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.
17 For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.
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.”19
Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd.
20 And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you.”
21 But he answered them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”
The Bible is a very serious book. Truth is, many people have been put off by the Bible for this simple fact; it is solemn and proceeds with a relentless seriousness.
There are not a lot of jokes although if one reads carefully there is plenty of irony and humor. But we have to admit, it is not a ‘light-hearted’ read. The Bible is keen to makes sure we see how much is at stake in life and death for all of mankind and we
need to, “…take care then, how we hear…” (18)
It is quite easy to understand what Jesus is driving in these two short paragraphs that we have read this morning. Luke has placed these short snippets of his teaching immediately after
the parable of the sower because the point is the same: We are again reminded that people respond to the Word of God in different ways but only one kind of response represents true, genuine and saving faith and leads to salvation. The parable ended with an
exhortation to hear the Word of God, hold fast to it, and bear fruit from it.
In these two short paragraphs the theme is the same and the exhortation is the same. The Lord Jesus is still challenging his audience to respond to the message that he was preaching
to them. Jesus was a preacher of the Word of God, the good news, the truth and so he was a bearer of light. Light reveals things that otherwise we would not see and Jesus and his Word are that light. We need the light. But light in and of itself does no one
any good. Its purpose is to show the way but we must then walk in the way the light illuminates. That is what matters! And walking by the light is just another way of describing a faithful response to Jesus’ teaching.
It is a very interesting study to explore how it is that Christianity has become more of a religion of the mind than of the hands, by which I mean, how we have pit thinking against living.
Today Christianity is about what you ‘believe’, defined as, ‘what you think about something, in this case Jesus Christ. We have separated the mind from the body, thinking from action or doing. This is tragic. The Scripture knows nothing of this dichotomy.
Thinking correctly always leads to responding correctly.
Jesus tells us to be careful how we hear. There is a hearing that does no good whatsoever! There are several references to hearing the God of God in the parable of
the soils. The kind of hearing that you and I do, is revealed by whether or not we
do what we hear! Hearing that leads to doing is the mark of true faith. James, the Lord’s brother would make the same point with different words: “faith without works is dead.” We have the same thing, for example, in 6:46: “Everyone who comes
to me and hears my words and does them” is the man who can’t be shaken. Too many folks content themselves in thinking they have heard the gospel and they even believe it, that is, think it is true. But it doesn’t change and is not changing their
lives. This is not the kind of hearing the Lord is commending to us!
The idea in verse 18 is simply that those who respond to the Lord’s teaching in faith and obedience will continue to get more and more from the Lord; but those who do not embrace the
Word, who reject it, must eventually experience complete spiritual destitution. Note that Luke doesn’t say that such a person
has so much; only that such a person thinks he does! He thinks
he has peace with God; he thinks he has God’s favor; he thinks he is safe. But if he rejects Jesus and the light that comes from Jesus, he will eventually learn that he had none of this. What made the Lord’s teaching so controversial to his
original audience was precisely his insistence that they, like their ancestors in the days of the prophets, were, in fact, living in darkness, not in light. They had the truth but they weren’t
doing anything with it. They weren’t living by it so they might as well not have had it all!
So, how are we to take care of how we hear? What does this admonition mean for you and me? Perhaps you are thinking that the answer to such a question is quite simple. We are to be those
who listen to the truth, read the truth in the Bible, with attention and a real desire to understand, and most importantly, have a full intention to obey that truth and live in its light. “There you go, Pastor, that was easy!”
All of that sounds unobjectionable, but things, sadly, are not so obvious. Some time ago David Wells, a professor at Gordon Conwell Seminary published a book called, No Time For Truth:
Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology. It was in 1994 and his warnings are more important now than they were years ago! Here is a recent review of Well’s book:
Wells demonstrated that a real interest in discovering the truth so that one can live by the truth and practice the truth has been replaced in the evangelical
Christian mind by an interest in one’s own present well-being and happiness. The truth is not denied, but by means of an epoch-making change in our culture, the truth has now become our servant and we are no longer its servant as we were before. In that book
Prof. Wells provided massive illustration and demonstration of this shift: from the books that evangelical publishers publish, to the way seminarians are trained for the ministry, to his own experience as a professor of theology finding it difficult to get
his colleagues to be interested in questions of truth. But perhaps the most obvious evidence of this shift is that Christian congregations nowadays…are not hearing about the exposure of their secrets on the judgment day; they are not hearing in their pastors’
sermons about the broad way and the narrow way; they are not hearing about the terrible consequences that must befall those who hear the truth but who do not do it. They are hearing comparatively few such sermons and many, a great many Christians today, virtually never hear
a sermon that warns them to Beware! Beware!
How would you answer the question: The most desired quality in a minister is ________.
A recent study revealed that the most desired quality in a minister was “an open, affirming style” and that what people least like in a minister is “legalism in matters of truth and
ethics” or a domineering personality. People no longer see ministers as first and foremost purveyors, brokers, revealers, teachers
of truth, bearers of the light. More and more, a minister’s job is to make us happy, make us feel good about ourselves and life. That says a lot!
The Lord began our passage with the proverb: “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.” There are people around you every day who are living in darkness. They don’t think they are and would probably be deeply offended at the suggestion that that is! But folks are always tripping over all sorts of things but have no idea that it doesn’t
have to be this way. How many people have become Christians and confessed: “I never realized who or what God was. All those years I never realized that I was a sinner before God. I never realized what a human life was supposed to be. I never imagined that
I could have such a high purpose in my life, or that I could know such love, or that I could find such pleasure and help in prayer, in worship, in obedience. I never knew, until I saw the light and I first saw everything I hadn’t been
able to see before.”
As Christians, we DO have the light and while it is true that we must put that light on a stand so that it can be seen, we must not forget that putting it on the stand means that we
ourselves are to walk by and in the illumination it provides. We are to listen…well…and hearing, we are to do, to live faithfully. And although we might teach our children to sing, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine…” this truth is the most
serious of realities; life and death, realities, heaven and hell realities.
Jesus has told us: “…let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven!”
Prayer: Gracious Father, I have been negligent and slothful in my hearing. My mind wanders, my heart is cold and I listen with little intention to putting into
practice what I am hearing. Forgive me, and give me an ever-deepening desire to live in the light and to be the light of the gospel in my home, church, and life. I thank you for your Spirit and I pray that I would never side step the serious and sobering truth
of Your Word, but embrace it all with joy and thankfulness, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: O Light that Knew No Dawn