Behind this new trend of ‘bucket lists’ are the old ideas of Epicureanism & Hedonism: ‘You only live once, so live it up. If there is no eternity & no resurrection & no life to come, then grab all you can now. Seize the day, because there’s nothing after this.’

That’s why, from their god-less point of view, these speculations are no surprise. – Until they acknowledge that God began the world in the first place, how will they ever accept that God has also planned how to end this world?

The painful evidence is all around us. – News’ headlines are just obituaries in a different form: Right here at Northgate on Thursday, a guard shot dead. – At least 67 dead in Nairobi after a brutal mall siege last weekend. – At least 42 dead after a boat sank on the Niger River on Friday. – 85 Christians slain in a Pakistan church last Sunday. – The day before that, at least 515 dead in a Pakistan earthquake. – And this all just in the last week. – “Death reigns”.

By Paul’s day, some also held that death extinguished life totally. – Or that death only led to some shadowy, ghostly existence in the underworld. But to speak of a bodily, physical existence in the world to come was a belief not fit for polite company! – To speak of rotten, decaying corpses that get resuscitated? –

If you take a standard Christian hymnal and search the index for hymns about God’s grace, listen to what you’ll find:
There are hymns about: converting grace, the covenant of grace, efficacious grace, the fullness of grace, magnified grace, refreshing grace, regenerating grace, sanctifying grace, saving grace, and sovereign grace. –

Antioch, HOW do we make sure that doesn’t happen to us? – HOW do YOU make sure you’re not the next mediocre Christian whose life revolves around something other than the gospel? – HOW do we make sure we don’t just become another distracted church that sidelines the gospel (in exchange for 100 other good-but-lesser things)?