Sermon for the first mid-week Lent service - Table of Duties: Pastors and Hearers

 

Mid-Lent 1

Table of Duties: Pastors                 and Hearers 

2/25/26

 

            During my life growing up in the Lutheran church I often heard about the “six chief part” of the Small Catechism – the sections that deal with the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Holy Baptism, Confession and the Sacrament of the Altar. But when I arrived at the seminary, I was in for a surprise because by I learned that there were two other parts of the Small Catechism that in my experience no one had ever talked about.

            The first was the Daily Prayer section which describes prayer at the beginning and ending of the day, and also before and after a meal.  And the second was the Table of Duties – a list of Scripture texts describing how Christians are to live.  I learned that for Martin Luther, these two parts were just as much part of the Small Catechism as the prior six parts. They described how the faith, that had been created and nourished by the first six parts, prays and lives.

            This is the first of our mid-week Lent services.  Lent is about repentance as we reflect on why our Lord died on the cross for us. But Lent is also about catechesis – about teaching the faith. That is why the Lutheran church has historically used Lent as a season when preaching focuses on catechesis. 

And so during Lent we are going to focus on this last and most practical part of the Small Catechism – the Table of Duties. In this list of Bible passages, we find a description of how we live out our faith in Jesus Christ.  In his writings Martin Luther endlessly returns to the theme of faith in Christ and love for our neighbor.  It is faith in Christ alone that saves.  But where this Spirit worked gift is present, there will flow forth love for our neighbor.  Luther pointed out that God doesn’t need your love.  Instead, your neighbor does, and God wants to use you as the means by which he cares for those around you.

            To do this, God has created various vocations, or callings.  He instituted stations in life that we occupy, and God uses us in these positions to care for others.  The Table of Duties is divided up according to these holy orders and positions. And so tonight we consider the first pair, the verse that deal with “To Bishops, Pastors and Preachers” and “What the Hearers Owe Their Pastors.”

            During Lent we are preparing to remember how Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins on Good Friday, and then rose from the dead on Easter. Christ did that some 2000 years ago in Palestine. But we don’t live there and then. Instead, we live in 2026 here in the Marion area. We can’t go back there and then to receive the forgiveness Christ won. And so instead, he delivers it to us here and now through the Means of Grace. He uses the word in its various forms. He uses the word preached and spoken in absolution. He uses the word added to the elements of water in Holy Bapitsm, and bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar.

            However, none of the Means of Grace happen on their own. And so God has not only provided the Means of Grace, but he has also provided the means by which the Means of Grace are given to his people.  He has instituted the Office of the Holy Ministry.  This is the vocation into which pastors are called.  It is God’s Office.  No one can take the Office for himself.  Instead, God must call a man through the work of His Church.  And God tells us the requirements for the office in 1 Timothy 3: “The overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect.”

            As one who acts in the stead and place of Jesus Christ, the pastor is a man.  A candidate for this office must be someone who reflects Christ in the way he lives.  No Christian is perfect.  No pastor is perfect.  All live by the forgiveness that Jesus Christ won by his death and resurrection.  Yet as those who shepherd Christ’s flock, we do hold pastors to a higher standard. That is why Paul cautions in the second verse that, “He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil.”  Instead, pastors are to be examples to the church, and so we call those who have lived in the church for some time.

            The pastor in the Office of the Holy Ministry attends to the work of the Gospel.  This is a work that takes place in the world.  But the pastor must also be able to live in the world, and so in the first three verses under “What the Hearers Owe Their Pastors” we learn that hearers provide for a pastor.  Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9, “The Lord has commanded that those who preach the Gospel should receive their living from the Gospel.”  He says in Galatians 6, “Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor. Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows.”

            God has commanded you to support a pastor who will administer the Means of Grace. And of course more broadly this also includes all of the things we need for the Means of Grace to go on here. If we didn’t pay the church’s electric bill, we would be sitting here in the dark.

            God’s word teaches us about how this is done. Paul says in 2 Corinthians, “The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” God tells us to give an offering that is voluntary and cheerful as an expression of thanks to him for all of his blessings.

            And Paul also says in 1 Corinthians, “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper.” We learn two things in this important statement. First, our giving is to be first fruits – it comes off the top of what God has given us. Second, it is to be proportional – it reflects how God has prospered us.  In the Old Testament this was figured out as a tithe – ten percent. We have no specific command in the New Testament about how much we are to give.  But certainly, we who have received the Gospel aren’t going to give less. A tithe – ten percent of the income that we receive from God – continues to be our starting point as we think about returning an offering to God that will support the Means of Grace in the Church.

            Paul makes it clear that the pastor is not there to speak his own ideas or opinions. Instead he instructs in Titus 1 that, “He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.”  The pastor must teach what is true and correct what it false.  Yet this discernment goes beyond simple doctrinal statements.  It takes in how the faith is confessed - or denied – by the way we live.

            Here it is crucial that we remember again whose Office of the Ministry it is – it is God’s.  And we need to remember how the pastor came to serve in that position.  He did not put himself there.  Instead God did, working through his Church. That is why Paul told the pastors gathered at Miletus: “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”  For the same reason Peter called the members of a congregation those who have been “allotted” to the pastor.

            Because of this Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5: “We ask you brothers, respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you.  Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work.  Live in peace with each other.”  For the same reason, the writer to the Hebrews wrote: “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account.  Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.” We recognize the spiritual authority that pastors have in caring for God’s people in the matters that deal with God’s word. We learn that pastors are accountable to God for how they care for his people. They must speak the truth of God’s word, and carry out pastoral care on that basis – even when this his hard.

            As we live in a world that is becoming more and more like the first century world of the New Testament a pressing challenge faces both pastors and congregation members.  Will pastors be willing to speak the truth?  Will they say that Christ alone is the way to salvation? Will they say that Scripture is the inspired and inerrant word – the authoritative revelation of God? Will they say that sex outside of marriage is sin, and refuse to marry couples that live together? Will they say that homosexuality is sin?  And for congregation members, will they be willing to hear, believe and accept these things … even when it pertains to their own son, daughter or family member?       

            This is the great challenge that faces pastors and hearers.  But we do not face this by our own powers.  Instead, we face these things secure in the knowledge that Christ who was crucified on Good Friday, rose on Easter.  The risen Lord through his Spirit enables us to live in the confidence of his resurrection.  He causes us to be different from the world, because he has called us out of the world.  He gives us eyes to recognize his Church – pastors and people; shepherds and sheep – as the place where his forgiveness reigns and gives life that will never end.

 

Sermon for Ash Wednesday - Joel 2:12-19

                                                                                                        Ash Wednesday

                                                                                                        Joel 2:12-19

                                                                                                        2/18/26

 

 

            Shuvu … shuvu. Return … return. Those are the words that ring out in the first two verses of our text for Ash Wednesday. The Hebrew verb shuv means literally “to turn back or return.” It is a word that is commonly used by itself to express the need for repentance. The image is that a person is going in a way that is not true to the will of God. He is sinning and so needs to turn around; to turn away from sin.

            Sin certainly includes thoughts, acts, and deeds that break God’s law.  But God’s law is not merely some abstract set of rules. It is an expression of God’s will and ordering of life. And so every sin is a sin committed against God. Sin is the rejection of God.  It is the individual saying to God: “You don’t matter and I am going to do my own thing.”

            This very personal nature of sin comes out in our text tonight. God says in the first verse of our text, “Yet even now return to me.” He adds, “Return to Yahweh your God.”  Turning away from sin, means turning back to God.

            It’s not hard to understand why this text from Joel was chosen as the Old Testament lesson for Ash Wednesday. We hear, “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

and rend your hearts and not your garments.” 

            God calls upon the people to repent. He urges a repentance that is true and real – not something that is just a matter of going through the motions. He calls upon the people to repent in a way that goes to their very heart as they confess their sin against God and turn back to him.

            What was the people’s sin? We don’t know. Joel never gives us any indication about what the problem was. But if you have read the Old Testament, it’s not hard to guess. The recurring sin was the worship of the false gods that were found among all of the surrounding peoples.  Yahweh had told Israel not to intermarry with these other peoples because they would lead Israel away into the worship of these false gods. But Israel did it anyway, and it produced the exact result about which God had warned them.

            It is no different for us. Of course, we don’t go and offer animal sacrifices to false gods on the high places established by paganism. But we offer sacrifices to our false gods. You can see it in the ways we use what we really value – our time and money.

We lavish our time and money on our hobbies, our entertainment, our recreation, and on that great and almighty god – our sports. When there is the least inconvenience we think nothing of skipping the Divine Service on Sunday. And of course, if there is something else scheduled on Sunday, there is little doubt we will choose that instead.

We don’t take time during the week to read God’s word each day. We ignore our vocation as parents to see that our children are learning the Scriptures.  Our offering in the support of the Means of Grace does not reflect a true proportion of the blessings that God gives to us. It pales in comparison to the ways we spend money on the things we want to do. We are miserly toward God, because we have other gods that we want to worship with our time and money.

While we are aren’t told exactly how the people had sinned, we know how Yahweh’s judgment had come upon them. He had sent a terrible locust plague. Joel says in the previous chapter, “What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.” Joel compares the locusts to an army that had advanced against the land. He says that the results were devastating as he reports: “The fields are destroyed, the ground mourns, because the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil languishes.”

Joel describes this event as “the day of the Lord.”  He said at the beginning of this chapter, “Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!” 

The locust plague was not some random natural disaster. Joel declares that it is an act of judgment by God. But the prophet also tells us that the locusts are God acting in a way that it meant to cause repentance. This act of judgment was an act of law that confronted the people with the consequences of their sin.  It was meant to turn the people away from sin and back to God. And so Joel begins our text by saying, “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.”

God’s law continues to do the same thing to us. It confronts our life and reveals our sin. Sometimes those sins have their own built in consequences and punishments.  God uses those consequences to reveal how the things that violate his ordering for life bring harm.  He uses these things to reveal that sin is damaging as he seeks to turn us away from sin and back to God and his ways.

Tonight we begin the season of Lent. Lent is a season of repentance. It is a time of the church year in which we confess the sin that is present in our life. It is also a time that prompts us to examine how we are living our lives and to test this against God’s word.    

In our text, Joel calls upon the people to return. Yet in doing so, he also provides the reason that they can return to God in confidence.  He says, “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.”

This statement – this description of God – repeats over and over in the Old Testament. Why should people repent and return to God? They should do so because God is gracious and merciful. God gives us what we don’t deserve. He wants to be merciful and caring towards us. He is patient because he gives people time to repent. He is slow to anger – his first reaction is not destructive judgement. He abounds in steadfast love. God is love, and he acts in faithful lovingkindness toward us. 

This is what God revealed about himself in the Old Testament. And then in the fullness of time in his grace, mercy, and love God sent his Son into the world in order to rescue us from sin. The season of Lent prepares us to remember the culmination of the saving work that God carried out in Jesus Christ.  During these days of Lent we are moving toward Holy Week. We are moving toward Good Friday.

In the prophet Isaiah, God revealed about his Servant: “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

The surprise of Jesus is that he was both the Messiah who descended from King David, and the suffering Servant who received God’s punishment against our sin. As the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament, he was God working through his son – Israel. He was also God working through his son – the Davidic king. Jesus’ death on the cross made atonement for your sin. He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” as he received the judgment that you deserved.

Holy Week ends in the darkness of the sealed tomb where Jesus’ lifeless body was placed. But sundown on Saturday is also the beginning of Easter. After winning forgiveness through Jesus’ death, God the Father then defeated death forever by raising Christ from the dead. Through Adam sin and death entered into the world. But through Jesus Christ, the second Adam, God began the resurrection life that will never end.

Now, as sinners we return to our God in confidence. We do because in Jesus God has been gracious, merciful, and loving.  We approach him in the knowledge that God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all so that we can be the forgiven children of God who will enjoy eternal life with him.

Paul told the Colossians that you have “been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.” You have been baptized into Christ’s death, and so have forgiveness for every sin you confess. But the crucified Lord is also the risen Lord. Because you are in Christ, already now you share in his resurrection.

And this leads us to live differently. Paul went on to say, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”  The Spirit of Christ now prompts us not only to confess sin and receive forgiveness, but also to make changes that remove sin from our lives.  We seek to walk in the way of the Lord because it is God’s will by which we receive blessing in our lives.

Shuvu … shuvu. Return … return. Tonight God calls us to repentance through the words of Joel.  He leads us to see sin for what it is so that we can confess and return to God. We do so because God is gracious, merciful, and loving. That is what he has been in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for us. Now through Christ’s Spirit we seek to live in God’s ways, for they are always best for us.

 

 

  

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

       

  

 

           

           

 

Sermon for Quinquagesima - 1 Cor 13:1-13

 

                                                                                                          

                                                                                                            Quinquagesima

                                                                                                            1 Cor 13:1-13

                                                                                                            2/15/26

 

Love is in the air. It was yesterday, and it is this morning in our epistle lesson. Yesterday was, of course, Valetine’s Day, named after St. Valentine. There was indeed a Valentine who was martyred because of faith in Jesus Christ. Actually, there is evidence for two men named Valentine – one a bishop, and the other a priest – who were martyred in Rome around 269 A.D. However, we are not sure exactly which one prompted this day in the commemoration of the Church.

The other available evidence about St. Valentine are contradictory and contain information that is historically questionable.  Included among these are the claims that Valetine secretly performed Christian marriages and provided hearts cut from parchment as a reminder of the marriage vows and God’s love.  Another says that he left a note for the child of his jailer that was written on a piece of irregularly shaped parchment. Both traditions provide a basis for aspects of Valetine’s Day as we know it. The Feast of St. Valentine became associated with romantic love during the late medieval period.

            Needless to say, it is quite a jump from a pastor being killed because of faith in Jesus to a day that celebrates romantic love and which must be honored with cards, flowers, and chocolate. We are told that Valentine’s Day is about love, and I suppose that is true. But “love” is a word that you can fill with very different content. 

Romantic love is often associated with the warm fuzzy feeling that exists in the beginning of a relationship.  While on the surface this love is directed towards that other person, in the end it is really valued because it makes me feel wonderful.  “Falling in love” feels great.  There’s really nothing like it. But if it didn’t feel great for me, I wouldn’t be doing it. That’s why we also hear about people “falling out of love.” When this love thing ceases to be good for me, then it’s time to move on.

On the other hand, we hear about a very different kind of love this morning as St Paul writes to the Corinthians. This is not love that is focused on feeling good.  Instead, it is love that is action. It is a way of behaving that is generated by the Spirit of Christ.  It is life that is modeled on Christ. And unlike romantic love, it is something that will never end.

The church at Corinth was definitely Paul’s “problem congregation.” Almost all of 1 Corinthians is Paul dealing with problems at Corinth. Problems and challenges continue in 2 Corinthians.  Several weeks ago I preached on a text from chapters nine and ten in which Paul was in the process of addressing issues related to pagan temples and meat that came from sacrifices there. Today, Paul is in the midst of addressing yet another problem.

Many of the Corinthians had a very high view of themselves.  They thought that spiritually they had arrived. They were mature and they had real knowledge.  They were also quite prideful, and were drawn to things in the Christian faith that would make them stand out in the midst of other Christians.

Paul began his discussion in the previous chapter as he said, “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.” Literally, the phrase is “concerning spiritual things.” The apostle is referring to different ways that the Spirit manifested himself in the life of Christians – things like the utterance of wisdom and knowledge, healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, speaking in tongues, and the interpretation of tongues.

Paul has made the point that God gives many different gifts for the good of his Church. He said, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”  In chapter twelve, he described the Church as the body of Christ as he explained: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

The apostles’ point is that the body has many different members – there are feet, eyes, and ears. They don’t all do the same thing, yet the body needs all of them.  In the same way God has given different gifts to individual Christians, and the Church needs all of them. Just before our text Paul asks: “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?” Then Paul adds, “And I will show you a still more excellent way.”

That more excellent way is the way of love. Paul begins our text by saying that without love, the gifts the Corinthians are desiring – the ones they want because it will make them stand out - mean nothing. He says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

Paul’s language about tongues has received a great deal of attention from the so-called Pentecostal movement. The book of Acts is clear that on Pentecost the disciples spoke in the foreign languages of those who were present in Jerusalem. However, that is not what Paul is describing here. To be honest, we don’t know what this sounded like. But we do know that it was language that required an interpretation that only God could provide. And Paul is clear in the next chapter that speaking in tongues should only take place when someone is able to interpret. So the practice today in which multiple people carry on, and no one has any idea what they are saying, is not from God.

Prophecy in the Old Testament is most often the act of declaring God’s word to his people.  It is teaching. Sometimes it did involve foretelling events, but this was not the most common aspect of prophecy. In the New Testament it continued to be the same thing. Individuals were gifted by the Spirit to speak and teach God’s Word in authoritative ways. The Spirit of God gave them knowledge and insight to do so.

You can see why the Corinthians wanted to focus on these. But Paul says that without love, they are nothing. Instead, the apostle states in our text: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.”

Love as defined by Paul is patient and kind. It is willing to wait for others. It is kind and does not insist on its own way.  These all describe an orientation that seeks the good of others – that puts others first. Paul expressed the same thing when he told the Philippians, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

Because love is oriented towards others and seeks their well being first, Paul explains that love does not envy or boast. It’s not jealous of what others have or have done. This means the person does not seek to boast about oneself. The person does not act as if he is better than everyone else. The individual does not treat others in a dismissive fashion.

“Love” is a word that can be used in very in different ways.  It is a word that is popular in our world today because it is defined as the acceptance of what others believe and do. This includes homosexuality, and every other kind of sexual immorality.  “Love is love” we are told.

But Paul says that since God is the source of love, anything that we are going to label as love must be true to his will and ordering. He says that love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”  Love will call wrongdoing what it is. It will call it sin. Love will not go along and accept the things that are contrary to God’s will, because they are in fact wrong. And because according to God they are wrong, these are things that bring spiritual and worldly harm.

Paul describes love as an active thing. He says that, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”  It is ongoing and does not stop in the face of challenges and difficulties.

The love that Paul describes has only one source.  It comes from God. John says in his first letter, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

God revealed his love by seeking our good. Paul told the Romans, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We are sinners who fail to love. We find it easy to act in selfish ways. But God loved us by giving his Son as the sacrifice for our sins. Indeed, Christ loved us by carrying out the Father’s will when he offered himself on the cross. Paul told the Ephesians to “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Jesus was the offering through whom God provided atonement for our sins. The holy God judged sin in Christ so that sin no longer stands as a barrier between us and God. And then he raised Jesus from the dead on the third day through the work of the Spirit.  Now that same Spirit has given you regeneration and renewal through baptism.  You have been born again to the life of faith in Jesus Christ.  You now live as those who are in Christ. 

This faith is trust and belief in Jesus Christ as the crucified and risen Lord. But because this faith has been worked by the Spirit; because this faith means being joined with Christ, it act; it does. Paul told the Galatians, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”

Love is the life of faith in Christ, worked by the Spirit.  Its source is in God the Father who loved us by giving his Son.  John said, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Its model and pattern is Jesus Christ himself. John tells us, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”

In our text this morning, Paul emphasizes the enduring character of love. He says, “Love never ends.” This stands in contrast to the things the Corinthians are prizing. The apostles adds, “As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.”

All of these other things will come to an end. They are temporary and point forward to the eternal that will be present when Christ returns. For now, all our knowledge is imperfect.  It is only in part because we are limited by our sinful fallenness. But that will change when our Lord returns in glory and raises us from the dead.  Paul says, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

Paul concludes our text by saying, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Why is love the greatest? It is because only love will extend into eternity. Faith and hope both involve things that are not yet seen. When Christ returns and we see God face to face there will no longer be any need for faith and hope. But there will be love, because God is love. The mutual love shared by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has existed from all eternity. God has restored us to sharing in that love through Christ.  Our life in Christ is one of love – love that already shares in the life that we will have with God forever.

 

 

 

Sermon for Sexagesima - Lk 8:4-15

 

                                                                                                            Sexagesima

                                                                                                            Lk 8:4-15

                                                                                                            2/8/26

 

 

Does the Word of God – the message of the Gospel – really work? There are times – more than we would like – when it seems like that question should be answered in the negative.  We speak the Gospel, and it meets with dismissal or even outright rejection.  In the same way, it is very disappointing to see people who have been Christians fall away from the faith.  These experiences can undermine our confidence in God’s Word.

This morning in our text, Jesus explains about the nature of God’s Word and how it is received.  His teaching gives us some understanding about the things we don’t want to see. It guides how we need to live in relation to God’s Word. And it provides assurance that God’s Word will not fail to produce results.

In our text Jesus tells the parable of the sower. We learn that a man went into his field to sow seed. In an era before machinery this was done by the simple process of tossing out handfuls of seed. Christ describes how not all the seed landed in fertile soil. Some fell along the path. Paths had been worn from many years of people walking along the edge of fields and even through their midst. Here the seed was trampled underfoot by passersby, and the birds ate it up.

Some of the seed fell on rocky soil. The seed that landed here did grow. But because it was very poor soil that did not contain sufficient moisture, the seedlings withered and died.  Other seed fell among thorns. Here too the seed grew. But the thorns also grew up along with the seedlings, and in the end the thorns choked them out. Finally, there was seed that landed on good soil, and this seed yielded a hundredfold.  It produced a great harvest.

At the end of the parable Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”  These words signal that there is more going on here than may seem at first to be the case.  It certainly caught the disciples’ attention. We learn that they began to ask Jesus what the parable meant.

The word “parable” has a rather broad meaning in the New Testament. It can be used for a brief saying that illustrates a truth or conveys some meaning. Here we find it in the form we are most used to as an extended story. This is the first time in Luke’s Gospel that Jesus has told story like this which is labeled as a parable. It introduces a continuing use of the this kind of teaching. The disciples noticed this new form of teaching and asked our Lord what it meant.

Jesus replied, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’” Our Lord began by saying that the secrets of God’s reign in Christ were being revealed to the disciples. God had called them to faith and they were being given understanding.  Jesus was about to explain to them what the parable meant. He was going to reveal the truth conveyed by the story.

This stood in contrast to others who only received things in the form of the parable.  We learn that during Jesus’ ministry the parables revealed and concealed at the same time. To those who believed in Jesus they provided understanding about the kingdom of God – the reign of God that was present in Jesus. To those who did not believe in Jesus they remained simply entertaining stories.

In this case, Jesus said the purpose of the parables was so “so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’”  These words are drawn from what God said to Isaiah when he called the prophet.  After Isaish said, “Here I am send me,” Yahweh replied, “Go, and say to this people: “‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

When Isaiah asked how long he was supposed to do this, he learned that this was to take place until God had brought judgment upon Judah by means of the Assyrians.  God was sending Isaiah to a people who were sinning and rejecting Yahweh. The word of Isaiah was going to harden them in their sin as God prepared to bring his judgment.

This background from Isaiah helps us to understand Jesus’ words. Our Lord was speaking to people who were sinful and were rejecting Jesus’ word – many refused to believe in Jesus as anything more than a prophet or an interesting rabbi. The very first time we hear Jesus preach in Luke’s Gospel - in the synagogue at Nazareth - the people rejected his claim about being the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy and they tried to throw him off a cliff.  In the chapters that precede our text, the Pharisees have rejected and attacked Jesus.

Jesus’ words lead us to ponder how God saves people, and why some people aren’t saved. He teaches us that only God can call people to faith and reveal the mysteries of the kingdom. As we confess in the explanation to the third article of the Creed, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel.”

            God wants to save all. That is why he sent his Son into the world to suffer and die on the cross for the sins of all. Paul told Timothy that God, “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” But Scripture also teaches that where people refuse to repent and reject God, he hardens them in their unbelief through his word. That is what he expressed to Isaiah. That is what Jesus says about the nature of the parables.  Jesus will say later in this Gospel, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”

            We want to understand why there are people who don’t believe. We know why we believe – it is because God has called us through the work of the Spirit. We know that it is God’s desire to save all – that is what his word says. We know that God hardens in unbelief those who reject him.  But why is it that some people take this stance of rejection in the first place?

It is very tempting to say that God is the cause – after all, he is the cause of those who are saved. But such a logical conclusion contradicts the fact that God says he wants to save all. Instead, Scripture locates the cause in the fallen sinfulness of man himself.  It says that God wants to save all in Christ.  It says that only God can call people to faith. It says that sinful man is responsible for his rejection of the Gospel. It says that, like Pharoah, God does harden people in their rejection of his word.

You can’t make those biblical truths fit together in a neat logical construct.  And so we are left confessing what God’s Word says, even if we can’t explain exactly how things work. But recognize, this is nothing new. We do the same thing when it comes to the Holy Trinity and incarnation of the Son of God. We believe God’s word in faith, trusting that God’s ways go beyond the understanding of fallen man.

After describing the nature of his parables, Jesus then went on to explain the parable of the sower. He said, “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.” This word of God is the Gospel of the kingdom.  It is the proclamation that Jesus Christ died on the cross as he received the punishment against your sin. Through this sacrifice he has won forgiveness for you. And then in his resurrection from the dead God demonstrated that he had in fact been at work in Christ. The resurrection of Christ was the defeat of death. Through faith in Jesus Christ you have forgiveness, salvation, and resurrection life on the Last Day.

Jesus then explained, “The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.” The sharing of the Gospel does not take place in a neutral environment. The devil became the lord of all sinful man through the Fall. In his homicidal lordship he wants to plunge all into the torment of Hell just as he himself will experience it.

The devil uses different means to snatch the word away so that it does not even receive a consideration. Through his influence in the world people reject anything that is “religious.” They say that Scripture is just a book written by men. In particular, he uses the materialism of our culture to support a profound spiritual apathy. People are focused on the things of this world and just don’t care about spiritual matters at all. They don’t even give the Gospel a consideration as they go on living their life.

Next Jesus said, “And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.” The seed that fell on the rock did grow, and Jesus says that this describes people who hear the Gospel and believe for a awhile. However, believing in Christ and walking in his way will mean taking up the cross. It will bring trials and testing. In response, some give up on the faith and walk away.

Our Lord added, “And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.” Once again, Christ describes people who hear the word and believe. However, over time their faith is choked out by different challenges of this fallen world.

Worries and concerns cause people to focus on problems instead of Christ. They begin to think that the Lord isn’t doing them any good as they struggle with health problems and financial concerns. The riches of this world suck people in as money and all the things it can buy becomes the thing that is really their god. The pleasures of life include all of the forms of sexual immorality present in our world – sin that is celebrated by our culture as normal and good. These things choke out faith – they cause faith to die.

In the explanation of the seed on the rock and the seed among the thorns it must not escape our attention that Jesus is speaking about people who were Christians. They had faith in Christ. But it withered and died.  It was choked out. There is no such thing as “once saved, always saved.” Christians can, and do fall away from faith in Jesus. I have seen this while pastor at Good Shepherd. Members who were active and involved, drop out of the life of faith. Youth who were taught the faith and raised to walk in Christ, leave home and just drift away as Jesus no longer has any role in their life.

Thus far what Jesus has said is discouraging. We have heard about all of the different ways that the word does not produce salvation. The Gospel is shared, and in the end it produces nothing. It is easy to wonder: what’s the point?

But remember how Jesus described the seed that landed in the good soil.  He said it produced a hundredfold. It produced a bounty.  Our Lord explains, “As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.”

            Jesus’ words about the seed on the good soil raises two different, and important points. First, the word of the Gospel goes forth and God promises that it will bring forth a great harvest.  We are to sow – we are to share the Gospel - in this confidence.  Jesus expressed this same truth when he told the parable of the mustard seed.  He said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

            It is easy to focus on the rejection of the Gospel. The reign of God in our midst looks small and insignificant like the mustard seed. But Jesus promises that in the end it will produce great results that we will see on the Last Day.  We have this confidence because Jesus is the Lord who has risen from the dead.

            And so the parable of the sower teaches us to sow. It teaches us to cast the Word of God forth – to speak the Gospel to others. It is not for us to worry about whether the seed lands on the path, or on rocky soil, or among thorns. We sow, and God promises that he will produce the growth according to his will.  It will produce a harvest that we will recognize on the Last Day.

            The second point we learn from the parable is how we must live in the faith.  You didn’t create the faith in Christ that you have. But you can lose it.  Jesus says, “As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.”

            Christ says that we must hold fast to the word. To do this, you have to continue to receive the word. You must continue to receive the word in its various forms. You must continue to receive the Means of Grace.

            The starting point for this is what you are doing right now. The Divine Service on Sunday morning should be the necessary starting point of each week. Each week the word of God is read and proclaimed to you by Christ’s called servant. Each week you receive the true body and blood of Christ given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. This is the food that sustains faith. Faith can only continue as we hold fast to the word.

            But that is just the starting point. The next step is your personal reading of Scripture during the week. Do you take time each day to read God’s Word? How does the time you devote to reading Scripture compare to the time you spend looking at social media on your phone, or watching sports, or doing a hobby?

            Our church body has developed a great pattern for reading Scripture.  It is both quite comprehensive in its scope over the course of a year, and also reasonable in the amount of Scripture it sets before us to read each day. And I am going to keep pushing it until the day I am no longer pastor at Good Shepherd. It is in the Treasury of Daily Prayer and InPrayer app by Concordia Publishing House. It is in the bulletin insert each week. It is on the church website, complete with the link for reading those texts online. I email this out to you every week.  Hold fast to the word by using this to read Scripture.

            To remain in the faith you have to hold fast to the word. And you have to also bear fruit with patience.  This means that we have to commit to living out the faith.  It means loving my spouse by putting his or her needs ahead of my own. It means trusting in God’s continuing love and care, even when I am experiencing hardships that I do not want. It means turning away from sin by choosing not to gossip about my neighbor; by not having sex outside of marriage and looking at pornography; by not speaking when I feel angry. It means forgiving others.  As Paul told the Ephesians, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

            So what do we take away from all of this? Sow the seed – speak the Gospel to others, for God promises that it will produce. Hold fast to the word – receive the Means of Grace and read Scripture each day. Bear fruit with patience – love your neighbor with action; forgive; turn away from sin. This is what Jesus teaches us today.