Listen to Jesus

This week's "Words to Live By", entitled "Listen to Jesus" were written from Pastor Paul's hospital room. He is hoping to be going home today. We extend our thanks to him for his good words and our prayers for continued recuperation. God bless you Paul and Diane.

Read Luke 8:4—15

Hearing is a gift. Listening is an art. There is a difference between them that is essential to faith development. Jesus points to that difference in the Parable of the Sower and the Seeds. It seems to depend on what happens to the words we hear.
When a farmer sows seed it is broadcast across the land falling on or into various kinds of soil. Jesus proclaims his good news to a variety of people who hear the same words. Yet, depending on what happens to those words in our minds and hearts determines the various results that follow. It is like the difference in how seed grows and produces in the kind of soil on or into which if falls.

Jesus uses parables to share the “secrets of the Kingdom of God” with his followers. Not everyone who hears the good news understands what Jesus says. Each person interprets what is heard based on his or her experiences, beliefs and convictions.

Therefore when good news is proclaimed people respond to it differently. Some hear but don’t listen. Their thoughts are focused on other things. It‘s like seeds that fall on the path which the birds carry away. Others hear, yet as they listen, other things distract them from understanding. They are like those seeds falling on rocky soil that cannot take root and the good news, like the young plant, withers.

Another group listening to the good news begins to see and understand God’s truth. However, they are deeply committed to other ideas in conflict with what God says and can’t quite make the connection. They are like those seeds that fall among thorns and weeds that grow up and choke the developing plant and it dies. Often the religious leaders of Jesus’ day heard Jesus but had a difficult time listening and understanding because of their self-righteous understanding that they alone were the experts on God’s truth contained in the law and the prophets.

Jesus seems to be wasting his words on people who don’t listen. The good news that he shares is for everyone to hear. Many people listen and allow God to nurture the message of reconciling love, forgiveness of sins and salvation in their hearts and minds. They are like the seeds that fall into the good soil and produce fruit. It changes their lives. It grows into a living faith. It results in becoming a disciple.

God’s gift of hearing allows everyone to hear the good news. The art of listening helps the hearer to understand this good news is intended for their benefit. Understanding the good news of God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ, is salvation and eternal life for all who believe. It is a blessing for everyone who believes.

Even disciples have difficulty understanding parables. Like seeds, faith takes time to grow, develop and bear fruit. Each and every time you and I open the Book of Faith and hear the good news of God’s love that faith gets fertilized and nourished. A growing faith is the result of hearing, listening and understanding over a life time.

During the last week my body has been fighting off infections with the help of antibiotic and required my being hospitalized. My mind and heart have been nourished with God’s good news Jesus Christ. My faith has been strengthened by the gift of God’s Holy Spirit transforming what I heard from God’s Word into an increasing confidence in God’s love for you, for me and for everyone.

When I was a young boy and my mother asked me to do something she would often have to say, “Did you hear me?” If my response was too slow she would say, “Are you listening to me?” When I needed a third reminder, her words were, “Did you understand what I said?” Now that I’m no longer a young boy, I find those same questions guiding me as a child of God growing in the faith that brings salvation to those who believe.

In John’s Gospel, chapter 2, Mary, the mother of Jesus, tell the servants at a wedding, listen! “Do whatever he (Jesus) tells you.” That’s good advice for every believer who wants to grow and live in the faith.

Open my ears, Lord, and teach me to listen.
See Hymn # 516 (Evangelical Lutheran Worship)

Almighty God, your word is cast like seed into the ground;

now let the dew of heav'n descend and righteous fruits abound.
Let not the sly satanic foe this holy seed remove, but give it root in ev'ry heart to bring forth fruits of love.
Let not the world's deceitful cares the rising plant destroy, but let it yield a hundredfold the fruits of peace and joy.
So when the precious seed is sown, life giving grace bestow, that all whose souls the truth receive its saving pow'r may know.

Foundations for Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a very powerful act of reconciliation. Sin breaks down the trust in our relationships with God and with each other. The words, “you are forgiven” have transformational power to repair the broken relationships and to restore the trust that is the basis of the relationship.

In your relationships with God and with others you are constantly seeking forgiveness, offering forgiveness and at times wrestling with the request that someone makes of you to receive the assurance of your forgiveness. Forgiveness is critical to maintaining our relationships with others and with God.

There are times when it can dominate our prayer life as we seek forgiveness or as we search for the graciousness to offer forgiveness to others.

We are sometimes troubled by our sense of guilt and even after seeking God’s forgiveness and hearing the words of absolution; there remains a question about the reality of the forgiveness that we cannot seem to put behind us.

God forgives us, others forgive us and yet the act of forgiving ourselves seems to be a stumbling block to our experience of that forgiveness.

Another aspect of forgiveness sometimes disables the action we take in forgiving others. There are times when it is difficult to offer forgiveness. It may be because of the weight that the sin seems to carry or the number of times we have been offended by the same person or in the same way by others.

We become aware of the words of Jesus, “for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father for give your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15). It is when we seek forgiveness that we are overcome with the weight of those trespasses by others that we have not yet forgiven want to forgive but we cannot forget. Sin has left a scar that won’t go away and reminds us over and over again of the offense and the offender.

How do you develop the ability to live as God’s forgiven sinners and at the same time live as sinners who are forgiving of the sins against them? For me it begins with the realization that our sins are already forgiven. Scripture tells us that Jesus died once for all sins. (1 Peter 3:18) “Because Christ also once for all died for sins, the innocent One for the guilty many, in order to bring us to God….” God offers forgiveness to everyone for all their sins. This gift is bestowed upon us at baptism. The scriptures also tell us, “if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9).

Martin Luther urges us to live in out our baptism daily. We do that by renewing the covenant of grace that God initiated in the sacrament. In the Small Catechism Luther as the question, “What does baptism mean for daily living?” His answer is a call to repentance and therefore to forgiveness. He says, “It means that our sinful self with all its evil deeds and desires should be drowned though daily repentance; and that day after day a new self should arise to live with God in righteousness and purity forever.” Luther points us to Paul’s letter to the Romans 6:4 “ We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father , we too might walk in the newness of life.”

Daily reminders of Baptism help us become aware of God’s gracious forgiveness that renews us in our relationships with him and with others—the splashing of water on our faces or with water making the sign of the cross on our foreheads are signs that bring baptism and God’s forgiveness into our everyday lives. We are reminded that we have been forgiven and that we live in the newness of life provided by God’s gracious forgiveness. That encourages us to let Godâi™s forgiveness flow through us to others. God forgives sins, we are only the instruments used by this gracious God to extend his love and grace to others.

God’s forgiven people grow in his grace as they allow the words of forgiveness to renew the relationships broken by sin to sustain them in the newness of life. Jesus has spoken the words clearly, “Your sins are forgiven.” That empowers the forgiven to share this good news with others as they declare forgiveness to those who sin against them. Forgiven people are forgiving people who live in the newness of the restored relationship with God and with all those who have been likewise forgiven.

Forgiving becomes a part of our daily living when we realize that it is God who forgives and he has spoken the words “Your sins are forgiven” to everyone. As that forgiveness is shared with others relationships are restored and life is new again.

Lord, Jesus, forgive my sins and help me to forgive those who sin against me. Amen.
“Forgive our sins as we forgive,” you taught us, Lord, to pray; But you alone can grant us grace To live the words we say. Lord, cleans the depths within our souls And bid resentment cease; Then, by your mercy reconciled our lives will spread your peace.” (Lutheran Book of Worship Hymn 307)