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.