Category Archives: life

Moving forward

Leave a reply

clockStill struggling to keep up with the pace of life. Guess I’m getting older.

I was with the Stockdale Church of Christ last Sunday. Not just me… Carolina, Daniel and Andrea went with me, along with Daniel’s girlfriend. The church had invited me to do a Herald of Truth report.

I discovered it to be a bit awkward giving a formal presentation to people that I know so well. I’m thrilled that they now know more about what I do, but it felt like a funny way of going about it.

I’m doing a class on “Angels and Demons” tonight at our home church (University Church of Christ). Nice to be included in our summer series. Somebody asked me if the class was about Dan Brown’s book. Ha! Actually, I was offered several topics, and this was #2 on my priority list. It’s a drier study than most I do, but hopefully it will be good for those that that are there.

Life continues on… how’s your summer going?

The value of human life

1 Reply

cemeteryScenario 1: “Q: What’s sandy all over and glows in the dark? A: Iran, if they harm even one of the hostages.” It was 1980. Iran was holding American citizens hostage. Americans! We were high school seniors. Tough guys. If there were a war, we’d be the ones drafted. We made jokes about the possibility of dropping nuclear weapons on Iran and killing millions of people.

Scenario 2: It was ACU basketball’s finest hour. Norman Archibald announced the games in the style of a big-time college announcer. Moody Coliseum would be rocking, especially Section F. The fans in Section F were there to see basketball, but they were especially there to have a good time. They had a wide repertoire of antics: pulling out newspapers to read while opposing players shot free throws, jingling their keys and chanting “Go start the bus!” when ACU was about to win, taunting opposing players when they committed fouls. One favorite was the ceremonial hanging of the referee: raising a doll dressed like an official with a noose around his neck. I found it great fun, until the day my friend Joel Solliday shared his concern: “They’re representing the taking of a human life!”

Scenario 3: Pew Research Report on their Values Survey (2007):

Nearly a quarter of American adults (23%) say they mostly (14%) or completely (9%) agree that American lives are worth more than the lives of people in other countries according to the most recent Pew Social Values Survey; those most likely to take this view include white men (30%), persons ages 18-29 (29%) and self-identified conservative Republicans (28%).

Scenario 4: Mary Elizabeth Williams writes about abortion:

All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.

The basic problem behind many of today’s hot-button issues is that we don’t value human life.

Scenario 5:

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:6–10)

photo from Morguefile.com

Preaching your own funeral

13 Replies

 viewThere were two brothers in a small town who were the richest men in town. They were also the meanest and most immoral men in town. When one of them died, the other went to the preacher of the local church and asked him to do the funeral. He said that he would give the church $25,000 if the preacher would say that his brother was a saint. “But I can’t do that!” said the preacher, “Everyone knows what kind of man your brother was.” But the more he thought about it, he realized that the church really needed that money. So the day of the funeral he got up and said, “This man was a lying, cheating, stealing, wicked old man. But next to his brother, he was a saint.”

Someday, when we’re gone, somebody is going to have to stand up and say a few words about us and about our lives. When they stand up to talk about us, will it be an easy task or a hard one? Will they struggle to find something good to say or will they struggle to choose between all of the uplifting stories told of your life?

I remember when I was a student at Abilene Christian University, there was a preacher who preached a funeral sermon that became famous. It was in all the papers across the nation. Jim Dotson was the preacher at Brookwood Way Church of Christ in Mansfield, Ohio. His sermon was videotaped and can still be viewed at the ACU library. Dotson’s sermon did not become famous because of its content nor because of the outstanding delivery (although, given the circumstances, the delivery was remarkable). Dotson’s funeral sermon became famous because he preached his own funeral. Dying of cancer, he videotaped the sermon that would be presented at his own funeral. He spoke about the Christian’s victory over death.

It’s a remarkable thing to preach your own funeral. Well, it is and it isn’t. It’s remarkable to videotape yourself speaking so that everyone hears the exact words that you wanted them to hear. But the fact is, we all preach our own funeral sermons. We preach them by the way we live. No matter what the preacher says at the service itself, our lives will leave behind their own testimony, for good or for bad.

So what does your sermon sound like so far? Is it full of jokes and stories, but little substance? Is it a shining example of what everyone would like their life to be? Or, to borrow a phrase from a calendar I saw, is the main purpose of your life to serve as a warning for others?

Make someone’s job a little easier. Don’t make then hunt and scrounge for something good to say when the end comes. Don’t make it hard for them to find words of comfort for those left behind. Live such a life that your funeral will be a celebration of triumph, a joyous remembrance of a life well lived.

 Start working on your sermon today…