Going Deeper
Ears to Hear (8-15-15)
Grab your Bible and let’s go deeper into Mark 4:
Read: Mark 4:1-3 “Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. 2And he was teaching them many things in parables… and in his teaching he said to them: 3‘Listen! A sower went out to sow.’”
The main point Jesus is making in this parable is one of hearing. When you read the entire chapter, you will see the main point that Jesus is talking about is the importance of and means of our hearing the gospel.
Now, the hearing he speaks of is not just a hearing with the ears. It is a hearing with the heart.
The varying receptiveness and readiness of the heart is the issue as to whether or not the gospel will take!
We are also going to see that it is God’s authority that ultimately decides who hears and who doesn’t which is fitting for how Mark is portraying Jesus in the first 8 chapters as the supreme KING.
Look with me at
Mark 7:4
4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.)
(ESV)
as we are introduced to the first heart condition.
- Hardened Soil – Hard Heart
Mark 4:4 “And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.”
Mark 4:15 “And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.”
This path represents a hard heart- A heart that is tight and solid and rigid and cold and not pliable.
It is a person who on the outside looks alive and maybe fun and vibrant, but on the inside, their heart is closed off and rigid and cold and dead.
If you are this person then, when you hear the gospel, it is with the ears on your head only because your heart rejects its truth and is not ready to receive it. It is snatched away by the enemy before God changes your heart to reconsider.
Some practical examples of this for today:
- You hear the words of the gospel but your affections are so stirred for something else that the gospel of Jesus is just not THE GOOD NEWS to you.
Guys– FOOTBALL SEASON. Mothers- New born baby Dating people– A love relationship
You hear the words but someone else snatches them away.
So, you go to lunch after church and it doesn’t take more than a meaningless convo about last weeks favorite TV episode for the gospel truth you just heard in your ears to be completely out of mind before it even gets to the heart.
Some people can even be regular attendees of church, but in the end, the good news has not scratched the surface. It doesn’t matter how good the preacher is if the sovereign God has not changed the heart from stone to flesh.
God says clearly how he moves upon those He will save through his prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 36:26, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
For those who are reading this who have a hard heart or for those who are witnessing to others who have a hard heart- the command is to listen.
Jesus Opens the Parable with the word: LISTEN! This is super important! Keep listening… keep watching the gospel lived out in others around you who are mature in Christ. If you are the one sharing it to the person with the hard heart, keep sharing it even though they are turned off because we don’t know if or when God will regenerate a dead heart to flesh and thereby making it ready to receive the good news.
Now, there’s a 2nd scenario and this one can be troubling when we are honest with what Jesus is saying.
- Rocky Soil – Shallow Heart
Mark 4:5-6 “Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. 6And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away.”
Mark 4:16-17 “And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. 17And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.”
This seed lands in soil that is shallow due to all the other rocks and stuff in it.
When seed lands in shallow soil, the person says, “Yes. Thank You.”, but it never actually takes and produces growth.
Let’s say it another way- the initial response to hearing the gospel is excitement, but when hardship or trials come- because the receiving is a more emotional receiving and there is no real ROOT- the seed withers and the plant never grows.
He is talking about men and women who can point back to an event and say, “I said the prayer, I walked down the aisle for an alter call, I heard the message, or I grew up in the church. I remember saying yes to Jesus, but from that moment on I have had no objective evidences of regeneration and conversion at all.” At most, over the years, this person has been conformed to a moral pattern or church culture but have not been regenerated or transformed by the Holy Spirit of God.
To this person, the gospel was a good “idea” or an emotional momentary “experience”, but it did not take ROOT. It did not transform the way the gospel does when it truly is taken in.
What Jesus is saying here is that there are men and women who point back to this moment where they received a gospel message with joy, but they never developed roots and when hard times blow through, your roots in faith in God prove to be non-existent. This is what the Bible commonly calls a “dullness of hearing”.
The promises come to the ear, but there is no passion for the promises, no lover’s embrace, no cherishing or treasuring, no real faith and therefore, no perseverance.
This is like hearing the Bible or the preaching of the Bible the way you hear the freeway noise near your house or the way you hear music in the dentist’s office waiting room. You hear it, but you don’t. You have grown dull to the sound. It does not awaken or produce anything.
There is a placebo effect when it comes to religion that is dangerous.
It is an inoculation (baby shot)- a small dose of something so your body can adjust to it, so that you don’t fully get it.
This placebo or inoculation for many people is their:
*church attendance, *prayer life, *financial giving, *routine confession from sin, *effort to do good things.
The problem is that the placebo, inoculation, or routine religious experiences are not what save you or transform your heart. The real sickness is not addressed. Jesus is not really the LORD of your life.
You said yes to the “idea of the seed growing in you”, but the actual seed never took ROOT. It never transformed your soil with sustaining plant growth.
**If this is you** If your faith is much more about religion (obeying so I can get God’s acceptance) than it is about the gospel (recognizing I am accepted so that I have the power to obey), what you need is to go back to the cross and discover what you missed the first time that has you longing after the world for identity and hope and not rooted in Jesus.
Let’s keep going… Soil number 3…
- Thorny Soil – Preoccupied Heart
Mark 4:7 “Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.”
Mark 4:18-19 “And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, 19but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.”
Preoccupied Heart- This kind of soil is the kind that is crowded with other affections.
This person believes they have received the seed. They have said yes to the gospel and are taking real steps to grow in their walk with God, but it never produces true life change.
WHY? Because what the gospel is to them is just religion. It is something they add to their life. It doesn’t radically change their life. The gospel cannot be just one plant of many you are trying to grow in your soil.
This is the person who says yes to Jesus, but also says yes to other functional saviors. This is the compartmentalized Christian life that just won’t produce fruit.
This is what Jesus described when he said, “Who is your Master? You cannot serve both God and money”.
Your heart is trying to worship Jesus in principle, but you really have multiple idols that you worship. In the end, you have not truly made Jesus the Lord of your life.
The passage says that you take the seed in, but you are also clinging to “cares of the world”, “riches”, and “desires”.
All of these end up being thorns that choke out the one thing that can truly transform- the one thing that can truly bring lasting life and joy- the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In Romans 1:21 we see this described:
Romans 1:21 “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him,
Mark 7:25
25 But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet.
(ESV)
because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”
Let me define idolatry for you real quick as **A substitute or counterfeit God – something in the creation that is inflated to function as God- something that has become more fundamental than God in your life for your identity, personal significance, sense of security, purpose for living, or finding in Him our happiness and joy.**
Do you see how some might claim to have Jesus, but these things are choking them out?
The other idols of the heart are the roots that are truly deep in their life. It’s not the gospel that is deep.
This person has to see their idols are killing them. They cannot give us the salvation we believe they will give nor the joy we hope they will give. We have to expose them and then replace them.
See the third person, the thorny soil still has not given their life to Jesus. They are trying to add him to the alter of the other idols of their lives. While there is some devotion to the things of God, there is not true and lasting transformation. They have not truly been born again by the gospel. They have added religion to their lives and are trying to balance God with everything else.
With that, let’s look at the final soil…
- Good soil- Readied Heart
Mark 4:8 “And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
Mark 4:20 “But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
This is the picture of the readied heart.
The question is: How do we truly hear the Word and then cultivate the soil of the readied heart?
First we must understand: God is ultimately in charge of who hears and who doesn’t.
Now, this is not a popular way to look at how God works. But, I’m much more concerned with being honest with God’s Word than pleasing people. So, I must be faithful to what Jesus is saying here and not put my own twist on it for the sake of making everyone feel comfortable.
Look with me at the middle of our passage at
Mark 7:10-12
10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)—12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother,
(ESV)
because we need to see what happens right after Jesus finishes preaching the parable to the crowd and not skip it.
Mark 4:10 “And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.”
**Now Jesus answers, but listen to where Jesus takes them with his answer:
Mark 4:11-12 “11And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, 12so that (and he quotes from Isaiah) ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”
In Isaiah 6:9-10, God tells Isaiah that his ministry to Israel will be saving for some, but hardening for others. The time had run out for Isaiah’s people and the Word of God was, by God’s will, no longer going to be effective to save them. Instead it would render their hearts insensitive and their ears dull.
*This is a very boggling reference Jesus uses at first glance. It is one that man gets hung up on because we want to box God in and believe that “God doesn’t cause some to not hear this gospel”.
But, Jesus is saying very clearly here that, to those whom Jesus has chosen, they will hear.
And to those God has not chosen, they might hear with their ears, but they will not hear with their heart.
Some will twist this to say that this means the SAVED WILL UNDERSTAND AND THE UNSAVED WILL NOT. But Jesus has not gone to the cross yet. Jesus simply knows who will be saved and who will not. And he is saying here in
Mark 7:11
11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)—
(ESV)
and 12 that one of the reasons he uses parables is “so that” when some hear, they may not understand.
So… every time the Scriptures are taught, every time the Word of God goes out, by God’s providence it has a softening effect on some and a hardening effect on others because God’s going to display both His mercy and His justice. If you are wrestling with this, Paul is clear in Romans 9 that there is no injustice in God’s sovereign will to choose some and not others (specifically in, Romans 9:11-23). We have to be careful to do what Paul’s audience in Romans 9 is doing which is to challenge that a good and holy God would not work this way. I will simply say, “Who are we to tell him what is holy and just and right? He is God and we are his creation.”
In Isaiah 55:8-9, God affirms that His sovereign ways and thoughts are higher than ours. It is important when we come face to face with these kinds of workings of God that we humble ourselves before our mighty King rather than arrogantly think we know better.
So, how do we truly hear the Word & then cultivate the soil of the readied heart?
- God is ultimately in charge of who hears and who doesn’t.
Mark 7:20
20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him.
(ESV)
shows us three things that go with cultivating the soil of the readied heart.
Mark 4:20 “but those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
“Hear the word”:
We need to listen to the Word—just as Jesus commanded his listeners to do as he began to teach this parable.
We need to read the Scriptures ourselves and sit under good preaching and teaching of God’s Word if we are going to hear the WORD. The bible says that faith comes by hearing.
In other words, you will not ever have faith if you first do not listen and hear.
Make it personal for you today:
Do you hunger for God’s Word? Is this a regular practice for you?
Are you spending time with people who get the gospel and reveal the gospel in their lives?
“Accept it”-
“Accept it” in the Greek is better translated to “take in” or to “delight in”.
The ones who hear the Word and delight in it, for them, it is GOOD NEWS to their soul.
We need to savor and swallow and digest the gospel and be satisfied in it.
This is the miraculous spiritual event of loving what once you hated.
“Taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm 34:8)
Are you feasting on the things of the world or on the things of God?
There are hundreds of big events and exciting things that are worth enjoying and celebrating in this life: the birth of a child, a meal at your favorite restaurant, vacation, a new bike, a clean bill of health, a bonus at work, a new job, an engagement, a wedding, a change in habits or lifestyle, sex with your spouse, a good report card at the end of a quarter, and on and on.
But the question is: Is the GOOD NEWS of Jesus THE BEST NEWS in your life at any given time?
Don’t just hear it and be done. The good soil, the readied heart, takes it in- delights in it!
“Bear fruit”-
In
Mark 7:8
8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
(ESV)
, Jesus says the good soil that takes in the gospel produces grain. In
Mark 7:20
20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him.
(ESV)
, he says the good soil bears fruit. Whether grain or fruit, both represent the harvest of the plant. It is what the plant is designed to produce. When God takes hold of our heart and we delight in him, He produces harvest in us. “The fruit is the proof of the soil you’re in.” Lasting fruit is only produced by the one whom God gave ears to hear- “the readied soil”.
Matthew 7 says, by one’s fruit you will know who they really are!
In other words, many will claim Jesus, go to church, carry a Bible in their hand, even quote Scripture, but their actions and transformation- their harvest- will be the evidence of a life deeply rooted in the rich soil.
Because when you take the gospel into readied soil, it changes everything- transforming your heart and life from self–centered to other-centered.
Look at the transforming power of those that God saves.
See the supernatural growth (30-,60- or 100-fold) that comes from just one person whom God saves.
Why is all this good news?
When God opens our ears to hear and receive the gospel, we are a part of the kingdom of God where life and love blossom and where harvest in our lives glorifies God and blesses others with fruit to see and eat and enjoy.
This is good news because, in the end, it is not our labor or work that produces a life of meaning and restoration of all things. It is God at work in and through us. He is the Sower. His gospel is the power and we are the clay in his hands being molded and made ready in his perfect timing.
The image Jesus chooses for the gospel in this parable is not a bomb, not a hammer- it’s a seed.
But a seed- something so gentle and so dainty. WHY?
Jesus said it himself in John
Mark 12
The Parable of the Tenants
12:1 And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. 6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this Scripture:
“‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
11 this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
12 And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.
Paying Taxes to Caesar
13 And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. 14 And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” 15 But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16 And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” 17 Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.
The Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection
18 And Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question, saying, 19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 20 There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring. 21 And the second took her, and died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise. 22 And the seven left no offspring. Last of all the woman also died. 23 In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.”
24 Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? 25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27 He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.”
The Great Commandment
28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.
Whose Son Is the Christ?
35 And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? 36 David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared,
“‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet.”’
37 David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly.
Beware of the Scribes
38 And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces 39 and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, 40 who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
The Widow’s Offering
41 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. 43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
(ESV)
.
John 12:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
A seed only releases its power if it goes deep into the ground and dies.
This is what Jesus did for you and me! He broke through our hard surface. He went deeper than the rocks and broke through the idols of our heart to transform us from the inside out. He died so that we might live and flourish and bless others with the fruit he produces out of us.
It is our great privilege to be pursued by God with the blood of his only son when we did not deserve it- to be given ears to hear and soil ready to receive the gospel- to be sanctified and transformed by our great God so that the gospel can move through us in WORD and DEED.
We go out and preach the word boldly to unbelievers knowing that God will open dead hearts and make them ready as he perfectly has planned to. It is not up to us to press someone to say the prayer or to convince them to change. We just need to speak the gospel and call them to repentance and belief. For those whom God will save, he will in his perfect time!!!!
Soldiers for Jesus, you are saved and set free not because of you, but because of God.
You are able to serve and lead others because of the purifying and sanctifying work of the KING.
This is why we praise Him. Because as Romans 11 says, it is all from him and through him and to him.
It is the name of KING JESUS whom we celebrate and praise this day.
For He is the one who took our meaningless dirt and turned it into life producing eternal soil that springs forth a harvest for his glory and others’ joy!
By His grace and for His glory,
-Shepherd
Soldiers for Jesus MC
National Chaplain