Bennett Funeral

Our task this afternoon is difficult because this is a difficult funeral. I had asked Andrea earlier what she would like me to say. How much should I share. She said, “Tell the truth, my dad taught me that the truth is always the way to go—and so just share.” The truth in this situation is difficult, though. It’s difficult because it is complicated.

What do we say when a beloved husband, a man in the community who loved well, who would do anything for anyone, at the age of 87, gets to a place where he believes the best thing to do is take not only his own life but also ends the life of his dear wife? What do we say when he made a horribly wrong choice, but one which we believe was motivated out of love?

You have many emotions, I’m sure. Anger. Anger that life was taken. Anger at Bob for making this choice. Anger that precious souls had to see with their own eyes what happened.

But also, grief. Grief that it happened. Grief that it got to this point. Grief of losing two loved ones on the same day. And a flood and mixture of emotions and questions and wondering if there is something you could have done to prevent this. Sorrow and anguish of soul. I will not pretend to know what you are facing. I can maybe name some of those emotions and identify in part with what you are feeling…but I do not know the depths of what you are feeling.

Thankfully we have God’s Word to us. And my prayer is that this morning Christ, through Psalm 130, will speak words of comfort and hope to you. Psalm 130 is a psalm from the depths of despair. It’s one of those written in the ashes, a cry out from the pit, a shout from a place of deep darkness…one of those psalms where there is a flood of questions and emotions and hurt and pain…but then a little bit of light breaks through and the psalmist is able to preach the hope of the gospel to his own heart.

Psalm 130 ESV

A Song of Ascents. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

From Psalm 130 we will see three things. First,

I. We all stand in need of God’s forgiveness

In verse 3 the psalmist says, “If God would mark iniquities who could stand?”

First, what is an iniquity? It is wrongdoing. It is sin. It is doing an act that is wrong.

But what does it mean to “mark” an iniquity? It means to keep an account. It’s what the bank does with our home mortgage or our car loan. They are keeping account of our debt.

So what is the psalmist saying, then? He is saying that if God kept a record of our sin—if he kept track of them as a bank ledger does—held them over us until they were paid in full…then none of us could stand.

“But with you there is forgiveness”...

The psalmist is saying here, God doesn’t hold debt the way that a banker does. He forgives freely. And that is the hope of the gospel, that when we cry out for mercy, when we say, I cannot pay this debt, the Lord grants forgiveness. He wipes the debt clean.

What this means is that the most heinous act can be forgiven through the work of Christ. It means that we are ultimately not judged by our worst acts or our best acts but we are judged by the standard of Christ.

That means that our hope this morning is the same for both Bob and Jean. Our hope is in the mercy of God.

Now, that’s not to flatten the situation or to say that this act was not horrendous—even if motivated by love. It is the taking of life. It was an act of grabbing the reigns from God. But we do not have all the answers here. We do not know any of what happened in the moments before this act. And it does not help us to speculate. We simply are not the judge in this situation.

All we can say is this…those who trust in Christ—those who by faith and repentance—unite themselves to the work of Jesus Christ, are forgiven.

The reason why God is able to forgive and pardon is because he pays the debt that is owed. If I borrow $100,000 from the bank. And they give it to me, and I spend that $100,000 and then call them a couple days later and say, “man, I can’t pay this.” Even if that banker says, “you know what…no worries…it’s forgiven.” That $100,000 has to be absorbed by someone. Someone is paying that.

If a wealthy person donated 1 million dollars to the bank to forgive 10 of those 100K loans, but all you have to do is apply…it’s not forgiven until you fill out that application. The debt isn’t paid until that wealthy guys gift covers your debt.

It is the same way here. Jesus Christ pays the debt, the penalty, for our sin. And so because of this we are able to be forgiven. “The debt has been paid”. And so that’s why we can say that our only hope is the finished work of Jesus. He has either paid the debt and His work (his work of paying the debt) covers you…or it doesn’t.

We all stand in need of that forgiveness. We have a debt that we cannot pay. As the psalmist says, none could stand if God marked our debts. But praise God he DOES cover debt…and because of this we can have hope

The second thing we see, is that we all hope for the Lord’s rescue.

II. We all hope for the Lord’s rescue

If you were a night watchman you’d be longing for the morning. That’s when your shift is over. That’s when the job is complete. That’s when you move into the next phase.

And he does this with hope because he knows that morning is coming. Morning always comes. He knows that the darkness doesn’t last forever.

And so in Psalm 130 the psalmist prays and waits and hopes. He knows that God’s rescue and redemption is coming. This is connected with verses 3-4. We’ve made shipwreck of things. But God is cleaning all this stuff up.

Just as a watchman waits in the morning so also we are waiting in darkness for the daylight. What does daylight look like?

Revelation 21:1–7 ESV

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

I don’t have all of the answers to what took place last week that has caused this pain, and brought us here together this afternoon. But I do know this…there is a day coming when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. There is a day when we will be comforted and we will mourn no more.

But today we wait. We wait for that rescue. We wait for God’s fixing of all the broken things.

And that’s what we see in verses 7-8—this call to hope. With the Lord there is steadfast love and with him is plentiful redemption.

Steadfast love—what does that mean? It’s a word that means a love that refuses to not love. A love that is dedicated. A love that is tirelessly dedicated to your redemption. If you are in Christ, God has promised to bring you into that Revelation 21 moment. He has promised to fix all these broken things.

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I really struggled with what words to give to you. I know what we need more than anything is what the Psalmist said in the beginning…that the Lord is attentive to our cry…and so I want you to know that He hears your heart. He knows the pain.

I would like answers. I would love to give you a need and tidy explanation. I’d really like to tell you why. I’d like to somehow push a button and make it all better. I’d like for you to not see the things that you’ve seen. But I don’t have that magic button and I don’t have magic answers.

But I do believe from God’s Word we have a balance here. And it’s really this...

This stinks.

Jesus is and will fix all the broken things.

You might be as that watchman who is waiting for the morning. That means its okay to mourn. It’s okay to ask questions. To be confused. To be wondering, and longing, and grieving, and sad.

But we also are told in Scripture to grieve as those who have hope. What does that mean? It means that we can fully press into lament, and grief, and such—we can acknowledge “this stinks” but we also says… “Jesus is and fixing and will fix all broken things.”

Even this.