On Ash Wednesday, we begin Lent with a sober reminder: we are dust, and to dust we shall return. In light of that truth, Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 take on sharper meaning.

This sermon explores Lent not as a season of public performance or ritualized guilt, but as a quiet return to what matters. Giving, praying, and fasting are not spiritual displays; they are practices meant to reshape the heart. The question is not what we can prove to others, but what God is doing in secret within us.

Rather than simply giving up chocolate or Diet Coke, Lent becomes an invitation to honest self-examination. What has come between us and God? Where do pride, resentment, distraction, or avoidance need to be named? What practice might draw us closer to wholeness?

“Dust to Dust” reminds us that our mortality clarifies our priorities. In these forty days, we are invited to release what diminishes life and take up what leads us toward deeper faith, reconciliation, and renewed devotion—so that when Easter arrives, we are not the same.