The Sower and the Power of God's Word

Jul 13, 2026

Devotional

Sermon Summary

Bible Study Guide

Sermon Clips

40s
#SowEverywhere
“``Now when you see this story that Jesus tells, it's incredible that this farmer is throwing seeds into rocks, into weeds. A modern day farmer would say, you're wasting seed. But that's exactly the point. The parable is not about an unskilled farmer who needs to spend some more time in FFA. It's about the generosity of a sower and a power of a seed to do something even in the harshest of conditions. That God scatters his word everywhere and every place and no places nobody expects it to grow. And even there, it can take root.”
63s
#WordOverEfficiency
“And before we look at the fourth type of soil, we have to really think about this farmer because in in the midst of all of this, we got we gotta wonder, why does the farmer farm in this way? Why even bother? If the ground looks bad, if the soil doesn't look like it's going to produce, why would you still plant the seed? It doesn't make sense for agriculture. If you ask any of our farmers here, they're not going to do that. But what doesn't make sense for farming makes perfect sense for God and his word. His word goes forth not because it's efficient, but because it's effective. A radical way that he sows his seed and shares that word wherever, anywhere with whoever that word goes forth and that word accomplishes the purpose for which God intended. We may look at it and think that's not a very good strategy. God says, you don't understand. It's not a strategy. It's about the power of the word.”
57s
#WordNeverEmpty
“It will not return empty. That's God's promises. We might not be able to see how it does it. And there may be times in in fact, maybe that's a part of your story or the story of someone you love who's who's been raised in the church, who grew up in the church, but yet over the course of time, the cares of this world, the distractions of wealth have choked them up. And you wonder, can God still work, Keep scattering that seed because he can. He still does his work, and he will not let that word return to him empty. It's his promise. We can cling on it. Not up to us, our strategy, our power, our might. It is his power and his might to work through his word to accomplish his life saving eternity changing purpose. He does that day after day as we soak in the word of God.”
41s
#DontIdolizeGoodThings
“And and sometimes it's not just the deceitfulness of wealth. Sometimes it can be the worries of this age, the things we consume ourselves with. We can take good things and turn them into God things. We can take good things like like our jobs and our families and our hobbies. And they're good things or things that that God has given to us, but when they become our obsession, when they become the priority, when they become the most important thing, we've made it into a God thing. And slowly, slowly, slowly, it chokes us. Before we know it, we've before we've misarranged some of God's good gifts, putting them in a place that God would not intend them to be.”
49s
#EverydayMission
“Because God continues to work through his word and the word continues to be proclaimed by him using real people. Everyday ordinary people, not just people in collars like me, but but everyday ordinary people in the places he's perfectly positioned you. The places where you live, the places where you work, the places where you you play and gather together. Those are opportunities for that seed, that water to go forth with the word of God. That letting God's word accomplishing its peeper, its purpose. Because God says it's going to accomplish what I do, what I please. It will prosper in what I do to send it. It will not return to me empty. It will not return empty. That's God's promises.”
42s
#LocalSeedSowers
“Everyday ordinary people, not just people in collars like me, but but everyday ordinary people in the places he's perfectly positioned you. The places where you live, the places where you work, the places where you you play and gather together. Those are opportunities for that seed, that water to go forth with the word of God. That letting God's word accomplishing its peeper, its purpose. Because God says it's going to accomplish what I do, what I please. It will prosper in what I do to send it. It will not return to me empty. It will not return empty. That's God's promises.”
59s
#FriendOfSinners
“The Jesus who is known as a friend of sinners, who sees as some of the closest people he spends so much time with as tax collectors and sinners. It's what he's accused of. Because he's come to sow his word to those who would receive it. And as they receive it, some are like that good soil and and faith, but develops faith comes about by the grace and the mercy of God. It's a radical way that the creator of the universe would choose to come into his world, would choose to come into a creation that he made that turned its back on him. But instead of trying and leaving them and destroying them, he comes to redeem them, to buy them back as we were talking about this morning in bible study. That there's a price that has to be paid for that redemption. But that price is something that Jesus is willingly, great gratefully paying for each and every one of us gathered here and for this entire world.”
51s
#FaithNeedsPatience
“God says his word works exactly like rain or like snow. The grain falls, the snow comes, and it melts, and the ground receives the moisture, and and life appears. The life doesn't just appear on itself. The earth can't simply produce the crops. The seed has to be sown. The water has to come and then the crop, then the harvest will appear and it takes time. And this can be hard for us, hard for us in our age and time where we want immediate results in life. We want the investment to to be a quick investment, something that that produces us, immediate wealth. We want the the the diet that I should be on, an exercise plan to produce the results simply by having the plan, and it should be we should meet the goal right away. It's it's hard to be patient and wait.”
55s
#GraceOverEfficiency
“This image, this description of Isaiah 55 is the same kind of picture Jesus is giving us in the gospel lesson in the parable of the sower. That this Jesus who has come to call all sinners to repentance. His message isn't just for a select group of people. His technique in earthly eyes may not be very efficient, but it is that grace that triumphs the efficiency, that mercy that goes to the seek to and save the lost. The Jesus who is known as a friend of sinners, who sees as some of the closest people he spends so much time with as tax collectors and sinners. It's what he's accused of. Because he's come to sow his word to those who would receive it. And as they receive it, some are like that good soil and and faith, but develops faith comes about by the grace and the mercy of God.”
36s
#BeGoodSoil
“My prayer is that until that day we see Jesus face to face, we would continue to be fed by him and his word. So that we would not become those soils that find themselves outside of the kingdom, but rather we would be that good soil producing not what we produce, but what he produces through us to the places he's perfectly positioned us to overflow with the generosity of that grace of God scattering seed knowing the results are up to him, but knowing that he works through people like you and me to accomplish that seed scattering to this very day.”
40s
#NourishedByWord
“We let that word come to us daily when we're in God's word, when we're reading it together as individuals or in a small group or in a our family settings, hearing God's word together. There's something powerful about that. We're in that word and being fed by that word when we're when we're gathered here in worship, when we're volunteering at VBS, when we're coming to his table and he's joining his very word to his son's very body and blood through bread and wine, giving us the strength we need for each day and the assurance that that this seed is for us. This word is for us. We've got a place in his family and a place at his table.”
47s
#WealthCanChokeFaith
“That there's other things that maybe aren't so sinister, other things that attack us when it comes to our walk with Christ, with our faith, that seed's been planted in us. We've been washed in the word of our baptism, but we can find ourselves being tempted by the deceitfulness of wealth and the worries of this age. The deceitfulness of wealth. The idea that that wealth is something that if we just had more of it or if we just had more security or we begin to look at what we have and we have so much of it, we begin to think to ourselves, well well, I don't I don't I don't need God. I don't I don't really need anybody. I'm I'm my own made person. I can do my own thing. I've got I've got security. And so that deceitfulness of that wealth chokes the word.”
48s
#ScatterSeedDaily
“Keep scattering that seed because he can. He still does his work, and he will not let that word return to him empty. It's his promise. We can cling on it. Not up to us, our strategy, our power, our might. It is his power and his might to work through his word to accomplish his life saving eternity changing purpose. He does that day after day as we soak in the word of God. My prayer for for us to continue to be that good soil is to continue to be fed by God and his word. To continue to do that as we gather together weekly even in this summer. I know some of you even joining us even online because your travels take you to various places, but you still connect into God's word. God be praised.”
72s
#SpiritualBattle
“Now good news, people are hearing the word, but bad news is that word isn't taking root into their hearts and into their lives. It's sown like seed on a path where a bird can see it and swoop down and and eat it up, where it's trampled over by feet. And Jesus says, that's not what you need to worry about. Birds are getting trampled on. What you need to worry about is the old evil one, the evil one who comes around and snatches what was in what was sown in his heart. A reminder to us that Jesus acknowledges there's a battle that's going on for our lives. A battle against the old evil foe who's seeking to work his woe, Satan himself. That our struggle is not just in our flesh and blood and struggle is not just with our habits and hang ups. Our struggle is a spiritual one. And for that spiritual struggle, we need a spiritual the holy spirit on our side. We need to be able to fight against that battle because we know he is an evil foe who seeks to steal and destroy. So there's a danger out there. A danger that well, reality that Satan is attacking and seeking to steal away the message of that kingdom of God.”
41s
#SeedsTakeTime
“And the same thing can be said about God and his word. It might seem sometimes at times that that word is is scattered and spread, and sometimes it takes root, and it and it takes off right away. But but other times it takes takes a long time. It takes maybe years. And maybe it was something that was said to you during a vacation bible school when you were a kid that maybe took root and God used that situation. And God used that that person proclaiming Jesus to you that helped be a part of your story of faith. Something that you volunteers were a part of this past week for that next generation of believers.”
36s
#DependentOnHisPower
“Not up to us, our strategy, our power, our might. It is his power and his might to work through his word to accomplish his life saving eternity changing purpose. He does that day after day as we soak in the word of God. My prayer for for us to continue to be that good soil is to continue to be fed by God and his word. To continue to do that as we gather together weekly even in this summer. I know some of you even joining us even online because your travels take you to various places, but you still connect into God's word. God be praised.”
52s
#HearHisWordDaily
“As God's word falls on us this day, my praise is that we continue to grow in that word. This summer, as we gather together as we gather together as the body of Christ to hear his word, to receive that word, as we gather together in our bible studies throughout the week or on Sunday morning or in the kids bible studies or the youth bible studies, find a place to dig deeper into god's word. Find a plan perhaps on the YouVersion bible app. There's some great reminders it sends you daily push notifications too to to hear from god and his word. Take god up on what he says, that his word won't return to him void. So so what's stopping you from hearing from that word over and over again? Seeing what God can do and will do through the power of that word.”
62s
#CommunityAsSoil
“The sower doesn't give up despite lack of success, despite much of the seed not turning out as he would have had intended it, but instead the sower is confident that the seed is still good. The seed is life giving. The seed is necessary, and some of it is gonna produce some of it is gonna produce not just a little, but a 130, 60 times what was sown. Now the temptation when we hear this parable is we first wanna think, okay, what kind of soil am I? If the seed is God's word, if the sower is Jesus himself sowing his word into this world and the seed is God's word, then what what kind of soil am I? And that might be a helpful thing to consider at times. But I would con would put out there for us today that just being together in the word of God, in the house of God, as the people of God, as his church, we're we're that soil that's receptive to receive that word, to allow that word to take root in our hearts, in our lives.”
60s
#LongGameFaith
“And this can be hard for us, hard for us in our age and time where we want immediate results in life. We want the investment to to be a quick investment, something that that produces us, immediate wealth. We want the the the diet that I should be on, an exercise plan to produce the results simply by having the plan, and it should be we should meet the goal right away. It's it's hard to be patient and wait. And the same thing can be said about God and his word. It might seem sometimes at times that that word is is scattered and spread, and sometimes it takes root, and it and it takes off right away. But but other times it takes takes a long time. It takes maybe years. And maybe it was something that was said to you during a vacation bible school when you were a kid that maybe took root and God used that situation. And God used that that person proclaiming Jesus to you that helped be a part of your story of faith.”
47s
#PromiseThatPersists
“We might not be able to see how it does it. And there may be times in in fact, maybe that's a part of your story or the story of someone you love who's who's been raised in the church, who grew up in the church, but yet over the course of time, the cares of this world, the distractions of wealth have choked them up. And you wonder, can God still work, Keep scattering that seed because he can. He still does his work, and he will not let that word return to him empty. It's his promise. We can cling on it. Not up to us, our strategy, our power, our might. It is his power and his might to work through his word to accomplish his life saving eternity changing purpose.”
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