Untitled Sermon (7)

NTRO: On behalf of the family I thank each one of you for being here today.

We are here to celebrate the life of Kathryn Atkins. Read the Program:

We are going to talk about death and life today:

I think its good to think and to even talk about our mortality because we all are going to face it someday. However it’s even better to prepare for it.

Katheryn was prepared to die. In fact for years she said that she was ready and welcomed it. Today is precious day because it will inevitably cause all of us to consider our readiness for eternal matters.

See our daughter graduated kindergarten and is preparing for first grade. Then from elementary school to middle school, high school, college, a career, then marriage, we prepare to be a mom or dad, and prepare to retire. Which are all great life events to prepare for. But what about preparing to slip into eternity to face God which can happen anytime.

To prepare for death we have to talk about life.

Now there is are 3 types of life. 2 of them are unstable.

1) Physical life

The Bible puts it this way.

James 4:14 NKJV

14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

This is where most people spend most of their life’s attention. This is the external life.

What I’m going to wear for cloths, eat, what I’m going to drive, the house that we live in, the way we look on the outside, our health or lack of it. Any of it can be taken away at any moment.

Most of us would agree that physical life is unstable, unpredictable, and temporal.

A single diagnosis from the Dr can change everything. An Auto Accident:

I remember one of y friends back in college who at the the time was in her early 20’s was going home one night and driver ran a red light at a intersection in Freeland was broadsided and was instantly killed.

Luke 12:16–21 ESV

16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

2) Our Inward life

Our thought life. This part of life is also unstable.

We can have peace one day and filled with anxiety the next day. You can be happy one day and sad the next. Many people are alive physically but they are tormented mentally.

3) Spiritual life

This is the part of life that is a Rock. Its stable and Immovable on God’s part. This is the part of life that Katheryn had that was a constant in her life. Jesus never left her. He was always there. He was always be her side. And he was there to give her eternal life with God.

John 5:24 ESV

24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

Passed from death. The Bible says the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ. We have all sinned against God and were dead in our sins. We have all offended God with our lifestyle in some way or another. We have all turned our backs on Him and because of it we not only deserve physical death but we also spiritual and everlasting death. Eternally separated from God in place that was created for the devil and his angles called hell.

However God has made a remedy. In His love He provided a way to enter into a relationship with Him. He has made a way for you and I to receive eternal life.

John 3:16–19 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.