Stop Hiding From the Truth (Mark 4:21-25)

Now tell me if I'm wrong, but the last time I checked, you can't hear light. Is there some scientific breakthrough that I'm not aware of? Like, light has a speed, we know that, but it doesn't have a sound. Maybe it does. Maybe some brilliant scientist discovered that it does. I don't know what it is if if it does. So when he says consider carefully what you hear, you can't hear light. You can hear truth. And he says with the measure that you use, meaning the measure that you use to hear the truth, it will be measured to you and even more. [00:09:08] (40 seconds)  #ConsiderWhatYouHear

So in our culture, as you guys already know, truth is something that we decide. Individuals get to decide what truth is. At least that's the popular understanding in our culture. In scripture, however, truth is something that confronts us. So last week, Rob preached the the parable of Jesus, the sower. How the sower sowed the seeds and it fell on a bunch of different types of soil. The seed was scattered. It landed on different soil and what the soul represented were the hearts, the different types of hearts of people. In that parable, the seed was the same. [00:02:47] (36 seconds)  #TruthConfrontsUs

Remember, the Bible is not a reader's digest of collected stories. Okay? Some of you guys don't know what that means. Ask someone who you think would know what that means, what a reader's digest is. The Bible is not just this hodgepodge collection of stories. Okay? So that means where something is in scripture is almost as important as what it is saying in scripture. And where is this scripture? It's directly after Jesus is teaching an agrarian parable on sowing seed and it following in different types of soil. In other words, seed going out and it falling in different types of hearts of individuals. [00:07:01] (45 seconds)  #ScriptureContextMatters

So Jesus, in essence, is saying you gotta track with me here because this can get confusing. Jesus is not saying, God, your words are true. He is, but that's not what he's saying. What he said is your word is truth. He's not describing what his words are like. He's describing what his word is. Your word is capital t truth. God's words are literally where we get truth. They are the standard. They are the rule by which we must submit to. Like it, love it, be indifferent to it, doesn't matter. It is what it is. [00:18:13] (44 seconds)  #GodsWordIsTruth

It will go negative for them. So putting this all together, Jesus is saying, look, I'm not hiding the truth from you. But don't assume that just because you're hearing the truth that that means you have the truth. Jesus' brother, James, that we read whenever we did went through James reminded us this and said, don't just be hearers of the word, but be what? Doers. I hear the truth all the time. Great. That doesn't mean you have it. Doesn't mean you're growing in it exponentially. If you're hearing it and doing it, that's different. [00:10:40] (37 seconds)  #BeDoersNotHearers

That seed never changed in the parable. The sower did not plant a few different types of of truth over here and then a little bit different type of truth over here. He planted the same seed everywhere and it fell on different soil And it's easy to miss because Jesus never says the word truth in this passage. And so you're like, I don't know. Is it about truth? He never says he never says the word truth. Well, we see two main things in this passage. The first thing is this, truth is revealed. [00:08:07] (31 seconds)  #TruthIsRevealed

At this time that Jesus was writing this, his true identity had not yet been fully known to everyone. It would be later on, but at this time, this kinda speaks to that messianic secret that we see in Mark that Jesus kinda goes around saying, don't don't tell anybody about me just yet. Right? Jesus had not been fully revealed, and he's saying, that's not the purpose of light, to be hidden. So Jesus knew he would one day be lifted up on a stand, lifted up for all to see, to illuminate everyone and everything in the world. [00:06:09] (38 seconds)  #LightWillBeRevealed

Right? You set it up on a stand. You lift it high for all to see. And and when it's lifted high, it illuminates everyone and everything in the room. Now, track with me here. What is Jesus if he's not the light of the world? He literally said that about himself. He also calls us the light of the world, by the way. But he says, I am the light of the world. So if Jesus is the light and he just said, don't hide it. You see what's going on here? [00:05:38] (30 seconds)  #JesusIsTheLight