Do You Have Ears to Hear?

Jesus takes a simple story of a farmer and seeds and magically turns it into an opportunity to challenge his followers. What is Jesus specifically pointing out? If you carefully read the three retellings of the parable, you will note the same words at the conclusion of each one: Let anyone who has ears to hear listen. Let’s take some time to unpack Jesus’s power-packed statement.

The point Jesus is making seems to be clear. We need to listen. Does that sound unremarkable? Maybe a little too basic? I mean, haven’t we been taught since preschool that we should listen?

Yep. But do you? Do I?

Our Desire to Be Heard

Our modern-day culture has an undisputed preoccupation: being heard. We want to talk. We want to be heard. We even have a shiny new tool to do this that no culture has had before—social media (cue the confetti cannons and celebrate!). This world-changing tool seems to have been created for this very purpose: Hey, world, listen to me. I want to be heard!

Let’s personalize this. Be honest. You and I want to be heard. We want to be understood. We want our opinion known. Listen to me!

Yikes. Sounds a little narcissistic, doesn’t it? Have you thought about what narcissism is? It is an inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love. Whoa. Narcissism used to be considered an accusation—even a psychological disorder. In today’s culture, how-ever, this type of narcissism is the order of the day. It is the air we breathe. We like to talk. But listen? Not so much. It is an epidemic, and we’ve all caught it.

But this isn’t just a problem in modern culture. Social media didn’t start this fire. It’s just the new, improved tool I have at my fingertips (or thumbs!). It is a human nature problem. And it goes way further back than your social media feed. How far back?

Let’s Go Back to the Beginning

Maybe you have heard the adage we have two ears and one mouth. So we should listen twice as much as we speak! It is often attributed to the Greek Stoic philosopher, Epictetus. I think he was onto something.

But we have to go further back. Before ancient philosophers, before Jesus spoke his parables . . . keep going back. All the way to the beginning of time!

The Bible starts with a beautiful story—a true story—of a loving Creator giving his children life and breath and everything else. He gave them a world of beauty and abundance and peace. It was incredible. You can read about it in Genesis 1–2.

There was just one rule to be followed—one solitary tree in a massive world of gorgeous life-giving trees was off-limits. Enjoy all the rolling acres of every tree imaginable, but leave that one tree alone. Now that doesn’t seem very restrictive, does it? Here is precisely what God said: “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:16–17).

Pretty clear, isn’t it? That should be easy to take in and remember. Even a preschooler can follow that one rule.

But with one turn of the page, you find the rest of the story (in Genesis chapter 3). The first people—our people—went straight for that one tree. What? How many beautiful, fruit-bearing trees did they pass by to get to that tree—the one they were to stay away from?

You have to wonder what they were telling themselves as they made a dash for that tree. What was so compelling about it? As they passed one beautiful tree after another, did they pause and reconsider? How did they manage to suppress God’s clear words? Whatever they were telling themselves, it was their own voices, not God’s voice, that won out.

Their bold ingratitude collided with their pride and created the perfect storm—one that would have cataclysmic consequences. At that point, they were only tuned in to hear their own voices (and the seductive voice of the serpent). The voice of their loving Creator Father who had been so good and generous to them seemed to get quieter and quieter and finally couldn’t be heard at all.

We Developed a Hearing Problem

Ever since then, our spiritual DNA has led us to be like Adam and Eve—with a hearing problem when it comes to God’s voice. We are born with our ears tuned to hear our own voices. We like hearing ourselves. What’s worse is that everyone around us is doing the same thing! So we cheer each other on. That’s right! You should be heard! Don’t let anyone tell you differently! That’s your truth! Say it!

That means we have a double problem: We have our own words clogging our ears, and then we have the loud applause of the people around us encouraging us not to listen to God’s voice. Check out Romans 1:28–32. This phenomenon is in our bloodstream, and it was there long before the invention of the internet.

In Jesus’s parable of the sower, he is talking to people just like us. We might be separated by centuries and culture, but we have something very much in common—they had a hearing problem, and so do we.

Are you listening?

Now brace yourself: Jesus is going to use this parable as a direct assault on our narcissism—our fixation on hearing ourselves and tuning God out. Jesus is gently, yet firmly, challenging us. He is saying, It is time for you to stop talking and start listening.

And we should listen because what he has to say is very good news for us. Jesus’s teachings are life-giving and vital. But he didn’t come only to teach us (as important as that is); he came to save us.

Listen Up

Jesus sees your focus on yourself. He sees your reluctance to listen to him. He comes to you anyway. He comes because you are so unwilling to hear. You won’t unplug your own ears. You need help—God’s help!

Jesus wants us to hear him say, I know you are lost. But I love you. I am here to say listen. I have good news. While you were still lost and refusing me, I set my love on you and came to rescue you from yourself. I didn’t wait for you to find me. I came and found you.

Don’t miss this—if you have ears to hear, then take this in: You are the problem. You have a hearing problem. Yet God is calling to us all. It’s time to stop and listen to his voice.

Jesus came to pierce through our own voices and the applause (or disdain) of others to tell us what we desperately need to hear. We are only going to find life and hope if we can tune our ears to hear him tell us what no one else is telling us. Jesus Christ came and spoke truth to us—truth that is hard to take but vital that we hear.

He told us that we have a listening problem. He told us that we need to repent—to turn from our self-love and our propensity to listen only to our own voice. We need to listen to our Creator.

If you follow the story of Jesus past this parable, you will discover that people weren’t too keen on hearing what he had to say. They ultimately did not want to hear Jesus. (Remember what happened in Genesis 3? Not this again!)

The people who Jesus came for turned on him. They put their hands over their ears and shouted to one another so they could drown out his voice. Then they went further. They wanted him silenced—for good! So they massed together and drove him to a terrible death.

But Jesus wouldn’t be silenced or let them keep him from saving them. Some of the last words that people heard Jesus say on the cross as he looked at them and then into the eyes of his watching Father were these: “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

Incredibly, Jesus spoke words of forgiveness into the ears of those who were mocking him and crucifying him! Yet how many really, truly heard him? The answer is very few of them.

But it was life-changing for those who listened! All who heard and believed immediately went from death to life, from deafness to hearing, from alone in the world to being children of God. “But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name” (John 1:12).

And that miracle continues to this day.

Did I Hear that Right?

The good news that brings life begins by hearing the tough words of truth. We need to acknowledge that we are wrong—dead wrong—to trust our own voice and listen to the voices around us, whether they applaud us or dis us. Only when we silence all the other voices that fill our ears can we begin to hear and respond to the one voice that is speaking truth.

Jesus shared many more teachings after he gave this parable. He would go on to tell those who had ears to hear him that there is hope. Jesus taught that his death would not be the end. He promised to rise from the grave.

He promised a whole new life both here and forever for his followers. Jesus is going to recreate that first home described for us in the opening pages of Genesis—in fact, the new creation will be even better than the old. And he eagerly waits to welcome us home!

Do you believe this? Are you hearing Jesus’s words? It won’t be an easy path. Those competing voices nag us. They will keep trying to persuade us. They will try to drown out the voice of truth. So we must be sure that our ears are tuned to hear Jesus.

This parable is Jesus’s invitation. It’s as if he is saying the following to you:

Hear me call you. Hear me tell you what is true. Listen when I bring correction—it is for your good and your joy. Beware, my child, of competing voices that only mean you harm. Believe me when I draw you onto a path of life and away from a path of pitfalls and darkness. Hear me.

One of Jesus’s most memorable sayings is appropriate here: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28–29).

Jesus asks us, Do you have ears to hear? Are you weary from the mess that comes when you ignore me? I am here. Are you listening—really listening?

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Excerpted from Gospel 201: Growing and Thriving with Jesus © 2025 by Jeff Dodge. Used with permission of New Growth Press. May not be reproduced without prior written permission.

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