Dear Christian friends:

Nobody is perfect. All are sinners before God. Yet some Christians do many more good works than others. Men such as Martin Luther, John Knox, Dr. Moody, John Salvner, Bill Graham, etc. What is their secret? In our text Jesus tells us the secret of a Good Christian.

As seed is the farmers secret power, God's Word is the secret of a good Christian. Jesus tells us about the wonderful power of a seed. A farmer went out to sow. Some seed multiplied a hundred times; some fell on poor soil or in among weeds and multiplied nothing.

Then Jesus cried out, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." (verse 8) The twelve disciples did not understand. They asked Jesus to explain. So Jesus says, "Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand." (verse 10) The seed is very powerful although it looks dry and dead. Seed found in an Egyptian tomb two-thousand years ago when planted grew.

Farmers even sometimes forget that. They are proud of their machinery. He will show you his machines and boast of what they can do, but all his machinery is good for nothing without seed. God's secret power for the farmer is in his seed. God has hidden life in it.

As the secret of a good farmer is his seed, so the secret of a good Christian is God's Word. The seed is in the Word of God.

We easily forget that. Many think the Word of the Bible is dry and cheap and can't give life and power. So we hesitate to read it and hear it. But God has hidden great power in that old dry and boring Word.

Jesus said one time: "The words I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:63)

Peter: "For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word that was preached to you.” (1 Peter 1:23-25)

The Good News which Peter means is that God loves sinners and has forgiven all their sins because of Jesus who died on the cross for us and rose again on Easter morning. This is the secret of a good Christian: He values God's Word more than everything else in the world.

David said: "O how I love your law (word)! I meditate on it all day long." (Psalm 119:97) Then he writes: "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." (Psalm 119:11) "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." (Psalm 119:105)

Like David the good Christian hides God's Word in his heart. Quietly at home he reads and studies God's Word. On Sunday he is in church to hear his pastor preach it and read it. Quietly he goes to the Lord's Supper to receive God's love and forgiveness in Jesus' body and blood.

God's Word makes him alive in his heart and spirit and He serves the Lord with gladness. He chooses the right ways of God and rejects the wrong ways of man and this proud sinful world. Troubles and temptation do no conquer him; He has joy and hope in Jesus, His Savior. If he sins or fails God sometimes, even often, he does not give up hope; he trusts in God's love and mercy in the blood of Jesus to forgive him.

As the secret of a good Christian is God's Word, so it is also the secret of a successful Church. Often we think new and larger building and big attendance. But all that is good for nothing if that Church fails to preach and teach the true Word of God to the people.

Yes, we need good buildings and larger buildings but we need true teachers and preachers of God's Word and children and people to come and study and learn it.

A church that does not love to hear and study God's Word is not a successful church even if it has a beautiful building like we do. It does not do anything good and pleasing to God.

So the secret of a good Christian and a good church is God's Word. So as Jesus shows in the parable we must let nothing steal the Word of God from our hearts or bother our study and meditation in it.

Although God's Word is very powerful and gives life and strength to do good works it cannot succeed if we let Satan steal the Word from us or if we let worries or problems or pleasures (TV) of this world choke the new life that has begun in our hearts.

We must make time for for study, meditation and practice of God's Word in our daily life. You have Portals of Prayer, The Lutheran Calendar, Sunday Services, Lenten Services, the Lutheran Witness, the Deaf Lutheran and Bible Classes.

Are you arranging your life so you can hide God's Word in your heart? It is the secret of a good Christian.

Amen.