January 04, 2026

Matthew 13:10-23 Be Careful How You Hear

30 minutes

Topical Sermons / Speaker:Berry Kercheville

The Expectation of Our Father: Be Careful How You Hear

Introduction: Reading: Matthew 13:18-23. Our text is Jesus’ interpretation of the Parable of the Sower. What is the message? What is the key to the parable? Did you “hear” it? Yes, the message is hearing. The message is when the word is spoken, taught, or preached, what is the condition of the heart, the mind?

Jesus said it plainly at the end of the parable: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” In Luke’s account, “he cried out.”

When Jesus answered the apostles’ question of why he spoke to the people in parables, his answer was, “…because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”

At the conclusion of Mark’s account of the parable, Jesus said, “Take heed what you hear…” (4:24, ASV). “Consider carefully what you hear” (NIV). “Pay close attention to what you hear” (NLT).

In Luke’s account (8:18) “Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.”

Did you also notice that when the seed is sown, everything depends on the condition of the ground? Ask yourself this question: On this day, did Jesus preach a good sermon or a bad sermon? If you said he preached a good sermon, you would be in the minority. The multitudes believed he preached a bad sermon. They walked away without any desire to understand or to know more about what Jesus taught. They were similar to “wayside ground, stoney ground, or thorny ground.”

Therefore, if you evaluated Jesus’ sermon as did the multitudes, why was the sermon bad? It was a bad sermon, because they were bad listeners! Nothing has changed. Sometimes sermons are bad because they do not reflect the message of the scriptures. But many times, sermons are bad because you or I have been bad listeners!

Poor Listeners Are Common in the Scriptures

The Bible is filled with people who complained about God’s word. There are repeated complaints about the preaching of God’s prophets and even NT teachers, with Jesus being at the top of the list. Isaiah addressed the problem repeatedly, even quoting the people mocking his teaching with the English equivalent of “blah, blah, blah, blah.” Isaiah 28:9-10 “To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast? For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.”

The Corinthian teachers mocked Paul’s preaching, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing” (2 Corinthians 10:10).

Paul recognized that Timothy would have the same problem when he admonished him to continue teaching with patience regardless of whether it fit the desires of the people because the time was coming when they would “accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and would turn away from listening to the truth” (2 Timothy 4:2-4). To these people, what is a good sermon? It is a sermon that fits they desires.

Jesus said to the Jews, “Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word” (John 8:43).

The Present Day Application

There are and have been thousands of inept preachers, even in Bible days, and there are today. Many should not even be preaching because they don’t have the passion or desire for learning the scriptures. I had one preacher ask me, “How do you get excited about studying? I really have to force myself to get in the office and at work at it.” I fear there are way too many who preach who have that problem. It is evident in their lessons.

That being said, Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles exposed what none of us want to hear: we listeners are a bigger problem than the speaker! Jay Adams states, “In the scriptures, there is more instruction about listening than about preaching and teaching! Leave it to us sinners to reverse things, putting all of the stress on the latter at the expense of the former!”

Preaching is not like building a house, fixing a car, or the painting of a great artist. I imagine that every one of us has at some time thought of preaching as if it were a one-way street, as if the responsibility of the biblical message rests solely on the speaker and that you and I have nothing to do with it. But we know better! When Jesus taught the above parables, he clearly showed that teaching and communicating demands competence from both the listener and the teacher. And Jesus put the bulk of the blame on the listener.

The heart and ears of the listener can cause a great sermon to be mediocre and what is considered a bad sermon into a great sermon. The preacher must work with people who had a bad night’s sleep, are repeatedly interrupted by their children, are not interested in the message, misunderstand the text or what was said, and even become angry. Unlike clay, the listener plays an active role in the communication process.

Consider this, there are hundreds of courses taught and books written on improving preaching (I’ve written one of them), but where are the listeners’ courses or the books written that address the responsibility of the learner? Why is it that the preacher is constantly thinking and working on how to “wake up the listener” instead of the listener working on his or her responsibility to “not be dull of hearing?” In other words, if a preacher averages 15 hours to prepare and the deliver the lesson, how much time have we listeners put into preparing to hear the lesson that week?

Therefore, the lesson we all must learn is that there is a biblical balance that accepts that preaching/teaching alone is not the answer, and that preaching is seriously deficient without the desire, pursuit, and personal study of the listener!

Maybe you can admit this with me. I’ve heard hundreds of sermons in my life, many that I’ve even preached. Many sermons I’ve heard were fantastic. Others were mediocre at best, and some were horrible. But there were also many, many sermons I’ve heard that I have no right to judge, because I’m convinced I was the problem. I had not prepared to listen. I did not give grace to the speaker. My mental condition and interests were not where they should have been.

Illustration: I remember especially when I was 21 years old and I sat in an adult auditorium class on Isaiah. I thought the preacher did a terrible job. I didn’t understand his explanations. I got lost in the text we were studying. I didn’t see the relevance for my life. I was glad after a month I could go back into my “young adult class” where things were simpler. Now here is the rest of the story:

I came into the Isaiah class in the middle of the study. I wasn’t there when the study started at the beginning of the Summer.

I never prepared for the class. I had not ever read Isaiah, and though I had just come into a class on Isaiah, I still did not read the book nor did I even read the text that was about to be studied.

I had been convinced that the average person could not understand Isaiah unless such a person had a brilliant mind and had studied for at least 40 years. I knew I was a virtual dumb, dumb because I barely passed an English Literature class, and that only by the mercy of the teacher.

So, why didn’t I understand Isaiah? Well, it certainly wasn’t the preacher’s fault, and it certainly wasn’t God’s fault. It was my fault, and for years I put the blame elsewhere. Do you relate?

Jesus’ Answer to the Hearer

Let’s go back to Jesus’ words at the conclusion of the parable of the Sower: In Mark 4, the NLT gives the further explanation this way, “Then he added, ‘Pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given—and you will receive even more. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.”

Do you want God to give you a greater understanding of his word? Be a better listener and seeker of him and his word and he will give you more.

Matthew 7:7-11 “…how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Cf. Luke 11:13 “…how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Do you think you have been at this study thing for years and you are not progressing? Maybe it is because you are not a diligent listener and seeker. Maybe, like me, you have convinced yourself that some things in the Bible are too hard to understand. And maybe you just have to admit to yourself, there are others things in your life that are of greater interest to you than God’s word.

Look at Matthew’s account and how Jesus answered the apostles’ question:

“Then the disciples came and said to him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ And he answered them, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.’”

Do you see what has happened in the above text? The multitudes and Jesus’ disciples heard the same message. The disciples heard, didn’t understand, and therefore desired more. The multitudes heard, didn’t understand, so they walked away!

Therefore, what they had been given “will be taken away from them!”

And catch that critical statement in verse 11: “to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.” Losing the kingdom of heaven because you didn’t understand his words and therefore did not pursue an understanding, is a serious failure and no one’s fault but our own!

When Jesus opened the Sermon on the Mount with eight beatitudes, among them was, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.” The greatest teacher and preacher the world has ever known could not get the attention of those who did not hunger and thirst!

Conclusion: Isaiah 29 The context of this chapter is the coming destruction of Jerusalem about 100 years later. In verses 9-10, Isaiah compares the people to reasoning with a blind, drunk person so that the preaching of the prophets just puts them to sleep.

In verses 11-12, Isaiah says that their lack of interest can be compared to a person who is asked to read a scroll that is sealed. But they say, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” Then a person who cannot read is given the scroll and told to read it. But he says, “I cannot read.” I know I have been exactly like this in my early days, and it is a strong warning to all of us. God does not accept these excuses.

Berry Kercheville

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