Sitting at the Master’s Feet: Jennifer Malinowski on Being Still Before Jesus

Sitting at the Masters Feet means making Jesus your teacher, your owner and your ruler, and then being still long enough to receive what He is speaking over your life. In this message, Jennifer Malinowski shares how the Lord told her again and again one summer, “Jennifer, I want you just to sit at my feet,” and how she found it far harder than she expected. Through her dog Daisy, the young man Eutychus, Moses at the Red Sea, and Mary and Martha, she shows why a busy, dedicated life can still miss the one thing needed.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps you can take this week.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was preached at NTC Ministries and posted on September 24, 2024. Jennifer Malinowski serves on the praise and worship team and helps run the church’s daycare and school, and both roles appear in her stories. The sermon runs about 48 minutes and closes with communion and a spoken blessing over the congregation.

Her central point is simple: Jesus is called Rabbi, and a disciple sits at the rabbi’s feet. Coming to church and reading the Bible are good, but the Lord wanted more from her: to be still, listen and learn.

Be Still and Know: The Call to Sit

Last summer Jennifer was dog-sitting for her parents while they traveled. Sitting outside, she sensed the Lord say He wanted her just to sit at His feet. Her first reaction was that this sounded easy. But as she worked at it, she found it hard. She had not realized how busy her life had become. She read her Bible in the morning, came to church and lived for God, yet Jesus told her she was not sitting at His feet.

He had to repeat it time and again. Finally she protested that she was sitting at His feet, and He answered that He wanted her to listen and learn: “I’m your teacher, I’m your master.” Then it clicked. He was talking about something deeper than her routine.

David wrote, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Jennifer says she had to know who her Master was by being still. She illustrates it with Daisy, her family’s dog. Whenever she visits, Daisy runs up and plops down right on her feet. Jennifer ruffles her ears and tells her how good and loved she is.

Daisy, she admits, is a stinker. She does not listen, and she runs off after bunnies and deer. Yet she always comes back and sits at Jennifer’s feet. “Well that should be us,” Jennifer says, always going back to our Master and sitting at His feet. Sitting at the Masters Feet, in her telling, is less about posture than about returning again and again to the One who loves us.

The Work of Entering In

People sometimes ask why Jennifer closes her eyes so often while leading worship. It is not that she dislikes looking at the congregation. She has to tune out everything around her. As a praise and worship team, she explains, they start worshiping at home, then practise together and welcome the Holy Spirit, so that it is easier for the church to enter in on Sunday. “It takes work,” she says.

When we enter into praise, she notes, Scripture says it silences the enemy and the avenger (Psalm 8:2), and strongholds come down. There is no other place she would rather be than in His presence, but getting there takes effort, just as sitting at His feet did.

She points to Eutychus in Acts 20:7–12. Paul was leaving the next day and kept speaking until midnight. Eutychus, sitting in a window, sank into a deep sleep, fell from the third story and was picked up dead. Paul went down, embraced him and said he was alive. Then they went back upstairs, broke bread and kept listening until daylight.

“Man, talk about dedication,” Jennifer says. Eutychus could have gone home after rising from the dead. Instead he went back up, took communion and kept listening, because he knew he needed what Paul was teaching. Are we that dedicated when the Lord asks us to sit?

She loves time with her family more than anything, but if that crowds out her Master, where is she getting her teaching from? Family, work and busyness can quietly become our master. She asks the church to consider who really holds that place.

David said the Lord makes him lie down in green pastures, leads him beside still waters, restores his soul and leads him in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake (Psalm 23:2–3). Sitting at His feet, she teaches, brings strength, rest, peace and guidance, and all of it brings honor to the Master.

Deliverance at the Master’s Feet

Jennifer turns to Moses. If God had told her to lead a crowd that complained day in and day out, she jokes, she would have hesitated. Moses obeyed. Yet Israel complained about the miracles they saw daily, about Moses and about God, and kept looking behind them at the enemy. When they reached the Red Sea, they could not see their deliverance or even the far shore.

Moses told them, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord” (Exodus 14:13); the Egyptians they saw that day they would never see again. Then the sea opened and they crossed on dry ground. Just because we cannot see it or grasp it yet, Jennifer says, does not mean God will not do it. When we are sitting at the Master’s feet, He is there for us.

Many think they need no deliverance because they have no alcohol or drug problem. Jennifer confesses that she loves candy and eats it every day. The children’s church theme upstairs is a candy shop, and when the staff gather there each morning to pray, her prayer begins, she laughs, with “get behind me, Satan.” Breaking candy is the hardest part of the church’s January fast for her.

A bigger one, she says, is electronics. She sees children who cannot hold a conversation because they are racing home to sit in front of a screen and no longer know what it is to play outside. Whatever sits in front of us in place of Jesus, she warns, can become a master that needs breaking.

What Is Being Spoken Over You?

Jennifer opens the daycare early and feeds the children before the bus. One morning an eight-year-old girl told her she had anxiety over food. When Jennifer asked who told her that, the girl said her teacher had, after she said she did not care for that day’s menu. Jennifer recalls growing up having to at least try what was on the table, and notes that tastes change; she could not stand beets as a child and craves them now.

Her concern is how loosely words like that are spoken over a generation. She hears the same label from many parents calling about the school. She admits she gets nervous too, with racing heart and sweaty hands when she speaks. But she urges parents to know exactly what is being spoken over their children and taught to them. We are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26–27).

At His feet, she says, the Master speaks the opposite of what the world speaks. The table below follows her contrasts:

She ties these to Scripture: we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13), and His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). When that is what is spoken over us, victory rises up when problems come.

In Jesus’ day He was called Rabbi, which she explains as “my master.” Disciples sat and humbled themselves at a rabbi’s feet openly, so that everyone could see whom they were learning from. Matthew 23:8–12 says we have one Teacher, the Christ, and that whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Sitting at the Master’s feet is humbling, she says, and it is public.

Mary and Martha: Choosing the Good Part

Jennifer’s main text is Luke 10:38–42. Both sisters loved Jesus, both had a servant’s heart, and both worked hard, but for two different things. Martha welcomed Jesus and was distracted with much serving. Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. Martha asked Jesus to tell her sister to help.

Martha needed the outward appearance to look good, Jennifer says, and we can do the same: a marriage that looks great at church but is strained at home, children described as perfect, a job we praise while the pink slip is in hand. We cannot hide anything from the Master. He knows our thoughts and our hearts. Like Daisy, we mess up, yet we keep coming back. God is not there to judge our faults but to tell us how much He loves us, so we cast all our care on Him, because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7).

Jesus answered, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part.” Martha worked hard to welcome Jesus; Mary worked hard at sitting and receiving. A clean house, Jennifer says, will not get you far in life. Jesus was speaking into what was going on inside Martha. Psalm 62:1 puts it this way: our soul silently waits for God, and our salvation comes from Him.

She then fast-forwards to John 11:17–29. Lazarus had been in the tomb four days. Again Martha met Jesus at the door while Mary stayed in the house. Martha believed in a resurrection at the last day, but she “just wasn’t quite there yet,” Jennifer says; she was hurting that Jesus had not come in time.

Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and asked, “Do you believe this?” Martha answered that she believed He was the Christ, the Son of God. Then she went and told Mary, “The Teacher has come and is calling for you.” Jennifer loves that ending: Martha finally called Him Teacher. She had begun to learn from Him.

Jennifer adds the story behind the hymn In Christ Alone. Stuart Townend and Keith Getty, she says, kept meeting to read the Word as they wrote a song covering Christ’s life, death and resurrection, and the lyrics came alive as they sat and learned. Its last verse begins, “No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me.”

Sitting at the Masters Feet This Week

Jennifer closes with her own testimony. Her divorce was the hardest time in her life, and she had nowhere to go but her Master. When she was taken to court over whether her son could attend a Christian school, she stood before the judge alone, yet felt the Holy Spirit fill the room. The quietest person you would ever meet found boldness rising up. She credits it to time at the Master’s feet, not to her own greatness.

• Be still on purpose. Set aside time to sit before Jesus without an agenda, asking what He has for you today.
• Prepare to worship. Start entering His presence at home before Sunday, and tune out distractions.
• Name your other masters. Notice whether screens, work, candy or even family time have taken first place.
• Guard what is spoken. Listen to what is being said over you and your children, and speak blessing instead.
• Keep coming back. Like Daisy, return to His feet after you wander; He is not there to condemn you.
• Trust in quietness. Your strength comes by being quiet and trusting (Isaiah 30:15).

Before dismissing the church, she speaks a blessing: that God’s face would shine on them (Numbers 6:24–26) with health, healing, breakthrough and restored relationships, and that they would rejoice in the day the Lord has made (Psalm 118:24).

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 “Jennifer, sit at My feet”
• 0:54 Harder than it sounds: listen and learn
• 1:58 Be still and know, and Daisy at her feet
• 2:59 It takes work to enter into worship
• 4:04 Eutychus falls from the window
• 6:17 Dedicated enough to go back upstairs
• 7:35 Green pastures and still waters
• 8:53 Moses and a complaining people
• 10:04 Stand firm and see the deliverance
• 11:12 Candy, electronics and other masters
• 12:23 A little girl and a label
• 16:31 Victory spoken at His feet
• 17:44 Rabbi means my master
• 19:00 One Teacher: Matthew 23
• 20:22 Mary and Martha: Luke 10
• 21:45 Perfect on the outside
• 24:27 One thing is needed
• 27:10 Martha and the death of Lazarus
• 29:41 The Teacher is calling for you
• 32:33 The story behind In Christ Alone
• 37:01 One true Master
• 38:25 Standing before a judge
• 43:16 Isaiah 30:15 and communion
• 46:40 A blessing over the church

Frequently Asked Questions

Was Martha wrong to serve Jesus?

Not in Jennifer’s telling. She says both sisters loved Jesus, both had a servant mentality, and both worked hard. The difference was what they worked at. Martha worked to make the outward appearance right; Mary worked at sitting and receiving. Jesus was not condemning Martha’s hospitality but speaking to what was going on inside her, inviting her to the one thing needed.

How can I sit at Jesus’ feet with a busy family life?

Jennifer is honest that this was her struggle too. She loves family time more than anything, yet realized it could crowd out her Master. Her answer is to start each day in prayer asking what Jesus has for her that day, to prepare her heart for worship before church, and to keep returning to Him through the day, the way Daisy keeps coming back to her feet.

Why does this message end with communion?

Jennifer connects communion with humbling ourselves before the Master. Just as disciples humbled themselves at a rabbi’s feet, she says, the church humbles itself every day by choosing to sit before Jesus. She also echoes the line from In Christ Alone, no guilt in life and no fear in death, as the power of Christ in every believer who comes to His table.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Luke 10:38–42 — Mary chooses the good part
• Psalm 46:10 — be still and know
• Acts 20:7–12 — Eutychus
• Exodus 14:13 — stand still and see
• Matthew 23:8–12 — one Teacher
• John 11:17–29 — the resurrection and the life
• Psalm 23:2–3 — green pastures and still waters
• Isaiah 30:15 — strength in quietness and trust

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

Watch More Messages

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