My Prayer at a Friend's Funeral

I’d like to read a familiar bit of Scripture and then offer a prayer to the Father.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.

Dearest Father,

You are a good God, a very good God, to Your people. And one way that You are so good to us is that You explain life to us, the life that we deal with every day.

You tell us that life is a journey. It is a journey through a valley, the valley of the shadow of death. And You have explained to us that, because of sin, death touches everything. It touches our bodies, our relationships, our plans, our desires, our hopes and our dreams. It touches everything because the wages of sin is death.

But this does not overwhelm us. Our journey through this valley isn’t a journey of despair. And the reason for that is clear. Jesus has come. You have sent Him. And we are so grateful to You for this. His coming has changed our lives. To be sure, there still are the effects of death that continue to touch our lives. But there is now also the life of eternity that You have granted to Your people, that You have granted to us. So, as we travel through this valley, we are able to grow more and more in our experience of this life, more and more in our experience of You.

And we are able to experience more and more of the freedom of Your grace, more and more freedom from the power of death. Because of Jesus, Your Son, we know that there is more than this dark valley.

Pat has walked the dark valley, having been touched through the years by its death just like the rest of us. But now, because of Your grace, she’s done with all of that. She no longer walks in the valley. Now, she is in a broad field filled beautiful flowers, with the bright rays of a glorious sun beaming on it all. Now, for her, there is no darkness, no death in any of its forms. Now, she is completely free. And that is because You have sent Jesus to rescue us, and Pat trusted Him to do that for her. She is free and rejoicing in her experience of the life of eternity. All because of Jesus.

We are so grateful, Father, that this is true of her. However, Bill is still in the valley. He’s in one of the darker places in the valley.

Death has more than just touched him. And he feels it deeply. But he knows, because of the work of Your Spirit in his life, he knows that he does not walk through the valley alone. He knows and can say by faith, ‘I will fear no evil: for thou are with me.’ You are right there with him, taking each step with him.

You are his faithful God. You will get him through this darker part of the valley. You will take care of him. And the day is coming when his journey in the valley will also be over. And he will also be in that beautiful, sunlit field. He will be with Pat once again. But more than that, he will be with Jesus. You will make sure of that.

So, thank You, Father. Thank You for the Gospel of Jesus, the Gospel that gives hope to Your saints, to those who have entrusted themselves to Jesus. Thank You for the Gospel as we all walk through this valley.

Thank you for the sure hope that all who believe in Jesus have.

You will bring all Your saints through the valley and out into that beautiful field.

We thank You, Father, through Christ our sovereign Lord and faithful Savior. Amen.

A Funeral Sermon

This is a time when we need to hear from God. This is a time when He wants to speak with us. He has much to tell us that can help in a situation like this.

Listen to something from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes:

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. Ecclesiastes 7:2

That may sound odd, maybe a little jarring. But it really is helpful. What God is saying is that it’s good for us to be here in this place of mourning. It’s good because it’s a reminder. It’s a reminder that one day each of us will find ourselves being prepared for burial. One day our lives will come to an end. Taking that seriously can be troubling. It raises some hard questions, questions like these. Why death? Why was a good man like Dave taken? Why will it be me who will one day be taken? Is there anything to be done about that?

A Funeral Sermon

I preached this sermon at the funeral of a child who died in utero, just a few weeks before she was to be born.

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We are here to grieve and mourn and to support Aaron and Amanda. Gaining a little understanding of what is going on can be helpful. So, I'm going to use a familiar text to help you to get a handle on what God is doing so that your grieving is not like that of so many, without hope. I'm going to talk to you about what happened at another death, the death of Lazarus.

A Funeral Sermon

I preached a funeral sermon today. This is the heart of what I had to say.

I thought it would be good to consider some of the wisdom of King Solomon, one of the wisest men of all time. So, let me read to you from

 ​​​​​​​​It is better to go to the house of mourning ​​​​​​​than to go to the house of feasting, ​​​​​​​for this is the end of all mankind, ​​​​​​​and the living will lay it to heart. ​​​

This is Solomon's perspective. To be sure, there are times to rejoice and to celebrate; times of feasting. But there are also other times, times like today, spent here, a place of mourning. And according to Solomon, it is sometimes be better to be experiencing a day like today instead of a day of celebration. Now, why is that? Why does Solomon say this? It's because, 'this is the end of all mankind'. One day we will die, each one of us. And Solomon's hope is that we 'will lay it to heart'. It is his hope that we will take the fact of our coming death seriously.

You see, once we die we will stand before God, and he will evaluate our lives. This has already happened to Dick. And it will happen to each one of us. The question to ask at this point is, 'What does God look for when he evaluates someone?' Jesus has told us. He said this in the Sermon on the Mount: 'You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.' God will be looking for perfection, complete and absolute perfection. But who is perfect? Are you? I am not, and I am quite sure that no one in this room is. Does that mean that we will all fail the test when God evaluates our lives? To fail is serious. Those who fail are condemned.

This is where Jesus comes in. He was and is perfect. And he offers his perfection to anyone who will become his disciple. So, while coming to Jesus is certainly about the forgiveness of our many sins, it is also about receiving his perfection. That is the only way any will pass God's test. Those who have entrusted themselves to Jesus will pass the test. They will have the required perfection, Jesus' perfection.

So, you can see why Solomon said what he did. It's good to come to a place like this, a house of mourning. It's good to pause and to consider whether you are ready to have your life evaluated by God. To all who are ready, all who follow Jesus by faith, he will provide perfection. Because of that the day of their death is a day of great joy for them. It is a day of happiness. And it is that because they know - they know - that when they stand before God to have their lives evaluated they will hear him say, 'Welcome home.' Because of Jesus' gift they will pass the test.

A Funeral Sermon

I did not preach today. But I had a funeral on Thursday for a member of our church. Here is the manuscript of the sermon for that day.