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.
Maurice was a giving person. He looked to see what it was that you needed more so than what it was you wanted. He wanted to leave you in a stronger position than he met you.
He took the time to begin to invest himself in you through the phone calls, texts, and the conversations he had with you. He valued his family and it seemed in his latter years he was reaching out more than ever to bring the family closer together.
He had a renewed since of energy about him as he began to engage in more and more family events. His favorite holiday was Thanksgiving because it was a time of coming together as a family.
Near the center of his heart were his two daughters Ericka and Kayla. He loved spending time with his girls and was very active in their lives. They described him as dad who was funny, who wanted them to learn, who was both caring and understanding.
They said he was a father that gave of himself. Maurice would have wanted to be remembered as having been a good father, and according to his daughters, he reached that goal. His nephew indicated that Maurice had been a father figure to him.
It would be hard to disagree that Maurice was an incredible person, with a love for his family, and a desire to improve his community. But even with all that going for him, Maurice would be the first to tell you that he needed more in his life to build his relationship with God.
You see as he was reaching out more to his natural family, he also found himself reaching out to God to discover his spiritual family. There is something spiritually true about all of us today and we can all be placed in one of four categories.
People fall into one of four categories. Which one applies to you?
1. We are saved and we know it. 2. We think we are saved, but we’re not because our trust in how good we have been. 3. We don’t claim to be saved. 4. We’re not saved but would like to be.
Maurice fell into the first category in that he was saved and he knew it, because he put his faith and his trust in Jesus Christ. He believed that Jesus died for his sins, and that Jesus rose from the dead so that he might have new life.
Part of the change you saw in Maurice was growing out of a change that God was doing in his life spiritually. For the word of God teaches, that if anyone is in Christ, he or she will become a new creature.
I can remember when Maurice first came to our church, he was very quiet and sat to the left of the sanctuary. He was very observant. Over time, slowly but surely he began to warm up, and I saw him start to clap during the singing, and he became involved with worship.
He then began to volunteer to help out with things for community events.
What I remember most about Maurice was his offering. He would give offerings of all sizes. Sometimes it would be offerings completely of change of coins he must have found on the streets because they were so beat up. Pennies and dimes barely looked like themselves.
Other times it would be bills that he gave. We have about 15 funds on our offering envelopes. In addition to his regular tithes and offerings, the ministries he supported the most were our Deacons, Our Hunger Funds for the world and community, Our Youth, Our African Orphanage and our Prison Ministry.
But what touched me the most about his offering is that he always remembered you. Maurice would bring offerings some times 4 days during the week and place them in the mailbox. He always included Prayer requests on the back of his offering because he wanted you to know the same love of Jesus that he had come to know. (Read some of them).
He asked me one day, if we actually prayed for his prayer request on his offerings. I told him “Yes Maurice we do.” Maurice was a blessing to the life of our church. His death has touched our church family.
Death is closer to all of us than we think it is. When Maurice first entered our doors, he had no idea that death was as close to him as it was. If you had to meet it today and your life would be over this afternoon, would you be happy with the life you have lived. Would you be ready to go with no regrets? Have you said “your I’m sorry” to those you hurt and granted forgiveness to those who hurt you?
Would you be as certain as being in heaven tomorrow as you are of sitting in this room today? The good news is that it is still possible for you to be certain.
How many of us live as though death is a million years away from us? How many of us pay more attention to what our hair looks like than we do the condition of our souls which is what ultimately counts.
Death is significant only because it marks the end of our opportunity to influence others for the sake of Jesus Christ.
The mere fact of being born is a guarantee that we shall one day die. A lifetime in eternity hangs upon the balance of the choices we make during the brief interval that we call life.
But death is not something to be feared, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not die but have everlasting life.
Jesus issued a call, "If anyone wants life, let the person deny himself or herself, pick up his or her cross and follow me.
Have you ever wondered how good do you have to be to go to heaven and meet God? The truth is, none of us could ever be good enough to go to heaven.
It’s worthless to even try it. But going to heaven isn’t about how good or how bad we have been. It’s a matter of God’s grace and mercy and accepting what God has done for us. It’s a matter of do we know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
Jesus has gone forth to prepare a place for each of us. But like Maurice, we must make a choice. None of us know the day nor the hour when we shall leave this world. Christ has died on our behalf that we might have life.
Being saved and knowing it begins with admitting we have done wrong to God, asking for forgiveness, accepting that Jesus died for our sins and that he rose from the dead to give us a new life. Then choosing to allow God to work in our lives to make us more like Jesus.
For in the end, the only decision that will matter is what did we do with Christ. For only what’s done for Christ will last is going to matter a thousand years from today.
The joy of dying in Christ is that goodbye is never goodbye. For those of us who know Jesus, Maurice is going to be meeting us again. You may say Maurice was my father, my son, my brother, my uncle or my friend. Yet the greater truth is that Maurice was a child of God who has returned to God and is waiting for us to join him.
For the word of God clearly states, " Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men and women who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. According to the Lord’s own words, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left at the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
After that, we who are still alive and are left, will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. Our God is faithful.
