How Do We Go On 2?

Funeral for Jim Fles

Funeral - How do we go on?

Welcome & Greeting

Today we gather to celebrate and remember the life of Jim Fles.

Funerals are never fun, especially when it’s for someone who has meant so much to so many. We remember that Jesus Himself was heartbroken over the death of a friend and wept beside the grave of His friend Lazarus.

- Pray

- Read 23rd Psalm

- Read letters, notes

Ever since death first entered the picture, there following the Garden of Eden; man has been faced with a problem. He has been faced with a question. How in the world can I go on? When one of the people you love most dearly in the world is taken from you; when it feels that your heart has been ripped out and an emptiness has taken its place; when a chapter from the past is forever closed and you can’t even sit and think of the future without a lump forming in your throat and tears pouring from your eyes, how do you face tomorrow? How do you go on?

Fortunately, God loves you and me. He loves His children and wants us to be able to continue, so He tells us in the book of Philippians how we can go on.

- Philippians 4:4-8

In this passage, God gives us 3 steps to finding peace; 3 steps to going on.

I. REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS

- Read v 4

This verse says that we are to rejoice in the Lord always. How in the world can someone rejoice in the Lord always?

You can rejoice in the Lord for a little while if you attend a Christmas Eve service and sing the old Christmas carols and it takes you back to your younger years, and you have a flashback to there holiday season and the memories of family.

You can rejoice in the Lord for a little while, if you come in to a service and sing some songs and it takes you back to your childhood, or you get excited about the music and such.

But, to rejoice in the Lord always requires a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. To rejoice in the Lord always means that you have preparations for that trip.

I know I look pretty scruffy right now. I don’t usually look like this. This beard and such is for a Christmas outreach we are doing down at a church I pastor. There I’m playing the part of the Inn Keeper.

This year, we have some Campers on Mission helping us there. They are sharing the Gospel, and making balloon animals for the children and such.

What happens when you mix children with balloons? Yeah. Exactly, we have broken balloons all over our place.

What happens when you break a balloon? It immediately explodes, the air leaves it, and all you have left behind is the shell. The remains of what the air used to be in. What we have in this casket is nothing more than a broken balloon. The remains of what Jim used to be in. Now, just like the air in a balloon, Jim has gone.

That’s why, when our children are young, we teach them, Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake. I pray the Lord my soul to take. We teach them from an early age that there is a difference between what a person lives in and what a person is.

And Death is never untimely when it is expected and when you have prepared for it. When you have prepared for this journey, when you have prepared for the day you travel to the other side, it will hold no terror or fear for you.

A young man’s parents once died and he was left alone. His aged aunt wrote and agreed to take him in. On the day she was supposed to come and get him, he stood with a suitcase outside of his house, waiting for her to arrive. After a short wait, his aunt’s hired man came to pick him up. He was a bit disappointed that his aunt had not come, but he adjusted to the man she had sent.

After a long day of traveling, when it was dark all around, the young boy spoke to the man who was guiding him. He said, “Do you think she’s still awake? Do you think she waited up?” The man answered, “Oh, she will be awake alright. In 2 more turns of this trail, you will see her house with lights in every window, a hot meal waiting inside, and your aunt on the porch waiting to greet you and to welcome you to your new home.