Doers of the Word

John Wivell

Luke • Sermon • Submitted 3 months ago • Presented 3 months ago

Luke 8:1–21

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Scripture Reading

Luke 8:1–21 NKJV

Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with Him, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities—Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance. And when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to Him from every city, He spoke by a parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Then His disciples asked Him, saying, “What does this parable mean?” And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see, And hearing they may not understand.’ “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. “No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a lampstand, that those who enter may see the light. For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light. Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.” Then His mother and brothers came to Him, and could not approach Him because of the crowd. And it was told Him by some, who said, “Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see You.” But He answered and said to them, “My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.”

You probably know the passage in James that calls us to be “doers of the Word, and not hearers only.” Well, the parables today emphasize what it means to hear the Word of God, and do it. There are two parables, and two stories that all focus on this same idea.

Deliverance from the wrath of God happens by faith alone, as Jesus himself says in this section; however, genuine faith will result in good works, which proves that the words are real.

v. 1 declares that Jesus was going around ‘bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.’ What does this mean? the Kingdom of God means God’s direct rule through the person of Jesus himself; when Jesus reigns, the earth will be bountiful beyond imagining. When Jesus reigns, true righteousness and justice will be everywhere (Isa 32:15-18). When Jesus reigns, everyone will know the Lord. We have for all of our lives lived in a world at war with God; that kingdom is at peace. We have always lived in a broken world where sickness, cancer, earthquakes, fires, and floods are normal. that will be a world with none of these things. That is a world where almost no one ever dies, and the very few that do will clearly deserve it (Isa 65:20-22).

However, this kingdom is only good news for those who believe. For those who do not believe the Day of the Lord is only judgment (Amos 5:18-20). Jesus message is intended to spark genuine faith.

I. Serving the Lord

But if you’re thinking you realize that Jesus doesn’t have wealth. He’s spending all his time traveling, and his disciples aren’t earning money either. Thus you’ve got 13 men who all need food every day. They need clothes, and because they spend so much time walking, they’re going to wear out those sandals in rather short order. Jesus needs someone who can help pay the bills so he can preach. And he found some. We are given the names of some women, women of means who chose to spend their wealth helping Jesus and his disciples.

This was unusual, as most Rabbis didn’t want much to do with women; but Jesus was different. He treated people equally. He had helped some of them. Mary Magdalene had been delivered from seven demons (was she the woman at the home of Simon the Pharisee? We’ll never know, but I’d think being a former demoniac would fit the bill.) We know they were women with some money, as one of them was the wife of Herod’s steward. The King’s steward was a position of power and riches, so Joanna certainly had money. But Luke notes that this is not a complete list - there were many others.

What do we learn from this? Just that from the very beginning, the ministers of the gospel were supported by those who believed the Lord. Jesus of all people did not have to have money (Mark 8:14-21). The man who could feed five thousand with a little boy’s lunch could have just created whatever they needed, if this was the right thing to do. But he did not do this, instead, he left us an example, and allowed these women to serve him by meeting his needs. They had the privilege of sharing in the work of Jesus himself. I’d say that was more than worth it.

II. Bearing Fruit

the parable itself is rather simple. It has to do with the sowing of seed as it happened back then. A sower would sow seed by hand, sprinkling his seed over the land. This was the fastest way to sow before machines were invented, and a skilled sower could be quite even. however, it meant that at the edges of the field there would be a little spillage. People would tread down a path at the edge to avoid ruining the plowed earth; this path would be hard, so nothing could grow there. Thus, the birds would eventually come and eat the seed. Other places would have a rock just below the level of the soil - this was too shallow to sustain growth; but since the sower was just evenly spreading seed everywhere, the seed would fall there and immediately spring up due to the extra warmth; but without enough soil, it would wither and die under the blazing Mediterranean sun. Other places had weeds which would compete for sunlight, rain, and nutrients, and because the weeds grow faster, the plants are choked out and end up too small to produce anything. Every farmer of Jesus’ day knew this.

But unless you were motivated to understand, it would just seem like a weird story about plants growing. The disciples were all familiar with how sowing worked, even the fishermen and the tax collector, but they didn’t understand what the parable meant until Jesus explained it to them. This shows that the purpose of Jesus’ parables wasn’t to explain things, but to hide them. Jesus was deliberately being obscure so that only those who cared would understand anything. that’s why he says that the disciples have been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Jesus wants them to understand, but he actually doesn’t want most people to get it.

Jesus quotes Isaiah 6:9 here to explain why. In that passage, Isaiah sees the Lord in the temple, and the Lord says, “whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah then says, “here am I send me.” So he is comissioned to tell Israel God’s message. that is what makes him a prophet. but he then is told that he is to go to a people that will refuse to listen; He will preach and few people will believe him. Jesus is saying that he has a similar task. Most Israelites were not prepared to accept the message that Jesus gave. Now the thing about hearing the Word of God, is that once you know what you’re supposed to do, you are obligated to do it. God will hold you responsible for what you hear. Thus, for most of the people that listened to Jesus, knowing too much about the Word of God would hurt them, since they weren’t actually going to do what Jesus said. Therefore Jesus hid the truth from those people, to limit the punishment they would one day receive.

but Jesus still wants to teach anyone who will truly listen and believe; thus, the parables had the effect of making those people seek Jesus out to find out what he was talking about. This would not only be for his disciples, but for anyone who inquired about why Jesus told such a weird story. Such people were prepared to believe, and so they would benefit from hearing the Word of God.

Now to the parable itself. the sower is not even mentioned in Jesus’ account, so this parable is not about the preacher, but about the audience. the seed is the Word of God; it’s the same seed everywhere, so again, this parable is not about what the preacher says, but about what those who heard the preacher do about it. Of course, in real life the preacher can be more or less persuasive depending on his skill at preaching; but these parables are supposed to simplify real life so we can get the point of the parable.

there are four different kinds of listener.

The first mentioned are the hard-hearted; those who simply do not accept the message at all. Those people refuse to believe, and this refusal gives the Devil an opportunity to distract them so they forget what they heard. Then, they remain unbelieving. They do not bear fruit because they don’t believe; they are not saved; they do not become Christians.

The second kind are the ignorant; these people seem to believe, since they are very glad and immediately want to be Christians; however, they really don’t understand what it means to be a Christian, so when they find out that the Christian life is sometimes hard, they quickly reverse direction and claim that this “Christian thing” doesn’t work. So they end up also not becoming Christians, indeed, they were never actually saved in the first place.

The third kind of people are the distracted; these people do understand the message, but they are sidetracked by one thing or another. Some are sidetracked by the cares of poverty; or by the business of life. Others are sidetracked by their wealth; or by the pursuit of pleasure. In other words, they say, “Yeah, I understand, but I don’t want to be a christian because of . . . “ Again, these people aren’t saved to begin with, since they choose not to accept the message.

The fourth kind of people are the saved; These people understand the message, accept it, and choose to believe it. But if that’s true, then what is the fruit? I would say that the fruit they bear is a life that pleases God; full of the good works he wants us to do. Notice that they don’t do the good works to become Christians. They do good works as a result of believing the message.

In Matthew and Mark’s account of this parable, those on good soil bear different amounts of good fruit. That is, Christians don’t all live their lives equally faithfully; Some live better lives than others. but make no mistake, all Christians bear fruit, at least some. that is, there will be evidence in your life that you are a Christian.

III. Let your Light Shine

Jesus second parable is rather easy to understand. At the time, of course, lamps were burning oil. If you wanted light, it was a rather involved process, so you only light a lamp when you really needed it. Thus, every lamp is put on a lampstand to light the room.

the point is that those good works God wants us to do will eventually be seen for what they are. the opposite is also true; all secrets will be uncovered, everything will be seen for what it is. So be careful how you live - you might keep it hidden for a while, but not forever.

Now Jesus’ statement about the “haves” and “have-nots” seems unfair at first, until you understand what exactly he is talking about. The “haves” are those with good works. the “have-nots” are those whose lives do not please God, but might seem to be good on the outside. Eventually they will be seen for the phonies they are.

So, when you seek to please God, don’t give a thought for what people think of it. If they misunderstand you, that’s OK. God will put it right in the end; then they will feel quite bad for mischaracterizing you.

IV. A part of the Family of God

Now at this point the crowds were big enough that no one else could get through to talk to Jesus. His mother and his brothers were trying to get to him. It doesn’t say why they wanted to talk to him, but in any case Jesus was busy teaching, so he states that his real family are those who do the will of God.

Jesus doesn’t ignore his family. First, he moved his whole family to Capernaum when he began his ministry, clearly so he could continue to take care of them (John 2:12; Matt 4:13). Second, when he was dying, he arranged for John to take care of his mother (John 19:25-27). So whatever he means, he doesn’t mean we get to ignore our family and piously declare that Jesus is more important.

However, Jesus is also still trying to instill in people the importance of hearing God’s word and doing it. He declares that those who obey God are his family. You are part of Jesus family, therefore, if you hear and obey God’s Word. That’s why the church functions like a family; Jesus designed it that way.

It’s also why it’s important to attend church regularly. we all need the support of likeminded Christians. Christians were never meant to go it alone.