Sermon Tone Analysis

Opening

Psalm

Another One Bites the Dust

Your wife, your mom, your relative, your friend was one of a kind.

When Debbie was planning this service, she was thinking through songs she wanted us to sing tonight.

And Debbie kept her sense of humor even to the end and she said, do you think it would be ok if one of the songs was “Another One Bites the Dust?” Everyone who knows Debbie knows that she has this infectious joy that is so rare.

Her smile would light up the room and she left that smile behind in her family members because you too light up the room.

Corvette at Bible Study

I remember Melanie was having a weekly women’s Bible study at our house and Debbie was part of that.

And I was out that night because I was told to be out on those nights and I come back home and one of the cars is a Corvette.

So I am thinking, I wonder which one of these women are driving their husbands’ Corvette.

And there so many cars that you don’t know whose it is and you try to figure it out without asking anyone.

The next week, I came home and there is the Corvette in my driveway.

And I am thinking, cool I get to see who owns this thing.

I walk inside and Debbie Kahler is sitting there and I just cracked up.

Debbie Kahler is driving around in a convertible Corvette.

How cool is that.

I love it!

What joy Debbie had and what joy she has now.

Bless His Wife with It

I was admiring her car in her garage the other day and Denis told me the story of how HE bought her the Corvette and brought it home and she totally couldn’t figure out that the car was for her.

Usually when a man buys his wife a Corvette he is buying himself a Corvette.

But not this time.

Not this guy.

Not Dennis.

Dennis is also one of a kind and he wanted to bless his wife and make her day.

Now a lot of people would be embarrassed by a Corvette, or think it was too much for them, or make a fuss out of it, but not Debbie, she put the top down and cruised around town like a boss.

And I loved that because I had a mid life crisis early a few years ago and bought a USED convertible Shelby GT500.

Now that is not a car that a pastor should own.

That is not a car that ANY red blooded alpha male should own.

And I remember how much it encouraged me to enjoy my Mustang to see the freedom in Christ that Debbie had to enjoy her Corvette…the way she enjoyed the blessings of life.

Even something material like a car.

Such joy...

One of Debbie’s favorite verses was I can do all things through him who gives me strength.

And we love that verse…but it is the verses before it that put it into greater and richer context.

Even when Debbie was low…even when she was weak…she was filled with joy.

She knew how to be content in all things knowing that Jesus and nothing but Jesus was her strength.

Religious Statements and Fruit of Spirit

It’s easy to make religious statements at a funeral.

Yes, Debbie loved Jesus.

Yes, Debbie showed the fruit of loving Jesus by bearing the fruit of the spirit in her life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, long suffering, self control…it isn’t the fruits of the spirit, it is the fruit, singular of the spirit that grows as one so you either have all of them or you have none of them and, yes, Debbie had the fruit of the spirit and had the whole package, she was filled with such joy…unspeakable joy…uncommon joy...

so it is easy to make religious statements tonight about her, but what about tomorrow?

What about a month from now?

A few years from now?

What is truth?

Because it is either true that Debbie is in Heaven with Jesus right now in the fullness of joy, joy way beyond any earthly joy, or it is true that we have these great memories of her joy, and she maintained that joy until the end, and she did, but that she came to the end of her existence when she died.

So which is it?

General Revelation

These are the times that cause me to soul search and check my faith.

I am a pastors kid but my Dad will tell you that I worked hard for my faith.

I wrestled with it.

And here is what I always go back to.

I look at creation, I look at the trees, the mountains, the oceans, the complexity of the human body, and I see that Earth is but a speck in the solar system and the solar system is a speck in the galaxy, and so on, and I say, there has to be a God a deity bigger than anything we can imagine who started all of this.

That part is fairly easy to get to.

Scripture says that every man knows in his heart there is a God.

Special Revelation

But Jesus is the stumbling block.

Who was he? Jesus asked his disciples that question…who do you say that I am?

And I go back to the disciples and I see a group of 12 men who all died brutal deaths in different areas of the world, all of them had families, and jobs before they met Jesus, and all of them would have died KNOWING they died for a lie.

That simply doesn’t happen.

One of them would have recanted.

One of their family members would have convinced them to recant.

But they didn’t because Jesus was who he said he was.

Debbie is in Heaven Because of Jesus Not Because of Her Joy

That was Debbie’s hope.

If there was any person on planet Earth who “deserved” to go to Heaven just based on her attitude in life it was Debbie.

And by human standards she does deserve it.

But not by God’s standards.

Debbie isn’t in heaven because she was filled with joy.

Not because she was a great wife, mother and friend, but because she trusted in Jesus as her Lord and Savior.

Our theme at Reach Church is Nothing But Jesus and Debbie loved that because she got it…she got that without Jesus we really have no hope.

That’s why we can say with the apostle paul at moment’s like these:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.