Where Your Treasure Is, There Your Heart Will Be Also
A Sermon for Saturday of Lent 1 (Tenth Day of Lent)
Based Upon Saint Luke 12:1-34
February 16, AD 2008
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke
12:34).
Where is your treasure? Where are those things that you value above
all other things in your life? Where do you find those objects that,
from your way of looking at them, are absolutely priceless?
Where is your treasure? That is vitally important for you to know.
Because there is where you will find your heart. “For where your
treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34). Your
treasure--those things that you desire above all other things in your
life--are the true desires of your heart. Those objects that, from your
way of looking at them, are absolutely priceless, are what your heart
truly treasures--truly loves--above all things.
Where does your heart find its treasure? Where are the objects of your
heart’s desire to be found? Where is your love directed? Where is
your heart?
If you are honest with yourself, you must admit that your heart is in a
body that continues to struggle with a burning desire to treasure
things--physical things that we can see and touch and taste--earthly
things that have to do only with our lives on earth. Because of our
fallen nature, Christians fall into the trap--even while standing in
the very presence of God--of setting the heart on a quest for objects
of a fallen world, a world which teaches us to measure our treasure in
terms of dollars and cents.
We see this happen in today’s Scripture lesson to a man from the crowd
who says to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance
with me” (Luke 12:13). In the very presence of the Son of God, this
poor man reveals the true poverty of his treasure, for his heart is in
the land and money and animals and other things that his deceased
father has left behind, rather than in love with his own brother and
seeing a true treasure in a peaceful relationship with one who shares
his flesh and blood. As Jesus responds to this man in the crowd, he
calls all of us to repent of our treasuring of the things for which our
fallen flesh foolishly craves: “Take heed and beware of covetousness,
for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he
possesses” (Luke 12:15).
Yes, take heed indeed of this Word of Jesus, the Very Word of God.
Take His True Word to heart. For the deceitful words the devil spoke
while tempting Jesus--to possess all the kingdoms of the world and
their temporary glory--are now aimed at your heart, leading you into
the temptation of finding true treasure in the things of this world;
which, though they are good gifts from God Himself, are nevertheless
intended to be enjoyed only during our time in this world. Through the
parable that He teaches, Jesus proclaims this truth to us, that we
might lament those times when we act and speak and think like the rich
man does, and confess that our hearts are not in the right place:
"The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought
within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store
my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and
build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I
will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years;
take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry." ' But God said to him,
'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will
those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure
for himself, and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12:16-21).
Where is this man’s treasure? Where has he placed his heart?
Certainly, he delights in the abundance of the harvest, and in the
delightful “problem” he has in needing a bigger barn to store this
blessing. Yet his true treasure, and where his heart can be found, is
in his body. He speaks to his soul, and yet his only concern is for
the comforts of his body: “Take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”
The crops have become the objects by which this rich man expresses his
love to the love of his life: “I, I, I, I, I, I” himself. Of course,
it is indeed good to care for one’s body; as the Lord teaches us
through His Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians, the 5th
Chapter: “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes
it.” And yet this teaching from the Lord is in the same place where He
teaches a husband to love his wife and a wife to love her husband, and
where He teaches all Christians to love those in their fellowship, and
where He teaches all to love the Lord. . . .
. . . and where He teaches all how the Lord loves them all--even you!
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke
12:34). This is not a truth that applies only to man. Like all
Scriptural truth, this also applies to God. Yes, for God too, this
Word stands true: “Where [Y]our treasure is, there [Y]our heart will be
also” (Luke 12:34).
So, where is God’s treasure? Where are those things that God values
above all other things? Where does God find those objects that, from
His way of looking at things, are absolutely priceless to Him?
Well, where is God’s heart?
It is in Man.
For God’s heart is found in the Man Jesus Christ. The coming of God’s
Son, Jesus Christ, into the world, bearing God’s own heart, reveals
what God Himself treasures: it is man--whom God created as the crown of
His creation. Though the first man fell at Satan’s temptations,
treasuring something other than the things of God, and setting his
heart in love for someone other than God, the God Who is angered by sin
is also gracious in His mercy upon sinful man. He has set His heart
upon us, for so He loves us, by setting His heart within one like us,
His own Son. Jesus came into the world like one of us so that we could
be like Him: God’s Priceless Treasure, Beloved of God Forever.
The Man Jesus faithfully withstood all of Satan’s temptations to sin,
that you, Sinful Man, might be declared faithful by believing that He
did this all for you. The Man Jesus took upon Himself all of your
sins, that you, Sinful Man, might be declared sinless by believing
that He did this all for you. The Man Jesus died upon the cross, that
you, Sinful Man, might be declared not to deserve death by believing
that He did all of this for you. And the Man Jesus rose again from the
grave that you, Sinful Man, might be declared alive forevermore by
believing that He did this all for you. Truly, God’s heart is set upon
Man; truly, Man is His treasure.
Truly, you, O Man, are His treasure. For truly He has set His heart
upon you in His Baptism of you, declaring you to be His Beloved Child
forevermore, cleansing you of every sin in your past and present and
future as He touches you with that holy water. Truly He has set His
heart upon you in His Absolution of you, declaring you to be forgiven
of all of your sins by the power of His Holy Name, The Father and The
Son and The Holy Spirit when He speaks that Holy Word in your ears.
Truly He has set His heart upon you by inviting you to His Family
Table, where He imparts to you the heart of His Son as you take into
your own body the Very Body and Blood of His Christ Jesus Son in and
with and under the bread of wine of His Holy Supper.
And through these means of His grace, He strengthens you in faith and
in heart, and thereby makes you rich toward God. Your see your heart
already in Heaven, for so certain is the eternal life that Christ Jesus
has won for you. And so, by the Holy Word and Holy Spirit of God, Who
are at work within you, you lay up for yourself treasure in Heaven, and
not upon the earth. You trust that God will provide you with all that
you need, shelter and food and clothing and the like, and so you do not
worry about your life. Where you have been provided with an abundance
by the Lord, you see these things as objects for expressing your love
for God and your neighbor by sharing your abundance with your fellow
man--in your household, to your extended family, with your friends, and
through your church and community service groups to those in need. For
so you have been given such treasure by God--even such a treasure as
God’s own heart.
For where His treasure is, there His heart will be also.
Amen.
The Reverend Jeffrey A. Ahonen
Deacon, Salem Lutheran Church, Malone, Texas
Mission Pastor, Saint Henry Lutheran Mission, Montreal, Wisconsin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.sainthenry.info
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