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First, the Antichrist, the remodeled world’s Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this evening comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated. I, a poor sinner, plead guilty before God of all sins. I have lived as if God did not matter, and as if I mattered most. My Lord’s name I have not honored, as I should. My worship and prayers have faltered. I have not let his love have its way with me, and so my love for others has failed. There are those whom I have hurt, and those whom I have failed to help. My thoughts and my desires have been soiled with sin. I am but dust, and to dust I shall return.
What should I do? Is not this the heart of every Christian today? Sadly, it is not. What? It is not in your heart and it is not in my heart. Unless God slows us down, unless God brings our world crashing in upon us, unless something stops us in our tracks, typically we do not think of it. We just keep motoring on.
Dear brothers and sisters, we’ve lost our bearings. And if losing our bearings, we are lost. We have forgotten that God is our loving Father. We may say the words, our Father who art in heaven, but do we have in mind each and every time he is loving toward us, not angry? He is gracious, not vengeful. We’ve lost our bearings. We have forgotten that our God knows our heart. Our heart, the part of us that’s a very, very fickle thing, isn’t it? At times we are desirous of God’s gift, seeking his gifts, craving his gifts of forgiveness. But most of the time, most of the time what we desire is affirmation from another human being, acknowledgment by someone we love or someone whose acknowledgment we value even more than God’s.
“‘Return to me,’ says our Lord, ‘return to me, not to be punished.'” Not to have a finger wagged at me or a tsk, tsk, tsk ringing in your ears, but rather return to me that you may be forgiven. Delight in my gifts, God says, not in the gifts of this world. Delight in my gifts that are eternal, not the gifts that can be crunched by another vehicle, that can be burned by fire, that can be torn, worn out, rusted. That can be broken and can be taken from us. Keep delighting in the gifts that matter. The eternal gifts. Not the gifts of this world.
Receive the blessing and the calling of Jesus that you’ve been given. Just as a cross of ashes was placed upon your forehead this evening, so a pastor laid that same cross upon your forehead and upon your heart when you were baptized, marking you, identifying you, defining who you are. Delight and seek that gift. That’s what he means when he says, return to me. Let his forgiveness have its way with you. Put not parameters upon it. It covers all or it covers none. There is not a partial. It covers all or it covers none. There is no half part. It is all or it is none. Seek the forgiveness of your sins that it may have its way with you. It changes you slowly and imperceptibly, but it changes you not from the outside in, but from the inside out.
God does not desire to see what you have done for Him. It matters not. In fact, what God does desire to see, God desires to see every one of the things of which you wish you could forget. That’s what He wants to see, that He may forgive it. That’s what He wants to have confessed, that He may cleanse it. The things that you shake your head and you think, why? That’s what he wants to see in all of its splendor and glory and dishonor. That he may forgive it. That he may strike it from your record. That he may bring you peace and not frustration.
He desires your heart and all that it contains. Those things as well. All that it contains. That he may forgive and have mercy. And he wants your heart not after you have done something kind for someone, because then your heart isn’t always filled with humility, is it? He especially wants your heart now when you can confess, I have not served. I have not loved. I have not let your forgiveness have its way with me. That’s when he wants your heart.
For where your treasure is, Jesus said, what matters to you? Your success? Your completion of a project? Your success? What you’ve saved and have seen gone away in the stock market, what is it? What is it that you treasure? The affirmation of a child or of a parent, of a husband or of a wife. What is it that you treasure? Because if you treasure it more than your Lord’s forgiveness, you know the rest. There your heart will be also.
And we’re all about the passion of our heart. For whom and from what? Do you value and treasure affirmation and acknowledgment? Is that going to last? Will that always be there? Cannot God take husbands and wives from us? Cannot God take children and parents from us? Cannot God cause our life to be changed with medical issues, economic issues, family issues? Let us not forget Job.
All that mattered to Job, it says, It is not for you to go home and reorient your goals and priorities away from affirmation of our neighbor to affirmation from God because all you’re doing is getting on a hamster wheel to try to make things right. And you’re not looking to Jesus, the one who was sacrificed to make things right. You’re not treasuring his gifts of forgiveness and mercy, which you’ve had proclaimed to you this evening already, and which you will eat and drink in a moment.
The main point of this evening’s text is this: to turn from yourself, to turn from yourself and your pride and your vision of identity and value. It is not because you have a husband or don’t have a husband. It’s not because you have a wife or don’t have a wife. It’s not because you have children or don’t have children. It’s because he has called you by name and has made you his. That’s where your identity is. That’s where your value is. That is what God is saying in this evening’s text.
That’s the treasure. To believe upon what he has done in his obedience, his obedience. Humility, his life instead of your life, his accomplishment, not your accomplishments. That’s the treasure. That’s the treasure.
And in fact, if we fix our heart on those treasures, which is the main point of the text, God will, in his great power, change our priorities. God will, through his great power, give you the strength to choose what really matters and not what your selfish flesh and my selfish flesh gets so upset about and yearns for.
I, a poor sinner, plead guilty before God of all sins. I have lived as if God did not matter and as if I mattered most. My Lord’s name I have not honored as I should. And my worship and prayers have faltered. I have not let his love have its way with me, and so my love for others has failed. There are those whom I have hurt, and there are those whom I have failed to help, because my thoughts, my desires, are so soiled with sin. I am but dust, and to dust I shall return.
Tell me, what should I do? Jesus said to you and to me, return to me. Return to me. In the name of Jesus. Amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
