Carol Carlin Funeral

Love, to see God

Death always brings up the same questions. Why now? Why them? What’s the point if we all die in the end? How do I go on? Death makes us look deep into our existence and question everything.

That can be a good thing. It makes you wonder, is pleasure and comfort enough to make life worth living. Is that house, car, relationship, vacation, retirement really worth it? Death shows us how weak a self-made purpose is. Here’s what God says our purpose is.

Matthew 22:34-40 “34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Our purpose is to love. Why?

John 17:20-21 “20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

John 13:31-35 “31 When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. 33 “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. 34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.””

The reason we love

The reason we love is not just because it feels good, or because we are supposed to, or because our brains have been wired that way by evolution...

It’s not even because our children are literally pieces of ourselves… it’s more than that

We love because we are made in the image of God, and God loves. We love, because our purpose is to know Christ in His love, according to the riches of His love, empowered by God Himself for love.

And when we love, the world can see God.

Ephesians 3:14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

What does this have to do with Carol?

Our purpose is to love, but we can’t. Not with the depth that God loves. It’s a mercy that God calls what we do love in comparison to what He’s doing, when He loves.

So what? Does that mean because we are broken, because we can’t love like we should, because I can’t be the husband my wife needs, or the son my mom needs, that I’m worthless? No...

2 Timothy 1:8-9 “8 So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. 9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,”

Ephesians 2:8 “8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—”

1 Timothy 1:12-14 “12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. 13 Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. 14 The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”

Our love is broken and God’s grace surpasses any sin, no matter how terrible - two truths how do they connect?

1 John 4:11-13 “11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.”

1 John 4:14-19 “14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us ...

...so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us.”

1. God had a love for Carol that was made complete when you loved her.

Out of His grace He used that broken love in order to finish his perfect love.

2. If God is in us, No matter how broken our love is, He completes it.

Carol’s love for you, no matter how broken, is completed and made perfect by God’s love for you.

That means if we have regrets… if we fear the day of judgement... because our love wasn’t right, God says, “don’t worry. My love completed that. My love, made your love perfect.”

According to the testimony of her daughter, Carol is with Christ.

She has no regrets, because her life was made perfect in Christ. You don’t need to regret either, because your love for her has been made perfect by the Spirit of Him who raised from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father. Even more than that God used your love to complete His own.