If you would turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 8, Luke 8, 16 through 21. And following the reading of scripture, we will sing the Gloria Patri, which is printed in your bulletin. So please stand for the reading of God's holy word. No one lights a lamp and hides it in a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts 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 he thinks he has, will be taken away from him. 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 wanting to see you. And he replied, my mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice. And God will add his blessing to this reading of his word. Amen. Jesus has just taught the parable of the sower, and he concludes that parable in verse 8 with the statement, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And he underscores the importance of hearing, and the various soils were an illustration of how people were listening. The hard soil, the sieges bounced off. The shallow soil, they received it for a brief bit, but then tribulation came and it burned it up. the weedy soil where the soil was sown and the anxious cares of this world choked it out, and then the good soil that received the seed. And to underscore and further illumine Jesus' teaching in this parable, Luke gives us two different little vignettes, the parable of the lamb, and the incident of his family coming to see Jesus, trying to see him. So we have the parable of the lamp. In verse 16, no one lights a lamp and hides it in a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on a stand so that those who come in can see the light. Now, there are those passages in the New Testament that Communicate that the believers are lights. As Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five, he says, you are the light in this world. And you are not to cover over your light, your witness, your testimony, with a bushel barrel or somehow hide it. You are to let your light so shine, as Jesus said before men, that they will see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven. And Paul in Philippians chapter two urges on to Christians to work out their salvation with fear and trembling. For it's God who is working you to will and to do of his good pleasure, so that you would shine as lights in a crooked generation. So believers are lights. But in the context of this passage, What Jesus is communicating in this parable is that the Word of God is our light. And it's the calling of the church, it's the calling of preachers to hold up that light so that it can be seen by all those who are here. And it can demonstrate the glory of Almighty God. Psalm 119 says, the word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. And so it's the calling and the role. Jesus would have been doing that in his preaching. The apostles were to do that in their preaching. The church down through the ages is to hold up the light of God's word. This was something that Pharisees and Sadducees and the scribes were not doing. They were covering over the lamp. and with their many traditions and their hypocritical actions, they were covering over the light of God's truth. And Jesus said, no, you need to hold it up. And in holding up the light of God's truth, we're also holding up Christ. Because Jesus will say in John eight, I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. And so we, as we hold up the light of God's word, we are holding up the center point of that word, which is Christ. He's the center point of all the word from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation, throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, the person that needs to be lifted up is Christ. And for us to see his glory, And the church is supposed to hold up that light and not hide it. And the reason they do that, there's a couple things. One's an encouragement of what the Word's supposed to do. The other is both a promise and a warning of what the Word will do. The first thing is, The light is for revelation, just as if you're entering a darkened room, you turn the light on so you can see your way and not stumble and fall. The light is a revelation, says in verse 17, for there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. The word of God is a light. It illumines our path, it directs our way, helps us to know what path to walk, but it also uncovers the recesses of our own hearts. When the light shines, it points part of its light on you. In the recesses of your heart, what is hiding there? And the attitudes and actions and thoughts and inclinations of your heart and your life, what is that light revealing? That's part of the do it double-edged sword of the word, it's cutting. It's to bring you to conviction, it's to bring you to an awareness of what needs to be changed in your life, needs to be redeemed. And we have to hold up the light clearly so that it might shine its light on you and might bring revelation to what's going on in your heart and uncover those things and expose those things so that they might be dealt with and forgiven and repented of. And Jesus climaxes this parable in verse 18 by saying, therefore, consider carefully how you listen. You're here listening to a sermon today from a gravelly voice getting over a cold, but nevertheless, you're listening. How are you listening? Are you paying attention to what is said? Are you listening carefully? Those soils are a reminder that there are people that the seed is sown, but they're not listening. They hear the words. They hear the sound of the words, but it's not getting in. The word needs to get in, and then Jesus gives both a promise and a warning. The promise is whoever has will be given more. If you're receiving the word and your eyes are open and the Holy Spirit's at work, and in your heart and your mind with the truth, you will be blessed. And not only will you be blessed, but you'll get even more blessings. As you put that word into practice and you live that out in your life and let it sink deeply in your heart and in your mind, what you have will be added to and you will overflow with blessing by the word of God and the light of the word in your life. But then he gives that warning and whoever does not have Even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him. There are many people that sit in churches, and they think they're doing okay, and they're not listening, and they think they have the word, but they don't really have it, because it's not a part of their life. And Jesus says, well, what they think they have is going to be taken away. And so it's a warning to underscore Jesus' exhortation, therefore consider carefully how you hear. Are you listening? Is the light shining on you and are you listening to it or are you pushing it away? It's a very important truth that Jesus is underscoring that's part of God's word, the light must shine and it needs to shine in your heart and for you to see Christ. Well, following this parable, Jesus' mother and brothers come to see him and they're not able to get to him because there's a great crowd there. Matthew and Mark, when they are telling this story, they mention that they're concerned about Jesus. In some ways, think he's out of his mind, he's doing too much. They need to get him and take him home away from all this labor that he's doing. and get him some peace and quiet at home. And so the crowd that's near him says, hey, your mother and your brothers are outside wanting to talk to you, wanting to see you. And Jesus responds with the comment that, Those, my mother and brothers in verse 21, my mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice. Now it's not as though family ties are unimportant, they're a wonderful part of our life, but the spiritual connections are even more important. And we have an identity in our families, appearance and family traits and so forth, but the connection between the family of God is so much more deeper. Those who are truly Jesus' mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice. At that time in Jesus' life, his brothers and sisters didn't believe in him. Thankfully, in time, they did become believers. James, who we'll read from him in a minute, one of the brothers of Jesus, came to know the Lord. When the apostle James was martyred, Jesus' brother James became the preeminent person in the Jerusalem church. and his brother Jude authored another book of the New Testament. But higher than the family ties is the spiritual ties. And the characteristic of those who are part of God's family is they hear God's word and they put it into practice. Is that marking on you? Do you show the characteristics of God's family, that you hear God's Word and that you put it into practice, you do it. Well, how do we listen? I'd like to turn you to a parallel passage. Turn to James chapter 1. James chapter 1, beginning at verse 19 through verse 25, he gives us some instruction on listening, listening particularly to God's word. So James 1.19, he says, my dear brothers, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. For man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, and humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror. and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does. James gives us here four guidelines for good listening to the word of God. The first is the commitment to listen. As he says in verse 19, my dear brothers take note of this, everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak. Now I sometimes use this or we sometimes use this passage to refer to our interpersonal communications and I think that's appropriate. We need to be quick to listen and slow to speak. That's not usually what we do. We're listening to somebody but we're waiting for them to take a breath. And as soon as they stop for just a moment, then bam, we jump in with what we want to say. And I have caused my wife no end of grief by not so much speaking, but not listening. We have to listen. But in this context, it's not listening interpersonally that's the primary focus. It's listening to the word of God. We have to pay attention to what the Word says. It's what this section is all about. We have to not merely listen to the Word. We have to humbly accept the Word. It's underscoring what we've seen from Luke chapter 8. We have to listen to God's Word. We have to pay attention to it. Let it sing deeply into us. Whether you're hearing a sermon or reading the Bible, you need to pay attention to it and listen. Let it sink into your heart. Let its words instruct you and teach you. So the first guideline for good listening is the commitment to listen. Be quick to listen, slow to speak. The second guideline for good listening is there are obstacles you have to remove. You have to remove the obstacles. In Isaiah 40, there's the prophecy of the coming of John the Baptist, the one who would prepare the way for the Lord. What he had to do was he had to get rid of the obstacles, make the way straight and the path level. Well, for you to be able to hear God's word, there are things that get in the way. The first thing James highlights is anger. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Anger gets in the way of our listening. How dare the preacher say that? How dare the word say that? Or the word says that, yeah, but. And we get frustrated and we get angry with the word because it's telling us things that we don't like to hear. And our anger gets in the way of our listening to what God's telling us. A second thing that we have to get rid of is the moral pollution. In verse 21, the first part of it says, therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent. It's the besetting sins, it's the things that trip us up, it's the recesses of our heart in life, the lusts and the passions that get in the way of our listening to the word of God. The author of Hebrews is talking about us persevering. He says, since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. Sin trips us up. It entangles us and it closes our ears so that we can't hear. We don't listen. We don't pay attention. It tells us to repent and we don't repent because there's something in the way we don't want to give up. And these obstacles get in the way. The soils are such a clear revelation of that, the hardness of heart. I don't want anybody to tell me what to do. And the seed comes, and the light's shown, and it just bounces off. Or the shallow soil, we deceive ourselves to think, well, I'm really interested in this. And that was an interesting sermon. It was a good point. When trials come, we throw it all away. Or the soil that's full of all these, this pollution, the weedy soil, and the light shines and the seed is sown, but all our passions, all our cares, all our interests choke out that truth. So we have to clear away the obstacles. If you're a gardener, you know you have to prepare the ground. You have to get rid of the stones and the weeds and the things that are in the way so that you can sow the seed and it can be productive. So the first guideline is to be quick to listen. The second is you got to remove the obstacles. The third is you need to listen humbly. The latter part of verse 21, humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you. When we're listening to the Word or reading the Word, we have to realize it's God's Word that stands over us. The problem with liberal critics is they stand over the Word. And they think they're the judges of the Word. No, the Word is judging them. The Word judges us. We don't stand over the Word, we stand under the Word. The Word addresses us and speaks to us. And we have to listen. And we have to humble ourselves before that word. And we have to receive it, accept it. It's more than just a casual listening. It's where we bring that word into our hearts and our thoughts and our minds, and it grips us with its truth. we have to humbly accept the word that's planted in us. So third, listen humbly. And then fourth, we have to take action. Verse 22, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves, do what it says. As Jesus characterized the family of God of those who hear God's word and puts it into practice. James is repeating that. He'd heard his brother say this. He's repeating it. Don't just listen to the word, but do what it says. And he gives the illustration of the person who hears the word but doesn't practice it, doesn't put it into practice, like the person who looks in the mirror. And you look in the mirror and you say, oh, I got a smudge on my face. But you don't do anything about it. And you turn around and you walk away and someone else says, hey, you got a smudge on your face. Oh, yeah, I guess I have a smudge. You forget what you look like. You forget it. It doesn't take root in your life. And so it's listening to it, but then taking that word and putting it into practice. Does the word call you to repent? Then repent. If it calls you to trust, then trust. If it calls you to compassion, then have compassion. If it calls you to holiness, then live a holy life. You need to put it into practice. You need to do it. Charles Spurgeon in preaching on this particular point, he says, God grant to each one of us that when we go home, we may attend to the doing of the sermon. And then he goes on to say, you know the old story, and I'm half ashamed to repeat it again, but it's so to the point. When a man came out of church sooner than usual, his wife said to him, what? Is the sermon all done? And he said, no, it's all said, but it's not begun to be done yet. If you hear it, you need to do it. It's all said, but you need to put it into practice. And there's the challenge. Often goes against our grade, our grain. We need to be listeners of God's word, being quick to listen, removing the obstacles that get in the way, humbly accepting the word of God, and with the help of Christ, putting it into practice. May you and I be good hearers of the word and thus bring glory to God and have our lives in the process greatly blessed. Amen. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank you so much for your word, for the light of it that brings Christ to us. We pray, O Lord, that you would help us to be good listeners of your truth, to pay attention to what you are telling us, even when it doesn't fit what we want to hear. And may you help us to put it into practice in our lives so that we might glorify and honor you and that our lives might grow in blessing and in grace and in peace. And we ask all this in Jesus' name, amen.