Good morning. Today is a day that I have known for several years would come. I have thought about how to honor the life of ____________ and how to express it in such a way that would please her. I have prayed these past few days asking God to give me the words He wants delivered this morning. We are here to pay our respect and to honor _________________ today.
But then I remembered one of the Psalms that ______ would always comment on how she loved it and my answer came. Let me share Psalm 121 with you.
I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From where shall my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, He who keeps Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
8 The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.
______ lived those words. She relied on the Lord for everything she did. No matter how bad things seemed, she would praise God for what she had and always comment, “The Lord will take care of this.”
I can hear her saying that now. “Bro. Jerry, the Lord will take care of this.”
You all knew her so there is not a lot I can say that you don’t already know. But as her pastor, I want to talk a bit about how I knew ______. ______ was most pastor’s dream church member. She was the epitome of what a Christian should be. I don’t think there was ever a time that I talked to her that she wasn’t praising the Lord for something.
______ was a member of SEBC when I came here as pastor in Nov., 1996. So, I have been her pastor over 20 years now. She has supported me when others didn’t. She encouraged me when others turned their backs. She has corrected me, when I needed to be corrected. She loved me and respected me as her pastor like no one else.
As was has already stated, ______ was a truly active church member. I knew her as the teacher of the Genesis Sunday School class. When I came on, that class was held in what is now our records room—a little 10ftX10ft. room. She had several class members but never complained that the room was a tight fit. We eventually expanded the adult Sunday school area and the Genesis class met in what is now an office. It was a 10X17ft room. You would have thought I gave her a million dollars. She was so proud of her new classroom.
Well, as the church grew and we moved into this sanctuary, we moved our adult education area to the old sanctuary. ______ now had an even larger room which is still the Genesis classroom today.
I sat in on a few of her Sunday school classes. She was an excellent teacher. She would get into the lesson and, as I told her, she went from teaching to preaching. She would just laugh. She was committed to sharing the message of salvation. She would be teaching along following the book and suddenly take off on the plan of salvation. And she would preach.
It was important to her that people knew how and why you should accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. The Lord’s light shone from her wherever she went. She never seemed to discouraged because she knew that her help was going to come from the Lord.
For instance, I was in the room with her, her daughter, and her husband on the day when her husband went to be with the Lord. She was already confined to the bed at that time. She was in the regular bed and John was in the hospital bed next to her. John wasn’t doing well that day. We prayed, but I’m not sure John was conscious at the time.
As I talked with _______ and her daughter, I glanced over at her husband and knew his spirit had left him. He had gone on to be with the Lord. I told her that he was gone. Now most people would have gone into a frantic frenzy of grief and despair. But she simply said, “Well, I know where he has gone. He is much better now.” WHAT SPIRITUAL STRENGTH!!!
I am sure she grieved over losing her husband, but she never showed it. She praised the Lord for the years He had given her and John together. And she carried on with life knowing that the Lord was going to lend His help in their time of need.
I would go to visit her from time to time to encourage her, now being confined to the hospital bed. I would leave her home more encouraged than when I got there.
I would take her these apple fritters that I bought from a local bakery. She loved them. She would say to her daughter, “Get Bro. Jerry some money.” I would tell her that was a gift and she would take away my blessing if she paid me for them. She would say, “I am going to spank you.” I would say, “Yeah, maybe so. But you’re gonna eat them, aren’t you?” She would just smile.
These last 3 years have been tough for her, physically. Her one desire was to get back to church to worship. Even about a month ago, she said she couldn’t wait until she could get back to church. We offered to come pick her up and get her in a wheelchair so she could come. That never happened. I think mainly because she wanted to walk in the church, not roll in.
I asked my wife what she remembered about ______. She said she always looked nice. Whatever she wore, she looked nice. In all the pictures of her in our history records, her hair was done nice and she was dressed to a “T”.
She was an avid card writer. And most of you can vouch for this. She would send birthday cards, anniversary cards, sympathy cards, valentine cards, Easter cards, Thanksgiving cards, Christmas cards, cards of encouragement, get well cards and many times these cards would have money in them. I told her she didn’t need to do that, but she would do it anyway. So, every now and then I would bring her one of her favorite meals, a Whataburger. Of course, she would try to pay me for it and she and I would get into the same old argument of her taking away my blessing.
She and I had some long talks over the years about the church, or the health and wellness of church family. She was always concerned about her church family and if they were doing OK. She offered a lot of advice along the way. Good advice. She is one of those precious people that made SEBC the church it is today. I praise God for her and her commitment, loyalty, dedication, and love.
The actual passage of Scripture that she wanted me to use for today is found in the Gospel of John 14: 1-6. Quote verses 1-6.
I read through this passage several times looking for why ______ wanted this passage preached. And I see very clearly a two-fold reason.
First, she wanted to make sure that her daughter and the rest of us weren’t worried about her passing. “Let not your hearts be troubled.” She is telling us today, through God’s Word that Jesus promised her that He has been preparing her a mansion in heaven and that when the time came, she was going to be much better off than we are.
I told her daughter last Thursday night as we stood by ______ waiting for the funeral home to come receive her. I said, “I can just see her now. Dancing around heaven with your dad. No arthritis pain. Full use of both hands. Rejoicing in the fact that she was seeing her Lord face-to-face. Just smiling from ear to ear knowing that her faith in the Lord was not in vain.”
Do you believe that today? Do you believe in Jesus’ promise of heaven? Well, if not, let me share the second reason I feel that she wanted this passage preached. That reason is called eternal life with Jesus Christ. It’s called being saved by the grace of God through our faith.
The rest of that verse says that Jesus told His disciples that they knew where He was going. Thomas, one of His disciples said, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?”
And here’s the key point ______ wanted to get across to us. 6 Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
______ would tell you in no uncertain terms that the only way to get to the Father who is in heaven, the only way to get to heaven is through Jesus Christ and all you have to do is ask Him to come into your heart and you, too, can be saved.
So, in honor of ______’s request, I have to ask, “Do you know with absolute certainty that if you died right now, that you would be in heaven?” If you don’t know for sure, then come to Jesus as Gloria did so many years ago. Let Him guide your life from this point on. You will not be disappointed. If, before or during this service you make that decision, come tell me afterwards or go to a church near you and tell the pastor the decision you made. It’s the most important decision you’ll ever make in your life.
So, ______, I hope I delivered this to your expectations. Thank you for the example you set for everyone you met and knew. Thank you for living your life for the Lord. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for being my friend.
I know this isn’t the last time I will see you because I too, made that decision for Christ. Maybe my mansion will be in the same neighborhood as yours. So for now, I say farewell. Goodbye is too final. So, farewell, until I see you again.
