Listen! Part 2

Jesus comes to earth preaching this message: “Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand.” Salvation isn’t merely the agreement that God loves you. Jesus' message was you must repent.

To repent means to have a change of mind so deeply it results in a change of life. Change your mind about God. Move from thinking he’s irrelevant, to thinking he’s the most relevant and important reality in the universe. Change your mind about sin - move from not giving it a second thought, to realizing that it is cosmic treason against the king of the universe. Change your mind about Jesus - stop thinking he’s merely a good teacher and embrace the reality that he’s the Lord of all. Realize that he came to die in the place of sinners. Realize that he rose from the dead. Grasp the reality that he’s alive right now and embrace the truth that he will save you when you embrace him by faith.

Repentance starts by acknowledging, “I’ve been wrong all this time about these things. But I now receive this word as true, and by faith am reorienting my life around it.”

So the message from God to us this morning is a call to repentance. The entirety of the Christianity life ought to be lived in repentance. Every time the word is sown in our hearts and reveals how we are supposed to change, repentance is in order. There is no salvation without repentance, there is no growth without repentance, there is no progress without repentance.

Now we’re looking at the parable of the soils again. Let’s just do a quick refresh from last week. The point of this passage is how we hear the word of God. I believe “the word” that is being referred to is what was summarized in Mark 1:15 - the call to repentance.

We saw that listening is a matter of life and death. Remember, there are four different soils that receive the seed of the word and only one soil represents those who are saved - the one that “hears, and accepts, and bears fruit.” We saw that the second and third soils start strong and end by abandoning the word - and so we encouraged you to never grow tired of listening to the word. We examined the various threats to hearing the word: Satan, Second-Handing, and Cares and desires. And last, we saw how true listening bears fruit: verse 20 makes this clear.

This morning there will be some overlap, but as we move through verses 13-20 we’ll ask two big questions: Which soil are you? And How can I prepare to hear God’s Word?

Which Soil are You?

Are you like the path? Look at verse 15: “These are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.” Some of you may be this soil. You’ve come for many years, and the word of God has never really made any impact on your life. You’ve heard it. You’ve listened to it. But it has never seemed relevant to you. Older, more boring people, find that ancient book interesting. But you never have. This soil is an expert at applying the message - to other people’s lives.

You may not have ever realized it, but let me pull back the veil a little bit and show you what’s been going on. Here’s the expose: you’ve had a secret enemy this whole time. Part of the reason you’ve never really embraced the word is because Satan, skillfully, silently, with perfect subtlety, has intercepted it before you could really process it. “Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.”

Are you this soil? If you, cry out to Jesus for help. He is stronger than Satan. Come with repentance and faith, ask him to remove the veil, and open your eyes that you might see.

Are you the rocky ground? Verse 16: “And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.”

You can immediately see the difference between this soil and the previous one. This soil responds to the word with joy. The message of forgiveness of sins sounds great. The call to take up your cross sounds compelling. There’s an excitement about it all, and they jump in.

But here’s the distinction: they don’t last. They endure for a little while and then fall away. Why do they fall away? Two words: tribulation or persecution - both on account of the word. Tribulation refers to situations that bring distress, persecution refers to attempts to harass or oppress someone.

You have to remember that Mark was written during a time when Christians were marginalized. They were misunderstood and under threat of Nero’s persecution. In other words, if you became a Christian, you would likely experience tribulation - the distress of families abandoning you, your workplace threatening you, your reputation mocked. Additionally, there was the threat of actual persecution. Nero’s bloodlust is the stuff of legends - how much he hated and wanted to wipe out Christianity. The first readers of this story of Christ would see here that when people leave Christ because it brings them trouble (tribulation) or because it brings them persecution, they are demonstrating their lack of root. They haven’t quite got it.

You’re rocky soil if you live off the enthusiasm of others, the convictions of others, the beliefs of others, but as you as you’re asked to stand alone, on the word, you can’t. You don’t believe it that much. Last week we called these kinds of people “Second Handers.”

One author describes one of her characters like this: “What was his aim in life? Greatness - in other people’s eyes. Fame, admiration, envy - all that which comes from others. Others dictated his convictions, which he did not hold, but he was satisfied that others believed he held them. Others were his motive power and his prime concern. He didn’t want to be great, but to be thought of as great. He didn’t want to build, but to be admired as a builder. He borrowed from others in order to make an impression on others.”

Or as Jesus puts it, “they have no root in themselves.” They aren’t rooted, they’re a tumbleweed, and as soon as the wind blows a new direction, they’ll go right along with it.

Are you ready to be called a fool for Christ? Are you able to stand firm on what the Bible teaches about the nature of sin?

Are you the thorny soil? Verse 18: “And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.”

Here are people who hold on to the word for a long time, but never allow it to truly enter their hearts. This person is one who appreciates the word, but doesn’t prioritize it.

Notice what chokes out the word: Cares of the world. Deceitfulness of Riches. Desires for other things. Cares and desires, and riches that promise to fulfill them.

Notice something critical. Is caring wrong? No it’s responsible. Is wealth bad? No, all wealth is a gift from a generous God. Is “desire” for other things bad? Absolutely not. Isn’t it amazing that the seed is choked out by good things? Good things can choke out the ultimate thing.

This is exactly the case of Mary and Martha, if you remember. Martha was serving - a good thing - but it choked out listening to Jesus, the ultimate thing.

What’s hard is that when your life is being choked out by good things, it’s hard for people to talk to you about it. If you were dealing drugs, they’d talk to you. But if you’re descent away from Christ isn’t a cliff, but a long, gentle decline, it’s hard for people to say anything.

It looks like this: church attendance gets spotty - but not for bad reasons. It’s travel. It’s work. It’s late nights. It’s extra homework. It’s baseball. And we don’t want to be legalistic, do we?

And then serving Christ and his people are not your priority, so your life is more organized around your conveniences. If I live here, I can get that. If I work this job, I can achieve this. If I pursue these things, I can attain this standard of living. Buying these toys isn’t a sin.

Play that out over the long haul, and you have the word being choked out by the thorns. Are you this soil? I asked this last week, and I’ll ask it this week: Are you growing more hungry for the word as the years pass? More eager to submit your life, your career, your finances, your standard of living - to his will? Or are you fizzling out? Are you drifting away?

Steve Lawson: “A faith that fizzles before the finish was flawed from the first”

Are you the good soil? Verse 20: “But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”

The good soil does three things: Hears the word, accepts the word, and bears fruit. Hearing the word isn’t distinct. All the soils hear the word.

What sets this soil apart is that this soil “accepts it.” You see that? To accept the word is to receive it as true, to acknowledge it’s right, to embrace it to the degree that you reorient your life around it.

If I said, “In five minutes an asteroid is going to smash into this parking lot.” You all heard me. But how would we know who “accepted” that message? The ones who got up and left are the only ones who accepted it. The others heard, but didn’t accept.

So to hear and to accept the word results in fruit bearing: “thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and one-hundredfold.” This is one of those parables that blows away the listener. For the farmer, and eightfold crop would be a good yield. A tenfold crop would be extraordinary. 30, 60, 100 would be unheard of.

Jesus is saying that when the word truly takes root in a life, it’s transformative. No one who truly hears the word of God remains unchanged. The fruit of salvation blossoms in their lives.

Are you the good soil? Has the word of God transformed your life? Has it redirected you? When was the last time it corrected you? When was the last time it rebuked you? When was the last time it lifted you up with encouragement?

How can I prepare to Hear God’s Word?

First, Come ready.

I’ll give you three areas to address if you want to come ready: Sin, Scripture, Sleep.

First, address your sin. James 1:21 says “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” In other words, sin is blinding. It’s impossible to hear the word when the noise of sin is blaring in your heart. It’s hard to taste the sweetness of the word when you’re chewing on the gravel of your lust. To hear the word, remove the sirens of sin. To taste the word as sweet, spit out the gravel, confess your sin and run to Christ.

If you are harboring sin, you'll not be hearing well. Confess to God and others.

Second, address the Scriptures. I like using Saturday nights to read the morning’s passage with my family. Ask questions of it and then come with anticipation.

Third, address your sleep. You are an embodied soul; a soulish body. Your sleep affects your mind and your heart. How many of us know the feeling of dozing off in church? Here is God’s Holy Word being proclaimed, and I’m yawning! For some of us, that’s the work God has put before us, for us to do. For some of us, the reason we’re dragging on a Sunday morning and having difficulty hearing the word is because we piddled away Saturday night. Stay up Friday night, but use Saturday night to prepare for Sunday.

When parents ensure that the family is ready and prepared for Sunday morning, and they lead with joyful commitment to honor the preaching of the word by bringing their full attention, our kids, at the very least, will say, “My parents loved the word of God.”

Second, Raise Your Expectations.

What do you expect a sermon to do? Have you forgotten what the Bible claims to be? It’s a sword that pierces (Hebrews 4:12-13), it’s a seed that causes new life (1 Pet. 1:22-23), it’s a mirror that reveals (1:22-23), it’s milk that nourishes (1 Pet. 2:2), it’s a lamp that shines light onto our path (Ps. 119:105), it’s a fire that consumes (Jer. 23:29), it’s a hammer that shatters.

When you hear the word of God, you are putting yourself before the most powerful force in our universe. The preacher may be average. His message - if he’s preaching the word - isn’t.

I think your expectations reveal a lot about your faith. Do you have faith that God uses ordinary sermons from ordinary guys? And that those sermons can do extraordinary things in you?

Ask, Seek, Knock.

The Psalmist prayed “Open my eyes, that I might see wondrous things in your law.” This is God’s Word, and he holds the eyes to our understanding it. Let’s pray for the Holy Spirit’s help.

Listen with your Church.

I’m thankful for livestreams and podcasts and pre recorded videos. But there are no substitutes for real, in-person, sit-with-your-church-family sermons. You see, sermons are not only to instruct the mind, but they’re also to obligate the will. Good sermons call for response.

Now, if you’re listening on your earbuds, who’s holding you accountable for what you’ve just heard? If you’re watching youtube videos of Paul Washer and Steve Lawson, I know you’ll get pumped up. But who’s going to help you keep whatever resolutions you might make?

Christopher Ash writes, “When we listen together, you know what messages I’ve heard, and I know what messages you’ve heard. I’ve heard it. You know I’ve heard it. I know that you know I’ve heard it! And you expect me to respond to the message, just as I hope you will. And so we encourage one another and stir up one another to do what the Bible says.”

This is, by the way, why so many of you stick around after service. We’re talking about what we’re learning, we’re talking about how it applies to life, we’re talking about our struggles, we’re praying for God’s help to obey.

Open Your Bible.

It is the task of the preacher to teach and apply the Word of God. You will hear better if you have your copy of God’s Word open, and you’re following him as he explains the text.

Additionally, the unfortunate reality is that preachers can be unclear, or worse, irresponsible. Every believer has the responsibility to examine the Scriptures and see if it aligns with the word of God. This is what the Bereans were famously known for. They “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

Obey Today.

There is an urgency to the word of God. The writer of Hebrews says, “Today, if you hear his voice, don’t harden your heart.” How many sermons have bonked you on the head before landing unapplied to the floor? How many sermons stirred up good intentions that were snuffed out before you left the parking lot?

There is always a right-now relevance to the Word of God. Maybe you need to write in your notes: “What am I going to do about this?”

I know many families who spend Sunday lunch talking about what they got out of the message. We have an entire growth group on Friday nights that aims to do this: how can we apply God’s Word more deeply? We believe the church should be an echo chamber - God’s Word is preached and it echoes throughout all the relationships of the church family throughout the week.

The most important thing about is is how we listen to God’s Word. How are you listening? Are you ensuring that you are listening? Fathers, are you the lead listener in your family? Mothers, are you helping the family listen? Children, do you really listen to God’s word?

Again Christopher Ash urges us: “Don’t go to sleep Sunday night without having asked yourself, ‘How will I respond to God’s Word?”