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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen.
It was a doctoral student in agriculture who taught me the difference between soil and
dirt.
She said that soil is what you grow things in.
Dirt is what you clean out from underneath your fingernails.
I really don’t know much about growing things and I’m not very good at it either.
It seems like that’s not something that I inherited
from my mother.
She was really good at that.
And I even managed to kill a cactus once, okay?
But I’m amazed at farmers and gardeners
who can grow things so easily.
How they love the soil and love working in it
and being able to bring thriving life
out of the seeds that they plant.
how they can take dirt and make it into productive soil. Well today we hear the
parable that Jesus tells about the sower or the parable of the soil sometimes
it’s called with the Word of God being the seeds that are sown into
different types of soil and the Word of God is proclaimed and it’s heard and
responded to in different ways.
That’s the type of soil that’s illustrated here.
Now, a common application of this parable
is to get people to identify what kind of soil
that they are and encourage them to be that good, rich soil.
They say, don’t be the path or don’t be the rocky soil
or the thorny soil.
Instead, be the good soil that grows the gospel sort of approach here.
Well, this passage is often preached then to motivate people to kind of improve their
behavior or the quality of the soil that they are, but that’s really not the gospel, okay?
And that’s not where I want to go with this message today because that kind of approach
really I think misses the point of who we are
kind of before Christ and after we have received him.
Such a sermon on the parable in that way
usually has a title like, what kind of soil are you?
And if you noticed, that’s the title I chose
for the sermon today.
But purposely, what kind of soil are you?
Well, I want to answer that.
Without the work of God in your life, you’re bad soil, you’re dirt.
How so?
Okay, well, like the path, you may hear God’s word, but it gets snatched away from you because
you might ignore it, or don’t want to grow in it, or are just apathetic toward it, or you hear God’s
word with joy at first, but like the rocky soil, it doesn’t take root and it gets scorched by the sun
and withers. And then when life gets tough in some way, with trouble or persecution, you might fall
away from your faith. Or the thorny worries of life, things like finances and health,
employment, family, relationships, grades, they can choke the growth of the seed of God’s
Word in you. You see, by nature, we’re not good soil. In fact, we’re more like dirt,
actually. And that’s what sin does to us. And isn’t that a good description of sin?
Is dirt. Dirt that sometimes doesn’t seem to wash off too easily and it’s hard to
get off from underneath our fingernails. Sometimes the sins that you commit make
you feel, well, downright dirty. Sins that bring embarrassment, guilt, and even shame.
It feels dirty. But God doesn’t treat you like dirt. No, God doesn’t see you as something
to just clean out from under his fingernails.
In fact, like gardeners and farmers that I admire what they can do, God takes the dirt
of your life and he loves working in it.
And he’s able to bring life out of it with the seed of his word.
And here’s where we’re good soil.
soil. God makes you into good soil. You may recall in the Bible of how God created the
first human being, Adam, okay? God took dirt and formed it into a man and then breathed
into it the breath of life, and Adam became a living being.
Well, we see how this life-giving works with God’s Word.
From 2 Timothy 3, verse 16, it says this,
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching,
for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. By sowing
the seed of his word into you, God breathes into the dirt of you. He
breathes into the sinful disobedient person and makes you into good soil and
and brings life out of it.
As God breathed into Adam
through His Word today,
God breathes into you life.
He breathes into you His Word.
The good news of Jesus Christ
who died on the cross
to forgive the dirt of your sin
and to turn you into good soil
and to bring life out of you.
God’s word of the gospel changes you.
It changes your sinful, dirty life into quality soil
that grows life and salvation.
As Lutheran Christians, we have this wonderful view
of God’s word that it’s a means of grace.
It’s how God graciously offers the forgiveness of sins in Jesus by speaking it to us, by
giving us the words of this promise.
And by hearing the word, we receive that grace in the good soil of faith.
God works that in your soil for it to grow and to take root.
It’s a wonderful thing that this means of grace, of God’s Word to us, whether it’s
spoken, or sung, or heard, or read, or signed, this is grace of God to us.
Good news, salvation, and eternal life.
And we need God to continually work that soil of our lives to keep it good and fruitful.
And He does it through His Word.
So how can this happen to us?
How can this constant work of God working in our soil, how can that happen?
The answer is we need more Word.
We need more Scripture.
If it’s God’s Word that makes us good soil, then we need more of that.
How do you do that?
Okay?
Well, kind of simply, just be in the Word more.
Here’s a couple of ways, too.
Number one, get off of the path of daily life and commit time to reading the Scriptures.
In other words, get out of the ordinary schedule.
have time dedicated each day for some scripture reading. It doesn’t even have
to be a lot, okay? Any bit can do. Read one chapter or one song a day, even maybe
even one verse. At University Lutheran Church, something I do every day for my
students is I send them a verse of the day. It’s called the VOTD. They get a
text with a verse that I pick out for them to read
so that hopefully they’re at least reading one verse a day
and meditate on that throughout the day and think about it.
So just take some time to read.
Number two, get out of the rocky places of your life.
Get away from the thorns and situations where temptation
can cause God’s word to be taken from you.
Okay, you know what those are. You know what situations that can cause compromise for you
or cause struggle for you. Get out of those places and instead be in a place where you
can be, God’s Word can have more effect on you.
Number three, get into reading or studying God’s Word alone or with a group. Okay, find
some time, you know, each day alone to read and also with a group. St. Paul offers many
opportunities for that, even during this time of some isolation with the whole COVID thing.
There’s a lot of opportunities that Pastor Wolfmuller has on Tuesdays, on Wednesdays,
on Sundays to be involved in the study of the Scriptures.
And number four, be in worship, and it’s kind of a duh kind of thing, but this is what we
need to do, to be in worship where we’re together as the soil of a congregation, we’re involved
in hearing and speaking and singing and signing God’s Word together.
A little tough in these days, in these times, I know, but even virtually we still gather
together around God’s word to hear it and to grow in it.
And I wanna say this today in a bit more urgent way
to you here because I think it’s that important,
especially today where we hear talk about
these are uncertain times and unprecedented times
that we live in today and weird times, wild times,
And those are all kind of true, but I also say that these can be dangerous times for
followers of Christ.
And I don’t mean the virus.
There are times today when things will try to snatch your faith and take it away.
There are times when there’s going to be thorns or rocky ground that will test the roots of
your faith and one of the most dangerous things a Christian can do today in these
uncertain and unprecedented times is to neglect the reading or hearing of God’s
Word. There are so many distractions today and so many things that are vying
for our thoughts and our energy and our attention as we live in these weird
unprecedented, uncertain times.
There are so many things that are like voices
attempting to convince you of how to think
and how to respond to the situation today.
Well, make sure that you’re certain
that you’re hearing God’s word.
These are times we need more scripture
and less social media.
These are times when God’s people,
we need more Bible and less books.
These are times when we need more prayer
and less blog posts.
Luther said this, he said,
listen to God’s word while you have it,
because the time may come when you’d like to hear it,
but it may not be there for you.
Therefore, give ear to it diligently while you have it.
For he who despises God’s word is overcome by darkness.
Because the Lord says,
walk while you have the light,
lest darkness come upon you.
There may come a time, brothers and sisters,
when God’s word is not there.
What I mean is it’s not in a book,
it’s not on a screen,
it’s not on a social media post
or preached or taught to you.
those times may come when doing that may be even illegal and impossible so today
here read mark learn and inwardly digest God’s Word now so that God can work your
soil and so that when the tough times come you’ve got roots and you’ve got
healthy fruit to eat on in difficult times.
Hearing and reading God’s Word helps you to focus on the sower.
That’s the real point of this parable, is not to focus on the soil so much,
of which one are you, but focus on the sower.
The one who gives you His Word, focus on His work of His Word in your soil
to make it fruitful.
The third commandment, perhaps you know it but I’ll remind you, it’s remember the
Sabbath day to keep it holy. What does this mean? Luther asks, we should fear and
love God so that we do not despise preaching in his word but hold it sacred
and gladly hear and learn it. Isn’t that really what we think of God’s word? It’s
sacred, and holy, we should gladly hear and learn it for the goodness of our soil.
So in these times and in all times, may God give you good soil to grow the seeds of His
Word planted in you to be rooted in the faith in Christ.
Amen.
