The Context of Luke 8
Well, this morning we're in Luke chapter 8. Luke chapter 8, and I'm going to read for us the first 21 verses. So let's read these as we dive in this morning.
After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The 12 were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna, the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.
While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told them this parable: A farmer went out to sow his seed, and as he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path. It was trampled on and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among the thorns, which grew up with it and choked out the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop a hundred times more than was sown.
When Jesus said this, he called out, "Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear."
The Meaning of the Parable
His disciples asked him, "What does this parable mean?" He said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to others I speak in parables, so that those seeing, they may not see, and though hearing, they may not understand. This is the meaning of the parable. The seed is the word of God. Those along the path are the ones who hear. And then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved.
Those on the rocky ground are the ones who receive the word with joy, and when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing, they fall away. The seed that fell among the thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by life's worries, riches, and pleasures, and they do not mature.
But the seed on the good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. No one lights a lamp and hides it in a clay jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, they put it on a stand so that those who come in can see the light. For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.
Therefore, consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more, and whoever does not have, even what they think they have, will be taken from them.
Now Jesus' mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. And someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, and they want to see you." And Jesus replied, "My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice."
Amen. In Luke chapter 8, Luke is recording for us events of Jesus' teaching ministry. We've seen this so far, that Jesus has worked miracles.
Jesus' Traveling Ministry
And he has performed wondrous deeds, and he's also spoken. The last time we see him speaking at length is in the Sermon on the Mount in chapter six. Then in chapter seven, he encounters different people, showing how that sermon works its way out in the lives of people.
Now Jesus is moving on. It says, after this, he traveled about from one town and one village to another. We don't know how much time has elapsed because Luke is being selective in his biography of Jesus. But we do know that Jesus is going from place to place around Galilee, teaching his gospel.
The Concept of Compound Interest
And in this section, he's going to teach in particular how people respond to his gospel in using a parable as we think about this in our context. Consider this illustration as we begin.
Compound interest has made Warren Buffett the ninth wealthiest person in the world. He bought his first stock at the age of 11. Now at 95 years old, he's worth approximately $150 billion. The growth of his net worth is mostly attributed to the power of compound interest and the longevity of his investments, with almost 88% of his wealth being generated after the age of 65.
Compound interest simply means that you earn interest on the money that you have already saved and on the new interest that you earn in the future. You invest an initial sum of money, you earn interest on your investment, and the total value keeps increasing over time. According to Forbes, if you were to invest $100 at the S&P 500 index at the start of 1928, that investment in the year 2023 would be worth $787,000 because of the power of compound interest.
Yet, for all the financial power of compound interest and the wealth that it generates, this same wealth becomes worthless to the investor the moment they die. This is not to say that a wealthy person like Warren Buffett cannot leave money for his family or give money away to charity or designate some for businesses or even give more for government taxes. But it is to say that Warren Buffett himself cannot take any of his earthly wealth into eternity. Death will permanently separate him, or any of us, from our earthly resources.
During Jesus' life on earth, he invested his time and his ministry by spreading the word of God and investing it into the lives of people that he touched all across Palestine. The Gospel of Luke records for us the different ways that Jesus made these investments. He performed miracles and he healed people. He cast demons out of people that were oppressed. He was able to cure sicknesses that were incurable. He raised the dead to life again, and he forgave sins of sinners that were desperate in their guilt and shame.
And Jesus invested further by preaching his gospel and kingdom. Jesus' investment strategy impacted all kinds of people. He called 12 unlikely disciples that are referenced here in the first three verses of chapter 8. He also invested in a Roman centurion that we met in chapter 7 by healing his son. He invested in a widow who goes unnamed but whose son had died, and he raised the son back to life. He also invested in his imprisoned cousin, John the Baptist, offering him assurance that his ministry was not in vain. And he forgave an unknown prostitute of her sins when she came weeping in the presence of Jesus.
Jesus called Pharisees, scribes, and sinners all to repentance, and he preached the gospel both to Jews and Gentiles. Jesus' ministry brought the word of God to a climax where the ultimate compounding interest results in your salvation and mine. Think of the generations of Christians since the time of Christ that have faithfully believed the gospel and shared it with those who came after them down to the present day where we are now. This is an incredible amount of compounding interest. This is an incredible investment that God's word continues to reverberate through human history.
And this is the good news of God that Jesus Christ was declaring town to town and village to village that he was indeed the Messiah who had come to save people from their sins. As Jesus made this investment, he invested in all kinds of people, both Jews and Gentiles, men and women, rich and poor, healthy and ill, as adults and children. And all of them heard God's word and some of them obeyed.
However, not everyone who hears the word of God and hears the gospel believes and obeys it. Jesus, the Son of God, proclaimed this truth everywhere that he went, but only a small number of people actually believed his good news and followed him. Most of the crowds merely listened to Jesus preach, and they completely ignored what he said or they scorned what he said. Ultimately, their hardened hearts were not receptive to his word and it did not yield any interest. As we look at this passage this morning, I want us to see that Christians are those who hear the word of God and obey it.
The Word Gathers Disciples
And I see in this passage four ways in which the word of God elicits a response—four ways that the word of God elicits a response. And the first is this: the word of God gathers disciples.
The word of God gathers disciples here in the first three verses of chapter eight. After Jesus has just had dinner at Simon the Pharisee's house and forgiven an unknown woman, he continues traveling from house to house, from synagogue to synagogue, from open-air meeting to open-air meeting, and he was proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God, that those things that had been promised from the prophets of old were now finding fulfillment in his ministry. He was offering sinners the forgiveness of their sins and calling them to follow him.
This was being acknowledged because back in chapter seven, those who were at Simon's house said, "Who is this that even forgives sins?" They understood that what Jesus was saying, that he was God, and he was offering something that no priest or rabbi, that no religious man, could possibly give. He was giving them forgiveness for the wrong things they had done against God, the things that riddled their hearts with guilt, the things that trapped their minds in shame—could be forgiven through the grace of Jesus.
Well, as Jesus is preaching this message, this word of God is starting to gather disciples. Luke reiterates that the 12 were with him at this point. These are the men that we're first introduced in Luke's gospel in chapter 6 before his sermon on the mount, this unlikely band of followers that Jesus called from the different parts of society. And here they are with him, hanging on his words and marveling at his teaching. They're observing his miracles and being wowed by his power.
Yet Luke says that there are more than just men with him. It says that there were also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. This shows Jesus' humanity and his concern not only for men, which would have been common in the first century, but that he also noticed women. This would have been uncommon in the first century. As there were swelling crowds everywhere Jesus went, there were more people crowding to get close to him, demanding his time and his attention, wanting their needs to be met, wanting their cause to be lifted up. And yet Jesus is careful to have these 12 men and this handful of women that are with him, and he ministers to them in spite of the thronging crowds that surround them.
Luke highlights women more than any of the other gospels as they participated in the ministry of Jesus. The women that he introduces here, Mary Magdalene, is one that he says had seven demons. This means that this lady was completely oppressed and overcome by demonic forces, and yet Jesus liberated her from them. He didn't look past her; he had compassion on her. This Mary Magdalene is not the unnamed prostitute from chapter 7. This is also not Mary of Bethany that's mentioned in a similar account later in John's Gospel. But this is Mary from the city of Magdala in Galilee. And this lady had come to Jesus and Jesus rescued her.
Luke also introduces us to Joanna. Joanna, he says, in this context, was the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod's household. This lady was someone who had access to both Roman and potentially Jewish political power, and she was a person of means because she and the others were using their money to support Jesus and his ministry. We don't know a lot more about her, but we do know that Mary Magdalene and Joanna are some of the first eyewitnesses of the resurrection. They're at the empty tomb and Jesus has resurrected and they run to tell the disciples of what they have witnessed.
A remarkable thing that Jesus drew these women close to his inner circle. He invested in them and they were very much a part of his ministry. He also goes on here to name Susanna and says many others who gave their lives to Jesus. The point is, these ladies, along with the men, called Jesus' 12 disciples, heard the good news of the kingdom and they responded to it. They responded with their obedience, hearing what Jesus said and aligning their lives with what he had for them. They were people who heard the good news and lived according to it.
What's significant in this context is that these believers were loyal to Jesus with every part of their lives. Think about the example that he lays out here of the women, that they were helping support the disciples out of their own means. In the first century, whether Israel or Rome, women were not to support men. Women depended on men. But these women were so transformed by Jesus' good news, and they had some level of means that they gave willingly of their financial resources to spread the gospel. It doesn't mean that Jesus and the disciples depended solely on women, but it is to say that God used their gifts and their resources to provide the needs for his ministry.
When Jesus proclaimed the gospel of good news, declaring his kingdom, this message crossed all natural barriers that people erect. It crossed a gender barrier where men had said women are inferior. And Jesus said women are equal daughters as are the sons before him.
And now it's also going to cut across other barriers where Jesus had called fishermen and tax collectors to leave their boats and booths. He had called poor women and politically connected women. And he continues to gather all kinds of people even to this day. Jesus is attracting people from every tribe, every tongue, and every nation, it says in the book of Revelation, all to his incredible glory.
And when these disciples respond, when we respond to the good news of Jesus, we also willingly and generously give of our resources to spread the gospel. Notice there's not an amount here that Jesus said, and these women gave 10%, or these women gave whatever number. It just says that they gave out of their means. The point is, when we understand the magnitude of what we've been given in the gospel, there is not enough we can give.
Now that is not to say that we need to drain our bank accounts and form some kind of cult, but it is to say that we should not be miserly with our money if we are convinced that the gospel is what it says that it is. These women were certainly of different social strata. I would imagine Mary Magdalene, who we don't know a lot about, because of being demon-possessed, would not have had access to the kind of resources that Joanna did. And yet both are counted as women who gave.
As we respond to the gospel, we want to be people who hear the message and demonstrate that we understand it through our obedience. And that obedience comes by first associating with a group of believers that we would say is the local church, and then that further works its way out and that we fund the ministry of the local church.
This morning, we just finished our intro to MCC class, which is where we lay out the distinctives of our church, what we believe about the gospel and ministry, and where we talk about what church life looks like. And I've told the folks in our intro class that our church depends on the gifts of our members, that we can only spend what our members generously provide. We have no outside source of income that comes to us from a denomination. We don't have a grant from a large trust. We don't have all kinds of extra financial instruments. We have your generosity. And that is what God ordains it to be.
And God does the work through the church. And what an incredible thing that we have the privilege to support missionary families that live overseas. We give over $80,000 a year regularly to international missions and church planting. That is an incredible thing. We've taken special offerings this past year for Lottie Moon Christmas offering for international missions, recently for North American missions through the Annie Armstrong offering. These are both above and beyond our regularly budgeted $80,000. And you as a church have stood to give generously. All of that shows that we hear the gospel, we believe the gospel, and we obey the gospel.
As Jesus is sharing this teaching, he's always sharing what it looks like in the lives of people. Now that he's established that the word of God gathers disciples around the gospel, the second thing that he makes clear in these verses, verses 4 through 15, is that the word of God divides listeners.
The Word Divides Listeners
The word of God divides listeners. While on the one hand, the word of God gathers disciples, on the other hand, it divides people into those who are disciples versus those who are not. In this section of Luke 8, Jesus, or Luke records Jesus' first official parable. A parable is something that teaches a profound truth with a simple story or illustration. From this point forward, Jesus will use many parables to make his teaching both easy to understand yet hard to believe. Many people, including Jesus' own disciples, will struggle with his teaching through parables.
Yet, this particular parable of the sower is recorded in each of the synoptic gospels, that is, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And this parable helps us understand why some people believe while other people reject him. It says, beginning in verse 4, that while there was a large crowd gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town to town, he told them this parable. So in the presence of a large group with everyone listening, both his opponents, the Pharisees, as well as those who were desperate to get near him because they were ill or had some kind of malady, Jesus spoke to them about a farmer, his seed, and some soil.
He says in the parable that a farmer went out to sow his seed. Some fell on the path, some fell on rocky ground, some among thorns, and some on good ground. At this point, most of the general listeners probably had a reasonable understanding and could even imagine a farmer's seed landing on different patches of ground. Whether you're a farmer or not, whether you've had a garden or not, you can picture the same thing. But they may have also realized that what happened when that seed hit different kinds of soils, it would react differently.
The seed on the hard path would be walked on and taken away by birds, producing absolutely no plants. The seed on the rocks would quickly sprout, but soon it would wither and go away. The seed that was growing among the thorns would eventually be overpowered by the rival plants. And the seed that was planted in the good soil would produce a bumper crop, he says a hundredfold. That is an incredible harvest.
But when Jesus abruptly ended this parable, what seemed like a story about a farmer and some seed and some soil became very serious because he stopped short and he said, "Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear." Immediately thinking people would say, "What do you mean? Of course we heard you. We've gathered to hang on every word you say. Your voice is audible and we can listen to what you say." But that's not what Jesus meant at all.
Instead, he was using this parable to help his disciples understand the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God, verse number 10, and to hide this same information from other listeners. And he invokes Isaiah chapter 6, where Isaiah is condemning the people for their idolatrous hearts, where they resisted God. The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God here simply means that Jesus was revealing what had been hidden to previous generations. This was not a riddle to solve. He was not giving them a puzzle to break. Instead, he was making known to them how he fulfilled scripture.
Jesus was now disclosing how his kingdom works. He was saying the good news of the kingdom flourishes in good soil, but it dies in bad soil. And the same good news does not make any sense to people who reject him. That's why he said in verse 11 that this seed is the word of God. The gospel seed was being thrown all about, all around the field, on the good parts of the field as well as the bad parts of the field. And as it was landing, it was not always taking root in the first three types of soil. But the seed was taking root and bearing a great harvest in the fourth kind of soil.
And that's because the word of God divides listeners. So how does it divide them? Well, very simply, if you look in this section beginning in verse number 11 and following, it shows how that happens. Jesus says essentially, the hard heart of the path is a heart that rejects the gospel. Verse 12, those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved.
Before I explain that, let me back up and say what Luke quoted, or Jesus quoted, Isaiah chapter 6, when he said that some will hear this message and though seeing they will not see, though hearing, they will not hear. In other words, some will be presented the same gospel message, the same evidence for Christ, and they'll reject it out of hand because they will not have been given spiritual eyes to see Jesus and spiritual ears to hear Jesus. That's why in verse 12, when he says that those along the path, there's those who hear, but then the devil comes and takes it away from their hearts so that they cannot believe and be saved.
These are hard-hearted people who reject the gospel. The Pharisees and other religious leaders in Israel rejected Jesus out of hand. They were looking for ways to trap him and accuse him of heresy. Satan had blinded them with their religious traditions, their knowledge of the Old Testament, and their own self-righteousness. To paraphrase what the Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy, they had a form of godliness, but they denied the power thereof. Satan was actively preventing them from understanding.
This continues to happen in our own day, that there are people who hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and they immediately react to it with scorn, derision, or even dismissal. And they have all the answers, even all the excuses. And really what they have is the voice of Satan who says, "Did God really say? Does God really mean that? Is he actually capable of doing that?" And just as Adam and Eve were deceived in the garden, people in every generation have been deceived and fooled about the gospel. So be careful lest you have the hard heart that rejects the gospel.
But there's a second kind of heart here, and that's in verse 13. This is a shallow heart on rocky ground that quits the gospel. He says, those on the rocky ground are ones who receive the word with joy, and when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing, they fall away. There were large crowds rallying around Jesus because of his miracles. Maybe even because of the excitement of the crowd, that they just wanted to check it out and see what was going on. Some of them listened enthusiastically at first and said, "This is incredible. We've never heard a teacher like this." Maybe they watched this miracle and thought, "We've never seen power like that."
And yet, over time, even though they responded with delight and even joy at the beginning, most of them eventually walked away. They quit the gospel. They heard it, but when suffering and opposition came, they no longer wanted to be associated with it. Perhaps these are people who wanted political liberation from Rome. Maybe they had some kind of desire for Jesus to be a political messiah or some other kind of personal messiah, but not the Messiah who would forgive their sins. So they left Jesus when he failed to meet their personal expectations.
And people continue to do this today. They hear a gospel presentation and perhaps in the emotion of the moment, something going on in their life, they respond and they're even excited and they're on fire for a season, telling everybody they can about Jesus, inviting people to come to church. But then when the headwinds of suffering come into their life, their enthusiasm wanes. And then when trouble comes or when doubts bother them or when other things assail them, they back away into silence and they quit the gospel.
Jesus is warning all who are listening to this message, but the disciples in particular, since they've asked what it means, that there are people who are hard-hearted who just say no to Jesus. But then there are people who are shallow-hearted who say yes and then no to Jesus.
And then thirdly, there's a distracted heart of thorns that neglects the gospel. Verse 14. The seed that fell among the thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way, they're choked by life's worries, riches, and pleasures, and they do not mature. There were other people such as Simon the Pharisee that we saw in chapter 7 and the rich young ruler who comes in chapter 18 who had expressed some interest in Jesus, but they would not follow Jesus because of the cares of this world. Jesus told the rich young ruler to go sell everything that he had to follow him. And the man who had boasted of all of his righteous accomplishments, "Look what I've done for the poor. Look that I've not committed adultery. Look that I've done this and I've done that." When confronted with his complacency and his comfort, he rejected Christ.
This is common, that they let short-term opportunities in the present keep them away from eternal salvation. They were distracted. They let the cares of this world and all of its entanglements choke out the gospel. This is perhaps one of the greatest temptations that we face in our own era, that we have so many things pulling at us, whether it be family commitments, financial obligations, career ambitions, or you name it, all of those things that can be good in their place can also pull us away from Jesus. Perhaps it's the Christian businessman who starts traveling a few days a year. And then the employer starts upping the stakes and now you're traveling 15 days out of the month instead of five, maybe 20 days out of the month. And before you know it, they'll have you on the road constantly. And meanwhile, that can be an entanglement that takes you away from Jesus. I'm not saying it has to, but it can. The same is true of family.
Family can become a very demanding taskmaster if it becomes our idol. That we have to go to this event and that event, and now something's happening with this kid and that grandkid and that cousin and that third cousin. Before you know it, you're so consumed in family that you don't have time for Christ in the church.
There are other concerns that the world has. Those are positive things that can take us away, but they're also the worries of life. Perhaps it's bad health—that you've been diagnosed with one of those words like cancer, or perhaps some other word like heart failure, or some mystery thing that's happening to you that you wish you had a diagnosis for.
All of those things are real and come with consequences that can limit your ability to participate. I do not diminish that, but they should not choke out the word of God in our lives. A distracted heart is one that neglects the gospel because the cares of the world overtake it. Yet Jesus commends the fourth heart.
The Receptive Heart of Soil
And the fourth heart is the receptive heart of fertile soil that obeys the gospel. It says here, "But the seed of the good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart who hear the word, who retain the word and by persevering produce a crop."
There were a small handful who followed Jesus and obeyed his teachings. In this context, it's just the 12 disciples and the three women and perhaps a few others. That illustrate that the word of God is landed in good soil. No doubt, Jesus by this time had preached to thousands of people who had gathered at different places around Galilee. And yet, these three stand as the examples that he offers of people whose lives were bearing fruit produced by the Holy Spirit and leading to a bountiful harvest. They heard the word of God and they obeyed it.
Everybody in our world lives by faith in something or someone. The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is not whether or not a person has faith. Christians and non-Christians alike have faith, but the difference is the object of our faith. A Christian puts our faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior from our sins, that we can confess to him the wrong things we have done and find forgiveness. And we see all of this in the word of God. So a believer in Jesus Christ puts our confidence, our trust, and our faith in him.
But a non-Christian puts their faith in other things. Perhaps they put their faith in the good works that they do to compensate for the guilt that they feel. Perhaps they put their faith in technology, that there will somehow be a transhumanism that will help us rise above our physical limitations. Perhaps they simply put their faith in their stock portfolio and think, "If I can amass enough money, I'll be able to relax and live a comfortable life out through my retirement." Whatever it is, there's only one faith that saves us, and that is faith in Jesus Christ.
And Jesus is writing here to commend all who are listening to him, but especially the disciples who've asked what his parable meant, that we must hear the word of God and obey the word of God. R.C. Sproll observes this: "If there's no fruit in your life, it's clear that there's no Christian faith in your life. For if there's any true, justifying faith in your heart, there will always be spiritual fruit." While it may be true that not every believer will produce the same amount of fruit, it must be true that the Holy Spirit will bear spiritual fruit in the life of every Christian. That is, every Christian who trusts Jesus Christ for our salvation from our sins must be the good soil of Jesus that yields a bountiful harvest: the harvest of righteousness that we're transformed from the inside out in our character, and a harvest of gospel proclamation that we share the good news with others.
Darrell Bach makes this point on the same passage. He says the picture of the word as seen is important. The picture of the word as a seed is important. Often we think of evangelism and preaching as something that happens in an instant, but the picture of a seed makes us think of a farmer who prepares the ground, sows seed, waters it, and then waits for a crop. Producing a crop takes time, and often the message of the word takes time to bear fruit. Think of it, Jesus preached for three and a half years around Palestine, and what did he have to show for it when he was crucified on the cross? There was a very small number of disciples, and even in those last moments, Peter betrayed him. Jesus did not bear an abundant harvest in his own lifetime, but he invested with compound interest. And that interest started to bear fruit in the lives of his disciples who then told the gospel and made more disciples, working out the great commission that we are the beneficiaries of and the ones that we also bless others by working on ourselves.
The word of God yields compound interest in our lives over a lifetime, and it's innumerable. That's because Christians hear and obey God's word. God's word gathers disciples. It divides listeners. And then Jesus gives a parallel parable in verses 16 to 18 to say the word of God reveals our motives. The word of God reveals our motives. We won't linger long on this, but in this parable, about the light of a lamp that should not be hidden, Jesus is now extending his point from the previous parable. He's expecting his disciples to share what he was teaching them. He was comparing the word of God to a bright lamp that needed to be put on a stick to drive out the darkness in the middle of the night. He says, who would possibly consider hiding this light? Whether they would put it under a basket or under a bed? That's absurd. No, they would share the light because the light helps people to see. Jesus is comparing his followers to bright lamps who shine forth the gospel.
Since we have heard and believed the word of God, we too must see that this light is spread. We must share the light and hope of Jesus amid a dark and dying world. And we must do this so people can see Christ's beautiful righteousness, his holy perfection, and our sinful shortcomings. And in seeing that, we can help them see that they can have the sweetness of forgiveness in Jesus.
And Jesus says with this, therefore, verse 18, consider carefully how you listen. In other words, God is going to hold everyone accountable for their sin and response to the word of God. He's telling us through this word to his disciples that we must receive his word and obey it.
James says something similar in his letter when he said we should be doers of the word and not hearers only. For those who believe, more will be given, he says. But for those who do not believe, what they think they have, that will be taken from them. In other words, on the day of judgment, all will be revealed. The word of God will pierce to the very core of our being and show what we really believed and what we've really done.
The author of Hebrews in chapter 4 says it the same way. He says, "For the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to the dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.
It has been said that while we read the Bible, the Bible reads us. The Bible exposes our innermost thoughts, our secret motives, and it reveals our desperate need for salvation. The Bible reveals us and knows what kind of soil our heart is, and it gives us the hope that we can have in Christ for his righteousness, that our sin can be given or is dealt with at his cross, and we can be given his sinless perfection.
The Word Requires Obedience
Ultimately, the word of God reveals who we truly are so we can embrace who we really need, and that is Christ. So Christians hear and obey the word, and we share the word because it reveals us and it helps us understand what other people need.
And the last thing I see in this passage is the word of God requires our obedience. The word of God requires our obedience. I've been saying it throughout. But in the middle of Jesus' teaching and his miracle ministry, his mother and his brothers come to see him, but they're not able to get close, even though they can pull the family card and say, "We want to get close to Jesus. We're related to him." They cannot make their way through. The crowd is so thick. There are so many people thronging around Jesus. Someone spoke up for them. They saw that they were trying to break through and relayed to Jesus that his mother and brothers were wanting to come and speak to him.
But Jesus replied in verse number 21, "My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice." Jesus was not dismissing Mary and his half-brothers or sisters. Instead, he was not trying to put a point on it that they were no longer connected or associated to him. But he was saying his relationship with anyone who hears the word of God and puts it into practice is like a family relationship. And it adds extra mothers and extra brothers into an extended family. That is, when we hear God's word and we obey it, then we become God's children, a part of his family. If we hear God's word and do not obey it, then he will exclude us from his family. But if we hear it, and we follow what it says, it will produce a great harvest in our lives. And God will use us to produce more disciples. It's in this way that we share the good news of the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God keeps growing from person to person.
In the introduction, I referenced compound interest and Warren Buffett's incredible wealth, over $150 billion. I also said that Buffett may leave an inheritance for his family. He can designate money for charity. He can fund future business ventures. He can even give additional government taxes. But I also said Buffett can't take any of his wealth with him into eternity. The only wealth that you and I can carry into eternity is the word of God and Christ's righteousness. When Christians receive God's word and we obey it, it produces a great harvest beyond measure. It transforms us from the inside out.
So what do you believe about the word of God? Are you a hard-hearted listener who ignores it like the path where nothing will grow and simply dismisses it out of hand as if it's not even worthy of your consideration? If so, let me beg of you to consider it. Read the Bible. I've had several people over the years that I've challenged and said, "Just read the Bible with me." And they've said, "I don't want to do it because I know what it's going to require of me." I think that's interesting for people who've not read it, but they're intimidated by it. Don't be intimidated. Read it.
Or are you a person who is stony-hearted? Who hears the gospel and gets excited about it but quits when it gets hard? Let me beg of you not to be a quitter, not to be someone who only follows Jesus when it's comfortable and easy, but let the root of the gospel go deeply into your heart and transform your life. Or are you a thorny-hearted listener who neglects the word of God? Someone who says, "Life is just too busy. My career is too hard. My health is poor. My money is tight. I just don't have time for it right now." Don't be that person. Instead, be the person who is a good-hearted listener, who obeys Christ, who retains it, he says here, and who proclaims it with all your being.
Christians are those who receive God's word and it produces a great harvest. Each of us are here this morning because a Christian shared God's word with us and it has produced a harvest. My prayer is that harvest would bear much fruit through your life and through our life together. That God would do incredible things to use us to reach people that we can't reach by ourselves, but we can reach as a family of God. Because God wants to use His Word to gather His people, to divide listeners, and to help us all understand that we must receive the gospel and we must obey the gospel.
Let's pray. Father, as we consider this passage, we pray that we would be the good soil. Help our hearts to be responsive to your word. Help us to be open to what it says, that we would confess our sins and forsake them, trusting Christ for forgiveness and accepting his perfect righteousness.
God, I pray that you would help us to not only believe this, but that we would persevere in it, that we would continue in this no matter what may happen in our lives. And then help us to proclaim it with all of our might with all the people that you've assigned to us to share it with.
I pray that we would be the kind of church that is sending out the gospel in one-on-one conversations as well as through missionaries on the other side of the world. Whatever form it takes, I pray that we would be found faithful as Christians who have received the Word of God and Christians who obey the Word of God.
And we pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.