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Sermon for the First Day of Lent
Joel 2:12-19 + Matthew 6:16-21
We’re going to focus on the Gospel this evening, but first, a word about Lent and the Lesson from Joel 2. The prophet Joel wrote to warn the people of Israel about the coming “day of the Lord,” which, as is often the case in the Old Testament, had a double fulfillment. The first “day of the Lord” would be the judgment brought upon Israel through the Assyrian armies—a judgment that would come upon the northern kingdom because of their stubborn idolatry and their insistence on living for the things of this world instead of living for God. The final, great and awesome “day of the Lord” is still coming, in the future, at the end of the world, when Judgment Day will come upon all flesh.
But in between these two “days of the Lord,” there would be a time of repentance, and renewal, and expansion for Israel. You heard Joel call Israel to earnest repentance this evening, but it’s later in the same chapter where Joel prophesies the Day of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the renewal of Israel before the final Day of the Lord comes—not the Israel that rejects Jesus as the Christ, but the true Israel that embraces Him, the Holy Christian Church.
And so, as the true Israel of God, we take Joel’s call to Israel and apply it also to ourselves. Turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. Rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God! For he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, rich in mercy, and he relents from sending disaster. A fitting word for the first day of Lent.
In many ways, the Lenten season is like every other season in the Church Year. We hear the Word of God, both Law and Gospel, and we rejoice in God’s goodness to us in Christ. But this season does have an emphasis on the call to repentance, to perform an ongoing, sober evaluation of your heart and your life. And wherever your thoughts, words, deeds, and the attitudes of your heart have strayed from what is good and right, wherever your sinful flesh has begun to tug at you to lead you astray, take this opportunity to recognize it, to turn from it, and to turn to God for forgiveness for Christ’s sake, before the Day of the Lord arrives.
Turning to our Gospel, we see Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, doing that very thing, teaching His disciples to recognize where their sinful flesh may easily go astray, to give up their bad behaviors and to pursue better ones. Some people think Lent is about giving up harmless things, like certain foods, or certain pastimes. In reality, Lent is only about giving up sinful thoughts and behaviors and beliefs. It’s about wrenching your heart away from its attraction to this passing-away world and setting your mind on God, and on the heavenly things that last. According to today’s Gospel, here is what you must give up for Lent: Seeking the praise of men, and storing up treasures for yourself on earth.
When you fast, Jesus says, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sullen look on your face. For they disfigure their faces, so that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
Jesus mentions fasting here, which is probably why this text was chosen to initiate the Lenten season, with its traditional focus on fasting. But in reality, it isn’t fasting itself that Jesus is teaching about. He’s using fasting as a example of a common practice among the Jews that was meant to serve a spiritual purpose—to focus their hearts on God—but that many had turned into a way to show off before men, to get people to look at them and marvel at how spiritual they were, how devout, how religious. How would you know that anyone is fasting? You wouldn’t, unless they made sure you knew. In the example Jesus gives, some Jews would put a sour, sullen, gloomy expression on their face as they went around town, to get people’s attention, to show people that they were fasting. “Oh, look at his face! He must be fasting today. What a devout, religious person he is!” They were seeking the praise of men.
Notice what Jesus says about such people: They have received their reward. In other words, God has no praise, no reward, no approval for such people. The praise they have received from the people around them is all the reward they’re going to get.
Don’t do that! Jesus says to His disciples. Don’t be like that, going around doing religious things, doing virtuous things in such a way that you draw people’s attention to how religious you are! Today we call it “virtue signaling,” where you have to make sure everyone around you knows that you don’t approve of someone else’s behavior, because you’re better than that—and you want to make sure everyone knows it. No, seeking the praise or the approval of men, of other people, is an ugly thing, in God’s eyes. But that’s exactly what your sinful flesh wants to do—to please other people, to get other people’s attention, and approval, and praise. The sinful flesh craves those things. And the more you live to please men, the less you will end up being pleasing to God.
Instead, Jesus says, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that your fasting is not seen by men, but by your Father, who is in secret. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you openly. If you’re going to perform some spiritual exercise or discipline, like fasting, or praying, make sure not to let people see or know about it. If you’re doing anything to honor God, to worship God, to devote yourself to God, then keep it a secret, and let God be the only one who sees it. Give up seeking man’s approval and turn your longing for approval entirely over to God, and you will have the reward of His approval and praise, for the sake of the Lord Jesus, who makes believers pleasing in His Father’s sight.
Another thing to give up for Lent is mentioned in the second part of today’s Gospel, where Jesus says, Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. He isn’t commanding His disciples to get rid of all their possessions. He isn’t telling people to empty their closets, or their pantries, or their barns, or their bank accounts, where they store their food or their money. What is He warning His disciples not to do? He’s warning them not to order their lives around filling their closets, or their pantries, or their barns, or bank accounts, as if having a healthy bank account or retirement account were the goal of life. Remember, everything you have here on earth can be gone in an instant, whether destroyed by moth or rust, or stolen away by thieves. And even if your possessions aren’t destroyed or used up or stolen during your lifetime, at the moment of your death, they won’t do you any good at all, when you have eternity staring you in the face. If you lived your life to store up things for yourself, you will be shocked to find out that your short life was wasted, and horrified to learn that there is nothing waiting for you but the everlasting torment of hell.
Your sinful flesh is always seeking earthly comfort, earthly security, earthly success, and earthly glory. But the more you seek those things in this life, the less you will have after this life. So give up storing up treasures for yourself on earth.
Instead, Jesus says, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. What are the treasures one can have in heaven? And how does a person store them up there? The treasures that await in heaven are the great blessings God has promised after this life: eternal life and joy in His presence, seeing Him face to face, knowing fully, even as we are fully known, eternal dwellings that Jesus is right now preparing for us, perfect fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, no more tears, no more sorrow, no more pain, no more loss. Beyond that, there will be rewards of grace for each and every deed of love, done in faith, and many more treasures than that—treasures we can’t even conceive of now. As the Scripture says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”
But in order to have all those treasures in heaven, you need to reach that heavenly inheritance.
So give up storing up for yourselves treasures on earth. Give up seeking the praise of men. And focus on Christ and on the things above. As the writer to the Hebrews say, Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Consider Him, the Lord Jesus, throughout this Lenten season. Consider the things He suffered and the opposition He endured from sinful men during Holy Week. Fix your eyes on Christ, and on the things above. And so prepare, O Israel, for the great and awesome Day of the Lord. Amen.
