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Luke 8 "Ears to Hear"

Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with Him, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities-- Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance. And when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to Him from every city, He spoke by a parable: "A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up , it withered away because it lacked moisture. and some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold. "When He had said these things He cried, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!" Then His disciples asked Him, saying, "What does this parable mean?" And He said, "To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that 'Seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.' "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away, Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a lampstand, that those who enter may see the light. For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light. Therefore take heed how you hear. for whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him." Then His mother and brothers came to Him, and could not approach Him because of the crowd. And it was told Him by some, who said, "Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see You." But He answered and said to them, "My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it." (Luke 8:1-20)

Jesus taught the people in parables. A parable is a story that uses normal everyday things to teach about spiritual things. Jesus would talk about seed and farming, sheep and shepherding, servants and masters, fathers and children, all things that the people around Him could understand. This is a basic principle that we try to follow as we teach the Bible as well. You can go a to specialized school and study the doctrines of the Bible systematically, research the theologies of leading scholars as they try to dig into the fine points of God's word, and this is all well and good. But you must admit that very few people can really understand what these professors are even talking about. I used to love looking at a magazine that my grandfather subscribed to called Popular Science. There are many journals of science where researchers publish their findings to be studied by their peers, but this magazine talked about these new breakthroughs of science in easy to understand language, with exciting pictures and illustrations. Maybe it wasn't exactly the cutting edge, top scholarship, but it was good enough for me. We teach, like Jesus, in words that are easy to understand.
But Jesus cried out at the end of the story, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!" You see, even though Jesus made it as easy for people to understand as He could, still people would not listen. My sister was like that with Popular Science. I would get so excited by the article describing how someday lasers, which I thought could only be used to blow up spaceships in Star Trek, could also be used to do normal things like control the channels on your TV or play music or make a burglar alarm. I would say, "Sis, you gotta listen to this, someday they are gonna use lasers to play music instead of a record player!" But no matter how excited I was, my sister would turn up her nose and say, "Science, how boring". My sister thought that this was too difficult for her to understand, so she tuned it out. She didn't even look at the illustrations inside that made it so clear. She just looked at that title, "Science" and gave up.
Look what the disciples did, actually they didn't understand either. But what did they do? They asked. "What does this parable mean?" And Jesus answered "To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that 'Seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.' The difference between those who see and those who don't is not intelligence. Jesus has made it easy for us to understand. The difference between those who understand and those who cannot is the desire to learn. Jesus has promised us that if we ask, it will be given to us, if we seek we shall find, if we knock the door will be opened. This is the key to understanding the teachings of Jesus.
But Jesus wants more than just for us to understand the gospel. Jesus wants that gospel to change our hearts and to bear good fruit. There are some difficulties that must be overcome in order for the word of God to have this kind of effect in our hearts, but our lack of intelligence is not one of them. You don't have to be smart for the word of God to bear fruit in you. It is not an academic subject. Jesus tells us in this parable three things that we must be careful about. The first is the enemy who would come and steal the word of God away from us. ≥Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. Romans tells us that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17) The most sure way to grow in faith is by the Word of God. Back in Jesus' day not everyone could read, so He makes it easy, even hearing is enough, but the danger is that the enemy will come and steal it out of our hearts lest we should benefit from it. So the Bible tells us to hide them in our hearts. If you knew that a thief was breaking into houses around your neighborhood, what would you do? You would probably think about hiding some of your valuables. You might spend an hour or two making sure that even if the thief did break in, he would not get those things that are really important to you. We need to do this with God's word as well. Let me give you a practical thing to do. If you hear a verse during the sermon that touches your heart, pick up your pen, right away, and jot it down on the bulletin. Then when you get home write it down again and hang it up in a place where you will see it often. My wife is really enjoying a calendar that somebody gave to her this year. It has one Proverb for each month and everyday, many times some days, she glances at it as she makes plans for her schedule. Last month was "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.≤ (Pr. 3:5) What a great way to hide God's word in your heart.
Another danger is to receive the Word but to have no depth, no root. "The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away." What does the root do? My wife's family house in Ome, has a yard that we planted with grass. Now I know why Japanese houses do not usually have grass in their gardens, because it has been the hardest thing to keep the weeds out. I think that the weeds have gained the upper hand and the grass is actually in the minority. If I picked all of the clover out of our yard there would be no lawn at all. What is the most frustrating thing to me is that even though you pick all of the stems and leaves of these weeds, they still keep growing back. The reason why is that they have roots growing underground, and the life of these plants is in their roots. Learn this from the weeds, the life of faith is in the roots. I have seen many people who talk like Christians, act like Christians, sing like Christians, but when all of these things are plucked away, there is nothing left. What would your Christian life be like if suddenly you were unable to come to church, unable to meet with Christian friends, unable to listen to or read Christian music and books. This has happened to many Christians in times of persecution. My wife has had a mini-experience of this as she has been stuck at home with morning sickness for the last three months.
How do you build a root? Dig deep into the word of God. My hobby is taking care of an aquarium with fish and plants. When I first set up the aquarium I wasn't thinking about plants and so I did not put in a very thick layer of sand in the bottom. But the plants do an amazing thing. The roots of these plants wrap themselves around a rock and by clinging to this rock they anchor themselves to the bottom of the tank. We too live in an environment that is fluid. Our world is everchanging and we need to anchor ourselves with the truths of God's Word. I have certain verses that I return to time and again. These are my anchor verses. I would encourage you to make a list of your anchor verses and memorize them.
The third danger that Jesus warns about is letting the word become choked out. "The ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity." Again it seems that Jesus is talking about my garden at home. There is a battle taking place in my seemingly peaceful yard. The clover and dandelions are competing with the grass stems for resources and the weeds are winning. For a plant to grow it needs sunlight. It is not enough to have the seed hidden in the ground, not enough to grow a root down into the soil, for the plant to put forth leaves and bud and eventually bring forth new seeds of its own, it must find a way of collecting energy from the sun. This is a must for us as well. We do not just memorize verses, anchoring ourselves to a few famous passages of scripture. We must also open ourselves to the life-giving rays or our sun, Jesus Christ. We get the energy, the power to bring forth fruit from Jesus, alive in our hearts. Without Jesus we look at the Bible and it is difficult enough to comprehend, let alone use it to shape our lives. But as we pray and walk daily with Christ, we find that our faith begins to grow.
The weeds that compete in our hearts with Christ are cares, riches and pleasures of life. Now do not think that you can rid your garden of them completely. One day I went out and rolled up my sleeves and decided that I was going to rid the garden of clover once and for all. I would win the victory, and never allow clover to enter my domain again. After hours of pulling and digging and searching and scraping, the clover remained and I am the one who was defeated. We are stuck in this life, cares and riches and pleasures are all a part of it. But what we must realize is that the competition is for time. If you allow these things to choke out your quality "sunlight" time, you will lose the battle. If when you look up, all you see are the cares and troubles you are facing overshadowing you, you are being choked out. If when you look up all you can see is your dream of future wealth, or future happiness, you are also being choked out and you won't be able to bear any good fruit in the future. Learn to make spending time with Jesus your priority. He will guide you and strengthen you in the Word.

Jesus told His disciples to "take heed how you hear". We have seen that it is important that we do not just hear the Word of God, but hide it in our hearts because the enemy will try to steal it away from us. We have seen that we need to build roots by anchoring ourselves with the truths of Scripture. And we have seen that we must make sure to have plenty of sunlight time with Jesus to give us the power we need to apply God's Word to our lives. If we are careful not just to hear the Word, but to keep it and wait patiently, then that Word will bear fruit. We will see our hearts, our actions become more like those of Jesus Christ.
When I was in college, we would spend 9 weeks studying day by day, reading books, listening to lectures, writing down notes, and then there would be an exam for which we would study intensely, trying to remember every last little bit of information. The exam tested us to see how much we remembered. In our spiritual life, we also study day by day, read the Bible, listen to sermons, write down notes. But the exam is much different. You see instead of one big test in which you have to remember everything, life is like a series of pop quizzes. Small surprises for which there is no chance to cram, no opportunity to go and look it up in your notes. With this kind of learning, the quality is much more important than the quantity. Let me share with you a secret to increasing the quality of your spiritual life. Jesus says, "Whoever has, to him more will be given;" Jesus teaches you His Word, one thing at a time. I really do not think it is possible to learn more than one truth at a time. I might have given you three points in my sermon today, but that is just head knowledge. I am convinced that down in the heart God is working on one important lesson in each one of you today. It probably has nothing to do with what I have been talking about, but that is what you need to get. And once you "have" it, then God will give you more. He will start in on the next lesson.
Now here is the key to quality. Do not try to master everything. Don't think that once you really understand the Bible then you can be a good Christian. Don't wait to understand everything. Start doing what you already "have". Maybe the only thing you really understand down deep about Christianity right now is that God loves you. That's great! major in God's love, rejoice in that love, thank Him for it, tell your friends about God's love. Don't be shy. Of course you don't know everything yet, but then neither does anyone else! Jesus said, "No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a lampstand, that those who enter may see the light." The Word of God is like a light, it shines into the dark places of our lives and we start to see God's truth. It is not meant to be filed away for future reference. If you "have" God's truth burning in your heart then let it shine in your life, and Jesus says that "more will be given" to you.