Legend's Funeral
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Brittany, Ryan, family and friends, I am honored that you asked me to lead this service for Legend. Honored. I do not feel qualified and I pray God uses me to advance His Kingdom and that Legend’s funeral will be remembered as a place where God was Glorified. Thank you.
My name is Trey Fisher, I’m Brittany’s pastor at The Parish of the Redeemer in Calhoun, a Reformed Baptist Church.
Our family has known Brittany for years.
We have watched Brittany grow in her faith in the last year and a half.
being involved in women’s Bible Studies
plugged in to community group
diving into the Word
and I think she invites more people to church than any of us.
Im always standing at the front door of Middle School (where we meet on Sundays) waiting to see if anyone is going to show up…it always amazes me people keep coming back...
I love watching Cody and Brittany pull up.
Cody, the perfect gentleman, always pulls up front and helps Brittany, Zaidee, Georgia, and Legend out.
I love watching men walk into a church with their family.
Brittany, what we all love about you is your love for people.
I love that you love people.
Through all of this I was put into a group text thread with about 425 people and the only ones I know it is my wife and Pattie. But if your’e out there and you are one of those in that group chat I’m in I want you to know something…I love you. I really do. I feel like I’ve made some new friends.
The other day I went to Brittany’s house to talk to her about Legends funeral. Kiki was there, Stephanie, her step-mom, her dad, Cody and Alex. We talked about a lot of Scripture but Brittany wanted this to be a day where the gospel was preached.
So, Listen carefully to what I am about to say:
These are the Words of the Living God
It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
and the living will lay it to heart.
Here we are at Legend’s funeral…in a house of mourning.
God’s Word says that this place, right here, right now, is better than going to the house of feasting.
Let me read from another translation...
Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties.
After all, everyone dies—
so the living should take this to heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter,
for sadness has a refining influence on us.
A wise person thinks a lot about death,
while a fool thinks only about having a good time.
Did you hear that? Were you listening?
It is here that you realize this is where you will end up.
your’e not thinking about death while your feasting with friends
your’e not thinking about your death while out partying are you.
One day, sooner or later, you will be here, lying in a casket
“for this is the end of all mankind and the living will lay it to heart”.
“the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure”
June 10th I recieved a text from Josh Wiliams to pray for Brittany and Legend. Brittany was in an accident and her leg is hurting her and Legend is having trouble breathing. I just got done writing a sermon…and I said a prayer.
I went home for a few minutes and told Darcy, my wife, that I was going to go up to St. Francis and visit them. She said she would meet me up there and then we would run some errands.
Im not sure many of us was thinking it was as serious as it was when we first got the news.
As we sat in the waiting room for a while we eventually realized just how serious the situation was.
A few minutes later a nurse came out and asked me to come in and see Brittany.
I had no idea what to say. I had no idea what to pray. I felt so unqualified.
I went into that room, sat beside Brittany and Cody and we just cried. My main concern was her faith…that is what was going through my mind.
After some prayer and many tears all I knew to say to her as I held her hand was, “Brittany, tell me God is good…tell me God is good”.
I was so worried about her faith in that Emergency Room.
“Tell me God is good, Brittany”
And she cried out, “God, you’re good! I trust you, Father! Your will be done, God!”
Amazing! But that’s not all.
Some time goes on and the room is crowded.
Someone tells Brittany who it was who hit them. She hears the name of the person who put her in this bed and Legend in the other room as doctors and nurses were working on her and Ryan’s son, Legend. And she knew… she knew.
How would you feel when you hear who it was?
How would I feel?
When she heard who it was she reached out her hand and said, “Trey, can we pray for that boy and what he must be going through right now? Can we pray for his family?”
Brittany, I want you to know that the faith God has given you has increased my faith and so many others
God has truly used you through all of this.
Many people do not have this type of faith.
Many people wonder HOW can she have that type of faith.
There have been so many PROFESSING CHRISTIANS turn away from God when they go through things like this.
This is why it is important to know the God of the Bible. Because that is the only God that truly does exist…all other ‘gods’ fall short.
It says in ISAIAH 45:5
English Standard Version Chapter 45
5 I am the LORD, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God;
Brittany and Cody know this God. And they believe His Word and His promises.
But we have seen and heard of some people turn from the god they profess to believe in when things like this happen, haven’t we?
You know why that is?
Because they come face to face with their god and the realize that the god they have been worshiping is weak.
they come to realize that the god they have been worshiping is powerless.
they think that it is the god of the Bible but the truth is they were never worshiping the god of Scripture.
they have been worshiping an idol they called “god”
they have been “worshipping” a Genie in a bottle
if I keep “doing” these things then “you” will bless me and make me happy.
That God does not exist
Some of you in here right now may be wondering “why does bad things happen to good people”?
you can ask Brittany if she is good…she will tell you she isn’t
Something bad happening to a good person only happened once…and that is what I am here to tell you about.
Let me tell you why Brittany can cry out in an Emergency Room, physically broken, completely heart broken…let me tell you why she can cry out “God, Your’e good! Your’e will be done Father!” so loud that everyone down the hall can hear her...
She can cry out those words because she worships the ONE TRUE GOD.
She can cry out those words because she worships The Holy One of God!
She has asked me to do this funeral for Legend this morning…and again, I feel unqualified.
She has asked me to share the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to all of you
She wants you to know the God we worship!
She wants God to be glorified!
She wants Christ, the King, to be lifted up!
So before I tell you the good news, the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ I want to pray the prayer of Joseph Alleine.
He was a Puritan who lived in the mid-1600’s.
He was a man who had a heart for evangelism and impacted so many great evangelists in our church history.
As I pray, please listen to these words…let them sink in...
Let us pray:
O Lord, how insufficient I am for this work. With what will I pierce the scales of Leviathan—or make my heart, hard as a millstone, feel what you desire it to feel? Will I go and speak to the grave, and expect the dead to obey me and come forth? Will I make a speech to the rocks, or lecture the mountains, and move them with arguments? Will I make the blind see?
From the beginning of the world no one has ever heard of opening the eyes of a person born blind. But, Lord, you can pierce the heart of the sinner. I can draw the bow at random, but you direct the arrow between the cracks of the armor. I come in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel. I come forth, like David against Goliath, to wrestle, not with flesh and blood, but with rulers and cosmic powers, and spiritual forces of evil of this world. This day let the Lord defeat the Philistines, take away the armor from the strong man, and give me the captives out of his hand. Lord, choose my words. Choose my weapons for me. And when I put my hand into the bag, and take out a stone and sling it, and carry it to the mark, make it sink—not into the forehead, but into the heart of the unconverted sinner.
Take him to the ground like Saul of Tarsus. Lord God, help! How can I leave them this way? If they will not hear me, still I pray that you will hear me. I pray that they might live in your sight! Lord, save them, or they perish. My heart would melt to see their houses on fire when they were fast asleep in their beds. So is my soul moved within me to see them endlessly lost? Lord, have compassion, and save them out of the burning. Put forth your divine power, and the work will be done. Slay the sin, and save the soul of the sinner. Amen. —Joseph Alleine, a Puritan (1633-1668)
Behold the good news of Jesus Christ:
God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, is a HOLY God.
Now when I tell you that God Almighty is Holy I mean it in a way that you really need to understand. He is HOLY.
He is set apart from everything … there is nothing like Him.
1 Samuel 2:2 says:
“There is none holy like the Lord:
for there is none besides you;
there is no rock like our God.
Many people “TIP THEIR HAT” to God and say “he is Holy” but let me remind you of who we are talking about here.
After the Exodus Moses gathered the people of Israel together around Mount Sinai and told them to be ready for the third day… because on the THIRD DAY the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people...
(for my fellow brothers and sisters out there…isn’t that interesting)
And the people were excited obviously…they prepared themselves for the Holy God of Israel to come...
And then it says this in Exodus 19:16
On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled.
So when I tell you He is Holy, it is a holiness like you have never dreamed of.
When you are in the presence of the Holy One, it is terrifying…they trembled in absolute FEAR.
And you will also.
Isaiah was in the presence of the Holy God. He tells us in Isaiah 6 that
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
The Seraphim (a winged angel or supernatural being) hid their eyes from seeing His Holiness…they had to cover their face because HE is so HOLY.
With two other wings they hid their feet because God was there … and where He is it is Holy.
VERSE 4 says:
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
Terrifying…When God spoke, the place shook and was filled with smoke....
And the most religious, God-fearing person on Earth at that time…Isaiah said,
Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”
Now if Isaiah said this, the most religious God-fearing man on Earth at the time…WHAT WOULD YOU SAY if you were in God’s presence?
Right now…how would you react if you were face to face with God right now?
God is HOLY! And WE ARE NOT!
God demands perfection but we are sinners.
We have broken God’s laws.
I love you enough to tell you the Truth…and if your’e honest with yourself you know what I am about to tell you is true...
You may have been told that “deep down your’e good”…but that is a lie.
Deep down you are not good. Deep down I AM NOT GOOD.
as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
Our sinfulness has offended God in such a way that we can not fathom the severity of it.
We suppress the Truths of God. We see His creation all around us everyday and we live our lives as if He doesn’t exist at all.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
And because God is Holy and Righteous in all His ways...He is JUST.
And just like the courts of Earth demand payment for the guilty…the court of Heaven requires payment for the guilty. Justice will be served.
there will come a day when you will be in His presence and He will make you pay for your actions, your sins, against Him.
And there is nothing we can do. You have NO BARGAINING POWER.
We sinned against the Holy Eternal God. There is nothing we can do to pay Him back for what we have done.
There is nothing we have that we can give him to pay him for the sins that we have committed against Him.
Nothing. we are defenseless.
Justice will be served and the verdict will be Just…we all deserve to pay eternally for our rebellion against the One True God.
WE HAVE NO RIGHTEOUSNESS OF OUR OWN to offer Him
The religious think they do though. They think they have done good. They hold to their righteous deeds thinking God is going to accept them for what they have done.
They forget that God’s Word says that your righteous deeds are filth rags to Him.
Of course they believe in Jesus…of course they will say that
But…the demons believe in Jesus too…are they going to live in His presence for eternity?
See, the religious person BELIEVES in Jesus BUT THEIR FAITH...
their FAITH is not in Christ but in themselves.
they believe their obedience and good deeds is what is going to put them over the edge in the end.
But this is not the time to lie to yourself…you know that have no righteousness of your own to offer God.
The only way you can be made right with God and be at peace with God is to do what He says…and come to Him in the only way that He has provided...
God is just in all His ways…BUT He is also Loving, Merciful, and Gracious.
The God of Heaven and Earth provided a way for you to be at Peace with Him and that is through Faith Alone in His Son, Jesus Christ.
Listen to me…if you do not TRULY know THIS JESUS…you are not at peace with God…you are at war with Him.
You have all heard something about Jesus but it is important that you have a good understanding of WHY Jesus came and took on flesh and walked this Earth about 2000 years ago.
It was Man who sinned against the Holy Eternal God.
And man, you…and I…do not have what it takes to pay God back.
We do not have what it takes to make things right between us and God.
The ONLY person who can pay God back…is God.
Because it was man who sinned against God…God, the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ became Man.
God has given man a way of sharing His righteous with unrighteous people like you and I.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took on flesh and He did what you and I could never do for ourselves.
He lived a perfect life. Sinless.
When he was mocked like you and I have been mocked…he did not sin. We are nothing like Him.
When His closest friends walked away from Him and left Him alone, when they betrayed Him, He didn’t retaliate and scream at them in anger like we did.
When he was falsely accused, He did not become vengeful and lash out like we do.
God came down, not just to the top of Mount Sinai…this time He came down all the way and walked this Earth as a man and lived a life FOR us, the unrighteous, who will believe in Him.
Because we do not have any righteousness of our own to offer God....God offered us His own righteousness and His righteousness is given to those who are willing to receive this gracious offer from God by believing in Christ, God’s Only Son.
But what are you to believe?
That God is Holy and you are not
That there is nothing you can offer God to be at peace with Him
That God the Father offered you and I a way to be made right with Him and that is through His Son Jesus Christ
WHO WAS...
Put to death on a cross and He died like a criminal. He died in the place of the one who would believe in Him.
You and I are the criminals. We are the one who sinned against the Holy God of Israel
But He took the place of those who would believe in Him and He died the death we all deserve.
He was buried in a tomb just like the Old Testament prophecies said.
And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
And that He, Jesus, was raised from the dead on the THIRD DAY.
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
You will only be justified in the sight of God by putting your faith in the finished work of Christ.
When you put your faith in Him and Him alone...
when you look to Christ Alone for salvation...
Your sins, your guilt, and your shame will be placed on Him and He will place on you the Righteousness of Christ on you.
Unmerited favor will be shown to you…GRACE…the grace of God will save you through faith in His Son Jesus.
Listen to me:
Jesus is not a beggar. He is a King. He is not just any King but He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
He rules Heaven and Earth
He is the promised Messiah from the beginning.
He came to set the captive free
Remember the Exodus:
God’s people were taken captive...
God, because of His loving kindness came and He set them free.
If you do not have faith in Jesus…
YOU have been held captive by the Evil One...
But God…because of His loving Kindness has sent His Son, born of a virgin to live the life you could not live.
He died the death you deserved
He was buried and rose from the dead
and now sits at the right hand of God the Father ruling from His throne with all authority.
The KING has come…He has come to restore order in your sinful lives and in this sinful World.
He has come to make all things new...
REPENT OF YOUR SINS AND TRUST IN CHRIST OUR SAVIOR AND KING.
Get with His people, the church, and learn about this great Savior, the Holy One of God.