The Seed God Sows
Sexagesima Sunday| Luke 8:4-15| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| February 8, 2026
Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy!
He who goes out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
bringing his sheaves with him. Psalm 126:5-6
Last week we learned how we are saved entirely by God’s grace apart from our works. God gives His kingdom away as a gift! Yet how does God give His kingdom away? God gives His Kingdom away with words. We do not receive God’s kingdom and our salvation by our own works, but rather through faith. And faith clings to the Word. Faith is created by the Word. St. Paul explains in Romans 10, “For ‘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. 13-15a, 17)
God likewise spoke through the Prophet 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.” (Isaiah 55:10-11) God’s Word is powerful. “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God” (Hebrews 11:2) And so, God’s Word is powerful to create faith in our hearts and to give us God’s Kingdom.
Jesus tells a parable about a sower who sows seed. The sower is God. His seed is the Word of God. Now, the Word of God can rightly be divided into two: the Law and the Gospel. The Law is what God commands of us. The Law is God’s Word, but you do not receive the benefits of the Law through hearing but through doing, as St. Paul says, “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.” (Romans 2:13) Yet, the Gospel does not depend on works, but on faith. And so, God sows His seed when preachers faithfully preach the Gospel, as Jesus commanded His disciples in Mark 16, “Go into the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.”
And so, when Christ Jesus is proclaimed as the Savior, God is sowing His seed. And when that seed sprouts and grows and bears fruit, a sinner is saved from His sins and enters eternal life. We are saved by grace, yet this grace is only given through the Word of God. This is why the preaching of the Gospel, Baptism, the Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper are called means of grace. They are the means by which God gives us His grace so that we may receive it through faith. All the means of grace depend on God’s Word, which declares Christ Jesus as our Savior.
Our Lord Jesus suffered and died for our sins and rose from the dead, proving that God is reconciled to us and desires to give us His kingdom. Yet, if we never heard it, we would never believe it or receive it. So, this word must be preached. God’s seed must be sown. This is why Christians come to church. Yes, we have the commandment not to despise God’s Word and preaching, but to hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. Yet, we also have the sure promise that God’s Word produces fruit to salvation! Every Sunday, God is sowing His seed, which delivers His grace, His very Kingdom as a gift. Through His Word He forgives your sins, strengthens your faith, comforts your soul, and gives you certainty of eternal life! That is why we come to hear His Word! This is why God sows His seed.
But as we see in Jesus’ parable, not all the seed that is sown produces a harvest. Jesus names three types of soil that prevent God’s seed from growing and producing a harvest. First is the seed that falls along the path. It is trampled underfoot and devoured by birds. The birds, Jesus tells us, is the devil, who snatches the Word of God from peoples’ hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. Satan, as you know, is the father of lies. He snatches the Word of God from peoples’ hearts by lying to them. “Did God really say?”, he sneers. And so, many hear God’s Word, but ignore it. They believe the lies of Satan that they do not need a Savior, that they are good people who will get to heaven by their own goodness. They believe Satan’s lies that they do not need to repent of their sins or that God doesn’t exist! They even lash out against faithful Christians for holding fast to God’s preaching. They claim to be on Jesus’ side, to have a relationship with Him, but they do not listen to Jesus’ Words. Jesus says to them in John 8, “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” And “If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Yet those who listen to Satan block out Jesus’ words from their hearing. They ignore the message and believe what Satan tells them.
What is worse, people listen to Satan a lot more than they do to God’s Word. Though they may freely skip church, they continue to listen to filthy music, watch inappropriate and immoral shows, and listen to people on TV or on the internet who freely contradict what God says. They send their children to schools where they hear messages contrary to the Christian faith, but they do not take time at home to teach their children the difference between truth and lies. Christians listen to atheists about morals and ethics, while ignoring God’s Word.
Second is the seed that fell among the stones. These are they who hear the Word of God, but the stones block their roots from getting to the moisture below. They are quickly scorched by the sun. Jesus says that this is persecution. But why do people fall at times of persecution? Jesus told Peter, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41) Our sinful flesh longs for the comforts of life. When those comforts are threatened, our flesh wants to give up. It’s willing to be a Christian when times are easy, but when reputation, money, goods, or health is threatened on account of the Word, they quickly fall away.
Third is the seed that fell among the thorns, which choke out the word as it sprouts up. The thorns, Jesus says, are the cares and riches and pleasures of life. It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven (Luke 18:25). Anything you love more than God is an idol, a false god. So, when you cut out God’s Word to get other things, those things become your god. They choke out the Word like a wild thornbush in your garden.
People don’t like to think of their money, jobs, and hobbies as thorns. And these things can be good things. God certainly blesses the good use of money, work, and hobbies. Yet each must have its proper place. The problem is when these things choke out God’s Word. Sports are good and healthy. But when children skip church so that they can play with balls or roll around on mats, thorns are being planted around their faith. The plant that God planted is being choked out by unimportant things. Children are being taught to value the frivolous above God’s Word, and so the damage lasts longer than one week of missing church. When a youth gets his first job at $7.15 an hour, and immediately skips church where God’s Word is proclaimed, he is being taught that money, no matter how little, is more valuable than hearing the Word of God, which is God sowing His seed of salvation. The thorns get planted young, but they also get adults. Work, money, travel, vacations, the mortgage, the game, and the list goes on. The world has an endless list of things it thinks are more important than God’s Word, and so thorns grow up and choke the Word out of people’s hearts, and they fall away and are not saved.
Yet there is a fourth type of soil, where the Word grows up and produces a bountiful crop, that is, people hear the Word of God, believe it, and persevere in the faith, and are saved. But why is this soil good? Are there certain people who are better than others? They choose to accept God’s Word while others reject it? No. Scripture teaches us that we are all by nature sinful and unclean. We are by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2). No one could call Jesus, “Lord” except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3). It is only by grace that a person can accept God’s Word and be saved. God must work the ground, that is, He must prepare our hearts and keep us in the faith. How does God prepare the ground so that it will receive His seed, grow, and bear a harvest to salvation? God prepares the soil through the preaching of the Law and through trials.
When a soul refuses to listen to the Gospel, because Satan snatches that word from his heart with his lies, God crushes the soil with the Law. The Law convicts the sinner of his sin so severely that his conscience cannot be consoled by the devil’s lies. God drives the birds away with irrefutable truths about sin, death, and hell. Yet, when a soul is crushed by the Law and ready to despair, God sows His blessed seed, which promises forgiveness, peace, and salvation for Christ’s sake, who bore the sins of the world. Then the seed sinks deep in the soil and grows.
Yet, God doesn’t use only the Law to amend the soil, but the Gospel. When persecution comes and the seed has no moisture to break through, Jesus comforts the persecuted with the promise, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12) And then the stones turn to pebbles and the root finds strength to push down deep and find moisture.
St. Paul tells us in Romans 8, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” (vs. 28) In other words, God orders creation so that His chosen will persevere and be saved. The entire universe is under God’s power, and so the entire universe serves to aid in the salvation of God’s elect. Why did Alexander the Great conquer so many nations? So that the Bible could be written in a unified language that many would understand. Why did Rome become such a great and stable empire? So that the Gospel of Christ could spread easily abroad to all nations. Why was Joseph sold as a slave in Egypt? So that God could raise him up to rescue his whole family, and with them the lineage of Christ, from a famine. God works all things for the sake of His elect.
And so, God rips out thorns in your life, so that the seed may grow in you to a harvest of salvation. It hurts when God rips out these thorns. It means sickness, sadness, poverty, weakness. Yet Christ encourages you as He did St. Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Good soil is not worldly wisdom or the love of people or the riches and pleasures of life. Good soil is an honest and good heart, a humble and repentant heart, which rejoices in the Gospel of Christ. So, take comfort in your trials, persecutions, weaknesses, and anything else that aids your hearing and believing Christ’s promise. Though you weep at the sowing, you shall rejoice at the harvest. Amen.