The One Necessary Thing

Okay, so as you know, we're gonna be covering Luke 10, 38 to 42, the story of Mary and Martha. This is about 20 years ago, I got a call from a district superintendent of one of the denominations who asked me to come to one of their pastors annual retreats to speak on the subject of why do our men keep falling into sexual sin. And I actually, if I remember right, I must have preached out of this passage because I remember saying to those pastors that I've had many Marthas come to me over the years needing help to find freedom from habitual sin, but I never have had a Mary need to come to me. And that's what I wanna talk to you about today. You know, most of those pastors that have had to come here and maybe there's some here now, ministers, pastors, whatever, the reality was they were too busy, too stressed, too disconnected from the Lord in their daily life. And that's where things went south for them. All right, so I'm gonna look at the story, but just briefly, we'll go through it a little bit here, go over the verses, say a few things maybe, but really I feel like the Lord has a word for me or for you that I wanna get to. So I'm not gonna spend a lot of time at this, but let's look at what is said here, starting with verse 38. Now, as they were traveling along, he entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister called Mary who was seated at the Lord's feet, listening to his word. Mary was one of those people that were so enthralled with Jesus. You know, there was something about him. I would think if you had any spiritual sensitivity or any awareness of the Lord, how could you be in his presence without feeling and sensing the overwhelming love and power emanating from his being? I believe that she was one of those people that could just sense that about the Lord. And she sat mesmerized by his words. She was probably a lot like the crowds who were amazed at his teaching because he taught as having real spiritual authority, not like the Pharisees who just mouth things they had learned in books or whatever. Probably like the temple guards who said, never has a man spoken the way this man speaks. Probably like Peter who refused to leave Jesus when all his other disciples left him because he had the words of life. And where else would we go, Lord? She was like that. That was her response to hearing what Jesus had to say. I'm sure that she wanted to help her older sister in the kitchen. I'm sure that it came to her that she wasn't just being a deadbeat, but I just think she just was so overwhelmed that she couldn't tear herself away from the Lord. And so she sat there in spite of what she probably should have been doing, at least culturally. Verse 40 says, but Martha was distracted with all her preparations. And she came up to him and said, Lord, don't you care that my sister's left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me. I think I said that kind of like she probably said it, but the Lord answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you're worried and bothered about so many things. And those two words really described her inward life. Just consternation inside, a lack of peace. The kind of inner tranquility that comes from really walking with the Lord. In the sower and the seed parable, Jesus talked about people who allowed the worries of life to choke out the word of God. They could hear the word, but it wouldn't really enter their hearts because they were all just so wrapped up in the things of the world and the worries of the world. And in Luke 21, when he's referring to you and me, Christians of the end times, he warned us, be on guard so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life. And that day will not come on you suddenly like a trap. You know, so that was Martha, just so wrapped up into the things of life that she couldn't get herself to just settle in and hear the words of Jesus. So he gave her a gentle rebuke. Here in verse 42, he says, but only one thing is necessary for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her. Man, those were powerful words. Had her heart been open, if her heart would have been open to him, those words were powerful. I liked the way the NLT says that verse, there is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it and it will not be taken away from her. Yeah, that really captures it. So that's what happened 2,000 years ago, that one day in Bethany. And I wanna use that as an illustration or as a way of, I wanna use these two women to illustrate two types of American Christians that I have encountered over the years. Mary would represent the spiritually minded. Mary had a love for the Lord that was genuine and deep. I mean, she really loved him. Now, I don't know exactly where Martha was. Was she a born again Christian? Probably, I guess, I would imagine so. I don't know where she ended up, but I know this, that the next time you hear about these two Mary is on her knees, washing the feet of Jesus, anointing his feet with her perfume, worshiping him and weeping. And Martha was still serving. And that's not a good sign. When the Lord comes and people are the same afterwards, don't let that be you guys. Could you tap him? You're gonna stay awake? Stay awake. You're in a program, all right? This isn't church. Things are gonna be different now, right? And this is what I wanna say to you guys, that many times, you know, I've been doing this 37 years. 37 years. And over those 37 years, I've dealt with thousands and thousands of men, right? A lot of men. And I've seen the Lord come. I've seen the Lord come in this place tremendously. And people walk out of here the same as they walked in. Don't be that person, guys. Don't be that person. Don't squander the opportunities you have in this place when the Lord comes. So anyway, Mary represents people, I'll say, I'll call spiritually minded. And Martha represents, I don't know the right term. I'm gonna say religious minded, but that's not maybe exactly what I'm thinking. Maybe more like carnally minded. I don't know what the term is, but that's the one I'll use. So let's start with them, the religious minded. What does that mean and who are these people and so on? All right, last week before Pastor Ed preached, I got up and shared a word that starts with O. Who can remember what that was? Chris, thank you, good intern there. Of course, I've been telling him this all week long as we work together, but no, I'm just kidding. I talked about how so many people come into the Christian culture because they're raised in it. And so they adopt the different aspects of the culture, how to say things, how to act, there's just a way that you are with any culture. I'm just saying, any culture, that's how you learn languages and so on. It's through osmosis, it's just being in the middle of it. And I talked about how you can be raised in the church in a godly home, godly parents, but you have to still have a supernatural encounter with the Lord. You don't get saved just because you're raised in church. It is a supernatural experience where you were one person and you become another person. And there is no other way into the kingdom of God. Guys, Jesus said you must be born again, right? Born again, born anew. Something radically different happens to you. And that's what I talked about last week. Wow, what a great talk that was. You know, Paul talked about these people, 2 Timothy 3 is really talking about the church of the last days, the apostate church of the last days. And he said some things about the general climate in the church, in this apostate church. You guys know what apostate means, right? No. The apostasy, have you heard of the apostasy? The great apostasy? It's a falling away from the life in God that was there in the first century church and that sort of thing. And it's been many times down through the years. A falling away from that. And so some of the terms that he used to describe this apostate church, these apostate Christians, are that they have a love for self. In other words, their self-life is huge in life, you know? And whatever's in their self is what dictates how they do life. And there's a whole list of different sorts of things that come out of that self-life. Love of money, love of pleasure, rather than a love of God. Anybody ever struggle with any of that? Couple of you. Rough crowd. Holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. What does that mean? Don't you think that's something that would probably be important to know? Because you know for a fact, guys, you have been a lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God before you came here. And the Lord is trying to take you somewhere else from where you have been to something new and powerful in your life. And you need to make that transition. You know, one of the biggest arguments inside men's minds is that they certainly must belong to the Lord because they've had spiritual experiences. The Lord has, they've seen the Lord at work. They've been in a Christian culture. Certainly they must belong to the Lord. You know, it doesn't matter almost how they're actually living their life because they're convinced that they've had, that they belong to the Lord because of experiences they've had and stuff like that. They have sensed God's presence. But I want to tell you something. If you'll just take the time to look at what the Bible says, there are, I don't know how many, I don't know what the right word, I don't know if multitudes are the right word, but a lot of people in scripture had spiritual experiences and they were unsaved. Saul, for instance, that's just one. Many, many. Don't let that be your determining factor. Look at what scripture says about salvation and what it means to be born again and so on. Well, anyway, I'm not really wanting to focus on that today. I just wanted to mention it. That the people I'm talking about now outwardly identify with Christianity but keep the Holy Spirit at arm's length. That's what it means to deny the power, to have a form of godliness, doing the outward things, but keeping God at bay inside. These people have a form without the reality. The people I'm describing, they have the outward facade of Christianity without the inward life of God. They know about the Lord, but they don't have an intimate knowledge of God. And this is one area, another area that really kind of separates the difference between religious-minded people and spiritually-minded people. And that is the area of the knowledge of God, which should be a very huge part of our life, the Christian life. The word, really, the technical term is theology, theology. And what theology literally means is the study of the nature of God, what he is like. The study of it, just like looking at a person, studying them and trying to understand them. Well, the religious people make a big deal about study. But there's nothing wrong with that. As we heard Thursday night, the word of God is alive and powerful, isn't it? So there's nothing wrong with studying scripture. We all should study. I study scripture every day. We have to be in the word of God, absolutely. But it's the motivation and the approach that makes the difference. Because you can use the same terminology and two different people have their own filters and they hear it in completely different ways. Oh yeah, study the Bible. Yeah, sure, I study the Bible. But what they're talking about studying the Bible is a completely academic intellectual exercise. Whereas spiritually-minded people go to the word of God and they sit before the Lord and they want the Lord to speak to them through it. Two different things, two different filters. We have commentators, seminary professors, and multitudes of pastors who can tell you all the grammatical nuances of the Greek and the Hebrew. They can pontificate at length about biblical history. They can tell you all about the different codexes and ancient manuscripts and why one's more trustworthy than the other. But you hear very little from those kinds of commentators and scholars about their own personal life in God. Whereas you go back to some of these old-time scholars like Albert Barnes and Matthew Henry and pulpit commentators and those guys, when you read their commentaries, it isn't all forensic. It's like you just can tell these men walked with God. That's why I use them with their old English and all that stuff. The problem with approaching scripture intellectually is that it just fills you with head knowledge. But the word of God, as Pastor Ed was saying, it is alive and it breathes the atmosphere of heaven if you're open to it, if you're approaching it in the right way. Another part of religious-minded people is they, or I should say just that intellectual approach lends itself to developing and emphasizing pet doctrines. Pet doctrines. I have seen so many. I could sit here and weep at how many men I've seen come through this place, spend nine months here and leave unchanged inside because they were so fixated on their doctrines and all of that. It was like that was huge inside them. And the Lord who was in this place and wanted to minister life to them was tiny and they missed him. Just like the Pharisees missed the Lord. He was standing right in their midst and they missed him because they were so wrapped up in their dogmas and all that stuff. Immature people demand that everyone sees things exactly as they see them in theology, doctrine, and that sort of stuff. I can tell you our staff comes from all kinds. We've got an Amish guy here, this guy here in the blue shirt. He's an Am and he acts very Amish. Get around him very well. Gabe, on the other hand, is a Baptist. Josh is assemblies of God. I mean, we come from all, you know, it doesn't matter. None of that matters. We walk with the Lord and we live in unity together because we all love the Lord. And those doctrinal differences are so insignificant. It's okay with me if you're reformed or something else. It doesn't matter. I have a good friend in the Netherlands. Of course, the Netherlands are very reformed, Dutch reformed, right? And I've known him about 10 years and he invited me over to speak at a, he has a conference a couple of times a year. It's like a thousand young people go to it and I've spoken there a couple of times. Actually, Dustin Renz is over there with him right now. And I wrote an article after that first time I was with him. The title of the article was His Primary Question. And this, let me just read what I wrote. This is just comes out of the article. Like most Dutch believers, he's from a reformed background and yet to his credit, his first question when considering me as a speaker was not, is he one of us? But more along the lines of, does he hold to the, he's talking about me, okay? Did I get that? Was that confusing? I'm like looking at the way he was considering me as a possible speaker in their conference. Does he hold to the foundational tenets of the faith? Is he a man of God? Will he bring a relevant word from the Lord to my people? Does he actually live what he preaches? Those are the kinds of questions you guys have every right to ask coming into this place. But don't waste your time asking, do they believe exactly like I believe? We just watched how many left this place, threw away the opportunity of a life to really get right with God because they were so fixated on their doctrines and they didn't need to be. It shouldn't have been that way, just immature, prideful. It's just such a shame. Well, can I just remind you guys that the Lord did not bring you here to debate doctrine. He brought you here because there was something faulty in your spiritual life that he was looking to fix, right? That's why he brought you here. Had another guy, he's a doctor and he lives in the kind of general area and he used to come to the meetings here and he was also reformed, which I like reformed people. I study reformed preachers and writers and stuff. It doesn't matter to me, but it was a big deal to him and he used to always harp on me about, you don't emphasize the sovereignty of God enough and stuff like this. And I would just say, okay, Fred, I just didn't really pay much attention. But in the meantime, his life was a complete mess. He had some kind of sexual sin, he never did confess to me. At the doctor's office he worked at, the people couldn't stand him, thought he was a total hypocrite. His own family didn't like him and his wife ended up divorcing him. But before that happened, he called, well, they called Kathy and me up to come down to their house and help them because they were in a crisis. And once again, he starts in on me about the sovereignty thing and I just kind of blew a cork for a minute. And I'm actually a very stable and calm individual. Well, anyway, I calmly said, Fred, you talk a lot about the sovereignty of God, but why does he seem so tiny in your life? I believe in the sovereignty of God, absolutely I believe. Every aspect of my life, he is reigning sovereignly over my life. He's huge in my thinking. Every day as I'm going throughout the day, I'm talking to the Lord. He's real to me, he just fills my inner being in the sense of how my awareness of him. And I told this, I said these things to Fred and I said, where's the sovereignty of God in your life? Because I don't see the Lord at all in your life. All I see is a pet doctrine and it's done nothing but make you prideful. Well, it didn't go over so good and nothing changed for him. I'm sorry to say, and his wife did end up divorcing him. You know, for people like him, doctrine becomes a convenient excuse not to examine their own hearts. And those guys that left here, I'm sorry to say that that had to be it. The one guy sat over here glaring at me. Was that last week or two weeks ago that we had that powerful altar time? And he sat there glaring at me and I just like, man, what? What have I said that has so offended you? But you know, he just did not want to deal with his stuff. And his wife came to Kathy a few months ago and just pouring out her heart. I just, I was heartbroken for her after he left because he's going back the same man that came here, probably more hard-hearted than ever. Just, you know, it's so much easier to pick us apart than to fight through for victory. So Martha represents the religious people who may do a lot of things but do not understand what it means to have an intimate knowledge of God. All right, we also get to look at Mary and this will be much more pleasant. Mary represents the spiritually minded. This is what the Lord brought you here for, guys, to become this person. And maybe you have been at some level in the past but something went south on you, right? And this is what the Lord wants to bring you into, this kind of Christianity. The 1828 Webster Dictionary defines spiritually minded as being, quote, under the influence of the Holy Spirit and holy principles, whose affections are elevated above sensual objects and are placed on God. Anybody here want that kind of Christianity? To be spiritually minded, biblically speaking, means to be led by the Spirit. That's what Paul said, to be controlled by the Spirit. David, who was a spiritually minded man, at least when he was in his right mind, he said, one thing I have asked from the Lord that I shall seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. What he's saying is that I may dwell in your presence, Lord. That I may dwell in your presence to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in his temple. Did you notice that term, one thing? The very thing that Jesus told Martha that she was missing. What is the one thing that David and Mary had in common? A great desire to know the Lord, a genuine love for him. Now I read quite a few commentaries on this Luke 10 passage these last couple of weeks. And I could almost tell you, kinda, this kind of spiritual life these men had by the way that they defined this term, this one thing. By the way they defined that, I could almost tell you what their Christian life is like. And a lot of them said things like, it's the word of God, studying the word of God and so on. But I know the filter that they're talking about is academic head knowledge. Let me just read a couple of more spiritually minded men. William McDonald said, our Lord prizes our affection above our service. Service may be tainted with pride and self-importance. Being occupied with Jesus is the one necessary thing, that good part which will not be taken away. That's true. Vance Havner called it contemplative communion with the Lord. And he went on to say, our hearts can sit at his feet while our hands work in the kitchen. And I'll tell you, that is the truth. I don't know if you guys know, but I'm building a house. Did you guys know that? I'm building a house. Couple of you do. And I can, there are times when, like if I'm doing something mindless, I love doing mindless work. Because my job, I have to use my mind a lot and I get rather tired of it. So I like it when I'm just out there digging a hole or something. Or making Chris dig a hole. That's even better. I can just go into my nothing box, you know, and let him do the work. But I'll be out there, you know, like I was working on a fence the other day. And this has just become a thing for me. And I can just be working on this fence, but be completely lost with the Lord. It's such a blessing. It's such a blessing to just be pouring my heart out to the Lord while I'm just mindlessly working on this fence. What a thing. Pope of Commentary said, the heart listening to Christ is the one necessary thing. And you cannot have that without a quiet spirit. Oh, the blessedness of sitting at the feet of Jesus. Yes, amen. Listen, don't talk to me about your pet doctrines. Talk to me about how you love God and how that love comes out in your daily life to others. Talk to me about how you obey him in your heart, not just the outward evangelical list of rules, the things that we do to be part of the Christian culture. I don't care about that. What's going on in your heart? Talk to me about that. Talk to me about how you love to sit at his feet and just be in his presence. That's the kind of stuff I wanna hear about. Those are the things that are impressive to the Lord, not your pet doctrines. Galatians 6.1 talks about helping people who are in sin. And I used to do a teaching that I'd go around. When I was out speaking a lot out in the country and around the country, and I would speak in pastors groups or counselors groups and about helping men in sexual sin and stuff. And I would use this passage, Galatians 6.1, because it defines who is in God's mind, who has the authority to minister to men in sexual sin. And it says the spiritually minded are the ones who have the authority to speak into the life of those who are bound up in sin. And that context of what it means to be spiritually minded is there in Galatians 5. I mean, you can just spend some time through the last half of that chapter. You see what I mean. That's where Paul's talking about being led by the spirit and stuff like that. But anyway, just a few commentators, like John Gill described these spiritually minded men as those who live and walk in the spirit and stand by the power and grace of the spirit of God. Yeah, that is the kind of people who can minister to others. And Adam Clark said that they have wisdom and experience in divine things. Albert Barnes wrote that they are under the influences of the Holy Spirit. And A.T. Robertson, that good old Baptist theologians called them spiritual experts in mending souls. Yeah, he's absolutely, that's a man who walked with God. Actually, well, I guess Adam Clark was an Arminianist, but the rest of them are all Calvinists. But they were men who walked with God. You know, I'm trying to define or show you the difference between this kind of dead American Christianity that has taken over the church and what it means to be a spiritually minded man. But there's a lot of similarities. Actually, there's probably more similarities between the two than differences. For instance, both groups do their best to avoid outward sins, such as drinking, drugging, and sleeping around. You know, religious minded person does that also. Both groups do their best to live honest lives and read Christian books and listen to Christian music. Both groups often attend the same church, hear the same teachings, sing the same hymns. You see what I'm saying? All outward things. And it's like, you know, the wheat and the tares that Jesus talks about, you can't tell a wheat from a tare. They look identical, at least when they're young. They look exactly the same. And that's why Jesus said, don't tear out the tares because you'll accidentally tear out some of the actual wheat. So it's not the outward life so much. It's what's going on in the heart that matters. So last week, Pastor Ed shared on this passage, Luke 10, 25 to 37. And remember, he said that, he pointed out that Jesus, I mean, that this lawyer asked Jesus two questions. Remember that? You guys remember that? Yes. That, you know, when a speaker's voice kind of goes up at the end, that means it's a question. Rough crowd, man. And Pastor Ed focused on the second question because that's what is emphasized in that story, which was, you know, led into the Good Samaritan teaching, which was really a blessing to hear last week. But I wanna read, I wanna look at, just for, as I wrap up now, I wanna go back to the first question. Look at this. Verse 25 is where that all started. And a lawyer stood up and put him to the test, saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Huge question, right? Everyone should be concerned about this question. And Jesus said to him, what's written in the law? How does it read to you? And the man said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. I'm gonna stop right there because then he says, then your neighbor is yourself and the whole thing went sideways. You know, not the, yeah, you know what I mean. But I wanna stop right there, that you shall love the Lord your God with everything in you. The main difference between the religious-minded man and the spiritually-minded man is found in this word love, really. That's the difference. Like Martha, religious-minded people can do many things, you know, and they can certainly seem, they do the outward things right. You know, like Jesus talks about those people, say, Lord, Lord, did not we do this and that and all this? What's he say? I never knew you. I never had that intimate fellowship with you. We were never one together. You were just doing your thing out there in the church world. And Christians say, oh yeah, I love the Lord. But when they say it, I'm saying a lot of these people on this side, they think of love, you know, love has just been such an abused word. We love our baseball team. We love to eat ice cream, you know, all kinds of stuff. And that's kind of how it is for people when they say they love the Lord. It's really nothing more than that. Now, there's a difference between the English word love and the Greek term agape. Agape is describing a very powerful prevailing passion that drives a person in life. That's what the word agape means. It's not just, you know, a mild affection. Like we use the word love. And every person has agape. Tell me if you guys recognize these words. Deeply embedded within the heart of man is a spiritual altar. Anybody recognize those words? Ron, where's those come from? Ron. Well, that's not bad. Every human has the capacity. No, the need to worship. The objects of that worship are the things or persons which have taken the preeminent position of importance in the person's life. Whatever they may be, they cast their looming shadow over all the other aspects of his life, right? First words out of, at the altar of sexual idolatry. That's how I began the book. Establishing this understanding that we all have this tendency inside. No, how do I say, I said no. The need to worship. The need to worship. It's a powerful thing. We are going to worship something. That's for sure. In the New Testament, agape is usually used in the sense of loving God or maybe loving others. But that's because that's what the New Testament's all about. But that's, the word agape means more than that. It's not totally a positive word. There's also a negative usages. Like John said, do not love the world. That's agape. Jesus said, woe to you Pharisees, for you love the chief seats. And he also said, men love the darkness rather than the light. Those are all usages of agape. So when you talk about loving the Lord or loving anything with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, that's a passion that carries over. You know, it's the passion, the driving passion in the person's heart. And it carries over into his thinking. So it's the thing that he thinks about a lot. What do you think about throughout the day? That would be a good indicator where your heart's at. And to love the Lord with all your strength or to love something with all your strength just simply means that's where you put all your energy. All your time goes into that thing. And that love fills the soul and that is what goes into eternity with you. You can come up with some nice little religious formula. Oh yeah, I got saved. I said the prayer, went forward, said the prayer 10 years ago, been faithful and going to church and stuff. And you know, one day I'll die and I'll go to heaven. But that is just such a superficial, pathetic explanation of what salvation is. No, the love of God fills your heart and fills your soul and you continue on that into heaven. That's who is in heaven. Not people who love the world. And I challenge anyone to show me in scripture something different than what I just said. Because you won't find it. Heaven is a place for people whose entire inner beings are in love with God. Sorry if that messes up with your doctrine but since we don't argue doctrine, we'll just leave that alone. Now, you know, look at verse 28 when he says here, because he's kind of ending what he's saying to this man. You have answered correctly, do this and you will what? Live. Okay, let's talk about life real quick. I probably wrote about this somewhere. I'm sure I did. But there's two Greek words for life. I know I'm being kind of technical but that's okay. Psyche is what describes any animal creature, you know, it's what animates a creature. And it describes, as far as humans are concerned, that kind of life describes earth life. And you are driven through life through earth life. If that's all your focus is, if you're driven through life by lust, that's what drives you, it's what you want. I want this, I want that, and you're going through life in a direction because you're lusting after things. Or desiring things, whatever. Zoe describes the life of God, the life God possesses and offers his people. Zoe is the word that Jesus is using right here. Zoe is the life of God in the soul. It is what the word revival describes. It makes a person spiritually alive and brings him into true communion with God. It is the life of God. And you can live in that, man. That's what I'm trying to say, is you can live in that. And the Lord wants you to live in that and nothing less. You are supposed to be a temple of what? The Holy Spirit. And if you're a temple of the Holy Spirit, not just nominally by name, oh yeah, I'm a Christian. No, if you're a temple of the Holy Spirit, then you are gonna be full of what? The Holy Spirit and the life that comes from being full of the Holy Spirit. All right, so go back to verse 42. One thing is necessary. Last week I said, God didn't send you here to become an improved version of you, right? A cleaned up, glorified self-life, right? Do you agree with that? Yeah, he brought you here to revolutionize your inward life. Not to just give you a little, couple of self-improvement tricks or a little alteration here and there. No, you need a complete radical transformation. You uprooted yourself at great expense to come here to Kentucky, to go through this program. It's hard, I know it's a pain to be here. You're a grown man, you should be able to go out and live life without a bunch of rules dictating when you go to bed and stuff. I understand that. But you've been bad little boys. Therefore, you must go to Pure Life Ministries. But guys, you're not gonna find freedom until you know what it means to have a life in God. That's what he brought you here for, and nothing less. To really know what it means to have a life in God where you are controlled and dominated by the Holy Spirit. All right, so as Nate said, we're gonna have a little worship time to conclude. I don't know how long it'll last, but, and I want you to feel free. You can stand, you can sit, you can come up to the altar. You can walk around in the back. I don't care. But let's just take a little bit of time to worship the Lord. And as we do this, I want you to consider this one thing. Are you now still a Martha? Or have you crossed the line into really becoming a Mary? Someone who really does love the Lord. That's what God wants for you, and I'm just telling you, you can go to a $30,000 one-month treatment program and get cycle, whatever cycle things they do for you. I'm not preaching to you. But I'm telling you, I've been down that path, and so has many others, and there's nothing there. It's just a bunch of empty nonsense. You need someone that's greater than yourself to help you. And you have him available to you. And if you'll just humble yourself and come to him in that way, let's worship the Lord.