Eulogy Maurice Bickerstaff Funeral

Eulogy Maurice Bickerstaff

By Rick Gillespie- Mobley

John 14:1-6

Summary: This is a eulogy for a man who died unexpectedly at age 53. He was greatly loved by his family and started coming to the church about 3 years before his death. He regularly attended church and would bring offerings to the church throughout the week with prayer requests on the back of the offering envelope.

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Eulogy Maurice Bickerstaff by Rick Gillespie- Mobley

John 14:1-14:7

Maurice Bickerstaff came into this world, when Richard Nixon was president, antiwar demonstrations against the Vietnam war were growing, the draft for the army began in the US, gasoline was .34 cents a gallon, and Neil Armstrong made famous the statement, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” with the lunar landing.

But while all this was going on, God was doing a new work in the lives of the Bickerstaff family. God had a double blessing in mind for them when on February 20th 1969, God sent into their lives Maurice and Mark Bickerstaff, a set of twins.

Maurice became a blessing and gift not only to his family, but to his world at large. God created within him a desire not only to succeed but to push others to reach the potential God had for their lives.

One thing we should all remember, but we somehow so easily forget, is that God gives us on loan to each for just a short time. Our beginning starts in God, and our ending lands with God.

Jesus, the Son of God told us, “Let not your heart be troubled, You believe in God, believe also in me. In My Father’s House are many rooms. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that where I am, you will be also.”

Maurice was born, he lived, he died, and he went home to a place that Jesus had prepared for him. We all go through that cycle of birth, life, and death because it’s automatic. Yet it takes a willful decision on our part, to go home to place prepared for us.

For those who remain on this side of death, the Bible tells us, there is a time and a season for everything under the sun. A time to laugh and a time to cry, a time to hope and a time to give up, a time for joy and a time for pain, a time to be born and a time to die. The one experience that is common to us all is death. It is as common and as natural as all the other things done under the sun.

The Scriptures tell us that there is a way that seems right to a person, but at the end of it is death. If we are all living in order that we might someday die, it should be of utmost importance that we live in such way that in the end our lives would not have been lived in vain. Whether or not we have lived in vain will not be determined by how much we accumulated in terms of material goods, for naked we came into this world, and naked we go out.

What truly matters is what is the condition of our relationship to God when we take our final breath. You and I will take that relationship into eternity. Brothers and sisters, I submit to you that Maurice Bickerstaff’s life was not lived in vain, because he spent it serving the cause of Jesus Christ.

I was Maurice’s pastor for the past 3 or more years. I got a deeper glimpse of what he was like through the eyes of his family. Maurice lived a life that impacted many people in a positive way.

He was described by his family in one word definitions as being creative, visionary, determined, interesting, charismatic loving and forgiving. He could be very funny at times.

God sends everybody into the world with a gift to offer to the rest of humanity. God blessed Maurice with a heart to help people move forward in life. In another time, he would have been called a teacher along the lines of Socrates because he was always giving out helpful and practical advice.

If you followed it, you would go further in life. One of his favorite teachings on work was “always walk in early, don’t run in late.” Many people would not have been fired if they had followed this simple piece of advice. You can see from Maurice’s obituary that he followed his own advice from the many jobs that he worked.

There was something in him that got a joy and satisfaction in helping in the success of others. He would share with you his success and failures so that you could grow from his experiences in life.