The sermon for February 23 was based on Luke 8:4-15.

Grace and peace to you . . .

Do you have ears? This parable is among the most important parables which ever came from the lips of the Lord. It is one of only three recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is one of only a few which Jesus Himself interprets at length. This parable teaches what happens when the Word of God is preached. Since the parable describes people to whom the Gospel is preached, it is describing you. Thus, the dangers described in the parable are dangers that threaten you. The devil, the temptation to surrender the truth, the cares, riches, and pleasures of life all threaten to tear you away from the Word of God. Therefore, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"

In Jesus' interpretation of the parable there is one figure that is conspicuous by its absence: the identity of the sower. The sower is he who preaches the Word of God. Since Jesus draws no attention to the sower, every sower must fade in importance. It is not the sower who is important, but the Seed which he sows. It is not the preacher who is important, but the Gospel message he preaches for those sick with sin. The truth that God has provided healing for you in the blood of Christ, bringing you life and hope though the death of His Son, this Gospel truth is what is important. It is not the men who preach, not Pastor Trouten, not Pastor Varsogea, not even St. Paul, who awaken you who were dead in trespasses and sins, but the powerful Word of God. That Word is what's important.

Even when the preacher is Jesus Himself, He does not focus your attention on His person, but on His Gospel message. He does not seek His own glory, but the glory of Him who sent Him, namely, the Father. For this reason the Son laid aside His own glory and humbled Himself, even to the point of death by crucifixion. When Satan tempted Jesus with the glory of His identity as the Son of God, Jesus responded, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." [Lk 4:4] Jesus is more concerned about the precious Word of God than His own glory as the Son of God. The importance of the sower depends on the importance of the Seed.

That Seed is the Word of God. But sinful men are unimpressed by words. Sticks and stone may break your bones, but not words. You prefer deeds to creeds. These and similar expressions betray your low opinion of mere words. In an age when man can unleash the power of a nuclear bomb or put men on the moon or access global information with the click of a mouse, mere words seem unimportant. But the sinful tendency to be more impressed by massive displays of raw, physical power than by words is really nothing new. God even had to correct the prophet Elijah in this regard. God exposed him to frightening displays of physical power in wind and earthquake and fire, but the Lord was not in any of them. He was in the still, small voice. The Lord God is found in the still, small voice of His Word.

In the word of the Gospel is the power of almighty God. He does not lash you with hurricane winds or threaten you with an earthquake or rain down fire upon you in order to bring you into His kingdom and bear fruit in you. Certainly, God could unleash such power against you, for He holds all power in heaven and on earth. But God does not choose to make you Christian by such force. Rather, God sows the Seed of His Word, by means of unassuming sowers, and in this way brings you into His kingdom and bears His fruit in you. Powerful miracles may attract people, but they cannot build the Church. Flashy programs and clever tricks may attract people, but they cannot build the Church. A winsome smile and a charming personality may attract people, but they cannot build the Church. Any effort to build the Church with anything else than the pure preaching of the Gospel and the proper administration of the Sacraments, any such effort must fail. Any church built by means other than the Word of God purely preached and properly administered is a merely human organization that may as well never been built.

God's Word alone has the power to create life. God's Word alone has the power to raise you from spiritual death and forgive your sins. God's Word alone has the power to create faith in you. God's Word alone has the power to draw you into union with God Himself. There is no power on earth like the power that is in those unassuming, apparently weak words of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These seemingly weak words are powerful because they are the very Word of God, begotten of the Father and bearing the Holy Spirit. As such, the Gospel is so much more than mere words.

This power of God in His Word bears fruit when it is planted in your ears. That is why the devil tries so hard to snatch the Word away. He raises objections to God's Word through the use of your reason. He replaces God's Word with the more reasonable teachings of men. Or the devil convinces you that God's Word isn't so important. But I am here to tell you that God's Word is of the utmost importance. Not one jot or tittle will pass away before heaven and earth do. Why do think Pastor Varsogea and I lay so much stress on purity of doctrine? Pure doctrine is what the Seed of God's Word teaches. Anything else is the devil's seed.

Once the Seed of God's Word is planted in you, you will come under fierce attack. The forces of darkness will bring their powers to bear against you. You will be tempted, not only to sin, but to give up the Seed of God's Word. This temptation comes with persecution. Those who receive God's Word because it gives them an emotional high are in particular danger. They have no root. They chase after revivals and the latest Christian fad. But fads fade. Revivals die out. Christians who are popular with the world yet shallow with God's Word fall away. On the other hand, those who cling without compromise to every truth of God's Word will be unpopular. Nevertheless, the Seed of God's Word is the power to sustain you in times of trouble.

The Seed of God's Word is the power which sustains you throughout your life. But life has its way of distracting you from God's Word. Cares and riches and pleasures lure you away from the Word. That is what happens to those who neglect or despise preaching and God's Word, instead of gladly hearing and learning it. Those who neglect these means have had the life of God choked out of them. You come to church to hear God's Word in absolution, to hear His Word of Gospel preaching, to have His Word enfleshed in bread and wine planted in you, and by these means God keeps you in the one, true faith. That is the power of God's Word.

In you who have received the Word with water in Holy Baptism, in you who have received the Word of Absolution, in you who have had the preached Word planted into your ears, in you who will have the enfleshed Word planted and poured into your mouth, in you the Word of God will bear its fruit a hundredfold. That is the promise of God's Word. That is the power of the Seed. He who has ears to hear, let him hear the very promise and power of God. Amen.

Last Updated: 7/15/2008