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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated. There is an old saying that goes like this: You can’t lose what you don’t have. You can’t lose what you don’t have. So what then is it that we really do possess that we fear losing? Is it our possessions? Possessions. We really don’t have them, do we? Those things are given to us and taken away from us as God wills. Are they relationships? Well, relationships too are given to us by God and allowed to be removed from us as well, according to God’s design. How about ourself? We don’t even have control over or ownership of our own person. We were bought by God. We are slaves to Christ. We do not have even possession of ourselves. So really there is nothing in this world that we really do possess.
Now last Sunday, Pastor had a wonderful sermon on the rich fool, the parable of the rich fool. And one of the questions that he asked was, from whom or from what was this rich fool protecting his goods? His goods. So from whom or from what do you and I attempt to protect or preserve our goods? From ourself? Nah, we have too much stock in our abilities. From other people? Well, now that could be true, but do we have any control over our goods to protect them from them even? Or do we, in the height of our vanity, think that we actually are preserving them from God himself? No. Do we think that if we do A and B, then that will thwart God’s design and will, and we can somehow avoid losing something? But again, you can’t lose what you don’t have.
Our good and gracious Lord has given us these things in this world so that we would enjoy them. He’s given us these gifts as a loving father to his beloved children so that we would use them and enjoy them. He never intended, though, that these possessions or these things that we use would actually have control over us. It was never his intent that these things that we use and enjoy would enslave us to them. And yet, you and I have had revealed to us by our Lord at various times, through various means, that we really are enslaved to the things we use. That we are meant to only use and enjoy and not possess.
Our Lord in this morning’s text said, Life is more than food. And the body? The body is more than just clothing. These anxieties and these worries that well up within us, and there’s not one of us here who have not worried or been anxious about the things in this life. Those anxieties and those worries reveal us to be cut from the same bolt of cloth that this entire pagan world is. It shows us to be just like them. And that is not who we are in Christ. Jesus said, does not your loving Father know that you need these things? The answer is, of course he does. He knows what your needs are.
Now, let’s be honest, too, that his understanding of what we need and our estimation of what we need matters aren’t always congruent, are they? But he knows what you need, as a good father would of his own beloved children. And yet there is this disconnect, this disparity. If we believe that he is our loving father, and if we believe that he is the one who gives us all things that we need, and yet we worry and are anxious like the rest of the world, who is it that makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust? Your loving Father, who makes the sun shine on the righteous and the unrighteous. Your loving Father, one and the same.
Jesus talked about this in the Lord’s Prayer when he taught his disciples to pray that fourth petition. God gives daily bread to everyone, including evil people. Jesus said very much in this morning’s text a promise. It’s a promise. Therefore, these things shall be added to you. Don’t read that sentence as if there is this cause and effect. If you seek these things, then these things will be added to you. But if you don’t seek these things, these things will not be added to you. No. The promise is, these things will be added to you. So you have no need to worry. You and I have no need to be anxious.
You and I have a loving Father who is over us and knows what we need. He also promised one other thing: the one thing that surpasses anything in this world. It has pleased him, Jesus said, to have given you the kingdom. It pleases him to have given you the kingdom. You are his, and he is yours. Because these things shall be added to us, because he has given us this kingdom, we need to repent of our worries. We need to repent of our anxiousness and being fearful. Of actually considering things counter to what we know by faith to be true. That he is a loving father. And that we are his beloved children. And that the kingdom is ours. And yet, by our actions and by our own thoughts, are we condemned because of our anxiousness and fears.
Therefore, we receive his kingdom again. And we eat and drink our true treasure, Christ himself. His forgiveness, His mercy—that’s the kingdom. Where Christ is, there is His kingdom, and where He is, there are His gifts. But not gifts that moth consume and rust destroys. Gifts that are eternal. The gift, the kingdom that He gives to us. Jesus said, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Remember the disconnect we spoke about? That’s the disconnect. Our faith screams for this treasure that is ours, that the Father was pleased to give us.
And yet our flesh screams out because it cannot see. It does not believe. It is the very thing that you and I wrestle and cause us the most grief. If it’s true that you can’t lose what you don’t have, and if the question from whom or from what are we trying to protect or preserve these things in this life, then we can see that our flesh allows these things in this world to be a major distraction in our relationship with our beloved Lord. Your loved ones in your relationship with them quickly point out to you the things that you have allowed to creep into that relationship with them that hinders your relationship with them. And when that loved one points that out, it hurts. And you have to repent so that restoration can bring joy and forgiveness can overcome all things.
The loving Father has made it very clear to you and to me that we have to repent, for we worry and are anxious about so many things. And like Mary showed Martha and Jesus told Martha, this is the one thing needful. Our Lord is concerned about these distractions that have crept into our life. And they creep in rather innocently because we wish to be good stewards and good caretakers of these things that God has given us. But these things, these things were meant to be used, not conserved, put into work, not held and protected from what and from whom.
Now you and I are taught regularly by the world and by our family and others to be good stewards. But good stewards does not imply hoarding. Good stewards implies using. There’s a difference, isn’t there? And that difference is the revelation that our flesh seeks to enslave us to this world. And our flesh seeks to bind us to our possessions. And our flesh ultimately seeks us to be knit together with ourself and go to hell in a handbasket. Right?
Whereas the Master says to you, I’m going to come again, don’t worry. The Master says to you, I’m the one who is pleased to give you the kingdom. The Master says to you, you are my beloved and I am yours. You and I are merely transients living in a transient world. In the same way that you and I can look at some of the panhandlers in our town with some disdain, and rightly so. But in the same way, does the world look upon us as Christians who use these gifts for God’s glory with the same disdain? Don’t you know what you’re doing? Don’t you know it’s a waste? Don’t you know they’re not going to use it wisely? Don’t you know it will be given to someone else? But that’s what our flesh says, isn’t it?
And yet, your life and my life as servants say, that’s God’s to begin with. It’s not mine. It’s our Lord’s who has given us the kingdom and said, these things will be added to you. It’s not mine. We’re patiently awaiting a homecoming. Like the hymn, Heaven is Our Home, we are patiently awaiting our homecoming. The Master will return, and he’ll take us home, and he’ll free us finally from these conflicts with which we are continually attacked and bring upon ourselves.
But in the midst of this struggle in which you and I find ourselves in this world, consider his great love for you to have given you the kingdom and to have given you all that you need to support this body and this life. Make decisions in this world as one who has inherited all things and will be given that upon the Master’s return. Don’t make decisions out of fears and anxieties.
Believe in, then, the transiency of your and my life and the transiency of this world, for you and I can’t lose what we really don’t have. But we have the kingdom. We have a loving Father. We have an inheritance prepared for us from the foundation of the world. That we do have, and that we also believe in. Receive the kingdom again, O brothers and sisters. Receive it, for there your treasure is. And God will continually bring your heart to trust in that treasure more than this world.
In the name of the one who has said this life is more than food and this body more than clothing, the one who was pleased to give you the kingdom, Jesus himself. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting.
