Treasures in Heaven
Ash Wednesday| Rev. Rolf Preus| February 18, 2026| Matthew 6:16-21
The church is blessed with many beautiful hymns that teach God’s Word in a faithful and compelling fashion. As we sing praises to God the hymns we sing confirm us in the faith. Good hymns are more than expressions of the personal faith of the singers. Good hymns teach the true faith. Let me share with you three hymn verses from three hymns that faithfully teach the theme of our text for today.
Many spend their lives in fretting
Over trifles and in getting
Things that have no solid ground
I shall strive to win a treasure
That will bring me lasting pleasure
And that now is seldom found.
Until I found that crystal spring
My way was dull and dreary
I looked for peace in many a thing
And still my soul grew weary
Unsatisfied, all things I tried
And yet my soul had not espied
That font of life so near me.
One thing’s needful this one treasure
Teach me Savior, to esteem
Other things may promise pleasure
But are never what they seem.
They prove to be burdens that vex us and chafe us
And true lasting happiness never vouchsafe us
This one precious treasure that all else succeeds
Gives joy above measure and fills all our needs.
On this Ash Wednesday, as we are gathered to observe the beginning of Lent, let’s spend some time talking about values. The hymn verses I just cited all contrast the values the world cherishes to the values we Christians cherish. As long as we live in this world, burdened by our own sinful flesh, there will be a contest in our hearts between affection for heavenly treasures and affection for earthly treasures. Jesus tells us that where our treasure is there our heart will be. So let us today compare the earthly treasures to the heavenly treasures.
A highly valued earthly treasure is the respect and admiration of others. Few can resist the lure of popularity and status. Having money helps. Driving a certain kind of car or pickup, living in a certain kind of house, wearing certain kinds of clothes, knowing the right people, talking the right kind of talk, and a host of other things establish one’s status in the eyes of others. Jesus doesn’t address any of these. He talks about using religion as a means of seeking status.
Religion is not purely a private affair. We belong to a congregation. We gather with fellow Christians to worship God together, to pray together, to sing together, to listen together to God’s Word preached to us, and to commune as Christ’s body as we receive the body and blood of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper. Corporate religion and corporate faith are a positive good. You’ll often run across someone who claims to be spiritual and not religious. That usually means that he wants to make up his own religion as he goes along. We belong to the body of believers here in this congregation. We are the church, not atomistic individuals living lives in seclusion from others.
But we are individuals. And it is individual piety that Jesus is talking about in our text. “When you fast,” he says. In Jesus’ day, fasting was common practice as an exercise of faith. The idea was to deprive your body of food for a while as a means of taking control of your body and its appetites. Fasting and prayer went together. Discipline of the body was joined to discipline of the soul. Fasting fell out of popular use among us Lutherans many years ago, but it has been coming back in recent years. Many have found it helpful. Fasting is a personal decision. It’s between you and God. It’s nobody’s business but yours.
But religious hypocrites love to use religion to gain status before others. Personal piety is made public for public consumption and personal advancement. That’s an abuse of religion. You don’t carry out religious activities to curry favor with people who will be impressed with your piety. If you fast, don’t make it obvious. Do it privately without advertising the fact or showing how you have suffered. Showing off how pious you are doesn’t make you pious. You confess your faith with others, and you worship God with others, but it is your own personal faith that receives treasures from God that far surpass anything this world has to offer. To parade this faith as a virtue to be admired by others denies what it is. Faith is a humble reliance on God’s mercy in Christ. It doesn’t parade itself before others. Faith doesn’t point to one’s own suffering as if it merits anything before God or man. Faith trusts in Christ’s suffering to take away our sin.
Jesus goes on to tell us not to lay up for ourselves treasures on earth that will be lost, but to lay up treasures in heaven that no one can take away. How can we lay up treasures in heaven when we have never been there? We’ve spent our entire lives here on earth. If we go by our senses this earth is all we know. But Jesus tells us to lay up treasures where we have never been. How? It is by embracing him who came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man. He was and is in heaven and earth at the same time. We call this the incarnation. God became flesh. St. Paul writes of God in 1 Timothy 6:16, “who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see.” God the Son covered up his divine glory and came into the world as a man, clothed in flesh and blood, to become our brother. He is the way to heaven. Having him is having heaven. He binds himself to his gospel. The gospel makes you rich. He binds himself to his sacraments. The sacraments make you rich. Through faith in Christ, faith that he died and rose to rescue us from our sins, from death, and from hell we have the guarantee of eternal life in heaven. Our treasure is in heaven. Jesus tells us to lay up treasures there. We lay up treasures in heaven by taking to heart and trusting in what Christ did for us here on earth. He lived the righteous life and died the innocent death and exchanged his righteousness and innocence for our sin. He obeyed in our stead, died in our stead, and what he did for us here on earth is our treasure in heaven. It is the gospel. It has far greater value than anything else we own.
It’s not a sin to be rich. It’s not a virtue to be poor. The world might judge us by what we own, but God doesn’t. Whether we are rich or poor in material goods, when we set our hearts on earthly wealth we neglect the heavenly wealth God has given us in Christ. Personal wealth or poverty don’t determine your standing before God. God owns everything anyway. He doesn’t judge us by material standards. He looks at the heart. He sees what we cherish. He knows where our treasures are.
Trusting in the stuff is sinful. It’s also foolish. As the hymnist writes,
What at last does this world leave us?
But a hand full of sand or some loss to grieve us.
Noble gifts that pall me never
Christ, our Lord, will accord
To his saints forever.
We are living on the edge of eternity. Whether by dying or by Christ returning to judge the living and the dead, we will soon meet our Maker. Consider that day and ask yourself: Of what value are the treasures this world gives?
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. Lent begins forty days before Easter. It is patterned after the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness after his baptism. He fasted for forty days and forty nights. Then he was tempted by the devil. During Lent we take two things to heart. First, own sin and mortality. Second, the passion of our Lord Jesus.
“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” These words are familiar to all of us who have attended graveside committals. But these words don’t apply only to the dead body in the grave. They apply to all of us here on earth. We live in dying bodies. Yet we sing, “Body here, yet soul above.” Our earthly treasures will be destroyed, even as our body will die and decay. We see the destruction all around us. All our earthly wealth will be gone, blown away as if by the wind, as the Psalmist writes,
As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is [b]gone,
And its place remembers it no more. Psalm 103:15-16
We’ll be long forgotten, all our wealth will be gone, and nobody will remember our name. But while we were living here in this world, our gracious God led us to ponder the holy passion of Jesus. He elicited faith in our hearts, not just faith in the providential care God provides, or faith in his goodness and faithfulness, but more than that, he established in us the faith that trusts in the passion and suffering of Jesus for our salvation. It finds its true treasure, not in the stuff of this world that is passing away, but in Christ, our brother and eternal God, who has purchased us with his own blood and washed away our sins. We will not perish with this world. When our dying bodies give out, there will be laid up for us in heaven eternal peace and joy. It will surpass any peace and joy this world could offer. We will be confirmed in bliss and enjoy God’s love forever.
These are the treasures laid up for us in heaven. The riches of this world are nothing in comparison. Where our treasure is there our heart will be also. As St. Paul wrote to the Colossians,
If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Amen