What’s on your bucket list? And why are you against it?
Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear
J.D. Greear
4.8 • 630 Ratings
🗓️ 21 September 2020
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Pastor J.D. talks about why it’s time we kick our bucket lists and do the one thing now that we can’t do in eternity—share the gospel.
A glimpse inside this episode:
I often hear people today talk about “bucket lists.” You know, all those things you want to do before you kick the bucket because you assume you’ll never have a chance to do them again.
The handful of experiences that have lived up to expectations:
- Becoming a Christian
- Marrying Veronica and having children
- Visiting Kauai, Hawaii
- Skydiving
Others I’d like to do:
- Hike the Inca trail
- Climb Mt. Everest
- Hang-gliding
- Fly to the moon
But does that make sense for the Christian?
The book of Revelation tells us that at the resurrection, Jesus ushers us into the “new heavens and new earth.”
Scholars say new means “renewed.” That means that heaven is not some ethereal existence in the clouds where we sit around in diapers with Nerf bow and arrows playing the harp. Heaven is a new, renewed version of this earth, without the curse of sin.
That means that up there I’ll get to experience a perfected version of all the things I missed out on down here. All the mountains, stars, rivers, oceans, planets, animals, culture, arts, music, architecture, and extreme sports that I never got to experience here are waiting for me there.
Revelation 21:26 even says that God will bring into heaven “the glory and honor of the nations” (CSB), which means he brings in the best of culture. The best Italian food. The best of Arabian architecture. The best art. Mardi Gras without the debauchery. Disney World without the lines. The Jersey Shore without the Jersey.
The point?
It’s time to kick the bucket list. You don’t have to worry about anything you miss out on here. Instead, you can focus on leveraging your few remaining moments for eternity.
You see, there is one thing we can’t do there that we can do here: tell people about Jesus.
If you want to put something on a bucket list, make it sharing the gospel with as many people as possible. The people alive in the world during this generation have one shot to hear the gospel, and it’s us.
So before you kick the bucket, kick your bucket list. For eternity, you’ll be glad you did.
Pastor J.D.’s new book, What Are You Going to Do with Your Life?, is available now for pre-order.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | LifeWay Leadership Podcast Network. |
| 0:26.9 | Hey, everybody. Welcome to Ask Me Anything. My name is Matt Love, and I'm here with J.D. Greer. And JD, you just wrote a book, and you have a chapter in that book that really kind of takes it to bucket list, |
| 0:31.7 | really negative about bucket lists. So I kick the bucket list. Yes. The name of the chapter. |
| 0:35.2 | So my question to you is, A, why do you hate bucket list? |
| 0:37.8 | But before you get to that, what's on your bucket list? |
| 0:41.4 | Ooh, the honesty point. |
| 0:42.7 | And I know it's, is that because you've read the chapter, Matt, or is that? |
| 0:45.6 | I looked at the chapter title and here we go. |
| 0:47.7 | And here we go. |
| 0:48.4 | Okay. |
| 0:49.2 | Yeah. |
| 0:49.4 | So I think a bucket list is a fun concept. It actually comes from a movie. I think it's called the bucket list, |
| 0:55.1 | and I think Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, are in it. |
| 0:57.7 | And I'm sure there's things that are inappropriate in the movie. |
| 1:00.2 | It's been a long time as I've seen it, so I'm not wholly recommended. |
| 1:02.4 | But it basically, it was a couple guys who get a terminal diagnosis, |
| 1:06.4 | and they have some things that they want to do before they die because you won't have a chance to do them after you die and before you kick the bucket. And it's a fun concept. It's actually been fun for |
| 1:16.0 | my wife and I to think through like, what are some things we want to do before we, you know, before we |
| 1:19.7 | go to see Jesus? In the book, I make a whole point that a bucket list, by the way, the concept |
| 1:25.0 | really caught on. You could ask 90% of the people over the age of 30 in our church what's on their bucket list. And most of them will come up with a handful of names. |
| 1:31.7 | It's kind of amazing that it only came into being so recently because it's such a well-known phrase now and such a well-known idea. technical connection between these, but the little phrase that came after it was Yolo. You know, |
| 1:44.4 | you only live once, so you got to do these things because you'll never get another chance to |
... |
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