Sermon -- 8th Sunday after Pentecost (July 19, 2026)

GOD’S WORD IS ALWAYS EFFECTIVE.

ISAIAH 55:10-11

In the name + of Jesus.

     God’s word is always effective.  We recognize this especially in connection with God’s creation.  When God created the heavens and the earth, everything appeared at God’s command.  On Day One, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3).  On Day Four, “God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to divide the day from the night, and let them serve as markers to indicate seasons, days, and years.’  … and it was so” (Genesis 1:14-15).  It was so because God said so.  God’s word is always effective.

     God’s word continues to sustain the universe.  Upon creating the birds and the water creatures, “God blessed them when he said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.  Fill the waters of the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth’” (Genesis 1:22).  That word did not apply only to the initial birds and fish God created.  God’s blessing continues so that birds continue to hatch eggs and so that fish continue to spawn.  The same blessing was given to the man and the woman.  It is why people have a natural drive to produce the next generation of people.  Of course, God’s design is for that to take place within the bonds of marriage.  We are not animals.  God has a higher purpose for us than that.

     God’s word also enforces the universe to continue as God commands.  After Noah left the ark, God gave this promise: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).  God’s word affects every aspect of his creation.  Jesus taught us, “Not one [sparrow] will fall to the ground without the knowledge and consent of your Father” (Matthew 10:29).  God’s word is always effective.  He determines the rise and fall of nations.  He commands the wind and the waves.  He determined your birthday, your parents, and your hometown.  God’s word is always effective.

     Our Lord, however, desires to have a more intimate relationship with people.  You are not impersonal seasons or stars which move at God’s command.  You are more than sparrows which God feeds and sustains as long as he wills.  God created mankind to have a special relationship with him.  Birds, badgers, and beavers do not build cathedrals.  The wind and the waves do not offer up prayers, and the planets do not confess the Creed.  God created people to know him and to be in communion with him. 

     You are God’s special creation.  You were put on this earth to receive God’s blessings and to respond to God’s love with willing obedience.  In order for you to know the blessings God gives, God has to make them known.  In order for you to know how God wants you to honor and obey him, God has to make that known too.  God does this by speaking to you in the Scriptures.  God deals with mankind with words.  And God’s word is always effective.

     Through Isaiah, God explained how he works through his word: “Just as the rain and the snow come down from the sky and do not return there unless they first water the earth, make it give birth, and cause it to sprout, so that it gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater, in the same way my word that goes out from my mouth will not return to me empty.  Rather, it will accomplish whatever I please, and it will succeed in the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11). 

     God commands the rains to come down and the snow to cover the mountains.  The snow melts and fills the rivers.  The rain saturates fields, orchards, and gardens so that they produce fruits, grains, and vegetables.  At God’s command, the earth produces food to nourish us and sustain us.  In the same way, God’s word goes out to create and sustain faith in people.  As long as you are hearing his word, the Holy Spirit is working to sustain and strengthen your place in the kingdom of God.  By contrast, when God withholds the rain, the land becomes dry and barren.  So also, faith withers and may even perish when we are not hearing it.  This is our own fault.  The fault is not with God or his word.  God’s word is always effective, but it must be heard if it will have its effect.

     God’s word is always effective, but understand that this does not mean God’s word is always well-received.  The Bible reminds us, “The mind-set of the sinful flesh is hostile to God, since it does not submit to God’s law, and in fact, it cannot” (Romans 8:7).  The sinful heart resists God’s word.  Our sinful hearts despise God’s word when he commands us to do what is hard, costly, or inconvenient.  When someone sins against you, which is your desire—to forgive freely or to plot revenge?  To speak well of him or to slander him by telling others what he did to you?  It does not matter to you that you know what God wants.  The sinful heart does not want to do it.  In Jesus’ parable, the problem was never with the seed.  It was with the hardened path.  It was faith choked out by worldly cares or scorched by hardship.  Take care that your sinful heart does not rule over you. 

     If the sinful heart continues to resist God’s word, it will eventually harden itself into unbelief.  Consider Pharaoh.  Moses was sent by God to speak to Pharaoh.  No doubt, Moses told Pharaoh about the Lord, about the promise the Lord had made to the people of Israel, and about the Savior who would eventually come through them.  Based on God’s promises and the special status of the nation of Israel, Moses implored Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go.  “Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the LORD that I should listen to his voice and let Israel go?  I do not know the LORD, and I certainly will not let Israel go’” (Exodus 5:2).    

     Pharaoh repeatedly hardened his heart against God’s word.  The more Pharaoh heard God’s word, the more hardened his heart became.  God’s word is always effective.  Sometimes the effect God’s word has is that it makes sinners become more resistant, hostile, or even violent.  Eventually, God let Pharaoh have his way.  His condemnation was deserved.

     This is a warning for you.  Psalm 95 urges you to not repeat the errors of God’s people from the past.  “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as they did at Meribah, as they did that day at Massah in the wilderness, where your fathers challenged me and tested me though they had seen what I had done.  For forty years I was disgusted with that generation, and I said, ‘They are a people who have hearts that stray.  They do not acknowledge my ways.’  So I swore in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my resting place’” (Psalm 95:7-11).  They had God’s word, but they would not listen.  As a result, they forfeited God’s grace.  Once again, God’s word was effective in sentencing and condemning those who would not repent. 

     Of course, that is not the effect God wants to have on sinners.  What does God tell us his desire is?  “God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3-4).  The truth is the word which God speaks to us in the Scriptures.  The truth is that he is our good and merciful Father in heaven who does not take delight in the death and damnation of anyone.  The truth is that God’s promises are gracious and his commands are good.  The Lord is a Savior God, and everything he says and does is to serve our good both now and into eternity. 

     God knows our nature and that we are sinners.  But rather than despise us and dispose of us, he has acted to set us free from the bondage of our sin and from the curse of death.  As soon as a Savior was needed back in the Garden of Eden, God promised one.  Despite man’s continual rebellion, the Lord never withdrew the promise of a Savior.  Even if people are not faithful to him, the Lord remains faithful to his promises.  And God’s word is always effective.  Even though many harden their hearts against God’s word, that word still produces people who delight in God’s promises and are eager to follow God’s commands.

     True to his word, God the Father sent his Son to rescue you from your sin.  Jesus Christ fulfilled all that God said he would.  Jesus was fully obedient to God’s word, gladly doing all that his Father commanded him to do.  That included exchanging his holy life for your sin.  It did not matter to Jesus that his sufferings and death would be hard and costly and inconvenient; Jesus went to the cross to lay down his life to ransom sinners.  Jesus poured out his lifeblood to atone for those who are grieved by their sins, for those who still struggle to do what is good and right and want to do better, for those who are ambivalent to God’s word, and even for those who despise God’s word.  Jesus took up the sins of everyone. Those who harden their hearts to God’s words of salvation forfeit the blessings Jesus won for them.  God desires their salvation, but he will not force himself upon anyone.  Just as God let stubborn Pharaoh go his own way, so he will let those who love their sins keep them.  But God’s word will be effective upon them.  It will justly condemn them for their stubborn unbelief.

     But for you, God’s word has a different effect.  Through his word, God absolves you of all guilt.  The Lord covers your shame with Christ’s righteousness.  The Lord enables you to take up your cross and endure whatever hardships are laid upon you.  The Lord sustains you through this life and will bring you into everlasting glory. 

     God’s word is always effective.  Through it, the Holy Spirit works in you both to desire and to do what God commands.  The Lord corrects you when you are misguided, deceived, or defiant.  He convinces you that his commands are not burdensome.  The Holy Spirit guides you by his word so that you are spared from suffering many griefs.  Instead, he produces in you a blessed life which honors God and benefits your fellowman. 

     On the Last Day, God’s word will again prove itself to be effective.  The Lord Jesus will give the command, and every grave will give up its dead.  And no matter what anyone ever thought of you or said about you, the only word that will matter is what Jesus says.  To all who believed in him, he will give this word: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).  He whose word released you from sin will, by his word, restore you to life and raise you up to eternal glory.  This is God’s promise, and his word is always effective.

In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.