Gloria's Funeral

We had a beautiful funeral for our sweet girl on Thursday May 3rd 2012, at Bell Road Baptist church in Auburn CA. It was a sweet time of sharing our little girl with all of our friends and family, and allowing all of us to say goodbye for now, until we can hold her again in heaven. Ben, only by God's grace, preached a sermon at her funeral. I wanted to share that sermon here for our friends and family who could not be there. As well as some pictures. "

Chelsea and I along with our families would like once again to thank you for coming today. That fact that you would take time off work and drive here, some of you hundreds of miles, to this place knowing what was in store-- what would be here when you arrived-- is crazy. It is also the greatest gesture of love we have ever been shown aside from the love extended to us by Christ himself. Thank you Thank you for being here. there are some things we share as human beings that transcend all dividing lines and unite us at the very core of who we are, creatures created in the image of God. There are things that are universally true wherever there are people present. There are things that we can all agree on regardless of our socio economic status, or our race, our cultural background, and even our religious beliefs. And they create a Dichotomy – a division into two apposing ideas. We summarize these in one of two ways. We label them good and evil or right and wrong. But lets be specific. Marriage: marriage is universal. You show up to a wedding and even if you think these people make the worst couple in the world there is still a glimmer of hope that maybe I’m wrong, perhaps they will make it. Why is this the case? because God instituted it and it is good. And isn’t it amazing that you will drive hundreds of miles and send gifts and well wished for marriages. But who has ever bought a plane ticket for a divorce? And if you have, if wasn’t because you wanted to. Divorce is not the intention of God rather it is the result of the hard, sinful hearts of men Birth is another event where celebration is happening, because it is always glorious. It doesn’t matter the circumstances of the conception when life comes into the world it is right. It was God’s idea, he designed it and we marvel at it And so it was not hyperbole when I said you all were crazy for coming here knowing what was at the end of your drive. Death like divorce is a result of sin. We experience death because sin is in the world. God did not institute death he told us it would result if we disobeyed him and since it was not God who produced death, in our spirits we know it is wrong. And so here I am in a room full of crazy people who came here today knowing they would have to stare death in the face. But that is only the tip of the iceberg for us this afternoon. To a small degree we all have accepted death so long as it is as far away from a persons birth as possible. Even though we do not like to talk, or think about death, an honest person will admit to themselves that the ratio of people who have been born this planet and those who will die on this planet is one to one We just plan on it being it being at an old age. Come on you all have that magic number in your head. For me it has always been 80. If I make it to eighty stick a fork in me, I’m good for nothing anymore. Id bee on borrowed time anyway. And then I look at my grangather who celebrated his eightieth birthday last year and I ask the Lord to lone him a little more. The problem today is that we all have to admit that what is assumed is not guaranteed The problem today is that death becomes increasingly more offensive to us the younger the age of its victim. The problem with today is that I am standing beside the casket of a daughter who fell short of my self-imposed ideal lifespan by 80 years less one day What is more, we do not have the benefit of a modern medical explanation as to why. Now I am not suggesting that if we knew exactly why from a physiological standpoint all the heartache would go away. But the human mind was designed to ask questions of the creation because in asking questions of the creation we find our answers ultimately in the creator and so when we can say “ah ha” I see the problem” we can then begin to comfort ourselves with different thoughts based on our own rational. At this point we have no real answers physiologically speaking as to why Gloria died. The best the doctors could say was she suffered some sort of trama and she didn’t have enough blood. So we watched as our 8lb 8 oz, full term, baby girl who had had a normal heartbeat during delivery was wisked away only to die 27 hours later. What do we do with that? How do we explain that one to our selves let alone our three your old son? I believe God’s word tells us what to do with the difficult reality that is before all of us today. In Philippians chapter one beginning in verse 9 we read what Paul was praying for his readers and what I have been praying for you over the past two days. Php 1:9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, Php 1:10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, Php 1:11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Paul is writing to a group of people who have been faithfully partaking in his sufferings for the gospel along with him. You are here partaking in our suffering today so I think there is comfort here to help us understand this event that to our human eyes and hearts is tragic. 1) It is my prayer for you that your love may abound more and more. Love God wants us to have more love. Can you believe that love is the thing that is on the apostle’s mind as he suffers. He wants those suffering along with him to love more. What does he mean by love? This is where we must be carful when we read scripture. our tendancy is to impose our understanding of a concept such as love rather then understand the concept as the bible presents it. Biblicaly speaking there are three relationships for love. There is God’s love for a person. That is, the relationship of God to his creation regardless of anything we have done to deserv it. This love is ever present. It dose not end, it is perfect and eternal. “for God so loved the world . . .” There is a person’s love for God. This love is a response. If you love God it is because you understand that he has loved you first. The third relationship in love is person to person, from one man to another. This too is a responsive love but not in the way you might think. We do not love one another because of anything we or the other person has done. Rather it is once again God’s love for us that has enabled us to love. So what does Paul mean when he says he is praying that your love may abound? First he is not saying that he hopes God loves you more. If we think of our three love relationships it is important to understand that the love of God for you cannot be sperated from his eternality and his imutibility. God has always been and will always be and he is unchanging. Therefore his love for you is eternal and it will never change. If you are here today and you do not know this love that the Heavenly father has for you let me tell you about it. I alluded to a verse just a moment ago that most of you finished in your head For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him will not parish but have everlasting life Earlier we talked about death and that it was a reality for us because sin was present in us and in our world. Dear friend if you have not heard a word I have said pay attention now because what I am about to say is the most important thing I will ever say or that you will ever here. If you have already believed the gospel this will be the most encouraging thing I could say to you. If you don’t know what the Gospel is pay attention. It is a matter of life and death. Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— You and I must face the reality of death because of the reality of sin. Woven into the very nature of who we are is the stench of death because of sin. If you want to get well you must first admit that you are sick. This is why AA is so successful. People are forced to admit their condition before any of the next eleven steps can take place. You have sin I have sin and because of sin you have death. But it doesn’t end there. If it did this would not be good news at all. For God so loved the world that he Gave his one and only son. For your love to abound you must understand that God sent Jesus and in sending him he did it at just the right time. Do you think that God does anything by accident. He sent his son at just the right time in the exact same way that he withheld Gloria from us at just the right time. For some of you there is a feeling in you heart right right now that you cannot explain, a desire to know more of God and to believe in his son. For some of you just the right time is now, today. God is offering you his love. His son as already made attonment for your sin he has paid the pice for you life by giving his life for your, the righteous for the unrighteous. Will you harden your heart. Will you refuse a God who is trying to show you infinite, eternal, perfect love. If you want love to abound in your life surrender to him. Open the gates to the city and let the king enter in triumph over deaths grip on you. That whoever believes in him might have everlasting life. God wants you to believe in his Son. He wants you not just to believe he was a historical person or a great teacher which he was, but to believe also that he is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That his blood was sufficient to save and that he is a king worth of your life, your love and your loyalty. In light of why we are here today you have a choice to make. Will I allow God to love me or will I continue as his enemy. Believe on Jesus, ask that his blood be cover your sin, removing those filthy rags you are wearing in the presence of almighty God and replacing them with the robes of Christ’s righteousness and perfection. If you are a believe here today and some of you in your heart may be sitting in your chair and for the first time you have trusted in Jesus alone for your salvation—you too are a believe. If you are a believer here today let me continue to encourage you from scripture. Look at our text Php 1:9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, Php 1:10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, Php 1:11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. In the midst of his suffering Paul wanted their love to abound with two things Knowledge and all discernment. Let me see if I can illustrate what Paul is getting at here Lets think of some relationships most of us are familiar with. In a marriage relationship, what causes love to flourish? Do miles of separation and lack of communication promote love within a marriage. NO We love our spouse more the more we know them. And love is resipreicated as display or knowledge of them. My wife loves roses, Calalillies and orchids, and she would prefer that I not buy her carnations. Sure she would not refuse a bouquet of carnations but would love abound around a bouquet of carnations as much as it would around one made of up of callalillies How about it parents? Who loves your children more than you. No one does. You don’t love them just because they are your kids. What endears them to you is that they are themselves and you know who that person is better than anyone else. It's the way they say Daddy. Or their love for monster trucks and dinosaurs. It's the courious George or Dr. Susse book you have read until it is memorized. If you want to love someone know them. And isn’t it amazing that the more you love the more you want to know. Do you see the cycle. Do you see love abounding. And discernment is the wise application of that knowledge. Have you ever noticed that the more you get to know someone the less offensive they become. When we know someone we understand them. We know what they mean when they say or do something. God wants you and I to know and discern his abounding love toward us. He desires that we know him in such a way that when he acts we recognize that it is he who is acting and we acknowledge that it is excellent. The God of the universe desires so badly for you to know him in the same way he knows you that you would see his love and recognize it for what it is. God wants you to be able to look at this miniature coffin and recognize that he is in control which means this is his love abounding to me and it is excellent. God is telling us here, through Paul, look at your suffering, see my abounding love, know that it is I who am moving and affirm it by saying that is excellent. And when we do approve God’s work as loving excellence we are affirming the work of the spirit in our live. We are allowing the shed blood of Jesus to sanctify us that he might present us as pure and blameless on the day of his return. As hard as it is, Chelsea and I want to declare before you love has been abounding to us this week and by his grace we have seen his love and we affirm that this is excellent. To the Glory and praise of God And it is our prayer for you that love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the Glory of God.