Bible Text: Luke 8:4-15 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus
Jesus is the sower of the seed. He is the preacher of the Word. Right after our Gospel lesson Jesus will tell his disciples, “He who hears you hears me.” When you listen to God’s word you are listening to Jesus. St. Paul will say, “It is God who is making His appeal through us.” We all know what it feels like when you are talking to someone, and you want his attention, and he simply isn’t listening to you. He’s right there and you’re talking to him, but his mind is clearly on other things. Husbands do this to their wives all the time. Their mind is on fixing the fence or something at work, and the wife’s words go in one ear and out the other. The number one reason for a breakdown in a relationship is lack of communication. You need to drop the phone, clear the distractions, make eye contact, and spend the time to listen.
The same goes with hearing God’s Word. Jesus is speaking. We have to think this way about hearing the Bible read here, hearing the pastor preach, reading our Bible at home. It is Jesus speaking to you and He wants your attention. Why? Why does He speak to you? Why does He want your attention? Because He loves you. He’s your Creator. He formed you in your mother’s womb. He’s your Savior. He’s invested His life in you. He’s God of God, and He took on your human nature. He became your brother. He loves you. He isn’t trying to make some religious contract with you when He speaks to you. He is claiming you as His Bride. He is speaking to you as the One who felt the devil’s attacks like you do, who felt your human woe, who felt the tugs of wealth and honor and pleasure on His soul, who bore your sins in His body, who when He was nailed to the cross and experienced the punishment you deserved, was thinking of you personally, and who when He rose from the dead didn’t regret in the least the horror He went through, because He would and He did go to hell and back to save you. Every word that He speaks to you comes from a heart that stopped beating for you and now beats with the fervent desire that you know the love of God for you and belong to His family and learn to hate your sin and find your life and righteousness and place with God in Him.
Jesus tells the parable of the sower and the seed because the most precious thing you have is His word. He speaks it and it speaks Him. When you have it, when it is planted deep down in your heart, you are joined to Christ. Everything He is and has becomes yours.
So Jesus warns us against the distractions that take His word away from us. He speaks of three different kinds. The first is the seed that falls on the road. And Jesus describes the devil as a hellish bird that comes and snatches up the Word before people can believe and be saved. The devil isn’t just a distraction. He’s the enemy. If people only knew what a treasure they’re receiving when Jesus speaks good news! They would hold on to it for dear life. But the devil closes their ears, so that hearing they don’t understand. Jesus is not describing those who don’t hear, who aren’t present. He’s looking out at the crowds, enormous crowds that he’s preaching to, and he is seeing (and I don’t think it took divine power to see it either) that some just aren’t listening, aren’t taking his words to heart. So Jesus warns us, don’t let that be you. Don’t be an outward listener, but not let the word take root in your heart. Don’t leave church and not think of the great blessing you received – God Himself spoke to you here and promised you everlasting life, your God and Brother placed His body and blood in your mouth.
The devil is a liar – Jesus calls him a liar and the father of lies – and he will convince you of the most absurd untruths. He’ll have you thinking about everything else except what Jesus is speaking to you, worrying about this, dreaming about that, when in reality what you need is what Jesus is telling you. What’s your worrying going to accomplish? And whatever you’re dreaming about will end like everything else in this life. But Jesus speaks to you and offers eternity, forgiveness, a good conscience, life with God, the Holy Spirit, strength to do good and bear fruit. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
The second warning is the seed that falls on the rocky soil. This is people who believe at first with joy, because how could you not, if the Word takes root at all in you and you know that God has so loved you that He laid down His life for you, how could you not be happy, but then persecution and trouble come, and they fall away. They’ll be a Christian if it means happy times, but they’re not willing to suffer for it. The seed is burned up by the hot sun.
Jesus uses this imagery on purpose. Because persecution and trouble should strengthen your faith. The heat of the sun is necessary for the growth of the seed into a plant. You need the heat. And this is how we need to use the persecutions and troubles of life. We just sang this, “In faith Lord let me serve you, though persecution, grief, and pain, should seek to overwhelm me, let me a steadfast trust retain.” The mocking of the faith by the so-called elite or by falsely called friends, the pressure from family to give up on Christian truth and Christian morality, the lies of the devil that since cancer or sickness has struck God doesn’t care for you, whatever cross God puts on you for you to take up and follow Him, it is so that you realize, and act it out, live it, that nothing is more precious to you than Jesus, His words, to be found in Him, and be formed by Him, and that you would suffer anything rather than lose Him.
The last warning is the seed that falls among thorns. Jesus explains that the thorns are the cares, and riches and pleasures of life. We are not monks and nuns. We don’t live in a make-believe world where we can avoid all cares, or where we can live without money. And there are many pleasures of this world that are gifts from the hand of almighty God. Jesus’ warning is not to get rid of all the cares and riches and pleasures of life. It is that they can tear your attention away from Him. They are like thorns that can choke the life out of you, and your life is Christ. He doesn’t want half your heart. He wants all of it. He doesn’t want you looking at your cellphone and filling your head with useless information or dreaming about money or worrying about your job when He is speaking to you about heavenly things. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
It’s good to examine yourself, to look at what your aspirations are in life, and what you truly care about and think about, and if front and center is not heaven, is not being a Christian, is not having Jesus, then your hopes and aspirations will all go up in smoke. They will. That’s not just a truth revealed by Jesus, it’s obvious. Everyone knows it. You won’t take a dollar with you when you die. Marriage is till death parts you. And the only thing you can take to heaven with you are your fellow Christians. Riches are a gift from God, so use them for God’s kingdom. And make your greatest pleasure Jesus, and all other pleasures will fall in line behind Him. Prepare yourself for church. Clear your mind of distractions. Know that you are coming into the presence of God. He speaks to you here and forgives your sins which are many. Before you come to this altar, examine yourself and confess your sins, and resolve to do better, to stop gossiping and talking behind people’s backs, to stop drinking too much, or indulging unholy lusts, or worrying about earthly things as if your worrying could change anything, and know the precious gift Jesus gives you here, His own body and blood, peace with God, purity, innocence, complete forgiveness, the strength of His Spirit to fight against sin and the devil, the courage to live as Christians trusting in God to give you everything you need.
Let God tend your garden. Let Him tear out the weeds and the thorns. Let him shoot the birds down with the arrows of His Word. Let him rip out the rocks. That hurts. If soil could talk, it would tell you it doesn’t enjoy the plowing. But that’s the only way you get good soil.
And when the soil is good, when you don’t just hear but listen to Jesus’ Word, and take it to heart, Jesus promises the seed will grow up and produce a hundredfold. Realize again who is speaking to you when you hear God’s Word. He is your Savior. He has suffered for you and died for you and lives for you. He will grow in you what He Himself is. He will give you patience in suffering, peace in pain and losses, joy even in the face of sorrow, love for your fellow Christians and make you see their love for you, courage to fight the good fight of faith. He’ll give you contentment and beautiful expectation of the future, because you know He in in control and He loves you. Until at last, you hear His voice call you to Himself forever, and you inherit His riches, and see with undimmed eye that all He has ever said to you holds true, and what eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has entered into the heart of man, you have, because all of it was contained in the seed of His Word that has taken root in you and grows by the mercy of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.