Vern Star-Funeral
Notes
Transcript
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.
Scripture: John 3:16-21, 5:24-27
Vern Star Funeral Message
Brothers and sisters in Christ, I said at the beginning of our service last night that Vern was a straight-forward kind of man. He told things how he felt they were, and I was told that he wanted things done well. If he was not satisfied with his work or that of someone working with him, then it had to be done again. He wanted things to be done right.
It’s not a surprise for me then that verses like John 3:16 and 5:24 were favorite verses for him. In terms of the gospel message, they are straightforward. These are brief, concise summary statements telling of how a person can have eternal life. I want to walk through just a few of these statements then this morning. For some of us, we already cherish and know them—they will be a reminder. For others, maybe you have never heard them or heard them long ago, and thought of them as nice for some people. But I invite and encourage you to listen to them again this morning.
As all things do, so these claims about salvation begin with God. What Jesus was telling those he interacted with when he walked this earth and those who hear these statements now is who God is and what he has done. God loved the world; he loves his creation, particularly us, human beings. Because he loves us, he sent Jesus, the Son of God, to save the world.
That language that the Bible uses, that the gospel writers record Jesus referring to himself in reference to God as the Son reminds us that God is our heavenly Father. I believe that’s an important relationship for us to have in mind, because it’s one we all have understanding of in some degree. I haven’t talked to Jerry extensively about the details of experiencing Vern as his father, of how he might rate him throughout his life, but I’m fairly certain that Vern ran a disciplined family. If you did something wrong, and dad knew that—there was correction, maybe involving some punishment, but you knew that he, Vern, still loved you.
If each of us has had a father or a father figure in our lives, we too have an understanding of that relationship. Some dads might be a little to a lot more lenient than others in how they discipline, but a true father will always love his son or daughter. Yet whether we are the older group or the younger, the parent or the child, we are still both human. We both fail; we both sin.
But God is perfect, he is truly holy and righteous; he has never sinned, never failed in truth and justice. This one God is the Father of all who have ever lived. That can produce some fear—it certainly did for the Israelites, they were caused to tremble. For some that stay in the darkness with deeds of the dark, yes, they hate the light and do not come out. And yet others, at least for a time, they fear and tremble before God—they assume God could never forgive them. But we all have sinned, we all have fallen short, Paul says. We are, thus, reminded by Jesus himself, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…to save the world through him.”
Vern would readily admit, and I believe I had a conversation with him and LuVerne in which he confessed that he was not a perfect man. He had his faults and wrongs; he had sinned throughout his life as all of us have. Yet he knew that God loved him. He understood and believed that the action God has already taken to send Jesus to this earth, to live a life of obedience—no sins, and to sacrifice himself to death on a cross—bearing our sins, and rising again and ascending to heaven where he lives today—all of that was for him. God did that to save all of his people, Vern and hopefully many if not all of us included.
Jesus uses that image of a light in John 3—he himself was the light that has come into the world. All of us can understand what he is getting at. I used to work as a camp counselor, and we would go into primitive caves—we led groups ourselves, there was none of this nice electricity running through—you brought your light. It’s amazing when you are deep in a cave just how dark it is when there is no natural or artificial light. We’d have groups turn their lamps off just to feel almost the weight of that darkness. But we’d also encourage the groups to turn them off when we knew we were nearing the first glimpses of natural light at the cave’s exit. The light of the sun that we are so used to illuminating our daytime hours even on a cloudy day appears so much more brilliant when you have been in darkness.
I think also of being out after dark on a big lake ice fishing or even boating. If you are in a remote area, you might only have the light of the stars. Yet traveling to shore, you locate a house or a restaurant with what seems to be just a speck of light in a window. As you get closer, it gets brighter, and yet inside that house or that room, people can see clearly, everything is in the light.
The light is here in this world. The truth has come, the greatest action of love has been shown, and is available. It’s the light similar to coming out of the cave of natural darkness, it’s the light shining in a house, but able to be glimpsed from outside. God’s showing us the light in his Son—the light by which he says I still love you—regardless of what you have done and what you have not done, regardless of your past sins—come to me, come to the light, and believe.
That’s where we hear the final truth that I want to highlight from these passages, “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” God begins the work, accomplishes the work, but we must participate too. To be absolutely clear, coming to the light and believing in the light is not something that everyone will do. Jesus tells us that those who do not believe are condemned. Those who would rather stay in the darkness—who sin and see no need to repent, who have no desire for God or his forgiveness. Those who are currently, and who will choose to remain, are dead. They will not experience the full life, the life of light in eternity that Scripture speaks of. To remain in the darkness only leads to hell—and that’s not a party, that’s not a place to look forward to as some joke about because I’ll be with my friends. No, the Bible tells us that hell is the place away from God, the punishment for not seeking him, a place where there is eternal pain.
But I urge you, brothers and sisters, family and friends, to choose the light—to see today the wonderful gift of salvation not because of what you have done or will someday do, but because God in his Son has accomplished his love. The perfect Father in heaven who has every right to punish every person for the wrongs they’ve done. Who has an even greater justice than the best father here today could claim. This heavenly Father says, “I love you. I love my people. I will not condemn you. Come and have life.”
All that is left for us to do is to believe in Jesus. To walk into the light, to know that he loves you and has forgiven you—freeing each of us from shame. The light, Jesus, shows off God’s work. He is able to and he already has loved and redeemed some pretty rough characters, people that have committed any number of horrible sins. May he draw each of us here to believe, to trust, and to experience the grace that comes from Jesus Christ alone. Amen.