The Remedy: Dependence

Beginning new series for Lent (Sundays): The Remedy

Lent: turning away from sin & things that we trust in other than God

Reflection on why the cross was necessary & freedom we have in Christ

With all the talk vaccines & precautions & cancellations promising remedy for pandemic, Lent offers opportunity to focus on true Remedy for deepest, most dangerous sickness we have: Sin

Appropriate to begin with perhaps most basic remedy that the way of Jesus offers us: dependence

Easy to see: we are dependent on many things

Parents, spouses, friends, grocery store clerks, doctors, food, money, houses, pets, water, oxygen

To be human is to be dependent! Humans are NOT independent creatures

And yet, we like to think of ourselves as independent.

Sin makes us trust in ourselves rather than our Creator

Matthew 6:21 ESV

21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:2 ESV

2 “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

Jesus is calling out our false remedies.

We see the stuff of this world as true treasure; We see the affirmations of this world as our only value

We confuse the Creator with His creation; we ourselves & our potential as only answer to our ailments

We make pantheons out of gifts God gives us; instead of going to the Source, we worship the means

Sin is cutting off life support from the Lifegiver, it’s living independent of the Creator.

Now, we might think we’ve got this all sorted out as Christians, but that’s not often the case.

We depend on ourselves to

believe hard enough, do enough good, be “spiritual” enough, know enough doctrine, avoid enough sin, accept Jesus as Lord & Savior sincerely enough

We twist Christianity into dependence on ourselves instead of dependence on God.

We look inward for the remedy, instead of upward.

Might help to think of what life will be like in the resurrection

When Jesus comes back, unites heaven & earth, raises our bodies from the dead, & He lives forever with us, we will still be His dependent creatures.

Jesus’s sacrifice has perfectly restored our relationship with God

We won’t ever confuse God with the gifts He gives us, Creator with creation

Instead, King Jesus will provide everything we need & more in abundance!

But here’s the thing: that’s not just a future reality; we practice resurrection living now!

In Christ, you ARE perfectly restored to the Father

You can go to God as the Father Creator you can fully depend on

God provides abundantly because no matter what happens, everything will be okay.

If Jesus says to “lay up treasures in heaven” what does that look like? The church!

Church is where we go to depend on the gifts God gives us. It’s what makes church church

Church isn’t about good works, songs that bring tears to your eyes, or even handsome preachers (as great as those things might be)

Church: visible ways that God gives us things we depend on (marks of the church)

Pure Gospel that says you can depend fully on Jesus for your salvation

Baptism that makes you fully dependent as a child of God (why we baptize babies!)

Body & Blood of Jesus, literally giving you dependence on the forgiveness of the cross

Friends, Dependence is the Remedy.

Faith isn’t dependence on yourself, your ability to love God, choose God, sincerely believe, live sin-free.

Faith is leaving it all up to Him.

When you don’t have everything you need, when your trust in God is weak, when despair creeps in, when guilt spreads like a cancer in your gut, faith is the remedy

Faith is the remedy because it doesn’t come from you. Faith is a relationship of dependence on your Creator that only your Creator can give to you.

Faith isn’t some arbitrary spiritual setting we need calibrated just right in order to be saved

Faith is dependence on Jesus to do everything necessary for you to be saved

Faith is taking God’s Word for it that you are His, He has chosen you, He has forgiven you, & He has declared you worthy of eternal life in Christ.

Ash Wed: ashes signify our dependence on God even in our own mortality, even knowing we will return to dust

As sinners, depend on cross for forgiveness/justification, depend on resurrection for eternal life

Ash Wed is learning to die as a Christian, to see our death through Christ’s death & resurrection

It’s knowing we can depend on God even in death, because He is the God who defeats death

Faith is depending on the Creator who gave you life once, to give you life again.

Faith looks upward to Jesus, whose death & resurrection really does it all.

Joel 2:13 says “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”

That’s faith. That’s dependence. That’s the remedy.

Amen.