so today we're gonna be looking at the story of martha and marion what does it
[00:33:02] it look like when Jesus gets an awkward gift? So let's look at our first story. We read it this morning, and I want to read over us again. This is Luke 10, verses 38. Now, as they went on their
[00:33:17] way, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was
[00:33:29] distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha,
[00:33:40] you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. All right. So we have this awesome story.
[00:33:52] Maybe you've heard of it. And it's with these two sisters, Mary and Martha, and we're going to learn what it looks like to give God a good gift, a gift that he appreciates. And so for the note-takers,
[00:34:02] our two questions that we're going to be looking at this morning are, what gifts does God appreciate?
[00:34:07] We're going to answer that first question. And the second question is, how much does a good gift cost?
[00:34:13] Straightforward, those are the two questions that we're going to be looking at. And we're going to be looking at Martha and Mary to see what these answers might be. So when we first read the story
[00:34:23] of Martha and Mary, we might think this is a moment of sibling rivalry, right? We might look at this moment as like some tension, some awkwardness between two sisters, but I really do think that something else is happening here. I actually think Luke, who writes this story,
[00:34:36] sees Martha and Mary as a team, as a one-two punch to hospitality, as someone who is kind of part of a collaborative hosting kind of group. And so Mary and Martha are really a team here. And if you look
[00:34:49] at the narrative flow of what's happening in Luke up to this moment, he's really trying to focus on hospitality. He's trying to focus on generosity. In the chapters preceding this story, he talks about how Jesus sends out his first missionaries. He starts sending people into the countryside and
[00:35:06] says, hey, there's going to be people who aren't going to let you into their home, and that's okay, but there's going to be people who will let you into their home. And when that happens, blessings
[00:35:15] will flow. People will be healed. You will be speaking the good news to them, and my mission will be on the move. After this, he tells his teaching of the Good Samaritan, right? This is
[00:35:26] a famous story about how a man spends all that he can to help this person who has been beaten to death and needs that recovery and receives generosity from the Good Samaritan. So I think
[00:35:37] Luke actually is showing Martha and Mary in this moment as an example of what it looks like to be a part of Jesus's kingdom. I think he sets them up as a great example of what it looks like to
[00:35:49] be people who serve, people who give generously. But because this isn't a fairy tale, because this is just a cherry-picked example of what it looks like to follow Jesus, he includes the awkwardness of this moment. Because this is real life and things don't always go to plan, we see that Martha
[00:36:07] starts to run into some logistical issues, right? She says, hey, Jesus, I hate to interrupt. This never happens to me, but I actually need some help. Can you ask Martha, can you ask Mary to come
[00:36:19] help me? And that seems reasonable, right? You know, things come up and we need our teammates to pitch in. But what is Jesus' response here in this moment? He says, Martha, Martha, you are worried about so many things. You're worried about all the details, and I appreciate your gift,
[00:36:36] but Mary is in the middle of giving hers and I'm not going to take that from her. And so we read that and we're like, man, I guess Jesus isn't hungry. He came a little bit full. He might've
[00:36:48] had a snack before he came to this party. And so he's not in a rush. But I actually think something deeper is coming out of this story. Luke notices what is happening and he uses these, he captures
[00:37:01] Jesus' words here, and we notice this phrase that Jesus uses, and it's the good portion. Jesus said, Mary has chosen the good portion. You're like, why is he talking about this? One commenter says that
[00:37:16] this phrase, the good portion, is showing that Jesus really knows Martha. He says, hey, Martha, I know all this work that you do to host people for dinner, but Mary has chosen the good portion.
[00:37:29] she's chosen the good plate the good part of the meal he's referencing Mary's hospitality because he's wanting to see that the good dish is already being served and I love this because Jesus isn't being condescending to Martha in this moment he says hey I know you I know how you're wired
[00:37:47] and I just want to clarify one thing real quick the point of all his generosity all this serving is to make room for me. And look, Martha, I'm here. Martha, I'm in your house. And if I'm in your
[00:38:03] house, your gift has already been received. And so you can just imagine Martha in that moment. And I could just imagine her relief in that situation. I can imagine the sense of comfort that she felt
[00:38:16] in that moment. If I'm in your house, your gift has already been received. And I bet that was a gift to Martha, and I think it might be a gift to somebody in this room. Maybe you're doing
[00:38:29] your best to keep things together, right? January, you had all the motivation to get after things, and we're halfway through, and that motivation is long gone. If you're anything like me, you get so excited about something, and when it actually gets to happening and the rubber meets
[00:38:43] the road, discouragement, disillusion, all the dis words that we can associate with this kind of thing happens. And so maybe you're here this morning and it was raining and the kids were crying and you had a hard time getting out of bed. Your gift has been received this morning.
[00:39:02] Maybe you're untangling some things. Maybe you're moving out of unhealthy relationships and you're asking, how is anything going to be healed at the end of the day? Your gift has been received.
[00:39:14] If Jesus is in your home, no matter what state it's in, your gift has been received.
[00:39:21] And so here at Story Hill, we talk a lot about things, about how we say that everybody has something to receive and also something to give.
[00:39:30] And so maybe this morning, you just need to receive the words of Jesus.
[00:39:33] Your gift has been received.
[00:39:36] The state of your home is not a reflection of what it means to have me in it.
[00:39:43] And so if you're someone, though, who is ready to give, is ready to serve, ready to contribute, there are some things that you need to know about what kind of gift God expects from you.
[00:39:53] So if you're making that transition this morning, here are two things about what it means to give God a good gift. These things are God appreciates a gift that is authentic and a gift that is
[00:40:06] personal. God appreciates gifts that are authentic and are personal. This is the answer to our first question. What do I mean by an authentic gift? Well, this is a gift that reflects your heart as
[00:40:17] the giver. It's something that reflects the things that you are good at, something that really speaks to who you are as a person. Romans 12 says that all of us have different things in us that God would love for us to use, things that are different from the person next to us.
[00:40:32] And he says all of them have equal worth and value to God. So an authentic gift is one that reflects the heart of the person who is making that gift. And for Martha and Mary, it's the fact
[00:40:41] that they show hospitality in different ways. For Martha, she's someone who pays attention to all the details. She looks at the thermostat in the room. She's cooking the meal super perfectly.
[00:40:52] And it's the way she shows attention to somebody because she's paying attention to all the details.
[00:40:57] For Mary, it's the fact that she spends time with somebody.
[00:40:59] She's the relational presence of a good host.
[00:41:02] She lets you sit in the good chair.
[00:41:04] She listens to all of your conversations and your jokes.
[00:41:08] She laughs at all of them.
[00:41:09] And she just makes you feel so warm and like, wow, she's paying attention to me.
[00:41:13] And God wants a gift that's like Martha and Mary, something that's authentic to the heart of the person who's giving that gift.
[00:41:21] So the second thing that we need to keep in mind is that God also expects a personal gift.
[00:41:26] And this is a gift that reflects God's heart, a gift that reflects the heart of the person who receives that gift, right? The best gifts that we get are the ones that show us that, man,
[00:41:36] this person really knows who we are. This person knows something about us that maybe most people don't know about us. Maybe it's something we've said in passing that they just caught and they said, wow, I'm going to provide for them in this way. And then you get
[00:41:48] that gift. You're like, how did you even catch that? Right? These are personal gifts. They speak to the heart of the person who's receiving them. It reflects the heart of God when we give him a
[00:41:59] gift that speaks to his heart. And so God wants gifts that are authentic and personal. He wants gifts that are authentic to us and personal to him. So you might be thinking, well, dads are hard
[00:42:13] to shop for. So our heavenly father must be impossible to get a gift for, right? We can't just give an Amazon gift card to God. This is going to be a lot harder than it might seem.
[00:42:27] Dads are notoriously hard to shop for, but God is not that way. Turns out God is very clear to us what is at his heart and what's at the center of his heart. I'm not going to have these verses on
[00:42:41] the screen, so I want you to listen to them and hear for what is at the heart of God. Exodus 30, the Lord, the Lord, a merciful God. Deuteronomy 4, the Lord, your God, is a merciful God. Psalm 145,
[00:42:56] the Lord is good to all. His mercy is over all he has made. Lamentations 3, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. Micah 6, 8, what does the Lord require of
[00:43:09] you to act justly and love mercy. What is a gift that God appreciates? It's a gift that reflects his heart. And what reflects his heart? Mercy. Mercy reflects his heart. That is the gift that
[00:43:29] God requires of us. But what is mercy? What is mercy? It's a word that gets thrown around in church, but I'm not sure if we have ever spent some time to really define it. Well, mercy is this.
[00:43:41] it is love at a cost. Mercy is love at a cost. I saw an article recently. Well, actually, no, it wasn't an article. I saw a YouTube video recently. But there's some articles that talk
[00:43:56] about this YouTube video and this phenomena that gets seen in human psychology. And it's this phenomena that says that when you know how much something costs, you enjoy it more.
[00:44:10] There's an experiment that gets done pretty often in all kinds of different ways, and it's the experiment where there are different wines that are sold at different costs, and you have some people try them and rate them, knowing how much they cost,
[00:44:24] and another group that tries and rates them, not knowing how much each of the wines cost.
[00:44:29] And the results show that people tend to rate the more expensive wine as better-tasting wine when they know how much it costs.
[00:44:36] and you might be thinking to yourself, how does somebody become a test subject in one of these experiments? I never get these surveys. You know, these are, these are the things that I want to be
[00:44:46] getting in my email inbox. No, but seriously, what does this have to do with mercy? It matters because we tend to appreciate mercy when we know the cost is great. We value mercy more when the
[00:45:00] sacrifice is more. And this is why mercy becomes a very awkward gift. This is why mercy can be an awkward gift. So imagine you work at the local Krispy Kreme and you forget to turn on the hot
[00:45:16] now sign and your supervisor catches you and says, hey man, this is kind of our thing. But you know what? I turned it on. You're good. You're probably thinking, man, this guy is a great supervisor.
[00:45:31] He's super chill. He lets me get off with some important things because that hot now sign is kind of the beacon for Krispy Kreme. But he's a nice manager. You might be thinking, wow, that's
[00:45:42] a nice guy. Now, imagine you still work with that Krispy Kreme and you go live on your TikTok and you accidentally leak the recipe for the original glazed cream donut. And the CEO sees this because it's gone viral, right? The CEO notices that the original recipe is out there
[00:46:01] on the loose and Krispy Kreme is now in jeopardy. And so the CEO comes to you and says, hey man, you leaked the original recipe. This is a big deal, but you know what? It's okay. We'll fix this.
[00:46:13] you still have your job. Well, this is kind of a ridiculous story, but I think it points to the fact that some things are higher stakes than other things, right? When the stakes are higher,
[00:46:25] we feel the mercy even greater, right? That CEO is not just a nice guy. That CEO is maybe crazy.
[00:46:31] That CEO is maybe a ridiculous person who doesn't understand the cost of what he's doing.
[00:46:36] When the stakes are higher, when the failure is higher, mercy becomes harder for us to buy into, right? It becomes harder for us to understand. And this is the economic reality of the world that we live in now. We look at the world around us today and violence and corruption and your team
[00:46:52] is worse than my team. That is just expounding right now. It's exponential how much we are contributing to this collective debt that we all feel. And none of us want to stop putting into that pot, right? None of us want to stop saying, you know what, we'll just forgive. We'll just
[00:47:08] show mercy. None of us want to pay that cost of mercy to have that all go away. No one wants to be left paying that cost. And so we keep amplifying, we keep escalating. And that is the economics of
[00:47:22] what it means to be human in this world. But God has a heart of mercy and he requires a gift of all of us. And if God's heart is mercy, then the gift that is required of all of us is mercy.
[00:47:42] And so we need to know how much that gift is going to cost.
[00:47:47] Let's look back at Mary and Martha's home in John chapter 12.
[00:47:52] And let's look at what the cost of mercy is.
[00:47:56] Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
[00:48:05] So they, Martha and Mary, gave a dinner for him there.
[00:48:10] Martha served, and Lazarus was one of the ones reclining at the table.
[00:48:15] Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.
[00:48:23] The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
[00:48:26] But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, he who was about to betray him, said, Why was this ointment not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor?
[00:48:38] He said, That's not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief.
[00:48:41] And having charged the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
[00:48:45] And Jesus said, leave her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.
[00:48:51] For the poor you always have with you, but not always me.
[00:48:55] What's the context of this dinner?
[00:48:58] Well, the difference between this dinner and the first dinner that we read is that Jesus has been on mission for a long time now at this point.
[00:49:05] And Mary and Martha have been a part of it from the very beginning.
[00:49:08] Mary and Martha, before this dinner, have a moment with Jesus because their brother Lazarus is sick.
[00:49:13] and they ask Jesus to come heal him, but Jesus doesn't show up on time and Lazarus dies.
[00:49:20] And the passage says that Jesus has a lot of compassion for them.
[00:49:24] His love for them is great.
[00:49:26] And so he shows up to Lazarus' tomb, raises him from the dead, and it explodes Jesus' ministry, pretty literally, actually.
[00:49:35] John includes a note here that says Lazarus is just preaching the good news alongside all of Jesus' disciples.
[00:49:41] And the religious leaders are saying this is getting out of hand. Too many people are going away and following Jesus now. And so now to be involved with Jesus is very dangerous. To be involved with Jesus is putting your life at risk.
[00:49:56] But look at this dinner. Look at how much love Mary and Martha has grown since their first dinner.
[00:50:03] Mary isn't just sitting at the feet of Jesus, she's anointing them sacrificially.
[00:50:08] Martha isn't questioning what's happening, and her whole home is filled with the aroma of this costly and spiritual moment, but this moment is still very awkward. As we saw Judas, who's one of Jesus' closest disciples, someone who should know what Jesus is all about. He's
[00:50:25] responsible for the capital and the financial viability of Jesus' ministry, but he is compromised.
[00:50:30] He is seriously compromised. A couple of verses later, John notes that not only is Jesus in danger, but those around him are being targeted as well. John says the chief priests have made plans to put
[00:50:41] Lazarus to death as well. Because on account of many Jews who are going away and believing in Jesus, it is escalating. It has escalated to a high moment. And the cost of following Jesus is significant. For Martha and Mary to host Jesus in their home shows that they're willing
[00:50:59] to incur a cost to follow Jesus. And I just did a quick math little research on Mary's gift of this ointment, of this perfume. And if you look at the North Carolina, just kind of the median
[00:51:12] household income to like do some equating of what this gift was worth, this gift of perfume was probably around the price of $84,000. It was over a year's worth of an average salary. $84,000 is thrown out. This shows you the cost that they're willing to pay for Jesus. And this is
[00:51:36] where Jesus is saying, blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy, comes to life.
[00:51:43] Jesus leaves this room, he leaves this home, and he turns towards Jerusalem. He leaves Bethany, goes to Jerusalem to sacrifice his life, and not just to protect his friends, not just protect Lazarus, but to pay the eternal gift of mercy for you and for me. This is the good news of Jesus.
[00:52:06] The ultimate gift of mercy came at an infinitely high price.
[00:52:12] And it's the price only God will know.
[00:52:16] This is the gift that only Jesus can give.
[00:52:19] This is the highest gift of mercy anyone could have given.
[00:52:24] And it comes from the absolute center of God's heart.
[00:52:29] Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
[00:52:33] We now see the extent of God's mercy.
[00:52:37] we've been shown the full magnitude of God's heart and it comes at a cost and so where we turn from here is not to just look at Jesus as someone who pays that cost because Jesus did not
[00:52:53] give his life so that you never have to do it in return Jesus does not pay this cost so that you will never know what it's like to pay a cost of mercy what it looks like to never give a gift of
[00:53:06] mercy. That's not what Jesus is doing here. Paul says in Romans 12, he says, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing
[00:53:16] to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and prove what God's
[00:53:27] will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. Do you want to know what God wants? Do you want to know what God wants to do in this world? Look at his mercy. Look at his sacrifice and respond.
[00:53:43] Respond with your gift of mercy. You're not being asked to give the mercy that Jesus gives, but you're asked to give the mercy that is authentic to who you are and that reflects God's heart. And this is a sacrifice that God compels, has compelled generations of Christians
[00:54:01] to give their lives and respond likewise.
[00:54:05] And while the patterns of this world are to add to the debt, the patterns of this world are to add to the escalation, God's heart is to show mercy.
[00:54:17] And so for us today, if we're followers of Christ or we're considering becoming followers of Christ, we must consider what is that cost?
[00:54:25] What is going to be your response to Jesus' mercy?
[00:54:30] And so let us pray this morning and give ourselves a time to reflect on what that might be.
[00:54:36] I'm going to give us a moment to reflect and pray, asking God to reveal to us what act of mercy, what gift of mercy am I being asked to give this morning? Let's pray.
[00:55:29] You are so merciful. Lord, you understand the depth of our debt and you sacrifice your life to forgive it. Lord, out of all the things that we can look to, out of all the things that we can
[00:55:51] give our allegiance to, the things that we can worship, Lord. Only you are worth our gifts. Only you are worth our sacrifice. And so, Lord, lead us in that. Holy Spirit, guide us to see people.
[00:56:10] Have people come to our mind even now, Lord, who need to receive our mercy. Lord, you have shown us what mercy is. Lord, would you show us what mercy we are required to give to you? Thank you
[00:56:27] so much for what you've done for us. In your name we pray.
[00:56:36] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:56:36] Amen. Will you stand with us?
[01:06:03] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[01:06:03] If we could serve you in any way, we would love to hear your story. We'd love to pray for you. We have a prayer room up in the back if anything was stirred up.
[01:06:13] And so we're so glad you're here and we hope that you have a great rest of your week.
