Sermon - Ash Wednesday 2024

Ash Wednesday, Charles de Groux, 1866

God Acts

1. God is real and is in control of the world

2. Because God’s in control, we should turn to the Lord and repent

3. Because God is gracious and merciful

I watched Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin. It was interesting. He answered questions like a history professor, where he says he will give a brief background first in order to answer the question, and then proceeds to talk for half an hour about history going back a thousand years. But at one point he was asked if he sees God at work in the world. He thought for a moment and said “No, to be honest. I don’t think so.” He’s wrong, but he was honest. I would guess that the majority of Americans would answer the same question and say yes, they do believe God is at work in the world. The problem is that while most Americans might say that they think God is active in the world, they don’t act like it. Case in point: The majority of Americans don’t go to church regularly. 

But the reality is that God is very much so active in the world. God is real and He is in control of the world. God acts. This is one of the lessons that we learn from the book of Joel. Because God’s people were faithless to Him, God sent a plague of locusts upon them. God’s wrath is His alien work, it is strange to God, but it is still His work. God sends sadness into this world in order to curb and punish wickedness and draw His people back to Him. God isn’t just a mere heavenly bystander watching this world spin and go past Him, but He’s intimately involved in it. Putin is wrong, God is at work in the world today.

Just as God is in control of sending the plague of locusts, so is God in control of the other sorrows that plague our life. I know we often like to blame all of the bad things that happen on the devil. I don’t think that’s wrong, the devil is evil and does evil things in the world, but I’m not sure that’s helpful to just focus on the devil doing bad things, because then we’re not focusing on God rescuing us from those bad things.

Rather, when tragedy strikes, because we believe that God is actively working in the world today and is in control even of the bad things that happen, our first response should be one of repentance to the Lord. “Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Sad things happening should lead us to return to the Lord in repentance, because we are seeking the Lord’s help in all things, since He is in control of all things, even the bad things.

This is what Jesus taught us. When Pilate had killed some Galileans in the temple, or a tower fell on eighteen people, Jesus said: “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Tragedy is meant to drive us back to God and to repent. That’s what Ash Wednesday, and all of Lent, is meant to accomplish in our lives. We had ashes placed on our foreheads to remind us of the greatest tragedy: our mortality and thus the necessity to repent. We came to church this evening to repent of our sins. Not just our generic sinfulness, but our real actual specific sins that we commit.

This is the proper Christian response to bad things. Instead of bellyaching, complaining, or blaming, God quite simply calls us to repent and return to Him with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Family troubles? Return to the Lord. Poor health? Return to the Lord. War? Return to the Lord. Churches are shrinking? Return to the Lord. Discouragement? Return to the Lord. Death? Return to the Lord.

Why do we return to the Lord in repentance? Because “God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster. Who knows whether He will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him?” God did relent of the plague of locusts in the book of Joel. God did relent of the disaster. Certainly the damage had been done, but it could have been much worse if the Lord had not relented.

God is gracious and merciful. That is most clearly seen in the person of Jesus. His ministry was one of healing and miracles. When people sore oppressed by calamity sought Him out in humility, He took away their sorrows. Even when Jesus was exhausted and had to practically hide from the people to get a break and take some rest, He took pity on them and helped them.

Most clearly God’s mercy and love is seen on the cross. This is why the ashes on our foreheads are supposed to be in the shape of a cross. We are reminded that even in the midst of deathly darkness, the light of the cross shines through and gives us hope. How do I know that God is active in the world today? The cross. Jesus descended from heaven and became man in order to shed His blood. He was planted like a tree upon the world, or like a seed into the tomb, and from the grave He rose triumphantly in order that He might rule this world with the power of His cross, with the power of His forgiving blood, and so give life to all who dwell on earth below.

Rest assured that God is at work in the world around you. God is real! So let’s act like it. Let’s spend this Lent returning to the Lord and being refreshed by Him. For He is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love. When the world is in chaos, or it’s Valentines’ Day, there’s no better place to be than with the Lord in His house.