Advent 2020 - 4 - Open your ears

20-12-13 - ADVENT 3 – Open your ears

HBI: Let us approach our God with open eyes and open hearts so we can hear and apply His word to our hearts.

Intro

Eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear, what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear that phrase besides the word of God?

Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is children. I love my kids dearly, and sometimes yes I lose my patience with them and have to apologize. 

But often it seems like kids (and I could add many adults to the list as well so do not think that you are off the hook adults) have eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear. 

Unless that is it comes to something that they are not supposed to see and hear then they can see and hear very well. 

I remember once when a certain child of mine (I have made a deal with my children that if I mention them in my sermon, I have to pay them). A certain child of mine was being a big help with us setting up for an event our church was holding at the local regional park. 

We asked Abigail, who was just 3 or 4 years old at the time to go get a case of pop out of a glass doored cooler that was about 20’ away. 

She started to walk around in circles not finding at all the case of pop that was so clearly placed right in sight. It boggled my minds 

We thought that she was just not particularly good at finding things. Though later we found out she just needed glasses because her eyesight was bad. 

We have all been in a place in our lives where our eyes could not see, and our ears could not hear as well. 

When people hear and see the word of the Lord and see Him at work in the world around them but refuse to believe, maybe get angry at what they are hearing or the person saying it, then they have eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear the truth. 

The prophets in the bible spoke the word of God in mysteries that lots of people could not understand. Parables and the like that where meant for people to respond to and want to dig deeper but for those with hearts that did not want to hear it just drove them away. 

But God knows those that will respond to the message and when they hear, and they may not understand they have a desire to seek it out and find out more about what they have hear. 

Two different responses to the same word of God and the question needs to be asked in our own lives as we go into this is what is in your own heart? Are you giving of your hearts to God? Or does it bother you so that you want to turn against God, or maybe even not commit the word of God to our hearts when we hear it? What does it mean for us to have eyes that see and ears that hear? 

The Prophecies

This Christmas season, looking into the promises of God and how they have been fulfilled when Jesus was born. 

We have learned about the hope that is promised to those that become followers of Jesus. About how we need to prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord and clear out any obstacles that might prevent us from having a relationship with God. 

Knowing this in your head is all well and good but if you do not have your eyes and ears opened you will miss out. What does that mean?

We will get into it in a bit, but for now it means that when we hear the message of God, when you read the word of the Lord you will want it to change your life. If you do not understand what it means we will ask God to reveal it to us or to seek a way in which we can understand it. 

We go back to the book of Isaiah and a few other places as well. We go to the time when King Uzziah was on the throne in Judah and his son Ahaz, who was the evil king 

God gave a vision to Isaiah in which he saw God sitting on a throne, with a massive train that filled the whole temple. 

There where two 6 winged heavenly beings above the Lord. They where calling to each other Isaiah 6:3 Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Armies; his glory fills the whole earth.

The voices of the heavenly beings calling out praises to the Lord caused the whole building to shake. What a sight that would have been to behold. It caused Isaiah to realize exactly what He was looking at and his response would have been like mine probably would have been in the same situation. 

“Woe is me for I am unclean in a land of unclean people” God asked who will go out for him and spread the message of the Lord with the people of the Lord. Isaiah said “here am I send me”. God gave them a warning

Isaiah 6:9-10 9  And He replied: Go! Say to these people: Keep listening, but do not understand; keep looking, but do not perceive. 10 Dull the minds of these people; deafen their ears and blind their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed. 

I want to jump to the Psalms to help us figure out exactly what this looked like. Psalm 78 was written by a man named Asaph. 

He told the people to open their ears for I will speak to you in a parable. I will teach you hidden lessons from our past— 

The Psalm goes on to say that they where to tell the stories of their ancestors to their own children and so on so they would never forget. Each generation was to hear of the wonders and power and majesty of the Lord and the laws that they were to live by so that each generation could set their hope anew on the Lord. 

But the problem is that they forgot to tell their children, they forgot about the laws of the Lord and their hearts became hardened. 

They kept wanting the things around them and instead of God for the people forgot to tell the next generations about God and the world around them started to get tempting. So, they would rather follow that then the God they had started to forget about. 

They had become blind and deaf to the glory of God and would rather follow their own temptations. There are a couple other passage throughout the OT that deal with the same issues. 

Isaiah 29:13 The Lord said: Because these people approach Me with their mouths to honor Me with lip-service— yet their hearts are far from Me, and their worship ⌊consists of⌋ man-made rules learned ⌊by rote⌋— 

Ezekiel 33:31 So My people come to you in crowds, sit in front of you, and hear your words, but they don’t obey them. Although they express love with their mouths, their hearts pursue dishonest profit.

There was a reason why the prophets and then Jesus also spoke in parables and what seemed like mysteries. We will get into that but again we go to the life of Jesus where this promise, or rather prophecy of God came true. 

The Fulfillment

We go to the life of Jesu as to what more we can learn from this statement about being blind and deaf to the word of God. 

When Jesus started His ministry, he started be teaching on the sermon on the mount by the sea of Galilee. There where people that had gathered to hear this man preach that had been doing many wonderful things. 

Jesus also taught in Parables, as did often the prophets of old. And often people did not understand what Jesus meant by what he said. Goodness even His own disciples had been confused lots of the time. 

Matthew 13:10-15 10 Then the disciples came up and asked him, “Why are you speaking to them in parables?” 11 He answered, “Because the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given for you to know, but it has not been given to them. 12 For whoever has, more will be given to him, and he will have more than enough; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. 13 That is why I speak to them in parables, because looking they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand. 14 Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says: You will listen and listen, but never understand; you will look and look, but never perceive. 15 For this people’s heart has grown callous; their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn back— and I would heal them

The people had the word of God, the had the prophecies in front of them, they had the promises of God given to them but lots of them would never understand. 

The evidence was right under their noses, everything was right there for them to see that Jesus was the messiah. All the evidence was there for them to be able to see and to hear but their hearts where not in the right place. 

Matthew 15:7-9 7  Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said: 8  These people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. 9  They worship Me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commands of men.” 

The Application?

So, what exactly does this mean anyways? This is still true today as well as it is something that needs to be looked into. 

There are two groups of people that we are looking into here. There are those that have hardened their hearts against God and refuse to listen or do not understand what Jesus is saying. These are those who have blinded eyes and ears.

Then there are those that either understand the parables or still have know idea but they seek Jesu, not just because of the miracle that He can perform but so he can explain to them more what He meant so they too can be followers of Jesus. There is something stirring in their hearts and they want to respond to God. 

God knows which people are going to choose to follow him and which will not. SO the parables serve as a way to start to separate the wheat from the chalf. Those that would believe from those who have hardened hearts. 

The parables force the issue for people and us as well. Who will they side with? The Pharisees or with the disciples and Jesus? 

Those that rejected the message do not know God and are angered by the words of Jesus which they may not understand but know enough that it is telling them that they need to change their lives and turn to following Jesus. 

Sometimes people get so focused on the world and their own lives that they reject this outright, they have hearts that are to hardened by their own sin that they refuse to turn to God. 

The responsibility to respond to the good news of Jesus falls on the shoulders of the people hearing the message. The responsibility to share the message falls on the shoulders of those that are already followers of Jesus. 

There is no tension between the sovereignty of our Lord and saviour and our responsibility. But what it does say is that we need to watch out that we are asking God for hearts that will respond to His word in drawing us closer to Him. 

Jesus never taught this way to give no people who God new would not turn to him anyways no choice in the matter but rather taught in such a way that it put the ownness on s to respond or not to the message of salvation. 

The message of the gospel is meant to challenge those who hear it to respond and turn their hearts to Jesus. Those that did not respond and do not respond are spiritually deadened. 

So what is our response to be to what we hear? The message of Christmas is that we need to respond to the hope that has been given to us. 

I try not to preach moralistic pharasiac type messages, but the fact of the matter is that as followers of Jesus right living will come out of our faith. 

The materialistic lives that we sometimes live easily hardens our hearts to our own spiritual condition. It makes it easier to ignore the good news of the birth of Jesus. 

The hope that we have? Allow it to change your heart. Do not get angered by the way the bible telsl us to live but rather take what the bible says and ask God to allow it to change Your life. 

Do not allow your outward circumstances blind you to the state of your own soul. Do not become blind and deaf to the word of God. But rather seek God, follow Him, ask questions when you do not understand and most of all share with others so that they too may allow their own hearts to be changed.