Body Parts Mix

First of the month, we always do something called a mix. And, it's normally where our young people stay in, although there's a big group of students away this weekend. And, we mix things up. So largely, it's an adult talk in sort of little chunks. And that's that's what we do.

Last month, I did a 1 off, on the eye. And then I thought, well, that was that's alright. So I'll work my way around the body. And, and we're gonna do the ear today. Paul says in Romans chapter 12, and we did a whole series on the book of Romans, he says that we should present our bodies as living sacrifices.

To god. And that is our reasonable. That is our proper. That is our spiritual service. And so I thought it was a good idea to go around bit of the body that we present to Christ.

We present to god as as our as our worship. And so we're gonna look at the amazing eye, see if this little thing works. Oh, ear, rather. The ab that's it. The amazing ear, there's a whole load of ears.

Don't know which 1 yours is. And it is a remarkable thing the ear, a really remarkable. And I wonder whether we sort of think about these parts of the body much, but We take them for granted, and we shouldn't. It's remarkable. There's 3 parts to the ear.

There's the outer ear. There's the middle ear, and there's the inner ear. And they are all extraordinary. We all know this fleshy bit that you've got there, this thing. Apparently, they keep on growing.

As you get older, that's why the old, you know, because we want bigger trumpets because we go a little deaf, so our ears are getting bigger and bigger so that we can hear. But, from the the outer ear, the fleshy thing, there's a 1 inch canal. It leads to the eardrum, which is like a just a a little drum. And that leads to the middle ear and the middle ear has the the 3 smallest bones in the body, they're called all kinds of names, but the popular names are the anvil and the hammer and the stirrup. There they are.

Fantastic thing and that that those the anvil and hammer and stirrup, they amplify the sound that we hear 22 times. And then that passes, that sound passes into the inner ear where the sort of real business of the ear takes place. And it's it's the main sort of component of the inner ear is called the cochlear. And it's it's it's that funny little, sort of looks like a snail, thing. And it contains thousands and thousands of microscopic cell light hairs, and each hair is tuned to a different vibration.

It is staggering. Here it is. That's amazing. All those lots of little hairs, and they're they're all listening out for a particular thing. So if I go like that, those little hairs in the certain area are listing.

There's little hairs are vibrating. The different hairs. Different hair? Different hair. It's amazing.

It's amazing. That's not working. There are. Different hairs. It is just it's just an amazing thing.

And then then electronic impulses send those vibrations, around circuits, 30000 circuits. Then go to the brain and the brain decodes what what it hears. So it is an amazing bit of engineering this year. And we've got them. And I wonder whether we're thankful for them.

We should be thankful. We're gonna thank god for them in a minute. I wonder whether we take them for granted. The Bible says God made created the ear. I don't think it could be an accident, so someone designed it and created it.

And here's a verse we saw this last, last month, actually. He, does he who fashions the year, not here? Does he who form the eye not see? It's obviously saying that god hears and god sees, but it shows us that he fashions and forms the ear and the eye. It's a wonder of god.

We should be thankful for it because there's so much pleasure from the ear. Just think about the music And it's an amazing thing when you hear a band. You can hear the noise, but you don't just hear a noise, all will fudge together you can distinguish between the drums and the bass and the guitar and the voice and all of that's going on at same time as you hear the whole, you can hear the individual parts. It is an amazing thing to give thanks to god for the ear. And that's why it's a wonderful thing that god is about the ear and that wonderful story in mark 7 when we're told about Jesus, healing a deaf man.

It must have been wonderful to be there. Then Jesus left the vicinity of Kaira went through sidon down to the sea of galilee into the region of the Diet git de acropolis. There's some people brought him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk and beg Jesus to place his hands on them after he took him aside away from the crowd. Jesus put his finger in the man's ear, and then he spat and touched the man's tongue. And he looked up to heaven with a deep sigh and said to him, efficefetha, which means be open.

And at this, the man's ears were opened. His tongue was loosed, and he began to speak plainly. People were overwhelmed with amazement. He has done everything well, they said. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

God is about hearing. God creates this amazing, wonderful ear. And we should give thanks to him for it. I want to show you the joy because because we often miss this, the joy of hearing. These are people that have had some kind of implant, into the who haven't been able to hear and then they suddenly, here's little video of people that come to here.

It's brilliant. And then we're gonna ask Dave. I can't I can't ever handle these videos. They make me cry. And Dave is gonna come up and give thanks for the year after this video, and then we'll carry on.

So let's go for the video. And I asked David to do that because he's into hearing and selling people hearing aids and all of that sort of thing, and he's got some great stories about, about hearing. But let's just go on to the second point. So there's the amazing ear Let's just go on to the the listening ear because, the loss of a listening ear is a really tragic thing. It's a terrible thing if we deliberately choose not to listen to things.

And, it can be a great sin and it can be a great stupidity. In a book in the New Testament called James. He starts, he talks a lot about talk and a lot about listening, and he says, My dear brothers and sisters take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry because human anger does not produce the righteousness that god desires. We should be quick to listen and slow to speak and that's very hard for us.

Now I know there are some people that are very quiet and don't say much but it's very hard for us to be quick to listen and slow to speak because we can speak in our minds. Not necessarily out of our mouth. We can stop hearing because we're speaking against what we're hearing. So actually, it's very it's very much easier to be a speaker than it is to be a listener, isn't it? Especially if someone's saying some quite hard things that, are putting us down a bit or are correcting us or rebuking us or just making us feel a little inferior because they have more knowledge than I have.

So it's quite easy. To be quick to speak and slow to listen, and we've gotta be very careful of of that. Here's some proverbs. The book of proverbs has a lot about listening. The way of fool seems right to them but the wise listen to advice, probably 12 15.

If you're a wise person, you're gonna listen to advice. Proverbs 17 verse 10, a rebuke impresses a discerning person more than a hundred lashes are full. Yeah. You can beat a fool up and he still doesn't learn, but a rebuke from, is received by a discerning person. The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge for the ear of the wise seek it out.

People who are wise are seeking out to listen. Let me listen. Like an earring of gold on an ornament of fine or an ornament of fine gold, is the rebuke of a wise judge to a listening ear. So it's like putting on an earring beautiful earring if you're gonna be a hearer of wisdom. It's a very, very important thing for information for instruction, for rebuke, for advice.

The listening ear or the wise person has his The hairs in his cochlear are tuned to wise words. They vibrate. They seek out They put on that CD. They put on the headphones where there's gonna be wisdom going in to make those hairs vibrate so that they follow. We've gotta have a listening ear.

We've gotta listen. Communicate I mean, communities break down because of communication problems, don't they? I mean, that's what happens. So unless we communicate, unless we speak, and unless we listen, you'll have a communication breakdown. So take the family Children, where are where are the young ones?

You need to listen. You do need to listen. You need to listen to your parents. It's it's awful, isn't it? How dare he have a go at us like this?

But if you're wise, you're gonna is your little cochlear hairs they vibrating? Gonna make sure. Yep. Vibrating. I get I get money for every time I have a go at the children, by the way, from the parents.

So Yeah. My dear brothers and sisters, Take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen. Slow to speak and then slow to become angry. Just hear what your parents are saying sometimes before you bow.

You know, everybody at school does it just hold it. Just listen before you respond. Yeah? Parents are wiser than you think. And parents have been where you have been.

You haven't been where they have been, but they have been your age. And so they might have something to say about your age that is really, really, really good for you. So be be wise. Listen. Listen.

The old Mark Twain quote is so good on this. You gotta hear this, young people. Some of you will know it. He writes this. When I was when I was a 40 when I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant.

I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to 21, I was astonished how much he learned in 7 years. Yeah? And you have to think about that. If you don't get it, you have to think about it.

It is amazing. You suddenly come to a point where you think, actually, they were right. And I was embarrassingly mouthing off to them. Yeah. Be slow.

To speak, be quick. To listen, but we've got to listen in marriage as well. Be quick to listen in the marriage community. You gotta listen. 1 of the big things we do with marriage preparations, in fact, is the main thing is is listen.

You gotta listen. You gotta communicate. It's big. But we've gotta listen to the outside world. The world that's crying and in pain and being lied to.

We need to listen to the lies that they're hearing and show them that their error there. So Proverbs 21 verse 13 says this, If a man shuts his ear to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and he will not be answered. Don't be deaf to what's going on in the world around. But the big thing is We need to listen to god. We need to listen to god.

David prayed that God is a speaking god. He's not a dumb idol. He speaks. He's not just an experience that you have. This isn't religion.

He is a speaking god, and we need to listen. We need to listen to him. Let's just move on there. Quick to listen. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 7 today if you hear his voice.

Do not harden your heart. Do not hard them today. If god is speaking, it's today we should listen. And throughout the bible, it's a big theme. Listen, listen in the old testament very often.

He speaks to his people, Israel. Listen, oh Israel. Hero, Israel, listen, oh Israel. Hero, Israel, listen, oh Israel. Hero, Israel.

And unfortunately, the the epitaph over Israel is this, the lord. That's the sovereign covenant yahweh god who makes a covenant with people who therefore loves us. He's not just some lord that is unconconcerned. He's the lord that is the covenant marriage loving lord. The lord, the god of their fathers.

Sent words to them through his messengers again and again because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. He speaks because he has pity, but they mocked god's messengers spised his words scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy. That's the epitaph. That's what you write on the gravestone. That's what was written on the gravestone.

Gain and again. Listen. Don't harden your hearts. Listen to what the tender lord is saying. And then when you come to the new testament, you hear Jesus saying listen.

Listen. Listen to me again and again and again. He tells a great story, doesn't he? Of a house that is built on the sand and it's it looked so grand in a house that is built on the rock and he he applies that illustration to people who don't listen and people who do listen. If you don't listen to my words, he says, you're like a man who builds his house on sand and when the storms come when the difficulties in life come, you've got no foundation.

It just collapses. But he says that if you're the man that listens to me, then when the storm comes, you'll find your houses on the rock. So it's essential that we're a listening people. It's essential that we listen in our families and in our church and in our own heads, a church that is deaf will die very quickly, so we need to listen. So the amazing ear Yes.

Let's use it to listen to god's word. We're gonna sing now, and then after that, Marie's gonna come and lead us in prayers. Come hear the angels sing and what are they singing about? Well, let's listen as we sing and and then Marie will come up. So we've thought about how amazing the ear is, and thank god for that.

And then the fact that we really do need listening ears, we should be, slow to speak, quick to listen, very quick to listen, particularly when it comes to, listening to what god says, our creator, the creator of our ear. Now I just wanna take us a bit further. And I want us to think about, listening with the inner ear. That's supposed to be, someone making making an ear. In other words, what I really wanna say here is that in order to live, to really live We do need to listen.

We need to listen in order to live. We hear quite a lot of, you know, stuff of what people talk about meditation and how good meditation is. And meditation is a Christian concept, but not meditation like you hear today, where you're supposed to empty your mind. And sort of think of nothing. That is not meditation.

Meditation in the Bible is really like a cow choose the cud. So if you know cows have a number of stomachs, they take they, you know, eat the grass, and then they have to, chew it to try to get all of the nutrients out of the grass. They take it into their stomach. They take it into another stomach. They bring it up, and then they chew.

They chew the curd. And that is actually proper meditation. And, we need to do that. We need to listen to the word so that it isn't just in the sort of outer ear. We don't just hear the words, but it actually affects our life.

Like grass would affect the cow because it chewed the cut and it's got it in. There's a there's a very very wonderful, verse in the Bible in Psalm 40 verse 6. Unfortunately, most of the translations aren't very good on it. But the original Hebrew is very graphic and, I don't know why the translators don't do this. It talks about ears that you, that's god, is that god has dug.

He's dug them out. He's dug through the head, and Doug is, and that's what supposed to be going on there. Made the ear, created the ear, dug a hole. It's a wonderful verse. In its context, You've got people that are bringing sacrifices and offerings, and they're going through the religious ritual in this Psalm, but they're not listening, not with the inner ear.

And so what happens is god says, okay, I'm gonna take a pickaxe to your head, and I'm gonna dig through the Ukrainian granite. So that you have an ear. That's that's what he says. It's physical. It's brutal.

It's like You're just doing stuff that you think I want, but you're not listening. Now how often does that happen? It happens in all kinds of areas. If you're a man, you know, you know, you think, oh, she must want flowers, and you just you just automatically bring her flowers. And then at the end of the year, she says, you never listened to me.

Well, I did. I bought your flowers. We used to have me and Anne. I I used to think, and I I used to show my love to Anne by putting up shelves. And I thought she'd love that.

And so, you know, I'm putting a shelf up and, and I think, oh, I've done, well, Saturday morning, I've put loads of shelves up. She must love that. And then you'd realize that that was a different language I was speaking than she was hearing. You know, I needed to so we gotta listen. We gotta listen carefully to people, not just words, but an inner listening that moves the heart.

And god is saying here, you're just doing outward sacrifices. You're just you're just going through the motions, but you're not hearing. There's no relationship here. And so I'm gonna take a pickaxe to your thick head, and I'm gonna smash through it. And make some ears.

And then when God has smashed through and made some ears, this is what they say. I am here. I am here. Speak. And I will do what you desire.

You see? So the words of the Bible are meant not just to be read, not to be heard on the surface, but actually into into our very souls that causes us to act. Now I'm gonna I just wanna dwell on this because this is very important. Because it's possible to come to a church, even a church that's evangelical and bible believing and to hear all of the stuff and know all the doctrines, but it's not really gone into the heart. There's not been a deeper listening.

Let me just show you Jesus. This is this this blew me away this week. Let me just show you Jesus. Jesus in in, Isaiah 50. Jesus is the servant He's the servant, and here is Jesus.

It's just amazing what goes on. It shows us what he's gonna say to us, and it shows us what he's doing. He's listening. He's listening. The very servant of god, the word of god, The lord Jesus Christ.

Listen. The sovereign lord has given me this is him speaking. The sovereign lord has given me an instructed tongue. So god has given this servant king who we know to be Jesus, an instructed tongue, he's gonna speak to us. And what's the tongue for?

To know the word that sustains the weary. So here is Jesus. He's telling us he's got an instructed word. If you are weary, he's got a word for you. But how does this work?

Look, he, that's the sovereign lord, wakens me morning by morning, wakens me morning by morning. Wakens my ear to listen like 1 being taught That's the lord Jesus. The sovereign lord has opened my ears and I have not been rebellious. And how is he not being rebellious? By going to the cross, By going to the worst place on earth, I have not drawn back.

I have offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks, to those who pull out my beard. I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting. Talking about the cross. I don't know about you, but I mean, honestly, it's worth just thinking about that this week. It blew my mind away this.

Because here is Jesus, and he's saying, I've got a message that's gonna sustain my followers. I've got a message that will sustain you. And the message is that I have heard the sovereign lord mourning by the morning. I open my ears. I listen and he has told me to go to the cross, and that message is what you need to hear if you're weary.

The message of the cross, but even Jesus opens his ears. So let's let's just apply this. What are the issues in your life? What are the issues? What are the difficulties?

What is making you weary? What are the difficulties you're going through? Where do you go with those difficulties? Do you run and hide? You see, I think it's natural for us to be slow to hear and quick to speak.

And I think the way we often do it with the word of god is you we don't say it like this. It's in our mind, but our actions, you know, show what we really are saying. We often say, god won't understand. Jesus doesn't understand. I need to go somewhere away from god.

To find healing or covering. It's exactly what Adam and Eve does, and it's implanted in us to a degree. Adam and Eve, when they sin should have run to god and said, sorry, but they run and hide, and they cover up So when there are issues in your life, when there are difficulties, what are you doing? Are you being like Jesus who says I will listen every morning, and I'll face the trial, in his case, the cross. You've brought this into my life and I won't rebel.

I won't run. I'll face it. Keep that in mind, and let's go to this next Bible passage. Sorry. There you go.

This is from Isaiah 55 this time. Listen to god here. Listen. They're magnificent words. Come all you are thirsty.

Are you thirsty? Come to the waters and you who have no money come by heat. Come here. Come by wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy.

Listen. Listen to me. Eat what is good and you will delight in the richest effect. Give ear. Come to me.

Listen that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you my faithful love promised to David. Do you see? Do you see what's going on? Here are difficulties coming to you.

Here's a first in your life. Here's a hunger in your life. Where do you run? Where do you go? It seems that the evangelical world is given up on god's word.

Because when difficulties come, we seem to run to the secular people and spend money. And they always charge They always charge masses of money for their time. Why do we do that? Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying there aren't doctors and there aren't people that can help, but that should not be our first port of call.

Be careful you're not just spending money on bread that will never satisfy when god says, will you listen? It was Lloyd Jones who said, years ago, a good old preacher of the last century, that he said in the 40 years of his ministry that most of the pastoral problems are to do with people just not listening to the faithful preaching of god's word. If they listened, they would be prepared for the difficulties. But what seems to happen is We suddenly panic. We run from god's word and spend money on what is not bread.

Be very careful. Be very careful. Be very careful before you're even on soaring me because I know some of you are answering me because you're quick to speak. Listen to what I'm saying and listen to what god is saying. It seems to be very, very important.

Look at this other verse here. Again, this is we. We're done. I don't know what I've done. I'm clicking and that's it.

This is, from, from proverbs This is from Proverbs 8, and it's clearly Jesus speaking because Jesus is wisdom and this is wisdom speaking, and this is what wisdom says. Blessed is the man who listens to me watching daily at his door waiting at my doorway. For whoever finds, me, finds life and receives favor from the lord, but whoever fails to find me harms himself, all who hate me love death. They're pretty significant words, aren't they? But do you see what it's saying?

It's not just sort of listen out there and know stuff. It's really in the door. It's in the life. It's in what you let in and what you let out. It's in what really is going on in your life.

Are you listening with that inner ear? Are the hairs of your cochlear? Just waggling to the inner listening. Will you listen? Another interesting verse, isn't it?

We looked at it in, Romans chapter 10, where it says faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. Faith, if you want to build your faith up, listen and hear in a way that it affects your life. We're gonna sing another song, and then we'll have our last bit. I heard the voice of Jesus say it's a beautiful song. It's 1 of my favorites and it's just he's saying come come to me.

Come and listen to me. Come and rest in me. Lay down your weary head in me. It's it's so Christian, isn't it? So let's stand and sing this song together.

Now, I wanna just go through some really quick bad listeners because I think what happens is you've heard my last point and I really wanna keep that point in your head. Because sometimes we think we listen to the Bible and we don't. We're really bad listeners and here's some bad listeners. See if you're 1 of these. First 1 is the gold prospect prospector.

In other words, you're panning for gold. And what you do with the Bible is you just get loads of the Bible, shovel loads of the Bible and you pan through and you just find the juicy nuggets. And you're not really listening. You're just looking for juicy highs, juicy nuggets to say, look at me, I've got a little bit of gold. Are you, a pan of a gold?

Is that how you treat the word of god? You won't really listen if you do that. This is the vulture. So Vultures fly up high. They don't kill anything.

They just wait for someone else to kill it or it to kill itself or get run over or something. And it's never really worked out themselves. It's not really worked out in their life, the Bible. They just swoop down and they just take up what someone else has done. But it never really goes in.

The ghost hunter, there are so many of these. I don't know how many I've met. They're just looking at the bible, for things that aren't there. And they're just ghost hunting. They're trying to find significance to little tiny noises and say, we know something.

Have you ever seen this noise here and their ghost hunters are there again not listening to the word of god? The bird's nest maker. They gather verses up from all over the place, out of context, and they build a lovely nest that they want to live in. It's a lot of theory and it's nonsense most of the time. The drain pipe they allow the word of god to flood in them and it goes flooding out and it doesn't change their life whatsoever.

The meerkat Come on. That's the 1 who, constantly is looking and listening, if you know what meerkats do, itching is listening for the new thing. Is there a new noise around? What's going on? What's the new noise?

They never settled They never listen really. They've got itching ears. They turn away from truth. They're always waggling their heads after the latest thing. Worm tongue ears.

If you know anything about worm tongue, it's a fantastic scene, isn't it in the lord of the rings? You know? Here is a good king. And, he's made a bad king by this evil man just whispering in his ear constantly criticizing everything. Criticizing, whispering, and it turns him into this blind and deaf old, impotent sort of man.

And it's not until, Gandalf the White comes and, throws old worm tongue away that he begins to get his flesh back and his sight back and his hearing back. Are you just just being bombarded with criticism or false words or what's going in your little cochlear cochlear. What's what are the hairs waggling to? So they're bad listeners, and there are lots of people that think they're reading the Bible, and they're not really, they're not really listening. So watch out for that.

Be a good listener. Be a good listener. Here's a verse. Listen to this. What you make of this?

This is to to Aaron and the priests in the Old Testament. Slaughter the lamb, slaughter the sacrifice, take some of the blood and put it on the lobes of the right ear of Aaron. So you've got some blood of a lamb that is sacrificed, and it's put on the right ear of Aaron and his sons, and then on the right thumb, and then on the right big toe. What's that all about? And then you splash the blood all over the altar after that.

What's that about? It's a wonderful picture because here's air on the the the high priest and the priesthood. They're representing us. And what is it? You put blood on your ear and blood on your right thumb and blood on your right toe what is it, you know, this is what people laugh about when they read the bible.

Well, this is a joke, is it? This is a thought sermon that you would get in the Simpsons, isn't it? Because it's just like It's of what is it? But but it's a beautiful picture because it's it's the sacrificial lamb of god. Who cleanses the ear so you hear the word of god, who cleanses the hand so you can do things for god.

Who cleanses the toe, the foot so that you can walk in god's way. Listen to god, obey god, walk in his way. That's a good listener. So you allow the blood of Christ. You allow the word that we were looking at.

In, Isaiah 50 where Christ listens to the sovereign lord and goes to the cross. In other words, you have a cross ear you have a sacrificial ear, you're listening through the blood of the lamb. Your ear is cleansed, your ear is tuned. Your ear is attuned to the cross, to sacrifice, to love, to god. To listen.

Would you pray for your ears and what you listen for? And that god would put the blood of the lamb on your ear. Here's another 1. And that's the last thing. Get your ears pierced.

If you haven't had any ear piercing, you're not it's not godly. You see, there used to be a thing, oh, you know, should people pierce their ears? Absolutely. Get your ears pierced. Because it's biblical to have ears pierced.

Here's a verse. You ready? If the servant declares I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to be free. If this servant doesn't want to be free, wants carry on serving his master, then his master will take him before the judges. It's gonna be a legal thing going on here.

And she he shall take him to the door or to a door post and piece his ear with an all. Braddled thing, shove it through, yeah, then he will be a servant for life. So all those daughters that the same mum come out of my ears pierced, and we're saying, no. There you go. There is something for you after all.

Yeah? It's a beautiful picture. I'll let you argue that out. It's a beautiful picture of saying I'm my masters. I'm my masters.

So if you're my age and you're going through sort of midlife crisis, even though at their end of life, I don't know why they call it mid, and you want your peer to peer to peer to peer to peer to peer. Yeah? Because It's a beautiful picture of I am my masters. I am my masters. And that's what goes on in the old testament.

And that's good is, ears that are touched with the gospel the blood of the lamb is that are stuck to the master, your mind, your mind. Okay. I know that there are gonna be some people saying you shouldn't have said that about the children's ears, stop speaking and just listen. And, let's and I ought to do that as well. And let's sing our last song.

Have you heard the voice of Jesus this time? It's a lovely song that stands to sing.