Now that you've heard, how will you respond?

Hearing Jesus Without Obeying Him

Just as in our day, Jesus had people there listening to Him preach. These people are standing there, they're listening to Him. Many of them heard these exhortations from Jesus. They've been listening to the entirety of this sermon, and many of them probably were saying, Amen.

I don't know what they said back then, but that's what we would do, right? People in the audience are like, Amen. They're like nodding their heads. They're like, I like what that guy has to say. I agree with what Jesus is saying here, and I'm on board.

I really like this. And they hear this only to turn around and live their lives with essentially no change. We experience that today, don't we? I would say a vast majority of the American church is full of this type of person that listens to the pastor and says, I'm with you on that.

I like that, but there's no change. But see, Jesus has laid out throughout this sermon an unbelievably radical picture of what it means to follow Him, hasn't He? If you've been with us during this series, you're thinking, I don't know how anybody in their right mind would nod their head and say, Amen.

This is a pretty extreme thing for Jesus to be laying out for the Christian life. But many will praise these words as truth, however, never truly understand them. Very few are going to understand them.

To them, these words are just some kind of a feel-good, these feel-good platitudes that they can intellectually affirm without having to endure any real discomfort or change in their lives. They're merely hearers.

They're hearers.

They're really good at hearing. You hear me all the time praying here, Lord, don't let us here at 12 .5 be just hearers only, quoting James, but be doers of the word, right?

That would affect us.

But many are, they're merely hearers. They're really good at it. As a matter of fact, a lot of hearers are probably even really good at taking notes. They're taking notes, they're jotting everything down.

They may even display these beautiful, detailed notes. And it's almost like a shrine to them in their Bible, right? They've got their Bible all laid out, and they're saying, hey, look at my beautiful notes I took of Jesus's words.

I've been listening to Jesus, and I took notes of these. I've even color charted them with my highlighters.

They're so beautiful.

Look at what a good listener I am. And we see that today, but that's human nature. They're catching on to little bits and pieces that they think that Jesus is saying without understanding them, taking their preconceived idea of what Jesus is saying and running with it, and they pride themselves in being a hearer and being a listener.

And I think that Jesus would say something like this. Great, I'm so glad you listened. It's good that you listened. I'm glad you take notes. It's great that you take notes. Now let's see if you actually heard.

And I think that's what he's doing as he wraps up this sermon.

Let's see if you've actually heard.

The Final Test of True Hearing

Because now that you've listened to all of my exhortations, what are you going to do about it?