As we continue to look at the life of the Lord Jesus – a REAL human life - in the book of Luke, we will keep seeing and
hearing His call to come join Him, to be His disciple or follower. God does not and will not force anyone to come to Him.
And, as difficult an issue as this is, I also don’t think God forces anyone to NOT come to Him – to be lost. Today, in Luke
8, we are going to look at several things that help us determine for ourselves – not for others – if we are true followers.
These are not intended to be used as weapons against people to tell them that they are not true believers. That is not our
job. Our job is to love people and proclaim Christ Jesus to people so that we may present them to the Lord following Him
fully – and that will happen as God Himself does the work in them. This is our purpose as a church and as individual
followers of Jesus. So as we prepare to read and listen to God’s Word, let’s prepare our hearts. PRAY – Lord we want
to hear from You and respond to You rightly.
Luke continues in chapter 8 to give us an orderly account of the life of Jesus. We are not sure where He is at this point –
last we knew He was in the town of Nain. Let’s look at the next part of the story as Luke tells it. Luke 8:1-3. READ.
Dr. Luke, led by and inspired by the Spirit of God, includes this reference to some of the women who followed Jesus and
the twelve. These women were disciples, too – followers.
These women named here and then “many others” either took it upon themselves to serve the disciples and Jesus or Jesus
had specifically invited them to come after Him. We don’t know. We do know that they provided for the needs of the
group that followed Jesus closely – and there is no need to insert anything sexual or off-base.
This is referring to food and clothing and haircuts and other stuff. It makes for trashy fiction to put our 21st century thinking
into what was happening here – major books and movies recently have tried to paint this picture of Jesus and Mary
Magdalene as being married and having children and other things the Bible does not say, nor are in the character of the
Savior. Don’t believe those fictional books and movies – and, if it were up to me, I would say, don’t read, support or buy
those books or movies.
Mary was one of these women who had been healed and delivered from diseases and spirits – Mary herself delivered from
seven demons. Joanna, the wife of Chuza – a household servant of Herod – may have been an abandoned wife or a
widow. We don’t know anything about Susanna except her name. What a thrill to meet her someday in heaven and ask
about her service to the Savior!
There were many others, it says in Luke 8. Many other women who had been healed and delivered by Jesus and who –
because of their forgiveness – expressed great love to Him by doing whatever they were able to do (Luke 7). Their
contribution to the ministry of Jesus is so significant that God includes it in His Word. This is good for us to remember.
There is room and value for everyone in the Kingdom of God.
You don’t have to play an instrument. You don’t have to teach. You don’t have to run a computer. If you CAN do those
things, there is certainly a place for you, too. But God made each of us with abilities and hearts to fulfill specific ministry to
help Him. Have you received the forgiveness of Jesus? Are you responding to Him with love? Are you doing what you
were made to do for the Kingdom of God out of love and appreciation for what God has done in you?
One way to determine if you are involved in the right thing is to analyze whether you have real joy and fulfillment. If not – if
it is a hassle or makes your frustrated, you’re in the wrong ministry. These women knew their calling and they fulfilled it out
of love and with joy and fulfillment. So if you’re in the wrong place – get out! No, don’t quit coming to church or serving.
Get out of that ministry and find the right one for you. This is part of the reason the church is in place – to help each of us
get hooked up with the thing we were made to do.
Let’s go on in Luke 8 – we’re going to run out of time. As we look at the next section of Luke’s account, I want you to
watch for a repeated word. It may not be obvious to everyone, but in 18 verses, this word is used 9 times. We are not
going to read all 18 verses right now (the word will be used twice in the verses we’ll read right now). Luke 8:4-10. READ.
Parable is a bibley word. Jesus speaks in parables a lot. Parables are not just Christian bookstores. A parable is a story
which lays out circumstances which can help people understand different circumstances. Jesus used parables to help
people get an idea about things that are harder to understand.
As Jesus tells this parable of the sower and the seed, He is referring to something else. As the disciples ask Him what it
means in verses 9 and 10, He lets them know that not everyone will get it. But in verse 8, after He shares the parable with
the crowd, He cries out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” May the people who can hear what I’m really saying
HEAR it. We’ll talk in a few minutes about what it means to really hear.
By the way, did you catch the repeated word yet? The disciples ask what He means, so He explains it to them. And we
hear this word a lot more. Luke 8:11-15. READ. What is the secret word? HEAR – AAAAHHHH! (No Pee Wee’s
playhouse fans here?) I am a child of the 1960s and 70s. A little phrase that was popular back then was “Bloom where
you’re planted.” That’s kind of a nice thought – wherever you find yourself, be something beautiful there. But that is not
what Jesus is talking about here.
In the parable of the sower and the seed, the seed is God’s Word. The sower is not identified – it may be God Himself or
it may be someone proclaiming God’s Word. And as this sower sows his seed - my kids were in a musical when they
went to Cornerstone Christian School where this story was told by someone with a lisp (on purpose). It was kind of
funny. But as this sower sows his seed it falls on various types of soil or surfaces.
The seed that fell on the wayside or the road never sprouted. The soil was not good for growing seed. The devil snatched
away the Word of God so that it could not take root. And notice, at the end of verse 12, the topic here is who is saved
and who is not. Again, not to be used by us as a weapon or a measuring stick on other people. We have no business
telling people whether they are saved or not – that’s the Spirit of God’s job. This is a measuring stick for us – for me and
for you.
This surface – the road or the wayside – produced no life. If a person hears the Word of God and ignores it or rejects it or
forgets about it, the Word of God does not produce life. It puts down no roots and produces nothing eternal. Is that you?
I think, from looking at the offer from God for restoration, that we can become a different kind of soil.
In verse 13, some of the seed feel on the rock – kind of the shoulder of the road. The people being compared here are
those where initially it looks like something comes to life – something springs up quickly. But there is nothing feeding the
growth of God’s Word in their lives, so what appeared to be life died. Is that you? This whole Jesus thing and this new life
and neat people are kind of interesting, but to go deep is too hard. And some of these people are kind of weird.
There is another kind of soil spoken of in this parable. This is soil that already has weeds growing in it – thorns. This soil
may be able to grow good plants, but has weeds taking all the nutrients already and anything good that grows is denied
what it needs. Is this you? There is life in this soil – even life from God’s Word. But Jesus says that it is not producing its
full potential because it is growing other stuff. There is little harvest from the soil that has weeds growing in it.
The seed that fell on the good soil grew and produced a great harvest. The soil in this case was rich and ready for seed.
There was plenty of nutrition in the soil, plenty of water, plenty of opportunity for God’s Word to take root deep and grow
strong and bring forth a lot more seed. Is this you? He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
Some interesting things we can learn about our reception of God’s Word and our response to it. One thing that I see
clearly is that God’s Word has little impact or result if it is not both heard and responded to. In each kind of soil in the
parable, the Word was heard. But only in two kinds of soil was there life, and even one of those was not productive. It
matters how we respond to God’s Word. When the seed is planted in us – when we hear God’s Word proclaimed and
know He is calling for a response from us – how DO we respond?
This is actually what Jesus talks about next in Luke 8:16-18. READ. Jesus says, “Take heed how you hear.” Be careful
how you hear. Do you hear only, but not apply what you hear? Do you hear it and reject it? Do you pretend that you
hear what Jesus says, but don’t really hear at all? OR do you REALLY hear and DO what you hear Him say?
To the one who hears and applies, Jesus says, the one who has, to him more will be given. But to the one who hears and
does not apply it, even what that person THINKS he has will be taken away. In verse 16, Jesus tells us that He does not
reveal the light of His Word so that people can keep going around in darkness. He WANTS people to see the truth.
There is nothing secret in our lives that will remain secret when exposed to the light of the truth. There is nothing that is
hidden that will remain hidden – the light will reveal it. So be careful how you hear. If you have heard the truth of God’s
Word and are not applying it, God knows and will make it known.
Here at Plattsmouth Bible Church, we seek to proclaim Christ Jesus so that we may present every person complete or
mature in Him according to the power supplied by God (Colossians 1:28, 29). We do not talk about the words of Jesus
merely to help us feel warm fuzzies – although His words do comfort us. We do not talk about the words of Jesus to fill
our heads with knowledge to be used as weapons against people – although His words are powerful against our enemy
Satan.
We do not want to merely fill our heads with knowledge ABOUT Jesus. We want our LIVES to be filled WITH Jesus.
Take heed how you hear. God has plans for the soil of your life. What happens to His Word, the seed, when it enters
you? Do you hear but don’t even give it a place? What kind of soil is that? Do you hear only and then ignore it or not
tend to it? What kind of soil is that? Do you hear it and let it take root along with a lot of other stuff that takes energy and
the things that produce a harvest? Is that the kind of soil you want to be? Jesus calls us all to be the good soil – useful to
produce a great harvest for His purposes.
Before we finish today, I want us to look at one more short passage. We won’t have time to look at everything I wanted
to point out, but you can study these things on your own or with the Sermon Based Small Group at Skip and Elora’s on
Friday evenings. Luke 8:19-21. READ. This is a really strange and hard statement. My real family are those who HEAR
God’s Word and DO it. We don’t have time to get into the depths of that statement right now.
Suffice it to say that Jesus is presenting a new definition of the family. The people on earth we should count as our true
family are those who trust Jesus and do what He says – those who hear God’s Word and obey it. Some of us here this
morning have families who treat us as outcasts and weirdos because of our faith. For those who deal with that on a daily
basis, you probably already sense the reality of what Jesus is saying.
Others of us are very concerned to hear Jesus say this – thinking He is requiring us to treat our earthly family as if it is not
important. Let me help you with that. If your earthly family are believers in Jesus, they are part of our TRUE family. If
your earthly family are NOT believers, they are PORTENTIALLY part of our true family just like other nonbelievers. We
should love them all. We do not ignore our earthly family and devote our total attention to the church.
Our purpose for being here on earth is to join God in building His family and His Kingdom. We allow Jesus to show
Himself through us and people are drawn to Him by the Father. The most obvious place to start that process is in the
home. But our support – our connection to our TRUE home (God’s presence) – is the church family. With the enrichment
and nourishment we receive from one another, we can go out and be the good soil which will draw others in.
There’s a lot more we could talk about along those lines. Take some time to look at the “for further study” section of your
green handout. But as we close today, let me ask you, what is genuine faith? Our worship focus today has been “genuine
faith shows.” What is it? This is actually a big argument in theological circles. Some say that genuine faith is that a person
only has to believe in Jesus. The person’s life does not have to change, but belief takes them out of hell and puts them in
heaven.
Others say that to have genuine faith, we have to believe and make Jesus the Lord of our life. If you don’t do what Jesus
says, you’re not a believer.
As a church in the Berean Fellowship – always seeking to make sure that what is preached is what it says in the Bible –
here’s what we see in God’s Word. IF you are saved (righteous before God) your life will produce good works.
Ephesians 2:8-10. READ. We are saved by the grace of God through faith. That salvation is nothing we put in place –
we can’t be saved by our works. But once we ARE saved, we are in the perfect position for God to accomplish His
eternal plans for us by DOING good works.
Genuine faith is that which hears the Word of God and believes and the result of that belief is godliness as God does His
work in those who believe. Genuine faith SHOWS in the lives of true believers. When a person hears the words of Jesus
– the commands of God – and believes in what he or she hears, the only logical response can be to DO what God says.
Romans 12:1,2. READ. The word there “reasonable” service literally means “rational” or “logical” or “the only response
that makes sense at all.”
If the God of the universe extends to you or me or anyone His grace and gives us the opportunity to be forgiven and
restored to Him, is it not logical, rational, reasonable that we give our lives fully to Him? Who am I - a little worm, a speck
of dust, a spot of grease – who am I to tell the God who rescued me what I will or won’t do? That’s ridiculous.
And what are the results of genuine faith? God’s Kingdom is built and expanded – people are drawn in to God’s family –
His principles and ways are proclaimed and put into practice by His children so that others have the opportunity to believe
and respond.
Is your faith genuine? Are you the good soil? Are you serving God in the place He created you to be? We are here to
help one another grow in these areas. Jesus calls us to go into all the world and make disciples – make followers of Him.
This is the only place in the world God has put His stamp of approval on to reach the world (I mean the true church – the
family of God, not only Plattsmouth Bible Church). But God has brought you HERE – so utilize the help He has provided.
And let your faith be shown so that God’s Kingdom and His family are grown. Be good soil for His harvest.