SERMON STRUCTURE: Are You Listening?

Matthew 13:1-23

CIT (Central Idea of the Text): Jesus’ parable showed why the people of His day did not understand the coming kingdom of God. (17 words).

SERMON FOCUS: The parable of the sower and the seed teaches the necessity of listening closely to God. (16 words).

Major Objective: Consecrative

Specific Objective: Take time to listen to and reflect on God’s word to you!

TITLE: Are You Listening?

Then … the completed sermon should be evaluated in terms of how well it adheres to the CIT and SF, and accomplishes its SO.

INVOCATION

OUTLINE OF Matthew 13:1-23

[Compare Mark 4:1-20, Luke 8:4-15.]

1. The Parable Presented. (13:1-9).

1. The setting for the parable. (13:1-3a).

2. The narrative of the parable. (13:3b-9).

   1. The sower went out to sow. (13:3b).

   2. Some seeds fell on the path, and the birds ate them. (13:4).

   3. Some seeds fell on rocky ground, but they had no depth of soil. (13:5).

   4. Those seeds died in the hot sun. (13:6).

   5. Other seeds fell on thorny ground, and the weeds choked them. (13:7).

   6. Other seeds fell on good soil, and produced abundant yield. (13:8).

3. A warning to pay attention. (13:9).

2. The Purpose Disclosed. (13:10-17).

1. The disciples’ inquiry: “Why do you speak to them in parables?” (13:10).

2. Jesus’ reply: “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom, but to them it has not been given.” (13:11-13).

   1. For Matthew, “understanding” is not merely conceptual, but is understood biblically to include subjection to God’s sovereignty.¹ (13:11)

   2. Therefore only those who have committed themselves to follow Jesus as his disciples are given the mysteries of the kingdom.² (13:12).

   3. “The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing, they do not perceive, and hearing, they do not understand.’” (13:13).

3. The prophecy of Isaiah. (13:14-15).

   1. Matthew quotes the prophecy to which Jesus refers.

   2. In this way, Jesus portrayed the people of His day as a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.

4. Blessings for those who see and hear. (13:16-17).

3. The Parable Revealed. (13:18-23).

1. Jesus interpreted the parable to His disciples. (13:18).

2. The seed sown on the path is the word of the kingdom that was not understood by those who heard it. (13:19).

3. The seed sown on rocky ground is the word of the kingdom sown into the life of someone who has no spiritual root, and who, when trouble comes, cannot endure. (13:20-21).

4. The seed sown on thorny ground is the word of the kingdom sown into the life of someone for whom “the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke it” and “it yields nothing.” (13:22).

5. The seed sown on good ground is the word of the kingdom sown in the life of “the one who hears the word and understands it….” (13:23).

SERMON DEVELOPMENT

Are You Listening?

Matthew 13:1-23

Introduction

1. Over the last six or eight years or so I have begun to develop a high-frequency hearing loss.

1. It’s a kind of hearing loss not uncommon to folks of my age (and older).

2. And there’s not much that can be done about it, short of purchasing hearing aids.

3. I take it as one of the normal consequences of growing older, and I consider that every day I have is a gift from God.

2. It has its disadvantages, to be sure.

1. The loss occurs mostly in higher frequencies, and especially in the range of women’s and children’s voices.

2. And I often struggle to hear clearly, especially in noisy surroundings, or in conversation when I cannot see the speaker’s face.

3. And sometimes the loss manifests itself in misunderstanding words, or mistaking one word for another that sounds like it.

3. And for a long time now, Linda has said that I don’t hear very well!

4. I have to admit that sometimes a selective kind of hearing is not always a bad thing!

5. In our Scripture for today, Jesus warns His disciples — and us — about the dangers of not listening closely to what God says to us.

Scripture

2. The passage is Matthew 13:1-23. I’m reading from the New Revised Standard Version.

[Read here Matthew 13:1-23 (New Revised Standard Version).]

2. In this story, or parable, that Jesus told about a farmer sowing seeds, He showed why the people of His day did not understand the coming kingdom of God.

2. For us, this story illustrates the necessity of listening closely to what God says to us.

Exposition

1. Sometimes the danger is that we are too familiar with Scripture.

1. I imagine that everyone who hears this sermon, except perhaps for young children, have already heard this parable many times.

2. And consequently, in hearing it again, the listener’s immediate reaction is to say, “Oh, I know what that means,” and immediately he or she “tunes out” anything else that might be said.

2. That is also a danger for everyone whose task it is to interpret Scripture, in teaching, preaching, and pastoral care.

1. It is especially a task in preparing and delivering sermons.

2. For the struggle is always to be sensitive both to the Scripture itself and to the needs of the congregation who hears the sermon.

3. Thomas G. Long is Professor of Preaching at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, and the author of a number of books on the art and craft of preaching, among them The Witness of Preaching, which was one of the textbooks for one of my courses at Campbell.

   1. Long says that the preacher’s role is to search the Scriptures on behalf of the congregation, and to bear faithful witness to what the Scriptures have to say to us in our own circumstances.

   2. And that is the spirit in which I attempt to discharge my duties to you in this pulpit.

   3. Long writes,

“One of the essential ways that we come to ‘know’ God is through the scripture, not because the Bible speculates about the nature of God in a metaphysical sense but because the Bible is itself the faithful witness to the interactions of God with the whole creation. …

“We go to the scripture, then, not to glean a set of facts about God or the faith that can then be announced whenever or wherever, but to encounter a Presence, to hear God’s voice speaking to us ever anew, calling us in the midst of the situations in which we find ourselves to be God’s faithful people. The picture of the preacher sitting alone in the study, working with a biblical text in preparation for the sermon, is misleading. It is not the preacher who goes to the scripture; it is the church that goes to the scripture by means of the preacher. The preacher is a member of the community, set apart by them and sent to the scripture to search, to study, and to listen obediently on their behalf.”³

4. But there’s sometimes a problem here.

   1. What the Scriptures have to say to us in our own circumstances is not always what we want to hear.

   2. All too often we want to hear something that

      1. Makes us feel good about ourselves, or

      2. Points out someone else’s shortcomings rather than our own, or

      3. Confirms for us our own fears and prejudices.

   3. And there have been times when not all of you have agreed with what I have said to you from this pulpit.

5. Dr. Roy deBrand was my Professor of Preaching at Campbell.

   1. I am of course tempted to say that whatever part of my sermons you like, I will take credit for, and whatever part you don’t like, I will blame on him!

   2. But that, of course, is far from the truth.

   3. He always insisted that the very first step in preparing a sermon is to read the Scripture passage over and over and over again, day after day, until you could hear the “witness” of the Holy Spirit speaking to you through it.

   4. And I have invariably found that there is no better foundation for a good sermon than that.

3. As I have tried to “live with” this Scripture over a period of time, I think that’s what the Holy Spirit is trying to say to us here.

4. The Scripture says the same thing to us on three different levels.

1. On the first level, as Jesus finishes the parable, He says plainly, “Let anyone with ears listen.” (13:9).

   1. The parables of Jesus are found chiefly in the 13^th chapter of Matthew, the 8^th chapter of Mark, and chapters 8 and 14 of Luke.

   2. Jesus ends almost every one of these parables with these words: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

   3. This particular parable occurs not only in the passage we read here, but also in Mark 4:1-20, and in Luke 8:4-15.

   4. Perhaps its very repetition in Scripture is more evidence that we ought to pay closer attention to it.

2. On a second level, Jesus tells this parable as a way of saying that Isaiah’s prophecy has been fulfilled in His own time.

   1. Jesus quotes Isaiah 6:9-10

“^13:14You will indeed listen, but never understand,

and you will indeed look, but never perceive.

“^13:15For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears have grown hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes,

so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears,

and understand with their heart and turn —

and I would heal them.” (Matt. 13:14-15).

1. So Matthew attributes their lack of seeing or hearing or understanding to their unwillingness to listen.

   1. For Matthew, “understanding” is not merely conceptual, but it is understood biblically to include subjection to God’s sovereignty.

   2. The question is,

      1. “Do you understand so that you might believe?”, or

      2. “Do you believe so that you might understand?”

1. And on the third level, the parable itself seems to bear out that theme.

   1. Much of the traditional emphasis in this parable has been on the different kinds of people who hear and respond to God’s word.

   2. The traditional question that preachers ask at the end of this parable is, “What kind of soil are you?”

   3. But I think a more realistic question, or at least a question closer to the point I think Jesus was making here is, “How well are you listening?”

5. To put the question in a different way, how do you receive the word of God that is sown in your life and in your heart?

1. Do you give it no reception at all, no nourishment or attention, like seed strewn on a hard-beaten path — like you’ve never heard it at all?

2. Do you give it maybe a little passing thought, like seed strewn among the rock?

   1. Do you have trouble remembering on Monday morning what the Sunday School lesson or the sermon was about on Sunday?

   2. Or do you perhaps remember some of it, but find what you remember (and experience) from God’s word to be of little use to you in times of trouble?

3. Or are you perhaps too busy day-to-day to give much attention to the application of God’s truth to your life?

4. Or maybe you do indeed feed on the word of God sown into your heart and life, and God’s word does indeed make a difference in how you live your life from day to day.

5. It’s all a matter of how well you listen!

Reflections and Conclusions

1. It is God who sows the seed of His Word into our hearts and lives.

1. God sows His word in your heart by way of the Scriptures.

Do you “live” with the Scriptures, and meditate on them regularly, as they instruct us to do?

2. God sows His word in your heart by way of your conversations with Him.

Do you take time just to be with God, and to be quiet and listen to what God may be saying to you?

3. God sows His word in your heart by way of your relationships with other Christians.

Do you have one or more brothers or sisters in Christ to whom you are spiritually accountable, and do you likewise hold them accountable before God?

2. But what we do with that seed is our individual responsibility.

3. The harvest of the kingdom as likewise God’s doing.

1. The harvest is sure.

2. But the question is, will you be a part of that harvest?

3. Even though you may consider yourself a Christian, you may not simply assume that you are the “good soil” of which Jesus spoke.

   1. Your membership in this church in itself will not do it.

   2. Someone has said that membership in the church will no more make you a Christian than living in a garage will make you an automobile!

4. Does the Word of God “dwell in you richly,” as Paul writes to the Colossians (3:6)?

4. Are you listening?