Are You Listening? Series

The Healing Touch of Jesus:

An Honest Look at Your Heart

Mark 4:1-34

Introduction

Listen! Did your parents ever tell you that? A teacher? Maybe you said it to your children. Did anyone ever tell you how to listen? I read an article about how to listen and it gave ten pointers. A few of them…

-Face the speaker and have eye contact.

-Don’t interrupt.

-Don’t start planning what to say next.

-Ask questions.

-Paraphrase and summarize.

Listening is an activity - you have to make the effort! Talk show host Larry King said, “I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.” — Larry King. So, now LISTEN!

Mark 4:1-3a

Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: “Listen!

Listen! That is the request of Jesus in our text, both in the beginning and the end. It would have been easy to be distracted in that setting. There were a lot of people around, so much so that Jesus got into a boat and began to teach from the edge of the lake!

The first word of this teaching: “Listen!”. I think if the Son of God tells us to listen, we should. It’s hard, as we will see. He wants us to listen because it is a vital lesson about following after King Jesus.

In this teaching section - the only one in Mark’s Gospel - Jesus offers up some parables - some stories to teach us something about following Him in his Kingdom. The first one is about a sower, the seed, and the soil.

Mark 4:3-9

“Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.” Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

This is a parable about the condition of your heart. Jesus explains the parable in verses 14-20. There are four conditions of soils where the seed lands.

1. The Hard Heart

Mark 4:15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.

Hughes: “The farmers’ fields in ancient Palestine were long, narrow, often serpentine strips divided by little paths which became beaten as hard as pavement by the feet, hooves, and wheels of those who used them.” The problem with these who do not really listen is that the enemy is taking away the word as soon as it is around them. They are capable of hearing, but don’t.

The word “hear” occurs 19 times in this chapter. There is someone helping us not to hear: the evil one who does not want us to hear or follow God’s word. Bookout: “…Some people will never respond positively to the word, even for a minute. They have ears, eyes, and hearts owned and protected by the wicked one.” Chappell: “Therefore he locks the door in the face of the knocking Christ and goes his godless way.” When we choose not to listen to God We Are:

-Hardening our hearts.

-Aiding the enemy who hates us.

-Keeping God from cultivating the Kingdom heart.

2. The Shallow Hearts

Mark 4:16-17 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

Hughes “In Palestine much of the land is a thin two or three inch veneer of soil over a limestone bedrock.

…the sun beats down, the plant’s roots meet the bedrock, and it withers and died.”

Jesus identifies that trouble or persecution comes - making the decision to follow the King much more difficult. The Jews would try to avoid conflict with the Romans at all costs. The early Christians would face persecutions -would they continue to grow or fade away? Today we face resistance to the Christian message. We have to decide to stick with Jesus through the difficulty or not - and many will not. Someone has said that it’s not easy to be a Christian, but it is easy to start.