I used to know a man that was against coming to church. No matter what his wife tried to do, she could not convince him to come to church.
You see as a youth this individual was led astray by false teachers of what was supposed to be God’s Word. The young man was taught that the only way he could get to heaven was to follow the commandments perfectly. He was taught that one you were saved you did not sin anymore and anyone who kept on sinning after they were saved didn’t really believe in Christ and was never saved in the first place. In despair the young man cursed God for being so cruel and left the church never to return.
It was twenty years later that this man came to the house of God once again.
He wasn’t in search of forgiveness. He didn’t come looking for answers to life’s questions.
As a matter of fact, he came to God’s house because he wanted to put his children in the Lutheran elementary school so that they would receive a quality education and learn good morals.
After meeting with the principal of the school and enrolling his children the subject of tuition came up. The man was informed that if he and his wife joined the church there would be no tuition because the church paid the tuition for its members. So the man joined the church out of greed. Becoming a member would save him a couple of hundred bucks a month – so why not join.
Joining the church was easy enough. All the man had to do was to attend a Bible information course over a period of several weeks.
But it was during the Bible information course that something astounding happened. The man heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This was something new, something different than he was taught as a youth.
After only a few classes he began telling his wife on the way home how good he felt after each class. He began to understand that God was not a cruel God but a loving and caring God.
The Holy Spirit worked faith in his heart and you can imagine how the rest of the story goes. I can tell you that today this man is very active in his church and his entire life has been changed for the better.
I think about this man often, especially when I read sections of God’s word like we have for our sermon text this morning. This man was brought to faith because God’s Word is Powerful and Effective. It affects the heart and it feeds the soul.
How many of you here today can truthfully say that everything you want to accomplish gets done? Let’s see a show of hands. Now if you are getting everything done how many of you can say that what you accomplished turned out exactly the way you wanted it to? Not too many of us can honestly say that what we plan turns out the way we plan it. But with God things are different.
The Lord teaches us today through the prophet Isaiah, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."
I hold in my hand the most influential book that has ever been written. We know it as the Bible.
The Bible has sold more copies than any other book in the world, it has been around longer than any other book in the world and it has affected the hearts of more people than any other book in the world. Why is this so?
It is because the Bible is God’s word and his word can be summarized into two main teachings that affect the heart and feed the soul: the law and the gospel.
God had a very specific purpose in mind when he gave the law to Moses on Mt Sinai; a purpose that has been misunderstood by people for thousands of years.
The most common misunderstanding of the law is that it must be obeyed if you want to enter into heaven. Well for the most part that is a true statement. If you can obey God’s law perfectly, if you can follow to the letter God’s commandments and instructions that are given to us in the Bible, then you will gain eternal life.
When the rich young ruler came to Jesus and asked, “What must I do to gain eternal life?” Jesus told him, “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.”
Now here is the misunderstanding – that sinful human beings can obey the 10 commandments perfectly.
Are you one of those people? If so let’s run down the commandments and see where we stand. God says, "You shall have no other gods before me." Have you devoted yourself to God totally, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Is God the very first thought on your mind when you wake up in the morning, in every thought you have through out the day, and the last thought you have before you go to sleep at night? Truthfully – the answer is no!
God says, "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name." Have you used the phrase "Oh My God" lately? How about "Oh God" or "My Lord."
If you are not using God’s name to give him thanks or praise, or witnessing about him, you are breaking the second commandment.
Do I need to go on? These are only the first two commandments and we are probably guilty of breaking them before we have our first cup of coffee in the morning.
If we truly examine ourselves we find that in the course of a normal day we have gossiped and slandered our neighbor. We have cursed, threatened, and committed murder in our hearts against the driver that pulls out in front of us.
We have treated our spouse and children harshly by using words of anger instead of love.
We are selfish with out time and with our treasure. God has given us so many material and financial blessings and we fail to return to him what is rightfully his and return only what we think we can spare.
When we compare our lives to the mirror of God’s holy law we see that we fail terribly.
God’s purpose for the law was not that we keep it and gain eternal life, rather his purpose was to show us that with out him we are lost.
In his letter to the Romans, St Paul says, “What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”
The law shows us our sin and convicts us of our guilt before God. It deeply affects human hearts, inspires in us the fear and dread of God’s anger, and points out very clearly that because of our disobedience against God, we deserve nothing but his eternal condemnation.
It almost seems like a cruel joke doesn’t it? We feel like crying out to God and saying, “Why God? If you knew that we would never be able to keep the law, why did you give it to us? God answers - I gave it to you so that you would see you need, your need for a savior and your need for the Gospel.
The gospel has a different purpose than the law, it proclaims the sweet message of forgiveness—and that’s especially the word that Isaiah refers to in our lesson for today.
The gospel gives life it feeds the soul. The sweet, refreshing message of the gospel showers down upon human hearts that are heavy and burdened and afraid, and assures us of God’s solution to our eternal problem.
The refreshing gospel speaks to us of Christ, how he lived in our place as our perfect Substitute keeping the law perfectly because we could not.
The gospel tells us how Jesus gave his life for us on the cross, how he rose from the dead on the third day to show to all the world that sin had been paid for.
God tells us, “When you were dead in your sins… God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.”
The refreshing gospel sweeps away our doubts about life and our fear of death, and rains down on us the sweet comfort of forgiveness. The gospel speaks gently to our hearts and says, "Take heart! Your sins are forgiven!"
The gospel tells us that our relationship with God has been restored through the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and we can now call Jesus our brother and God our Father and claim a place in his eternal family.
The gospel goes into all the world with the embracing message that God our heavenly Father desires that every single human being on the planet should know his love—a Father’s love—and repent of their sins and believe the good news and be saved.
This is the word, the refreshing word of grace that fills our hearts with joy and sweetens our lives with promise and keeps our faith in Jesus strong and growing.
It was the second day after we arrived here in Wood Lake that my wife planted her garden. For the first week Wendi watered her garden faithfully every evening. I soon noticed that her evening ritual has stopped. She no longer continued to water the garden even when things seemed a little dry from the lack of rain. When I asked her about this she told me that God is taking care of the garden. Each morning when she would go out to see how it was doing there would be the morning dew providing the moisture for her vegetables. God was doing the work.
God tells us that his word is the same way. When human beings are exposed to God’s word, something has to happen. God’s word never returns to him empty. It always produces the result that he has planned for it and achieves the purpose which he sent it.
That’s very encouraging to me when I climb into this pulpit and proclaim the word of God to you. I know that it has to have an effect—not because of any power or persuasion on my part, but simply because of the inherent power of the word of God to accomplish exactly what God wants it to do. The gospel will touch hearts. The gospel will change lives. God guarantees it.
Brothers and sisters, cherish the gospel! Cherish the opportunities to drink deeply from the delicious, refreshing word of God that brings so much delight and peace into our lives.
Cherish the opportunities you have to be in God’s house and drink from the wells of salvation as you sit at the feet of Jesus and hear his word.
Cherish the opportunities you have during your day to digest the words of Christ.
Cherish the opportunities you have to gather your family around the kitchen table for a word of devotion and prayer.
With God’s word rooted in your heart and governing your life, with a faith that is strong and growing, you will see just how powerful and effective the Word of God is and how it truly achieves the purpose for which God sent it to you. AMEN.
