A lawyer, a doctor and a preacher were hunting together when they came upon a big buck. All three of them shot at the same time, and the buck immediately dropped to the ground. The lawyer, the doctor and the preacher rushed in to examine their prey, but they could not determine whose shot had actually killed the deer.
They got into a heated argument which drew the attention of a game warden. He asked them what their problem was, and the doctor told him that they were arguing about who shot the buck. The officer took one, quick look at the buck and confidently declared, “The preacher shot the buck!” When they all asked him how he could be so sure, the officer said, “Easy. The bullet went in one ear and out the other.” (As retold by P. J. Alindogan, The Potter's Jar blog, “Hearing,” 3-4-12; www.PreachingToday.com)
I’m afraid that’s what happens when a lot of people hear God’s Word: It goes in one ear and out the other. And that’s too bad, because this Book (hold up the Bible) will absolutely change your life if you take the time to really listen to it.
Tell me: Are you tired of the life you are living? Are you tired of the mess or even just the mediocrity of your life? Has it become boring to you? Then I invite you to turn with me to Mark 4, Mark 4, where Jesus tells a story that illustrates the amazing impact God’s Word can have on your life.
Mark 4:1-8 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 [those are short stories with a point, anecdotes with a lesson], and in his teaching said: “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, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.” (NIV)
Back then, a yield of 10 times the amount of seed sown was considered a great crop, but Jesus is promising yields of 30, 60, or even 100 times! Your life can be tremendously fruitful and productive, but first of all you have to…
HEAR GOD’S WORD.
You have to open your ears to his message. You have to listen to what he has to say. In fact, that’s exactly what Jesus invites us to do both before and after he tells this short story. In verse 3, He said, “Listen.” And in verse 9, He says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” God’s Word will have absolutely no effect on your life unless you take the time to hear it, unless you take the time to listen.
In his book Stress Fractures, Charles Swindoll talks about the days when his children were young. He writes: I vividly remember some time back being caught in the undertow of too many commitments in too few days. It wasn't long before I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day.” Before long, he admits, things at home started reflecting the pattern of his hurry-up style.
Swindoll distinctly recalls the words of his younger daughter, Colleen, after supper one evening. She wanted to tell him about something important that had happened to her at school that day. She hurriedly began, “Daddy-I-wanna-tell-you-somethin'-and-I'll-tell-you-really-fast.”
Suddenly realizing her frustration, Swindoll answered, “Honey, you can tell me … and you don't have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly.”
Swindoll never forget her answer: “Then listen slowly.”
Let me tell you something. We can’t listen to God if we’re too much in a hurry or too busy. We need to slow down enough to really hear what He has to say. In other words, we need to listen slowly. We need to stop on a regular basis, take the time to open God’s Word and hear what He has to say to us.
If you want a life that’s fruitful and productive, then 1st of all you have to hear God’s Word. But if that’s all we do, it’s not going to do us much good. So 2nd, if we want our lives to count for something, we must also…
BELIEVE AND UNDERSTAND GOD’S WORD.
We must trust what God has to say, so we can comprehend & grasp its meaning for us today.
Mark 4:10-12 When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, “ ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’” (NIV)
Those on the outside are those who have chosen not to believe in Jesus. As a result, they see but never perceive. They hear but never understand. So they never find the forgiveness God offers them so freely in Christ Jesus. They miss the obvious!
It reminds me of the old story about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Sometime in the middle of the night, Holmes wakes Watson. “Watson, look up at the stars and tell me what you deduce.”
Watson says, “I see millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it's quite likely there are some planets like Earth, and if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life.”
Holmes replies, “Watson, you idiot, somebody stole our tent!” (Tom Kuntz, “The World's 'Funniest' Jokes,” N.Y. Times, 1-27-02)
Watson was always seeing but never perceiving, hearing but never understanding, just like the unbeliever when it comes to spiritual things.
On the other hand, those who choose to believe in Jesus understand the secrets of the kingdom of God. They are those that have gathered around Jesus, so they comprehend things that were never before revealed.
You see, Jesus had two reasons for speaking in parables. 1st, He wanted to conceal the truth to the unbeliever. But 2nd, He also wanted to reveal the truth to those who trusted Him. So if you want to truly see and understand God’s Word, then first of all you must believe it.
Believe and THEN you will see – not the other way around. Now, this is not only true when it comes to perceiving spiritual realities. It is true when it comes to understanding the physical world around us, as well.
Thomas Kuhn did some very interesting research on the way scientists do science. Do you know what he found? He found that scientists do something very surprising with data that falls outside the realm of their belief system (what he called their “paradigm”). They either distort the data to make it fit what they already believe. They ignore the data. Or in some cases, they are literally unable to see that data. In other words, what Kuhn found, even in the scientific community is this: Believing is seeing, NOT seeing is believing.
Data that fits our belief system, we see very clearly and very well. But data that is outside our belief system, we often don’t see that data at all. So if you want to see, you must believe. If you want to understand the intricate design and order in God’s creation, then you must first believe in the Creator. And if you want to understand and comprehend God’s Word, then you must first trust the Author of that Word; otherwise, it won’t make any sense to you.
Eric Weihenmayer was the first blind climber ever to reach the top of Mount Everest. Now he does business consulting and charity work, helping people see the world in new ways.
Asked by Fast Company magazine what he looks for in teammates, he said, “I look for people who have an unrealistic optimism about life. I hear people say, ‘seeing is believing.’ I want people who believe the opposite, ‘Believing is seeing.’” Then he says, “You can tell who those people are. You say, ‘Hey, want to climb Everest with a blind guy?’ Pretty quickly you'll figure out who's a believer. (Fast Company, May 2004; www.PreachingToday.com)
I imagine it was like that when Jesus first came on the scene. The religious leaders thought he was the devil. His own family thought He was crazy. But Jesus said to some, “Hey, want to follow me into the Kingdom of God.” And those who responded, those who truly believed in Him, were able to see such heights of spiritual reality that most of the world never sees.
How about you? How about me? Will we trust the One that some think is crazy or the devil? Will we trust the Lord Jesus Christ with our lives? If we will, then He will share the secrets of the Kingdom of God with us; and we will understand things the world cannot even comprehend.
That’s what it’s going to take to change the world. That’s what it’s going to take to live fruitful and productive lives. 1st, we must hear God’s Word. 2nd, we must believe it so we can understand it. But even that’s not quite enough. For if we want to truly make a difference in our world, we must also…
DO THE WORD.
We must put God’s word into practice. We must live it out in our everyday lives.
Mark 4:13-15 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? The farmer sows the word. 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. (NIV)
These are people who don’t really hear the Word. It goes in one ear and out the other.
Mark 4:16-17 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 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 (NIV) – lit., they are scandalized.
These are people who have an emotional response to the Word. They enjoy the sermon, but at the first sign of trouble, they are repelled, because they think the Word has failed them. They forget that following Christ is not always a bed of roses. They forget that Jesus promised there would be some thorns in those roses, so when they experience the thorns they give up on Christ.
Mark 4:18-19 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. (NIV)
These are people who have an intellectual response to the Word. They agree that it’s true. They might even say “Amen” during the sermon, but then life gets busy, and in their pursuit of wealth, or just in their pursuit of taking care of the family, they forget what God said to them and fail to put it into practice.
Mark 4:20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.” (NIV)
These are people who actually put God’s Word into practice. They are the ones whose lives become abundantly fruitful, both personally and in their influence over others. I’m talking about the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control in your own life. But I’m also talking about the fruit of others who come to follow Christ because of your positive influence in their life. You see…
It’s not enough to have an emotional response to God’s word. And it’s not enough to have an intellectual response to God’s word. We must also have a volitional response to God’s Word. In other words, we must DO God’s word if we want a life that’s fruitful and productive for the Kingdom of God. We must put God’s Word into practice if we want a life that will make an eternal difference in the lives of others.
Twenty years ago, at the 1993 annual meeting of The American Heart Association, 300,000 doctors, nurses, and researchers met in Atlanta to discuss, among other things, the importance of a low fat diet in keeping our hearts healthy. Now, at such a convention, you’d expect the participants to eat low fat meals. That didn’t happen. The Boston Globe reported that those doctors and nurses, while talking about low fat diets, actually ate a lot of high fat, fast food during the convention. There were consuming foods like bacon cheeseburgers and fries at about the same rate as people from other conventions. When a reporter asked one cardiologist whether or not his eating high fat meals set a bad example, he replied, “Not me, because I took my name tag off.” (Boston Globe, 11-10-93; www.PreachingToday.com)
Well, as Christians, i.e., as those who wear the name of Christ, we can never take our name tag off. For good or ill, we represent Christ. And if we want to represent Him well and be a positive influence on others, it’s not enough just to talk about His Word, we must put it to practice in our own lives.
If you and I really want to make a difference in this world, then we must HEAR the Word. We must believe it, and we must do it! We must live it out in your everyday life, not just on Sunday, but Monday through Saturday, as well. Live it out at work. Live it out at home. Live it out wherever you are with God’s help, and He will make you fruitful and productive for His Kingdom.
Edward Kimball lived such a life. He was a shoe-shop assistant and a Sunday School teacher in Chicago. He spent hours of his free time hanging out with the young boys on the street in Chicago's inner city, trying to win them for Christ. One day, in 1858, he led a young boy named D. L. Moody to Christ, and Moody grew up to be a preacher.
In 1879, Moody led a young man by name of F. B. Meyer to faith in Christ, who also grew up to be a preacher. Meyer won a young man by the name of J. W. Chapman to Christ. Chapman, in turn, grew up to be a preacher and brought the message of Christ to a baseball player named Billy Sunday.
As an athlete/evangelist, Billy Sunday held a revival in Charlotte, North Carolina, that was so successful the organizers invited another evangelist by the name of Mordecai Ham to Charlotte to preach. And in the audience that day was a young teenager named Billy Graham who gave his life to Christ. (Bill Wilson, Streets of Pain, Word, 1992, pp.123-24; www.PreachingToday.com)
It all started with a businessman living out and planting the seed of God’s Word in one boy’s heart. And that’s the way God’s Kingdom grows – as regular people live out God’s Word and share it with those who will listen.
That’s the power of God’s Word, my friends, planted in the context of loving relationships. It will not only change your life, it can change the lives of many more, multiplying itself 30, 60, or even 100 times! You may not see it in your lifetime, but the influence of your life can have a multiplying effect in the generations to follow. All you have to do is hear the Word, believe it and do it!
