Our scripture reading this morning is from Luke chapter 8. We'll begin at verse 1 and read down through verse 21, the gospel of Luke chapter 8, beginning at verse 1. Let us hear God's own word. Soon afterward, Jesus went through the cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities. Mary called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's household manager, and Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their means. And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it, and some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away because it had no moisture, and some fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it, and some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold. And as he said these things, he called out, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And when the disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God. But for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. Now the parable is this, the seed is the word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the seed from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root. They believe it for a while, and in time of testing, fall away. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. No one, after lighting a lamp, covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand so that those who enter may see the light. For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. Take care, then, how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given. And from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away. Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, your mother and your brothers are standing outside desiring to see you. But he answered them, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it. So far the reading of God's Word. Well, a little more than ten days ago, Mary Ellen and I went and had hearing tests. It's the kind of dates people in their 70s have. Not to discourage you too much. We went to have a hearing test because each was convinced the other had taken to mumbling. and I was sure of a great day of vindication. I'm a little sad to report that we both had about the same level of hearing loss, so we can't actually pick on one another anymore. But if you want to talk to me, please don't mumble. Well, Jesus here in this text is talking about hearing, hearing what is said. hearing the word of God. And in a certain sense, we could say that Jesus is giving those who are surrounding him, the crowds that have come to him and the disciples that are following, he's giving them a hearing test. What do you hear? What do you hear? What are you listening to? Why have you come? Jesus is saying to the crowds, why have you come? Here, people from all sorts of towns have come to Jesus. What have you come for? Have you come seeking me, Jesus is saying, or have you come really just to get something for yourself? That's at the heart of this hearing test that Jesus is giving the crowds and his disciples today. And that's why he speaks to them in a parable. Now, parables are tricky things in the Bible. Sometimes parables are given to illustrate and clarify a point that is being made. But here, Jesus is using a parable for a rather different purpose. Jesus makes very clear that he tells this parable to see if they're really listening, if they're really paying attention, if they're really interested. Now, a parable is usually just a little story, a little illustration. And this story that Jesus is telling here about a sower would have been a very familiar story to people in that society. Most people in that society were farmers. And so the annual practice of having to go out and sow seed would have been a very familiar practice. And they would have known the problem that farmers face, that not as much seed actually takes root and produces fruit as is sown. Some of the seed you sow doesn't grow or doesn't mature. particularly in a society where there are no pesticides. Jesus doesn't say anything about bugs in this parable. We don't want to go beyond what he says, but here's a very familiar story. And Jesus is using this story both to teach and to test because it's really a story that asks the question, Are you listening? And if you're listening, what are you hearing? And it's remarkable that the first thing we see as a result of this parable is what we might call listening and loss. There are some people who hear the story and get absolutely nothing from it. It's almost as if Jesus tells this story and the crowd sort of smiles and nods and said, that's a nice story. No one in the crowd asks, what does that story mean? And maybe some of the people in the crowd walked away saying, well, at least the sermon was short. But they seem perfectly content to hear a story that they don't really see the point of, or at least they don't see the spiritual point of it. They don't inquire after it. They are immediately illustrating the point Jesus has made that sometimes when the sower sows seed, it falls on ground so hard, it takes no root at all. Jesus is really fulfilling the words that Simeon spoke about him when he was presented at the temple that Luke records for us in chapter 2. This child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel. so that the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. And this reminds us that preaching, amongst other things, can be an act of judgment. That's why preaching has a very sober and solemn side to it. Jesus has come as a preacher. He's come with the Word of God. He's come, we're told, proclaiming and presenting the good news of the kingdom of God. And some who are hearing him really could care less. For them, it's listening and loss. They're attracted by the very reality of a crowd. Some people like to be in a crowd. That's always mystified me. I don't like a crowd. People like parades. They like to go and stand on the sidewalk with a lot of other people. I've never understood that. Not the tiniest little bit. But maybe they're there just because they like the crowds. Maybe their friends are there. Maybe they've heard wonderful things happen there. Maybe they're there to be healed. There are all sorts of reasons to be there. But Jesus is warning that some people come and they hear, but they don't get it. They're not really interested. And Jesus here is really presenting a warning to all of us about the importance of listening and getting it. When Jesus speaks to the disciples, he says, in effect, I'm doing the same thing that Isaiah did after he was commissioned in Isaiah chapter 6. He was sent to a people, but at his ordination service, he was told, They'll listen, but they won't understand. They'll see, but they won't comprehend. That's the ministry you're called to, Isaiah. And Jesus says to his disciples, in a way, that's the ministry I'm called to as well. I'm here to preach, but not be heard by some. I scatter the word of God, but some won't hear. Some will have hard hearts. Some will turn against me. And as we look at the opening of Isaiah's prophecy, it's very sobering. Chapter 1, verse 2, Isaiah writes, Hear, O heaven and earth. And he writes that because he goes on in verse 3 to say, Israel does not know. Israel does not understand. My people won't hear, so heaven and earth bear witness. I've told them the truth. And Jesus sees himself as a prophet in that line of presenting the word in a way that ends up hardening hearts that are hard to be even harder. We can think of Moses preaching before Pharaoh. Moses told the truth. Moses' word had an element of mercy to it. And Pharaoh hardened his heart, would not listen. And Jesus is telling this parable to get us all thinking, I think. All listening, all hearing. Because listening ought to be connected not to loss, but to life. And that's what we see with the disciples, don't we? They heard the same parable as the crowd, but they go to Jesus and they say, what does this parable mean? They are responding to the Word of God. They care about the Word of God. They want the Word of God explained to them so that they may understand it and embrace it. And Jesus, as the good teacher, the good shepherd, explains the parable to them. And as we look at this parable, and as we look at this explanation, we ought to see that Jesus is not giving an agricultural lesson. He's not even giving, in the broadest sense, a theological lesson. He's not really talking abstractly about the nature of soils as hearts. But he's really saying to his own disciples, how is it with you and your listening? That's what this parable is really all about. Are you listening the way you ought to listen? Are you listening the way you ought to listen? And he's saying to these disciples, to you it is given to understand the secrets, as it says here, or more literally from Greek, the mysteries of the kingdom of God. To you is given to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Now, what's a mystery? Well, it's something that needs to be revealed, something that needs to be explained. I don't know if you are a person who reads mystery novels. It's a complete waste of time. And I do it all the time. And one of the questions I get asked is, how often do you figure out whodunit? And I always say, I never figure it out. I like to just be let along and enjoy the ride. But the whole point of a mystery novel is to reveal at the end whodunit. And Jesus has come to say, I'm the revealer. I'm the explainer of mysteries. I'm the opener of secrets. Are you listening? And we might say, well, what is this word? Did you notice he really doesn't tell us in this parable much about the content of the word. He says you have to listen to the word, but he doesn't tell us much about the content of the word. What's the secret? What's the mystery? It's a wonderful secret. It's a wonderful mystery. But I'm afraid you won't find it very surprising. The secret is this. Jesus is the king of the kingdom. Jesus is the one who brings good news. Jesus is the savior. Jesus is the one. In all of their busyness, the crowd really didn't have much time for Jesus. And that's why it has to be revealed, not because it's so complicated, not because it's so difficult, but because so many people won't listen, so many people won't hear, so many people won't believe. And so Jesus turns to his own disciples, and what he's really saying is, so how is it with your hearing? We can see the crowd doesn't hear, but how is it with your hearing? Are you listening the way you ought to listen? Are you listening and from the word receiving life as you ought to? That's what Jesus is stressing here. This is what Jesus is pressing here. And he says to his disciples, he says to you and me, you know, when that seed is scattered, it falls on three kinds of unreceptive soils. It falls on three kinds of unreceptive soil. So as my disciples think about this and measure your heart and your hearing with this warning about the unreceptive hearts and hearing. There's the hard soil, trampled down. Commentators said that was actually a reality in the farmland of that time. Across fields, there was usually a path that the farmer and other people could walk on. And that path, over time, became packed down, and so no one expected anything to grow on that path. But the sower scattering the seed couldn't ensure that none of it would fall on that path. But if it fell on that path, all it did was get walked over, and the birds would come and eat it. And Jesus says, that's what the devil does. He comes like a ravenous bird into hard hearts and takes away the seed that is sown there. And you see, Jesus is always saying to us, that's not going to happen to you, is it? It's not the character of your heart, is it? That's not the result of your listening, is it? So there's the hard ground, which we can describe basically as indifferent. Indifferent to the Word of God. And by its indifference, rejecting the Word of God. And we live in a world where that happens all the time, doesn't it? And then there's the soil that's rocky. It doesn't allow enough moisture in to water and sustain the seed. And Jesus says, that's the kind of soil, that's the kind of heart that initially seems very responsive. But over time, there's no root. And so, they fall away. This is the heart where the seed seems to inspire temporary excitement. And I know most ministers can testify that they've known people like that, who for a time seem so excited about the faith, so eager about the faith. But Jesus says, when the time of testing comes, they fall away. And of course, implicit in that statement of Jesus is the reality, the time of testing always comes. There's always a time of testing. That's why he teaches us in the Lord's Prayer to pray, lead us not into testing. Because we're no good at taking tests. Even those of us who never got out of school are no good at taking tests. And so Jesus is pressing upon his disciples, are you one who's only temporarily excited about the things of God? And then there's the thorny soil. The seed seems to be growing, but right next to it are growing the weeds and the thorns. And as someone who's never liked gardening, I've always been amazed how much easier it is to grow weeds than to grow other things that you'd like to grow. And how much harder it is to pull the weeds out than the good plants. And Jesus says this thorny ground is the distracted life. We have the indifferent life described here. We have the temporarily excited life described here. We have the distracted life described here. Yes, there is for a time an interest in spiritual things, but the things of this world eventually choke out that interest in spiritual things. You notice how Jesus summarizes it. the cares, the riches, the pleasures of life. It really covers it, doesn't it? The distractions. We all have distractions. We have cares of life. We have worries. Now, some of us are better worriers than others. Some of us have longer lists of worries, but we all have worries, don't we? We all have cares. We all have that distraction. And if we're not distracted by the worries, then we're distracted by the opportunities, aren't we? Riches, how do we get ahead? How will life become better? And then if we've worried enough and accumulated enough riches, we can spend our retirement in pleasure. But Jesus says it can all be distracting. None of it's wrong in itself. To have cares, to have riches, to have pleasures are not wrong in themselves unless they become distractions that choke out the spiritual life. That's what Jesus is warning his disciples about here. This is what he is directing them to think carefully about. And then he says, alternatively, there's good soil. Good soil comes in only one form, with a good and honest heart, A good and reliable heart. And what's good about that heart is that it hears what God is saying. And having heard what God is saying, that fruit of the Spirit in the heart grows up and there's a harvest, a hundredfold, Jesus says. If we hear with patience. What does he mean by that? I think he means with endurance, with holding on, with carrying on, with persevering. You remember our Lord said, he who perseveres to the end will be saved. Now, he didn't mean by that, by the good work of perseverance, you will earn salvation. What he meant by that was, perseverance will show what kind of heart you have. If you hold on to your faith, if you continue to practice your faith, If you continue to listen in the Word and cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in your life, you'll show you really belong to the Savior, and at the end, you will be saved. And so Jesus is really saying to us in this text, are you listening? Are you listening? When Jesus explained this to the disciples, who was there? Well, the women were there. We talked about them last week. And we saw that those women were faithful. They were still there at the cross. They were still there at the tomb. But Luke tells us that amongst those disciples were the twelve. The twelve. So who was there? Judas was there. Judas Iscariot was there. In Luke's gospel, he's always described as one of the twelve. I think Jesus maybe looked him particularly in the eye when he was preaching. You know, in the old days, in American evangelicalism, they always left a pew open in the front, and they called it the anxious bench. I'm glad there's nobody sitting there today. Don't want to pick on anybody. And the idea was, when the preacher was preaching, if your heart became anxious about your spiritual state, You could come up and sit on the anxious bench and the preacher could preach particularly to you, particularly to you. We may be surprised that anybody actually wanted to do that, but there were people who wanted to be helped and came forward. You wonder, did Jesus suggest Judas ought to sit on the anxious bench? You know, there have been a lot of stories written about Judas, made-up stories, and one of the fascinations with Judas is the question, what really motivated him? He was with Jesus for three years, saw the love of the Savior, saw the kindness of the Savior, saw the mercy of the Savior, and then betrayed him. Most of the speculations about Judas are worthless, but here, Jesus maybe offers a little insight into his heart. What was wrong with Judas? Was his heart hard? Was his joy temporary? Was he distracted by the cares and riches and pleasures of this life? Maybe it was all three. But the important point here is that Jesus says to us, how is it with your heart? How is it with my heart? Are we listening to the Savior? Are we sure that we haven't hardened our hearts against him? Are we sure that our hearts aren't just shallow? Are we sure that our hearts won't be distracted? And Jesus says, the character of your heart is going to be revealed one day. He moves from sowing seed to a light. He talks about a lamp being lit and set on a stand to cast light into a room. And he says, what does light do? It reveals and it exposes who we are. It reveals and exposes who we are. And so Jesus is saying to us in a very solemn way, isn't he? In a very serious way, but in an absolutely necessary way. Are you listening? Are you listening? And he's saying to us, embrace my word with patience. Embrace my word with faith. Embrace my word with confidence, because it's the light that will bring you life. It's the light that will bring you life. And he says in the middle of this text, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And so how is it with us today? Now, almost all of you have been listening. I can tell which ones weren't. but you've been listening, haven't you? And when you go out, what will happen? Will that word bear fruit in our hearts and in our lives so that we'll be more alive for having gone out, for having been here? Or will very quickly the word that we've heard just evaporate? We might even say, it was a nice sermon. But what Jesus says he wants us to do is to say, I heard you, Lord. I believe you, Lord. I rest in your word, and I want to be growing in your word. May God grant that that's what each one of us will say as we go out today. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the way in which it challenges us and examines us and for the way that it draws us to Jesus and the reality that good news is only to be found in him. Hope is only to be found in him. Life and light are only to be found in him. Grant, O Lord, that in the midst of all of our distractions, he might be at the center, and that we might be growing in him. Hear us, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.