LISTEN! - part 6

Feb 22, 2026 • Rory Mosley

021 LISTEN! – part 6

Mark 4:1-34 (20-25)

February 22, 2026

There’s no need to recap much here, we’ve been through it.

The calling of the segment is to listen to the truth!

#1 THE PROBLEM WITH TRUTH

Mark 4:1-9

· If you don’t listen, it might be hidden from you.

#2 THE PRIVILEGE OF TRUTH

Mark 4:10-20

· Being granted understanding is a privilege from God.

· He does not owe it to you.

· Here, because they had “ears to hear”, Jesus followers are being granted understanding of this parable of the sower.

So the call is to LISTEN!

· IF YOU ARE LOST – listen to the truth that you might be saved.

· IF YOU ARE SAVED – learn to seek out the truth that you might gain further understanding.

But all are called to listen to what God has to say.

Well, this sermon of Jesus is meant as

An encouragement to His followers in their evangelistic efforts.

The chief point of the sermon came in verse 14

“The sower sows the word”

IT REPRESENTS OUR CHIEF RESPONSIBILITY.

As God told Ezekiel – “whether they listen or not”

We preach.

2 Timothy 4:1-5 “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

And in order to encourage Jesus explains

Why not everyone who hears the gospel ends up being saved.

The reason is because there is much more at play than you and I can see.

SOME ARE HARD-HEARTED

Represented by the soil on the road.

· May be hard because of their own rebellion.

· May be a judicial hardening from God for their refusal to listen

· But they are hard and do not accept the seed in which case Satan comes and snatches it away.

That’s not your fault, you just keep preaching.

SOME ARE SHALLOW-HEARTED

Represented by the rocky soil.

· They are also hard and never really take the seed, they just appear to for a time.

· Ultimately they prove themselves false because they fall away.

· When affliction or persecution arises they leave.

· They were never interested in endurance.

Let me say one more thing about that, just for clarity purposes.

Carrie has been asking me about this one,

And that lets me know I probably wasn’t clear.

I told you that

There is a sense in which we cannot know someone is real until the end.

That is certainly true.

If someone does not endure to the end

Then they were never real, that’s what 1 John taught us.

But we do need to clarify a few things perhaps.

One is that those who are elect will endure.

They are sealed, they are protected, they are given a supernatural love for God that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things go come, nor powers, no height, nor depth, nor any other created things, will be able to separate” them from.

The elect will stand for God will make them stand.

But one of Carrie’s questions was if I was saying that we have to wait until the end to find out if we are elect and truly redeemed?

And the answer to that is, “No”.

The book of 1 John is full of evidences

By which you gain assurance that you are a child of God.

Over and over and John says, “so that you may know”.

Assurance is real and you don’t have to wait until the end to have it.

The parable Jesus is explaining here is not meant to unsettle His followers by making them wonder if they are rocky soil.

The parable here is meant to comfort His followers

As to why not everyone they preach to ends up being saved.

And in regard to the rocky soil,

· When you see someone fall away, don’t get discouraged,

· Just understand that they were hardened soil that was concealed and the sun revealed their true colors.

But a Christian can know they are redeemed and secure today,

They do not have to wait until the end. Go read 1 John and you’ll see it.

But in our evangelism, some are hard-hearted, some are shallow-hearted

SOME ARE HALF-HEARTED

As represented by the weedy soil.

· They are half-hearted in the sense that they never fully gave their heart to the Lord.

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

You know it as “The Great Commandment”

How important is the word “all” in that verse.

God does not want part of your heart, He wants it all.

This is why repentance is preached first.

Unfortunately there are many who try to work around that.

They try to keep their idols and just add Christ to it.

That doesn’t work.

Eventually those idols will choke out the word and no fruit will arrive.

· You cannot serve God and mammon.

· You cannot love the world and God.

· Friendship with the world is enmity toward God.

BUT IT EXPLAINS TO US WHY SOME NEVER BEAR FRUIT.

Jesus peels back the curtain and shows us that

The problem all along was their heart.

· Too hard

· Too shallow

· Too cluttered

Such people never bear fruit

And thus prove that salvation never happened.

But TONIGHT Jesus shines a ray of hope into the story.

Sometimes the miracle of salvation occurs.

Sometimes you throw the seed and it lands on fertile soil.

Sometimes you have those whom God awakens.

· They hear the word.

· The cling to the word.

· And they produce the fruit of the word.

You see them loving God

You see them loving the church

You see them giving and sharing and praying and serving

The same gospel was preached out to a congregation full of people.

Some didn’t hear.

Some heard and fell away.

Some heard and choked it out.

But some heard it and embraced it fully.

So tonight we look at the final heart type

THE GOOD HEARTED

(20) “And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”

Jesus reveals that there are some who are “good soil”.

· It’s not hard, it’s soft.

· It’s not rocky, it’s deep.

· It’s not weedy, it’s clean.

It is a heart that is ready to receive the seed of the word.

“they hear the word and accept it”

Like those before them, they also heard the word.

It was preached in their hearing.

BUT THERE WAS A DIFFERENCE WITH THEM:

· Whereas the hard heart heard but didn’t hear.

· Whereas the shallow heart heard but didn’t listen to the cost.

· Whereas the half heart heard but didn’t give priority.

This heart heard, listened,

Gave full priority to the word, and internalized it.

Jesus says they “accept it”

“accept” translates (par-a-DECK-oh-my)

It means to accept near,

Even used of how one accepts their own son.

Hebrews 12:6 “For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.”

There it is “receives”.

· It is to take and to cherish.

· It is to receive it up close.

They hear the word and the value it.

· They want it.

· They remove the trash from their heart for a place for it.

· It is buried deep and it is well watered.

And the reason we know that is because they “bear fruit”

There is visible, usable, glorious fruit coming from this plant.

AND LET’S DISCUSS THAT JUST FOR A MOMENT.

WHAT IS THIS FRUIT?

What are we looking for?

Certainly in one sense it would not be wrong to consider the fruit of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22-24 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

· That fruit will certainly be evident in the life of one who truly receives the seed

of God’s word.

But, even as I consider the Jewish audience of Jesus,

And Him preaching before the Holy Spirit had come,

And before such fruit became the standard.

I wonder what would have been understood there as fruit?

Certainly John the Baptist had been preaching already:

Luke 3:8-9 “Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. “Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

From that sense we would think simply of fruit

As faith being proof verified by behavior.

Behavior which matches a confession.

Don’t just say you repent, show me repentance.

This seems to be what Jesus had in mind also in:

Luke 13:6-9 “And He began telling this parable: “A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. “And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?’ “And he answered and said to him, ‘Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.’”

There needs to be some evidence to your confession.

We certainly understand that.

But that DOESN’T help us get a specific answer

Regarding what fruit He is looking for.

What if we return to that insightful “song of the vineyard” from Isaiah 5?

· You remember that song of the vineyard

· How that vineyard should have produced good fruit,

· But it only produced worthless fruit.

Isaiah explained the fruit this way:

Isaiah 5:7 “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel And the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.”

There God clearly defined the fruit He was looking for as

“justice” and “righteousness”.

It reminds us of what He had said in a previous sermon of Isaiah:

Isaiah 1:16-17 “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow.”

That certainly helps us understand

What Isaiah meant by “justice” and “righteousness”.

He was referring to the removal of evil and the addition of good.

Things like opposing evil and caring for the poor and needy.

If you think about the Pharisees in Jesus’ day

This certainly rings true,

· For they gave money and offered long prayers and fasted continuously

· But they also devoured widow’s houses.

· It clearly was not the fruit God was looking for.

They had religion but no righteousness or justice.

No care for what God cared for.

As the New Testament is written,

We look at books like 1 John where fruit is also better explained.

1 John 1:6-7 “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

1 John 2:3-4 “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;”

1 John 3:7-10 “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.”

1 John 3:14-15 “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

1 John 4:7-8 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

1 John 5:2 “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.”

Those passages clarify what fruit looks like.

It looks like love for God

· Evidenced by a love for His word and obedience to it.

It looks like a love for Christ

· Evidenced by a desire to honor His sacrifice and put away sin.

It looks like love for God’s children

· Evidenced by a commitment to care for them.

THAT IS FRUIT.

The presence of such fruit

Reveals that the word did more than just fall on deaf ears.

Clearly the word of God went in deep

And has started doing it’s work in the heart of that person.

You can literally see the word manifesting itself in their actions.

· It looks like wives that start submitting to their husbands.

· It looks like husbands that start loving their wives.

· It looks like rich men who start sharing their money.

· It looks like angry men who start forgiving their enemies.

· It looks like immoral men who start walking in holiness.

· It looks like worldly men who start preferring the fellowship.

· It looks like benevolence ministry.

· It looks like continual repentance and growth.

It’s when you see the word

Begin to work itself out in the lives of a person.

And that is what has happened here.

It is good soil that has truly accepted the seed of God’s word.

And not only is there an acceptance of the word,

But there is a GROWTH there.

Jesus says, “accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”

We aren’t looking for perfection right off the bat.

When your garden plant comes up you delight when you see that first piece of fruit.

· You know the seed took, and the plant is going to produce.

· It’s not much at first, but you know that as that plant continues to grow it will

produce more and more and more.

Everyone is excited when that first squash comes off the vine,

But in a few weeks they’re bringing baskets of squash to the church

Saying, “I’ve got squash running out my ears.”

We are talking about GROWTH.

AND THAT ALSO IS EVIDENCE OF LIFE.

They produce fruit and they continue producing fruit.

More and more and more.

The encouragement of Jesus is to keep preaching

Because sometimes your seed will land on that soil.

Don’t let the bad soils discourage you from planting.

If they do, you’ll never experience the joy of planting in good soil.

And that is a tragedy.

Ecclesiastes 11:4-6 “He who watches the wind will not sow and he who looks at the clouds will not reap. Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things. Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle in the evening, for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good.”

You just don’t know…keep sowing.

“The sower sows the word.”

That is your RESPONSE to the PRIVILEGE of being able to hear it.

Those who are not allowed to hear will certainly never spread it.

Christ has privileged you with being able to hear it

And He certainly expects you to spread it.

So we’ve seen the problem with truth.

We’ve seen the privilege of truth.

#3 THE PURPOSE OF TRUTH

Mark 4:21-23

We looked at this segment briefly last week

· It is the segment that Jesus added when He explained the parable.

When He preached to the crowd this segment was not included,

But now that He is in revelation mode, He includes it for His followers.

Clearly the symbol has changed.

We are no longer talking about seed, now we are talking about light.

But you and I both know what He is referring to.

(21) “And He was saying to them, “A lamp is not brought to be put under a basket, is it, or under a bed? Is it not brought to be put on the lampstand?”

You understand that.

· A hidden light serves no purpose.

· A light is only beneficial if it is shined.

· It would make no sense to hide it.

And that is Jesus’ point.

(22) “For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light.”

It’s a very interesting statement here from Jesus.

It is especially interesting since we know that

He purposely hid the truth of this sermon from the crowd.

But here we learn that He was making a dramatic point.

· His objective is not to come and hide truth.

· His objective is to come and reveal it.

He hid the truth from the crowd while preaching,

But here He tells His followers

That they should return to that crowd and explain it.

“For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed”

There is no shred of God’s truth

That you should withhold from anyone on this earth.

If God has given it, it must be proclaimed.

If the meaning is hidden from someone,

Then you do your best to reveal it to them.

God has called us all

To go out and shine the light of His word to everyone.

“nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light.”

We don’t look at people and say, “Well Jesus clearly hasn’t let them hear the truth up until now and I don’t want to risk offending Him by explaining it to them.”

That is NOT our mission.

We take every truth and nuance we know

And we proclaim it to everyone as clear as we can.

Paul told the Ephesians:

Acts 20:26-27 “Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. “For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.”

You hear the reference to Ezekiel’s prophecy there.

Paul said, “I gave it all to you. I didn’t hold back a thing.”

AND NEITHER SHOULD WE.

Have you been granted the privilege of understanding what has been hidden?

· Then go explain it!

· Sow your seed!

You say, “But they might not listen, they’ve been hard for so long.”

That’s true,

But do you need to go back through those soil analogies again?

That’s not for you or me to determine.

GO SOW THE SEED.

THAT IS THE PURPOSE OF TRUTH, TO BE REVEALED.

And then Jesus says, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”

That is both an admonition to the lost and to you and me.

Jesus called us to preach the truth.

· Do you hear Him?

· Will you listen to Him?

The Problem with Truth - The Privilege of Truth - The Purpose of Truth

#4 THE PROPORTION OF TRUTH

Mark 4:24-25

This has to do with how much of the truth that you are entrusted with.

But there is again something very interesting in what Jesus says here.

We are familiar with Luke’s gospel which says:

Luke 8:18 “So take care how you listen; for whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has shall be taken away from him.”

In Luke’s gospel Jesus says, “take care HOW you listen”

The implication is that you should be devoted to listening and listen well.

And the better you listen the more you’ll be entrusted with.

But in Mark’s gospel the statement is way different.

Mark records Jesus saying, “Take care WHAT you listen to.”

He brings into the scenario

The reality of deception from alternate voices.

Part of listening is DEVOTION to the truth.

Another part of listening is DISCERNMENT not to listen to lies.

I’ve often used the analogy with this text in other gospel accounts

About a boy at lunch and his mother was filling his plate.

And she puts a little food on there and he says, “Can I have some more?”

To which she replies, “Eat what you have, and I’ll give you more.”

We understand that.

That’s what Luke was referring to.

Deal with the truth you’ve been given and then I’ll give you more.

Certainly that point was illustrated in Mark’s parable

As it was the followers who came asking who received more.

They listened well and received more.

BUT MARK WOULD HAVE US TAKE THAT ANALOGY FURTHER:

Now, it’s not just a boy who wants more to eat,

Rather it’s a person who wants to benefit from the food he eats.

TO THAT PERSON

· We would not only tell them to eat what they’ve got and we’ll give them more,

· We would also tell them to watch what they eat if they want to benefit from it.

You can’t consume junk and expect to benefit from it.

While that’s true in regard to food,

It is especially true in regard to information.

Part of a commitment to listen to truth

Is a commitment to value what is true over what is false.

It is a commitment to

Flood your mind with what is true and not with what is false.

I’m always convicted here when I read Psalm 101

Psalms 101:1-4 “I will sing of lovingkindness and justice, To You, O Lord, I will sing praises. I will give heed to the blameless way. When will You come to me? I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart. I will set no worthless thing before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; It shall not fasten its grip on me. A perverse heart shall depart from me; I will know no evil.”

If you linger too long around junk food

Your body will reap the negative benefits.

If you linger too long around junk knowledge

The same will happen to your soul.

“Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides.”

LET’S PUT IT THIS WAY.

“You can expect to benefit from the truth to the extent you put into it.”

That’s true from an understanding standpoint,

And that’s true from a sowing standpoint.

· A student who only reads one paragraph can’t expect to learn much.

· A farmer who only sows one seed can’t expect to receive a field full of produce.

Truth is proportional.

· The more you seek it, the more you understand it.

· The more you sow it, the more you reap it.

It is a call from Jesus to be committed to truth.

So we LISTEN because:

1. There is a problem for those who don’t listen.

2. It is a privilege to be able to listen.

3. The purpose of truth is to be listened to and revealed

4. Understanding of truth is proportional to how well we listen

Over the years I have had people ask me about preaching.

How to preach…

And I’m really not a very good teacher of how to preach.

· No one ever taught me.

· What I know, I sort of caught by listening to preachers preach.

But there is one fundamental undeniable truth

That I do share with people who want to teach or preach better.

Being a good preacher or teacher

Is all about being a good listener or learner.

If you don’t understand it,

There’s not much chance the people you teach will either.

DURING MY TYPICAL WEEK,

· 90% of my time is spent on learning and understanding.

· Only 10%, if that, is actually spent on the crafting of the sermon.

It won’t do you any good if all my points start with the same letter,

Or if they rhyme, or if my illustrations are gripping

If I don’t know what I’m talking about.

TO BE A TEACHER YOU’VE GOT TO BE A LEARNER.

To be a sower of seed, you’ve got to be a receiver of seed.

You’ve got to be committed to obtaining the seed you’ll sow.

THAT IS THE POINT HERE.

(25) “For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.”

If God grants you understanding of the truth (that is; He gives you seed to sow)

HE EXPECTS YOU TO SHARE IT.

Go sow your seed, go shine your light.

But if He gives you seed to sow and you never do anything with it,

Do you suppose He’ll just keep giving you more?

This mentality totally governed my preaching early on.

I can’t say it so much now because I’ve been fortunate to preach a lot and gain a lot of understanding from that over the years, but when I first started I knew nothing.

I had preached something like 7 sermons when I was first hired and immediately thrust into 3 messages a week, it was terrifying.

But I made a sort of commitment to God,

That I would share everything He taught me every week.

I wouldn’t hold anything back for a later date.

God honored that, and has faithfully given me every week

More understanding and more to preach.

It really amazes me that He does that.

BUT THAT IS THE POINT.

No matter if you are a lost man who needs to be saved,

Or if you are redeemed man who needs to be faithful,

The message of Christ to you is the same:

LISTEN!