Spiritual Bucket List

Isn't that beautiful? I think services are over. I know San Diego likes short services, and then they've got me. That was beautiful, Carol. Thank you very, very much. I want to touch on a subject based upon what Carol just brought up in her musical message about, I Will Go. And that is to recognize that at the inception of Jesus' ministry, that the first thing that he mentioned to his disciples was to follow me. And that's a lifetime journey. It's a lifetime experience. It never ends. We want to give him our whole heart and our whole being, and we also, though, realize that we are still in this human tent, in these fleshly houses that we exist in. So I hope to build upon what she mentioned, and for those that were in Bakersfield last week, I hope that you'll indulge me, because I want to, in some form and some shape, bring the message that I brought to Bakersfield last week, because I think it's something that we all need to contemplate with some of the things I even mentioned in the announcement period. And I hope that it will benefit all of us. I don't know how many of you have seen the movie The Bucket List, came out, I think, six or seven years ago. It was a story about two men, two men that found themselves in a hospital room together, and you couldn't have two different men for all sorts of reasons, two guys. And they had both come to understand that they were terminally ill, and what they decided to do was they were going to carry out a wish list of things that they wanted to do, before they, quote-unquote, kicked the bucket, and thus the title of the movie, The Bucket List. Both men, one was an industrialist and very rich and had everything that you might want to have as far as a human being, as far as earthly goods. The other man was just a family man, a very ordinary chap, just a good man. And for different reasons and for different causes, their life had been eaten up, either to chase the elusive money that was set before them or just carrying out ordinary functions. And they came to realize that there were some things that had passed them by and that they wanted to do. They wanted to reach out and to deal with those unfulfilled dreams and some of those stifled adventures. As I mentioned, one man was very wealthy, and so he was able to make this possible for both of them. And he also asked the other man to share his idea of what we call bucket list items, and then they put it together. And the whole movie is kind of like the old Around the World in 80 Days, with all the adventures from high mountain peaks to world-class cities to deep in the valleys and out in the ocean and whatever and wherever. They did it all while they drew breath. They accomplished a lot. They weren't able to accomplish it all. There were indeed some disappointments along the way. Most of all, they learned about themselves. They learned about themselves. And that's really what the whole story is about. But the one thing that did happen in this story is time ran out for both of them.

But they had a bucket list, and they kept on going. They kept on trying to fulfill it. And it's quite a story. All of us perhaps have what we call a bucket list of things that we want to do in this lifetime, places where we want to go, things that we want to accomplish that have been elusive as a butterfly.

In thinking about this, as I mentioned to the audience last week, not all of us are going to be able to mount the Jungfrau in Switzerland and be at the top of the Alps. Not all of us are going to be able to go through the ruins in the city of Rome. Not all of us are going to be able to have an adventure in the Serengeti in Africa. Not all of us are going to be able to dive down deep in the ocean off of a Porta Vallarta or down in Alcapulco.

And not all of us are going to be able to go up into the Yukon and go up into the Arctic wilderness and be able to see caribou or moose or all of those things that we sometimes see in National Geographic. For some of that, that is beyond us. But what I want to share with you today is simply this. We, too, have been invited to an adventure for a lifetime. Yes, we have. Just as much as that movie. There's another thing that's very similar that I need to bring to your attention, and I know that that's going to sound a little somber.

So we're going to be somber for a moment, then we're going to build upon that. Just like those two men, Morgan Freeman, who's great in that movie, and Jack Nicholson, who's great in that movie, all of us in this room, I have to bring you news today. And that is all of us, no matter what our age is, we could say that in one sense and in the greater sense and in the common sense, we are all terminally ill. We just don't know it. Scripture itself says in the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 10, 23, it is appointed unto all men once to die.

Now, we don't wake up every morning and think, oh, today, we don't go that route. But I'm creating a moment of somberness to help us to recognize the importance that we have in redeeming the time. Redeeming the time. In Ephesians 5 and verse 16, one of the charges that God gives to the church through the Apostle Paul is that we are to redeem the time. Allow me for a moment to share that thought of what it means to redeem. You know, when we think of a redeem, we think of a coupon and getting something back.

That is not what the Bible's talking about. Redeeming was grabbing somebody's attention and saying, now is the season. Now is the season to reap. If you do not reap now, the season will pass us, and you will not be able to reap what God wants us to reap.

So when you use the term to redeem the time, that is very seasonal. It is passing. It will not always be. For those of you that grew up on the farm or are involved in agriculture, I see the clerks in front of me here, that to recognize that there is a time when that they have avocado trees, there's a time when it comes to the fore, there's a time when the fruit is born, and there is only a certain amount of time by which you can collect it so that it will be good.

That is what redemption, redeeming the time, means. It is not something that you will always have. Have you noticed that time is elusive? The one thing that we find in life is that time keeps on going. Whether we are here or not, you can't stop the time.

Has anybody been able to invent stopping the time? Does anybody have a patent on that? You can't stop time. Thus God says, we must redeem the time. In all of this, thinking of that movie and thinking of the power of that, it got me to thinking about, well, what about my spiritual bucket list? What about my spiritual bucket list?

What would I put on it? Not my physical bucket list, not my physical adventures, not where I want to go in the Disneyland of this world. But what would I put on my spiritual bucket list? What have I not yet explored fully? Where have I not yet been to in my life and in my heart and in my existence? What have I been putting off or have not quite yet climbed that mountain peak spiritual experience in my life?

That's something that all of us can do. Not all of us are going to be able to go to Al Capoco. Not all of us are going to be able to go to Cartagena in Colombia. Not all of us are going to be able to go to Rio de Janeiro. Not all of us are going to be able to go to how many of you know where Tierra del Fuego is? Oh, look at that American education system. It's in play. At the very, very tip of South America. Of course, what goes through Tierra del Fuego?

The Straits of Magellan. You all knew that, right? You don't even want to go there because you don't know it exists. But there are things that you do know exist that you would want to go to and be a part.

And some of us are not going to be able to do that. Some of us are not going to be able to go out of San Diego County, much less California, across the Colorado River. But all of us can explore the territory of our hearts. All of us are invited to the grand adventure.

All of us only have so much time. And I got to thinking, what am I doing with the time that I have left? I'm 62 years of age. I'm working off my 63rd year. If, by God's grace, I might have 20 years, I might have 25 years. I might have 20 minutes. I don't know. But wonder if it were that this was the only season I had to live, the only day that I had to live.

I have to think, how many sunrises am I yet to see? How many sunsets will I see go down? How many birds chattering will I yet hear? How many rainbows will I yet see? How much rain will I hear? Especially in Southern California, beating against my window pane and to enjoy it and hearing it at night as I go to sleep. We only have this life, and it is fleeting.

So what I'd like to share with all of you for a few minutes is not to begin in the beginning and the ending, but to have you go from this message because I'm not going to be able to cover it all. What is on your spiritual bucket list that you have not yet experienced, that you want to experience? I'd like you to join me in Philippians 3 for a second to set the stage here because when I start going off of my bucket list, some of you are probably going to be surprised.

You're going to say, that's our pastor? Well, I'm just a human being. I'm just a Christian in the making. But I think I'm with some pretty good company here. When you look at Philippians 3, I'd like you to look at it for a moment. It gives me, and I hope it will give you, encouragement today. Philippians 3 and verse 12, when it says, Paul speaking, not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

There's this laying hold of, there's this grabbing. What Paul is saying long ago, when I didn't even know him, Jesus grabbed me, got a hold of me, shook me up, found me on that road of Damascus, and He grabbed me, and He grabbed me tight. And He says, you're going to be my man. Now, with that spoken, I need to grab a hold of the other things that He has set before me. This is a very action-oriented verse. Then notice what He says here further, Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended.

This was an apostle to the Gentiles. This was a man that had visions from God that some of their apostles did not have. But the one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, He had not totally apprehended. He had not done everything that perhaps God had assigned Him, that God had grabbed Him a hold of. But He said, nonetheless, I press forward towards the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. So He had not finished His bucket list.

So with that stated, I'd like to just share some bucket list items with you. Can I do that? It's going to be personal. And you can start adding because maybe you want to talk about this in message chat. That'll be interesting. But these are some of the things that I would like to yet obtain, too. Some of you will say, well, Mr. Weber, I thought you had already obtained to that.

Others of you will say, well, why isn't that on your list? I know you too well. Maybe you need to have that on your list.

So it can go back and forth. But we're going to take a tour of the Bible. Are you with me? We're going to do a little globe trotting here. We're going to go to places. We're going to talk about persons and some things I'd like to see in that location. So are you ready for the journey? We're going to go on Robin Weber's spiritual bucket list of where I'd like to go to.

The first place I'd like to go to is I'd like to go to the rainless plains of the Middle East. And I'd like to visit somebody that I've never visited before, other than in a book. But the rainless plains of the Middle East, I'd like to visit a man named Noah. I'd like to visit Noah.

And Noah is on my spiritual bucket list for a very important reason. Because I realize sometimes where I'm in the autumn of my life, some teenagers might be looking at me and think I'm in dead winter, but in the autumn of my life, sometimes you think that life has already passed you by, that maybe you've climbed your highest mountain, that there's nothing else out there.

Maybe some of you that are even older than I am are just on the bench, just in the waiting game, kind of what we call in God's waiting room. The reason why I want to go visit that plainless, not plainless, but that rainless plain in the Middle East is to come to recognize that you are never too old. You are never too old to learn something new from God, like building a boat.

Some of you that are just new to the Scriptures, and maybe some of you that have read the Scriptures but have never focused on it, Noah was 480 years of age. 480 years of age. That's older than Mel. Just joking, Mr. Helmut. Just joking. By about 400 years. Can you imagine being 480 years of age, and then God lays that on you? The reason why I'm bringing that up is because we do have people that are in their 50s, their 60s, their 70s. And sometimes we can think, well, been there, done that. We can even say that, that been studying the Scriptures for 40 or 50 years, I've got it all tucked in.

I understand it all. There's nothing new. Nothing new. On my spiritual bucket list, I want to go to the rainless plains of the Middle East. Spend time with Noah, and come to understand that you are never too old. You never retire from God teaching you something new. That is, you might want to jot this down, if you are open, if you are available, and if you are willing, and no matter how old you are to recognize, we that are grandparents, we that are great-grandparents, we are all the children of God, still learning.

Let's go to another spot. I like to go visit a spot. It almost sounds exotic in the Bible. I like to go visit the land of Uz. I said Uz, not Oz. Wrong story. I'd like to go visit the land of Uz. And there's somebody there I'd like to meet in the land of Uz. How many even know where Uz is?

How many know who's from Uz? I'd like to go visit a man named Job. Job lived in the land of Uz. And why is that on my spiritual bucket list? I want to go visit Job, and I want to hang with him for a while. Are there just some people that you want to hang with sometimes and get to know a little bit better?

I want to hang with Job, and I want to come to understand that I'm not always going to understand everything. I want to stay and spend some time with Job to really come to realize that I'm not always going to fully understand what God is doing in my life. But to know that God knows best. And just when I think I have arrived to recognize that God is going to take me deeper, deeper than I can even imagine, and open my mind and open my heart to recognize that there are things that I don't even understand, that I thought I understood.

How many of we are willing to go deeper and exploring the things of God, the love of God, the mind of God, the heart of God, the word of God?

I have found that basically at age 62, and I have been in this way of life for 50 years now, starting in San Diego, I find maybe it's just with age. I'm not sure that the older I get, I find the less that I know.

I remember when I was 22 years old and coming out of Ambassador College, and after four years of school, I thought I had a pretty good handle on life.

I thought I had a pretty good handle on life. I really kind of find that I was not even in the oven of life yet, in the arena of life.

And to come to recognize that there are things that I'm not always going to understand, even as a Christian, even as a pastor. And this is a thought I'd like to share with you. It comes with Jewish wisdom, because the Jews have been studying this for thousands of years.

The reason why I want to visit Job in the Land of Us is to come to a firmer reality that as a Christian, I just simply have to leave some things to God.

Not everything is going to have an answer.

And, by the way, while I'm in the Land of Us, I do want to take a side tour.

And there are three individuals that I want to visit. And you know what their names are? They are the Friends of Job.

Boy, if a man or a woman has friends like that, help me. Help me. But how often have we been like the Friends? How often have I, even as a minister and even as a counselor, sat down with people and tried to figure them out in a half an hour or an hour and give them all of my sage advice, all of my careful study of their human dilemma and their human situation and make it their problem.

Rather than recognize that God is having his grand purpose with that individual in ways, at times, that are not going to be clarified in that day, that hour, that week, that month, but to leave it to God.

How often have I, as a Christian, even when God says to be careful how we chime in our words, have chimed in and tried to figure out somebody immediately, signed, sealed, delivered, and packaged. This is your problem. Man, you have issues.

I know I'm not talking to any of Job's friends out here. We've never done that. Maybe you're all looking at me, maybe like I'm the only one that's ever done that.

Well, I'm just sharing myself with you. That's why I hope that God gives me, as a Christian and as a pastor, another day, another hour, and allows me to fulfill my own personal spiritual bucket list and takes me to a place that is beyond my own human natural comfort zone to learn more about him.

I'll tell you some place I'd like to go. I'd like to go visit the land of Ur, probably not too far from us. These are really hard words to spell.

You see? And you are. And the next place I'm going to take you is you is? No, anyway.

Why would I want to go to the land of Ur? I'd like to go to the land of Ur, which was, as much as we understand, it was where the Chaldees were down by the ocean. I'd like to visit a gentleman named Abram. And I'd like to land just at the time when Abram is leaving Ur.

And being able to hone my spiritual heart and to be able to see that example before me to where my first instinct, like Abram's, would be that wherever God tells me to go, to go.

Wherever God tells me to go, to go. And that it's for my good. And that He will guide me.

You know, Susie and I were talking to Carol here, I think, this morning at breakfast or another time. And we were talking about years ago that we had been given an opportunity to choose wherever we wanted to go to take a pastorate.

You choose it, we'll singe you. But that's not how Susie and I grew up in the church. Maybe some of you didn't grow up in that church.

Because I had to go back and think of Lot, who always chose what seemed to be greener, but it really became a desert because the desert was within him, at least for that moment.

And Susan and I have never, ever chosen any spot or any assignment that we've had in all of our pastoral life.

And how were we to know? Because we thought that we might have spent all of the rest of our life in Pasadena.

Most people have thought that we spent most of our life in Pasadena. But wonder if we had not chosen all of you.

Wonder if we'd chosen to go somewhere else when God wanted us to be with all of our dear San Diego brethren.

All the things that we've learned and gone through and grown through over all of these years.

And the wonderment of what God's Spirit is doing here with all of us. And the sharing that has been, the praying for one another, the times when we've shown up for baptisms and for marriages and for funerals and discussing the Bible.

You know, San Diego just loves to discuss the Bible. I just love that about our congregation here.

We wouldn't have had that. Susan and I would not have had that with you if we had chosen and just on our human instinct, rather than having what Abram had, and that was, wherever God wants me to go, I'm going to go.

That's on my spiritual body. I have not yet fully apprehended, but I press forward because I realize that's going to come up again with the different chapters of my life.

And to recognize that wherever God sends me, I will not be alone. Susie will not be alone. And that he will be our guide. He is our ultimate GPS.

Have you mastered that yet? Or are you still in homework with me on those kind of things? Where your first instinct, your first gut, is going to be, oh, okay, God, I'm going to do it. Don't understand it, but I'm going to do it, because I know Father knows best.

I'll tell you another place I want to visit. I'm going to go from Ur. We're going to stay with Abram.

I'd like to visit what is called in the Bible in Genesis the mountains of Moriah.

It is in those mountains of Moriah that Abram, now Abraham, looked up and with his son said, the lad and I are going to go. We're going to go up. And it was that assured that we're going to come back.

And I want to hang with Abraham and Isaac and come to more fully apprehend, as it were, that even when I don't see all of the answers that are in front of me or before me, that God's promises are true. God had said to that old man and that old lady, you're going to have a son.

He's going to be the son of promise. And through that seed, through this, will the earth be blessed as it goes down the line.

And thus we understand that... join me for a moment. Let's open up Scripture here. Come with me, if you would, to Hebrews 11 verse 17. Hebrews 11 verse 17.

Some of you, maybe this will be the first time you see this verse of why Abraham could go up that mountain with a surety, knowing that he was going to have to go through some hoops. He was going to have to raise that knife, that dagger, as it were. But this is the confidence that he went up with in Hebrews 11 verse 17.

By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, in Isaac your seed shall be called. So God had stated that it was true, Isaac, that things were going to be a happening.

But now God seemingly was asking him to make Isaac the sacrifice. Faith does not always humanly compute, does it, friends? Concluding, there is a conclusion in faith that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.

Some of us right now are walking up a mountain. Some of us have challenges that seemingly do not compute.

Hang with Abraham, hang with Isaac, and recognize that we have been called to follow that very same God.

I'll tell you another place I'd like to visit is a little town over in the Holy Land. It's called the House of Bread.

House of Bread? Bethlehem. That's what Bethlehem means. It means House of Bread.

Jeremy, if you would for a moment in 1 Samuel 16, because this is a part of my spiritual bucket list that, well, I still have room to grow in.

Now you're all turning over there to see what does Mr. Weber have to grow in. But I hope to share the lesson with all of you.

See, Samuel had been called out, hadn't he, to anoint the next king of Israel.

And, you know, there is that lineup of guys, and some really, wow, they looked impressive.

They were the GQ dudes of their day. They had the stature. They had perhaps the swagger. They perhaps had the clothes. They had cool-looking togas.

And Samuel was impressed by what he saw on the outside.

And Samuel, a man of God, a man of covenant, and we are people of covenant, aren't we? Not the old covenant, but the new covenant.

But here was a man of God, and he was getting it wrong.

Notice verse 7, But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him.

For the Lord does not see as man sees.

For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

I'm praying that God will give me more time as a Christian, as one who has been beckoned by the Master to follow him, to follow him in this regard, not to judge a book simply by its cover.

Have you ever done that with people, or...

You're all looking at me.

Or am I the only one that has at times sized up an individual by what they look like from the outside, by how they sound from the outside, rather than recognizing that God is seeing things that I don't see, and to allow those seeds to grow, and allow the seeds of his spirit and his mindset and his wisdom and knowledge to look at people from the inside out, rather than just staying on the outside.

What a sad exploration of life if we only skim the surface of an individual, and we look at people from the outside, castigate them, put them in a cast, put them in a box, rather than recognizing that God is doing something with those people.

You know, that's one thing that Susan came away from with this recent Women's Weekend.

Because so often we can bump into one another in church, and hi and hello, and have a cup of coffee, and... or exchange pleasant Sabbath greetings, and then to sit there for an entire weekend, and hear individuals that maybe you've never known, even wondered what they were like.

Maybe had thought that perhaps they were shallow individuals, surface individuals, people that were just kind of in a hamster wheel of church life, and not really grounded. And then to be able to hear our young ladies that are 18 and 22 and 32 and 62, and ladies from every area and every walk of life pour out that which is inside of them.

The heart, the conviction, the spirit, the ability to connect as only women can connect one with another.

And to recognize sometimes we settle just simply for looking at a person quickly, sizing them up, pigeonholing them, and being a little bit like Samuel.

I'll tell you another one that I would like to visit. I'm going to skip about 15 here on my list.

I'd like to be like Peter.

I'd like to hang with Peter, study him.

Sometimes I've, in my years of speaking about Peter, sometimes it's been a little tough on him.

I've heard others be tough on Peter.

Well, what I've recognized in my spiritual bucket list, I really want to be like Peter.

And I'll tell you why I want to be like Peter.

Let me ask the audience for a second. What's one thing that comes to your mind when you think of the Apostle Peter?

Give me an episode. Give me something that he did.

Go ahead. One thing. Just one. I'm not asking for three. Hands up.

We all know Peter, don't we? What's Peter famous for? Dennis?

He denied Christ. Good. You're setting yourself up. Okay. Go ahead. Roland.

Rush to judgment. Rush to judgment. Okay. How about another one?

Yeah, Will? He walked on water. Absolutely. How'd he do walking on water?

That'd be pretty cool on the bucket list, wouldn't it? Walking on water?

Walking on water. Yes. David?

Cut off somebody's ears. Pardon?

Cut off somebody's ears. Okay, cut off somebody's ears. Nice guy.

He's over for dinner tonight, you know? Just make sure you put away the silverware.

What else?

I've got one, after Jesus was resurrected. He's in the boat. He sees Jesus on the shore. What's he do?

He jumps in the water again.

The reason why I want to hang with Peter, I want you to think about this for a moment. And again, I think it goes a little bit to the point of how often we pigeonhole people, judge people, get together with Job's friends.

Peter with all of his foibles. And Peter being Peter, going down in the drink after walking on water, taking his eyes off the Lord and looking at the water.

And or reaching for the sword. Or, remember at Passover, you know, once he got it, what did he say?

Oh man, give me a bath! Lay it on me! Just do it!

And or when he saw Jesus, the resurrected Christ, on the shore, while everybody else was watching, he jumps, he's swimming towards the Christ.

What I learned from Peter, and why he's on my bucket list to spend some time with in Galilee and in Jerusalem, is that wherever Jesus Christ was, he wanted to be near.

He wanted to be as close as possible. You mentioned, Dennis, the story of him being in the courtyard in the Three Denials, right?

Famous story, and Jesus had to work him through some lessons on that, as we know, in John 21.

But where was everybody else? You see, he was still close, while everybody else was in the bleachers.

That's why this is on my bucket list. And I don't have to necessarily travel there. I can travel there in these stories, too.

And it recognizes, this is what I want to yet do, wherever Jesus Christ is, his love, his wisdom, his example, I want to be just as close to him.

Even with my foibles, even when I go down in the water, even if in a moment I have a temper fit, like Peter did.

And the worst thing he was doing was trying to protect Jesus in the only way that he knew.

Or even when everybody else was in the bleachers. You know, the one thing about Peter, while everybody else was in the boat watching, he was the one guy that got out.

You ever thought about it that way? Rather than panning in on Peter, of falling down in the water, while everybody else watched, he was the one that was trying to get as close to Christ as possible.

That's why he is on my bucket list.

Luke 15 and verse 4, let me take you to another one that's on my bucket list. I've been thinking about this one, and this is always one that I think not only comes to a Christian, but maybe also acutely to a pastor.

It's about being a shepherd. About being a shepherd.

And to recognize that sometimes what happens is, even when you're a pastor, when you're a minister, maybe even somebody that's in my stead and in my way, at my time and age, that I can get boiled down in organization, I can get boiled down in paperwork, I can get boiled down in a schedule.

And sometimes there are just things that you cannot schedule.

That Christianity and being a shepherd of God's flock is not about schedules, it's not about paperwork, it's about people.

And maybe you want to jot this down. This is on my bucket list.

And the time that I have yet to redeem as much as the grace that God gives me is more than ever I need to put people first, more than ever, to grow in that, to expand in that.

And to make sure that when you see this story in Luke 15 and verse 4, where it's about the shepherd. So he spoke a parable to them, saying, What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it.

And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.

To learn to be aware, to be spiritually sensitive, to be attuned to the one that is lost.

That is not just simply the role of a pastor. That's also something that each and every one of us can do in this room. And I commend you that are, because this is the only way that we can function today. And this is the vision of our church, that the Spirit guides and leads all of us, every member of the body doing that which they are able to be spiritually sensitive, to know the one that is hurting, to know the one that is in harm, the one that needs encouragement, the one that needs a phone call, the one that needs an email, the one that needs to feel like they have a part of the church, the one that, why don't they let me off the bleacher? Why don't they let me do something in the church? Let me be involved.

Let me go from being simply in a lecture to a laboratory of action and involvement and to be involved and to have that sensitivity.

I want to be like that shepherd. I want to visit that field. I want to continue to get those phone calls. And those are sometimes things that happen. Maybe your life's a little bit like mine. I try to plan my day because of the different functions that I find myself in.

But I recognize that one phone call can change all of my life in one day. And sometimes I may have to travel an hour or three hours or four hours, whatever it takes. That's the important thing to do. Leave the 90 and 9. Do that which is important.

Detect the need and meet it. How about you? Have we yet apprehended in all of this? Can we press forward together? You can be adding to your bucket list. I can be adding my bucket list. I'm going to give you just two more, then conclude here. Two more.

I know where I want to go. I want to go to Jerusalem. I want it all. I want to go to Jerusalem. I want to go to Antioch. I want to go to Asia Minor. I want to have the adventure with Barnabas.

I want to hang with Barnabas. You say, well, what part of the adventure is that and why would that be on your bucket list?

I want to have that God-given spirit within me that sees what God is doing with people rather than what I think He's doing with them or what they're not doing.

Have you ever asked yourself where the New Testament church would be without Barnabas?

That in Jerusalem when all of the disciples were cowering when they heard, can you believe who's joining the church?

Saul of Tarsus, give me a break.

Bolt the doors. Put the locks on. No good is going to come out of this guy. He's the persecutor.

It was Barnabas that brought Paul, then Saul, to the disciples.

Barnabas saw beyond the moment. Barnabas was looking for God's good in an individual, no matter what they had done.

He was looking for God's good and God's purpose to be served another day.

You remember the story in the book of Acts where there was a dispute over John Mark and Paul and Barnabas?

They got into a fight over it. Paul had a hissy fit. He thought only women had hissy fits. Paul had a hissy fit. He had a hissy fit.

He said, no way. He can't rely on this guy.

The two, the Babe Ruth and the Lou Gehrig of that day and age, they used a...

By the way, I never saw Babe Ruth play. I'm not that old.

But anyway, some of the kids, after 21 years old, they split. They split.

But Barnabas kept on using Mark.

And that by the end of the story, because of what Barnabas saw in Mark, Paul got to see it.

And some of the last words that Paul was, tell Mark to come to me. I really need him.

That's why I want to be with that kind of a person.

So where do we go from all of this? You know, I have so many I'm going to conclude here.

That's part of my bucket list, to be shorter.

But I do want to share something with you.

And that is found in Ephesians 3 and verse 14. Let's turn over there. Ephesians 3 and verse 14. I'm going to read it to you in the Living Bible Translation. I beg your indulgence in that.

I realize most of you have the New King James.

When I think of the wisdom and the scope of God's plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.

I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources, that He will give you mighty inner strength through His Holy Spirit.

And we need that, brethren, because some of the things I have mentioned on my own personal, spiritual bucket list, are beyond my natural resources.

I don't have the spiritual spirit, but I do.

I'm not going to have the spiritual spirit, but I do. I don't have the spiritual resources.

I don't have the spiritual currency.

I don't have the spiritual insight.

But God says He has unlimited resources.

He's got it all. He can make this journey happen.

Just as much as the one man made it happen for the two men in the movie, God our Father can make it happen for all of us. He's got the resources.

And He'll give us the strength.

And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in Him.

And may your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love.

And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, how deep His love really is.

And may you experience in all of this, all of these adventures, all of these episodes of following Me, may you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great that you will never fully understand it, then you will be filled with the fullness of life.

We won't be on the bleachers. We'll be filled with the fullness of life and the power that comes from God to help us to move beyond the stuff of life that distracts us from the spiritual richness of life that God wants us to have.

Now glory be to God, and by His mighty power at work within us, He is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope, or even have on our own given bucket list, because that in itself limits God, even as He is pleased that we put it down, because we don't know what God has yet in store for us.

So let's think about it, brethren.

This is just a start. I want you to finish it.

A sermon in church is never the conclusion.

It is only the beginning of you exploring further the ways of God.

I would like to encourage each and every member in here, in the weeks ahead, especially with the Passover coming up, make your own spiritual bucket list of where you would want God the Father and Jesus Christ and you yet to travel together while we redeem the time to the power of that Holy Spirit, which is limitless, and to recognize in whatever direction you go, whatever mountain top you're on, whatever valley you might find yourself in accomplishing this, let's remember what the words of Paul say, that nothing, nothing at all, will separate us from the love of Christ.