Bucket List: Attempt the Impossible
 

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

August 9, 2046, is my date with destiny. That’s right. According to one Internet site, I have 14,040 days left in this world and, after that, they’ve calculated it down to the second, on August 9, 2046, will be the day of my death. There are actually several sites out there that answer a series of questions and, as you answer those and based on current statistics, they will tell you right down to the second how much longer you have in this world. I went to a second site. They had me kicking the bucket nine years earlier so I dismissed it.

The point is, though, we don’t really know, do we? Maybe it will be on August 9, 2046. Maybe it won’t. Maybe I’ll have a fatal car accident on the way home today from church. Maybe I’ll have a heart attack tomorrow. Maybe I’ll contract a disease next week or maybe I’ll live far past August 9, 2046. We don’t know how much longer we have in this world. But what we do know is that it’s limited. We only have a certain amount of days, a certain amount of years that we’re going to live this side of heaven and then we’re going to be called home to an eternity with our Father in heaven. And so for the last several weeks, we have been asking ourselves, “Well, in the meantime, while we’re still in this world, what are some of the things God would like us to get accomplished and what are some of the things that we would like to accomplish before we’re called home?”

Now we’ve been following Jesus on the road to Jerusalem because He’s in His last days. Once He makes it to Jerusalem, all He has in front of Him is the cross. And so we see from Him several items that have been on His Bucket List. And this morning, we add one more: Attempt the impossible. You see, that kind of resonates with me because when 2046 rolls around, I don’t want to be sitting around with all kinds of regrets of things I wished I had tried or I wished I’d have made an attempt at but I didn’t. Even if I failed at that, to at least know that I gave it my best, at least I tried.

And so on the list then is attempting what might seem to be impossible. But if we’re going to attempt the impossible, scripture tells us that there is just one key principal in doing that, just one. The key principal is this: If you’re going to attempt the impossible, then you have to remove the “i.” You remove the “i” and all of a sudden impossible becomes “mmm, possible.” You see, when you take yourself out of the picture, all of a sudden, things are different. Too often, we focus on ourselves and what is it I can do? What is it I can accomplish? And what is it that is beyond my reach? And if we’ve already determined that something is beyond our reach, we won’t even attempt it. We’ve already concluded that it’s impossible, so we don’t even try.

Now don’t worry, that’s joining in thousands if not millions and billions of people that simply see things out of their grasp so they don’t even make an attempt. In fact, even in the pages of scripture, there’s account after account of God calling upon people to do something but they conclude that it’s simply impossible for them to do it.

We can go all the way back to the book of Genesis. We have Abraham and Sarah. You might remember, “Abraham,” God said, “you’re going to be the father of a new nation.” He said, “Your descendants will be more numerous than the stars in the sky.” We picked up the story in Chapter 18. Abraham is 100. Sarah’s in her 90's. She’s yet to have any children. So much for being the mom and dad of a great nation. So God comes to them again and still says, “You’re going to be the mother and father of this great nation.” Is it any wonder that Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I’m worn out and my master is old, will I now know this pleasure?” She says, “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m 90. He’s 100. We haven’t thought about kids for decades. What do you mean I’m going to have a child? That’s impossible.”

How about Moses? You remember Moses. He was there in the Pharaoh’s palace. He knew he was part of the Israelites. He didn’t really know how bad it was until he took a tour around the place and he sees this Egyptian slave master beating one of his fellow Israelites. He jumps down. He kills the man, thinks he’s going to be the hero. He becomes a criminal. He has to flee to a distant land for his very life. Sure, he’d love it if the rest of his family could join him. He’d think it would be just great if the rest of the Israelites could be freed from their bondage of slavery but what’s he going to do? So when God comes to him in the burning bush and says, “Listen, Moses, I’m sending you back there,” is it any wonder that Moses says, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites back?” He says, “God, are you forgetting? I’m a wanted man back there. I can’t go in front of Pharaoh. That’s impossible.”

Do you remember Gideon? Gideon lived in the time when it wasn’t good for Israel. The Midianites were just playing havoc with them. They were messing with them everyday. The Israelites would plant a field and the Midianites would come and burn it up. The Israelites would dig a well and the Midianites would come in and fill it in. Just messing with them. Would Gideon like to teach the Midianites a lesson? You bet he would. Would he like to be done with the Midianites? Oh, yeah. But yet when God comes to him and says, “Listen, Gideon, you’re going to lead the people against the Midianites,” Gideon says, “Whoa, how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I’m the least in my family.” He says, “God, the gene pool’s against me. It’s the weakest clan. Besides that, I’m the scrawniest one of the bunch. Remember, I’m the kid who got beat up at recess. How can I go up against the Midianites? That’s impossible.”

How about a young man talking to Jesus? He has all the wealth he needs in this world. He says, “Listen, I want to make sure I have a place in heaven, too. So just tell me, Jesus, what am I missing? What’s the last thing I need to do?” Jesus says, “Okay, if you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give to the poor. And you’ll have treasure in heaven and then come follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad because he had great wealth. It’s not the answer he was looking for. “No, Jesus, I have grown accustomed to my lifestyle. I can’t do without some of the things I have here. That’s impossible.” And you know what, he was right.

Every single one of them was right. Sarah couldn’t have a baby. Moses couldn’t lead the people out. Gideon couldn’t go up against the army. And this young man couldn’t leave his riches. If it’s all about what they could do and what they could accomplish, they are absolutely, positively right. It’s impossible when you start thinking about you can do and what you can accomplish. Is it any wonder that we don’t attempt things that we think are important to us, that we think God may be calling for us to do?

You see, maybe it’s been on your mind for quite some time but, “You know what, I just want to stay home full time with the kids. But I look at the budget and I look at how the bills are coming in and, you know what? That’s just impossible.” Maybe God has been working on your heart and He’s been knocking on your heart saying, “Stop just being a ministry partner but go into full-time ministry.” Maybe He’s calling you to be a full-time minister of the gospel but you look around and you say, “I have a wife. I have kids. You know, I can’t do that. I can’t just pack up and go to school. That’s impossible to do.” Maybe you’ve been struggling with an addiction your whole life, legal or otherwise, and you’ve tried to quit every year. And finally, you got to the point where you don’t try anymore. You just don’t have the willpower. You don’t have the strength. It’s impossible. Maybe your finances are a mess or ruined. You just keep charging stuff on the plastic and you know you shouldn’t and want to break out of it but you only have so much income that’s coming in and it doesn’t add up and you can’t bring anymore in so it’s just impossible.

I don’t know. What are your impossibles? What is it that God is calling you to do or what is it that you believe you should do but, as you look at the score, you say, “I can’t do it.” I’m here to tell you, “You’re right, you can’t.” As long as you’re focusing in on what is it that I can do, it’s going to remain impossible. We have to stop focusing in on what we can do and start asking what God can do. We have to remove the “i” from impossible, for when you remove the “i” all of a sudden, impossible becomes “mmm, possible.”

You see, it wasn’t about Sarah having a baby. It was about what God could do. So God said to her, “Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at this appointed time this year and Sarah will have a son.” Mmm, possible. How about Moses? And God said, “I will be with you. I will deliver my people out of the hands of the Egyptians. I will bring them into the Promise Land.” Mmm, possible. Gideon, the Lord answered, “I will be with you and we will strike down the Midianites together.” How about even the rich young man? The disciples look at Jesus and they say, “Who can be saved after that statement, go through the eye of a needle?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.” All things are possible.

You see, once you remove yourself from the picture and stop asking what can I accomplish and start asking what can God accomplish, all of a sudden the impossible becomes very, very possible. My friends, if God is calling you to accomplish something in your life, if He is calling you to give up something in your life, you’re not going to do it on your own. But if you start asking what can God do in my life, now the possibilities are endless.

You want proof? God has already done the impossible. He’s already done the impossible in your life. I’m going to go with the assumption that everyone here wants to be in heaven one day. Pretty safe assumption, I think, rather heaven than the other place. We’d like to be there in glory. We’d like to join our Father in heaven, spend an eternity in joy and peace. Am I right? Guess what? It is impossible for you to do it. Impossible for you to get into heaven. That was the whole point with the rich young ruler. He comes to Jesus and says, “What must I do so I can spend an eternity with you?” Jesus says, “That’s impossible.” It’s impossible for you to get into heaven because heaven, my friends, is for perfect people. Heaven is a holy place and nothing unholy can be there. That means no sin can be in heaven and there are no exceptions. Even the smallest infraction against God’s will prohibits you from being in heaven. It is absolutely impossible. But when God enters the picture, the impossible becomes possible.

Listen to the words of St. Paul to the Church at Corinth, “God made Him,” that is, Jesus, “who had no sin to be sin for us so in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” God made Jesus His Son who was sinless, who was perfect, who had a place in heaven, He made Him to be sin, namely to be our sin, to take on our sin so we could be declared righteous, so we could be declared perfect so now when God looks at us, He doesn’t see our sinfulness. Instead, He sees righteous, perfect, holy people and He says, “Oh, yeah, I have a place for you in heaven because heaven is for holy people and you’re now holy.”

What is impossible for you is possible for God. You remove the “i” and all of a sudden, impossible becomes “mmm, possible.” You remove the “i” and all of a sudden, the impossible becomes possible and we start trusting in God. We put our complete and total trust in Him. In fact, that is the whole point of attempting something which is impossible for us to do. We throw ourselves into the arms of God and we put our complete and total trust in Him.

This past Wednesday, I was with my third grader daughter and, if you’ve gone through this, you know what I’m talking about. In third grade, they get a bible from the church and then for six or eight weeks, they go through the bible and they highlight passages. Well, this week, we were still in the Old Testament and we got to the book of Proverbs. And maybe you’re already thinking of the verse that we highlighted but it just brought it back to attention to me. It’s Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” Trust in the Lord. It doesn’t matter whether you understand it, whether you get it, whether you can comprehend it. Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

This is what was going on with that rich young man who Jesus was talking to. It’s not that Jesus is against rich people. If Jesus was against rich people, we’d all be sunk because we live in the wealthiest nation on this earth. It’s the fact that this young man was putting his faith and trust in his wealth above God. He was trusting his possessions and his money more that he was trusting God, so Jesus said, “Remove that barrier. Remove that barrier that’s stopping you from just turning your life over to me.” Because that’s what it’s all about when we attempt something that we consider is impossible, we’re saying, “We can’t do it.” Which means we have to rely upon God to do it. We have to put our total hope and trust in Him and Him alone. Just throw ourselves into His arms and believe that He’s going to carry us through. It’s stepping out in faith and, my friends, there’s no greater joy, there’s no greater spiritual experience or blessing than to step out in faith, to stop focusing on what you can do and relying upon yourself and to say, “I’m just going to rely on God. I’m going to turn this over to Him and I’m going to believe that He’s going to carry me. I’m going to trust in His strength and His power and His life.” And all of a sudden, you see God working in your life.

I’ll even go so far as to say if you feel that God is calling you to do something you consider impossible and you step out in faith and you fail, it doesn’t materialize, maybe God has something else in mind. I still believe you’ll have incredible spiritual blessings from just the fact that you stopped relying on yourself and you put yourself in the hands of God.

That’s what our relationship with Him is all about. That’s what attempting the impossible is all about. It’s putting complete and total trust in Him. So if you want to attempt the impossible, if you don’t want to have some of those regrets, there’s just one key principle. You have to remove the “i.” You remove the “i” and all of a sudden impossible becomes, “mmm, possible.” Amen.