PRACTICING THE WORD

INTRO IDEAS

Good morning! It’s great to be here to open up God’s Word with you today.

But before we get into the Text, I want to talk about one of my favorite de facto Wright family traditions from back in the day. When I was growing up, there were a few years there for the Wright family where we became superfans of America’s number one hit tv game show: Family Feud. Anybody here who likes Family Feud? You get these two families who come up and try to answer these survey questions.

We were convinced that we were going to get on the show one day and just pummel people in Christian love. But what was always so interesting to me about watching the show is how much I felt like I learned about the families who were playing. Throughout the game and the interviews that the host would do, you would start to notice what this family was like. And I always wondered, what impression would people get about our family if we ever made it on the show? What defines our family to those looking from the outside in? I wonder if you’ve ever asked this question:

How would you describe your family? Or maybe, what would you want to define your family? Your family are some of your most significant relationships in your life—they are the people who you rub shoulders with, the people who you do life with. So, what would you want to be true about those people and those relationships? What kind of a people would you want to be? And, for those of us who are followers of Jesus, we might wonder, “What kind of language would Jesus use to describe His family?” Well, in our passage today, we get Jesus’ answer!

So if you’ve got your Bibles, you can go ahead and start navigating your way to Luke chapter 8. We’re going to continue our study of the book of Luke looking at this pretty brief passage today.

REVIEW

But before we jump right in let me just remind us all of where we’ve been in our study. If you’ve been joining us these last several weeks, then you’ll know that we’ve been in this Excursion called “Your Next Step with God’s Word,” and that we’ve been looking at this record from Jesus’ life where He’s teaching the crowds in parables. And as we’ve seen, Jesus told what we’ve been calling the parable of the sower, or the parable of the soils, at the end of which He calls out to this crowd, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

And then just last week Pastor Jim showed us that as Jesus is explaining the parable to His disciples, with the crowd still milling around, Jesus tells another parable: The parable of the lamp. And toward the end He says something similar: “consider carefully how you listen.” So once again, Jesus is really driving this point home about how we should hear the Word.

And now, finally, our text picks up during this conversation between Jesus and His disciples down in verse 19. So, if you’ve got your Bibles open to Luke 8:19, go ahead and stand up with me to honor the reading of the Word, and let’s read through verse 21. Luke records these words for us:

“Now Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. Someone told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.’ He replied, ‘My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.’ ”

*pray for God to open our eyes and our hearts to receive His Word*

You may be seated!

PASSAGE SET UP

What an interesting interaction here between Jesus, His mother and brothers, and this crowd that He’s been teaching. I mean, on the surface, we can get a sense for what’s going on at a literal level, but what is Jesus saying here?

What’s interesting to me about what Jesus says here is that He’s basically answering the question, “Who are your mother and your brothers?” And so even though He isn’t asked this question in this Text, that’s the question that I want to frame our discussion this morning: how does Jesus define His _____ family? And as we look at the Text we’ll see two different answers to this question.

So let’s look back at the Text and start from the beginning. And when we do, in the NIV we start with the Word “Now.” So what’s happening in our portion of Luke’s narrative is picking up right where we left off with Jesus talking with His disciples. And then next we read that “Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him.”

And I just want to pause to remind us that we’ve met Jesus’ mother already in Luke’s narrative, we know a lot about Mary from back in Luke 1 and 2. This is a familiar character to many of us. And Jesus’ brothers show up elsewhere in the New Testament as well. But interestingly, they never seemed to be supportive of His ministry before His death and resurrection. Actually, in Mark’s Gospel, right before the story that we’re reading here, Mark tells us in Mark 3:21 “When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’” And the impression we get is that they have come to take Jesus away because they can’t support what’s happening, and the reputation that Jesus is creating for Himself. So they feel responsible for Jesus and they’re coming to step into the situation, and to shut things down. And this context totally changes the flavor of what’s going on, but even so, I think that Jesus’ response was a surprise to everyone.

And as this interaction plays out, I think that everyone in that day knew what the “right” thing for Jesus to do was. In the First Century when Jesus lived, family was looked at differently than it is today. And actually, I believe that part of the reason why this saying of Jesus got recorded and passed down is because it was so shocking to people in that culture. And the reason it was so shocking is because of the role that the family played in those days.

See, in those days, your household was not only the place that you lived, but it was very often or always the place that you worked as well. And it was common for people to be living under the same roof with multiple generations present. So work and life and generation after generation were all so connected. Actually, when you would get engaged or betrothed in those days, during the engagement, it was the job of the future husband to physically build an addition onto the house of his parents to provide a place for he and his new bride to live!

So family was more than just your immediate family. And because they were such a communal society, such a community-focused society, not only was your family important on a sentimental level, but also your family dictated your social status. Your family dictated your career path. Your family dictated your responsibilities. Your family dictated your religious affiliation. Your family was your identity, your social security, your retirement plan, and your support system.

And so in light of all that, when we think back to the Text, you have Jesus teaching His disciples, and in comes someone from the crowd, and I really believe that this person thought that they were doing Jesus a favor! They were saying, “Hey Jesus, not sure if you realized this, but your family is outside, and they want to see you!” And everyone was expecting for Jesus to say, “Oh man, really? Well, uhm, everybody let’s go ahead and wrap it up there for now, I’ve got something important to attend to.” See, to everyone there, it would have been taken for granted that Jesus’ earthly family would get special treatment and take special priority. But what’s obvious to us from the parallel in Mark is that Jesus knows that what His earthly family has in mind for Him is different than what His heavenly Father has in mind for Him. So rather than going along with His earthly family, Jesus takes the opportunity to say that you all are missing something. You all expect me to stop what I’m doing to appease my earthly family. But I want to help you see what it means to be a part of my true family, or, you might say, my Kingdom family.

Now, if you recall back at the beginning of Luke Chapter 8 we read that Jesus is traveling around proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. And we had a series called “Kingdom Come” where we said that God’s Kingdom is where God’s will is done by God’s people through God’s power. And here He’s helping us to see something new about God’s people within the kingdom, and he says that they’re not just a people, but a family.

So in this narrative we see that for Jesus, there are two competing loyalties: There is Jesus’ loyalty to His earthly family, and then there’s His loyalty to His Heavenly Father, and to the ministry of the kingdom, and to His kingdom family.

And this helps us to see that He isn’t denying His earthly family; rather, He’s trying to take a moment to reorient the crowd and point them to something that’s even more important by defining His kingdom family.

POINT ONE

So let’s go back to the Text and look again at Jesus’ response. And right on the surface, what does Jesus say about His kingdom family? He says that “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.” And that language should sound really familiar! Like we saw earlier, this whole idea of “hearing” is the main thread in this portion of text.

[[But the thing that defines Jesus’ kingdom family is not merely hearing Jesus’ teaching.]] Because we know that in those days, and in our day, there are many people who hear the Word, but walk away unchanged. There are many people who have heard the teachings of Jesus, and let things end there. But what Jesus makes clear in our text once again is that the point is to hear the Word of God AND do something about it. So you can write down: There are many people who hear the Word, but Jesus’ kingdom family puts the Word into practice.

And this means that it’s possible to be around Jesus, and to hear the words of Jesus, and still miss the point.

Friends, when we consider the good soil, remember with me that the difference between the good soil and the other kinds of soil is not that the seed was sown.

In the parable of the soils, every kind of soil hears the Word of God! In verse 11, Jesus tells us that the seed is the Word of God, and that the hard soil hears the Word (vs. 12), the rocky soil (hears and) receives the Word (vs. 13), the thorny soil hear the Word (vs. 14), and finally the good soil hears the word (vs. 15).

So the difference is not that the seed was sown. Furthermore, the difference is not even that the seed began to grow, right? The difference between the good soil and the other kinds of soil back in verse 8 is that the seed that fell on the good soil “came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”

So what we read is that, the purpose and the goal of sowing seed is not just to grow plants! The purpose and the goal of sowing seed is to “produce a crop.”

In other words, you can hear, and grow, and hear, and grow, but the mark of the seed maturing in you, the mark of the seed actually taking root in you is when that seed bears fruit. When the Sower is sowing seed, he always has the harvest in mind. But when we think we can hear the Word and not do it, it’s like we’re content being a plant that is putting out a ton of leaves, always taking in sunlight and nutrients but never getting to the point of maturity, which is reproduction.

And what Jesus wants to hammer home to us for the third time in this chapter is that in His kingdom family, it’s what you do with the Word that really counts.

See, the truth is that, when we read the Word of God, it’s all too easy to say that we believe it. And in our Text, I think that part of the reason Jesus makes such a stark statement is because He knew that there were many people in the crowd who really liked Jesus. There were many people in the crowd who were really entertained by Jesus. There were many in the crowd who agreed with Jesus. And He wanted them to know that these are not the marks of being in the kingdom family.

And I wonder what that was like for Jesus’ earthly family. I mean, it seems like from their perspective, they were trying to help Jesus out! They thought that they had it all right! But they were wrong. And I wonder if this was what James, one of Jesus’ brothers who might just have been there in this story, had in mind when he wrote James 1:22 “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” See, just hearing the Word and letting things end there is not only unfortunate; James says that it’s dangerous. And the danger is that you will deceive yourself. That you will think that everything is just the way it should be, when in reality you’ve missed the whole point.

And if you want to know whether you are actually hearing the Word, James says that what you need to look at is how you live. I love this quote from Dallas Willard that says “we don't believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true” (Renovation of the Heart, Dallas Willard).

Friends, I’m so glad that you chose to come and hear from the God’s Word this morning. This is an important rhythm for the life of any disciple of Jesus, because Jesus’ kingdom family does hear the Word! And for those of you who are in our Men’s Bible study, or in our women’s Bible study, or in one of our classes, or who are in the cohort, I want you to know that matters! That will help your growth! It’s like putting out leaves!

But ask yourself honestly: Is what I’m hearing making an impact in my life? Because I want you to know that according to Jesus, what matters in His kingdom family is not hearing only. The point is to produce fruit, and the seed only bears fruit when we live it out.

Or, in the words of our passage, when we “put [the Word of God] into practice.” And before we move on, I want to talk briefly about what that means, and what that looks like. What’s interesting to me is that this phrase “put into practice” is translating a single word in the Greek, poieo, which basically just means “to do,” or “to make.” And it’s often used in the New Testament to describe how we should respond to the Word of God. So for example, back in James 1 when he writes that we should “do what it says,” he is using this same word. And back in Luke 6, at the end of Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Plain, Jesus says something very similar to what He says here. In verses 46 and 47, He says, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” And later, He talks about a person who “puts them into practice.” So on the one hand, putting the Word of God into practice means simply “doing” it. It means being obedient to the commands of Jesus. It means choosing to do it.

But I really like the way that the NIV translates the Word in Luke 6:47, as well as in our Text, because it’s reflecting that the goal is not merely to do it once and then you’re done! Instead, the Greek word is written here as a present participle, which means that the action is continuous. In other words, the goal is to keep on doing what Jesus has said. The goal is to be a person who continually does it. And that’s why I like the translation “practice.”

See, anyone can try shooting a foul shot. But trying to shoot a foul shot doesn’t make you a better basketball player! If you want to change, you have to do more than just experimenting! You actually have to practice. And when we practice something, whether it’s for a sport or a skill or for anything else, what we’re doing is we’re continually choosing to do something until it becomes second nature to us. We’re doing it until it becomes a part of us. This is why in basketball good coaches will drill their players on the basics: passing, shooting free throws, defensive stances, and so on. It’s because when the game comes, you need all these things to be second nature! And so to practice these things means that we persist in it until it begins to change us.

You see, when we are invited into Jesus’ kingdom family, we receive that invitation only because of His grace. We don’t earn our way into His family. Hearing the Word and practicing are not what earn us an invitation. BUT... once we are invited in, then together we can grow in family resemblance. This is what happens when we put the Word into practice! When we put the Word into practice, then by the help of the Holy Spirit we begin to look more and more like our Heavenly Father, and we become more and more like His Son Jesus, and we begin to share more and more in common with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And if you’re sitting here listening to my voice, then let me encourage to make a decision to start TODAY, because the best time to start practicing is always right now. I’ve mentioned before that when I was growing up, my dad coached our high school basketball team. And without fail, sometime in May, my dad would hold a meeting for all the guys who wanted to go out for the team. And in that meeting he would bring this little basketballs and hand them out, and he would tell us over and over again that “great basketball players are made in the summer.” In other words, if you put off practicing until the season starts, you can’t expect yourself to have gotten any better! You don’t just wake up one day with a great three-point-shot! [[Practice is something that you have to prioritize.]] No matter the sport, and no matter the context, the great players are the ones who make practice a priority.

So let’s do a little “Family resemblance check.” Ask yourself: Is practicing the Word a priority in your life? Is taking time to hear Jesus daily one of your top priorities? And when you’ve heard Him, is living it out really that important to you? Or to put it differently, how would your life be different if you were 100% convinced that putting God’s Word into practice was your highest priority? Would it change how you spend your time? Would it change how you spend your money? Would it change how you engage politically? Would it change how you spend your holiday? Would it change how you relate to your family? How would life be different if I really believed that my whole life was about hearing the Word of God and putting it into practice?

Because the reality is that many people hear the Word, but Jesus’ kingdom family puts it into practice. What about you?

Friends, this is a simple message. But the simple reality is that this is an area we all need to take a next step. God has given us His Word, and He has been faithful to sow the seed into our hearts. Are we bearing fruit? Just take this Excursion as an example! This week, our “Do the Word” challenge is all about the Great Commission. Jesus’ last command is the mission of our lives. It’s not just a part of His message; it is the message: Go and make disciples! Are we putting these words into practice?

If you’re anything like me, then you know that at times, just like Jesus in our passage, we are put into situations with competing priorities. Jesus had to choose between the call of His earthly mother and brothers, and the call of His Father in Heaven. Things aren't always quite that cut and dried, but the general point holds true for us: There are other things that compete for priority in our life alongside hearing God's Word and putting it into practice. I mean honestly, how does your loyalty to your kingdom family compare to your loyalty to your natural family? See, for so many of us, so much of our life can revolve around our natural family—And I don’t think that’s such a bad thing! God created the family; it was His idea! And He wants us to love our natural family. [[But at the end of the day, for those of us who are disciples of Jesus, we have surrendered our life not to our spouse, and not to our kids, but to our Lord.]]

And I really believe that part of the reason so many of us struggle to make hearing the Word of God and putting it into practice a priority is because we know that it will cost us. It will mean that my life doesn’t revolve around my family, my comfort, my pleasure, my status, my traditions, my opinions, my perfection, my reputation, my career, etc.

When we follow Jesus, it means that we no longer follow ourselves and our desires. And that [[change in loyalty,]] that obedience, is costly. This is why Jesus says in Luke 9:23–24 “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”

So make no mistake: There is a cost to putting these words into practice. But I think that sometimes we forget how much obedience to the Father cost Jesus.

As Jesus was doing what He saw the Father doing, and as He was saying the things that He heard the Father saying, like we saw in Mark, His own family thought that He was out of His mind.

Jesus came to His own, but His own did not receive Him. In His life, He was rejected by His brothers. He was rejected by His home town. He was rejected by the religious leaders. Eventually, He was rejected by the crowds.

In the Garden of Gethsemane He was abandoned by His disciples. And ultimately it led Him to the cross. Obedience to the Father cost Jesus everything.

So let’s just be reminded at the outset that obedience will be costly. And it will probably seem strange to those around you, especially to those who used to be your top priority. And so just like in our Text, people looked at Jesus and thought He was making a fool of Himself and being dismissive to His family, when in reality Jesus was demonstrating a higher loyalty. And it’s possible that people will feel the same way about us.

But the truth of the matter is that the best thing that you can do for your spouse, and your kids, and your parents is not to make them the highest priority. The best thing that you can give your family is not all of your time. It’s not a great career and a full bank account. It’s not a vacation on the beach! The best thing that you can offer your family is a life that is radically and completely sold out to the mission of Jesus. What your family needs from you more than anything else in this world is for you to become more and more like Jesus. And it’s for you to spend time hearing God’s Word, and putting it into practice. So many of us want to save our old live while also living out our new one. But you can’t live as a part of Jesus’ kingdom family unless you die to yourself, and your agendas, and your priorities, and receive instead the priorities of the kingdom. And so Jesus calls us to pick up our cross not as a publicity stunt, but because carrying the cross is a part of what shapes us into His image.

POINT TWO

[[And in light of that cost, there’s one more thing I want to point out to you from my study of this passage. Because when we think about putting things into practice, and applying the Word, and obeying Jesus, if we aren’t careful, we can begin to feel like this is something we have to do by ourselves. We can feel like we’ve enrolled in Jesus’ service, and all we’re there to do is to carry on the marching orders. But one thing I grew to appreciate in this Text is that Jesus doesn’t say that He’s calling us to be recruits or cadets. ]]

Jesus isn’t just calling us to obedience; He’s also calling us to Himself. Let’s look back at the Text one more time so I can show you what I mean.

See how it says that, in this story, the crowds are around Jesus. And Jesus mother and brothers, they were trying to get near to Jesus. They wanted to get near to Him for their own reasons, to serve their own purposes, but they couldn’t. But notice with me—who was it that was actually with Him? We know this from earlier, Jesus was talking with His disciples, right? That’s what it says back in Luke 8:9. And if you look at the parallel text in Matthew, he makes this crystal clear: when Jesus gives His response it says that “Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers.’ ” (Matthew 12:49).

This is the beautiful thing I was reminded of this week. Jesus has not just commanded us to go and do; He has called us to come and see! He is inviting us to come close to Him, and to know Him. Jesus’ family hears the Word and puts it into practice. They know where their loyalties lie. They are willing to listen and to obey the Lord of their life. But in addition to that, just like in our story, Jesus’ kingdom family is drawn in close to Him.

[[[See, a life of seeking to Hear God and do what He says is costly; but it’s also the most worthy cause in the universe.]]] In the end, on this path that we walk, we are walking beside Christ Himself. We only carry the cross because He carried it first, and He’s inviting us to join Him on the journey. And so we begin to see that together, as we’re on this journey, we are invited to enjoy the nearness of Jesus’ presence even as we experience the cost of discipleship.

And in the process we may lose many things. But every loss is worth it if we gain Christ, amen? Isn’t this what Paul says in Philippians 3? “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things? I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him” (Phil 3:8). That’s what Jesus has in mind for His kingdom family: Not just practicing His Word; but also drawing close to Him in the process.

CONCLUSION

And I wonder—will you draw near to Jesus as we close out this series? Will you spend time listening for His voice? Will you make practicing His Word your priority? This is what it means to be a part of Jesus’ Kingdom family, and He wants to invite you into that once again today. And so I pray that all of us who respond to this call will be taken deeper. Deeper into relationship, and deeper into love for our savior. Because Jesus died in order to bring you in. And when we are invited into Jesus’ family, we are invited into both a deep loyalty, and a deep intimacy.

And as a result, practicing His Word becomes more than just our duty; it becomes our devotion. It becomes our offering. It becomes our true and proper act of worship. So now as we close our time, let’s worship the King who invites us to His table, and the savior who we love. Amen?

*Pray*