“The Word of God is Powerful When We are Not”
Sexagesima Sunday| Rev. Rolf Preus| February 8, 2026| Luke 8:4-15
Do you think it is possible to be a theologian without being a Christian? Can one understand Christian theology without believing it? No. Faith is the prerequisite. Without faith you are blind. I’m not talking about some generic faith in a generic god. I’m talking about the true Christian faith that we confess in the creeds and the Catechism, the faith centered in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the lost, whom the Father sent into this world to redeem us poor sinners. This faith is not a human achievement. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul writes,
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9
Jesus said,
To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’
Faith is a gift of God. Faith is created by, nourished by, and sustained by the Word of God. That’s one reason why we go to church. Why we read our Bibles. Why we set aside a time every day for family devotions. Faith is a gift. It comes from God. It comes from God’s Word.
The parable of the sower teaches us about God’s Word and faith. It describes four different kinds of hearers. The seed that fell on the path describes those who hear the Word of God and don’t believe it. Before the seed can begin to take root, the birds come and eat it up. The devil keeps the hearer from hearing. He takes the Word away so that it cannot produce faith.
The devil is clever. We might think his hatred of God and God’s children is irrational, and it is, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t know how to do evil and do us harm. The word devil means slanderer. He lies. Jesus calls him the father of lies. From his words to Eve, “Did God really say?” to the present, his goal is to falsify God’s Word. He will attack the Bible, persuading people to dismiss it as the religious musings of men and not the very Word of God. He will attempt to show errors in the Bible. Though he cannot do so, because the Bible is inerrant, that is, without error, he can persuade people that the Bible is unreliable. That’s a lie.
Another way the devil attacks God’s Word to prevent faith from springing up is by attacking those who believe it, teach it, and confess it. He slanders Christians. He figures he can discredit God’s Word by discrediting those who teach it and confess it. He targets leaders in the church. Recently the president of the Central Illinois District of the Missouri Synod was arrested for producing child porn. The devil gloats. He says, “See how these Christians live! What kind of religion permits such abuse of children?” We don’t yet know all the facts of that case and under our law in America a man is innocent until proven guilty, but one fact is perfectly clear. This is part of the devil’s assault on the Word of God. He sends his birds to eat the seed before it can take root.
The second kind of soil is the rocky soil. They hear the gospel, receive it with joy, but have no root. They believe for a while. But when their faith is put to the test they fall away. There’s a popular notion among many Evangelicals in our country that once you are saved you cannot be lost. “Once saved always saved,” they say. But Jesus says, “who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.” They believe. They fall away. So much for the once saved always saved teaching.
The word of God is powerful. It is inherently powerful. That is, its power comes from what it is: God’s Word. It doesn’t come from somewhere else. The soil doesn’t make the seed work. The seed makes the seed work. But if the seed isn’t planted deep in the soil, it will not take root. I’ve seen it many times. People suffer a loss. They go to the pastor for help. He tells them the gospel. They love it! It’s so wonderful! They’re going to come back to church. They’re going to start living like a Christian. They really mean it! They receive the gospel with joy. But it didn’t get planted deep inside. They rejoiced in a fleeting feeling, not in the Word. When their faith is put to the test it fails the test. Their Christianity was shallow. It didn’t go any deeper than surface feelings. Emotion is not piety. Feeling is not faith. Shallow sentimentality has no substance. It flies away when temptations come.
The third kind of soil is infested with thorny weeds that choke faith and eventually kill it. Jesus mentions three things that compete with God’s Word for their attention and choke out faith: the cares, riches, and pleasures of life. These all compete with God’s Word. The Bible tells us to cast our cares on the God who cares for us. But we think. We think long and hard and see that there’s no solution, no way out of our trouble. So, we’re left with anxiety and uncertainty. We think too much. Instead of brooding over our troubles, we should listen to God’s promises and take them to heart.
Riches compete with God’s Word. Wealth – the Bible calls it mammon – is a very popular idol. He demands worship. He promises security, comfort, and a good future. But he’s an idol: a fake god. Those who worship wealth lose their faith in the One who provides it. Doesn’t God know what you need?
The pleasures of life often bring pain. Call it cause and effect. When pleasure trumps God’s Word in our affections, it chokes faith. Why is that? Because God doesn’t promise us a pain free life. In fact, Jesus tells us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him.
And this brings us to the good soil in which the seed grows to maturity. This is those, as Jesus says, “who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.” The path was hard. No seed could penetrate. The rocky ground wasn’t plowed. Neither was the ground where the thorns grew wild. The good soil is the soil that is plowed. It is cut with a sharp plow. That cutting is not pleasant. It hurts. You think it’s just a useless pain. You pray that God will take it away. No good can possibly come from your suffering. Why would God want you to suffer?
Here’s a question from a true and false quiz I gave to my catechumens here ten years ago, on April 13, 2016. It was on the Lord’s Prayer. True or false: “God wants his Christians to avoid all suffering.” I gave that quiz to many students over the years, and most got that question wrong. They would answer yes. Surely, God doesn’t want us to suffer. How could God love us and at the same time want us to suffer?
The soil must be plowed. St. Paul speaks of his infirmities in our Epistle Lesson for today. He speaks of his thorn in the flesh that he asked the Lord Jesus to remove. Three times he asked him. What was Jesus’s reply? “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Weakness. That’s good for you. To become as a little child is to become weak. To rely on God’s mercy is to become weak. God makes you weak. He makes you helpless. As he does so, it can be very painful. Sickness, death, tragedy, an ongoing conflict, or some jerk that just won’t leave you alone and finds joy in hounding you and tormenting you. Why does God let this happen to you? To weaken you. To humble you. When our pride is hurt we hurt. But having your pride hurt by God is a wonderful thing. It’s what prepares the soil for the seed that springs up into eternal life.
The seed is the gospel. St. Luke’s Gospel, from which today’s Gospel Lesson is taken, focuses on God’s grace toward sinners. Luke includes the parable of the prodigal son. He wasted his inheritance in sinful living and when he had ruined his life he went back to his father who celebrated his return, rejoicing. In the previous chapter of this Gospel just before our text, Jesus accepts the service of a sinful woman and pronounces her forgiven. Of course, she didn’t deserve it, and the Pharisees were scandalized. But forgiveness is our greatest need and we never deserve it.
This is why the message of Christ redeeming us, setting us free, from our sin is so precious to us. We receive it in our helplessness, not our pride. It’s when we’ve lost, failed, become powerless, like a baby, that God’s grace comes into our hearts and makes us strong. It’s not our strength. It’s Christ’s. It’s not our righteousness, not our goodness, not our success, it’s all Christ’s. God reckons to us Christ’s righteousness, his goodness, and makes his victory ours. Precisely when we are weak and helpless. Like soil that has endured the deep digging of the plow.
King David speaks of this in Psalm 51. He writes:
O Lord, open my lips,
And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;
You do not delight in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise. (Psalm 51:15-17)
The broken and contrite heart is the heart that is sorry for sinning against God and knows it can do nothing to take the guilt away. The contrite heart knows that if God is to be merciful, it must be on God’s terms, not ours. And God chooses to be merciful in Christ. God chooses to forgive us of all the sin we have committed for Christ’s sake because Christ is indeed the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We don’t get forgiveness from God by doing anything. We get forgiveness by God speaking his words of forgiveness to us, preparing us to trust in his mercy, and bringing faith into our hearts to receive it.
The seed is the Word. And it works. There was nothing wrong with the seed that fell on the path, or on the rocky soil, or where the thorns grew up. It was the same seed that fell on the good soil. The Word of God works. It works by itself, not by somebody doing something to it. That’s because it is the Holy Spirit’s Word and the Holy Spirit is almighty God. The gospel works.
Not only does it work to give us forgiveness of sins and eternal life, but it also works to change our hearts to want to live holy lives. The law can’t do that. The law can curb behavior, show us our sin, and guide us on the path God wants us to go. But the law cannot give us the strength or the will to live a holy life. Only the gospel of the full and free forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake can enable us to live holy lives, to honor our marriage, to care for our parents and children, to treat fellow Christians with love and respect, and to love and embrace the Word of God. And if God must inflict pain on us to humble us in helplessness, well, that’s where faith is born. So, we pray that God keep us humble, putting all our confidence in his Word of grace that saves our souls. Amen