Listening and Understanding

Posted on January 23, 2022

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Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Luke 4:14-21

Education is a powerful tool that can be a real game changer for our world in which we live. It can be a deciding factor of wealth in our lifetime and it can be a deciding factor for how we vote and what direction society takes. It is a deciding factor of our world view whether it be from a biblical perspective or from a secular perspective. Education shapes the decisions that you make and can turn the tides of time. The life of Frederick Douglas for example was transformed by a kind woman who decided to teach him the alphabet and how to read. This education led him to the chance to read his favorite book, the Bible and led him to see that he was not born to be a slave in bondage but was born to be free in the image of God. This led to him freeing himself not only from his physical bondage but his spiritual bondage as well.

Our reading from Nehemiah takes place in a time where Israel has returned from their exile in Babylon and they are rebuilding Jerusalem. Ezra was the teacher of the Law. The people gather around in the town square and ask for Ezra to educate them on the law of God as the Lord had commanded for Israel through Moses. So, Ezra opened the book and read it to the people for half the day. He read the law from the moment the sun began to rise till noon. It says that he read it to all the men and women who could understand and it was read to them in such a way that they were able to understand. It says that they stood and listened the entire day and listened attentively as well. That would be like me standing up from the pulpit and reading the Bible to you word from word for the entire day without a break for lunch and all of you just standing in reverence and listening to every word I say and not one of you falling asleep the entire time. Man wouldn’t you just love to try that someday?

There was a consequence for their education though. They began to feel guilt and it says that they had bowed face down to the ground to worship the Lord and they were weeping as they heard the law for now, they were educated and were convicted for the sins that they had been committing. However, Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites, told the people to get up for this was to be a holy day for the Lord. Nehemiah tells them to go and celebrate for they have now been educated and they would now have the joy of the Lord as their Strength.

Fast forward a thousand years or so and we see Jesus coming into the world and once again educating the people. The problem though this time is that there were some people who needed to be educated but did not want to be educated as they were comfortable in the lives that they were living. Jesus comes back from the wilderness and he is full of the Holy Spirit and he spends time teaching in the synagogues of Galilee educating people and he is gaining a lot of popularity. However, he arrives to his home town and he goes into the synagogue and he doesn’t actually do any teaching. All he does is read from the scroll of Isaiah that was given to him and he reads one passage. He reads from the Word of God and just says that this prophecy has now been fulfilled in their hearing. He is educating them on a fulfilled prophecy that all of the people should be extremely happy about. However, they listen but they do not understand. They still see this boy that grew up in the neighborhood. They don’t see some Messiah or some person bringing freedom to the captives. How would this poor nobody person Jesus of Nazareth free them from their captors, the Romans? But what they failed to listen and understand and failed to be educated about was that they were really only captive to their own sin. The Roman occupation really meant nothing as long as they remained in bondage to their sin. They were misunderstanding the cause of their loss of freedom because they refused to listen and understand the truth that Jesus was sharing with them.

How so often do we too refuse to listen to the truth based upon whether it is agreeable to us or not. The people of Nazareth may not have wanted to hear that this Jesus whom they had known since he was a child was all along the Messiah they were waiting for. He may not have been the kind of messiah that they wanted with their short-term thinking. However, he was the Messiah that was promised as was told by the prophets and he was the Messiah that they needed. Jesus was there to fulfill a long-term goal that would last for all of eternity.

Education of the truth is like a part of the body of salvation that one cannot be without. Paul talks about this in his letter to the Corinthians in how all of their gifts and talents given to them by God are a part of the body of Christ. The truth is also a part of that body. When we say that we do not want the truth or that we do not believe this or that to be true even though it is then it is like the body saying to the arm that I don’t need you or the left eye saying to the right that I can see just fine without you. It is a part of a whole and the same goes with the truth that Jesus was sharing in the synagogue to his fellow Nazarenes.

I have learned that God has given me a wife to point out the truth of my faults and weakness when I need them pointed out to me. I may not always agree and may not always like it but when it is true then it is necessary for me to hear those things. For as iron sharpens iron so does one man sharpen another. A spouse can fulfill the same role in that matter as we both sharpen each other. Neither of us likes to be educated by each other but we need to be. For it is through education that I learned that I am a sinner who is doomed to face judgment and eternal punishment if it were not for someone else taking my place when it comes to judgment. It is this education in which I was finally able to listen to and finally able to understand, which set me free from the bondage that I was unaware of. We are trained in our society that sin is normal and an acceptable part of life. However, we fail to realize the bondage that our lack of education keeps us in. Therefore, I am here to educate you this morning that Jesus has fulfilled the prophecies that were written about him and he has taken upon himself the judgment that was due to you. The question is whether you will accept that truth and will you accept that sin is not meant to be a normal part of life and will you accept that you are called to something greater than all of your sin? My prayer for you is that you will be educated in the truth, that you will listen to the truth attentively, and that you will understand what this truth means as a part of the body of Christ.