Sermon Central
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Navy Vet Funeral
Contributed by Perry Greene on Dec 5, 2019 (message contributor)
Summary: Loy was a long-time member of our congregation and had served in the USN during the Korean Conflict.
l Song #1 Amazing Grace
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
Purpose of Funerals
1. Honor a loved one
2. Comfort a family
3. Reconnect with priorities – Love God; Love Neighbor
4. To remember
a. We generally want to remember our past.
• Story-tellers
• Photo albums
• Monuments
b. We also want to be remembered – we give pictures and gifts to be remembered.
c. Irony – We will eventually be forgotten
Memory is important –
1. Events from our past shape us for today.
2. God wants us to remember Him – Ecclesiastes 12:1; Luke 22:19;
3. God wants us to remember his words – Luke 24:8; Romans 1.16
4. God wants us to remember his works –the LORD is gracious and merciful. Psalm 111:4
5. God wants us to remember his Son – Luke 22:19
A dilemma – We will be forgotten (Ecclesiastes 2:16-17)
16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! 17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.
1. People may and will forget us
2. People we have touched will remember us while they live
3. God never forgets us. Precious (costly) in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints (Psalm 116.15).
Funerals remind us of:
1. The Certainty of Death (Ecclesiastes 9:5)
2. The Shortness of life (James 4:14)
3. The Shortage of life (John 10:10)
4. The Sovereignty of God and Reality of Eternity.
Obituary
Song #2 – When the Roll is Called Up Yonder
Eulogy
You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. 3 Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. 5 An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. 6 It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. 7 Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.
Loy wasn’t a “soldier.” He was a “sailor.” But the military concept applies to each of our branches with a biblical application.
Good Military Personnel:
1. Must be strong (v.1)
2. Submit to authority (v.2)
3. Shares in Suffering (v. 3)
4. Sees his mission (v. 4)
Reservists in the US Military, none in Christ’s service.
Christians Serve God All Because of Grace (v. 1)
An Appeal through Amazing Grace
John Newton wrote Amazing Grace
He never forgot what God did for him. Until the day he died he always referred to himself as “The old African slave trader” or “The old blasphemer.” That is what he was before grace.
Over his fireplace in Olney, England, where he was a Pastor for 16 years, there was a plaque that he always saw on his way in or out of his study. It read: “Thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt and the LORD they God redeemed thee. Deuteronomy 15.15.” an old English way of saying I do not want to forget what God did for me. He never did.
Amazing Grace, was written in 1773. It was written as many of John Newton’s songs. When he would preach a sermon, he would often write a hymn to go along with it.
We would not recognize the song as Newton presented it to his congregation. In that day, they would write the words to the hymn and then find a tune to go with it. Amazing Grace had 20 tunes before it received the melody we are familiar with.
There are three verses of the hymn that Newton wrote that we rarely sing and most have never heard. There is a verse that we sing that Newton did not write. In fact, he never heard of the verse because it was written after his death – “When we’ve been there 10,000 years. . .” Edwin Othello Excel put these words to the hymn after finding them in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slave novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Amazing Grace was a part of hymn books through the 19th century. Most did not think much about it. However, something happened in 1970 that catapulted it into the mainstream of life. Judy Collins’ a capella single was released in December of that year. In January, 1971 Amazing Grace was #1 in GB and the USA, nearly 200 years after its writing.
