Karen Thomas Memorial
Notes
Transcript
1 A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth. 2 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.
Karen made it very clear that this service was not to be about her, but to be about her savior and his gospel. And the best way that you can honor her memory today is to listen to this gospel that she loved so much.
You know on a day like today there will be many words spoken. Some of you will search for words to seek to bring comfort to the family in their time of loss. Perhaps you will say something like this:
“She’s in a much better place.”
“She is no longer suffering.”
“She was a good women, if anyone made it to heaven i’m sure it was her.”
But I wonder how many of you truly believe those words? How do you know that Karen is in a much better place? How do you know that she made it to heaven?”
We spend so much of our lives avoiding the reality of a day like today, don’t we? Because coming face to face with death, especially when it’s someone you know and love, someone you care about, sobers us up to the reality of life. Every person in this room is going to—in one form or another—have a day when people sit around and remember you, because your days has come.
And that’s very hard to think about isn’t it? Because it puts all of life in perspective. This is why Solomon says in Ecclesiastes that it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. Believe me, every fiber of my being prefers to be sitting around a table eating good food with good friend, than coming face to face with my own mortality. Oh but today is such an important day for you.
What goes beyond even the reality of death, what hangs over us even heavier than mortality is what the writer of Hebrews says, “It is appoint for man once to die and then comes judgment.” It is not only the cessation of life that we face but the judgment afterwards.
Are you works going to stand up on that day? The Bible says that all of us are law breakers, we’re guilty as can be. If you’ve broken it once you’re guilty of it all! The Bible also says that the good works we conjure up to prove our worth to God are nothing but filthy rags.
No man in history has been able to stand against God’s righteous judgment, except one man. His name is Jesus and he is not only man but also God. That was his claim. And he came to our place, our habitation, this earth, and he said to dying guilty people like you and me, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
The bible says that all of us like sheep have gone astray, we’ve run off, we’ve messed up, the bible calls it sin. But that God the Father has laid on God the Son, our sin.
What does that mean? That means that every sin you’ve committed, every sin you will commit… Has been put on Jesus as if they were your sins, if you trust in him. Charles Spurgeon once said he committed enough sins in his heart between waking up and breakfast to condemn a 1000 souls to hell.
Come face to face with that reality today. That’s you and me. Karen too, a guilty sinner before God.
But this Jesus went to the cross of calvary and died, shed his blood, in our place. Every death deserved by every one of his people he bore on himself. God himself, a lifeless corpse.
And three days later God raised him from the dead. Death couldn’t hold him. Death couldn’t keep him. Death had no power over him because he is perfect in righteousness. Law breakers die because death has power over them, Jesus the righteous died because he gave up his spirit in death in our place.
He’s still alive today, you know? He ascended to heaven, he sits at the right hand of the Father, and he dwells in the hearts of his people.
There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we can be saved.
I can say confidently today that Karen is no longer suffering, and she is in a better place, not because of righteous works that she had done, but because her Lord and savior stood condemned in her place, and washed her, and cleansed her, and made her a new creation.
She is gazing into the perfect glorious face of Christ this morning having been transformed into his image not because of anything she did to deserve it but because we have a merciful savior who loves to save sinners!
There’s no religious affiliation, no denomination, no ritual, no work that you can do or be a part of that gains you access into his glorious presence, it is only by throwing every other confidence away and trusting in Christ as your savior.
Go to him today, run to him, don’t wait. He is the way, the truth and the life. The only way, the only truth, the only life. And he is mighty to save.