How is Your Hearing? Pt. 2

“How is Your Hearing?” Pt. 2
Luke 8:16-21
October 26, 2025

I have some tools in my workshop and some more in our kitchen that need some attention:

• My air compressor hose has a leak at the joint where the tool connects. The tools still work, but while I’m working there is a constant sound of leaking air and the compressor runs more frequently.  I really need to get a new hose.
• After finishing cutting down a tree a couple of weeks ago, the chain on my chain saw came off the blade. When I went to reattach it, I saw that something had broken on the chain guard.  It is sitting in my shed, waiting for me to order a new guard piece.  (And the chain needs sharpening, too; and I think the chain oil reservoir is leaking.)
• I went to slice something in the kitchen the other evening and found the knife was dull — dangerously dull so that it didn’t grab the fruit I was cutting and was slipping. I grabbed another knife; it was dull too.  I really need to sharpen those knives (and check the others).
• And I’m guessing there are some other tools that need attention as well…

There is another tool we all possess that often isn’t used effectively.  Unlike my tools, there is nothing wrong with that tool — in fact, it’s pristine.  But for many of us it isn’t used regularly or carefully and we don’t get the benefit of it.  It’s that book that you are holding in your laps — the Bible.  The Scriptures are wise for spiritual life, an unfailing guide in all things.  There is no deficiency in the Bible.  But sometimes we are deficient in how we use the Bible.  Said most simply, it’s an obedience problem — we just don’t do what it says; we don’t think about the implications of the marvelous truths we read for our particular situations.

In Luke 8:16-21, Jesus builds on the parable of the soils that He has just told (vv. 4-15).  Jesus intends that parable to produce self-examination:  “what kind of soil am I?”  In these verses, Jesus speaks of the power of the Word of God to reveal and examine and admonishes the hearers and us to listen and obey to it —

Be a follower who heeds Christ’s Word — and enjoy the blessings of that obedience.

Jesus tells another parable (proverb) and gives one short lesson that both answer the question “Why should Christ’s people obey the Word of Christ?”  We obey because of three characteristics of that Word…

1. The Work of the Word (vv. 16-17)
2. The Obedience to the Word (of Christ’s Followers) (v. 18)
3. The Blessing of the Word (vv. 19-21)

Download the rest of this sermon on Luke 8:16-21.

The audio will be posted on the GBC website by Tuesday.

Roman lamp from the time of Christ.