[Give everybody a yellow pad of paper to take notes, and collect the pads in buckets at the end of the service. Have people put their bucket list in buckets anonymously so we can read them over the next few weeks.]
Setting Priorities in Life -- What Really Matters -- Living Life on Purpose
Several months ago we rented the movie "The Bucket List" starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Jack Nicholson plays an uncaring multi-millionaire named Edward, who has everything money can buy and Morgan Freeman plays Carter, a humble and very knowledgeable mechanic. These perfect strangers meet as patients in a hospital room (actually its Edward’s hospital) where they both discover they have cancer and have only a year to live.
We’re going to do something a little different this morning, we are going to watch a clip from "The Bucket List." [Show clip of Edward discovering and discussing Carter’s "Bucket List" ]
The Bucket List is a list of all the things to do before you..."kick the bucket." These two men decide with only a year left to live they aren’t going to let their cancer hold them back from following their dreams. So Carter heads off with Edward in his private plane as they begin living out what they think are their dreams and life goals, much to the chagrin of Carter’s wife and family. I don’t think I’m ruining the movie for you if you haven’t seen it, but throughout their journey they begin to discover what’s really important in life, and I’ll give you a hint, it’s not about going halfway around the world to see wonders of the world or live in luxury. They discover it has more to do with faith and relationships; family and friends.
I felt the idea behind this movie is a perfect launching point for the New Year because the New Year tends to be a time when we think about our life as we reflect back on the past year and the things we did or didn’t do, the happy moments, the regrets, the disappointments. And then we look at the New Year as a fresh start, a chance to change things and do better this year. Some of us even make New Year’s resolutions. A resolution goes something like, "I resolve that over the next year I am going to...eat less ice cream, or something like that." So I have the top ten resolutions Americans have for the New Year:
Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions
10. Be more spiritual
9. Get out of debt
8. Be more organized
7. Spend less time on the internet (this probably used to be television)
6. Spend more time with family (I wonder if those two are connected)
5. Be a better person
4. Quit drinking
3. Quit smoking
2. Exercise
1. [And you can guess what the #1 is] Lose weight
Resolutions are one thing, but a Bucket List is different, it’s a bigger idea because it is more than just what I want to change, do better, or differently over the next year. The Bucket List is looking back at the end of your life and asking; what would you like to have accomplished before you leave this earth? Supposing you have only a year left to live, what regrets would you have if they weren’t done before you die? What things have you left undone? I can imagine some peoples lists would be like Edwards and Carters: kiss the prettiest girl in the world, make a million dollars, skydiving, and maybe drive a favorite car model. Those may sound like pretty fun things to do, but I’m going to challenge you to begin creating a bucket list for yourself based not just on what you want to do, or what would be fun or exciting, that was the problem Edward and Carter ran into, but prayerfully create a list of things that are really going to really matter at the end of our life.
To help you with this you have received two pieces of yellow paper this morning. These are for you to begin thinking about and writing down your bucket list. I certainly don’t expect you to finish it this morning, but this is to help you get started. One sheet is for you to take with you, and the other sheet is for you to jot a couple of the items from your list (anonymously, you don’t need to write your name) and drop it in one of the buckets you see around the sanctuary. You can do this during communion or at the end of the service. And then over the course of the next few Sundays I will share some of these bucket lists.
Why a Bucket List?
You might be thinking, why a bucket list? Isn’t this rather depressing? Why would we want to talk about our death or kicking the bucket? Shouldn’t we be focusing on more positive things? It’s interesting that even Christians don’t like thinking about how short their life is. Yet in our passage this morning, listen to what David wrote in Psalm 39, he actually asked God to remind him how brief his time is on earth: Psalm 39:4 "LORD, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, and that my life is fleeing away. 5 My life is no longer than the width of my hand. An entire lifetime is just a moment to you; human existence is but a breath."
Why in the world would David ask God to remind him of the very thing which most of us are trying to ignore or forget, that our time on this earth is evaporating? That our days are getting shorter. I’ve heard people say to me the older you get the faster time seems to go. It’s like saying, "God, please remind me of how old I am, and how little time is left for me."
David wrote this because he recognized that when we are reminded of the shortness of our lifespan, or the little time we have left on earth, especially in the grand scheme of eternity, it changes our viewpoint about what we are doing here on earth in the time we have. The important things which we kept putting off, that we kept saying we would get around to eventually, the changes we hoped we would make, the things we thought we would do, we realize there isn’t that much time left to do them. Hopefully we are also jarred back into realizing what’s really important in our life.
A first century philosopher named Epictetus (55-135 AD) said it this way, "This is our predicament over and over again we lose sight of what is important and what isn’t." Is that true? Yes, I believe it is. Part of our problem is that we tend to lose sight of what is important and put it off for some other things because there are more "urgent" or "pressing matters" for us to attend to. It’s like the old saying, the squeakiest wheel... We tend to allow other factors to control us.
For David the issue was sin. He wanted God to remind him his days are numbered because it would help him to refrain from using his tongue or his words in a sinful way. He wanted to live his life for God, we will talk more about the faith aspect next week. But what I want to point out this week is that in the first few verses David realized how easy it is to lose focus on doing the right thing, how easily things crowd out the important.
A bucket list may sound silly to you but it is a tangible way for us to look critically at what we are going to do with the little time we have left. There is something that happens when we put our ideas on paper. Supposing you find out tomorrow that you only have a year left to live, would that cause you to change what you are doing? It is being intentional about doing what really matters. It will have to deal with our relationships and with our faith. What loose ends would I like tied up? Relationships resolved? When people are at my funeral what do I want them to say about me? What am I doing right now to accomplish these goals?
Counselors have something similar which they call ’the Miracle question’. It goes something like this, if you were to wake up tomorrow and a miracle happened overnight and you are now living your dream life, what does that look like? What would your day be like? What does your marriage look like? How would your relationships look different? How are you relating to them? How are they relating to you? Would we be more affectionate? Would we be spending more time together? What is really important is that we begin to see the kind of person we would like to become. Then they ask a penetrating question; what is stopping you from being that person, or doing those things right now?
What this is really about is prioritizing. Getting our priorities straight and living them out.
Let me give you an illustration of the rocks in the sand/rice. Let’s say the rocks illustrate our priorities, our bucket list, and the container represents our life. And the sand represents all of the other things in life that we have to do. What happens if we put the sand in first? We can’t put the rocks in can we? Our priorities get crowded out. But what if we put the rocks in first, the sand filters around the rocks. They fill in the cracks.
Identifying My Priorities
As we create a bucket list, we are really asking, what are my priorities? What’s so important it has to be done or become a part of my life before I die. It’s more than just thinking, what would be a cool thing to do. It’s realizing my life will be incomplete without this. It’s prioritizing what is really the most important things, and making them a reality in our life right now. Unfortunately, as we’ve already mentioned our life usually doesn’t reflect our priorities, we live according to our unwritten real priorities.
What are these unwritten real priorities? Your real priorities are identified by honestly asking yourself three simple questions:
* Where do I spend my time?
* Where do I spend my money?
* What do I think about most often?
These are your real priorities. As I was reading those questions, some things were popping into your mind; hobbies you have, the new HD television and blue ray disk player you just bought, the movie fest you just had over Christmas break, You can claim whatever priorities you think you have, but the answer to these three questions reveals what your priorities really are. What we want is for our real priorities to match our hoped for priorities.
Considerations When Creating Your Bucket List
When creating a bucket list or setting your priorities. There are two things to keep in mind.
1) Ask, what does God want me to do, not what do I want to do? I thought this was my bucket list. I thought this was my dream list to do what I want. If we focus on what I want, we will inevitably head in the wrong direction. The Bible says in James
4:13 Look here, you people who say, "Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit." 14 How do you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is like the morning fog-- it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. 15 What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that." 16 Otherwise you will be boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil. 17 Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
NIV Proverbs 16:9 In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.
Instead we should ask, what does God want me do to do, because if we don’t do what God wants us to do we are sinning. We can determine whatever we want to do, but God already knows the future, he knows what really we need. It makes sense to let God in on our bucket list.
The second consideration bridges us into our time of communion.
2) Don’t limit God.
Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through him [Christ] who gives me strength."
Through Christ God gives us the power to tackle God sized dreams. If God tells us in his word to do something then God will give us the strength, the ability, and the means to do it.
What needs to go on your bucket list? What needs to become a priority in your life? Perhaps you are already doing them.
Be as specific as you can. Having something too broad like, ’love people more’ or ’love my wife more,’ or ’love others the way Jesus does,’ may sound really good, but if you can’t set a goal and be specific it doesn’t mean anything and you won’t accomplish it. You should be able to take something and make it as specific as possible.
