, but again, happy Mother's Day. No matter where you are in your mothering journey, we want to honor all of the women in this room. , no matter kind of where you've come from with kids and and not having kids maybe, and it can drum up just a lot of different feelings today. And so my prayer for you is that Jesus would meet you in that place and and that you would be able to kind of look at today as a joyful encounter with him. And so we've been in this message series we call foundations.

And the goal of this message series is to help us build a strong foundation in Jesus in our relationships, in our habits, our rhythms, our disciplines so that when life gets hard, which it does, right. We can withstand some of the big hard days, the storms of life when that kind of thing happens. And since it's Mother's Day, I want to kind of premise this message with a little game. Can we play a little game this morning, Destination.

This game I like to call would She rather. And so this is what you're going to do. You're going to think of a woman in your life. , this is gonna be way more fun for you if they're sitting next to you.

By the way, , it could be your mom, it could be your, , grandma, it could be your wife, it could be your sister, a friend. Just think of that. Okay, everybody got the woman in their life in your head. Okay, so this is what you're going to do. You're going to answer the question of what you think she would rather do.

If they're not here today, maybe you get to ask them later. So, we'll start out easy. First question.

Would she rather sleep the latest or be the first one up. You would rather sleep the latest, mother and wife. Okay, I got it. I'm one for one.

I I'm I'm ready to see like the elbows like no that's not me. Would she rather have unlimited coffee for a year or one dream vacation completely paid for for a week. Oh, how many how many women say the the coffee. Oh man, there's only like a couple.

Okay, so how many women for the vacation. Okay, wondering what majority was. Okay, number three.

Would she rather have a personal chef or a personal house cleaner. That's a tough one. That is a tough one.

I'm going to guess for us it would be cleaner. It would definitely be cleaner. I like cooking.

So, all right. Let's Let's do three options for this next one. Would she rather have her dessert be candy of choice, cake, any kind of cake, or c ice cream.

Any kind of ice cream. And don't give me that like I'm going to add a D option like it's a donut or something like these are the three options. Three options. So, who thinks who thinks so far they're four for four.

Couple of you maybe four for four. Okay, I'm gonna throw you a wild curveball. This is going to show my random humor here for a second.

Would she rather have a raccoon as a roommate or a goose that follows her everywhere aggressively honking. Definitely not the goose. Can you tell I used to be a youth pastor. That's the kind of questions we would ask.

Okay, those were five questions. Here's what I want to give to you. I want to give you a bonus question.

And here's the thing. I I don't know if it would be the wisest thing in the world to answer this if they're sitting right next to you, but I'm going to ask. Would she rather check everything off her to-do list or be present with those around her.

That's a tough one, right. And that's the real question because if we're honest, if we are all honest, it's easy to say with all of these questions what we would rather do or what we would assume somebody else would rather do. And we can make these kind of choices throughout our days and throughout our years. But sometimes what we actually would pick as our option is not what our actual action is.

It's not what we do. And why is that. Because we're busy, right.

The number one response I get to how are you doing aside from good is busy. I've been busy. And when we're clouded by all of the busyiness, , we miss being, we miss being present, we miss being transformed, we miss being known.

And this is true for all of us, and it's true for moms, too. That we miss out because of all of the busyiness. Listen to this. A Pew Research study revealed that seven in 10 US adults feel too busy to enjoy life.

To just enjoy life. It also shows that 60% of Americans believe that there is not enough hours in a day to complete their to-do list. I didn't even know there was such a thing as completing a to-do list.

I didn't think it was possible. Amen on that one. So today, what I want to do as we establish a foundation is check our priorities. Is check what the priority is, what is getting our time, what is getting our attention, and what is making us so incredibly busy. And to do that, we're going to do what we do every week and take out the word of God.

You can go ahead and pull out those blue Bibles. We're going to be in Luke chapter 10. It is on page 892.

If you are new to Destination, we pull these out each and every week. If you do not own a Bible, please take this one home with you. It is our gift to you. Or to regift to your mom today, whatever you want to do. But we believe in giving these Bibles out because we believe that the word of God unlocks something in your heart and in your life.

And today, just to give you a little context while you find your way there, we're going to meet two characters. The characters names are Mary and Martha. First of all, Mary is not to get confused with Jesus's mom, Mary. This is a different Mary. And Martha is not to be confused with Martha Stewart, okay.

She's not in the Bible, so don't look for her. , and the context here is Jesus's ministry has been moving. It's been progressing and he's going to stop off for a little break and meet these two characters.

, so if you look at verse 38, follow the numbers down to 38. That's where we'll be reading. And it says this, "As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to every listening to what he said.

Martha was distracted by all the preparations. " So maybe she's not too different from Martha Stewart, okay. She was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and said,"Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself. Tell her to help me.

" This is the cry of every mother. Tell them to help me. Jesus says, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few are needed or indeed only one.

Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken from her. So this is a a teaching that Jesus kind of gives us through an experience through two perspectives of two different women. Mary chooses this right thing to sit at the feet of Jesus to focus her attention on Jesus and Martha is very busy and distracted and it leads to different things and different emotion.

And for us, we need to be aware of these things as we focus our time and our energy into different things into different places. And so, how do we know if we're a Mary or a Martha. Well, the first thing we got to do is we got to look at this passage and kind of unpack it. The first thing that we see is the position of both of these ladies.

We see that Martha is busy. She's distracted. But then we look at Mary. Where is Mary's position. She is at the seat of Jesus.

Now back in Jesus's time, this was a posture that people took towards a teacher and it was saying that I am humbly sitting under your authority, your teaching, and I'm ready and here and willing to learn what you have to teach me. So Mary was positioned in a way that was centering her focus and attention onto Jesus. And the question for us is, are we positioned in the same way toward Jesus.

Do we have a posture that's fixed towards Jesus or fixed towards busyness and distraction. Because here's the truth. I can say or I I can confidently say that I'm married, right.

And if I go around and I don't talk about my wife, I don't hang out with my wife, I spend no time with her, I don't do anything, okay, other than to say that I'm married, I'm getting the benefits or I'm saying that I have these benefits of being married without any of the relationship there. Similarly, this is kind of what some of us will do with Jesus is we'll say, "I want the assurance that I'm going to heaven, but I don't have any of the relationship, any of the relationship that spends time with Jesus. " And I don't want you to miss this to making this position a priority for you. And men, I want to talk to you for a second, okay. Because I don't want you to miss this.

Because this is why so many women end up feeling like Martha is because a lot of us are not positioned in a way where we are looking at the savior of the world. We're not positioned in this way because we've checked out spiritually. Let me just share with you a fact that I have been convicted over for about 12 years of my life. Today on Mother's Day will be the highest attended male Sunday of the year at every church.

And the reason for that is because mom or grandma or wife or whoever wants you here. And I want you here, too. I'm glad that you're here today. But I want you to hear this that this may be the moment that God is trying to get your attention because what we're doing here today is more than just 30 minutes of music and 30 minutes of some guy talking.

It's so much more. It is equipping you. It is equipping you to sit in this position of knowing how to lead and love your family in a way that Jesus has designed you to. And so please please don't miss this opportunity.

Don't miss this opportunity to to make this a regular part of your family rhythm. And that goes for all of all of us need to make this position a really big priority. Ephesians says it like this.

Be very careful then how you live. Not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of what. Some opportunity.

No, every opportunity. Because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.

For us, what we need to do is be able to make wise decision to make the most of every opportunity to go deeper in our relationship with Jesus. And why is this so important. Well, we'll find out in a moment because we see where the alternative leads Martha. But here's the bottom line to this section for you.

Jesus doesn't want busy believers. He wants faithful followers. And so he wants you to be a faithful follower, not just a busy believer. And so for ma for Mary, this is the position she takes as a faithful follower. Now Martha on the other side is a busy believer.

She believes in Jesus, but she's busy. And look at what the outcomes are for her. Look at verse 40 again.

Verse 40 says, "But Martha was what. Distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. You see, part of the outcome for you and I when our time and attention is not on the right things is we become distracted. And that's when our priorities get all out of whack and our attention just goes all over the place. Just think about this.

This is from a study, okay. The human attention span continues to shrink over time. That there are some in this study conducted where a goldfish had a longer attention span than a human being. That means if I got any goldfish in the room, you've already missed half of what I'm saying. You don't want to know these numbers with teenagers, by the way.

But our attention span is is shrinking. And we try to say all of these things that we're that we're really good at that kind of conserve our time. Oh, I'm really good at multitasking.

It's like, no, you're not good at multitasking. You're good at switch tasking. There's a difference. Okay, I can walk and chew gum.

That's multitasking. But if I'm trying to spend time with my kids and I'm pushing them on the swing, but I'm answering text messages. Guess what that says about my posture, right. It says something completely different and we become distracted in this way.

And so what happens because Martha is so distracted, look at verse 41. She comes to Jesus and she says,"Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all this work by myself. Tell her to help me.

" There's a desperation in her voice. And when Jesus addresses Martha, she addresses her her heart, her concern that she is worried and troubled. You see, when our focus, when our time and attention is on the wrong things, these same things happen to us. We become entitled and lonely and trouble.

Okay, good news for this morning, right. But it's true. It's true about me, too. When I am busy, when I'm really busy and distracted, I become entitled.

I become the most important person in the world and everybody else is not. And everybody's like, "Oh, geez, you, Josh, you do it, too. " Okay, let me prove it to you.

Drive down Highway 65. I'll stop there. No, I'm just kidding. Drive down Highway 65 when you are in a rush to get somewhere. Everybody is the slowest driver in the world.

Every light is red, right. But in contrast, if you know you're you're not as far ahead or you know you you don't have you're not in a rush. You're driving and somebody is just eating your tail.

They're the worst person in the world. You see, we get that attitude. We get this kind of entitlement attitude when our priorities are all mixed up. And then for Martha that kind of plays out in a way where she becomes troubled where she calls on the Lord not to help but to get the Lord to get somebody else to help her.

And scientist scientifically in our brains if our priorities are kind of out of whack and our time is being stretched in different ways like have you ever said yes to some kind of like social obligation or something and then all of a sudden you're like just crabby all the way leading up to it. You're crabby the whole time you're there. It's because you have made a decision with your body that your mind and heart have not caught up with.

Scientifically, this is what happens is you're elevating your cortisol levels and it releases this stress hormone. And this stress hormone causes anxiety and bad health issues and high blood pressure. And so when we're doing this, this is the space that Martha is finding herself in.

She's troubled. And here's the thing. The devil knows that. And so, guess what he's going to do. If he can't make you sin, he's going to make you busy.

Cory Tinboon says it like that. He says, "If the devil can't make you sin, he'll make you busy. " And that's how for some of us, we get taken out from the things that God wants us to hear. Some of the things that God wants us to do. Some of the priorities that God's trying to put in our life is not necessarily being missed because we're falling short due to some huge sin, but it's because of busyness.

And so, how do we fix that. Jesus goes on to say, look at verse 41. Jesus says, "Martha, Martha.

" By the way, just got to point this out. This isn't Jesus going, "Martha, Martha, calm down. " This is a compassionate thing that Jesus is doing. Then he says, "The Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed or indeed only one.

Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken from. " And so if Mary chose the right thing, where to put her time and attention, how do we view that practically. How do we do that. How do we in our busy lives, in our lives full of would you rathers, do we be more like a Mary and less like Martha in this instant. Well, it all starts with us building the right priority.

So, I want to share with you as we close today five things. Five things to build the right priorities. You might want to write these down. Not cuz I think they're like the golden five things, but I think that they're going to help you.

, so the first one is this. Where does Jesus actually show up. Or sorry, the first one is this. Do your values shape your calendar or do your calendar shape your value. Okay, you need to look at your time and almost give a full scale audit of your time like you would with a budget and see where am I putting my time and attention and do they match the things that I say that I value.

Because look, everybody says they value certain things like faith and family and rest and relationships, but your calendar and your wallet tell the truth. They tell the story because you don't drift into the right priorities, right. You create them.

And so I wouldn't show up on a Sunday and say, "Hey, guess what. I got six-pack abs this week. " Like, no, it doesn't happen. I have to intentionally schedule those things to schedule the workout to schedule to grow in certain ways and to make those things a priority and the thing that we need to check is do those priorities reflect Jesus and that's our second thing is where does Jesus actually show up in your week okay I want to make this very clear time with Jesus should not feel like a burden it should not feel like something you have to do.

It is something that you get to do. And as you give Jesus your time, guess what you're going to find out. He blesses you back with time.

So this verse that we've heard maybe before is the give and it will be given to you is in the context of money, but I think it's a little bit in the context of time, too. And this is why I think that can you can we just be like relatable for a second. You talk back to me on this part.

Do does anybody in here ever feel like Sundays, particularly when you come here on Sundays, do you ever feel like by the end of your Sunday, it's like been two different days. You know what I mean. Like or or am I just crazy here. Like I feel like Sundays are like the longest day for me.

But in contrast, if I'm not here on a Sunday morning or if I didn't go to church on a Sunday morning, it's like, "Oh my gosh, it's Monday, right. " And so it just happens because the time that we spend here and time that we spend with the Lord, he's blessing us with time back. I'll give you one more example of this.

If you serve, God also does this. And here's an example. Over the winter months, my wife and I come here like we're some of the first people here. And it was a big snowstorm the night before.

So, our driveway just covered in snow. I know you all missed that, right. , and it it was bad. And we were going to be gone the whole day cuz we had stuff here and then we had stuff afterwards ministry related.

And the last thing we wanted to do was to get home and take care of the driveway. You know what happened. I got home and my neighbor had done it for me. It was great. And I didn't ask him.

He didn't know. He didn't know anything. He just saw a need, met a need, and it was a huge blessing to me.

And so, you need to see both sides of that, that you can bless people in that, but also that as you give God your time, he's going to make maybe a very hard, daunting task a little bit more easy or maybe just a little bit more doable. But the sad truth is that our time with Jesus is often what disappears the quickest when we're busy. And so we need to ask this question. What disappears first when life gets busy.

You see, cuz you don't find your priorities. You don't see your priorities when life is calm. They're revealed when life becomes chaotic. Okay, here's an example of this.

There's a story about Jesus where his ministry is starting to take off. He is healing at Simon Peter's house. And you might remember this scene. It's in Mark 1. He's healing person after person after person after person.

And then something interesting happened in verse 35. Jesus very early in the morning while it was still dark. Jesus got up, left the house, went off to a solitary place where he prayed.

Simon and his companions went to look for him. And when they found him, they exclaimed, "Everyone is looking for you. " By the way, this is the equivalent of the kids outside of the bathroom door for mom.

Like, "Mom, mom. " Like, "Everyone's looking for you. " That's what they're doing to Jesus right here. Jesus replied, "Let us go somewhere else to the nearby villages so I can preach there also.

That is why I have come. " So listen, Jesus had these two opportunities. He could either stay there and keep healing or he could go on. How did he get the right decision. He spent time with the father and really evaluated what needs to disappear.

What do I need to say yes to and what do I need to say no to. And that's number four. How are you choosing what to do. You see, because Jesus himself in this very example shows us that sometimes we have to say no to a good opportunity in order to stay aligned with the life that he's called us to.

So listen for every yes that you say, every thing that you check yes to is also a no to something else. And good things can still pull you away from the necessary thing. So I would want nothing more than right now to to be back with Destination Kids.

They're doing a lot of really cool thing this week and I was really excited for the cool things that they're doing and I've been helping our kids ministry leader Felicia try to recruit some new teachers for back there. Subtle hint there. , but I I've been really excited about kids ministry, but can you imagine if I told you I didn't spend any time in prayer for any of you this week or I didn't spend any time prepping this message this week because I was too busy helping out kids ministry.

Okay, kids ministry is a great thing, right. It is a good thing, but it is not the unique purpose that God has called me to in building his kingdom. And so we need to be able to check those ways that God has positioned and placed us in our families, in our church, in our lives to say yes to the necessary thing.

That's what Mary did. She said yes to the necessary thing. And if we don't say yes to the ne necessary thing, here's the question we got to ask.

If nothing change, if nothing changed with where you give your time and attention, your priorities, where would that lead you. Where would you end in that instant. And for some of us, if we're being honest, we realize that if we were to do that full scale audit of our calendars, we are distracted or anxious or troubled and we do have too many things to do. And maybe it is leading to some of those feelings. And the freedom that Jesus is offering you today is to reposition yourself to position yourself in the same way that Mary did at the feet of Jesus because the right priority will position you for God's right purpose.

That is the bottom line to everything that I'm saying. I want everybody in this room, this is my prayer for everybody in this room, that their time and attention, their priorities would be positioned in a way where you can see God moving in your life. And so for each and every one of you, that change looks different.

And for some of us, our current priorities aren't leading us in the right direction. And change is necessary. But the good news, we can all amen this, by the way. The good news is that with Jesus change is possible, right.

Change is possible. And so if we are distracted, if we are troubled, if we are finding ourselves as a Martha, we can reposition ourselves at the feet of Jesus. But it all starts with Jesus.

It all starts with him. And so I just want to invite you in this moment to just bow your head and close your eyes. I'm going to invite the worship team up. This is something we do at Destination every week is just to take a moment of of reflection of asking ourselves, how is God speaking to you this morning. And for some of you, maybe you're here today and you're going to leave with a promise that you're going to leave with with a promise to rep prioritize some things in your life that you're looking at.

Maybe the time that you spend on your phone or time you spend distracted or busy and you see that it's leading you to all those feelings of anxiousness and hopelessness. And today is the day that you're going to commit to doing life a little differently to make time to maybe serve or to get into a group or to get into the word or into prayer and see how God moves. But maybe for some of you, it may be time to give your life to Jesus and trust him with your priority. And to remember that Jesus made you a priority. That when he left heaven and he came to earth, fully man, free from sin, to free us from sin and hopelessness.

That same Jesus who died on a cross and came back is here today. And he's inviting you to a deeper life with him. A full life, not a busy life, a full life here on earth and in eternity with him in heaven. And so if you're here today and you see that your time and is just kind of been taking the best of you and you want to refocus things and position yourself with Jesus, I just want to pray for you. And so if you're here today and you want to say yes to a relationship with Jesus, to the one that made you a priority, would you just so boldly just raise your hand.

That's all I'm going to ask you to do is raise your hand if God is speaking to you this morning, to be in a relationship with him. For those of you who raised your hands, you can put your hands down. I'm just going to pray a simple prayer for you.

This prayer doesn't save you, but I would invite you to pray it in your heart and just to follow up with us after service at the next steps table. So, let's pray. God, we thank you so much that you made us a priority, that you left heaven and came to earth and died on a cross for each and every one of us.

And so God, we give our lives to you, our priorities to you, our time to you. God, you are worthy of all of it. So God, I pray for the people that so boldly raised their hand.

Pray that this would be a moment that they would remember, a moment that they just vowed to sit at your feet and to see what you have left for them in this whole life. In Jesus name I pray.