A message for Akron Alliance Fellowship Church, Akron OH, Sunday, July 20, 2025.
For the “Live in Church” audio of this message, select here.
(Painting Credit: Scott Dewey)
Everything happens for a reason, and in this case, it makes for great material in opening a sermon!
It started a couple of weeks ago with an oil change for my car. As I was receiving my car after its completion, I noticed that the cover over my charge port had fallen completely off. (For those of you who are unaware, I have a plug-in hybrid car.) The cover had become loose in recent months and was now gone forever. From that disappointment, I decided to go to the dealership that morning and order a new cover to be installed at a future date. A week later, when the part arrived, I scheduled for my car to be serviced at the dealership for the cover to be installed. The dealership has a valet service, which I have used in the past, and my car was to be picked up from my house this past Tuesday morning at 8:30 AM. Well, 8:30 had come and went, and when I called the service department at the dealership, I spoke to a woman who wasn’t very nice. She said that my appointment could not have been for 8:30 because the people who work as valets did not get to work until 8:30. I told her that I have a confirmation from her department that the appointment was scheduled for 8:30. She said that whoever scheduled it didn’t know the details about how to make valet appointments, and that it would be closer to 9:30 when someone could come over. After raising my temperature a few degrees, she said she would contact me when someone was available to pick my car up. Well, after waiting another hour after 9:30 came and went, and without receiving that promised phone call, I called back. This time, I spoke to another person and explained that I had not heard from anyone and it was now coming up on 10:00 AM. She said, “Is this Mr. Gaines?” I said, “yes, it is”, and she apologized and noted that the computer said that I was “a missed appointment.” I said, “Really?” I couldn’t repeat out loud the words in my head at that time, but after a brief moment on hold, she came back and said that the valet drivers were on their way to my house. I thanked her for the update, but this was an unfortunate situation and that “negative points” were being issued. While I was thinking about the words to use for my call to the Director of Service at the dealership, my lovely bride saw that my face looked different and my head was going to explode, and she told me not to get upset with anyone—especially the drivers when they got to the house to pick up my car. She said that something must have happened for things to get so messed up as they did. I had already determined that I just needed to get to work and leave the house by 10:30. As I was about to turn onto the roadway from our street, I saw the valet from the dealership approaching. I sent a note to Lynn and she greeted them. She made a note to tell me that the valet was Mark, who had been to our house before, and he had apologized for the delay and said that they had a rough morning. After a brief communication she told me twice to “please take care.”
Well, after the conclusion of all of this, I calmed down. The customer service, on the surface, was this side of terrible, but with further analysis, it was understandable. A lot of people wouldn’t bother to go deeper than the surface. I had to decide that my behavior and my demeanor over this issue, which was very, very small in the real world, needed an infusion of the presence of the Holy Spirit, and a stark reminder of the now famous phrase:
“What would Jesus do?”
The point of all of this is that we are all aware that some aspects of customer service, or even expectations of outcomes, can often be underwhelming or even disappointing. Here’s something that we all need to come to grips with…
Tough beans.1
These things happen.2
Yep. That’s the conclusion. We readily make mountains from molehills.
But fortunately, that’s not the end of the message for today. The reality is that a lot of things just aren’t going to go your way, but it is not the end of the world. For me, this was just one of literally a hundred plus life moments that is beyond my control. For you, moments like this are so insignificant in the grand scheme of things that you’ll forget about them over time; however, in the midst of it, what should your response be?
There’s a passage in Scripture that gives us indicators as to what Jesus wants us to know about knowing how to redirect when there is frustration in our midst:
Luke 10:38-42 NKJV
38 Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.”
41 And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. 42 But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Now, before we go too far ahead here, we need to see the context of what is taking place here. The heading for this section of Scripture, which I had not really seen before, is ‘Mary and Martha Worship and Serve’. Interesting. Mary and Martha worship and serve who? The Lord Jesus, of course. Both of them had gotten acquainted with Jesus and had a close relationship with Him. Mary and Martha were also related to Lazarus, their brother, who would later be the person Jesus raised from the dead as noted in John, Chapter 11.
But let’s focus on the words of Martha and Jesus. Mary is not recorded saying anything here, but she is recorded as listening intently to Jesus’s words.
Here’s something that I want you to see here that we need to look at cautiously as we look at this passage. First, let’s not assume that Martha is doing anything wrong in her efforts to serve Jesus. That would be, for the words presented here, an unfair characterization. Martha is not, in this account, going overboard in her efforts to prepare a meal. In fact, that is likely her God-given talent and ability. Many of us can prepare a meal—well, let me rephrase this. Some of us are very good at preparing a meal. I am not one of them. My lovely bride is very good at preparing a meal. She is very modest about it, but she has a recipe book from her mother and has added sheets of paper with new recipes in it. Gentlemen within the sound of my voice who are courting a woman need to have the recipe book as a checklist item for a future bride. Daughters, if you can’t cook, ask your mother or grandmother why this is important. That’s another message for another day. Anyway, back to Martha—she is preparing a delicious meal for not just Jesus and Mary, but perhaps even for the other disciples who were traveling with Jesus.3 The issue is that she most likely got caught up in the moment. Perhaps she was getting more and more embarrassed that she wasn’t making progress in her preparation. We don’t know what pushed her to the edge, but Martha got so frustrated that she went up to Jesus and demanded Him to tell Mary to get up and help her!
In my frustration with the lady at the dealership, I wanted to tell her something that wasn’t very good (and I’m glad that I didn’t), but I’m reminded now of the words of Jesus in answering Martha, “you are worried and troubled about many things”. She was too fixed on the details of the moment. Mary chose the good part, which was not taken away from her. I’m adding the text of this passage from the New Living Translation to explain Jesus’s words even more:
Luke 10:42 NLT
“There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”
There is ultimately, in our busy world, only one thing to be concerned about, and it is to know and learn more about Jesus Christ. In sitting at the feet of Jesus, you have to consciously look to Him as you read and listen to His Words. It is more important than anything else that you can do because as you learn more from Him, you can learn to live more like Him in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. You can better respond to those things in your life that are unpredictable. Your bad customer service experiences become transformed to moments of reflection and perhaps even empathy for those who are having a bad day. You will now take your moment of quiet anger to a place of asking the Lord for forgiveness and perhaps even apologizing for saying something that was unkind in response.
It’s all because of Jesus. We are to do what Mary did here. Martha had to come back and realize that everyone will get to eat their meal that day. No one would be leaving without getting enough to eat. It was not the end of the world. It was a meal that everyone would eventually enjoy. Jesus was teaching her what was most important. She should have stopped what she was doing and sat with Mary for a few minutes to listen to Jesus.
Jesus wants our hearts to yearn more for his presence. He wants our obedience within our service. He wants us to love our neighbors and pray for them. For many of us, this is radical thinking indeed. We had to be transformed by the Word of God to even get to this point!
2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
Romans 12:2 NIV
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 approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
I believe that Martha learned a lesson from this encounter with Jesus. I’m convinced that she was now devoted to taking the time to sit before Jesus, listen to His words, and meditate on them. She, Mary and Lazarus were close friends with Jesus. Their encounters were more than just mere fellowship. This time spent with Jesus did indeed transform Martha to where we will now see evidence of her growth. She will reveal this at the time of Lazarus’s death:
John 11:17-27 NIV
17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
Martha had more insight into who Jesus was than most of Jesus’s own disciples. This was even before Jesus went to the cross. Martha was listening to Jesus’s words, and she believed in Him. It was revealed to her, in faith, that He was the Messiah, the Son of God. She believed that Jesus had the power to overcome death. She discovered what was most important, and she learned who Jesus truly was. She learned that Jesus was the Son of God.
There are many today who don’t even know this.
What do you think?
Sitting before Jesus takes time. It takes effort. It involves looking and listening to Him and learning from Him.
Sitting before Jesus will transform your way of thinking in every aspect of your life.
Copyright © 2025 Melvin Gaines.
1 Youridioms.com. (n.d.). Tough beans explanation, meaning, origin – the biggest idioms dictionary. Your Idioms. https://www.youridioms.com/en/idiom/tough-beans
2 Farlex. (n.d.). These things happen. The Free Dictionary. https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/these+things+happen
3 Houdmann, S. M. (2009, December 17). Who was Mary of Bethany in the Bible?. GotQuestions.org. https://www.gotquestions.org/life-Mary-Bethany.html
Melvin Gaines 