Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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“Listen-Up, Your Life Depends on It”
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Are you a good listener?
One of the first things kids learn in kindergarten is how to listen to their teacher.
Listening is super important in every area of your life.
It is important in your marriage to listen well to one another!
Tess will be talking and I will be seating next to her.
And most of the time I am focused and listening…but sometimes my mind will wander.
And somehow she knows, it is creepy, and she will say; are you listening to me?
I heard you!
Then comes the next question; what did I say?
Well I heard some of what you said; give it to me again.
Sometimes I get…well forget it, it wasn’t important!
And I say…no, no, I am sorry, I really want to hear about it.
Don’t you wish you could DVR your wife, so when you missed something you could rewind her and hear it again?
You can’t have a good relationship, without listening to each other.
We need to learn to listen to our spouse: being a good listener makes for good friends, and a strong relationship.
Listening is important in marriage, it is important in family life, parenting; we want our children to listen and obey.
Listening is also important for your spiritual life!
If we are not listening to what God says to us through his word, we would never have spiritual life, or bear spiritual fruit.
Jesus is very, very concerned about how we listen!
In this first major parable in Luke’s Gospel, the longest parable so far, Jesus emphasizes our need to hear his word.
Not to hear his word as background noise, like a vacuum cleaner running; but to really hear, receive and respond to his word from our hearts.
This parable of the sower; is about hearing receiving and responding to the word of God.
A parable has been called, an earthly story, with a heavenly meaning.
The word parable means, to throw alongside.
Jesus has a great spiritual truth he wants people to understand, so he throws along beside that truth a common illustration that people would understand.
A spiritual truth illustrated by an everyday experience.
Jesus is going to use the everyday experience of a farmer sowing his seed, to talk about the way people hear/receive the seed of the word of God.
Jesus tells the story in V:5-8, it would be a very familiar sight to the people Jesus spoke to.
A farmer with a bag of seed on his shoulder, going out in the field and broadcasting his seed.
As he sows the seed some falls on the path and the birds eat it.
Some falls on the shallow dirt, springs up and then dies because it has no roots.
Some seed falls among the thorns, and the thorns choke it out.
And then some falls on good, plowed, soft ground and comes up and bears fruit.
Then were told V:8-“when he had said these things, he cried, he that has ears to hear, let him hear”.
Jesus uses the word hear 9 times in this parable.
Jesus is very concerned about how we hear.
Now you have to assume, that most people that were listening that day, had ears on the side of their heads.
But notice Jesus said, he that had ears to hear, let him hear.
Because though they all had ears; not all of them had ears to hear.
It is possible to hear; without really hearing!
The disciples asked Jesus in, V:9-“what does this parable mean?
They got the earthly story part, they understood a farmer sowing a seed; but it was the heavenly part, the spiritual message they needed Jesus to explain to them.
V:10-“unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parable; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand”.
Jesus is quoting from , in the context of Isaiah’s ministry, people had rebelled against God’s word, and as part of God’s judgment against their sin, they were hardened in their unbelief.
Those who receive the word of God, were given more of the word of God, and brought forth fruit to the glory of God.
But those who refused God’s word, lost what word they had received; they became blind and deaf to the word of God.
V:18-Read.
Jesus had been teaching and preaching to the people, his disciples, the crowd, the Pharisees and scribes.
Many people were receiving the word of God, in different ways; but the religious leaders would not accept the word of God.
They closed their ears and eyes to what Jesus did and said.
Jesus said, okay, since you don’t want to receive what I’ve offered to you, I’m withdrawing it, V;10.
There is a spiritual truth you need to never ever forget; God does business with those that mean business!
God speaks to those who want to hear!
You need to be very careful with the truth you hear!
Coming to church, and sitting every week and hearing the Bible taught and preached; is a very serious, and dangerous proposition.
When you hear the word of God and understand it, and don’t receive it, and you don’t live it, or obey it, God will take away that truth that you already have!
You cannot put God’s truth in the refrigerator to save for later, V:18, as a person refuses to know the truth, they lose their capacity to know the truth.
As you hear the truth you must receive it, use it, or lose it.
But, as you receive the truth you increase your capacity to get more truth.
You cannot be neutral when it comes to listening to the truth; once you hear the truth you must respond to it; that’s what this parable is all about, hearing and responding to the word of God.
There are three basic symbols in this parable of the sower: There is the sower, the seed, and the soil.
This parable is an allegory, because these three symbols illustrate a spiritual truth.
You have to be careful with allegories; we know these symbols stand for something, because these verses tell us they do.
You must be careful when you read a parable, or prophecy; that you don’t attempt to make everything stand for something; that can be very dangerous.
(Mid-evil commentaries, on Matthews 100, 60, 30 fold fruitfulness said:
Hundredfold-martyrs, 60 fold- monks, 30 fold obedient wives.
They didn’t get that from the Bible.
The main things are the plane things; and the plane things are the main things.
· The sower.
V:5-“A Sower went out to sow his seed…
The sower is Jesus, he’s the one that sows the seed.
But not only is Jesus the sower, anyone who shares God’s word today is a Sower.
We who have the word, are responsible to sow the seed of the word of God.
So whether it’s through a sermon, are witnessing to a friend, or writing a note, or even a song, if it contains the word of God it is seed being sown.
· We must sow the seed plentifully.
-“He that sows sparingly, shall reap also sparingly; but he that sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully”.
The more you sow the seed, the more souls will be saved.
· We must sow the seed passionately.
-“He that goes forth weeping, bearing precious seed, shall no doubt come again with rejoicing bringing his sheaves with him”
We need to water the seed with our tears if we expect to see a harvest.
We don’t need to be cold, calculated in witnessing; but burdened, tenderhearted, warm, concerned and broken over the lost.
· We must sow the seed persistently.
-“be persistent; the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and has long patients for it…
You don’t sow the seed today, and reap a harvest tomorrow.
You sow the seed, you pray, you water it with your tears, and you wait on the Lord of the harvest to save that person.
Paul said, -“I have planted, Appollos watered, but God gave the increase”
We are laborers together with God.
-“Do not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not”
· The Seed.
V:11-“The seed is the word of God”.
As Jesus begins to interpret the parable, he starts with the seed; by telling us the seed is the word of God.
The seed doesn’t sow itself; so there must be a Sower.
But there’s no detail given about the sower; is he tall or short, skinny, or large?
Sowers come and go; but the word of God endures forever!
We’re not to get enamored with the sower!
We are to be enamored with the seed; which is the word of God!
The ministry of the sower, is the word of God!
The Bible is like seed in that it has life in it:
-“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides forever.
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