Funeral Message

On Saturday, Michael spent most of the night praying for Margo when she was struggling. She couldn’t really talk but would mouth the words, “I love you” to him. Early in the morning, Michael reached for his Bible and the passage that came up on the screen was from 2 Corinthians 5:1-5. He read it and worshipped with tears. Then, early Monday morning, he read it again out loud when Chad, Becky, Grayson, Payton, and Asher were there. Margo heard these words from God’s Word before she was transferred to glory to worship the living Word forever.

Let’s listen to that passage now. It’s printed in your bulletin if you’d like to follow along…

For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. 2 We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. 3 For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies.[a]4 While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. 5 God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.

The first thing Paul says is, “For this we know…” This has the idea of certainty. It means, “to see with perception.” We don’t have to guess or wish or hope. We can know.

This passage teaches two primary truths we can know with certainty.

1. Earthly life is finite.

2. Eternal life is forever.

Our earthly life will end.

Eternal life will be never-ending.

One of the metaphors the Bible uses to describe our life here is that we’re all living in tents. The Apostle Paul knew a lot about tents because he was a tentmaker. I’d like to suggest three ways that living in this world is like living in a tent.

• Life is temporary. A tent is not meant to be permanent. Tents are designed to be used for a short time. Unfortunately, many of us act is if there is no eternity; that this life is all that there is. This is but a dress rehearsal for the real event. James 4:14 says, “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Proverbs 27:1 reminds us to “not boast about tomorrow because we don’t know what a day will bring forth.”

• Life here is insecure. A tent is not very secure because it’s made out of canvas and is not good at keeping out wild animals or the elements. Friends, life is too unpredictable and too brief to live it without God at the center. We count our lives in years, but God tells us in Psalm 90:12 to number our days. In 1 Samuel 20:3, David said, “Yet as surely as the Lord lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death.” Our lives are here one minute and gone the next.

• Life here is uncomfortable. I can remember going deer hunting with my dad in northern Wisconsin and sleeping in a tent in late November. It wasn’t comfortable and it was very cold! This passage says that this life makes us “groan.” Some of you can say “amen” to that.

Our tents are taken down at the time of our death. Our bodies are disposable because they run down and wear out.

2. Eternal life is forever. Life is temporary, insecure, and uncomfortable, but Paul says born again believers have a “building from God.” We move from a tattered temporary tent here to a house in heaven, which is permanent.

In 2 Timothy 4:6, Paul says that the time had come for his “departure.” The word departure literally means, “An unloosing” and was used when throwing off a ship’s cables, pulling up anchor and setting sail. It was also used in a military sense of striking camp, when taking down the tents and of removing the bonds of a prisoner.

When Margo died, the cables that bound her to this life were loosened and she set sail for the shores of heaven. When we die, this earthly tent is taken down and we move into “an eternal house in heaven, made for us by God Himself, not built by human hands.” When Margo arrived in heaven, she was released from the shackles of sin and disease, never to be imprisoned by them again.