Thursday, September 13, 2001
There was just something about those great vacation adventures I would plan for our family- somehow our kids got to dreading my announcement that I had another one scheduled. Maybe it was that day on Cape Cod. Near Provincetown there are these monster sand dunes. And I had heard that if you climbed to the top of this particular mountain of sand, you would have a beautiful panoramic view of the ocean. So on a hot July day, we started trudging up that dune. And I kept encouraging the troops with the prospect of that fabulous view at the top. And when we finally reached the top, there it was - a panoramic view of another sand dune! Well, against strenuous protests, I moved the troops down that dune and up the next one, sure that our view was one dune away. And there, atop that next dune, we were rewarded with , yeah, another sand dune. And so went our afternoon, up a dune, down a dune, up a dune, down a dune. My mistake - I was sure that what I was looking for must be just over that next hill. It wasn't.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "One More Hill."
You know, a lot of people live their whole lives that same way--thinking that what they're looking for is just over that next hill. The love, the peace, the fulfillment I'm looking for - it'll be in that next relationship...that next accomplishment...that next experience. But so far we've left behind us a trail of hills that were supposed to fill the hole in our heart and didn't. Some people trudge on all the way to that final hill called death - still looking, still not finding. Maybe for you, life has been a lot of climbing hills to nowhere...to disappointment and emptiness and loneliness.
You may need to climb one more hill - the one that really does have what your soul has been searching for. Our word for today from the Word of God comes from John 6:35, where Jesus Christ promises to satisfy what nothing and no one else has been able to satisfy. "Then Jesus declared, 'I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never go hungry, and he who believes in Me will never be thirsty.'" Oh, there have been people or things that briefly satisfied the hunger and thirst in your heart, but never for long...never for good.
Jesus says He is the end of that search for satisfaction. Why? Because He came to earth to reunite us with the God whose love we were made for. We've lost Him by living for ourselves instead of for Him. We've got this wall between us and God, the One we were created for. The hole in your heart was made for your Creator - and He's on the other side of that sin-wall. No one, nothing on earth can ever fill that hole. No matter how many more hills you climb.
But there is that one hill that will finally bring the restless years to an end. It's called Skull Hill. It's got a cross on top of it. On that cross hangs the Son of God, suspended by nails in His hands and feet. He's there, in Jesus' own words, "giving His life a ransom for many." In other words, paying the price to get you back to your Creator. And when you fall at the foot of that cross, putting all your trust in the Man who died for you there, the wall between you and God finally comes down. And the hell you deserve is replaced with the heaven you don't deserve. And the search for what's always been missing is finally over.