Spiritual Bucket List

Thank you. Appreciate that. Good morning. Good morning. It is a joy to be here with you folks today and as you heard, my name is John Poe and my wife and I and we have two daughters Elizabeth and Olivia and they are not with me today because at our church over in Sebring, Florida, they're having a speaker today, Erwin Lutzer.

Some of you may have heard of him. He was the long time pastor at the Moody Church. He has radio ministry and a preaching ministry that a lot of people know. For some reason, this guy that's world famous, they wanted to hear him speak more than me. So, they decided stay over in Sebring today.

I'm telling myself it's because they didn't want to drive two hours over here and two hours back but I think they would rather hear hear a good preacher today instead of me and so it is a joy to be here with you. As you heard, I'm a missionary with EBI and EBI stands for Editorial Bautista Independiente which is the Spanish Publications Ministry of Baptist Midmissions. So, we are celebrating our sixtieth year of ministry producing Spanish literature. Now, to kind of give you an idea of what we do, we produce everything that a church, a pastor, a ministry, a missionary would need to work in a local church. So, that includes everything from discipleship materials, basic materials for new believers.

That includes Sunday school materials for all ages and so we have graded Sunday school material for each age group all the way up through teens and adults. Of course, a whole host of children's materials and then we also have all kinds of ladies Bible studies books, men's Bible studies books, counseling books, and what we like to tell people is we have everything that you would need from discipleship to professorship. So, we also produce textbooks for Bible seminaries, for Bible institutes, and our materials are being used all over Latin America. We we send out regularly materials to about 31 different countries. So, Debbie and I, we were missionaries in Lima, Peru for fourteen years and while we were there, we're able to start two churches and I'm happy to tell you that the Lord is blessing in those ministries and things are going well.

One of those churches now has a Bible institute and is doing is doing just marvelous. Thanks for the Lord. We're really excited about that. My wife came down with liver disease very very quickly, very unexpectedly. It was undetected for years and so, I have to think back.

Wow, I'm getting old, I forget. 2014, the middle of twenty fourteen, we came back to The States for her to seek medical treatment, and two years ago in Tampa General, she was able to have a liver transplant. And so I'm happy to report that her liver's doing well. My wife and I are both 48 years old, but she likes to tell people that she's maybe a little younger than me now because she has a 33 year old liver instead of a 48. So she's a little younger than I am now.

Debbie's been doing very, very well. She recovered really well from the transplant. But one of the medicines she has to take to keep her body from attacking that liver, since it's not her liver, an anti rejection medicine, it began to destroy her kidneys. So she never had any kind of kidney problems at all, and then very quickly she began to have kidney problems. And so they've been working over the last year, changing medications, working on doses, and to report that her liver function is going, our kidney function is going back up and so she's doing better but I appreciate your continued prayers for her.

I've got a 20 year old Elizabeth who's a nursing student. She's top of her class. She loves every minute her nursing studies and so she's doing real well with that and then so that's Elizabeth and then I have a 16 year old daughter, Olivia and she's in tenth grade. Her favorite class is culinary which I love helping her with her homework which means I get to taste test it and so I'd like to tell people every day is Father's Day when you have two daughters. So, I'm really blessed to to live with the three ladies in my life.

Debbie, Elizabeth, and Olivia. If you're interested in knowing more about our ministry with EBI, let me know. I'd be happy to tell you about that. We do a whole lot more than just published books. That's our main thrust.

That's the main thing that occupies our time but we also do teacher training. We teach at seminaries all over Latin America. During the pandemic, we've done a lot of things virtually online since we're not able to travel or people are not able to to congregate together but we have all kinds of opportunities to work in conferences and pastor seminars and seminaries and so it's a it's a real blessing. So, we appreciate your continued prayers for our ministry and I appreciate pastor Rick giving me this opportunity. It's kind of interesting.

This is somewhat of a tradition for me. We just came back from Atlanta. Got back on late Friday night and I thought to myself, you know, before we plan the trip, I said to to my family, I said, no, Rick Polar's going to ask me to come speak at the church. I imagine. So, I said, I'm going to, let's plan.

Do we want to go the first week, you know, first part of the week or do you want to go the second part of the week? And they said, well, let us think about it and boom, like five minutes later, I got a text message saying, hey, can you come speak and so, I said, we are right on time and I'm also waiting to find out every year, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I'm always here and we get to see the setup of the manger scene and you're not going to do it this year. Oh, no. I'm going to be in twilight zone. Okay.

So, anyway, it's just become a tradition. I appreciate you folks letting me to be here with you each time, each Thanksgiving. Take your Bible if you would to James chapter one. James chapter one and in a moment, we're going to start reading in verse 19. So, find that if you would.

James chapter one and verse 19. Have you ever heard somebody use the term bucket list? Any of you have a bucket list? You know what that means? Well, it's kind of a a list of achievements and a a list of experiments, maybe it's a list of goals, a list of accomplishments that you want to have in your lifetime.

Some people have a bucket list of sorts. Some people write it down. They literally have it written down somewhere. Some people just kind of have it in their mind. Maybe it's something they've thought about before.

Just imaginary list of things that you would like to do. Now, some people have very, very elaborate and really adventurous bucket bucket list. You know, people say they want to they want to climb the top 10 highest mountains in the world. Some people want to jump off of the top 10 highest bridges in the world or towers in the world. I like to say that the Bible tells us, God promised, low, I am with you always and so I'm not too fond of high places.

So, you won't find me climbing too many mountains or jumping off too many things. That's why I like this pulpit. I've been in churches that platforms up about three or four steps and I'm scared I'm going to walk off the front of it and so, I'm not too fond. My bucket list does not involve things that are very very high. One of my daughters is is real adventurous.

She hasn't done a lot of those things, but she said to me, oh, one of my goals in life, I want to jump out of an airplane. I said, please, if you're going to do that, don't tell me that you're going to do it, and don't talk about it until you're done, and then show me the pictures, but I don't want to hear about it. It makes my palms sweat just thinking about it. And so people have these goals in life. Debbie and I, when we first got married, before we went to the mission field, we wanted to visit as many national parks as we could.

And we've basically visited every national park East Of The Mississippi, except some of the ones in New England we haven't been to. And we went to historic sites, we went to civil war battlefields, and we went to all kinds of presidents' homes and so forth. We would check them off of our little list. And, some people have a bucket list of things they want to accomplish in their career. Maybe they want to be top in their field, or they want a certain award in their industry or something.

But there's all kinds of people and all kinds of bucket lists. Well, want us to think today about our spiritual bucket list. Now, we might not have it written down just like we might not have our other goals in life written down but we should all have a spiritual bucket list of sorts. I did a quick search on the internet and I looked up bucket list stories It was kind of interesting. I found a little trend pretty quick like, first of all, most people's bucket list, they started to come up with it when they were on their deathbed, or when they had been diagnosed with a terrible disease.

It was almost like that snapped them awake and they realized, oh, I need to accomplish a lot in my life. One story I read about was a 15 year old boy, 15 years old, and he was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors told him he only had a couple of years to live at the most and that there was very little treatment that they could do. They would try to slow the cancer and make him as comfortable as possible. Well, that young man made he sat down and he made himself a bucket list of all these things he wanted to accomplish.

And you know what they were? They were basically helping other young people with cancer and to spread awareness of cancer and to raise money for cancer. He knew it wouldn't help him, but he wanted it to help others. Well, this young man went on and accomplished great things, and he was able to raise what I understood to be millions of dollars and spoke at dozens of places and made cancer research more known for that type of cancer. I heard the story of an old man.

I read it there on the internet of an older man that found out that he was dying with a terminal disease. His wife had already passed away and he decided he wanted to make his bucket list to go around and to visit all of his war buddies, all those men that he had served with in the military. He wanted to go find them and to encourage them and he did that and a lot of them told these stories of how he had done these wonderful things and and encouraged them as they were nearing the end of their lives but how sad that for so many of us, we wait until we find out or on death's door before we try to accomplish things for the Lord. What is and what should be on our spiritual bucket list and one thing that you'll notice is that everyone of these people that have a bucket list, they take action. It's all about action.

They get to doing something. And so, lot of people might have goals. They might have things that you'd like to say. I've heard people say, Oh, I'd love to take a cruise someday. Oh, I'd love to visit Europe someday.

Or, Oh, I'd love to do this or do that. And then what happens? We get busy with life. We get busy by distractions that are all around us. And we don't accomplish things.

Maybe we get too distracted. Maybe we're too timid and we think, Oh, I can't accomplish those things. But you see, a true bucket list should be all about action. People that have fulfillment in life, they took action. People that are happy take action.

People that check things off their list and goals, they take action. And it's something that we should all be doing. It's not just enough to dream. It's not just enough to read about what other people are doing. It's not just talking about goals or thinking or daydreaming about them.

It's about doing. Isn't it Home Depot commercials that say something about more doing? And what is it? I can walk through a Home Depot store and I can have all kinds of goals, but the Lord did not bless me with skills in home repair and maintenance and so forth. And usually if I try something, one time our drain under the sink in the kitchen began to leak.

And I looked at it, it was this white pipe, you know, and it's all just screws together. And I'm like, I can do that. I could not believe how long it took me and I thought I was gonna lose my testimony because boy oh boy I was frustrated and I'd get it all up there and put it together, turn on the water and it just exploded and all comes out. And I learned what Teflon tape was and I learned how much to tighten it and how not to tighten it too much. And And anyway, just like that, if we want to accomplish things, it's not enough just to daydream.

We have to go in there and do it and take action. And sometimes it's hard and sometimes we don't accomplish what we want, but we can't give up. And so what does a bucket list look like for a Christian? Well, I love the book of James. I like it because first of all, it's so practical and for me, it's very very easy to understand.

Everything that you read in the book of James just seems like you can apply it to your personal life and so that's what we're going to look at James this morning. Very very practical. It was written all that time ago but it's still applicable to us today as Christians and so I want to read a very well known passage. I'm going to start reading in verse 19. And it says, so then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not produce eousness of God.

Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. Verse 22, but be doers of the word. Notice that, be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves or yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, He goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the word, this one will be blessed in what he does. If anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but he deceives his own heart. This one's religion is useless, pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father assists to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Do you notice something in this passage? And just like I said about people with a successful bucket list, there's action.

This passage of scriptures talking about Verse 22 specifically and especially shows us this truth. Be doers of the word and not hearers only. Doers, action. Sadly, in our world today, most Christians are not doers. Most Christians are listeners.

Do you know I could give you the statistics? I I didn't look em up recently but thousands of churches have closed in our country. I saw on the way over here down by Lakeland, there was this pretty not beautiful little church building that I've seen a number of times. It looks fairly new. They have a big gym building behind it.

Beautiful church building right on a main road and it was for sale The last couple times I went by there and that beautiful church building now has a Montessori school in it. Nothing wrong with the school but how sad that because of a lack of action, churches all across our country are closing. I could put it in simple terms and say, I think it's because most of us, we just don't have a bucket list of spiritual things. We don't have goals. We don't think about what we can do for God.

We just assume that that's for the pastor to do. We just assume that's for the missionaries to do. That's for somebody else and we we often use those same excuses. We get too busy. We're too timid.

We think that we can't do it. I I I'm just not trained to do it in that way and so we need to make sure that we are doing, that we have action. Our churches are dying. You know, Bibles have been stripped from from our schools. We made the tough decision last year.

I won't go into all the details but we made the tough decision last year of putting our our youngest daughter in public schools. It's a very very long story. I never thought I would do that but she's done well and she's been a great testimony and it's been encouraging for us to see how she's learned discernment there but our daughter was telling us about how they're not they don't have prayer in the school but they do have a moment of silence and she says, you know, they that that come on the intercom, give announcements, and they say, okay, now we're going to have a moment of silence. And I asked my daughter, I said, well, is it actually silent? And she says, no, not most of the time.

Some of the teachers do, but most of the kids, they just keep on talking. They don't even get quiet for a second. So even in an attempt to have a moment of silence, we've taken Bibles out of our schools. We've taken prayer out of our schools. We wonder why our country is in chaos.

I don't like to talk politics, but what do they say? How do you know if a politician's lying when his lips are moving? I mean, I think they're all crooked. I mean, what in the world? Why is it that way?

You know, we can blame our politicians but the problem is we have taken God so far away from our country that we don't even recognize him or he doesn't have a place anymore and and why is that? Because we have churches filled with people that love to hear but do nothing. So, that's what I want us to think about our our spiritual bucket list and I want to spend a few minutes here in the book of James and look at this passage and see some things. So, first thing I want us to see is why do we need bucket list? I could imagine some of you are thinking that.

Sounds like some kind of social media trend. I've heard them talk about a bucket list on Facebook or I've heard my kids talk about that. I I don't need something like that. Some of you are thinking, well, that might be good to have a list but I I can't do anything great for God. Some people are thinking I'm too old.

I've I've wasted too much time. I'm too old to do anything for God. Well, I'm simple minded but I don't think it's an option for us as believers not to have a spiritual bucket list. The Bible doesn't use that term but it wants us to take action. It wants us to be working.

It wants us to do things and I'm going to tell you why. First of all, because God commands it. Now, it doesn't say thou shalt have a spiritual bucket list. No. But God commands it.

Verse 22 again, but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving ourselves. Now, any of you that have children or grandchildren or you've had children or you work with children, you know this concept. Do children always obey cheerfully the very first time you ask them to do something? No way. No way.

What do they usually do? Say, Olivia, I need you to go clean your room. What do they say? Why? Well, because I told you to.

Or, And it's so interesting, I have these two daughters. One of them is, I tend to be very picky person. I like everything neat and order. I don't like clutter. I'm very picky.

And one of my daughters is just like me. My other daughter, not so much. And she can go in her room and I'll say Olivia, you need to clean up your room. And she'll go in and I'll hear stuff banging around and moving. And then I'll go in there and I'll say Olivia.

And she's like what? And I'm like, I thought you were gonna clean your room. What were you doing in here? She said, I was cleaning my room. I think it looks great.

And I'm like, wow, it looks like a bomb went off in here. What in the world are you doing? And so, I'll say, you need to clean your room. And they don't always appreciate the opportunities that we give them to serve in that way. So children will ask, Why?

Or they'll say, Can I do it later? Can I do it in a in a little bit of time? A lot of times, I try not to say it but if it if my children say to me, why? I like to say, because I said so. We don't always have to give a reason and you know what?

When God ask us to do something, we don't have to say why and in a sense, you're all thinking, I would never say to God, why? But you know what? When we hesitate, when we don't do it, it's the same as our child saying, why? It's the same as if we ask our children to go do something. I need you to take out the trash and they say, sure and then, what happens if they don't take it out till the next night?

Well, they obeyed but they delayed it and they didn't do it when they were told to and we often do that in our spiritual life. Can you imagine the world today? It's getting more like this all the time but can you imagine the world today if we had no laws or there was no law enforcement or everybody did what they wanted to do. We see a little taste of that already in different parts of the country and it's chaos. It's a disaster.

It's terrible. We have to obey God because he commands it. Now, it was common in the ancient world for people to have their favorite teachers. I can promise you today over in Sebring, Florida. There's some people that have come to our church, Southside Baptist Church over there today just because they love Erwin Lutzer and some people would say, oh, I'm a follower of Erwin Lutzer or I I study after Erwin Lutzer.

I listen to Erwin Lutzer. Now, that doesn't mean they worship him. Oh, I hope not but they they like his preaching or they like his teaching or something like that and so that is not a new concept. During Bible times, there were people that would come. There were teachers and preachers or and teachers that weren't necessarily Bible teachers.

Maybe they taught about science or nature, some topic of interest. And plenty of people would come. They would sit around and they would listen to that teacher. Teacher and they would follow after them and you know what they called those people? They called them disciples.

So, that's that concept of where we hear the word disciple. Somebody that came not, we don't like to use this term today but if somebody came today to listen to Erwin Lutzer, you would say, oh, he's a disciple, a follower of Erwin Lutzer. My pastor that I grew up with is a very beloved pastor in North Carolina now and when he would go speak at different churches, there's some people that would actually travel to go hear him speak and that he would be at one church on a Sunday morning, be at another church on Sunday night and he would look and the same people were at a different church. They would follow him around. Well, that idea was they are disciples, followers of that person and so, what we see here is we are to be followers, disciples of Christ.

Listening but also doing what he says. Hold your place here in James and take your Bibles to Matthew chapter seven. Matthew chapter seven Matthew chapter seven and verse 24 and I'm I think this is kind of an interesting passage of scripture because you hear you have the words, you have Christ talking and he's got some people that are supposedly following him, disciples of him but are they really doing anything? Matthew chapter seven and verse 24 and it says, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

Verse 26, but everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house and it fell and great was its falling. Once again, we have that same concept. There's people that here, now, you all know well way better than I do living here on the coast and hurricanes come. Would you really like to have a oceanfront house that's on ground level?

A nice brick ranch, right steps out the door to the beach. No. I know that a lot of places they build the houses up on stilts. Why? Because when the storms come the water has to go wander.

They have these big pylons that hold them up or they have a strong foundation. And what happens? See what happens down in Miami that building collapse. When you don't have a strong foundation, when you're not on the solid ground, you're you're going to crumble, you're going to fall. In our spiritual life, it's the same way.

If we are just listening but we're not doing what Christ said, he compares it to that. Verse 23 that we just read, for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man observing his face in a mirror. For he observes himself. He goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. Now, I found a quote from Charles Spurgeon I thought was kind of interesting.

Listen to this, Charles Spurgeon said, I fear we have many such in all congregations, admiring hearers, affectionate hearers, attached hearers, but all the while unblessed hearers because they are not doers of the word. And you know what? We believe that there's power in the word of God, right? We believe there's power in God's word. And yet, if we don't follow it, if we don't do what it says, we just listen to it and read it.

It's it's wasted and we miss out on all those blessings and so we don't want to be like those who build on the sand. Verse 23 again, it gives us that concept of a mirror. I love object lessons and so all of this in James here in Matthew, they're like object lessons for us to understand this concept. I think it was Thursday, we were in Atlanta and we went to Centennial Olympic Park right in Downtown Atlanta. I chose to do that day on Thanksgiving Day because everything would be closed, there wouldn't be traffic, and it was really nice.

We drove straight down with no cars around, and we parked right on the street. It was free parking because it was a holiday. And we walked over into that park. Now, being that we live in Florida now, we're not used to seeing fall leaves anymore. And my daughters were taking pictures and talking about how beautiful it was.

Alright, so we're taking family pictures and I have a picture of me and my wife and me and my daughters and we're taking selfies of the whole family and when we first got out of the car, I felt these leaves falling down and some hit me in the head and so I kind of brushed them around and I I literally felt this leaf fall in my hair but I thought, well, it just bounced off, you know, there's all these leaves falling around. So, take pictures all day long. We get back to the to the hotel room and right here in the front of my hair, there's a leaf that's been there all day. I've walked around all over Atlanta, been in front of countless people, took my picture in front of all kinds of spots and guess what? I have a big orange leaf stuck in the top of my head the whole day and so I said to my daughters and my wife, why didn't y'all tell me that leaf was there?

And two of them said, oh, we didn't notice it And and then one of them said, well, I didn't think you cared. I didn't want to mess with your hair. You're so picky about your hair. And I thought, great. Why would you not tell me that that was there?

It's the same concept. I felt foolish because I had this orange leaf sticking out the front of my head the whole day long in Atlanta which by the way, I'm not fond of any of those pictures now. The rest of em love it but I asked them. I got and the first thing I did when I got back to the hotel room, I washed my hands. I look up in the mirror and boom, there's that leaf and what did I do?

I picked it out of my hair. It's a little late but the idea here that we see in scripture is, if you're a hearer of the word and you're not a doer, it'd be like looking in the mirror And you just ate this is a terrible example, but you just ate broccoli for lunch. And you have broccoli all filled up between your teeth. And you look in the mirror and it's like, what is that? And what do you do?

You get a toothpick, you get floss, you brush your teeth, you rinse your mouth out. You want rid of that. You don't want to walk around with that broccoli in your teeth all day. But if you're a hearer of the word and not a doer, it's the same thing as noticing something in the mirror that you don't like and you don't make any change about it. So, why do we need to have a bucket list?

Because God commands it. The Greek word in verse 23, so it says, he is like a man observing his face. That little word in Greek literally means careful scrutiny. It means you really look, you really analyze, you really delve into who you are when you read God's word. You observe it carefully.

So, are we examining ourselves? Are we scrutinizing ourselves? Not in a mirror to be vain but in the mirror of God's word? Are we really checking ourselves? We need to because God commands us to.

You know, a lot of times we put on a facade, we put on a front that everything's okay in our spiritual life, and it might look okay to the outside world, but are we scrutinizing ourselves? So, why do we do it? Because God commands us to be doers of the word and not hearers only but also we do it because we'll be blessed by God's word. We'll be blessed by doing it. Look at verse 25.

This is back in James. Verse 25, but he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the word. This one will be blessed in what he does. Do you know sometimes I think we wonder? Lord, I want to be blessed.

Bless me, Lord and we go around, we tell people, bless you. Somebody sneezes. We say, God bless you and yet, we have here the way to be blessed. How? It's by being a hearer, listening, and then by being a doer.

It comes from doing it. Don't turn there. I'm just going to read this. But in first Samuel fifteen twenty two, it says, has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed the fat of rams.

Now, we talked about sacrificial system this morning a little bit and we saw how it was never God's plan to redeem the souls of men with animal sacrifices. We just looked at that in Sunday school. That was never God's plan but you know what? I think it was his plan to show us our need and he was using those lambs as an object lesson. Again, as a way to point us to the the real lamb of God, the only one that could pay our sin debt which was Christ and so we see that here.

That's that idea but I'm not going to tell this whole story what's going on in first Samuel but animal sacrifice was a big part of public worship for them and the problem then, the problem now is that we can't expect to be blessed of God if we put on a show and we outwardly do something religious, this public worship, we have this big elaborate sacrifice where lots and lots of people see the animal being sacrificed but yet we don't obey God. So, it doesn't really matter. If we committed a public sin and everybody knew about it and then, we don't change our heart but we go in and make this big scene and want everybody to see it and we we sacrifice this animal and there all this blood and gore and it's like, look, look, I'm making a sacrifice to God but we didn't change our heart then it was for nothing and that's what we see in first Samuel. God blesses those who have a spiritual bucket list and who obey it and follow it. So, why should we obey?

Why should we have that list? Because God commands it because God blesses those who do it and because people are watching us. One of the reasons why I started looking into this passage of scripture is because I saw a survey online and it talked about young people today that grew up in Christian churches, Christian homes and this is going to be maybe a shock to you. It was to me. They followed tens of thousands of young people.

Now, to be in this survey, they had to at least claim to be a Christian. They had to give a testimony of being a Christian. Now, we don't know if they were. Only God knows and they know but they had to claim to be Christian. They had to regularly attend church.

Now, they broke down all these thousands of young people and young adults into two categories. They took the ones that went to Sunday school and they took the ones that didn't go to Sunday school. Now, they all went to church regularly but some of them went to Sunday school. Some of them only went to church services. Then, they asked them later on in life, do you believe in the virgin birth?

Can you explain who Christ is? They asked all kinds of questions that kids should be able to know. And they asked them, do you believe there's only one way to heaven? Do you believe that there is a heaven, a literal heaven and a literal hell? Do you believe the earth was created in six literal days like we read about in the Bible?

They asked them different questions. And then they found out what their answers were. Who do you think had the better success? Those who went to Sunday school or those who didn't go to Sunday school? You think it was those who went to Sunday school, right?

Did you know in this survey, overwhelmingly, the young people that could not answer the questions, those who had left their faith were those that did go to Sunday school. I was shocked. The the authors of the study came back and said, we don't discourage you from going to Sunday school but there's something wrong in our churches because the kids who go to Sunday school are the ones who are leaving the faith. It said there's a higher risk of falling away from the things of the Lord for those that go to Sunday school. I was shocked.

I said, that can't be right. And I went on and read more and more about the study. And then the authors came back and they said, the reason why is because in our churches, these young people who were there all the time, they say, my parents, my Sunday school teacher, all the adults in my church, they're hypocrites because they say one thing and they do another. And the story of this survey was basically to show us, no, they wanted young people to be in Sunday school. But they said, we're not teaching our young people how to defend their faith.

We're not teaching them God's word. Stories. We're teaching them about fun things in the Bible. We show em a video in Sunday school. We play a game with em and we're not really teaching and training them of God.

One thing that survey said, 72 of those surveyed believed that Christians were hypocrites because they only talked and there was no action. You see, we are commanded to have a bucket list because God tells us to be doers of the word. We are going to be blessed if we do that but people are watching us. So, what happens when we have a spiritual bucket list? I had a college professor that was he he always said this and I loved it.

He said, When all is said and done, there's always more said than done. And it's true. I have a friend, one of my coworkers at EBI, he hates meetings. And unfortunately, in the type of work we do, we have to have meetings from time to time. And he always says, I directly see proportionate to the amount of work that we get done to the amount of meetings we have.

And it is true because a lot of times there's all this talk and all these great ideas and the longer our meetings are, the less gets accomplished and so maybe there's some truth to that but we have to make sure that we are doers. What's it gonna do? How can we have a spiritual bucket list? What are some things that we should have on there? Well, first of all, it's gonna change our relationships with others.

Look at verse 19. So then, my beloved brethrens, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. You see, if we have a spiritual bucket list, if we are following the things of God, we'll be quick to hear. Now, I just told you we need to be more than just hearers of the word but doers but when our conversations with other people, we should listen to them. You know, I think because of social media nowadays, Facebook and Twitter and all these social media accounts that people have, they like to say everything they feel now.

They put it all out there. You ever heard that there's two things you don't talk about? You don't talk about religion and politics, right? Well, nowadays, everybody wants to give their opinion on everything, right? And I think it came because of social media and it's easy to be anonymous and put a post out there and say what you think and maybe we're so used to that now we just talk and we just tell people, well maybe it's time for us to listen to try to understand what other people are saying.

You know it's possible for us to disagree with somebody, but to do it in a kind way. So our human nature is always to defend ourselves. I'm not saying that we compromise on scriptural doctrinal truth. No. But we can do it in a kind way.

We can try to listen to the way other people think. You know, one of my favorite words in scripture is it's it's a concept in scripture I should say is kenosis and that was the concept. It's the idea that God, Christ, gave up temporarily his power, his position as the son of God. He gave that up voluntarily to take on the form of a man and to to face death on a cross. That's that word kenosis.

He voluntarily did that And so, I think it's a biblical principle for us sometimes instead of arguing, instead of standing up for our rights, it's probably best for us to be like Christ and to just listen. Just hear what people have to say and and and then wait. So, it says here that they'll be quick to hear and then, they'll be slow to speak. I have a bad habit of speaking speaking before I think. And you know that old expression, you have to open mouth and insert your foot, you know, boy I've messed up and I've said some things I wish I hadn't said before.

Every time we have one of those meetings at work I think myself, okay, I'm going to be quiet. I'm going to listen. And what happens? I end up running my mouth and then later on, somebody that's way more wiser than me kind of puts me in my place and tells me what we should have done all along. Well, we need to learn that.

Proverbs 51 says, a soft word turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up anger. Ephesians four twenty nine says, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth but what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers. We need to be quick to listen and slow to speak. That's something that's going to happen on our spiritual bucket list. Have you ever heard the example of of a tube of toothpaste?

We used to do this in Peru to teach the kids this truth. We would have a child. I'd say, I need a volunteer and all the little kids, I want to volunteer. I want to volunteer. So, okay, we're going to have two teams.

This team over here, I'm going to give you a plate, a paper plate, and a tube of toothpaste. I'm going to give this team a paper plate and a tube of toothpaste and then, what I want you to do, I'm going to say it on on your on the count of three, you start. I want to see who can squeeze out all the toothpaste faster onto the plate. Ready? One, two, three, and it just takes a split second.

They push all the toothpaste out of out of the tube. And then I said, okay, this team won. They got it done first. Now, the second part of the contest is, you have to see who can get all the toothpaste back inside the tube fastest. Ready, one, two.

And before they even start, they're like, wait a minute. And you know there's always that one kid that's like trying to blow into it and put it in there and it's like, we can't get it to go back in. That's like our words and they, it's easy just to let it spout out and it does harm. You know, I don't want to have toothpaste all over my hands. You ever been dressed in the morning?

You're all ready for church and what happens? You look and there's toothpaste right there on your lapel. Ugh. And you have to scrub it off. It makes a mess.

Well, that's how our words often are. We just spew things out and then we realize what a mess we've made and it's too late. You can't put it back in. The damage is already done. If we're living for God, our speech, the way we interact with other people is going to be different.

It also says that we're going to be slow to anger. So, don't explode. Don't get upset about every little thing that happens. Proverbs 2,911 says, a fool vents all his feelings but a wise man holds them back. So, there's nothing weak about being meek and listening.

Proverbs fourteen twenty nine says, he who is slow to wrath has great understanding but he who is impulsive exalts folly. When we react in anger, does that draw people to us? No. People want away from us. When we react in anger or demanding our own rights, does that make people want to come to our church?

No. And so, we need to ask followers of Christ to see that we behave accordingly. I think that's one of the great lessons that I learned from my parents. My dad was a truck driver his entire life. My dad's 81 years old now.

He's been retired for for a number of years But my dad never had a high paying job his whole life. He just worked so hard all the time, many, many hours. He just worked and worked and worked driving a truck. And delivered rebar steel all over the East Coast. Many times my dad would come home and I'd hear him talking to my mom in the kitchen and he would talk about how somebody had done him wrong at his job.

He had done the trip way faster than someone else but the other person would be recognized. He would skip all his lunch breaks that week and then the person who took extra lunch breaks would get a pay raise, that type of thing. And my dad just always yielded to the preference of other people. He just yielded and I saw that example in him. My dad was always slow to anger.

He always yielded to others. He wasn't a pushover but he he didn't push other people around either and so, I think on our spiritual bucket list, we could take scripture and just love your enemies, do good to those that hurt you. We could think about that to be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. It's going to change our relationship with others. It's going to change our relationship with God.

Verse 21 again, therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. If we started working on spiritual goals in our life today, if we had this wonderful spiritual bucket list, it would transform our walk with God in amazing ways. It would help us to turn away from sin and evil. It would help us to turn in God to God in faith. Said kenosis is one of my favorite scriptural theology terms, but another one of my favorite terms is repentance and that's that idea that we are going in one direction.

We're just walking along in life in our own way and then we realize that we're wrong and we turn around and we head the other direction. That's what repentance is. If you're going down I 4 and all of a sudden you realize, oops, I was trying to go to Tampa and I'm headed to Orlando. What do you do? You get off at the next exit, you cross over the bridge, and you get back on, and you head in the other direction.

You realize you were wrong. That's what repentance is and so, it'll change our relationship with God when we live for him. If we have a spiritual bucket list and we are starting to examine ourselves for who we really are, it'll change our relationship with him. My pastor that was our sending pastor up in North Carolina just passed away last January from COVID-nineteen. He was 55 years old or 54 years old and a wonderful man of God, a wonderful pastor that just he left behind his wife and a teenage daughter.

It was really a sad situation but a wonderful man of God and one of the things he always said that resonated with me. He always finished his sermons and he would say it all the time. There's nobody like Jesus. There's just nobody like Jesus and so it's so true. There is nobody like Jesus and so we can have these goals in life and if they don't center around Christ, we're not going to be blessed.

Our relationship with the Lord is not going to be the same. So, what can we do? Be a doer of the word by controlling your life. Starting with your tongue. Be a doer of the word by loving God and loving people.

Be a doer of the word by living holy and with integrity. So, do you need a spiritual bucket list? I'm going to say you do. We all do. We all need to do it.

I heard an old preacher say once that one of the problems is that we have too many church growers, too too many church goers that are sitting on the premises instead of standing on the promises. Ain't it true? And so we need to get to work. Why should we do it? To be a doer of the word because God said so.

Because the blessing is in doing it. It's not the hearing, it's the doing and because the world outside this church is watching us to see if our walk matches our talk. So, where are we going to start? Are we going to be doers of the word? Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for this passage of scripture. Lord, I think it's so clear. It teaches us. It shows us clearly that we need to be active in our relationship with you. It shows us that you want more from us than just to for our just to have us sitting around and listening and being content with who we are but that we want to focus on Christ.

That we want to be more like him. Father, as we leave today and we head into this new week, Lord, help us to just examine ourselves to consider what can we do. Father, it seems so impressive and exciting to have a bucket list of goals, places we want to go, people we want to meet, experiences we want to have, and that might be fun and adventurous, but what life is all about is having a spiritual list of things that we accomplish for you, for your honor, and for your glory. Lord, help us this week to examine ourselves, to think about our attitudes, to think about our actions, and to be sure that we're doing all that we can for you. Father, bless this church.

Bless pastor Rick as he shepherds this flock. Lord, give them growth. Give them encouragement. Help them to be a light here in this community. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.