2554) Sunday Worship # 4

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ORDER OF SERVICE:

 

Bell/Invocation

Confession of Sin and Forgiveness

Kyrie

Opening Prayer

Hymn “The Goodness of God”

Prayer of the Day

Sermon  and Scripture Readings

Hymn “Softly and Tenderly, Jesus is Calling”

Offering

Apostles’ Creed

Closing Prayer/Lord’s Prayer

Benediction/Bell

(PART TWO: A Funeral Sermon)

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INVOCATION:  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

CONFESSION AND FORGIVENESS OF SIN:  Pray with me this prayer of confession:

Merciful God, I confess to you that I have sinned.
I confess the sins that no one knows anything about, and the sins that everyone knows all about.
I confess the sins that are a burden to me and the sins that do not bother me at all because I have grown used to them.
Father, forgive me, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Pastor:  In the mercy of almighty God, Jesus Christ was given to die for you, and for his sake God forgives you all your sins. To all who believe in Jesus Christ he gives the power to become the children of God and bestows on them the Holy Spirit. Amen.

OPENING PRAYER:    Glory be unto you, O Lord my King!  Reverently, I greet You at the beginning of another day!  All praise and love and loyalty be unto You, O Lord, most high…

I pray Lord, that my thoughts today will not be totally occupied with this world’s passing show.  You have given me the power to lift my mind to the contemplation of things unseen and eternal, so prevent me from being content only with the things of that I can see and feel right now.  Grant, rather, that each day may do something to strengthen my hold upon the unseen world, to increase my sense of its reality, and to attach my heart to its eternal perspective.  Then, as the end of my earthly life draws ever nearer, I may not grow to be only a part of these fleeting earthly surroundings, but may rather yearn more and more for that life in the world to come.

O Lord, who sees and knows all things, give me grace to see and know You, that in knowing You I may know myself even as I am most perfectly known by You, and in seeing You may see myself as I really am before You.  Give me today a clear vision of my life in time as it appears in Your eternity.  Show me my own smallness and Your infinite greatness.  Show me my own sin and Your perfect righteousness.  Show me my own lack of love and Your exceeding love.  Yet in Your mercy show me also how, small as I am, I can take refuge in Your greatness; how, sinful as I am, I may lean upon Your righteousness; and how, loveless as I am, I may hide myself in Your forgiving love.  Lead my thoughts to dwell much today on the life and death of Jesus Christ my Lord, so that I may see all things in the light of the redemption which You have granted to me in His name.  Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

PRAYER OF THE DAY:   Grant us, O God, to hear thy voice; and in hearing thy voice, to love thy Word; and in loving thy Word, to do thy will.  Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.   (Paul Sherer, Love is a Spendthrift)

SERMON AND SCRIPTURE:

I will begin with just one verse, and then the other Scripture readings for the day will be integrated throughout the three parts of the sermon.  The verse is from

II Peter 1:19: “We have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place.”

It says, “You will do well to pay attention to this.”

Let us pray…  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer.  Amen.

If we believe in God at all, it would be only logical for us to wonder what it is God might expect of us, what God wants from us, what God desires us to do or to believe.  Well, says Peter, what God wants from us is our attention— he wants us to pay attention to Him and His Word.

A vast majority of the world’s people do believe there is a God.  God is (by definition) all powerful.  He holds all the cards.  You are here because he put you here.  If he so chooses, God can decide how long you will stay here.  And, if there is to be anything else for you after your brief life here ends, it will be up to God to provide that something else.  When your heart stops beating and you are dead, there is nothing you can do about what comes next.  After that, it is all up to God.  One would think, therefore, that nobody should have to be told that they need to pay attention to God.  One would think that fragile, frail, temporary human beings would most certainly want to do that.  Your life can be ended any time by a something so small as a germ or so ordinary as a mistake on the highway– and then what?  Or as the Lord said through Jeremiah to a long-ago inattentive people (chapter 5 summarized, and v. 31b), “(You ignore and disobey me, you live by lies and do not fear me, you think no harm can ever come to you), But what will you do it in the end?”  Well then, of course, it will all be up to God, who makes it very clear in the Bible that we should be looking to him while we have the chance.  It would only seem natural that we would want to be paying attention to God– not to mention also honoring, loving, serving, and obeying God.  That all should be a part of it.  But first we have to pay attention, or we won’t ever get around to any of the rest.  Even if only out of mere self-interest, one would think everyone would want to listen to whatever God has to say.  The theme for this sermon is ‘paying attention to God,’ and there are three points.

Point #1:  MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE?

Imagine yourself on an airplane and there is a storm outside.  The lightning is flashing and the wind is buffeting the plane and the ride is bumpy.  You fly often, but you have never seen it this bad.  Even the flight attendants look nervous.  Then, you hear the pilot on the intercom.  He says, “May I have your attention, please?”

What will you do?  I know what you will do.  You will pay attention, won’t you?  You will want to know what he has to say, because with all his gauges and experience and radio contact with those on the ground, he knows MUCH more about the situation than you can know just looking out the window.  So, you want to listen close.  Perhaps he will have good news.  He might say, “Everything is under control, folks, and we will soon be out of this storm.”  Then, you will be able to relax.  But perhaps there will be bad news.  He might say, “Our plane has just sustained significant damage and we are looking for a place to make an emergency landing.  The flight attendants will instruct you on how to prepare for a rough landing and a fast exit from the plane once we are on the ground.”  If that is what he says, then you will be troubled.  But either way, you will be paying close attention, because this may well be a matter of life or death.  You may not have listened to the flights attendant’s boring pre-flight instructions on what to do in case of an emergency; but with a dangerous storm outside, you will be listening now.

Are any of you in a storm?  Life has many storms that are always threatening us—financial insecurity, dangers to your health, painful relationships, issues at work, and accidents, to name a few.  And in the middle of such storms, in the middle of all of life, God is always saying to you, “May I have your attention, please?”  And you need to listen.  This is even more important than life and death.  It is the most important thing in the world, because what God wants to tell you is even bigger than this whole world, bigger than this entire life.  It transcends life and death, and has to do with your eternal destiny somewhere else.

Let’s go back to the plane illustration.  Let’s say there is sitting next to you someone who is not paying attention.  She is paying no attention to the storm, and has not heard the pilot’s announcement, because she is distracted.   Her eyes are closed and her ears are covered by headphones playing loud music.  If that is the case, and the news is bad, you will want to tap her on the shoulder and tell her to pay attention to the flight attendant’s emergency instructions…  That is what I am doing right now.  I am tapping you on the shoulder, encouraging you to pay attention, just in case you are not already tuned in; just in case there is something else distracting you.  Everyone needs to know this.

One time Jesus told his listeners a little story in an attempt to get them to pay attention to what he was trying to teach them about the kingdom of God, now and forever.  I will read from Luke 12:16-21:

(Jesus) told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. ¹⁷ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ ¹⁸ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’  ²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ (And then Jesus said to the people), ²¹ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves, but is not rich toward God.”

 Jesus called that man a fool.  Why?  Because he wasn’t paying attention to God, or as Jesus put it, he was “not rich toward God.”  He had everything for this life, and was all set to take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry.  He was ready to settle down and enjoy the retirement he had worked so hard to prepare for.  But as you know, retirement lasts only so long, even for those who are fortunate enough to get many years of it.  And for that man, it all ended that very night, and he was not prepared for what came next.

Don’t be a fool.  Don’t be like that man.  Don’t be like a silly child who, when given the choice between and an ice cream cone right now this minute, or $5,000 tomorrow, takes the ice cream cone.  In the verse I began with, Peter says, ‘pay attention to these things.’  Not only are storms coming; that is, if you aren’t already in the midst of one; not only that, but even if everything is just fine for now, one day your heart will stop and you will be dead.  And then what?  Think of the parable of the rich fool who died that very night as a word from Jesus to you today, saying; “May I have your attention, please?”

Point #2: WHAT DOES GOD WANT?

Luke 13:34:  Jesus said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you by God.  How often have I longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks, but you were not willing.”

In the Biblical stories we see many wonderful blessings by God, but we also see many troubles and much that goes wrong.  In this verse from Luke 13 Jesus laments this long and sad story of the relationship between God and his people.  Jesus says, “How I have longed to gather you in, but you were not willing.”  What does that mean, ‘not willing?’  Not willing to what?  What is it that God wants from us?

There are a few quick answers we can give.  We can say, ‘God wants us to believe in him and obey him.’  That is a good and true Biblical answer, but it doesn’t say enough.  It is not enough to say, ‘Yes, I believe in God; next question,’ as if that takes care of that.  As for obedience, we might say, ‘Well, nobody’s perfect, and that’s why we get forgiven,’ and leave it at that.  But it seems clear in the Bible that God expects far more from us.

Then again, one might wonder why there even needs to be any talk at all about what we must do?  Isn’t salvation the freely given gift of God, received by faith and not by works?  Isn’t that what we are always told?  Why then speak of what we must do?  Wasn’t it all done for us on the cross?

Let’s begin, then, with what God has done for us.  The Bible says that God is our Father and we are his children.  Children need not do anything in order to get born into a family.  Conception is the result of a miracle of God, and a decision by a mother and a father, and so a child is born into a home and a family by doing absolutely nothing.  And we became God’s children by Jesus’ death on the cross for each of us and by the Holy Spirit working faith in our hearts to become believers.  All we are and everything we have is from God and by God, and not by anything we have done.  Jesus used the illustration of a hen gathering her chicks.  Little chicks do not have to earn the hen’s care.  She is just there for them.  The hen is their mother.  They were born into her care.  In the same way, all that we have as children of God is freely given.  “You did not choose me, I chose you,” said Jesus.  That is the ‘amazing grace’ we like to sing about.

So, where’s the problem?  We can see the problem in Jesus’ own words; “I wanted to gather you in,” he said, “just like a mother hen, but you were not willing.”  Not willing to what?  We are back again to the question, ‘What is it that God wants?’

The answer is very simple:  God wants our attention.  God does not want us to ignore him like those baby chicks ignore the mother hen and were not willing to be gathered in.  God’s gifts and salvation are freely given, but he does not want us to say ’no’ to it all.  God does not want us to refuse him.  In the Bible we see God forgiving everybody all over the place for everything.   He even seems at times to be overdoing it.  It sometimes looks like people are making a fool out of God.  They will return to him in the most hollow and superficial ways, and he still forgives them.  It is as if He cannot help himself.  There is, in the Bible, a great deal of the forgiveness of sins by God.  But God does then demand their attention, and when they (when we) insist on going our own way and abandoning God, God will, eventually, let us go.  That message is also in the Bible.  God will not force you to spend eternity in heaven with him if you wanted nothing at all to do with him here on earth.  God gives us all things freely and abundantly.  The Bible says that God sends rain to the good AND to the wicked.  But if we turn our back on God, God will, in the end, let us have our way, and we will be without him forever.  ‘I wanted to gather you all in,’ Jesus said, ‘but you were not willing.’

Listen to these words from the book of Zechariah (7:11-13): “They refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears.  They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit. So, the Lord Almighty was very angry, and the Lord said, ‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen.’”

God, first of all, demands our attention.  He warns against turning away and ignoring him and despising him.  And what is the most effective way to show another person that you despise them?  It is by ignoring them, by paying no attention to them, by refusing to respond to them when they say something to you.  Kids do this to their parents.  It is called ‘tuning them out,’ and it is, as I well recall, extremely irritating.  When spouses do this to each other it is called the ‘silent treatment,’ and that also can quite exasperating.  When someone cares about a loved one and wants to speak to them about something important, there is nothing more aggravating than to be ignored.  This is what we do to show someone that we despise them and have no regard or respect for what they have to say.  God freely gives us all things, but he demands our attention and we would be foolish ignore him.  Once God has our attention, he can do his work in us; strengthening our faith, assuring us of his forgiveness, speaking into our hearts the comforting word of the Gospel, and then, conforming our lives to his, making us into his people for now and all eternity.  If we just give God our attention, he will take care of the rest.  But that will not happen if we are not willing to pay attention.

Hebrews 2:1-3:  We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.  If every disobedience receives its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? 

Are you paying attention?

Point #3: HOW TO PAY ATTENTION

In John 10:27, Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

Jesus tells us in this verse that he knows who his sheep are; he knows who belongs to him.  But how about you?  Do you know if you are one of those sheep?  Do you know if you belong to Jesus?  How can you know?  Well, it’s easy, says Jesus, “My sheep HEAR my voice.”

There is both a promise and a command in this little verse.  The wonderful promise is that all we need to do is listen and hear Jesus, and we are his!  This is a great comfort.  We are saved by faith, says Romans 10:8-9, and faith comes by hearing, says Romans 10:17, by hearing the words of Jesus.  We are not saved by our perfect obedience, nor by an act of our own will to create the necessary faith in our hearts, but simply by hearing.  We just need to hear Jesus calling us.  We need to hear his Word.

But we do need to do that, says Jesus.  We do need to hear him; we do need to listen for his voice in those places he has provided for us to hear it.  That is the command in this verse.  We must not turn away from Jesus and avoid him.  We must not refuse to listen to him.  Then we would not be his sheep because we would not be hearing his voice.

So how do we hear and listen to Jesus?  In the ways and means he has given to us to hear; by going to worship, and saying our prayers, and reading the Bible, and looking for other ways to learn about God and his will for our lives—and there is no end to the opportunities these days—books, television, the internet, podcasts, etc.  We can hear God’s voice in all those times and places, and by hearing his voice we follow him and he knows us, and we can know that we are his.  But not if we refuse to hear him.  So don’t say ‘no;’ don’t be one who pays no attention; don’t be one who is “unwilling to be gathered in.”  Because if you do refuse, God will, in the end, let you have your way, and you will be without Him, as it says in Zechariah.

“My sheep hear my voice,” said Jesus, “and I know them and they follow me.”  What a comfort it is to belong to Jesus, and have that assurance.  And all you need to do is listen to him, and then you are known by him and you are his.

This is much greater comfort than to just say that we are saved by faith.  The Bible does indeed say we are saved by faith, but to depend on our own feelings of faith for salvation is as uncertain as depending on our good works.  How do we know how strong our faith has to be?  How much faith is enough?  Sometimes we can be overwhelmed by doubt, and feel like we do not have much faith at all.  If you are depending on the strength of your own personal faith, and a time of doubt and despair comes over you, then what?  How much doubt is allowed?  And if you don’t have enough faith, what can you do to get more faith so that you do have enough?  This can get very complicated, as faith is quite impossible to define and measure.  We can never know for sure where we are at, and how is there any comfort in that?  Faith, when it is left up to us, can be a very slippery thing; hard to get if you don’t have it, and, at times, hard to hang on to if you do have it.

So how do you ‘get faith?’  Paul asks a similar question in Romans 10:14 when he asks, “How can they call on the one they have not believed in?”  His answer comes in verse 17 where he writes, “Faith comes by hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”  

Faith comes by hearing.  It is as simple as that.  It is just like Jesus said.  In both places, the command and promise come in the same verse.  The command is, hear the word, and the promise is that then you will have faith.  Just hear the word, and leave the rest in God’s hands.  He will take care of everything.  Keep yourself within hearing distance of where that word is proclaimed and taught, and the Holy Spirit will do the rest, creating and sustaining saving faith in your heart.  In Martin Luther’s Small Catechism explanation to the third article of the Apostle’s Creed he wrote these words about how to get faith: “I believe I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in my Lord Jesus Christ or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit calls me through the gospel, enlightens me with his gifts and sanctifies and preserves me in the one true faith.”  The Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts through the reading, speaking, and hearing of God’s Word.  There is nothing fancy, tricky, or complicated about that.  It is simple, says Jesus, Paul, and Luther.  Just keep hearing the Word and the rest will be taken care of– you will have faith and you will be saved.

That is why the habits of faith are so important.  We simply decide in advance to be in certain places at certain times to do certain things, things like weekly worship and daily devotions.  This is easy.  It is easy to get up and get our bodies and our ears into church, into the place where the Holy Spirit can work in us.  This is much easy than trying to muster up a powerful faith on our own when we are overcome by doubts, or, trying to create hope in our hearts when all we feel is despair and sadness.  It is much easier to get our bodies to do what we want them to do than it is to get our feelings to obey on command.  If you have ever been in a deep depression, you know that it does little good for someone to say to you, “Well, just cheer up!”  A person in despair will not become cheerful just because he is told to do so.  Our feelings, and our faith, are not so readily controlled by our will.

To say, “Oh, I’m saved by faith, not works,” does not mean it is easy.  It is not only not easy, says the catechism, it is impossible without God’s Word.  But “faith comes by hearing,” said Paul; and Jesus said, “My sheep HEAR my voice and I know them and they follow me.”  So, keep listening and keep hearing, and you will be all right.

     Now, any questions??  Of course there are questions; there are a million questions; not the least of which is ‘how do we know if these is even true?’  But that is why we must continue to pay attention.  We are talking about God, and your whole life and its purpose, and eternity, and so much more.  You aren’t going to get this all in one hour, or even in one lifetime.  So, keep listening, keep paying attention; from now on.  Amen.

Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

OFFERING:  At this time, if you have not already done so, make a decision about what you will give to the Lord’s work this week.  As you think about that, consider this reading from God’s Word, as written in Deuteronomy 16:17:  Each of you shall give as you are able, bringing a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you.”  Therefore, with gladness, present the offerings of your life and your labor to the Lord.  Let us pray…
Everlasting Father, thank you that you are the light of the world, guiding our steps on your path. Your word says that the earth is yours, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to you. We recognize everything we have belongs to you. We acknowledge that our very lives belong to you. We now offer back to you a portion of what you have given us. May God the Father prepare our journey, Jesus the Son guide our footsteps, and the Holy Spirit watch over us, on every path that we follow. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.

CREED:   God promises in Romans chapter 10, “that if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  Therefore, let us confess our faith in the words of the Apostle’s Creed. 

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

CLOSING PRAYER:     Behold, Lord, (I bow before you as) an empty vessel that needs to be filled.  My Lord, fill it.  I am weak in the faith; strengthen me.  I am cold in love; warm me and make me fervent that my love may go out to my neighbor.  I do not have a strong and firm faith; at times I doubt and am unable to trust you at all.  O Lord, help me.  Strengthen my faith and trust in you.  In you I have sealed all the treasures I have.  I am poor, you are rich and came to be merciful to the poor.  I am a sinner, you are upright.  With me there is an abundance of sin, in you is the fullness of righteousness.  Therefore, I will remain with you from whom I can receive, but to whom I cannot give…  Eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be completely yours and utterly dedicated unto you; and then use us, we pray, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

LORD’S PRAYER:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come;
thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

Benediction:  Now, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you.  Amen.

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PART TWO:

In my forty years as a pastor, I performed dozens of weddings and presided at hundreds of funerals.  Very early in my ministry, I realized I preferred doing funerals.  Funerals are sad, and weddings are happy; but I am a preacher, and I am not there to reflect the mood of the day, but to proclaim God’s Word.  And people aren’t usually listening to what I say at a wedding, but they do pay attention at a funeral.  Ecclesiastes 7:2 says: “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; and the living should take this to heart.”

 I have been talking about paying attention to God.  The death of a loved one does focus our attention on God, because He is the one in charge of whatever comes next.  The funeral service provides an opportunity for such reflection, so in a couple minutes you will hear a funeral sermon I preached several years ago.

But first, I want to say a few words on the purpose of a funeral sermon.

Many people expect a funeral sermon to be personal.  They like it when the preacher can speak about their deceased loved one as if they were well acquainted, even if the pastor never met him or her…     I was never very good at that.  I explained my approach to funeral sermons at a funeral a few years ago.  Here’s what I said:

     Funeral sermons can be difficult for a preacher.  Everyone one of you here today probably knew Emma better than I did, but I am the one who now has to do all the talking.  So, what should I say?

      A fellow pastor tells the story of how he was struggling with this problem as a young minister about to do his first funeral.  He had just started in the church, and had not even met the man whose funeral he was about to do.  So, he asked a few of the men at the church if they could tell him about Ralph so he would have something to say in his sermon.  One of the men responded right away, and said, “You know, pastor, we knew Ralph pretty well, so don’t feel like you have to tell us all about him.  Why don’t you use the sermon to just preach God’s Word?  That’s the purpose of a funeral sermon, anyway.  Good grief, didn’t anyone ever tell you that at the seminary?” 

Well, someone did tell me that at the seminary, and I always thought it was good advice.  If I do know the person, I might say some things about him or her, but only to illustrate, or lead into, what I want to proclaim that day from God’s Word.  There are many opportunities for family and friends to share thoughts and memories of their departed loved one.  The funeral sermon is the time to hear a Word from God about what just happened, and what will one day also happen to everyone there, listening that sermon.  

And now, a funeral sermon…

Relatives and friends, grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ;

The rapid progression of Evelyn’s disease shocked everyone who heard of it.  First, she wasn’t feeling well, and then she didn’t have an appetite.  Then, her skin turned a little yellow, and the doctor was called.  Tests were taken, but even before the results were in, she had to be taken into the hospital by ambulance.  Then, there was the news that it could be life-threatening; and the next day came the word that nothing more could be done.  And then Evelyn died.

And the main question everyone had during all of this, was, “What is wrong?  What is the cause of this rapid decline?”  For a long time, there was no answer– even from all of the very best specialists at a very good hospital.  The doctors knew from the start that the liver was not functioning, but the problem was figuring out why.  One by one, all the most likely causes were eliminated:  it wasn’t cancer, it wasn’t hepatitis A,B, or C, there didn’t seem to be any blockage, and so on.  But finally, the pieces of the puzzle started to come together, and it began to look like the liver failed because of a condition called “hemochromatosis.”  But by then, the deadly damage had been done, and there was no hope for Evelyn.

The striking thing about ‘hemochromatosis’ is that Evelyn was born with it.  It is described as an “inherited disorder,” a “genetic defect,” an “inborn error in metabolism.”  It is not very common.  Less than one-percent of the population are born with it, and most of them will never even know they had the condition, and will die of something else.  But in some people, under the right circumstances, this weakness can rapidly lead to liver damage, and then liver failure, and then death.

Hearing about all of that in the last several days, I was reminded again of an obscure little phrase in the New Testament.  In II Corinthians 4:12 Paul writes: “So then, death is at work in us…”  Death is at work in us.  From the moment of Evelyn’s conception, her genes carried the weakness that led to her death early Tuesday morning.  In a very real way, from the very beginning, since 1925, she carried within every cell of her body that which would cause her death.

And not only Evelyn.  I would guess even that as I say this, many of you sitting out there were reminded of something very similar in your own life or the life of someone you know.  One person inherits a tendency toward heart problems.  It is a weakness they were born with.  Others, have a lot of cancer in their family, so they inherit, from the beginning, a greater chance of getting that dreadful disease.  Others are born with an inherited tendency toward diabetes, or Alzheimer’s disease, or whatever.  But in all of these, the weakness and the probability of future problems is there from the beginning.  And even if you do not inherit such a condition, you are born with a time limit on your body, and after a certain number of years, your body will start to wear out, as you well know.  We carry within ourselves the seeds of our own demise and destruction; or as Paul put it, “death is at work in us.”  You might well wonder what it is that is already at work in you.  I have thought about that when meeting with grieving families, and hearing surprised exclamations of “he had it all these years and we never knew there was anything wrong.”  I hear that and I wonder what it is that might be going on inside of me ‘all these years’– going on right now– that will one day end my life.

The Bible tells us that we should pay attention to these things.   Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days aright, O Lord, and so apply our hearts to wisdom.”  Our days are indeed numbered.  Two verses early the Psalmist said:  “The length of our days is 70 years, or 80, if we have the strength.  Yet their span is but sorrow and trouble, and they pass away quickly… and we finish our days with a moan.”  In verses three and five it says, “You turn us back to dust, Oh Lord, and we are swept away in the sleep of death.”  The Bible does not hesitate to say clearly and directly what our problem is.  Death is at work in us, says Paul.  Our days are numbered, says the Psalmist.

But that same Bible is also as direct and as clear about the solution.  In that very same verse where Paul says “death is at work is us,” he finishes the sentence by saying that “life is also at work in us.”  And then just a few verses later he summarizes the Christian hope in some of the most wonderful verses in all of Scripture, II Corinthians 4:16-18.  I have read those verses with many folks in the hospital, where the death that is working within them has almost completed its job, and the body is about to quit functioning.  Here’s what Paul says about that:  “Therefore, we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary afflictions (now) are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

This human body, that which we sit here with today, is an amazing piece of work.  But it is not made to last forever– not yet, anyway, not these bodies.  But as Christians we say in the Apostle’s Creed “we believe in the resurrection of the body.”  This body which we depend on for everything in this life will wear out.  There’s probably some thing or another going wrong right now in every one of us, and if nothing else, we are all aging.  So, this body will wear out, or, as Paul puts it so bluntly, ‘outwardly we are wasting away.’  We know that.  We can see that.  We don’t need the Bible to tell us that.

But what we do hear from the Bible and from nowhere else, is that there is more to life than what we see.  Paul tells us that not only death is at work within us, but so is life.  To believe in the promises of Jesus is to have that inner life renewed in us every day, so that when we die, we just make a little move.  We shuck off this old body and we receive a new body, and then, we go on living with God, as he sets on our feet again, in another part of his vast kingdom.  These BODIES will wear out, but WE can go on.  So Paul tells us to fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, for, as he says, what is seen is only temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  And that which is unseen is what is spoken of in the story of Jesus Christ who himself died in a most awful way, but then rose from the dead, and promised us that by believing in Him, we too will rise from the dead and live for all eternity.  That is what we do not yet see, but that is the sure and certain promise of the life to come in a place yet unseen.

From our limited perspective Evelyn died Tuesday morning, and in a little while we will commit her earthly body to the ground.  That is what we see.  But as we do that, remember what the apostle Paul said in II Corinthians, and fix your eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  In John Chapter 14 Jesus describes what happened on Tuesday morning from a perspective that we cannot see.  In the first three verses of that chapter Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in Me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms, and I have gone on ahead to prepare a place for you.  And I will come back and take you to be with me, so that you also may be where I am.”  That’s the part we don’t get to see yet, but that’s the most important thing that happened for Evelyn Tuesday morning.  Jesus came back for her and took her to that place that he had prepared for her, just as he had promised.  That is the unseen world that Paul says we should fix our eyes on; especially on days like this.

Although death is indeed at work within you, so also, by God’s Grace, life is at work within you, and that is an eternal life.  AMEN.