Shine, Sow, and Serve the Kingdom

6 · Opening pastoral prayer asking God to make the congregation good soil—hearers and doers of the word

Father, that is our prayer each Sunday, that you would write the truth of your word upon our hearts. And that means that it's our prayer, Father, that you would make our hearts good soil for the gospel. Lord, raise up hearers and doers. Lord, we pray that through your Spirit, your word preached, the word of the risen Christ, would penetrate our minds and our hearts, that it would bring confession, that it would bring repentance, that it would bring encouragement, assurance. Lord, whatever you would intend for your word to do, but above all, Lord, we ask that through the power of your Spirit, you would make us hearers and doers of your word. We pray that you would do this in the name of your Son Jesus, for your glory. Amen.

7 · Establishes the massive contradiction in American religious life: the Bible is the best-selling book in the world, 88% of Americans own one, yet nominal Christianity is eroding

Well, the Bible, specifically the Bible publishing industry, is big business. It's booming business. Ever since Gutenberg invented the printing press, publishing and printing Bibles and distributing Bibles has been a hot commodity. For all the hype you see out there with the New York Times bestsellers list, or nowadays more often where a book ranks on Amazon in terms of its sales, for all the hype you'll see about series like Harry Potter or best-selling books that, that climb to the top each year, the Bible still remains the best-selling book of all time, and it's not even remotely close. The Bible Society estimates that just between 1815 and 1975, 2.5 billion Bibles were printed. 2.5 billion Bibles. More recently, the estimates are that there have been 5 billion copies of the Bible printed and distributed worldwide. The Bible is without question the best-selling book of all time, but even more than just the best-selling book of all time, it's the best-selling book every single year. Every single year, the Bible outsells every other book. With all the surveys that have come out recently, maybe you've seen them, about the shift that's happening in American religious demographics. So how do people self-identify? Well, that's shifting. There's more and more people who are no longer identifying themselves as Christian. Maybe they're calling themselves religious, or more and more people just calling themselves secular or atheist. There's a shift that's happening, and you see that shift that growing secularism in America, it might be surprising to find out that still, even with those shifts taking place, 88% of Americans own a copy of the Bible. Almost 9 out of 10 Americans have a copy of the Bible in their home. And even with 9 out of 10 having a Bible, 13% of Americans still purchased a new Bible this last year. So 9 out of 10 people have a Bible, and 13% are still purchasing new Bibles. The Bible business is still big business.

8 · Moves from the Bible-ownership paradox to the sermon's core theological assertion: the kingdom belongs not to Bible owners or readers but to those who are transformed by the word

Those numbers are surprising, and I think they actually serve to drive home Jesus' entire point in Luke chapter 8. The kingdom of God isn't populated by people who own Bibles. The kingdom isn't populated by people who own multiple Bibles, or who have the best translations. The kingdom of God doesn't even belong to people who read those Bibles. That might be a shocking statement. The kingdom, Jesus says, belongs to people who read and react, who consume God's word and then are changed by it. That's who the kingdom belongs to. At the end of the parable of the sower, Jesus describes the good soil this way. He says in verse 15, "As for that, the seed that falls in the good soil, they are those who hearing the word hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience." Saving faith, Jesus says, being a part of the kingdom of God, always comes through the word, through the good news, through the gospel message. And then it depends on what you do with that message. It's not enough to hear it. You have to be changed by it. You have to repent and believe in the gospel, repent and believe in Jesus Christ. You have to hold it fast to your heart, Jesus says. What does that holding fast look like? It looks like bearing fruit with patience. In other words, not one crop, but lots of crops over a long period of time. The word producing its intended effect in your life over the long haul.

9 · Signals the structural shift from the sower/soil metaphor to the lamp/light metaphor

Now, in today's text, Jesus continues that idea, but he shifts analogies. Those who've come into the kingdom, he shows us in verse 16, are bearing fruit, and that fruit looks like light being shined out. It's our first point this morning.

10 · Unpacks the lamp metaphor from verse 16: those who truly hear don't hide the gospel's effects but display them publicly

He says those who hear are those who shine their light. Hearers are light shiners. The idea is simple, and it's so clear that it's captured in that little children's song, right? This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. You know how it goes. You know, the kids love the act. Hide it under a bushel. No! Don't let Satan blow it out, you know. It captures the idea. Those who love Jesus shine their light. They hold it out for others to see. The logical connection, Jesus tells us, is that the fruit we bear is part of the light that we're shining. Fruit shouldn't get stored away. The kingdom shouldn't be a pantry full of of dried preserves. It should be a table. Better yet, a table on your driveway for your neighbors to see, showing you the produce.

11 · Demonstrates from Colossians 1 that Paul understood Jesus' teaching the same way: the word comes, it bears fruit, and that fruit is observable and spreading

We see this. Paul picks up this theme again and again and again in his letters. In Colossians, just to give you an example, you see the same theme in 1 Thessalonians and Ephesians. But in Colossians 1, he makes a specific connection between the fruit you bear and the word you've received. In Colossians 1:5, he says, you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel. It has come to you. Paul's rejoicing in this, that this has happened in the Colossian church. As indeed in the whole world, it is bearing fruit and increasing. In other words, we've sowed seed in Colossae, just like we sowed seed in Ephesus and in Philippi and in Rome and in Corinth. We've sowed seed and that seed found good soil and it's bearing fruit. It's increasing. The Word of God is having its intended effect. As it also does among you, he says, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth. Verse 10, so walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. There's this observable thing that's happening in the Colossian church. They can see, Paul can see, he's heard testimony about the fact that the word of the Lord has taken root and it's producing fruit and the story of that fruit being produced is spreading and it's bearing witness. Bearing fruit, Jesus and Paul show us, is about doing good works through faith. Display God's glory. Now Jesus says we must take those good works and display them like a light for the world to see.

12 · Reframes the data about declining American Christianity as good news rather than doom: the erosion is happening among nominal Christians (bad soil), not authentic believers

Now go back to those surveys I mentioned earlier, surveys about the shifts in American religious practice and American demographics, the ones that say America is growing increasingly less Christian. I think Luke 8 shows us there's actually huge opportunity in what can at first appear to be dismal reports. I think how you read that data depends on how you read Luke 8. First, I think you have to read the data correctly. I don't think it's accurate to say that we as a country are becoming less Christian and more secular. I think we're becoming less religious. What we're seeing is actually the disappearance of the middle. We're seeing the erosion of nominal Christians. So these nominal cultural Christians, you could call them unconverted believers, people who believe, give cognitive assent to Jesus. I believe the Bible is true, but they're not actually converted. They don't actually live for the kingdom. They've never actually truly given him their hearts. They're like some of those kinds of soil. Those nominal Christians have now shifted over into barely Christian or not Christian at all. That's what those demographics are showing us. People that were probably represented by the path or the rocky soil or the thorny soil are revealing the true nature of their hearts in those surveys. You see it with just the shrinking numbers of mainline denominations. A lot of these denominations that have have completely given up the authority of God's Word are now, for the third or fourth decade in a row, shrinking in size. And yet in these same surveys, the number of evangelicals is holding steady. I think the data shows us authentic Christianity isn't shrinking so much as cultural Christians are slowly disappearing.

13 · Establishes two theological reasons the cultural shift is good: first, it creates evangelistic opportunity by removing the pretense barrier; second, it allows true believers to shine more distinctly in a darkening culture

Now, why is that a good thing? Well, first, it's good because cultural Christians aren't people who are actually hearing God's word and taking it to heart. And what they're saying is they're identifying in these surveys, yeah, I've kind of just given up pretending I'm a Christian. And it's really hard to share the gospel with someone who's still pretending they believe the gospel. When someone finally admits, yeah, yeah, I'm really not down with Jesus, and I probably never was. You now have an opening to share with them what they're missing. That's a significant thing. They're not just going through the motions anymore. I think the other reason it's really good news as it relates to Luke chapter 8 is that it gives opportunity for people who have truly believed the gospel, people whose hearts are really good soil, to shine all that more brightly.

14 · Uses a vivid analogy of different light sources in a room: when the artificial lights (cultural Christianity) disappear, the oil lamps (authentic faith) become more visible and attractive, even though the room is darker overall

I'll give you an illustration to think of what I mean. You imagine a room, it has no windows. So the only sources of light are those that are set in that room. It's not coming from the sun. And in that room you've got all different sources. You've got incandescent bulbs, right? You've got fluorescent lights. We'll even say there's some LED lights in there. And then there's some candles, some oil-burning lamps. And all these lights are shining. And so you've got the nasty fluorescent light, If you like fluorescent light, I don't know what's wrong with you. You're not supposed to like fluorescent light. Then there's like the soft incandescent bulbs. They kind of appear like nice light. And then you've got the lamps. And all these lights are sharing and they're all shining. What happens when you turn off all the artificial light? The incandescent bulbs are gone, the fluorescent lights are gone, the LED lights are gone. And all that's left is the lamps. Well, the room is darker, right? But you also see those lamps more clearly. You're also drawn to those lamps. Their light becomes more evident. You see for the first time how that light spreads and what that light does.

15 · Applies the lamp illustration directly to the congregation's cultural moment: the erosion of nominal Christianity creates unprecedented opportunity for authentic believers to shine distinctly

I think that's what's happening in our culture. That's the opportunity that we have according to Luke 8 in our current climate. That's the gift of that eroding middle ground of cultural Christians. As America slowly shifts its religious identity, it gives incredible opportunity to people who've authentically heard the gospel and entrusted their lives to Jesus Christ to actually shine brightly. There's no artificial fluorescent light to compete with now. You get to shine. People get to see what authentic faith really looks like. That's an incredible opportunity. The trends aren't doom and gloom. We're called to shine our light. That's what hearers do.

16 · Pivots to the second main division: hearers don't only shine light—they also sow seed

We're also called to sow God's seed. Part of bearing fruit is you shine that light, but part of what Jesus is saying here is bearing fruit is also about sowing seed.

17 · Traces the progression from Jesus as sole sower to the disciples becoming sowers in Luke 10

Luke 8 begins by saying Jesus is going through the whole region. It says he's going to cities and he's going to villages. So indiscriminately, the big towns and the little towns, and people are coming from all over. And Luke very strategically, specifically says at the beginning of this section, the beginning of this pericope, that Jesus is proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom. All these people are coming, he's going all over, and he's He's proclaiming and he's bringing to bear the good news of the kingdom of God. And now with these parables and these illustrations, he shows us how that's happening. And as he proclaims and brings it, he calls people to respond. Jesus is sowing to people, some of whom have never heard of him before. He's kind of this rumor, right? That's going through the Through the cities, there's this dude, Jesus from Nazareth. He's healing people. He's preaching with authority. He's having these confrontations with the scribes, and he's whooping tail in these debates. Nobody can handle the text the way he handles it. They say there's people who've been raised from the dead. And so they're coming to figure out who Jesus really is. And when they come, Jesus proclaims God's word to them. And as he's proclaiming it, then he tells them in today's text to take care how you hear. Take care how you hear. He tells the parable we saw last week, the parable of the sower, the parable of the soils. Most in the crowd, disciples included, are probably assuming when they hear that parable, who's the sower? Jesus is the sower. Luke's just told us He's the one that's going around proclaiming the Kingdom. He's clearly the one that's tossing the seed about. And at this point, He is the one who's the sower. Luke starts out the chapter by saying that the disciples and Mary Magdalene and these other women, they are with Jesus. They're along on the journey, but they're not participating in the ministry yet. In a few chapters though, that's about to change. In Luke 10, there's this shift. And Jesus is going to send— He's going to commission and send out 72 people, His 72 most tried and true disciples. He's going to send them out on their own to proclaim the Kingdom, to bring that good news, to perform miracles in His name. He's going to send them out as sowers. And He's prepared them for that moment. When Luke 2 comes around, they shouldn't be surprised when they get sent out. And neither should we. Because he's already made the connection. Hearing, taking to heart the gospel, is about bearing fruit. And bearing fruit is about shining your light in dark places. Don't hide it under the bed, which is a fire hazard anyway. But put it on a lampstand. Let people see it. Let people see the visible effects of the kingdom in your life.

18 · Establishes the theological freedom the parable gives: you sow to whoever is in proximity, and you are freed from the burden of controlling how people respond

Matthew used to be that, that scoundrel of a tax collector. He's given it all up. He's like poor with Jesus and homeless. One of the most essential ways Jesus is showing us to shine your light is to sow the seed of the kingdom with the people that God has put in your place. The beauty of the parable is also it frees you from this undue burden about worrying who your hearers are. Your hearers are the people that are in proximity to you. And it frees you from the burden about being consumed with how they'll respond. I think sometimes we're paralyzed to actually sow the seed, to declare the gospel, to preach the good news, we're worried, like, how's somebody going to respond to it? Are they going to reject me? Are they going to reject the message? Are they going to scoff at me? Are they just going to get all weird? You know, like they said in the video, we're giving you this money, just don't be weird around us. Sometimes you think, I don't want to share the gospel, like, I just don't want to be weird next time I interact with this person. Sometimes you don't share because you're worried, what if I don't share it well, or I can't answer their questions? You know what the parable of the sower, the parable of the soil shows us? You just sow the seed. It's not your responsibility what happens when the seed hits their heart. That's not your concern. You should be freed from that burden. It's not yours to carry.

19 · Doubles down on the theological foundation: indiscriminate sowing reflects God's generous heart, not carelessness

Remember last week we also said the seed falling on bad soil, that's not like an indictment of the sower. Man, if he was more careful. That's not it at all. God's not going to have you before His throne in heaven when He's saying, "Man, you shared the Gospel with some really hard-hearted people. I'm disappointed." No, the parable of the sower and the seed landing in random places isn't that he's a careless sower. It's that the sower represents God's generous heart. He's a generous Father. He wants the good news of the Gospel just thrown all over the place so that all sorts of people would hear. And He wants you to sow the seed like that as well, that people would sense God's graciousness, His welcome, the welcome of the gospel in the way you share. It's so helpful realizing that how someone responds is a spiritual matter that rests with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the one responsible for changing hearts. So yeah, some of the times when you share God's Word, it's gonna get trampled, it's gonna get eaten by birds, it's gonna fall on rocks, it's gonna get scorched by the sun, it's gonna get choked out by those thorns, right? But when it falls in good soil, when the gospel message is heard by a heart that the Spirit has prepared to receive the message, it will produce a hundredfold harvest.

20 · Illustrates the hundredfold harvest with a congregant named Adrian: someone sowed the gospel in his life, the Spirit worked, and now Adrian is sowing seed indiscriminately with family members

I think of Adrian. Someone shared the message of the gospel with him, and now every time I talk to him, I feel like he's telling me about, yeah, I'm setting up a time to meet with my cousin and to share the gospel. This last weekend, we were setting up a time to share the gospel with another family member. Just countless people that he's now sharing the gospel with because someone was faithful in their hearing of God's word to bear fruit, to shine their light, to affect his life, to plant that seed. The Spirit did His work. It took root. It grew, and now it's bearing fruit, and now a hundredfold as the message spreads. This man who's been captured by the treasure that is Jesus. His wife now knows that their new baby girl is going to grow up in a home where they hear that testimony. It's an incredible thing.

21 · Direct application: if you've heard the gospel rightly, you are called to sow it indiscriminately

So your calling, if you're hearing, is to sow that seed indiscriminately. The final image of the parable isn't primarily about bad soil, right? The final image is about good soil and this huge harvest because the word of God through the Spirit of God, has done what it intended to do. That's one of the themes of Luke-Acts. Luke's Gospel and that second volume in the book of Acts is just the Spirit and the Word actively going forward and just accomplishing things wherever they go.

22 · Signals the introduction of an extended Old Testament illustration: Daniel as a model for shining light and sowing seed in a hostile culture

I think a helpful example for thinking about how you live this way, how you shine your light in a dark place, and how you sow the good news, is actually an Old Testament example. It's the example of Daniel.

23 · Narrates Daniel's situation in Babylon and his dual refusal: he neither retreats from cultural engagement nor capitulates to cultural assimilation

Daniel's an incredible reminder for us of what this looks like. Remember Daniel? He's this young Jewish boy and he's been taken off into captivity with Babylon. So Babylon has come, they've conquered, they've carried off basically all the best people out of the land to take them back to Babylon. You want to talk about living in a dark culture, you want to talk about living in a place that's openly hostile to your religion. It's a place that has just come and conquered your land and declared your God false and has brought you away in chains. And Daniel now is sitting there, and he and a few other select Jewish young men are brought into King Nebuchadnezzar's court. They're actually enlisted to serve in his court. It's a common custom in that day. You take handsome, bright young men from a conquered people and you bring them to your court and you assimilate. Basically, you take their best and their brightest and you bring them to your court because you want all their best and brightest ideas. You want to share in their knowledge. You want to steal their knowledge. And you also want to try and assimilate them and convert them into your cultures. And now the best and the brightest, the leaders of these conquered people that are living in Babylon, see their leaders looking like the Babylonians. And the thought is, the hope is that it'll trickle down. That's part of the plunder that Nebuchadnezzar is taking. Enter Daniel. What does Daniel do? It's an incredibly powerful testimony. He doesn't retreat from the opportunity. The culture starts to go dark and there can be a temptation to say, "We need to retreat. We need to pull away. We need to stop engaging. Let's just stop sowing. It looks like it's all rocky soil. Let's just kind of hoard up our seed." Well, Daniel doesn't do that. He doesn't retreat into the Jewish ghetto and stop engaging with the city around him. He also doesn't capitulate. There's nothing about Daniel's story that shows us someone quietly assimilating, becoming a Jew in name only. That's not what happens at all. First, he refuses to eat the king's food. He refuses to break God's laws about what he should and shouldn't eat. And so he keeps his own meals and they're worried he's going to look famished. He's going to look just all drawn out and the king's going to see it and wonder what's going on. He said, "Don't worry. I'm going to obey God and He's going to preserve." So he and the other young men do that and they find favor with the Lord. When King Nebuchadnezzar outlaws praying, Daniel's influence is growing, right? And the other advisors try and set up a trap. The king outlaws praying to any god, Babylonian gods, when that gets outlawed. Daniel doesn't stop praying. He still prays. He prays boldly. In fact, he's still doing it in public ways for people to see, still willing to shine his light even when they've declared, "Your light is illegal." He's still not putting it under the bed.

24 · Continues the Daniel narrative with the dream interpretation scene: Daniel receives a word from God that Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom will fall and God's kingdom will prevail

And then you've got the scene where the king has this dream. It's this huge dream and it's this confusing figure. There's this, this image that he sees and it's made of different types of material. It's got a head of gold. There's all these different kinds of metals as you work your way down and they decrease in preciousness. It's gold and silver and bronze and iron and then mixtures and then finally feet of clay. And this is a culture that puts huge stock in dreams. The gods communicate to you by dreams. You have to interpret those dreams to know how to rule. And so King Nebuchadnezzar gathers all of his wise men and says, interpret the dreams for me. And nobody can do it. So to give you an idea of the context, the darkness of the place that Daniel's living, the boldness of his testimony— Nebuchadnezzar just starts offing the wise men when they can't interpret. He just kills them. And he's basically wiped out all the dream interpreters, and now it comes to Daniel's turn. Hey Daniel, the king wants you to come interpret. What are you gonna do? You receive a message from the Lord about how to interpret that dream, and the message essentially is, hey Nebuchadnezzar, your kingdom, it's gonna come to an end, and God's kingdom is gonna come. You're gonna tell the king who's been killing people for not knowing the message, that he's not going to like the message he gets. But that's what Daniel does.

25 · Quotes Daniel 2:44-45 verbatim and highlights Daniel's audacious claim: God's kingdom will outlast and destroy all earthly kingdoms, including Nebuchadnezzar's

And here's what it says. This is exactly what Daniel says to him. Daniel 2:44, "The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms." And he's already described that Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom is one of those. And bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever. Just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, and the clay, and the silver, and the gold, a great God has made known to the king who shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure. That's not Daniel's job. Daniel's job is to say, here's my interpretation, It's the king's job to listen to all the interpretations and say, "That's the one I like. That's the one that's sure. That's the one that's certain." Daniel comes and says, "Here's the interpretation. Your kingdom's going to fall on its face. At some point, your descendants ain't going to be ruling. Lots of other kings are going to fall on their face. And the true God is going to come and establish His own kingdom. And that's true, whether you keep it and like it or not." It's remarkable. His boldness, his shining his light.

26 · Brings the Daniel illustration to its climax: despite Nebuchadnezzar being hard soil, Daniel's faithfulness produces a moment of confession from the king

But if you're Daniel and you're casting the seed of God's Word, what kind of soil do you think Nebuchadnezzar's heart is? But that's not Daniel's responsibility, is it? He can't control that soil. He can't control how that heart will respond. He has received a calling to proclaim this word of God, to proclaim this word of the kingdom, this word predicting the kingdom of Jesus. And listen to how the king responds. The king answered and said to Daniel, truly your God is God of gods and Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery. In Daniel 2, it starts out, he comes before the king and he says, "O King of Kings." This way you address Nebuchadnezzar. "O most special king of kingly, kingly, kingly things." That's how you're supposed to address Nebuchadnezzar because he's this arrogant king who's conquering the whole world. And now Nebuchadnezzar responds, "Truly your God is God." God of gods and Lord of kings. Now, we know ultimately his heart isn't good soil. It's going to bear very cheap fruit. But that's not Daniel's responsibility. Daniel valued obedience to God even over his own life. He served God's calling and the word of God's kingdom before his own interests.

27 · Pivots to the third main division: the priority of the kingdom over family

That's the final thing Jesus tells us about hearing the word correctly. His mother and his brothers approach. Remember, Joseph is dead, so this is all that exists of Jesus' family now. His mother, Mary, and his siblings, James among them, right? And they approach and they want an audience.

28 · Provides the exegetical context for Jesus' statement: his family's request is not hostile, but Jesus uses the moment to redefine family according to kingdom priorities—true family are those who hear and do God's word

Now the issue is, it's not that they're trying to disrupt what Jesus is doing here. We don't get that sense from the text at all. They're just coming and they want to see Jesus. Maybe they've crossed paths. He's been on this itinerant ministry now. It's like, hey, he's in the area. Mary's like, I want to go see my boy. We want to go see our brother. And so they come and there's these huge crowds and they can't get there. And so they send a message to them and say, "Hey, tell Jesus we're here!" Expecting, "Oh, they're here! Get some of these people out of here! Get them in!" Instead, Jesus sees it as an opportunity to drive home the point He's been making. Verse 21 says, "And He answered them, 'My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.'"

29 · Establishes the theological claim: Jesus is not dismissing family but reordering priorities

Daniel is willing to die if it means being faithful, being a faithful witness to God's kingdom. Here Jesus makes a similar point. The kingdom must be the first priority, the priority of priorities in your life. If you've actually heard, that's where the kingdom falls. And he makes that point powerfully by striking at something incredibly sacred to Jewish life. You don't knock the family in the Jewish world. You got to be a good Jewish boy and you honor your mother and father. Your mother's now a widow, Jesus. You go out of your way as a good Jewish boy to honor her. Jesus makes a different point. Jesus makes the point that with the arrival of the kingdom, even those priorities, those core priorities of family, have been recast and reshaped.

30 · Cross-references the boy Jesus in the temple (Luke 2) to show that this kingdom-first priority is consistent throughout Jesus' life

And this didn't just come to Jesus. Remember earlier in Luke's Gospel, young 12-year-old Jesus in the temple? Mary and Joseph are losing their minds on the trip back away from Jerusalem. They've assumed for some reason that for a whole day he was hanging out with his friends, and all of a sudden they realize he's not with us, he's back in Jerusalem. And so they head back there, they're looking all over the city, and finally they find him. And Jesus is just chilling in the temple. He's hanging out with the scribes and he's studying God's Word and he's teaching from God's Word, and everyone's just amazed. And Mary and Joseph are like, I How could you do this to us? Have you no honor for us? He just kind of looked at them and said, didn't you know? Didn't you know I'd be in my Father's house? Didn't you know that my priority of priorities is the kingdom? That's not a, I don't love you anymore, Mary. I don't love you anymore, Joseph. No, it's, "I love you, but I love Him." Jesus is drawing that point for us.

31 · Broadens the application: the kingdom claims the entirety of each person, not just compartmentalized religious devotion

The broader point is the Kingdom makes a claim upon all of us. Not all of us, but each of us individually in our entirety. Not just upon parts of us. And there are all sorts of idols that have to be dealt with and put to death by God's Word. Part of hearing God's Word is encountering it and wrestling with it and having it tear down strongholds and idols in your life. It's confronting truths that are hard to swallow and hard to deal with and then having your heart and your mind and your thoughts bent to those truths of God's Word. That's what happens when you hear. And sometimes those idols Jesus shows us in Luke 8 hit really close to home, like they actually hit your home. Your family.

32 · Steps outside the exposition to address a potential misunderstanding head-on: Jesus is not calling fathers to abandon their families

The idea isn't that you stop loving your family. It's not that you stop serving your family. Jesus isn't calling fathers this morning, all fathers in the room, after this you should head right to KCI Airport. You should book a flight, go to Timbuktu, and spend the rest of your life serving the gospel. Your wife and kids, they're just back here. That's their own deal. You got to follow Jesus to the kingdom. That's not the message. That's not what Jesus is saying. But He is making a point about competing priorities.

33 · Articulates the positive theology: Jesus doesn't abolish family but reorders it

And while the broader culture around us can be really messed up on the family, broken families, no priority of the families, sometimes in the church that pendulum swings the other way and family becomes an idol. And He's not ragging on just families. He's using that as an illustrative idol for us in all of our lives. There should be no competing priorities to the Kingdom. No competing priorities to Jesus and God's will and God's word holding sway in your life. Jesus is the priority that defines all other priorities. Everything is shaped by it. The schedule is set by it. Decisions are subjected to it. So to carry this analogy, because it's the one he gives us in the text, the question that you our first ask about a decision isn't, "What will serve my family?" What will serve Jesus? What has he called us to do? And how do I fit the calling to serve my family within that larger, broader calling? You don't leave the calling to your family behind, but you subvert it to the calling Jesus gives you. The kingdom reshapes how we view all of reality, even your families. Jesus is that first priority, the priority of priorities.

34 · Uses Jesus' provision for Mary from the cross as proof that kingdom-first priority doesn't mean family abandonment

The temptation here, I think, can be to correct the pendulum, to try and pit the family against the kingdom, or the family against the church. I don't think that's what Jesus is doing. I don't think he's trying to make that— he's not pushing you to reject family. He's going to hang on the cross and with His dying breath, what's He going to do? He's going to say, "It is finished," and die. And right before that, what's He going to do? He's going to look at John and make sure that His earthly mother is cared for. He cares about His mother. He loves His mother. His love for His mother didn't keep Him from the cross. But even as He's fulfilling the Father's priority, By hanging on that tree to make atonement for sin, he looks down in compassion and ensures that his mother's cared for.

35 · Synthesizes the family-kingdom tension into a positive claim: putting Christ first is the best thing you can do for your family

For one who's heard the word properly, the kingdom of God becomes the one great priority. It doesn't push out the family. But it recognizes there is nothing better that you can do for your family. There is nothing better you can do for your family than to put Christ first. And those who truly care about their families, who want their nuclear families, which Jesus is essentially saying aren't eternal, who want their nuclear families to be a part of the eternal family, those are the people who will hear God's word. And they will prioritize the kingdom. And the priorities of the kingdom always center on Jesus.

36 · Closes with a powerful contemporary illustration: a pastor whose daughter marries a missionary

Finish with this. There's a pastor I know of, a godly man, for his whole life has preached these kind of things, the priority of Christ and kingdom, calling people to live, to take up their cross, and to willingly die for Jesus, to follow Jesus even to the ends of the earth. He said, "Man, you want to know when that was tested? It was tested when my daughter married a man with a call to the mission field. My whole life I have proclaimed Christ first, kingdom first, everything else is subsumed to that priority, and now my little baby girl is marrying this man." who feels called not to a couple-month trip, but to long-term sacrificial missionary work in a hard, hard place. He describes this rejoicing in sadness. Heartbreaking because he realizes with that he's not going to be spending holidays with his little girl. He's not going to be there for the birth of his grandkids. He's not going to be there to celebrate their birthdays. There's going to be no fishing trips with Grandpa, no camping outings with Grandpa, no playing catch, no dance recitals. He was going to lose all of that. But also this profoundly proud moment because he realized He has successfully taught his daughter to prioritize Jesus and his kingdom before everything else, even their own family that they love dearly. Because this man is a true hearer, even in the midst of the sadness, there was a deeper joy because he knew and believed that it was better to sacrifice time with them now knowing that there would be a reward far exceeding that sacrifice in heaven.

37 · Final application bringing all three movements together: take care how you hear by shining your light boldly, by sowing seed faithfully like Adrian or the missionary daughter, and by trusting that God's mission is accomplished through simple people being faithful

So take care how you hear. When you hear, shine your light brightly, boldly. You probably won't be a Daniel. A, our country doesn't have a king. But even if you're a presidential aide, That's probably not where most of us in the room are gonna end up. But you might raise a horde of children who bear fruit like that pastor's daughter. You might be an Adrian who in hearing is now faithful to share with everyone he comes in contact with. In the end, the parable of the sower underscores God's word is what will bear fruit. And the book of Acts, the second volume to Luke's Gospel, bears this out. God's mission in city after city, in town after town, as Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Stephen and all these people sow the word, God's mission will be accomplished by simple people simply being faithful to their great God. Simple people sowing faithfully. To hear the gospel rightly is to respond to it by believing Jesus, by trusting Jesus, and by sharing the good news of his kingdom.

38 · Closing prayer asking God to raise up a horde of sowers at Providence, to stir up longing to sow radically and indiscriminately, and to bring a hundredfold harvest in the city

Lord, we pray that you would bring lasting fruit from our hearts this morning. Lord, we want to respond to your word. And Lord, I pray that you would bring the sweet fruit of just a horde of sowers in your midst. Lord, that here at Providence, you would stir up in our hearts a longing and a burden to display the fruit of the gospel in our lives, and most importantly, Lord, to sow. Lord, to sow radically, to sow boldly, to sow indiscriminately. And Lord, we pray that as we in faith sow the Word of Christ, the Word of the Gospel, Father, we pray full of faith that You will do what You intend to do with Your Word. We believe with hope what You say in the book of Acts, that You have many people in this city. And so Lord, we pray now for a hundredfold harvest. And Lord, we pray that you would give us supreme joy and supreme pleasure in the priority of having Jesus and your kingdom above all else in our hearts. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.