Ears To Hear Part One Series

Grace to Hear

Text: Luke 8:4- 10

It’s good to be back with you all this morning… I had sort of a working vacation over the last two weeks. As you all know, we moved Leslie into her dorm at JBU… and I’ve just got to tell you, that was a hard thing for me to do. When you invest 18 years into someone… and I mean INVEST, not just raise them, but invest in them, your time and energy, and effort, and your knowledge, and wisdom, and your life… when you invest in someone for 18 years and then they’re gone like a flash off to college, it’s rough. I respect you parents who have done this all the more.

So… anyway… When I go on vacation, I always set it up so that it begins on Sunday, that way I can go to one of our association churches. We went to ******* (Name withheld) the first Sunday we were gone… it was interesting. They did a lot of songs and Pastor *** (Name withheld) preached about 12 – 15 minutes… they do it real informal. He sits on a stool and basically teaches. It was good… but different. Then during the week, we got Leslie moved in to her dorm and stayed in Siloam Springs until Sunday and we went to the Church she’s going to… it’s called ********* (Name withheld)… and it’s pretty good. It’s a Southern Baptist Church affiliated with 9 Marks Ministries and T4G… They sing about 6 songs and the pastor preaches for an hour and a half. Which was pretty cool. Then Sunday evening I drove down to my dad’s house in Lavaca Arkansas, and went to evening services with him, and he goes to a smaller church… smaller than ours, they only average about 60 on Sunday, and their pastor preached an hour long sermon on Sunday evening. So that was awesome. And on my second week of vacation, I fished on the Arkansas River… and during the evening, me, my dad, my uncle, my cousin, and my cousin’s kids just sat around the campfire and had Bible discussions. So; over all, it was a nice, relaxing vacation, and I’m grateful to you all for allowing your pastor to have those times to unplug and just enjoy God and His creation. So thank you all for that. BUT… like I said, it’s good to be home with my Church family today.

Now what I want to do with you this morning, is talk about God’s grace… specifically God’s grace in our salvation and in the salvation of all people. And God’s grace in the growth of His people… and the reason I want to do this is because I want us to keep the right focus on things, and I want us to not grow weary. Because here’s the thing. If you’ve ever spent any time at all sharing the Gospel with a lost person… or if you’ve ever spent any time at all trying to teach the Biblical truths or principles to a worldly person, of if you’ve spent any time at all trying to explain how a Christian should live compared to how the world says a person should live, you’ve probably… I’d say most likely… have wanted to bang your head against the wall and strangle someone.

As I was driving home from Arkansas, I was listening to a radio program where a man was describing what it’s like to be tone deaf. He was saying that when a person is tone deaf, they can’t hear pitch, and they can’t harmonize with others. They think they can. They think they’re on key, but they’re not. And so they think they’re actually singing well, but they really aren’t. And this guy was comparing them to people who do have perfect pitch, and who can harmonize, and people who can sing on key and who can distinguish octaves, and it was funny because he was saying how it seems like it’s always the tone deaf people who want to sing. So you have to kind of distract them when it comes time to do Christmas specials in Church, and distract them so they don’t sign up for the choir at school. They just don’t have the ability to hear like most people do.

And like I was saying, if you’ve ever spent much time trying to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with someone… or you’ve spent time trying to explain Biblical truths to someone and explain to someone their need for Christ, or explain to someone how their sins separate them from God, they look at you like you’re speaking another language… they just can’t seem to hear what you’re saying. They’re tone deaf to their spiritual problem.

And so there are some things you can miss out on if you’re tone deaf. Like I said, you might not be allowed to sing in the choir. You might be persuaded not to get up and do Karaoke. You’re not asked to do the National Anthem at the ball games… but if you can’t discern your need for Christ and appropriate your faith to follow and live for Him – the consequences are HUGE! They’re ETERNAL.