God Always Has the Best Plans

Mike, Julie, Wilson family, friends and brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. Our Lord is with us, especially on a day like today to grant us all objective hope and strength and comfort as we say today, “See you soon, Marjorie”.

Today is not about “good-bye”, as Paul exhorts us, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). For us today, even though there is this huge gaping hole where Marjorie once filled, it is a day of rejoicing and celebration of the life given to Marjorie by her Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, and the eternal life she is living even now.

The text that comforts us today is Paul’s letter to the Romans. The 8th chapter of this letter brings us great comfort on a day like today because there are questions that we have that cannot be answered in this life. And Paul points us to the only One who can bring comfort in times like this, our Lord and Savior, Jesus.

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him” (vv 16-17). This is Marjorie! She is a beautiful daughter of our Lord, born not by the will of the flesh, but born through Baptism by the will of God our Father. In baptism, Marjorie was crucified with Christ and raised together with Him in His resurrection. A new life began that day. And that new life continued throughout her earthly life as she fell asleep in the arms of Jesus on Thursday, the 25th of March.

Suffer, yes, Marjorie suffered. No one knows that more than you, Julie, and Mike. For the last several years, Marjorie suffered in her body, as things stopped working as they should. Far too many times she ended up in the hospital due to her suffering. And this last time was the worst. So confused and so scared was Marjorie that I have never seen her in that plight ever before. Yet, as I sat there the Wednesday before, I reassured her that she was indeed a child of God, and because of that she would never taste the fires of hell. That reassurance touched her lips as she received the true body and blood of Christ given and shed for her for the forgiveness of all her sins. Finally, she was calm. She again was brought back to the basics of faith, and our Lord comforted her, preparing her for His arrival to take her home the next morning.

Suffering is what happens in the life of every Christian. This is the way of the cross. Jesus even warned us prior that our lives would be full of hardships, calamities, trials and persecution. The life of a Christian is one of suffering. Suffering through our own sins, the sins of others, the belittlement because of our faith in Christ.

Paul goes on to encourage us, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” As if life alone weren’t enough for us to suffer as Christians, but in these final days before Christ’s return, we hear creation groaning even louder, for this is not how life is supposed to be. There is this dreaded COVID-19 virus that has been politicized to the n’th degree. Conflicting information about vaccines and treatments, and the censorship of any negative reporting of adverse reactions to the vaccine. Our own political government is off the rails with corruption and evil. Lord, when is this going to stop?! All creation groans and waits in eager anticipation, as do our bodies. God’s Word has been disregarded in America, even to the point of calling an Eagle Scout project that included the name “Jesus Christ” a “wretched, unconstitutional, dumpster fire” simply because it included the name of Jesus. This is the world we presently live in. A far cry from the life we grew up to know, where there was no issue calling evil evil and good as good. The world now sees everything good as evil, and celebrates evil rather than good.

All this garbage that we suffer through in this life, as Paul says, “is not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Marjorie suffered physically and emotionally at all this stuff. The world we used to know is long gone. The majority of people who used to claim to be Christian now have tossed that aside to follow in the footsteps of the prince of this world. Sickness and disease and death have replaced what was good in life. But we have this promise of God, through Paul, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.”

“All things” work out for good. That means everything that we experience in this life. The suffering we endure in this world brings us closer to our Lord. We find ourselves praying against the evil that has infected our world, we pray for our persecutors, and for those who are our enemy. Even though it is hard to pray for someone we don’t agree with, we must remember that we battle not against flesh and blood but against the principalities and powers in the heavenly realms. Marjorie and I did that on several occasions. You see, even though Marjorie suffered, she loved being alive.

Life is a gift from our heavenly Father. He is all about life. We read in Ecclesiastes that God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he should turn from his way and live.” God gives us life as we are conceived, and He provides for all our needs of body and soul. He has particular love for the widow and the orphan, as He tells us.

However, we are not here today to focus on all the garbage in life and in the world. We are gathered here today to hear the hope that was Marjorie’s hope. Marjorie wanted to be with Jesus. She knew where she was headed, even though she loved to be alive. Our last visit together she wanted one of two things: She either wanted to be well and out of that wretched hospital bed, or she wanted to be at home with Jesus. So, we prayed for just that. I recall joking with her that Jesus didn’t have her room ready yet and she just might have to wait. Waiting was not an option any more. She had lived her life waiting, and she was done with that.

The phone call the next morning hit like a ton of bricks. Immediately the sorrow of her passing hit home. Tears began to well up and it made it difficult to make that 10 mile journey from my office to her home. But what followed was amazing. We sat around Marjorie for hours retelling our stories and laughing. You see, one vice that Marjorie loved was gambling. And Mike, you told me the story of how she was at a machine for a long time and it wasn’t paying out as she won. So the casino manager came over with a key to a door in the platform the machine was standing on. When the door was unlocked and opened, thousands of dollars began to pour out on the floor. What was it, something like $8,000 or more of silver dollars came crashing around her feet. Or the time when you all got there and each got his/her own scooter and everyone went their own way. But Marjorie needed a flag on hers so that Julie could find her as she would hop from one machine to another.

These are great things to remember. The joy shared together as family has the power to take death’s frown and tears and turn them into smiles and laughter.

There is a joy that we have even in circumstances like this. Joy is different from happiness in that it comes from outside of us. Joy is something in the heart that knows its at peace with its Maker and regardless of what happens in this life, that joy cannot be taken away from us. There is joy today knowing that Marjorie now rests from all her suffering. She is in the arms of her Lord and Savior, Jesus, as she awaits her own resurrection. Her body, what we see in this casket will be raised from death on the day when Jesus returns. Her soul will be reunited with her new body and will be ushered into the joys of her Father’s paradise, where she will live forever, in the flesh, in the presence of God and His Son, Jesus.

Our joy in this life, as I stated above, comes from outside of us. It is