John Kennedy Dixon
August 24, 1999
God wanted to do something special for the world on January 28th 1965, and God decided to complete the work in the womb and to bring forth little John Kennedy Dixon. He entered the world the loud shouts and screams announcing his arrival, unfortunately all of the screams were coming from his bother because Johnny was bigger than most babies.
God probably took a step back and looked at him, and said, “this is good, very good. I will fill him with a capacity to love again and again, and again. He shall be known as a man of compassion.” And that little baby grew to be a boy, who grew to be a man, who grew to be a child of God. And after 35 years, God reclaimed the gift which He had given to the world. For the scriptures boldly proclaim in Psalms 116:15, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
John Kennedy Dixon. Behold, what manner of a man was this, what manner of a man did he become. He was a friend, a colleague, a compuer programming wizard. But what manner of a man was he and what did he become. He was an uncle, a neighbor, and a musician. But what manner of a maw was he? He was a faithful son, a wise father, and a great provider. Yes but what manner of a man was he and what did he become? Ahh, he was a man of faith, a Christian, a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the kind of man was he and that’s what he became.
For those who remain of 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 time to cry, a time to pe and 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 there is a way that seems right t oa person , but at the end of it is death. If we are all living in order that we might some day die, it should be of utmost important that we live in such a way that in the end our lives would not have been lived in vain.
Onde day a very wealthy mad die. Somebody said, “I wonder how much money he left behind.” Somebody answered, “every sinple penny that he had.” Whether or not we have lived in vain will not be determined by how much we accumulated in terms of material goods, ford naked we came into this world, and naked we got out.
The only thing that we can take out of this world is what we have given away. For that is how Jesus said to lay up treasures in heaven. If we have not love and have not given, then our living has been in vain.
Brothers and sisters I submit to you this day that we are here to celebrate the homecoming of John Kennedy Dixon, Because his living has not been in vain. When I look out and see the number of lives that have been positively influenced by his life, then I know his living has not been in vain.
When I hear the testimonies that have been reported on his behalf, then I know his living has not been in vain. When I think of the way my own life has been touched by John’s presence, I know his living has not been in vain. When I think of the sadness and the grief which is in our hearths this afternoon, I know his living has not been in vain.
Today, we often think death is something to be avoided at all cost. But for the believer in Jesus Christ, death is merely the passing from one form of service to God to another. You see, John actually died years ago when he made the decision to follow Jesus Christ. He took Jesus at his word, when Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies. “ That first death was far more significant in the light of eternity than the second one.
Death is cruel and meaningless apart from God. It forces us to ask the question, “what’s the point of life?” The bible teaches that we are like the morning dew which disappears with the rising sun. Even though we may consider ourselves strong and healthy, rich and robust, independent and standing on our own, all of our lives are ultimately so very fragile. The bible says we go about boasting, “tomorrow I’ll do such and such, and next year I plan to do this to make some money”, when in reality we don’t know what tonight is going to bring. We ought to say if God wills, then I will do such and such.
The psalmist said in Psalm 90:12, “ Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” God’s people under Moses could literally number their days as they wondered in the wilderness. Every man knew the maximum number of days he had left to live. There was not a man 20 0r over who would live more than 14,600 days except Joshua and Caleb.
Do you think the men began to live differently when they reached day number 14,458 knowing there were just 15 days left. Would it make a difference in your lifestyle if you knew you only had 15 days left to live? Probably. Some of the things we think are mighty important today, wouldn’t seem quite as important, and some of the things we take for granted now, would become vastly important.
What’s the purpose of life. The purpose of life is to get to know the God who created you, the God who loves you, and the God who gave His only Son so that you will not receive the eternal punishment which we all deserve because of our rejection of God and His commandments. You know when bad things happen, we want to blame God. When good things happen, we want to take the credit. God is God, and God is good, whether good times or bad times come into our lives. It does not matter how much evil we see around us, no one will ever love us more than God does.
God deposits a gift into each one of us as we enter this world. John was a man willing leave a trail of compassion as he walked through the course of this life. He was the kind of person that could very easily put the well being of others ahead of his own. He was a shining example of the passage which says, “think not only of your won interests, but also the interests of others.
I asked some of Johnny’s friends what words come to mind when you think of John. I got such terms as a real friend, good partner, great funning buddy, silly, beyond compassion, quiet, eager to learn, protector, human, friendly, caring, polite. They were all very nice descriptions and very true, but I have to also say my brother had the ability to be decisively determined. That’s a sophisticated way of saying, he could be stubborn as a mule. Once he made up his mind to do something, that’s what he was going to do.
He also had a tremendous streak of fairness all though his life. Even as a little boy, he wanted everything to be fair. Now that meant if he had two pieces of candy, and you had none, he would give you one of his. It also meant, if you hit him, he was going to hit you back.
As the oldest brother, ten years old than the youngest, when Johnny didn’t always do what I wanted him to do, I’d give him a spanking. He’d say, “I’m going to tell Mama on you.” I’d say, “If you do, you’re going to get another whipping when she leaves us at home again. Johnny thought about it for a mute. When Mom came home, he went and told, “Ricky hit me.: “I’d get in trouble.
The next time we were alone, “I gave him a spanking for tellon me. The next time Mama came home he said, “Ricky hit me to tellon him.” I learned if I wanted to stay out of trouble, I had better stop spanking him.
One thing Johnny wanted to do in life, was to bring joy in the lives of others. He had a good sense of humor and was always wanting to make you laugh. He often used humor to diffuse a situation. All four of us brothers love to kid and clown around with our children, nieces, and nephews. The last time the four of us were all together in Cleveland, one of my daughters said, “ I got to get out of this house. It’s just too many of them acting like kids.”
As brothers, we learned very early that John had a charisma about him that the other three of us did not have. When we wanted to go somewhere or to get something as kinds, we had to plan a united attack on our parents. We knew if I went to ask something, since I probably was the last one in trouble, they’d tell me no.
We couldn’t send in our brother Greg, because he spoke to softly and you had to make direct eye contact with Greg to feel sorry for him. Reggie was too young to get the message straight. If you sent him in asking to go to the movies, he’d come back with some cookies. But Johnny, with his charismatic personality could break down our parents and get them to say yes. He was always our best chance for success.
Now since Reggie was the closest in age to Johnny, he had the greatest problem with Johnny’s charisma, because not only did it work on our parents, it worked on girls growing up. In school, the girls just thought Johnny was the greatest. Reggie will testify that he spent hours in the mirror looking and searching trying to discover, what was it that Johnny had that he didn’t. He knew he had to do something early in life, because at age six, he found at that time what he thought was the most beautiful little girl in the world, but before he could make his move, she had fallen for Johnny.
But his love for his brother transcended his desire to have his charismatic gift. In our bedroom we had twin beds. If Reggie was sleep in one, he often woke up to discover that his brother had lain down beside him just to be close to him. The other bed remained empty. Reggie discovered he didn’t the gift anyways. God still blessed him with a beautiful wife.
Although Johnny had the quickest temper of us all as kids, in some ways he was the most compassionate on others. On Hester Drive, we really three families instead of one. The Arps on one side, and the Mannings two houses down the street gave us some extra cousins who were sometimes like brothers and sisters. It took a while for us to explain all these relationships to our wives when we got older and married. Johnny and Charles were life brothers, which made John adopt Marissa as a little sister.
One day Charles talked Johnny and Marissa into taking on the challenging job of climbing on to the top of the Manning house. He must have made it seem as though they were climbing Mr. Everest. They all made it to the top of the house onto the roof. Only after they had gotten on top did they discover they did not have a plan to get back down.
Charles decided he would make it back down and push the trampoline over near the house, and then Marissa and John could jup down on it off of the roof. The only problem was Marissa froze and could not jump. She was crying and crying. Charles got tired of waiting for her so he went on about his business to play something else. But Marissa said she remembered, “John stayed by her side and the two of them got down together.”
They were knitted from that moment as brother and sister. John became her protector. Guys were afraid to ask Marissa out during his school, because they thought she and Johnny were going together. But Marissa is thankful because that forced her to date somebody from out of town, which led to the husband she has.
Johnny was a person who wanted to be on his own. He and his buddy Charles, had finally made it to the big time when the two of them got their own apartment together. Things were looking real good for them until Charles lost his job and could not pay his share of the bills. Charles did not want to tell his parents about not having and job, and Johnny had too much pride to ask Mom and Dad if he could move back home.
One day Johnny need something, so he sneaked back into his parents house and was crawling on the floor to get it. Mother surprised him and saw him on the floor. She said to Johnny as only a mother could say, “Johnny, why don’t you save your money and move back home.” Johnny jumped up so fast off that floor, to let her know he was willing to move back, it was as though he had experienced a resurrection from the dead.
One of the things you may have noticed about me and my brothers is that we have tended to have big heads physically. All of us haven called a big headed this or that at times in our lives. Our philosophy has been, “God gave us big heads in order to fill it with big brains. Even nature teaches, the more space you have, the more stuff you can put into it.”
I want all of you kids, or those of you with kids to not be discouraged simply because your kid or you failed a grade. Johnny was the only one of the four of us to fail a grade, but history and time has demonstrated that he is probably the greatest genius among us all. I may have the most degrees, but my brother’s analytical and reasoning power exceeds my own in many ways. He was a computer programming genius not because of what somebody taught him in class, but through his sheer determination to be self-taught.
Here was one area in which John’s decisive determination worked in his favor to make him a learned skilled person. He would go in for job interviews and the person would start to grill Johnny on his computer knowledge. The person would then be embarrassed when Johnny would respond and go into such detail, that the person immediately knew John’s knowledge far exceeded his own. Johnny never stopped striving to learn and to improve his abilities. A few months ago, he turned down a higher paying job and took the lower paying job, because he was the opportunity to learn more and expand his skills. He wanted to be the best he could be.
As a son, Johnny was the cause of great internal joy to our father. Dad was so proud when people would look at the two of them and say, “Boy your son is the spitting image of you.” Johnny often bragged on Dad, and Dad was so happy to go and hear what others had to say about how Johnny had been talking about him.
Dad prayed for three years after his own salvation, that Johnny would give his life to Christ. Day had finished preaching a sermon entitled, “Here Comes My Fired.” As the invitation was given, Johnny came forward to give his life to Christ. No greater friend could have walked down the altar that day. Dad said that was the first time he ever shouted in a church. He said, “Me and your mother, we shouted together.”
As a son, Mother remembers Johnny was always bringing her something even as a little kid, be it a card, a drawing, or some flowers from out in the yard. To all you neighbors who were missing flowers, some of them may have come into our house. Johnny could sit and talk with Mom for hours. He was constantly trying to cheer her up.
My heart grieved greatly for John and JoAnne in things not working out in their marriage. JoAnne, Toby and I thank you for the great weekend the four of us had together in Cleveland back in 1995. I am grateful for the role Johnny played in the lives of Dante, Larry and Tyesia. At a time when many men simply abandon their kids, Johnny was willing to accept the challenge to pour himself into their lives in a very special role as their father.
The kids remember, he was the one who taught them how to play sports and how to jump rope. They remember his support of trying to be at all of their games. They remember he trained them on the computers. They remember how he tried to keep them laughing and the advice he gave them through the years. They remember he encouraged them to go for their dreams and to strive for their best.
I asked them each, what was a special moment you shared with your father. Tyesia said, “ when he helped me write my first rap song.” Dante said, “the first lesson he gave me on the saxophone.” Larry said, “the time he had us all three together and told us, I love you. No matter what happens between your mother and me, I want you to feel free to call on me when you need me.”
Johnny was consumed with a desire to make sure they would always be able to live in their home. Even after he left the home, he paid bills for them every month to make sure they were physically cared for and called them with emotional support. I’ll always be proud of my brother for the commitment he gave to them. Toby and I want you to know, we will always be your uncle and aunt.
As a servant of Jesus Christ, Johnny was consumed with a desire to know the word of God. That boy would call me up with spiritual questions I had not even thought about asking, much less answering. He brought himself books and cd’s with bible study programs on them for the computer. He wanted to know Christ and to share him with others.
He had a burning desire to help the youth of the church and to be involved in the music ministry of the church. He brought back out his old saxophone, only this time he brought it for the service of the Lord. The first song he played in church, was Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch life me.
The bible tell us in Christ, we shall have peace, but in the world we shall have tribulation. We are here today, because of our love for John or for his family. Our God is a loving and awesome God. Was it God’s will for Johnny to take his life on Tuesday? Le the heavens and the earth declare a thousand times over, “NO it was not God’s will for the event to have taken place.” Jesus said, I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly. All of us are going to face situations in life in which we wished God would simply come in and take control and stop something from happening. God loves us so much, that He gives freedom of choice and He does not force us to do anything against our wills.
There will be times in which we sill find ourselves in circumstances in which we will say and do things we never would have thought we could do. Even as believers in Christ, we walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death at times and desire to leave this life behind us. Rarely do we understand all the circumstances and difficulties which are weighing on one another’s life. The very person next to you now may be in pain of immense proportion. Touch them and say, God can make away.
Is suicide the right answer. No. It never is. We may think, if I had just had a chance to talk with John, or if I had just did such and such, or if he had of been at our church. The reality is, none of usd did and none of us will. Let’s stop pondering the what ifs and the if only’s because they will only lead us to despair and that’s not what Johnny was about. Let’s not degrade his memory by saying was the reason for my brother was far more complex than that. No one is to blame. The reality is that we have lost a tremendous person, a tremendous friend, a tremendous family member and a tremendous saint of God.
My confidence is not in how tremendous of a person Johnny was as it is in how tremendous is the grace and mercy we find in Jesus Christ. Jesus told the Father in John 17 “Of those you have men me, I have not lost one. The Scriptures challenge us with the Scripture, what shall separate us from the love of God. Romans 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We all make mistakes, and some of them we can never undo, but God does not turn his back on us from choosing a wrong course of action. An act of desperation in a moment of confusion spurred on by the enemy is never enough to remove us from the protective power of God or to keep us from the place Jesus has gone to prepare for us.
Some of us were deeply hurt by Johnny’s decision, and some of us are angry, and some of us are confused. The only out is the way God has chosen, which was to forgive his servant and to receive him into the kingdom earlier than he had been scheduled to arrive.
Could we just take a moment and take a deep breath, and let it go and say John, I forgive you. I choose to remember your life rather than the moment. We may say Johnny was my friend, he was my uncle, he was my brother, he was my father, or he was my son, but the greatest truth of them all is that John Kennedy Dixon was a child of God who has now completely returned to God.
For those of us who die without knowing Jesus Christ, John Kennedy Dixon will only be a memory, a very good and loving memory. But for those of us who do know Jesus Christ, John Kennedy Dixon is simply waiting to meet us on the other side.
The Scriptures tell us that there is a time for everything under the sun. A time to be born and a time to die. 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 said, let not your hearts be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in me. For I got to prepare a place for you. Not only has Christ gone to prepare a place for us, He has revealed to us the road in which we should follow.
Jesus tells us that there are but two roads in this life. One way has a wide gate, is a broad road and that the bulk of people travel upon it, but it leads to death and destruction. He tells us the other road has a narrow gate, is very narrow, and that few people travel upon it, but that it leads to life. Jesus himself is that narrow gate. For he issued a call, “If anyone wants life, let the person deny himself of herself, pick up his or her cross and follow me.
All of life’s decisions boils down to, “did we die knowing Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior”. It’s the only decision which will affect our lives a 1,000 years from today. John Kennedy Dixon made the decision, and that and that alone is why He has the promise of eternal life.
When Jesus was in pain on the cross, he told the people, “do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children.” For He knew they were still within Satan’s grasp.
If John could speak to us this afternoon, I believe that he would first smile and say that everything is all right for it is well with my soul. Have comfort and confidence in knowing this about me. “I am prepared to stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an answer for the life I’ve lived, for Jesus is standing with me.”
Jesus has gone forth to prepare a place for each of us. But like John, 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 like. It’s as simple as confessing our sins, our yielding our lives to Him. 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.
To those who do not know Jesus Christ, John Dixon will only be a memory. For those who do know Christ, Johnny is waiting to meet us. For the word of God clearly states, “1 Thes. 4:13-18
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For 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. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18Therefore encourage each other with these words.
