Where Are You Anchored?

[00:00:04] Earthly wealth is not abiding like a stream away is gliding. We just sang. [00:00:10] It's like it's. [00:00:12] It's. [00:00:14] Well, it's. [00:00:17] We can try and grasp it, but it's less sure, less certain than we might think in the moment. [00:00:24] Earthly wealth is not abiding. [00:00:27] It's not hanging around like a stream away is gliding. Safe I anchor in his grace Safe I anchor in his grace Think about our thoughts, our hopeful thoughts, our fearful thoughts, anxious thoughts, as looking to anchor somewhere. [00:00:49] What can I put my hope in? [00:00:51] How can I stop being anxious? [00:00:54] Thoughts are moving different directions, and we're looking to anchor it somewhere. [00:01:00] Safe I anchor in his grace that's the place to anchor our lives, to find stability and peace and hope in God. [00:01:13] That's what St. Paul says this morning. Set your mind on things above, not on earth. Not on things on earth. Right. [00:01:22] Where do you anchor your mind? [00:01:25] Where does it stop its frantic searching? [00:01:29] And rest in God. [00:01:33] That's the key. [00:01:34] St. Augustine, a church father from the fifth century. One of his most quoted lines. [00:01:42] It's from his confessions. [00:01:45] He says he's praying to God, and he says our hearts are restless, like they don't have rest. They're looking for something. They're searching. Our hearts are restless until they find rest in thee. [00:02:00] That's the struggle of the Christian life, to anchor our thoughts, to anchor our minds in Jesus Christ. [00:02:14] So let's talk about thinking and anchoring our minds in something. [00:02:20] It's pretty important right now that I, you know, that I think so I don't get distracted. [00:02:29] No, I think I've always been a. I was always kind of a spacey kid, was I, Mom? [00:02:38] Yeah, my mom's here, and so I'm just going to have a conversation with her from here. [00:02:47] No, I mean, I was pretty good at just kind of looking at the ceiling for a long time in class. You teachers might appreciate that. I don't know. Do you have spacey kids? [00:02:57] But I was just able to think about other things I remember in church. [00:03:03] Like, if you were to ask me, like, what did you think about instead of the sermon in church? [00:03:09] The thing that comes to mind for me is counting. Like, I would play a game where I would see how high I could count this Sunday, you know, And. I don't know, I think I got above a thousand. You know, not trying to brag, but just so it's like, well, what do you think about sometimes? I'd like to know, you know, where is your mind going during the sermon? [00:03:35] Not really. Thanks for your Attention. [00:03:42] But so our mind goes somewhere, right? We let our mind. [00:03:47] We let our mind go sometimes. [00:03:49] And where does it go to? You know, it's like it's. Sometimes it's drawn, like, by a magnetic force to something or another. [00:03:58] So is there that thing that you can't stop thinking about right now? [00:04:04] Maybe you've had something really difficult happen in your life, or maybe you're working on a project that's coming to completion and it's really important for all these reasons, or maybe there's just something you want. [00:04:19] There are all kinds of things that can draw our attention, like gravity. [00:04:29] And so it takes discipline. Actually, attention is something that you learn and practice through discipline. So as a child counting in church, you know, that wasn't very disciplined of me and whatnot, but I was a child, right? And these things grow. And so you learn more and more to aim your attention in a certain direction instead of just letting it go. [00:04:56] Jesus this morning calls us to. [00:05:00] Well, to aim our attention toward God, right? That we would be rich toward God and not covetous. [00:05:10] Right? Covetousness would be undue attention to earthly things that we want. [00:05:19] Jesus says that we should instead aim to be rich toward God. And Paul, of course, again says, set your mind on things above, not on things on earth. [00:05:32] At the beginning of the gospel reading, I mean, did it stick in your mind? [00:05:40] What got Jesus on this topic? Why did Jesus tell the story in the first place? [00:05:45] It's because a man had his mind on earthly things. [00:05:49] So here Jesus is talking, he's speaking to the crowd, and they're not all paying attention to what he's saying. [00:05:59] This man has something that feels very pressing, very concerning. [00:06:04] He needs part of the inheritance. Why? Well, to support his life. [00:06:13] Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. [00:06:20] So he's been daydreaming about the problem that's been festering maybe for a while. [00:06:26] Does he. Should he have some of the inheritance? Is it rightly his and his brothers just keeping it from him? [00:06:36] Well, we don't know why, because it's a secondary concern. [00:06:43] He really shouldn't be thinking about this right now. [00:06:47] But he asked Jesus about it. [00:06:51] Now, this is kind of instructive for us, I think, like, what should you do if you're just really worried about. [00:07:01] Well, maybe it's literally a problem with an inheritance. [00:07:05] Say you're trying to figure out how to split the inheritance with siblings or something like that, right? Whatever it is in your life that's drawing your attention Like a magnet. What should you do with that? [00:07:18] You should probably talk to Jesus about it. [00:07:22] It's like his mind isn't in the right place there. He has a heavenly teacher. [00:07:28] God himself come down from heaven to speak with him, and he is concerned about the inheritance. You know what Jesus does by his grace, he shifts this man's attention away from earthly things to heavenly things, away from those things that seem so pressing but aren't. The one thing needful. Remember that from a few weeks ago. [00:07:55] It's like. Like he said to Martha, martha, Martha, you're anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. [00:08:04] He pulls her attention away from all those things and sets it in the right place. The one thing necessary, which is Jesus himself, life and wisdom, himself standing there in front of her. Well, the same thing here. [00:08:21] Jesus shifts his attention away from love and concern for earthly things to heavenly things. [00:08:33] And he does the same thing for you and me. [00:08:36] So cast your cares on him. [00:08:40] Cast all your anxieties on him. He cares for you. [00:08:43] Bring it to the Lord in prayer. [00:08:49] Sometimes, Sometimes it can feel like we can't quiet our minds down. Like our minds are just running in circles and, well, what do I do with it? [00:09:01] Right? So you can try and distract yourself for a while to get your mind off those things, or you can try various tactics, but take it to the Lord in prayer. [00:09:14] Cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you and he'll take them. [00:09:23] What needs to happen in those moments is repentance. Repentance means a change of mind. The Greek word is related. [00:09:31] It's like change and mind. [00:09:35] That's what the word is literally. [00:09:39] Repentance is a turn away from earthly things to heavenly things. And those heavenly things are received through Jesus Christ. So we can fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. [00:09:53] Follow him, which means. Well, when you follow somebody, you look at the back of them. [00:10:01] We follow Jesus, looking at him plowing that field and not looking back. That's the struggle of the Christian faith. [00:10:12] This morning, Evelyn was baptized and, well, boy, look at our new daughter and think, like, there she is. [00:10:27] I mean, she's just this little tiny version of what she will become, right? Lord willing. And. [00:10:37] And what does God have planned for her? [00:10:41] That's a nice way of saying it. Or like, what do I hope for her? Or what do I have planned for her? It might be another way of looking at it, right? [00:10:50] But there are all kinds of things that. [00:10:52] All kinds of ways that we could approach that. Like, are we hoping that she has, like, a successful career and makes some kind of scientific discovery that's kind of. It's kind of far out there. Do we hope that she finds a good husband and has children and a happy life? [00:11:13] Or let's go even more basic. Do we hope that she has a really healthy life, that she just doesn't have health problems and she lives a long time? [00:11:24] Well, all of those things could actually mean a lot of worry. [00:11:30] Worry. We could be troubled and anxious about many things over the next however many years as her parents. [00:11:38] But one thing is necessary. [00:11:41] A few verses after this Gospel reading. Jesus says, seek first the kingdom, then all these things will be added to you. There's one thing that we ought to be anxious and troubled about, especially, right, primarily for Evelyn, and that's that she keeps the faith to life everlasting. That her baptism, her being united with Jesus Christ, that that would bear fruit and grow. That she would grow up in faith and keep the faith to the end. That she would be found in Christ, right, having a righteousness not her own. Like all those kinds of things, her life is hidden with Christ in God. [00:12:26] That is the one thing to worry about. That's setting our mind on heavenly things, on things above, not on things on earth. [00:12:37] And then would we like her to have a good husband? [00:12:39] Yes, like children? Oh, that'd be a blessing. All those kinds of things. But those are secondary. Seek first the kingdom of God. [00:12:50] We don't know what's going to happen in the world tomorrow or in the next year. [00:12:56] I mean, all we know is that we're mortal and that this world is passing away, like Jesus has told us that we can be certain of. [00:13:05] So in a world like that, with a diagnosis like that, mortality, where can we find rest for our souls? [00:13:17] Where can we anchor our soul, our life in Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and forever, who does not pass away, whose promises are good in the face of anything. The most powerful things that we experience or see or might be afraid of, like death, are overcome by Jesus Christ. [00:13:41] He's Lord of all, his name's above all names. [00:13:45] And he's promised you and me that we've been united to him through baptism and by faith in his death and in his resurrection. And he tells us that your life does not consist in your possessions and elsewhere, maybe he says, or in your honor or in anything else on earth that you might trust in. [00:14:13] But your life is hidden with Christ in God. [00:14:20] May he give us strength and His Spirit to fix our eyes on him, to aim our minds heavenward to set our minds on things above, not on things on earth. In Jesus name, amen.