Exploring The Question, "Are You Listening To God's Voice?".

Life Bible - Are You Listening?
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Allie Sweeney: [00:00:19] Good morning, church. I'm Allie Sweeney, I help lead a Monday morning women's Bible study. Our passage this morning is Matthew chapter 13, verses 1 through 23, "That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9Whoever has ears, let them hear.” 10The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” 11He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 13This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. 14In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “ ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. 15For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ 16But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. 18“Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 20The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 22The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. 23But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” This is God's Word.

Dan Franklin: [00:03:36] Amen. You can grab a seat. So as we prepare to go through this great passage that Allie just read for us, I want to ask a question, and you can raise your hand if if there's an affirmative answer to this question. Raise your hand if you want to hear God's voice more than you currently do. All right, good, that's a good showing. We want to hear God's voice. We want to experience his guidance. And when I talk about hearing God's voice, I'm not necessarily talking about the idea that there would be sort of a vision or an audible voice that we could hear, although God certainly is welcome to do that. But what I'm talking about is experiencing God's leading and guidance through His word, through other godly people coming and giving us guidance and help, or through hearing a sermon that seems to just be right for us, or just through the promptings of the Holy Spirit day by day, to want to hear God's voice more than we currently do.

Dan Franklin: [00:04:40] I think most of us, even if right now you're kind of feeling like you're on the fence as far as what you believe, we want to hear God's voice, although I think we want to hear God's voice in sort of limited ways most of the time. There are probably whole sections of our life that we're like, I'm not sure I want to hear God's voice on that. Like, I want to hear God's voice, but I want to hear God's voice when I want to hear God's voice. I think of it a little bit like those of you who are younger and don't know what it used to be like watching TV. When we would watch TV, we would watch the show that was on right then. And so it was like, especially as a kid when I was a kid, it was like important to try to jockey your way into making sure you had access to the TV, like right at 3:00 when that show was coming on. And then the real kicker was when the commercial break came on and you needed to use the bathroom, and so you rushed to the bathroom as fast as you could and then ran back to try to get back before the commercial break was done. That's how we used to watch TV, but that's not how we do it now. We start when we want to start. We stop when we want to stop. We pause when we want to pause, We watch TV now on demand. And I think some of us are like, oh, I want to hear God's voice, but on demand. Like, if I'm feeling like my life is going okay, it's okay, God, you don't need to interrupt that. But as soon as there's a trial, as soon as there's a situation in over my head that I need some wisdom and guidance on, then I want to hear from God. And I'm going to ask God to speak, and I'm going to wait about 12 seconds, and if he doesn't speak, I'm going to throw my arms up into the air and say why does God hold out on me?

Dan Franklin: [00:06:27] And here's why I'm saying all of this, as we prepare, especially as we prepare for this parable that we're going to walk through in Matthew chapter 13. And if you have a Bible or you're using a Bible app, Matthew 13 one through 23 is where we'll be. Here's what we need to make sure we keep in mind, when it comes to hearing from God the question is not is God speaking; the question is, are you listening?

Dan Franklin: [00:06:55] And one of the things that we're going to see in this parable, that's sometimes it's called the parable of the sower, that's what Jesus calls it, and sometimes it's called the parable of the soil. What we're going to see is that at the center of this parable is that it's a parable about listening. And in some ways, you know, those of you who have been a part of the church recently, you know that as we were going through the gospel of Matthew, we're not going through every single passage in Matthew, but for each chapter, we're choosing a key passage to go through and then sort of summarizing what happens in the other parts. And so if we were to go through all of Matthew 13, we would have not one parable but seven parables that Jesus tells in this. This is a section where Jesus enters into speaking in parables. We're choosing the first one not just because it's the most famous of the seven that he gives here, but because in some ways it's a parable about parables, it's a parable about how we listen.

Dan Franklin: [00:07:52] Although, in this passage, the parable itself only lasts the first nine verses. So let's walk through it, let's just at face value. let's walk through the parable that Jesus tells. We get the lead-up to it in verses 1 through 3, it says, "That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake." So this is the same day that, in the previous passage, if you were to look back to Chapter 12, there was an instance where he was teaching in a home, and his family wanted to come in and get him because they thought he was going crazy thinking he was the Messiah, he said that his real family was those who listened to him. And so that same day that he was teaching inside, he went outside, and it says, "Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3Then he told them many things in parables.", and we'll get into what he says in just a moment.

Dan Franklin: [00:08:41] But just think of the scene right here, so many people have come to hear from Jesus, his fame is spreading. Large crowds are there to the point that he has to get into one of his disciple's boats, and put out a little bit into the shore so that he can have the kind of projection that all of the people can hear, and it says that he told them many things in parables. And we're going to look at the first one that he gave, starting at the end of verse 3, "A farmer went out to sow his seed." Just real quick, you're coming to hear a speech from Jesus, it's kind of a strange start, isn't it? Like no introduction, my fellow Israelites, “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up." So the path is not where you're trying to sow seed, but he's at his farm, he's in his crops, he's sowing the seed all over the place, some of it gets on the road, that seed doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't sink in at all because it's the road, the birds come by and they eat it, that's just sort of wasted seed.

Dan Franklin: [00:09:45] In verses 5 and 6 he says, "Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root." And this is something that happened frequently in Israel's climate because of the mix of when the rain came, there was often a part of the soil that on the surface it looked like all the rest of the soil, it looked like good solid soil that you could put seeds into, but there is a layer of limestone not far beneath the surface. And so the plant would start to grow, at first, everything would look good, but the roots couldn't get past the limestone, so the sun would come up and make the plants wither.

Dan Franklin: [00:09:45] He goes on in verse 7, he says, "Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants." And when you hear the word choke that, think of the idea of sort of crowded out. The plants were able to grow up, but because the thorns were crowding them out, they weren't able to bear any fruit, the thorns choked out the fruitfulness of these plants.

Dan Franklin: [00:10:55] And then he says in verse 8, "Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown." And there is actually a little bit of debate about how exactly Jesus means for us to calculate the 100, 60, and the 30, to the point that some people think Jesus is exaggerating, which he sometimes does in parables, that he's talking about this miraculous sort of ridiculous crop coming in. And others say, no, no, depending on what Jesus means here by the 100, 60, and 30-fold, this is just a good crop, this is the kind of crop you would want. Either way, we know verse 8 is what the farmer wanted, he sows the seed, and it brings back a return. Then in verse 9, Jesus says, "Whoever has ears, let them hear.” And you know what he says next? Nothing, that's the end of the story, he tells the crowds.

Dan Franklin: [00:11:54] We've got more verses to cover, but this is the last thing that the crowds heard on this story. This is a strange speech, you've got to again, imagine Jesus' family who's there and they're just like, we got up early, we got the kids packed up, we got everything ready, we went through the crowds, we found a good seat, and we sat down, and we get a story, we get a riddle. Like, what is going on here? This would be like, imagine that some of you, you won't even have to imagine this, but imagine coming to church on a Sunday where it was a little bit difficult to get here. Like the family wasn't all in sync, you had to get up early, somebody slept in, and everything sort of went wrong. But you're like, no, we're going to go, this is important, we want to hear what the Lord has to say. You show up and I get up front and I start the sermon by saying, there's a train in Chicago that's going 60 miles an hour, there's another train in Saint Louis going 45mph. I get done with that riddle, and then I just walk off the stage. You're like, are you kidding me? This is the effect that happens here with Jesus' speech, this is all the crowds get, these nine verses of a parable about a farmer sowing seed and four kinds of results that he gets.

Dan Franklin: [00:13:08] It's understandable then, that the next section in this passage is for us to understand the purpose of what Jesus is doing here. And verse 10 leads us into that because the disciples, maybe the disciples were fielding some complaints at this moment, "The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” Like, we don't get it, this is confusing. Why are you doing these riddles? Why are you not talking more straightforward? We got the best crowd we've ever had. We have this huge crowd here, and you're speaking to them in parables, in riddles. Why are you doing this?

Dan Franklin: [00:13:43] By the way, as a quick pause before going on. Sometimes when we think of a parable, we just think, well, a parable is a story. And often the parables are stories, but it's more than that, a parable is a story where Jesus is taking a deeper spiritual reality and casting it alongside something that's more accessible to us. Sometimes it's a story, sometimes it's just if you were to read through Matthew 13, you'd see some of the parables are like one line, they're just a word picture. Jesus is illustrating a spiritual reality that we can understand better through this strange illustration.

Dan Franklin: [00:14:25] So they asked Jesus, why are you speaking in parables? And because of what I just said, you might think, well, the answer that Jesus is going to give is because people learn through stories. People love stories, they learn through stories, so I tell stories. But that's not what he says, his response begins in verse 11, "He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them." Jesus says, here's the reason why I speak in parables so that you guys get it, and so they don't get it. It's been said, and this is especially true in the parables in Matthew 13, that parables reveal and conceal. That on the one hand, he's saying hey to you and he's not just speaking to the 12. Here he's speaking to all of those who have really committed to Jesus as disciples. He's saying you get to understand the secrets of the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, which is a way of him saying, you get in on what God is looking to communicate to his people right now, the crowds don't get in on it.

Dan Franklin: [00:15:33] And this seems strange and kind of harsh, we're like, why would Jesus not want everybody to know? It sounds like he's being kind of arbitrary here. Like he's saying, Hey, I like you guys, so you get to understand; I don't like them as much, so they don't get to understand. It sounds very arbitrary. But in verse 12, Jesus lets us know it's not arbitrary, there's a reason why this is happening. He says, "Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them." This is the verse that anybody who has communist tendencies is going to have nightmares about this verse, right? You're just like, wait a second, so things don't even out. You're not like, hey, they have a lot, so they'll give you some. No, they have some, so they're going to keep getting more. They don't have any, so even the little bit that they have is going to be taken away from them.

Dan Franklin: [00:16:27] So this is, we're going to get there progressively, but just kind of follow this so far. Jesus says, hey, the reason I speak in parables is so that some people get it and other people don't. He says the people who are going to get it are the people that have, the people who are not going to get it are the people who don't have. But we still need to answer that question, have what? What is it that this group has that gives them access to these secrets that this group doesn't have? And Jesus answers this question through an illustration from the Old Testament. He says in verse 13, "This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand."

Dan Franklin: [00:17:11] And this seems to be Jesus summarizing an idea that's a lead-in to a quote from Isaiah 6 that he moves into later on, right now in verses 14 and 15. He says, "In them is fulfilled..." And in them in the crowds in Israel in the first century right then. "In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:“ ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. 15For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them."

Dan Franklin: [00:17:51] We'll talk more about this, but now we'll look at the last part of this section, verses 16 and 17, where Jesus is speaking to the disciples. He says, "But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it." It says you're in a privileged position because you're present, seeing and hearing things that others want to. And if you're looking for a common thread, if you are paying attention to the verses that Jesus quoted from Isaiah 6, and just this whole lead-up, you'd see that there's a common word that keeps coming up again and again and again, and it's the word, hear. You're hearing, there are other people that they hear but they don't really hear. They see, but they don't really see. He says that's the crowd, but you want to be the kind of person that hears and really hears, that hears and understands.

Dan Franklin: [00:19:01] Remember how Jesus ended the parable, his last words to the crowds in verse 9 were, "He who has ears, let him hear." Jesus is saying you need to be listening. Now go back to verse 12 now for a second, because verse 12 is where Jesus summarized why he's speaking in parables, "Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them." Here's what Jesus is saying here, what He's saying is those who have are those who are actively listening for the purpose of understanding and responding. He says they have, and they're going to get more. They're listening, so they're going to hear more. Those who don't have are those who have ears on their body, but they're not listening, they're not paying attention, they are tuning out. He says they, even the little that they picked up, they're not even going to keep that.

Dan Franklin: [00:20:01] Here's a summary, maybe here's a quick way to say what Jesus is saying here. He is saying, the more you listen, the more you hear; the more you tune out, the less you hear. And in some ways, Jesus is just saying cause and effect, and in some ways, and this is kind of chilling, he's talking about a way that God judges’ people. Some of you that know the Old Testament know the story of Pharaoh, and because Pharaoh hardened his heart against God, what did God do? He hardened Pharaoh's heart, that was part of the judgment. If you read Romans 1, it talks about the ways that we rebel against God. Romans 1 then talks about God giving people over to their darkness. Part of this is Jesus saying, yeah, there's some intentional concealing, they have already tuned it out, so they're going to hear even less.

Dan Franklin: [00:20:55] By the way, this is true not just with God, the idea that the more you tune out, the less you hear, this is true of life. And by the way, not to brag, but women, we men are way better at this than you are. Nobody can tune out like us men; we are masters at this. I said that in the first service, and a husband in the front row said, shh. The more you tune out, the less you hear, this is just true of life. I remember when I was a kid, and car alarms first became a thing, and it was amazing that you could have this alarm on your car. And if you're walking through and you heard a car alarm, it was a reason to take notice, and we were like, call the police. Well, we don't have cell phones yet, but somebody do something about this, something alarming is happening. Then as time went on, we came to realize that most car alarms were what? There were false alarms. No car was being stolen, somebody just walked a little bit too close to the car or accidentally bumped it as they were walking by it. And so we went from high alert when we hear a car alarm, to probably it's okay when we hear a car alarm, to most of us today, if there is a car alarm going off, it's just background noise. The only reason it's not background noise is if you have to look out your window from your room and you're like, somebody's got to turn that thing off, it's just we don't even really hear it anymore. The less you listen, the more you tune God out, and the more his voice is just going to become background noise. And we've got to admit, there are probably some of us in this room right now that were like, I want to hear from God, I want to hear his voice. And the reason you are not is because you have tuned him out for so long. It's not that he stopped speaking, it's that you don't have the capacity right now to hear him. Thankfully, the other side of this is true also, the more actively you listen, the more you hear.

Dan Franklin: [00:23:02] Our oldest son loves tennis. He just graduated from high school; he played tennis all through. He loves watching tennis, so we've been watching the US Open lately on TV. We don't have cable, so the only way we're able to watch the US Open is through ESPN+, which some of you might have and you know what that is. But here's what that means, we get access to some matches, but for the marquee matches that we're able to watch on ESPN+ the only way we can watch them is if we watch them in Spanish. Now we're sort of like, that's okay, like, that's okay, we can still watch the match, we can still see what's going on. Now, Matt and I both took Spanish in high school, him much more recently, but so we both are like, we know some Spanish. There are, most of the time when we're watching the match, we're not paying attention at all to what the announcers are saying, it is just background noise, we're just watching the match happen. But I found myself every so often, I decided I'm going to tune in, I'm going to really actively listen to what the announcers are saying. I'm not picking up on everything, we always pick up on the word ace that they call out, that's an easy one. But I've realized the more I decide to tune in, I start to pick up more and more, and I'm really getting what's happening. The more you listen, the more you realize that there's there to be heard. Jesus says, that if you want to hear God's voice, you better start listening actively. Because if you tune God out, you'll stop hearing him altogether; but if you listen actively, you will be amazed at how much leading and guidance God is offering.

Dan Franklin: [00:24:50] So all this leads into the final section that we'll go over. Jesus, in his great compassion, actually tells us what this parable means. In some parables, we don't get this with the parable of the soils, or the parable of the sower, we get this. So we're going to walk through the four options of what happens with the seed that was sown, and with each one, we're going to ask ourselves a personal question about how we are listening.

Dan Franklin: [00:25:14] So let's look at the explanation. Jesus says, listen to what the parable of the sower means. By the way, even the fact that he says, listen, it's another clue. Perk up your ears, and listen, this is a parable about listening. So in verse 19, the first kind of soil, he says, "When anyone hears the message of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path." So he starts with the roadside soil, and he says that's the soil that it doesn't even sink in at all, it stays completely on the surface, and it is not received by the soil whatsoever. Satan comes and just snatches it away before it sinks in at all. And so here's the question I want us all to ask as we look at the first soil, the question is, what words of God are not even up for consideration with you?

Dan Franklin: [00:26:09] Now as a pause, popularly, this parable has been used sort of in a salvation context to say, when you hear the good news about Jesus dying for the sins of the world and being raised to new life, and that we can have access to God through faith, which one of these soils do you respond with? And that certainly is an accurate way to take the parable, but it's broader than that, it's not just how do you respond to the Gospel, it's how do you respond to any time God is speaking? So we pause and we ask the question, what words of God are not even up for consideration? That when it comes up in a sermon, in your personal Bible reading, in a book that you're reading, in a friend that comes to you about this, that you just are not open to listening.

Dan Franklin: [00:27:00] Maybe some of you right now you're sleeping with somebody outside of marriage and even me mentioning it right now, you're already ready to tune out. You're just like, nope, I'm not letting that in. If it comes up in a sermon, I just stop listening to that part. I'm just not listening, I'm not open, I get to do what I want to do in that area of my life. God can have all kinds of access to other areas of my life, but when that comes up, I'm not even listening.

Dan Franklin: [00:27:24] For some of you, it's in the area of forgiveness, forgiveness is a big topic in the Bible. In a few weeks, we'll be in the Lord's Prayer, and we'll be talking through where Jesus says, We pray to the Father, forgive us our debts as we've forgiven our debtors; forgive us, and we're forgiving others. For some of you, when the subject of forgiveness comes up, maybe you're even willing to tune in in a very general way. But if somebody were to come to you and say you have so much bitterness toward your mother, you need to forgive her, that word is not sinking in at all, it is a nonstarter for you, and you are not even open to considering this.

Dan Franklin: [00:28:09] Jesus says sometimes the seed doesn't even get in, and even for those of us who are believers, we have to have the chilling opportunity to say maybe there are some words from God that we aren't even leaving up for consideration. We're not even saying this is hard to hear, we're literally not hearing it.

Dan Franklin: [00:28:29] The second soil comes in verses 20 and 21, Jesus says, "The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy." And just as a quick note on this, sometimes the most passionate Christians are the newest Christians. Have you noticed this, sometimes the people who are most exuberant are the people who their faith is fresh? And so we can have a temptation if somebody just comes to faith in Jesus, we're like, man, let's get him in a testimony video, let's get them upfront, let's make them a leader. There's a reason why in First Timothy 3 when Paul talks about elder qualifications, he says it can't be a new convert, it can't be a new convert. They might be the most enthusiastic, but maybe they're enthusiastic because they haven't yet been tested. He says they 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. And sadly, we all know people who were the most excited, and then they were nowhere to be found when trials came.

Dan Franklin: [00:29:43] So let's ask a second question, let's ask a question about the soil on the rocky places. And that question is, what words of God are not taking root because of trials? Maybe there's something, maybe there's an area of your life where you're like, hey, I am going to bless those who curse me, I'm going to be kind and compassionate even when people are mistreating me. Until the mistreatment reaches a certain threshold, and then you're taking over. Like following Jesus on that, that was good for these three situations, but with this guy, retaliation is the only way to fix it. It's time for the Word to stop taking root because the trials have become too intense.

Dan Franklin: [00:30:31] And I want to say something that may not be pleasant but is important to say I think right now, following Jesus, if right now you're experiencing it in your life and you're like, following Jesus is not easy. Following Jesus is not supposed to be easy. We can wish it was, but following Jesus is not easy, stop waiting for it to become easy, it is not supposed to be easy. Now, the reason it's not easy is not because there's some defect in Jesus, it's because there are lots of defects in us, we have all kinds of baggage, and we have all kinds of problems, and the world is messed up and distracting. Following Jesus is not supposed to be easy; we need to stop being surprised when it's not easy. Jesus said, "You will have trouble in this world, but take heart, for I have overcome the world." We have hope, but if we are only going to listen to the words of Jesus when it's smooth sailing, we're going to be like the second soil and we're going to be scorched by the trials and no longer be fruitful.

Dan Franklin: [00:31:38] The third kind of soil is in verse 22, "The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful." And so here's the third question we'll ask, here about the third kind of soil, what words of God are being crowded out by temporary values? When we were back in chapter 6, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus made that great statement when he said, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." It's such a huge thing, seek first, make your primary pursuit, God's kingdom, and His righteousness in everything that he's called you to do. And we hear that, we hear Matthew 6:33, we hear that verse "Seek first the Kingdom of God." And we're like, that's good. Now I got to run and drop the kids off on their third activity this week. I've got to run because I've got a side hustle going on that I need to make sure is successful. I've got to run because there's a Netflix show that I have got to get through, it's been sitting in my queue for weeks and it's a stewardship issue for me to make sure I watch this TV show. The deceitfulness of wealth, and the worries of this life, are things that aren't sinful. Jesus isn't saying here that sin is going to crowd out the word, He's saying life is going to crowd out this word, temporary values, things that are okay, but they're not as important.

Dan Franklin: [00:33:11] And how many for us right now, we're like, I'm not going to give more generously, even though I kind of feel like God wants me to. I'm not going to because that would rob us of other things that we want to do with that money, and we're not letting that go. How many of us right now, maybe there's something within your family, if you have a family right now that you're called to do and you're like, all right, I know God is calling us to do something as a family, to, like, read the word together, and to pray together, but in order to do that, we would have to drop one of these activities. We would have to say no to either one of the sports or music lessons or some activity that we're going to, and we're just not willing to let that go. The word is being crowded out by temporary values. Jesus says if that's what's going on, you're the third soil, you're surrounded by thorns, you're growing up, but no fruit is coming.

Dan Franklin: [00:34:04] Finally, Jesus gets to the good soil in verse 23, and that's what he calls it. He says, "But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” So this is the good soil, and notice this is actually the shortest explanation that he gives of the four soils. He says this one hears, everybody hears, all four soils hear, this one here is it, and what do they do? They understand.

Dan Franklin: [00:34:35] Now, we need some help on this because we see the word understand, and most of us think of that as a very passive idea. Like we're looking back to the soil on the path that heard and didn't understand, and we feel bad for them. We're like maybe they're just not smart, but is that a reason why they should be punished? Maybe the fourth soil, maybe the people are just more intelligent, so they get it, but people in the first soil are just not very smart, so they don't get it. Why should that be the difference? What you need to know is that Jesus talking about understanding here, this is not a passive idea, this is an active idea. In fact, when Mark tells this same parable, what he says, what he has Jesus saying is the one who hears the word and receives it. When Matthew here records Jesus saying, understand, it's not a passive idea of, oh, I just happened to get it. The idea is you have received it, you are seeking to understand it, and you are going to respond to what you've heard.

Dan Franklin: [00:35:42] Sometimes when we're reading the Bible, we're like, it's hard because sometimes I read stuff that I don't understand. What I want to put in real quick is maybe you need to read the whole passage again. Maybe reading the passage and just saying, I don't get it, and closing your Bible and moving on for your day is not the way to go. Maybe reading a passage and saying, I'm not quite sure why I don't get this, I need to read this again, or I need to ask a friend, or I'm going to I'm going to search for a trustworthy pastor to see if they have a sermon on this, or I'm going to look at a book that might help me understand this. What if we decided that it was our job to understand? And what I'm not saying is to understand what does the 666 mean in the Book of Revelation. I'm not talking about the passages that are really cryptic. I'm just saying, what if we said it's my job to learn, it's my job to hear, and it's my job to receive and respond to God's Word.

Dan Franklin: [00:36:38] So the fourth question, this is the question that I want to close with, is the question, How can you set yourself up to listen more? We're all hearing, everybody in here is hearing to some degree. We're all hearing, how can we set ourselves up to listen more? And let me throw out a few possibilities. For some of us, it's really straightforward, it's just that you need to actually set aside time to spend with God in his word and in enough time for reflection and prayer that you're not just rushing through it. You may have a heart that's genuinely open to God, but there's just no time where it's quiet enough that you would hear what he's saying to you. You need to just say, and I know I've said this before, don't try to jump 0 to 60. If you're like, I'm never having a quiet time, don't be like starting tomorrow, every day, hour and a half. Like maybe you just say, you know what, this week I'm going to carve out three 20-minute times over the course of this week that I'm just sitting reading God's Word in an unrushed way and praying for him to speak to me and praying that I can hear his voice. For some of you, the way that you can set yourself up to listen more is simply by responding to whatever way you already know that God has been speaking to you.

Dan Franklin: [00:37:59] Maybe I have already mentioned it, maybe there is a subject, maybe it has to do with money, or maybe it has to do with sin. Maybe there's something where you're like, God has spoken, I know that he's calling me to do this, I just haven't done it yet. You're putting yourself in a position where God's voice will become background noise if you're not responding in the way that he's already spoken. Maybe it's time to say, all right, I'm nervous, but I'm going to walk across the room at the office and I'm going to invite this person to church. Or maybe I feel uncomfortable with it, but we're going to up our giving because we're going to trust that God is going to do something beautiful with this. Or maybe I'm going to go and apologize to that person that I wronged, or maybe I'm going to forgive that person that I've been holding out on. If we respond in the ways that God has already spoken, we are perking up our ears to hear what He wants to say to us.

Dan Franklin: [00:38:53] So here's actually what I want to do as the final thing that we'll do in this service, I'm going to invite you to go ahead and just bow your heads right now, we're going to have a quiet moment before I close this in prayer. I believe that for the vast majority of us, if we just spend 20 seconds in quiet right now, something's going to come to mind and we're going to say, yeah, God has been speaking to me on that, God has been prompting my heart, or God did bring that up through a good brother or sister who is bold enough to tell me. And a little bit I'm going to pray, but I'm going to leave us just some quiet moments and I'm just going to invite you right now. Afterward, we'll have the prayer team up for people who want to avail themselves of that, but right now, just to have some quiet time, say, God, I want to hear your voice. Please attune my heart to how you've been speaking to me.

Dan Franklin: [00:40:06] Father, in a world and in a culture of noise, please train us to be willing to be quiet before you. And Father, I pray for everyone here who knows that there's some message that you've been given, and it hasn't been getting through, or it hasn't been acted upon, I pray that you give them just a heart to trust you, the God who sent his beloved son for all of us, that what you're calling us to do is not for our harm, but for our good. Father, lead us and train us to be people who listen and give us the joy of hearing you more and more. Give us hearts to understand and hearts to respond to you. We pray this in the name of our savior, Jesus. Amen.

Dan Franklin: [00:40:56] As we close, I'm just going to ask you to stand and I'm going to read a benediction over us. As I'm doing that, if you're part of the prayer team, you can come up to the front because we always love, God's at work in some way and you want to respond, that our prayer team will be here. But as our benediction, I'm just going to read something very similar that Jesus said in the passage that we went through today. This is in Mark 4 verses 24 and 25, in the words of Jesus, “Consider carefully what you hear,” he continued. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more. 25Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.” Amen? Amen. God bless you for the rest of this Sunday.



Recorded in Upland, California.