Take Care of How You Hear

Take Care of How You Hear

Sexagesima T Luke 8:4-15

INI

            The Word of God is powerful. It’s active, sharper than any two-edged sword. God injects power into His Word to give growth to the soil of one’s heart – yet the corrupted, sinful person resists the Word and the Holy Spirit who works through the Word. So, the barrenness of their hearts is due to their own rejection of the things of God, because they’ve decorated their hearts as homes for the devil, the world, and satisfying the sinful flesh.

The parable of the Sower has been told many times, and preached many ways! “You are the sower” says some. “Christ is the sower” says others. But both are true. God is the Sower of the Word into your hearts. Through His powerful Word, you are able to bear life abounding fruit that wells up into eternal life! This isn’t due to any toiling of our own hearts. We didn’t make ourselves ready to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. By our own nature, we are dead in our sins and trespasses. So, there was nothing that I could do to receive the Holy things of God. Rather, God’s Word grew and bore fruit in me, not because of ME, but because of God’s power. Yet also, preachers, evangelists, and everyday Christians are called to spread seed out into the world too.

But what about those who have no growth? Who hear the Word of God, yet they immediately have any hope, understanding, or trust snatched out of their hearts by the devil? Or those who hear the Word of God but fall away from faith in times of temptation and never come back, sort of like the Prodigal Son? Or those who hear the Word of God, but they care more about the cares, riches, and pleasures of life than they do about salvation? These hearers have worked to make their hearts storehouses for the pleasures of the devil, the world, and their own sinful flesh.

So, when Jesus says in the middle of the text, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear”, there’s a tension – a dilemma. The group of unbelievers who are afflicted by the devil, the world, and their sinful flesh have the wrong ears to receive God’s Word. But then how did the other group get the right ears to hear God’s Word? To say that there is something special about them denies original sin. Yet we know that it’s God who gives ears to hear. That through the power of God working through the Word, we are given new ears.

So this begs the question: why are some given ears to hear and not others? Some understand Jesus’ parables, and believe it. Yet others see, but do not see. They hear but do not understand, just as Isaiah was charged by God to preach to people who He knew wouldn’t believe. Another way to say it, “Why are some saved and not others?”

Undergirding the parable of the Sower is the mysterious doctrine of election. The doctrine of election is that God pre-ordains some people to salvation. But this election doesn’t include both the believer and unbeliever – God only elects to salvation. God doesn’t choose people for damnation. Rather, mankind is damned because of their sinful unbelief. They hear the powerful word of God and they sterilize themselves to the Holy Spirit. But then, there’s others who hear the Word of God are given ears to hear. They’re called away from a selfish life of pleasing the devil, the world, and the sinful flesh, and live it unto Christ. They bear fruit in the good soil of their hearts, they hear and understand the kingdom of reign of Jesus.

But why? Why are some given ears to hear and not others? Our itching minds want to know why not everyone has these kinds of ears. And depending on how we or others may feel about God, we may falsely think that this is all God’s fault. Why wouldn’t He just give these ears to everyone??

Truth is, God can’t be blamed for the birds, the rocks, or the thorns. Even these things that God created have been corrupted through the rebellious actions of the devil and man.

Trying to answer why is unhelpful, and can leave us being Pharisaical. Because the only things human reason can understand is that there must be something different within a believer verses an unbeliever – whether that be some folks are naturally less stubborn, or whatever. But this way of thinking is unhelpful and leads us to pray like the Pharisee in the Temple, who prayed “thank you Lord for not making me like the unjust, extortioner, adulterers, and this tax collector!”

Jesus never gives us the why to this question. And perhaps it’s not good to speculate on things God hasn’t revealed to us. But Jesus does give us the how. That is, how is one saved? How is one given ears to hear? Jesus points us to how a sin-filled heart is changed: by the power of God’s Word!

So in this parable, Jesus instructs us on the crucial importance of hearing God’s Word. And this really is the Church’s urgent mission. Like the Sower, we spread God’s Word without care for where the seed may land. Rather, we joyously cast it out wide and let His saving grace and mercy fall on whatever ear may be there.

It is true that some will reject the Word. But our perspective is limited, and we will have no idea who will believe and who will refuse. For this reason, the seed will need to be continually sowed by the preaching of the Gospel to ALL THE WORLD. This is why we gather here each Sunday – because the cares and pleasures of the world lure us into them and away from God. The devil is always at word to snatch away the hope we have in Christ. And our lives are FILLED with temptations. So, the question for us isn’t “will we encounter the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh.” Rather, the question is, “will our faith survive the threats against it?”

Here is when we get to comfort of this parable, and the comfort of election. God is at work through His Word. So, we would do good to saturate our lives with God’s Word, that God may work through it. And we would do good to saturate the lives of our children, our brothers and sisters, our moms and dads, our co-workers, and other people we know with the Word of God. The tendency is to be lazy against such a charge, but if we truly believe God works through His Word, why wouldn’t we saturate our lives and the lives of others with the Word of God? What would prevent you from doing so? What about the pleasures, cares, and riches of the world? I don’t have enough time to read my bible or pray in between dinner and Netflix, so I guess God’s just going to have to wait until next week. Or, I don’t have enough time to do church or Bible study because I have work. The sinful tendency is to act that God is at the mercy of us – our time, our attention, our heart. But the opposite is true. We are at God’s mercy.

And that leads us to the comforting part of election. We are at God’s mercy. He doesn’t require anything of us before He calls us out the darkness of our own selfishness. Rather, out of His genuine care and love for us, He has mysteriously called us to Himself before the very foundations of the world. Our election isn’t founded on anything we do, but it’s founded on the One whom God elected to pay for the sins of the world. On Christ Jesus is our election based. By His sacrificial death, His blood has purchased us from our sins. And through the Word of God attached to the water of Holy Baptism, His blood washes us clean of sin’s guilt and we are incorporated into the body of Christ. And through the faith which God works in us, the soil of our hearts are fertile to receive the Word of God for a lifetime. And upon receiving the Word of God, we bear fruit.

Jesus gives a couple words of exhortation here in the parable: First, bear fruit PATIENTLY. With Jesus’ own life, he bore His suffering patiently. He bore temptations with patience. He didn’t cave into the devil, the world, or His flesh, but was patient in God’s own deliverance from it. We would do well to bear our sufferings, questions, sinful pleasures, cares, and riches, with patience. For in patience, the Word of God works best. Second, a few verses after our assigned Gospel reading, Jesus instructs His disciples, “Take care then how you hear.” Here is really the summary and point of the parable of the Sower. But also there is an exhortation for us, the community of God saturated by His Word, that we should conscientious of how we’re receiving God’s Word. We should look inward and see if we are going through the motions of faith and hearing Scripture – which leaves us vulnerable to the attacks of the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh – Or if faith is truly being preserved and feed.

God’s Word is powerful. For it shows us our struggles against the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh, and it shows us our reliance on the gift of His Son Jesus, who has vanquished these foes, that we may have eternal life according to His grace and mercy. Through continually hearing this message in our ears, we remind ourselves of our natural tendency to live life with sterilized infidelity to God, yet we are called by Holy Spirit through the Word to the fact that Christ has

died for me. So, there’s no doubt or fear of our election. Because we are in Christ. God’s works through His Word. It’s His promise.

INI

Pastor Joshua Ralston