The Famous Russian author Leo Tolstoy writes in one of his novels about a young man who owns a small farm in Russia. The farm is now his, because his father just died. With his father fresh in the ground at his feet, the young man begins to dream about expanding the farm, growing more crops and making more money. To his surprise a man walks up to him with an offer he cannot refuse. The man offers a simple deal. I will grant you all of the land that you can walk around in one day. The only rule is, he has to return to the same place he is standing, right next to his dad’s grave, by sundown. The next morning the young man gets ready to walk, looking at the lush fields in the distance. He thinks about it and figures he can walk around six square miles of land by sundown. That is much more than he already has. As he begins, he is strong, doesn’t say goodbye to his wife or children. He takes no food or water with him as he is focused on getting as much land as possible. By noon he is tired, but he is at the halfway point. He should return and claim his six square miles of land. But then he sees more fields, more fertile farmland. He picks up his pace and keeps walking. A few hours later he is tired, his legs hurt, but he goes on. With only a few minutes left before the sun goes down, he gathers all his strength, stumbles across the line, the new owner of fifteen square miles of land, and then collapses on the ground, dead. The stranger smiles and said, "I offered him all the land he could cover. Now you see what that is, six feet long by two feet wide, and I thought he would like to have the land close to his father’s grave, rather than anywhere else." Having said that, the stranger whose name is Death, disappears, saying "I have kept my pledge."
Scripture is very plain in this parable. The verses we heard a few minutes ago are not hard to understand. We cannot take anything with us. The day we leave this earth, we leave it the same way we came into it. Alone and penniless.
Many of us have already heard the joke about why we never see a hearse or a limousine with a trailer hitch on it. Because when we die, we cannot take the boat, or the camper, or anything else, with us.
Our scripture verse again, said, “And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God”.
And don’t think this scripture verse is alone in the Bible. It turns out, this same idea is found in many places, in many different situations and examples. In Romans 12:10 it says, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.”
And in Philippians 2:4 it tells us, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
The reason it goes over this lesson many times is because people just don’t get it. When it comes to our time, are we selfish? When it comes to our skills, our talents, are we selfish? And in this particular verse, when it comes to our resources, our money, our paychecks, are we selfish? Do we give to God what He asks for, what he deserves? Or do we make excuses? Can we say, God blesses us because we bless Him? Can we say we give Him our best time? Or our best talents?
What about our Spiritual life? Are we selfish with that as well? DO we think we will have lots of time to change our behavior? Do we think we have lots of time to say we are sorry and go to heaven? Do we realize a person dies in this country from a car accident, every 13 minutes? These are all people, that thought they would go home today and wake up tomorrow. Every single one of them, thought they had more time. And that is just from car accidents. Add in all the other ways that people lose their life and someone gets promoted to glory every 5 seconds or so. Many of those, I would add, almost every one of those people, thought they would wake up tomorrow and have another day to live.
When we read this parable, we need to remember that the rich farmer, thought he would enjoy his success. That is all he wanted, to be successful. And he measured success by the amount of his riches, his possessions.
It turns out, if we fall into the trap the world sets, the trap that the devil wants you to accept as truth, then we as humans usually measure success in one of three different ways. We either measure success by power, by pleasure or by possessions. Think about it. Especially boys, especially young men and that goes double for grown men. We decide we are happy, if we are powerful, if we have lots of things around us that pleasure us, or if we own the biggest, the best, the most. It can be a car, a house, a TV, a motorcycle. Whatever. But more and more, it is women too. Especially teenage girls. The best or most expensive clothes, or shoes, or purse, or perfume, or jewelry. We are this way because that is what we are taught. By commercials, by billboards, by magazines, by radio. Even by our own educational system. Each of these different measures of success, completely disregard our spiritual lives. Not one of these even mentions heaven, or what God wants from us. What does God say should make us successful? Where is that tv commercial? When do we see the magazine ad, or the store over at the mall that trains us to be successful by the family we have? The husband or wife that respects us and loves us. The children that want to get good grades, the kids that want to grow up and be holy men and women? What radio station teaches teenagers how to be successful in relationships, how to be God honoring in your thoughts and actions? Guess what, there aren’t any. Because that doesn’t make anyone money.
There is a story about a wealthy Christian who was obsessed with the idea of taking some of his wealth to heaven. He knew the Bible clearly teaches that you cannot take it with you. He could not settle this issue so he prayed that God would give him permission to take some of his wealth to heaven with him. Finally, his persistence paid off. God spoke to him and said, "Okay, you can take one suitcase with you into heaven." The story continues with the man deep in thought, "What do I take? What are the most valuable things that I can put into my suitcase?" He finally decided and filled his suitcase full of gold. When he died, he slowly approached the pearly gates dragging his suitcase behind him. St. Peter met him at the gate and said, "Wait a minute. What do you think you’re doing? You’re not allowed to take anything into heaven." The man answered, "You don’t understand. I have special permission from God to take this suitcase into heaven." Peter rubbed his beard and said, "Well, that’s very unusual. I cannot imagine God letting you do that. Let me look inside your suitcase and see what’s there." So the man dragged the suitcase over, and Peter opened it to see that it was filled with gold bars and gold bricks. Peter said, "Well, all right. If God said so, I suppose you can take that in if you want. But why in the world did you go to all this trouble just to bring more pavement into heaven?"
(Contributed to Sermon Central by Don Hawks) We might chuckle at that story. However, there is more truth than fiction in the story. We tend to lose perspective about possessions. Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 16 verse 26, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul”?
So let’s answer that question. For what profit is it for a man, or woman. Or in other words, why are we here on Earth? If it isn’t to make money and gain more power, pleasure and possessions than the next person, then why are we here?
I will offer you this answer. What if you are here, for other people? What if you are not here for yourself? If your job or your career makes you money to live on, that is fine, but you are not here to be a hair dresser, or a mechanic, or a farmer, or a businessman or woman. You are here to fulfill a purpose. It may be to help others. It may be to serve others, but I can guarantee you, it is to honor the God that made you. And if we do anything that dishonors God… then we already failed in that purpose. It doesn’t mean that we can’t ask for forgiveness, or that God needs us to be perfect, but we are placed here, on this earth, to try to honor God. Not to make money, not to save money, not to have powerful jobs, or to be the life of the party, or the be pleasured every moment of every day. We are here for a bigger purpose than all of that. We are here to put others, before us, to put God before us. God promises us many things. Some of those things are joy, some are the wants of our heart. People to love and share our life with. A calling that we can be proud of. He made these promises to Abraham and to David, and to many others throughout history, and He makes them to you. But we first need to realize that you and I are quickly trying to outdo the rich farmer. We are trying to build a bigger barn. And just like every other human being in this world, there will be a day that we all realize that our time is up, and our time here was very temporary. And by that time, it is too late to go back and change anything. We will realize one day, that the gold, the money, the jewels, the power and the pleasure, do not compare with what God has waiting for us. Can you imagine? Streets of gold, walls covered in precious jewels. God walking among us? A perfect, place, where there is no sickness, no cold, no bad weather, no pain, no fighting. A place that we need to prepare for.
I would like to challenge you. For a week, just for a week, try to do one thing for someone else, each day. Come back next Sunday and tell me about it, tell us all about it. And see how blessed you are. See what God does in your life, when we think about others more than what we can keep in our barn. I promise you, you will not be disappointed.
