TITLE: Bucket List

TEXT: Joel 2:28

PROPOSITION: We all have dreams we seek to become reality.

QUESTION: What?

KEY WORD: Dreams

Introduction:

1. Parents – As children are born we have dreams for what they can become.

2. Young children – have goals for our live work – fireman, doctor, policeman

3. College students – dream of completing our education and using our knowledge

4. Adults – dream of how we could adjust to fulfill our dreams

5. Elderly – often dream about about what could have been. (Many live in a “would'a, could'a, should'a world.)

6. Robert Browning wrote, "Oh that a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven for?"

7. Recent movie - “Bucket List” - 2 men made a list of the things they wanted to do before they “kicked the bucket”.

What are your dreams (goals, wish list, “Bucket List”) of things to do?

1. Exciting – sky jump, hang glide

2. Financial – retire early, travel the world

3. Family – Children, marriage

4. Occupation – promotion, education, change jobs

5. Personal – education, retire early, complete some task

What are your spiritual goals and ambitions?

1. Faith – Our faith must grow (or die)

2. Knowledge of the Bible – Keep learning, reading, study

3. Example for others – Live by the life you know you should

4. Work for this church – Visit, invite, give, be involved

5. Work for the Lord – local, foreign missions, benevolence

6. No matter how old, no matter how long you have been a Christian, ALL OF US STILL NEED GOALS AND DREAMS TO REACH FOR.

7. Philippians 3:13-14 “press toward the goal”

Unfulfilled Dreams trouble us?

1. 1 Kings:8:18-19 ¹⁸But the LORD said to my father David, ‘Whereas it was in your heart to build a temple for My name, you did well that it was in your heart. ¹⁹Nevertheless you shall not build the temple, but your son who will come from your body, he shall build the temple for My name.’

2. David wanted to build a temple – don't we all want to build (do, accomplish) something that will last beyond our life?

3. The dream was a good, honorable one.

4. Schubert's “unfinished symphony”

5. Gandhi never saw a united and free India

6. Woodrow Wilson never saw the League of Nations

7. Paul never got to Spain

The Challenge before each of us

1. Keep your dreams alive

2. Keep working toward them – even if they never become reality

3. Keep the faith

4. Your life DOES have meaning and impact on others.

5. Hebrews 11:4 By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.

6. Your life and example will live on. Your dreams may be fulfilled by others.