Memorial Service for Michael King
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Welcome to New Day Community Church, my name is Bill Yates and I am pastor here. On behalf of Michael’s family I wanted to thank you for coming to celebrate his life. A couple of housekeeping items, If you need to use the restrooms they are located down the hallway on the right hand side. Please use the doors directly across from me that face the street and not the side door to avoid disrupting the service. And if you are like me and often forget until someone tells me, Please do silence your cellphones. This service is being video recorded for those who might want to see it at a later date but it is not being live streamed. There will be an opportunity for others to share reflections about Mike later in the service. As well, We will be having a reception following the service here at New Day. Once again, welcome, and may this be a blessed time of grief.
Let’s begin with a scripture:
16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
I have a very different kind of job, As a pastor, I share with people about the unprovable, the meta as the kids might still say I don’t know. In this job I get to see amazing life change, miraculous really. I get to see answers to prayers and I also get to go alongside people in tragedies. As a follower of Jesus, I and others who follow Jesus are commanded to Love others and one of the ways to do that is
found in the Bible, in the book of Romans
15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
So when my friends Mike and Clarissa called on me and this church to help in this time of weeping, this time of mourning over the sudden loss of Mike King, my only answer could be yes.
Which leads to another different and unusual thing about my job. Some times I get to meet people for the first time after they have already died.
I get to meet Mike through you. Through the people who loved Mike, played sports with Mike, fished with Mike, received hugs from Mike, maybe even argued with Mike, have an amazing relationship, a broken one, or maybe don’t even know what you call yourself in regards to Mike you just know you need to be here. Maybe, You love his two boys Cameron and Kyle or like me you love your friends who are in mourning over Mike and you’re here to support your friends as they grieve. Welcome, welcome, welcome into this special time.
This is a time of grief and as we come upon the time of Christmas and even closer the time of the great pumpkin, Charlie Brown would say, good grief. But he uses it in a negative like a cuss word to any negative thing. But Charlie Brown’s words are right, yet his definition is wrong.
A counselor and famous author I met once pointed out that their is good grief. That’s right a good time of grieving. In fact, Grief is a way for God to let us heal from the loss of what we loved. Grief means we have experienced love because no one grieves what they don’t care about. It is also a sign that something is wrong here. Death shouldn’t be. Mike shouldn’t be gone. This pain shouldn’t happen. We can feel that truth in our grief that we desire for more. We desire for more because there is more.
Jesus told us about the resurrection.
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.
The qualification, the only requirement for the resurrection is belief in Jesus Christ.
I am told, that Mike believed in Jesus Christ.
Let me go further, Another word for belief is faith. Faith is described as
1 Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.
Faith is acting in the reality of what is unknown and unknowable. Just as you have faith in the chair that you sit in. We know this because without any testing, you took action and put your full weight into that chair. If it broke you could be hurt, but you have faith. You just sat right down, taking action in the unknowable.
Faith in Jesus is like that taking action in that Jesus really is who He says He is. Jesus described what believing in him as being his disciple.
31 Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings.
To all those who follow Him, Jesus promised resurrection. Don’t be confused though, Resurrection is not based on worthiness. It’s not math, counting up the number of good things you do. The resurrection is actually based on the fact that we are all messed up. Everyone of us has someone that can look at us and say, that person is messed up. Yes I am a messed up person.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That gift of God of eternal life came through the sacrifice of Jesus by paying the price of sin, the punishment for sin is death, so he died on the cross for us so that all who believe in him won’t die but have eternal life.
Again I am told that Mike is a follower of Jesus.
And one of the many wonderful things about being a follower of Jesus is that I never ever have to do determine who really means it and whose lying. As for deserving it? Nobody deserves someone to die for them, much less God to die and then resurrect Himself for them. It’s a free gift, completely free, and in this life it comes with the offer of relationship with God and purpose.
Resurrection is a wonderful gift of hope, which is why in coming to a celebration of life today, we celebrate the amazing gift God gave us in the life of Michael King, a loved person but we also come to this loss with faith that this isn’t the end. This isn’t all there is, there is the resurrection for all who believe in Him.
But for us, we also know we have to keep living now. We will have a time without Michael and we have to keep going, because in this life, God allows us to be part of his workmanship. He allows us to spread love, joy and peace. To enter into lives and change them; bringing people closer to the life of Hope in Jesus.
In order to keep going in our every day life, we have to experience grief. As I said earlier, Grief comes with anger that death happens, that loss happens. It also comes with laughter, laughter at remembering the joys, the stories of how much Mike loved to fish, the joy and I am told the fear of his hugs that somehow he might break a rib. We need to hear those stories today. Please be ready to help other heal by sharing those stories today. You’ll have a chance very soon.
But before that I have to say that in every time of death we realize there are things we forgot to say or the one who passed forgot to say to us. Sometimes its the password to that account. or where those papers are but even more importantly it might be a long awaited apology.
For those who are wise, who open themselves up to God’s Good Grief this can be a time to forgive and say good-bye. We can ask God for forgiveness now of the things we were supposed to say but forgot to, ran out of time to, the feeling we had but didn’t do. These regrets are common in every life but sometimes even more when a person dies suddenly.
I personally struggle with forgiveness and I’ve studied it a lot. God calls on us to forgive others.
14 “In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can’t get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others.
15 If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part.
I struggle because I have a good memory. It was great for school but bad for anger. I quickly learned that forgiveness is not forgetting. You are wired to remember bad things, so you won’t touch a hot stove or cut yourself again and again. That memory helps us be careful.
Forgiveness means that when we remember the pain we choose not to punish anymore. We choose not to want retribution, a big word for getting even. We choose not to imagine proving ourselves right. We choose not to make ways where the person will feel our pain. Instead, we do something found in the word, forgive. See that pain that needs to be forgiven, that is for giving to God. Give it to God. Let him work out the punishment. He knows all the details anyway. He knows what is real and what is an excuse.
Today in the grief, I encourage you to forgive yourself by asking God to forgive you. Forgive your family as they grieve, sometimes in mean ways. Not because what has happened is right but because God can take on the job of giving out punishment or mercy and He is better at it than you. And take anything between you and Mike, and give that to God too. Let God wash his healing over you.
Finally, Grief is a way to honor. To make sure that we know that what we grieve has value. We have value. These friends have value. Mike was valuable. He brought joy to your lives. He brought love to your midst. He gave and He received from you. He was important. He still is.
The Bible doesn’t teach that those who went before need to do any more work with us, even though people like to say that. But I do know, that when my mother passed about a year ago, this whole year I have remembered lessons she taught me and I followed them. I know there are things Mike taught you maybe directly, maybe just through who He was and the way He did life. Those lessons don’t go away. You take them with you as you heal in this grief.
Let us Pray.
Lord Jesus, thank you. Thank you for the life of Mike. Thank you for the Love He gave. I ask Lord that you bless my friends here today with healing in their grief. With a greater awareness and relationship with you. With a hunger for you God, the giver of Hope, the giver of peace, and the provider of the resurrection.
Lord bless Mike’s boys, bless his parents, bless them beyond measure. Lord in this blessing maybe the love here continue beyond today, with the presence of these friends throughout lives of all here and into a further eternal life in you, Christ Jesus.
In Jesus Name we pray, Amen.
Now, we will move in our celebration of this valuable life to those who knew Mike beginning with his son Cameron
