Sexagesima

1  Let everyone examine his heart.

Now is the time to begin planning your garden for 2008.

I didn’t say “planting,” but planning.

What would you like to grow? Where will you grow it? How will you water it? When should it be ready for harvest? When do you need to start it?

These are all important questions.

Tomatoes, for example, are supposed to be tricky

if you start them from seeds.

It takes real planning, and some hard work too.

But there’s another question that can affect everything else:

How is your soil?

The soil in your garden is what gives the plants their nutrition.

It should have certain amounts of pH, nitrogen, and other things.

If it’s good soil, then you might eat well from your garden. If it’s not good, then you might not have much to show for your work.

So everyone who wants to grow something this year:

pay attention to your soil.

Likewise, for everyone who wants to have genuine faith in Christ:

pay attention to your soil.

God’s seed has the power to grow in some pretty bad soil,

but we can make our soil more unfriendly to His Word,

until the condition of our soil actually kills the sprout of faith.

Let everyone examine his heart:

Because the heart’s soil is desperately wicked. Because God’s seed will grow in the soil of repentance.

2  Luke 8:4–15

And when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to Him from every city, He spoke by a parable:

“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Then His disciples asked Him, saying, “What does this parable mean?”

And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see, And hearing they may not understand.’

“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.”

2.1  Because the heart’s soil is desperately wicked.

Jeremiah 17:9 tells us:

The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?

It’s a lot easier to see the speck in somebody else’s eye

than to see the 8-inch plank in your own eye.

It’s partly a matter of perspective.

We grow accustomed and attached to our planks.

So when we hear this parable in our text,

we tend to start classifying people in those four categories:

the hard soil on the path, the rocky soil without moisture, the soil full of thorns, or the good soil.

Which category do I fit? Which do others fit?

We might be right about the speck in our neighbor’s eye,

but most of us probably think ourselves better than we really are.

So Jeremiah is right: who can know the condition of his own heart?

The first soil where the seed fell was the hard-packed pathway.

Maybe you’ve seen parts of the old Oregon Trail. It’s been what, about 100 years, since the trail was used?

Even so, the wheel tracks remain, packed hard as rock.

Does that describe your heart, too?

Before you say no, consider:

What’s your first inclination when a stranger asks for help? What’s your first response when someone criticizes you? Is God allowed to tell you how to live your life?

We are each hard-packed in our way.

The second soil where the seed fell was among the rocks.

When a rainstorm blows across the desert,

everything turns green in its wake.

So much water is there only a short time.

Seedlings sprout, existing plants shoot out their leaves and flowers, animals come out and make the most of it.

Soon, the rainwater is gone: washed elsewhere, or dried up.

The green fades away.

Sometimes God’s Word enters a heart

willing to believe, but only so much; happy to follow Christ, but not with a heavy cross.

these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.

Nobody wants to fall away. But our faith is tested and shaped by adversities

beyond our control.

The wickedness of our hearts limits the depth of our soil,

so that instead of patient endurance under the cross,

we’d prefer to grumble and whine;

instead of trusting in God’s Word despite our doubts,

we want to throw in the towel, and give up.

The third soil where the seed fell was already full of thorns.

The trouble with thorns in our lives,

is that they don’t always seem like thorns to us.

See, thorns are probably the least useful or important plant,

but the cares, riches, and pleasures of life

usually seem to be the most import thing to our hearts.

We don’t like to hear it,

but anything that keeps us from church on Sunday, or from our daily devotions in God’s Word at home, or from regular time for prayers

qualifies as thorns in the soil of our hearts.

Some of the thorny things crowding out our faith are good things.

Time spent with your family, doing well in your responsibilities at school or work, time spent unwinding and relaxing.

These are good things,

but letting them crowd out God’s Word and faith is evil.

Truly,

The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?

So let everyone examine his own heart.

2.2  Because God’s seed will grow in the soil of repentance.

Don’t examine your heart only to be filled with despair.

Examine your heart to be filled with remorse and repentance. In other words: tell God you’re sorry, and let Him save you.

God’s seed will grow in the soil of repentance.

What we need is for someone to come help us:

with a plow for the hard-packed parts of our hearts, with a hammer to break up the rocky parts of our hearts, and with fire to burn out the thorny parts of our hearts.

That’s what God does within us through His Law.

It can be a painful thing, to look in a perfect mirror.

We’d like to deny that what we see there is true.

But it is true. To deny it is to deny ourselves.

So the Law of God breaks the rocks and the hard-pack

again and again, as often as we need it.

Then the testing and afflictions of life set into us.

Satan means to harm us, but God uses him to test and strengthen us, as by fire.

As silver tried by fire is pure From all adulteration, So through God’s Word shall men endure Each trial and temptation. (ELH 440, v. 5)

In Malachi 3, it describes the coming of Jesus, saying:

But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire And like launderer’s soap.

So God accomplishes in our hearts what we could not accomplish:

He takes our poor soil and makes it into good soil, as He plants His Word there to sprout

in true faith, and in a godly life.

So examine the soil of your own heart,

and repent of things that would keep you from eternal life:

the hardness of heart, the shallow and stony soil, the thorny ground.

Repent, and receive the Word of the Lord:

Your hardness is forgiven,

because Jesus gave His life for you on the cross.

Your half-heartedness has been atoned,

the price being paid by the depth of God’s love:

righteous, divine blood shed willingly for you.

Your deceitful, distracted, thorny heart has been cleansed,

washed in Jesus’ righteousness through Baptism.

God has planted His Word within you:

a miracle, indeed.

But now the tender shoots of faith are already growing,

and it means that you don’t belong to Satan, nor to the power of sin, nor to the power of the grave,

but to God who made you and has also redeemed you.

What should we do with these precious gifts of faith that we have?

First: understand that it’s not something you made,

just as a new-born baby comes from God,

not from its parents.

So we need to hold our faith precious.

But second, understand that we care best for our faith

not by handling or worrying about our faith itself, not by trusting in our faith,

or resting our hopes in what it will bring us.

The best way to care for these tender plants of faith

is to invite the sunshine and rain from heaven every day:

that is, God’s Word and sacraments.

Instead of focusing upon your faith, focus upon your Savior.

Listen to Him and rejoice in the sound of His voice.

Hear and receive His forgiveness as often as you can,

and your faith will grow.

Third, don’t be dismayed that your sinful flesh lives on.

It will work against you every day of your life:

hardening the soil of your heart with bitter experience, piling rocks around your faith through hardship, and growing thorns to distract you from your Savior.

there is only one way to handle our sinful, deceitful heart:

by examining it again, and confessing our sins to God.

We can each do this on our own,

but I’ve been called here to help you, to speak for our Lord, and provide His forgiveness particularly for your sins.

Repent, and hear His absolution and invitation:

Receive His body and His blood,

the forgiveness of your sins.

In this way we put to death the sinful flesh each day.

Let’s apply this parable to ourselves,

because Jesus meant it for our benefit.

Examine your heart, repent,

and receive the forgiveness of Christ.

You are forgiven.

Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!