Sermon Tone Analysis

I’d like to start this time with just sharing a few memories of my father.

Not just from me, I mean from anyone.

Would anyone be willing to share any memories?

Good, bad, funny…doesn’t matter.

Just interactions you had with him that describe the type of person that he was.

My father was a complicated individual.

He lived his life with what I call a lot of comedic contradictions.

He was the old grump who would yell and cuss at you if you looked at him wrong in the grocery store or walked in front of him, all while wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt.

He always declared a desire to be with his family for the holidays, yet cherished himself as the grinch, or a scrooge…literally saying bah humbug to everyone.

He had a quick temper.

You could be having a great morning together, spending time in the car, going to the grocery store to buy donuts for the family…and next thing you know he was sending a jelly filled krispy kreme zooming at your head because his hearing was atrocious that the thought you were mouthing off to your mom…even though you were just asking a question…true story.

He had the opposite personality of someone you would think of that wore hawaiian shirts on a daily basis…yet that’s what he did.

As I was growing up, he was quick to hold doors open for women and the elderly, allow single moms in front of him in line at the grocery store…he was quick to be chivalrous…and yet he would tell some of the crudest jokes and sing some of the crudest songs you ever heard.

He was the man that would reminisce about the times him and I as a kid would pop popcorn, drink Dr. pepper, and watch Beauty and the Beast…and yet in the same conversation make an allusion or joke about some adult film that he had seen or knew of.

Like I said, he was a man of contradictions…some things just didn’t make sense how they came together in his mind.

He was also the type of man who gave up most of his life to provide for his family…yet when the time came for him to retire and be closest to his family, he pushed them away.

Isolated himself.

He taught me hard work, sacrifice, family provision, boldness, and dedication.

A very very  conservative estimate of time he spent out on the road during my 32 years of life is…197,100 hours…8,212.5 days….or

22.5 years.

That’s assuming he was home for at least 2 months every year…which we all know wasn’t the case.

That is a long amount of time spent in a semi truck, earning as much money for his family as he could and keeping very little himself.

That’s another hard contradiction to wrestle with.

The man that gave up so much of his life towards his family, really struggled to stay true to that in his final years.

My relationship to him caused me great joy at times, and great pain.

It was complicated.

That’s how I would end up describing my relationship to him in these final years.

Complicated.

And I know that most of you in this room share that sentiment.

I know many of you spent years where you wouldn’t talk with him or he wouldn’t talk to you.

I know that many of you in this room spent time not only grieving his death…but grieving what the relationship you had with him could have been.

The potential it had.

I know that’s how it was and is for me.

I have felt regret, sadness, anger, hurt, emptiness, and a list of other emotions.

I’ve felt regret that I didn’t say what I felt needed to be said to him.

And that I let him push himself away from me.

I’ve felt sadness that the man who supported and raised me, he took many opportunities to tell me he was proud of me and loved me…sadness that he had passed and that I couldn’t even remember the last words I spoke to him.

I’ve felt anger because he didn’t bother to know my children the way I wanted him to know him.

And treat my mom the way a husband should treat a wife.

I’m speaking honestly tonight, because I wanted to honor my Dad.

And my thought is that the best way to honor him was to speak the way he spoke.

Because if there was one thing Gerald Fouts was good at…it was telling you what he thought.

What he thought about you…or your beliefs…or your actions.

It was definitely a trait that I feel like I got from him…though prayerfully, what I have to say will come across with just a little more tact than he used to use.

My dad was not afraid to talk about dying.

He mentioned it more than was comfortable.

As such…over the years I remember a couple of things that he asked for at his funeral.

I know he wanted this music playing.

Check.

This was one of his favorite CDs of all time.

I remember when he first found it and bought it.

He played it every time he was home…and eventually it made its way to my collection when I became a Christian at the age of 17.

This CD was actually quite crucial to my understanding of worship…and what it meant to be a worship leader.

All that to say, my Dad’s influence on my life even extended to my career and calling.

He didn’t want people staring at his body.

Check.

I know my father wanted the gospel preached.

If there was another thing that we know about Gerald Fouts…it’s that he loved reading, he loved war and action movies, he loved listening and talking about politics, and he loved being set in his religion.

He was passionate about these things…to the point oftentimes of agitation and anger.

I admit to you, that this has been a difficult thing for me to think through over the past several weeks.

You wouldn’t think so…because I’ve dedicated my whole life the truth of the gospel.

My career, my family, my children…all to Jesus.

So why is it hard?

Preaching the gospel to your own family is extremely difficult because you don’t want to cause tension.

You don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable…especially the people you live life with.

You want to respect and love them for who they are…and, you know full well that your family is the one who sees all your faults and mistakes and flaws…simply put.

Your family knows your sins, so it’s hard to talk at times to them about how you’re committed to living a life that squashes sin and glorifies God.

I know that for some or many of you in this room…you don’t want the gospel preached.

Because to you it may be awkward, uncomfortable, wrong, foolish, or maybe even painful.

To that I say two things.

It’s not your funeral.

It’s Gerald’s.

At your funeral, you can do whatever you want.

But at this one…we are going to honor the wishes of the dead, no matter what the condition of our relationship was with him at the end.

Give me the grace for the next five minutes to hear what I have to say.

I don’t think I’m going to say it the way you expect.

I’m not going to demand a response from you, I’m just going to ask that you sit and politely listen to what I have to say…and for most of you in the room…you know this is not something I cram down your throats.

I don’t beat you over the head with it.

I don’t force it upon you.

I love you for you.

And I pray that the relationship I’ve built with you over my life shows to you that I’m not going to start doing that now.

However, there are some very true things that my dad would have wanted to be said…and things that need to be said.

What I speak tonight is the truth.

The honest, blunt, no punches held truth.

Just the way Gerald Fouts liked to handle things.

Bold, in your face, leaving you no questions how he felt.

I have four points that I’ll make concise and they might sound odd at first.

I want to talk tonight about how the Gospel is a reason for concern when it comes to my dad’s soul, and why the Gospel is also a reason for joy when it comes to my dad’s soul.

Now, when I say concern…I mean that the Gospel should cause us to be concerned that my father’s soul may not be in heaven.

I know we all like to believe that everyone except hitler goes to heaven when they die…or even that we go nowhere when we die.

Both of those are easier to believe than the idea that there is punishment that awaits those that don’t belong to God.

So I’m going to give two reasons tonight why we should be concerned for my Dad’s soul.

But also, I’m going to give two reasons why we may have joy when it comes to my father’s soul.

Why there may be a chance that he is indeed in a better place.

First point.

The gospel is a reason for concern when it comes to my dad’s soul…because scripture tells us how we finish our lives matters.

Scripture shows us that one of the ways we know someone is truly a Christian, is that they will run the race of faith with endurance.

They will love God, and do Godly things, throughout their life of knowing him.

They will love the weak, the orphan, the widow.

They will care for those in need.