In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness shows us two main things about temptation. First, it shows us the way that we’re supposed to fight against it. And second, it shows us where we find the real victory over it.

The way that you fight against temptation is always with the written Word of God. That’s how Jesus fought against the Devil in our reading today and that’s how we’re called to fight against him too. As Saint Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 6, “take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” We wield God’s Word, and the truth of the Scriptures in the face of every temptation to sin, because all temptation, in some way other another, is an attack on God’s Word.

Think about the temptations that Jesus faced. The first one had to do with hunger and whether or not God could be trusted to provide for Him. Satan said to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Notice how the Devil tried to get Jesus to doubt His identity as God’s Son by pointing to the difficulty of His circumstances. He wanted Christ to look at His suffering, instead of God’s promises, to know whether or not God loved Him.

But that’s not how we know whether or not God loves us. We don’t come to that conclusion by adding up all the stuff that we have or don’t have. We do so by listening to what God’s Word tells us and trusting it.

Remember what happened right before Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. He was Baptized in the Jordan River and voice from heaven declared Him to be God’s beloved Son. Well, that’s what happens in our Baptism too. God puts His Name on us and makes us part of His family. He promises to wash away our sins and give us exactly what is most beneficial for our eternal salvation. So, even if we are faced with hunger and adversity, like Jesus was in the wilderness, we can rest assured that God is not out to get us, but is still at work to save us. We know that not because of what we see, but because that’s what He promised. And God always keeps His promises.

How did Jesus respond to that first attack from Satan? He quoted the Bible. He said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that comes from the mouth of God.” That’s how we live our lives as Christians too. Our true food is not what we eat and drink off of our tables, but the promises of God’s Word, which assure us of His mercy and love in the face of every trial.

The next temptation that Jesus faced was the temptation to add to God’s Word. The first time the Devil came to Him, he tried to get Him to ignore the Scriptures, but this time, he tried to get Him to go above and beyond them. Satan took Christ to the pinnacle of the Temple and said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angles concerning you,’ and ‘on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” 

If the Devil cannot get us to sin by making our lives miserable so that we’ll ignore God’s promises, the next step is to use our faith against us by trying to get us to add to God’s promises. He preys upon our belief that the Lord will provide by pushing us to demand that He give us even more than what we have. But that’s not what it means to have faith. Having faith is about trusting in what He has given, not demanding that He give other things too.

This kind of temptation is especially challenging because often times it’s cloaked in religious sounding language. The Devil even quoted the Bible to Jesus, and appealed to the written text of God’s Word too. But when you look at the verse he used more closely, you quickly realize that he left out something very important. The passage that Satan appealed to in his temptation to Jesus was Psalm 91. But the Psalmist doesn’t just say that “God will command his angels concerning you lest you strike your foot against a stone.” He says, “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” Satan left out the part where God specifies that He only promises His blessing and protection when we are doing the things He’s called us to do. Well, has God called us to throw ourselves off buildings to see if He will catch us? No, He hasn’t. So, once again Jesus responded with what God has said and quoted another text from the Bible accurately. He said, “Again, it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Adding to God’s Word is just as bad as taking away from it. In either instance, eventually, we will be led away from the Lord in the process. Whether that is by making up teachings that aren’t found in the Bible, or challenging the ones that are already exist there, neither case ever ends well. Both of them will eventually leave you lying dead on the ground outside the Temple. 

And the last temptation that Jesus faced was the temptation of wealth and worldly pleasure. First, the Devil tried to get Christ to forsake God’s Word, then he tried to get Him to add to it, and when that didn’t work, he tried to distract Him from it entirely. Satan showed Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and said, “All these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” This was a very overt temptation, but many times it’s much more subtle. Perhaps the Devil was getting frustrated with his lack of success, and made the mistake of showing all of his cards at once. Either way, we should not expect him to be so straightforward when it comes to us.

More often than not, the temptation of wealth, riches, and earthly pleasure does not replace the worship of Christ immediately, but gradually overtime. It starts with something small like choosing a college or job based off which one will get you the most money, even if leads to you going to Church less, and before you know it you aren’t going to Church to all. At the beginning it’s something not that drastic, like dating someone because of their looks, despite the fact that they don’t believe the same things as you, and all of a sudden, you’re in agreement with them instead of the Bible. Without you even realizing it, your bowed down in front of the Devil chasing after the world. Idolatry, as Luther reminds us in the Catechism, always begins in the heart. First, there’s the craving for something that you don’t have, then there’s the decisions that you make to get those things at any cost, until eventually it comes at the cost of your faith.

But again, what did Jesus do in response to Satan’s attack? Once more, He brought things back to the Bible. “Be gone, Satan!” He said, “For it written, ‘You shall worship the Lord Your God and Him only shall you serve.” God didn’t make us to serve ourselves or our possessions. He made us to serve Him. Living your life only in the pursuit of pleasure won’t make you any happier. In the end, it will leave you empty and hollow, trapped in the lies of the Devil.

So, instead, we should surround ourselves with the teachings of God’s Word, and let the Scriptures lead and guide us. We should look to the Bible for how we’re supposed to live and what sort of things we should believe. God’s Word won’t ever steer us wrong. It will protect us from every enemy, and send even our worst enemy, the old evil foe, running away from us. That’s one thing we learn from the temptation of Jesus. We learn how to fight against temptation by using God’s Word.

But that isn’t the only thing that we learn from this text. In fact, that isn’t even the most important thing. We don’t just learn how to do battle against the Tempter by wielding the sword of the Spirit and holding fast to God’s Word, we learn where the true victory over him is found. It isn’t found in us. It’s found in Christ.

Yes, Jesus is our example in all things. He gives us a perfect picture of what it looks like to live and act like a true child of God. When He did battle against the Devil and applied the Scriptures flawlessly to every temptation, He showed us what kind of things we’re supposed to do too. The problem, though, is that we don’t always do it. Sometimes we fail. In fact, if we are honest with ourselves, it seems like for every time that we have succeeded in overcoming one temptation, there are countless other times that we haven’t. And if the only purpose of this text is to show us what we should be doing, but so often fail to do, then we’re missing out on the real benefit of it.

This is where our other readings for today help give us a fuller picture. There are two different Old Testament lessons that you can use on the first Sunday of Lent. One of them is the account of the fall into sin from Genesis 3, and the other one is the story of David and Goliath. Both of these passages remind us how the Devil is really defeated, and where our true confidence comes from as Christians.

On the one hand, there’s the clear prophecy about our salvation from Genesis chapter 3. Adam and Eve succumb to the Devil’s temptation by disobeying God’s command and eating from the tree that He told them not to. They laid aside the clear Word of God for their own ideas only to bring upon themselves great shame and sorrow. That’s what we’ve done too. As the hymn we sang earlier said, “All mankind fell in Adam’s fall.” We have the same sinful nature as they did and we’ve committed the same kind of sinful acts as they did. But what did God say to our first parents after they fell into sin? How did He tell them that they would be delivered from the Tempter’s power? Would it be through their own work, or the work of another? God promised that it would be through the Offspring of the woman. He said to the Devil, “You will bruise his heel, but He will crush your head.” That’s what Jesus began to fulfill when He resisted temptation in the wilderness, and that’s what He fulfilled for good when He died for us on the cross. Our Lord crushed the head of the Serpent. By doing the things that we failed to do, and then trading His life as a ransom for ours, Jesus silenced our accuser. He purchased for us the forgiveness of all of our sins and made up for every time that we’ve ever fallen into temptation.

And what about the story of David and Goliath? People always want to make themselves into the hero of that story, but that’s not what it’s supposed to be about. They turn it into some kind of self-help analogy for overcoming your own personal fears, when really, it’s meant to be yet another reminder of the Atonement. Who are we really in the story? We’re more like the Israelites who stood cowering on the sidelines too afraid to face the enemy. Day after day Satan mocked us with our sins and made us lower our heads in guilt and shame. Not even the best of us had the courage to face him alone. But then along came our Champion. Despite His humble appearance and lowly estate, a Good Shepherd, born in the town of Bethlehem, volunteered to fight in our place. And just like Goliath stood on the edge of the battlefield and taunted the Israelites for forty days, Jesus fasted for forty days before coming face to face with the Devil.  With a piece of wood in one hand, and five smooth stones in the other, David approached the giant in front of him with all the strength of the Lord. And with a cross upon His shoulders, and five wounds from the nails and the spear on his hands, and feet, and side, Christ approach the fiercest Giant of all and silenced Him forever. 

What did the soldiers of Israel do after they saw that Goliath was dead? They let out a mighty shout, and they rushed into battle to finish off the rest of the enemy. That’s how we get to live our lives now, because of the life that Jesus Christ already lived for us. We can face temptation and resist it with the confidence that our salvation is secure. Even if we should stumble and fall, there is one among us who stood His ground. As Luther writes in the hymn, “But for us fights the valiant one, whom God Himself elected.” Jesus is on our side. He overcame every one the Devil’s assaults and gives us the credit for His victory through faith. And with the promise of God forgiveness ringing in our ears, and the sword of His Word strapped to our side, there’s no enemy that stands a chance against us. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Many times throughout the Scriptures the Holy Spirit records for us true events that also have deeper spiritual meanings. For example, in his letter to the Galatians, the apostle Paul explains how the Old Testament account of Sarah and Hagar, while being entirely real, and historically accurate, also serves as a picture, or an analogy, of the Law and the Gospel. He writes, “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born though promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants.”

This is also the sort of thing we see taking place with the Passover Lamb, Jonah and the whale, and Noah’s Ark. Again, while all of these events truly did happen in the exact way that the Bible tells us, God also uses them for certain purposes. They’re not just a bunch of history lessons like George Washington crossing the Delaware river. Rather, within the details of these accounts, God reinforces His doctrine and teaching. He uses the stories to reveal to us Divine truths. Now, besides the ones that I already mentioned, another excellent example of this is what we see taking place in our Gospel lesson today from Luke chapter 18 with the healing of the blind man. In fact, in this one short passage from God’s Word, our Lord summarizes for us all of the basic doctrines of the Scriptures.

The account begins with a blind man sitting on the side of the road begging for help. This is a description of our spiritual condition prior to conversion. It’s what all people, including ourselves, look like without Jesus. According to our nature, that is, according to the way that we are from birth, we are spiritually helpless. Just like the man in our reading who suffered from physical blindness, we are blind too. Except our blindness is far worse. Instead of not being able to see earthly things such as shapes or colors, we are unable to see heavenly things. We lack true fear, love, and trust in God and His Word, and we can’t do anything to change that on our own. In fact, the state of our spiritual condition is so fallen and so corrupt that not only are we incapable of doing the things that make God happy, we don’t even want to. We actively fight against the Lord, and are completely delusional to the reality of what’s going on. We don’t even realize that we’re His enemy. That’s how black the darkness is.

As Saint Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” This passage, along with the analogy provided by the blind man in Luke chapter 18, depict for us what’s called the doctrine of original sin. 

Sometimes people talk about sin just in terms of the bad things that we say and do. And even though that’s part of what sin is, the Bible also tells us that the extent of our sin is much worse. It’s not just about bad behavior or bad actions, it’s about having a bad heart. Every single one of us, from the moment of our conception, has inherited from our first parents the same wicked heart. That’s why we call it original sin. Because we can trace it back to that first sin, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and sin entered the world. From that day forward, all creation, including humanity, has been corrupted by a spiritual disease that leaves us completely unable to save ourselves. Just like the blind man in our reading, by nature, we are sitting on the side of the road in complete and total darkness.

But what happens next in the story? Jesus comes along and He gives the man healing. This part of the text is obviously intended to reminds us of the doctrine of grace alone. We aren’t saved by the things that we do, we are saved solely through the work of Christ. Jesus comes to us in our state of spiritual blindness, and He restores us to spiritual sight. He does that in the first place by taking our darkness into Himself and overcoming it. That’s exactly what Jesus predicted would happen in the first half of our reading. He said, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” Remember what literally happened to Jesus at the moment He was being crucified and these words were being fulfilled? The Bible tells us that during the middle of the day, there was darkness over whole region. That’s because Christ is the Light of the world, and through His death on the cross, He brings salvation and healing for all people.  

The only way to be saved is through the merit and mediation of Jesus Christ alone. Again, consider the details of our reading today. When the blind man heard about Jesus, and cried out to Him for help, what did some of the other people around him do? They told him to be quiet and tried to get him to shut up. They worked very hard to separate him from Christ and keep him from coming into contact with his Savior. This same thing happens to us because we live in a sinful world. There are many voices around us that work very hard to try and push us away from the Lord. Some of those voices do so by telling us that there are other paths to heaven, and that it doesn’t have to be through Jesus alone. But that isn’t true. Every other supposed path, whether that is by trusting in a different god, or trusting in your own works, will eventually lead you to hell. As Jesus Himself says in John chapter 14, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me.”

But in addition to the voices that we hear outside of us, pressuring us to stay away from Christ, and find salvation somewhere else, more often than not, the loudest voice comes from within. There are the feelings of unworthiness and guilt that can try and silence us from seeking out the Lord’s help because we know we don’t deserve it. When then happens, though, we should ignore those voices and not listen to them. We should do what the blind man did in our text, and cry out to Jesus all the more. We should be reassured that He is a merciful and loving God, who does not desire the death of the wicked, but wants nothing more than to hear the pleas of the repentant, and forgive them and make them whole.

How do we receive the salvation and healing that comes from Jesus? We receive it in the same way that blind man received his sight in our text. We receive it through faith alone. As Jesus said in our reading, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.” The way that we get all of the forgiveness, and all of the cleansing, that Jesus gained for us when He suffered and died for us on the cross is by believing His Word. It is through trusting in the promise of the Gospel, which tells us that for Christ’s sake all of our sins have been forgiven. 

Even though Jesus didn’t do it here in this text, the other time that he healed a blind man, He did it by spitting in the dirt, and putting mud on his eyes. This reminds us that God gives us His salvation through means. Jesus uses common and mundane looking things to bring to us the extraordinary gift of His forgiveness so we can trust in it and know that it’s for us. He does it through His Word and Sacraments. Speaking of people getting healed from blindness, do you remember what we’re told about the apostle Paul from the book of Acts when he got healed from blindness? It says that when he heard the preaching of Ananias something like scales fell off his eyes, and he was baptized immediately. Well, that’s exactly what happens in our Baptism too. When we are washed with water and the Word, God cleanses us from our sins and makes us see again. He fills us with the Holy Spirit, so that we recover our spiritual sight. We get healed from blindness, just like the man in our reading did.

And the last basic teaching of God’s Word that the story of the blind man reinforces for us is the doctrine of sanctification. What do we do after Jesus gives us healing? Do we just go back to our old way of life and keep on doing the same sinful things that we did before? No, we do what the blind man did in our text and we follow after Christ, glorifying God with our lives. Once we are given eyes to see things clearly, we use them to walk with our Savior in obedience and holy living. 

Going back to your sin, and doing the same sinful thing again on purpose, after receiving God’s forgiveness would be like if the blind man went back to begging on side of the road after he got healed. Or, to use a more graphic example from the Bible, such as the one that Saint Peter uses in his epistle, it’s like a dog returning to its vomit. Yes, it’s true that even after our conversion we continue to fall into sin repeatedly. Our sinful nature does not go away entirely when we come to faith, but now exists at the same time alongside the New Man. We are engaged in on ongoing struggle internally over who gets to be in charge. But if our attitude towards our sin becomes one of apathy and tolerance, then the Bible warns that we become entangled by it just like we were before. As Saint John warns us in 1 John 3, “If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” Taking a stroll in the darkness is not the same thing as stumbling through it. Committing sins in weakness is much different than willfully sinning on purpose and deliberately choosing to do what you know it wrong. One of them is inevitable, the other one pushes away the Holy Spirit.

Instead, the Scriptures admonish us put our sins to death through daily contrition and repentance. That means that if we find ourselves doing something that God’s Word says is sinful, and our sin is brought to light, we need to stop doing it immediately and run to Christ for forgiveness. We should keep on doing that as many times as it needs to be done, and the Lord will restore us and receive us back every time we do. Sanctification is just as much about going to God continually to get His forgiveness as it is trying to keep God’s Law and do the things that He commands. Both of them are in included together it what it means to walk with Christ like the blind man did. 

Again, many times in the Bible God uses real life stories to communicate to us Divine truths. As Saint Paul writes in Ephesians chapter five, “For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” That’s the entire story of the blind man from Luke chapter 18, and that’s your story too. You were blind also. Dead in your sins and trespasses, separated from God and any hope of salvation. Wallowing in complete and total darkness. But the Lord Jesus sought you out, found you, and gave you healing. He suffered for your sins on the cross, and then in your Baptism He gave you His forgiveness and caused the scales to fall off your eyes. He restored you to sight, and now He calls you to use that sight to follow Him. To walk as a child of the Light and honor Him in the way that you live. That way others can see the glory of His Light reflecting off you, and be brought into that Light themselves. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

One of the main themes for this Sunday in the Church Year, called Sexagesima, because we’re 60 days away from Easter, is the power and effectiveness of God’s Word. In our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah chapter 55, a very famous passage, Isaiah compares God’s Word to the rain and the snow that come down from heaven and water the earth. He writes, “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.” These verses show us several important things about God’s Word and what our attitude should be towards it as Christians.

First, they make it very obvious that the Word of God itself is the only thing that causes growth in His Kingdom, so we should focus our attention on preaching and teaching it faithfully, and not be concerned with anything else.

Sometimes in the Church, especially when we aren’t seeing as much numerical growth as we have at other times in the past, people can start to become restless. They can begin to think that we must be doing something wrong, or that something needs to change dramatically. In the worst possible cases, congregations and pastors are tempted to stop saying certain things from the Bible that others find offensive, and only talk about the stuff that they like. Topics such as sin, and especially popular sins, get brushed under the rug to make others who are doing those things feel more comfortable.

But that’s not how God says He gives growth in His Church. It doesn’t happen through withholding the teachings of the Scriptures, or putting less attention on them, it happens through proclaiming them more and more. Image what would happen if a farmer tried to get his crops to grow by not watering them on purpose. That wouldn’t make any sense! It would kill the crops and do the exact opposite thing that he wanted. And that’s what always happens whenever a church refuses to say what God’s Word says on certain subjects, and shies away from proclaiming the whole counsel of God. Even if it results in greater attendance at their services, that doesn’t necessarily equate to true growth in the eyes of the Lord.

During the time of Elijah there were more people in Israel who worshiped Baal than worshiped the one true God. Well, so what? Did that mean that the Baal worshipers were right because they had more people who came to their church on Sunday’s? Of course, not! And we should not be concerned if not as many people are at our church either. What we should care about it is whether or not we are being faithful to God’s Word. Are we doing the things that the Bible says, and putting the teachings of the Scriptures at the front and center of everything that we do, or are we not? That’s the only thing that matters, because that’s the only way that God gives true growth in His Church.

In fact, every error that has to do with growing the Church, always comes back to same error of not having enough faith in the Word of God. All of it stems from the false belief that we can make things better through our own striving and efforts apart from the ways that the Lord chooses to work. If we just have more fun programs, or do this or that new thing in worship, then our congregation will be bursting at the seams. But that’s not what the Bible tells us. Instead, it teaches us that the Holy Spirit grows the Church, and that He does it through the faithful preaching and teaching of God’s Word alone.  As Saint Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So, neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” 

We don’t need to, nor can we, do anything to make God’s Word more effective and powerful than it already is by itself. If we try, what will happen is that we will obscure God’s Word and hinder it in the process. All that we are called to do is speak it and trust in it. As Paul also says, “Preach the Word in season and out of season,” meaning, whether its popular at the time or not. Then we can have the assurance that God will be with us and bless us no matter what happens.

Another thing that this passage from Isaiah chapter 55 reminds us about God’s Word is that we need to have patience with it. Yes, the Word of the Lord is powerful and effective, and it alone has the ability to bring about true spiritual growth, but sometimes that growth takes time. Just like it takes time for a plant to grow, and we shouldn’t expect it to be a mature tree overnight, it can take time for God’s Word to bear fruit too. This is true on a personal level as well as in general.

On the one hand, we shouldn’t expect to understand everything in the Bible and have a perfect knowledge of it just by reading one verse and moving on with our lives. Growing in your faith requires constant study of the Scriptures. It takes consistent and ongoing watering from God’s Word.

What that means practically speaking should not be that hard to discern. Obviously, one of the things that it means is going to Church every Sunday. God gives us an entire Commandment about not neglecting the day when Christians come together for corporate worship. Remember how Martin Luther explains the 3rdCommandment in the Small Catechism. He says, “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” Only going to Church on occasion, or when it’s convenient in our schedule, is not holding the Word of God sacred. It’s not treating it like it’s the most important thing in our life. Nothing good ever happens from skipping Church. In the same way that a plant will wither and die if it goes too long without getting water, our faith can wither and die if we don’t water it enough with God’s Word. But unlike a plant, you can’t ever over water your own soul. Hearing more of God’s Word will always be better for you than hearing less of it.

In addition to weekly Church attendance, the other thing that this absolutely applies to is taking advantage of whatever Bible classes are available to us and doing home devotions. Yes, it’s very important to be in God’s house regularly, but if His Word is never read or spoken in our own homes, it can give the impression that it doesn’t actually belong there. But that isn’t true. Being a Christian isn’t just a Sunday morning thing, it’s an everyday of the week thing too. I don’t think it’s being legalistic at all to say that every Christian is expected to read something from their Bible at least once a day and if there are people in our lives that can’t read, like little kids, we need to read the Bible to them. If we can watch TV for multiple hours of the day, and doom scroll on our phones late into the evening, we should have no problem finding time to open the scroll of the Scriptures instead. And if we neglect God’s Word, if we continue not to use it, we risk the possibility of not knowing it enough when we really, really need. We put our faith at risk of getting chocked out and dying, like Jesus talks about in the parable of the Sower.

Furthermore, besides being patient with God’s Word when it comes to personal growth, and maturing in our own lives of faith, we also need to be patient with others too. We should not assume that just because every interaction we have with those around us doesn’t result in their immediate repentance and conversion that nothing is happening at all. We don’t know that. Yes, it’s possible for a person to reject God’s Word, and refuse to listen to it, but it’s also possible for God’s Word to soften a person’s heart and break it down overtime.

The same thing applies to churches. We can’t force people to believe in Jesus and come and worship Him with us as His altar. We can’t trick them into becoming Lutherans, nor should we even try do that. Instead, we should be upfront and unashamed of who are, if who we are is guided by God’s clear Word. Rather than grumbling about the fruit that God hasn’t given us, in a particular moment, we can be thankful for fruit that He has. 

And that leads me to the last thing that this passage from Isaiah reminds us about God’s Word, and that is that it never returns void. In every place and time where the Word of God is proclaimed in its truth and purity, and the Sacraments are administered rightly, the Holy Spirit promises to be present and active to draw in God’s elect. The harvest isn’t a maybe, it’s a certainty. God will bring it about in His own good time. 

The only thing is that we to have a correct understand of the Church in order to recognize it. The true Church is not merely one local congregation here or there. It is the whole Body of Christ. It is everyone who hears the voice of the Good Shepherd and follows after it. Just because we don’t necessarily see numerical growth at St John Lutheran Church in Denver Iowa, that doesn’t mean that God’s Kingdom is not advancing. It doesn’t even mean that there won’t be a harvest somewhere else because of what we are doing here. Think about the story of Noah. For a hundred years Noah faithfully preached God’s Word and warned the people around him about the coming flood. As I’ve said before in the past, I can guarantee that he was a better preacher than any of our preachers today. But how many people got onto the boat? It was only 8. Only Noah’s family listened to God’s Word and was saved.

And yet, through those 8 souls that got on the Ark, what did God do? He repopulated the whole world. The harvest seemed small and insignificant in the days of Noah, but the fruit that was borne from their faithfulness, kept on spreading. I hope you can see what I’m trying to get at here.

It’s true that we might not have as many people attending this congregation as we used to in the past. Maybe God will change that in the future. Maybe He won’t. But our calling remains the same. We are called to be faithful to the Word of God and rely on completely on its power. In everything that we do, from the way that we worship, to the things that we say, God wants us to ask, does this teaching or practice agree with My Word and promote it, or does it work against it and obscure it? Like any good farmer, we put our attention on the watering and the planting, knowing that the growing is ultimately out of our control. But that is a good thing too. Because we have a merciful God who desires the salvation of all people. The Lord Jesus wants others to be saved even more than we do. And through His Word, He promises that in the end there will be a harvest. As He says in Isaiah 55, “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.” In Jesus’ Name. Amen.