About every week, somebody sends me mail, mail that promises to make my church grow, mail that promises to bring life to a dying church. Obviously, many churches must be shrinking for so many companies to send out such advertisements.
Yet, every one of those mailings focuses–not on God–but on people’s wants and wishes. They promise to grow the Church by moving us away from the dreary theology of Jesus Christ and Him crucified to something more exciting. For excitement is what people want.
It’s true, most people couldn’t care less about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. People care about their marriage, sex, friendships, money, jobs, and how they can overcome their many problems. And so people want the Church to focus on those needs they feel are most relevant, and not their real needs, their eternal needs. That’s why the truths of God–as the Apostle Paul put it, “Jesus Christ and Him crucified”–don’t resonate or attract the average church shopper.
So then, why is the Church to preach “repentance into the forgiveness of sins,” as Jesus told His Apostles to do (Luke 24:47)? Why? Because you never outgrow your need for Christ, that’s why. That’s what’s lost in all the mailings I receive from the so-called experts.
The core of the Christian faith is Jesus Christ. If Jesus’ death and resurrection are irrelevant to your life, if it’s something that you simply don’t care about, then why should you be baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection (Romans 6:3-4)? If you don’t need Jesus’ body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, then why should you want to eat and drink His body and blood for such forgiveness (Matthew 26:26-28)?
It’s not strange that most people aren’t looking for a church that brings them Jesus in Word and Sacrament! That’s because they’re not looking for Jesus! They’re looking for something else. They’re looking for marriage, sex, friendships, money, jobs, and how they can overcome their many problems. Those needs are serious. But in Christ’s Church, what Jesus says we need needs to be front and center!
God knows what we really need! His truth is not relative. His truth is an eternal and timeless truth for our ears, hearts, our bodies and souls. God’s truths don’t change based on the whims of our culture because His truth doesn’t change. It is we who are to be changed by His Word.
God’s Word changes people. People don’t change themselves–at least not in eternal matters. Soil can’t choose to grow a crop if the Holy Spirit has planted no seed. The Word of God is that seed. The soil grows nothing without first receiving the seed. God brings His Word to us, and His Word brings us the life of faith. God’s Word changes us into Christians and keeps us strongly rooted in the one, true faith.
Yet, we look at church attendance. We see people don’t like the truth confronting them. People don’t like God’s truths plowing the hardened soil of their hearts to cause growth. That’s uncomfortable.
So, some folks go somewhere else, somewhere where they can remain comfortable with the god of their own making. Some quit coming to church. And so we begin to doubt God. We look around, and it seems as if the Word of God is weak and powerless. For it doesn’t look as if people are being changed. They simply go wherever they can get the god that suits them.
But appearances deceive us. In the Parable of the Sower and the Seed, Jesus tells us three different reasons God’s Word often doesn’t take root in someone’s heart. Jesus does this by comparing His Word to seed falling on different soils.
The seed first falls on a hardened path. People trample down the seed. Birds come and eat the seed before it can take root. These are the people who hear the Word of God, but Satan takes the Word away before they can believe. He simply falsifies what God says. Satan meets every truth of God with a contradiction. If God says He created the world in six days, Satan will say it took billions of years, not days. If God says that Jesus is His Son who died to take away the sin of the world, Satan will say that Jesus was only a man. Whatever God says, Satan says the opposite.
This first group doesn’t receive the Word at all. As quickly as it goes in one ear, it goes out the other. Satan makes them hard of hearing toward God’s truths and so they simply don’t believe. Nothing was lacking in the Word. In unbelief, they simply refused the Word of God.
The next seed falls on rocky soil, soil which has no depth. These are people who believe, but only for a little while. Their faith has no depth. They quit believing as soon as their faith is seriously tested. These Christians receive the Word with joy and want that joy never to be challenged.
But as you know, life isn’t always full of joy. God’s people must often be disciplined. But they don’t want to hear this. They experience loss and blame God, for their faith is shallow. They understand their faith-life–not based on not what God promises–but on how they feel. They want a feel-good religion.
When Jesus speaks of the joys under His kingship, they think only of those joys. They forget that “we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). They confuse emotions with God’s truth. They become bored with the truth because it doesn’t excite them. They become impatient because they think their feelings are the true measure of faith–not what God says. And so when they are tested, they fall away from the faith. They never let it take deep root within them.
The next seed falls on thorn-infested soil. These are people who hear the Word but do not cherish it. They don’t see it as “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42). Their faith is simply a part of their life that they bring out when they need it. They care more about their problems, their money, and the pleasures they have or want.
Their love for everything else over God’s Word chokes their faith to death. The needs that they feel are most relevant are not their true needs. They may not realize it, but think they know better than God. God’s forgiveness because of Jesus becomes unneeded baggage when something that seems better comes along.
Praise God there is more. The next seed falls on good soil. This soil is not hard. This soil isn’t a thin layer over rock. This soil isn’t hidden under weeds that will choke out new growth. This soil has depth because it has been cut deep. It has been plowed and turned over. It has suffered. From this suffering, the soil has been softened and torn open. Then the seed can fall in and go deep to do its glorious work of growing into everlasting life.
Like all soils, this soil cannot plow itself. God does the plowing. And when He plows, He isn’t being unkind or cruel. He isn’t being thoughtless. He knows how His Word will work in our hearts. He knows what lies deeply within us. He knows what surrounds us. He knows what will falsify His Word. He knows what will seem more attractive than His promises. He knows what will lure us away from His truth, which we so desperately need. So He prepares us well. His plow digs deeply, so His Gospel seed can transform our lives.
You see, good soil does not become good on its own. God does the plowing. God softens the hardened soil of our hearts by bringing us to repent. Repentance isn’t for the other person. It’s for you!
But who wants to moan and groan about being a poor, miserable sinner? Who wants to come to the Divine Service every week only to hear God tell you to change? Who wants to turn away from what you want and, instead, cling to Jesus’ crucifixion for the forgiveness of your sins? Can’t we move beyond that basic stuff and do something more impressive?
But when life is not a bed of roses, you know where you must go. You take off your rose-colored glasses and see that you are still full of sin. You keep on offending God. You keep on loving the ways of this world, putting yourself and your wants above the needs of your neighbor.
That’s why your righteousness from God is not simply a one-time event. You keep sinning. That’s why you still need to be where God still comes to you with His forgiveness and grace. This isn’t because you’re looking for something righteous to do. It’s because–no matter how hard you try–you still sin every single day of your life. You need God to plow your hardened heart to bring you true spiritual rest. You need Jesus.
Jesus, by the Holy Spirit He has sent, makes your heart receptive. He bore all the pain of all your sins, and so He understands whatever pain you feel. He brings you His own righteousness and forgives you your sins.
United with Christ’s resurrection, you have eternal life with God. This is as sure as Christ’s ascension to the right hand of God the Father. Know this: no pain of this life can turn God’s promises into a lie! No joy of this life is so majestic that it can compare with the joy of your sins being fully forgiven because of Jesus!
If God must cut through the hardpan soil of your heart, to break up your pride and self-centeredness, then let Him do His plowing. With the power of Christ’s grace resting on you, why should you complain? As the Apostle wrote, “[His] grace is enough for you, for [His] power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Amen.
