The saying is that “Home is where the heart is.” So, where is your heart at home? Where is it set?
That’s really also a question of what your treasure is, where you look for it and seek it, and where you would keep it and store it for yourself, in order to keep it safe — and to safeguard yourself.
Your treasure is your bliss, your prize, your real wealth. It’s whatever makes you happiest — and, when it is threatened or taken away, you’re at a loss, frightened, and sad to the point of despair.
Your treasure is wherever your heart would find its peace and rest, its satisfaction and contentment. It is whatever marks and measures the meaning and purpose of your life and fulfills your destiny. And as such, your treasure is also your god; it is what you worship with your heart, mind, body, and life, with your time, attention, and energy.
So, what is your treasure? Where is your heart?
Perhaps it is your property, your house and home, your souvenirs, collections, and investments. Or maybe it’s your family and friends, or your power and position in the world.
What is it that you’re proud of? What identifies you? What do you rely on and fall back upon?
If you treasure and store up stuff, whether coins or castles, clothes or collectibles, be aware that it will perish — if it is not stolen first. None of it will last, nor will it give you life or save you.
If you treasure worldly wealth and riches of whatever currency, paper or plastic, precious metals or digital data, it will come and go in the blink of an eye — or you will die before it has done you any good. Locusts of one sort or another will come and devour every bit of it, and there will be nothing left. Neither the biggest bank nor your mattress will secure such wealth for you in heaven.
And if you treasure other people as the source and substance of your life and happiness and future well-being, remember that all men die because of sin. Kings and queens, princes and princesses, presidents, actors and celebrities, all are mortal, as are pastors according to their person. Parents and children, spouses and friends also die in their own day, and they shall not return to you here.
In the meantime, people are fickle and flighty, not only finite but fallible and flawed. Other people are just as sinful as you are. If you make of them your god, they will fall far short and fail you. They may lie to you, or break their promises, no matter how sincere, or they will simply be unable to follow through, no matter their good intentions. They may speak with flattering words, all the while their thoughts and feelings are already pulling them away from you to something else.
But what if everyone actually did think well of you? What if everyone were impressed with you and your abilities and accomplishments, and they looked up to you and praised you in every way? What if your reputation in this world was sterling silver and unsurpassed in all the world?
In such a case, you would already have your reward. But not yet with your Father in heaven.
Enjoy your reputation, your position and prestige, the praise and flattery of the whole world if you can, for as long as it lasts. But beware that it will not help you in the end, and it will not raise you from the dead. Neither now nor ever will it set you free from sin or set you right with God.
If you would have real life, now and forever, repent of your idolatry and return to the Lord, the one true God, your Maker and Redeemer.
Store up treasures for yourself in His heaven, in the secret place of faith, in the hidden place of His Cross, in the inner room of His Church. That is to fix your eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith, and to be reconciled to God in Him. For Christ Jesus is your Righteousness, and He is your Holiness. He is your Peace with God and your neverending Sabbath Rest.
He is your true and lasting Treasure.
So, the question is, How do you store up Jesus for yourself? What could that possibly mean? And what is it going to look like in practice in the life that God has given you here on earth?
You lay hold of Jesus where He lays hold of you, that is, by His Ministry of the Gospel. For He gives Himself to you by this way and means, as the One who has given Himself to God for you. He is the Sacrifice for your sins, whom God does not despise; and He is now also your priestly Food and Drink. And as He was anointed by the Spirit of God in His own Body of flesh and blood, so does He anoint you with the Holy Spirit by the Gospel, by the forgiveness of all your sins.
His Flesh and Blood are the Sacrifice of Atonement for the sins of the whole world; for He who knew no sin became Sin and Death and the Curse, in order to put sin to death in Himself and to bring forth the blessing of life through the forgiveness of sins in His Resurrection from the dead.
So has He entered into heaven for you, where He has established His place for you with His God and Father, and where He ever lives to make intercession for you as your great and merciful High Priest. Thus, by the power of His indestructible Life, in and with His own glorious Body — risen from the dead and never to die again, immortal and imperishable — He is your priceless Treasure, now and forever, whom moth and rust and thief cannot touch and even death cannot destroy.
This one Lord Jesus Christ is your Anchor behind the Veil, within the Holy of Holies eternal in the heavens. And He is your Life and your Salvation with the one true God, forever and ever.
And yet, see here, He has also left behind the Grain Offering of His Body and the Drink Offering of His Blood, so that you may eat and drink and be satisfied and rejoice in the Lord who loves you. With these most holy and precious Gifts, He gives nothing less than His own Self to you, and He pledges Himself to you for all time and for eternity. So that, whether you have much or little — really, no matter what you have in this life on earth — you have all good things in Him forever.
Whether men speak well of you or curse you, the Word of the Lord Jesus adorns you with holiness and righteousness, with the glory of His grace and the beauty of His Resurrection from the dead. That is what He says to you and concerning you. And that is what He does by and with His Word.
Whether you live or die, you are the Lord’s, and He is yours, and in Him all things are yours: His Father and His Spirit, His Name, His Sonship, His Life and Salvation in body and soul, and all things in heaven and on earth.
You lack no good thing in Him, nor shall you want for anything, as you are seated at His Table to eat the Flesh of the Lamb and to drink from the overflowing Chalice of His Blood.
Such righteousness and life and peace and rest can only be given by the one true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — by His grace alone — and they can only be received by faith in Jesus Christ. No one else in all of creation can bestow such Gifts, nor can your own works obtain them.
Yet, this righteousness and life, this peace and rest of Christ Jesus are yours. They are for you, and they are here given and poured out for you, preached into your ears, pressed into your hands, placed upon your lips, and laid upon your heart by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel.
Here, then, at the Lord’s Altar in the Lord’s House, your heart has found its home in Christ Jesus — and with His God and Father, who is now also your God and Father.
It is with such sure and certain hope, in such confidence and faith, that you pray to Him and call upon His Name. Not to be seen or heard by men, but to be heard and answered by your Father in heaven. He will reward you by His grace with Christ Jesus and all His benefits, hidden under the Mystery of His Cross, yet a greater treasure than all the heavens and the earth combined.
So do you also fast in the same way you pray, in the faith and confidence of your God and Father, knowing that He feeds you and daily and richly provides you with all that you need for this body and life on earth. You discipline your mortal flesh, depriving it of passing pleasures, in order that you might hunger and thirst for the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, and so also for His Kingdom and His Righteousness. You train yourself to regard the Creator and Giver of all things above His whole creation and all His many gifts. You curb your appetites, in order to prevent your appetites from controlling and consuming you; for thus you set your heart and mind, your body, soul, and spirit against the enticements of the devil, and you rest yourself in the refuge of your Lord Jesus.
So are you also free — free and clear to love and serve your neighbors with genuine works of compassion and genuine gifts of mercy. That is what alms are, namely, gifts and works of mercy and compassion. Trusting your God and Father in Christ for all that you need, and receiving what He provides — not only for yourself, for your family and friends, but also for the stranger at your gate, for orphans and widows in distress, and for the poor and needy who are always at hand — you are able to be generous on the right hand and on the left with the gifts that God has provided.
You don’t keep score nor maintain a ledger. You simply love, as you are loved. In this way you let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. And you also glorify Him and exercise your faith in Him, who by grace alone has given you all things, when you fast, and when you pray, and when you give alms. These are not works by which you become righteous; and these are not works by which you are justified by men; but these are works of faith, by which you glorify the Lord your God and serve your neighbor.
So does your God and Father work His good works in you, even in your body of flesh and blood, in your words and in your actions of holy faith and holy love. For He washes you through and through, inside and out, with His tender mercies and divine compassion. He cleanses you from all of your sins and iniquities by His Gospel. He repairs whatever has been broken, as surely as He has raised Christ Jesus from the dead. And He fills up whatever has been lacking in you with Jesus, with His Food and Drink and Holy Spirit. All that He has, He gives to you by His grace.
Now, if you do not find or experience such grace and peace and love and hope in yourself, yet it is given to you — and it is yours — in Christ Jesus. Do not receive this grace of God in vain, but lay hold of Him who loves you, who lays hold of you by His Word of forgiveness, by the Gospel of His Cross. For now, yes, even now, is the acceptable Time. Now is the Day of Salvation.
Where you are disciplined by His Love, where you are broken by His Law, where you are crucified by His Cross, there does He also raise you up by His Gospel in His Resurrection from the dead. His death is your repentance, and so His Resurrection is your Life, your Righteousness, and your Hope in the face of sin and death and every evil.
Do not despair, for He does not grow weary of loving you. He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He does not punish you as your sins deserve, but He daily and richly forgives your sins and cleanses you from all unrighteousness. He is patient with you and, as He has pledged Himself to you, He shall never leave you nor forsake you.
Your God and Father in heaven has opened His heart to you in Christ Jesus, your Savior, who has come to make His Home with you here, to abide with you in Peace and Love. Here, then, is your Home, and here is your heart’s true and greatest Treasure; for here is your God in the Flesh.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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