Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Ellis Island - that was the first piece of America that millions of immigrants ever touched. It's a little island in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. When you visit the island, there's a long, granite wall with thousands of names of immigrants who passed through there. This was the point of entry for all the immigrants coming through New York. They would book passage and get the cheapest price they could often down below decks. Finally, the boat would reach America, they would step off the boat and enter this long, red brick building on Ellis Island. It's cavernous; it echoes on the inside. But this is where they went through the steps that eventually permitted them to move from the island and on to their real destination, which was New York City and the rest of America. The tour guide says the people carried all their belongings in a basket. That was okay. They knew the island wasn't where they would live, so out of all those thousands who came there, not one ever set up a house there. They weren't going to be there very long.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Basketful of Earth."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Peter 1:1. Peter writes to "God's elect, strangers in the world." Remembering that image of believers, in verse 17, he says, "Live your lives as strangers here, in reverent fear." In 1 Peter 2:11 he continues, "Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world to abstain from sinful desires." Peter says, "This isn't home, man." It's like the old hymn, "This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue."
We're all immigrants according to the Bible. Earth is our Ellis Island. We have, oh, maybe seventy years here that are just the preparation for billions of years, but the quality of the billions of years is determined by how we live the seventy. Here's a question. If we're just immigrants passing through earth, why are we setting up so much stuff here on Ellis Island? In Luke 12, Jesus addresses this issue of accumulation, and He says in verse 22, "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear." Then He says some radical stuff in verse 24, "Consider the ravens. They do not sow or reap. They have no storeroom or barn, yet God feeds them. How much more valuable are you than the birds?" He's saying that for your security, you don't need a big stored-up reserve somewhere.
That's the opposite of everything we have been taught about security. Here is Biblical security. He says, "Your Father knows you have need of these things. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourself that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." There's no storeroom, no pile of earth stuff. Send it ahead to the place where you're going to live forever. Don't accumulate it in the place that you are just visiting.
We are all guilty of the sin of accumulating. We build that earth kingdom, earth reserves, earth security; get as much earth stuff as we can. One day, Jesus may come back and say, "What are you doing with all of that tied up? I had a world to reach." He calls us to live simply on this immigrant island and to pour everything else into eternal causes. Give to that for which He gave everything He had.
If you want a bank full of heaven, then be content with a basketful of earth.