Jim Kurtz Funeral
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Today I passed a church sign which read: “Seeking answers to life’s questions?”
It seems to me that among the many difficult “life questions” few are as difficult as the questions we confront in the face of death.
Questions like:
What is the meaning of life if it inevitably ends in death?
Why does such pain and suffering exist in our world?
What can I do with my life that will have lasting value?
Is death the end?
These are important questions—questions have answers, questions that we will answer in answering one central questions this afternoon:
Question: Why is today a day to glorify God?
Question: Why is today a day to glorify God?
today there is grief
there is loss
there is bereavement for family
> today is a day of sorrow.
But…we have just sung:
“To God be the glory”
and
“Praise the Lord, praise the Lord
Let the earth hear His voice
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice!”
>Praise, and rejoicing seem very discordant notes to sound on a day in which we are confronted by the death of a friend.
—>So the question remains: Why, today of all days, do we seek to glorify God?
>to answer that, we go to one of Jim’s favorite books: Philippians
Why must there be consolation in Christ?
What has Jesus Christ accomplished for us?
How should we live?
Why Must There Be Consolation in Christ?
Why Must There Be Consolation in Christ?
Paul writes a letter to suffering people:
For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake,
Paul is writing to a group of people who are not entirely dissimilar from the group of people I am speaking to today.
Paul is writing to hurting people
Paul is writing to those who are suffering
>they (the Philippians) suffered the trial of persecution
> you (gathered here) suffer the sorrow of the grave
So the question that Paul is grappling with and sets out in the next section to answer is : how do we live in the midst of suffering? Or even more acutely, how do we glorify God in the midst of suffering? Here’s what Paul goes on to say:
Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
> Paul speaks of consolation, and comfort in the face of suffering
-comfort that serves as the basis for transformed life
so that we reject a self interested manner of life
and instead humbly love one another
—>In other words, suffering, loss, hardship should not cause us to live with abandon for ourselves.
>> BUT, this is a conditional statement! If…then...
->so if there is no consolation or comfort to be found in the person of Christ, then the reason for selfless living disappears!
And so people live their lives eating, drinking, and being merry. Do you realize “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die” is not the cry of the joyful, of the despairing?
>it is the cry of people who are frantically chasing the elusive specter of pleasure, because they know the specter of death follows close behind.—because we all end up here (casket)
>and so people live lives desperate for meaning, devoid comfort, without hope.
>>BUT, there is consolation, there is comfort in Christ, and that’s something that Jim Kurtz believed.
What is the basis for this comfort, this consolation?
What has Jesus Christ accomplished for us?
What has Jesus Christ accomplished for us?
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Here is a startling, arresting truth: the second person of the triune God, God the Son, humbled himself
It was not inappropriate for Christ to regard God the Father as his equal
Jesus Christ was very God of very God—he was fully God
Yet this Jesus Christ, this Son of God humbled himself...
by adding to himself a human nature
by taking the form of a servant
by becoming obedient event to death
by dying on a cross
—> But why?
Because death is the consequence of human sin, not God’s good design for his creation.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If you have grown up in or around the church you have heard these verses many times.
you may have heard them so many times that they have become familiar—perhaps you have been de-sensitized
but in the face of the death of a loved one, and a friend, with the heavy weight of grief, and the heart rending pain of separation, these verses fall upon us with terrible force
And it is not just physical death, it is eternal separation from God that is at issue!
We often speak of the Trinity as being a glorious mystery, but nearly as mysterious to us is God’s moral perfection
we have all fallen incredibly short of this standard—we require someone capable of living the perfectly righteous life who could save us!
We are all like that poor man named Christian from Pilgrim’s Progress, weighed down by a crushing burden upon our backs—but the awful truth is this—for the holy wrath of a just God to be satisfied, it is not enough for someone to come and remove our burdens and cast them aside!
No, instead, for the justice of God to be satisfied, someone without his own burden of sin, must come, remove our burden, and place it upon his own broad shoulders and carry it for us!
We needed someone to come live righteously, suffer righteously, die righteously in our place as the just for the unjust—we needed a Savior!
Jim Kurtz was a good man. This was a man who loved his family. He cared for his wife and their kids, for their grandkids and great-grandkids. Jim was a man of character, and of principle, a man of faith, a man who loved God.
And Jim was a sinner. He would tell you that—but he’s not here to tell you that, so I will tell you for him. He could not remove his own burden, his own debt of sin. But Jim had a savior, a savior he delighted in telling people about. So let me tell you about Jim’s savior.
A savior must be four things:
This saviour must be fully God and fully man
Fully God
that he might have victory over sin and death
that he might restore men and women to right relationship with God
Fully man
because it was necessary for someone to live perfectly in the flesh
and to die in the flesh
This saviour must be the righteous servant of the Lord
He could not be a slave to sin
if he had reason to suffer for his own wrongdoing, he could not save others (drowning man)
He had to live a live of perfect obedience (the great exchange) (Glupker (you’re not perfect either)
He must die
He must rise again
The result:
that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
So…why do we glorify God on a day like today?
So…why do we glorify God on a day like today?
because when we approach the grave we find that our savior has been there before us, and that he is there no longer!
because in the great love of God for us in Christ, we are redeemed, and restored to life
O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood
To every believer the promise of God
The vilest offender who truly believes
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives
we rejoice today because, through Christ, Jim Kurtz has departed the land of shadows and entered the land of life and light.
“But purer, and higher, and greater will be
Our wonder, our worship, when Jesus we see”
today, of all days, we glorify God because of the triumph of our champion, Jesus Christ—who conquers the last enemy—death
If you have never believed the gospel?
If you have never believed the gospel?
The grave is not the end—for the believer and the unbeliever
but only those who have placed their faith, their hope, their confidence in Christ may be saved
there is salvation in no one else—if your hope is in your own righteousness, you are dead in your sins
On Jim’s behalf, I beg with you, I plead with you, be reconciled to God!
For those who have believed
For those who have believed
Let us mourn the loss of our loved one, friend, and brother in Christ
But let us glorify God, because we do not grieve like those without hope
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,