Why does Jesus Focus on the Word?

Sexagesima| Luke 8:4-15| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| February 23, 2024

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to make seven petitions to our heavenly Father. In the first three petitions, we pray for the Word of God. The Small Catechism explains the first petition, “Hallowed be Thy name,” like this, “God’s name is kept holy when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity, and we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven! But anyone who teaches or lives contrary to God’s Word profanes the name of God among us. Protect us from this heavenly Father!”

The second petition, “Thy Kingdom come,” the Catechism explains, “God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.” And the third petition, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” the Catechism explains, “God’s will is done when He breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, which do not want us to hallow God’s name or let His kingdom come; and when He strengthens and keeps us firm in His Word and faith until we die. This is His good and gracious will.”

In the first petition, we pray that God’s Word would be taught to us in its truth and purity and that we would be protected from false teachers. In the second petition, we pray that God would give us His Holy Spirit, so that we may believe this Holy Word and be saved. In the third petition, we pray that God would defeat the evil plans of the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh, which do not want the Word of God to be sown in our hearts and bear abundant fruit. In three of the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, we pray that the Word of God would be preached to us, and that we would believe it and be saved.

This seems excessive to us. Nearly half of what Jesus tells us to pray for is for the Word of God! But that is rarely the first thing on our mind. We have a long list of requests for God, most of which have nothing to do with His Word. Yet, that should change. Jesus teaches us to pray first and foremost for His Word, because it is our most precious treasure. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Jesus exhorts us immediately after preaching the parable about the sower and the seed, the seed being the Word of God. This entire lesson from Jesus focuses us on the Word of God. Why is the Word of God such a great focus for Jesus? For two reasons.

First, it is through the Word of God, and only through the Word of God that we can be saved. St. Paul writes in Romans 1 that the Gospel, which is the Good News, is the power of salvation to all who believe (vs. 16). Again, in chapter 10, Paul writes, ‘“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? … So, faith comes from hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ.” (vss. 13-17)

The Word of God is powerful to save. Not only does it reveal to us our Savior Jesus and how He has won salvation for us. But the Holy Spirit, God Himself, works through the Word of God to bring us from spiritual death to spiritual life, to awaken faith, and keep us in the faith. As God spoke through Isaiah, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my Word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (55:10-11)

The second reason Jesus focuses on the Word is that the Word of God is under attack by so many enemies. Our Catechism calls these enemies the devil, the world, and our sinful nature. In Jesus’ parable, he calls these enemies birds, the rocks, and the thorns. Because of these enemies, most who hear the Word of God are not saved, because they reject the Word. And so, for the sake of your salvation, you must ask yourself, which of these enemies are active in your life to destroy the Word of God in your heart?

The birds are Satan, who steals the Word of God from our heart, so that we do not believe and are not saved. Martin Luther, in the Large Catechism on the Third Commandment, speaks of the devil’s work against the Word of God like this:

Also those conceited individuals are to be similarly rebuked who when they have heard one or two sermons turn up their noses at any more, imagining that they now know it all and need no more instruction. That is precisely the sin that has hitherto been counted among the deadly sins and was called acedia, that is, apathy or indifference, a malignant, destructive plague with which the devil bewitches and deceives in order to take unawares and steal the Word of God away from us again.

Be sure to get this: even if you knew the Word of God through and through and had mastered everything, yet all your days are spent in the devil’s territory, and he rests neither day nor night from stealthily trying to sneak up and kindle in your heart unfaith and evil thoughts against all the commandments. Therefore you must at all times have the Word of God in your heart, on your lips, and in your ears. But where the heart remains unmoved and the Word does not resound, there the devil breaks in and does his damage before one realizes it. On the other hand, when we sincerely ponder, hear, and apply the Word, it has such power that its fruit never fails. The Word always awakens new understandings, new delights, and a new spirit of devotion, and it constantly cleanses our heart and our thinking. For here are not limp and lifeless words, but words that are alive and move to living action. And even if no other benefit or need drove us into the Word, everyone should be impelled by the fact that our using the Word shows the devil the door and drives him away, besides the fact that it fulfills this commandment and pleases God more than the glitter of any work of hypocrisy. (Large Catechism: Third Commandment)

This is why later in this same chapter of Luke, Jesus says, “Take care how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks he has will be taken away.” (vs. 18) And the Apostle Peter warns, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” (1 Peter 5:8-9) You must resist Satan, who seeks to rob the Word from your heart. So, you must not only frequently hear and repeat God’s Word but pay careful attention to it.

Those that fell among the stones, Jesus says, are those who fail under persecution. The stones aren’t persecution itself, but the unwillingness to endure persecution. As the sun beats down on a young plant and the stones keep the roots from reaching the moist soil below, so when an immature faith is pressured by persecution, the weak Christian falls away. We endure soft persecution in this land. We do not live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where seventy Christians were recently discovered in a church, beheaded by their persecutors. The persecutions you endure are pressures to compromise your faith, to remain silent when you should speak up, to acquiesce to the anti-Christian culture. We’re pressured to miss church for sports, work, and other obligations. Jesus says, “whoever would come after Me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross and follow Me.”  Yet, many Christians cannot handle lifting even the lightest cross for Christ’s sake.

The thorns, Jesus tells us, are the cares, riches, and pleasures of this life. They don’t look like thorns to us. They look like the most important things in our life: the mortgage, your job, school, career, sports, the things you enjoy doing above anything else, the college football games you go to instead of church, or the weekends at the lake cabin. The thorns are the worries you have about your children or parents, whom you need to take care of, but in that need, your worrying chokes out the Word of God from your heart. The thorns are so dangerous, because they don’t look like thorns. Much of it looks very good. And many of them are good gifts from God, like family, jobs, and property. Yet, you abuse these gifts from God when you make them your gods. And when these keep you from hearing and meditating on God’s Word, they become thorns, which choke the Word out of your heart.

So, how many of these enemies of God’s Word do you recognize in your life? Does the devil seek to drive you from the faith? Are you pressured to abandon worship and God’s Word? Have the cares, riches, and pleasures of this life choked the Word from your heart?

Yet, there remain those who hear the Word of God with an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience. What does this look like? How can you be good soil, where God’s Word bears a bountiful harvest? To answer this, we must first consider what the Word is, which must be sown into our hearts. That Word is the message of Christ, who though being God, He became man, humbled Himself by suffering and dying for our sins on the cross. Christ speaks of His death when He says in John 12, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (vs. 24) Christ is that grain of wheat, which was buried in the ground, but has risen to bear much fruit. Having won salvation for all, He sows His Gospel everywhere, so that whoever receives it in faith may be part of His harvest of saints into eternal life. St. Peter writes in 1 Peter 1, “you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God.” (vs. 23)

Yet, the message of the cross is foolishness to this world. The seed of Christ is despised. And so, those who bear much fruit must first become like the seed, which is sown: despised and weak in the eyes of the world. You do not defeat Satan, the world, or your sinful flesh by your own strength or boasting. St. Paul refrained from boasting in himself when confronted with false “super apostles,” who sought to rob the congregations under his care. Instead, he boasted in his weakness, so that Christ’s power could rest upon him.

So, for your soil to be good soil, you must become weak. You must recognize that you are a sinner in need of forgiveness. You must endure affliction from the Lord, so that your soil may be broken up into good soil for the Word to sprout and take root. The Psalmist says, “Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. (Psalm 119:67) And so, we repent of our sins as the Law exposes them to us, and we rejoice in our tribulations and crosses, knowing that God uses them to ready the soil for His Word. We become weak, so that we may be made strong in Christ and bear abundant fruit, even eternal life. You do not defeat Satan, the world, and your sinful flesh by your strength, but by your weakness. And in your weakness, God’s Word finds good soil to implant the strength of Christ. Amen.