Wednesday of Lent 4 Trust As an Act of Repentance In the Ash Wednesday Gospel (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21), Jesus told us to do certain good works—certain acts of repentance—secretly. There are, of course, other good works that Jesus likewise commands—good works that must be done openly and publicly. Not only did Jesus say, “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matthew 6:3) and “Go in your room and shut the door and pray” (Matthew 6:6), but Jesus also said, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Trust is a good work. Trust is the miraculous fruit created by your Lord’s gift of faith to you. Trust is also one of those good works that can be secret and public, hidden and fully visible, both at the same time. • On the one hand, when you publicly speak the Apostles’ Creed, for example, you are announcing to the world that you trust the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Confessing the faith is a public display of trust in God. • On the other hand, no one will see your trust in God while you sit in the privacy of your own home, looking at your limp checkbook and forcing yourself to believe that God will nevertheless provide your bread for the day. Trust is a secret act; an act of repentance. James accommodates both the public and the private aspects of trust when he says to us in tonight’s reading, Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. That opening phrase—“come now, you who say”—is important. When James uses the Word “you who say,” he is referring both to the words you speak publically with your lips AND to the secret words you speak privately inside yourself. “Come now, you who say,” that is, “Come now… • you who like to make big talk of your plans and intentions, perhaps in the hope that people will think more highly of you. • you who want to have everything ironed out and ordered in your mind; you who want to have a clear pathway charted for yourself, so that you do not need to worry; you who take false comfort in having a plan. … you do not know what tomorrow will bring.” With these Words, James wants each of us to know that presumption is an act of idolatry. Trust is an act of repentance. Trust is an act of choosing to set aside your will, so the Lord your God may exercise His divine wisdom in charting your life’s path for you. Trust is an act of nailing your desires to the cross, so that the good and gracious desires of God may rise up and be done. Trust is recognizing that your God is much more able to order your days and your deeds than you are. Trust is the divine gift of faith that your Lord Jesus has given to you, so that you may confidently say—both in your secret heart and in your public confession—“If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” Jesus repeatedly said in the Ash Wednesday Gospel that, when you perform your acts of repentance—your secret good works—“your Father who sees in secret will reward YOU” (Matthew 6:4, 6, 18). Your Father will repay you. You gain a return on your investment. Forgiveness of sins and eternal life are NOT the reward of your good works. Those things come only from Jesus and they are a free gift! Forgiveness of sins and eternal life are now yours—given to you long before you performed any good works—and Jesus will not allow these things to be taken away from you. Nevertheless, the Scriptures teach us to believe that certain “rewards have been offered and promised to the works of the faithful” (AP IV.194). Your act of repentance—your deliberate trust in God—will reward you. Here are some possibilities: • Trust in God has the powerful effect of changing the way you look at your gains and your losses in life. Your self-confidence wants to take credit for everything you might gain and your inborn hostility toward God (Romans 8:7) wants to blame Him for everything you might lose. When your bank account grows or your house gets purchased, it is easy to say, “Look what I have done!” and “Here is what I plant to do.” When your account all but disappears in the course of a day, or when your house sinks into earth, it is easy to pray, “What did I do to deserve this?” Your deliberate, repentant act of trust in God will stabilize your emotions. You will begin to see your gains as nothing other than God’s gift. You will begin to see your losses as expressions of God’s mercy and grace in Christ Jesus. When you say in your heart and decide in your mind, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that,” then there is no such thing as success or failure. Every part of your life—both the ups and the downs—turns in to a good and gracious gift, “coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). • Your trusting acts of repentance will also heighten your realization—and your appreciation—for the divine gift of your daily bread. Trust in God teaches you to say, “Amen,” to the passage of Scripture that declares, “You open Your hand, O Lord, and satisfy the desires of every living thing” (Psalm 145:16). • Your trusting acts of repentance will have the powerful effect of increasing your faith. Trust is a gift from God. Trust is the power of the divine Word operating in your life. Here is a simple rule that will always prove true: The more you require yourself to trust in God, the more you will find it easy to trust in God. To state the simple rule in a different way: God your heavenly Father forgives you all your sins and promises you an eternal reward, solely on account of the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus your Lord. Does it not follow that the same God may be trusted for all other things? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us (Romans 8:32-35, 37).
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