Sexagesima Sunday – Pr. Anderson sermon
St. Luke 8:4-15 “The Activity of the Word”
February 23, 2025 | Christ Lutheran Church
In Nomine Iesu
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Lord God, heavenly Father, we thank You that through Your Son Jesus Christ You have sown Your holy Word among us: We pray that You will prepare our hearts by Your Holy Spirit, that we may diligently and reverently hear Your Word, keep it in good hearts, and bring forth fruit with patience; and that we may not incline to sin, but subdue it by Your power, and in all persecutions comfort ourselves with Your grace and continual help; through Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen. (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, by Veit Dietrich, p. 151)
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. (Rom. 1:7, etc.)
The sermon text for today is taken from the 8th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke. We read selected verses in Jesus’ name:
And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to [Jesus], He said in a parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As He said these things, He called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
These are Your words, heavenly Father. Sanctify us by Your truth, Your Word is truth. Amen. (Joh. 17:17)
In Christ Jesus, who is the author of faith through the work of living a perfect life for us, and we hear His blessed work in His Holy Word, dear fellow redeemed:
As most of you know, we have begun a schedule to read the New Testament in a whole year. It is very fitting that as we go through the year, there are the same amount of Monday to Fridays as there are chapters in the New Testament. Now we aren’t that far in, so if you haven’t started, you are not that far behind. This practice of reading through the Bible in a year is not foreign to us. Some will even try a New Years resolution to read all the Bible in a year. Like most resolutions, this one tends to stall. Now, we usually feel bad when we notice that we haven’t been reading our Bibles as we should. Not only is it important that we stay in the Word, but it is the way in which God talks to us. He strengthens and comforts us through it. This can only happen if the Word is truly active, and this activity doesn’t go unnoticed. We truly see it affecting our daily lives. It is Scripture alone we find the truth of our salvation.
Now there are many who struggle with hearing the truth of salvation is found only in Scripture. There is a reason we can say this and that is because we see Scripture’s activity in the world. The people didn’t realize how active it was as it explained who the Savior would be. As the unbelieving world has a hard time, Jesus teaches a parable about even those who follow Him will have a hard time dealing with the activity of the Word. He taught, “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As He said these things, He called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Having ears to hear is precisely the emphasis of this message.
While the people did indeed have ears, you don’t have to go far into their history to see how many times they failed to use them. And even with Jesus among them, teaching them the good news, the people were still going to struggle with hearing the message and taking it to heart. This includes even those who believe in Him at the beginning of His public ministry. None of this surprises Jesus because as St. John records, “But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knows all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man” (John 2:25). He knows there are many who won’t believe in what He had to say. What is painful is seeing even those who say they care about you fall away. This parable illustrates how those followers, even the close ones will struggle with the hearing of the Word.
While the disciples are with Him early in His ministry, Jesus looks to keep them ahead of most. He explains why many will struggle with hearing and understanding the parable. And when His disciples asked Him what this parable meant, He said, “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.’” It looks as though Jesus is saying that God doesn’t care about people and understanding what He has to say. This parable illustrates that it’s not God, but it is the people who don’t care to understand what God has to say. Many then and many now would rather focus on the miraculous power that Jesus reveals. His miraculous power is good, but why forget about the great power to save that is found in His Word? It happens because in the parable we see that to understand means to take notice and obey what the Word says.
Jesus sees in what areas we struggle with His Word. He sees them because He is the Sower, and He knows exactly where His Word goes. He sees us fall to Satan on the path, He sees the persecutions that harm us, and He sees the pleasures of this world choke us out. When we fall, we can fit into St. Paul’s explanation of the Old Testament people when he writes, “But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same evil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed” (2 Corinthians 3:14-16). We must rely on Jesus’ Word for salvation. Without His Word and the veil is still there covering our hearts, and with covered hearts we only see the judgement of God. While the Word falls all over, and many pick it up once and then discard it because they believe it is past its use, the Word actively lands and takes root on good soil.
The disciples, having given up everything to follow Jesus, hear the definition of the parable because they are of the good soil. “The seed is the word of God. 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. 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. 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.” The disciples watched this happen in real time as many ended up leaving. While the Word can be hard to understand at times and points out failings, the Word actively works to change hearts pointing out how all these enemies have been overcome by the sower.
The Sower knows He planted good seed and the seed will grow because of how active it is. It is also important for the people to see how active it is. Seeing the work of the Word is seeing the work of the Savior as He upholds the plan of salvation. While the disciples were able to be witnesses there were many who had not witnessed the Lord but believed every word. St. Paul would commend them writing, “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1 Thessalonians 2:13). Many want to search for God’s presence. You don’t have to go far; it is simply going into the Word.
Being in the Word is being in the Word made flesh. Here is God working in you to hold you in His possession. This is what happens with the Word in good soil. 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.” While there will be struggles to hold it fast when the devil, the world, and the sinful flesh lurk about, those struggles have been defeated by the Word who faced them all and won. You bear fruit with patience, because He bore fruit with patience. His patience wasn’t with you. His patience was with the service of the Father’s plan and when the time came, heading to His death on the cross. The activity of the Word made flesh all hinges on God’s plan of salvation being fulfilled. Here you are, long past the days of apostles and prophets, and here is your Savior still working to change hearts through the power of His Word.
This power of the Word will remain because like Jesus, it can’t be destroyed. The only destruction that will take place will be the destruction of all His enemies. The writer to the Hebrews writes how this one man can save you from the enemies’ that look to destroy your faith. “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3a). The Word can’t be something for people to forget about. There are so many people out there who want to hear their Savior’s voice. The powerful Word you read and hear is your Savior’s voice. It is His voice that proclaims to you the veil of the law is torn in two because of His death on the cross. You can go to the Father with your requests, and He gives you a response page after page. Page after page of an enduring and timeless love for you.
As you read page after page of love, comfort, and strength, you see why you need to keep hearing the good news from the Word made flesh. You see birds continuing to circle, rocks where a small plant grows and dies, and weeds that look to choke your faith. To get through it all, we look back on Jesus’ guidance. He says to “hold fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.” With these enemies all around, it is hard to have patience. In the struggles against the enemy, there your Savior coaches you through. You see the power of His Word as He brings your enemies down. Their destruction and your only hope is found in the pages of Scripture. Whether you are hearing the accounts of Israel, or reading Jesus’ triumph over Satan in the wilderness, you hear the same two things you need to carry on in life. You hear the law mirroring your sins and the Gospel revealing to your Savior. Through the power of the Word, where your Savior talks to you, you have certainty in Him telling you where your seed is when He says at the end of the parable, “some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” Amen.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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