Christian Funeral Message For A Majority Of Mormons In Attendance.

NOTE TO READER: Message starts off theological, then the eulogy is inserted in the middle, and then the theological is completed. I attempted to address some Mormon beliefs by stating true Christian understandings. May our Lord Jesus bless you in the building of your funeral message.

“whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”

We have a solid hope in Jesus Christ, but for some at a time such as this, there are the feelings of a loss of hope.

Darkness, emptiness, zero.

Fear. Anxiety. Apprehension.

What we see in life, is there anything more than what we can see and touch?

Is this all there is…or is there something more?

Some people, they push these type of thoughts and feelings aside, they let them remain in the background of life. And these people choose remain ignorant, and ultimately, they hold a deep sense of trepidation inside.

Never knowing, never being sure….

But we, we who are Christians are not ignorant in the death of our brother Jim. We are not ignorant because we do not only look at what is temporal - what we see in time and space. We do not look only at what can be obviously seen - Age slowly creeping up upon each one of us and the end of a life.

See, the reason we don’t lose heart is because we’re really looking past the physical, we are looking past the psychological.

We are looking to the spiritual.

Now the spiritual isn’t this unknowable mystery, something we can’t place our finger on, no, that’s nonsense; We see the spiritual, we experience the spiritual, we feel the spiritual – through the person of Jesus Christ – Who as a historical fact, lived, died and rose again from the dead and is alive and well right now as we speak today.

Jim – a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, is also, as a matter of fact, very much alive and well, right now as we speak today

Sometimes people -- they think that when you die, that’s the end of any meaning in your life; They think that you’ve got to cram this temporal life with everything you can

because that is all there is. They think that all there is, is what can be perceive with the natural mind, the natural body.

That is a fairly typical perspective, isn’t it?

We know better than that.

We know that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we who have given our life over to Jesus Christ will live – period. For us there is life, for Jesus Christ has conquered death.

See, Jesus Christ is not just another man, nor is Jesus Christ just another good man, Scripture tells us very clearly that Jesus Christ is God himself. Now Jesus, didn’t become God at His birth, nor did Jesus become God at His baptism, and Jesus certainly didn’t become God at His death or Resurrection – Jesus doesn’t become a God – Jesus just is. Always was, always will be, there never will be a time without Jesus.

We see Jesus was at creation, We see Jesus existed before time, Jesus is. In the Old Testament, when Moses asks for the name of God, do you know what God’s response is?

Yahweh. Which is Hebrew for - I am.

Who are you God? I am.

With God, the dimension of time is irrelevant, the dimension of space holds no sway, the laws of physics do not apply. He’s God after all.

So Jesus comes to earth, God Himself, and becomes man – fully God / fully man, and this is what is so important for our brother Jim, for who can conquer death? Can you or I conquer death, can the greatest man or woman who ever lived defeat death? Can angels or prophets, philosophers or vast group of well intentioned people?

I’ll tell you who can defeat death – none other than God himself, that’s who

When Jesus dies and is resurrected, death is defeated.

Now that may seem like an unusual statement to make at a time like this, for here we are, all gathered at the funeral of one wonderful and precious man, Jim Hill, How can we say death has been defeated? Are we deluded? No, to say that death in defeated is a it is quite a natural statement to make at a time such as this.

You know, we are spiritual beings, destined for spiritual things. Who I am, who you are, is much more to this world than what we see when we look in the mirror or see around us day in and day out. God tells us that He knows us in the womb – when you were a single cell – God knew you!