The Lord’s Day Morning
November 29, 2009
Luke 8:16-21
“Take Care How You Listen”
Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III
If you have your Bibles I’d invite you to turn with me to Luke chapter 8.
We’ll be looking at verses 16 to 21 today.
As you turn to that passage I would remind you that this exhortation of
Jesus to you and me, to His disciples, is on the heels of His parable of the
sower and the essence of His parable of the sower in Luke 8:1-15 may be
discerned in and distilled from verse 15 — “The seed is the good soil.
These are the ones who have heard the Word in an honest and good heart
and hold it fast and bear fruit with perseverance.”
He has been speaking to His disciples about what the Word is designed to produce
in our lives and how we know whether we have truly received the Word of God.
And this exhortation in Luke 8, verses 16 to 21, both in the story of the
lamp and in the words to His own mother and brothers when they come to visit
Him, is designed to reinforce and to expand and to elaborate the point that had
been made in the parable of the sower.
So let’s bear that in mind as we prepare to hear God’s Word and let’s
look to Him in prayer before we read it.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, this is Your
Word and so we ask that You would open our eyes to understand it as it is a
passage about hearing the Word of God and hearing it rightly and truly.
We pray that by Your Holy Spirit we would hear this passage about hearing
the Word rightly and truly, that we would respond to it in faith, that we would
believe Your Word, but that we would also do what Your Word tells us to do.
We ask this in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
Hear the Word of God beginning in Luke 8, verse 16:
“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.’”
Amen, and thus ends this reading of God’s holy, inspired, and inerrant Word.
May He write its eternal truth upon all our hearts.
How do you know if someone is listening to you?
How do you know if they’ve really gotten what you said?
You know, if you’re getting ready to send someone to the grocery store on
an errand — “Honey, I want you to go and I want you to bring back an eye of
round, and mushrooms, and tomatoes, and while you’re over in the vegetable
section, they’ve got two for one on broccoli today.
And I want some Golden Delicious apples and some Granny Smith apples
too.” – And the list goes on. And
when he comes home with Red Barron pizza and potato chips and Coke, you know he
wasn’t listening. Or if he’s texting
you from the grocery store — “What was it I was supposed to get?” — You know he
wasn’t listening.
Or, if you’ve said, “Now I want you to hang your clothes up and I want you to
straighten your room” — you understand I’ve never heard this conversation before
— “and I want you to do your music and I’m going to check it when I get back.”
How do you know if that little person has listened to you?
Well, it’s whether he or she has done what you’ve asked, done what you’ve
said.
Or maybe you’re an SEC football coach and you tell your kicker, “Do not kick the
ball to that guy. Every time he
touches the ball, something bad happens.
Do not kick the ball to him.”
How do you know whether your kicker has listened?
It’s whether he does what you said.
Or maybe you’re a captain speaking to a sailor and he says, “Aye, Aye, Sir,”
which is supposed to mean, “I heard you, I understood what you said, and I will
execute it.” The only way you know
is whether what you’ve said has been executed.
That’s what Jesus is talking about in this passage,
So I’ve got a question for you — How do
you hear the Word of God? How’s
it going? Do you really hear the
Word? When it’s read to you aloud
like Nate read to us this morning from Isaiah 62, how do you hear it?
Does it go through one ear and out the other, or when you hear it do you
realize that God has something that he wants you to know, something that He
wants you to believe, something that He wants you to act upon, and are you
sensitive to what He is saying to you in His Word?
Do you respond to it by not only believing it and nodding in affirmation
of it but actually doing what the Word of God tells you to do?
Or do you listen politely but your mind is in neutral, or even more,
there is no impetus in your heart to respond to obedience to God’s Word?
That’s what Jesus is talking about in this passage.
He is exhorting His disciples to listen with care to the Word of God
because listening to the Word of God is an eternally important matter.
In this passage, Jesus makes it clear that
how we respond
now to the Word of God reveals ahead of time what is going to happen on the Last
Day.
Jesus makes it clear that every time the Word of God is read or proclaimed the
heart is revealed, and if we respond in obedience to the Word, what is revealed
is that God is at work for grace and glory in our hearts.
And if we respond in indifference and in disobedience to God’s Word, what is
being revealed is a judgment that is stored up for everyone who does not hear
the Word of God rightly. And so I want us to look closely at this passage and I
want you to see two things that Jesus says loudly and clearly.
And by God’s grace and by the work of the Holy Spirit, it’s my prayer
that you will hear what Jesus is saying.
I. God’s word is given
to us to change us.
The first thing that He tells us is that God’s Word is given to us to change us.
God’s truth is given to us to shine in us and from us.
Truth is given to shine. The light of God’s Word in us is meant to
produce a life that bears witness to God’s grace and God’s glory.
You see that so clearly, don’t you, in verse 16, where Jesus says, “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.”
Now that illustration frankly may be lost on us because we live in a
world lit by Entergy. We can have
plenty of light in our homes, 24/7, with the flip of a switch.
When mother was here just a few weeks ago we were pulling out of the driveway in
the early evening and getting ready to drive off and go somewhere and she turned
back and looked at the house and she said, “Ligon, I think you’ve left on every
light in your house.” And I looked
back and I thought, “You know, mom, you’re probably right.
We probably have left on every light in our house,” so this illustration
may be a little lost on us. There
was a book written a number of years ago called,
A World Lit Only by Fire.
Some of you have probably read it.
It is in part a social history of what it would have been like to be in
medieval Europe and to live daily with the inconveniences that surrounded life
and one of the things that it pointed out was that your life was completely
controlled by the rising and the setting of the sun because after the sun went
down, there was no Entergy to turn on the street light or to supply light to
your home. The only light you had
was from the fire or from candles or from some sort of a lamp.
Now in that world, if you can put yourself there, this illustration makes
perfect sense. In that world, where
there are no artificial lights to give light after darkness, when a light is lit
in a room it is not going to be hidden because the very purpose of that light is
to give light to the room so that people can see who would otherwise be
completely surrounded by blinding darkness.
And Jesus is saying that’s what the Word of God is given to produce in your
lives. It’s given to produce light,
the light of a life. In other words,
the Word of God is not just given to us so that we will know things that other
people don’t know. The Word of God
is not just given to us so that we will nod in a sense to it and “Hmmm, hmmm,
yes.” It’s given to change the way
we are so that we bear witness, so that we become lights, individually and as a
people — “a city on a hill.” We are
to give light through our lives and so Jesus makes it clear that God’s truth is
put in us so that we may shine, so that our lives bear testimony to the truth
that has been put in us.
II. We must take care
how we listen to the truth and respond to it.
Then Jesus says that we must take care how we listen to the truth and that the
way to listen to the truth is to listen to the truth in such a way that we
respond to it, that we do it, that we obey it.
Look at what Jesus says at the end of this passage in verse 21 — “My
mother and My brothers are” — who? –
“those who hear the Word of God and do it.”
What is Jesus saying? He’s
saying you haven’t heard the truth until you’ve done it.
You haven’t heard the truth the way God intends you to hear the truth
until you’ve done it. The truth
heard rightly is the truth done obediently.
The truth is heard rightly only when it produces in our lives, fruit.
Again, go back to verse 15 immediately prior to our passage.
What does the word produce when it falls in the good soil?
“It bears fruit with perseverance.”
And Jesus is saying, “When you hear the Word of God, recognize that God has
given that Word to you, whether you’re reading your Bible alone, whether you’re
reading it with your family, whether you’re listening to the minister read it in
a long reading on Sunday morning, whether you’re listening to a short passage be
read like Luke 8: 16-21, or whether you’re hearing the Word expounded.
When you hear that Word, His goal is not simply for you to know something
of its contents and even to nod in affirmation that yes you agree with it, but
that truth is to be worked into your life in such a way that you respond to that
truth with obedience.” So that for
instance, if you’re reading a passage in the Bible that contains the Gospel your
response to that Gospel is not simply to be, “Oh yes, I’ve heard that before.
I think I agree with that.”
But it is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of
sinners and to rest and trust in Him alone for salvation as He is offered in the
Gospel, to trust Him with your everlasting life, and then to share with others
how they might come to know the living God in Jesus Christ.
To hear the Gospel rightly is to respond to it by believing, trusting,
and sharing the Gospel.
Or if you’re reading the law and you’re convicted by the Word that is in that
law, you’re realizing that you’re guilty of the sin that law is speaking
against, you are to respond in repentance and in confession.
You’re not just to say, “Yes, that’s wrong or right.
Other people shouldn’t do that.”
But it’s to recognize that, “I’ve done this Lord.
I’ve broken this law. I
repent of this. I confess my sin to
You. I ask that You would forgive me
and cleanse me and change me as I read Your law.”
Or maybe you’re reading a Bible passage about providence and you’re not just
supposed to sit back and think, “You know, providence is such an interesting
doctrine, very deep, very intellectual.
I’ve read many books on providence.”
No, your response to the doctrine of God’s providence is to look into
your own life and say, “Lord, I have no idea what You’re doing in my life.
I have no idea why You are doing what You are doing now, but this I do
know — You are in charge and You love me and You are wise and good, and so there
is nothing meaningless in my life, even though very frankly, it feels worse than
that right now. I trust You, Lord.
I know You are the God of providence.
I know that You want my good.
I know that You have promised to bring about Your perfect will for me.
I don’t see the way to the end.
I know though that You know the end from the beginning and that Your
purposes are good for me and that You will cause all things to work together for
my good.” No, the way you respond to
providence is not through some intellectual exercise where you go out and get
another book, but you begin to actually believe God’s good purposes in your life
and live like you really believe that God has good purposes in your life.
Or when you hear or when you read a passage about God’s election.
What’s that to produce in you?
Well it’s first of all to produce humility.
If God has chosen us and not we Him, we have nothing to brag about.
The most humble people in the world ought to be people who have read and
heard about God’s election. And then
what else does it produce? It
produces gratitude. “Lord,” Isaac
Watts says, “why was I a guest? Why
was I invited to come to this feast and why did I enter in and sit down at this
banquet hall when thousands make a wretched choice and rather starve than come?”
It leads to gratitude. And
then it leads to mercy, because if you’ve receive mercy, you want to show mercy
to others because you know how precious that mercy is to you.
Or when you read about and hear God’s Word speak to you about election, you
don’t just respond to it by letting it go in one ear and out the other or
nodding in silent assent, but it changes your life. It grows you in humility and
in gratitude and in mercy.
Or if you read about justification, you respond to it by ceasing to trust in
your own righteousness, by resting and trusting in Jesus alone for salvation, by
refusing to try and justify yourself through putting up a façade of reputation
and hiding your sins from others, or putting others down so you look better, or
trying to balance out your evil deeds with your good deeds to get credit with
God. You cease that game and you
trust in Jesus Christ.
Or if you’re reading the Bible about sanctification, what do you do?
You pursue holiness. You
respond to the Word of God by pursing love, by craving the growth of real
Christian love in your life where you’re looking out for the best interests of
your neighbor despite the cost to yourself.
You pursue purity and Christ-like, grace-wrought, generosity.
Or what if you’re reading what the Bible says about glorification, how do you
respond to that? Well you respond in
it by realizing that your hope is not in the final analysis in this world, and
therefore there is no disappointment in this world that can rob you of your
deepest hope and joy because your deepest hope and joy await across a finish
line that will not be crossed until a multitude of men and women and boys and
girls from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation are standing around a throne
singing “Hallelujah to the Lamb!
Worthy is He!” And then and there
you will realize that your hopes have been fulfilled to a deeper reality that
you could not have even comprehended in this world.
And therefore you’re never without hope in this world.
No, God’s Word is meant to be responded to.
Are you sensitive to God’s Word? Do
you respond to God’s Word?
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.
The last three weeks it seems like everywhere I have turned, whether it’s a
children’s devotional or whether it’s from the pulpit, God has been hitting me
over the head with a truth that I needed to know.
Sometimes I’m sensitive to the Word of God like that where every word,
whether it’s a Twitter from a friend or a children’s message or a message from
the pulpit, has seemed designed specifically for me.
But even then I have to ask myself this question — “I’m attuned to this
Word, I’m sensitive that this Word is for me, but have I responded to this Word?
Have I believed the promises that it holds out?
Have I heard the warnings that it has given?
Have I understood the threatenings?
Have I responded to the Word of God?”
You see, Jesus is saying in this passage – the truth is only truly heard
when the truth is done. Only when we
have put the truth to practice have we really heard that truth.
So are you listening to the Word of God, really listening to the Word of God —
listening to the Word of God, recognizing it’s for you, not for your neighbor
sitting next to you, listening to the Word of God realizing that God intends to
change you from the inside out by His Word dwelling richly in you so that your
light will shine? It’s a perennial
challenge, isn’t it? You know it
was, even in Puritan times. Thomas
Goodwin was a learned professor of theology and a very, very famous preacher in England, and he
told John Howe, who eventually wrote a book on the lives of some of the famous
Puritans, he told John Howe the story that I’m about to tell you.
There was a man named John Rogers of Dedham [1572-1636]
who was a very famous preacher. He
was what we would call today a “hellfire and brimstone preacher.”
And he was not a man who had been part of the great halls of academia.
He was a simple country preacher.
But Thomas Goodwin who was part of the halls of academia wanted to go and
hear him preach, and so one day he got on his horse and he wrote out into the
country to hear John Rogers of Dedham preach.
He said,
“I took a journey to hear him preach on
his lecture day and Mr. Rogers was preaching on the subject of the Scriptures
and in his sermon he fell into such an expostulation with the people about their
neglect of the Bible. The people
weren’t hearing the Word of God. And
he impersonated God to the people.
He said, ‘Well, I have trusted you so long with My Bible and yet you have
slighted it. It lies in such and
such houses all covered with dust and cobwebs.
Do you not care to listen to it?
Do you use My Bible so? Well
you shall have My Bible no longer!”
And then Thomas Goodwin says he literally picked the Bible up from the cushion
on the pulpit and he began to walk away with it.
And then as he seemed as if he were going away, tearing it away from
them, but then he turned around and he impersonated the people speaking back to
God. And he fell down on his knees
and he cried out and he pled most earnestly, “Lord, whatever you do to us, do
not take the Bible from us. Kill our
children, burn our houses, destroy our goods, only spare us Your Bible.
Do not take away the Bible.”
And then he turned again and impersonated God to the people.
“Say you so? Well I will try
you a little while longer. Here is
My Bible for you. I will see how you
will use it, whether you will love it more, observe it more, practice it more,
live more according to it.”
By these actions, Thomas Goodwin told
John How, Mr. Rogers put all the congregation into so strange a posture that the
place was deluge with tears. In
fact, Dr. Goodwin was so deeply affected, that as he left the building and went
out to his horse he could not mount his horse.
He hung on his horse’s neck for more than a quarter of an hour, weeping,
because he realized he had not been hearing the Word of God.
III. Application
So how is it with you? Are you
hearing the Word of God? Can you
remember a time in your life when it was as if the preacher has looked into the
inmost recesses of your heart and opened you up and poured the Word of God in
and as painful as it was it was the most restorative thing that you’ve ever
experienced and you believed and you were new and you responded.
But has it been weeks, and months, and even years since you heard the
Word of God like that?
Jesus is saying in this passage how you hear the Word of God reveals something
that is going to transpire at the final day.
And here is what He says is going to transpire at the final day — the
final day, those who have heard the Word of God are going to be given
everything, and those who have not heard the Word of God are going to have
everything taken away.
Do you realize that what happens every time the Word of God is read, every time
the Word of God is proclaimed, something happens in this place or wherever the
Word of God is taught rightly that portends what will happen on the Judgment
Day?
Do you realize that the Word of God is powerful and effective and sharper than
any two-edged sword and it always works?
The Word of God always works. It always works to do one of two things —
either to draw sinners to faith in Christ and to build up saints in grace in
Him, or to heap up the condemnation of those who will not hear it.
Those two things always happen when the Word of God is preached.
And those things portend what will happen on the final judgment.
And Jesus says what will happen in verse 18 — “To the one who has, more
will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks he has will be
taken away.” That is why listening
to the Word of God carefully and rightly is of eternal consequence.
My friends, take care how you listen.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we know we need spiritual ears even to begin to listen.
That in part means knowing that we are sinners who need Your grace, that
in part means recognizing that so many of the things that we set our hearts and
our affections upon in this world are bobbles and they will not last, but above
all it means recognizing that You are our only hope and in the end You are our
greatest joy. It is my prayer, O
Lord, that no member of this congregation get to glory and not know those three
things, that no one here in the hearing of Your Word would stand before the
Almighty on the Last Day and have every last thing taken away.
Lord God, grant that we would hear, in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
As you live by His holy precepts, having heard His Word, may grace, mercy, and
peace be yours from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.