Luke 8:16-21 with Aaron Searles

Transcript

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So I uh I brought some sunglasses up here this morning. Alright. It looks really weird, I guess, here, right? Kind of strange, yeah. These actually are my sunglasses. You will only see me wearing these driving in my car or at the beach or on a walk when it's sunny out. It takes some forethought for me to put my sunglasses on because I have prescription, obviously. And I'm actually very thankful for these sunglasses. Um every time, not every time, but often when I put them on, I think of my wonderful wife because she was so thoughtful. I can't remember if it was Christmas or my birthday, but she secretly found out my prescription and went on you know one of the one of the cheap, you know, uh sunglass or you know, glasses websites and ordered them ahead of time and got those sunglasses before uh Christmas or my birthday or whatever. And so I was very thankful. I've never been a sunglasses guy. So I've actually had these, it's been amazing though. I've had them for a couple years, I haven't lost them yet, so it's it's likely going to happen. But uh the reason why I want to talk about sunglasses, I'm talking about light, talking about shining the light of the good news, shining the light of God's word. And uh, you know, we need sunglasses. Actually, we don't, but just a way to talk about it. Talk about the shining of the light of God's word into people's lives. And uh really today we're gonna we're we've been doing we're in this series, this Luke's series. Uh we're going chapter by chapter, verse by verse. And really today, this is a part two mini-series. So last week was part one of this kind of miniseries, and I didn't think to head to title my mini-series, but this is really a mini-series within the series that we've had. And so I'm gonna reread what we went through last week to kind of give us the context of the of the scripture, because I'm gonna refer to it, I'm gonna talk about it. I thought we should read it again, especially if you weren't here last week. This is a ch a time to catch up with us. So read uh here we go, Luke chapter 8, verses 4 through 15. And when a great crowd was gathering, and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell along the path, and was trampled under foot, and the birds of the air devoured it, and some fell on the rock, and as it grew up it with withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up with it, and choked it, and some fell into good soil, and grew and yielded a hundredfold. And he said these things, he called out, He who has ears, let him hear. Verse nine. And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said to he said, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. Now the parable is this the seed is the word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy, but these have no root. They believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. As for that, in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast, an honest and good heart, an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. So last week we asked the question, kind of the general question, um, kind of the I'll call it self-awareness question. And that was, what do you want? Kind of clear the noise, clear the voices, you know, the uh the opinions, the the friends, the family, the work, all the constraints of your life, whatever's going on in the news, and just kind of sitting before the Lord, and I think that's vitally important, in relationship with God, and ask, what do you want? What do you want? What do you want in this life? And so last week we talked about what kind of soil are you? There's four soils mentioned here. There's the the soil that's tempted and trampled, and you know, there's that spiritual warfare. There's the there's the soil that's shallow in the rocks, doesn't have the deep roots. There's the soil that's filled with thorns and and weeds, and and and the plants are choked out by the cares and the concerns, the riches, the this world really. Chokes out that plant. And then finally, there's the good soil. I asked this of the high school and the junior high last night. What kind of soil are you? So, what are you dealing with? What are you struggling with? What are you facing in this life? Temptation, cares, riches, temporary things. Are you resistant to those things? Are you focused on eternity? Are you focused on the eternal things of God? Our the goal that we talked about last week is being a deep-rooted disciple. And I felt called to read from James last week, you know, considering it joy when you go through trials. I had someone even come up to me after church and with joy on their face, talking about a trial that they had been going through, and knowing and believing that what God was doing through it, seeing what God was doing through it, seeing how their roots were going deeper in the things of the Lord, deeper and more confident in the truths and the revelation of God's word. And as a pastor, that is man, that is fuel for me. That is encouragement. It's not about me, but it's encouraging to hear my brothers and sisters in Christ going through trials and clinging to Christ no matter what. And there's also this reality and recognizing there's a lot that could be said about this and talked about, and uh, and that's this idea of spiritual warfare. That this isn't everything, that there's an unseen battle going on, there's an unseen war going on. And even talking before church this morning, you know, the reality is our our weapon is prayer, our weapon is calling out to Jesus. When we discern, when we recognize that we're in spiritual warfare, we cry out to Jesus. He's victorious, he wins every time. Every time. No question. 100% confidence, recognizing that in our lives, that when we are in spiritual warfare, we cry out to Jesus. And so also just asking the question, you know, and the soil and talking about the condition of the soil, and we talked a lot about the heart and what is your heart condition. And I felt, I know, I will say I discerned to highlight what it says also in Jeremiah 17, 9. This is why you don't have the what do you want conversation by yourself. It's because your heart, the reality is, is deceitful. It's deceitful. We see it in the soil picture. The thorns, the birds, you know, whatever's coming at. Our heart gets pulled in a thousand directions at once. And so we're recognizing that. Like we cannot ask these deep personal self-awareness questions without being surrendered and submitted to Jesus. We do that with Jesus because our heart is deceitful, as it says in Jeremiah. But we do ask this question: what do you want? And really we're asking Jesus, what do you want? What do you want, Jesus? Because we trust. We trust and we know. He's good, he's love. And what he wants is what we want. We want to surrender our will to his will. So today we're gonna ask another question, though, just kind of moving on from that story, that parable that Jesus taught. And this is again a continuation. This is a mini-series. Now we're gonna ask another big question for you this morning. And that question is what is your purpose? What is your purpose? We all know that book, Purpose-Driven Life, sold a billion copies or something like that. I don't know how many. I made that up. I don't know how many, but a lot. Right? There's this inner wiring that we have. We're made in the image of God, we're created by God. We're created with a need to know and to act out our purpose. And this world goes again in a thousand directions. And we've got to ask ourselves, what is my purpose? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why did God make me? Why did God knit me together in my mother's womb? Why did God choose this speck on the timeline of human history? Why here in Crystal Lake or McHenry County or wherever you drove from? Why in your family? Why with your friends? Why with your sphere of influence? What is your purpose? Why are you here? Again, do not ask that question of your own heart and your own mind. Ask that in relationship with God, with Jesus. So let's jump in today. So Luke chapter 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. Before you go judging and telling other people, like, look at yourself, right? So there's this other visual of this jar. And it's kind of funny. You wouldn't put a lamp or cover a lamp. And I thought about buying a you know first century model oil lamp that would have been used, but I didn't get to it. But I just have this clay jar I'm gonna use this is the soil, by the way, too. And I used this in the youth group last night, but so I have something in it. I have a little lamp, a little light, right? And you didn't see it, right? You couldn't see it. Couldn't see that this thing is full of light. So we don't do that, obviously. That's a logical thing we don't do. We don't turn on a lamp and cover a blanket or put it under our bed. We don't do that. Jesus is saying that. And I ask you, do you have the light? Do you have the light? Again, it would lack common sense if you were to take a lamp, a light, to place it under a jar, to place it underneath your bed. Jesus is using logic to make a point here. He's using symbolism. He's almost using another, as one commentary talked about, a mini parable within this parable. He's making a point. Again, he's, I think, I believe Jesus is talking about our purpose. In other words, if you though, if you have a lamp, if you have a light, the purpose is to cast the light, to dispel the darkness, to see, to see what's really going on, this revelation, to light up wherever it is. So, has this ever happened to you? I've used this example in the past. What do people do? They're like, uh uh, excuse me, it doesn't matter what you're doing. Like, your light's on. Your light on your phone is on. You look silly right now because your light is on your phone. Right? This is what happens. People will interrupt you to tell you this. So, what is Jesus saying here? You know, connecting back to this parable before, the purpose of the seed again, or the what is the seed is God's word. And I would say this lamp is also representing God's word. It's the good news, it's the gospel, it's shining out in your life. This is the purpose. It's supposed to shine, it's supposed to be spread in your life. Let's continue on verse 17. For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. Manifest. What does that mean? I don't use that word often. So we might ask Jesus, can you use that in a sentence? He's using it in a sentence already. So what does manifest mean? It means plainly seen, clear, visible, obvious. This is what Jesus is teaching us. He's teaching us about the seed that's being cast under different soils. He's now comparing it to God's word to being a light that is made manifest. It's making things clear, abundantly clear, so that all can see. And Jesus said earlier, as we read, he said to the disciples, You are permitted to know the secrets of the kingdom. I don't know about you. When someone says they have a secret, I'm like, What's the secret? Tell me the secret. I want to know the secret information. I want to know what's going on. But there's a purpose, you know, and when we hear about a secret, we we want to know it. We want to hear about it. I want to be on the inside. And the purpose of a secret is carrying that information that will eventually be known. It will be manifest. It will be clear. So, what are the secrets of the kingdom? This is what Jesus is doing. This is what he's doing with his life. This is why he's on tour, as it says earlier in this passage. He's on tour to all these towns. It's the revelation of God's plan to plainly make it clear to everyone. And the and the secrets of the kingdom, I would summarize, is this the gospel. The good news of Jesus Christ. And the gospel is this: we are created. We're not an accident. We didn't just come out of nothing. We didn't just come into existence. No, we have a creator that created us. And the bad news is we messed up. We sinned. We are all born into sin. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But God, who is love, is described as love. His identity, his character compelled him to send his only son to rescue us from ourselves, from our sin, from the mistakes that we've made, and not just rescue us from that, but take our place on the cross. We deserved the consequences of our sin on the cross. We deserve it. Every time you look at the cross, that's what you deserved, but that's what Jesus did for you. He takes your place. It says in the Bible that Jesus pays the ransom price. He pays the price for your freedom from, again, the consequences of your sin, what you deserve from a righteous judge who is God. He is perfect, he is holy. And he pays the price for you with himself. You know, we sang it this morning, like we just take it for granted, I think. It just glazes over sometimes that we believe in a sacrificing God. Nothing else compares to that. No other option compares to us sacrificing God. What an amazing good news that we believe in this God. And he atones for our sin. He washes us white as snow. He makes us clean. He satisfies the justice needed. And he conquers death on the third day. Jesus said it clear. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And there is no other way to the Father but by me. He does it all. He's the way, the truth, and the life. So I ask you, where are you shining? Where are you shining? Where are you shining in your life? Where is this good news? Where are the secrets of the kingdom that you now hold, that you have been made clear to you? Where are you shining? What is your purpose? What is your purpose? Why are you here? Let's continue on. Verse 18. 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. Again, take care then how you hear. What does this mean? I would say you are responsible. You have heard the good news. You have heard the secrets of the kingdom. You are now responsible. You are a steward of the gospel in your life. I'll never forget one of my mentors saying to me, You have the friends that you have for a reason. You've been placed specifically where you're at for a reason. You have a responsibility to bring the gospel to your sphere of influence, to your friends, to your family, to your coworkers, as the Lord leads you, as he gives you the words as he promised, but you have a responsibility to take hold of what you've heard and live it out in your life. And so we have to take care of how you hear. We have to, I would say, be self-aware. We have to reflect. We have to ask these questions again in relationship with God. And I think we need to do this in rhythm, in regular relationship with God, because life goes on and life changes, and we have new influences and new people in our lives and new things that are coming at us, new challenges, new trials, new tests. This is going on in our life. We need to constantly be in relationship asking the Lord, what do you want, Jesus? What is my purpose? Where are you sending me in this season of my life? But you are been entrusted with the secrets of the kingdom to steward. And it's something of immeasurable value. Again, I'll never forget, and I'll keep telling the story. I'll never forget recommitting my life to Christ, and it was over like a span of a couple of months, and coming home from winter break, and I still can remember where I was sitting, telling my friend about Jesus. And just with boldness and feeling the Holy Spirit just flow through me, sharing the gospel with him. And to my knowledge, he still doesn't believe. And it breaks my heart. I still think about him often. I dream about the day, getting a phone call or a text about Jesus taking hold of his heart. I can't wait for that day. I hope for that day. I pray for that day. So again, you are to steward. You are to steward the gospel that you have, and I would say you are now called and purpose with the time, talent, and treasures that you have to be on mission for Jesus. Do you remember back to the story of the good soil? I don't know about you, but I want to be good soil. And what is the fold? What is the fold of the good soil? A hundred times. A hundred yield. I don't really understand the word fold, but a hundredfold, a hundred times, a hundred yield. Okay? So a hundred seeds that your life multiplies in such a way that more people come to Christ, more people have deep roots in faith in Jesus. And you know, that might sound overwhelming to think about a hundredfold yield. But if you think about it, over a lifetime, over a lifetime of faithfulness, over a lifetime of being willing and ready to have those spiritual conversations. I was so encouraged by the students last night. I asked, you know, how do we do this? Man. So encouraged by the next generation in this church. So encouraged by their boldness. Just ideas like this. How can I live for the gospel? How can I share the gospel in my life? So encouraging to hear how they're willing to share the gospel in their lives. And you know, one student said something to the effect of ask them how I can pray for them. So just encourage you to steward the time, the talent, the treasures that you have for your priority one, and that is the good news of Jesus, the secrets of the kingdom that you now have to make the world know about Jesus. So it says, and take away what he thinks he has. And I think this is an echo, a point to the Pharisees, to the religious leaders who thought they had it. They thought they figured it out. They still had the plank in their own eye. They thought they had the law wrapped up. They thought they were living the perfect life. And, you know, I think God says He needs, He's going to steward the talents. He's going to steward the resources. He's going to steward and empower and equip more to those who are who are priority one, Jesus, King Jesus. The reign and rule of Jesus in their lives. And so again, I would ask you, where are you shining? You know, one of my favorite parables is the story of the lost sheep, that Jesus leaves the 99 to go after the one. And I'd say, one person at a time. Again, a hundredfold fruit, one person at a time. One seed cast, one light shined into someone's life, one person at a time. And again, we don't get discouraged, we just keep pressing on. We keep praying. We keep asking God for the words to share, for the opportunities, for the coworkers, the neighbors, the family, the friends, the strangers, for the gospel to shine through your life. Verse 19. So Jesus wraps up this mini-parable, and these things might seem disconnected, but they're actually seemingly connected to me. Verse 19 and 20. 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. So Jesus' ministry is in full effect, and we've seen this already in the Gospel of Luke. Like the crowds, they can't get to him, so they bust through the roof to bring that man, to bring healing to him. So, you know, we know later that there's, sorry, spoiler alert, there's going to be a feeding of, you know, 5,000 people. Yeah, 5,000 people. So can you imagine 5,000 people surrounding Jesus? Like, how do you even find him, let alone get to him, among 5,000 people? And so this is what his family's dealing with, and somehow the word gets to him. You know, this is again Jesus, what we would understand from an earthly perspective is his biological family. I think about James. I call him the half-brother of Jesus, who later comes to faith in Christ, you know, in this group, trying to get his brother, trying to talk to Jesus. Mary trying to get a hold of Jesus. You know, I thought about, you know, this looking at this text too is like, talks about how they're on the outside. So I wonder, like, you know, we don't know the physical situation. Is Jesus in a structure? Is he in a home again? Is he in a synagogue? And the thousands are surrounding him. I'd like to think about that. But they can't get to him. And I wonder about, you know, why were his family coming into this situation now? Was he on the tour that was near Nazareth where they could, you know, stop in and see how he's doing, see how the ministry's going. I also was thinking about Jesus and Mary and they're obviously their special relationship. And we know that Mary is there till the end. But verse 21. But he answered them. That makes things very clear. What the priorities are. Again, I think Jesus is living this example to us of what our priorities should be. You know, one of those pulls on your life, one of those maybe, I don't, I'm not saying your biological family is a thorn, but if their intentions aren't lined up with the Lord, they can pull you away from the things that God has in store for you. The things, the plans that God has for you. We've got to prioritize King Jesus above everything else and recognize the temporary, recognize that we live for eternal King. What is priority one? Are you following King Jesus no matter what? Is your purpose his will in your life? Again, back to the parable of the soil. We hear the word of God. That is what the seed is, and there's different soils, there's different conditions going on, there are different hearts going on, different perspectives of hearing the word of God. But if we are the good soil, we are the family of God. We are adopted into the family of God, that we we cry Abba Father, that we belong to an eternal family, believing and obeying Jesus. And what does it mean to be in his family? It means that we, in faith, in the grace of God, again, we don't earn our salvation, but we live out our salvation by our faith in the grace of God, in action, that there is fruit, that you can see it in your life, that there's a behavior change, there's decisions are different, choices are made, words are shared, you know, there's movement in your life, there's sacrifices that are made. And I would say emphatically that there is love in your life for the purposes of God. This is what it means to be obedient to God. Love. Love. So we have on the back wall our values, and one of them is sacrificial family. And I've said this before, but I'll say it again. Sacrificial family. You know, I we had talked about the wording of that, and we could have said loving family. But as we all know, that word has lost some weight. And I want us to be clear about what what we're motivated by the truth of the good news, by the by God's word. What does it mean to be spiritual family? It means sacrifice. It's going to cost you something to be in this family. It doesn't buy you entrance, but it's the fruit. It's the reality of if you believe this, if you believe in God's word, this is what your life is going to look like. It's going to be sacrificial family. It's going to be eternal. Again, it's it's going to be love on display, not to earn favor, but because of what you believe and who you're aligned to and who you belong to, and that is Jesus. I would say it's it's Sunday gatherings. Faithfully prioritizing this. It's house church. It's come to First Wednesday. It's going to cost you something. It's going to cost your time, talent, and treasures to be in a sacrificial family. I cannot not tell you that. That's the reality, that's the truth. It's going to cost you something. Sacrificial family. James chapter 2, verse 26 says this. We've got to live out what we believe in our mind and in our heart. Live it out. Again, in obedience to Jesus, to God's word, to listening to the Holy Spirit, act it out in your life. It will cost you something. I came across a poem this week. I'm still thinking about it. I want to share this poem with you. It says this You are writing a gospel, a chapter a day, by deeds that you do, by words that you say. Others read what you write, whether faithless or true. So what is the gospel according to you? So I wrestle with that poem because I'm like, the gospel is Jesus is God, and Jesus died on the cross for your sin, and Jesus conquered death on the third day. But are you living? Is that what people are seeing in your life? You know, is is is your life beaming and shining the gospel through your actions and your words and how you treat people, how you're living your life. So, in conclusion, I think the priority one has to be Jesus. Last week we talked about King Jesus, the reign and the rule of Jesus in your life, and just taking every thought that you have, everything that's in your life, is this aligned? Is this under the reign, the rule of Jesus? Is this surrendered to Jesus? And only you know that, you and Jesus. That's that's a relationship, that's a conversation, that's a surrender between you and Jesus. Is everything prioritized to Jesus, to King Jesus? Again, we asked the question today. Here's the second thing. What is your purpose? What is your purpose? Where is Jesus calling you? Where are you shining the light of the good news in your life? I know we get afraid, I know I get scared, I get people pleasing, I get it. But we have to be motivated by love. Perfect love casts out all fear. So take those fears captive, take those thoughts captive, and make them obedient to Christ. Ask the Lord for the words, pray. Be faithful to that. I want to end with this. I I I like news. I'm I'm I just can't help it. Like I just like news. So I was a history guy, a sociology, political science. I just like news. I like keeping my tabs on what's going on in the world, and and sometimes you know the feed comes and it it's it's a scientific study that was done, and it's news and whatever. And I learned this week that uh there was this cancer trial. And uh initially I thought it said 14 patients, certain type of cancer, uh a new immunotherapy, 100% cure. That that got everyone's attention. And I looked again this morning, I'm like, was it 14? It's 41. 41 people's lives completely changed. No chemo, no radiation, just this immunotherapy. And I think, wow, that's that's really interesting. And I got I had natural questions right away, like, let's figure this out more, let's spread this out, you know, let's let's get the other types of cancers, like start treating this. And of course, that's what they're working on. So why am I bringing that up? So that's that's news. That's good news for those who have that certain type of cancer. I think it's good news for for people who have other types of cancer. They're they're treating, they're they're trying to figure out how to use this new thing they figured out that I have no understanding of, or I don't get it. But is this information, this revelation that I just shared with you, more or less important than the news of Jesus? I'm so excited to share with you about this cancer drug. What's more important? Think about it. And I'm highlighting the temporary versus the eternal. Again, I want to be sensitive. You know, I was even talking this morning about cancer treatment with our loved ones in this room. I want to be sensitive to suffering. I don't want to, you know, l make that small. But again, what's more important? And I would say to, you know, those followers of Christ that are suffering right now, they know what's more important. They know what their security is, they know why they can have faith, why they can face the valley of death, face the suffering. Because they are living for an eternity. Because they have the good news. They have that confidence and faith that it's not just this temporary survival, but that our king is returning. And we're gonna spend all eternity. This life is but a speck. It's temporary. We've got to prioritize the eternal. And we've got to shine the light of the gospel because this is priority one. It's one in us, priority one in us, and we want to shine the light. So last night, again, again, youth group was last night, so it keeps coming to mind. So I got to share this too. This is a thought that I had, and this I'm I'm almost done here. I had this thought and shared this with the students. Everybody in this room, if you have faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, is here because someone cast the seed of the gospel, because someone shined the light of the gospel into your life. Whether it was a parent or someone into your parents' life. You know, in my family, we tell the stories of the person who took the risk, who had the courage, who had filled up with God's love to shine the light of the gospel, to be a hope in this incredibly dark world. We are all here. This generations that are in this room are here because someone loved with the gospel. This is the motivation again. This is this is how we go out into the world. It's love, it's the love of God in us and overflowing into other people's lives. Okay, I'm really going to end now with Romans 10, verses 14 through 17. I'm sure I've closed many sermons like this with this passage. How then will they call on him whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him or whom of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news, but they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed that he has heard from us? So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. Let's pray. God, I just thank you for again this opportunity. God, I confess my fear. I confess my reluctance. I confess my false thinking. I confess my unwillingness. And God, we just cry out to you. Fill us with your love, God. Fill us with your spirit. Fill us with your glorious riches, with your strength, God. God, give us ears to hear your promptings, your words. Give us ears to hear, God, who you're sending us to, where we need to sacrifice. God, help us to be strong in you. Help us to be obedient to your word, God, to your revelation. Help us to be sacrificial. God, help us to prioritize you above everything. Help us to align our thoughts and our heart to your will and to your purposes. God, we just lift up those that are in our lives right now that don't know you. God, we pray for miracles. We pray for a breakthrough. God, we pray for your hope when it seems like it's there's no chance. God, we pray for your gospel to spread. We pray for deep-rooted disciples. We pray that we would be deep-rooted disciples. Shine your light, Lord. We know we can't do any of it without you. We pray your blessing. It's all for your glory. In your name we pray. Amen.